THE REPERCUSSIONS OF THE 22nd CONGRESS OF THE CPSU
Resolution adopted by the International Secretariat
The XXII Congress of the CPSU has opened a particularly acute phase in the crisis of Stalinism. As an assembly of dogmas, Stalinism is kaputt dead; no one in the Communist movement behaves strictly as a stalinist of the old type, since even the Albanian CP has broken at least two rules sacred to Stalinism, the unconditional fidelity to the tactical zigzags of the soviet bureaucracy and the total absence of all public discussion with the official leadership of the CPSU. However, Stalinism, rather than a system of doctrine, is a distortion of the doctrine and policy of Marxism-Leninism, in the service of the bureaucratic caste which has usurped political power in the USSR of destalinisation, in so far as this destalinisation
La desperate attempt on the part of the soviet bureaucracy to maintain power, before the mounting forces for soviet democracy in the USSR itself and the entire world revolution. In doing this, the bureaucacy, independently of its intentgives a new impulse to all the revolutionary forces which sap its own power over the proletariat of the USSR, over "people's democracies" and over the international communist movement.
This new acute phase in the crisis of stalinism takes two particular forms in a dialectical interaction one upon the other: A) By making these revelations, this time publicly, on the crimes of Stalin which went beyond the secret revelations of the XX Congress; in revealing that Stalin since the death of Lenin, had violated the established democratic norms; in revealing publicly the provocational character of the death of Kirov; in placing the origins of the "cult of personality" in the year 1933-34, Krushgiven a powerful argument for the judicial revision of the Moscow Trial and for the judicial rehabilitation of whole Bolshevik Old Guard, with Trotsky at their head. It is certain that in the USSR itself and in all the Communist parties of the world, voices demanding the rehabilitation of those unjustly accused will multiply, and that in deciding on the details of ihe murder optudicial to open enquiry Kirov, the soviet bureaucracy will have more and more difficulty in escaping these rehabilitations, already prepared for by the erection of the monument to the victims of the stalinist terror and by the removal of Stalin's body from the Mausoleum in the Red Square.
The efforts of the bureaucracy will now concentrate on the refusal of a political rehabilitation of the Bolshevik Old Guard and above all Trotsky. But in doing so, the bureaucracy will be faced more and more with the demand to discuss publicly, and openly, the ideas of the Oppositions, to republish their works, to examine their points of view in the light of past events, all of which will lead the crisis of Stalinism onto a higher plane, a political plane. B) By making public the difference between the CPSU and the Albanian CP — and by this clash the ditterence between the CPSU and the Chinese UP — Krushchev has tavoured a new and rapid differentiation between and among the PCs. At present outside our tendency, there are now three different political tendencies which can be seen within the communist world: the Krushchev tendency, the Chinese and the Yugoslav tendencies. Within these tendencies a whole series of differentiations can be observed, that of the Italian CP, that of the Albanian CP which is not the same as that of the Chinese CP and that of the Polish CP which has begun to reappear after the long "ebb" which followed the "Polish October" of 1956. The French CP has publicly opposed itself to the Italian CP. The Cuban CP defends positions on the nature of the Cuban state which differ from those of other Communist Parties. An extreme case of public differentiation is certainly that of the majority of the Indian CP which has publicly allied itself with its own bourgeoisie against the Chinese CP on the latest border incidents.
These differentiations can only be accentuated.
This new acute phase in the crisis of Stalinism can be explained in the last analysis by the acceleration of the revolutionary process as much in the workers states themselves as in the colonial countries, accompanied by an aggravation or a sharpening of the class struggle in many Imperialist countries (Belgium, Great-Britain, Italy, France).
In the USSR for the first time since the coming to power of Krushchev, a political pressure from below has been added to that of the consumers on the government. Demonstrations of a spontaneous nature stemming from political disagreements implicit or open with the dominant fraction of the bureaucracy have been multiplied; a strike at Odessa; student demonstrations on the arrival of the "marchers for Peace"; demonstra-
22 tions around the poet Evtouchenko; ideological discussion within the party against the rule which forbade momentarily the formation of fractions; demands to pursue destalinisation etc. This pressure has not only been powerful within the youth, intellectuals, but also within the Party itself.
