by Ludo Martens, 2nd of April 1992
In the Soviet Union, the first socialist state in the world, the birthplace of Lenin
and Stalin, where, after heroic efforts and immense sacrifice, the workers created a new
society without class exploitation, in this nation, dear to revolutionaries around the
world, capitalism has now been restored.
It is the duty of all revolutionaries around the world to reflect on the causes of this
tragedy and to make a thorough analysis of the facts involved.
Of course, capitalists on the five continents have taken advantage of this windfall to
announce the message millionfold that "socialism doesn't work and capitalism
creates abundance" . And in every country, opportunists have deserted to join
the side of imperialist democracy, closing their eyes to the fact that the capitalism that
"works so well" is built in effect on millions of corpses, victims of oppression
and exploitation of the Third World.
However, no sooner had the clamour about the historical victory of capitalism had receded,
than we had to conclude that the reinstatement of capitalism in Eastern Europe and the
Soviet Union aggravated all fundamental contradictions in this world and that major
upheavals and unrest await us. Far from witnessing the end of history as an American
official once claimed, or from seeing the end of class struggle, we find ourselves in the
beginning of a new phase of the global struggle of the oppressed against an imperialist
world system that has become incompatible with the very survival of hundreds of millions
of human beings. Indeed, socialist revolution has become a question of survival for the
vast majority of the world's population. The final treason of the revisionist movement
could not have presented this case more clearly.
If, however, the oppressed part of humanity is to advance towards its liberation, it needs
the help of combative organisations which have a clear insight into the fundamental laws
of the revolution. Communists throughout the world have to make a new evaluation of the
path taken by the Soviet Union. They will have to distinguish clearly revolution from
counter-revolution and marxism-leninism from revisionism. The result of the opportunist
course taken in the Soviet Union, permits us to pose some fundamental questions, which
have been the subject of fierce discussion since 1956. Positive as well as negative
experiences prove that the adoption of a correct, guiding ideological line is decisive for
the future of the communist party and the revolution.
The first factories, the germs of European industrial society, arose out of the
genocide of the peoples of Black Africa and America. Bringing "civilization" to
the Aztec- and Inca Empires, European explorers caused an estimated 60 million dead among
the native population. And also produced huge quantities of gold and silver of course.
From the beginning of the sixteenth century, European traders captured and sold between
100 and 200 million blacks as slaves. Tens of millions of men and women lost their lives
in Asia and Africa as the colonial conquests of the last century threw local societies
into turmoil, creating famine, bringing unknown disease, spreading the abuse of alcohol
and opium. During the 18th and 19th centuries, the industrial revolution in Europe caused
among other upheavals the violent expulsion of millions of peasants from their lands and
the forced labour of women and children up to 12 and 15 hours a day. In the First World
War, the European bourgeois states went for each others throats to try and divide the
colonial spoils. Ten million workers paid for this colonial rivalrywith their lives.
Faced with these realities, socialism could not develop and maintain itself other than by
organizing the dictatorship of the proletariat to unite all popular classes against the
bourgeoisie. This fundamental experience of Lenin and Stalin has acquired important
significance in the recent political context of peoples longing to liberate themselves
from imperialist "democracy". The defeat of the reformist option in Chile in
1973 and the elimination of Sandinista power in Nicaragua, following sweeping concessions
to the bourgeoisie, prove the importance of these revolutionary principles defended by
Lenin and Stalin.
Russian workers and peasants had endured the tsarist oppression for hundreds of years when
they paid an excessively high price during the First World War: almost 3 million dead.
From this unbearable suffering, the bolsheviks drew the energy, the courage and the
determination necessary to organize the socialist revolution and to break the bourgeois
dictatorship with force. Land and means of production became public property, the
oppressive state-machine of the tsarist regime was systematically dismantled and replaced
by a state of workers and peasants.
