Date: Fri, 26 Dec 1997 22:32:38 +0100 (MET) From: rolf.martens-AT-mailbox.swipnet.se (Rolf Martens) Subject: M-G: UNITE! Info #60en: 3/9 CPC exposes Khrushchov, 1964 UNITE! Info #60en: 3/9 CPC exposes Khrushchov, 1964 [Posted: 26.12.97] [Continued from part 2/9] ANTAGONISTIC CLASSES AND CLASS STRUGGLE EXIST IN THE SOVIET UNION In announcing the abolition of the dictatorship of the proleta- riat in the Soviet Union, the revisionist Khrushchov clique base themselves mainly on the argument that antagonistic classes have been eliminated and that class struggle no longer exists. But what is the actual situation in the Soviet Union? Are there really no antagonistic classes and no class struggle there? Following the victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution, the dictatorship of the proletariat was established in the So- viet Union, capitalist private ownership was destroyed and so- cialist ownership by the whole people and socialist collective ownership were established through the nationalization of in- dustry and the collectivization of agriculture, and great achievements in socialist construction were scored during seve- ral decades. All this constituted an indelible victory of tre- mendous historic significance won by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Soviet people under the leadership of Lenin and Stalin. However, the old bourgeoisie and other exploiting classes which had been overthrown in the Soviet Union were not eradicated and survived after industry was nationalized and agriculture collec- tivized. The political and ideological influence of the bour- geoisie remained. Spontaneous capitalist tendencies continued to exist both in the city and in the countryside. New bourgeois elements and kulaks were still incessantly generated. Throughout the long intervening period, the class struggle between the pro- letariat and the bourgeoisie and the struggle between the so- cialist and capitalist roads have continued in the political, economic and ideolgical spheres. As the Soviet Union was the first, and at the time the only, country to build socialism and had no foreign experience to go by, and as Stalin departed from Marxist-Leninist dialectics in his understanding of the laws of class struggle in socialist society, he prematurely declared after agriculture was basically collectivized that there were "no longer antagonistic classes" [1] in the Soviet Union and that it was "free of class con- flicts" [2], one-sidely stressed the internal homogeneity of socialist society and overlooked its contradictions, failed to rely upon the working class and the masses in the struggle against the forces of capitalism and regarded the possibility of restoration of capitalism as associated only with armed attack by international imperialism. This was wrong both in theory and in practice. [1: Stalin, "On the Draft Constitution of the U.S.S.R", Prob- lems of Leninism, FLPH, Moscow, 1954, p. 690.] [2: Stalin, "Report to the Eighteenth Congress of the C.P.S.U.(B.) on the Work of the Central Committee", Problems of Leninism, FLPH, Moscow, p. 777.] Nevertheless, Stalin remained a great Marxist-Leninist. As long as he led the Soviet Party and state, he held fast to the dicta- torship of the proletariat and the socialist course, pursued a Marxist-Leninist line and ensured the Soviet Union's victorious advance along the road of socialism. Ever since Khrushchov seized the leadership of the Soviet Party and state, he has pushed through a whole series of revisionist policies which have greatly hastened the growth of the forces of capitalism and again sharpened the class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie and the struggle between the roads of socialism and capitalism in the Soviet Union. Scanning the reports in Soviet newspapers over the last few years, one finds numerous examples demonstrating not only the presence of many elements of the old exploiting classes in So- viet society, but also the generation of new bourgeois elements on a large scale and the acceleration of class polarization. Let us first look at the activities of various bourgeois ele- ments in the Soviet enterprises owned by the whole people. Leading functionaries in some state-owned factories and their gangs abuse their positions and amass large fortunes by using the equipment and materials of the factories to set up "under- ground workshops" for private production, selling the products illicitly and dividing the spoils. Here are some examples. In a Leningrad plant producing military items, the leading func- tionaries placed their own men in "all key posts" and "turned the state enterprise into a private one". They illictly engaged in the production of non-military goods and from the sale of fountain pens alone embezzled 1,200,000 old roubles in three years. Among these people was a man who "was a Nepman...in the 1920's" and had been a "lifelong thief". [Krasnaya Zvezda, May 19, 1962.] In a silk-weaving mill in Uzbekistan, the manager ganged up with the chief engineer, the chief accountant, the chief of the supp- ly and marketing section, heads of workshops and others, and they all became "new-born entrepreneurs". They purchased more than ten tons of artificial and pure silk through various ille- gal channels in order to manufacture goods which "did not pass through the accounts". They employed workers without going through the proper procedures and enforced "a twelve-hour wor- king day". [Pravda Vostoka, Oct. 8, 1963.] The manager of a furniture factory in Kharkov set up an "illegal knitwear workshop" and carried on secret operations inside the factory. This man "had several wives, several cars, several houses, 176 neck-ties, about