The Moscow New Look (1956)

From the October 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

More light has been thrown on the methods of the Russian dictatorship by the recent “reinstatement ” of various old guard Communists who were liquidated during the purges of the thirties.

In Hungary, for instance, Bela Kun, the leading figure of the pre-war Communist Party, has been posthumously restored to favour, and hailed as a revolutionary hero who fell foul of “the cult of the individual." 

Tuominen, the former secretary of the Finnish Communist Party, has presented a hair-raising picture of what actually went on during those bloody days of the great purge. He describes, in an article in Uusi Kuvalehti (1) the actual Comintern meeting where Kun was exposed:— 

“One such ominous meeting was convened in the Spring of 1937. Immediately the session began the chairman, Georgi Dimitrov, laconically announced that the case of Bela Kun would be discussed. It was to be presented by Manuilsky, the liaison official between the Comintern and Stalin. Manuilsky began reading from a document. After reading a couple of paragraphs, he asked: ‘Does Citizen Bela Kun recognise this? '

“The word Manuilsky used—'Citizen'—seemed to affect Bela Kun like an electric shock. The rest of us, too, except Dimitrov and Manuilsky, were startled. When the word 'Citizen' had been substituted for 'Comrade' on this sort of occasion, it meant nothing less than a sentence of death. Horrified and pale, Bela Kun mumbled: 'Yes, I do. It is written by myself. It is a circular sent to Communists in Hungary.'

“Kun vainly tried to defend himself against the allegation that he had criticised Stalin and the Comintern: 'This is a vile conspiracy. I did not mean Comrade Stalin, but you, Manuilsky, and Moskvin, who are secretaries and bad Bolsheviks. I do know that Stalin is a member of the presidium and Zhdanov and Yezhov members of the executive committee, but.after all, they seldom attend meetings. They are good Bolsheviks, the best in the world, but you, Manuilsky, you’re no Bolshevik. Didn't Lenin even in exile call you a god-seeker?' This attack made Manuilsky flush with anger. He, too, lost his temper. Trying to keep calm, he started in an ironical vein and said: 'Such a great leader as Citizen Bela Kun considers himself to be shouldn't waste his ammunition on such a small bird as I. But Comrade Stalin is a big enough target even for him, and it’s at Comrade Stalin that he aimed in this circular.'

“. . . We all sat there, silent and horrified, watching this great and strong popular leader fight for his life, and the sharp, poisonous attacks of his executioner. Nobody dared to speak, nobody could think of anything to say. for or against.

"As the fight was beginning to wane, Dimitrov tinkled the chairman's bell, declared the discussion closed, and announced that the case would be referred to a committee of three. Until the case had been fully cleared, Citizen Bela Kun was relieved of all duties in the Hungarian Communist Party and the Comintern. The session was over. Bela Kun was allowed to go, and as he left the hall two N.K;V.D. men took him away. Nothing more was heard of him, and his case was not discussed again at the Comintern meetings. Rumour had it that he had been shot.”

It is interesting to note that Wilhelm Pieck, the East German Premier, and the Italian Communist leader. Togliatti, are mentioned by Tuominen as being present at this meeting. One can realise with what consummate hypocrisy Togliatti and other European Communists now condemn the evils wrought by Stalin’s “personality cult,” after acquiescing in, and being a party to these very evils for all the years of Stalin’s lifetime.

The case of Kun is by no means unique. At the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the old Bolshevik leader, Anastas Mikoyan, resurrected two of the party leaders who disappeared during the great purge—Antonov-Ovsenko and Kossior. It is worth while to observe, however, that Kun and these two were not brought to trial, but merely “disappeared.” The situation with regard to all those who were brought to trial and executed has not yet altered, and Khrushchev’s continued denunciation of “Trotskyites, Bukharinites, bourgeois nationalists and other enemies of the people” is the mixture as before.

It is impossible to predict how far the Soviet Government will carry this “resurrection from the dead” policy, but it seems unlikely that many of the thousands of prominent Bolsheviks who were purged, will be restored to a posthumous position of dignity. The favourable mention of Antonov-Ovsenko is particularly interesting, as he was one of the members of the 1917 Bolshevik Government (Council of People’s Commissars) of whose 15 members only one survived the purge—no prizes for the correct answer! It is highly improbable that other members of this Council, which included Trotsky and Rykov, will ever be commiserated with by the powers-that-be as “innocent victims of the cult of the individual,” as this would in effect deny everything that the Communists have been saying for years about the “truly democratic” nature of the Soviet Government.