Supported by British, French and Czech interventionist armies and other foreign troops,
reactionary classes and tsarist forces unleashed a White Terror against socialism. Almost
alone against the rest of the world, the Bolsheviks succeeded in bringing in the large
mass of peasants on the side of the working class and organizing a mass terror against
their enemies. In this baptism of fire, Bolshevism firmly took root in the classes of the
peasants and the poor. Without this unwavering Red Terror, socialism would not have
triumphed in Russia and White Terror would have re-established the oppressive apparatus
which kept workers and whole peoples in its ron grip. It would have reinstated this
stronghold of world reaction which is called tsarism.
It was Lenin who worked out the essential principles of socialist development under the
dictatorship of the proletariat. When he died in 1924 however, this work had only just
begun.
Between 1924 and 1953, the Bolshevik Party, under the leadership of comrade Stalin,
carried out the essential part of Lenin's plans. With a popular heroism without precedent,
the Soviet Union constructed its socialist system and defended it against fascist
aggression. By and large the Bolshevik Party and the Soviet people under the leadership of
Stalin accomplished the tasks set by Lenin.
The Bolshevik Party achieved socialist industrialization between 1921 and 1941, which
enabled it to respond to the basic needs of the workers and to keep the fascist armies at
bay.
The collectivization of agriculture effectively blocked the spontaneous tendency for class
differentiation in the countryside, notably the rise of a rich landowner class of Kulaks,
which would have been a deadly threat to the development of socialism in the Union. Thanks
to collectivization, the system was able to feed the fast expanding urban population.
By organizing a cultural revolution, the Soviet Union succeeded in bringing tens of
millions of illiterate peasants, living in medieval conditions, into the twentieth century
in just 15 years. This effort produced an army of technicians and specialists, well
qualified and politically conscious, which played an important role in the anti-fascist
war.
From the nineteen twenties right into the fifties, the Bolshevik Party decisively
contributed to the reinforcement of the international communist movement. The very
existence of the Soviet Union made possible the socialist revolutions in Eastern Europe
and the revolution in China, a world-resounding victory. The successes of socialist
reconstruction within the Soviet Union combined with a foreign policy promoting
independence and peace gave a strong impulse to the decolonization movement in Africa and
Asia.
It is important at this point to reflect for a moment on certain aspects of the struggle
led by Stalin, which continue to provoke intense controversy. We are talking about the
collectivization and the purges.
In the Soviet Union of 1928, 7% of peasants were landless, 35% were poor peasants, 53%
could be classed as marginally well-off and 5% were rich farmers, the so-called Kulaks,
who controlled 20% of all traded grain. The natural course of events reinforced this class
of rich farmers as they were able, by a growing control over commercial grain stocks, to
starve the cities and sabotage socialist industrialization. The modernization of a
medieval agriculture where wooden ploughs and horse power were still dominant, was an
absolute necessity if industrialization was to succeed. If mechanization was introduced
into the countryside by means of the capital supplied by the rich Kulak class,
exploitation, misery and famine would have been the inevitable consequence for the
majority of the peasants. In addition, a reinvigorated rural bourgeois class would no
doubt have attacked socialism as soon as it was able to. To defend the power of the
workers there was no way other than collectivization. In the process, years of pent-up
hatred was unleashed from the poor peasantry against the rich Kulak class. This class
struggle organised by poor and middle peasants proved to be the decisive factor in the
collectivization. As the Bolshevik Party counted no more than 200.000 members in the
countryside, the Party's impact remained limited in those early years. The process of
collectivization took place as civil war erupted again in the countryside. Rich landowners
and reactionaries killed a large number of cadres and peasant leaders and slaughtered part
of the livestock to sabotage the collective economy. The repression which the poor
peasants conducted against the Kulaks was for a large part a reaction to centuries of
oppression and humiliation which got out of hand.
