Neo-Democracy!!

The Essential STALIN

2011-05-02T18:25:00.000-07:00

Introduction to book Major Theoretical writings 1905-52 By Bruce Franklin

I used to think of Joseph Stalin as a tyrant and butcher who jailed and killed millions, betrayed the Russian revolution, sold out liberation struggles around the world, and ended up a solitary madman, hated and feared by the people of the Soviet Union and the world. Even today I have trouble saying the name "Stalin" without feeling a bit sinister.

But, to about a billion people today, Stalin is the opposite of what we in the capitalist world have been programmed to believe. The people of China, Vietnam, Korea, and Albania consider Stalin one of the great heroes of modern history, a man who personally helped win their liberation.

This belief could be dismissed as the product of an equally effective brainwashing from the other side, except that the workers and peasants of the Soviet Union, who knew Stalin best, share this view. For almost two decades the Soviet rulers have systematically attempted to make the Soviet people accept the capitalist world's view of Stalin, or at least to forget him. They expunged him from the history books, wiped out his memorials, and even removed his body from his tomb.

Yet, according to all accounts, the great majority of the Soviet people still revere the memory of Stalin, and bit by bit they have forced concessions. First it was granted that Stalin had been a great military leader and the main antifascist strategist of World War II. Then it was conceded that he had made important contributions to the material progress of the Soviet people. Now a recent Soviet film shows Stalin, several years before his death, as a calm, rational, wise leader.

But the rulers of the Soviet Union still try to keep the people actually from reading Stalin. When they took over, one of their first acts was to ban his writings. They stopped the publication of his collected works, of which thirteen volumes had already appeared, covering the period only through 1934. This has made it difficult throughout the world to obtain Stalin's writings in the last two decades of his life. Recently the Hoover Institute of Stanford University, whose purpose, as stated by its founder, Herbert Hoover, is to demonstrate the evils of the doctrines of Karl Marx" completed the final volumes in Russian so that they would be available to Stanford's team of émigré anti-Communists (In. preparing. this volume, I was able to use the Hoover collection of writings by and about Stalin only by risking jail, directly Violating my banishment by court injunction from this Citadel of the Free World.)

The situation in the U.S. is not much different from that in th7 U.S.S.R. In fact the present volume represents the first time since 1955 that a major publishing house in either country has authorized the publication of Stalin's works. U.S. Capitalist publishers have printed only Stalin's wartime diplomatic correspondence and occasional essays, usually much abridged, in anthologies. Meanwhile his enemies and critics are widely published. Since the early 1920s there have been basically two opposing lines claiming to represent Marxism-Leninism, one being Stalin's and the other Trotsky’s. The works of Trotsky are readily available in many inexpensive editions. And hostile memoirs, such as those of Khrushchev and Svetlana Stalin, are actually serialized in popular magazines.

The suppression of Stalin's writings spreads the notion that he did not write anything worth reading. Yet Stalin is clearly one of the three most important historical figures of our century, his thought and deeds still affecting our daily lives, considered by hundreds of millions today as one of the leading political theorists of any time, his very name a strongly emotional household word throughout the world. Anyone familiar with the development of Marxist-Leninist theory in the past half century knows that Stalin was not merely a man of action. Mao names him "the greatest genius of our time," calls himself Stalin's disciple, and argues that Stalin' s theoretical works are still the core of world Communist revolutionary strategy.

Gaining access to Stalin's works is not the hardest part of coming to terms with him. First we must recognize that there can be no "objective" or "neutral" appraisal of Stalin, any more than there can be of any major historical figure during the epochs of class struggle. From the point of view of some classes, George Washington was an arrogant scoundrel and traitor to his country, king, and God, a renegade who brought slaughter and chaos to a continent; Abraham Lincoln was responsible for the deaths of millions and the destruction of a civilized, cultured, harmonious society based on the biblically sanctioned relationship with the black descendants of Ham; Sitting Bull was a murderous savage who stood in the way of the progress of a superior civilization; Eldridge Cleaver, George and Jonathan Jackson, Ruchell Magee and Angela Davis are vicious murderers, while Harry Truman, Nelson Rockefeller, Mayor Daley, John F. Kennedy, and Richard Nixon are rational and patriotic men who use force only when necessary to protect the treasured values of the Free World.

Any historical figure must be evaluated from the interests of one class or another. Take J. Edgar Hoover, for example. Anti-Communists may disagree about his performance, but they start from the assumption that the better he did his job of preserving "law and order" as defined by our present rulers the better he was. We Communists, on the other hand, certainly would not think Hoover "better" if he had been more efficient in running the secret police and protecting capitalism. And so the opposite with Stalin, whose job was not to preserve capitalism but to destroy it, not to suppress communism but to advance it. The better he did his job, the worse he is likely to seem to all those who profit from this economic system and the more he will be appreciated by the victims of that system. The Stalin question is quite different for those who share his goals and for those, who oppose them. For the revolutionary people of the world it is literally a life and-death matter to have a scientific estimate of Stalin, because he was, after all, the principal leader of the world revolution for thirty crucial years.

I myself have seen Stalin from both sides. Deeply embedded in my consciousness and feelings was that Vision of Stalin as tyrant and butcher. This was part of my over-all view of communism as a slave system, an idea that I was taught in capitalist society. Communist society was not red but a dull-gray world. It was ruled by a secret clique of powerful men. Everybody else worked for these few and kept their mouths shut. Propaganda poured from all the media. The secret police were everywhere, tapping phones, following people on the street, making midnight raids.

Anyone who spoke out would lose his job, get thrown in jail, or even get shot by the police. One of the main aims of the government was international aggression, starting wars to conquer other counties. When I began to discover that this entire vision point by point described my own society a number of questions arose in my mind.

For me, as for millions of others in the United States it was the Vietnamese who forced a change in perception. How could we fail to admire the Vietnamese people and to see Ho Chi Minh as one of the great heroes of our times? What stood out not about Ho was his vast love for the people and his dedication to serving them. (In 1965, before I became a Communist, I spoke at a rally soliciting blood for the Vietnamese victims of U.S. bombing. When I naively said that Ho was a nationalist above being a Communist and a human being above being a nationalist, I was pelted with garbage and, much to my surprise, called a "dirty Commie. But we were supposed to believe that Ho was a "tyrant and butcher." Later, it dawned on me that Fidel Castro was also supposed to be a "tyrant and butcher" although earlier we had been portrayed as a freedom fighter against the Batista dictatorship. Still later, I began to study the Chinese revolution, and found in Mao's theory and preaches the guide for my own thinking and action. But, again, we were Supposed to see Mao as a "tyrant and butcher" and also a "madman” the more I looked into it, the more I found that these "tyrants and butchers"-Ho, Fidel, and Mao -were all depicted servants of the people, inspired by a deep and self sacrificing love for them. At some point, I began to wonder if perhaps even Stalin was not a "tyrant and butcher."

With this thought came intense feelings that must resemble - what someone in a tribe experiences when violating a taboo. But if we want to understand the world we live in, we must face Stalin.

Joseph Stalin personifies a major aspect of three decades of twentieth-century history. If we seek answers to any of the crucial questions about the course of our century, at some point we find Stalin standing directly in our path. Is it possible for poor and working people to make a revolution and then wield political power? Can an undeveloped, backward nation whose people are illiterate, impoverished, diseased, starving, and lacking in all the skills and tools needed to develop their productive forces possibly achieve both material and cultural well-being? Can this be done under a condition of encirclement by hostile powers, greedy for conquest, far more advanced industrially and, militantly: and fanatical in their opposition to any people s revolutionary government? What price must be paid for the success of revolutionary development? Can national unity be achieved in a vast land inhabited by many peoples of diverse races, religions, culture, language, and levels of economic development?

Is it possible to attain international unity among the exploited and oppressed peoples of many different nations whose governments depend upon intense nationalism and the constant threat of war? Then, later, can the people of any modern highly industrialized society also have a high degree of freedom, or must the state be their enemy? Can any society flourish without some form of ruling elite?

These questions are all peculiarly modern, arising in the epoch of capitalism as it reaches its highest form, modern imperialism, and becoming critical in our own time, the era of global revolution. Each of these questions leads us inevitably to Stalin. In my opinion, it is not going too far to say that Stalin is the key figure of our era.

All the achievements and all the failures, all the strengths and all the weaknesses, of the Soviet revolution and indeed of the world revolution in the period 1922-53 are summed up in Stalin. This is not to say that he is personally responsible for all that was and was not accomplished, or that nobody else could have done what he did. We are not dealing with a "great man" theory of history. In fact, quite the opposite. If we are to understand Stalin at all, and evaluate him from the point of View of either of two major opposing classes, we must see him, like all historical figures, as a being created by his times and containing the contradictions of those times. .

Every idea of Stalin's, as he would be the first to admit, came to him from his historical existence, which also fixed limits to the ideas available to him. He could study history in order to learn from the experience of the Paris Commune but he could not look into a crystal ball to benefit from the lessons of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. And the decisions he made also had fixed and determined limits on either Side, as we shall see.

To appraise Stalin, the best way to begin is to compare the condition of the Soviet Union and the rest of the world at two times: when he came into leadership and when he died. Without such a comparison, it is impossible to measure what he may have contributed or taken away from human progress. If the condition of the Soviet people was much better when he died than when he took power, he cannot have made their lives worse. The worst that can be said is that they would have progressed more without him. The same is true for the world revolution. Was it set back during the decades of his leadership, or did it advance? Once we put the questions this way, the burden of proof falls on those who deny Stalin's positive role as a revolutionary leader.

As World War I began, the Russian Empire consisted primarily of vast undeveloped lands inhabited by many different peoples speaking a variety of languages with a very low level of literacy, productivity, technology, and health. Feudal Social relations still prevailed throughout many of these lands. Czarist secret police, officially organized bands of military terrorists, and a vast bureaucracy were deployed to keep the hungry masses of workers and peasants in line.

The war brought these problems to a crisis. Millions went to their deaths wearing rags, with empty stomachs, often waiting for those in front of them to fall so they could have a rifle and a few rounds of ammunition. When the Bolsheviks seized power in 1917, the entire vast empire, including the great cities of Russia itself, was in chaos.

Before the new government could begin to govern, it was Immediately set upon by the landlords, capitalists, and generals of the old regime, with all the forces they could buy and muster, together with combined military forces of Britain, France, Japan, and Poland, and additional military contingents from the U.S. and other capitalist countries. A vicious civil war raged for three years, from Siberia through European Russia, from the White Sea to the Ukraine. At the end of the Civil War, in 1920, agricultural output was less than half that of the prewar poverty stricken countryside. Even worse was the situation in industry.

Many mines and factories had been destroyed. Transport had been torn up. Stocks of raw materials and semi finished products had been exhausted. The output of large-scale industry was about one seventh of what it had been before the war. And the fighting against foreign military intervention had to go on for two more years. Japanese and U.S. troops still held a portion of Siberia, including the key port city of Vladivostok, which was not recaptured until 1922.

Lenin suffered his first stroke in 1922. From this point on, Stalin, who was the General Secretary of the Central Committee, began to emerge as the principal leader of the Party. Stalin's policies were being implemented at least as early as 1924, the year of Lenin's death, and by 1927 the various opposing factions had been defeated and expelled from the Party. It is the period of the early and mid-1920S that we must compare to 1953.

The Soviet Union of the early 1920S was a land of deprivation. Hunger was everywhere, and actual mass famines swept across much of the countryside. Industrial production was extremely low, and the technological Level of industry was so backward that there seemed little possibility of mechanizing agriculture. Serious rebellions in the armed forces were breaking out, most notably at the Kronstadt garrison in 1921.

By 1924 large-scale peasant revolts were erupting, particularly in Georgia. There was virtually no electricity outside the large cities. Agriculture was based on the peasant holdings and medium-sized farms seized by rural capitalists (the kulaks) who forced the peasants back into wage Labor and tenant fanning. Health care was almost non-existent in much of the country. The technical knowledge and skills needed to develop modern industry, agriculture, health, and education were concentrated in the hands of a few, mostly opposed to socialism while the vast majority of the population were illiterate and could hardly think about education while barely managing to subsist. The Soviet Union was isolated in a world controlled by powerful capitalist countries physically surrounding it, setting up economic blockades, and officially refusing to recognize its existence while outdoing each other in their pledges to wipe out this Red menace.

The counterrevolution was riding high throughout Europe Great Britain, and even in the U.S.A., where the Red threat was used as an excuse to smash labor unions. Fascism was emerging in several parts of the capitalist world, particularly in Japan and in Italy, where Mussolini took dictatorial power in 1924. Most of the world consisted of colonies and neo-colonies of the European powers.

When Stalin died in 1953, the Soviet Union was the second greatest industrial, scientific, and military power in the world and showed clear signs of moving to overtake the U.S. in all these areas. This was despite the devastating losses it suffered while defeating the fascist powers of Germany, Romania, Hungary, and Bulgaria. The various peoples of the U.S.S.R. were unified. Starvation and illiteracy were unknown throughout the country. Agriculture was completely collectivized and extremely productive. Preventive health care was the finest in the world, and medical treatment of exceptionally high quality was available free to all citizens. Education at all levels was free. More books were published in the U.S.S.R. than in any other country. There was no unemployment.

Meanwhile, in the rest of the world, not only had the main fascist powers of 1922-45 been defeated, but the forces of revolution were on the rise everywhere. The Chinese Communist Party had just led one fourth of the world's population to victory over foreign imperialism and domestic feudalism and capitalism. Half of Korea was socialist, and the U.S.-British imperialist army, having rushed to intervene in the civil war under the banner of the United Nations was on the defensive and hopelessly demoralized. In Vietnam, strong socialist power, which had already defeated Japanese Imperialism, was administering the final blows to the beaten army of the French empire. The monarchies and fascist military dictatorships of Eastern Europe had been destroyed by a combination of partisan forces, led by local Communists, and the Soviet Army; everywhere except for Greece there were now governments that supported the world revolution and at least claimed to be governments of the workers and peasants. The largest political party in both France and Italy was the Communist Party. The national liberation movement among the European colonies and neo-colonies was surging forward. Between 1946 and 1949 alone, at least nominal national independence was achieved by Burma, Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Laos, Libya, Ceylon, Jordan, and the Philippines, countries comprising about one third of the world’s population. The entire continent of Africa was stirring.

Everybody but the Trotskyites, and even some of them would have to admit that the situation for the Communist world revolution was incomparably advanced in 1953 over what it had been in the early or mid 1920s. Of course, that does not settle the Stalin question. We still have to ask whether Stalin contributed to this tremendous advance, or slowed it down or had negligible influence on it. And we must not duck the question as to whether Stalin's theory and practice built such serious faults into revolutionary communism that its later failures, particularly in the Soviet Union, can be pinned on him.

So let us look through Stalin’s career focusing particularly on its most controversial aspects.

"Stalin" which means "steel-man," was the code name for a Young Georgian revolutionary born as Joseph Visvarionovich Djugashvili in 1879 in the town of Gori. His class origins combine the main forces of the Russian revolution.

His father formerly a village cobbler of peasant background, became a' worker in a shoe factory. His mother was the daughter of peasant serfs. So Stalin was no stranger to either workers or peasants, and being from Georgia, he had firsthand knowledge of how czarist Russia oppressed the non-Russian peoples of its empire. .

While studying at the seminary for a career as a priest, he made his first contact with the Marxist underground at the age of fifteen, and at eighteen he formally joined the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party, which was to evolve into the Communist Party. Shortly after joining the party in 1898, he became convinced that Lenin was the main theoretical leader of the revolution, particularly when Lenin's newspaper Iskra began to appear in 1900. After being thrown out of his seminary, Stalin concentrated on organizing workers in the area of Tiflis, capital of Georgia, and the Georgian industrial City of Batumi. After one of his many arrests by the czarist secret police, he began to correspond with Lenin from exile.

Escaping from Siberian exile in 1904, Stalin returned to organizing workers in the cities of Georgia, where mass strikes were beginning to assume a decidedly political and revolutionary character. Here he began to become one of the main spokesmen for Lenin's theory, as we see in the first two selections in this volume. In December 1904 he led a huge strike of the Baku workers, which helped precipitate the abortive Russian revolution of 1905. During the revolution and after it was suppressed, Stalin was one of the main Bolshevik underground and military organizers, and was frequently arrested by the secret police. At the Prague Conference of 1912, in which the Bolsheviks completed the split with the Mensheviks and established themselves as a separate party, Stalin was elected in absentia to the Central Committee, a position he was to maintain for over four decades. Then, on the eve of World War I, he published what may properly be considered his first major contribution to Marxist-Leninist theory, Marxism and the National Question.

Prior to World War I, the various social-democratic parties of Europe were loosely united in the Second International.

All pledged themselves to international proletarian solidarity. But when the war broke out, the theory Stalin had developed in Marxism and the National Question proved to be crucial and correct. As Stalin had foreseen, every party that had compromised with bourgeois nationalism ended up leading the workers of its nation to support their "own" bourgeois rulers by going out to kill and be killed by the workers of the other nations. Lenin, Stalin, and the other Bolsheviks took a quite different position. They put forward the slogan "Turn the imperialist war into a civil war." Alone of all the parties of the Second International, they came out for actual armed revolution.

In February 1917 the workers, peasants and soldiers of Russia, in alliance with the liberal bourgeoisie, overthrew the czarist autocracy, which had bled the country dry and brought it to ruin in a war fought to extend the empire. The liberal bourgeoisie established a new government.
The next few months led to a key moment in history. Most of the parties that claimed to be revolutionary now took the position that the Russian proletariat was too weak and backward to assume political power. They advocated that the proletariat should support the new bourgeois government and enter a long period of capitalist development until someday in the future when they could begin to think about socialism. This view even penetrated the Bolsheviks. So when Stalin was released from his prison exile in March and the Central Committee brought him back to help lead the work in St. Petersburg, he found a heavy internal struggle. He took Lenin's position, and, being placed in charge of the Bolshevik newspaper Pravda, was able to put it forward vigorously to the masses. When the Central Committee finally decided, in October, to lead the workers and soldiers of St. Petersburg to seize the Winter Palace and establish a proletarian government, it was over the violent objections of many of the aristocratic intellectuals who, much to their own surprise and discomfort had found themselves in an actual revolutionary situation. Two of them, Zinoviev and Kamenev, even went so far as to inform the bourgeois newspapers that the Bolsheviks had a secret plan to seize power. After the virtually bloodless seizure by the workers and soldiers took place, a third member of the Central Committee, Rykov, joined Zinoviev and Kamenev in a secret deal made with the bourgeois parties whereby the Bolsheviks would resign from power, the press would be returned to the bourgeoisie, and Lenin would be permanently barred from holding public office. (All this is described in John Reed's Ten Days That Shook the World, which was first published in 1919. I mention this because Zinoviev, Kamenev, and Rykov were three of the central figures of the purge trials of the 1930S, and it is they who have been portrayed as stanch Bolsheviks in such works as Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon.)

During the Civil War, which followed the seizure of power, Stalin began to emerge as an important military leader.

Trotsky was nominally the head of the Red Army. Behaving, as he always did, in the primacy of technique, Trotsky took as one of his main tasks winning over the high officers of the former czarist army and turning them into the general command of the revolutionary army. The result was defeat after defeat for the Red forces, either through outright betrayal by their aristocratic officers or because these officers tried to apply military theories appropriate to a conscript or mercenary army to the leadership of a people's army made up of workers and peasants. Stalin, on the other hand, understood the military situation from the point of view of the workers and peasants, and with a knowledge of their capabilities and limitations.

In 1919 Stalin was sent as a special plenipotentiary to the key Volga city of Tsaritsyn. His mission was simply to assure the delivery of food supplies from this entire region. What he found was a disastrous military situation, with the city not only surrounded by the White Army but heavily infiltrated by counterrevolutionary forces. He saw that the food supply could not be safeguarded unless the military and political situations were dealt with. He instituted an uncompromising purge of counterrevolutionary elements within both the officer corps and the political infrastructure, took personal command of the military forces over the heads of both the local authorities and Trotsky, and then proceeded to save the city, the region, and the food supply. Trotsky, furious, demanded his recall. As for the citizens of Tsaritsyn, their opinion became known six years later, when they renamed their city Stalingrad.

After this episode, rather than being recalled, Stalin was dispatched far and wide to every major front in the Civil War. In each and every place, he was able to win the immediate respect of the revolutionary people and to lead the way to military victory, even in the most desperate circumstances.

Certain qualities emerged more and more clearly, acknowledged by both friends and enemies. These were his enormous practicality and efficiency, his worker peasant outlook, and the unswerving way he proceeded to the heart of every problem. By the end of the war, Stalin was widely recognized as a man who knew how to run things, a quality sorely lacking among most of the aristocratic intellectuals who then saw themselves as great proletarian leaders. In April 1922 he was made General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. It was in this position that Stalin was quickly to become the de facto leader of the Party and the nation.

Stalin's career up to this point is relatively uncontroversial in comparison with everything that follows. But nothing at all about Stalin is beyond controversy. Most of his biographers in the capitalist world minimize his revolutionary activities prior to 1922. At least two influential biographies, Boris Souvarine's Stalin (1939) and Edward Ellis Smith's The Young Stalin (1967), even argue that during most of this period Stalin was actually an agent for the czarist secret police. Trotsky's mammoth biography Stalin (1940) not only belittles Stalin's revolutionary activities but actually sees his life and "moral stature" predetermined by his racially defined genetic composition; after discussing whether or not Stalin had "an admixture of Mongolian blood," Trotsky decides that in any case he was one perfect type of the national character of southern countries such as Georgia, where, "in addition to the so-called Southern type, which is characterized by a combination of lazy shiftlessness and explosive irascibility, one meets cold natures, in whom phlegm is combined with stubbornness and slyness." The most influential biographer of all, Trotsky's disciple Isaac Deutscher, is a bit more subtle, blaming Stalin's crude and vicious character not on his race but on his low social class:

The revolutionaries from the upper classes (such as Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Bukharin, Rakovsky, Radek, Lunacharsky, and Chicherin) came into the Socialist movement with inherited cultural traditions. They brought into the milieu of the revolution some of the values and qualities of their own milieu-not only knowledge, but also refinement of thought, speech, and manners. Indeed, their Socialist rebellion was itself the product of moral sensitiveness and intellectual refinement. These were precisely the qualities that life had not been kind enough to cultivate in Djugashvili [Stalin]. On the contrary, it had heaped enough physical and moral squalor in his path to blunt his sensitiveness and his taste. (Stalin, A Political Biography, p. 26)

Although there are vastly different views of Stalin's career up to this point, his activities are relatively less controversial, because they are relatively less important. Whatever Stalin's contribution, there is still a good chance that even without him Lenin could have led the revolution and the Red forces would have won the Civil War. But, from this point on, there are at least two widely divergent, in fact wildly contradictory, versions of Stalin's activities and their significance.

Most readers of this book have heard only one side of this debate, the side of Trotsky and the capitalist world. I shall not pretend to make a "balanced presentation," but instead give a summary of the unfamiliar other side of the argument.

Everyone, friend and foe alike, would agree that at the heart of the question of Stalin lies the theory and practice of "socialism in one country." All of Stalin's major ideological opponents in one way or another took issue with this theory.

Actually, the theory did not originate with Stalin but with Lenin. In 1915, in his article "On the Slogan for a United States of Europe," Lenin argued that "the victory of socialism is possible first in several or even in one capitalist country alone." He foresaw "a more or less prolonged and stubborn struggle" internationally that could begin like this in one country: "After expropriating the capitalists and organizing their own socialist production, the victorious proletariat of that country will arise against the rest of the world-the capitalist world-attracting to its cause the oppressed classes of other countries, stirring uprisings in those countries against the capitalists, and in case of need using even armed force against the exploiting classes and their states."

Of course, at the end of World War I most Bolsheviks (and many capitalists) expected revolution to break out in many of the European capitalist countries. In fact, many of the returning soldiers did turn their guns around. A revolutionary government was established in Hungary and Slovakia.

Germany and Bulgaria for a while were covered by soviets of workers, peasants, and soldiers. But counterrevolution swept all these away.

Trotsky and his supporters continued to believe that the proletariat of Europe was ready to make socialist revolution.

They also believed that unless this happened, the proletariat would be unable to maintain power in the Soviet Union.

They belittled the role of the peasantry as an ally of the Russian proletariat and saw very little potential in the national liberation movements of the predominantly peasant countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Their so-called "Left opposition" put forward the theory, of "permanent revolution," which pinned its hopes on an imminent uprising of the industrial proletariat of Europe. They saw the world revolution then spreading outward from these "civilized" countries to the "backward" regions of Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

Meanwhile there also developed what was later to be called the "Right opposition," spearheaded by Bukharin, Zinoviev, and Kamenev. They were realistic enough to recognize that the revolutionary tide was definitely ebbing in Europe, but they concluded from this that the Soviet Union would have to be content to remain for a long time a basically agricultural country without pretending to be a proletarian socialist state.

Stalin was not about to give up on socialism in the Soviet Union simply because history was not turning out exactly the way theorists had wanted, with revolution winning out quickly in the most advanced capitalist countries. He saw that the Soviet revolution had indeed been able to maintain itself against very powerful enemies at home and abroad. Besides, the Soviet Union was a vast country whose rich natural resources gave it an enormous potential for industrial and social development. He stood for building socialism in this one country and turning it into an inspiration and base area for the oppressed classes and nations throughout the world. He believed that, helped by both the example and material support of a socialist Soviet Union, the tide of revolution would eventually begin rising again, and that, in turn, proletarian revolution in Europe and national liberation struggles in the rest of the world would eventually break the Soviet isolation.

There are two parts to the concept of socialism in one country. Emphasis is usually placed only on the part that says "one country." Equally important is the idea that only socialism, and not communism, can be achieved prior to the time when the victory of the world revolution has been won. A communist society would have no classes, no money, no scarcity, and no state that is, no army, police force, prisons, and courts. There is no such society in the world, and no society claims to be Communist. A socialist society, according to Marxism-Leninism, is the transitional form on the road to communism. Classes and class struggle still exist, all the material needs of the people have not as yet been met, and there is indeed a state, a government of the working class known as the dictatorship of the proletariat (as opposed to the government of capitalist nations, the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie).

Neither Lenin nor Stalin ever had any illusion that any single country, even one as vast and potentially rich as the Soviet Union, would ever be able to establish a stateless, classless society while capitalism still had power in the rest of the world. But Stalin, like Lenin, did believe that the Soviet Union could eliminate capitalism, industrialize, extend the power of the working class, and wipe out real material privation all during the period of capitalist encirclement.

To do this, Stalin held, the proletariat would have to rely on the peasantry. He rejected Trotsky's scorn for the Russian peasants and saw them, rather than the European proletariat, as the only ally that could come to the immediate aid of the Russian workers.

When the Civil War ended, in 1921, with most of the Soviet Union in chaotic ruin, Lenin won a struggle against Trotsky within the Party to institute what was called the New Economic Policy (NEP), under which a limited amount of private enterprise based on trade was allowed to develop in both the cities and the countryside. NEP was successful in averting an immediate total catastrophe, but by 1925 it was becoming clear that this policy was also creating problems for the development of socialism. This brings us to the first great crux of the Stalin question.

We have been led to believe that in order to industrialize at any price; Stalin pursued a ruthless policy of forced collectivization, deliberately murdering several million peasants known as kulaks during the process. The truth is quite different.

When the Bolsheviks seized power, one of their first acts was to allow the poor peasants to seize the huge landed estates. The slogan was "Land to the tiller." This, however, left most land in the form of tiny holdings, unsuited for large-scale agriculture, particularly the production of the vital grain crops. Under NEP, capitalism and a new form of landlordism began to flourish in the countryside. The class known as kulaks (literally "tight-fists"), consisting of usurers and other small capitalists including village merchants and rich peasants, were cornering the market in the available grain, grabbing more and more small holdings of land, and, through their debt holdings, forcing peasants back into tenant farming and wage labor. Somehow, the small peasant holdings had to be consolidated so that modern agriculture could begin. There were basically two ways this could take place: either through capitalist accumulation, as the kulaks were then doing, or through the development of large-scale socialist farms. If the latter, there was then a further choice: a rapid forced collectivization, or a more gradual process in which co-operative farms would emerge first, followed by collectives, and both would be on a voluntary basis, winning out by example and persuasion. What did Stalin choose?

Here, in his own words, is the policy he advocated and that was adopted at the Fifteenth Party Congress, in 1927:

What is the way out? The way out is to turn the small and scattered peasant farms into large united farms based on cultivation of the land in common, to go over to collective cultivation of the land on the basis of a new and higher technique.

The way out is to unite the small and dwarf peasant farms gradually but surely, not by pressure, but by example and persuasion, into large farms based on common, cooperative, collective cultivation of the land with the use of agricultural machines and tractors and scientific methods of intensive agriculture.

There is no other way out.

To implement this policy, the capitalist privileges allowed under NEP were revoked. This was known as the restriction of the kulaks. The kulaks, whose very existence as a class was thus menaced, struck back. They organized terrorist bands who attacked the co-operatives and collectives, burning down barns when they were filled with grain, devastating the fields, and even murdering Communist peasant leaders.

Even more serious than these raids, the kulaks held back their own large supplies of grain from the market in an effort to create hunger and chaos in the cities. The poor and middle peasants struck back. Virtual open civil war began to rage throughout the countryside. As the collective farm movement spread rapidly, pressure mounted among the poor and middle peasants to put an end to landlordism and usury in the countryside for good. In 1929 Stalin agreed that the time had come to eliminate the kulaks as a class. He led the fight to repeal the laws that allowed the renting of land and the hiring of labor, thus depriving the kulaks both of land and of hired workers.

The ban on expropriation of the large private holdings was lifted, and the peasants promptly expropriated the kulak class. The expropriation of the rural capitalists in the late 1920s was just as decisive as the expropriation of the urban capitalists a decade earlier. Landlords and village usurers were eliminated as completely as private factory owners. It is undoubtedly true that in many areas there was needless violence and suffering. But this did not originate with Stalin. It was the hour of Russia's peasant masses, who had been degraded and brutalized for centuries and who had countless blood debts to settle with their oppressors. Stalin may have unleashed their fury, but he was not the one who had caused it to build up for centuries. In fact it was Stalin who checked the excesses generated by the enthusiasm of the collective movement. In early 1930 he published in Pravda "Dizzy with Success," reiterating that "the voluntary principle" of the collective farm movement must under no circumstances be violated and that anybody who engages in forced collectivization objectively aids the enemies of socialism. Furthermore, he argues, the correct form for the present time is the co-operative (known as the artel) , in which "the household plots (small vegetable gardens, small orchards), the dwelling houses, a part of the dairy cattle, small livestock, poultry, etc., are not socialized."

Again, overzealous attempts to push beyond this objectively aid the enemy. The movement must be based on the needs and desires of the masses of peasants.

Stalin's decision about the kulaks perfectly exemplifies the limits under which he operated. He could decide, as he did, to end the kulaks as a class by allowing the poor and middle peasants’ to expropriate their land. Or he could decide to let the kulaks continue withholding their grain from the starving peasants and workers, with whatever result. He might have continued bribing the kulaks. But it is highly doubtful, to say the least, that he had the option of persuading the kulaks into becoming good socialists.

There can be no question that, whatever may be said about its cost, Stalin's policy in the countryside resulted in a vast, modern agricultural system, capable, for the first time in history, of feeding all the peoples of the Soviet lands. Gone were the famines that seemed as inevitable and were as vicious as those of China before the revolution or of India today.

Meanwhile, Stalin's policy of massive industrialization was going full speed ahead. His great plan for a modern, highly industrialized Soviet Union has been so overwhelmingly successful that we forget that it was adopted only over the bitter opposition of most of the Party leaders, who thought it a utopian and therefore suicidal dream. Having overcome this opposition on both the right and "left," Stalin in 1929 instituted the first five-year plan in the history of the world.

It was quickly over fulfilled. By the early 1930S the Soviet Union had clearly become both the inspiration and the main material base area for the world revolution. And it was soon will prove much more than a match for the next military ontaught from the capitalist powers, which Stalin had predicted and armed against.

This brings us to the second great crux of the Stalin question, the "left" criticism, originating with Trotsky and then widely disseminated by the theorists of what used to be called “the New Left."

This criticism holds that Stalin was just a nationalist who sold out revolution throughout the rest of the world. The debate ranges over all the key events of twentieth-century history and can be only touched on in an essay.

Stalin's difference with Trotsky on the peasantry was not confined to the role of the peasantry within the Soviet Union.

Trotsky saw very little potential in the national liberation movements in those parts of the world that were still basically peasant societies. He argued that revolution would come first to the advanced capitalist countries of Europe and North America and would then spread to the "uncivilized" areas of the world. Stalin, on the other hand saw that the national liberation movements of Asia, Africa, and Latin America were key to the development of the world revolution because objectively they were leading the fight against imperialism.

We see this argument developed clearly as early as 1924, In "The Foundations of Leninism," where he argues that "the struggle that the Egyptian merchants and bourgeois intellectuals are waging for the independence of Egypt is objectively a revolutionary struggle, despite the bourgeois origin and bourgeois title of the leaders of the Egyptian national movement, despite the fact that they are opposed to socialism; whereas the struggle that the British 'Labor' movement is waging to preserve Egypt's dependent position is for the same reasons a reactionary struggle, despite the proletarian origins and the proletarian title of the members of hat government, despite the fact that they are 'for' socialism. To most European Marxists, this was some kind of barbarian heresy. But Ho Chi Minh expressed the view of many Communists from the colonies in that same year, 1924, when he recognized that Stalin was the leader of the only Party that stood with the national liberation struggles and when he agreed with Stalin that the viewpoint of most other so-called Marxists on the national question was nothing short of "counterrevolutionary" (Ho Chi Minh Report on the National and Colonial Questions at the Fifth Congress of the Communist International).

The difference between Stalin's line and Trotsky's line and the falsification of what Stalin's line was, can be seen most clearly on the question of the Chinese revolution. The typical "left" view prevalent today is represented in David Horowitz's The Free World Colossus (1965), which asserts "Stalin's continued blindness to the character and potential of the Chinese Revolution." Using as his main source a Yugoslav biography of Tito, Horowitz blandly declares: "Even after the war, when it was clear to most observers that Chiang was finished, Stalin did not think much of the prospects of Chinese Communism" (p. Ill).

Mao's opinion of Stalin is a little different:

Rallied around him, we constantly received advice from him, constantly drew ideological strength from his works.... It is common knowledge that Comrade Stalin ardently loved the Chinese people and considered that the forces of the Chinese revolution were immeasurable.

He displayed the greatest wisdom in matters pertaining to the Chinese revolution. . . . Sacredly preserving the memory of our great teacher Stalin, the Communist Party of China and the Chinese people . . . will even more perseveringly study Stalin's teaching .... ("A Great Friendship," 1953)

It is possible that this statement can be viewed as a formal tribute made shortly after Stalin's death and before it was safe to criticize Stalin within the international Communist movement. But years later, after the Russian attack on Stalin and after it was unsafe not to spit on Stalin's memory, the Chinese still consistently maintained their position. In 1961, after listening to Khrushchev's rabid denunciations of Stalin at the Twenty-second Party Congress, Chou En-lai ostentatiously laid a wreath on Stalin's tomb. Khrushchev and his supporters then disinterred Stalin's body, but the Chinese responded to this in 1963 by saying that Khrushchev "can never succeed in removing the great image of Stalin from the minds of the Soviet people and of the people throughout the world." ("On the Question of Stalin")

In fact, as his 1927 essay on China included in this collection shows, Stalin very early outlined the basic theory of the Chinese revolution. Trotsky attacks this theory, which he sneers at as "guerrilla adventure," because it is not based on the cities as the revolutionary centers, because it relies on class allies of the proletariat, particularly the peasantry, and because it is primarily anti-feudal and anti-imperialist rather than focused primarily against Chinese capitalism.

After 1927, when the first liberated base areas were established in the countryside, Trotsky claimed that this revolution could no longer be seen as proletarian but as a mere peasant rebellion, and soon he began to refer to its guiding theory as the Stalin-Mao line. To this day, Trotskyites around the world deride the Chinese revolution as a mere "Stalinist bureaucracy." The Chinese themselves do acknowledge that at certain points Stalin gave some incorrect tactical advice, but they are quick to add that he always recognized and corrected these errors and was self-critical about them. They are very firm in their belief that they could not have made their revolution without his general theory, his over-all leadership of the world revolutionary movement, and the firm rear area and base of material support he provided. Thus the only really valid major criticism comes from anti-Communists, because without Stalin, at least according to the Chinese, the Communists would not have won.

Stalin's role in the Spanish Civil War likewise comes under fire from the "left." Again taking their cue from Trotsky and such professional anti-Communist ideologues as George Orwell, many "socialists" claim that Stalin sold out the Loyalists. A similar criticism is made about Stalin's policies in relation to the Greek partisans in the late 1940s, which we will discuss later.

According to these "left" criticisms, Stalin didn't "care" about either of these struggles, because of his preoccupation with internal development and "Great Russian power." The simple fact of the matter is that in both cases Stalin was the only national leader anyplace in the world to support the popular forces, and he did this in the face of stubborn opposition within his own camp and the dangers of military attack from the leading aggressive powers in the world (Germany and Italy in the late 1930S, the U.S. ten years later).

Because the U.S.S.R., following Stalin's policies, had become a modem industrial nation by the mid-1930S, it was able to ship to the Spanish Loyalists Soviet tanks and planes that were every bit as advanced as the Nazi models. Because the U.S.S.R. was the leader of the world revolutionary forces, Communists from many nations were able to organize the International Brigades, which went to resist Mussolini's fascist divisions and the crack Nazi forces, such as the Condor Legion, that were invading the Spanish Republic. The capitalist powers, alarmed by this international support for the Loyalists, planned joint action to stop it. In March 1937, warships of GeIluany, Italy, France, and Great Britain began jointly policing the Spanish coast. Acting on a British initiative, these same countries formed a bloc in late 1937 to isolate the Soviet Union by implementing a policy they called "non-intervention," which Lloyd George, as leader of the British Opposition, labeled a clear policy of support for the fascists. Mussolini supported the British plan and called for a' campaign "to drive Bolshevism from Europe." Stalin's own foreign ministry, which was still dominated by aristocrats masquerading as proletarian revolutionaries, sided with the capitalist powers. The New York Times of October 29, 1937, describes how the "unyielding" Stalin, representing "Russian stubbornness," refused to go along: "A struggle has been going on all this week between Joseph Stalin and Foreign Commissar Maxim Litvinoff," who wished to accept the British plan. Stalin stuck to his guns, and the Soviet Union refused to grant Franco international status as a combatant, insisting that it had every right in the world to continue aiding the duly elected government of Spain, which it did until the bitter end.

