Revolutionary Spirit

Revolutionary Spirit Vol. #2 Issue #3

2011-11-30T17:55:00.001-05:00

2011-11-30T17:50:00.000-05:00

Revolutionary Spirit

Published

November 30th, 2011

Marxism and Class: Some Definitions a paper from the Communist League (Britain)

Lies Concerning the History of the Soviet Union by Mario Sousa

How Soviet Democracy Worked in the 1930s by Sam Darcy

Russia's Economic Growth, 1934 by Alfred Senn

Health in the USSR by LAKLAR Journal

Viacheslav Molotov On the New Soviet Constitution by Viacheslav Molotov

Stalin: The Myth and the Reality by Bill Bland

The German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact of 1939 by Bill Bland

On Juche: The Workers’ Party of Korea and Revisionism by Bill Bland

An Open Letter To The 'New Communist Party' by Bill Bland

Stalin and the Question of 'Market Socialism' in the Soviet Union After the Second World War by Vijay Singh

21st Century Socialism, A New Theorisation of Old Anti-Marxist Ideas by Alejandro Rios

The South Slav Federation and the Macedonian Question by Georgi Dimitrov

Georgi Dimitrov And The Fight Against Titoism In Bulgaria by Vulko Chervenkov

"Lenin's Testament" - (1922-23) by Bill Bland

The Lie of the "Lenin Testament" by Hari Kumar

The Forgery of the 'Lenin Testament' by V.A. Sakharov

On the Relations between Lenin and Stalin by Maria Ulyanova

Katyn Massacre & the Polish Officer Corp by Y.I. Mukhin

The Law of the Soviet State by Andrei Vyshinskii

State and Law under Socialism: A Reversal of Thought by Evgenii Pashukanis

Soviet Justice by Dudley Collard

The Case of the 16 Poles by the National Council of American-Soviet Friendship

The trial of 1936 compiled by Dennis McKinsey

The trial of 1937 compiled by Dennis McKinsey

The trial of 1938 compiled by Dennis McKinsey

Marxism and Class: Some Definitions

2011-11-30T17:48:00.000-05:00

A paper from the COMMUNIST LEAGUE (Britain)

The Concept of Social Class

The concept of social class as "a division or order of society according to status ('The Oxford English Dictionary', Volume 3; Oxford; 1989; p. 279) is a very ancient one, the English word 'class' being derived from the Latin 'classis', meaning each of the "... ancient divisions of the Roman people" (Charles T. Onions (Ed.): 'The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology'; Oxford; 1985; p. 180). Servius Tullius, king of Rome in the 6th century BC, organised a classification system which divided citizens into five classes according to wealth". ('New Encyclopaedia Britannica', Volume 10; Chicago; 1994; p. 455).

The Marxist Definition of Class

Marxist-Leninists accept the concept of social class put forward above, but hold that a person's social class is determined not by the amount of his wealth, but by the source of his income as determined by his relation to labour and to the means of production.

"Classes are large groups of people differing from each other by the place they occupy in a historically determined system of social production, by their relation (in most cases fixed and formulated by law) to the means of production, by their role in the social organisation of labour, and, consequently, by the dimensions of the share of social wealth of which they dispose and their mode of acquiring it". (Vladimir I. Lenin: 'A Great Beginning: Heroism of the Workers in the Rear: 'Communist Subbotniks' in: 'Collected Works', Volume 29; Moscow; 1965; p. 421).

To Marxist-Leninists, therefore, the class to which a person belongs is determined by objective reality, not by someone's opinion.

On the basis of the above definition, Marxist-Leninists distinguish three basic classes in 19th century Britain:

"There are three great social groups, whose members... live on wages, profit and ground rent respectively". (Karl Marx: 'Capital: A Critique of Political Economy', Volume 3; Moscow; 1971; p. 886).

These three basis classes are 1) the proletariat or working class, 2) the bourgeoisie or capitalist class and 3) the landlord class, respectively.

The Landlord Class

Marxist-Leninists define the landlord class as that class which owns land and derives its income from ground rent on that land:

"Land becomes... personified and... gets on its hind legs to demand... its share of the product created with its help...: rent (Karl Marx: 'Capital: A Critique of Political Economy', Volume 3; Moscow; 1971; p. 824-25).

With the development of capitalist society, however, the landlord class progressively loses its importance and a new class emerges -- the petty bourgeoisie. Thus, in a developed capitalist society, there are still three basic classes, but these are now: 1) the capitalist class or bourgeoisie; 2) the petty bourgeoisie; and 3) the working class or proletariat:

"Every capitalist country... is basically divided into three main forces: the bourgeoisie, the petty bourgeoisie and the proletariat". (Vladimir I. Lenin: 'Constitutional Illusions', in: 'Collected Works', Volume 6; Moscow; 1964; p. 202).

The Bourgeoisie

The English word 'bourgeoisie' is derived from the French word 'bourgeoisie' meaning "... the trading middle class" (Charles T. Onions (Ed.): op. cit.; p. 110) as distinct from the landlord class.

Marxist-Leninists define the bourgeoisie or capitalist class as

"...the class of modern capitalists, owners of the means of social production and employers of wage labour". (Friedrich Engels: Note to: Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels: 'Manifesto of the Communist Party' in: Karl Marx: 'Selected Works', Volume 1; London; 1943; p. 204).

The capitalist class includes persons whose remuneration may come nominally in the form of a salary, but which is in fact due to their position in the capitalist class (e.g., the directors of large companies). It also includes persons who are not employers, but who serve the capitalist class in high administrative positions:

"The latter group contains sections of the population who belong to the big bourgeoisie: all the rentiers (living on the income from capital and real estate...), then part of the intelligentsia, the high military and civil officials, etc. (Vladimir I. Lenin: 'The Development of Capitalism in Russia', in: 'Collected Works', Volume 3; Moscow; 1960; p. 504).

It also includes the dependents of these persons.

The Proletariat

The English word 'proletariat' is derived from the Latin 'proles', meaning 'offspring', since according to Roman law a proletarian served the state "... not with his property, but only with his offspring (Charles T. Onions (Ed.): ibid.; p. 714).

Marxist-Leninists define the proletariat or working class as

"...that class of modern wage labourers who, having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labour power in order to live (Friedrich Engels: Note to the 1888 English Edition of: Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels: 'Manifesto of the Communist Party', in: 'Selected Works', Volume 1; London; 1943; p. 204).

In modern society, "... the proletariat alone is a really revolutionary class". (Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels: 'Manifesto of the Communist Party' in:

Karl Marx: 'Selected Works', Volume 1; London; 1943; p. 216) so that, in producing the proletariat, the bourgeoisie produces "... its own gravediggers". (Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels: 'Manifesto of the Communist Party' in: Karl Marx: 'Selected Works', Volume 1; London; 1943; p. 218).

The 'Middle Class'

The term 'middle class' is used by Marxists -- including Marx and Engels themselves -- in two different ways:

Firstly, in the historical sense,

"... in the sense of... the French word 'bourgeoisie that possessing class which is differentiated from the so-called aristocracy (Friedrich Engels: Preface to 'The Condition of the Working Class in England: From Personal Observation and Authentic Sources', in: Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels: 'Collected Works', Volume 4; Moscow; 1975; p. 304).

secondly, when speaking of modern capitalist society, with the meaning of petty bourgeoisie', discussed in the next section.

The Petty Bourgeoisie

Between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, stands the petty bourgeoisie:

"In countries where modern civilisation has become fully developed, a new class of petty bourgeois has been formed" (Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels: 'Manifesto of the Communist Party' in: Karl Marx: 'Selected Works', Volume 1; London,' 1943; p. 231).

The English term 'petty bourgeoisie' is an anglicisation of the French term 'petite bourgeoisie', meaning 'little bourgeoisie'. Marxist-Leninists define the petty bourgeoisie as a class which owns or rents small means of production which it operates largely without employing wage labour, but often with the assistance of members of their families: "A petty bourgeois is the owner of small property", (Vladimir I. Lenin: Note to: 'To the Rural Poor', in: 'Selected Works', Volume 2; London; 1944; p. 254).

As a worker, the petty bourgeois has interests in common with the proletariat; as owner of means of production, however, he has interests in common with the bourgeoisie. In other words, the petty bourgeoisie has a divided allegiance towards the two decisive classes in capitalist society.

Thus, the 'independent' petty bourgeois producer

"... is cut up into two persons. As owner of the means of production he is a capitalist; as a labourer he is his own wage- labourer". (Karl Marx: 'Theories of Surplus Value', Part 1; Moscow; undated; p. 395).

and consequently petty bourgeois "...are for ever vacillating between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie". (Joseph V. Stalin: 'The Logic of Facts', in: 'Works', Volume 4; Moscow; 1953; p. 143).

This divided allegiance between the two decisive classes in modern capitalist society applies also to a section of employed persons -- those who are involved in superintendence and the lower levels of management -- e.g., foremen, charge-hands, departmental managers, etc. These employees have a supervisory function, a function is to ensure that the workers produce a maximum of surplus value for the employer. On the one hand, such persons are exploited workers, with interests in common with the proletariat (from which they largely spring); on the other hand, their position as agents of the management in supervising the efficient exploitation of their fellow employees gives them interests in common with the bourgeoisie:

"An industrial army of workmen, under the command of a capitalist, requires, like a real army, officers (managers) and sergeants (foremen, overlookers) who, while the work is being done, command in the name of the capitalist", (Karl Marx: 'Capital: An Analysis of Capitalist Production', Volume 1; Moscow; 1959; p. 332).

"The labour of supervision and management... has a double nature. On the one hand, all labour in which many individuals cooperate necessarily requires a commanding will to coordinate and unify the process.... This is a productive job.... On the other hand, this supervision work necessarily arises in all modes of production based on the antithesis between the labourer, as the direct producer, and the owner of the means of production. The greater this antagonism, the greater the role played by supervision". (Karl Marx: 'Capital: A Critique of Political Economy', Volume 3; Moscow; 1971; p. 383-84).

Because of this divided allegiance, which corresponds to that of the petty bourgeoisie proper, Marxist-Leninists place such employees (and their dependents) in the petty bourgeoisie. For the same reason, Marxist-Leninists also place persons in the middle and lower ranks of the coercive forces of the capitalist state -- the army and police -- (and their dependents) in the petty bourgeoisie.

The Polarisation of Capitalist Society

Because of the small size of their means of production, petty-bourgeois are in constant danger of sinking into the proletariat:

"The lower strata of the middle class... sink gradually into the proletariat, partly because their diminutive capital... is swamped in the competition with the large capitalists, partly their specialised skill is rendered worthless by new methods of production". (Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels: 'Manifesto of the Communist Party' in: Karl Marx: 'Selected Works', Volume 1; London; 1943; p. 213).

"The working class gains recruits from the higher strata of society... A mass of petty industrialists and small rentiers are hurled down into its ranks". (Karl Marx: 'Wage-Labour and Capital', in: 'Selected Works', Volume 1; London; 1943' p. 280).

and even the old, once highly respected petty bourgeois professions become proletarianised:

"The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage-labourers". (Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels: 'Manifesto of the Communist Party', in: Karl Marx: 'Selected Works', Volume 1; London; 1943; p. 208).

Thus, as capitalist society develops, it becomes increasingly polarised into two basic classes -- wealthy bourgeois and poor proletarians:

"Society as a whole is more and more splitting up... into two great classes facing each other -- bourgeoisie and proletariat". (Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels: 'Manifesto of the Communist Party', in: Karl Marx: 'Selected Works', Volume 1; London; 1943; p. 205-06).

"Accumulation of wealth at one pole is, therefore, at the same time accumulation of misery, agony of toil, slavery, ignorance, brutality, moral degradation, at the opposite pole". (Karl Marx: 'Capital: A Critique of Political Economy'. Volume 1; Moscow; 1959; p. 645).

The Peasantry

The English word 'peasant is derived from the Latin 'pagus', meaning a "... country district". (Charles T. Onions (Ed.): op. cit.; p. 660) and is defined as "... one who lives in the country and works on the land". (The Oxford English Dictionary', Volume 11; Oxford; 1989; p.402).

The above definition excludes the landlord class from the peasantry since, even if a landlord 'lives in the country' he does not work on the land', but derives his income from ground rent.

The peasantry do not form a class of society, but consist of a number of different classes which live in the country and work on the land:

"It is best to distinguish the rich, the middle and the poor peasants" (Vladimir I. Lenin: 'To the Rural Poor: An Explanation for the Peasants of what the Social-Democrats want' (hereafter listed as 'Vladimir I. Lenin (1903'), in 'Selected Works', Volume 2; London; 1944; p. 261).

The peasantry is composed of:

Firstly, rich peasants, or rural capitalists, who employ labour, that is, who exploit poorer peasants:

"One of the main features of the rich peasants is that they hire farmhands and day labourers. Like the landlords, the rich peasants also live by the labour of others.... They try to squeeze as much work as they can out of their farmhands, and pay them as little as possible". (Vladimir I. Lenin (1903: ibid.; p. 265).

Sometimes rich peasants are called 'kulaks', a word derived from the Russian 'kulak', originally meaning a "... tight-fisted person". ('The Oxford English Dictionary', Volume 8; Oxford; 1989; p. 543).

Secondly, the middle peasants or the rural petty bourgeoisie, who own or rent land but who do not employ labour. Speaking of the middle peasantry, Lenin says:

"Only in good years and under particularly favourable conditions is the independent husbandry of this type of peasant sufficient to maintain him and for that reason his position is a very unstable one. In the majority of cases the middle peasant cannot make ends meet without resorting to loans to be repaid by labour, etc., without seeking subsidiary' earnings on the side". (Vladimir I. Lenin: 'The Development of Capitalism in Russia', in: 'Collected Works', Volume 1; p. 235).

Thirdly, the poor peasants or rural proletariat. The poor peasant lives

"... not by the land, not by his farm, but by working for wages.... He... has ceased to be an independent farmer and has become a hireling, a proletarian". (Vladimir I. Lenin (1900): op. cit.; p. 265-67).

Sometimes Marxist-Leninists describe poor peasants as "... semi-proletarians", (Vladimir I. Lenin (1900): ibid.; p. 267) to distinguish them from urban proletarians, regarded as 'full' proletarians.

'Neo-Marxism'

'Revisionism' is "... a trend hostile to Marxism. within Marxism itself". (Vladimir I. Lenin: 'Marxism and Revisionism', in: 'Collected Works', Volume 15; Moscow; 1963; p. 32). In other words, a revisionist poses as a Marxist but in fact puts forward a programme which objectively serves the interests of a bourgeoisie:

"The revisionists spearheaded their struggle mainly against Marxism-Leninism... and replaced this theory with an opportunist, counterrevolutionary theory in the service of the bourgeoisie and imperialism (Enver Hoxha: Report to the 5th Congress of the Party of Labour of Albania, in: 'Selected Works', Volume 4; Tirana; 1982; p. 190).

Despite all the torrents of propaganda levelled against it, Marxism- Leninism still retains enormous prestige among working people all over the world. It is for this reason that many modern revisionists call themselves 'Neo-Marxists' or 'Western Marxists' -- claiming that they are not revising Marxism, but merely bringing it up to date, bringing into the age of the electronic computer which Marx and Engels never knew.

In general, 'neo-Marxists' pay their loudest tributes to Marx 's early writings, before he became a Marxist. 'Neo-Marxism' is essentially a product not merely of universities, but of the worst kind of university lecturer who equates obscurantism with intellectualism. One sees admiring students staggering from his lectures muttering 'What a brilliant man! I couldn't understand a word!'.

Even sociologists sympathetic to 'neo-Marxism' speak of "... the extreme difficulty of language characteristic of much of Western Marxism in the twentieth century". (Perry Anderson: 'Considerations of Western Marxism'; London; 1970; p. 54).

But, of course, this obscure language has a great advantage for those who use it, making it easy to claim, when challenged, that the challenger has misunderstood what one was saying.

Much 'Neo-Marxism' is an eclectic hotchpotch of Marxism with idealist philosophy -- giving it, it is claimed, a 'spiritual aspect' lacking in the original. A typical example is the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre who writes: "I believe in the general schema provided by Marx", (Jean-Paul Sartre: 'Between Existentialism and Marxism'; London; 1974;

p. 53), but -- and it is a big 'but' -- it must be a 'Marxism' liberated from "... the old guard of mummified Stalinists". (Jean-Paul Sartre: ibid.; p. 53). And how, according to Sartre, is this 'liberation' to be effected? By merging it with the existentialism of the Danish idealist philosopher Soren Kierkegaard! "Kierkegaard and Marx... institute themselves... as our future". (Jean-Paul Sartre: ibid.; p. 169).

However, this paper is concerned only with revisionist theories which are based on distortions of the Marxist-Leninist definition of class.

In particular, it will be concerned with 'neo-Marxist' definitions of the proletariat which narrow and restrict it as a class. While to these 'neo-Marxists' the proletariat may still be, in words, 'the gravedigger of capitalism', they portray it as a gravedigger equipped with a teaspoon instead of a spade.

The Unemployed

Some 'neo-Marxists' exclude the unemployed from the proletariat on the grounds that someone who is not working cannot be regarded as a member of the working class!

But Marx explicitly characterises the unemployed, the "... industrial reserve army", (Karl Marx: 'Capital: A Critical Analysis of Capitalist Production Volume 1; Moscow; 1959; p. 628) as part of the working class, as "... a relative surplus population among the working class", (Karl Marx: 'Capital: A Critique of Political Economy', Volume 2; Moscow; 1974; p. 518) and speaks of "... the working class (now actively reinforced by its entire reserve army)". (Karl Marx: 'Capital: A Critique of Political Economy', Volume 2; Moscow; 1974; p. 414).

Clearly, therefore, the founders of Marxism did not exclude the unemployed from the working class.

Non-Productive Labour

Other 'neo-Marxists' exclude all workers engaged in non-productive labour from the working class.

Certainly, for the purpose of analysing the complexities of capitalist society, Marx differentiated labour into productive and unproductive labour. According to Marx, "... only that labour is productive which creates a surplus value". (Karl Marx: 'Theories of Surplus Value', Part 1; Moscow; n.d.; p 45).

It is on this basis that the Greek revisionist Nicos Poulantzas excludes non-productive workers from the working class:

"I have a rather limited and restricted definition of the working class. The criterion of productive and unproductive labour is sufficient to exclude unproductive workers from the working class". (Nicos Poulantzas: 'Classes in Contemporary Capitalism'; London; 1975; p 119, 121).

Poulantzas therefore assigns non-productive workers to the "... new petty bourgeoisie" (Nicos Poulantzas: ibid.; p. 117) asserting that "... the new petty bourgeoisie constitutes a separate class" (Nicos Poulantzas: ibid.; p. 115).

But

"... the distinction between productive and unproductive labour has nothing to do... with the particular speciality of the labour (Karl Marx: 'Theories of Surplus Value', Part 1; Moscow; n.d.; p 186).

The same kind of labour may be productive or unproductive:

"The same labour can be productive when I buy it as a capitalist, and unproductive when I buy it as a consumer". (Karl Marx: 'Theories of Surplus Value', Part 1; Moscow; n.d.; p. 186).

For example, a teacher in a private school is engaged in productive labour (in the Marxist sense of the term), because his labour produces surplus value for the proprietors of the school. But a teacher in a state school, working under identical conditions, is engaged in unproductive labour, because his labour does not create surplus value.

Furthermore, many kinds of unproductive labour, such as the labour of clerical workers in a capitalist production firm,

"... while it does not create surplus value, enables him (the employer -- Ed.) to appropriate surplus value which, in effect, amounts to the same thing with respect to his capital. It is, therefore, a source of profit for him". (Karl Marx: 'Capital: A Critique of Political Economy', Volume 3; Moscow; 1971; p. 294).

Thus the question of whether an employee is engaged in productive or unproductive labour has no relevance to the question of whether he belongs to the proletariat.

The 'Labour Aristocracy'

In developed capitalist states,

"... the bourgeoisie, by plundering the colonial and weak nations, has been able to bribe the upper stratum of the proletariat with crumbs from the superprofits". (Vladimir I. Lenin: Draft Programme of the RCP (B), in: 'Collected Works', Volume 29; Moscow; 1965; p. 104).

Superprofits are profits

"... obtained over and above the profits which capitalists squeeze out of the workers of their 'own' country". (Vladimir I. Lenin: Preface to the French and German Editions of 'Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism', in: 'Collected Works', Volume 22; Moscow; 1964; p. 193).

Marxist-Leninists call employees in receipt of a share in such super profits "... the labour aristocracy". (Vladimir I. Lenin: ibid.; p. 194).

Some 'neo-Marxists' exclude employees who share in superprofits from the proletariat. Thus, according to the London-based 'Finsbury Communist Association', in Britain "... the proletariat consists of the workers on subsistence wages or below" (Finsbury Communist Association: 'Class and Party in Britain'; London; 1966; p. 4).

However, Lenin defines the labour aristocracy as a part of the proletariat, as a "... privileged upper stratum of the proletariat", (Vladimir I. Lenin: 'Imperialism and the Split in Socialism', in: 'Collected Works', Volume 23; Moscow; 1965; p. 110) as "... the upper stratum of the proletariat", (Vladimir I. Lenin: Draft Programme of the RCP (B), in: 'Collected Works', Volume 29; Moscow; 1965; p. 104) as "... the top strata of the working class". (Vladimir I. Lenin: 'How the Bourgeoisie utilises Renegades", in: 'Collected Works', Volume 30; Moscow; 1965; p. 34).

Furthermore, while Lenin characterises the 'labour aristocracy' as "... an insignificant minority of the working class", (Vladimir I. Lenin: 'Under a False Flag', in: 'Collected Works', Volume 21; Moscow; 1964; p. 152) the 'Finsbury Communist Association' presents it as "... the overwhelming majority of Britain's workers" (Finsbury Communist Association: 'Class and Party in Britain'; London; 1966; p. 5).

Thus, according to the 'Finsbury Communist Association', the British imperialists pay the overwhelming majority of Britain's workers' above the value of their labour power. Since there is not even a Marxist-Leninist party, much less a revolutionary situation, in Britain at present, this can only be out of the sheer goodness of their hearts!

Clearly the 'neo-Marxist' picture of imperialism bears no relation to reality. It merely lends spurious support to the false thesis that, since the workers in developed capitalist countries are 'exploiters', the future for socialism lies only in the less developed countries in the East!

Conclusion

The most urgent task facing Marxist-Leninists today is to rebuild unified Marxist-Leninist parties in each country, united in a Marxist-Leninist International.

But such parties, and such an international, can be built only on the basis of agreement on Marxist-Leninist principles.

Perhaps agreement to accept a few simple definitions put forward long ago by the founders of Marxism-Leninism, and to reject their revisionist distortions, might constitute a small step in that direction.

Lies Concerning the History of the Soviet Union

2011-11-30T17:47:00.001-05:00

by Mario Sousa
Member of the Communist Party Marxist-Leninist Revolutionaries
Sweden
KPML(r)

From Hitler to Hearst, from Conquest to Solzhenitsyn

The history of the millions of people who were allegedly incarcerated and died in the labour camps of the Soviet Union and as a result of starvation during Stalin's time.

In this world we live in, who can avoid hearing the terrible stories of suspected death and murders in the gulag labour camps of the Soviet Union? Who can avoid the stories of the millions who starved to death and the millions of oppositionists executed in the Soviet Union during Stalin's time? In the capitalist world these stories are repeated over and over again in books, newspapers, on the radio and television, and in films, and the mythical numbers of millions of victims of socialism have increased by leaps and bounds in the last 50 years.

But where in fact do these stories, and these figures, come from? Who is behind all this?

And another question: what truth is there in these stories? And what information is lying in the archives of the Soviet Union, formerly secret but opened up to historical research by Gorbachev in 1989? The authors of the myths always said that all their tales of millions having died in Stalin's Soviet Union would be confirmed the day the archives were opened up. Is that what happened? Were they confirmed in fact?

The following article shows us where these stories of millions of deaths through hunger and in labour camps in Stalin's Soviet Union originated and who is behind them.

The present author, after studying the reports of the research which has been done in the archives of the Soviet Union, is able to provide information in the form of concrete data about the real number of prisoners, the years they spent in prison and the real number of those who died and of those who were condemned to death in Stalin's Soviet Union. The truth is quite different from the myth.

There is a direct historical link running from: Hitler to Hearst, to Conquest, to Solzhenitsyn. In 1933 political change took place in Germany that were to leave their mark on world history for decades to come. On 30 January Hitler became prime minister and a new form of government, involving violence and disregard of the law, began to take shape. In order to consolidate their grip on power the Nazis called fresh elections for the 5th of March, using all propaganda means within their grasp to secure victory. A week before the elections, on 27 February, the Nazis set fire to parliament and accused the communists of being responsible. In the elections that followed, the Nazis secured 17.3 million votes and 288 deputies, about 48% of the electorate (in November they had secured 11.7 million votes and 196 deputies). Once the Communist Party was banned, the Nazis began to persecute the Social Democrats and the trade union movement, and the first concentration camps began to fill up with all those left-wing men and women. In the meantime, Hitler's power in parliament continued to grow, with the help of the right wing. On 24 March, Hitler caused a law to be passed by parliament which conferred on him absolute power to rule the country for 4 years without consulting parliament. From then on began the open persecution of the Jews, the first of whom began to enter the concentration camps where communists and left social-democrats were already being held. Hitler pressed ahead with his bid for absolute power, renouncing the 1918 international accords that had imposed restrictions on the arming and militarisation of Germany. Germany's re-armament took place at great speed. This was the situation in the international political arena when the myths concerning those dying in the Soviet Union began to be put together.

The Ukraine as a German Territory

At Hitler's side in the German leadership was Goebbels, the Minister of Propaganda, the man in charge of inculcating the Nazi dream into the German people. This was a dream of a racially pure people living in a Greater Germany, a country with broad lebensraum, a wide space in which to live. One part of this lebensraum, an area to the east of Germany which was, indeed, far larger than Germany itself, had yet to be conquered and incorporated into the German nation. In 1925, in Mein Kampf Hitler had already pointed to the Ukraine as an essential part of this German living space. The Ukraine and other regions of Eastern Europe needed to belong to the German nation so that they could be utilised in a 'proper' manner. According to Nazi propaganda, the Nazi sword would liberate this territory in order to make space for the German race. With German technology and German enterprise, the Ukraine would be transformed into an area producing cereals for Germany. But first the Germans had to liberate the Ukraine of its population of 'inferior beings' who, according to Nazi propaganda, would be put to work as a slave labour force in German homes, factories and fields - anywhere they were needed by the German economy.

The conquest of the Ukraine and other areas of the Soviet Union would necessitate war against the Soviet Union, and this war had to be prepared well in advance. To this end the Nazi propaganda ministry, headed by Goebbels, began a campaign around a supposed genocide committed by the Bolsheviks in the Ukraine, a dreadful period of catastrophic famine deliberately provoked by Stalin in order to force the peasantry to accept socialist policy. The purpose of the Nazi campaign was to prepare world public opinion for the 'liberation' of the Ukraine by German troops. Despite huge efforts and in spite of the fact that some of the German propaganda texts were published in the English press, the Nazi campaign around the supposed 'genocide' in the Ukraine was not very successful at the world level. It was clear that Hitler and Goebbels needed help in spreading their libellous rumours about the Soviet Union. That help they found in the USA.

William Hearst - Friend of Hitler

William Randolph Hearst is the name of a multi-millionaire who sought to help the Nazis in their psychological warfare against the Soviet Union. Hearst was a well-known US newspaper proprietor known as the 'father' of the so-called 'yellow press', i.e., the sensationalist press. William Hearst began his career as a newspaper editor in 1885 when his father, George Hearst, a millionaire mining industrialist, Senator and newspaper proprietor himself, put him in charge of the San Francisco Daily Examiner.

This was also the start of the Hearst newspaper empire, an empire which strongly influenced the lives and thinking of North Americans. After his father died, William Hearst sold all the mining industry shares he inherited and began to invest capital in the world of journalism. His first purchase was the New York Morning Journal, a traditional newspaper which Hearst completely transformed into a sensationalist rag. He bought his stories at any price, and when there were no atrocities or crimes to report, it behoved his journalists and photographers to 'arrange' matters. It is this which in fact characterises the 'yellow press': lies and 'arranged' atrocities served up as truth.

These lies of Hearst's made him a millionaire and a very important personage in the newspaper world. In 1935 he was one of the richest men in the world, with a fortune estimated at $200 million. After his purchase of the Morning Journal, Hearst went on to buy and establish daily and weekly newspapers throughout the US. In the 1940s, William Hearst owned 25 daily newspapers, 24 weekly newspapers, 12 radio stations, 2 world news services, one business providing news items for films, the Cosmopolitan film company, and a lot of others. In 1948 he bought one of the US's first TV stations, BWAL-TV in Baltimore. Hearst's newspapers sold 13 million copies a day and had close to 40 million readers. Almost a third of the adult population of the US were reading Hearst newspapers every day. Furthermore, many millions of people throughout the world received information from the Hearst press via his news services, films and a series of newspapers that were translated and published in large quantities all over the world. The figures quoted above demonstrate how the Hearst empire was able to influence American politics, and indeed world politics, over very many years - on issues which included opposition to the US entering the Second World War on the side of the Soviet Union and support for the McCarthyite anti-communist witch-hunts of the 1950s.

William Hearst's outlook was ultra-conservative, nationalist and anti-communist. His politics were the politics of the extreme right. In 1934 he travelled to Germany, where he was received by Hitler as a guest and friend. After this trip, Hearst's newspapers became even more reactionary, always carrying articles against socialism, against the Soviet Union and especially against Stalin. Hearst also tried to use his newspapers for overt Nazi propaganda purposes, publishing a series of articles by Goering, Hitler's right-hand man. The protests of many readers, however, forced him to stop publishing such items and to withdraw them from circulation.

After his visit to Hitler, Hearst's sensationalist newspapers were filled with 'revelations' about the terrible happenings in the Soviet Union - murders, genocide, slavery, luxury for the rulers and starvation for the people, all these were the big news items almost every day. The material was provided to Hearst by the Gestapo, Nazi Germany's political police. On the front pages of the newspapers there often appeared caricatures and falsified pictures of the Soviet Union, with Stalin portrayed as a murderer holding a dagger in his hand. We should not forget that these articles were read each day by 40 million people in the US and millions of others worldwide!

The myth concerning the famine in the Ukraine

One of the first campaigns of the Hearst press against the Soviet Union revolved round the question of the millions alleged to have died as a result of the Ukraine famine. This campaign began on 8 February 1935 with a front-page headline in the Chicago American '6 million people die of hunger in the Soviet Union'. Using material supplied by Nazi Germany, William Hearst, the press baron and Nazi sympathiser, began to publish fabricated stories about a genocide which was supposed to have been deliberately perpetrated by the Bolsheviks and had caused several million to die of starvation in the Ukraine. The truth of the matter was altogether different. In fact what took place in the Soviet Union at the beginning of the 1930s was a major class struggle in which poor landless peasants had risen up against the rich landowners, the kulaks, and had begun a struggle for collectivisation, a struggle to form kolkhozes.

This great class struggle, involving directly or indirectly some 120 million peasants, certainly gave rise to instability in agricultural production and food shortages in some regions. Lack of food did weaken people, which in turn led to an increase in the number falling victim to epidemic diseases. These diseases were at that time regrettably common throughout the world. Between 1918 and 1920 an epidemic of Spanish flu caused the death of 20 million people in the US and Europe, but nobody accused the governments of these countries of killing their own citizens. The fact is that there was nothing these government could do in the face of epidemics of this kind. It was only with the development of penicillin during the second world war, that it became possible for such epidemics to be effectively contained. This did not become generally available until towards the end of the 1940s.

The Hearst press articles asserting that millions were dying of famine in the Ukraine - a famine supposedly deliberately provoked by the communists - went into graphic and lurid detail. The Hearst press used every means possible to make their lies seem like the truth, and succeeded in causing public opinion in the capitalist countries to turn sharply against the Soviet Union. This was the origin of the first giant myth manufactured alleging millions were dying in the Soviet Union. In the wave of protests against the supposedly communist-provoked famine which the Western press unleashed, nobody was interested in listening to the Soviet Union's denials and complete exposure of the Hearst press lies, a situation which prevailed from 1934 until 1987! For more than 50 years several generations of people the world over were brought up on a diet of these slanders to harbour a negative view of socialism in the Soviet Union.

The Hearst mass media empire in 1998

William Hearst died in 1951 at his house in Beverly Hills, California. Hearst left behind him a mass-media empire which to this day continues to spread his reactionary message throughout the world. The Hearst Corporation is one of the largest enterprises in the world, incorporating more that 100 companies and employing 15,000 people. The Hearst empire today comprises magazines, books, radio, TV, cable TV, news agencies and multimedia.

52 years before the truth emerges

The Nazi disinformation campaign about the Ukraine did not die with the defeat of Nazi Germany in the Second World War. The Nazi lies were taken over by the CIA and MI5, and were always guaranteed a prominent place in the propaganda war against the Soviet Union. The McCarthyite anti-communist witch hunts after the Second World War also thrived on the tales of the millions who died of starvation in the Ukraine. In 1953 a book on this subject was published in the US. This book was entitled 'Black Deeds of the Kremlin'. Its publication was financed by Ukrainian refugees in the US, people who had collaborated with the Nazis in the Second World War and to whom the American government gave political asylum, presenting them to the world as 'democrats'.

When Reagan was elected to the US Presidency and began his 1980s anti-communist crusade, propaganda about the millions who died in the Ukraine was again revived. In 1984 a Harvard professor published a book called 'Human Life in Russia' which repeated all the false information produced by the Hearst press in 1934. In 1984, then, we were finding Nazi lies and falsifications dating from the 1930s being revived, but this time under the respectable cloak of an American university. But this was not the end of it. In 1986 yet another book appeared on the subject, entitled 'Harvest of Sorrow', written by a former member of the British secret service, Robert Conquest, now a professor at Stamford University in California. For his 'work' on the book, Conquest received $80,000 from the Ukraine National Organization. This same organisation also paid for a film made in 1986 called 'Harvest of Despair', in which, inter alia, material from Conquest's book was used. By this time the number of people it was alleged in the US had lost their lives in the Ukraine through starvation had been upped to 15 million!

Nevertheless the millions said to have died of starvation according to the Hearst press in America, parroted in books and films, was completely false information. The Canadian journalist, Douglas Tottle, meticulously exposed the falsifications in his book 'Fraud, famine and fascism - the Ukrainian genocide myth from Hitler to Harvard', published in Toronto in 1987. Among other things, Tottle proved that the photographic material used, horrifying photographs of starving children, had been taken from 1922 publications at a time when millions of people did die from hunger and war conditions because eight foreign armies had invaded the Soviet Union during the Civil War of 1918-1921. Douglas Tottle gives the facts surrounding the reporting of the famine of 1934 and exposes the assorted lies published in the Hearst press. One journalist who had over a long period of time sent reports and photographs from supposed famine areas was Thomas Walter, a man who never set foot in the Ukraine and even in Moscow had spent but a bare five days. This fact was revealed by the journalist Louis Fisher, Moscow Correspondent of The Nation, an American newspaper. Fisher also revealed that the journalist M. Parrott, the real Hearst press correspondent in Moscow, had sent Hearst reports that were never published concerning the excellent harvest achieved by the Soviet Union in 1933 and on the Ukraine's advancement. Tottle proves as well that the journalist who wrote the reports on the alleged Ukrainian famine, 'Thomas Walker', was really called Robert Green and was a convict who had escaped from a state prison in Colorado! This Walker, or Green, was arrested when he returned to the US and when he appeared in court, he admitted that he had never been to the Ukraine. All the lies concerning millions dead of starvation in the Ukraine in the 1930s, in a famine supposedly engineered by Stalin only came to be unmasked in 1987! Hearst, the Nazi, the police agent Conquest and others had conned millions of people with their lies and fake reports. Even today the Nazi Hearst's stories are still being repeated in newly-published books written by authors in the pay of right-wing interests.

The Hearst press, having a monopolist position in many States of the US, and having news agencies all over the world, was the great megaphone of the Gestapo. In a world dominated by monopoly capital, it was possible for the Hearst press to transform Gestapo lies into 'truths' emitted from dozens of newspapers, radio stations and, later on, TV channels, the world over. When the Gestapo disappeared, this dirty propaganda war against socialism in the Soviet Union carried on regardless, albeit with the CIA as its new patron. The anti-communist campaigns of the American press were not scaled down in the slightest. Business continued as usual, first at the bidding of the Gestapo and then at the bidding of the CIA.

Robert Conquest at the heart of the myths

This man, who is so widely quoted in the bourgeois press, this veritable oracle of the bourgeoisie, deserves some specific attention at this point. Robert Conquest is one of the two authors who has most written on the millions dying in the Soviet Union. He is in truth the creator of all the myths and lies concerning the Soviet Union that have been spread since the Second World War. Conquest is primarily known for his books The Great Terror (1969) and Harvest of Sorrow (1986). Conquest writes of millions dying of starvation in the Ukraine, in the gulag labour camps and during the Trials of 1936-38, using as his sources of information exiled Ukrainians living in the US and belonging to rightist parties, people who had collaborated with the Nazis in the Second World War. Many of Conquest's heroes were known to have been war criminals who led and participated in the genocide of the Ukraine's Jewish population in 1942. One of these people was Mykola Lebed, convicted as a war criminal after the Second World War. Lebed had been security chief in Lvov during the Nazi occupation and presided over the terrible persecutions of the Jews which took place in 1942. In 1949 the CIA took Lebed off to the United States where he worked as a source of disinformation.

The style of Conquest's books is one of violent and fanatical anti-communism. In his 1969 book, Conquest tells us that those who died of starvation in the Soviet Union between 1932-1933 amounted to between 5 million and 6 million people, half of them in the Ukraine. But in 1983, during Reagan's anti-communist crusade, Conquest had extended the famine into 1937 and increased the number of victims to 14 million! Such assertions turned out to be well rewarded: in 1986 he was signed up by Reagan to write material for his presidential campaign aimed at preparing the American people for a Soviet invasion. The text in question was called 'What to do when the Russians come - a survivalists' handbook'! Strange words coming from a Professor of History!

The fact is that there is nothing strange in it at all, coming as it does from a man who has spent his entire life living off lies and fabrications about the Soviet Union and Stalin - first as a secret service agent and then as a writer and professor at Stamford University in California. Conquest's past was exposed by the Guardian of 27 January 1978 in an article which identified him as a former agent in the disinformation department of the British Secret Service, i.e., the Information Research Department (IRD). The IRD was a section set up in 1947 (originally called the Communist Information Bureau) whose main task it was to combat communist influence throughout the world by planting stories among politicians, journalists and others in a position to influence public opinion. The activities of the IRD were very wide-ranging, as much in Britain as abroad. When the IRD had to be formally disbanded in 1977, as a result of the exposure of its involvement with the far right, it was discovered that in Britain alone more than 100 of the best-known journalists had an IRD contact who regularly supplied them with material for articles. This was routine in several major British newspapers, such as the Financial Times, The Times, Economist, Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, The Express, The Guardian and others. The facts exposed by the Guardian therefore give us an indication as to how the secret services were able to manipulate the news reaching the public at large.

Robert Conquest worked for the IRD from when it was set up until 1956. Conquest's 'work' there was to contribute to the so-called 'black history' of the Soviet Union fake stories put out as fact and distributed among journalists and others able to influence public opinion. After he had formally left the IRD, Conquest continued to write books suggested by the IRD, with secret service support. His book 'The Great Terror', a basic right-wing text on the subject of the power struggle that took place in the Soviet Union in 1937, was in fact a recompilation of text he had written when working for the secret services. The book was finished and published with the help of the IRD. A third of the publication run was bought by the Praeger press, normally associated with the publication of literature originating from CIA sources. Conquest's book was intended for presentation to 'useful fools', such as university professors and people working in the press, radio and TV, to ensure that the lies of Conquest and the extreme right continued to be spread throughout large swathes of the population. Conquest to this day remains for right-wing historians one of the most important sources of material on the Soviet Union.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Another person who is always associated with books and articles on the supposed millions who lost their lives or liberty in the Soviet Union is the Russian author Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Solzhenitsyn became famous throughout the capitalist world towards the end of 1960 with his book, The Gulag Archipelago. He himself had been sentenced in 1946 to 8 years in a labour camp for counter-revolutionary activity in the form of distribution of anti-Soviet propaganda. According to Solzhenitsyn, the fight against Nazi Germany in the Second World War could have been avoided if the Soviet government had reached a compromise with Hitler. Solzhenitsyn also accused the Soviet government and Stalin of being even worse than Hitler from the point of view, according to him, of the dreadful effects of the war on the people of the Soviet Union. Solzhenitsyn did not hide his Nazi sympathies. He was condemned as a traitor.

Solzhenitsyn began in 1962 to publish books in the Soviet Union with the consent and help of Nikita Khrushchev. The first book he published was A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, concerning the life of a prisoner. Khrushchev used Solzhenitsyn's texts to combat Stalin's socialist heritage. In 1970 Solzhenitsyn won the Nobel Prize for literature with his book The Gulag Archipelago. His books then began to be published in large quantities in capitalist countries, their author having become one of the most valuable instruments of imperialism in combating the socialism of the Soviet Union. His texts on the labour camps were added to the propaganda on the millions who were supposed to have died in the Soviet Union and were presented by the capitalist mass media as though they were true. In 1974, Solzhenitsyn renounced his Soviet citizenship and emigrated to Switzerland and then the US. At that time he was considered by the capitalist press to be the greatest fighter for freedom and democracy. His Nazi sympathies were buried so as not to interfere with the propaganda war against socialism.

In the US, Solzhenitsyn was frequently invited to speak at important meetings. He was, for example, the main speaker at the AFL-CIO union congress in 1975, and on 15 July 1975 he was invited to give a lecture on the world situation to the US Senate! His lectures amount to violent and provocative agitation, arguing and propagandising for the most reactionary positions. Among other things he agitated for Vietnam to be attacked again after its victory over the US. And more: after 40 years of fascism in Portugal, when left-wing army officers took power in the people's revolution of 1974, Solzhenitsyn began to propagandise in favour of US military intervention in Portugal which, according to him, would join the Warsaw Pact if the US did not intervene! In his lectures, Solzhenitsyn always bemoaned the liberation of Portugal's African colonies.

