THEANATOMY

OFSTALINISMby Tom Kerry

(for members only)

June1972 25(

THE ANATOMY OF STALINISM

by Tom Kerry

Introductory Note

The following article, "The Anatomy ofStalinism," by Tom Kerry consists of two lec-tures that were given at the August 1970Socialist Activists and Educational Confer-ence held at Oberlinr OhiO'.',r~t

A discussion is '~~~lace within theFourth InternatioXlal'9n the;~uestions that arediscussed in this Education for Socialistsbull~t;i.n.For. that re~136n,thi~';Edlleationfor

~~~~~~~S;he?~~iSo~~~i~~i~.:t:~m~~;Socialist Workers PartY.:'/;",'

The Socialist wor~~('!I.·arty is preventedby reactionary legislaltLon;::rom maintainingorganizational ties __t1i;~ Fourth Internation-al. Nevertheless, we reta1n an active interestin the idaasunder dis,c»ss:iJn ~ the worldTrotSk;y;;ist l!lovemen1?~i>e~eE!fouropinionson important qllestion13 "' i!~' ,

G.R.

Table of Contents'}4"rll1,i\W i> Page

The Anatomy or StaI1nidJ1l~")Tom Kerry 3

Appendix: excerpt from "The Dif-ferences Between the Two Docu-ments on the "Cultural Revolu-tion," by Joseph Hansen (reprintedfrom International InformationBulletin, Number 4, J~e 1970) 14

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a Stalinist party, in defiance of Stalin'streaties with the Allies at Yalta, Teheran,Potsdam, etc., took state power. Therewas also the establishment by the Stalin-ists in Eastern Europe first of "c,oalition"regimes, and then of deformed workersstates after the outbreak of the ColdWar. With the advent of the Cold War,the "coalition" regimes were brushedaside by the Soviet power which had itstroops in most of these countries, andworkers states -- deformed workersstates -- were established.

I'm not going to be able to go into alengthy explanation of many of theseevents. I leave that to the discussionperiod. If I refer to some event or someproblem that arose without sufficientelaboration you can raise the matter inthe discussion. I knawI shall leavemany gaps. But as I said before I'mgoing to concentrate on trying to clari-fy at least the one point I mentioned.

We make a distinction between adegenerated workers state and a deformedworkers state. Roughly speaking, the,difference is that the deformed workersstates were never healthy to begin with.We designate the Soviet Union as a de-generated workers state because it didbegin as a healthy workers state underLenin and Trotsky. The early Bolshevikregime subsequently degenerated. That isthe basic distinction. What.they have incommon is that both are based upon thesocialist forms of property, that isnationalized property, the monopoly offoreign trade, etc.

A third development of the post-warera important to our discussion was theChinese Revolution led by the Mao wingof the world Stalinist movement.

The problem that arose in the worldTrotskyist movement at that time was howto reconcile our view of Stalinism ascounterrevolutionary "through andthrough" with this new phenomenon, thephenomenon of Stalinist parties leading,or ostensibly leading, successful revolu~tions that established workers states.

It would seem as though we were con~fronted with two alternatives on the basisof historical experience, primarily theexperience in Yugoslavia and China, wherethe transfer of state power developed onthe basis of a surging mass movement as 'distinct from the Eastern Europeancountries, where deformed workers stateswere established fundamentally by virtueof the power of the Soviet Red Army. Itse'emed one would have to conclude on thebasis of this historical experienceeither that our view of Stalinism ascounterrevolutionary was incorrect, orthat in capturing state power the Yugo-

slav and Chinese Communist parties werenot Stalinist, or not strictly Stalinist,or not exactly Stalinist.

There was, of course, another view,one embraced by a wing of the Cochran-ite faction -- I assume you're allfamiliar with the Cochranite split of1953 -- that believed that Stalinismconstituted the wave of the future. Thiswas a concept advanced by Mic~el Pabloin his thesis of "centuries of deformedworkers states." (See InternationalInformation Bulletins, December 1949 andMarch 1951.) Pablo advanced the thesisaffirming that the whole course of revolu-tionary deyelopment would have to gothrough Stalinism. Deformed workersstates would be established on an inter-national scale as a necessary stage inthe unfolqiDg{)f' the world socialistrevolution.

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This'1i4!30:t"1i.·wa~ rejected by the SWEand by a tJajprj..ty of the internationalmovement.,Thee~cbraniteslater splitwith the SWP".awthe;n with the Inter-national;, oste~ibly over this question.After grapPlii"ngnththe problem ofpost-Wo~l:d WaI'",IlStaliniSDl, the majorityof thelnt~~~ional adopted the viewthat the,'lugollla,¥)·and Chinese CPs werenot strictly Stalinist. How then to .characterize the new phenomena?

Atth~_~~hWorld Congress held in1954....,- reae.ber"the split·· in·· theInternati~lQtQok:placein 1953 and twofactiomt-·,l(€M+eatablished -- the factionthat we ...'bh.entre:ferredto as the Pabloitesadopted a~~lUtion entitled "The Riseand Decline of Stalinism," which states:

There:haj!)Q-eontradiction betweenthe :t:aQ11"b.bat, on the one hand, theJ-ugosl~""o:e;j'ond the Chinese CP havebee~-a1)1;~h.V()·l-ead a revolution vic-to~~JaJ(~nQ, independently of the~::lnua»d;have in these instancesceased-W-,:iQe Stalinist parties in theproper lueft~ of this term••••(available in Education for Soc~alistsbulJ..e~AA,.~titledThe Develq>ment andDisin~rationof World Stalinism. Seep. "m~·"..•-'... ,"'_..•...

