Date: Fri, 14 Mar 1997 00:37:08 +0100
From: Hugh Rodwell <m-14970-AT-mailbox.swipnet.se>
Subject: M-I: Re: DHKP-C on Anti-Stalinism and the World Situation


Jim H quotes an article on '"Anti-Stalinism" and the Current World Situation'.

It starts off by ignoring the anti-Communism of imperialism which couldn't
give a toss about "anti-Stalinism" any more, since it's main anti-Communist
line is "socialism is dead":

>In the present situation, anti-Communism above all takes the form of
>anti-Stalinism.

What really worries Imperialism is the *revolutionary* left. This is never
Stalinist. Stalinist policies promote class-collaboration and the stage
theory of revolution, which are a political gift to the imperialists. Just
look at the ANC/SACP front in South Africa. Ted Kennedy embracing Winnie
Mandela a year or two ago just about says it all. Nothing for the workers
there except the dubious democratic gain of swapping some white bosses for
black.

The rest of the article mythologizes on the basis of a fairy tale dichotomy
between the Heroic Power of One Great Man and the Evil Omnipotence of His
Many Enemies.


 The Omnipotent Enemy is invoked right away:

>	After imperialism brought about the collapse of the socialist
>system, the New
>World Order demagogy had an ideological influence over some national
>liberation movements which, although they had launched liberation struggles
>and had even developed them to the point of revolution, had remained
>dependent
>on the strength of the revisionist system. They signed peace agreements with
>imperialism and spread the process of disarmament.

But of course this is too materialist a claim and might need explanation,
so the bankruptcy of the Stalinist regimes leading to the current process
of restoration of capitalism is first of all denied:


>	In short, this is the picture of the world today. The question is,
>how did
>this negative situation come about? After WW2, socialism went from being one
>country to become a socialist system covering a third of the world. As a
>result of the struggles for national and social liberation, many of the newly
>independent countries withdrew from the capitalist-imperialist market. In
>many
>of them, the revolutionary struggle had intensified, and they were at the
>point of progressing towards socialism with massive strides. This was a
>period
>when the capitalist system was being turned upside down by new revolutions,
>and when a socialist system was  being formed. The imperialist system was
>entering a stage where it was being wiped out step by step.

and then turned into its opposite with a quite wonderful question:


>The compelling question we must find an answer to is how was this
>situation >reversed?

Indeed, if this was the situation, its reversal was more of a miracle than
its actual creation!

>	To answer this question, we must begin first of all by discussing
>"anti-Stalinism."
>	Today, when its results can be clearly and openly seen, this
>"anti-Stalinism"
>has become totally bankrupt. Under the guise of "anti-Stalinism", those who
>collaborated with imperialism have brought great harm to socialism; they
>caused the collapse of the socialist system, and their own downfall into the
>bargain.

So abracadbra, forget imperialism and material explanations -- it's all the
Trotskyists' fault anyhow! These poor weak, insignificant, stupid reptiles
were strong enough to bring the whole glorious structure of the Stalinist
march to communism (I mean, they'd already achieved Socialism way back,
right?) tumbling down. What fools would listen to such worms? Why everybody
except Uncle Joe, cos everybody except Uncle Joe repudiated the excesses
and stupidities of his exercise of power as soon as they got the chance
when he died, and that didn't matter too much, cos he was dead. So *nobody*
was left after the whole glorious march to Communism, the whole glorious
experience of building the dictatorship of the proletariat, and the whole
glorious experience of bringing socialist solidarity and brotherhood to a
third of the world -- nobody was left who could recognize for what they
were policies that would doom Socialism and its glories to ignominious
defeat. Note that the article doesn't mention the working class once as a
possible defender of a social system devoted entirely to its most
fundamental class interests! No. Only one defender existed, Joe himself,
substituting for the whole working class! Too bad he was mortal.


Or perhaps the article sees others building socialism beside the Eagle of
the Caucasus?

>	Stalin was the target of propaganda, because it was under his name
>that
>socialist politics were becoming concrete, and because his policy of not
>making concessions was making further progress all the time. The world
>proletariat was progressing rapidly, as was the move towards socialism among
>those fighting for national liberation. With every passing day, the
>anti-imperialist camp was getting stronger. Imperialism had to block this
>advance.


Ever onward, from strength to strength, under His Name. What incredible
mystification in the name of revolutionary socialism!