The Spanish Civil War was just one part of the world-wide imperialist aims of the Axis powers. Japan was pushing ahead in its conquest of Asia. Japanese forces overran Manchuria in 1931; only nine years after the Red Army had driven them out of Siberia, and then invaded China on a full scale.

Ethiopia fell to Italy in 1936. A few months later, Germany and Japan signed an anti-Comintern pact, which was joined by Italy in 1937. In 1938, Germany invaded Austria. Hitler, who had come to power on a promise to rid Germany and the world of the Red menace, was now almost prepared to launch his decisive strike against the Soviet Union.

The other major capitalist powers surveyed the scene with mixed feelings. On one hand, they would have liked nothing better than to see the Communist threat ended once and for all, particularly with the dirty work being done by the fascist nations. On the other hand, they had to recognize that fascism was then the ideology of the have-not imperialists, upstarts whose global aims included a challenge to the hegemony of France, Britain, and the United States. Should they move now to check these expansionists’ aims or should they let them develop unchecked, hoping that they would move against the Soviet Union rather than Western Europe and the European colonies in Asia and Africa?

In 1938 they found the answer, a better course than either of these two alternatives. They would appease Hitler by giving him the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia. This would not only dissuade the Nazis from attacking their fellow capitalists to the west, but it would also remove the last physical barriers to the east, the mountains of the Czech Sudetenland. All logic indicated to them that they had thus gently but firmly turned the Nazis eastward, and even given them a little shove in that direction. Now all they had to do was to wait, and, after the fascist powers and the Soviet Union had devastated each other, they might even be able to pick up the pieces. So they hailed the Munich agreement of September 30, 1938, as the guarantee of "Peace in our time"-for them.

Stalin had offered to defend Czechoslovakia militarily against the Nazis if anyone of the European capitalist countries would unite with the Soviet Union in this effort. The British and the French had evaded what they considered this trap, refusing to allow the Soviet Union even to participate at Munich. They now stepped back and waited, self-satisfied, to watch the Reds destroyed. It seemed they didn't have long to wait. Within a few months, Germany seized all of Czechoslovakia, giving some pieces of the fallen republic to its allies Poland and Hungary.

By mid-March 1939 the Nazis had occupied Bohemia and Moravia, the Hungarians had seized Carpatho-Ukraine, and Germany had formally annexed Memel. At the end of that month, Madrid fell and all of Spain surrendered to the fascists. On May 7, Germany and Italy announced a formal military and political alliance. The stage was set for the destruction of the Soviet Union.

Four days later, on May 11, 1939, the first attack came.

The crack Japanese army that had invaded Manchuria struck Into the Soviet Union. The Soviet-Japanese war of 1939 is conveniently omitted from our history books, but this war, together with the Anglo-French collaboration with the Nazis lind fascists in the west, form the context for another of Stalin's great "crimes," the Soviet-German non-aggression pact of August 1939. Stalin recognized that the main aim of the Axis was to destroy the Soviet Union, and that the other capitalist nations were conniving with this scheme. He also knew that sooner or later the main Axis attack would come on the U.S.S.R.'s western front. Meanwhile, Soviet forces were being diverted to the east, to fend off the Japanese invaders. The non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany, which horrified and disillusioned Communist sympathizers, particularly intellectuals, in the capitalist nations, was actually one of the most brilliant strategic moves of Stalin's life, and perhaps of diplomatic history. From the Soviet point of view it accomplished five things:
(1) it brought needed time to prepare for the Nazi attack, which was thus delayed two years;
(2) it allowed the Red Army to concentrate on smashing the Japanese invasion, without having to fight on two fronts; they decisively defeated the Japanese within three months;

(3) it allowed the Soviet Union to retake the sections of White Russia and the Ukraine that had been invaded by Poland during the Russian Civil War and were presently occupied by the Polish military dictatorship; this meant that the forthcoming Nazi invasion would have to pass through a much larger area defended by the Red Army;

(4) it also allowed Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, which also had been part of Russia before the Civil War, to become part of the U.S.S.R. as Soviet Republics; this meant that the forthcoming Nazi attack could not immediately outflank Leningrad;

(5) most important of all, it destroyed the Anglo-French strategy of encouraging a war between the Axis powers and the Soviet Union while they enjoyed neutrality; World War II was to begin as a war between the Axis powers and the other capitalist nations, and the Soviet Union, if forced into it, was not going to have to fight alone against the combined fascist powers. The worldwide defeat of the fascist Axis was in part a product of Stalin's diplomatic strategy, as well as his later military strategy.

But before we get to that, we have to go back in time to the events for which Stalin has been most damned-the purge, trials. Most readers of this book have been taught that the major defendants in these trials were innocent, and that here we see most clearly Stalin's vicious cruelty and paranoia.

This is certainly not the place to sift through all the evidence and retry the major defendants, but we must recognize that there is a directly contradictory view of the trials and that there is plenty of evidence to support that view.

It is almost undeniable that many of the best-known defendants had indeed organized clandestine groups whose aim was to overthrow the existing government. It is also a fact that Kirov, one of the leaders of that government, was murdered by a secret group on December 1, 1934. And it is almost beyond dispute that there were systematic, very widespread, and partly successful attempts, involving party officials, to sabotage the development of Soviet industry. Anyone who doubts this should read an article entitled "Red Wreckers in Russia" in the Saturday Evening Post, January 1, 1938, in which John Littlepage, an anti-Communist American engineer, describes in detail what he saw of this sabotage while he was working in the Soviet Union. In fact, Littlepage gives this judgment:

For ten years I have worked alongside some of the many recently shot, imprisoned or exiled in Russia as wreckers. Some of my friends have asked me whether or not I believe these men and women are guilty as charged. I have not hesitated a moment in replying that I believe most of them are guilty.

To those who hold the orthodox U.S. view of the purge trials, perhaps the most startling account is the book Mission to Moscow, by Joseph E. Davies, U. S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1936 to 1938. Davies is a vigorous defender of capitalism and a former head of the U. S. Chamber of Commerce. An experienced trial lawyer, he points out that, "I had myself prosecuted and defended men charged with crime in many cases." He personally attended the purge trials on a regular basis. Most of his accounts and judgments are contained in official secret correspondence to the State DeIllirtment; the sole purpose of these dispatches was to provide realistic an assessment as possible of what was actually going on. His summary judgment in his confidential report to the Secretary of State on March 17, 1938, is:

….. it is my opinion so far as the political defendants are concerned sufficient crimes under Soviet law, among those charged in the indictment, were established by the proof and beyond a reasonable doubt to justify the verdict of guilty of treason and the adjudication of the punishment provided by Soviet criminal statutes. The opinion of those diplomats who attended the trial most regularly was general that the case had established the fact that there was a formidable political opposition and an exceedingly serious plot, which explained to the diplomats man! of the hitherto unexplained developments of the last six months in the Soviet Union. The only difference of opinion that seemed to exist was the degree to which the plot had been implemented by different defendants and the degree to which the conspiracy had become centralized. (po 272 )

Davies himself admits to being puzzled and confused at the time because of the vast scope of the conspiracy and its concentration high into the Soviet government. It is only later, after the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, in the summer of 1941, that Davies feels he understands what he actually occurred.

Thinking over these things, there came a flash in my mind of a possible new significance to some of the things that happened in Russia when I was there.

None of us in Russia in 1937 and 1938 were thinking in terms of "Fifth Column" activities. The phrase was not current. It is comparatively recent that we have found in our language phrases descriptive of Nazi technique such as "Fifth Column" and "internal aggression.”...

As I ruminated over this situation, I suddenly saw the picture as I should have seen it at the time. The story had been told in the so-called treason or purge trials of 1937 and 1938 which I had attended and listened to. In reexamining the record of these cases and also what I had written at the time from this new angle, I found that practically every device of German Fifth Columnist activity, as we now know it, was disclosed and laid bare by the confessions and testimony elicited at these trials of self-confessed "Quislings" in Russia.

It was clear that the Soviet government believed that these activities existed, was thoroughly alarmed, and had proceeded to crush them vigorously. By 1941, when the German invasion came, they had wiped out any Fifth Column which had been organized.

All of these trials, purges, and liquidations, which seemed so violent at the time and shocked the world, are now quite clearly a part of a vigorous and determined effort of the Stalin government to protect itself from not only revolution from within but from attack from without. They went to work thoroughly to clean up and clean out all treasonable elements within the country. All doubts were resolved in favor of the government. (p. 280)

In 1956, at the Twentieth Party Congress, when Khrushchev launched his famous attack on Stalin, he dredged up all the denunciations of the purge trials circulated for two decades by the Trotskyite and capitalist press. He called Stalin a "murderer," a "criminal," a "bandit," a "despot," etc.

He asserted the innocence of many who had been imprisoned, exiled, or shot during the purge trials. But in doing so, he conveniently forgot two things: what he had said at the time about those trials, and what Stalin had said. On June 6, 1937, t the Fifth Party Conference of Moscow Province, Khrushchev had declared:

Our Party will mercilessly crush the band of traitors and betrayers, and wipe out all the Trotskyist-Right dregs. . . .We shall totally annihilate the enemies-to the last man and scatter their ashes to the winds.

On June 8, 1938, at the Fourth Party Conference of Kiev province, Khrushchev avowed:

We have annihilated a considerable number of enemies, but still not all. Therefore, it is necessary to keep our eyes open. We should bear firmly in mind the words of Comrade Stalin, that as long as capitalist encirclement exists, spies and saboteurs will be smuggled into our country.

Earlier, at a mass rally in Moscow, in January 1937, Khrushchev had condemned all those who had attacked Stalin in these words: "In lifting their hand against Comrade Stalin, They lifted it against all of us, against the working class and the working people"

As for Stalin himself, on the other hand, he had publicly admitted, not in 1956, but at least as early as 1939, that innocent people had been convicted and punished in the purge:

"It cannot be said that the purge was not accompanied by grave mistakes. There were unfortunately more mistakes than might have been expected." (Report to the Eighteenth Congress.)

That is one reason why many of those tried and convicted in the last trials were high officials from the secret police, the very people guilty of forcing false confessions.

There are certainly good grounds for criticizing both the conduct and the extent of the purge. But that criticism must begin by facing the facts that an anti-Soviet conspiracy did exist within the Party, that it had some ties with the Nazis, who were indeed preparing to invade the country, and that one result of the purge was that the 'Soviet Union was the only country in all of Europe that, when invaded by the Nazis, did not have an active Fifth Column. It must also recognize that capitalism has since been restored in the Soviet Union, on the initiative of leading members of the Party bureaucracy, and so it is hardly fantastical or merely paranoid to think that such a thing was possible. The key question about the purges is whether there was a better way to prevent either a Nazi victory or the restoration of capitalism. And the answer to that question probably lies in the Chinese Cultural Revolution of 1966-67. Instead of relying on courts and police exiles and executions, the Chinese mobilized hundreds of 'millions of people to exposé and defeat the emerging Party bureaucracy that was quietly restoring capitalism and actively collaborating with the great imperialist power to the north. But while doing this, they carefully studied Stalin, both for his achievements and for what he was unable to do. For Stalin himself had seen as early as 1928 the need to mobilize mass criticism from below to overcome the rapidly developing Soviet bureaucracy. It is also possible that the two goals the purges tuned to meet were mutually exclusive. That is, the emergency measures necessary to secure the country against foreign invasion may actually have helped the bureaucracy to consolidate its power.

In any event, when the Nazis and their allies did invade they met the most united and fierce resistance encountered by the fascist forces anyplace in the world. Everywhere the people were dedicated to socialism. Even in the Ukraine where the Nazis tried to foment old grievances and anti-Russian nationalism, they never dared meddle with the collective farms. In fact, Stalin's military strategy in World War II like his strategy during the Russian Civil War was based firmly on the loyalty of the masses of workers, peasants, and soldiers.

Everybody, except for Khrushchev and his friends, who in 1956 tried to paint Stalin as a military incompetent and meddler, recognizes him as a great strategist. '

Nazi military strategy was based on the blitzkrieg (lightning war). Spearheaded by highly mobile armor, their way paved by massive air assaults, the Nazi army would break through any statIc lme at a single point, and then spread out rapidly behind that line, cutting off its supplies and then encircling the troops at the front. On April 9, 1940, the Nazis, vastly outnumbered, opened their assault on the combined forces of Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, France, and Great Britain. By June 4, virtually the last of these fighting forces had been evacuated in panic from Dunkirk and each of the continental countries lay under a fascist power, the victim of blitzkrieg combined with internal betrayal. Having secured his entire western front, and then with air power alone having put the great maritime power Britain into a purely defensive position, Hitler could now move his crack armies and his entire air force into position to annihilate the Soviet Union.

The first step was to consolidate Axis control in Eastern Europe and the Balkans. Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania were already fascist allies. Italy had overrun Albania. By early April 1941 Greece and Yugoslavia were occupied. Crete was seized in May. On June 22, the greatest invasion of all time was hurled at the Soviet heartland.

One hundred seventy-nine German divisions, twenty two Romanian divisions, fourteen Finnish divisions, thirteen Hungarian divisions, ten Italian divisions, one Slovak division, and one Spanish division, a total of well over three million troops, the best armed and most experienced in the world, attacked along a 2,000-mile front, aiming their spearheads directly at Leningrad, Moscow, and Stalingrad. Instead of holding a line, the Red Army beat an orderly retreat, giving up space for time. Behind them they left nothing but scorched earth and bands of guerrilla fighters, constantly harassing the lengthening fascist supply lines. Before the invaders reached industrial centers such as Kharkov and Smolensk, the workers of these cities disassembled their machines and carried them beyond the Ural Mountains, where production of advanced Soviet tanks, planes, and artillery was to continue throughout the war.

The main blow was aimed directly at the capital, Moscow, whose outskirts were reached by late fall. Almost all the government offices had been evacuated to the east. But Stalin remained in the capital, where he assumed personal command of the war. On December 2, 1941, the Nazis were stopped in the suburbs of Moscow. On December 6, Stalin ordered the first major counterattack to occur in World War II. The following day, Japan, which had wisely decided against renewing their invasion of the Soviet Union, attacked Pearl Harbor.

From December until May the Red Army moved forward, using a strategy devised by Stalin. Instead of confronting the elite Nazi corps head on, the Red forces would divide into smaller units and then move to cut off the fascist supply lines, thus encircling and capturing the spearheads of the blitzkrieg.

This was the ideal counter-strategy, but it depended on a high level of political loyalty, consciousness, and independence on the part of these small units. No capitalist army could implement this strategy. By the end of May 1942 Moscow was safe and the fascist forces had given ground in the Ukraine.

In the early summer, the Nazi forces, heavily reinforced, moved to seize Stalingrad and the Caucasus, thus cutting the Soviet Union in two. The greatest and perhaps the most decisive battle in history was now to take place. The siege of Stalingrad lasted from August 1942 until February 1943. As early as September, the Nazi forces, which were almost as large as the entire U.S. force at its peak in Vietnam, penetrated the city and were stopped only by house-to-house fighting.

But unknown to the Germans, because Soviet security was perfect, they were actually in a vast trap, personally designed by Stalin: A gigantic pincers movement had begun as soon as the fascist forces reached the city. In late November the two Soviet forces met and the trap snapped shut. From this trap 330,000 elite Nazi troops were never to emerge. In February 1943 the remnants, about 100,000 troops, surrendered.

The back of Nazi military power had been broken. The Red Army now moved onto a vast offensive which was not to stop before it had liberated all of Eastern and Central Europe and seized Berlin, the capital of the Nazi empire, in the spring of 1945.

It was the Soviet Union that had beaten the fascist army. The second front, which Great Britain and the U.S. had promised as early as 1942, was not to materialize until June 14, after it was clear that the Nazis had already been decisively defeated. In fact, the Anglo-American invasion was aimed more at stopping communism than defeating fascism. (This invasion took place during the same period that the British Army "liberated" Greece, which had already been liberated by the Communist-led Resistance.) For under Communist leadership, underground resistance movements, based primarily on the working class, had developed throughout Europe. Because the Communists, both from the Soviet Union and within the other European nations, were the leaders of the entire anti-fascist struggle, by the end of the war they had by far the largest parties in all the nations of Eastern and Central Europe, as well as Italy and France, where the fascists' power had been broken more by internal resistance than by the much-heralded Allied invasion. In fact, it is likely that if the Anglo-American forces had not invaded and occupied Italy and France, within a relatively short time the Communists would have been in power in both countries.

As soon as victory in Germany was assured, in May 1945, much of the Soviet Army began to make the 5,000-mile journey to face the Japanese Army. At Potsdam, July 17 to August 2, Stalin formally agreed to begin combat operations against Japan by August 8. On August 6, the U.S. dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan, in what is now widely considered the opening shot of the so-called "Cold War" against the U.S.S.R. On August 8, the Red Army engaged the main Japanese force, which was occupying Manchuria. The Soviet Army swept forward, capturing Manchuria, the southern half of Sakhalin Island, and the Kuriles, and liberating, by agreement, the northern half of Korea. Except for the Chinese Communist battles with the Japanese, these Soviet victories were probably the largest land engagements in the entire war against Japan.

The Soviet Union had also suffered tremendously while taking the brunt of the fascist onslaught. Between twenty and twenty-five million Soviet citizens gave their lives in defense of their country and socialism. The industrial heartland lay in ruins. The richest agricultural regions had been devastated.

In addition to the seizure of many cities and the destruction of much of Moscow and Stalingrad, there was the desperate condition of Leningrad, which had withstood a massive, two-year Nazi siege.

Once again, the Soviet Union was to perform economic miracles. Between 1945 and 1950 they were to rebuild not only everything destroyed in the war, but vast new industries and agricultural resources. And all this was conducted under the threat of a new attack by the capitalist powers, led by the nuclear blackmail of the U.S., which opened up a worldwide "Cold War" against communism.

Spearheaded by British and rearmed Japanese troops, the French restored their empire in Indochina. U.S. troops occupied the southern half of Korea and established military bases throughout the Pacific. Europe itself became a vast base area for the rapidly expanding U.S. empire, which, despite its very minimal role in the war (or perhaps because of it), was to gain the greatest profit from it. One European showdown against the popular forces occurred in Greece.

Here we meet another "left" criticism of Stalin, similar to that made about his role in Spain but even further removed from the facts of the matter. As in the rest of Eastern Europe and the Balkans, the Communists had led and armed the heroic Greek underground and partisan fighters. In 1944 the British sent an expeditionary force commanded by General ScobIe to land in Greece, ostensibly to aid in the disarming of the defeated Nazi and Italian troops. As unsuspecting as the comrades in Vietnam and Korea who were to be likewise ‘assisted’, the Greek partisans were slaughtered by their British allies who used tanks and planes in an all-out offensive, which ended in February 1945 with the establishment of a right-wing dictatorship under a restored monarchy. The British even rearmed and used the defeated Nazi "Security Battalions." After partially recovering from this treachery, the partisan forces rebuilt then guerrilla apparatus and prepared to resist the combined forces of Greek fascism and Anglo-American imperialism. By late 1948 full-scale civil war raged, with the right-wing forces backed up by the intervention of U.S. planes, artillery, and troops. The Greek resistance had its back broken by another betrayal not at all by Stalin but by Tito, who closed the Yugoslav borders to the Soviet military supplies that were already hard put to reach the landlocked popular forces. This was one of the two main reasons why Stalin, together with the Chinese, led the successful fight to have the Yugoslav "Communist" Party officially thrown out of the international Communist movement.

Stalin understood very early the danger to the world revolution posed by Tito's ideology, which served as a Trojan horse for U.S. Imperialism. He also saw that Tito's revisionist ideas, including the development of a new bureaucratic ruling elite, were making serious headway inside the Soviet Union. In 1950, the miraculous postwar reconstruction was virtually complete, and the victorious Chinese revolution had decisively broken through the global anti-Communist encirclement and suppression campaign. At this point Stalin began to turn his attention to the most serious threat to the world revolution, the bureaucratic-technocratic class that had not only emerged inside the Soviet Union but had begun to pose a serious challenge to the leadership of the working class. In the last few years of his life, Joseph Stalin, whom the present rulers of the U.S.S.R. would like to paint as a mad recluse, began to open up a vigorous cultural offensive against the power of this new elite. "Marxism and Linguistics" and "Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R." are milestones in this offensive, major theoretical works aimed at the new bourgeois authorities beginning to dominate various areas of Soviet thought.

In "Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R.," published a few months before his death and intended to serve as a basis for discussion in the Nineteenth Party Congress of 1952, Stalin seeks to measure scientifically how far the Soviet Union had come in the development of socialism and how far it had to go to achieve communism. He criticizes two extreme tendencies in Soviet political economy: mechanical determinism and voluntarism. He sets this criticism within an international context where, he explains, the sharpening of contradictions among the capitalist nations is inevitable.

Stalin points out that those who think that objective laws, whether of socialist or capitalist political economy, can be abolished by will are dreamers. But he reserves his real scorn for those who make the opposite error, the technocrats who assert that socialism is merely a mechanical achievement of a certain level of technology and productivity, forgetting both the needs and the power of the people. He shows that when these technocrats cause "the disappearance of man as the aim of socialist production," they arrive at the triumph of bourgeois ideology. These proved to be prophetic words.

In his final public speech, made to that Nineteenth Party Congress in 1952, Stalin explains a correct revolutionary line for the parties that have not yet led their revolutions. The victories of the world revolution have constricted the capitalist world, causing the decay of the imperialist powers. Therefore the bourgeoisie of the Western democracies inherit the banners of the defeated fascist powers, with whom they establish a world-wide alliance while turning to fascism at home and the would-be bourgeoisie of the neocolonial nations become merely their puppets. Communists then become the main defenders of the freedoms and progressive principles established by the bourgeoisie when they were a revolutionary class and defended by them until the era of their decay. Communists will lead the majority of people in their respective nations only when they raise and defend the very banners thrown overboard by the bourgeoisie-national independence and democratic freedoms. It is no Surprise that these final words of Stalin have been known only to the Cold War "experts” and have been expunged throughout the Soviet Union and the nations of Eastern Europe.

Property Rights under Socialism

2011-04-26T17:03:00.000-07:00

“The system of property relations established by the law and Constitution of the U.S.S.R., is based on the principle of harmonizing the interests of society as a whole with the interests of the individual citizen.”
A brief summary of “Property rights of Soviet Citizens”, by M.S. Lipetsker 1946

One of the fabricated demagogy and propaganda subject against socialism has been the “property rights”. Through such propaganda, “government will confiscate everything from your car to your TV” etc, capitalists have been able to scare not only the middle class and petty bourgeois elements, but workers and peasants alike.

Since we have Soviets’ experience before us to get a factual account, it will be quite helpful to have a look at Soviet Constitution.

Constitution of the Soviets approaches to question by dividing “property” in two major groups. Since the basis of class conflict is the ownership of the means of production, without any surprise, the first group of “property” is the means of production, second group covers the basic needs of people, named “article of consumption” in constitution.

The first group, means of production, covers factories and mills, the natural resources of country, like water land, mines, forests, means of communications, media, press, phone, post, financial and trading instruments like banking, insurance and like.

Second group, “articles of personal consumption”, covers house, anything related to housing, personal belongings for personal use..

Constitution clearly states that all the major means of production capable of influencing the economic life of country as a whole are public property. No person can own them but the people. Ownership of such magnitude means of production becomes the property of people. The products and revenues depending on the situation may belong to state, cooperatives or similar collectives- public institutions.

Use of means of production, the products and revenues derived from are for the benefit of entire society, not for any individual.

Article 131 of the Constitution of the U.S.S.R. reads: "It is the duty of every Citizen of the U.S.S.R. to safeguard and strengthen public, socialist property as the sacred and inviolable foundation of the Soviet system, as the source of the wealth and might of the country, as the source of the prosperous and cultured life of all the working people. Persons committing offenses against public, socialist property are enemies of the people."

Private property
The right of property is the most extensive of Soviet civil rights, and is fully protected by the state. The right of property is a civil right which takes precedence over all others, and in the event of collision with other rights it is upheld against them in law.

The Constitution says: "The right of citizens to personal ownership of their incomes from work and their savings, of their dwelling houses and subsidiary household economy, their household furniture and utensils and articles of personal use and convenience, as well as the right of inheritance of personal property of citizens, is protected by law."

Personal property consists chiefly of money and articles of consumption; only rarely of means of production.
Personal property is at the full and complete disposal of its owner. Articles of personal 'property may be bought, sold, donated or pledged at the owner's discretion. They may not, however, be used as means of exploiting the labor of others, or as objects of profiteering or usury. On the death of the owner of personal property, it is inherited by his heirs. If a thing loses its owner-for instance, if the owner dies without leaving heirs-it automatically becomes the property of the state.

The state encourages and aids citizens in acquiring personal property. A person who desires to build himself a house, for example, will be granted a plot of land free of charge; the government will also supply him with building material on easy terms, will provide him with technical advice and plans free, and will grant him loans (repayable in a period of up to seven years) at two per cent interest. A collective farmer who desires to buy a cow for his own use may obtain it from the government on credit, repay able in installments.

The owner has very wide liberty of action with regard to his property and, as a rule, may do with it whatever he thinks fit. However, certain limitations are established by law. For example, he may not use his property in a way calculated to jeopardize the interests of the state, or of society, or of other individuals, nor may he use it for speculative purposes or to derive unearned income from it.

There are limitations on the kinds of property private citizens may own. They may not own land, forests, mineral deposits, or means of production which can only be exploited with the help of hired labor.

The most common objects or personal property are money, banknotes, securities, articles of personal use and convenience, household furniture, books, works of art radio sets, sports goods, automobiles, houses, domestic animals and poultry ,and simple agricultural implements and tools (provided they are not used for the exploitation of the labor of others). Personal property may not be used for the exploitation of the labor of others, nor for the acquisition of unearned income (e.g., by profiteering or usury).

Statistics for 1936 show that in that year private citizens owned nearly 1,000,000 dwelling houses in urban areas and over 19,000,000 houses in rural areas, 1,776,000 horses, 36,117,000 cows and oxen, 40,756,000 sheep and goats, 19,700,000 pigs; and securities (state loan certificates) to the value of nearly 15,000,000,000 rubles.

There is no limit to the amount of personal property a citizen may own. In particular the law sets no limit on savings.

The owner of a dwelling house may let any part of it, he does not care to occupy himself, but the rent he exacts for it must not be more than 20 per cent in excess of the rent paid for similar space in government-owned houses.
Owners of houses or other buildings, livestock, crops, fruit orchards, as well as the tools of a handicraft or trade are obliged to insure them against fire, damage or other accident.

To sum up, it may be said that the only restrictions imposed on the right of personal property are designed to prevent its being used for unearned income and the exploitation of the labor of others, and to ensure the proper maintenance and most effective use of such objects of personal property as are of national economic importance (dwelling houses, pedigree stocks, etc.). In all other respects the right of enjoyment of personal property is unrestricted.

FAMILY PROPERTY
The property of man and wife is a specific form of joint property. The rules governing the joint property of man and wife extend to all Soviet families except peasant families, i.e., the families of collective and –individual farmers.

The joint property of man and wife is such property as they acquired (purchased or produced) since their marriage. The property which belonged to either of them before marriage remains 'his (or her) property and the other party has no legal right t to it.

Property acquired by a couple since marriage is considered their joint property irrespective of whether it was acquired in the name of both or of only one of them.. In particular, Soviet legal practice holds that a house acquired after marriage, but entered in the Building Register in the name of only one of two is nevertheless to be regarded as the joint property of both. An exception to the general rule is the case of savings bank deposits, which, if made in the name of only one of the couple even during marriage are regarded as belonging to him (or her), and the other party has no claim to them.

There are certain exceptions to the general rules governing the joint property of husband and wife.

Tools, instruments, books and the like, used by one of the. couple for the exercise of his or her professional occupation, belong to that particular spouse, even though they were acquired during wedlock. If, however, both husband and life follow the same occupation and the objects in question are used by both, they are considered joint property.

As long as they continue in wedlock husband and wife have an equal right to their joint property. The Code of Wedlock, the Family and Guardianship states that "the manner of conducting the common household is arranged by mutual agreement of the two spouses," in other words, husband and wife exercise possession, use and disposal of their joint property by common consent.

Joint ownership means that all fruits and income from the property goes to the benefit of the common household, and likewise that the cost of maintenance and operation of the property is borne in common.

For a long time it was a moot question in Soviet law whether the joint property of husband and wife could be distrained for debt or other claims against only one of them.

Today this question has been settled as follows. If the debt arose by the action of only one of the spouses, but was in the interest of the common household, the joint property of both may be distrained, but if the debt was incurred in the interest of only one of the spouses and not for the benefit either of the common household or of the other spouse, distraint may be levied only on the property of the defaulting spouse and on his (or her) share of the joint property, the share of the other spouse being immune.

The Collective Farm Household

A different set of regulations, however, governs the property relations of the peasant family (whether of collective or individual farmer). The basic nucleus is the peasant household (if it belongs to a collective farm it is called a collective farm household). The Land Code defines the household as "a family-labor association of persons jointly engaged in agriculture." It should be noted that, if the household does not belong to a collective farm, the agricultural enterprise conducted by the members of the household represents their principal source of income. If, however, the household does belong to a collective farm, the Joint establishment of the members of the household is if a subsidiary character and serves only to supplement the Income they drive from the collective farm. Apart from their Joint agricultural enterprise-principal or subsidiary the members of a household are also linked by the fact that they conduct a Joint domestic economy.

The rural household is something wider than the urban family . It may consist not only of the husband and wife, their minor. or unmarred adult children, near or even remote relations; the household not infrequently comprises two or more couples-married brothers or sisters, stay together .with their progeny. What is more, even persons who are In no way related by kinship to the other members may be adopted into a household.

The able bodied as well as the non-able bodied including minor children, are all equally members of' the household.

The property relations within the peasant (collective farm) family are as follows:

Dwelling houses and farm buildings, livestock and poultry, agricultural Implements and machines, crops sown and orchard planted on land occupied by the household the crops gathered from this land, proceeds from the sale of produce, whether from the collective farm or family holding worked by members of the household, food, fodder and seed stocks, furniture and utensils used in common etc., constitutes the joint property of the household.

All Income earned by individual members of a household on the collective farm or elsewhere remains at the disposal of the person concerned and does not become the property of the household.

The income derived from the family small-holding is the joint property of all the members.

The share of the joint property to be assigned to persons who leave a household is determined by agreement between them and the remaining members; if agreement cannot be reached, the courts may be asked to settle the dispute.

Private Enterprises
Participation in collective production is voluntary. A Soviet citizen who does not desire to work in socialized enterprise may engage in private enterprise-in farming, handicrafts, or in one of the liberal professions.

Private enterprise is permitted, provided that it is individual; in other words, that it is carried on without hired labor.
The property rights of small private enterprises differ very little in legal status from those held by personal property.

Private enterprise is relatively prevalent only in the Soviet Republics of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, and, to a lesser extent, in Moldavia, where the collective farm movement is only in its early stages. The majority of the peasants still carry on individual farming. It should be noted that, in contradistinction to the other Soviet republics, the laws of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia do not prohibit the employment of hired labor on privately owned farms or in private owned workshops. The number of hired workers must not, however, exceed three per establishment.

Cooperative and collective farm property

Collective farm and co-operative property are one of the forms of socialist property and a pillar of Soviet society, helping to promote the~ wealth and strength of the Soviet Union and the prosperity of Its Citizens.

Co-operative organizations and collective farms may own any kind of property over which the state does not exercise a monopoly and which is needed for the exercise of the functions specified in their statutes. Their chief forms of property are their livestock implements, buildings and the products of their enterprise.

Cooperatives own small scale production establishments including mining, and whole sale, retail produce establishments.

Trade unions, cultural and scientific societies, youth organizations and such associations are categorized as the property of the cooperative societies.

Guidance and rules for cooperative organizations are designed to make sure that the land owning collective farms do not function for the benefits of members alone but for the entire Soviet Society.

The laws governing the property rights of co-operative organizations also extend to public, political, trade union, educational, scientific, sports and similar associations and societies.

All co-operative and public organizations are voluntary associations. Their original capital is acquired out of the contributions of their members, either in money or in kind.

The property of a co-operative organization is separate and distinct from that of the state and of all other co-operative or public organizations. No government body or official may interfere in the use or disposal of the property of collective farms or co-operative bodies, or give orders as to what they should produce or not produce, apart from the assignments laid down in the national-economic plan.

The Law on the Functions and Organization of Producer Cooperative Societies states that" an artel (producer co-operative) has the sole and independent disposal of its working capital and property."

Clause 6 of the Model Rules for Collective Farms, for instance, reads: "The collective farm undertakes to conduct its activities in a planned way strictly observing the programs of agricultural production laid down by the organs of the Workers and Peasants Government, and its obligations to the state.

The relations of co-operative organizations to the national-economic plan differ from those of the state business enterprises. The activities of the latter are entirely governed by plan: they exist solely and exclusively for the carrying out of the national-economic plan, and may not en a e in any operations which do not promote Its fulfillment, even if they do not necessarily interfere with It. This is not so in the case of collective farms and. co-operative organizations.

Their first duty is to fulfill their production programs under the plan, .but they may engage in other activities and operations providing they are sanctioned by their statutes and do not interfere with the fulfillment of the plan.

The products and profits derived .by collective arms and co-operative organizations from their operations belong solely to them and may not be appropriated by the government or by the co-operative federations

The Soviet state is interested in promoting and encouraging the productive capacity of the co-operatives. The law therefore contains a number of provisions designed to prevent reduction or squandering of their productive capital. For example, a co-operative organization may sell part of its means of production only if the fulfillment of the government plans is not jeopardized thereby. It may only be disposed of to other co-operative or public bodies, or to state enterprises, but not to private persons.

STATE PROPERTY
State property is the chief form of socialist property. State property belongs to the Soviet state, as the sole representative of the will of the Soviet people. The right of state property is vested exclusively in the state.
All state property is divided into three categories: union, republican and local.

Union property is owned by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and is administered by the Government of the U.S.S.R. and its institutions and enterprises. The operation of this property is planned by the Union Government and financed out of the budget of the U.S.S.R.

Republican property is owned by one or other of the Union (Constituent) Republics or Autonomous Republics of the U.S.S.R.

Local property belongs to one or other of the local government bodies (regional, district, city or rural Soviets of Working People's Deputies).

The land, natural deposits, forests and waters belong to the state. They cannot become the property either of juristic persons (corporations) or of private persons. Nor can they be made objects of commerce or of civil transactions: they cannot be bought, sold, exchanged, presented in gift, bequeathed, etc. Any transaction which overtly or covertly involves the alienation of land, forests or waters is invalid, and the parties to such transactions are liable to imprisonment, to forfeiture of the use of the object of the transaction, and to confiscation of pecuniary or other material benefits derived from the transaction.

As a rule, the use and exploitation of useful land, forests, waters and mineral deposits are entrusted to state business enterprises, co-operative and public organizations, and private persons. In fact, the functions vested in the government administrative bodies in relation to such property are virtually limited to distributing it among the actual users and to exercising supervision over the way it is used.

The bulk of the arable land of the Soviet Union has been placed at the disposal of the farmers who till it.

The period of tenure of the above-enumerated properties is in most cases unlimited. In particular, the Constitution of the U.S.S.R. states that the land occupied by the collective farms is secured to them" in perpetuity."

In most cases land, forests, waters and natural deposits are placed at the disposal of state business enterprises, co-operative and public organizations and private persons free of charge.

The period of tenure of the land held by individual peasants, of the household plots of collective farmers, and of land, forests and mineral deposits operated by state business enterprises, is likewise unlimited.

Land, forests, waters and natural deposits are assigned only for specifically defined purposes in each case. lf they are used for other purposes (e.g., if land assigned for building purposes is ploughed up for cultivation) the administrative authorities may recover them. Tenure may also be terminated if, for instance, farm land is left uncultivated for a definite number of years in succession, mineral deposits are not worked, and so on.

If the holder decides no longer to exploit the land, forest, water area or mineral deposits placed at his disposal, he may not sell, lease, or otherwise transfer it, but must return it to the administrative body which .has control over it.

Special permission is not required for the use of water for drinking or household purposes, for the gathering of firewood, wild fruits, berries or mushrooms for personal use, or for hunting as a sport (except on government reservations or commercial hunting preserves) or for amateur fishing, all of which are open to all citizens.

State Business Enterprises
The property operated by the state business enterprises is divided into two categories "basic capital" and "working funds", each with a different status in the eyes of the law.

Basic capital comprises buildings, machinery, tools and other productive equipment, means of transport, animals used for draught, productive and breeding purposes; and so on.

State business enterprises may acquire (build up or purchase) new basic capital only with funds assigned to them out of the government budget (central, republican or local, as the case may be). They may not acquire new basic capital out of their working funds.

The basic capital of a state business organization may not under any circumstances be mortgaged or pledged as collateral security. Nor can it be levied for the satisfaction of the enterprise's creditors.

The working capital of a state business enterprise consists of Its stocks of raw material, fuel, partly finished goods, finished goods and cash, as well as of all other property which does not form part of its basic capital.

Working .capital is assigned to an enterprise by the higher authority to which it is subordinated in quantity sufficient to enable It to carry out its production program (plan). It may employ its working capital any way it deems fit for the fulfillment of its plan; it may sell pledge It, or acquire other working capital, no special sanction from the higher authorities is required for such transactions.

The system of property relations established by the law and Constitution of the U.S.S.R., is based on the principle of harmonizing the interests of society as a whole with the interests of the individual citizen.

A brief summary of “Property rights of Soviet Citizens”, by M.S. Lipetsker 1946
EA

Industrial Policy of Russia and the Problems of Industrialism

2010-09-04T20:01:00.000-07:00

Serguei Kara-Murza.

From book: Industrial Policy of Russia and the Problems of Industrialism. Moscow: "AO ICC RIA", 1994. 250 p. / Composed by S.G.Kara-Murza; Editors I.O.Shurchkov, D.I.Piskunov.

INTRODUCTION

Industrial policy aims, within the scope of restrictions existing in a given society, to optimize the interaction of the technosphere both with the social sector and the environment. This serves as the basis for specific tasks: how industry should be organized, where it should be located, the technological renewal period and changes in the production structure, etc. These are standard system tasks. As always, the quality of their solution is determined by the right choice of criteria, an understanding of actual restrictions and a creative approach to the formation of alternatives. This methodology seems to lie on the surface - however, why are we now witnessing grave mistakes and crises, why is there a foreboding of an impending wave of technological catastrophes and a philosopher-predicted onset of a century of technological terrorism?

