First Published: Vanguard, Vol. 2, No. 6, October 1965.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba and Sam Richards
Copyright: This work is in the Public Domain under the Creative Commons Common Deed. You can freely copy, distribute and display this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit the Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On-Line as your source, include the url to this work, and note any of the transcribers, editors & proofreaders above.
TWO AND A HALF YEARS have gone by since the last Party Congress. In this period, both at home and abroad, important and even historic events have come to pass. Events which have put to test the line and programme of Communist Parties everywhere. Events which have preoccupied the minds and practical activities of Communists, militants and progressive people all over the world.
As the 1960 MOSCOW STATEMENT, endorsed by 81 Parties, vividly pointed out. “It is the world Socialist system and the forces fighting against imperialism, for a Socialist transformation of society, that determine the main content, main trend and main features of the historical development of society. Whatever efforts imperialism makes, it cannot stop the advance of history. The complete triumph of Socialism is inevitable.” And again: “The superiority of the forces of Socialism over those of imperialism, of the forces of peace over those of war, is becoming ever more marked in the world arena.”
Comrade Mao tse Tung has put it this way: “The East wind prevails over the West wind.” “All imperialists, reactionaries, apologists and renegades are paper tigers. It is the common people who are strong and growing stronger.” These theses are absolutely valid, no serious-minded Marxist-Leninist can deny them.
And so, 5 years after the Moscow Statement and 2£ years after the last C.P.G.B. Congress, all Communists, all honest militants for the cause of world peace, anti-imperialism, national liberation and Socialism, must have a say. The C.D.R.C.U. and “Vanguard” also exercise the right to make some points and in particular, put some questions to the leaders of the C.P.G.B.
Everyone knows that we have publically criticised the policies and behaviour of the C.P.G.B. leaders since November 1963. The C.P.G.B. leaders have never directly replied to our criticisms. They expelled some and compelled others’ resignations. They closed the Party Press to our views. They slyly encouraged vicious slanders against us. They regarded us as enemies and devoutly hoped that we would forever be reduced to impotent silence. Nevertheless, we are still here, growing stronger and consider that this is a good time to put some essential questions.
Before we do so, we wish to make a general point on public polemics.
Firstly, we regard the top leaders of the C.P.G.B. as incorrigible modern revisionists of all the fundamental teachings of Marxism-Leninism.
Secondly, although this has a negative aspect, it also has a distinctly positive aspect.
Since 1848, Marxism has always had to join in combat with alien trends and currents of various descriptions. Proceeding from principle, Marxism-Lenin-ism, the ideology of working class power, of the dictatorship of the proletariat, of the victory of national liberation over imperialism and neo-colonialism, of staunch proletarian internationalism-– has always grown stronger through these battles and has both influenced and reflected the growing invincibility of the exploited peoples. It follows from this that the phenomenon of modern revisionism, since it is with us, is nothing to be afraid of. That in taking it to task and defeating it, all Marxist-Leninists perform a vital service to the working peoples of the world. And so, we will proceed.
In February 1956, N. S. Khrushchev put before the 20th Congress of the C.P.S.U. a whole number of proposals. You admitted afterwards that none of these proposals were known to you beforehand. One of these proposals was “that the breach between Communist Parties and the Social Democrats must be healed the world over.” This was the first Krushchovian shot–a sort of “range-finder ”–for the liquidation of Communist Parties as the vanguards of revolutionary working class economic, political and State power–the very essence of V.I. Lenin’s concept of a Party of a new type.
You could have rejected this revisionist proposal or, at least, criticised it or questioned it but you swallowed this like mother’s milk.
Events since, have proved up to the hilt, that modern revisionist leaders everywhere have chained their Parties to this liquidationist anti-Leninist concept caused serious splits, blunted the proletarian spirit of the rank and file, reduced their numbers and debased themselves in the eyes of the working class. It so turns out, that this renegade, Krushchovite concept suited quite well your own Programme, the “British Road to Socialism,” first published in 1951 and which maps out the road to Socialism essentially through Parliament.
Do you still consider that Parliament can be “transformed ” in order to legislate imperialism out of existence and transfer the economic, political and State power “peacefully” from the ruling class to the working class or do you consider that Parliament has qualitatively become itself a vital instrument of capitalist State power over the working people?
Twelve years have gone by since J. V. Stalin died. Nine years since Khrushchev seized the leadership of the C.P.S.U. and Soviet State. It is only a few months since he was “turned out to grass” by his erstwhile collaborators, whose policies are, in essence, just the same as his.
If we consider the merits or demerits of Stalin and Khrushchev, this is not an academic exercise but a necessary estimation from the point of view of politics and Marxism-Leninism.
Communists and serious militants consider that Stalin was a great and worthy continues of Lenin’s cause. That he adhered firmly to the Leninist line both on international and domestic issues; that his long and arduous struggles against opportunism and “left” adventurism formed the ideological basis for the victory of the C.P.S.U. after Lenin died; that he did great work in welding the unity of the world Communist movement on the basis of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism; that he remained a staunch friend of the working peoples of the world and a champion of the Leninist concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat, thus both rallying support for the U.S.S.R. from other lands and defending the Soviet State against internal enemies.
