The Eurocommunists' "Socialism" Is the Present Capitalist System

EUROCOMMUNISM IS ANTI - COMMUNISMThe Eurocommunists' "Socialism" Is the Present Capitalist System

How do the Eurocommunists envisage socialism? Although they are obliged to speak about socialism for demagogy, the "socialism" which they want to build is simply a fraud and deception.

It is known that not only now, but for years, many bourgeois and petty-bourgeois philosophers and ideological trends have speculated greatly with the idea of socialism. Many utopian schemes and endless misrepresentations have been concocted about socialism. Marx rejected all the old forms of socialism and taught the world proletariat that it should organize and fight to establish the new social order based on genuine scientific socialism.

As early as in the first programmatic document of Marxism, the "Communist Manifesto," Marx and Engels made an all-round criticism of various pseudo-socialist theories, such as "feudal socialism", "petty-bourgeois socialism", German "genuine socialism", "conservative or bourgeois socialism". They revealed their class essence as anti-scientific theories which served the interests of the bourgeoisie. In struggle against bourgeois and petty-bourgeois opportunist and anarchist theories which hindered the emancipation of the proletariat and its struggle, the "Manifesto" taught the working class that it could escape bourgeois oppression and exploitation only by means of the revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat and that it could not liberate itself without, at the same time, liberating the whole of society.

History has proved that since the birth of Marxism, every other ideological trend which has come out with socialist slogans, has turned into a reactionary current in the process of the class struggle. Marxism alone provides the accurate idea of the genuine socialist society. No socialism can be achieved or built without being based on this theory.

The first great confirmation of the Marxist theory formulated in the "Communist Manifesto" came in the revolutionary events of 1848-1849, which shook the whole of Europe.

Revolutions not only open the way to social progress but they always become the grave of utopian, revisionist and other false doctrines. This occurred with the doctrines of "bourgeois socialism", "petty-bourgeois socialism", etc., which were buried by the revolutions of 1848-1849.

The main evil of those so-called socialist doctrines was that they completely ignored the revolutionary class struggle of the proletariat and envisaged socialism as the realization of this or that system, invented by this or that "theoretician". This was the source of all those illusions that the creation of associations supported by the state, restriction of inheritance rights, establishment of progressive tax scales would gradually lead to socialism in a peaceful way. Proudhon and Louis Blanc, the German "genuine" socialists and utopian communists like Waitling, Cabets, Desamis and others had preached and were preaching this "doctrinaire socialism".

The working class leaves this doctrinaire socialism to the petty bourgeoisie, says Marx, while " ... the proletariat rallies more and more round revolutionary socialism, round communism... This socialism," he continues, " is the declaration of the permanence of the revolution, the class dictatorship of the proletariat as the necessary transit point to the abolition of class distinctions generally, to the abolition of all the relations of production on which they rest, to the abolition of all the social relations that correspond to these relations of production, to the revolutionizing of all the ideas that result from these social relations."

At present the new Proudhonists, such as Georges Marchais, Enrico Berlinguer, Santiago Carrillo and others are trying to impose on the West-European proletariat these old philosophies which were refuted by Marx, dressed up in different cloaks. All the revisionists want to deceive the masses with their "theories" by eliminating the scientific foundations of Marxism. They are simply telling lies when they say that "they are objective in their recognition of the laws which make society advance"! In reality they have become lackeys of the "consumer society" created by the capitalist and imperialist bourgeoisie to ensure maximum profits from the exploitation of the working class and all the working masses. These revisionists also want to consume something from the surplus value which is extracted from the proletariat of their countries.

The question of what socialism is, what socialist society is, what it represents and achieves at present is not a question of the future, but a concrete reality, a whole historical practice, a tangible social system. Genuine scientific socialism, that advocated by the great geniuses of the revolution, Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, was achieved and existed for a long time in the Soviet Union and many other former socialist countries, and it exists and is advancing in socialist Albania. The efforts which the Eurocommunists are making today "to prove" that genuine socialism has allegedly never existed anywhere, that the socialist society built in the Soviet Union by Lenin and Stalin was allegedly a "distortion of socialism", indeed a "failure" of the concepts and ideas which Marx and Lenin had of socialism, are nothing but expressions of their hostility to communism, expressions of their desire to keep the existing bourgeois society intact.

The Italian, French and Spanish revisionists have traveled a long road to reach the point of their denial of socialism. At first, they claimed that socialism in the Soviet Union was divided into two parts, a "Leninist socialism" which was good, just, but conditioned by the special historical conditions of czarist Russia, therefore unsuitable for the developed capitalist countries, and a "Stalinist socialism" which was bad, because allegedly it was a distortion of the former, deformed, bureaucratized, and so on. This evolution in judgements is not accidental. If the "Leninist experience" were accepted, even with reservations, if the justice of the use of the revolutionary violence for the seizure of power were accepted, for example, then there would be no place left for the Eurocommunists' "model" of socialism. Lenin's theory on the revolution and the construction of socialism, which is a further development of Marx's teachings, is so much a whole, so coherent, so scientific and logical that it must be accepted as it is or not accepted at all. It cannot be chopped into pieces without falling into irreconcilable contradictions and absurdities of logic.

