My notes and quotes I've collected

From The Proletarian Revolution and Khrushchov's Revisionism: "Khrushchov now adopted the 'heresy' for which I was kicked out of the Communist Party in 1945.' And he added that Khrushchov's new policy 'is almost word for word the same line I advocated fifteen years ago. So my crime has become--at least for the moment-- the new orthodoxy'." (E. Browder, "How Stalin Ruined the American Communist Party", Harper's Magazine, New York, March 1960.)

A post of mine.

For what it's worth, Molotov, who after 1957 was disgraced along with the "Anti-Party Group" for opposing Khrushchev, responded to the issue in 1970.

Felix Chuev, his interviewer of sorts for decades, asked him: "How do you explain the forced resettlement of entire ethnic groups during the war?"

Molotov replied, "Oh, so we have become wise after the event, have we? Now we know everything, anachronistically mix up events, squeeze time into a single point. Everything has its history. The fact is that during the war we received reports about mass treason. Battalions of Caucasians opposed us and at the fronts and attacked us from the rear. It was a matter of life and death; there was no time to investigate the details. Of course innocents suffered. But I hold that given the circumstances, we acted correctly."
(Albert Resis (ed). Molotov Remembers: Inside Kremlin Politics. Chicago, IL: Ivan R. Dee, Inc. 1993. p. 195.)

"It is the revisionists who have long been asserting that colonial policy is progressive, that it implants capitalism and that therefore it is senseless to 'accuse it of greed and cruelty', for 'without these qualities' capitalism is 'hamstrung'.

It would be quixotism and whining if Social-Democrats were to tell the workers that there could be salvation somewhere apart from the development of capitalism, not through the development of capitalism. But we do not say this. We say: capital devours you, will devour the Persians, will devour everyone and go on devouring until you overthrow it. That is the truth. And we do not forget to add: except through the growth of capitalism there is no guarantee of victory over it...

Resistance to colonial policy and international plunder by means of organising the proletariat, by means of defending freedom for the proletarian struggle, does not retard the development of capitalism but accelerates it, forcing it to resort to more civilised, technically higher methods of capitalism. There is capitalism and capitalism. There is Black-Hundred-Octobrist capitalism and Narodnik ('realistic, democratic', full of 'activity') capitalism. The more we expose capitalism before the workers for its 'greed and cruelty', the more difficult is it for capitalism of the first order to persist, the more surely is it bound to pass into capitalism of the second order. And this just suits us, this just suits the proletariat."
(V.I. Lenin. Collected Works Vol 34. Moscow: Progress Publishers. 1977. pp. 438-439.)

January 1920:

"'The most outstanding fact in the world situation,' said Comrade Lenin, 'is the peace with Estonia. This peace is a window into Europe. It opens up before us the possibility of beginning an exchange of goods with the West. Our enemies maintained that the revolution in the West is far away and that we would not be able to hold out without it. We have not only held out, however, we have won a victory.'"
(V.I. Lenin. Collected Works Vol. 30. Moscow: Progress Publishers. 1974. p. 345.)

"American technicians, engineers and administrators Lenin particularly held in high esteem. He wanted five thousand of them, he wanted them at once, and was ready to pay them the highest salaries...

America was so far away. It did not offer a direct threat to the life of Soviet Russia. And it did offer the goods and experts that Soviet Russia needed. 'Why is it not then to the mutual interest of the two countries to make a special agreement?' asked Lenin.

But is it possible for a communistic state to deal with a capitalistic state? Can the two forms live side by side? These questions were put to Lenin by [French journalist] Naudeau.

'Why not?' said Lenin. 'We want technicians, scientists and the various products of industry, and it is clear that we by ourselves are incapable of developing the immense resources of the country. Under the circumstances, though it may be unpleasant for us, we must admit that our principles, which hold in Russia, must, beyond our frontiers, give place to political agreements. We very sincerely propose to pay interest on our foreign loans, and in default of cash we will pay them in grain, oil, and all sorts of raw materials in which we are rich.

'We have decided to grant concessions of forests and mines to citizens of the Entente powers, always on the condition that the essential principles of the Russian Soviets are to be respected. Furthermore it will even consent—not cheerfully, it is true, but with resignation—to the cession of some territory of the old Empire of Russia to certain Entente powers. We know that the English, Japanese and American capitalists very much desire such concessions...

'This state property is ceded for a certain time, probably eighty years, and with the right of redemption... It does not at all correspond to our ideal, and we must say that this question has raised some very lively controversies in Soviet journals. But we have decided to accept that which the epoch of transition renders necessary.'"
(Albert Rhys Williams. Lenin: The Man and His Work. New York: Scott and Seltzer. 1919. pp. 103-106.)

"Karl Radek made the Soviets' designs very clear in an interview published by the Manchester Guardian on 8 January 1920....

The Russians desired peace. In that case, the interviewer asked, what did he have to say about the Soviet threat in India through continued propaganda? Radek answered:

'The Russian government conducts no such propaganda. On the contrary, it is prepared to give to any country that establishes peaceful relations all conceivable guarantees. Of course, the march of ideas cannot be arrested, but we are ready to give guarantees that we shall use neither money nor agents, direct or indirect, for the conduct of propaganda in India as elsewhere in the British empire. We have too great [a] need for peace with England to haggle.'

Radek expressed himself quite openly, going so far as to maintain that:

'British imperialism is not merely a capitalist intrigue, but is rooted in the psychology of the masses. The British domination of India and Ireland is popular. If we desire the British masses to become socialist, we cannot do anything from outside. Salvation must come to the English proletarians and oppressed people of the empire from their own exertions. It is their own affair, not that of the Soviet government. We can only offer our sympathy; anything further would be forbidden towards a country with which we are at peace.'

At this point it was logical for the interviewer to ask if Soviet Russia really did intend to 'settle down amid a non-socialist world as one state among others.' This was Radek's reply:

'Why not? It is the standpoint of the Russian government that normal and good relations are just as possible between socialist and capitalist states as they have been between capitalist and feudal states. For example, imperialist England lived on quite good terms with czarist feudal Russia in the days of serfdom. I, personally, am convinced that Communism can only be saved through good relations with the capitalist states. All the capitalist states are moving towards socialism along their own roads... in each of these countries the battle will be won from within in the growing struggle between the peoples and governments. Revolutions never originate in foreign affairs but are made at home.'

