Cassius Clay
20th October 2003, 10:10
Echo Of Khrushchevite Revisionism
Rafael Martinez
In the newspaper "Molniya" #23, 2000 in Moscow, there was written an article, entitled "For Soviet Power." T.M. Khabarova, the author of this article, is a very well known representative of the Moscow left movement. In this article, the author expresses her own views on the number of questions of principle, by touching upon the question of restoration of the USSR. This is the essence of her stand, as she represents the "Congress of Soviet Citizens":
-The Soviet Union today is de facto an occupied country. Only its people can liberate and restore the life in this country.
-In order to reunite the confused Soviet people into a united force, capable of changing the state of affairs in the country, it is necessary to restore the CPSU, the party of the Soviet People in their struggle for the liberation of the entire territory of the USSR from occupation of foreign capital and, then, to bring back the 1977 Constitution of the USSR.
-The formation of independent ‘workers’ parties is harmful, because this would lead to the separation of the working class from other sectors of the toiling masses. This also prevents the working class from becoming the nucleus of the Soviet people.
-The abstract slogan of "dictatorship of the proletariat" is also harmful. This slogan undermines the task of the restoration of the 1977 constitution of the USSR. This constitution exists de facto as it holds de jure even now.
-Today in the former Soviet Union, proletarian internationalism should should be understood as Soviet Patriotism, as patriotic feeling of solidarity.
One could well disregard this petty bourgeois nonsense of comrade T.M. Khabarova, if it were not for the fact that these views are not only characteristic of a small number of followers. Such thinking is upheld by as significant section of the left movement on the territory of the former USSR. Modern revisionism, after several decades of rule is apparently well rooted, especially among the educated intelligencia. Therefore, we, representatives of the working class of the Ukraine, believe that it is necessary to speak about the questions raided here.
Comrade Khabarova speaks today about the Soviet Union as de facto occupied country. This statement is the basis of her thinking. Based on this, she denies the most obvious, real present fact that on the former territory of USSR there are now many independent bourgeois states, whose independence and private property of the means of production are backed by their constitution. In these countries, the real interests of various bourgeois groups overlap. The core of the capitalist class in those former Soviet republics is made up of all kinds of parasitic clans from the former state, party and union structures, formed during the period of Soviet rule after the death of Stalin in 1953.
The Soviet people were not the only ones that were confused. During decades of revisionism after 1953, this revisionism dominated the working class and it lost its consciousness. The Soviet people in their majority succumbed to the petty bourgeois psychology. Under these conditions, it was not hard for the ruling class to fool the Soviet workers, peasants and the working intelligencia. The victory of capitalism on the territory of former Soviet Union is due to this historical fact, plus the working of imperialism and their foreign and internal agencies.
Nowadays, the bourgeois relations of production determine most of the social and economic processes developing in the former Soviet republics. Therefore, today these societies are divided into industrial and agricultural proletariat, and the big, middle and petty bourgeoisie, the latter mostly engaged in trade. Yesterday’s Soviet intelligencia, especially its top elite, has accommodated itself to the new conditions, in accordance with its class essence.
Under the present conditions, the concept of "Soviet people" has lost its economic meaning and dilutes the class character of our society; it is confusing. To restore the CPSU as a "party of the Soviet people" is like creating a classless political organization inn a class society. This, in essence, is meant to divert attention of the exploited masses from the class struggle, i.e., it is an open attack against the class of proletarians and the exploited masses as a whole.
The political independence of the newly formed capitalist states on the territory of the former USSR does not prevent economic oppression of the international capital and imperialism, including Russian capitalists. Therefore, under these conditions it is not possible to struggle against the expansion of international capital, in we do not struggle also against the national capitalist class. To tell the truth, T.M. Khabarova calls on her followers to support only those sections of the bourgeoisie whose capital is invested in the territory of its own country, i.e. to support the interests of its "own" bourgeoisie.
