19 JUNE 2004 - 40 YEARS SINCE THE START OF WORK BY THE GENERAL SECRETARY OF THE WORKERS PARTY OF KOREA, COMRADE KIM JONG IL IN THE APPARATUS OF THE CC WPK
To the General Secretary of the Workers’ Party of Korea,
Chairman of the State Committee of Defence of the DPRK,
Supreme commander of the Korean Peoples Army,
Great Leader of the Korean people,
Comrade KIM JONG IL
Pyongyang, DPRK
Dear Comrade KIM JONG IL
On behalf of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and myself personally, I congratulate YOU on the 40th anniversary since the start of your work in the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea.
Having made in student years the firm decision to devote yourself fully to the cause of the Korean revolution, You have tirelessly and resolutely mastered the practice of political leadership, working in the apparatus of the Central Committee of the party, already having excellent fundamental theoretical training within the precincts of the Kim Il Sung University. Natural talents and the highest working capacity have allowed YOU during the years of study at the University, to deeply study the works and classics of Marxism-Leninism, and also to acquire encyclopaedic knowledge in the field of political economy, philosophy, military science and production economics. Working in the apparatus of the Central Committee, YOU delved into all questions of the life of society. It is hard to name those spheres of its activity to which you have not made a significant contribution. Your scientific work on questions of planning, the organization of manufacture and energy, development and modernisation of national education and the public health services, development of culture, military science, etc., have become in the DPRK the plan of implementation of the most colourful and grandiose dreams.
In the apparatus of the Central Committee of the WPK, You have passed all stages of official growth from an instructor of a department, a manager of a sector and a department up to the Secretary of the Central Committee of the party. In 1997, you were unanimously elected as General Secretary of the Workers’ Party of Korea.
A ruling revolutionary party in a socialist state is the organizing and directing force of socialist construction responsible for the country’s destiny, its development and for the happy life for each of its citizens. You always were with the people, in their hearts, always knew, what the people live with and consequently, the decisions of the party, Your decisions as its leader, after the death of the Great Leader Comrade Kim Il Sung, are momentous.
You have placed the work of the party apparatus of the WPK, so that all its workers from instructor up to the secretary of the Central Committee on a yearly basis for one or three months work as secretaries ?of primary organisations in the districts most remote from the capital, in agricultural cooperatives or small enterprises. It allows workers of the party apparatus to always be together with the people and never to forget about its needs and always to be a part of the people.
You were not broken by the enormous difficulties, which fell upon the country at the end of the 1990-s. You withstood and the main thing, convincingly triumphed contrary to all the pessimistic predictions of bourgeois political scientists and politicians. Moreover, You have forced the entire bourgeois world to observe the successes of the DPRK in the field of development of atomic energy, space technology, development and modernisation of the Armed Forces of the DPRK. The imperialists were left only gnashing their teeth, not having a chance to bite the DPRK. Therefore nowadays, they are designing new acts of provocation, every possible speculation is being set up concerning the DPRK, which do not bring the desired results, despite the volume of dollar injections into organized provocations.
We understand that many difficulties may not have arisen if it were not for the criminal policy of the CPSU (Communist Party of the Soviet Union) concerning the DPRK at the start of the 1960-s. We understand also that the difficulties in the DPRK considerably increased because of the treachery of the higher ranks of the party nomenclatura of the CPSU against the people at the beginning of the 1990-s. This led to the demise of the USSR, a significant weakening of the world communist movement and towards the considerable strengthening of the imperialistic camp because of this. The CPSU having betrayed the DPRK in the beginning of the 1960-s, forced socialist Korea during the country’s earliest period to solve all the questions of socialist construction using only its own strengths. The ideas of Juche, formulated by the Great Leader Comrade Kim Il Sung and formed into a political system by you, Dear Comrade Kim Jong Il, are today a guiding star for the construction of a prosperous, flourishing socialist society in the DPRK. The policy of Songun developed by you and put into practice guarantees accelerated advancement forward along the chosen way in modern conditions.
Your numerous scientific works on questions of communist ideology and party building have become an important contribution to the treasury of communist worldview, a guidebook for those parties, which are struggling for the establishment of a socialist system in their own country in conditions of imperialist encirclement.
On the occasion of the anniversary, allow me to wish YOU, Dear Comrade Kim Jong Il, good health and great strength for the fastest implementation of the teachings of the Great Leader Comrade Kim Il Sung, your great plans of socialist construction in Korea and unification of the Korean nation.
With sincere respect, N.A.Andreeva, General Secretary of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (ACPB) 9 June, 2004, Leningrad
“The party’s guiding ideology determines its character, the aims of its struggle, the main directions of party building and party activity and the fighting capacity and strength of a party depends on it. A party can only become great if it is guided by great ideas... "
From the book by General Secretary of the WPK Comrade Kim Jong Il. “The Workers’ Party of Korea is the party of the Great Leader Comrade Kim Il Sung”. (Korea, Pyongyang, 1995)
“The party’s guiding ideology determines its character, the aims of its struggle, the main directions of party building and party activity and the fighting capacity and strength of a party depends on it. A party can only become great if it is guided by great ideas”.
“By not merging with the masses, a party will fail to carry out a revolution victoriously and build a new society. When the leader, the party and masses form a unified monolith led by the leader, the strongest, firmest subject of the revolution is formed and becomes the great driving force in the revolution and the construction of a new society”.
“Under the leadership of comrade Kim Il Sung, our party constantly strengthened the ideological-educational work of all its members with the revolutionary ideas of the party, the Juche ideas, and also vigorously developed the struggle against ideological distortions, flunkyism, dogmatism, revisionism, factionalism and other ideological degenerative elements of all types as well as elements of sectarianism. Thus, the party has managed finally to put an end to factionism, historically for a long time bringing much harm to our revolution and to put a barrier up preventing the penetration into our environment of modern revisionism and any other opportunist ideological trends. The fact that our party has overcome factionism and flunkeyism in the communist movement in Korea and has resolutely barred the way to modern day revisionism and other types of opportunism, it has marked a historical victory in guaranteeing unity in the party ranks, preservation of their purity, and in the establishment of a unified party system”.
“Today all members of our party are thoroughly armed with its unified ideology, that is, with the revolutionary ideas of comrade Kim Il Sung”.
“All members of the party are monolithically unified around the leader on the basis of unity of ideas, belief, comradely love and feeling of revolutionary duty, in which lies the source of steadfastness, indestructibility of unity and the unity of our party”.
“Organization and discipline are essential requirements of the socialist, communistic movement based on collectivism and it is the main guarantee in preserving the fighting spirit of a revolutionary, fighting party. Observance of the principles of establishing homogeneous ideas, united leadership is provided by organization and discipline, in a separation from which unity and unity of numbers are inconceivable.
The party of the working class, having lost organization and discipline, cannot lead the revolution itself and turns into a powerless group having only just a name.
Comrade Kim Il Sung achieved the exact embodiment of the principles of democratic centralism in party building and party activity that has led to the establishment within the party of a system of uniform leadership, to the establishment of conscious revolutionary discipline. Democratic centralism as organizational principles of our party demand the development of democracy under the condition of the establishment of the discipline of centralism. Centralism signifies revolutionary discipline and order allowing the whole party to function, as a unified mechanism, under the unified guidance of the leader.
Without him, unity, party unity, and coordination of its actions are inconceivable.
Democracy is aimed at developing the party line and policy, extending the will of the party masses and to reveal the entire charge of conscious enthusiasm and creative initiative of members of the party in the struggle for the realization of this line and policy. When the discipline of centralism is weakened, unscrupulous deviations under the signboard “democracy” appear and that leads to the creation of disorder in the party and to its split. In our party, the principles of democratic centralism were strictly observed and are observed. As a result, the guidance of the leader is also freely and firmly carried out at all levels from the center to the local organizations. A revolutionary atmosphere has been established when all party organizations and members of the party dominate, having adopted the line and policy of the party as their own, consistently put them into practice with great enthusiasm and creative initiative.
The expansion of the functions of the Communist Party organizations, the strengthening of the role and activisation of party life are the key moments in the increasing of organization and discipline of the party”.
“Party life is a school of revolutionary education”.
“In separation from party life, it is impossible to present unity of an ideological system and the actions of millions of members of the party”.
“In principle, class demands of the working class are equitable to the radical interests of all the working masses; its historical mission is to achieve social liberation not only of the working class itself, but also of all working people”.
“Taking into exact account the root interests of the working class, all the working masses and the order of the epoch of independence, proceeding from the concrete reality of our country, Dear Comrade Kim Il Sung put forth and has successfully carried out the line on the creation of a mass party of the working people uniting workers, peasants and labour intelligentsia”.
“Being guided by the line on the building of a mass party, our party widely accepted into its ranks advanced people from the environment of workers, peasants and labour intelligentsia, correctly combining quantitative growth of the party ranks and their qualitative strengthening that has enabled to assert firmly the proletarian, revolutionary character of the party, to achieve its continuous expansion and strengthening”.
“The process of building socialism is a process of transformation of all members of society on the model and similarity of the working class, a process of their education in the spirit of the traditions of the working class. A line on the building of a mass party fully corresponds to the natural demands of socialist construction. The realization by our party of this line led to the continuous increase in membership while preserving the party’s proletarian character, the further strengthening of its base in the masses, and gave a powerful impulse to the process of education of all members of society in the spirit of the traditions of the working class.
The great leader comrade Kim Il Sung built our party in view of its future development so that the cause of the party confidently proceeded from generation to generation”.
“The party of the working class is the weapon of the revolution”.
“Despite the incalculable difficulties and tests of endurance, the revolution and the construction of socialism have taken a powerful head start, and in all spheres of life in the country and people there were great changes”.
“Our society is the most stable and strongest society in which all people united by a single idea around the party and leader, forms one big friendly family. In the whole of society, a healthy, lively, emotional mood and a revolutionary atmosphere dominate. Today in our people in full measure, fine communist morals are shown: people give their strengths for the good of the society and the collective, comradely helping and strengthening each other. This clearly demonstrates the advantages and the power of the socialist system in our country and convincingly testifies to the high ideologically spiritual qualities of our people”.
“Directing the revolution and construction of a new society, our party always supports the demands and interests of the broad masses, relying on their forces and in the struggle has formed with it a single entity.
The masters of the revolution and the construction of a new society are the broad masses, and namely they are the driving force of the revolution of the construction the main thesis of the Juche idea on revolution”.
“If you believe in the people and lean its strengths then you will triumph a hundredfold, but if you alienate yourself from them, you will be rejected by them and you will not avoid defeat by a hundredfold”.
“Namely this has become the glorious starting point, the highest principle of all the activity of our party”.
“.. constantly being dipped into the depths of the people to breathe with them one air, self-sacrificingly serving them and, leaning on them to solve the revolutionary tasks is the immutable law of the activity of our party and our workers”.
“The history of the revolutionary movement shows that if you retreat one step in revolutionary principles you will take two steps back and if you retreat by two steps you will be thrown ten steps back, and in the end you will kill the revolution. The absence of a revolutionary adherence to principles, sequence of a line and policy are distinctive features of opportunism of all types. Revolutionary adherence to principles in fulfilling the cause of socialism guarantees loyalty to the party of the working class, to the cause of socialism its conviction in its correctness and by will of the party take the cause of socialism to the end”.
“Juche in ideology, independence in policy, in the economy, self-defense in the defence of the country - this line put forward by comrade Kim Il Sung is the revolutionary, independent line which a red thread penetrates the principle of Juche, the spirit of independence. Our party resolutely defends this line and consistently puts it into practice.
ARMY ORIENTATED SONGUN POLICY
“The revolutionary line Songun and the policy of Songun are a scientifically proven revolutionary line and method of policy most correctly reflecting the demands of the epoch and revolution”.
Kim Jong IL
During our epoch, the resolute fight between socialism and imperialism continues.
However, the struggle between communist ideology and bourgeois ideology, the personified by socialist states and imperialist states, has nowadays become especially fierce in character by virtue of the wrecking of the USSR, the wrecking of the socialist camp and the monstrous enrichment of the imperialist states due to the impetuous robbery by them of the countries of the 3rd world, and also by virtue of the escalating military potential by the imperialist powers, especially the USA, using advanced achievements of military and space science.
In their claims for complete world domination, the USA is today destroying the developed international system of security, crudely infringing on the sovereignty of other states, and unleashing aggression against the countries which have for the USA certain? economic or strategic interests. That was the way it was with Grenada and Panama in the 1980-s, with Iraq and Yugoslavia in the 1990-s and again the aggression of the USA against Iraq in 2003, which is still continuing.
Today those countries asserting their independence and sovereignty in order to survive and defend themselves have to have a sufficiently high military potential, well organized, well equipped modern defense system and attacking army, and also a modern defence industry.”
“A person’s conviction is the main criterion of the dignity of his personality.”
"Without conviction it is impossible to preserve conscience and morals, and without them, convictions cannot be defended.
Kim Jong Il
“A revolution is only worth something, if it is capable of defending itself” (V.I.Lenin).
The Korean revolution today defends itself by carrying out military-guided policies political method in the fight for the defence of the country, the very existence of the socialist state. The essence of the ideas of Songun consists in making military science the priority, to consider the army a support and the main force when carrying out a revolution and construction.
Strengthening the army and defensive power guarantees the maintaining of the dignity of the nation, the sovereignty of the country and the peaceful work of its citizens.
"FOR THE PARTY OF WORKING CLASS THERE IS NO WORK MORE IMPORTANT THAN IDEOLOGICAL WORK"
(From the book of General Secretary WPK comrade Kim Jong Il “To regard as of paramount importance ideological work, the natural demand for the cause of socialism”)
(Korea, Pyongyang, 1995)
“The party of the working class is, inherently, a leading political organization, which, using ideas as the weapon, wakens the broad masses, organizes and directs them along the path of revolution and construction of a new society. Its most powerful, unique weapon is ideas. Only having taken them for the basis and having provided in all affairs advanced carrying out of ideological work, can it with honour execute its main duty, the mission of the leading political organization”.
“How the ideological work of the party of the working class is conducted and how far people are trained in the ideological plan, will depend on how far socialism will develop and strengthen, together with its destiny”.
“The ideological work of the party of the working class, fighting for socialism, is its ideologically theoretical activity on deepening and developing socialist ideas according to the demands of the time and the development of the revolution and is its ideological-educational work on familiarizing the broad masses with the ideas of socialism”.
“The incomparable advantages and invincible strength of socialism consist in that it comprehensively and to the full reveals the inexhaustible energy and mental abilities of the broad masses being the subject of history.
This is the advantage and the power of the ideas of socialism the realization of which is provided by ideological work”.
“Socialism is incompatible with private property and the capitalist market economy”.
“The establishment of a socialist system and the creation of the material-economic conditions does not mean automatically successful carrying out of work on education and re-education of all members of society in the spirit of new socialist ideas. And if under socialism all the conditions for an independent and creative life of the people are created and the people use the various good things, but among people active ideological work is not being conducted, then they, thinking this is natural, will not deeply realize how dear to them the socialist system is and then have a duty to defend it. Besides, if ideological work is not conducted among the people, then by measure of liberating people in socialist society from worries, and continuing the steady life, their revolutionary enthusiasm may gradually be reduced and then there would appear a susceptibility to live self-righteously. In that case people will self-denyingly not struggle for socialism and may, being deceived by false propaganda of imperialists and other reactionaries, start looking at capitalism through rose tinted glasses, and to go as far as betraying the cause of socialism”.
“The cause of socialism’s advancement forward should be accompanied by the continuous deepening and development of ideological work. The more the intrigues of the enemies of socialism become more furious, the more it is necessary to conduct ideological work more actively”.
“The mass media, literature and art are powerful ideological instruments of educating the masses, of their organization and mobilization”.
THE EDUCATIONAL LEVEL OF THE POPULATION DEFINES THE LEVEL OF CULTURE OF THE NATION
In the DPRK all the people study.
After the liberation of Korea from Japanese colonial rule and the establishment of people's power with the formation of the DPRK (on September 9, 1948) one of main priorities of activity of the Government became the question of the general education of the population. We shall note that towards the moment of the formation of the DPRK, in Korea there were in all, 12 people with higher education. Under the Constitution of 1972, a general compulsory 11-year education was introduced guaranteed by the system of free-of-charge training (4-years primary and further secondary education). All children of school age in the DPRK study and receive from the state textbooks, writing-books, school accessories, clothes for all seasons of the year at only symbolical prices (almost free-of-charge).
A harmonious system of higher education was established. At the Kim Il Sung University, Kim Chak Polytechnical University and other higher learning institutions of which there are more than a hundred, the training of national cadres takes place. In addition, the system of in-service education functions well. Throughout the country, there is a large network of libraries and bookshops, which are carrying out the function of public study. In the center of Pyongyang, the People’s Study Palace stands with an area of more than 100 thousand square meters with a book fund of 30 million volumes and 600 various halls and premises. Inside the Palace, it is possible to read and take books out, to receive information on the latest achievements in science and technology, to listen to and participate in various scientific seminars. Service of readers by literature is carried out at a modern technical level that provides the searching and granting of the ordered books within 3-5 minutes.
Study at higher learning institutions is free-of-charge and all students receive grants.
Already by the1980-s, the whole of the country’s adult population had secondary education. Now, the Government of the DPRK has laid down the aim of improving the quality of education according to the demands of the XXI century. According to a UNESCO program, a national plan has been developed until 2015 that undoubtedly, will be fulfilled. There are intermediate (control) plans of development of education until 2008.
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Wednesday, 7 October 2009
WHAT IS HAPPENING IN CHINA?
WHAT IS HAPPENING IN CHINA?
(OR: COUNTER REVOLUTION WITH “CHINESE CHARACTERISTICS”?..)
From Bolshevik newspaper “Vperod” No4 + No5 (120 +121) 2004
By Alexey Vikhrov from Minsk, Belorussia
This question worrys people and true supporters of the people’s socialist system in China, and its enemies more and more. Still: in fact China has a population of one billion three hundred million people. It is more than a quarter of all the population of the Earth!
If that is not enough, China is becoming a superpower, with an advanced, modern industry, with powerful rocket-nuclear potential. On total amount of industrial development, China will just about equal the United States of America. China is now the third space power in the world, with its own forces having launched a manned spaceship into space! The world actually depends on China’s destiny...
So what has been happening in China over the past few years?
For those who go to China, listen to programs on Chinese radio in Russian (or English), the news from there is becoming ever more disturbing.
The word "comrade" has practically gone out of use with the Chinese. Now, addressing each other (not counting members of the CPC- the Communist Party of China), they call themselves "mister".
Who now is the hero of the Chinese newspapers, radio and TV broadcasts?
Is it the worker of any factory who has fulfilled a production target ahead of schedule, a Chinese Stakhanovite (shock worker, as it was during the epoch of Chairman Mao Zedun?
Is it a tractor driver of a national commune who ploughed a field on time and prepared it for spring sowing?
Is it a designer who has created a new highly-efficient machine tool? Or perhaps a composer having written a fine song, which takes a man for his soul and helps him to live and work?
No. The worker, the tractor operator, the designer, the composer are not heroes of the Chinese newspapers, radio and TV programs anymore. So, who is the hero of the Chinese newspapers, radio and TV programs? Entrepreneurs, businessmen, i.e. people who know how “to make money”, have become the true "heroes" of present-day reporting and all the stories of the Chinese newspapers, radio and TV programs.
Here some examples of these literary "Masterpieces". A woman, a peasant, bought ten hens in a village and sold them in the city, without doubt, at a higher price. She repeated this operation many times. As a result she had accumulated a rather impressive sum of money (about a thousand yuans). The quantity of hens purchased and resold by her grew. The size of capital, naturally, also grew. Soon, she took out a loan of a few tens of thousands of yuans from the state, hired people (farm labourers: in fact wage labour in China is once again being allowed) who built her an integrated poultry farm. Hundreds of people now work on this integrated poultry farm. The financial state of the woman is now estimated in millions of yuans. And she does not live anymore in the simple country house. Now, the whole village looks at her new, modern, multi-storey private residence with an involuntary sigh.
The second example. A man bought up some cigarettes in a city, which were in high demand in the province, and sold them there. Also without doubt, by selling them at a higher price, he collected a decent sum, then took out a loan from the state to build (again by hiring labourers) a tobacco factory. His financial status too, now stands at millions of yuans.
A third example. One young man after graduating an institute was supposed to go to a village to work there as a teacher. However, he remained in the city, and engaged in trade. He sold tea, cigarettes, sweets, a chewing gum, cassettes etc. He did this for three years. He ended up opening his own tour firm- travel agency. Now for him, for example, on public holidays getting to the Canary Islands is all the same, like to an ordinary Chinese person from Peking going to visit relatives in the neigbouring province.
The fourth example. A clock factory, which in its due time produced a fine product, which was even exported and which was constantly fulfilling its production targets, suddenly "started knocking” - began working with faults. The factory was turned into a shareholders' enterprise. Most of the shares went to the director who actually became the owner of the factory. The factory after that, did not make a "big leap" forward in development. Over half the workers were laid off. On the economised means, output true enough, goes already only on export proceeds.
The most interesting in this case (and cases similar!) is that neither party bodies, nor law-enforcement bodies have taken any interest at all from where the director got the money from to buy the whole factory? What is amazing of all in such stories, is the use of the word "earned", when large sums of the money obtained by these "enterprising" people are spoken about. It is amazing because this word is used in the mass media of a country calling itself - socialist. In their understanding, the words to “obtain” and to "earn" are synonyms. It turns out that it is not just those who work at machine tools, on tractors, at Kuhlman drafting units, that is receive money for concrete work done, physical, intellectual, that earn money, but also those who buy something and resell it at a higher price, that is those who, simply speaking, are engaged in speculating and gambling.
Speculating, in their opinion, is also classed as "earnings". And those who are engaged in this "earning", are described as men of the hour whom ordinary Chinese are told to use and follow as an example. Similar examples very much remind us of what occured and is occuring on the territory of the ex-USSR. All these Chernomidins and Chubaises plundered our country and the billions which they acquired on this larceny, are also not not classed as state criminals. They are quite highly esteemed people and shown on TV. Instead of these thiefs being in prison, they sit in presidiums and "teach” the masses how to live..... The quantity of personal cars, built at their own manufacturing plants and the number of "foreign cars" has sharply increased in streets of Chinese cities. Advertising billboards of restaurants have begun to blind ones eyes literally. "Many" Chinese as Chinese radio informs, with pleasure visit them in the evenings. Youth walking on streets are dressed in modern jeans many of which have a label on them with the inscription: "Made in the USA”.
The Chinese "have grown fond of traveling". They have begun visiting other countries. What countries? The United States of America, Japan, Indonesia, Germany, France...