I con.tinue to quote from "The Rise andDecline o£ Stalinism," which asserts thatin these "bureaucratic centrist parties,"which however "still find themselvesunder the pressure of the revolution intheir countries, we do not call upon theproletariat of these countries to con.-stitute new revolutionary parties or toprepare a political revolution in thesecountries." (page 20)

If these parties are bureaucraticcentrist, in the sense that Trotsky hadapplied this term to the Stalinistbureaucracy in Russia, then it follows,as Trotsky concluded at the time, tb,atthe call for a new revolutionary partyand apoli.tical revolution would bepolitiCally unjusti£ied. Trotsky called,instead, for reforming the Co~stParty of the Soviet Union and i;;I:H~"'i Com-munist International. His tactic was totry and win over a majority toa "revolu-tionary Marxist position.

Given the context in which the "bureau-cratic centrism" designation, had beenapplied] in the Trotskyist movemen'l;up tothis point in 1954-, it wouldfoll'Owthat opposition to the politiWilrevolu-tion in favor of re£orm of the'partyinChina and in Yugoslavia would apply. Andso to continue:

We are working towa.rd the constitu-tion of a left tendency within theJCP and within the Chinese CP, atendency which will be able, in con-nection with the development'of theworld revolutionar;r rise,.tQ. assureand to lead a new stage £orW'ard inthe revolution in these two countries.(page 20)

From around the period iri 1954 to thepresent, at least to the period of the1969 World Congress, the third sincereunification, the -comrades of thepresent majority of the Internationalobstinately clung to the formula "bureau-cratic centrism," although coupling itto~ay with the call for a politicalrevolution. They either fail or refuseto recognize the obvious contradictioninvolved. Let us pursue the questionfurther.

The world Trotskyist movement reunifiedin 1963. In 1965, the Second World Con-gress of the Fourth International afterreuni£ication adopted a resolution entitled"The Sino-SOviet Conflict and the Crisisof the International Communist Movement."

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held a number of discussions on theproblem that was created for us, bytheconaiderable modifications thatwere introduced into the draft sub-mitted to the congress.

The most significant changes involvethe characterization of the Mao leader-ship. In the draft resolution, theMao leadership was held to come underthe general category of Stalinismalthough with peculiarities of itsown due to the influence of theChinese revolution. (That was aformulation with which we were inaccord.] The direction of the c~ngesintroduced into the draft resolutionwas to substitute for this a char-acterization of the MBo leadershipas left centrist.

Then we quote the section of thereso-lution which I just read to you. ADd weasked £or an explanation. Was it 'justsomebody's afterthought? Or was it in-serted beclluseit had been in a previousresolution.?Didthe amendment imply thatthe question of the political revolutionwas again called intoquestJ.on?We didn'tknow.

We recei'Veda reply'from one of theleading' comrades in, the Internationaldealing ,with the concept of bureau-cratic centrism, which is, in my opinion,incorrect. I quote:

On the question of the estimation ofthe Mao leadership~ Art will write youwhat have been the proposals of theUnited Secretariat, who took up yourletter, on the discussion proceflure,

'and Livio will write you at lengthon the unfortunate circumstances whichled to different formulations •. (hewas the reporter on this question.) hBut I should like to insist again uponthe question of thevery.slightdif-terence the two formulas really make.trhat is, he considered that the dif-ferences were very-sJ.ight 'between thetwo formulas.] For the Old HanfCro1i-sky] Stalinism is a specific~ariantof centrism (you know as I do the manyquotations from him where he fo~ulates this idea). We complete1.yagreethat Hao's party is a centrist party,strongly influenced by the Stalinistorigins and grooming of its leadership.If we use the formula "centrist, gen-erally inclined to be le£t centrist,"it is for the very concrete specificreason, to wit, that the main his-toric characteristic of thelrrcp isthe fact that they took power in 1949and overthrew capitalism in the big-gest country in the world.

Whatever may be our specific criti-cism of their unnumerable shortcomings

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on which, I believe, we generallyagree -- the basic charac~erizationmust conform above all to 'that basicfact. And when you characterize thembasically as a Stalinist party (in-stead of a left centrist party ofStalinist origins and many bureaucrat-ic traits iIiherited from Stalinism),then you come of course to a somewhatparadoxical conclusion that a basic-ally Stalinist party is capable ofoverthrowing capitalism, against thefurio1,J.S.opposition of Stalin and theSovietb'Ureaucracyl The whole notionof Stalinism is then turned upsidedown.

May I remind you of the origin of,that formula , "centrism generallytendina.. toward the left" in our move-ment? LNow that's ver!y important,because history and historical develop-ment plays a very important role inthe shaping of our terminology as wellas the ideas behind the terminology.That's what we're concerned about--not thesemantics"not the words, notthe expression, not the term -- butthe ideas that lurk behind theterminology.] If I'm not mistaken (hegoes on) it was used· for the first timein a resolution which I wrote myselfon the characterization of the Yugo-slav workers state, and which wasadopted by the SWP,sometime in 1950or 1951.

