Lenin and Stalin on the State Form of Dictatorship of the Proletariat,
D. I. Chesnokov, 1950 (Communist (Bombay), Volume 3, February-March 1950, pp 75- 108)
PDF Download https://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/DofP.pdf
LENIN AND STALIN ON THE STATE FORM OF DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT
by D. I. CHESNOKOV
The question of the dictatorship of the Proletariat occupies a central place in Marxist-Leninist theory. Marx and Engels in their time profoundly elaborated this question on the basis of an analysis of the laws of development of capitalism and on the basis of a generalisation 0f the experience of the international working class movement in the epoch of pre-monopoly capitalism.
The greatest merit of Marx and Engels consists in that they brought to light the world-historical role of the working class, created the theory of proletarian and proved the necessity of smashing the apparatus of the bourgeois State and establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat.
The brilliant conclusions of Marx and Engels were, however, forgotten and corrupted by the opportunists and by the confirmed lackeys of the bourgeoisie.
Till the October Socialist Revolution, the distortion 01 Marxist teachings on the State proceeded, above all, along two lines.
On the one hand, many bourgeois sociologists and “Socialists” of the type of Scheidemann, Vandervelde, MacDonald, L. Blum, and Co., being compelled under pressure of historical facts to admit that the State exists where class contradictions exist, “corrected” Marx by substituting for the Marxist postulate of the bourgeois State as an instrument of suppression of the oppressed classes by the exploiting classes, the postulate of the reconciliation of classes by the State. During the First World War and particularly after the February Revolution when the question of the relationship of the proletarian revolution to the bourgeois State came sharply to the fore, as a question for immediate action and as one embracing all the masses, all the Russian Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries veered round to the stand-point of the petty-bourgeois theory of “reconciliation” of classes by the State.
On the other hand, the Centrists of the Second International and to begin with their leader, K. Kautsky, while not denying the fact that the State is an organ of class domination, concealed and repudiated Marx s conclusion of the necessity of destroying and smashing the State power of the bourgeoisie.
In his celebrated work, State and Revolution, Lenin subjected these viewpoints to withering criticism and completely annihilated them.
Lenin’s greatest service consists above all in that he restored Marx’s real views on the State, which had been confused and corrupted by the opportunists and revealed full profundity of Marxist teachings on the State as an apparatus of coercion of one class by another.
Lenin restored and developed still further the Marxist teaching on the smashing of the old, exploiting apparatus of State power, and explained how this smashing should be carried out in practice. Lenin pointed out that the smashing of the bourgeois State is inconceivable without a series of actions, breaking up the economic power of the landlords and the capitalists, the liquidation of the bureaucratic and corrupt caste of officials and the promotion of the conscious representatives of the working class, the peasantry and the working intelligentsia to State posts; an end to the old police and its substitution by a militia; the liquidation the old bourgeois court and prosecuting magistracy and their substitution by revolutionary tribunals, people’s courts and revolutionary magistracy; the emancipation of the army from the influence of the bourgeois command and the substitution of the old army by a new one with new commanding staff, new principles of recruitment to it and political teaching, etc., etc.
Lenin elaborated the theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat. As Comrade Stalin pointed out, the new that Lenin contributed to the teaching on the dictatorship of the proletariat consists in that he (a) pointed to Soviet power as the State form of the dictatorship of the proletariat (b) disclosed in the formula of the dictatorship of the proletariat a special form of the class alliance of the proletariat and the peasantry with the leading role of the proletariat in this alliance; (c) elaborated the question of the dictatorship of the proletariat as the highest form of democracy in a class society – a proletarian democracy that reflects the interests of the majority (of exploited), as opposed to bourgeois democracy which reflects the interests of the minority (of exploiters).
Comrade Stalin defended the Leninist teachings on the alliance of the working class with the peasantry and the leading role of the working class in this alliance as the principle of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
In developing Lenin’s ideas, Comrade Stalin elaborated the question of the “mechanism” of the dictatorship of the proletariat, of the role of the Bolshevik Party, the main guiding, directing and leading force in the Soviet State and of the “transmission belts” between the Party and the masses — the trade unions, the Soviets, the cooperative societies, the YCLs.
The Leninist teaching on the special features and the advantages of the Socialist State were further developed in e works of Comrade Stalin.
Lenin and Stalin, the organisers of the first Socialist State in the world, not only developed the Marxist teachings on the State in a creative manner but also embodied them in life. Under the leadership of Lenin and Stalin, the working class of Russia in alliance with the toiling peasantry overthrew the power of the exploiters and created a mighty, multi-national Socialist State, whose stability might well be the envy of any other State.
“The Soviet power,” says Comrade Stalin, “in the course of a short historical period has transformed our country into an invincible fortress” (J. Stalin, The Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union, State Publishing House, 1946, Russ. Ed., p. 106). This victory of world historical significance can be explained by the fact that the Bolshevik Party guided by Leninist -Stalinist teachings on the Socialist State has persistently fought and fights for the all-round consolidation of the Soviet State.
Under the leadership of J. V. Stalin — who was the comrade-in-arms of the great Lenin and who continues his cause — the Soviet Socialist State has achieved successes of world-historical importance. In the USSR, the exploiting classes were defeated and eliminated and Socialism was built. On the basis of the victory of Socialism, Socialist democracy has been developed and flourished and the Soviet State has been more firmly consolidated, as a genuinely democratic and the most powerful State of the present time. The Socialist Soviet State was the principal instrument for the liquidation of the exploiting classes and the building of Socialism under conditions of peaceful development. It was the main weapon by means of which the Bolshevik Party and the Soviet people mobilised all the forces in the country and secured the defeat of Hitlerite Germany and Imperialist Japan during the Second World War. At the present time, the Soviet Socialist State is organising Communist construction within our country and is a bulwark of all anti-imperialist forces in the international arena, a bulwark of peace, democracy, freedom and the independence of the peoples.
Comrade Stalin’s championing of the Leninist teachings on the dictatorship of the proletariat and bis further creative elaboration of the theory of the Socialist State plays a very important role in the development and the strengthening of the Soviet State.
Comrade Stalin pointed out that the main thing in Marxism-Leninism is the question of the dictatorship of the proletariat and he gave a brilliant definition of its three aspects.
“(1) The utilisation of the power of the proletariat for the suppression of the exploiters, for the defence of the country, for the consolidation of the ties with the proletarians of the other lands, and for the development and the victory of the revolution in all countries.
“(2) The utilisation of the power of the proletariat in order to detach the toiling and exploited masses once and for all from the bourgeoisie, to consolidate the alliance of the proletariat with these masses, to enlist these masses for the work of Socialist construction, and to ensure the State leadership of these masses by the Proletariat.
(3) The utilisation of the power of the Proletariat for the organisation of Socialism, for the abolition of classes, for the transition to a society without classes, to a society without a State….”
Comrade Stalin teaches “only all these three aspects taken together give us a complete and finished concept of the dictatorship of the Proletariat.” (Stalin, Problems of Leninism, p. 135-6)
After the profound analysis of the whole course of development traversed by the Socialist State, Comrade Stalin set forth two phases of its development – the first phase lasting from the victory of the October Socialist Revolution upto the elimination of the exploiting classes, and the second phase, beginning after the elimination of the exploiters. In the first phase of its development, the Socialist State had three functions – it crushed the resistance of the bourgeoisie, strengthened the defences of the country against external aggression and finally, it carried out the work o! economic organisation and cultural education. This third function, says Comrade Stalin, did not attain its complete development in the conditions of the first phase of the Socialist State.
In the second phase of development of the Soviet State, the function of military suppression inside the country ceased, died away, for exploitation and exploiters had been abolished. As for the army, punitive organs and intelligence service, their edge was no longer turned to the inside of the country but to the outside, against external enemies.
In place of the function of suppression the State acquired a new function – the function of protecting Socialist property. The function of defending the country from foreign attack remained and the function of economic organization and cultural education also remained and was developed to the full. Now the main task of the State inside the country is the work of peaceful economic organisation and cultural education.
