To "Anti-Revisionists"

[Tower of Bebel]

... and others who want to give constructive answers or want to post questions that are related. I have two questions. They came up after reading about the late Cold War period.



After Stalin's death was there an (official) "Anti-Revisionist" opposition against Nikita Khrushchev's so called revisionism. Was there one within the Communist Party? If so, why wasn't it successful and how long did it exist? If not, why not?
After the horrific 20's could citizens of the USSR bear arms? Did the period after 1945/53 change anything concerning this Marxist principle?

[Gustav HK]

The answer to your first question is yes, there was an anti-revisionist opposition in the CPSU. It was lead by Molotov, Kaganovich, and Malenkov. Khruschov described them as the "anti-party group".

I have also read somewhere on wikipedia, that there was an underground anti-revisionist party in the USSR of which Molotov supposely was one of the leaders.

[Prairie Fire]

In regards to an Anti-revisionist Marxist-Leninist opposition in the CPSU before and during the rise of the Kruschev clique, most of them were killed, expelled from the party and suffered other fates before and after Kruscheves rise to power.

This happened in both the USSR and other countries, as Stalin commented with concern on the relative close proximity of the deaths of many socialist leadership in the USSR and abroad.

"They die one after another. Shcherbakov, Zhdanov, Dimitrov, Choibalsan ... die so quickly!..."
-J.V. Stalin

Molotov was removed from the position of foriegn minister by the new Krushchevite leadership in 1956, and expelled from the party altogether in 1961.

Kaganovich, Malenkov were dismissed from the party in 1961 as well.

Voroshilov was marginalized by the 22nd party congress, and forced into retirement.

Bulganin was forced to resign, and was removed from the central comitee.

Marxist-Leninists in other countries were purged from their parties during this time, but in the USSR most of those who could have raised a fist against revisionism were killed or expelled from the party and isolated.

In regards to the ownership of arms, I don't currently have that information.

[Random Precision]

Raven, with all due respect the evidence you've presented amounts to little more than a changing of the guard- a few of the most prominent leaders from Stalin's time removed from the party and a few others forced into retirement. You say some were killed- who?

If there was a full-on coup that restored capitalism (which is what you claim Khrushchev & co. accomplished), Marxists would expect a lot more violence. A struggle between revolutionary and counter-revolutionary factions that was carried on in the open, rather than behind the closed doors of a CC meeting room. A complete party purge, like those that occurred in the thirties, if the struggle happened within the party, perhaps.

Plus, you have only been talking about the leaders of the anti-revisionist current- what about the Party membership in general? Where was the struggle against revisionism amongst them? These are all questions you have to answer if you expect this theory to be taken seriously.

[Rjevan]

Raven, with all due respect the evidence you've presented amounts to little more than a changing of the guard- a few of the most prominent leaders from Stalin's time removed from the party and a few others forced into retirement. You say some were killed- who?
I don't know who exactly Prairie Fire had in mind but as she said, before Kruschev's rise important Anti-Revisionists as the mentioned ones were killed and several NKVD officers were liquidated together with Beria after his trial.


If there was a full-on coup that restored capitalism (which is what you claim Khrushchev & co. accomplished), Marxists would expect a lot more violence. A struggle between revolutionary and counter-revolutionary factions that was carried on in the open, rather than behind the closed doors of a CC meeting room. A complete party purge, like those that occurred in the thirties, if the struggle happened within the party, perhaps.
Don't forget that Kruschev had Zhukov and therefore the military on his side, so Molotov and the others didn't have a great chance. Kruschev's rise was a plot so you can't expect that everything regarding this situation is discussed on the streets and pro- or anti-Kruschev/Molotov demonstartors fight each other on the streets. Molotov and his allies were seven people (Molotov, Malenkov, Kaganovich, Voroshilov, Kaganovich, Bulganin, Saburov and Pervuchin) against four people and therefore the majority of the Politbureau was against Kruschev. Nevertheless he managed to gain the support of the Central Committee in an extarordinary meeting and the military supported him, too (Zhukov treatened to use force) and so he removed the "anti-party group" from their positions and sent them packing, e.g. Molotov became the new ambassador of the USSR in Mongolia while Malenkov became director of a hydroelectric plant in Kazakhstan... this is nearly as good as imprisoning them and has the same effects... well, at least, it doesn't remind the Soviet people that much of the "Stalinist crimes" Kruschev mentioned, I heard that Mongolia is nice in the spring time and that being director of a hydroelectric plant can be much fun.

