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Class, Party, and, State and The Eastern European Revolution

Evolution or Discussion on Eastern European States, 1946-1951

The Evolution Of The Buffer Countries

Resolution of the Seventh Plenum of the International Executive Committee of the Fourth International, April 1949

1. Important changes have taken place in Eastern Europe during the year 1948. The nationalization of industry, of the banking system, of communications and transport, have been practically completed in Bulgaria, in Yugoslavia, and in Czechoslovakia; it is on the road to completion in Poland and in Hungary, and it has had a big start in Rumania. Wholesale trade is equally on the road to statification in most of these countries. Only retail trade and agriculture remain as yet largely in the hands of private proprietors. The development of the cooperative system in these two spheres has been more and more removed from the influence of bourgeois elements following increased state intervention, but it continues to operate within the framework of small capitalist production. Finally, foreign trade, which is carried on mostly by state firms, continues to depend largely on relations with the so-called Western countries, among which Great Britain tends to substitute for the United States as the most important supplier and customer. This applies particularly to the more advanced buffer countries (Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary). The development of Finland and the Soviet-occupied zones of Germany and Austria, which are also part of the “strategic buffer” of the USSR, has nevertheless been profoundly different from that of the other buffer countries, and must be treated separately.

2. To the economic changes mentioned above correspond a whole series of political and ideological changes which are very significant. The last political opposition parties have been eliminated in all these countries (once more excepting Finland and the occupied zones of Germany and Austria, with their separate development). The liquidation of the independent Social Democracy has been-concluded with the fusion of the PPS and the PPR in Poland. The last few months have been marked by an attack against all the churches independent of the state, the only remaining centers of a potential rallying of the political opposition. The totalitarianization of social life has been complete, depriving in the first place the proletariat, the only class which has retained a minimum of social cohesion in these countries in the process of transformation, of all possibility of expression for its cares and interests. At the same time the Stalinist party has made an ideological turn. While in the past the buffer countries were characterized as transitional between “capitalism” and “socialism” they now characterize the states as well as the economy of these countries as “socialist.” This ideological turn has been consummated by the new thesis which identifies the regime of the “popular democracy” with the “dictatorship of the proletariat,” in flagrant contradiction to all the past affirmations.

At the same time, the social contradictions, violently suppressed by the Stalinist dictatorship, have begun to express themselves even inside the Stalinist parties, thus creating the most serious dangers both for the monolithic system of international Salinism (relations with the Kremlin) as well as for that of the different Stalinist parties in the buffer countries. The absolutist and bureaucratic methods, as well as the fundamental orientation of the Soviet bureaucracy, trampling upon the most immediate interests of the masses and of the economy of the buffer zone to its own advantage, have provoked such a tension inside the Stalinist apparatus itself, that the Kremlin has been forced to resort to preventive action (Tito) or to terrorism against the leading elements of the buffer zone apparatus (Koce, Kostov).

This crisis of Stalinism must inevitably extend and deepen inasmuch as the economic, social and national contradictions in the buffer zone are sharpened and as the Kremlin attempts to impose everywhere its absolute and direct control over the Communist Parties.

I. The Stages in the Evolution of the Buffer Countries

3. As indicated in the theses on the USSR and Stalinism adopted by the Second World Congress of the Fourth International, the particular situation of the buffer countries resulted from a series of particular historical developments in these countries.

a. The enfeeblement (Finland, Rumania, Hungary, Bulgaria) or the virtual disappearance (Poland, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia) of the former possessing classes and the collapse of their state apparatus during the war, the military defeats, the Nazi occupation, the guerrilla wars, the Russian occupation, etc.

b. The decisive economic, political and military weight attained by the USSR in these countries following its military victories.

c. The revolutionary upsurge which developed in some of these countries parallel with the conclusion of the war (Yugoslavia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria).

d. The canalization (Yugoslavia, Bulgaria) or the strangulation (Poland, Czechoslovakia) of this upsurge by the Russian army or by the native Stalinist parties or by a combination of the two.

