How Lenin Was Commemorated - Moni Guha
8. How Lenin Was Commemorated. (More on the stand of the CPC)
Though the Khrushchev leadership in league with the CPC, dissolved the Cominform and formed the Warsaw Treaty bloc rejecting the path of relying on people and repudiating, for all practical purposes, the historic peace offensive movement of the world people organised under the leadership of Stalin and relying mainly on diplomacy and military block making, it did not dissolve the Council of Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) formed by Stalin in 1949. In this connection, it is necessary to point out that Stalin did not form any military bloc against the NATO, though NATO was formed in March, 1949. Warsaw Military Treaty bloc was formed in May, 1955. Stalin said that the war can be averted and peace can be conquered if the people themselves take up the job of conquering peace through the world-wide peace offensive. The Cominform organised such peace offensive creating international democratic organizations in different sectors and forming a broad anti-war peace offensive front. Khrushchev said during the formation of the Warsaw Military Treaty bloc that peace and war depended today on two big powers, the Soviet Union and the United States, thus rejecting the role of the organised people and absolutely relying on diplomacy and military bloc making. The CPC gave its blessing and sent its delegates as observer to the meetings of the Warsaw Military Treaty bloc. The CPC, together with the Soviet Union and others denounced Tito for not signing the 12 - Party declaration defending the Warsaw Military Treaty bloc. We will narrate and explain all these developments in our booklet Crisis of Communism - how and why? However, immediately after the death of Stalin in 1953, the Council of Mutual Economic Assistance, which became COMECON, took a new course toward co-ordination of output and adopted a pattern of specialisation. Until 1953, CMEA's activities had been confined to the registration of bilateral commercial trade agreements among its members. The 1953 COMECON plan was to provide a skeletal balance of whole supply and demand of key materials for the entire bloc. Meanwhile the dictatorship of the proletariat was usurped in the Soviet Union , the Soviet leaders winded up the Machine Tractor Stations (MTS) and de-socialised the main means of production in agriculture, sold it to the collective farms thus making the collective farms the owners of the principal means of production in agriculture, as well as converting the means of production into commodity within the home market , gave back enormous powers to the free traders permitting the collective farms to sell in the open market their products of kitchen gardens , opened hundreds of free markets and made the circulation of commodities and money market free thus permitting the blind and anarchic operation of the law of value. Capitalism in agriculture and trade was in the process of restoration in full speed.
At the same time, the Khrushchev leadership decentralised the national economic plan and emphasis was shifted to international trade. The basis of restoration of capitalism was laid thoroughly both in national and international spheres. Naturally, the COMECON with its new plan for providing skeletal balance of the whole supply and demand of key materials for the entire bloc cannot but became the instrument of unequal trade, exploitation and accumulation of capital. According to the Marxist theory world price patterns set up by the imperialists put any developed capitalist country in a position of exploiting less developed ones.
An advanced country is always in a position to sell its goods above their value even when it sells them cheaper than the competing countries, while a less developed country may offer more materialised labour in goods than it receives and yet it receives in turn commodities cheaper than
it produces. The differences in levels of productivity between the two types of countries, that is to the equal exchange of more labour (less skilled and less productive on the part of less developed countries) for less labour ( more skilled and more productive on the part of highly developed countries) is a phenomenon of the capitalist society. International trade has thus perpetuated and regularised this transfer of values from the underdeveloped and developing countries to the developed countries from the very beginning of international trade. So, also the international division of capital and labour is a product of capitalism where capital and resulting industrial development is accumulated in developed countries while the rest of the world is characterised by lack of capital and industrialisation. This transfer of values is not imperialism in itself, it is the draining. Mercantile capitalism, and industrial capitalism also drained and bled white the "backward" countries, but that was not capitalist imperialism. This drainage helps to accumulate capital and in the imperialist epoch this accumulation, by way of credit, loan, aid etc., takes the character of imperialist exploitation.
