(7th Plenum of the International Executive Committee, 9-18 April 1949)
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1. About two years after the break between the Yugoslav Communist Party and the Kominform, the signs of an intensifying crisis of Stalinism are multiplying throughout the world, and the general tendencies in the development of this crisis are becoming clearer.
A new period has opened in the development of the international workers' movement. A correct analysis must help intervene in the objective process so as to crystallize the new revolutionary forces emerging from this crisis of Stalinism on a political platform that will permit the reconstruction of a powerful international Marxist-revolutionary movement.
2. For the first time since the bureaucratic degeneration of the USSR and of the Third International, it is possible, thanks to the new objective conditions, to broaden the front of the Marxist-revolutionary vanguard and to rebuild the international revolutionary movement on a wide scale.
The fundamental reason that now makes such a development possible lies in the historic combination of the worsening imbalance and crisis of the capitalist system, and the worsening crisis of Stalinism, under the new conditions created by the last war.
Before the war, capitalism and Stalinism had reached a relative equilibrium in which they mutually reinforced one another. The upheavals that the war provoked on an international scale, the breakdown of equilibrium on every level, the entry into action or the revolutionary ferment of enormous masses, both in Europe and in Asia and in the other parts of the world, have created a situation of such dynamism that neither capitalism nor the Soviet bureaucracy manage to control it effectively.
On the contrary, this new situation is developing fundamentally against both capitalism and the Soviet bureaucracy. Indeed, both represent reactionary historical forces incompatible with the present historical imperatives, which can be summed up as follows: the need for a rational and harmonious organization of international economic and social life that respects the free self-determination of the masses of each nation and of the relations between nations.
3. Contrary to the pessimistic theories developed under the influence of the features of social degradation and barbarism inherent in the contradictions of the capitalist regime and its advanced decomposition, and of the so-called omnipotence of the Stalinist bureaucracy, our international movement bases its revolutionary perspectives and builds its action on the supremacy of the objective revolutionary process of our epoch and its dynamism; on the impossibility for the Soviet bureaucracy to extend and consolidate internationally its control over the rising revolutionary movement, constantly nourished by the objective process. This attitude is fully confirmed at the present time by the various manifestations of the crisis of Stalinism that we are witnessing.
4. In the capitalist countries of Europe and America, as well as in the countries of the "buffer zone" [glacis] and the Asian countries, the open or potential crisis of Stalinism is due, in the last analysis, to the fact that the direct and absolute control which the Kremlin intends to exercise, in order to serve exclusively the interests of the Soviet bureaucracy, comes up against the scope, the dynamism, and the experience of the mass movement, which since the war has suffered no decisive defeat, no crushing blow of international significance.
This fundamental conflict between the reactionary interests of the Soviet bureaucracy (and the bureaucratic means by which it defends them while using the workers' movement) on the one hand, and the free development of that movement on the other, takes specific forms according to the three categories of countries mentioned.
5. In the capitalist countries of Europe and America, the crisis of Stalinism manifests itself through the disaffection (since 1948 in particular) of the masses toward the Communist parties, or through the loss of blind confidence in the Stalinist leadership. This disaffection is illustrated chiefly by the results of all the elections that have taken place since that date, which demonstrate the stagnation, the decline, and sometimes even the collapse of certain Communist parties. The loss of trade-union position and influence, and the fall in membership and in the circulation of the CP press, are no less significant of their general weakening in these countries.
This disaffection, which bears above all on the petty-bourgeois clientele of the CPs, is due, on the one hand, to an objective factor: the relative improvement of the economic situation following the Marshall Plan, and more generally the change in the relationship of forces in favour of the bourgeoisie in the countries concerned; and, on the other hand, to a subjective factor: the policy pursued by the CPs since the end of the war.