The decisive factor which permitted the evolution of the buffer countries to be what it was, was the non-intervention of the imperialists in these countries, who practically abandoned their extremely weakened bourgeoisie to the crushing political and military superiority of the Stalinist bureaucracy. Only this non-intervention explains why the resistance of the dying propertied classes in these countries could up to now be liquidated step by step by the Stalinists through “cold” means, without any broad mobilization of the masses being required. But this non-intervention of the imperialists is in turn a result of a definite historical conjuncture:

a. From 1944 to l946 it corresponded to the accords of Teheran, Yalta and Potsdam, and constituted the price which world imperialism paid Stalin for crushing the German proletariat and for his active aid in strangling the insurgent Greek and Italian movements as well as for his aid in the reconstruction of the capitalist states and economies of all the countries on the continent outside the buffer countries. b. From 1947 to 1949, it corresponded to the relationship of military and political forces in the “cold war” as it appeared on the European continent, that is, especially to the crushing superiority of the Russian army over all the other armed forces in Europe, to the permanent instability of the capitalist regime outside the buffer countries (strikes and constant disturbances, etc.), which made completely illusory and materially impossible any direct intervention in favor of the disappearing bourgeoisie of the buffer zone.

4. In the framework of this concrete historical conjuncture, the policy of the Soviet bureaucracy and of the Stalinist parties in the buffer countries likewise passes through two distinct stages:

a. The first stage which lasted up to the end of 1947, during which the Stalinist bureaucracy sought above all an empirical solution to the immediate problems . During this period, the accent of this policy was placed on the utilization of the resources of the buffer countries in order to attenuate as much as possible the effects of the re-conversion crisis in the USSR itself. This is why, on the one hand, a whole series of measures were carried out for the exploitation of these countries for the profit of the Soviet bureaucracy (armistice agreements, treaties, reparations, seizure of the former German properties, mixed corporations, commercial treaties with preferential tariffs, etc.). And, on the other hand, each one of these countries was more or less left to itself as far as its own immediate problems of economic reconstruction are concerned. During this period, the bourgeoisie generally retained strong economic positions, if not predominant ones, in all these countries with the exception of Yugoslavia. The nationalizations were limited to enterprises seized by the workers at the end of the war, and which remained without legal proprietors. This stage can be characterized as an effort by the Stalinist bureaucracy and the native Stalinist parties to utilize the capitalist production relations for their own profits.

b. The second stage commenced when the Stalinist ban on the participation of these countries in the Marshall Plan took form, but developed more fully only at the beginning of 1948. During this stage, which incidentally marked the solution of the most dangerous immediate problems for post-war Soviet economy, the policy of the Soviet bureaucracy in the buffer zone consisted essentially of consolidating its predominant position in these countries on a long-term basis, counteracting the efforts of American imperialism to push it back into its own orbit. Within the framework of this new orientation of the Soviet bureaucracy are included, above all: The liquidation of the strong positions of the native bourgeoisie in industry and commerce; the initiation of an effort for the economic development and industrialization of these countries in a “planned” manner; the limitation of the Kulaks’ grip on agriculture. Nevertheless, this new orientation of the Soviet bureaucracy could not eliminate from the economies of the buffer countries the structural difficulties of planning, which resulted from the Stalinist policy in the previous stage: The existence of a Soviet mortgage on the economies of these countries; the narrow national limits in which they remain enclosed; the capitalist character of agriculture; the apathy and often the passive hostility of the proletariat towards the bureaucratic “planning” efforts, etc. This is why “planning” retains its hybrid character and differs as yet structurally, in a fundamental way, from Soviet planning, which is itself the bureaucratic deformation of real socialist planning.

These variations in the politics of the bureaucracy do not correspond only to changes in the objective situation. Bureaucratic empiricism reflects, under the mask of immediate worries, the absence of historical perspectives and the impossibility of adopting a fundamental orientation. This in turn corresponds to the concrete relationship between the bureaucracy, the bourgeoisie, and the proletariat. Because it wanted first of all to strangle all possibility of a proletarian revolution, it was led to conclude a temporary compromise with the bourgeoisie; because its privileges are historically incompatible with the maintenance of the capitalist regime, it had to take the course of gradual and bureaucratic “liquidation” of the capitalist forces in the buffer zone.

