The Swing Back - Tridib Chaudhuri
It is well-known that every important change-over in the national political line of the CPI, like that of every other national section of the world Stalinist movement in the past two decades, has always followed up prior changes in the foreign-policy line of the Soviet Union. The international strategy for the whole movement and the major tactical moves of every national Communist Party are derived without exception from the premise of the foreign policy of the Soviet State. The failure to conform to the dictates of this basic line of international strategy, to adjust national policies to the expediency manoeuvres, zig-zags and tactical shifts of that line is invariably liable to be regarded as a deviation, ‘right’ or ‘left’, ‘reformist-opportunist’ or “dogmatic sectarian’, according to the specific circumstances of the case. In order to understand the significance of the new shift in the political line of the CPI in the background of Stalinist world strategy and to arrive at a correct appraisal of the actual reasons which prompted the Cominform Centre to intervene in the affairs of the CPI at this particular juncture and enforce this shift we shall have to seek indications of a corresponding change in the CPSU-Cominform international tactical line with regard to India at least. A shift in the national-political line of any Stalinist Party is almost inconceivable without a shift in the international tactical line— especially so in the present case, in the context of the consistent and loud approval for the old (1948-49) line of the CPI till the very close of the last year.
We shall also have to bear in mind in this connection, the fundamental ideological and theoretical premises upon which the International Stalinist Communist movement and the CPSU take their stand to-day and within the rigid framework of which the Stalinist Communist Party of every country has to function. This is not because of any alleged pulling of wires by the Soviet bosses from Moscow1 seeking to rule the world with the help of a carefully indoctrinated diabolic Fifth Column organisation set up in every country as the die-hard Anglo-American capitalist press would seem to suggest in their fits of Goebbelsque harangues against the USSR. There is no such Moscow directed world conspiracy. But, nevertheless, the fact remains that the entire world Stalinist movement has grown up during the course of the last three decades in an absolute unilateral dependence on ideological and political guidance from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Both ideologically and by logical deduction from the political premises which they have become habituated to take for granted without question, Stalinist Communists in every country have come to regard the defence of the Soviet Union and its political interests as the basic mooring or foundation on which the entire world working class movement should rest, as an article of their fundamental creed. As D. Z. Manuilisky, the CPSU spokesman (now Foreign Minister of Soviet Ukrania and Ukranian representative in the UNO), in the Seventh world Congress of the Communist international declared in 1935—”all key problems of this movement (i.e., the world working class movement, in so far as it is led by the Stalinist Communists), all its tactical problems revolve around the central axis—the reinforcement of the U.S.S.R. as the base of world proletarian revolution.”2
The political implications of Manuilisky’s statement is clear beyond any scope of misunderstanding. As the foreign policy of the Soviet State (like that of any other state) is inevitably bound up with its international political reinforcement and national defence, logically therefore, all “key problems’ of the Stalinist Communist Parties in every country of the world have in practical effect come to revolve round the ‘axis’ of Soviet foreign policy. “The line of foreign policy represented and upheld by the Soviet Union”, “writes the woman Soviet publicist N. Sergeyeva in a recent issue of the Moscow weekly New Times. (No. 25, June 1950), “corresponds to the interests of the people and is ‘supported” by the masses of all countries.” This is a fundamental article of faith with Stalinist Communists all over the world. No matter whether this policy advocates support to the armament programme of M. Laval in pre-war France (1934-35) and calls for uncalled for support to the war-efforts of Anglo-American imperialism in countries like India (‘People’s War’), whether it leads Stalin and Molotov to enter into Mutual Aid and Non-Aggression pacts with Hitler or sit round the conference table in Yalta and Potsdam with Roosevelt-Truman-Churchill and Attlee for a division of spoils and spheres of influence in Balkans, Middle East and Far East, whether it demands of armed-resistance-forces of working people in France and Belgium to surrender their arms and submit to the rulership of men like De Gaulle and Spaak, whether it directs CP of France to join the French Cabinet and acquiesce in brutal measures of colonial repression in Viet Nam and Madagascar (1946-47)—it always ‘corresponds’ to the interests of the people and should be supported by the masses!