One can imagine, who these Chinese are who have grown fond of traveling, if one is to remember the cost of trips abroad to holiday resorts. Thousands of dollars!...
The number of marriages to foreigners (certainly, Americans first of all) has considerably increased. Many Chinese with satisfaction remain abroad to live...
XVI congress of the Communist party of China took place in November, 2002 in Peking. The Congress summed up the development of the country for the previous five years, generalized the experience of the work over the previous 13 years.
"The national economy continued to travel on the way of fast and healthy development" (from report of Dzen Dzemin). "Plentiful fruits were brought with reform and an openness. The system of socialist market economy has been created in the initial form. The public property sector has seriously become stronger, with confident strides in the reform of state enterprises. Individual, private and others sectors of the non-public sphere have developed rather quickly. The creation of the market system has been comprehensively developed. The life of the people as a whole has reached an average level of prosperity" (Dzen Dzemin).
What are the reforms taking place in China? To understand their essence, we shall glance at the figures from the report of Dzsen Dzemin. We shall leave to one side the party fanfare soundings of the report on the achieved successes, oath-like assurances of loyalty to the doctrine of Marx's - Engels - Lenin - Stalin and Ìàî Zedon.
Many present day party and state leaders know how to speak beautifully. Crowds of people adore them, the eyes and mouthes wide open. They listen and, apparently, get intoxicated by them. Only what then follows after these beautiful words? It is good, if it is a matter of simply sobering up. However, in fact what can happen is the falling into deep intoxication, a transformation of a person into a mad animal... So now, we shall glance at the figures in the report of Dzsen Dzemin. We shall take from them one of the most important. Here it is: out of the total number of enterprises in China, the state owns already less than half of them. In hands of the state are found only an absolutely small number of companies (approximately one thousand).
What does private mean? In this case, everything is clear.
What does joint-stock mean? Joint-stock companies are companies belonging to owners of shares on them (shareholders). Who is the real owner of the joint-stock enterprise? The one who owns the greatest number of shares. And who owns most of the shares? Naturally, whoever had the most money when buying them. And who usually has more money when buying them? Whoever most certainly had stolen the most money from the state as they say, did not go under.
They may ask - why stolen? Well, did he stand at the machine tool all day cutting metal? And did he “machine” metal so much, so as to be able to buy up the whole enterprise?! A whole factory?! A whole manufacturing plant?!
Therefore, the joint-stock enterprise is in its pure form - a capitalist enterprise.
And the state enterprises are not those same enterprises, which function under a socialist system. These are the enterprises at which capitalist laws operate. These are state capitalist enterprises.
From the tribune of the congress, the head of the party calling itself Communist, called for "improving the legal system of protection of private ownership "!
In China, businessmen, small, middle and large have appeared. Millions of businessmen...
Who are such businessmen?
In simple language - they are the bourgeoisie! That is - they are capitalists. Yes, as sad as it is and as awful as it is, in a country calling itself socialist, a class came about, having sunk in its time in Lethes, a class of capitalists, a class of "new Chinese".
It is interesting to know, what is new about them? That they in a thief-like way, authorized "from above", implanted by the present "people’s" power, implanted by a party at the head of the state loudly calling itself Communist, turned into private property, factories and manufacturing plants where tens and hundred of millions of ordinary Chinese people only yesterday working for themselves, for their own brotherly, workers'-and-peasants' state, but are now compelled to fill the pockets of these "criminals" so that they could built palaces for themselves "in a green zone", in the surburbs of Peking and Shanghai, and fly to the Canary Islands when they had nothing to do and have a good time there with the lovely pop stars.
Is this "new", what they have given to the Chinese people?!
But it was like this in China before. Yes, indeed they had this until 1949! These "servants of the people" drank a lot of blood from the Chinese people until the people lost patience, and had kicked them out... What need was there in returning to China these "patrons of the people”? To build in China as declared from the tribune of the congress, “an average prosperous, socialist society"?!
But if China is building a socialist society, then what about these capitalists? Since when have capitalists stood in the ranks of builders of socialism? The leadership of the Chinese communist party states that China is still at the first stage of building socialism.
The construction of socialism in such a huge country, with almost a billion and a half people, like China, is indoubtedly a long process. But does this mean that for the construction of socialism, even "with Chinese characteristics", it is necessary to turn back the wheel of history, to restore capitalism in China? If it is not capitalism, then what is it? Will the bourgeoisie really build socialism?! It is not clearly then, why overthrow it if it sponges off the people for the sake of the peoples’ prosperity, for the sake of the construction of socialism?! Why then did V.I.Lenin, J.V.Stalin, Ìàî Zedon struggl against the bourgeois agency in the communist movement, against the Mensheviks, Trotskyites, Bukharinites, Khrushchevites etc., if they can lead the peoples of the countries along the path of the construction of socialism? To speak about a Chinese NEP in this case is not necessary. It is not necessary for two reasons. Firstly, China already passed through the period of NEP in the 1950-s. Then for the revival of the economy destroyed during the long war years, many private enterprises were preserved. Besides, if their owners’ attitude was in favour of people's power, they were appointed as directors of these enterprises, and these became state-owned enterprises.
One should not forget either, that all these private, "NEP-style" enterprises in the Chinese People's Republic (like in its time in the Soviet Union) functioned in conditions of the dictatorship of the proletariat, in the conditions of the full control of the working class. Well, and secondly, to speak about a Chinese NEP in this case is not necessary also because towards the beginning of the present "reforms", China was no longer "backward and hammered" as supporters of these "reforms" try to present it as.
During the epoch of Chairman Mao Zedon, China turned into a powerful, advanced socialist power. The grain problem in China was practically solved. The Chinese people had forgotten about famine. People were full, dressed, and shoed. They did not have excesses, they did not drive about in "Mercedes", and did not build for themselves in the surburbs of cities of wonder-castles and palaces; they lived modestly, but they had prosperity. China came in as the top ten the most advanced countries of the world for industrial output of for example, steel, pig-iron, rolled steel, oil, machine tools, tractors, radios and TV equipment,. Already in Ìàî Zedon’s life, that is during the dictatorship of the proletariat, in China modern nuclear and space industry was created, tests of nuclear and hydrogen bombs, including an intercontinental ballistic missile were successfully carried out, and the first ever artificial satellite was launched into space.
Was this all sufficient for the further development of China’s economy, for the further construction of socialism in China?
Yes, it was enough. During the epoch of Chairman Mao Zedon, in China a powerful, fundamental socialist, industrial base from which quite successfully it was possible to push further "towards a developed and prosperous society" was created!
Why did this not take place in China? Why does socialism have to retreat there? If it was simply only a case of retreating - capitulating! The period of construction of socialism is not just the period of economic, industrial and agricultural construction; it also a period of incessant class struggle between the proletariat, which has established its power, and the bourgeoisie overthrown by the proletariat. Besides, it is not just the overthrown, but also again arising, and constantly looking for a slightest of openings for its own revival. The working class having weakened its control only for a minute, the bourgeoisie straight away are here, long-awaited.
Yes, in struggle sometimes it is necessary and to retreat. V.I.Lenin, introducing NEP, was compelled to retreat, but to retreat only for a short time, to gather forces. Besides retreating, he did not abolish in our country the dictatorship of the proletariat and did not abolish the control of the working class over all events in the country. Let us suppose that in China there was a temporary retreat from socialism. But why then when retreating, especially a temporary retreat, to go on to full capitulation before the enemy (the bourgeoisie is an enemy of the working class, the main, worst enemy!)?
The abolishing of the dictatorship of the proletariat in the Chinese People's Republic is true capitulation of the Communist Party of China before the class enemy. Where is this capitulation leading? Towards the liquidation of socialist construction in China. With the start of the present "reforms" in the Chinese People's Republic according to "the theory of Dzen Xiopen" there had been established a "democratic dictatorship of the people".
What does the "dictatorship of the people" mean? In Marxist-Leninist science this is something new. To be honest, it is not new for those who have not forgotten that something new is something quite often old and well forgotten. It is not new for those who are familiar at least with the simple elements of Marxist-Leninist science.
The state exists only in class society. The state is a body of the domination of one class over other classes. In a slaveholding society, this is the body of rule of the class of slaveowners, in feudal society - a body of rule of a class of feudal lords, in capitalist society - the body of rule of a class of capitalists, in socialist society - a body of rule of the working class. Why does the working class take power into its own hands and forms a state? Its body of power, its state, working class forms in order to liquidate exploiter classes and primarily the bourgeoisie to fulfil its main historical mission, to construct a classless, communist society.
We shall not fully cite K.Marx's known citation about the transition period between capitalist and communist society, that "the state of this period cannot be anything other, except as a revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat ".
We shall not fully cite also V.I.Lenin's citation about "that class which has taken political power into its own hands, has taken it, understanding, that it has taken it itself... and does not deceive neither itself, nor others with conversations about "all-peoples, common sufferage, by all the people of the consecrated authority".
These words are known to us from school. We shall remind only, that the dictatorship of the proletariat exists during the long transitional period from capitalism to communism. This transition period is socialism - the first phase of communist society. The dictatorship of the proletariat "is not abolished" by any "instructions", "decisions", "decrees" "from above". It gradually dies off by measure of the approach of communism, to a classless society and then completely dies off only with construction of communism, with the disappearance of all classes in society, with the disappearance of the working class itself. In China, a "democratic dictatorship of the people" has now been established. What is this? What is this for an unclear, strange, new type of state?
We have to repeat that the new is often a well forgotten old. Yes and the new in this case is very very small. When in formulas on the state, words like the “people” start sounding out, we are immediately reminded of the Khrushchevite “all-peoples state ”. We have to repeat that the new is often a well forgotten old. Yes and the new in this case is very very small. When in formulas on the state, words like the “people” start sounding out, we are immediately reminded of Khrushchevite “all-peoples state”. So there is practically nothing new in this case. There really cannot be anything new in it. In our time, the state (we mean a normal, modern day state, instead of a state: certainly, of any prehistoric tribes from the jungle) can be only bourgeois, capitalist, or proletarian, socialist. The state, we shall remind, is a body of the dictatorship of a certain class in any country. The Chinese peoples’ republic was declared during the present "reforms" by the state of "a democratic dictatorship of the people".
What is a dictatorship? A dictatorship is a power.
Does this mean that in China, power belongs to the people?
It may, but in what state? In a state in which communism has been built, in which classes have disappeared but which is in a hostile environment, surrounded by enemies. And this state carries out its unique function, remaining with it from history: it provides for the defence of the country against a possible enemy attack.
Has communism been constructed in China? Have classes disappeared there?
No, it has not been constructed. And classes have not disappeared. So, on what basis has the power of the "people" been established there, and on what basis has the dictatorship of the proletariat been is abolished?
The elimination of the dictatorship of the proletariat means the liquidation of the dominant position in the country of the working class, that is the actual removal from power of the class most interested in the construction of a communist society, being the carrier of the communist idea.
According to the Chinese press, the working class does no longer represent the majority in the state Soviet of the Chinese People's Republic. So to it cannot dictate there its will any more! Who in China needed to remove the working class from power? The answer to this question is not difficult to give if one recollects about what class in a class society is more than anyone else interested in the removal of the working class from power . This class is the bourgeoisie.
Is there a bourgeoisie in China? Yes, and legally, officially. Besides, its interests are asserted there at the highest level, from the highest party and governmental tribunes.
So, what is this for a state of a "democratic dictatorship of the people?"
We repeat, this is an all too familiar Khruschevite "all-peoples state ". What led to the creation of this type of state in the Soviet Union? To the liquidation of the socialist system in the USSR, to the liquidation of the USSR itself. What led to the creation of a similar state in China? To the restoration of capitalism in Chinese People's Republic. It should be noted, that the Chinese Khruschevites operate more artfully, "with Chinese ", so to say, "characteristics". In the Soviet Union, the Khruschevite traitors to start with, slung mud at J.V.Stalin, and said: "Now don't you see, this is what a dictatorship of the proletariat leads to? To innocent victims!"
Then, they never spoke about who these "innocent victims" really were. That these "victims" organized an underground Trotskyite-Bukharinite party preparing a military coup d'etat, intending to carry out in our country "Gorbastroika" even before the Great Patriotic War, and was going to hand over our country to German fascism, and on its bayonets to come to power, - they then stayed silent. It is they now, who are not afraid any more, to tell in thier "memoirs" about how they struggled all those years against "the totalitarian regime" how they caused harm to Soviet power, wherever they could and however they could. By their way thinking, it turns out that J.V.Stalin ought to have patted them on the back for that...
And so, having slung mud at J.V.Stalin, "having shown" to what a dictatorship of the proletariat "leads to", they after XXII congress of the CPSU liquidated it, having replaced it with "an all-peoples state" (or, as in China it is called a "democratic dictatorship of the people ").
What followed , is well known to all of us. The rejection of the dictatorship of the proletariat meant the liquidation of the control of the working class over the life of society, and the liquidation first of all of the control over the distribution of material benefits. When they were distributed a layer of people which began to use special privileges appeared. The gaining by this layer of people of special privileges led towards it growing into a special class of people - into a Soviet party-bureaucratic neo-bourgeoisie, which began in our country "Gorbastroika" and which ended with a counter-revolutionary coup, and the recking of the USSR.
Why did the counter-revolutionary coup in the Soviet Union end with its breakup? Because it was not simply the bourgoeisie which came to power in our country, and not the national bourgeoisie either, but the comprador, pro-American, counterrevolutionary, whose underground activity was financed by the United States of America.
This bourgeoisie tied to American imperialism, as they say, by their hands and feet, destroying in our country the socialist system was compelled to destroy our country. For American dollars in Swiss banks, these "fighters for human rights" began betraying our allies of the Warsaw Pact, and then our Motherland the Soviet Union, having broken it up into "separate principalities".
So they obtained their the dollars on their conscience!
US imperialism thanks to their "men of perestroika", without a single shot achieved what was not possible to achieve under Hitler. US troops are already stationed inside the former socialist countries of Europe, in the Baltic state and republics of Moldova and Georgia. They have already arrived in Central Asia... For the first time after victory over hitlerite Germany, the enemy has stepped onto Soviet soil...
And what is happening in China? The Chinese bourgeoisie have learned the mistakes of their Soviet "brothers by class". And really, why should they give China to America? Can it not manage its own affairs at home?
It did not begin to sling mud at Ìàî Zedon. It did not even take his body from the Mausoleum. The present heads of the Chinese Commuist Party swear loyalty to Marxism-Leninism and to the ideas Ìàî Zedon. They only "lightly scolded" him for separate, small "mistakes" and "excesses". But he, as was the official, so to speak, main leader of the Chinese people, still remains that to the present day.
Yes, the Chinese Khruschevites operate more carefully. What was the result of "discrediting the personality cult of Stalin"? It split the Soviet people, and led to the recking of the Soviet Union!"
But why would they need to wreck China? Why would they want to give it someone over the ocean when they find it useful for themselves?! And so, they did not begin to sling mud at Ìàî Zedon. They simply transformed him by putting it into the words of V.I.Lenin "into a harmless icon ", emasculated from his ideas - the most important. And the most important idea was the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Mao Zedon taught that the dictatorship of the proletariat has to remain in existance right up to the building of communism (not socialism, but note, namely communism!)
This idea he especially persistently propagated, in known letters of the Central Committee of the CPC (there were more than ten), directed and addressed to the Central Committee of the CPSU at the beginning of the 1960-s during the Sino-Soviet ideological dispute.
In these letters , written practically by Ìàî Zedon himself, such questions, as J.V.Stalin's role in the history of the USSR and the international communist movement, peaceful and non-peaceful ways of struggle for power, questions on war and peace were mentioned, for example. The main question of these letters is the question on the dictatorship of the proletariat : till what period should it exist in a socialist state, before the construction of socialism or before the construction of communism? The answer to this question Ìàî Zedon gave unequivocaly, in Bolshevik style: before the construction of communism!
In these letters a worthy rebuff was given to the revisionists trying to impose anti-Bolshevik counterrevolutionary policy onto the entire international communist movement.
The leadership of the CC CPC led by Chairman Mao Zedon opposed resolutely against the decisions of the XX and XXII congresses of the CPSU for not having anything in common either with Marxism, nor with Leninism, and against the slander of the Great Leader of the Soviet people J.V.Stalin, in defence of his sacred name, his ideas and achievements in the defence of the dictatorship of the proletariat in the Soviet Union.
These letters were broadcast by Chinese radio in Russian. In our press only one of them, fortunately, one of the most important ones - a program one was published in the newspaper "Pravda" on August, 20, 1963. But even this one letter was enough to deal a mortal blow to Khrushchevite revisionism. In 1964, as is known, N.S. Khrushchev was removed from all posts occupied by him. These letters are samples of the classical theoretical works directed at the defence of the ideas of Marxism-Leninism, the defence of the main idea of Marxism-Leninism - the idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat for the whole period of socialism, up to the construction of communism.
It is a great pity that the present Chinese leadership has forgotten about all this, although swears fidelity to the ideas of Ìàî Zedon. The "new Chinese" operate more circumspectly than "new Russians". Ìàî Zedon both was in the Mausoleum, and remains in it. Like his portraits in party and official bodies hung on walls, they hang there now.
"Do you love Ìàî Zedon? Pray to him? Please, love him! Pray to him! In fact we too love him. See, his portraits hang, like they were when he was alive. And he is in the Mausoleum... Yes... He will never get up and leave the Mausoleum no matter how it would be so desirable that he got up and left..."
There is a terrible tragedy occurring now in China, and many people are already starting to understand this there, when they look at the bursting from fat physiognomy of the "new Chinese", with proud faces sitting somewhere at a table in a restaurant, or in a smart car...
Yes... the "New Chinese" have taken revenge for 1949, as well as the "new Russians " for 1917. But history cannot be turned back. Capitalism is EVIL, a misfortune for MAN.
But evil and misfortune cannot be eternal otherwise life will lose any real sense. Indeed, life did not appear for evil! Neither for the misfortune of mankind!
And still: capitalism is terrible that in the development it reaches the maximum point before it dies, - imperialism. And imperialism, as is known, - is a source of wars. This can be the most dangerous to neighbours of China. They are already starting to reflect on this... Alexey Vihrov, Minsk (From “Vperyod” No 4 + 5, 2004)
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(OR: COUNTER REVOLUTION WITH “CHINESE CHARACTERISTICS”?..)
From Bolshevik newspaper “Vperod” No4 + No5 (120 +121) 2004
By Alexey Vikhrov from Minsk, Belorussia
This question worrys people and true supporters of the people’s socialist system in China, and its enemies more and more. Still: in fact China has a population of one billion three hundred million people. It is more than a quarter of all the population of the Earth!
If that is not enough, China is becoming a superpower, with an advanced, modern industry, with powerful rocket-nuclear potential. On total amount of industrial development, China will just about equal the United States of America. China is now the third space power in the world, with its own forces having launched a manned spaceship into space! The world actually depends on China’s destiny...
So what has been happening in China over the past few years?
For those who go to China, listen to programs on Chinese radio in Russian (or English), the news from there is becoming ever more disturbing.
The word "comrade" has practically gone out of use with the Chinese. Now, addressing each other (not counting members of the CPC- the Communist Party of China), they call themselves "mister".
Who now is the hero of the Chinese newspapers, radio and TV broadcasts?
Is it the worker of any factory who has fulfilled a production target ahead of schedule, a Chinese Stakhanovite (shock worker, as it was during the epoch of Chairman Mao Zedun?
Is it a tractor driver of a national commune who ploughed a field on time and prepared it for spring sowing?
Is it a designer who has created a new highly-efficient machine tool? Or perhaps a composer having written a fine song, which takes a man for his soul and helps him to live and work?
No. The worker, the tractor operator, the designer, the composer are not heroes of the Chinese newspapers, radio and TV programs anymore. So, who is the hero of the Chinese newspapers, radio and TV programs? Entrepreneurs, businessmen, i.e. people who know how “to make money”, have become the true "heroes" of present-day reporting and all the stories of the Chinese newspapers, radio and TV programs.
Here some examples of these literary "Masterpieces". A woman, a peasant, bought ten hens in a village and sold them in the city, without doubt, at a higher price. She repeated this operation many times. As a result she had accumulated a rather impressive sum of money (about a thousand yuans). The quantity of hens purchased and resold by her grew. The size of capital, naturally, also grew. Soon, she took out a loan of a few tens of thousands of yuans from the state, hired people (farm labourers: in fact wage labour in China is once again being allowed) who built her an integrated poultry farm. Hundreds of people now work on this integrated poultry farm. The financial state of the woman is now estimated in millions of yuans. And she does not live anymore in the simple country house. Now, the whole village looks at her new, modern, multi-storey private residence with an involuntary sigh.
The second example. A man bought up some cigarettes in a city, which were in high demand in the province, and sold them there. Also without doubt, by selling them at a higher price, he collected a decent sum, then took out a loan from the state to build (again by hiring labourers) a tobacco factory. His financial status too, now stands at millions of yuans.
A third example. One young man after graduating an institute was supposed to go to a village to work there as a teacher. However, he remained in the city, and engaged in trade. He sold tea, cigarettes, sweets, a chewing gum, cassettes etc. He did this for three years. He ended up opening his own tour firm- travel agency. Now for him, for example, on public holidays getting to the Canary Islands is all the same, like to an ordinary Chinese person from Peking going to visit relatives in the neigbouring province.
The fourth example. A clock factory, which in its due time produced a fine product, which was even exported and which was constantly fulfilling its production targets, suddenly "started knocking” - began working with faults. The factory was turned into a shareholders' enterprise. Most of the shares went to the director who actually became the owner of the factory. The factory after that, did not make a "big leap" forward in development. Over half the workers were laid off. On the economised means, output true enough, goes already only on export proceeds.
The most interesting in this case (and cases similar!) is that neither party bodies, nor law-enforcement bodies have taken any interest at all from where the director got the money from to buy the whole factory? What is amazing of all in such stories, is the use of the word "earned", when large sums of the money obtained by these "enterprising" people are spoken about. It is amazing because this word is used in the mass media of a country calling itself - socialist. In their understanding, the words to “obtain” and to "earn" are synonyms. It turns out that it is not just those who work at machine tools, on tractors, at Kuhlman drafting units, that is receive money for concrete work done, physical, intellectual, that earn money, but also those who buy something and resell it at a higher price, that is those who, simply speaking, are engaged in speculating and gambling.
