How the bourgeoise plant the seed, and the left unconsciously waters it.
II. How did we get here — historical background
The Bolshevik Revolution
succeeded. That is a fact that the ruling classes of the world could not undo
and could not ignore. By the mid-1920s, the Soviet Union was a functioning
socialist state, industrializing at a pace unprecedented in history, and
exercising an influence on the world's working classes that no amount of
military intervention had been able to contain. The question for the
bourgeoisie was not how to defeat socialism militarily — that had been
tried and had failed. The question was how to discredit it ideologically.
How to make the very idea of socialism suspect, so that the working classes of
the world would not follow the Soviet example.
This is the context in which the
anti-Stalin narrative was constructed. It was not a spontaneous response to
events. It was a project — with authors, institutions, interests, and a
clear strategic function. The project was to produce a narrative in which
the Soviet experience could be understood not as the first successful
workers' state, but as a betrayal of the revolution, a tyranny, a
failure. If the Soviet Union could be made to appear as the negation of
socialism rather than its embodiment, then the question of whether
socialism could succeed would be foreclosed in advance.
The anti-Stalin narrative is not
a single claim. It is a structure of claims, each of which performs a
specific function: the Testament, the Secret Speech, the narrative elements. Every
narrative needs an origin story. The anti-Stalin narrative found its
origin story in the "Testament of Lenin" — the supposed final
writings in which Lenin, on his deathbed, called for Stalin's removal and
warned of the dangers of his leadership.
For decades, this was treated as established fact. It was the foundation on which the entire edifice rested. Lenin had seen something in Stalin, had tried to warn the party, and had been ignored. Everything that followed — the factional struggles, the purges, the consolidation of power — was the consequence of this original failure to heed Lenin's warning.
The archival work of
historians such as V. A. Sakharov has shown that this foundation is unreliable.
The "Testament" documents are not what they were presented to be.
The "Secretaries' Journal" was falsified. The first document,
dated December 1922, was written to an individual and was not related to the
later "Letter to a Congress." The "Addition" of January
1923, containing the call for Stalin's removal, has no documentary basis
for attribution to Lenin. The essay on nationalism contradicts Lenin's
established views and confuses the process of Soviet formation in which he
was deeply involved. The "ultimatum letter" of March 1923 cannot be
genuine.
Sakharov's conclusion - that
Krupskaya was central to the falsification and that she presented documents
to Trotsky and others before Lenin's death, while he was paralyzed and unable
to speak — is not a Trotskyist or liberal reading. It is a reading from the
latest declassified documents of Soviets archives. And it undermines the
foundational document of the entire anti-Stalin narrative.
This is the first mechanism: if
you cannot defeat the revolution, defeat its history. Take the most
authoritative figure — Lenin — and use his supposed final words to delegitimize
his successor. The narrative does not need to be true. It only needs to
be believed. And once believed, it becomes the lens through which everything
else is interpreted.
If the "Testament"
was the foundational document, the Khrushchev Secret Speech of 1956 was
the moment the narrative was officially adopted within the socialist camp
itself. This is crucial. It is one thing for the bourgeoisie to produce an
anti-Stalin narrative. It is another thing for the leadership of the Soviet
Union to adopt it.
The Secret Speech was not an
honest reckoning. It was a political intervention — an act of de-Stalinization
designed to legitimize a new leadership and a new line. It presented a
series of accusations without context, without evidence, without any framework
for understanding the conditions in which the accused events occurred. It
treated the history of the Soviet Union as a morality play in which Stalin was
the villain and the current leadership was the corrective.
The Khrushchev narrative
presented Stalin as a single, pathological individual – ‘cult of personality’- who
had captured the party and bent it to his will. This is not a Marxist
analysis. It is a bourgeois analysis in Marxist language. It
replaces the study of objective conditions — the threat of war, the isolation
of the revolution, the pressures of rapid industrialization, the legacy of
backwardness — with the moral character of one man. It is precisely the kind of
idealist historiography that Marxism was supposed to have overcome.
The consequences were vast. The
international communist movement was thrown into crisis. Communist parties
around the world were forced to either defend the Soviet Union and appear to
defend the indefensible, or accept the narrative and repudiate their own
history. Many chose the latter. And in doing so, they internalized the
ruling-class narrative — not because they were ordered to, but because
it appeared to come from the authoritative source: the Soviet leadership
itself.