[Random Precision]

I don't know who exactly Prairie Fire had in mind but as she said, before Kruschev's rise important Anti-Revisionists as the mentioned ones were killed and several NKVD officers were liquidated together with Beria after his trial.

I don't think that any of the ones Stalin mentioned in PF's quote were killed deliberately. At least there is no evidence of that. I'm familiar with the theory that Stalin was assassinated, but remain unconvinced.


Don't forget that Kruschev had Zhukov and therefore the military on his side, so Molotov and the others didn't have a great chance. Kruschev's rise was a plot so you can't expect that everything regarding this situation is discussed on the streets and pro- or anti-Kruschev/Molotov demonstartors fight each other on the streets...

Well, this is not exactly what I was trying to get at. What I was saying was, if Khrushchev really led a coup that (immediately or eventually) restored capitalism, you would expect the proletariat of the Soviet Union to defend socialism, rather than take capitalist reforms lying down, as they apparently did. To say otherwise is, as the phrase goes, rolling the film of reformism in reverse. Were there no proletarians left in the party willing to defend socialism, even in the threat of violence? Come to that, why was the army so willing to crush the Anti-Revisionist trend at a whistle from Zhukov?

Although this gets at another question I was meaning to ask. If Khrushchev was able to coup the party so easily, can it really be said that there was much internal democracy?

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

1. Coups can't "restore capitalism." A change from one mode of production to another requires revolution or counterrevolution. Coups are neither of those. They are simply a "changing of the guard."

2. Kruschev didn't lead a "coup" in the USSR. He rose through the mechanisms of the state to become its leader.

3. Stalin worshipers complaining about political assassinations is akin to a neo-Nazi condemning someone for racism.

[The Author]

I would recommend reading Power in the Kremlin by Michel Tatu. Gives an interesting history of what happened in the U.S.S.R. during Khrushchev's administration from the time he became First Secretary until his removal in 1964. Much information, which is lacking in many sources that analyze this period especially from later years such as Taubman's biography of Khrushchev, are detailed in this work. For instance, there was a lot of detail on how the ministries were replaced with sovnarkhozes, mimicking the attempts at self-management in Yugoslavia, efforts to split the Party into two groups: an industrial and agricultural branch, efforts on light industry over heavy industry and emphasis on producing consumer goods instead of the means of production as was the case before, over-reliance on agriculture and using cheap, quick-farming techniques and chemical fertilizers with no regard to environmental conditions and only working for material, not moral incentives. Then, of course, there's foreign policy too which changed.

The Khrushchevite counterrevolution was not a mere changing of the guard. You had a new generation of leadership within the Party and State which grew tired of war or preparing for war, and thought too much of material incentives and short-term gains without thinking in terms of the development of socialism as a whole. This new generation of leadership had markets on their minds, and they tried slowly enacting piecemeal reforms to restore capitalism gradually but in a way that wouldn't undermine the system. However, in the process of making reforms, those including Khrushchev who wanted market reforms met a lot of resistance at the time from disenfranchised ministers, managers, workers, and Party members affected by the changes to Party and State. They often wrote criticisms of the reforms in Pravda, often remarked that the administrative system before was better, and noted that such reforms were undermining the entire socialist system as a whole (Such quotes can be found in Tatu's book.). The period of change lasted from mid-1953 until late-1964 and into 1965. Then, with the change in leadership by 1964-65, alterations were made with the system once again. The ministries were restored, the Party was kept as one, the cultural and economic reforms were kept at a much slower pace than before. But the union-state never really returned to its full socialist status before the war and during the reconstruction period afterwards in the late 1940s.

And no, there's no Stalin worshippers here. Regarding the Purges, not everyone was guilty, and not everyone was innocent. Such a period must be looked at on an individual, case-by-case basis with each person who was tried and executed. People who refuse to think critically and just look at things black-and-white and dismiss the entire thing as bad only fool themselves with utopian dreams. It was a proletarian dictatorship that wasn't going to be smooth and perfect, a part of the real world. And that's what we have to work with, not dreams.