Communists and serious militants consider that Khrushchev is a renegade of Lenin’s cause; that he has betrayed the Leninist line, both internationally and in the Soviet Union itself; that his revisionist line encouraged opportunism in the C.P.S.U. and other parties and revived hitherto moribund Trotskyite elements; that his unprincipled attitude to some other Parties and Socialist countries, not only caused serious damage to those countries but caused a serious disorientation of the world Communist movement; that his subjective, arrogant attitude caused serious damage to the Soviet economy and agriculture; that he contemptuously spurned Leninist ideology and Lenin’s concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat, thus opening the floodgates in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe to all kinds of anti-Communist elements. That by his desertion of the Leninist outlook in all fields ,he objectively helped U.S. imperialism and hindered the National Liberation movement. This is but a brief indictment of Khrushchev but it is sufficient to bring to account the activities of the C.P.G.B. leaders, who, regarded him as some great world leader, hung on his words and deeds, defended them and raised them to the only acceptable norm of Communist activity. It seems that the C.P.G.B. leaders have some explaining to do and should be compelled to do it.
“The C.P.’s have unanimously condemned the Yugoslav variety of international opportunism, a variety of modern-revisionist “theories” in concentrated form. After betraying Marxism-Leninism, which they termed obsolete, the leaders of the L.C.Y. opposed their anti-Leninist revisionist programme to the Declaration of 1957 : they set the L.C.Y. against the international Communist movement as a whole–and made (Yugoslav) dependent on so-called aid from U.S. and other imperialists–the Yugoslav revisionists carry on subversive work against the Socialist camp and world Communist movement. Further exposure of the leaders of the Yugoslav revisionists and active struggle to safeguard the Communist movement and the working class movement from the anti-Leninist ideas of the Yugoslav revisionists, remains an essential task of the Marxist-Leninist Parties.” (MOSCOW STATEMENT, 1960).
There is nothing ambiguous here. It is as clear as daylight.
One needs ask John Gollan & Co. “When and where did you carry out this vital duty?” You have attacked the Albanian comrades and slandered the Chinese comrades. You look with a bale-full eye on the British Communists who are exposing the Titoist servants of the U.S.A. and thereby adhering to the Moscow Declaration and Statement. Are you silent because you fear upsetting Brezhnev-Kosygin & Co.? Or do you, also, regard Tito as a “staunch world Communist leader”? What similarity is there between the Yugoslav socioeconomic set-up and Lenin’s views on a Socialist State?
Say what you think regarding Tito–your silence won’t forever save your faces.
The C.D.R.C.U. and “Vanguard” have often criticised the Soviet leaders for pouring arms into India. The Indian Congress leaders are thorough-going reactionaries, reflecting the interests of the Indian capitalists and landlords. They are buttoned up in the pockets of U.S. imperialism. Indian reaction has been given the job by its masters of being the bastion of counter-revolution in Asia. That is why the Indian Marxists-Leninists are in gaol. Since India’s leaders oppose the tides of historical development in Asia, they must inevitably become aggressive and expansionist.
Hence its hostility against People’s China and its assault on Kashmir and Pakistan. This has laid bare the machinations of the unholy trinity of U.S. and British imperialism and the renegade Soviet leaders–all of whom vigorously armed India and encouraged her aims.
The Soviet leaders have always been staunchly defended by the C.P.G.B. leaders vis-a-vis this treacherous action. They held that the Soviet arms were intended to reinforce India’s “independence” and “neutrality.” Who can now believe that India is either “independent” or “neutral”? Or, that, judging by her policy towards Kashmir, she is anything but bellicose and expansionist? The C.P.G.B. leaders, have, in fact, obscured the line between just and unjust, obstructed the exposure of facts to the light of day and thereby objectively helped India’s aggressions against her neighbours.
One must ask, how do you propose to defend your position here?
The recently concluded T.U.C. Conference was the greatest disaster that befell British Trade Unionists, in living memory. A glance at the Resolutions adopted will testify to that. Wilson & Co. intend to outlaw “unofficial” strikes and demands for wage increases which are not approved by the T.U.C. and Prices and Incomes Board.
We hold that the Labour Government, the T.U.C. and P.I.B. are all tools of the State and since this is a capitalist State, this means that strikes and wage claims may now take place, only by kind permission of the class enemy.
Nonetheless, events do not materialise precisely as the exploiters envisage them. “There is many a slip between cup and lip.” Things create their own opposites. The above measures will certainly result not in less wage claims and “unofficial” strikes but more. The workers will, without doubt, react accordingly to fascist measures, whichever particular capitalist agent introduces them. But since the publication of “The British Road to Socialism,” with its revisionist line of Socialism through Parliament and Labour Government, the C.P.G.B. leaders have disarmed the Party.
There exists no longer a theoretical basis within the Party to deal with the above situation. It is indeed a case of “practice without theory being blind.” The leaders have long shifted the emphasis on mass extra-Parliamentary struggle to struggle within Parliament; within the Labour Party and within the Trade Unions. Hence, we hold that the C.P.G.B. is quite disorientated from the necessary mass-line–the line of struggle outside the aegis of capitalist State organs of suppression and confusion of the working class. A line of struggle to “change” the T.U.’s from within, to “change” the Labour Party from within, has long been, especially in the context of modern British conditions, a line of opportunism cum Trotskyism.
After all, 20 years have elapsed since the C.P.G.B. leaders dismantled the factory Branches because a Labour Government occupied Westminster. 14 years have elapsed since the launching of the “British Road–” and 2J years Since the last C.P.G.B. Congress and still we have the most disastrous T.U.C. in living memory. Still we have stagnation of votes for C.P.G.B. candidates. Still we have a deterioration of Communist influence in industry and the T.U. in both quantitative and qualitative senses. Still we have the blatant sell-out of the working peoples’ interests by the Labour Party stalwarts–“left” and right alike and with all this, still we await one word of principled self-criticism by the leaders of the C.P.G.B.
Is it not time that this, also, was put on the agenda?