Greek party debates reasons for the collapse of socialism in the USSR
Review of the Theses of the CC of the KKE for its 18th
Congress
The
Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist) (CPGB-ML) produced in
January an enthusiastic review of the Theses which the Central Committee of the
Communist Party of Greece (KKE) produced for its 18th Party Congress on 18-22
February 2009, where the Theses were adopted.
An abridged version of CPGB-ML’s review was
published in Proletarian issue 28. We are pleased to publish the full version
here for the benefit of our readers. [This full version is also available on
the CPGB-ML website – www.cpgb-ml.org – with a link to the full text of the KKE
Theses]
____________________________________________________
The Communist Party of
Greece (KKE) is to hold its 18th Congress in Athens from 18-22 February. The
central committee of the KKE has prepared some crucially important theses,
which are to be submitted to the forthcoming congress for deliberation and
adoption. These theses concern the contribution of the socialist system;
socialism as the lower stage of communism; socialism in the erstwhile Soviet Union and the reasons for the triumph of counter-revolution therein; and the
necessity for and relevance of socialism.
The KKE’s theses constitute the most important
document to come from a large west European party in several decades. It
is the first time that a large European communist party has boldly dealt
with questions of fundamental importance – questions on which hinge the future
of the struggle of the proletariat for its social emancipation. In our view,
the positions arrived at by the KKE in these theses are absolutely correct.
With refreshing and disarming candour, which many
other parties could learn from and emulate, the central committee of the KKE
makes a self-criticism of its own incorrect stance on these questions, tracing
the origin of its former position to its own lack of theoretical clarity and
its uncritical acceptance of the “mistaken theoretical assessments and
political choices of the CPSU”, and the “uncritical adoption of the
theses of the CPSU concerning questions of theory and ideology”. Referring
to the party’s 1995 National Conference, which criticised the uncritical
acceptance by the KKE leadership of “the policy of perestroika, assessing it
as a reform policy”, within, and of benefit to, socialism, the theses
boldly state that this fact, namely, the uncritical acceptance of perestroika, “reflected
the strengthening of opportunism within the ranks of the party in this period”.
(All the above quotations are from p20 of the theses)
The central committee of the KKE deserves nothing
but praise for its self-criticism, which is but a prelude to the adoption of a
correct stance in the service of the development of the working-class movement
in Greece and elsewhere.
Having made the above introductory remarks, we wish
to make a very brief review of the theses and bring their main observations and
conclusions to the notice of the reader. For the benefit of those who wish to
gain a detailed knowledge of their contents, we are posting the full text of
the theses on our website, for they deserve the widest possible circulation and
discussion in the international communist movement.
A. The
contribution of the socialist system
This section of the theses summarises the colossal
and epoch-making achievements of socialism. The success of the Great October
Socialist Revolution in 1917 was the starting point “for one of the greatest
achievements of civilisation in the history of humankind, the abolition of
exploitation of man by man”. The achievements of the Soviet Union range
from the eradication of “the terrible legacy of illiteracy”, the
provision of a free and universal healthcare system, the “abolition of
inequality for women” through “socialised childcare” and ensuring
the “social character of motherhood”, the raising of the cultural level
of the masses, the abolition of national oppression and establishment of
friendly relations among different nations and nationalities on the basis of
fraternal cooperation and proletarian internationalism, to the construction of
a powerful socialist industry and agriculture and the elimination of
unemployment.
Through its achievements, Soviet socialism “proved
its superiority over capitalism” and provided “the only real
counterweight to imperialist aggression”. The USSR made the “decisive”
contribution to the defeat of Nazi Germany and the liberation of the peoples of
many countries in Europe from the jackboot of the fascist “German occupation
forces” at great material cost and the lives of more than 20 million Soviet
citizens – bringing in its wake “the overthrow of bourgeois” rule in
several central and east European countries.
The victories of the Red Army made, on the one
hand, a decisive contribution to the “dissolution of the colonial system”
and played on the other hand “a major role in the gains won by the working
class … in capitalist societies” through the power of example of Soviet
socialism. The bourgeoisie, through fear of its own working class emulating the
proletariat of the USSR, was compelled to make economic concessions, provide
educational facilities, and to institute healthcare and welfare benefits for
the working people.
To develop cooperation and mutually beneficial economic
relations “based on the principle of proletarian internationalism”, the USSR and other socialist states founded in 1949 the Council for Mutual Economic Cooperation
(COMECON), as a unique instrument for economic cooperation on the basis of
equality, mutual benefit and aid between socialist countries.