In his report to the 18th Congress of the CPSU(B), Comrade Stalin said:
“As you see, we now have an entirely new Socialist State, without precedent in history and differing considerably in form and functions from the Socialist State of the first phase.” (Stalin, Problems of Leninism, p. 637)
In developing the theory of the Socialist State in particular, Comrade Stalin pays special attention to elaborating the problem of the relationship of the internal and external functions of the State and in this connection, he gave a new formulation of the question of the State under Communism. Comrade Stalin has laid down that the Socialist State cannot die away unless the capitalist encirclement is liquidated.
This new chapter which Comrade Stalin has contributed to the theory of the Socialist State eliminates an important theoretical gap which existed in the Marxist teaching on the State. It at the same time, develops this Marxist teaching by making it wonderfully complete, all-sided and harmonious.
The Party has always been guided by Comrade Stalin’s directive that a strong and powerful dictatorship of the proletariat is necessary for the ultimate triumph of Communism.
In 1933 when the foundations of a Socialist economy had already been laid Comrade Stalin came out against the enemies of the people who were preaching the ‘abolition’ of the Soviets in the field of all-out collectivisation and against those who sowed confusion by representing the question of the withering away of the State in an oversimplified manner.
“Some comrades interpreted the thesis on the abolition of classes, the establishment of classless society, and the withering away of the State to mean a justification of laziness and complacency, a justification of the counter- revolutionary theory that the class struggle is subsiding and that State power is to be relaxed. Needless to say, such people cannot have anything in common with our Party. They are either degenerates, or double-dealers and must be driven out of the Party. The abolition of classes cannot be achieved by the subsiding of the class struggle, but by its intensification. The State will die out not as a result of the relaxation of the State power, but as a result of its utmost consolidation, which is necessary for the purpose of finally crushing the remnants of the dying classes, and of organising defence against the capitalist encirclement which is far from having been done away with as yet and will not soon be done away with.” (Stalin, Ibid, p. 423-4)
The Soviet State fulfilled its principal and decisive role in the rebuilding of our country on Socialist foundations – a rebuilding which proceeded in the course of a bitter struggle against capitalist and against petty-bourgeois elements. The Soviet State has been and remains a guiding force in the development of Socialist economy. The strengthening of the Socialist State and of its economy ensured the unshaken stability of the rear of the USSR during the Great Patriotic War. By strengthening the Socialist State and its organs, and particularly, the army and the intelligence service, the Soviet people were well-armed to meet the perfidious attack of Hitlerite Germany on the Soviet Union and achieved victory over her after liberating the peoples 0f Europe from the scourge of fascist servitude.
The Socialist State emerged still more strengthened from the furnace of war. The war demonstrated the that the Soviet social and State structure enjoys an inestimable advantage over the bourgeois social and State structure both in times of peace and of war.
In his speech on the 26th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution, Comrade Stalin referred to the sources of the strength of the Soviet State. These sources of strength were: the friendship of the peoples of our country, the organising role of the Party, its close ties with the people, the moral and political unity of the Soviet people which guaranteed the unshaken firmness of the Soviet State, and life-giving Soviet patriotism.
The Soviet Socialist State directs the development of the economy and culture of the Soviet Union in the interests of the people and draws in all the workers into fervent creative work. In its solicitude for the well-being of the people, it is directing the transformation of nature on a scale that was inconceivable before. The decree of the C.C. on CPSU(B) and the Council of Ministers of the USSR on the plan for the planting of shelter belts, with the object of a struggle against drought, serves as a clear example of this. The Soviet State expresses its ceaseless solicitude for the devel0pment of science and culture in the country and for the Communist education of the workers. The session of the V.I. Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences where the anti-popular, reactionary tendencies in biology were defeated and where the creative biological science of Michurin and Lysenko that serves the interests of the Soviet people completely carried the day, testifies to this. This is also proved by the decisions of our Party on ideological questions, by the struggle which the Party is conducting against reactionary, anti-popular influences in the sphere of ideology — against bourgeois aesthetics, formalism, orphan cosmopolitanism and servility before the corrupt bourgeois culture of the West. The Soviet people welcomed these decisions of the Party with great enthusiasm. The Soviet people stigmatise the cosmopolitans in the sphere of art and science, who attempt to underrate the importance of Russian and especially Soviet culture The Soviet people love their Socialist Fatherland deeply. For them the glorious, progressive traditions of the Great Russian people and the other peoples of the USSR — traditions that have embodied and have attained further development in the Soviet Socialist culture are very dear.
By directing the development of Soviet culture, which national in form and Socialist in content, the Soviet State educates the workers of the USSR in the spirit of lofty patriotism, in Soviet national pride, in the spirit of devotion to the interests of the Party of Lenin and Stalin, to the interests of the Socialist Fatherland, the Soviet Socialist State. The inexhaustible source of the might of the Soviet State as well as the whole Soviet society lies in the indissoluble ties of the Soviet people and the Soviet Socialist State.
II
Lenin and Stalin, the great leaders of the Proletariat, furthered an all-round development of Marxism, deepened and concretised Marx’s teachings on the Socialist State and on the dictatorship of the Proletariat.
Right up to Lenin’s time, Marxists of all countries were convinced that the parliamentary democratic republic is the most expedient form of the political organisation of society in the period of transition from capitalism to Socialism. Basing himself on the new experience of the international working class movement and in the first place, on the experience of the Russian revolutions, Lenin arrived at the
conclusion that it was the republic of Soviets and not a parliamentary republic which constitutes the best form of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Lenin studied most attentively the experience and the nature of Soviet organisations as mass revolutionary organisations of the people. Already in 1905, at the time of the bourgeois-democratic revolution, Lenin pointed out that the Soviets represented not only a weapon of the revolutionary struggle of the masses and organs of universal, popular armed uprising but also the embryo of the new revolutionary power.
In 1917, during the period of the transition of the bourgeois-democratic revolution into the Socialist Revolution when there arose the question of the transfer of power from the hands of the bourgeoisie to the hands of the proletariat, Lenin strongly emphasised the fact that the Soviets constitute not only the most powerful organs of mass, politica1 actions of the workers, of the revolutionary struggle of the masses, the organs of armed insurrection—organs capable of breaking the omnipotence of finance- capital and its political organisation but also a new type of State power, adapted to the needs of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
“Let them feel ashamed who say: ‘We have no machinery to replace the old one which inevitably gravitates towards the defence of the bourgeoisie’. Because there is such a machinery. That is the Soviets. Do not be afraid of the initiative and independence of the masses, trust the revolutionary organisation of the masses...” (Lenin, Collected Works, Russ. Ed., Vol. XXI, p. 145)
Thus said Lenin. He thus demonstrated in a thorough fashion the special feature and the advantages of Soviet organisation.
The strength of the Soviet organisation lies in that it alone was born out of the creative activity of the revolutionary people and became the political foundation of the revolutionary power of the workers and peasants. It was, therefore, capable of “immediately and effectively smashing and finally, destroying, the old, i.e., the bourgeois bureaucratic and judicial apparatus,” (Lenin’ Selected Works, London, L. & W., Vol. VII, p. 232), and of releasing the army from subordination to bourgeois command and of converting it from an instrument of oppression of the people by the exploiters into an instrument of liberating the people from the yoke of the bourgeoisie.
The strength of the Soviet organisation lies, as Lenin points out, in the fact that being the all-embracing organisation of the proletariat, the only organisation embracing all the workers, it guarantees the close cooperation of the working class and the peasantry, the alliance of the working class with the peasantry and the leading role of the working class in this alliance.
Finally, Lenin teaches us that the strength of the Soviet organisation consists in the fact that
“the Soviets are the direct organisation of the toiling and exploited masses themselves which helps them to organise and administer the State themselves in every possible way. And in this it is the vanguard of the toiling and exploited, the urban proletariat, that enjoys the advantage in that it is best organised by the large enterprises, it is much easier for it to elect and watch elections. The Soviet organisation automatically helps to unite all the toilers and exploited round their vanguard, the proletariat.” (Lenin, Selected Works, Moscow 1947, Vol. II, p.