Basic errors in the understanding of existing restrictions and formulation of the criteria for optimization can be attributed to the fact that industry is a most complicated system, where the natural, social and technological intertwine. Each has its own genesis and development logic, each is seen through the prism of a specific culture. Contradictory ideals and interests, masked by an ideology and some prejudices lie behind each concept of industrial policy. It is only at the critical, turning-points of history, when successive "failures" occur in the entire system of concepts and the entire system of coordinates breaks down, that whole social groups try to get to the root of the problems and ask themselves fundamental questions. The course of reasoning is sometimes quite unusual, but can trigger a process leading us to a new level of understanding and opening the corridor for a way out of the crisis.

The profound crisis in Russia is a part of the general crisis of industrialism. Industrialism can be regarded as the meta-ideology of the West in the New Times, that is, modern western civilization, which rose from the ruins of the traditional medieval society as a result of a chain reaction of varying revolutions (the scientific revolution and Reformation, the industrial revolution and a series of political revolutions) that swept Europe and its cultural areas. Industrialism is based on fundamental philosophical ideas and may incorporate conflicting ideas and ideologies of the lowest order

The present crisis of industrialism is linked, first and foremost, with a sensation (and in some cases an understanding) of the limited character of some key and seemingly absolute ideas at the origin of industrial civilization. These reflect the identity crisis, the insoluble clash of man's perceptions about himself and his picture of the world with the new empirical reality. Man has become aware of a whole series of such contradictions, which cannot in principle be resolved in the foreseeable future within the framework of the structures of industrial civilization. The whole of the civilization project has found itself at a crossroads, and consequently politics in all its aspects. And industrial policy in the first place.

What is behind the anthropological pessimism caused by the increased threat of the "greenhouse effect", for example? Behind is the fact that, despite the idea of the infiniteness of the universe embedded in culture, a natural barrier has suddenly emerged before man depriving him of the freedom of expansion - and consequently, calling into doubt the idea of unlimited progress and constant expansion of reproduction. Any revisionism of the category of freedom and idea of progress implies a radical restructuring of the very foundations of industrialism. This is a hard decision to take, and political leaders prefer to take palliative measures

However, this path only complicates matters, as these measures are bound to explode the ethical structures of industrialism. The most simple solution (and technologically quite accessible choice for the First World) is to prevent any increase in atmospheric discharges of CO2* by Third World countries. In other words, to freeze development of industry and transport, and in general the growth of energy consumption - prevent their development. However, this would mean abandoning the ideas of humanism and democracy, inscribed on the banner of industrialism.

The crisis of industrialism has manifested itself with particularly destructive force in Russia because of its cultural specifics. For in cultural terms Russia was always a chimera - part of the West, but not the West; a Christian world, yet not modern, but a traditional society; a traditional society, but not the East. As a result the key ideas of Western civilization were grafted onto a different world outlook and bore at times exquisite, but anomalous, hypertrophied fruits. If the idea of progress was accepted, it tended to assume a religious, rather than quasi-religious meaning.

This became particularly manifest during the Soviet period, in the modernization project accomplished under the ideological cover of Marxism. Nikolai Berdyayev wrote in Paris: "The originality of Soviet communist Russia is provided by the spiritual phenomenon inherent in technical buildings. Here we see something truly unprecedented: a new spiritual phenomenon. And an eerie impression is produced by its eschatology, the reverse eschatology of the Christian... Christian eschatology links the transformation of the universe and Earth with the actions of the Divine Spirit. The eschatology of technology waits for the attainment of a definitive mastery over the universe and the Earth, definitive rule over them via technical instruments."

Russia's experience today is also exceptionally eloquent, because the support structures of society are being destroyed in the social and cultural spheres. During the brief moment of the rupture, the fracture reveals what has been concealed in a calm period. We are witnessing today in the industry of Russia and other countries of the former USSR an experiment of colossal dimensions. Study and systematization of the observations of Russian engineers, industrialists, administrators and workers, provides invaluable knowledge about today's technosphere, ailments, death and rebirth, new dangers lurking within, its links with politics, culture, social psychology and even ethnogenesis - the dynamics of the formation, change, decline and disappearance of peoples. This knowledge may become the possession of mankind or may be lost without attracting the attention of the ideologically blinkered Western intellectual. Whereas in collecting this material, we are doing our duty as engineers.

Of course, industrial policy in Russia today has its own special interest, as social consciousness is transfixed by the absolutely idealized picture of "world civilization", which we supposedly need to "return" to in order to extricate ourselves from the crisis. When society is at a cross-roads and is trying to determine its development model, politicians inspired by Eurocentrism assert that the answer has been discovered by industrial Europe. Their slogan: "Follow the West - this is the best of all worlds." This was the case in Peter the Great's program of civilization and during the period of Stalinist industrialization. This approach is also being used today during modernization under the banner of liberalism. Here is the credo expressed by one of the ideologues of perestroika, L. Batkin: "The West at the end of the 20th century is not a geographical notion or even a notion of capitalism (although genetically, of course, it is associated precisely with this idea). It is a universal definition of the economic, scientific, technological, structural and democratic level, without which the existence of any genuinely modern, cleansed-of-things-archaic society is unthinkable."

However, past experience suggests that we should pay attention to the warning of the outstanding anthropologist Levi-Strauss: "...It is hard to imagine that one civilization could adopt that of another without sacrificing its very self. In practice attempts to engineer such a transformation can only have two results: either the disorganization and collapse of one system - or an original synthesis leading to the emergence of a third system, not reducible to the two others" [51, p. 335].

We have witnessed such a synthesis in Japan. We were also moving to this end in Russia (USSR), but the sharp radicalization of the project engendered the disorganization and collapse Levi-Strauss wrote about.

This book systematizes for the first time data on the evolution of the technosphere in Russia (and the concomitant sphere of scientific and technological activities) during perestroika and liberal political and economic reform. However, this empirical evidence will assume elements of scientific knowledge, if we at least schematically delineate the invisible part of the iceberg of industrial policy - recall initial postulates, the roots of industrial civilization and the "sharp corners", which any traditional society feels as it assimilates these postulates during accelerated modernization.

CONCLUSION

Six years of perestroika and two years of radical economic reform have passed, enough time to allow our analysis of the economic situation to be based on statistics gathered over a fairly long period. The main tendencies have become quite clear and the decisions taken in industrial policy can be evaluated pragmatically, that is without the ideological arguments that used to stand in the way of rational discussion of the reform options. The state of Russia's life-support systems has deteriorated to such an extent that it is criminal to try to gain political advantage from it.

What are the causes and dynamics of the acute crisis in industry? We must return to those because any stabilization or even any measures to halt the landslide decline in industrial output are impossible if we fail to understand its real causes. We should recall the conditions under which reform was launched in industry and some of the objective features of Russian industry, which predetermined its "response" to reform.

It should be recalled that the entire Soviet industry was a giant enterprise that was managed by non-market or quasi market methods and that the domestic prices of industrial goods differed greatly from the world prices, sometimes by as much as 1,000 times.

One should bear in mind the specific location of industrial enterprises within the territory of the USSR and the high level of their specialization which meant one or two major plants were often unchallenged monopolies in their sectors.

The economy was overburdened with enterprises whose functioning was not regulated by any economic laws (the defense sector), but which were closely intertwined with the rest of the economy.
The Soviet Union was a multi-ethnic country and its industrial development differed greatly from region to region.

Soviet industry was at the final stage of the "second phase" of industrialization and was in need of a restructuring and large-scale modernization of its basic assets. The Soviet economy entered that phase - one similar to the industrialization in the West in the thirties - not in a crisis but certainly in a state of stagnation and that enabled the Soviet leaders to choose mild restructuring models.

All these conditions placed obvious and harsh restrictions on the reform effort:
1. Soviet reformers could not allow for a moment's pause in the information and control system until an effective alternative market-based information system could be created.
2. Investments had to be routed to the defense sector for its restructuring and conversion, a conversion which became possible after the Soviet Union achieved and effectively demonstrated its military parity with the West.

3. It was necessary to decide which system-forming enterprises, especially monopolies, could not be allowed to switch to free market principles until after the creation of a stand-by market-based system

4. Political, economic and cultural resources had to be mobilized to hold the state and its economy together. 5. A "social peace" agreement was to be concluded for the most critical period of the reform, pledging its signatories to refrain from any action that might destabilize society and provoke conflict.
As we all remember, by all their actions taken in 1985-1991 the political leadership demonstrated their disregard for those restrictions and that inevitably led to a system crisis. The main goal of the entire ideological program of perestroika was to break down the "administrative-command system" and eventually the information and control system of the economy was destroyed under various political pretexts. The end of planned control over the price and income dynamics immediately destabilized the financial system and provoked inflation, and the elimination of the state monopoly on foreign trade before the domestic prices had leveled out with world prices encouraged the rapacious export of natural resources and other products and the creation of an influential compradore lobby in the political power structures.

At the same time, all sorts of antagonisms and conflicts, especially ethnic ones, were excited with the aim of undermining the "Soviet empire". It was a historical paradox that the central government encouraged separatism and nationalist and extremist movements in the regions and regularly strengthened their positions by ideological campaigns: witness the ballyhoo about the "Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact" and its "awkward" actions in Tbilisi, Baku and Vilnius. Whatever we may think about the intentions of the authors of this program, there is no doubt that it planted a powerful mine under the economy.

To strengthen their positions against the background of growing instability the ideologists of perestroika in 1989 resorted to a populist ploy: they declared that they intended to build "an economy with a human face" and permitted an unjustified increase in people's incomes by taking money out of the basic industries. The period of 1988-1991 saw a major let-up in the modernization of the basic assets in the power engineering, metallurgical, machine-building and chemical sectors (see Figure 1). Not backed up with even a minimum of the required funds, the conversion of the defense sector became an ideological action, designed to conceal the break-down of the most technologically developed sector of the economy.
Figure 1. Putting into operation of basic funds of industry in the Russian Federation (in % of the existing).

In the meantime, the press and television conducted a campaign encouraging a further split of Soviet society.
The aim of the perestroika plan was achieved: the "evil empire" with all its flaws collapsed. However, the structures that supported the economy collapsed too. All that was left to Russia was a crippled economy deprived of many vital components and marked by severely weakened internal ties. It no longer had its traditional foreign partners like COMECON, and tensions were growing in an already split society.
Russia had to continue the reform, but the situation in the country at that time was far worse than it had been in 1985. The crisis of the system had already begun and in late 1991 Russia was confronted with the choice of a reform model. What influenced that choice?

1. Academic circles and intellectuals in general, along with the party and government apparatchiks who assumed key positions of power during the years of perestroika, advocated liberalism and wanted Russia to switch to Western-style capitalism ("return to world civilization"). It was a period of neo-liberal Western-oriented utopism, which caught the imagination of many intellectuals and bureaucrats in major Russian cities. The advocates of alternative reform models had no opportunity to air their views in public. Thus, the choice of the reform model in Russia was virtually made by the small group of intellectuals who initiated perestroika.

2. It was believed that the major geopolitical and military concessions made to the West under Gorbachev would be rewarded by financial assistance, which the West promised to give Russia if she adopted a certain reform plan (the so-called "stabilization program" of the IMF). The leadership of the Foreign Ministry did everything to bolster these hopes and the governments of the former socialist countries had already adopted that program and were sending encouraging signals to the Russian leaders.
As a result, Russia received a government made up of specialists who shared the principles of Western neo-liberalism and advocated the theories of the Chicago School of Economics. Jeffrey Sachs, one of the more radical representatives of that school, was invited to Russia as an advisor.

The IMF program provides for a series of restrictive monetarist measures:
- reducing state interference in the economy and even the complete privatization of the public sector, ending or sharply reducing government subsidies and budget expenditures on education, health care and social programs and a deficit-free budget;

- encouraging in every possible way private enterprise and foreign investment and granting all sorts of benefits to foreign investors;

- implementing the policy of "real exchange rates", which requires a constant reduction of the exchange rate of the national currency against the major Western currencies "in order to encourage exports".
The adoption of that program was a decision of paramount importance. However, it was taken in a great hurry, without even any debate among the specialists. It was taken despite the fact that it was known that a CIA report (1991) warned about the grave consequences of such a decision and that similar warnings had been made by a group of prominent Western figures (Action Committee for International Co-operation): Pierre Trudeau, Valery Giscard d'Estaing, Miguel de la Madrid and Helmut Schmidt. They warned that the implementation of the IMF shock-therapy policy would have disastrous consequences. A number of major studies by American and European specialists about the negative results of the use of the IMF methods in a great number of African and Latin American countries were also well known. By that time the "White Paper" had been published in Britain about the long-term negative consequences of the monetarist reform implemented by Margaret Thatcher and the results of the implementation of this program in Poland and Yugoslavia during two years had been summed up and analyzed.

Despite vast financial aid from the West, Poland had barely survived the shock-therapy: it lost a considerable part of its industrial potential and its agriculture was seriously undermined.

Yugoslavia was experiencing a grave crisis and the escalation of its civil war. That country was a shining example of the application of the IMF scheme to the entire economy of a multi-ethnic country with a considerable defense sector. It illustrated the uneven distribution of the crisis in different ethnic regions and, as an inevitable result, the rise in separatism. Czechoslovakia adopted a more sparing model and it resulted in a peaceful break-up of the country.

In Hungary, the privatization of the more advanced enterprises by Western investors led, even despite contracts with effective guarantees, to the closure of many competitive production facilities rather than an inflow of new technology.

The potential risks involved in the adoption of the IMF scheme were well known: when efforts to quickly stabilize the situation fail, credits become an additional burden on the sinking economy and the conditions set by the IMF turn the economy of the donor country into an economic space filled with enterprises dependent on creditors

At the present time foreign debt payments account for 30-40 per cent of the budget expenditures of Third World countries. Whenever their debts are re-drafted, the governments of the debtor countries assume the obligation to repay the foreign debts of private enterprises. The debtor countries are also required to capitalize their foreign debt, that is convert their debt obligations into shares or exchange them for shares

It is clear that Russia took a big risk, but the choice was made. The West did not take long to make Russia realize that it would not receive any financial aid to cushion the economic shock and the Russian leaders had no time to create any mechanisms to prevent the flowing off of capital from the country.
How did the Russian social and economic system respond to shock therapy? Its reaction to the IMF scheme was "not right", as the IMF experts soon had to acknowledge. The shock therapy and market competition it created failed to bring about economic recovery, solve the problem of surplus labor, cause the loss-making enterprises to wither away or bring about structural changes. It increased economic degradation and this process was especially rapid in the more "market-oriented" sectors, such as the food and light industries.

To prevent economic and social catastrophe the Russian government had to continue to subsidize enterprises and preserve a deficit budget. Curtailment of social programs reached a critical point; people lost practically all their savings and the rise in prices and taxes reduced the consumption level of the vast majority of the population to a subsistence minimum. No other country ever had to make such sacrifices; sacrifices which failed to produce the desired result. The money expropriated from the population did not turn into investment and never reached the state vaults. A lot of it was taken out of the country and deposited in foreign banks. The sacrifice made by society was useless. However, no major changes were made in the reform model. On the contrary, the radical political circles forced the government to accelerate the monetarist reforms.

In what state are the Russian economy and society today? Judging by the major economic indicators, the decline of production in many basic industries has assumed disastrous proportions and there is no evidence of general economic stabilization (see Figure 2). True, production has stabilized in a number of sectors, but this stabilization remains at a very low level and may soon be followed by a new decline.

Figure 2. Worsening situation in agriculture.
a) manufacture of tractors (1) and combine harvesters (2);
b) mineral fertilizers (1) and fodder additives (2) supplies to agriculture in th. tons (2).

Hopes for spontaneous stabilization and growth have faded, owing to the involvement of a new crisis factor: the delayed result of a sharp fall in investment. The rate of the depletion or degradation of the basic assets exceeds by far the rate of the introduction of new ones and the gap is widening all the time

The ideologically-motivated campaigns in the economy begin increasingly to look like adventures, a factor which escalates tension in society. The so-called "voucher privatization" in industry and the efforts to encourage private farming in agriculture are the most shining examples.

The voucher privatization program failed to create a middle-class of "owners". As a result of this campaign black-market dealers bought up a vast amount of shares, creating even more fertile soil for social conflict. The idea of privatization was discredited, while the price of the privatization voucher (officially, "a share of national wealth") fell to the price of a kilo of sausage.

Russia's vast scientific and technological potential, a major development factor created by the efforts of the entire nation over a 300-year period, has been undermined and may be lost for good in the course of 1994.

The income-gap between different regions of the country has widened dramatically. The focus of the crisis has shifted to the agricultural regions and regions with a high concentration of defense plants, while Moscow has become a kind of enclave with part of its population earning unreasonably high incomes. (See Figure 3).
Figure 3. Retail trade turnover (Moscow trade turnover = 100%) in Tatarstan (1), Kalmykia (2) and Daghestan (3).

- Russia's vast scientific and technological potential, a major development factor created by the efforts of the entire nation over a 300-year period, has been undermined and may be lost for good in the course of 1994.
- The income-gap between different regions of the country has widened dramatically. The focus of the crisis has shifted to the agricultural regions and regions with a high concentration of defense plants, while Moscow has become a kind of enclave with part of its population earning unreasonably high incomes (See Figure 3)

- The wide income-gap and the impoverishment of a large part of the population have become a major cause of health problems and a key stress factor. There has been a sharp fall in the birth rate and a dramatic rise in the mortality rate, especially of premature deaths caused by suicide, murder and accidents. The number of people who died owing to those causes in 1993 increased by 1.75 million, as compared with 1989 (see Figure 4)

These losses can be compared to the casualties of a full-scale war and it is the Russians who suffer most.

Figure 4. Reform's demographic effect: population increment (1), birth rate per 1,000 (2) and mortality (3) per 1,000. New Figures updated to year 2000

The implementation of the IMF reform model has brought about serious differences and major conflicts between different branches of power and even inside each branch of power, whose intensity was unimaginable in late 1991. These differences provoked a major political crisis in September and October 1993, which put Russia on the brink of civil war. That was the last signal.

It is clear now that the crisis has become so great and the destruction of the economy has gone so far that even the most optimal decisions cannot stop this crisis. We must face the truth and honestly tell people that more hardships are ahead. However, catastrophe can be averted if different social forces rally together on the basis of an acceptable compromise. This country has all the required conditions for this: vast natural resources, the industrial infrastructure and skilled labor power. The important thing now is to restore an effective production-distribution system based on common sense rather than ideological dogma.

The political situation has become more complex, however. The members of the government who insist that reform should be continued in accordance with the same model have resorted to a ploy in order to clear themselves from responsibility for the results of their policy. They have assumed the pose of critics who are trying to gain political capital from the deteriorating situation, which is, in fact, the result of their own decisions. Taking into consideration that this position continues to receive considerable support from influential circles in Russia and abroad, one may predict yet another split in Russian society. Television, which has a major (not always constructive) role to play in the process of perestroika and reform has begun to condition public opinion in a corresponding way

It is a matter of honor for all those who advocate continuation of radical reform on the same model to take a closer look at the results of the past two years. There is vast evidence indicating that the supporters of this model are simply ignoring reality.

In this situation all political and public forces, which are not committed to theoretical and ideological schemes but want to save the people and hold the country together, are confronted with a dramatic choice.
One possibility is to let the radical reformers carry through their experiment to the end and thus increase public support for an alternative program. However, that would mean a total collapse of the economy, the death of a large part of the population and, possibly, a break-up of Russia.

The other possibility is to assume responsibility for the continuation of the reform on the condition of an open dialogue with all public forces and the signing of a social pact that would provide for a clear distribution of the hardships and support resources and for mutual obligations to maintain civil peace. This model of reform, which rejects the principles of Western neo-liberalism with its orientation to individualism, was put into practice in Spain, Sweden, Japan and the Southeast Asian countries and thanks to this reform model, China and Vietnam are rapidly developing today. The important thing is not to demonstrate one's loyalty to artificial ideological concepts but commit the specific national communal and patriotic stereotypes and traditions to the cause of reform.

It is a very difficult change of policy to execute, one which will compel all the parties involved in the political process to "sacrifice" their principles. The communist hard-liners must give up their attempts to take revenge and realize that it is no longer possible to make this country return to the old bureaucratic egalitarian system. Even if such a return were politically possible, it would cost society a lot more than the movement towards a socially-oriented mixed economy. Advocates of a liberal utopia should honestly admit the fact that the traditional ways of thinking of the peoples of Russia as to how people should live have proved to be incompatible with the principle of individualist capitalism and that the reform based on these principles has failed. They may console themselves with the view that our nation is not mature enough to accept these ideals, but we have no other. When it becomes mature enough, our economy may gradually move towards the liberal ideal, but it should be allowed to do so without any shocks and upheavals.

If the second alternative is chosen, the first thing to do will be to work out the conditions of a social pact and discuss a program. The main elements of this program are self-evident:
- restoration of state control over a limited number of system-forming enterprises and the implementation of the minimum required investment programs (permitting a growth in the budget deficit);
- creating, with state assistance and the use of raw material reserves, equipment and premises of the fatally weakened enterprises, regional "incubator" centers for small private and collectively-owned enterprises capable of absorbing the labor power made redundant by restructuring and quickly saturating the market with domestic products;
- establishing control over foreign trade and capital movement;
- taking urgent measures to bolster the farm sector and related industries;
- guaranteeing low-income population groups a minimum of vitally important foodstuffs with the aid of government subsidies;
- reforming the taxation system with a view to encouraging production and investment and increasing taxes on excessive consumption.
Russia is at a crossroads. Hopes that it will survive the crisis are based on the fact that more and more people are closely watching developments and tendencies here and trying hard to grasp their meaning.

FOOTNOTES

1
For example, Marxism, which provided the theoretical basis for industrialization in Russia (USSR), in bourgeois society ideologically armed the workers in their class struggle against capital. Put differently, it countered liberalism, which defended the right to private property and the free purchase and sale of labor. However, both these conflicting ideologies are based on the same picture of the world and the same anthropological model and proceed from the same idea of progress. They are two branches of industrialism.

2
Over the past four years the question of cutting down or freezing discharges of CO2* into the atmosphere was repeatedly raised at the most representative international forums. However, even the inclusion of this question on the agenda was blocked by industrially developed nations (primarily the USA). US President Bush said bluntly that this would mean to place progress itself under control.

3
A system-forming enterprise should not necessarily be big. It is its function in the entire economic system that matters. When the production of such "money-losing" products as fodder additives was halted, the entire mixed feed industry was paralyzed. As a result, grain was increasingly used as fodder for livestock, the country became even more dependent on imported grain and the livestock population decreased.

4
From 1983 to 1987 Mexico paid its creditors $48.5bn in interest and only $18.5bn of its debt principal. For each dollar it borrowed the country paid $2.5 on its old credits and as interest on them.

5
In 1993 Russia was scheduled to pay nearly $40bn, although the most it could pay was $2.5bn. The Paris Club agreed to re-draft the debt, but the conditions on which it agreed to do so have never been made public. The press has reported, however, that an American company has been installed in Moscow to convert Russia's debt obligations into the shares of major industrial enterprises, especially in the fuel and energy sector.6
In 1993, for example, the depletion of the coal production capacity was estimated at 22 million tons, while new production capacity put into operation was at the level of 3 million tons (as compared with 20 million tons envisaged earlier by the Soviet plans). The process of degradation of the basic assets in agriculture, especially soil, is not so obvious. The annual rate of removal of nutrient substances from soil as a result of the use of modern methods of farming is 120-125 kilograms per hectare. In 1988 the Soviet Union produced and used enough fertilizers to compensate for the nutrients removal rate, 122 kg per hectare, that is stabilized soil fertility without increasing it. In 1992 the figure dropped to 43 kg and in 1993 to 33 kg. Experts believe that in 1994 the rate will be 10 kg per hectare. During the last three years soil fertility has been undermined for many years to come. In 1993 the reduction of the crop yields owing to this factor amounted to an equivalent of 25 million tons of grain, a figure comparable with Russia's entire grain imports.

7
This remark has nothing to do with freedom of speech. The problem is that a very small group of people with almost exclusive access to television intentionally misinforms the public for definite political purposes. Television coverage of Prime Minister Victor Chernomyrdin's recent speeches was highly indicative in this sense. Newscasters intentionally distorted the Premier's remarks, offered biased comments on them and thus conducted a crude smear campaign against the government without giving its representative a chance to answer back. How can any stabilization be achieved in this situation?

Anatomy of a Fraudulent Scholarly Work: Ronald Radosh's Spain Betrayed

2010-09-04T19:58:00.000-07:00

Review by Grover Furr

Spain Betrayed: The Soviet Union in the Spanish Civil War by Ronald Radosh (Editor), Mary Radosh Habeck (Editor), Grigory Sevostianov (Editor). Annals of Communism series. Yale University Press, June 2001.

1. Long awaited and published to rave reviews -- albeit predictably by Cold War conservatives (Arnold Beichman) and anti-communist liberals (Christopher Hitchens) -- Radosh's commentary on the 81 documents from the Comintern archives in Moscow concerning its involvement in the Spanish Civil War turns out to be notable for quite another reason: it is an utterly fraudulent work.1

2. In the course of this review-essay I'll present a lot of evidence to substantiate this serious charge. I'll also discuss, though briefly, the major positive reviews of the book. They are full of the same stuff. In several instances, an innocent reader might think that the reviewers had not actually read the documents themselves, but only Radosh's commentary. For how could anyone compare what the Comintern documents state with what Radosh says about them, without noticing the enormous discrepancies between the two?

3. I won't say much in this report about the documents themselves. Many of them are fascinating and valuable, though Radosh, in his zeal to arraign the communists, basically neglects them.

4. But one conclusion is so striking that it cannot be left unstated. Far from showing Soviet "betrayal," these 81 documents make the Comintern, the International Brigades, and the massive Soviet aid to Spain appear in an extremely positive light. Reading the documents alone, and ignoring Radosh's "commentary," any objective person will come away with tremendous respect for the communist effort in the Spanish Civil War, not only by the Comintern and the justly famed International Brigades, but of the Soviet Union -- or, as Radosh says it, in his crude demonizing synecdoche, of "Moscow" and "Stalin."

5. Despite itself, Radosh's book represents something valuable: an object lesson in the rhetorical strategies of anti-communism. Perhaps the biggest question of all -- "Why lie, if the truth is on your side?" -- will require a few remarks about the uses of anti-Stalinism in foreclosing any objective understanding of the successes and failures of the communist movement.

6. Radosh's book contains so many errors and distortions that even a much longer review could not discuss them all. Therefore, I examine the documents in which the major "revelations" are supposedly to be found. To identify those, I've used (a) the four-page publicity handout from Yale University Press that accompanies the book, and (b) a number of the major reviews favorable to this volume, from leading publications (all are listed at the end). A few other documents were chosen because they seem to me particularly interesting. This close examination constitutes the bulk of the review.

7. I'll also point out some examples of simple editorial incompetence. Radosh could have provided useful summaries of long and significant documents, or helpful and specific references to other scholarly work -- surely the duty of a competent commentator -- but scarcely ever does.

8. At the end of the review I've included some remarks of a more general nature about the issues raised both by these documents themselves and by Radosh's commentary. There's a good deal that can be said by Marxists in criticism of the Bolsheviks and the Comintern during the Stalin period -- or of any political group, communist or not, at any period -- and in conclusion I'll allude to one or two things with special reference to Spain. But any and all criticism should be based on what actually happened as that can be deduced from the best evidence available, rather than on fabrications or demonization, as with Radosh and many other Cold-War writers, either from the Right or, not infrequently, the so-called Left.

9. What follows is a short outline of the main ideological frameworks for interpreting the Spanish Civil War. Some knowledge of them is essential to an appreciation of Radosh's interpretation, the documents themselves, and the present review. Considerations of space preclude any more detailed discussion of the foundational texts of these frameworks. (I am planning a critique of Orwell's influential book at a future time.)

10. The Spanish Civil War has always posed a special problem for the kind of anti-communist who is determined to argue that the leadership of the international Communist movement never acted out of any idealistic motives. Such people are convinced -- at any rate, they are determined to convince others -- that all communist struggles, no matter how noble in appearance, were in reality aimed at manipulative, cynical, authoritarian goals, ultimately far worse than those of the capitalist exploiters they professed to oppose. Khrushchev's portrayal of a malevolent, virtually demonic Stalin after 1956, while it differed little from Trotsky's, was far more influential, and except in China and Albania quickly became widely accepted within the Communist movement itself. It was essential in smoothing the path for Trotskyist and, in terms of Spain, Anarchist narratives, hitherto current only among tiny, marginalized groups.

11. George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia is basically such an account, though Orwell's superior literary ability, British patriotism during World War II, and subsequent endorsement of mainstream Cold War ideology, gave his work the status of a somewhat independent authority. Orwell's book remains the main representative of these anti-communist paradigms, the only book about the Spanish Civil War that most people ever encounter.

12. According to this interpretation, further popularized in British director Ken Loach's film Land and Freedom (1995), Trotskyists and, especially, Anarchists are the true revolutionaries, collectivizing the land, ceding control of factories to the workers, and promoting egalitarian relations generally. The Communists are portrayed as counter-revolutionaries, whose rank-and-file think they are fighting to defeat the fascists in order that, in the victorious bourgeois-democratic Spanish Republic, they can then initiate a struggle for working-class revolution, but whose leadership -- Stalin -- aims in reality at a bleak authoritarian dictatorship of the kind Trotskyists, Anarchists, conventional capitalist anti-communists and even fascists, claimed was the state of affairs in the USSR itself. This creates a certain tension within the otherwise "united front" of anti-communist versions of the Spanish Civil War, since capitalist anti-communism is normally aimed at the radical, not the putatively conservative, nature of the communist movement.

13. The Communist version, on the other hand -- the version by far the best supported by the evidence -- is that the "United Front Against Fascism" and for a liberal, bourgeois-democratic (and therefore capitalist) society was the only way to unite as many social forces as possible, including nationalists, urban capitalists, and wealthier peasants, to defeat the fascists. According to this view, upon victory a Spanish Republic would have a strong, organized working class which would continue the fight for progressive social reforms and, ultimately, socialist revolution. The Communists held that to begin a revolutionary struggle in the midst of the war against the fascist armies would guarantee the defeat of the Republic -- a defeat which, in fact, happened.

14. A critique of the Communist view from the Left is certainly warranted -- indeed, essential. But what passes for a "left" critique, the Anarchist-Trotskyist version outlined above, accepts the basic premises of the reactionary Cold War critique, to the point that it can be cited in service to the latter, as Radosh does here. To clear the ground for a real Left critique, it is first necessary to recover the historical truth of what did, in fact, happen, both in the Spanish Civil War and in the Soviet Union itself. A real Left critique of the Comintern's politics which both fully and correctly appreciates its successes and goes beyond it to identify the main roots of its failures, is yet to be made, despite a few promising starts which have long been available, albeit little known (see below, and note 6).

15. Radosh's own view, as represented in his commentary in Spain Betrayed, is contradictory. In places Radosh argues, according to the fashion of conservative capitalist anti-communists, that the Comintern was hiding its truly revolutionary intentions. In other passages, however, he endorses the Orwell-Trotskyist-Anarchist view that the Communists were a conservative force that "betrayed" the revolutionary potential in Spain. Radosh seems untroubled by, indeed unaware of, this basic contradiction, as in the case of the many passages in which he -- in the most generous description of his practice -- makes flagrant and egregious errors in reading the very texts upon which he is "commenting."

Document 5

16. Document 5, a report by Georgi Dimitrov, head of the Comintern, to the Secretariat of the ECCI (Executive Committee, Communist International) of July 23, 1936, contains the following lines:

We should not, at the present stage, assign the task of creating soviets and try to establish a dictatorship of the proletariat in Spain. That would be a fatal mistake.

Radosh claims that this statement (a statement repeated in the press release)

. . . supports the contention of some scholars that the Communists purposely disguised their true objective, social revolution. (5-6)

But it does not. It clearly states that there are "stages," the present one being the stage of "maintaining unity with the petty bourgeoisie and the peasants and the radical intelligentsia . . ." (11). Radosh's claim could only be true if he gave evidence that the Communists were denying what everyone would have expected of them -- to wish to move to another "stage," once the fascists were defeated. Radosh gives no evidence that the Communists were making any such claims to have abandoned the ultimate goal of a Soviet-style revolution in Spain. So there can be no question of "disguising their true objective."

17. It ought also to be noted that Radosh also wants it "both ways." Sometimes he criticizes the Communists for opposing social revolution, which the Anarchists supposedly stood for. This is Ken Loach's main contention in Land and Freedom. But other times, as here, Radosh criticizes the Communists for wanting social revolution but supposedly "disguising" their intentions.

18. Document 5 also offers an obvious mistranslation from the Russian. Immediately after the lines quoted above, Radosh et al. allege that Dimitrov wrote the following:

Therefore we must say: act in the guise of defending the Republic. . . . (p.11; emphasis added)

In his commentary Radosh states:

The very careful use of these terms, as well as the injunction to "act under the semblance of defending the republic," supports the contention of some scholars that the Communists purposely disguised their true objective, social revolution. (pp. 5-6; emphasis added)

19. Evidently Radosh is referring to a different translation of the document than that which finally ended up in the volume, although arguably "in the guise of" and "under the semblance of" convey much the same thing: duplicity, dishonesty. However, there is an interesting footnote in the text of Document 5 attached to the phrase "in the guise." That note, number 11 on page 515, reads thus: "Literally, 'under the banner.'" In other words, what Dimitrov actually said is this:

Therefore we must say: act under the banner of defense of the Republic. . . .

20. The question is: What does "under the banner" -- in Russian, "pod znamenem" -- mean in Russian? The answer is: it means the opposite of what Radosh says it means. Rather than "under the semblance" or "in the guise," it means "in service to" or "in defense of." At exactly this time, one of the foremost Soviet philosophical journals was titled "Pod Znamenem Marksisma": literally, "Under the Banner of Marxism," often translated as "In Defense of Marxism." No one would even think of translating that title as "In the Guise of," or "Under the Semblance of," Marxism! "Under the banner of" is a military metaphor, meaning "In the ranks of."

21. In other words, what Dimitrov actually said was:

. . . act in defense of the Republic. . . .

There must be an interesting story behind that footnote. Whoever translated Document 5 -- Radosh tells us (p. xxxi) that there were two translators for the Russian documents -- that person evidently knew that "in the guise" was not the correct translation, and wanted to tell the world, even if by a footnote, that he or she was not responsible for this particular mistranslation.

22. This is the only mistranslation from the Russian that can be discerned in this collection, because Radosh et al. don't give us the documents in the original languages (mostly Russian, but a few in Spanish, German and French). This would have been easy to do -- on a book-related web page, for example. But the way this mistranslation is treated makes one wonder whether there may be more.

Document 42

23. Radosh spends a lot of words on Documents 42 through 44 because one of the central points of his book is that in these documents, especially Document 42, is to be found the proof that the Communists instigated the Barcelona uprising of May, 1937 as a pretext for violently suppressing their Anarchist opposition.

24. Briefly, the context for Radosh's comments is as follows, in the words of Helen Graham, who has written authoritatively and most recently on this event (Graham 1999, p. 485):

On the afternoon of Monday 3 May 1937 a detachment of police attempted to seize control of Barcelona's central telephone exchange (Telefónica) in order to remove the anarchist militia forces present therein. . . . Those days of social protest and rebellion have been represented in many accounts, of which the single best known is still George Orwell's contemporary diary account, Homage to Catalonia, recently given cinematic form in Ken Loach's Land and Freedom. It is paradoxical, then, that the May events remain among the least understood in the history of the civil war.

25. Radosh takes Document 42 to be directly related to this event:

. . . we have the proof that the view held by the Communists' opponents was essentially correct. The Spanish Communist Party, with the support and knowledge of the Comintern and Moscow, had decided to provoke a clash, in the full understanding that the outcome would give them precisely the opportunity they had long been seeking. (174)

Radosh does not bother to tell us what would have been wrong with the communists' seizing the telephone exchange from the anarchists. After all, the government, not one of the various parties, should have been in control of the exchange. And the assault was led by the Police Chief of Barcelona who, though a communist, was also a government official.

26. The anarchists had clearly been prepared for such an attack for a long time -- after all, they had a machine-gun nest in the first floor which prevented the police from seizing the building at once. What justification did the anarchists -- not the government, but one of the political parties in Barcelona -- have controlling the telephone exchange in the first place?

27. The words that Radosh takes as "proof" that "the view held by the Communists' opponents was essentially correct" -- I emphasize "essentially" because even Radosh feels he has to qualify this statement, evidently realizing he is on weak grounds here -- are as follows:

. . . the author of the report noted that the Communists had decided not to wait for a crisis, but to "hasten it and, if necessary, to provoke it" (emphasis added).

But Document 42 says nothing whatsoever about the attack on the telephone exchange, or about any plan for confrontation with the anarchists. The sentence quoted in part by Radosh in his commentary reads this way in full:

In a word, to go decisively and consciously to battle against Caballero and his entire circle, consisting of some leaders of the UGT. This means not to wait passively for a "natural" unleashing of the hidden government crisis, but to hasten it and, if necessary, provoke it, in order to obtain a solution for these problems. . . . The leadership of the party is more and more coming to the conviction that with Caballero and his circle the Republic will be defeated, despite all the conditions guaranteeing victory. (194)

These lines do not refer at all to the attempt by the Communist Chief of Police to take possession for the Republican government of the telephone exchange that had been unlawfully seized and held by the anarchists, the event that precipitated the "May Days" in Barcelona and to which Radosh tries to tie this statement, or to any plan to incite any actions against the anarchists. Instead, the paragraph quoted just above refers to the previous points 8 through 14 of Document 42, in which the unnamed communist author says that the PCE has decided to take action against the Caballero government. There is nothing whatsoever in this document that connects it with the attempt to retake the telephone exchange.