This policy developed essentially in contradiction with the development of the objective situation. It was opportunist and right-wing between 1944-1946, at a moment when the potential and even the revolutionary activity of the masses had reached their high point. It became adventurist in its methods and sectarian from 1947 onward, in the presence of a marked slackening of revolutionary activity due to the relative change in the conjuncture and to their distrust of the Stalinist leadership, on account of its previous opportunist and right-wing course, which had wasted the exceptional revolutionary opportunities that existed at the end of the war.
In both cases, the policy of the CP leaderships was subordinated to the interests of the Soviet bureaucracy and to its relations with imperialism.
But, contrary to what happened before the war, where the passivity and even the prostration of the workers' movement (following the defeats it had suffered) favoured the maintenance of bureaucratic domination within it, the high level now reached by the potential and the revolutionary activity of the proletariat and of the colonial masses allows the masses to gain critical experience of Stalinism and to mature at each of its opportunist turns.
6. In the countries of the "buffer zone," the disaffection of the masses toward Stalinism is the result of direct experience of Stalinism in power.
This experience began the day after the entry of the Red Army into these countries and the bureaucratic strangling of the revolutionary upsurge that took place at that time. It continued afterward through the fortuitous bureaucratic installation in power of the Stalinist apparatus and its control over the economy of these countries which, while eliminating the bourgeoisie from its political and economic positions, worsened the working conditions of the masses by depriving them of any possibility of democratic organization and expression.
In these countries, the masses react against the bureaucratic and police regime, which above all serves the Soviet bureaucracy, through passive opposition. This prevents them from being led docilely in the wake of government policy and creates additional difficulties for the solution of the problems facing the "people's democracies."
7. But the by far most important manifestations of the crisis of Stalinism in these countries are constituted by the trials and purges that reach even the leading circles of the CPs themselves.
The trials staged in Tirana, Budapest, and Sofia have decapitated the CPs of these countries and have deprived them of a series of leading elements most closely tied to the base of the parties and to the revolutionary movement which they led during the war.
On the other hand, a spreading purge has already profoundly disorganized the Communist parties of all the "people's democracies," particularly those which represented a real force: the Bulgarian CP, the Czechoslovak CP, the Polish CP. In the Bulgarian CP alone, more than forty leading figures of the party, including the leaders most popular for their action during the war, as well as twelve members of the Central Committee elected in 1948 at the Fifth Congress, have recently been expelled.
The purge campaign actively conducted by the men in the Kremlin's pay is developing on the theme of the struggle against "nationalist" deviations, which consist in casting doubt on the "progressive" role of the bureaucracy, or even in opposing the control which it exercises over these countries, and in placing trust only in the forces of each country itself.
8. In reality, this is the manifestation of a new aspect of the crisis of Stalinism in the countries where circumstances have allowed the CPs to rise to power, opening up new perspectives as to the evolution and future of Stalinism in general.
This aspect is confirmed both by the break between the PCY and the Kremlin and by what is presently occurring in the CPs of the other "people's democracies" (particularly those possessing a real force of their own). It resides in the tendency shown by the CPs in power, possessing a real force, to free themselves from Moscow's tutelage and to act autonomously.
This movement, into which the CPs seem to be drawn, is explained by the conflict between the interests of the Soviet bureaucracy and the specific interests of the masses in each country; by the Kremlin's policy of exploitation, which aggravates the difficulties encountered by the Communist parties in managing the economy and the politics of these countries and hampers their free development; by the fact that the Communist parties, directly responsible for the government of these countries, are subject to pressure from the masses and can no longer, as before, act as mere transmission agencies for the Kremlin's directives without risking a complete loss of mass support.
To meet the threat represented by this tendency to free itself from its control, the Kremlin destroys the Communist parties as even slightly autonomous organisms, and replaces them with apparatuses of officials directly under its orders.
The Kremlin's inability to adopt a more flexible tactic, to manoeuvre with greater elasticity, owing to the bureaucratic monolithism of the system, further aggravates the crisis.