5. Just as in the first stage the Soviet bureaucracy was led to conclude empirically that a step-by-step integration of the buffer countries with its own economic system is impossible as long as a sizeable economic power of the native bourgeoisie remains, so the bureaucracy is now beginning to understand from its sad experiences every day, that this same kind of integration remains impossible without eliminating the structural barriers which the bureaucracy itself put up against all genuine planning in the economies of these countries.

The experience of the Tito split has served as an example of the danger of the Stalinist parties in power in the buffer countries becoming the transmission agents of the contradictory social forces which develop as a consequence of the growing economic difficulties. The danger of growing imperialist pressure with the conclusion of the first stage of the Marshall Plan, the relative recovery of Western German industry, American rearmament, etc. have had the same effect. Thus a third stage in the evolution of Stalinist policy towards the buffer countries takes form. This is characterized up to now by the following signs:

a. Measures of growing economic coordination between the different countries, measures which have culminated in the constitution of a Council of Mutual Aid and which appear to develop in the direction of a pool of available resources for exports and of a Customs Union.

b. The first measures to abolish or lighten the Russian mortgage on the economy of these countries (sale to Bulgaria of German goods seized by the USSR in 1944; reduction of Hungarian, Rumanian and Bulgarian reparations; granting of gold and currency credits to Poland and Czechoslovakia, etc.).

These measures only indicate the possibility of a new stage of Stalinist policy in relation to the buffer countries, however, and cannot by themselves, or by means of the plans outlined up to the present and which are H scheduled up to 1952, modify fundamentally the structural obstacles to “planning” in the buffer zone, even within the limits of Soviet planning.:

II. The Social Nature of the Buffer Countries

6. From the foregoing, it can be deduced that the buffer countries - aside from Finland and the Soviet-occupied zones in Germany and Austria - constitute today a unique type of hybrid transitional society in the process of transformation, with features that are as yet so fluid and lacking precision that it is extremely difficult to summarize its fundamental nature in a concise formula.

The most exact definition that can be given of the social nature of these countries is a definition by description . These countries appear to have a society in which:

a. The transition between capitalism and Soviet society has resulted not from a proletarian revolution, but from a military-political overturn which eliminated the big bourgeoisie and the bulk of the middle bourgeoisie;

b. Capitalist survival subsists only in small industry and in commerce;

c. Agriculture remains capitalist in property relations (no nationalization of land) as well as in the dominant mode of exploitation (small private property);

d. Foreign trade, a state monopoly In fact if not in law, cannot free itself from the pressure and the attractive force of the world capitalist market, as a consequence of an in- sufficient material base for even bureaucratic planning, in each one of these countries;

e. Beside the peasantry, a germinator of capitalist forces, there is a proletariat which has had no important part in the crystallization of the new social situation and which for this reason has no important subjectivities with the present state, except in Yugoslavia;

f. The formation of a native bureaucratic layer around the PC bureaucracy in power, with some rare exceptions, is only in the initial stage;

g. The Bonapartist and extreme police form of the state reflects both its historic origins and the present prostration of the fundamental classes in society;

h. Nevertheless, this Bonapartist form of the state differs from classical Bonapartism (in the last analysis, the instrument of the bourgeoisie) and at the same time from Soviet Bonapartism (the instrument of a workers’ bureaucracy in a post-capitalist society), and constitutes above all else an instrument of domination by the Soviet bureaucracy, the expression of an international relationship of forces which is superimposed on the given class relationships and which distorts their normal expression.

7. What are the factors determining the social difference between the buffer countries and the USSR?

a. On the economic plane: The nationalization of big industry, the banks, the means of communication and of wholesale trade has created necessary but insufficient conditions for planning, even in a degenerated bureaucratic form as in the USSR. The narrow national framework within which each one of the buffer countries is enclosed; their lack of sufficient material resources to develop the productive forces; the mortgage the Soviet bureaucracy has imposed on the economy of these countries; the predominantly agricultural character of these countries which, without nationalization of the soil and under the predominant regime of small private exploitation, reproduce capitalism from day to day on a village scale; the dependence of these countries on the world capitalist market, for the material means of their industrialization—the sum of all these factors creates a situation in which the major part of the production of these countries is still destined for a capitalist market - whether it is internal or external. For this very reason it is subject to the influences of all the oscillations of the world capitalist conjuncture and to the process of equalization of the average rate of profit. The conditions of fusion between the petty-bourgeois peasant market, state industry and the world capitalist market, which Lenin and Trotsky designated as a danger for the USSR in the period of the NEP, is today the determining situation in the buffer countries. This is expressed by the fact that in the advanced. Buffer countries (Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary) foreign trade embraces approximately half of the national revenue and that not only today, but even in 1952 (according to the present plans), more than half of this trade will be with the Western countries, from which the decisive elements for the industrialization of these countries must come. This is likewise expressed by the fact that these countries were obliged in almost all cases to reimburse foreign capital for its property nationalized in the buffer countries and to recognize the old debts, thus imposing an additional weight on their economy already strained to the extreme.