[....]

'Our historic task [said Radek] is to reconstruct Russia, and for that peace is essential... All the talk about our plans to disrupt and destroy the British empire is the sheerest nonsense and Northcliffe bluff.'"
(Piero Melograni. Lenin and the Myth of World Revolution: Ideology and Reasons of State, 1917-1920. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press International. 1989. pp. 88-90.)

"Once back in Russia, Radek was named Secretary of the Comintern – Lenin's reward to him. In his first public address, on 28 January [1920], he repeated the ideas he had been championing for months:

'If our capitalist partners abstain from counter-revolutionary activities in Russia, the Soviet government, too, will abstain from promoting revolutionary activities in capitalist countries. . . . We think that now capitalist countries can live alongside a proletarian State. We hold that it is in the interests of both sides to make peace and establish commercial relations.'"
(Ibid. p. 70.)

"In February 1920, two mysterious [Bolshevik] emissaries went to Berlin, and during meetings at the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs (perhaps with the Minister himself), they brought up the possibility of joint intervention in Poland....

In April 1920, Soviet representative Kopp asked to speak to the head of the Russian Division at the Berlin Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Baron Ago von Maltzan. At the meeting he repeated the proposal made two months earlier by the mysterious envoys previously mentioned. Kopp asked 'if the opportunity existed to construct a combination between the army here and the Red Army for the purpose of a joint struggle against Poland.' Von Maltzan clarified immediately that such a possibility did not exist...

[In July 1920], at the foreign affairs ministry, Kopp proposed a full resumption of diplomatic relations and he announced that the Red Army was committed not to occupy the former German territories of Poland. This was a gesture that Germany could not leave unreciprocated. The following day, the Berlin government declared its 'neutrality' in the Russo-Polish war, and prohibited any military aid that was being sent to Poland by the Entente from passing through Germany."
(Ibid. pp. 100-101.)

From a post of mine:

"[Chuev:] Stalin proposed that all republics become part of the RSFSR on the basis of autonomy, which Lenin opposed. But then Stalin admitted his mistake and agreed to Lenin's proposal to form the USSR with all Soviet republics having equality.

[Molotov:] The point is that Stalin in this instance continued Lenin's line. But Lenin had moved beyond the solution he had advocated earlier and which Stalin knew well. Lenin then moved the question to a higher plane.

Lenin had opposed the federal principle, federalism, because he favored centralism. All the reins, everything must be held in the hands of the working class so as to strengthen the state. Just read his articles on the national question. Autonomy within a unitary state, yes.

But Lenin suddenly dropped this unitary principle for a federal solution: 'Let us create the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics!'

But Stalin did not know this at the outset."
(Albert Resis (ed). Molotov Remembers. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee. 1991. pp. 195-196.)

Related to the Molotov quote above (to the effect that Stalin was loyal to Lenin's nationalities policies, this quote being concerned with the 1918-1920 period):

"The People's Commissariat for Affairs of Nationalities was thus in outward form a galaxy of national commissariats or sections each under its own national chief... But appearances were deceptive. These posts, which were extremely hard to fill, were apt to go to sturdy Bolsheviks whose party loyalties were stronger than their national affiliations, and who, established at headquarters in Moscow, were more interested in carrying out the policy of the centre in the national regions than in pressing awkward national desiderata at headquarters. Pestkovsky, the deputy People's Commissar under Stalin, has left explicit testimony on the prevalence in the hierarchy of Narkomnats of an 'international' attitude to the national question:

'The collegium of the People's Commissariat of Nationalities consisted of these russified non-Russians who opposed their abstract internationalism to the real needs of development of the oppressed nationalities. Actually this policy supported the old tradition of russification and was a special danger in the conditions of the civil war.'

According to Pestkovsky, Stalin at this time was the one supporter of Lenin's policy in the collegium of Narkomnats and was frequently outvoted by his colleagues, who were 'Leftists' and adherents of the 'abstract internationalism' of the Polish heresy."
(Carr, E.H. The Bolshevik Revolution: 1917-1923 Vol. 1. New York: Penguin Books. 1983. pp. 283-284.)

It's interesting that Carr's source is none other than Leon Trotsky's biography of Stalin, 1946, page 257.

And now one of the leading Trotskyist newspapers effectively endorsing both Khrushchev's attacks on Albania, and the activities of the Italian revisionists, who were to the right of him:

"Regardless of motivation, the Kremlin's exposure and denunciation of the savagely repressive regime in Albania furthers the process of democratization within the Soviet bloc and the Communist parties internationally....

The rapidity and boldness of this trend is dramatically evidenced in the Nov. 11 issue of Nuova Generazione, organ of the Young Communist of Italy. In addition to publishing a photograph of Trotsky beside Lenin, it states that Trotsky is 'one of the most original personalities of the October Revolution, about whose ideas discussion is now reopened. Among other works, he is the author of one of the most interesting Histories of the Revolution and some of the finest pages on Lenin.' Nuova Generazione calls for a critique of the whole history of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union as well as a new examination of Trotsky's role. Two articles, moreover, discuss some of Trotsky's theses in a serious political manner.

Italy's Young Communists may be a bit more advanced and daring than their counterparts in other countries, but the most militant elements in all Communist parties and youth organizations have already taken the same road." - The Militant, December 18, 1961.

"In September 1935 [Stalin] wrote to Kaganovich that NKVD materials suggested that Yenukdize [who had been expelled from the Party at the suggestion of Yezhov] was 'alien to us, not one of us.' But at the first plausible opportunity, two plenums later in June 1936, Stalin personally proposed that Yenukidze be permitted to rejoin the party. Then a few months later he approved Yenukidze's arrest and subsequent execution for espionage.

Aside from the year's delay between the Yenukidze affair and the actual terrorism accusation against Zinoviev and Kamenev, there are other signs at this time that Stalin was not prepared to go as far as Yezhov in prosecuting leading oppositionists. Yezhov had just finished his ponderous book manuscript 'From Fractionalism to Open Counterrevolution (on the Zinovievist Counterrevolutionary Organization),' and he asked Stalin to edit it. Stalin was apparently unable to get through more than fifty pages of Yezhov's masterpiece, but in several phrases in the initial sections he did edit, he changed Yezhov's characterization of Zinoviev and Kamenev as 'counterrevolutionary' to the less harsh 'anti-Soviet and harmful to the party.'"
(Getty, J. Arch. Yezhov: The Rise of Stalin's "Iron Fist". New Haven: Yale University Press. 2008. pp. 164-165.)