[New Tet]

... and others who want to give constructive answers or want to post questions that are related. I have two questions. They came up after reading about the late Cold War period.



After Stalin's death was there an (official) "Anti-Revisionist" opposition against Nikita Khrushchev's so called revisionism. Was there one within the Communist Party? If so, why wasn't it successful and how long did it exist? If not, why not?
After the horrific 20's could citizens of the USSR bear arms? Did the period after 1945/53 change anything concerning this Marxist principle?



If you can get a hold of it, I recommend "Russia In Transition" by Isaac Deutscher. Published by Hamish Hamilton Ltd. 1957; Grove Press, Inc. 1960.

BTW, The Marxist Internet Archive (http://www.marxists.org/archive/deutscher/index.htm) is sorely lacking in Deutscher stuff, I think.

[Die Neue Zeit]

After Stalin's death was there an (official) "Anti-Revisionist" opposition against Nikita Khrushchev's so called revisionism. Was there one within the Communist Party? If so, why wasn't it successful and how long did it exist? If not, why not?

Comrade, did you ever get the chance to read my musings on the late Stalin era, and how the war impacted the Soviet bureaucracy?

[Tower of Bebel]

So... is there anyone out there who, while defending Stalin's SIOC, aknowledges or would suggest that (in a way) Stalin, after his death, left behind the system that could be used against his supporters? That he left behind a state that could be used (or turned?) against "socialism" without involvement (resistance/approval) from the working class?

Comrade, did you ever get the chance to read my musings on the late Stalin era, and how the war impacted the Soviet bureaucracy?
No.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Here's my take (one which for some reason even Mao didn't have in terms of going far enough):

http://www.revleft.com/vb/term-stalinism-and-t80286/index.html?p=1161133
http://www.revleft.com/vb/nikita-khrushchev-t79868/index.html?p=1158806


"Comrade" Stalin abandoned his own reductionist and grossly revisionist "Marxism-Leninism" in the post-war period.

[...]

Why don't you outline, once more, the material consequences of the war that caused Stalin to transform into a reductionist and grossly revisionist leader? I can tell you from that typical Trotskyist account that something similar occurred with Khrushchev.

20 million people ("social base") died during the "Great Patriotic War." Wanton destruction was prevalent throughout much of the western Soviet Union. Just as in the Civil War, organizational dynamics were more lax, and enough opportunists snuck into the system.

[...]

This time around, they had a greater diversity of bureaucratic patrons, not just Stalin, Molotov, and Kaganovich: Voznesensky (although he got axed), Rodionov, Popov, Povkov, Malenkov, Kuznetsov, Khrushchev, Bulganin, etc.

[...]

Per Gorlizki's Ordinary Stalinism: The Council of Ministers and the Soviet Neopatrimonial State, 1945-1953 (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/376210) post-war Stalin, even while chair of Sovmin, was NOT active in "government" (read: economic) affairs at all, never attending meetings of the Sovmin Bureau/Presidium. The former "Marxist-Leninist" tyrant wanted to focus on "national security" concerns (the "kitchen cabinet" meetings of the informal Politburo, so to be sure Khrushchev was right about Stalin's flagrant violation of Party rules).

Also, "party affairs" and "state affairs" were, until 1952, separate. That proto-Dengist Beria, for instance, never wanted Party guys like Popov to interfere in ministerial assignments and promotions.

These two factors (Stalin's absence and party-state separation) enabled the opportunists to further seep in (to join their opportunist buddies who entered during the war)... through the state-administrative apparatus. It's kinda like Stalin when he was the head of Rabkrin during and after the Civil War.

[...]

Indeed, the organizational dynamics were more lax, and thus holes were exploited by post-revisionist opportunists. These post-revisionist opportunists were similar to the original revisionist "stratum" that was Stalin's neopatrimonial network of clients just after the civil war.

Consider Stalin's abandonment of his own "Marxism-Leninism" when he had no near-death plans to get rid of Khrushchev or Malenkov (and their post-revisionist patron-client networks), instead focusing on Molotov and Mikoyan (latter on part of the "Anti-Party Group"), plus the proto-Dengist Beria (and his notorious NKVD-based patron-client network)!

[Die Neue Zeit]

On an unrelated note, a Hoxhaist and I just discussed other shit caused by Stalin in the post-WWII period, compounded by his 1934 "achievement of socialism" crap.