b. On the social plane: The fact that the present situation did not come about as a result of a victorious proletarian revolution, but as a result of the military-political successes achieved by the Soviet bureaucracy against the bourgeoisie as well as against the proletariat; the fact also that the formation of a bureaucratic caste .is as yet only in the initial stage—both lead to the conclusion that, with the exception of Yugoslavia, it is very unlikely, if not excluded, that a civil war would be necessary to reverse the present orientation of these countries towards a structural assimilation with the USSR. The same applies also to the state structure . With the exception of Yugoslavia, the state apparatus of the buffer zone did not result from violent destruction of the old bourgeois state apparatus, but from its “conquest” by the Stalinist parties, with the aid of Russian pressure and a series of successive purges. It follows that this apparatus is even today saturated with bourgeois and petty-bourgeois elements, especially in the army cadres, in diplomacy and in the management of the economy. In the period which followed the October Revolution, proletarian control over the bourgeois cadres in the service of the workers state, as well as the democracy in the Bolshevik party, acted as a brake on the detrimental influence of these elements on the conduct of the state and the economy. At the present stage in the buffer zone, which cane about not as a result of a proletarian revolution but of bureaucratic maneuvers, such control is completely absent, strengthening thereby the weight of the bourgeois elements in the apparatus, which likewise reflects the structural differences between the economy of the buffer countries and that of the USSR. It may also be said that the return of the buffer countries into the capitalist orbit would not necessitate the destruction of the present state apparatus, but a “purge” in a reverse sense.

c. On the political plane: The fate of the buffer countries has not yet been decided, not alone in the historical sense as in the case of the USSR, but in a much more immediate sense. The totality of the present world political currents: The Marshall Plan, the relative “reconstruction” of Western Germany, American rearmament, the economic perspectives of American imperialism and of the Soviet Five-Year Plan, the development of the proletarian struggles and those of the colonial peoples—all these factors will decide in the coming months the immediate fate of the buffer countries. As indicated by the political and strategic plans of imperialism and of the Stalinist bureaucracy, it is very improbable if not excluded that it is necessary to have a war in order to lead back some of these countries of the buffer zone into the imperialist orbit. This reason, added to those indicated above, makes it appear erroneous to modify as of today our evaluation of the social nature of these countries, except to indicate clearly the processes of their structural assimilation with the USSR and the stages already realized in this assimilation. This is why the tasks of the Fourth International in these countries remain, in a general way, those enumerated by the Second World Congress. Only in the eventuality described in Point 9 would a revision become necessary.

8. This whole description leads to the conclusion that the buffer zone, except for Finland and the Russian-occupied zones in Austria and Germany are on the road toward structural assimilation with the USSR, but that this assimilation has not yet been accomplished. The social differences between the USSR and the buffer zone, enumerated above, are, of a qualitative nature even though from the quantitative point of view society in the buffer zone approaches more closely Soviet society rather than that of the “normal” capitalist countries, in the same sense in which the USSR itself is quantitatively closer to capitalism than to socialism. Only in this sense can we continue to define the buffer countries as capitalist countries on the road toward structural assimilation with the USSR. This definition, necessarily awkward and too concise to embrace the different aspects of the buffer zone, thus signifies essentially that in the course of the process of the structural assimilation of these countries the dialectical leap has not yet been produced. It stresses both the historic origins of the present situation, as well as the social physiognomy which is as yet undecided. But it does not at all imply that the bourgeoisie is in power as the dominant class in these countries. This definition implies that the situation in the buffer countries likewise differs from the situation in a “normal” and “classic” capitalist society. It serves exclusively to denote the place of these countries in relation both to capitalism and. the USSR, since Marxist sociology excludes the existence of economies and states that are neither capitalist nor Soviet (workers or degenerated workers).