The purges which the Bolshevik Party organised during the years 1937-1938, were necessary
in view of the oncoming war. Nevertheless, these purges were accompanied by grave errors,
for the most part inevitable due to the complexity of the struggle. Stalin knew well that
the deteriorating international situation and the growing possibility of a war of
agression against the Soviet Union threw a particular light on the political struggle
within the Party. He rightly suspected that, in view of the oncoming world conflict,
Nazi-Germany and other imperialist powers were sending spies, saboteurs and other agents
into the country. Among the defeated bourgeois classes in and out of the Soviet Union
there were enough candidates bent on revenge to help the imperialist cause. Opportunists
and defeatists within the Party, impressed by the "superiority" of the
imperialist system, could seek contact with the enemy. Stalin organized a vast
mobilization of the people to support the purge. The purification movement was directed at
two types of adversaries of socialism. The first were elements of the old oppressing
classes who were seeking revenge for their defeat, capitulationists and pro-German
elements awaiting a Nazi-attack to "liberate" them. The second type of enemy
which the popular power turned against were bureaucrats and technocrats who had turned
away from the masses and were rapidly developing into a new bourgeoisie, ready to succumb
to the most powerful, i.e. Hitler-Germany, in order to defend their positions. A purge of
the socialist movement was thus an absolute political necessity. In the conditions of that
time, it also meant that many mistakes were bound to be made. Bureaucrats sometimes
succeeded in diverting the scrutiny to innocent people in order to protect their
positions. Opportunists falsely accused cadres to promote their party careers. Enemy
agents infiltrated in the Party fabricated "proofs" to incriminate loyal
communists and leftist exaggerations were commited by honest communists. On the whole
however, the purges achieved their purpose. This was demonstrated during the anti-fascist
war when, contrary to the situation in the other countries, very few collaborators were
found to support the Nazis in the Soviet Union. In Western-Europe, as Stalin had
predicted, many opportunists joined the ranks of the occupying Nazi-forces. Leading
figures of the Belgian Social-Democrats publicly hailed Adolf Hitler as a liberator. In
France, a majority of Social-Democrats voted to award full powers to the collaborating
Pétain-regime. Bearing these facts in mind, it comes as no surprise that all bourgeois
factions unanimously denounced those "criminal purges" organised by the
Bolshevik Party. The establishment in power, most of the barons of industry, the bankers,
cadres of nationalist parties, Christian parties, Liberals and Social-Democrats
collaborated with the Nazis as long as victory seemed assured.
In view of the recent, complete restoration of capitalism in the USSR under Gorbatchev, we
can now understand better some aspects of the purges in 1937-38. Stalin confirmed that
Trotskyites, supporters of Bukharin and bourgeois nationalists defended a bourgeois
policy, that in fact they defended the interests of the routed oppressing classes. By
their actions they helped these classes and other anti-socialist pockets to regroup their
forces. Stalin maintained that their victory would mean a restoration of capitalism.
Krushchev started the process stating that this analysis was mistaken and led to arbitrary
actions. Nationalist theses and the ideas of Trotsky and Bukharin began to reappear in
CPSU politics. Finally, Gorbatchev rehabilitated Trotskiytes, Bukharinists and bourgeois
nationalists as good people and "victims of Stalinism". Two years later, the
restoration of capitalism is a fact. History has proven that Stalin's view on the matter
was entirely correct.
Let us now quote four essential theses brought forward by Krushchev thirty years
ago, which will permit us to understand recent events in the USSR better.
First thesis: power in the Soviet Union is no longer that of the working classe. The State
of the working class has been replaced by the State of the people as a whole, a state for
all classes. "After ensuring the total and definitive victory of socialism and
moving towards the final accomplishment of communism, the dictatorship of the proletariat
has fulfilled its purpose, the state has been changed into a state of the whole
people" . This idea led to the abandoning of the struggle against bourgeois
and reactionary tendencies influenced by imperialism. Also, it made possible a sort of
tranquillity for a bureaucracy which was busy separating itself from the workers. In a
"State for the whole people", this bureaucracy could install itself comfortably,
acquire privileges and work for personal gain from its political and economic positions.