In the countries and movements embarked on the colonial revolution, the illusions of peaceful coexistance, the prattling on the "spirit of Camp David" , the general orientation of the soviet butowards an with the colonial bourgeoisie, its passivity in relation to the Algerian Revolution — besides that of the French CP - the miserable fate of the Egyptian CP and of Iraq as a consequence of the catastrophic policy dictated by the Kremlin; the unimportant role or no role at all played by the Algerian CP or the Cuban CP in the two momentous revolutions which have unrolled in these countries -these are signs of a refusal to utilise the enormous potential of the colonial revolution in favour of world socialist revolution. These multiple attempts to restrain, even to stop this revolution, have provoked discussions and an increasing discontent within these parties and countries, for whom the Chinese party has made itself in part the interpreter, and these have exerted an enormous pressure on the dominant stratum of the soviet bureaucracy. Even within the state, which this bureaucracy controls, even in Moscow, the courageous anti-imperialist activity of the colonial students of Lumumba University has led on several occasion to publie skirmishes with the bureaucratic apparatus and even with the police as was the case in the last demonstration hefore the French Embassy in favour of the liberation of Ben Bella.
The interaction between the revolutionary tide in the USE itself, the evolution of the world revolution and the effects of this twofold development on the CPSU and the world CPs, now gives crisis of Stalinism more and more the appearance of a permanent, explosive process, advancing by leaps and bounds, and subject to sensational transformations. Whatever the attempts of the bureaucracy to stop this process, as after the XXth Congress, the chances of their succeeding grow less and less.
Why has Krushcher taken the enormous risk of the revelations of the XXIInd Congress and the publie conflict with the Albanian CP? Even acknowledging the fact of his personality which displays an adventuristic streak in most spheres, it is impossible to explain this tactic, full of extreme dangers for the soviet bureaucracy other than by the difficult political situation in which the pre-
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL sent master of the Kremlin finds himself: he finds himself caught between a double opposition, the one representing the opposition of the dynamic, progressive, young revolutionary forces in soviet society, and in the communisi Parties, and the other representing the opposition of the most conservative and the most retrograde forces of the bureaucracy which oppose themselves more and more bitterly to the innovations which Krushchev has outlined in a number of spheres.
It is the power of this double pressure, to which no doubt is joined that of the military caste (it has never accepted the reduction of the military budget and forces of the last years) which has driven Krushchev into a desperate choice, in order to prevent his enemies allying against him. This coalition was favoured by the persistance of the agricultural crisis and notably by the relative failure of the "virgin lands" experiment which he had sponsored. His policy had two main planks: in the international sphere a sharpening of tension in relation to Imperialism (Berlin crisis, return to nuclear 50 Megaton Bomb), with the object of disarming the critics who reproached him with making concessions to Washington; the sphere of internal policy, a renewed destalinisation which was the most suitable manoeuver to guarantee a large mass and to isolate his soviet and international adversaries by presenting them "accessories" crimes of Stalin partisans of a return to Stalinist methods. the soviet masses wish avoid at all costs. But by acting with this audacity and so prolonging his power, Krushchev time opened a dykes surrounding the power and privileges of bureaucracy. Through these the flow of revolutionary criticism can find a path with more and more chance of provoking ful echos the soviet masses. And if Krushchev presents himself before the masses for the moment anyway as the hero of destalinisation, it will not be long before the denunciations of the role which Malenkov played in the purge in Armenia, of the denunciations of the role played by Kaganovitch in the purge among the railway workers leads to the insistant demand: who organised the purge in the Ukraine...
