Bill Bland on Revisionism

Lenin’s definition of revisionism is that it is

” … a trend hostile to Marxism within Marxism” (Vladimir I. Lenin: ‘Marxism and Revisionism’, in: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 11; London; 1943; p. 704).

Perhaps a more comprehensive definition of revisionism would be that it is an ideology which claims to be a development of Marxism but is in reality a deviation from Marxism which assists the anti-socialist aims of a capitalist class.

Clearly, revisionism has direct relevance only to people who believe they are Marxists. To the extent that it can persuade such people of its validity, it separates them from genuine Marxists and diverts them into anti-Marxist political activity. The struggle against revisionism is thus of particular importance in the period of building a Marxist-Leninist Party in countries where such a party does not yet exist.

Some comrades have no difficulty in recognising the revisionist character of Khrushchevite revisionism of the type of “The British Road to Socialism,” which is clearly anti-revolutionary, but cannot understand how other types of revisionism may support revolution.

But when we say that “revisionism assists the anti-socialist aims of a capitalist class,” one must understand that the anti-socialist aims of all capitalist classes do not follow an identical pattern, and we can identify different brands of revisionism corresponding to these different aims.

In particular, the aims of revisionists in developed capitalist countries differ from those of revisionists in colonial-type countries. Thus, the former is anti-revolutionary typified by Khrushchevite revisionism of the type of “The British Road to Socialism.” However, revisionism in colonial-type countries is to a certain extent revolutionary, reflecting the desire of national bourgeoisies of colonial-type countries to carry through the national-democratic stage of the revolutionary process in such countries, but to halt the revolutionary process before it proceeds to the socialist stage; this second form of revisionism is typified by “Mao Tse-tung Thought” and, as we shall see, by “Kimilsungism.”

– Bill Bland, “The Workers’ Party of Korea and Revisionism”

The Communist League on Earl Browder

This post is an excerpt from a larger work on Georgi Dimitrov published by the Communist League in 1994. Although the thesis of the work of origin is questionable, I re-print material from the work relevant to the career of Earl Browder in order to advance a further analysis of Browderite revisionism in the CPUSA and its implications for modern-day revisionism in the U.S. and globally.

—  Espresso Stalinist

THE APPEARANCE OF OPEN REVISIONISM

Freed of the ‘restraints’ of the Comintern, some Communist Parties lapsed almost immediately into open revisionism.

The Formulation of Earl Browder (1944-45)

In 1944, the leader of the Communist Party of the United States of America, Earl Browder*, initiated the adoption by the Party of a totally revisionist programme. He presented the agreement between the Soviet Union and the Western imperialist powers at Teheran as an indication that interclass antagonisms had been eliminated, and that American capitalism could be peacefully transformed into socialism by class collaboration through the institutions of “American democracy”. Browder further put forward the view that:

” . . . the two-party system provides adequate channels for the basic democratic rights”,

(Earl Browder, in: Philip J. Jaffe: ‘The Rise and Fall of Earl Browder’, in: ‘Survey’, Volume 18, No, 2 (Spring 1972); p. 50).

so that the existence of the Communist Party had become an obstacle to national unity!

Under Browder’s leadership, the 10th Convention of the CPUSA in May 1944 dissolved the Party and reconstituted it as the ‘Communist Political Association’, the aim of which was to carry on ‘political education’ to make the public understand that the peaceful transition to ‘socialism’, through the nationalisation of monopolistic enterprises, was socially desirable. The CPA’s constitution states:

“The Communist Political Association is a non-party organisation of Americans which . . . carries forward the tradition of Washington, Jefferson, Paine, Jackson and Lincoln. . . .

It looks to the family of free nations, led by the great coalition of democratic capitalist and socialist states, to inaugurate an era of world peace, expanding production and economic well-being”.

(Communist Political Association: Constitution, in: Philip J. Jaffe: ibid.; p. 51).

William Foster*, who was opposed to Browder’s Teheran theses (though not to the liquidation of the Communist Party), wrote to Dimitrov asking for his support in opposing Browder, but Dimitrov wrote back supporting Browder:

“Dimitrov transmitted a message to Foster, through Browder, strongly  urging him to withdraw his opposition. Dimitrov’s reply was a severe blow to Foster, who did not attack Browder’s Teheran theses again for more than a year”.

(Philip J. Jaffe: ibid,; p. 47-48).

Foster was, in fact,

“. . . so cowed by the almost unanimous opposition of his critics and by Dimitrov’s reply that he asked for the honour of nominating Earl Browder as President of the new Communist Political Association. And he himself was elected as one of the Vice-Presidents”.

(Phlip J. Jaffe: ibid.; p. 51).

In the April 1945 issue of ‘Cahiers du Communisme’ (Notebooks of Communism), the theoretical journal of the French Communist Party there appeared, under the title ‘On the Dissolution of the Communist Party of the USA’, an article attributed to the leading French communist Jacques Duclos* and highly critical of Browderism. The main points of his criticism were:

“Earl Browder declared, in effect, that at Teheran capitalism and socialism had begun to find the means of peaceful . . . collaboration in the framework of one and the same world. . . . Earl Browder drew political conclusions . . . that the,principal problems of internal politics of the US must in future be solved exclusively by means of reforms, for the expectation of unlimited inner conflict threatens also the perspective of international unity held forth at Teheran”. (Jacques Duclos: ‘On the Dissolution of the Communist Party of the USA’, in: Philip J. Jaffe: ibid.; p. 53).

Thus, charged the article, Browder had distorted the meaning of the Teheran declaration:

” . . . into a political platform for class peace in the United States”.

(Jacques Duclos: ibid., p. 53).

The article dismissed Browder’s claim that nationalisation of monopolies was equivalent to socialism:

“Nationalisation of monopolies actually in no sense constitutes a socialist achievement. . . . It is not simply a matter of reforms of a democratic character, achievement of socialism being impossible to imagine without a preliminary conquest of power”.

(Jacques Duclos: ibid.; p. 54).

Finally, the article strongly criticised the dissolution of the Communist Party:

“Earl Browder proposed to name the new organisation ‘Communist Political Association’ which, in the traditional American two-party system, will not intervene as a ‘party’, that is, it will not propose candidates in the elections . . . but will work to assemble a broad progressive and democratic movement within all parties”.

(Jacques Duclos: ibid.; p. 53).

Although the article bore Duclos’s signature, it was in fact written in Moscow, almost certainly under the guidance of Andrey Zhdanov*:

“It is . . . clearly evident that the so-called ‘Duclos article’; could not have been written in France, but was written in Moscow, probably under the guidance of Andrey Zhdanov”. (Philip A. Jaffe: op. cit; p. 59).

Following the circulation of the ‘Duclos Letter’, at a Special Emergency Convention of the CPA on 26-28 July 045, a resolution was adopted to reconstitute the CPUSA, headed by a temporary Secretariat. In February 1946 Browder was expelled from the reconstituted party and in July 1946 Eugene Dennis* was elected General Secretary.

The Formulation of Harry Pollitt (1945)

In May 1945, before the appearance of the ‘Duclos’ letter, the revisionist leader of the Communist Party of Great Britain, Harry Pollitt* rushed to jump on the Browder bandwagon and embrace state capitalism:

“State capitalism can mean that the sectional interests of the capitalists are to some extent subordinated to the needs of the whole (which include . . . the workers). . . .

The conditions created by the great political changes arising out of this war are now objectively more favourable for the peaceful transition to socialism than they have ever been. . . .

There is, up to a point, a common interest between all the progressive sections of the nation, labour and capitalist alike”.

(Harry Pollitt: ‘Answers to Questions’ (May 1945); London; 1945; p. 30, 39, 44).

Following publication of the ‘Duclos’ letter, the pamphlet was withdrawn.

Source

Communist League: The Influence Of Rosa Luxemburg on the CPG

Appendix to Revisionism In Germany: to 1922 by the Communist League; January 1977.

The dominant theoretical influence on the Communist Party of Germany in its early years was that of Polish-born Rosa Luxemburg, who moved to Germany in 1897:

“Rosa Luxemburg has left behind deep traces in the German and Polish Communist movement. One can say without exaggeration that for a considerable number of years.. both parties grew up under the influence of her ideas and guidance”.

(D. Manuilsky: “The Bolshevisation of the Parties;” in: “Communist International”, No. 10; 1925; p. 59).

“All the -new leaders fully subscribed, (to) the guiding lines of policy laid down by Rosa Luxemburg in the foundation document of the, CPG and subsequent policy statements in ‘Rote Fahe’. On nearly all subjects her word was law . . . . And even after the personal element of tribute had gradually died away,, her work was still the fount of all orthodoxy in Germany”.

(J.P. Nettl: “Rosa Luxemburg”, Volume 2; London; 1966; P. 787-8).

In her work “The Accumulation of Capital“, published in 1913, Rosa Luxemburg put forward the view that a capitalist society could solve the problem of capital accumulation only by expanding into pre-capitalist economies.. and that when these areas had been absorbed, capitalism would break down“:

“The day-to-day history of capital becomes a string of political and social disasters and convulsions, and under these conditions, punctuated by persistent economic catastrophes or crisis, accumulation can go on no longer . . . .
Capitalism . . . strives to become universal.. and, indeed,, on account of this, it must break down”.

(R. Luxemburg: “The Accumulation of Capital”; London; 1951; p. 467).

Lenin’s marginal notes to “The Accumlation of Capital”, are full of comments such as “False!” and “Nonsense!”, and he described her main thesis as a “fundamental error”. (V.I. Lenin: Notes on R. Luxemburg’s Book; “The Accumulation of Capital”, in: “Leniniski Sbornik”, Volume 22; Moscow; 1933; p.343-6).

In accordance with this thesis, Rosa Luxemburg saw no revolutionary potential in the peoples of the colonial-type countries and denied the possibility of genuine wars of national liberation under imperialism. In her pamphlet “The Crisis of German Social Democracy, written in 1915 under the pseudonym of “Junius” and published in 1916, she declares:

“In the present imperialistic milieu there can be no wars of national self-defence”.

(R. Luxemburg: “The Crisis of German Social-Democracy”; in: “Rosa Luxemburg Speaks”; New York; 1970; p. 305).

Commenting on her opposition to the Polish national-liberation movement, against the domination of tsarist Russia, Lenin said:

“In her anxiety not to ‘assist’ the nationalistic bourgeoisie of Poland, Rosa Luxemburg by her denial of the right of secession in the programme of the Russian Marxists, is, in fact assisting the Great Russian Black Hundreds (i.e., fascist-type organisations of the Russian landed aristocracy – Ed)”.

(V.I. Lenin: “On the Right of Nations to Self-Determination”; in: “Selected Works”, Volume 4; London; 1943; p. 266).

After the socialist revolution in Russia in November 1917 Rosa Luxemburg condemned the national policy of the Bolsheviks as “counter-revolutionary”:

“The Bolsheviks are in part responsible for the fact that the military defeat was transformed into the collapse and a breakdown of Russia. Moreover, the Bolsheviks themselves have to a great extent, sharpened the objective difficulties of this situation by a slogan which they placed in the foreground of their policies: the so-called right of self-determination of peoples, or something which was really implicit in this slogan – the disintegration of Russia.
One after another, these ‘nations’ used the freshly-granted freedom to ally themselves with German imperialism against Revolution as its mortal enemy and, under German protection, to carry the banner of counter-revolution into Russia itself. . .
The Bolsheviks.. by their hollow nationalistic phraseology Concerning the ‘right of self-determination to the point of separation’ . . . . . . . did nothing but confuse the masses in all the border countries by their slogan and delivered them up to the demagogy of the bourgeois classes. By this nationalistic demand they brought on the disintegration of Russia itself, pressed into the enemy’s hand the knife which it was to thrust into the heart of the Russian Revolution. .
The Bolsheviks provided the ideology which masked this campaign of counter-revolution; they strengthened the position of the bourgeoisie and weakened that of the proletariat”.

(R. Luxemburg, “The Russian Revolution”, in: Rosa Luxemburg Speaks”.; New York; 1970; p. 378, 380, 382).

Similarly, Rosa Luxemburg failed to see, even in a country where the bourgeois-democratic revolution, had not been carried through, the revolutionary potential of the peasantry, regarding it as, in the long run, a reactionary force — a view which became a cornerstone of the Trotskyite theory of “permanent revolution“:

“Rosa Luxemburg declared that Lenin . . . overlooked the . . . fact that it (i.e., the peasantry Ed.) would certainly, and probably very soon.. go over again, into the camp of reaction”.

(P. Frohlich; “Rosa Luxemburg: Her Life and Work”; London; 1940; p. 113).

On the basis of this view, after the socialist revolution in Russia in November 1917 she condemned the Bolshevik policy of redistributing the land among the peasantry as “counter-revolutionary“:

“The slogan launched by the Bolsheviks, immediate seizure and distribution of the land by the peasants. .. piles up insurmountable obstacles to the socialist transformation of agrarian relations . . . .
Now after the ‘seizure’ . . . . . there is an enormous, newly developed and powerful mass of owning peasants who will defend their newly won property with tooth and nail against every socialist attack of the future socialisation of agrarian economy. . . . has now become a question of opposition and struggle between the urban proletariat and the mass of the peasantry. . . .
Now that the Russian peasant has seized the land with his own fist, he does not even dream of ‘defending Russia and the revolution to which he owes the land.
The Leninist agrarian reform has created a new and powerful layer of popular enemies of socialism in the countryside, enemies whose resistance will be much more dangerous and stubborn than that of the noble large landowners”.

(R.Luxemburg: “The Russian Revolution in: “Rosa Luxemburg Speaks”; New York; 1970; p. 376, 377, 378).

Rosa Luxemburg saw the mass strike with economic aims as the decisive form of the revolutionary struggle of the working class:

“The mass strike is merely the form of the revolutionary struggle. . . . Strike action is the living pulse-beat of the revolution and at the same time its most powerful driving wheel. The mass strike. . . is . . . the method of motion of the proletarian mass, the phenomenal form of the proletarian struggle, in the revolution. . . . In this general picture the purely political demonstration strike plays quite a subordinate role. . . The demonstration strikes which, in contradistinction to the fighting strikes, exhibit the greatest mass of party discipline, conscious direction and political thought, and therefore must appear as the highest and most mature form of the mass strike, play in reality the greatest part.. in. the beginnings of the movement. . . .
The pedantic representation in which the pure political mass strike is logically derived from the strike as the ripest and highest stage. . . is shown to be absolutely false . . . .
The movement on the whole does not proceed from the . . .. economic to the political struggle. . . Every great political mass action, after it has attained its political highest point, breaks up into a mass of economic strikes. And that applies not only to each of the great mass strikes, but also to the revolution as a whole”.

(R.Luxemburg: “The Mass Strike and the Trade Unions”, in: “Rosa Luxemburg Speaks”; New York; 1970; p. 182, 183, 184, 185).

But the economic strike, which to Rosa Luxemburg, was the decisive form of the revolutionary struggle of the working class, is predominantly spontaneous in character:

“The mass strike cannot be called at will, even when the decision to do so may come from the highest committee of the strongest social-democratic party. . . . .
The element of spontaneity plays a great part in all Russian mass strikes without exception. .
The element of spontaneity plays such a predominant part because revolutions do not allow anyone to play the schoolmaster with them”.

(R. Luxemburg: ibid, p. 187, 188).

On the basis of the view of the predominantly spontaneous character of “the decisive form of the revolutionary struggle of the working class, Rosa Luxemburg opposed as “dangerous” and “Blanquist” Lenin’s concept of the necessity for a disciplined vanguard party based on firm democratic centralism. In her article “Organisational Questions of Social Democracy“, first published in 1904 as a review of Lenin’s “What Is to be Done?” she writes:

“Lenin’s centralism . . . is a mechanical transposition of the organisational principles of Blanquism into the mass movement of the socialist working class . . . His conception of socialist organisation is quite mechanistic.. . . The tendency is for the directing organs of the socialist party to play a conservative role.. . . Granting, as.. Lenin wants, such, absolute powers of a negative character to the top organ of the party, we strengthen, to a dangerous extent, the conservatism inherent in such an organ. . . The ultra-centralism asked by Lenin is full of the sterile spirit of the overseer. It is not a positive and creative spirit. Lenin’s concern is not so much to make the activity of the party more fruitful as to control the party — to narrow the movement rather than to develop it, to bind rather than to unify it. In the present situation such an experiment would be doubly dangerous to Russian social democracy. . . We can conceive of no greater danger to the Russian party than, Lenin’s plan of organisation. Nothing will more surely enslave a young labour movement to an intellectual elite hungry for power than this bureaucratic straitjacket, which will immobilise the movement and turn it into an automaton manipulated by a Central Committee“.

(R. Luxemburg: “Organisational Questions of Social Democracy”, in: Rosa Luxemburg Speaks-”; New York; 1970; p. 118, 119, 121, 122., 126-7).

Rosa Luxemburg shared with Leon Trotsky anti-Leninist views not only on the question of the role of the peasantry and on the question of the organisation of the party of the working class, but also on the question of the possibility of building socialism in a single country:

“Of course, even with the. greatest heroism the proletariat of one single country cannot loosen this noose”.

(R. Luxemburg: “The Old Mole”, in: ‘Selected Political Writings”; London; 1972; p. 227).

“The awkward position that the Bolsheviks are in today, however, is together with most of their mistakes, a consequence of the basic insolubility of the problem posed to them by the international, above all the German, proletariat. To carry out the dictatorship of the proletariat and the socialist revolution in a single country surrounded by reactionary imperialist rule and in the fury of the bloodiest world war in human history — that is squaring the circle. Any socialisst , party would have to fail in this task and perish.”

(R. Luxemburg: “The Russian. Tragedy”, in’: Ibid.; p.241-2).

And like Trotsky, she strived during the years before the First World War to bring about a reunification of the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks i.e., to obliterate the dividing line between Marxism-Leninism and’ revisionism:

“The other plan was proposed by Rosa Luxemburg. . . . according to that plan. . a ‘unity conference’ (Einingungskenferenz) was proposed “in order to restore a united party”. . . . This last plan . . . . was only an attempt on the part of Rosa Luxemburg to smuggle in the ‘restoration’ of the sadly notorious ‘Tyszko circle’ (‘Tyszko’ was the pseudonym of Leo Jogiches — Ed.)

(V.I. Lenin: “A Good Resolution And a Bad Speech”, in: “Selected Works”, Volume 4; London’; 1943; p. 209).

Holding these views, Rosa Luxemburg could not but be hostile to the Soviet regime established in Russia under the leadership of the Bolsheviks in November 1917.

“Freedom of the press, the rights of association and assembly … have been outlawed for all opponents of the Soviet regime. . . . Without a free and untrammeled press, without the unlimited right of association and assemblages the rule of the broad mass of the people is entirely unthinkable…. Freedom only for the supporters of the government . . . .is no freedom at all. . . .
Lenin is completely mistaken in the means he employs. Decree, dictatorial force of the factory overseer, draconic penalties, rule by terror – all these things are but palliatives. It is rule by terror which demoralises. . . .
With the repression of political life in the land as a whole, life in the Soviets must also become more and more crippled. Without general elections, without unrestricted freedom of press and assembly, without a free struggle of opinion, life dies out in every public institution, becomes a mere semblance of life, in which the bureaucracy remains as the active element. Public life gradually falls asleep, a few dozen party leaders of inexhaustible energy and boundless experience direct and rule . . . .
At bottom, then, a clique affair — a dictatorship to be sure; not the dictatorship of the proletariat, however, but only the dictatorship of a handful of politicians. . . . Such conditions must inevitably cause a brutalisation of public life.”

(R.Luxemburg: “The Russian Revolution”, in: “Rosa Luxemburg Speaks”; New York; 1970; p. 389, 391).

Following Stalin‘s statement that many of the serious political mistakes committed by the Communist Party of Germany were the result of Social-Democratic survivals which must be eliminated (September 1924), the “Theses on the Bolshevisation of the Parties of the Comintern“, adopted by the Fifth Plenum of the ECCI March/April 1925, drew special attention to the harmfulness of Luxemburgism:

“The genuine assimilation of Leninism and its practical application in the construction of Communist parties throughout the world is impossible without taking into consideration the errors of very prominent Marxists who strove to apply Marxism to the conditions of a new epoch, without being wholly, successful in so doing.
Among these errors must be included those of Rose Luxemburg. The nearer these political leaders are to Leninism, the more dangerous are those of their views which, being erroneous, do not coincide with Leninism”.

(Theses on the Bolshevisation of the Parties, of the Comintern, 5th. Plenum ECCI, in: “International Press Correspondence”; Volume 5, No. 47; June 4th., 1925; p.616).

The theses described the most important errors of Luxemburgism as follows:

“a). The non-Bolshevik method of presenting the question of ‘spontaneity’, ‘consciousness’, ‘organisation’, and the ‘mass’ . . which frequently hampered the revolutionary development of the class struggle, prevented proper understanding of the role of the Party in the revolution;
b) the under-estimation of the technical side of preparing for revolt hampered, and in some cases even now hamper, the proper presentation of the question of ‘organising’ revolution’;
c) the error in the question of the attitude towards the peasantry;
d) equally serious were the errors committed by Rosa Luxemburg in the national question. The repudiation of the slogan of self-determination, (to support the formation of independent states) on the ground that under imperialism it is ‘impossible’ to solve the national question, led in fact to a sort of nihilism on the national question which extremely hampered Communist work in a number of countries;
e) The propagation of the party-political character of trade unions. . . was a great mistake which evidenced the failure to understand the role of the trade unions as organs embracing all the workers. This mistake seriously hampered, and still hampers, the proper approach of the vanguard to the working class as a whole;
f) while paying just tribute to the greatness of Rosa Luxemburg, one of the founders of the Communist International, the Comintern believes that it will be acting in the spirit of Rosa Luxemburg herself if it will now help the Parties of the Comintern to draw the lessons from the errors made by this great revolutionary.
Without overcoming the errors of Luxemburgism, genuine Bolshevisation is impossible”.

(Ibid.; p.616).

In November 1931, Stalin’s letter to the journal “Proletarian Revolution” was published, under the title of “Some Questions concerning the History of Bolshevism”. This reiterated in stronger terms the criticism made of the theory and practice of Luxemburgism:

“Organisational and ideological weakness was a characteristic feature of the Left Social-Democrats not only in the period prior to the war. As is well known, the Lefts retained this negative feature in the post-war period as well. Everyone knows the appraisal of the German Left Social-Democrats given by Lenin in his famous article ‘On Junius’s (i.e., Rosa Luxemburg’s –Ed.) Pamphlet’, written in October 1916, in which Lenin, criticising a number of very serious political mistakes committed by the Left Social-Democrats in Germany, speaks of ‘the weakness of ALL German Lefts, who are entangled on all sides in the vile net of Kautskyan hypocrisy, pedantry, ‘friendship’ for the opportunists; in which he says that ‘Junius has not yet yet freed herself completely from the ‘environment’ of the German, even Left Social-Democrats, who are afraid of a split, are afraid to express revolutionary slogans to the full’. . . The Lefts in Germany. . . time and again wavered between Bolshevism and Menshevism. . . .
In 1903 . . . . the Left Social-Democrats in Germany, Parvus and Rosa Luxemburg, came out against the Bolsheviks. They accused the Bolsheviks of ultra-centralist and Blanquist tendencies. Subsequently, these vulgar and philistine epithets were caught up by the Mensheviks and spread far and wide. In 1905. . . . Parvus and Rosa Luxemburg . . . invented the utopian and semi-Menshevik scheme of permanent revolution (a distorted representation of the Marxian scheme of revolution) which was permeated through and through with the Menshevik repudiation of the policy of alliance between the working class and the peasantry, and opposed this scheme to the Bolshevik scheme of the revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry. Subsequently, this semi-Menshevik scheme of permanent revolution was caught up by Trotsky and transformed into a weapon of struggle against Leninism. The Left Social-Democrats in the West developed the semi-Menshevik theory of imperialism, rejected the principle of self-determination of nations in its Marxian sense (including secession and formation of independent states), rejected the theses that the liberation movement in the colonies and oppressed was of great revolutionary importance, rejected the theses that a united front between the proletarian revolution and the movement for national emancipation was possible, and opposed this semi-Menshevik hodge-podge, which was nothing but an underestimation of the national and colonial question, to the Marxian scheme of the Bolsheviks. It is well known that this semi-Menshevik hodge-podge was subsequently caught up by Trotsky who used it as a weapon in the struggle against Leninism. Such were the universally known mistakes committed by the Left Social-Democrats in Germany.
I need not speak . . . . of the mistakes they committed in appraising the policy of the Bolsheviks in the period of the October Revolution. . . .
Of course. . . they also have great and important revolutionary deeds to their credit. . . .
But this does not cannot remove the fact that the Left Social-Democrats in Germany did commit a number of very serious political and theoretical mistakes; that they had not yet rid themselves of their Menshevik burden”.

(J.V. Stalin: ”Some Questions concerning the History of Bolshevism”, in: “Leninism”; London; 1924; p. 390, 391-2, 393-4).

The letter was attacked immediately by the open revisionists, such as Leon Trotsky:

“There is included in it a vile and bare-faced calumny about Rosa Luxemburg. This great revolutionist is ‘enrolled by Stalin into the camp of centrism! . . . Stalin should proceed with caution before expending his vicious mediocrity when the matter touches figures of such stature as Rosa Luxemburg”.

(L. Trotsky: “Hands off Rosa Luxemburg”, in: R. Luxemburg: “Rosa Luxemburg. Speaks”, New York; 1970; p. 441, 446).

When the concealed revisionists threw off their mask in 1956, they too strongly denounced Stalin’s Letter:

“Through it, sectarian views., especially on Social-Democracy and its left wing, were fostered in the CPG”.

(“‘Geschichte der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung: Chronik”, Volume 2; Berlin; 1966; p. 278)

Trotsky, in the article mentioned above, was also indignant that in his letter Stalin had “credited” Rosa Luxemburg and Parvus (i.e., Alexander Helphand) with having invented the theory of “permanent revolution”, and pointed out that in “On the Problems of Leninism”, published in 1926, Stalin had “credited” Parvus and Trotsky with having first put the theory forward. Stalin clarified his position in January 1932:

“It was not Trotsky but Rosa Luxemburg and Parvus who invented the theory of ‘permanent’ revolution. It was not Rosa Luxemburg but Parvus and Trotsky who in 1905 advanced the theory of ‘permanent’ revolution and actively fought for it against Lenin. Subsequently Rosa Luxemburg, too, began to fight actively against the Leninist plan of revolution. But that was after 1905″.

(J.V. Stalin: Reply to Olekhnovich and Aristov, in: “Works”, Volume 13; Moscow; 1955; p.133, 134)

On January 8th., 1932, the organ of the. Communist Party of Germany “Rote Fahne” carried an article endorsing Stalin’s letter and declaring that the influence of Luxemburgism had been “the greatest obstacle” to the development of a Marxist-Leninist Party in Germany:

“The Communist Party of Germany welcomes Comrade Stalin’s letter as a document which calls upon the German Communists to wage a fierce struggle against all social-democratic influences within the revolutionary movement, against the remnants of Centrism and Luxemburgism within the Party. . . . The failure on the part of the German Left Radicals in regard to the question of a complete break with opportunism and Centrism had an adverse effect upon the whole course of the Spartacus League during the war. Its after-effects were to be seen in the vacillations and the actions of the various liquidatory and oppositionist tendencies in the CP of Germany and rendered difficult a clear fulfilment of the role of the Party. Thus this failure of the German Lefts became the greatest obstacle to the development and victory of the revolutionary movement of the German proletariat”.

(“Comrade Stalin’s Letter and the CP of Germany”, in: “International Press Correspondence”, Volume 12, No, 4; January 28th., 1932; p. 73).

An article written by Fritz Heckert and published later in January 1932 to commemorate the anniversary of Rosa Luxemburg’s murder, followed the same lines:

“Under the ideological leadership of Rosa Luxemburg there arose the fundamentally false idea regarding the nature of imperialism, which led to the theory of the mechanical collapse of capitalism. From this again there followed the theory of the spontaneity of the masses, who would wrest themselves from the errors and crimes of the social-democratic leaders in order to rally round the revolutionary leadership. This also was the reason why no steps were taken to found an independent revolutionary party. It was not recognised that the party can be only the advance-guard of the proletariat, its most progressive, energetic and clearest part. These false ideas are connected with other errors of equally great importance.. such as the failure to recognise the role of revolutionary violence and the errors regarding the national and the peasant questions.
It is thanks to the after-effects of the social-democratic trends in the Communist Party of Germany that such big mistakes were committed in 1921 in the March action and in 1923 in the October movement,, and that the Party was long prevented from developing into a real Bolshevist Party owing to the actions of a large number of renegades in its ranks. The eradication of all false ideas is indispensably necessary necessary for every Bolshevik Party. Only recently.. Comrade Stalin again urgently called attention to this . . . .
It would be a profanation of the two great Dead if we sought to vie with the renegades in conserving their errors”.

(F. Heckert: “January 15, 1919″, in: “International Press Correspondence”, Volume 12, No. 2; January 14th., 1932; p. 29).