The theses of the KKE, contrasting Soviet socialist
democracy and bourgeois parliamentarism, clearly state that the “dictatorship
of the proletariat … presented a superior form of democracy”, while taking
a swipe at “bourgeois and opportunist propaganda” which identifies “democracy
with bourgeois parliamentarism and freedom with bourgeois individualism and
private capitalist ownership”.
In these days of widespread renegacy, characterised
by the opportunist desertion from the fundamental teachings of Marxism Leninism
on the question of the state and the relation of the proletarian revolution to
the bourgeois state, the open and honest embrace by the KKE of the concept of
the dictatorship of the proletariat, whose job it is to abolish the
dictatorship of capital (bourgeois democracy) is in itself a tremendous step
forward and a breath of fresh air. (For quotations in the preceding section,
see pp1-3 of the theses)
B. Theoretical positions on socialism as the first,
lower, stage of communism
This section of the theses opens with a restatement
and affirmation of the Marxist teaching concerning the lower and higher stages
of communism, represented respectively by the formulas “from each according
to his ability, to each according to his work” and “from each according
to his ability, to each according to his needs”.
During the lower stage, as society builds its
productive forces, there is the need constantly to update the relations of
production – in order to make the latter correspond to the former. Failure in
this regard cannot but lead to sharpening of contradictions between them and,
in certain circumstances, to the emergence of “exploitative relations, as
was witnessed in the USSR in the 1980s”. This is a summarised version of
the profound analysis made by Stalin in his last work, Economic Problems of
Socialism in the USSR – a work that the KKE cites approvingly in its
theses.
Emphasising the role of central planning (which the
revisionists and opportunists disdainfully refer to as the ‘command economy’)
in the building of socialism, the theses correctly point out that, even at the
lower stage of communism, production is “direct social production”, that
the allocation of resources takes place directly, according to a central plan,
not through the market.
Under socialism, production aims at securing the
maximum satisfaction of the constantly rising material and cultural
requirements of the whole of society by means of continuous expansion and
perfection of socialist production on the basis of higher techniques. This is
the basic economic law of socialism, which clearly defines the purpose of
planned economic development. Only when this purpose, as formulated in the
preceding sentence, is clearly known, can the law of the “balanced
development of the national economy, and, hence, economic planning, which is a
more or less faithful reflection of this law … yield the desired results”.
(Stalin, Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR, p41)
C. Socialism in the USSR – causes of the victory of
counter-revolution.
This section of the theses begins with an
affirmation of the socialist character of the USSR by reference to the “abolition
of capitalist relations of production, the existence of socialist ownership …
central planning, workers’ power and unprecedented achievements benefiting the
whole working people”. Precisely for this reason, the Soviet Union drew “ideological
and political fire from international imperialism”, just as the
counter-revolution of 1991 that overthrew the socialist system was fully “supported
by international reaction”.
The theses correctly go on to say that the victory
of counter-revolution does not disprove the socialist character of the USSR,
let alone substantiate the bourgeois Trotskyite assertion regarding the
impossibility of constructing socialism in that country:
“The developments do not confirm the assessments
of several opportunistic and petit-bourgeois trends. Social-democratic
viewpoints regarding the socialist revolution in Russia as immature were not
confirmed. Trotskyite positions claiming that it was impossible to construct
socialism in Russia were disproved. The viewpoint that the society that emerged
after the October Revolution was not socialist in character or that it quickly
deteriorated in the first years of its existence, and therefore that the
interruption of the course of the 70-year history of the USSR was inevitable,
is subjective and cannot be backed up by the facts.” (p7)
Although the encirclement of, and the wars waged by
imperialism against, the Soviet Union, as well as the Cold War, played their
part, the theses correctly assert that it is the “internal conditions … the
economic-political relations, with the decisive role of the subjective factor”,
that played the crucial role in the victory of the counter-revolution:
“In studying the counter-revolution in the USSR we prioritise the internal factors (without ignoring the influence of external
factors) because the counter-revolutionary overthrow did not result from an
imperialist military intervention but rather from within and from the top,
through the policies of the CP.”
From a certain period, “the party lost its
revolutionary characteristics and, as a result, counter-revolutionary forces
were able to dominate the party and the government in the eighties”. The
KKE quite correctly traces the process of degeneration to the 20th Party
Congress (1956) of the CPSU, which adopted opportunist positions on a number of
economic, political and ideological questions, which, remaining uncorrected,
metamorphosed into a counter-revolutionary force over the following three
decades, resulting in the liquidation of socialism and the USSR.