After his arrival in power, Krushchev enabled to revolutionary tide in the USSR at the level attained at the XX Congress, above all thanks to promises (in part moreover realised) to raise the standard of life of the soviet was to contain the pressure at the XXII Congress at the same level, by promising the workers the solution of all their problems... in twenty years. It was to be a treaty in exchange for which, the soviet people was called upon to tolerate the power of the bureaucracy
for the whole period of "the construction of Com- try. It is easy
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL munism".
But the pressure of the masses showed itself too strong to be contained at such a level. So it was necessary to widen the breach and pursue destalinisation, Krushcher is without doubt hoping to find a new cushion. Will he succeed? In any case it is unlikely that he will obtain the breathing space of five years as was the case in the period between 1956-1961. With the aid of the pressure of the international revolution, it is very prohable that the soviet proletariat will advance in a few years rapidly on the road of the political revolution which must overthrow the bureaucracy as the dominant caste.
23 to refute this argument. But it would be otherwise more difficult for the bureaucrats to refute the explanation of a political counter revolution which has occurred in the Soviet Union, on the basis of the new mode of production introduced by the October Revolution, in the same way that the Thermidorian counter revolution originated in the course of the French Revolution. without this implying a return to the Ancien Regime. For it the editorial writer of Pravda affirms that a single man cannot radically modify the social and political regime of the USSR, how can a Marxist admit that the assassination of hundreds and thousands of people, the liquidation of all the Bolshevik Old Guard, the liquidation of the leadership of the Red Army, events which caused terrible harm and suffering
IV
The attempt of the soviet bureaucracy to place pressing thus social conflicts), are simply sequels its crimes purely at the door of Stalin, and to of the obscure a Marxist socio-economic critique by the subterfuge of the denunciation alone of the More at no techine of personality" is doomed and can already be regarded as having failed. More and more, in the communist parties of the entire world, including that of the USSR, the question is posed: how were these crimes possible and why was it necessary to take more than twenty or twenty five years to denounce them? At the last central committee of the POUP (Polish CP), Oskar Lange posed the question of a Marxist explanation of the "cult of personality" and he asked the "soviet comrades" to provide an explanation. Gomulka mentioned the isolation of the USSR and its backward state. In the document of the Secretariat of the Italian CP, the necessity for an explanation is equally underlined with the same demand addressed to the CP of the USSR.
The publication of a long editorial in Pravda of the 22 November 1961 devoted in part to a polemic against the idea of a "degeneration of the to the USSR, events of a social dimension (ex-
"cult of personality" mysteriously arose, simply "regrettable incidents" and not the product of an extreme degeneration of the political regime, a degeneration whose nature has laid bare?
The Trotskyist analysis of the bureaucratic degeneration of soviet power will arouse more and more interest, will find more and more echos within the CPs, particularly within the workers states and the USSR itself. This will be our major contribution to the discussion now in process in these countries, a contribution which will powerfully combat any tendency towards revisionism and defeatism in relation to communist principles; maintain intact the whole Marxist Leninist heritage and give a principled and political reply to all those problems which are posed in the workers states at the present stage.
V
The idea of the "Guide-State" of the world • of the 0"
the idea of the "iron monolithism"
USSR" which is in fact spoken of quite openly porletariat; in different milieux of the Italian CP, particularly among the young, proves that here and now this debate has begun within the CPSU itself. manner in which this debate is developing allows the Fourth International to intervene all the weight of its experience and of its revolutionary Marxist position on the nature of the Soviet Union. The world Trotskyist movement is the only one the explanation of Stalinism according to the rigorously scientific criteria of Marxism Leninism. It is the only analysis which sees the phenomenon of Stalinism a social phenomenon explicable by the contradictions of Soviet society.
