MAO TSE-TUNG July 1964
By the Editorial Departments of Renmin Ribao (People's Daily) and Hongqui (Red Flag), China, of 14 July 1964. The source is a pamphlet published by Foreign Languages Press, Peking 1964.
The theories of the proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat are the quintessence of Marxism-Leninism. The questions of whether revolution should be upheld or opposed and whether the dictatorship of the proletariat should be upheld or opposed have always been the focus of struggle between Marxism- Leninism and all brands of revisionism and are now the focus of struggle between Marxist-Leninists the world over and the revisionist Khrushchov clique.
At the 22nd Congress of the CPSU, the revisionist Khrushchov clique developed their revisionism into a complete system not only by rounding off their anti-revolutionary theories of "peaceful coexistence" and "peaceful transition" but also by declaring that the dictatorship of the proletariat is no longer necessary in the Soviet Union and advancing the absurd theories of the "state of the whole people" and the "party of the entire people".
The Programme put forward by the revisionist Khrushchov clique at the 22nd Congress of the CPSU is a programme of phoney communism, a revisionist programme against proletarian revolution and for the abolition of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the proletarian party.
The revisionist Khrushchov clique abolish the dictatorship of the proletariat behind the camouflage of the "state of the whole people", change the proletarian character of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union behind the camouflage of the "party of the entire people" and pave the way for the restoration of capitalism behind that of "full-scale communist construction".
In its Proposal Concerning the General Line of the International Communist Movement dated June 14, 1963, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China pointed out that it is most absurd in theory and extremely harmful in practice to substitute the "state of the whole people" for the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the "party of the entire people" for the vanguard party of the proletariat. This substitution is a great historical retrogression which makes any transition to communism impossible and helps only to restore capitalism.
The Open Letter of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the press of the Soviet Union resort to sophistry in self-justification and charge that our criticisms of the "state of the whole people" and the "party of the entire people" are allegations "far removed from Marxism", betray "isolation from the life of the Soviet people" and are a demand that they "return to the past".
Well, let us ascertain who is actually far removed from Marxism- Leninism, what Soviet life is actually like and who actually wants the Soviet Union to return to the past.
What is the correct conception of socialist society? Do classes and class struggle exist throughout the stage of socialism? Should the dictatorship of the proletariat be maintained and the socialist revolution be carried through to the end? Or should the dictatorship of the proletariat be abolished so as to pave the way for capitalist restoration? These questions must be answered correctly according to the basic theory of Marxism-Lenin- ism and the historical experience of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
The replacement of capitalist society by socialist society is a great leap in the historical development of human society. Socialist society covers the important historical period of transition from class to classless society. It is by going through socialist society that mankind will enter communist society.
The socialist system is incomparably superior to the capitalist system. In socialist society, the dictatorship of the proletariat replaces bourgeois dictatorship and the public ownership of the means of production replaces private ownership. The proletariat, from being an oppressed and exploited class, turns into a ruling class and a fundamental change takes place in the social position of the working people. Exercising dictatorship over a few exploiters only, the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat practices the broadest democracy among the masses of the working people, a democracy that is impossible in capitalist society. The nationalisation of industry and collectivization of agriculture open wide vistas for the vigorous development of the social productive forces, ensuring a rate of growth incomparably greater than that in any older society.
However, one cannot but see that socialist society is a society born out of capitalist society and is only the first phase of communist society. It is not yet a fully mature communist society in the economic and other fields. It is inevitably stamped with the birth marks of capitalist society. When defining socialist society Marx said:
What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has
developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as
it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect,
economically, morally and intellectually, still stamped with the birth
marks of the old society from whose womb it emerges.
[Marx, "Critique of the Gotha Programme", Selected Works of Marx and
Engels, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1958, Vol. 2, p.
23.]
Lenin also pointed out that in socialist society, which is the first phase of communism, "Communism cannot as yet be fully ripe economically and entirely free from traditions or traces of capitalism".
[Lenin, "The State and Revolution", Selected Works, FLPH, Mos- cow, 1952, Vol. 2, Part 1, p. 302.]
In socialist society, the differences between workers and peasants, between town and country, and between manual and mental labourers still remain, bourgeois rights are not yet completely abolished, it is not possible "at once to eliminate the other injustice, which consists in the distribution of articles of consumption ‘according to the amount of labour performed’ (and not according to needs)", and therefore differences in wealth still exist.
[Ibid., p. 296.]
The disappearance of these differences, phenomena and bourgeois rights can only be gradual and long drawn-out. As Marx said, only after these differences have vanished and bourgeois rights have completely disappeared will it be possible to realize full communism with its principle, "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs".
Marxism-Leninism and the practice of the Soviet Union, China and other socialist countries all teach us that socialist society covers a very, very long historical stage. Throughout this stage, the class struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat goes on and the question of "who will win" between the roads of capitalism and socialism remains, as does the danger of restoration of capitalism.
In its Proposal Concerning the General Line of the International Communist Movement dated June 14, 1963, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China states:
For a very long historical period after the proletariat takes power, class struggle continues as an objective law independent of man’s will, differing only in form from what it was before the taking of power.
After the October Revolution, Lenin pointed out a number of times that:
a) The overthrown exploiters always try in a thousand and one ways to recover the "paradise" they have been deprived of.
b) New elements of capitalism are constantly and spontaneously generated in the petty-bourgeois atmosphere.
c) Political degenerates and new bourgeois elements may emerge in the ranks of the working class and among government functionaries as a result of bourgeois influence and the pervasive, corrupting influence of the petty bourgeoisie.
d) The external conditions for the continuance of class struggle within a socialist society are encirclement by international capitalism, the imperialists’ threat of armed intervention and their subversive activities to accomplish peaceful disintegration.
Life has confirmed these conclusions of Lenin’s.
In socialist society, the overthrown bourgeoisie and other reactionary classes remain strong for quite a long time, and indeed in certain respects are quite powerful. They have a thousand and one links with the international bourgeoisie. They are not reconciled to their defeat and stubbornly continue to engage in trials of strength with the proletariat. They conduct open and hidden struggles against the proletariat in every field.
Constantly parading such signboards as support for socialism, the Soviet system, the Communist Party and Marxism-Leninism, they work to undermine socialism and restore capitalism. Politically, they persist for a long time as a force antagonistic to the proletariat and constantly attempt to overthrow the dictatorship of the proletariat. They sneak into the government organs, public organizations, economic departments and cultural and educational institutions so as to resist or usurp the leadership of the proletariat.
Economically, they employ every means to damage socialist ownership by the whole people and socialist collective ownership and to develop the forces of capitalism. In the ideological, cultural and educational fields, they counterpose the bourgeois world outlook to the proletarian world outlook and try to corrupt the proletariat and other working people with bourgeois ideology.