What is then, the socialist way out, especially in the period of socialism in several countries and particularly when one socialist country, the Soviet Union, has become highly developed while all other Socialist countries are underdeveloped? The trade of the under-developed socialist countries with highly developed Soviet Union, based on imperialist world pricing system, would naturally and surely, lead to the drainage and transfer of values from the underdeveloped socialist countries to the developed Soviet Union - though it might not be imperialist exploitation. In Stalin’s time trade with the socialist countries was bilateral and on the basis of book account and after every six months the trade with the socialist countries was made balanced by way of writing off. So, no question of drains from the less developed countries to the Soviet Union did arise. Stalin, subsequently, in his Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR, pointed out the socialist way out, in the chapter Disintegration of the single market and deepening of the world crisis of the world capitalist system". The two world parallel markets with two world prices the world pricing system of the socialist world based on non-exploitative basis could have solved the problem of drainage and transfer of value. In that case international trade of the socialist countries would have been really mutually beneficial based on mutual friendship. But after the death of Stalin the Khrushchev leadership restored capitalism inside the Soviet Union and resorted to capitalist path of international trade using its highly developed position and basing its trade on the basis of imperialist world pricing system.
To deceive and hoodwink the world people and the socialist countries in 81 Communist Party get together in 1960 and subsequently , the Soviet Union , under Khrushchev leadership, presented the theory of "world socialist system", "international dictatorship of the proletariat", "international division of labour" etc., in the name of Lenin and Leninism. Subsequently, the CPC and some other Peoples' Democracies expressed their right indignation against the exploitative and unequal character of international trade of the Soviet Union. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, the rising bourgeoisie and the mercantile class of the colonial and backward countries were criticising the imperialist powers for drainage, transfer of values and unequal trade. There was nothing new and nothing socialist in CPC's and socialist countries' criticism of the Soviet Union. The indignation of China and other Peoples' democracies were expressed in bourgeois nationalist method and manner. The CPC did not place any Leninist socialist alternative of International trade among the socialist countries. Even the seven point declaration of Chou En-lai as the basis of International trade was nothing but tall promises, as no promise can be realised in foreign trade without the solid basis of alternative socialist pricing system, but China also trades and calculates on the basis of imperialist world pricing system. Like all other countries China also treat some country as most favoured and give some special concession. But the fact remains that China also bases her calculation on the basis of imperialist world pricing system. Price discrimination against exporters of raw materials is due to the failure of the socialist countries to formulate a socialist theory and practice of international trade and socialist international pricing system. That is why the socialist countries have been forced to rely on imperialist world price as a guide and naturally, the imperialist world price brings with it the inherent discrimination against the exporters of raw materials.
With this background, let us discuss how the CPC commemorated Lenin’s memory on Lenin’s birth centenary in 1970. In criticising the revisionists and social-imperialists of the Soviet Union, the CPC published and circulated an article entitled 'Leninism or Social-imperialism?' jointly brought out as an editorial by Peoples Daily, Red Flag and Jeifang Jambao. We will quote from this joint editorial extensively so that the readers may see the points clearly. The editorial article says:
Now let us examine what stuff this Brezhnev doctrine is made of.
First the theory of limited sovereignty. Brezhnev and company say that safeguarding their so-called interests of socialism means safeguarding super sovereignty. They flagrantly declare that Soviet revisionism has the right to determine the destiny of another country including the destiny of sovereignty....
...you have imposed your all-highest super sovereignty on the people of other countries, which means that sovereignty of other countries is limited whereas your own power of dominating other countries is unlimited....
Secondly, the theory of international dictatorship. Brezhnev and company assert that they have the right to 'render military aid to a fraternal country to do away with the threat to the socialist system.' They declare: 'Lenin had foreseen that historical development would transform the dictatorship of the proletariat from a national into an international one, capable of decisively influencing the entire world politics.
This bunch of renegades completely distorts Lenin’s ideas.
In his article Preliminary draft theses on the National and Colonial questions Lenin wrote of transforming the dictatorship of the proletariat from a national one (i.e., existing in one country and incapable of determining world politics, into an international one i.e., dictatorship of the proletariat covering at least several countries and capable of exercising a decisive influence upon the whole world politics). Lenin meant here to uphold proletarian internationalism and propagate world revolution.
This is how the CPC commemorated Lenin’s memory and upheld Lenin’s ideas! In this case also the CPC criticised and opposed the Brezhnev doctrine from the nationalist standpoint, not from the standpoint of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism. In its denunciation of Brezhnev doctrine the CPC miserably failed to defend Lenin’s stand and equally distorted Lenin’s concept of international dictatorship. The Soviet revisionist clique is most cunningly using Lenin’s concept of an integrated world socialist economy , international dictatorship , common military , economic and foreign policy and rendering military help to other 'socialist countries' to legitimatize its own nefarious designs. It is the task of the Marxist-Leninists to lay bare this vile and dangerous designs behind Brezhnev doctrine and at the same time to resolutely defend and upheld Lenin, not to make pretence of upholding Lenin’s teachings while knavishly betraying his principles behind empty revolutionary rhetoric and thus propagating a negative attitude towards proletarian internationalism.
