THE SINO-SOVIET CONFLICT AND THE
SITUATION IN THE USSR AND THE
OTHER WORKERS' STATES
(Adopted by the Reunification Congress of the Fourth International, June 1963.)
revolution, the domination, resolved none of the contraliberation of powerful revolutionary dictions of Soviet society-they are breaking.
forces in the economically underdeveloped out in multiple forms which can pave the cracy resorted in order to safeguard its the workers states,
THE rise in the world countries and the workers states, together with their repercussions in the movement as a whole, have considerably heightened a process that began before the death of Stalin and finally dealt a mortal blow to Stalinism; that is, to the exclusive hegemony of the Moscow bureaucracy over
Communist mass movement, society and the workers states. In place of this hegemony, of undisputed command, the Communist parties and workers states recognized the CP of the USSR as the "leading party" and the USSR as the "leading state" and lined up accordingly. In Soviet society, in all the workers states, the bureaucracy, no longer able to wield uncontrolled domination and maintain • an all-powerful police regime, has been making concessions to the masses. In the recent period, the process of decomposition of the bureaucratic system has spread more extensively than ever. Among the Communist parties, monolithism no longer exists, the Soviet leadership is no longer capable of guiding them as a whole, although its authority is still dominant; differences which were kept internal for some years have become public; violent polemics have flared into full view and even the possibility of split has arsen. Among the workers states and parties in these countries the relationship is no longer one of dependence on the Kremlin; in certain cases the disputes are public. principal anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist revolutionary struggles of recent (Cuba, Algeria) have been conducted by leaderships and formations in independence from the Communist parties in these countries and from the bureaucracy of the workers states-a lact that has extremely weakened the prestige and the authority of the Stalinist or post-Stalinist leaderships. Within the workers states, especially in the USSR, "de-Stalinization"; that is, the course of liberalization to which the directing bureauway for the vigorous appearance of a tendency toward genuine democratization of life in the workers states. The most spectacular aspect of the current phase of crisis in the system of workers states and of Communist parties is the Sino-Soviet conflict which-above all after the crisis in the Caribbean and the Sino-Indian frontier incidents in the fall of 1962-took the form of an open theoretical and political conflict on key questions of international politics affecting the workers movement (war and peace, uninterrupted revolution, the revolutionary or parliamentary road to socialism, etc.). This conflict tends to polarize the left currents of the Communist movement around the problems of the world revolution. On the other hand, the existence of the Fidel Castro leadership polarizes the unorganized currents, above all the youth of the economically underdeveloped countries, and is beginning to polarize the organized tendencies 1n Latin America. The Yugoslav experience, however limited the level of application of workers management because of the absence of workers political democracy, exercises an attraction among the most advanced layers in the USSR and in the workers states of eastern Europe. To the extent that this crisis developson a par, moreover, with the economic, social and political conflicts which have not ceased to characterise the internal lite of the USSR and the other workers states—it offers testimony • to the validity of the Trotskyist program in a striking way: in all the progressive manifestations of the crisis, segments of the Trotskyist program become policion ibe he colonies countries old meperialist capitals, of the struggle against the bureaucracy and for workers democracy in
However, despite the already derable scope which the crisis of the bureaucratic system has reached, all the tendencies which have appeared up to now within the former Stalinist framework have remained subordinated to the bureaucracies of the workers states, not one having cut itself from the bureaucratic interests and perspectives to rise to the level of the interests and perspectives of the socialist world revolution. This limitation is expressed among other ways by the fact that these tendencies reciprocally accuse each other of "Trotskyism," universally denounce "Trotskyism," and carry the discussion to the ranks only with the greatest reluctance. The Fidel Castro leadership, for its part, centers its activities in Latin America and participates only partially and in a restricted way in the debates of the international Communist movement.
The forces determining the crisis allow the polemics to be interrupted by only brief truces at the most. No bureaucratic manoeuvre can dam the crisis of the bureaucratic system in all the CP's and workers states. The possibilities constantly growing for the Fourth International to intervene in the process in order to assure a renewal of revolutionary Marxism on the political and organizational levels. THE END OF MONOLITHISM
IN THE COMMUNIST MOVEMENT (A)
THE SINO-SOVIET CONFLICT
In the open since 1957 and extended in a big way since the "Camp David" meeting (1959), resumed again after the passing compromise made at the Moscow. Conference in 1960. aggravated following the affair of the Caribbean and the Sino-Indian frontier incidents in the fall of 1962, the Sino-Soviet conflict shows once more that the extension and victory of the socialist revolution are incompatible with Stalinism and with the interests of the Soviet bureaucracy whether in the form they took under Stalin or under the leadership of Khrushchev, even when the revolutionary movement is controlled by a bureaucratic leadership.
Just as in the period before the war when the relation of forces in the world were
50 unfavourable to the socialist revolution, the international policy of the Soviet bureaucracy since the victory of the Chinese Revolution, which altered the over-all relation of forces in favor of the world socialist revolution, has been marked by constant effort to maintain a status quo which always shows itself to be nonexistent. In the postwar period, the status quo sig nified an over-all equilibrium with imperialism which must not be disturbed by big revolutionary movements and in which the key positions of imperialism must not be brought into question.
To the degree that the relation of forces has been reinforced by the economic successes of the workers states and the strength of the armaments of the USSR, the Soviet bureaucracy under the leadership Khrushchev, while occasionally engaging in adventurist moves, has more often very strongly accentuated its opportunist course on the plane of international relations. The Soviet bureaucracy has exploited for its own aims the feelings normally existing among the Soviet masses; that is, their apprehension of a new war and their hope for material benefits after the sacrifices they made over many years to defend the Soviet regime and create a modern economy. The bureaucracy has systematized a whole series of rightist tendencies and positions which were already formulated in Stalin's time, notably in the periods when an understanding was sought with the imperialist democracies.
