CLASS WAR: THE “LEFT” NOW PLAYS LOSER! WHY?
1301/11/2019 by socialistfight
By Luniterre
This is a discussion article from a French comrade who is a more-or-less uncritical defender of the USSR and Stalinism itself. However, it does emphasise the proletarian property forms as the basis for the USSR victory over Hitler and as Trotskyists we would agree with that aspect. Trotskyists say that victory was achieved despite the betrayals of Stalin and the massive errors he made in seeking to conciliate first the ‘democratic’ imperialists and then Nazism itself in the Stalin Hitler pact of 23 August 1939. Responses are invited to the comrade’s piece. Socialist Fight
“There is a class war, that’s a fact. But it is my class, the class of the rich, that is leading this war and is winning it. »
No one has really forgotten this “shock” statement by billionaire Warren Buffet. It was on the US CNN channel in 2005.
After the 2008 crisis and its exponential financial “solution”, he even affirmed the definitive nature of this victory… !
Until very recently, almost 15 years later, history, despite the exacerbated violence of the various conflicts on the planet, still seemed to prove him right. Recently, however, the multiple and massive popular revolts around the world have somehow reintroduced a serious doubt about this statement. Nevertheless, despite their massive nature, all these struggles seem to be systematically misled into dead ends, for lack of a political perspective that is really an alternative to the system in place, and which therefore seems to remain irremovable. This is despite the glaring evidence of the gigantic inequalities it continues to deepen and the economic and ecological aberrations it generates.
Nevertheless, the generator of this global catastrophe is nevertheless perfectly identified, and especially since the 2008 crisis: it is clearly the global domination of financial capital over practically all forms of expression of power.
Liberal “democracy” is no longer just a closed field where the various lobbies clash for the sharing of lucrative influences, via their political puppets, increasingly pitifully agitated on the scene, and of which Trump seems to be the archetype, caricatural in the extreme.
And class war, in the ideological and cultural field, has never really ceased, quite the contrary! The bourgeoisie is constantly tracking down the slightest reminiscence of the period when an alternative to capitalism seemed possible, and still was, to a certain extent.
On the one hand, the absurdity of the current system is so obvious that a substantial part of the intelligentsia and the middle classes at its service regularly declare themselves more or less “anti-capitalist”, even if this does not lead to any consequences other than purely formal and quickly recovered protest movements in the various forms of reformism of its political class. But on the other hand, the real fear that still seems to be holding the bourgeoisie is the possible resurgence of the “communist spectrum” that it therefore never ceases to pursue wherever it could take shape.
Contrary to the hopes it had for the “fall of the wall” and over the period 1989-92, it is the so-called “end of history” that already belongs squarely to the past, and if an “end” seems to be approaching again with great strides, it is indeed the possibly apocalyptic “end” of the system itself, not necessarily due to one no longer knows which hypothetical “enemy”, but quite simply to its own contradictions. Under these conditions, the system constantly keeps an eye open for all traces of memory, whatever they may be, from the Soviet period. This is what we saw on the occasion of the centenary of October, which saw a whole battery of “specialists” and “historians”, sometimes very officially appointed, and otherwise, indirectly, to ensure a deep sleep of this terrible ghost…
But the system, failing to solve its own crisis, has every interest in maintaining itself the millenarian “messianism” of a forthcoming apocalyptic end, whether “ecological” or not, and against which it can therefore pose itself as a “rampart of humanity”, and thus try to prolong itself, through some “shock” formulas, as the only possible “alternative” to the catastrophe it has caused itself…
For the bourgeoisie, anything that is not itself or directly dependent on itself is in its eyes “apocalyptic”. Since the birth of the USSR, it has striven to forge an “apocalyptic” vision of it, to the point of trying to turn it into a nightmare myth that unites its own class, and even above its own internal conflicts of interest. Thus, the true Nazi monster potentially created in 1919 by the Treaty of Versailles could be nurtured as a potential antidote to this nightmare, despite its excesses in the very heart of European and international capitalism.
But the bourgeoisie had clearly underestimated the bulimia of this monster created in its midst, and whose deep nature was therefore no different from itself. She simply expected that this bulimia nervosa would only be oriented towards the East…
This “error of perspective” finally led him to an inversion, even if very temporary, in the attribution of the role of the monsters to be exorcised…
This is what a remarkable film recently found by one of our comrades reminds us of and presented on TML. This film dates back to 1943, shortly after the Soviet victory of Stalingrad. Produced on behalf of the US authorities, it was obviously conceived by filmmakers who already had a surprisingly relevant historical overview of the entire “Eastern Front”, given the limited distance from these very recent events for them and for the world of that time!
https://my.pcloud.com/publink/show?code=XZUUn8kZMKew9HkqsdyqR7hwHoT88m6hYjek
Obviously, these filmmakers had access to first-hand sources, which still makes them an exceptional historical doc today. But what is most characteristic, compared to the current “official” views of the time, is the importance they attach to the social life of the Soviet economic infrastructure that made the war effort possible and effective.
It is clear from this film that the victory of this war effort is indeed the victory of the entire Soviet socialist society, not that of a Machiavellian tyrant backed by a handful of despotic generals and bureaucrats. It is the victory of the Soviets who mobilized by the millions, whether on the front lines or as supporters, behind enemy lines, or simply at their workstations, all essential to the war effort.
It is an insight into Soviet reality, in this 1943 US film, which is therefore concretely the antithesis of the so-called “historical” vision given to us in current textbooks, Wikipedia notices, TV shows, etc.
And of course, it is also the antithesis, also, of the one now “officially” voted in the European Parliament by its “resolution” on the “memory” of the Second World War, and which makes the USSR bear direct responsibility for the outbreak of the war!
And it is in this sense that this film is particularly significant today!
Indeed, the European Parliament, by directly addressing its “resolution” assimilating communism to Nazism to the Parliament of the Russian Federation, therefore expressly enjoins the Russian government to stop in practice commemorating this Soviet victory.
And for what real reason, if not to try again to erase the memory, not only of this victory, but of the Soviet socialist society that made it possible?
Indeed, why so much effort and sacrifice, on the part of Soviet citizens, if not to defend this country, the USSR, that they had just rebuilt almost entirely in about ten years, since the end of the NEP and the beginning of collectivization?
Why would they have made so much effort and sacrifice, if their country were at all in line with the nightmare vision that school textbooks, Wikipedia and other media nowadays give?
Why so much effort and sacrifice for this country, if the European Parliament’s “resolution” of 19/09/2019 is not simply a false manipulation of history?
Through Russian national memory, what is still commemorated massively today, on every possible occasion, and with the support of the Government of the Russian Federation, is not only the celebration of victory, but it is precisely the memory of this collective effort and all the sacrifices that have been necessary to build this victory, step by step.
It is in this sense that these commemorations have become a popular national communion that still constitutes an essential part of the Russian soul today.