Speculating, in their opinion, is also classed as "earnings". And those who are engaged in this "earning", are described as men of the hour whom ordinary Chinese are told to use and follow as an example. Similar examples very much remind us of what occured and is occuring on the territory of the ex-USSR. All these Chernomidins and Chubaises plundered our country and the billions which they acquired on this larceny, are also not not classed as state criminals. They are quite highly esteemed people and shown on TV. Instead of these thiefs being in prison, they sit in presidiums and "teach” the masses how to live..... The quantity of personal cars, built at their own manufacturing plants and the number of "foreign cars" has sharply increased in streets of Chinese cities. Advertising billboards of restaurants have begun to blind ones eyes literally. "Many" Chinese as Chinese radio informs, with pleasure visit them in the evenings. Youth walking on streets are dressed in modern jeans many of which have a label on them with the inscription: "Made in the USA”.
The Chinese "have grown fond of traveling". They have begun visiting other countries. What countries? The United States of America, Japan, Indonesia, Germany, France...
One can imagine, who these Chinese are who have grown fond of traveling, if one is to remember the cost of trips abroad to holiday resorts. Thousands of dollars!...
The number of marriages to foreigners (certainly, Americans first of all) has considerably increased. Many Chinese with satisfaction remain abroad to live...
XVI congress of the Communist party of China took place in November, 2002 in Peking. The Congress summed up the development of the country for the previous five years, generalized the experience of the work over the previous 13 years.
"The national economy continued to travel on the way of fast and healthy development" (from report of Dzen Dzemin). "Plentiful fruits were brought with reform and an openness. The system of socialist market economy has been created in the initial form. The public property sector has seriously become stronger, with confident strides in the reform of state enterprises. Individual, private and others sectors of the non-public sphere have developed rather quickly. The creation of the market system has been comprehensively developed. The life of the people as a whole has reached an average level of prosperity" (Dzen Dzemin).
What are the reforms taking place in China? To understand their essence, we shall glance at the figures from the report of Dzsen Dzemin. We shall leave to one side the party fanfare soundings of the report on the achieved successes, oath-like assurances of loyalty to the doctrine of Marx's - Engels - Lenin - Stalin and Ìàî Zedon.
Many present day party and state leaders know how to speak beautifully. Crowds of people adore them, the eyes and mouthes wide open. They listen and, apparently, get intoxicated by them. Only what then follows after these beautiful words? It is good, if it is a matter of simply sobering up. However, in fact what can happen is the falling into deep intoxication, a transformation of a person into a mad animal... So now, we shall glance at the figures in the report of Dzsen Dzemin. We shall take from them one of the most important. Here it is: out of the total number of enterprises in China, the state owns already less than half of them. In hands of the state are found only an absolutely small number of companies (approximately one thousand).
What does private mean? In this case, everything is clear.
What does joint-stock mean? Joint-stock companies are companies belonging to owners of shares on them (shareholders). Who is the real owner of the joint-stock enterprise? The one who owns the greatest number of shares. And who owns most of the shares? Naturally, whoever had the most money when buying them. And who usually has more money when buying them? Whoever most certainly had stolen the most money from the state as they say, did not go under.
They may ask - why stolen? Well, did he stand at the machine tool all day cutting metal? And did he “machine” metal so much, so as to be able to buy up the whole enterprise?! A whole factory?! A whole manufacturing plant?!
Therefore, the joint-stock enterprise is in its pure form - a capitalist enterprise.
And the state enterprises are not those same enterprises, which function under a socialist system. These are the enterprises at which capitalist laws operate. These are state capitalist enterprises.
From the tribune of the congress, the head of the party calling itself Communist, called for "improving the legal system of protection of private ownership "!
In China, businessmen, small, middle and large have appeared. Millions of businessmen...
Who are such businessmen?
In simple language - they are the bourgeoisie! That is - they are capitalists. Yes, as sad as it is and as awful as it is, in a country calling itself socialist, a class came about, having sunk in its time in Lethes, a class of capitalists, a class of "new Chinese".
It is interesting to know, what is new about them? That they in a thief-like way, authorized "from above", implanted by the present "people’s" power, implanted by a party at the head of the state loudly calling itself Communist, turned into private property, factories and manufacturing plants where tens and hundred of millions of ordinary Chinese people only yesterday working for themselves, for their own brotherly, workers'-and-peasants' state, but are now compelled to fill the pockets of these "criminals" so that they could built palaces for themselves "in a green zone", in the surburbs of Peking and Shanghai, and fly to the Canary Islands when they had nothing to do and have a good time there with the lovely pop stars.
Is this "new", what they have given to the Chinese people?!
But it was like this in China before. Yes, indeed they had this until 1949! These "servants of the people" drank a lot of blood from the Chinese people until the people lost patience, and had kicked them out... What need was there in returning to China these "patrons of the people”? To build in China as declared from the tribune of the congress, “an average prosperous, socialist society"?!
But if China is building a socialist society, then what about these capitalists? Since when have capitalists stood in the ranks of builders of socialism? The leadership of the Chinese communist party states that China is still at the first stage of building socialism.
The construction of socialism in such a huge country, with almost a billion and a half people, like China, is indoubtedly a long process. But does this mean that for the construction of socialism, even "with Chinese characteristics", it is necessary to turn back the wheel of history, to restore capitalism in China? If it is not capitalism, then what is it? Will the bourgeoisie really build socialism?! It is not clearly then, why overthrow it if it sponges off the people for the sake of the peoples’ prosperity, for the sake of the construction of socialism?! Why then did V.I.Lenin, J.V.Stalin, Ìàî Zedon struggl against the bourgeois agency in the communist movement, against the Mensheviks, Trotskyites, Bukharinites, Khrushchevites etc., if they can lead the peoples of the countries along the path of the construction of socialism? To speak about a Chinese NEP in this case is not necessary. It is not necessary for two reasons. Firstly, China already passed through the period of NEP in the 1950-s. Then for the revival of the economy destroyed during the long war years, many private enterprises were preserved. Besides, if their owners’ attitude was in favour of people's power, they were appointed as directors of these enterprises, and these became state-owned enterprises.
One should not forget either, that all these private, "NEP-style" enterprises in the Chinese People's Republic (like in its time in the Soviet Union) functioned in conditions of the dictatorship of the proletariat, in the conditions of the full control of the working class. Well, and secondly, to speak about a Chinese NEP in this case is not necessary also because towards the beginning of the present "reforms", China was no longer "backward and hammered" as supporters of these "reforms" try to present it as.
During the epoch of Chairman Mao Zedon, China turned into a powerful, advanced socialist power. The grain problem in China was practically solved. The Chinese people had forgotten about famine. People were full, dressed, and shoed. They did not have excesses, they did not drive about in "Mercedes", and did not build for themselves in the surburbs of cities of wonder-castles and palaces; they lived modestly, but they had prosperity. China came in as the top ten the most advanced countries of the world for industrial output of for example, steel, pig-iron, rolled steel, oil, machine tools, tractors, radios and TV equipment,. Already in Ìàî Zedon’s life, that is during the dictatorship of the proletariat, in China modern nuclear and space industry was created, tests of nuclear and hydrogen bombs, including an intercontinental ballistic missile were successfully carried out, and the first ever artificial satellite was launched into space.
Was this all sufficient for the further development of China’s economy, for the further construction of socialism in China?
Yes, it was enough. During the epoch of Chairman Mao Zedon, in China a powerful, fundamental socialist, industrial base from which quite successfully it was possible to push further "towards a developed and prosperous society" was created!
Why did this not take place in China? Why does socialism have to retreat there? If it was simply only a case of retreating - capitulating! The period of construction of socialism is not just the period of economic, industrial and agricultural construction; it also a period of incessant class struggle between the proletariat, which has established its power, and the bourgeoisie overthrown by the proletariat. Besides, it is not just the overthrown, but also again arising, and constantly looking for a slightest of openings for its own revival. The working class having weakened its control only for a minute, the bourgeoisie straight away are here, long-awaited.
Yes, in struggle sometimes it is necessary and to retreat. V.I.Lenin, introducing NEP, was compelled to retreat, but to retreat only for a short time, to gather forces. Besides retreating, he did not abolish in our country the dictatorship of the proletariat and did not abolish the control of the working class over all events in the country. Let us suppose that in China there was a temporary retreat from socialism. But why then when retreating, especially a temporary retreat, to go on to full capitulation before the enemy (the bourgeoisie is an enemy of the working class, the main, worst enemy!)?
The abolishing of the dictatorship of the proletariat in the Chinese People's Republic is true capitulation of the Communist Party of China before the class enemy. Where is this capitulation leading? Towards the liquidation of socialist construction in China. With the start of the present "reforms" in the Chinese People's Republic according to "the theory of Dzen Xiopen" there had been established a "democratic dictatorship of the people".
What does the "dictatorship of the people" mean? In Marxist-Leninist science this is something new. To be honest, it is not new for those who have not forgotten that something new is something quite often old and well forgotten. It is not new for those who are familiar at least with the simple elements of Marxist-Leninist science.
The state exists only in class society. The state is a body of the domination of one class over other classes. In a slaveholding society, this is the body of rule of the class of slaveowners, in feudal society - a body of rule of a class of feudal lords, in capitalist society - the body of rule of a class of capitalists, in socialist society - a body of rule of the working class. Why does the working class take power into its own hands and forms a state? Its body of power, its state, working class forms in order to liquidate exploiter classes and primarily the bourgeoisie to fulfil its main historical mission, to construct a classless, communist society.
We shall not fully cite K.Marx's known citation about the transition period between capitalist and communist society, that "the state of this period cannot be anything other, except as a revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat ".
We shall not fully cite also V.I.Lenin's citation about "that class which has taken political power into its own hands, has taken it, understanding, that it has taken it itself... and does not deceive neither itself, nor others with conversations about "all-peoples, common sufferage, by all the people of the consecrated authority".
These words are known to us from school. We shall remind only, that the dictatorship of the proletariat exists during the long transitional period from capitalism to communism. This transition period is socialism - the first phase of communist society. The dictatorship of the proletariat "is not abolished" by any "instructions", "decisions", "decrees" "from above". It gradually dies off by measure of the approach of communism, to a classless society and then completely dies off only with construction of communism, with the disappearance of all classes in society, with the disappearance of the working class itself. In China, a "democratic dictatorship of the people" has now been established. What is this? What is this for an unclear, strange, new type of state?
We have to repeat that the new is often a well forgotten old. Yes and the new in this case is very very small. When in formulas on the state, words like the “people” start sounding out, we are immediately reminded of the Khrushchevite “all-peoples state ”. We have to repeat that the new is often a well forgotten old. Yes and the new in this case is very very small. When in formulas on the state, words like the “people” start sounding out, we are immediately reminded of Khrushchevite “all-peoples state”. So there is practically nothing new in this case. There really cannot be anything new in it. In our time, the state (we mean a normal, modern day state, instead of a state: certainly, of any prehistoric tribes from the jungle) can be only bourgeois, capitalist, or proletarian, socialist. The state, we shall remind, is a body of the dictatorship of a certain class in any country. The Chinese peoples’ republic was declared during the present "reforms" by the state of "a democratic dictatorship of the people".
What is a dictatorship? A dictatorship is a power.
Does this mean that in China, power belongs to the people?
It may, but in what state? In a state in which communism has been built, in which classes have disappeared but which is in a hostile environment, surrounded by enemies. And this state carries out its unique function, remaining with it from history: it provides for the defence of the country against a possible enemy attack.
Has communism been constructed in China? Have classes disappeared there?
No, it has not been constructed. And classes have not disappeared. So, on what basis has the power of the "people" been established there, and on what basis has the dictatorship of the proletariat been is abolished?
The elimination of the dictatorship of the proletariat means the liquidation of the dominant position in the country of the working class, that is the actual removal from power of the class most interested in the construction of a communist society, being the carrier of the communist idea.
According to the Chinese press, the working class does no longer represent the majority in the state Soviet of the Chinese People's Republic. So to it cannot dictate there its will any more! Who in China needed to remove the working class from power? The answer to this question is not difficult to give if one recollects about what class in a class society is more than anyone else interested in the removal of the working class from power . This class is the bourgeoisie.
Is there a bourgeoisie in China? Yes, and legally, officially. Besides, its interests are asserted there at the highest level, from the highest party and governmental tribunes.
So, what is this for a state of a "democratic dictatorship of the people?"
We repeat, this is an all too familiar Khruschevite "all-peoples state ". What led to the creation of this type of state in the Soviet Union? To the liquidation of the socialist system in the USSR, to the liquidation of the USSR itself. What led to the creation of a similar state in China? To the restoration of capitalism in Chinese People's Republic. It should be noted, that the Chinese Khruschevites operate more artfully, "with Chinese ", so to say, "characteristics". In the Soviet Union, the Khruschevite traitors to start with, slung mud at J.V.Stalin, and said: "Now don't you see, this is what a dictatorship of the proletariat leads to? To innocent victims!"
Then, they never spoke about who these "innocent victims" really were. That these "victims" organized an underground Trotskyite-Bukharinite party preparing a military coup d'etat, intending to carry out in our country "Gorbastroika" even before the Great Patriotic War, and was going to hand over our country to German fascism, and on its bayonets to come to power, - they then stayed silent. It is they now, who are not afraid any more, to tell in thier "memoirs" about how they struggled all those years against "the totalitarian regime" how they caused harm to Soviet power, wherever they could and however they could. By their way thinking, it turns out that J.V.Stalin ought to have patted them on the back for that...
And so, having slung mud at J.V.Stalin, "having shown" to what a dictatorship of the proletariat "leads to", they after XXII congress of the CPSU liquidated it, having replaced it with "an all-peoples state" (or, as in China it is called a "democratic dictatorship of the people ").
What followed , is well known to all of us. The rejection of the dictatorship of the proletariat meant the liquidation of the control of the working class over the life of society, and the liquidation first of all of the control over the distribution of material benefits. When they were distributed a layer of people which began to use special privileges appeared. The gaining by this layer of people of special privileges led towards it growing into a special class of people - into a Soviet party-bureaucratic neo-bourgeoisie, which began in our country "Gorbastroika" and which ended with a counter-revolutionary coup, and the recking of the USSR.
Why did the counter-revolutionary coup in the Soviet Union end with its breakup? Because it was not simply the bourgoeisie which came to power in our country, and not the national bourgeoisie either, but the comprador, pro-American, counterrevolutionary, whose underground activity was financed by the United States of America.
This bourgeoisie tied to American imperialism, as they say, by their hands and feet, destroying in our country the socialist system was compelled to destroy our country. For American dollars in Swiss banks, these "fighters for human rights" began betraying our allies of the Warsaw Pact, and then our Motherland the Soviet Union, having broken it up into "separate principalities".
So they obtained their the dollars on their conscience!
US imperialism thanks to their "men of perestroika", without a single shot achieved what was not possible to achieve under Hitler. US troops are already stationed inside the former socialist countries of Europe, in the Baltic state and republics of Moldova and Georgia. They have already arrived in Central Asia... For the first time after victory over hitlerite Germany, the enemy has stepped onto Soviet soil...
And what is happening in China? The Chinese bourgeoisie have learned the mistakes of their Soviet "brothers by class". And really, why should they give China to America? Can it not manage its own affairs at home?
It did not begin to sling mud at Ìàî Zedon. It did not even take his body from the Mausoleum. The present heads of the Chinese Commuist Party swear loyalty to Marxism-Leninism and to the ideas Ìàî Zedon. They only "lightly scolded" him for separate, small "mistakes" and "excesses". But he, as was the official, so to speak, main leader of the Chinese people, still remains that to the present day.
Yes, the Chinese Khruschevites operate more carefully. What was the result of "discrediting the personality cult of Stalin"? It split the Soviet people, and led to the recking of the Soviet Union!"
But why would they need to wreck China? Why would they want to give it someone over the ocean when they find it useful for themselves?! And so, they did not begin to sling mud at Ìàî Zedon. They simply transformed him by putting it into the words of V.I.Lenin "into a harmless icon ", emasculated from his ideas - the most important. And the most important idea was the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Mao Zedon taught that the dictatorship of the proletariat has to remain in existance right up to the building of communism (not socialism, but note, namely communism!)
This idea he especially persistently propagated, in known letters of the Central Committee of the CPC (there were more than ten), directed and addressed to the Central Committee of the CPSU at the beginning of the 1960-s during the Sino-Soviet ideological dispute.
In these letters , written practically by Ìàî Zedon himself, such questions, as J.V.Stalin's role in the history of the USSR and the international communist movement, peaceful and non-peaceful ways of struggle for power, questions on war and peace were mentioned, for example. The main question of these letters is the question on the dictatorship of the proletariat : till what period should it exist in a socialist state, before the construction of socialism or before the construction of communism? The answer to this question Ìàî Zedon gave unequivocaly, in Bolshevik style: before the construction of communism!
In these letters a worthy rebuff was given to the revisionists trying to impose anti-Bolshevik counterrevolutionary policy onto the entire international communist movement.
The leadership of the CC CPC led by Chairman Mao Zedon opposed resolutely against the decisions of the XX and XXII congresses of the CPSU for not having anything in common either with Marxism, nor with Leninism, and against the slander of the Great Leader of the Soviet people J.V.Stalin, in defence of his sacred name, his ideas and achievements in the defence of the dictatorship of the proletariat in the Soviet Union.
These letters were broadcast by Chinese radio in Russian. In our press only one of them, fortunately, one of the most important ones - a program one was published in the newspaper "Pravda" on August, 20, 1963. But even this one letter was enough to deal a mortal blow to Khrushchevite revisionism. In 1964, as is known, N.S. Khrushchev was removed from all posts occupied by him. These letters are samples of the classical theoretical works directed at the defence of the ideas of Marxism-Leninism, the defence of the main idea of Marxism-Leninism - the idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat for the whole period of socialism, up to the construction of communism.
It is a great pity that the present Chinese leadership has forgotten about all this, although swears fidelity to the ideas of Ìàî Zedon. The "new Chinese" operate more circumspectly than "new Russians". Ìàî Zedon both was in the Mausoleum, and remains in it. Like his portraits in party and official bodies hung on walls, they hang there now.
"Do you love Ìàî Zedon? Pray to him? Please, love him! Pray to him! In fact we too love him. See, his portraits hang, like they were when he was alive. And he is in the Mausoleum... Yes... He will never get up and leave the Mausoleum no matter how it would be so desirable that he got up and left..."
There is a terrible tragedy occurring now in China, and many people are already starting to understand this there, when they look at the bursting from fat physiognomy of the "new Chinese", with proud faces sitting somewhere at a table in a restaurant, or in a smart car...
Yes... the "New Chinese" have taken revenge for 1949, as well as the "new Russians " for 1917. But history cannot be turned back. Capitalism is EVIL, a misfortune for MAN.
But evil and misfortune cannot be eternal otherwise life will lose any real sense. Indeed, life did not appear for evil! Neither for the misfortune of mankind!
And still: capitalism is terrible that in the development it reaches the maximum point before it dies, - imperialism. And imperialism, as is known, - is a source of wars. This can be the most dangerous to neighbours of China. They are already starting to reflect on this... Alexey Vihrov, Minsk (From “Vperyod” No 4 + 5, 2004)
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THE TRUTH ABOUT VASILY STALIN
THE TRUTH ABOUT VASILY STALIN
In March 2005, on the 43-rd anniversary since the death of Vasily Stalin, in the bourgeois press there began appearing articles about him of slanderous character. Stalin's son had died when he was 42 years of age at the prime of his life.
The Khruschevites and democrats slandered not only the genius thinker and great statesman Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin, but his children too: Svetlana, Vasily and Yakov.
Stalin's children were not "Children of the Arbat" who despised Soviet people and their Motherland. They did not betray like Khruschev's sons did their close friends and comrades.
Stalin's eldest son Yakov Dzugashvili prefered death on barbed wire than to being inside a German prisoner of war camp any longer. They made conditions for Stalin's daughter, Svetlana so unbearable that she had to escape from her own country and live out her final days in a London shelter in a foreign country.
Vasily Stalin was degraded and slandered. He was made out to be a useless little boy mischief-maker, a talentless fighter pilot, a commander going nowhere and a boozer-alchoholic with the shoulder straps of a General. But none of this is true, it is all slander against a decent, upright, honest, selfless, considerate and talented man, who could bring benefit and glory to the Soviet Union. However, the appearance of Vasily's talents were not in the interests of Trotskyite Khruschev and those around him. They took revenge on Stalin and his son. They were afraid of him. Vasily had a strong character, and so therefore he was a danger in the midst of the Khruschevites. Vasily, despite the pressure applied by the Khruschevites refused to renounce his own father. He refused to change his surname and refused to stay silent, like his sister Svetlana did.
Nikolai Zen'kovich studied the life and military activity of Vasily Stalin in detail, and who expounded it in his essay "The Prince and the Nurse", Yuri Mukhin, in his book entitled "The Murder of Stalin and Beria", and also in his book "Flying Aces and Propaganda", and Elena Prudnikova in her book "Stalin. A Second Murder". The fullest account of the life of Vasily Stalin can be found in publications of former fighter pilot and writer Stanislav Gribanov and other authors. In these studies, the authors reveal the outstanding personality of Vasily Stalin as a fighter pilot, as a commander and as an organiser of useful affairs in the army. They unmask the myths and slander of his sister Svetlana and other ill-wishers against Stalin and his sons.
Vasily was born in March 1921. He was an energetic boy, passionate and very pushy. Vasily was spoilt by everyone: by his relatives, assistants and school teachers. Vasily lacked modesty. He used his position and blackmailed everyone in succession.
J.V. Stalin wanted to see his sons become military men. Vasily entered Kachinsky school of aviation, which trained military fighter pilots. Mikoyan's sons trained there. Timur Frunz, Ruben Ibarruri and other children whose parents worked in the Kremlin also trained there. Vasily graduate there with flying colours and earned the rank of lieutenant. In March 1940, he was sent into fighter pilot aviation, into aviation parts which equipped fighter planes I-15. Fighter pilots like Vasily were needed here, who differed from others by their fearlessness, temperament and passion. But alongside these characteristics, in Vasily's character by measure of length of service, there began appearing new traits of character: well contemplated actions and a serious interest in new technology. Vasily loved fighter plane aviation.
In a letter to his father, he complains that other squadron are already flying new types of aircraft: MiGs, Yaks and Lags, but at the unit he was on, future fighter commanders still fly the old I-15-s. Vasily proposed that training centres first of all, possess the latest flying technology and planes, and that future squadron commanders began training on them.
Fighter pilots are people with special qualities. They are prisoners of war. They were constantly on a knife edge between life and death, and every mission they went on during war could have been their last. In their free time from flying, they rested and sometimes they "relaxed" by having a few drinks. Vasilya also had a drink, but no more than any of the others. Svetlana, Vasily's sister, who from childhood never loved him, wrote that he was a "down and out alchoholic". But she had never lived alongside her brother and they very rarely met. Vasily was in the army, and she, in civilian life, therefore her claims are doubtful.
