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.

It's that man again (1952)

Film Review from the September 1952 issue of the Socialist Standard

As an alternative heading we could have chosen “The Man Who Won the War” or to give the film its real title “The Fall Of Berlin." A local paper advertising the film writes, “ he most stupendous and sensation packed film ever screened." “A Russian film with English sub-titles." “Eighty cameramen lost their lives to get these pictures. Come and see what life is like behind the Iron Curtain. Come and see a faithful representation of Mr. Joseph Stalin. Come and see the miserable end of the once great Adolf Hitler and his Bride of a few hours, Eva Braun. Superbly photographed in a new process—Agfa Colour. You've never seen anything so terrific and magnificent before."

If this lot doesn't make you vomit, then you are no socialist. The film is prefaced by a statement pointing out that the freedom of speech which we enjoy enables us to show such a film in England. Evidently the authorities seem to have some doubts that in Russia considerable hesitancy would arise before a similar American or English film could be shown there.

The technique of production is excellent, the colouring and also the filming, which all shows that Russia has been an able pupil of America in this respect, but the general theme is indeed more childish than most American films, and even they can stoop precious low when required.

If you have any doubts who won the war, then see this film, and it will prove beyond dispute that Generalissimo Joseph Vissarionovitch Stalin was the man! The story opens with a metal worker who broke the world's record for smelting iron. As a result he was sent for by no less a person than Stalin himself. The great man (Stalin we are now referring to and not the iron worker), was digging his garden when the record breaker was led to him by one of his commissars. When the worker saw the “Fuehrer of all Russia " he was so frightened with embarrassment that he tried to run away; but the masterly way and comradely manner in which Stalin shook hands with the simple iron worker, soon put the latter at ease in a way no other human individual could do it.

Then they adjourned for a meal, and round the table was Molotov, Voroshilov, Kalinin, Beria (although it was not stated that he was chief of the G.P.U., now called the N.K.V.D.). The worker then told these “bosses” how he was determined to work even harder and smash further records—and he showed surprise that this met with their approval.

Things then shifted to personal matters as if to display Stalin's greatness in his supreme simplicity, and our iron puddler told Stalin that he intended to get married. The great Stalin did not hesitate to give him some fatherly and friendly advice, as if to demonstrate his authority in this field.

Then the war clouds broke, and after the usual array of flashes, smoke, bangs and blood intended to portray war in all its savagery, our hero loses his comrades one by one until practically he alone is left to hoist the red flag over the Reichstag. He had fought all the way from Stalingrad to Berlin and was fighting his way through the Reichstag when one of his colleagues fell wounded in the chest. Another comrade picked him up and put his hand into his tunic pulling out a handkerchief soaked in blood. The latter with the handkerchief in his outstretched hand was himself a few moments later shot dead, but in his hand continued to hold the bloodstained handkerchief outstretched like a God-given signal and in such a melodramatic way which could occur nowhere but on the films. Please rise and sing :—

“ We'll raise the scarlet banner high !

Beneath this flag we'll live or die !

Tho' cowards jeer, and traitors sneer 1 

We'll keep the red flag flying here ! ! "

Hitler and his gang, Goering, Goebells, Jodi, Keitel, Rundstedt, etc., are clearly portrayed, although it is a little strange to English ears to hear them all speaking in Russian with occasional “Mein Herr's." These guys produce some laughs from the audience from those who could not have laughed at the Great Stalin nonsense. Churchill and Roosevelt are depicted around the table at Yalta, but are so outshone by Stalin's splendour and greatness, and the depth of his remarks, that one scarcely notices them. England only gets one mention in the film, and America is of course played down, not as an ally, but as a power with which the Germans were trying to co-operate, and who were leaving all the fighting for the Russians to do. Towards the end the orders for the German army are to take no notice of the Americans coming in the back door, but to keep the Russians out at all costs!

Then comes the splendid climax which all “stupendous” films must have. Victory is achieved by Stalin (assisted to a small degree by the Red army). They celebrate in Berlin; releasing the Russian prisoners, dance, sing and shout (although nobody has a drink). One would think with all the excitement and shouting that somebody would get thirsty. But still film producers can miss things, or is it that the Russians don’t drink ?

Then what do you think happens ? Yes, it does, and right in the centre of Berlin on the day of victory. Our hero meets his girl friend who was carried off by the Nazis and had just been released so that they can by accident bump into one another again. And then what do you think happens next, you could never guess. Yes, sure enough the Great Generalissimo Joseph Vissarionovitch Stalin himself swoops down from the sky like an angel, but in an aeroplane, and gets out in the middle of the celebrating crowds. They surround him in a large and orderly circle without having to be kept back by police or soldiers. They carried many large photos of him about 20ft square (Gaud knows how they got them there so quickly)—and boy do they give him a greeting for winning the war for them.

Now comes the final climax which brings tears to your eyes or loosens your bowels according to your diathesis. The hero and his girl friend are seen by the benevolent eyes of Stalin, and Stalin remembers him after all those years. The girl runs forward apparently recognizing the great man, and wants to hug him—yes, a simple school teacher actually embraces a being who has come as near to a God as is possible. It all reminds us of the words of Jesus, “suffer little children to come unto me." Well what else do you expect when a modern capitalist state goes all out for the Great Man idea. Had Hitler won and Moscow fallen, practically everything in the film could have been retained, but of course reversed. Oh pot, why do you keep calling the kettle black ?

Horace Jarvis.

Recent events in Russia (1956)

Party News from the July 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

Report of Meeting at Denison House

As was reported briefly in the May issue of the Socialist Standard a successful meeting to put the Socialist estimate of recent changes in the situation in Russia was held at short notice at the Denison House Hall.

Two speakers stated the Party viewpoint. Comrade D'Arcy devoted his attention mainly to consideration of the international aspect of the question.

Comrade Young dealt chiefly with the Communist Party in this country.

Unfortunately, the raucous and rowdy elements who have been noticed around the Party platform at Hyde Park recently were conspicuous by their absence, preferring not to avail themselves of the opportunity to state the C. P. case inside the hall.

Even so, there were the usual individuals who heard for the first time that the Russian Government borrows vast sums upon which it regularly pays 4% interest

Comrade D'Arcy quoted from the election speeches of Kruschev, Bulganin and Molotov (delivered in 1955) to show that they were still eulogising Stalin a year after his death.

He further drew attention to the impact of the international economic situation on Russian affairs. He thought that the renunciation of Stalin and the appeals for co-existence were the reflection of the Moscow Government's need for a larger share of world trade. The economic development of Russia would be bound to produce its political counterpart. The growth of the working class in that country would make it more difficult to run by simple police state methods.

Several amusing instances were given by the second speaker of the ludicrous position of the British Communist Party throughout the years. After quoting the Daily Worker to show that the articles on the death of Stalin were completely repudiated two years later, the speaker gave examples of the antics of the Communists resulting from their lack of principles. Supporting the Labour Party in 1924—opposing it in 1929—supporting it in 1940 and 1945, supporting the war, opposing it—supporting it.

