Revisionism with the Gloves Off
Revisionism with the Gloves Off
The line of the Spanish revisionists is worthy of special attention, not because these revisionists are different from the Italian and French variety, but because of the special role they have undertaken, as spokesmen and kite-fliers for all revisionists. Carrillo and company speak with the gloves off, speak openly, and whether or not the other revisionists headed by the Soviet revisionists like it, they express the true opinion of modern revisionism. If the Soviet revisionists ,sometimes "criticize" Carrillo, they do this not because of his treacherous revisionist ideas. but because he blurts out the opinions and aims of all -revisionists.
Carrillo is a product of the corrupt bourgeois capitalist society in decay, a product of lumpenintellectuals in the service of the capitalist bourgeoisie.
He has lived in France, and apparently, while there, was profoundly influenced by Sartrist, anarchist, Trotskyite, and all sorts of other corrupt anti-Marxist theories. Now he is developing these theories in the speeches and interviews with which he fills the pages of the bourgeois press, and especially in his much advertised book "Eurocommunism and the State". In this utterly anti-Marxist "work", the general secretary of the Communist Party of Spain has summarized and systematized the opportunist theses and views of Togliatti, Berlinguer, Marchais, Khrushchev, Tito and other ,chiefs of modern revisionism. His main aim is to justify his deviation from Marxism-Leninism, to attack the idea of the revolution and socialism, and legitimize revisionism.
Carrillo called his book "Eurocommunism and the State", as a counter to Lenin's famous and brilliant work "The State and Revolution", in which he put forward the strategy of the socialist revolution and the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat. This megalomaniac, Carrillo, pretends that with a mishmash of phrases gathered from all the renegades from communism, he can knock down one of the mightiest monuments of the Marxist thinking such as "The State and Revolution", which life and revolutionary practice have stamped with the great seal of history, making it immortal.
According to the renegade Carrillo, who propagates the theses of petty-bourgeois intellectuals, the proletariat today is allegedly no longer the most revolutionary class of society which leads the struggle for socialism, but all classes to some extent and, first of all, the intelligentsia, lead this struggle. He claims that in Lenin's time the proletariat was allegedly a backward class, while today, this renegade says, the working class is very advanced and the intelligentsia has grown up alongside it. In other words, he, too, associates himself with the theses of the revisionist philosopher Roger Garaudy. According to Carrillo, the communists must take power today, not through violence, not by destroying the bourgeois power and establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat, but by using other forms, appropriate to the changes which the capitalist system has undergone. Allegedly, present-day bourgeois society contains within itself the kernel of socialism, therefore the proletariat is not the only class interested in the establishment of socialism.
We must understand, says Carrillo, that the capitalist state has changed today, and he goes on to claim that the others do not see this change in the capitalist state, but his mind reveals it. And what it reveals is an imaginary reality on which he proceeds to build up his whole worthless "theory" According to him, the capitalist state has nationalized a series of enterprises which have assumed other forms which differ from those of the old concerns of capitalism or imperialism. The state administers these enterprises more or less correctly, through functionaries who have a bourgeois mentality. Now, according to Carrillo, all that has to be done is to change this mentality and everything will be in order. This bourgeois mentality of the functionaries, says Carrillo, has undergone radical changes, but more must be done to reach the stage at which the bearers of this mentality understand the need for further reforms to advance to socialism.
Carrillo tries "to prove" that the presentday state in the capitalist countries allegedly does not represent the power of the bourgeoisie, its apparatus of violence to protect its property and rule, but is a supra-class power belonging to all classes. Being unable to make black entirely white, lie admits only that there is a certain superiority of the bourgeoisie in this state, which he regards as something left over from the historical conditions in which this state was created, but which now can be set right. But how is this change to be made? How is this superiority to be eliminated and the state of "democratic socialism" to be created? Obviously, according to him, the Leninist theory, which allegedly was valid for the past periods, cannot be applied, because the economic, social and other ,conditions have changed. Now another theory is needed, and Carrillo has it ready.
The ownership of the means of production, he says, is now not only that of the bourgeoisie. Along with it exists state ownership, which Carrillo considers "socialist", cooperativist ownership, etc. The proletariat no longer exists, because it has merged with all the intelligentsia, the office workers, the priests, the judges, the gendarmes, etc. Meanwhile, the capitalists remain a small group of stubborn bourgeois who still cling to the old. In these conditions, according to Carrillo, the institutions of the bourgeois superstructure must be democratized through reforms and education, and this process has already commenced. Thus the only task left for the communists to carry out is, to accelerate this process.