9. To what extent can this structural assimilation be completed, so that it will be necessary to modify our appreciation of the social nature of the buffer zone? The factors enumerated above indicate at the same time the concrete obstacles to the completion of this assimilation and the conditions under which this assimilation would be effectively completed. All these can be reduced to one factor: The achievement of effective coordination and planning applied to the combined economies of these countries linked organically to the economy of the USSR. Such an achievement could reverse the present predominant tendency of these countries to depend upon capitalist economy. This could happen, for instance, in the case of the abolition of national frontiers between the various buffer countries.

The existence of these frontiers, in effect, greatly limits the material base on which planned economy can be constructed and requires, at the same time, the maintenance of a series of state apparatuses which, as a result of their origins, cannot but be saturated with bourgeois elements. At the same time, the abolition of national frontiers would give a real impulsion to the development of the productive forces and would constitute a progressive act of great historical importance, even if it was brought about by the conservative Stalinist bureaucracy. It would really be comparable, in Trotsky’s words, to the unification of Germany by Bismarck and the House of Hohenzollern. Such an abolition of the frontiers, whether it is accomplished by the incorporation of some or all these countries in the USSR, or by the constitution of a Balkan-Danube Federation formally independent from the USSR, provided it forms a genuine unified framework for economic planning, could be defined as the decisive point, in the process of structural assimilation of these countries with the USSR, at which the social nature of these cuntries becomes qualitatively transformed.

On the plane of the state that would require the disappearance of the present hybrid state apparatus and the constitution of a state apparatus of a new type, copied no doubt from that of the USSR. In relation to this achievement, other modifications in the situation will have to be evaluated in the same sense: Eventual nationalization of the soil, incipient collectivization of the land, establishment of a plan for the joint economic development of all the buffer countries, reversal of the economic and commercial relations with the West, etc.

All the preceding constitutes a probable variant of an objective historical process and not at all a desirable goal for action by the revolutionary proletariat. In setting forth the conditions under which assimilation of the buffer zone to Russian society could be achieved by Stalinist action , the Fourth International—while modifying its attitude towards the buffer zone in case of war, should such a change come about—does not in the 1east relent in its struggle against the police oppression of the buffer zone masses by the Soviet bureaucracy and its agents. Precisely under the conditions of .the development indicated above, the strugg1e of the Fourth International for independent Polish, Czech, Hungarian, etc., Soviet Republics will take on its full significance linked to a merciless denunciation of all the elements of national oppression that the bureaucracy introduces and will introduce in the buffer zone. As against the Stalinist perspective of the bureaucratic integration of the buffer zone within the USSR, the Fourth International develops before the buffer zone masses the revolutionary perspective of the integration of independent socialist Soviet republics within an independent Balkan-Danube Federation and within the Socialist United States of Europe.

III The Special Cases

l0. In the case of those countries which are part of the USSR’s “strategic buffer” but have at the same time undergone a separate economic and political evolution, the contradictory combined, uneven character of the entire buffer zone development is most striking. The case of these countries indicates likewise how necessary it is to guard against hasty generalizations, how important it is to follow step by step the actual evolution of the situation in each particular country. In the case of Yugoslavia we have one extremity of the spectrum composed of all the nuances differentiating the situation in each one of the buffer countries. Yugoslavia, of all the buffer countries was the only one in which the liquidation of the bulk of the possessing classes, as well as the destruction of the bourgeois state apparatus, took place by means of mass action , that is, the guerrilla warfare which in the country took on the character of a genuine civil war. From this fundamental difference between Yugoslavia and the other buffer countries flow specific differences on a number of planes: The CP has a real base among the masses; the masses have a fundamentally different attitude to the new state; the Yugoslav CP has different relations toward the Soviet bureaucracy; there is the possibility of a real differentiation in the workers’ movement following the Tito crisis., despite the undeniable existence of a police regime in this country. Even though the sum of these factors does not eliminate any of the structural obstacles to real planning and for this reason leaves Yugoslav economy as yet qualitatively different from the Russian economy, it undoubtedly brings this country closer, on the social and political plane, to the Soviet structure. The defense of Yugoslavia against the campaign of calumny, the economic blockade, etc., on the part of the Soviet bureaucracy must be considered within the framework of our evaluation of the workers’ movement of this country, the origins of its state, and the revolutionary possibilities opened up as a consequence of this workers’ movement and the origins of this state, which take precedence over purely economic considerations.

