Stalin And Khruschev - A Dialectical Contrast.

The following paper, Stalin And Khruschev - A Dialectical Contrast, by Professor K. Majid, was presented to a 'communist action' seminar in October 1994. This material deserves republication because all the themes it raises are still relevant to the world communist movement. 

The paper is an incisive condemnation of Khrushchevite revisionism, which emerged in the Soviet Union after the death of Stalin in 1953. The paper also criticises the French, Italian and the revisionists in Britain for adhering to Khrushchev's revisionist line of a peaceful transition to socialism. 

In the case of Britain, Majid remarks that 'These revisionists are all asking their members to vote for the Labour Party'. Calling on the masses to vote for the imperialist Labour Party in every election is a barometer which shows the depth to which revisionism has sunk in Britain, in view of the fact that the imperialist Labour Party opposes socialism and opposes the national liberation struggle of the people against imperialism. 

One point of elucidation may be necessary. The criticism contained in this text does not refer to the difference between Leninist and Khrushchevite-revisionist 'peaceful-co-existence'. The fact is that the Khrushchevites distorted Leninist peaceful-coexistence in the direction of opportunism, thus discouraging the national liberation struggles against imperialism and the class struggle within countries, wherever these struggles came in conflict with the Khrushchevite desire to find an accommodation with US imperialism. 

'Stalin and Khrushchev - a Dialectical Contrast' is a contribution in the struggle against revisionism and social-imperialism and furthermore it reminds us that in the struggle for socialism, for working class political power, there can be absolutely no talk of unity in a single party with the opportunists. The communist party of the working class must be built in complete dialectical opposition to the opportunist camp: the revisionists and social-imperialists. To speak of unity in a single party with these people is a betrayal of the working class, and treachery to the revolution. 

STALIN AND KHRUSHCHEV - A DIALECTICAL CONTRAST. 

By Professor K. Majid. 

1 - The Party and the Class. 

Marxism believes that society consists of classes and each class defends itself by forming its own party or parties. Each party has its own members, masses and leadership and there is an integrated link between these three. Therefore, it is not possible to explain any social phenomena as if it is the result of the wishes of an individual or of a clique. Thus even in Nazi Germany the power was not in the hand of a single person like Hitler but controlled by a whole party that represented the German capitalist class. This was always the case in the Soviet Union and Marxist do not believe that the Soviet Union was ruled individually either by Stalin or later by Khrushchev. The imperialists are the only people who insisted that the Soviet Union was ruled individually by Stalin and went on to repeat this propaganda using all its institutions. The Trotskyists joined in this propaganda and their purpose was to insist that the Bolshevik party had changed its colour after the death of Lenin or in the 1930s after the removal of Trotsky. They insisted that revisionism then controlled the state and that Stalin followed a revisionist line from then onwards. 

My own personal experience in the communist movement before the death of Stalin stresses the opposite. This movement at that time was leading the working class throughout the world towards revolution and socialism. Let us therefore concentrate on the achievements of the socialist state and of the Bolshevik party in the days of Stalin. 

A) - The building of socialism 

Lenin died early just after the war of intervention, leaving a backward Soviet and a starving nation, but the Soviet State and party under the leadership of Stalin succeeded In changing this backward society to an advance industrial one, possessing heavy Industry, nuclear energy and intercontinental missiles. In fact in 1933 Stalin presented a report to the Central Committee in which he declared that backward Russia with its Agrarian economy had now become the second largest industrial power in the world. In 1936 the Soviet Union began to export wheat and other foodstuffs while in the days of Brezhnev the Soviet Union was importing wheat from the United States, Canada, Argentina and Australia. 

In November 1942 "Labour Monthly", a journal of the then C.P.G.B. wrote that by 1937 the Soviet Union became the third country in the world in the production of Electricity, while in the machine building industry it became the first in Europe and the second in the world and similarly with the steel and chemical industries. The journal went on to describe the Volga project of transportation and hydro-electrification. This project connected Moscow with the Baltic Sea, the White Sea, the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea and was unique in the world. This project also constructed a large number of dams for irrigation and the production of electricity. The outstanding achievements proved the superiority of socialism over capitalism and won the respect and admiration of the working people and the toiling masses throughout the world. When the imperialists and the Trotskyists were attacking the Soviet Union and accusing Stalin of dictatorship, they were doing it because they were afraid of the success of socialism in one country and especially because the country covered one Sixth of the world, stretching from Vladivostok to Moldavia with 280 million people And a powerful Red Army. 