According to the renegade Carrillo, the conflict between the working masses and the bourgeois state today has radically changed. This conflict is no longer what it was before, because now allegedly the state is an employer which no longer defends the interests of the bourgeoisie as a whole, but only of a fraction of it, that fraction which controls the big monopoly groups. Therefore, he says, now the state is no longer in opposition only to the advanced proletarians, but also directly to the broadest social classes and strata, including a big section of the bourgeoisie itself. The element of different classes, which is in opposition to the big financial oligarchy and the employing state, not only can penetrate the state apparatus, he declares, but already has penetrated it. Through this "progressive element" it is possible to take power by means of reforms.
"To confirm" these dreams, Carrillo quotes the example of Italy, where as he says, even the police in Rome vote for the Italian Communist Party. With this he wants to arrive at the conclusion that the forces of compulsion and oppression of the capitalist bourgeoisie have undergone changes also. True, he says, they frequently act according to the desire of capital, but they do this allegedly contrary to their conscious will, because, when the occasion arises to express this consciousness without exposure to the capitalist state, they act in opposition to the will of this state.
The position is similar in regard to the law courts. The courts, says Carrillo, naturally carry out the laws of the bourgeoisie, but there too, the consciousness of the courts has begun to undergo a metamorphosis.
He deals with the problem of religion and the church in the same spirit. The church, he says, has changed and is no longer that dogmatic church of the past. Today the clergy themselves are for amendment of the dogmas, are no longer opposed to science but in favour of it. This being the case, they are in favour of a life entirely different from that which the Bible and the Vatican formerly preached, and the Vatican has allegedly made anevolution towards a more progressive and human society, towards a society in which there will bea greater and more complete democracy.
According to Carrillo, even the church makes. its contribution to the social transformations towards socialism! Basing himself on this fantasy, he arrives at the conclusion that the top clerical hierarchy, without as yet going so far as to accept socialism and Marxism, has allegedly begun to, raise doubts about the possibilities of capitalism as a Way to solve the problems for the future. He declares that he takes his hat off to the clergysince they have made an evolution in their dogmas, therefore the Eurocommunists must reject their own "dogmas", i.e., Marxism-Leninism, in order to be more "progressive" than the church and the Vatican.
Education, one of the most consistent ideological apparatuses of the bourgeoisie, does not present any problem to Carrillo, because it has just about been transformed already. He claims that education today, while having become available to the masses, has also changed its ideological content.
As to the family, according to Carrillo, it has ,completely changed its way of life and thinking. Present-day children not only do not listen to their parents, but they are opposed to their ideas. Mentally, they are virtually living in socialism already.
In other words, for Carrillo, the whole of capitalist society has been transformed, is no longer that society of the time of Marx and the time of Lenin, is no longer that decayed state of 1917, when the Great October Socialist Revolution overthrew czarism. Carrillo links both the October Revolution in the Soviet Union and the revolutions. which triumphed in other countries with the world wars, thus perpetrating a monstrous slander against genuine revolutionaries, which, according to him, are in favour of war in order to ensure the triumph of the revolution. It is true that by exacerbating -the social contradictions to the maximum, and by .increasing the sufferings of the masses to an unprecedented level, world wars hasten and accelerate the outburst of the revolutions, as the only way to escape wars and the order which gives birth to them. But world wars and local wars are not the cause of social revolutions. The underlying cause of the revolution is the contradictions of the capitalist system itself, especially the conflict between old relations of production and new productive forces, a conflict which can be solved even without being associated with inter-state wars, as history has proved.
Socialism, declares Carrillo, cannot be linked with world war, because such a war in our time would lead to the total destruction of the human society. Thus Carrillo does not fail to make him-self a propagandist of imperialism's atomic black-mail. Following in the footsteps of Khrushchev, he says that it is not necessary to carry out revolutions or liberation wars in the conditions when the atomic bomb exists, because they might become the cause for nuclear wars in which neither side will win. If we speak about a world without weapons, without wars,. says Carrillo, then we must carry this idea ' through to the end. Since we want to build a world without wars, as was said at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, let us work in this direction, not only by demanding disarmament and making speeches in favour of peace, but also by undermining and sabotaging the revolution every-where.