Some quotes to help counter the myth that Tito single-handledly aided the Greek Communists in "defiance" of the Soviets.

"As early as November 1946, when Greek rebel bands began their attacks on the legitimate government of Athens, Albania was accused of giving them assistance. When some months later, General Markos took over command of the guerrillas, that country became one of their chief bases...

Even after the Tito-Cominform break, Albania continued to help the Greek rebels. On September 21, 1949, the United Nations Special Committee on the Balkans advised the General Assembly to declare the government of Albania 'primarily responsible for the threat to peace in the Balkans' and call on Albania (and Bulgaria) to cease aiding the Greek guerrillas."
(Skendi, Stavro (ed). Albania. New York: Frederick A. Praeger. 1956. p. 28.)

"The Bulgarians were also openly supporting the guerrillas... they instituted 'voluntary' wage deductions (as high as 10 percent) that went into the Greek Aid Fund. Every month Bulgarians bought coupons inscribed 'for the aid of the Greek Democratic People.' The Bulgarian Red Cross donated medical and other supplies, and the following month it issued a special stamp 'for the aid of the Greek refugees.' On the day after New Year's, the National Committee of the Fatherland Front sought contributions for 'moral and political aid' as well as 'material assistance to the refugees from Greece.' A 'victory of the Greek people' was 'definitely in the interests of Bulgaria.'

A further complication was that Albania and Bulgaria accused the Greek government of violating their borders. From early January through mid-April 1948, the Albanian government lodged over a hundred complaints with the UN secretary-general...

The Yugoslavs, however, filed no protests against Greece, which suggested that their government was undergoing a change in policy brought by increasing trouble with Moscow."
(Jones, Howard. "A New Kind of War": America's Global Strategy and the Truman Doctrine in Greece. New York: Oxford University Press. 1989. pp. 125-126.)

The American ambassador to Yugoslavia in a secret dispatch on January 3, 1948:

"During call on Foreign Minister yesterday afternoon I was informed Marshal Tito would see me this morning...

Knowing that interview had been arranged for general informal talk and that theme Tito expected me to develop was improved trade relations, I started by brief discussion prewar and present trade (which I shall report in separate telegram) and managed transition to political field by frank statement that many of US products Yugoslav Government needs are in such short supply that exports naturally go to countries friendly to US, and that Yugoslav Government cannot expect credit, whether by US public agencies or commercial banks, so long as American public opinion finds Yugoslav Government invariably opposing US in all efforts for establishing peace and reconstruction.

This brought us to questions of Trieste and Greece....

On Greece Tito said the whole world knows how Yugoslav Government sees situation there. 'We have stated our position repeatedly, but we are not going to do anything dramatic or engage in any adventure.' ... I had noted reports that in Bulgaria and Albania the tone is more interventionist and bellicose and in view of recent series of pacts one could suppose this to be by agreed plan. He replied, 'Yes, I know that you Americans are worried about Communism thrusting out into other areas but do not forget Yugoslavia's chief national task is internal development and we need peace'."
(Foreign Relations of the United States: 1948 Volume IV. Washington: United States Government Printing Office. 1974. pp. 1054-1055.)

Taken from one conversation on RevLeft between me and some guy:

In the first place, any reasonably detailed discussion of the visits of Nixon and Kissinger to China will note that one of their goals was to harm the DRV's struggle. As one book notes, both men knew that "by opening to China, they would be able to make North Vietnam feel more isolated and vulnerable." (Isaacson, Kissinger: A Biography, p. 334.) And "the North Vietnamese had drawn the inescapable conclusion that China valued its relationship with the United States more than its revolutionary unity with the DRV." (Qiang Zhai, China and the Vietnam Wars, p. 197.)

Kissinger in his memoir Years of Upheaval noted that China "profoundly distrusted" the DRV and that if the Paris Peace Accords failed "Hanoi would achieve hegemony in Indochina without a fight, discredit the United States internationally as a paper tiger, and create on China's southern border a powerful Vietnamese state... in Indochina, American and Chinese interests were nearly parallel... Zhou Enlai... had always urged a ceasefire much like what we had achieved, the implication of which inevitably would permit the South Vietnamese government to survive. Unlike many of our domestic opponents, he never pressed us to overthrow Thieu and to install Hanoi's puppet regime."

In Mao: The Unknown Story (yes, I know it's a dubious source, but this bit is confirmed by other sources) the authors relate the following on page 585: "When Chou went to Hanoi immediately after Kissinger's first visit, to explain Peking's move, he got an earful from North Vietnam's leader. 'Vietnam is our country;' Le Duan protested; 'you have no right to discuss the question of Vietnam with the United States.' After Nixon's visit, Chou returned to Hanoi, and got an even worse reception."

An example of how various communists at the time of Molotov-Ribbentrop understood the real meaning of it:

"In his capacity as a representative of the Comintern, [Ho Chi Minh] convened the Eighth Plenum of the [Indochinese Communist] Party Central Committee in Pac Bo from May 10 to 19, 1941... The Plenum analysed the cause and prospects of the Second World War, correctly assessed that the German fascists would attack the Soviet Union, that war would break out in the Pacific; that the war waged by the fascist imperialists would be a horrible slaughter but it would weaken the imperialists and give a strong impetus to the world revolutionary movement; the anti-fascist allied camp with the Soviet Union as its backbone would certainly win victory, the fascist camp was doomed to failure. 'The First World War brought into being a socialist state, the Soviet Union; this imperialist war will lead to the emergence of many other socialist countries and the revolution will triumph in many countries.'"
(History of the August Revolution. Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House. 1979. p. 24.)