B) - Soviet military achievements 

The Soviet Union in the days of Stalin became a giant super-power. This was in spite of The war of intervention in 1918 when the imperialists occupied four-fifths of the country and in spite of Hitler's aggression in the Second World War when the Nazi troops occupied vast areas of the socialist land and reached the suburbs of Moscow and Leningrad, killing twenty million peoples, including millions of communist heroes and party cadres. As commander in chief of the Soviet army, Stalin displayed outstanding leadership in liberating the socialist motherland, North Korea and Eastern Europe including Berlin. These victories and the emergence of the Soviet Union after the war as a super-power had an enormous influence on public opinion throughout the world, convincing the people that socialism is greater than capitalism and this helped the spread of communism everywhere. 

C) - Support to the working class and to the peoples of the world. 

The mere existence of the Soviet Union as a socialist state where the working class had established its dictatorship, encouraged the workers and the peoples of the world tremendously and filled them in enthusiasm, convincing them that it is possible for the workers to rule themselves and for the peoples to gain national liberation. This came as a result of the failure of imperialist aggression and Trotskyist propaganda but also because the Soviet Union spared no effort to provide material, organisational and journalistic help to the people of other countries. The Soviet Union under the leadership of Stalin succeeded in uniting the colonial peoples with the proletariat of the imperialist countries in a joint drive to achieve liberation and socialism. Stalin played a personal role in the national liberation movement, not only because he was the communist theoretician on the national question but also he joined the executive committee of the Comintern in 1935 and together with Dimitrov took the national and colonial movement seriously and led the people towards liberation. 

Stalin has pointed out that: 'The dependent and colonial countries were transferred from a reserve of the imperialist bourgeoisie into a reserve of the proletariat, into an ally of the latter". The link between the national liberation movement and the proletarian revolution was summarised by Stalin as follows: 

a) The world is divided into two camps: the camp of a handful of civilised nations, which possess finance capital and exploit the vast majority of the people of the world; and the camp of the oppressed and exploited people in the colonies and dependent countries - the majority. 

b) The colonies, exploited by finance capital, constitute a vast reserve and a very important source of strength for imperialism. 

c) The revolutionary struggle of the oppressed peoples in the dependent countries against imperialism is the only road to their liberation. 

d) This liberation movement leads to the crisis of world capitalism. 

e) The interest of the proletariat and the dependent people call for the union of their movement against their common enemy - imperialism. 

f) The victory of either movement is impossible without a common revolutionary front. 

g) The formation of a common revolutionary front is impossible unless the proletariat of the oppressing nations renders direct and determined support to the liberation movement of the oppressed people against the imperialism of its "own country" for "no nation can be free if it oppresses other nations". (Stalin: Works, Vol. 6: pp. 149-151) 

These factors made Stalin and the Comintern stress the necessity for the formation of communist parties for all the oppressed peoples throughout the world. Stalin says: "The task is to unite the advanced elements of the workers in the colonial countries in a single communist party that will be capable of leading the growing revolution". (Stalin: Collected Works, Vol. 7 p.109) 

In a speech made by Stalin to the Communist University of the Toilers of the East on May 10th 1925 he elaborated the above points and came to the following conclusions: 

1. The liberation of the colonial and dependent countries from imperialism cannot be achieved without a victorious revolution; you will not get independence gratis. 

2. The revolution cannot be advanced and the complete independence of the capitalistically developed colonies and dependent countries cannot be won unless the compromising national bourgeoisie is isolated, unless the petty-bourgeois revolutionary masses are freed from the influence of that bourgeoisie, unless the policy of the hegemony of the proletariat is put into effect, unless the advanced elements of the working class are organised in an independent communist party. 

3. Lasting victory cannot be achieved in the colonial and dependent countries without a real link between the liberation movement in those countries and the proletarian movement in the advanced countries. 