Thus the Eurocommunists are now no longer opposed only to Stalin, but have abandoned Leninism too, thinking that with this they have escaped and found the way to preach "Eurocommunist socialism". But if they have abandoned Leninism, the proletariat has not done so. Leninism is a living science, the militant ideology of the proletariat, the banner of the revolution and the construction of socialism. Leninism is that powerful weapon with which all genuine revolutionaries, all those who want communism and are striving for socialism, fight against all enemies, against the bourgeoisie and its collaborators. Leninism is the mirror which brings to light the true features of the Eurocommunists and all other revisionists, which reveals the falsity of their opportunist "theories", which shows up their reactionary activity against the proletariat, socialism and the peoples' cause.

In order to avoid the dissatisfaction of the rank and file of their parties, the doubts which the "theories" they propose about "socialism" and their confused, contradictory theses in general arouse, the Eurocommunists declare that their socialism still does not represent a "model", is not yet something clear and defined, but only an expression of the "need to find the way" towards this society which must be discussed. In other words, it is just beating the air, because nothing is being achieved.

The "socialism" envisaged by the Eurocommunists is a society in which socialist and capitalist elements are combined and coexist in the economy and politics, in the base and superstructure. In their "socialism" there will be both "socialist property" and capitalist property, hence there will also be exploiting and exploited classes; alongside the party of the working class there will also be bourgeois parties; the proletarian ideology will coexist with the other ideologies; in this "socialism" the state will be a state in which all parties and classes have power.

The Eurocommunists can dream as much as they like about such a hybrid capitalist-socialist society, but this society which they propose can never be achieved. Socialism and capitalism are two different social systems which are mutually exclusive. Capitalism exists as long as it keeps the proletariat and the working masses oppressed and exploited, while socialism is built and advances only on the ruins of capitalism, after it is completely overthrown.

In order to justify their profoundly opportunist views, the Eurocommunists overrate the role of equipment, of means of production in the development of society, thus slipping into the so-called theory of productive forces, which was the ideological basis of all the opportunism of the Second International.

According to them, the impulse towards socialism comes automatically and spontaneously from the development of productive forces. Therefore, they claim, for the transition to socialism there is no need for class struggle or proletarian revolution. Moreover, according to the Eurocommunists, even in those countries where the revolution has been carried out and socialist relations of production have been established, if there is a relatively low level of productive forces, there can be no talk of genuine socialism there.

In order to see how far the Eurocommunists have departed from the idea of socialism and what sort of socialist society they pretend that they have to build, one need only examine some of their main theses, about which they beat the big drum so loudly as the highest development of the progressive thought of present "day human society."

"An integral nationalization of the means of production is not necessary to achieve a socialist society," declare the Italian revisionists. "Alongside of a public sector... private initiative will operate... Freely united peasant property; crafts; small and middle industry; the private initiative in the tertiary field... will play a special role. In this concept of the transformation of society in the socialist sense, there must be a linking of the economic system in order to ensure an integration between programing and the market, between public and private initiative ..."

The French revisionists also proclaim such a "socialism". This society, they say, "requires a sufficient body of democratic nationalizations, along with other forms of social property and an economic sector based on private property". (L'Humanitè, January 13, 1979) Carillo says, "This system, which will have a mixed character in the field of the economy, will be expressed in a political regime in which the owners will be organized not only economically but also in one or more political parties, which represent their interests. This situation will become one of the components of political and ideological pluralism." (S.Carillo, "Eurocomunisme" et Etat, France 1977, pp.121-122)

It requires no special knowledge of social laws to understand that the tableau of the socalled socialist society which the Eurocommunists present is nothing other than the precise and most typical tableau of present-day bourgeois society. The basic element which determines a social system is the ownership of the means of production. If the ownership of the means of production is private, then we have to do with a system in which man exploits man, in which wealth is accumulated in the hands of the minority at one pole, while the overwhelming majority of the people live in poverty and want at the other pole. It has already been proved that socialism cannot exist without the elimination of capitalist property and the smashing of the bourgeois state. There can never be socialism without the establishment of social ownership of the means of production in all sectors without exception, without the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

The proletariat has fought with courage, sacrifice and abnegation to overthrow the relations of capitalist ownership of the means of production. To this end, it has elaborated its own ideology, Marxism-Leninism, which must guide it in the revolution and the establishment of social ownership of the means of production, in the elimination of the exploitation which arises from private ownership of these means, and in the elimination of poverty. The proletariat realized this objective in those countries where the revolution triumphed and socialism was established. This experience, which the construction of socialism in Albania is confirming more and more each day, shows that the fundamental condition for the construction of socialist society is precisely the expropriation of the bourgeoisie and the transformation of the whole economy of the country on a socialist basis, the establishment of social ownership of the means of production.