After all, class contradictions could no longer develop between itself and the mass of
workers, so it was said.
Second thesis: Krushchev announced in 1962 that the Soviet Union would have achieved
communism in 1980 and that at that point it would have surpassed the United States. "It
will not take long to surpass the United States in the economic field. In peaceful
competition with the United States, the Soviet Union will gain a historic victory of
universal importance. Do we have all that is needed to create the material and technical
base for communism in two decades? Yes, comrades, we have all we need!" So
today, the Soviet Union should enjoy the eternal bliss of fully developed communism,
abundance for all, and all this already since 1980. In reality, these promises of an ideal
future have lulled the masses, with whom the ideas of revolution, socialism and communism
were very popular, and consolidated the positions of bureaucrats and technocrats in power.
Third thesis of Krushchev: He declared that capitalism would collapse throughout the world
as socialism irresistibly marched towards triumph. The fast pace of progress in the Soviet
Union would attract the sympathy of workers throughout the world while capitalism,
severely weakened, would not be able to resist. That explains why it would be possible to
take power in Europe and in the rest of the world in a peaceful and parliamentary way.
"Conditions more favourable to the victory of socialism have developed in other
countries, because of the socialist triumph in the Soviet Union. The vast camp of
socialist countries, where the population already counts more than 900 million
inhabitants, is still growing and getting stronger. The ideas of socialism have really
taken root in the spirit of the whole working class. Capitalism has become much weaker.
The bourgeois parties of the right and the governments they form, fail more and more"
. This created the possibility of "conquering a solid majority in parliament
and transforming this parliament into an instrument of real people's power".
These positions which embellish imperialist society and the dictatorship of the
bourgeoisie, constitute a radical change of policy.
The fourth point Krushchev made, concerned the attitude towards the United States. The
imperialist superpower had until then been considered as the world's number one policeman,
intervening and aggressively pursuing its interests over the Five Continents. But then
Khrushchev declared: "We want to be friends with the United States and
cooperate with them in the struggle for peace and security for the people. We commit
ourselves to this goal with good intentions and no hidden objectives..." This
came at a moment when a majority of nations in the Third World, be it in Asia, Africa or
South-America, were engaged in a vicious struggle against American imperialism which
wanted to pressure them into neo-colonial rule.
Then came Brezhnev. Certain communists thought he distanced himself from
Krushchev's most flagrant errors. Analysis of the four Party Congresses over which he
presided do not confirm this opinion.
Nikita Krushchev had proclaimed three key themes: the end of class struggle, a state for
the whole people, concern for the privileged bureaucracy.
Brezhnev continued down this road. He presented the public with glowing images of a
classless society, which hid a growing class differentiation in the social strata. He
applauded "the closing of the gap between classes and social groups".
"Our intelligentsia considers it its duty to dedicate all its creative energy towards
the construction of communist society." Even as he was speaking, an important
part of this intelligentsia was completely depoliticised and bewitched by the West. In the
Brezhnev's dreams not only do class differences disappear, but also the distinctions
between nationalities... Brezhnev invented the notion of "the Soviet People" in
which classes and nationalities disappeared without a trace. "In our country,
we have witnessed the formation of a new historic community: the Soviet People. New
harmonious relations between classes, social groups and between nations and nationalities
are born out of common labour." With Brezhnev, marxism-leninism transformed
itself from the science of class struggle into ideology. By ideology we mean the false
consciousness which represents the interests of a privileged group detaching itself from
the workers. Never, during those four Party congresses, did Brezhnev get to grips with the
living reality of different classes, social strata and political forces in order to get
some leads for struggle or mobilization.
Under Brezhnev's regime, the bureaucratic elite became almost completely entrenched.