Source

Writings on the Role of Lavrenty Beria

Stalin and supporters continued this struggle against opposition from other elements in the Bolshevik Party, resolutely but with diminishing chances for success, until Stalin died in March 1953. Lavrentii Beria’s determination to continue this same struggle seems to be the real reason Khrushchev and others murdered him, either judicially, by trial on trumped-up charges in December 1953, or — as much evidence suggests — through literal murder, the previous June.

[....] 

Beria’s “Hundred Days” — really, 112 days, from Stalin’s death on March 5 1953 to Beria’s removal on June 26 — witnessed the inception of a large number of dramatic reforms. Had the Soviet leadership permitted these reforms to fully develop, the history of the Soviet Union, the international communist movement, the Cold War — in short, of the last half of the 20th century – would have been dramatically different.

[....] 

The wide circulation and credence given to these stories among Russians of all political camps show that many Russians believe Stalin’s and Beria’s deaths were all too convenient for the nomenklatura. The evidence that Beria, like Stalin, wanted a communist perestroika — a “restructuring,” albeit of political, not economic, power, instead of the capitalist super-exploitation and fleecing of the country that has gone under that name since the late 1980s — is quite independent of any evidence that they may have been murdered.

Source: Grover Furr’s “Stalin and the Struggle for Democratic Reform”

Khrushchev records a discussion with fellow-revisionist Nikolay Bulganin by Stalin’s death-bed on the danger to their plans if the Marxist-Leninist Lavrenty Beria were to become again Minister in control of the. security services:

“‘Stalin’s not going to pull through. . . . You know what posts Beria will take for himself?’
‘Which one?’
‘He will try and make himself Minister of State Security. No matter what happens, we can’t let him do this. If he becomes Minister of State Security it will be the beginning of the end for us’.
Bulganin said he agreed with me”,
(N. S. Khrushchev (1971): p. 319).

[....]

But by the end of June 1953, it had become clear that the efforts to convince the Marxist-Leninists that the exculpation of the doctors had been justified had only been temporarily successful. Headed by Beria, the security forces, under Marxist-Leninist control since the readjustment of portfolios after Stalin’s death, were continuing to inestigate the ‘doctors’ case’.

Clearly, if the revisionist conspirators were to feel safe, Beria and his Marxist-Leninist colleagues in the security forces had to be eliminated as a matter of urgency.

On 10 July 1953, a few days after Beria had been arrested, a leading article in ‘Pravda’ revealed the real reason for that arrest — a reason not disclosed in the report of his ‘trial’ — namely, that he had ‘deliberately impeded’ and ‘tried to distort’ instructions of the Central Committee and the Soviet government designed to clear up ‘certain illegal and abritary actions’ — an obvious reference to the ‘doctors’ case’:

“Having been charged with carrying out ‘the Instructions of the Party Central Committee and the Soviet Government with a view . . . to clearing up certain illegal and arbitrary actions, Beria deliberately impeded the implementation of these instructions and, in a number of cases, tried to distort them”.
(‘Pravda’, 10 July 1953, in: B. Nicolaevsky: op. cit.; p. 147).

Source: Bill Bland’s “The ‘Doctors’ Case’ and the Death of Stalin”

“Stalin was trying hard to limit the damage being done by a revisionist (i.e., Yezhov — WBB). In this situation, Lavrenty Beria was put in this sensitive and critical job. Stalin himself put Beria into this job.

Beria ‘cleansed’ the NKVD (the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs — Ed.). He placed trusted Bolsheviks in the key positions. As he had personal knowledge from Georgia of who was reliable or not, many of the appointees were from Georgia.

It is accepted by even hostile and anti-Marxist writers that, following Beria’s changes, thousands of prisoners in the camps were released.

Marxist-Leninists are aware that Beria effectively cleared the NKVD of revisionist practices and revisionist personnel”.
(Alliance No. 30 (October 1998); p. 85. 86. 87).

[....]

“It was essential to have in charge of the Russian atomic bomb project someone who was an utterly reliable Bolshevik. Stalin ensured that Lavrenty Beria was given this mandate”
(Alliance, No. 30 (October 1998); p. 87).

[....]

The chronology of the coups and counter-coups in Georgia makes it clear, in my view, that Beria was a Marxist-Leninist.

Source: Bill Bland’s “On the Coups and Counter-Coup in Georgia”

This (ON BERIA) is related to Ludo Martens’ book “Another View of Stalin.” It is a critique of his assessment of Beria. The rest of the Martens’ book relies on facts. However oddly, in stark contrast to the rest of the book, the analysis of Lavrenty Beria does NOT show facts at all. Martins has only theories and/or rumor or gossip, which is what Kremlinologists used to create the totalitarian paradigm against all of Soviet society! Why would he believe this or believe Khrushchev?

[....]

It was enemies that considered Beria an enemy, enemies that were in fact capitalists, never communists, and who proved this of themselves later on by wrecking collectives that worked well!. There were only THEORIES or ACCUSATIONS against Beria to that effect, primarily based on his desire to return to a NEP-type system for awhile after WWII . Well, Lenin did it after the Civil War for the same reasons Beria wanted to do it after World War II. Accusations are insinuated due to Beria’s desire to keep friendly with the West – who, after all, were ALLIES in WWII. Why not be friendly with allies?

In going along with the idea of Beria that Martens presents, Martens is falling INTO the same totalitarian paradigm that his entire book seeks to dismantle.

Beria did a good job for Stalin, in fact, an EXCELLENT, SUPERB job. Far from wanting to kill Stalin, Beria did everything in his power AGAINST STALIN’S ORDERS to try to prevent Stalin from wandering into mined areas of land during the time Stalin insisted on staying in Moscow in the war. Stalin could have been easily killed: Beria was trying to prevent this. Beria also had MANY occasions to kill Stalin AND get away with it!

Source: On Lavrenty Beria

But a prominent charge regarded Beria’s advocacy of a “unified Germany”. Leading the charge against Ulbricht’s sectarian polices was Beria, who was “indignant when I (Ulbricht) opposed the policy concerning the German question in 1953”: Knight Ibid; p. 192). Several sources point to the significance of this charge:

“The Soviet leadership offers the following reasons for the charges against Beria. . . . ‘ that he advocated the creation of a unified Germany as a “bourgeois, peace-loving nation” (1:162) and the abandonment of East Germany’s status as a separate, socialist state;” [On the Crimes and Anti-Party, Anti-Government Activities of Beria.] Plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 2-7 July 1953, from Izvestia CC – CPSU:1991, 1:140-214 & 2:141-208. New Evidence on Beria’s Downfall, by Rachel A. Connell.

“New accounts confirm that Beria did want to trade German reunification for neutralization.” ‘New Evidence on the East German Uprising of 1953; ”Paper #3: Reexamining Soviet Policy Towards Germany During the Beria Interregnum, “Cold War History Project” by James Richter.

Source: Fighting German ultra-leftist revisionism

Bill Bland: On the Coups and Counter-Coup in Georgia

W.B. Bland’s Work Regarding Beria

Poplar UK
5 December 1998

Editor’s Original Intro

This was contained in a letter to Hari Kumar where Bland took strong exception to conjectures that Beria was not a Marxist-Leninist.

In this letter, he rightly upbraids Kumar, of: “expressing doubt” and “in effect, wringing your hands and saying: “Dearie me, it’s all too complicated. Maybe he was, maybe he wasn’t!”

Bland on the basis of the chronology and events of the Mingrelian Case, argued forcefully that Beria was a Marxist-Leninist.

The full letter will be published in the forthcoming volumes of Bland.

Editor, Alliance Marxist-Leninist
November 2006.

LAVRENTY BERIA

In the first part of your report, you praise Beria as People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs in the late 30s, saying:

“Stalin was trying hard to limit the damage being done by a revisionist (i.e., Yezhov — WBB). In this situation, Lavrenty Beria was put in this sensitive and critical job. Stalin himself put Beria into this job.

Beria ‘cleansed’ the NKVD (the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs — Ed.). He placed trusted Bolsheviks in the key positions. As he had personal knowledge from Georgia of who was reliable or not, many of the appointees were from Georgia.

It is accepted by even hostile and anti-Marxist writers that, following Beria’s changes, thousands of prisoners in the camps were released.

Marxist-Leninists are aware that Beria effectively cleared the NKVD of revisionist practices and revisionist personnel”.

(Alliance No. 30 (October 1998); p. 85. 86. 87).

Later in the report you praise Beria’s ‘utter reliability’ in connection with his work in the development of the Soviet atom bomb, saying:

“It was essential to have in charge of the Russian atomic bomb project someone who was an utterly reliable Bolshevik. Stalin ensured that Lavrenty Beria was given this mandate”

(Alliance, No. 30 (October 1998); p. 87).

You report correctly that, as a result of change in April 1943,

“…the NKVD — still under Beria…was now no longer responsible for state security but only for economic security”.

(Alliance, No. 30 (October 1998); p. 87).

But instead of presenting this as a revisionist move to weaken the state security services, you justify this on the grounds that

“…it is likely that the work load was already too great to enable one agency to cover the work”.

(Alliance, No. 30 (October 1998); p. 87).

But the Departments concerned were reunited into a single Ministry in March 1953:

“On 15 March (1953 — WBB) the Supreme Soviet resolved to amalgamate the Ministry of State Security with the Ministry of Internal Affairs”.

(Boris Levytsky: The Uses of Terror: The Soviet Secret Service: 1917-1970; London; 1971; p.214).

So your non-political excuse for the removal of Beria’s authority from state security is clearly invalid…

The Coups and Counter-Coup in Georgia

In the past you have agreed with us that if a thesis is correct, it must be sensible and coherent.

You have also agreed that the class struggle in the Soviet Union in the early 1950s, took the principal form of an intra-Party struggle between a Marxist-Leninist grouping headed by Stalin (representing the interests of the working class) and a revisionist grouping headed by Khrushchev (representing the interests of world imperialism).

As Robert Conquest notes,

“…changes in the Georgian leadership were especially crucial to the main struggle in the USSR”.

(Robert Conquest: Power and Policy in the USSR: The Study of Soviet Dynastics, London; 1961; p. 129).

If, therefore, we examine the series of coups and counter-coup which occurred in Georgia in 1951-53 with these points in mind, the Marxist-Leninist role of Beria becomes irrefutable.

The Revisionist Coup in Georgia: November 1951

In November 1951, revisionist conspirators staged a coup in Georgia.

On the 15th of this month, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia announced that:

“Recently it has become known that the Second Secretary of the CP(b) of Georgia, M. I. Baramiya, Minister of Justice A. N. Rapava, and the Prosecutor of the Republic B. Y. Shoniya, have been extending protection to certain officials who have committed crimes”.

(“CC. CPG: Announcement of November 1951,” in: Robert Conquest’s Power and Policy in the USSR: The Study of Soviet Dynastics, London; 1961; p. 139).

The allegations related to:

“embezzlement in a major Tbilisi construction trust”.

(Amy Knight: Beria: Stalin’s First Lieutenant, Princeton (USA); 1993; p. 160).

All those named:

“…were dismissed from their posts, to be arrested later”.

(Robert Conquest: op. cit.; p. 139).

On 1-2 April 1952,

“… a Georgian CC plenum removed (Kandida — WBB) Charkviani from his post (as First Secretary — WBB)”.

(Amy Knight: op. cit.; p. 162).

Charkviani, who had been:

“head of the republic since 1938″, (Amy Knight: ibid.; p. 161), “was replaced by (Avksenty — WBB) Mgeladze”.

(Robert Conquest: op. cit.; p. 141).

A session of the Georgian Supreme Soviet held on 5-6 April 1952:

“…revealed that Charkviani had simply ‘left the republic’, but Baramiya was under criminal prosecution”

(Amy Knight: op. cit.; p. 162).

By the end of April 1952,

“…only two officials from the ‘old leadership’ remained”.

(Amy Knight: ibid.; p. 163).

and

“…the appointees to the new provincial posts were hostile to Beria”.

(Robert Conquest: op. cit.; p. 138).

In later revisionist mythology, the coup in Georgia became known as:

“… the Mingrelian case”

(Boris I. Nicolaevsky: Note to: Nikita S. Khrushchev: Special Report to the 20th Congress of the CPSU, New York; 1956; p. 546).

and falsely attributed to Stalin:

“Instructive…is the case of the Mingrelian nationalist organisation which supposedly existed in Georgia. .; Resolutions by the Central Committee, Communist Party of the Soviet Union, were made concerning this case in November 1951 and in March 1952…Stalin had personally dictated them”.

(Nikita S. Krushchev: ibid.; p. 546-47).

On this, Robert Conquest notes:

“Mingrelia is the wedge of Georgia between Abkhazia and the River Rion…But it seems plain that the ‘Mingrelian conspiracy’ refers not to this rather small area, but to a group of Mingrelians powerful in Georgia as a whole…All those of whom it has been publicly stated that they were victimised at this time, were all Mingrelians, as was Beria himself”.

(Robert Conquest: op. cit.; p. 140).

and even Boris Nicolaevsky feels compelled to point out:

“Though he (Khrushchev) implies that the’Mingrelian case’…was staged by Beria and Abakumov, this is a deliberate distortion. It was precisely in November 1951 that Semen –WBB) D. Ignatiev, one of Beria’s bitterest enemies, was appointed (USSR — WBB) Minister of State Security; the Mingrelian case was, therefore, trumped up as a blow at Beria”.

(Boris I. Nicolaevsky: Note to: Nikita S. Khrushchev: op. cit.; p. 5467).

I notice that you yourself, describe Ignatiev as a revisionist…(Alliance, No.30 (October 1998); p.104.

And:

“…Their revisionist conspirators’ – WBB) most important ally”

(Alliance, No.30 (October 1998); p.124.

The Marxist-Leninist Counter-Offensive in Georgia: April 1953

On 5 March 1953,

“…Stain died”.

(Boris Levytsky: op. cit.; p. 212),

Two days later, on 7 March 1953,

“Beria was appointed (USSR) Minister of Internal Affairs”.

(Boris Levytsky: ibid.; p. 214)

…and eight days after that, on 15 March 1953,

“the Supreme Soviet resolved to amalgamate the (USSR) Ministry of State Security with the (USSR) Ministry of Internal Affairs”.

(Boris Levytsky: ibid.; p. 214),

…thus making Beria again

“…responsible for state security”.

(Alliance, No. 30 (October 1998); p. 87).

On 15 April 1953, it was announced:

“…that the Georgian Minister of State Security (M. Nikolai Rukhadze) and Mgeladze had been dismissed from their posts, arrested, and would be ‘severely punished’ for fabricating ‘trumped-up’ charges against former leading members of the Georgian Government, all of whom had proved to be completely innocent”.

(Keesing’s Contemporary Archives, Volume 9; p. 13, 029).

It was stated that Baramiya and Rapava:

“…had been the victims of a case fabricated by Rukhadze”.

(Robert Conquest: op. cit.; p. 140).

It was also announced

“…that three former Ministers who had been dismissed at Rukhadze’s instigation would be immediately restored to their former posts”.

(Keesing’s Contemporary Archives, Volume 9; p. 13, 029).

Reporting these events, Tiflis radio:

“…eulogised M. Beria as ‘the best son of Georgia”‘.

(‘Keesing’s Contemporary Archives’, Volume 9; p. 13, 029).

In short,

“…turning first to Georgia, he (Beria — Ed,.) swiftly reversed many of the changes that the purges of 1951-52 had wrought. At his instigation, the CPSU Central Committee passed a resolution, on 10 April, declaring the Mingrelian nationalist conspiracy a fabrication and ordering a rehabilitation of all those accused. The CC Bureau was drastically purged of the 11 full members elected in September 1952, all were dismissed except two officials and they were demoted to candidate status, The new bureau was packed with Beria men, including (Vladimir) Dekanozov and (Stepan — WBB) Mamulov”

(Amy Knight: op. cit.; p. 187).

Next day, on 11 April, the Georgian Prime Minister was replaced

“…by Beria’s close friend (Valerian – WBB) Bakradze. Baramiya became Minister of Agriculture, Rapava was released from prison to become Minister of State Control…and Dekanozov assumed the highly important post of Minister of Internal Affairs. On the Party side, Mamulov was placed at the head of the cadres department, which made him responsible for Party appointments”.

(Amy Knight: ibid.; p. 187).

On 15 April 1953, Bakradze, the newly appointed Prime Minister of Georgia, told the Georgian Supreme Soviet that against Baramiya and Rapava

“…the enemy of the people and Party, former Minister of State Security, M. (Nikolai — WBB) Rukhadze had cooked up an entirely false and provocative affair concerning a non-existent nationalism. Rukhadze and his accomplices have been arrested and will be severely punished”.

(Robert Conquest: op, cit.; p. 145).

The New Revisionist Coup: July 1953

On 10 July 1953, revisionist conspirators staged a decisive coup at the centre.

On this date,

“…it was officially announced in Moscow that M. Lavrenty Beria, First Vice-Chairman and Minister of Internal Affairs in the Soviet Council of Ministers, had been expelled from the Communist Party and removed from his Ministerial posts as an ‘enemy of the people’, and that ‘the case concerning the criminal actions of Beria’ had been referred to the Supreme Court of the USSR”.

(Keesing’s Contemporary Archives, Volume 9; p. 13, 029).

The coup against Beria was followed by another change of leadership in Georgia:

“First the police, or former police, adherents of Beria were removed at high speed, while Beria’s own political appointees were removed — not merely from their posts, but from the Central Committee as well”.

(Robert Conquest: op. cit.; p. 146).

On 15 July 1953, Tiflis Radio announced that:

“M. Dekanozov had been dismissed from the Georgian Government and the Communist Party for collaboration with ‘the traitor Beria’. The broadcast said that Mgeladze, Charkviani and other former Party leaders on the Georgian Central Committee had taken advantage of Beria’s leadership to violate Party instructions”.

(Keesing’s Contemporary Archives, Volume 9; p. 13, 029).

On 22 September 1953, Tiflis Radio announced:

“…that M. Valerian Bakradze had been relieved of his post as Premier of Georgia”,

(Keesing’s Contemporary Archives, Volume 9; p. 13, 468).

and that the First Secretary of the Georgian Communist Party

“…had been succeeded by M. Mzavaladze”.

(Keesing’s Contemporary Archives, Volume 9; p. 13, 468).

On 25 September 1953, three days after the dismissal of Bakradze,

“…it was announced that three more Georgian Ministers had been dismissed — M. Baramiya (Minister of Agriculture and Procurement), M. Chaureli (Minister of Culture), and M. Tsulukidze (Minister of Education)…No reason was given for these dismissals”.

(Keesing’s Contemporary Archives, Volume 9; p. 13, 468).

On 21 February 1954, a broadcast from Tiflis Radio stated:

“…that 3, 011 persons had been expelled from the Georgian Communist Party during the past 17 months, these figures having been given by M. Mzavaladze (the new First Secretary of the Party)”.

(Keesing’s Contemporary Archives, Volume 9; p. 13,468).

The chronology of the coups and counter-coups in Georgia makes it clear, in my view, that Beria was a Marxist-Leninist.

W.B. Bland
Poplar
December, 1998

Bill Bland: The Workers’ Party of Korea and Revisionism

Written by Bill Bland for the Communist League

INTRODUCTION

In his paper entitled ‘THE WPK’S STRUGGLE AGAINST REVISIONISM’, Comrade Dermot Hudson expresses agreement with a reported statement by Nina Andreyeva:

“As the Russian communist leader Dr. Nina Andreyeva remarked at the Copenhagen Seminar on the Juche Idea in 1995…” (Dermot Hudson: ‘The WPK’s Struggle against Modern Revisionism’; p. 1).

The statement concerned was to the effect that the critique of modern revisionism made by the Workers’ Party of Korea was

” … more throroughgoing and mature … ” (Nina Andreyeva: Statement at Copenhagen Seminar on the Juche Idea’ (1995), cited in: Dermot Hudson: ibid,; p. 1).

than that made by the Albanian Party of Labour.

Two short quotations are enough to demonstrate the questionable accuracy of Andreyeva’s assertion. In December 1960. the leader of the Party of Labour of Albania, Enver Hoxha, told the Central Committee of the PLA:

“Following his advent to power, Khrushchev and his revisionist group had worked out a complete plan: Marxism- Leninism would be negated and all those trends and persons that had been unmasked, attacked and defeated as anti- Marxists, or who had been liquidated by Marxism-Leninism in action, were to be rehabilitated … This meant that both Lenin and Stalin had to be attacked … Today it has become even clearer that these intriguers, liars, opportunists and revisionists are doing all these things openly … Our Party is fully convinced that such monstrous accusations and slanders were brought against Stalin to discredit both him as a person, and the work of this great Marxist-Leninist … Khrushchev and his group are on a revisionist course”. (Enver Hoxha: Closing Speech at the 21st Plenum of the CC of the PLA (December 1960), in: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 3; Tirana: 1980: p. 167-68. 169).

In contrast, a Korean delegation in Moscow, signed in July 1961 a joint communique saying that the talks which had been been held there had shown

” … ‘complete identity of views’ between the Soviet and North Korean leaders on questions relating to the international communist movement” (Soviet-Korean Joint Communique (10 July 1961), in: ‘Keesing’s Contemporary Archives’, Volume 13: p. 18,246)

while, for its part, the WPK accepted the Khrushchevite-led Communist Party of the Soviet Union as

” … the universally recognised vanguard of the world Communist movement”. (Soviet-Korean Joint Communique (10 July 1961), in: ‘Keesing’s Contemporary Archives’, Volume 13: p. 18,246).

Furthermore, Comrade Hudson holds that the WPK saw

” … modern revisionism as originating in the 1950s … rather than … as a phenomenon of the late 1980s, associated with Gorbachev”. (Dermot Hudson: ibid,; p. 1).

And yet, when Kim Il Sung visited the Soviet Union in October 1986, he expressed support for the socio-economic reforms adopted at the 27th Congress of the CPSU and, in his banquet speech, praised Gorbachev by saying:

“This new change now taking place in the Soviet Union is unthinkable apart from the energetic activities of Comrade M. S. Gorbachev, a staunch Marxist-Leninist”. (Kim Il Sung: Moscow Banquet Speech of 24 October 1986, in: Dae-Ho Byun: ‘North Korea’s Foreign Policy: The Juche Ideology and the Challenge of Gorbachev’s New Thinking’; Seoul: 1991; p. 186).

Clearly, the attitude of the WPK to revisionism is not that of principled opposition since the 1950s suggested by Comrade Hudson.

THE DEFINITION OF REVISIONISM

Lenin’s definition of revisionism is that it is ” … a trend hostile to Marxism within Marxism” (Vladimir I. Lenin: ‘Marxism and Revisionism’, in: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 11; London; 1943; p. 704).

Perhaps a more comrehensive definition of revisionism would be that it is an ideology which claims to be a development of Marxism but is in reality a deviation from Marxism which assists the anti-socialist aims of a capitalist class.

Clearly, revisionism has direct relevance only to people who believe they are Marxists. To the extent that it can persuade such people of its validity, it separates them from genuine Marxists and diverts them into anti-Marxist political activity.

The struggle against revisionism is thus of particular importance in the period of building a Marxist-Leninist Party in countries where such a party does not yet exist. Some comrades have no difficulty in recognising the revisionist character of Khrushchevite revisionism of the type of ‘The British Road to Socialism’, which is clearly anti- revolutionary, but cannot understand how other types of revisionism may support revolution. But when we say that ‘revisionism assists the anti-socialist aims of a capitalist class’, one must understand that the anti- socialist aims of all capitalist classes do not follow an identical pattern, and we can identify different brands of revisionism corresponding to these different aims.

In particular, the aims of revisionists in developed capitalist countries differ from those of revisionists in colonial-type countries. Thus, the former is anti-revolutionary typified by Khrushchevite revisionism of the type of ‘The British Road to Socialism’. However, revisionism in colonial-type countries is to a certain extent revolutionary, reflecting the desire of national bourgeoisies of colonial-type countries to carry through the national-democratic stage of the revolutionary process in such countries, but to halt the revolutionary process before it proceeds to the socialist stage; this second form of revisionism is typified by ‘Mao Tse-tung Thought’ and, as we shall see, by ‘Kimilsungism’.

THE MARXIST-LENINIST FACETS OF KIMILSUNGISM

In some important respects, Kimilsungism is fully in accord with the Marxist-Leninist principles of the revolutionary process in colonial-type countries. These principles are:

Firstly, that the revolutionary process in such countries consists of two stages: that of national-democratic revolution and that of socialist revolution.

In the first stage,

” … the Korean people … are … faced with the tasks of carrying out an anti-imperialist, anti-feudal democratic revolution”. (Kim Il Sung: ‘On the Building of New Korea and the National United Front’, in: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 1; Pyongyang; 1975; p, 3).

“Comrade Kim Il Sung … pointed out the need to continue the revolution after the completion of the anti- imperialist, anti-feudal democratic revolution so as to build socialist, communist society”., (Kim Han Gil: ‘Modern History of Korea’; Pyongyang: 1979; p. 34).

Secondly, that the Marxist-Leninist Party should strive to mobilise the maximum of class forces objectively possible for each stage of the revolution:

“It is possible to conquer the more powerful enemy only by … necessarily, thoroughly, carefully, attentively and skilfully taking advantage of every, even the smallest, opportunity of gaining a mass ally, even though this ally be temporary, vacillating, unstable, unreliable and conditional. Those who do not understand this fail to understand even a grain of Marxism”. (Vladimir I. Lenin: ‘”Left-wing” Communism: An Infantile Disorder’; in: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 10; London; 1946: p. 112).

“The Communist Party of each country must unfailingly avail itself of even the smallest opportunity of gaining a mass ally for the proletariat, even if a temporary, vacillating, unstable and unreliable ally”. (Josef V. Stalin: ‘Notes on Contemporary Themes’, in: ‘Works’, Volume 9; Moscow; 1954; p. 337).

Thirdly, in the first stage of the revolutionary process, the democratic stage, these forces include the national bourgeoisie:

“To build a Democratic People’s Republic, a united front must be formed of all the patriotic democratic forces, including … the national capitalists” (Kim Il Sung: op. cit.; p. 4).

“The national capitalists participated in the democratic revolution”. (‘Socialist Transformation of Private Trade and Industry in Korea’; Pyongyang: 1977; p. 20).

Fourthly, that the Party should strive to gain the leadership of this stage of the revolution:

“In the struggle to establish a Democratic People’s Republic, the Communists … should be at the head of the masses of the people and lead them forward”. (Kim Il Sung: op. cit.; p. 5).

THE REVISIONIST FACETS OF KIMILSUNGISM

The revisionist facets of Kimilsungism relate to the period of transition to the socialist revolution, and to the socialist revolution itself.

The Question of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat

According to Marxism-Leninism, socialism can be constructed only through the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat:

“Between capitalist and communist society lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. To it there corresponds a period of political transition, in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat”. (Programme of the Communist International’, in: Jane Degras (Ed.): ‘The Communist International: 1919-1943; Documents’, Volume 2; London; 1971; p. 490).

“The revolution will be unable to crush the resistance of the bourgeoisie, to maintain its victory and to push forward to the final victory of socialism unless, at a certain stage in its development, it creates a special organ in the form of the dictatorship of the proletariat as its principal mainstay”. (Josef V. Stalin ‘The Foundations of Leninism’, in: ‘Works’, Volume 6; Moscow: 1963; p. 112).

According to Kimilsungism, however, the dictatorship of the proletariat is unnecessary in a colonial-type country like Korea:

“The democracy we aspire to is fundamentally different from that of Western capitalist countries, nor is it a slavish copy of that in a socialist country … Ours is a new type of democracy most suited to the reality of Korea”. (Kim Il Sung: “On Progressive Democracy’, in: ‘Works’, Volume 1; Pyongyang; 1980; p. 257).

“The establishment of the power of the proletarian dictatorship by force was followed as a last resort in some countries, … In the northern half (of Korea — Ed.) … this was not necessary”. (Baik Bong: ‘Kim Il Sung: Biography’, Volume 2; Beirut; 1973; p. 176).

Accordingly, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, established in North Korea in September 1948, was officially described as a state based on the joint dictatorship of several classes, including the national capitalists:

“A Democratic People’s Republic … must be built by forming a democratic united front … which embraces … even the national capitalists”. (Kim Il Sung: ‘On the Building of New Korea and the Mational United, in: ‘Works’, Volume 1; Pyongyang; 1980: p. 298).

According to Marxism-Leninism, the dictatorship of the proletariat is a state in which the proletariat holds power alone, and does not share power with other classes:

“The class that took political power did so in the knowledge that it was doing so alone. That is intrinsic to the concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat. It has meaning only when one class knows that it is taking power alone”. (Vladimir I. Lenin: Speech Delivered at the All-Russia Congress of Transport Workers, in: ‘Collected Works’, Volume 32; Moscow; 1965; p. 273-74).

“The class of proletarians … does not and cannot share power with other classes”, (Josef V. Stalin: ‘Concerning Questions of Leninism’, in: ‘Works’, Volue 8; Moscow; 1954; p. 27).

However, in violation of these Marxist-Lenininist principles, by 1958 the leadership of the WPK was presenting this state of the joint dictatorship of several classes, including the national bourgeoisie, as ‘belonging to the category of the dictatorship of the proletariat’:

“Some people say that our people s power is not one that exercises the dictatorship of the proletariat because it is based on a united front. This is a completely erroneous view. Today our people’s power is a state power that belongs in the category of the dictatorship of the proletariat”. (Kim Il Sung: ‘For the Successful Implementation of the First Five-Year Plan’, in: ‘Works’, Volume 12; Pyongyang; 1983; p. 115).