On the other hand, to Carrillo violent revolution is a closed road because allegedly American imperialism will not permit such a thing. Carrillo wants to raise his own petty-bourgeois fear to the level of theory and to transform his capitulation to imperialism and the bourgeoisie into a norm. The threat of intervention to suppress any revolution on the part of imperialism, and not only American imperialism., but the whole of world reaction, has existed for a long time and this is part of the aggressive strategy of the American and other imperialists. However, history has proved that the peoples have risen into revolution, have clashed with the American intervention, and have triumphed. Let us take the Iranian revolution as a recent example. American imperialism used all its threats, but does not dare to intervene directly with arms, because it senses that, faced with the determination of the Iranian people, it will suffer a bigger defeat than that it and the gendarme Shah, whom it had armed to the teeth with the most modern means, suffered.
What is new in Carrillo's sermons is that he has become the spokesman for and champion of the imperialist policy, a spreader of panic and a tool of reaction to sow the seed of demoralization and capitulation among the masses. And whom does he warn that they should fear foreigners? He is addressing the heroic Spanish people, who fought so boldly and valiantly not only against Franco, but also against the armed intervention of Hitler and Mussolini, and against the socialists like Blum, who sabotaged the revolution in Spain, and whose pupil Carrillo has now become.
To Carrillo it seems unnecessary for the bourgeoisie to maintain a large police force and apparatus of oppression. Why does it need this when public opinion does not want such a thing? asks Carrillo. The state power of the financial oligarchy and capital ought to come to terms with the workers, preaches this new Christian priest. According to him, strikes can continue to be held, but should be done in co-ordination with and organized by the employers and the representatives of the workers, that is, by the worker aristocracy. It is very easy, says Carrillo, for the managers to reach agreement with the workers and put aside their arrogance and not impose their dictate.
According to him, this can be achieved simply and without difficulty. But he is reckoning without his host. He is speaking without those who have power and are holding on to it, who have the apparatus of oppression, the propaganda machine, the church, etc., in their hands. They do not swallow these tales of Carrillo's, but they support him so that he will create such concepts and spread them in the ranks of the working class and the strata of working people so that the latter will live with the dreams of Carrillo.
In regard to the army, the problem is quite simple to Carrillo. The present-day army must be transformed on the basis of a democratic policy, he writes in his book. This does not mean to give it another political colour, he says, let it retain the colour it has (i.e., reactionary), but it must never think about military plots, or about a present-day repetition of the history of the 19th century and part of the 20th century. To Carrillo, insurrections and civil wars must be avoided. Likewise to be eliminated is the historical binomial: the oligarchy plus the armed forces equals conservatism and reaction; an identification of the army and civilian society must be achieved, an identification which will allegedly facilitate the advance of the progressive forces towards democracy, a society of equality and justice.
According to him, no pretext must be given for the army to be set in motion by one side or the other, but work must be carried out for a "democratic transformation" of the military mentality, so that the army will understand that war should no longer exist in society, because otherwise it will be suicide. The doors of this army of capital should not be opened only to the cadres of the bourgeoisie, but also to the broad strata of the people, so that the ideology of the masses, the socialist ideology, etc. can penetrate it, and it will no longer be a reserve of the police, but simply a weapon in the service of public order. How this is to be done is another matter. However, Carrillo thinks that, since he preaches it, the bourgeoisie should accept his "wise" council, should peacefully relinquish the main weapon of its power, and one fine day, after it has been convinced that "this is what justice requires", will say to Carrillo, "come and take power, we are withdrawing, lead all of us towards socialism!"
In support of his thesis about the possibility of the democratization of the army and its transformation into an army which serves the people, Carrillo produces a number of arguments which are as naive as they are ridiculous. The French army, he says, was democratized after the war in Algeria, because its regulations were redrafted and new ones were established "which have created a democratic spirit in it". To claim that the French bourgeois army has changed its world outlook and is no longer a weapon in the hands of the big bourgeoisie, but a weapon in the hands of public opinion, is betrayal.
According to this revisionist, the military doctrine and the army itself in the capitalist states are in crisis, because in its ranks, in the ranks of the military cadres there are both hawks and doves. Hence, says Carrillo, we must work in a peaceful way to turn the hawks too, into doves. To this end, Carrillo thinks that the communist parties should have a separate military policy, but should never consider carrying politics into the army. He says that efforts should be made to draw the military theme into the field of the policy of the left, so that it will be a monopoly of neither the right nor the left. According to Carrillo, such a policy on the part of the communist parties would draw the army away from the policy of the right, and the army would go over more to the side of the nation. Thus, both the left and the right together should struggle against and control each other and, in the traditional way, should control the state, too, not the bourgeois state, but Carrillo's state, which .Kis to be created. through reforms.