Svetlana wrote only negatively about her brother and did not write about how he served in the army and how he fought. And this is the most important side of the life of such an outstanding individual as Vasily Stalin. Of course, the senior commmanders looked after him and limited the number of missions for him. He was even designated as inspector-pilot and after that, chief of inspections of the Red Army Air Force where he served until January 1943.
Vasily was not happy as an inspector. He longed to be at the front. He felt his place was there. Vasily felt weighed down with his post of serving in the rear. He, being brave and active, longed to be at the heart of events. However, he was not allowed to go to the front. The commanders knew that one of Stalin's sons had ended up in a prisoner of war camp and it was unknown as to whether he would return alive or not. Another one of Stalin's sons, his last, was also a passionate patriot of his Motherland and tore into fighting action, where he could be killed at any moment. And so, it was at this time spent "serving in the rear" when rumours could have circulated that Vasily had got himself a "cushy number" behind is father's back and began "taking it easy". The peaceful life at the rear weighed heavily on him.
In January 1943, inspection was disbanded. Vasily Stalin with the rank of colonel was designated commander of the 32-nd Guards Air Regiment. About how Vasily Stalin commanded and how he fought is written by fighter pilot and Hero of the Soviet Union, S.F. Dolgushin: "Vasily commanded the regiment diligently and listened attentively to us more experienced pilots. As commander of the regiment, he could go on missions and command them in the formation of any squadron, but more often, he for some reason flew in mine. During February and March 1943, with Vasily's participation, we shot down several of the enemy's planes. On 5th March, he by himself, shot down an FW-190... I remember, one day when in action, he made a mistake, typical for young pilots, although he was by now an "old hand". He was in pursuit of a "Fokker", in the heat of the moment broke from the group and was attacked by six of them. The whole squadron helped him out of the difficulty. We returned to the airfield. Vasily was a colonel and I was a captain, he - the commander of the regiment and I - squadron commander. In aviation, repect among the ranks was not very highly developed. I called him over to one side and set up my own "flight investigation": I got it off my chest like one should".
On the award sheet signed by commanding officer of the 16-th Air Force of the army, General-Colonel of Aviation S. Rudenko, it showed that V. Stalin shot down yet another enemy plane. In total - two were shot down by him. Yes, and including those shot down by the whole group, which S.E. Dolgushin talks about.
The more Vasily flew, the more the danger grew of him being shot down and, like Yakov, captured by the enemy and becoming a prisoner of war. In no way could that be allowed to happen. In order for Vasily Stalin to avoid that, Vasily Stalin flew without a parachute. It was calculted this way: in the case of his plane being shot down by enemy fire, he would die. This fact is little known but had its place.
Vasily Stalin since 1943, served at commanding posts continuously, after that he became corps commander, commanding an entire district of the Air Force. Alchoholics were not kept at such posts and furthermore, his own father would not have allowed such a person to command such large units. He was promoted not because he was Stalin's own son, although such an argument could have its place. The main thing according to the recollections of many of his colleagues was that the activity of Vasily as a commander had a positive result.
At the time of being promoted to Division Commander, he had 3105 hours of flying time "under his belt". His deputy had 2000 hours and the commanders of the regiments - a thousand hours of flying time each. Thus, by hours in the air and experience, he qualified for the post of Division Commander. Vasily Stalin flew on all types of fighter planes and also on many different types of bombers. He knew aviation well and loved it.
Some people declare that Vasily Stalin was protected and that he flew with a "minder". But a fighter pilot in a fighter plane was always alone, without a "minder". When they go on missions, they either fly in pairs, in a chain or squadron and cover each other often at great risk to themselves.
At one time a commander of a division with the rank of colonel, he became a General only after four years, and after the war in 1946. His father gave his consent to him attaining another rank only after three times he was presented with the rank of General.
In 1948, General Vasily Stalin was designated as Commander of the Air Force of the Moscow Military District. At this post which carried great responsibilty, he showed himself to be an outstanding military leader and organiser. He took on the district when it was in very difficult state. It occupied 10-th place among other Air Force districts on training and other indicators. When taking on the district, Vasily Stalin began intensely studying the state of affairs, to find deficiencies and to put them right. First of all, he strengthened discipline, banned the drinking of vodka in working cabinets and demanded the limiting of drinking in general. In a short time, airdromes were back in order and new ones built. It is quite possible that more money was put into this like in the Moscow district. Vasily Stalin himself, took charge in the fighter pilot training. For months he would not leave the training camp. The air division which was commanded by Kozhedub passed through the training under the supervision of Vasily Stalin. It was glorified in the Korean War and returned vitually without losses.
Vasily Stalin stood solidly behind his subordinates. He chose housing apartments for them, took care of them materially. At the same time, he was demanding towards his subordinates. He was feared and respected. The signal about "Vaska flying back" to the air base sent the provider into a state of quivering. He divided much attention to sport. He first formed a teams of masters of many types of sport. After becoming a deputy in the Supreme Soviet in 1948, he met with his electorate on a daily basis. And nobody noticed or remarked that he was drunk or had been drinking.
The results of the activity of Vasily Stalin were there to see. After a year, the Air Force of the Moscow military district occupied 2-nd place. In 1949, 1950 and 1951, it occupied 1-st place. According to army tradition, the commander, subdivision or unit which three times in a row occupies a prize-winning place, is entitled to an award - an Order. General Vasily Stalin had earned such an award too. But his father refused to award him stating that he already had enough awards.
In the summer of 1952,Vasily Stalin was removed from his post of commanding the aviation of the Moscow Military District. Different versions exist as to why. Svetlana sees the reason for this in a May Day parade when several planes crashed due to unsuitable weather for flying in. But that was not the case. In actual fact, it was not the May Day parade, but a parade in honour of Aviation Day. But this parade passed without incident. Stalin announced his gratitude to the pilots. Vasily entered the building where the leaders were. He drank with joy. Stalin, seeing his son in a drunk state asked: "And what's all this then?" "I'm tired", answered Vasily. "And do you often get this tired?" Stalin asked. "No!", was the reply. His direct chief commanding the Air Forces, P.F. Zhigarev countered that by saying: "Often" Vasily snapped at him. Stalin turfed him out and ordered that he be removed from his post and sent to the Soviet Far East.
This version is similar to the truth. But there was no order to transfer Vasily Stalin to the Far East. In Vasily's personal case, there is no record of drunkeness. If one looks at photos of him in the 1960-s, there are no signs of alchoholism on him.
Most likely, Vasily Stalin was freed from his post in connection with him entering the Academy of General Staff. In accordance with the post being occupied by him nd the rank of General-Lieutenant, it was a condition that he possessed a higher academic military education, which Vasily did not have. Many grew up during the war, but did not have the corresponding education. They had to study. They studied. Vasily Stalin too, had to study. In Autumn 1952, without examinations, he was accepted into the Academy of the General Staff. But he was unable to study. After his father's death, very soon he was discharged from the army and immediately arrested.
The question arises: Why was Stalin's son arrested? Recently, materials from an investigation were published. In them, it points out that Vasily Stalin had built a swiimming pool using the money from the Military district, built concrete steps at a state dacha, maintained sportsmen using district funds, a house used for hunters and had horses. For such an offence, the worst he could have been given would have been a reprimand.
Nothing was discovered in the way of personal enrichment for himself. Even trophies from Germany who many others had, were not found. Honoured lawyer of Russia, A. Sukhomlinov aquainting himself with the criminal case of Vasily Stalin, noted the following: "In front of me on the desk lies the list of sequestrated possessions - of 76 points. The most valuable were the following - a collection of rifles, presented mainly by his father, sabres given as presents by K.E. Voroshilov, and a saddle - as a present from S.M.Budyenny. Apart from those, there was nothing of interest. A table clock, hunting boots, belts, a camera, a cinecamera, two kayaks, two bicycles, two motorcycles (a present from J.V. Stalin) and a car "pakard".
In 1946 -1947, Vasily was commander of a corps in Germany. One of its divisions was based in Grossenhein, 30 minutes away from the Dresden art gallery. Another regiment was in Potsdam. This was the residence of Prussian kings. And if he so wished, he could have taken back home many things of cultural value. But he did not do this, not like others did, even the glorified highest military officials, serving in Germany at this time. Vasily never stole or aquired anything that did not belong to him.
However, he was tried and sentenced to 8 years imprisonment. He served 7 of them. The Khruschevites thought he had recognized the "personality cult" of his father and the tragety of the "stalinist repressions". He was released on January 9, 1960, given a pension and they proposed that he change his surname. He refused.
Vasily tried to meet Khruschev. But Khruschev refused to meet him and instead, sent K.E. Voroshilov to meet Vasily. the meeting took place on 9-th April 1960, and recorded by a KGB listening device. Vasily asked that he be give work. Voroshilov replied : "That will depend how you behave from now on. If you are going to continue the way you were before, then this can in no way be tolerated". Vasily then said: "First and foremost, I need to work". Voroshilov declared: "Before you can start work, you are going to have to put an end to everything that prevents you from living and working. If you do not assure us that you will behave yourself well, you will not be given any work". Voroshilov put Svetlana forth as an example who "is living the right way and is behaving herself well". When Voroshilov asked: "Will you ever meet up with her?" Vasily replied: "I don't know, I never see her". -
"Why? She loves you". -
"A daughter who renounces her own father is no sister of mine. I never renounced my own father and neither will I renounce him! I shall have absolutely nothing in common with her". Apparently Voroshilov, according to the task set for him by Khrushchev, was testing Vasily to see if had changed in any way after being in prison, and if he was ready by now to renounced his own father. If he had fulfilled the wish of the Khrushchevites and renounced his own father, then he would not have been a Stalin. As a result of this, on the 16-th April 1960, Vasily was sent back to prison to finish his 8-year term. He was later released in 1961.When he was released, his surname had nevertheless been changed to another one. He was given a passport with the name Vasily Dzhugashvili and exiled him to Kazan. He died there soon after. He was given a prison sentence for doing nothing wrong whatsoever. So that meant that he had to stay silent forever. And he indeed remained silent, and buried at Arsky Cemetery, in Kazan.
Why then did the Khrushchevites hate Vasily Stalin so much?
Yuri Mukhin in his book "The Murder of Stalin and Beria" defends the version that in the last night of the 28-th February to 1-st March, Khrushchev, Ignatyev and Doctor Smirnov were with Stalin. They poisoned Stalin. But Stalin, according to the opinion of the author, did not die immediately. They deceived the security guard by declaring that Stalin had drunk a little too much and that he should be allowed to rest. When the guard had guessed was had happened, he began phoning everyone including Stalin's son. Vasily arrived early and apparently found out something from the guard, but did not restrain himself and cast aspersions on the members of the Presidium of the CC CPSU: "You ruined my father, you scoundrals!" Everything was absolutely clear to Khrushchev after hearing such a statement that Vasily knew too much about the murder of J.V. Stalin and that it was necessary to isolate him.
A month after the death of J.V. Stalin, Vasily was arrested and given an 8-year prison term according to articles 58- 1 and 58- 10 - "betraying the Motherland", "anti-Soviet propaganda" and "embezzlement", which never occurred. In order to justify the reprisal over Vasily Stalin, all the Khrushchevites began to howl on about Stalin's son, Vasily, being a chronic alcocholic. Such an accusation justified his death and discredited him and his father.
A. Sukhomlinsky writes: "If he (Vasily) was an alcocholic, then during his time in prison, he would have tried to obtain alchohol. But no such attempts, as noted by the guards, were made. Watching over Vasily in prison, Lieutenant-Colonel Kozik informed Khrushchev: "He is polite when talking with the administration and spends a lot of time reading. But he calls his conviction "illegal", and the accusations against him "all fabricated from start to finish".
Sukhomlinsky searched for the prison overseers who remembered Vasily Stalin (in prison they called him Vasilyev). They said to him that Vasily asked the administration to give him a job working as a prison maintainence man. He carried out his duties well. More than that, he built a trolley used for delivering food to the prisoners. Nobody confirmed that Vasilyev-Stalin tried to obtain spirit from the outside.
Vasily Stalin was married three times. He had four children from the first two marriages and an adopted daughter from the third. All five children lived with Vasily Stalin. If he was an alcoholic, then the mothers and grandfathers of these children would not have allowed their offspring to remain with a drunken father. And they had grandfathers: one was a colonel in the MGB - Ministry of State Security, the second one - Marshal of the Soviet Union S.K. Timoshenko, and the third - the Generalissimo of the USSR. All this, in an indirect way, confirms that Vasily Stalin could not have been a chronic alcoholic. If he had been a drinker, then he would have drank no more than the other pilots and generals.
Vasily Stalin's fellow inmates secured his rehabilitation over several decades. They would have hardly shown so much persistance if he had been an alcoholic or a person not worthy of respect. In Autumn 1999, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court, by protest of the Chief Military Prosecutor, fully rehabilitated Vasily Iyosovich Stalin according to Article 58- 10, through which he was sentenced for uttering "slanderous fabrications" in relation to the highest leadership of the country concerning the organising of his father's funeral. For criminal negligence in official work, he fell under the amnesty of 1953. Thus, Russian justice while very late in coming, rehabilitated Vasily Iyosovich Stalin.
V. Kadet, Candidate of Historical Sciences
From Mogilyev
(Vperyod N0 7 (135) 2005)
In March 2005, on the 43-rd anniversary since the death of Vasily Stalin, in the bourgeois press there began appearing articles about him of slanderous character. Stalin's son had died when he was 42 years of age at the prime of his life.
The Khruschevites and democrats slandered not only the genius thinker and great statesman Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin, but his children too: Svetlana, Vasily and Yakov.
Stalin's children were not "Children of the Arbat" who despised Soviet people and their Motherland. They did not betray like Khruschev's sons did their close friends and comrades.
Stalin's eldest son Yakov Dzugashvili prefered death on barbed wire than to being inside a German prisoner of war camp any longer. They made conditions for Stalin's daughter, Svetlana so unbearable that she had to escape from her own country and live out her final days in a London shelter in a foreign country.
Vasily Stalin was degraded and slandered. He was made out to be a useless little boy mischief-maker, a talentless fighter pilot, a commander going nowhere and a boozer-alchoholic with the shoulder straps of a General. But none of this is true, it is all slander against a decent, upright, honest, selfless, considerate and talented man, who could bring benefit and glory to the Soviet Union. However, the appearance of Vasily's talents were not in the interests of Trotskyite Khruschev and those around him. They took revenge on Stalin and his son. They were afraid of him. Vasily had a strong character, and so therefore he was a danger in the midst of the Khruschevites. Vasily, despite the pressure applied by the Khruschevites refused to renounce his own father. He refused to change his surname and refused to stay silent, like his sister Svetlana did.
Nikolai Zen'kovich studied the life and military activity of Vasily Stalin in detail, and who expounded it in his essay "The Prince and the Nurse", Yuri Mukhin, in his book entitled "The Murder of Stalin and Beria", and also in his book "Flying Aces and Propaganda", and Elena Prudnikova in her book "Stalin. A Second Murder". The fullest account of the life of Vasily Stalin can be found in publications of former fighter pilot and writer Stanislav Gribanov and other authors. In these studies, the authors reveal the outstanding personality of Vasily Stalin as a fighter pilot, as a commander and as an organiser of useful affairs in the army. They unmask the myths and slander of his sister Svetlana and other ill-wishers against Stalin and his sons.
Vasily was born in March 1921. He was an energetic boy, passionate and very pushy. Vasily was spoilt by everyone: by his relatives, assistants and school teachers. Vasily lacked modesty. He used his position and blackmailed everyone in succession.
J.V. Stalin wanted to see his sons become military men. Vasily entered Kachinsky school of aviation, which trained military fighter pilots. Mikoyan's sons trained there. Timur Frunz, Ruben Ibarruri and other children whose parents worked in the Kremlin also trained there. Vasily graduate there with flying colours and earned the rank of lieutenant. In March 1940, he was sent into fighter pilot aviation, into aviation parts which equipped fighter planes I-15. Fighter pilots like Vasily were needed here, who differed from others by their fearlessness, temperament and passion. But alongside these characteristics, in Vasily's character by measure of length of service, there began appearing new traits of character: well contemplated actions and a serious interest in new technology. Vasily loved fighter plane aviation.
In a letter to his father, he complains that other squadron are already flying new types of aircraft: MiGs, Yaks and Lags, but at the unit he was on, future fighter commanders still fly the old I-15-s. Vasily proposed that training centres first of all, possess the latest flying technology and planes, and that future squadron commanders began training on them.
Fighter pilots are people with special qualities. They are prisoners of war. They were constantly on a knife edge between life and death, and every mission they went on during war could have been their last. In their free time from flying, they rested and sometimes they "relaxed" by having a few drinks. Vasilya also had a drink, but no more than any of the others. Svetlana, Vasily's sister, who from childhood never loved him, wrote that he was a "down and out alchoholic". But she had never lived alongside her brother and they very rarely met. Vasily was in the army, and she, in civilian life, therefore her claims are doubtful.
Svetlana wrote only negatively about her brother and did not write about how he served in the army and how he fought. And this is the most important side of the life of such an outstanding individual as Vasily Stalin. Of course, the senior commmanders looked after him and limited the number of missions for him. He was even designated as inspector-pilot and after that, chief of inspections of the Red Army Air Force where he served until January 1943.
Vasily was not happy as an inspector. He longed to be at the front. He felt his place was there. Vasily felt weighed down with his post of serving in the rear. He, being brave and active, longed to be at the heart of events. However, he was not allowed to go to the front. The commanders knew that one of Stalin's sons had ended up in a prisoner of war camp and it was unknown as to whether he would return alive or not. Another one of Stalin's sons, his last, was also a passionate patriot of his Motherland and tore into fighting action, where he could be killed at any moment. And so, it was at this time spent "serving in the rear" when rumours could have circulated that Vasily had got himself a "cushy number" behind is father's back and began "taking it easy". The peaceful life at the rear weighed heavily on him.
In January 1943, inspection was disbanded. Vasily Stalin with the rank of colonel was designated commander of the 32-nd Guards Air Regiment. About how Vasily Stalin commanded and how he fought is written by fighter pilot and Hero of the Soviet Union, S.F. Dolgushin: "Vasily commanded the regiment diligently and listened attentively to us more experienced pilots. As commander of the regiment, he could go on missions and command them in the formation of any squadron, but more often, he for some reason flew in mine. During February and March 1943, with Vasily's participation, we shot down several of the enemy's planes. On 5th March, he by himself, shot down an FW-190... I remember, one day when in action, he made a mistake, typical for young pilots, although he was by now an "old hand". He was in pursuit of a "Fokker", in the heat of the moment broke from the group and was attacked by six of them. The whole squadron helped him out of the difficulty. We returned to the airfield. Vasily was a colonel and I was a captain, he - the commander of the regiment and I - squadron commander. In aviation, repect among the ranks was not very highly developed. I called him over to one side and set up my own "flight investigation": I got it off my chest like one should".
On the award sheet signed by commanding officer of the 16-th Air Force of the army, General-Colonel of Aviation S. Rudenko, it showed that V. Stalin shot down yet another enemy plane. In total - two were shot down by him. Yes, and including those shot down by the whole group, which S.E. Dolgushin talks about.
The more Vasily flew, the more the danger grew of him being shot down and, like Yakov, captured by the enemy and becoming a prisoner of war. In no way could that be allowed to happen. In order for Vasily Stalin to avoid that, Vasily Stalin flew without a parachute. It was calculted this way: in the case of his plane being shot down by enemy fire, he would die. This fact is little known but had its place.
Vasily Stalin since 1943, served at commanding posts continuously, after that he became corps commander, commanding an entire district of the Air Force. Alchoholics were not kept at such posts and furthermore, his own father would not have allowed such a person to command such large units. He was promoted not because he was Stalin's own son, although such an argument could have its place. The main thing according to the recollections of many of his colleagues was that the activity of Vasily as a commander had a positive result.
At the time of being promoted to Division Commander, he had 3105 hours of flying time "under his belt". His deputy had 2000 hours and the commanders of the regiments - a thousand hours of flying time each. Thus, by hours in the air and experience, he qualified for the post of Division Commander. Vasily Stalin flew on all types of fighter planes and also on many different types of bombers. He knew aviation well and loved it.
Some people declare that Vasily Stalin was protected and that he flew with a "minder". But a fighter pilot in a fighter plane was always alone, without a "minder". When they go on missions, they either fly in pairs, in a chain or squadron and cover each other often at great risk to themselves.
At one time a commander of a division with the rank of colonel, he became a General only after four years, and after the war in 1946. His father gave his consent to him attaining another rank only after three times he was presented with the rank of General.
In 1948, General Vasily Stalin was designated as Commander of the Air Force of the Moscow Military District. At this post which carried great responsibilty, he showed himself to be an outstanding military leader and organiser. He took on the district when it was in very difficult state. It occupied 10-th place among other Air Force districts on training and other indicators. When taking on the district, Vasily Stalin began intensely studying the state of affairs, to find deficiencies and to put them right. First of all, he strengthened discipline, banned the drinking of vodka in working cabinets and demanded the limiting of drinking in general. In a short time, airdromes were back in order and new ones built. It is quite possible that more money was put into this like in the Moscow district. Vasily Stalin himself, took charge in the fighter pilot training. For months he would not leave the training camp. The air division which was commanded by Kozhedub passed through the training under the supervision of Vasily Stalin. It was glorified in the Korean War and returned vitually without losses.
Vasily Stalin stood solidly behind his subordinates. He chose housing apartments for them, took care of them materially. At the same time, he was demanding towards his subordinates. He was feared and respected. The signal about "Vaska flying back" to the air base sent the provider into a state of quivering. He divided much attention to sport. He first formed a teams of masters of many types of sport. After becoming a deputy in the Supreme Soviet in 1948, he met with his electorate on a daily basis. And nobody noticed or remarked that he was drunk or had been drinking.
The results of the activity of Vasily Stalin were there to see. After a year, the Air Force of the Moscow military district occupied 2-nd place. In 1949, 1950 and 1951, it occupied 1-st place. According to army tradition, the commander, subdivision or unit which three times in a row occupies a prize-winning place, is entitled to an award - an Order. General Vasily Stalin had earned such an award too. But his father refused to award him stating that he already had enough awards.
In the summer of 1952,Vasily Stalin was removed from his post of commanding the aviation of the Moscow Military District. Different versions exist as to why. Svetlana sees the reason for this in a May Day parade when several planes crashed due to unsuitable weather for flying in. But that was not the case. In actual fact, it was not the May Day parade, but a parade in honour of Aviation Day. But this parade passed without incident. Stalin announced his gratitude to the pilots. Vasily entered the building where the leaders were. He drank with joy. Stalin, seeing his son in a drunk state asked: "And what's all this then?" "I'm tired", answered Vasily. "And do you often get this tired?" Stalin asked. "No!", was the reply. His direct chief commanding the Air Forces, P.F. Zhigarev countered that by saying: "Often" Vasily snapped at him. Stalin turfed him out and ordered that he be removed from his post and sent to the Soviet Far East.