"[The] Vietnamese took the same position as the Chinese on the issues.... they did not participate in the World Communist Party Congress in Moscow in 1965 or the International Conference of Communist and Workers' Parties in Moscow in 1969. They did not attend either of these two conferences because Brezhnev's foreign policy [still] included such ideas as 'peaceful coexistence', 'peaceful transition to socialism' and approaches toward the Third World on which the SRV differed in principle from the Soviets. Vietnam criticized the policy of the Khrushchev and Brezhnev administrations toward the Third World, particularly their economic assistance policy, as 'economism divorced from a class viewpoint.' This kind of criticism continued to appear in official publications up to 1967.

The Vietnamese did not join in the criticism of Stalin taking place in the Soviet Union and would not go along with the denunciation of Albania. In fact, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam maintains party and state relations with Albania to this day. Vietnamese translations of Stalin's writings are still published in Vietnam. The Vietnamese often used the occasion of Stalin's birthday (December 21) for their attacks on the non-Leninist policy lines of China and the Soviet Union, referring to Stalin as 'the great disciple of Lenin.'"
(Mio Tadashi (ed). Indochina in Transition: Confrontation or Co-prosperity. Tokyo: Japan Institute of International Affairs. 1989. pp. 82-83.)

"As the Brezhnev administration was launched, the Soviets adopted a policy different from that of Khrushchev and increased economic and military aid to Vietnam. Since Soviet aid to the Vietnamese national liberation war became more active in general under Brezhnev, Vietnam quit criticizing the Soviets as 'modern revisionist,' but still viewed his detente with the U.S. no different from Khrushchev's peaceful co-existence policy. Therefore, Vietnam never praised the detente policy, although grateful for the aid it sought and obtained from the Soviets."
(Ibid. p. 134.)

"Immediately thereafter Ford left for his first trip to China [December 1975], where he met Mao Zedong and other top Chinese leaders and was lectured on U.S. lack of resolve vis-Ã*-vis the Soviet Union. On his return Ford told the Republican congressional leadership, 'There is a very strong anti-Soviet attitude. It is almost unbelievable. The Chinese . . . urged us to prevent Soviet expansion anywhere, but especially in the Middle East, the Pacific and in Africa.'"
(Gleijeses, Piero. Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington and Africa, 1959-1976. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. 2002. p. 330.)

"With respect to Mali, the other 'revolutionary democracy' confronting a serious economic crisis, the Soviet desire to disengage was just as clear.

In May-June 1966. a delegation from Mali went to Moscow to obtain increased economic support. The fact that the joint communique emphasized the 'problems' confronting Mali rather than the 'achievements of its revolution' demonstrates well how, on the Soviet side, disenchantment had replaced optimism. Meanwhile, measures adopted by the Soviet Union 'to contribute to the reinforcement of Mali's economic independence' scarcely seemed to have had any effect. In December 1966 Modibo Keita, who had made Mali’s exit from the Franc Zone a symbol of national independence, announced the upcoming reintegration of his country into this monetary union dominated by France.

Very quickly, the ideological categories honored under Khrushchev suffered a significant loss of meaning. 'Revolutionary democracy' was hardly mentioned anymore; instead it was simply the 'noncapitalist path.' In 1967 Izvestia would even call the 'revolutionary-reformist' split in Africa artificial."
(Laïdi, Zaki. The Superpowers and Africa: The Constraints of Rivalry, 1960-1990. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. 1990. p. 35.)

"After the 20th Congress of CPSU Moscow and Beijing were confronted with the need to adjust their revolutionary models. The problem was how to treat the bourgeois governments in Asia in which there was no place for the communists. The Soviet answer was to follow the concept of peaceful transition in which a non-communist government which followed a non-capitalist path and an anti-imperialist foreign policy could actually lead the country to a socialist revolution.

In other words, the bourgeois Government of India led by Nehru would lead India to socialism. This essentially revisionist view was rejected by the Chinese communists, who regarded it as a 'gross error' and a 'violation' of the fundamental theories of Marxism-Leninism. They feared that the peaceful transition would lead to disaster and in the long-run the communists would be overwhelmed by the nationalists.

Disappointed by the policies India and other nonaligned nations followed, the Chinese communists argued for an end to communist alliances with and benevolence towards nationalist leaders like Nehru, Nasser and Sukarno. They asserted that these nationalist leaders could not be trusted and they could not and would not effect social reforms. They might even gravitate towards the West.

Recollection of the disastrous outcome of the CCP’s right strategy of collaboration with the Guomindang in the 1920s strengthened the Chinese fear. The Chinese communists wanted the local communists in some countries, particularly in India, Indonesia and the United Arab Republic, to seize power. If the local communist parties tried to seize power Soviet relations with India and other non-aligned nations would be jeopardized. The Soviets declared that neutralism was really working to the advantage of the socialist bloc and that in the long-run the economic race with the West would be decisive. They therefore argued it was needless to take the risk inherent in an aggressive strategy....

The Soviets praised the Nehru government for its social and land reforms and the liquidation of the 'economic position of imperialism'. They also lauded the economic development of India under the first five-year plan and said that in drawing up the second five-year plan India had tried to learn from the Soviet experience. They declared that the Soviet Union would support India in building a 'socialist society'.

The Soviet economists also praised the development of the state sector as a 'special character which by its very nature differs from the state monopolistic capitalism of the United States and Western Europe' and cited Lenin to say that 'state capitalism is a step towards socialism, especially in a country with a preponderance of small undertakings.'

They also displayed their 'utmost confidence' that socialist ideas had been an 'irresistible attraction' to a country like India and that Soviet economic aid, expansion of Soviet-Indian trade and exchange of economic experts would further stimulate the 'ideals of socialism' among Indians....

Thereafter, the Soviets continued to praise Nehru’s socialism and state capitalism in India to the displeasure of the Chinese communists. In September 1956, addressing the 8th Congress of the CCP, Anastas Mikoyan defended the Soviet claim that India under Nehru was proceeding towards a socialist economy. Mikoyan also said that the Chinese had found their 'own distinctive new forms and methods of building socialism' and cited the Chinese communist alliance with the national bourgeoisie and the Chinese communist effort to move towards socialism through state capitalism. He dealt at length with the Soviet policy towards the underdeveloped nations and their national bourgeois leaders and quoted Lenin on the 'new transitional forms and ways' these countries were seeking to 'avoid the torments of capitalism.' He also defended India’s socialist economy and declared that 'we must be able to see the differences between state capitalism in India and capitalism in the United States.' ....