The collectivization of agriculture turns individual into collective farmers and provides favourable conditions for the thorough remoulding of the peasants. However, until collective ownership advances to ownership by the whole people and until the remnants of private economy disappear completely, the peasants inevitably retain some of the inherent characteristics of small producers. In these circumstances spontaneous capitalist tendencies are inevitable, the soil for the growth of new rich peasants still exists and polarization among the peasants may still occur.
The activities of the bourgeoisie as described above, its corrupting effects in the political, economic, ideological and cultural and educational fields, the existence of spontaneous capitalist tendencies among urban and rural small producers, and the influence of the remaining bourgeois rights and the force of habit of the old society all constantly breed political degenerates in the ranks of the working class and Party and government organizations, new bourgeois elements and embezzlers and grafters in state enterprises owned by the whole people and new bourgeois intellectuals in the cultural and educational institutions and intellectual circles.
These new bourgeois elements and these political degenerates attack socialism in collusion with the old bourgeois elements and elements of other exploiting classes which have been overthrown but not eradicated. The political degenerates entrenched in the leading organs are particularly dangerous, for they support and shield the bourgeois elements in organs at lower levels.
As long as imperialism exists, the proletariat in the socialist countries will have to struggle both against the bourgeoisie at home and against international imperialism. Imperialism will seize every opportunity and try to undertake armed intervention against the socialist countries or to bring about their peaceful disintegration. It will do its utmost to destroy the socialist countries or to make them degenerate into capitalist countries. The international class struggle will inevitably find its reflection within the socialist countries.
Lenin said:
The transition from capitalism to Communism represents an entire historical
epoch. Until this epoch has terminated, the exploiters inevitably cherish
the hope of restoration, and this hope is converted into attempts
at restoration.
[Lenin, "The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky", Selected
Works, FLPH, Moscow, Vol. 2, Part 2, p. 61.]
He also pointed out:
The abolition of classes requires a long, difficult and stubborn class
struggle, which after the overthrow of the power of capital,
after the destruction of the bourgeois state, after the establishment
of the dictatorship of the proletariat, does not disappear (as the
vulgar representatives of the old Socialism and the old Social-Democracy
imagine), but merely changes its forms and in many respects becomes more
fierce.
[Lenin, "Greetings to the Hungarian Workers", Selected Works, FPLH,
Moscow, Vol. 2, Part 2, pp. 210-11.]
Throughout the stage of socialism the class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie in the political, economic, ideological and cultural and educational fields cannot be stopped. It is a protracted, repeated, tortuous and complex struggle. Like the waves of the sea it sometimes rises high and sometimes subsides, is now fairly calm and now very turbulent. It is a struggle that decides the fate of a socialist society. Whether a socialist society will advance to communism or revert to capitalism depends upon the outcome of this protracted struggle.
The class struggle in socialist society is inevitably reflected in the Communist Party. The bourgeoisie and international imperialism both understand that in order to make a socialist country degenerate into a capitalist country, it is first necessary to make the Communist Party degenerate into a revisionist party.
The old and new bourgeois elements, the old and new rich peasants ad the degenerate elements of all sorts constitute the social basis of revisionism, and they use every possible means to find agents within the Communist Party. The existence of bourgeois influence is the internal source of revisionism and surrender to imperialist pressure the external source.
Throughout the stage of socialism, there is inevitable struggle between Marxism-Leninism and various kinds of opportunism – mainly revisionism -- in the Communist Parties of socialist countries. The characteristic of this revisionism is that, denying the existence of classes and class struggle, it sides with the bourgeoisie in attacking the proletariat and turns the dictatorship of the proletariat into the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.
In the light of the experience of the international working- class movement and in accordance with the objective law of class struggle, the founders of Marxism pointed out that the transition from capitalism, from class to classless society, must depend on the dictatorship of the proletariat and that there is no other road.
Marx said that
"the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat".
["Marx to J. Wedemeyer, March 5, 1852", Selected Works of Marx and Engels, FLPH, Moscow, Vol. 2, p. 452.]
He also said:
Between capitalist and communist society lies the period of the revolutionary
transformation of the one into the other. There corresponds to this also
a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the
revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.
[Marx, "Critique of the Gotha Programme", Selected Works of Marx and
Engels, FLPH, Moscow, Vol. 2, pp. 32-33.]
The development of socialist society is a process of uninterrupted revolution. In explaining revolutionary socialism Marx said:
This socialism is the declaration of the permanence of the revolution,
the class dictatorship of the proletariat as the necessary transit
point to the abolition of class distinctions generally, to the abolition
of all the relations of production on which they rest, to the abolition
of all the social relations that correspond to these relations of production,
to the revolutionizing of all the ideas that result from these social relations.
[Marx, "The Class Struggles in France, 1848 to 1850", Selected Works
of Marx and Engels, FLPH, Moscow, Vol. 1, p. 223.]
In his struggle against the opportunism of the Second International, Lenin creatively expounded and developed Marx’s theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat. He pointed out:
The dictatorship of the proletariat is not the end of class struggle
but its continuation in new forms. The dictatorship of the proletariat
is class struggle waged by a proletariat which has been victorious and
has taken political power in its hands against a bourgeoisie that has been
defeated but not destroyed, a bourgeoisie that has not vanished, not ceased
to offer resistance, but that has intensified its resistance.
[Lenin, "Foreword to the Speech ‘On Deception of the People with Slogans
of Freedom and Equality’", Alliance of the Working Class and the Peasantry,
FLPH, Moscow, 1959, p. 302.]
He also said:
The dictatorship of the proletariat is a persistent struggle – bloody
and bloodless, violent and peaceful, military and economic, educational
and administrative – against the forces and traditions of the old society.
[Lenin: "‘Left-Wing’ Communism, an Infantile Disorder", Selected Works,
FLPH, Moscow, Vol. 2, Part 2, p. 367.]
In his celebrated work On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People and in other works, Comrade Mao Tse-tung, basing hismelf on the fundamental principles of Marxism-Leninism and the historical experience of the dictatorship of the proletariat, gives a comprehensive and systematic analysis of classes and class struggle in socialist society, and creatively develops the Marxist-Leninist theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Comrade Mao Tse-tung examines the objective laws of socialist society from the viewpoint of materialist dialectics. He points out that the universal law of the unity and struggle of opposites operating both in the natural world and in human society is applicable to socialist society, too.
In socialist society, class contradictions still remain and class struggle does not die out after the socialist transformation of the ownership of the means of production. The struggle between the two roads of socialism and capitalism runs through the entire stage of socialism. To ensure the success of socialist construction and to prevent the restoration of capitalism, it is necessary to carry the socialist revolution through to the end on the political, economic, ideological and cultural fronts. The complete victory of socialism cannot be brought about in one or two generations; to resolve this question thoroughly requires five to ten generations or even longer.