Calling on the unemployed to march to die military barracks at Burnley and fraternise with the soldiers, only to find them empty, and converted into slum property.

With reference to the so-called “day-to-day” struggle, the speaker read two extracts, one from the Daily Worker and one from the Workers Weekly. 

“Many times we light-mindedly call for strike action without the semblance of preparation having been made, so that in some districts, when workers see our comrades, they are apt to say, 'Hullo, what are we to strike for to-day?’ "—Daily Worker,  January 25th, 1932.

“ The unemployed have done all they can, and the Government know it. They have tramped through the rain in endless processions. They have gone in mass deputations to the Guardians.

They have attended innumerable meetings and have been told to be “solid.” They have marched to London enduring terrific hardships. All this has led nowhere.— Workers Weekly, February 10th, 1923. (Italics ours.)

Both speakers emphasised the repeated declaration of the Socialist Party that the fundamental mistake of the Bolsheviks was their illusion of minority action.

Socialism can only be majority action.—Democracy.

As a result their policies resulted in increasing disaster, throwing “Communists” in this country into even greater confusion and panic.

Numerous questions were answered and an interesting discussion took place in which various points of view were expressed. One contributor thought there might be a likelihood of a genuine democratic advance in Russia due to working class maturity.

Others questioned this view, asking for evidence for the statement that there had been any real change there, seeing in the "new Party line" just one more adroit manoeuvre.

A request was also made for still further consideration of this aspect of the business, which some thought inadequately dealt with by the meeting.

The Passing Show: Success . . . . (1956)

The Passing Show Column from the May 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

Success . . . .

State Capitalism marches on from triumph to triumph. British European Airways last year turned 1954’s loss of £400,000 into a profit of £862,000 (The Star, 28-2-56). And hard on the heels of this announcement comes the news that the British Overseas Airways Corporation almost doubled its net profit in the financial year 1955-56. It made a gross profit of about £1,750,000 on the year, and a net profit of about £500,000. This compared with last year’s net profit of £260,000 (The Observer, 1-4-56). These successes will no doubt make those staunch Labourites, who for years devoted themselves to bringing about the nationalization of the country's basis industries, feel very proud. Or will they?

. . . .  for the Capitalists

The Socialist Party has consistently pointed out for more than half a century that nationalization is no more than Capitalism run by the State or its nominees. It has nothing to do with Socialism. And the more experience the country has of the actual running of nationalization, the more it becomes obvious that what the Socialist Party has always said about it is true. Now even social anthropologists, quietly pursuing their studies far removed from the hurly-burly of political conflict, arrive at the same conclusion. Norman Dennis, Fernando Henriques and Clifford Slaughter, have written a book embodying the results of their researches into the life of a Yorkshire mining town. “They found that"—to quote a review in The Times (54-56)—“they found that, in the mines, the old fundamental conflict between management and men has continued, and that the system of piece-work payments gives occasions every day for conflict between worker and management.” Of course it does. It is merely one aspect of the class struggle. The review of the book (“Coal is our Life”) goes on:

  "The miner remains an employee, and whether or no he works is still dependent on the capacity of owners of capital to cater for him.”

The Socialist case could hardly be put more clearly than that. The worker is propertyless; therefore he is forced to sell his ability to work to the “owners of capital": and if the owners of capital cannot make a profit out of his work, they will not employ him, and so he is not allowed to work at all. Instead he goes on the dole, and his physical energies and mental faculties rot together. And this is the case whether he works in an industry run by private or by State capitalism.

And yet—probably on the very day you buy this paper—the left-wing political parties hold May-Day demonstrations to demand further doses of nationalization! Will they never learn?

Sales Manager

The barnstorming tour of Mr. Malenkov through Britain has been providing journalists with a lot of copy during the past week or two. Patting children on the head, switching on a wide grin for the photographers, scattering “peace-medals” like confetti at a wedding, he has been arousing the ire of some political commentators who fear he may make Russia too popular. This situation is not without its humour. For the reports of Mr. Malenkov's doings—not forgetting his occasional gaucheries, such as asking an Ayr workman what he thought of Burns—are highly reminiscent of election-time, when the candidates of the big parties go cap in hand to the electors to solicit their votes. And the aforementioned commentators, none of whom complain about the activities of Parliamentary candidates who support the British ruling class, are now hoarsely indignant that Mr. Malenkov may win backing for the Russian ruling class by using the same dubious tactics. But what is sauce for Sir Anthony Eden and Mr. Gaitskell is also sauce for Mr. Malenkov—as well as for Messrs. Bulganin and Khrushchev, when they follow in Malenkov's footsteps; and only those who have criticised the electioneering tactics of the British political leaders have any right to criticise the same tactics now being employed by the Russians.

I see it all now

Mr. Malenkov has come to Britain at a crisis in the fortunes of the world's Communist Parties. The present leaders of the Soviet Communist Party have severely attacked the Stalin legend, and have boldly said about their late master what nearly everyone else has been saying about him for the last 30 years. And the Communist Party of Great Britain has. naturally, followed suit. The poor old British Bolsheviks have had to perform the about turn so often that, in revolutions per minute, they must now be challenging the internal combustion engine. Mr. Pollitt is reported to have fobbed off questions with the remark that, if Stalin hadn’t made any mistakes, he wouldn’t have been human. The accuracy of this remark is unchallengeable; but what a pity Mr. Pollitt didn’t have the guts to say so ten years ago, instead of spending his time kissing the ground in front of the great Stalin myth.

It may be that, for some time at any rate, Russia will be ruled by a committee of men instead of by one man. Developing Russian Capitalism seems to require—like developing English and French Capitalism required—a totalitarian regime at a certain stage; and it appears that the Russian ruling class has now decided that the “leadership” cult has been overdone. But committee-rule would not make Russia any more democratic. The powers of a police state like Russia may be exercised, just as effectively by ten men as by one. It is easy enough, for Communists inside and outside Russia, to criticise a fallen idol; but Russians will not have freedom of speech until they are at liberty to challenge the false theories of social development to which Communists have committed themselves, and to discuss publicly whether the Russian system is Socialism, or whether— as is in fact the case—it is merely State Capitalism.

Seconds out of the ring

So the British Royal Family has declined invitations to attend the forthcoming Royal Wedding of the Year (on my right, Prince Rainier, title-holder of Monaco; on my left, Grace Kelly, star attraction from Philadelphia and Hollywood). Which is curious. One would have thought the few remaining royalties would try to consolidate the ranks. But there may be an explanation. For when the crowds cheered at the Philip-Elizabeth wedding, and subsequently at the Coronation, the commentators rushed forward to tell us why. It was (we were told) Loyalty, the great throbbing Loyalty of the British people to its monarch. But now the same British people is showing just as much interest in the wedding of Rainier and Kelly—the representatives respectively of the Monte Carlo gaming-tables and the Californian arc-lights. Can it be that life within Capitalism is so drab that the British people would enthuse over anything which offered a little glamour, gaiety and colour, and that this much-vaunted Loyalty doesn't come into it?