28. Radosh's allegation -- one of the "bombshell" findings Radosh claims to have found -- is a lie. This whole "discovery" is a complete swindle on the unsuspecting reader. I stress this point because Radosh's supposed "discovery" here has been so widely touted as one of the major "revelations" of these Soviet documents. For example, the Press Release from Yale University Press that accompanied the books publication lists seven documents and summarizes what Radosh says they contain. The blurb on Document 42 reads:

Barcelona -- the civil war within the Civil War. The five-day street battle in Barcelona was portrayed by Orwell in Homage to Catalonia and by Ken Loach in the film Land and Freedom. The historical dispute has always been: Was the anarchist reaction deliberately provoked? Document 42 shows that the view held by the Communists' opponents was essentially correct. The Spanish Communist Party, with the support and knowledge of the Comintern, decided to provoke the clash. (emphasis added)

We should also note, in passing, the esteem in which Loach and Orwell are held by establishment anti-Communist ideologues like Radosh, and the way in which the echo-chamber of the "big lie" functions in the blurb above by pairing these supposed "authorities" with the specious "facts" that Radosh is creating here.

29. Richard Bernstein, whose very positive review of Radosh's book appeared in the New York Times, tacitly recognizes that Document 42 did not prove what Radosh says it proves:

Two weeks later, the Communists, in the view of this book's editors, did provoke the desired crisis, unleashing the Barcelona street battles that essentially eliminated the anarchist leadership and led to the replacement of Largo Caballero by a more malleable premier. [emphasis added]

(Bernstein makes it sound like Caballero was the leader of the anarchists; in fact, he was head of the government and a Socialist.)

30. In the interest of good sense, I would like to make a few additional remarks at this point.

1. The assumption, in Radosh's Commentary and in other anti-communist accounts Radosh quotes, is that, by taking the Telephone exchange away from the anarchists and returning it to government control, the Communists were "provoking" the anarchists.

2. The anarchists had no business whatsoever holding the telephone exchange. The Police Chief, besides being a communist, was also a government officer. If removing an armed group of occupiers who have taken control of the telephone exchange is not a legitimate matter for the police, what is?

3. Imagine if the Communists had occupied the telephone exchange, fortified it with a machine-gun nest, interrupted government phone calls whenever they wanted to, and then a non-Communist police chief had tried to oust them? Would Radosh not take that as evidence that the Communists wanted to take over?

Document 43

31. One of Radosh's statements about Document 43 has been cited in several favorable reviews of his book:

As the Comintern document cited earlier revealed, Stalin had in mind a Spanish version of the Moscow purge trials most likely to be held in Barcelona. (209)2

The document in question, No. 43, is a report from an anonymous source, presumably to the Comintern. In it the informant states:

The immediate political consequences of the putsch [the anarchist attempt to seize power -- this is the way this writer interprets the "May Days" in Barcelona] are very great. Above all, the following one: the Trotskyist-POUMists revealed themselves to the nation as people who belong totally to Franco's fifth column. The people are nourishing unbelievable animosity toward the Trotskyists. The masses are demanding energetic and merciless repression. This is what is demanded by the masses of people of all of Spain, Catalonia, and Barcelona. They demand complete disarmament, arrest of the leaders, the creation of a special military tribunal for the Trotskyists! This is what the masses demand. (196-197)

In his discussion of this document on p. 176, Radosh wrote:

In other words, the call was out for the creation in Spain of the equivalent of the Moscow purge trials. . . .

"In other words" (why not use the same words?) "the call was out for" can only mean one thing: Radosh assumes that our unnamed informant, writing to the Comintern in Moscow, is speaking for someone other than himself. But this assumption is invalid. This document does not mean that any "call is out." So far as we know, it's the opinion of the writer alone. After all, he's reporting to the Comintern. If the PCE, or Soviet advisers, had "put out the call" for a Moscow-style purge trial, he would have said so, for why hide it to the Comintern? And if Stalin had expressed interest in a Spanish "purge trial," surely this writer would have said so as well.

Document 44

32. Document 44 is a report to the Comintern sent to Marshal Voroshilov, Commissar (Minister) of Defense of the USSR and the man whose office oversaw military equipment and material aid for the Spanish Republic, by a certain "Goratsy," whom Radosh, in another failure of his editorial responsibility, does not further identify. Radosh accuses the Comintern of lying to itself, in that it states the communist belief

that the "uprising" carried out by "the extremist wing [of the anarchists] in the block with the POUM" was prepared in advance over a "long period of time." (177) [This refers to the "May Days" in Barcelona -- GF].

33. A few considerations are in order:

1. How does Radosh know that this is false? He has not proven it.

Furthermore, Radosh has already claimed that, in Document 42, he has evidence that the Comintern itself planned the Barcelona uprising, whereas here the Comintern reporter blames the uprising on the Anarchists. Why would the Comintern lie to itself? If the Comintern had successfully provoked this confrontation, as Radosh claims, why wouldn't they be gloating over their success? Instead, they blame it on the anarchists, even in private communications within the Comintern. (206)

2. The document itself claims that the uprising was unexpected by the Communists. Once again: if it had been not only expected, but in fact "provoked," as Radosh would have it, why would this not be noted, with pride, as a successful operation?

Document 1

34. Here a Spanish Communist in Moscow is writing to the Communist Party in Spain.

Radosh: ". . . the imperative tone taken by Moscow made it clear that there was little room for argument or maneuver by the small and relatively powerless PCE . . . (1-2).

Doc. 1: "After considering the alarming situation in connection with the Fascist conspiracy in SPAIN, we advise you: -- . . . Please let us know your opinions on our proposals." (7,9; emphasis added)

Conclusion: This document is not "imperative" in tone. Radosh is simply trying to make "Moscow" appear dictatorial and high-handed. The text will not support that interpretation, so he simply puts it into his commentary.

35. I put "Moscow" in quotation marks because this message, while certainly sent from the city of Moscow, was sent by a Spanish Communist, "Dios Major," who signed the document. Why doesn't Radosh mention this, saying only that "Moscow" sent it? Perhaps because to say that one Spanish Communist is "advising" other Spanish Communists does not support the impression -- which Radosh evidently wants to give -- that the Bolsheviks, Stalin, the Politburo, or whatever "Moscow" usually conveys, was trying to say anything to anybody. It appears that through metonymy, a linguistic trope in which "Moscow" represents any Communist leader, anywhere, allows Radosh to reduce all Communist leaders to "Moscow," and "Moscow" to "Stalin." Demonize Stalin, then, and all Communist leadership is automatically demonized as well.

36. Radosh gives other invidious readings of Document 1, but is rather vague about it. I'll mention only one more example.

37. Document 1 reads, in part:

4. It is necessary to take preventative measures with the greatest urgency against the putchist attempts of the anarchists, behind which the hand of the Fascists is hidden.

The worst one could say about this piece of analysis -- given, we recall, by one Spanish Communist to others, all of whom had extensive experience with the Spanish anarchists and hated them just as the anarchists, in turn, hated the communists -- is that it was rhetorical over-statement to say that "the hand of the Fascists is hidden behind" the anarchists' attempts at seizing power.

38. But here is what Radosh himself says about the anarchists:

Throughout the conflict, Soviet and Comintern advisers would decry the 'subversive' activities of the anarchists, and particularly their refusal to curtail revolutionary activities or to allow the formation of a regular, disciplined army. (3, emphasis added)

Radosh admits that the anarchists took this attitude towards the army. Yet how could the Fascists -- who certainly had "a regular, disciplined army" -- ever be defeated unless the Republic had one too? Guerrilla warfare -- what Mao Tse-tung and Vo Nguyen Giap later refined into the doctrine of "People's War" -- is very important. But no theoretician of guerrilla or people's war ever suggested that a war could be won without "a regular, disciplined army."

39. In refusing to form such an army the anarchists played directly into the hands of the Fascists. Yet even while admitting this, Radosh attacks the Communists for stating the obvious: that this played into the Fascists' hands. Elsewhere, in passages Radosh does not comment on, the Communists expressed the view that Fascist agents chose to infiltrate the Anarchists precisely for this reason.

40. Radosh's Commentary continues:

The demand to establish a single union also stemmed from a new understanding of how to construct a socialist state: not through open revolution, but through the absorption of independent unions or parties into a single entity controlled by the Communists.

Radosh gives no evidence to support this statement at all. He certainly can't cite Document 1, the document he is supposedly elucidating, because in it Dios Mayor proposes that

the C.G.T. (U.) [the Communist-led union movement] ought to propose to C.N.T. [the Socialist-led union movement] the immediately construction in the center and locally of joint committees to fight against the Fascist insurgents and to prepare the unification of the syndicates.

. . . At the same time you must establish broad social legislation, with extensive rights reserved in the unified C.G.T. . . .

41. Dios Mayor is proposing that the Communists call for unified action and a unified trade union organization. Radosh suggests that there is something underhanded about calling for unification: the Communists want to "absorb independent unions into a single entity controlled by the Communists." But there is no suggestion of this in the document itself. I would note also Radosh's concept of "absorption" here is standard anticommunist rhetoric. Other parties might "win a political struggle" for leadership of an organization, but communists only "control" -- never "lead" -- and "absorb," with connotations of "suffocation," "snuffing out independence."3

42. One might say, "Well, Radosh hates Communism, so for Radosh the communists can never do anything right." But it's more than that. For Radosh, if a non-communist makes a good proposal -- say, trade union unity -- that is good; whereas when Communists do the same thing, it's bad. That's because, for Radosh, communists never do anything honestly; their "dishonesty" is a given.

43. The interesting thing is that Radosh, using the documents his collaborators have selected, cannot demonstrate "dishonesty" on the part of the communists. An honest researcher would consider the possibility that, if the evidence at hand did not suggest the communists were "dishonest," it just may possibly be because the communists were not dishonest.

Document 79

44. Radosh confesses that the previous document, no. 78, "suggests that he [Negrín] enjoyed a degree of autonomy from Communist control" (497). Radosh further acknowledges that even some anti-communist scholars of the SCW believe Negrín was "a more independent figure." Radosh stresses that Document 79, a report by Marchenko, a Soviet and a Comintern representative, to Litvinov (Soviet Foreign Minister) and Voroshilov,

. . . makes it clear that the Spaniard's views of politics closely coincided with the Soviets', while the similarities between his vision for postwar Spain and that of the Soviet Union are striking This document suggests that if the Republicans had won the Civil War, Spain would have been very different from the nation that existed before 18 July 1936 and very close to the post-World War II "people's democracies" of Europe.

This is false. Document 79 itself reveals that Marchenko was not supportive at all of Negrín's outline of what a post-war Spanish Republic might look like:

I reacted in a very reserved way to Negrín's idea and drew his attention to the difficulties and complications that the organization of a new party would cause. . . . If there are military successes, he can begin the formation of "his" united-Spanish political party, with the participation of the Communists if they will allow it, and without the Communists (and that means against them) if they refuse. (499; emphasis added).

The post-WWII "people's democracies" of Eastern Europe were (a) propped up by the presence of the Red Army; (b) directly on the borders of the USSR; and (c) governed by Communist Parties (or communist-socialist united parties) run frankly by pro-Soviet communists. Negrín's conception of a post-war Spanish Republic is very different from the post-war pro-Soviet regimes of Eastern Europe, sharing no essential similarity with them at all. Yet the allegation that a post-war Republic would have been forced into the mould of the post-WWII Eastern European regimes is, supposedly, one of the major "discoveries" of this collection of documents. This document alone shows that this claim of Radosh's is without foundation.

Document 62

45. This is an important report by Palmiro Togliatti, head Comintern representative in Spain, to Dimitrov in Moscow. It is of great interest, and Radosh can find nothing to say about it that is at all negative. He makes false statements about its contents, however.

46. For example, Radosh writes:

Togliatti's reports of are special importance. It is clear that, unlike other apparatchiks, Togliatti was extremely candid and forthright in his observations. (370, emphasis added)

But Radosh gives not a single example of these "other apparatchiks," supposedly not-candid and not-forthright. Since Togliatti was later the head of the Italian Communist Party and a major leader of the Comintern, it does not seem to have hurt his reputation to have been "extremely candid and forthright."

47. Note, too, Radosh's use of a Russian term for an official of the Italian Communist Party. Radosh would never refer to an official of the Spanish Socialist party as an "apparatchik." The point here is to give the impression, by whatever means possible, that "Moscow" controls everything.

48. Radosh's discussion of this report contains several outright lies, including one that is very blatant -- always provided that one actually reads the document itself. Radosh states:

At the same time, in Catalonia, Togliatti called for a policy of reinforcing the moderation of the Popular Front, rather than demagogic appeals to a revolution-minded populace. If the anarchists tried to move toward open revolt and stage a coup, he advised one solution only: "We will finally do away with them." (emphasis added)

Here is the passage (390):

As for the anarchists, on this question, in my opinion, we have not merely hesitated, but made absolutely real mistakes in our tactics [Togliatti is referring to methods of political struggle -- GF.] On the role from Barcelona to Valencia, I posed the question to the comrades accompanying me. Their opinion was very simple: the anarchists have lost all influence, in Barcelona (!) there is not even one anarchist worker, we are waiting until they organize a second putsch, and we will finally do away with them [emphasis added].

So this attitude is not that of Togliatti, but of some "comrades." Here is what Togliatti wrote about this attitude; this passage begins immediately after that above:

This opinion is very widespread in the party, in particular in Catalonia, and when we stick to such an idea, it is impossible to carry out a policy of rapprochement with the anarchist masses and differentiation of their leaders. (390; emphasis added)

Radosh attributed to Togliatti the very views that Togliatti cites in order to strongly oppose them!

49. Again, Radosh writes:

While publicly advocating attempts at cooperation with opposition anarchists, Togliatti noted that their leaders were "scum, closely tied to Caballero," and had to be fought via "large-scale action from below." (371)

It is clear from the context of p. 390 -- see the emphasis in the quotation above -- that the "large-scale action from below" that Togliatti hoped for was action by the "anarchist masses," as he stated in the passage quoted above, which alone can lead to "differentiation of their leaders." In other words, Togliatti proposed relying on a democratic plan -- winning over the anarchist masses to replace or repudiate their own leadership. Communist authors show appreciation for the political instincts of the anarchist rank-and-file many times in these documents; it is the anarchist leadership they see as the stumbling blocks to effective unity against Franco.

50. In addition to Togliatti, another Soviet adviser, Antonov-Ovseenko comes across very well in these documents. Radosh seriously distorts Document 22. Antonov-Ovseenko wrote:

The PSUC repeatedly proposed to the government that weapons at the rear [i.e. in areas not involved in battle] be seized and put at the disposal of the government. (p. 80)

Radosh calls this "Communist attempts to seize all the weapons at the rear (and thus to disarm the anarchists)" (p. 71). In reality, the PSUC (the Unified Socialist Party) -- not just the communists, who were only a part of the PSUC -- was proposing that armed men should be at the front fighting the war, and that arms were needed at the front, not in the rear. Orwell himself complains time and again about the obsolete, broken, and useless arms available to his own unit at the front, and that even these arms were in short supply. If, as Radosh suggests here, the armed anarchists were all in the rear, what were they doing there? If armed communists had been "all in the rear," would Radosh not think this sinister?

51. In Document 21 Antonov-Ovseenko quotes an informant, "X," who told him that the anarchists were carrying out mass executions in Catalonia and that they had executed 40 priests.

X. told me . . . [t]hree days ago, the government seriously clashed with the anarchists: the CNT seized a priest. . . . The priest pointed out another 101 members of his order who had hidden themselves in different places. They [the anarchists] agreed to free all 102 men for three hundred thousand francs. All 102 appeared, but when the money had been handed over, the anarchists shot forty of them. (76-7; emphasis added).

52. Radosh does not condemn the anarchists at this point for shooting the priests. Nor does he suggest that this charge against the anarchists is false (p. 71). Imagine if the communists had been executing up to 50 people a day, as "X" told Antonov-Ovseenko -- would Radosh have let this pass without criticism? Rather, such a document would have been featured as a major find, one of the most important documents in the book. Yet when anarchists are alleged to be committing mass murder, and Communists are opposed to it, Radosh scarcely mentions the matter, and certainly does not praise the Communists for stopping such massacres. This illustrates one of the central weaknesses in Radosh's commentary: he is, in fact, not much interested in these documents except insofar as they can be used to show the communists as "bad."

53. A strongly positive review of the Radosh book in First Things states baldly: "Although leftist atrocities against the Church, including the execution of thousands of nuns and priests, were widespread, they are nowhere mentioned in these documents." In his rush to provide Radosh with another positive review, this anonymous reviewer in a right-wing, "pro-religion" journal clearly never read even Radosh's own commentary, much less the documents themselves.

Document 46

54. This is a report by Dimitrov, head of the Comintern, to Marshal Voroshilov. Radosh makes many false statements about the contents of this 14-page report. For example, Radosh states that "the writer [of the report] came to the stunning conclusion that the war and revolution "cannot end successfully if the Communist party does not take power into its own hands." (212). In fact, Dimitrov explicitly refuses to endorse the idea that the only way to victory is if the Communist party takes power.

The influence of the party is growing more and more among the masses, and chiefly among the soldiers; the conviction is growing among them that the war and the popular revolution cannot end successfully if the Communist party does not take power into its own hands. Who knows, that idea may indeed be correct. (232; emphasis added)

Arnold Beichman's review makes the same inaccurate statement: "It is sad to read these Soviet archives and read the words of a Soviet agent to the Comintern's Georgi Dimitrov: 'The war cannot end successfully if the Communist Party does not take power in its own hands.'"

55. In fact, this is a very interesting statement, especially coming from Dimitrov, famous since the Seventh Comintern Congress in 1935 for championing the concept of the Communist International's abandoning its independent advocacy of socialist revolution in order to make possible "united fronts" with all anti-fascist parties, as in Spain. The Spanish Communists, with the support of the Comintern, were struggling hard to make the United Front in Spain work. Here Dimitrov shows that he himself has doubts about it. The documents published in this volume could indeed provide much evidence for an argument that it was precisely the insistence on a United Front with the Spanish socialists and Anarchists that doomed the Republic. A competent commentary should have discussed this issue.

Document 70

56. This long report by General Walter (a Polish communist general whose real name was Karol Svershevsky) is of special interest since it includes the longest discussion of the International Brigades among the documents in this volume. These pages give Radosh a chance to slander not only the Soviets, but the members of the International Brigades as well, and he tries his best to do so by ignoring positive statements made about the Brigadistas in the documents at hand, while emphasizing the criticisms made about some of them.

57. Radosh begins with the following statement:

By early 1938, the international units were important to the Soviets and the Comintern only as a means of scoring points in the propaganda war and as bargaining chips in negotiations with the other great powers. (431)

Radosh continues immediately with the words, "Nowhere is this more clearly shown than in the series of documents that follow." However, nowhere in these documents is the statement above documented in the least.

58. Walter shows admirable frankness in discussing both strengths and weaknesses within the Brigades. Radosh ignores the strengths and distorts Walter's words about the weaknesses.

59. For example, Radosh generalizes Walter's criticism of some Brigadistas, that they thought themselves superior to the Spanish, and implies Walter said it was true of all Brigadistas. (431)

In Sverchevsky's words, they [the international soldiers] believed they had come to Spain to save it from the fascists. This viewpoint had led directly to their superior attitude toward the Spanish, whom they treated like second-class citizens. (431)

60. In reality, Walter's remark is a general one, critical of an ideological attitude to be found in the Brigades (438). The words "second-class citizens" are never used. Rather, Walter's incisive political criticism is directed towards a shallow understanding of internationalism among many Brigadistas, as illustrated in the following passage:

It seems to me that the fundamental reason for, and primary source of, our troubles lies, first and foremost, in a deeply rooted conviction which stubbornly refuses to die that we, the internationalists, are only "helping," that we "save" and "are saving" Spain, which, they say, without us would not have escaped the fate of Abyssinia. This harmful theory prevents the German and Italian comrades from seeing the silhouettes of "Junkers" and "Fiats" in the fascist air force; they forget that here, on Spanish soil, they are fighting with arms in hand, that is, in the most effective and revolutionary way, first and foremost against their own enemy, which has already oppressed their own countries and peoples for many years. French "volunteers" do not always notice the direct connection between Franco, De la Roque, and Doriot; they forget . . . that their vital interests lie in preventing a fascist sentinel from looming on the last border, the Pyrenees. The Poles do not completely comprehend that every one of their victories here is a direct blow against the Pilsudski gang, which has turned their country into a prison for the people. . . . (438)

61. Walter is unsparingly frank in his criticisms of the shortcomings of the Brigades. His analysis appears to be a model of honest criticism, including much criticism of the performance of communists. But Walter's report also contains the highest praise for the Brigades (for example, see the first three paragraphs, p. 436). Typically, Radosh's commentary is utterly one-sided; he mentions many of Walter's critical comments, but not a single one of the positive ones.

62. In his extremely positive review, Schwartz is more shameless yet in quoting some of Walter's frank criticisms of the political problems in the Brigades as though they were characteristic. Radosh and Schwartz are of the same kidney; see Radosh's praise of Schwartz on p. xxv.

Schwartz: "Anti-Semitism was a serious problem among these "progressive" fighters."

Document 70: "It is true that even then there were more than enough petty squabbling and strong antagonisms in the international units. The francophobia was most transparently obvious . . . anti-Semitism flourished (and indeed it still has not been completely extinguished). . . . (448)

Schwartz: "Above all, the International Brigades possessed transport, food, and other supplies far in excess of their Spanish counterparts, with whom they resolutely refused to 'share their wealth.'"

Document 70: "The English and American soldiers not long ago were smoking 'Lucky Strikes,' not paying attention to the Spanish fighters next to them, who had spent days looking for a few shreds of tobacco. The internationalists receive frequent packages from home but are very rarely willing to share them with their Spanish comrades." (453)

Schwartz: "International Brigade officers accounted exactly for the numbers of foreigners killed and wounded in battle, but 'never knew of the casualties of the Spanish personnel.'" [emphasis added]

Document 70: "Richard, the commander of the 11th Brigade, reporting on the casualties suffered by the brigade at Brunete and Saragossa, always gave the exact number of dead and wounded and frequently even the names of the internationalists. But he never knew the casualties of the Spanish personnel." (454)

In this case, Schwartz transformed the behavior of one commander, in one battle -- behavior that the Communist general Walter was holding up for criticism -- as typical of "International Brigade officers" generally. (Schwartz gives no page numbers, so verifying his dishonest quotations is a tedious job.)

63. Neither Radosh nor Schwartz put Walter's criticisms of the Brigades into context. But Walter does. In addition to high praise for the International Brigades' heroism and importance in the war (see pp. 436 and 459) Walter explains the difficult problems of overcoming national chauvinism, racism and distrust among nationalities:

The International Brigades and units were created literally within the course of one or two days from those volunteers who were on hand at the time . . . there were subunits that contains dozens of nationalities all of these were people who were absolutely unacquainted, not accustomed to one another, and right off found themselves in a battle. If you add to this the extremely acute shortage of political workers, the lack of qualified military cadres, and a whole number of other needs, then the weaknesses and the solution to this problem (adequate at that time) are not surprising. (448)

Schwartz: "According to Walter, the International Brigades, inspired by slogans of worldwide unity against Fascism, were plagued by a 'petty, disgusting, foul squabble about the superiority of one nationality over another. . . . Everyone was superior to the French, but even they were superior to the Spanish, who were receiving our aid and allowing us to fight against our own national and class enemies on their soil.'"

Immediately preceding the passage quoted by Schwartz (449) occurs the following passage (Document 70):

The great, very exalted, and revolutionary objective, armed struggle with fascism, united everyone, and for its sake Germans, Italians, Poles, Jews, and representatives of the world's numerous nationalities, including blacks, Japanese, and Chinese, had to agree among themselves, found a common language, suffered the same adversities, sacrificed their lives, died heroes, and were filled with the very same hatred for the common enemy.

But at the very same time as the volunteers were unifying, this petty, disgusting, foul squabble about the superiority of one nationality over another was going on. . . ." (448-9)

64. At a time when every army in the world except communist-led armies were organized along officially racist lines (and some, like the Israeli army, are officially racist even today), this struggle for internationalism inspired millions around the world. Yet the venomous Schwartz sees the racist attitudes among Brigadistas as "the most shocking element of the picture, especially for those who for sixty years have witnessed the Lincoln veterans preening themselves for their antifascist virtue" (emphasis added). The International Brigades set a standard for anti-racism and internationalism that has never been equaled before or since. Schwartz's insult is simply a measure of his contempt for such values.

Conclusion: Why Lie If You Have the Truth On Your Side?

65. The flagrant inadequacy of Radosh's discussion of these very important and fascinating documents itself would fatally mar any work with scholarly pretensions. But there is a deeper problem with Radosh's work. It is not merely that Radosh fails to comment accurately on the documents he publishes (Habeck did most of the translations; Sevostianov did the archival work in Moscow). More than that: Radosh actually lies, time and again, about the contents of documents which readers can study themselves a few pages after his commentary.

66. Radosh is one of a small number of former Communist Party members who, once they realized that the Soviet-led world Communist movement no longer championed an egalitarian, non-exploitative world and was not the answer to human liberation, simply decided that the other side must, therefore, have been right all along and became uncritical supporters of American capitalism and imperialism. Anyone familiar with Radosh's history -- any reader of his autobiography, Commies and the many reviews of it -- might expect to find a lot of anti-communist prejudice -- for example, giving a document the most anti-communist possible interpretation whenever there was any ambiguity.

67. But even a wary reader would also expect at least a couple of real "revelations" of communist deviousness, dishonesty, double-dealing, some kind of "betrayal" -- something that would at least partially substantiate the claims of Radosh, and of those who reviewed his book positively. Even the wary reader would be unprepared for the extent of Radosh's dishonesty. Not a single of Radosh's allegations of Comintern or Soviet trechery is born out by the documents he himself publishes and comments on.

68. Is Radosh deliberately lying about the documents on which he's commenting? Is he hoping that his only readers will be like-mindedly anti-communist drones that will simply take his word at face value? Or that those who notice his mendacity will be ignored or marginalized? Some of the distortions in the commentary are so blatant that one cannot account for them in any other way.

69. Yet I think that dishonesty and incompetence cannot provide the whole answer. On a deeper level, Radosh's anti-communism, and specifically his allegiance to the demonization of Stalin, seems to produce a kind of tunnel vision that imposes a systematic distortion on everything he sees or reads.

70. Radosh mentions the name of Stalin dozens of times, although none of his documents were written by Stalin or are under his name, and only a few were sent to him. For Radosh, the word "Stalin" no longer denotes an individual, but is a synecdochal signifier for -- depending on the circumstance -- the Comintern, the Soviet political leadership, or even any Communist, anywhere. Like a kind of mirror-image of the "cult of personality" that existed from about 1930 until Stalin's death in 1953, Radosh too attributes all the initiative and agency of all communists to Stalin alone. A more radical reductionism can scarcely be imagined, and is all the more noteworthy since Radosh seems entirely oblivious to his own practice here. It never occurs to him to justify it theoretically, historically, or in any way at all.

71. This ideological distortion is more serious because more pervasive. Many who think of themselves as "liberal" or even "left" share with Radosh a kind of reflexive assumption that, whenever "Stalin" -- read, the Comintern -- seems to have been acting according to its professed motives of supporting the exploited and oppressed around the world, it must really have been acting out of selfish motives which, if not obvious, are simply cleverly disguised.4

72. I hope that readers of this review will be inspired to read Radosh's book and see for themselves. In view, however, of the inaccurate and misleading nature of Radosh's commentary there is only one way to read this book:

First, ignore Radosh's commentary entirely. Read the documents themselves, and only them, very carefully.

Only after doing that should you read Radosh's commentary. But every time Radosh makes any kind of assertion about any document, go to that document, find the relevant passage, and note what the document really says.

Often this is not easy to do. Radosh does not include page numbers to the passages of the documents when he gives his comments or summaries. Often he will write things like "As we have seen . . ." ( p. 502); "Nowhere is this more clearly shown than in the series of documents that follow . . ." (p. 431); "The documentary evidence, as we have shown . . ." (p. 372). Here the job of finding the passage in question can take quite a long time. It's always worth taking the time, though, because what one usually discovers is that that NO previous document has shown anything of the kind.

73. Radosh reminds us that one of the main stumbling blocks for Marxists is the figure of Stalin. Stalin has been demonized -- by Trotsky and those who have relied on Trotsky; by some Soviet émigrés, also imitators of Trotsky, in the main; and by Khrushchev and those who have been accustomed to believe that Khrushchev's so-called "revelations" about Stalin were true. As Robert Thurston has written, the demonized "Stalin" is "a powerful cultural construct in scholarship, film, popular works, etc. The difficulty is to try to get past that construction as best we can." (Thurston, 2000). Radosh has not even tried.

74. As Roger Pethybridge, a well-known British Sovietologist, commented long ago:

If one considers all the well-known biographies of Stalin, a common feature emerges: the volumes are a quite accurate reflection of biographical method current at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries, when historical biographies dwelt on so-called "good" and "bad" kings. The personality who reigned appeared to dominate not only the political but the social and economic life of his kingdom, so that by a sneeze or a yawn he could magically change the whole socioeconomic pattern of his reign. This method of historical biography has long been discounted in the treatment of authoritarian rule in earlier history. It has also been discarded with regard to the study of Nazi Germany. Unfortunately, it still remains as a specter from the past in the study of Soviet personalities in high politics. (Pethybridge, 1976).

75. Since the end of the Soviet Union, many formerly secret Comintern and Bolshevik documents have been published, with more coming out all the time. Like the Comintern documents in Radosh's book, most of them contradict the widely-propagated, and widely-believed, horror stories about the history of the Communist movement during the Stalin years.5

76. It's up to us all of us who recognize the desperate need for a truly classless, egalitarian society to learn from the successes and failures of our predecessors, including, especially, the Bolsheviks during the time of Stalin's leadership. But in order to do this, we must first convince ourselves that we do not already know these things.

77. For example, many of the Comintern documents in this collection support the suggestion made by some on the Left that the United Front Against Fascism was doomed from the outset, even as a tactic in fighting fascism.6 For no matter how devotedly the communists supported only bourgeois democratic goals, many capitalist forces refused to co-operate with them, in effect preferring to risk a fascist victory rather than take their chances in a liberal capitalist state with a strongly organized working class and peasantry under communist leadership. The subsequent fate of the communist parties of Western Europe and the USA after World War II, who were viciously attacked by the capitalists despite their adherence to a reform-oriented, non-revolutionary program, further suggests that the united front strategy was wishful thinking.

78. That is, we have to be ready and willing to question the Cold-War, Trotskyist, and Khrushchevite versions of this history, and "do it all again," so we can actually begin to understand what really happened.7

79. If that's what we're about -- and I think we should be -- then Radosh's book can help us, by reminding us not to be like him.

İs it a question of getting stuck on concepts, or a question of comprehending Marxism or not.

2010-08-11T21:19:00.000-07:00

(Discussion subject was mostly related to the mix...ed use of all -“dominant”, “hegemonic- ruling” class and government, political party in power, military- together, without making any distinction. )

On the question of mixing the concepts of dominant class-state and government

Let's briefly study these concepts in a dialectic relations outline..

1 – Marxism, divorced from Leninism, Lenin's revolution and proletarian dictatorship theory, is a revisionist, reformist, bourgeois liberal “Marxism” which can not even be a caricature of it. Who ever divorces Marxism from Leninism, can not be revolutionary.

2 - Revolution is the entire (process) and the result of a struggle which requires a concrete assessment of the relations and contradictions among classes (the oppressor and the oppressed) and within class (Dominant class).

3 - The existence of multiple dominant class inevitably reveals the struggle for * hegemony * as an internal conflict and as the existence of contradictions. In such cases, sometimes a group of dominant class may have ‘hegemony” over the executive branch -government, other, in the military. These contradictions, when necessary, may create the possibility of tactical compromises or alliances for the benefit of revolution.

4-If there is only one of dominant class, the class that is dominant is already the * hegemonic * class. since there will not be a question of conflict over * hegemony *, there can not be a question of a tactical * compromise *. Depending on the structure of a country, in varying degrees, the dominant class would have already gained the control of government and the military.

5 - The government and the army are not entities outside of, and independent from the dominant class or classes. In some countries they may have certain autonomy, yet, independence and autonomy is not the same thing.

6 – The existence of an autonomous structure is an indication of the presence of professionalized bureaucracy.

7 - Bureaucracy is not “a kind” of dominant or ruling class, but a social class serves the dominant class. Bureaucracy itself does not create a "value", but controls the process of coordination, distribution and consumption of the created "value" -during and continuation of "production". Meaning that, they are responsible for the preparations and implementation of “laws” in relations of production. Ownership of means of production by the bureaucracy, the control of the relations of production and the “value” as a result of production, is within the framework of a dominant class interests.

8 – The race and competition among the professional bureaucracy in order to be effective and to take part in the system would be,
a) In case of existence of more than one dominant class-- each may be in a competition to protect the interest of the dominant class they represent or want to represent. This may create the opportunity to benefit from the contradictions,

b) If there is one dominant class and one hegemonic class, the race and conflict between the bureaucracies does not indicate a conflict within the ruling class. To portray this competition among the bureaucracy as a conflict within the dominant class, brings about the error of setting all the revolutionary strategy and tactics on a foundation of incorrect settings.. In some cases this anti-Marxist analysis would be used by the reformists as a justification of compromise .

If their importance is considered (as far as the revolution and revolutionary struggle is concerned), outline of these concepts, their content and dialectical links should reveal the importance of not mixing these concepts.

Question is not whether being * Stuck * on the concepts or not. Question is to be conscious of the vital importance of the Marxist content and comprehending the very content of these concepts.

Neither slogan-ization of concepts- isolated from its content, nor not taking Marxist content of the concepts seriously, can not be a Marxist-Leninist approach..
As far as the leadership concerns, it is a sign of irresponsibility

The genius of bourgeoisie; summarizing the entire war against socialism under one .

2010-06-06T15:03:00.000-07:00

In reference to the dominant ideas, Marx in his “German Ideology” essay writes; “The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it.”

If Marx’s this theory is taken scholastically, isolating it from its wide range implications and context, without applying this theory to the environment and conditions of current technology, without considering the power of the means of communication today which reach millions at once and easily, without the ongoing class struggle where the imperialist bourgeoisie finances and employs think-thank organizations, so called foundations, professional writers…this theory will be nothing but another memorized sentences without any serious meaning.

Well aware and conscious of the class struggle, Bourgeoisie, with the means of mental production at their disposal has always been in search of new tools and methods of persuading the masses to think and act against their own interests. Especially the dominant class of America with vast resources of technology and brain in its disposal,has been the incredible genius of mind and behavior manipulators.

At any society divided in classes, world where countries are divided as oppressor and oppressed, manipulation of thoughts and expected behavior in accord with the manipulated thought have been one of the most important instrument of controlling the masses, repressing the struggle against them.

Although the methods and means of manipulation numerous and vary, the core of it lies in the control of information and of ideological tendencies. The mind management industry has become another large industry by itself with research groups, heavily funded foundations, professional writers etc.

Manipulation relies not only on existing false realities but creation of new false realities that continuously repeated. The behavioral reasons of human beings can not be isolated from their environment, from their belief and thoughts. Once their environment, their thought and belief are manipulated, they act not because they must act as such, but because they believe they are expected to act so.

Bourgeoisie, having all the means of communications and means of mental production at their disposal created false realities about the Soviet Union and Stalin since the death of Lenin. As an unexpected or (if we research the relationship of Trotsky and Trotskyites with the Zionists) may be expected bonus to the manipulation practices of imperialist bourgeoisie, the Trotskyite attacks on Soviets and Stalin, (entirely identical in context to those of imperialists and fascists), made this false realities more repetitive and more believable.

With the genius of Bourgeois mind management and manipulation, all the ideology and false reality crated about Soviets and Stalin have been concentrated and summarized in one belief and thought; “Stalinism equals Hitlerism”.. Thus, millions of falsified, distorted ideological essays, books, news, philosophical discussions on Marxism, Leninism, Soviets and Stalin, have, in fact, in a genius way, turned in to being “unnecessary “ since all of them summarized in the slogan of “Stalinism equals Hitler” , has found its way in to the minds of large masses including in the revolutionary masses.

Since the behavior and action of masses will be in accord and as expected with the manipulated belief and thought they have, we can justifiably make the statement below.

When the summarized core of counter-revolutionary theory; “Stalinism equals Hitlerism” is accepted by the masses, the behavior of the masses to any repression against any revolutionary movement that associates herself with Stalin will inevitably be impartial at best, be supportive at worse. Proceeding from this mind management and manipulation of behavior based on the ideology summarized in a slogan, the feedback, expected result inevitably will be this;

“”” if any, anti imperialist or revolutionary, socialist or democratic movement will, at the end, lead to "Stalinism", then any and all possible measures to suppress the movement through torture, execution, mass murder, military junta, meaning fascism itself, are justified and ratified.””

Since there is not even one genuine Marxist Leninist movement who will reject Stalin as a true Marxist Leninist, anti revisionist leader, the intended enemy under the slogan of “Stalin equals Hitler” is no other than Marxist Leninist revolutionaries and thus no other than socialist ideology and socialism itself.

The fact then is that the imperialists and dominant classes use and will use anti-Stalinism to justify their fascist repression, imprisonment, torture and murder of any revolutionary attempt against their power and against their imperialist masters. That is why Trotskyism is nothing but an ideological tool in the hands of imperialists to create confusion, to manipulate the minds of masses and their behavior concurrent with the manipulation, to repress the revolutionary movements with the use of any means necessary.

Anyone who is ignorant of the this fact, and sees Trotskyism as a Marxist movement will, intentionally or otherwise, be ratifying the false realities and manipulation and thus will be serving to the interest of bourgeoisie.

Since the bourgeoisie equals Socialism with Stalinism in reality, Stalinism with Hitlerism in false reality, every revolutionary has to defend Stalin at the minimum as a staunch Marxists Leninist leader. .

Marxism is learned from its original source, not from western professional bourgeois writers in various disguise including real or the disguise of Trotskyism. As once Che Guevara noted, in order to learn Marxism,””” It would be necessary to publish that complete works of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and other great Marxists. Here would come to the great revisionists, well analyzed, more professionally than any other and also your friend Trotsky, who existed and apparently wrote something." Che Guevara, Letter to Armando Hart

Erdogan Ahmet
April 22, 2010

Brief notes on Second World War

2010-06-06T15:02:00.000-07:00

Hidden agenda that caused the death of millions; Anti-comintern agreement

The second world war is said to have begun on September 3, 1939 when Britain declared war on germany.In fact, The Second World War began on 1931 with Japanese invasion of Manchuria on the pretext of saving Asia from Communism.

In 1933 Hitler overthrew the German republic on the pretext of saving Germany from Communism.
In 1935 Italy invaded Ethiopia to save it from “Bolshevism and barbarism”
In 1936 Germany and Japan signed the Anti-Comintern Agreement and invaded Spain on the pretext of saving it from Communism
In 1937 Italy joined Germany and Japan in their Anti-Comintern agreement; The Berlin-Rome-Tokyo Axis was formed to save the world from Communism.