The important differences on this point between Khrushchev and Stalin do relate to the perspectives and intentions of the bureaucracy but to the different conditions under which they operate and the different consequences this leads to. was able to deliver revolutions to the butchers openly and cynically others, the Second Chinese Revolution of 1925-27, the Spanish Revolution, the struggle of the Greek partisans). Khrushchev has been obliged to grant aid to revolutonary movements, but he has done in an insufficient, timorous fashion while seeking agreements with imperialism or with the bourgeoisie of the underdeveloped countries, or after the revolution has already won a decisive victory,
In this same period, the Chinese leaders, having triumphed after more than twenty years of vicissitudes, had to begin from a low level oi productive forces and found themselves the constant target of imperialist assaults, primarily from American imperialIsm which views the People's Republic of China as a new revolutionary center blocking its ambitions in the Pacific. Without raising objections in principle to seeking agreements with the capitalist states, the Chinese leaders nevertheless found in experience that for them the perspective was scarcely realistic and, still worse, that the risk existed that agreements could be concluded between Moscow and Washington at the expense of some of the interests of the People's Republic of China. They were led to orient their policy much less toward seeking agreements with imperialism than toward pursuing a policy aimed at weakening it. It must be added that the leadership of the Chinese CP feels the pressure of a living revolution which triumphed thirteen years ago while the leaders of the Soviet CP represent a bureaucracy consolidated in power for some forty years.
The fundamental cause of the Sino-Soviet conflict lies in the different needs of the bureaucracies headed by the two leaderships: the one expressing the needs of a bureaucracy feasting at the head of an economically developed country, the other at the head of a society that is still poor, unable to count on major aid from the USSR. The search for agreements and above all an over-all agreement with imperialism on the part of the Soviet bureaucracy contradicts the search by the Chinese leaders for more aid and for better defensives against the heavy pressure of imperialism. From these divergent material needs flow the differences that have appeared between the Chinese and Soviet leaders on some of the key questions of current international politics which have led the Chinese to vigorously denounce Khrushchev's orientation as well as that of his partisans throughout the world (Togliatti, Thorez, the Indian CP, the American CP).
These differences can be summarized L.я. essentially as follows:
While the Soviet leaders insist on the possibility of guaranteeing. peace even if capitalism continues to exist, and the necessity of seeking collaboration with bourgeois tendencies, including American imperialist circles, the Chinese never cease underlining the fact that the nature of imperialism has not changed, that in the struggle to sateguard the peace one must have no illusions about this or that tendency of bourgeoisie, this or that imperialist They recall quite correctly that the only definitive means to avoid a new world war is by overturning capitalism on a world 'scale and that the only method of working in this direction is to develop the revolutionary struggle of the masses. Soviet leaders the motor force of socialism consists mainly of the economic development of the USSR and the other workers
According to this view the passage to socialism on a world scale will be assured above all by a Soviet victory in economic competition, the forces of the revolutionary masses throughout the world playing no more than a supporting role, even having to be restrained "provoking" major conflicts with capitalism in particularly sensitive places. The Chinese maintain that it is the world-wide revolutionary forces that must play the fundamental role. On this main point, the position stated by the Chinese comes close, therefore, to the basic orientation of the revolutionary Marxists.
Finally, the Chinese reproach the Soviet leadership with not exploiting to the end the generally favourable objective situation that exists in the world today and with overestimating, because of opportunistic aims, the strength of American imperialism. Khrushchey's accusations, Tito's even more, according to which the Chinese favor unleashing a world war, are evident polemical distortions. The Chinese, despite grave weaknesses which we will take up later, have never expressed such an orienta. tion nor have they opposed any temporary compromise with imperialism. In fact, at the time of the international crisis of October 1962, they criticized Khrushchey not only for his opportunism and for trampling under foot the elementary rights of the Cuban. kevolution, but also for the adventurism which led him to mount rockets on Cuban soil
52 2.
The Soviet government, advocating essentially "peaceful" competition with capitalism, seeks to establish agreements with national bourgeoisies of the underdeveloped countries, placing in subordination to them the policies of the indigenous CP's, and, as much as possible the movements of the masses. The Chinese leaders, while displaying certain similar attitudes-notably in the case of Indonesia -express much more critical views about the national bourgeoisies, insisting on the leading role of the proletariat and on the uninterrupted character of the revolution (which puts them in opposition to the Menshevik concepts of Stalin on revolution by stages and brings them close to the Trotskyist concept of the permanent revolution). As a result, the Chinese in general have a tendency to support the most revolutionary movements in the underdeveloped countries, without being bound by the same hesitations that characterize the Soviet attitude (note, for example, their different attitudes toward the Algerian Revolution).
Khrushchev's attitude at the time of the border conflict between China and India, his support in fact of the Nehru government against the Chinese workers state, constituted the extreme expression of this difference of orientation on such an important question.
3.
The criticisms made by the Chinese of the neo-reformist concepts of Khrushchev and his partisans throughout the world on the "peaceful," democratic, even parliamentary road to socialism have been progressively sharpened and made more speci-
The polemic against Togliatti, in particular, rising above the level of generalities to examine very closely the formulas weather of Khrush chest in che, Communist parties of the capitalist countries, signified in actuality a defense of the Marixist Leninist concept of the state, which is flouted by Togliatti and his kind despite their verbal protestations to the contrary.
makes hea.
This Chinese criticism, moreover, has a wider bearing since the Khrushchevist thesis on the peaceful road to socialism is promulgated by Communist parties in a series of colonial and semicolonial countries where a revolutionary crisis already exists or can rapidly be «democratic » recipitated, and where any
"peaceful" perspective could only catastrophic consequences at the first serious test.
* *
It is then on three of the major questions of our period-the question of the struggle against war, the question of the nature of the colonial revolution and the orientation of the revolutionary movements in the underdeveloped countries, and the question of the road to socialism above all in the advanced capitalist countries--that - Chinese concepts prove to be on the whole more progressive than the Khrushchevist concepts, being analogous to certain theses of revolutionary Marxism. Hence the favourable echo given them above all among the sectors and currects of the left in the international Communist movements, whom the Chinese attitude represents a stimulus of major importance.