The Soviets insisted upon the 'progressive role' of state capitalism in India and rejected the mechanical imitation of the Chinese model for India, indeed for all developing nations. A Soviet scholar stated that 'imitation' of the Chinese method of economic development in other underdeveloped countries was 'impermissible' and quoted an early statement by Mao Zedong on the impossibility of the national bourgeoisie's ruling a viable national state, and directly contradicted him, citing India as evidence to the contrary. He also praised the Indian national bourgeoisie as 'progressive elements' and declared that despite the Chinese refusal to recognize the fact India was 'definitely marching towards socialism.' ...

Bypassing capitalism was possible only with aid from the victorious proletariat of an industrially developed state [the Soviet Union]. Non-capitalist development in India was in fact the 'revolutionary process' of gradual and consistent growth of the national liberation revolution into a socialist revolution. Moreover, the 'ideas of the October Revolution' were main elements of India's economic planning...

The Soviets then advised the Indian communists to support the economic measures of the Nehru government, to collaborate with all 'progressive forces' and to display 'tact' towards representatives of the bourgeois nationalist movements. E. Zhukov again praised Nehru’s socialism and insisted that India under Nehru’s leadership was proceeding towards the 'socialist path' though 'it is different from the Soviet concept of socialism.' Another Soviet scholar insisted that India was proceeding towards socialism and quoted Khrushchev as saying that the Soviet Union was convinced that India was proceeding towards socialism 'though we mean different things by socialism.' Nevertheless, he said 'we support the policy of Nehru who says that India is building a socialist society.'"
(Ray, Hemen. Sino-Soviet Conflict Over India. New Delhi: Shakti Malik. 1988. pp. 28-30, 32-33, 35-36.)

After the 1955 rehabilitation of Yugoslavia, the Soviets kept exiled "Cominformists" (pro-Soviet Yugoslavs) in the USSR, giving slight encouragement to their activities whenever relations with Yugoslavia were in a temporary decline (e.g. in 1968) as a means of pressure.

"By 1975, however, leading Cominformists living in the USSR, including Mileta Perović, were obliged to leave the country and resettle in the West. And then, on November 27, 1975, a Pravda editorial (signed 'I. Aleksandrov') attacked 'various émigré groups and individual renegades, both inside Yugoslavia and outside its frontiers, who demagogically attempt to portray themselves as the 'most orthodox' adherents of socialism in the SFR Yugoslavia, but who in fact work against the policy of the SKJ and the unity of the peoples of Yugoslavia the struggle for socialism.' Pravda added that the Western press was trying to implicate the USSR in this activity. Vigorously denying these charges, the editorial stressed that such 'inventions' were aimed at 'poisoning relations between the fraternal socialist countries.' As for the Cominformists, these 'small conspiratorial sectarian groups represent no one but themselves.'"
(Banac, Ivo. With Stalin Against Tito: Cominformist Splits in Yugoslav Communism. New York: Cornell University Press. 1988. pp. 263-264.)

"There were even several instances of open opposition to the advance of the Khrushchev wing. An Austrian who returned from Russia in 1958 told the author that at the beginning of July 1957 the workers of the electrical appliances factory in Kursk stopped work. They asked for an explanation of the dismissal of Molotov, Malenkov, and Kaganovich, and demanded that the fallen leaders should comment over the radio on the events at the full session of the Central Committee. The Party officials of the factory implored the workers to stop the strike: 'Remember, Molotov, Malenkov, and Kaganovich themselves admitted that they were guilty,' they said. Only after an hour did work start again. In other enterprises, too, there was unrest. Workers openly abused the Party leaders, which officials pretended not to hear."
(Leonhard, Wolfgang. The Kremlin Since Stalin. New York: Frederick A. Praeger. 1962. pp. 250-251.)

And now some excerpts from a memoir by Đilas, one of Tito's men, on the glorious Yugoslav path of "democratic socialism":

"The most interesting and striking person we dined with [during a visit to New York in 1949-50] was Canadian Minister of External Affairs Lester Pearson. In the UN circles he was considered one of the most intelligent of Western diplomats—and rightly so. Half in jest, he remarked, 'I don't suppose I'll ever be a Communist, but if I were, I'd be a Yugoslav Communist!' Regarding the Soviet Union, he said: 'The Russians have the atom bomb now, but we Westerners are stronger. We could occupy them, but it would demand enormous sacrifice and who'd know what to do with them? They're such awful nationalists, they'd never simmer down.'"
(Djilas, Milovan. Rise and Fall. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. 1985. p. 264.)

"By late 1949 and early 1950, theoretical thinking among our top people not only had abandoned Stalin, but also was working its way back to the roots, from Lenin to Marx. Kardelj maintained that one could prove anything with quotations, but that it was impossible to separate Lenin from Stalin completely. After all, Stalin was an outgrowth of Lenin.

As we made our way back to Marx, we often paused in our critical ponderings on the Leninist type of party."
(Ibid. p. 267.)

"A representative Labour delegation, headed by Morgan Phillips and Hugh Seton-Watson, had spent some time in Yugoslavia in 1950, holding candid talks with our leadership. These talks, which I conducted in large measure, had done much to bring us closer. Official relations with the Labour government also grew more open and cordial. Thus the British Labourites, along with other European socialists, provided a bridge toward collaboration with the West, while also freeing us from our ideological prejudice that only Communists truly represent the working class and socialism."
(Ibid. p. 273.)

"Filled with curiosity and joyous anticipation, we went to see Churchill at his London house, an establishment no larger or more luxurious than the average middle-class villa at Dedinje—the type that our top Yugoslav officials acquired after the war. We found him in his bedroom, in bed. He begged our pardon for receiving us thus and at once invited us to dinner. We had a prior engagement for dinner with the British government, and so had to decline, with genuine regret. Churchill then said, 'I have a feeling that you and we are on the same side of the barricade.' We confirmed his feeling, whereupon he inquired with delight, 'And how is my old friend Tito?'"
(Ibid. p. 275.)

One more example of how the Yugoslavs discarded the Greek struggle after their break with the USSR:

"I played host to the Secretary-General [of the United Nations, Trygve Lie]. The visit proceeded with more cordiality than his actual function demanded. While I was taking him to the airport, he asked me, 'Why did you help the rebels in Greece?' 'Revolutionary idealism,' I replied."
(Ibid. p. 277.)