374)
And it is precisely because of this that the Soviets are the most democratic organisation which draw in the masses of workers in the administration of the State, and bring into play their creative initiative, catch up their initiative and organise them in the struggle for the ultimate triumph it C0mmunism. The strength of the Soviet State lies in that it springs right from among the masses themselves and bases itself on their support and their participation in administration.
Lenin in drawing the distinction between bourgeois democracy and proletarian democracy pointed out that as opposed to the false, restricted and formal democracy under capitalism, a democracy for the rich and for their servitors, proletarian democracy is a democracy for the overwhelming majority of the population, a democracy of the workers, peasants and intelligentsia. The principal conditions, guaranteeing the establishment of a proletarian democracy, are the expropriation of the principal means of production from the exploiters, the destruction of the old official, bureaucratic apparatus of State power which was designed for the suppression of the workers, the drawing in of the broadest masses of workers in the administration ot ine State. Lenin teaches us that it is this which in fact constitutes the basis of real democracy for the people.
Without the transfer of power from the hands of the bourgeoisie into the hands of the proletariat and the confiscation of the land from the landowners and the big industries and banks from the capitalists, without the transfer of the best printing establishments, buildings, theatres, schools, cinema, radio, etc., into the hands of the workers, all talk about democracy for the people is empty chatter calculated to fool the to fool the workers and peasants.
The world historical significance of the October Socialist Revolution consists in that for the first time in history it smashed the old State machinery, established Soviet power, transferred the principal means of production to the workers’ State. Now, for the first time in history, the benefits of democracy were accessible in reality to the workers and began to be used by the workers, by the toiling peasantry and the intelligentsia in their own interests and against the interests of the exploiters. All supporters of real dem0cracy who desire to see it in action and not in words must take to this path.
“This will mean substituting ‘the dictatorship of one class’ for ‘popular’, ‘pure’, ‘democracy’,” howled the Scheidmans and Kautskys, the Austerlltzes and Renners and today Bevin and Attlee, Blum and Schumacher, Green and Rennet howl in the same manner. Lenin replied ‘that it was not true. “It will be the substitution of democracy for the poor for democracy tor the rich. It will be the substitution of the right of assembly and freedom of the Press for the majority of the population – the toilers – the right of assembly and freedom of the Press for the minority – the exploiters. It will be the enormous world-historical expansion of democracy, its transformation from lies into truth, the emancipation of mankind from the fetters of capital, which distorts and curtails all bourgeois democracy, even the most democratic and republican.” (Lenin, ’ Selected Works, L. & W., Lond0n Vol. VII, p. 221)
The Soviet proletarian State which replaced the bourgeois State completely accomplished at one stroke equality of citizens, irrespective of sex religion, nationality, an equality that bourgeois democracy has always promised everywhere and which it has never been able to introduce in any place.
In contradistinction to the bourgeois State which keeps the masses away from participation in the work of administration, the Soviet State enlists the masses, the exploited masses in the work of administration” (Lenin, Selected Works, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow 1947, Vol. II p. 373). By its structure the Soviet power is adapted to bringing near the masses to the machinery of administration. All this proves that “proletarian democracy is a million times more democratic than any bourgeois democracy; Soviet power is a million times more democratic than the most democratic bourgeois republic.” (Ibid, p. 374)
In 1917, when the workers and peasants of the Russian empire overthrew the power of the landowners and the capitalists, the bourgeoisie of all countries screamed that the workers and peasants had acted “undemocratically”. However, life proved the contrary. In the USSR, in a very short space of time, there arose a powerful Socialist industry and a progressive Socialist agriculture. The exploiting classes were eliminated and within the land the moral and political unity of Soviet society was attained. The national differences that existed between the peoples of the Russian empire under tsarism became a thing of the past and the friendship of the peoples of the Soviet Union, a friendship based on real equality, trust and the voluntary cooperation of the peoples of the USSR was achieved and consolidated. As opposed to bourgeois democracy, Soviet democracy in the period of transition from capitalism to Socialism was a real democracy for the people, who had been freed from exploitation, and who received actual rights in place of formal rights. This Soviet democracy displayed all its advantages with even greater force in the period of victorious Socialism. The victory 0f Socialism in the USSR, the elimination of the exploiting classes, the important changes which took place in the working class, peasantry and intelligentsia and which brought about the moral and political unity of the Soviet State and lastly, the greater strengthening of the friendship of the peoples of the USSR—all this necessitated the introduction of a new Constitution built on principles of developed Socialist democracy. Soviet democracy does not know of the restrictions, characteristic of bourgeois constitutions (even of those amongst them which make a display of their democratic principles); it does not know of any qualifications of residence and education, of racial and national discrimination, of the restriction of rights of women and youth, of property qualifications, etc.
Soviet Socialist democracy does not merely proclaim the equality of rights of citizens, but ensures it by giving legislative embodiment to the fact that the regime of exploitation has been abolished, to the fact that the citizens have been emancipated from all exploitation. In the USSR democratic liberties were not merely proclaimed, they were guaranteed by providing definite material resources. The workers of the USSR enjoy rights that they could not even dream« of under the system of bourgeois democracy — the right to work and rest, security m case of illness and old age, right to education—and the victory of Socialism guaranteed the utilisation of these rights by the workers.
For the first time in history, the system of developed Socialist democracy was an example of genuine democracy, based on a wide drawing in of the masses in the work of administration of the Socialist State as opposed to bourgeois democracy which was based on force and acted as a screen to hide the domination of the exploited by the exploiters. The function of military suppression inside the country was rendered unnecessary by the elimination of exploiters in the USSR. In the period of victorious Socialism, the main task of the Soviet Socialist State inside the country was work of peaceful economic Organisation and cultural education.
Indeed, present-day bourgeois ‘democracy’ with its worn-out fragment of much- advertised ‘freedom’, with its crude and cynical use of violence against the oppressed classes, with its regime of exploitation and hunger for the workers seems pitiable and deformed in comparison with Socialist democracy.
The whole course of world history has confirmed the profundity and the correctness of the Leninist postulate that the era of bourgeois democratic parliamentarianism has come to an end, and a new chapter in world history – the era of proletarian dictatorship has commenced” (Lenin quoted by Stalin in Problems of Leninism, Moscow, 1947, p. 47) – the era of the triumph of Socialist democracy'
Lenin more than once pointed out that the Soviet power is the amalgamation of local Soviets into one single State organisation built on the principle of democratic centralism. Soviet power combines a consistently realisable centralism with the exuberant democraticism of the popular mass, who, for the first time, have taken their destiny in their own hands. The popular masses participate in the work of administration of the country through the system of Soviets and other mass organisations of the workers; they control the activities of the Soviet organs and recall and replace the deputies who fail to justify the trust of the people.
The establishment of Soviet power meant the amalgamation of the local Soviets into a common State organisation of the proletariat as the ruling class and the vanguard of all the workers and of the exploited masses~ the creation of the republic of Soviets.
“The essence of. the Soviet power is contained in the fact that these organisations of a most pronounced mass character, these most revolutionary organisations of precisely those classes that were oppressed by the capitalists and landlords are now the ‘permanent and sole basis of the whole State apparatus’; that ‘precisely those masses which even in the most democratic bourgeois republics, while being equal in law, have in fact been prevented by thousands of tricks and devices from taking part in political life and from enjoying democratic rights and liberties, are now drawn .unfailingly into constant and, moreover, decisive participation in the democratic administration of the State’.” (Stalin, Ibid, p. 46)
In his work, On the Foundations of Leninism, Comrade Stalin generalises and develops the Leninist characterisations of Soviet power. He lays down the following as its distinctive and characteristic features — the Soviet power has a most pronounced mass character and is the most democratic State organisation of all possible State organisations while classes continue to exist; it is the arena of the bond between the working class and the peasantry directed against the exploiters, and basing itself on this union, the Soviet power is the power of the majority of the population over the minority, “it is the State of the majority, the expression of its dictatorship.” (Stalin, Ibid, p. 47)
The Soviet power is the most internationalist of State organisations in class society, capable of completely destroying national oppression and of organising close cooperation of the workers of different nationalities and of educating them in the spirit of trust, mutual respect and friendship, in the spirit of Socialist internationalism and Soviet patriotism. By virtue of this it facilitates the association of the workers 0f various nationalities into a single State union.