But it is clear that the main thrust of Solzhenitsyn's speeches was always the dirty war against socialism - from the alleged execution of several million people in the Soviet Union to the tens of thousands of Americans supposedly imprisoned and enslaved, according to Solzhenitsyn, in North Vietnam! This idea of Solzhenitsyn's of Americans being used as slave labour in North Vietnam gave rise to the Rambo films on the Vietnam war. American journalists who dared write in favour of peace between the US and the Soviet Union were accused by Solzhenitsyn in his speeches of being potential traitors. Solzhenitsyn also propagandised in favour of increasing US military capacity against the Soviet Union, which he claimed was more powerful in 'tanks and aeroplanes, by five to seven times, than the US' as well as in atomic weapons which 'in short' he alleged were 'two, three or even five times' more powerful in the Soviet Union than those held by the US. Solzhenitsyn's lectures on the Soviet Union represented the voice of the extreme right. But he himself went even further to the right in his public support of fascism.

Support for Franco's fascism

After Franco died in 1975, the Spanish fascist regime began to lose control of the political situation and at the beginning of 1976, events in Spain captured world public opinion. There were strikes and demonstrations to demand democracy and freedom, and Franco's heir, King Juan Carlos, was obliged very cautiously to introduce some liberalisation in order to calm down the social agitation.

At this most important moment in Spanish political history, Alexander Solzhenitsyn appears in Madrid and gives an interview to the programme Directisimo one Saturday night, the 20th of March, at peak viewing time (see the Spanish newspapers, ABC and Ya of 21 March 1976). Solzhenitsyn, who had been provided with the questions in advance, used the occasion to make all kinds of reactionary statements. His intention was not to support the King's so-called liberalisation measures. On the contrary, Solzhenitsyn warned against democratic reform. In his television interview he declared that 110 million Russians had died the victims of socialism, and he compared 'the slavery to which Soviet people were subjected to the freedom enjoyed in Spain'. Solzhenitsyn also accused 'progressive circles' of 'Utopians' of considering Spain to be a dictatorship. By 'progressive', he meant anyone in the democratic opposition - were they liberals, social-democrats or communists. 'Last autumn,' said Solzhenitsyn, 'world public opinion was worried about the fate of Spanish terrorists [i.e., Spanish anti-fascists sentenced to death by the Franco regime]. All the time progressive public opinion demands democratic political reform while supporting acts of terrorism'. 'Those who seek rapid democratic reform, do they realise what will happen tomorrow or the day after? In Spain there may be democracy tomorrow, but after tomorrow will it be able to avoid falling from democracy into totalitarianism?' To cautious inquiries by the journalists as to whether such statements could not be seen as support for regimes in countries where there was no liberty, Solzhenitsyn replied: 'I only know one place where there is no liberty and that is Russia.' Solzhenitsyn's statements on Spanish television were a direct support to Spanish fascism, an ideology he supports to this day. This is one of the reasons why Solzhenitsyn began to disappear from public view in his 18 years of exile in the US, and one of the reasons he began to get less than total support from capitalist governments. For the capitalists it was a gift from heaven to be able to use a man like Solzhenitsyn in their dirty war against socialism, but everything has its limits. In the new capitalist Russia, what determines the support of the west for political groups is purely and simply the ability of doing good business with high profits under the wing of such groups. Fascism as an alternative political regime for Russia is not considered to be good for business. For this reason Solzhenitsyn's political plans for Russia are a dead letter as far as Western support is concerned. What Solzhenitsyn wants for Russia's political future is a return to the authoritarian regime of the Tsars, hand-in-hand with the traditional Russian Orthodox Church! Even the most arrogant imperialists are not interested in supporting political stupidity of this magnitude. To find anyone who supports Solzhenitsyn in the West one has to search among the dumbheads of the extreme right.

Nazis, the police and the fascists

So these are the most worthy purveyors of the bourgeois myths concerning the millions who are supposed to have died and been imprisoned in the Soviet Union: the Nazi William Hearst, the secret agent Robert Conquest and the fascist Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Conquest played the leading role, since it was his information that was used by the capitalist mass media the world over, and was even the basis for setting up whole schools in certain universities. Conquest's work is without a doubt a first-class piece of police disinformation. In the 1970s, Conquest received a great deal of help from Solzhenitsyn and a series of secondary characters like Andrei Sakharov and Roy Medvedev. In addition there appeared here and there all over the world a number of people who dedicated themselves to speculating about the number of dead and incarcerated and were always paid in gold by the bourgeois press. But the truth of the matter was finally exposed and has revealed the true face of these falsifiers of history. Gorbachev's orders to open the party's secret archives to historical investigation had consequences nobody could have foreseen.

The archives demonstrate the propaganda lies

The speculation about the millions who died in the Soviet Union is part of the dirty propaganda war against the Soviet Union and for this very reason the denials and explanations given by the Soviet Union were never taken seriously and never found any space in the capitalist press. They were, on the contrary, ignored, while the 'specialists' bought by capital were given as much space as they wanted in order to spread their fictions. And what fictions they were! What the millions of dead and imprisoned claimed by Conquest and other 'critics' had in common was that they were the result of false statistical approximations and evaluation methods lacking any scientific basis.

Fraudulent methods give rise to millions of dead

Conquest, Solzhenitsyn, Medvedev and others used statistics published by the Soviet Union, for instance, national population censuses, to which they added a supposed population increase without taking account of the situation in the country. In this way they reached their conclusions as to how many people there ought to have been in the country at the end of given years. The people who were missing were claimed to have died or been incarcerated because of socialism. The method is simple but also completely fraudulent. This type of 'revelation' of such important political events would never have been accepted if the 'revelation' in question concerned the western world. In such a case it is certain that professors and historians would have protested against such fabrications. But since it was the Soviet Union that was the object of the fabrications, they were acceptable. One of the reasons is certainly that professors and historians place their professional advancement well ahead of their professional integrity.

In numbers, what were the final conclusions of the 'critics'? According to Robert Conquest (in an estimate he made in 1961) 6 million people died of starvation in the Soviet Union in the early 1930s. This number Conquest increased to 14 million in 1986. As regards what he says about the gulag labour camps, there were detained there, according to Conquest, 5 million prisoners in 1937 before the purges of the party, the army and the state apparatus began. After the start of the purges then, according to Conquest, during 1937-38, there would have been an additional 7 million prisoners, making the total 12 million prisoners in the labour camps in 1939! And these 12 million of Conquest's would only have been the political prisoners! In the labour camps there were also common criminals, who, according to Conquest, would have far outnumbered the political prisoners. This means, according to Conquest, that there would have been 25-30 million prisoners in the labour camps of the Soviet Union.

Again according to Conquest, a million political prisoners were executed between 1937 and 1939, and another 2 million died of hunger. The final tally resulting from the purges of 1937-39, then, according to Conquest, was 9 million, of whom 3 million would have died in prison. These figures were immediately subjected to 'statistical adjustment' by Conquest to enable him to reach the conclusion that the Bolsheviks had killed no fewer than 12 million political prisoners between 1930 and 1953. Adding these figures to the numbers said to have died in the famine of the 1930s, Conquest arrived at the conclusion that the Bolsheviks killed 26 million people. In one of his last statistical manipulations, Conquest claimed that in 1950 there had been 12 million political prisoners in the Soviet Union.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn used more or less the same statistical methods as Conquest. But by using these pseudo-scientific methods on the basis of different premises, he arrived at even more extreme conclusions. Solzhenitsyn accepted Conquest's estimate of 6 million deaths arising from the famine of 1932-33. Nevertheless, as far as the purges of 1936-39 were concerned, he believed that at least 1 million people died each year. Solzhenitsyn sums up by telling us that from the collectivisation of agriculture to the death of Stalin in 1953, the communists killed 66 million people in the Soviet Union. On top of that he holds the Soviet government responsible for the death of the 44 million Russians he claims were killed in the Second World War. Solzhenitsyn's conclusion is that '110 million Russians fell, victims of socialism'. As far as prisoners were concerned, Solzhenitsyn tells us that the number of people in labour camps in 1953 was 25 million.

Gorbachev opens the archives

The collection of fantasy figures set out above, the product of extremely well paid fabrication, appeared in the bourgeois press in the 1960s, always presented as true facts ascertained through the application of scientific method.

Behind these fabrications lurked the western secret services, mainly the CIA and MI5. The impact of the mass media on public opinion is so great that the figures are even today believed to be true by large sections of the population of Western countries.

This shameful situation has worsened. In the Soviet Union itself, where Solzhenitsyn and other well-known 'critics' such as Andrei Sakharov and Roy Medvedev could find nobody to support their many fantasies, a significant change took place in 1990. In the new 'free press' opened up under Gorbachev, everything opposed to socialism was hailed as positive, with disastrous results. Unprecedented speculative inflation began to take place in the numbers of those who were alleged to have died or been imprisoned under socialism, now all mixed up into a single group of tens of millions of 'victims' of the communists.

The hysteria of Gorbachev's new free press brought to the fore the lies of Conquest and Solzhenitsyn. At the same time Gorbachev opened up the archives of the Central Committee to historical research, a demand of the free press. The opening up of the archives of the Central Committee of the Communist Party is really the central issue in this tangled tale, this for two reasons: partly because in the archives can be found the facts that can shed light on the truth. But even more important is the fact that those speculating wildly on the number of people killed and imprisoned in the Soviet Union had all been claiming for years that the day the archives were opened up the figures they were citing would be confirmed. Every one of these speculators in the dead and incarcerated claimed that this would be the case: Conquest, Sakharov, Medvedev, and all the rest. But when the archives were opened up and research reports based on the actual documents began to be published a very strange thing happened. Suddenly both Gorbachev's free press and the speculators in dead and incarcerated completely lost interest in the archives.

The results of the research carried out on the archives of the Central Committee by Russian historians Zemskov, Dougin and Xlevnjuk, which began to appear in scientific journals as from 1990, went entirely unremarked. The reports containing the results of this historical research went completely against the inflationary current as regards the numbers who were being claimed by the 'free press' to have died or been incarcerated. Therefore their contents remained unpublicised. The reports were published in low-circulation scientific journals practically unknown to the public at large. Reports of the results of scientific research could hardly compete with the press hysteria, so the lies of Conquest and Solzhenitsyn continued to gain the support of many sectors of the former Soviet Union's population. In the West also, the reports of the Russian researchers on the penal system under Stalin were totally ignored on the front pages of newspapers, and by TV news broadcasts. Why?

What the Russian research shows

The research on the Soviet penal system is set out in a report nearly 9,000 pages long. The authors of this report are many, but the best-known of them are the Russian historians V.N. Zemskov, A.N. Dougin and O.V. Xlevnjuk. Their work began to be published in 1990 and by 1993 had nearly been finished and published almost in its entirety. The reports came to the knowledge of the West as a result of collaboration between researchers of different Western countries. The two works with which the present author is familiar are: the one which appeared in the French journal l'Histoire in September 1993, written by Nicholas Werth, the chief researcher of the French scientific research centre, CNRS (Centre National de Ia Recherche Scientifique), and the work published in the US journal American Historical Review by J. Arch Getty, a professor of history at the University of California, Riverside, in collaboration with G.T. Rettersporn, a CNRS researcher, and the Russian researcher, V.A.N. Zemskov, from the Institute of Russian History (part of the Russian Academy of Science). Today books have appeared on the matter written by the above-named researchers or by others from the same research team. Before going any further, I want to make clear, so that no confusion arises in the future, that none of the scientists involved in this research has a socialist world outlook. On the contrary their outlook is bourgeois and anti-socialist. Indeed many of them are quite reactionary. This is said so that the reader should not imagine that what is to be set out below is the product of some 'communist conspiracy'. What has happened is that the above-named researchers have thoroughly exposed the lies of Conquest, Solzhenitsyn, Medvedev and others, which they have done purely by reason of the fact that they place their professional integrity in first place and will not allow themselves to be bought for propaganda purposes.

The results of the Russian research answer a very large number of questions about the Soviet penal system. For us it is the Stalin era that is of greatest interest, and it is there we find cause for debate. We will pose a number of very specific questions and we will seek out our replies in the journals l'Histoire and the American Historical Review. This will be the best way of bringing into the debate some of the most important aspects of the Soviet penal system. The questions are the following:

1) What did the Soviet penal system consist of?
2) How many prisoners were there - both political and non-political?
3) How many people died in the labour camps?
4) How many people were condemned to death in the years before 1953, especially in the purges of 1937-38?
5) How long, on average, were the prison sentences?

After answering these five questions, we will discuss the punishments imposed on the two groups which are most frequently mentioned in connection with prisoners and deaths in the Soviet Union, namely the kulaks convicted in 1930 and the counter-revolutionaries convicted in 1936-38.

Labour camps in the penal system

Let us start with the question of the nature of the Soviet penal system. After 1930 the Soviet penal system included prisons, labour camps, the labour colonies of the gulag, special open zones and obligation to pay fines. Whoever was remanded into custody was generally sent to a normal prison while investigations took place to establish whether he might be innocent, and could thus be set free, or whether he should go on trial. An accused person on trial could either be found innocent (and set free) or guilty. If found guilty he could be sentenced to pay a fine, to a term of imprisonment or, more unusually, to face execution. A fine could be a given percentage of his wages for a given period of time. Those sentenced to prison terms could be put in different kinds of prison depending on the type of offence involved.

To the gulag labour camps were sent those who had committed serious offences (homicide, robbery, rape, economic crimes, etc.) as well as a large proportion of those convicted of counter-revolutionary activities. Other criminals sentenced to terms longer than 3 years could also be sent to labour camps. After spending some time in a labour camp, a prisoner might be moved to a labour colony or to a special open zone.

The labour camps were very large areas where the prisoners lived and worked under close supervision. For them to work and not to be a burden on society was obviously necessary. No healthy person got by without working. It is possible that these days people may think this was a terrible thing, but this is the way it was. The number of labour camps in existence in 1940 was 53.

There were 425 gulag labour colonies. These were much smaller units than the labour camps, with a freer regime and less supervision. To these were sent prisoners with shorter prison terms - people who had committed less serious criminal or political offences. They worked in freedom in factories or on the land and formed part of civil society. In most cases the whole of the wages he earned from his labour belonged to the prisoner, who in this respect was treated the same as any other worker.

The special open zones were generally agricultural areas for those who had been exiled, such as the kulaks who had been expropriated during collectivisation. Other people found guilty of minor criminal or political offences might also serve their terms in these areas.

454,000 is not 9 million

The second question concerned how many political prisoners there were, and how many common criminals. This question includes those imprisoned in labour camps, gulag colonies and the prisons (though it should be remembered that in the labour colonies there was, in the majority of cases, only partial loss of liberty). The Table below shows the data which appeared in the American Historical Review, data which encompass a period of 20 years beginning in 1934, when the penal system was unified under a central administration, until 1953, the year Stalin died.

From the above Table, there are a series of conclusions which need to be drawn. To start with we can compare its data to those given by Robert Conquest. The latter claims that in 1939 there were 9 million political prisoners in the labour camps and that 3 million others had died in the period 1937-1939. Let the reader not forget that Conquest is here talking only about political prisoners! Apart from these, says Conquest, there were also common criminals who, according to him, were much greater in number than the political prisoners! In 1950 there were, according to Conquest, 12 million political prisoners! Armed with the true facts, we can readily see what a fraudster Conquest really is. Not one of his figures corresponds even remotely to the truth. In 1939 there was a total in all the camps, colonies and prisons of close to 2 million prisoners. Of these 454,000 had committed political crimes, not 9 million as Conquest asserts. Those who died in labour camps between 1937 and 1939 numbered about 160,000, not 3 million as Conquest asserts. In 1950 there were 578,000 political prisoners in labour camps, not 12 million. Let the reader not forget that Robert Conquest to this day remains one of the major sources for right-wing propaganda against communism. Among right-wing pseudo-intellectuals, Robert Conquest is a godlike figure. As for the figures cited by Alexander Solzhenitsyn - 60 million alleged to have died in labour camps - there is no need for comment. The absurdity of such an allegation is manifest. Only a sick mind could promote such delusions.

Let us now leave these fraudsters in order that we may ourselves concretely analyse the statistics relating to the gulag. The first question to be asked is what view we should take about the sheer quantity of people caught up in the penal system? What is the meaning of the figure of 2.5 million? Every person that is put in prison is living proof that society was still insufficiently developed to give every citizen everything he needed for a full life. From this point of view, the 2.5 million do represent a criticism of the society.

The internal and external threat

The number of people caught up in the penal system requires to be properly explained. The Soviet Union was a country which had only recently overthrown feudalism, and its social heritage in matters of human rights was often a burden on society. In an antiquated system like the tsardom, workers were condemned to live in deep poverty, and human life had little value. Robbery and violent crime was punished by unrestrained violence. Revolts against the monarchy usually ended in massacres, death sentences and extremely long prison sentences. These social relations, and the habits of mind associated with them, take a long time to change, a fact which influenced the development of society in the Soviet Union as well as attitudes towards criminals.

Another factor to be taken into account is that the Soviet Union, a country which in the 1930s had close to 160-170 million inhabitants, was seriously threatened by foreign powers. As a result of the great political changes which took place in Europe in the 1930s, there was a major threat of war from the direction of Nazi Germany, a threat to the survival of the Slav people, and the western bloc also harboured interventionist ambitions. This situation was summed up by Stalin in 1931 in the following words: "We are 50-100 years behind the advanced countries. We have to close that gap in 10 years. Either we do it or we will be wiped out." Ten years later, on 22 June 1941, the Soviet Union was invaded by Nazi Germany and its allies. Soviet society was forced to make great efforts in the decade from 1930-1940, when the major part of its resources was dedicated to its defence preparations for the forthcoming war against the Nazis. Because of this, people worked hard while producing little by way of personal benefits. The introduction of the 7-hour day was withdrawn in 1937, and in 1939 practically every Sunday was a work day. In a difficult period such as this, with a great war hanging over the development of society for two decades (the 1930s and 1940s), a war which was to cost the Soviet Union 25 million deaths with half the country burnt to a cinder, crime did tend to increase as people tried to help themselves to what life could not otherwise offer them.

During this very difficult time, the Soviet Union held a maximum number of 2.5 million people in its prison system, i.e., 2.4% of the adult population. How can we evaluate this figure? Is it a lot or a little? Let us compare.

More prisoners in the US

In the United States of America, for example, a country of 252 million inhabitants (in 1996), the richest country in the world, which consumes 60% of the world's resources, how many people are in prison? What is the situation in the US, a country not threatened by any war and where there are no deep social changes affecting economic stability?

In a rather small news item appearing in the newspapers of August 1997, the FLT-AP news agency reported that in the US there had never previously been so many people in the prison system as the 5.5 million held in 1996. This represents an increase of 200,000 people since 1995 and means that the number of criminals in the US equals 2.8% of the adult population. These data are available to all those who are part of the North American Department of Justice. The number of convicts in the US today is 3 million higher than the maximum number ever held in the Soviet Union! In the Soviet Union there was a maximum of 2.4% of the adult population in prison for their crimes - in the US the figure is 2.8%, and rising! According to a press release put out by the US Department of Justice on 18 January 1998, the number of convicts in the US in 1997 rose by 96,100.

As far as the Soviet labour camps were concerned, it is true that the regime was harsh and difficult for the prisoners, but what is the situation today in the prisons of the US, which are rife with violence, drugs, prostitution, sexual slavery (290,000 rapes a year in US prisons). Nobody fees safe in US prisons! And this today, and in a society richer than ever before!

An important factor - the lack of medicines

Let us now respond to the third question posed. How many people died in the labour camps? The number varied from year to year, from 5.2% in 1934 to 0.3% in 1953. Deaths in the labour camps were caused by the general shortage of resources in society as a whole, in particular the medicines necessary to fight epidemics. This problem was not confined to labour camps but was present throughout society, as well as in the great majority of countries of the world. Once antibiotics had been discovered and put into general use after the Second World War, the situation changed radically. In fact, the worst years were the war years when the Nazi barbarians imposed very harsh living conditions on all Soviet citizens. During those 4 years, more than half a million people died in the labour camps - half the total number dying throughout the 20-year period in question. Let us not forget that in the same period, the war years, 25 million people died among those who were free. In 1950, when conditions in the Soviet Union had improved and antibiotics had been introduced, the number of people dying while in prison fell to 0.3%.

Let us turn now to the fourth question posed. How many people were sentenced to death prior to 1953, especially during the purges of 1937-38? We have already noted Robert Conquest's claim that the Bolsheviks killed 12 million political prisoners in the labour camps between 1930 and 1953. Of these 1 million are supposed to have been killed between 1937 and 1938. Solzhenitsyn's figures run to tens of millions supposed to have died in the labour camps - 3 million in 1937-38 alone. Even higher figures have been quoted in the course of the dirty propaganda war against the Soviet Union. The Russian, Olga Shatunovskaya, for example, cites a figure of 7 million dead in the purges of 1937-38.

The documents now emerging from the Soviet archives, however, tell a different story. It is necessary to mention here at the start that the number of those sentenced to death has to be gleaned from different archives and that the researchers, in order to arrive at an approximate figure, have had to gather data from these various archives in a way which gives rise to a risk of double counting and thus of producing estimates higher than the reality. According to Dimitri Volkogonov, the person appointed by Yeltsin to take charge of the old Soviet archives, there were 30,514 persons condemned to death by military tribunals between 1 October 1936 and 30 September 1938. Another piece of information comes from the KGB: according to information released to the press in February 1990, there were 786,098 people condemned to death for crimes against the revolution during the 23 years from 1930-1953. Of those condemned, according to the KGB, 681,692 were condemned between 1937 and 1938. It is not possible to double check the KGB's figures but this last piece of information is open to doubt. It would be very odd for so many people to have been sentenced to death in only two years. Is it possible that the present-day pro-capitalist KGB would give us correct information from the pro-socialist KGB? Be that as it may, it remains to be verified whether the statistics which underlie the KGB information include among those said to have been condemned to death during the 23 years in question common criminals as well as counter-revolutionaries, rather than counter-revolutionaries alone as the pro-capitalist KGB has alleged in a press release of February 1990. The archives also tend to the conclusion that the number of common criminals and the number of counter-revolutionaries condemned to death was approximately equal.

The conclusion we can draw from this is that the number of those condemned to death in 1937-38 was close to 100,000, and not several million as has been claimed by Western propaganda.

It is also necessary to bear in mind that not all those sentenced to death in the Soviet Union were actually executed. A large proportion of death penalties were commuted to terms in labour camps. It is also important to distinguish between common criminals and counter-revolutionaries. Many of those sentenced to death had committed violent crimes such as murder or rape. 60 years ago this type of crime was punishable by death in a large number of countries.

Question 5: How long was the average prison sentence? The length of prison sentences has been the subject of the most scurrilous rumour-mongering in Western propaganda. The usual insinuation is that to be a convict in the Soviet Union involved endless years in prison - whoever went in never came out. This is completely untrue. The vast majority of those who went to prison in Stalin's time were in fact convicted to a term of 5 years at most.

The statistics reproduced in the American Historical Review show the actual facts. Common criminals in the Russian Federation in 1936 received the following sentences: up to 5 years: 82.4%; between 5-10 years: 17.6%. 10 years was the maximum possible prison term before 1937. Political prisoners convicted in the Soviet Union's civilian courts in 1936 received sentences as follows: up to 5 years: 44.2%; between 5-10 years 50.7%. As for those sentenced to terms in the gulag labour camps, where the longer sentences were served, the 1940 statistics show that those serving up to 5 years were 56.8% and those between 5-10 years 42.2%. Only 1% were sentenced to over 10 years.

For 1939 we have the statistics produced by Soviet courts. The distribution of prison terms is as follows: up to 5 years: 95.9%; from 5-10 years: 4%; over 10 years: 0.1%.

As we can see, the supposed eternity of prison sentences in the Soviet Union is another myth spread in the West to combat socialism.

The lies about the Soviet Union

A brief discussion as to the research reports.

The research conducted by the Russian historians shows a reality totally different from that taught in the schools and universities of the capitalist world over the last 50 years. During these 50 years of the cold war, several generations have learnt only lies about the Soviet Union, which have left a deep impression on many people. This fact is also substantiated in the reports made of the French and American research. In these reports are reproduced data, figures and tables enumerating those convicted and those who died, these figures being the subject of intense discussion. But the most important thing to note is that the crimes committed by the people who had been convicted is never a matter of any interest. Capitalist political propaganda has always presented Soviet prisoners as innocent victims and the researchers have taken up this assumption without questioning it. When the researchers go over from their columns of statistics to their commentaries on the events, their bourgeois ideology comes to the fore - with sometimes macabre results. Those who were convicted under the Soviet penal system are treated as innocent victims, but the fact of the matter is that most of them were thieves, murderers, rapists, etc. Criminals of this kind would never be considered to be innocent victims by the press if their crimes were committed in Europe or the US. But since the crimes were committed in the Soviet Union, it is different. To call a murderer, or a person who has raped more than once, an innocent victim is a very dirty game. Some common sense at least needs to be shown when commenting on Soviet justice, at least in relation to criminals convicted of violent crimes, even if it cannot be managed in relation to the nature of the punishment, then at least as regards the propriety of convicting people who have committed crimes of this kind.

The kulaks and the counter-revolution

In the case of the counter-revolutionaries, it is also necessary to consider the crimes of which they were accused. Let us give two examples to show the importance of this question: the first is the kulaks sentenced at the beginning of the 1930s and the second the conspirators and counter-revolutionaries convicted in 1936-38.

According to the research reports insofar as they deal with the kulaks, the rich peasants, there were 381,000 families, i.e., about 1.8 million people sent into exile. A small number of these people were sentenced to serve terms in labour camps or colonies. But what gave rise to these punishments?

The rich Russian peasant, the kulak, had subjected poor peasants for hundreds of years to boundless oppression and unbridled exploitation. Of the 120 million peasants in 1927, the 10 million kulaks lived in luxury while the remaining 110 million lived in poverty. Before the revolution they had lived in the most abject poverty. The wealth of the kulaks was based on the badly-paid labour of the poor peasants. When the poor peasants began to join together in collective farms, the main source of kulak wealth disappeared. But the kulaks did not give up. They tried to restore exploitation by use of famine. Groups of armed kulaks attacked collective farms, killed poor peasants and party workers, set fire to the fields and killed working animals. By provoking starvation among poor peasants, the kulaks were trying to secure the perpetuation of poverty and their own positions of power. The events which ensued were not those expected by these murderers. This time the poor peasants had the support of the revolution and proved to be stronger than the kulaks, who were defeated, imprisoned and sent into exile or sentenced to terms in labour camps

Of the 10 million kulaks, 1.8 million were exiled or convicted. There may have been injustices perpetrated in the course of this massive class struggle in the Soviet countryside, a struggle involving 120 million people. But can we blame the poor and the oppressed, in their struggle for a life worth living, in their struggle to ensure their children would not be starving illiterates, for not being sufficiently 'civilised' or showing enough 'mercy' in their courts? Can one point the finger at people who for hundreds of years had no access to the advances made by civilisation for not being civilised? And tell us, when was the kulak exploiter civilised or merciful in his dealings with poor peasants during the years and years of endless exploitation.

The purges of 1937

Our second example, that of the counter-revolutionaries convicted in the 1936-38 trials which followed the purges of party, army and state apparatus, has its roots in the history of the revolutionary movement in Russia. Millions of people participated in the victorious struggle against the Tsar and the Russian bourgeoisie, and many of these joined the Russian Communist Party. Among all these people there were, unfortunately, some who entered the party for reasons other than fighting for the proletariat and for socialism. But the class struggle was such that often there was neither the time nor the opportunity to put new party militants to the test. Even militants from other parties who called themselves socialists and who had fought the Bolshevik party were admitted to the Communist Party. A number of these new activists were given important positions in the Bolshevik Party, the state and the armed forces, depending on their individual ability to conduct class struggle. These were very difficult times for the young Soviet state, and the great shortage of cadres - or even of people who could read - forced the party to make few demands as regards the quality of new activists and cadres. Because of these problems, there arose in time a contradiction which split the party into two camps - on the one hand those who wanted to press forward in the struggle to build a socialist society, and on the other hand those who thought that the conditions were not yet ripe for building socialism and who promoted social-democracy. The origin of these ideas lay in Trotsky, who had joined the party in July 1917. Trotsky was able over time to secure the support of some of the best known Bolsheviks. This opposition united against the original Bolshevik plan provided one of the policy options which were the subject of a vote on 27 December 1927. Before this vote was taken, there had been a great party debate going on over many years and the result left nobody in any doubt. Of the 725,000 votes cast, the opposition secured 6,000 - i.e., less than 1% of party activists supported the united opposition.

As a consequence of the vote, and once the opposition started working for a policy opposed to that of the party, the Central Committee of the Communist Party decided to expel from the party the principal leaders of the united opposition. The central opposition figure, Trotsky, was expelled from the Soviet Union. But the story of this opposition did not end there. Zinoviev, Kamenev and Zvdokine afterwards made self-criticisms, as did several leading Trotskyists, such as Pyatakov, Radek, Preobrazhinsky and Smirnov. All of them were once again accepted into the party as activists and took up once more their party and state posts. In time it became clear that the self-criticisms made by the opposition had not been genuine, since the oppositionist leaders were united on the side of the counter-revolution every time that class struggle sharpened in the Soviet Union. The majority of the oppositionists were expelled and re-admitted another couple of times before the situation clarified itself completely in 1937-38.

Industrial sabotage

The murder in December 1934 of Kirov, the chairman of the Leningrad party and one of the most important people in the Central Committee, sparked off the investigation that was to lead to the discovery of a secret organisation engaged in preparing a conspiracy to take over the leadership of the party and the government of the country by means of violence. The political struggle that they had lost in 1927 they now hoped to win by means of organised violence against the state. Their main weapons were industrial sabotage, terrorism and corruption. Trotsky, the main inspiration for the opposition, directed their activities from abroad. Industrial sabotage caused terrible losses to the Soviet state, at enormous cost, for example, important machines were damaged beyond possibility of repair, and there was an enormous fall in production in mines and factories.

One of the people who in 1934 described the problem was the American engineer John Littlepage, one of the foreign specialists contracted to work in the Soviet Union. Littlepage spent 10 years working in the Soviet mining industry - from 1927-37, mainly in gold mines. In his book In Search of Soviet Gold, he writes: "I never took any interest in the subtleties of political manoeuvring in Russia so long as I could avoid them; but I had to study what was happening in Soviet industry in order to do my work. And I am firmly convinced that Stalin and his collaborators took a long time to discover that discontented revolutionary communists were his worst enemies."

Littlepage also wrote that his personal experience confirmed the official statement to the effect that a great conspiracy directed from abroad was using major industrial sabotage as part of its plans to force the government to fall. In 1931 Littlepage had already felt obliged to take note of this, while working in the copper and bronze mines of the Urals and Kazakhstan. The mines were part of a large copper/bronze complex under the overall direction of Pyatakov, the People's Vice Commissar for Heavy Industry. The mines were in a catastrophic state as far as production and the well-being of their workers was concerned. Littlepage reached the conclusion that there was organised sabotage going on which came from the top management of the copper/bronze complex.

Littlepage's book also tells us from where the Trotskyite opposition obtained the money that was necessary to pay for this counter-revolutionary activity. Many members of the secret opposition used their positions to approve the purchase of machines from certain factories abroad. The products approved were of much lower quality than those the Soviet government actually paid for. The foreign producers gave Trotsky's organisation the surplus from such transactions, as a result of which Trotsky and his co-conspirators in the Soviet Union continued to order from these manufacturers.

Theft and corruption

This procedure was observed by Littlepage in Berlin in the spring of 1931 when buying industrial lifts for mines. The Soviet delegation was headed by Pyatakov, with Littlepage as the specialist in charge of verifying the quality of the lifts and of approving the purchase. Littlepage discovered a fraud involving low quality lifts, useless for Soviet purposes, but when he informed Pyatakov and the other members of the Soviet delegation of this fact, he met with a cold reception, as if they wanted to overlook these facts and insist he should approve the purchase of the lifts. Littlepage would not do so. At the time he thought that what was happening involved personal corruption and that the members of the delegation had been bribed by the lift manufacturers. But after Pyatakov, in the 1937 trial, confessed his links with the Trotskyist opposition, Littlepage was driven to the conclusion that what he had witnessed in Berlin was much more than corruption at a personal level. The money involved was intended to pay for the activities of the secret opposition in the Soviet Union, activities which included sabotage, terrorism, bribery and propaganda.

Zinoviev, Kamenev, Pyatakov, Radek, Tomsky, Bukharin and others much loved by the Western bourgeois press used the positions entrusted to them by the Soviet people and party to steal money from the state, in order to enable enemies of socialism to use that money for the purposes of sabotage and in their fight against socialist society in the Soviet Union.

Plans for a coup

Theft, sabotage and corruption are serious crimes in themselves, but the opposition's activities went much further. A counter-revolutionary conspiracy was being prepared aimed at taking over state power by means of a coup in which the whole Soviet leadership would be eliminated, starting with the assassination of the most important members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. The military side of the coup would be carried out by a group of generals headed by Marshal Tukhachevsky.

According to Isaac Deutscher, himself a Trotskyite, who wrote several books against Stalin and the Soviet Union, the coup was to have been initiated by a military operation against the Kremlin and the most important troops in the big cities, such as Moscow and Leningrad. The conspiracy was, according to Deutscher, headed by Tukhachevsky together with Gamarnik, the head of the army political commissariat, General Yakir, the Commander of Leningrad, General Uborevich, the commander of the Moscow military academy, and General Primakov, a cavalry commander.

Marshal Tukhachevsky had been an officer in the former Tsarist army who, after the revolution, went over to the Red Army. In 1930 nearly 10% of officers (close to 4,500) were former Tsarist officers. Many of them never abandoned their bourgeois outlook and were just waiting for an opportunity to fight for it. This opportunity arose when the opposition was preparing its coup.

The Bolsheviks were strong, but the civilian and military conspirators endeavoured to muster strong friends. According to Bukharin's confession in his public trial in 1938, an agreement was reached between the Trotskyite opposition and Nazi Germany, in which large territories, including the Ukraine, would be ceded to Nazi Germany following the counter-revolutionary coup in the Soviet Union. This was the price demanded by Nazi Germany for its promise of support for the counter- revolutionaries. Bukharin had been informed about this agreement by Radek, who had received an order from Trotsky about the matter. All these conspirators who had been chosen for high positions to lead, administer and defend socialist society were in reality working to destroy socialism. Above all it is necessary to remember that all this was happening in the 1930s, when the Nazi danger was growing all the time and the Nazi armies were setting Europe alight and were preparing to invade the Soviet Union.

The conspirators were sentenced to death as traitors after a public trial. Those found guilty of sabotage, terrorism, corruption, attempted murder and who had wanted to hand over part of the country to the Nazis could expect nothing else. To call them innocent victims is completely mistaken.

More numerous liars

It is interesting to see how Western propaganda, via Robert Conquest, has lied about the purges of the Red Army. Conquest says in his book The Great Terror that in 1937 there were 70,000 officers and political commissars in the Red Army and that 50% of them (i.e., 15,000 officers and 20,000 commissars) were arrested by the political police and were either executed or imprisoned for life in labour camps. In this allegation of Conquest's, as in his whole book, there is not one word of truth. The historian Roger Reese, in his work The Red Army and the Great Purges, gives the facts which show the real significance of the 1937-38 purges for the army. The number of people in the leadership of the Red Army and air force, i.e., officers and political commissars, was 144,300 in 1937, increasing to 282,300 by 1939. During the 1937-38 purges, 34,300 officers and political commissars were expelled for political reasons. By May 1940, however, 11,596 had already been rehabilitated and restored to their posts. This meant that during the 1937-38 purges, 22,705 officers and political commissars were dismissed (close to 13,000 army officers, 4,700 air force officers and 5,000 political commissars), which amounts to 7.7% of all officers and commissars - not 50% as Conquest alleges. Of this 7.7%, some were convicted as traitors, but the great majority of them, it would appear from historical material available, simply returned to civilian life.

One last question. Were the 1937-38 trials fair to the accused? Let us examine, for example, the trial of Bukharin, the highest party functionary to work for the secret opposition. According to the American ambassador in Moscow at the time, a well-known lawyer called Joseph Davies, who attended the whole trial, Bukharin was permitted to speak freely throughout the trial and put forward his case without impediment of any kind. Joseph Davies wrote to Washington that during the trial it was proved that the accused were guilty of the crimes of which they were charged and that the general opinion among diplomats attending the trial was that the existence of a very serious conspiracy had been proved.

Let us learn from history

The discussion of the Soviet penal system during Stalin's time, on which thousands of lying articles and books have been written, and hundreds of films have been made conveying false impressions, leads to important lessons. The facts prove yet again that the stories published about socialism in the bourgeois press are mostly false. The right wing can, through the press, radio and TV that it dominates, cause confusion, distort the truth and cause very many people to believe lies to be the truth. This is especially true when it comes to historical questions. Any new stories from the right should be assumed to be false unless the contrary can be proved. This cautious approach is justified. The fact is that even knowing about the Russian research reports, the right is continuing to reproduce the lies taught for the last 50 years, even though they have now been completely exposed. The right continues its historical heritage: a lie repeated over and over again ends up being accepted as true. After the Russian research reports were published in the West, a number of books began to appear in different countries aimed solely at calling into question the Russian research and enabling the old lies to be brought to public attention as new truths. These are well-presented books, stuffed from cover to cover with lies about communism and socialism.

The right-wing lies are repeated in order to fight today's communists. They are repeated so that workers will find no alternative to capitalism and neo-liberalism. They are part of the dirty war against communists who alone have an alternative to offer for the future, i.e., socialist society. This is the reason for the appearance of all these new books containing old lies.

All this places an obligation on everybody with a socialist world outlook on history. We must take on the responsibility of working to turn communist newspapers into authentic newspapers of the working classes to combat bourgeois lies! This is without doubt an important mission in today's class struggle, which in the near future will arise again with renewed force.

Mario Sousa
15 June 1998
mario.sousa@telia.com

How Soviet Democracy Worked in the 1930s

2011-11-30T17:46:00.000-05:00

Sam Darcy

….In December of 1936 the Russian Communist Party was to hold its annual election of officers. Until then nominations and elections to Communist Party posts had always been openly made. By this practice such members as might dislike some powerful office-holder often felt limited in expressing their opposition for fear of reprisal. The Central Committee decided to put its entire leadership to the test as to whether they were really acceptable to the membership. Those who were performing a useful public service would likely be re-elected and those who were simply holding on to a sinecure and a place of power would be hard put to hold on to their posts. For this they introduced the secret ballot.

The results were surprising. In some districts of the Party the whole leadership were swept out of office. In others there was severe criticism leveled against the leadership by a good-sized opposition vote although on the whole, the national leadership of the Party received a resounding endorsement. The party felt greatly refreshed by the new people elected to office and the elimination of those who had become hardened bureaucrats and were no longer welcome to the rank and file.

The fight against bureaucracy had, ever since the establishment of the Soviet Government, been one of the chief self-imposed tasks of the more responsible Soviet leaders. Nepotism, favouritism and factional group practices had bred an unhealthy situation where, whenever one man got a post of responsibility in some industry or office, he would immediately bring in as his assistants all those whom he for one or another reason favoured and gave them the most desirable posts under him. Often those people were not qualified and even where they were qualified the feeling of having a protector caused them to become slothful and bureaucratic. Besides which, the tendency was for such a key person to increase the staffs under him beyond the needs of the enterprise in which he was engaged both because he wanted he wanted to ‘take care of’ all his friends as well as because he felt the larger the staff under his control the greater his influence.

The problem finally became serious enough for the Government to take measures, which they did beginning in 1935. On one occasion it was discovered that there was a grave shortage of harvest hands. As against that it was estimated that there were at least 25,000 workers in Moscow offices who were not absolutely necessary to the continued functioning of the economy of the country. After an educational campaign each government trust was simply given a quota of office workers it would have to surrender to agricultural work. And with proper selection, 25,000 office workers were transferred from Moscow to places of production.

The battle to keep the nation on its toes against the creeping paralysis which the opposition on one hand deliberately tried to introduce and bureaucracy by its very existence tended to bring about was waged with particular severity in the popular elections to the All-Soviet Union Congress which followed the adoption of the new Soviet Constitution in December of 1935 [sic: 1936 – transcriber’s note].

Watching that election close at hand it struck me as being curious that in all the discussions of Soviet Democracy and its comparison to democratic practices in other countries one rarely got a picture of how the channels of democratic expression of the people operated in their new electoral process.

Looking at it from 3,000 miles away it appeared as if there was one electoral ticket and the people were given the chance to vote ‘yes or no’ on it. This was indeed true of Nazi elections but it is completely a false picture when applied to the Soviet Union.

To start with, in the Soviet Union politics and elections are not the special duties of a political party. If one does not understand that paramount fact everything else is likely to be unclear. Nominations to public office are not made by a political party alone. The Communist Party does indeed put forward many candidates but so do the trade unions nominate independent candidates for political office; so do the cooperatives, the cultural organisations, the scientific academies, the youth organisations, whatever special women’s organisations exist and every other organisation or institution that desires to. In short, nominations for office, which in our country stems only from political parties, in the Soviet Union stems from every possible people’s organisation.

The second thing that must be understood about Soviet elections which give them their special democratic quality is that the emphasis in the selection of candidates does not lie in the final vote but lies in the choosing of the nominees.

I had the privilege of observing the nominations and elections in the district in which I lived and worked from beginning to end. The particular election which I referred to was the All-Union elections for selecting of delegates to the All-Union Soviet Congress, that being equivalent of our choosing of members of the United States House of Representatives in Washington. Each institution in the congressional district in which I resided and worked held meetings of the people to nominate candidates. Meetings were held in factories. The Moscow university, which was in this district held a meeting. The Great Lenin Library held a meeting of its staff to put forward candidates. So did all of the cooperative stores associations that operated there. So did the trade union organisations, the Communist Party, the youth organisations, etc. etc. A great many candidates were put forward in each meeting. The procedure for each candidate was to stand up and give a brief biography of his life and reasons why he should or should not be nominated. It was considered a lack of civic responsibility for a candidate to decline out of hand. If he thought he should not be elected it was has duty to take the platform, provide a brief biography of his life, and give the reasons why he should not be accepted. Two whole weeks were set aside for this procedure. Some organisations met every night for the entire period and examined thousands of people who were put forward as candidates there. Each candidate had to submit to questions from the floor. At the end of that time one or more nominees were put in nomination for the entire district with the endorsement of the body choosing him or her.

In addition to putting forth nominees each group chose a number of delegates on a proportional representation basis to a congressional district conference. The congressional district conference also met for a period of about two weeks. The nominations were put before that body. The same procedure was gone through there, each nominee was examined, his or her qualifications weighed against other nominees and finally a vote taken by the delegated body for the final choice.

Frequently the body decided to accept not one nominee but two or three or even more. These nominees, after this thorough process of distillation were then submitted to the electorate for final voting. And the electorate thus, by popular majority, judged one of the candidates in that congressional district they desired to have represent them in the All-Union Soviet Congress.