Let the theses speak for themselves:
“The 20th Congress of the CPSU (1956) stands out
as a turning point, since at that congress a series of opportunist positions
were adopted on economic issues, on the strategy of the communist movement and
on international relations. The struggle that was taking place before the
congress continued and was then consolidated by a turn in favour of the
revisionist-opportunist positions, with the result that the party gradually
began to lose its revolutionary characteristics. In the decade of the 1980s,
with perestroika, opportunism fully developed into a traitorous, counter-revolutionary
force. The consistent communist forces that reacted in the final phase of the
betrayal, at the 28th CPSU Congress, did not manage in a timely manner to
expose it and to organise the revolutionary reaction of the working class.”
(p8)
In a note (no 12) to this paragraph, the KKE goes
on to say that there was a sharp debate in the presidium of the Central
Committee in June 1957, one year after the 20th Congress, at which Molotov,
Kaganovich and Malenkov, supported by some others, “opposed the line of the
20th Congress on both internal and external policies”, consequent upon
which the above-named three were shortly thereafter stripped of their rank,
while others were demoted by the dominant Khrushchevite group.
NEP
The New Economic Policy (NEP), introduced at the
10th Party Congress (1921) at Lenin’s prompting, was a temporary retreat and
concession to capitalism, necessitated by the economic dislocation and the near
disappearance of the proletariat in the aftermath of the civil war and the imperialist
war of intervention. The retreat, as well as its transient character, were part
and parcel of Lenin’s brilliantly worked out plan for the building of socialism
in the Soviet Union.
Only elements alien, or hostile, to communism
emphasise one or other of these aspects, instead of considering them as an
integral whole. Lenin never glorified the capitalist market; he never regarded
the NEP as anything other than a strategic retreat, designed to give the Soviet
regime a breathing space in which to gather strength for the next offensive of
socialism.
Things turned out just as Lenin had planned. Once
the NEP had served its purpose of restoring production to pre-first world war
levels, establishing the bond between the town and the country and restoring the
proletariat, the Soviet government brought the NEP period to an end and
inaugurated the period of planned industrialisation and collectivisation – a
period filled with heroic endeavour and epoch-making glorious achievements.
In view of this, the KKE theses correctly state
that such “temporary concessions to capitalist relations that are demanded
under certain circumstances and special conditions are not in any way an
inevitable characteristic of the process of socialist construction”, adding
that the NEP was used in the 1980s (in fact, from the 1960s) “as a cover-up
to justify the historic reversal from socialism to capitalism carried out by
the policies of perestroika”. (p9)
Yet, the CPSU’s policy of socialist construction
did not simply sail through with effortless ease. It had to fight for its
victory in the face of fierce opposition, both within and outside of the party,
in the midst of sharpened class struggle and hostile class collisions.
Many social strata, to whom socialism spelt an end
to their privileged existence, joined forces to oppose construction of
socialism through collectivisation and industrialisation. The kulaks, the
NEP-men, who had benefited enormously from the NEP, the old exploiting classes,
and sections of the intelligentsia who belonged to the old privileged classes
joined forces and resorted to acts of sabotage in an effort to stop the march
forward of socialist construction. “These class-based anti-socialist
interests were reflected in the CP, where opportunist currents developed,”
say the KKE theses.
The theses quite rightly go on to point out that
the anti-socialist interests in the CPSU were reflected by the opportunist
currents represented by Trotsky and Bukharin, whose “positions were rejected
by the AUCP (Bolshevik) and were not confirmed by reality” (p9).
In a note (no 17) to this observation, the theses
elaborate that, while Trotsky, later joined by Zinoviev and Kamenev, put
forward the erroneous theory that the USSR could never construct socialism
without successful proletarian revolutions in a large number of advanced
capitalist countries, Bukharin opposed the collectivisation of agriculture,
advocated the continuation of the NEP, putting forward the slogan that the
kulaks could ‘grow into’ socialism. The Bukharinite “tendency expressed in
an authentic way the interests of the kulaks, the NEP Menshevik and
petit-bourgeois tendencies in the context of Soviet society”, say the
theses, adding that “It is not by chance that the ideas of Bukharin were
adopted in the policies of perestroika in 1988.”
In other words, had the policy advocated by
Bukharin won the day, the restoration of capitalism in the USSR would not have had to wait until the end of the 1980s; it would have taken place at
the close of the 1920s or the beginning of the 1930s. Bukharin (and, as a
matter of fact, Trotsky, too, whose policy, albeit cloaked in
ultra-revolutionary phraseology, would just as much have led to the restoration
of capitalism) was an earlier-day Gorbachev, or, to put it differently, Gorbachev
was a latter-day Bukharinite.
Opportunists turn
traitors
The opportunists within the party, with their
vehement opposition to the construction of socialism, were propelled, by the
logic of their position and the development of struggle, into making common
cause with all those forces hostile to socialism – in order to wage a joint
struggle for the overthrow of Soviet power with the help of imperialist secret
service agencies.