Exit Ceylon

While we’re on the subject of loyalty, a word about Ceylon. When the Queen undertook the round-the- Empire tour after the Coronation, nowhere was she more enthusiastically received than in Ceylon. Ah! said the experts—loyal Ceylon! But the results of Ceylon’s general election now show a landslide in favour of Mr. Bandaraniake's Party, which promised to make Ceylon a Republic outside the Commonwealth. In other words, the Ceylon ruling class, having freed itself from the control of the British ruling class after the war, is in no mood to retain the trappings of the British monarchy.

And once again the experts are proved wrong.

Chip that Buddha

When a ten-foot high Buddha was being moved by cane into a new temple in Bangkok recently it fell, and the plaster casing was chipped; beneath the casing the Buddha was seen to be made of gold (Sunday Express, 8-4-56). Now, it seems, the Buddhist temples of Siam are full of hurrying priests and laymen carrying hammer and chisel, purposefully bent on seeing whether their own Buddhas conceal the same treasure-trove. Mingled with the prayers of the worshippers comes the sound of the gold-hungry faithful attacking their hitherto inviolate idols. Meanwhile, the original monks are finding that they struck a gusher; offerings to the golden Buddha are pouring in like a pools-entrant’s dream, and already amount to nearly £20,000.

It is easy to sneer at these remarkable events; but surely there is here a message for us all. Beneath the outward show, and doctrinal differences, we can find here a text on which both Christians and Buddhists obviously agree. What text?

To him that hath shall be given,

How revolutionary can you get ?

It was suggested by a delegate at the Co-operative Party conference that no person should inherit more than £20,000 from any source (Sunday Express, 1-4-56). So instead of comparatively few big Capitalists, we should have a greater number of medium-sized Capitalists. What a suggestion with which to arouse the revolutionary fervour of the working class on the approach of May-Day!

Alwyn Edgar

50 Years Ago: Stalin the God and Stalin the Gangster (2006)

Stalin by Picasso

The 50 Years Ago column from the April 2006 issue of the Socialist Standard

So the Stalin legend is ended, struck down by the hands that built it up. Three years after his death Communist Party leaders of all nationalities who fawned on him and grovelled at his feet in his lifetime, and who slobbered hysterically at his funeral, vie with each other to speak ill of their dead hero. They now make charges that he was cowardly, conceited, ignorant and stupid, cunning and brutal, and his supposedly benevolent guidance of his admiring and loving people nothing but a betrayal of Communist ideals, a bestial reign of terror under which no voice of protest could be heard and no man of integrity was safe against arbitrary execution.

One thing we must, however, not forget. If the faction that wants to belittle Stalin carries the day we may expect the anti-Stalin campaign to be as richly ornamented with new lies as was the old campaign to build up the Stalin myth. History will be re-written again with no more regard for truth.

For the venal and sycophantic second-line leaders it is a cruel dilemma. While the dictator lived the drill was simple,. Since he was all-wise, when he turned they all turned; and fell over each other to praise his every tortuous twist of policy,. But, as has happened throughout history, the dictator’s death launches his immediate circle into a bloody struggle for power, and the minor leaders and their followers suddenly have to make up their own minds which faction to support. So the British Communists are now anxiously disputing about the line they ought to follow,. This is the eventual fate of all organizations built up on leader-worship and Socialists can view their agonies with equanimity. The Communist Party has never been a force for Socialism and its disruption could only be a gain to the working class.

(From editorial, Socialist Standard, April 1956)

Letters: Why Socialism Must Be World Wide (1998)

Letters to the Editors from the January 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

Why Socialism Must Be World Wide

Dear Editors,

I have read the articles in the November Socialist Standard setting out the basic socialist philosophy with much interest and benefit.

In its articles on Russia the Socialist Standard pointed out, in 1934, that socialism “is impossible in one country alone, owing to international economic interdependence”.

This fact still applies, so how would a socialist Britain, having abolished money, exchange goods with a predominantly capitalist world?

Bryan Fair, 

Dorchester, Dorset

Reply:

A “socialist Britain” is an impossibility for the same reason that a “socialist Russia” was in 1934: capitalism is a world system into which all countries are locked and from which none can escape on its own.

Various countries, beginning with Russia but also others like Cuba and Nicaragua, have tried to escape from the laws of the world market economy but only at the price of establishing a state capitalism which in the end has had to take into account world market pressures anyway.

In fact it could be said that an isolated “capitalist Britain” is just as impossible as an isolated “socialist Britain”. Ever since capitalism first began to develop about 500 years ago it has involved multi-lateral trade between different countries so making them mutually interdependent; in fact one definition of capitalism is that it is the world market, the world trading system.

As capitalism has developed countries have become more and more interdependent. International trade on which all parts of the world now depend for the daily lives of their inhabitants (just think what you had for breakfast) reflects the underlying fact that production itself involves working on materials that have in part come from different parts of the world.

At one time the typical pattern was that raw materials would come from one part, be worked up into a finished product in another, and then sold there or in some other part. Nowadays, not just raw materials but also parts and semi-finished products are exported and imported. The best known example is perhaps the “world car”, as most cars now are, whose various components are produced in a number of different countries and which is only assembled in one particular country.

So “interdependence” is the key fact of economic life today. Because capitalism is a world system so must be socialism, the system which will replace it. In fact, socialism recognises that all parts of the world are interdependent today and seeks to bring social and institutional arrangements into line with this underlying productive fact by establishing a worldwide democratic community with, besides local and regional (“national” in today’s parlance) administrations, a world administration. Frontiers become obsolete, as does adherence to a particular nation-state. We all become citizens of a united world, Earth-people not “British” or “American” or “Russian” or “South African” or whatever.

Trade, as the buying and selling of goods, ceases to exist but not of course the transfer of goods from one part of the world to another. This will still take place, even if the people of socialist society might decide to produce everyday items of individual consumption more locally than at present. This won’t be trade because it won’t be an exchange of equivalents measured in monetary terms. It will just be the transfer of materials and products from one part of the world to other parts where they are needed, without anything needing to be transferred “in exchange”

Editors.

A Stalinist Writes

Dear Editors,

I saw your review of the book Children of the Revolution; Communist Childhood in Cold War Britain and read it with interest. I must now buy the book, although I anticipate being enraged.

Being born in 1940 I well recall my childhood and teenage years as the son of Communist parents. Wonderful, loving Stalinist parents. Stalinists they must have been because they refused to go along with the demonisation of Joe.