I hope you don't mind me posting here but...

''As we made our way back to Marx, we often paused in our critical ponderings on the Leninist type of party."

...those revisionist guys aren't that diferent from each other y'know.

And now some words on the gloriously non-dogmatic foreign policy of Romania:

"The [Romanian Communist Party] has redefined and extrapolated the Leninist definition of conflicts as being 'antagonistic' or 'nonantagonistic' to the sphere of international relations in general and to the South [i.e. third world] in particular... Thus, conflicts between Communist states (China and the Soviet Union, Kampuchea and Vietnam) or between various developing countries are defined as basically 'nonantagonistic,' to be solved through negotiations and compromise only. While the Soviets admit no compromise (and neither do the Chinese) between 'revisionism' and Marxism-Leninism, or between 'reactionary' and 'progressive' developing countries, the RCP has not used the word 'revisionism' since the 1950s, when it applied it [at the time] to Tito, and rejects the very distinction between 'progressive' and 'reactionary' regimes in the South, a distinction which provides the basis for Soviet involvement in support of various radical regimes and groups there. In the words of a Romanian commentator:

'The emphasis placed on dividing the developing countries into 'progressive' and 'moderate' ones and opposing them to each other in international relations runs counter to the unanimously recognized principle of peaceful coexistence of countries with different social and political systems, feeding instead the theory of the spheres of influence, which is used to weaken the unity of the developing countries in the international arena.'

This position is very similar to that of the Yugoslavs, reflecting once again the similarity of viewpoint between Belgrade and Bucharest concerning the role and character of the Nonaligned Movement...

The very foundation of the RCP ideology, its demand that every Communist party be free to choose its own way of applying Marxism-Leninism, is linked to a rather particular assessment of the international situation as a whole. Although Bucharest does occasionally admit the existence of international conflicts, as Ceausescu puts it, 'Imperialism is much weaker than most people would say, and to overestimate its strength would lead to panic.'"
(Radu, Michael (ed). Eastern Europe and the Third World: East vs. South. New York: Praeger Publishers. 1981. pp. 239-240.)

"Dr. Kissinger: ... I think [Stalin's] foreign policy before the war was correct, from the Soviet point of view. The treaty with the Germans.

FM Gromyko: We all thought at the time and afterwards that it was correct. After all, what did we agree to with the Germans? We agreed not to attack. Who can object to that?

Dr. Kissinger: But you were not ready for a war in 1939.

FM Gromyko: The result would have been the same. But yes, it would have been more difficult."
("Memorandum of Conversation, Washington, October 2, 1972, 1:30-3:45 p.m." in Foreign Relations of the United States: 1969-1976 Vol. XV. Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office. 2011. pp. 190-191.)

Besides saying that "atheism was a movement belonging to the 19th Century," Vladimir Bakarić, head of the League of Communists of Croatia, declared that,

"Now however, we are not involved in any such business [atheism], for a very simple and Marxist reason, because we know that a Church cannot be abolished. Not because priests are strong, but because the Church lives within the people, it exists in their heads, and because the present world situation influences everything that is going on in people's heads. Therefore, to fight the Church as a religious institution is nonsensical. Our criterion should not be whether one is an atheist or not, but whether one supports our socialism or not, and whether one supports peace or not. All the rest is secondary."
(Vjesnik, January 1, 1980, quoted in Albanian Catholic Bulletin Vol. 1 No. 1. 1980. p. 24.)

An October 1979 "Fourth International Round table tribune" in which "participants from 57 countries and two liberation movements, openly discussed the role of religion in history and especially today in the struggle for liberation":

"At Cavat, the problem of religion, in this case primarily Christianity and Islam, was posed not as a question of theology and confession, but as a matter of certain inherited humanistic values which socialist and progressive culture generally must respect and moreover integrate. It was explicitly stated that this is not a political tactic to win over the religious masses but rather an endeavor to enrich movements with the general values of mankind which can become an incentive in the striving for a socialist civilization free of antagonisms. Christianity is not only a factor of alienation; it can also be an incentive, an impulse and part of the revolutionary strength of the people, said some; Islam should not be considered only as a religion for it is a philosophy of individual and collective existence and can be progressive and give stimulus to the struggle for liberation and against exploitation, said others.

Latin American theology based on the revolutionary compromise of the working masses is opposed to idolatry and fetishism and illuminates the profound link of the religious masses with the political and revolutionary movement, remarked certain participants. Some West European Marxists said it would be wrong to discriminate between Christian communists and atheistic communists. The social and historical weight of the religious factor and its considerable significance in third world countries should be understood not only as reflecting a level of social consciousness strongly bound by tradition but also and primarily a desire to express through religion the aspirations to emancipation and national selfhood and also a resistance to class culture and the domination of colonizers and exploiters. In this case, it was stated, religions can be counted among progressive and emancipatory ideologies."
(Yugoslav journal Socialist Thought and Practice #12, 1979, quoted in ibid.)

The Soviets said similar things.

One example of Trotsky's "market socialism":

"It is true that Trotsky's later writings could be quoted to support [policies traditionally associated with him in opposition to Stalin], but it runs totally counter to what Trotsky said and wrote at the time, that is, in the whole period 1921-5, before his expulsion from the leadership... when he spoke to the Fourth Congress of the Communist International in 1922 he emphasized the need for a long transition period in which there would have to be recourse to capitalist methods of calculation. Indeed, he said the following:

'in the course of the transitional epoch each enterprise and each set of enterprises must to a greater or lesser degree orient itself independently in the market and test itself through the market... which will remain the regulator of the state economy for a long time to come.'

We shall see that this was quite consistent with what he wrote on the same subject ten years later. So it may be in certain respects that Trotsky was not at one with Preobrazhensky, who did indeed see the plan and market as irreconcilable opposites (which is not to say that Trotsky liked the market). This might help to explain the fact that Preobrazhensky broke with Trotsky when Stalin made his left turn in 1928.