“Along the way,” say the theses, “several
opportunist forces united with openly counter-revolutionary forces that were
organising plans to overthrow Soviet power in cooperation with secret services
from imperialist countries.” (p9)
In a note (no 18) to this paragraph, the KKE
explain that this collaboration between the opportunists in the CPSU and
sections of the Red Army on the one hand, and the secret services of Germany,
Britain and France on the other, was fully revealed by the Moscow Trials of the
1930s, and fully confirmed by such impeccably bourgeois sources as, for
instance, Joseph Davies (then US ambassador to Moscow), both in his
confidential memo of 17 March 1938 to the US Secretary of State and his
subsequent book Mission to Moscow, which was made into a Hollywood film
during the second world war.
Breaking through the wall of imperialist propaganda
lies, and treating with well-deserved contempt the assertions of the
opportunist gangs of Trotskyites, revisionists, social democrats and other
petty-bourgeois elements, the KKE courageously affirms the authenticity of the
Moscow Trials, which, far from being ‘Stalinist show trials’, meted out
proletarian justice and just punishment to several dozen capitalist
restorationists and renegades from the cause of socialism.
In the light of the example of the renegades who
met their just desserts at the Moscow Trials, the KKE observes:
“The fact that some leading cadres of the party
and of Soviet power spearheaded opportunist currents indicates that it is
possible even for vanguard cadres to deviate, to weaken when faced with the
sharpness of the class struggle and to finally sever their ties with the
communist movement and go on to align themselves with the counter-revolutionary
forces.”
As to the collectivisation of agriculture, the
theses say that, notwithstanding distortions in the implementation of the plan
for collectivisation (which were in any case noted and corrected by the party
leadership), “the orientation of Soviet power for the reinforcement and
extension of the movement [for collectivisation at accelerated rates] was in
the correct direction” – its aim being “the transformation of small
individual commodity production into socialised production”. (p9)
As to the correction of distortions in the
implementation of the party’s policy on collectivisation, in note 15, the KKE
approvingly refer to Stalin’s well-known article ‘Dizzy with success’, in which
he criticised these distortions and departures from the party’s policy, and
thus helped to put an end to them.
Two basic trends
On the question of political economy, the theses
refer to two basic trends among the Soviet economic theoreticians and party
cadres: “The consistent current of Marxist thought and politics, under the
leadership of Stalin”, which held that the existence of commodity
production and circulation, the existence of the market, was incompatible with
communism, and that, therefore, it was the function of socialism to abolish the
market.
Opposed to this “consistent current of Marxist
thought” was the current of revisionism, which, following in the wake of
bourgeois economists, put its faith in ‘market socialism’, according to which
the continued existence of commodity relations under socialism was not merely a
heritage of capitalism, reflecting the incomplete development of capitalism in
the economy that the Soviet proletariat inherited, but an inherent need of
socialist economy, which required not only the continuation of the market, but
also its expansion.
Whereas Marxism holds that capitalism is the
highest expression of commodity production, the revisionist economists
propounded the view that capitalism merely inherits commodity production, it
being the function of socialism to raise commodity production to the highest
level of development by “purifying” the market and “freeing” it
of the distortions to which it is subjected under capitalism.
The consistent Marxist camp, led by Stalin, waged a
vigorous struggle against revisionist theoreticians of ‘market socialism’, such
as Nikolai Voznesensky, Yaroshenko, Sanina and Venzher. This struggle reached
its culmination with the publication in 1952 of Stalin’s Economic Problems
of Socialism in the USSR, which, as we have already noted, the Greek
comrades cite approvingly on more than one occasion. As a result of this
struggle, the ‘market socialists’ were routed. They only made their comeback
with the victory of Khrushchevite revisionism at the 20th Party Congress, which
adopted a series of opportunist formulations on a host of questions in the
field of political economy, ideology, philosophy, politics and class struggle.
‘Market socialism’
At one time, only renegades from Marxism and
imperialist agents accepted the argument of the bourgeois economists directed
against socialism, namely, that there could be no economic calculation in the
absence of the market, and, further, that, since socialism aimed at the
abolition of the market, it must lead to increasing inefficiency and
bureaucracy, resulting in an insoluble crisis, from which the only escape route
would be through the reassertion of the market.
With the emergence and development of Khrushchevite
revisionism, this argument was accepted lock, stock and barrel and put into
effect, with the consequences which are now common knowledge.
After the 20th Congress, the economists against
whom Stalin had waged a fierce struggle were brought back and put in charge of
elaborating, and implementing, the theories and policies of market socialism.
Stalin was attacked in and out of season as being dogmatic. Departures from the
fundamentals of Marxian political economy – all in the name of returning to
‘true Leninism’ – became a recurrent feature of Soviet economic policy and
practice.