From here it is easy to understand the class essence of the CPSU advocated by Khabarova. If we dig deeper into the "patriotic" ideas of T.M. Khabarova, we see no more than "Soviet" great-nation chauvinism, disguised by revisionist phraseology about the restoration of the USSR. We are dealing here with bourgeois patriotism, in the final analyses something that we already know from Brezhnev’s time.
Capitalism is responsible for the sufferings of the working class; therefore the response of the working class to this class oppression exerted both by the international and the national bourgeoisies can only be of one kind: class struggle, the proletarian revolution, the dictatorship of the proletariat and socialism.
A capitalist society cannot exist without the working class, the class of people who directly produce the wealth. At the same time, under capitalism this class is exploited; it has no rights without constant struggles. As the result of this the working class is interested in the liquidation of the class of exploiters and exploitation. However, comrade Khabarova denies the inalienable right of the working class, the class which is most interested in the liquidation of capitalist private property, to have its own political vanguard. In this way, the working class is denied the right to achieve political power, by means of which the working class will be in the position to liberate society from class oppression. Comrade Khabarova justifies her stand by arguing that the creation of a political vanguard of the working class would endanger the unity of the toiling masses.
We claim that the establishment of political power of the working class means the establishment and development of a social system that excludes the possibility of the exploitation of the toiling masses. Under this social system, there is no reason to oppose the labor of workers to the labor of engineers, scientists, doctors and teachers or to belittle the labor if any classes under that social system. The working class is only opposed to those who directly or indirectly foster the exploitation of the toiling masses and who are associated with the economic interests of this class of parasites. Under the rule of the working class, social-class antagonism toward non-parasitic classes of society will be eliminated without fail. The final goal of the dictatorship of the proletariat is the construction of a classless society and the elimination of the inequalities between intellectual and physical labor, between industrial and agricultural labor.
By creating its political vanguard, the communist party, the working class by no means jeopardizes the unity of the communist movement; on the contrary, it will attract and unify the exploited masses more strongly. It will give them a political direction; it will organize them in the struggle for the liquidation of the bourgeois system. The creation of a party of all toilers as a political vanguard in the class struggle, i.e. on the basis of petty-bourgeois principles (even with a large percentage of workers) will transform the toiling masses into an amorphous mass, it will make their struggles inconsistent and indecisive and in the end will lead the exploited masses to certain failure. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) and the Communist Party of Ukraine (CPU) have developed similar policies. These parties are harmful to the working class and its struggle against the class of exploiters.
It is known that the "dictatorship of the proletariat" is a concept that embodies the class essence of a state power that is able to provide the working class a leading role in society. The existence of the state is an expression of the existence of class contradictions in society, at least on internal contradictions. Therefore the state power should pursue the interests of the ruling class. This is also applicable to the political vanguard of the working class, the communist party. However, this does not mean that certain individuals or group of individuals are entitled to take advantage of their social status or social origins to misuse the power that they have in their hands. The bourgeoisie through its ideologists tries its best to divide the exploited masses.
According to Khabarova, the "last" vestiges of the dictatorship of the proletariat in the USSR were embodied in the 1977 Constitution." Much to the contrary, the 1977 Constitution liquidated the "last vestiges of the dictatorship of the proletariat" by proclaiming the USSR as the "state of all the people."
Moreover, we believe that the USSR in 1977 was not a true socialist country; its capitalist essence was covered up with revisionist phraseology about Marxism-Leninism, socialism and the construction of the communist society. Therefore, T.M. Khabarova is a propagandist of the ideas of revisionism, a concealed enemy of Marxism-Leninism. T.M. Khabarova, in essence, is proposing that we return to:
-the arrogance of the ruling elite; special country houses, special hospitals, special wagers and also bonuses;
-economic crisis; overproduction of low-quality goods for mass consumption;
- class arbitrariness and repression against the working class; putting down the peaceful demonstration of workers in Novocherkas in 1962, the repression against the crew of the ship "Storozhevo" in November of 1975 for spontaneously rising up in defense of the conquests of the Great October proletarian revolution;
- moral degradation, the flourishing of bribery, careerism, political and institutional hypocrisy’
- and many other "charms" of that period, after the death of Stalin in 1953.