This version is similar to the truth. But there was no order to transfer Vasily Stalin to the Far East. In Vasily's personal case, there is no record of drunkeness. If one looks at photos of him in the 1960-s, there are no signs of alchoholism on him.
Most likely, Vasily Stalin was freed from his post in connection with him entering the Academy of General Staff. In accordance with the post being occupied by him nd the rank of General-Lieutenant, it was a condition that he possessed a higher academic military education, which Vasily did not have. Many grew up during the war, but did not have the corresponding education. They had to study. They studied. Vasily Stalin too, had to study. In Autumn 1952, without examinations, he was accepted into the Academy of the General Staff. But he was unable to study. After his father's death, very soon he was discharged from the army and immediately arrested.
The question arises: Why was Stalin's son arrested? Recently, materials from an investigation were published. In them, it points out that Vasily Stalin had built a swiimming pool using the money from the Military district, built concrete steps at a state dacha, maintained sportsmen using district funds, a house used for hunters and had horses. For such an offence, the worst he could have been given would have been a reprimand.
Nothing was discovered in the way of personal enrichment for himself. Even trophies from Germany who many others had, were not found. Honoured lawyer of Russia, A. Sukhomlinov aquainting himself with the criminal case of Vasily Stalin, noted the following: "In front of me on the desk lies the list of sequestrated possessions - of 76 points. The most valuable were the following - a collection of rifles, presented mainly by his father, sabres given as presents by K.E. Voroshilov, and a saddle - as a present from S.M.Budyenny. Apart from those, there was nothing of interest. A table clock, hunting boots, belts, a camera, a cinecamera, two kayaks, two bicycles, two motorcycles (a present from J.V. Stalin) and a car "pakard".
In 1946 -1947, Vasily was commander of a corps in Germany. One of its divisions was based in Grossenhein, 30 minutes away from the Dresden art gallery. Another regiment was in Potsdam. This was the residence of Prussian kings. And if he so wished, he could have taken back home many things of cultural value. But he did not do this, not like others did, even the glorified highest military officials, serving in Germany at this time. Vasily never stole or aquired anything that did not belong to him.
However, he was tried and sentenced to 8 years imprisonment. He served 7 of them. The Khruschevites thought he had recognized the "personality cult" of his father and the tragety of the "stalinist repressions". He was released on January 9, 1960, given a pension and they proposed that he change his surname. He refused.
Vasily tried to meet Khruschev. But Khruschev refused to meet him and instead, sent K.E. Voroshilov to meet Vasily. the meeting took place on 9-th April 1960, and recorded by a KGB listening device. Vasily asked that he be give work. Voroshilov replied : "That will depend how you behave from now on. If you are going to continue the way you were before, then this can in no way be tolerated". Vasily then said: "First and foremost, I need to work". Voroshilov declared: "Before you can start work, you are going to have to put an end to everything that prevents you from living and working. If you do not assure us that you will behave yourself well, you will not be given any work". Voroshilov put Svetlana forth as an example who "is living the right way and is behaving herself well". When Voroshilov asked: "Will you ever meet up with her?" Vasily replied: "I don't know, I never see her". -
"Why? She loves you". -
"A daughter who renounces her own father is no sister of mine. I never renounced my own father and neither will I renounce him! I shall have absolutely nothing in common with her". Apparently Voroshilov, according to the task set for him by Khrushchev, was testing Vasily to see if had changed in any way after being in prison, and if he was ready by now to renounced his own father. If he had fulfilled the wish of the Khrushchevites and renounced his own father, then he would not have been a Stalin. As a result of this, on the 16-th April 1960, Vasily was sent back to prison to finish his 8-year term. He was later released in 1961.When he was released, his surname had nevertheless been changed to another one. He was given a passport with the name Vasily Dzhugashvili and exiled him to Kazan. He died there soon after. He was given a prison sentence for doing nothing wrong whatsoever. So that meant that he had to stay silent forever. And he indeed remained silent, and buried at Arsky Cemetery, in Kazan.
Why then did the Khrushchevites hate Vasily Stalin so much?
Yuri Mukhin in his book "The Murder of Stalin and Beria" defends the version that in the last night of the 28-th February to 1-st March, Khrushchev, Ignatyev and Doctor Smirnov were with Stalin. They poisoned Stalin. But Stalin, according to the opinion of the author, did not die immediately. They deceived the security guard by declaring that Stalin had drunk a little too much and that he should be allowed to rest. When the guard had guessed was had happened, he began phoning everyone including Stalin's son. Vasily arrived early and apparently found out something from the guard, but did not restrain himself and cast aspersions on the members of the Presidium of the CC CPSU: "You ruined my father, you scoundrals!" Everything was absolutely clear to Khrushchev after hearing such a statement that Vasily knew too much about the murder of J.V. Stalin and that it was necessary to isolate him.
A month after the death of J.V. Stalin, Vasily was arrested and given an 8-year prison term according to articles 58- 1 and 58- 10 - "betraying the Motherland", "anti-Soviet propaganda" and "embezzlement", which never occurred. In order to justify the reprisal over Vasily Stalin, all the Khrushchevites began to howl on about Stalin's son, Vasily, being a chronic alcocholic. Such an accusation justified his death and discredited him and his father.
A. Sukhomlinsky writes: "If he (Vasily) was an alcocholic, then during his time in prison, he would have tried to obtain alchohol. But no such attempts, as noted by the guards, were made. Watching over Vasily in prison, Lieutenant-Colonel Kozik informed Khrushchev: "He is polite when talking with the administration and spends a lot of time reading. But he calls his conviction "illegal", and the accusations against him "all fabricated from start to finish".
Sukhomlinsky searched for the prison overseers who remembered Vasily Stalin (in prison they called him Vasilyev). They said to him that Vasily asked the administration to give him a job working as a prison maintainence man. He carried out his duties well. More than that, he built a trolley used for delivering food to the prisoners. Nobody confirmed that Vasilyev-Stalin tried to obtain spirit from the outside.
Vasily Stalin was married three times. He had four children from the first two marriages and an adopted daughter from the third. All five children lived with Vasily Stalin. If he was an alcoholic, then the mothers and grandfathers of these children would not have allowed their offspring to remain with a drunken father. And they had grandfathers: one was a colonel in the MGB - Ministry of State Security, the second one - Marshal of the Soviet Union S.K. Timoshenko, and the third - the Generalissimo of the USSR. All this, in an indirect way, confirms that Vasily Stalin could not have been a chronic alcoholic. If he had been a drinker, then he would have drank no more than the other pilots and generals.
Vasily Stalin's fellow inmates secured his rehabilitation over several decades. They would have hardly shown so much persistance if he had been an alcoholic or a person not worthy of respect. In Autumn 1999, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court, by protest of the Chief Military Prosecutor, fully rehabilitated Vasily Iyosovich Stalin according to Article 58- 10, through which he was sentenced for uttering "slanderous fabrications" in relation to the highest leadership of the country concerning the organising of his father's funeral. For criminal negligence in official work, he fell under the amnesty of 1953. Thus, Russian justice while very late in coming, rehabilitated Vasily Iyosovich Stalin.
V. Kadet, Candidate of Historical Sciences
From Mogilyev
(Vperyod N0 7 (135) 2005)
KHRUSHCHEV’S TREACHERY
KHRUSHCHEV’S TREACHERY
ONCE AGAIN ON THE PERSONALITY CULT
(From Bolshevik newspaper of Belarus “Vperyod” No6 (122))
On June 30, 1956, a decision of the Central Committee of the CPSU “On overcoming the personality cult and its consequences” was adopted, - directively spreading revisionism under the pretext of the criticism of the Stalin personality cult. Khrushchev’s slanderous report, which was announced at a session of the XX congress of the CPSU on February 25, 1956, was placed as the basis of the decision. This report was a recognition of revisionism and neo-Trotskyism at an official level by the heads of the CPSU, and also a declaration of a change of policy in the general line of the party from proletarian to petty-bourgeois.
The CRITICISM of the so-called Stalin personality cult was the main ideological diversion of the Khrushchevites. It served as a starting point and a basis of subsequent ideological diversions: the termination of the class struggle after the liquidation of the Kulak class (class of wealthier peasants), an occurrence of a new generality and leading, in turn, to the occurrence of an all-peoples state, a party of all people etc. The Khrushchevites carefully prepared for their main ideological diversion. Inside the Bolshevik party, unfortunately, the ground had not been weeded enough to prevent such preparation from being carried out.
During J.V.Stalin's life, the general line of the party of Bolsheviks was strictly scientific, based on Marxism-Leninism, without petty-bourgeois distortions and unswervingly proletarian. Its correctness was watched strictly by the proletarian leader J.V.Stalin - the true pupil and colleague of V.I.Lenin. Its correctness has been proved by the practical affairs of the Soviet people and the successes achieved by them during J.V.Stalin's lifetime, and also by the history of the life of our society after his death, which led eventually to the restoration of capitalism.
Following the proletarian general line during J.V.Stalin's life, the party of Bolsheviks seemed homogeneous and monolithic. But it only seemed like that and that actually it objectively could not be such, owing to the heterogeneity of its structure according to social origin, and because of a variety of world views and political consciousness of its members and their various types of understanding and attitudes to Marxism-Leninism. If one examines members of the party from a position of their attitude to the proletarian general line of the party adopted during J.V.Stalin’s life, in it were both its true supporters, and imaginary ones. The latter in words supported the proletarian general line, but deep down did not accept it and aspired to change the direction of the general line over to petty-bourgeois, (i.e. they were the carriers of the petty-bourgeois line).... After the Great Patriotic War they numerically prevailed in the party, nevertheless, they could not act openly for change in the general line over onto a petty-bourgeois one, since they were organizationally finished off, and genius Stalin would expose them, and healthy forces would purge them out of the party. Proceeding from their own internal petty-bourgeois essence, they did not want to reconcile themselves with the proletarian general line, however, learning by the experience of the Trotskyites and other enemies of the working people, they operated in a sneaky manner. And to remove all suspicion from themselves, they imitated efficiency and operated in a ultra-pseudo-leftist “hurrah-revolutionary” like way, i.e. a lot of noise and din, but little sense and use coming out of it, indeed doing more harm than good.
? Carriers of the petty-bourgeois line were in the entire party including its leading bodies and even in its Presidium. Khrushchev and Mikoyan were the most important officials from these carriers in the structure of the Presidium. They believed J.V.Stalin to be the main obstacle in the way of a change in direction of the general line of the party onto a petty-bourgeois footing. Therefore, they stretched as far as even drawing up a plot with the purpose of murdering J.V.Stalin. Mikoyan admitted this in 1960 to Enver Hoxha (Enver Hoxha. “The Khrushchevites. Memoirs in 2 parts. Pub."8 Nentori”, Tirana, 1984, part. 1, page 31; part. 2, page 125). J.V.Stalin's death untied the hands of Khrushchev and his companions. Having seized power, they without much difficulty began changing the direction of the party line. However, they did not immediately start changing policy sharply. For they understood, that in order to prevent the worst consequences happening to themselves, the process of changing policy should be gradual and for this purpose it was necessary to carry out the groundwork first. They put forth a task for such preparation: to sow doubt in party members’ and workers’ minds in the correctness of the way by which Soviet people had built socialism under J.V.Stalin's leadership. But this was only possible to achieve only having struck the most sensitive areas. One such area was in the area of belief by members of the party and workers in the great proletarian leader J.V.Stalin, in his words and deeds.
Khrushchev and his companions also had other motives for attacking Stalin. These include first of all, Khrushchev’s personal ambitions (he tore up to the top ranks of power), as well as his partners’ ambitions. They believed themselves to be greater than Stalin. Undoubtedly, Khrushchev and his ilk with him were people certainly extraordinary, gifted, maybe, and talented even. Nevertheless, despite this, they were a few grades lower than J.V.Stalin as politicians and statesmen. Only close to Stalin did they seem more significant, than they actually were. He suppressed them with his own intelligence, willpower, thorough knowledge of Marxism-Leninism and his dialectics, his wisdom based on this knowledge and foresight, the correct and effective solving of practical affairs and the skill in finding correct solutions in the most confusing situations.
During Stalin’s lifetime, the Khruschevites were left with nothing other than against their will to participate in the construction of socialism by the route laid by genius Stalin. Such state of affairs did not suit them, touched their wounded vanity and brought about their internal embitterment. Khrushchev also had in addition a personal motive for attacking Stalin; he could not forgive Joseph Vissarionovich for his refusal to rehabilitate his son who had committed grave crimes. This motive aggravated Khrushchev’s embitterment even more. This embitterment developed in the spirit of the poison of anti-Stalinism. Compelled to hide this poison deeply in the deaf darkness of their own double-dealing souls, the Khrushchevites began to spread it openly after Stalin's death consistently, deliberately and well-dosed out. The first dose of such poison was the statement by the Khrushchevites about the restoration by them of the Leninist principle of collective leadership by the party and the state. However, at first, they openly did not say, who, in their opinion had trampled on these principles, however they meant, that Stalin had done it. He had supposedly usurped authority, individually decided and disposed of everything, showed voluntarism. From here supposedly proceeded all the deficiencies that were in the national economy.
***
The next dose was the case of the Kremlin doctors (the doctor’s plot - trans.). On January 13, 1953, a government message was circulated about doctors who were engaged in poisonings. And on April 4 1953, a message appeared from the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR about the complete rehabilitation of the arrested doctors. Afterwards, members and candidates for membership into the Central Committee became acquainted with the documents, which in addition, testified to Stalin's direct participation in this case, demanding more thorough questioning.
Further, the Khrushchevites accused Stalin of worsening relations with Yugoslavia, motivated by the fact that not all possibilities were exhausted for settling controversial questions and that this they say, led? Yugoslavia into the hostile camp. Thus, they rejected the decisions of the Information Bureau of 1948 and 1949 where Tito’s revisionism was condemned. For acknowledgement of their correctness, the Khrushchevites even created a special commission led by Shepilov for defining the social, economic and political system of Yugoslavia. Of course, the commission “successfully” solved the task allocated to it and, ostensibly, after carefully studying the material, came to the conclusion that Yugoslavia meets the requirements, which Marxism-Leninism sets for socialist states.
Having “enriched” the treasury of Marxism-Leninism with the idea of peaceful co-existence of states with different systems, the Khrushchevites blamed Stalin who had supposedly allowed only peaceful co-operation, however he thus emphasized, that while there is capitalism, wars are inevitable. Such inconsistency, in their opinion, affected international relations and supposedly put under doubt the policy of peaceful co-existence in general. Thus, the Khrushchevites made pains to show themselves as the pathbreakers of the idea of peaceful co-existence.
?The main item of the charges of the Khrushchevites was Stalin's so-called arbitrariness in the repressions allegedly carried out by him against completely innocent people. The way in which the Khrushchevites wailed on about the enemies of the working people, one can only grieve for ones native and closest people. And presentation by the Khrushchevites of those people condemned in the 193Î-s for counterrevolutionary crimes of the enemies of the working people as innocent people subjected to repression once again proves, that those enemies seemed as though they were spiritual brothers of the Khrushchevites.
By mid 1953, the first exiles started returning. For simplifying the rehabilitation process of his "spiritual brothers”, Khrushchev having already become first secretary of the Central Committee, achieved in the middle of September, 1953 the adoption by the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of a decree giving the right to the Supreme court of the USSR to reconsider under the protest of the General public prosecutor, the decisions of the former colleagues of the OGPU, of three of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs and of the special meeting of the NKVD-MGB-MVD of the USSR. Further, Khrushchev gave the General public prosecutor, Minister of Internal Affairs and Minister of Justice an instruction to review the cases against people convicted for counterrevolutionary crimes. They were not slow in following this instruction, about which they informed on February 1, 1954 to Khrushchev, having presented it in a report. The Supreme court urgently began the rehabilitation of enemies of the working people. So, in April 1954, he reconsidered the Leningrad case and rehabilitated the convicted, allegedly, for lack of criminal evidence. In 1955 the court rehabilitated party members and statesmen Bubnov, Kosarev, Êîsior, Krilyenko, Postishev, Rudzutak, Chaplin, Chubar, Ekhe and Blucher's military leaders, Gamarnik, Egorov, Tukhachevsky, Uborevich and Yakir.
Having decided to completely discredit Stalin at the XX congress of the CPSU, Khrushchev before the congress carried out his spadework in the Presidium of the Central Committee. At one of his sittings, he, under a demagogical pretext suggested the forming of a special commission for an investigation into Stalin’s activity. Enjoying the support of Bulganin, Saburov, Pervukhin, Kirichenko and Suslov, Khrushchev managed in the Presidium of the Central Committee, to form the commission led by Secretary of the Central Committee, Pospelov, Aristov, chairman of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions, Shvernik and the deputy chairman of the KPK under the Central Committee of Komarov. The members of the commission by their own thinking were raging anti-Stalinists, anticommunists and anti-Soviets having petty-bourgeois views and political consciousness. By virtue of this, the members of Pospelovite commission appeared as Khrushchev’s authorized representatives and conscientiously carried out his task to slander Stalin's personality and activity. When drawing up the report they started out from a position of the petty bourgeoisie offended by the dictatorship of the proletariat, which was consistently implemented by Stalin, and judged his personality and activity using the criteria of judgement used by bourgeois figures. In particular, they used the following sly method. When judging those people convicted in the 1930-s, they rejected the main thing - the reason for their arrests for counterrevolutionary crimes. But they stuck out their membership of the party, the high posts of the arrested persons and their services before Soviet power. Using this as a basis, the commission quickly announced all those convicted for counterrevolutionary crimes during Stalin’s lifetime as innocent and gave the resulting final figures of all those subjected to repression, which simply deafened unprepared people. Without doubt, the Pospelovite commission, when drawing up the report, used slanderous fabrications of their spiritual father, Trotsky who proceeded with poisonous saliva at only the mention of Stalin’s name alone.
(To be continued)
G.S. FILLIPOV, KRASNOYARSK ("Workers'-and-Peasants' Sickle and Hammer ", No26, June, 2004)
ONCE AGAIN ON THE PERSONALITY CULT
(From Bolshevik newspaper of Belarus “Vperyod” No6 (122))
On June 30, 1956, a decision of the Central Committee of the CPSU “On overcoming the personality cult and its consequences” was adopted, - directively spreading revisionism under the pretext of the criticism of the Stalin personality cult. Khrushchev’s slanderous report, which was announced at a session of the XX congress of the CPSU on February 25, 1956, was placed as the basis of the decision. This report was a recognition of revisionism and neo-Trotskyism at an official level by the heads of the CPSU, and also a declaration of a change of policy in the general line of the party from proletarian to petty-bourgeois.
The CRITICISM of the so-called Stalin personality cult was the main ideological diversion of the Khrushchevites. It served as a starting point and a basis of subsequent ideological diversions: the termination of the class struggle after the liquidation of the Kulak class (class of wealthier peasants), an occurrence of a new generality and leading, in turn, to the occurrence of an all-peoples state, a party of all people etc. The Khrushchevites carefully prepared for their main ideological diversion. Inside the Bolshevik party, unfortunately, the ground had not been weeded enough to prevent such preparation from being carried out.
During J.V.Stalin's life, the general line of the party of Bolsheviks was strictly scientific, based on Marxism-Leninism, without petty-bourgeois distortions and unswervingly proletarian. Its correctness was watched strictly by the proletarian leader J.V.Stalin - the true pupil and colleague of V.I.Lenin. Its correctness has been proved by the practical affairs of the Soviet people and the successes achieved by them during J.V.Stalin's lifetime, and also by the history of the life of our society after his death, which led eventually to the restoration of capitalism.
Following the proletarian general line during J.V.Stalin's life, the party of Bolsheviks seemed homogeneous and monolithic. But it only seemed like that and that actually it objectively could not be such, owing to the heterogeneity of its structure according to social origin, and because of a variety of world views and political consciousness of its members and their various types of understanding and attitudes to Marxism-Leninism. If one examines members of the party from a position of their attitude to the proletarian general line of the party adopted during J.V.Stalin’s life, in it were both its true supporters, and imaginary ones. The latter in words supported the proletarian general line, but deep down did not accept it and aspired to change the direction of the general line over to petty-bourgeois, (i.e. they were the carriers of the petty-bourgeois line).... After the Great Patriotic War they numerically prevailed in the party, nevertheless, they could not act openly for change in the general line over onto a petty-bourgeois one, since they were organizationally finished off, and genius Stalin would expose them, and healthy forces would purge them out of the party. Proceeding from their own internal petty-bourgeois essence, they did not want to reconcile themselves with the proletarian general line, however, learning by the experience of the Trotskyites and other enemies of the working people, they operated in a sneaky manner. And to remove all suspicion from themselves, they imitated efficiency and operated in a ultra-pseudo-leftist “hurrah-revolutionary” like way, i.e. a lot of noise and din, but little sense and use coming out of it, indeed doing more harm than good.
? Carriers of the petty-bourgeois line were in the entire party including its leading bodies and even in its Presidium. Khrushchev and Mikoyan were the most important officials from these carriers in the structure of the Presidium. They believed J.V.Stalin to be the main obstacle in the way of a change in direction of the general line of the party onto a petty-bourgeois footing. Therefore, they stretched as far as even drawing up a plot with the purpose of murdering J.V.Stalin. Mikoyan admitted this in 1960 to Enver Hoxha (Enver Hoxha. “The Khrushchevites. Memoirs in 2 parts. Pub."8 Nentori”, Tirana, 1984, part. 1, page 31; part. 2, page 125). J.V.Stalin's death untied the hands of Khrushchev and his companions. Having seized power, they without much difficulty began changing the direction of the party line. However, they did not immediately start changing policy sharply. For they understood, that in order to prevent the worst consequences happening to themselves, the process of changing policy should be gradual and for this purpose it was necessary to carry out the groundwork first. They put forth a task for such preparation: to sow doubt in party members’ and workers’ minds in the correctness of the way by which Soviet people had built socialism under J.V.Stalin's leadership. But this was only possible to achieve only having struck the most sensitive areas. One such area was in the area of belief by members of the party and workers in the great proletarian leader J.V.Stalin, in his words and deeds.
Khrushchev and his companions also had other motives for attacking Stalin. These include first of all, Khrushchev’s personal ambitions (he tore up to the top ranks of power), as well as his partners’ ambitions. They believed themselves to be greater than Stalin. Undoubtedly, Khrushchev and his ilk with him were people certainly extraordinary, gifted, maybe, and talented even. Nevertheless, despite this, they were a few grades lower than J.V.Stalin as politicians and statesmen. Only close to Stalin did they seem more significant, than they actually were. He suppressed them with his own intelligence, willpower, thorough knowledge of Marxism-Leninism and his dialectics, his wisdom based on this knowledge and foresight, the correct and effective solving of practical affairs and the skill in finding correct solutions in the most confusing situations.