From this it can be seen that far from lacking in democracy this process is a very democratic one in that it gives the common people a very direct hand in who is nominated and we know from our own electoral system that in the last analysis the selection of the nominee is the critical thing in any election.

In the election which I witnessed I saw nominees ‘put through the mill’ in a manner which would be very wholesome if applied to our own country. Their contributions and social service, their own interest in public affairs, their record of unselfish service, their own schooling and education and the degree to which they took advantage of self-improvement and social betterment were all gone into. Men of bad personal and moral conduct who offered themselves as candidates had their neighbours, friends and fellow workers who knew them well, discuss them right on the floor. It was in some respects our New England Town Meeting used on a colossal national scale covering an election in which 170 million peop1e were involved. It is this process which provides the incentive for social service and social striving and interest in the public welfare by people throughout their country. In that election, for example, about half of the previous members of the All-Soviet Congress were not reelected. Many a smug big-wig including numerous Communists were surprised at the end of that election campaign to find themselves unwanted and many a person who was not even a member of the Communist Party who had given no thought to politics but who had served the public weal well out of sheer devotion to the people in their own professions or occupations or in some volunteer organisation found themselves members of the highest governing body, the new Congress of the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics. It is a new type of democracy and I would say it serves them very well.

Every generation must be vigilant concerning its own liberties. No people can guarantee the liberties of succeeding generations, liberties won can be lost again. Therefore mere mechanical electoral organisation is of itself no guarantee for all time that the liberties of the people will be assured, but insofar as any political structure can be so set up as to be most responsive to the moods and the needs of the people, I would say that the Soviet Union has made great strides forward in that direction.

But even the Soviet Union, as we were constantly reminded, was not an isolated entity living in a vacuum – it was part of the real world. West Europe and Asia were seething with the first battles of the Second World War. There were things to do to help the embattled Spanish people, the underground movement in the Nazi dominated countries, the promotion of People’s Front movements against the Nazis in the democratic countries and the growing anti-Japanese forces in China.

My primary interest was of course the United States. But the United States also does not live as an isolated entity in a vacuum and the future of our country was in no small measure being decided in Europe and in Asia. Like thousands of other Americans I decided to lend a hand where I could be useful. I was fortunate in being able to make almost a free choice.

Typescript Manuscript

Transcribed by George Gruenthal
From: Sam Darcy Memoirs, Chapter XX, pp. 25-31, Tamiment Library, New York

Russia's Economic Growth, 1934

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by Alfred Senn

Foreign Imports No Longer a Necessity

Of the basic achievements recorded by the Party at the Seventeenth Congress, one of the most fundamental must be considered the fact that the USSR is no longer dependent on the capitalist world, either technically or economically. Our foreign trade, based as it is on a foreign trade monopoly, has contributed incalculably to the achievement of this independence.

During the sixteen years since the establishment of the Soviet Union-from 1918 to 1933-our imports have been considerable, reaching a total of 8.4 billion gold rubles.

Our import policy has at all times been guided by singleness of purpose: at all stages of our Socialist construction the structure of imports was made completely subservient to the vital tasks in hand.

Thanks to our foreign trade monopoly we imported almost exclusively producer's goods. Of the 8.4 billion gold rubles, 7 billion, or almost 85 per cent, were expended on the importation of the means of production, 3.3 billion being spent on machinery.

As early as December, 1920, at the Eighth Congress of the Soviets, Lenin pointed out that:

... the resumption of trade relations will enable us to make large purchases indispensable machinery. We must bend all our energies to this end ... to introduce a more equitable exchange of commodities so that we shall be able to buy as quickly as possible the necessary machinery for our extensive plans of rehabilitating the national economy. The quicker this is done, the greater will be our chances of achieving economic independence of the capitalist world. My italics, A. P. R.)

The execution of this plan outlined by Lenin and Stalin meant that by extending our economic contacts with the capitalist world and introducing the latest technical innovations and speeding up our Socialist construction by means of considerable imports over a definite period of time, we should prepare for the next stage-the continuation of Socialist construction with a limitation of imports.

It should be stressed here that the contraction of imports could not have occurred of itself. Had not Comrade Stalin with his usual energy taken this matter in hand, the plan would never have been realized.

The results are now before us. As late as 1931 we spent over 600 million rubles on imported equipment; in 1932, 270 million; by 1933 the figure had fallen roughly to 60 million rubles.

Since the establishment of Soviet foreign trade over 3 billion gold rubles' worth of machinery and equipment have been imported, of which more than 2.1 billion rubles' worth was imported during the last few years. As a result, the Soviet machine-building industry, created with the assistance of these imports, has been able to increase its output tenfold in comparison with the pre-war production. Today practically all the machinery needed by the Soviet Union is being turned out by Soviet plants. There is not a machine we cannot manufacture.

Scores of millions of rubles were invested by the Soviet Union on the erection of the giant plants of our Socialist construction. The sums expended on imports for the largest of these industrial giants are shown below in round figures.

Stalin Automobile Plant       25 million rubles
Molotov Automobile Plant at Gorki    40
Dneproges Hydro-Electric Power Plant    30
Stalingrad Tractor Plant 35
Kaganovich Ball-Bearing Plant 20
Cheliabinsk Tractor Plant    20
Kharkov Tractor Plant    20

We observe from the foregoing table that considerable sums of foreign currency were expended on the reconstruction and the new construction of our plants. The outlays have proved effective in that today we are independent of the capitalist world both technically and economically.

We recall that the USSR spent more than 225 million rubles on the importation of tractors alone; whereas only 75 to 80 million rubles were spent on imported equipment for the tractor plants. It was the importation of this equipment for the establishment of an auto-tractor industry in the USSR at a cost of 75 to 80 million rubles that subsequently completely dispensed necessity with the necessity of importing tractors.

Extremely important for our technical reconstruction was the fact that the USSR as a rule bought only the latest and most up-to-date equipment, as, for example, that installed in the Ball-Bearing and Frazer Plants, the

Cheliabinsk and Kharkov tractor works and the Gorki Automobile Plant. There are few plants in the world that can compare with them.

Despite the growth of imports of equipment up to 1932 there was a steady reduction in the proportion of imported machines and lathes, etc. This was due to the fact that the output of the home machine-building industry h surpassed the growth of foreign machine imports. The figures of the census of lathes carried out by the Central Statistical Department as of April 10, 1932, are very instructive. On this date there were 227,000 lathes in the m chine shops of the USSR, of which 68,000 or 30 per cent had been install prior to the Revolution, and 159,000 or 70 per cent since the Revolution. But a quantitative comparison alone does not give us a true picture of the progress made. Whereas tsarist Russia produced and imported small-caliber lathes, the USSR has produced and imported high-speed automatic and semiautomatic lathes and machine tools whose productive capacity cannot compared with the old type machines. Of the total number of lathes installed since the establishment of the Soviet Government about 100,000 were imported from abroad; 70,000 of these were imported during the First Five Year Plan. And despite this stupendous importation, the ratio of produced lathes installed in the machine shops continued to grow. Before the war home-manufactured lathes comprised 22 per cent of the total equipment; during the rehabilitation period 30 per cent; during the First Five Year Plan this figure was increased to 38 per cent.

It is noteworthy that the USSR purchased as a rule only the machinery available in the capitalist world. As an example of the most up-to-date equipment acquired we might point to the turbines of 90,000 H. P each that were made to special order in the USA for the Dneproges Hydro-Electric Power Station. There are no turbines of this capacity elsewhere in Europe, and in the whole world there are few that can compare with them. The USSR bought and imported a 15,000-ton press that handles metal billets of up to 15,000 poods (250 tons). This is one of the biggest presses in the world. We purchased rotary presses for the Pravda printing press which produce over two million copies of a four-page newspaper per hour and much other similar large scale machinery.

This extensive importation of the most perfected equipment in addition to the stupendous growth of the Soviet machine-building industry have in large measure modernized the machine tools in Soviet plants. Today the USSR owns the most modern and the newest industrial apparatus in the world. In this respect the capitalist countries are far behind.

As a result of various improvements introduced during the last ten years, the productive capacity of lathes has been increased threefold, and, let us add, most of the lathes in the USA are more than ten years old. Harbord of the National Committee on Industrial Rehabilitation in the USA has come to the conclusion that "if, by some miracle from on high, business should suddenly swell to normal proportions, there is scarcely a factory in the land equipped to fill its orders.¾

Such then, is the situation in the USA, the most highly-industrialized capitalist country in the world. Naturally, the threatening condition, of which Harbord writes, does not apply to us.

During the last few years the drastic curtailment of our imports was accompanied by a simultaneous increase of our construction and production programs.

IMPORTS (According to Returns of Chief Customs Directorate)
(in millions of rubles) 1929 1931 1933
Imports of Machines & Accessories 207 490 131
Agricultural Machines & Spare parts 28 26 2.5
Tractors & spare parts 35 80 2.4
Leather 40 14 3.6
Tanning extracts 7 0.4 0.2
Cotton 117 40 10
Wool 84 32 21
Pig iron    34 125 47
Non-ferrous metals    59 49 22
Artificial fertilizers 9 3 0

We could cite many more figures showing how imports have been curtailed. Suffice it to recall that comparatively recently we were importing 75,000 tons of paper; in 1930 we imported 69,000 tons; in 1931 28,000 tons; but since 1932 the USSR has imported no paper whatever. We observe the same reduction of imports for many other classes of goods.

One of the most outstanding achievements of our Socialist construction during the last two years is undoubtedly the fact that despite the drastic curtailment of imports there has been no slowing down either in the tempo or the extent of our colossal construction. Nor has the USSR allowed this economic construction to be hampered in any way by the extensive preparations made to defend the country in view of the events in the Far East, which, of course, no plan could foresee.

The USSR pressed forward its construction work despite the difficult task of reducing currency liabilities which it assumed and successfully carried out during the last few years.

It seems to me that we do not yet sufficiently realize the successes attained by the USSR in the sphere of Socialist construction.

Imports during the Second Quinquennium: Their Prospects

Having invested 50 billion rubles in its basic industries during the First Plan, the USSR imported equipment to a sum of almost 2 billion rubles.

During the second quinquennium 133 billion rubles have been allocated for capital investments. Should we retain the same ratio of imports as d the First Five Year Plan, the foregoing program of investments would call for the importation of more than 5 billion rubles' worth of equipment. However, we can carry out the plan of the second five year period without importing on such a wide scale.

To fulfill the Second Five Year Plan there is no necessity to import equipment to the amount of 5 billion rubles, or even to the amount of 300 million rubles for that matter. We can complete the Second Five Year Plan with imports scaled down to an insignificant amount.

This is one of the concrete expressions of our technical and economic independence of the capitalist world which we have already achieved in considerable measure.

During the second quinquennium, the Soviet machine-building industry must provide all the basic modern equipment required by our national economy; the development of the economic life of the country must, at same time, depend, fundamentally, on its own resources of raw materials. This signifies one of the greatest victories of the policy laid down by Lenin and Stalin for economic independence.

The capitalist world is still unable to realize what has happened. The German bourgeoisie, which set up a special Russian Committee, is everywhere considered to be the best informed on Soviet affairs. One of the leaders this Russian Committee, Kremer ("the best expert on matters Soviet"), said in 1929: "Were it possible to complete the Five Year Plan in fifty years, that would be grandiose enough. But it's all moonshine."

That was the estimate of the capitalist world at the beginning of the First Five Year Plan.

It is not without interest to recall that our enemies--Trotsky, Kondratiev, Groman and others--also contended that the Soviet Union would become more and more dependent on the world market-on capitalism. Kondratiev, leader and ideologue of the rich peasants-the Kulaks-wrote, for example: "We cannot change the fundamental character of the USSR's international relations or the character of the country which is essentially agricultural."

Nor did the position of Trotsky-that notorious champion of a capitalist restoration in the USSR-differ materially when he said:

Directly or indirectly our Socialist state is always relatively controlled by world market. Here we have reached rock bottom. The tempo of development is not arbitrary. It is ruled by the whole world development, for in the last analysis the world economy controls each of its component parts even though one of them is under a Dictatorship of the Proletariat and is building up a Socialist economy.

How ludicrous these prognostications proved to be!

We are now in a position to fulfill the Second Five Year Plan with an insignificant range of imports. What, then, will be our policy with regard to the distribution of orders abroad? This is receiving the closest attention on the capitalist countries. Indeed, the Soviet Union's import policy has become a riddle for the whole world. Everywhere a lively interest was displayed in the transactions of the Seventeenth Congress: What was the business outlook? Would the Soviet Union continue to be a big buyer? This attitude is not surprising when we remember that Soviet orders, especially orders for machinery and equipment, and particularly in a time of crisis, have been very welcome indeed.

The engineering industry has been the hardest hit of all by the crisis. In some countries, the output of this industry dropped 80 and even 90 per cent in 1932-33 in comparison with 1929. Soviet orders for equipment comprised in certain cases 70 to 80 per cent of the productive capacity of various plants and even of entire branches of industry. The importation of equipment by the USSR consequently had a decisive influence on the world's trade in machinery. Suffice it to say that in 1928-29 the USSR took up 17 per cent of machinery exports of nine of the biggest countries; by 1932 this percentage had increased to 45 and even 50. In certain countries and in certain lines of equipment the USSR frequently bought from 80 to 100 per cent of the exports of the given country. In 1932 the USSR purchased 70 per cent of Germany's total export of lathes and machine tools; 85 per cent of her cranes and 70 per cent of her excavators. The USSR's share in Italy's export of electrical equipment increased in 1932 to 65 per cent. In the British machinery export trade the USSR's share increased from 1.5 per cent in 1928 to 80 per cent in 1932, while for coal-cutting machines the percentage increased from 2.5 to 70. Many similar examples could be cited.

One can therefore well understand how deeply concerned the capitalist world must have been when, especially beginning with 1933, our orders abroad were so drastically reduced, being completely suspended in some cases. For example, orders were curtailed for coal-cutting machines, excavators, cranes, pumps, electrical equipment, turbines, machinery for the textile, printing, food, building and other industries-a huge range of many classes of equipment on the importation of which we had at one time expended scores of millions of rubles.

What then are the prospects of our economic relations with the capitalist world?

We do not stand for "autarchy," but we definitely will not place any extensive orders if there is not a radical change and improvement in the terms and conditions of these purchases. If long-term loans with a small normal interest are proposed we shall weigh the conditions and possibly agree to an extension of imports. But we will not admit any price increases or high charges for credit as happened in the past when we were frequently charged by artificially raised prices.

Even if these conditions do not materialize, we shall, nevertheless, be able to carry out our program, for undoubtedly we have every possibility of completing the Second Five Year Plan with insignificant purchases abroad.

The Soviet Union has achieved considerable successes in the realization of its First Five Year Plan, at the same time drastically reducing its foreign liabilities.

Source: Alfred Senn, ed., Readings in Russian Political and Diplomatic History. Homewood, Ill., Dorsey Press, 1966.

Health in the USSR

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by LAKLAR Journal

The bourgeois press understandably brushes the question of health under the carpet, but it is a subject which has the greatest of importance, especially for people who are fighting for improved conditions of life, as good health is central, fundamental, to a decent life. In our comparisons of socialist and capitalist societies we should give the example of health, for it is a fact that every single socialist society has a good record on public health, has prioritised health, has made comprehensive health care of the highest quality available to all people, whereas no capitalist country has done this. You only have to look at the situation in the world today to see capitalism’s regard for health. According to official statistics, 40 million people die every year due to starvation-related diseases. There were 5.6 million AIDS-related deaths last year and 33.6 million people are known to be HIV-positive (of these, more than half are under 25 and are expected to die within a decade). Such gigantic problems, yet the amount of money that would be needed in order to provide every single person on the planet with decent basic health care is equivalent to around 3% of the world-wide annual military budget. You can see just how decadent monopoly capitalism has become!

Technology and medical science has progressed so much that, in this day and age, there is no reason why everyone cannot be afforded excellent quality health care. There is no reason why all people cannot enjoy good health. Indeed, this should be considered to be a fundamental human right. Instead we face waiting lists and shortages of doctors and beds.

The questions I have been asked to address are the following: What was the policy of the Soviet state regarding health? What was the USSR’s record on health? How was health care organised in the Soviet Union? What developments were made? In the pages that follow I will attempt to tackle these questions.

Medicine in Pre-Revolutionary Russia

The builders of socialism in the USSR inherited a medical system in an appalling state. There was no central medical body in Russia to co-ordinate health matters, the vast majority of the population lived in extreme poverty, there was a shortage of doctors (in some districts there were as few as 1 doctor per 40,000 of the population) and a huge part of the population had never even received medical care from a doctor. Yet despite all this, there did exist a medical movement in Russia which would provide a basis for the first steps towards a socialist health care system.

The first catalyst for an organised medical system in Russia was Peter I, who set up the first Russian hospitals (in Moscow in 1706 and in St. Petersburg in 1715), using doctors from abroad, and the Academy of Science (in 1724) to train Russian doctors. Catherine II followed the lead of Peter, founding a number of hospitals and the first Russian mental asylum (in 1776). However, Russian medicine was still extremely backward. The tsarist bureaucracy was stifling, and professional health care was rarely available to even propertied peasants, and virtually never to the serfs and the industrial workers.

In 1884, the zemstvo – local government system – was introduced in Russia. The zemstvo was a district assembly designed to deal with local matters, including health. It was controlled by the individual landowners, the bourgeoisie and the propertied peasants, each group carrying one-third of the votes. Zemstvo medicine was the first to bring medical care to the peasants, and was the first to set up networks of medical care in the rural areas. Henry Sigerist, author of ‘Socialised Medicine in the Soviet Union’, describes the zemstvos as "paving the way" for Soviet medicine by creating a network of medical stations all over the country that could be improved and increased in number.

The zemstvo medical system was associated more with good intentions than with good practice. It was badly funded and by far unable to fulfil the task it set itself. The exploiting classes, which held the majority vote, were not willing to contribute in a meaningful way to the public health organisations. The zemstvo doctors were enthusiastic and driven by a passion and concern for the health of the population - they devoted their lives to the service of the people. Had their interest been in money they would have been far more successful as private doctors to the rich in the cities. [As a matter of interest, the great Russian playwright Anton Chekhov was at one time a zemstvo doctor]. One of the foremost zemstvo doctors was the famous N.A. Semashko, who would become the first People’s Commissar of Health of the USSR, and who was one of the leading organisers of what would become the best heath care system in the world.

The attitude of the Bolsheviks to Health

The following was included in the program of the CPSU(B):

"As the basis for its activity in the sphere of protecting people’s health, the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) considers primarily the implementation of extensive health-building and sanitary measures with the object of preventing the incidence of disease. Accordingly, the RCP(B) makes its immediate task:

1 and To carry through resolutely extensive sanitary measures in the interests of the working people, such as:

2 improvement of health conditions in populated places (protection of soil, water air from pollution),

3 organisation of public catering on a scientific and hygienic basis,

4 launching of measures to prevent the outbreak and spread of infectious diseases,

5 creating a code of health legislation.

6 To combat social diseases – tuberculosis, venereal diseases, alcoholism etc.

7 To make competent medical and pharmaceutical services available to all free of charge."

The underlying principles of the medical system put forward by the Bolsheviks were: comprehensive preventive medicine, healthy working and living conditions, social insurance and health education. The trend of Soviet medicine was from the start towards prevention rather than cure. In the words of N.A. Vinogradov, writing in the Soviet book ‘Public Health in the Soviet Union’, "The Soviet state has set itself the aim not merely to cure disease but to prevent it; the state is out to create such living and working conditions as would make the occurrence of illnesses impossible". Such an approach to healthcare is, of course, logical - any child can tell you that prevention is better than cure. However, when the interest of those controlling society is to extract as much profit as possible out of the workers and to provide them with as little as possible in the way of social facilities, living standards which are conducive to good health are simply not an option. And the question is not just economic but also organisational. Under socialism, the whole of society, the people, the government agencies etc. are all fighting towards the same aim - the improvement of the standard of people’s lives – thus making planning and organisation possible. This is not the case in capitalist society.

Putting Theory into Practice

Soon after the revolution of 1917, Russia was plunged into civil war. Epidemics were spreading and the death rate was high. In June 1918 the People’s Commissariat of Health was established and "for the first time in the history of medicine a central body was directing the entire health work of a nation" (Sigerist). The first task was to tackle the epidemics which were rapidly spreading across the country and which were gravely affecting the troops fighting for the young socialist state. At the 7th Congress of Soviets, held in December 1919, Lenin said "…and still a third scourge is moving upon us – the louse, typhus, which is mowing down our troops…Comrades, every attention must be given to this problem. Either the lice will defeat socialism or socialism will defeat the lice!"

In the face of extreme adversity, in the face of a shortage of soap, a shortage of clothing, poor water supply etc., the Commissariat of Public Health embarked upon its most honourable mission on the basis of systematic, planned action. The focus was on improving the network of medical stations, keeping houses in sanitary conditions, providing the population with bathhouses, combating typhus and improving the water supply. In April 1919 vaccination was made compulsory. The effect of this measure was profound: for example in Petrograd the number of smallpox cases fell from 800 a month to 7 a month. It was in this period that the old Russian doctors saw that the Soviet government was the defender of the people and their health, and the majority joined in the struggle for the survival of the socialist state, rather than deserting.

Health education played a very important role in the battle against pestilence. In 1920, 3.8m Red Army soldiers attended lectures and talks on hygiene, and in 1919 and 1920, 5.5m hygiene posters, booklets and leaflets were published for distribution in the army alone. Such health education campaigns were also carried out amongst the population as a whole.

In 1922 the imperialist armies were finally defeated, in large part due to the work of the new nation in improving its health. With the end of the war came a new health slogan: "On from the struggle against epidemics to the fight for healthier working and living conditions."

Post-War

Although conditions after the Civil War were far from easy, health improved steadily during the years of the New Economic Policy. By 1928, the number of physicians had increased from the pre-war level of 19,785 to 63,219, the allocation for health protection from 128.5m to 660.8m roubles per year, and the number of hospital beds from 175,000 to 225,000 and the number of nursery places from 11,000 to 256,000. But much more rapid progress was achieved under the first Five Year Plan. People tend to think of the Five Year Plans as they are portrayed in bourgeois history books – concerned only with industrial production and in no way linked to the welfare of the people. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Five Year Plans dealt with all aspects of Soviet life: economic, social and cultural. The plans were not imposed from above but based on extensive discussion and data collection by the workers themselves. In health terms, the First Five Year Plan was largely concerned with increasing availability of, and access to, the medical service: more medical stations, more hospital beds, more nurses and more physicians were needed. The plan was based on a full report by the regional health bodies, the hospitals, the farms and the factories on what was required and what was achievable. In the four years it took to complete the first Five Year Plan, the number of doctors increased from 63,000 to 76,000, the number of hospital beds increased by more than half and the number of nursery place increased from 256,000 to 5,750,000. 14 new medical colleges were established, along with 133 new secondary medical schools.

By now medical facilities were available to all Soviet citizens, and so the Second Five Year Plan concerned itself more with improving the quality of the health care administered. One of the principal tasks was to improve medical education and hence to improve the standard of physicians. New medical and scientific research institutes were established, among them being the enormous Institute of Experimental Medicine, on the initiative of Stalin, Molotov, Voroshilov and A.M.Gorky. Health education among the workers and peasants continued to form a central part of the fight to improve health. S.M. Manton, a British scientist who visited the USSR in 1951, gives a useful account of the widespread health education in the USSR in her book ‘The Soviet Union Today’. She notes that: all doctors were obliged to spend at least 8 hours of every month teaching preventive medicine and answering the questions of the public in places such as parks, lecture rooms and health centres; education in preventive medicine and hygiene was carried out thoroughly in schools; posters and pamphlets were to be found all over the Soviet Union, in different types of institutions, giving instruction on basic health care.

By the end of the Second Five Year Plan, the foundations for a socialist health system characterised by excellence had been cemented. The health system of the USSR was far and away the best in the world.

How was Health care organised in the USSR?

In the Soviet Union, the health programme was administered in the most democratic way, and, like everything in the Soviet Union, its administration had the form of a "triangle with a very broad base". The base of this triangle was formed by the thousands upon thousands of committees which existed in every factory, every farm, every place of work. These committees co-operated with the local doctors in order to give feedback and improve services; they made sure that the workers’ social insurance funds were spent in the most appropriate way; they controlled the hygienic conditions of their place of work and the nurseries; and they organised health education in the workplace. Elected representatives from the workplace would be involved in the next highest form of organisation – the Soviets. The Soviets were responsible for the supervision of all hospitals and sanitary establishments, sanitary inspections, wider organisation of education in personal hygiene and so on. The next highest form of organisation was the rayon/district, of which there were around 3,000 in the USSR. In each district there was a Health department, headed by a Rayon Inspector of Public Health, who was held responsible for the entire health work of the district, The Health Departments controlled, inspected and advised all medical institutions in the district. At the apex of the pyramid stood the Commissariat of Health, which was advised by the various scientific research institutions.

By organising the health system in such a way, the entire population was involved directly, and hence felt very strongly about improving the health of the nation. Habits and attitudes of the people changed dramatically from the pre-revolutionary days. Sigerist describes some of his experiences in 1936:

"The habits of the Russian people have been changed radically in a very short time. The cities are spotlessly clean, and the foreigner soon learns that cigarette butts are not supposed to be thrown on the street but into special cans placed at every corner. I remember a long railroad ride from Moscow to Kazan during which the conductor came to clean my compartment every two hours, which was more often than I liked. When I asked her to let me sleep in peace, she said ‘Well, citizen, I have to clean the compartment because the inspector may come in at any station, and the car must be kept as clean as it was when we left Moscow – but I will do it without disturbing you.’ No visitor is allowed to go into food factories, medical institutions, or nurseries without sterilised gown and cap. Such regulations may sometimes seem exaggerated, but they are part of a great educational programme, and far-reaching results cannot be expected unless there are strict rules which must be followed literally."

Ever-increasing spending on health resulted in continually-improving services. By 1937 there were 132,000 doctors in the USSR, as compared to 2,000 in tsarist Russia. The difference was most marked in the non-Russian republics. In Azerbaijan there were, by 1941, 2,500 doctors, whereas before the revolution there had been 291. In Tajikistan there had been only 13 physicians. By 1941 there were 372. In tsarist Russia there were 9 child and maternity welfare centres. In 1938 there were 4,384. Kindergartens, nurseries, rest homes for mother and child – all of these were built. By the time the 2nd 5-year plan had been completed, hospitals, hygiene institutes and health centres were to be found all over the USSR. All types of treatment – hospital treatment, physiotherapy, radiotherapy, sanatorium cures, dental treatment, maternity services and so on – were available to Soviet people free of charge. Sanitary Commissions were organised in apartment homes. The members of these commissions had been elected by the local population and were trained in special Hygiene Education Centres. The public health budget of the USSR in 1937 was approximately 75 times that of Russia in 1913. The per capita expenditure for medical purposes in 1913 was just 90 kopecks. By 1937 it had increased to 60 roubles.

As a result of the social insurance system whereby all workers and peasants contributed a certain percentage of their earnings to the social insurance fund, ALL aspects of health care were free – not like in England, where you have to pay for prescriptions, for dental care, for physiotherapy, for osteopathy, and where the national health service is so badly funded that you cannot expect decent health care from it.

Private medicine in the USSR was never banned, but withered away, since people had a free service of equally good, if not better, quality.

The material basis for bad health was got rid of. In the capitalist world, the main source of disease is poverty. It is well documented that the poor suffer considerably worse health than the rich. Pappas et al (1993) report that, in 1986, Americans with a yearly income of less than $9,000 had a death rate 3-7 times higher than those earning $25,000 or more.

The British General Household Survey of 1989, in a study of thousands of people, showed the existence of long-term illness to be twice as high for unskilled manual workers as for professionals such a doctors and lawyers, and surely a comparison taking into account the vast army of unemployed would produce even more frightening results. These statistics are no coincidence, nor are they indicative of some kind of genetic weakness of poor people. They merely highlight the fact that the working class is forced into living conditions which are not conducive to good health. If you are short of money, you are forced to live in poor accommodation. The council does not clean your streets, and you’re lucky if your rubbish is taken away even on a weekly basis. Heating is expensive, so you must compromise your health in order to keep the bills low; healthy food is expensive; warm clothing is expensive; hot water is expensive; cleaning products are expensive; exercise is expensive; treatment is expensive; the air is polluted; the streets are dirty; the buses and trains are rarely cleaned and are hence a breeding ground for disease. It is little wonder that the nation’s health is so bad.

"In the USSR… unemployment, destitution and poverty have been permanently done away with on the basis of the abolition of the exploitation of man by man. In a remarkably short period of time the socialist state has succeeded in raising the material and cultural level of the entire population enormously, thereby laying a firm foundation for successful work in the field of public health"

(Professor N. Propper-Grashchenkov, Assistant People’s Commissar of Public Health, in an article entitled ‘Public Health Protection’).

The Soviet Union wiped out slums and provided both town and country with water mains, sewer systems and electricity. In addition to this, the quality and quantity of the foods available were increased beyond all recognition. The output of the food industry in the USSR in 1938 was approximately 6 times the output of the food industry of Tsarist Russia in 1913. Nutritious food was made available to the entire population, and its production and consumption increased constantly. Over the period of the second Five Year Plan, consumption by workers of fruits and berries increased three-fold, consumption of ham, bacon and other cured meats increased five-fold, and consumption of eggs increased two-fold. In 1938 the per capita consumption of protein was over 100g per day, compared with 35g in Germany. The national payroll in 1938 was three times what it was even in 1932.

Not only this. Research over the last few decades has proved that, in addition to material factors, psychological factors are a major cause of illness. There has been found to be a direct link between stress, especially stress over which a person has no control, and immune function. Of course the workers, with the conditions they face, suffer the greatest stress, and this affects their health. It has also been demonstrated that there is a definite link between levels of control and health. Researcher such as Kobasa et al (1979) show that those who feel themselves to have little control over their lives, even when adjusting for other influencing factors, suffer from worse health. Under capitalism, the small minority, the bourgeoisie, is in control, and the life of the average worker is in the hands of the ruling class. The USSR, by putting control in the hands of the proletariat, by allowing the necessities of life to be supplied plentifully, and by providing decent leisure facilities, was able to improve peoples’ psychological as well as material conditions, and hence further improve health.

Results of the Health care in the USSR

I would like to conclude by quoting some of the direct results of the USSR’s attention to health care:

· By 1938, the 21 years of Soviet rule had brought about a 50% reduction in child mortality rate.

· The height of the average Soviet child in 1938 was one and a quarter inches greater than that of the average child in tsarist Russia.

· The weight of the average Soviet child was eleven and a half pounds greater in 1937 than in 1925.

· The chest expansion of the average Soviet child in 1938 was roughly 1 inch greater than that of the average child in tsarist Russia.

· Incidence of tuberculosis decreased 83% under Soviet rule up till 1938 and continued to decrease.

· Cases of syphilis decreased 90% by 1938 and continued to decrease.

· The death rate in 1937 in the USSR was 40% below the death rate in Russia in 1913 (implying a much higher life expectancy)

· The birth rate increased constantly. Even just from 1936 to 1937 the birth rate increased by 18%. In Leningrad the natural increases in population increased from 5.3 per 1000 in 1913 to 18.6 per 1000 in 1937.

· Reported cases of sickness and accidents decreased consistently.

Such figures provide absolute proof of the benefits of socialism to peoples’ health, even though they really only reflect 10 years of socialist construction. I have not had the time or material to cover much of the period after the second world war (this shall be done at a later date), but the period from 1945 to 1953 certainly saw massive improvements in the peoples’ health in the USSR.

Even by the mid-thirties, health care in the USSR far outstripped the health care in the western world. The report of the Administrator of the United States Federal Security Agency, published in 1948, showed that a sixth of the US population suffered from chronic ailments, 200,000 children were afflicted with epilepsy, 175,000 had tuberculosis and 500,000 were in need of surgical or orthopaedic treatment. However, decent medical care remained out of reach for a large part of the population. This situation has still now seen very little improvement. It is estimated that in the US, the richest country in the world, 40 million people are without health care because they cannot afford the health insurance. Those who do have health care (mainly in the form of Health Maintenance Organisation (HMO) schemes provided for employees) find the quality of the health care afforded to them to be wholly inadequate. In a recent survey conducted by the OECD, 61% of respondents said that the HMO care plans have decreased time being spent by the doctors with the patients; 63% said that HMO schemes made it harder for sick people to see specialists; and 50% said that there is now a decreased quality of health care for the sick.

In Britain, the situation within the NHS goes from bad to worse. The number of hospital beds has fallen from 194.000 to 103,000 over the last decade and the number of doctors per 1,000 head of population has fallen below three. Horror stories such as that of the man, whose cancer operation was cancelled four times and whose condition subsequently became inoperable, are becoming commonplace. Even Lord Winston, New Labour’s favourite doctor, felt compelled to speak out (only to be put under severe pressure from the Downing Street spin doctors). He said that Labour’s reorganisation of the health service was very bad, and that medical care had been made "deeply unsatisfactory for a lot of people".

The dismantling of the NHS and its gradual transformation towards privatisation are in line with monopoly capital’s policy of dismantling the welfare state. Imperialist competition is driving each of the powers to level wages and social conditions to the lowest denominator. The same dismantling of the welfare state is happening in all imperialist countries, and, by and large, it is social democratic administrations who have been brought in to do the dirty work (this dismantling is presented by governments as positive change – David Blunkett, Labour’s Education Secretary, is on record speaking of the welfare state as "undermining self-reliance"!).

Meanwhile health care in socialist countries has continues to improve by leaps and bounds. Today’s world leaders in health are Cuba and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. It is in these countries that the people enjoy the world’s best health care and where the greatest innovations in medical science are being made. Examples of the extraordinary contributions made by Cuba in the field of medical science include the discovery of vaccines for dengue fever, hepatitis B and meningitis B; the development of policosanol – a medicine derived from sugar cane which lowers cholesterol and treats lipid disorders); and the development of advanced monoclonal antibodies for the treatment of cancer.

Viacheslav Molotov On the New Soviet Constitution

2011-11-30T16:47:00.000-05:00

Speech delivered at the extraordinary eighth Congress of Soviets of the USSR. November 29, 1937

Original Source: Rech tov. V. M. Molotova o novoi konstitutsii, Pravda, 30 Nov 1936, 2.

The strength of socialist democracy lies precisely in the fact that, having arisen as a result of the victory of the proletarian dictatorship, it is growing and expanding day by day, particularly with the growth of culture among the masses. And this reflects the mighty growth of our strength.. After the complete victory of socialism in our country the democracy of the Soviet system is developing with greater force and on a wider scale than ever; and, in its turn, it serves as a powerful lever for the further acceleration of the growth of the forces of socialism. The development of democracy in our country reveals the superiority of socialist democracy over the democracy of bourgeois states.

But here I must make a slight digression and deal with a very peculiar form of "democracy", that of German fascism.

In order to free the hands of the ruling capitalist oligarchy, the German fascists are consistently imbuing the masses, and all the members of the National-Socialist Party itself, with the following idea: "My leaders know what they want. And if they do not know, how can I know and decide?" In other words, this is "democracy" according to the principle: "Don't dare think for yourself, it will be the worse for you."

That is why all the Nuremburg congresses are so unlike real congresses. They are-not congresses but something else.

These "congresses" meet only to listen to two i of 'three speeches by "Fuehrers". No discussion or debates are permitted at these "congresses". No decisions or resolutions are voted on. The masses are permitted to do only one thing and that is to put up with the consequences of such congresses...

A comparison between Soviet democracy and the democracy .of bourgeois countries, even in its best forms, reveals the radical difference between them and the superiority in principle of the former over the latter. One thing is clear, and that is that socialist democracy alone is democracy for the toilers, democracy for the real masses of the people who have emancipated themselves from the rule of the exploiters.

Whoever wants to convince himself of the democratic character of our system must not forget the main thing. And the main thing in the Soviet system, as you know, is what is set forth in Article 6 of the Constitution:

"The land, its deposits, waters; forests, mills, factories, mines, railways, water and air transport, banks, means of communication, large state-organized agricultural enterprises, such as state farms. (sovkhoz), machine and tractor stations and the like, as well as the principal dwelling fund in the cities and industrial localities, are state property, that is, the property of the whole people."

Today all this belongs to the whole people. What more consistent democracy can anyone desire?

Let any other state introduce such measures. If it does we shall admit that the democracy of that state is genuine, universal democracy, such as the democracy in the U.S.S.R.

The new Constitution now gives all citizens of the U.S.S.R. equal rights. It may even be said that the former property-owners have returned-although in a special way-to the administration of property. But today, in taking part in this work through. the medium of the toilers' Soviets, they have become immeasurably richer, for they are now taking part in the administration not of private property but of the property of the whole people.

Of course, there is a deep thought at the back of the minds of the toilers of our country on this matter. They say: "The 'former rich' are receiving rights, that's not bad; but we expect, them to work honestly!"

Comrade Stalin emphasized the democratic character of our system by yet another remarkable fact. He said:.

"The Soviet government liquidated the landlord class and transferred to the peasants more than 150,000,000 hectares of former landlord, government and monastery land; and this was over and above the lands that were already in the possession of the peasants."

We would like to see any bourgeois state, transferring to the peasants without compensation; not 150,000,000 hectares, perhaps, but only 15,000,000 hectares of landlord and other land. We would then be prepared to admit that such a state was beginning to make A serious approach to the position of real democracy, democracy for the toilers.

And yet, somehow, we do not hear that the landlords, the nobility and the monastic hierarchy, consider, from their class point of view, this transfer of land to the peasants to be "democratic". It must be admitted that revolutionary democracy is alien to them.

In 1917, Socialists such as the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks were in power in our country. Everybody knows that they did not use their power for the purpose of transferring the land to the peasants, but for the purpose of procrastination in this matter.

Here, too, they proved to be the direct allies of the landlords and the bourgeoisie. And yet, how they boasted about their devotion to "democracy"! Hence, in our times, Menshevik and Socialist Revolutionary "democracy" plays into the bands of the capitalists, landlords, kulaks, nobility and the priests. Hence, "democracy" as conceived by the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries has nothing in common with genuine democracy, which the people need so much.

One other example of Soviet democracy.

The celebrated author A; N. Tolstoi spoke here, just before me. Who does not know that this is ex "Count Tolstoy? And now? One of the best and most popular authors in the Land of Soviets is Comrade Aleksei Nikolaevich Tolstoi. `History' is to blame for this.' But the change was in the right direction. On this all of us, including A. N., Tolstoy himself, are agreed.

The new Constitution will consolidate our profoundly democratic system more than ever. And by the fact that, side by side with the distinct reference to the definite duties of the citizens of the USSR, it firmly guarantees such right as the right to work, the right to rest and leisure, the right to material security in old age, the right to education, complete equality of rights for men and women, complete equality for the nations and races in the USSR etc., we loudly proclaim how socialist democracy should be interpreted.

Even the most perfect forms of democracy in bourgeois states are in reality very restricted and tightly compressed within''the limits of what is actually the rule of the bourgeois minority over the people. No form of democracy under capitalism extends, nor can extend, beyond the limits of the rule of the privileged minority of the bourgeoisie; it fits the rights and liberties of the people to the hard bed of Procustes.

With the aid of its ideologists and its press the bourgeoisie succeeded in acquiring for wretched capitalist democracy, the democracy of 'the bourgeois states, fame as democracy in general, as the "above-class" form of democracy, and even as the "human" form of democracy. In this respect the dexterity of the bourgeois and Social-Democratic politicians and "theoreticians" has been brought to the perfection of that of a juggler.

In actual fact, however, not a single bourgeois state grants, or has ever granted 'the toilers, even a fraction of the genuine democratic rights and liberties which are enjoyed by the toilers of the USSR, and which they will enjoy to an even greater degree under the new Constitution.

In the guise of "people's democracy", bourgeois democracy eulogizes what at best, are the extremely, restricted and extremely curtailed rights of the toilers under the bourgeois system, under which the press, the print shops, printing paper, premises, all the capital and all the power, and hence, actually all rights, belong to the ruling classes. The toilers merely get the crumbs from the rich man's table.

Nevertheless, the workers and the other working strata of the population have learned to use even these "curtailed" bourgeois liberties, even these restricted democratic rights in their own interests for the political enlightenment of the masses, and for the preparation of the forces necessary for the impending battles. One can understand, therefore, why. the workers, and all democratic elements in capitalist countries, are waging such a determined struggle to preserve, and to enlarge, even minor bourgeois-democratic rights and liberties.

On the other hand, it is precisely for this, reason that,in, those countries where they have already lost confidence in, the possibility of influencing the masses the ruling bourgeois classes are adapting the fascist methods of open bourgeois, terrorist dictatorship. It may be said, of course, that one cannot hold on for long by means of terrorism and by committing endless acts of violence against the masses. But evidently the fascist bourgeoisie reasons as follows: "Even if it's only a day, it's mine."

Is it surprising, therefore, that not only the workers and peasants but all honest democratic elements among the petty bourgeoisie and even among the middle bourgeoisie more and more openly refuse to support fascism and fascist-inclined groups?

The rapidity with which the pillars of fascism are being. undermined is evident from a number of facts. Not only do the fascists today refuse to tolerate any survivals of democracy, in their own countries, where, as it is, the people, are "silent, for they prosper", but, it is characteristic that they regard. the very existence of democracy, even democracy in other countries, as a danger to themselves.

Therefore, utterly djsregarding state frontiers and violating all international laws and customs, the fascists of countries well known to. all are interfering with sword in!hand, and. with German "Heinkels" and Italian "Savoys" in the air, in the internal affairs of another country, the people of which refuse to tolerate such gentlemen. It is not without reason that certain good folk, seeing all this going on, say compassionately about the fascists: "Poor fellows, they seem to be in a desperate hurry. Pray God they don't break their necks."

Our attitude toward democracy as one of the most precious boons to the toilets, is 'well known. The successes of democracy in any country are near and dear to us. We rejoice when democratic rights are won no matter where the masses of the people are marching, forward, along this road.

We can have no common language with fascism, the danger of which we do not intend either to belittle or to exaggerate. But we are heart and soul and, what is more, in actual practice, with those who are fighting the fascist reactionaries. We are entirely on the side of those who have at heart the interests of "the whole of advanced and progressive humanity". (Stalin)

The adoption of the new Constitution will further enhance the significance of the USSR as the bulwark and beacon of democracy.

The adoption of the new Constitution, with its complete democratization of the state, which increases the possibilities of achieving further and still greater success in improving the life of the peoples of the USSR -will render invaluable assistance to international socialism, and will give an impetus to the struggle of the workers, peasants and all the oppressed for their rights, for their complete emancipation from fascism, and from capitalism, which engenders and fosters fascist regimes.

