STALIN’S ‘ECONOMIC PROBLEMS OF SOCIALISM’ AND REVISIONISM
John B. Green.
Pseudo-leftists claim, falsely, that Stalin told the world proletariat in 1952 (in ‘Economic Problems of Socialism’) that the Soviet States would overtake capitalism because capitalism was incapable of further expansion and that all that was required was for the international working class to live in peaceful co-existence with capitalism to achieve the victory. This pamphlet addresses these arguments.
Economic expansion and contraction.
Stalin writes of the cooperation between the newly socialist countries and observes:
"It may confidently be said that, with this pace of industrial development, it will soon come to pass that these countries will not only be in no need of imports from capitalist countries, but will themselves feel the necessity of finding an outside market for their surplus products.
But it follows from this that the sphere of exploitation of the world's resources by the major capitalist countries (U.S.A., Britain France) will not expand, but contract..."( Stalin, 'Economic Problems of Socialism').
In 1952, it was correct to point out that the socialist countries had enlarged their sphere, with the post-war gains of Eastern Europe. Capitalism had lost these markets. The Soviet Union and China were gaining in economic strength. Capitalism was feeling the loss of such huge markets. Thus in 1952 this observation was entirely justified. However, Stalin died a year later and the Krushchevite revisionists assumed power, steering a different course.
In 1952 the socialist countries were, as Stalin pointed out, expanding their economic sphere. The capitalist countries had lost markets and were continuing to lose markets and thus contracting. It is absurd to argue that the sphere of exploitation of the world's resources by the major capitalist countries did not in fact contract for a time in the fifties. This had begun with a number of eastern European countries joining the 'Soviet' economic bloc, which for a time resulted in a contraction of the capitalist economic sphere and the expansion of the socialist economic sphere including the development of China and the Soviet Union. Stalin is plainly correct.
Of course, capitalism has its cycles of boom, bust, and boom again, punctuated by wars. But Stalin was writing specifically of the new situation with regard to the newly developing Socialist bloc.
Stalin says in 'Economic Problems' that his previous formulation about the stability of capitalist markets was no longer valid, in view of changed global economic circumstances.
Capitalism started to recover some years after the Second World War. In the long term, capitalism established markets even in the "socialist" countries. But Stalin was a Marxist-Leninist, not a crystal ball gazer. Subsequent developments (including the ascendancy of revisionists in the socialist countries) led to further changes in the global economy. These changes would rightly have been reflected in later theory. To argue, as the pseudo-leftists do, that Stalin was wrong in view of much later developments, is absurd. Was Lenin wrong, for example, to opt for revolution, and the Mensheviks right, given that a few short decades later Russia is avowedly capitalist? Of course not. Circumstances changed after the death of Stalin.
The economic course steered by the revisionists after the death of Stalin is fully described on the Communist Party Alliance web site www.oneparty.org.uk in the book The Restoration of Capitalism In the Soviet Union by W.B. Bland. The revisionist policies incuded the abolition of socialist economic planning and the introduction of a "socialist" market, capitalist policies which were favourable to the expansion of capitalism and demanded a reappraisal of prospects at that point in time in terms of Marxist-Leninist theory. Stalin was correct to see the existing situation and extrapolated correctly from it. In fact, the tendency of capitalism to contract continued for a time into the future, after Stalin was dead.
Stalin was not referring to the far future or over decades, since he (like everyone else) had no crystal ball and could not predict every event to come. Theory will always change as world events move on.
However, Stalin was right. The problem is that pseudo-leftists and other non-dialectical thinkers ascribe ideas to Stalin he never intended, they misrepresent ideas because they fail to understand them and give them a time-frame they never had.
Stalin was not looking into a crystal ball, prophesying the far future, he was identifying a trend.
The claim that Stalin promoted revisionist 'Peaceful Co-existence'
Stalin nowhere put forward (and certainly not in 'Economic Problems') a policy of the working class living in ‘peaceful coexistence’ with capitalism. On the contrary, in 'Economic Problems' Stalin argues that imperialist wars are inevitable (hardly an argument for the proletariat to sit back and wait) and he also argues that the working class should not delay, but should utilize any favourable conditions to seize power.
Peaceful coexistence' was a policy formulated by V. I. Lenin. It did NOT relate to 'peaceful coexistence' between the working class and the capitalists. It meant that a socialist country would seek to establish peaceful coexistence with non-socialist states. This would lead to diplomatic and certain trading relations with the non-socialist world. This was the Leninist policy that Stalin supported.