And so it happens that this Russian collective memory coincides entirely with the reality filmed in 1943 by American filmmakers, and not with the current nightmarish Western cartoon that the European Parliament has just “legalized” by its vote.
This vote is, on the “memorable” ground where it claims to be, a declaration of ideological war, no more and no less.
What the European Parliament expressly aims at, in the expectations of its vote, is the whole of the Soviet socialist period which made it possible to build this capacity to defeat fascism. This is a particularly moving historical moment of this period, which we can still understand in the 1943 film, and it shows us precisely what real socialism meant in the USSR, for the working class and all the working classes of this country. This ideological act of war fomented by the European Parliament is therefore also, and even above all, an act of class war.
But how does the French “left” stand in the face of this class act of war? Is it really on the side of the proletariat and the working classes? Is it able to lead a counter-offensive?
In fact, for decades now, it has constantly denigrated the USSR, whether during its lifetime or after its fall! And to self-flagellate for the period when she supported her…
She stands as “antifascist” but finds itself unable to take up the challenge, when the memory of the USSR is attacked, which is really the country that made the main part of the war effort against Nazism, inflicted its first defeat on it at the gates of Moscow, as early as December 1941 and finally defeated it in Stalingrad before defeating it permanently in Berlin !
A large part of the left even finds itself squarely in support of this “resolution”, and if another part sketches out protests, it is always in order to nevertheless support its fundamental anti-Sovietism, directly or indirectly. None of these rhetorical “sketches”, however convoluted and sophisticated they may be, assume the essential part of what precisely and truly made the USSR strong at that time: the construction of socialism and the development of the productive forces it made possible in the decade preceding the war.
The victory of the USSR over Nazism is not simply the victory of the army of one nation over another, but first and foremost the victory of the construction of socialism, a victory of the proletariat and the working classes, precisely, in class war!
And certainly the greatest historical proletarian victory in this class war, of which today the billionaire financiers, like Warren Buffet, who are completing the destruction of the planet, dare to proclaim themselves winners!
To reduce the responsibility for the proletarian historical victory of the USSR to that of a single man, its political leader, Joseph Stalin, and at the same time to try to make him a kind of demiurge concentrating in his person all the strength of a country the size of a continent and to present him as an irresponsible and paranoid despotic bureaucrat, a caricature of an operetta devil, such is the communication strategy led by the West, from right to left, for decades, as a counter-offensive in this class war, to hide the more than guilty tolerance shown by the bourgeoisie towards its own truly monstrous progeny, Nazism!
Unable historically to erase the criminal behaviour of this ideological avatar of its own class, the bourgeoisie has very officially disowned it as it knows how to do from any progeny classified as unworthy, driving it out through the wide door of its humanist proclamations, to let it enter through the small window of its urgent needs, as it continues to do in Ukraine, for example.
This is what typically emerges from this resolution of 19 September 2019, which in fact endorses European regimes legalising and encouraging anti-communism, anti-Soviet and Russophobia.
While claiming to equate communism with Nazism, it is, in fact, an attempt to erase the responsibility of the “liberal” West and its Munich complacency towards Nazism, that is, its real responsibility in the genesis of the Second World War, the deadliest of all, and which murdered more than 25 million Soviet citizens in five years!
How can the current left claim to call itself antifascist by endorsing, directly or hypocritically, this lie of the European bourgeoisie and by sitting, in fact, on this mountain of proletarian corpses?
How can she, for a single second, speak on behalf of the proletarian and popular revolts that are rising everywhere, today, all over the world?
Not only it cannot, but it is therefore quite natural that it is rejected by the proletariat for what it really is: an emanation of “liberal” thought enslaved to the system that destroys the planet and condemns it every day to further social decline, and in many countries to ever-increasing poverty.
If some rare elements of the left, sincerely decided to put an end to this system, are still on the left, this film can be a source of reflection for them on the historical reality of class war.
And in the face of the bourgeoisie’s ideological offensive expressed in this “European resolution”, it must logically be time for them to make an essential political choice: that of the side in which they really want to stand in the class war.
As early as 1941, just six months after its “triumphant” entry into the USSR, the Nazi army was stopped at the gates of Moscow and pushed back 200 km. For Nazism, this was the real beginning of the end.
In class war, there is no defeat that is irremediable. But without an appropriate counter-offensive, victory remains for the Warren Buffet and their political zealots, right and “left” combined. They are the camp determined to keep the deadly system in place.
They are the camp of the destroyers of the planet, the camp of the imperialist financiers for whom the memory of the USSR and its antifascist victory is intolerable. The false European resolution of 19 September 2019 is the result of their ideology in the class war.
The antifascist victory of the proletariat in the Second World War is obviously not based on the shoulders of a single man, Joseph Stalin, but on those of an entire socialist country rebuilt in about ten years on the basis of its class ideology, the heritage of the October Revolution, the heritage of Marx and Lenin: Marxism-Leninism.
As long as the left continues to reject the fundamentals that allowed the historical victory of the proletariat, it will remain in the camp of the enemies of the proletariat, in the camp of the bourgeoisie, and, while claiming to be “antifascist”, in the camp of the neo-Nazis, in the end. And its defeat will only be the scrapping of one of the system’s many disposable stooge, and not that of the proletariat, which is now trying to raise its head by its many revolts on the planet.
Socialist Fight 
thank You very much for https://socialistfight.com/2019/11/01/class-war-the-left-now-plays-loser-why/
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“Luniterre is a retired worker, a ML militant all his life, coming from a maoist group which he has abandoned to come back to “defend the fondamentals on Marx-Engels and Lenine” and somewhat back to Staline because, as I understand his point of view, he is the incarnation of the history of URSS, in its socialist period, which every real Marxist-leninist must defend.
He is publishing for some years a blog “Tribune Marxiste-Leniniste” where he defends often an anti-imperialist correct political position on questions such as Ukraine, Syria, Libya and others important matters.
We have been discussing from some time about the URSS and Trotski.
His position is that Trotsky is a “revisionist” who stands in a sort of Khroutchevist, Deng-Tsiao Ping position, defending a “transitional society between capitalism and socialism putting emphasis on market as the regulatory means to past through this “transitional step” to socialism.
This has been a long discussion where his position has been qualified by Viriato as “misrepresentation” of L.T.’s real position.
Recently there has been exchanges after he published the piece that has been reproduced on SF.
As this is just an introductory piece to explain his position I do not copy the rest of the exchanges.
Perhaps he would do it but for the moment he accepts that I republish what follows.
“A reflection, on this subject and a brief research >>> on the class nature of the USSR >>> it is clear that Trotsky did not consider it at all socialist, neither under the NEP, nor after >>> he always speaks of “workers state”, then “degenerated workers state”, but never of socialist state !
At any given time, he always sees it as an “intermediate stage” between capitalism and socialism itself.