Liberation found Albania a backward country from the socio-economic and cultural viewpoint, mainly an agricultural country, almost without industry, with a very low level of development of the productive forces. Did this constitute an obstacle to the construction of socialist relations of production? Of course. it did, indeed a major obstacle, but not an insurmountable one. Our Party could not wait for the productive forces to be developed to a high level, and then commence the establishment of socialist relations.

Among the first and most important measures which our people's state power took were the liquidation of foreign capital and the transformation of its enterprises into socialist state property, the implementation of an extensive and radical land reform, which not only liquidated the large-scale property of the feudal lords and the estate-owners, but also greatly restricted the property of the rich peasants. These measures of a profoundly revolutionary character created important premises for the gradual socialist transformation of the countryside, for the development of the cooperative movement there.

Having the unerring guide of Marxism-Leninism, as well as the experience of socialist construction in the Soviet Union, the Party of Labour of Albania put forward the liquidation of the economic base of capitalism and the construction of the economic base of socialism in town and counstryside as a main objective.

The socialization of the main means of production was carried out relatively quickly, by means of nationalization without compensation. In 1946, two years after Liberation, the banks, industry, the mines, power stations, transport, communications, foreign trade, internal wholesale trade, part of the retail trade, the machine and tractor stations, the forests, waters and underground assets, were socialist state property. Thus the socialist sector of the economy occupied the commanding position.

A major problem for every socialist revolution is the agrarian problem. The development of the whole economy and the stability of the people's state power itself depend on the correct solution of this problem. In Albania, where the peasantry comprised the overwhelming majority of the population and agriculture was the main branch of the economy, the agrarian problem was extremely acute and decisive. The course which our Party followed to resolve this cardinal question was the Leninist course of socialist co-operation.

Adhering strictly to the principle of the free will of the peasantry to unite in cooperatives, the process of the collectivization of agriculture, which began almost immediately after the liberation of the country, and went on for about 15 to 20 years, was carried out without first nationalizing the land. This was done only after collectivization had been completed, with the approval of the new Constitution in 1976.

With the construction of the economic base of socialism in town and countryside, the exploiting classes were liquidated as classes, and the exploitation of man by man was wiped out. Only two friendly classes remained, the working class and the cooperativist peasantry, linked with each other by common ideas, aims and interests, along with the stratum of the socialist intelligentsia from the ranks of the working people and created during the years of the people's state power.

The construction of socialism cannot be carried out either through decrees or in a spontaneous way. Socialism is built with multiplied forces, with the participation of all the working people, and with a co-ordinated, centralized, overall plan.

By implementing a correct policy for the industrialization of the country, it was possible to transform Albania quickly, from a backward agricultural country into a country with developed industry and agriculture, with advanced education and culture, a country in which the people live in true freedom and happiness.

The Eurocommunists do not accept our experience, or that of the Soviet Union or other countries when they were socialist. They want to invent a "new" socialism. However, you need a crippled logic in order to accept the existence of private ownership of the means of production in society and at the same time think you can avoid the exploitation of man by man, and to speak about "socialist transformations", "equality", "justice", etc., such as the Eurocommunists preach. The preservation of private ownership of the means of production, of "private initiative", that is, the possibility of capitalist accumulation in the society which the Eurocommunists, propose means in fact that the capitalist system will be retained completely intact and inviolate.

In all their philosophical fantasies, as well as in the programs which their parties proclaim, the Eurocommunist revisionists do not touch at all on the question of what will be done with the multinational companies and foreign capital. Since they do not mention it, this means that they will remain integral parts of the "socialist" society which they advocate, this means that big American, West-German, British, French and other capital will no longer think of super-profits, but will serve socialism. This is just day-dreaming. On this question, Carrillo, Berlinguer, Marchais are not as progressive as those circles of the bourgeoisie in many developing countries, which, although they are not for socialism, demand the expulsion of foreign monopoly capital and liberation from the multinational companies.

In regard to the so-called public sector, the existence of which "Eurocommunist socialism" foresees, here we have to do simply with a speculation in terms, with a vulgar attempt to peddle the sector of state capitalism, which exists to this or that degree in all the bourgeois countries, as a socialist sector of the economy.

The state capitalist sector, or the "public sector", as the bourgeoisie calls it, has been created in ways and for reasons that are known.

