Modern Revisionism -Moni Guha
6. Modern Revisionism
We have shown in our last pamphlet Yugoslav revisionism and the role of the C.P.S.U. and CPC, how Stalin at last succeeded in persuading the Communist Parties of the Peoples Democracies of Eastern Europe and the Communist Parties of France and Italy to form the Communist Information Bureau (Cominform). We do not know the details of the facts of tremendous opposition Stalin faced. In this connection Togliatti, in his Report to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Italy shed some light from which we can understand the depth of opposition against the revival and reconstruction of the Communist International. Togliatti said on June, 24, 1956:
When the Information Bureau was formed, I do not deny that there was some doubt among us, as we warned that the action was substantially contrary to the line of development of the communist movement which had been adopted when the Communist International was dissolved. However, we felt the need in that situation, for renewing contacts among the different sectors of the communist movements, precisely because, that was the very time when the great cold war offensive was launched against the communist forces, against socialism, against democracy and peace".
In the same report Togliatti further said: I do not hesitate to recall to the memory of my comrades that in several cases there were differences between what the Soviet communists said on certain matters and what we maintained ; but this never broke our mutual solidarity and understanding.
The most obvious and perhaps the most serious conflict -- I recall it because it has certain degree of importance in relation to matters which are being discussed to-day - took place as recently as January 1951. At that time I had gone to Moscow for a period of convalescence, after the serious accident which had happened to me and the subsequent surgery and I found myself faced with comrade Stalin’s proposal that I should abandon the post of Secretary of the Italian Communist Party to assume that of Secretary General of the Information Bureau. I immediately opposed it for many reasons. I considered that such an action [creation of the post of Secretary General of the Cominform] could not fail to have serious and unfavourable repercussions on the development of the international situation, at a time which was of extreme gravity as it could not fail to indicate in the eyes of public opinion, a return to the organization of the Communist International. In the second place, I considered that it was not right to take that course regarding the organization of the international communist movement. Finally, there were personal reasons against it. There were heated arguments, but the matter was resolved satisfactorily, as comrade Stalin withdrew his proposal
What do we understand from the above two quotations from Togliatti’s Report? We understand that: a spectre was haunting the revisionists- the spectre of the Communist International. All the powers of revisionists of the world had entered into a holy alliance in order to lay this spectre: Togliatti and Tito; Mao and Khrushchev, (adopted from the Manifesto) Stalin withdrew his proposal not because Stalin thought that he was wrong after the heated debate, but because it was useless to debate with an arch-revisionist. The anti-Leninists, the anti-internationalists were opposed to the idea of revival and reconstruction of the Communist International and they tried to treat the Cominform as a mere post office for receiving and dispatching reports - not as a guiding centre and executive body--of the international communist movement. The Cominform was the basic party organization of the united front" of the socialist countries. (In this connection please see the letter of the CC of the C.P.S.U. (B) to the CC of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia quoted on pages 14-17 in Yugoslav revisionism and the role of the C.P.S.U. and CPC).
In that letter the C.P.S.U. (B) said that the Cominform was the basic party organization of the united front of the socialist countries. What did that exactly mean? The socialist countries remained separated, condition did not mature for federating the socialist countries. A mechanism must be set up through which a common policy for all socialist countries may be taken up. That mechanism was the united front of all the socialist countries. But who will guide that united front? A party organization is needed to guide that united front and that party organization was the Cominform. That was why the letter of the CC, CPSU (B) in its letter wrote that the Cominform was the basic party organization of the united front. United front was composed of people of the socialist countries, where there were diverse opinions and elements. But the Cominform was made of the communist which was not common platform, but a party organization in which all the constituent have the right to criticise others and obligation to abide by the decision of the organization and this party organization implements its policy through the common platform of the united front. Was it wrong on the part of the Cominform or Stalin to consider the Cominform as the basic party organization? The revisionists were not prepared to accept the Cominform as the basic party organization as an executive body. Proletarian internationalism in words and bourgeois nationalism in deeds, that was the stand of the revisionists. They tried to treat the Cominform as a get together affair having no executive power.