Our appreciation of the significance of the ideological and political evolution of the Chinese Communists does not prevent us in the least from expressing our criticisms on a whole series of questions where their positions are erroneous and dangerous:
In the first place, their conception of the ultimate consequences of a nuclear war appear very summary; in fact, they underestimate these consequences. In addition, the Chinese at times seem to underestimate the forces still at the disposal of imperialism. Above all they fail to envisage the problem of the qualitatively new character which a nuclear war would have in relation to wars of the past, of the fact that according to a big sector of the scientific world the destruction of humanity would be threatened.
In the second place we criticize the backwardness of the Chinese Communists on the problems of de-Stalinization. to which, however, at an earlier stage they seemed to wish to contribute. Especially bad is their
movement, this does not exhaust the dif- to be obliged to let members of their party
53 attitude toward the Albanian Stalinists and even toward old Stalinist groups in the USSR, their reticence in face of the Soviet condemnation of Stalin and his "cult." ment of a tendency that would be favourable to them in the USSR and in the workers states of eastern Europe. The left tendencies in this part of the world, if they ard favourable international revolutionary can only condemn all the old Stalinists and their nostalgia for the Stalinist epoch. Analogous considerations apply to the Communist parties in the capitalist countries, above all those which enjoy big mass influence (for example, the Italian CP).
Revolutionary Marxists, in addition, can only condemn the polemic of the Chinese against the Yugoslav Communists. This polemic, often reminiscent of the old Stalinist style, is based on evident distortion of the Yugoslav rcality and the concepts expressed by the Yugoslav Communist League. Certain rightist deviations of the Yugoslavs on a whole series of problems (international political orientation, the road to socialism, attitude toward the erous tendencies which flow from certain economic conceptions and which have already produced signs of unquestionable bureaucratic degeneration, must be denounced; however, they in no way justify the accusation that capitalism has been restored nor the excommunication of Tito and his partisans. Such accusations in reality injure those who launch them.
It is necessary finally to point out that the Chinese continue to refer to the 1960 Declaration of the 81 which, being mostly a text reached by compromises of eclectic nature, cannot effectively clarify the fundamental my chinese documents of alon months.
(B) OTHER DIFFERENTIATIONS WITHIN THE COMMUNIST. PARTIES
If the Sino-Soviet conflict is at the present stage the major one within the Communist ferentiations and contradictions. Not only is there the Yugoslav current, which maintains wide autonomy and its own characteristics despite the rapprochement with Khrushchev, 'but in each of the two "camps" themselves there is a variegated range of differentiations and particular formations. This holds for the Chinese and Albanians, whose concepts should not be considered to be identical, but it is especially true of the Khrushchevist grouping which, in reality, combines parties and leaderships of very different orientation, often on very important problems. Thus Gomulka's line, pecially in relation to agricultural questions, attitude towards the intellectuals, deStalinization, etc., is very far from the example of the line of the Bulgarian CP. Thus the attitude of the leadership of the Italian CP on the question of de-Stalinization is far from that of the French Communist party which has avoided up to now any relaxation of the old style bureaucratic grip. In relation to the orientation of internal policy, if Thorez formally declares himself more faithful to Marxist concepts but tramples on them in practice, leaving out among other things any idea of a transition program, Togliatti prides himself on being a more "audacious" innovator, openly questioning the validity of certain essential aspects of the Marxist-Leninist theory of the state, and insisting on a transition program conceived, however, in a complete reformist fashion.
Up to now, the break up of the Stalinist monolith has been characterized by • the fact that it has followed national lines; that is, the public differences have occurred between national leaderships while each of the parties appears to maintain its unity. But the depth of the divisions and especially the depth of the Sino--Soviet conflictwhich cannot really be surmounted by the always possible new attempts at compromise -shakes the authority of the bureaucratic leaderships and consequently the existing regimes of the parties. Even if no party has re-established a genuine democratic regime with the right of tendencies and if the intentional distortion of opposing positions remains a favourite method, the bureaucratic leaderships, in certain cases at least, begin
51 hold positions divergent from the official line, while barring them from holding leading posts. The considerable differences and rather wide possibility of criticism which already exist in the Italian CP constitute the indication of a tendency which is destined to grow stronger and to become general, despite the zigzags and temporary retreats which are always possible and even probable.
(C) THE FIDELISTA CURRENT
In the present context of the Communist movement, a completely specific place is occupied by the Fidelista leadership which will more and more play a genuinely international role, above all, of course, in Latin America. This leadership is distinguished from other leaderships of the workers states not only from the point of view of its origins but also in relation to its positions on international and internal problems.
some of its members individually reached Marxist positions before participating in the July 26 Movement, the Cuban leadership as such had no precise theoretical formation and it expressed even up to the taking of power confused and equivocal ideological concepts. But, thanks to profound links with the masses, especially with the most disinherited layers of Cuban society, it was more and more able to understand the genuine logic of the revolutionary process and, despite its ideological limitations, it worked in practice along a line of permanent revolution, assuring the creation of the first workers state in the Americas. Thus Cuba became the first example in our epoch of a revolution in which the leadership through its own experiences in the very course of struggle came over to the concepts of Marxism-Leninism.
Subsequent experience has proved that this is a profound conversion. In brief,
(a) The Cuban leadership is the first leadership of a workers state since Lenin and Trotsky that has addressed the exploited masses—on a continental scaleto call them to revolutionary struggle for the conquest of power. (See the Second Declaration of Havana.)
(b) Through their speeches and declarations, Fidel Castro and his comrades have shown that they envisage the problems of the Latin-American revolution under an essentially revolutionary angle, rejecting the Khrushchevist concepts of the majority of the Latin-American Communists. The speech of Fidel Castro to the Congress of American Women (January 1963) marked another decisive step forward on this level.
(c) Nationally, the Fidelista leadership, keenly sensing bureaucratic dangers which were threatening and can still threaten the Revolution, intervened in conscious fashion, as the Left Opposition sought to do in the USSR and in the Bolshevik party, in order to appeal openly to the masses to struggle against bureaucratization and to assure a series of concrete organizational measures (following the elimination of Escalante).