a hundred shirts and dozens of suits". He was also a big gambler at the horse-races. [Pravda Ukrainy, May 18, 1962.] Such people do not operate all by themselves. They invariably work hand in glove with functionaries in the state departments in charge of supplies and in the commercial and other depart- ments. They have their own men in the police and judicial de- partments who protect them and act as their agents. Even high- ranking officials in the state organs support and shield them. Here are a few examples. The chief of the workshops affiliated to a Moscow psychoneurolo- gical dispensary and his gang set up an "underground enter- prise", and by bribery "obtained fifty-eight knitting machines" and a large amount of raw material. They entered into business relations with "fifty-two factories, handicraft co-operatives and collective farms" and made three million roubles in a few years. They bribed functionaries of the Department for Combating Theft of Socialist Property and Speculation, controllers, in- spectors, instructors and others. [Izvestia, Oct. 20, 1963, and Izvestia Sunday Supplement, No. 12, 1964.] The manager of a machinery plant in the Russian Federation, to- gether with the deputy manager of a second machinery plant and other functionaries, or forty-three persons in all, stole more than nine hundred looms and sold them to factories in Central Asia, Kazakhstan, the Caucasus and other places, whose leading functionaries used them for illicit production. [Komsomolskaya Pravda, Aug. 9, 1963.] In the Kirghiz SSR, a gang of over forty embezzlers and graf- ters, having gained control of two factories, organized under- ground production and plundered more than thirty million roub- les' worth of state property. The gang included the Chairman of the Planning Commission of the Republic, a Vice-Minister of Com- merce, seven bureau chiefs and division chiefs of the Republic's Council of Ministers, National Economic Council and State Con- trol Commission, as well as "a big kulak who had fled from exile". [Sovietskaya Kirghizia, Jan. 9, 1962.] These examples show that the factories which have fallen into the clutches of such degenerates are socialist enterprises only in name, that in fact they have become capitalist enterprises by which these persons enrich themselves. The relationship of such persons to the workers has turned into one between exploiters and exploited, between oppressors and oppressed. Are not such degenerates who possess and make use of means of production to exploit the labour of others out-and-out bourgeois elements? Are not their acomplices in government organizations, who work hand in glove with them, participate in many types of expolitation, engage in embezzlement, accept bribes, and share the spoils, also out-and-out bourgeois elements? Obviously all these people belong to a class that is antagonis- tic to the proletariat - they belong to the bourgeoisie. Their activities against socialism are definitely class struggle with the bourgeoisie attacking the proletariat. Now let us look at the activities of various kulak elements on the collective farms. Some leading collective-farm functionaries and their gangs steal and speculate at will, freely squander public money and fleece the collective farmers. Here are some examples. The chairman of a collective farm in Uzbekistan "held the whole village in terror". All the important posts on this farm "were occupied by his in-laws and other relatives and friends". He squandered "over 132,000 roubles of the collective farm for his personal 'needs'". He had a car, two motor-cycles and three wives, each with "a house of her own". [Selskaya Zhizn, June 26, 1962.] The chairman of a collective farm in the Kursk Region regarded the farm as his "heredetary estate". He conspired with its ac- countant, cashier, chief warehouse-keeper, agronomist, general store-manager and others. Shielding each other, they "fleeced the collective farmers" and pocketed more than a hundred thou- sand roubles in a few years. [Ekonomicheskaya Gazeta, No. 35, 1963.] The chairman of a collective farm in the Ukraine made over 50,000 roubles at its expense by forging purchase certificates and cash-account orders in collusion with its woman accountant, who had been praised for keeping "model accounts" and whose deeds had been displayed at the Moscow Exhibition of Achieve- ments of the National Economy. [Selskaya Zhizn, Aug. 14, 1963.] The chairman of a collective farm in the Alma-Ata Region specia- lized in commercial speculation. He bought "fruit juice in the Ukraine or Uzbekistan, and sugar and alcohol from Djambul", pro- cessed them and then sold the wine at very high prices in many localities. In this farm a winery was created with a capacity of over a million litres a year, its speculative commercial network spread throughout the Kazakhstan SSR, and commercial speculation became one of the farm's main sources of income. [Pravda, Jan. 14, 1962.] The chairman of a collective farm in Byelorussia considered him- self "a feudal princeling on the farm" and acted "personally" in all matters. He lived not on the farm but in the city or in his own splendid villa, and was always busy with "various commercial machinations" and "illegal deals". He bought cattle from the outside, represented them as the products of the collective farm and falsified output figures. And yet "not a few commendatory newspaper reports" had been published about him and he had been called a "model leader". [Pravda, Feb. 6, 1961.] These examples show that collective farms under the control of such functionaries virtually become their private property. Such men turn socialist collective economic enterprises into economic