The attacks on Stalin served as a smokescreen for
putting into place market mechanisms, which, as was to be expected, far from
leading in the direction of the higher stage of communism, on the contrary led
back in the direction of capitalism. As part of the same process, these attacks
served to malign and denigrate three long decades of Soviet history after the
death of Lenin – three decades of unimaginable difficulty and extraordinary
achievement by the Soviet proletariat – during which Stalin defended and upheld
the Marxist-Leninist position on socialism.
In the language of the theses: “After the 20th
Congress of the CPSU, political choices were gradually adopted that widened
commodity-money (potentially capitalist) relations, in the name of correcting
weaknesses in central planning and the administration of socialist bodies
(enterprises).”
And further: “with the promotion of ‘market’
policies, instead of reinforcing social ownership and central planning”,
the opposite trend began increasingly to develop, with its ever increasing
reliance on market mechanisms. Theories of “socialist commodity production”,
“socialist market”, and the law of value as a regulator of production under
socialism, were propounded and put into practice following the 20th Congress.
Thus it was that, instead of taking steps for the
elevation of collective-farm property to the level of public property, in 1958
the revisionists took the opposite step of selling the machine and tractor
stations to the collective farms, which undermined the mechanisation of Soviet
agriculture, while at the same time extending the sphere of operation of
commodity circulation by throwing into its orbit “a gigantic quantity of the
instruments of agricultural production”, a step that could hardly be
calculated to promote the advance towards communism.
Subsequent reforms on the agricultural front gave
further scope for the extension of the market, through the reduction in the
quantities of crops supplied to the state by collective farms and the
permission to sell increased quantities of agricultural produce in the market
at higher prices. All this could not fail to undermine the collective farms.
No wonder, then, that these reforms were greeted
with joy by bourgeois economists as a return to capitalism.
Dismantling central
planning
In industry, too, ‘economic reforms’ were
introduced and intensified on an extensive scale, which in due course
undermined the socialist basis of Soviet society through the systematic
application of bourgeois norms such as profit as a regulator of production, the
price reform, whereby prices increasingly reflected value (prices of
production), the increasing emphasis on material incentives and on the
profitability and the independence of individual enterprises, which produced
for the market and whose products faced each other in the market as
commodities. This undermined and, over time, rendered meaningless centralised
planning.
The ‘economic reform’ of 1965, in addition to
extending the economic independence and initiative of the enterprises and the
reduction of the number of “plan indices required of enterprises from above”,
emasculated the remaining indices, turning them from directives, which were
binding on the enterprises, to mere ‘guidelines’, which the enterprises could
choose to follow or ignore as they saw fit. After being brought under the
regime of the ‘reformed’ system, enterprises began to plan their own
production, determining even the type and quality of products to be produced.
All this came to be called by the revisionist
economists ‘planning from below’, and, in the conditions of the prevalence of
this kind of ‘planning’, the ‘central’ economic plan assumed the form of a totality,
an aggregate, of the economic plans of the individual enterprises. And, as the
individual enterprises often changed their plans in the course of a ‘planning
period’, and therefore the central economic plan produced at the beginning bore
no resemblance to end results, it is hardly surprising that leading lights
among even the revisionist economists should themselves admit of the practical
impossibility of compiling a five-year plan and be forced to say that the
Soviet economy had become characterised by anarchy (‘indeterminacy’ was the
word they used for it, as they studiously avoided using terminology understood
by all and sundry).
As comprehensive centralised economic planning was
dismantled and replaced by ‘planning from below’, the role of the state was
reduced to merely laying down economic guidelines and attempting to influence
individual enterprises by use of economic levers of various kinds, such as
credit supply, rates of interest, etc. Thus, instead of the associated
proletariat engaging in production in the different branches of the national
economy, as had been the case earlier, production after the ‘economic reforms’
were instituted was broken up and fragmented (from a social point of view) and
increasingly became private production (ie, commodity production).
And commodity production, once it becomes a general
form of production, can only mean capitalist production. Calling it “socialist
commodity production” does not change it one whit. As Stalin correctly
stated, by way of reiteration of the generally-known truth, “capitalist
production is the highest form of commodity production”. (Economic
Problems, p13)
In the words of the theses, “Through the market
reforms, through the detachment of the socialist production unit from central
planning, the socialist character of ownership over the means of production was
weakened.”
And further, “the theoretical sliding and the
corresponding political retreat in the USSR came during a new phase of a
further development of the productive forces, which demanded more effective
incentives and indices of central planning … That is, it necessitated a
corresponding development of central planning in the direction of strengthening
the communist mode of production.” (p12)
Instead, the revisionists moved in the opposite
direction, which over time was bound to lead, and did lead, to the restoration
of capitalism.