Thus, the Fidelista leadership appears at this stage as the most advanced political leadership by far of all the workers states. Even if it engages only very discreetly in the current international debates, due to the fact that while its revolutionary line without doubt closer to the Chinese line it requires Soviet economic and military aid, still it will be in a position to exercise growing international influence, above all in Latin America, but also in other colonial and semicolonial countries and even among the youth of the capitalist countries and the workers states.
DEVELOPMENTS IN THE
WORKERS STATES (A) IN THE SOVIET UNION
In Soviet society, the tensions and conflicts have had a tendency to manifest themselves in new forms against the backdrop of interests and basic tendencies long ago analysed by the Trotskyist movement.
De-Stalinization had very economic, social and political roots; it corresponded essentially to the need to and maintain the bureaucratic regime in conditions where Stalin's methods and concepts risked producing explosions. It consisted even of an attempted partial
solution of problems which were and still are objectively posed in Soviet society through own intrinsic necessities, the international necessities of confronting imperialism, and its relations with the other workers' states.
On the economic level, the Soviet leaders face problems flowing from the consequences of bureaucratic management involving the development of the productive forces them-
Thanks to the dynamism inherent in the relations of collective property instituted by the October Revolution and also, especially in the postwar period, to the development of technology from which the USSR likewise benefitted, the rate of growth of production has been relatively high. But this does not signify that all the possibilities have been really exploited. On the contrary, vast productive potentialities are still not utilized due to the fact that on the one hand the democratic initiative of the masses is brought to bear in only the most limited way, and on the other hand, bureaucratic management provokes the phenomenon of underutilization of equipment, disequilibrium in production, quite considerable waste, etc.
Towards the end of Stalin's time, such things had reached a peak. The very meaning of Khrushchevism was to find a way out of this situation without disturbing the domination of the bureaucracy.
One of the solutions envisaged was decentralization; a whole current of the Communist movement, inspired by the Yugoslav experiment, was in favor of this measure. This was the meaning of the recasting of the industrial structure of 1957. While this reform yielded certain results by reducing some of the most monstrous difficulties, it could not avoid the reproduction bureaucratism in the new economic structures (regional, etc.) nor the appearance of local fiefs every bit as bad as the old ones. This is why, following the results of that rie. reform, a new shuffling of the leadership took place involving a new reconstruction of the zones and of the economic manage-
In the recent period tendencies toward renewed centralization have been uppermost.
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This is the explanation for certain discussions and polemics among the economists and Soviet leaders. One tendency, against decentralization, seeks to return to formulations of a more centralized management, while another tendency, holding that the new difficulties that have arisen are due to insufficient decentralization, wants to extend decentralization. This is also the explanation for the growth in the functioning of the market certain tendencies toward greater autonomy for local management (visible here, too, is the influence of Yugoslay experience).
Finally, this is the explanation for certain polemics over objective economic laws, and over the necessity of establishing new indoxes and criteria of economic accounting designed to furnish more precise and more comparable data on production, norms, etc.
In addition to the reforms of the organizational structure of industry, the Khrushchevist bureaucracy recently envisaged a change even in the structure of the party and the introduction of certain means for workers participation in the management of enterprises. The real aim of the reform of the party announced by Khrushchev in November 1962, is to utilize the party more and more as an instrument integrated in the apparatus of bureaucratic control of the economy. ' This could achieve only very partial results (limitation of waste, economic crimes, etc.) but could not possibly resolve the problem of stimulation essential to the productivity of labour, of equilibrium among the various branches of the economy, etc., and could even give rise to political dangers. The project of creating consultative committees, following similar experiments (production meetings), eloquently testifies to the fact that the bureaucracy itself perceives where the key to a genuine solution is to be found, but it demonstrates at the same time that on this level the bureaucracy cannot go very far and that it acts with extreme caution in what it does try. Even if such committees were established, they would have no real powers but only a consultative voice; they could not therefore constitute the stimulating force of which the Soviet economy is in need.
Thus it is clear that the bureaucracy is incapable of resolving the contradictions of Soviet economy in this phase of transition, since it is incapable on the one hand of understanding economic laws in all their depth and of adapting itself to them, and on the other hand of mobilizing the main force of a socialist economy, that is the creative power of the masses. It can only continue to seek palliatives, outlining "technocratic" solutions, introducing still new forms of bureaucratic control, and leaving to the working class a completely subordinate role.
The current difficulties of the Soviet economy manifest themselves in a particularly acute and evident form in the agricultural sector which despite numerous reforms, remains backward, rate of growth remaining very limited if it exists at all on a per capita basis. The backward character of Soviet agriculture can be gauged by the primary fact that the population active in this domain still stands at around fifty per cent of the total active population, a percentage that cannot possibly compare favourably with that of the most advanced capitalist countries. On the other hand, the integration of the agricultural sector into the planned economy runs into major obstacles due to the fact that non-collectivist relations of production still predominate in the countryside.
The increase in autonomy for the kolkhozes the creation of more favourable exchange relations for members of the kolkhozes, for the peasants etc., made it possible to avoid the catastrophe herent in continuing Stalin's way of sqeezing the peasantry. These measures have nevertheless not made possible the rate of growth fixed many times in planning to meet the growing needs of consumption. Nor have they made it possible to progressively limit the interests of the kolkhoze members in their own small plots. Thus the kolkhozes cannot count on full utilization of the labour power at their disposal. Finally the virgin lands experiment proved to be precarious and uncertain primarily because the results are subject to great fluctuations and because problems of a social nature are posed in the sovkhozes of the virgin lands themselves.