The Transition to the Stage of Socialist Revolution

Marxism-Leninism holds that, in the transition from the national-democratic stage of the revolutionary process to the socialist stage

” … the proletariat pushes aside the national bourgeoisie”. (Josef V. Stalin: ‘Questions of the Chinese Revolution’, in: ‘Works’, Volume 9; Moscow; 1954; p. 225).

In violation of this Marxist-Leninist principle, Kimilsungism holds that the transition to the socialist stage of the revolutionary process can be carried though in continued alliance with the national bourgeoisie:

“The entrepreneurs and traders of our country are fellow- travellers … not only in carrying out the democratic revolution but also in socialist construction”. (Kim Il Sung: ‘On the Immediate Tasks of the People’s Power in Socialist Construction’, in: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 2; Pyongyang; 1975; p. 37).

“From the beginning our policy in regard to the national bourgeoisie was not only to carry out the anti-imperialist, anti-feudal democratic revolution together with them, but also to take them along with us to a socialist, communist society”. (Kim Il Sung: ‘Let Us further Strengthen the Socialist System of Our Country’, in: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 6; Pyongyang; 1975; p. 317).

“The national capitalists … came out in support of the Party’s line of the socialist revolution”. the Party’s line of the socialist revolution”. (‘Socialist Transformation of Private Trade and Industry in Korea’; Pyongyang; 1977; p. 20).

Peaceful Remoulding of the National Capitalists

Kimilsungism, while accepting that there is the ‘risk’ of class struggle between the working class and the national bourgeoisie in a colonial-type country, maintains that this can be resolved peacefully, by remoulding the national capitalists, by education and persuasion, into working people:

“The capitalist elements still remaining in town and country will have to be … remoulded along socialist lines, instead of expropriating them”. (Kim Il Sung: ‘Every Effort for the Country’s Reunification and for Socialist Construction in the Northern Half of the Republic’, in: ‘Works’, Volume 9; Pyongyang; 1982; p. 201).

“The socialist transformation of private trade and industry … proceeded in close combination with the remoulding of men, with the result that private traders and manufacturers were reshaped into socialist working people”. (Kim Han Gil: op. cit.; p. 387).

“Since our Party adopted a policy of transforming capitalist traders and manufacturers peacefully, instead of expropriating them, the form of class struggle could not but assume a specific character. Class struggle attendant on the socialist transformation of capitalist trade and industry was unfolded mainly by means of persuasion and education”. (‘Socialist Transformation of Private Trade and Industry in Korea’; Pyongyang; 1977; p. 26).

Already in April 1929, Stalin was pouring ridicule on the revisionist thesis of ‘remoulding’ capitalists:

“Until now, we Marxist-Leninists were of the opinion that between the capitalists of town and country on the one hand, and the working class, on the other hand, there is an irrencilable antagonism of interests. That is what the Marxist-Leninist theory of the class struggle rests on. But according to to Bukharin’s theory of the capitalists’ peaceful growth into socialism, all this is turned upside down, the irreconcilable antagonism of class interests between the exploiters and the exploited disappears, the exploiters grow into socialism … One thing or the other: Either Marx’s theory of the class struggle, or the theory of the capitalists growing into socialism. (Josef V. Stalin: ‘The Right Deviation in the CPSU (B)’, in: ‘Works’, Volume 12; Moscow; 1955; p. 32, 33).

A SPURIOUS SOCIALISM

If a new society was established in North Korea in cooperation with the national bourgeoisie, then, according to Marxism-Leninism, it could not be a genuine and must be a spurious socialist society.

However, Kimilsungism differs from Maoism in rejecting the strategy of forming joint state-capitalist (joint state-private) enterprises in favour of forming ‘cooperatives’ in conjunction with the national capitalists:

“Our country was the first to transform capitalist traders and manufacturers along socialist lines by using the cooperative economy … This is an original experience”. (‘Socialist Transformation of Private Trade and Industry in Korea’; Pyongyang; 1977; p. 28).

“Comrade Kim Il Sung held that, different from some socialist countries, it was wholly unnecessary for the peaceful transformation of capitalist trade and industry to assume the form of state capitalism”. (Baik Bong: op. cit., Volume 2; p. 520).

This process of cooperativisation was not enforced upon national capitalists, but was an entirely voluntary process:

“Our Party adopted the line of transforming capitalist trade and manufacturing along socialist lines and saw to it that the capitalist traders and manufacturers were drawn into diverse forms of cooperative economy in strict observance of the voluntary principle”, (Kim Il Sung: ‘Let Us further Strengthen the Socialist System of Our Country’, in: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 6; Pyongyang; 1975; p. 317).

“The important demand of the voluntary principle is … to strictly guard against coercive methods in cooperativisation and conduct this movement according to the free will of private traders and manufacturers”. (‘Socialist Transformation of Private Trade and Industry in Korea’; Pyongyang; 1977; p. 31).

Of the three forms of cooperative introduced into Korea, two forms were open to national capitalists to join if they wished. In the second form, the national capitalists received what amounted to interest on the capital they brought with them when they entered the cooperative:

“The second form (of cooperation –Ed.) was a semi- socialist form in which the means of production were under both joint and private ownership and both socialist distribution according to work done and distribution according to the amount of investment were applied. The third form was a completely socialist form in which … only socialist distribution applied”. (KIm Han Gil: op. cit.; p. 387).

As has been said, the national capitalists were empowered to choose not only whether to join a cooperative, but which type they would join:

“The essential requirement of the voluntary principle is to make private traders and manufacturers … choose the forms (of cooperation — Ed.) of their own accord, instead of imposing any form on them”. (‘Socialist Transformation of Private Industry and Industry nd (‘Socialist Transformation of Private Trade and Industry in Korea’; Pyongyang: 1977; p. 72).

The voluntary principle and the principle of mutual interests were observed in the cooperative transformation of capitalist traders and manufactuerers”. (Baik Bong: op. cit., Volume 2; p. 520).

Thus, most national capitalists tended to choose the second form of cooperation, since in this way they received

” … reasonable dividends upon the investments”. (‘Socialist Transformation of Private Trade and Industry in Korea’; Pyongyang; 1977; p. 143).

“The second form (of cooperation — Ed.) was popular in the cooperation of capitalist trade and industry. It was a rational form which was readily acceptable to capitalists because it applied distribution according to the amount of investment”. (Kim Han Gil: op. cit.; p. 387).

However, according to the WPK, the mere act of joining a cooperative transformed national capitalists into ‘socialist working people’:

“By joining the producers’ cooperatives, the entrepreneurs and traders … were transformed into socialist working people”. (Kim Il Sung: ‘The Democratic People’s Republic is the Banner of Freedom and Independence for Our People …’, in: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 5; Pyongyang; 1975; p. 151).

By August 1958,

” … the ratio of private traders and industrialists who joined cooperatives stood at … 100% by the end of August 1958″. (‘Socialist Transformation of Private Trade and Industry in Korea’; Pyongyang; 1977; p. 153).

So that, on this basis, Kim Il Sung felt able to declare in September 1958:

“The socialist transformation of production relations has now been completed … Thus, our society has become a socialist one”. (Kim Il Sung: ‘Against Passivism and Conservatism in Socialist Construction’, in: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 2; Pyongyang; 1975; p. 233).

Loyalty to the Leader Marxism-Leninism condemns the concept of loyalty to an individual. As Stalin said in a letter of April 1930:

“You speak of your ‘devotion’ to me… I would advise you to discard the ‘principle’ of devotion to persons. It is not the Bolshevik way. Be devoted to the working class, its Party, its state. That is a fine and useful thing. But do not confuse it with devotion to persons, this vain and useless bauble of weak-minded intellectuals”. (Josef V. Stalin: Letter to Comrade Shatunovsky (August 1930), in: ‘Works’, Volume 13; Moscow; 1955; p. 20)

and in a talk in December 1931 with the German writer Emil Ludwig:

“Decisions of individuals are always, or nearly always, one-sided deisions… Out of every 100 decisions taken by individual persons without being tested and corrected collectively, approximately 90 are one-sided”. (Josef V. Stalin: Talk with the German Author Emil Ludwig, in: ‘Works’, Volume 13; Moscow; 1955; p. 109).

In contrast, Kimilsungism holds the leader to be the the determinator of policy, to whom loyalty is a cardinal necessity:

“The party’s line and policies, strategy and tactics, are put forward by the leader… The leader is the supreme controller of the party, and the party’s leadership is precisely his leadership. Remaining unwaveringly loyal to the leader … is a natural communist obligation”. . (Kim Jong Il: ‘The Workers’ Party of Korea is a Juche-type Party …’, in: ‘On Carrying Forward the Juche Idea’; Pyongyang; 1995; p. 86, 96, 106).

“The leader … plays the decisive role in shaping the destiny of the popular masses… Loyalty to the leader is the highest expression of the party, working-class and people-oriented spirit”. (Kim Jong Il: ‘On Some Problems of Education in the Juche Idea’ in: ‘On Carrying Forward the Juche Idea’; Pyongyang; 1995; p. 160).

“The revolutionary struggle is conducted under the guidance of the leader and in accordance with his ideas and will… The more we are faithful to the leader’s ideology and will, … the more worthy a life … we shall enjoy”.(Kim Jong Il: ‘On Establishing the Juche Outlook on the Revolution’, in: ‘On Carrying Forward the Juche Idea’; Pyongyang; 1995; p. 195).

This anti-Marxist-Leninist conception gave rise to an exagggerated cult of the personality of both Kim Il Sung and his son and designated successor Kim Jong Il:

“The personality cult as practised in North Korea is unparalleled. For example, birthdays for both Kims are internationally celebrated. The 1992 celebration of Kim Il Sung’s 80th birthday required many working days of preparation by thousands of people, young and old, and lasted well into May. The cost was estimated to be almost $1 billion, including many millions spent on some 3,000 performing artists from eighty different countries”. (Pong S. Lee: ‘The North Korean Economy: Challenges and Prospects’, in: Sung Yeung Kwack (Ed.): ‘The Korean Economy at a Crossroad: Development Prospects, Liberalisation and South-North Economic Integration’; Westport (USA); 1994; p. 183).

For example, Kim Il Sung’s biographer declares:

“The national histories of all countries tell of celebrated heroes and leaders. Looking through them all, it is hard to find any record that compares with such a national hero and outstanding leader as Comrade Kim Il Sung, who has rendered such distinguished service to the revolution of his own country and to the world revolution… Where else in history can you find another leader like him?… Where is there any such leader equipped with all these qualities, an outstanding leader with such rich experience that has performed the greatest revolutionary exploits even during the hurricane of the long-drawn revolution, to compare with our Comrade Kim Il Sung, equipped with the wisdom of genius and indomitable fighting spirit and stamina, profound revolutionary theory …?”. (Baik Bong: op. cit., Volume 3; p. 621, 633).

For his part, Kim Jong Il is described in a recent biography as

” … the great thinker and theoretician, outstanding genius of leadership, boundlessly benevolent teacher of the people, and the great man of the century”. (Choe In Su: ‘Kim Jong Il: The People’s Leader’, Volume 2; Pyongyang; 1991; p. 374).

Sometimes, indeed, it is implied that the Kims possess divinity. On the occasion of Kim Jong Il’s appointment as General Secretary of the Korean Workers’ Party, the official Korean Central News Agency reported miraculous events around Mount Paektu, Kim Jong Il’s birthplace:

“At around 05.10, when the special communique informed the people of the election of General Kim Jong Il as General Secretary of the WPK, a coloured cloud appeared on Mt. Paektu… Its rims were dyed with seven colours… At that moment, mysterious sounds reminiscent of cheers and applause came from the surface of Lake Chon… Witnessing these wonderful natural phenomena, its inhabitants said that nature also celebrated Kim Jong Il’s election”. (Bulletin of Korean Central News Agency, 20 October 1997; p. 3).

JUCHE

From the 1930s on, the Workers’ Party of Korea increasingly used the term ‘Juche’ to describe its overall policy. This is a Korean word usually translated as

” … self-reliance”. (‘Europa World Year Book 1999′, Volume 2; London: 1999; p. 2,061).

According to Kim Jong Il, in June 1930 Kim Il Sung

” … explained the principles of the Juche idea at the Meeting of Leading Personnel of the Young Communist League and the Anti-Imperialist Youth League held at Kalun in June 1930″. (Kim Jong Il: ‘On the Juche Idea’, in: ‘On Carrying Forward the Juche Idea’; Pyongyang; 1995; p. 13).

In its early years, Juche was officially defined as a development of Marxism-Leninism:

“The Juche idea inherits all the revolutionary principles of Marxism-Leninism. … It does not abandon the ideological and theoretical achievements of Marxism- Leninism, but further develops and enriches them”. (Kim Jong Il: ‘On Some Problems of Education in the Juche Idea’ in: ‘On Carrying Forward the Juche Idea’; Pyongyang; 1995; p. 148-49).

However, the Constitution of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea was amended in April 1992

” … in order to remove mention of Marxism-Leninism and to replace it with references to Kim Il Sung’s Juche ideology”. (‘Keesing’s Record of World Events’, Volume 39; p. R73).

Article 3 of the new Constitution reads:

“The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is guided in its activities by the Juche idea, a world outlook centred on people, a revolutionary ideology for achieving the independence of the masses of people”. (‘Socialist Constitution of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’; Pyongyang; 1993; p. 1).

The demagogic character of statements that the WPK’s policy is one of promoting ‘self-reliance’ is shown by its actual policy, from the 1980s on, of encouraging foreign investment, joint ventures with foreign capital, and the establishment of ‘special economic zones’ on the Chinese model:

Article 37 of the Constitution of the DPRK adopted in April 1992 declares:

“The State shall encourage institutions, enterprises and organisations in our country to joint ventures and cooperation of enterprise with foreign corporations and individuals”. (‘Socialist Constitution of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’; Pyongyang; 1993; p. 9).

The new Constitution, in fact,

” … encouraged foreign investment and guaranteed the rights and profits of foreigners operating in North Korea”. (‘Keesing’s Record of World Events’, Volume 39; p. R73)

and in October 1992 the Standing Committee of the Supreme People’s Assembly approved Korea’s first law on foreign investment:

“The new law permitted foreign investors to establish equity and contractual joint ventures within the country, and to set up and operate wholly foreign-owned enterprises in special economic zones. Foreign companies would be able to remit part of their profits abroad”. (‘Keesing’s Record of World Events’,Volume 38: p. 141-42).

Then, in 1991,

” … the government announced the creation of a special economic zone (SEZ) totalling 621 square kilometres . . ., expanded in March 1993 … to 742 square kilometres, … A spate of additional laws followed, stablishing the legal framework for foreign firms operating in North Korea”. (Marcus Noland: ‘Prospects for a North Korean External Economic Opening’, in: Thomas H. Henriksen & Jongryn Mo (Eds.): ‘North Korea After Kim Il Sung’; Stanford (USA); 1997; p. 55-56).

“About 80 joint ventures have been established in North Korea. Most of them are run by Korean residents of Japan”, (Dae-Ho Bryn: ‘North Korea’s Foreign Policy: The Juche Ideology and the Challenge of Gorbachev’s New Thinking’; Seoul; 1991; p. 223).

Degeneration into Philosophical Idealism The pretext given by Kimilsungism for revising Marxism is that ‘it is now obsolete’:

“Marxism … represented the era when the working class had emerged in the historical arena and was waging a struggle against capital. … But the times have changed and history has developed, so Marxism has acquired inevitable historical limitations”. (Kim Jong Il: ‘The Historical Lesson in Building Socialism and the General Line of Our Party’ , in: ‘On Carrying Forward the Juche Idea’; Pyongyang; 1995; p. 293-94).

The main factor in this change is alleged to be the fact that it is now not objective conditions, but man that plays the decisive role in history:

“It is not objective conditions but man that plays the decisive role in the development of history”. (Kim Song Il: ‘On Some Problems of Education in the Juche Idea’, in: ‘On Carrying Forward the Juche Idea’; Pyongyang; 1995: p. 144).

But Marxism regards the laws of science, including the laws of economics, as proceeding objectively, independently of the will of man:

“Marxism regards laws of science — whether they be laws of natural science or laws of political economy — as the reflection of objective processes which take place independently of the will of man. Man may discover these laws, get to know them, study them, utilise them in the interests of society, but he cannot change or abolish them. Still less can he form or create new laws of science”. (Josef V. Stalin: ‘Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR’; Tirana; 1979;p. 545).

Thus, to Marxist-Leninists freedom is not freedom from the operation of the laws of nature, but the recognition of these laws, the ‘appreciation of necessity’:

“Freedom is the appreciation of necessity. … Freedom does not consist in the dream of independence of natual laws, but in the knowledge of these laws, and in the possibility this gives of systematically making them work towards definite ends”. (Friedrich Engels: ‘Herr Eugen Duhring’s Revolution in Science (Anti-Duhring); New York; 1939; p. 125).

“What can this ‘appreciation of necessity’ mean? It means that, having come to know objective laws (‘necessity’), man will apply them with full consciousness”. ‘(Josef V. Stalin: ‘Ecomomic Problems of Socialism in the USSR’, in: ‘Selected Works’; Tirana; 1979; p. 546).

In contrast, Kimilsungism presents man as being above the laws of biology:

“Unlike biological beings, man is the master and transformer of, master of the world. He shapes his destiny on his own by transforming the objective world to meet his needs”. (Kim Jong Il: ‘Socialism is a Science’; Pyongyang; 1994; p. 12).

Thus, Kimilsungism presents man as free from the operation of the laws of nature:

“Man … is a social being with independence, … whereas all other material lives maintain their existence through subordination and adaptation to the objective world. … On the strength of this quality, man throws off the fetters of nature”. (Kim Jong Il: ‘On the Juche Idea’, in: ‘On Carrying Forward the Juche Idea’; Pyongyang; 1995; p. 14, 15).

But this is to degenerate into philosophical idealism, which asserts

” … the primacy of spirit to nature”. (Friedrich Engels: ‘Ludwig Feuerbach and the Outcome of Classical German Philosophy’, in: Karl Marx: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 1; London; 1943; p. 431). that is, in respect of ” … the relation of thinking and being”, (Friedrich Engels: ibid.; p. 430).

The primacy of the former, that is, the primacy of mind over matter. According to Kimilsungism, unlike the lower animals, man is not bound by the laws of nature:

“Animals are part of nature and their destiny is determined by the natural laws of change and development, whereas man… is not a being which obeys the natural laws of change and development”. (Kim Jong Il: ‘On Some Problems of Education in the Juche Idea’, in: ‘On Carrying Foward the Juche Idea’; Pyongyang; 1995; p. 144).

“Unlike all other living matter, which is subordinate to … the objective world, man dominates and transforms the world in accordance with his will and desire”. (Kim Jong Il: ‘On Some Questions in Understanding the Juche Philosophy’, in: ‘On Carrying Forward the Juche Idea’; Pyongyang; 1995; p. 5).

This idealist concept is embodied in the slogan of the Workers’ Party of Korea:

“When the Party is determined, we can do anything”. (Kim Jong Il: ‘Our Socialism centred on the Masses shall not Perish’, in: ‘On Carrying Forward the Juche Idea’; Pyongyang; 1995; p, 289).

Furthermore, Marxism-Leninism holds that the mode of production determines the consciousness of man:

“The mode of production in material life determines the social, political and intellectual life processes in general. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness”. (Karl Marx: Preface to: ‘A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy’, in: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 1; London; 1943; p. 356).

“Marxism pointed the way to an all-embracing and comprehensive study of the process of rise, development and decline of social-economic formations. People make their own history. But … what are the objective conditions of production of material life that form the basis of all historical activity of man; what is the law of development of these conditions — to all this Marx drew attention and pointed out the way to a scientific study of history”. (Vladimir I. Lenin: ‘Karl Marx’, in: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 11: London; 1943; p. 20).

This principle is what Lenin calls

“… the materialist conception of history”. (Vladimir I. Lenin: ‘Karl Marx’, in: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 11; London; 1943; p. 19).

However, Kimilsungism rejects this fundamental facet of Marxism-Leninism:

“The theory of socialism in the preceding age, based on a materialist outlook on history, was not free from historical limitations. The theory did not regard the social and historical movement as a movement of the motive force . . ., but as a natural historical process which changes and develops due to material and economic factors… Seeing material and economic factors as fundamental in the revolutionary struggle, the preceding theory of socialism failed to raise the task of strengthening the motive force of the revolution and enhancing its role as the basic way to carry out the revolution”. (Kim Jong Il: ‘Socialism is a Science’; Pyongyang; 1994; p. 5-6).

The Rejection of Objective Class Categorisation

According to Marxism-Leninism, social class is an extremely important objective social category:

“Classes are large groups of people differing from each other by the place they occupy in a historically determined system of social production, by their relation … to the means of production, by their role in the social organisation of labour, and, consequently, by the dimensions of their share of social wealth of which they dispose and the mode of acquiring it Classes are groups of people one of which can appropriate the labour of another owing to the different place they occupy in a definite system of social economy”. (Vladimir I. Lenin: ‘A Great Beginning’, in: ‘Collected Works’, Volume 29; London; 1974; p. 421).

But here again Kimilsungism degenerates into philosophical idealism. In place of the objective division of society into classes, it divides society into ‘the masses of the people’ and others, purely on the basis of the ideas they hold:

“The basic criterion for deciding whether one is a member of the masses of the people or not is not one’s social and class origin, but one’s ideas. … Anyone who loves the country, the people and the nation … is qualified to be a member of the masses of the people”. (Kim Jong Il: ‘Socialism is a Science’; Pyongyang; 1994; p. 19).

In line with this philosophical idealism, Kimilsungism rejects the Marxist-Leninist principle that the Party should lay primary stress on changing the objective conditions of society:

“In the past, the founders of Marxism evolved socialist theory by putting the main stress on material and economic conditions”. (Kim Jong Il: ‘Socialism is a Science’; Pyongyang: 1994; p. 8).

Kimilsungism gives priority to the ideological remoulding of man:

“In socialist society, the transformation of man, his ideological remoulding, becomes a more important and primary task than that of creating the material and economic condtions of socialism” (Kim Jong Il: ‘Socialism is a Science’; Pyongyang; 1994; p. 7).

Indeed, according to Kimilsungism, the ‘frustration’ of socialism in many countries was due, not to the penetration of the international communist movement by revisionism but to the failure to give priority to the ideological remoulding of the masses of the people:

“The basic reason for the frustration of socialism in some countries is that they did not put the main emphasis on strengthening the motive force for building socialism and on enhancing its role”. (Kim Jong Il: ‘The Historical Lesson in Building Socialism and the General Line of Our Party’, in: ‘On Carrying Forward the Juche Idea’; Pyongyang: 1995; p. 293).

and Kimilsungism defines

” … the driving force of social movement” (Kim Jong Il: Socialism is a Science’; Pyongyang; 1994; p. 7)

as

” … the popular masses”. (Kim Jong Il: ‘Socialism is a Science’; Pyongyang: 1995; p. 7).

Rejection of Marxist-Leninist Principles of Distribution Marx held that it was essential that under socialism, the lower phase of communist society, workers should be given the material incentive of payment according to the quantity and quality of work performed:

“What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but on the contrary, as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally and intellectually, still stamped with the birth-marks of the old society from whose womb it emerges. Accordingly, the individual producer receives back from society … exactly what he has given to it. What he has given to it is his individual amount of labour, … The same amount of labour which he has given to society in one form, he receives back in another”. (Karl Marx: ‘Critique of the Gotha Programme’, in: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 2; London; 1943; p. 563).

But Kimilsungism denounces Marx’s position on this question as ‘anti-socialist and revisionist’, and demands that, under socialism, priority is given to political and moral incentives:

“The position of giving prominence only to the material incentive for labour can be attributed to the neglect of the communist character of socialist society. … Those who regard material incentive as the most important demand that the system of material incentive be introduced into the whole economic framework. They claim that stimulating the working people materially is the most effective method for encouraging their enthusiasm for increasing production and developing the economy rapidly. They argue that even after the establishment of the socialist system the remnants of the old ideology left over from the exploiter society remain to a large degree in the minds of workers. … This is anti-socialist and revisionist theory. … If we raise the question of which to lay emphasis on, . . . the political and moral incentive should be stressed”. (Kim Jong Il: ‘On Having a Correct Understanding of the Political, Moral and Material Incentives’, in: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 1; Pyongyang; 1992; p. 211).

Opposition to an International Marxist-Leninist Organisation Contrary to Marxist-Leninist principles, Kimilsungism opposes the revival of an international Marxist-Leninist organisation:

“Times have changed and the days are gone forever when the communist movement needed an authoritative international centre. … This provides no room for the existence of any international ‘centre’. … Therefore, declared Comrade Kim Il Sung, no such relationship should be permitted to arise within the international communist movement”. (Baik Bong: op. cit., Volume 3; p. 600-01).

And brushes aside the achievements of the former Communist International:

“The time is long past when there was one centre in the international communist movement and individual parties acted as its branches. … In the past … the parties of some socialist countries did great harm to the development of the international communist movement by failing to rid themselves of the customs of the Communist International. The party of a certain country claimed to be the ‘centre’ of the international communist movement and ordered other parties to do this or that. It acted without hesitation to put pressure on other parties and interfere in their internal affairs if they refused to follow its line, even though it was a wrong one”. (Kim Jong Il: ‘The Historical Lesson in Building Socialism and the General Line of Our Party’, in: ‘On Carrying Forward the Juche Idea’; Pyongyang; 1995; p. 301).

CONCLUSION

Comrade Hudson’s claim that the Workers’ Party of Korea made a ‘more thoroughgoing and mature’ critique of revisionism than that which was made by the Party of Labour of Albania cannot be reconciled with known facts.

Indeed, Kimilsungism’s characterisation of the differences in the international communist movement borders on the farcical:

“The differences of opinions between the fraternal parties and fraternal countries … are of a transitory character which come from the difference in the historical and geographical conditions of the socialist countries. . . . The differences are an ideological and theoretical divergence between class brothers who have the same political and economic basis and who struggle against imperialism and colonialism for the same goal of building socialism and communism”. (Baik Bong: op. cit., Volume 3; p. 595).

IN FACT, AN ANALYSIS OF THE OUTLOOK OF THE WORKERS’ PARTY OF KOREA MAKES IT CLEAR THAT KIMILSUNGISM OR JUCHE IS ITSELF A BRAND OF REVISIONISM ELABORATED TO SERVE THE INTERESTS OF THE CAPITALIST CLASS OF A COLONIAL-TYPE COUNTRY LIKE KOREA, A BRAND OF REVISIONISM WHICH AIMS TO HOLD THE REVOLUTIONARY PROCESS AT THE STAGE OF DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION AND PREVENT IT FROM GOING FORWARD TO THE STAGE OF SOCIALIST REVOLUTION.

The Communist League: Response to ‘Why Did the Soviet Union Collapse?’

For the original article, “Why Did the Soviet Union Collapse?” look here.

Dear Comrades,

Our delegate has reported to us the decision of the ‘Committee for the Marxist-Leninist Party’ to publish in the Committee’s journal the article entitled ‘Why Did The Soviet Union Collapse?’ the author of which is Comrade Ted Talbot, a former member of the Committee.

We have now read and considered the article concerned, and we give below some of the reasons why we consider that this article is contrary to established and agreed Marxist-Leninist principles. We feel that the article should not be published unless together with a critical commentary.

The ‘Traitors Thesis’

The article concerned begins by attacking what its calls the ‘traitors thesis’, which, according to the article,

“… . at its crudest.. .argues that the USSR was on track for socialism until the death of Stalin when a group of traitors to socialism, who had managed to worm their way into the top echelons of the Party, took control”. (Why did the Soviet Union collapse?’ p.1).

The article attributes this thesis to Cathy Majid, apparently on the basis that attacks on its content will be more acceptable if it is said to emanate from a source whom members of the Committee have learned from their own experience to distrust.

In fact, since the 1960s this so-called ‘traitors thesis’ has been a key thesis dividing Marxist-Leninists from revisionists.

At this time, for example, the ‘People’s Daily’, the principal organ of the Communist Party of China, published the seminal article ‘Leninism or Social Imperialism?’ which stated:

“How was it possible for the restoration of capitalism to take place in the Soviet Union… and.. .to become social-imperialist? If we examine the question from the standpoint of Marxism-Leninism,… . we shall be able to understand that this was mainly. . . the result of the usurpation of the Party and government leadership by a handful of Party persons in power taking the capitalist road”.

(‘Leninism or Social Imperialism?’, in: David Milton, Nancy Milton & Franz Schurmann: ‘People’s China: Social Experimentation, Politics, Entry onto the World Scene: 1966 through 1972′; New York; 1974; p. 454).

By October 1964, the differences between tile Soviet and Chinese parties had become, in the words of the Albanian Marxist-Leninist leader Enver Hoxha,

“…this great historic battle between Marxism and revisionism”.

(Enver Hoxha: ‘An Open Letter to the Members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union’, in: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 3; Tirana; 1980; p. 631).