Comrade Mao Tse-tung stresses the fact that two types of social contradictions exist in socialist society, namely, contradictions among the people and contradictions between ourselves and the enemy, and that the former are very numerous. Only by distinguishing between the two types of contradictions, which are different in nature, and by adopting different measures to handle them correctly is it possible to unite the people, who constitute more than 90 per cent of the population, defeat their enemies, who constitute only a few per cent, and consolidate the dictatorship of the proletariat.
The dictatorship of the proletariat is the basic guarantee for the consolidation and development of socialism, for the victory of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie and of socialism in the struggle between the two roads.
Only by emancipating all mankind can the proletariat ultimately emancipate itself. The historical task of the dictatorship of the proletariat has two aspects, one internal and the other international.
The internal task consists mainly of completely abolishing all the exploiting classes, developing socialist economy to the maximum, enhancing the communist consciousness of the masses, abolishing the differences between ownership by the whole people and collective ownership, between workers and peasants, between town and country and between mental and manual labourers, eliminating any possibility of the re-emergence of classes and the restoration of capitalism and providing conditions for the realization of a communist society with its principle, "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs".
The international task consists mainly of preventing attacks by international imperialism (including armed intervention and disintegration by peaceful means) and of giving support to the world revolution until the peoples of all countries finally abolish imperialism, capitalism and the system of exploitation.
Before the fulfilment of both tasks and before the advent of a full communist society, the dictatorship of the proletariat is absolutly necessary.
Judging from the actual situation today, the tasks of the dictatorship of the proletariat are still far from accomplished in any of the socialist countries. In all socialist countries without exception, there are classes and class struggle, the struggle between the socialist and the capitalist roads, the question of carrying the socialist revolution through to the end and the question of preventing the restoration of capitalism.
All the socialist countries still have a very long way to go before the differences between ownership by the whole people and collective ownership, between workers and peasants, between town and country and between mental and manual labourers are eliminated, before all classes and class differences are eliminated and a communist society with its principle, "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs", is realized. Therefore, it is necessary for all the socialist countries to uphold the dictatorship of the proletariat.
In these circumstances, the abolition of the dictatorship of the proletariat by the revisionist Khrushchov clique is nothing but a betrayal of socialism and communism.
In announcing the abolition of the dictatorship of the proletariat in the Soviet Union, the revisionist Khrushchov clique base themselves mainly on the argument that antagonistic classes have been eliminated and that class struggle no longer exists.
But what is the actual situation in the Soviet Union? Are there really no antagonistic classes and no class struggle there?
Following the victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution, the dictatorship of the proletariat was established in the Soviet Union, capitalist private ownership was destroyed and socialist ownership by the whole people and socialist collective ownership were established through the nationalization of industry and the collectivization of agriculture, and great achievements in socialist construction were scored during several decades. All this constituted an indelible victory of tremendous historic significance won by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Soviet people under the leadership of Lenin and Stalin.
However, the old bourgeoisie and other exploiting classes which had been overthrown in the Soviet Union were not eradicated and survived after industry was nationalized and agriculture collectivized. The political and ideological influence of the bourgeoisie remained. Spontaneous capitalist tendencies continued to exist both in the city and in the countryside. New bourgeois elements and kulaks were still incessantly generated. Throughout the long intervening period, the class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie and the struggle between the socialist and capitalist roads have continued in the political, economic and ideolgical spheres.
As the Soviet Union was the first, and at the time the only, country to build socialism and had no foreign experience to go by, and as Stalin departed from Marxist-Leninist dialectics in his understanding of the laws of class struggle in socialist society, he prematurely declared after agriculture was basically collectivized that there were "no longer antagonistic classes" [1] in the Soviet Union and that it was "free of class con- flicts" [2], one-sidely stressed the internal homogeneity of socialist society and overlooked its contradictions, failed to rely upon the working class and the masses in the struggle against the forces of capitalism and regarded the possibility of restoration of capitalism as associated only with armed attack by international imperialism. This was wrong both in theory and in practice.
[1: Stalin, "On the Draft Constitution of the U.S.S.R", Problems of Leninism, FLPH, Moscow, 1954, p. 690.]
[2: Stalin, "Report to the Eighteenth Congress of the C.P.S.U.(B.) on the Work of the Central Committee", Problems of Leninism, FLPH, Moscow, p. 777.]
Nevertheless, Stalin remained a great Marxist-Leninist. As long as he led the Soviet Party and state, he held fast to the dictatorship of the proletariat and the socialist course, pursued a Marxist-Leninist line and ensured the Soviet Union’s victorious advance along the road of socialism.
Ever since Khrushchov seized the leadership of the Soviet Party and state, he has pushed through a whole series of revisionist policies which have greatly hastened the growth of the forces of capitalism and again sharpened the class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie and the struggle between the roads of socialism and capitalism in the Soviet Union.
Scanning the reports in Soviet newspapers over the last few years, one finds numerous examples demonstrating not only the presence of many elements of the old exploiting classes in Soviet society, but also the generation of new bourgeois elements on a large scale and the acceleration of class polarization.
Let us first look at the activities of various bourgeois elements in the Soviet enterprises owned by the whole people.
Leading functionaries in some state-owned factories and their gangs abuse their positions and amass large fortunes by using the equipment and materials of the factories to set up "underground workshops" for private production, selling the products illicitly and dividing the spoils. Here are some examples.
In a Leningrad plant producing military items, the leading functionaries placed their own men in "all key posts" and "turned the state enterprise into a private one". They illictly engaged in the production of non-military goods and from the sale of fountain pens alone embezzled 1,200,000 old roubles in three years. Among these people was a man who "was a Nepman...in the 1920’s" and had been a "lifelong thief".
[Krasnaya Zvezda, May 19, 1962.]
In a silk-weaving mill in Uzbekistan, the manager ganged up with the chief engineer, the chief accountant, the chief of the supply and marketing section, heads of workshops and others, and they all became "new-born entrepreneurs". They purchased more than ten tons of artificial and pure silk through various illegal channels in order to manufacture goods which "did not pass through the accounts". They employed workers without going through the proper procedures and enforced "a twelve-hour working day".
[Pravda Vostoka, Oct. 8, 1963.]
The manager of a furniture factory in Kharkov set up an "illegal knitwear workshop" and carried on secret operations inside the factory. This man "had several wives, several cars, several houses, 176 neck-ties, about a hundred shirts and dozens of suits". He was also a big gambler at the horse-races.
[Pravda Ukrainy, May 18, 1962.]