I was brought up on the Daily Worker and books were always plentiful. I could go my own way, I was just one of the fortunate few with access to both sides. After a brief mid-teen crisis when I wanted to be the “gum-chewing good guy” and not a “gook” or an automaton under the control of “State Capitalism” I became a Communist.

Like your reviewer I too joined first the YCL and later the CP. However, I never quit. I went instead from believing that Stalin was of his time to now knowing that Stalin was right. He remains right to this day.

I remember telling my Dad that I wanted to go to Sunday School with some of the kids. This Stalinist said “go ahead”. I went once, never again. I remember too, being on a train with him in 1956 when a man came in the carriage asking for cash and help as he was a poor Hungarian on the run from the Russian hordes. My Dad put his glasses in his top pocket and told him “there are two ways to leave this carriage, by the window or the door, take your pick”. Predictably, this fighter against Red tyranny scurried through the door.

Because, comrades, sometimes the tanks have to be sent in and if the Hungarian counter-revolution had succeeded or the Czech one in 1967 [sic], the chaos that is now Eastern Europe would have occurred sooner with other generations suffering what is being suffered now thanks to revisionists, counter-revolutionists, traitors, the weak, corrupt and the liberal.

And who is counting the dead now, as they pile up all over Eastern Europe. But it’s OK, Wall Street and the CIA, the controlled media play it down, because after all, no-one’s nationalising anything without compensation. Nothing to worry about. Business as usual.

And when the cattle cars are filled again it will be that much harder to defeat the enemy next time without Joe and his Red Army.

Paul Barrett, 

Penarth, Mid Glam

Reply:

We have no reason to believe this letter is a spoof. It confirms the view about the “New Communist Party” expressed in the pamphlet by Mike Mosbacher reviewed on our books page and explains why they are known as the “Tankies”. Such people have done the cause of genuine socialism no end of harm by associating it with the vicious one-party state-capitalist dictatorship that existed in Russia under Stalin and where people were also transported in cattle cars to slave-labour camps where they died in their millions.

Editors.

50 Years Ago: Stalin – the God Who Fell (2011)

The 50 Years Ago column from the December 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

For Stalin, the final disgrace.

His simple grave now mocks the memory of the days when he was the great dictator, who could make Krushchev caper like a court jester.

It mocks, too, the memory of the fulsome praise that was heaped upon him when his pitiless rule was at its height. Here is part of a poem which was published in Pravda on August 28th, 1936:

O Great Stalin, O Leader of the Peoples,
Thou who didst give birth to man,
Thou who didst make fertile the earth,
Thou who dost rejuvenate the Centuries.
Thou who givest blossom to the spring, . . .

And this is Krushchev himself, speaking at the eighteenth Congress in 1938 on the extermination of Stalin’s opponents:

  ‘. . . Our victory in defeating the fascist agents—all these despicable trotskyists, bukharinists and bourgeois nationalists—we owe above all to the personal effort of our great leader, comrade Stalin. . . . Long live the towering genius of all humanity, the teacher and the guide who is leading us victoriously to Communism, our beloved comrade Stalin.’

Now that the truth about the “beloved comrade” is officially acknowledged in Moscow, we can expect some more rewriting of history, just as it was when Stalin wanted to eliminate the memory of his enemies.

In England the Communist Party will be in confusion for some time. Always taking their line from Moscow, they were among Stalin’s worshippers, and disregarded the facts about the Russian dictator which Socialists, and others put before them. The latest change of policy will be hard to swallow, even for them.

(from editorial, Socialist Standard, December 1961)

Here and There: Colonel Blimps (1937)

The Here and There column from the February 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

Colonel Blimps

J. B. Firth, reviewing the sixth volume of Mr. Lloyd George's War memoirs in the Daily Telegraph (October 26th, 1936), quotes from Mr. Lloyd George as follows:— 

 In the grand army that fought the World War the ablest brains did not climb to the top of the stairs, and they did not reach a height where politicians could even see them. Seniority and society were the dominant factors in army promotion. Deportment counted a good deal. Brains came a bad fourth.

It is a fitting commentary on the traditional snobbery of our ruling class when engaged in a life and death struggle that promotion depended upon social standing and deportment (!) before brains.

#    #    #    #

On Property

“If you should see a flock of pigeons in a field, and if (instead of each picking where and what it liked, taking as much as it wanted and no more) you should see 99 of them gathering all they got in one heap, reserving for themselves nothing but the chaff and refuse, keeping this heap for one, and that the weakest, perhaps the worst, pigeon of the flock, sitting round . . . and devouring and wasting it, and if one pigeon more hardy or hungry than the rest touched a grain of the hoard, all others instantly flying upon it and tearing it to pieces; if you should see this you would see nothing more than what is every day practised and established among men."—From Moral and Political Philosophy, by Archdeacon W. Paley.

#    #    #    #

Misleading Housing Statistics

The Housing Act of 1935 lays it down that an excess of 2½ occupants per room to a house constitutes overcrowding—children counting as ½. The Manchester City Council (Manchester Guardian, December 9th) considered this standard too narrow, which is not surprising. They therefore adopted a standard of their own for statistical purposes (for argument’s sake, so to speak). The Manchester standard assumed a house to be overcrowded when it had more than 2½ persons to a bedroom. Even this standard, which allows for a living-room, does not err in being a too-palatial conception for working-class houses. Slight though the difference is in the basis of calculation in the Manchester standard and that of the Housing Act, it was found that under the Manchester standard overcrowding in Manchester was five times greater than under the Housing Act. Even under the Manchester standard nine persons, including three children, could occupy three small bedrooms, providing there was a kitchen or a scullery which could be described as a living-room, and still not be classed as overcrowded. The real housing conditions of the workers are obscured rather than brought out by the figures used as the standard by Government statistics.

#    #    #    #

American Contrast

In an article on the depression in America, the Daily Telegraph (January 19th, 1937) New York correspondent estimates unemployment in America as being between 8,000,000 and 9,000,000. He also quotes a statement by a prominent Chicago administrator who believes that there will still be 7,000,000 unemployed in America if the peak production figures of 1929 are reached and a minimum of 4,000,000 unemployed even if the production figures of 1929 are “materially exceeded.” The unemployed are provided for by an inadequate relief system which leaves the unemployed and their many millions of dependants in a state of intense poverty and privation. Despite this, however, things are brightening for the American capitalists. Production is expanding, profits and Stock Exchange prices are rising. “Confidence” is being restored and money is being spent more freely.

And how ?