Granting the theoretical premises of Stalinism there is nothing to be surprised at this. It is the inevitable logical consequence of the abandonment by the leading party of the international working class movement viz: the CPSU of the basic Marxist Leninist standpoint which decides all questions of strategy and tactics from the cardinal point of view of the interests of the international proletarian socialist revolution. Marxism-Leninism judges and decides all questions of political policy in the objective background of the specific alignment of class forces for and against proletarian revolution in each country, and on the world scale, and the concrete historical stage of revolution in a particular country. Marxist-Leninist internationalism inevitably regards the defence of the Soviet Union against all forms of imperialist aggression as one of its sacred tasks. But at the same time it holds fast to Lenin’s dictum that “building up the anti-imperialist revolutionary socialist movement in one’s own country and rendering all possible help to such movements, and such movements alone, in other countries” is the best form of “internationalism in deeds” and the best form of defence of the USSR that the working class in countries outside Soviet Union can render to-day. It looks upon the Soviet Union “as a link”— the most important link undoutedly—” in the chain of international proletarian revolutions” and always subordinate the specific national state-interests of the USSR at any particular time to permanent interest of international proletarian revolution and not vice versa—that is the central axis round which any problem of strategy and tactics of the entire world working class movement including those of the USSR must revolve in its view if we have to forge ahead to the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of Socialism and the rule of the working class all over the world. But that no longer represents the point of view or the immediate historic perspective of the CPSU and its leaders.
It may be remembered here that even one year before Manuilisky elaborated his theory of deciding all key tactical problems of the world working class movement in terms of the defence and reinforcement of the Soviet Union, Stalin himself emphatically disclaimed any intention or responsibility of promoting or rendering any direct or indirect assistance to the revolutionary movements for the overthrow of capitalism in countries outside the frontiers of the Soviet Union to Roy Howard of the American Scripts, Howard news agency (1934). Manuilisky himself had also asserted in the same speech from which we have quoted above that in the background of the rise of Fascism which wanted to unleash a new imperialist war and entertained frankly aggressive intentions against the Soviet Union “the proletariat in most capitalist countries” were not “confronted with the alternative of bourgeois democracy and proletarian democracy” (socialism) and that “bourgeois democracy” (even the so-called democracy of imperialist-capitalist countries like Britain. USA and France) was a “progressive step forward compared with Fascism.” In capitalist countries outside the frontiers of USSR — “the base of world proletarian revolution” —the workers were therefore enjoined by Manuilisky, Dimitrov and other Stalinist leaders not only not to fight against capitalism as such, but rather to fight for capitalism in terms of bourgeois democracy, in the name of a struggle against Fascism. It is well-known that it was on this basis that the tactics of ’Popular Front’ with anti-Nazi and anti-Fascist capitalist parties, and the world strategy of international ‘democratic’ people’s coalition between USSR, USA and Anglo-French imperialism, were laid down at the Seventh Congress of the Communist International. But for the interlude of the first 21 months of the last war when Soviet Union was practically allied with Nazi Germany against Britain and France in terms of the Mutual Non-aggression Pact (and the various trade and economic agreements which were then negotiated between the two powers) this anti-Fascist Popular Front tactics for the defence of bourgeois democracy dominated the entire political perspective of the Stalinist Communist Parties in every country. We also know how the “imperialist war” suddenly became qualitatively transformed into the “People’s War” for the defence of democracy and victory over Fascism on the morrow of the commencement of the Soviet-German War in June 1941 and the formation of the Anglo-US-Soviet Coalition against the Axis. The entire working class movement under the leadership of the Stalinist Communist parties throughout the world was then switched all at once to the support of Anglo-US-Soviet alliance and all opposition against Anglo-American Imperialism were unhesitatingly withdrawn on the plea of anti-Fascist struggle and the defence of democracy. That the motivation behind this ‘defence of democracy’ actually sprang from the basic line of the defence of the USSR is only too obvious to need any dilation here.
The subsequent development of the course of events and the break up of the People’s war coalition after the defeat of Nazi Germany and Japan, has already been indicated above in broad outlines in connection with the turns and twists of the CPI political line since 1945 and the discussion of the post war international line of Stalinism, as formulated by late Andriev Zhdanov in the background of the so-called “Two-camp” divisions of the world. The leading string for Stalinist world strategy and tactics and that of the ‘world working class movement’ which is under the leadership of Stalinist Communists, has been, furnished at every decisive turn in course of the dizzy developments of the past fifteen years, by “ the defence and reinforcement of the USSR.” Manuilisky formula holds equally good today as it did on the day when it was first set forth in 1935, with this difference that the slender theoretical reservation about world proletarian revolution which Manuilisky had made at that time in his reference to the SU as its base has been quietly dropped so that only “defence and reinforcement” of the USSR remains as the sole axis of the world movement for Stalinism.