Such people do not operate all by themselves. They invariably work hand in glove with functionaries in the state departments in charge of supplies and in the commercial and other departments. They have their own men in the police and judicial departments who protect them and act as their agents. Even high-ranking officials in the state organs support and shield them. Here are a few examples.
The chief of the workshops affiliated to a Moscow psychoneurological dispensary and his gang set up an "underground enter- prise", and by bribery "obtained fifty-eight knitting machines" and a large amount of raw material. They entered into business relations with "fifty-two factories, handicraft co-operatives and collective farms" and made three million roubles in a few years. They bribed functionaries of the Department for Combating Theft of Socialist Property and Speculation, controllers, inspectors, instructors and others.
[Izvestia, Oct. 20, 1963, and Izvestia Sunday Supplement, No. 12, 1964.]
The manager of a machinery plant in the Russian Federation, together with the deputy manager of a second machinery plant and other functionaries, or forty-three persons in all, stole more than nine hundred looms and sold them to factories in Central Asia, Kazakhstan, the Caucasus and other places, whose leading functionaries used them for illicit production.
[Komsomolskaya Pravda, Aug. 9, 1963.]
In the Kirghiz SSR, a gang of over forty embezzlers and grafters, having gained control of two factories, organized underground production and plundered more than thirty million roubles’ worth of state property. The gang included the Chairman of the Planning Commission of the Republic, a Vice-Minister of Commerce, seven bureau chiefs and division chiefs of the Republic’s Council of Ministers, National Economic Council and State Control Commission, as well as "a big kulak who had fled from exile".
[Sovietskaya Kirghizia, Jan. 9, 1962.]
These examples show that the factories which have fallen into the clutches of such degenerates are socialist enterprises only in name, that in fact they have become capitalist enterprises by which these persons enrich themselves. The relationship of such persons to the workers has turned into one between exploiters and exploited, between oppressors and oppressed.
Are not such degenerates who possess and make use of means of production to exploit the labour of others out-and-out bourgeois elements? Are not their acomplices in government organizations, who work hand in glove with them, participate in many types of expolitation, engage in embezzlement, accept bribes, and share the spoils, also out-and-out bourgeois elements?
Obviously all these people belong to a class that is antagonistic to the proletariat – they belong to the bourgeoisie. Their activities against socialism are definitely class struggle with the bourgeoisie attacking the proletariat.
Now let us look at the activities of various kulak elements on the collective farms.
Some leading collective-farm functionaries and their gangs steal and speculate at will, freely squander public money and fleece the collective farmers. Here are some examples.
The chairman of a collective farm in Uzbekistan "held the whole village in terror". All the important posts on this farm "were occupied by his in-laws and other relatives and friends". He squandered "over 132,000 roubles of the collective farm for his personal ‘needs’". He had a car, two motor-cycles and three wives, each with "a house of her own".
[Selskaya Zhizn, June 26, 1962.]
The chairman of a collective farm in the Kursk Region regarded the farm as his "heredetary estate". He conspired with its accountant, cashier, chief warehouse-keeper, agronomist, general store-manager and others. Shielding each other, they "fleeced the collective farmers" and pocketed more than a hundred thousand roubles in a few years.
[Ekonomicheskaya Gazeta, No. 35, 1963.]
The chairman of a collective farm in the Ukraine made over 50,000 roubles at its expense by forging purchase certificates and cash-account orders in collusion with its woman accountant, who had been praised for keeping "model accounts" and whose deeds had been displayed at the Moscow Exhibition of Achievements of the National Economy.
[Selskaya Zhizn, Aug. 14, 1963.]
The chairman of a collective farm in the Alma-Ata Region specialized in commercial speculation. He bought "fruit juice in the Ukraine or Uzbekistan, and sugar and alcohol from Djambul", processed them and then sold the wine at very high prices in many localities. In this farm a winery was created with a capacity of over a million litres a year, its speculative commercial network spread throughout the Kazakhstan SSR, and commercial speculation became one of the farm’s main sources of income.
[Pravda, Jan. 14, 1962.]
The chairman of a collective farm in Byelorussia considered him- self "a feudal princeling on the farm" and acted "personally" in all matters. He lived not on the farm but in the city or in his own splendid villa, and was always busy with "various commercial machinations" and "illegal deals". He bought cattle from the outside, represented them as the products of the collective farm and falsified output figures. And yet "not a few commendatory newspaper reports" had been published about him and he had been called a "model leader".
[Pravda, Feb. 6, 1961.]
These examples show that collective farms under the control of such functionaries virtually become their private property. Such men turn socialist collective economic enterprises into economic enterprises of new kulaks. There are often people in their superior organizations who protect them. Their relationship to the collective farmers has likewise become that of oppressors to oppressed, of exploiters to exploited. Are not such neo-exploiters who ride on the backs of the collective farmers one-hund-red-per-cent neo-kulaks?
Obviously, they all belong to a class that is antagonistic to the proletariat and the labouring farmers, belong to the kulak or rural bourgeois class. Their anti-socialist activities are precisely class struggle with the bourgeoisie attacking the proletariat and the labouring farmers.
Apart from the bourgeois elements in state enterprises and collective farms, there are many others in both town and country in the Soviet Union.
Some of them set up private enterprises for private production and sale; others organize contractor teams and openly undertake construction jobs for state or co-operative enterprises; still others open private hotels.
A "Soviet woman capitalist" in Leningrad hired workers to make nylon blouses for sale, and her "daily income amounted to over 700 new roubles".
[Izvestia, April 9, 1963.]
The owner of a workshop in the Kursk Region made felt boots for sale at speculative prices. He had in his possession 540 pairs of felt boots, eight kilogrammes of gold coins, 3,000 metres of high-grade textiles, 20 carpets, 1,200 kilogrammes of wool and many other valuables.
[Sovietskaya Rossiya, Oct. 9, 1963.]
A private entrepeneur in the Gomel Region "hired workers and artisans" and in the course of two years secured contracts for the construction and overhauling of furnaces in twelve factories at a high price.
[Izvestia, Oct. 18, 1960.]
In the Orenburg Region there are "hundreds of private hotels and trans-shipment points", and "the money of the collective farms and the state is continuously streaming into the pockets of the hostlery owners".
[Selskaya Zhizn, July 17, 1963.]
Some engage in commercial speculation, making tremendous profits through buying cheap and selling dear or bringing goods from far away. In Moscow there are a great many speculators engaged in the re-sale of agricultural produce. They "bring to Moscow tons of citrus fruit, apples and vegetables and re-sell them at speculative prices". "These profit-grabbers are provided with every facility, with market inns, store-rooms and other services at their disposal".
[Selskaya Zhizn, July 17, 1963.]