In his letter to the Committee dated 4 August 1998, Comrade Powell (Comrade Talbot’s close collaborator) endorses this characterisation, speaking of

“…the great struggle waged by the Communist Party of China and the Party of Labour of Albania during the 1950s and 60s against Soviet-style revisionism”.

(Harry Powell: Letter to Committee of 4 August 1998; p. 1).

And chides the ‘Partisan’ comrades for allegedly having been

“…enthusiastic supporters of Soviet social imperialism right up until its final collapse in the early 1990s”.

(Harry Powell: Letter to Committee of 4 August 1998; p. 1).

At the recent Congress of the ‘Communist Party of the Soviet Union’, Viktor Ampilov endorsed the ‘traitors thesis’, declaring that

“The break up of the first state of workers and farmers in the world started with the revisionism of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union”.

(Viktor Ampilov: Political Statement at the Congress of the CPSU. In: ‘North Star Supplement’; p. 1).

and in a lecture at Kim 11 Sung University in Pyongyang in October 1992, Nina Andreyeva, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Bolshevik Communist Party, declared that the AUBOP held

“… the degradation of the CPSU into Right opportunism and revisionism started from the end of the 50s when the leadership of the Party and state was seized by Khrushchev and his associates. The starting point of the degeneration of the CPSU into opportunism was its 20th Congress”.

(Nina Andreyeva: Lecture at Kim Ii Sung University, Pyongyang (6 October 1992), in:

‘Unpresented Principles’; Leningrad; 1992; p. 305).

Thus, the so-called ‘traitors thesis’ is completely in accord with the general outlook of’ the International Communist Movement.

We must, therefore, draw the Committee’s attention to a paper submitted to the December 1997 conference of the organisation ‘International Struggle – Marxist Leninist’ by Ted Talbot and Harry Powell, which lays down the following important principle for ‘a serious pre-party grouping’, namely that

“…at the initial stage of its existence,.. .certain basic theoretical principles need to be agreed. In particular adherence to the general outlook of the International Communist Movement”.

(Ted Talbot and Harry Powell: ‘International Struggle – Marxist-Leninist’, No 4, 1998; p. 41).

The article ‘Why did the Soviet Union collapse?’ is in clear violation of that principle.

Bill Bland: Albania in 1984

“ALBANIA – 1984″ BY BILL BLAND

Some weeks ago I received, through the Albanian Embassy in Paris, an invitation to visit the People’s Socialist Republic of Albania as the guest of the Committee for Cultural and Friendly Relations with Foreign Countries, and I set out from London on June 18th.

Perhaps as punishment for going to Albania, the weekly plane from Belgrade has a check-in time of 5.40 a.m. The night porter at the hotel where I passed the night in Belgrade told me that he was really a priest, but worked during the week to augment his meagre income. When he handed me my passport at four o’clock in the morning, he asked me where I was bound so early. When I told him, he shook his head sadly and said: “An ungodly hour for an ungodly country!” “Maybe”, I said, “but the only country I know where you can leave your wallet lying around and know that it will be there when you go back!”

I was greeted warmly at Rinas by Theofan Nishku, in charge of relations with friendship societies abroad. Later in the day I met the Committee’s new President, Jorgo Melica, who spoke highly of the Society’s work and arranged a programme for my visit which met my every request. I visited Korça, Shkodra, Gjirokastra and Saranda, while Mr. Nishku himself was good enough to spend the whole of my last weekend with me at Durrës. My interpreter was a pleasant young school teacher named Viktor Ristani, while my driver, Hodo Meçe steered carefully past every child and chicken. He was extremely proud of his new Volvo, which he polished at every opportunity and was outraged when, visiting the construction site of the new power-station at Koman on the River Drin, it became spattered with mud.

Albania is changing rapidly, and I noticed many new constructions since my last visit two years ago – from the new ornamental pond with its fountains opposite the Hotel Dajti in Tirana to the impressive Skanderbeg Museum in Kruja, which tells the story of Albania’s national hero in a vivid and artistic way.

In the Greek Minority Area

One of the most interesting experiences of my tour was a visit to the Greek minority in the south. Our first stop here was the village of Goranxi, which lies in the shadow of Mali i Gjere (Wide Mountain). It forms part of the higher-type cooperative farms of Lower Dropull, which embraces 17 villages with a total population of 10,500. I was entertained with raki and llokume (the latter being Albanian “Turkish Delight”) in the comfortable, beautifully-furnished home of Pano Tashi, a retired cooperative farmer, and his family. I recorded a long interview with Mr. Tashi. He asserted that the numbers of the Greek minority in Albania were nothing like the figure of 400,000 put forward by the Greek government, although – at 50,000 – it was in fact somewhat larger than the figure given to me on an earlier visit to the country. He ridiculed the stories being put forward by the Greek government to the effect that the Greek minority was “oppressed”. He showed me copies of the Greek-language daily newspaper, “Llajko Vima” (The People’s Voice); this is a specially prepared edition of the country’s leading newspaper of the same name “Zëri i Popullit,” it has a weekly literary supplement devoted entirely to poems and short stories by Greek-speaking writers. He also presented me with several books for adults and children published in the Greek language, and told me with evident pride of the Greek amateur dramatic societies and folk ensembles which flourished in the district, and described some of the films from Greece which he had seen in the past few months.

I asked him about the educational system in the minority area, and he told me of the Greek teachers’ training college in Gjirokastra from which his daughter-in-law had graduated before becoming a teacher in the village eight-year school. Here for the first three years education was conducted entirely in the Greek language; in the fourth year the child was taught the elements of Albanian grammar, and from the fifth year onwards education was carried out principally in Albanian, but with periods devoted to Greek language and literature. In this way the child became bilingual and was able to proceed to secondary or higher education (which is conducted in Albanian) and could undertake any occupation. In fact, I had already discovered in Tirana that members of the minority occupied some of the highest positions in the land – as, for example, the woman Vice-President of the People’s Assembly, Vitori Çurri.

As for the alleged “poverty” of the Greek community, he pointed out that Dropull was one of the richest areas of Albania, and said that out of the 190 families in the village, 122 had TV sets and 110 had washing-machines.

Thus, he said, there was not the slightest discrimination against the minority, whose culture was encouraged in every way, and members of the Greek community had equal rights in every way with the majority. Asked to say a few final words, he declared that he would never forget that the British people were allies of the Albanian people in the war and he hoped that the two peoples would always remain friends.

I was told that I was welcome to visit any other house in the village where someone was at home (all but pensioners and recent mothers being at work) to confirm what Mr. Nashi had told me, but I was completely satisfied with his sincerity and did not take advantage of the offer.

In the next village – Dervician – I was shown over the new Palace of Culture with an art gallery, library, restaurant – not to mention a theatre, equipped with a revolving stage, seating 470. And this was in a village with a population of just under 2,000!

The Penal System

I had asked particularly for detailed information concerning the operation of the penal system in the PSR of Albania, which is the subject of much misinformation in the British press. In this connection Paskal Haxhi, a judge of the Supreme Court, was good enough to accord me two long interviews in which he answered all my questions fully and presented me with several books on the subject. When translated, these and all that Mr. Haxhi (himself, incidentally, a member of the Greek minority) told me will be the subject of an article on the subject in ALBANIAN LIFE.

Among the most interesting facts which emerged was that the police in Albania have the duty of preventing or checking the commission of a crime, but have no power of arrest or of investigation. In the case of a suspected crime, they have power only to establish the identity of any persons they believe to be involved (including possible witnesses) and to report to an investigating magistrate, who alone may investigate and order an arrest.

The amount of crime in Albania, particularly serious crime, is very small as a result, said Mr. Haxhi, of the elimination of many of the social causes of criminality and most cases of petty crime are dealt with outside the courts by public criticism, etc. During the whole of 1982, for example, only 111 people in the whole of Albania (7% of them women) were sentenced to some penalty for criminal offences, and the great majority of these penalties did not involve deprivation of liberty. Of sentences of detention, the majority were of re-education (which is the kernel of the penal system) in labour camps, and only very serious or repeated crimes were the subject of a prison sentence, for which Albania has two small prisons. He was adamant that there was no truth whatsoever in stories, largely circulated by politically hostile émigrés, that detainees were subject to inadequate diet or ill-treatment, which would obviously defeat the fundamental aim of re-education. Prisoners had the right of complaint to the Attorney-General’s Office, and all complaints had to be investigated. Further, he – like other judges – visited labour camps and prisons regularly to investigate the progress of his “patients” and could order the cancellation of a remaining sentence where he was satisfied that re-education had been accomplished. It was interesting to discover that detainees in labour camps (but not in prisons) had the right to sexual relations with their wives or husbands during the two-monthly family visits, special accommodation being provided for this.

The death sentence, Mr. Haxhi stated, was a temporary and extraordinary measure applied only in the case of extremely serious crimes such as treason and where it was considered that re-education was unlikely to be successful. No death sentences had been passed in Albania so far during 1984.

Other Interviews

Shortly after my arrival in the country, I was privileged to meet Ali Xhiku, the Dean of the Faculty of History and Linguistics at the University of Tirana, and Professor Shaban Demiraj, who holds the Chair in Albanian Language and Literature. They were delighted to hear from me that the University of London had been granted funds to open an Albanian Department and asked me to convey to Dr. Deletant the offer to help with the provision of books or in any other way. I had been working for some time on a biographical sketch of an Englishman, John Newport, who fought with Skanderbeg, and they arranged a further interview with specialists in this field to help me track down the source of a quotation from him which is cited in the “History of Albania”. As a result it is now clear that the original source is not to be found in Albania and I have to search elsewhere.

I met Vaso Pano, the Director of ALBTURIST, and discussed ways and means of finding a less expensive route for British tourists to reach Albania than by air via Yugoslavia, and one less exhausting than the long journey by coach. Of course, when the Yugoslavs have completed their section of the railway which will link the Albanian rail network with the rest of Europe, this will provide one possibility. The main stumbling block to a quick and relatively inexpensive tourist route from Britain to Albania (via Corfu, for example) is that the Greek government (which regards itself as still in a state of war with Albania) will not, as yet, permit travel to that country other than by air. Nevertheless, Mr. Pano welcomed the first tour to his country organised by the Albanian Society and assured me that he would do everything possible to make this visit an interesting one.

I met two leaders of the Trade Unions of Albania -Qirjako Mino and Islam Bashari – and obtained from them much information on the trade union movement which is the subject of a separate article in this issue of ALBANIAN LIFE. They were also good enough to give me material, including badges, requested by the Museum of Labour History in London. They were extremely well-informed about the miners’ strike in Britain, which has been fully reported in the Albanian media.

Another interesting meeting was with Fuad Dushku, the Director of the Gallery of Arts in Tirana, with whom I had a long discussion on the principles of socialist realist art. He is arranging to send to the Society a set of specially-taken colour slides of representative paintings and sculptures exhibited in the gallery.

My final meetings were with Hiqmet Arapi, Vice-Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce, and with Estref Bega, Director of the Book Enterprise. With them I discussed ways and means of improving trade between our two countries. I had brought with me several suggestions from Ramsey Margolis of the Albania-General Trading Co. Ltd., (who, I discovered, is remembered throughout Albania as “the vegetarian”) on ways of making Albanian products (especially books) more acceptable to the British market. They expressed pleasure at receiving these constructive suggestions and promised to pass them on to the appropriate quarters. I came away loaded with catalogues, and samples of most products – from chrome ore and postage stamps to jam and wine – will shortly be on their way to Mr. Margolis.

Diversions

My trip was by no means all work, however. I visited numerous art exhibitions, saw the visiting Greek folk song and dance ensemble on television and, on one free evening in Tirana, went to the cinema. I found all seats booked for the latest Albanian film “The Judgement”, even though it was being screened simultaneously at several cinemas. I took myself off, therefore, to the little Agimi (Dawn) Cinema nearby, and saw an Italian film of Donizetti’s opera “Lucia di Lammermoor”. It was screened without subtitles, but with a synopsis in Albanian before each act. My ticket (there was only one price) cost 1 lek 50 qindarke – the equivalent of 15 English pence, and I could not but compare this with the £2.50 it would have cost me to see the same film in London.

My ever-solicitous guide and mentor Viktor Ristani insisted that in view of my great age I should rest for four hours each afternoon. I pleaded that this was a waste of time. I reminded him that, because of our atrocious climate, the siesta was not an English custom. I quoted the old Lancashire proverb: “There’s time enough to rest when you’re under the sod”. I told him that I was really only twenty-six and that my decrepit appearance was simply the result of a dissolute life. But all in vain! All this, he replied, made a siesta even more necessary! In consequence, I was free in the afternoons to wander around wherever we happened to be, searching for books, music, etc. to add to the Society’s collection. On one of these trips I discovered a manual of names of Albanian and Illyrian origin and, finding that the name of “Viktor” was not among them, I informed him gravely that he was required to change this by December 1st to “Jaseminë”. He seemed to find this shaka angleze (English joke) amusing.

One of the great personal pleasures of my trip was to meet in person the sports commentator and novelist Skifter Këlliçi, whose novel “The Last Days of a Prime Minister” I had just finished translating into English. Another was to meet again Faik Zeneli, who had been my interpreter on my first visit to Albania in 1962, since when he has been Counsellor in Rome and later Ambassador to Tanzania; he is now a Party functionary in his beloved home town of Shkodra, from where he was good enough to escort me to the Perlat Rexhepi State Farm, the Koman dam and several museums.

Reading back over what I have written, I realise that I shall be chided by my old Orkney friend John Broom for not having mentioned any negative features of life in Albania. The fact that I have to think hard to recall any such features of which I became aware is no doubt evidence that my overall impression was extremely favourable. But yes! Although food is plentiful and its distribution seems wholly adequate (there are food shops in almost every block open, on a shift system, from early morning till late at night) I found it difficult in the towns to buy soap powder. This may have been due to my not knowing precisely which type of shop sold it (a kinkaleri, which sells much more than trinkets, a “household goods” shop, a “various goods” shop, etc.). There seems to be no actual shortage of soap powder (at least, Albanian clothes appear spotlessly clean) and I eventually obtained a packet at one of those village stores which sell everything.

Conclusion

On my last evening in Albania I was the guest at a huge seven-course banquet kindly given in my honour by Mr. Melica, which even my capacious stomach could not accommodate.

My final act before catching the plane back to “Christian civilisation” was to be interviewed by radio and television on my impressions of Albania. I replied:

“My impressions are so many and varied that it is hard to summarise them in a few words.

But long after I have left your shores some things will remain vividly in my mind:

• the huge dam under construction at Koman;
• the breathtaking beauty of the Albanian landscape;
• the gaily-painted playgrounds and the beautiful, healthy children playing in them;
• the warm friendliness and hospitality of the Albanian people to those who come to their country as friends and not as enemies;
• the blend of the aromas of linden trees and roasting coffee which for me will always symbolise Shkodra at six o’ clock in the morning.

But long after all these memories have begun to fade with the passage of time, I shall recall the party I had the privilege of attending in the south. It was given by young people and their teachers to celebrate the former’s graduation. They were from Ksamil, where they and their parents have made the wilderness blossom with oranges and lemons. I noted that the girls would invite the boys to dance on equal terms with them – a little thing, but one which for me symbolises the liberation of women which has made such giant strides in Albania. I observed that their toasts to the Party of Labour and its leadership were spontaneous and sincere, and this should not surprise people who are aware of the doors now open to these young people which in the past stood firmly closed. For several hours after I was supposed to leave I stayed on to listen to the throb of Albania’s over-powering folk music and to watch with the greatest pleasure as these young people laughed, sang and danced together. It seemed to me that here was embodied in real life the slogan which stands off the beach at Durrës:

‘Beautiful is the life we have created,

but brighter still will be the future’”

(reprinted from Albanian Life, n. 29, 2/1984)

Bill Bland: The Market Under Socialism

ALLIANCE
May 2005

Introductory Note

With the permission of the Committee of the Stalin Society, I am circulating to members a statement on the present situation in Albania by another former Secretary of the Albanian Society and myself. An Albanian translation is being circulated underground by Albanian Marxist—Leninists.

I am taking the opportunity at the same time to circulate a clarification and amplification of the points I made in the discussion which followed Ella Rule’s excellent paper on Stalin’s Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR’.

W. B. Bland

THE MARKET UNDER SOCIALISM

Is there a Market under Socialism?

It was suggested during the discussion that the term ‘market’ had relevance only to a capitalist society.

But the dictionary defines the term ‘market’ as

“. . demand (for a commodity)”.
(‘Oxford English Dictionary’, Volume 9; Oxford; 1979; p. 305).

and the term ‘demand’ as

“a call for a commodity on the part of consumers”.
(‘Oxford English Dictionary’, Volume 4; Oxford; 1979; p. 430).

But in a socialist society, as in a capitalist society, people possess varying sums of money which they spend in shops on commodities which are on sale. This willingness and ability to expend money on commodities constitutes demand, constitutes a market.

Clearly, both in a capitalist society and in socialist society there is a ‘market’, for commodities.

Distribution under Socialism

Distribution is

“…the dispersal among consumers of commodities produced.”
(‘Oxford English Dictionary’, Volume 4; Oxford; 19009; p. 8S3).

The principle on which distribution is carried out under socialism is that:

“The right of producers is proportional to the labour they supply”.
(K. Marx: ‘Critique of the Gotha Programme’, in: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 2; London; 1943; p. 564)

that is, incomes are proportional to — the distribution of commodities is geared to — the quantity and quality of work performed.

Marx admits that distribution of commodities according to work performed is not completely fair, is not distribution completely according to need. He points out:

“One man is superior to another physically or mentally, and so supplies more labour in the same time, or can labour for a longer time…Further, one worker is married, another not; one has more children than another, and so on and so forth…

But these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society as it is when it has just emerged after prolonged birth pangs from capitalist society. Right can never be higher than the economic structure of society”.
(K. Marx: ibid.; p. 654, 565).

Nevertheless, this is the nearest that a socialist society can get to a completely fair system of distribution, the nearest that a socialist society can get to distribution according to need. And it is a much fairer system of distribution than is a capitalist society, where the purchasing power of one whole section of society — the capitalist class — depends primarily on the quantity of means of production owned.

According to Stalin:

“…the basic economic law of socialism…(requires) the securing of the maximum satisfaction of the constantly rising material and cultural requirements of the whole of society”.
(J. V. Stalin: ‘Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR’; Moscow; 1952; p. 45).

For the word ‘requirements’, we may substitute the word ‘needs’:

“REQUIREMENT: that which is required or needed; a…need”.
(‘Oxford English Dictionary’) Volume 13; Oxford; 1989: p. 682).

Since it is not possible under socialism for even the essential needs of society to be fully satisfied, the principle of distribution according to work performed fulfills Stalin’s criterion of a socialist society by achieving the maximum possible satisfaction of the needs of society.

Only after socialism has given way to communism can a completely fair principle of distribution be introduced — the principle

“…to each according to his needs…”
(V. I. Lenin: ‘The State and Revolution’, in: ‘Works’, Volume 7; London; 1937; p. 88).

This principle of distribution is possible only when the productive forces have been developed to the point where there is an abundance of the necessaries of life and when people’s attitude to work has changed from that which existed under capitalism; that is:

“when people have become so accustomed to observing the

fundamental rules of social life and when their labour is so productive that they will voluntarily work according to their ability…”
(V. I. Lenin: ibid.; p. 88).

Because distribution according to work performed gives a material incentive to workers to maximise production, it advances society as quickly as possible the requirement for communism of ‘an abundance of the necessaries of life’.

Of course, distribution according to need under communism can never be absolute. While we may say that communism has been attained when all the necessities of life can be distributed according to need, the productive forces will continue to be developed and new needs will arise which can at first be satisfied only on a rationed basis, e.g., on the socialist principle in accordance with work performed.

Planned Production under Socialism

According to Stalin, as has been said:

“…the basic economic law of socialism…(requires)…securing the maximum satisfaction of the constantly rising material and cultural requirements of the whole of society”.
J.V. Stalin: op. cit,.; p. 45).

The Communist League: The Soviet-Finnish War

Introduction

After making the Soviet border regions more secure in Western Byelorussia and Western Ukraine, and acquiring defensive bases in the Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, the Soviet Marxist-Leninists turned their attention to the vulnerability of their border with Finland.

After being a Swedish province for 600 years, in 1808 Finland was ceded to the Russian Tsar as a Grand Duchy. After the Russian Revolution of November 1917, Finland declared its independence on 6 December 1917, and this was recognised by Soviet Russia on 2 January 1918.

After the Finnish revolution of 1918 had been crushed by a ‘white’ army under Baron Carl Mannerheim; with the help of German forces, the new right-wing Finnish government actively supported the armies of intervention which were attacking the young Soviet republic:

“During the Russian Civil War, the new Finnish government actively supported the Western nations in their attempt to destroy the Bolshevik regime. On occasion, they even allowed anti-Bolshevik military operations to be mounted from their territory”.
(A. Read & D. Fisher: ‘The Deadly Embrace: Hitler, Stalin and the Nazi-Soviet Pact: 1939-1941′; London; 195P’; p. 372-74).

The Finnish government’s hostility to the Soviet Union had not basically changed since Mannerheim told the London ‘Times’ in 1919 that Finland’s historic mission was to drive Bolshevism from Leningrad:

“I strove deliberately and wittingly to create the foundations for our relations with Russia of the future by military action having for its objects the liberation of the capital of former Russia, together with a territory large enough to permit of the establishment of a stable and healthy minded Russian government, and thus to remove from our frontiers the peril of Bolshevism” .
(C. Mannerheim, in: ‘Times’, 7 October 1919; p. 9).

In October 1939, Ralph Hewins*, the special correspondent of the ‘Daily Mail’ in Helsinki, was still describing Mannerheim as:

” . uncrowned king of Finland”.
(‘Daily Mail’, 17 October 1939; p. 2).

In 1918 the ‘Times’ had drawn attention to the threat to Soviet Russia posed by the strategic position of Finland:

“If we look at the map, we shall find that the best approach to Petrograd is from the Baltic, and that the shortest and easiest route is through Finland, whose frontiers are only about 30 miles distant from the Russian capital. Finland is the key to Petrograd and Petrograd is the key to Moscow”.
(‘Times’, 17 April 1919; p. 14).

On 14 October 1920 the Soviet government signed with Finland the Treaty of Tartu, having, because of its weakness, to accept terms which made its security even worse than before:

“The Treaty of Tartu was most unsatisfactory from the Soviets’ point of view, but they were in no position to resist Finnish demands. Two of its most signifciant provisions were the legalising of the Finnish seizure of the town and district of Petsamo, with its valuable nickel deposits, . . . and the redrawing of the Russo-Finnish border further down the Karelian Isthmus to a mere 18 miles from Petrograd”.
(A. Read & D. Fisher: ibid,; p. 374).

At the 6th Congress of the Communist International in 1928, the Finnish delegate Yrjo Sirola* emphasis’s the danger of Finland being used as a base by one or other great power for an attack on the Soviet Union:

“Comrades, little Finland is of considerable importance in the war preparations of the imperialists against the Soviet Union. Its frontier is only 40 kilometres distant from Leningrad. .. . ..
Finland’s orientation upon England is well known. Considerable sums of British capital are invested in Finland. England has taken a direct part in the reorganisation of Finland’s army and navy. . . .
A vicious (anti-Soviet — Ed.) press campaign goes on uninterruptedly”.
(Y.F. Sirola: Speech in Discussion on the War Danger, 6th Congress of Communist International, in: ‘International Press Correspondence’, Volume 8, No. 61 (11 September 1928); p. 1,081).

A similar threatening picture was drawn by the Soviet Marxist-Leninist Andrey Zhdanov* at the 8th Congress of Soviets on 29 November 1936:

“If in some of these little countries — for example, Finland – feelings of hostility to the USSR are being kindled by larger and more adventurist countries, and preparations are being made to make their territory available for aggressive action by fascist powers, in the long run it is these little countries which alone will be the losers.”
(A. Zhdanov: Speech at 8th Congress of Soviets, in: J. Degras (Ed.):
‘Soviet Documents on Foreign Policy’, Volume 3; London; 1953; p. 226).

Fred Singleton*, in his ‘A Short History of Finland’, points out that:

“The Soviet leaders shared the fears which all Russian leaders have felt since the time of Peter the Great — namely, that a hostile power might use Finland as a base for an attack upon Leningrad. In the 18th century the potential enemy was Sweden. In the 1930s the threat came from Germany”.
(F. Singleton: ‘A Short History of Finland’; Cambridge; 1989; p. 128).

In 1939, having become a Great Power and with the threat of German intervention temporarily removed by the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact, the Soviet government sought to rectify the dangerous situation to its security resulting from the Treaty of Tartu.

The Soviet-Finnish Negotiations (1939)

On 8 October 1939 it was announced in Helsinki that the Finnish government had accepted an invitation from the Soviet government to send a special representative to Moscow to discuss:

“Questions of a political and economic character”.
(‘Keesing’s Contemporary Archives’, Volume 3; Bristol; 1939; p. 3,773).

The government appointed Juho Paasikivi*, then Finnish Minister to Sweden, as its special representative.
On 9 October 1939, before Poasihivi departed for Moscow, President Kyosti Kallio handed to him instructions, drafted by Foreign Minister Eljas Erkko*, for the conduct of the negotiations:

“If the Soviet Union should make proposals regarding the creation of Soviet Union military bases on the Finnish mainland, or, e.g., on the Aaland Islands, such proposals should be rejected and any discussion thereof refused. The same applies to any proposals referring to frontier adjustments on the Karelian Isthmus. . . . .
If the Soviet Union suggests the conclusion of a treaty of mutual assistance, . . it should be pointed out that such a treaty is not compatible with Finland’s policy of neutrality”.
(‘The Development of Finnish-Soviet Relations of 1939″;Helsinki 1940; p. 47, 49).

Leonard Lundin comments:

“On the Finnish side there seems to have been less elasticity. .
The negotiators sent to Moscow enjoyed almost no freedom of maneuver.
They were shackled by strict orders as to w;hat they might or what they might not talk about”.
(C. L. Lundin: ‘Finland in the Second World ‘; Bloomington (USA); 1957; p. 53, 55).

On 11 October, just before Paasikivi’s arrival in Moscow, US President Franklyn Roosevelt* sent a personal letter to the Soviet President, Mikhail Kalinin, expressing:

“The earnest hope that the Soviet Union will make no demands on Finland which are inconsistent with the maintenance and development of amicable and peaceful relations between the two countries and the independence of each”.
(F. D. Roosevelt: Letter to M. I. Kalinin, cited in: ‘The Development of Finnish-Soviet Relations During 1939; 1940; Ibid; p. 97).

Kalinin replied on 12 October:

“I think I should remind you, Mr. President, that the independence of the Finnish Republic as a State was recognised spontaneously by the Soviet Government on December 31, 1917, and that the sovereignty of Finland is guaranteed by the Treaty of Peace between the RSFSR and Finland, signed on October 14, 1920. The above-mentioned acts on the part of the Soviet Government determined the fundamental principles of the relations between the Soviet Union and Finland. It is in accordance with those principles that the present negotiations between the Soviet Government and the Finnish Government are being conducted. Notwithstanding the tendentious versions put about by some who evidently have not the peace of Europe at heart, the sole object of the negotiations in question is to establish close relations between the Soviet Union and Finland and to strengthen the friendly cooperation between the two countries in order to ensure the security of the Soviet Union and that of Finland”.
(M. I. Kalinin: Letter to F. P. Roosevelt, in: ‘The Development of Finnish-Soviet Relations . . ‘; ibid.,; p. 97).

Round 1

Paasikivi arrived in Moscow on 12 October 1939, when negotiations began in the presence of Stalin and Molotov.

Stalin attended all three rounds of the negotiations:

“The importance they (the Soviet leaders — Ed.) attached to the negotiations is shown by the fact that Stalin participated in all three stages of them”.
(C. L. Lundin: ibid.; p. 52).

The basic Soviet aims in the negotiations were expressed in a memorandum handed by Stalin and Molotov to Paasikivi on 14 October:

“In the negotiations with Finland, the Soviet Union is mainly concerned with the settlement of two questions:
a) securing the safety of Leningrad;
b) becoming satisfied that Finland will maintain firm, friendly relations with the Soviet Union.
In order to fulfil this duty, it is necessary:
(1) To make it possible to block the opening of the Gulf of Finland by means of artillery fire from both coasts of the Gulf of Finland in order to prevent warships and transport ships of the enemy penetrating, to the waters of the Gulf of Finland.
(2) To make it possible to prevent the access of the enemy to those islands in the Gulf of Finland which are situated west and north-west of the entrance to Leningrad.
(3) To have the Finnish frontier in the Karelian Isthmus, which is now at a distance of 32 km. from Leningrad, i.e., within the range of long-distance artillery, moved somewhat farther northwards and northwestwards”.
(‘The Development of Finnish-Soviet Relations . . . ‘; ibid.; p. 49-50).

In order to satisfy themselves that Finland would maintain ‘firm, friendly relations’ with the Soviet Union, the Soviet representatives proposed the conclusion of a Soviet-Finnish mutual assistance treaty. In accordance with their instructions, the Finnish delegation at once rejected this proposal:

“The Finnish representatives said they were unconditionally opposed to the conclusion of a reciprocal aid treaty”.
(V. Tanner: ‘The Winter War: Finland against Russia: 1939-1940′; Stanford (USA); 1957; p. 25).