This is the second mechanism. When the critique of socialism is delivered by
socialists themselves, it cannot be dismissed as bourgeois propaganda.
It carries the authority of the movement. And once internalized, it becomes
self-imposed. The left polices itself on behalf of the narrative, and no
external force is required.
The institutionalization of the narrative
The Secret Speech was not
sufficient on its own. For the narrative to become common sense, it had to be
institutionalized — embedded in the structures through which knowledge is
produced and transmitted.
The narrative did not stay in
Moscow. Through the Communist parties' own publications, through the Western
academic apparatus, through the media, and through the network of front
organizations and journals that the CIA and its counterparts funded, it spread
across the global left. By the 1960s, the anti-Stalinist framework was the
common sense of much of the Western left. By the 1970s, it had become the
default posture toward any actually existing socialism. The transmission was
not always conscious — most carriers of the narrative were sincere — but its
effect was the same: the left had internalized the enemy's account of its own
history.
This happened at several levels.
Academia. The new
narrative became the framework for Soviet studies in the West. A
generation of scholars was trained within it. Their careers depended on
reproducing it. Dissent from the framework was not refuted; it was excluded.
The archival sources that might have challenged the narrative were inaccessible
or ignored. The result was a historiography that confirmed the
narrative at every point.
Media. The narrative was
disseminated through every medium of mass communication. Books, films,
documentaries, journalism — each reproduced the same structure of claims. The
volume and repetition were overwhelming. For most people, there was no
alternative account available.
The left. Perhaps most
importantly, the narrative was adopted by the left itself. Communist parties
that had been formed in the image of the Soviet Union now distanced themselves
from it. Intellectuals who had defended the USSR now repudiated it. The left
that had internalized the narrative experienced itself as thinking
critically — as having overcome its illusions and seen the truth. It did
not experience itself as reproducing the ruling-class narrative. It
experienced itself as independent.
This is the third mechanism: the
narrative becomes self-imposed when the left adopts it as its own critical
judgment. The left polices itself on behalf of the narrative. To question
it is not to disagree with the bourgeoisie; it is to disagree with the left's
own common sense. The cost of dissent is high — not because of state
repression, but because of social and intellectual exclusion. The self-imposed
illusion operates here with maximum efficiency.
What emerged from this process
was not simply a set of beliefs about Stalin and Soviets. It was a template
for the production of judgments about any actually existing socialism.
The template has a specific
structure:
- A totalizing moral judgment. The socialist
state is not analyzed; it is judged. It is not understood in its
historical conditions; it is condemned in moral terms.
- Selective use of evidence. Facts that support
the narrative are amplified. Facts that complicate it are ignored or
dismissed. Context is omitted.
- Decontextualization. Events are taken out of
their historical conditions — the threat of war, the isolation of the
revolution, the legacy of backwardness — and presented as if they occurred
in a vacuum.
- Substitution of label for analysis. The
question "Is this socialist?" is answered with a label —
"state capitalist," "authoritarian,"
"bureaucratic" — that does the work that analysis should do.
- A predetermined conclusion. The conclusion is
always the same: this is not real socialism, or socialism has failed, or
the revolution was betrayed. The conclusion precedes the evidence.
It could be applied to any
target. The content changed; the form remained.
The internalization on the left
The most consequential effect of
this template was not on the general population. It was on the left itself.
The left that had absorbed the
anti-Stalin narrative did not experience itself as pro-capitalist. It
experienced itself as critical, independent, rigorous. It had rejected the "Stalinist"
version of socialism and was now searching for a "true" socialism —
a socialism that had never existed, that was pure of the crimes it
attributed to the Soviet experience.
This is the ideal form of ideological
capture. The subject believes they are thinking for themselves. They are reproducing
the ruling narrative. They are doing the work of the bourgeoisie while
claiming to be its enemy.
And when the same template is
applied to China, to Vietnam, to Cuba, to North Korea, the left reproduces
the same judgments — not because it has been ordered to, but because the
template has become its own common sense. The question "Is China and/or Vietnam
socialist?" is answered automatically, with a label, without analysis,
without context, without any engagement with the theoretical and practical
facts. The form is Marxist; the function is bourgeois.