As a conclusion of these "analyses" of present-day capitalist society and the bourgeois state, Carrillo, who poses as the ideologist and theoretician of Eurocommunism, also builds up his strategy to go over to socialism. The strategy of revolutionaries today, says Carrillo, is not to overthrow the state power of the bourgeoisie, because state power no longer belongs to the bourgeoisie, neither is it to overthrow the bourgeois relations of production, since they have changed already. The only thing which should be done is to gradually transform the existing political and ideological institutions through reforms, in order to bring them intoconformity with the social reality and turn them in favour of the people.
The head of the Spanish revisionists preaches that now it is completely possible to gradually transform the capitalist superstructure into a socialist superstructure, without altering its base.
This is anti-dialectical and contrary to simple logic. However, Carrillo is not interested in science, but in the schemes he has concocted. This is because his aim is not to indicate the solution of problems, but to obscure their solution, to set the proletariat on a wrong road, to lead it up a blind alley and turn it away from the revolution.
As we said, Carrillo has been inspired by all the "theories" of the Khrushchevites, the Trotskyites, Browder and a thousand and one other traitors to the working class. However, he demands that things should be said openly, that the i's should be dotted, in other words, that the revisionists' actions should be unified with capitalism and world imperialism. First of all, allegedly with theoretical arguments, he calls on all the revisionists and pseudo-communists of the world to rise against Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin. He distorts and interprets as he pleases Marx's writings on the events of 1848, on the June Uprising in France, on the Paris Commune and goes so far as to admit openly that he is taking his treacherous theses from Trotsky or Kautsky. By mentioning these renegades and notorious and discredited opponents of Marxism, he shows from which stable he comes and where the sources of his "theoretical" discoveries lie.
Total denial of the class struggle is the foundation of all Carrillo's ideas. In his view, all classes are together at the head of the bourgeois state today. But to Carrillo the stratum of intellectuals is everything, is the cleverest, the most knowledgeable, the most capable and the best administrator. If one had said these things in the time when Marx, Engels and Lenin were alive, declares Carrillo himself , they would have called them utopian ideas. Our classics would not just have called these counterrevolutionary ideas utopian, but would have described them as betrayal, just as they described the predecessors of Carrillo as traitors.
Carrillo is a revisionist whose betrayal knows no bounds. All revisionists are traitors, but in one way or another they have tried to disguise their betrayal. They have hesitated to attack Marx, Engels and Lenin so openly as all of them have attacked Stalin.
But Carrillo goes further in his road than Khrushchev and many others. Although he tried, Khrushchev did not dare to publicly rehabilitate Trotsky. By calling Stalin a criminal, by rejecting all the revolutionary trials which were held in the time of the construction of socialism in the Soviet Union, in practice Khrushchev rehabilitated Kamenev and Zinoviev. He also rehabilitated many other traitors such as Rajk and so on. However, Carrillo was not satisfied with Khrushchev. In his book, he rebukes him as if to say: "When you have rehabilitated all these fine people whom Stalin had shot, when you have betrayed Marx, Engels and Lenin, why have you not rehabilitated your father' Trotsky?" Therefore, Carrillo calls for Trotsky to, be rehabilitated and for a campaign to do justice to the "merits" of Trotsky.
In other words, Carrillo is one of the dirtiest, one of the most bare-faced agents of world capitalism. However, his "theories" will not do capitalism much good because, as Carrillo presents them, they are a real exposure of the pseudo-Marxism of the modern revisionists. On the one hand, Carrillo serves imperialism and world capitalism, because he opposes the revolution, and denies the Marxist-Leninist ideas which inspire the proletariat and the peoples throughout the world, but on the other hand, he tears the mask from theother modern revisionists and exposes them, discloses their true aims to the proletariat and the peoples.
Santiago Carrillo, the General Secretary of' the Communist Party of Spain, is a bastard of' revisionist bastardy. He took all the vilest and most counterrevolutionary things from modern revisionism and made himself the apologist of utter betrayal and capitulation.
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ONLY THE MARXIST-LENINISTS HOLD HIGH THE BANNER OF THE REVOLUTION
AND CARRY IT FORWARD
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