A hybrid society, whose class nature therefore remains imprecise, to say the least, if not downright indeterminate.
However, considered from a Marxist point of view, there is necessarily a dominant economic base, and which has a determined class nature, and therefore no possible hybrid situation, in terms of mode of production. Proletariat or bourgeoisie, socialism or capitalism, there is necessarily a dominant and determined mode of production, which characterizes the class nature of a system, beyond the very provisional situations of dual power.
Socialism itself is, by its very nature, a transitional phase, and it begins as soon as the process of breaking with capitalism is initiated under the dictatorship of the proletariat.
To the extent that this was clearly the case in the USSR, this makes it a socialist country, as long as this process lasts, until the mid-1950s, when the regression begins to take place seriously, under the power of the revisionists.
Of course, the causes of this regression have some of their roots in the defects, which need to be studied without prejudice in the previous period . Stalin himself had undertaken to analyse the economic problems of socialism in the USSR, shortly before his death:
Click to access les-problemes-economiques-du-socialisme-en-urss.pdf
The ML is unconditional on nothing but fundamentals, and as long as they remain operational in today’s society!
Luniterre”
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It is great to see this far more healthy discussion of the USSR and socialism’s victory over Nazism in WW2 on the SF website. I am totally sympathetic with the spirit of the main thrust of the article: that there is no real Marxist working class politics that does not cheer on the victory of the Red Army over Hitlerism. And it is in this spirit that a proper critique of Stalinism is possible. The leadership of the CPSU certainly (partly because of their state-building work) became more bureaucratic after Lenin’s death. But the crucial slide was in the Stalin group’s inability to dialectically keep Lenin’s understanding of monopoly-capitalism as a system of constantly unfolding global economic crisis (whether expanding or collapsing) in their heads while cautiously pursuing peaceful coexistence tactics (necessary because of the dangers from surrounding imperialist encirclement). They retreated from Lenin’s cutting-edge revolutionary politics in favour of the dunder-headed stupidities of “popular frontism” and chiding world CPs if they strayed from supporting anything that looked like anti-imperialist nationalism.
Stalin’s policies were in this way disastrous for any attempt at maintaining Leninist levels of understanding in the CPSU and the Comintern. Stalin’s book “Economic Problems” (1952) has much good material but, as the EPSR book against today’s Stalinists (“Unanswered Polemics against Lalkar/Proletarian”) explains, totally screws up Leninist perspectives by stating the anti-Marxist position that “capitalism will no longer be able to expand as it has in the past, because it is hemmed in by the socialist states, therefore communist revolution is no longer required, because the socialist camp will simply be more productive and imperialism will be educated into disappearing by active peace campaigning and the great socialist example of the USSR”.
I am paraphrasing but it is all there in Stalin’s book – and this revisionist nonsense destroyed all socialist revolutionary understanding in the party leadership, and, following Stalin’s logic, the idealist idiot Gorbachev then liquidated the USSR in 1987-91. Blaming everything on Kruschev is silly: why was he Stalin’s protégé if he was such a pro-Western fool? Anyway, at times Kruschev was as sympathetic to Third World revolution (eg Cuba) as the Stalin group ever were.
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The problem to a lot of people is:
If Staline was so wrong, what rests?
Luniterre sticks then to Staline because he made the equation: Staline=URSS and marxists must defend the URSS. For him it is ununderstandable the industrial power that permits the defeate of the german nazi army without the steel had of Staline.
And whatever that costs, it is the result that counts.
Trotski becomes impossible to admit because he was the main political enemy of Staline. Then he looks for whatever phrase pu idea L.T. could be wrong or he thinks he is wrong. Then L.T. is a revisionnist or worse in this completely wrong conception.
Conceive that a man could be wrong and still can be correct in the majority of their writtings, is difficult to admit because in the mechanical and antidialectic point of view so long difused, the “great leaders” do not fail or cannot be wrong. Lénine, in their conception, could never be wrong, nor Staline or just slight errors because not aware ort misled by the people around, disguised revisionnists or rightists.
The other problem is the terrible practice of the “trotskists” that has a record of leftism mixed with rightism everywhere and there absolute incapacity of developpe a mass party, or win workers, or even, try tyo win workers instead of passing all their time discussing theory and by this, not going to the working masses.
And the only ones that develope a mass party as Bolivian and Sri Lankais, fail miserably when the ckassfight tells them “Hic Rhodes, Hic salta” (this is the moment to prove what you are capable of) Both, when a revolution has exploded in their countries, have transformed to menchevism of the worst kind and make the revolution fail.
There is a full range of opportunistics devainces coming of so called “trotskist” partys going from anarcho-unionism, to all out pro-imperialists rightists passing through the whole scope of centrists, nationalists to even people more occupied with “constructiong atomic refuges” as Posadas.
It is very difficult to identified to this tendancy that has produced almost nothing but historics studies. In France there is a national-anarcho-republican “trotskism”, a centrists “trotskism” that goes right, indirectly pro-imperialists, in every international problem and a liquidation-capitulation-“trotskism” that has abandoned and transformed itself in a sort of left socialdemocratic party with all out pro-impertialists positions. There are also little sects that call themselves “trotkists” that are not.
It is then not surprising that honest militants look with a deep sense of distrust those so called trotskists and, deduce that the tree should be judged by their fruits more when there is not real trotskists as SF is, or, having seen so many trotskists that begin well and finish awfull, they wait and see from the distance.
Again “Hic Rhodes, hic salta!”
Even if their analisis could be faultless, people will take them, used their studies and wait to see how this good analisis are implemented in the reality of the class fight. That’s the real arena.
Politically they are right, but that it is not enough. Generalities are necesary but no one will follow the ones with so a long history of errors and “going out of the tracks”.
The problem also is that there is nothing else that rests. Stalinism is a no way issue. Then people sticks to leninism and take from Trotski whatever they feel good.
True troskist have an enourmous responsability on their shoulders, because of the heritage of Trotski but also of their “comrades”, and becaue if they fail again, …I do not find a phrase to describe the catastrophe that this would signify. Well, they will continue to analise and publish, but as a club of marxologists.
Marxism, leninism could collapse as a party and humanity will need to rediscover everything again.
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Hi Chris, could you please tell me where did you get this quotation”? Page of the book please, because L. is saying that is an outright lie.
“Stalin’s book “Economic Problems” (1952) has much good material but, as the EPSR book against today’s Stalinists (“Unanswered Polemics against Lalkar/Proletarian”) explains, totally screws up Leninist perspectives by stating the anti-Marxist position that “capitalism will no longer be able to expand as it has in the past, because it is hemmed in by the socialist states, therefore communist revolution is no longer required, because the socialist camp will simply be more productive and imperialism will be educated into disappearing by active peace campaigning and the great socialist example of the USSR”.
Thanks.