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Khrushchevist experimentation likewise has not been able to find a genuine solution in the agricultural domain due to the fact that it has not touched the most profound roots of the problem. The difficulties in the agricultural domain cannot be surmounted without a massive increase in investments in the countryside, and this radical in turn would not be possible without a change economic orientation, above all a reduction of investments in the sector of heavy industry. Moreover an orientation aiming at more harmonious economic development also implies democratic participation of the masses; that democratic management of the kolkhozes and sovkhozes. It is only when the kolkhoze members see concrete possibilities for considerable development of the thus of their own kolkhoze revenues; only when they feel that the kolkhozes are democratic communities effectively guide, will their interest in their own private plots progressively decrease and make it possible finally to envisage a transition without tension and resistance from the kolkhoze form. to perfected forms of collective management.
The difficulties of economic development and above all the persistent backwardness of the agricultural sector seriously hamper the realization of substantial progress on the level of increased consumption. The measures sharply increasing the prices of food products (meat milk etc.) taken in 1962 constitute the most apparent evidence of this.
It has been stressed that Khrushchev is attempting above all to take Soviet Society in the direction of a "welfare state" and that for him Communist society amounts to a society of "well being." His failures in this field are all the more serious. true that the Soviet standard of living has not ceased to rise, it is equally true that in 1962 the rate of growth of the standard of living was weaker and in absolute terms it remains insufficient in relation to the growing needs of the Soviet masses, who hope to obtain on the level of consumption and of comfort a translation of the great economic and technical progress of the Soviet Union about which the bureaucracy itself constantly boasts.
On the cultural level, the Soviet bureaucracy has felt the need for a change in reto Stalinist practices, first of all dogmatism administrative methods constitute a sterile block on scientific progress and consequently on the development of the productive forces; secondly because such an attitude bears the danger of an open rupture between the intellectuals and the regime. Hence the movement for liberalization which has developed in well-known forms and which has at times attained a rather high level. It was under these conditions that the idea was advanced of competition between different scientific schools and that artistic currents other than the official "socialist realism" appeared. The recent polemics on literature, painting, are extremely significant. They demonstrate, on the one hand, the powerful ferment among layers of young intellectuals who want Soviet culture to progress to a much-higher level than that of the preceding period. They have, on the other hand, singularly exposed the main limitations of Khrushchevism which have been expressed in a certain form of neo-Zdanovism in the cultural domain, above all at the beginning of 1963. It is clear that what is at stake in the conflict between Khrushchev and the young intellectuals goes much the intrinsic merits of abstract painting and twelve-tone music. chev knows very well that in a society where the forms of democratic expression do not exist or are extremely limited, the most general political conflicts can find a partial or distorted reflection in artistic conflicts. The wide audience enjoyed by poets like Yevtushenko and Voznessenski testifies not only to a certain intellectual interest among the Soviet youth but also to the political significance of these manifestations. On the and culture, it would olict eye, main other hand, it is clear that if the bureaucracy admitted the idea of a plurality of scientific political problems that would be but a a plurality of Soviet parties.
The political significance of the recent dispute on the cultural level was underlined all the more by the fact that in the course of debate the question was posed once more of Stalin and the crimes of his period, including the question of the concentration
In reality, in the discussion of camps. cultural questions and of the responsibilities of certain Soviet intellectuals in the Stalinist period, the question is posed more generally of the responsibility. in this same period, of numerous Soviet leaders. From this flows an extreme danger for the Khrushchevist leadership itself which finds it necessary to seal up the breaches as quickly as possible.
The contradiction of Khrushchevism is once again put in the spotlight. To win the support of the masses, Khrushchev is the denouncer of the worst crimes of Stalin. In tact, each time he finds himself in dif ficulty in different fields, and faced by attacks from his adversaries, he resorts to a new denunciation of the "cult of the personality," seeking to give the impression that the evil might return and that he constitutes the guarantee against this. But, on the other hand, each move Khrushchev makes toward de-Stalinization incites certain layers to pose new problems, to express new necessities, to demand a more sweeping de-Stalinization. In so far as this constitutes a danger for the bureaucratic system itself, and consequently for Khrushchev, too, he must either beat a retreat or fail to carry out promises he had made.
The nature of Khrushchevism itself explains this alternation of advances and retreats in de-Stalinization, which will probably still continue even in the near future.
In recent years, the bureaucracy has had to face new problems relating to the integrated economic development of the workers states. In the wake of the development of the productive forces in the Soviet Union as well as in the other workers states, and parallel with the attempts at the economic integration of capitalism in western Europe. the necessity of economic co-ordination of the workers states was considerably increased. Above all in the second half of 1962 important measures were outlined, including the creation of a "bank for the socialist countries," which will have a long-range influence on the economic structure of the workers states composing the COMECON.
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58.
A common planning organism for all these countries is likewise envisaged. Thus the bureaucracy itself must interpret and express, although in a distorted way, the objective necessities of the economic development of the workers states. Even leaving aside certain conjunctural resistances in this or that country, the realization of this economic integration will be hampered by the existence of the bureaucracy for rcasons analogous to those occurring in the various national frameworks, national bureaucratic selfishness being added to the bureaucratic interests. Without democratic economic planning on a national scale, without harmonious development within the different countries, it is impossible to carry.out democratic planning and a harmonious development on the international level. The tensions and conflicts produced within the different economies under bureaucratic management will not be lessened, but multiplied within an international context. In addition it is necessary to emphasize strongly that the political needs and methods of the bureaucracy, which does not hesitate at recourse to economic sanctions, hinder the accomplishment of economic tasks. Thus a real co-ordination of the economy of the workers states cannot succeed if certain of these states are excluded; more concretely, it could be only very partial if China finds itself obliged to remain at the margin of this system. • Far from accepting such an orientation, it is necessary on the contrary to demand that this economic co-ordination of the workers states should be open to substantial participation by certain underdeveloped countries where the revolution is advancing toward socialist solutions (for example Algeria at the current stage).