The keystone: failure vs. defeat ..
The distinction between "failure
" and " defeat" is crucial. If socialism in one country is
impossible, then the defeat of the Soviet Union was not a defeat — it was a
confirmation of the premise. The failure was inherent. The project was doomed
from the start. And the same logic applies to China, to Vietnam, to Cuba. Each
is either already failed or on the path to failure. The conclusion is
foreclosed.
The greatest mistake carried out
is mixing political defeat with systemic failure: failure implies the inherent
character of the system; defeat implies the contingent outcome of a conflict at
a given time. Failure forecloses the future; defeat leaves tomorrow open.
Defeat is an event at a given time, not a permanent state. When the two are
confused, and a contingent defeat is interpreted as a permanent verdict, an
inherent failure creates presumption, a predetermined narrative, confirmation
bias in the form of sectarianism, and becomes the default approach for
interpretations, creating the foundation for the “failure”. It creates factionalism, uncompromising
stances within the socialist struggle preventing any unity.
The left that accepted the
"failure" framing had already conceded the bourgeoisie's conclusion.
If socialism cannot succeed, the only remaining question is who is most pure.
The pursuit of purity produces endless fragmentation. This is why the "failure"
framing is not a neutral judgment — it is the premise from which sectarianism
follows.
III. Fundamental issues of ML revised under disguise — the theoretical confusions
These four confusions stated
below sustain the template. They are not separate; they are interlocking. The
denial of socialism in one country produces the relegation of anti-imperialist
struggle to the past, which produces a sectarian posture toward actually existing socialist states, which produces the confusion of the
dictatorship of the working class with capitalist class dictatorship — and that
confusion is sustained by the confusion of the two phases. Together they form a
closed theoretical system that guarantees the sectarian conclusion. The
sections that follow examine each in turn.
The conclusion is not derived
from the evidence. It is derived from the premise. And the premise is
the internalized template.
This is the self-imposed illusion
operating at the level of theory itself. The sectarian is not simply wrong
about China, Vietnam, or Cuba. They are operating within a theoretical
framework that makes the wrong conclusion inevitable. And because the
framework is experienced as Marxist, it cannot be challenged by
pointing to facts. The facts are already absorbed into the framework.
They are interpreted through it, and they confirm it.
The implicit denial of
socialism in one country
The first confusion is the
implicit denial of socialism in one country. It is implicit because it is
rarely stated directly; it appears instead as a series of conclusions about
specific states.
The anti-Stalin narrative said:
the Soviet experiment failed. The anti-China narrative says: the Chinese
experiment has failed or betrayed. The anti-Vietnam, anti-Cuba, anti-North
Korea narratives say the same in different registers. The cumulative
effect is: there is no successful socialism; therefore socialism is
impossible; therefore, capitalism is the only option.
This is the message that serves
the bourgeoisie. And it is delivered not only by liberals but by the
ultra-left, who believe they are defending socialism by distinguishing it
from its "failed" or "betrayed" instances. They are
doing the bourgeoisie's work while claiming to be its enemy.
The irony is precise: the
ultra-left who says "those are not real socialist states" is more
effective at discrediting socialism than the liberal who says, "socialism
doesn't work." The liberal can be dismissed as an opponent. The
ultra-left cannot because they claim the same banner. Their critique is
internal, and internal critique is always more damaging.
The argument that China is
capitalist, that Vietnam is capitalist, that the Soviet Union was never truly
socialist — each of these conclusions carries an implicit theoretical
premise: that socialism cannot be built in one country, or at least not in
the conditions these countries faced.
This is not a new argument.
It is the Trotskyist premise. Permanent revolution held that socialism could
only succeed as a world process, that any national socialist construction would
inevitably be deformed or betrayed by the pressures of the world market and
imperialist encirclement. Stalin's counter-argument — socialism in one country
— was not a concession to nationalism. It was a recognition that the revolution
had succeeded in one country, that the workers' state had been established, and
that its defense and development was the precondition for any further advance.
The relegation of
anti-imperialist struggle to the past
Lenin did not treat
anti-imperialist struggle as a distraction from the class struggle. He treated
it as an integral part of it. In his speech to the Moscow party activists, he
explained why the Communist International had modified its slogan.