In the Krasnodar Territory, a speculator set up her own agency and "employed twelve salesmen and two stevedores". She transported "thousands of hogs, hundreds of quintals of stolen slag bricks, whole wagons of glass" and other building materials from the city to the villages. She reaped high profits out of each re-sale.
[Ekonomicheskaya Gazeta, No. 27, 1963.]
Others specialize as brokers and middlemen. They have wide contacts and through them one can get anything, in return for a bribe. There was a broker in Leningrad who "though he is not the Minister of Trade, controls all the stocks", and "though he holds no post on the railway, disposes of wagons". He could obtain "things the stocks of which are strictly controlled, from outside the stocks". "All the store-houses in Leningrad are at his service." For delivering goods, he received huge "bonuses" – 700,000 roubles from one timber combine in 1960 alone. In Leningrad, there is "a whole group" of such brokers.
[Literaturnaya Gazeta, July 27 and Aug. 17, 1963.]
These private entrepreneurs and speculators are engaged in the most naked capitalist exploitation. Isn’t it clear that they belong to the bourgeoisie, the class antagonistic to the proletariat?
Actually the Soviet press itself calls these people "Soviet capitalists", "new-born entrepreneurs", "private entrepreneurs", "newly-emerged kulaks", "speculators", "exploiters", etc. Aren’t the revisionist Khrushchov clique contradicting themselves when they assert that antagonistic classes do not exist in the Soviet Union?
The facts cited above are only a part of those published in the Soviet press. They are enough to shock people, but there are many more which have not been published, many bigger and more serious cases which are covered up and shielded. We have quoted the above data in order to answer the question whether there are antagonistic classes and class struggle in the Soviet Union. These data are readily available and even the revisionist Khrushchov clique are unable to deny them.
These data suffice to show that the unbridled activities of the bourgeoisie against the proletariat are widespread in the Soviet Union, in the city as well as the countryside, in industry as well as agriculture, in the sphere of production as well as the sphere of circulation, all the way from the economic departments to Party and government organizations, and from the grass-roots to the higher leading bodies. These anti-socialist activities are nothing if not the sharp class struggle of the bourgeoisie against the proletariat.
It is not strange that attacks on socialism should be made in a socialist country by old and new bourgeois elements. There is nothing terrifying about this so long as the leadership of the Party and state remains a Marxist-Leninist one. But in the Soviet Union today, the gravity of the situation lies in the fact that the revisionist Khrushchov clique have usurped the leadership of the Soviet Party and state and that a privileged bourgeois stratum has emerged in Soviet society.
We shall deal with this problem in the following section.
The privileged stratum in contemporary Soviet society is composed of degenerate elements from among the leading cadres of Party and government organizations, enterprises and farms as well as bourgeois intellectuals; it stands in opposition to the workers, the peasants and the overwhelming majority of the intellectuals and cadres of the Soviet Union.
Lenin pointed out soon after the October Revolution that bourgeois and petty-bourgeis ideologies and force of habit were encircling and influencing the proletariat from all directions and wre corrupting certain of its sections. This circumstance led to the emergence from among the Soviet officials and functionaries both of bureaucrats alienated from the masses and of new bourgeois elements. Lenin also pointed out that although the high salaries paid to the bourgeois technical specialists staying on to work for the Soviet regime were necessary, they were having a corrupting influence on it.
Therefore, Lenin laid great stress on waging persistent struggles against the influence of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideologies, on arousing the broad masses to take part in government work, on ceaselessly exposing and purging bureaucrats and new bourgeois elements in the Soviet organs, and on creating conditions that would bar the existence and reproduction of the bourgeoisie. Lenin pointed out sharply that "without a systematic and determined struggle to improve the apparatus, we shall perish before the basis of socialism is created."
[Lenin, "Plan of the Pamphlet ‘On the Food Tax’", Collected Works, 4th Russian ed., Moscow, Vol. 32, p. 301.]
At the same time, he laid great stress on adherence to the principle of the Paris Commune in wage policy, that is, all public servants were to be paid wages corresponding to those of the workers and only bourgeois specialists were to be paid high salaries. From the October Revolution to the period of Soviet economic rehabilitation, Lenin’s directives were in the main observed; the leading personell of the Party and government organizations and enterprises and Party members among the specialists received salaries roughly equivalent to the wages of workers.
At that time, the Communist Party and the government of the Soviet Union adopted a number of measures in the sphere of politics and ideology and in the system of distribution to prevent leading cadres in any department from abusing their powers or degenerating morally or politically.
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union headed by Stalin adhered to the dictatorship of the proletariat and the road of socialism and waged a staunch struggle against the forces of capitalism. Stalin’s struggles against the Trotskyites, Zinovievites and Bukharinites wre in essence a reflection within the Party of the class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie and of the struggle between the two roads of socialism and capitalism. Victory in these struggles smashed the vain hopes of the bourgeoisie to restore capitalism in the Soviet Union.
It cannot be denied that before Stalin’s death high salaries were already being paid to certain groups and that some cadres had already degenerated and become bourgeois elements. The Central Committee of the CPSU pointed out in its report to the 19th Party Congress in October 1952 that degeneration and corruption had appeared in certain Party organizations.
The leaders of these organizations had turned them into small communities composed entirely of their own people, "setting their group interests higher than the interests of the Party and the state". Some executives of industrial enterprises "forget that the enterprises entrusted to their charge are state enterprises, and try to turn them into their own private domain".
"Instead of safeguarding the common husbandry of the collective farms", some Party and Soviet functionaries and some cadres in agricultural departments "engage in filching collective-farm property". In the cultural, artistic and scientific fields too, works attacking and smearing the socialist system had appeared and a monopolistic "Arakcheyev regime" had emerged among the scientists.
Since Khrushchov usurped the leadership of the Soviet Party and state, there has been a fundamental change in the state of the class struggle in the Soviet Union.
Khrushchov has carried out a series of revisionist policies serving the interests of the bourgeoisie and rapidly swelling the forces of capitalism in the Soviet Union.
On the pretext of "combating the personality cult", Khrushchov has defamed the dictatorship of the proletariat and the socialist system and thus in fact paved the way for the restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union. In completely negating Stalin, he has in fact negated Marxism-Leninism which was upheld by Stalin and opened the floodgates for the revisionist deluge.
Khrushchov has substituted "material incentive" for the socialist principle, "from each according to his ability, to each according to his work". He has widened, and not narrowed, the gap between the incomes of a small minority and those of the workers, peasants and ordinary intellectuals. He has supported the degenerates in leading positions, encouraging them to become even more unscrupulous in abusing their powers and to appropriate the fruits of labour of the Soviet people. Thus he has accelerated the polarization of classes in Soviet society.
Khrushchov sabotages the socialist planned economy, applies the capitalist principle of profit, develops capitalist free competition and undermines socialist ownership by the whole people.