State capitalism in the industrial countries of Europe existed previously, but it assumed an obvious development, especially after the Second World War. It was created as a result of a number of factors. In Italy, for example, it was set up by the bourgeoisie, as a result of the exacerbation of the class struggle, and the great pressure of the working masses, who demanded the expropriation of big capital, especially that linked with fascism, which was responsible for the catastrophe which the country suffered. In order to escape the further radicalization of the struggle of the working masses and to avoid revolutionary outbursts, the weak Italian bourgeoisie carried out the nationalization of some big industries, a nationalization which fulfilled the minimum demands of the communist and socialist parties, which emerged from the war strengthened. In Britain, the creation of the "public sector" like that of railways or coal came as a result of big capital's abandoning some backward and unprofitable branches. It handed these over to the state, which subsidized them from the budget, from the tax-payers, while it invested its capital in the sectors of new industries with a high level of technology, in which great super-profits were secured more easily and quickly.

Nationalizations of this kind have been and are still being carried out for this or that reason in other countries, too, but they have not changed and can never change the capitalist nature of the system in power, cannot eliminate capitalist exploitation, unemployment, poverty and the lack of freedoms and democratic rights.

As very lengthy experience has already proved, state capitalism is supported and developed by the bourgeoisie, not to create the foundations of socialist society, as the revisionists think, but to strengthen the foundations of capitalist society, of its bourgeois state, in order to exploit and oppress the working people more. Those who run the "public sector" are not the representatives of the workers, but the men of big capital, those who have the reins of the whole economy and the state in their hands. The social position of the worker in the enterprises of the "public sector" is no different from that of the worker in the private sector; his relationship to the means of production, to the economic management of the enterprise, the policy of investments, pay, etc., is the same. The bourgeois state, i.e., the bourgeoisie, appropriates the profit of these enterprises. Only the revisionists are able to find some distinction between the "socialist" character of the enterprises of IRI and the "bourgeois" character of FIAT, between the "free" workers of Renault and the "oppressed" workers of Citroen.

The society of "democratic socialism", which the Eurocommunists preach today, is the bourgeois society which exists at present in their countries. They just want to touch it up a bit, so that the old European bourgeoisie, with one foot in the grave, will look like a young bride, full of life and vitality. According to the Eurocommunists, all that is needed is a bit of retouching, retaining the state capitalist sector alongside the private sector, creating some workers' consultative councils attached to the management of enterprises, allowing the trade-union bosses to call for justice and equality in meetings in the squares, giving the revisionists a few seats in the government and... socialism will come of its own accord.

With their unrestrained zeal to fight and deny Marxism-Leninism, the Eurocommunist revisionists, prettify the present-day reality of capitalist society in every way. To them, the existing social system in Italy, France, Spain and elsewhere, the state which rules in these countries, is a kind of supra-class democracy, a democracy for all. In this society and this state they see only a few difficulties, a few mistakes, a few distortions at the most, but nothing more. On this basic concept and premise they build up their schemes of their "democratic socialism", which in essence will be the same present-day bourgeois society, but without the "defects", "restrictions" and "difficulties" which it has today.

The revisionists declare that in their socialism more than one party will exist and function, along with the possibility of their alternation in government. It must be said that on this question the Eurocommunists are really coherent. It is natural that in this society, in which there will be antagonistic classes, different strata of the bourgeoisie, groups of capitalists with separate interests, there also will be different parties, and that the practice which has existed up to now in capitalist society, that the different parties alternate at the head of this state, according to the occasion and the need, will certainly exist. But where the Eurocommunists deliberately misrepresent matters is that they present this "pluralism", that is, the practice of changing the horses in the chariot of the bourgeois state, as the culmination of democracy, as a situation which creates the possibility to solve all social problems. Their aim is to distort the very concept of socialist society and to present bourgeois democracy and its institutions as capable of realizing socialist aims, with no need for the revolution, without the need to smash the old bourgeois state apparatus. In fact, their ideal state is the current American, or more particularly, the German political system, in which two big bourgeois parties, which alternate with one another at the head of the government, rule. They want two big parties in Italy, France, or Spain too: one of them openly bourgeois, democratic or liberal, and the other a workers' party, whether they call it socialist, communist, labour, or what you will, as well as a few other unimportant small parties, just for the sake of variety. And in this way, "Italian socialism", "French socialism", "Spanish socialism" would be created, just as "Swedish socialism", "Norwegian socialism", and so on, have been created.

In "democratic socialism" the state must not be the state of workers and peasants, that is, it must not be like the state advocated by Marx and Lenin, which would bring the workers from the factories and the peasants who work the land into leadership. The Eurocommunists want a state which will be the state of "everybody", and the government of this state likewise will be of "everybody". But a state of "everybody" as never existed and never will exist.

The Eurocommunists' concepts about the state are very close to those of Proudhon and Lassalle, refuted by Marx more than a century ago. Lassalle, for example, preached that through reforms, in peaceful ways, through general elections, and with the aid of the bourgeois state and of associations of producers, which would have to be created, the reactionary Prussian state could be transformed into a free popular state. He presented this kind of "state" as a model for the new socialist state for which the workers ought to fight.