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Well, the discussion (in French) with Luniterre,get lost in an awful misunderstanding, he calling me “monsieur” ( “Mister” an insult here for comunists) and I just answering his non sens.
Of course in his blog I have become an awful “trotskist” that defends a man, Trotski, that “wants to add a full stage (étape in french) before that a given society pass to Socialism”. A sort of “Popular Democracy” but he could not take my ironical answer…
A complet a-historical absurdity but he sticks to it, lacking any other argument.Yes, he send me to study “Das Kapital”…
All this by mails, which he published whatever he likes in his blog and/or cut my answers when they are published, not always. Old methods…
Opening a discusion between workers with diferent points of view seems still impossible.
C. Barrat quoting a Stalin’s passage (that Luniterre says it is not from Staline) has messed furthermore the discussion.
You haven’t either published Luniterre answers to C. Barrat, neither he has answered, I suppose because every one there is full occupied with the following elections. Of course, I support your support of Corbyn the way you write it.
Sorry to have occupied your space and time with this piece but I thought that a good discussion on URSS, not a stupid browl made of ignorance, could help.
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This is STALIN at length, revising Lenin, and saying that imperialist war can be contained by peace campaigning, and also saying that, contrary to Lenin, afer the formation of the Soviet Union, capitalism wil not be able to gorw as it had done. This is from Stalin’s Economic Problems, (1952) and backs up my paraphrasing in my comment above:
STALIN:
The disintegration of the single, all-embracing world market must be regarded as the most important economic sequel of the Second World War and of its economic consequences. It has lead the effect of further deepening the general crisis of the world capitalist system. The Second World War was itself a product of this crisis. Each of the two capitalist coalitions which locked horns in the war calculated on defeating its adversary and gaining world supremacy. It was in this that they sought a way out of the crisis. The United States of America hoped to put its most dangerous competitors, Germany and Japan, out of action, seize foreign markets and the world’s raw material resources, and establish its world supremacy. But the war did not justify these hopes. It is true that Germany and Japan were put out of action as competitors of the three major capitalist countries: the U.S.A., Great Britain and France. But at the same time China and other, European, people’s democracies broke away from the capitalist system and, together with the Soviet Union, formed a united and powerful socialist camp confronting the camp of capitalism. The economic consequence of the existence of two opposite camps was that the single all-embracing world market disintegrated, so that now we have two parallel world markets, also confronting one another. It should be observed that the U.S.A., and Great Britain and France, themselves contributed – without themselves desiring it, of course – to the formation and consolidation of the new, parallel world market. They imposed an economic blockade on the U.S.S.R., China and the European people’s democracies, which did not join the “Marshall plan” system, thinking thereby to strangle them. The effect, however, was not to strangle, but to strengthen the new world market. But the fundamental thing, of course, is not the economic blockade, but the fact that since the war these countries have joined together economically and established economic cooperation and mutual assistance. The experience of this cooperation shows that not a single capitalist country could have rendered such effective and technically competent assistance to the people’s democracies as the Soviet Union is rendering them. The point is not only that this assistance is the cheapest possible and technically superb. The chief point is that at the bottom of this cooperation lies a sincere desire to help one another and to promote the economic progress of all. The result is a fast pace of industrial development in these countries. It may be confidently said that, with this pace of industrial development, it will soon come to pass that these countries will not only be in no need of imports from capitalist countries, but will themselves feel the necessity of finding an outside market for their surplus products. But it follows from this that the sphere of exploitation of the world’s resources by the major capitalist countries (U.S.A., Britain, France) will not expand, but contract; that their opportunities for sale in the world market will deteriorate, and that their industries will be operating more and more below capacity. That, in fact, is what is meant by the deepening of the general crisis of the world capitalist system in connection with the disintegration of the world market. This is felt by the capitalists themselves, for it would be difficult for them not to feel the loss of such markets as the U.S.S.R. and China. They are trying to offset these difficulties with the “Marshall plan,” the war in Korea, frantic rearmament, and industrial militarization. But that is very much like a drowning man clutching at a straw.
This state of affairs has confronted the economists with two questions: a) Can it be affirmed that the thesis expounded by Stalin before the Second World War regarding the relative stability of markets in the period of the general crisis of capitalism is still valid? b) Can it be affirmed that the thesis expounded by Lenin in the spring of 1916 – namely, that, in spite of the decay of capitalism, “on the whole, capitalism is growing far more rapidly than before” – is still valid?
I think that it cannot. In view of the new conditions to which the Second World War has given rise, both these theses must be regarded as having lost their validity. Some comrades hold that, owing to the development of new international conditions since the Second World War, wars between capitalist countries have ceased to be inevitable. They consider that the contradictions between the socialist camp and the capitalist camp are more acute than the contradictions among the capitalist countries; that the U.S.A. has brought the other capitalist countries sufficiently under its sway to be able to prevent them going to war among themselves and weakening one another; that the foremost capitalist minds have been sufficiently taught by the two world wars and the severe damage they caused to the whole capitalist world not to venture to involve the capitalist countries in war with one another again – and that, because of all this, wars between capitalist countries are no longer inevitable. These comrades are mistaken. They see the outward phenomena that come and go on the surface, but they do not see those profound forces which, although they are so far operating imperceptibly, will nevertheless determine the course of developments. Outwardly, everything would seem to be “going well”: the U.S.A. has put Western Europe, Japan and other capitalist countries on rations; Germany (Western), Britain, France, Italy and Japan have fallen into the clutches of the U.S.A. and are meekly obeying its commands. But it would be mistaken to think that things can continue to “go well” for “all eternity,” that these countries will tolerate the domination and oppression of the United States endlessly, that they will not endeavour to tear loose from American bondage and take the path of independent development. Take, first of all, Britain and France. Undoubtedly, they are imperialist countries. Undoubtedly, cheap raw materials and secure markets are of paramount importance to them. Can it be assumed that they will endlessly tolerate the present situation, in which, under the guise of “Marshall plan aid,” Americans are penetrating into the economies of Britain and France and trying to convert them into adjuncts of the United States economy, and American capital is seizing raw materials and markets in the British and French colonies and thereby plotting disaster for the high profits of the British and French capitalists? Would it not be truer to say that capitalist Britain, and, after her, capitalist France, will be compelled in the end to break from the embrace of the U.S.A. and enter into conflict with it in order to secure an independent position and, of course, high profits? Let us pass to the major vanquished countries, Germany (Western) and Japan. These countries are now languishing in misery under the jackboot of American imperialism. Their industry and agriculture, their trade, their foreign and home policies, and their whole life are fettered by the American occupation “regime.” Yet only yesterday these countries were great imperialist powers and were shaking the foundations of the domination of Britain, the U.S.A. and