In the end, in such the USSR, the objective development of capitalism will inevitably bring the country back to what we have today, the capitalist market economy tragedy.
If T.M. Khabarova stands against class struggle and the liquidation of the rule of "her" bourgeoisie, against the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, she basically wants to propagate the system that existed in 1977 as the economic basis for today.
We are in complete disagreement with comrade Khabarova regarding "Soviet Patriotism" as a superior form of proletarian internationalism under the present historical circumstances. Now, when the working class of the former USSR has been divided, it has to fight against the bourgeoisie of its own countries; proletarian internationalism today means supporting each other in their struggles over the entire territory of the former USSR, on the basis of class assistance.
Therefore, the slogan of restoration of the USSR as forward by T.M. Khabarova and "Congress of Citizens of the USSR" is not based on today's conditions but on her personal abstract thinking.
The unification of the future proletarian states into a single Union of the territories of former USSR is inevitable as a result of economic, political and other conditions. How this will happen we cannot foresee now, however we are certain that the victory of another proletarian revolution in Russia will play a tremendous role in the former Soviet republics.
"One is only a Marxist who extends the recognition of the class struggle to the recognition of the dictatorship of the proletariat"
V.I. Lenin in "State and Revolution'
"The political campaign persists that seeks to show that the working class no longer has historical conditions to lead the revolution and, that there are new social actors who should place themselves at the head of this process. The revolution is led both ideologically and politically by the working class with its communist party as the highest form of class organization. Nothing in present day capitalist development negates the revolutionary and leading role that the proletariat must fulfill. Only the working class can carry the revolution through to the end."
From the Declaration of the 4th International Seminar on Problems of the Revolution in Latin America, Ecuador, July 2000
The Soviet of Workers Committee of Ukraine
Published in "Proletarskaya Gazeta"
Number l7.
Rafael Martinez
In the newspaper "Molniya" #23, 2000 in Moscow, there was written an article, entitled "For Soviet Power." T.M. Khabarova, the author of this article, is a very well known representative of the Moscow left movement. In this article, the author expresses her own views on the number of questions of principle, by touching upon the question of restoration of the USSR. This is the essence of her stand, as she represents the "Congress of Soviet Citizens":
-The Soviet Union today is de facto an occupied country. Only its people can liberate and restore the life in this country.
-In order to reunite the confused Soviet people into a united force, capable of changing the state of affairs in the country, it is necessary to restore the CPSU, the party of the Soviet People in their struggle for the liberation of the entire territory of the USSR from occupation of foreign capital and, then, to bring back the 1977 Constitution of the USSR.
-The formation of independent ‘workers’ parties is harmful, because this would lead to the separation of the working class from other sectors of the toiling masses. This also prevents the working class from becoming the nucleus of the Soviet people.
-The abstract slogan of "dictatorship of the proletariat" is also harmful. This slogan undermines the task of the restoration of the 1977 constitution of the USSR. This constitution exists de facto as it holds de jure even now.
-Today in the former Soviet Union, proletarian internationalism should should be understood as Soviet Patriotism, as patriotic feeling of solidarity.
One could well disregard this petty bourgeois nonsense of comrade T.M. Khabarova, if it were not for the fact that these views are not only characteristic of a small number of followers. Such thinking is upheld by as significant section of the left movement on the territory of the former USSR. Modern revisionism, after several decades of rule is apparently well rooted, especially among the educated intelligencia. Therefore, we, representatives of the working class of the Ukraine, believe that it is necessary to speak about the questions raided here.