The Eastern European popular-front / "deformed worker" governments CPGB comrade Mike Macnair spoke of (separate parties for the various classes - peasants, urban petit-bourgeoisie, "Christian Democrats," etc.) were not merged into one semi-continental "people's republic" (economies of scale and what not). He originally objected to my suggestion that they should've become Soviet republics (thus further fuelling Western perceptions of "Soviet imperialism"), so I offered this compromise for Eastern Germany, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, and even Yugoslavia and Albania.

[Unless "Comrade" Stalin really wanted fragmented buffer "satellite" states all along... :glare: ]

[redwinter]

Nikita Khrushchev's[/COLOR] so called revisionism. Was there one within the Communist Party? If so, why wasn't it successful and how long did it exist? If not, why not?


Yes.

Here is the "Programmatic Proclamation" (1965) of the Soviet Revolutionary Communists (Bolsheviks). I hope you can read French:
http://www.geocities.com/komintern_doc/komintern065.htm



Bien entendu, cela ne se réalisera pas de soi-même. Pour que le système bureaucratique soit renversé en U.R.S.S., il est indispensable d’avoir une organisation des révolutionnaires, il est indispensable de créer un courant capable d’entraîner et de porter en avant la colère du peuple et de faire progresser la lutte populaire. Mais ici il n’est nullement besoin de faire des recherches. Nous avons devant nous une voie éprouvée : la voie de la reconstitution du parti prolétarien. À vrai dire, le P.C.U.S. s’est transformé maintenant en une organisation de pure forme, en un paravent qui donne à la domination de la bureaucratie une apparence démocratique. Il est clair que le nouveau parti vraiment prolétarien ne sera que le Parti Communiste (bolchévik) de l’Union Soviétique régénéré. Tous ceux qui sont disposés à lutter contre la bureaucratie, tous ceux pour qui les grandes victoires révolutionnaires de notre peuple et la cause de la révolution mondiale sont chères, doivent s’engager résolument et pour toujours dans cette voie. Il est désormais temps. Depuis les cellules nombreuses et isolées du P.C.(b)U.S. jusqu’à leur fusion en une avalanche puissante et invincible, capable de balayer les bureaucrates — telle est la voie à parcourir par les communistes soviétiques. L’activité des cellules du P.C.(b)U.S., leurs mots d’ordres et leurs tracts doivent donner lieu à une véritable lutte partisane.


So essentially at this point they write that they have a scattered and isolated organization of cells working to build a new proletarian party and prepare for armed struggle against the revisionist CPSU leadership.

Molotov may have been involved in this, as he had been kicked out of the CPSU in 1962 by Khrushchev and was known to still be sympathetic to the Sino-Albanian alliance against Soviet revisionism. There are some quotes from him in the text that make it seem like the writers at least liked him.

Why wasn't it successful? Not sure exactly - but under Soviet revisionist rule building for such a revolution would've been difficult (to say the least).

[Rawthentic]

Capitalist counterrevolution certainly has nothing to do with "rolling the film of reformism in reverse". Clearly, we can't get to socialism through reforming capitalism. BUT, capitalism is not a society emerging out of socialism...socialism is a system emerging out of capitalism. We need to get a better of understanding of the superstructure and its relation to the base. For those who believe China is still socialist...how can a supposedly revolutionary base (i.e. economy) really continue (or draaggg on) with a thoroughly counterrevolutionary superstructure?

Let's get this straight: the USSR was a socialist state, not a capitalist one.

I think there is a lot of value in Random Precision's point about the proletariat not defending their socialism. It has more to do with the USSR's historical socialist development than something inherent to socialism. By the mid-1950s, the Russian proletariat had been completely de-politicized, in large part due to extremely adverse material conditions but also Stalin's erroneous view of the people. Stalin worried more about things..things..administration...technicalities... rather than the revolutionary agency of the people under socialism and the need for their central role in its transformation.
************
Socialism is (in a sense) communism emerging out of capitalism. This means that the building of socialism essentially means overcoming all the oppressive and exploitative vestiges of the old society in service of the new. This brings with it the danger of capitalist restoration not only from without (or civil war from within) but also inside the highest centers of political power, as ended up happening in the Soviet Union and China.