While western democracies watching, under the mask of the Anti-Comintern agreement, Germany, Japan and Italy were invading and enslaving the European and Asian countries.

In 1938, Hitler occupied Austria
In 1939, Hitler occupied Czechoslovakia

All thru 1930s neither Britain nor France opposed to Nazi agression. On the contrary, they both refused to join Soviet Union for a collective security in Europe to defend the countries threatened by Hitler. In realityat the time their combined power was superior to Nazi Germany and could have prevented a prolonged war. Invasion of Czechoslovakia , a country with considerable military and industrial strength, converted Germany into a superior military power.

The propaganda ministries, the agents of Trotsky, French, British and American reactionaries all combined in the international Fascist campaign against the demand for collective security against fascism. The demands for “collective security”, “unity against fascist aggression” was attacked as “Soviet propaganda”, as an “incitement to war”..

The British prime minister, Chamberlain claimed that collective security would divide Europe in “two armed camps”. Churchill, who criticized him, favored a ‘collective security”, was called a “war-monger”.

Contrary to a unity against fascism, in September 1938 the governments of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Great Britain and France signed the Munich Pact; an anti-Soviet Alliance dreamt by all the reactionaries and by Trotsky and Trotskyites alike. Trotskyites carried on campaigns against the defense of small nations from invasion and against collective security. Trotsky , in his pamphlet “fourth international and the War” said “ The defense of the national state, first of all in Balkanized Europe is in full sense of the word a reactionary task””

The Munich-pact left Soviet Russia without any allies, while Chamberline claimed the treaty “meant a peace in our time”, at the expense of Soviet people.

In February 1939, the British and French governments recognized the Fascist Dictatorship of Franco in Spain.
On March 15 1939, Nazis went in to Prague..
On March 20, Lithuania surrendered its port to Germany
On April 7, Mussolini invaded Albania

It was Stalin who warned the politicians of England and France that their anti-soviet policy and alliance would bring about disastrous results for themselves. The war, said, Stalin, which the Axis of powers were already waging in Europe and Asia, under the mask of the Anti-Comintern pact, was directed not only against Soviet Union but also , and now in fact primarily, against the interests of France, England and the United States.

England and France still dreamed of an anti-soviet coalition camouflaged by phrases like “appeasement and “non-intervention” a policy which as Stalin’s words “.. certain European and American politicians and newspaper writers, ..are themselves beginning to disclose what is really behind the policy of nonintervention. They are saying quite openly, .that Germans have cruelly “disappointed” them, for instead marching further east, against the Soviet Union, they have turned west..””

Hoping the invasion and collapse of Soviet Union, anti soviet alliance of all kind, again was successful in forcing Soviet Russia in to signing an undesired self-defensive treaty with Germany. As the US ambassador to The Soviet Union stated on July 18, 1941, stated; “” …since 1936 outside of the president of United States …no government in the world saw more clearly the menace of Hitler…The soviets became convinced, and with considerable reason, that no effective, direct and practical, general arrangement could be made with France and Britain. They were driven to a pact of non-aggression with Hitler””.

After refusal of British and French governments to enter in to an alliance with the Soviet union, on August 24, 1939, the Soviet Union signed a non aggression pact with Nazi Germany.

One week later, On September 1, 1939 Nazis started invading Poland.
----------------------
Getting disappointed with their six year long expectations of Soviets would be crushed by Nazi Germany, and having no other alternative but defend themselves, Britain and France declared war on Germany.

On September 17, before Nazis reached, Red Army crossed the Polish border and occupied Byelorussia, the western Ukraine and Galicia which, for all the military purpose was necessary for the safety and defense of Soviets against Nazi push.

On October Soviet Government signed mutual assistance pact with Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

Germany had turned Finland into a powerful fortress to serve as a base for the invasion of Soviet Union. By the end of November the Soviet Union and Finland were at war. In England, France and the United States, anti soviet campaign began under the slogan of “aid to Finland” . Interestingly enough, Britain and France helped Finland with arms, ammunitions etc in her fight against soviets, yet Soviets defeated the Finland on March 13, 1940. As Molotov noted; ”The Soviet Union, having smashed the Finnish army and having opportunity of occupying the whole of Finland, Did not do so and did not demand any indemnities for its expenditures in the war as any other power would have done, but confined its desires to a minimum…We pursued no other objects in the peace treaty than that of safe guarding the security of Leningrad, Murmansk railroad…”””

On April 9 Germans invaded Denmark and Norway..
On June 10, Fascist Italy declared war on France and England
On June 14, Paris fell and Laval, Trotskyite Doriot, Weygand, became the puppet rulers of France

As France surrendered, the red army moved to strengthen the defense of Soviet Union, foreseeing and imminent Nazi invasion in the Baltic States, by the middle of June Soviet military occupied Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. On June 27 1940, moving into Bessarabia and Bukoniva, Soviets pushed their battle lines with Nazi Germany.

On March 1, 1941 Germans entered Sofia and Bulgaria became a Nazi base.

On June 22, 1941 Hitler attacked Soviet Union. Italy, Rumania, Hungary, and Finland joined the Nazi war on Soviet Russia.
------------------
On December 7, 1941 Nazi Germany and fascist Italy declared war on the United States. United States, six years after Hitler gained the power, 10 years after Japan invaded Manchuria, became involved in the War.

November 8, 2009
Erdogan Ahmet

Lenin and the historical importance of the national liberation war in Turkey

2010-06-06T15:01:00.000-07:00

Forward
“We can always cope with open nationalism, for it can easily be discerned. It is much more difficult to combat nationalism when it is masked and unrecognizable beneath its mask. Protected by the armour of socialism, it is less vulnerable and more tenacious. Implanted among the workers, it poisons the atmosphere and spreads harmful ideas of mutual distrust and segregation among the workers of the different nationalities.” Lenin

For years the approach of left to the national liberation war of Turkey has been mixed with chauvinistic feelings or with its denial as an anti imperialist war. With the rise of nationalistic and chauvinistic feelings in Turkey which is bluntly visible in every ethnic, religious and sectarian groups , the mixed approach has increasingly become two opposing view points; one embracing the national Liberation war with all its reactionary ideologies and practices, including the post independence period , other denying the entire national liberation war as an anti imperialist war, and portraying it as a war supported by one imperialist country to others..

Since these comrades in charge of these leftist groups claim to be Marxist Leninist, I will start and finish my forward and chronological events with the quotes from Lenin, who actually lived through and personally involved in policies and practices of Soviet Government related to the national Liberation of War Turkey and in Lausanne Peace Conference. A national liberation war which has a historical importance; first for being the first national liberation war in the east, and second the success of it was vitally important for the security and survival of the Soviets in fighting the imperialist powers.

Lenin, in his critique of Kautsky says; “In all times the sophists have been in the habit of citing instances that refer to situations that are dissimilar in principle…….Comparing the "continuation of the politics" of combating feudalism and absolutism -- the politics of the bourgeoisie in its struggle for liberty -- with the "continuation of the politics" of a decrepit, i.e., imperialist bourgeoisie, …..means comparing chalk and cheese…………….One cannot be a Marxist without feeling the deepest respect for the great bourgeois revolutionaries who had an historic right to speak for their respective bourgeois "fatherlands", and, in the struggle against feudalism, led tens of millions of people in the new nations towards a civilized life. “” (Lenin, The collapse of the Second international)

Lenin in “State and revolution” clearly states the character of the national liberation war; “”If we take the revolutions of the twentieth century as examples we shall, of course, have to admit that the Portuguese and the Turkish revolutions are both bourgeois revolutions.””

As for the question of a war being progressive or reactionary, Lenin, in his writing, “the attitude of socialists toward wars” says;” We Marxists differ from both the pacifists and the Anarchists in that we deem it necessary historically (from the standpoint of Marx's dialectical materialism) to study each war separately. In history there have been numerous wars which, in spite of all the horrors, atrocities, distress and suffering that inevitably accompany all wars, were progressive, i.e., benefited the development of mankind by helping to destroy the exceptionally harmful and reactionary institutions (for example, autocracy or serfdom), the most barbarous despotisms in Europe (Turkish and Russian).

Similarly, on his right of nations to self-determinations Lenin says; “”The revolutions in Russia, Persia, Turkey and China, the Balkan wars -- such is the chain of world events of our period in our "Orient". And only a blind man could fail to see in this chain of events the awakening of a whole series of bourgeois-democratic national movements which strive to create nationally independent and nationally uniform states.””

Marxist study of an event should be objective not subjective especially not with nationalistic or reverse -nationalistic feelings. . There was no other significant nation helping the national Liberation War in Turkey except Soviet Russia under the leadership of Lenin himself. To claim that it was a war against a group of imperialists with the support of other imperialists is not only a baseless claim, but the distortion of a historical event that puts Soviets in a category of imperialist country.

One should not confuse the revolution of “Young Turks”, with the national Liberation War against the imperialist invasion which, not only had the desire to partition Turkey but a plot to open another front for their attacks to Soviet Russia.

In order to have a healthy and objective assessment of post revolution era leading to the current, one has to assess the character and historical importance of the national liberation wars of the past.

First World War period

In April 1915, Britain, France and tsarist Russia signed a secret treaty on Constantinople and the Straits.

In August 1915 Lenin wrote;” Britain and France are lying when they assert that they are warring for Belgium’s freedom. In reality they have long been preparing the war, and are waging it with the purpose of robbing Germany and stripping her of her colonies; they have signed a treaty with Italy and Russia on the pillage and carving up of Turkey and Austria. The tsarist monarchy in Russia is waging a predatory war aimed at seizing Galicia, taking territory away from Turkey, enslaving Persia, Mongolia etc. (CW v 21, p 367)

In February 1916, Britain and France signed a secret agreement to partition Turkey, later that year tsarist Russia acceded to that agreement and Italy following year.

Lenin was convinced that Russia and Britain were in collusion over Istanbul. He wrote; “there is undoubtedly a secret treaty between Russia and England and among other things it concerns Istanbul. That Russia hopes to get Istanbul, and that England does not want to give it to her is well known. If England does give Istanbul to Russia, she will either attempt to take it from her later, or else will make this concession on terms directed against Russia. The text of the secret treaty is unknown, but the struggle between England and Russia centers around precisely this question, that this struggle is going on even now, is not only known, but beyond the slightest doubt” (CW V23, p 128)

Similarly Lenin exposed Germany’s expansionist aspirations ‘Germany has already converted Turkey into her financial and military vassal” (CW V23 p 182)

In February 1917 when the Tsarist autocracy in Russia was overthrown, Lenin pointed out that the newly installed Bourgeois provisional Government was a “”war government, a government for the continuation of the imperialist slaughter, a government of plunder, out to plunder Armenia, Galicia and Turkey, annex Istanbul” (CW V 23 p 306) The bourgeois government followed the tsarist policy, which had been aimed at “” carving up and partitioning Turkey” (CW v 24 p 116)

The October revolution had a powerful effect on the course of the history of Turkey, and of world history.

On December 3, 1917, the address to all the working Muslims of Russia and the east signed by Lenin, said;” We declare that the secret treaties on the seizure of Istanbul concluded by the dethroned tsar and reaffirmed by unseated Kerensky have been torn up and destroyed. The Russian republic and its government, the council of people’s commissars, are against any seizure of foreign lands: the Muslims must keep Istanbul” (USSR foreign policy documents V1 p 35)

Within the frame work of imperialist plans and especially that of German imperialist’s young Turks government attacked Soviet Russia.

On June 1918 Lenin pointed out that Britain was “trying to grab Baghdad and strangle Turkey to death” (CW v 27 p 484) His point was proven to be right soon after.

As a part of carefully designed imperialist plans Young Turks government was provoked attacking Baku and Dagestan June thru October 1918, weakening the Turkish army to resist the Anglo-French forces in Iraq, Palestine and Macedonia.

On September 20, 1918, the Soviet Government had to abrogate the Brest-Litovsk Peace treaty with Turkey in view of its systematic violation by the Turkish government.

On October 30, 1918, Turkey capitulated unconditionally.

With the Mudros Armistice, Britain wanted to get a firm hand on Iraq, Palestine, Egypt, and the Arabian Peninsula, the Black sea, straits and Istanbul. The British imperialists attached particular importance to the strait and Istanbul in view of their plans for an armed campaign against the Soviet republic in the south of Russia.

On November 1918 at the Sixth All-Russia congress of Soviets, Lenin said: “Now Britain has a treaty with the Turks which gives her Baku so that she may strangle us by depriving us of raw materials” (CW v 28, p 160)

As soon as the imperialists occupied the straits and Istanbul, they intensified their anti-Soviet intervention.

Lenin on his speech on the international situation at the sixth congress on November 8, 1918 reemphasized the danger facing the country. However, he said, there was no reason at all to lose heart. “this enemy is going to topple in to the abyss…we know that the enemy, which has now ensnared Turkey,. is heading for doom”” (v 28 p 163)

AFTER THE 1st WORLD WAR –THE NATIONAL LIBERATION WAR

After the war ended Lenin , as he had foreseen, said that the contradiction between the victors were bound to aggravate “ that war fully exposed itself as an imperialist, reactionary, predatory war both on the part of Germany and on the part of the capitalists of Britain, France, Italy and America. The latter are now beginning to quarrel over the spoils, over the division of Turkey….” (CW V 28 p 430)

At the Paris peace Conference the imperialists agreed to establish mandate on the territories that had been part of Ottoman Empire.

The US Imperialists wanted a single mandate for the whole of Turkey and the Transcaucasia.

Under a draft peace Treaty with Turkey the British were to have a mandate for Palestine and Mesopotamia, and the French for Syria and Cilicia; southwestern Anatolia was to fall within the Italian sphere of influence; Britain was to establish a protectorate over a Kurdish area in South eastern Anatolia; the six eastern provinces in Anatolia were to be incorporated in Armenia, ruled by the Dashnak arty and held as US Mandated territory; Izmir province and eastern Thrace were to go to Greece; the straits were to be turned into an international zone , and a small Turkish state headed by a Sultan was to be maintained in Central Anatolia under the Entente’s virtual control.

National Liberation of Turkey was one of the first eastern peoples to start a well organized armed struggle against the foreign invaders, domestic reactionaries and the agents of imperialism.

With the start of national Liberation war in Turkey under the leadership Mustafa Kemal, The soviet and people of Turkey were fighting one and same enemy: imperialist Britain, France, Italy and the USA. The victory of national Liberation war in Turkey was vital for the defense of Soviets from south against the imperialist attacks.

The victory of red army over the Anglo-French forces and counter revolutionary Tsarist armies gave momentum to the national Liberation movement in Turkey. Over these victories, Mustafa Kemal said “ Bolshevism, which strives for the loftiest goals, has scored a victory over the common enemy, an enemy which has encroached on our existence as well, and this is something to be grateful for”” ( Nutuk 1945, part 1 p 92)

On October 1919, Turkish national Congress in Sivas sent a representative committee to Moscow. Halil pasha, head of committee asked the Soviet government to help Turkey in its struggle against the invaders.

On April 23, 1920 a Grand National Assembly of Turkey opened in Ankara and proclaimed to be the only legal power exercising the Turkish people’s will. Since the Sultan was a puppet in the hands of occupation forces, the GNA formed a national revolutionary government.

Three days after forming of GNA, Mustafa Kemal sent an official letter to Lenin requesting the establishment of diplomatic relations and some financial, military assistance to Turkey. He wrote;” We pledge to pool all our efforts and all our military operations with those of the Russian Bolsheviks, whose purpose is to fight the imperialist governments and liberate all the oppressed peoples from their rule. To drive the imperialist forces off the territories populated by our people, and build up our internal strength for a continued joint struggle against imperialism, we are asking Soviet Russia to give us by way of assistance % million Turkish Lire in gold, some arms and ammunitions (in quantities to be decided through negotiation) and also some military and technical means, medical materials and food-stuffs for our troops………..Please accept our most respectful regards and our most sincere feelings” ( Mezhdunaradnaya zhizn, no 11, 1963 p 147-148)

On Lenin’s instructions Chicherin drew up a reply message and delivered on June 14, 1920.. Message said that the Soviets had taken cognizance of the GNU’s decision to accord its work and military operations against imperialist government with the “high ideal of the liberation of oppressed peoples” The soviet government holds out a hand of friendship to all the nations of the world, and will always remain true to its principle of recognizing every nation’s right to self determination. The soviet government takes a keen interest in the Turkish people’s heroic struggle for its sovereignty and independence, and now that Turkey is going through a hard period, is happy to lay a lasting foundation for the friendship that is to unite the Turkish and Russian peoples” (Foreign Policy Doc Vol II p 555)

In order to establish friendly relations and lasting friendship between Turkey and Russia, the Soviet Government proposed an immediate exchange of diplomatic and consular representatives, which amounted to recognition of the GNA government. Lenin’s government was the world’s only government to have recognized the just struggle of peoples of Turkey for independence.

On July 8, 1920, the Soviet Government officially notified Turkey that the Russian republic was renouncing all the capitulations rights, financial control and interference in Turley’s internal affairs, and wished the Turkish people every success in their fight against the imperialist invaders..

On July 2, 1920 a Soviet diplomatic mission left Moscow for Ankara carrying 200.6 kilograms of gold bars.

On August 13, Lenin discussed Chicherin’s proposals on Turkey and Armenia

On August 14, Lenin meeting with the Turkish delegates emphasized that the “Soviet Governments policy is to render assistance to the oppressed people of the east” . During the course of the Soviet-Turkish talks from late July to August 24, 1920, a treaty of friendship treaty was drafted. The disagreement came about on the question of establishing a border line between Turkey and Armenia. Turkey’s foreign minister, Bekir Sami, who favored closer relations with Britain, deliberately mislead the Ankara government, and tries to set the leaders against the Soviet republic. Expectedly so, as Lenin points out; “the Entente diplomats provoked Dashnak Armenia's attack on Turkey. The Dashnak nationalist party, then in power in Armenia (1918-20), pursued an aggressive policy with regard to Turkey and aimed at establishing a "Greater Armenia" that would include nearly half of Asia Minor. On September 24, 1920 the Dashnak government began hostilities against Turkey, but five days later the Turkish troops checked the Dashnak offensive and, in a counter-offensive lasting from September to November occupied Sarykamysh, Kars and Alexandropol. The Turkish Government decided to take advantage of the adventurist Dashnak policy and occupy the whole of Armenia.””” (Lenin, our foreign and domestic position)

On October 4 1920, Soviet diplomatic mission carrying the gold arrived to Ankara and met with Mustafa Kemal and handed the Chicherin’s personal message which said;” We are convinced that the arrival of our mission …will be of considerable help in developing the ties between the two countries and the two governments for greater benefit and advantage of the peoples of Russia and Turkey”. (USSR foreign policy Documents Vol III p. 11)

In the mean time, military operations which started on September 24, 1920 continued with Turkish forces occupying Kars on October 30. As the Turkish troops pushed deeper in to Armenia, Lenin said “ ..at the moment conditions in Caucasus are becoming most complex and extremely difficult to analyze, with the likelihood that war may be forced on us any day”..(CW V 31, p 415)

“” On November 11 the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs of the R.S.F.S.R. offered its mediation to the warring parties. Turkey rejected Soviet mediation, and the Dashnak government had to agree to a shackling treaty which made Armenia a Turkish protectorate. The treaty, however, did not go into force, because by November 29, when it was to be signed, the Dashnak government had been overthrown and Soviet power proclaimed in Armenia. Claiming that the treaty was still valid, the Turkish Government held up the evacuation of Alexandropol district. Only after the Soviet Government had, in the middle of May 1921, firmly demanded the evacuation of the district, were the Turkish forces withdrawn.””” (Lenin, our foreign and domestic position)

On the third anniversary of the October revolution Soviet embassy opened in Ankara, the only foreign diplomatic mission in revolutionary Turkey at the time.

The uprising of workers and peasants in Armenia overthrew the Dashnak rule, and on November 29, 1920, they established the Soviet Power.

Lenin in his telegram to Armenian revolutionary government wrote;” I have no doubt that you will exert every effort to establish fraternal solidarity between the working people of Armenia, Turkey and Azerbaijan” (CW V 31, p 437)

Interestingly enough, the Turkish government pressed upon the toppled Dashnak government to accept the Alexandrapol Treaty under which Armenia was to become a Turkish protectorate. Revolutionary Armenian government refused to accept the treaty and demanded the withdrawal of Turkish troops from Armenian territory. Lenin, at the eight All Russia Congress of Soviets said;” The Turkish attack was planned against us. The Allies were making a pitfall for us, but fell into it themselves, because we have received Soviet Armenia..

“The men at the top in Turkey are cadets, Octobrists, nationalists, who are prepared to sell us to the allies, But that is extremely difficult thing to do, because feeling among the Turkish people against the savage oppression by the Allies is running very high, and sympathy towards Soviet Russia is growing..”

Turkish government officially refuted the rumors about its cooperation with the imperialists for the establishment of an anti-soviet bloc in Caucasus. It said; “we have not had any peace negotiations-either direct or indirect- with the entente powers (Britain France-and Italy) and have never attempted to do so” ( S.I Kuznetsova Soviet Turkish relations p.39)

Mustafa Kemal sent Lenin a telegram which said; “ I am convinced that the only road to the desired goals lies through our co-operation, and welcome any future consideration of the friendly ties between us. (USSR Foreign policy Documents Vol III, p 451)

On Lenin’s instruction Chicherin drafted a reply with Lenin’s signature to Mustafa Kemal; may I express once again ..our most sincere wishes to the Turkish people and its government, which have been fighting with indomitable energy for their country’s independence and prosperity”. (Lenin CW V52 pp 301-02)

On February 28, 1921 at a plenary meeting Lenin describing the Soviet Turkish conference as one of the most important event, said;” …the fact that over the past few years both nations have had to endure untold suffering at the hands of imperialist powers..Turkish workers and peasants have demonstrated that the resistance on the part of modern nations to plunder is a thing that has to be reckoned with; Turkey herself resisted plunder by the imperialist governments with such vigor that even the strongest of them have had to keep their hands off. That is what makes us regard the current negotiations with Turkey as a very great achievement”. ((CW, V 32, pp147, 148)

Although the Soviet Turkish talks were productive and friendly, demarcation of borders with Georgia and Armenia again created difficulties. Not all the Turkish leaders were in favor, some were against it, and were still hoping for a deal with the imperialists. Many Government deputies, particularly from Eastern provinces, were backing Bekir Sami bey who at the London Conference urged the establishment of an Anti-Bolshevik confederation..

On March 16, 1921 Soviet Russia and Turkey signed a Friendship and Brotherhood treaty. Lenin noted that “peace agreement with the Turks, which alone will rid us of interminable wars in the Caucasus” (CW V 32 p 290)

All through 1922, the Soviet Government continued to supply Turkey with arms and ammunition. On the eve of the Turkish army’s general offensive against the Greek troops, the Soviet had given Turkey 22 military aircraft. (S. I. Aralov p 18)

“The Turks, Lenin said to Aralov, are fighting for their national liberation, and the Central Committee is sending you there because you know military matters.” (S.I.Aralov p 35) On January, 1922 S.I. Aralov was appointed as the new representative of Soviets in Turkey.

Lenin continued to keep a close watch on the progress of Soviet-Turkish relations and on assistance to Turkey in arms and ammunitions. (A.N. Heifets. Soviet Diplomacy and the peoples of the east p.187)

On February 1, 1922, the Central committee approved the delivery of aviation and automobile petrol to Turkey.

In may 1922, despite the financial difficulties of Soviets and suggestions of Sokolnikov to put off the remaining of 10 million rubles in gold promised to Turkey, Chicherin objected and send a letter to Lenin, Lenin responding ; “ I believe that Chicherin is absolutely right…Pay out in time what has been promised without fail”..(CW V 45 p 18) the balance of 3,5 million rubles in gold were given to Turkey.

In August 30 1922, the Turkish army won a decisive victory over the imperialists and liberated the whole Anatolia. With the vigorous support from Soviet diplomats, Istanbul and Eastern Thrace was freed at the Lausanne Peace Conference.

Lausanne Peace Conference was the final phase of the Turkish people’s national Liberation Movement.
Imperialist powers refused to admit the Soviet delegations to the Conference on an equal footing with its other participants especially for questions concerning the Middle East and Straits. Lenin summarizing the formulated Soviet program for the straits said; “First the satisfaction of Turkey’s national aspirations. We consider this essential, and not only in the interest of national independence. …Second, our programme includes the closing of the Straits to all warships in times of war and peace” (CW V33 pp 385-86)

Lenin emphasized the need the protect Turkey’s national interests alongside those of Soviet Republics.
Lenin pointed out that the end of national Liberation war, would also ” be the end of the conflicts and differences which placed that war in the fore front of international politics” ( CW V 33 p 384) But the conflict between France and Britain remained acute all through the conference. Lenin said “ ..war may break out any day as a consequence of a dispute between Great Britain and France over some point of treaty with Turkey (p 385)

Pointing out the importance, Lenin said, “Our Middle east policy is a matter of Russia’s most real, immediate and vital interest and of the interest of a number of states federated with her.””

With Chicherin’s own words on Lenin’s role; “When I returned from abroad in autumn of 1922, I spent six weeks in Moscow. The chief question then was that of Turkey; preparations were being made for the Lausanne Conference. The programme we were to take to Lausanne was debated and adopted with Lenin’s vigorous participation. That was his last major contribution to our foreign policy. The straits were the last question I ever discussed with Lenin. Nor did I ever see him again” (Chicherin articles & speeches on international politics p 284)

Conclusion

As we have seen from the chronological events and related quotes from Lenin, it is evident that Soviets under the leadership of Lenin was directly involved and played an important role in the outcome of the national Liberation war of Turkey. It was not only as a socialist policy to support an anti imperialist war, but it was, as Lenin puts it; “Soviets most real, immediate and vital interest”” to do so.

The national Liberation war was an anti imperialist, progressive bourgeois revolution supported by the Bolshevik Soviets. To portray this revolution otherwise in the name of Marxism Leninism can only be an indication of reverse-nationalist feelings. To portray the reforms taken place post national liberation war as “completed” in Bourgeois democratic sense, and policies and practices of new government following years as progressive, is an indication of nationalist feelings.

Rewording Lenin’s sayings; at this difficult time Revolutionaries has a high mission – to resist nationalism and to protect the masses from the general "epidemic… The more powerfully the wave of ethnic nationalism advances, the louder had to be the call of revolutionaries for fraternity and unity among the proletarians of all the ethnic nationalities. Revolutionaries must work solidly and indefatigably against the fog of nationalism, no matter from what quarter it proceeds, no matter what disguise it presents.

Erdogan Ahmet
9 Subat 2010

A BRIEF GUIDE TO THE IDEOLOGICAL DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MARXISM-LENINISM AND TROTSKYISM

2009-11-02T14:30:00.000-08:00

INTRODUCTION.

EVER since Lenin died in 1924, Trotskyism has challenged Marxism-Leninism for the ideological leadership of the international communist movement. J.V. Stalin, 1879-1953, was able to meet and saw off this challenge, to the extent that Trotskyism became a marginal, exterior tendency in relation to the communist movement. However, the attacks on Stalin by the Khrushchevite leadership in the Soviet Union, and the consequent rise of revisionism in some of the most influential parties of the communist movement, served to breathe new life into the project inspired by Trotsky.

This creed, Trotskyism, gained a substantial intellectual following in all the main imperialist countries due to its attacks on what they and the bourgeoisie call ‘Stalinism’. In attacking Stalin, and in fact, every country of socialist orientation, and regarding themselves as representing authentic Marxism, the activities of these pseudo-left sectarians promoted the propaganda interest of the imperialist bourgeoisie. However, the claims of Trotskyism rest not only on attacking Stalin and the countries of socialist orientation. These claims rest also on convincing certain intellectuals that Trotskyism is the continuation of Leninism. This is why it may be considered useful for us to present a synoptic exposition of the main ideological differences between Marxism-Leninism and Trotskyism as a guide for those who seek to examine this matter more deeply.

THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION.

Trotskyites argue that the October, Russian revolution of 1917 was the realisation of Trotsky’s theory of Permanent Revolution. The Marxist-Leninist position is that the revolution was made possible by the peculiar circumstances created by the 1914-1918 war and that without these conditions the transition to the socialist revolution would not have been possible.

LABOUR POLICY.

Following the revolution and civil war, Trotskyites argued for the militarisation of the trade unions, that is a policy of coercion towards the unions. Marxist-Leninists around Lenin, including Stalin, opposed the Trotskyite militarisation policy, arguing instead that emphasis must be placed on persuasion rather than coercion. This led to a serious factional dispute in the communist party between the Marxist-Leninists and the Trotskyites between 1920-1921. Lenin himself regarded Trotsky’s policy on the trade unions as representing a ‘reactionary movement’.(See: Lenin: Collected Works, Vol.32)

THE WORLD REVOLUTIONARY PROCESS IN REGARD TO SOCIALISM.

For Marxist-Leninists, socialism in one or several countries is a stage in the world revolution. Trotskyites argued that the policy of building socialism in one country was opposed to Marxism. The Marxist-Leninists argued building socialism in one country was an integral part of world revolution and, in fact would serve this process, in aiding the development of the latter. Since Trotsky did not raise the issue with Lenin, Marxist-Leninists can only assume that Trotsky’s real motives were of a factional nature. Or, with Lenin out of the way, following his death in 1924, Trotsky sought to impose his Permanent Revolution theory on the party.

INDUSTRIALISATION POLICY.

The Trotskyites sought to impose an industrialisation and collectivisation policy on the communist party at a time when the party and the dictatorship of the proletariat were in a weak position. Marxist-Leninists around Stalin wanted to wait until the party and the state had gathered enough strength to oversee such a policy. This meant defending the mixed economy of the NEP period until the party had strengthened itself in the working class and in the countryside.

THE QUESTION OF FIGHTING BUREAUCRACY

Trotskyites argue that after the death of Lenin a “Stalinist bureaucracy” emerged in the Soviet Union. This bureaucracy would undermine the revolution and to forestall this a political revolution would be necessary to remove the bureaucracy from power. Marxist-Leninists argue that the Soviet bureaucracy was more anti-Stalinist than ‘Stalinist’, a fact underlined by the frequent purges directed against it. In addition, Marxist-Leninists rejected the Trotskyite theory of a counterrevolutionary bureaucracy as completely one-sided, and argued that what was needed was not a political revolution to overthrow a supposedly counterrevolutionary bureaucracy, but rather there was a need to expose and purge the counterrevolutionary elements from the bureaucracy. The Trotskyite talk about a 'political' revolution to overthrow bureauracy represented a break from Marxism to Anarchism.

THE POLICY OF PEACEFUL COEXISTENCE.

Soon after coming to power the Bolshevik communists, led by Lenin pursued a policy of peaceful coexistence with the capitalist states. The thinking behind this was to force the capitalist States, particularly the imperialists States, to live in peace with socialism, as far as foreign relations were concerned. This was not only based on the recognition that combined the imperialists States were by far stronger than the Socialist State, it was also because socialism, unlike capitalism, is not a warlike system. It is capitalism which needs war to increase profits for the monopolists, not socialism. While it is true that, on the one hand, the Khrushchevite revisionists distorted the communist policy of peaceful coexistence, it is also true, on the other hand, that the Trotskyites, and other pseudo-leftists rejected Lenin’s policy, wanting the socialist countries to act like capitalists and embroil the world into war.

THE COUNTERREVOLUTION IN THE SOVIET UNION.

Trotskyites claim that the counterrevolution in the Soviet Union was the work of a supposedly “Stalinist bureaucracy”. Such a claim made no sense because not only was there no entity which could be called the “Stalinist bureaucracy”, but the Stalinists, i.e., supporters of Stalin, had been purged by the Khrushchevites in the 1950s. Marxist-Leninists maintain that the Soviet counterrevolution was led by the revisionists who had come to power after Stalin’s death. This counterrevolution was begun by Khrushchev and completed by Gorbachev.

COMMUNIST HISTORY.

Trotskyites blame the defeat of revolutions in China, Germany, France and Spain on Stalin’s leadership of the Communist International. Marxist-Leninists have long argued that Stalin was in a minority in the Comintern. Therefore, the defeats experienced by the communist movement cannot simply be dumped at Stalin’s door. Only a concrete analysis, based on Marxism-Leninism, can throw light on how individual defeats came about.

REVISIONISM.

One of the slanders aimed at Stalin by the open and concealed Trotskyites is that he led the international communist movement into the camp of revisionism. However, neither now or in the past, have they been able to provide any documentary evidence to support these claims based on Marxism-Leninism. The truth is, that any study of the writings of Stalin shows, without any shadow of doubt that he remained a committed Marxist-Leninist all his life.

EVALUATION OF STALIN.

Trotskyites argue that Stalin betrayed the 1917 socialist revolution. However, in 1936, stunned by the gains that the Soviet Union had made under Stalin’s leadership, Trotsky had to pretend that this had nothing to do with Stalin. Marxist-Leninists argue that Stalin was a defender of the socialist revolution in the most inauspicious of circumstances. Furthermore, in his time Stalin successfully defended the socialist orientation of the Soviet Union against revisionists and other two-faced elements posing as communists in the party and State. When these concealed enemies of socialism were found out they were unfailingly purged by Stalin.

CONCLUSION.

Trotsky and his followers joined the bourgeoisie and their henchmen, the Mensheviks, in a campaign to convince the workers, peasants and communists that socialism was impossible in the Soviet Union. They tried to undermine the confidence of the working people using an argument opposed to Lenin’s standpoint. The only conclusion is that Trotskyism played a counterrevolutionary role, hiding behind pseudo-left rhetoric. Promoting defeatism was the essential role of Trotskyism in regard to the Soviet Union.

Tony Clark

Bourgeois Cosmopolitanism and its reactionary role

2009-11-02T14:28:00.000-08:00

THE WORLDWIDE struggle against "cosmopolitan" imperialism.
The ideology of cosmopolitanism arises from the same manner of production of bourgeois society.

Cosmopolitanism is the negation of patriotism, its opposite. It advocates absolute apathy towards the fate of the Motherland. Cosmopolitanism denies the existence of any moral or civil obligations of people to their nation and Motherland.

The bourgeoisie preaches the principle that money does not have a homeland, and that, wherever one can "make money," wherever one may "have a profitable business", there is his homeland. Here is the villainy that bourgeois cosmopolitanism is called on to conceal, to disguise, "to ennoble" the antipatriotic ideology of the rootless bourgeois-businessman, the huckster and the traveling salesman.

Harmful cosmopolitan ideology serves for the bourgeoisie and its agents as a very convenient ideological tool for excusing and covering up all kinds of antipatriotic actions, national treason and political double-dealing. Marx showed that "bourgeois patriotism...degenerated into a complete sham after its financial, commercial, and industrial activity acquired a cosmopolitanist character" (Marx-Engels Archive, Vol. III (VIII), p. 355).

In the era of imperialism the ideology of cosmopolitanism is a weapon in the struggle of imperialist plunderers seeking world domination.

Even in the time of the first World War, defending the Bolshevik programme on the nationalities question, fighting for the right of nations for self-determination, Lenin wrote:

"Imperialism represents outgrowing by capital of frameworks for national states, it represents an expansion and exacerbation of national oppression on a new historical basis. Hence it follows that in spite of guns, exactly this, that we must join the revolutionary struggle for socialism to a revolutionary programme on the question of nationality. (Works, 4th edition, Vol. 21, page 371-2.)

This Leninist position shows the indissoluble bonds of the revolutionary struggle for socialism with the defense of national sovereignty of nations.

Imperialism is inseparable from repression of national sovereignty of peoples and monstrous national oppression. In policies of the most severe exploitation of oppressed nations, in expansionist aspirations, the imperialist bourgeoisie hides the first sources of bourgeois-cosmopolitan preaching of national nihilism.

National sovereignty, the struggle of oppressed nations for their liberation, the patriotic feelings of freedom-loving peoples and above all the mighty patriotism of the Soviet people - these still serve as a serious obstacle for predatory imperialistic aspirations, they prevent the imperialists' accomplishing their plans of establishing world-wide domination. Seeking to crush the peoples' will for resistance, the imperialist bourgeoisie and their agents in the camp of Right-wing socialists preach that national sovereignty purportedly became obsolete and a thing past its time, they proclaim the fiction of the very notion of nation and state independence.

The ruling cliques of nations, being the objects of American expansion go all out so as to spit upon and fault the yearning of the masses for the preservation of their national sovereignty, thus rendering aid to American imperialism.

Violently attacking the peoples' aspiration to protect their national sovereignty, their national independence, apologists of imperialism insolently declare "out of date" the peoples' aspiration for preservation or achievement of their national independence, or, in other words, their unwillingness to voluntary submit to the imperialist aggressors.

The preaching of national nihilism is knowingly and deliberately led by the ideologists of Anglo-American imperialism against the land of Socialism and the people's democracies. The people of people's democratic countries under the leadership of communists, with the support of the Soviet Union, bravely and steadfastly fight for their national independence. In particular the Communist parties now serve in all countries of the world as the heirs and most consistent defenders of the better national traditions of peoples, as frontline fighters for liberty and independence of peoples. They lead national opposition to the aggressors and the expansionist aspirations of American imperialism.

Modern bourgeois cosmopolitanism is the ideological expression of aggressive imperialist policies of the reactionary bourgeoisie of the great capitalistic powers, directed towards the establishment of their world supremacy. The struggle for world domination, for the exploitation of the world by a handful of capitalist monopolies naturally and inevitably results from inequality in the economic and political development of capitalism in the era of imperialism.

"Global supremacy," Lenin observed, "is, in short, the maintenance of imperialist policies, the continuation of which is imperialist war." (Works, Vol. XIX, p. 201.)

American imperialism, in the current conditions, is revealed as the pretender for world domination. And this explains this fact, namely that the ideologists of American imperialism emerge today as the most violent propagandists of cosmopolitanism. Present day bourgeois cosmopolitanism is chosen by American imperialism as a weapon of the ideological struggle for world domination. With the help of American cosmopolitan propaganda, American imperialism directs the ideological preparation for the accomplishment of its expansionist, aggressive aspirations. The ideology of bourgeois cosmopolitanism serves as a convenient cover for the subversive activity of spies and saboteurs, working at the behest of foreign intelligence services. In the guise of cosmopolitan phraseology, in false slogans about the struggle against "nationalist selfishness," hides the brutal face of the inciters of a new war, trying to bring about the fantastic notion of American rule over the world. From the imperialist circles of the USA today issues propaganda of "world citizenship" and "universal government."