#    #    #    #

The Amusements of the Ruling Class

The Daily Mirror (January 18th, 1937) shows us how by condescendingly giving us a peep at the refined pastimes of our superiors. It gives a report of a party given by Miss Elsa Maxwell “in honour" of Mrs. Laura Corrigan and Mrs. Randolph Hearst at a New York luxury hotel. There were present prominent members of English and American society. The hotel was transformed into a country farmyard: "Squealing pigs, mooing cows, chickens and a donkey wandered over the floor. There were goats, too—but before the party began they were sprayed with scent. A model cow that yielded champagne instead of milk and a well containing frothy beer were two more novelties.” Just another novelty was a large pair of lady's Victorian bloomers which hung across the ballroom. The animals were apparently scented to obliterate smells. The climax of the party was reached when the scented animals were released and chased the “horrified” (scented) ladies. It is just possible that the animals scented a natural and mental affinity.

Another report (Daily Express) tells us that Mrs. Peter Widener gave a party for her 17-year-old daughter. It occupied three floors and 1,500 rooms of a luxury hotel; cost £20,000 and £2,000 for music. The same newspaper announced another party to be given by Mrs. Evelyn Maclean, "owner of the famous Hope diamond." This, however, was to cost a mere £10,000 or thereabouts.

If evidence were needed that the capitalist class do not owe their privileged position to intellectual superiority, that idleness and wealth is often the breeding ground for debauchery, mental stagnation and crass stupidity, then the capitalist Press provides it.

#    #    #    #

Magic Words by Roosevelt

  I see millions of families trying to live on incomes so meagre that the pall of family disaster hangs over them day by day.
 We are beginning to abandon our tolerance of abuse of power by those who betray for profit the elementary decencies of life.

And here is one comment on that piece of eloquence by the Evening News (January 21st, 1937)

   Probably no inaugural address by a President of the United States has made so great a sensation as that of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In Wall Street, the nerve centre of a nation, traders bent over the tape machines scanning the speech as it appeared in instalments.
  What was it that sent stocks sky-rocketing as the President’s words became known? Just this— that first impressions among the men of money in Broadway’s canyon were that the speech consisted solely of high-sounding and harmless generalities.
  In other words, the market soared because Roosevelt said nothing.

#    #    #    #

Hero Worship in Russia

The wives of Russian army officers attended a meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow, at which Stalin was presented with an address from them. It read : —

  Dear and beloved Comrade Stalin, with immense excitement we have come to Moscow to gaze upon our well-beloved friend, teacher and leader. . . .
 We come to you carrying in our hearts the fullest and warmest gratitude any human heart can contain, for your tender care of us, for the life which now so brightly blooms on Soviet soil. . . .
  Wherever we may be—on the Pacific Ocean, in the frozen North, on the sands of Central Asia, on our Western frontier—everywhere we feel the majestic breath of your Government, the powerful rhythm and the never-equalled genius of your leadership.—(Daily Telegraph, December 22nd, 1936.)

The adoration in that address resembles a prayer to a deity. The imagination staggers at the thought of the extent to which the teachings of Marx have been emasculated by the Russians to permit of religious fervour of this kind side by side with the claim that they are Marxians.

#    #    #    #

Workers’ Conditions in India

According to the Daily Telegraph (December 22nd, 1936), 208 workers were killed in a mining disaster at the Poidih Colliery, Bengal, on December 18th, 1936. Among the victims were 63 women. The disaster was reported without dramatic headlines, appeals for funds, or unctuous leading articles deploring the employment of women in mines. As it happened in India, the disaster aroused no exceptional interest. Industrial development in India is a century behind England. Its growth will result in the development of the working class and struggles for a better standard of living. Meanwhile, the conditions of the Indian workers are characteristic of those of the English workers in the days of early capitalism here: long hours, low wages, and the vicious exploitation of women and children. The Daily Telegraph gave a strong hint that the regulations governing the employment of women in the Indian mines had callously been ignored by the employers. One is reminded of the English capitalists of the early nineteenth century, who, under the pretence of apprenticeship, bought workhouse children for exploitation in the factories.

#    #    #    #

Costly Peace

The Daily Telegraph (January 6th) quotes from a report issued by the German Institute for Business Research, which gives the figures spent on armaments by the various capitalist countries to-day in comparison to 1914.

The figures are : —

1913: £833,000,000.
1928/9:    £1,250,000,000.
1936 : £2,500,000,000 to £2,900,000,000.

Another comparison is given: In 1913 the outlay for armaments accounted for 4 per cent. of the world’s net industrial production. In 1936 the figure was at least 11 per cent.

The more armament production grows the louder is the protest that it is for the maintenance of “peace.” Whether war is averted or not, the constant increasing use of their surplus wealth in production of armaments, which bring no return, is likely to create more problems for the capitalist class in future.

#    #    #    #

Purpose of Kingship

Writing in the Evening Standard (December 28th, 1936), Mr. Winston Churchill, commenting on the recent abdication, and Mr. Baldwin’s handling of it, says:—

  It is now clearly his duty, whatever his inclination, to watch over the inauguration of the new reign and the Coronation of a King and Queen, upon whose success British hopes are centred, and British fortunes in no small measure depend. (Italics ours.)

There it is. British fortunes are the measure of the British capitalists’ interest in the Crown. “For King and Country” is obviously a much better slogan than “For Capitalists’ Markets and Profits,” when gullible wage-slaves need persuading to give their lives in their masters’ interests. So also do the capitalists use the Crown as a soporific in all parts of the earth where they require obedience and fear in their wage-slaves.

#    #    #    #

Poverty and Profits

The following quotation is taken from The Times' Literary Supplement (November 28th, 1936), who quote it in reviewing “A Short History of the Future,” by J. Langdon Davies

  Natural causes have again improved the wheat position, when schemes for the artificial raising of prices failed. In 1934 the drought in the United States assisted producers to obtain more remunerative prices, and in 1935 adverse weather conditions in Argentina resulted in a further improvement in the world wheat situation.

The statement originally appeared in The Times’ Annual Financial and Commercial Review for February 11th, 1936. The reviewer in the Supplement takes Mr. Davies to task for reproducing it several times in his book as an ironic comment upon capitalism. He himself sees no contradiction in the fact that scarcity is considered an “improvement” by capitalist economists—and that in a world where millions are in need.

It's a mad world.

#    #    #    #

Fascist Bread and Circuses

There is food shortage in Germany. In order to discourage the German people from buying certain foods, shopkeepers have been ordered, under penalty, not to display cooking fats and other foods. According to The Times (December 22nd, 1936), “three million poor children were entertained by the National Socialists at Christmas parties throughout the Reich.” They were given presents (doubtless having propaganda value) and an address on the joys of Nazism by Dr. Goebbeb, who represented Hitler to be some kind of semi-divinity.

In Italy, developments follow similar lines. In order that the poor can attend the theatre and enjoy operas, plays and musical comedies, “Theatrical Saturdays” are to be inaugurated throughout Italy (Times, January 5th, 1937). The prices of admission will be from 1½d. to 6d. Ten per cent. of the total number of seats are to be distributed free by the relief committees to those who cannot afford even 1½d.

Just a few examples of Fascist window-dressing to offset the intense poverty of German and Italian workers.