During Stalin’s lifetime, the Khruschevites were left with nothing other than against their will to participate in the construction of socialism by the route laid by genius Stalin. Such state of affairs did not suit them, touched their wounded vanity and brought about their internal embitterment. Khrushchev also had in addition a personal motive for attacking Stalin; he could not forgive Joseph Vissarionovich for his refusal to rehabilitate his son who had committed grave crimes. This motive aggravated Khrushchev’s embitterment even more. This embitterment developed in the spirit of the poison of anti-Stalinism. Compelled to hide this poison deeply in the deaf darkness of their own double-dealing souls, the Khrushchevites began to spread it openly after Stalin's death consistently, deliberately and well-dosed out. The first dose of such poison was the statement by the Khrushchevites about the restoration by them of the Leninist principle of collective leadership by the party and the state. However, at first, they openly did not say, who, in their opinion had trampled on these principles, however they meant, that Stalin had done it. He had supposedly usurped authority, individually decided and disposed of everything, showed voluntarism. From here supposedly proceeded all the deficiencies that were in the national economy.
***
The next dose was the case of the Kremlin doctors (the doctor’s plot - trans.). On January 13, 1953, a government message was circulated about doctors who were engaged in poisonings. And on April 4 1953, a message appeared from the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR about the complete rehabilitation of the arrested doctors. Afterwards, members and candidates for membership into the Central Committee became acquainted with the documents, which in addition, testified to Stalin's direct participation in this case, demanding more thorough questioning.
Further, the Khrushchevites accused Stalin of worsening relations with Yugoslavia, motivated by the fact that not all possibilities were exhausted for settling controversial questions and that this they say, led? Yugoslavia into the hostile camp. Thus, they rejected the decisions of the Information Bureau of 1948 and 1949 where Tito’s revisionism was condemned. For acknowledgement of their correctness, the Khrushchevites even created a special commission led by Shepilov for defining the social, economic and political system of Yugoslavia. Of course, the commission “successfully” solved the task allocated to it and, ostensibly, after carefully studying the material, came to the conclusion that Yugoslavia meets the requirements, which Marxism-Leninism sets for socialist states.
Having “enriched” the treasury of Marxism-Leninism with the idea of peaceful co-existence of states with different systems, the Khrushchevites blamed Stalin who had supposedly allowed only peaceful co-operation, however he thus emphasized, that while there is capitalism, wars are inevitable. Such inconsistency, in their opinion, affected international relations and supposedly put under doubt the policy of peaceful co-existence in general. Thus, the Khrushchevites made pains to show themselves as the pathbreakers of the idea of peaceful co-existence.
?The main item of the charges of the Khrushchevites was Stalin's so-called arbitrariness in the repressions allegedly carried out by him against completely innocent people. The way in which the Khrushchevites wailed on about the enemies of the working people, one can only grieve for ones native and closest people. And presentation by the Khrushchevites of those people condemned in the 193Î-s for counterrevolutionary crimes of the enemies of the working people as innocent people subjected to repression once again proves, that those enemies seemed as though they were spiritual brothers of the Khrushchevites.
By mid 1953, the first exiles started returning. For simplifying the rehabilitation process of his "spiritual brothers”, Khrushchev having already become first secretary of the Central Committee, achieved in the middle of September, 1953 the adoption by the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of a decree giving the right to the Supreme court of the USSR to reconsider under the protest of the General public prosecutor, the decisions of the former colleagues of the OGPU, of three of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs and of the special meeting of the NKVD-MGB-MVD of the USSR. Further, Khrushchev gave the General public prosecutor, Minister of Internal Affairs and Minister of Justice an instruction to review the cases against people convicted for counterrevolutionary crimes. They were not slow in following this instruction, about which they informed on February 1, 1954 to Khrushchev, having presented it in a report. The Supreme court urgently began the rehabilitation of enemies of the working people. So, in April 1954, he reconsidered the Leningrad case and rehabilitated the convicted, allegedly, for lack of criminal evidence. In 1955 the court rehabilitated party members and statesmen Bubnov, Kosarev, Êîsior, Krilyenko, Postishev, Rudzutak, Chaplin, Chubar, Ekhe and Blucher's military leaders, Gamarnik, Egorov, Tukhachevsky, Uborevich and Yakir.
Having decided to completely discredit Stalin at the XX congress of the CPSU, Khrushchev before the congress carried out his spadework in the Presidium of the Central Committee. At one of his sittings, he, under a demagogical pretext suggested the forming of a special commission for an investigation into Stalin’s activity. Enjoying the support of Bulganin, Saburov, Pervukhin, Kirichenko and Suslov, Khrushchev managed in the Presidium of the Central Committee, to form the commission led by Secretary of the Central Committee, Pospelov, Aristov, chairman of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions, Shvernik and the deputy chairman of the KPK under the Central Committee of Komarov. The members of the commission by their own thinking were raging anti-Stalinists, anticommunists and anti-Soviets having petty-bourgeois views and political consciousness. By virtue of this, the members of Pospelovite commission appeared as Khrushchev’s authorized representatives and conscientiously carried out his task to slander Stalin's personality and activity. When drawing up the report they started out from a position of the petty bourgeoisie offended by the dictatorship of the proletariat, which was consistently implemented by Stalin, and judged his personality and activity using the criteria of judgement used by bourgeois figures. In particular, they used the following sly method. When judging those people convicted in the 1930-s, they rejected the main thing - the reason for their arrests for counterrevolutionary crimes. But they stuck out their membership of the party, the high posts of the arrested persons and their services before Soviet power. Using this as a basis, the commission quickly announced all those convicted for counterrevolutionary crimes during Stalin’s lifetime as innocent and gave the resulting final figures of all those subjected to repression, which simply deafened unprepared people. Without doubt, the Pospelovite commission, when drawing up the report, used slanderous fabrications of their spiritual father, Trotsky who proceeded with poisonous saliva at only the mention of Stalin’s name alone.
(To be continued)
G.S. FILLIPOV, KRASNOYARSK ("Workers'-and-Peasants' Sickle and Hammer ", No26, June, 2004)
For Socialist Revolution - I CANNOT GIVE UP PRINCIPLES by Nina Andreeva General Secretary of the AUCPB
WORKERS OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE!
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FOR SOCIALIST REVOLUTION
AND THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT
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No3 (3) FEBRUARY 2006
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CONTENTS
1. I CANNOT GIVE UP PRINCIPLES
2. KHRUSCHEV'S TREACHERY
3. THE TRUTH ABOUT VASILY STALIN
4. WHAT IS HAPPENING IN CHINA
6 THE GREAT WORK OF KIM JONG IL
I CANNOT GIVE UP PRINCIPLES
By Nina Alexandrovna Andreeva, General Secretary of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (AUCPB)
Published in newspaper Sovetskaya Rossiya (Soviet Russia) in March 1988
I decided to write this letter after long meditation. I am a chemist and a lecturer at the Leningrad Technological Institute named after Lensoviet. Like many others, I am also a curator of one class. In our days, after the period of social apathy and intellectual parasitism, students gradually begin to be charged with energy for revolutionary changes. Naturally, there arise discussions about the ways of perestroika and about its economic and ideological aspects. Glasnost, openness, disappearance of the zones forbidden for criticism, the emotional incandescence in the consciousness of the masses, amidst the young people in particular, are shown not infrequently also in the raising of such problems, which are "prompted" in one or another measure by the Western radios or by those of our countrymen who are not thorough in their understanding of the essence of socialism. What is not talked about! Talk is going about a multiparty system, about the freedom of religious propaganda, about leaving the country to reside abroad, about the right to wide discussion of sexual problems in the press, about the need of decentralized leadership of culture, and about the abolition of obligatory military service. There is particularly a lot of argument among students about the past of the country.
Of course, we instructors have to answer the most acute problems which demand, besides honesty, knowledge, conviction, cultural horizon, serious meditation and profound appreciations. And these qualities are needed for all the educators of the young people, and not only for the collaborators of the chairs of social sciences.
The favorite place where we go with students for a walk is the park in Petergof. We walk along the snow-covered lanes, admire the famous places and statues, and argue. Argue! Young souls thirst for understanding all the complications and determine their path for the future. I watch my young excited interlocutors and think: How important it is to help them to discover truth, form a correct understanding of the problems of the society in which they are living and which is to be reformed by them and how I should clarify for them the right understanding of the ancient and recent of our history.
What are the apprehensions? Here is a simple example: it seems that so much has been written anbd told about the Great Patriotic War and about the heroism of its participants. But now long ago there was a meeting with Hero of the Soviet Union V.F. Molozev, a retired colonel, in one of the student hostels of our technological institute. Among others a question was raised to him about the political repression in the army. The veteran answered that he had not run into repression, and that many of those who, together with him, had gone through the war from the start to the end, became important military commanders. Some were disappointed to hear the answer. Being a topic of conversation, the matter of repression is hypertrophied among some young people, and overshadows the objective comprehension of the past. Instances of this kind are not rare.
Of course, it makes me very glad that even the "technical scholars" are keenly interested in the theoretical problems of social science. However, too many of such problems have already appeared which I cannot accept and to which I cannot agree. They are words about "terrorism", "political servility of the people", "uninspired social vegetation", "our spiritual slavery", "general fear", and "dominance of the boors in power" Only out of these threads is frequently woven the history of the transitional period to socialism in our country. Therefore, it is not surprising that, for instance, among some students nihilistic frames of mind are growing, and ideological confusion, displacement of political landmarks and even ideological polyphagia are appearing. Sometimes we hear the assertion that it is time to make communists answerable for having allegedly "dehumanized" the life of the country after 1917.
At the February Plenary Meeting of the Party Central Committee the imperative necessity was once again stressed for the "young people to be taught to see the world from the class point of view and understand the relations between the universal and class interests, including the class essence of the changes taking place in our country". Such view of history and of the present is incompatible with the political anecdotes, base gossips and sharp fantasies, which it is now possible to encounter frequently.
I read and reread the sensational articles. What can, for instance, be given to the youth, except disorientation, by the revelation of the "counterrevolution in the USSR in the '30s", of the "blame" of Stalin for the accession to power by fascism and Hitler in Germany, or by the public "counting" of the number of "Stalinists" among various generations and social groups?
We are inhabitants of Leningrad, and therefore we recently watched a good documentary about S.M. Kirov with particular interest.
However, the text, accompanying the stills, not only differed from the scenes of the film in some passages, but also gave them some ambiguity. For one thing, the stills demonstrate the outburst of enthusiasm, the joy of living, and the emotional upsurge of people who have built socialism, but the announcer's text refers to repression and ignorance....
Probably, it was evident not only to me that the appeals of party leaders to turn the attention of the "denouncers" also to the facts of real achievements at different stages of socialist construction call forth new outbreaks of "disclosures" as if on order. Noticeable in this unfruitful play are the plays of M. Shatrov. On the day when the 26th Congress of the party opened, I had occasion to see the performance of Blue Horses on Red Grass. I remember the excited reaction of the young people in the episode of Lenin's secretary trying to pour water on Lenin's head from a teakettle, having confused it with an unfinished sculptural model. By the way, some young people came with slogan boards, which had been prepared beforehand and meant to besmirch our past and present. In the play Brest Peace Lenin kneels to Trotsky according to the will of the playwright and the director. This is a symbolic embodiment of the author's conception. It is subsequently developed in the play Farther, Farther and Farther! Of course, a play is not a historic treatise. However, even in artistic production, truth is provided by none other than the position of the author. It is particularly so if dramatic works on political subjects are referred to.
The position of playwright Shatrov is analysed thoroughly and in a well-reasoned way in the reviews of scholars-historians published in the newspapers Pravda and Soviet Russia *. I would also like to express my opinion. I cannot agree specifically to the fact that Shatrov substantially deviates from the accepted principles of socialist realism. Dealing with the most responsible period in the history of our country, he absolutizes the subjective factor of social progress, obviously ignores the objective laws of history which are manifested in the activity of the classes and masses. The role of the proletarian masses and the party of Bolsheviks is brought down here to the "background" in which the activities of irresponsible politicians are being unfolded.
The reviewers, resting upon the Marxist-Leninist methodology of the investigation of concrete historic processes, convincingly testified that Shatrov distorts the history of socialism in our country. The unacceptable object is the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat, without the historic contribution of which there would be nothing to reorganize for us now. Furthermore, the author accuses Stalin of the murder of Trotsky and Kirov and of the "blockade" of sick Lenin. However, it is really inconceivable to throw biased accusations against historic figures, without taking trouble to show evidence....
Unfortunately, the reviewers did not succeed in showing that the playwright is not original for all his pretensions as an author. It seemed to me that in the logic of his appraisal and argument he was very close to the motif of B. Suvarin's book published in Paris in 1935. In the play Shatrov put into the mouths of the characters what had been asserted by the opponents of Leninism concerning the course of the revolution, Lenin's role in it and the mutual relations of the members of the Party Central Committee at different stages of inner-party struggle. Such is the essence of Shatrov's "new perusal" about Lenin. I would like to add that A. Rybakov, author of Children of the Arbat, also frankly admitted that individual plots had been borrowed by Shatrov from emigrant publications.
Without reading the play Farther, Farther and Farther! (it was not published) I had already read laudatory responses to it in some publications. What could such haste mean? Then I knew that hasty preparations were being made to put the play on the stage.
Soon after the February Plenary Meeting in Pravda a letter was published which was entitled "Along a New Circle" and signed by our eight leading theatrical figures. They warn against the possible, according to their opinion, delay in the staging of M. Shatrov's latest play. This conclusion is made from the critical appreciations of the play which had appeared in newspapers. The authors of the letter put, for some reason, the authors of the critical reviews outside the brackets of those "for whom the fatherland is dear." How does it go with their wish to discuss the problems of our ancient and recent history "stormily and passionately?" Do they mean that only they may have their opinion?**
In the numerous discussions now being held literally on all problems of sociology, I, as an instructor of a higher educational institution, am interested first of all in those problems which directly exert influence on the ideological and political education of the young people, their moral health and their social optimism. Talking to students, meditating on acute problems together with them, I involuntarily come to the conclusion that many shortcomings and one-sidedness have been accumulated in us, something which evidently needs to be corrected. I would like to dwell especially on some of them.
Let us take the problem about the place of J.V. Stalin in the history of our country. Namely with his name is connected all the obsession of the critical attacks which, in my opinion, concerns not so much the very historic person as all the most complicated transitional period, a period which has to do with the unparalleled exploit of the whole generation of the Soviet people who are now gradually moving away from active working, political and social activity. The industrialization, collectivization and cultural revolution which have led out our country to the ranks of the great powers, are forcibly being crammed into the formula of "personality cult". All this is put under doubt. Things have come to such an extent that they have begun to persistently demand "Stalinists” to "confess". (It is possible to include in their number anyone if it is desired to do so).... Praises are showered upon the novels and films in which the era of storm and onslaught is lynched being described as the "tragedy of the people." It is true that sometimes similar attempts to erect historic nihilism on the pedestal do not work. So, a film which is rained with kisses of criticism, is sometimes accepted rather coldly by the majority of the population in spite of the unprecedented publicity pressing.
I would like to mention straight away that neither I nor other members of my family have any relation with Stalin, with his surroundings, his retinue and with his extollers. My father was a worker of the Leningrad Port and my mother was a metal worker at Kirov Factory. My elder brother also worked there. He, my father and sister were killed in the battles against the Hitlerites. One of my relatives had been repressed and after the 20th Congress of the party he was rehabilitated. Together with all the Soviet people I share wrath and indignation for the mass repression which took place in the 30s and 40s because of the fault of the then party and state leadership. However, common sense resolutely protests against the one-colour painting of contradictory events which has now begun to prevail in some press organs.
I support the party's call to defend the honour and dignity of the pioneers of socialism. I think that precisely from these party and class positions we should appraise the historic role of all the leaders of the party and the country including Stalin. In this case we should not reduce the matter to the "court" aspect or to abstract moral propaganda from the side of those persons who are far both from that stormy time but from people who lived and worked at that time so that it serves as an inspiring example for us even now.
For me, like for many people, a decisive role in the appraisal of Stalin is played by the direct evidences of the contemporaries who had firsthand contact with him both on our side and on the other side of the barricade. Not uninteresting are just the evidences of the latter. Take, for instance, Churchill, who in 1919 took pride in his personal contribution to the organization of military intervention of 14 foreign states against the young Soviet Republic, but exactly after forty years was compelled to characterize Stalin, one of his menacing political opponents, as follows:
"He was an outstanding person impressing our severe time of the period in which his life elapsed. Stalin was a man of exceptional energy, erudition and unbending willpower, harsh, strict and relentless as in work, as well as talk, whom even I, educated in English parliament, could not oppose in any way. In his works gigantic strength was resounded. In Stalin this strength was so great that he seemed unique among the leaders of all times and peoples. His influence over people was irresistible. When he entered the hall of the Yalta Conference, all of us stood up as if at someone' s command. A strange thing is that we stood at attention. Stalin possessed profound, logical and intelligent wisdom devoid of any panic. He was a peerless master able to find, at a difficult moment, a way out of the most hopeless situation…. This was a man who destroyed his enemy with the hands of his enemies, and forced us, whom he openly called imperialists, to fight against imperialists He took over Russia from a wooden plough, and left it equipped with atomic weapons". Such an appraisal-confession on the part of a loyal guardsman of the British empire cannot be explained as a pretence or political conjuncture.
The basic elements of this characteristic can be found also in the memoirs of De Gaulle and in the reminiscences and letters of other political figures of Europe and America, who dealt with Stalin as a military ally and a class enemy.
Important and serious material for meditation on the given problem is given by home documents, which are, moreover, available for all comers. Take, for instance, the two-volume edition Letters of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR Exchanged with the Presidents of the USA and the Prime-Ministers of Great Britain during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945, issued by the Publishing House of Political Books already in 1957. These documents really call forth pride in our state and in its place and role in the stormy and changing world. I remember the collection of reports, speeches and orders given by Stalin in the years of the last war with which the heroic generation of those who won victory over fascism were educated. It may well be republished with the inclusion of those documents which were secret at that time, such as the dramatic order No. 227. *** By the way, some historians insist on doing so. All these documents are not known to our young people. What is particularly important for the education of historic consciousness is the memoirs of generals Zhukov, Vasilevsky, Golovanov and Shtemenko and aircraft designer Yakovlev who knew the Supreme Commander-in-Chief not by hearsay.
It goes without saying that the time was extremely severe. And it is also true that personal modesty, amounting to asceticism, was not yet ashamed of itself, and that the potential Soviet millionaires still feared to peck in the tranquility of demoted offices and commercial bases. Moreover, we were not so business-like and pragmatic and did not prepare the young people for the niceties of using the wealth earned by their parents, but for labour and defence, without shattering their spiritual world with alien chef d'oeuvres from behind the "hillock" and with clumsy articles of mass culture.
From the long and frank talks with young interlocutors, we draw such conclusions that the attacks on the state of dictatorship of the proletariat and the then leaders of our country have not only political, ideological and moral causes, but also their own social subsoil.
There are not a small number of those who are interested in expanding the bridgehead of these attacks, and they are not only beyond the boundaries of our country. Side by side with the professional anti-communists in the West, who chose the allegedly democratic slogan of "anti-Stalinism" a long time ago, there live and prosper the descendants of the classes overthrown by the October Revolution, not all of whom could forget the material and social losses of their ancestors.
We should relate to this the spiritual heirs to Dan and Martov and others of the department of Russian social-democratism, the spiritual followers of Trotsky and Yagoda, and the offspring of nepmen, Basmaches and kulaks who were offended by socialism.
As is known, every historic figure is developed by concrete socio-economic and ideological and political conditions, which exert a decisive influence on the subjective-objective selection of the pretenders whose mission is to solve some or other social problems. Such a pretender who had moved forward to the proscenium of history should, in order "to remain afloat", satisfy the requirements of the era and the leading social and political structures and realize in his activity objective law, having inevitably left the "imprint" of his personality on historic events. In the final analysis, for instance, there are now a few of those who are embarrassed by the personal qualities of Peter the Great, but everyone remembers that during the period of his rule the country reached the level of a great European power. Time has condensed the result, which lies now in the appraisal of the historic personality of Emperor Peter. And the invariable flowers on his sarcophagus at the cathedral of Petropavlovsk Fortress embody the respect and gratitude of our contemporaries who are distant from autocracy.
I think that, however contradictory and complicated one or another figure of Soviet history may be, its true role in the building and defence of socialism will receive its objective and unequivocal appraisal sooner or later. Of course, unequivocal not in the sense of one-sided, whitewashing or eclectically summarizing discrepant phenomena, which allows one to make with reserves any subjectivism-"to forgive or not to forgive", "to throw out or to leave" in history. Unequivocal means, before anything else, historically concrete appraisal independent of conjuncture, in which is manifested -according to historic result! - dialectics of conformity of the activity of personality with the basic laws of the development of society. In our country these laws were connected with the solution of the problem "who will beat whom?" in the internal and international aspects. If we are to follow the Marxist-Leninist methodology of historic investigation, then, according to M.S. Gorbachev, it is necessary, before anything else, to show strikingly how millions of people lived and worked and in what they believed, and how the victories and failures, discoveries and mistakes, the bright and tragic, the revolutionary enthusiasm of the masses and the violations of socialist law, at times crimes, were combined.
Recently one of my girl students puzzled me by frankly saying that the class struggle was an antiquated conception, like the leading role of the proletariat. It would be all right if only she asserted that. The recent assertion of a respected academician to the effect that the present relations between the states of two different social and economic systems have been deprived of class content, for example, provoked fierce controversy. I assume that the academician did not consider it necessary to explain why he had for decades written about what is directly opposite to this- that peaceful coexistence is nothing else but a form of class struggle in the international arena. It appears that now the philosopher has declined this. Why, views sometimes change. However, I think that the duty of a leading philosopher enjoins him all the same to explain at least to those who learned and are learning according to his books, that the international working class is now countering world capital with its state and political organs.
At the centre of many discussions now being held, there stands, as it seems to me, the question: which class or stratum of society is the leading and mobilizing force of perestroika? Something was said about this, in particular, in the interview of writer A. Prokhanov in our city newspaper Leningrad Worker. Prokhanov proceeds from it that the peculiarity of the present status of social consciousness is characterized by the presence of two ideological currents, or, as he says, "alternative towers", which attempt, from various directions, to overcome in our country "socialism built in battles". Exaggerating the significance and sharpness of mutual antagonism between these "towers", the writer, nevertheless, justly emphasizes that "they agree only in the beating of socialist values". However, both, as their ideologues assure, stand "for perestroika".