The Lassallian concept of the "popular state" denied the class character of the state as a dictatorship of a given class.

Marx, especially in his outstanding work "The Critique of the Gotha Programme", confronted the Lassallian concept of the "free popular state" with the concept of the state as a class organ, with his concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

"...one does not get a flea-hop nearer to the problem by a thousandfold combination of the word 'people' with the word 'state'," says Marx.

"...Between capitalist and communist society lies the period of the revolutionary transformations of one on to the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat."

The Marxist theoretical theses and doctrine on the state, proclaimed in the monumental works of Marx and Engels, found brilliant confirmation in the events of the Commune of Paris.

The Commune of Paris showed that the proletariat cannot retain the old bourgeois state machine and use it for its own purposes, to overthrow the capitalist order. The Commune destroyed that machine and, in place of it, created state organisms and institutions entirely new in content and form. The Commune was the first form of the political organization of the proletarian state power. As Lenin stressed, the Commune of Paris showed the historical limitations "...and limited value of the bourgeois parliamentary system and bourgeois democracy...."(Lenin). It was proved in practice that the state which the Commune of Paris set up represented the highest type of democracy, that of the overwhelrning majority of the people. It put into practice the great democratic rights and freedoms which the bourgeoisie proclaims but never realizes.

Later Lenin, in struggle with the opportunist distortions of the chiefs of the Second International, brilliantly defended Marx's theory on the state.

He refuted their concepts that allegedly the state is not an organ of the domination of one class over another, but an organ of class conciliation, that the apparatus of the bourgeois state should not be destroyed, but should be used in the interests of the working people. In his famous book, "The State and Revolution", Lenin showed that the state is a product of contradictions between classes and an expression of the irreconcilability of these contradictions. He proved that the bourgeois state apparatus, an apparatus set up to keep the working class and the working masses oppressed and exploited, could not be used by them for the elimination of oppression and exploitation. The proletariat has to build its own state, new in form and content, in structure and organization, in the people who run it and in their methods of work, a state which will ensure the freedom of the working masses and suppress the efforts of enemies of socialism to restore the capitalist system.

Lenin's book "The State and Revolution" and the Leninist theses on the dictatorship of the proletariat played an important role in the preparation for the October Revolution and the establishment of the Soviet state power in Russia. They remain powerful weapons in the hands of genuine revolutionaries to combat the theorizing of modern revisionists, who are trying to revive the old views of Kautsky and company about the state, which Lenin exposed and defeated.

The theorizing of the Eurocommunists about the state is a consequence of the anti-Marxist line of these renegades, who pretend that not class struggle but class peace exists in capitalism, that the army and the police are no longer retrogressive forces of the bourgeoisie, therefore, there is no need for the dictatorship of the proletariat and the genuine democracy which the proletariat establishes. They want only one state, one democracy - the state of bourgeois-revisionist democracy.

The "Democratic" Road to Socialism - a Disguise to Protect the Bourgeois State

The question of state power has always been the fundamental question of the ideology and policy of every party, irrespective of what class interests it represents. Eurocommunism could be no exception to this. It began its struggle precisely in this field, becoming a new weapon in the hands of the bourgeoisie to protect its power of oppression and exploitation, and to prevent the proletariat from carrying out the revolution, destroying this power and establishing socialism.

In their propaganda against Marxism-Leninisrn, the Eurocommunists, insist that in the conditions of modern society, as they call the present day capitalist society, the theory of Marx about the overthrow of capitalism by means of violent revolution needs new "interpretations". Among the first who began the frontal attack on, to describe as invalid and violate, the thesis of Marx and Lenin about the necessity for the violent revolution, a thesis which they totally distorted, were the Soviet revisionists, as we mentioned above. In order to make their theory of peaceful transition to socialism "convincing", they went so far as to claim that the October Revolution was a peaceful revolution, contrary to what history recognizes it as the first revolution which overthrew the Russian bourgeoisie with violence and established the dictatorship of the proletariat. At the same time they began to propound the theory that the dictatorship of the proletariat was a temporary phenomenon which gave way to the so-called state of the whole people. With these theories, they aimed to minimize and negate the revolutionary class content of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

This deliberate distortion of Marxism-Leninism by the Soviet revisionists became the basis on which the Eurocommunist theories on this question were built up. The Khrushchevite theses that with the construction of socialism in the Soviet Union the class struggle no longer existed, that the triumph of socialism was guaranteed and there was no danger of any reversal, that there was no longer any need for the dictatorship of the proletariat, or for the party of the working class, became an inspiration and encouragement for the other revisionists to go even further. Misrepresenting the significance of the changes which have taken place in the world and misinterpreting a correct phrase of Lenin's about the special features of the road to socialism, they stress that at the present time it is possible to go to socialism through parliamentarianism and reforms.