Profit
as a regulator of production
During the controversy with the revisionist
economist Yaroshenko, Stalin criticised Yaroshenko for failing to realise “what
aim society sets social production, to what purpose it
subordinates social production, say under socialism”, adding that “Comrade
Yaroshenko forgets that men produce not for production’s sake, but in order to
satisfy their needs.” (Ibid, p78)
And further: “the aim of capitalist production
is profit-making … Man and his needs disappear from its field of vision.”
The aim of socialist production, on the other hand, is “the securing of the
maximum satisfaction of the constantly rising material and cultural
requirements of the whole of society”. (ibid, pp79-80)
With the implementation of ‘economic reform’,
slowly but surely, private production by individual enterprises, which produced
for the market and whose products competed with each other in the market, came
to replace comprehensive centralised planned production, and profit (the law of
value, which is a law of commodity production that operates under capitalism as
a regulator of production) became a regulator of production in the USSR as
well.
“We must elevate the importance of profit and
profitability”, said Khrushchev at the 22nd Party Congress. The ‘economic
reforms’ of Brezhnev and Kosygin further enhanced the role of profit as “one
of the economic instruments of socialism. A considerable enhancement of its
role is an indispensible requisite for cost accounting.” (‘Economic policy
and work for communism’, editorial in Pravda, 14 January 1966)
The criterion of efficiency under this system of
‘cost accounting’ (khozraschot) came to be expressed by what the Soviet
revisionist economists euphemistically called the ‘index of profitability’,
that is, the annual profits of an enterprise as a percentage of its total
assets. In ordinary language, this is called the ‘rate of profit’, an
expression at the time avoided by revisionist economists because of its obvious
capitalist connotations and connections, which they, as the builders of
‘communism’ could have no truck with! But the ‘socialist rate of profit’ of
individual enterprises – rechristened the ‘index of profitability’ – was quite
another matter!
Means of production
become commodities
Up to the late 1950s, Soviet enterprises were
allocated the means of production that they utilised in accordance with the
state’s plans for production. Thus, the means of production did not enter the
category of commodities. What is more, the produce (except collective-farm
produce) belonged to the state too. Under such a system, the rate of profit of
an enterprise could have little reality. In order to make it a reality, the
economic theoreticians of revisionism conducted a campaign, demanding that
enterprises should be made to pay for their production assets, ie, to buy means
of production. As a result, the central committee of the CPSU, at its meeting
in September 1965, endorsed the principle of enterprises paying for the means
of production.
To begin with, the enterprises paid for their
production assets by making annual payments to the state budget. Subsequently,
they were allowed to pay in a lump sum, which might come out of their own funds
or might be financed by a bank loan. Profit being the supreme criterion of
production under such a system, enterprises have every incentive to pay for
their production assets in a lump sum, as well as in continuing to use obsolete
equipment, which has already been paid for, as long as possible.
In this way, step by step, the old system, whereby
the state owned the means of production, which it allocated free of charge to
various enterprises for utilisation as mere agents of the state and not as
owners, was replaced by one under which enterprises paid for their production
assets and ended up by becoming owners of those assets. Having paid for the
means of production, their purchasers, ie, the various enterprises, acquired
the rights of disposal over them. Thus it was that, under the ‘economic
reform’, the means of production entered the sphere of commodities.
By 1971, two thirds of the USSR’s total trade turnover was accounted for by the market in the means of production. Be
it noted that under the Statute on Socialist State Production Enterprise, the
property rights of the enterprise were vested in its director, who could “without
power of attorney, act in its name, dispose of the property and funds of the
enterprise”.
Since profit had become the supreme deity, at the
feet of which revisionist economic theoreticians and their political masters
worshipped, the 24th Congress (1971), as the KKE theses note, “with its
directives on the formulation of the ninth five-year plan (1971-75), reversed
the proportional priority” of department I (the production of the means of
production) over department II (that concerned with the production of the means
of consumption), since producing articles of consumption was immediately more
profitable.
The fact that this retrograde step had negative
effects on labour productivity – a fundamental element for increasing social
wealth and “the maximum satisfaction of … the material and cultural
requirements of the whole of society through continuous expansion and
perfection of socialist production on the basis of higher techniques” (Stalin)
– did not bother the worshippers of ‘market socialism’. This decision, far from
eliminating consumer shortages, only led to the stagnation of Soviet industry.
In the words of the theses:
“The direction which held sway can be judged
today not only theoretically, but also by the results. After two decades
of the application of these methods, the problems clearly sharpened. Stagnation
reared its head for the first time in the history of socialist construction.