Marxist-Leninists always stress that the greatest achievement of the Soviet party before 1953 and the greatest achievement of the Comintern was to help the colonial people and the working class throughout the world by forming communist parties in these countries in order to lead the people in the struggle for independence from imperialism. All communists in Iraq for instance learned the alphabet of Marxism-Leninism with the direct assistance of the Soviet party and the Comintern. Indeed not only did they help to form the Communist Party of Iraq but they welcomed its general secretary to study in the Soviet Union for two years. He was educated to such a high degree in Marxism-Leninism that he willingly sacrificed his life for the cause. The Iraqi communists will forever remain grateful for the assistance they received from the Soviet Union and from Stalin personally. 

This is also the case with the Chinese communists. I have visited the place where the Communist Party of China was established when a representative of the Comintern helped the Chinese comrades to form their party and educate them in Marxism-Leninism. This was of course necessary because until then there was no Chinese Communist Party to educate them. Every single Marxist-Leninist book that arrived in Iraq or in China was produced in the Soviet Union by the Comintern. The fact that the Soviet Union helped the Chinese communists all the time and under all conditions is well substantiated by Mao Tse-Tung in his article of September 28th 1939 entitled "The identity of interests between the Soviet Union and all mankind". This was at a time when the Soviet Union had just declared a truce with Japan and at a time when the Japanese were occupying China! This was how Mao Tse-Tung and the communist throughout the world defended the Soviet Union and Stalin because they received every help from them and because the defence of the Soviet Union at that time meant the defence of socialism against capitalism. 

The Albanian communists and Enver Hoxha in particular stress the help they received from the Soviet Union and the Comintern to the extent that Hoxha describes Dimitrov as the "great Dimitrov". This is how Enver Hoxha describes his feelings: 

"I have gone to Bulgaria several times. I felt a special satisfaction in Bulgaria." 

And, "Up to the time when Stalin died there was not the slightest shadow over our relations with Bulgaria. We both love the Soviet Union with a pure and sincere love". (Enver Hoxha: The Khrushchevites; p.158) 

Mao, Enver Hoxha and the true communists were not hypocrites nor were they naïve when they defended the Soviet Union. This fact was proven when they stopped this defence after the 20th Congress and decided to attack Khrushchev and the Soviet Union. 

2 - REVISIONISM 

Every class has its own interests and its own ideology, which is a reflection of its subjective and objective conditions. Thus in capitalist society the petty bourgeois class exists between the bourgeoisie and the workers. For instance, it buys its material from factories owned by the big bourgeoisie. It keeps its money in capitalist banks and often borrows from them in order to enlarge its business. A petty bourgeois studies in schools and universities owned by the bourgeois state, which controls his thoughts. All this creates an organic link between the petty bourgeoisie and the big bourgeoisie. Thus, the petty-bourgeoisie feels he has more to lose in a social revolution and because of his weakness, he is always afraid that he will suffer more than the big bourgeoisie. On the other hand, the petty-bourgeoisie is also in direct contact with the workers to whom they sell their daily needs. Other sections of the petty bourgeoisie such as teachers, doctors, lawyers are also in daily contact of the workers because of their profession. In this manner, the petty bourgeoisie develops material and social relations with the working class. For these reasons, the petty bourgeoisie is characterised by wavering between the workers and the big bourgeoisie. Like any other class, the petty bourgeoisie wants to come to power and control the state to defend its own interests. It therefore tries to please both the workers and the capitalists to gain their help to fulfil this ambition. This wavering and the belief that he will lose in a proletarian revolution condition him to reject the idea of an armed revolution, especially when the banner of such a revolution is the dictatorship of the proletariat. He therefore does his utmost to persuade the workers to avoid such a bloody and painful act. He also does his best to enter the working class party in order to capture its leadership and divert its path towards a peaceful road to socialism. This is what Kautsky & Co. did and this is what Lenin fought vigorously. 