Khrushchov attacks the system of socialist agricultural planning, describing it as "bureaucratic" and "unnecessary". Eager to learn from the big proprietors of American farms, he is encouraging capitalist management, fostering a kulak economy and undermining the socialist collective economy.
Khrushchov is peddling bourgeois ideology, bourgeois liberty, equality, fraternity and humanity, inculcating bourgeois idealism and metaphysics and the reactionary ideas of bourgeois individualism, humanism and pacifism among the Soviet people, and debasing socialist morality. The rotten bourgeois culture of the West is now fashionable in the Soviet Union, and socialist culture is ostracized and attacked.
Under the signboard of "peaceful coexistence", Khrushchov has been colluding with U.S. imperialism, wrecking the socialist camp and the international communist movement, opposing the revolutionary struggles of the oppressed peoples and nations, practising great-power chauvinism and national egoism and betraying proletarian internationalism. All this is being done for the protection of the vested interests of a handful of people, which he places above the fundamental interests of the peoples of the Soviet Union, the socialist camp and the whole world.
The line Khrushchov pursues is a revisionist line through and through. Guided by this line, not only have the old bourgeois elements run wild but new bourgeois elements have appeared in large numbers among the leading cadres of the Soviet Party and government, the chiefs of state enterprises and collective farms, and the higher intellectuals in the fields of culture, art, science and technology.
In the Soviet Union at present, not only have the new bourgeois elements increased in number as never before, but their social status has fundamentally changed. Before Khrushchov came to power, they did not occupy the ruling position in Soviet society. Their activities were restricted in many ways and they were subject to attack. But since Khrushchov took over, usurping the leadership of the Party and the state step by step, the new bourgeois elements have gradually risen to the ruling position in the Party and government and in the economic, cultural and other departments, and formed a privileged stratum in Soviet society.
This privileged stratum is the principal component of the bourgeoisie in the Soviet Union today and the main social basis of the revisionist Khrushchov clique. The revisionist Khrushchov clique are the political representatives of the Soviet bourgeoisie, and particularly of its privileged stratum.
The revisionist Khrushchov clique have carried out one purge after another and replaced one group of cadres after another throughout the country, from the central to the local bodies, from leading Party and government organizations to economic and cultural and educational departments, dismissing those they do not trust and placing their protégés in leading posts.
Take the Central Committee of the CPSU as an example. The statistics show that seventy per cent of the members of the Central Committee of the CPSU who were elected at its 19th Congress in 1952 were purged in the course of the 20th and 22nd Congresses held respectively in 1956 and 1961. And nearly fifty per cent of the members who were elected at the 20th Congress were purged at the time of the 22nd Congress.
Or take the local organizations. On the eve of the 22nd Congress, on the pretext of "renewing the cadres", the revisionist Khrushchov clique, according to incomplete statistics, removed from office forty-five per cent of the members of the Party Central Committees of the Union Republics and of the Party Committees of the Territories and Regions, and forty per cent of the Municipal and District Party Committees. In 1963, on the pretext of dividing the Party into "industrial" and "agricultural" Party committees, they further replaced more than half the members of the Central Committees of the Union Republics and of the Regional Party Committees.
Through this series of changes the Soviet privileged stratum has gained control of the Party, the government and other important organizations.
The members of this pivileged stratum have converted the function of serving the masses into the privilege of dominating them. They are abusing their powers over the means of production and of livelyhood for the private benefit of their small clique.
The members of this privileged stratum appropriate the fruits of the Soviet people’s labour and pocket incomes that are dozens or even a hundred times those of the average Soviet worker and peasant. They not only secure high incomes in the form of high salaries, high awards, high royalties and a great variety of personal subsidies, but also use their privileged position to appropriate public property by graft and bribery. Completely divorced from the working people of the Soviet Union, they live the parasitical and decadent life of the bourgeoisie.
The members of this privileged stratum have become utterly degenerate ideologically, have completely departed from the revolutionary traditions of the Bolshevik Party and discarded the lofty ideals of the Soviet working class. They are opposed to Marxism-Leninism and socialism. They betray the revolution and forbid others to make revolution. Their sole concern is to consolidate their economic position and political rule. All their activities revolve around the private interests of their own privileged stratum.
People have seen how in Yugoslavia, although the Tito clique still displays the banner of "socialism", a bureaucratic bourgeoisie opposed to the Yugoslav people has gradually come into being since the Tito clique took the road of revisionism, transforming the Yugoslav state from a dictatorship of the proletariat into the dictatorship of the bureaucrat bourgeoisie and its socialist public economy into state capitalism. Now people see the Khrushchov clique taking the road already travelled by the Tito clique. Khrushchov looks to Belgrade as his Mecca, saying again and again that he will learn from the Tito clique’s experience and declaring that he and the Tito clique "belong to one and the same idea and are guided by the same theory". This is not at all surprising.
[N. S. Khrushchov, Interview with Foreign Correspondents at Brioni in Yugoslavia, Aug. 28, 1963.]
As a result of Khrushchov’s revisionism, the first socialist country in the world built by the great Soviet people with their blood and sweat is now facing an unprecedented danger of capitalist restoration.
The Khrushchov clique are spreading the tale that "there are no longer antagonistic classes and class struggle in the Soviet Union" in order to cover up the facts about their own ruthless class struggle against the Soviet people.
The Soviet privileged stratum represented by the revisionist Khrushchov clique constitutes only a few per cent of the Soviet population. Among the Soviet cadres its numbers are also small. It stands diametrically opposed to the Soviet people, who constitute more than 90 per cent of the total population, and to the great majority of the Soviet cadres and Communists. The contradiction between the Soviet people and this privileged stratum is now the principal contradiction inside the Soviet Union, and it is an irreconcilable and antagonistic class contradiction.
The glorious Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which was built by Lenin, and the great Soviet people displayed epoch-making revolutionary initiative in the October Socialist Revolution, they showed their heroism and stamina in defeating the White Guards and the armed intervention by more than a dozen imperialist countries, they scored unprecedently brilliant achievements in the struggle for industrialization and agricultural collectivization, and they won a tremendous victory in the Patriotic War against the German fascists and saved all mankind. Even under the rule of the Khrushchov clique, the mass of the members of the CPSU and the Soviet people are carrying on the glorious revolutionary traditions nurtured by Lenin and Stalin, and they still uphold socialism and aspire to communism.
The broad masses of the Soviet workers, collective farmers and intellectuals are seething with discontent against the oppression and exploitation practised by the privileged stratum. They have come to see ever more clearly the revisionist features of the Khrushchov clique which is betraying socialism and restoring capitalism.