The bureaucratic leadership continues to come under a whole range of various social and political pressures. We have underlined many times that conflicts of interests and of orientation exist even within the bureaucracy. In recent years the most evident pressures have been those of the economic bureaucracy. It is known that it has been the pressure of managers of industry and of the agricultural sector which contributed greatly to the adoption of certain Khrushchevist reforms. But at the present stage, in the discussions on the laws of the market, on economic accounting, on the power of managers, on the role of the market, certain managers of industry play a quite considerable role. Another reflection of these tendencies is visible in the fact that among the Soviet leaders, the number of those with a technical education and background is increasing. As for the peasant layers, their relations with the bureaucracy, even if better than in the time of Stalin, continue to remain difficult and complex. In reality the resistance and the conflicts are expressed above all on the economic level by the very great interest which the peasants maintain in their own the question of contractual deliveries in which the kolhkhoz members seek to obtain the highest possible price, and by their preference for the kolkhoz market.
But it is above all in the relations of the bureaucracy working class, specific weight of which has not ceased to increase. and the intellectuals that the most significant conflicts are certainly cannot be said that wide mass action exists against the bureaucracy and that the workers express their own nomic and political demands in a conscious and precise in recent years, demonstrations and conflicts of local and regional indicate the tendencies operating in depth. It is sufficient to recall the strikes of Odessa and Novocherkass, etc., in which the workers advanced economic demands and also posed questions relating to management methods. On the other hand, in certain official documents or reports of Khrushchev himself, the hostility of the workers in regard to the methods of bureaucratic control in the tactory 1s mentioned. this powerfully actuality of the problem of workers management.
As for the intellectuals, we have already mentioned above the quite recent significant conflicts which have occurred, and in which the implications go beyond the cultural and even Certain sty the round intel tunes older gene*: rations pose more and more the problem of critical re-examination of the epoch of Stalin. Among certain layers there is quite a pronounced interest in problems such as those concerning workers councils. The
resistance of a series of intellectuals following the last relaxation carried out by Khrushchev demonstrates that, whatever may be the temporary vicissitudes, the period when bureaucracy regulated problems by administrative measures and by forcing degradeing self-criticisms is gone.
All this ferment in contemporary Soviet society is destined to become more intense and to multiply under the pressure of internal problems as well as international contradictions (the present Sino-Soviet conflict has not had notable repercussions up to now, but it most certainly will have them as it continues; in addition one should note the symptoms of the interest among the younger generation over the Cuban experience). The bureaucratic leadership will attempt to meet this situation by diverse methods, resorting • sometimes to constraint and to retreats, sometimes making new concessions in the sense of de-Stalinization. The Khrushchev leadership will try most especially to safeguard its power by playing the Bonapartist game to the end. But, in general, neither one of these policies will succeed in smothering the tendencies toward renovation which have profound roots in Soviet society. Thus each step toward de-Stalinization will open new breaches, and the tendencies will move forward with the aim of obtaining new concessions, while every attempt to move backward will run into stiffer and stiffer resistance, stimulating critical awareness of the nature of the bureaucratic system on the part of vanguard layers of the working class and the intellectuals.
(B) IN CHINA AND THE PEOPLE'S DEMOCRACIES
The last five years of the development of China have been characterized by events of great importance, which have cast light on the contradictory aspects of this giantscale revolutionary experiment as well as its current limits. These limits derive from the fact that the Chinese workers state itself has a bureaucratic administration and that international economic aid has been altogether insufficient (this would be true in an absolute sense even if the Soviet government had not exerted pressure which, of course, aggravated the situation).
The years 1958-59 were characterized by the "leap forward" and the installation of communes. These two measures achieved results which' must not be denied or minimized because of subsequent setbacks in the following years. The full utilization of agricultural labor remains a very valuable indication for a whole series of underdeveloped countries in which analogous problems are posed. But when the Chinese leadership sought on the one hand to transfer this experiment to the cities, and, on the other hand, convert it into a boundless "leap forward," it ran into an inevitable setback. The mobilization of agricultural labour power was pursued by means of bureaucratic methods, almost under military forms, by excessive prolongation of the work day, by irrational suppression of the necessary days of rest, something that is possible only in exceptional periods and for specific aims, but which in the long run exhausts labour power and ends in a lowering of productivity, if not to passive resistance and io camouflaged sabotage. All this was bound to have its repercussions on the industrial level where very grave errors were likewise committea (the greater part of the production of the "backyard furnaces" turned out to be useless and thus cost useless effort, ending in waste). To this must be added natural calamities of which the effects, according to the official reports, were quite disastrous.
Thus is explained the setback and the economic difficulties of recent years. These were aggravated, let us repeat, by the bureaucratic Soviet attitude which, instead of making the maximum effort to aid the Chinese workers state in an exceptionally difficult situation, withdrew the rechnicians, demanded the payment of debts without determents, and substantially reduced commercial relations with China.
The attitude of the Chinese leadership, in the face of these economic setbacks, showed that it was an empirical leadership but one that did not conduct itself on the Stalinist model at the time of the forced collectivization. The movement of the communes was certainly developed at an excessive rate, without taking into account the necessary preliminary technical conditions; on the other hand, the presentation
of the conditions of collective life in the communes as an almost immediate prelude to communist society was an actual theore-
Terror and a propagandistic hoax. But the Chinese Communists never resorted to violence to force the peasants into the ommunes; they did not resort to the nethods of Stalin at the time of the forced collectivization, a conclusion that is confirmed by the fact that there were no butcheries such as bloodied the Soviet fields, aor the desperate reaction of peasants such as a massive slaughter of cattle.
Likewise significant is the fact that when the consequences of the errors became clear the leadership managed after heavy internal struggles, to make a turn which gradually ended in a radical reorientation on the level of the communes as well as that of the economic line in general.
They understood the necessity of some years of readjustment, the necessity of not pushing heavy industry and more, of concentrating efforts on the level of industrial consumers goods and good products, going even so far as to affirm the priority of agriculture.
In addition, the specific character of the Chinese leadership is manifested in the concept of their relations with the masses. If it always involves bureaucratic paternalism, the emphasis remains on the necessity of convincing rather than exercizing constraint. This characteristic is likewise confirmed by their intervention in the discussion within the international Communist movement where, as we have already indicated, they defend a whole series of ideas opposed to Stalinist ideas and dealing a mortal blow to Stalinist monolithism.