Breznjevism is assured comfort for a new bourgeois class. A follower of Krushchev, Jaurés
Medvedev wrote: "In Stalin's time, Party officials felt the potential menace of
the security apparatus even more than ordinary citizens." He continued: "Brezhnev
was not a real leader in 1964. He rather represented the bureaucracy which sought an easy
living with assured and growing privileges. His electorate was the bureaucratic elite. In
this respect, Breznjev also changed the system because he, more than any other, created
the right conditions for the expansion of a truly privileged elite, a real
nomenklatura."
With a comfortable life assured for the elite, its members were not satisfied with
their legal revenues. "The stability for the elite had another negative effect.
Official corruption developped rapidly on all levels. Party discipline diminished,
nepotism became a regular practice and the ideological and administrative prestige of the
Party became tarnished. The great corruption of high Soviet officials has become a sort of
'professional illness'. The distinction between public property and private property was
not respected any longer."
Far from denouncing the errors of Krushchev, Brezhnev continued to go down the same
disastrous track, making the revisionist deviation even worse.
In addition, Brezhnev forced a militarist orientation upon the entire Soviet policy. He
counted almost exclusively on expanding Soviet military power to defend and enlarge the
position of the Soviet Union. "Strengthening the Soviet State means a maximum
expansion of the defence capacity of our motherland." He welcomed "the
military and strategic balance struck between the USSR and the United States." The
road towards "military and nuclear parity" with the Western military-industrial
complex is not practical and is destructive for a socialist country. With the mobilization
of the masses, the continuation of class struggle and revolutionary education all carted
off to the History Museum, Brezhnev opted for a military concept, worthy of his
adversaries. Everything which constituted the force of a socialist defence during Stalin's
time disappeared. A military effort out of proportion undermined the entire civil economy
of the Soviet Union.
Indeed, by the combined effects of revisionism and hegemonism, Brezhnev ruined the
international communist movement. In 1966 he "excommunicated" China and Albania,
accusing those countries of "Stalinism" and "leftist deviations"
because they had expressed their disapproval of Krushchev's revisionism. Three years later
Brezhnev transformed the political confrontation with China into an armed conflict.
Intoxicated by the "new ideas" of Krushchev, a large number of Communist Parties
pushed towards a reconciliation with the bourgeoisie in their own country, causing a
further crumbling of the international communist movement.
In the socialist countries of Eastern Europe, Dubcek and the like proposed the liquidation
of the last vestiges of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the introduction of a
social-democratic bourgeois system. Parties refusing to accept the Soviet model as the one
and only reference and opposing dictates and Soviet intervention in other country's
affairs were put on a side track by Brezhnev for their "nationalism" and
"anti-Sovietism". Finally, only those remained who showed unconditional loyalty
to the USSR. Brezhnev called them "authentic Marxist-Leninists."
As revisionism gnawed away the bases of socialism in Eastern Europe, Brezhnev had to take
refuge on military control in order to keep up an appearence of unity in his camp".
He proclaimed: "The borders of the socialist community are inviolable and
unassailable. The brotherhood of socialist countries united is the best defence against
the forces trying to attack and weaken the socialist camp. To all appearances the Soviet
Union herewith expressed its loyalty to proletarian internationalism." But its
interference and the growing addiction for direct control, eroded this ailing socialism.
The theory of "defending the Soviet Union as the best protection for
socialism" is a non-starter. The best defence of socialism will always be the
mobilization of the workers, the development of their consciousness, their independent
effort to defend their power. On this basis a socialist country can call on another
friendly nation for help, but only in exceptional circumstances and for a limited period
of time. So did the Democratic Republic of Korea for example when it was attacked by the
American army in 1950.
The "world revolution" as Brezhnev saw it, is in essence the extension of Soviet
influence all over the globe following the model of Eastern Europe. Breznjev denied that
world socialism would be born out of the mixture of different national revolutionary
experiences. He did not recognize the fact that revolutionary parties have to be anchored
in the specific realities of their country, that they have to mobilize the broad masses
for the revolutionary struggle and that they have to crush imperialism and local reaction.