Harry Waite

Editorial: Half a century of shame (2003)

Editorial from the March 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

So, it’s fifty years since that other Great Dictator himself – Josef Stalin – finally departed this mortal coil. Fifty years on from the death of a man who probably did as much as anyone else in human history to sully the name of socialism. Today, few outside of Arthur Scargill’s mis-named Socialist Labour Party and their friends in the near-moribund Stalin Society have anything but contempt for one of the greatest destroyers of working class hopes (and lives) this century.

Stalin presided over a ruthless dictatorship over the proletariat which was the model followed by a host of other unsavoury regimes which believed that the only way to achieve a socialist society was to oppress the very class – the only class – capable of bringing it about. Their vision of this socialist society was, in any case, distorted virtually beyond recognition, where Marx’s dictum “from each according to their ability, to each according to their need” was replaced with “from each according to their ability, to each according to their (supposed) work” and where the Party bureaucrats drove round in limousines and accessed shops only they could access while the rest of the population lived miserable lives of poverty.

It is difficult to think that a sane person could hanker back to the type of regime that Stalin helped develop in Russia and which was replicated across most of Eastern Europe and parts of Africa, East Asia and the Caribbean. And yet, thousands of people – even in a country like the UK – still do. Not that most of them would call themselves followers of Josef Stalin though – far from it. Unlike Scargill and his ilk, these are people who profess to abhor Stalinism and all that it led to: the fear, the intolerance, the labour camps and the murders. But they are people who still agree with most of what Stalin stood for, because even though they might be latter-day supporters of Stalin’s great rival in the Russian Communist Party, Leon Trotsky, they are united in their fervour for the politics of the man who mentored them both: Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.

The bureaucratic Russian police state which terrorised its political opponents (including genuine socialists) did not originate with Stalin, nor did it die with him. Neither was the idea that socialism was really state-run capitalism when operated under the dictatorship of the Russian Communist Party one of Stalin’s contributions. These ideas were Lenin’s and they were adopted by Stalin and Trotsky alike.

Today, many political parties exist which still extol the virtues of Lenin and Trotsky while supposedly denouncing Stalin and all his works. And yet they undoubtedly agree with 95 percent of his politics, including most of the bits others (rightly) find abhorrent. Groups like the Socialist Workers Party, Militant (now masquerading under a nom-de-plume), the Alliance for Workers Liberty and others all believe that the working class must be led to socialism (read state controlled capitalism) by a dedicated band of revolutionaries (them) who will then proceed to set up a “dictatorship of the proletariat” in time-honoured fashion.

We must point out that their politics stands in clear distinction to the honest, open and democratic political tradition of the Socialist Party. This is a political tradition which insists that the working class of wage and salary earners must themselves – organised democratically – bring about socialism: a society without class division, the wages system, a state or national frontiers.

Whatever our political opponents may say about us, we have a proud tradition of standing by our principles and of conveying a consistent analysis of capitalism and of how it can be democratically transformed into socialism. As all reminders of the Soviet Union’s murky existence demonstrate, our opponents on the political Left meanwhile have a past to hide from and a future that is merely a promise to repeat yesterday’s nightmares. In refusing to learn the lessons of the Russian debacle they have tarnished the words “socialism” and “communism” to describe the society that can replace capitalism. For these reasons, their protestations of innocence this month will ring hollow to all those with a decent knowledge of history and a political conscience to match.

Voice From The Back: Minimum wage, ‘living’ wage or a world without? (2015)

The  Voice From The Back column from the June 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

Minimum wage, ‘living’ wage or a world without?

In Congress, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Washington, and Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Virginia, have introduced the Raise the Wage Act, which would increase the federal minimum wage $1 an hour starting in 2016 to $12 by 2020, and thereafter base increases on the growth of the federal median wage. ‘No one who works hard in a full-time job should have to live in poverty,’ Murray said in introducing the legislation (Herald Net, 1 May). No more crumbs! Not even a slice of cake! Workers should demand what is rightfully ours: the whole bakery.

Earning a wage is a prison occupation

One in three full-time employees in some of the world’s largest economies say maintaining a healthy work-life balance has become more difficult in the last five years…’It’s really important in a sustainable 24-7 global marketplace to be able to offer people the ability to ebb and flow to make life work while they’re working so hard,’ says Karyn Twaronite, an Ernst & Young partner and global diversity and inclusiveness officer. ‘The workday is vast. There really aren’t start and end times, and it does have a significant overlap into everyone’s personal life in a significant way. You no longer can leave your work behind at the end of the day’ (US News, 5 May). 9 til 5? More like 24/7, except for the unemployed 1 percent! Socialists, like Marx, by contrast, claim that in a communist society there would be more leisure time, more time for education and that everyone would participate in the running of society. It’s time to break free.

Rage against the machine

Abulkasim Al-Jaberi was arrested at a demonstration against Zwarte Piet for shouting ‘fuck the king, fuck the queen and fuck the monarchy.’… The action taken against him has caused anger on Twitter and vandalism to the Royal Palace. He is being prosecuted for lèse-majesté, a crime which specifically refers to offences against the dignity of the monarch, for which the maximum sentence is five years in prison (Independent, 7 May). Socialists don’t want a Republic: we call not just for the removal of royalty, rather of all parasites. So, in the words of the radical poet Shelley:

Let us hasten that glorious day
When man on man no more shall prey
When prophets priests and kings
Are numbered with forgotten things
Deification of a dictator

‘Over the past five years I’ve often watched documentary films about Stalin, about that time on television and learnt more about him,’ the 29-year-old told AFP. ‘And now I don’t have any negative feelings towards him. He had good intentions’ (Yahoo! News, 5 May). This comes as no surprise to socialists: after all, the class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production. In Stalin’s case, the process started long ago. Here is one example, part of a poem which was published in Pravda on 28 August, 1936:

O Great Stalin, O Leader of the Peoples,
Thou who didst give birth to man,
Thou who didst make fertile the earth,
Thou who dost rejuvenate the Centuries,
Thou who givest blossom to the spring . . .

Drapetomania

There is a long history of science being used to support the status quo. Russian psychiatrists famously aided Stalin by diagnosing dissidents as insane. In 1850s America a Dr. Cartwright identified a condition that caused black slaves to flee plantations. More recently, a report written by six health professionals and human rights activists claims that the American Psychological Association secretly worked with the George W. Bush administration to justify a post-9/11 torture policy (Time, 30 April).

They won, you lost

‘The question is: who is this country going to be run for?’ Mr Axelrod said. ‘Cameron is absolutely right about the question. But it is not a question of whether the country is going to be run for Scotland. It is a question of whether the country is going to be run for the wealthy and powerful interests, who have thrived and prospered under Tory policies while everyday working people have struggled just to keep up’ (Independent, 2 May). Labour, Liberal, Tory – same old boring story. The Greens, SNP, UKIP etc., are part of it too.