enterprises of new kulaks. There are often people in their superior organizations who protect them. Their relationship to the collective farmers has likewise become that of oppressors to oppressed, of exploiters to exploited. Are not such neo-exploi- ters who ride on the backs of the collective farmers one-hund- red-per-cent neo-kulaks? Obviously, they all belong to a class that is antagonistic to the proletariat and the labouring farmers, belong to the kulak or rural bourgeois class. Their anti-socialist activities are precisely class struggle with the bourgeoisie attacking the proletariat and the labouring farmers. Apart from the bourgeois elements in state enterprises and col- lective farms, there are many others in both town and country in the Soviet Union. Some of them set up private enterprises for private production and sale; others organize contractor teams and openly undertake construction jobs for state or co-operative enterprises; still others open private hotels. A "Soviet woman capitalist" in Leningrad hired workers to make nylon blouses for sale, and her "daily income amounted to over 700 new roubles". [Izvestia, April 9, 1963.] The owner of a workshop in the Kursk Region made felt boots for sale at speculative prices. He had in his possession 540 pairs of felt boots, eight kilogrammes of gold coins, 3,000 metres of high-grade textiles, 20 carpets, 1,200 kilogrammes of wool and many other valuables. [Sovietskaya Rossiya, Oct. 9, 1963.] A private entrepeneur in the Gomel Region "hired workers and ar- tisans" and in the course of two years secured contracts for the construction and overhauling of furnaces in twelve factories at a high price. [Izvestia, Oct. 18, 1960.] In the Orenburg Region there are "hundreds of private hotels and trans-shipment points", and "the money of the collective farms and the state is continuously streaming into the pockets of the hostlery owners". [Selskaya Zhizn, July 17, 1963.] Some engage in commercial speculation, making tremendous profits through buying cheap and selling dear or bringing goods from far away. In Moscow there are a great many speculators engaged in the re-sale of agricultural produce. They "bring to Moscow tons of citrus fruit, apples and vegetables and re-sell them at spe- culative prices". "These profit-grabbers are provided with every facility, with market inns, store-rooms and other services at their disposal". [Selskaya Zhizn, July 17, 1963.] In the Krasnodar Territory, a speculator set up her own agency and "employed twelve salesmen and two stevedores". She transpor- ted "thousands of hogs, hundreds of quintals of stolen slag bricks, whole wagons of glass" and other building materials from the city to the villages. She reaped high profits out of each re-sale. [Ekonomicheskaya Gazeta, No. 27, 1963.] Others specialize as brokers and middlemen. They have wide con- tacts and through them one can get anything, in return for a bribe. There was a broker in Leningrad who "though he is not the Minister of Trade, controls all the stocks", and "though he holds no post on the railway, disposes of wagons". He could ob- tain "things the stocks of which are strictly controlled, from outside the stocks". "All the store-houses in Leningrad are at his service." For delivering goods, he received huge "bonuses" - 700,000 roubles from one timber combine in 1960 alone. In Le- ningrad, there is "a whole group" of such brokers. [Literaturnaya Gazeta, July 27 and Aug. 17, 1963.] These private entrepreneurs and speculators are engaged in the most naked capitalist exploitation. Isn't it clear that they be- long to the bourgeoisie, the class antagonistic to the proleta- riat? Actually the Soviet press itself calls these people "Soviet ca- pitalists", "new-born entrepreneurs", "private entrepreneurs", "newly-emerged kulaks", "speculators", "exploiters", etc. Aren't the revisionist Khrushchov clique contradicting themselves when they assert that antagonistic classes do not exist in the Soviet Union? The facts cited above are only a part of those published in the Soviet press. They are enough to shock people, but there are many more which have not been published, many bigger and more serious cases which are covered up and shielded. We have quoted the above data in order to answer the question whether there are antagonistic classes and class struggle in the Soviet Union. These data are readily available and even the revisionist Khrushchov clique are unable to deny them. These data suffice to show that the unbridled activities of the bourgeoisie against the proletariat are widespread in the Soviet Union, in the city as well as the countryside, in industry as well as agriculture, in the sphere of production as well as the sphere of circulation, all the way from the economic departments to Party and government organizations, and from the grass-roots to the higher leading bodies. These anti-socialist activities are nothing if not the sharp class struggle of the bourgeoisie against the proletariat. It is not strange that attacks on socialism should be made in a socialist country by old and new bourgeois elements. There is nothing terrifying about this so long as the leadership of the Party and state remains a Marxist-Leninist one. But in the So- viet Union today, the gravity of the situation lies in the fact that the revisionist Khrushchov clique have usurped the leader- ship of the Soviet Party and state and that a privileged bour- geois stratum has emerged in Soviet society. We shall deal with this problem in the following section. [Continued in part 4/9] --- from list marxism-general-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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