After the death of Stalin in 1953, the Khrushchevites sought to impose their revisionist interpretation of peaceful co-existence on the international communist movement. Where for Marxist-Leninists, including Stalin, peaceful co-existence was a relation between states, the Soviet revisionists changed this policy to mean peace between exploited and exploiter classes within states, and peace between oppressed and oppressor nations in international relations.
The Peace Movement: Stalin on the inevitability of wars.
The pseudo-leftists assert, falsely, that Stalin in ‘Economic Problems’ had put forward a policy recommending that the working class should live in "peaceful coexistence" with capitalism because "capitalism was incapable of expanding". But we need do little more than read pages 35-37, 3 pages of the little pamphlet, to refute these claims.
The following is from ‘Economic Problems of Socialism’, pp 36-37 (the bold is my emphasis):
"But it follows from this that the inevitability of wars between capitalist countries remains in force.
It is said that Lenin's thesis that imperialism inevitably generates war must now be regarded as obsolete, since powerful popular forces have come forward today in defence of peace and against another world war. That is not true.
The object of the present-day peace movement is to rouse the masses of the people to fight for the preservation of peace and for the prevention of another world war. Consequently, the aim of this movement is not to overthrow capitalism and establish socialism -- it confines itself to the democratic aim of preserving peace. In this respect, the present-day peace movement differs from the movement of the time of the First World War for the conversion of the imperialist war into civil war, since the latter movement went farther and pursued socialist aims.
It is possible that in a definite conjuncture of circumstances the fight for peace will develop here or there into a fight for socialism. But then it will no longer be the present-day peace movement; it will be a movement for the overthrow of capitalism.
What is most likely is that the present-day peace movement, as a movement for the preservation of peace, will, if it succeeds, result in preventing a particular war, in its temporary postponement, in the temporary preservation of a particular peace, in the resignation of a bellicose government and its supersession by another that is prepared temporarily to keep the peace. That, of course, will be good. Even very good. But, all the same, it will not be enough to eliminate the inevitability of wars between capitalist countries generally. It will not be enough, because, for all the successes of the peace movement, imperialism will remain, continue in force -- and, consequently, the inevitability of wars will also continue in force.
To eliminate the inevitability of war, it is necessary to abolish imperialism."
Precisely: the "present-day" (1950s) peace movement is not enough. It is necessary to abolish imperialism. The "present-day" peace movement cannot achieve that. Stalin in this passage is clearly not referring to the communist movement; it is a mistake to identify the communist movement of the 50's with the "peace movement". I think this is the mistake the pseudo-left is making. They generally use this quote to attempt to justify the incorrect pseudo-left position about Stalin’s concept of "peaceful coexistence".
"It is necessary to abolish imperialism", says Stalin. Yes, indeed. The communist movement, for Stalin and for all Marxist-Leninists, exists TO ABOLISH CAPITALISM. The peace movement was, as it is today, a different story, as was explained by Stalin in the passage from ‘Economic Problems’ to which I am drawing your attention.
Stalin's assessment of Capitalism in 1952 was not wrong. But neither was Stalin trying to foist a policy that the proletariat should live in "peaceful coexistence" with capitalism. It is an allegation regularly put forward by the class enemy, and it must be challenged when put forward by the petit bourgeoisie, social democracy, Trotskyists and pseudo-leftists.
In the passage given above, Stalin is in fact arguing that the peace movement, EVEN IF it succeeded, could AT BEST prevent a particular war (i.e. not the one round the corner), postpone it temporarily etc. etc. He is in fact arguing here that the peace movement CANNOT prevent imperialist war. Stalin was absolutely unambiguous on this.
Stalin wrote this about wars in the same work:
"Some comrades hold that, owing to the development of new international conditions since the Second World War, wars between capitalist countries have ceased to be inevitable. … These comrades are mistaken."
Stalin made public his views on the inevitability of imperialist wars in his dispute with Dimitrov, who argued that war was no longer inevitable. Stalin's arguments in 'Economic Problems of Socialism' were part of his dispute against this faction.
The pseudo-leftist interpretation that in this book Stalin was not giving an unambiguous warning that it is impossible to prevent war is a false reading based on pseudo-left prejudice.