The Eurocommunists present the course of transformation of capitalist society into socialist society as the development of bourgeois political democracy through to the end, as they say, as a peaceful course which does not lead to a qualitative change but only to a quantitative change.

The Italian revisionists say, "Political democracy presents itself as the highest institutional form of the organization of the state, even of a socialist state." (The politics and the organization of the Italian communists, Rome 1979)

If we analyse this so-called thesis, it turns out that "political democracy" for the working people allegedly exists already in capitalism and that socialism is allegedly reached by extending this democracy and, finally, that the fundamental feature of socialist society allegedly is bourgeois democracy which is identified with socialist democracy.

Meanwhile the Spanish revisionists, for their part, claim that "socio-political democracy is not a third road, either capitalist or socialist, but is a transitional stage between capitalism and socialism." (The Ninth Congress of The Spanish Communist Party, Barcelona 1978) "Democracy is simultaneously the aim and the means of transformations,"ww1 (L'Humanitè, February 13, 1979) says Marchais.

As can be seen, in order to justify. their revisionist views Berlinguer, Carrillo, Marchais and others present very confused ideas about democracy and the state. Such reasoning, which is not based on the class relations that exist in bourgeois society, which is outside the connection between the capitalist economic base and superstructure, outside reality and any logic, has the aim of proving allegedly that genuine democracy is not that which the dictatorship of the proletariat establishes, the democracy of the great majority of the exploited masses over the minority of the capitalist exploiters, or their remnants, but democracy à la Marchais and Carrillo, that is, "democracy for all, where everyone lives in peace and class harmony". However, history has proved that there is not and cannot be bourgeois democracy without the bourgeois dictatorship, just as there cannot be socialist democracy without the dictatorship of the proletariat. The rights and duties of citizens are related directly to the domination of the class which is in power. Where the capitalist class rules, there are rights for the bourgeoisie, and restriction of rights, oppression and denigration of the masses, while where the working class rules, there are rights and freedoms for the workers, and restriction and compulsion for the minority of former rulers and exploiters, as well as for the enemies of socialism.

The Eurocommunists are not the first opportunists to deny the need for the revolution as the only basic means for the overthrow of capitalism and the construction of socialism. Before them, a similar thing was done by Proudhon, whom Marx exposed, and by Bernstein and company, who ended up openly defending the capitalist system.

Bernstein, for example, preached that by improving the labour legislation, by increasing the role and activity of trade-unions and cooperatives, by increasing the representation of the working class in parliament, all the economic, political and social problems of the proletariat could be solved peacefully and on the evolutionist course. He stated explicitly that the working class need win the simple majority in parliament, get 51 per cent of the votes, and it could achieve all its aims. Since the "will of the majority" rules in democracy, he said, the state loses its class character, is transformed from an organ of the class rule into an organ which stands above classes and represents the interests of the whole society. In such a state, he said, the working class and its party can and must collaborate with all the other classes and parties. Together, they must defend and strengthen this state against "reactionaries".

Bernstein preached that the road of the transformation of society was the road of partial and gradual reforms, the road of evolution, of the gradual integration of capitalism into socialism. Therefore, according to him, the party of the working class must be a party not of social revolution, but of social reforms. Lenin strongly criticized and pointed out the utter falsity of these views of Bernstein, which Kautsky and company took over later. The Great October Revolution gave the historic verdict in the great debate between the Marxists led by Lenin, who defended the idea of the revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat, and the revisionist opportunists, who were partisans of the peaceful, reformist road, of "pure" democracy, etc.

This revolution showed the proletariat and peoples of the world that the road to victory over imperialism and capitalism does not run through reforms and agreements with the bourgeoisie, but through violent revolution.

"Arguing" in support of their opposition to the Marxist-Leninist theory on the revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat, the Eurocommunists claim that Marx himself allegedly "only once mentioned this term"! However, it is known that the idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat constitutes the fundamental question of the whole of Marx's doctrine on socialism. In 1852 Marx wrote,

"What I did that was new was to prove: 1) that the existence of classes is bound up with particular historical phases in the development of production; 2) that the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat; 3) that this dictatorship itself only constitutes the transition to the abolition of all classes and to a classless society. ..."

Marx did not regard the dictatorship of the proletariat as a simple alternation of some people in the government, but as a qualitatively new state, which is built on the ruins of the old bourgeois state. He considered the smashing of the old bourgeois state machine with violence an essential for the triumph not only of the proltarian revolution, but of any genuine people's revolution led by the working class. Lenin called this conclusion, put forward by Marx in his outstanding work "The 18th Brumaire of Luis Bonaparte", a gigantic step forward. It is precisely this foundation stone of the Marxist-Leninist doctrine that all the old revisionists have attacked and denied, and which all the new Eurocommumst revisionists attack.