Brezhnev rejected the idea that only the armed popular masses can form an effective
bulwark against imperialism and reaction. He kept deluding the people of the Third World
by presenting the Soviet army as a guarantee for their liberty. Brezhnev: "Socialism
is the best defence for people struggling for their freedom and independence."
Under Brezhnev's leadership the Soviet Union supported reformists (Chile), putchists and
adventurers (Ethiopia, Afghanistan) as well as militarists (Egypt, Syria) which it
invariably presented as artisans of the socialist revolution. As the Soviet Union was
"at their side" and its army "constituted the best defence of their
freedom", Brezhnev intervened in several countries to keep pro-Soviet reformist
forces in power. This adventurist policy reached its peak with the invasions of Kampuchea
and Afghanistan.
The best analysis of the realities which existed in the socialist countries
during the period 1956-1990 remains that made in the sixties by comrade Mao Zedong. Today
this analysis can be defined more precisely and corrected on some points in view of the
recent events that have taken place in Eastern Europe, the USSR and China.
How Mao Zedong saw the future of socialism.
"Socialist society covers a long, very long historical period. All through this
period the class struggle between bourgeoisie and proletariat continues. The question
which system will be victorious, capitalism or the socialist way, will always remain
during this period. This means that the danger of capitalist restoration remains."
"The socialist revolution in the economic field only (concerning the ownership of the
means of production) is not sufficient and does not guarantee stability. There also has to
be a complete socialist revolution in the fields of politics and ideology. In the domain
of politics and ideology, the struggle to decide the issue for capitalism or socialism
will take a long time. A few decades certainly will not do; a hundred, maybe even hundreds
of years are necessary for the final victory. During this historical period of socialism
we have to maintain the dictatorship of the proletariat and take the socialist revolution
to its completion if we want to prevent a capitalist restoration. We have to undertake
socialist reconstruction in order to create the conditions necessary for the passage to
communism." "Before Krushchev came to power, the activities of new bourgeois
elements were limited and mostly repressed. But since Krushchev came to power and
gradually took over the direction of the Party and the State, those new bourgeois elements
began to appear in dominant positions at the heart of the Party and the government, in the
field of economics as well as in the cultural sector and others. They have become a
privileged class in Soviet society." "Even under the domination of Khrushchev
and his faction, the mass of the members of the CPSU and the people follow the glorious
revolutionary traditions cultivated by Lenin and Stalin by adhering to socialism and
aspiring forwards communism. A large number of Soviet cadres continue to support the
revolutionary position of the proletariat and the path to socialism. They are firmly
against Khrushchev's revisionism." "The class struggle, the struggle for
production and for scientific experiment are the three main revolutionary movements in the
building of a powerful socialist nation. These movements represent an assured guarantee
which permits the communists to do away with bureaucracy, to arm themselves against
revisionism and dogmatism and to stay invincible forever. They are a furher assurance
permitting the proletariat to unite with the large working masses and to practice a
democratic dictatorship. Let's assume that, in the absence of those movements, landowners,
rich farmers, counter-revolutionaries, obscure elements and other creatures of different
sorts are let loose. And let us further suppose that our cadres close their eyes and make
no distinctions any more between the enemy and ourselves in some cases, but that they
collaborate with the enemy and let themselves be corrupted and demoralised. If our cadres
are taken into the enemy camp in this manner or if the enemy succeeds in infiltrating our
ranks and if many of our workers, peasants and intellectuels are left defenceless in the
face of the brutal tactics of the enemy, if these assumptions become reality, then little
time will pass, maybe some years or a decade, before a counter-revolutionary restoration
inevitably takes place on a national scale. In this case it will not be long before the
Marxist-Leninist Party becomes a revisionist party or a fascist party and all of China
will change colour."