We were.at'that time at the begin-ning of' the" struggle not only aboutthe. class, natlme 01 the glast~ coun-tries,' [rthat isilhe Buffer ates ofEastern Europe] but also the wholereevaluailion of the relations betweencapitalism, Stalinism and worldrevolution in the light of the post-ware\l'ents.

And as the comrades who have read thedoc"QJl1ents would testify, it was a ratherlength;yand avery rich discussion, be-cause these were new problems, problemsunanticipated, as I say, not only by us,by Trotsky, but by everyone else. And itoccasioned a very long discussion in whichwe finally arrived at a concensus -- Ithought. But it appears, not quite. Tocontinue the quote:

It was especially against Pablo'sbasic tendency that I insistedstrongly upon the need to characterizethe Yugoslav CP as a left centristparty and not a Stalinist party,(Whatever may have been the Stalinistnature of their habits, traditions andattitudes towards ma~questions)because I wanted to conserve thenotion of the counterrevolutionarycharacter of Stalinism. As Stalin hadactually opposed the setting up of the

Yugoslav workers state, as he had donein China, the idea of calling theparties who had overthrown capitalismin those countries through a revolution-- be it a very distorted one --Stalinist seemed to be rather far-fetched, and included the danger ofchanging our basic yharacterizationof Stalinism, (which is not simplyany fonn of workers bureaucracy, butthe specific movement born from theusurpation ,of power inthaSovietUnion.by the Soviet bureaucracy).

I think the arguments which heldat that time still hold today, andthat i tis much more embarrassingfrom the point of view of upholdingour traditional programme and identity,to call parties who lead victorious,(be it distorted) revolutions"Stalinist," than to call thalli left-centrist parties of Stalinist originand tradition, and with strong bureau-cratic inclinations. And,if,yrou don'tchange this characterizati:on in thecase of Yugoslavia, it beaoJliesallthe more embarrassing to change it'inthe case of China, for nobody couldargue that the Yugoslavswelre-1Il:ore tothe left than the Chinese centrists(=Stalinists).

That was the text of the letter inits entirety. Let's probe a littlefurther. ".

Trotsky settled accounts with- theconcept of "bureaucratic centrism" inan article entitled "The Workers'Stateand the Question of ,Thermidor andBo;na-partism,"·which was republished,in.·theSummer 1956 ISR. (It has since been. pub-lished in Wr'ffi:;'s of Leon Trotss 1934:35, pp. 166=184. Now, if you rea JoelI8'nsen' s article in the InternationalInformation Bulletin # 4, June 1970,on the differences between the two docu....ments on the "Cultural Revolution," youwill find that he discusses in somedetail the development of Trotsky's viewson this question of bureaucratic cen-trism. I'm not going to repeat everythingthat he says there; I'll amplify, if that'sthe correct tenn, on some of the arguments.(See appendix.)

In his article, Trotsky begins bysaying that the question of Thermidorplayed a very important role in the con-troversies within the Left Opposition inthe Soviet Union in the very early period,19~1927. There was a tendency in theLld~j9ppositionwhich called itself the'·a.e.oCl'atic centralism" group •. It heldth....,~Thermidor had already been accom-plished in the Soviet Union, inter~P~ Thermidor as meaning the victoryorthe,oounterrevol~tion.They insistedthat the counterrevolution had conquered

in the Soviet Union, and that whatwas required was a new social revolu-tion in order to reestablish the social-~proper~ forms; a revolution to beled by a new Bolshevik-Leninist·party ofthe type which led the revolution tovictory in 1917.

The Left Opposition split over thisquestion. The democratic centralism groupsplit from the Left Opposition not somuch over the controversy involving theanalogy with Thermidor, but over thepolitical conclusions that were drawntherefrom. The Left Opposition majority,led by Trotsky, held that the basiceconomic conquests of the October Revolu-tion still prevailed; that the basicsocial conquests still remained -- thenationalized property, 1Il0nopoly of foreigntrade, etc.; and that this was the baseupon which the bureaucracy rested.Therefore, to call for a socialrevolution meant to turn your back onthe remaining conquests of October,instead of struggling to preserve and toextend them while seeking to restore theLeninist democratic nonns cbFracteristicof the early Bolshevik Party.

The dispute was somewhat analogous, Imight say -- with all proportions guarded-- to the dispute we had with the petty-bourgeois opposition i~ 1939 over theclass charac,ter of the ,Soviet Union.The issue was whether the USSR was adegenerated workers state or whether itwas .Ei new "bureaucratic collectivist"state. TrotE,lky, atthat.time, SEiid itwould be ·toolish for us to engage in abig factional dispute over a termino-logical ditt'erence, if all that was in-volved ~s,a dispute over what to callthistbing, this new thing, this mon::-strous. thing that had emerged from thefirst proletarian reVOlution. But itturned out to be more than tllat,you. see"He said so long as we agree on the .political conclusions, i.e. the necessityof defendi:i:lgthe Soviet Union againstimperialist attack, we could continue todiffer over what to call it and stillrelllain in the same party. But it wasprecisely over the political line ofdetense that we could not reach agreementand so a Elplit occurred.