Even long before the Great October Revolution, Comrade Stalin had elaborated the programme of our Party on the national question. He laid down the basis for a solution of the national question during the period of Soviet power as well as a solution to the question of the paths to be followed for development of the culture of the national republics. In respect of this Comrade Stalin emphasised the leading role of the Russian people in rallying the peoples of the Soviet Union and in the struggle for Communism. From the very first days of the Soviet power, the entire work of building national republics and national culture of all the peoples of the USSR proceeded under the direct guidance of Comrade Stalin. The great flowering of the economy and culture of the peoples of our country is closely associated with the name of Stalin.
In emphasising the services of Comrade Stalin in the work of building the multi- national Soviet State, V. M. Molotov says:
“More than anyone else, Comrade Stalin contributed to the creation of a firm politically united Soviet Union out of the insufficiently united Soviet republics and to the drawing up of its first constitution. With this was laid the foundation of the mighty Soviet State, based on the great friendship of the Soviet peoples.” (V. M. Molotov, Stalin – The Continuer of the Cause of Lenin, State Publishing House, Minsk, 1940, pp. 11-12)
The Declaration of Rights to the Toiling and Exploited People, which was published in Pravda on January 17, 1918 was signed by V. I. Lenin and drafted by him with Stalin’s assistance. It declared that the Soviet republic be constituted on the principle of a free union of free nations. It was on these principles that Lenin and Stalin founded the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the first constituti0n of the USSR.
In his report delivered at the Extraordinary Eighth Congress of Soviets of the USSR, Comrade Stalin spoke of the specific features of the new Constitution of the USSR, which was the legislative embodiment of the victory of the Great October Socialist Revoluti0n. He emphasised the fact that unlike bourgeois constitutions which at bottom are nationalistic, since they proceed from the premise that nations and races cannot have equal rights, the draft of the new constitution was on the contrary, profoundly internationalistic since it proceeded from the proposition that “all nations and races, irrespective of their past and present position, irrespective of their strengths and weakness, should enjoy equal rights, in all spheres of the economic, social, political and cultural life of society,” (Stalin, Problems of Leninism, p. 550)
As a result of a consistent Leninist-Stalinist national policy the Soviet Union was transformed into a mighty multi-national Socialist State in a free union o£ free nations.
“The absence of exploiting classes, which are the principal organisers of strife between nations, the absence of exploitation which cultivates mutual distrust and kindles nationalist passions; the fact that power is in the hands of the working class which is the foe of all enslavement and the true vehicle of the ideas of internationalism; the actual practice of mutual aid among the peoples in all spheres of economic and social life; and, finally, the flourishing national culture of the peoples of the USSR, culture which is national in form and Socialist in content — all these and similar factors have brought about a radical change in the aspect of the peoples of the USSR; their feeling of mutual distrust has disappeared, a feeling of mutual friendship has developed am among them, and thus real fraternal cooperation among the peoples has been established within the system a single federated State.” (Stalin, Ibid. p. 547)
The Soviet power is defending the interests of all the workers.
The Soviet power by its very structure facilitates the task of leading the peasantry and other strata of the toilers to the side of the working class — “as the most consolidated and most class-conscious core of the Soviets.” (Stalin, Ibid. p. 47)
The Soviet power does away with the division of the legislative and executive functions which exist in bourgeois-parliamentary republics; it combines the legislative and executive functions in a single State organisation, “directly links the workers and the labouring masses in general with the apparatus of State administration, teaches them how to administer the country.” (Stalin, Ibid, p. 48)
The Soviet power saved the army from its subordination to bourgeois command and converted it from the instrument of oppression of the people which it was under capitalism “into an instrument for the liberation of the people from the yoke of the bourgeoisie, both native and foreign” (Stalin, .Ibid, p. 48), and it organised and strengthened the armed. forces of revolution. The Soviet State 0rganisation finally destroyed the old bureaucratic and judicial apparatus, created the necessary conditions for doing away with bureaucratic distortion and red tape in State 0rgans.
The Soviet form of State draws in all the mass organisations of the toilers — the trade unions, Komsomol, cooperatives, press, workers’ societies and consequently all their members into constant and positive participation in the State administration. It, at the same time, prepares one of the most important conditions for the future withering away of the State in a world Communist society.
Comrade Stalin concludes:
“The republic of Soviets is thus the political form, so long sought and finally discovered, within the framework of which the emancipation of the proletariat, the complete victory of Socialism is to be accomplished.
“The Paris Commune was the embryo of this form; the Soviet power is its development and culmination.” (Stalin, Ibid, p. 48)
Lenin and Stalin teach us that the dictatorship of the proletariat is the main content of the proletarian revolution, the main weapon in the hands of the working class, which it utilises to crush the exploiters, to liquidate classes and build Socialism.
The Soviet power is the highest form of the dictatorship of the proletariat, of the working class, best adapted for carrying out the functions of the Socialist State, not only during the transitional period from capitalism to Socialism but also under Socialism.
All this testifies alike to the world-historical significance of the Leninist teaching on the Soviet type of State, on the Soviets as a State form of the Socialist State and to the world-historical significance of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, created under the guidance of Lenin and Stalin and growing into a powerful force under the leadership of the Great Stalin.
III
The consolidation of the regime of People’s Democracy in the countries of Eastern and Central Europe is one of the greatest examples of the vitality and the correctness of Marxist-Leninist teaching on the State.
All these countries had been occupied by Hitlerite Germany on the eve of or during the course of the war; almost all of them (with the exception of Czechoslovakia) had till the time of occupation lived through a long period of fascist and therefore the most savage form of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.
In the period of fascist rule, the overwhelming section of the landlords and big bourgeoisie of these countries, exercised a brutal dictatorship within the country and their foreign policy was oriented towards supporting the imperialists of USA, England, France, Italy and above all Germany. These Governments were not merely organs of oppression of the peoples of these countries but also advance posts of imperialism in its struggle against the Soviet Union. During the Second World War, the human resources and especially, the industrial resources and raw materials of these countries were utilised to a great extent by Hitlerite Germany in its struggle against the Soviet Union.
The struggle of the workers, the peasants, the intelligentsia and of considerable strata of the petty and the middle bourgeoisie against the fascist dictatorship, against the fascist Governments of their countries was at the same time, a struggle for national liberation from the yoke of fascist Germany – a liberation struggle against the Hitlerite imperialist bandits.
The anti-fascist liberation struggle of the peoples of these countries derived its inspiration and support from the patriotic liberation struggle waged by the Soviet people against Hitlerite imperialism.
The anti-fascist liberation struggle waged by the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe against the Hitlerite regime merged with the struggle for Socialism, waged by the peoples of the Soviet Union.
Under these conditions the defeat of imperialist Germany and the collapse of the Hitlerite regime led to the defeat and the collapse of the fascist regimes in the countries that were the satellites of Hitlerite Germany. At the last moment, various groups of landlords and the bourgeoisie in order to rescue their dictatorship reorientated themselves towards Anglo-American imperialism and attempted to convert these countries into an instrument of Anglo-Saxon imperialism, directed against the USSR.
But the peoples of the countries of Eastern and Central Europe who had gone through the stern school of the fight against fascism under the leadership of the Communist Parties, who had been liberated from Hitlerite tyranny by the Soviet Army, defeated the insidious plans of the ill-starred agents of German and Anglo-American imperialism by assuming power in their own hands. The national liberation and the anti-fascist struggle was objectively an anti-imperialist struggle which the people of Eastern and Central Europe together waged under the leadership of the Great Soviet Union, based upon the mighty strength of the Soviet Army—an army of liberators. Out of this great national liberation and anti-fascist struggle, there arose a new people’s power, resting on the broad democratic bloc of diverse social forces — the workers, peasants, the urban petty-bourgeoisie, the intelligentsia. The basis of this bloc the alliance of the working class and the peasantry, brought about under the leadership of the working class.
The transfer of power from the hands of the landlords of the capitalists into the hands of the people, the defeat of the counter-revolutionary parties, the nationalisation of industry and the introduction of land reforms represented a revolutionary act of the greatest historical significance. These changes are equivalent to Socialist revolution. The new power could not but suppress all the attempts of the counter-revolutionary conspirators who were inspired from Britain and USA, to re-establish the rule of the landlords and capitalists, and to restore the fascist order.