Lenin, in his speech delivered at
a meeting of the activists of the Moscow organization of the RCP (B)
stated; “We now stand, not only as representatives of the proletarians
of all countries but as representatives of the oppressed peoples as well.
A journal of the Communist International recently appeared under the title of
Narody Vostoka. It carries the following slogan issued by the Communist
International for the peoples of the East: “Workers of all countries and
all oppressed peoples, unite !” “When did the Executive Committee give
orders for slogans to be modified?” one of the comrades asked. Indeed, I do not
remember that it ever did. Of course, the modification is wrong from the
standpoint of the Communist Manifesto, but then the Communist Manifesto
was written under entirely different conditions. From the point of view
of present-day politics, however, the change is correct.”
Lenin’s modification of the
original "Workers of the world, unite!" slogan to encompass the
colonial and oppressed populations, recognizing them as key allies in
the fight against global capital.
Stalin had emphasized the
Leninist approach and stance in a way that left no room for confusion:
" The
revolutionary character of a national movement under conditions of
imperialist oppression does not necessitate the presence of proletarian
elements in the movement, the existence of a revolutionary or republican
program, or the existence of a democratic basis . The struggle
waged by the Emir of Afghanistan for the independence of Afghanistan, despite
the monarchist views of the Emir and his associates, is objectively a
revolutionary struggle because it weakens, shatters, and undermines
imperialism."
In the same article, Stalin
provides a clear and undeniable example of how, in the name of the left today,
one can side with reaction by opposing anti-imperialist struggles;
“For the same
reasons, the struggle of Egyptian merchants and bourgeois
intellectuals for the independence of Egypt is objectively a
revolutionary struggle, even though the leaders of the Egyptian
national movement were of bourgeois origin and held bourgeois titles, and were
opposed to socialism;
However, the
struggle of the British “Labour” Government to maintain Egypt’s
dependent status is, for the same reasons, a reactionary struggle, even
though the members of the government are of proletarian origin and have the
title of proletarian, and are “on the side” of socialism. ( Stalin,
Foundations of Leninism)
Lenin stated that:
“the evaluation
of an anti-imperialist, anti-colonial struggle must be made in terms of
the current results of the general balance sheet of the struggle
against imperialism; that is, not individually, but on a global scale .” (Lenin,
Reply to P. Kievsky)
The point is precise: the
criterion is not the class character of the movement's leadership, but the
objective function of the struggle in the global balance of forces against
imperialism.
" Marx and Engels", Lenin
said, "did not live to see the
period of imperialism. The system now is a handful of imperialist “Great”
Powers, each oppressing other nations"...the main thing today
is to stand against the united, aligned front of the imperialist
powers, the imperialist bourgeoisie and the social-imperialists, and for
the utilization of all national movements against imperialism for
the purposes of the socialist revolution." Lenin, Marxism or
Proudhonism?
On his critique of Junius’
pamphlet by Rosa Luxemburg, Lenin takes up the issue of the anti-imperialist wars
extensively.
“there can be
no more national wars” is that the world has been divided up among a
handful of “Great” imperialist powers, and, therefore, every war, even if it
starts as a national war, is transformed into an imperialist war and
affects the interests of one of the imperialist Powers or coalitions (p. 81 of
Junius’ pamphlet)
The fallacy
of this argument is obvious.”
This subject is clear-cut for
Marxist-Leninists; however, the conclusion of assessments (in the case of Iran,
Venezuela, Yemen, etc.) finds itself in the Trotskyite view of “anti-imperialist
wars are a thing of the past” by rejecting the just and progressive nature of
these wars.
The confusion of the
dictatorship of the working class with capitalist class dictatorship
This is the most theoretically
consequential confusion, and it is the one that produces the most damaging
conclusions.
The dictatorship of the working
class — the socialist state — is not the same thing as a capitalist class
dictatorship. But the sectarian treats them as functionally equivalent
if they share certain surface features: private capital, markets, wage
differences, a state apparatus, a ruling party.
The existence of private capital
under socialism is not evidence of capitalism. It is evidence of the
transition. Marx was explicit: the first phase of communist society —
socialism — emerges from capitalism and therefore bears the marks of the old
society from which it emerged. There are still wage differences, still market
relations, still a state. These are not betrayals of socialism. They are the
conditions of its development. The question is not whether they exist, but who
holds state power and in whose interest the state operates.