After the success of a proletarian revolution a petty bourgeois dies his best to keep his interests and for this purpose he works even harder to join the join the working class party and use it for his own purposes. Thus revisionism in both bourgeois and socialist societies is the creation of the petty bourgeoisie and so long as society is divided into classes, revisionism will remain and spread 'peaceful ideology'. It is precisely for these reasons that those who spread the idea of forming a communist party free of revisionism, themselves belonging to the petty bourgeoisie, are really trying to deceive the workers. Marxist-Leninists on the other hand accept the reality of a class society and fight to expose revisionism on every occasion and wherever they may be, inside the working class party or outside of it, before a socialist revolution or after it. The collapse of the socialist camp and its failure in the hands of the petty bourgeoisie proves that it is impossible to form a communist party free of revisionism. 

Dialectics teaches us that everything has its opposite. Thus the ruling capitalism is the opposite of the working class and its communist movement and revisionism, which preaches peaceful methods, is the opposite of the revolutionary movement. As soon as the first communist party was formed by Marx and Engels to lead the working class, the petty bourgeoisie infiltrated the party in order to spread its peaceful revisionist poison. This led Lassalle to write in a letter to Marx on June 24th 1852: "Party struggles lend a party strength and vitality: the greatest proof of the weakness of a party is diffuseness and the blurring of clearly defined boundaries; a party becomes strong by purging itself" 

The principle contradiction during the process of a social revolution is between the working class and the ruling capitalists. As soon as this revolution is victorious, the party declares the dictatorship as an unavoidable necessity in order to destroy totally all the remaining features of capitalism, by nationalising all its property and eradicating its ideology as a class. But this class refuses to die and struggles to survive even by deceiving the working class. They declare they have changed; they even enter the ruling communist party and they work hard to prove their devotion to the party. As for those petty bourgeois who enter the party of the working class even before the revolution, their aim is to capture the leadership, diverting it in their own class interests, thus accelerating the process of infiltrating the ruling working class party. 

The history of the Bolshevik party after the revolution of 1917 proves that the petty bourgeoisie managed to divert the party in its own interests, Khrushchev for example joining only in 1918. The economic boycott of the infant Soviet State by world imperialism, the various plots and the civil war forced the Soviet State to concentrate on self-defence. This was done by forming what was a necessary front between the ruling working class and the petty bourgeoisie. This in turn encouraged the petty bourgeoisie not only to join the party but often to impose their own conditions. For instance when the imperialist powers attack the country in 1918 occupying four-fifths of its land, Lenin was forced to reinstate the officers of the Tsar to their previous positions in the army in order to resist the intervention and preserve the Soviet state. With the successful conclusion of the war thousands of petty bourgeoisie and even some of the big bourgeois joined the party. Of course, they claimed they were working for the interest of the party and the working class, but in reality, their aim was to penetrate the party and capture its leadership. The party also lost millions of its best cadres, not just by imperialist-inspired assassinations - they tried to kill Lenin himself - but during the war of intervention and especially during the Second World War when twenty million Soviet people gave their lives in defence of socialism. 

All this facilitated the entry of fresh waves of petty bourgeoisie into the ranks of the party and into its leadership, eventually establishing a bureaucrat class, which clapped and cheered for communism, but only in order to gain control of party posts and then use these positions to enjoy a comfortable life on the backs of the workers. They people claimed they worshipped Stalin, cheering him as their great leader and teacher. Khrushchev was in the forefront of this gang. But when Stalin died in 1953 and the last obstacle was removed, the bourgeoisie declared its rule in the Soviet Union. 

3 - WHAT DID KHRUSHCHEV DO? 

A) The split in the Soviet party. 

Khrushchev accused Stalin of a 'cult of personality' and of killing thousands of innocent Soviet people and even members of the Bolshevik party. Denying the class struggle altogether, he showed his petty bourgeois nature by explaining everything as if it was the product of an individual. He thus treated Stalin as if he did not represent the working class or any class but as an individual who encouraged his own cult. In this manner, he severed the strong link that had existed between the Bolshevik party leadership and its membership on the one hand and between the Soviet leadership and the people on the other hand. He also counterposes the people and the members of the party against those who supported Stalin. Khrushchev committed this act in order to elevate his own position and prestige and to impose himself later as the sole leader, when he declared himself as the First Secretary of the party and Prime Minister of the Country. Needless to say he did not act alone, because he also had his party and a new leadership to control the country and to make sure that this party was not the one led by Stalin he decided to change the name of the party to that of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, removing the word Bolshevik. Khrushchev denied the Leninist policy of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the existence of classes in the Soviet Union. He therefore declared that there is no need for proletarian dictatorship. He thus declared the Soviet State as "The State of the Whole People" and defined the CPSU as "The Party of the Whole People". He announced that there is only one class in the Soviet Union and that the class enemy in the country has been eliminated. In spite of this claim, the party went on attacking and expelling large numbers of members who refused the new party line. 