France in Europe and Asia. To think that these countries will not try to get on their feet again, will not try to smash the U.S. “regime,” and force their way to independent development, is to believe in miracles. It is said that the contradictions between capitalism and socialism are stronger than the contradictions among the capitalist countries. Theoretically, of course, that is true. It is not only true now, today; it was true before the Second World War. And it was more or less realized by the leaders of the capitalist countries. Yet the Second World War began not as a war with the U.S.S.R., but as a war between capitalist countries. Why? Firstly, because war with the U.S.S.R., as a socialist land, is more dangerous to capitalism than war between capitalist countries,; for whereas war between capitalist countries puts in question only the supremacy of certain capitalist countries over others, war with the U.S.S.R. must certainly put in question the existence of capitalism itself. Secondly, because the capitalists, although they clamour, for “propaganda” purposes, about the aggressiveness of the Soviet Union, do not themselves believe that it is aggressive, because they are aware of the Soviet Union’s peaceful policy and know that it will not itself attack capitalist countries. After the First World War it was similarly believed that Germany had been definitely put out of action, just as certain comrades now believe that Japan and Germany have been definitely put out of action. Then, too, it was said and clamoured in the press that the United States had put Europe on rations; that Germany would never rise to her feet again, and that there would be no more wars between capitalist countries. In spite of this, Germany rose to her feet again as a great power within the space of some fifteen or twenty years after her defeat, having broken out of bondage and taken the path of independent development. And it is significant that it was none other than Britain and the United States that helped Germany to recover economically and to enhance her economic war potential. Of course, when the United States and Britain assisted Germany’s economic recovery, they did so with a view to setting a recovered Germany against the Soviet Union, to utilizing her against the land of socialism. But Germany directed her forces in the first place against the Anglo-French-American bloc. And when Hitler Germany declared war on the Soviet Union, the Anglo-French-American bloc, far from joining with Hitler Germany, was compelled to enter into a coalition with the U.S.S.R. against Hitler Germany. Consequently, the struggle of the capitalist countries for markets and their desire to crush their competitors proved in practice to be stronger than the contradictions between the capitalist camp and the socialist camp. What guarantee is there, then, that Germany and Japan will not rise to their feet again, will not attempt to break out of American bondage and live their own independent lives? I think there is no such guarantee. But it follows from this that the inevitability of wars between capitalist countries remains in force. It is said that Lenin’s thesis that imperialism inevitably generates war must now be regarded as obsolete, since powerful popular forces have come forward today in defence of peace and against another world war. That is not true. The object of the present-day peace movement is to rouse the masses of the people to fight for the preservation of peace and for the prevention of another world war. Consequently, the aim of this movement is not to overthrow capitalism and establish socialism – it confines itself to the democratic aim of preserving peace. In this respect, the present-day peace movement differs from the movement of the time of the First World War for the conversion of the imperialist war into civil war, since the latter movement went farther and pursued socialist aims. It is possible that in a definite conjuncture of circumstances the fight for peace will develop here or there into a fight for socialism. But then it will no longer be the present-day peace movement; it will be a movement for the overthrow of capitalism. What is most likely is that the present-day peace movement, as a movement for the preservation of peace, will, if it succeeds, result in preventing a particular war, in its temporary postponement, in the temporary preservation of a particular peace, in the resignation of a bellicose government and its supersession by another that is prepared temporarily to keep the peace. That, of course, will be good. Even very good. But, all the same, it will not be enough to eliminate the inevitability of wars between capitalist countries generally. It will not be enough, because, for all the successes of the peace movement, imperialism will remain, continue in force – and, consequently, the inevitability of wars will also continue in force. To eliminate the inevitability of war, it is necessary to abolish imperialism. It is evident that, after the world market has split, and the sphere of exploitation of the world’s resources by the major capitalist countries (U.S.A., Britain, France) has begun to contract; the cyclical character of the development of capitalism – expansion and contraction of production must continue to operate. However, expansion of production in these countries will proceed on a narrower basis, since the volume of production in these countries will diminish. The seventh point. The general crisis of the world capitalist system began in the period of the First World War, particularly due to the falling away of the Soviet Union from the capitalist system. That was the first stage in the general crisis. A second stage in the general crisis developed in the period of the Second World War, especially after the European and Asian people’s democracies fell away from the capitalist system. The first crisis, in the period of the First World War, and the second crisis, in the period of the Second World War, must not be regarded as separate, unconnected and independent crises, but as stages in the development of the general crisis of the world capitalist system. Is the general crisis of world capitalism only a political, or only an economic crisis? Neither the one, nor the other. It is a general, i.e., all-round crisis of the world capitalist system, embracing both the economic and the political spheres.
(End of Stalin extract from Economic Problems (1952) and note the comment in the middle, where Stalin specifically says he is revising Lenin)
The EPSR book Against Museum-Stalinism then comments:
EPSR:The imperialist world market was nothing like a drowning man clutching at a straw. Humane, equalled-out, Socialist Camp production and living standards could not possibly outperform the market brilliance of imperialism that would be apparent to the world (while its being built on unstable foundations of warmongering exploitation would not be immediately visible). And it was not possible for the peace movement to contain the imperialist war threat ultimately, implying an ability to reform it out of harm’s way. This was long-term catastrophic nonsense (see below). All of this totally dominant Third International perspective, fostered by Stalin, was untrue and completely misleading. The communist international movement ended up totally misled. The biggest joke about adopting Stalin for a “revolutionary hardman” image, of course, is that Revisionism’s essence is a retreat from the dictatorship of the proletariat, not its ruthless upholding at all. Bourgeois ideology’s anti-communist hysteria paints Stalin black because of the alleged record of his arbitrary, paranoid weaknesses, not his obvious, early-Leninist strength in bolstering the Soviet proletarian dictatorship when international communist defeats were causing others to think of giving up or abandoning the difficult struggle. But Stalin abandoned promoting proletarian dictatorship as the only hope for mankind from very early on, certainly keeping the USSR developing on track, but increasingly looking to Popular Front and United Front alliances as the easiest and surest route towards completing the world socialist
revolution. It was a catastrophic Revisionist delusion. And how do things stand now in the world? More desperate for the restoration of Marxist-Leninist revolutionary science of world development than ever before in history. The most monstrous capitalist boom in historical records, artificially stimulated by Cold War fears to stretch far beyond the West’s wildest dreams of success, – (finally not only outspending the USSR on arms, causing the Soviet economy to suffer, but even persuading the final generation of Revisionist bureaucracy that it must be rigid socialist planning and the absence of market forces which had prevented the Stalinist Revisionist promise of socialism winning the production war with capitalism from being fulfilled, – not the blatantly impossible nonsense of Stalin’s perspective itself), – is up.