Trotsky had made the economic report on behalf of the Politbureau to the Twelfth Party Congress in 1923... he saw the necessity for stimulating peasant agriculture, and he quite specifically asserted that it is necessary that 'the peasant should become richer'. This is not very different from Bukharin's slogan of 1925, that the peasants should 'get rich'. Trotsky was also against taxing the kulak too heavily... As for planning, one has only to read Trotsky's writings of the period to see that he did not regard it as the antithesis of the market... In his important pamphlet The New Course, written in 1923 and published in the following years, this is stated with even greater emphasis. Admitting that the existence of the market 'extraordinarily complicates' the task of planning, he went on:

'for the next period we shall have a planned economy allying itself more and more with the market and, as a result, adapting itself to the market in the course of its growth... we must adapt Soviet industry to the peasant market on the one hand and the taxable capacity of the peasant on the other... Only in this way shall we be able to avoid destroying the equilibrium of our Soviet state until the revolution will have destroyed the equilibrium of the capitalist states... What is needed is the effective adaptation of industry to the rural economy... The correct work of our state planning commission is the direct and rational way of approaching successfully the solution of the questions relating to the smyčka [alliance of workers and poor peasants] - not by suppressing the market but on the basis of the market.' ...

It seems to me that Trotsky in the period 1921-5 did not have an economic policy prescription very different from that of Bukharin. In the words of Stephen Cohen, Trotsky was a kind of NEPist."
(Nove, Alec. Socialism, Economics and Development. New York: Routledge. 1986. pp. 88-90.)

"Joseph Hansen, Trotskyite and Socialist Workers party candidate for the United States Senate in 1950 against Du Bois, did not hesitate to attack what he perceived to be one of Du Bois' more controversial positions:

'I have challenged you repeatedly to use your influence to hasten shipments of food from America to drought-stricken Yugoslavia, thus publicly disassociating yourself from Moscow's policy of trying to bring the Yugoslav people to their knees. . . . Your continued silence leaves no other conclusion possible—you are acting as respectable front of Moscow's local representatives. You are permitting the local agents of the Kremlin police regime to exploit your good name and distinguished reputation for reactionary ends. In the twilight of a career in service to the people of America you have permitted Stalinism, 'the syphilis of the labor movement,' in Leon Trotsky's words, to place its hideous sore on your name.'"
(Horne, Gerald. Black and Red: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Afro-American Response to the Cold War, 1944-1963. Albany: SUNY Press. 1986. p. 315.)

"Joseph Hansen, Trotskyite and Socialist Workers party candidate for the United States Senate in 1950 against Du Bois, did not hesitate to attack what he perceived to be one of Du Bois' more controversial positions:

'I have challenged you repeatedly to use your influence to hasten shipments of food from America to drought-stricken Yugoslavia, thus publicly disassociating yourself from Moscow's policy of trying to bring the Yugoslav people to their knees. . . . Your continued silence leaves no other conclusion possible—you are acting as respectable front of Moscow's local representatives. You are permitting the local agents of the Kremlin police regime to exploit your good name and distinguished reputation for reactionary ends. In the twilight of a career in service to the people of America you have permitted Stalinism, 'the syphilis of the labor movement,' in Leon Trotsky's words, to place its hideous sore on your name.'"
(Horne, Gerald. Black and Red: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Afro-American Response to the Cold War, 1944-1963. Albany: SUNY Press. 1986. p. 315.)

What a low life opportunist scum this Hansen was! Trying to Split the socialist movement like that in those conditions is tantamount to treason against the class.

"[In a 1989 compilation of works on Yugoslavia] Žižek asserts that in fact the very radicalization of the Slovene model of pluralism and its spread to other republics would save the part of the Tito legacy that actually has 'world historical significance.' By this he means the legacy of having stood up to Stalin in the Cominform dispute of 1948 and then having renounced the leading role of the party in society."
(Cox, John K. Slovenia: Evolving Loyalties. New York: Routledge. 2005. p. 64.)

Thanks alot! Amazing stuff right here.

It's worth noting that the "struggle against the cult of the individual" (i.e. Stalin) was already occurring by the time Khrushchev made his "Secret Speech."

"The whole course of the half-century history of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union has shown the immense importance of the principles of Party leadership and norms of Party life worked out by Lenin. The Party teaches that it is imperatively necessary to carry out these laws of Party organization, strictly to adhere to the supreme principle of Party leadership, namely, collective leadership, and to the requirements of the Party Rules. We must eradicate from the Party's propaganda work the wrong, non-Marxist treatment of the question of the role of the individual in history, which found expression in the propaganda of the idealistic cult of the individual, which is alien to the spirit of Marxism-Leninism. The cult of the individual contradicts the principle of collective leadership, leads to minimizing the role of the Party, of its leading centre, and to the diminution of the creative activity of the Party membership and the Soviet people; it has nothing in common with the Marxist-Leninist conception of the high significance of the directing activities of leading organs and leading cadres. The Party bases itself on the premise that only collective experience, the collective wisdom of the Central Committee, relying on the scientific basis of Marxist-Leninist theory and on the wide initiative of the leading cadres, ensures correct leadership of the Party and the country, the unshakeable unity and solidarity of the Party's ranks, and the successful building of communism in our country."
(Fiftieth Anniversary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union: 1903-1953. Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House. 1953. pp. 35-36.)

"Of all the developments in the internal life of Russia during the early months of the year, from late March until late June of 1953, none came with such an impact on Russian minds as the swift and apparently well-planned sequence of moves from on high to dethrone Stalin in the memory of the Soviet people...

The name of Stalin, previously omnipresent in all Soviet propaganda writings, suddenly became rather sensationally conspicuous by its virtual absence in articles printed in the Moscow press toward the end of March and in April, 1953. The newspaper writers and propagandists seemed to be operating under a directive which forbade the mention of Stalin's name more than once, or at most twice, in any one article, no matter what its size. The 'Stalin Constitution' became the 'Constitution of the U.S.S.R.'; the 'Stalin Five-Year Plan' became the 'Five-Year Plan'; and the 'Stalin Plan for the Transformation of Nature' was no longer heard of. The awarding of 'Stalin Prizes' to Soviet authors, artists, and scientists, an annual spring event in the Soviet Union, did not take place in the spring of 1953, although preparations for it had reportedly been under way as usual in the weeks before Stalin's death. Newsreels of Stalin's well-photographed funeral were never shown in the moving-picture theaters of the Soviet Union, although Soviet audiences were treated to newsreel sequences showing such events as the new American ambassador's presentation of credentials in the Kremlin not long after Stalin died. Stalin's portrait did not appear in the May Day editions of Soviet newspapers in 1953, thus breaking a precedent going back for many years....