The true sense of this propaganda was unmasked by Comrade A.A. Zhdanov in his report at the conference of some representatives of Communist parties.

"Some of the directions of the ideological 'campaign' accompanying plans for the enslavement of Europe," said Comrade Zhdanov, "are an attack on the principle of national sovereignty, a call for the rejection of the sovereign rights of peoples and, set up in contrast to them, the idea of 'universal government'." The sense of this campaign consists of this, to enhance unchecked expansion of American imperialism, inconsiderately violating the sovereign rights of peoples, to represent the USA in the role of the standard-bearer of the laws of all mankind, and otherwise, to present those who resist American influence as followers of obsolete 'selfish' nationalism.

The patriotism of the popular masses serves as a powerful spiritual weapon of the workers in the struggle for liberty and national independence. Directed against patriotism, bourgeois cosmopolitanism pursues the goal of ideological disarmament of peoples opposing American imperialistic expansion. With the aid of cosmopolitan propaganda, the bourgeoisie of Western countries and their agents in the persons of Blum, Bevin, and Schumacher and their like aspire to excuse their national treason, and to prepare ideologically the total surrender of these countries before American imperialism.

Editor's notes:
Blum -- Leon Blum, leader of French Socialist Party (aka social-fascist, social-imperialist, etc) before and after WW II.
Bevin -- Ernest Bevin, foreign minister of Britain's Labour government.
Schumacher -- Kurt Schumacher, leader of W. German Social Democratic Party

Comrade A.A. Zhdanov showed that bourgeois cosmopolitism and, in particular, the cosmopolitan idea of "one-world government" have a strikingly expressed anti-Soviet orientation.
"The co-opting of the idea of 'one-world government' by the bourgeois intelligentsia from a number of dreamers and pacifists," said Comrade Zhdanov, "is used not only as a tool to press for the ideological disarmament of peoples, who stand up for their independence from encroachments from the direction of American imperialism, but also as a slogan expressly opposed by the Soviet Union, which constantly and repeatedly defends the principle of true equal rights and the protection of the sovereign rights of all peoples, great and small."

Fed by the aggressive Anglo-American plans for world domination, present-day cosmopolitanism is nothing but the seamy side of unbridled Anglo-American bourgeois nationalism and racism.

Cosmopolitanism and nationalism are not opposites, but are merely two sides of bourgeois-imperialist ideology. Cosmopolitanism always was and is merely a screen, a disguise for nationalism. In due course, unmasking the German bourgeois "true socialists," Marx and Engels indignantly wrote: "...such a narrow nationalist world-view lies at the foundation of supposed universalism and German cosmopolitanism" (K. Marx, F. Engels, Works, Vol. IV, p. 464).

Self-seeking imperialist interests of the Anglo-American capitalist monopolies and militant Anglo-American bourgeois nationalism lie at the foundation of bourgeois cosmopolitanism.

All the preaching of cosmopolitan ideas, exported from the USA, of "world citizenship," "universal government," "world-wide power," and the "supranational state" etc. are called to serve in their own way as an ideological disguise for Anglo-American nationalism.

Leninism revealed the sources, the roots of bourgeois cosmopolitanism. V.I. Lenin wrote: "...the union of imperialists of all countries, the union, naturally and inevitably, for the defense of capital, knowing no homeland, proved by many of the most significant and greatest episodes in world history, that capital puts the keeping of its alliance of capitalists of all countries against the workers higher than the interests of the fatherland, of the people or of anything else." (Works, Vol. XXIII, p. 4).

Lenin proved here that the bourgeoisie places the protection of its self-serving class interests "higher than the interests of the fatherland, the people, or anything else," that in the name of protecting its class interests the bourgeoisie creates a "union of imperialists of all countries" against the workers.

The composition of a new international situation as a result of the Second World War - the growth of the power of the Soviet Union and its international authority, the drop-out from the imperialist system by the peoples' democracies, leftward tendencies among the masses in capitalist countries, the colossal growth of the strength of socialism and democracy in the whole world, the growth of national liberation movements in colonial and semi-colonial counties - all this provokes spiteful hatred from the imperialist, antidemocratic camp, headed by the USA, having set as its main purpose the struggle with socialism and democracy.

Present-day bourgeois cosmopolitanism with its call for the repudiation of national sovereignty, with its notions of "one-world government," the creation of the "United States of Europe," etc. is an ideological "basis" and "consecration" of the assembling under the aegis of American imperialism of a "union of imperialists" in the name of the struggle against the toiling masses, against the Soviet Union and people's democracies, against the irresistible growth over the entire world of the forces of socialism and democracy.

Bourgeois cosmopolitanism is from start to finish a profoundly reactionary ideology of the imperialist bourgeoisie, an ideological banner of the imperialist, antidemocratic camp. Therefore the struggle with bourgeois cosmopolitanism is an indispensable and paramount component part of the struggle against imperialism, against decadent bourgeois ideology.

F.CHERNOV
Source: Bol'shevik: Theoretical and Political Magazine of the Central Committee of the ACP(B), Issue #5, 15 March 1949, pp. 30-41.

Marx and "religion as alienation"

2009-11-02T14:22:00.000-08:00

When Marx speaks about the alienation (related to religion) caused by the social conditions, he does not speak of “fundamental/rooted" alienation, but he speaks of the alienation which is by product of it. Meaning that, while he speaks about religion, he does not see the religion as the “environment” that created the disease, but contrary he sees it “one of the diseases” created by the “environment”. Thus, trying to fight against the “disease” rather than fighting to eliminate the “environment” that created the disease can not be anything but an adventure which will not reach to a solution. It is the practice of imperialists who always applied this tactics to distract the people from the main source of problem. They choose a fake concentration on the symptoms rather than the root cause of it by which they disseminate false hopes.

According to Marx, contrary to the views of Hegel and Feurbach, alienation ".. Is not an alienation rooted in thought or religion.., alienation means the loss of control, especially loss of control over the means of labor.”

The elimination of the root causes of "alienation" will already create the environment and the conditions in where all its byproduct ‘alienations” will be eliminated. That is; targeting the elimination of the environment and conditions of the diseases will create the necessary environment and conditions for the treatment of diseases.

To argue that by nature religious people would be against revolutionary democracy is either not to understand Marxism or to deny it. Marx has always opposed the understanding and the idea of stereotyped "human nature" concept isolated from the environment and the community of people living in. According to Marx the labor exerted on the nature in order to meet his needs has been the only permanent natural properties of all human societies, and this will be the only unending condition which the nature imposes on the existence of human beings.

So, whether he is religious or not "human nature" is related to labor and bread, his "nature" can not be considered isolated from the community where he lives and its developments. Workers by changing the nature, at the same time, either brings change to themselves or prepares themselves to the change. In the words of Marx in Capital “..human.. by changing the world, he (human-workers) at the same time also changes its own nature."

The alienation created by the system of exploitation brought about not only the alienation of worker to his labor and to the product of his labor, but to himself and to those like himself. For example, categorization and stamping of the individuals within the society have been associated with their relations to the means of production and their role or lack of role in production relations. While in relations between individuals who are independent from each other do not have an independent "identity" from this "stigmatization", the capital that becomes the "tool" in relations of production becomes an independent "identity" in itself. However, this alienation to his labor, to himself and those like himself, have made his tendency to the “changes” and “to change” inevitable.

In short, the rights of the workers can not be defended by excluding and labeling the alienated workers. To speak of a Revolutionary democracy without their active participation in the struggle and in to the organizations would be an illusion if not hypocrisy.

People are creatures of social structure. This character of people is a feature that provides the ability and power to act in accordance with the basic common interests as “society". In this sense, class struggle means that alienated workers, not seeing each other as individuals isolated from each other, but struggle collectively.

To create this collective struggle, especially in underdeveloped countries, Marxists criticize religion only when it is necessary and when it is required, yet they defend and respect for individuals right to freely exercise their religious beliefs. It is not the task of Marxists to attack religion and to those who believe in religion. That is the attitude of bourgeoisie taken in the direction of self-interest and is a manipulated attitude which will produce intending results for the bourgeoisie.

Marx has always been against those who think that attacking religion is the task of revolutionaries. “Religion is a product of social conditions .. and it will only disappear when the social conditions created that disappears ..” (Marx, Critique of Hegels Philosophy of Right)

" Religion must be of no concern to the state, and religious societies must have no connection with governmental authority. Everyone must be absolutely free to profess any religion he pleases, or no religion whatever, i.e., to be an atheist, which every socialist is, as a rule. Discrimination among citizens on account of their religious convictions is wholly intolerable. "(Lenin, On Religion," Socialism and Religion ")

Marxists try to unite all workers, peasants, and largest possible masses to struggle against imperialism regardless of their language, religion, race... In short, Marxists do not have the luxury of creating obstacles between themselves and working people. Marxists should try to reject and try to remove all artificial barriers and try every tactic to encourage them to join revolutionary struggle for Democracy.

" To preach atheism at such a moment and in such circumstances would only be playing into the hands of the priest and the priests, who desire nothing better than that the division of the workers according to their participation in the strike movement should be replaced by their division according to their belief in God." (Lenin, "the Labor Party against the religion of the Attitudes")

The task of Marxists is to integrate all oppressed and exploited people to one force against imperialism without any regard to their religious, national, ethnic, linguistic differences.

To be sensitive about religious beliefs of oppressed people is not only a requirement of Marxist morality but a requirement of the revolutionary struggle, an inevitable necessity for the success of struggle for democracy.

“”We must not only admit workers who preserve their belief in God …, but must deliberately set out to recruit them; we are absolutely opposed to giving the slightest offence to their religious convictions,.." (Lenin, "the Labor Party against the religion of the Attitudes")

"" " But under no circumstances ought we to fall into the error of posing the religious question in an abstract, idealistic fashion, as an “intellectual” question unconnected with the class struggle, as is not infrequently done by the radical-democrats from among the bourgeoisie. It would be stupid to think that, in a society based on the endless oppression and coarsening of the worker masses, religious prejudices could be dispelled by purely propaganda methods. It would be bourgeois narrow-mindedness to forget that the yoke of religion that weighs upon mankind is merely a product and reflection of the economic yoke within society"" "(Lenin, Socialism and Religion)

Religion in social conditions is not a reflection of men’s alienation to himself and to his environment, on the contrary, it is the reflection of his revolt against this alienation. In this sense, to approach to religion, namely to a revolt against alienation, with the same attitude of the bourgeoisie, an attitude of oppression and humiliation, will push the religious masses to become defensive and even more fanatical. This has been the present aim of the imperialists and of their puppets. Meaning, by attacking a given religion, forcing its believers and followers to be defensive and become fanatic, and thus preparing an environment, justification and ratification for "intervention".

In this sense, Marxists as secularists must be the most reliable protectors of the religious rights and freedoms of individuals to practice his religion.(Unless it restricts the rights and freedoms of others).

Bourgeois secularism!! can not eliminate hatred between the religions, on the contrary has to foster hatred and fanaticism ..

Only Marxists’ concept of secularism could eliminate this hatred.

Thus, Instead of bringing the alternative “secularism concept” of revolutionary democracy, blindly supporting and repeating the ideas and attitudes of Bourgeois secularism will, in practice, result in spreading the bourgeois concept and system as the “only” and” right" option to the masses. (the hypocrisy and tactics through which the Imperialists and their puppets already have declared themselves as the champions of, democracy, equality and human rights.)

Marxists fight not against religion of the oppressed people, but against their oppression and exploitation.

"" ". Engels called their vociferous proclamation of war on religion a piece of stupidity, and stated that such a declaration of war was the best way to revive interest in religion and to prevent it from really dying out........ ... to proclaim that war on religion was a political task of the workers' party was just anarchistic phrase-mongering. "" "((Lenin the Attitudes of the Proletariat Party Towards Religion)

The enemy of Marxists are not the individuals who believe in religion and practice their faith, but those who are in tactical practice of creating fanatics out of them by waging war against their religion and using the situation in line with their interests. The war untimely and unscientifically waged against religion and religious people will only serve the interests of imperialists.

"""""" An anarchist who preached war against God at all costs would in effect be helping the priests and the bourgeoisie (as the anarchists always do help the bourgeoisie in practice). "(Lenin the Attitudes of the Proletariat Party Towards Religion)

Brotherhood of oppressed peoples, mutual sympathy and support can not be based on their religious beliefs, but based only on their being oppressed and exploited.

In underdeveloped countries extensive existence of such social conditions that cause this "Alienation" manifests the fact of those workers and peasants being religious; workers and peasants who should be organized, and who will be the main force for the realization of revolutionary democracy. Revolution without revolutionary masses? This is why, Marxists and democrats should be sensitive, understanding, and as tolerant as possible to the religious beliefs of workers and peasants whom they want to organize.

"""""""..... Why does religion retain its hold on the backward sections of the town proletariat, on broad sections of the semi-proletariat, and on the mass of the peasantry? Because of the ignorance of the people, replies the bourgeois progressist, the radical or the bourgeois materialist. And so: "Down with religion and long live atheism; the dissemination of atheist views is our chief task!" The Marxist says that this is not true, that it is a superficial view, the view of narrow bourgeois up lifters. It does not explain the roots of religion profoundly enough; it explains them, not in a materialist but in an idealist way. In modern capitalist countries these roots are mainly social. The deepest root of religion today is the socially downtrodden condition of the working masses and their apparently complete helplessness in face of the blind forces of capitalism"""" ((Lenin the Attitudes of the Proletariat Party Towards Religion))

Marxists are not utopians but realists, as Marx puts it ,(which most so called left of left leaves out )““The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions.” — “Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right

As Lenin pointed out "the yoke of religion that weighs upon mankind is merely a product and reflection of the economic yoke within society." That is to say that this alienation can only be eliminated by the destruction of the system of oppression and exploitation that creates it. So the current war should not be against the Alienation it self but the environment and conditions that created the alienation.

Note:
Since one requires force, other , as far as the individuals concern, requires education, especially during the transition period, it does not mean that Marxists stop combating and learning how to combat the “alienation” till it disappears. In other words it is more a tactical question of analyzing any given conditions and relations of forces in any given country for the interest of oppressed and exploited people’s struggle for democracy.

Lenin on Trotsky and Trotskyism

2009-11-02T14:20:00.000-08:00

"The obliging Trotsky is more dangerous than an enemy! Trotsky could produce no proof, except "private conversations" (i.e., simply gossip, on which Trotsky always subsists), ........ . How obliging Trotsky is! "

"Trotsky has never yet held a firm opinion on any important question of Marxism. He always contrives to worm his way into the cracks of any given difference of opinion and desert one side for the other. At the present moment he is in the company of the Bundists and the liquidators. And these gentlemen do not stand on ceremony where the Party is concerned."
The Right of Nations to Self-Determination http://marxism.halkcephesi.net/Lenin/RNSD14.html

" it is this Judas who beats his breast and loudly professes his loyalty to the Party, claiming that he did not grovel before the Vperyod group and the liquidators. Such is Judas Trotsky's blush of shame. "
Judas Trotsky's Blush of Shame http://marxism.halkcephesi.net/Lenin/JT11.html

"We say: Gentlemen, members of the groups that trust Martov and Dan, and want to "unite" with them, all of you August bloc people, Trotskyists, Vperyodists, Bundists, and so on, and so forth, please come out in the open and show your true colours!" Bourgeois Intelligentsia's Methods of Struggle http://marxism.halkcephesi.net/Lenin/BIMS14.html

"The conciliators call themselves Bolsheviks, in order to repeat, a year and a half later (and specifically stating moreover that this was done in the name of Bolshevism as a whole !), Trotsky's errors which the Bolsheviks had exposed." The New Faction of Conciliators, or the Virtuous http://marxism.halkcephesi.net/Lenin/NFC11.html

"Trotsky's particular task is to conceal liquidationism by throwing dust in the eyes of the workers... It is impossible to argue with Trotsky on the merits of the issue, because Trotsky holds no views whatever." Trotsky's Diplomacy and a Certain Party Platform http://marxism.halkcephesi.net/Lenin/TD11.html

"The bloc comprising the liquidators, Trotsky, the Vperyod group, the Poles, the pro-Party Bolsheviks (?), the Paris Mensheviks, and so on and so forth, was foredoomed to ignominious failure, because it was based on an unprincipled approach, on hypocrisy and hollow phrases"

Pravda (Vienna) -- a factional newspaper published by the Trotskyists from 1908 to 1912 ..Its editor was Trotsky. Under cover of "non-factionalism", the newspaper opposed Bolshevism from the outset, and upheld liquidationism and otzovism"" The Liquidators Against the Party http://marxism.halkcephesi.net/Lenin/LAP12.html

"By just touching upon Trotsky's mistaken views, ....... Trotsky's major mistake is that he ignores the bourgeois character of the revolution and has no clear conception of the transition from this revolution to the socialist revolution. ........., we shall at least expose the fallacy of those arguments of Trotsky"
The Aim of the Proletarian Struggle http://marxism.halkcephesi.net/Lenin/APS09.html

" Trotsky's "workers' journal" is Trotsky's journal for workers, as there is not a trace in it of either workers' initiative, or any connection with working-class organizations"................ "Everybody knows that Trotsky is fond of high-sounding and empty phrases"........................"that fact proves that we were right in calling Trotsky a representative of the "worst remnant of factionalism.............Although he claims to be non-factional, Trotsky is known to everybody who is in the least familiar with the working-class movement in Russia as the representative of "Trotsky's faction ".."

"Trotsky, however, possesses no ideological and political definiteness, for his patent for "non-factionalism", as we shall soon see in greater detail, is merely a patent to flit freely to and from, from one group to another. "

"Trotsky is very fond of using, with the learned air of the expert, pompous and high-sounding phrases to explain historical phenomena in a way that is flattering to Trotsky"

"What appeals to the liquidators and Trotsky is only the European models of opportunism,"
Disruption of Unity Under Cover of Outcries for Unity http://marxism.halkcephesi.net/Lenin/DU14.html

"there are a number of theoretical mistakes in Trotsky's and Bukharin's theses: they contain a number of things that are wrong in principle. Politically, the whole approach to the matter is utterly tactless. Comrade Trotsky's "theses" are politically harmful." The Trade Unions and Trotsky's Mistakes http://marxism.halkcephesi.net/Lenin/TUTM20.html

" Trotsky declares: "It is an illusion" to imagine that Menshevism and Bolshevism "have struck deep roots in the depths of the proletariat". This is a specimen of the resonant but empty phrases of which our Trotsky is a master"

"This truly "unrestrained " phrase-mongering is merely the "ideological shadow" of liberalism. Both Martov and Trotsky mix up different historical periods "

" Trotsky distorts Bolshevism, because he has never been able to form any definite views on the role of the proletariat in the Russian bourgeois revolution. "

"Trotsky, on the other hand, represents only his own personal vacillations and nothing more. In 1903 he was a Menshevik; he abandoned Menshevism in 1904, returned to the Mensheviks in 1905 and merely flaunted ultra-revolutionary phrases; in 1906 he left them again; at the end of 1906 he advocated electoral agreements with the Cadets (i.e., he was in fact once more with the Mensheviks); and in the spring of 1907, at the London Congress, he said that he differed from Rosa Luxemburg on "individual shades of ideas rather than on political tendencies". One day Trotsky plagiarizes from the ideological stock-in-trade of one faction; the next day he plagiarizes from that of another, and therefore declares himself to be standing above both factions. " Inner-Party Struggle in Russia http://marxism.halkcephesi.net/Lenin/HMPS10.html

" This question needs only to be put for one to see how hollow are the eloquent phrases in Trotsky's resolution, to see how in reality they serve to defend the very position held by Axelrod and Co., and Alexinsky and Co.

In the very first words of his resolution Trotsky expressed the full spirit of the worst kind of conciliation, "conciliation" in inverted commas, of a sectarian and philistine conciliation, which deals with the "given persons" and not the given line of policy, the given spirit, the given ideological and political content of Party work. ...... and the "conciliation" of Trotsky and Co., which actually renders the most faithful service to the liquidators and otzovists, and is therefore an evil that is all the more dangerous to the Party the more cunningly, artfully and rhetorically it cloaks itself with professedly pro-Party, professedly anti-factional declamations. " Notes of a Publicist http://marxism.halkcephesi.net/Lenin/NP10.html

"The Congress summed up the discussion on the trade unions' role in economic development, condemned the ideas of the Trotskyites, the Workers' Opposition, the Democratic Centralism group and other opportunist trends, and approved Lenin's platform by an overwhelming majority, terming the trade unions as a school of communism, and suggesting measures to develop trade union democracy"
Tenth Congress of the R.C.P.(B.) http://marxism.halkcephesi.net/Lenin/TC21.html

Next ; The history of Trotskyism is the history of counter revolution

Vijay;
Vperyod group was an anti-Party group consisting of otzovists, ultimatumists, .. the group was organised by Bogdanov and Alexinsky, Lunacharsky, Sokolov.Vperyod was the name of magazine they published. They united with the Menshevik-liquidators into an anti-Party bloc (August bloc), which was organised by Trotsky.

Otzovizm was an ... Read Moreopportunist trend which emerged among the Bolsheviks in 1908. otzovists’ revolutionary slogans was the demand for a recall of the Social-Democratic deputies from the Duma and an end to activity in legal organisations. They claimed that in the conditions of reaction, the Party should conduct illegal activities only, they refused to take part in the Duma, trade unions, co-operatives and other legal and semi-legal mass organisations. For details on the otzovists one should read Lenin's article titled “The Faction of Supporters of Otzovism and God-Building” http://marxism.halkcephesi.net/Lenin/SOGB09.html oztovizm

Inregard to their anti-bolshevism, here again from Lenin;" "Therefore, we declare, in the name of the Party as a whole, that Trotsky is pursuing an anti-Party policy'" "Trotsky writes in his resolution that at present "there is no basis for the struggle on principle" being waged by the "Leninists and Plekhanovites" (in thus substituting ... Read Morepersonalities for the trends of Bolshevism and pro-Party Menshevism, Trotsky aims at disparagement, but succeeds only in expressing his own lack of understanding)."Trotsky is trying again and again to evade the question by passing it over in silence or by phrase-mongering " ,THE STATE OF AFFAIRS IN THE PARTY http://marxism.halkcephesi.net/Lenin/SAP10.html

STATE CAPITALISM AND SOCIALISM

2009-10-21T09:17:00.000-07:00

While the Trotskyites of all sorts claim to be Leninist, it is well known that they have been attacking Marxism Leninism under the disguise of anti Stalinism. The issue of State Capitalism is another misunderstood, misguided, distorted example of which has been used for these attacks on Marxism Leninism. One can not be both, either be Leninist or Trotskyite. In this sense, to understand the question of state capitalism is vitally important; what does it mean, who introduced, and why, who were against it, and why… Below is only a draft and notes on my study in this subject for which I welcome any constructive comment before I finalize the article.

BRIEF BACKGROUND TO THEORY
THE QUESTION OF NON-CAPITALIST DEVELOPMENT

The theory of non-capitalist development is an important part of the Marxist Leninist doctrine on revolution and building of socialism.

The non-capitalist way, an alternative to capitalist development after the revolution, meant that precapitalist structures of underdeveloped countries would be transformed on socialist ways through various phases and with the use of various forms and methods. It is to cut short the on going capitalist development before it becomes predominant, and rapidly and gradually transfer it to socialist way.

Marx and Engels, who expected revolutions in developed countries of Europe, believed that the non capitalist way was possible, if, first a socialist revolution took place in developed countries of Europe. They believed that a socialist revolution in a developed country can give the required political, economical, and every kind of assistance to the revolutions in under developed countries by which they may be able to by pass the capitalist stage.

As for Lenin, before the October revolution, he criticized the Narodniks’ illusions about the Russian commune being unique and capable of independently by passing the capitalist stage of development.

Similarly, in his article “Democracy and Narodnism in China,” Lenin said that “Sun Yat-Sen’s views, despite their militant and democratic spirit, were those of “a petty bourgeois, socialist reactionary. “.For the idea that capitalism can be “prevented in China and that a “social revolution’ there will be made easier by the country’s backwardness, and so on, is altogether reactionary.

In his article “Narodnism and the class of wage workers”, Lenin wrote that Mikhailovsky’s theory saying that Russia could bypass the capitalist phase was a “theory of utopian, petty bourgeois socialism, i.e., the dream of petty bourgeois intellectuals, who sought a way of escape from capitalism, not in the wage workers’ class struggle against the bourgeoisie, but in appeals to the entire nation, to society, that is, to that very same bourgeoisie..

Lenin’s view was that Russia, like most of the pre-capitalist countries, lacked the necessary material basis for direct transition to socialism. Material basis (large scale industry, high level of large scale production in agriculture etc) is usually established by capitalism in the period before a socialist revolution, or has to be established by the proletarian state itself.

A BRIEF HISTORY = WHOSE THEORY WAS IT?

It was Lenin who, first time in history, introduced the theory of “state capitalism” in transition to socialism and tried to implement after the revolution. However, with the civil war and imperialist interventions during late 1918 and 1920 Communist party had to abandoned the economic policy outlined by Lenin. A new economic policy was required, under the conditions of civil war and foreign interventions, where country’s all resources were devoted to securing victory over foreign interventions and counter-revolution, which came to be known as “War Communism”. This policy which, along others, required the appropriation of grain and other foods from peasants at a fixed price was a temporary economic policy and as Lenin pointed out “was not, and could not be a policy that corresponded to the economic tasks of the proletariat”

After victory over the imperialists and counter revolutionaries, Lenin drew up a new economic policy which abolished the appropriation of grain and food, and introduced “tax in kind”, where paying the tax; peasants were free to sell their surplus food in the local markets, which was an incentive to increase production which country desperately needed.

NEP (new economic policy), replacing “war Communism, was adopted on March 1921. As Lenin state on his pamphlet ‘The tax in Kind”, the use of State Capitalism for building socialism was as valid as it was before the civil war ,because the basic elements of the country’s economy had not changed . For Lenin, state capitalism was not only a period of transition to socialism, but an ECONOMIC DEVICE to further the building of socialism. However, Lenin stressed on the different conditions of every country while he said “..appreciate the need to refrain from our tactics, but thoughtfully vary them in adaptation to different conditions (of your own country)”.

REASONING =BORGEOIS DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION AND SOCIALIST REVOLUTION

Lenin pointed on two conditions and requirements to guarantee the transition from bourgeois-democratic revolution to socialist revolution: first, the proletariat, led by a party capable of leading it to decisive battles for socialism, had to be politically conscious and organised ,second, the city and peasant semi-proletarian had to be closely united around the proletariat. According to Lenin the socialist revolution could only be successful if the workers were able to make all the exploited masses , particularly the poor peasants, their true and reliable ally.

"to separate them by anything else than the degree of preparedness of the proletariat and the degree of its unity with the poor peasants, means to distort Marxism dreadfully, to vulgarise it, to substitute liberalism in its place". Lenin, The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky

The Leninist theory of the bourgeois-democratic revolution transforming into socialist revolution teaches the revolutionaries to conquer their enemies little by little, first during the bourgeois democratic revolution and then during the socialist revolution. Lenin in his article "Draft Speech on the Agrarian Question in the Duma" explained this by saying:

"Imagine, gentlemen, that I have to remove two heaps of rubbish from my yard. I have only one cart. And no more than one heap can be removed on one cart. What should I do?"
"To begin with, the Russian people have to carry away on their cart all that rubbish that is known as feudal, landed proprietorship, and then come back with the empty cart to a cleaner yard and begin loading the second heap, begin clearing out the rubbish of capitalist exploitation!"

WHY

Lenin mostly through his speeches defined the basic principles and methods of using state capitalism in the period of transition from capitalism to socialism. As for Lenin, state capitalism was a capitalism condoned within certain limits, under strict control of the socialist state, which held the commanding heights in the economy. State capitalism was called upon to help organize a new, socialist economy.

“….ordinary salesmen have had ten years’ warehouse experience and know the business, whereas the responsible Communists and devoted revolutionaries do not know the business, and do not even realize that they do not know it…… After all, we have not ceased to be revolutionaries (although many say, and not altogether without foundation, that we have become bureaucrats) and can understand this simple thing, that in a new and unusually difficult undertaking we must be prepared to start from the beginning over and over again. If after starting you find yourselves at a dead end, start again, and go on doing it ten times if necessary, until you attain your object. Do not put on airs, do not be conceited because you are a Communist while there is some non-Party salesman, perhaps a white guard—and very likely he is a white guard—who can do things which economically must be done at all costs, but which you cannot do. If you, responsible Communists, who have hundreds of ranks and titles and wear communist and Soviet Orders, realize this, you will attain your object, because this is something that can be learned.” Lenin, Political Report of the Central Committee of the R.C.P. (B.) March 27

“in the conditions prevailing in Soviet Russia, state capitalism would be a step forward and would ease transition to socialism, because state capitalism is something centralized, calculated, controlled and socialized, and that is exactly what we lack; we are threatened by the petty bourgeois slovenliness, ..and which prevents us from taking the very step on which the success of socialism depends.” ….(in soviets) ”it is not state capitalism that is at war with socialism, but the petty bourgeoisie plus private capitalism fighting together against both state capitalism and socialism.”” Lenin, Left wing childishness and petty bourgeois mentality

HOW SERIOUS LENIN WAS ABOUT THE USE OF STATE CAPITALISM

Lenin’s feelings about those who criticized the party as “retreating to capitalism”..

“”If, during an incredibly difficult retreat, when everything depends on preserving proper order, anyone spreads panic—even from the best of motives—the slightest breach of discipline must be punished severely, sternly, ruthlessly; and this applies not only to certain of our internal Party affairs, but also, and to a greater extent, to such gentry as the Mensheviks, and to all the gentry of the Two-and-a-Half International.

The other day I read an article by Comrade Rakosi in No. 20 of The Communist International on a new book by Otto Bauer, from whom at one time we all learned, but who, like Kautsky, became a miserable petty bourgeois after the war. Bauer now writes: “There, they are now retreating to capitalism! We have always said that it was a bourgeois revolution.””””

And when a Menshevik says, “You are now retreating; I have been advocating retreat all the time, I agree with you, I am your man, let us retreat together,” we say in reply, “For the public manifestations of Menshevism our revolutionary courts must pass the death sentence, otherwise they are not our courts, but God knows what.”

“…the Mensheviks and Socialist-revolutionaries, all of whom preach this sort of thing, are astonished when we declare that we shall shoot people for such things………Otto Bauer, the leader of second and Two-and-a- half internationals, the Mensheviks and socialist revolutionaries preach express their true nature---“the revolution is gone too far. What you are saying now we have been saying all the time; permit us to say it again”. But we say in reply; “permit us to put you before a firing squad for saying that. Either you refrain from your views, or if you insist on expressing your political views publicly in the present circumstances, when our position is far more difficult than it was when the white guard was directly attacking us, then you will have only yourselves to blame if we treat you as the worst and most pernicious white guard elements” ….“””“Political reports of the central committee of the RCP (B) March 27, 1922

WHAT IS STATE CAPITALISM ?

“”“state capitalism is capitalism” said Preobrazhensky. “ and that is the only way it can and should be interpreted”. I say that is pure scholasticism…….state capitalism is the most unexpected and absolutely unforeseen form of capitalism- for no body foresee that the proletariat would achieve power in one of the least developed countries, and would first try to organize large-scale production and distribution….would enlist the service of capitalism. Nobody ever foresaw this; but it is an incontrovertible fact..””” Closing speech on the political report of the CC of RCP (B) March 28 1922

“””The state capitalism discussed in all books on economics is that which exists under the capitalist system, where the state brings under its direct control certain capitalist enterprises. But ours is a proletarian state it rests on the proletariat; it gives the proletariat all political privileges; and through the medium of the proletariat it attracts to itself the lower ranks of the peasantry (you remember that we began this work through the Poor Peasants Committees). That is why very many people are misled by the term state capitalism. To avoid this we must remember the fundamental thing that state capitalism in the form we have here is not dealt with in any theory, or in any books, for the simple reason that all the usual concepts connected with this term are associated with bourgeois rule in capitalist society. Our society is one which has left the rails of capitalism, but has not yet got on to new rails. The state in this society is not ruled by the bourgeoisie, but by the proletariat. We refuse to understand that when we say “state” we mean ourselves, the proletariat, the vanguard of the working class. State capitalism is capitalism which we shall be able to restrain, and the limits of which we shall be able to fix. This state capitalism is connected with the state, and the state is the workers, the advanced section of the workers, the vanguard. We are the state.

State capitalism is capitalism that we must confine within certain bounds; but we have not yet learned to confine it within those bounds. That is the whole point. And it rests with us to determine what this state capitalism is to be. We have sufficient, quite sufficient political power; we also have sufficient economic resources at our command, but the vanguard of the working class which has been brought to the forefront to directly supervise, to determine the boundaries, to demarcate, to subordinate and not be subordinated itself, lacks sufficient ability for it. All that is needed here is ability, and that is what we do not have.… “””“Political reports of the central committee of the RCP (B) March 27, 1922

On state capitalism

“”The whole question turns on our understanding that this is the capitalism that we can and must permit, that we can and must confine within certain bounds; for this capitalism is essential for the broad masses of the peasantry and for private capital, which must trade in such a way as to satisfy the needs of the peasantry. We must organize things in such a way as to make possible the customary operation of capitalist economy and capitalist exchange, because this is essential for the people. Without it, existence is impossible. All the rest is not an absolutely vital matter to this camp”” Political reports of the central committee of the RCP (B) March 27, 1922

“The capitalism that we have permitted is essential. If it is ugly and bad, we shall be able to rectify it, because power is in our hands and we have nothing to fear.. …..the state capitalism that we have now is not the state capitalism that Germans wrote about. It is capitalism that we ourselves have permitted…...permitted by the proletarian state…” Closing speech on the political report of the CC of RCP (B) March 28 1922

“How is it that although capitalism is the antithesis of communism, certain circumstances are assets from the two opposite view-points? It is because one possible way to proceed to communism is thru state capitalism, provided the state is controlled by the working class. This is exactly the position in the “present case” …November 5, 1922, Manchester Guardian, interview with Arthur Ransome

“…we are forming mixed companies…resorting commercial, capitalist methods. These mixed companies are also important because through them practical competition is created between capitalist methods and our methods……Mensheviks and the socialists of Second and two-and –a half Internationals have no idea, in general, of the way a revolution develops. We could proceed in no other way.””…Political reports of the central committee of the RCP (B) March 27, 1922

“””The proletarian state may, without changing its own nature, permit freedom of trade and the development of capitalism only within certain bounds, and only on the condition that the state regulates (supervises, controls, determines the forms and methods of, etc.) private trade and private capitalism. The success of such regulation will depend not only on the state authorities, but also, and to a larger extent, on the degree of maturity of the proletariat and of the masses of the working people generally, on their cultural level, etc. But even if this regulation is completely successful, the antagonism of class interests between labor and capital will certainly remain. Consequently, one of the main tasks that will henceforth confront the trade unions is to protect in every way the class interests of the proletariat in its struggle against capital. This task should be openly put in the forefront, and the machinery of the trade unions must be reorganized, modified or supplemented accordingly; strike funds, and so on should be formed, or rather, built up “””V. I. Lenin ,Draft Theses on The Role And Functions Of The Trade Unions under the New Economic Policy, December 30, 1921

On Mensheviks and 2nd internationalist regarding to state capitalism

“”The Mensheviks are shouting that the tax in kind, the freedom to trade, the granting of concessions and state capitalism signify the collapse of communism…To the Menshevik shouters we shall simply point out that as early as the spring of 1918 the Communists proclaimed and advocated the idea of a bloc, an alliance with state capitalism against the petty-bourgeois element. That was three years ago! In the first months of the Bolshevik victory! Even then the Bolsheviks took a sober view of things. And since then nobody has been able to challenge the correctness of our sober calculation of the available forces. “” from NEW TIMES AND OLD MISTAKES IN A NEW GUISE V. I. Lenin

“”””…in all bourgeois countries there are trends which might be called pacifist trends, among which should be included the entire Second and Two-and-a-Half Internationals. It is this section of the bourgeoisie which is advocating a number of pacifist proposals and is trying to concoct something in the nature of a pacifist policy. As Communists we have definite views about this pacifism which it would be superfluous to expound here. Needless to say, we are going to Genoa not as Communists, but as merchants. We must trade, and they must trade. We want the trade to benefit us; they want it to benefit them. The course of the issue will be determined, if only to a small degree, by the skill of our diplomats.” Lenin, Political Report of the Central Committee of the R.C.P. (B.) March 27

On bureaucracy

“The gentlemen of the Two-and-a-Half International pose as revolutionaries; but in every serious situation they prove to be counter-revolutionaries because they shrink from the violent destruction of the old state machine; they have no faith in the forces of the working class. It was not a mere catch-phrase we uttered when we said this about the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Co. Everybody knows that the October Revolution actually brought new forces, a new class, to the forefront, that the best representatives of the proletariat are now governing Russia, built up an army, led that army, set up local government, etc., are running industry, and so on. If there are some bureaucratic distortions in this administration, we do not conceal this evil; we expose it, combat it. Those who allow the struggle against the distortions of the new system to obscure its content and to cause them to forget that the working class has created and is guiding a state of the Soviet type are incapable of thinking, and are merely throwing words to the wind. “” from NEW TIMES AND OLD MISTAKES IN A NEW GUISE V. I. Lenin

The difficulties facing the revolution

“”Amidst the colossal ruin of the country and the exhaustion of the forces of the proletariat, by a series of almost superhuman efforts, we are tackling the most difficult job: laying the foundation for a really socialist economy, for the regular exchange of commodities (or, more correctly, exchange of products) between industry and agriculture. The enemy is still far stronger than we are; anarchic, profiteering, individual commodity exchange is undermining our efforts at every step. We clearly see the difficulties and will systematically and perseveringly overcome them. More scope for independent local enterprise; more forces to the localities; more attention to their practical experience. The working class can heal its wounds, its proletarian "class forces" can recuperate, and the confidence of the peasantry in proletarian leadership can be strengthened only as real success is achieved in restoring industry and in bringing about a regular exchange of products through the medium of the state that benefits both the peasant and the worker. And as we achieve this we shall get an influx of new forces, not as quickly as every one of us would like, perhaps, but we shall get it nevertheless..”” NEW TIMES AND OLD MISTAKES IN A NEW GUISE V. I. Lenin

“””At any rate we have formed companies jointly with Russian and foreign capitalists. There are only a few of them. But this small but practical start shows that the Communists have been judged by what they do. They have not been judged by such high institutions as the Central Control Commission and the All-Russia Central Executive Committee. The Central Control Commission is a splendid institution, of course, and we shall now give it more power.