Let me just "amplify" for those who arenot too familiar with French revolution-ary history, what The:t'midormeant in therevolutionary movement. Thermidor was thename of one of the months in the newcalendar set up during the French revo-lution of-the 18th century. On tneNinth of Thermidor, the reaction triumphedand led almost directly to the establish-ment of a Bonapartist regime. NapoleonBonaparte became first cQnsul, and thenemperor of France. Trotsky. points out inhis article that the analogy with Thermido1.',

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like all analogies, must be guarded; thatthe react.ion of Ninth TherIllidor in Francedid not restore f~udalproperty relations.

It was a political reac~ion, a politicalreaction which destroyed the plebeianrevolutionaries who made the revolutionand who were trying to drive it forward.But the reaction took power on the basisof preservation of the property formsestablished by the French revolution,that is, bourgeois property forms,capitalist property forms. The reaction'never restored feudal property forms andfeudal relations.

Bonaparte, in his various military',enterprises throughout Europe, neverfound an ally in feudalism. In fact hefelt compelled to overthrow feudalismand establish bourgeois property relationsin those countries in whiCh he conquered,as the Soviet Union was compelled to"export" its property forms during thec~urse of World WarTI to Latvia, Es-tonia and' Lithuania, those countrieswhich were structurally assimilated totheS6viet Union. But we'll go into thatlater.

Now when this comrade in his letterrefers to Trotsky's use of the termburealicratic centrism, he must refer ex-press17 to the prior period, because afterthis article was written, I have beenunable to find anywhere in Trotsky anyuse of the term bureaucratic centrism. Inthis article Trotsky refers to the Bona-partist regime of St~lin, Stalinist Bona-partism, not bureauoratic centrism. Andthen he sums up: "The ,Soviet bureaucracy-- 'Bolshevist' in its traditions, butin reality having long since renouncedits traditions, petty-bourgeois in itscomposition and spirit -- was summonedto regulate the antagonism between theproletariat and the peasantry , betweenthe workers state and world imperialism:such is the s6cialbase of bureaucraticCentrism•••• "

Let me repeat, "..... to regulate'theantagonism between the proletariat andthe peasantry ,'between the workers stateand world imperialism: such is the socialbase of bureaucratic Centrism, of itszig-zags, its power, its weakness, andits influence on the world proletarianmovement which has been so fatal. As thebureaucracy becomesmoreinde-pendent, as more and more power is concen-trated in the hands of a single person,the more does bureaucratic Centrism turninto Bonapartism.",' (page 40, Writingsof Leon Trotsky; 1934-35.) ,

Trotsky uses "bureaucratic centrism"in The Third International'After Lenin,written in 1928. This was in his Criti-cism of the Draft Program of the Communist

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International (Comintern) which had beenprepared for the Comintern's Sixth WorldCongress. In 1927-1928, Trotsky insistedthat the Left Opposition continue tofunction as part of the Communist Inter-national and of the Communist Party ofthe Soviet Union, despite the fact thatit had been expelled from the CommunistParty of the Soviet Union and from allthe partie~ of the Comintern.

The program of the Left Opposi-tionwas for reform -- reform of the,Oom-munist Party of the Soviet Union and ofthe Communist International. It was onlyafter'Hitler took power in 1933 -+-follow-ing St~lri.n's Third Period insanity,when'rthe Communist Party of Germany per-mitt:ttd0l!litler to march topowe:£' :wi.:thouta struggle -- that Trotsky dec~ared theCommunist International dead an4immediate-ly proclaimed the need to buildranewIntei':ft8;tional. He said "The COlIIDiUJiistPar't;yJ ;:of~e Soviet Union is dead'! "Therefore(~e've got to have a politicalrevo1ution, .'and a new party, a par~ ofthe Fdurth"International in the SovietUnild:h': " .

l'roll'1mat'dayforward Trotsky did notuse 1lheterm~bureaucraticcentriSlll itocharacterize the Soviet bureaucracy.Bonapartism, yes. And terms of a muchmore descriptive., I would say, more aptcharacter, :'like; syphilis of the labormovement, yes! But no more bureaucraticcentrism. So when they tell us that it'sa depar~TGn aur'Part to abandon theuse of :tlia,>t:el1'IlF bureaucJ:jatic centrism,whichpliiyedsslIoh apart in the wholehistory50~:11;he:dev~lopmentof the ideasof therLefti;QppQsition, I say: "JUst amomen1:;,cetdrea.es~ ~t's not history.That is :rget'hist0Pl-_ Not as we've learnedit. II ',bB"',, iF.', '''', .

_... -. ~: ~:£.f-~ -__ -sTrotlflWTfhesthe date, the date of

the ,beginningrfof,ilhe,Thermidori8ln reac-tiona:s'the:year'1924.That, he says, wasthe begiJ:mingL-... and Lquote:

1 \;_~r~ fcc _"The:;year;' 1924 ...... 'that was the begin-

n:i,ngs of~ftb:eSoviet Themidor." (page174) ADd h"":con.cludes, "The Thermidorof the:igreat RUssian ReVOlution is notbefore US but already far behind. TheThermidorians can celebrate, approxi-mately-,

It's not too clear, but there's acertain amount of logic to it. IfThermidor began in 1924, then whathappens to bureaucratic centrism? Youcould say, well, Thermidor was a process-- Trotsky marks 1924 as "the beginning"-- a process of reaction that underwenta qualitative change in 1933; that 1933was the historical test. But wby not1927? The Chinese revolution, defeatedbecause of the character of interventionof the Kremlin in China? TheSe are someof the problems that you younger comradeswill have to grapple with in your studyof the development of the ideas of theLeft Opposition, of Trotskyism andStalinism on a world scale.