It is not by chance that the editorial of Pravda only polemicises wwith those who conceive the "deof the USSR" as implying establishment of capitalist property in that coun of the world communist movement - two eminently revisionist and anti-Leninist ideas elevated to the level of dogmas in the Stalinist epoch have been transformed now in an unexpected manner against the soviet bureaucracy. They have led to a more and more rapid and chaotic differentiation in the international communist movement, to the development of centrifugal tendencies which, in so far as the distinction and separation between party and state is always denied, run the risk of threatening the political, economic and military alliance between the workers states. In the absence of a genuine communist International, having a structure founded on democratic centralism the outbreak of any ideological discussion — absolutely normal and inevitable among communist parties — ends rapidly in a rupture
24 of unity in action. In the absence of a healthy internal life, of a genuine proletarian democracy and freedom for the various tendencies, this discus. sion ends in opposition between national bureaucracies, between the CPs of the different countries, each bureaucracy maintaining the fiction of "monolithism" within its own party. While the present currents would seem to be international in scope, and all the important communist parties contain in their ranks representatives of these different currents, bureaucratic centralism stifles all the minorities within the parties and gives to the necessary international discussion, the harmful and dangerous aspect of a quarrel between states or nations. This situation will be aggravated so long as the world communist movement will not put into practice a frank and complete return to the principles of Leninism which include:
1) The suppression of bureaucratic centralism and its replacement by Leninist democratic centralism which implies the right to form tendencies. The reestablishment of entire freedom of discussion, of a real regime of proletarian democwithin all the communist parties, with the regular appearance of Internal Bulletins besides Open Discussions in the public press so that a genuine ideological and political discussion can develop periodically.
2) The organisation of an International disin the communist movement on all controversial questions, past and present. The organized participation at this discussion of the opposition communist currents who have been excluded from above all the Fourth International, he ul and from various communist parties, notably who first denounced the crimes of Stalin. The publication in the USSR and in all the workers' states, the circulation within all the communist parties, of all the materials and platforms of the opposition within the CPSU, above all of the Left Opposition, of Trotsky, Zinovier and Kamener, and the opposition of Bukharin.
3) The preparation of a world congress of the communist movement which will lay the basis for the reconstitution of a Communist International founded on Democratic Centralism and on proletarian democracy, with the participation of all the parties and communist currents without any exclusions.
4) The admission of the principle of a precise distinction between the tasks and duties of communist parties, the frank and public discussion between allied parties with a unanimous effort to reestablish the necessary alliance, on a basis of equality, between all the workers' siates, and above all between the USSR and Peoples Republic of China. The abandoning of all discriminatory meas-
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL ures of economic sanctions in regard to the Yugoslav, Chinese and Albanian People's Republies.
In defending this platform, Trotskyists, conscious of their responsibilities, are acting not to defend narrow fractional positions but for the cause of communism, the workers' states and the world revolution as a whole.
Their proposals to organise the discussion and resolve the world crisis of communism are the only ones which, while striking a decisive blow at the soviet bureaucracy and at the various national bureaucracies, take into account the preservation and strengthening of the cohesion among the workers states, the reinforcing 'and not the weakening of the unity of action of the workers movement and of the international communist movement.
VI
The dynamic of the discussion which has been opened up in the international communist movement tends to raise all the problems to re-examine all dogmas, to put into question all the aspects of stalinist polisy. We Trotskyist can encourage a discussion as large, as general as possible, firmly based on the principles of Marxism-Leninism, leaving no question, no mystery, no problem unexplored on the grounds that it is "too explosive" to be discused. The young com munist generations in the whole world, are demanding imperiously that the truth be told. The revolution has nothing to hide from them.
This discussion poses all the fundamental problems of communist politics. It transcends by this fact, very largely, the debate between the stalinists and the Yugoslav communists, between the Krushchevites and the Chinese communists, debates which have a more conjunctural character, more limited to a specific zone of the communist programme. That is why, without excluding the possibility of tactical alliances to gain advantage on specific issues, above all within the communist parties themselves, task of Trotskyist above all that of showing in this debate their programmatic solution on all controversial questions.
The necessity for such an attitude stems especially from the ideologically heretogeneous character of the currents in process, are not yet clearly defined and limited and which in general combine very advanced positions on certain questions with conservative and retrograde positions on others. More exactly the reciprocal positions adopted today on the question of dethinese bravereich thee stalinisation, by the soviet bureaucracy and the can be explained by the different pressures which these two bureaucracies are faced with in the same way that the Chinese bureau-
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL cracy adopts a more advanced position in relation is particularly under the pressure of this revolution, through its international situation and in the worsened objective conditions of enormous tensions in the social forces in China, which are hardly of a nature to encourage a bureaucracy to enter the path of destalinisation.