Comrade Khabarova speaks today about the Soviet Union as de facto occupied country. This statement is the basis of her thinking. Based on this, she denies the most obvious, real present fact that on the former territory of USSR there are now many independent bourgeois states, whose independence and private property of the means of production are backed by their constitution. In these countries, the real interests of various bourgeois groups overlap. The core of the capitalist class in those former Soviet republics is made up of all kinds of parasitic clans from the former state, party and union structures, formed during the period of Soviet rule after the death of Stalin in 1953.
The Soviet people were not the only ones that were confused. During decades of revisionism after 1953, this revisionism dominated the working class and it lost its consciousness. The Soviet people in their majority succumbed to the petty bourgeois psychology. Under these conditions, it was not hard for the ruling class to fool the Soviet workers, peasants and the working intelligencia. The victory of capitalism on the territory of former Soviet Union is due to this historical fact, plus the working of imperialism and their foreign and internal agencies.
Nowadays, the bourgeois relations of production determine most of the social and economic processes developing in the former Soviet republics. Therefore, today these societies are divided into industrial and agricultural proletariat, and the big, middle and petty bourgeoisie, the latter mostly engaged in trade. Yesterday’s Soviet intelligencia, especially its top elite, has accommodated itself to the new conditions, in accordance with its class essence.
Under the present conditions, the concept of "Soviet people" has lost its economic meaning and dilutes the class character of our society; it is confusing. To restore the CPSU as a "party of the Soviet people" is like creating a classless political organization inn a class society. This, in essence, is meant to divert attention of the exploited masses from the class struggle, i.e., it is an open attack against the class of proletarians and the exploited masses as a whole.
The political independence of the newly formed capitalist states on the territory of the former USSR does not prevent economic oppression of the international capital and imperialism, including Russian capitalists. Therefore, under these conditions it is not possible to struggle against the expansion of international capital, in we do not struggle also against the national capitalist class. To tell the truth, T.M. Khabarova calls on her followers to support only those sections of the bourgeoisie whose capital is invested in the territory of its own country, i.e. to support the interests of its "own" bourgeoisie.
From here it is easy to understand the class essence of the CPSU advocated by Khabarova. If we dig deeper into the "patriotic" ideas of T.M. Khabarova, we see no more than "Soviet" great-nation chauvinism, disguised by revisionist phraseology about the restoration of the USSR. We are dealing here with bourgeois patriotism, in the final analyses something that we already know from Brezhnev’s time.
Capitalism is responsible for the sufferings of the working class; therefore the response of the working class to this class oppression exerted both by the international and the national bourgeoisies can only be of one kind: class struggle, the proletarian revolution, the dictatorship of the proletariat and socialism.
A capitalist society cannot exist without the working class, the class of people who directly produce the wealth. At the same time, under capitalism this class is exploited; it has no rights without constant struggles. As the result of this the working class is interested in the liquidation of the class of exploiters and exploitation. However, comrade Khabarova denies the inalienable right of the working class, the class which is most interested in the liquidation of capitalist private property, to have its own political vanguard. In this way, the working class is denied the right to achieve political power, by means of which the working class will be in the position to liberate society from class oppression. Comrade Khabarova justifies her stand by arguing that the creation of a political vanguard of the working class would endanger the unity of the toiling masses.
We claim that the establishment of political power of the working class means the establishment and development of a social system that excludes the possibility of the exploitation of the toiling masses. Under this social system, there is no reason to oppose the labor of workers to the labor of engineers, scientists, doctors and teachers or to belittle the labor if any classes under that social system. The working class is only opposed to those who directly or indirectly foster the exploitation of the toiling masses and who are associated with the economic interests of this class of parasites. Under the rule of the working class, social-class antagonism toward non-parasitic classes of society will be eliminated without fail. The final goal of the dictatorship of the proletariat is the construction of a classless society and the elimination of the inequalities between intellectual and physical labor, between industrial and agricultural labor.