Only woolly sheep need leaders

Muriquis (or woolly spider monkeys) from south-eastern Brazil live in large social groups and yet there are no leaders. Males do not boss other males or females and there is no dominance hierarchy – a truly egalitarian society. They are very peaceful primates. Males will even wait in line for their opportunity to mate with a receptive female (Independent, 6 May).

From the horse’s mouth

David Cameron’s former chief strategist has launched a stinging attack on the ‘insular ruling class’ threatening Britain’s democracy. Steve Hilton said too many of those at the heart of government go to the same dinner parties and send their children to the same schools. He said the UK’s political system is now in ‘crisis’ because the same type of people stay in charge whatever the outcome of the elections.

In what will be seen as a criticism of the ‘chumocracy’ of his former boss, Mr Hilton warned: ‘Our democracies are increasingly captured by a ruling class that seeks to perpetuate its privileges.

‘Regardless of who’s in office, the same people are in power. It is a democracy in name only, operating on behalf of a tiny elite no matter the electoral outcome’ (Daily Mail, 17 May).

Stalin's Successors & Censorship (1972)

From the November 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard

  In this, our age of infamy, 

Man’s choice is but to be  

A tyrant, traitor, prisoner. 

No other choice has he.

                               (Pushkin)

Under the capitalist system we are not free from material want, and neither are we free from intellectual oppression and the blue pencil of censorship. “All over the world censorship is being employed as an instrument of government”, writes the editor of Index, a journal published by the Writers and Scholars International.

Index performs a useful rôle in exposing those who seek to burn and ban books or to purge and prohibit art. Its first issue indicates the universality of this mediaeval practice, as universal as the social system which leans on it so heavily. There are laws to prohibit publications “that threaten the national interest” (Antigua) and in Brazil “the discussion of ideas” may land you in jail. French journalists are given a police chaperon when covering demonstrations and Portuguese journalists have to be state-registered, like prostitutes. So much for parts of the “free world”. What of the rest of this planet? It is worth examining practices in the so-called “socialist countries”.

Russian censorship has been blatant and crushing in its effects, both cultural and political. It has enabled the so-called Communist Party and its collaborators to portray Russia as a Workers’ Paradise throughout the Thirties and the post war years and even, it must be said, right up to now. Long ago, Orwell attacked the Left on this point. The sin of the Left, he said, is that it wants to be anti-Fascist without being anti-totalitarian. This is still true: even now, the Left concentrates its attacks on Greece and Spain, Portugal and South Africa. Yet there is no form of atrocity practised by these governments which is not practised by the Russian State. Imprisonment of opponents, torture, deportation, forced labour, exile, racism—all these are common practices in Russia.

It is almost incredible that people still accept Soviet lies at their face value even now, even after Krushchev and “de-Stalinisation”. Evidently many left-wingers practise doublethink. They knew of Krushchev’s revelations about Stalinism made at the 20th and 22nd Congresses of the CPSU (1956 and 1961) but gradually, as “neo-Stalinism” took over in Russia, as Krushchev fell and was replaced by Brezhnev and Kosygin, they gladly accepted the comforting new dogma that those regrettable mistakes and massacres were all a weird consequence of the “cult of personality”, a relic of a bygone age.

Unfortunately for the Kremlin’s fan-club, there are many Russians who are not content with such facile explanations. They want to know who were the jailers, the prosecutors, the judges; like Yevtushenko they demand to know where these “heirs of Stalin” are now, and they want guaranteed protection from State terror. They publish underground journals such as the Chronicle of Current Affairs and circulate samizdat (do-it-yourself) copies of unpublished novels, poems, plays and essays. They have also formed a Committee for Human Rights in the Soviet Union and have built an active alliance of writers, historians, musicians, film-makers, artists and scientists. Together they effectively expose and publicise the régime’s policy of terror and despotism.

Illusion of Freedom

It is doubtful if such a movement could have developed without the thaw. This term relates to the period of “de-Stalinisation” which started in 1956 and, in terms of cultural freedom, began to die in 1962.

But why did Stalin’s heirs find it necessary to "de-Stalinize” in the first place? Certainly not from feelings of benevolence or remorse! And equally certainly, not very willingly either—they knew they ran considerable risks in this policy.

When Stalin died in 1953 the economy was stagnating and the people were sullenly apathetic. Something was desperately needed to jog them into co-operation and increased efficiency. This applied especially to workers like engineers, managers, planners and bureaucrats, since their apathy or its reverse must have a considerable effect on the economy. Stalin’s old method had been the stick—fear of the camps and the KGB—but this had evidently lost its former effectiveness. So the new bosses decided to try the carrot. They promised material incentives—better living and working conditions—and at the same time they offered political reform—more personal freedom and security. Reassurance was needed that this was for keeps (Stalin had a bad record in such matters) and, as Abraham Rothberg comments wryly in his The Hours of Stalin: Dissidence in the Soviet Union 1953- 1970, “One startling and effective way of reassuring the people was to inform them of some of the truth about Stalin’s tyranny’’ (p. 5). Very reassuring indeed!

What About the Others?

The first startling revelations were made only to the Party and a few key people outside the Party. But in 1961 Krushchev washed the dirty linen publicly, to use his own expression. The shock produced by the 22nd Congress showed how little the general public in Russia had been told in the eight years since Stalin’s death. Significantly the crimes that Krushchev was exposing were “repressions against Party, government, economic, military and Komsomol personnel” (our emphasis) — not against Ivan Denisovich, proletarian, and the millions like him who perished without record in Stalin’s extermination machine. As Yesenin-Volpin said of Sinyavsky and Daniel: “They are lucky for their case has been taken up by the whole civilised world. There were so many others about whom the civilised world knew nothing—knew as little as people know of a rabbit eaten by the wolves in a forest” (quoted in Rothberg, p. 158).

The reforms were first conceived as an internal Party and top management concern, in the hope that these people would succeed in galvanising the economy. The connection with economic policy is underlined by the Twentieth Congress’s approval of the Sixth Five Year Plan and the announcement of the campaign to catch up America in the production of meat, milk and butter, which “would mean at least trebling Soviet output”.

Freezing Again

The thaw in cultural life resulted from the régime’s mobilisation of writers to illustrate the theme of “de- Stalinisation.” Many key works appeared, notably Dudintsev’s novel Not by Bread Alone, Ehrenburg’s novel The Thaw and his memoirs, Yevtushenko’s poems Babi Yar and Heirs of Stalin, Bondarev’s novel Silence, and, in November 1962, Solzhenitsyn’s prison-camp story, A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. This became a barometer registering official attitudes to “de-Stalinisation” and is now almost unobtainable in Russia. However at that time, backed as it was by Krushchev personally, it received accolades from most official publications.