Such is the meaning of the events that mark the situation in all the "people's democracies" and their respective Communist parties.
In the absence of favourable subjective conditions analogous to those in Yugoslavia, the crisis in the "buffer zone" becomes bogged down in a long convulsive process, trials succeeding trials, purges succeeding purges, without it being possible to see, in the immediate future, all the factors necessary for a victorious resistance to the Kremlin and for breaking free of its reactionary tutelage gathered together.
Nevertheless, through this crisis, awareness of the counter-revolutionary role of Stalinism among the masses of the "buffer zone," and of the world in general, is maturing rapidly.
9. In the Asian countries in revolt, Stalinism seems to be passing through an ascending phase, the colonial masses confusing the victory of Mao Tse-tung with a Stalinist victory.
In reality, the organic development of the colonial revolutions now under way in Asia carries a dynamism that runs fundamentally counter to the possibility for Stalinism, that is, for the Soviet bureaucracy, of identifying itself with these movements, of bridling them and using them exclusively for its own interests. The recent incidents in the Japanese CP are an indication of the latent crisis within the CPs of the Asian countries.
The crisis of Stalinism in Asia is still potential, but it is inevitable. It lies in the specific development of the Communist parties of China, Vietnam, and other Asian countries in revolt, which are being carried, by the intrinsic dynamism of the revolutionary mass movement they lead, far from the objectives and the direct control of the Kremlin. It implies, for our movement, theoretical and practical considerations which are summarized in the resolution on the development of the colonial revolutions in Asia.
10. All these manifestations of the general crisis of Stalinism are, for the present, dominated by the importance of the development of the Yugoslav revolution. The break between the PCY and the Kominform was not merely [an isolated event]: in all the CPs, particularly in Europe, it made it possible to set in motion, within these parties, critical currents that reach even their leaderships.
The repercussions of the Yugoslav affair have already profoundly disrupted the German Communist Party, particularly its West German organization, as well as the leading circles of the Spanish CP.
In Austria, Greece, France, and Italy, the visible results of the Yugoslav affair are for the moment less spectacular, but the fermentation that exists is opening the way to the building of oppositions and to the beginnings of critical currents which have become possible, for the first time in a long while, within these parties.
11. But what is of the greatest interest in the Yugoslav affair is the progressive evolution proper to the PCY that has resulted from the break, an evolution which potentially contains the greatest opportunity for the international workers' movement since the Russian Revolution to be reborn on the platform of revolutionary Marxism.
Confirming the assertion made by our International from the very outbreak of the Yugoslav affair, that the break of a Stalinist party with the Kremlin necessarily entails a differentiation from Stalinism, which under certain conditions can prove to be eminently progressive, the PCY has followed a course which, barely two years after the break, surpasses the most optimistic forecasts.
The ideological progress achieved by the PCY and the corresponding achievements in Yugoslavia prove the depth of the revolutionary movement that brought this party to power and the remarkable qualities of its leading team. These advances are all the more appreciable in that they are being achieved in an international conjuncture marked by an enormous combined pressure from imperialism and the Soviet bureaucracy upon the Yugoslav revolution, while the aid of the proletariat remains still very weak.
12. The general feature of the evolution of the PCY and of Yugoslavia is an increasingly clear and powerful affirmation (in the field of ideas and of the political and economic organization of the country) of the eminently democratic essence of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which involves a persevering struggle against bureaucratic degeneration.
To the extent that the PCY perseveres along this path and, in ridding itself of the last Stalinist ideological vestiges, rediscovers the organic link between the progress of the Yugoslav revolution and the world revolution — which requires the regrouping of revolutionary forces on an international scale — it will become the most powerful springboard from which the decisive assault against Stalinism in crisis will be launched.
Such a development would furthermore favour the organization of the new communist opposition now rising within the Stalinist parties, with which it is now possible to envisage the construction, in the near future, of Marxist-revolutionary formations in a whole series of countries.