The section quoted is intended to show that the peace movement was a limited movement, with limited aims. Not to recommend that the Communists should confine themselves to those aims! This intention is lucidly clear to any unbiased reader.
The pseudo-leftists claim that Stalin in ‘Economic Problems’ is talking to the 'communist democratic peace movement' of which the British CP was a leading part. (I note they say "a" leading part). What kind of argument is this? Did that fact make the British peace movement, not to say the world peace movement, a communist organisation? OF COURSE NOT! Stalin is actually telling us this in the passage cited. Of course the Communist movement and the "present-day peace movement" were NOT one and the same thing. And Stalin is warning of the limits of the peace movement and the inevitability of wars.
The Lie that Stalin Advocated 'Peaceful Transition' to Socialism.
"The dictatorship of the proletariat cannot arise as the result of the peaceful development of bourgeois society...; it can arise only as the result of the smashing of the bourgeois state machine, the bourgeois army, the bourgeois bureaucratic apparatus, the bourgeois police...
In other words, the law of violent proletarian revolution, the law of the smashing of the bourgeois state machine as a preliminary condition for such a revolution, is an inevitable law of the revolutionary movement in the imperialist countries of the world."
(J.V. Stalin: "The Foundations of Leninism", in: Works, Volume 6; Moscow; 1953; pp. 119, 121.)
Stalin was also clear on the type of party required to achieve this "smashing of the bourgeois state machine":
"... the necessity for a new party, a militant party, a revolutionary party, one bold enough to lead the proletariat in the struggle for power...
(J.V. Stalin: ibid.; p. 177.)
The view that Stalin advocated a "peaceful transition" is a lie based on pseudo-left prejudice.
For Stalin, there were no "campaigns of confusion". He was explicit in writing of "the law of violent proletarian revolution ... in the imperialist countries of the world". It is in this context that we can understand that "It is necessary to abolish imperialism".
The ‘British Road To Socialism’.
The publication in 1951 of 'The British Road to Socialism' -- which preached that socialism could be established in Britain through 'parliamentary democracy' -- marked the open transition of the Communist Party of Great Britain from Marxism-Leninism to revisionism.
The BRS was first issued in finished form by the CPGB executive committee in 1951, with an amended form adopted at the 22nd Congress in 1952.
It stated the ridiculous and revisionist view that:
"...it is possible to see how the people will move towards Socialism without further revolution, without the dictatorship of the proletariat"
Both supporters and detractors of the British Road to Socialism in the fifties maintained that it had been approved. It was published in full in Pravda, but there is evidence that Stalin criticised it. He is quoted as calling it "too timid", that it was not critical enough of the British Labour Party which he described as the left wing of the Conservative Party.
There remains no evidence of support by Stalin of the BRS.
Did the revisionists 'pop out of thin air’ in Moscow?
Pseudo-leftists allege that there was no trace of a revisionist movement opposing Stalin and Marxist-Leninists in Stalin’s lifetime.
However, struggles took place between the revisionists and the Marxist-Leninists in the leadership of the CPSU from the 1930s. Stalin and the Marxist-Leninists were not always in the majority.
For example, in the early 1940s, the economists Eugen Varga and Nikolai Voznsensky both published books openly espousing revisionist programmes, and both were quickly slapped down by the Marxist-Leninists.
On this matter, Bill Bland raised a number of questions and suggested an answer:
Why did Stalin, who played such an active role in the international communist movement in the 1920s, cease to do so after 1926?
Why did the publication of Stalin's works, scheduled for sixteen volumes, cease with Volume 13 in 1949, four years before his death?
Why was Stalin not asked to deliver the report of the Central Committee to the 19th Congress in 1952?
Why were Stalin's last writings confined to subjects like linguistics and the critique of a proposed textbook on economics -- subjects which might be considered harmless to concealed revisionists had not Stalin turned them into attacks on revisionist ideas?
Because for some years before his death, Stalin and his fellow Marxist-Leninists did not hold the majority in the leadership of the Soviet Union.
The revisionists did not "pop out of thin air", they were engaged in a (usually concealed) struggle within the leadership and emerged after Stalin's death.
The argument that attributes the origin of revisionist policies to Stalin, put forward by pseudo-leftists and trotskyites, is a simplistic one. It is also a comfortable thing, putting these gentle critics in a lot of warm agreement with the imperialist bourgeoisie. Only the anti-revisionists, Marxist-Leninists, can explain how the Soviet Union came to be betrayed by revisionism.