I just present it to you as a problem.But I know this: while that may pose aproblem, there is no problem about whathappened after 1933! Tl'otskythen said:"The COIlUD.unist International is dead!"And in the same breath: "We must proceedto build the Fourth International."

All right. Now, what are: the dangersof clinging to an outwo~·formula, anincorrect political idea ~ch was cor-rect in one historicaL corntext and be-came outmoded in the c01Ujse;of worldhistorical development? In the resolu-tion, the same resolut'i~of the SecondWorld Congress after reUIrl.fication, wesee examples of what the result can be ofclinging to fOnJlulas that are no longerapplicable. For ,example, in the resolu...tion on the Sino-Soviet con.f:lict ci,.tedabove, unwarranted and false conclusionsare drawn over the alleged differencesbetween the Pek:i,~aIld~s~o'Wbureaucracies.Let me cite one example. It says:

One of tmr' conseq-ueneesof this newrelationship;of'; forces' ona worldscale is th8itc the Maoist group itself,however fixed: its bureaucratic pat-tern of thinkingaI:\Q;J:praetice may be,is not· at all merel;jr.repeatingthepolicies and views of·Stalin. Theydisplay a decisive di~erence withStalin, for example,'intheltey con-cept of building "socialism! in onecountry," advancing instead. the ideaof "uninterrupted rev.olution;." Par-ticularly since the disastrous exper-ience of the "great leap :forward"when Mao set out to build "coIlUD.unismin one country" -- and at a fasterrate than either Stalin or Khrushchev-- the Chinese leaders have beeni·em--phasizing the need for socialism totriumph in other countries. (Inter-national Socialist Review, Spring1966, page 80)

If I understand it, the resolutionseeks to draw a parallel between theMaoist rhetorical bombast about "unin-terrupted" revolution with that of

Trotsky's permanent revolution. If thatwere true, it would mark a very importantcpange in the politicai physiognomy ofMaoism. If it were true, at least someof Mao's thoughts would be palatable enoughfor US to swallow. Are the Maoists for"uninterrupted revolutionir ? If it istrue, we would have to rev:i.se our po-sition on Maoism. To begin with we wouldhave to abandon the call for politicalrevolution if Maoism has, in addition todisplaying "a decisive difference" withStalin on the question of buildingsocialism in one country~ advocated thepolicy and practice of uninterruptedrevolution.

Socialism in one country! That's the"theoretical" cesspool from which thepoison of Stalinism welled up over theentire working class movement of theworld! The original source! The fountain-head!

If it were true I would say we wouldhave to welcome Mao with open arms, andsay: "Brother, if you won't join us,we'll join you!" But let's take a littlecloser look before we take the greatleap. Is the Maoist concept of uninter-rupted revolution analogous to Trotsky'stheory of permanent revolution?

In an article that I'wrote for theSeptember-october, 1969 ISR, "A Mao-Stalin Rift: Myth or Fac~ I quotedfrom a pamphlet by Chen Po-ta, whowas a leading theoretician of the Chin-ese COIlUD.unist Party. Not only that. Heis now probably the foremost exponentof Mao's thought in China. He's one ofthe leftmost of the "left wing" of the"Cultural Revolution." He's an authority,an unimpeachable authority, I might add --on Maoism, not on. Leninism. In a pamphletentitled "Mao Tse-tung on the ChineseRevolution" written in 1951, Chen Po-taobserves:

"In the light of the concrete con-ditiona in China, Mao Tse-tuilg developedthe teachings of Lenin and Stalin regard-ing the continuous development of thebourgeois-democratic revolution into thesocialist revolution." And then, quotingMao, he adds: "We advocate the theory ofthe continuous development of reVOlution,but not the Trotskyite theory of permanentrevolution. We stand for the attainment ofsocialism thrO~ all the necessary stagesof the demQcralC repUblic. We are opposedto tail-ism, but we are also opposed toadventurism and ultra-revolutionism."(quoted in ISR, September-October 1969,page 7. My emphasis.) Now that was in1951. Has there been any change sincethen?

The World Congress resolution wasadopted after the Indonesian catastrophe

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of 1965. And the resolution deals insome detail with that event. Let mequote from the resolution:

••• even after the anti-Communist of-fensive of the generals was unleashed(in Indonesia ], the leadership of theIndonesian Communist Party refrainedfrom calling upon the masses for anall-out reply and continued to bankon Sukarno although he was becomingan outright captive of the army.Overwhelmed by the repression, con-fronted wi th the choice betweenpolitical suicide and a turn towardguerrilla warfare, the leading fac-tion of the IIldonesian Communist Party,at least those who survived the Oc-tober 1965 disaster, seem to havechosen the latter alternative.