(It was precisely because he was such a loyal and blinkered Stalinist that Gorbachev made the final class-collaborative compromise with the imperialist world and dismantled the proletarian dictatorship state to let in “free-market” forces. The bureaucracy just could not believe that it was Stalin’s “catching them up and surpassing them” theory, established in the Economic Problems gospel, which was wrong. And if peaceful coexistence with imperialism had been so triumphant a Stalinist policy so far, then accepting the even greater co-operation being offered by Reagan and Thatcher for actual disarmament breakthrough savings, and help in “building our common European home”, etc, etc, was surely only a further Stalinist step in the right direction?????)
(End of EPSR extract)
Chris Barratt: Stalin’s revisionist retreats from Lenin’s proletarian-dictatorship revolutionary understanding confused the Soviet leadership into mistake after mistake and culminated in the Gorbachev liquidation of the USSR and European workers states.
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STALIN REVISES LENIN, extracted from Stalin’s Economic Problems (1952).
STALIN: The disintegration of the single, all-embracing world market must be regarded as the most important economic sequel of the Second World War and of its economic consequences. It has lead the effect of further deepening the general crisis of the world capitalist system. The Second World War was itself a product of this crisis. Each of the two capitalist coalitions which locked horns in the war calculated on defeating its adversary and gaining world supremacy. It was in this that they sought a way out of the crisis. The United States of America hoped to put its most dangerous competitors, Germany and Japan, out of action, seize foreign markets and the world’s raw material resources, and establish its world supremacy. But the war did not justify these hopes. It is true that Germany and Japan were put out of action as competitors of the three major capitalist countries: the U.S.A., Great Britain and France. But at the same time China and other, European, people’s democracies broke away from the capitalist system and, together with the Soviet Union, formed a united and powerful socialist camp confronting the camp of capitalism. The economic consequence of the existence of two opposite camps was that the single all-embracing world market disintegrated, so that now we have two parallel world markets, also confronting one another. It should be observed that the U.S.A., and Great Britain and France, themselves contributed – without themselves desiring it, of course – to the formation and consolidation of the new, parallel world market. They imposed an economic blockade on the U.S.S.R., China and the European people’s democracies, which did not join the “Marshall plan” system, thinking thereby to strangle them. The effect, however, was not to strangle, but to strengthen the new world market. But the fundamental thing, of course, is not the economic blockade, but the fact that since the war these countries have joined together economically and established economic cooperation and mutual assistance. The experience of this cooperation shows that not a single capitalist country could have rendered such effective and technically competent assistance to the people’s democracies as the Soviet Union is rendering them. The point is not only that this assistance is the cheapest possible and technically superb. The chief point is that at the bottom of this cooperation lies a sincere desire to help one another and to promote the economic progress of all. The result is a fast pace of industrial development in these countries. It may be confidently said that, with this pace of industrial development, it will soon come to pass that these countries will not only be in no need of imports from capitalist countries, but will themselves feel the necessity of finding an outside market for their surplus products. But it follows from this that the sphere of exploitation of the world’s resources by the major capitalist countries (U.S.A., Britain, France) will not expand, but contract; that their opportunities for sale in the world market will deteriorate, and that their industries will be operating more and more below capacity. That, in fact, is what is meant by the deepening of the general crisis of the world capitalist system in connection with the disintegration of the world market. This is felt by the capitalists themselves, for it would be difficult for them not to feel the loss of such markets as the U.S.S.R. and China. They are trying to offset these difficulties with the “Marshall plan,” the war in Korea, frantic rearmament, and industrial militarization. But that is very much like a drowning man clutching at a straw.
This state of affairs has confronted the economists with two questions: a) Can it be affirmed that the thesis expounded by Stalin before the Second World War regarding the relative stability of markets in the period of the general crisis of capitalism is still valid? b) Can it be affirmed that the thesis expounded by Lenin in the spring of 1916 – namely, that, in spite of the decay of capitalism, “on the whole, capitalism is growing far more rapidly than before” – is still valid?
I think that it cannot. In view of the new conditions to which the Second World War has given rise, both these theses must be regarded as having lost their validity. Some comrades hold that, owing to the development of new international conditions since the Second World War, wars between capitalist countries have ceased to be inevitable. They consider that the contradictions between the socialist camp and the capitalist camp are more acute than the contradictions among the capitalist countries; that the U.S.A. has brought the other capitalist countries sufficiently under its sway to be able to prevent them going to war among themselves and weakening one another; that the foremost capitalist minds have been sufficiently taught by the two world wars and the severe damage they caused to the whole capitalist world not to venture to involve the capitalist countries in war with one another again – and that, because of all this, wars between capitalist countries are no longer inevitable. These comrades are mistaken. They see the outward phenomena that come and go on the surface, but they do not see those profound forces which, although they are so far operating imperceptibly, will nevertheless determine the course of developments. Outwardly, everything would seem to be “going well”: the U.S.A. has put Western Europe, Japan and other capitalist countries on rations; Germany (Western), Britain, France, Italy and Japan have fallen into the clutches of the U.S.A. and are meekly obeying its commands. But it would be mistaken to think that things can continue to “go well” for “all eternity,” that these countries will tolerate the domination and oppression of the United States endlessly, that they will not endeavour to tear loose from American bondage and take the path of independent development. Take, first of all, Britain and France. Undoubtedly, they are imperialist countries. Undoubtedly, cheap raw materials and secure markets are of paramount importance to them. Can it be assumed that they will endlessly tolerate the present situation, in which, under the guise of “Marshall plan aid,” Americans are penetrating into the economies of Britain and France and trying to convert them into adjuncts of the United States economy, and American capital is seizing raw materials and markets in the British and French colonies and thereby plotting disaster for the high profits of the British and French capitalists? Would it not be truer to say that capitalist Britain, and, after her, capitalist France, will be compelled in the end to break from the embrace of the U.S.A. and enter into conflict with it in order to secure an independent position and, of course, high profits? Let us pass to the major vanquished countries, Germany (Western) and Japan. These countries are now languishing in misery under the jackboot of American imperialism. Their industry and agriculture, their trade, their foreign and home policies, and their whole life are fettered by the American occupation “regime.” Yet only yesterday these countries were great imperialist powers and were shaking the foundations of the domination of Britain, the U.S.A. and France in Europe and Asia. To think that these countries will not try to get on their feet again, will not try to smash the U.S. “regime,” and force their way to independent development, is to believe in miracles. It is said that the contradictions between capitalism and socialism are stronger than the contradictions among the capitalist countries. Theoretically, of course, that is true. It is not only true now, today; it was true before the Second World War. And it was more or less realized by the leaders of the capitalist countries. Yet the Second World War began not as a war with the U.S.S.R., but as a war between capitalist countries. Why? Firstly, because war with the U.S.S.R., as a socialist land, is