Of course, they will cheat us in these companies, cheat us so that it will take several years before matters are straightened out. But that does not matter. I do not say that that is a victory; it is a reconnaissance, which shows that we have an arena, we have a terrain, and can now stop the retreat.

The reconnaissance has revealed that we have concluded an insignificant number of agreements with capitalists; but we have concluded them for all that. We must learn from that and continue our operations. In this sense we must put a stop to nervousness, screaming and fuss.

The merchants are laughing at us Communists, and in all probability are saying, “Formerly there were Persuaders-in-Chief now we have Talkers-in-Chief.” That the capitalists gloated over the fact that we started late, that we were not sharp enough—of that there need not be the slightest doubt..”“ Political reports of the central committee of the RCP (B) March 27, 1922

The task, economic development

“”Our last, but most important and most difficult task, the one we have done least about, is economic development, the laying of economic foundations for the new, socialist edifice on the site of the demolished feudal edifice and the semi-demolished capitalist edifice. It is in this most important and most difficult task that we have sustained the greatest number of reverses and have made most mistakes. How could anyone expect that a task so new to the world could be begun without reverses and without mistakes! But we have begun it. We shall continue it. At this very moment we are, by our New Economic Policy, committing a number of our mistakes. We are learning how to continue erecting the socialist edifice in a small-peasant country without committing such mistakes.

The difficulties are immense. But we are accustomed to grappling with immense difficulties. Not for nothing do our enemies call us "stone-hard" and exponents of a "firm line policy". But we have also learned, at least to some extent, another art that is essential in revolution, namely, flexibility, the ability to effect swift and sudden changes of tactics if changes in objective conditions demand them, and to choose another path for the achievement of our goal if the former path proves to be inexpedient or impossible at the given moment.

“”And we, who during these three or four years have learned a little to make abrupt changes of front (when abrupt changes of front are needed), have begun zealously, attentively and sedulously (although still not zealously, attentively and sedulously enough) to learn to make a new change of front, namely, the New Economic Policy. The proletarian state must become a cautious, assiduous and shrewd "businessman", a punctilious wholesale merchant -- otherwise it will never succeed in putting this small-peasant country economically on its feet. Under existing conditions, living as we are side by side with the capitalist (for the time being capitalist) West, there is no other way of progressing to communism. A wholesale merchant seems to be an economic type as remote from communism as heaven from earth. But that is one of the contradictions which, in actual life, lead from a small-peasant economy via state capitalism to socialism. Personal incentive will step up production; we must increase production first and foremost and at all costs.”” “”V. I. Lenin, Fourth Anniversary of the October Revolution, October 18, 1921

“””That is why we shall strive to formulate our tasks in this new, higher stage of the struggle with the greatest, with treble caution. We shall formulate them as moderately as possible. We shall make as many concessions as possible within the limits, of course, of what the proletariat can concede and yet remain the ruling class. We shall collect the moderate tax in kind as quickly as possible and allow the greatest possible scope for the development, strengthening and revival of peasant farming. We shall lease the enterprises that are not absolutely essential for us to lessees, including private capitalists and foreign concessionaires. We need a bloc, or alliance, between the proletarian state and state capitalism against the petty-bourgeois element. We must achieve this alliance skillfully, following the rule: "Measure your cloth seven times before you cut." We shall leave ourselves a smaller field of work, only what is absolutely necessary. We shall concentrate the enfeebled forces of the working class on something less, but we shall consolidate ourselves all the more and put ourselves to the test of practical experience not once or twice, but over and over again. Step by step, inch by inch -- for at present the "troops" we have at our command cannot advance any other way on the difficult road we have to travel, in the stern conditions under which we are living, and amidst the dangers we have to face. Those who find this work "dull", "uninteresting" and "unintelligible", those who turn up their noses or become panic-stricken, or who become intoxicated with their own declamations about the absence of the "previous elation", the "previous enthusiasm", etc., had better be "relieved of their jobs" and given a back seat, so as to prevent them from causing harm; for they will not or cannot understand the specific features of the present stage, the present phase of the struggle. “”NEW TIMES AND OLD MISTAKES IN A NEW GUISE V. I. Lenin

We are now forming mixed companies—I shall have something to say about these later on—which, like our state trade and our New Economic Policy as a whole, mean that we Communists are resorting to commercial, capitalist methods. These mixed companies are also important because through them practical competition is created between capitalist methods and our methods. Consider it practically. Up to now we have been writing a programme and making promises. In its time this was absolutely necessary. It is impossible to launch on a world revolution without a programme and without promises. If the white guards, including the Mensheviks, jeer at us for this, it only shows that the Mensheviks and the socialists of the Second and Two-and-a-Half Internationals have no idea, in general, of the way a revolution develops. We could proceed in no other way.

The mixed companies that we have begun to form, in which private capitalists, Russian and foreign, and Communists participate, provide one of the means by which we can learn to organize competition properly and show that we are no less able to establish a link with the peasant economy than the capitalists; that we can meet its requirements; that we can help the peasant make progress even at his present level, in spite of his backwardness; for it is impossible to change him in a brief span of time.” Lenin, Political Report of the Central Committee of the R.C.P. (B.) March 27

state capitalism vs private capitalism

“”Permit me to say this to you without exaggeration, because in this respect it is really “the last and decisive battle”, not against international capitalism—against that we shall yet have many “last and decisive battles”—but against Russian capitalism, against the capitalism that is growing out of the small peasant economy, the capitalism that is fostered by the latter. Here we shall have a fight on our hands in the immediate future, and the date of it cannot be fixed exactly. Here the “last and decisive battle” is impending; here there are no political or any other flanking movements that we can undertake, because this is a test in competition with private capital. Either we pass this test in competition with private capital, or we fail completely.”’ Lenin, Political Report of the Central Committee of the R.C.P. (B.) March 27

Marxism versus nationalism

2009-10-21T09:16:00.000-07:00

Year 1908, an Armenian Socialist’s comment on an Armenian Party, and , its valid application to a Kurdish party 101 years later

The Adversaries of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation
Mara July 1908

In the March number of the “Social-Democrat” there appeared an article under the title “Socialism by the Sword,” by “Mousa,” a contributor to “Droschak,” the organ of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation. This article is written in reply to mine under the same title, in which I endeavored to show that the Droschakist Party was not a Socialist Party before its last convention, where the delegates decided to be called Socialists and to send a delegate to the International Socialist Congress for the first time in seventeen years, and adopted a new programme. I have made my point clear in saying that the very claim that the leaders make - that it was a Socialist organization since its birth - is misleading their members, and makes us doubt their sincerity in endeavoring to convert them to Socialism, which they need very badly if they are to be called Socialists.

“Mousa” in order to refute my statement that the Droschakist Party by its original programme was solely organized for the emancipation of Turkish Armenia and that its activities for the last seventeen years tended toward that aim, answers: “The Droschakist Party embraces both Turkish and Russian Armenia and for seventeen years it has inscribed the Socialist ideal on its programme, which it has propagated theoretically ever since because for any practical work for a ‘class struggle,’ in the modern sense of the word, the ground is entirely wanting in Turkey.” He forgets that this is their new programme adopted at their convention of 1907, and that in their report to the International Socialist Congress of 1907 there is a passage which reads as follows:

“Although bound by its original programme to work for the emancipation of Turkish Armenia, the party could not remain indifferent to this violent Russification which inflicted much suffering.” He ignored the fact that the party became active in Russia in 1903 to protest against the confiscation of the property of the Armenian Church by the Russian Government. He ignores that their original programme, the fourth edition of which was published as late as 1906, was simply formed for the emancipation of Turkish Armenia. I fail to see in it the word Socialism, but instead I read, on its third page, a pronouncement against it, calling it a visionary, Utopian dogma, with which the practical Droschakist Party cannot Co-operate, and thus leave aside the immediate demands of the people. Yes, the Droschakists have been so practical for the last 17 years that instead of organizing the workers and propagating Socialism, they, standing, of course, for the interests of the whole Armenian nation, all classes combined, took into the party everybody whether he believed in the class struggle or not, so long as he wanted to work for the emancipation of Armenia. And to-day “Mousa” and his friends are at a loss whether they have to satisfy their pure and simple nationalist members, or the awakened proletarians whom they still misinform about Socialism

“Mousa” - ignoring the facts that I brought forward in my previous article to show that the Armenian Revolutionary Federation consciously and unconsciously embittered the Armenians against the Mohammedans says: “Innumerable are the proclamations and appeals, in Turkish, Armenian and French, which the Droschakist Party has during 17 years addressed to the ‘Young Turks’ and the Mohammedan world (in Turkey and Russia); appeals for solidarity in the common struggle against the common enemy. “ …..the agreement of the revolutionary elements of the different nationalities of Turkey to work harmoniously against the common enemy, although defective in proletarian viewpoint, is a glorious achievement in itself and none rejoiced in it more than we Socialists, not even those who have opposed us for advocating it and proclaimed that the Turks were inherently criminal and incapable of any revolutionary ideas…

…….I wanted to show that their frantic efforts were made to bring about European intervention, just as he says; “We are, alas! only too conscious of the inferiority of our forces ..... We have reckoned on another factor, the European intervention.” You see, there is no catering for the other revolutionary forces in Turkey, but intervention of the European Powers. European Powers which either ordered the Sultan to massacre his subjects, or, by the blood of hundreds of thousands of Armenians, forced concessions from the Sultan only to advance their commercial, industrial, or territorial interests in Turkey. Here are the “allies of the Droschakist Party,” and they do not hesitate to proclaim it again after signing the manifesto of the Congress of Paris which condemns the nefarious policy of the Sultan for causing the disintegration of Turkey in the interests of the European Powers.

“The Socialization of the Land.” If that is Socialism, the Droschakist Party could have easily done the same in Turkey, as there is plenty of land and numerous people who have been deprived of their land. But “Mousa,” being a contributor to “Droschak,” and representing the intellectual force of their party, ought to stop one minute and realize that by uttering those words he is giving himself away. The socialization of the land alone is not Socialism, the dividing of the land, which he really means, is a petit bourgeois demand. The Single Taxers in the United States have the same demand, but are the most bigoted and retrogressive people one ever comes across…

…Their organ “Hairenik” (Fatherland), their organizer and their party advised the Armenians to vote for the strong party, the Republican Party, in order to please them and to induce President Roosevelt to use his big stick to solve the Armenian question. They have advocated that Socialism is a hindrance to the cause of the Armenian revolution. The party has not even criticized their members for breaking strikes, who justified themselves by saying they had to send money to help the Armenian revolutionaries at home.

Among other arguments, “Mousa” brings forward the following statement: “Our duty as Socialists imposed upon us the necessity of defending our national culture. Our opponents, who also call themselves Socialists, are completely indifferent to all the class-consciousness of its members for the last 14 years of its struggles for the defense of the imprescriptible rights of nationality.”…… let us see what he means by national culture and imprescriptible rights to which the Socialists are indifferent. If he means the language, there is no Socialist on earth that tolerates any encroachment by anyone upon the freedom of speech, including language. Our comrades in Germany are tirelessly fighting the schemes of their Government to impose the German language upon the Polish population, but Socialists will not waste any energy to impose the national language upon those who, through industrial conditions, are either estranged or obliged to talk a commercial language; they will reserve their energy to fight the industrial system that is at the bottom of those evils.

………Socialists maintain that wherever the working man is, regardless of his nationality, he has the right and duty to join hands with the other workers for the common fight against the common enemy….. Socialists are national enough in organizing the proletarians of their own nationality to hasten the unity of the workers of the world, which alone will be able to do away with classes and thus make tyranny impossible. Least of all are the Armenian Socialists indifferent to the sufferings of the Armenians, but, as all other Socialists, they are not going to be moved by the spirit of vengeance, Vengeance means perpetuation of race hatred, which, impairing the solidarity of the workers, retards their victory. On the other band, Socialists, without any sentimentalism, coolly and patiently work to bring harmony between two warring peoples, which is the best safeguard against any bloodshed.

“Mousa” asserts that in all the sanguinary and desperate struggles of the national defense the Droschakist Party has been alone, and it is due to this circumstance that they won't be sympathy of the masses of the Armenian workers, and precisely this sympathy irritates their opponents and drives them to insinuations and calumnies………..I will say this, that Socialists are not so foolish as to become irritated by the popularity of any party, especially when they know that the popular party is doing everything to retain its popularity. The Republican Party in the United States is the most popular party, but that does not prove that it stands for the working class, and that the working men keep that party in power because they are conscious of their interests.

Who are those Armenian Socialists, anyhow? Most of them have been formerly either members of the Droschakist or Huntchakist parties, who, seeing that the Nationalist movement is not a solution of the suffering of the Armenian people but a hindrance to the work of uniting the workers under the banner of Socialism, came out of the ranks of those parties and occupy themselves in organizing the workers.

.. Nothing but the downfall of capitalism and the coming of Socialism can wipe away the tears of all the oppressed and bring peace among the nations of the world.

MARA
Boston, Mass, June 20, 1908

The elections in Turkey : Execution phase of Project Lebanization

2007-08-05T16:07:00.000-07:00

“If the central power is sufficiently weakened, there is no real civil society to hold the polity together, no real sense of common national identity or overriding allegiance to the nation-state. The state then disintegrates"as happened in Lebanon"into a chaos of squabbling, feuding, fighting sects, tribes, regions and parties." Bernard Lewis

Bernard Lewis created the term “Lebanization”, which translated in to keeping a country divided on ethnic, sectarian or whatever exploitable differences there may be within that given country, in order to control and conquer.

Who are the real winners of this election?

Imagine a country where over ninety percent of population is against the US neo-con policy and practices in the Middle East and, in the world. A country over seventy percent of the population believe in secularism yet, a religious party wins the elections with a margin of forty six percent. A religious party whose leader’s recorded view is “either you are religious or secular, one or the other, one can not be both”. A religious party which is so willing, and ready to cooperate with the US neo-con policies at any cost. A party much closer to US neo-cons than to EU.

While the religious AKP gets forty six percent of the electoral vote, so called “secular” CHP with twenty percent of the electoral vote loses fifty five seats. CHP, a party that openly banned any anti-US policy and practices to its members. .

There is a third “winner” party, MHP, which is well known with its member’s participation in NATO’s infamous “left behind” or, “Gladio” death squads. A party whose service to US during the Cold War era can not be forgotten.

These three parties, all pro-US, all pro EU, have five hundred twenty three seats of the total five hundred fifty seats of the parliament. There are twenty seven more seats which will be occupied by “independents”, majority of whom are made up of those in competition with the Northern Iraq Kurds in serving the US policies of Middle East.

The picture is of a parliament ready and willing to cooperate with the Neo-cons of USA in their Middle East Policy, policy of Lebanization of all the Middle East Countries. Clearly it is a win not for the people of Turkey but for the neo-cons.

A look at the recent history to foresee the coming history of Turkey

Let’s start with a previously succeeded project from which this policy and its name derived.
Lebanon, a country in which Muslims and Christians lived together for centuries yet with the execution of `project` country has become a country without a real centralized power, where feuding sects, tribes, regions, interest groups fight with one another. A country where it’s military remains impartial to foreign military attacks and invasion of her land, yet, same military acts viciously against her own people after a provocation.

There was a country in central Asia, a Muslim yet secular country. Religious fanaticism and fanatics have been supported, armed, trained in and by the US and European Allies. Country was provoked in to a war, and secularism replaced with the US backed religious government, eliminating any and all the democratic rights the people enjoyed. With the Collapse of Soviet Union, US and its European allies, after numerous provocations by the use of the same people they trained, declared war on their ex-puppets in order to justify their new world order policy. They replaced their fanatic religious puppets with religious-corporate puppets leaving the country in a state of an ongoing war and ongoing chaos.

There was a country in Middle East, fiercely secular, economically stable yet, her leaders have made the mistake of aligning themselves with the US and its European allies. Country was provoked in to a war with her neighbor, ethnic and sectarian divisions supported...at the end, similar to one in Central Asia, the ex-puppets were declared to be enemies and toppled. They replaced the dictatorial-secular-puppets with religious-corporate puppets leaving the country in a state of ongoing war and ongoing chaos.

All these have been done in the name of “democracy”, “freedom”, prosperity” and under the justification of “fight against the religious fanaticism” by those who have been supporting the religious and otherwise dictatorships like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Pakistan …..

It is interesting to see that US and its European allies have been supporting the religious fanatics in Turkey on one side, and supporting the “secularism outcry” on the other.

It is well known that one of the strongest religious cult supports this elected anti-secular party, has its billionaire leader, and quite large number of its followers residing (and possibly being trained) in the US and all over Europe.

Looking at such recent history and the current situation in Middle East, the election results in Turkey may well be the indication of “the execution phase of the Lebanization Project” of Turkey. Question is, will this “phase” be a simultaneous integrated part of “Lebanization of Iran” or another step to one or to other. Simply put it; will it (Lebanization) be Turkey or Iran first, or both at the same time?

“Execution phase” of such political projects usually carries within the practices of “sensational provocations”. In this sense, the results of the elections may, at the same time, well be the indication of “cured- foundation “, meaning: “set to go” …...

Only the secularist culture, recent historical experience, and “common sense” of people from involved countries may prevent such ‘sensational provocations’ to achieve its goal of hate and war mongering. Let’s hope people have drawn lessons from recent such sensational provocations.

July 25, 2007
Erdogan A.

How to be a "good" dissident to your fatherland?

2006-10-15T09:24:00.000-07:00

``The Nobel Prize in Literature for 2006 is awarded to the Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk
“who in the quest for the melancholic soul of his native city has discovered new symbols for the clash and interlacing of cultures”. NOBEL Press Release

How to be a "good" dissident to your fatherland? (And you may even get the NOBEL price. A graduate of 1985-1988 ORHAN PAMUK has succeeded in getting, so can you )

If you have the potential and want to be a popular dissident to your fatherland with a lot of financial and political backing, protection from persecution, prosecution and conviction from your government…

Here is your chance: qualify by the US State Department and by the US Consulate in your country and participate in “The International Writing Program” at The University of Iowa. A

All quotes are from their official website.

Purpose of the program:

“””The principal design of the International Writing Program (IWP) is threefold: to introduce talented individuals to American life; to enable these individuals to take part in American university life; and to provide writers with time, in a setting congenial to their efforts, for the production of literary work.””

“”Members of the Iowa City community and other cities across the nation share the strengths and goodwill of American culture. IWP writers return to their homelands as shapers of opinion, with a more complex understanding of this (US) and many other countries. They are strengthened by this chance to write and interact, free from political pressures and influence. (Other than that, and under the protection of American)”””

Who supports the program?

“”The U.S. Department of State is a major source of support for the program. The IWP also administers the grants of writers who come to the University of Iowa under subsidy from American corporations and cultural organizations abroad.””

“””We provide the selection criteria below as guidance for US diplomatic missions or other cultural agencies able to sponsor participants;”””

Samples from the Courses and subjects:
Orhan pamuk , Snow
Bei Dao (Chinese Dissident)
Grigorova, "American Mammals"
11'09''01: September 11
Americanism” and “anti-Americanism”:
New World, Old World: the Historical Antithesis
The 21st Century Will Be American,
The Anti-anti-Americans”
“America Yawns at Foreign Fiction”
“Farewell, America”
What the World Thinks of America”
AMERIKA: Russian Writers View The United States
American Popular Culture Abroad"
The Perfect American,
Democracy in America
America" and post-colonialism
The Islamic perspective, mediated:The Last Night of a Damned Soul
Media Are American
Questions of Citizenship in a globalizing World

Is there any need to say more?

Erdogan Ahmet
October 15,2006

Turkey: A New Al-Qaeda State?

2006-10-11T18:00:00.000-07:00

Front page Magazine
By: Steven Stalinsky

Turkish barbarism!

The Turks are barbarians from the East. They came to the Middle East as mercenaries for the arab caliphs. History has shown that the arabs are not spiritual type of people. As soon as they conquered wealthy lands in the name of the islamic cult and started tasting a type of luxury they have not dreamt of before, they relegated detailed dirty work like massacre, rape, pillage and burning to their mercenaries - the Turks. As the Turks were not intermingled with the mercenaries of other nationalities and they were in their own Turkish only birgades, they sensed their power and killed whoever happened to be the arab caliph of the day and grabbed power. Thus power passed from one barbarian to another. In the mean time, the Turks accepted the islamic cult. Hence, the 400 year Turkish rule in the Middle East. The Turks caused untold murderous havoc in Greece and the Balkans. They set up present day Turkey on lands that belonged to Greece and Armenia for thousands of years. For the record, in WWI, they wiped out 2 Mega of Armenians and non of the European powers raised a voice!

FactsOnly (Erdogan)
You must be getting your History lessons from Hollywood movies and "story" books..

Let's see these "barbarians!" ruled half of the world for 600 years (not 400), but not one Christian Country population have been forced to convert to Islam, yet The "civilized" nations invaded Latin America, Africa, Asia, they all have been (nicely) converted to Christianity. I haven't read any "exterminated" population under this "Barbarians", yet I have read the extermination of Indigenous people all over the world by "civilized" nations. No other Country, remaining 600 years under Turkish domination, speaks Turkish but their own language, yet wherever the "civilized" nations conquered , or dominated, they have spoken the language of conquerors ...

They were some strange "barbarians" I should say..

sanitynow
FactChecker, you should change your name to FactMisser! Erdogan sat at the feet of Hekmatiyar. Based on moslem tradition, one can infer that this signifies spritual submission. Can you get this through your thick skull? In the past, Erdogan was arrested for terrorist related activity in Turkey and was banned from running for office. He and his party have a clear cut islamo-terrorist background. Do not be fooled by the fact that he is always dressed in suit and tie and attempts to speak in a diplomatic manner!

FactsOnly (Erdogan)
History has shown what type of people deals with "skulls"..

If you have studied the history of Turkey, you may have known that the Turkish Military has been very sensitive when it comes to "Secularism". It is well known that In Turkey , military historically has been the protector and ensurer of "secular state". During Mr. Erdogan's presidency numerous military officers have been "retired" , according to the "religious media" due to their religious practices...Erdogan could not do anything about it.

In addition, People of Turkey have enjoyed the "secularism" for many years. Any one who knows a litlle bit about Turkey, knows that no power-group in Turkey even dare to challenge the Secular State. They know that The next day there will be a military coup..Having a "religious" president, does not make the people of a country who are mostly secular and do not even practice religion to turn fanatics in a day. If you think Erdogan is a dictator and can do anything he wants, you are again mistaken..

The only reason he is still in power is because Turkey has seen the largest economic growth in its history during the last three years with a world record of 9 % growth last year, almost doubling the GDP..

The opposition in Turkey, is not any different than the opposition all around the world against Bush-Cheney policy. However, to label this opposition as an "Islamic" opposition is just misleading. It is inevitable that the fanatics and other religious groups will try to exploit the situation to the outmost, yet, the FACTS of Turkey show that "secularism" is untouchable, at least for some many more years to come.

Presidents can only change the governing body, not the fundamentals of a political systems what ever that may be

to "what is..".. Dialectic or not?

2006-09-27T18:24:00.000-07:00

here is how Turkish Leftist responded to my comment
""""""""""Comrades,
In the light of Mr. Ahmet's last paragraph, I want to share a philosophical consequence of mine with you:
Let it be banned to ask "What is . . .?" for some thousand years, and then be set free under strict control. """""""""

My last paragraph was;

According to Marxist materialist philosophy there is no good or bad. The opposition of good and bad is not dialectic, Marx says, but only a "mystery" of bourgeois morality””

and my response 'is;

"it is not a question of banning to ask " what is.." , but it is a question of how to approach to "what is..".. Dialectic or not?

For the sake of Social Democratic ethics and with the hope that the "question" of ethics may be understood in an ideological way in which one claims to be, I will respond one last time.

Again the last paragraph is not mine but of Marx. You do have the right to disagree with what he says, but you can not claim to be a Marxist and disagree with Marx without bringing an alternative.

Marx was not talking there again `moral` in general, but in capitalist society where the bourgeois controls, sets the rules and decides on everything from what is good and bad to what is allowable to what is not.

He was, in a way, giving a very effective example of what dialectic is and how it should be used.. Good and bad. He was not denying the existence of the opposing terms, but he was using this as an example while he was criticizing Proudhon.

I hope that these quotes from him would be helpful to understand what he was talking about, and how it applies to our ‘referenced’ discussion.

“””. . one good, the other bad. He looks upon these categories as the petty bourgeois looks upon the great men of history: Napoleon was a great man; he did a lot of good; he also did a lot of harm. The good side and the bad side, the advantages and the drawbacks, taken together form for M. Proudhon the contradiction in every economic category. The problem to be solved: to keep the good side, while eliminating the bad. Slavery is an economic category like any other. Thus it also has two sides. Let us leave alone the bad side and talk about the good side of slavery………ethics exist in the material situation itself, in this example, in the institution of slavery. The good of slavery is that without it, you would have no cotton, and no modern industry, and no world trade. "The value of slavery is not in any good inherent in the abstract concept of its thesis -- we have left aside its 'bad' side -- and it seems that the 'good' side is good only relative to whether you think that it is 'good' to have a system built upon slavery at all" (Marx 1978:105).’’”””

On every society good and bad differs and relative to the society one lives in, and his/her relation to the means of production….

It is "ethical" to glorify the war, and boirgeois media show nothing about the cruelness of the war, yet, it is "unethical" to show the real face of the war.

It is "ethical" to broadcast and print the government propoganda materials as "news", yet it is "unethical " to broadcast and print any anti government material with the pretex that they are propoganda..

It is ethical to consider a general or an embedded journalist as an “independent” , “impartial”, “reliable” source for a news, yet it is “unethical” to consider the “victim” or “witnesses who contradicts” the ‘reliable source”, as a reliable source..

What is good, what is bad, what is reliable, what is not, what is within the “ethics” what is “unethical ‘… all relative…to “which side” you are on…as far as the “truth” (manipulated or not) concern, and whose interests the (manipulated) “truth” serves…

As I have noted in one of my essays: there is only one truth, truth itself. In any given event, the “event it self” is the only truth. Anything related to the event ;( who, why, when, how,) can be manipulated and always differs depending on the sides involved/affected by the event. Thus, they are not “truths”, per say, but merely “comments” on the events by two opposing sides involved in..

So, our approach to the question of what is right, what is wrong, what is just, what is unjust, what is ethical, what is not.. can not be based on what we are told as such, but we know as they should be…As anti-imperialists, as anti-racist, as anti-fascist, as anti-unjust war, as “real Social Democrats” ,one well known Marxist, put it.

Erdogan Ahmet

A critique on my essay “Ethics in Class Struggle”

2006-09-26T19:12:00.000-07:00

A critique on http://ww4report.com regarding my essay “Ethics in Class Struggle”

It was by coincidence that I have come across with this comment about "my approach" and its critique.

Writer! Notes:

As for this "wrong," it might be illuminating to quote a paper (referring to the issue at hand) by one of the regular autors of neodemocracy.blogspot.com, Erdogan Ahmet (in Turkish, alas):

http://yenidemokrasi.blogspot.com/2006/08/sinif-mucadelesinde-etik.html

In that paper (entitled "Ethics in the Class Struggle") Mr. Ahmet alleges that under capitalism Marxists ought to reject any ethics.

I entered into an argument with Mr. Ahmet and maintained that the morality and ethics of the proletariat must be incomparably stricter than and superior to the morality and ethics of the bourgeoisie (in Turkish, again):

Here is my response to that in English, no more “in Turkish, ALAS…”

It has always been the bourgeois tactic to rip a sentence out of its context and defy the argument of others.

Here is what I think and believe Marxist approach to "ethics" is:

First of all there is misconception and misunderstanding of the meaning of "ethics". It has either purposefully or due to lack of knowledge, mixed with the concept of `moral` and “values".

Being against or pro war is a question of "values". It may well be a moral question for some, may not for others. Similarly, it is not an "ethical" question, since it mostly applies to "professional, organizational, ideological, etc conduct".

To kill a wounded enemy fighter is an "ethical" question. It has nothing to do with "moral", or "values" for all.(as the cases in Iraq war prove)

For the civilians to rape and pillage his own people by benefiting the chaos of war is a "moral' question. For the military personal doing the same, it is more an "ethical" question.

Now clearing the differences, for those who think and proceeds; Moral, Values and Ethics are all the same, let’s go back to Mr. Left Marxist’s comment:

He (replier) says: “I entered into an argument with Mr. Ahmet and maintained that the morality and ethics of the proletariat must be incomparably stricter than and superior to the morality and ethics of the bourgeoisie (in Turkish, again):

Now, first of all, the question my essay has taken, had nothing to do with “morality” in bourgeois sense, but “ethics”. However, I, intentionally, have added some quotes from Marx with the purpose of showing Marxist approach to the ethics question,

Some of them;

“”””It may be remarked in passing that German philosophy, because it took consciousness alone as its point of departure, was bound to end in moral philosophy, where the various heroes squabble about true morals. (MECW, 5:36)””””

“””I wrote An Address to the Working Class.... My proposals [in this Address] were all accepted by the subcommittee [of the Workingmen’s International Association] . Only I was obliged to insert two phrases about ‘duty’ and ‘right’ into the Preamble to the Statutes, ditto ‘truth, morality, and justice,’ but these are placed in such a way that they can do no harm””” Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Selected Correspondence,

Marx’s sociology of morals is that, the moral ideas people come to have is determined both by the mode of production, and their class position. Yet there is a difference between Marxist sociology of moral and his” Moral” theory. What is right and wrong can never be independent of the relations of production. For Marx’ “moral systems” arise from the interests of social groups.

As one can clearly see these are not my “quotes” but of Marx Engels. And clearly can have an idea on “what and how they think about Moral”. And can you imagine what they think about bourgeois ethics

Thus, by adding “moral” to the question, in reality this bragging left-Marxist replier, is not criticizing me but, Marx and Engels.

My entire essay was based on Ethics and titled “Ethics in Class Struggle “which claimed that the ‘ethics” under capitalism are ethics of those who own the means of production, ie capitalists. In this sense these are bourgeois ethics, and they only use them for the “others “but they always disregard them.

Revolutionary Democrats ethics are not that of bourgeois ethics.

“”””But is there such a thing as communist ethics? Is there such a thing as communist morality? Of course, there is. It is often suggested that we have no ethics of our own; very often the bourgeoisie accuse us Communists of rejecting all morality. This is a method of confusing the issue …………… instead of basing ethics on the commandments of morality, on the commandments of God, they (bourgeoisie) based it on idealist or semi-idealist phrases, which always amounted to something very similar to God's commandments. ````

And I have quoted the following from the same writing of Lenin:

“”””We reject any morality based on extra-human and extra-class concepts. We say that this is deception, dupery, stultification of the workers and peasants in the interests of the landowners and capitalists. “”

“”`We say that our morality is entirely subordinated to the interests of the proletariat's class struggle. Our morality stems from the interests of the class struggle of the proletariat.”””” Lenin,The Tasks of the Youth Leagues

Establishing the Marxist difference on bourgeois ethics, I have claimed that the class struggle can not be limited within the boundaries of bourgeois rules. Those (bourgeois) rules can, and should be broken for the interests of the class struggle of the proletariat.

We should have a different approach and attitude towards the ethics among ourselves and ethics with the class enemies. In this sense Revolutionary Democrats’ ethics can not be compromised, but bourgeois ethics can and should be when and if it will further the cause and benefit the class struggle.

Proceeding from this Marxist approach, my main approach and critique to the referenced so called “ethical” event was in two fold:

One; if Evrensel was not sure about the interview, yet after carefully studying and analyzing every outcome, they wanted to use it for the interest of class struggle, it was quite ok with me for the simple reason that due to this sectarian left-Marxists, vast majority of somewhat-religious people who stayed away from left, could come one step closer to the ranks. It could break the ice and can create the atmosphere to approach these working class people and organize them for the cause, rather than pushing them to the bosom of reaction. At any rate it did.

Two; if they knew about the false interview and publish without any study and any analyze of the possible out come but (fort the interest)of their own group, it was as wrong as another `leftist” taken the duty of bourgeois detective duty and disclose the “ethical misconduct”.

For bourgeois it is within the “ethics” for “haves” to drop cluster bomb from the air and kill thousands of people at once and afterwards, yet it is not within the ethics for “HaveNots” if one of them takes one bomb and jumps in to a military compound and blows it.

It is "ethical" to glorify the war, and show nothing about the cruelness of the war, yet it is "unethical" to show the real face of the war.

It is "ethical" to broadcast and print the government propaganda materials as "news", yet it is "unethical " to broadcast and print the anti government material with the pretex that they are propaganda..

Who determines what is ethical and what is not? Working class or Bourgeois? And FOR WHOM since bourgeoisie is the only one who violates all the time?

Critiques continues :

“””’All the participants' opinions were against Mr. Ahmet's.”””

I have only responded to one, and realized I am not dealing with people who want to read and understand, but (mostly ) people who either have no idea about Marxism, or there to search and pick on something to be against, or there to waste time and curse one another. That’s why I can not claim he is wrong on this observation of his, yet so most of the bourgeois liberals are against me, which do not bother me at all, contrary makes me happy.