This choice was facilitated by thefact that parallel to its line ofclass collaboration, an oppositetendency exis"ted in the ideologyof the Indonesian CP. Some·of itsconcepts are rather: close to 'theChinese concept of the uninterruptedrevolution; the Indonesian CPcon'"stantly explained that the peasantsare the fundamental revolutionaryforce, that even in the democraticrevolution the leading role belongsto the workers and peasants., and thatthe formation_of "the gove:mJlle.n"t of thepeople's democ~cy type constitu"tedits immediate aim~

But these contredietions'were con-fined within 8-s't:t'ategic J:i.ne'·of '"revolution by sl'tages, '! w.i.:thinapolicy of coalition with the. \08tiona1bourgeoisie headen bySukar.no. Thisled the Aidit leadership' to putbrakes on themaas movement, to holdthe masses priso~r to, "NasaK:omtt, -'-''the "national front"-:.or the 1ib:reemainpolitical groupings (the Sukarnonationalists, the Moslem ~ligiousTeachers and the Communist' Party) ..Thi.s paved. the way to thebitter.defea'tsuffered by the biggestComamn:ist Partyin the capitalist world. (In'tel."tlationa1Socialist Review, Spring 1~,r'page 81.)

In other words, application of 'theMaoist concept of the "uninterruptedrevolution" in Indonesia led to theslaughter of the Indonesian CommunistParty. Jt. le4 to the greatest defeat onan international scale since the defeatof the working class of Germany in 1933.That's no exaggeration! Three hundredthousand, some three hundred thousandmembers of the Communist Party slaughtered!That's a high price to pay for the"uninterrupted revolution," a la Mao asapplied by Aidit of the IndonesianCommunist Party!

In the light of this experience, howis it possible to speak, or even intimatethat the Maoist rhetoric •••• Woros failme. But even more recently, last year,the Communist Party of Peru published asavage diatribe against Trotskyism,centering on what? An all-out attackon our concept of permanent revolu'tion,as advocated and applied by the FourthInternational group in that country.They counterpose to it the Maoist formulaof uninterrupted revolution, which isspelled out in precise detail and addsup to the old Stalinis't formula of revolu-tion in stages.

In other words, 'they say that in Peruthe democratic revolution is on the orderof the day. That's the first stage: thedemocratic revolution in which thenational patriotic bourgeoisie is fatedto lead the struggle for national libera-tion against American imperialism. Theysay that 'the revolution in Peru wouldhave to first go 'through thes'tage of'the establishmen't of a bourgeois demo-cra'tic republic with the labor movementand Communist Party playing the role ofloyal opposition. Then, a'ta'much laterstage, the "opposition" will begin 'thestruggle for 'the proletarian revolu'tion.This is the S'talinist 'theory of revolu-tion in stages. Hsinhua, which is the dailynews service of the Maoists, publishedthe oomplete'text of 'this document,withou't commen't. And Hsinhua, let meinfonn you, doesn't publish anythingthat Mao doesn''t approve of, no'thing!If my memory serves me, this documentwas considered important enough to be re-published in Peking Review.

But an even more importan't ques'tion'than pennanent revolution VB. uninter-rup'ted revolution of the Maoist varietyis 'the question which we have always con-sidered of decisive significance, 'thetheory of socialism in one coun'try. Ifit is true, as 'the 1965 World Congressresolution affirms, 'that the Maois'tgroup displays "a decisive differencewith Stalin, for example, in 'the keyconcept of building 'socialism in onecountry, '.11 it would, .. in my opinion,require a fundamental and basic revisionof our view not only of Maoism, but ofStalinism on a world scale.

The theory of socialism in o~e coun-try marked a basic revision of Marxism.I't provided the ideological frameworkfor 'the transition from revolutionarysocialism 'to na'tional (reform) socialism.Tha't 'has always been our position, thatis 'the position of TrotskyiSm. The theoryof socialism in one country is no't Marxist,it's an'ti-Marxist. It's no't proletarian,it's petty-bourgeois. It's not revolu'tion-ary, it's reformist. And any tendency in

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in the world today that subscribes to thistheory is, in my opinion, Stalinist!

That doesn't mean that all Stalinistparties and I'e'gj.ules are the same. Oh,no! TheI'e are sp:\ne, like the Chineseand Russia!)., whQ.are at this mQment onthe verge of m1.1itary warfare.! )3utthatdoesn't make Mao any less aSt~linistthan Brezhnev,in the ideolog;i.~~;r. .sphere,or in practipe~ Those tendencies who sub..,.scribe to the theory ofsoci~ti,sm in oneCQuntry, whether they fUI+Ction.,as headsof states Qrexist as oppo.sition partiesin capitalif?t or semi-coloJ;l,ialcountries,today occ-qpy the place t]:;$tSocial Demo-cracy did' in Lenin' s day'~'.!Chey are socialreformists, .who preach ~Ad:practice theline of national reform~;" . .

The one thing that ident:i,.fi,es Stalin-ism as a world teildep.Gi~, i;lle workingclass movement issu:pp~~'ana advocacyof ~he.. theory .. or b.~.,:·. .J"M'~,1:l,:.g,:

Union, why not in Albania? Why not inRumania? Why not in Yugoslavia, Bulgaria,Hungary? Yes, why not? And certainly inChina, with its 700 million people andits vast resources, why not in China?They all ask themselves "Why not?" andthey answer in chorus, "Of course wecan!" Of course they can, but only atthe expense of the world rs¥olution,and paradoxically, of their own nationaldevelopment.

