First Published: April 1968 in The Role of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat in the International Marxist-Leninist Movement. The October Revolution vs. the “Cultural Revolution.”
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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J.V. Stalin represents the invaluable and heroic leadership of Marxism-Leninism in the struggle to smash world capitalism.
Under Stalin’s leadership internationally, the dictatorship of the proletariat of the first socialist country was consolidated, the Fascist imperialist axis was smashed and the Chinese Revolution of 1949 was accomplished. Stalin’s heroic leadership of the Soviet Union, the CPSU(Bolshevik) the Third International and the peoples’ forces in World War II brought the imperialist system that much closer to its final total destruction.
Comrade Stalin led the peoples’ forces and the Marxist-Leninists of the world from the strategic period in which the main contradiction facing world capitalism was the contradiction between the imperialists themselves to the present strategic period in which the main contradiction is between the oppressed nations and imperialism.
Because of the massive victories which the peoples of the world accomplished over imperialism and the irreparable damage done to world capitalism under his leadership, Stalin, fifteen years after his death, is still the man most feared, hated and slandered by US imperialism.
* * *
Since the death of Stalin, the two main characteristics of the international situation have been (l) the intensification of the contradiction between the oppressed nations and US imperialism; and (2) the development of a policy in most socialist countries of betrayal of the oppressed nations based on the ascendancy of the national bourgeois class in the socialist countries.
In recent years the result of these developments has been the overthrow of leftist governments in Brazil, Ghana, Algeria and elsewhere, the bloody overthrow of the anti-imperialist regime in Indonesia, and the terrible defeat suffered by the Arab people at the hands of US imperialism and its Zionist lackey, Israel. These victories for US imperialism were made possible by the active collusion of Soviet revisionism.
It is no accident that Khrushchev revisionism gained ascendancy in the Soviet Union on the basis of attacks on the great Marxist-Leninist, J.V. Stalin.
For Stalin’s theoretical and practical leadership of the dictatorship of the proletariat in the Soviet Union is unparalleled in world history. In order to lead in the consolidation of the dictatorship of the proletariat in the first socialist country, a country surrounded by the powerful, hostile capitalist world, Stalin and the CPSU(B) had to be expert (l) on the question of the Party’s leading role in the dictatorship of the proletariat – on the questions of party building, inner-Party struggle, on criticism and self-criticism; (2) on the question of developing a socialist economy by stages; and, most importantly, (3) on the question of the significance of the dictatorship of the proletariat in one country, not as an end in itself, but as a red base area for world revolution.
The main world significance of the rise of Khrushchev revisionism has been the betrayal of the oppressed nations by the socialist countries. And it is no accident that the betrayal of the oppressed nations is carried out on the basis of an attack on J.V. Stalin.
For Stalin wrote the classics of Marxist-Leninist science on the national question, the essence of national liberation. It was Stalin who wrote the “Declaration of Rights of the Peoples of Russia,” key to the success of the October Revolution. And it was Stalin who, on the eve of the October Revolution, indicated the potential importance of the oppressed nations to the world proletarian revolution. It was based on his theoretical understanding that Stalin was able, in opposition to Trotsky and other opportunists, to illuminate the path of the Chinese Revolution – the revolution which today stands as the outstanding model for carrying gut new democratic revolution in opposition to US imperialism, and as the great red area around which the oppressed nations can be mobilized and vitalized.
Summing up the Party of Labor of Albania’s analysis of Stalin’s contributions to Marxism-Leninism, Comrade Enver Hoxha, in his Report to the Fifth Congress of the PLA on November 1, 1966, stated:
“Our Party has stressed and stresses it again that especially the question of Stalin is a basic question, for the revisionists concretized their attack on Marxism-Leninism and the proletarian dictatorship with their attack on J.V. Stalin. Our Party is of the opinion that the Marxist-Leninists and all the revolutionaries should defend Stalin from all the slanders and attacks of the revisionists and by their struggle make Stalin’s name and deed regain the place of honor they deserve. For Stalin was and remains a great revolutionary and a great Marxist-Leninist. He pursued a just and revolutionary general line, both in the internal and foreign policy. He has consistently adhered to the class struggle line and to that of the proletarian dictatorship, to the line of building socialism and communism and to the struggle against bureaucracy and the degenerated bourgeois elements. He led the Soviet people from one victory to another in bitter battle with all the enemies of the Soviet Union and socialism. J.V. Stalin has made great contributions to the formation and consolidation of the socialist camp and to the growth and strengthening of the international communist movement. Throughout his life of a revolutionary militant, Stalin waged a resolute struggle against imperialism, in defense of peace and people’s security; he faithfully pursued a proletarian internationalist policy of helping and supporting the oppressed peoples and the revolutionary national-liberation movements.”
This is why we are the Youth for Stalin.