The more deeply the Stalin Constitution permeate our lives, the more widespread will be its influence as the, Constitution of socialism and of consistent. democracy, not only in the USSR, but far beyond its frontiers-and the wider will its revolutionary influence spread among the masses of the toilers who are fighting for their emancipation from fascism, imperialism and colonial oppression.

Source: V. M. Molotov, On the New Soviet Constitution. Moscow: Cooperative Publishing Society of Foreign Workers in the U.S.S.R, 1937.

Stalin: The Myth and the Reality

2011-11-30T16:46:00.000-05:00

A Paper Originally Scheduled To Be Read By Bill Bland At The Conference Of 'International Struggle : Marxist-Leninist' In October 1999; Paris.

by Bill Bland

Transcription by Hari Kumar

Today almost everyone who calls himself a Marxist-Leninist accepts that, in its final years, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was dominated by revisionists — that is, by people who claimed to be Marxist-Leninists but who had in reality distorted Marxism-Leninism to serve the interests of an embryonic capitalist class.

On one question, however, there is still disagreement, namely, when did the domination of the CPSU by revisionists begin?

These days, most people date it from the 20th Congress of the CPSU in 1956, when Khrushchev threw off his false Marxist-Leninist mask.

However, there are good grounds for believing that for many years prior to Stalin’s death in 1953, a majority of the Soviet leadership were either concealed or latent revisionists.

Why, for example, did Stalin, who played such an active role in the international communist movement in the 1920s, cease to do so after 1926?

Why did the publication of Stalin’s works, scheduled for sixteen volumes, cease with Volume 13 in 1949, four years before his death?

Why was Stalin not asked to deliver the report of the Central Committee to the 19th Congress in 1952?

Why were Stalin’s last writings confined to subjects like linguistics and the critique of a proposed textbook on economics -- subjects which might be considered harmless to concealed revisionists had not Stalin turned them into attacks on revisionist ideas?

Why did the Soviet government surprise world opinion in 1947 by suddenly reversing its foreign policy in order to endorse the American proposal for the partition of Palestine which has proved so disastrous for the nations of the Middle East?

All this makes sense if — and I believe only if — we accept the fact that for some years before his death, Stalin and his fellow Marxist-Leninists were in a minority in the leadership of the Soviet Union.

The fact of the existence of a revisionist majority in the leadership of the CPSU was effectively concealed by the ‘cult of personality’ that was built up around Stalin.

Stalin himself criticised and ridiculed this ‘cult’ on numerous occasions. Yet it continued.

It follows that Stalin was either an utter hypocrite, or he was unable to put a stop to this ‘cult’.

The initiator of the ‘cult of personality’ around Stalin was, in fact, Karl Radek, who pleaded guilty to treason at his public trial in 1937.

A typical example of the ‘cult’ is the following quotation from 1936: "Miserable pygmies! They lifted their hands against the greatest of all living men, our wise leader Comrade Stalin. We assure you, Comrade Stalin, that we will increase our Stalinist vigilance still more and close our ranks around the Stalinist Central Committee and the great Stalin".

The author of these words was one Nikita Khrushchev, who in 1956 denounced the ‘cult’ as an indication of Stalin’s ‘vanity’ and ‘personal power’.

It was Khrushchev too who introduced the term ‘vozhd’ for Stalin — a term meaning ‘leader’ and equivalent to the Nazi term ‘Fuehrer’.

Why should the revisionists have built up this ‘cult of personality’ around Stalin?

It was, I suggest, because it disguised the fact that not Stalin and the Marxist-Leninists, but they — concealed opponents of socialism — who held a majority in the leadership. It enabled them to take actions — such as the arrest of many innocent persons between 1934 and 1938 (when they controlled the security forces) and subsequently blame these ‘breaches of socialist legality’ upon Stalin.

Stalin himself is on record as telling the German author Lion Feuchtwanger in 1936 that the ‘cult of his personality’ was being built up by his political opponents (I quote:)

“ . . . with the aim of discrediting him at a later date.”

Clearly, Stalin’s ‘pathological suspicion’ of some of his colleagues, of which Khrushchev complained so bitterly in his secret speech to the 20th Congress, was not pathological at all!

On one allegation both Stalin and the revisionists are agreed — that in Stalin’s time miscarriages of justice occurred in which innocent people were judically murdered.

The revisionists, of course, maintain that Stalin was responsible for these miscarriages of justice.

But there is a contradiction here.

Krushchev himself said in his 1956 secret speech (and I quote):

“The question is complicated here by the fact that all this was done because Stalin was convinced that this was necessary for the defence of the interest of the working class against the plotting of ememies. He saw this from the position of the interests of the working class, of the interest of the victory of socialism.”

But only a person who was completely insane could possibly imagine that the arrest of innocent people could serve socialism. And all the evidence shows that Stalin retained his full mental faculties right to his death.

However, the contradiction resolves itself if these judicial murders were carried out, not at the behest of Stalin and the Marxist-Leninists, but at the behest of the revisionist opponents of socialism.

At his public trial in 1938, the former People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs, Genrikh Yagoda, pleaded guilty to having arranged the murder of his predecessor, Vyacheslav Menzhinsky, in order to secure his own promotion to a post which gave him control over the Soviet security services. He then, according to his own admission, used this position to protect the terrorists responsible for the murder of prominent Marxist-Leninists close to Stalin — including the Leningrad Party Secretary, Sergei Kirov, and the famous writer Maksim Gorky.

And in order that the security services should not appear idle, Yagoda arranged for the arrest of many people who were not conspirators, but had merely been indiscreet.

After Yagoda’s arrest, the conspirators were successful in getting him succeeded by another conspirator, Nikolai Yezhov, who continued and intensified this process.

It was because of the suspicions of Stalin and the Marxist-Leninists that the security services were acting incorrectly — were protecting the guilty and punishing the innocent — that they began to use Stalin’s personal secretariat, headed by Aleksandr Poskrebyshev, as their private detective agency.

And it was on the basis of the evidence uncovered by this Secretariat and submitted directly to the Party — that the concealed revisionists, to maintain their cover, were compelled to endorse the arrest of genuine conspirators, including Yagoda and Yezhov.

And it was on Stalin’s personal initiative that in 1938, his friend, the Marxist-Leninist Lavrenty Beria, was brought to Moscow from the Caucasus to take harge of the security services.

Under Beria, political prisoners arrested under Yagoda and Yezhov had their cases reviewed and, as Western press correspondents reported at the time, many thousands of people unjustly sentenced were released and rehabilitated.

Marxist-Lenininists in Britain, in particular, should have no difficulty in accepting the picture of a Marxist-Leninist minority in the CPSU.

How many members of the Communist Party of Great Britain came out in opposition to the revisionist ‘British Road to Socialism’, which preached the absurd ‘parliamentary road to socialism’ when it was adopted in 1951? I know of only four.

The question arises, of course:
if revisionists had a majority in the leadership of the CPSU from the 1930s, why did they not take any steps to dismantle socialism until 1956, after Stalin’s death?

The short answer is that they tried and failed.

In the early 1940s, the economists Eugen Varga and Nikolai Voznsensky both published books openly espousing revisionist programmes, and both were quickly slapped down by the Marxist-Leninists.

Of course, it is important not to exaggerate the extent of these miscarriages of justice.

In the 1960s, anti-Soviet propaganda originally published in Nazi Germany, was republished by a former British secret service agent named Robert Conquest under the more respectable cloak of Harvard University. In his 1969 book ‘The Great Terror’ Conquest puts the number of ‘Stalin’s victims’ (in inverted commas) at ‘between 5 and 6 million’.

But by the 1980s, Conquest was alleging that there had been in 1939 a total of 25 to 30 million prisoners in the Soviet Union, that in 1950 there had been 12 million political prisoners.

But when, under Gorbachev, the archives of the Central Committee of the CPSU were opened up to researchers, it was found that the number of political prisoners in 1939 had been 454,000, not the millions claimed by Conquest.

If we add those in prison for non-political offences, we get a figure of 2.5 million, that is, 2.4% of the adult population.

In contrast, there were in the United States in 1996, according to official figures, 5.5 million people in prison, or 2.8% of the adult population.

That is, the number of prisoners in the USA today is 3 million more than the maximum number ever held in the Soviet Union.

In January 1953, less than two months before Stalin’s death, nine doctors working in the Kremlin were arrested on charges of having murdered certain Soviet leaders — including Andrei Zhdanov in 1948 — by administering to them deliberately incorrect medical treatment.

The charges arose out of an investigation into allegations by a woman doctor, Lydia Timashuk, The accused doctors were charged with conspiracy to murder in conjunction with the American Zionist organisation ‘JOINT’.

Western press correspondents in Moscow insisted that some of the most prominent Soviet leaders were under investigation in connection with the case.

But before the case could be brought to trial, Stalin conveniently died.

The Albanian Marxist-Leninist Enver Hoxha, a tireless oppponent of revisionism and not a man given to indulging in unfounded gossip — insists that Soviet revisionist leaders admitted — nay, rather boasted — to him that they had murdered him. And we know that Stalin’s son was himself arrested and imprisoned for having declared that his father had been killed as part of a plot.

Be that as it may, the arrested doctors were immediately released and officially ‘rehabilitated’.

Then Lavrenti Beria — a scourge of the revisionists second only to Stalin — was arrested in a military coup, tried in secret, and executed.

The way was open for the revisionist conspirators to throw off their masks, expel the remaining Marxist-Leninists from leading positions in the Party, and take the first steps towards the restoration of a capitalist society.

Conclusion

This, then, is the picture of Stalin that emerges from an objective examination of the facts.

It is the picture of a great Marxist-Leninist who fought all his life for the cause of socialism and the working class.

It is the picture of a great Marxist-Leninist who, although surrounded by revisionist traitors, succeeded during his lifetime in preventing this revisionist majority from significantly betraying the working class he loved and restoring the capitalist system he hated.

We in all countries who have taken on the task of rebuilding the international communist movement must see the defence of Stalin as a part of the defence of Marxism-Leninism.

There can be no greater compliment for anyone who aspires to be a Marxist-Leninist than to be called a Stalinist.

The German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact of 1939

2011-11-30T16:45:00.000-05:00

by Bill Bland

Introduction

One of the many stories which circulate about Stalin is that, while the Soviet government was negotiating for a collective security pact with Britain and France directed against German aggressive expansion, he initiated the signing of a pact with Germany which precipitated the Second World War.

Of course, not everything that happened in the Soviet Union at this time was done with the approval of Stalin. In the case of the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact of 1939, however, we have the testimony of Stalin's closest collaborator, Vyacheslav Molotov, that:

"Comrade Stalin . . suggested the possibility of different, unhostile and good neighbourly relations between Germany and the USSR. . ..
The conclusion of the Soviet-German non-aggression pact . . . shows that Comrade Stalin's historical foresight has been brilliantly confirmed".
(V. M. Molotov: Speech at 4th (Special) Session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, 31 August 1939, in: 'Soviet Peace Policy'; London; 1941; p. 16).

The charge that this was a serious mistake on Stalin's part must, therefore, be examined seriously.

The Reorientation of Soviet Foreign Policy

In his notorious book 'My Struggle', written in mid-1920s, the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler expressed frankly the foreign policy the Nazis intended to follow:

"We National Socialists consciously draw a line beneath the foreign policy tendency of our pre-War period. . . . We stop the endless German movement to the south and west, and turn our gaze towards the land in the East. .
If we speak of soil in Europe today, we can primarily have in mind only Russia".
(A. Hitler: 'Mein Kampf'; London; 1984; p. 598, 604).

Thus, the coming to power of the Nazi government in Germany in January 1933 heralded a situation in Europe which clearly presented great danger to the Soviet Union -- and not, of course, to the Soviet Union alone.

The Marxist-Leninists in the leadership of the Soviet Union, concerned to defend the socialist state, responded to this new, more dangerous situation by reorientating Soviet foreign policy, by adopting a policy of striving for collective security with other states which had, objectively, an interest in maintaining the status quo in the international situation.

The Objective Basis of Collective Security

The objective basis of the Soviet policy of collective security was that the imperialist Powers of the world could be divided into two groups.

One group -- Germany, Italy and Japan had a relatively high productive power and relatively restricted markets and spheres of influence. As a result, these Powers had an urgent need to change the world to their advantage; they were relatively aggressive Powers.

Another group of imperialist Powers -- Britain, France and the United States -- had relatively large markets and spheres of influence and thus had objectively more need to keep the world as it was than to see it changed; they were relatively non-aggressive Powers.

Stalin, who argued that the Second World War had already begun, summed up this position to the 18th Congress of the CPSU in March 1939:

"The war is being waged by aggressor states, who in every way infringe upon the interests of the non-aggressor states, primarily, England, France and the USA. .
Thus we are witnessing an open re-division of the world and spheres of influence at the expense of the non-aggressive states."
(J. V. Stalin: op. cit.; p. 14).

As a socialist state, a working people's state, the Soviet Union had the strongest interest of any state in the preservation of peace.

The Soviet government's policy in the 1930s, therefore, was to strive to form a collective security alliance with the European non-aggressive imperialist states, Britain and France -- a collective security alliance strong enough either to deter the aggressive imperialist states from launching war or to secure their speedy defeat.

The Soviet Government summed up this post-1933 foreign policy in 1948:

"Throughout the whole pre-war period, the Soviet delegation upheld the principle of collective security in the League of Nations".
('Falsifiers of History: Historical Information'; London; 1948; p 15).

Appeasement

Although, as we have seen, Stalin maintained that the British and French imperialists had, objectively, an interest in joining the Soviet Union in such a collective security alliance, the governments of Britain and France, led respectively by Neville Chamberlain and Edouard Daladier, did not recognise this objective fact because of their detestation of socialism and the Soviet Union and their wish to see it destroyed.

As Stalin told the 18th Congress of the CPSU in March 1939:

"England, France and the USA . . . draw back and retreat, making concession after concession to the aggressors.
Thus we are now witnessing an open redivision of the world and spheres of influence at the expense of the non-aggressive states, without the least attempt at resistance, and even with a certain amount of connivance. .
How is it that the non-aggressive countries . . . have so easily, and without any resistance, abandoned their positions and their obligations to please the aggressors?
Is it to be attributed to the weakness of the non-aggressive states? Of course not! Combined, the non-aggressive, democratic states are unquestionably stronger than the fascist states, both economically and militarily. . .
The chief reason is that the majority of the non-aggressive countries, particularly England and France, have rejected a policy of collective security, of collective resistance to the aggressors, and have taken up a position of 'non-intervention'......
The policy of non-intervention reveals an eagerness, a desire, not to hinder Germany, say, . . . from embroiling herself in a war with the Soviet Union. .
One might think that the districts of Czechoslovakia were yielded to Germany as the price of an undertaking to launch war on the Soviet Union".
(J. V. Stalin: op. cit.; p. 14-15, 16).

British Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax is on record as telling Hitler in November 1937 that

"he and other members of the British Government were well aware that the Fuehrer had attained a great deal. . . . Having destroyed Communism in his country, he had barred the road of the latter to Western Europe and Germany was therefore entitled to be regarded as a bulwark of the West against Bolshevism. .
When the ground has been prepared for an Anglo-German rapprochement, the four great West European Powers must jointly set up the foundation of lasting peace in Europe".
('Documents on German Foreign Policy: 1918-1945', Series D, Volume 1; London; 1954; p. 55).

Nevertheless, the Soviet Marxist-Leninists understood that this policy of 'appeasement' ran, objectively, counter to the interests of the British and French imperialists and counter to the interests of the British working people They therefore calculated that, if the Soviet government persisted in its efforts to form a collective security alliance with Britain and France, sooner or later the appeasers in Britain, which dominated France,. would be forced out of office by the more far-seeing representatives of British imperialism (such as Winston Churchill and Anthony Eden) in cooperation with the British working people.

(This, of course, actually occurred in 1940, but only after war had broken out in Europe).

The Anglo-French-Soviet Negotiations

On 31 March 1939, without consulting the Soviet Union, the British government gave a unilateral guarantee to defend Poland against aggression.

The leader of the liberal Party, David Lloyd George, told the House of Commons:

"I cannot understand why, before committing ourselves to this tremendous enterprise, we did not secure beforehand the adhesion of Russia. . . . If Russia has not been brought into this matter because of certain feelings that Poles have that they do not want the Russians there, . . . unless the Poles are prepared to accept the one condition with which we can help them, the responsibility must be theirs".
(Parliamentary Debates. 5th Series, House of Commons, Volume 35; London; 1939; Col. 2,510).

The Anglo-French guarantee stimulated public pressure on the appeaser governments to at least make gestures in the direction of collective security.

So, on 15 April 1939 the British government made an approach to the Soviet government suggesting that it might like to issue a public declaration offering military assistance to any state bordering the Soviet Union which was subject to aggression if that state desired it.

Two days later, on 17 April the Soviet government replied that it would not consider a unilateral guarantee, which would put the Soviet Union in a position of inequality with the other Powers concerned. It proposed:

Firstly, a trilateral mutual assistance treaty by Britain, France and the Soviet Union against aggression;

Secondly, the extension of guarantees to the Baltic States (Estonia, Finland, Latvia and Lithuania), on the grounds that failure to guarantee these states was an open invitation to Germany to expand eastwards through invasion of these states;

Thirdly, that the treaty must not be vague, but must detail the extent and forms of the military assistance to be rendered by the signatory Powers.

On 27 May the British and French governments replied to the Soviet proposals with the draft of a proposed tripartite pact. The British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain commented on the British draft in a letter to his sister at this time:

"In substance it gives the Russians what they want, but in form and presentation it avoids the idea of an alliance and substitutes declaration of intention. It is really a most ingenious idea".
(Neville Chamberlain Archives, University of Birmingham, 11/1/1101).

Vyacheslav Molotov, who had just taken over the post of People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs from Maksim Litvinov, rejected the draft on the grounds that it proposed in the event of hostilities not immediate mutual assistance, but merely consultation through the League of Nations.

On 2 June the Soviet government submitted to Britain and France a counter-draft making these joints.

The British and French governments responded by saying that Finland, Estonia and Latvia refused to be guaranteed.

The Soviet government continued to insist that a military convention be signed at the same time as the political treaty, in order that there might be no possibility of any hedging about the application of the latter. On 17 July Molotov stated that there was no point in continuing discussions on the political treaty until the military convention had been concluded.

On 23 July the British and French governments finally agreed to begin military discussions before the political treaty of alliance had been finalised, and a British naval officer with the quadruple-barreled name of Admiral Reginald Plunkett-Ernie-Erle-Drax was appointed to head the British delegation. No one, apparently, had informed the British government that the aeroplane had been invented, and the delegation left Tilbury by a slow boat to Leningrad, from where they proceeded by train to Moscow. When the delegation finally arrived in Moscow on 11 August, the Soviet side discovered that it had no powers to negotiate, only to 'hold talks'. Furthermore, the British delegation was officially instructed to:

"Go very slowly with the conversations";
('Documents on British Foreign Policy;', 3rd Series, Volume 6; London; 1953; Appendix 5; p. 763).

Nevertheless, the military talks began in Moscow on 12 August.

On 15 August the leader of the Soviet delegation, People's Commissar for Defence Marshal Kliment Voroshilov, told the delegates that unless Soviet troops were permitted to enter Polish territory it was physically impossible for the Soviet Union to assist Poland and it would be useless to continue discussions.

This point was never resolved before the Anglo-French-Soviet negotiations were negotiations were adjourned indefinitely on 21 August -- after the Soviet government had decided to sign the non-aggression pact with Germany.

Warning Shots from Moscow

At the risk of sounding chauvinistic, I think it is fair to say 'that no diplomats are more expert in hypocritical double-dealing than British diplomats.

Nevertheless, the Soviet leaders were no fools and, as the negotiations for an Anglo-French-Soviet mutual security pact dragged on month after month, a number of warning shots were fired from Moscow.

On 11 March 1939 Joseph Davies, the former US Ambassador in Moscow, now posted to Brussels, wrote in his diary about Stalin's speech to the 18th Congress of the CPSU a few days before:

"It is a most significant statement. It bears the earmarks of a definite warning to the British and French governments that the Soviets are getting tired of 'non-realistic' opposition to the aggressors. . .
It certainly is the most significant danger signal that I have yet seen".
(J. E. Davies: 'Mission to Moscow'; London; 1942; p. 279-80).

Then, on 3 May 1939 the resignation was announced of Maksim Litvinov as Soviet People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, and his replacement by a close colleague of Stalin, Vyacheslav Molotov. Although the Soviet government denied that this signified any change in Soviet foreign policy, it was significant that Litvinov’s name was particularly associated with collective security and he was known to be personally sympathetic to the West.

On 29 June the leading Soviet Marxist-Leninist Andrei Zhdanov published an article in 'Pravda' which, most unusually, revealed that there were differences in the leadership of the CPSU on whether the British and French governments were sincere in saying that they wished for a genuine treaty of mutual assistance:

"the Anglo-French-Soviet negotiations on the conclusion of an effective pact of mutual assistance against aggression have reached a deadlock. . . .
I permit myself to express my personal opinion in this matter, although my friends do not share it. They still think that when beginning the negotiations with the USSR, the English and French Governments had serious intentions of creating a powerful barrier against aggression in Europe. I believe, and shall try to prove it by facts, that the English and French Governments have no wish for a treaty . . . to which a self-respecting State can agree. .
The Soviet Government took 16 days in preparing answers to the various English projects and proposals, while the remaining 59 days have been consumed by delays and procrastinations on the part of the English and French. .
Not long ago . . . the Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Beck, declared unequivocally that Poland neither demanded nor requested from the USSR anything in the sense of granting her any guarantee whatever.....However, this does not prevent England and France from demanding from the USSR guarantees . . . for Poland. . .
It seems to me that the English and French desire not a real treaty accepable to the USSR, but only talks about a treaty in order to speculate before the public opinion in their countries on the allegedly unyielding attitude of the USSR, and thus make easier for themselves the road to a deal with the aggressors.
The next few days must show whether this is so or not."
(A. Zhdanov: Article in 'Pravda', 29 June 1939, in: J. Degras (Ed.): 'Soviet Documents on Foreign Policy'; London; 1953; p. 352, 353, 354).

A final warning shot was fired on 22 July, when it was officially announced that Soviet-German trade negotiations were taking place in Berlin.

The Soviet-German Negotiations

At the 18th Congress of the CPSU in March 1939, Stalin described the basis of Soviet foreign policy as follows:

"We stand for peace and the strengthening of business relations with all countries. That is our position, and we shall adhere to this position as long as countries maintain like relations with the Soviet Union and as long as they make no attempt to trespass on the interests of our country".
(J. V. Stalin: Report on the Work of the Central Committee to the 18th Congress of the CPSU (b). in : 'The Land of Socialism Today and Tomorrow'; Moscow; 1939; p. 18).

On 17 April 1939, the Soviet Ambassador in Berlin, Aleksei Merekalov, had a conversation with the German State Secretary, Baron Ernst von Wiezsaecker, who asked him whether there was any prospect of the normalisation of relations between Germany and the Soviet Union. The Ambassador's reply was in line with Soviet foreign policy:

"There exists for Russia no reason why she should not live with us on a normal footing. And from normal, the relations might become better and better".
('Nazi-Soviet Relations: 1939-1941', Doc. 1; Washington; 1948; p. 2).

On 29 July the German Foreign Office instructed the German Ambassador in the Soviet Union, Count Fritz von der Schulenburg, to tell Molotov:

"We would be prepared . . . to safeguard all Soviet interests and to come to an understanding with the Government in Moscow. . . . The idea could be advanced of so adjusting our attitude to the Baltic States as to respect vital Soviet interests in the Baltic Sea".
('Documents on German Foreign Policy: 1918-1945', Series D, Volume 6; London; 1956; p. 1,016).

On 14 August the German Minister of Foreign Affairs, Joachim von Ribbentropp, cabled Schulenburg, instructing him to call on the Soviet People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, Vyacheslav Molotov, and read him a communication:

"There is no question between the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea which cannot be settled to the complete satisfaction of both countries. . . . The leadership of both countries, therefore, should . . . take action. . .
As we have been informed, the Soviet Government also feel the desire for a clarification of German-Russian relations. . . . I am prepared to make a short visit to Moscow in order, in the name of the Fuehrer, to set forth the Fuehrer 's views to M. Stalin. In my view, only through such a direct discussion can a change be brought about, and it should not be impossible thereby to lay the foundations for a final settlement of German-Russian relations."
('Documents on German Foreign Policy: 1918-1945', Series D, Volume 7; London; 1956; p. 63).

Schulenburg saw Molotov on 16 August and, as instructed, read to him Ribbentropp’s message. He reported to Berlin the same night that Molotov had heard

"With great interest the information I had been instructed to convey. . . ..
He was interested in the question of how the German Government were disposed towards the idea of concluding a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union".
('Documents on German Foreign Policy . . '; op. cit., Volume 7; p. 77).

Ribbentropp replied the same day, directing Schulenburg to see Molotov again and inform him that:

"Germany is prepared to conclude a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union. . . . Further, Germany is ready to guarantee the Baltic States jointly with the Soviet Union. . . .
I am prepared to come by aeroplane to Moscow at any time after Friday, August 18, to deal, on the basis of full powers from the Fuehrer, with the entire complex of German-Russian relations and, if the occasion arises, to sign the appropriate treaties".
('Documents on German Foreign Policy . . .'; op. cit. Volume 7; p. 84).

On 17 August Molotov handed Schulenburg the Soviet government's written reply. The Note began by recalling Germany's policy of hostility to the Soviet Union in the past, and welcoming the prospect of an improvement in German-Soviet relations. It proposed a number of steps in this direction, beginning with a trade agreement and proceeding 'shortly thereafter' to the conclusion of a non-aggression pact.

On 18 August Ribbentropp sent a further urgent telegram to Schulenburg saying that the 'first stage' in the diplomatic process (the signing of the trade agreement) had been completed, and asking that Ribbentropp be permitted to make an 'immediate departure for Moscow', where he would:

"be in a position . . . to take the Russian wishes into account, for instance, the settlement of spheres of interest in the Baltic area".
('Documents on German Foreign Policy . . . ' ; op. cit., Volume 7; p. 123).

On 19 August Schulenburg replied that Molotov had agreed that:

"The Reich Foreign Minister could arrive in Moscow on August 26 or 27.
Molotov handed me the draft of a non-aggression pact".
('Documents on German Foreign Policy . . . ', op. cit., Volume 7; p. 134).

On 20 August Hitler himself intervened with a personal letter to Stalin, saying that he accepted the draft of the non-aggression pact but pleaded that Ribbentropp should be received in Moscow

"At the latest on Wednesday, August 27th."
('Documents on German Foreign Policy . . . ', op. cit.. Volume 7; p. 157).

Stalin replied to Hitler on 21 August, thanking him for his letter and saying:

"The assent of the German Government to the conclusion of a non-aggression pact provides the foundation for eliminating the political tension and the establishment of peace and collaboration between our countries.
The Soviet government have instructed me to inform you that they agree to Herr von Ribbentropp's arriving in Moscow on August 23". ('Documents on German Foreign Policy . . . ', op. cit.; p. 168).

Ribbentropp and his delegation arrived in Moscow on 23 August, and the non-aggression pact was signed later the same day. Its text was almost identical with the Soviet draft which had been submitted to the Germans on 19 August. Neither party would attack the other, and should one party become the object of belligerent action by a third Power, the other party would render no support to this third Power.

Even more strongly criticised than the pact itself has been a 'Secret Additional Protocol' to the pact which laid down German and Soviet 'spheres of interest' in Europe.

But the term 'sphere of interest' does not necessarily have implications of imperialist domination. Where two states are likely to be affected by war but wish this not to involve them in mutual conflict, then the demarcation of spheres of interest is a legitimate and desirable act.

The 'secret additional protocol' declared:

"1. In the event of a territorial and political transformation in the territories belonging to the Baltic States (Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) the northern frontier of Lithuania shall represent the frontier of the spheres of interest both of Germany and the USSR. . .
2. In the event of a territorial and political transformation of the territories belonging to the Polish State, the spheres of interest both of Germany and the USSR shall be bounded approximately by the line of the rivers Narew, Vistula and San".
('Documents on German Foreign Policy . . . ', Series D, Volume 7; p. 246-47).

In ordinary language, this meant that the German government promised that, when German troops invaded Poland, they would not attempt to advance beyond the 'Curzon Line', drawn by the British Foreign Secretary Lord Curzon, after the First World War as the ethnic boundary separating the Poles from the Ukrainians and Byelorussians. The area east of this line had been Soviet territiory which was seized from the Soviet Union following the Revolution.

Germany had thus agreed that it would raise no objection to the Soviet government taking whatever action it considered desirable east of this line.

The Effect of the Non-Aggression Pact

Speaking to the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union on 31 August, Molotov described the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact as:

"A turning-point in the history of Europe, and not of Europe alone".
(V. M. Molotov: Speech to Supreme Soviet of 31 August 1939, in: 'Soviet Peace Policy'; London; 1941; p. 18).

Molotov accepted Zhdanov’s conclusion -- that the British and French had never been serious in their attitude to the negotiations:

"They themselves displayed extreme dilatoriness and anything but a serious attitude towards the negotiations, entrusting them to individuals of secondary importance who were not vested with adequate powers. . .
The British and French military missions came to Moscow without any definite powers and without the right to conclude any military convention. Furthermore, the British military mission arrived in Moscow without any mandate at all".
(V. M. Molotov: ibid.; p. 13).

Molotov declared that the breakdown of the Anglo-French-Soviet negotiations was only superficially the refusal of Poland or accept Soviet assistance, since:

"The negotiations showed that Great Britain was not anxious to overcome these objections of Poland, but on the contrary encouraged them.
Poland . . . had been acting on the instructions of Great Britain and France. ."
(V. M. Molotov: ibid.; p. 12, 14).

He stressed that it was not the Soviet government’s action in signing the pact which had disrupted the Anglo-French-Soviet negotiations. On the contrary, the Soviet government had signed the pact only after the Anglo-French-Soviet negotiations had been irrevocably sabotaged by the British and French governments:

"Attempts are being made to spread the fiction that the conclusion of the Soviet-German pact disrupted the negotiations with Britain and France for a mutual assistance pact. . . . In reality, as you know, the very reverse is true. . . . The Soviet Union signed the non-aggression pact with Germany, amongst other things, because negotiations with France and Great Britain had . . . ended in failure through the fault of the ruling circles of Britain and France". (V. M. Molotov: ibid.; p. 20).

The same point was made by the Soviet People's Commissar for Defence, Marshal Kliment Voroshilov, at a press conference on 27 August 1939:

"Miltary negotiations with England and France were not broken off because the USSR concluded a non-aggression pact with Germany; on the contrary, the USSR concluded a non-aggression pact with Germany as a result, inter alia, of the fact that the military negotiations with France and England had reached a deadlock".
(K. Y. Voroshilov: Press statement of 27 August 1939, in: J. Degras (Ed.):

'Soviet Documents on Foreign Policy'; London; 1953; p. 361).

Furthermore, Molotov emphasised that the Soviet negotiations with Germany were on a completely different level to the Soviet negotiations with Britain and France:

"We are dealing not with a pact of mutual assistance, as in the case of the Anglo-French-Soviet relations, but only with a non-aggression Pact."
(V. M. Molotov: ibid.; p. 18).

So that, as a result of the signing of the German-Soviet pact:

"the USSR is not obliged to involve itself in war, either on the side of Great Britain against Germany or on the side of Germany against Great Britain."
(V. M. Molotov: ibid.,; p. 21).

Even such anti-Soviet writers as Edward Carr agree that the Soviet government’s decision to sign the non-aggression pact with Germany was an enforced second choice, which was taken only with extreme reluctance:

"The most striking feature of the Soviet-German negotiations . . . is the extreme caution with which they were conducted from the Soviet side, and the prolonged Soviet resistance to close the doors on the Western negotiations".
(E. H. Carr: 'From Munich to Moscow: II', in: 'Soviet Studies', Volume 1, No. 12 (October 1949); p. 104).

Indeed, some Soviet leaders -- notably Maksim Litvinov, the former People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs -- urged that more time should be given for the British and French governments to be pressed by public opinion in their countries into serious negotiations for a pact of mutual assistance.

What precipitated the acceptance of the pressing German proposals for a rapprochement was the discovery by Soviet intelligence that the Chamberlain government was secretly negotiating for a military alliance with Germany, so threatening the Soviet Union with aggression from four Powers -- Britain, France, Germany and Italy -- combined. The British Ambassador in Berlin, Sir Nevile Henderson, describes in an official report to Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax, dated 29 August 1939, a conversation with Hitler and Ribbentropp:

"Herr von Ribbentropp asked me whether I could guarantee that the Prime Minister could carry the country with him in a policy of friendship with Germany. I said that there was no possible doubt whatever that he could and would, provided Germany cooperated with him. Herr Hitler asked whether England would be willing to accept an alliance with Germany. I said, speaking personally, I did not exclude such a possibility".
('Documents concerning German-Polish Relations and the Outbreak of Hostilites between Great Britain and Germany on September 3, 1939'; (Cmd. 6106); London; 1939; p. 130).

The fact that both German and Soviet troops entered Poland has been used to equate Fascist Germany with the socialist Soviet Union. But, of course, a socialist state cannot be equated with an aggressive imperialist state. It has to be noted,

Firstly, that Soviet troops entered what had been Polish territory only on 17 September -- 16 days after the German invasion of Poland - when the Polish state had collapsed, as Molotov stressed to the Supreme Soviet on 31 October 1939:

"Our troops entered the territory of Poland only after the Polish State had collapsed and actually had ceased to exist. . . . The Soviet government could not but reckon with the exceptional situation created for our brothers in the Western Ukraine and Western Byelorussia, who had been abandoned to their fate as a result of the collapse of Poland".
(V. M. Molotov: Speech to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, 31 October 1939, in:
'Soviet Foreign Policy'; London; 1941; p. 32).

And the correspondents of the capitalist press agree with Soviet contemporary Soviet sources that the Red Army was welcomed as liberators by the Ukrainian and Byelorussian population concerned. Molotov reported:

"The Red Army . . . was greeted with sympathy by the Ukrainian and Byelorussian population, who welcomed our troops as liberators from the yoke of the gentry and from the yoke of the Polish landlords and capitalists."
(V. M. Molotov: ibid.; p. 33).

In the House of Commons on 20 September, Conservative MP Robert Boothby declared:

"I think it is legitimate to suppose that this action on the part of the Soviet Government was taken . . . from the point of view of self-preservation and self-defence. . . . The action taken by the Russian troops . . . has pushed the German frontier considerably westward. .
I am thankful that Russian troops are now along the Polish-Romanian frontier. I would rather have Russian troops there than German troops".
(Parliamentary Debates, 5th Series, Volume 351; House of Commons; London; 1939; Col. 996).

It is outside the scope of today's seminar to discuss one of the most absurd of the anti-Stalin stories -- that Stalin trusted the Nazis to adhere to the pact and was completely taken by surprise when the German army invaded the Soviet Union in 1941.

Who can forget Stalin's prophetic words in 1931:

"We are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it, or we shall go under".
(J. V. Stalin: 'The Tasks of Business Executives', in: 'Works', Volume I13; Moscow; 1955; p. 41).

Exactly ten years later, in 1941, came the German invasion.

The test of the correctness or incorrectness of Stalin's policy is whether or not it strengthened or weakened the ability of the socialist Soviet Union to defend itself against the future aggression which its leaders knew was inevitable.

Even such virulent anti-Soviet writers as Edward Carr admit that the signing of the German-Soviet non-aggression pact enabled the Soviet Union to put itself in an incomparably stronger defensive position to meet the German invasion:

"The Chamberlain government ., as a defender of capitalism, refused . . . to enter into an alliance with the USSR against Germany. . . .
In the pact of August 23rd, 1939, they (the Soviet government -- Ed.) secured:
a) a breathing space of immunity from attack;
b) German assistance in mitigating Japanese pressure in the Far East;
c) German agreement to the establishment of an advanced defensive bastion beyond the existing Soviet frontiers in Eastern Europe; it was significant that this bastion was, and could only be, a line of defence against potential German attack, the eventual prospect of which was never far absent from Soviet reckonings. But what most of all was achieved by the pact was the assurance that, if the USSR had eventually to fight Hitler, the Western Powers would already be involved".
(E. H. Carr: 'From Munich to Moscow: II', in: 'Soviet Studies', Volume 1, No. 2 (October 1949); p. 103).

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Questions Put By The Audience to The Speaker, And His Replies

Question 1:

It has been suggested that Litvinov was removed from his post simply because he was a Jew, and as such would have been regarded as unsuitable as a negotiator by the Germans. Is there any truth in this?

Reply:

In my opinion, no. We know that Stalin supported the replacement of Litvinov, and Stalin was known to be have been opposed not only to racism but to any concession to racism. Litvinov had, personally, been strongly associated with the policy of collective security and reliable sources testify to his conviction that, with more time, the British and French governments would sooner or later endorse this policy. As soon as the Soviet leaders began to give consideration to the possibility of a rapprochement with Germany, therefore, Litvinov ceased to be a reliable instrument of Soviet foreign policy.

Question 2:

Did Litvinov actually oppose the signing of the non-aggression pact?

Reply:

I have no concrete information as to whether he opposed it on principle, but he is known to have held the view that more time should be given to allow the Anglo-French representatives to see sense'. But he is on record later as declaring that it had been 'a mistake' resulting from Molotov's 'lack of understanding of the functioning of Western democracy'.

Question 3:

In one of Molotov 's speeches following the occupation of Eastern Poland, he referred to the Polish state as being the illegitimate child of Versailles and commented that, happily, it had disappeared. This has been interpreted as demonstrating that the Soviet Union always had territorial designs upon Poland. Was the Soviet position one of supporting the destruction of the Polish state?

Question 3a.

Does this mean that the Soviet Union was prepared to deny the aspirations of the Polish people to have their own state?

Reply:

There is no doubt that the Polish people constitute a nation, and Marxist-Leninists have always recognised the right of any nation to have its own independent state. The Polish state which existed in 1939, however, did not have its boundaries drawn on ethnic lines; it included, for example, millions of Ukrainians and Byelorussians and I feel sure that it was such facts which lay at the basis of Molotov 's statement. In other words it was not any Polish state, but that existing in 1939 which Molotov depicted as a monstrosity. However, that Polish Polish state was not destroyed by the Red Army, but by the German army; the Red Army's occupation of Western Ukraine and Western Byelorussia began only after the Polish state had collapsed and ceased to exist. The Polish state was restored after the United Nations victory over Germany in 1945.

Question 4:

Was a protocol signed as part of the non-aggression pact which led to a line being drawn across Poland dividing the spheres of interest of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany? Is this the secret protocol referred to in the West and did such a protocol really exist? Was the dividing line the Curzon Line?

Reply:

The Anglo-American imperialists published the 'secret protocol' after the Second World War, claiming that it had been discovered in the captured archives of the German Foreign Office. I know that the late Soviet President, Andrei Gromyko, denounces the 'secret additional protocol' as a forgery in his memoirs, but he was a notorious revisionist and not a source I would place any reliance on. As far as I recall, the Soviet government of the time neither confirmed nor denied its authenticity. However, in the Soviet Information Bureau published in 1948, Falsifiers of History, no charge is made that the document is spurious, and this official pamphlet states:

"The Soviet Union succeeded in making good use of the Soviet-German Pact to strengthen its defences, . . . in moving its frontiers far to the West and in barring the way of the unhampered eastward advance of German Aggression".
('Falsifiers of History'; op. cit.; p. 45).

It would seem that this cannot possibly refer to the treaty itself (which makes no mention of spheres of interest or frontiers), but only to the 'secret additional protocol'. As I said before, I do not accept the view that 'spheres of interest' between states are necessarily an phenomenon to be condemned. A socialist state may have its own spheres of interest which it sees as essential to its defence and, where these may conflict with the spheres of interest of other states, it seems to me correct to try to reach agreement with these other states, to map them out in order to maintain peaceful relations with these other states. On the evidence available to me at present, I believe the published 'secret protocol' to be genuine. Yes, the dividing line 'ran along the old Curzon Line.

The above paper was read by Bill Bland at a seminar organised by the STALIN SOCIETY in London in February 1990.

On Juche: The Workers’ Party of Korea and Revisionism

2011-11-30T16:44:00.000-05:00

The Workers’ Party of Korea and Revisionism

by Bill Bland (Communist League)

INTRODUCTION

In his paper entitled ‘THE WPK’S STRUGGLE AGAINST REVISIONISM’, Comrade Dermot Hudson expresses agreement with a reported statement by Nina Andreyeva:

“As the Russian communist leader Dr. Nina Andreyeva remarked at the Copenhagen Seminar on the Juche Idea in 1995…” (Dermot Hudson: ‘The WPK’s Struggle against Modern Revisionism’; p. 1).

The statement concerned was to the effect that the critique of modern revisionism made by the Workers’ Party of Korea was

” … more throroughgoing and mature … ” (Nina Andreyeva: Statement at Copenhagen Seminar on the Juche Idea’ (1995), cited in: Dermot Hudson: ibid,; p. 1).

than that made by the Albanian Party of Labour.

Two short quotations are enough to demonstrate the questionable accuracy of Andreyeva’s assertion. In December 1960. the leader of the Party of Labour of Albania, Enver Hoxha, told the Central Committee of the PLA:

“Following his advent to power, Khrushchev and his revisionist group had worked out a complete plan: Marxism- Leninism would be negated and all those trends and persons that had been unmasked, attacked and defeated as anti- Marxists, or who had been liquidated by Marxism-Leninism in action, were to be rehabilitated … This meant that both Lenin and Stalin had to be attacked … Today it has become even clearer that these intriguers, liars, opportunists and revisionists are doing all these things openly … Our Party is fully convinced that such monstrous accusations and slanders were brought against Stalin to discredit both him as a person, and the work of this great Marxist-Leninist … Khrushchev and his group are on a revisionist course”. (Enver Hoxha: Closing Speech at the 21st Plenum of the CC of the PLA (December 1960), in: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 3; Tirana: 1980: p. 167-68. 169).

In contrast, a Korean delegation in Moscow, signed in July 1961 a joint communique saying that the talks which had been been held there had shown

” … ‘complete identity of views’ between the Soviet and North Korean leaders on questions relating to the international communist movement” (Soviet-Korean Joint Communique (10 July 1961), in: ‘Keesing’s Contemporary Archives’, Volume 13: p. 18,246)

while, for its part, the WPK accepted the Khrushchevite-led Communist Party of the Soviet Union as

” … the universally recognised vanguard of the world Communist movement”. (Soviet-Korean Joint Communique (10 July 1961), in: ‘Keesing’s Contemporary Archives’, Volume 13: p. 18,246).

