by Ludo Martens
In September 1955, Nikolay Rukhadze, responsible for Security in Georgia, who had led the purge of Beria's men in 1951, was condemned and shot as `Beria's accomplice'.
.
Ibid. , p. 73.
So, from 1950 to 1955, different revisionist groups lashed out with at each other with their fangs, taking advantage of the situation to eliminate Stalin's supporters.
The `rehabilitated' enemies
After Stalin's death, under Khrushchev, opportunists and enemies of Leninism, sent, justifiably, to Siberia under Stalin, were rehabilitated and placed in key positions. Khrushchev's son, Sergei, gives an example. During the thirties, Khrushchev and Mikoyan had been close to a man named Snegov, condemned in 1938, as an enemy of the people, to twenty-five years of prison. In 1956, Khrushchev brought him out of prison so that he could testify against the `Stalinist crimes'. But, Snegov `proved' to Khrushchev's son that `the issue was not Stalin's mistakes or delusions, but that everything was the fruit of his criminal policy. The monstrous results had not appeared all of a sudden in the thirties. Their roots, Snegov said, went back to the October Revolution and the Civil War.'
.
Sergei Khrushchev, Khrushchev on Khrushchev: An Inside Account of the Man and His Era (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1990), p. 8.
This individual, an open opponent of the October Revolution, was chosen by Khrushchev as Commissar of the Ministry of the Interior, where he was responsible for the rehabilitation of the `victims of Stalinism'!
.
Ibid. , p. 13.
Khrushchev also fished Solzhenitsyn out from a work camp. So, the revisionist leader who wanted to `return to Leninism' made an alliance with a Tsarist reactionary to combat `Stalinism'. The two scum got along perfectly. In a burst of warmth for his `Marxist' partner, Solzhenitsyn would later write:
`It was impossible to foresee the sudden, thundering and furious attack that Khrushchev had reserved for Stalin during the Twenty-Second Congress! I cannot remember in a long time having read something so interesting.'
.
Solzhenitsyn, Le chкne et le veau; cited in Branko Lazitch, Le rapport Khrouchtchev et son histoire (Paris: Йditions du Seuil, 1976), p. 77.
Khrushchev and the pacific counter-revolution
After Beria's execution, Khrushchev became the most important figure in the Presidium. At the Twentieth Congress, in February 1956, he completely reversed the ideological and political line of the Party. He noisily announced that `Leninist democracy' and `collective leadership' were re-restablished, but he more or less imposed his Secret Report about Stalin on the other members of the Presidium. According to Molotov:
`When Khrushchev read his report to the Twentieth Congress, I had already been maneuvered into a dead-end. I have often been asked, why, during the Twentieth Congress, did you not speak out against Khrushchev? The Party was not ready for that. By staying in the Party, I hoped that we could partially redress the situation'.
.
Chueva, op. cit. , p. 350.
The struggle between the two lines, between Marxism-Leninism and bourgeois tendencies, never ceased, right from October 25, 1917. With Khrushchev, the power relationship was reversed and opportunism, fought and repressed up to then, took over the leadership of the Party. Revisionism took advantage of this position to liquidate, bit by bit, the Marxist-Leninist forces. Upon Stalin's death, there were ten in the Presidium: Malenkov, Beria, Khrushchev, Mikoyan, Molotov, Kaganovich, Voroshilov, Bulganin, Saburov and Pervukhin.
.
R. A. Medvedev and Zh. .A. Medvedev, op. cit. , p. 4.
After Beria's elimination, Mikoyan stated in 1956 that in `the Central Committee and its Presidium in the last three years ... after a long interval collective leadership has been established'.
.
A. I. Mikoyan, Discussion of Khrushchev--Moskatov Reports, 20th Communist Party Congress, op. cit. , p. 80.
But the following year, Khrushchev and Mikoyan fired the rest, using the argument that `the anti-Party factionalist group' `wanted a return to the days, so painful fo our party and country, when the reprehensible methods and actions spawned by the cult of the individual held sway'.