Soon however the regime began to crack down. At the Manezh art gallery, Krushchev announced bluntly: “Gentlemen, we are declaring war on you!” Since then the Kremlin has tried persistently to close the slightly opened door. There have been trials of writers like Sinyavsky and Daniel, of historians like Amalrik and scientists like Medvedev. The penalties have been draconian, including hard labour in Arctic concentration camps, psychiatric prison and perpetual exile. And, just to make things quite clear to all concerned, in 1966 Brezhnev and Kosygin added to the Criminal Code two new articles to make spreading “slanderous inventions about the Soviet State and social system, and disturbance of public order punishable offences”—a portmanteau law which conflicts with Article 125 of the Soviet Constitution which theoretically guarantees “freedom of assembly, including the holding of mass meetings” and “freedom of street processions and demonstrations”.

Question and Answer

Next year will be the twentieth since Stalin’s death and these questions are still debated in Russia.. Were the instruments of repression—the secret police, the camps, the bureaucracy—were they caused by the “cult of the individual” and, if so, why are they still operating nearly a generation after that cult officially ceased?

The régime’s answers are contradictory and muddled. For instance, in 1956 the Central Committee’s resolution On Overcoming the Cult of the Individual and Its Consequences (Soviet News Booklet No. 50) speaks again and again of the “grave consequences of the cult of the individual”, “the cult of the person of Stalin, with all the attendant adverse consequences” and “the negative consequences of the cult of the individual”. But it also significantly disputes this superficial view:

  To think that one personality, even such a great one as Stalin, could change our social and political system is to lapse into profound contradiction with the facts, with Marxism, with truth, is to lapse into idealism.

Precisely! Stalin alone was not the cause of the terror, any more than he was the ultimate cause of the leadership cult. The cult and the terror were both resultant from the “social and political system”—the state capitalism used to industrialise backward Russia. So that the Russian State of the twentieth century continues to repress the intelligentsia who have continued their traditional rôle—one of lament and protest, the mouthpiece of political and social debate under the new despotism just as they were under the old.

Charmian Skelton

Passing Comments: The City (1950)

The Passing Comments Column from the August 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

The City

The government's efforts are appreciated in some quarters. V. J. Burtt, the City Editor of the Daily Herald, wrote on June 22nd: “Fresh signs of Britain's healthy economic progress are to be seen almost every day. They are scattering the prophets of gloom. On the home front, the strong rise in British government stocks, which made further headway yesterday, reflects confidence in government policy." And two days later the City Editor remarked: “During the past month there has been renewed buying of British government securities by foreigners who believe Britain is making great headway." So shareholders, both British and foreign, are confident that the government will look after them.


Railway Nationalisation

Mr. V. M. Barrington-Ward, C.B.E., is the son of Canon Barrington-Ward, D.D., and the brother of Sir Lancelot Barrington-Ward, K.C.V.O. He was educated at Westminster School and Edinburgh University. He has held posts on the managerial side of the railways since 1919, beginning at the “bottom” (as Assistant Engineer to the Engineer-in-Chief of the Midland Railway) and working his way up; by 1947 he had become Divisional General Manager on the L.N.E.R. With the “revolution” of 1948, when the railways were nationalised, he passed naturally to a comfortable job on the new Railway Executive. So when he gives his views of nationalisation, they should be worth examining; especially when he gives them in the “Trifler” (of June, 1950), a Westminster School magazine which is intended mainly for the consumption of past and present Westminster boys.

  “To my mind, socialisation” [he means nationalisation] “of our railways is a natural event in transport history. The shareholders of the four old Companies have had a blessing in disguise if the true financial position of the Companies after the war is critically examined. It is perfectly true to say that if these Companies had been given back their property after the war (during which time they operated under a Control Agreement) they would have quickly been in financial difficulties, and it needs no words of mine to elaborate what this would have meant. As it is, under the Transport Act of 1947, they have been given a Guaranteed Stock which has, at least, a capital value at a reasonable rate of interest.”

When we recall that during the first year of nationalisation the shareholders received each week more than five hundred thousand pounds interest on their stock, we can agree with Mr. Barrington-Ward that they have had a blessing; though perhaps the disguise he mentions was not very heavy.


The Duke of Windsor

Compton Mackenzie's “Windsor Tapestry” tells the story of the life, reign and abdication of the Duke of Windsor. In it the author complains of the mean spirit shown by Parliament in refusing to give the Duke a pension “in gratitude for a quarter of a century's devoted service to the State.” Further evidence is now available of the poverty to which the Duke was reduced.

The Daily Mirror had an article on the Duke's sartorial habits (9-6-50): “The Duke orders about 12 suits a year, paying roughly £50 for each—which is comparatively little for America. Even with evening dress, he never wears a waistcoat. So this helps keep prices down.”


Luxury Cruise

Here is part of the account of the great African cruise on the Cunard White Star liner Caronia which appeared in the American magazine “Life” (3-4-50). It needs no comment.

  “The Caronia’s 550 American passengers had paid nearly $3 million for basic accommodation on the luxury liner. The cheapest fare for the 80-day trip, half-occupancy of an inside stateroom, was $2,400. The highest was $20,000 for a suite. These prices included food and lodging, but not very much else. To participate in all of the optional shore excursions at the vessel's 28 ports of call in the West Indies, South America, Africa and the Middle East, a passenger would have to fork out an additional $6,646.
  “This probably was no great hardship for the Caronia’s cruisers. The passenger list glittered with names like Urschel and Vanderbilt, and the Reuters news agency estimated the combined wealth of those aboard at ten times the cost of the ship. The Caronia cost $20 million.”

Stalinists Begin Here

It is time we heard something more of Soviet chess. Readers will remember that Suzanne Labin's book “Stalin’s Russia” (reviewed in the Socialist Standard last January) reported the Soviet Public Prosecutor, Krylenko, as saying “We must make an end to neutrality in chess. We must once and for all condemn the formula 'chess for the sake of chess’ just as we have condemned the formula 'art for art’s sake.’ We must organise shock-brigades of chess-players and set ourselves to carry out a 5-year plan for chess immediately.” Surely Harry Pollitt should take the lead in the founding of a true people’s game, with miniature Stakhanovites in place of pawns (which are revealed by their very name as monarcho-fascist dupes, tools of imperio-capitalism), Red Army tanks in place of castles. Heroes of Soviet Motherhood instead of knights, and anti-God commissars in place of bishops. (Sorry—we forgot that Stalin is now the protector of the Russian Church; purge that anti-God commissar and we'll have a Metropolitan Patriarch instead.) Since both the king and queen—viewed from different angles—can lay claim to being the most important piece on the board, obviously a model of our great leader Stalin must be both. This will be a little confusing at first, but fortified with the limitless resources of Leninism-Stalinism, and confident of the eventual inevitable victory of the forces of Peace, War and what have you, we will march on to world-wide democratic success. And anyone who is unable to re-orientate himself to the correct line will do five extra shifts a week in honour of Uncle Joe’s next birthday.

Alwyn Edgar