Furthermore, Comrade Hudson holds that the WPK saw

” … modern revisionism as originating in the 1950s … rather than … as a phenomenon of the late 1980s, associated with Gorbachev”. (Dermot Hudson: ibid,; p. 1).

And yet, when Kim Il Sung visited the Soviet Union in October 1986, he expressed support for the socio-economic reforms adopted at the 27th Congress of the CPSU and, in his banquet speech, praised Gorbachev by saying:

“This new change now taking place in the Soviet Union is unthinkable apart from the energetic activities of Comrade M. S. Gorbachev, a staunch Marxist-Leninist”. (Kim Il Sung: Moscow Banquet Speech of 24 October 1986, in: Dae-Ho Byun: ‘North Korea’s Foreign Policy: The Juche Ideology and the Challenge of Gorbachev’s New Thinking’; Seoul: 1991; p. 186).

Clearly, the attitude of the WPK to revisionism is not that of principled opposition since the 1950s suggested by Comrade Hudson.

THE DEFINITION OF REVISIONISM

Lenin’s definition of revisionism is that it is ” … a trend hostile to Marxism within Marxism” (Vladimir I. Lenin: ‘Marxism and Revisionism’, in: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 11; London; 1943; p. 704).

Perhaps a more comrehensive definition of revisionism would be that it is an ideology which claims to be a development of Marxism but is in reality a deviation from Marxism which assists the anti-socialist aims of a capitalist class.

Clearly, revisionism has direct relevance only to people who believe they are Marxists. To the extent that it can persuade such people of its validity, it separates them from genuine Marxists and diverts them into anti-Marxist political activity.

The struggle against revisionism is thus of particular importance in the period of building a Marxist-Leninist Party in countries where such a party does not yet exist. Some comrades have no difficulty in recognising the revisionist character of Khrushchevite revisionism of the type of ‘The British Road to Socialism’, which is clearly anti- revolutionary, but cannot understand how other types of revisionism may support revolution. But when we say that ‘revisionism assists the anti-socialist aims of a capitalist class’, one must understand that the anti- socialist aims of all capitalist classes do not follow an identical pattern, and we can identify different brands of revisionism corresponding to these different aims.

In particular, the aims of revisionists in developed capitalist countries differ from those of revisionists in colonial-type countries. Thus, the former is anti-revolutionary typified by Khrushchevite revisionism of the type of ‘The British Road to Socialism’. However, revisionism in colonial-type countries is to a certain extent revolutionary, reflecting the desire of national bourgeoisies of colonial-type countries to carry through the national-democratic stage of the revolutionary process in such countries, but to halt the revolutionary process before it proceeds to the socialist stage; this second form of revisionism is typified by ‘Mao Tse-tung Thought’ and, as we shall see, by ‘Kimilsungism’.

THE MARXIST-LENINIST FACETS OF KIMILSUNGISM

In some important respects, Kimilsungism is fully in accord with the Marxist-Leninist principles of the revolutionary process in colonial-type countries. These principles are:

Firstly, that the revolutionary process in such countries consists of two stages: that of national-democratic revolution and that of socialist revolution.

In the first stage,

” … the Korean people … are … faced with the tasks of carrying out an anti-imperialist, anti-feudal democratic revolution”. (Kim Il Sung: ‘On the Building of New Korea and the National United Front’, in: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 1; Pyongyang; 1975; p, 3).

“Comrade Kim Il Sung … pointed out the need to continue the revolution after the completion of the anti- imperialist, anti-feudal democratic revolution so as to build socialist, communist society”., (Kim Han Gil: ‘Modern History of Korea’; Pyongyang: 1979; p. 34).

Secondly, that the Marxist-Leninist Party should strive to mobilise the maximum of class forces objectively possible for each stage of the revolution:

“It is possible to conquer the more powerful enemy only by … necessarily, thoroughly, carefully, attentively and skilfully taking advantage of every, even the smallest, opportunity of gaining a mass ally, even though this ally be temporary, vacillating, unstable, unreliable and conditional. Those who do not understand this fail to understand even a grain of Marxism”. (Vladimir I. Lenin: ‘”Left-wing” Communism: An Infantile Disorder’; in: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 10; London; 1946: p. 112).

“The Communist Party of each country must unfailingly avail itself of even the smallest opportunity of gaining a mass ally for the proletariat, even if a temporary, vacillating, unstable and unreliable ally”. (Josef V. Stalin: ‘Notes on Contemporary Themes’, in: ‘Works’, Volume 9; Moscow; 1954; p. 337).

Thirdly, in the first stage of the revolutionary process, the democratic stage, these forces include the national bourgeoisie:

“To build a Democratic People’s Republic, a united front must be formed of all the patriotic democratic forces, including … the national capitalists” (Kim Il Sung: op. cit.; p. 4).

“The national capitalists participated in the democratic revolution”. (‘Socialist Transformation of Private Trade and Industry in Korea’; Pyongyang: 1977; p. 20).

Fourthly, that the Party should strive to gain the leadership of this stage of the revolution:

“In the struggle to establish a Democratic People’s Republic, the Communists … should be at the head of the masses of the people and lead them forward”. (Kim Il Sung: op. cit.; p. 5).

THE REVISIONIST FACETS OF KIMILSUNGISM

The revisionist facets of Kimilsungism relate to the period of transition to the socialist revolution, and to the socialist revolution itself.

The Question of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat

According to Marxism-Leninism, socialism can be constructed only through the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat:

“Between capitalist and communist society lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. To it there corresponds a period of political transition, in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat”. (Programme of the Communist International’, in: Jane Degras (Ed.): ‘The Communist International: 1919-1943; Documents’, Volume 2; London; 1971; p. 490).

“The revolution will be unable to crush the resistance of the bourgeoisie, to maintain its victory and to push forward to the final victory of socialism unless, at a certain stage in its development, it creates a special organ in the form of the dictatorship of the proletariat as its principal mainstay”. (Josef V. Stalin ‘The Foundations of Leninism’, in: ‘Works’, Volume 6; Moscow: 1963; p. 112).

According to Kimilsungism, however, the dictatorship of the proletariat is unnecessary in a colonial-type country like Korea:

“The democracy we aspire to is fundamentally different from that of Western capitalist countries, nor is it a slavish copy of that in a socialist country … Ours is a new type of democracy most suited to the reality of Korea”. (Kim Il Sung: “On Progressive Democracy’, in: ‘Works’, Volume 1; Pyongyang; 1980; p. 257).

“The establishment of the power of the proletarian dictatorship by force was followed as a last resort in some countries, … In the northern half (of Korea — Ed.) … this was not necessary”. (Baik Bong: ‘Kim Il Sung: Biography’, Volume 2; Beirut; 1973; p. 176).

Accordingly, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, established in North Korea in September 1948, was officially described as a state based on the joint dictatorship of several classes, including the national capitalists:

“A Democratic People’s Republic … must be built by forming a democratic united front … which embraces … even the national capitalists”. (Kim Il Sung: ‘On the Building of New Korea and the Mational United, in: ‘Works’, Volume 1; Pyongyang; 1980: p. 298).

According to Marxism-Leninism, the dictatorship of the proletariat is a state in which the proletariat holds power alone, and does not share power with other classes:

“The class that took political power did so in the knowledge that it was doing so alone. That is intrinsic to the concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat. It has meaning only when one class knows that it is taking power alone”. (Vladimir I. Lenin: Speech Delivered at the All-Russia Congress of Transport Workers, in: ‘Collected Works’, Volume 32; Moscow; 1965; p. 273-74).

“The class of proletarians … does not and cannot share power with other classes”, (Josef V. Stalin: ‘Concerning Questions of Leninism’, in: ‘Works’, Volue 8; Moscow; 1954; p. 27).

However, in violation of these Marxist-Lenininist principles, by 1958 the leadership of the WPK was presenting this state of the joint dictatorship of several classes, including the national bourgeoisie, as ‘belonging to the category of the dictatorship of the proletariat’:

“Some people say that our people s power is not one that exercises the dictatorship of the proletariat because it is based on a united front. This is a completely erroneous view. Today our people’s power is a state power that belongs in the category of the dictatorship of the proletariat”. (Kim Il Sung: ‘For the Successful Implementation of the First Five-Year Plan’, in: ‘Works’, Volume 12; Pyongyang; 1983; p. 115).

The Transition to the Stage of Socialist Revolution

Marxism-Leninism holds that, in the transition from the national-democratic stage of the revolutionary process to the socialist stage

” … the proletariat pushes aside the national bourgeoisie”. (Josef V. Stalin: ‘Questions of the Chinese Revolution’, in: ‘Works’, Volume 9; Moscow; 1954; p. 225).

In violation of this Marxist-Leninist principle, Kimilsungism holds that the transition to the socialist stage of the revolutionary process can be carried though in continued alliance with the national bourgeoisie:

“The entrepreneurs and traders of our country are fellow- travellers … not only in carrying out the democratic revolution but also in socialist construction”. (Kim Il Sung: ‘On the Immediate Tasks of the People’s Power in Socialist Construction’, in: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 2; Pyongyang; 1975; p. 37).

“From the beginning our policy in regard to the national bourgeoisie was not only to carry out the anti-imperialist, anti-feudal democratic revolution together with them, but also to take them along with us to a socialist, communist society”. (Kim Il Sung: ‘Let Us further Strengthen the Socialist System of Our Country’, in: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 6; Pyongyang; 1975; p. 317).

“The national capitalists … came out in support of the Party’s line of the socialist revolution”. the Party’s line of the socialist revolution”. (‘Socialist Transformation of Private Trade and Industry in Korea’; Pyongyang; 1977; p. 20).

Peaceful Remoulding of the National Capitalists

Kimilsungism, while accepting that there is the ‘risk’ of class struggle between the working class and the national bourgeoisie in a colonial-type country, maintains that this can be resolved peacefully, by remoulding the national capitalists, by education and persuasion, into working people:

“The capitalist elements still remaining in town and country will have to be … remoulded along socialist lines, instead of expropriating them”. (Kim Il Sung: ‘Every Effort for the Country’s Reunification and for Socialist Construction in the Northern Half of the Republic’, in: ‘Works’, Volume 9; Pyongyang; 1982; p. 201).

“The socialist transformation of private trade and industry … proceeded in close combination with the remoulding of men, with the result that private traders and manufacturers were reshaped into socialist working people”. (Kim Han Gil: op. cit.; p. 387).

“Since our Party adopted a policy of transforming capitalist traders and manufacturers peacefully, instead of expropriating them, the form of class struggle could not but assume a specific character. Class struggle attendant on the socialist transformation of capitalist trade and industry was unfolded mainly by means of persuasion and education”. (‘Socialist Transformation of Private Trade and Industry in Korea’; Pyongyang; 1977; p. 26).

Already in April 1929, Stalin was pouring ridicule on the revisionist thesis of ‘remoulding’ capitalists:

“Until now, we Marxist-Leninists were of the opinion that between the capitalists of town and country on the one hand, and the working class, on the other hand, there is an irrencilable antagonism of interests. That is what the Marxist-Leninist theory of the class struggle rests on. But according to to Bukharin’s theory of the capitalists’ peaceful growth into socialism, all this is turned upside down, the irreconcilable antagonism of class interests between the exploiters and the exploited disappears, the exploiters grow into socialism … One thing or the other: Either Marx’s theory of the class struggle, or the theory of the capitalists growing into socialism. (Josef V. Stalin: ‘The Right Deviation in the CPSU (B)’, in: ‘Works’, Volume 12; Moscow; 1955; p. 32, 33).

A SPURIOUS SOCIALISM

If a new society was established in North Korea in cooperation with the national bourgeoisie, then, according to Marxism-Leninism, it could not be a genuine and must be a spurious socialist society.

However, Kimilsungism differs from Maoism in rejecting the strategy of forming joint state-capitalist (joint state-private) enterprises in favour of forming ‘cooperatives’ in conjunction with the national capitalists:

“Our country was the first to transform capitalist traders and manufacturers along socialist lines by using the cooperative economy … This is an original experience”. (‘Socialist Transformation of Private Trade and Industry in Korea’; Pyongyang; 1977; p. 28).

“Comrade Kim Il Sung held that, different from some socialist countries, it was wholly unnecessary for the peaceful transformation of capitalist trade and industry to assume the form of state capitalism”. (Baik Bong: op. cit., Volume 2; p. 520).

This process of cooperativisation was not enforced upon national capitalists, but was an entirely voluntary process:

“Our Party adopted the line of transforming capitalist trade and manufacturing along socialist lines and saw to it that the capitalist traders and manufacturers were drawn into diverse forms of cooperative economy in strict observance of the voluntary principle”, (Kim Il Sung: ‘Let Us further Strengthen the Socialist System of Our Country’, in: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 6; Pyongyang; 1975; p. 317).

“The important demand of the voluntary principle is … to strictly guard against coercive methods in cooperativisation and conduct this movement according to the free will of private traders and manufacturers”. (‘Socialist Transformation of Private Trade and Industry in Korea’; Pyongyang; 1977; p. 31).

Of the three forms of cooperative introduced into Korea, two forms were open to national capitalists to join if they wished. In the second form, the national capitalists received what amounted to interest on the capital they brought with them when they entered the cooperative:

“The second form (of cooperation –Ed.) was a semi- socialist form in which the means of production were under both joint and private ownership and both socialist distribution according to work done and distribution according to the amount of investment were applied. The third form was a completely socialist form in which … only socialist distribution applied”. (KIm Han Gil: op. cit.; p. 387).

As has been said, the national capitalists were empowered to choose not only whether to join a cooperative, but which type they would join:

“The essential requirement of the voluntary principle is to make private traders and manufacturers … choose the forms (of cooperation — Ed.) of their own accord, instead of imposing any form on them”. (‘Socialist Transformation of Private Industry and Industry nd (‘Socialist Transformation of Private Trade and Industry in Korea’; Pyongyang: 1977; p. 72).

The voluntary principle and the principle of mutual interests were observed in the cooperative transformation of capitalist traders and manufactuerers”. (Baik Bong: op. cit., Volume 2; p. 520).

Thus, most national capitalists tended to choose the second form of cooperation, since in this way they received

” … reasonable dividends upon the investments”. (‘Socialist Transformation of Private Trade and Industry in Korea’; Pyongyang; 1977; p. 143).

“The second form (of cooperation — Ed.) was popular in the cooperation of capitalist trade and industry. It was a rational form which was readily acceptable to capitalists because it applied distribution according to the amount of investment”. (Kim Han Gil: op. cit.; p. 387).

However, according to the WPK, the mere act of joining a cooperative transformed national capitalists into ‘socialist working people’:

“By joining the producers’ cooperatives, the entrepreneurs and traders … were transformed into socialist working people”. (Kim Il Sung: ‘The Democratic People’s Republic is the Banner of Freedom and Independence for Our People …’, in: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 5; Pyongyang; 1975; p. 151).

By August 1958,

” … the ratio of private traders and industrialists who joined cooperatives stood at … 100% by the end of August 1958″. (‘Socialist Transformation of Private Trade and Industry in Korea’; Pyongyang; 1977; p. 153).

So that, on this basis, Kim Il Sung felt able to declare in September 1958:

“The socialist transformation of production relations has now been completed … Thus, our society has become a socialist one”. (Kim Il Sung: ‘Against Passivism and Conservatism in Socialist Construction’, in: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 2; Pyongyang; 1975; p. 233).

Loyalty to the Leader Marxism-Leninism condemns the concept of loyalty to an individual. As Stalin said in a letter of April 1930:

“You speak of your ‘devotion’ to me… I would advise you to discard the ‘principle’ of devotion to persons. It is not the Bolshevik way. Be devoted to the working class, its Party, its state. That is a fine and useful thing. But do not confuse it with devotion to persons, this vain and useless bauble of weak-minded intellectuals”. (Josef V. Stalin: Letter to Comrade Shatunovsky (August 1930), in: ‘Works’, Volume 13; Moscow; 1955; p. 20)

and in a talk in December 1931 with the German writer Emil Ludwig:

“Decisions of individuals are always, or nearly always, one-sided deisions… Out of every 100 decisions taken by individual persons without being tested and corrected collectively, approximately 90 are one-sided”. (Josef V. Stalin: Talk with the German Author Emil Ludwig, in: ‘Works’, Volume 13; Moscow; 1955; p. 109).

In contrast, Kimilsungism holds the leader to be the the determinator of policy, to whom loyalty is a cardinal necessity:

“The party’s line and policies, strategy and tactics, are put forward by the leader… The leader is the supreme controller of the party, and the party’s leadership is precisely his leadership. Remaining unwaveringly loyal to the leader … is a natural communist obligation”. . (Kim Jong Il: ‘The Workers’ Party of Korea is a Juche-type Party …’, in: ‘On Carrying Forward the Juche Idea’; Pyongyang; 1995; p. 86, 96, 106).

“The leader … plays the decisive role in shaping the destiny of the popular masses… Loyalty to the leader is the highest expression of the party, working-class and people-oriented spirit”. (Kim Jong Il: ‘On Some Problems of Education in the Juche Idea’ in: ‘On Carrying Forward the Juche Idea’; Pyongyang; 1995; p. 160).

“The revolutionary struggle is conducted under the guidance of the leader and in accordance with his ideas and will… The more we are faithful to the leader’s ideology and will, … the more worthy a life … we shall enjoy”.(Kim Jong Il: ‘On Establishing the Juche Outlook on the Revolution’, in: ‘On Carrying Forward the Juche Idea’; Pyongyang; 1995; p. 195).

This anti-Marxist-Leninist conception gave rise to an exagggerated cult of the personality of both Kim Il Sung and his son and designated successor Kim Jong Il:

“The personality cult as practised in North Korea is unparalleled. For example, birthdays for both Kims are internationally celebrated. The 1992 celebration of Kim Il Sung’s 80th birthday required many working days of preparation by thousands of people, young and old, and lasted well into May. The cost was estimated to be almost $1 billion, including many millions spent on some 3,000 performing artists from eighty different countries”. (Pong S. Lee: ‘The North Korean Economy: Challenges and Prospects’, in: Sung Yeung Kwack (Ed.): ‘The Korean Economy at a Crossroad: Development Prospects, Liberalisation and South-North Economic Integration’; Westport (USA); 1994; p. 183).

For example, Kim Il Sung’s biographer declares:

“The national histories of all countries tell of celebrated heroes and leaders. Looking through them all, it is hard to find any record that compares with such a national hero and outstanding leader as Comrade Kim Il Sung, who has rendered such distinguished service to the revolution of his own country and to the world revolution… Where else in history can you find another leader like him?… Where is there any such leader equipped with all these qualities, an outstanding leader with such rich experience that has performed the greatest revolutionary exploits even during the hurricane of the long-drawn revolution, to compare with our Comrade Kim Il Sung, equipped with the wisdom of genius and indomitable fighting spirit and stamina, profound revolutionary theory …?”. (Baik Bong: op. cit., Volume 3; p. 621, 633).

For his part, Kim Jong Il is described in a recent biography as

” … the great thinker and theoretician, outstanding genius of leadership, boundlessly benevolent teacher of the people, and the great man of the century”. (Choe In Su: ‘Kim Jong Il: The People’s Leader’, Volume 2; Pyongyang; 1991; p. 374).

Sometimes, indeed, it is implied that the Kims possess divinity. On the occasion of Kim Jong Il’s appointment as General Secretary of the Korean Workers’ Party, the official Korean Central News Agency reported miraculous events around Mount Paektu, Kim Jong Il’s birthplace:

“At around 05.10, when the special communique informed the people of the election of General Kim Jong Il as General Secretary of the WPK, a coloured cloud appeared on Mt. Paektu… Its rims were dyed with seven colours… At that moment, mysterious sounds reminiscent of cheers and applause came from the surface of Lake Chon… Witnessing these wonderful natural phenomena, its inhabitants said that nature also celebrated Kim Jong Il’s election”. (Bulletin of Korean Central News Agency, 20 October 1997; p. 3).

JUCHE

From the 1930s on, the Workers’ Party of Korea increasingly used the term ‘Juche’ to describe its overall policy. This is a Korean word usually translated as

” … self-reliance”. (‘Europa World Year Book 1999′, Volume 2; London: 1999; p. 2,061).

According to Kim Jong Il, in June 1930 Kim Il Sung

” … explained the principles of the Juche idea at the Meeting of Leading Personnel of the Young Communist League and the Anti-Imperialist Youth League held at Kalun in June 1930″. (Kim Jong Il: ‘On the Juche Idea’, in: ‘On Carrying Forward the Juche Idea’; Pyongyang; 1995; p. 13).

In its early years, Juche was officially defined as a development of Marxism-Leninism:

“The Juche idea inherits all the revolutionary principles of Marxism-Leninism. … It does not abandon the ideological and theoretical achievements of Marxism- Leninism, but further develops and enriches them”. (Kim Jong Il: ‘On Some Problems of Education in the Juche Idea’ in: ‘On Carrying Forward the Juche Idea’; Pyongyang; 1995; p. 148-49).

However, the Constitution of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea was amended in April 1992

” … in order to remove mention of Marxism-Leninism and to replace it with references to Kim Il Sung’s Juche ideology”. (‘Keesing’s Record of World Events’, Volume 39; p. R73).

Article 3 of the new Constitution reads:

“The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is guided in its activities by the Juche idea, a world outlook centred on people, a revolutionary ideology for achieving the independence of the masses of people”. (‘Socialist Constitution of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’; Pyongyang; 1993; p. 1).

The demagogic character of statements that the WPK’s policy is one of promoting ‘self-reliance’ is shown by its actual policy, from the 1980s on, of encouraging foreign investment, joint ventures with foreign capital, and the establishment of ‘special economic zones’ on the Chinese model:

Article 37 of the Constitution of the DPRK adopted in April 1992 declares:

“The State shall encourage institutions, enterprises and organisations in our country to joint ventures and cooperation of enterprise with foreign corporations and individuals”. (‘Socialist Constitution of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’; Pyongyang; 1993; p. 9).

The new Constitution, in fact,

” … encouraged foreign investment and guaranteed the rights and profits of foreigners operating in North Korea”. (‘Keesing’s Record of World Events’, Volume 39; p. R73)

and in October 1992 the Standing Committee of the Supreme People’s Assembly approved Korea’s first law on foreign investment:

“The new law permitted foreign investors to establish equity and contractual joint ventures within the country, and to set up and operate wholly foreign-owned enterprises in special economic zones. Foreign companies would be able to remit part of their profits abroad”. (‘Keesing’s Record of World Events’,Volume 38: p. 141-42).

Then, in 1991,

” … the government announced the creation of a special economic zone (SEZ) totalling 621 square kilometres . . ., expanded in March 1993 … to 742 square kilometres, … A spate of additional laws followed, stablishing the legal framework for foreign firms operating in North Korea”. (Marcus Noland: ‘Prospects for a North Korean External Economic Opening’, in: Thomas H. Henriksen & Jongryn Mo (Eds.): ‘North Korea After Kim Il Sung’; Stanford (USA); 1997; p. 55-56).

“About 80 joint ventures have been established in North Korea. Most of them are run by Korean residents of Japan”, (Dae-Ho Bryn: ‘North Korea’s Foreign Policy: The Juche Ideology and the Challenge of Gorbachev’s New Thinking’; Seoul; 1991; p. 223).

Degeneration into Philosophical Idealism The pretext given by Kimilsungism for revising Marxism is that ‘it is now obsolete’:

“Marxism … represented the era when the working class had emerged in the historical arena and was waging a struggle against capital. … But the times have changed and history has developed, so Marxism has acquired inevitable historical limitations”. (Kim Jong Il: ‘The Historical Lesson in Building Socialism and the General Line of Our Party’ , in: ‘On Carrying Forward the Juche Idea’; Pyongyang; 1995; p. 293-94).

The main factor in this change is alleged to be the fact that it is now not objective conditions, but man that plays the decisive role in history:

“It is not objective conditions but man that plays the decisive role in the development of history”. (Kim Song Il: ‘On Some Problems of Education in the Juche Idea’, in: ‘On Carrying Forward the Juche Idea’; Pyongyang; 1995: p. 144).

But Marxism regards the laws of science, including the laws of economics, as proceeding objectively, independently of the will of man:

“Marxism regards laws of science — whether they be laws of natural science or laws of political economy — as the reflection of objective processes which take place independently of the will of man. Man may discover these laws, get to know them, study them, utilise them in the interests of society, but he cannot change or abolish them. Still less can he form or create new laws of science”. (Josef V. Stalin: ‘Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR’; Tirana; 1979;p. 545).

Thus, to Marxist-Leninists freedom is not freedom from the operation of the laws of nature, but the recognition of these laws, the ‘appreciation of necessity’:

“Freedom is the appreciation of necessity. … Freedom does not consist in the dream of independence of natual laws, but in the knowledge of these laws, and in the possibility this gives of systematically making them work towards definite ends”. (Friedrich Engels: ‘Herr Eugen Duhring’s Revolution in Science (Anti-Duhring); New York; 1939; p. 125).

“What can this ‘appreciation of necessity’ mean? It means that, having come to know objective laws (‘necessity’), man will apply them with full consciousness”. ‘(Josef V. Stalin: ‘Ecomomic Problems of Socialism in the USSR’, in: ‘Selected Works’; Tirana; 1979; p. 546).

In contrast, Kimilsungism presents man as being above the laws of biology:

“Unlike biological beings, man is the master and transformer of, master of the world. He shapes his destiny on his own by transforming the objective world to meet his needs”. (Kim Jong Il: ‘Socialism is a Science’; Pyongyang; 1994; p. 12).

Thus, Kimilsungism presents man as free from the operation of the laws of nature:

“Man … is a social being with independence, … whereas all other material lives maintain their existence through subordination and adaptation to the objective world. … On the strength of this quality, man throws off the fetters of nature”. (Kim Jong Il: ‘On the Juche Idea’, in: ‘On Carrying Forward the Juche Idea’; Pyongyang; 1995; p. 14, 15).

But this is to degenerate into philosophical idealism, which asserts

” … the primacy of spirit to nature”. (Friedrich Engels: ‘Ludwig Feuerbach and the Outcome of Classical German Philosophy’, in: Karl Marx: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 1; London; 1943; p. 431). that is, in respect of ” … the relation of thinking and being”, (Friedrich Engels: ibid.; p. 430).

The primacy of the former, that is, the primacy of mind over matter. According to Kimilsungism, unlike the lower animals, man is not bound by the laws of nature:

“Animals are part of nature and their destiny is determined by the natural laws of change and development, whereas man… is not a being which obeys the natural laws of change and development”. (Kim Jong Il: ‘On Some Problems of Education in the Juche Idea’, in: ‘On Carrying Foward the Juche Idea’; Pyongyang; 1995; p. 144).

“Unlike all other living matter, which is subordinate to … the objective world, man dominates and transforms the world in accordance with his will and desire”. (Kim Jong Il: ‘On Some Questions in Understanding the Juche Philosophy’, in: ‘On Carrying Forward the Juche Idea’; Pyongyang; 1995; p. 5).

This idealist concept is embodied in the slogan of the Workers’ Party of Korea:

“When the Party is determined, we can do anything”. (Kim Jong Il: ‘Our Socialism centred on the Masses shall not Perish’, in: ‘On Carrying Forward the Juche Idea’; Pyongyang; 1995; p, 289).

Furthermore, Marxism-Leninism holds that the mode of production determines the consciousness of man:

“The mode of production in material life determines the social, political and intellectual life processes in general. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness”. (Karl Marx: Preface to: ‘A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy’, in: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 1; London; 1943; p. 356).

“Marxism pointed the way to an all-embracing and comprehensive study of the process of rise, development and decline of social-economic formations. People make their own history. But … what are the objective conditions of production of material life that form the basis of all historical activity of man; what is the law of development of these conditions — to all this Marx drew attention and pointed out the way to a scientific study of history”. (Vladimir I. Lenin: ‘Karl Marx’, in: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 11: London; 1943; p. 20).

This principle is what Lenin calls

“… the materialist conception of history”. (Vladimir I. Lenin: ‘Karl Marx’, in: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 11; London; 1943; p. 19).

However, Kimilsungism rejects this fundamental facet of Marxism-Leninism:

“The theory of socialism in the preceding age, based on a materialist outlook on history, was not free from historical limitations. The theory did not regard the social and historical movement as a movement of the motive force . . ., but as a natural historical process which changes and develops due to material and economic factors… Seeing material and economic factors as fundamental in the revolutionary struggle, the preceding theory of socialism failed to raise the task of strengthening the motive force of the revolution and enhancing its role as the basic way to carry out the revolution”. (Kim Jong Il: ‘Socialism is a Science’; Pyongyang; 1994; p. 5-6).

The Rejection of Objective Class Categorisation

According to Marxism-Leninism, social class is an extremely important objective social category:

“Classes are large groups of people differing from each other by the place they occupy in a historically determined system of social production, by their relation … to the means of production, by their role in the social organisation of labour, and, consequently, by the dimensions of their share of social wealth of which they dispose and the mode of acquiring it Classes are groups of people one of which can appropriate the labour of another owing to the different place they occupy in a definite system of social economy”. (Vladimir I. Lenin: ‘A Great Beginning’, in: ‘Collected Works’, Volume 29; London; 1974; p. 421).

But here again Kimilsungism degenerates into philosophical idealism. In place of the objective division of society into classes, it divides society into ‘the masses of the people’ and others, purely on the basis of the ideas they hold:

“The basic criterion for deciding whether one is a member of the masses of the people or not is not one’s social and class origin, but one’s ideas. … Anyone who loves the country, the people and the nation … is qualified to be a member of the masses of the people”. (Kim Jong Il: ‘Socialism is a Science’; Pyongyang; 1994; p. 19).

In line with this philosophical idealism, Kimilsungism rejects the Marxist-Leninist principle that the Party should lay primary stress on changing the objective conditions of society:

“In the past, the founders of Marxism evolved socialist theory by putting the main stress on material and economic conditions”. (Kim Jong Il: ‘Socialism is a Science’; Pyongyang: 1994; p. 8).

Kimilsungism gives priority to the ideological remoulding of man:

“In socialist society, the transformation of man, his ideological remoulding, becomes a more important and primary task than that of creating the material and economic condtions of socialism” (Kim Jong Il: ‘Socialism is a Science’; Pyongyang; 1994; p. 7).

Indeed, according to Kimilsungism, the ‘frustration’ of socialism in many countries was due, not to the penetration of the international communist movement by revisionism but to the failure to give priority to the ideological remoulding of the masses of the people:

“The basic reason for the frustration of socialism in some countries is that they did not put the main emphasis on strengthening the motive force for building socialism and on enhancing its role”. (Kim Jong Il: ‘The Historical Lesson in Building Socialism and the General Line of Our Party’, in: ‘On Carrying Forward the Juche Idea’; Pyongyang: 1995; p. 293).

and Kimilsungism defines

” … the driving force of social movement” (Kim Jong Il: Socialism is a Science’; Pyongyang; 1994; p. 7)

as

” … the popular masses”. (Kim Jong Il: ‘Socialism is a Science’; Pyongyang: 1995; p. 7).

Rejection of Marxist-Leninist Principles of Distribution Marx held that it was essential that under socialism, the lower phase of communist society, workers should be given the material incentive of payment according to the quantity and quality of work performed:

“What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but on the contrary, as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally and intellectually, still stamped with the birth-marks of the old society from whose womb it emerges. Accordingly, the individual producer receives back from society … exactly what he has given to it. What he has given to it is his individual amount of labour, … The same amount of labour which he has given to society in one form, he receives back in another”. (Karl Marx: ‘Critique of the Gotha Programme’, in: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 2; London; 1943; p. 563).

But Kimilsungism denounces Marx’s position on this question as ‘anti-socialist and revisionist’, and demands that, under socialism, priority is given to political and moral incentives:

“The position of giving prominence only to the material incentive for labour can be attributed to the neglect of the communist character of socialist society. … Those who regard material incentive as the most important demand that the system of material incentive be introduced into the whole economic framework. They claim that stimulating the working people materially is the most effective method for encouraging their enthusiasm for increasing production and developing the economy rapidly. They argue that even after the establishment of the socialist system the remnants of the old ideology left over from the exploiter society remain to a large degree in the minds of workers. … This is anti-socialist and revisionist theory. … If we raise the question of which to lay emphasis on, . . . the political and moral incentive should be stressed”. (Kim Jong Il: ‘On Having a Correct Understanding of the Political, Moral and Material Incentives’, in: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 1; Pyongyang; 1992; p. 211).

Opposition to an International Marxist-Leninist Organisation Contrary to Marxist-Leninist principles, Kimilsungism opposes the revival of an international Marxist-Leninist organisation:

“Times have changed and the days are gone forever when the communist movement needed an authoritative international centre. … This provides no room for the existence of any international ‘centre’. … Therefore, declared Comrade Kim Il Sung, no such relationship should be permitted to arise within the international communist movement”. (Baik Bong: op. cit., Volume 3; p. 600-01).

And brushes aside the achievements of the former Communist International:

“The time is long past when there was one centre in the international communist movement and individual parties acted as its branches. … In the past … the parties of some socialist countries did great harm to the development of the international communist movement by failing to rid themselves of the customs of the Communist International. The party of a certain country claimed to be the ‘centre’ of the international communist movement and ordered other parties to do this or that. It acted without hesitation to put pressure on other parties and interfere in their internal affairs if they refused to follow its line, even though it was a wrong one”. (Kim Jong Il: ‘The Historical Lesson in Building Socialism and the General Line of Our Party’, in: ‘On Carrying Forward the Juche Idea’; Pyongyang; 1995; p. 301).

CONCLUSION

Comrade Hudson’s claim that the Workers’ Party of Korea made a ‘more thoroughgoing and mature’ critique of revisionism than that which was made by the Party of Labour of Albania cannot be reconciled with known facts.

Indeed, Kimilsungism’s characterisation of the differences in the international communist movement borders on the farcical:

“The differences of opinions between the fraternal parties and fraternal countries … are of a transitory character which come from the difference in the historical and geographical conditions of the socialist countries. . . . The differences are an ideological and theoretical divergence between class brothers who have the same political and economic basis and who struggle against imperialism and colonialism for the same goal of building socialism and communism”. (Baik Bong: op. cit., Volume 3; p. 595).

IN FACT, AN ANALYSIS OF THE OUTLOOK OF THE WORKERS’ PARTY OF KOREA MAKES IT CLEAR THAT KIMILSUNGISM OR JUCHE IS ITSELF A BRAND OF REVISIONISM ELABORATED TO SERVE THE INTERESTS OF THE CAPITALIST CLASS OF A COLONIAL-TYPE COUNTRY LIKE KOREA, A BRAND OF REVISIONISM WHICH AIMS TO HOLD THE REVOLUTIONARY PROCESS AT THE STAGE OF DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION AND PREVENT IT FROM GOING FORWARD TO THE STAGE OF SOCIALIST REVOLUTION.

An Open Letter To The 'New Communist Party'

2011-11-30T16:41:00.000-05:00

By W.B. Bland. Reprinted from the Nov. 1991 issue of COMpass,
organ of the Communist League, Britain.

At a recent meeting organised in London by the 'New Communist Party', some speakers expressed the view that during the Khrushchev-Brezhnev era the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was pursuing a Marxist-Leninist, socialist course, and has pursued a revisionist, anti-socialist course only since about 1985.

I should like to express the opinion that this view cannot be reconciled with known facts.

The Abolition of Centralised Economic Planning

One of the essential features of a socialist society is that production is planned in the interests of the working people. But from 1955, only two years after Stalin's death, revisionist economists like Evsei Liberman were writing in Soviet economic journals of the 'necessity' of freeing the economy from 'excessive' centralised direction and giving greater freedom to the directors of enterprises to decide what and how much the enterprises in their charge should produce:

"These shortcomings in economic management should be eliminated... by developing the economic initiative and independence of enterprises". (E. G. Liberman: 'Cost Accounting and Material Encouragement of Industrial Personnel', in: Voprosy Ekonomiki, No. 6, 1955).

By September 1965 Liberman's basis thesis had been adopted by the Central Committee of the Communist Party:

"The work of enterprises is regulated by numerous indices which restrict the independence and initiative of the personnel of enterprises, diminish their sense of responsibility for improving the organisation of production....

"It has been found expedient to put a stop to excessive regulation of the activity of enterprises, to reduce the number of plan indices required of enterprises from above". (CC, CPSU: Decision 'On Improving Management of Industry...", in: The Soviet Economic Reform: Main Features and Aims; Moscow; 1967; p. 147).

"To extend the economic independence and initiative of enterprises the number of plan assignments set to enterprises by ministries and departments has been reduced to a minimum". (A. N. Yefimov: 'Long-term Plans and Scientific Forecasts', in: Soviet Economic Reforms: Progress and Problems; Moscow; 1972; p. 16).

In fact, the 'indices' of the 'economic reforms' ceased to be directives, binding on the enterprises, and became mere 'guidelines' which enterprises could follow or not as they chose:

"Control figures will be handed down to the enterprises, not as precise directives, but rather as guidelines for drawing up their plans". (E. G. Liberman: 'Plan, Direct Ties and Profitability', in: Pravda, 21 November 1965).

So, as enterprises were transferred to the 'reformed' system, they proceeded in practice to plan their own production - even to the types and qualities of commodities they would produce:

"These enterprises [i.e., those working under the reformed system - WBB] now draw up their production plans themselves". (V. Sokolov, M. Nazarov & N. Kozlov: 'The Firm and the Customer', in: Ekonomicheskaya Gazeta, 6 January 1965).

"Enterprises decide what range of goods to produce in terms of physical quantities and total value of sales... and other economic indicators". (B. I. Braginsky: 'Planning and Management in the Soviet Economy', in: The Soviet Planned Economy; Moscow; 1974; p. 125-26).

This system was known euphemistically as

"... planning 'from below'". (R. Belousov: 'The Chief Thing is Economic Effectiveness', in: Pravda, 13 November 1964).

Under this system, the state can influence the economy not directly by means of economic directives, but only indirectly by the kind of 'economic levers' that are used by the state in orthodox capitalist countries:

"The attempt to make broader use of economic levers and economic stimuli in planning is a welcome reaction against the administrative conception of a plan". (L. Alter: 'Incentives must be linked with the Long-Term Planning of an Enterprise', in: Voprosy Ekonomiki, No. 11, 1962).

Profit as the Regulator of Production

The abolition of centralised economic planning as the regulator of production required its replacement by a different regulator, which could only be profit, defined by contemporary Soviet economists as

"... the difference between the price and the cost of production". (L. Gatovsky: 'The Role of Profit in a Socialist Economy', in: Kommunist, No. 18, 1962).

So, under the 'economic reform' profit became the regulator of production:

"Production will be subordinated to changes in profits". (G. Kosiachenko: 'Important Conditions for the Improvement of Planning', in Voprosy Ekonomiki, No. 11, 1962).

"Under conditions of cost accountability, the sum total of economic levers in the long run influences the enterprise through... profit". (B. Sukharevsky: 'The Enterprise and Material Stimulation', in: Ekonomicheskaya Gazeta, No. 49, 1965).

"In the profitability controversy some economists have based their objections to making it a regulator of social production on the contention that profit is a capitalist category. Such objections, of course, are untenable". (B. Sukharevsky: 'On Improving the Forms and Methods of Material Incentives', in: Voprosy Ekonomiki, No. 11, 1962).

So, under the 'economic reform',

"... profit serves as the most generalising criterion of the enterprise's entire activity". (L. Leontiev: 'The Plan and Methods of Economic Management', in: Pravda, 7 September 1954)

and the supreme criterion of the efficiency of an enterprise is the index of profitability - that is, the profit made by an enterprise in a year as a percentage of its total assets:

"The most generalised index of an enterprise's activity is the index of profitability, computed as the ratio of profits to production assets". (P. Bunich: 'Economic Stimuli to Increase the Effectiveness of Capital Investments and the Output-to-Capital Ratio', in: Voprosy Ekonomiki, No. 12, 1965).

"This index [of profitability - WBB] ... is widely used in capitalist countries (for this is neither more nor less than the rate of profit on invested capital)". (I. Kasitsky: 'The Main Question: Criteria for Premiums and Indices Planned for Enterprises', in: Voprosy Ekonomiki, No. 11, 1962).

The Role of the Market

Profit, the regulator of Soviet production since the 'economic reform', is realised not in the production of commodities but in their sale:

"Profit is determined on the basis of the goods marketed, and not on the basis of those produced". (G. Kosiaschenko: 'The Plan and Cost Accounting', in: Finansy SSSR, No. 12, 1964).

Thus, regulation of production by profit means, in fact, regulation by the market:

"We must acknowledge that... the market mechanism plays a regulating role in... production". (L. Konnik: 'Planning and the Market', in: Voprosy Ekonomiki, No. 5, 1966).

It means regulation by the forces of supply and demand which operate in an orthodox capitalist country:

"Since commodity production exists, the objective economic law of demand and supply... operates". (L. Gatovsky: op. cit.; p. 89).

Soviet economists who supported the 'economic reform' claimed, like their counterparts in orthodox capitalist countries, that these market forces, operating through the profit motive, regulate social production in such a way as to satisfy - as far as existing productive resources at a particular time will permit - the requirements of the people:

"Increase of profit... is one of the means... to satisfy most fully the requirements of the people". (L. Gatovsky: op. cit.).

It is admitted by these economists that the 'demand' to which production may be geared through the market is 'effective demand', the demand expressed in terms of the money which potential consumers are able and willing to expend on the market for commodities:

"Uneven distribution of incomes between different sections of the population results in that the groups in the lower brackets do not fully satisfy their prime needs, while groups in the higher brackets are able to satisfy less essential needs". (A, Rumyantsev: 'Management of the Soviet Economy Today: Basic Principles', in: Soviet Economic Reform: Progress and Problems; Moscow; 1972; p. 28).

"Industrial enterprises try to curtail the production of relatively unprofitable and especially totally unprofitable items despite the fact that they enjoy high consumer demand". (A. Levin: 'Economic Incentives for Meeting Consumer Demand', in: Voprosy Ekonomiki, No. 4, 1972).

The basing by enterprises of their production plans on their assessment of the market has brought about the development of such features of orthodox capitalist countries as market research:

"It is essential to conduct market research for practical purposes". (L. Gatovsky: op. cit.; p. 88).

salesmanship:

"Business is much better at the stores which have the best trained staff of sales assistants....

"The motto there is: 'Not a single customer must leave without a good purchase'". (V. Sokolov, M. Nazarov & N. Kozlov: op. cit.).

and advertising:

"Business is much better at the stores which... advertise best". (V. Sokolov, M. Nazarov & N. Kozlov: ibid.).