.
Kozlov, `Report on the Party Statutes', The Documentary Record of the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (New York: Columbia University Press, 1962), p. 206.
Eliminating the Marxist-Leninist majority in the Presidium was possible thanks to the army, particularly Zhukov, and regional secretaries who came to support Khrushchev when he was in the minority. Molotov's, Malenkov's and Kaganovich's hesitations, lack of political acumen and conciliatory attitude caused their defeat.
In international politics, Stalin's line from 1945 to 1953 was completely dismantled. Khrushchev capitulated to the world bourgeoisie. He addressed the Party at the Twentieth Congress: `(T)he Party ... smashed obsolete ideas'. `We want to be friends with the United States'. `There are also substantial achievements in the building of socialism in Yugoslavia.' `(T)he working class ... has an opportunity to ... win a firm majority in parliament and to turn the parliament from an agency of bourgeois democracy into an instrument of genuinely popular will'.
.
Khrushchev, `Central Committee Report', op. cit. , pp. 29, 35, 30, 38.
Khrushchev began the dismantling of Stalin's work with all sorts of wonderful promises. Hearing them today, we can see that Khrushchev was simply a clown.
According to Khrushchev, `In the conditions of the cult of the individual .... People who usurp power ... escape from under (the Party's) control'.
.
Khrushchev, `Concluding Remarks' 22nd Congress, op. cit. , p. 198.
These sycophants and magicians obviously disappeared along with Stalin. And Khrushchev continued:
`In the current decade (1961--1970) the Soviet Union, creating the material and technical base of communism, will surpass the strongest and richest capitalist country, the U.S.A.'
.
Khrushchev, `The Party Program', 22nd Congress, op. cit. , p. 15.
Twenty years after the `beginning of Communism' promised by Khrushchev for 1970, the Soviet Union exploded under the blows of U.S. imperialism; its republics are now controlled by maffiosi and rapacious capitalists; the people live in profound misery, unemployed; crime reigns supreme; nationalism and fascism have provoked horrible civil wars; there are tens of thousands dead and millions of refugees.
As for Stalin, he also looked at the uncertain future. The conclusions of the History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks): Short Course, whose writing he supervised in 1938, are worth re-examining, given recent events. They contain six fundamental lessons, drawn from the Bolshevik Party's experience. The fourth reads:
`Sceptics, opportunists, capitulators and traitors cannot be tolerated on the directing staff of the working class.
`It cannot be regarded as an accident that the Trotskyites, Bukharinites and nationalist deviators ... ended ... by becoming agents of fascist espionage services.
`The easiest way to capture a fortress is from within.'
.
Commission of the Central Committee of the C.P.S.U. (B.), editor. History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks): Short Course (Toronto: Francis White Publishers, 1939), p. 360.
Stalin predicted correctly what would happen in the Soviet Union if a Gorbachev or a Yeltsin ever entered the Politburo.
At the end of the twentieth century, humanity has sort of returned to the start state, to the years 1900--1914, where the imperialist powers thought that they could run the world among themselves. In the years to come, as the criminal, barbaric and inhuman character of imperialism shows itself more and more clearly, new generations who never knew Stalin will pay homage to him. They will follow the words of Mao Zedong who, on December 21, 1939, in the distant caves of that huge China, toasted Stalin's sixtieth birthday:
`Congratulating Stalin means supporting him and his cause, suppor
ting the victory of socialism, and the way forward for mankind which he points out, it means supporting a dear friend. For the great majority of mankind today are suffering, and mankind can free itself from suffering only by the road pointed out by Stalin and with his help.'
.
Mao Tse-Tung, `Stalin, Friend of the Chinese People', Works, vol. 2, p. 335.