This split in the party first became public in July 1953 with the murder of Beria. This was followed in June 1957 by the expulsion of the so-called anti-party group including Molotov, Malenkov, Kaganovich and Shepilov. Then came the turn of Voroshilov, Bulganin, Zhukov, Pervukhin and Saburov. The "anti-party group" was accused of "crimes" such as refusing to achieve communism by 1980 and refusing to cultivate the virgin lands in Siberia, none of which was ever achieved by Khrushchev later. He and his gang continued the purge of the party and by the 22nd Congress in 1961, 45% of the members of the central committee of the republics were removed together with 40% of the district and municipal committees. The purge also covered 2,500 branch secretaries in Georgia and 9,000 in the Ukraine, while on the other hand at the 20th Congress Khrushchev had declared that 7,000 people who had been in prison were freed and restored to their party positions. All this caused confusion and doubt among the people about socialist legality. Thus, the entire party structure was changed. Many experienced leaders and heroes of the October revolution and of the Second World War were expelled and accused of treachery. Capitalist propaganda reached a peak praising Khrushchev's courage and determination and using him as a witness to accuse Stalin of "crimes against humanity". This was Khrushchev's first crime and the Soviet people still curse for splitting the party and flooding it with his own cronies. 

B) Disruption in the People's Democracies. 

The more aware the People's Democracies became of Khrushchev's activities, the more confused and disappointed they became. The imperialist agents and the Tito revisionists seized this opportunity to start a series of counter-revolutions, in which Khrushchev actively participated. He his first move was to close down the Cominform and visit Yugoslavia to make peace with Tito. This was followed by an attempted coup in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, which had just emerged from a bloody war against the American imperialists. The Koreans discovered that Khrushchev was directly involved in the coup, which was intended to remove Kim Il Sung and replace him by pro-Khrushchevite revisionists. This plot was exposed in the plenary session of the central committee of the Workers Party of Korea in August 1956. 

Then came the turn of Hungary, which became a field of intrigue by Khrushchev, Tito and Hungarian counter-revolutionaries (behind whom stood American imperialism). The anti-Stalin manoeuvres of the Soviet revisionists had totally destabilised the Hungarian Communist Party. On July 18 1956, Rakosi "resigned", his resignation being preceded by a flying visit from Mikoyan. After his resignation all the old renegades were let loose from the prisons and given "respectable" jobs. Farcas, Minister of Defence and Chief of the Security Police was deprived of his military rank and expelled from the party on July 22. Farcas as well as Rakosi had been on Rajk's list for liquidation and now Rajk, who had been hanged on October 15th 1949 as an agent of Titoism and imperialism, was disinterred and reburied with full military honours. The country was confused. The party was disintegrating -exactly what Khrushchev and Tito were planning. Without the loyal Marxist Farcas the security police could be used to connive with at the uprising, which took place on October 23 1956. Students demonstrated with phrases such as "We trust Imre Nagy". Imperialism filled the country with spies, arms poured in from Austria and "Radio Free Europe" urged on the counter-revolution, calling for the overthrow of the socialist order. Meanwhile Nagy had slipped out of the control of Khrushchev and Suslov. He repudiated the Warsaw Treaty and asked for United Nations protection and immediate recognition of Hungary's status of neutrality. This was more than Khrushchev had bargained for. On November 4, Soviet units went into action. Fighting continued for a week. Over 20,000 died and 150,000 left the country. Such was a practical example of Khrushchev's treacherous revisionist policies at the expense of the Hungarian people. Anti-Stalinism as preached at the 20th Congress was already proving to be a cloak for anti-communism. 