In an address of April 16, 1953, to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, President Eisenhower stated that 'an era ended with the death of Joseph Stalin,' and appealed to the new rulers of Russia to dissociate themselves from the postwar foreign policies of the Stalin government. The Soviet authorities caused a complete and painstakingly accurate translation of the President's 'heretical' speech to be published in the main Soviet newspapers. We may be sure that this was not done for the benefit of the Voice of America but for specific reasons connected with the interests of the Soviet leaders as they saw them at that time. It is further noteworthy that in their full-page editorial rejoinder to the President, they did not indignantly deny his statement that an era had ended with Stalin's death...

On the ideological front, there was a period of about two months, between late April and late June of 1953, when the status of Stalin's last 'great work of genius' (Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R., published on the eve of the Nineteenth Party Congress in October 1952) became highly obscure, to say the least. Although this work had been the focus of all Party indoctrination in Stalin's last months and immediately following his death, in mid-April it was stricken from the list of materials recommended for study in the vast network of 'study circles,' 'political schools,' and 'evening universities of Marxism-Leninism' which is known as the Party educational system. One aspect of the work even came under indirect but unmistakable attack when an article in Pravda castigated 'certain propagandists' for promoting the idea which Stalin had presented in Economic Problems about the pattern of future development of the Soviet countryside (the transition from conventional trade to a system of 'product-exchange' between the state and the collective farms, which was to obliterate the surviving distinction between state-farm and collective-farm property). Few in Russia needed any prompting who was the real object of this criticism of 'certain propagandists.'"
(Tucker, Robert C. "The Metamorphosis of the Stalin Myth." World Politics Vol. 7 No. 1 (October 1954). pp. 39-41.)

"In a meeting with Rykov's daughter, Mikoyan replied to her question about the rehabilitation of her father: 'This is a political question. It is one we will decide, not the prosecutor. He, of course, never betrayed anyone and did not sell out... If he had held out at the time, then he would be working now.'"
(Rogovin, Vadim Z. Stalin's Terror of 1937-1938: Political Genocide in the USSR. Oak Park, MI: Mehring Books. 2009. p. 120.)

"In the meanwhile, one particular rehabilitation [in 1957], more than any other, has implicitly put in doubt the legal foundation of the Moscow Trials. This was the rehabilitation of the former First Secretary of the Uzbek Communist Party, Akmal Ikramov, one of the accused in the Bukharin-Rykov trial... Vishinsky charged Bukharin with having established contact with the British intelligence service through Ikramov, who testified to that effect during the trial.

... Only in a private conversation has Mikoyan come close to admitting that the trials were frame-ups. Asked by Mr. Louis Fischer whether he really believed that Bukharin had been a wrecker and a spy, Mikoyan answered: 'No, I don't.'"
(Labetz, Leopold. "Resurrection—and Perdition." Problems of Communism. Vol. 12. No. 2 (March-April 1963) p. 54.)

And now a glorious theoretical innovation by the Romanian Communists who, besides being good friends of the Titoites and North Koreans, were also viewed as ideological "hardliners" vis-Ã*-vis Gorbachev:

"There is no going back either to old theses or the slogans which reflected the conditions of past periods. The concept of the 'dictatorship of the proletariat' has ceased to correspond to reality, and I hereby inform you and all those who did not know about it that several years ago, a plenum of our Central Committee adopted an ideological programme from which we excluded the concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which was deemed inappropriate from many points of view. We must not for a moment identify the dictatorship of the proletariat with the power of workers and peasants, the power of the people; those are things which should not be mixed up. The way towards socialism really does pass, as it should, through democratic reform; however, such reform should have the backing of the majority of the people. Otherwise, the victory of socialism would be impossible."
(Nicolae Ceaușescu, quoted in Meeting of Representatives of the Parties and Movements Participating in the Celebration of the 70th Anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution. Moscow: Novosti Press Agency Publishing House. 1988. p. 113.)

"The Soviet conception of nationalism vis-Ã*-vis the revolutionary democracy in the post 1966 period was a bit perplexing. [The] definition of nationalism in the Stalinist era was altered in 1956. [Soviet theorist] Brutents admits that prior to Stalin's death, and particularly since the 20th CPSU Congress, 'the view was fairly widespread in literature that nationalism was a reactionary ideology and a policy of fanning mistrust and hostility among nations, and no more. This view was one-sided and imprecise in theoretical and epistemological terms, and politically considered virtually only reactionary nationalism, to which it reduced nationalism in general.'"
(Natufe, O. Igho. Soviet Policy in Africa: From Lenin to Brezhnev. 2011. p. 127.)

"In January 1947 Konni Zilliacus, a Labour MP who advocated cooperation with the Soviet Union, challenged Orwell by demanding to know if the author was calling him a secret member of the Communist Party. Orwell offered no substantive case on Zilliacus's denial that he was a 'crypto-Communist'. Instead, he made his case by noting, 'What else could he say?' and 'If what I have suggested is obviously untrue, why does he get so hot and bothered about it?' The legal and political defence of freedom had given way to guilt by association:

'What I believe, and will go on believing until I see evidence to the contrary, is that [Zilliacus] and others like him are pursuing a policy barely distinguished from that of the CP [Communist Party], and that they are in effect the publicity agents of the USSR in this country …. I could not prove that in a court of law any more than I could have proved before the war that the Catholic Church was sympathetic to Fascism.'"
(Lucas, Scott. George Orwell and the Betrayal of Dissent. London: Pluto Press. 2004. p. 30.)

I had posted this twice or so on RevLeft before, but figure it's worth putting here.

"The total figures of executions, published in 1921, were as follows. In the first half of 1918 [before the Red Terror] they were 22, in the second half some 6,300, and for the three years 1918-20 (for all Russia) 12,733. When it is remembered that in Rostov alone about 25,000 workers were shot by the Whites upon occupying the city, not to speak of many other towns, the Red terror will fall into rather more just perspective."
(Rothstein, Andrew. A History of the U.S.S.R. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. 1951. p. 106.)