The Soviet representatives accordingly dropped this proposal.

To achieve points (1) and (2), the Soviet government proposed that Finland should lease to the Soviet Union the port of Hanko and the territory adjoining them, and allow it have a Soviet garrison there for the protection of the naval base.

The total area of the territory requested for these purposes and to achieve point 3 was 2,761 square kilometres, in exchange for which the Soviet Union would cede to Finland territory with an area of 5,529 square kilometres i.e., more than double the area.

Stalin explained to Paasikivi that the motive behind the Soviet proposals was purely defensive:

“It is not the fault of either of us that geographical circumstances are as they are. We must be able to bar entrance to the Gulf of Finland. . . . .
Once a hostile fleet is in the Gulf, the Gulf can no longer be defended.
You ask what power might attack us. England or Germany. We are on good terms with Germany now, but everything in this world may change. Yudenich* attacked through the Gulf of Finland, and later the British did the same. This can happen again. If you’re afraid to give us bases on the mainland, we can dig a canal round Hanko Neck. .
We ask that the distance of Leningrad to the line should be 70 kilometres. That is minimum demand, and you must not think we are prepared to reduce it bit by bit. We can’t move Leningrad, so the line has to move. . . . We ask for 2,700 square kilometres and offer more than 5,500 in exchange”.
(V. Tanner: op. cit.; p. 27-28).

The essence of the Soviet demands was aptly summarised by Lundin:

“The Soviet leaders were determined, above all, to do two things.
They wished to push the frontier on the Karelian Isthmus back a substantial distance from its closest approach to Leningrad. . . .
They also wished to establish a naval base on the Finnish coast at the mouth of the Gulf, opposite the newly acquired bases in Estonia, so that any hostile shipping coming up the Gulf of Finland would have to run the gauntlet of a cross fire”.
(C. L. Lundin: op. cit.; p. 51-52).

On 14 October Paasikivi offered:

“To discuss those islands which lay closest to the Soviet shore.”
(V. Tanner: op. cit.; p. 26).

But:

“This offer was held to be so trifling as not to be worth the trouble of discussing”.
(V. Tanner: op. cit.; p. 26).

Round 2

On 19 October, Paasikivi returned to Moscow, this time in company with Vaino Tanner, shortly to become Foreign Minister, and the negotiations were resumed on 23 October.

On 23 October Paasikivi and Tanner handed their reply to Stalin and Molotov:

“So far as the port of Hanko, with the adjoining territory and the Bay of Lappohja, are concerned, the Finnish Government are bound to uphold Finland’s integrity”.
(‘The Development of Finnish-Soviet Relations .’; ibid.; p. 53).

On 26 October Tanner wrote to Swedish Prime Minister Per Hansson*, asking:

“Is there any chance that Sweden . . . . will intervene in this matter by giving Finland effective military assistance?”
(V. Tanner: op. cit.; p. 47).

To which Hannon replied on 27 October:

“You must not reckon with any such possibility”.
(V. Tanner: op. cit.; p. 48).

Paasikivi and Tanner returned to Helsinki on 26 October.

Round 3

On 31 October Molotov made an important speech to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in which he said:

“Our proposals in the negotiations with Finland are modest, and they are confined to the minimum, short of which is it impossible to ensure the safety of the Soviet Union”.
(‘The Development of Finnish-Soviet Relations . . ‘; op. cit,; p. 57).

Paasikivi and Tanner returned to Moscow for the third (and final) round of negotiations, arriving on 2 November.

On 1 November, while they were en route , Finnish Foreign Minister Eljas Erkko said in a speech in Helsinki that:

“Finland could not consent to any arrangement prejudicial to her independence and to her chances of self-defence. . . . It is the Great Powers who make war”.
(‘Keesing’s Contemporary Archives’, Volume 3; Bristol; 1939; p. 3,782).

On 3 November ‘Pravda’ criticised Erkko ‘s speech as one which:

“Cannot be appraised otherwise than as an appeal for war with the Soviet Union”.
(‘Keesing’s Contemporary Archives’, Volume 3; Bristol; 1939; p. 3,782).

At the third round of the Soviet-Finnish talks, on 3 November the Finnish delegation handed to Molotov their government’s reply:

“The Government of Finland feels obliged to maintain the attitude which it has taken up from the outset regarding the proposal that it should lease the port of Hanko and the surrounding district to the Government of the USSR and place the Bay of Lappohja at the disposal of the naval forces of the USSR for use as an anchorage”.
(‘The Development of Finnish-Soviet Relations . . . ‘, op. cit.,; p. 62).

However, Paasikivi was in favour of seeking a compromise with the Soviet government by offering it a base further to the west:

“Paasskivi was now prepared to recommend that the Soviet Union be granted a base in the west, in which connection he had in mind the cession of Jussaro”.
(V. Tanner: op. cit.; p. 44).

After a break over the holiday for the anniversary of the Russian Revolution of 1917, negotiations were resumed on 8 November.
On this day the delegation received further instructions from Helsinki:

“Hanko was not to be discussed. . . . The same attitude was to apply to the Soviet Union’s alternative proposal on the islands in the neighbourhood of Hanko. Mention of Jussaro was likewise unconditionally forbidden”.
(V. Tanner: op. cit.; p. 73).

It was at this point time that Stalin made a considerable concession, suggesting that if the Finns were adamant that Hanko was not negotiable, perhaps some other small island nearby could be leased:

“When we said once more that Hanko could not be discussed, to our great surprise Stalin proposed an alternative — the group of islands to the east of it”.
(V. Tanner: op. cit.; p. 67).

“Towards the end of the negotiations, Stalin asked whether, instead of Hanko, the Finns would cede three small islands nearby”.
(C. L. Lundin: op. cit.; p. 53).

“Stabbing his finger at a spot on the map of Southern Finland, he asked:
‘Do you need these islands?’
Little red circles had been drawn around three small islands . . . just east of the Hanko Peninsula. He was willing to settle for these if it really was impossible for Finland to part with Hanko itself”.
(N. Jakobson: ‘The Diplomacy of the Winter War: An Account of the Russo-Finish War, 1939-1940′; Cambridge (USA); 1961; p. 136).

On 4 November the delegation telegraphed Stalin’s proposal to Helsinki:

“We asked the Government whether . . . we might offer to the Soviet Union Jussaro in the west”.
(V. Tanner: op. cit.; p. 68).

The Finnish government took this concession as a sign that the Soviet position was weakening:

“Erkko was triumphant. . . . Stalin was softening. Now was the time to stand firm”.
(N. Jakobson: op. cit,; p. 137).

Although even Mannerhein himself was in favour of conceding Jussaro:

“Mannerheim . . . tells us that he was willing, if need be, to offer Russia . . . Jussaro”.
(C. L. Lundin: op. cit.; p. 54).

the Finnish government telegraphed final instructions to its delegation on 8 November:

“Hanko was not to be discussed. . . . The same attitude was to apply to the Soviet Union’s alternative proposal on the islands in the neighbourhood of Hanko. Mention of Jussaro was likewise unconditionally forbidden”.
(V. Tanner: op. cit .; p. 73).

So, on 9 November the Finnish delegates handed Molotov a Note which declared:

“The Finnish Government does not find it possible to accept the proposal”.
(“The Development of Finnish-Soviet Relations . . .”; op. cit.,; p. 66).

“Our opponents went on with their demands on the Isthmus. Yet here we could not undertake to offer any concessions, since we had no authority to do so”.
(V. Tanner: op. cit.; p. 76).

Accordingly,

“At the next — and final — conference with Stalin and Molotov, the Finnish negotiators had nothing left but negative replies to make to inquiries about . . . the Karelian Isthmus and about the islands near Hanko”.
(C. L. Lundin: op. cit.; p. 55).

As the Finnish White Paper expresses it:

“The negotiations reached a deadlock on November 13″.
(‘The Development of Finnish-Soviet Relations . . .’; op. cit.; p. 19).

As Lundin says,

“In the end it was Helsinki which took the responsibility for terminating the negotiations.” (C. L. Lundin: op. cit.; p. 55).

“It was Tanner who suggested that they might just as well agree to disagree”.
(N. Jakobson: op. cit.; p. 137).

The Finnish delegation left Moscow for the last time on 13 November.

Although the negotiations had broken down, Tanner himself testifies that they had been conducted in a friendly manner:

“The Soviet negotiators did not bully. . . . The treatment of the Finnish emissaries was not unfriendly”.
(C. L. Lundin: op. cit.; p. 52).

“The parting was friendly on both sides. Stalin even said: . . . ‘Best of luck!’, and Molotov said: . . . ‘Till we meet again!’:
(V. Tanner: op. cit.; p. 76).

It is clear that the Soviet government ‘s proposals were neither a threat to Finland’s independence nor based on territorial expansion, but were designed solely to increase the Soviet Union’s defensive capacity. The Finnish government’s rejection of the Soviet proposals and its categorical rejection of the compromises proposed by Moscow demonstrated that it was being backed by one or more foreign powers to cling to a boundary which represented a serious threat to the security of the Soviet Union.

The Finnish political commentator Martti Turola*, has admitted:

“It simply cannot be overlooked that Finland pursued a dangerously aggressive, menacing foreign policy prior to the war”.
(N. Turtola: ‘Guilty or Innocent? Approaches to the “‘inter War in Research and Memoirs’, in: ‘Yearbook of Finnish Foreign Policy: 1990′; Helsinki; 1990; p. 45).

and the German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentropp* wrote in December 1939 that German intelligence was convinced that the backing of a Great Power, namely Britain, was behind the intransigence of the Finnish government in its negotiations with the Soviet Union:

“According to intelligence received, England was responsible for the failure of the Russo-Finnish negotiations last November”.
J. Sontag & J. S. Beddle (Eds.): ‘Nazi-Soviet Relations’; Washington; 1948; p. 130).

Prelude to War (1939)

According to the Finnish government at the time, and to the complaint which it laid before the League of Nations, on 30 November 1930 the Soviet Union launched a sudden and unprovoked invasion of Finland.

The known facts, however, do not support this story.

On 6 October 1939, the day on which Molotov’s invitation was received in Helsinki,

“The main body of the regular army were ordered to march without delay to their pre-arranged positions in frontier districts”.
(M. Jakobson: op. cit.; p. 109).

On 10 October 1939, while Paasikivi was still on his way to Moscow to begin negotiations with the Soviet Government,

“The Ministry of the Interior urged a voluntary evacuation of cities and air raid exercises were held in Helsinki. On October 11, the day the Finnish delegation arrived in the Soviet capital, the government decided to call reserve contingents to ‘refresher courses’, which amounted to disguised mobilisation”.
(N. Jakobson: op. cit.; p. 109).

On 14 October, during the first of the three rounds of Finnish-Soviet negotiations:

“Large numbers of reservists were called to the colours, and on Oct. 14 it was reported that mobilisation was almost completed. A ‘blackout’ was imposed in Helsinki, and ARP measures were introduced in all large towns. Voluntary evacuation of civilians took place from Helsinki, Vupuri, Tampere and Turku, as well as from districts adjacent to the Russo-Finnish frontier. A number of decrees were signed by President Kallio on Oct. 15, . . . including the enforcement of obligatory national service on all citizens between the ages of 18 and 60″.
(‘Keesing’s Contemporary Archives’, Volume 3; ibid; p. 3,773).

On 26 November Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov handed to the Finnish Minister in Moscow, Baron Aarno Yrjo-Koskinen*, a strongly worded note, saying:

“Our troops posted on the Karelian Isthmus, in the vicinity of the village of Mainila, were the object today, November 26, at 3.45 p.m., of unexpected artillery fire from Finnish territory. In all, seven cannon-shots were fired, killing three privates and one non-commissioned officer. . . . The Soviet troops . . . did not retaliate.
The Soviet Government are obliged to declare now that the concentration of Finnish troops in the vicinity of Leningrad not only constitutes a menace to Leningrad, but is in fact an act hostile to the USSR, which has already resulted in aggression against the Soviet troops and caused casualties. . . . .
The Government of the USSR have no intention of exaggerating the importance of this revolting act . . ., but they desire that revolting acts of this nature shall not be committed in future”.
(‘The Development of Finnish-Soviet Relations . . .’; op. cit.; p. 70-71).

The Soviet government therefore proposed:

“That the Finnish Government should, without delay, withdraw their troops on the Karelian Isthmus from the frontier to a distance of 20-25 km., and thus preclude all possibility of a repetition of provocative acts”.
(‘The Development of Finnish-Soviet Relations . . .’; op. cit.; p. 71).

The Finnish government replied on 27 November, denying that their troops had been responsible for the incident complained of and proposing, firstly, that discussions should take place on the mutual withdrawal of both Finnish and Soviet troops from the frontier and, secondly, that a joint inquiry should be held into the incident:

“It is my duty to reject your protest and to state that Finland has committed no hostile act against the USSR such as you allege.
Although there are no concrete grounds for withdrawing the troops from the frontier-line, as you propose, my Government is prepared, none the less, to open conversations with a view to the mutual withdrawal of troops to a certain distance from the frontier. . . .
My Government propose that the frontier commissioners of the two countries on the Karelian Isthmus should be instructed to carry out a joint inquiry into the incident in question.”
(‘The Development of Finnish-Soviet Relations . . . ‘; op. cit.; p. 72-73).

On 28 November, Molotov handed a further Note to the Finnish Minister stating that, in view of the conduct of the Finnish government, the Soviet government considered the non-aggression pact between the two countries signed in 1932 to be null and void:

“In concentrating a large number of regular troops in the immediate vicinity of Leningrad and subjecting that important vital centre of the USSR to a direct threat, the Finnish Government have committed a hostile act against the USSR which is incompatible with the Treaty of Non-Aggression concluded between the two States. The refusal of the Finnish Government, after the criminal artillery fire directed at the Soviet troops, to withdraw their troops a distance of 20-25 km., shows that the Finnish Government desire to persist in their hostile attitude towards the USSR. . . . In consequence, the Government of the USSR are obliged to state that they consider themselves, as from today, released from the obligations ensuing from the Treaty of Non-Aggression concluded between the USSR and Finland”.
(‘The Development of Finnish-Soviet Relations . . . , ; op. cit,.; p. 74).

On the following day, 29 November, Molotov handed a further Note to Yrjo-Koskinen complaining that Finnish attacks on Soviet troops were continuing and effectively breaking off diplomatic relations with Finland:

“Attacks on Soviet troops by Finnish troops are known to be continuing, not only on the Karelian Isthmus, but also at other parts of the frontier between the USSR and Finland. The Government of the USSR can no longer tolerate such a situation. As a result of the situation thus created, . . . the Government of the USSR . . . find themselves compelled to recall their political and economic representatives from Finland”.
(‘The Development of Finnish-Soviet Relations . . .’ ; op. cit.; p. 75).

The above version of the facts — that the Finnish armed forces were the instigators of the frontier incidents which had occurred — was confirmed by the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in February 1945:

“The Finnish war began in the following way. . . . Some Russian frontier guards were shot at by the Finns and killed. . . . The frontier guard detachment complained to the Red Army troops. . . . Moscow was asked for instructions. These contained the order to return the fire”. (W. S. Churchill: ‘The Second World War’, Volume 6: ‘Triumph and Tragedy’; London; 1954; p. 317-18).

More than twenty-five years after Stalin’s death, most Soviet sources agree that the war was initiated by Finnish forces.

For example, the ‘Great Soviet Encyclopaedia’, published in the 1980s, asserts:

“The Finnish militarists on November 26 entered the path of military provocations at the border. .
On November 29 Finnish troops again staged provocative actions at the border. In response, the forces of the Leningrad Military District . . . launched an offensive on the morning of November 30″.
(‘Great Soviet Encyclopaedia’, Volume 24; New York; 1980; p. 352).

Marshal Kirill Meretskov* confirms that it was the Finns who began hostilities:

“The reckless leaders of bourgeois Finland involved their people in a dangerous political gamble . . . The Finnish leaders . . . were encouraged by the promises of the imperialist powers to assist them with troops and equipment. . .
The Moscow proposal was rejected and our frontier guards received replies in the form of shots. .
On November 26 (1939 — Ed.) I received an urgent report that the Finns had opened artillery fire on Soviet frontier guards near the village of Mainila, killing four and wounding nine men. . Instructions came to prepare a counter-attack. I was given a week to make ready, but in effect the time was reduced to four days, because Finnish detachments crossed the frontier at several points and infiltrated groups of saboteurs behind our lines. . . . At 0800 hours on November 30th regular Red Army forces launched operations to repel the anti-Soviet actions and the Soviet-Finnish War was on”.
(K. A. Meretskov: ‘Serving the People’; Moscow; 1971; p. 102, 103, 108-09).

and Marshal Nikolay Voronov confirms:

“On November 30th fighting provoked by the White Finns broke out”.
(N. V. Voronov: ‘At the Karelian Isthmus’, in: S. Bialer (VA.): ‘Stalin and His Generals’; Epping; 1984; p. 132).

Furthermore, when war broke out again between Finland (now a co-belligerent of Nazi Germany) and the Soviet Union in 1941 — a war known officially and significantly in Finland as the ‘Continuation War’ — it was clear to most observers that Finnish charges that the Soviet Union initiated the conflict were false. The ‘Continuation War’ is discussed in a later section of this chapter.

The Morality of the War (1939-40)

Marxist-Leninists maintain that some wars are just, while some are unjust:

“The Bolsheviks held that there are two kinds of war:
a) Just wars, wars that are not wars of conquest but wars of liberation, waged to defend people from foreign attack and from attempts to enslave them, or to liberate people from capitalist slavery, or, lastly, to liberate colonies and dependent countries from the yoke of imperialism, and;
b) Unjust wars, wars of conquest, waged to conquer and enslave foreign countries and foreign nations.”
(‘History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union’; Moscow; 1939; p. 167-68).

The question of which side fired the first shot is, to Marxist-Leninists, irrelevant to the determination of the character of a war:

“The question as to which group dealt the first military blow is of no importance in determining the tactics of the socialists”.
(V. I. Lenin: Conference of the Sections of the RSDLP Abroad, in: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 5; London; 1933; p. 132).

The question of whether a war is just or unjust is determined objectively, assert Marxist-Leninists, by the effect of that war on the historical development of society towards socialism. If it helps forward that development, it is a just war; if it holds back that development, it is an unjust war:

“We Marxists differ both from pacifists and Anarchists in that we recognise the necessity of a historical study of each war individually, from the point of view of Marx’s dialectical materialism. There have been wars in history which, notwithstanding all the horrors, cruelties, miseries and tortures inevitably associated with every war, had a progressive character, i.e., they served the development of mankind”.
(V. I. Lenin: ‘Socialism and War’, in: ‘Collected Works’, Volume 18; London; n.d; p. 219).

In particular, a war being waged by a socialist state in which the working people hold political power, against a capitalist state is a just war irrespective of who fired the first shot:

“The Soviet Union is the true fatherland of the proletariat. . . This obliges the international proletariat . . . to defend the country of proletarian dictatorship by every means. . . . In the event of . . . a war against it, the international proletariat must answer by bold and resolute . . . alliance with the Soviet Union”.
(Programme of the Communist International, in: J. Degras (Ed.): “Documents of the Communist International;”1919-1943: Volume 2; London, 197l; p. 512-13).

Some Soviet writers agree with official Finnish sources that Soviet forces initiated the Soviet-Finnish War. For example, Nikita Khrushchev says in his memoirs:

“If they (the Finnish government – Ed.) didn’t yield to our ultimatum, we would take military action. . . . This was Stalin’s idea. . . . .
We had fired our salvo, and the Finns had replied with artillery fire of their own. De facto the war had begun. .
(N. S. Khrushchev: ‘Khrushchev Remembers;’, Volume 1; London; 1971; p. 152).

Nevertheless, Khrushchev, at the time of writing, retained a sufficiently superficial Marxism-Leninism, to recognise that this was not relevant to the character of the Soviet-Finnish war and that this was being fought, on the Soviet side, purely for necessary defensive purposes and was a just war:

“We had to guarantee the security of Leningrad, which was within artillery range of the Finnish border and could easily have been shelled from Finnish territory. Moreover, the Finnish government was following policies hostile to the Soviet Union. It was demonstrably flirting with Hitlerite Germany. The Finnish commander in chief, Carl Mannerhein, was a former tsarist general and a sworn enemy of the Soviet Union, Vaino Tanner was an old Social Democrat, but he remained an irreconcilable foe of our Marxist-Leninist ideology until the end of his days. Consequently, Finland represented a real threat to us because its territory could be used by more powerful governments; and it was therefore sensible, indeed crucial, for the Soviet State to take steps to protect Leningrad. . .
Our only goal was to protect our security in the North. . . . Our sole consideration was security — Leningrad was in danger”.
(N. S. Khrushchev: ibid,; p. 150-51. 152).

Indeed, many Western international lawyers accept the view that a state may legitimately intervene in another state where such intervention is necessary to its self-preservation.
Thomas Lawrence* writes in his ‘The Principles of International Law’:

“Interventions . . . are technical violations of the right of independence. . . . Yet in certain circumstances International Law may excuse, or even approve of them. .
The duty of self-preservation is even more sacred than the duty of respecting the independence of others, If the two clash, a state naturally acts on the former.”
(T. J. Lawrence: ‘The Principles of International Law’; Boston; 1915; p. 127).

and Joseph Starke*, in his ‘Introduction to International Law’, agrees:

“The following are, baldly expressed, the principal exceptional cases in which it is claimed that a state has at international law a legitimate right of intervention:
self-defence, if intervention is necessary to meet the danger of an actual armed attack”.
(J. G. Starke: ‘Introduction to International Law’; London; 1989; p. 105).

Many prominent Westerners who were not international lawyers agreed that the Soviet war with Finland was a just war. For example, the writer George Bernard Shaw* wrote in the ‘Daily Mail’ in December 1939, while the Soviet-Finnish War was still in progress:

“Finland has been misled by a very foolish Government. She should have accepted Russia’s offer for a readjustment of territory. She should have been a sensible neighbour. Finland would probably not have refused the Russian offer had she been acting on her own. .
No Power could tolerate a frontier from which a town such as Leningrad could be shelled, when she knows that the Power on the other side of the frontier . . . is being made by a foolish Government to act in the interests of other and greater powers menacing her security.
In Russia’s view, Finland can have no defensible objection to carrying out the exchange of territories which Russia had asked of her unless she is allowing herself to be used by America or the Western Powers”.
(G. B. Shaw, in: ‘Daily Mail’, 2 December 1939; p. 6).

Even Winston Churchill, who had savagely condemned Soviet ‘aggression’ against Finland at the time, changed his view after 1941:

“In the days of the Russo-Finnish war I had been sympathetic to Finland, but I had turned against her since she came into the war against the Soviets. Russia must have security for Leningrad and its approaches. The position of the Soviet Union as a permanent naval and air power in the Baltic must be assured”.
(W. S. Churchill: ‘The Second World War’, Volume 6: Triumph And Tragedy’; London; 1954; p. 318).

The League of Nations Acts (1939)

On 2 December, one day after the full-scale Soviet-Finnish War began, Eino Holsti*, the Finnish delegate to the League of Nations, handed a letter to Joseph Avenol*, Secretary-General of the League, complaining that:

“. . the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics . . . unexpectedly attacked on the morning of November 30, 1939″.
(‘The Development of Finnish-Soviet Relations . . .’; op. cit.; p. 77).

and requesting a meeting of the Council and Assembly of the League:

“To ask them to take the necessary measures to put an end to the aggression”.
(‘The Development of Soviet-Finnish Relations . . .’; op. cit.; p. 77).

The League had taken no effective action against countless acts of aggression by Germany, Italy and Japan. But now that the charge was directed against the Socialist Soviet Union, the League sprang speedily into action.

The Secretary-General responded by summoning an immediate meeting of the Assembly and Council (the outbreak of the Second World War on 23 September had produced no meeting).

The initiative was taken by non-belligerent states which supported Finland. The ‘Times’ expressed the motive behind this strategy:

“It is felt that the move (for the expulsion of the USSR — Ed.) had best be made by thoroughly disinterested neutrals. The moral judgment involved would be all the more effective if the belligerents themselves confined themselves to supporting disinterested parties”.
(‘Times’, 9 December 1939; p. 6).

A special committee was set up to consider the Soviet-Finnish dispute. Its members were: Britain, Canada, Egypt, India, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Siam, Sweden, Uruguay and Venezuela. The Soviet Union and Finland –parties to the dispute — did not vote; Peru and Iran were absent, while China, Greece and Yugoslavia abstained from voting. Thus seven states — one half of the Council — voted for the expulsion of the Soviet Union.

As Vernon Bartlett* expressed it in the ‘News Chronicle’:

“The League members are not unanimously happy about the expulsion of Russia.”
(‘News Chronicle’, 15 December 1939; p. 2).

The ‘New York Times’ describes the manner in which, in these circumstances, the expulsion of the Soviet Union from the League of Nations was stage managed:

“With this division of opinion, the business of getting a unanimous vote or anything like it looked extremely precarious. But that astute and forceful presiding officer Carl J. Hambro’ . . . . managed it majestically. .
As soon as the last of the speakers sat down, he announced:
‘The Assembly will have taken note of all the declarations that have been made. I do not think, therefore, that it is necessary to take a vote by roll-call. If there are no observations to the contrary, the Assembly will vote according to the ordinary method’.
He barely paused for breath, and added:
‘There being no observations to the contrary, I will ask all delegates who are in favour of the report to remain seated’.
It would have taken a brave man to have risen to his feet at that moment and so proclaim himself in favour of Russia. No one moved”.
(‘New York Times’, 15 December 1939; p. 15).

On 14 December 1939 the Assembly of the League adopted a resolution to the effect that it:

“. solemnly condemns the action taken by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics”.
(‘The Development of Finnish-Soviet Relations . . ‘ ; op. cit.; p. 110).

while later the same day the Council of the League adopted a resolution to the effect that it:

“1. Associates itself with the condemnation by the Assembly of the action of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics against the Finnish State, and . . . . .
2. Finds that, by its act, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics . . has placed itself outside the League of Nations”.
(‘The Development of Finnish-Soviet Relations . . ‘ ; op. cit.; p. 111).

The Finnish Democratic Republic (1939-40)

On 1 December 1939 a Provisional People’s Government of the Finnish Democratic Republic was set up at Terijoki, on Finnish territory occupied by the Red Army, with the Finnish Communist Otto Kuusinen- as its Prime Minister and People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs.

In a proclamation to the Finnish people, the People’s Government declared that it regarded itself merely as a provisional government:

“The People’s Government in its present composition regards itself as a provisional government. Immediately upon arrival in Helsinki, capital of the country, it will be reorganised and its composition enlarged by the inclusion of representatives of the various parties and groups participating in the people’s front of toilers. The final composition of the People’s Government, its powers and actions, are to be sanctioned by a Diet elected on the basis of universal equal direct suffrage by secret ballot”.
(W. P. & Z. K. Coates: ‘Russia, Finland and the Baltic; London; 1940; p.114.)

and that its primary task was the rout of the Finnish ‘White Guards’, the conclusion of peace and the establishment of friendly relations with the Soviet Union:

“The People’s Government of Finland regards as its primary task the overthrow of the Government of the Finnish White Guards, the rout of its armed forces, the conclusion of peace, and the ensuring of the independence and security of Finland by means of establishing lasting friendly relations with the Soviet Union”.
(W. P. & Z.K. Coates: op. cit.; p. 114-15).

Finally, the proclamation summarised the programme of the People’s Government, which was broadly progressive but not socialist:

“The creation of a People’s Army of Finland.
The establishment of State control over large private banks and large
industrial enterprises and realisation of measures for assisting medium and petty enterprises.
The realisation of measures for the complete elimination of unemployment.
The reduction of the working day to eight hours, with a provision for two weeks’ summer holidays and a reduction in house rents for workers and employees.
The confiscation of the lands belonging to big landlords, without touching the lands and properties of the peasants, and the transference of the confiscated land to peasants having no land or possessing small allotments.
The exemption of peasants from the payment of tax.
State assistance in every form for the improvement of the farms of the poor peasants, in the first place by allotting to them additional land, pastures and, when possible, also forests for their domestic needs, from lands confiscated from large landowners.
The democratisation of the State organisation, administration and courts.
The increase of State subsidies for cultural needs and the reorganisation of schools to ensure the possibility of attendance at schools to children of workers and other needy people; also assistance for the development of public education, science, literature and arts in a progressive spirit”.
(W. P. & Z. Coates: op.Cit; p. 115).