References
Foreword
1. Alexander Zinoviev, Les confessions d'un homme en trop (Paris: Olivier Orban, 1990), pp. 104, 188, 120. Humo interview, 25 February 1993, pp. 48--49.
2. Mao Tsetung, Speech at the Second Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. Selected Works of Mao Tsetung (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1977), vol. 5, p. 341.
Introduction
1. Ludo Martens, L'URSS et la contre-rйvolution de velours (Antwerp: EPO, 1991).
2. Ibid. , p. 215.
3. Ibid. , p. 186.
4. Ibid. , p. 253.
5. Ibid. , p. 245.
6. Patrice de Beer, `La lente йrosion'. Le Monde, 7 August 1991.
7. Marcel Niedergang, Le Monde.
8. International Herald Tribune, 5 November 1991, p. 1.
9. Jose Maria Sison, Statement of Denial and Condemnation. 8 December 1992.
10. Democratic Palestine, July--August--September 1992, p. 31.
Chapter 1
1. Sidney and Beatrice Webb, Soviet Communism: A New Civilisation? second edition (London: Victor Gollancz, 1937), p. 236.
2. Ibid. , p. 531.
3. Alexander Kerensky, Russia and History's Turning Point (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1965), p. 220.
4. Ibid. , p. 248.
5. Ibid. , p. 277.
6. Ian Grey, Stalin: Man of History (New York: Doubleday & Co, 1979).
7. Ibid. , pp. 14--18.
8. Grey, op. cit. , pp. 20--21. Robert H. McNeal, Stalin: Man and Ruler (New York: New York University Press, 1988), p. 9.
9. Grey, op. cit. , pp. 22--24.
10. Leon Trotsky, My Life (New York: Pathfinder Press, 1970), p. 506.
11. Grey, op. cit. , pp. 29--31.
12. Ibid. , p. 32.
13. Ibid. , pp. 34--35.
14. Ibid. , p. 38.
15. Ibid. , pp. 41--45.
16. Ibid. , p. 51.
17. Ibid. , p. 53.
18. Ibid. , pp. 59, 64.
19. Ibid. , pp. 65--69.
20. Ibid. , p. 70.
21. Ibid. , pp. 71--73.
22. Ibid. , pp. 75--79.
23. Ibid. , pp. 88--96.
24. Ibid. , pp. 97--98.
25. Ibid. , pp. 103--104.
26. Trotsky, My Life, p. 512.
27. Ibid. , p. 477.
28. Kerensky, op. cit. , pp. 450--451.
29. Ibid. , pp. 479--480.
30. Ibid. , pp. 492, 500--501, 506--507.
31. Webb, op. cit. , pp. 536--537.
32. Jane Burbank, Intelligentsia and Revolution: Russian Views of Bolshevism, 1917--1922 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), pp. 13, 36, 42, 44.
33. Grey, op. cit. , p. 105.
34. Ibid. , pp. 106--109.
35. Ibid. , pp. 115--117.
36. Ibid. , pp. 121--127.
37. McNeal, op. cit. , p. 157.
38. Grey, op. cit. , pp. 128--129.
39. Ibid. , pp. 129--130.
40. Ibid. , p. 131.
41. Ibid. , pp. 132--133.
42. Ibid. , pp. 135--136.
43. Ibid. , p. 139.
44. Leon Trotsky, Stalin: An appraisal of the man and his influence (New York: Harper & Brother Publishers, 1941), p. 333.
45. McNeal, op. cit. , p. 63.
46. V. I. Lenin, The Trade Unions, the Present Situation, and Trotsky's Mistakes (30 December 1920). Collected Works (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1960--1970), vol. 32, pp. 19--42.
47. Grey, op. cit. , p. 151.
48. Lenin, Closing Speech on the Political Report of the Central Committee of the R.C.P.(B.). (28 March 1922). Works, vol. 33, p. 315.