Technological backwardness continued to be a reality for the majority of
industries. Shortages appeared in many consumer products, as well as additional
problems within the market”, with enterprises producing “an
artificial rise in prices, by hoarding commodities in warehouses or supplying
them in controlled quantities.” (Emphasis in the original)
The expanding operation of the market undermined
socialist production, “strengthened short-term individual and group interest
(with significant income differentials among the workers in each enterprise,
between the workers and managers, between different enterprises)” to
the detriment of the overall interests of society. In due course, “social
conditions were created for the counter-revolution to flourish and finally
prevail using perestroika as its vehicle.” (p12)
Thus, through this process was created a privileged
stratum – a managerial class – possessed of a sizeable amount of “shadow
capital”, secured through a combination of enterprise profits, black-market
operations and downright theft of enterprise property, which sought legal
recognition through the open privatisation of the means of production and
restoration of capitalism.
It is this stratum that became the driving force of
the counter-revolution through skilful manipulation of its “position in
the state and party mechanisms, the support of sections of the population
… vulnerable to the influence of bourgeois ideology and wavering … These
forces directly or indirectly influenced the party, strengthening its
opportunist erosion and its counter-revolutionary degeneration, which was
expressed through the policies of ‘perestroika’ and sought the constitutional
consolidation of capitalist relations. This was achieved … with the overthrow
of socialism.” (p13)
Ideological degeneration
Parallel with, and preceding, the ‘economic reform’
that, step by step, over a period of three decades, led to the victory of the
counter-revolution, restoration of capitalism and the disappearance of the
USSR, there was the ideological degeneration of the CPSU. The turning point “for
the adoption of revisionist and opportunist views by the leadership of the CPSU
and other CPs” was, say the KKE theses, “carried out at the 20th
Congress (1956) of the CPSU” with the “subsequent gradual loss of the
revolutionary characteristics of the party”, which, sad to say, “the
consistent communist forces were not able successfully to counter”. (p14)
By way of drawing a lesson from the tragedy of the
counter-revolution in the USSR and eastern European former socialist countries,
the theses go on correctly to observe:
“Even if this development could not have been
stopped, especially by the 1980s, it is certain that resistance, in both the
governing parties and within the international communist movement, would have
ensured that today’s struggle for the reconstruction of the international
movement would be taking place under better conditions, and that there would
exist the preconditions for it to overcome its deep crisis.” * (p14)
In other words, there is room for timely criticism
and self-criticism in the international movement. Indeed, such criticism and
self-criticism, not the perpetuation of smug, self-congratulatory cabals, are
the life blood of our movement and propel it forward.
The theses affirm the Marxist teachings on the
dictatorship of the proletariat (which is what Soviet power represented) by
defining it as the “state power of the working class which is not shared
with anyone … The dictatorship of the proletariat is the organ of the working
class in the class struggle which continues” even after the overthrow of
the exploiting classes. “The working class, as the bearer of communist
relations … as the collective owner of the socialised means of production, is
the only class which can lead the struggle for the total predominance of
communist relations, for the disappearance of classes and the withering away of
the state.” (pp15-16)
Thus, anyone who weakens the party of the
proletariat, who weakens the dictatorship of the proletariat, cannot but end up
in the camp of those wishing to restore capitalism. And this is precisely what
the Khrushchevite revisionists did, beginning with the 20th Party Congress and
the adoption of opportunist positions on a whole host of issues of cardinal
importance to the preservation and advancement of socialism in the socialist
countries, the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat in the capitalist
countries, and the national-liberation struggles of the oppressed countries against
the allied forces of imperialism and feudalism.
The CPSU, at its 20th and subsequent two congresses
that consolidated the revisionism of the leadership, came up with a number of
erroneous and anti-Marxian theses. Class struggle in the Soviet Union was
declared at an end, there thus being no need for the dictatorship of the
proletariat. As a result, the dictatorship of the proletariat allegedly made
way for a state of the ‘entire Soviet people’. In similar fashion, the CPSU,
instead of being the party of the proletariat, was declared to be a party of
the entire Soviet people.
In defiance of Marxian teaching and historical
experience alike, the proletarians of the capitalist countries were told that
the proletariat could come to power through peaceful parliamentary ways, that
the ideas of violent revolution, of the proletarian revolution smashing and
overthrowing the bourgeois state power, were outmoded and no longer represented
concrete reality.
