From Stalin to Khrushchev-Ludo Martens

Khrushchev and the pacific counter-revolution

After Beria's execution, Khrushchev became the most important figure in the Presidium. At the Twentieth Congress, in February 1956, he completely reversed the ideological and political line of the Party. He noisily announced that `Leninist democracy' and `collective leadership' were re-restablished, but he more or less imposed his Secret Report about Stalin on the other members of the Presidium. According to Molotov:

`When Khrushchev read his report to the Twentieth Congress, I had already been maneuvered into a dead-end. I have often been asked, why, during the Twentieth Congress, did you not speak out against Khrushchev? The Party was not ready for that. By staying in the Party, I hoped that we could partially redress the situation'.

Chueva, op. cit. , p. 350.

The struggle between the two lines, between Marxism-Leninism and bourgeois tendencies, never ceased, right from October 25, 1917. With Khrushchev, the power relationship was reversed and opportunism, fought and repressed up to then, took over the leadership of the Party. Revisionism took advantage of this position to liquidate, bit by bit, the Marxist-Leninist forces. Upon Stalin's death, there were ten in the Presidium: Malenkov, Beria, Khrushchev, Mikoyan, Molotov, Kaganovich, Voroshilov, Bulganin, Saburov and Pervukhin.

R. A. Medvedev and Zh. .A. Medvedev, op. cit. , p. 4.

After Beria's elimination, Mikoyan stated in 1956 that in `the Central Committee and its Presidium in the last three years ... after a long interval collective leadership has been established'.

A. I. Mikoyan, Discussion of Khrushchev--Moskatov Reports, 20th Communist Party Congress, op. cit. , p. 80.

But the following year, Khrushchev and Mikoyan fired the rest, using the argument that `the anti-Party factionalist group' `wanted a return to the days, so painful fo our party and country, when the reprehensible methods and actions spawned by the cult of the individual held sway'.

Kozlov, `Report on the Party Statutes', The Documentary Record of the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (New York: Columbia University Press, 1962), p. 206.

Eliminating the Marxist-Leninist majority in the Presidium was possible thanks to the army, particularly Zhukov, and regional secretaries who came to support Khrushchev when he was in the minority. Molotov's, Malenkov's and Kaganovich's hesitations, lack of political acumen and conciliatory attitude caused their defeat.

In international politics, Stalin's line from 1945 to 1953 was completely dismantled. Khrushchev capitulated to the world bourgeoisie. He addressed the Party at the Twentieth Congress: `(T)he Party ... smashed obsolete ideas'. `We want to be friends with the United States'. `There are also substantial achievements in the building of socialism in Yugoslavia.' `(T)he working class ... has an opportunity to ... win a firm majority in parliament and to turn the parliament from an agency of bourgeois democracy into an instrument of genuinely popular will'.

Khrushchev, `Central Committee Report', op. cit. , pp. 29, 35, 30, 38.

Khrushchev began the dismantling of Stalin's work with all sorts of wonderful promises. Hearing them today, we can see that Khrushchev was simply a clown.

According to Khrushchev, `In the conditions of the cult of the individual .... People who usurp power ... escape from under (the Party's) control'.

Khrushchev, `Concluding Remarks' 22nd Congress, op. cit. , p. 198.

These sycophants and magicians obviously disappeared along with Stalin. And Khrushchev continued:

`In the current decade (1961--1970) the Soviet Union, creating the material and technical base of communism, will surpass the strongest and richest capitalist country, the U.S.A.'

Khrushchev, `The Party Program', 22nd Congress, op. cit. , p. 15.

Twenty years after the `beginning of Communism' promised by Khrushchev for 1970, the Soviet Union exploded under the blows of U.S. imperialism; its republics are now controlled by maffiosi and rapacious capitalists; the people live in profound misery, unemployed; crime reigns supreme; nationalism and fascism have provoked horrible civil wars; there are tens of thousands dead and millions of refugees.

As for Stalin, he also looked at the uncertain future. The conclusions of the History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks): Short Course, whose writing he supervised in 1938, are worth re-examining, given recent events. They contain six fundamental lessons, drawn from the Bolshevik Party's experience. The fourth reads:

`Sceptics, opportunists, capitulators and traitors cannot be tolerated on the directing staff of the working class.

`It cannot be regarded as an accident that the Trotskyites, Bukharinites and nationalist deviators ... ended ... by becoming agents of fascist espionage services.

`The easiest way to capture a fortress is from within.'

Commission of the Central Committee of the C.P.S.U. (B.), editor. History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks): Short Course (Toronto: Francis White Publishers, 1939), p. 360.

Stalin predicted correctly what would happen in the Soviet Union if a Gorbachev or a Yeltsin ever entered the Politburo.

At the end of the twentieth century, humanity has sort of returned to the start state, to the years 1900--1914, where the imperialist powers thought that they could run the world among themselves. In the years to come, as the criminal, barbaric and inhuman character of imperialism shows itself more and more clearly, new generations who never knew Stalin will pay homage to him. They will follow the words of Mao Zedong who, on December 21, 1939, in the distant caves of that huge China, toasted Stalin's sixtieth birthday:

`Congratulating Stalin means supporting him and his cause, supporting the victory of socialism, and the way forward for mankind which he points out, it means supporting a dear friend. For the great majority of mankind today are suffering, and mankind can free itself from suffering only by the road pointed out by Stalin and with his help.'

Mao Tse-Tung, `Stalin, Friend of the Chinese People', Works, vol. 2, p. 335.

Back to main Another view of Stalin index Page