The stand of the Eurocommunists towards the question of. the revolution, the state and democracy coincides in essence with that of the Soviet revisionists, who have declared that now the "communist" party in the Soviet Union has allegedly been transformed into a "party of the entire people" and that the dictatorship of the proletariat has been replaced with the "state of the entire people". On the basis of these statements of the Soviet revisionists Marchais and Carrillo have the right to reason: "If you can allegedly transform the party and the state of the proletariat into a party and state of the entire people, why shouldn't we in the West have the right to carry out such a thing, but without violent revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat? We are going to proceed in 'pluralism' and understanding with the bourgeoisie, by building up opinion for a 'genuine democracy', which has not been achieved in your country. It is in vain for you to claim the existence of democracy in your country while you are strengthening oppression."

In regard to the Titoites, they too are in difficulties with the Eurocommunists in connection with "democracy" and "pluralism". The Yugoslav revisionists speak about the unity of the ..non-aligned world., and with this formula -"elirninate" the class struggle and the dictatorship of the proletariat. They demand from imperialism and world capitalism only that the "non-aligned countries" "should remain within their present status quo and be assisted economically." In this direction the Titoites are of the same opinion as the Eurocommunists, with the one difference that, while the Yugoslavs speak about alleged "independence from superpowers and blocs", the Eurocommunists do not do this even formally.

Without attacking them directly, but through the ideas they express, the Eurocommunists tell the Yugoslav revisionists that the existence of only one party in Yugoslavia is not the road of genuine democracy, therefore the political system in Yugoslavia too must undergo changes.

While directly attacking Lenin and the whole Marxist-Leninist theory on the state and the revolution, Berlinguer, Marchals, Carrillo and company call on the Khrushcheevites to carry their betrayal through to the end, telling them that it is not only the "mistakes" of Stalin which is the problem for their filthy undertaking, but the socialist system itself, which, although it was an appropriate system after the October Revolution, is not right at the present time, because it allegedly denies democracy.

Without doubt, this thesis is not to the advantage of the Khrushchevites who, in order to conceal their betrayal and to pose as Marxist-Leninists, still maintain some allegedly Leninist forms.

In order to retain this disguise, from time to time the Brezhnev group makes some feeble criticism of the disobedient parties and advises them that they must allegedly safeguard the class principles of Lenin on the road and the forms of transition to socialism. However, the revisionist parties of the Western countries do not fail to reply to Brezhnev that they are doing nothing more than what the Soviet revisionists have done, that they are acting according to their conditions, which allegedly dictate the peaceful road, the road of democratic reforms, political and ideological pluralism, etc., etc. Berlinguer, Marchais and Carrillo, who have gone further than Togliatti, tell the Soviets: "Isn't it you who have spoken about peaceful coexistence? Then, come on, let us create this coexistence and carry it through to the end." And with whom are we to peacefully coexist? With the opponents of communism, that is, with the capitalist bourgeoisie, American imperialism, etc. However to achieve peaceful coexistence, they say first we must revise the "dogmas" in policy, in ideology, in the economy and in art, because the "dogmas" cannot be adapted to present-day society. Since the ideas of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin on the dictatorship of the proletariat, the. class struggle, and the seizure of power with violence are allegedly "dogmas", then they are not suitable, either, therefore power must be taken not through violence, but in the parliamentary way, through general elections, through the coming to power of the working class and removal of the bourgeoisie from power in democratic ways.

For the sake of demagogy, and to throw dust in the eyes of the masses, the Eurocommunists mutter in an undertone that the "third way", or "democratic socialism", is not social-democracy, because it "has not carried society beyond the logic of capitalism". ( The politics and the organization of the Italian communists, Rome 1979)

Nevertheless, they add immediately, we must unite with social-democracy and the other political forces, and together with them must exert influence on the state apparatus of the capitalist bourgeoisie, through propaganda, reforms, the church, culture, etc., and not destroy it, as the classics of Marxism-Leninism say, so that gradually this state power will assume a truly democratic form, so that it will serve the whole of the society and create the conditions to build "socialism" in a peaceful way. In other words, they advocate the creation of a bastardized social order which will have nothing in common with scientific socialism.

The theses of Togliatti and his supporters, the line of the Italian Communist Party, have become the ideal of all the Eurocommunist revisionists, to such an extent that they have aroused the envy of Carrillo and Marchais. Georges Marchais writes in "L'Humanité", "In 1956 we were slow to draw lessons from what had occurred in the Soviet Union, and work out the French road to socialism," that is, as Togliatti did. When Marchais or Carrillo say that the police are with the Italian Communist Party, and that in Rome they vote for this party, they are praising the efforts and achievements of Berlinguer in the direction of collaboration with social-democracy, the Christian Democrats, and the socialists on public questions, and also in the administration of the affairs the bourgeoisie.