11. Finland lies at the other end of the spectrum of the buffer zone. There we have a bourgeoisie which has hardly been shaken by the war and which formally retains control of its economic and state positions. There we have a proletariat which is much more developed and, as a consequence of a number of historical developments, less susceptible to Stalinist maneuvers. There also we find more resolute imperialist support for the Finnish bourgeoisie than for any other bourgeoisie in the buffer zone. Consequently, the Stalinist bureaucracy limits itself in Finland to the imposition of economic tribute and to the occupation of certain strategic positions, leaving the rest of the country to evolve within the framework of a quasi-normal bourgeois economy. This has had its political reflection in a consolidation of the conservative forces, culminating after the inevitable transition period in the expulsion of the Stalinists from the coalition government and in the elimination Of the erstwhile positions they had conquered in the state apparatus following the military victory of the USSR. The evolution of Finland cannot, of course, be considered any more definitive than that of the rest of the buffer zone. The international situation can compel the bureaucracy to increase its pressure on this country and can lead to a new desperate effort at military resistance. The Finnish case is important, however, above all because it shows that the bureaucracy did not attempt to impose, or succeed in imposing, on all of the buffer zone a unified scheme of development and because it illustrates the fact that a certain internal conjuncture, a certain prostration of the fundamental social classes, was one of the necessary conditions for even the temporary success of the Stalinist maneuvers in the buffer zone.

12. The Austrian zone of occupation approximates Finland very closely. The Soviet bureaucracy was obliged to limit itself to the seizure of several economic stakes (former German property) and the occupation of important strategic positions. But it was in no position to influence the general economic orientation of Austria which evolved within the framework of a normal capitalist economy included within the Marshall Plan. Nor could it influence the social and political developments, which led to elimination from power, and culminated in a normalization and a strengthening of bourgeois power. As in the Finnish case, the international relationship of forces was the decisive factor in this evolution. But the concrete relationship between the classes was likewise the major obstacle to the Stalinist maneuvers.

Finally, the German zone of occupation constitutes another special case, situated midway between that of the buffer zone in general and that of Austria. The decisive characteristic of the situation in Eastern Germany lies in the fact that the most important industrial sector has been seized by the USSR and has been transformed into Soviet property. Parallel with this, there has been large scale dismantlement. Nationalizations have affected, aside from the Russian sector of the economy, an important part but not all of big industry and wholesale trade. There has remained a middle bourgeoisie, which drains a considerable part of the national income. Finally, the formation of a bureaucratic layer rising over the proletariat, and acting as the extended arm of the Russian bureaucracy, is in that country much more advanced than in the other buffer countries. If the situation in Eastern Germany remains indecisive, it is because more than any other country of the buffer zone, it depends in the first place on the international, situation. That is, on the eventual solution of the German problem in its entirety and the specific orientation of the USA and the USSR in relation to this problem. It still cannot be said whether the Soviet bureaucracy has decided to retain its positions in Eastern Germany at all costs or whether it will be ready to consider them as bargaining points in order to retain the rest of the buffer zone and in order to obtain a certain influence on the entirety of German affairs (the slogan of unification, etc.). Under these conditions, the status of this zone of occupation as well as the direction of its development remain more fluid than is the case in the rest of the buffer zone, and the tendency to structural assimilation with the USSR is less pronounced there.

From the point of view of our tasks, the Fourth International continues to defend there the theses of the World Congress and considers that all measures of the Soviet bureaucracy, including eventual incorporation of Eastern Germany within a Balkan-Danube Federation – which is very doubtful—must be combatted and regarded as reactionary in relation to the destruction of German unity and the paralysis of the German proletariat that would result therefrom.