Another revealing event is the publication of part of Lenin's so-called political testament. This is the document that the Trotskyists have been publicising for years, but until recently, the Communist party has always denounced it as a forgery. With the publication of that part of the document that criticises Stalin, however, the Communists have in effect admitted the authenticity of the rest of the testament, which singles out five people for praise—Piatakov, Bukharin, Zinoviev, Kamenev and Trotsky. The only other person mentioned in the testament is Stalin, who comes in for a considerable amount of criticism and is said to be unfit for the post of General Secretary of the party. Ironically, enough, it is of course only Stalin who survived, the other five being executed or murdered.

Further criticism of Stalin at the 20th Congress came from A. M. Pankratova, the Soviet historian. She condemned Stalin's version of history for its “arbitrary handling of the facts,” for “fostering the personality cult,” and for “poorly reflecting . . . the activities of the Old Bolsheviks, the collaborators of Lenin.” As has been pointed out, most of Lenin's collaborators were either shot, imprisoned or committed suicide, and this is certainly a “poor reflection” on somebody.

The apparent frankness of the 20th Congress in facing up to its problems is in reality just as spurious as the declarations and resolutions of die previous Congresses. When one looks at the record of the Soviet Communist Party Congresses, it can be seen that since the late 20's every resolution has been carried unanimously, and no one has spoken in opposition to a resolution. The 20th Congress is no exception. The statement by Mikoyan that “in the course of about 20 years we had in fact no collective leadership" doesn't really indicate any better state of affairs than when he said at the 19th Congress (1952)—“At the present stage in world history and the history of our Motherland, it is unthinkable to live, build, fight, without thorough mastery of all the new concepts Comrade Stalin has contributed to the Marxist-Leninist science . . . After the 19th Party Congress our party will go forward still more calmly and confidently to the victory of Communism, under the guidance of our leader and teacher, the brilliant architect of Communism, our beloved Comrade Stalin. Glory to the great Stalin!” (Stormy, prolonged applause. All rise.) (2).

It is also worthwhile to note that although the Party Congress is theoretically the democratic organ that determines the party, and eventually, government policy, there has been a strange neglect to hold Congresses at all, and in fact since 1925 the gaps between Congresses have become wider and wider. Although the Party Rules required that Congresses be held annually, the Congresses held since 1925 have been as follows:—1927; 1930; 1934; 1939; 1952 and 1956. (3).

One is led to conclude from all this that the ferment in the Communist parties of the world with regard to “overcoming the cult of the individual” is so much hot air, and merely a display put on for the benefit of those who are anxious to see the Russian bureaucracy placed on a more stable footing. Indeed, it would not be unfair to say that all those former undoubting Communist party members are only having doubts now because Moscow tells them to. 

In spite of all the reassuring speeches of Krushchov, Bulganin and other Soviet leaders, in spite of all their barnstorming “goodwill” tours, and in spite of the alleged restoration of collective leadership, there is fundamentally nothing that has happened since Stalin's death that would lead an intelligent observer to draw the conclusion that shattering changes have been made in the Russian bureaucratic governmental system. The fact remains that a ruling class has been put in the saddle in Russia and the other so-called Communist countries and no amount of juggling with the reins of power of the substitution of one official by another will alter the fact that the Russian workers are fundamentally in the same position as their brother-workers everywhere else—the position of exploited wage-slaves.

Albert Ivimey

1.—New Statesman & Nation, September I, 1956.

2—Pravda, October 12, 1952.

2—Stalinist Russia, T. Cliff, p. 97.

A Change in the Catholic Attitude to Russia? (1944)

From the November 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Times (September 16th, 1944) prints a report from a special correspondent in Rome on an expected Papal pronouncement dealing with the relationship of the Catholic Church with Russia. Here are two extracts from the correspondent’s article : —

“There is reason to believe that the Pope is preparing to make a fresh pronouncement on the subject of Communism. Such a step seems highly probable in view of the decisive role which Soviet Russia is assuming in world affairs.”

“At the present time the Catholic Church’s two stock guides on the attitude to be adopted towards Communism are Pius XI’s two famous encyclicals, Quadragesimo anno, issued in 1931, which denounces its atheistic basis, and Divini redemptoris (1937), which attacks its propagation of the class war.

