[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif] In the article from Pravda announcing Stalin's death in 1953 [/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif] the leadership of the Soviet Communist Party vow to the heavens that they will continue Stalin's work. The problem is: the people who issued this statement did NOT mean it. Certainly, not all of it. Much of this statement was hypocrisy. As Stalin lay dying his old comrades in the Politburo assembled at his bedside and unilaterally -- without any vote by the Central Committee - DID AWAY with the resolutions of the 19th Party Congress. Specifically, they did away with the expanded Presidium, the clear purpose of which was to bring new blood into Party leadership. Then they set about abandoning the resolutions of the 19th Party Congress of just a few month's before (October 1952). The new Party rules were never put into effect. Stalin's final work, _Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR_, which had been the main topic of discussion at the 19th Party Congress, was quickly dropped -- forgotten about, never referred to again. The Korean War was soon settled and the South Korean fascists given 1/2 the country they had lost. The Vietnam War was settled in 1954 when the USSR forced the North Vietnamese to retreat to the North for the promise of free elections in 1956 -- which the USA never permitted. A reign of fascist terror soon swept the South of Vietnam. Lavrentii Beria, who -- whatever else he planned -- brought the Party leadership under the rule of law, was illegally arrested and shot, as were a number of his associates. Khrushchev took power. Everything he said was, of course, lies. In short, the USSR leadership abandoned the struggle for revolution and communism. * * * * * Clearly, Stalin had been completely isolated among the Party leadership. Had he not been isolated, these reversals could never have happened virtually the minute he died. It would be good to figure out how all this could have happened. For too long the rote answer has been: "Khrushchev, a secret oppositionist, stole power." But that can't be the case. Not only had Khrushchev been in the Politburo since 1939 (Candidate since 1938). NOTHING Khrushchev et al. did after Stalin's death was opposed by Central Committee members. It was a long time -- several years -- before the old "Stalinists" Molotov, Malenkov, and Kaganovich, tried to get rid of Khrushchev. Too little, too late! Besides, they went peacefully along with everything for several years before doing this. * * * * * So, on the one hand, the descent into total revisionism began the day Stalin died -- as we can now see. On the other hand, SOMETHING -- some process -- came to maturity that day, and it had to be a very long time in gestation, in development. Arch Getty gave his 1999 book _The Great Terror_ the following subtitle: "Stalin and the Self-Destruction of the Bolsheviks, 1932-1939." On the one hand, Getty had the right idea. The roots of everything else, including Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Gorbachev, the roots of the abandonment of communism, reach AT LEAST back to the 1930s. On the other hand, I do not think Getty can possibly be correct. He traces this "self-destruction" to the assassination of Kirov and the ensuing Moscow Trials of Oppositionists, the Tukhachevsky Affair, and Ezhov's reign of terror known as "the Great Terror" or "Ezhovshchina." But those events themselves need to be explained. THEY also had to have roots, origins. Like all processes, these Oppositions must have had deep roots and a long period of development or gestation. And now we are back to the 1920s, at least. Back to the period of Lenin. But the political debates and struggles of the post-Lenin 1920s were already taking place while Lenin lived. They simply burst out more strongly once Lenin, who had somehow held everybody together, died. Profound differences within the Party existed at the time of the Civil War, and at the time of the Revolution itself. In my opinion they were related to the profound differences that caused the split in the Second, or "socialist", International at the time of WW1. And THAT split started in the 1890s, with Eduard Bernstein's book of 1899 that codified, or clarified, the splits in the German Social-Democratic Party and so in the world socialist movement. "Reform, not revolution" became Khrushchev's motto. But it had been Bernstein's motto in the 1890s. And Bernstein, while a very important leader, was also the spokesperson for a large part of the German SD Party, especially the Trade Union leadership. Lenin's _What Is To Be Done?:_ (1902) was aimed at Bernstein-type revisionism, and at the German SD Party, which was the model every other socialist party tried to emulate, and which the Mensheviks were also trying to use as a model. But the "social-democratic deviation", as Stalin called this in the 1920s debates, ran very deep in the socialist international (from which the communist international sprang), and within the Bolshevik Party itself. * * * * * So March 5, the anniversary of Stalin's death, is a good time to rededicate ourselves to Stalin's goal -- communism. And especially to rededicate ourselves to figuring out the answers to what, in my view, is the greatest question that confronts humankind, the working class of the world, you and me, today: * What did the Bolsheviks do that was WRONG? that led to the disaster that began to unfold in an accelerated manner upon Stalin's death? * What did the Bolsheviks do that was RIGHT? that we need to imitate and learn from in a positive sense? If we really want to continue Stalin's struggle for communism and push it one or even many steps further in our time than our heroic predecessors did in THEIR time, we need to undertake this task, though struggle and study. I hope these remarks are helpful, as I intend them to be. [/FONT]
^^^^^(Shamelessly copied from someone smarter)^^^^^