By creating its political vanguard, the communist party, the working class by no means jeopardizes the unity of the communist movement; on the contrary, it will attract and unify the exploited masses more strongly. It will give them a political direction; it will organize them in the struggle for the liquidation of the bourgeois system. The creation of a party of all toilers as a political vanguard in the class struggle, i.e. on the basis of petty-bourgeois principles (even with a large percentage of workers) will transform the toiling masses into an amorphous mass, it will make their struggles inconsistent and indecisive and in the end will lead the exploited masses to certain failure. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) and the Communist Party of Ukraine (CPU) have developed similar policies. These parties are harmful to the working class and its struggle against the class of exploiters.
It is known that the "dictatorship of the proletariat" is a concept that embodies the class essence of a state power that is able to provide the working class a leading role in society. The existence of the state is an expression of the existence of class contradictions in society, at least on internal contradictions. Therefore the state power should pursue the interests of the ruling class. This is also applicable to the political vanguard of the working class, the communist party. However, this does not mean that certain individuals or group of individuals are entitled to take advantage of their social status or social origins to misuse the power that they have in their hands. The bourgeoisie through its ideologists tries its best to divide the exploited masses.
According to Khabarova, the "last" vestiges of the dictatorship of the proletariat in the USSR were embodied in the 1977 Constitution." Much to the contrary, the 1977 Constitution liquidated the "last vestiges of the dictatorship of the proletariat" by proclaiming the USSR as the "state of all the people."
Moreover, we believe that the USSR in 1977 was not a true socialist country; its capitalist essence was covered up with revisionist phraseology about Marxism-Leninism, socialism and the construction of the communist society. Therefore, T.M. Khabarova is a propagandist of the ideas of revisionism, a concealed enemy of Marxism-Leninism. T.M. Khabarova, in essence, is proposing that we return to:
-the arrogance of the ruling elite; special country houses, special hospitals, special wagers and also bonuses;
-economic crisis; overproduction of low-quality goods for mass consumption;
- class arbitrariness and repression against the working class; putting down the peaceful demonstration of workers in Novocherkas in 1962, the repression against the crew of the ship "Storozhevo" in November of 1975 for spontaneously rising up in defense of the conquests of the Great October proletarian revolution;
- moral degradation, the flourishing of bribery, careerism, political and institutional hypocrisy’
- and many other "charms" of that period, after the death of Stalin in 1953.
In the end, in such the USSR, the objective development of capitalism will inevitably bring the country back to what we have today, the capitalist market economy tragedy.
If T.M. Khabarova stands against class struggle and the liquidation of the rule of "her" bourgeoisie, against the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, she basically wants to propagate the system that existed in 1977 as the economic basis for today.
We are in complete disagreement with comrade Khabarova regarding "Soviet Patriotism" as a superior form of proletarian internationalism under the present historical circumstances. Now, when the working class of the former USSR has been divided, it has to fight against the bourgeoisie of its own countries; proletarian internationalism today means supporting each other in their struggles over the entire territory of the former USSR, on the basis of class assistance.
Therefore, the slogan of restoration of the USSR as forward by T.M. Khabarova and "Congress of Citizens of the USSR" is not based on today's conditions but on her personal abstract thinking.
The unification of the future proletarian states into a single Union of the territories of former USSR is inevitable as a result of economic, political and other conditions. How this will happen we cannot foresee now, however we are certain that the victory of another proletarian revolution in Russia will play a tremendous role in the former Soviet republics.
"One is only a Marxist who extends the recognition of the class struggle to the recognition of the dictatorship of the proletariat"
V.I. Lenin in "State and Revolution'
"The political campaign persists that seeks to show that the working class no longer has historical conditions to lead the revolution and, that there are new social actors who should place themselves at the head of this process. The revolution is led both ideologically and politically by the working class with its communist party as the highest form of class organization. Nothing in present day capitalist development negates the revolutionary and leading role that the proletariat must fulfill. Only the working class can carry the revolution through to the end."
From the Declaration of the 4th International Seminar on Problems of the Revolution in Latin America, Ecuador, July 2000
The Soviet of Workers Committee of Ukraine
Published in "Proletarskaya Gazeta"
Number l7.