In Lenin's country, Krushchev took power in 1956, after three years of able
manoeuvering and complex preparations. After his take-over he had to consolidate his power
within the Party by eliminating the majority of the Political Bureau during the struggle
against "the anti-Party faction Molotov-Malenkov-Kaganovitch." With political
and ideological attacks against essential principles of socialist construction, Krushchev
continued to change the fundamental orientation of the CPSU. This was to be an excuse to
permit bureaucratic cadres and opportunists to aquire privileges and to develop into a
distinctive social class. Even after the elimination of Krushchev, certain leading cadres
made efforts to return to Marxist-Leninist principles. The socialist basis of society was
not yet destroyed and millions of communists persevered in their revolutionary work.
During the Brezhnev period however, the leading class further accumulated privileges and
enriched themselves by a number of illegal means. But still they had to vegetate as
parasites, someway or other, on an economical and political base that was not theirs.
Authentic communists could still defend a number of aquisitions of the working class.
Socialist laws, measures favourable to the workers and the Marxist-Leninist ideology
continued to exercise a great influence throughout society. The leading class reduced
marxism to a string of fixed formulas and imported all sorts of ideological theories from
the West. While socialist thinking was mutilated, outdated bourgeois ideologies got a new
impulse. In a growing number of sectors these new bourgeois elements transformed the means
of production and State property into their own private property. They made possible the
extension of the informal sector and made secret deals with the new capitalists whose
emergence they favoured.
By the end of the Brezhnev era, a new capitalist class had consolidated itself and was
following its own interests opposed to those of the workers. This new class, now fully
grown, tried more and more to install its own open dictatorship. It had to rid the country
of the last influences and appearances of Marxism-Leninism. In Gorbachev it found a
banner, in Glasnost a means of expression and in Perestroika a legitimisation of its
projects of restoration. After the period of paralysis, conformism and militarism under
Brezhnev's leadership, we did get the feeling that things were moving in the USSR, and
that some of the gravest mistakes of the Brezhnev era were exposed. But soon it became
clear that Gorbachev criticized Brezhnev from the point of view of the liberals and
pro-Westerners. Gorbachev merely deepened the revisionism of Krushchev and Brezhnev which
led to the complete and open renouncement of Marxist-Leninist principles.
The Soviet Union has seen two great breaking points with socialism: Krushchev's report in
1956 containing the rejection of some essential Leninist principles, and the Perestroika
of Gorbachev that paved the way, in 1990, for the reinstatement of the market economy.
The revisionism of Krushchev opened a transitional period from socialism to capitalism.
Old and new bourgeois elements needed thirty years to grow strong enough to take and
consolidate their positions in politics, in the field of ideology and in the economy. The
process of degeneration, begun in 1956, needed three decades to finish off socialism.
The attacks against Stalin's legacy have played an important role all along in this
process of degeneration. In the Soviet Union, the revisionists have worked 35 years to
demolish Stalin. Once Stalin was demolished, Lenin followed almost immediatly. Krushchev
incited everyone against Stalin and Gorbachev followed, during the 5 years of his
Glasnost, with a crusade against Stalinism. Have you noticed that the demolishing of
Lenin's statues was not preceded by a political campaign against his works? The campaign
against Stalin was sufficient. Once all political ideas of Stalin were attacked,
denigrated and demolished, it was simply concluded that, at the same time, Lenin's ideas
too were finished. Krushchev began his destructive mission by emphasizing that he was
criticizing Stalin's "personality cult" in order to re-establish Leninism in its
pure form and improve the communist system. Gorbachev made the same misleading promises in
order to disorient the forces of the Left. Today we can see the obvious: using the pretext
of "a return to Lenin", he invited the Tsar, and using the pretext of improving
socialism, he has installed free-for-all capitalism.
Workers' Party of Belgium (WPB)
171 Boulevard Lemonnier
B-1000 Brussels, Belgium
Tel: + 32 2 513 77 60
Fax: + 32 2 513 98 31
E-mail wpb@wpb.be