The events, which occurred in Hungary, were paralleled by almost identical events in Poland, also taking place in the aftermath of the 20th Congress under slogans of democratisation and liberalisation. Here again the Khrushchevites played a counter-revolutionary role. Having liquidated the Polish Marxist-Leninist Bierut in 1956 on the occasion of the 20th Congress, Khrushchev's manoeuvrings paved the way for the revisionist Gomulka to come to power. Gomulka, however, was a tough nut for Khrushchev to crack, since he had his own ideas for the future of Poland. Being thoroughly reactionary, he was of course against the Soviet Union of Stalin's time, but equally he had no desire to be under the Khrushchevite yoke. In Gomulka's speech when he became First Secretary, he attacked the co-operative system and the state farms, saying they were unprofitable. He later set up "workers' councils" and self-administrative co-operatives on the Yugoslav model, encouraged private trading, introduced religion in the schools and opened up the country to foreign propaganda. Like the Yugoslavs and the Italians, he too recommended the "national road" to socialism. 

Then came the turn of East Germany, under which the revisionist leadership of Ulbricht and Honecker acting as lackeys of Khrushchev, forced thousands of ordinary working people to escape to the capitalist West. The situation became so intolerable that Khrushchev intervened personally and went to Berlin to supervise the building of the wall and to construct a barbed-wire barrier along the entire border between the two Germanys. 

There then followed a palace revolution in Bulgaria, which brought Zhivkov to power. After the collapse of revisionism in Bulgaria, Zhivkov declared that he had "stopped believing in communism as early as 1960". 

To please and satisfy Tito Khrushchev embarked upon a plot to hand Albania to Yugoslavia. This and what happened in the rest of Eastern Europe reinforced Albania's well-founded fears about Khrushchev and led them to enter an ideological struggle against him side by side with the Communist Party of China. Thus, the communist movement was split. The fierce struggle of China and Albania against Khrushchev's revisionism, together with the Cuban missile fiasco forced Khrushchev cronies inside the Soviet leadership to disown him and remove him from the party leadership and all his posts in the government. In the main, however, the revisionist policy of the C.P.S.U. continued as before and the C.P.G.B. went on with support for the new leadership. 

C) Betrayal of the national liberation movement. 

A great revolutionary storm developed after the Second World War in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Independence was proclaimed in China, Vietnam, Korea, and Cuba. Revolutionary wars took place in Indonesia, Malaya, Burma, the Philippines, Greece, Egypt, Iraq, Algeria and elsewhere. 

However, many of these countries did not completely shake imperialist and colonial control and remained objects of imperialist plunder and aggression. The old colonialists changed into new colonialists and retained their interests through the rule of their trained agents. The peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America are in the grip of neo-colonialism, represented by U.S. imperialism. The second Havana declaration said: “Latin America today is under a more ferocious imperialism, more powerful and ruthless than the Spanish colonial empire". Even at that time North American investment in Latin America exceeded 10 billion dollars, while the flow from Latin America to the U.S. became a torrent of 2 billion dollars per year. 

"The imperialists headed by the United States enslave or control colonial countries and countries which have already declared their independence by organising military blocs, setting up military bases, establishing 'federations' or 'communities' and fostering puppet regimes. By means of economic 'aid' or other forms, they retain these countries as markets for their goods, sources of raw material and outlets for their export of capital, plunder the riches and suck the blood of the people of these countries. Moreover, they use the United Nations as an important tool for interfering in the internal affairs of such countries and for subjecting them to military, economic and cultural aggression. When they are unable to continue their rule over these countries by 'peaceful' means, they engineer military coups d'etat, carry out subversion or even resort to direct armed intervention and aggression" ("Apologists of Neo-Colonialism", pp. 4, 5, Peking 1963) 

At the peak of the revolutionary upsurge throughout the world against imperialism in which the communist parties played the leading role, Khrushchev made his infamous speech at the 20th Congress of the CPSU in 1956. He used his most ferocious language to attack Stalin, the then acknowledged leader of the international communist movement, who had just died, thereby, causing disarray in the ranks of the movement. It was a calamity for the oppressed peoples as it came at a time when the Chinese were faced with the enormous task of building socialism, when Korea had just survived a devastating imperialist aggression and when revolutions were taking place in Vietnam, Burma, the Philippines, Kenya and Malaysia. The results were inevitable: 

1. The Chinese and the Albanian Communist Parties opposed Khrushchev's anti-Leninist line and the international communist movement was split, and 