We have seen that the Tito clique was expelled from the Cominform on the charge of advocating and practising modern revisionism. Tito raised the slogan of self-reliance, independent building of socialism, went against the international discipline of the Cominform, advocated non-interference in internal party affairs, thus placing 'his' party in independent and sovereign status. He voiced the sentiments and wishes of the bourgeois nationalists inside the world communist movement and especially of the socialist countries in declaration like No matter how much each of us loves the land of socialism – the USSR, he can in no case love his country less which is also developing socialism." (Yugoslav Communist Party’s letter to the C.P.S.U. (B) on April 13, 1948). The love of socialist country of a foreign land was counterpoised with love and loyalty to one’s own socialist country implying that socialism was not international but national as well as implying an inevitable contradiction between the two in building and developing socialism.
We have also seen how the C.P.S.U. headed by Khrushchev made rapprochement with the Tito clique in 1955, in consultation and full agreement with the CPC headed by Mao Tse-tung to internationalise the essence of Titoite revisionism. This rapprochement was the rapprochement with modern revisionism, a revisionism against the building of socialism internationally under the collective leadership of the parties of the socialist countries in the epoch of socialism in several countries unfurling the flag of bourgeois nationalism in the shape of bourgeois equality, independence, sovereignty and non-interference and carrying that to the sphere of even party affairs thus transforming international communism into national communism. 'Self reliance' in building and developing socialism was their central slogan.
We are now in a position to define precisely and concretely what the Cominform meant by modern revisionism when it denounced the Tito-clique as modern revisionist.
Modern revisionism was the revisionism which repudiated and denounced the building of socialism internationally as an organised and conscious world system on the basis of a common plan under the collective leadership and guidance of socialist countries in the period of socialism in several countries on the one hand and propagated and practised 'socialism in one country' basing on the slogan of self-reliance and national socialist state, thus eventually coming in conflict with each other disintegrating the socialist camp and unity, on the other . This served the bourgeoisie and the imperialists.
Building of socialism internationally and collectively by all socialist countries demanded an international and collective leadership and Cominform was that international and collective leadership as basic party organization of the united front of the socialist countries through which the proletarian internationalism was expressed concretely. All the socialist countries and their states were independent and sovereign, remained as separate states but the Communist Parties were not accorded the status of independence and sovereignty as it was against the very principle and practice of proletarian internationalism.
Did Stalin commit any wrong by following the line of Lenin? Did Stalin commit any wrong by forming Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) and introducing joint enterprises of the socialist countries? Was it Stalin’s 'big-nation chauvinism'?
All the questions of this period of socialism in several countries, including the questions of Stalin depended on the attitude and stand on the central issue of the period: Socialism in a single country? Or socialism in several countries? Building of socialism singly? Or building of socialism internationally? Is the Communist Party a World Party? Or the Communist Party is a national party, independent and sovereign?
In fact, both the C.P.S.U. headed by Khrushchev and subsequently by Brezhnev and the CPC headed by Mao Tse-Tung consolidated and strengthened their own bourgeois nationalism respectively, after the death of Stalin, and that was why subsequently the CPC and the C.P.S.U. fought against one another in the name of fighting revisionism. We will, of course, deal with this question, somewhat in details in our pamphlet Communism in crisis - how and why? But the basic cause of this fight of revisionism against revisionism, was undoubtedly bourgeois nationalism and separatism which gave rise to hegemonism on the part of both to consolidate and strengthen national state of "socialism". Lenin once said, One who has adopted the standpoint of nationalism, naturally arrives at the desire to erect a Chinese wall around his nationality, his national working class movement. He is unembarrassed even by the fact that it would mean building separate walls in each city, in each little town and village, unembarrassed even by the fact that by his tactics of division and dismemberment he is reducing to nil (emphasis in original) the great call for the rallying and unity of the proletarians of all nations, all races and all languages, (C.W., Vol. 6 pp. 520-21).
Let us see how bourgeois nationalism , Titoism reigned supreme in the Communist Party of China and how it consolidated and strengthened bourgeois nationalism in opposition to proletarian internationalism from 1956 onwards in the name of fighting revisionism.
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