The wrench involved in explaining the transformation from ever onward ever
upward to downhill very fast requires a bit of dialectical magic. Without
realizing the implications, the myth insists on the prime importance of
Leadership:

>	This is why a sustained anti-socialist campaign was launched
>against Stalin
>personally.
>	To be able to stand up against these attacks (which have been waged
>world
>wide on every terrain -  militarily, politically, diplomatically, and
>ideologically through propaganda), to be able to successfully win new
>victories and impose further setbacks on imperialism, what is required is a
>leadership which has a consistent and correct line, along with a strong
>organisation under the direction of this leadership. This is particularly the
>case for the socialist countries, but holds also for the entire world. Until
>the death of Stalin, this fight was being waged successfully, and socialism
>was making new gains world-wide.


Too bad his leadership wasn't up to educating the working class and his
Invincible Bolshevik Party (minus all the Bolsheviks who had actually
*made* the October revolution) well enough to provide any continuity after
he'd gone. I mean, he only had let's say 25 years of more or less
unfettered control of all the educational and ideological resources of the
Soviet Union at his disposal, and a captive audience that raved and
cheered, perhaps ovated is the adequate expression, every time he spoke.
But then, people are basically ungrateful and incredibly stupid I suppose
so what could we expect from his nearest comrades, those who had worked
most closely with him, spoken with him, relaxed together and joked about
the little victories of the day-to-day construction of Communism with him
-- what could we expect but stabbings in the back and treachery? How could
such leading comrades-in-arms stoop so low -- ah me, history is full of
inexplicable tragedies!!


One of the most inexplicable of which is the amazing turn-about of the
Invincible CPSU at the 20th Congress:


>The Resolutions of the 20th Congress of the CPSU were the Start of the
>Disintegration of the Socialist System
>
>In terms of this question, the death of Stalin created a huge vacuum. The
>weakening of the country and the party structure, the damage caused by the
>war, the great loss of cadres whose places were not filled for a long time -
>these and other reasons resulted in Stalin's gap remaining unfilled. This was
>part of the price that the Soviet Union had to pay on behalf of the people of
>the world for its struggle against Hitler fascism, which had aimed to enslave
>the people of the world.


Well, well. Funny these material conditions had meant nothing while the
Great One was in charge. He must have been like some wonderful wallpaper
holding this cracked and trembling structure in one piece almost in
defiance of nature.
(Wonderful struggle against Hitler fascism when the war started, of course ...)

>	As for the collective leadership which replaced Stalin, its
>capacity and
>understanding were very far from being up to the task.

As I said, too bad the Great Leader was such a lousy judge of character and
such an incompetent selector. He makes even the English cricket selectors
look good! Just look at the miserable record of Stalin's proteges and
closest comrades after his death:

>The political line
>which was followed was not clear, and against the backdrop of the confusion
>which stemmed from the attacks of imperialism, self-doubt emerged. Through
>exaggerating the situation of the CPSU, they were unable to see the level of
>revolutionary struggle on a global scale. For those who are unable to
>perceive
>the true level of revolutionary struggle through the bombardments of
>imperialism, the situation was genuinely fearful. Not being able to see how
>the world had changed from the days when the task was to defend the only
>socialist country in existence, the revisionists begun to take control of the
>leadership through expulsions.


Strange that our late-comers can see all this but the closest comrades of
the Eagle of the Caucasus couldn't. Didn't he see they weren't listening?
Couldn't he read their innermost thoughts? What sort of leader was he to
allow these doubting Thomases and poltroons to be in a position to take the
reins after his passing?

Totally oblivious, then, of the marvellous strides being made towards
Communism that they proclaimed in their speeches, these new leaders began
the rot:

>	Modern revisionism, having put forward its defeatist views,
>incriminated
>Stalin and rejected armed revolution, then began to follow policies which
>benefited imperialism. The fact is that socialist liberation struggles were
>left without support, and the path they were following condemned through the
>mouths of "socialists".

Gaping holes were created that resurrected the spectre of Trotskyism:

>But this is not the most important thing. This
>revisionism created an opportunity for the revival of many tendencies which
>were waiting to pounce. Trotskyism, which had never laid down the flag of
>anti-socialism, became even more excited by this development.

and with them the Italian and French CPs:

>To this chorus
>were added the voices of the defeated Communist Parties of Europe, including
>the Communist Party of Italy and the Communist Party of France, who in one
>way
>or another had held power in their hands only to surrender it to the
>bourgeoisie.

Well and good. Only in what year did this surrender take place, dear
Comrades? *After* the death of Stalin perhaps?? Or at the end of the war,
on the *explicit advice* of Stalin perhaps, as part of the Eagle's deal
with Churchill and Roosevelt once his first love, Hitler, had dumped him?
But I digress...