2. The imperialists, realising the significance of the split, decided to go on a renewed offensive, fomenting counter-revolution throughout the world with the aim of destroying the communist parties. Thus the major communist parties of Malaya, Burma, Indonesia, Iraq, Sudan, Brazil and Chile were crushed while Khrushchev advocated the disbanding of communist parties in Africa, Asia, and Latin America under the pretext that these parties should work in alliance with the ruling bourgeoisie as happened in Egypt and Algeria, while in India the Dange clique decided to collaborate with the reactionary Nehru regime. This happened as a result of Khrushchev's bankrupt theories of the "peaceful transition to socialism" and the "non-capitalist road" whereby communists were encouraged to join hands with reactionary regimes like those of Nasser in Egypt, Nehru in India and the Iraqi Ba'ath on the pretext that these were following a "socialist" or "non-capitalist" path. 

Instead of concentrating on helping the national liberation revolutions throughout the world, the CPSU put forward a set of erroneous theories, which ended in the destruction of the movement. These were: 

1. Peaceful co-existence with imperialism (See the Foreword, ed.) under the pretext that such a condition would enhance the national liberation movement, claiming that peaceful co-existence and peaceful competition "assist the unfolding of the process of liberation on the part of the peoples fighting to free themselves from the economic domination of the foreign monopolies and can deliver a crushing blow to the entire system of capitalist relationships". (Open Letter of the Central Committee of the CPSU to the Chinese Communist Party 1963) Thus the CPSU while trying to curry favour with American imperialism decided to abandon the cause of the national liberation movement and insisted that these nations should wait for the natural collapse of imperialism through peaceful competition. 

2. Aid to backward countries: The CPSU claimed that such aid would avoid the danger of new enslavement and contribute to their development. It is clear however that the Soviet government, having become a super-power, was not only colluding with imperialism by advocating "peaceful co-existence (See the Foreword on the question of revisionist distortion of peaceful co-existence, Ed.) but also competing with it by providing loans to reap interest for itself from the underdeveloped countries. In addition, the leaders of the CPSU openly proposed cooperation with the U.S. imperialism in "giving aid to the backward countries". In a speech at the United Nations in September 1959 Khrushchev said: "Your and our economic successes will be hailed by the whole world, which expects our two great powers to help the peoples who are centuries behind in their economic development to get on their feet more quickly". In this manner, the government of the Soviet Union became a willing partner of the neo-colonialist. 

3. Disarmament: Khrushchev claimed that disarmament would rule out armed interference in the internal affairs of other countries and do away with all forms of colonialism. He stressed: "Disarmament would create proper conditions for a tremendous increase in the scale of assistance to the newly established national states". (Apologists for Neo-colonialism Peking 1963) The reality was of the course the exact opposite. Both of the Soviet Union and the United States entered upon fierce competition in selling arms over several decades, reaping huge profits from reactionary governments in Africa, Asia and Latin America. This included the supply of ballistic missiles, T72 tanks and Mig and Sokhy planes to despotic regimes such as Iraq, Saudi Arabia, the Shah's Iran and Indonesia. 

4. Elimination of colonialism through the United Nations: In a speech to the General Assembly of the United Nations in September 1960, Khrushchev suggested that the United Nations should take measures to uproot the colonial system. He asked, "Who, if not the United Nations Organisation should champion the abolition of the colonial system of government?" He also said: "This is why we appeal to the reason and far-sightedness of the peoples of the Western countries, to their governments and representatives at this high assembly of the United Nations. Let us agree on measures for the abolition of the colonial system of government and thereby accelerate the natural historical process". 

History has shown that the United Nations, being continually under the control of the imperialists, was used to wage a criminal war against Korea and more recently against the people of Iraq, while during the entire period of American aggression in Vietnam, the United Nations did not play any part in bringing that aggression to an end. In the Congo the Soviet Union sided with imperialism, using the United Nations to suppress the struggle of the Congolese people under the leadership of Patrice Lumumba. 

In an effort to appease imperialism the leaders of the CPSU prattled about the dangers of war, large or small, claiming that "even a tiny spark can cause a conflagration" and that "a third world war must necessarily be a thermonuclear war". Therefore claimed Khrushchev: "local wars in our time are very dangerous" and "we will work hard. put out the sparks that may set off the flames of war" because "imperialism is a paper tiger with nuclear teeth". 