IV The Theoretical Significance of the Buffer Zone Development

13. The appearance of new transitional regimes, as is the case of the buffer countries, regimes of transition between capitalism and the USSR, is not the result of chance nor the effect of negligible historical accidents. Only incurable pedants can conceive of capitalism and socialism as fixed entities, established once and for all, to which a living historic process must conform, a process contradictory and rich in the crystallization of ever new combined forms. In reality, the appearance of mixed transitional regimes and their combined character is the clearest expression of our historic epoch, which is defined by:

a. An ever more advanced disintegration of capitalism;

b. The conditions of extended delay of the world revolution, essentially the result of the counterrevolutionary Stalinist leadership of the world labor movement;

c. The existence of the USSR not only as a power continuing to polarize the revolutionary aspirations of an important part of the world proletariat, but also as a state power having a military-political weight of its own and with a logic of expansion of its own.

Only in the light of these three factors can the appearance and the development of a new and combined phenomenon like that of the Soviet buffer zone be understood and the limits of its real historic import be defined.

14. Ascertaining the existence of such transitional regimes does not at all upset our evaluation of the counterrevolutionary role of Stalinism nor our evaluation of Stalinism as a disintegrating force in the USSR and as a force organizing defeats of the world proletariat:

a. An evaluation of Stalinism cannot be made on the basis of localized results of its policy but must proceed from the entirety of its action on a world scale. When we consider the state of decay which capitalism presents even today, four years after the end of the war, and when we consider the concrete situation of 1943-1945, there can be no doubt that Stalinism, on a world scale, appeared as the decisive factor in preventing a sudden and simultaneous crash of the capitalist order in Europe and in Asia. In this sense, the “successes’ achieved by the bureaucracy in the buffer zone constitute, at most, the price which imperialism paid for services rendered on the world arena – a price which is moreover constantly called into question at the following stage.

b. From the world point of view, the reforms realized by the Soviet bureaucracy in the sense of an assimilation of the buffer zone to the USSR weigh incomparably less in the balance than the blows dealt by the Soviet bureaucracy, especially through its actions in the buffer zone, against the consciousness of the world proletariat , which it demoralizes, disorients and paralyzes by all of. its politics and thus renders it susceptible to some extent to the imperialist campaign of war preparations. Even from the point of view of the USSR itself, the defeats and the demoralization of the world proletariat caused by Stalinism constitute an incomparably greater danger than the consolidation of the buffer zone constitutes a re-enforcement.

c. In the buffer zone itself, where objective as well as subjective conditions were ripe for an immediate overthrow of capitalism in 1943-1944, Stalinist policy has led to the temporary strengthening of the antiproletarian forces, created a thousand new obstacles on the way to the abolition of capitalism and thus caused the whole painful and jerky process of assimilation, dragging this process out over a number of years and rendering the proletariat in the main apathetic and even hostile, whereas the revolutionary movement of the proletariat could have achieved the liquidation of capitalism in these countries in a much shorter time and with a minimum of overhead charges.

d. As a result of the very expansion of the Soviet bureaucracy under the concrete conditions noted above, the objective contradictions in the situation of the buffer zone tend to penetrate into the very heart of the bureaucracy and of Soviet economy, multiplying the tensions and antagonisms which already exist within them abundantly, and to prepare the ground for the development of manifold centrifugal tendencies (Tito tendency on the one hand, Gomulka-Akerman tendency on the other).

15. Historically, the above-mentioned conditions not only indicate the reasons for the appearance of transitional regimes hut also circumscribe the limits of the viability of the Soviet bureaucracy:

a. On the social plane, the overthrow of the Soviet bureaucracy remains certain within the framework of a world decision in the class struggle, which is inevitable one way or another in the long run.

b. On the military-political plane, this overthrow remains equally inevitable if the world proletariat does not succeed in crushing imperialism in time, with such an eventuality also entailing the downfall of the bureaucracy.

The appearance of transitional regimes of the buffer zone type thus merely gives expression to the interlude character of the historic period proceeding from 1943 up to the present: an interlude between the low point of the world wide decline of the proletarian revolution and the new world revolutionary upsurge, which has only been seen in its rough outlines up to the present; an interlude between the Second World War and the final clash between imperialism and the USSR. Only within the framework of this limited interlude do the buffer zone and all the phenomena associated with it appear in their true light as provisional and temporary. And in this framework, the real nature of Stalinism appears more pronounced than ever in the sense indicated by the Fourth International.

[Reprinted from International Information Bulletin June 1949.]