The new power could only be a dictatorship directed against the enemies of the people, a dictatorship that crushes the resistance of the exploiting classes, who are opposing the organisation of Socialist construction in the countries of People’s Democracy. At the very same time, the revolutionary power of the people is a genuine democracy for the working class and the toilers, who for the very first time, received a guarantee of political freedom and an actual improvement of their living Standards.
Lenin has more than once pointed out that the transition from capitalism to Socialism, taken on a world scale shows “a diversity of forms of democracy and forms of transition from capitalism to Socialism.” (Lenin, Collected Works, Moscow, Russ. Ed., Vol. XIX, p. 230)
In 1921, Lenin noted that other countries which follow the USSR in the path to Socialism bring in many of their own specific features in the fight for Socialism. Above all, they are not called upon to begin the attack on imperialism and pierce the first breach in its system. In comparing the RSFSR with the Soviet Republic of Transcaucasia which had just arisen in 1920, Lenin wrote:
“We have made the first breach in world capitalism. A breach has been made. We have maintained our positions after a fierce, superhuman, severe, difficult and painfully intense war against the Whites, the Socialist- Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks, who were supported by the whole of the Entente, by its blockade and by its military assistance
“You, comrades, Communists of the Caucasus, have no need to force a breach. Take advantage of the favourable international situation that exists for you in 1921, and learn to create the new conditions with greater caution and more methodically. In 1921, neither Europe nor the whole world is what it was in 1917 and 1918.” (Lenin, Selected Works, Moscow, Vol. II, p. 699)
Lenin pointed out further that the Transcaucasian republics rely upon the military and political assistance of the RSFSR, while Soviet Russia in the first years of its existence was not able to receive such assistance and consequently met with great difficulties.
Lenin, however, emphasised that in spite of all the specific conditions in the Soviet republics of Transcaucasia “the spirit, the sense, and the lessons of the experience” of the Russian Communists ought to be fully studied by the Communists of Transcaucasia.
The directives of Lenin are of great theoretical and fundamental importance.
They serve to guide us in the analysis of the processes that are taking place in the countries of People’s Democracy.
It is, of course, necessary to study the specific conditions in the countries of People’s Democracy which have in the past been developing under conditions different to those existing in the borderlands of the Russian empire; and besides, the correlation of forces in the international field are today completely different to those which existed in 1920-21. In the light of these circumstances, the brilliance of the directives of V. I. Lenin who even in 1921 emphasised that in spite of all the specific conditions in every country, in spite of the diversity of forms of the transition to Socialism, it is essential to study the experience of the Russian Communists, stands out even more convincingly and clearly. These directives of Lenin assume special significance under present conditions.
People’s Democracy in the lands of Eastern and Central arose on the basis of the cooperation of the peoples of these countries with the Great Soviet Union, which had built up Socialism and which rendered them guiding assistance. Without the existence of the Soviet Union, which defeated Hitlerite imperialism and its satellites, without the USSR that stands as an example to the world of the possibility of administering a country without the landlords and the capitalists, the birth of People’s Democracy in the form that it took place would have been impossible. The Soviet Union was the moral and political, the economic and the military support of the peoples of Eastern and Central Europe, who had risen to fight fascism and had taken power into their own hands. The Soviet Union saved these countries from foreign intervention, planned as a civil war on the Greek ‘model’.
Between 1917-20, the peoples of the Soviet Union made the first breach in the imperialist system and defended their Socialist Fatherland from the imperialist attempts to smother it. Between 1941-45, the USSR, a Socialist State defeated the German aggressors, smashed the forces of fascism in Europe and at the same time, made possible the emergence of People’s Democracy in the lands of Eastern and Central Europe. The existence of a mighty revolutionary force — the Soviet Army — in these countries prevented the bourgeoisie from restoring the old apparatus of State power, that had been smashed as a result of the defeat of fascism. It also constituted an obstacle to direct Anglo-American imperialist intervention in the internal affairs of these countries and it helped the workers to capture political power. Such conditions did not exist for the working class of those countries where the imperialist armies had entered.
Thus the victorious Red Army pierced a new breach in the system of world imperialist forces and created a new powerful support in the anti-imperialist front. Based on this victory, there arose a new, revolutionary power led by the working class — a new democracy, carrying out the functions of the dictatorship of the Proletariat.
Not only the victory of the Soviet Union in the Second World War but the very fact of the existence of the mighty Socialist State — the USSR — conditioned the appearance of the People’s Democratic States and determined the possibility of Socialist construction in these countries. The leader of the United Workers’ Party of Poland, Comrade Beirut, was profoundly correct when he spoke in this connection in his report to the Unity Congress of the Workers’ Parties of Poland. He said:
“Thus just as at the basis of our People’s Democracy lies the selfless heroic help of the Soviet Union, the basis of the distinctive feature of our path, compared with the Soviet Union rests on the all-round help of the Soviet Uni0n and on the utilisatl0n of the experience and achievements of the victorious dictatorship of the proletariat thanks to which we within the framework of People’s Democracy, are able , in our way to realise the functions of the dictatorship of the proletariat.” (Marxist Miscellany, PPH Bombay, No 1, p. 53)
The dictatorship of the proletariat is the forcible coercion of the exploiters, but the forms of this coercion can and will be inevitably different. In the country that first ushered in the era of Socialist Revolution, the proletariat since it did not rely on the State support of the proletariat of any other country, had inevitably to bear the brunt of the most furious attack not to only of its own but of the world bourgeoisie. Under these conditions the overthrown bourgeoisie boycotted the State of the new power and fought them with ferocity. It is enough to remember the ire of the Russian bourgeoisie against the Soviets and its struggle in order to be convinced about this-
“…It was the unscrupulous, self-seeking and sordid fight of the bourgeoisie waged against the Soviets; and lastly, it was the overt participation of the bourgeoisie (from the Cadets to the Right-Socialist Revolutionaries, from Milyukov to Kerensky) in the Kornilov mutiny, that paved the way for the formal exclusion of the bourgeoisie from the Soviets,” wrote Lenin. (V. I. Lenin, Selected Works, Vol. II, p. 392)
This rendered inevitable the restriction of franchise for the bourgeoisie in the USSR in the first stages of the development of the dictatorship of the proletariat. With regard to this, Lenin emphasised the fact that the question of restricting the franchise is a nationally specific and not a general question of the dictatorship of the proletariat, that in the USSR these limitations arose as a result of the specific .conditions of the Russian Revolution, the specific path of its development and that the restriction of franchise for the bourgeoisie “is not absolutely necessary for the exercise the dictatorship, it is not an essential earmark of the logical concept ‘dictatorship’, it does not enter as an essential condition in the historical and class concept ‘dictatorship’.
“The necessary earmark, the essential condition of dictatorship, is the forcible suppression of the exploiters as a class, and, consequently, the infringement of ‘pure democracy’, i.e., of equality and freedom for that class.” (Lenin, Ibid, p. 380)
It is on the one hand, the distinctive features of the internal development in a country — the correlation of class forces and the intensity of class conflicts in the country and on the other the distinctive features of the international situation which, above all, determine the forms, methods and the scale of the violence of the proletariat against the exploiters. For the working class violence is not an aim but a means of coercing the resistance of the bourgeoisie and strengthening the workers’ State. The ‘measure’ of this violence is determined in the main by the ‘measure’ of bourgeois resistance and by the extent of its ‘fury’ in the struggle against the proletariat and the toiling classes as a whole.
As Comrade Dimitrov points out in his Report to the Fifth Congress of the Bulgarian Workers’ Party (Communists), the regime of People’s Democracy must smash the resistance of the capitalists and the big landholders and organise the building up of industry on the foundations of social ownership and planned economy. In order to achieve this, it is necessary not only to crush the capitalist elements and to eliminate whatever attempts are made to restore the power of the capitalists and landlords but also to overcome the instability of the petty-bourgeoisie and the middle peasantry, and to rally the greater masses of the toilers around the working class for a determined struggle in the transition to Socialism.