These changes have spawned varioustheories. There is the theory thatStalinism died with Stalin; the theorythat Stalinism equals the Moscowtrials -- there haven't been any Moscowtrials anywhere else, with the e:x;ri8p"",tion of some miniature Moscow trials inEastern Eurppe in the early 1950s",there-fore, no Stalinism; the theoryq,that -therecannot be a repetition of the historicalcircumstances that ga,ve ris.etoptalin,therefore· -- no Si>alinism;'!Ahe.tiheorythat the 20th Congress of the.Communis"\;Party of the Soviet Union and the abortedde-stalinization campaign ended Stalinism;and so forth and so on. ;'

No. There have been changes, but notany essential change in the nature andideology of Stalinism.

It is true that great changes willoccur in the Stalinist world in thetransition from monolithism to polyeen-trism. Monolithism applied to that periodin the development of Stalinism when theSoviet Union was the only existing workersstl')te. The Soviet bureaucracy,capitaliz-ing on the prestige cit the October Revo-lution, wi,elding.:its authority and itspower, converted the entire world Stalin-ist movement into pawns subordinated tothe interests of the Moscow bureaucracy.

The first break i11 the Stalinist mono-lith occurre.dwithtbe Yugoslav revolu,..tion. I'll go' into sclittle.detail herebecause it's important;-itciali~t~o:,erturns in Europe, and soStalln artlflclally established thesecoal~tion governments. I say artificial-ly, b~cause the real power in EasternEurope was the Soviet Red Army.

~tever native working class revo-lutionary upsurges occurred as the RedArmy .advanced into these countries weresuppressed by the Red Army. Stalinwanted no lIindependent revolutionaryllstates established in Eastern Europe. Hewanted "coalition" regimes establishedunder the immediate aegis and controlof the Red Army.

The existence of these coalitionregimes precipitated a debate in the

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Just prior to 1948~49 -- when thesephony coalitioJL;regimes were unceremoni-ously booted o~~ and deformed workersstates establi~~d,-- the comrades ar-rived at a fR~P1ato characterize thesestates. Th~.qUf:tst;i.on was posed: What werethey?Capi~~st states? But capitaliststates occ:tIIlie4 l>y the Red Army?

Trotsky,p~d,insisted thst if, in the'event thej~i,~t Union occupied cou-tries c~nt.~usto the borders of theSoviet Ul:P-~~nd,maintainedcapitalistprope~,~~~~ions in those countries,we wo\l:I.,9-'MV~ to reconsider our wholeposi1!iQ.'Q.,,,9n t:p.e class character of thedegeA$.i.'!lt~W9rkers state. You re~allthe ~tlfll,~,ofThermidorand Bonapart-ism iin't:tle FrEmCh revolution, whereunder,BoIl,t;lp~rte, the,counterrevolutiondid no-t, restore feudal property re-latio:Q$.B()nap~~tismwas based upon thenew:,p:r:PpeJ'tyfo~sestablished by theFrenchrevolutin. The analogy would ap-ply, in some form, to the territory an-nexed eto' Or .occupied by the Soviet Union.

~,~ ':-..:, .,:\

The~Q~a4~,~rrived at what was asort of> COJllp~e , ;formula. They saidthesewe~~ca~~~liststates on the roadto stru,c~~.assimilation witli theSoviet Union. Let me repeat: capitaliststates on the road to structural as-similation with the Soviet Union. A con-tradiction in terms, I think.

dec~~~ ~~ei~oi~e~~~~~r~~;'d~;:~~~ngthe Soviet Union agairist a threat byAmerican imperialism whi~h ~d.launchedthe Marshall Plan in EuXo:p~;;.- to boot thebourgeoisie out of the coalition govern-ments. With the establishment of workers'states in Eastern Europe the {o~ula wasaltered~;The comrades said, tll~n;" ,tire,seare states -;inlihich structural' assillli1ationhas been c€>mpleted. The pOSitio~f~JI.ad'acertain logi-c: to it. These new's~ate:.,'formationsdUld. adopted astheir:oi6de1~,the Soviet forms of production, that is,socialist forms of production, and..bure~ucratized state 'formations.

~e comrades identified structural 0'assimilation with the adoption of the"tmttern of economic and political orgam..;.zation that existed in the Soviet Union.

'l:il. the original program of the Bolshevik:Party, the October victory was looked,nponas the-beginning of the world revo'"luiri.,Ofi. Nobody at that time ever dreamedof.~l.;1ing or suggesting the possibil:i:tyof bUllding socialism in a single country.

Lenin, along with all the Bolsheviks,reiterated that the Soviet Union couldnot exist indefinitely, side ~y side withworld capitalislll, that one or the otherwould have to prevail. Either the revo-lution would be extended, first to Europeand then to the rest of the world, or theSoviet Union would be crushed.

When they organized the Soviet Union,they established it as a federation, afederation of Soviet Socialist Republics.And they looked to Europe, especially toGermany and to the German revolution, tocome to the assistance of the backwardRussian, state. They held open the pos-sibility for inclusion within the variousfederated Soviet Socialist Republics ofa German federated soviet socialist re-public, that is, assimilating into thestructure of the Soviet state those areasor those revolutions, especially ,thosecontiguous to the Soviet Union, as anintegral unit of the united federationof Soviet Socialist Republics. That wasthe perspective!-Tb.at was why the feder-ated form was adopted in the very begin-ning.

A different form of assimilation tookplace in the case of-countries like Lat-via, Estonia and Lithuania • Those Balticcountries were conquered militarily andthen assimilated into the structure ofthe Soviet Union. They are now a part ofthe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.This is different than the relationshipthat exists between the Soviet Union andthe East European deformed workers states.