more dangerous to capitalism than war between capitalist countries,; for whereas war between capitalist countries puts in question only the supremacy of certain capitalist countries over others, war with the U.S.S.R. must certainly put in question the existence of capitalism itself. Secondly, because the capitalists, although they clamour, for “propaganda” purposes, about the aggressiveness of the Soviet Union, do not themselves believe that it is aggressive, because they are aware of the Soviet Union’s peaceful policy and know that it will not itself attack capitalist countries. After the First World War it was similarly believed that Germany had been definitely put out of action, just as certain comrades now believe that Japan and Germany have been definitely put out of action. Then, too, it was said and clamoured in the press that the United States had put Europe on rations; that Germany would never rise to her feet again, and that there would be no more wars between capitalist countries. In spite of this, Germany rose to her feet again as a great power within the space of some fifteen or twenty years after her defeat, having broken out of bondage and taken the path of independent development. And it is significant that it was none other than Britain and the United States that helped Germany to recover economically and to enhance her economic war potential. Of course, when the United States and Britain assisted Germany’s economic recovery, they did so with a view to setting a recovered Germany against the Soviet Union, to utilizing her against the land of socialism. But Germany directed her forces in the first place against the Anglo-French-American bloc. And when Hitler Germany declared war on the Soviet Union, the Anglo-French-American bloc, far from joining with Hitler Germany, was compelled to enter into a coalition with the U.S.S.R. against Hitler Germany. Consequently, the struggle of the capitalist countries for markets and their desire to crush their competitors proved in practice to be stronger than the contradictions between the capitalist camp and the socialist camp. What guarantee is there, then, that Germany and Japan will not rise to their feet again, will not attempt to break out of American bondage and live their own independent lives? I think there is no such guarantee. But it follows from this that the inevitability of wars between capitalist countries remains in force. It is said that Lenin’s thesis that imperialism inevitably generates war must now be regarded as obsolete, since powerful popular forces have come forward today in defence of peace and against another world war. That is not true. The object of the present-day peace movement is to rouse the masses of the people to fight for the preservation of peace and for the prevention of another world war. Consequently, the aim of this movement is not to overthrow capitalism and establish socialism – it confines itself to the democratic aim of preserving peace. In this respect, the present-day peace movement differs from the movement of the time of the First World War for the conversion of the imperialist war into civil war, since the latter movement went farther and pursued socialist aims. It is possible that in a definite conjuncture of circumstances the fight for peace will develop here or there into a fight for socialism. But then it will no longer be the present-day peace movement; it will be a movement for the overthrow of capitalism. What is most likely is that the present-day peace movement, as a movement for the preservation of peace, will, if it succeeds, result in preventing a particular war, in its temporary postponement, in the temporary preservation of a particular peace, in the resignation of a bellicose government and its supersession by another that is prepared temporarily to keep the peace. That, of course, will be good. Even very good. But, all the same, it will not be enough to eliminate the inevitability of wars between capitalist countries generally. It will not be enough, because, for all the successes of the peace movement, imperialism will remain, continue in force – and, consequently, the inevitability of wars will also continue in force. To eliminate the inevitability of war, it is necessary to abolish imperialism. It is evident that, after the world market has split, and the sphere of exploitation of the world’s resources by the major capitalist countries (U.S.A., Britain, France) has begun to contract; the cyclical character of the development of capitalism – expansion and contraction of production must continue to operate. However, expansion of production in these countries will proceed on a narrower basis, since the volume of production in these countries will diminish. The seventh point. The general crisis of the world capitalist system began in the period of the First World War, particularly due to the falling away of the Soviet Union from the capitalist system. That was the first stage in the general crisis. A second stage in the general crisis developed in the period of the Second World War, especially after the European and Asian people’s democracies fell away from the capitalist system. The first crisis, in the period of the First World War, and the second crisis, in the period of the Second World War, must not be regarded as separate, unconnected and independent crises, but as stages in the development of the general crisis of the world capitalist system.
(End of Stain extract, and note Stalin specifically saying he is revising Lenin in the middle of the extract.)
EPSR Book Vol 21 then comments:
The imperialist world market was nothing like a drowning man clutching at a straw. Humane, equalled-out, Socialist Camp production and living standards could not possibly outperform the market brilliance of imperialism that would be apparent to the world (while its being built on unstable foundations of warmongering exploitation would not be immediately visible). And it was not possible for the peace movement to contain the imperialist war threat ultimately, implying an ability to reform it out of harm’s way. This was long term catastrophic nonsense (see below). All of this totally dominant Third International perspective, fostered by Stalin, was untrue and completely misleading. The communist international movement ended up totally misled. The biggest joke about adopting Stalin for a “revolutionary hardman” image, of course, is that Revisionism’s essence is a retreat from the dictatorship of the proletariat, not its ruthless upholding at all. Bourgeois ideology’s anti-communist hysteria paints Stalin black because of the alleged record of his arbitrary, paranoid weaknesses, not his obvious, early-Leninist strength in bolstering the Soviet proletarian dictatorship when international communist defeats were causing others to think of giving up or abandoning the difficult struggle. But Stalin abandoned promoting proletarian dictatorship as the only hope for mankind from very early on, certainly keeping the USSR developing on track, but increasingly looking to Popular Front and United Front alliances as the easiest and surest route towards completing the world socialist
revolution. It was a catastrophic Revisionist delusion. And how do things stand now in the world? More desperate for the restoration of Marxist-Leninist revolutionary science of world development than ever before in history. The most monstrous capitalist boom in historical records, artificially stimulated by Cold War fears to stretch far beyond the West’s wildest dreams of success, – (finally not only outspending the USSR on arms, causing the Soviet economy to suffer, but even persuading the final generation of Revisionist bureaucracy that it must be rigid socialist planning and the absence of market forces which had prevented the Stalinist Revisionist promise of socialism winning the production war with capitalism from being fulfilled, – not the blatantly impossible nonsense of Stalin’s perspective itself), – is up. (It was precisely because he was such a loyal and blinkered Stalinist that Gorbachev made the final class collaborative compromise with the imperialist world and dismantled the proletarian dictatorship state to let in “free-market” forces. The bureaucracy just could not believe that it was Stalin’s “catching them up and surpassing them” theory, established in the Economic Problems gospel, which was wrong. And if peaceful coexistence with imperialism had been so triumphant a Stalinist policy so far, then accepting the even greater cooperation being offered by Reagan and Thatcher for actual disarmament breakthrough savings, and help in “building our common European home”, etc, etc, was surely only a further Stalinist step in the right direction?????)
(End of EPSR comment from Book 21)
Chris Barratt: Stalin revised Lenin’s proletarian-dictatorship revolutionary understanding so badly that the Soviet leadership made mistake after mistake culminating in Gorbachev’s liquidation of the USSR and the European workers states.
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Oops! Sorry I put this up twice. It glitched the first time.
