Published: Turning Point Vol. IX, No. 9, November 1956
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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EROL Introduction: These three letters were published in the U.S. anti-revisionist journal Turning Point in November 1956. It appears that they were submitted to the Canadian Tribune, the newspaper of the Labor Progressive Party (the then name of the Communist Party of Canada).
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9/24/56
To the Editor:
I am just as convinced as ever that the present leadership of the U.S.S.R. are wrong in their denunciation of Stalin. All the evidence in my estimation proves them wrong.
What does the denunciation amount to? That he, Stalin, was responsible for putting some bread and butter leaders up against the wall. There is not one bit of evidence that implies that he betrayed the people or the revolution. And in my understanding this is all that matters.
I believe that if it was put to a vote in the U.S.S.R., Stalin would win by a large majority. Stalin was the spokesman for the people, and had no use for toadies, shamists, opportunists, or careerists within the leadership.
As for personalities we will have them with us for a long time yet as there will always be with us outstanding representatives of the people’s struggle. So that the slogan, or the denunciation of the “cult of the personality” is false. And is not Marxism but anarchism.
J. B. Bell, Montreal
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9/24/56
To the Editor:
I have thought that the LPP has been too hasty in accepting as true Khrushchev’s denunciation of Stalin, with unproven statements.
I have just received a sample copy of “Turning Point” for August which defends Stalin and shows K. as a liar. I give one instance: K states most of the old Bolshevists convicted around 1934-37 were innocent, but what did K say about them at the CPSU congress in 1939? “Agents of fascist espionage services—the Trotskyites, Bukharinites and bourgeois nationalists. . .” “These monsters, these outcasts of human society, are the accursed of the people of the Soviet Ukraine...”. . .. mad dogs. . ... despicable Trotskyites.. . . all the foul creatives which the foreign espionage services deposit on Ukrainian soil”. . . enemies and traitors. . .”. “The wreckers—the Trotskyites, Bukharinites and bourgeois nationalists—did everything. to ruin stock-raising in the Ukraine.”
No doubt you have a report of that congress and can verify K’s attitude to the criminals at the time. If you don’t get the “Turning Point,” I suggest you send for a copy of the August issue, price 15 CENTS. Address: Turning Point, Box 24, Midtown Station, N.Y. 18, N.Y., USA.
Stalin is now charged with unnecessary ruthlessness against the kulaks in the collective farm drive. Unless my memory plays me false Stalin was against such ruthlessness and wrote the pamphlet “Dizzy with Success” attaching such methods.
I don’t see any refraining from the “cult of the individual” as regards Marx and Lenin. Also what part did Zhdanov play in Stalin’s so-called crimes and mistakes? Was Z responsible for the break with Yugoslavia? Didn’t Lenin wage war against Poland, contrary to Stalin’s advice, which ended disastrously for the U.S.S.R.?
Still a believer in Stalin.
Arthur Stratton, Vancouver
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8/20/56
To the Editor:
Stalin was like Santa Claus and those of us who question Khrushchev’s pronouncements are “summer soldiers” according to your correspondent, Louise Harvey (July 16th Tribune). Thanks for publishing my generalization (July 9) in what I consider your campaign for Khrushchevism, but if space is available I would also like to say why I needn’t be a “summer soldier”, a Santa Claus fan, or in a state of hysteria to doubt K. I’ll be brief with one example. K attributes most of Stalin’s “cowardice,” “terrorism,” “brutality,” “carefree attitude,” etc. to a mistaken theory. He explains that “...Stalin’s formulation (was) namely that the closer we are to Socialism the more enemies we will have...” Assuming that K’s official translator, the U.S. State Department, is doing its duty, we find that K must have deliberately lied. Correct me if I’m wrong. What Stalin really said to the Central Committee meeting in March 1937 was not that we get more enemies as we get closer to Socialism, but this:
“On the contrary, the further we advance, the greater the successes we achieve, the greater will be the fury of the remnant of the broken exploiting classes, the sooner will they resort to sharper forms of struggle, the more will they clutch at the most desperate means of struggle, as the last resort of doomed people.”
Quite different, isn’t it?
K says there were “no serious reasons” for action against such people. He pretends that Stalin thought those “remnants” were a majority. Nonsense, but Stalin explained that such “remnants” in the U.S.S.R. had direct support from abroad. This was 1937, remember.
Now the facts of life have caught up with Nikita. Last week ha said:
“Though reaction has suffered a crushing defeat in Poznan, the peoples of the socialist countries must draw from that an essential lesson. If watchfulness is weakened, the enemies may use that (weakness) for their vile aims.”
No, we don’t have more enemies, we have more friends. But how correct Stalin was in that very realistic speech in 1937. Now K has got back to it in 1956. Bravo!
To those comrades who wave aside what they call a Soviet internal matter, let me urge the reading of K and of the national leadership of the L.P.P. to see how determinedly Khrushchevism makes its way beyond the Soviet borders.
My motive is not to apologize for Stalin. We will see how his reputation stands in history. But I would like some leading Marxist to tell this rank and file Communist why it must misquote Stalin.
James Beaver, Toronto