The first, the deepest ideological current, which has already revealed itself in the course of perestroika, pretends to the model of a sort of Left-liberal intellectual socialism, the alleged mouthpiece of the most veritable and the "purest" humanism free from class stratification. Its supporters oppose to proletarian collectivism the "self-value of personality"- with modernist searches in the field of culture, God-seeking tendencies, technocratic idols, preaching of "democratic" charms of modem capitalism, and flatteries of its real and sham achievements. Its representatives assert that we have built no such socialism and that only now "for the first time in history the union of political leadership and progressive intelligentsia has been formed". At the time when millions of people in our planet die of hunger, epidemics and military adventures of imperialism, they demand to work out a "juridical code of the defence of animals’ rights", give nature unusual, supernatural intelligence and maintain that cultural level is not a social, but a biological quality, which is genetically passed from parents to children. Will you explain to me what all this means?
Namely the supporters of "Left-liberal socialism" form the tendency of falsification of the history of socialism. They instil into us that in the past history of the country only mistakes and crimes were real, keeping silence about the greatest achievments of the past and the present. Pretending to the completeness of historic truth, they substitute the social and political criterion of the development of society with scholasticism of ethical categories. I want to know very much for whom and for what it is necessary so that every leader of the CC of the Party and the Soviet government, after leaving his post, was compromised and discredited in connection with his real and alleged mistakes and errors committed in solving the most complicated problems on bad historic roads. From where did come to us such passion for the dissipation of the authority and dignity of the leaders of the first country of socialism in the world?
Another peculiarity of the views of the "Left liberals" is an evident or disguised cosmopolitan tendency, certain "internationalism" without something national. I read somewhere that when after the revolution a delegation of merchants and factory owners came to the Petrograd Soviet, to Trotsky "as a Jew", to lodge a complaint about the oppression of the Red Guards, he declared that he was "not a Jew, but an internationalist", and thus he greatly perplexed the petitioners.
The concept "national", for Trotsky, meant something which has inferiority and limitation in comparison with "internationalism". And, therefore, he emphasized the "national tradition" of October, wrote about "national in Lenin", asserted that the Russian people "did not receive any cultural legacy" and the like. We are somehow ashamed to say that namely the Russian proletariat, whom Trotskyites slighted as being "backward and uncivilized", accomplished, according to Lenin, "three Russian revolutions", and that the Slav peoples advanced in the van of mankind in the battles against fascism.
As a matter of course, saying so does not mean any belittling of the historic contribution of other nations and nationalities. This, as they say today, oply ensures the completeness of historic truth.... When the students ask me how it could happen that thousands of small villages in Nechernozem and Siberia became deserted, I answer that this is also a dear price for victory and for the postwar rehabilitation of the national economy, like the irrevocable losses of a large amount of memorials of the Russian national culture. And I still believe that from belittling the significance of historic consciousness springs pacifistic washing away of defensive and patriotic consciousness, and also the striving for recording the slightest manifestations of national pride of Great Russians in the column of maniacal great-power chauvinism. The "denial" of socialism is connected with militant cosmopolitism. Unfortunately, we became aware of this only when its neophytes were an eyesore to us with their outrages in front of Smolny or under the walls of the Kremlin. And what is more, they somehow train us gradually to see in the mentioned phenomenon some almost inoffensive change of "residence", but not the class and national betrayal of those the majority of whom have finished higher educational institutions and post-graduate studentship with our public means. In general, some people are inclined to see the "denial" as some manifestation of "democracy" and the "rights of a man" whose talent was prevented from blossoming out because of "stagnant socialism". Well, if, even there, in the "free world", the seething enterprise and "genius" are not appreciated and the bargaining of conscience is not of interest for the intelligence agencies, they may come back....
As is generally known, according to the concrete historic role, K. Marx and F. Engels called whole nations "counterrevolutionary" at a definite epoch of their history- I emphasize, not classes, not estates, but namely nations. On the foundation of class viewpoint they were not ashamed to give sharp characteristics to a number of nations, including the Russians, Poles, and also to those nationalities to which they themselves belonged. The founders of scientific-proletarian world outlook remind us that, in the fraternal concord of the Soviet peoples every nation and nationality should "cherish honour ever since youth", not allow itself to be provoked to national and chauvinistic frames of mind.
The national pride and national dignity of each people should be organically combined with the internationalism of the single socialist society.
If the "neo-liberals" orientate themselves to the West, another "alternative tower", according to Prokhanov's expression, the "protectors and traditionalists", strive "to overcome socialism by backward movement". In other words, they strive to return to the social forms of pre-socialist Russia. The representatives of this peculiar "peasant socialism" are charmed by this mode. According to their opinion, a hundred years ago there was a loss of moral values, accumulated in the haze of centuries of peasant community. The "traditionalists" have unquestionable merits in the exposure of corruption, in the fair solution of ecological problems, in the struggle against alcoholism, in the defence of historic memorials, in the fight against the dominance over mass culture, which is justly appreciated as the psychosis of consumption....
At the same time, in the views of the ideologues of "peasant socialism" there are found the misunderstanding of the historic significance of October for the destiny of the fatherland, one-sided appraisal of collectivization as "terrible tyranny in relation to the peasantry", uncritical views of the religious mystic Russian philosophy, old tsarist conceptions of the historic science of the mother country, unwillingness to see the post-revolutionary stratification of the peasantry and the revolutionary role of the working class.
In the class struggle in the countryside, for instance, here not infrequently protrude "rural" commissars who "shot the backs of middle peasants". In the vast country awakened by the revolution there were, of course, all sorts of commissars. However, the basic fairway of our life was defined all the same by those commissars who were shot. It was namely they from whose backs stars were cut out, and who were burnt alive. It was necessary to pay the "attacking class" not only with the lives of commissars, Cheka members, rural Bolsheviks, members of the committees of poor peasants, the "participants in the movement of twenty thousand", but also of the first tractor operators, rural correspondents, girl-teachers, rural members of the Komsomol, and with the lives of tens of thousands of other unknown fighters for socialism.
The complication of the education of the young people is still redoubled by the fact that informal organizations and societies are springing up along the channel of the ideas of the "neo-liberals" and "neo-Slavophiles". Sometimes it so happens that in their leadership the extremist elements inclined to provocations got the upper hand.
Recently politicization of these amateur organizations formed on the basis of pluralism, which is far from being socialist, has been appearing. Not infrequently the leaders of these organizations talk about the "sharing of power" on the basis of a "parliamentary regime", "free trade unions", an "autonomous publishing house" and the like. All this, in my opinion, allows one to make the conclusion that the main and cardinal question of the discussions now being held in the country is the problem of whether to recognize or not to recognize the leading role of the party and the working class in socialist construction, that is, in perestroika. It goes without saying, with all the ensuing theoretical and practical conclusions for policy, economy and ideology.
Derivative from this key problem of socio-historical world outlook is the problem of the role of socialist ideology in the spiritual development of Soviet society. To add one thing, this problem was sharpened as long ago as the end of 1917 by K. Kautsky who declared in one of his pamphlets, dedicated to October, that socialism distinguishes itself by iron-like planned character and discipline in economy and by anarchy in ideology and in spiritual life. This called forth rejoicing from Mensheviks, socialist-revolutionaries and other petty-bourgeois ideologists, but found resolute rebuff in Lenin and his companions, who consistently defended, as they said at that time, the "commanding heights" of scientific-proletarian ideology.
Let us remember: when V.L Lenin collided with the manipulations of sociologist Pitirim Sorokin, popular at that time for the statistics of divorces among the Petrograd inhabitants, and with religion-protective writings of professor Vipper (which, by the way, looked absolutely naive in comparison with what is now being published in our country), then he, explaining the appearance of their works by the inexperience of the then workers in the mass media, ascertained that the "working class in Russia succeeded in winning power, but had not yet learned to make use of it."In an opposite case, Vladimir Ilych pointed out, the revolutionary proletariat would "politely send" out of the country these professors and writers who "did not fit in for the education of the masses as notorious degenerates not fitting for the role of head for junior students at the educational institutions". By the way, out of the 164 people who were expelled at the end of 1922 according to the list of the All-Russia Central Executive Committee, many came back afterwards and honestly served their people; professor Vipper is among them.
Like this, today the question of the role and place of socialist ideology has assumed an extremely sharp form. The authors of timeserving articles soften down the edges and criteria of scientific ideology on the plea of moral and spiritual "purification", and, manipulating glasnost, spread non-socialist pluralism, which objectively impedes perestroika in social consciousness. This especially affects the young people badly, which, I repeat, is distinctly felt by us, instructors of higher educational institutions, teachers of schools and all those who are engaged in youth problems. M.S. Gorbachev said at the February Plenary Meeting of the CC of the CPSU, "We should in the spiritual sphere, too, maybe, namely here in the first place, act, guided by our Marxist-Leninist principles. Comrades, we should not give up principles under any pretexts."
We stand and will stand on this. Principles have not been given to us, but have been gained by us through much suffering at the stern turning-points of the history of the fatherland. ****
Soviet Russia, March 13, 1988, p. 2
* In their article "What Do We Want to See in the Mirror of the Revolution?" doctors of historic science V. Gorbunov and V. Zhuravlev wrote that in the play of Mikhail Shatrov Farther, Farther and Farther! dedicated to the party of Lenin, "The historic role of this party as the leading force of the revolution in the building of socialism is not shown.
There are individual figures of the party, but the only thing they do is that they commit mistakes, quarrel among themselves, intrigue against each other, and accuse each other. All the positive activity of the vanguard of the working people who ensured the world-historic victory of the October Revolution and on the fronts of the civil war, built socialism and defended it in an unparalleled way in the Great Patriotic War, and then revived the country on the ruins and ashes, slipped out of the field of the author's vision.
"Shatrov insists," the reviewers emphasize, "as if Stalin like a demon, succeeded in resisting the natural laws and the requirements of socialist construction, in turning away the country from the main historic course, in degenerating the country, as a result of which the voice of the revolution becomes pressed down or barely audible. It is difficult to agree with such an interpretation of the basic laws of "Social development." (Soviet Russia, January 28, 1988).
In their publication Only Truth Is Not under Jurisdiction historians-professors G. Gerasimenko, O. Obichkin and B. Popov note that in the dramatic composition of Mikhail Shatrov "the whole course of the construction of socialism in our country is represented as cabinet argument in extremely confused historic context where there are no enemies, no allies, no Rightists and no ones who are guilty; there are the accused Bolsheviks and their judges-the White generals, Mensheviks and the socialist-revolutionaries". "Consciously mixing up the chronological logic, in order to penetrate into the essence of the events of 70-year remoteness, the author does not notice that in this confusion into the artistic tissue of the play penetrates unhistoric character which is vividly manifested in the attempt to put the appraisal of what is happening now into the mouth of V.I. Lenin. (Pravda, February 15, 1988.)
** In their letter "Along a New Circle" K. Lavrov, M. Ulyanov, G. Tovstonogov, M. Zakharov, A Goncharov, V. Rozov, A. Gelyman and O. Yefremov wrote:
"Indeed, our country has achieved perestroika and glasnost through much suffering.
Therefore, any attempts to turn the process back, no matter with how lofty slogans they cover themselves, give rise to profound anxiety. The critical campaign concerning M. Shatrov's new play Farther, Farther and Farther! called forth namely such anxiety from us. Unlike some historians we think that in an artistic work Lenin appearing there not only can but also must appraise the present socialism and everything we are now doing." (Pravda, February 29,1988).
The editorial article summing up the discussion states: "Pravda not only considers it necessary to have a careful and most respectful attitude toward the creative work of the intelligentsia in the field of art, but also maintains the right of the Soviet community to give their view regarding it publicly." (Ibid.)
*** The order No. 227 of the People's Commissar of Defence of the USSR dated July 28, 1942 is published in the Soviet press since August 1988. It notes as follows, in particular: "The enemy is throwing more and more new, forces into the front and, regardless of his great losses, moves forward, breaks deep into the Soviet Union, seizes new regions, devastates and destroys our towns and villages, rapes women and plunders and kills Soviet inhabitants.
"Don't move even a step backward! Now this should be our main slogan. We should stubbornly defend each position and each metre of the Soviet territory until our last drop of blood, cling to each patch of the Soviet land and defend it till the last possibility. Our motherland is going through hard days. We should stop the enemy, and then throw him back and rout him at whatever costs. Germans are not so strong as it seems to the panic-mongers. They are straining their last strength. If we endure their thrust now, in the next several months we will win the victory".
And, as is generally known, such a victory was won in Stalingrad.
**** The article called forth diverse reaction in society and in the CPSU. V. Legostayev, former responsible worker of the Party Central Committee, writes that AN.Yakovlev who was then visiting Mongolia "decided on the spot to hand in an application for his resignation to the General Secretary of the CC of the CPSU". Speaking at the secretariat of the Party Central Committee on March 15, E.K. Ligachev said that "on Sunday, newspaper Soviet Russia published an interesting article of Andreyeva from Leningrad. The material is not accidental. I request the comrades of editors-in-chief to pay attention to it." On March 23 and 24 the Political Bureau, at Gorbachev's request, "dealt with Nina Andreyeva, putting aside state affairs. In the end the General Secretary got each of the participants at the conference to refuse to acknowledge, in some way or other, the propositions of the article of N.A Andreyeva who was not known to anyone of them. The article entitled 'The Principles of Perestroika: the Revolutionary Character of Thought and Action' which was prepared by AN. Yakovlev for Pravda, was published on April
5,1988". (Newspaper Day, No. 16, August 1991, p. 3.).
In this article, which was called an editorial later on, no mention was made of the names either of Andreyeva who was criticized, or of Yakovlev, the author-critic, Secretary of the CC of the CPSU. This critical ideological document of the CPSU, which was so splendidly prepared, noted that the article "I Cannot Give Up Principles" raised "serious problems even in such a key point which cannot be called other than the ideological platform and manifesto of anti-perestroika forces Perhaps, in this 'Letter to the Editorial note that the eulogy on Stalin cited in the article does not belong to Churchill by any means. Something similar was said by I. Doicher, a well-known English Trotskyite. However, in any case naturally the question arises: Is it tactful to apply to bourgeois sources unscrupulously in the appraisal of the leaders, the prominent figures of our party and state?"
In the transport of inspiration by pluralism, the Secretary of the CC of the CPSU not only irresponsibly substituted Doicher for Churchill, but also distorted the only quotation from the article of Andreyeva who was being criticized, the quotation which was adduced by him in his "document of the CC of the CPSU."
***
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FOR SOCIALIST REVOLUTION
AND THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT
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No3 (3) FEBRUARY 2006
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CONTENTS
1. I CANNOT GIVE UP PRINCIPLES
2. KHRUSCHEV'S TREACHERY
3. THE TRUTH ABOUT VASILY STALIN
4. WHAT IS HAPPENING IN CHINA
6 THE GREAT WORK OF KIM JONG IL
I CANNOT GIVE UP PRINCIPLES
By Nina Alexandrovna Andreeva, General Secretary of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (AUCPB)
Published in newspaper Sovetskaya Rossiya (Soviet Russia) in March 1988
I decided to write this letter after long meditation. I am a chemist and a lecturer at the Leningrad Technological Institute named after Lensoviet. Like many others, I am also a curator of one class. In our days, after the period of social apathy and intellectual parasitism, students gradually begin to be charged with energy for revolutionary changes. Naturally, there arise discussions about the ways of perestroika and about its economic and ideological aspects. Glasnost, openness, disappearance of the zones forbidden for criticism, the emotional incandescence in the consciousness of the masses, amidst the young people in particular, are shown not infrequently also in the raising of such problems, which are "prompted" in one or another measure by the Western radios or by those of our countrymen who are not thorough in their understanding of the essence of socialism. What is not talked about! Talk is going about a multiparty system, about the freedom of religious propaganda, about leaving the country to reside abroad, about the right to wide discussion of sexual problems in the press, about the need of decentralized leadership of culture, and about the abolition of obligatory military service. There is particularly a lot of argument among students about the past of the country.
Of course, we instructors have to answer the most acute problems which demand, besides honesty, knowledge, conviction, cultural horizon, serious meditation and profound appreciations. And these qualities are needed for all the educators of the young people, and not only for the collaborators of the chairs of social sciences.
The favorite place where we go with students for a walk is the park in Petergof. We walk along the snow-covered lanes, admire the famous places and statues, and argue. Argue! Young souls thirst for understanding all the complications and determine their path for the future. I watch my young excited interlocutors and think: How important it is to help them to discover truth, form a correct understanding of the problems of the society in which they are living and which is to be reformed by them and how I should clarify for them the right understanding of the ancient and recent of our history.
What are the apprehensions? Here is a simple example: it seems that so much has been written anbd told about the Great Patriotic War and about the heroism of its participants. But now long ago there was a meeting with Hero of the Soviet Union V.F. Molozev, a retired colonel, in one of the student hostels of our technological institute. Among others a question was raised to him about the political repression in the army. The veteran answered that he had not run into repression, and that many of those who, together with him, had gone through the war from the start to the end, became important military commanders. Some were disappointed to hear the answer. Being a topic of conversation, the matter of repression is hypertrophied among some young people, and overshadows the objective comprehension of the past. Instances of this kind are not rare.
Of course, it makes me very glad that even the "technical scholars" are keenly interested in the theoretical problems of social science. However, too many of such problems have already appeared which I cannot accept and to which I cannot agree. They are words about "terrorism", "political servility of the people", "uninspired social vegetation", "our spiritual slavery", "general fear", and "dominance of the boors in power" Only out of these threads is frequently woven the history of the transitional period to socialism in our country. Therefore, it is not surprising that, for instance, among some students nihilistic frames of mind are growing, and ideological confusion, displacement of political landmarks and even ideological polyphagia are appearing. Sometimes we hear the assertion that it is time to make communists answerable for having allegedly "dehumanized" the life of the country after 1917.
At the February Plenary Meeting of the Party Central Committee the imperative necessity was once again stressed for the "young people to be taught to see the world from the class point of view and understand the relations between the universal and class interests, including the class essence of the changes taking place in our country". Such view of history and of the present is incompatible with the political anecdotes, base gossips and sharp fantasies, which it is now possible to encounter frequently.
I read and reread the sensational articles. What can, for instance, be given to the youth, except disorientation, by the revelation of the "counterrevolution in the USSR in the '30s", of the "blame" of Stalin for the accession to power by fascism and Hitler in Germany, or by the public "counting" of the number of "Stalinists" among various generations and social groups?
We are inhabitants of Leningrad, and therefore we recently watched a good documentary about S.M. Kirov with particular interest.
However, the text, accompanying the stills, not only differed from the scenes of the film in some passages, but also gave them some ambiguity. For one thing, the stills demonstrate the outburst of enthusiasm, the joy of living, and the emotional upsurge of people who have built socialism, but the announcer's text refers to repression and ignorance....
Probably, it was evident not only to me that the appeals of party leaders to turn the attention of the "denouncers" also to the facts of real achievements at different stages of socialist construction call forth new outbreaks of "disclosures" as if on order. Noticeable in this unfruitful play are the plays of M. Shatrov. On the day when the 26th Congress of the party opened, I had occasion to see the performance of Blue Horses on Red Grass. I remember the excited reaction of the young people in the episode of Lenin's secretary trying to pour water on Lenin's head from a teakettle, having confused it with an unfinished sculptural model. By the way, some young people came with slogan boards, which had been prepared beforehand and meant to besmirch our past and present. In the play Brest Peace Lenin kneels to Trotsky according to the will of the playwright and the director. This is a symbolic embodiment of the author's conception. It is subsequently developed in the play Farther, Farther and Farther! Of course, a play is not a historic treatise. However, even in artistic production, truth is provided by none other than the position of the author. It is particularly so if dramatic works on political subjects are referred to.
The position of playwright Shatrov is analysed thoroughly and in a well-reasoned way in the reviews of scholars-historians published in the newspapers Pravda and Soviet Russia *. I would also like to express my opinion. I cannot agree specifically to the fact that Shatrov substantially deviates from the accepted principles of socialist realism. Dealing with the most responsible period in the history of our country, he absolutizes the subjective factor of social progress, obviously ignores the objective laws of history which are manifested in the activity of the classes and masses. The role of the proletarian masses and the party of Bolsheviks is brought down here to the "background" in which the activities of irresponsible politicians are being unfolded.
The reviewers, resting upon the Marxist-Leninist methodology of the investigation of concrete historic processes, convincingly testified that Shatrov distorts the history of socialism in our country. The unacceptable object is the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat, without the historic contribution of which there would be nothing to reorganize for us now. Furthermore, the author accuses Stalin of the murder of Trotsky and Kirov and of the "blockade" of sick Lenin. However, it is really inconceivable to throw biased accusations against historic figures, without taking trouble to show evidence....
Unfortunately, the reviewers did not succeed in showing that the playwright is not original for all his pretensions as an author. It seemed to me that in the logic of his appraisal and argument he was very close to the motif of B. Suvarin's book published in Paris in 1935. In the play Shatrov put into the mouths of the characters what had been asserted by the opponents of Leninism concerning the course of the revolution, Lenin's role in it and the mutual relations of the members of the Party Central Committee at different stages of inner-party struggle. Such is the essence of Shatrov's "new perusal" about Lenin. I would like to add that A. Rybakov, author of Children of the Arbat, also frankly admitted that individual plots had been borrowed by Shatrov from emigrant publications.
Without reading the play Farther, Farther and Farther! (it was not published) I had already read laudatory responses to it in some publications. What could such haste mean? Then I knew that hasty preparations were being made to put the play on the stage.
Soon after the February Plenary Meeting in Pravda a letter was published which was entitled "Along a New Circle" and signed by our eight leading theatrical figures. They warn against the possible, according to their opinion, delay in the staging of M. Shatrov's latest play. This conclusion is made from the critical appreciations of the play which had appeared in newspapers. The authors of the letter put, for some reason, the authors of the critical reviews outside the brackets of those "for whom the fatherland is dear." How does it go with their wish to discuss the problems of our ancient and recent history "stormily and passionately?" Do they mean that only they may have their opinion?**
In the numerous discussions now being held literally on all problems of sociology, I, as an instructor of a higher educational institution, am interested first of all in those problems which directly exert influence on the ideological and political education of the young people, their moral health and their social optimism. Talking to students, meditating on acute problems together with them, I involuntarily come to the conclusion that many shortcomings and one-sidedness have been accumulated in us, something which evidently needs to be corrected. I would like to dwell especially on some of them.