The fundamental task of People’s Democracy in the building of a Socialist society consists in the creation of such conditions for the well-being and the culture of the popular masses as are allowed by contemporary science and by the existing possibilities of the country. But it is impossible to build up Socialism, without raising the level of the productive forces both in the town and in the countryside. As the experience of Socialist construction in the USSR has shown a firm guarantee of the welfare of the peasants and of the growth of agriculture are possible only un1de conditions of collective economy and realisable in the form of productive cooperation; the restriction and the squeezing out of capitalist elements is the indispensable condition for the cooperation of peasant farms and the complete elimination of capitalist elements. The concrete forms of this cooperation will be entirely determined by the conditions that exist in the countries of People’s Democracy. And in particular the process of collectivising peasant farms must decide the problem of socialisation not only of the instruments of labour but also of land, inasmuch as land has not been nationalised in these countries. This undoubtedly is what in essence distinguishes the conditions of collectivisation of peasant farms in the lands of People’s Democracy from the conditions in which it proceeded in the USSR and creates a number of additional difficulties for these countries,
There is no doubt left that the working class which constitutes the leading force in the countries of People’s Democracy after having overcome the disruption in its ranks and rallied around united Communist Parties is now finding the path and the means of overcoming these difficulties and speedily carrying out the task of Socialist reconstruction of agriculture on the path to collectivisation.
Everything that has been said about the regime of People’s Democracy testifies t0 the fact that the dictatorship of the proletariat has been consolidated — a dictatorship which is an instrument of coercing the exploiters, an instrument of Communist transformation, and Communist re-education of the working class, and a weapon for the elimination of classes and building up of Socialism. As in the USSR the highest principle of this dictatorship is the alliance of the working class and the peasantry, realised under the leadership of the working class.
The world-historical development of the countries of People’s Democracy and in particular, the experience of their struggle for Socialism has once more confirmed the correctness of the Great Lenin who already on the eve of the Great October Revolution wrote:
“The transition from capitalism to Socialism will certainly create a great variety and abundance of political forms, but their essence will inevitably be the same: the dictatorship of the proletariat.” (Lenin, Selected Works, Moscow, Vol. II, p. 164)
The dictatorship of the proletariat in the countries of People’s Democracy was established in a special form as distinct from Soviet one. It was carried out in the form of a People’s Democratic Republic. The following distinctive features in the historical situation gave rise to such a possibility. First, the existence of the Soviet Union — a mighty Socialist State whose armed forces destroyed Hitlerite Germany, and at the same time, brought about the defeat of fascist regimes both in Germany and in the countries of its occupation. The victory of the Soviet Union could not but lead to the destruction, the smashing up of the old fascisised apparatus of State power in the countries that had been liberated by the Soviet Army from the Hitlerite yoke. This victory created the conditions for the transfer of power to the hands of the people.
The anti-fascist struggle of the popular masses, led by working class received a powerful impetus to its development and the role of the working class in the political life of the country increased tremendously as a result of ,the fight and the victory of the Soviet Army. In the countries liberated by the Soviet Army the working class became the principal force in the political life.
Under these circumstances, the remnants of fascism were eradicated and political life was democratised. The new State power that had been created in place of the old destroyed one was in form republican-democratic; it was, however, created anew on real democratic foundations, under the leadership of the working class. The republican structure and its institutions had become not an instrument of the rule of the exploiters but an instrument of the domination of the popular masses, led by the working class.
The bourgeoisie made a series of attempts to bring the new State under its control, to turn it into an ordinary bourgeois-parliamentary State, but it did not dare to instigate a civil war and attempt at restoring its domination by bloody means.
The defeat of Hitlerite Germany demoralised the bourgeoisie of the countries of Eastern and Central Europe. A considerable part of it being compromised because of its ties with the Hitlerites received the punishment it deserved at the hands o£ the people. The section that remained and its hangers-on found themselves without the apparatus of State power and were paralysed by the presence of the Soviet Army. They were, therefore forced to give up any attempts at defeating the working class by armed means. The existence of the Soviet Army saved the countries of People’s Democracy from armed intervention and prevented the imperialist States from carrying out an aggression.
The bourgeoisie in the countries of People’s Democracy being forced to renounce civil war conducted a fierce struggle for reverting to the bourgeois parliamentary and even fascist structure. It established ties with the camp of imperialist reaction and above all, with imperialist circles in the USA and Britain. It carried on an unbridled campaign against the bloc of democratic parties and particularly against the leading force in this bloc — the Communist Party — and made desperate efforts to sow mischief between the Communist Party and other democratic parties and prevent the unification of the workers’ parties — the Communist and Socialist — into united workers’ parties. The bourgeois1e placed its agents in certain democratic parties (the party of small landholders in Hungary, etc.) and wove intrigues and conspiracies against the new, revolutionary power. It carried out terrorist acts, supported banditry and organised espionage at the behest of Anglo-American intelligence services, etc.
Only a determined resistance to all the efforts of the bourgeoisie, its isolation from the petty-bourgeoisie and particularly from the peasantry, the consolidation of the alliance of the working class and the peasantry, the overcoming of the disruption in the working class and the restoration of its leading role, the carrying out of the nationalisation of big industry and the restriction of capitalist elements in agriculture and trade—all this secured the consolidation of the dictatorship of the working class in the countries of Eastern and Central Europe.
Thus the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat in these countries was not a swiftly accomplished act, but a comparatively long process that was completed at different times in different countries of People’s Democracy, a process that was that took place in conditions of intense struggle. The presence of the Soviet State and the Soviet Army was the determining condition which guaranteed the relatively ‘peaceful’ character of this struggle and its outcome in favour of the people led by the working class. It goes without saying as Lenin more than once pointed out that all boundaries in nature and society are conditional and mobile. However, it is possible for us to determine approximately, when the dictatorship of the working class was consolidated in the various countries.
In Czechoslovakia, the February events in 1948, when the working class and the peasantry defeated the attempts of reaction to take the movement backward was one such boundary line; in Rumania, it was the abolition of the monarchy; in Bulgaria, the defeat of the “oppositionists” and in essence the counter-revolutionary parties and groups, and particularly the Petkov group; in Hungary, the exposure of the counter- revolutionary elements in the Smallholders’ party, the ridding of this party of reactionary elements and the reconstruction of the National Front, etc.
When we say that in the countries of Eastern and Central Europe the dictatorship of the proletariat was accomplished in the form of a People’s Democratic Republic it is important to bear in mind that this form was able to embody the dictatorship of the proletariat because of (a) the existence of the dictatorship of the working class in the ' form of Soviet power in the USSR; (b) the smashing of the bourgeois State apparatus in these countries; (c) the change in parliamentary form necessitated by the experience of the Soviet State structure (particularly the local organs of power in countries of People’s Democracy are organised taking into account the experience of building of local Soviet organs of power); (d) the drawing in of mass organisations of workers (Fatherland and National Fronts, trade unions, youth organisations, etc.) into active participation in the work of State administration.
Thus not only is the essence of the new revolutionary power opposed to the essence of the bourgeois parliamentary State, but even the form of administration of the People’s Democratic State has undergone a change compared to the parliamentary one. The State in the countries of People’s Democracy as a special form of the dictatorship of the proletariat, distinct from the Soviet one is a People’s Democratic State.
As Lenin and Stalin have pointed out, the Soviet power has been and remains the highest form of the Socialist State. But the special path of establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat in the countries of People’s Democracy, the correlation of forces inside these countries and the level of the political maturity of the working masses, as well as the balance of forces of Socialism and imperialism on the international arena and the concrete forms of struggle for Socialism of the working class of all countries and finally, the leading role of the great Soviet Union, the standard-bearer of Socialism and the consistent champion of democratic liberties — all this gave rise to conditions for establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat in another form — in the form of a People’s Democratic Republic. This special form of revolutionary power arose and proved capable of exercising the functions of the dictatorship of the proletariat and carrying out the tasks of a transitional period from capitalism to Socialism thanks to the presence and the help of the Soviet Socialist State.