However, the objectively backward base of China and the political formation of the present leadership caused grave bureaucratic deformations in the Chinese workers state. As we have already emphasized, the administration of the Chinese workers state remains bureaucratic; the errors committed in the period of the "great leap forward" and of the feverish time of the communes testifies once more to this.
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It is necessary again to underline the bureaucratic attitude of the Chinese leadership toward de-Stalinization. In 1956-57 it seemed to favor a development toward de-Stalinization. Mao Tse-tung wrote his theses on contradictions among the people and admitted the right to strike; on the cultural level, he proclaimed the doctrine of the "hundred flowers." But when the relaxation opened the way to the development of a whole series of tendencies, including open conflicts, the Chinese leadership turned back and has not ceased since then to be found at the rear guard in this field.
China's economic situation is objectively difficult. considerable forward cannot be realized unless important economic aid is granted by the other workers states and democratic mobilization of the masses is undertaken in production. These are the circumstances in which the Chinese placed the problem on an international level. For them it is in any case very difficult to conceive of a solution based on "peaceful coexisténce" and long-term economic compefition. But immediate pressure can be placed on imperialism through the revolutionary struggle of the masses which would create a more favorable international context for them. On the other hand, it cannot be overlooked that they want to draw the attention of the Chinese masses more to these international problems, underlining the responsibility of the Soviet leadership in restricting aid, posing the problems of the international extension of the revolution and by contrast dissimulating the other aspect of the Chinese situation, that is the necessity of real democratization of the economic and political life. Democratization of this kind would in reality bring about total utilization of the creative potentialities of the masses, a lessening of the tensions which unquestionably exist today and of the obstacles which bureaucratic administration by its very nature raises against the development of the productive forces.
At the present stage, real democratic tendencies exist only on a local scale and in probably quite limited cases. Fundamental political questions and basic orientation are always decided by the summit, by narrow bureaucratic layers.
Gomulkist leadership, if it has avoided the conflicts.
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The people's democracies have experienced an unequal development due to a series of factors: (a) the beginning level; (b) the rhythm of economic development; (C) specipolitical factors; (d) accidental international factors.
Certain countries like Czechoslovakia were able to exploit an existing economic structure, at least in part of the country; others like Albania had only limited productive forces. In some countries, deStalinization led to historic conflicts such as the Hungarian Revolution and the Polish tensions and the setbacks of rapid collectization, has been incapable of assuring the necessary drive to the productive forces in the countryside and the effective integration of the agricultural sector in the economic planning; in brief, a pilot socialist sector Is badly needed.
- As to the standard of living, in many countries improvements continue to belimited while in others, even if they are at a higher level, crises of supply occur from time to time due as much to the insufficient development of agriculture as to the dis-
October, while in other countries deStalinization has been openly rejected management. (Albania), or passively accepted with only a show of being applied (Bulgaria, Rumania). The internal development of some countries has had no international repercussions, while others (East Germany), nave beer greatly influenced by the international situation.
In a general way, the following tendencies and problems can te noted
- The necessity of international planning and integration of the workers states is becoming increasingly clear in the light of certain difficulties and imbalances. This tendency, however, is counteracted by specific national necessities or situations, by a certain "national bureaucratic selfishness."
- The development of industrialization has posed a whole series of problems (rationalization, economic accounting, struggle against waste, etc.) which in some countries (Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia) are analogous to those presented in the Soviet Union, while in other countries (East Germany, partly in Poland) the need is posed of assuring a higher and more regular rate of growth.
- In the countryside, the setbacks due to bureaucratic leadership evident. Collectivizations developed at a very rapid pace, without taking into account the necessary technical preconditions, have ended in veritable crises, for example in East Germany and Czechoslovakia. On the other hand, the opposite line adopted by the organization resulting from bureaucratic - On the cultural level, in certain countries (East Germany, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia), the bureaucratic grip remains enormously strong, and certain timid moves have been crushed in the egg. By contrast, in other countries (Poland and even Hungary) the intellectuals enjoy a certain liberal atmosphere which, in the case of Poland, is more advanced than in the USSR itself.
After the new line was adopted by the USSR in 1956-57 in its relations with the people's democracies, the national factor, so important in the postwar period up to and including the Hungarian affair, played a decreasing role. To the degree that the vestiges of the former ruling classes disappear and the people's democracies acquire a structure analogous to that of the Soviet Union, the conflicts and problems peculiar to it tend to be reproduced likewise in the people's democracies, although in their own specific forms.
In the most recent period, the situations most susceptible to an important development are those of Poland and Hungary. In Poland symptoms exist which point to a new rise of critical left forces. In Hungary, the last elections revealed the existence of differentiated currents which managed to the very limited legal possibilities to manifest themselves. In Czechoslovakia tensions have been building that could give rise to sharp conflicts, even at a not distant
The symptoms of this have been provided by such episodes as the Barak affair, student demonstrations and workers
(C) IN YUGOSLAVIA
Yugoslavia represents a particular case in the development of the workers states. Despite certain conjunctural retardations, the general growth of production has been very important. Even" in the countryside, the leadership seems to have outlined an orientation much more. correct and efficacious than that of the leaderships of the other workers states of eastern Europe. It is evident that the existence of workers councils has played a very positive role, despite the limitation of the powers of these councils and certain signs of degeneration that have even been denounced officially.
The elaboration of the new Constitution. which is to be adopted shows that on the level of problems relating to the structure. of a workers state in the phase of transition, the Yugoslav Communists have made a very positive contribution and are ahead of the other leaderships of the workers states, even those most favourable to de-Stalinization. It must not be forgotten that a whole series of problems posed by the Khrushchevist wing were already advanced by the Yugoslavs (decentralization, necessity of economic stimulants, etc.).