The Yugoslav Revolution and Our International
13. The character of our International as a proletarian revolutionary vanguard has enabled it, from the outset, alone among all the other currents of the workers' movement, to adopt a correct and effective attitude toward the break between the PCY and the Kominform and toward the evolution of that party.
Thanks to the correct theoretical understanding of Stalinism possessed by our movement, it was able, from the outset, to grasp the meaning of the break and to commit itself wholly to action in defence of the Yugoslav revolution.
Far outdistancing, in its understanding of the crisis of Stalinism, all the other currents which, for lack of a serious theoretical basis, displayed on this occasion the greatest confusion and sectarianism, our movement has demonstrated in practice that it is the most sensitive to the genuinely revolutionary tendencies that spring up through the various experiences of the mass movement, and that it is capable both of learning from these experiences and of adopting toward them an attitude apt to facilitate their progress toward the fundamental positions of revolutionary Marxism.
14. The evolution of the Yugoslav affair, which has objectively enhanced the standing of Trotskyism in the eyes of the international revolutionary vanguard by demonstrating the historical correctness of its programme, has moreover made it possible to perfect, in action, our own education regarding the attitude to adopt toward progressive mass movements, to better understand the concrete stages through which the evolution of a current of Stalinist origin passes, and has dealt the most decisive blows to the manifestations of sectarianism within our own ranks.
From this point of view, the evolution of the Yugoslav revolution has fertilized, and continues to fertilize, the theory and practice of our movement.
15. Underlining the results already obtained through the action of our sections in defence of the Yugoslav revolution in a series of countries, our International will redouble its efforts in this central campaign which it is conducting throughout the world, conscious that in this way it is working as best it can, under present conditions, to give a revolutionary outcome to the crisis of Stalinism and to work for the reconstruction of the Marxist-revolutionary movement.
To surround the Yugoslav revolution with the broad, active sympathy of the international revolutionary vanguard and of the conscious section of the working class is to foster the existence and the progressive evolution of the most important revolutionary centre at the present time; it is to further propel and rally the new communist opposition now fermenting within the Communist parties, precisely stimulated by the Yugoslav example.
16. Our sections will build the broadest possible united front with every organization, group, or proletarian current that takes a similar interest in the defence of the Yugoslav revolution.
They will maintain, expand, and complete the present forms of their campaign, namely: making known, through their press and their publications and through the dissemination of PCY publications, the truth about the Yugoslav revolution, its evolution, and its achievements.
They will maintain, expand, and complete the denunciation of the Kremlin's and the Kominform's calumnies, and will campaign for the lifting of the economic blockade of Yugoslavia, and against any other hostile action undertaken to extinguish and eliminate this revolutionary centre.
They will denounce the ever-present danger that a compromise between imperialism and the Soviet bureaucracy might be established at Yugoslavia's expense, and the hostile actions and various pressures which the imperialists are already exerting on Yugoslavia with a view to subjugating it.
They will expand, in the factories, the trade unions, and progressive intellectual circles, the movement for sending delegations and brigades to Yugoslavia, so that these in turn may carry on the campaign.
They will link the Yugoslav revolutionary movement to the international movement through joint actions and united-front agreements on such fronts as the defence of trade-union democracy, the re-establishment of world trade-union unity, international workers' solidarity, and the union of progressive intellectuals, students, women, etc.
17. Having triumphed in a small, economically and culturally backward country, with a peasant majority, and caught between imperialism and the Kremlin, the Yugoslav revolution will find it difficult to reach, by its own strength and through its own dynamism alone, higher stages if it remains isolated for long, without active support from the international proletariat.
From this point of view, only its junction with the world revolution will assure its constant progress and its socialist flowering.
In the meantime, it is the duty of the international revolutionary vanguard to come to its aid on every front and to understand that its responsibilities are no less than those of the Yugoslav Communist Party as regards the future fate of the Yugoslav revolution.