Thus, People’s Democracy represents a special form oi the dictatorship of the proletariat, arising under conditions of a new correlation of class forces on an international scale. This new form of power and the distinctive features of the development of the countries of People’s Democracy towards Socialism, does not deny but only affirms the international significance of the Great October Socialist Revolution, the world-historical significance of the successes of the USSR, its leading role in the struggle for Communism. Moreover, the existence of the Soviet Union and its assistance also determines those distinctive features which were created in the countries of People’s Democracy The course of history has once again confirmed the words of Lenin that the spirit, the sense and the lessons of the Russian Communists are of permanent international importance.
In the countries of People’s Democracy every step made towards Socialism is accomplished through a tenacious struggle against the forces and the traditions of the old world and takes place under conditions of a fierce class struggle. The experience of Socialist construction in the USSR proves that this struggle is particularly stubborn when the Socialist reconstruction of the countryside begins and when it comes to smashing the fierce resistance of the most numerous exploiting class — the class of kulaks. In regard to this it must not be forgotten that the collectivisation of peasant farms in the countries of People’s Democracy will be further complicated by the absence of land nationalisation, a fact which, of course, the kulak will not fail to utilise. Struggle and struggle alone determines both the tempo of Socialist construction as well as its success in the countries of People’s Democracy. All this demands from the Workers’ Parties of the countries of People’s Democracy a further strengthening of people’s power and in particular a further consolidation of the leading role of the working class and its Party, in the system of People’s Democracy. All this demands from them a careful study of the experience which the Soviet people and the Bolshevik Party have accumulated in the struggle for Socialism and a further strengthening of the ties between their countries and other People’s Democracies and with the Great Soviet Union.
The Council of Mutual Economic Aid designed to ensure the broad economic cooperation between these countries plays a very big role in the assistance rendered by the Soviet Union to the People’s Democracies to carry out even more quickly the tasks of economic and cultural construction and further strengthens the position of Socialism and monocracy.
Guided by the teachings of Lenin and Stalin on the dictatorship of the proletariat and on the path of building up Socialism and relying on the assistance of the Soviet Union, the countriesof People’s Democracy have achieved significant successes in the development of national economy on the path to Socialism and in the consolidation of the sovereignty of their States. It is only in Yugoslavia where the clique of Tito, Djilas and Rankovic and other renegades betrayed Marxism-Leninism and turned traitor to the Soviet Union and the People’s Democracies, that the country has been led by this clique into an impasse. As a result of the treacherous actions of the foreign policy of Tito and the nationalists surrounding him the workers of Yugoslavia have been deprived of all their achievements, which they gained in their heroic struggle against the German fascist oppressors.
. Tito’s nationalist clique has broken with the anti-imperialist front and is attempting to harness the freedom-loving Yugoslav people to the yoke of Anglo- American imperialism and drag Yugoslavia into the imperialist, and anti-democratic camp. The traitors and betrayers of the Yugoslav people will be answering before them as per their deserts for all these misdeeds.
The birth of the People’s Democracies and the diversity of the tactics of the Workers’ Parties in different countries that are carrying out Socialist construction does not deny but confirms the historical experience of the Soviet Union and the experience of the world Communist movement. They prove that the elimination of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, the destruction of its State apparatus and the creation of a new type of State are the necessary conditions the ultimate victory of Communism.
IV
In pointing t0 necessity of establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat, a power based on the use of force against the exploiters, Lenin pointed to “the great practical advantages” which the exploiters continue to enjoy for a long time after the revolution.
Lenin wrote:
“They still have money (since it is impossible to abolish money all at once);
some movable property — often fairly considerable; they still have various connections, habits of organisation and management, knowledge of all the ‘secrets’ (customs, methods, means and possibilities) of management, superior education, close connection with the higher technical personnel (who live and think like the bourgeoisie); incomparably greater experience in the art of war (this very important), and so on, and so forth.” (Lenin, Selected Works, Vol. II, p. 378)
However Lenin explained that the essence of the proletarian dictatorship does not lie in force alone. Lenin and Stalin teach us that the main and highest principle of a proletarian dictatorship is the alliance of the working class and the peasantry.
In 1919, in a letter to the Hungarian workers who had set up Soviet power, Lenin wrote:
“But the essence of the proletarian dictatorship does not lie in force alone, or even mainly in force. Its quintessence is the organisation and discipline of the advanced detachment of the working people, of their vanguard, their sole leader, the proletariat, whose object is to build Socialism, to abolish the division of society into classes, to make all members of society working people, to remove the basis for any kind of exploitation of man by man.” (Lenin, Ibid, p. 479)
In his works A Great Beginning and Economic and Politics in the Era of the
Dictatorship of the Proletariat, etc., Lenin described in detail the following. He pointed out that to rally behind it the whole mass of peasantry and the petty bourgeoisie on the path of new economic construction, new social relations, to convince the small proprietors of the advantages of large-scale Socialist economy and to achieve their voluntary participation on the Socialist path of development, to do all this means to solve the most complicated, the most difficult task of the revolution. Here by coercion, by naked administration, by jerks alone you will not achieve anything, only you will spoil the cause. It is necessary to carry out long, tedious, painstaking, systematically organised political and mass work amongst the peasantry and the petty-bourgeois strata in the town. It is necessary to render State assistance and support to the growing cooperative enterprises. It is necessary to display widely the advantages of these cooperative enterprises, to rally the peasantry for a fight against the kulaks and the bourgeoisie in general. It is impossible to do all this without the dictatorship of the proletariat. And it is precisely because of this that the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot but be a form of the alliance between the proletariat and the peasantry.
“The dictatorship of the proletariat,” Lenin says, “is a special form of class alliance between the proletariat, the vanguard of the toilers, and the numerous non-proletarian strata of toilers (the petty bourgeoisie, the small proprietors, the peasantry, the intelligentsia, etc.) or the majority of these; it is an alliance against capital, an alliance aiming at the complete overthrow of capital, at the complete suppression of the resistance of the bourgeoisie and of any attempt on its part at restoration, an alliance aiming at the final establishment and consolidation, of Socialism.” (Lenin, quoted by Stalin, Problems of Leninism, p. 133)
In respect of this Lenin has emphasised the fact that alliance of the proletariat with the peasantry constitutes be dictatorship of the proletariat only when (a) this alliance is directed against the bourgeoisie and capitalism; (b) the leading role in this alliance belongs to the working class. In calling the alliance of the proletariat and the peasantry, the highest principle of the dictatorship of the proletariat, Lenin always considered this alliance to be a condition which ensured the preservation of the leading role to the proletariat and its utilisation for the Communist transformation of the peasantry. Like Marx, Lenin considered only the proletariat capable of playing a world- historical role as the organiser and leader of all the toiling and exploited masses in the struggles for their liberation from the yoke of capital, and the proletarian dictatorship capable of ensuring the abolition of classes and the withering away of the State in a future Communist society.
Lenin’s characterisation of the ‘mechanism’ of proletarian dictatorship is in complete accord with his teaching on the dictatorship of the proletariat as an instrument of Communist education of the masses, as an apparatus designed not only for the suppression of the exploiters but also for drawing in all the workers in the work of administering the country, drawing them into Socialist construction. In “Left-Wing” Communism — An Infantile Disorder, Lenin gave a general picture of the ‘mechanism’ of State power, a dictatorship exercised by the proletariat, organised in Soviets and led by the Bolsheviks. The Party is thus the leading and guiding force in the dictatorship of the proletariat. But in order to accomplish this role the Party must enjoy the confidence of the working class and base itself on its support. In its work the Party relies upon the trade unions which constitute the “transmission belts” from the Party to the mass of the working class.
“Thus, on the whole, we have a formally non-Communist, flexible and relatively wide and very powerful proletarian apparatus by means of which the Party is closely linked up with the class and with the masses, and by means of which, under the leadership of the Party, the dictatorship of the class is exercised.” (Lenin, “Left-Wing” Communism, Selected Works, Two- Volume Edition, Vol. II, p. 592)
In establishing the links of the Party with the working class in matters of production, the trade unions still do not guarantee the fullness and the all-roundedness of the links of the Party with both the working class itself and the whole mass of toilers amongst the population in general. It is, therefore, that in “Left-Wing” Communism — An Infantile Disorder, Lenin mentions side by side with trade unions, such “transmission belts” as non-Party workers’ and peasants’ conferences and in the main, the Soviets which embrace the working masses, irrespective of occupation.