Payment for Production Assets

Clearly, the rate of profit made by an enterprise could have no reality if production assets of varying amounts continued to be allocated to enterprises by the state without cost, as had been the Soviet practice under socialism. Consequently, in order to make the rate of profit a reality, the 'economic reform' introduced the practice of charging enterprises for the use of their production assets (including natural resources such as land, minerals and water). This principle was endorsed by the Central Committee of the Communist Party in September 1965:

"It is necessary to introduce deductions in favour of the state budget from the profits of enterprises in proportion to the value of the fixed and circulating assets allocated to them, with these deductions being considered as payment for production assets". (A. N. Kosygin: 'On Improving Industrial Management, Perfecting Planning and Enhancing Economic Incentives in Industrial Production', in: Izvestia, 28 September 1965).

In 1965 the annual payments to the state for the use of production assets averaged 15% of the value of the production assets being used by the enterprise. (L. Vaag: 'According to a Single Rate of Profit', in: Ekonomicheskaya Gazeta, No. 45, 1965).

Later, an alternative method of payment for production assets was introduced: the payment of a lump sum. This could be paid out of the enterprise's own funds or financed by means of a bank credit repayable with interest.

Credit and Interest

As in the case of production assets, the rate of profit made by an enterprise could have no reality if finance of varying amounts continued to be allocated to enterprises without cost, as had been the practice under socialism. In order that the rate of profit could be made a reality, therefore, it was necessary that finance be made available to enterprises exclusively in the form of bank credit, repayable by the enterprise with interest:

"Gratuitous financing... will be increasingly replaced by credit, i.e., by a form of loan to the enterprise that must be returned". (L. Gatovsky: 'Unity of Plan and Cost Accounting', in: Kommunist, No. 15, 1965).

This principle was included in the 'economic reform' introduced in September 1965:

"The use of credits must be expanded". (A. N. Kosygin: op. cit.).

By 1976 more than 50% of the circulating assets of enterprises came from bank credits:

"At present every second ruble of circulating assets in industry comes from credit, with the share of credit in agriculture, trade and other branches being even higher". (A. N. Kosygin: Guidelines for the Development of the National Economy of the USSR for 1976-1980, 25th Congress of CPSU; Moscow; 1976; p. 4243).

and in 1967 the standard rate of interest was raised to 4 to 4.25% for short-term loans and to 4.5 to 6% for long-term loans." (A. H. Hermann: 'East-West Finance', in: The Banker, Volume 121, No. 546; August 1971; p. 878).

Consequently, where an enterprise is in process of repaying a bank credit, the rate of interest becomes the lower limit of permissive profitability for the enterprise:

"The level of interest becomes the lower limit of permissible profitability". (P. Bunich: op. cit.).

As in an orthodox capitalist country, under the 'economic reform' bank credit is normally advanced to an enterprise only against security:

"Credit must be secured.... Only in special cases... are loans issued by the State Bank without such security". (K. N. Plotnikov: 'Soviet Finance and Credit', in: The Soviet Planned Economy; Moscow; 1974; p. 221).

The rate of interest on credit was fixed at a high government level in order that it could be utilised - as in orthodox capitalist countries - as an 'economic lever' to influence the economy:

"Credit is used as an instrument for influencing the economy". (M. Pessel: 'Credit and its Development under Current Conditions', in: Nauchnye Doklady Vysshei Shkoly: Ekonomicheskie Nauki, No. 9, 1972).

Ownership of the Means of Production

In Soviet revisionist propaganda of the 1960s, the means of production were still being presented as 'publicly owned'. But the Statute on the Socialist State Production Enterprise, adopted by the USSR Council of Ministers on 4 October 1965, gives an enterprise rights of possession over the production assets it holds:

"The enterprise will exercise the rights of possession... of the property under its operational control". (Statute on the Socialist State Production Enterprise, in: M. E. Sharpe (Ed.): Planning, Profit and Incentives in the USSR, Volume 2; New York 1966; p. 291).

Consequently, the acquisition of production assets by an enterprise is described as 'purchase':

"The single approach to managing the economy is displayed... in granting enterprises equal rights... to buy means of production". (P. G. Bunich: 'Methods of Planning and Stimulation', in: Soviet Economic Reform: Progress and Problems; Moscow; 1972; p. 36).

That the terms 'rights of possession' and 'purchase' are not here being used inexactly is shown by the fact that the Statute gives the enterprise the right to lease or sell the means of production it 'possesses':

"The enterprise will exercise the rights of... disposal of the property under its operational control.... The enterprise may lease to other enterprises and organisations... buildings and structures, as well as production, warehouse and other facilities assigned to it....

"Surplus equipment... may be sold by the enterprise to other enterprises and organisations....

"Sums obtained from the sale of material values representing fixed assets will remain at the disposal of the enterprise". (Statute on the Socialist State Production Enterprise, in: M. E. Sharpe (Ed.): op. cit., Volume 2; p. 291, 293, 295).

The transfer of the ownership from the state to an enterprise is not its transfer to an agency of the state, for the 'socialist state production enterprise' is described as an

"... independent enterprise", (Ibid.; p. 291).

and

"The state is not responsible for the obligations of the enterprise, and the enterprise is not responsible for the obligations of the state". (Ibid.; p. 291).

Indeed, Soviet revisionist economists were at pains to dismiss allegation that the enterprises are not really independent as 'groundless bourgeois propaganda':

"Another bourgeois concept... denies the economic independence of... enterprises.... It is not difficult to prove the groundlessness of this argument". (S. Khavina: 'In the Crooked Mirror of Bourgeois Theories', in: Ekonomicheskaya Gazeta, No. 44, 1965).

Furthermore, the property rights of an enterprise are vested in its director:

"The enterprise is headed by a director....

"The director of the enterprise may, without the power of attorney, act in its name,... dispose of the property and funds of the enterprise". (Statute on the Socialist State Production Enterprise, in: M. E. Sharpe (Ed.): op. cit., Volume 2; p. 310-11).

The New Soviet Capitalist

The director of a Soviet enterprise has thus been, since the 'economic reforms' of the 1960s, the effective owner of the means of production (other than natural resources), and has full legal responsibility for their operation:

"The rights of the enterprise that relate to its production and economic activity are exercised by its director". (Statute on the Socialist State Enterprise, in: M. E. Sharpe (Ed.); op. cit., Volume 2; p. 299).

"The industrial managers bear full responsibility for the production sectors entrusted to them". (A. N. Kosygin: op. cit.; p. 42).

And since this responsibility is primarily to ensure that the enterprise under his control makes the maximum possible rate of profit, he, in Marx's words,

"... becomes a capitalist.... He functions as a capitalist, that is, as capital personified and endowed with a consciousness and a will". (K. Marx: Capital, Volume 1; London; 1974; p. 151).

As a writer in the Harvard Business Review expressed it in 1971:

"Many Soviet managers would fit into any corporate hierarchy in the United States and do exceptionally well". (M. I. Goldman: 'More Heat in the Soviet Hothouse', in: Harvard Business Review, Volume 49, No. 4; July/August 1971 p. 15).

In February 1971 the 'Institute of Management of the National Economy' was opened in Moscow as the first Soviet 'business school'. (Z. Katz: The Nachalnik (Executive) Class in the USSR; Cambridge (USA); 1973; p. 25).

The writer in the Harvard Business Review already quoted comments:

"The Russians have again turned to the non-Communist world; they are creating a network of business schools". (M. I. Goldman: op. cit.; p. 15).

Under the 'economic reform', the director of a Soviet industrial enterprise was appointed by and could be dismissed by the state - in practice, until quite recently, by a decision of the leadership of the Communist Party:

"The director of the enterprise is appointed and relieved of his post by the superior body". (Statute on the Socialist State Production Enterprise, in: M. E. Sharpe (Ed.): op. cit., Volume 2; p. 310).

The Right to Hire and Fire

Under the former socialist system, a worker could be dismissed only for grave misconduct (usually involving a criminal offence in connection with his work) and then only with the consent of the trade union committee at the enterprise:

"Soviet labour legislation... permits the dismissal of a worker by management only with the agreement of the factory and local trade union committee and on grounds stipulated by law". (Trudovoe Pravo: Entsiklopedichesky Slovar; Moscow; 1959; in: R. Conquest: (Ed.): Industrial Workers in the USSR; London; 1967; p. 19).

An important element of the 'economic reform' was to give the managements of enterprises relatively unhindered powers to dismiss workers as part of a rationalisation programme:

"Shop heads have the right to hire and fire". (S. Kamenitser: The Experience of Industrial Management in the Soviet Union; Moscow; 1975; p. 40).

"The size of the wage fund will also be determined by the enterprise". ('Direct Contracts are expanding', in: Ekonomicheskaya Gazeta, No. 3, 1965).

"From now on the enterprises will not be assigned the number of people they are to employ. The introduction of comprehensive cost accounting... will, naturally, reveal surplus labour at some enterprises". (L. Gatovsky: 'Unity of Plan and Cost Accounting', in: op. cit.).

The Secondary Accumulation of Capital

Under the socialist state which formerly existed in the Soviet Union, the working class was the collective owner of the principal means of production.

With the 'economic reform' of the 1960s, however, as has been shown, the Soviet working class was expropriated of these means of production, which became the property of a new class of Soviet capitalists in the shape of the directors of industrial enterprises.

This process is essentially a repetition of that which Marx, describing the original development of capitalist society out of feudal society, called the primitive accumulation of capital:

"The capitalist system presupposes the complete separation of the labourers from all property in the means by which they can realise their labour.... The process, therefore, that clears the way for the capitalist system can be none other than the process which takes away from the labourer the possession of his means of production, a process that transforms, on the one hand, the social means of subsistence and production into capital, on the other, the immediate producers into wage-labourers. The so-called primitive accumulation, therefore, is nothing else than a historical process of divorcing the producer from the means of production". (K. Marx: op. cit., Volume 1; p. 668).

We may call this repetition of the process of primitive accumulation in the Soviet Union the secondary accumulation of capital.

The Sale of Labour Power

Marx demonstrated that a worker who does not have access to any means of production of his own has no way to live except to sell his labour power, his capacity for work. Since, as has been said, the Soviet workers have been expropriated of the means of production which they owned under socialism, they now have no way to live except to sell their labour power to the new class of Soviet capitalists:

"A working person constantly retains the right to dispose freely over his labour power. He realises this right by concluding a labour agreement with the enterprise". (A. Sukhov: 'Labour Mobility and its Causes', in: Nauchnye Doklady Vysshei Shkoly: Ekonomicheskie Nauki, No. 4, 1972).

The term 'dispose over' is clearly a euphemism for 'sell'.

The Value of Labour Power

Marx pointed out that the value of labour power is determined, like that of any other commodity, by the amount of socially necessary labour time required for its production, that is, by the value of the means of subsistence conventionally - in a particular society at a particular time - required for the maintenance of the worker and his dependents. Although Soviet revisionist economists may deny that, in their society, labour power is a commodity with a value, they admit that 'the expenditures of labour on the cost of reproducing labour power' is 'assessed in value terms' which are precisely equivalent to the value of labour power as analysed by Marx:

"The objective factor which determines this level [of wages - WBB] is the need to provide factory and office workers... with the means of livelihood sufficient for the reproduction of labour power". (Y. L. Mannevich: 'Wages Systems', in: The Soviet Planned Economy; Moscow; 1974; p. 230).

"The cost of reproducing skilled labour power is the value assessment of equivalents of the living means that form the fund for the compensation of labour power". (E. N. Zhiltsov: 'Concerning the Subject of the Economics of Higher Education', in: Vestnik Moskovskogo Universiteta: Seriia Ekonomika, No. 1, 1973).

The Price of Labour Power

In a competitive labour market the price of labour power (i.e., the level of wages) fluctuates like the price of any other commodity around its value in accordance with the relation of supply to effective demand on that market:

"Wages will rise and fall [in a competitive labour market - WBB] according to the relation of supply and demand.... Within these variations, however, the price of labour [power - WBB] will be determined... by the labour time necessary to produce this commodity - labour power". (K. Marx: 'Wage-Labour and Capital', in: Selected Works, Volume 1; London; 1943; p. 262).

Where and when there is a relative shortage of particular kinds of labour power, enterprises compete with one another for this labour power:

"Circumstances prompt new enterprises to entice personnel, especially skilled personnel, from old enterprises. Such a practice is widespread". (E. G. Antosenkov: 'The Availability of Housing and Personnel Turnover', in: Izvestia Sibirskogo Otdelenya Akademy Nauk SSSR: Seriia Obshchestvennykh Nauk, No. 11, 1972).

In this competition for labour power, enterprises make use of such attractions as bonuses and welfare services. Already in 1972 revisionist Soviet economists admitted that the high mobility of Soviet workers was due to the competitive search for better conditions:

"Manpower turnover is influenced by a number of factors that are basically connected with working conditions or with differences in levels of material well-being....

"Approximately 50% of all persons leaving their jobs at their own volition do so for these reasons". (L. Kuprienko: 'Influence of the Standard of Living on the Movement of Labour Resources', in: Voprosy Ekonomiki, No. 3, 1972).

"In 1967 5.5 million persons moved from one city to another, 3.1 million moved from villages to cities, and 1.5 million moved from cities to villages. In addition, several million persons moved from one village to another". (V. Perevedenstev: 'Migration of the Population and the Utilisation of Labour Resources', in: Voprosy Ekonomiki, No. 9, 1970).

The Soviet labour market was given concrete form in 1967 by the establishment of labour exchanges called 'Manpower Utilisation Agencies':

"In 1967 Republic Manpower Utilisation Agencies were established. They are responsible for job placement for workers and employees". (V. Korshagin: 'Utilisation of Manpower Resources in the New Five-Year Plan', in: Planovoe Khoziaistvo, No. 4, 1971).

Marx held that in a capitalist society real wage levels tend to rise with the development of the productive forces. The aim of the capitalist class, however, is to try to ensure that, if real wages grow, they grow more slowly than the growth of the productivity of labour. In these conditions, the proportion of national income accruing to the working class falls despite the rise in real wages, i.e., exploitation increases. This is naturally also the policy of the Soviet capitalist class:

"The priority growth of labour productivity over the growth in wages must be strictly observed". (Soviet Economy Forges Ahead; Moscow; 1973; p. 18-19).

This aim was achieved during the period of the '9th Five-Year Plan' (1971-75), when average wages rose by 20% while the average productivity of labour rose by 23%. (A. N. Kosygin: 'Guidelines...'; op cit.; p. 13, 18).

Naturally, therefore, most revisionist Soviet economists agreed that the one aspect of 'centralised economic planning' which should be retained is State control of wage levels:

"Centrally established basic rates and salaries constitute, as before, the basis of wages....

"State regulation of wages is necessary....

"The new system of economic stimulation of production preserves the state regulation of wages". (B. Sukharevsky: 'The Enterprise and Material Stimulation'; op. cit.).

Managerial Salaries

The managerial and higher technical personnel of a Soviet industrial enterprise receive monthly salaries. The salary of an enterprise director was in 1974 up to 7.2 times the basic wage rate of the average shop floor worker:

"A foreman's salary in a top-category section is 10-20% higher than the basic wage rate for a highly-qualified worker.... Shop superintendents in the higher group are paid more than twice as much as a foreman in the lowest group. The salary paid to an enterprise director is never more than treble the salary of a foreman". (Y. L. Manevich: 'Wages Systems'; op, cit.; in: p. 251-52).

However, the wage/salary differential between shop floor workers and management personnel formed only a minor part of the actual income differential between these categories; as will be shown, the greater part of the latter accrued from differentials in 'bonus payments'.

'Price Control'

Under the socialist system which formerly existed in the Soviet Union, the prices of commodities were fixed by the state. Although in fixing the price of a commodity, its value was taken into account, the actual price was determined in accordance with the state's assessment of social requirements. Thus, over a considerable period of time, the price of vodka was fixed above its value in order to discourage its consumption; on the other hand, the price of clothing was fixed below its value to assist the working people in the purchase of clothes. As a result, vodka enterprises made an above-average rate of profit, while clothing enterprises made a below-average rate of profit.

But the rate of profit could become a reality, could function as the regulator of production, only if this 'voluntaristic' method of fixing prices were abandoned, and prices were brought into line with values. In the propaganda campaign which preceded the 'economic reform', therefore, the demand was put forward that prices should be brought into line with values:

"Prices must... reflect the socially necessary outlay of labour". (Programme of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union; Moscow; 1961; p. 83).

The new 'State Committee for Prices' established under the 'economic reform' was charged with elaborating a new system of prices,

"... basing its decisions on the need to bring prices as close as possible to levels of socially necessary outlays of labour". (A. N. Kosygin: 'On Improving Industrial Management...'; op. cit.; p. 30).

The 'price reform' was put into force first for wholesale prices on 1 July 1967, resulting in the raising of wholesale prices by an average of 8% for industry as a whole, and by an average of 15% for heavy industry. (L. Maizenberg: 'Improvements in the Wholesale Price System', in: Voprosy Ekonomiki, No. 6, 1970).

Some wholesale prices were, in fact, raised by large amounts - e.g., that of coal by 78%. (V. Sitnin: 'Wholesale Prices: Results and Tasks', in: Ekonomicheskaya Gazeta, No. 6, 1968).

The aim of this price reform was stated to be that of creating conditions under which each 'normally functioning enterprise' could function 'profitably':

"The wholesale price reform... was intended to create conditions for profitable work in all branches of industry and each normally functioning enterprise". (V. Sitnin: op. cit.; p. 26).

In fact, the wholesale price reform brought about a rise in industrial profit considerably higher than had been anticipated:

"The planning of the new wholesale prices... was based on the projection that industry-wide profitability would be approximately 15%. In fact, however, in 1968 it proved to be 20.1%, and in the case of enterprises operating under the new system of planning and economic incentive it was 22.9%". (I. Sher: 'Long-term Credit for Industry', in: Voprosy Ekonomiki, No. 6, 1970).

But the wholesale price reform was only a first step in the 'price reform', the fundamental aim of which was that prices should fluctuate according to the varying relation between supply and demand on the market. The next step, therefore, was to give enterprises the power to fix prices themselves:

"Measures to increase the flexibility... of price formation have also been adopted recently.... According to these methods, enterprises themselves change prices of their output". (P. G. Bunich: 'Methods of Planning and Stimulation', in: op. cit.; p. 43).

The difficulty of reconciling this conception with the fiction that centralised economic planning, including price control, was being maintained, was solved by presenting the central 'planning organs' as issuing 'price norms' while leaving enterprises to fix 'concrete prices':

"It is essential to incorporate... the centralised confirmation of base prices and their norms... and the establishment of concrete prices by enterprises or associations themselves". (A. Komin: 'Problems in the Methodology and Practice of Planned Price Formation', in: Planovoe Khoziaistvo, No. 9, 1972).

Naturally, these 'concrete prices' often departed fundamentally from the 'price norms' issued by the central 'planning organs':

"Experience... has shown that subsequent price revisions fail to maintain the continuity of long-range and current plans not only with respect to targets in terms of value but also with regard to general value proportions". (V. Kotov: 'Prices: The Instrument of National Economic Planning and the Basis of the Value Indices of the Plan', in: Planovoe Khoziaistvo, No. 9, 1972).

The Retention of Profit by the Enterprise

In order that profit could function as the regulator of social production under conditions where production is planned by the enterprises themselves, each enterprise must retain sufficient of the profit it makes to enable adequate material incentives to be drawn from it to influence the directing personnel of the enterprise responsible for making that profit:

"It is necessary to ]eave to the enterprises more of their profits". (A. N. Kosygin: 'On Improving Industrial Management...'; op. cit.).

In consequence, the average proportion of an enterprise's profit retained by enterprises rose between 1966 and 1969 as follows:1966 26%

1967 29%

1968 33%

1969 40%

(N. Y. Drogichinsky: op. cit.).

'Economic Incentives'

Under socialism wages were, as far as was possible, proportional to the quantity and quality of work performed, while other material incentives were based on fulfillment or over-fulfillment of the economic plan.

The abolition of centralised economic planning and the establishment of the profit motive as the regulator of social production required the replacement of this system of material incentives to the personnel of an enterprise by one based on the rate of profit made by the enterprise and drawn from that profit:

"It is necessary to introduce a system under which the enterprise's opportunities for increasing the remuneration of its workers and employees would be determined, above all, by... greater profitability of production.... The enterprises must have at their disposal - in addition to the wage fund - their own source of rewarding personnel for individual achievements and high overall results of enterprise operations.

This source must be a part of the profit obtained from the enterprise". (A, N. Kosygin: 'On Improving Industrial Management...'; op. cit.; p. 25-26).

"Under the new conditions, the stimulating role of profit rises considerably....

"The material incentive funds... will be created from profits. The funds must be considerably larger than the previously existing enterprise fund.... The greater the profit obtained from the enterprise, the higher will be the allotments to the incentive funds and the fund for the development of production". (V. Garbuzov: 'Finances and Economic Stimuli', in: Ekonomicheskaya Gazeta, No. 41, 1965).

In the four years from 1966 to 1969, the average size of the material incentive funds of enterprises rose four times. (N. Y. Drogichinsky: 'The Economic Reform in Action', in: Soviet Economic Reform: Progress and Problems; Moscow; 1972; p. 207).

'Socialist Profit'

As has been shown, under the 'economic reform' profit became the motive and regulator of social production. But, seeking to present themselves at this time as continuing to 'build socialism', the Soviet revisionists described this profit as

"... socialist profit". (E. G. Liberman: 'The Plan, Direct Ties and Profitability'; op. cit.).

Although denying that 'socialist profit' arises from exploitation of the working people, the definition of 'profit' given by revisionist Soviet economists since the 'economic reform' -

"Profit is formed directly from the difference between the price and cost of production". (L. Gatovsky: 'The Role of Profit in a Socialist Economy'; op. cit.).

- is virtually identical with that given by Marx for surplus value (profit in the broad sense) in an orthodox capitalist society:

"Surplus value is the difference between the value of the product and the value of the elements consumed in the formation of that product". (K. Marx: Capital, Volume 1; London; 1974; p. 201).

So, tacitly accepting that 'socialist profit' does not differ in essence from profit in orthodox capitalist countries, revisionist Soviet economists fell back on the argument that there is nothing wrong in principle with profit in orthodox capitalist countries; what is wrong - and what distinguishes it from 'socialist profit' is - they say, its distribution:

"The evil of capitalism lies not the drive for profit, but in its distribution". (V. Belkin & I. Berman: 'The Independence of the Enterprise and Economic Stimuli', in: Izvestia, 4 December 1964).

"Under socialism profit... is distributed in the interests of the people". (L. Gatovsky: 'The Role of Profit in a Socialist Economy'; op. cit.).

This argument will be examined in the next two sections.

The Distribution of 'Socialist Profit'

If profit was to be in reality the motive and regulator of Soviet production, then the lion's share of the bonuses paid out of an enterprise's 'material incentive fund' had to go to those personnel of an enterprise whose economic decisions primarily determined the rate of profit made by the enterprise - that is, to the personnel of the management:

"We must raise the role and responsibility of the heads of enterprises... for the fulfillment of profit plans". (G. Kosiachenko: 'Important Condition for the Improvement of Planning'; op. cit.).

The size of bonuses paid to managerial personnel is determined outside the enterprise, by the state:

"Bonuses to directors of enterprises, their assistants, chief engineers, heads of planning departments, chief bookkeepers and heads of technical control departments are approved by the chief executive of the higher agency", (Y. I.. Manevich: 'Wages Systems'; op. cit.).

the prime criterion for determining the size of the bonuses paid to managerial personnel being the rate of profit made by the enterprise:

"The fulfillment of profit plans... should be one of the criteria for granting bonuses to certain categories of managerial personnel". (G. Kosiachenko: 'Important Condition for the Improvement of Planning'; op. cit.).

"The main indicators for awarding bonuses to managerial workers at enterprises are fulfillment of the plan for sales and an increase in profitability". (S. Ramenitser: op. cit.; p. 134).

On the other hand, the size of the bonuses paid to the workers of an enterprise is determined officially by the director:

"Bonuses to directors of enterprise... are approved by the chief executive of the higher agency, and those given to all other employees by the director of the enterprise". (Y. L. Manevich: 'Wages Systems'; op. cit.).

The size of the bonuses paid to the workers of an enterprise is very different from size of those paid to managerial personnel.

Soviet official statistics show that in 1966 management personnel received 43.9% of the material incentive fund, while workers received 50.7%. (N. Y. Drogichinsky: op. cit.; p. 194).

But about this time the personnel engaged in industry was classified as follows:

Management personnel 4%

Workers 96%

(Z. Katz: Patterns of Social Stratification in the USSR; Cambridge (USA); 1972; p. 78).

It follows that 1% of the personnel received 12.3% of the bonuses if they were in management, and 0.5% if they were workers. Thus, on the average each member of the management received almost twenty-five times the bonus received by each worker.

In fact, the distribution of 'socialist profit' under the Soviet 'economic reform' differs in no way from the distribution of profit in orthodox capitalist societies where profit-sharing schemes are in force.

Environmental Pollution

The 'economic reform' required each enterprise to maximise its profits and minimise its production costs. But this aim conflicts with the social need to minimise the environmental pollution arising out of production:

"The implementation of pollution control programmes leads to the worsening of the cost-accounting performance of enterprises". (N. Fedorenko & K. Gofman: 'Problems of Optimisation of the Planning and Control of the Environment', in: Problemy Ekonomiki, No. 12, 1972).

As a result, since the 'economic reform' environmental pollution in the Soviet Union has reached dangerous levels, as in orthodox capitalist countries:

"In the Soviet Union... unpurified gases are discharged into the atmosphere, unpurified waters are discharged into rivers and water basins, there is soil erosion, etc.". (G. Khromushin: 'Problems of Ecology', in Voprosy Ekonomiki, No. 8, 1973).

"For all the variety of causes behind the deterioration of the environment in the United States and the Soviet Union, both these countries are now faced with the practical need to check this process.

"The harm caused to bodies of water by effluents from pulp-and-water, chemical fibre, and other factories is well-known. Every day they discard thousands of tons of polluted water into rivers, lakes and oceans. The damage caused by these effluents is incalculable". (K. Ananichev: Environment: International Aspects; Moscow; 1976; p. 118, 123).

Soviet environmentalists agree that one of the two chief causes of atmospheric pollution is motor transport:

"The chief sources of air pollution today are the power industry and motor transport". (K. Ananichev: ibid.; p. 120).

and that the difficulty in producing a non-noxious motor vehicle is economic, not technical:

"Of course, it is possible in principle to develop a motor vehicle which does not emit poisonous or harmful exhaust fumes. This, however, would be... very costly". (K. Ananichev: ibid.; p. 97).

They proposed, therefore, that

"... the number of motor vehicles... be reduced by withdrawing from use a tremendous number of private cars". (K. Ananichev: ibid.; p. 97-98).

But, in fact, exactly the opposite occurred. The 'Five-Year Plan' for 1971-75 envisaged

"... a fourfold increase in car production. This tremendous increase in the number of motor vehicles poses the threat of large-scale air pollution". (K. Ananichev: ibid.; p. 121).

National Discrimination

In Stalin's view the national policy of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union should include assistance from the Russian Federation

"... to make it possible for the backward peoples to catch up with central Russia in political, cultural and economic respects". (J. V. Stalin: 'Report on the Immediate Tasks of the Party in the National Question', 10th Congress of the RCP, in: Works, Volume 5; Moscow; 1953; p. 39).

"I understand our policy in the national question to be a policy of concessions to non-Russians.... That policy is undoubtedly correct". (J. V. Stalin: 'Reply to the Discussion on the Central Committee's Organisational Report', 12th Congress of the RCP, in: ibid.; p. 235).

In fact, however, differences in the economic, social and cultural levels between the Union Republics - as shown in official statistics of industrial productivity, per capita national income, per capita living space, etc. - increased after the 'economic reform'. (Narodnoe Khoziaistvo SSSR v 1960 Godu; Moscow; 1961; Narodnoe Khoziaistvo SSSR v 1970 Godu; Moscow; 1971; V. N. Bandera & Z. L. Melnyk: The Soviet Economy in Regional Perspective; New York; 1973).

In economically backward Uzbekistan, for example, cotton growing for 'export' to the industrialised Union Republics was made the basis of the Uzbek economy:

"In developing the agriculture of Uzbekistan... we need an agricultural complex on a cotton basis". (N. I. Mukhitdinov, in: Materialy Obedinennoi Nauchnoi Sessii po khlopkovodstva, sostoiasheisia v. g. Tashkente 15-21 Oktiabria 1957 g; Tashkent; 1958).

This policy led to an actual decline in food production per capita in Uzbekistan:

Food Production in Uzbekistan

(kilograms per capita)

1959 1965

Meat 18.1 14.5

Milk 95.0 89.7

Grains 62.2 59.3

Potatoes 24.8 16.1

Fruits 23.4 19.0

(V. S. Nekhai: 'The Production of Foodstuffs and the Level of Consumption in Relation to Population', in: A. M. Aminov (Ed.): Razvitie i Sovershenstvovanie Sotsialisticheskikh Proizvodstvennykh Otnoshenii v Period Stroitelstva Kommunizma; Tashkent 1968).

Investment

In the days of socialism in the Soviet Union, investment was allocated in a planned way to enterprises by the state without charge. Since the 'economic reform', however, enterprises have to buy new means of production and only in exceptional cases have investment funds been provided for this purpose by the state:

"At the present time... only in exceptional cases will the means [of investment - WBB] come from the budget". (V. Batyrev: 'The Economic Reform and the Increasing Role of Credit', in: Kommunist, No. 2, 1966).

By 1970 78.8% of total investment was coming from the enterprises' own funds. (I. Shur: 'Long-term Credit in Industry'; op. cit.).

The establishment of 'production development funds' in enterprises brought about a large increase in the enterprises' funds available for investment: from 120 million rubles in 1964 to 4,000 million rubles in 1967 - an increase of more than 33 times. (A. N. Kosygin: 'On Improving Industrial Management...'; op. cit.).

Production development funds come from profits and the sale of 'superfluous' means of production. (B. Sukharevsky: 'New Elements in Economic Incentives', in: Voprosy Ekonomiki, No. 10, 1965).

Any investment made by an enterprise over and above the funds available in its production development fund must normally be obtained in the form of a bank credit, repayable with interest. But by 1974 only 3.3% of investment was being effected through bank credits, as a result of

"... the high profitability of other majority of existing enterprises, which makes it possible to make capital investments from their own resources". (V. N. Kulikov: 'Some Problems of Long-Term Crediting of Centralised Capital Investments', in: Finansy SSSR, No. 5, 1974).

In determining its investment policy, an enterprise is, of course, guided by its assessment of what will maximise its rate of profit:

"In making investments... an enterprise will choose the course that provides for the biggest rise in profitability". (T. S. Khachaturov: 'The Economic Reform and Efficiency of Investments', in: Soviet Economic Reform: Progress and Problems; Moscow; 1972; p. 156).

Despite the great increase in the size of enterprises' funds available for investment since the 'economic reform', the growth rate of investment has declined markedly:

1966-70 43%

1971-75 42%

1976-80 ('projected') 25%

(Soviet Economy Forges Ahead; Moscow; 1973; p. 16; A. N. Kosygin: 'Guidelines...'; op. cit.; p. 11, 69).

This, of course, is in line with the practice in orthodox capitalist countries in conditions of monopoly, where maximum profitability frequently accrues from continuing to operate means of production after they have become obsolescent.

Rationalisation and Redundancy

As in an orthodox capitalist country, the search for maximum profitability brought about a rise in the productivity of labour, brought about

"... the rationalisation of production". (S. Starostin & G. Emdin: 'The Five-Year Plan and the Soviet Way of Life', in: Planovoe Khoziaistvo, No. 6, 1972).

and widespread redundancy. Enterprises

"... discontinued the employment of superfluous personnel". (A. N. Kosygin: 'On Improving Industrial Management...'; op. cit.; p. 28).

"The replacement of workers by machinery is quite striking". (V. I. Mayevsky: 'Socialist Industry: The Basis of the Socialist Economy', in: The Soviet Planned Economy; Moscow; 1974; p. 33).

From 1964 on, 'surpluses of labour' - a euphemism for unemployment - were being reported from various regions of the country:

"In certain regions of the country, particularly in small towns, surpluses of labour have appeared". (Trud, 3 November 1964).

This unemployment occurred particularly among young workers. In 1964 two-thirds of school-leavers in Rostov district and more than half in Kursk district failed to find jobs within the 'planned period'. (Pravda, 23 July 1965).

This situation was reflected in the establishment in 1966 of a 'Youth Employment Service', (Pravda, 6 February 1966).

with unemployment:

"The solution of an urgent problem of long standing - the problem of material support for released personnel - is extremely important". (E. Manevich: 'Ways of Improving the Utilisation of Manpower'; op. cit.).

and in a campaign to persuade women workers to cease working on the grounds that 'a woman's place is in the home':

"The level of female employment seems excessive to us. Their greater involvement in social production in the last decades has been one of the factors underlying the decline in the birth rate, which will have negative consequences". (V. Perevedentsev: 'Migration of the Population and the Utilisation of Labour Resources'; op. cit.).

The Concentration and Centralisation of Capital

Marx showed that the economic laws of capitalism lead to the concentration of capital, of means of production, in increasing amounts in the hands of individual capitalists. The proportion of Soviet enterprises with a gross output in excess of 500,000 rubles rose from 61.8% in 1960, to 70.8% in 1963, to 74.8% in 1963. (Soviet Economy Forges Ahead; Moscow; 1973; p. 176).

Already by 1967 concentration of capital had reached a much higher level than in the most advanced orthodox capitalist countries:

Proportion of enterprises

employing more than 500

workers:

USSR 24.4%

West Germany 1.8%

Britain 1.5%

USA 1.4%

France 0.5%

Japan 0.3%

Average Number of

Workers per Enterprise:

USSR 565

West Germany 83

Britain 48

USA 45

France 18

Japan 17

(I. Kvasha: 'Concentration of Production and Small-Scale Industry', in: Voprosy Ekonomiki, No. 5, 1967).

Soviet economists admit that smaller enterprises in the Soviet Union suffer from the same disadvantages described by Marx in the case of orthodox capitalist countries:

"Small enterprises are faced with difficulties. Since their economic stimulation funds are not big, they are not always able to build cultural and service establishments and houses and also to undertake measures for the development of production". (N. Y. Drogichinsky: op. cit.; p. 217).

Marx points out that the economic laws of capitalism lead to the centralisation of capital, of means of production, that is, their concentration in the hands of a decreasing number of capitalists, and the process of centralisation of capital is stimulated by the role of the banks. While relatively unprofitable enterprises could be put into liquidation under 'bankruptcy laws' which were similar to those in orthodox capitalist countries, most such enterprises were 'reorganised' by merging them with one or more other enterprises:

"Small enterprises are being enlarged, reorganised into big ones". (A. M. Rumyantsev: 'Management of the Soviet Economy Today: Basic Principles'; op. cit.; p. 17).

Soviet Monopoly Capitalism

Lenin revealed that, as a result of the operation of economic laws inherent in the capitalist economy, competitive capitalism gave way, at a certain stage of its development, to monopoly capitalism or imperialism, in which a relatively small number of capitalist groups with monopolistic power dominate the economic life of society. In the Soviet Union such large groupings with monopolistic power are called 'production associations':

"The systematic establishment of production associations is a necessary requisite for improving the organisation of production and management.... The need for setting up production associations (combined works) was emphasised in the 24th Congress decisions". (N. Y. Drogichinsky: op. cit.; p. 221-22).

By 1973 some 5,000 'production associations' had been formed. (B. Gubin: Raising the Efficiency of Socialist Economic Management; Moscow; 1973; p. 86).

Like monopolies in orthodox capitalist countries, Soviet 'production associations' could take the form of 'trusts' (i.e., cartels in which the enterprises within the 'production association' retain their managerial independence) or of 'firms' and 'combines' (in which the enterprises within the 'production association' have a single managerial apparatus, with the smaller enterprises functioning as subsidiaries):

"Associations... may include enterprises which fully preserve their independence or enterprises which have been turned into subsidiaries". (S. Kamenitser: op. cit.; p. 37).

'Production associations' have, of course, great advantages in profit-making over even large individual enterprises. Most of them have their own design, research and development divisions and are financially completely self-sufficient:

"A production association headed by a big enterprise offers a number of advantages". (N. Y. Drogichinsky: op. cit.; p. 220).

"Large-scale production amalgamations embracing not only enterprises but also design and research and development organisations have everything they need for a rapid introduction of new developments in science and technology". (Soviet Economy Forges Ahead; Moscow; 1973; p. 234).

Since the 'economic reform', the average rate of profit in Soviet enterprises has increased from 16.7% in 1961-65 to 21.3% in 1966-70. (N. Y. Drogichinsky: op. cit.; p. 208).

and the average profit per worker has increased as follows:

1965 1,485 rubles

1966 1,773 rubles

1967 2,027 rubles

1968 2,217 rubles

1969 2,549 rubles

(N. Y. Drogichinsky: op. cit.; p. 204).

In the period 1971-75 total profit amounted to

"... nearly 500,000 million rubles", (A. N. Kosygin: 'Guidelines...'; op. cit.; p. 41).

an increase over the period 1966-70 of

"... 50%". (A. N. Kosygin: 'Guidelines...'; op. cit.; p. 41).

The formation of 'production associations' has greatly accelerated rationalisation and its attendant 'releases of surplus labour':

"Great savings were effected by the organisation of associations in the oil-refining industry. As a result of setting up the 'Kuibyshevneft' association, the managerial offices of 7 oil-drilling enterprises, 11 oilfields and 51 oil-producing and drilling sections were abolished. This enabled the release of over 1,000 workers and a saving of 1.3 million rubles in the annual remuneration fund". (B. Gubin: Raising the Efficiency of Socialist Economic Management; Moscow; 1973; p. 108).

One of the principal advantages possessed by a monopoly is its ability to maintain its prices (and so its rate of profit) at a higher level than would be possible under conditions of competition. Thus, Soviet economists were compelled to admit that the formation of monopolistic 'production associations' led to a tendency for prices to rise, i,e., a tendency to inflation:

"Our experience points to the existence of a dangerous trend towards arbitrary price rises". (L. Maizenberg: op. cit.).

And, as in orthodox capitalist countries, Soviet monopolies do not hesitate to use their control of the production of a particular commodity to create artificial shortages for the purpose of increasing their prices and profits:

"Certain forms of the existing system of distribution... frequently lead to an artificial shortage". (N. Fedorenko: 'Current Tasks of Economic Science', in: Voprosy Ekonomiki, No. 2, 1974).

"With coffee prices up fivefold, suppliers released rare stocks into the store". ('Coffee in Moscow', in: Guardian, 2 March 1978).

As a result of all these factors, Soviet monopolies succeeded in significantly raising their rates of profit during the 1960s:

"The 'Elektrosila' association in Leningrad in the 1966-1969 period... increased... profits by 110%". (B. Gubin: op. cit.; p. 108).

The Exploitation of the Working Class

In the 1970s Soviet revisionist economists and politicians were still maintaining that, despite the 'economic reforms', Soviet society continued to operate on the principle of

"... the distribution of income according to the quantity and quality of work done", (Y. L. Manevich: 'Wages Systems'; op. cit.).

although it was admitted that this principle

"... operates... with many deviations". (Y. L. Manevich: ibid.; p. 229).

As has been shown, these 'deviations' included the receipt by managerial personnel in Soviet industry of bonuses which were up to 100 times those received by shop floor workers. Such huge differentials can, by no stretch of the imagination, he reconciled with the principle of 'distribution of income according to quantity and quality of work performed'. They represent, in Marxist-Leninist terminology, the exploitation of the working class.

The Market Problem

Marx made it clear that, by reason of the anarchic character of production in a capitalist society and the fact that, in such a society, the workers receive in wages the equivalent of only a part of the value they produce, every capitalist society faces a market problem. By 1965 Soviet revisionist economists were admitting that the Soviet economy was facing such a market problem:

"The market problem exists not only for consumer goods but also for means of production". (Pravda, 23 June 1965).

One attempt to alleviate the Soviet market problem has been the great expansion of credit sales:

"Credit sales... are acquiring more and more significance for the development of retail trade in our country.... The share of goods sold on an installment basis is increasing: from 1.8% in 1960 to 5.7% in 1967". (V. Ilin & B. Koriagin: 'The Sale of Goods to the Public on Credit', in: Nauchnye Vysshei Doklady Shkoly: Ekonomicheskie Nauki, No. 7, 1969).

This market problem brings about pressure to find markets abroad for goods which cannot be sold at home:

"The growth of production leads to the greater requirement for foreign markets". (M. Senin: Socialist Integration; Moscow; 1973; p. 119).

"We intend to expand the country's export potential systematically....

"The problem arises of setting up a number of export-oriented industries to meet the specific requirements of foreign markets". (A. N. Kosygin: 'Guidelines...'; op. cit.; p. 45).

In 1967 fuel, raw and other materials, and foodstuffs constituted 62.5% of Soviet exports. (M. Senin: op. cit.; p. 99).

But the production of such commodities for export is significantly less profitable than the production of manufactured goods:

"In the export field the operation of the extractive industry is less profitable than that of manufacturing industry". (M. Senin: op. cit.; p. 243).

Naturally, therefore, Soviet revisionist economists urged that steps be taken to change the pattern of Soviet exports in the direction of manufactured goods:

"The high growth rates in engineering and other manufacturing industries and measures to raise the technical level and product quality create prerequisites for increasing the share of the manufacturing industries' produce in Soviet exports". ('Soviet Economy Forges Ahead'; op. cit.; p. 100).

The Role of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

The Communist Party of the Soviet Union, founded as a political party representing the interests of the working class, has been said since 1961 to represent the interests of 'the entire Soviet people':

"Our Marxist-Leninist Party, which arose as a party of the working class, has become the Party of the entire people". (N. S. Khrushchev: 'Report on the Programme of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union', 22nd Congress, CPSU; London; 1961; p. 90).

But in a society which contains classes with antagonistic interests - and it has been shown that the Soviet Union had become such a society by the 1960s - it is impossible for a single party to represent the interests of 'the entire people' and any claim to do so must be dismissed as mere demagogy.

And where a capitalist class exists, as in the Soviet Union since the 1960s, a political party which does not represent specifically the interests of the working class must represent the interests of the Soviet capitalist class.

Consequently, since the 'economic reform' the Communist Party of the Soviet Union represented the interests of the Soviet capitalist class.

The Character of the Soviet State

According to Marxism-Leninism, a state is essentially a machinery of force by which one social class rules over the rest of the people. The Soviet State established in Russia by the revolution of November 1917 was officially described as a machinery of force in the hands of the working class, as 'the dictatorship of the working class'.

In 1961, however, the leaders of the CPSU declared that the Soviet state was no longer the dictatorship of the proletariat, but had become an organ representing the interests of 'the entire people':

"In our country, for the first time in history, a State has taken shape which is not a dictatorship of any one class, but an instrument of society as a whole, of the entire people....