The two basic theoretic props of the international Stalinist Communist movement to-day are provided by Stalin’s theory of ‘victory of Socialism and Communism in a single Country’ and has parallel theory about the possibility of the peaceful coexistence of the two systems—Socialism and Capitalism side by side for a long period to come’ in the present historical epoch. Taken together these two theories have inevitably come to imply the ditching of international proletarian Socialist revolution. There cannot obviously be any prolonged co-existence’ for the two systems, Socialism and capitalism, side by side, far less any cooperation (or any possibility of peaceful competition between them) if you go about organising class and mass forces for the overthrow of the latter in countries outside the ‘single’ socialist country.
It is not necessary here to enter into any detailed discussion about the different aspects of these two theories and their implications. But the following clearcut reply that Stalin made to Harold E. Stassen (the US Republican Party leader) in his interview with the latter in April 1947, to Stassen’s query about his views “whether the two economic systems—socialism and capitalism can exist together in the same modern world in harmony with each other” gives a succinct idea of the Stalinist stand in a general way! “Of course they can,” said Stalin, “The differences between them is not of fundamental importance in so far as co-operation is concerned....’
Then further!
“Let us not criticise mutually our systems. Everyone has the -right to follow the system he wants to maintain. Which is better will be said by history...to co-operate one does not need the same systems. One should respect the other system when approved by the people. Only on this basis can we secure co-operation.” Stalin reiterated the same view more emphatically in his reply to the open letter of Mr. Henry Wallace and expressed the belief that peaceful settlement of the differences between them “is absolutely necessary in the interests of universal peace”. Zhdanov repeated the same idea in almost identical words in his Cominform address. Besides, it should be noted that it is no longer a question of the mere theoretical possibility of the co-existence of the two systems being present there. As Maurice Thorez, the French Communist leader asserted recently at the Plenum of the CP France (June, 1950)—the democratic forces must “enforce the coexistence upon those who reject it.....for the fear that “the victory of the socialist system is inevitable in the peaceful competition between the two systems. ”Apparently this means that we must compel the unwilling capitalists to abandon their anti-Soviet imperialist war mongering and live in Peace with Soviet Union. But converse is also true—we must compel the forces fighting against capitalism to make it possible for the latter to “co-exist peacefully with the SU” side by side.
The necessity of strictly adhering to the principle of maintaining entirely non-aggressive and peaceful relations by the Soviet Union as a state, in its code of conduct and international dealings with surrounding states, capitalist or otherwise has thus, however, been transformed by Stalinists in imperceptible degrees into the historical theory of a “prolonged equilibrium between Socialism and Capitalism” and the strategy of class collaboration on the international plane. The imperative historic necessity of organising and preparing for the overthrow of capitalism and proletarian socialist revolution in any country outside the frontiers of the Soviet Union, is totally denied, even in the background of the present epoch of the generalised crisis of imperialism-capitalism which Lenin had termed as the ”prelude to international proletarian revolutions.” One has only to contrast this with the views expressed by Lenin on this question in a clear-cut unequivocal manner. As Lenin said :
We are living, not merely in a state but in a system of states and the existence of the Soviet Republic side by side with imperialist states for a long time is unthinkable. One or the other must triumph in the end. And before that end supervenes a series of frightful collisions between the Soviet Republic and the bourgeois states would be inevitable. (Selected Works, Vol. VIII. p. 33)
The role of the Socialist Soviet Republic, which Lenin envisaged in this historical background, also needs to be noted here:
The victorious proletariat (in the Socialist State) having expropriated the capitalists and organised its own Socialist production, would stand up against the rest of the capitalist world, attracting to its cause the oppressed classes of other countries, raising revolts in those countries, agonist the capitalists in the event of necessity coming out even with armed force against the exploiting classes and their states.3 (Selected Works Vol. V. p. 141.)
These words of Lenin, uttered two or three decades ago, however hardly concerns Zhdanov or induce him to take account of them in his formulation of the historic tasks confronting communists today. Thus it comes about even while urging fraternal Communist Parties outside Soviet Union to the task of “resistance to the plans of imperialist expansion and aggression of Anglo-American powers—along every line” in the background of the post war break-up of the People’s war coalition.
Zhdanov rather takes good care to ensure that this resistance movement is conducted on the plane of anti-imperialism and national democracy alone and all references to the proletarian socialist revolution is scrupulously avoided.