“Such,” concludes Lenin, “is the general mechanism of the proletarian State power viewed ‘from level above’, fr0m the standpoint of the practical realisation of the dictatorship.” (Lenin, Ibid, p. 593)
A few months later in his speech to the Third Congress of the All-Russian Congress of the Russian Young Communist League, Lenin characterised the importance of the Komsomol in educating the youth in the spirit of Communism in rallying it around the Bolshevik Party, in training young reserves. And soon after this. just before his death, in his article On Cooperation, Lenin characterised cooperation as the highroad to Socialism, as a “transmission belt” linking the Party with the millions of mass of workers and above all, the peasantry in economic matters, and through drawing the peasantry in the work of Socialist construct. Comrade Stalin too based himself on these guiding directives of Lenin in his Report to the 13th Congress of the RCP (B) in his work On the Foundations of Leninism, and in the other works where he gave a completely classical characterisation of the mechanism of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
“ the trade unions as the mass organisations of the proletariat, linking
the Party with the class primarily in the sphere of production; the Soviets as the mass organisations of the working people, linking the Party with the latter primarily in the sphere of the State; the cooperative societies, as mass organisations mainly of the peasantry, linking the Party with the peasant masses, primarily in the economic field, in enlisting the peasantry for the work of Socialist construction; the Young Communist League as the mass organisation of young workers and peasants, whose mission is to help the vanguard of the proletariat in the Socialist education of the new generation and in training young reserves; and, finally, the Party, as the main directing force in the system of the dictatorship of the proletariat, whose mission it is to lead all these mass organisations — such, in general, is the picture of the ‘mechanism’ of the dictatorship, the picture of the ‘system of the dictatorship of the proletariat’.” (Stalin, Problems of Leninism, p. 139)
Lenin and Stalin pointed out that the whole ‘mechanism’ of proletarian dictatorship depends upon the drawing in of the workers in the State and Socialist construction and on their participation in the administration of the country. They persistently emphasised that the method of persuasion is the principal method in the work among the masses. In the course of the discussion on trade unions, Lenin exposed the worst enemy of Marxism, the traitor Trotsky. Lenin showed that Trotskyite attempts at falsifying Marxism concern in essence the question of the dictatorship of the proletariat, inasmuch as the question related to “the methods of approach to the masses, of attracting the masses and of the ties with the masses” (Lenin, Collected Works, Russ. Ed., Moscow, Vol. XXVI, p. 66). Comrade Stalin made devastating criticism of the attempts of the Trotskyite wreckers to substitute the method of naked force and command for the method of persuasion, explanation and leadership of the masses.
Lenin and Stalin have taught us that Bolshevik methods of the leadership of the masses do not, of course, preclude elements of coercion. But they, these elements bear a derivative and subordinate character. Lenin has taught us that it is necessary “to first convince and then coerce”. (Lenin as quoted by Stalin, Problems of Leninism, p. 151)
In developing this concept of Lenin, Comrade Stalin said:
“Leadership is ensured by the method of persuading the masses, as the principal method by which the Party influences the masses. This, however, does not preclude. but presupposes, the use of coercion, if such coercion is based the confidence and support of the majority of the working class for the Party, if it is applied to the minority after the Party has convinced the majority.” (Stalin, Ibid., p. 151)
Any other formulation of the problem which leads to converting coercion as the principal method by which to influence the masses is inimical to Bolshevism and disastrous to the Party. In his time, the traitor Trotsky, the worst enemy of the Soviet people and of Communism, to0k t0 this path. In Yugoslavia, the nationalist clique of Tito which is following in the footsteps of the traitor Trotsky and stands in the camp of the enemies of Communism has also taken to this path.
The question of the leading role of the working class in the system of proletarian dictatorship has been remains the most acute question of the political struggle.
It is precisely in relation to this question that a bitter struggle is being waged in the countries of People’s Democracy between the genuinely proletarian revolutionaries and the betrayers — the nationalist traitors. The Tito clique’s betrayal of the cause of Communism, of the cause of Socialist internationalism is above all, combined with the fact that Tito and his clique do not recognise the leading role of working class, have dissolved the Party of the working class in the National Front and do not recognise the leading role of the Great Soviet Union. The mistakes made by Gomulka in the Polish Workers Party have been on exactly similar lines.
This proves that the question of the leading role of the working class on a world scale, the question of the leading role of the Great Soviet Union and the victorious dictatorship of the proletariat in our country, is the root question of Communist construction, the root question of the struggle for the ultimate triumph of Communism.
As a result of the victory of the Soviet Union over Hitlerite Germany, there has been a further deepening of the general crisis of imperialism, which has already lost its control over the countries of Eastern and Central Europe. The national liberation movement in the colonies is intensifying. The oppressed masses of the colonies do not wish to bear the of imperialism any longer. The victories of Chinese democracy, the events in Indonesia confirm the brilliant foresight of Comrade who wrote that “the era of undisturbed exploitation and oppression of the colonies and dependent countries has passed away.” (Stalin, Ibid., p. 202)
The ability to distinguish the working class from the other strata of the toilers and to evaluate the course of historical development from its positions is the first condition which creates an impassable barrier between Marxism and Kathedur-Socialism. To forget this principle leads inevitably to bourgeois objectivism. This is why in our political and theoretical work we must constantly bear in three guiding directives of the great leaders of the proletariat, Lenin and Stalin.
We are living through the great world-historical epoch, when all roads lead t0 Communism. The role of the USSR, the land of victorious Socialism, has increased tremendously and the building of Socialism accomplished through the help of the USSR has commenced in the People’s Democracies. In the capitalist countries, the working class movement is growing and the authority of the Communist Parties is increasing.
These forces of Communism are emerging as the vanguard of the struggle for the general democratic demands of the popular masses, and are consolidating consistently and effectively the positions of Socialism over capitalism.
It is not the spontaneous development of the process of the decay of capitalism, but the tenacious struggle of the forces Communism, led by the Soviet Union against the forces of reaction that will lead to the ultimate 'collapse of imperialism and the triumph of Communism.
It is only the leadership of the Communists in the democratic camp which guarantees the victorious advance towards Communism.
The revolutionary workers’ movement and the victorious dictatorship of the proletariat constitute the invincible forces of the present day. The aspirations and the hopes of all progressive men of the present epoch are bound up with this force. The future of the whole of mankind is linked to this force.
Marxist-Leninist teachings on the world-historical role of the working class, on the political leadership of the working class exhorts us the workers on the ideological front t0 defend the purity of the Marxist-Leninist world outlook, to introduce the principle of partisanship in politics and in ideology and always to express the interests of the working class and the Party, to advance the cause of Communist construction and to hold aloft the banner of Leninism.
The tremendous experience of the CPSU (B), the leading and directing force of the Soviet people and the Soviet Socialist State, and experience accumulated in the fight for Communism has permanent and world-historical significance.
“The Russian model reveals to all countries something and something very essential, of their near and inevitable future” (Lenin, “Left-Wing” Communism—An Infantile Disorder. Two Volume Ed., Vol. II, p. 571) and “Bolshevism can serve as a model for tactics for all” (Lenin, Ibid, p. 409), wrote Lenin. He constantly stressed the international significance of the Soviet power and also “of the fundamentals of Bolshevik theory and tactics.” (Lenin, Ibid, p. 572)
The Leninist-Stalinist teachings on the relationship between a revolutionary workers’ party and the working class, the leading role of the working class in relation to all toilers, on its organisation, its iron discipline which is the most important condition, guaranteeing the rallying and drawing in of all toilers in the Socialist State — all this has exceptional significance for the People’s Democracies. The experience accumulated by the Soviet people and the Bolshevik Party in the struggle for Communism has served and will continue to serve as an instructive example of leading significance for the Communist Parties and the workers of the People’s Democracies, and of the whole world.
—From “Problems of Philosophy”, No. 3, Moscow
.jpg)
No comments