See, all leaders under socialism, through their principles and policies, objectively represent either socialist transformation or the capitalist-road, regardless of their rhetoric. In China, there was an intense struggle between leaders whose policies REALLY meant a return to the old society (in terms of how they viewed the people, work, healthcare, education, etc.) and leaders, such as Mao, who understood the vital need for continued revolutionary political movements UNDER socialism to understand the possibility of capitalist restoration within socialism and defeat it. The Cultural Revolution failed in defeating the capitalist-roaders, and the policies of these leaders led China to the fucking place it is now.

Lenin said in 1920:

"The dictatorship of the proletariat is a most determined and most ruthless war waged by the new class against a more powerful enemy, the bourgeoisie, whose resistance is increased tenfold by its overthrow (even if only in one country), and whose power lies not only in the strength of international capital, in the strength and durability of the international connections o the bourgeoisie, but also in the force of habit, in the strength of small production. For, unfortunately, small production is still very, very widespread in the world, and small production engenders capitalism and the bourgeoisie continuously, daily, hourly, spontaneously, and on a mass scale. For all these reasons the dictatorship of the proletariat is essential."

As Lenin understood it, there is a material basis under socialism for the restoration of capitalism, and thus the need for the dictatorship of the proletariat (and, as Mao furthered this, cultural revolution).

[Wakizashi the Bolshevik]

The answer to your first question is yes, there was an anti-revisionist opposition in the CPSU. It was lead by Molotov, Kaganovich, and Malenkov. Khruschov described them as the "anti-party group".

I have also read somewhere on wikipedia, that there was an underground anti-revisionist party in the USSR of which Molotov supposely was one of the leaders.
I didn't know that, kudos to Comrade Molotov!

[ComradeOm]

I didn't know that, kudos to Comrade Molotov!Of course there is a great irony here, aside from the one noted by Rakunin above. In the first place the probability that Stalin, or any surviving "Stalinist", would have left such a prominent critic alive following a purge is virtually nil. Secondly there is every reason to suppose that Molotov (and other major figures such as Kaganovich and Mikoyan) were on the verge of falling victim to a major purge when Stalin fell ill and died in 1953. So Molotov was only able to fight for Stalin's memory, and continue breathing, because of the demise of Stalinism :lol:

[Die Neue Zeit]

BTW, what are your thoughts on my musings above?

[Intelligitimate]

Gorbachev restored capitalism in the USSR, not Khrushchev. Khrushchev just fucked up the communist movement royally, in a way in which it has never recovered. He disillusioned millions of comrades, split the movement into two major trends, and breathed new life into the decrepit corpse of Trotskyism. His crimes were great, but he didn't restore capitalism.

[Wakizashi the Bolshevik]

Gorbachev restored capitalism in the USSR, not Khrushchev. Khrushchev just fucked up the communist movement royally, in a way in which it has never recovered. He disillusioned millions of comrades, split the movement into two major trends, and breathed new life into the decrepit corpse of Trotskyism. His crimes were great, but he didn't restore capitalism.
Yes Kruschev started gucking up the system, but it was Gorbachebv who truly completed the betrayal.
As far as I'm concerned, Gorbachev is the greatest traitor of all times.

[Labor Shall Rule]

Stalin had made it clear that there was a material source of capitalist restoration within collective-farm property, in that there was no central planning agency to integrate agricultural production and to put production for need in command over petit-bourgeois private profit (Economic Problems of Socialism, 1952), and due to his theoretical mistake of not seeing that the bourgeois can take over the superstructure in socialism, the revisionists came to first dominate agriculture policy. Machine and Tractor stations were formally sold off to the collectives, which caused production to decline. By 1965, Alexi Kosygin had admitted that new planning targets had to focus on profitability "in order to expand the economic independence and initiative of enterprises and associations and to enhance the importance of the enterprises as the main economic unit in our economy." This lead to, of course, managers having the legal ability to increase the output per worker to have higher profits. The migration of people from the countryside in great numbers implies that the collective farm workers had to sell their labor at a rate that would allow reproduction to occur, so you can clearly see that labor power become a commodity once again during Khrushchev's reign.

It's not looney to say capitalism co-existed within a state-owned economy, considering that directors could purchase the means of production and labor-power and were required to make the "expansion of value the sole motive of his operations." That is, as Marx said, capital personified and endowed with consciousnesses and a will.