In reality the flames of war since then have raged throughout Africa, Asia and Latin America and millions have perished in imperialist wars, in Korea, Vietnam, Iran and Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Lebanon, Zimbabwe, Biafra, Cyprus, Algeria, Egypt, Sudan, Ruanda, Somalia, Ethiopia, Angola, Mozambique, Peru, Nicaragua, Dominica, Panama, Chile, Ireland and elsewhere. 

The Soviet government often supplied arms to one-side or the other, or both, and reaped huge profits from the sale. 

Worse than that, the Soviet government often sided with imperialism and used a variety of methods to suppress revolution. For example the Soviet government and party not only refused to support the Algerian revolution but actually took the side of French imperialism. Speaking on the Algerian question on October 3rd 1955 Khrushchev said: "I had and have in view, first of all, that the U.S.S.R. does not interfere in the internal affairs of other states", and on March 27th 1958 he said to a correspondent of Le figaro: "We do not want France to grow weaker, we want her to become still greater". This was at the peak of the Algerian revolution, when the French government was suffering many blows. 

In Iraq where on May 1st 1959 a million people in Baghdad alone demanded that the Communist Party should join Kassem's government the Soviet party intervened and bullied the Iraqi party into refusing the popular demand in order to appease the U.S. imperialists. This was just before Khrushchev's visit to Camp David to meet Eisenhower. This was followed by a CIA coup d'etat which brought the Ba'athists to power in 1963 and led to the massacre of thousands of Iraqi communists, including the General Secretary of the party. The Soviet government was the third after Egypt and the U.S.A., to recognise this bloody regime and by August 1964 resumed the sale f arms to the Arif government. 

In the Congo too the Soviet Union joined with the United States in voting unduly 13th 1960 for the Security Council resolution for the despatch of United Nations forces to the Congo, thus facilitating the U.S. imperialist intervention in the country. 

D) Support to Western Revisionism. 

Khrushchev's revisionism, which was based on peaceful transition to socialism, gave encouragement to the revisionist parties in the West, who in turn approved Khrushchev's activities fully. Both the French and Italian parties, realise than they could not easily carry out an armed revolution, while the U.S. and British armies were on their soil, decided to adopt the peaceful parliamentary road. Khrushchev gave them the green light and thus Togliatti for instance declared his own "national road to socialism". Then the Italians produced the theory of "historical compromise" with the corrupt capitalists and finished later by dissolving themselves altogether. 

The French revisionists adopted Khrushchev's approach and joined the Social Democrats. They also approved the French imperialist war in Algeria. They too lost all their popularity to the extent that today even the Social Democrats are rejecting them. 

In Britain the revisionist C.P.G.B. of Harry Pollitt and Palme Dutt (Now the CPB, ed.) had already adopted the British Road to Socialism. Thus they welcome Khrushchev's peaceful road theory and embarked on expelling hundreds of communists who rejected revisionism and supported the Chinese and Albanians. The result of this was a disintegration of the British party, which later split into three factions, the NCP, the CPB and Communist Liaison. These revisionists are all asking their members to vote for the Labour Party in every election. They support Khrushchev and all his protégés in Eastern Europe for thirty years and this is why they cannot criticise themselves without renouncing their entire past. Today they have lost all mass support and are held in contempt by genuine Marxist-Leninists. 

4 - Conclusion 

While Stalin and his Bolshevik party was building socialism in the Soviet Union, fought the imperialist and the Nazi intervention and gave full support to the communists throughout the world, thus forming a mighty communist movement, Khrushchev and the CPSU embarked on the path towards capitalism, appeased imperialism and discouraged national liberation. Khrushchev under the pretext of peaceful transition to socialism, peaceful competition and peaceful coexistence with imperialism split the international communist movement, which ended up in disarray and collapse. 

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Note from the Editor: the Marxist-Leninists who were expelled by the revisionists or who left the CPGB on account of opposing the peaceful road to socialism theory did not manage to form a single Marxist-Leninist party opposed to revisionism. This is the task of a new generation of communists.