“The reconciliation of the Soviet Government with the Orthodox Church deprives the former pronouncement of some of its point, while recent declarations of Communist leaders such as Togliatti, who was for years vice-secretary of the Comintern, that Communism envisages neither the destruction of the middle class nor of private property, are bound to leave some doubt in Catholic minds. The fact that a political group could be formed in Italy under the name of the Catholic Communists shows clearly how much new directives are needed.

“It is possible that the Pope may not go to the length of indicting a new encyclical in answer to these questions, but he may issue instructions in a simpler form, explaining how far collaboration is permissible between Roman Catholics and Communists in practical matters, and where it must cease.”

Fascism as history (2019)

Book Review from the May 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘Marxists in the Face of Fascism: Writings by Marxists on Fascism from the inter-war period’. Edited by David Beetham (Haymarket Books. 2019. 380 pages)

In his introduction to this reprint of a book that first came out in 1984, the editor points out that fascism is not a contemporary threat as historical conditions are not the same as they were between the last century’s two world wars. The word ‘fascist’, however, is still frequently bandied about today and not just by ‘anti-fascists’ as it has come to be used to describe any authoritarian individual or action. It was even misused at the time, as Togliatti, a leader of the Italian Communist Party pointed out in 1928 in one of his articles reprinted here: ‘It has become customary to use it to designate every form of reaction. (…) [W]henever the so-called democratic freedoms sanctified by bourgeois constitutions are attacked or violated, one hears the cry: “Fascism is here, fascism has arrived.”’

The book is a collection of articles from the period by mainstream Communists, dissident Communists, and Social Democrats. The original fascists were the followers of Mussolini who came to power in Italy in 1922 but the word was soon used to describe any reactionary, openly anti-working-class movement anywhere. The official Comintern line was that fascism was a mass mobilisation of the ‘petty bourgeoisie’ to further the interests of ‘finance capital’ that arose because of the failure of other countries to emulate the Bolsheviks’ seizure of power in Russia in 1917. After Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933 it was seen as a particular threat to Russia whose foreign policy interests the Comintern was committed to defending.

Despite what Togliatti said, the Comintern did describe, as can be seen from their writings here, any policy of attacking working class living standards as ‘fascist.’ It was on this basis that, for a period, they denounced the Social Democrats as ‘social fascists’ because, when in government on their own or in coalition, they felt they had no choice but to support such a policy. As Otto Bauer, the leader of the Austrian Social Democrats quoted in the introduction, said in its defence: ’if you won’t create a socialist society, then you must do nothing to disturb the mechanism of the capitalist order, under pain of economic catastrophe.’

It was not until 1933 that fascists (though that is not what the Nazis called themselves) came to power in Germany. The myth has grown up that this could have been prevented if only the Social Democrats and Communists had united to oppose it. This did not happen as the Communists had only just stopped calling the Social Democrats ‘social fascists’, while the Social Democrats pursued the policy of ‘tolerating’ as the lesser evil any government as long as it didn’t include the Nazis. This policy failed as the non-Nazi right-wing parties did eventually allow Hitler to come to power constitutionally.

In Austria the Social Democrats did pursue, as Bauer pointed out, the different policy of refusing to ‘tolerate’ any government that didn’t include them. But they too were crushed, though by a different reactionary group to the Nazis. It was left to Kautsky to make the point that, as the Social Democrats and Communists together still represented only a minority of the population, there was not much they could have done to stop a government in control of political power and enjoying majority acquiescence.

It has to be said that the Social Democrats represented here, Bauer and Kautsky in particular, came up with a better analysis than the Communists. In fact it is surprising how ‘Marxist’ they were compared to the Leninists. Apart from Togliatti, the official Communists (who like the fascists also stood for a totalitarian, one-party dictatorship) didn’t have much interesting to say, while the dissident Communists Trotsky and Thalheimer only confused things by irrelevantly describing ‘fascism’ as a form of ‘Bonapartism’ (after Napoleon’s nephew who ruled France as dictator between 1852 and 1870).

Bauer, in the last article he wrote before his death in 1938, saw what was coming and why:

  With the new division of power brought about by the treaties of 1919 British and French imperialism achieved their war aims, and since then they have successfully defended the position of power won by conquest in the war. The imperialism of Great Britain and France is the imperialism of the satisfied, of the satiated. For this reason it is conservative and peaceful. In Germany and Italy, in contrast, there developed an aggressive, warlike imperialism, which seeks to revise the global distribution of economic and political power.

This is one reason why fascism was a product of a specific period of twentieth-century history which is highly unlikely to be repeated, however much some may still cry ‘fascist’.

Adam Buick