49. Grey, p. 159.
50. Ibid. , p. 171.
51. Ibid. , p. 172.
52. Ibid. , p. 173.
53. Trotsky, Stalin, p. 374.
54. Henri Bernard, Le communisme et l'aveuglement occidental (Soumagne, Belgium: Йditions Andrй Grisard, 1982), p. 48.
55. Quoted in Stalin, The Trotskyist Opposition Before and Now. Works (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1954), pp. 179--180. Stalin's emphasis.
56. Trotsky, My Life, p. 469.
57. Lenin, Letter to the Congress. Works, vol. 36, pp. 593--594.
58. Ibid. , pp. 594--595.
59. Trotsky, My Life, p. 506.
60. Ibid. , pp. 479--480.
61. Grey, op. cit. , p. 176.
62. Fotieva, Souvenirs sur Lйnine (Moscow: Йditions Moscou, n.d.), pp. 152--153.
63. Lenin, Letter to the Congress, p. 596.
64. Fotieva, op. cit. , pp. 173--174.
65. Trotsky, Stalin, p. 374.
66. Grey, op. cit. , p. 179.
67. Ibid. .
68. Fotieva, op. cit. , p. 175.
69. Trostky, Stalin, p. 375.
70. Stalin, The Trotskyist Opposition Before and Now, p. 178.
71. Ibid. , pp. 180--181.
72. Trotsky, Stalin, p. 372.
73. Ibid. , p. 376.
74. Ibid. , p. 381.
75. Ibid. , p. 376.
76. Ibid.
77. Ibid. , p. 377.
78. Bernard, op. cit. , p. 53.
79. Ibid. , p. 381.
Chapter 2
1. Lenin, Our Foreign and Domestic Position and the Tasks of the Party. Works, vol. 31, p. 419.
2. Ibid. , p. 420.
3. Lenin, On Co-operation II. Works, vol. 33, pp. 472--475.
4. Lenin, On Co-operation I. Works, vol. 33, p. 468.
5. Lenin, Speech at a Plenary Session of the Moscow Soviet. Works, vol. 33, p. 437.
6. Ibid. , p. 443.
7. Leon Trotsky, Results and Prospects. The Permanent Revolution & Results and Prospects (New York: Pathfinder Press, 1969), p. 35.
8. Ibid. , pp. 76--77.
9. Ibid. , pp. 104--105.
10. Ibid. , p. 115.
11. Ibid. , p. 108.
12. Quoted in Stalin, The October Revolution and the Tactics of the Russian Communists. Leninism: Selected Writings (New York: International Publishers, 1942), p. 15. Stalin's emphasis.
13. Trotsky, Postscript 1922, What is A Peace Programme? (Columbo, Ceylon: Lanka Samasamaja, 1956), pp. 20-21. Also partially quoted in Stalin, The October Revolution, p. 21.
14. Trotsky, Nos tвches politiques (Paris: Pierre Belfond, 1970), pp. 39--41, 128, 159, 195, 198, 204.
15. Ibid. , pp. 97, 170.
16. Ibid. , p. 160.
17. Ibid. , p. 103.
18. Ibid. , p. 128.
19. Leon Trotsky, The New Course. The Challenge of the Left Opposition (1923--1925) (New York: Pathfinder Press, 1975), pp. 71, 128.
20. Trotsky, Nos tвches, pp. 140--141.
21. Trotsky, The New Course, p. 71.
22. Trotsky, Nos tвches, pp. 192, 195, 204.
23. Trotsky, The New Course, p. 72.
24. Trotsky, Nos tвches, p. 190.
25. Trotsky, The New Course, pp. 126--127.
Chapter 3
1. Stalin, The Tasks of Business Executives. Leninism, p. 200.
2. Hiroaki Kuromiya, Stalin's Industrial Revolution: Politics and Workers, 1928--1932 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 115, 319.
3. Ibid. , p. 290.
4. Ibid. , p. 306.
5. Anna Louise Strong, The Stalin Era (Publisher unknown, 1956), p. 33.