On the day after its formation, on 2 December, the Soviet government signed a treaty with the government of the Finnish Democratic Republic. The main provisions of this treaty, which correspond closely to the proposals made by the Soviet government during the Soviet-Finnish negotiations, are summarised by Vaino Tanner in his book ‘The Winter War’:

“The first article:
relates to the incorporation into the territory of the Finnish Democratic Republic of areas in Soviet Karelia the extent of which comes to 70,000 square kilometres. . . . On the other hand, Finland declares its readiness to effect certain adjustments of the frontier on the Karelian Isthmus, from Leningrad toward the north, ceding an area of 3,970 square kilometres, in return for which the Soviet Union compensates Finland in the amount of 120 million marks for the value of the railway inventory which is now on the Karelian Isthmus and which is to be removed to the Soviet Union.
(The second article:) Finland declares its readiness
(a) to cede to the Soviet Union for a period of thirty years the Hanko Peninsula and the surrounding waters . . and a number of islands lying to the south and east . . ., for the creation there of a military and naval base such as will be in a position to defend from attack the Gulf of Finland, as a guarantee for the security of Finland and of the Soviet Union. at which time there will be granted to the Soviet Union . . the right to maintain there at its own expense a precisely defined number of land and air forces.
(b) to sell to the Soviet Union the following islands in the Gulf of Finland: Suursari, Seiskari, Lavansaari, Tytarsaari, and Great and Little Koivisto; also those portions of the Rybachi Peninsula and of the Keskisaari Peninsula on the shore of the Arctic Ocean which belong to Finland; all at an agreed price of 300,000 marks.
The third article:)
The Soviet Union and the Finnish Democratic Republic obligate themselves to furnish each to the other all aid, including military aid, in the event that any European power attacks, or threatens to attack, the Soviet Union through Finnish territory.
(Under the fourth article the parties undertook to refrain from . participating in any combinations aimed against the other party to the treaty).
(The fifth article:) The parties to the treaty have agreed that they will at an early date conclude a trade agreement and increase the annual exchange of commodities between the two countries considerably above the level of . . . 800 million marks.
(In the sixth article the Soviet Union undertook to supply the Finnish People’s Army on easy terms with arms and other military necessities).
(The seventh article:) The period of duration of this treaty . . shall be 25 years. . “
(Treaty between Finnish Democratic Republic and Soviet Union, in: V. Tanner: op. cit.; p. 102-03).

Western sources portray the Finnish Democratic Republic as a mere puppet government, without any popular support. In fact, as we have seen, Finland had already had a socialist revolution and this had been crushed only with massive foreign help. But socialist feelings, and feelings of sympathy for the Socialist Soviet Union, among the Finnish working people was still strong even after the Soviet-Finnish War of 1939-40:

“On 22 May (1940– Ed.) a formal meeting . . launched the ‘Finland-Soviet Union Peace and Friendship Society’ — generally known as SNS. . . . .
It met a genuine public demand; meetings in Helsinki and the provinces were packed out, and in only five months SNS had recruited some 35,000 paying members in 115 local branches, in the face of every kind of official obstruction. . . SKP (the Communist Party of Finland — Ed.) rightly claims that this shows the existence in Finland of a substantial body of opinion which welcomed friendly relations with the Soviet Union.
On 23 December the courts declared that SNS was an illegal organisation”.
(A. F. Upton: ‘The Communist Parties of Scandinavia and Finland’; London; 1973; p. 225-26, 229-30).

But, when the existing Finnish government sued for peace, the Soviet Marxist-Leninists, having no desire to conquer Finland but only to make its own frontiers more secure, were happy to make peace and the Finnish Democratic Republic wound itself up.

The War (1939-40)

In April 1939 Boris Shaposhnikov*, Chief of the Soviet General Staff, was:

“Ordered to prepare plans for the event of a military clash with Finland”.
(I). Spring: ‘Stalin and the Winter War’, in: ‘Yearbook of Finnish Foreign Policy: 1990′; Helsinki; 1990; p. 39).

Shaposhnikov concluded that a military defeat of Finland would be:

“A far from simple operation and one that would require not less than several months of tense fighting, even if the imperialist powers did not participate directly in the conflict”.
(K. A. Meretskov: op. cit.; p. 10506).

In June 1939 the Chief Military Council, chaired by People’s Commissar for Defence, Kliment Voroshilov*, rejected Shaposhnikov’s views and plans as too pessimistic. Voroshilov was backed in this view by Mekhlis*, head of the Political Directorate of the Red Army:

“While Mekhlis* as head of the Red Army’s Political Directorate, undoubtedly encouraged the view that the war would be a walkover, his views should not be taken as simply reflecting the outlook on the matter in November 1939 of Stalin”.
(D. Spring; op. cit.; p. 40).

Kyrill Meretskov, then Commander of the Leningrad Military District, was then ordered to prepare new plans for possible war with Finland, making use of the resources of the Leningrad Military District only. Meretskov objected that:

“A few weeks for an operation on such a scale were not enough”.
(K. A. Meretskov, in: D. Spring: op. cit.; p. 39).

Voronov agreed with Shaposhnikov and Meretskov that a campaign against Finland would be a more difficult one than Voroshilov and Mekhlis conceived:

“Stalin knew that there had been arguments about the difficulty of the campaign in the Military Council. Shaposhnikov, Meretskov and Voronov had all warned that the campaign should be taken seriously”.
(D. Spring: op. cit.; p. 40).

When events revealed that Voroshilov had encouraged an underestimation of Finnish military strength, Stalin (according to Khrushchev) ‘justifiably’ placed the main blame on Voroshilov:

“Stalin was furious with the military, and with Voroshilov –justifiably, in my opinion. . . . Voroshilov deserved to bear the brunt of the blame for the way the Finnish war was going.”
(N. S. Khrushchev: op. cit, ; p. 154).

As a result, Stalin:

“Rearranged the entire leadership of his armies”.
(E. Engle & L. Paananen: ‘The Winter War: The Russo-Finnish Conflict: 1939-40′; London; 1973; p. 121).

On the Finnish front, Marshal Semyon Timoshenko, until then Commander of the North Caucasus, Kharkov and Kiev Military Districts, was:

“Put in charge of our troops in the Karelian Isthmus, replacing Meretskov”.
(N. S. Khrushchev: op. cit.; p. 154),

“General Timoshenko was appointed to be in charge of the ‘southern front’, as it became known “.
(E. 0′Ballance: ‘The Red Army’; London; 1964; p. 150).

While Meretskov was demoted to command of the 7th Army alone. Later, on 8 May 1940 Voroshilov was demoted from People’s Commissar for Defence to the newly created post of Chairman of the government’s Defence Council, and at the same time made a Vice-Premier, being replaced as People’s Commissar for Defence by Timoshenko:

“Voroshilov ended up by being relieved of his duties as People’s Commissar for Defence”. (N. S. Khrushchev: op. cit.; p. 154).

The difficulties experience by the Red Army in its war with Finland were due:

In the first place to the fact that the Soviet troops had to break through or outflank an extremely strong line of fortifications built across the Karelian Isthmus in the form of the ‘Mannerheim Line’:

“Unlike the Maginot Line, the Mannerheim positions are not a string of great fortresses, the loss of any one of which would rob its defenders of enormous strength.
They are rather a series of trench and machine-gun positions ranged behind waves of anti-tank barriers made of granite blocks. Only a small part is formed of concrete gun positions and pill- boxes. The waves of defences stretch right back across the twenty miles from Summa to Viipuri”.
(‘Daily Express’, 21 February 1940; p. 6).

“These fortifications consisted of an advanced zone, three to eight miles deep, along the Soviet border, containing pillboxes and blockhouses, equipped with machine guns, anti-tank guns and field artillery, and guarded by tank traps, barbed wire and land mines. A second zone — the main one — ran in a wide arc from its western anchor’, Koivisto fortress. .
This zone was narrower along the eastern . . . sector (about two miles) and much wider (six or seven miles) in the centre and on the gulf sector. It consisted mainly of ferro-concrete fortifications armed with heavier artillery, each fort capable of independent defensive action. The larger forts measured some 30 by 50 feet with walls five feet thick, often protected with armour plate and embedded in the ground to depths reaching 25 feet. All were protected by traps, mines, wire and trenches.
The important railroad junction of Viipuri, with its five railroad lines, was protected by a special fortified zone (the third zone) some 25 miles in circumference. Further west were two separate fortified zones — Helsinki and Turku”.
(W. P. & Z. K. Coates: ‘The Soviet Finnish Campaign: Military and Political: 1939-1940′; London; 1940; op. 17-18).

“The second line of the Mannerheim fortified zone is described here (in Helsinki — Ed.) as even stronger and better situated for defence than the corresponding part of the first line.” (‘Times’, 29 February 1940; p. 8).

Indeed, many Western military experts insisted that the Mannerheim Line was ‘almost impregnable’:

“It is quite probable that the Red Army will never breach the Mannerheim Line in the Karelian Isthmus”.
(‘Times’, 19 December 1939; p. 8).

“As an old campaigner in Finland, I can state that it will be almost impossible for the Russians to break through the Mannerheim defences by a frontal attack”.
(‘Daily Telegraph’, 27 January 1940; p. 1)

“Even in the unlikely case that the Russians were able to get a hold on some of the advanced positions in the Mannerheim Line, they would still have an almost impregnable chain of strong points to overrun before they were through”
(‘Times’, 13 February 1940; p. 6).

and Mannerheim himself told his troops on 17 February 1940:

“You may rest assured the enemy will never succeed in breaking our lines.”
(‘Observer’, 13 February 1940; p. 9).

Secondly, the war was fought in extremely difficult conditions of terrain and climate:

“Just now the operations in the far north around Petsamo are for the most part being conducted in darkness; while in the centre, opposite the head of the Gulf of Bothnia, daylight is only a matter of a couple of hours of twilight at midday”.
(‘Times’, 22 December 1939; p. 7).

“The roads were so slippery that our car skidded into the ditch three times, which delayed us considerably but gave us a small idea of what the mechanised Russian units were up against”.
(‘Sunday Times’, 4 February 1940; p. 11).

“Blizzards driving across the Karelian Isthmus and Lake Ladoga have come again to the aid of the Finns in their bitter and gruelling fight to maintain their positions in the Mannerheim Line. . . . Riding and skiing are reduced to the minimum, and almost every sort of transport is at a standstill”.
(‘Times’, 23 February 1940; p. 8).

Until almost the last day of the war, Western press reports from Finland gave the impression that the Red Army was being ignominously defeated. Winston Churchill, then First Lord of theAdmiralty, declared in a broadcast on 20 January 1940:

“Finland . . . shows what free men can do. . . . They have exposed for all the world to see the military incapacity of the Red Army and Air Force. . . .
Everyone can see how Communism rots the soul of a nation.”
(‘Keesing’s Contemporary Archives’, Volume 3; op. cit.; p. 3,808).

Apart from political prejudice, another factor in the creation of this false picture of the Red Army’s campaign in Finland was that, in general, correspondents were kept well away from the fighting and forced to rely on official, but largely fictional, Finnish communiques.
George Steer*, the ‘Daily Telegraph’ special correspondent in Finland. reported from Helsinki on 17 February:

“By the end of the week the Isthmus offensive will have been raging for a fortnight. . . . I have not been to the front, nor has any other journalist, during that time.”
(‘Daily Telegraph’, 17 February 1940; p. 6).

and Virginia Cowles* cabled a similar story on 10 March:

“No foreign correspondent here in Finland is allowed to visit any front whatsoever when a battle is taking place. All correspondents have been barred from the Isthmus for over a month now. They must rely for their news on the official communique, which is handed out in Helsinki each evening.”
(‘Sunday Times’, 10 March 1940; p. 11).

Thus, when in early March 1940 the Finnish government sued for peace, this came as a surprise to much of world opinion, As G. Ward Price* wrote in the ‘Daily Mail’ on 14 March 1940:

“Public opinion in this country has been startled by the sudden collapse of the splendid Finnish resistance. Almost up to the last we were told that the Finns could hold on till the spring. But for some time the military censorship in Finland has been much stricter than at first and these optimistic expectations were based on insufficient knowledge of the facts at the front”.
(‘Daily Mail’, 14 March 1940; p. 6).

Some military writers, however, did present a more objective picture of the Red Army 5 campaign in Finland. For example, Major Arthur Hooper says in his study of the war:

“These attacks (on the ‘waistline’ of Finland — Ed.) were to draw off as many Finnish reserves as possible and to keep them occupied, and also to deceive the enemy as to the direction of the main offensive. . .
Two immediate preliminary actions were needed to operate this plan. The first was to take the forward zone of the Mannerheim Line in order to remove the artillery and air threat against the Soviet base at Leningrad and to provide space for the amassing of the forces for the great attack. The second was to take Petsamo, the only port the Finns possessed in the Arctic north, to prevent the possibility of intervention by a naval power. . . .
By December 6 this zone was occupied by the Red Army and two days later this army was in contact with the second zone, the main defence system of the Mannerheim Line. . . .
Meretskov’s plan was to make these thrusts, feigning to cut Finland in two, appear so real that the Finns would use their reserves and keep them in those areas in the north long enough for the main offensive on the Mannerheim Line to develop at the end of January. . . .
The Finnish High Command at once despatched some reserves from the south to meet these threats. .
The fierce six-day battle which took place confirmed the impression of the Finnish High Command that the Red Commander was shirking an issue on the Mannerheim Line itself and was trying to turn it from the north. Mannerheim sent some reserves to deal with this move of the Reds and the fighting went on in this battle for many days in February, . . . even during the great offensive of the Red Army on the Karelian Isthmus. The two divisions sent up from the reserves by the Finns were desperately needed later on”.
(A. S. Hooper: “The Soviet-Finnish War’; London; 1940; p. 9, 12-13, 14, 18),

Finally, at the beginning of February, the Red Army launched its main offensive against the Mannerheim Line:

“On February 2nd, 1940, after a heavy bombardment of artillery, supplemented from the air, the full weight of the infantry attack was launched on the Finnish right centre sector of the Mannerheim Line. . .
Tanks and troops advanced under a heavy smoke-screen. Infantry used armoured sledges, 9 feet long and 6 feet wide, with machine guns, and these were pushed forward over the snow by tanks. 130 heavy bombers and many pursuit planes cooperated. .
Day after day these attacks continued, apparently without a hitch, until the line of the Finns started to sag, to be dented, to crumble.
The Red forces gave no respite to the Finns. The pressure was relentless. On February 19th the Red Army was within four miles of Viipuri, while their left wing had reached the coast of Viipuri Bay, thus cutting off the powerful coastal fortress of Toivisto”.
(A. S. Hooper: ibid; p. 18, 20).

A terrific blizzard on the Karelian Isthmus from February 22 to 27 halted the Soviet offensive for a few days, but on the latter date it was resumed. By March 1, Viipuri was surrounded on three sides, and:

“By March 7, the Red left movements were . . . reaching even Kotka, from which a railway runs north to, join the main Helsinki-Viipuri line. This threatened to cut off the southern Finnish army from its base”.
(A. S. Hooper: ibid.; p. 22).

In its efforts to mobilise support for Finland in the Soviet-Finnish war, Western propaganda took great pains to misrepresent the Soviet war aims as embracing the conquest of the whole of Scandinavia:

“Stalin has gone too far to draw back now; and there cannot be any doubt that his vision looks beyond the lovely land of Finland to a Norwegian port on the Atlantic. What a prize Norvik would be!”,
(‘Strategicus’ in: ‘Spectator’, No. 5,824 (9 February 1940); p. 171).

“If Finland goes down, the Russians will march West and Sweden will take Finland’s place.” (‘Yorkshire Post’, 20 February 1940; p. 1).

The then-Finnish Foreign Minister Vaino Tanner declared:

“If in spite of all Finland’s efforts, the Russian masses should reach Tornea on the Swedish frontier, it is wrong to believe that they will stop there”.
(‘Daily Telegraph’, 19 February 1940; p. 7).

In contrast, Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov told the 6th Session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on 29 March 1940:

“Our Government, on its part, considers that the Soviet Union has no points of dispute with Sweden and Norway, and that Soviet-Swedish and Soviet-Norwegian relations should develop on the basis of friendship. As to rumours that the Soviet Union is demanding ports on the west coast of Scandinavia, claiming Narvik, etc., they are spread for anti-Soviet purposes and are so wild that they need no refutation”.
(V. M. Molotov: ‘Soviet Peace Policy’; London; 1941; p. 63-64).

Foreign Aid to Finland (1939-40)

The Soviet military victory over Finland was achieved in spite of substantial military aid to Finland from the capitalist world.

On 5 January 1940 it was announced in London:

“That articles of clothing and equipment originally meant for the British Expeditionary Force would be sent to Finland”.
(‘Keesing’s Contemorary Archives’, Volume 3; op. cit.; p. 3,868).

and in the same month:

“Export licences for the delivery to Finland of 30 Blenheim bombers were . . . granted by the British government”.
(‘Keesing’s Contemporary Archives’, Volume 3; op. cit.; p. 3,844).

Substantial quantities of weapons were, in fact, supplied to Finland by the Western Powers.
Details of British and French military aid to Finland were published on 22 February 1940:

“150 anti-tank rifles,
10,000 anti-tank mines,
50,000 hand grenades,
25 howitzers,
100 machine-guns,
large quantities of ammunition,
24 anti-aircraft guns,
30 field guns,
4 tanks,
12 6-inch guns,
10 trench mortars,
and equipment, clothing, respirators and tents”.
(‘Keesing’s Contemporary Archives’, Volume 3; op. cit.; p. 3,934).

In the British House of Commons on 19 March 1940, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain declared:

“No appeal that was made to us by the Finnish Government remained unanswered”. (Parliamentary Debates, 5th Series, Volume 358; op. cit.; col. 1,835).

He also gave a list of the material promised and sent to Finland:

“Aeroplanes promised, 152; actually sent, 101.
Guns of all kinds promised, 223; sent, 114.
Shells promised, 297,200; actually sent 185,000.
Vickers guns promised, 100; all sent.
Marine mines promised, 500; sent, 400.
Hand-grenades promised, 50,000; all sent.
Aircraft bombs promised, 20,700; sent, 15,700.
Signalling equipment promised, 1,300 sets; sent, 800.
Anti-tank rifles promised, 200; all sent.
Respirators promised, 60,000; all sent.
Greatcoats promised, 100,000; all sent.
Battledress suits promised, 100,000; all sent.
Anti-tank mines promised, 20,000; sent, 10,000.
Ambulances promised, 48; all sent.
The list includes many minor items such as medical stores, tents, equipment, sandbags, steel helmets, sand, etc., and also large quantities of small arms ammunition and, I may add, in fact, that arrangements were made here for the manufacture of very large supplies of ammunition and ammunition cases.”
(Parliamentary Debates, 5th Series, Volume 358; op. cit.; p. 1,836-37).

Although it was illegal under the Foreign Enlistment Act of 1870 for a British subject to serve in the forces of a foreign state, on 14 February 1940 it was announced in the House of Commons that:

“A general licence has been granted to British subjects to enlist in the Finnish forces”.
(Parliamentary Debates. 5th Series, Volume 357; op. cit.; p. 773).

According to a letter from C. T. Garrett, published in the ‘New Statesman’,

” 6,000 Swedish volunteers . . . came into action for the first time a week before the end of the war.
At the time of the peace negotiations there were not a dozen French and English volunteers in Finland. I could find only three English volunteers. Two were domiciled in Finland and had Finnish wives.”
(‘New Statesman’, Volume 19, No. 475 (New Series) (30 March 1940); p. 430).

By February 1939 it was clear that volunteers could not save from Finland from defeat. This could be achieved only if regular forces went to Finland’s aid. So, on 5 February 1940 (as Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain told the House of Commons on 19 March):

“. . . . those plans (for an Anglo-French Expeditionary Force — Ed.) were discussed and approved at a meeting of the Supreme War Council.. . .
The size of the force . . . was about 100,000 men, It was heavily armed and equipped”.
(Parliamentary Debates, 5th Series, Volume 358, House of Commons: London; 1940; col. 1,838, 1,839).

On 28 February 1940 it was announced that:

“President Roosevelt’s cousin, Major Kermit Roosevelt, who recently joined the British Army, will shortly resign his commission in the Middlesex Regiment to take command of the British Volunteer Brigade in Finland”.
(‘News Chronicle’, 29 February 1940; p. 1).

On 7 March 1940 General William Ironside* gave Marshal Mannerheim an account of the British forces being prepared to come to the assistance of Finland:

“The first echelon, consisting of a Franco-British division, . . . to be despatched to Narvik on March 15. . .
All these were crack troops.. ..
The second echelon would be composed of three British divisions, each of a strength of 14,000 men. . . .
The combined combatant strength thus numbered 57,500 men”.
(C. Mannerheim: op. cit.; p. 385-86).

However, the Allied governments were aware that:

“No effective expedition could arrive in Finland except by passing through Norway and Sweden”.
(Parliamentary Debates, 5th Series, Volume 358; op. cit.; col. 1,838).

and neither the Norwegian nor the Swedish governments were prepared to allow the passage of foreign troops through their territories. For this reason, in his last Order of the Day on 14 March 1940, Mannerheim attributed the defeat of the Finnish Army mainly to this refusal:

“The precious aid promised us by the Western Powers could not be realised, as our neighbours . . . would not permit the troops of the Western Powers to cross their territory”. (‘Keesing’s Contemporary Archives’, Volume 3; op. cit.; p. 3,973).

The fact that the Western Powers had been prepared to fight on to the last Finn was emphasised in a leading article in the ‘Times’ on 5 March:

“The whole sentiment of this country demands that Finland should not be allowed to fall”. (‘Times’, 5 March 1940; p. 9).

The lawyer and politician Denis Pritt* justly comments that the move to send military aid to Finland despite the fact that Britain was at war with Germany formed part of a move to switch the war against the Soviet Union:

“There is a definite aim to switch the war against the Soviet Union”
(D. N. Pritt: ‘Must the War spread?’; Harmondsworth; 1940; p. 169).

Casualties (1939-40)

Casualties in the Soviet-Finnish War were relatively high.

In his last Order of the Day, Mannerheim somewhat underestimated Finnish casualties (at 15,000) and greatly overestimated Soviet casualties (at 200,000):

“More than 15,000 of you who took the field will never again see your homes! . . . But . . . 200,000 of our enemies are now lying on snowdrifts, gazing with unseeing eyes at our starry sky”.
(‘Times’ 14 March 1940; p. 7).

Official figures of Finnish casualties were:

19,576 killed;
45,357 wounded.
(‘Keesing’s Contemporary Archives’, Volume 3; Bristol; 1940; p. 4,089).

Official figures of Soviet casualties were:

48,745 killed;
158,863 wounded.
(V. M. Molotov: Speech to 6th Session of Supreme Soviet of the USSR, 29 March 1940, in: ‘Soviet Peace Policy’; London; 1941; p. 57).

The Peace Negotiations (1940)

On 10 March a communique was issued in Helsinki stating that contact had recently been made between the (Ryti) government of Finland and the Soviet government, with Sweden acting as intermediary, and that on the invitation of the Soviet government a Finnish delegation had left Helsinki for Moscow on 6 March, consisting of Prime Minister Risto Ryti; Juho Paasikivi, General Karl Walden* and Professor Vaino Voionmaa.

“Once the Russians had broken through to the outskirts of Viipuri and had crossed the ice of Viipuri Bay to obtain a firm hold on its northwestern shores, the Finnish troops had poor cover in many places and were terribly punished.
This is why the Finnish High Command sent message after message to M. L. Ryti’s delegation in Moscow, urging peace immediately and at virtually any price. At that moment the Finnish defences were beginning to crack. .
A major military disaster seems to have been avoided only by the precipitate peace. Field Marshal Mannerheim’ s ‘secrecy’ policy had paid big dividends, for at that time no one in Finland save the leaders on her General Staff knew how desperate the Army’s situation had become”.
(‘Daily Telegraph’, 20 March 1940; p. 7).

Mannerheim records in his memoirs:

“On March 9th I felt compelled to give the government categorical advice to conclude peace. On March 11, the delegation in Moscow received full powers”.
(C. Mannerheim: ‘The Memoirs of Marshall Mannerheim”; London; 1953; p. 387).

In the case of the peace negotiations, as distinct from the pre-war negotiations,

“Stalin did not participate in any of the negotiations”.
(B. Engle & L. Paananen: op. cit.; p. 134).

The peace treaty ending the Soviet-Finnish War of 1939-40 was signed on 12 March 1940.

The peace terms which the Soviet government was now prepared to accept were more onerous than those offered before the war. Nevertheless:

“The peace terms were not, in the event, unduly harsh”.
(‘Times Review of the Year’s Events’, 2 January 1941; p. vi).

“The aim of the USSR pursued in the peace terms was to render her position in the Gulf of Leningrad secure and to make it impossible that Finland should ever be used (as she was in 1917-20) as a jumping-off ground for an attack on Leningrad”.
(W. P. & Z. K. Coates: 1940; Ibid; p. 133).

The anti-Soviet Foreign Minister Tanner confirmed that:

“No political demands . . . have been presented. The Soviet Union does not interfere in our internal politics. The Kuusinen government has been put on one side”.
(‘Keesing’s Contemporary Archives’, Volume 3; op. cit.; p. 3,594).

Stephen King-Hall*, in his ‘News-Letter’, admits:

“We did not believe the Russians when they declared that they wanted only certain strategical positions to secure their Baltic flank, but subsequent events have supported their contention”.
(S. King-Hall: ‘King-Hall News-Letter’, No. 223 (17 October 1940); p. 2-3).

and the Helsinki correspondent of the ‘Daily Telegraph’ wrote:

“Finland will maintain her independence, and there is no tendency in official quarters to believe that Russia will cease to respect it”.
(‘Daily Telegraph’, 27 March 1940; p. 5).

The Peace Treaty, in fact, provided that:

“Article 1:
Hostilities between the USSR and Finland shall cease immediately.

Article 2:
The State frontier between the USSR and the Republic of Finland shall be established along a new line in accordance with which the territory of the USSR will include the entire Karelian Isthmus with the town of Viipuri and Viipuri Bay with the Islands, the western and northern shores of Lake Ladoga with the towns of Kexholm, Sortavala, Suojarvi, a number of islands in the Gulf of Finland, the territory east of Merkjarvi with the town of Kuolajarvi, part of the Peninsulas of Rybachi and Sredni — in accordance with the map appended to this treaty.

Article 3:
Both Contracting Parties undertake mutually to refrain from any attack upon each other and not . . . to participate in coalitions directed against any one of the Contracting Parties.

Article 4:
The Republic of Finland expresses consent to lease to the Soviet Union for 30 years, for an annual payment by the Soviet Union of 8 million Finnish marks, the Peninsula of Hanko and the waters surrounding it . . . and a number of islands adjacent to it, in accordance with the appended map, for the purpose of establishing a naval base there capable of defending the entrance to the Gulf of Finland from aggression; for the purpose of protecting the naval base, the Soviet Union is granted the right to maintain there, at her own expense, land and air armed forces of the necessary strength. .

Article 5.
The USSR undertakes to withdraw her troops from the Petsamo Region, voluntarily ceded to Finland by the Soviet State in accordance with the Peace Treaty of 1920.
Finland undertakes, as provided by the Peace Treaty of 1920, not to maintain in the waters along her coast on the Arctic Ocean naval and other armed ships, excepting armed ships of less than 100 tons displacement which Finland has the right to maintain without restriction. She also has the right to maintain not more than 15 naval and other armed ships of a tonnage not exceeding 400 tons each.

Article 6:
As provided in the Treaty of 1920, the Soviet Union and her citizens are granted the right of unrestricted transit across the Petsamo Region to Norway and back. The Soviet Union is granted the right to establish a Consulate in the Petsamo Region.
Freights in transit across the Petsamo Region from the USSR to Norway, as . . . from Norway to the USSR, are exempted from inspection and control, excepting only such control as is necessary for regulating transit communications. .
Citizens of the USSR travelling across the Petsamo Region to Norway and back from Norway to the USSR have the right of unrestricted transit passage. .
Soviet unarmed aircraft have the right to maintain an air service between the USSR and Norway across the Petsamo Region. .

Article 7:
The Government of Finland grants the Soviet Union the right of transit of goods between the USSR and Sweden, and with the aim of developing this transit along the possible railway route, the USSR and Finland find it necessary to build, if possible in the course of 1940, each party on its territory, a railway line connecting the town of Kandalaksha with the town of Kemijarvi.

Article 8:
When this Treaty comes into force, economic relations between the Contracting Parties will be restored and . . . the Contracting Parties will start negotiations for the conclusion of a trade treaty.”
(Soviet-Finnish Peace Treaty of 1940, in: U. P. & Z. Coates: op. cit.; p. 168-70).

On 29 March 1940 Molotov told the Supreme Soviet of the USSR:

“The meaning of the war . . . in Finland . . . lay in the necessity for safeguarding the security of the north-western frontiers of the Soviet Union and above all of the safeguarding of the security of Leningrad. .
The Soviet Union smashed the Finnish Army and having every opportunity of occupying the whole of Finland, did not do so and did not demand any indemnities for her war expenses, as any other power would have done, but confined her demands to the minimum.
We pursued no other object in the Peace Treaty but that of safeguarding the security of Leningrad, Murmansk and the Murmansk railway”.
(V. M. Molotov: Speech to the 6th Session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, in: ‘Soviet Peace Policy’; op. cit.; p. 52-53. 62).

The Peace Negotiations (1944-48)

As, during 1944, the German army was forced into retreat from the occupied territories, so the pressure for peace with the Soviet Union grew in Finland.

On l7 March 1944, the Soviet terms for an armistice were handed to the Finnish government, which on 17 March:

“Gave a negative reply”.
(Keesing’s Contemporary Archives”, Volume 5 Op. cit.; p. 6,361).