So, again here, I, as a Marxist do believe in rejecting any and all bourgeois ethics if and when it is necessary to further the cause of working class and for the benefit of working class.

````“You shoot first, Messieurs the Bourgeoisie,” wrote Engels, ……..at the necessity of our violating legality after the bourgeoisie had violated””” Lenin

If these left-Marxists study Marxism, instead of memorizing it to impress themselves and others, cause would be better served. Yet it is not what they want to serve..

As for the last, for those who can understand the concept of ethics, this is much better short explanation.

According to Marxist materialist philosophy there is no good or bad. The opposition of good and bad is not dialectic, Marx says, but only a "mystery" of bourgeois morality””

Erdogan Ahmet
September 26, 2006

Rules for the Explanation of Social Facts

2006-09-11T21:54:00.000-07:00

Emile Durkheim

The constitution of species is above all a means of grouping the facts so as to facilitate their interpretation, but social morphology is only one step towards the truly explanatory part of the science. What is the method appropriate for explanation?

Most sociologists believe they have accounted for phenomena once they have demonstrated the purpose they serve and the role they play. They reason as if phenomena existed solely for this role and had no determining cause save a clear or vague sense of the services they are called upon to render. This is why it is thought that all that is needful has been said to make them intelligible when it has been established that these services are real and that the social need they satisfy has been demonstrated. Thus Comte relates all the drive for progress of the human species to this basic tendency, 'which directly impels man continually to improve his condition in all respects',' whereas Spencer relates it to the need for greater happiness. It is by virtue of this principle that Spencer explains the formation of society as a function of the advantages which flow from co-operation, the institution of government by the utility which springs from regulating military co-operation, and the transformations which the family has undergone from the need for a more perfect reconciliation of the interests of parents, children and society.

But this method confuses two very different questions. To demonstrate the utility of a fact does not explain its origins, nor how it is what it is. The uses which it serves presume the specific properties characteristic of it, but do not create it. Our need for things cannot cause them to be of a particular nature; consequently, that need cannot produce them out of nothing, conferring in this way existence upon them. They spring from causes of another kind. The feeling we have regarding their utility can stimulate us to set these causes in motion and draw upon the effects they bring in their train, but it cannot conjure up these results out of nothing. This proposition is self-evident so long as only material or even psychological phenomena are being considered. It would also not be disputed in sociology if the social facts, because of their total lack of material substance, did not appear - wrongly, moreover bereft of intrinsic reality. Since we view them as purely mental configurations, provided they are found to be useful, as soon as the idea of them occurs to us they seem to be self-generating. But since each fact is a force which prevails over the force of the individual and possesses its own nature, to bring a fact into existence it cannot suffice to have merely the desire or the will to engender it. Prior forces must exist, capable of producing this firmly established force, as well as natures capable of producing this special nature. Only under these conditions can facts be created. To revive the family spirit where it has grown weak, it is not enough for everybody to realise its advantages; we must set directly in operation those causes which alone can engender it. To endow a government with the authority it requires, it is not enough to feel the need for this. We must address ourselves to the sole sources from which all authority is derived: the establishment o traditions, a common spirit, etc. For this we must retrace our steps farther back along the chain of cause and effect until we find a point at which human action can effectively intervene.

What clearly demonstrates the duality of these two avenues of research is that a fact can exist without serving any purpose, either because it has never been used to further any vital goal or because, having once been of use, it has lost all utility but continues to exist merely through force of custom. There are even more instances of such survivals in society than in the human organism. There are even cases where a practice or a social institution changes its functions without for this reason changing its nature. The rule of is pater est quem justae nuptiae declarant has remained substantially the same in our legal code as it was in ancient Roman law. But while its purpose was to safeguard the property rights of the father over children born of his legitimate wife, it is much more the rights of the children that it protects today. The swearing of an oath began by being a kind of judicial ordeal before it became simply a solemn and impressive form of attestation. The religious dogmas of Christianity have not changed for centuries, but the role they play in our modern societies is no longer the same as in the Middle Ages. Thus words serve to express new ideas without their contexture changing. Moreover, it is a proposition true in sociology as in biology, that the organ is independent of its function, i.e. while staying the same it can serve different ends. Thus the causes which give rise to its existence are independent of the ends it serves.

Yet we do not mean that the tendencies, needs and desires of men never actively intervene in social evolution. On the contrary, it is certain that, according to the way they make an impact upon the conditions on which a fact depends, they can hasten or retard development. Yet, apart from the fact that they can never create something out of nothing, their intervention itself, regardless of its effects, can only occur by virtue of efficient causes. Indeed, a tendency cannot, even to this limited extent, contribute to the production of a new phenomenon unless it is itself new, whether constituted absolutely or arising from some transformation of a previous tendency. For unless we postulate a truly providential harmony established beforehand, we could not admit that from his origins man carried within him in potential all the tendencies whose opportuneness would be felt as evolution progressed, each one ready to be awakened when the circumstances called for it. Furthermore, a tendency is also a thing; thus it cannot arise or be modified for the sole reason that we deem it useful. It is a force possessing its own nature. For that nature to come into existence or be changed, it is not enough for us to find advantage in this occurring. To effect such changes causes must come into play which require them physically.

For example, we have explained the constant development of the social division of labour by showing that it is necessary in order for man to sustain himself in the new conditions of existence in which he is placed as he advances in history. We have therefore attributed to the tendency which is somewhat improperly termed the instinct of self-preservation an important role in our explanation. But in the first place the tendency alone could not account for even the most rudimentary form of specialisation. it can accomplish nothing if the conditions on which this phenomenon depends are not already realised, that is, if individual differences have not sufficiently increased through the progressive state of indetermination of the common consciousness and hereditary influences. 3 The division of labour must even have begun already to occur for its utility to be perceived and its need to be felt. The mere development of individual differences, implying a greater diversity of tastes and abilities, had necessarily to bring about this first consequence. Moreover, the instinct of self-preservation did not come by itself and without cause to fertilise this first germ of specialisation. If it directed first itself and then us into this new path, it is because the course it followed and caused us to follow beforehand was as if blocked. This was because the greater intensity of the struggle for existence brought about by the greater concentration of societies rendered increasingly difficult the survival of those individuals who continued to devote themselves to more unspecialised tasks . Thus a change of direction was neces sary. On the other hand if it turned itself, and for preference turned our activity, towards an ever increasing division of tabour, it was also because it was the path of least resistance. The other possible solutions were emigration, suicide or crime. Now, on average, the ties that bind us to our country, to life and to feeling for our fellows are stronger and more resistant sentiments than the habits which can deter us from narrower specialisation. Thus these habits had inevitably to give ground as every advance occurred. Thus, since we are ready to allow for human needs in sociological explanations, we need not revert, even partially, to teleology. For these needs can have no influence over social evolution unless they themselves evolve, and the changes through which they pass can only be explained by causes which are in no way final.

What is even more convincing that the foregoing argument is the study of how social facts work out in practice. Where teleology rules, there rules also a fair margin of contingency, for there are no ends - and even fewer means - which necessarily influence all men, even supposing they are placed in the same circumstances. Given the same environment, each individual, according to his temperament, adapts himself to it in the way he pleases and which he prefers to all others. The one will seek to change it so that it better suits his needs; the other will prefer to change himself and to moderate his desires. Thus to arrive at the same goal, many different routes can be, and in reality are, followed. If then it were true that historical development occurred because of ends felt either clearly or obscurely, social facts would have to present an infinite diversity and all comparison would almost be impossible. But the opposite is true. Undoubtedly external events, the links between which constitute the superficial part of social life, vary from one people to another. Yet in this way each individual has his own history, although the bases of physical and social organisation remain the same for all. If, in fact, one comes even a little into contact with social phenomena, one is on the contrary surprised at the outstanding regularity with which they recur in similar circumstances. Even the most trivial and apparently most puerile practices are repeated with the most astonishing uniformity. A marriage ceremony, seemingly purely symbolic, such as the abduction of the bride-to-be, is found to be identical everywhere that a certain type of family exists, which itself is lined to a whole political organisation. The most bizarre customs, such as the 'couvade', the levirate, exogamy, etc. are to be observed in the most diverse peoples and are symptomatic of a certain social state. The right to make a will appears at a specific phase of history and, according to the severity of the restrictions which limit it, we can tell at what stage of social evolution we have arrived. It would be easy to multiply such examples. But the widespread character of collective forms would be inexplicable if final causes held in sociology the preponderance attributed to them.

Therefore when one undertakes to explain a social phenomenon the efficient cause which produces it and the function it fulfils must be investigated separately. We use the word 'function' in preference to 'end' or 'goal' precisely because social phenomena generally do not exist for the usefulness of the results they produce. We must determine whether there is a correspondence between the fact being considered and the general needs of the social organism, and in what this correspondence consists, without seeking to know whether it was intentional or not. All such questions of intention are, moreover, too subjective to be dealt with scientifically.

Not only must these two kinds of problems be dissociated from each other, but it is generally appropriate to deal with the first kind before the second. This order of precedence corresponds to that of the facts. It is natural to seek the cause of a phenomenon before attempting to determine its effects. This method is all the more logical because the first question, once resolved, will often help to answer the second. Indeed, the solid link which joins cause to effect is of a reciprocal character which has not been sufficiently recognised. Undoubtedly the effect cannot exist without its cause, but the latter, in turn, requires its effect. It is from the cause that the effect derives its energy, but on occasion it also restores energy to the cause and consequently cannot disappear without the cause 4 being affected. For example, the social reaction which constitutes punishment is due to the intensity of the collective sentiments that crime offends. On the other hand it serves the useful function of maintaining those sentiments at the same level of intensity, for they could not fail to weaken if the offences committed against 5 them remained unpunished. Likewise, as the social environment becomes more complex and unstable, traditions and accepted beliefs are shaken and take on a more indeterminate and flexible character, whilst faculties of reflection develop. These same faculties are indispensable for societies and individuals to adapt themselves to a more mobile and complex environment.6 As men are obliged to work more intensively, the products of their labour become more numerous and better in quality; but this increase in abundance and quality of the products is necessary to compensate for the effort that this more considerable labour entails .7 Thus, tar from the cause of social phenomena consisting of a mental anticipation of the function they are called upon to fulfil, this function consists on the contrary, in a number of cases at least, in maintaining the pre-existent cause from which the phenomena derive. We will therefore discover more easily the function if the cause is already known.

If we must proceed only at a second stage to the determination of the function, it is none the less necessary for the complete explanation of the phenomenon. Indeed, if the utility of a fact is not what causes its existence, it must generally be useful to continue to survive. If it lacks utility, that very reason suffices to make it harmful, since in that case it requires effort but brings in no return. Thus if the general run of social phenomena had this parasitic character, the economy of the organism would be in deficit, and social life would be impossible. Consequently to provide a satisfactory explanation of social life we need to show how the phenomena which are its substance come together to place society in harmony with itself and with the outside world. Undoubtedly the present formula which defines life as a correspondence between the internal and the external environments is only approximate. Yet in general it remains true; thus to explain a fact which is vital, it is not enough to show the cause on which it depends. We must also - at least in most cases - discover the part that it plays in the establishment of that general harmony.

Having distinguished between these two questions, we must determine the method whereby they must be resolved.

At the same time as being teleological, the method of explanation generally followed by sociologists is essentially psychological. The two tendencies are closely linked. Indeed, if society is only a system of means set up by men to achieve certain ends, these ends can only be individual, for before society existed there could only exist individuals. It is therefore from the individual that emanate the ideas and needs which have determined the formation of societies. If it is from him that everything comes, it is necessarily through him that everything must be explained. Moreover, in society there is nothing save individual consciousnesses, and it is consequently in these that is to be found the source of all social evolution. Thus sociological laws can only be a corollary of the more general laws of psychology. The ultimate explanation of collective life will consist in demonstrating how it derives from human nature in general, either by direct deduction from it without any preliminary observation, or by establishing links after having observed human nature.

These expressions are almost word for word those used by Auguste Comte to characterise his method. 'Since the social phenomenon', he asserts, 'conceived of in its totality, is only basically a simple development of humanity without any creation of faculties at all, as I have established above, the whole framework of effects that sociological observation can successively uncover will therefore necessarily be found, at least in embryo, in that primordial type which biology has constructed beforehand for sociology'.8 This is because, in his view, the dominant fact of social life is progress, and because progress furthermore depends on a factor exclusively psychical in kind: the tendency that impels man to develop his nature more and more. Social facts may even derive so immediately from human nature that, during the initial stages of history, they could be directly deduced from it without having recourse to observation.9 It is true, as Comte concedes, that it is impossible to apply this deductive method to the more advanced phases of evolution. This impossibility is purely of a practical kind. It arises because the distance from the points of departure and arrival becomes too considerable for the human mind, which, if it undertook to traverse it without a guide, would run the risk of going astray. 10 But the relationship between the basic laws of human nature and the ultimate results of progress is none the less capable of analysis. The most complex forms of civilisation are only a developed kind of psychical life. Thus, even if psychological theories cannot suffice as premises for sociological reasoning, they are the touchstone which alone permits us to test the validity of propositions inductively established. 'No law of social succession', declares Comte, 'which has been elaborated with all the authority possible by means of the historical method, should be finally accepted before it has been rationally linked, directly or indirectly, but always irrefutably, to the positivist theory of human nature.11 Psychology will therefore always have the last word.

This is likewise the method followed by Spencer. In fact, according to him, the two primary factors of social phenomena are the external environment and the physical and moral constitution of the individual.[12] Now the first factor can only influence society through the second one, which is thus the essential motivating power for social evolution. Society arises to allow the individual to realise his own nature, and all the transformations through which it has passed have no other purpose than to make this act of self-realisation easier and more complete. It is by virtue of this principle that, before proceeding to any research into social Organisation, Spencer thought it necessary to devote almost all the first volume of his Principles of Sociology to the study of primitive man from the physical, emotional and intellectual viewpoint. 'The science of sociology', he states, 'sets out with social units, conditioned as we have seen, constituted physically, emotionally and intellectually and possessed of certain early acquired notions and correlative feelings'.[13] And it is in two of these sentiments, fear of the living and fear of the dead, that he finds the origin of political and religious government.[14] It is true that he admits that once it has been constituted, society reacts upon individuals.[15] But it does not follow that society has the power to engender directly the smallest social fact; from this viewpoint it has causal effectiveness only through the mediation of the changes that it brings about in the individual. Thus it is always from human nature, whether primitive or derived, that everything arises. Moreover, the influence which the body social exerts upon its members can have nothing specific about it, since political ends are nothing in themselves, but merely the summary expression of individual ends.[16] Social influence can therefore only be a kind of consequent effect of private activity upon itself. Above all, it is not possible to see of what it may consist in industrial societies whose purpose is precisely to deliver the individual over to his natural impulses by ridding him of all social constraint.

This principle is not only at the basis of these great doctrines of general sociology, but also inspires a very great number of particular theories. Thus domestic organisation is commonly explained by the feelings that parents have for their children and vice versa; the institution of marriage by the advantages that it offers husband and wife and their descendants; punishment by the anger engendered in the individual through any serious encroachment upon his interests. The whole of economic life, as conceived of and explained by economists, particularly those of the orthodox school, hangs in the end upon a purely individual factor, the desire for wealth. If we take morality, the basis of ethics is the duties of the individual towards himself. And in religion one can see a product of the impressions that the great forces of nature or certain outstanding personalities awaken in man, etc., etc.

But such a method is not applicable to sociological phenomena unless one distorts their nature. For proof of this we need only refer to the definition we have given. Since their essential characteristic is the power they possess to exert outside pressure on individual consciousnesses, this shows that they do not derive from these consciousnesses and that consequently sociology is not a corollary of psychology. This constraining power attests to the fact that they express a nature different from our own, since they only penetrate into us by force or at the very least by bearing down more or less heavily upon us. If social life were no more than an extension of the individual, we would not see it return to its origin and invade the individual consciousness so precipitately. The authority to which the individual bows when he acts, thinks or feels socially dominates him to such a degree because it is a product of forces which transcend him and for which he consequently cannot account. It is not from within himself that can come the external pressure which he undergoes; it is therefore not what is happening within himself which can explain it. It is true that we are not incapable of placing constraints upon ourselves; we can restrain our tendencies, our habits, even our instincts, and halt their development by an act of inhibition. But inhibitive movements must not be confused with those which make up social constraint. The process of inhibitive movements is centrifugal; but the latter are centripetal. The former are worked out in the individual consciousness and then tend to manifest themselves externally; the latter are at first external to the individual, whom they tend afterwards to shape from the outside in their own image. Inhibition is, if one likes, the means by which social constraint produces its psychical effects, but is not itself that constraint.

Now, once the individual is ruled out, only society remains. It is therefore in the nature of society itself that we must seek the explanation of social life. We can conceive that, since it transcends infinitely the individual both in time and space, it is capable of imposing upon him the ways of acting and thinking that it has consecrated by its authority. This pressure, which is the distinctive sign of social facts, is that which all exert upon each individual '

But it will be argued that since the sole elements of which society is composed are individuals, the primary origin of sociological phenomena cannot be other than psychological. Reasoning in this way, we can just as easily establish that biological phenomena are explained analytically by inorganic phenomena. It is indeed certain that in the living cell there are only molecules of crude matter. But they are in association, and it is this association which is the cause of the new phenomena which characterise life, even the germ of which it is impossible to find in a single one of these associated elements. This is because the whole does not equal the sum of its parts; it is something different, whose properties differ from those displayed by the parts from which it is formed. Association is not, as has sometimes been believed, a phenomenon infertile in itself, which consists merely in juxtaposing externally facts already given and properties already constituted. On the contrary, is it not the source of all the successive innovations that have occurred in the course of the general evolution of things? What differences exist between the lower organisms and others, between the organised living creature and the mere protoplasm, between the latter and the inorganic molecules of which it is composed, if it is not differences in association? All these beings, in the last analysis, split up into elements of the same nature; but these elements are in one place juxtaposed, in another associated. Here they are associated in one way, there in another. We are even justified in wondering whether this law does not even extend to the mineral world, and whether the differences which separate inorganic bodies do not have the same origin.

By virtue of this principle, society is not the mere sum of individuals, but the system formed by their association represents a specific reality which has its own characteristics. Undoubtedly no collective entity can be produced if there are no individual consciousnesses: this is a necessary but not a sufficient condition. In addition, these consciousnesses must be associated and combined, but combined in a certain way. It is from this combination that social life arises and consequently it is this combination which explains it. By aggregating together, by interpenetrating, by fusing together, individuals give birth to a being, psychical if you will, but one which constitutes a psychical individuality of a new kind. 17 Thus it is in the nature of that individuality and not in that of its component elements that we must search for the proximate and determining causes of the facts produced in it. The group thinks, feels and acts entirely differently from the way its members would if they were isolated. If therefore we begin by studying these members separately, we will understand nothing about what is taking place in the group. In a word, there is between psychology and sociology the same break in continuity as there is between biology and the physical and chemical sciences. Consequently every time a social phenomenon is directly explained by a psychological phenomenon, we may rest assured that the explanation is false.

Some will perhaps argue that, although society, once formed, is the proximate cause of social phenomena, the causes which have determined its formation are of a psychological nature. They may concede that, when individuals are associated together, their association may give rise to a new life, but claim that this can only take place for individual reasons. But in reality, as far as one can go back in history, the fact of association is the most obligatory of all, because it is the origin of all other obligations. By reason of my birth, I am obligatorily attached to a given people. It may be said that later, once I am an adult, I acquiesce in this obligation by the mere fact that I continue to live in my own country. But what does that matter? Such acquiescence does not remove its imperative character. Pressure accepted and undergone with good grace does not cease to be pressure. Moreover, how far does such acceptance go? Firstly, it is forced, for in the immense majority of cases it is materially and morally impossible for us to shed our nationality; such a rejection is even generally declared to be apostasy. Next, the acceptance cannot relate to the past, when I was in no position to accept, but which nevertheless determines the present. I did not seek the education I received; yet this above all else roots me to my native soil. Lastly, the acceptance can have no moral value for the future, in so far as this is unknown. I do not even know all the duties which one day may be incumbent upon me in my capacity as a citizen. How then could I acquiesce in them in advance? Now, as we have shown, all that is obligatory has its origins outside the individual. Thus, provided one does not place oneself outside history, the fact of association is of the same character as the others and is consequently explicable in the same way. Furthermore, as all societies are born of other societies, with no break in continuity, we may be assured that in the whole course of social evolution there has not been a single time when individuals have really had to consult together to decide whether they would enter into collective life together, and into one sort of collective life rather than another. Such a question is only possible when we go back to the first origins of any society. But the solutions, always dubious, which can be brought to such problems could not in any case affect the method whereby the facts given in history must be treated. We have therefore no need to discuss them.

Yet our thought would be singularly misinterpreted if the conclusion was drawn from the previous remarks that sociology, in our view, should not even take into account man and his faculties. On the contrary, it is clear that the general characteristics of human nature play their part in the work of elaboration from which social life results. But it is not these which produce it or give it its special form: they only make it possible. Collective representations, emotions and tendencies have not as their causes certain states of consciousness in individuals, but the conditions under which the body social as a whole exists. Doubtless these can be realised only if individual natures are not opposed to them. But these are simply the indeterminate matter which the social factor fashions and transforms. Their contribution is made up exclusively of very general states, vague and thus malleable predispositions which of themselves could not assume the definite and complex forms which characterise social phenomena, if other agents did not intervene.

What a gulf, for example, between the feelings that man experiences when confronted with forces superior to his own and the institution of religion with its beliefs and practices, so multifarious and complicated, and its material and moral organisation! What an abyss between the psychical conditions of sympathy which two people of the same blood feel for each other, 18 and that hotchpotch of legal and moral rules which determine the structure of the family, personal relationships, and the relationship of things to persons, etc.! We have seen that even when society is reduced to an unorganised crowd, the collective sentiments which arise within it can not only be totally unlike, but even opposed to, the average sentiments of the individuals in it. How much greater still must be the gap when the pressure exerted upon the individual comes from a normal society, where, to the influence exerted by his contemporaries, is added that of previous generations and of tradition! A purely psychological explanation of social facts cannot therefore fail to miss completely all that is specific, i.e. social, about them.

What has blinkered the vision of many sociologists to the insufficiency of this method is the fact that, taking the effect for the cause, they have very often highlighted as causal conditions for social phenomena certain psychical states, relatively well defined and specific, but which in reality are the consequence of the phenomena. Thus it has been held that a certain religiosity is innate in man, as is a certain minimum of sexual jealousy, filial piety or fatherly affection, etc., and it is in these that explanations have been sought for religion, marriage and the family. But history shows that these inclinations, far from being inherent in human nature, are either completely absent under certain social conditions or vary so much from one society to another that the residue left after eliminating all these differences, and which alone can be considered of psychological origin, is reduced to something vague and schematic, infinitely removed from the facts which have to be explained. Thus these sentiments result from the collective organisation and are far from being at the basis of it. It has not even been proved at all that the tendency to sociability was originally a congenital instinct of the human race. It is much more natural to see in it a product of social life which has slowly become organised in us, because it is an observable fact that animals are sociable or otherwise, depending on whether their environmental conditions force them to live in common or cause them to shun such a life. And even then we must add that a considerable gap remains between these well determined tendencies and social reality.

Furthermore, there is a means of isolating almost entirely the psychological factor, so as to be able to measure precisely the scope of its influence: this is by seeking to determine how race affects social evolution. Ethnic characteristics are of an organic and psychical order. Social life must therefore vary as they vary, if psychological phenomena have on society the causal effectiveness attributed to them. Now we know of no social phenomenon which is unquestionably dependent on race, although we certainly cannot ascribe to this proposition the value of a law. But we can at least assert that it is a constant fact in our practical experience. Yet the most diverse forms of organisation are to be found in societies of the same race, while striking similarities are to be observed among societies of different races. The city state existed among the Phoenicians, as it did among the Romans and the Greeks; we also find it emerging among the Kabyles. The patriarchal family was almost as strongly developed among the Jews as among the Hindus, but it is not to be found among the Slavs, who are nevertheless of Aryan race. By contrast, the family type to be found among the Slavs exists also among the Arabs. The maternal family and the clan are observed everywhere. The precise nature of judicial proofs and nuptial ceremonies is no different among peoples most unlike from the ethnic viewpoint. If this is so, it is because the psychical element is too general to predetermine the course of social phenomena. Since it does not imply one social form rather than another, it cannot explain any such forms. It is true that there are a certain number of facts which it is customary to ascribe to the influence of race. Thus this, in particular, is how we explain why the development of literature and the arts was so rapid and intense in Athens, so slow and mediocre in Rome. But this interpretation of the facts, despite being the classic one, has never been systematically demonstrated. It seems to draw almost all its authority from tradition alone. We have not even reflected upon whether a sociological explanation of the same phenomena was not possible, yet we are convinced that this might be successfully attempted. In short, when we hastily attribute to aesthetic and inherited faculties the artistic nature of Athenian civilisation, we are almost proceeding as did men in the Middle Ages, when fire was explained by phlogiston and the effects of opium by its soporific powers.

Finally, if social evolution really had its origin in the psychological makeup of man, one fails to see how this could have come about. For then we would have to admit that its driving force is some internal motivation within human nature. But what might such a motivation be? Would it be that kind of instinct of which Comte speaks, which impels man to realise increasingly his own nature? But this is to reply to one question by another, explaining progress by an innate tendency to progress, a truly metaphysical entity whose existence, moreover, has in no way been demonstrated. For the animal species, even those of the highest order, are not moved in any way by a need to progress, and even among human societies there are many which are content to remain stationary indefinitely. Might it be, as Spencer seems to believe, that there is a need for greater happiness, which forms of civilisation of every increasing complexity might be destined to realise more and more completely? It would then be necessary to establish that happiness grows with civilisation, and we have explained elsewhere all the difficulties to which such a hypothesis gives rise. 19 Moreover, there is something else: even if one or other of these postulates were conceded, historical development would not thereby become more intelligible; for the explanation which might emerge from it would be purely teleological. We have shown earlier that social facts, like all natural phenomena, are not explained when we have demonstrated that they serve a purpose. After proving conclusively that a succession of social organisations in history which have become increasingly more knowledgeable have resulted in the greater satisfaction of one or other of our fundamental desires, we would not thereby have made the source of these organisations more comprehensible. The fact that they were useful does not reveal to us what brought them into existence. We might even explain how we came to conceive them, by drawing up a blueprint of them beforehand, so as to envisage the services we might expect them to render - and this is already a difficult problem. But our aspirations, which would thereby become the purpose of such organisations, would have no power to conjure them up out of nothing. In short, if we admit that they are the necessary means to attain the object we have in mind, the question remains in its entirety: How, that is to say, from what, and in what manner, have these means been constituted?

Hence we arrive at the following rule: The determining cause of a social fact must be sought among antecedent social facts and not among the states of the individual consciousness. Moreover, we can easily conceive that all that has been stated above applies to the determination of the function as well as the cause of a social fact. Its function can only be social, which means that it consists in the production of socially useful effects. Undoubtedly it can and indeed does happen that it has repercussions which also serve the individual. But this happy result is not the immediate rationale for its existence. Thus we can complement the preceding proposition by stating: The function of a social fact must always be sought in the relationship that it bears to some social end.

It is because sociologists have often failed to acknowledge this rule and have considered sociological phenomena from too psychological a viewpoint that their theories appear to many minds too vague, too ethereal and too remote from the distinctive nature of the things which sociologists believe they are explaining. The historian, in particular, who has a close contact with social reality cannot fail to feet strongly how these too general interpretations are incapable of being linked to the facts. In part, this has undoubtedly produced the mistrust that history has often manifested towards sociology. Assuredly this does not mean that the study of psychological facts is not indispensable to the sociologist. If collective life does not derive from individual life, the two are none the less closely related. If the latter cannot explain the former, it can at least render its explanation easier. Firstly, as we have shown, it is undeniably true that social facts are produced by an elaboration sui generis of psychological facts. But in addition this action is itself not dissimilar to that which occurs in each individual consciousness and which progressively transforms the primary elements (sensations, reflexes, instincts) of which the consciousness was originally made up. Not unreasonably has the claim been made that the ego is itself a society, just as is the organism, although in a different way. For a long time psychologists have demonstrated the absolute importance of the factor of association in the explanation of mental activity. Thus a psychological education, even more than a biological one, constitutes a necessary preparation for the sociologist. But it can only be of service to him if, once he has acquired it, he frees himself from it, going beyond it by adding a specifically sociological education. He must give up making psychology in some way the focal point of his operations, the point of departure to which he must always return after his adventurous incursions into the social world. He must establish himself at the very heart of social facts in order to observe and confront them totally, without any mediating factor, while calling upon the science of the individual only for a general preparation and, if needs be, for useful suggestions. [20]

Since the facts of social morphology are of the same nature as physiological phenomena, they must be explained according to the rule we have just enunciated. However, the whole of the preceding discussion shows that in collective life and, consequently, in sociological explanations, they play a preponderant role.

If the determining condition for social phenomena consists, as we have demonstrated, in the very fact of association, the phenomena must vary with the forms of that association, i.e. according to how the constituent elements in a society are grouped. Furthermore, since the distinct entity formed by the union of elements of all kinds which enter into the composition of a society constitutes its inner environment, in the same way as the totality of anatomical elements, together with the manner in which they are arranged in space, constitutes the inner environment of organisms, we may state: The primary origin of social processes of any importance must be sought in the constitution of the inner social environment.

We may be even more precise. In fact, the elements which make up this environment are of two kinds: things and persons. Apart from the material objects incorporated in the society, among things must be included the products of previous social activity the law and the customs that have been established, and literary and artistic monuments, etc. But it is plain that neither material nor non-material objects produce the impulsion that determines social transformations, because they both lack motivating power. Undoubtedly there is need to take them into account in the explanations which we attempt. To some extent they exert an influence upon social evolution whose rapidity and direction vary according to their nature. But they possess no elements essential to set that evolution in motion. They are the matter to which the vital forces of society are applied, but they do not themselves release any vital forces. Thus the specifically human environment remains as the active factor.

The principal effort of the sociologist must therefore be directed towards discovering the different properties of that environment capable of exerting some influence upon the course of social phenomena. Up to now we have found two sets of characteristics which satisfy that condition admirably. These are: firstly, the number of social units or, as we have also termed it, the 'volume' of the society; and secondly, the degree of concentration of the mass of people, or what we have called the 'dynamic density'. The latter must be understood not only as the purely physical concentration of the aggregate population, which can have no effect if individuals - or rather groups of individuals - remain isolated by moral gaps, but the moral concentration of which physical concentration is only the auxiliary element, and almost invariably the consequence. Dynamic density can be defined, if the volume remains constant, as a function of the number of individuals who are effectively engaged not only in commercial but also moral relationships with each other, i.e. who not only exchange services or compete with one another, but live their life together in common. For, since purely economic relationships leave men separated from each other, these relationships can be very active without people necessarily participating in the same collective existence. Business ties which span the boundaries which separate peoples do not make those boundaries non-existent. The common life can be affected only by the number of people who effectively co-operate in it. This is why what best expresses the dynamic density of a people is the degree to which the social segments coalesce. For if each partial aggregate forms an entity, a distinct individuality separated from the others by a barrier, it is because in general the activity of its members remains localised within it. If, on the other hand, these 'partial entities are entirely fused together, or tend to do so, within the total society, it is because the ambit of social life to this extent has been enlarged.

As for the physical density - if this is understood as not only the number of inhabitants per unit of area, but also the development of the means of communication and transmission - this is normally in proportion to the dynamic density and, in general, can serve to measure it. For if the different elements in the population tend to draw more closely together, it is inevitable that they will establish channels to allow this to occur. Furthermore, relationships can be set up between remote points of the social mass only if distance does not represent an obstacle, which means, in fact, that it must be eliminated. However, there are exceptions [21] and one would expose oneself to serious error if the moral concentration of a community were always judged according to the degree of physical concentration that it represented. Road, railways, etc. can serve commercial exchanges better than they can serve the fusion of populations, of which they can give only a very imperfect indication. This is the case in England, where the physical density is greater than in France but where the coalescence of social segments is much less advanced, as is shown by the persistence of parochialism and regional life.

We have shown elsewhere how every increase in the volume and dynamic density of societies, by making social life more intense and widening the horizons of thought and action of each individual, profoundly modifies the basic conditions of collective life. Thus we need not refer again to the application we have already made of this principle. It suffices to add that the principle was useful to us in dealing not only with the still very general question which was the object of that study, but many other more specialised problems, and that we have therefore been able to verify its accuracy already by a fair number of experiments. However, we are far from believing that we have uncovered all the special features of the social environment which can play some part in the explanation of social facts. All we can say is that these are the sole features we have identified and that we have not been led to seek out others.

But the kind of preponderance we ascribe to the social environment, and more especially to the human environment, does not imply that this should be seen as a kind of ultimate, absolute fact beyond which there is no need to explore further. On the contrary, it is plain that its state at any moment in history itself depends on social causes, some of which are inherent in society itself, while others depend on the interaction occurring between that society and its neighbours. Moreover, science knows no first causes, in the absolute sense of the term. For science a fact is primary simply when it is general enough to explain a great number of other facts. Now the social environment is certainly a factor of this kind, for the changes which arise within it, whatever the causes, have repercussions on every part of the social organism and cannot fail to affect all its functions to some degree.

What has just been said about the general social environment can be repeated for the particular environments of the special groups which society includes. For example, depending on whether the family is large or small, or more or less turned in upon itself, domestic life will differ considerably. Likewise, if professional corporations reconstitute themselves so as to spread over a whole area, instead of remaining enclosed within the confines of a city, as they formerly were, their effect will be very different from what it was previously. More generally, professional life will differ widely according to whether the environment peculiar to each occupation is strongly developed or whether its bonds are loose, as is the case today. However, the effect of these special environments cannot have the same importance as the general environment, for they are subject to the latter's influence. Thus we must always return to the general environment. It is the pressure that it exerts upon these partial groups which causes their constitution to vary.

This conception of the social environment as the determining factor in collective evolution is of the greatest importance. For if it is discarded, sociology is powerless to establish any causal relationship.

Indeed, if this order of causes is set aside, there are no concomitant conditions on which social phenomena can depend. For if the external social environment - that which is formed by neighbouring societies - is capable of exercising some influence, it is only upon the functions of attack and defence; moreover, it can only make its influence felt through the mediation of the internal social environment. The principal causes of historical development would not therefore be found among the circumfusa (external influences). They would all be found in the past. They would themselves form part of that development, constituting simply more remote phases of it. The contemporary events of social life would not derive from the present state of society, but from prior events and historical precedents, and sociological explanations would consist exclusively in linking the present to the past.

It is true that this may seem sufficient. Is it not commonly said that the purpose of history is precisely to link up events in their sequence? But it is impossible to conceive how the state which civilisation has attained at any given time could be the determining cause of the state which follows. The stages through which humanity successively passes do not engender each other. We can well understand how the progress realised in a given era in the fields of law, economics and politics, etc., makes fresh progress possible, but how does the one predetermine the other? The progress realised is a point of departure which allows us to proceed further, but what stimulates us to further progress? We would have to concede that there was a certain inner tendency which impels humanity constantly to go beyond the results already achieved, either to realise itself more fully or to increase its happiness, and the purpose of sociology would be to rediscover the order in which this tendency has developed. But without alluding afresh to the difficulties which such a hypothesis implies, in any case a law to express this development could not be in any sense causal. A relationship of causality can in fact only be established between two given facts. But this tendency, presumed to be the cause of development, is not something that is given. It is only postulated as a mental construct according to the effects attributed to it. It is a kind of motivating faculty which we imagine as underlying the movement which occurs, in order to account for it. But the efficient cause of a movement can only be another movement, not a potentiality of this kind. Thus all that we can arrive at experimentally is in point of fact a series of changes between which there exists no causal link. The antecedent state does not produce the subsequent one, but the relationship between them is exclusively chronological. In these conditions any scientific prediction is thus impossible. We can certainly say how things have succeeded each other up the present, but not in what order they will follow subsequently, because the cause on which they supposedly depend is not scientifically determined, nor can it be so determined. It is true that normally it is accepted that evolution will proceed in the same direction as in the past, but this is a mere supposition. We have no assurance that the facts as they have hitherto manifested themselves are a sufficiently complete expression of this tendency. Thus we are unable to forecast the goal towards which they are moving in the light, of the stages through which they have already successively passed. There is no reason to suppose that the direction this tendency follows even traces out a straight line.

This is why the number of causal relationships established by sociologists is so limited. Apart from a few exceptions, among whom Montesquieu is the most illustrious example, the former philosophy of history concentrated solely on discovering the general direction in which humanity was proceeding, without seeking to link the phases of that evolution to any concomitant condition. Despite the great services Comte has rendered to social philosophy, the terms in which he poses the sociological problem do not differ from those of his predecessors. Thus his celebrated law of the three stages has not the slightest causal relationship about it. Even if it were true, it is, and can only be, empirical. It is a summary review of the past history of the human race. It is purely arbitrary for Comte to consider the third stage to be the definitive stage of humanity. Who can say whether another will not arise in the future.? Similarly, the law which dominates the sociology of Spencer appears to be no different in nature. Even if it were true that we at present seek our happiness in an industrial civilisation, there is no assurance that, at a later era, we shall not seek it elsewhere. The generality and persistence of this method is due to the fact that very often the social environment has been perceived as a means whereby progress has been realised, and not the cause which determines it.

Furthermore, it is also in relationship to this same environment that must be measured the utilitarian value, or as we have stated it, the function of social phenomena. Among the changes caused by the environment, those are useful which are in harmony with the existing state of society, since the environment is the essential condition for collective existence. Again, from this viewpoint the conception we have just expounded is, we believe, fundamental, for it alone allows an explanation of how the useful character of social phenomena can vary without depending on arbitrary factors. If historical evolution is envisaged as being moved by a kind of vis a tergo (vital urge) which impels men forward, since a dynamic tendency can have only a single goal, there can exist only one reference point from which to calculate the utility or harmfulness of social phenomena. It follows that there exists, and can only exist, a single type of social organisation which fits humanity perfectly, and the different societies of history are only successive approximations to that single model. It is unnecessary to show how such a simplistic view is today irreconcilable with the acknowledged variety and complexity of social forms. If on the other hand the suitability or unsuitability of institutions can only be established in relation to a given environment, since these environments are diverse, a diversity of reference points thus exists, and consequently a diversity of types which, whilst each being qualitatively distinct, are all equally grounded in the nature of the social environment.

The question just dealt with is therefore closely connected to the constitution of social types. If there are social species, it is because collective life depends above all on concomitant conditions which present a certain diversity. If, on the contrary, the main causes of social events were all in the past, every people would be no more than the extension of the one preceding it, and different societies would lose their individuality, becoming no more than various moments in time of one and the same development. On the other hand, since the constitution of the social environment results from the mode in which the social aggregates come together - and the two phrases are in the end synonymous - we have now the proof that there are no characteristics more essential than those we have assigned as the basis for sociological classification.

Finally, we should now realise better than before how unjust it would be to rely on the terms 'external conditions' and 'environment' to serve as an indictment of our method, and seek the sources of life outside what is already alive. On the contrary, the considerations just mentioned lead us back to the idea that the causes of social phenomena are internal to the society. It is much rather the theory which seeks to derive society from the individual that could be justly reproached with seeking to deduce the internal from the external (since it explains the social being by something other than itself) and the greater from the lesser (since it undertakes to deduce the whole from the part). Our own preceding principles in no way fail to acknowledge the spontaneous character of every living creature: thus, if they are applied to biology and psychology, it will have to be admitted that individual life as well develops wholly within the individual.

IV
From the set of rules which has just been established, there arises a certain conception of society and collective life.

Two opposing theories divide men on this question.

For some, such as Hobbes and Rousseau, there is a break in continuity between the individual and society. Man is therefore obdurate to the common life and can only resign himself to it if forced to do so. Social ends are not simply the meeting point for individual ends; they are more likely to run counter to then. Thus, to induce the individual to pursue social ends, constraint must be exercised upon him, and it in the institution and organisation of this constraint that lies the supreme task of society. Yet because the individual is regarded as the sole and unique reality of the human kingdom, this organisation, which is designed to constrain and contain him, can only be conceived of as artificial. The organisation is not grounded in nature, since it is intended to inflict violence upon him by preventing him from producing anti-social consequences. It is an artifact, a machine wholly constructed by the hands of men and which, like all products of this kind, is only what it is because men have willed it so; an act of volition created it, another one can transform it. Neither Hobbes nor Rousseau appear to have noticed the complete contradiction that exists in admitting that the individual is himself the creator of a machine whose essential role is to exercise domination and constraint over him. Alternatively, it may have seemed to them that, in order to get rid of this contradiction, it was sufficient to conceal it from the eyes of its victims by the skilful device of the social contract.

It is from the opposing idea that the theoreticians of natural law and the economists, and more recently Spencer,[22] have drawn their inspiration. For them social life is essentially spontaneous and society is a natural thing. But, if they bestow this characteristic upon it, it is not because they acknowledge it has any specific nature, but because they find a basis for it in the nature of the individual. No more than the two thinkers already mentioned do they see in it a system of things which exists in itself, by virtue of causes peculiar to itself. But while Hobbes and Rousseau only conceived it as a conventional arrangement, with no link at all in reality, which, so to speak, is suspended in air, they in turn state its foundations to be the fundamental instincts of the human heart. Man is naturally inclined to political, domestic and religious life, and to commercial exchanges, etc., and it is from these natural inclinations that social organisation is derived. Consequently, wherever it is normal, there is no need to impose it by force. Whenever it resorts to constraint it is because it is not what it ought to be, or because the circumstances are abnormal. In principle, if individual forces are left to develop untrammelled they will organise themselves socially

Neither of these doctrines is one we share.

Doubtless we make constraint the characteristic trait of every social fact. Yet this constraint does not arise from some sort of artful machination destined to conceal from men the snares into which they have stumbled. It is simply due to the fact that the individual finds himself in the presence of a force which dominates him and to which he must bow. But this force is a natural one. It is not derived from some conventional arrangement which the human will has contrived, adding it on to what is real; it springs from the heart of reality itself; it is the necessary product of given causes. Thus to induce the individual to submit to it absolutely of his own free will, there is no need to resort to deception. It is sufficient to make him aware of his natural state of dependence and inferiority. Through religion he represents this state to himself by the senses or symbolically; through science he arrives at an adequate and precise notion of it. Because the superiority that society has over him is not merely physical, but intellectual and moral, it need fear no critical examination, provided this is fairly undertaken. Reflection which causes man to understand how much richer or more complex and permanent the social being is than the individual being, can only reveal to him reasons to make comprehensible the subordination which is required of him and for the feelings of attachment and respect which habit has implanted within him.[23]

Thus only singularly superficial criticism could lay us open to the reproach that our conception of social constraint propagates anew the theories of Hobbes and Machiavelli. But if, contrary to these philosophers, we say that social life is natural, it is not because we find its origin in the nature of the individual; it is because it derives directly from the collective being which is, of itself, a nature sul . generis; it is because it arises from that special process of elaboration which individual consciousnesses undergo through their association with each other and whence evolves a new form of existence.[24] If therefore we recognise with some authorities that social life presents itself to the individual under the form of constraint, we admit with others that it is a spontaneous product of reality. What logically joins these two elements, in appearance contradictory, is that the reality from which social life emanates goes beyond the individual. Thus these words, 'constraint' and ,spontaneity', have not in our terminology the respective meanings that Hobbes gives to the former and Spencer to the second.

To summarise: to most of the attempts that have been made to explain social facts rationally, the possible objection was either that they did away with any idea of social discipline, or that they only succeeded in maintaining it with the assistance of deceptive subterfuges. The rules we have set out would, on the other hand, allow a sociology to be constructed which would see in the spirit of discipline the essential condition for all common life, while at the same time founding it on reason and truth.