While social democracy ceaselessly carried on its
dirty work on behalf of imperialism, making every attempt at removing “the
working class from the influence of communist ideas”, the Khrushchevites
preached a rapprochement with social democracy on the pretext that the latter
was divided into a ‘left’ and ‘right’ wing – thus “weakening the ideological
struggle” against this deadly enemy of the proletariat. (pp17-18)
The revisionist leadership of the CPSU, in a
one-sided interpretation of Lenin’s thesis on peaceful coexistence, propagated
‘peaceful existence’ with imperialism as the primary aim of all foreign policy,
and portrayed the latter and the leaders of imperialism in pretty colours. In
this way, the CPSU leadership, as from the 20th Congress “allowed the
development of utopian views, such as that it is possible for imperialism to
accept in the long term the coexistence with forces that have broken its
worldwide domination. Since the 20th Congress of the CPSU, this notion was also
linked to the possibility of a parliamentary transition to socialism in Europe.” (p17)
Through all these opportunist theses, Khrushchevite
revisionism disarmed the Soviet working class, undermined the dictatorship of
the proletariat and did irreparable damage to the cause of proletarian
revolution and national liberation. It opened the floodgates through which
countless microbes of bourgeois ideology invaded, and, over a period of three
decades, overwhelmed the socialist countries, resulting in the victory of
counter-revolution and the restoration of capitalism in the USSR and the eastern and central European socialist countries.
D.
Necessity and relevance of socialism
Under this subsection, refusing to be disheartened
by the counter-revolutions in the former socialist countries, the KKE theses
affirm the party’s faith in the bright future of socialism. Our party
programme, say the theses, states:
“The anti-revolutionary overthrows do not change
the character of this period. The 21st century will be the century of a new
upsurge of the world revolutionary movement and a new series of social
revolutions.”
They add: “The struggles which are restricted to
defending some gains, despite the fact that they are necessary, cannot provide
real solutions. The only way out and the inevitable perspective remains
socialism, despite the defeat at the end of the 20th century.”
They go on to affirm, as if to refute the
Trotskyite nonsense of world revolution overnight, the Leninist thesis of the
uneven development of capitalism in the following words:
“The victory of the socialist revolution,
initially in one country or in a group of countries, springs from the operation
of the law of uneven economic and political development of capitalism. The
conditions for socialist revolution do not mature simultaneously worldwide. The
imperialist chain will break at its weakest link.
“The specific ‘national’ duty of each CP is the
realisation of the socialist revolution and the socialist construction in its
country, as a part of the world revolutionary process. This will contribute to
the creation of a ‘fully consummated socialism’ within the framework of the
‘revolutionary collaboration of the proletarians of all countries’.
“The Leninist thesis concerning the weak link
does not overlook the dialectic relationship of the national with the
international in the revolutionary process, which is expressed by the fact that
the passage to the highest phase of communism requires the worldwide victory of
socialism, or at least, its victory in the developed and dominant countries in
the imperialist system.”(p19)
In the concluding two paragraphs, entitled
‘Epilogue’, the KKE comrades state:
“Our party will continue study and
research towards a better codification of our conclusions, including issues
which have not been fully dealt with. Equally important is the assimilation of
our present elaborations on socialism-communism by all the members of the party
and the communist youth.
“It is this duty that will determine
the ability of the party to fully connect its strategy with the everyday
struggle, to formulate goals for the immediate problems of the working people
in connection with the strategy for the conquest of revolutionary workers’
power and for socialist construction.”
The above, then, is our brief review of the Theses
of the Central Committee of the KKE, for its forthcoming 18th Congress, on
a question of fundamental importance to the international working-class
movement. There is much more valuable detail in the theses, which it has not
been possible for us to draw to the readers’ attention for reasons of space and
time – especially the latter. However, in view of the importance of the theses
to our movement, we are, as stated at the outset of this article, posting them
on our website in order to facilitate their widest possible circulation.
In tracing the degeneration of the CPSU to the 20th
Congress, and in pinpointing the real culprit – Khrushchevite revisionism – the
comrades of the KKE have rendered a valuable service to the international
communist movement. It is to be hoped that many other communist parties, if
they are truly communist and serious about socialism and the emancipation of
the proletariat, will follow the example of the Greek comrades, for without
settling these historical questions, no real progress can be made in our
present struggle for socialism and the overthrow of capitalism.
We in the CPGB-ML express our enthusiastic support
for the theses of the KKE. All that remains is for us to wish the KKE a very
successful 18th Congress and to send our fraternal greetings to all the
delegates in attendance.
Long live Marxism Leninism!
Forward to the victories of socialism under the victorious banner of
Marxism Leninism!
Central Committee of the CPGB-ML
27 January 2009.
NOTE
* Although the KKE’s theses do not
mention it, this struggle was conducted by the Communist Party of China and the
Party of Labour of Albania, and led to a split in the international communist
movement. It is regrettable indeed that more communist parties did not follow
the principled lead given by the Chinese and Albanian comrades at that time.