Krushchev on the contrary undergoes more and more the pressure of a modern proletariat, the second in the world in number and in status and without doubt the first in general culture and political level, all of which pushes the soviet leader on a different path when he is obliged to make
25 Stalinist regime, which is moreover in contradiction with certain positions taken up by the Chinese CP itself in 1956-57. We criticise the pronounced bureaucratic aspects of its own regime in we demand a frank and full return to proletarian democracy and to the Leninist regime in the Chinese CP and a general and free discussion, within this party, on all the questions debated within the international communist movement. While supporting the just criticisms of the Chinese CP in relation to the inadmissible policy of the reduction of soviet economic aid to China (the commercial exchanges between the two countries diminished by more than 35% in 1960-61), we criticise at the same time the excesses of rhythm of the "leap forward "and demand concessions.
1) In relation to the Krushchev tendency, we will give a critical support to its struggle for destalinisation against the more conservative tenden- of the difficulties of the two recent years, and cies but at the same time demanding that the of the whole problem of the sacrifices which can whole truth be told, that all those guilty be denounced, that the rehabilitation of the victims be public, complete and individual, without leaving any case in doubt, beginning with that of Trotsky himself. At the same time, we will pursue our revolutionary criticism in relation this tendency, by denouncing the power and privileges in the USSR itself, by defending the whole programme of the anti-bureaucratic political revolution in the USSR (workers councils, reestablishment and expansion of a real soviet power, recognition of the right of several soviet parties to exist, democratic reorganisation of planification, ceiling for salaries of party members etc.) We must continue in the same way our revolutionay criticism of the Menshevik conciliationist policy in relation to the colonial revolution emanating from the Krushchev faction. We must continue our revolutionary criticism of the strategy of Krushchev, which in basing itself on an illusory "peaceful coexistence" — not without adventuristic oscillations struggle against the threat of war from Imperial. ism does not place emphasis on the mobilization
Imperialist countries, the colonial and semi-colonial countries, and in the final analysis on the overthrow of capitalism in its main citadels.
2) In relation to the Mao-Tse-Tung tendency, we give it, as in the past, critical support where it defends a sharper attitude in relation to Imperialism and the colonial bourgeoisie, where it real support to the revolutions in process (Algeria, Laos), above all where it abandons the stalinist conception of the "revolution by stages" in the colonial countries and advances empirically, in its own way, towards the theory of the permanent revolution. At the same time, we maintain our revolutionary criticism in regard to its inadmissible and unprincipled defence of the critical, democratic examination in a Leninist spirit of the present economic orientation, in the light
• he chin car people on th
a rapid industrialisation of the country.
3) In regard to the Yugoslav CP, we give it, as in the past, a critical support on the question of workers' councils and on the more democratic administration of the economy in general, while criticising the pronounced bureaucratisation of the party, the opportunism of its foreign policy, its attitude to the colonial revolutions and to colonial bourgeoisie in particular, and demanding also a return by this party to the organisational methods and principles of Leninism the organization of a genuine Soviet State, founded on real proletarian democracy with the recognition of the right to exist of several tendencies and soviet parties.
4) As regards the Italian CP, we support the objectively positive stand of certain of its attitudes in so far as it encourages destalinisation, legitimizes in practice the right of tendencies and the variety of parties after the conquest of power, while criticising vigorously its opportunism questions of internal policy, its inability to define a revolutionary road towards socialism in contemporary Italian society, and completely rejecting its conception of "polycentrism", against which we uphold the idea of a Communist International founded on democratic centralism and the widest proletarian democracy.