>	A further result which has emerged is that anti-Stalinist writers
>have served
>to strengthen class collaboration by the left. The tradition of revolutionary
>politics, free of concessions, which came to the fore after WW2 when the
>politics of the 2nd International were thrown into the rubbish bin of
>history,
>suddenly disappeared.

The Second International came to power in Great Britain with the most
outspoken and massive popular support it had ever had! The welfare policies
it implemented under the revolutionary pressure of the working class have
taken decades to rip back. The Second International was in fact brought
back on to the stage of history by the class collaboration practised by
Stalin in his agreements with the imperialists at Yalta and Potsdam.

The following meaningless gobbledegook is supposed to clarify ideology and
theoretical positions. But it's just an empty chain of epithets:

>	There is no need to look very far to see what the ideological roots of
>"Anti-Stalinism" are. The essence of "Anti-Stalinism" is anti-Marxism and
>anti-Leninism. When Lenin summed up the history of Marxism in Marxism and
>Revisionism, he wrote that "In the first half century of its existence,
>Marxism was engaged in combating theories fundamentally hostile to it. ...
>But
>after Marxism had ousted all the more or less integral doctrines hostile to
>it, the tendencies expressed in those doctrines began to seek other channels.
>The forms and motives of the struggle changed, but the struggle continued.
>and
>the second half century of the existence of Marxism began with the
>struggle of
>a trend hostile to Marxism within Marxism." "Anti-Stalinism" is precisely
>such
>a trend hostile to Marxism within Marxism.


After another wave of the hand at "objective" conditions:

>We oppose the criticisms that have been made against Stalin which do not take
>into consideration the internal and external historical and objective
>conditions, the imperialist blockade, the threat of intensified attacks from
>fascism which was on the rise, the moves towards imperialist war, the
>peasants' resistance against socialist co-operatives and the attempts by
>petit
>bourgeois currents to destroy the unity of the party.

we get another blast of "you've never had it so good, comrades":

>Contrary to the
>accusations - that Stalin abused his power, infringed socialist legality,
>concentrated the leadership of the party and the state into his own hands,
>and
>oppressed the masses - the period in question was one when the party's ties
>with the masses was at its height. This was the most progressive level that
>the party reached in the entire 70 years of socialism. It was a time when the
>Stakhanov movement created extraordinary work rates and levels of
>self-sacrifice, a time when the people had become socialist.
>	To take a period which is full of successes and achievements, a
>time when
>political methods were used to realise these gains, and to evaluate this in a
>way which puts these methods in opposition to and separate from the party's
>historical leadership is not consistent with the materialist conception of
>history.

Mysticism. Ebb and flow. What kind of historical souffle is this we are
being served up? One day "the party's ties with the masses was at its
height", the next the whole thing's flat as a pancake. And the reaction of
all the good citizens of this happy state to the traitors? Not a
dicky-bird. What did all the Stakhanovites say when their self-sacrifice
was no longer at such a premium? Not a peep.


>	In conclusion, the criteria of political success for
>Marxist-Leninists is to
>raise the level of the struggles of the world's proletariat, and to
>strengthen
>them with the successes of socialist and internationalist politics. It is to
>develop the national liberation movements and to strike new blows against
>imperialism.

Yes, but you won't do that by emulating Stalin's policies. Just look at the
catastrophic mess his policies produced in England in 1926, China in 1927,
Germany in 1933 and Spain during the Revolution from 1936 to 1939.


>	To not rely on external forces, but to think, to learn, to make
>revolution
>and develop how to defend that revolution by totally depending upon and
>relying upon one's own strength will secure the development of a far
>healthier
>socialism, one which will not collapse.

Sounds good, but why did Lenin insist that the Soviet Union didn't stand a
chance unless the revolution spread to Europe and especially Germany? And
what is "one's own" here -- the party, the class or the people? National or
international?

And if this will produce a "far healthier socialism", how come Stalin's
socialism suddenly becomes "unhealthy"? Just because it collapsed? That's
sheer empiricism. Will the new socialism be dependent on one Great Leader
again? What will happen *if* this great leader dies?

>	We have now entered a period where all over the world the struggle of
>organisations who refuse to surrender to imperialism and who have confidence
>in the strength of the people, is on the rise.

And we'll have to do a better job of mobilizing this upsurge for socialist
revolution than the Stalinist Comintern and later the purely nationalist
dictates of Moscow ever did.

Cheers,

Hugh




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