The dictatorship of the proletariat is no longer necessary". (N. S. Khrushchev: 'Report on the Programme of the Communist Party...'; op. cit.; p. 57, 58).

But Marxism-Leninism teaches us that in a society which contains antagonistic classes - and, as has been demonstrated, Soviet society has been such a society since the 1960s - the state can only be the machinery of rule of the dominant social class, and any claim that it represents the interests of 'the entire people' must be dismissed as mere demagogy.

Since the Soviet revisionist leaders admit that the Soviet state is no longer the dictatorship of the working class, it must be the machinery of rule of the new capitalist class.

But Lenin demonstrated that monopoly capitalism - such as came to exist in the Soviet Union after the 'economic reform' - inevitably develops into state-monopoly capitalism, in which the state ceases to be the machinery of rule of the capitalist class as a whole and becomes that of the most powerful groups of monopoly capitalists, and in which the intervention of the state extends into every facet of social life:

"In... state-monopoly capitalism the monstrous oppression of the mass of the toilers by the state - which is becoming merged more and more with the all-powerful capitalist combines - is becoming ever more monstrous". (V. I. Lenin: Preface to the First Edition of The State and Revolution, in: Selected Works, Volume 7; London; 1946; p. 5).

"Imperialism - ... the era of the transformation of monopoly capitalism into state-monopoly capitalism - has particularly witnessed an unprecedented strengthening of the 'state machine' and an unprecedented growth of its bureaucratic and military apparatus". (V. I. Lenin: The State and Revolution, in: ibid.; p. 32).

Thus, the Soviet revisionist Prime Minister Aleksei Kosygin described in 1965 how the industrial Ministries would 'rely on' the trusts, firms and combines in their respective fields, and would 'hand over' to them many operative functions:

"Within industries a network of cost-accounting amalgamations... will exercise direct management over their respective enterprises.... The Ministries will rely in their work on the cost accounting amalgamations, handing over many operative functions to them". (A. N. Kosygin: 'On Improving Industrial Management...'; op. cit.).

Furthermore, the Soviet state which came into being through the 'economic reform' of the 1960s, was not of the 'parliamentary democratic' type such as exists in Britain at the present time.

Within 'parliamentary democracy' the legal right exists for the formation of political parties with the declared aim of transforming the structure of society; and the legal right exists for such parties to hold public meetings and demonstrations, to publish journals and leaflets, to contest elections, and so on.

But in the Soviet society of the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s such rights did not exist. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union - representing, as has been shown, the interests of Soviet monopoly capital - was the sole legal political party and functioned as 'the leading and guiding force of Soviet society':

"The period of full-scale communist construction is characterised by a further enhancement of the role and importance of the Communist Party as the leading and guiding force of Soviet society". (Programme of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union; Moscow; 1961; p. 122-23).

Consequently, the Soviet state of the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s was - despite its false trappings of red flags - a fascist-type state in which the Communist Party functioned essentially as did the fascist parties in Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany and Falangist Spain.

Conclusion

The theses that the Communist Party of the Soviet Union remained a Marxist-Leninist Party and the Soviet Union remained a socialist society until the mid-1980s cannot be reconciled with the known facts.

Stalin and the Question of 'Market Socialism' in the Soviet Union After the Second World War

2011-11-30T16:40:00.000-05:00

Vijay Singh

The International Seminar 'Stalin Today' takes place in Moscow on the 77th anniversary of the October Revolution, after the final disintegration of the Soviet Union and when the working class of the states which have arisen on its ruins is taking its first steps directed against the renewed Rule of Capital. Does Stalin have anything to tell us about these developments ? It is suggested here that his last major work, 'Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R.', is a central point of departure for examining the 'market reforms' which were introduced in the Soviet Union after 1953 and for coming to a conclusion about their economic and political character.

What was the context of the economic discussions?

The C.P.S.U. (B) considered that the foundations of Socialist society had been laid in the main by 1935. The 18th Congress of the Party thought that the transition to Communist society was the path forward for the further development of the country. A committee was constituted to draft the new party programme and in 1941 the State Planning Committee was requested to formulate a 15 year programme of economic development designed to lay the foundations of Communist society. This perspective was disrupted by the Nazi invasion but it was resumed immediately in the post-war period. In 1947 Malenkov noted at the Nine Party Informburo Conference that the party was: 'working on the preparation of a new programme of the C.P.S.U.(B). The existing programme of the C.P.S.U.(B) is clearly out of date and must be substituted by a new one' (Malenkov, G.M. 'The Activities of the C.C. of the C.P.S.U. (B)' in For a Lasting Peace, For a People's Democracy, Bombay, 1948, p.79.). The task was reiterated at the 19th Party Congress in 1952. Consonant with this, when presenting his Report on the Fourth Five Year Plan to the Supreme Soviet in 1946, N.A. Voznesensky recalled the task which had been entrusted to him in 1941. The plan, he argued:

'envisages the completion of the building of a classless socialist society and the gradual transition from socialism to communism. It envisages the accomplishment of the basic economic task of the U.S.S.R. namely to overtake and surpass the main capitalist countries economically, as regards the volume of industrial production per head of the population' (Voznesensky,N.,'Five-Year Plan for the Rehabilitation and Development of the National Economy of the U.S.S.R. 1946-1950', Soviet News, London,1946, p.10.). Stalin concurred with this programmatic perspective as is clear from his response to a query by a British correspondent who asked whether he considered it possible to construct 'Communism in one country'. Stalin replied that it was 'perfectly possible, especially in a country like the Soviet Union'. (Stalin, J., 'On Post-War International Relations'. Soviet News, London, 1947, p. 13).

Stalin's critique in 'Economic Problems' of the Gosplan economist L.D. Yaroshenko indicated that pronounced survivals of the views of Bogdanov persisted into the post-war period. Yaroshenko did not represent an isolated viewpoint. Yudin suggested that there was a veritable trend amongst the scientific workers, the 'Yaroshenkovschini', which marked a recidivist throwback to 'Trotskyism-Bukharinism-Bogdanovism'. Bogdanov it will be recalled was the author of influential pre-revolutionary textbooks of political economy. In philosophy he adopted the views of Mach and Avenarius which had prompted Lenin to pen a reply in the form of 'Materialism and Empirio-Criticism'. In 1917 he had supported quasi-Menshevist positions to the effect that the material conditions did not exist in Russia for socialist revolution. In the field of culture he argued for a 'pure proletarian culture' which negated the pre-revolutionary heritage. In the last period of his life he developed an 'organisational science',which he called tektology, arguing that structural relations could be generalised as formal schemes as in relations of magnitude in mathematics ('Filosofskaya Entsiklopediya', Volume I, Moscow, 1960, p.177.). Such views were clearly distant from the propositions of dialectical materialism, historical materialism and Marxist political economy. Bogdanov commanded an extraordinary influence amongst the Russian left including Lunacharsky, Bukharin and Gorky. His views permeated the writings of Bukharin on questions of political economy, historical materialism and questions of science and technology.

Stalin pointed out that Yaroshenko underplayed the significance of the relations of production, overrated the role of the productive forces in the forward development of society and thereby reduced the relations of production to a component part of the forces of production. Yaroshenko virtually abolished the political economy of socialism by ignoring central questions such as the continuing existence of various property forms, of commodity circulation and value categories in general. The science of political economy was sought to be transformed into a classless rational organization of the productive forces reminiscent of Bogdanov. In contrast with this marked economism, Stalin reiterated that contradictions persisted in the U.S.S.R. between the relations of production and the forces of production. If the directing bodies implemented incorrect policies then conflict was bound to emerge and in such conditions the productive relations would retard the development of the forces of production. The views of Yaroshenko recall the attempt of Bukharin to turn a blind eye to the eruption of class conflicts in the countryside and his desire to freeze the then existing capitalist production relations in agriculture and turn attention to 'technical revolution'. Bukharin openly stated in the 1930s that the `revolution of the proletariat in our country enters its own new phase: the phase of technical revolution' (Bukharin, N.I., 'Metodologiya i Planirovanie Nauki i Tekhniki', Izbrannie Trudy, Moscow, 1989, p.135). Such views also became prevalent in the arid years after 1953. Socialism no longer meant, as it did for Lenin and Stalin, the abolition of classes and the advance to communism, but the preservation of the collective farm form of property, the development of the ideology of classless 'scientific-technical advance', and the generalized introduction of commodity-money relations. The views of Yaroshenko were entirely compatible with the establishment of market relations after 1953. The Soviet leadership was unconcerned with the retention or extension of the socialist relations of production and proved incapable of maintaining the continuously high level of development of the productive forces which were characteristic of the Stalin epoch. The experience of the economic policies followed after 1953 demonstrates the correctness of the understanding that the implementation of incorrect policies would lead to a situation where the relations of production would act as a brake on the productive forces. Yaroshenko would seem not to be unaware of the implications of his views. Writing in 1992 he did not care to take up the issues posed for Marxist political economy by the destruction of the U.S.S.R. He continued to stress the primacy of cognition of the laws of development of the productive forces above all social questions and reiterated his opinion of 1951 that the central task of the discussion on the Textbook of Political Economy of that year should have been to address the question of the rational, organizational functioning of the socialist economy. What was novel was that he took up the issue of productive relations under socialism and argued that the scientific organization of the economy presupposed the perfection of socialist productive relations which in contemporary parlance he identified as 'social-organizational relations' and the 'economic mechanism' (Yaroshenko,L.D., 'Svidetel'stva Vremeni' in Igor' Troyanovskii (ed), I. Stalin, 'Ekonomicheskie Problemy Sotsializma v SSSR', Peredelkino, 1992, pp.100-104.). By this logic Yaroshenko openly advocated the political economy of the period of Perestroika.

The question of the continued existence of the social contradiction between the relations of production and the forces of production had wider ramifications. In 'The German Ideology' Marx held that the contradiction between the productive forces and productive relations lay at the root of class collisions. Stalin's critique of Yaroshenko clearly establishes that in his last theoretical contribution he continued to recognise that contradictions and class struggle continued to exist in socialist society. As seen the criticism of Yaroshenko clearly stated that if incorrect policies were carried out then conflict would emerge that would retard the forces of production. At the same time Stalin considered that under conditions of socialism that matters did not usually come to such a pass that conflict would occur as it was possible for society to take timely steps to bring the lagging relations of production into conformity with the character of the productive forces. This was possible because socialist society did not contain obsolescent classes that might organise resistance. It did, however, contain backward and inert forces that did not realise the necessity of changing the productive relations. Stalin considered that it would be possible to overcome such views without bringing matters to a conflict. This understanding was consistent with that of Lenin who had argued that under socialism contradiction continued but that antagonism no longer existed.

The discussion on the persistence of social contradictions in Soviet Society had clear implications for Soviet philosophy. Yudin pointed out that many philosophers including himself by arguing that there existed full correspondence between the relations of production and the productive forces in Soviet society, denied the existence of contradiction between the two. The philosopher Glezerman in his brochure 'Full Correspondence of Productive Relations and Productive Forces in Socialist Society' of 1951 had come unabashedly to this conclusion and did not care even to analyze the economic relations, productive forces or productive relations of Soviet society. Yudin concluded that the negation of the existence of any contradiction had led Soviet philosophy to the construction of lifeless and metaphysical schemes (Yudin,P.F., "Trud I.V. Stalina 'Ekonomicheskie Problemy Sotsialisma v SSSR'- Osnova Dalneishego Razvitiya Obshestvennikh Nauk", Moscow, 1953, pp.23-24.).

Lenin in May, 1921 had emphasised that the product of the socialist factories was 'not a commodity in the politico-economic sense' and that it was already 'a commodity ceasing to be a commodity' (Lenin,V.I., 'Polnoe Sobranie Sochinenya', Volume 43, 5th edition, Moscow, 1963, p.276.) Yet we find in 'Economic Problems' that the Soviet economist A.I. Notkin expressed the view that the implements of production manufactured by the social sector were in fact commodities. Stalin rejected this understanding and stated that the implements of production were allocated to the enterprises and not sold, that the State retained ownership of the implements of production and that these were utilized by the administration of the enterprises as representatives of the State in accordance with the State plans. In 1948 a concerted attempt had been made by the Chairman of Gosplan, N.A. Voznesensky, which had materialised in the reform of wholesale prices in January 1949 designed to end the system of state subsidies in heavy industry and transport. Voznesensky sought to introduce a minimal principle of profitability, some 3-5% of cost of production, into the branches of production including heavy industry and railway transport, thereby laying the basis for the conversion of the means of production into commodities (Trifonov, D.K., et al, 'Istoriya Politicheskoi Economii Sotsializma, Ocherki', Leningrad, 1972, p.201.). This attempt to bring the law of value into operation in the basic means of production was swiftly ended. Voznesensky was removed from his position on the initiative of Stalin on March 5th, 1949.

In 'Economic Problems' Stalin asserted that the sphere of commodity production in the Soviet Union was limited and restricted: no bourgeoisie was in existence there being only associated socialist producers in the State, the cooperatives and the collective farms. Commodity production was limited to items of personal consumption. For this reason Stalin denied that commodity production in the Soviet Union could give rise to the economic categories of capitalist commodity production such as: 'labour power as a commodity, surplus value, capital, capitalist profit, the average rate of profit'. (Stalin,J., 'Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR', Moscow, 1952, p.21). Such notions were prevalent amongst a section of Soviet economists as is clear from Yudin's critique of the anti-Marxist errors in the social sciences. Merzenev and Mikolenko upheld the opinion that labour power was a commodity in the Soviet Union just as in capitalist society. A. Yakovlev argued that the category of 'capital' was applicable to Soviet conditions. The noted economist Atlas expressed the view that the average rate of profit operated in Soviet economy (Yudin, op. cit. p.23.).

A fundamental transformation of economic policy took place in the period between the death of Stalin and the 20th Congress of the C.P.S.U. The planning perspectives of laying the foundations of a communist society were abandoned and replaced by a consumerist welfare programme. Stalin's proposal, approved by the 19th Congress of the C.P.S.U., to gradually introduce products-exchange between town and country in place of commodity circulation was effectively ended from May 1953 and a programme for extending commodity circulation was adopted under the slogan of expanding 'Soviet trade'. The sphere of Gosplan in the Soviet economy was progressively restricted with the expansion of the economic rights of the All-Union Soviet Ministries in April 1953 and by the extension of the powers of the Directors of Enterprises and the Ministries of the Union Republics in 1955. The system of centralized directive planning as law inherited from the Stalin period was ended from 1955 and replaced by a new system of 'coordinative planning' by Gosplan and the All-Union and Union Republic Ministries.

The two years after the 20th Congress of the C.P.S.U. witnessed further radical changes in the running of the Soviet economy. Under Resolution Number 555 of the Council of Ministers of the U.S.S.R. dated 22nd May, 1957 the system of allocation of the products of the State sector was brought to an end and a multitude of centralized sales organizations was created under Gosplan to sell industrial products manufactured by Soviet industry. The elimination of Molotov, Kaganovich and Saburov from the leadership of the C.P.S.U. had an immediate impact on economic policy. The transformation of the means of production into commodities was clearly accomplished by Resolution Number 1150 of the Council of Ministers of the U.S.S.R. on September 22nd,1957, by which enterprises was expected to operate on the basis of profitability.

The Third Edition of the 'Political Economy Textbook' which appeared in 1958 accurately reflected the new economic system by stating that the means of production circulated within the State sector as commodities (Ostrovityanov, K.V., et al, 'Politicheskaya Ekonomiya, Uchebnik', 3rd edition, Moscow, 1958, p.505.).

In his reply to the letters of A.V. Sanina and V.G. Venzher, Stalin had opposed the view that the Machine Tractor Stations, which owned the basic implements of production in agriculture, should be sold to the collective farms as, inter alia, a gigantic quantity of instruments of production would come within the orbit of commodity production. Sanina and Venzher were not isolated economists when they expressed their opinion. A year earlier A. Paltsev in his brochure 'On the Paths of Transition from Socialism' [Kiev, 1950] suggested that with the growth of agricultural techniques in the MTS and with the merger of the smaller collective farms that there might be established MTS departments under the collective farms which would be closely linked with the work of a given collective farm (Yudin, op. cit., p.31-32.). By this measure Paltsev suggested in effect that the property of the whole people, state property, should be subordinated to the group property of the collective farms. The preliminary condition for dissolving the MTS was that the system of allocating the principal instruments of production in agriculture be terminated. Under Prikaz Number 663 of Gosplan in July, 1957, Gosplan ended the system of allocation of agricultural machinery inherited from the Stalin epoch and created under its jurisdiction an organisation, Glavavtotraktorsbita, with the function of selling the machinery required in the agricultural sector. In 1958 while formally demarcating himself from the earlier proposal advanced by Venzher, Khrushchev implemented the policy of dissolving the MTS and selling the implements of production in agriculture to the collective farms. As a result the means of production in agriculture as well as in industry now circulated as commodities. The Soviet publicist Vinnichenko who was close to Venzher and Khrushchev projected the view that 'distrust' of the peasantry was at the root of Stalin's opposition to the collective farms owning the basic implements of production in agriculture. This was not so. Stalin was merely upholding the Marxist position of Engels, who in a letter to Bebel in January, 1886, unequivocally stated that the means of production in agriculture had to be owned by society as a whole so that the special interests of the co-operative farmers did not prevail over the general interests of the whole of society (Engels to A.Bebel in Berlin, 20-23 January 1889, in K. Marks and F. Engels, 'Sobranie Sochneniya', Volume 36, Moscow, 1964, p.361.). Both Engels and Stalin, moreover, were of the view that the rich peasants would not be members of the collective farms. It is understandable that in those people's democracies where the kulaks (and even sections of the landlords) were members of the agricultural producers' cooperatives and where the principal implements of production in agriculture were owned by these cooperatives, Stalin's critique of Sanina and Venzher would receive an icy reception.

Augmenting the writings of Yudin was the article by Suslov published in 'Izvestiya' on 25th December 1952 which touched on the implications of the views of N.A.Voznesensky as expressed in the brochure 'War Economy of the USSR During the Patriotic War' which had been published in 1947. The main gravamen of the charge against Voznesensky was that he had made a fetish of the law of value which was made to appear as though it regulated the distribution of labour in the different branches of the Soviet economy.

It is quite clear that this was so for we find the following passage in the work: 'The law of value operates not only in the distribution of products, but also in the distribution of labour itself among the various branches of the Soviet Union's national economy. In this sphere the state plan makes use of the law of value to ensure the proper apportioning of the social labour among the various branches of the economy in the interests of socialism' (Voznesensky, N., 'War Economy of the USSR in the Period of the Patriotic War', Moscow, 1948, p.118.).

What is at stake here? So far as the operation of the law of value in Soviet society was concerned much indeed hinged on this from the vantage point of Marxist economic theory. Marx and Engels considered that the law of value was operative only in societies where commodity production was present. Value came into operation with the rise of commodity production and ended its activity with the end of the commodity system (Engels, Letter to Karl Kautsky in Zurich, in K. Marx, 'On Value', Belfast, 1971, p. 5.). From the argument that value regulated the allocation of labour in the economy the only logical conclusion which emerged was that a system of generalised commodity production, i.e. capitalism, was prevalent in the Soviet Union. Voznesensky, then, raised fundamental issues on the very nature of a socialist society.

For Marx and Engels the law of value operated in a society in which commodity production was in existence: 'The concept of value is the most general and therefore the most comprehensive expression of the economic conditions of commodity production' (Engels,F., 'Anti-Duhring', Moscow, 1978, p.376). A society of commodity production is composed of `private producers' where commodities are `produced and exchanged against each other by these private producers for their private account (Ibid., p.240.). Logically, in a society where commodity production has been finished `with the seizing of the means of production by society, production of commodities is done away with and simultaneously, the mastery of the product over the producer. Anarchy in social production is replaced by systematic, definite organisation' (Ibid., p.343.), then the law of value is redundant. This is also the implication of the argument advanced in Marx's letter to Kugelmann of July, 1868, where he argued:

'That this necessity of distributing social labour in definite proportions cannot be done away with by the particular form of social production, but can only change the form it assumes, is self-evident. No natural laws can be done away with. What can change, in changing historical circumstances, is the form in which these laws operate. And the form in which this proportional division of labour operates,in a state of society where the interconnection of social labour is manifested in the private exchange of the private products of labour, is precisely the exchange value of the products' (Marx,K., 'Letters to Dr. Kugelmann', London, n.d., pp.73-74.)

For in a society where the interconnection of social labour takes place in the absence of a system of commodities i.e. without private producers, then the allocation of social labour would take place without the operation of value. This is confirmed by Engels where he argues that under socialism:

"It is true that even then it will still be necessary for society to know how much labour each article of consumption requires for its production. It will have to arrange its plan of production in accordance with its means of production, which include, in particular, its labour-power. The useful effects of the various articles of consumption, compared with one another and with two quantities of labour required for their production will in the end determine the plan. People will be able to manage everything very simply, without the intervention of much-vaunted 'value' " (Engels,F., Ibid., p.375.).

This is further corroborated by Marx in his last sustained piece of writing on political economy, 'Comments on Adolph Wagner's Lehrbuch der politischen Okonomie' in 1879-80, where he rejected the idea attributed to him by Wagner that value would operate in a socialist society. Marx criticized Wagner's 'premiss that in the "marxist social state" his (Marx's) theory of value developed for bourgeois society will determine value' (Marx,K., 'On Value', p.28.).

Marx and Engels clearly excluded the operation of the law of value in a socialist society. Nevertheless, they accepted that in a transitional socialist society value would be retained where the small peasantry continued to exist as a class. Engels spoke of such a condition in 1884 in his article on the 'Peasant Question in France and Germany':

'When we are in possession of state power we shall not even think of forcibly expropriating the small peasants (regardless of whether with or without compensation),as we shall have to do in the case of the big landowners. Our task relative to the small peasant consists, in the first place, in effecting a transition of his private enterprise and private possession to cooperative ones, not forcibly but by dint of example and the proffer of social assistance for this purpose'.

In the U.S.S.R. even after collectivisation and the establishment of group property, private production in a restricted form continued to exist. While Gosplan could abrogate the operation of the law of value in the sphere of state industry, the state farms, and the MTS by regulating the allocation of social labour through a definite plan, that was not in the bounds of possibility in the collective farms, where even though the sown area, yield, the extent of tractor-work, the number of socially owned cattle, the gross production of agriculture, the volume of compulsory payments and the payments in kind to the MTS came under the scope of directive planning, the state could not plan the use of the surplus commodity production or the use of labour-power of definite periods on definite tasks (Smolin,N., 'O zachatkakh produkto-obmena', Voprosi Ekonomiki, No.1, 1953, pp.33-45.).

Voznesensky did not maintain the stand of Marxism for he held that the law of value operated in the distribution of labour among the various branches of the Soviet economy i.e. in the industrial as well as in the agricultural sectors. In propagating this view, Voznesensky stood apart from the general consensus of Soviet economists. In the editorial article of 1943 'Some Problems of Teaching Political Economy' it had been argued that 'the assignments of funds, and labour power to individual branches of production is effected in a planned way, according to the basic tasks of socialist construction' (Pod Znamenem Markzisma,No.7-8, 1943.). Similarly, in the following year the doyen of Soviet political economy, K.V.Ostrovityanov, argued that in a socialist economy 'the distribution of labour and the means of production among the various branches of the national economy takes place not on the basis of a fortuitous movement of prices and the pursuit of profits, but on the basis of planned leadership making use of the law of value' (Ostrovityanov,K.V., 'Ob osnovnikh zakonomernostyakh razvitiya sotsialisticheskogo khozaistva', Bol'shevik, No.23-24, 1944, pp.50-59.). Value did not 'direct the distribution of social labour' then but it played 'the role of an auxiliary tool of the planned distribution of labour and means of production among the branches of Soviet economy'.

Value did not govern the development of the production of the means of production for without its being restricted the allocation of the necessary funds for this sector could not be found. Yet Voznesensky in his discussion on establishing the appropriate proportions between production of the means of production and production of consumer goods for the purposes of reproduction on an extending scale argues in such a manner as to dispense with indicating the primacy of production of the means of production (Department 1) in relation to production of the means of consumption (Department 11) which was necessary for ensuring the continuous expansion of the national economy, relegating the matter to the section of the work relating to the post-war economy:

'If we divide Socialist production in the USSR into Department 1, producing means of production, and Department 11,producing articles of consumption, the value of the means of production set aside by the Soviet state for enterprises in Department 11 must obviously in a measure defined by plan correspond to the value of the articles of consumption set aside for enterprises of Department 1. Indeed, if enterprises of Department 1 were to be deprived of articles of consumption and enterprises of Department 11, of the means of production, Socialist reproduction on an extended scale would be impossible, in as much as the workers of enterprises producing means of production would be deprived of articles of consumption, while enterprises producing articles of consumption would be deprived of the means of production, i.e. fuel, raw materials and equipment' (Voznesensky, N., loc. cit.).

In contrast Ostrovityanov had recognised that value functioned only at an auxiliary level in planning the distribution of the means of production (Ostrovityanov,K.V., op. cit.). More emphatically, the author of the 1943 editorial had argued, giving the instance of the Kirov plant at Makeyevka, and the Magnitogorsk and Kuznetsk combines, that value did not govern the development of the Soviet metallurgical industry, which had operated for many years from funds from the state budgets without yielding a profit (Pod Znamenem Marksizma, op. cit.).

Suslov's critique of Voznesensky's booklet hit the mark. But Voznesensky was not just a theoretician for as Chairman of Gosplan under the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union he was in a position to implement a policy of extending the sphere of operation of commodity-money relations in the Soviet Union in 1948-49. The examination of the Leningrad case conducted under Gorbachev revealed that M.Z. Pomaznev who was the Deputy Chairman of the U.S.S.R. State Supply Committee had complained that Gosplan under Voznesensky had reduced the national industrial plan for the first quarter of 1949. Later Shkiryatov of the Party Control Commission reiterated the charge and the U.S.S.R. Council of Ministers noted the failure of Voznesensky to defend the planning directives of the government (Izvestiya Ts.K. KPSS No 2, 1989.). The charge of reduction of the industrial plan is entirely consistent with the raising of wholesale prices for the goods of heavy industry in January 1949 and the attempt to introduce the operation of profitability into the production of means of production and bring them into the sphere of commodity-money relations. The removal of Voznesensky from Gosplan on March 5th 1949 saw the beginning of the nullification of his economic policies by several stages so that wholesale prices were ultimately reduced to 30 percent below the 1949 level. Voznesensky became a hero of those who wished to remodel the Soviet economy on the lines of a market economy: he was rehabilitated soon after the death of Stalin.

Suslov's article of 1952 took up one other question related to value. He criticised the long prevalent understanding among Soviet economists that under socialism value was 'transformed' or 'altered' in such a way so as to serve socialism. Stalin in 'Economic Problems' had rejected the view that under conditions of the socialist planned economy that this occurred for if value could be 'transformed' then economic laws could be abolished and replaced by other laws. The sphere of action of an economic law could be restricted but it could not be 'transformed' or 'abolished' (Stalin, J., op. cit. p.97.). The subjectivist notion of the 'transformation' of value categories under socialism permeated Soviet political economy. Voznesensky gave an illustration of this trend when he argued:

'The commodity in the Socialist society is free of the conflict between its value and use value so characteristic of commodity-capitalist society where it springs from private ownership of the means of production' (N. Voznesensky, 'War Economy', p.97). Was it possible that under socialism that the commodity could be emancipated from the conflict between use-value and exchange-value? In the U.S.S.R. value persisted because of the existence of two different types of property. If group property embodied mainly in the form of the collective farms, were elevated to the level of state property, then the basis for the operation of the remnants of value would cease to exist. But it was the commodity per se which Marx considered as the primary 'cell' or 'embryo' of capitalism. It could not be 'changed' or`transformed', only its scope could be limited and restricted.

Stalin's understanding on this question corresponded to the Marxist position of Engels who wrote to Kautsky in September 1884 in the following terms when the latter was drafting an article on the economic theories of the German Katheder socialist economist, Rodbertus:

'You do a similar thing (i.e. as Rodbertus) with value. Present value is that of commodity production but with abolition of commodity production value 'alters' itself also, that is, value in itself remains but in a changed form. But in fact economic value is one of the categories belonging to commodity production and vanishes with it (See Duhring, p.252-62), as it did not exist before it. The relationship between work and the product does not express itself in the form of value before commodity production, nor will it do so after it' (Engels,F., Letter to Karl Kautsky in Zurich, in K. Marx 'On Value', pp. 5-6.).

For Engels a 'changed' value represented the oblique smuggling in of the operation of the law of value which was impermissible in a socialist society. In the writings of Kautsky this represented an isolated blunder, but Stalin faced a situation where virtually the whole of the economists in the U.S.S.R. endorsed this error.

The notion of 'transformed' value seems to have arisen as an expression of the dual need to criticise the idea that value could be arbitrarily terminated in the Soviet Union when the existence of the collective farms necessitated the continued preservation of commodity-money relations, and conjointly, to articulate the reality that under conditions of the socialist planned economy the operation of value had an auxiliary, subordinate and restricted role. Nevertheless the conception of 'altered' value had in the Marxian sense a clear ideological content which was the reason why Stalin considered that the formula despite being current in the Soviet Union for a long time had to be abandoned for the sake of accuracy. The notion of 'transformed' value bore a twin problem as it still carried with it the idea that value could be arbitrarily created or abolished, and because it could easily become a theoretical lever for justifying the extension, rather than the contraction, of the sphere of operation of commodity-money relations as had clearly occurred in the instance of Voznesensky.

With the rapid expansion of commodity-money relations in the Soviet economy after 1953 it was, perhaps, inevitable that the 'transformed' commodity would make a comeback. The 'Textbook of Political Economy' of 1954 argued that the socialist economy did not know the contradiction between private and social labour' (Ostrovityanov,K.V., et al, 'Politicheskaya Ekonomiya, Uchebnik', First edition, Moscow, 1954, p.442). Such a ratiocination posed many problems. It suggested that in a society which still required to use commodity production in a restricted fashion that social labour could be said to exist in a full form despite the fact the working class still received payment in the wage form with which it purchased consumer goods. It tended to imply, moreover, that the contradiction between concrete labour and abstract labour, which in the understanding of Marx could only be ended in communist society had already been resolved. It would also appear that private labour did not require to be terminated by bringing the labour power of the collective farm peasantry, which was not fully in the sphere of socialist planning for definite periods on definite tasks and which still preserved some of the features of private labour as the relationship of work and product was fully expressed in the value form, to the level of the social labour of the working class at that historical stage, controlling the property of the whole people. The 1954 edition of the 'Textbook of Political Economy' brought Soviet political economy back to the contradiction-free commodity of Voznesensky and it rejected the position of Stalin in 'Economic Problems' that the social contradiction between the relations of production and the forces of production continued to operate in Soviet society.

In the years after 1953 the C.P.S.U. no longer considered itself as the vanguard party of the working class in the Leninist tradition but as a party of the whole people. The state of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which Marx considered as continuing until the establishment of communism, was replaced by the state of the whole people. Before the economic reforms of 1953-58 it was possible to argue as it was done by Stalin that commodity production in the Soviet Union was of a special type:

'commodity production without capitalists, which is concerned mainly with the goods of associated socialist producers (the state, the collective farms, the cooperatives), the sphere of action of which is confined to items of personal consumption, which obviously cannot possibly develop into capitalist production, and which, together with its 'money economy', is designed to serve the development and consolidation of socialist production' (Stalin,J., op. cit., pp. 20-21.).

But after the market reforms of 1953-58 when the means of production began to circulate as commodities the situation qualitatively changed. The commodity forms of production which existed under socialism were of special type as Stalin pointed out. After the reforms the restrictions placed on commodity production were removed and commodity forms began to embody the economic relations of another type. Marx in 'Capital' had established that the commodity, the basic cell of capitalism, contained within itself the embryo of both wage-labour and capital. The logic of rapidly expanding commodity production meant that the economic categories, such as labour-power, surplus value, capitalist profit and the average rate of profit, would appear once again. It is in this context that the programme for the establishment of Communist society put forward by Khrushchev in 1961 has to be evaluated. In place of the contraction of the sphere of operation of commodity production and commodity circulation in the advance to communism the C.P.S.U. envisaged their further utilization. The programme withdrew from the task of the abolition of classes under socialism and refrained from restructuring the relations of production of Soviet society. The perspective put forward by Stalin of raising the group property of the collective farms to the level of the property of the entire people was ended. In place of this the notion of a future merger between collective farm property and the state property was adopted under Khrushchev.

Paper presented at the International Seminar "Stalin Today" held at the Moscow State University on 5th and 6th November, 1994.

21st Century Socialism, A New Theorisation of Old Anti-Marxist Ideas

2011-11-30T16:34:00.003-05:00

Alejandro Rios

‘How can one understand a system that surpasses and is qualitatively different from capitalism without changing its essence, the form in which production is organised determined by the form of ownership of the means of production?’

Introduction

The offensive that tried to convince the workers and the world that the epoch of socialism had come to an end lasted little more than one decade. In the middle of the political debacle to which revisionism led the countries of East Europe, Francis Fukuyama tried to contradict the laws of the historical development of humanity. He spoke of the eternity of bourgeois society, declaring that the end of history had arrived. Shortly thereafter, forced by the circumstances that the world is undergoing, Fukuyama had to acknowledge his error.

There was no naiveté in his error; his argument was part of the ideological arsenal used by U.S. imperialism to combat the revolutionary forces and impose its world domination. This became an ideological-political support for the anti-communist forces in their struggle against the world revolution. Its effect was felt in the popular and revolutionary movement, among some progressive and left-wing intellectuals who were convinced by it and swelled the ranks of reaction. At best, in their disillusionment they sought to ‘put together’ proposals that would make capitalism a less savage system, in a clear demonstration of their state of defeat.

The effect on the international workers movement was great. The revisionist parties, which in some countries and regions had a significant influence on the mass movement, petty-bourgeois left-wing organisations and even Marxist-Leninist parties that were weakened ideologically and politically, and other forces in the revolutionary and democratic movement on a world scale succumbed to the attack. Confusion gained ground and only a few parties and organisations understood the transitory nature of the political process that humanity was undergoing. Our Party was one of them; it never lowered the banners of the revolution and socialism, despite being the target of attack by the bourgeoisie, by organisations and people who called themselves ‘leftists’ – a light, moderate and ‘modern’ left – who accused the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Ecuador (PCMLE) of being ‘traditionalist,’ ‘conservative,’ ‘primitive,’ etc.

In these circumstances, the international political scene was under the absolute control of the right-wing forces and the workers movement lost the political initiative. However, capitalism itself refuted the fallacies of the bourgeoisie; its intrinsic contradictions made the idolatry of the system crumble. Once again events proved the revolutionary forces correct; the supposedly buoyant capitalism, which grew and succeeded in embracing the whole planet, could not conceal its crisis, much less its disastrous social effects, by macro-economic figures. Under the ‘neo-liberal model’ poverty and wealth have become even more polarised throughout the whole world, not only between the imperialist and the dependent countries, but also within the former. Three billion people in the world live in poverty, of whom one billion are suffering from hunger. In the developed capitalist countries food is hoarded while the subsidies that the European States grant leave fertile fields fallow. These are a few demonstrations of the insurmountable inequality that the system produces.

The development of capital produced the inevitable: the discontent and protest of the workers, youth and peoples in general. The years in which the workers movement noticeably reduced its resistance struggle were left behind (the period of ebb) and during the last 5 years the revival of the mass movement on the international level has become evident, clearly with differences between one country and another, between one region and another. In some places the revival took place earlier but it is now taking place all over.

In this manner, the preaching of the health of capitalism, of the impossibility of surpassing it – much less by revolutionary means – has been losing ground, has been defeated by the battles of the working class and peoples. Particularly in Latin America the struggle against the neo-liberal structural adjustment programmes and their negative economic and social consequences has allowed the consciousness of the masses to develop, to affirm their desire for change and the certainty that it is possible to achieve this change. In the heat of battle, in various countries the neo-liberal forces have been cornered, leading to a change in the relationship of the social and political forces.

This can be seen in the development of the political forces and movements that raise progressive and left-wing platforms that, in some countries, have won important electoral victories, unfurling the banners of opposition to neo-liberalism, and nourishing the hope of the peoples that they can politically defeat their class enemies.

In this context the ideas of the left have gained ground, so that it no longer seems strange to speak of socialism; there are even State leaders who say that this is their objective. However, a platform called 21st century socialism is being forcefully promoted – making every effort to distinguish itself from Marxist-Leninist socialism – which would be ‘more democratic and humane’ than the socialism known to history, reminding us of some theorisations used in the past by the old revisionists.

Socialism Without Socialist Thought

On December 15, 2006, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez made a speech at the Teresa Carreño Theatre in Caracas, which has been called transcendental. The versions that have circulated on the internet were called Features of Building 21st Century Socialism, and, in fact, contain aspects that signify new positions in the policies of the Venezuelan government.

In that speech, Chavez spoke of working for a new era, which would combine three main elements: the theme of socialism, the formation of the single party and constitutional reform. But when he deals with the theme of socialism he begins by acknowledging that he lacks written material that defines how to advance toward building it.

This does not seem strange, since the ‘theoreticians’ and/or the most noted fighters for ‘21st century socialism’ have always stated that this has to be ‘invented.’

The theoretical and political basis of this socialism can be found in the thought of various Latin American patriots who led the independence struggles and in the thought of some revolutionaries of our day. The former, in their great majority, were bourgeois liberal figures from whom one could not draw a socialist doctrine, either because they did not profess socialism or because some of them in that historical period could not conceive of it. To try to find the ideological base of this ‘new socialism’ in the liberal and republican thought of the beginning of the 19th century is not only absurd, above all it negates the universal and current validity of Marxism-Leninism, but above all as the revolutionary scientific doctrine of the working class for the struggle for its social emancipation and the building of socialism. In this manner it joins forces with the bourgeois campaign which, for many years, has tried to bury Marxism-Leninism, precisely because of its threat to bourgeois domination.

Heinz Dieterich, possibly one of the few who claims to have a formula for ‘21st century socialism,’ in his work of the same name states that it has three components: ‘participatory democracy, a democratically planned economy of equivalences, a non-class State and, consequently, the rational-ethical-aesthetic citizen.’ (1) We will give our opinion of these components in this article, except for the theme of the economy of equivalences which we will do in a subsequent article.

The theme of ‘participatory democracy’ is the primary one, as Dieterich speaks of it as synonymous with 21st century socialism. (2) For his part Haiman El Trudi (presidential adviser to the Venezuelan government), in his book The Leap Forward, in enumerating some characteristics of the socialism that is being built in that country, begins by making clear that this has nothing to do with State capitalism nor with the totalitarian logic that was reproduced in other areas at other times. He then comments that it will not infringe upon liberties and human rights and that it will focus all its attention on the common good. El Trudi not only wants to show that he is far removed from Marxist-Leninist theses, but that he is in agreement with the bourgeois ‘criticism’ of revolutionary socialism which, rather than being a criticism, is a furious campaign of slanders.

The international bourgeoisie has used the crude lie that socialism is synonymous with repression, violation of human rights, lack of public and political liberties, as a weapon, and now El Trudi, Dieterich and others are echoing that lie. Actually existing socialism – says Dieterich – considerably lessened economic exploitation, but not socio-political (top-down) domination nor alienation, which enormously diminished its democratic attractiveness for advanced societies. (3) He even states, further on, that there has never been developed ‘the formal and participatory democracy’ in any of the experiences known to humanity.

Since the first unsuccessful attempt of the proletariat to seize power (Paris, 1872 [1871 – translator’s note]), and later in the victorious revolutions in Russia, China, Albania and other countries, together with the adoption of economic measures to put an end to the power of the bourgeoisie and landlords and the creation of the seeds of the new society, they applied measures aimed at guaranteeing the democratic participation of the working class and other labouring classes in the definition of state politics, in the formulation of the economic and political plans, in the application of measures of control, etc.

Karl Marx (4) stated that, when the proletariat seizes power, the bourgeois State will be replaced by a communal structure, based on ‘self-administration of the producers,’ making clear the criterion of democratic participation of the masses in defining their destiny. Before the victory of the revolution of November 1917 in Russia, there arose soviets of workers, peasants and soldiers which were the foundation upon which the great socialist State was raised and they fulfilled the role of motor for the development of the revolutionary tasks. There were organisational forms of the masses, true popular parliaments in which all state policies, local and specific policies were discussed. In other countries of People’s Democracy popular councils, revolutionary committees, etc. were created with functions similar to the soviets in many cases, but always with the aim of incorporating the workers and people in the direct exercise of power, They created a new form of democratic participation, proletarian democracy, qualitatively different and superior to the representative or participatory democracy of capitalism.

The first Soviet Constitution, approved after the victory of the revolution, made a great leap forward in the recognition of the political rights of women and youth, which did not exist in capitalist countries; it was the pioneer in the recognition of the economic, social, and cultural rights of the second generation, it advanced in the recognition of the rights of communities and of national groups as collective rights.

The democratic participation of the working class and the labouring classes in the exercise of power in the former Soviet Union and in the countries of People’s Democracy allowed the masses to mobilise enthusiastically in the defence of the new system that they had won.

Anyway, it is necessary to point out the difference between the initial period of building socialism in the USSR and in the other countries of East Europe, and the period in which the Khrushchev revisionists seized power (in the middle of the 1950s) and opened the doors to the restoration of capitalism; on the political level this led to the restriction of democratic rights, the adoption of bureaucratic and authoritarian mechanisms in the exercise of power, the repression of the masses, all in the name of a supposed socialism that in reality no longer existed.

Marxism requires the establishment of the State of the dictatorship of the proletariat as an obligatory tool of the working class for building socialism, to prevent and block the restorationist activities of the local and international bourgeoisie. This state form creates terror among the exploiters which in their more refined criticism they condemn as ‘top-down socio-politics.’ The dictatorship of the proletariat is a state of full democracy for the masses and control and repression for the former exploiting classes; it is built on the principles of democratic centralism, which ‘Engels did not at all understand… in the bureaucratic sense in which this term is used by bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideologists, the anarchists among the latter. His idea of centralism did not in the least preclude such broad local self-government as would combine the voluntary defence of the unity of the state by the ‘communes’ and districts with the complete abolition of all bureaucracy and all ‘ordering’ from above.’ (5)

Without Affecting Private Property, There Is No Socialism

If the former has already led to a dangerous distortion, Dieterich has no reservations about going further when in another one of his writings he calls for overcoming ‘the dogmatism of the discourse of the thirties that confused the problem of socialism with the problem of the form of ownership…’(our emphasis). (6) Two elements emerge from this: a) that socialism would result from the adoption of measures in the superstructure and not of measures in the base of society: the economic structure; and b) consequently, that it is possible to build socialism within the framework of capitalism.