However, on 7 September 1944 a Finnish delegation — consisting of Prime Minister Hackzell, pefence Minister General Rudolf Walden, Chief of Staff General Erik Heinrichs, and Lieutenant-eneral Oscar Enckell — arrived in Moscow to negotiate armistice terms. The negotiations began on 14 September and were concluded on 19 September, when the armistice was formally signed.

Its principal provisions were:

“1. Finland to withdraw her troops behind the 1940 frontier;
2. Finland to disarm all German land, naval and air forces still on Finnish territory after Sept. 15; to hand them over to the Allied High Command as prisoners of war . . . ; and to intern all German and Hungarian nationals in Finland;
3. Finland to make available to the Allied High Command airfields on the south and south-west coasts of Finland as bases for Soviet aircraft during the period necessary for air operations against German forces;
4. Finland to place her army on a peace footing within two-and-a-half months of the signature of the armistice;
5. Finland, having broken off all relations with Germany, to break relations with Germany’s satellites;
6. Restoration of the Soviet-Finnish peace treaty of March 12, 1940, subject to the changes in the present agreement;
7. Finland to return to the USSR the Petsamo area . . . voluntarily ceded to Finland by the USSR . . . ;
8. The Soviet Union renounces its rights to the lease of the Hanko Peninsula. . . . Finland in return to make available to the USSR, on lease, territory and waters necessary for the establishment of a Soviet naval and air base in the area of Porkala-Udd . . . ;
9. The agreement concerning the (demilitarisation of the — Ed.) Aaland Islands, concluded between the USSR and Finland on 0ctober 11, 1940, to be restored;
10. Finland to immediately transfer to the Allied High Command for repatriation to their homelands all Allied . . . prisoners of war and nationals in her hands. . . . Finnish prisoners of war and nationals in Allied hands to be repatriated to Finland;
11. Finland to indemnify the USSR for losses caused by military operations and the occupation of Soviet territory to the amount of $300,000,000 (Pounds sterling 75,000), payable over six years in commodities, . .;
12. Finland to collaborate with the Allies in apprehending and bringing to trial war criminals. . . .
22. Finland immediately to dissolve all Fascist and pro-Fascist organisations, whether political, military or para-military, . . . and not to permit their existence in the future”. (‘Keesing ‘s Contemporary Archives’, Volume 5; p 6,720).

The peace terms were regarded in the West as ‘moderate’:

“The Russian peace terms were warmly welcomed in London and Washington for their moderation”.
(‘Keesing ‘s Contemporary Archives’, Volume 5; op. cit; p. 6,360).

On 4 March 1945, in accordance with the Soviet demands, Finland declared that it had been in a state of war with Germany since 15 September 1944,

” . when the Germans opened hostilities by attacking the Finnish garrison on the island of Suursari (Hogland) in the Gulf of Finland”.
(‘Keesing’s Contemporary Archives’, Vo1ume 5; op. cit.; p. 7,263).

Later in September 1945, a special court for the trial of war criminals was set up, and on 6 November nine prominent Finnish politicians, including Ryti and Tanner, were arrested.

On 11 October 1945 it was announced that:

“On hearing about Finland’s critical economic situation, Marshal Stalin had offered her a prolongation of the period for the payment of reparations from six to eight years.”
(‘Keesing’s Contemporary Archives’, Volume 5 ; op. cit.; p. 6,844).

In November 1945 – February 1946 eight Finnish politicians, including former President Risto Ryti, former Premiers Johan Rangell and Edwin Linkomies, and former Finance Minister Vaino Tanner, were tried on charges:

“Either of promoting the entry of Finland into the war in 1941, or of preventing the conclusion of peace, or both”.
(‘Keesing’s Contemporary Archives’, Volume 5 ; op. cit.; p. 9,341).

All the accused were found guilty and sentenced to terms of imprisonment.
On 10 February 1947 the Peace Treaty between Finland and the Allied Powers was signed in Paris.

On 27 February 1948 it was officially announced:

“that Marshal Stalin, in a letter to President Paasikivi, had proposed the conclusion of a mutual assistance pact between Finland and the USSR”.
(‘Keesing’s Contemporary Archives’, Volume 6; p. 9,158).

The proposal was accepted by the Finnish government on 8 March 1948, and the pact was signed on 6 April 1948.

Conclusion

That fact that it took the Red Army several months to defeat the Finnish forces was used in many quarters to denigrate the efficiency of the Red Army. As Edgar 0′Ballance* puts it:

“The picture spread abroad was that of an inefficient, bumbling, primitive army, which only with difficulty had managed to subdue a poorly armed foe, one-fifth of its size. . . . This view was widely and gladly accepted, because it was what many people wanted to believe.”
(E. O’Ballance: op cit.; p. 152).

In fact, testifies O’Ballance:

“The strategical plan . . . was reasonably sound. .
Mass assaults were continually going on night and day. To keep this up for four weeks . . . was in itself an extraordinary performance. .
The Red Army soldier came out of this campaign magnificently, and his bravery, his endurance and his fortitude in the face of deadly fire, on short rations and under extreme climatic conditions was amazing. He had warm clothing (contrary to what is frequently alleged”.
(E. O’Ballance: op. cit.; p. 152, 153, 154).

Major Arthur Hooper, in his detailed study of the Soviet-Finnish war, goes even further:

“General Meretskov’s plan, well conceived and boldly executed, was on a scale worthy of the past great masters of the art of war”.
(A. S. Hooper: ‘The Soviet-Finnish Campaign’; London; 1940; p. 24).

and the Military Correspondent of ‘Tribune’ declares:

“In the main attack on the Mannerheim Line there were no indications of serious military weaknesses. The artillery preparation and support was clearly very heavy; there was no relaxation of pressure; the number of strong points and concrete artillery positions, etc., taken by the Russians was announced regularly, and that number increased. . . . There are few large offensives against defended positions in the Great War of which that could be written.”
(‘Tribune’, No. 168 (15 March 1940); p. 9).

As the ‘News Chronicle ‘pointed out after the Soviet victory:

“Those foreign commentators who stated that Stalin had made a fatal mistake in Finland have been proved wrong”.
(‘News Chronicle’, 14 March 1940; p. 2).

The Soviet campaign against Finland was regarded by Soviet military scientists as a model. As Sergey Biriuzov* says, the strategy and tactics adopted by the Red Army in the war with Finland were later successfully applied on a larger scale in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45:

“The storming of the ‘Mannerheim Line’ was regarded as a model of operational and tactical art. Troops were taught to overcome the enemy’s protracted defence by a gradual accumulation of forces and a patient gnawing through of breaches in the enemy’s fortifications”.
(S. S. Biriuzov: ‘The Lesson Learned too well’, in: S. Bialer (Ed.): op. cit.; p. 137).

A number of Western correspondents pay tribute to the tactical skill of the Red Army:

“The Russians are reported to have shown considerable tactical skill in managing their tanks”.
(‘Daily Telegraph’, 14 February 1940; p. 1).

to its ingenuity and inventiveness:

“The Russians had experimented intelligently themselves, introducing such new devices as armoured sleighs, three-storeyed dug-outs and dummy encampments to draw bombing aeroplanes to anti-aircraft guns. . .
Most of the armament was first-class stuff — anti-tank rifles, machine pistols, machine guns, and a new type of revolver that does not jam. The Russians, indeed, must have a remarkable inventiveness.”
(‘Times’, 18 March 1940; p. 7).

and to the bravery of its soldiers:

“There (on the Isthmus — Ed.) the Russian divisions had fought with a courage which has rarely been equalled by Russian soldiers in this century”.
(‘Daily Telegraph’, 6 March 1940; p. 1).

This did not prevent ‘Daily Herald’ from reporting in February that

“Informed circles in Moscow state that Meretskov and his entire staff were shot soon after General Shtern arrived on the Finnish front from the Far East”.
(‘Daily Herald’, 23 February 1940; p. 6).

A month later, after the war had ended and General Meretskov had been decorated with the Order of Lenin, the press was reporting:

“Decorations awarded today suggest that the Soviet campaign was conducted by a staff presided over by General Meretskov.
General Shtern — reported to have been put in command of the Soviet forces in the later phases of the campaign — is not mentioned, which suggests that he never left command of Soviet forces in the Far East.”
(‘News Chronicle’, 23 March 12940; p. 2).

The final word on the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-40 may be given to Read and Fisher:

“In strictly strategic terms, as far as Stalin was concerned. the Winter War had been a success. It had been brief; it had not spilled over into the larger conflict, . . . and, above all, had achieved its purpose, The northern approaches to Leningrad were now secure and the USSR controlled access into the Gulf of Finland”.
(A. Read & D. Fisher: op. cit.; p. 416).

Book Review: “Social Democracy: the Enemy Within” by Harpal Brar

BOOK REVIEW
‘SOCIAL DEMOCRACY, THE ENEMY WITHIN’

Harpal Brar 1995; ISBN 1-874613-04-4

INTRODUCTION

This book is a valuable contribution to the critique of social democracy and its counter-revolutionary role. The first half of the text is concerned with an examination of the origins of the Labour Party (the main party of social democracy in this country) and its record both in government and opposition. Time and again the views of the Labour Party are shown to have coincided with those of the British ruling class on every important issue affecting British imperial policy at home and abroad.

The stance of various revisionist and Trotskyite organisations which, one way or another, take a pro-Labour standpoint are examined in detail. In So doing, Harpal Brar directs effective and withering fire upon those who, whilst styling themselves as ‘revolutionaries’, insist on misrepresenting the Labour Party not only as a party which objectively serves the interests of the British working class, but also as being capable of bringing about the socialist transformation of society.

The author amply demonstrates the truth that the Labour Party is in reality both an imperialist party, and a ‘bourgeois labour party’, as characterised by Friedrich Engels, to whom this work is dedicated on the 100th anniversary of his death.

The second half of the book is comprised of articles from ‘Lalkar’, the paper of the Indian Workers’ Association, which comment upon the coal strike of 1984-5, various other economic struggles over the past fifteen years, and the relationship between social democracy and imperialist war. These illuminate the reactionary role played by the Labour Party in recent battles fought by the working class.

THE LABOUR PARTY SERVES THE INTERESTS OF MONOPOLY CAPITAL

Founded to give the working class a ‘voice’ in Parliament, the Labour Party has never been a true party of the working class, for such a party has to be revolutionary socialist in ideology. Anti-Marxist from its inception, the Labour Party preached the reformist theory that the state was a neutral apparatus which the working class could control in its own interests by obtaining a majority in Parliament. This denial of Marxian teaching on the nature of the state as an instrument of class rule also lies at the heart of those revisionist and Trotskyite organisations which offer support to the Labour Party – for example through such electoral slogans as”…. kick out the Tories and elect a labour government committed to Left policies”.

The Fabian ideology of Labour governments has always led them to operate along lines calculated to make capitalism work profitably during the (infinitely long) period of gradual, piecemeal, social reform. This illusory promise of reform has gained credence through real gains made by the working class. These have been due primarily to the rise in the value of labour power and the fact that the adjustment of wage levels to approach the higher level of the value of labour power have, by and large, been carried out through the reformist negotiating machinery.

The material basis for these gains over the past hundred and forty years have been (indirectly) the exploitation of the working people of the colonial-type countries by the British capitalist class. From the mid-nineteenth century some of the vast super-profits flowing in from colonial-type lands were used to pay an upper stratum of skilled craftsmen above the value of their labour power. This produced unions which rejected class struggle and socialist aims and confined their activities to bargaining on questions of wages, hours etc. However, despite the rise in real wages of the British working class over this period, the rate of exploitation of the workers has significantly increased. Had it not been for the ‘unofficial’ militant class struggle outside the reformist negotiating machinery, the rate of exploitation would have increased still more.

It should be emphasised that at no time has the mass of the British working class shared directly in colonial super profits. ‘Bribery’ of this kind has never affected more than a small upper stratum of the working class, and today this ‘labour aristocracy’ consists principally of the bureaucracy of the labour movement,

Despite the fact that its members are drawn mainly from the working class, and trade unions are affiliated to it, Harpal Brar clearly demonstrates that the Labour Party objectively serves the interests of monopoly capital. The abolition of ‘Clause 4′, the self-description of the party no longer as ‘left of centre’ but as ‘centre’, and the repudiation of all ‘make the rich pay’ programmatic points clearly show that the party’s appeal is directed now to all sections of the people who want a change in government, particularly to sections of the capitalist class who have suffered from the Tory policy of serving financial branches of finance capital, and not the industrial branches. It provides at present the principal reserve party of monopoly capital, which can safely be permitted to form a government at times when the Conservative Party has lost its electoral support.

TO VOTE OR NOT TO VOTE?

There remains the question of what a worker with a socialist consciousness should do when it comes to bourgeois elections, and here we differ from Harpal Brar, who is opposed to participation in elections.

We believe this position to be both mistaken and dangerous. Despite its limitations, “parliamentary democracy” provides a more favourable terrain for preparing socialist revolution than would exist under a fascist dictatorship, or even a corporate state. It is therefore essential for the working class to defend the democratic rights associated with “parliamentary democracy” against attempts to abolish them.

The right to vote, limited though it is, is one of the democratic rights associated with “parliamentary democracy”. To advise workers not to use this democratic vote is to imply it is of no value, and so to play into the hands of the fascist elements who seek – as part of the ideological preparation for the attempt, when objective conditions require it, to abolish “parliamentary democracy” – to inculcate the view that democratic rights are worthless. Advice to workers not to vote is harmful and reactionary.

WHICH PARTY OF THE CLASS ENEMY MOST ADVANCES THE SITUATION OF THE WORKING CLASS?

Where there is a division over policy between different sections of the monopoly capitalist ruling class, a political Party serving the interests of monopoly capital tends to become the vehicle of one or other of these antagonistic sections to put forward a policy which serves the interests of that section.

In 1970, for example, a minority of British monopoly capitalists had become convinced that their economic future lay in breaking the dependence upon United States imperialism, which had been the dominant feature of the international position of British imperialism since the second world war, and in joining the alliance of Western European powers which had been set up in the form of the European Economic Community. One of the reasons for the “dismissal” of the Labour government in 1970 was that it was tied to what had become a minority section of British monopoly capital which wished to continue the “special relationship” of dependence upon US imperialism.

These differences in foreign policy were overshadowed in 1974 by a more urgent difference in domestic policy brought to a head by the refusal of the miners to surrender to the government’s wage restraints. A majority of monopoly capitalists, now represented by the Labour Party, wanted to move away from the existing system of rigid wage restrictions and towards the building of a corporate state in which trade unions would be incorporated within the machinery of the capitalist state.

Even though the working class was not directly represented in the 1974 general election it was still able to achieve a tactical advantage by influencing the result. When the Heath government resigned, the unity of the miners in rejecting wage restraint, together with the refusal of the rest of The working class to blame the miners for hardship caused by the three-day working week brought about a split in the monopoly capitalist ruling class on this issue and forced a majority of the monopoly capitalists to organise a “dismissal” of that government. The new Labour government then instructed the National Coal Board to reach a settlement with the miners which proved a considerable advance upon what the Heath government had been prepared to allow.

To argue that policy differences amongst the monopoly capitalist class not only exist but have concrete implications for the working class is to accept that it cannot be a matter of complete indifference to the working class which party is elected to government. This is so even if there are only minor disagreements such as that relating to Value Added Tax on fuel regarding which the Tory Party was in favour and the Labour Party opposed.

The increase in cost of fuel would certainly preclude a proportion of elderly people from being able to heat their homes adequately and would undoubtedly, in turn, add to the already huge number of deaths related to hypothermia in winter months, If this became an election issue, a ‘don’t vote’ stance would ignore an issue of literally life and death significance to some sections of the working class. There may only be a shade of difference between the Labour and Conservative Parties, but that ‘shade of difference’ could represent the difference between life and death for tens of thousands of people.

All genuine socialists must advise workers to use their democratic right to vote in an election in such a way as to create the best conditions of the advance of the working class to positions of class struggle and ultimately of revolutionary struggle, which alone can bring about the establishment of a socialist society.

Since the government at the next election will be either Conservative or Labour, both of which parties represent the interests of monopoly capital, both of which represent the interests of the class enemy of the working class, correct tactics require an analysis of whether the situation of the working class would be more advanced by the election of a Labour government or by the election of a Conservative government.

Should, as for example in 1974, the advice be to vote Labour, it must be associated with the categorical statement that the Labour Party is the political tool of big business and can never be anything else. This fact is amply documented in ‘Social Democracy: The Enemy Within’, and we warmly recommend the book to all those who wish to see the social emancipation of the working class.

Bill Bland on “Stalinism”

‘STALINISM’

An Address to the Sarat Academy in London

on 30 April 1999 by Bill Bland

I am grateful to the Sarat Academy for inviting me to speak to you on ‘Stalinism’.

However, your choice of subject presented me with some difficulty, since I am a great admirer of Stalin and the word ‘Stalinism’ was introduced by concealed opponents of Stalin – in particular by Nikita Khrushchev – in preparation for later political attacks upon him.

Today, in fact, ‘Stalinism’ has become a meaningless term of abuse employed to denote political views with which one disagrees. The Conservative press sometimes even describes Tony Blair as a ‘Stalinist’ -giving Stalin, were he still alive, ample grounds for a libel action!

Stalin always referred to himself modestly as ~a pupil of Lenin’ and shall follow his example and interpret the subject of ‘Stalinism’ as ‘Marxism-Leninism

Perhaps the nearest figure to Stalin in British history is Richard the Third, whom everybody ‘knows’ – and I put the word ‘knows’ in inverted commas – from their school history books and Shakespeare to have been a cruel, deformed monster who murdered the little princes in the Tower.

It is only comparatively recently that serious historians have begun to realise that the commonly accepted portrayal of Richard was drawn by his Tudor successors, who had seized the throne from him and killed him.

Naturally, they then proceeded to rewrite the chronicles to justify their usurpation of the throne – even altering his portraits to present him as physically deformed, as a physical as well as a moral monster. In other words, the picture of Richard which has become generally accepted today was the result not of historical truth, but of the propaganda of his political opponents.

It is, therefore, legitimate to ask: is the picture of Stalin presented to us by so-called ‘Kremlinologists’ historical fact or mere propaganda?

The ‘Union of Socialist Soviet Republics (the Soviet Union), which was constructed under the leadership of Lenin and Stalin, no longer exists. Is it therefore true to say – as many people do – that this means that socialism in the Soviet Union failed?

I intend to quote here only one set of statistics. Tn his report to the 17th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in January 1939, Stalin cited figures from Western sources on the growth of industrial output in various countries as compared with 1913. These figures were:

Germany: —24.6%
Britain: —14.8%
USA: +10.2%
USSR: +291.9%

Indeed, it is an undisputed fact under the centrally planned economy instituted under Stalin, Russia was transformed in a few decades from a backward agrarian country into an advanced industrial country which by 1941— 45 had become powerful enough to defeat a German aggression able to draw upon the resources of the whole of Western Europe.

It is common to hear Stalin described as a ‘dictator.”

The strongly anti-Soviet American writer Eugene Lyons once asked Stalin directly: ‘Are you a dictator?’ Lyons goes on (and I quote:)

“Stalin smiled, implying that the question was on the preposterous side.

‘No’, he said slowly, ‘I am no dictator. Those who use the word do not understand the Soviet system of government and the methods of the Communist Party. No one man or group of men can dictate. Decisions are made by the Party”.

On Milosevic

This article by the Communist League on Slobodan Milošević and what he represented is valuable. It uses the example of the Račak massacre, which has been alleged to be a hoax, but regardless it is an important work for those on the left who consider Milošević some kind of “socialist,” or those who have taken to denial of Serbian war crimes during the Yugoslav Wars in emotional response to imperialist aggression. — E.S.

The Uprising Against the Serbian Fascist Regime

Published by
The Communist League

IN OCTOBER 2000, A POPULAR UPRISING IN BELGRADE FORCED THE MILOSHEVICH FASCIST REGIME TO RECOGNISE THE VICTORY IN THE RECENT PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS OF THE OPPOSITION CANDIDATE VOJISLAV KOSHTUNITSA.

The uprising was welcomed by progressive people throughout the world, as well as by Miloshevich’s antagonists among the imperialist powers.

At the same time, the effects of the uprising should not be exaggerated.

THIS WAS NOT A SOCIALIST REVOLUTION.

KOSHTUNITSA IS NO MARXIST-LENINIST.

DESPITE HIS SUPPORT FOR PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACY IN OPPOSITION TO MILOSHEVICH’S DICTATORSHIP, KCSHTUNITSA,

“… a self-proclaimed monarchist, . . . wants a referendum on the return of the house of Karadjordjevich, which ruled Yugoslavia from 1918 to 1941 and were kings of Serbia before that”.

(‘Times’, 10 October 2000; p. 1).

Wearing Serbian Nazi-collaborationist “Chetnik” insignia and uniforms, supporters of Milosevic, Radovan Karadžić, Ratko Mladić and even Nazi collaborator Draža Mihailović gather.

A protestor holds a picture of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic as he attends a demonstration in front of Serbian Parliament on May 29, 2011 in Belgrade, called by ultra-nationalists against Bosnian Serb war crimes suspect Ratko Mladic 's arrest lats May 26. Mladic is claimed to be responsible for atrocities during the Bosnian war, including the Srebrenica massacre in which 8,000 Muslims were killed, and the 44-month siege of the city of Sarajevo, during which 10,000 were killed.

INDEED, KOSTUNITSA’S SERBIAN NATIONALISM IS LITTLE LESS EXTREME THAN THAT OF MILOSHEVICH.

Over recent years,

” . . . as Serbia staggered deeper into its bloodthirsty territorial wars in Croatia and then in Bosnia, Mr. Koshtunitsa did not decry the bloodshed. Instead, he lambasted Miloshevich’s failure to seize yet more territory and then to hold on to it. . .”

He has regularly called for a return to the ‘old’ Yugoslavia before Tito when all the power was in Serbian hands”.

(Marcus Tanner: ‘Nationalism is Alive and well in the Bosom of the New Serbian President’, in: ‘Independent on Sunday’, 8 October 2000, p. 15).

Book Review: “Stalin’s Letters to Molotov: 1925-1936″

‘STALIN’S LETTERS TO MOLOTOV : 1925 – 1936′

(Edited by Lars T. Lih, Oleg V. Naumov & Oleg V. Khlevniuk)

(Published by Yale University Press, New Haven (USA), 1995)

Introduction

In December 1969, Stalin’s comrade-in-arms Vyacheslav Molotov turned over to the Central Party Archive at the Institute of Marxism-Leninism seventy-nine letters written to him by Stalin between 1925 and 1936. The documents are now located in the ‘Russian Centre for the Preservation and Study of Documents of Recent History in: fond 558, opis 1, delo 5388.

The Russian editors point out the

“… fragmentary nature”

(Russian Editors: Preface: Lars T. Lih, Oleg V. Naumov & Oleg V. Khlevniuk (Eds.): ‘Stalin’s Letters to Molotov: 1925-1936′; New Haven (USA); 1995; p. xiv).

of the correspondence, noting that

“… the period from 1931 through 1936 is represented by only a few documents. Letters from other years (notably 1928) are missing altogether. It is not known whether Molotov turned over all the documents in his possession or only a portion of them”.

(Russian Editors: Lars T. Lih et al. (Eds.); ibid.; p. xiv).

Nevertheless,

“… the letters preserved contain unparalleled information”,

(Russian Editors: Lars T. Lih et al. (Eds.): ibid.; p. xiv).

particularly since they were not written with publication in view.

Lenin’s Testament

Perhaps the most interesting section of the book covers the so-called ‘Lenin’s Testament – a letter dictated by Lenin at the end of December 1922. during his last illness.

“In accordance with his (Lenin’s — Ed.) wishes, the letter was read out to the delegates of the 13th Party congress, held from May 23 to 31, 1924. The Congress unanimously decided that the letter should not be published … since it was addressed to the Congress and not intended for publication”.

(Note to: Vladimir I. Lenin: Last Letters and Articles; Moscow; 1971; p. 63).

In 1925 the American Trotskyist Max Eastman published ‘Since Lenin died’, which contained what were alleged to be extracts from the document concerned. However, in his Introduction, editor Lars Lih admits that Eastman’s book seriously distorted, for political motives, the content of the document:

“Previous Western interpretations have all accepted that Eastman’s book ‘correctly reproduced long extracts’ of the Testament. On reading ‘Since Lenin died’, I was surprised to find this was far from true. Not only does Eastman give a highly distorted rendition of the Testament, but the distortions all clearly serve an explicit political purpose…

‘Since Lenin died’ is an inaccurate, highly politicised account that contrasts Trotsky, with his ‘saintly’ devotion to the revolution, to all the other leaders of the party, who are nothing more than unscrupulous usurpers”

(Lars T. Lih: Introduction to: Lars T. Lih et al. (Eds.): op. cit.; p. 20-21).

Eastman claimed that his book was based on

“… his ‘chats’ with Comrade Trotsky about Lenin’s so-called testament and about the ‘main figures in the Central Committee’”.

(Josef V. Stalin: Letter to Political Bureau and the Presidium of the Central Control Commission, Russian Communist Party (17 June 1925), in: Lars T. Lih et al. (Eds.): ibid.: p. 71).

Consequently, on 17 June 1925, Stalin wrote to members of the Political Bureau and the Presidium of the Central Control Commission of the RCP saying that he was convinced that the purpose of Max Eastman’s book was

“… to discredit the government of the USSR and the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party, and that for these purposes Eastman indulges in a whole range of slanders and distortions.

I have no doubt whatsoever that Eastman’s book is libellous, that it will prove enormously profitable to the world counter-revolution (and has already done so!”), and that it will cause serious damage to the entire world revolutionary movement.”

(Josef V. Stalin: Letter to PB and CCC (17 June 1925), in: Lars T. Lih et al. (Eds.): ibid.; p. 73, 74).

Stalin proposed that, since

“… the silence of Com. Trotsky in this case may be construed only as a confirmation or an excuse for these distortions”,

(Josef V. Stalin: Letter to PB and CCC (17 June 1925), in: Lars T. Lih et al (Eds.): ibid.; p.74).

Trotsky should be asked at least to refute certain statements in the book –among these the allegations that,

“… Trotsky’s true texts do not appear in public”.

(Josef V. Stalin: Letter to PB and CCC (17 June 1925), in: Lars T. Lih et al. (Eds.) : ibid.; p.75).

and that the Party leaders had

“clapped the censorship on his’ (that is, Lenin’s -Stalin) ‘own last words to his Party”

(Josef V. Stalin: Letter to PB and CCC (17 June 1925), in: Lars T. Lih et al (Eds.): ibid.; p. 75).

Accordingly, Stalin proposed that the Politburo should

PROPOSE TO COM. TROTSKY THAT HE DISASSOCIATE HIMSELF DECISIVELY FROM EASTMAN AND MAKE A STATEMENT FOR THE PRESS WITH A CATEGORICAL REBUTTAL OF AT LEAST THOSE DISTORTIONS THAT WERE OUTLINED ABOVE”.

(Josef V. Stalin: Letter to PB and CCC (17 June 1925). in: Lars T. Lih et al (Eds.): ibid.; p. 81).

On the following day, 18 June 1925,

“… the Politburo affirmed Stalin’s proposal”, (Note to: Lars T. Lih et al (Eds.): ibid.; p. 82).

and

“… Trotsky himself promised that he would within three days submit the text of his statement”.

(Note to: Lars T. Lih et al (Eds.): ibid.; p. 82).

Later in June 1925, Trotsky sent to Stalin the draft of his statement, to which Stalin responded:

“If you are interested in my opinion, I personally consider the draft completely unsatisfactory”.

(Josef V. Stalin: Note to Lev Trotsky (June 1925), in: Note to: Lars T. Lih et al (Eds.): ibid.; p. 82).

Trotsky appealed to the Politburo, but

“…after meeting the usual rebuff, … he began to revise the text of his statement for the press… The final text of his statement was ready by 1 July 1925″.

(Note to: Lars T. Lih et al. (Eds.): ibid.; p. 82).

Trotsky’s statement read, in part, as follows:

“Eastman proceeds to conclusions that are completely and utterly directed against our Party and capable, if taken on faith, of discrediting the Party and Soviet power…

Eastman says that the Central Committee ‘hid’ from the Party a number of highly important documents that Lenin wrote in the last period of his life (letters on the national question, the so-called testament, and so forth): this cannot be termed anything other than a slander of the Central Committee of our Party. These letters give advice on matters of internal Party organisation, yet from Eastman’s words the conclusion could be drawn that Vladimir Ilyich meant them to be printed. In fact, this is completely untrue… It goes without saying that all these letters and proposals came to the attention of the addressees and to the knowledge of the delegates of the 13th Party Congress; … If they were not published, that is because their author did not intend for them to be published. Vladimir Ilyich did not leave any ‘testament’, and the character of his relation to the Party, not to mention the character of the Party itself, excludes the possibility of such a ‘testament’…

Eastman’s assertions that the Central Committee … held up my pamphlets in 1923 or 1924 or at any other time are false…

My relationship to Eastman differs in no way from my relationship to very many Communists or ‘sympathetic foreigners’ … – certainly no closer.

His book can be of service only to the most malicious enemies of communism and the revolution, and it is therefore, objectively speaking, a tool of counter-revolution”.