John B. Green.
Communist Party Alliance.
Pseudo-leftists claim, falsely, that Stalin told the world proletariat in 1952 (in ‘Economic Problems of Socialism’) that the Soviet States would overtake capitalism because capitalism was incapable of further expansion and that all that was required was for the international working class to live in peaceful co-existence with capitalism to achieve the victory. This pamphlet addresses these arguments.
Economic expansion and contraction.
Stalin writes of the cooperation between the newly socialist countries and observes:
"It may confidently be said that, with this pace of industrial development, it will soon come to pass that these countries will not only be in no need of imports from capitalist countries, but will themselves feel the necessity of finding an outside market for their surplus products.
But it follows from this that the sphere of exploitation of the world's resources by the major capitalist countries (U.S.A., Britain France) will not expand, but contract..."( Stalin, 'Economic Problems of Socialism').
In 1952, it was correct to point out that the socialist countries had enlarged their sphere, with the post-war gains of Eastern Europe. Capitalism had lost these markets. The Soviet Union and China were gaining in economic strength. Capitalism was feeling the loss of such huge markets. Thus in 1952 this observation was entirely justified. However, Stalin died a year later and the Krushchevite revisionists assumed power, steering a different course.
In 1952 the socialist countries were, as Stalin pointed out, expanding their economic sphere. The capitalist countries had lost markets and were continuing to lose markets and thus contracting. It is absurd to argue that the sphere of exploitation of the world's resources by the major capitalist countries did not in fact contract for a time in the fifties. This had begun with a number of eastern European countries joining the 'Soviet' economic bloc, which for a time resulted in a contraction of the capitalist economic sphere and the expansion of the socialist economic sphere including the development of China and the Soviet Union. Stalin is plainly correct.
Of course, capitalism has its cycles of boom, bust, and boom again, punctuated by wars. But Stalin was writing specifically of the new situation with regard to the newly developing Socialist bloc.
Stalin says in 'Economic Problems' that his previous formulation about the stability of capitalist markets was no longer valid, in view of changed global economic circumstances.
Capitalism started to recover some years after the Second World War. In the long term, capitalism established markets even in the "socialist" countries. But Stalin was a Marxist-Leninist, not a crystal ball gazer. Subsequent developments (including the ascendancy of revisionists in the socialist countries) led to further changes in the global economy. These changes would rightly have been reflected in later theory. To argue, as the pseudo-leftists do, that Stalin was wrong in view of much later developments, is absurd. Was Lenin wrong, for example, to opt for revolution, and the Mensheviks right, given that a few short decades later Russia is avowedly capitalist? Of course not. Circumstances changed after the death of Stalin.
The economic course steered by the revisionists after the death of Stalin is fully described on the Communist Party Alliance web site www.oneparty.org.uk in the book The Restoration of Capitalism In the Soviet Union by W.B. Bland. The revisionist policies incuded the abolition of socialist economic planning and the introduction of a "socialist" market, capitalist policies which were favourable to the expansion of capitalism and demanded a reappraisal of prospects at that point in time in terms of Marxist-Leninist theory. Stalin was correct to see the existing situation and extrapolated correctly from it. In fact, the tendency of capitalism to contract continued for a time into the future, after Stalin was dead.
Stalin was not referring to the far future or over decades, since he (like everyone else) had no crystal ball and could not predict every event to come. Theory will always change as world events move on.
However, Stalin was right. The problem is that pseudo-leftists and other non-dialectical thinkers ascribe ideas to Stalin he never intended, they misrepresent ideas because they fail to understand them and give them a time-frame they never had.
Stalin was not looking into a crystal ball, prophesying the far future, he was identifying a trend.
The claim that Stalin promoted revisionist 'Peaceful Co-existence'
Stalin nowhere put forward (and certainly not in 'Economic Problems') a policy of the working class living in ‘peaceful coexistence’ with capitalism. On the contrary, in 'Economic Problems' Stalin argues that imperialist wars are inevitable (hardly an argument for the proletariat to sit back and wait) and he also argues that the working class should not delay, but should utilize any favourable conditions to seize power.
Peaceful coexistence' was a policy formulated by V. I. Lenin. It did NOT relate to 'peaceful coexistence' between the working class and the capitalists. It meant that a socialist country would seek to establish peaceful coexistence with non-socialist states. This would lead to diplomatic and certain trading relations with the non-socialist world. This was the Leninist policy that Stalin supported.