Let us take the problem about the place of J.V. Stalin in the history of our country. Namely with his name is connected all the obsession of the critical attacks which, in my opinion, concerns not so much the very historic person as all the most complicated transitional period, a period which has to do with the unparalleled exploit of the whole generation of the Soviet people who are now gradually moving away from active working, political and social activity. The industrialization, collectivization and cultural revolution which have led out our country to the ranks of the great powers, are forcibly being crammed into the formula of "personality cult". All this is put under doubt. Things have come to such an extent that they have begun to persistently demand "Stalinists” to "confess". (It is possible to include in their number anyone if it is desired to do so).... Praises are showered upon the novels and films in which the era of storm and onslaught is lynched being described as the "tragedy of the people." It is true that sometimes similar attempts to erect historic nihilism on the pedestal do not work. So, a film which is rained with kisses of criticism, is sometimes accepted rather coldly by the majority of the population in spite of the unprecedented publicity pressing.
I would like to mention straight away that neither I nor other members of my family have any relation with Stalin, with his surroundings, his retinue and with his extollers. My father was a worker of the Leningrad Port and my mother was a metal worker at Kirov Factory. My elder brother also worked there. He, my father and sister were killed in the battles against the Hitlerites. One of my relatives had been repressed and after the 20th Congress of the party he was rehabilitated. Together with all the Soviet people I share wrath and indignation for the mass repression which took place in the 30s and 40s because of the fault of the then party and state leadership. However, common sense resolutely protests against the one-colour painting of contradictory events which has now begun to prevail in some press organs.
I support the party's call to defend the honour and dignity of the pioneers of socialism. I think that precisely from these party and class positions we should appraise the historic role of all the leaders of the party and the country including Stalin. In this case we should not reduce the matter to the "court" aspect or to abstract moral propaganda from the side of those persons who are far both from that stormy time but from people who lived and worked at that time so that it serves as an inspiring example for us even now.
For me, like for many people, a decisive role in the appraisal of Stalin is played by the direct evidences of the contemporaries who had firsthand contact with him both on our side and on the other side of the barricade. Not uninteresting are just the evidences of the latter. Take, for instance, Churchill, who in 1919 took pride in his personal contribution to the organization of military intervention of 14 foreign states against the young Soviet Republic, but exactly after forty years was compelled to characterize Stalin, one of his menacing political opponents, as follows:
"He was an outstanding person impressing our severe time of the period in which his life elapsed. Stalin was a man of exceptional energy, erudition and unbending willpower, harsh, strict and relentless as in work, as well as talk, whom even I, educated in English parliament, could not oppose in any way. In his works gigantic strength was resounded. In Stalin this strength was so great that he seemed unique among the leaders of all times and peoples. His influence over people was irresistible. When he entered the hall of the Yalta Conference, all of us stood up as if at someone' s command. A strange thing is that we stood at attention. Stalin possessed profound, logical and intelligent wisdom devoid of any panic. He was a peerless master able to find, at a difficult moment, a way out of the most hopeless situation…. This was a man who destroyed his enemy with the hands of his enemies, and forced us, whom he openly called imperialists, to fight against imperialists He took over Russia from a wooden plough, and left it equipped with atomic weapons". Such an appraisal-confession on the part of a loyal guardsman of the British empire cannot be explained as a pretence or political conjuncture.
The basic elements of this characteristic can be found also in the memoirs of De Gaulle and in the reminiscences and letters of other political figures of Europe and America, who dealt with Stalin as a military ally and a class enemy.
Important and serious material for meditation on the given problem is given by home documents, which are, moreover, available for all comers. Take, for instance, the two-volume edition Letters of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR Exchanged with the Presidents of the USA and the Prime-Ministers of Great Britain during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945, issued by the Publishing House of Political Books already in 1957. These documents really call forth pride in our state and in its place and role in the stormy and changing world. I remember the collection of reports, speeches and orders given by Stalin in the years of the last war with which the heroic generation of those who won victory over fascism were educated. It may well be republished with the inclusion of those documents which were secret at that time, such as the dramatic order No. 227. *** By the way, some historians insist on doing so. All these documents are not known to our young people. What is particularly important for the education of historic consciousness is the memoirs of generals Zhukov, Vasilevsky, Golovanov and Shtemenko and aircraft designer Yakovlev who knew the Supreme Commander-in-Chief not by hearsay.
It goes without saying that the time was extremely severe. And it is also true that personal modesty, amounting to asceticism, was not yet ashamed of itself, and that the potential Soviet millionaires still feared to peck in the tranquility of demoted offices and commercial bases. Moreover, we were not so business-like and pragmatic and did not prepare the young people for the niceties of using the wealth earned by their parents, but for labour and defence, without shattering their spiritual world with alien chef d'oeuvres from behind the "hillock" and with clumsy articles of mass culture.
From the long and frank talks with young interlocutors, we draw such conclusions that the attacks on the state of dictatorship of the proletariat and the then leaders of our country have not only political, ideological and moral causes, but also their own social subsoil.
There are not a small number of those who are interested in expanding the bridgehead of these attacks, and they are not only beyond the boundaries of our country. Side by side with the professional anti-communists in the West, who chose the allegedly democratic slogan of "anti-Stalinism" a long time ago, there live and prosper the descendants of the classes overthrown by the October Revolution, not all of whom could forget the material and social losses of their ancestors.
We should relate to this the spiritual heirs to Dan and Martov and others of the department of Russian social-democratism, the spiritual followers of Trotsky and Yagoda, and the offspring of nepmen, Basmaches and kulaks who were offended by socialism.
As is known, every historic figure is developed by concrete socio-economic and ideological and political conditions, which exert a decisive influence on the subjective-objective selection of the pretenders whose mission is to solve some or other social problems. Such a pretender who had moved forward to the proscenium of history should, in order "to remain afloat", satisfy the requirements of the era and the leading social and political structures and realize in his activity objective law, having inevitably left the "imprint" of his personality on historic events. In the final analysis, for instance, there are now a few of those who are embarrassed by the personal qualities of Peter the Great, but everyone remembers that during the period of his rule the country reached the level of a great European power. Time has condensed the result, which lies now in the appraisal of the historic personality of Emperor Peter. And the invariable flowers on his sarcophagus at the cathedral of Petropavlovsk Fortress embody the respect and gratitude of our contemporaries who are distant from autocracy.
I think that, however contradictory and complicated one or another figure of Soviet history may be, its true role in the building and defence of socialism will receive its objective and unequivocal appraisal sooner or later. Of course, unequivocal not in the sense of one-sided, whitewashing or eclectically summarizing discrepant phenomena, which allows one to make with reserves any subjectivism-"to forgive or not to forgive", "to throw out or to leave" in history. Unequivocal means, before anything else, historically concrete appraisal independent of conjuncture, in which is manifested -according to historic result! - dialectics of conformity of the activity of personality with the basic laws of the development of society. In our country these laws were connected with the solution of the problem "who will beat whom?" in the internal and international aspects. If we are to follow the Marxist-Leninist methodology of historic investigation, then, according to M.S. Gorbachev, it is necessary, before anything else, to show strikingly how millions of people lived and worked and in what they believed, and how the victories and failures, discoveries and mistakes, the bright and tragic, the revolutionary enthusiasm of the masses and the violations of socialist law, at times crimes, were combined.
Recently one of my girl students puzzled me by frankly saying that the class struggle was an antiquated conception, like the leading role of the proletariat. It would be all right if only she asserted that. The recent assertion of a respected academician to the effect that the present relations between the states of two different social and economic systems have been deprived of class content, for example, provoked fierce controversy. I assume that the academician did not consider it necessary to explain why he had for decades written about what is directly opposite to this- that peaceful coexistence is nothing else but a form of class struggle in the international arena. It appears that now the philosopher has declined this. Why, views sometimes change. However, I think that the duty of a leading philosopher enjoins him all the same to explain at least to those who learned and are learning according to his books, that the international working class is now countering world capital with its state and political organs.
At the centre of many discussions now being held, there stands, as it seems to me, the question: which class or stratum of society is the leading and mobilizing force of perestroika? Something was said about this, in particular, in the interview of writer A. Prokhanov in our city newspaper Leningrad Worker. Prokhanov proceeds from it that the peculiarity of the present status of social consciousness is characterized by the presence of two ideological currents, or, as he says, "alternative towers", which attempt, from various directions, to overcome in our country "socialism built in battles". Exaggerating the significance and sharpness of mutual antagonism between these "towers", the writer, nevertheless, justly emphasizes that "they agree only in the beating of socialist values". However, both, as their ideologues assure, stand "for perestroika".
The first, the deepest ideological current, which has already revealed itself in the course of perestroika, pretends to the model of a sort of Left-liberal intellectual socialism, the alleged mouthpiece of the most veritable and the "purest" humanism free from class stratification. Its supporters oppose to proletarian collectivism the "self-value of personality"- with modernist searches in the field of culture, God-seeking tendencies, technocratic idols, preaching of "democratic" charms of modem capitalism, and flatteries of its real and sham achievements. Its representatives assert that we have built no such socialism and that only now "for the first time in history the union of political leadership and progressive intelligentsia has been formed". At the time when millions of people in our planet die of hunger, epidemics and military adventures of imperialism, they demand to work out a "juridical code of the defence of animals’ rights", give nature unusual, supernatural intelligence and maintain that cultural level is not a social, but a biological quality, which is genetically passed from parents to children. Will you explain to me what all this means?
Namely the supporters of "Left-liberal socialism" form the tendency of falsification of the history of socialism. They instil into us that in the past history of the country only mistakes and crimes were real, keeping silence about the greatest achievments of the past and the present. Pretending to the completeness of historic truth, they substitute the social and political criterion of the development of society with scholasticism of ethical categories. I want to know very much for whom and for what it is necessary so that every leader of the CC of the Party and the Soviet government, after leaving his post, was compromised and discredited in connection with his real and alleged mistakes and errors committed in solving the most complicated problems on bad historic roads. From where did come to us such passion for the dissipation of the authority and dignity of the leaders of the first country of socialism in the world?
Another peculiarity of the views of the "Left liberals" is an evident or disguised cosmopolitan tendency, certain "internationalism" without something national. I read somewhere that when after the revolution a delegation of merchants and factory owners came to the Petrograd Soviet, to Trotsky "as a Jew", to lodge a complaint about the oppression of the Red Guards, he declared that he was "not a Jew, but an internationalist", and thus he greatly perplexed the petitioners.
The concept "national", for Trotsky, meant something which has inferiority and limitation in comparison with "internationalism". And, therefore, he emphasized the "national tradition" of October, wrote about "national in Lenin", asserted that the Russian people "did not receive any cultural legacy" and the like. We are somehow ashamed to say that namely the Russian proletariat, whom Trotskyites slighted as being "backward and uncivilized", accomplished, according to Lenin, "three Russian revolutions", and that the Slav peoples advanced in the van of mankind in the battles against fascism.
As a matter of course, saying so does not mean any belittling of the historic contribution of other nations and nationalities. This, as they say today, oply ensures the completeness of historic truth.... When the students ask me how it could happen that thousands of small villages in Nechernozem and Siberia became deserted, I answer that this is also a dear price for victory and for the postwar rehabilitation of the national economy, like the irrevocable losses of a large amount of memorials of the Russian national culture. And I still believe that from belittling the significance of historic consciousness springs pacifistic washing away of defensive and patriotic consciousness, and also the striving for recording the slightest manifestations of national pride of Great Russians in the column of maniacal great-power chauvinism. The "denial" of socialism is connected with militant cosmopolitism. Unfortunately, we became aware of this only when its neophytes were an eyesore to us with their outrages in front of Smolny or under the walls of the Kremlin. And what is more, they somehow train us gradually to see in the mentioned phenomenon some almost inoffensive change of "residence", but not the class and national betrayal of those the majority of whom have finished higher educational institutions and post-graduate studentship with our public means. In general, some people are inclined to see the "denial" as some manifestation of "democracy" and the "rights of a man" whose talent was prevented from blossoming out because of "stagnant socialism". Well, if, even there, in the "free world", the seething enterprise and "genius" are not appreciated and the bargaining of conscience is not of interest for the intelligence agencies, they may come back....
As is generally known, according to the concrete historic role, K. Marx and F. Engels called whole nations "counterrevolutionary" at a definite epoch of their history- I emphasize, not classes, not estates, but namely nations. On the foundation of class viewpoint they were not ashamed to give sharp characteristics to a number of nations, including the Russians, Poles, and also to those nationalities to which they themselves belonged. The founders of scientific-proletarian world outlook remind us that, in the fraternal concord of the Soviet peoples every nation and nationality should "cherish honour ever since youth", not allow itself to be provoked to national and chauvinistic frames of mind.
The national pride and national dignity of each people should be organically combined with the internationalism of the single socialist society.
If the "neo-liberals" orientate themselves to the West, another "alternative tower", according to Prokhanov's expression, the "protectors and traditionalists", strive "to overcome socialism by backward movement". In other words, they strive to return to the social forms of pre-socialist Russia. The representatives of this peculiar "peasant socialism" are charmed by this mode. According to their opinion, a hundred years ago there was a loss of moral values, accumulated in the haze of centuries of peasant community. The "traditionalists" have unquestionable merits in the exposure of corruption, in the fair solution of ecological problems, in the struggle against alcoholism, in the defence of historic memorials, in the fight against the dominance over mass culture, which is justly appreciated as the psychosis of consumption....
At the same time, in the views of the ideologues of "peasant socialism" there are found the misunderstanding of the historic significance of October for the destiny of the fatherland, one-sided appraisal of collectivization as "terrible tyranny in relation to the peasantry", uncritical views of the religious mystic Russian philosophy, old tsarist conceptions of the historic science of the mother country, unwillingness to see the post-revolutionary stratification of the peasantry and the revolutionary role of the working class.
In the class struggle in the countryside, for instance, here not infrequently protrude "rural" commissars who "shot the backs of middle peasants". In the vast country awakened by the revolution there were, of course, all sorts of commissars. However, the basic fairway of our life was defined all the same by those commissars who were shot. It was namely they from whose backs stars were cut out, and who were burnt alive. It was necessary to pay the "attacking class" not only with the lives of commissars, Cheka members, rural Bolsheviks, members of the committees of poor peasants, the "participants in the movement of twenty thousand", but also of the first tractor operators, rural correspondents, girl-teachers, rural members of the Komsomol, and with the lives of tens of thousands of other unknown fighters for socialism.
The complication of the education of the young people is still redoubled by the fact that informal organizations and societies are springing up along the channel of the ideas of the "neo-liberals" and "neo-Slavophiles". Sometimes it so happens that in their leadership the extremist elements inclined to provocations got the upper hand.
Recently politicization of these amateur organizations formed on the basis of pluralism, which is far from being socialist, has been appearing. Not infrequently the leaders of these organizations talk about the "sharing of power" on the basis of a "parliamentary regime", "free trade unions", an "autonomous publishing house" and the like. All this, in my opinion, allows one to make the conclusion that the main and cardinal question of the discussions now being held in the country is the problem of whether to recognize or not to recognize the leading role of the party and the working class in socialist construction, that is, in perestroika. It goes without saying, with all the ensuing theoretical and practical conclusions for policy, economy and ideology.
Derivative from this key problem of socio-historical world outlook is the problem of the role of socialist ideology in the spiritual development of Soviet society. To add one thing, this problem was sharpened as long ago as the end of 1917 by K. Kautsky who declared in one of his pamphlets, dedicated to October, that socialism distinguishes itself by iron-like planned character and discipline in economy and by anarchy in ideology and in spiritual life. This called forth rejoicing from Mensheviks, socialist-revolutionaries and other petty-bourgeois ideologists, but found resolute rebuff in Lenin and his companions, who consistently defended, as they said at that time, the "commanding heights" of scientific-proletarian ideology.
Let us remember: when V.L Lenin collided with the manipulations of sociologist Pitirim Sorokin, popular at that time for the statistics of divorces among the Petrograd inhabitants, and with religion-protective writings of professor Vipper (which, by the way, looked absolutely naive in comparison with what is now being published in our country), then he, explaining the appearance of their works by the inexperience of the then workers in the mass media, ascertained that the "working class in Russia succeeded in winning power, but had not yet learned to make use of it."In an opposite case, Vladimir Ilych pointed out, the revolutionary proletariat would "politely send" out of the country these professors and writers who "did not fit in for the education of the masses as notorious degenerates not fitting for the role of head for junior students at the educational institutions". By the way, out of the 164 people who were expelled at the end of 1922 according to the list of the All-Russia Central Executive Committee, many came back afterwards and honestly served their people; professor Vipper is among them.
Like this, today the question of the role and place of socialist ideology has assumed an extremely sharp form. The authors of timeserving articles soften down the edges and criteria of scientific ideology on the plea of moral and spiritual "purification", and, manipulating glasnost, spread non-socialist pluralism, which objectively impedes perestroika in social consciousness. This especially affects the young people badly, which, I repeat, is distinctly felt by us, instructors of higher educational institutions, teachers of schools and all those who are engaged in youth problems. M.S. Gorbachev said at the February Plenary Meeting of the CC of the CPSU, "We should in the spiritual sphere, too, maybe, namely here in the first place, act, guided by our Marxist-Leninist principles. Comrades, we should not give up principles under any pretexts."
We stand and will stand on this. Principles have not been given to us, but have been gained by us through much suffering at the stern turning-points of the history of the fatherland. ****
Soviet Russia, March 13, 1988, p. 2
* In their article "What Do We Want to See in the Mirror of the Revolution?" doctors of historic science V. Gorbunov and V. Zhuravlev wrote that in the play of Mikhail Shatrov Farther, Farther and Farther! dedicated to the party of Lenin, "The historic role of this party as the leading force of the revolution in the building of socialism is not shown.
There are individual figures of the party, but the only thing they do is that they commit mistakes, quarrel among themselves, intrigue against each other, and accuse each other. All the positive activity of the vanguard of the working people who ensured the world-historic victory of the October Revolution and on the fronts of the civil war, built socialism and defended it in an unparalleled way in the Great Patriotic War, and then revived the country on the ruins and ashes, slipped out of the field of the author's vision.
"Shatrov insists," the reviewers emphasize, "as if Stalin like a demon, succeeded in resisting the natural laws and the requirements of socialist construction, in turning away the country from the main historic course, in degenerating the country, as a result of which the voice of the revolution becomes pressed down or barely audible. It is difficult to agree with such an interpretation of the basic laws of "Social development." (Soviet Russia, January 28, 1988).
In their publication Only Truth Is Not under Jurisdiction historians-professors G. Gerasimenko, O. Obichkin and B. Popov note that in the dramatic composition of Mikhail Shatrov "the whole course of the construction of socialism in our country is represented as cabinet argument in extremely confused historic context where there are no enemies, no allies, no Rightists and no ones who are guilty; there are the accused Bolsheviks and their judges-the White generals, Mensheviks and the socialist-revolutionaries". "Consciously mixing up the chronological logic, in order to penetrate into the essence of the events of 70-year remoteness, the author does not notice that in this confusion into the artistic tissue of the play penetrates unhistoric character which is vividly manifested in the attempt to put the appraisal of what is happening now into the mouth of V.I. Lenin. (Pravda, February 15, 1988.)
** In their letter "Along a New Circle" K. Lavrov, M. Ulyanov, G. Tovstonogov, M. Zakharov, A Goncharov, V. Rozov, A. Gelyman and O. Yefremov wrote:
"Indeed, our country has achieved perestroika and glasnost through much suffering.
Therefore, any attempts to turn the process back, no matter with how lofty slogans they cover themselves, give rise to profound anxiety. The critical campaign concerning M. Shatrov's new play Farther, Farther and Farther! called forth namely such anxiety from us. Unlike some historians we think that in an artistic work Lenin appearing there not only can but also must appraise the present socialism and everything we are now doing." (Pravda, February 29,1988).
The editorial article summing up the discussion states: "Pravda not only considers it necessary to have a careful and most respectful attitude toward the creative work of the intelligentsia in the field of art, but also maintains the right of the Soviet community to give their view regarding it publicly." (Ibid.)
*** The order No. 227 of the People's Commissar of Defence of the USSR dated July 28, 1942 is published in the Soviet press since August 1988. It notes as follows, in particular: "The enemy is throwing more and more new, forces into the front and, regardless of his great losses, moves forward, breaks deep into the Soviet Union, seizes new regions, devastates and destroys our towns and villages, rapes women and plunders and kills Soviet inhabitants.
"Don't move even a step backward! Now this should be our main slogan. We should stubbornly defend each position and each metre of the Soviet territory until our last drop of blood, cling to each patch of the Soviet land and defend it till the last possibility. Our motherland is going through hard days. We should stop the enemy, and then throw him back and rout him at whatever costs. Germans are not so strong as it seems to the panic-mongers. They are straining their last strength. If we endure their thrust now, in the next several months we will win the victory".
And, as is generally known, such a victory was won in Stalingrad.
**** The article called forth diverse reaction in society and in the CPSU. V. Legostayev, former responsible worker of the Party Central Committee, writes that AN.Yakovlev who was then visiting Mongolia "decided on the spot to hand in an application for his resignation to the General Secretary of the CC of the CPSU". Speaking at the secretariat of the Party Central Committee on March 15, E.K. Ligachev said that "on Sunday, newspaper Soviet Russia published an interesting article of Andreyeva from Leningrad. The material is not accidental. I request the comrades of editors-in-chief to pay attention to it." On March 23 and 24 the Political Bureau, at Gorbachev's request, "dealt with Nina Andreyeva, putting aside state affairs. In the end the General Secretary got each of the participants at the conference to refuse to acknowledge, in some way or other, the propositions of the article of N.A Andreyeva who was not known to anyone of them. The article entitled 'The Principles of Perestroika: the Revolutionary Character of Thought and Action' which was prepared by AN. Yakovlev for Pravda, was published on April
5,1988". (Newspaper Day, No. 16, August 1991, p. 3.).
In this article, which was called an editorial later on, no mention was made of the names either of Andreyeva who was criticized, or of Yakovlev, the author-critic, Secretary of the CC of the CPSU. This critical ideological document of the CPSU, which was so splendidly prepared, noted that the article "I Cannot Give Up Principles" raised "serious problems even in such a key point which cannot be called other than the ideological platform and manifesto of anti-perestroika forces Perhaps, in this 'Letter to the Editorial note that the eulogy on Stalin cited in the article does not belong to Churchill by any means. Something similar was said by I. Doicher, a well-known English Trotskyite. However, in any case naturally the question arises: Is it tactful to apply to bourgeois sources unscrupulously in the appraisal of the leaders, the prominent figures of our party and state?"
In the transport of inspiration by pluralism, the Secretary of the CC of the CPSU not only irresponsibly substituted Doicher for Churchill, but also distorted the only quotation from the article of Andreyeva who was being criticized, the quotation which was adduced by him in his "document of the CC of the CPSU."
***
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