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the complete text of Stalin :
Click to access economic-problems-of-socialism-in-the-ussr-stalin-1952.pdf
the excerpt “paraphrased” by Chris Barratt :
“It is said that the contradictions between capitalism and socialism are stronger than the contradictions among the capitalist countries. Theoretically, of course, that is true. It is not only true now, today; it was true before the Second World War. And it was more or less realized by the leaders of the capitalist countries. Yet the Second World War began not as a war with the U.S.S.R., but as a war between capitalist countries. Why? Firstly, because war with the U.S.S.R.,as a socialist land, is more dangerous to capitalism than war between capitalist countries; for whereas war between capitalist countries puts in question only the supremacy of certain capitalist countries over others, war with the U.S.S.R. must certainly put in question the existence of capitalism itself. Secondly, because the capitalists, although they clamour, for “propaganda” purposes, about the aggressiveness of the Soviet Union, do not themselves believe that it is aggressive, because they are aware of the Soviet Union’s peaceful policy and know that it will not itself attack capitalist countries.
After the First World War it was similarly believed that Germany had been definitely put out of action, just as certain comrades now believe that Japan and Germany have been definitely put out of action. Then, too, it was said and clamoured in the press that the United States had put Europe on rations; that Germany would never rise to her feet again, and that there would be no more wars between capitalist countries. In spite of this, Germany rose to her feet again as a great power within the space of some fifteen or twenty years after her defeat, having broken out of bondage and taken the path of independent development. And it is significant that it was none other than Britain and the United States that helped Germany to recover economically and to enhance her economic war potential. Of course, when the United States and Britain assisted Germany’s economic recovery, they did so with a view to setting a recovered Germany against the Soviet Union, to utilizing her against the land of socialism. But Germany directed her forces in the first place against the Anglo-French-American bloc. And when Hitler Germany declared war on the Soviet Union, the Anglo-French-American bloc, far from joining with Hitler Germany, was compelled to enter into a coalition with the U.S.S.R. against Hitler Germany.
Consequently, the struggle of the capitalist countries for markets and their desire to crush their competitors proved in practice to be stronger than the contradictions between the capitalist camp and the socialist camp.
What guarantee is there, then, that Germany and Japan will not rise to their feet again, will not attempt to breakout of American bondage and live their own independent lives? I think there is no such guarantee.
But it follows from this that the inevitability of wars between capitalist countries remains in force.
It is said that Lenin’s thesis that imperialism inevitably generates war must now be regarded as obsolete, since powerful popular forces have come forward today in defence of peace and against another world war. That is not true.
The object of the present-day peace movement is to rouse the masses of the people to fight for the preservation of peace and for the prevention of another world war. Consequently, the aim of this movement is not to overthrow capitalism and establish socialism — it confines itself to the democratic aim of preserving peace. In this respect, the present-day peace movement differs from the movement of the time of the First World War for the conversion of the imperialist war into civil war, since the latter movement went farther and pursued socialist aims.
It is possible that in a definite conjuncture of circumstances the fight for peace will develop here or there into a fight for socialism. But then it will no longer be the present-day peace movement; it will be a movement for the overthrow of capitalism.
What is most likely is that the present-day peace movement, as a movement for the preservation of peace, will, if it succeeds, result in preventing a particular war, in its temporary postponement, in the temporary preservation of a particular peace, in the resignation of a bellicose government and its supersession by another that is prepared temporarily to keep the peace. That, of course, will be good. Even very good. But, all the same, it will not be enough to eliminate the inevitability of wars between capitalist countries generally. It will not be enough, because, for all the successes of the peace movement, imperialism will remain, continue in force — and, consequently, the inevitability of wars will also continue in force.
To eliminate the inevitability of war, it is necessary to abolish imperialism.”
P 34-37
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Stalin’s revisionist blather, as shown above, was totally misleading nonsense. Pacifist peace movements do NOT stop war. They never have done. Not one. I was on the march in February 2003 against the Iraq war. It did not stop a single US fascist bomb being dropped. The only real peace movement is the Leninist revolutionary communist programme of turning imperialist war into civil war and leading the working class to victory in the battle for proletarian dictatorship.
It is identifying the issue of Stalinist revisionist RETREAT from Leninism that is completely crucial for the working class in their modern struggle to end capitalist exploitation and war, as opposed to the Trotskyist painting of the Stalinists as “bad men” or a pernicious “ruling caste” which simply chimes with bourgeois ideology’s anti-communist crusade against the USSR and all workers states.
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We can have the tactical peace movement to accumulate forces and the following theoretical generalities: “The only true peace movement is the Leninist revolutionary revolutionary communist program of transforming imperialist war into civil war and leading the working class to victory in the battle for proletarian dictatorship.”
There is no opposition between the two unless the tactics are taken and declared to be of the same importance as the theoretical generalities.
Stalin could not make such a gross theoretical error, although in his practice he did. It was much more the development of the tactics accompanied by a diplomatic offensive aimed at finding state partners and not relying on the working’s class insurgency.
The Italian and French cases before and after the Second World War, as well as all the politics between the two wars, show this.
It was Litvinov’s Covenant of Powers (see the memoirs of Maïski, ambassador in the UK) and the subordination of the PCF to this policy and the Molotov-Ribentrop pact, a tactically justified national step but a betrayal of the world proletariat, that were the clearest cases. But in fact Stalin will betray all revolutions (Spain, Greece and others) in defence of Soviet national interests (indeed, of the Soviet bureaucracy).
At the XIX Congress of the CP(b)R shows, he lets Malenkov (who says mainly the opposite of what Staline has written in his book on economy) and Khrushchev which “re-organized the party”
in the line of the purest “revisionism”.
But, at least he can rely on Stalin’s 1936 grotesques theses on “the disappearance of antagonist classes in the USSR” and, despite this, the “need to strengthen the dictatorship of the proletariat” in direct opposition and revision of the thesis of Marx and Lenin on the disappearance, fading of the state the nearer we are of communism.
Moreover, these theoretical changes are legion. Thus, at the end of the Second World War, the right-wing Soviet Party can fully advance on “peaceful coexistence” (see for example the theses of Béria) to allow the passage to the report against the PCF and the PCI, by Jdanov, as soon as the Iron Curtain is put in place by Churchill.
It is difficult to discuss what Stalin said or did not say, because theory, for this absolute pragmatist, is only a tool that he advances or withdraws according to his current political needs.
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I think it is super-important to communism to DROP all theories about “bad men in history” and “new caste in the USSR” to see where the Stalin group leadership went wrong in their understanding that led to retreats from Leninist understanding and then mistakes in the leadership’s actions. The Hitler-Stalin pact was NOT a mistake or a betrayal of the world proletariat. It enabled the USSR to split the imperialist powers (the Hitlerite Axis powers and the Hitler supporting “democracies”). Stalin’s Yalta agreements to put Greece in the Western camp was a stupid betrayal, true! Greek CP KKE now says this too! Politics could be about to get much STRONGER around the world in polemical struggle with the remnants of the Third International (although most will remain totally useless revisionists).
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