After the death of Stalin in 1953, the Khrushchevites sought to impose their revisionist interpretation of peaceful co-existence on the international communist movement. Where for Marxist-Leninists, including Stalin, peaceful co-existence was a relation between states, the Soviet revisionists changed this policy to mean peace between exploited and exploiter classes within states, and peace between oppressed and oppressor nations in international relations.
The Peace Movement: Stalin on the inevitability of wars.
The pseudo-leftists assert, falsely, that Stalin in ‘Economic Problems’ had put forward a policy recommending that the working class should live in "peaceful coexistence" with capitalism because "capitalism was incapable of expanding". But we need do little more than read pages 35-37, 3 pages of the little pamphlet, to refute these claims.
The following is from ‘Economic Problems of Socialism’, pp 36-37 (the bold is my emphasis):
"But it follows from this that the inevitability of wars between capitalist countries remains in force.
It is said that Lenin's thesis that imperialism inevitably generates war must now be regarded as obsolete, since powerful popular forces have come forward today in defence of peace and against another world war. That is not true.
The object of the present-day peace movement is to rouse the masses of the people to fight for the preservation of peace and for the prevention of another world war. Consequently, the aim of this movement is not to overthrow capitalism and establish socialism -- it confines itself to the democratic aim of preserving peace. In this respect, the present-day peace movement differs from the movement of the time of the First World War for the conversion of the imperialist war into civil war, since the latter movement went farther and pursued socialist aims.
It is possible that in a definite conjuncture of circumstances the fight for peace will develop here or there into a fight for socialism. But then it will no longer be the present-day peace movement; it will be a movement for the overthrow of capitalism.
What is most likely is that the present-day peace movement, as a movement for the preservation of peace, will, if it succeeds, result in preventing a particular war, in its temporary postponement, in the temporary preservation of a particular peace, in the resignation of a bellicose government and its supersession by another that is prepared temporarily to keep the peace. That, of course, will be good. Even very good. But, all the same, it will not be enough to eliminate the inevitability of wars between capitalist countries generally. It will not be enough, because, for all the successes of the peace movement, imperialism will remain, continue in force -- and, consequently, the inevitability of wars will also continue in force.
To eliminate the inevitability of war, it is necessary to abolish imperialism."
Precisely: the "present-day" (1950s) peace movement is not enough. It is necessary to abolish imperialism. The "present-day" peace movement cannot achieve that. Stalin in this passage is clearly not referring to the communist movement; it is a mistake to identify the communist movement of the 50's with the "peace movement". I think this is the mistake the pseudo-left is making. They generally use this quote to attempt to justify the incorrect pseudo-left position about Stalin’s concept of "peaceful coexistence".
"It is necessary to abolish imperialism", says Stalin. Yes, indeed. The communist movement, for Stalin and for all Marxist-Leninists, exists TO ABOLISH CAPITALISM. The peace movement was, as it is today, a different story, as was explained by Stalin in the passage from ‘Economic Problems’ to which I am drawing your attention.
Stalin's assessment of Capitalism in 1952 was not wrong. But neither was Stalin trying to foist a policy that the proletariat should live in "peaceful coexistence" with capitalism. It is an allegation regularly put forward by the class enemy, and it must be challenged when put forward by the petit bourgeoisie, social democracy, Trotskyists and pseudo-leftists.
In the passage given above, Stalin is in fact arguing that the peace movement, EVEN IF it succeeded, could AT BEST prevent a particular war (i.e. not the one round the corner), postpone it temporarily etc. etc. He is in fact arguing here that the peace movement CANNOT prevent imperialist war. Stalin was absolutely unambiguous on this.
Stalin wrote this about wars in the same work:
"Some comrades hold that, owing to the development of new international conditions since the Second World War, wars between capitalist countries have ceased to be inevitable. … These comrades are mistaken."
Stalin made public his views on the inevitability of imperialist wars in his dispute with Dimitrov, who argued that war was no longer inevitable. Stalin's arguments in 'Economic Problems of Socialism' were part of his dispute against this faction.
The pseudo-leftist interpretation that in this book Stalin was not giving an unambiguous warning that it is impossible to prevent war is a false reading based on pseudo-left prejudice.
The section quoted is intended to show that the peace movement was a limited movement, with limited aims. Not to recommend that the Communists should confine themselves to those aims! This intention is lucidly clear to any unbiased reader.