How can one have a system that surpasses and is qualitatively different from capitalism without changing its essence, the form in which production is organised determined by the form of ownership of the means of production? (7) Can one conceive of a socialism that respects the ownership by the bourgeoisie and therefore the instruments it uses to accumulate wealth through the exploitation of the working class?

The socialism of Mr. Dieterich, in fact, defends the permanence of the bourgeoisie – and with it local and international private capital, even though he states the opposite – not in vain does he call for the establishment of a ‘non-class state.’ This reminds us of the old thesis of the government of the whole people, with which the Soviet revisionists carried out the restoration of capitalism in the former USSR. Inspired by that thought, Hugo Chavez maintains that he is fighting for a socialism ‘that is based on solidarity, fraternity, love, liberty and equality,’ (8) a rather vague characterisation that is not different from the slogans raised by the French revolution of 1789: liberty, equality and fraternity. On the other hand, he has clearly stated that he is seeking ‘a socialism that does not exclude private enterprise.’ (9)

One cannot build socialism if the economic foundation of capitalism is maintained: private ownership of the means of production. Socialism can only be built by establishing the social ownership of the means of production, expressed in the form of state socialist property and cooperative socialist property. That form of organisation of the economy demands a qualitatively different State from the present one.

One cannot build socialism if private ownership of the means of production is not replaced by social ownership and if every form of exploitation of man by man is not suppressed. But one must note that – as distinct from pre-capitalist economic formations, in which the new type of economy matures within the previous mode of production – socialist economy cannot arise from within bourgeois society. Therefore, the revolutionary road is the only one that leads to socialism, by means of expropriating the expropriators, as Karl Marx stated.

When new forms of ownership are established, the relations of production will be radically different – in their essence – from the relations of production under capitalism. These will be expressed by the domination of social ownership of the means of production; by the emancipation of the workers from all exploitation and the establishment of relations of fraternal collaboration and socialist mutual aid; and, by the distribution of products in accord with the interests of the workers themselves in harmony with the principle of ‘to each according to his work.’

We have noted all this to show the difference between Marxism and social-democracy represented by Dieterich and company. According to him, ‘the way to emerge from underdevelopment is a policy of development… (that) is kept within the market economy and in the framework of the superstructure of the bourgeois State.’ (10) This contains an extremely dangerous political element, because it would mean that the working class and the peoples should abandon the struggle for the seizure of power and take up the demand to return to the welfare State. This was put forth six decades ago by the bourgeoisie as a mechanism of capitalist accumulation and development to face the crisis that at that time consumed the system and as a political means to confront a flourishing socialism that attracted the attention of the masses.

That political conduct for its part would demand the support of the labouring classes for the local bourgeoisie in carrying out their programme, until the stage of development is reached that would allow the advance to socialism, on the basis of a strategic republican alliance between the peoples and the governments. (11) According to Dieterich only countries such as the United States, China and Japan are in a position to advance toward socialism; the rest of us should be satisfied with having a benefactor State and a bourgeoisie that heads a course for development.

In August of 2006, Yasser Gomez (of the Peruvian journal Mariategui) interviewed Dieterich about the way out of neo-liberalism, and this was his answer: ‘The strategic way out of neo-liberalism is, of course, socialism, that is a post-capitalist civilisation, but at this time the conditions to create socialism do not exist, because in the first place the historic project of the new socialism has not been circulated on a mass scale,… if the theory has not been circulated among the people, if neither mass movements nor vanguard movements are there to implement it, it would be a pipe dream to speak of socialism as an alternative to neo-liberal capitalism. The immediate alternative is Keynesianism, State capitalist development (our emphases). …one must combine the two elements, because the peasants, the unemployed, want an immediate answer and socialism cannot be the immediate answer. The two historic projects have to be linked: Keynesianism and 21st Century Socialism.’ These comments should suffice; it is not a slip, because in the same interview he states that both Bolivia and Venezuela are advancing along the road of that Keynesianism.

But the latter it is not what gets the most attention. The ineffable Dieterich (ineffable because he is inexplicable, not because he is extraordinary), in another interview, this time with Cristina Marcano, published in www.aporrea.org, responded to the question as to whether conditions exist to implement 21st century socialism in Venezuela in the following way: ‘Yes, such conditions exist today. I will mention only some of them. Two thirds of the population voted for the President with full understanding of his slogan of 21st Century Socialism [sic]. This is a substantial mandate from the citizens. The advance in the educational and economic system and in the consciousness of the people has been notable. Latin American integration and the destruction of the Monroe Doctrine already seem unstoppable. The Armed Forces are now dependable and three key sectors of the national economy are in the hands of the government: the State, PdVSA-CVG [state oil company of Venezuela – translator’s note], and more than a hundred thousand cooperatives.’ We note that this answer was given barely five months after the one given to Yasser Gomez and in the days in which Chavez acknowledged the lack of written material that marks the path towards socialism, as we stated in the first paragraphs of this article. Could things have matured so rapidly, or did he respond in that way to praise the readers of Aporrea, the Venezuelan electronic media.

The Road to Socialism Is the Mixed Economy (?!)

Let us say a little more to understand this thinker who has made a few intellectuals dizzy who lost their way when the Berlin Wall collapsed, as if it had fallen on their heads.

On February 10 of this year aporrea.org published an interview with José Luis Carrillo. The title of that interview is decisive: ‘The mixed economy is the road to 21st century socialism,’ and synthesises the essence of the interview. According to Carrillo, Dieterich is convinced that the nationalisation of private property does not lead to socialism, because ‘if State property was socialism, then already under (King) Charles V we would have socialism in Latin America, because when the Spanish Crown arrived in the Americas, all the property of the land, the subsoil and what is above was the king’s patrimony, but this was feudalism, not socialism. The only possible way is a mixed economy, which would have three elements, the State, private enterprise and social property in the form of cooperatives,’ Dieterich states. (12)

Argumentative ingenuity or bad intentions? Of course there is no ingenuity in that argument, but a crude attack on one of the fundamental pillars of socialism: the elimination of private ownership of the means of production and its nationalisation.

State property by itself is not synonymous with socialism, and actually it existed under feudalism and under capitalism; but he ‘forgets’ to state who, which social classes are at the head of the State in those societies. In a society in which the workers are in power, state ownership is not the same as what it is in the capitalist framework, in which the bourgeoisie and finance capital are the beneficiaries.

Let us return to the last lines of the text quoted above and we will find that Dieterich is a supporter of ‘a mixed economy with three elements, the State, private enterprise and social property…’ as the road to socialism, placing himself, in fact, as a defender of private property.

In that ‘socialism’ the role of the private enterprise would be conditioned, neither more nor less, by efficiency, by ‘the capacity of administration. If an entity administers an enterprise adequately – Dieterich states – you do not really have a motive to take its property or possessions, if it abuses them that is another matter. I would assume a functional vision.’ So much for this socialism, in which the exploiters, those responsible for the miserable conditions of life of the workers and peoples, become redeemers, thanks to their capacity for administrative management. He forgets the insurmountable class barriers which place the working class and labouring classes, on the one hand, and the bourgeoisie and imperialism, on the other, on opposite sides.

The Keynesianism put forward by the defenders of 21st century socialism seeks to create the material conditions for the development of socialism, and therefore – as we stated a few lines above – only the imperialist powers would have the possibility of achieving it. As Dieterich himself states, development unfolds in the framework of the capitalist market and bourgeois institutionalism; but capitalist development by itself does not lead to socialism. What capitalism generates are certain economic and social conditions, thanks to the development of the productive forces, to the ever greater socialisation of labour and concentration of production. But that is not enough to build socialism if one does not expropriate the means of production of the bourgeoisie and transform them into collective property after the seizure of power by the working class. That is, the transition from capitalism to socialism is only possible after the seizure of power by the working class and in the framework of the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Socialism and the period of transition from capitalism to socialism are qualitatively different. Until the achievement of social ownership and the elimination of private ownership of the means of production, one must take measures aimed at reconstructing the productive forces of society. ‘Lenin stated this when he declared at the Congress of the Communist International in 1921, that “the material basis for socialism cannot be other than large mechanised industry able to also reorganise agriculture.’’’ (13) In that epoch, this represented the greatest development of the instruments of production; now we must utilise the most advanced technological achievements and the most developed scientific knowledge.

In this period all the means of liquidating the bourgeoisie are applied, tearing capital away from it little by little and centralising the instruments of production in the hands of the State; its nature and duration will depend on the particular conditions of each country.

This means that, at the beginning, together with state property there will coexist and be respected: a) small private property (small commercial production created by peasants and artisans); b) elements of State capitalism, arising from concessions and agreements with capitalists in sectors where the new State does not have the technological and scientific capacity to develop the productive forces. But this will be temporary and in the framework of a new, qualitatively different system, because the working class will have the power in its hands and will have gone from being a dominated class to being the ruling class. It will be a State of the dictatorship of the proletariat and all activities will be oriented to crushing the vestiges of capitalism and not, as Dieterich states, to living together with the bourgeoisie in a non-class State.

It may seem that there is no difference between these two programmes in regard to the existence of various forms of property, but the contrast is radical. Marxist-Leninist socialism speaks of a period of transition from capitalism to socialism in the initial phase, but under conditions in which the working class has taken power into its hands, creating a qualitatively different circumstance, in a process led by the proletariat and its political vanguard. Dieterich, on the other hand, when speaking of socialism or of the new historic project does so in terms of the most advanced phases. ‘The realisation of the NHP (new historic project) – he states – will take place in three phases: a) the final phase is a society without a market economy, without the State and without culture of exclusion… b) the intermediate phase will be a period of coexistence of elements inherited from bourgeois global society and elements from the new global post-bourgeois society. It will serve to gradually harmonise the technological, educational, economic, political, cultural, military, etc. levels of development, between the States of the First World and the neo-colonial States… The first phase (‘c’) of overcoming global capitalism is the time in which we are living… characterised at present by the process of formation of the programme for post-bourgeois society …’ (14) Note that at no time does he refer to the forms of ownership of the means of production; only in the higher phase does he refer to the sphere of the market and to elements of the superstructure.

We had to cite Dieterich extensively to show that his programme does not foresee a break, but rather an evolutionary process of capitalism into socialism, which in the case of Latin America would have as its essence the formation of a regional power bloc, based on MERCOSUR [South American Market – translator’s note]. (15)

‘…Today, – says Dieterich – as in the 19thcentury, it is only possible to overcome underdevelopment in the conditions of a global neo-colonial economy with the strategy of protectionist development employed by Germany and Japan; later by the Asian tigers and in Latin America, by Cardenas, Peron and Vargas. But there is a vital difference: it can no longer be applied only on a national level. The smallest area in which it can be successfully implemented is in a regional market and State that can defend itself from the United States and the European Union, a protectionist Latin American bloc that will allow the development of its industries, the recovery of the countryside, the conservation of its natural resources, the promotion of cutting edge sciences and technologies and the defence of its own identity.’

‘In the present political conditions in Latin America, characterised by the failure of the centre-right and centre-left in power, and the persistent insistence of Washington to continue squeezing the last drop of surplus value from the Great Fatherland [Latin America – translator’s note], the national and regional Bolivarian project is the only immediate hope for change. The nucleus of this Great Fatherland can only be Mercosur, which is the only regional economic space not controlled directly by Washington, with incipient structures of a regional proto-State. This regional bloc, of course, is a capitalist entity, just as the Great Fatherland presented by the Liberator, Simon Bolívar. And there will be citizens who say that they are not willing to struggle for a capitalist project. About this question, which is absolutely legitimate, one must make two reflections.

‘In the first place, the programmes of national change that will be carried out in coordination with the Latin American regional bloc are the immediate answer to the present situation in Latin America. The strategic horizon of Our America, as that of all humanity, is participatory democracy or the new socialism. Upon integrating this third programmatic level of change into the national and regional struggle, the road is opened up toward the ‘kingdom of liberty’ and the stagnation in the policies of the day-to-day struggle is avoided.

‘In the second place, the present alternative for the Latin American countries is not between the implementation of regional capitalism or regional socialism, but between neo-liberal annexation to the United States by means of the FTAA and Plan Colombia, and the deepening of the national balkanisation and africanisation that we are experiencing. Because, not only is there no Latin American socialist programme with roots among the masses, but there are no organised social subjects with the operating capacity to carry it out. There are no Latin American confederations of students that could go on strike against the academic life of Our America; of workers that could paralyse the regional economy; of peasants that could block the highways that lead to the cities, of small and medium-sized businessmen, unions, political parties, etc. that could express their political will on a hemispheric level. Therefore, to present the implantation of regional socialism today as an alternative to the balkanisation or neo-liberal annexation to the United States would be nothing more than a wish. Because it is clear that a political project without a programme and without social subjects, is a pipe-dream’ (our emphases).

He then summarises the three elements that the ‘strategy of State protectionist capitalism’ should fulfill to be successful: ‘1) it has to be national – regional; 2) it should be based on four poles of growth; and, 3) it should solve the problem of financing of the expanded accumulation of capital.’ The poles of development mentioned in point 2 refer to:‘1) the small and medium-sized businesses; 2) the transnational corporations; 3) the cooperatives and, 4) the strategic State enterprises.’

These are the central ideas of Dieterich regarding the period of ‘Latin American transition to the new socialism,’ a completely capitalist process that is radically different from the Marxist-Leninist conception.

A final element in this aspect. On analysing the political options for Latin America to emerge from underdevelopment, Dieterich does not miss any opportunity to deny the validity of the use of organised violence to defeat the forces of capital. ‘The third option – says the above-mentioned author – classic guerilla warfare is no longer an option – for many reasons, from the urbanisation in Latin America to military technology and the impossibility of an independent national development – a strategic access to a non-capitalist society. The use of arms continues to be legitimate, of course, in the defence of the interests of the peoples, when the democratic institutional roads are closed.’ This bourgeois pacifism, added to the evolutionary conception of the transition from capitalism to socialism, makes Dieterich a social-democratic ‘thinker’ disguised as a socialist.

The Non-Class State

Let us return to the theme of the ‘non-class state’; but before we do, it would help to recall some basic elements of Marxism that will serve us as premises for the analysis.

In his work The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, Engels states that ‘The state is therefore by no means a power forced on society from without… rather, it is a product of society at a certain stage of development; it is the admission that this society has become entangled in an insoluble contradiction with itself, that it has split into irreconcilable opposites which it is powerless to exorcise. But in order that these opposites, classes with conflicting economic interests, shall not consume themselves and society in fruitless struggle, it became necessary to have a power seemingly standing above society that would moderate the conflict and keep it within the bounds of ‘order’; and this power, arisen out of society but placing itself above it and alienating itself more and more from it, is the state.’ (16)

A central point of the Marxist conception of the State is that it recognises it as resulting from the irreconcilable character of the class contradictions, from which it concludes that as long as they exist, the State will remain. Another fundamental aspect is the distinct roles of the State as an instrument of domination of one class by another, both under capitalism and under socialism. The bourgeoisie cannot exercise its class domination without basing itself on the State and its special apparatus of repression; whatever its form, it looks for mechanisms to strengthen and develop it. On the other hand, the working class upon seizing power adopts a series of measures that lead to the weakening and final extinction of the socialist State.

The inconsistencies and contradictions that appear throughout Dieterich’s work are clear, including on this theme. At one moment he says that a component of the institutionalism of 21st century socialism is the non-class State and at other moments he says that this State will disappear. In point 2.2.3 The Class State, after a few argumentative words regarding the functions of the State, he limits himself to saying that ‘it will disappear with participatory democracy. In its place there will be a new authority that makes its priority the general interests and that, upon losing its class functions it will lose its repressive identity.’ (17) On this point the author does not recognise or differentiate an initial phase and a separate advanced phase of socialism; he speaks of 21st century socialism in general. And it is logical that he uses those terms because, as we have already shown, he understands the transition to socialism within the framework of capitalism.

If with this Dieterich is referring to the period that Marxism identifies as the higher phase of socialism, then the State would have disappeared, it would not exist and one could not discuss the administrative organisation of society using this concept. If he is alluding to the initial phase, we are faced with an enormous fraud, because in this phase classes still exist and the class struggle is no less intense and open than under capitalism; therefore the continued existence of a state form is natural and indispensable. To speak of a State is to tacitly recognise the existence of classes, so it is irrational or contradictory – to say the least – to speak of a ‘non-class State’ as the institutionalism of 21st century socialism.

With this concept the State is made into an organ of class conciliation, while we Marxists maintain that that is an organ of class domination. ‘That the state is an organ of the rule of a definite class which cannot be reconciled with its antipode (the class opposite to it), is something the petty-bourgeois democrats will never be able to understand,’ Lenin states in The State and Revolution. (18)

On this point one must remember the old and fierce struggle that has taken place since the time of Marx and Engels between Marxism and opportunism, that led Lenin to point out that someone is not yet a Marxist if he recognises the existence of social classes, but only if he extends this recognition to the need for the dictatorship of the proletariat. Marx, in a letter to Weydemeyer (March of 1852), writes the following emblematic words. ‘Now as for myself, I do not claim to have discovered either the existence of classes in modern society or the struggle between them. Long before me, bourgeois historians had described the historical development of this struggle between the classes, as had bourgeois economists their economic anatomy. My own contribution was 1) to show that the existence of classes is merely bound up with certain historical phases in the development of production; 2) that the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat; 3) that this dictatorship itself constitutes no more than a transition to the abolition of all classes and to a classless society.’ (19)

The Uruguayan anarchist Raul Zibechi, who also is also a supporter of 21st century socialism, distorts history when he states that Karl Marx ‘never wagered the State as the key to the vault of the construction of socialism, an institution that he always considered an obstacle on the road to emancipation.’ Actually, we Marxists do not see the State as an end; we understand it as a tool utilised by classes to exercise their power and that it will disappear when the conditions for communism have been created. Since our objective is a classless society – and not the equality of classes – we implicitly struggle to put an end to the State as a tool for the domination of one class over another.

Karl Marx, in his ‘Critique of the Gotha Programme’ states that ‘Between capitalist and communist society lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. There corresponds to this also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat,’ (20) to which one should add the following formulation of Lenin: ‘Marxism differs from anarchism in that it recognises the need for a state and for state power in the period of revolution in general, and in the period of transition from capitalism to socialism in particular.

'…Marxism differs from the petty-bourgeois, opportunist “Social-Democratism”… in that it recognises that what is required during these two periods is not a state of the usual parliamentary bourgeois republican type, but a state of the Paris Commune type.’ (21)

But the proletariat needs that State temporarily, since it must disappear and ‘the transitional form of its disappearance (the transition from state to non-state) would be ‘the proletariat organised as the ruling class.”’ (22) Therefore, while it exists it will maintain its class character.

‘The Subjects of Change’

Under this subtitle Dieterich analyses the forces and programme of the New Historic Project. Here, as in his invention of the non-class State, he refuses to recognise the vanguard role that the working class fulfills in the leadership of the anti-capitalist movement, as well as in the construction of socialism. ‘The emancipating subject is formed by the community of victims of neo-liberal capitalism and all those who are in solidarity with them. The working class continues to be a fundamental detachment within this community of victims, but probably will not constitute its hegemonic force.’ (23) This form of denying the role of the working class is also seen in another aspect when, several lines earlier, he states that ‘Nor do there seem to exist conditions for the armed revolution in the traditional sense…’ Neither ‘traditional’ nor ‘modern,’ because under the logic of 21st century socialism the use of organised violence by the masses is incompatible with the transition from developing capitalism into ‘socialism.’

He also attacks the Leninist thesis of the possibility of building socialism in one country; earlier he attacked the Leninist thesis of the weakest link, when he stated that only countries with a high degree of capitalist development (such as the United States, Japan, China, etc.) can advance to socialism. On page 61 we find the following: ‘No project of profound national change can prosper at present, if it is not conceptualised and carried out as an integral part of a world project. This is because the dependency of the national economies with regard to their surroundings is so profound that the survival of a non-capitalist project within its own national space becomes impossible in the medium term. In this sense, the old theoretical discussion about the possibility of building socialism in a single country has been resolved by the historical evolution of the last decades (our emphasis). Capitalism is a systemic problem, not a local one – like cancer; in the end, it can only be defeated with a strategy of defence and advances on a system-wide level. In the same way, the democratised praxis of the world subject of change can only accumulate the force necessary to advance beyond the present system, if one conceives of the struggle on a global and regional level, in order to act on national and local level.’ (Think globally, act locally.) Playing both sides, as he also does in other themes, immediately afterwards he states that ‘this does not mean that the transformation has to take place at the same time in the whole global village in order to be viable, (…) generally the new system will be established in one sector of the dominant system and then expand gradually and be converted from a subsystem or new order (heterodoxy) into a system or main order (normal): the new orthodoxy. We would suppose that the transition from contemporary global capitalism to world participatory democracy will follow this same evolutionary logical.’

As in other aspects, Dieterich tries to pretend that his proposal is completely ‘innovative,’ while he recalls – at a glance – elements recognised by the revolutionary movement for many years. Since the appearance of the Communist Manifesto (1848) the struggle for socialism was formulated as a ‘systemic’ phenomenon – to use Dieterich’s words – and not as a local or much less circumstantial one. That understanding is summed up in the slogan: Workers of the World, Unite!, and in the immediate efforts to form an international organisation of the proletariat, which led to the International Workingmen’s Association, founded in 1864 and known as the First International. Its first documents recognised the principles of scientific communism, and proclaimed the need for the national and international unity of the working class and the need to seize political power to achieve their emancipation.

Marxism has always viewed the social revolution of the proletariat as international in content, because we are confronting a system and a class that has achieved world domination, whose final defeat depends on its total elimination. But this world revolution, is national in form, that is, it is expressed in the battles that the working class in each country will wage to defeat ‘its own’ bourgeoisie and seize power. In fact, the effects of the local victorious revolutions are not limited to their borders; they have international implications in that they affect the chain of imperialist domination, as well as ideological and political effects in the international revolutionary movement.

In Lenin’s analysis of imperialism, he notes the uneven development in the capitalist and imperialist countries, concluding that the system will be broken at its weakest link and not necessarily in the country with the highest development of the productive forces, and the Russian Revolution of 1917 confirmed that. From that analysis arose the theory of the possibility of the victory of socialism in a single country or in a limited number of countries. Stalin (24) refers to a quotation from Lenin – from August of 1915 – in which he explains this phenomenon in the following way: ‘Uneven economic and political development is an absolute law of capitalism. Hence, the victory of socialism is possible first in several or even in one capitalist country taken separately. The victorious proletariat of that country, having expropriated the capitalists and organised its own socialist production, would stand up against the rest of the world, the capitalist world, attracting to its cause the oppressed classes of other countries, raising revolts in those countries against the capitalists, and in the event of necessity coming out even with armed force against the exploiting classes and their states.’

In the former Soviet Union the victory of socialism was proclaimed at the beginning of the 1930s; that is, the period of transition from capitalism to socialism had come to an end, having overcome the ‘fundamental contradiction of the period of transition (that) existed between rising socialism and the capitalist forms of economy’’ (25) However, years later, that new order was subverted by the Khrushchev revisionists.

It should be noted that the Bolshevik Party analysed the possibility that this victory would not be final. Stalin foresaw the danger of being surrounded by countries hostile to socialism that could intervene to restore capitalism, concluding that ‘we can say open and honestly that the victory of the socialism in our country is not final.’ (26) And really international capital acted against the Soviet Union in the Second World War. Earlier, Lenin warned in the following terms: ‘We are living not merely in a state, but in a system of states, and the existence of the Soviet Republic side by side with imperialist states for a long time is unthinkable. One or the other must triumph in the end. And before that end comes, a series of frightful collisions between the Soviet Republic and the bourgeois states will be inevitable. That means that if the ruling class, the proletariat, wants to, and will hold sway, it must prove this by its military organization also.’ (27)

On another occasion, analysing other conditions, Stalin warned of the following: ‘Be careful; this victory will not be final as long as socialism is only victorious in a single country…’ However, it is a fact that all those warnings did not foresee that capitalist restoration would come from an internal process of degeneration; they always put emphasis on external elements as factors that could put at risk the socialism that was built in the former USSR.

Socialism was subverted from within, by opportunist and degenerate elements who, in order to deceive the working class and the international communist movement initially spoke using Marxist and pseudo-Marxist concepts and categories. The bourgeoisie was able to penetrate with its ideology inside the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to divert it from the revolutionary path and restore capitalism. This bitter lesson, in which the Soviet and international proletariat suffered a temporary defeat, emphasises the fact that the struggle between socialist ideology and capitalist ideology takes place not only in the confrontation between the revolutionary movement and the bourgeoisie, but it also develops within the former.

Since the beginning of Marxism it was always necessary to fight against anti-Marxist and pseudo-revolutionary currents within the workers movement, which worked to lead the revolutionary movement to positions favourable to capitalism. The theorisations of 21st century socialism are not different from these in their ideological-political objectives; they are a new version of bourgeois social-democratic thinking, which tries to create an apparently socialist and anti-capitalist movement, but in fact does nothing more than prop up the system.

Endnote:

1 See Dieterich, Heinz, 21st Century Socialism. Foreword to the Mexican edition.

2 Ibid. Throughout his book, Dieterich at times speaks of participatory democracy as synonymous with 21st century socialism and at other times he says that it is one of its institutional components, therefore not synonymous with it.

3 Dieterich Heinz, 21st Century Socialism, p. 32.

4 See The Civil War in France.

5 Lenin, V.I. The State and Revolution, Foreign Language Press, Peking, 1970, English edition, p. 87.

6 Rafael Correa reiterated Dieterich’s view, when he stated that the elimination of private property is untenable at the International Forum: Socialisms of the 21st Century (Quito, August of 2007).

7 Marxist political economy maintains that one society is differentiated from another, not by what each produces, but by the form in which the process of production is organised.

8 Second Conference on Alternative Relations, Vienna, May 13, 2006 (www.gobiernoenlinea.gob.ve).

9 Meeting of 12 chiefs of State of South America, Venezuela, March 2007.

10 From the speech of Heinz Dieterich at the round table on 21st century socialism, held in Quito on August 30, 2007 in the House of Ecuadorian Culture.

11 Ibid.

12 The former Minister of the Economy of Ecuador, Ricardo Patiño, states these ideas. In the round table on 21st century socialism (Quito, August 30, 2007), while making a summary of the characteristics of that socialism, among others aspects, he also states that its basis is in the mixed economy, in which the State does not dominate the market, therefore one part should be led by society (that is by private producers – editor’s note), and that the State should not try to control all the production even in its most advanced phases.

13 Contribution to the assessment of socialism in the USSR, Communist Party of the Workers of France, March 1996, p. 9.

14 21st century socialism, pp. 58-59.

15 See point 6. Latin American programme of transition to the new socialism.

16 See Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, Foreign Language Press, Peking, 1978, English edition, pp. 206-207.

17 Heinz Dieterich, 21st Century Socialism, p. 25.

18 See Lenin, The State and Revolution, Foreign Language Press, Peking, 1970, English edition, p. 9.

19 Letter of Karl Marx to Joseph Weydemeyer, March 5, 1852. Marx-Engels Collected Works, English edition, vol. 39, p. 58.

20 Critique of the Gotha Programme, Foreign Language Press, Peking, 1972, English edition pp. 28-29.

21 Lenin, The Tasks of the Proletariat in Our Revolution, Collected Works, English edition, vol. 24, p. 69.

22 Lenin, The State and Revolution, Foreign Language Press, Peking, 1970, English edition, p. 67.

23 Op. cit., p. 58.

24 See J. Stalin, Concerning Questions of Leninism, Foreign Language Press, Peking, 1976, English edition, pp. 216-217.

25 Contribution to the assessment of socialism in the USSR. Communist Party of the Workers of France, March 1996, p. 17.

26 Ibid, p. 18.

27 Quoted by J. Stalin in Concerning Questions of Leninism, Foreign Language Press, Peking, 1976, English edition, p. 214.

The South Slav Federation and the Macedonian Question

2011-11-30T16:33:00.000-05:00

Georgi Dimitrov

Dimitrov’s account of the history of the South Slav Federation and the Macedonian question which formed part of his classic report to the 5th Congress of the Bulgarian Communist Party in 1948 is important as it represents the application of the Marxist principle of constructing federative states based on the right of nations to secession along the lines of the formation of the Soviet Union itself, a principle which had been adopted by the CPC, the Indo-Chinese communists and our very own CPI in their revolutionary days. Writing shortly after the previous article Dimitrov tells us of the effects of the nationalist course of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia on the national question particularly with reference to the Pirin district of Macedonia which lay within the territory of new democratic Bulgaria. This history is virtually unknown in the communist movement today principally because Dimitrov’s writings on this as on many important questions have been sought to be obliterated after the advent of revisionism in Bulgaria. This is apparent from the version of the report to the 5th Congress of the BCP which was published in volume 14 of Dimitrov’s writings in Bulgarian which omits the passages published below. (1) The same is the case in the editions of Dimitrov’s writings which have been published in English.2 Dimitrov’s perceptiveness on the national question in the Balkans emerges in its full clarity today when German and U.S. imperialism have smashed the Yugoslav Federation:

‘In the past, the unification of the South Slavs has always met with the stubborn resistance of German imperialism. Today the new pretenders for world domination – the American and British imperialists – oppose unification and merger of the Southern Slavs.’

The Marxist-Leninist forces which are regrouping today in the Balkans will no doubt be compelled to return to the principles of Lenin, Stalin and Dimitrov on the national question.

References:

1. Georgi Dimitrov, ‘S'chineniya’, Volume 14, mart 1948-yuni 1949, Izdatelstvo na B'lgarskata Komunisticheska Partiya, Sofia, 1955, p.312.

2. Georgi Dimitrov, ‘Selected Works’, Volume 3, Sofia, 1972, p. 328.

Vijay Singh

Fraternal Yugoslavia, with whom the closest brotherly relations and a common and age-old ideal united us – the establishment of a South Slav federation – is unfortunately ruled today by men – Tito and his group – who betrayed the great doctrine of Marx-Leninism, the pre-condition for mutual confidence between the Communist parties and the basis for their cooperation on the road to socialism. The nationalist policy of the Tito group increasingly alienates Yugoslavia from the USSR and the new democracies, subjects it more and more to the danger of falling into the clutches of greedy imperialism. Our Party watches with anxiety the degeneration of the present Yugoslav Communist Party leaders into an ordinary bourgeois-chauvinist clique, inimical to Communism. But we do not doubt the loyalty of the Yugoslav Communist Party to internationalism and Marx-Leninism and its ability to bring Yugoslavia back again into the fold of the USSR and the people’s democracies....

The treachery of Tito’s group towards the USSR and the united democratic anti-imperialist camp, its anti-Marxist and nationalistic course, condemned by the Informburo, by all Communist parties and all genuine democratic organizations, found expression in its attitude toward the federation of the Southern Slavs and the Macedonian question.

With the overthrow of the Fascist dictatorship in Bulgaria on September 9th 1944, and the establishment in Bulgaria and Yugoslavia of a people’s democratic regime under the leaders of the Communist parties, most propitious conditions were created for a consistent and democratic settlement of all outstanding issues between the two countries, including the Macedonian question.

Under the newly created domestic and international conditions, the vital interests of the Bulgarian and Yugoslav peoples made it imperative that both nations seek the closest rapprochement which would quickly lead to their economic and political unification – to the establishment of a federation of South Slavs. Such a federation, resting firmly on friendship with the USSR and fraternal collaboration with the other new democracies, could have successfully defended the freedom and independence of its peoples and ensured their proper development toward socialism. Within the framework of such a federation would have been solved correctly, all the old unsolved problems legated by the bourgeois-monarchic regimes regarding the unification of the Macedonians from the Pirin district with the People’s Republic of Macedonia, as well as the return to Bulgaria of the purely Bulgarian Western Border Region which the Yugoslavia of King Alexander had grabbed after World War I.

Our Party firmly chose that course, relying on the word of the Yugoslav Communists to whom we were tied by common work and association covering a period of many years. This is the present stand of our Party. But the nationalist leaders of Yugoslavia went off this only correct path. After the two Governments had agreed on a series of measures regarding the forthcoming establishment of the federation, the Central Committee of the Yugoslav Communist Party informed our Party in March 1948 that it had changed its mind on that question, that one should not rush the federation, and refused to discuss the matter any further. At the same time, the Yugoslav leaders set as the central task the transformation of the Pirin district into an autonomous region with a view to its inclusion in Yugoslavia, independently of the existing understanding on the creation of a federation.

Evidently this turn-about of Tito and his group on the question is intimately tied up with their betrayal of Marx-Leninism. This group is skidding down the slippery road of nationalism and today takes the same stand as the Greater Serbia chauvinists who were striving for hegemony in the Balkans and for Macedonia’s annexation to Serbia and Yugoslavia.

The disclosures made at the Congress of the Albanian Communists in regard to the aggressive intentions of the Tito group toward Albania are another proof of its double-faced policy, crass nationalism and deviation from the united Socialist front of the Soviet Union and the people’s democracies.

There exist two alternatives for the solution of the Macedonian question which for decades on end has been in the centre of Balkan rivalries and wars.

1) A democratic revolution for Macedonia’s liberation from the Turkish yoke. This road was chosen by the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) – Gotse Delchev, Sandansky and others – as well as by the Macedonian revolutionary Social-Democrat Union – Hadji Diniov, Nicola Larez and others. These Macedonian organizations enjoyed the full support of our Party, many of whose members were activists in the Macedonian revolutionary movement.

2) The bourgeois nationalist road, viz. the liberation of Macedonia from the Turkish yoke through a war, and its annexation by one or several Balkan states. Our Party has always firmly opposed military-bourgeois nationalism and has fought steadfastly against the plans of the Balkan monarchies and the bourgeois-capitalist cliques to enslave and carve up Macedonia.

The second alternative prevailed, leading to the two Balkan wars (1912-13). Macedonia was freed from the Turkish yoke, but carved up between Serbia, Greece and Bulgaria.

In the face of the growing danger of an imperialist aggression on the Balkans, the Balkan Socialist parties raised the slogan of a Balkan democratic federation. United in a mighty federation, the Balkan peoples could have defended more easily their freedom and independence against any aggressive moves by the imperialist forces. At the same time, the federation would have facilitated the solution of all pending national issues in the Balkans including that of Macedonia. Within a Balkan democratic federation, trisected Macedonia was to unite as a state with equal rights.

Our Party correctly bracketed the solution of the Macedonian question with the creation of a Balkan democratic federation. That is why it has waged a long, consistent and uncompromising fight against Greater Bulgarian chauvinism. It adhered to that position during the Balkan wars and World War I.

What is the essence of the Greater Bulgarian chauvinism of the Bulgarian monarchist and capitalist bourgeoisie?

It consists, first, of an attempt to gain hegemony in the Balkans and, second, of an attempt to forcibly incorporate Macedonia into the Bulgarian state. This policy, which during World War II was carried out under the overlordship of Nazi Germany, was in fact a treacherous policy, concealing the attempts of Nazi Germany to turn so-called ‘Great Bulgaria’ into a German colony.

After the October Socialist Revolution and the accession of the Balkan Socialist parties to the Communist International, the Balkan Socialist Federation became a Balkan Communist Federation, in which our Party played a very active role. The Balkan Communist Federation saw the solution of all Balkan problems, including that of Macedonia, in the creation of a Balkan democratic federation, capable of defending the freedom and independence of all Balkan peoples.

Our Party had thus taken a correct and traditional stand on the Balkan questions and also offered a truly democratic solution of the Macedonian question. The slogan for a Balkan federative republic was in complete harmony with the Marx-Leninist doctrine on the national problem.

"The conscious workers in the Balkan countries", wrote Lenin in 1912, ‘were the first to raise the slogan for a consistently democratic solution of the national problem on the Balkans. It was the slogan of a federative Balkan republic. As a result of the weakness of the democratic classes in the present Balkan states (where the proletariat is numerically small and the peasantry backward, illiterate and disunited) the economically and politically necessary union became an alliance of Balkan monarchs’.

Prior to World War II there had grown up a powerful progressive Macedonian movement in Bulgaria which advocated the right of self-determination of the Macedonian people, as a free nation. It was fully supported by our Party which, during the war, worked in full agreement with the Macedonian Communists. Bulgarian partisans fought shoulder to shoulder with Macedonian partisans against the German-Bulgarian troops of occupation. Our Party warmly welcomed the establishment of a Macedonian People’s Republic, within the Federative People’s Republic of Yugoslavia.

As is well known, our Party made great sacrifices in the struggle for the defence of the Macedonian people’s right to self-determination, and against the aggressive policy of the Bulgarian bourgeoisie.

After the Bled Agreement, and in order to facilitate the process of rapprochement and future unification of the Macedonian regions in both countries, our Party gave its consent to the introduction of the official Macedonian language as an obligatory subject in all schools in the Pirin district, and admitted many Macedonian teachers from Skopie as instructors, as well as Macedonian librarians to diffuse Macedonian books. This was a proof that our Party harboured the greatest sympathy toward the unification of the Macedonian people.

But our Party was double-crossed in its good intentions by the Belgrade and Skopie leaders. Most of the teachers and librarians sent from Skopie, evidently on instructions from their Yugoslav leaders, became agents of a Greater Yugoslav and anti-Bulgarian chauvinist propaganda, and later, after the treachery of Tito’s group toward the USSR and the united anti-imperialist camp, turned into an anti-Soviet agency.

That which the agents of Kulishevsky did in the Pirin district was only a reflection of what has happened within the People’s Republic of Macedonia. Under the pretext of a struggle against Greater Bulgaria chauvinism and with the aid of the state apparatus and all other public organizations – political and cultural – a systematic campaign was waged against everything Bulgarian, against the Bulgarian people, their culture, their people’s democracy, their Fatherland Front and especially against our Party. No Bulgarian books or newspapers, not even ‘Rabotnichesko Delo’, were permitted into the People’s Republic of Macedonia. All Bulgarian inscriptions on old school buildings and other monuments were meticulously erased. Family names, as for instance Kulishev, Uzunov, Tsvetkov and others, became, as we know, Kulishevsky, Uztunovsky, Tsvetkovsky, so that they would have nothing in common with Bulgarian names.

Public officials in the Macedonian People’s Republic had the cheek to make declarations directed against the Bulgarian people and against Bulgaria. In his well-known speech, delivered on March 23rd 1948 before the 2nd Congress of the Macedonian People’s Front, Kulishevsky slanderously accused our country and our people’s authority of oppressing the Macedonian population in the Pirin district.

Kulishevsky’s provocatory speech was avidly reproduced by the newspapers, agencies and radios of the Anglo-American imperialists in order to launch a scurrilous campaign against the People’s Republic of Bulgaria and the unification of the Macedonian people.

Last July, from the tribune of the 5th Congress of the Yugoslav Communist Party in Belgrade, the main darts in the attacks against the people’s democracies were directed against our nation. In their speeches Tito, Djilas, Tempo, Kulishevsky, and Vlahov spluttered out their chauvinist venom against Bulgaria, against our Party, whose fault, it seems, consists of its refusal to let them grab the Pirin district and its condemnation of the Yugoslav leaders’ treason. General Tempo went even so far in his chauvinist delusion as to insult and deride the anti-Fascist struggle of the Bulgarian people and their partisan movement, although it is well-known that our partisans fought together with Yugoslav partisans and that our army actively participated under the command of Marshal Tolbukhin in the war for the final liberation of Yugoslavia.

Toward the end of September 1948 the Prime Minister of the Serbian People’s Republic, Peter Stambolich had the effrontery to publicly slander our country in the Belgrade Skupstina, alleging that responsible Bulgarian politicians were spreading propaganda directed against Yugoslavia’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.

It is clear that such slanders can have only one aim: to antagonize the peoples of Yugoslavia against the Bulgarian people, to create a chasm between the two fraternal peoples and to furnish imperialist propaganda with a weapon with which to heap new lies and slanders on Bulgaria.

Late in November 1948 a trial was held in Skopie against Bulgarian Fascists, police agents and other war criminals, who during the occupation had indulged in excesses in Macedonia. This trial, however, was turned into a vicious chauvinist campaign against the Bulgarian people and against our country. The prosecutor, the judges and the accused Fascist criminals in this trial, according to a pre-arranged understanding, with touching unanimity cast aspersions on the Bulgarian people.

The nationalist and chauvinist policy of the Titos and Kulishevskys, which is the other side of the coin of their anti-Soviet course, is not only directed against Bulgaria and the Bulgarian people but also against the Macedonian people. This policy has adopted the methods of the Bulgarian and Serbian nationalists and is sowing hatred among the Macedonian people, inciting one part against the other, resorting to terror and persecution against those who disapprove of the official course of the present Yugoslav leaders. In this way the realization of the age-old ideal of the Macedonian people – their national unification – is being artificially delayed.

The population of the Pirin district, however, refuses to fall for this vicious anti-Bulgarian and dissident propaganda. It is opposed to the inclusion of its land into Yugoslavia before the realization of a federation between Yugoslavia and Bulgaria, because since time immemorial it feels itself economically, politically, and culturally tied to the Bulgarian people and does not wish to cut loose from it. Besides, among that population are still alive the traditions of the Macedonian revolutionary movement and, in particular, of its Seres wing, headed by Sandansky, which has always advocated federation as the only correct solution of the Macedonian question.

We are well aware that the nationalist and chauvinist policy of the Belgrade and Skopie leaders of the Tito and Kulishevsky type do not have the approval of the majority of the Macedonian people who are convinced that their national unification will be built on an understanding between Yugoslavia and Bulgaria, in cooperation with these peoples and with the powerful assistance of the USSR.

Our Party has always advocated and continues to advocate, that Macedonia belongs to the Macedonians. True to the traditions of the Macedonian revolutionaries, together with all honest Macedonian patriots, we are deeply convinced that the Macedonian people will translate into reality their national unity and will ensure their future as a free nation with equal rights only within the framework of a federation of Southern Slavs.

In the past, the unification of the South Slavs has always met with the stubborn resistance of German imperialism. Today the new pretenders for world domination – the American and British imperialists – oppose the unification and merger of the Southern Slavs. They have acquired worthy allies in the present Yugoslav leaders.

Assured of the support of the USSR, the new democracies and the world forces of democracy, the Southern Slavs will be able to smash the opposition of the imperialists and realize their vitally necessary unity. The main obstacle to the federation of the Southern Slavs are today the traitors to Marx-Leninism, the nationalist leadership in Belgrade and Skopie, the Titos, Djilases, Kulishevskys, Vlahovs. But history is marching on and sweeps aside everything which stands in the way of progress. The cause of the unification of the Southern Slavs, including the Macedonian people, will triumph.

‘Political Report Delivered to the V Congress of the Bulgarian Communist Party’ (December 19th, 1948), Sofia, 1949, p. 62, pp. 64-70.