Date: Tue, 7 Jan 1997 09:23:22 +0100 (MET)
Subject: M-G: Re: M-I: Polish "Stalinism"


Louis G. writes;
>It is therefore foolish in the extreme to refer to such a wide gamut of
>frequently contradictory policies as "Stalinist" and especially to ascribe
>to Poland's current rulers,  the former- communist Left Democratic Alliance
>(SLD) such an ambiguous label.    If Justin wishes to discuss specific
>policies of this or that regime or period,  the ensuing discussion might
>well be most fruitful.    In any event,  it would be a welcome relief from
>the facile stereotyping of his earlier post.

Not really. In fact the various trends that came out of the "Stalinists" 
Parties of East Europe and now are calling themselves various kinds of 
Socialist parties have hardly broken with Stalinism. In fact they like you 
would like to distance themselves from the more controversial stuff that 
Stalin represented. 

But the bottom line of these parties political line is in fact neo-Stalinist 
to the core! A combination of reformist and Stalinist-Menshevik policies of 
popular front politics, the stage theory of revolution. I mean Stalinism was 
a lot more then just show trials, gulags, and third period Social facism. In 
fact the line of "peace co-existence", connected to Socialism in one 
country, and the line that the present Ex Stalinists
and now Socialists express in the concrete everyday politics. In other words 
a form of Menshevism which rather then overthrow capitalism as the deadly 
enemy of the working class still wants to make the deal!

Stalinism is in fact not any longer Stalinism in the sense of a bureaucratic 
click which ursurped power on the head of October in the former Soviet 
Union. Nor is it a bureaucratic click in the East European countries that 
were handed power after the Red Army marched in at the end of World War 2. 
Stalinism is fact transformed itself to neo-Stalinism which is nothing more 
or less then a fairly solid line of Menshevism.

Their are some specifics differences in tone and history between the 
neo-Stalinist Menshevism of lets say the "Euro-Communists" and the former 
Stalinist parties of the eastern block countries neo-Stalinist Menshevism. 
But the fundemental line is the same of making a historic compromise with 
the bougeoisie in one form or the other. This is the common political 
denominator of all these parties which have evolved out of the 
disintegration of the former Soviet Union.

Only the Trotskyists can show the way forward out of the dead end that 
Stalinism once represented and now the neo-Stalinist-Menshevik traitors who 
want to take over the role of the traditional reformists of the 2nd 
International at best!

Warm Regards
Bob Malecki 





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