The "successes" of Berlinguer in these directions, that is, in submission to Italian and world capitalism, serve the other revisionists as practical support for their opportunist politicaI theses. Berlinguer works with great zeal. He does not attack the bourgeois Constitution, does not attack the power of the bourgeoisie, does not even mention overthrowing this power and its apparatus, does not speak about destroying the Italian oppressive army, but on the contrary, signs statements together with the parties of reaction that the army must be strengthened, that the American bases must remain, that the power and funds of the police must be increased, that the police must have the right, outside the law, to check up on anything which is suspicious, even to bug telephone conversations and open private correspondence.

Now the program and activities of the Italian revisionists are ready and tested for the other revisionists too. In Italy, Spain and France, the integration of revisionism into capitalism, and not of capitalism into socialism, as the Eurocommunists preach in their programs and speeches, is developing and taking a concrete form.

The Italian, French and Spanish communist parties say nothing at all about the Chinese revisionists. Their whole struggle is spearheaded against Marx Engels, Lenin and Stalin, and for their own ends, sometimes against the Soviet revisionists, too. They are in accord with the Chinese revisionists on all fronts. The Chinese revisionists are struggling for an alliance with the United States of America, the developed capitalist countries and the ruling cliques in the neo-colonial countries.

Such an alliance is on the course of the Eurocommunist renegades. The fact is that the Chinese foreign policy conforms completely with the policy which the Eurocommunists preach about the unity of revisionist parties with the bourgeois-capitalist regimes in power. The Chinese revisionists and the Communist Party of China also are for pluralism in socialism. In China the parties of the bourgeoisie not only exist, but they participate in the state power and the leadership, together with the Communist Party, which cannot exist and run things without collaboration with them. On these fundamental questions the Chinese revisionists are in agreement with the European revisionists.

On the other hand, Chinese private enterprises, Chinese-foreign capital joint private enterprises, purely foreign private enterprises, cooperativist sectors, etc., exist alongside of the state capitalist sector in China. This conforms completely with the "third road", with the "socialism" which the Eurocommunists propagate.

Mao Zedong proclaimed his "theory" about the "blossoming of a hundred flowers and contention of a hundred schools". What does this mean? This means that all idealist, social-democratic, republican, religious and other ideas, are permitted and develop in China. "Let all the schools contend, this is dialectical," says Mao Zedong. But since pluralism allegedly becomes dialectical, a thing which the Eurocommunists preach, too, then it must be possible to go to socialism together and in unity with the bourgeoisie and its parties in peace and peaceful competition.

When bourgeois parties exist and take part in the leadership in China, along with the Communist Party, then the state cannot be the dictatorship of the proletariat, but must be a hybrid organism, which is a state of the dictatorship of the proletariat only in words, while in reality it is a bourgeois democracy.

The Chinese practice responds to the line of the Eurocommunists and serves as a "confirmation" of how the transition to socialism can be carried out without revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat. Someone may say: "But China went to socialism through the revolution", "China has a dictatorship of the proletariat, etc. This is not true. The truth is that China fought against the Japanese occupiers and the Kuomintang, but the dictatorship of the proletariat was never established and socialism was never built there. The state power in China was called the dictatorship of the proletariat, but its content was different, and now we are seeing that the disguises which the Communist Party of China and the Chinese state had put on, are falling off one after the other. Following the death of Mao Zedong, who was an eclectic, and of Zhou Enlai, who was a bourgeois democrat, we see that China is revealing its true features, emerging as a bourgeois republic and an imperialist state.

In regard to the contradictions the Eurocommunists have with the Soviet revisionists over the character of the state in socialism, these are not in the least of a principled nature. They attack the revisionist Soviet state, presenting it as a distortion which, as they put it, neither Marx nor Engels would approve, and indeed, even Lenin would not consider many things right. But this is a vulgar speculation. The present Soviet state is not a socialist state. It has been transformed into a dictatorship of the revisionist bourgeoisie which oppresses and exploits the working masses. With this speculation, the Eurocommunists want to prove that their pluralist line is the only "scientific Marxist" line, the only line suitable for the construction of true socialism. According to them, this line is a dialectical consequence of the materialist development of history, which allegedly Marx and Engels "did not foresee" and which allegedly "Lenin did not foresee", either. However, it has been allegedly discovered by Berlinguer, Marchais, Carrillo and the other revisionists of Western Europe who are beating their breasts and saying: "It is we who envisage the genuine transformation of society and who analyse the phenomena of the present-day world to their roots". In fact, they are opposed to any kind of revolutionary transformation. They want to preserve the present-day bourgeois "consumer" society, to preserve the domination of capitalism and the exploitation of the working people. This is their ideal and their aim. For this they are working and struggling. All the rest is just propaganda, demagogy, deception, means which the bourgeoisie uses to fight socialism and the revolution.

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The Eurocommunists' "Independence" Is Dependence on Capital and the Bourgeoisie