Not only Mao Tse-Tung in China, but leading Stalinist spokesman in Western Europe and America as well, have never, in fact, concealed the fact that Socialist world revolution or the overthrow of capitalism is definitely outside the immediate historical perspective of Cominform and the Stalinist Communist Movement. Gilbert Green, the US Stalinist leader (one of the 12 Communist defendants involved in the recent Foley Square Trial in the USA) made this absolutely clear last year, in course of his theoretic polemic with Earl Browder—the P.C. Joshi of U.S. Stalinism—who referred by the way, to ‘a transition to Socialism’ as an ‘immediate task’ in Western Europe. As an ardent Stalinist, Green was emphatically of the opinion that so far Western Europe was concerned, “transition to Socialism’ was not the immediate task at all; but rather the “struggle for peace” against imperialist war mongers and against the colonising plans of US imperialism for the enslavement of Europe (the struggle for Socialism or a reference to a ‘transition to Socialism’ might prevent ‘unity’ with those “really patriotic elements” about whom Zhdanov speaks!). Even the very mild and basically reformist casual reference of Browder about ‘transition to Socialism’ as an immediate task therefore throws Green into hysterics. “This is arrant nonsense,” asserts Green, ‘Transition to Socialism is not the immediate issue in all Europe.
Stalinist leaders of France and Italy, like the famous Thorez and Palmiro Togliatti have also often, expressed themselves in almost identical terms at different times. Instead of ‘Socialism’ they would rather employ words like ‘progressive democracy’ ‘popular democracy’ ‘liberty’ ‘national independence’ etc., to describe the immediate political objectives of their parties. Thorez for example, in his recent speech to the Central Committee directs the members of the CP. France “to devote all their efforts to the development of a decisive struggle for peace and national independence.” And again in conclusion he urges them to “the struggle for saving peace, for the restoration of national security of France, in defence of the liberties and the immediate demands of working people in order to create a democratic and independent France which will follow the path of Socialism;” but deliberately refrains from speaking of Socialist revolution straight away.
The following quotation from the 1946 post-election statement of Thorez, the French communist leader is also interesting in this connection :
The progress of democracy in the world, with few exceptions that confirm the rule, makes it possible to advance towards Socialism by other paths than those trodden by the Russian Communists. In any case, each country must choose its way. We have always thought and said that the people of France with her glorious tradition will find their own way towards more democracy, progress and social justice. (London Time, Nov. 18,1946).
No comment is perhaps necessary on this except that it admirably anticipated the Beirut conception of “gradual transition to Socialism without wide-spread civil war” etc., and the Gil Green conception of denial of the necessity of such transition in the immediate future by clever terminological sleights of hand with almost meaningless liberal democratic phrases about “more democracy”, “more progress” and “more social justice.”
The camp that opposes Anglo-American imperialist Camp is therefore according to the Zhdanov formulation, the camp of world proletarian or Socialist revolution, but is deliberately termed by him as the “democratic” “anti-imperialist” Camp only, whose sole object is to defend “enduring peace and popular democracy,” the “national Sovereignty and independence” of their countries! And obviously enough a national democratic movement of this nature does not rule out unity with “all really patriotic elements” belonging to other classes including considerable sections of the national bourgeoisie, who do not want their countries to be imposed upon by Anglo-American imperialists, who want to resist the imposition of their country by American monopolists and to uphold their “national honour and sovereignty.” Such elements may conceivably even come from the capitalist class also. So just as in the “anti Fascist’ People’s War days, the entire movement against Anglo-American imperialism must be kept hamstrung within a democratic nationalist framework and must not be allowed to overstep its limits; it must not speak of the overthrow of capitalism or of a Socialist revolution. And equally, as in those days, the entire world working-class movement in different countries must decide all “Key problems” that may confront them on by reference to the then foreign-policy line of the SU, and their tactical line “must revolve round the axis” of the defence and reinforcement of Soviet Union as Manuilisky had urged fifteen years ago.
Zhdanov’s address to the Cominform Conference made that amply clear. The CPSU and its leaders felt the necessity of organising resistance to the Anglo-American powers, he points out, only when “the British and American imperialist manifested their unwillingness to respect the legitimate interest of the Soviet Union and the democratic countries.” For full two years after the close of war the Soviet Union had been following a policy “of consistently working for the observance of democratic principles in the post-war settlement.” But the Council of Foreign Ministers held in March and April 1947 finally convinced the Soviet leadership that the US and Anglo-French imperialism had ‘again’ taken the path of imperialist expansion and aggression (as if they could ever be expected to take any other path!) and that America had abandoned “the old course of Roosevelt and passing to a new policy, the policy of preparing for new military adventures.” It was also obvious to the Soviet leaders that this frankly aggressive and expansionist course to which Anglo-America, especially USA, had committed themselves, was directed principally against the Soviet Union. “Literally on the day, following the conclusion of World War II”, complained Zhdanov, “they set to work to build up a front hostile to the USSR and World democracy.” The entire world strategy of the CPSU and the world Stalinist movement had therefore to be recast in terms of organising resistance to Anglo-America and their anti-Soviet War plans. That is the genesis and meaning of Zhdanov’s call of resistance against Anglo-American imperialism in general and against American imperialism, in particular, in September 1947.