As Lenin stated:
"If the political power in the state is
in the hands of a class whose interests coincide with those of the majority,
that state can really be governed according to the will of the majority. But if
the political power is in the hands of a class whose interests differ from
those of the majority, any form of minority rule is bound to deceive or oppress
the majority.” Lenin, Constitutional Illusions
The liberal makes the same error
from the opposite direction: "The Soviet Union had a state, therefore it
was not democratic." Both treat surface features — the existence of a
state, the existence of markets — as evidence of fundamental character. Both
ignore the question of class power. Both substitute form for essence.
The confusion of the two
phases: "to each according to ability" vs. "to each according to
need". Marx distinguished two phases of communist society. In the
first — socialism — distribution is according to ability, which necessarily
implies differential wages, differential rewards, and the continued existence
of inequality. In the higher phase — communism — distribution is according to
need, which presupposes abundance and the overcoming of the conditions that
produce inequality.
The sectarian who
criticizes a socialist state for having wage differences, for having rich and
poor, for not having achieved equality of outcome, is measuring socialism by
the standard of communism. They are demanding that the first phase
meet the criteria of the higher phase. And when it inevitably fails to do so,
they conclude that it is not socialism at all.
This is a profound theoretical
error, and it is one of the most effective mechanisms of the template.
It produces a standard that no actually existing socialism can meet. It
guarantees the conclusion of failure. And it does so in the name of Marxism —
which is precisely what makes it so damaging. The sectarian believes they
are defending the purity of the communist ideal against its compromised
embodiments. In fact, they are reproducing a bourgeois standard — the demand
for immediate perfection — under a Marxist vocabulary.
The "to each according to
ability" formula is not an admission of failure. It is the
recognition that socialism is a transitional society, that it bears
the marks of the society it emerged from, and that its task is to develop the
productive forces and transform the relations of production over a prolonged
period. The sectarian who demands "to each according to need" from
the first day is not more radical than the socialist state. They are more
utopian — and utopianism, in this context, serves the enemy.
The sectarian who says
"China is capitalist" is not simply making an empirical claim. They
are reproducing the Trotskyist premise without acknowledging it. They
are saying: socialism in one country is impossible; therefore any country that
claims to be building socialism must be lying or failing. The conclusion
follows from the premise, not from the evidence. Both are treating the
surface features of a transitional society as evidence of its fundamental
character. Both are ignoring the question of class power. Both are substituting
form for essence.
The sectarian attitude toward
Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, and other states resisting imperialism is not derived
from concrete analysis of their conditions. It is derived from a
theoretical posture that treats anti-imperialist struggle as a thing of the
past — as a distraction from the "real" class struggle, as a form
of nationalism that obscures the fundamental contradiction.
This is, again, a Trotskyist
inheritance. The theory of permanent revolution treated national liberation
movements as subordinate to the class struggle in the advanced countries.
Anti-imperialism was not a separate front; it was a diversion. The real
revolution would happen in the metropolitan centers, and the struggles in the
periphery would either be absorbed into that process or be revealed as
bourgeois nationalism.
The practical consequence is a
sectarian posture toward any state or movement that resists imperialism
without meeting the sectarian's theoretical criteria for "true"
socialism. Iran resists US imperialism — but it is not socialist, so
it is not to be supported. Venezuela resists US imperialism — but it is not
socialist enough, so it is to be criticized. Cuba resists US imperialism —
but it has market elements, so it is not really socialist. The result is
a left that cannot unite with anyone who is actually fighting the main
enemy, because no one meets the theoretical standard.
And the same logic applies to
anti-imperialist wars and struggles more broadly. The sectarian treats them as
"a thing of the past" because they do not fit the theoretical
framework. The framework has become the measure of reality, rather than reality
the measure of the framework. This is the self-imposed illusion
operating at the level of strategy.
The template does not operate on
empirical claims alone. It operates through a set of theoretical confusions
that make the sectarian conclusions feel like rigorous analysis. These
confusions are not random. They are the points at which the template intersects
with unresolved theoretical questions in the Marxist tradition — and
where the bourgeois framing has been internalized so deeply that it appears as
common sense.
IV. Internalizing the bourgeois narratives — division and
sectarianism