The CPC’s editorial denounced the right of rendering the military aid by a socialist country to another socialist country to do away with the threat of socialist system, completely remaining mum about the class character of the military aid as well as the class aim of this aid and who receives it. The Marxist-Leninists do uphold the theory and practice of rendering military aid by a socialist country to a socialist country, nay, even to the national liberation struggle of the oppressed people and at the same time oppose the rendering of military help direct or indirect by the bourgeoisie and imperialists to the counter-revolutionaries of other countries. The CPC article ignored this class character, absolutised the formal outlook of state sovereignty and non-interference.
We know that there are two kinds, two classes of international integration of world economy: imperialist and socialist. World integration of economy is one of the laws of social development, independent of the human will and Lenin said in his Colonial Theses that this tendency is bound to develop and consummate more fully in socialist society. While upholding socialist integration of world economy, international trade, the Marxist-Leninists must at the same time, expose the imperialist integration. But the CPC, in the name of opposing 'Brezhnev doctrine' opposes from start to finish the Leninist idea and concept of socialist integration, international union of socialist countries and international dictatorship. Opposing and distorting Lenin’s concept of ’International dictatorship' it says that Lenin meant only propagation of world revolution and of proletarian internationalism. Did Lenin speak of proletarian internationalism in abstract terms?
Marxist-Leninists while exposing the bourgeois class character of the world federation, integrated world economy etc. , upheld , at the same time, socialist world federation,, integrated world socialist system , international dictatorship of the proletariat and proletarian internationalism most concretely in each concrete historical period. Let us see, how in similar situation Marxist-Leninists dealt with the problem.
During the first world war, Lenin repeatedly attacked the suggestions that a group of capitalist states might form federation after the war. In a discussion of the national question in March, 1916, Lenin dismissed Trotsky’s ideas of the peaceful union of equal nations under imperialism as an opportunist utopia. In April 1916, Lenin introduced a resolution at the International Socialist Conference at Kienthal, Switzerland, denouncing as a mirage all proposals for a United States of Europe, "compulsory courts of arbitration" disarmament, and "democratic diplomacy". Again, in an article in January 1917, Lenin branded the phrases about a federation of nations which he said were flaunted by bourgeois nationalists as disgusting hypocrisy. And this very Lenin, it must be noted, not only stood for federation of Soviets of many nations but actually created in USSR. The CPC's article quoted extensively above do not show any sign of awareness of the class character of supranational federation.
Stalin said, when reporting upon the impending creation of a federal constitution for the USSR in 1923 that "the entire East will see that our federation is the banner of liberation, the advance guard in whose steps it must follow." At the same time Stalin criticised the American federal system based on bureaucratic centralisation, exploitation and force. He also said that the future world federation can be genuine and lasting only under socialism and not under any system of exploitation. Hence, any other projects for supranational federation, either regional or global were opposed by Lenin and Stalin, while at the same time upholding and propagating world socialist federation.
The League of Nations wrote the Soviet legal authority Pavel Stuchka, in 1926, cannot be transformed into a superstate or a federation of states or even into a confederation because of irreconcilable contradictions among different States that constitute the League membership.
From the first days of the United Nations Organizations existence the Soviet leaders expressed their views in clearest terms, stating the differences between a federation of exploiting and a federation of socialist countries. The New Times' editorial of December 3, 1945, protested when certain imperialist politicians were calling for the UN's radical reconstruction into a world federation. "These capitalists who demand a world state" wrote The New Times, are least of all concerned to abolish the social and national oppression existing in the world today. The value of these widely boasted remedy is, therefore, nil.
Thus we see that the Marxist-Leninists while exposing the bourgeois character of the institutions and federation sponsored by the imperialists, upheld the institutions and federation sponsored by the Communists. But the CPC editorial condemns all these concepts and institutions absolutely, irrespective of the character of these institutions, upholding bourgeois national exclusiveness and narrow bourgeois nationalism and repudiating proletarian internationalism.