Taken the background of the overall denial of the perspective of Socialist revolution, not only in colonial countries but even in advanced capitalist countries of Western Europe, the deliberate substitution of the class-collaborationist Social reformist conception of a People’s Democratic revolution in the place of Socialist revolution as the immediate goal of the movement in every country, the denial of the historic necessity of a revolutionary overthrow of capitalism and proletarian dictatorship as the inevitable transitional phase towards Socialism and the envisagement of the possibility of gradual evolution towards Socialism without any widespread civil war or the employment of violence, the Zhdanov line cannot but be regarded from the Leninist point of view as the inevitable outcome of Soviet power-politics against the USA (and also against Britain to the extent that Britain is allied to America). It does not hesitate to employ the nationalist-democratic mass opposition which is surging in various countries against Anglo-American imperialism after the termination of the war for strengthening or reinforcing its own policy-moves against USA or Great Britain without allowing such opposition movements to transcend the social reformist class-collaborationist limits of People’s Democracy. Whatever might be the face-value of its tirades against Anglo American imperialism and the objective possibility of its unleashing mass-forces against imperialism in concrete political circumstances of particular countries, we cannot also shut our eyes to the basically reformist inhibitions of the entire movement, the possibility of its holding back the working-class and other revolutionary mass-forces from the path of militant class struggle against capitalism and other vested interests and from the path of Socialist revolution, as well as the possibility of its coming to terms with the ruling bourgeoisie in particular capitalist countries or any other action of the class, provided they agree to co-operate with Soviet State at least to move in the same direction in their foreign policy line as the Soviet Union.
The Zhdanov line never ruled out these possibilities. Not only that, it definitely left the scope wide open behind its apparent ‘left’ orientation for open collaboration and political coalitions with the ruling bourgeoisie in different countries or any other section of the bourgeoisie who might be in opposition for the present, but who might, some day, come into the government or might prove themselves powerful enough to bring to bear the pressure of their own influence upon the policies of the existing government, should the international foreign policy line and the national defence of Soviet Union against either of the Anglo-American powers demand such coalition. There was in other words ample theoretical and ideological scope within the frame-work of the general policy laid down by Zhdanov in September, 1947, for sharp changes to the left (provided these changes did not seek to mobilise mass force for a revolutionary class-struggle line for the overthrow of capitalism) as well as for sharp changes to the right (provided these did not mean unconditional surrender to the anti-Soviet ‘imperialist’ policies of America at-least, before the Soviet Union itself were prepared to alter and redefine its policies and attitude with regard to that power) according to the dictates of the foreign policy manoeuvres of the Soviet Union vis-a-vis Anglo-America. The original shift from ‘right’ to ‘left’ in the CPI line in 1948 had served its purpose and exhausted its practical utility. It was now time again to swing back to the right. The Zhdanov thesis did not forbid that.
1. cf. —”The thirteen wicked men of Kremlin” according to Mr. Churchill.
2. Lest there be any misunderstanding on this score Manuilisky hastened to add that the prospect of world proletarian revolution and “the whole development of the world working class movement” was “inseparable from further victories of Socialism in USSR. —so that the working class movement in every country had for the present to reinforce the USSR further from the outside, as much as it lay in their power, and ensure further victories of Socialism in USSR. Only then would the base grow really strong and make further progress in the development of world working class movement concretely possible. There have been, of course, subsequent additions and elaborations in theory with regard to this question since 1935, which rule out the idea of a Proletarian Socialist Revolution or the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism in countries outside the USSR from the immediate historical perspective of Stalinist Communist Parties altogether.” For that, see text further on in this chapter. The axial dictum of Manuilisky with regard to the ‘reinforcement’ of the USSR, however, continues unchanged. (‘The work of the 7th Congress of Communist International-D. Z. Manuilisky: ‘Peace Front’ to People’s War’, P 248).
3. It has recently been argued that this programme was only “a possibility arising out of necessity”—the necessity of withstanding foreign military intervention etc.; and not a fundamental programme! (See Political Affairs February 1948; article by George Siskind, P 30-31.) It must not be thought that Lenin was against normal peaceful diplomatic relations or ordinary trade exchanges between the Soviet Union and the Capitalist States. That is not true. But his views about the historical significance of the Soviet State, its role in world affairs and the trend of world movement and forces with which it should be allied are beyond the scope of any misunderstanding.