Among the ranks of the Soviet cadres, there are many who still persist in the revolutionary stand of the proletariat, adhere to the road of socialism and firmly oppose Khrushchov’s revisionism. The broad masses of the Soviet people, of Communists and cadres are using various means to resist and oppose the revisionist line of the Khrushchov clique, so that the revisionist Khrushchov clique cannot so easily bring about the restoration of capitalism. The great Soviet people are fighting to defend the glorious traditions of the Great October Revolution, to preserve the great gains of socialism and to smash the plot for the restoration of capitalism.
At the 22nd Congress of the CPSU Khrushchov openly raised the banner of opposition to the dictatorship of the proleatriat, announcing the replacement of the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat by the "state of the whole people". It is written in the Programme of the CPSU that the dictatorship of the proletariat "has ceased to be indispensable in the U.S.S.R." and that "the state, which arose as a state of the dictatorship of the proletariat, has, in the new, contemporary stage, become a state of the entire people".
Anyone with a little knowledge of Marxism-Leninism knows that the concept of the state is a class concept. Lenin pointed out that "the distinguishing feature of the state is the existence of a separate class of people in whose hands power is concentrated".
[Lenin, "The Economic Content of Narodism and the Criticism of It in Mr. Struve’s Book", Collected Works, FLPH, Moscow, 1960, Vol. 1, p. 419.]
The state is a weapon of class struggle, a machine by means of which one class represses another. Every state is the dictatorship of a definite class. So long as the state exists, it cannot possibly stand above class or belong to the whole people.
The proletariat and its political party have never concealed their views; they say explicitly that the very aim of the proletarian socialist revolution is to overthrow bourgeois rule and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat. After the victory of the socialist revolution, the proletariat and its party must strive unremittingly to fulfil the historical tasks of the dictatorship of the proletariat and eliminate classes and class differences, so that the state will wither away. It is only the bourgeoisie and its parties which in their attempt to hoodwink the masses try by every means to cover up the class nature of state power and describe the state machinery under their control as being "of the whole people" and "above class".
The fact that Khrushchov has announced the abolition of the dictatorship of the proletariat in the Soviet Union and advanced the thesis of the "state of the whole people" demonstrates that he has replaced the Marxist-Leninist teachings on the state by bourgeois falsehoods.
When Marxist-Leninists criticized their fallacies, the revisionist Khrushchov clique hastily defended themselves and tried hard to invent a so-called theoretical basis for the "state of the whole people". They now assert that the historical period of the dictatorship of the proletariat mentioned by Marx and Lenin refers only to the transition from capitalism to the first stage of communism and not to its higher stage. They further assert that "the dictatorship of the proletariat will cease to be necessary before the state withers away" and that after the end of the dictatorship of the proletariat, there is yet another stage, the "state of the whole people".
[Pravda editorial board’s article, "Programme for the Building of Communism", Aug. 18, 1961.]
These are out-and-out sophistries.
In his Critique of the Gotha Programme, Marx advanced the well-known axiom that the dictatorship of the proletariat is the state of the period of transition from capitalism to communism. Lenin gave a clear explanation of this Marxist axiom. He said:
In his Critique of the Gotha Programme Marx wrote: "Between
capitalist and communist society lies the period of the revolutionary transformation
of the one into the other. There corresponds to this also a political transition
period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship
of the proletariat." Up to now this axiom has never been disputed by
Socialists, and yet it implies the recognition of the existence of the
state right up to the time when victorious socialism has grown into
complete communism.
[Lenin, "The Discussion on Self-Determination Summed Up", Collected
Works, International Publishers, New York, 1942, Vol. 19, pp. 269-70.]
Lenin further said:
The essence of Marx’s teaching on the state has been mastered only
by those who understand that the dictatorship of a single class
is necessary not only for the proletariat which has overthrown the
bourgeoisie, but also for the entire historical period which separates
capitalism from "classless society", from Communism.
[Lenin, "The State and Revolution", Selected Works, FLPH, Moscow,
Vol. 2, Part 1, p. 234.]
It is perfectly clear that according to Marx and Lenin, the historical period throughout which the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat exists, is not merely the period of transition to the first stage of communism, as alleged by the revisionist Khrushchov clique, but the entire period of transition from capitalism to "complete communism", to the time when all class differences will have been eliminated and "classless society" realized, that is to say, to the higher stage of communism.
It is equally clear that the state in the transition period referred to by Marx and Lenin is the dictatorship of the proletariat and nothing else. The dictatorship of the proletariat is the form of the state in the entire period of transition from capitalism to the higher stage of communism, and also the last form of the state in human history. The withering away of the dictatorship of the proletariat will mean the withering away of the state. Lenin said:
Marx deduced from the whole history of Socialism and of the political
struggle that the state was bound to disappear, and that the transitional
form of its disappearance (the transition from state to nonstate) would
be the "proletariat organized as the ruling class".
[Ibid., pp. 256-57.]
Historically the dictatorship of the proletariat may take different forms from one country to another and from one period to another, but in essence it will remain the same. Lenin said:
The transition from capitalism to Communism certainly cannot but yield
a tremendous abundance and variety of political forms, but the essence
will inevitably be the same: the dictatorship of the proletariat.
[Ibid, p. 234.]
It can thus be seen that it is absolutely not the view of Marx and Lenin but an invention of the revisionist Khrushchov that the end of the dictatorship of the proletariat will precede the withering away of the state and will be followed by yet another stage, "the state of the whole people".
In arguing for their anti-Marxist-Leninist views, the revisionist Khrushchov clique have taken great pains to find a sentence from Marx and distorting it by quoting it out of context. They have arbitrarily described the future nature of the state (Staatswesen in German) of communist society referred to by Marx in his Critique of the Gotha Programme as the ‘state of communist society’, which is no longer a dictatorship of the proletariat".
[M. A. Suslov, Report at the Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee of the CPSU, February 1964 (New Times, English ed., No. 15, 1964, p. 62.]
They gleefully announced that the Chinese would not dare to quote this from Marx. Apparently the revisionist Khrushchov clique think this is very helpful to them.
As it happens Lenin seems to have foreseen that revisionists would make use of this phrase to distort Marxism. In his Marxism on the State, Lenin gave an excellent explanation of it. He said, "...the dictatorship of the proletariat is a ‘political transition period’... . But Marx goes on to speak of ‘the future nature of the state (gosudarstvennost in Russian, Staatswesen in German) of communist society’!! Thus, there will be a state even in ‘communist society’!! Is there not a contrdiction in this?" Lenin answered, "No." He then tabulated the three stages in the process of development from the bourgeois state to the withering away of the state:
The first stage – in bourgeois society, the state is needed by the bourgeoisie – the bourgeois state.