Nevertheless, a whole series of aspects of the Yogoslav political economy cannot be accepted without criticism by the
62
III. THE TASKS OF
THE REVOLUTIONARY
MARXISTS
It is the duty of revolutionary Marxists above all to tirelessly develop their revolutionary criticism of the bureaucracy and its regime, no matter what their current forms may be. The Fourth International does not hide the fact that its strategic aim in the USSR and the people's democracies of eastern Europe remains the antibureaucratic revolution in order to carry out the program laid down in the Transitional Program. (1938) and in subsequent docunents of our international movement. In addition, the revolutionary Marxists these countries have the task of working with the aid of the International, transition programs for the different countries, starting from the current level of the mass movement and the specific context of each country.
More generally, revolutionary Marxists must seek points of support in the present crisis of the bureaucratic system in order to offer their solutions to the problems in dispute which reflect, even in an often distorted form, the problems of the transitional revolutionary Marxists. The tendencies toward decentralization were pushed to the extreme, and above all the acceptance of above all to the younger generation, who, the free play of the market could not but carry very grave dangers which actually. took on body as the leaders themselves were obliged to recognize.
In addition, decentralization did not prevent bureaucratism from reproducing itself on a local scale and favoring the development of particularist tendencies.
In reality, even in the case of Yugoslavia, it has been proved that the genuine solution resides in the real and complete democratization of the economic and political life. This cannot be realized through the establishment of workers councils whose powers are completely limited while there are no organisms of proletarian democracy in position to really determine the fundamental questions of political orientation.
phase. They must seek in particular to express themselves in a language accessible if they have not undergone the worst deformations of a Stalinist education, have till not had the possibility of knowing the est traditions of critical Leninist thought.
In the Sino-Soviet conflict and, more generally in the current polemics within the Communist parties, the Fourth International condemns in the most energetic way the use of state power to resolve theoretical and political questions. It especially condemns the economic measures taken by the Khrushchevist leadership in relation to China and Albania. It again underlines the necessity of a separation between the policies of a workers state and those of the Communist party. It condemns the fact that the differences and the conflicts between leaderships of parties are met by reprisals and ruptures on the level of states.
the framework of the world or neo-Zdanovist concept and fight for the against every Zdanovist freedom of all the scientific schools and all
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Within Communist movement, the Fourth International reaffirms its critical support to the Chinese Communists in their • struggle other Communist leaderships, because holds that the Chinese line on the fundamental problems of the anti-imperialist and anticapitalist struggles (methods of struggle against the war, conception of the colonial revolution, 'uninterrupted" revolution, the road to socialism in the advanced capitalist countries) is on the whole more progressive than that of the Khrushevists and is more capable of polarizing the currents of the left in the Communist movement.
Nevertheless, the Fourth International remains critical of the Chinese leadership on other questions of great importance (appreciation of the possible consequences of a nuclear war, attitude toward certain national bourgeoisies of underdeveloped countries, characterization of the Yugoslav workers state, attitude on the problem of de-Stalinization, etc.).
The Fourth International supports the need for an international conference of the Communist movement, prepared through an ample, democratic discussion with the participation of all revolutionary Marxist tendencies. The Fourth International should have the opportunity to participate in such a conference.
In the Soviet Union, the revolutionary Marxists must struggle at the present stage above all to extend and deepen the process of de-Stalinization and compel the bureaucracy to make the most substantial concessions to the masses and to the intellectuals. It is necessary especially to insist on the evil consequences of bureaucratic management in the economy and to advance the necessity for organisms of workers control and management in the plants.
The right of workers to defend their demands through strikes must be supported, not in an abstract way, but beginning with efforts and movements that actually occur.
On the cultural level, the revolutionary Marxists struggle full freedom of all the scientific schools and all the artistic currents. •They also struggle for freedom of information and especially for the right of Soviet citizens to know directly and completely the different positions which now exist or come forward in the party and state organisms. The same holds for the different existing positions in the Communist parties. On the level of political economy, the revolutionary Marxists support the necessity to substantially increase investments in the agricultural sector and in the sector of consumers goods, even at the expense of investments in the sector of heavy industry. Such an orientation would assure a more balanced more harmonious economic development, and at the same time make possible an increase in the productivity of labour, of which the consequences will become manifest in all domains, including that of heavy industry. The revolutionary Marxists also favour increasingly greater economic integration of the workers states to assure a more rational division of labour. Parallel with economic integration, it is necessary to develop closer and closer political and cultural relations, a free circulation of people among the workers states to facilitate the exchange of experiences and growth of homogeneity. In China, the revolutionary Marxists emphasize that despite its positive role in the international conflicts of the Communist movement, the Chinese leadership remains a bureaucratic leadership at the head of a state marked by profound bureaucratic deformations. The struggle against the bureaucracy and its regime, for proletarian democracy, that is, for workers and peasants councils having real powers, for a genuine Soviet structure, for the right of free expression of tendencies and of parties that stand within the framework of the society that issued from the revolution, representing the interests of the workers and peasants, for the independence of the trade unions in relation to the state, for the
61 the artistic currents, etc., holds also for the People's Republic of China. These conquests cannot be won except through an antibureaucratic struggle on a scale massive enough to bring about a qualitative change in the political form of government. revol the pry nt stages more special the
(a) Real democratic management of the communes.
(b) The installation of workers control and eventually workers management in the (c) The right of criticism within the Communist party and for the application in China of the minority rights demanded by the leadership itself on the international level.
(d) The resumption and development of the orientation of 1956-57 on de-Stalinization, orientation expressed in the speeches of Mao on "contradictions among the people" and in the so-called "one hundred flowers" campaign.
In the people's democracies of eastern Europc, the program of current struggle of the revolutionary Marxists must be elaborated on the basis of criteria analogous to those which are valid for the Soviet Union but starting from the very different conditions underlined above.
In Yugoslavia, the revolutionary Marxists will struggle against the centrifugal tendencies of the present economic structuro, for a greater role and greater powers of the workers councils, extension of their powers on the political level, for an effective application of the most progressive constitutional rules, for the right of tendencies in the party and the right of free expression, of criticism and of opposition, and for the right of plurality of parties of a soviet type. On the level of international policy they will struggle against the rightist and opportunist orientation of the ship on the questions of war, "peaceful Coexigences, and tie road to sociational coexistence," relations