ON STALIN'S PATH
54 The Kremlin has just executed Imre Nagy and his companions, members of the Hungarian Communist Party. Without warning, in (they say) a closed trial, with no public hearing, and even with no "confessions," the Kremlin has just committed this crime. It is a question here of an assassination which could have been done without any "trial," coldly perpetrated at a given moment for given purposes. The Kremlin is in this way trying to terrorize, in the USSh itselt, in the "people's democracies," and in the Communist Parties, those who oppose its policy and the rule of its present leadership. positions of the political leadership of the Soviet bureauAt the moment when the campaign against Jugoslavia is doubling in violence, the Kremlin does not hesitate to show that it is determined to push the struggle to the point of physical extermination, as in the days of But, far from showing the force, cohesion, and stability of the present Kremlin' leadership, this abominable action proves on the contrary that we are again witnessing a furious and exasperated struggle between opposing tendencies within international Stalinism. It is difficult to say whether, in this struggle; Khrushchev himself is the inspirer or the prisoner of a "harder" neo-Stalinist tendency which is trying to consolidate its position against opposing currents. What is clear, on the contrary, is that the struggle within the bureaucracy has now reached a new paroxysm. The USSR's own difficulties, arising from Khrushchev's "revolutionary" reforms in the field of industry and agriculture, which have upset the bureaucratic social structures, together with those that exist in the "people's democracies," where a quite Stalinist severity is again ruling, as well as those arising from the once more aggravated international situation, are at the origin of a new tendency struggle within the political leadership of the Soviet bureaucracy and of international Stalinism. The hesitant, contradictory, and spasmodic policy of Khrushchev during the recent period is a characteristic of this crisis. His reversal of position, especially in the Jugoslav affair, and within international public opinion, is the sign of the rise within his tendency of Stalinist elements in the UŞSR itself and elsewhere, determined to carry on the struggle against their opponents, including by means of physical extermination. Because of the fact that "destalinization" was soon blocked in the USSR, in the "people's democracies,' and in China, the unsolved contradictions within these countries have on the contrary taken on a redoubled At the same time, far from developing toward an easing of tension, the international situation has on the con-
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL trary experienced an explosive aggravation, particularly in the Middle East. Khrushchev's policy, in the USSR, in the "people's democracies," and internationally shown a balance-sheet of victories. Under these conditions, the "harder" neo-Stalinist forces are now trying to get back the upper hand completely so as to face up, by an extreme bureaucratic severity and even by terror, to the difficulties of every sort that have piled up. Khrushchev seems to be manœuvring so as not to find himself against the stream. We shall see, and perhaps before long now, the outcome of this new crisis that is rumbling in the tops of 'the international Stalinist bureaucracy. Meanwhile, it is the international workers' movement that is suffering from the baneful repercussions of this neo-Stalinist policy and practice. While this policy and practice are arousing immense discontented masses against the political regime and even against the social regime of the USSR, the "people's democracies," and China, and are preparing new explosions as in Poland and Hungary, they are demoralizing the proletariat of the capitalist countries, leading it to submit without a fight to reactionary coups de force, such as that of de Gaulle in France. The present policy of the Kremlin, a mixture of the most vulgar opportunism and of wholly Stalinist bureaucratic and police procedures, is in practice a policy of liquidating the Communist Parties as organizations connected with the masses and capable of mobilizing them. The example of France is immensely significant. This policy directly serves reaction and aids the war plans of imperialism. The Fourth International calls on the members of the Communist Parties to oppose a resolute resistance to the Kremlin's return to a terrorist course in the Stalinist manner. Do not forget the past, the infamous Moscow Trials, the trials of Rajk and Kostov, and their disavowal by Khrushchev himself! Do not again accept with an uncritical mind the same ignominies and the same It calls on them to protest against the execution -without a public trial and without the free presence of international workers' observers - of Nagy and his companions. It calls on them to get rid of the present Stalinist leaderships which, liegemen of the Kremlin that they are, accomplices of its past and present crimes, absolutely block the way to a renewal of the Communist movement, render impossible practical collaboration with the other political forces of the working class, discredit communism, practically liquidate their own organizations, and open the way to reaction and war.
THE INTERNATIONAL SECRETARIAT OF THE FOURTH INTERNATIONAL Milan, 17 June 1958.