The second stage – in the period of transition from capitalism to communism, the state is needed by the proletariat – the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
The third stage – in communist society, the state is not necessary, it withers away.
He concluded: "Complete consistency and clarity!!"
In Lenin’s tabulation, only the bourgeois state, the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the withering away of the state are to be found. By precisely this tabulation Lenin made it clear that when communism is reached the state withers away and becomes non-existent.
Ironically enough, the revisionist Khrushchov clique also quoted this very passage from Lenin’s Marxism on the State in the course of defending their error. And then they proceeded to make the following idiotic statement:
In our country the first two periods referred to by Lenin in the opinion
quoted already belong to history. In the Soviet Union a state of the whole
people – a communist state system, the state of the first phase
of communism, has arisen and is developing.
["From the Party of the Working Class to the Party of the Whole Soviet
People", editorial board’s article of Partyinaya Zhizn, Moscow, No. 8,
1964.]
If the first two periods referred to by Lenin have already become a thing of the past in the Soviet Union, the state should be withering away, and where could a "state of the whole people" come from? If the state is not yet withering away, then it ought to be the dictatorship of the proletariat and under absolutely no circumstances a "state of the whole people".
In arguing for their "state of the whole people", the revisionist Khrushchov clique exert themselves to vilify the dictatorship of the proletariat as undemocratic. They assert that only by replacing the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat by the "state of the whole people" can democracy be further developed and turned into "genuine democracy for the whole people". Khrushchov has pretentiously said that the abolition of the dictatorship of the proletariat exemplifies "a line of energetically developing democracy" and that "proletarian democracy is becoming socialist democracy of the whole people".
[N. S. Khrushchov, "Report of the Central Committee of the CPSU", and "On the Programme of the CPSU", delivered at the 22nd Congress of the CPSU, October 1961.]
These utterances can only show that their authors either are completely ignorant of the Marxist-Leninist teachings on the state or are maliciously distorting them.
Anyone with a little knowledge of Marxism-Leninism knows that the concept of democracy as a form of the state, like that of dictatorship, is a class one. There can only be class democracy, there cannot be "democracy for the whole people".
Lenin said:
Democracy for the vast majority of the people, and suppression by force,
i.e. exclusion from democracy, of the exploiters and oppressors of the
people – this is the change democracy undergoes during the transition
from capitalism to Communism.
[Lenin, "The State and Revolution", Selected Works, FLPH, Moscow,
Vol. 2, Part 1, p. 291.]
Dictatorship over the exploiting classes and democracy among the working people – these are the two aspects of the dictatorship of the proletariat. It is only under the dictatorship of the proletariat that democracy for the masses of the working people can be developed and expanded to an unprecedented extent. Without the dictatorship of the proletariat there can be no genuine democracy for the working people.
Where there is bourgeois democracy there is no proletarian democracy, and where there is proletarian democracy there is no bourgeois democracy. The one excludes the other. This is inevitable and admits of no compromise. The more thoroughly bourgeois democracy is eliminated, the more will proletarian democracy flourish. In the eyes of the bourgeoisie, any country where this occurs is lacking in democracy. But actually this is the promotion of proletarian democracy and the elimination of bourgeois democracy. As proletarian democracy develops, bourgeois democracy is eliminated.
This fundamental Marxist-Leninist thesis is opposed by the revisionist Khrushchov clique. In fact, they hold that so long as enemies are subjected to dictatorship there is no democracy and that the only way to develop democracy is to abolish the dictatorship over enemies, stop suppressing them and institute "democracy for the whole people".
Their view is cast from the same mould as the renegade Kautsky’s concept of "pure democracy".
In criticizing Kautsky Lenin said:
..."pure democracy" is not only an ignorant phrase, revealing
a lack of understanding both of the class struggle and of the nature of
the state, but also a thrice-empty phrase, since in communist society democracy
will wither away in the process of changing and becoming a habit,
but will never be "pure" democracy.
[Lenin, "The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky", Selected
Works, FLPH, Moscow, Vol. 2, Part 2, p. 48.]
He also pointed out:
The dialectics (course) of the development is as follows: from absolutism
to bourgeois democracy; from bour- geois to proletarian democracy; from
proletarian democracy to none.
[Lenin, Marxism on the State, Russian ed., Moscow, 1958, p. 42.]
That is to stay, in the higher stage of communism proletarian democracy will wither away along with the elimination of classes and the withering away of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
To speak plainly, as with the "state of the whole people", the "democracy for the whole people" proclaimed by Khrushchov is a hoax. In thus retrieving the tattered garments of the bourgeoisie and the old-line revisionists, patching them up and adding a label of his own, Khrushchov’s sole purpose is to deceive the Soviet people and the revolutionary people of the world and cover up his betrayal of the dictatorship of the proletariat and his opposition to socialism.
What is the essence of Khrushchov’s "state of the whole people"?
Khrushchov has abolished the dictatorship of the proletariat in the Soviet Union and established a dictatorship of the revisionist clique headed by himself, that is, a dictatorship of the privileged stratum of the Soviet bourgeoisie. Actually his "state of the whole people" is not a state of the dictatorship of the proletariat but a state in which his small revisionist clique wield their dictatorship over the masses of the workers, the peasants and the revolutionary intellectuals.
Under the rule of the Khrushchov clique, there is no democracy for the Soviet working people, there is democracy only for the handful of people belonging to the revisionist Khrushchov clique, for the privileged stratum and for the bourgeois elements, old and new. Khrushchov’s "democracy for the whole people" is nothing but out-and-out bourgeois democracy, i.e., a despotic dictatorship of the Khrushchov clique over the Soviet people.
In the Soviet Union today, anyone who persists in the proletarian stand, upholds Marxism-Leninism and has the courage to speak out, to resist or to fight is watched, followed, summoned, and even arrested, imprisoned or diagnosed as "mentally ill" and sent to "mental hospitals".
Recently the Soviet press has declared that it is necessary to "fight" against those who show even the slightest dissatisfaction, and called for "relentless battle" against the "rotten jokers" who are so bold as to make sarcastic remarks about Khrushchov’s agricultural policy.
[Izvestia, Mar. 10, 1964.]
It is not particularly astonishing that the revisionist Khrushchov clique should have on more than one occasion bloodily suppressed striking workers and the masses who put up resistance.
The formula of abolishing the dictatorship of the proletariat while keeping a state of the whole people reveals the secret of the revisionist Khrushchov clique; that is, they are firmly opposed to the dictatorship of the proletariat but will not give up state power till their doom.
The revisionist Khrushchov clique know the paramount importance of controlling state power. They need it for clearing the way for the restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union. These are Khrushchov’s real aims in raising the banners of the "state of the whole people" and "democracy for the whole people".
Transcribed by Rolf Martens in 1997.