5) In regard to the Albanian CP and the Molotov group in the USSR, while denouncing the extreme bureaucratic character of these tendencies, the crimes of which they have been guilty or which they are committing still in Albania, we demand that their documents and platforms notably the letter of Molotov to the CC of the CPSU — are made public and submitted to inter-
26 national discussion. We are and remain adversaries of administrative elimination in relation to this tendency as in relation to every tendency in the workers' movement. We are and remain opposed to every foreign, bureaucratic-military intervention i to settle the fate of the Enver- Hodja clique. His elimination can only be the work of the urgent and necessary political anti-bureaucratic revolution of the proletariat and toiling masses of Albania themselves.
Everywhere we must make known as widely as possible internationally, those correct positions adopted on any particular question by a communist party with a view to accentuating the general evolution of the crisis of Stalinism. Everywhere we must defend Leninist principles, so that we become known as the most principled, the most responsible, the only inheritor of Leninism within the International communist movement, the only tendency capable of giving an overall solution to the problems which at the present stage are being posed to International workers' movement.
VII
Our practical intervention in the discussion within the communist movement and in the crisis of Stalinism must be more particularly concentrate on specific aspects of the question according to the conditions in each country, according to whether the communist movement has already embarked or not upon the discussion and at what level the discussion has reached.
In a general way, the questions of the rehabilitation of the Bolshevik old guard, in particular of Trotsky, the revising of the Moscow Trials, the rehabilitation of all the victims assassinated by the GPU outside the frontiers of the USSR (Andres Nin, Leon Sedov, Ignace Reiss, Rudolf Klement, Erwin Wolf and the numerous victims of the GPU in Spain) have occupied the most important place in the first phase of our intervention. They will continue to play an important role in parties such as the French PC or the British CP, which have not yet explicitly admitted the "judicial rehabilitation" whereas the Italian CP has practically done so. The explieit admission of the Italian CP cannot however take the place of a judicial revision and a formal rehabilitation.
the discussion progresses however fundamental ideological and more precise political questions will transcend the first plane of our intervention in the crisis of Stalinism. These questions are notably the following:
1) The marxist explanation of the "cult of personality", " that is to say of the bureaucratic degeneration of the USSR, and the discussion of
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL the political positions defended by Trotsky and trotskyism since 1923.
2) The definition of a Leninist policy in relation to the colonial revolution (for the CPs of the workers' states and the Imperialist coun tries) and in the colonial revolution (for the CPs of the colonial and semi-colonial countries).
3) The definition of a Leninist policy in the struggle against the threats of an Imperialist war and in relation to the specific threat of nuclear arms which casts its shadow over the future of humanity.
4) The defining of a revolutionary policy for the overthrow of capitalism in the Imperialist countries themselves, based on a correct analysis of the objective situation of these countries and of the situation of their working class and of their workers' movement.
5) The defence of the principle of the democratic centralist communist International and of our Leninist conception of the relations between communist parties on the one hand and between workers states on the other.
6) The reestablishment of the freedom constitute tendencies within the communist parties.
7) The defence of our programme for the reestablishment and expansion of soviet democracy and proletarian democracy in the workers' states as outlined in the document "Decline and Fall of Stalinism" adopted by the 5th World Congress of the Fourth International.
The International Secretariat calls upon all the sections of the Fourth International, all Trotskyists of the entire world to act with the greatest audacity, ardour and enthusiasm in this battle for the Bolshevik Leninist heritage, in this struggle to regenerate the world communist movement. The possibilities for the triumph of our ideas, for the strengthening of our organisations and for their fusion with a large communist vanguard, with large workers vanguards are greater than ever in
All Trotskyist must intervene in a resolute manner, so that the possibilities can be effectively exploited. They should prepare for 1962 a great world congress of revolutionary and Trotskyist unity, which will constitute a real pole of interest and attraction for the thousands and thousands of communist militants who throughout the world are asking questions to which only the Fourth International can offer coherent, satisfactory and revolutionary solutions.
THE INTERNATIONAL SECRETARIAT OF THE FOURTH INTERNATIONAL
5 December 1961