The pseudo-leftists claim that Stalin in ‘Economic Problems’ is talking to the 'communist democratic peace movement' of which the British CP was a leading part. (I note they say "a" leading part). What kind of argument is this? Did that fact make the British peace movement, not to say the world peace movement, a communist organisation? OF COURSE NOT! Stalin is actually telling us this in the passage cited. Of course the Communist movement and the "present-day peace movement" were NOT one and the same thing. And Stalin is warning of the limits of the peace movement and the inevitability of wars.
The Lie that Stalin Advocated 'Peaceful Transition' to Socialism.
"The dictatorship of the proletariat cannot arise as the result of the peaceful development of bourgeois society...; it can arise only as the result of the smashing of the bourgeois state machine, the bourgeois army, the bourgeois bureaucratic apparatus, the bourgeois police...
In other words, the law of violent proletarian revolution, the law of the smashing of the bourgeois state machine as a preliminary condition for such a revolution, is an inevitable law of the revolutionary movement in the imperialist countries of the world."
(J.V. Stalin: "The Foundations of Leninism", in: Works, Volume 6; Moscow; 1953; pp. 119, 121.)
Stalin was also clear on the type of party required to achieve this "smashing of the bourgeois state machine":
"... the necessity for a new party, a militant party, a revolutionary party, one bold enough to lead the proletariat in the struggle for power...
(J.V. Stalin: ibid.; p. 177.)
The view that Stalin advocated a "peaceful transition" is a lie based on pseudo-left prejudice.
For Stalin, there were no "campaigns of confusion". He was explicit in writing of "the law of violent proletarian revolution ... in the imperialist countries of the world". It is in this context that we can understand that "It is necessary to abolish imperialism".
The ‘British Road To Socialism’.
The publication in 1951 of 'The British Road to Socialism' -- which preached that socialism could be established in Britain through 'parliamentary democracy' -- marked the open transition of the Communist Party of Great Britain from Marxism-Leninism to revisionism.
The BRS was first issued in finished form by the CPGB executive committee in 1951, with an amended form adopted at the 22nd Congress in 1952.
It stated the ridiculous and revisionist view that:
"...it is possible to see how the people will move towards Socialism without further revolution, without the dictatorship of the proletariat"
Both supporters and detractors of the British Road to Socialism in the fifties maintained that it had been approved. It was published in full in Pravda, but there is evidence that Stalin criticised it. He is quoted as calling it "too timid", that it was not critical enough of the British Labour Party which he described as the left wing of the Conservative Party.
There remains no evidence of support by Stalin of the BRS.
Did the revisionists 'pop out of thin air’ in Moscow?
Pseudo-leftists allege that there was no trace of a revisionist movement opposing Stalin and Marxist-Leninists in Stalin’s lifetime.
However, struggles took place between the revisionists and the Marxist-Leninists in the leadership of the CPSU from the 1930s. Stalin and the Marxist-Leninists were not always in the majority.
For example, in the early 1940s, the economists Eugen Varga and Nikolai Voznsensky both published books openly espousing revisionist programmes, and both were quickly slapped down by the Marxist-Leninists.
On this matter, Bill Bland raised a number of questions and suggested an answer:
Why did Stalin, who played such an active role in the international communist movement in the 1920s, cease to do so after 1926?
Why did the publication of Stalin's works, scheduled for sixteen volumes, cease with Volume 13 in 1949, four years before his death?
Why was Stalin not asked to deliver the report of the Central Committee to the 19th Congress in 1952?
Why were Stalin's last writings confined to subjects like linguistics and the critique of a proposed textbook on economics -- subjects which might be considered harmless to concealed revisionists had not Stalin turned them into attacks on revisionist ideas?
Because for some years before his death, Stalin and his fellow Marxist-Leninists did not hold the majority in the leadership of the Soviet Union.
The revisionists did not "pop out of thin air", they were engaged in a (usually concealed) struggle within the leadership and emerged after Stalin's death.
The argument that attributes the origin of revisionist policies to Stalin, put forward by pseudo-leftists and trotskyites, is a simplistic one. It is also a comfortable thing, putting these gentle critics in a lot of warm agreement with the imperialist bourgeoisie. Only the anti-revisionists, Marxist-Leninists, can explain how the Soviet Union came to be betrayed by revisionism.
John B. Green.
Communist Party Alliance.
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