(Lev Trotsky: Statement published in ‘Bolshevik’, No. 16. 1925. in: Lars T. Lih et al. (Eds.): ibid.; p. 244, 245, 246, 247, 248).

It must be noted that Trotsky does not, as has been alleged, deny the existence of the document known as ‘Lenin’s Testament’:

“Trotsky’s point is that it is inappropriate to call Lenin’s letter a ‘testament’, in other words, a literal statement of last wishes that the party was beholden to carry out”.

(Lars T. Lih: Introduction to: Lars T. Lih et al. (Eds.): ibid.; p. 22).

Manuilsky

On 16 July 1925, ‘L’Humanité’ (Humanity), the organ of the French Communist Party,

“… published the original version of Trotsky’s statement”

(note to: Lars T. Lih et al. (Eds.): ibid.; p. 83).

and on 27 July the Politburo of the Russian Communist Party passed the following resolution:

“a) To request ‘L’Humanité’ to publish a notice that the text of Com. Trotsky’s letter regarding Eastman’s book that appeared in ‘L’Humanité’ is incomplete and distorted.

b) To request ‘L’Humanité’ to publish the full (final) text of Com. Trotsky’s letter about Eastman’s book”.

(Note to: Lars T. Lih et al. (Eds.): ibid.; p. 83).

It became known that the original version of Trotsky’s statement had been deliberately leaked to ‘L’Humanité’ by the concealed revisionist Dmitri Manuilsky:

“Soon it became clear that the original version of Trotsky’s article had been given to ‘L’Humanité’ by D. Z. Manuilsky, a member of the Comintern’s Executive Committee presidium, during his trip to France”. (Note to; Lars T. Lih et al. (Eds.): ibid.; p. 83).

On 1 August 1925 Stalin wrote to Molotov:

“I was told that Manulisky sent ‘L’Humanité’ the first draft of Trotsky1s article for publication, not accidentally but on purpose. If that’s true, it’s an outrage. If it’s true, then we are dealing, not with a ‘mistake’, as you wrote me, but with the policy of a few people who for some reason, are not interested in publishing Trotsky’s article in its final edited version, This is unquestionably the case. The matter cannot be left as it is. I propose … condemning Manuilsky’s intolerable action”.

(Josef V. Stalin: Letter to Vyacheslav Molotov (1 August 1925). in: Lars T. Lih et al. (Eds.): ibid.; p. 90).

On Manuilsky’s ‘excuse’ for his action, Stalin is characteristically blunt:

“The letter from Manuilsky is cowardly and conniving.

I stand entirely by my declaration on the swindling and dirty tricks, despite the dissatisfaction of some comrades”.

(Josef V. Stalin: Letter to Vyacheslav Molotov (18 August 1925), in: Lars T. Lih et al. (Eds.): ibid.; p. 94).

Dimitrov

The book contains only one reference to Manuilsky’s close collaborator, the concealed revisionist Georgi Dimitrov.

According to the researches of Dobrin Mitchev, of the Institute of History of the Communist Party of Bulgaria:

“On 10 March (1934 – Ed.) … Georgi Dimitrov wrote to Stalin. In his letter he explained that during the year he had spent in prison he had thought a great deal about the problems of the world workers’ movement. He had been concerned above all, he specified, with questions about the strategy and tactics, the methods, the action and the functioning of the Communist International.

“The discussion took place a little later, in the presence of Manuilsky and others.

In the course of the interview, Georgi Dimitrov explained, developed his ideas, which were contrary to those of Stalin. The discussion was ardent, difficult, impassioned”.

(Dobrin Mitchev, in: Jean Méroy: ‘Dimitrov: Un revolutionnaire de notre temps (Dimitrov: A Revolutionary of Our Time); Paris; 1972; p. 184-85).

On the 7th Congress of the Communist International, which took place in August 1935, Stalin comments unenthusiastically:

“The Comintern Congress wasn’t so bad”.

(Josef V. Stalin: Letter to Vyacheslav Molotov (5 August 1935), in: Lars T. Lih et al. (Eds.): op. cit.; p. 237).

– meaning, apparently, that it was not so bad as might have been expected!

Litvinov

In his correspondence with Molotov, Stalin notes that the Soviet diplomat Maksim Litvinov, a concealed revisionist, did not see things in a revolutionary way:

“Litvinov does not see and is not interested in the revolutionary aspect of policy”.

(Josef V. Stalin: Letter to Vyacheslav Molotov (29 August 1929), in: Lars T. Lih et al. (Eds.): ibid.; p. 174).

and that he had irrational confidence in such people as the British social-democrat Edward Wise:

“Litvinov . . . believes Wise and other bastards more than the logic of things”.

(Josef V. Stalin: Letter to Vyacheslav Molotov (9 September 1929), in: Lars T. Lih et al. (Eds.): ibid.; p. 177-78).

In another letter, Stalin goes so far as to speak of Litvinov — along with Nikolai Bukharin and Aleksey Rykov, later convicted of treason — as unable to see the strength of the Soviet Union:

“Rykov, along with Bukharin and Litvinov, … don’t see the growth of the power and might of the USSR”.

(Josef V. Stalin: Letter to Vyacheslav Molotov (7 October 1929). in: Lars T. Lih et al. (Eds.): ibid.; p. 182).

Krupskaya

On 14 December 1925, at the 14th Party Congress, Lenin’s revisionist widow, Nadezhda Krupskaya, said:

“We cannot reassure ourselves with the idea that the majority is always right. … Let us recall, for example, the Stockholm Congress (of 1906– Ed.)”.

(Nadezhda Krupskaya: Speech at 14th Party Congress (20 December 1925), in: Note to Lars T. Lih et al. (Eds.): ibid.; p. 117).

On which Stalin commented:

“Krupskaya is a splitter (see her speech about ‘Stockholm’ at the 14th Congress). She has to be beaten, as a splitter, if we want to preserve the unity of the Party”.

(Josef V. Stalin: Letter to Vyacheslav Molotov (16 September 1926), in; Lars T. Lih et al. (Eds.): ibid.; p. 127).

Ordzhonikidze

In August 1933, a number of officials responsible for the production of agricultural machinery were tried before the USSR Supreme Court for sabotage — for having supplied combines without the full complement of parts. On 22 August USSR Deputy Prosecutor Andrei Vishinsky delivered a speech in which he criticised the departments of state concerned for

“… the immense failure of the work methods of some of the most important government institutions. I mean the Commissariat of Agriculture in the first place as represented by its agricultural supply agency… I mean the Commissariat of Heavy Industry as represented by its agricultural machine association”.

(Note to: Lars T. Lih et al (Eds.): ibid.; p. 233).

Vyshinsky’s statement angered Grigory (Sergo) Ordzhonikidze and Yakov Yakovlev, People’s Commissars of Heavy Industry and Agriculture respectively, and

“… in Stalin’s absence, they managed to persuade the Politburo to issue a resolution criticising Vyshinsky for his allegations: ‘To point out to Com. Vyshinsky that he should not have formulated his views in a way . . . that allows incorrect accusations to be made against Heavy Industry and Agriculture’”

(Note to: Lars T. Lih et al (Eds.): ibid.; p. 233-34).

On which Stalin commented:

“I consider Sergo’s actions with respect to Vyshinsky the behaviour of a hooligan. … By his act of protest Sergo clearly wished to disrupt the campaign of the Council of People’s Commissars and Central Committee to provide proper equipment”.

(Josef V. Stalin: Letter to Vyacheslav Molotov (1 September 1933), in: Lars T. Lih et al. (Eds.): ibid.; p. 233).

“The behaviour of Sergo (and Yakovlev) … can only be characterised as anti-Party’, since their objective is to defend reactionary Party elements against the Central Committee”.

(Josef V. Stalin: Letter to Vyacheslav Molotov (12 September 1933),. in: Lars T. Lih et al. (Eds.): ibid.; p. 234).

Wrecking

The letters refute the myth that Stalin believed that persons charged with sabotage were innocent, as the American editor Lars Lih admits:

“The letters indicate that … Stalin genuinely believed that the wreckers were guilty as charged”.

(Lars T. Lih: Introduction: Lars T. Lih et al. (Eds.); ibid.; p. 48).

and insisted on full publication of the testimonies of the accused and the secret service:

“We must immediately publish all the testimonies of all the wreckers of the supplies of meat, fish, tinned goods and vegetables. … Why the ‘secrets’? We should publish them.

It would also be good to publish the testimonies of the ‘Intelligence Service’ agents . . . about the subversive activity of the Vickers employees, who have bombed, set fire to and damaged our factories and buildings. . . . Why is this rich material being kept secret?’. (Josef V. Stalin: Letter to Vyacheslav Molotov (13 September 1930), in:

Lars T. Lih et al. (Eds.): ibid.; p. 213).

and proposed the same course be adopted in the case of the testimony of Professor Leonid Ramzin, the principal defendant in the ‘Industrial Party’ trial of 1930, if his testimony was corroborated:

“If Ramzin’s testimonies are confirmed and corroborated … that will be a serious victory for the OGPU, since we’ll make the material available in some form to Comintern sections and the workers of the world.”

(Josef V. Stalin: Letter to Vyacheslav Menzhinsky (undated), in: Lars T. Lih et al.: ibid.; p. 196).

Checking Up

The letters throw interesting light on Stalin’s methods of work –particularly on the importance he attached to the selection of cadres and the checking-up on the fulfilment of decisions:

“The slogans ‘checking up on fulfilment’ and ‘selection of officials’ are ubiquitous”,

(Lars T. Lih: Introduction, Lars T. Lih et al. (Eds.); ibid.; p. 14).

and we find him writing to Molotov congratulating him on his practice of checking-up on fulfilment:

“You’ve achieved a sample of Leninist checking up on fulfilment. If it is required, let me congratulate you on your success”

(Josef V. Stalin: Letter to Vyacheslav Molotov (10 October 1930), In: Lars T. Lih et al. (Eds.): ibid.; p. 221),

“The Politburo has adopted my proposals concerning grain procurement. This is good, but in my opinion it is inadequate. Now the problem is fulfilling the Politburo’s decision. … Therefore it is necessary to demand the following from procurement organisations, the OGPU, the Collective Farm Centre, and so forth:

a) copies of their instructions to subordinate organs concerning the fulfilment of the Politburo’s decision; b) regular reports every two weeks (even better, once a week) about the results of the fulfilment of the decisions”.

(Josef V. Stalin: Letter to Vyacheslav Molotov (21 August 1929). in: Lars T. Lih et al. (Eds.); ibid.; p. 168).

Stalin and the World Revolutionary Movement

Finally, the letters clearly reveal that in upholding the principle that socialism could be built in one country, Stalin in no way ‘abandoned the cause of world revolution’, as Trotsky alleges;

‘”Stalin was not hypocritical in his support for world revolution, since from his point of view no sacrifice of state interests was involved.

Stalin comes out of the letters with his revolutionary credentials in good order…

As first servant of the Soviet state, he was also first servant of the world revolution…

The letters refute the Trotsky-derived interpretation of ‘socialism in one country’ as an isolationist rejection of revolution elsewhere…

The letters show that Stalin did not see revolutionary interests and state interests in either-or terms”.

(Lars T. Lih: Introduction: Lars T. Lih et al. (Eds.); ibid.: pp.28, 36, 62).

For example, the letters reveal his great personal interest in the class struggle of the British workers:

“Stalin’s remarks indicate that he was very involved in the British situation”.

(Lars T. Lih: Introduction to: Lars T. Lih et al. (Eds.): ibid.; p. 30).

Thus, when the British miners’ strike began on 1 May 1926, Stalin insisted that every possible assistance be rendered to them:

“We must publish the complete text of the resolution of our workers… in support of the British strikers in general and the coal-miners in particular in all the most important languages of the West as quickly as possible. … This is a fighting matter and should not be allowed to fall by the wayside”.

(Josef V. Stalin: Letter to Vyacheslav Molotov (26 May 1926), in: Lars T. Lih et al. (Eds.): ibid.; p. 104).

“The delegation of British coal miners should be arriving any day… They should be met ‘by all the rules of the game’ and as much money as possible should be collected for them. I’ve heard that the Americans have promised 1 million dollars. We have to collect and send possibly 1 million or 2 million roubles (less than the Americans is impossible) or perhaps a whole 3 million, The situation in England is serious, and it obliges us to make serious sacrifices’”

(Josef V. Stalin: Letter to Vyacheslav Molotov (2? August 1926). in: Lars T. Lih et al. (Eds.): ibid.; p. 119).

The letters also demonstrate his keen interest in, and support for, the Chinese Revolution:

“Stalin sees the success of the Chinese Communist Party as a matter of both state and revolutionary interest”,

(Lars T. Lih: Introduction, Lars T. Lih et al (Eds.): ibid.; p.33).

and show that, despite Opposition criticism, Stalin was convinced that the Comintern’s policy with regard to China had been correct:

“Never have I been so deeply and firmly convinced of the correctness of our policy . . . in China . . as I am now”.

(Josef V. Stalin: Letter to Vyacheslav Molotov (11 July 1927), in: Lars T. Lih et al (Eds.): ibid.; p. 143).

and he

“… insisted that the blame for the failure of Comintern strategy lay with the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party”, (Lars T. Lih: Introduction to: Lars T. Lih et al. (Eds.): op. cit.; p.32).

which he characterised as ‘not a genuine Communist Party’:

“… unfortunately we don’t have a real or, if you like, an actual Communist Party in China. . . . What is the current Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)? Nothing but an ‘amalgamation’ of general phrases gathered here and there, not linked to one another with any line or guiding idea. I don’t want to be very demanding toward the Central Committee of the CCP. I know that one can’t be too demanding toward it. But here is a simple demand: fulfil the directives of the Comintern. Has it fulfilled these directives? No.

There is not a single Marxist mind in the Central Committee capable of understanding . . . the social underpinning of the events now occurring. … The CCP sometimes babbles about the hegemony of the proletariat.

But … the CCP does not have a clue (literally, not a clue) about hegemony.

That’s the reason why the Comintern’s directives are not fulfilled.

That is why I now believe the question of the Party is the main question of the Chinese revolution”.

(Josef V. Stalin: Letter to Vyacheslav Molotov C9 Jul1 1927), in: Lars T. Lih et al. (Eds.): ibid.; pp.140-41).

In 1929, Stalin even favoured military intervention in Manchuria in support of the Chinese Revolution:

“I think that it’s time to think about organising an uprising by a revolutionary movement in Manchuria. … We need to organise two double-regiment brigades, chiefly made up of Chinese, outfit them with everything necessary (artillery, machine-guns, and so on), put Chinese at the head of the brigade, and send them into Manchuria with the following assignment: to stir up a rebellion among the Manchurian troops, … to occupy Harbin and, after gathering force, to declare Chang Hsueh-liang overthrown, establish a revolutionary government. …This we can, and I think should, do. No ‘international law’ contradicts this task”.

(Josef V, Stalin: Letter to Vyacheslav Molotov (7 October 1929), in: Lars T. Lih et al. (Eds.): ibid.; p. 182).

Communist League Book Review: “Molotov Remembers”

COMPASS For Communist League (UK) No 108: October 1993

Book Review: MOLOTOV’S MEMOIRS

Albert Resis (Ed.): ‘MOLOTOV REMEMBERS: INSIDE KREMLIN POLITICS’; Chicago; 1993

Vyacheslav Molotov was Stalin’s closest comrade-in-arms, and held for many years very important positions in the Soviet Union. One might have hoped, therefore, that his memoirs would have contained valuable information on the way in which revisionists managed to wreck socialism in the USSR and clear the way for the restoration of capitalism.

The Assassination of Kirov

The book does, indeed, contain one or two interesting snippets of information hitherto unknown, or little known, outside the highest circles in the former Soviet Union. For example, he tells us:

“Krushchev hinted that Stalin had Kirov killed. A commission was set up in 1956.

Tile commission concluded that Stalin was not implicated in Kirov’s assassination. Khrushchev refused to have the findings published since they didn’t serve his purpose”.

(Albert Resis (Ed.): ‘Molotov Remembers: Inside Kremlin Politics’; Chicago; 1993; p. 353).

Revelations — About the Memoirist

Sadly, however, for the roost part Molotov’s memoirs — like most memoirs — tell us more about Molotov’s own deficiencies than about the events he recalls.

No one could question Molotov’s dedication to socialism and the working class. He followed Stalin loyally during the latter’s lifetime, but it is clear that once Stalin’s guiding hand had been removed, his political acumen was not sufficiently acute to prevent the revisionists who surrounded him from using him as their tool in the critical years from Stalin’s death in 1953 to his own expulsion from the CPSU by the revisionists in 1957.

Molotov’s Tacit Endorsement of the Attack upon Stalin

Although he defends Stalin in many respects, Molotov admits that he kept silent during Khrushchev’s savant attack on Stalin at the 20th Congress of the CPSU in 1956:

“Some people holding pretty much the same view blame me. ‘Why did you keep silent at the 20th Congress? To keep silent, they say, is tantamount to consent. That’s how it turned out. I kept silent and thus consented”.

(Albert Resis (Ed.): ibid.; p. 351).

He gives as his reason for remaining silent that the Party was ‘not ready’ for a Marxist-Leninist analysis of events and that if he and other Marxist-Leninists had spoken out against Khrushchev’s slanders at the congress, they would have been ‘expelled from the Party’:

“The Party was not ready for such an analysis. We would simply have been kicked out. No one would have supported us. No one”. (Albert Resis (Ed.): ibid.; p. 350).

He tells us that:

“I still hoped that if we remained in the Party we would be able to correct the situation gradually”.

(Albert Resis (Ed.): ibid.; p. 350).

But in fact Molotov was not completely silent during the attacks on Stalin at the 20th Congress. On the contrary, at one of the open sessions of the congress he had no hesitation in

‘condemning ‘the cult of the individual”‘

(‘Keesing’s Contemporary Archives’, Volume 10; p. 14,748).

which was a clear prelude to the named attack on Stalin which followed at the secret session.

However, long after it had become patently obvious to anyone with even a smattering of Marxist-Leninist understanding that the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was dominated by open revisionists who were restoring an essentially capitalist social order in the country, Molotov tells us his main preoccupation in the years following his expulsion was not so much with fighting revisionism as with trying to persuade the revisionist leaders to reinstate him in the Party:

“I send letters to the Central Committee after each congress asking them to consider my application for reinstatement in the Party.

Four times I applied to be reinstated in the Party. I wrote to Brezhnev. I am going to send another application to the 24th Congress”.

(Albert Resis (Ed.): op. cit.; p. 284, 356).

Indeed, he goes so far as to agree that he deserved punishment for opposing the revisionists, and merely maintains that expulsion was excessively severe:

“I ought to have been punished, true, but expulsion from the Party . .?”
(Albert Resis (Ed.): ibid.; p. 356).

The Case of Israel

The general picture of the development of revisionism in the former Soviet Union is now known, but it would have been useful if Molotov had filled in, from his personal knowledge, details of some of the more controversial episodes in Soviet history — such as the support given by the Soviet regime to the partition of Palestine and the coup against Lavrenti Beria.

Unfortunately, he largely fails to do perform this task.

A paper read to the Stalin Society earlier this year presented the evidence for the view that it was revisionists in the leadership of the CPSU who, under the leadership of Andrey Gromyko, Soviet Permanent Representative to the United Nations and Deputy foreign Minister, succeeded in distorting Soviet foreign policy in favour of the partition of Palestine.

Molotov, who held the post of Soviet Foreign Minister at the time, gives a very garbled version of events. He appears to say that the American imperialists were ‘opposed’ to the formation of the state of Israel, while he and Stalin ‘supported’ it:

“Q: In the formation of the state of Israel, the Americans were opposed?

A: Everyone objected but us — me and Stalin”.

(Albert Resis (Ed.): ibid.; p. 65).

But it is clearly nonsense to say that the US imperialists were opposed to the formation of the state of Israel:

“US support of the partition was critical in bringing about passage of the resolution (for the partition of Palestine and the creation of the state of Israel — Ed.) by a two-thirds majority of the Assembly”. (‘Encyclopedia Americana’, Volume 15; Danbury (USA); 1992; p. 533).

However, Molotov goes on to explain that what he and Stalin supported was not, in fact, the formation of a racist Israeli state, but a state of Palestine in which Arabs and Jews shared power:

“We proposed, however, an Arab-Israeli (clearly he means ‘Arab-Jewish’ ` — Ed.) union, for both nations (clearly he means ‘nationalities’ — Ed.) to live together”.

(Albert Resis (}d.): cit.; p. 65).

In other words, Molotov appears to support the view expressed in the Stalin Society paper — that Stalin supported the formation of a Palestinian state in which Jews and Arabs shared power.

The Case of Beria

In a paper read to the Stalin Society entitled “The ‘Doctors’ Case’ and the Death of Stalin”, the evidence was presented for the view that, following the death of Stalin, leading revisionists, headed by Khrushchev, deceived honest members of the leadership into believing that Lavrenti Beria was an agent of imperialism and into participating in a military-style coup against him. The sole reason which Molotov gives for agreeing to participate in the coup was that Khrushchev told him that ‘apparently’ Beria was ‘up to something’!

Molotov’s story of these events is almost identical with that of Krushchev

“If you are interested in. . . . the final. Politburo session on Beria, you must bear in mind that some preliminary work had been done before that. In this Khrushchev showed he was an exceptionally energetic and efficient organiser. The initiative was in his hands as he was the Party secretary. He was definitely a good organiser.

He summoned me to the Central Committee building, and l came over.

‘I’d like to talk to you about Beria., He can’t be trusted”.

I said: ‘I fully support this idea. He must be removed and expelled from the ‘Politburo’.

Immediately before the session we agreed that expelling Beria from the Politburo would not be enough. He had to be placed under arrest. Two days later we all gathered in session.

Khruschev was the organiser of the entire affair. Why? . Apparently he had been informed that Beria was up to something. And Beria had troops under his command.

He was arrested at the Politburo session. We were all friends. . . .

I was one of the first to speak. I said that Beria was a degenerate, . . . and that he was no communist.

Then Beria took the floor to defend himself.

Beria had arrived at the session totally unaware of what lay in store for him. .

The room was securely guarded, but sitting in Poskrebyshev’s room, which adjoined the meeting room, was a group of military officers, headed by Zhukov. The group was waiting to be called in to arrest Beria.

Malenkov pressed the button. That was the signal. The group of officers led by Zhukov entered the room.

Malenkov says: ‘Arrest Beria’.

Q: Was that a complete surprise for Beria?

A: Exactly . . .

‘I fell into a trap”, he cried. He didn’t expect that from Khrushchev.

Moskalenko was also involved. Khrushchev had him promoted to marshal.

Moskalenko was put in charge of the jail where Beria was kept”.

(Albert Resis (Ed.): ibid.; p. 343, 344, 345, 346).

While the official indictment against Beria was that he was a

“. . . hireling of foreign imperialist forces”,

(‘Keesing’s Contemporary Archives’, Volume 9; p.13,029).

Molotov insists that Beria was not an agent of imperialism in this sense:

“Q: To this day, people still argue whether Beria had been an agent of some foreign intelligence service.

A: I don’t think he was”. .

(Albert Resis (Ed.): op. cit.; p. 339).

He charges Beria only with being ‘an agent of imperialism’ in that in 1953 he supported within the leadership a policy which objectively assisted imperialism:

“He played the role of an agent of imperialism, that’s the point.

I regard Beria as an agent of imperialism. Agent does not mean spy”. (Albert Resis (Ed.): ibid.; p. 340).

Many years later Molotov still declares that he has ‘no regrets’ about participating in the coup and praises Khrushchev for organising it!:

“I consented’ (to take part in the coup against Beria — Ed.). I have no regrets about it now. On the contrary, I believed, and I continue to believe, that this was to Khrushchev’s great credit. That’s my opinion”.
(Albert Resis (Ed.): ibid,l; p. 345).

Molotov reveals that the charge of ‘serving imperialism’ levelled against Beria was concerned with the policy which the Soviet government should adopt towards the building of socialism in occupied East Germany. The Marxist-Leninist position on ‘the export of socialism’ was put by Stalin in his interview with American newspaper magnate Roy Howard in March 1936:

“Howard: May there not be an element of danger in the genuine fear existent in what you term capitalist countries of an intent on the part of the Soviet Union to force its political theories on other countries?

Stalin: There is no justification whatever for such fears. If you think that Soviet people want to change the face of surrounding states, and by forcible means at that, you are entirely mistaken. Of course, Soviet people would like to see the face of surrounding states changed, but that is the business of the surrounding states”.

(Josef V. Stalin: Interview between Josef Stalin and Roy Howard (March 1936), in: ”Works’ Volume 14; London; 1978; p.136-37).

Stalin therefore maintained that the Soviet government’s concern with post-war Germany was limited to the question of preventing future German aggression. In a speech in November 1943 he defined Soviet war aims in this connection as to

” establish such an order in Europe as will completely exclude the possibility of fresh aggression on the part of Germany”.

(Josef V. Stalin: Speech at Celebration fleeting of Moscow Soviet (6 November 1943), in: ‘War Speeches, Orders of the Day and Answers to Foreign Press Correspondents during the Great Patriotic War: July 3rd 1941 – June 22nd 1945′; London; 1945; p. 82).

As far as can be gathered from Molotov’s somewhat garbled account, Beria maintained the position that the Soviet government’s only concern with defeated Germany should be to ensure that it was anti-fascist and peaceful, and that the question of the building of socialism in any part of Germany was a matter for the German working people:

“After Stalin’s death,. . .. Beria took an active stand on the German question. . . . Beria, who was then becoming particularly active, advanced the following argument: let it (the GDR –Ed.) just be a peaceful country. That is sufficient for our purposes’. . . . . .

Beria kept insisting that . . . . . the most important concern was that Germany must be peaceful”

(Albert Resis (Ed.): op. cit.; p. 333, 334).

However, Molotov relates, other members of the Politburo — including Khrushchev and Molotov himself, demanded that the Soviet government should move to establish a socialist society in East Germany:

“The Politburo was nearly split on the issue. Khrushchev supported my position. . . Malenkov remained silent, and I knew he would follow Beria, I objected that there could not be a peaceful Germany unless it took the road to socialism”. (Albert Resis (Ed.): ibid.; p. 335, 336)

This was then, according to Molotov, the main issue which provided the pretext for accusing Beria of being an “imperialist agent”. If so, it was an issue in which Beria was following Marxist-Leninist principles, while Molotov and Khrushchev were in breach of them!

Molotov’s Failure Correctly to Assess Revisionism

Even many years after international revisionism had thrown off its mask, Molotov signally failed to recognise its counter-revolutionary character.

Indeed, despite his general admiration for Stalin, we find him repeating some of the revisionist slanders about him:

“He (Stalin — Ed.) succumbed to sickly suspiciousness.. . . . In his last years he suffered from impaired judgment.

In his last years Stalin suffered from a persecution mania”.

(Albert Resis (Ed.): ibid.; p. 317, 324).

We find him praising the revisionist Yuri Andropov as a ‘godsend’:

“Andropov. . . . has introduced a fresh stream of thought and a good direction. . . .

Andropov is a godsend. .

Andropov . . . is firm in politics, a man of broad horizons, a reliable person. . . . He has proved to be quite trustworthy”.

(Albert Resis (Ed.): ibid.; p. 395, 407).

We find him describing the French revisionist Maurice Thorez as

“. . . a very good man — a Stalinist”,
(Albert Resis (Ed.): ibid.; p. 82).

and the German revisionist Walter Ulbricht as

“. a dedicated communist, a politically conscious comrade”.
(Albert Resis (Ed.): ibid.; p. 334).

He depicts even Khrushchev as no worse than ‘a not especially dedicated communist’

“I don’t consider Khrushchev an especially dedicated communist”.
(Albert Resis (Ed.): ibid.; p. 356).

IN 1984, AT THE AGE OF NINETY-FOUR, MOLOTOV ACHIEVED A LONG-HELD AMBITION. HAVING SATISFIED THE REVISIONIST LEADERS OF HIS HARMLESSNESS TO THEIR AIMS, HE WAS READMITTED TO THE COMMUNIST PARTY.

HE DIED TWO YEARS LATER — STILL CLINGING TO THE ILLUSION THAT SOCIALISM IN THE SOVIET UNION WAS BASICALLY INTACT AND SECURE, THAT A COMMONWEALTH OF SOCIALIST STATES EXISTED, AND THAT, DESPITE SOME MINOR RIGHTIST DEVIATIONS, THE SOVIET UNION WAS ADVANCING TOWARDS A COMMUNIST SOCIETY:

“Now we have a powerful country and a commonwealth of socialist states.

I think the dreams of counter-revolution will not come true. Our state, like the entire socialist camp, is still the strongest in the world. .

We are undeviatingly moving forward, but more slowly than is desirable.

The line we are pursuing is Leninist, it is socialist, but not enough. .

We are building socialism and moving towards communism because state power and the vanguard of the people rest solidly on the policy pursued by the Party, That’s the main thing.

In our country the vanguard is preserved, it is growing it is socialist, communist — this is the main thing”. (Albert Resis (Ed.): ibid.; p. 381, 409, 413).

COMpass is published by: The Communist league, Ilford, Essex, UK

The aim of the Communist League is to establish in Britain a Marxist-Leninist
Party of the working class free of all revisionist trends.