The CPC editorial article could have exposed and flayed the Brezhnev doctrine mercilessly as being imperialist and exploitative. But the CPC has avoided the real class battle of establishing proletarian internationalism as living principle. It has denounced without any discrimination or any historical and class perspective all the institutions, including the organization of the Communist International, elsewhere, through which the concept of proletarian internationalism and international socialism can take concrete material shape. In this connection it is necessary to note that at no time and at no place the Communist Party of China did criticise Khrushchev’s dismantling of the Machine Tractor Stations and de-socialisation of one of the main means of production of the Socialist economy. On the contrary, Mao Tse Tung in his Critique of Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR, published by Monthly Review Press said, My view is that the last of the three appended letters is ENTIRELY WRONG. It expresses a deep uneasiness , a belief that the peasantry cannot be trusted to release agriculture machinery but would hang on it ... Elsewhere in the same book , Mao said , Stalin’s point of view in his last letter is almost altogether wrong. The basic error is mistrust of the peasants. This was written long after Khrushchev dismantled the MTS and introduced capitalism in the Soviet Union. The last letter of Stalin addressed to A.V. Sanina and 28
V.G. Venzher was against the selling of the Machine Tractor Stations to the collective farms. It appears that Mao Tse Tung also supported the selling of the MTS to the collective farms. This is not the place of the discussion of the points raised by the capitalist roaders of all hues including Mao regarding the role of the law of value in a socialist society. The Communist Information Service will discuss all this points on another occasion. In connection with Stalin's opposition to selling the Machine Tractor Stations to the collective farmers Mao raised the question of belief and non-belief, trust and mistrust of the peasantry and thus betrayed his extremely poor understanding of Marxism-Leninism, especially the dictatorship of the proletariat. The question of belief and non-belief or trust or mistrust is extremely loose, non-class approach. Socialisation of all the means of production, especially the main means of production is a question of fundamental principle of socialism. The economic foundation of socialism is the socialist ownership of the instruments and means of production. Socialism is the first social system in history to create the conditions for the equality of the people with regard to the means of production, thereby laying the basis of an end to the exploitation of man by man. The socialisation of the means of production does not mean that the working class becomes the owner of the means of production to accrue benefit for its class only. Nor socialisation does mean that the workers become owners factory wise. The socialisation of the means of production is for the socialist mode of distribution of the wealth of the society, firstly, each according to the work and then each according to the need. No particular class, nor a section of a class can be the owner of the means of production, the society as a whole is the owner.
Now, there were hundreds of collective farms in the Soviet Union, highly developed, developed and ordinary. Collective farm was not and cannot be a single institution of the collective farmers as such the Machine Tractors Stations could not be and was not sold to the peasant class as a whole. It was sold to those collective farms who were financially in a position to buy it. Not all the collective farms were in a position to buy it. Firstly, the sale of machine Tractor Stations to some of the Collective farms meant handing over the property of the whole people of the society to a particular section of the people of the society who became the master of one of the key means of production. Secondly, it meant the abolition of the prospect of socialist mode of distribution so far the agricultural products were concerned, as the owners of the means of production became the absolute owners of the production and accrued the benefits for themselves only. Thirdly, and it is most important one, it meant the loosing of unchallenged authority of the dictatorship of the proletariat as one of the vital sectors of national economy and its 'means of production' were no longer in the control of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Fourthly, the proletariat lost the possibility of retaining its leading role and political control. Fifthly, firm workers-peasants alliance was lost its significance and sixthly, classification and division among the peasantry became a fact and as a result of which the big collective farmers, the owners of the means of production were exploiting the other peasantry. Similar things are happening in the factory, after the introduction of 'New reform' and khozraschot, when responsibility for production and sale was given factory-wise.
Mao Tse Tung raised the question of belief and non-belief or trust or mistrust of the peasantry of Stalin. Did Lenin or Stalin believing and trusting the working class, hand over the means of production to the workers factory-wise and production unit-wise? Lenin and Stalin opposed the slogan of factory to the workers because that does neither usher socialised production nor socialised distribution, nor socialism. Here lies the difference between Mao Tse Tung - a peasant reformer and Lenin and Stalin- the proletarian revolutionaries-- an anarchist and syndicalist in the ultimate sense and the Marxist- Leninists.
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