Stalin never had any intention of pro-ceeding to carry through the structuralassimilation of the Eastern Europeancountries, not at all. Not from the verybeginning. In the beginning he resortedto a policy of pillage and plunder ofthese countreis. He even sliced off asection of Rumania and assimilated thatto the Soviet Union. He set up jointstock companies, exploiting these coun-tries for the purpose of "building s6cial,-ism" in the Soviet Union. He could getaway with that, as I say, up to a certainpoint.

By the way, I may add that the breakwith Yugoslavia in 1948 occurred overTito's attempt to promote the idea ofaDanubian federation. I recall that in thedispute over the East European questionone of the objections Ernest Mandel raisedto designatingthe.se states as deformed-workers states was the impossibility ofdeveloping a planned economy on the basisof the Balkanized states in EasternEurope. He contended it was too narrowa base for a planned economy and withouta planned economy there can be no genuinenationalization of the basic means ofproduction.

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Mandel later changed his position, buthe had a certain point. Tito saw this prob-lem too and tried to resolve it by pro-moting a Balkan federation, that is afederation of Balkan states which wouldbegin to plan on a Balkan-wide basis, tobegin building a planned economy on aBalkan-wide scale which would be a moreadequate basis for building a "socialist"society. But Stalin viewed this move asa direct threat to the domination of theSoviet bureaucracy and so he launched abig offensive against the Yugoslavs.Whereas previously Tito had been consider~da staunch ally, he was now metamor-phosed into Titothe traitor, Tito thescoundrel, Tito the fiend. Stalin triedto destroy Tito, but did not succeed.

At the root of this schism in theSoviet Bloc was this concept of build;..ing socialism in a single country~

After the 23rd Congress of the RussianCommunist Party the Stalinists announcedthat ".socialismhad·already been complet-ely establishedand·the80viet·Unionwas now in the transition period fromsocialism .to communism. ". And, if youplease, "in a single country.".

Economic planning such as is done inthe Soviet Bloc is done primarily on thebasis of favoring the Soviet Union againstthe other workers states. Division oflabor,a problem that arises when social-ized production is conducted on an ex-tended scale, is mutilated by the Sovietbureaucracy to its own advantage. Thatwas what the Rumanians revolted against.In the division of labor in this systemof so-called "socialist states," Rumania

was assigned to developing agriculturalproducts, primarily minerals and oil, andthey revolted. They, too, consider Rumaniais rotten ripe for·".socialism in a singlecountry."

So polycentrism, as it has.developedin those areas in whichptalipist partieshave taken state power, can be traceddirectly back to Stalin'stheor,y ofbuilding socialism ina single country.Instead of structurally aasimilating thestates of Eastern Europe within the sys-tem of Soviet Socialist Repu~lics, theywere kept on the outside,thereby plantingthe seeds of divisionwhich'al."ebound togrow more acute as time goes 0:11."

With China, in my opinion, 'it

the sa.'Ile centrism" as that represented by"Friedrich Adler & Co. "but "based on theideological and material resources of astate that emerged from the October Revo-lution. "

What Comrade Pierre bad in mind, Isuppose, wal" not this foreword, in whichthe term "Stalinist centrism" :i.s used, .but the subsequent'i:tem in the French ed1-tion, a letter wri~ten by Trotsky from.Alma Ata in 1928, which actually const1-tutes an intrOduction to the main docu-ment in the 'book,t~€ f'a:nO:.1S ~criticismJfthe Draft Program:cof' theComInunist Inter-national. In thcJEnglish edition, thisletter, entitled- "W'"Ll8.t Now?" follows t.nemain document. 'It is here that Trotskyuses the tersn, ffbureaucratic centrism."

What djj(};: !l!rotsk,y mean by thisterm? To begin with, I don't think heidentified it with zigzaggi~,althoughzigzagging laooe of' its characteristics.For example,Trotsky speaks elsewhere inThe Third International af'terI:ienin ofthe If inevitable Leftward zigzagS" of theChinese botlrgeoisie. II. Evidently "b·.lreau-cratic centrism" -- which certainly doesnot :t'ef'er to any bourgeoisie --has adeeper content t~ mere oscillations inpolicy.

CO!lU'adePeng made what I thoughtwas an ef'f'ective rebuttal .onthis point.As he put it, we no longer stand in tneperiod of' 1927-28. The sit.;uation ,haschanged. As a ~tter of' fact, Trotsky, andthe whole Lef't Opposition internationally,dropped the use -0£ the texm ~'bureaucraticcentrism" 'in reference to the ruli.:nggro-ap in the Soviet Union when the orien-tationof c·alling fOX' a political revolu-tion was adopted in 1933. Trotslq:1n1927and 1928 had not yet reached thep:as'1tionthat a hardened ,burea'~cratic caste hadcrystallized O'..1t in the SovietUni.cm'which could be removed from poweroIllythrou~ a political revolution. "ComradePierre Frank, of course, understanD,'ttLisvery well," COJDrade" Penp; said, "but ,. tb,enhe did n()te~+,aiIl"it." '

, ..qomt-ade P"ng;..maintained that ,i~' "one believes ~~~~:is an analogy betwe~~the si~ation iIf:cD.iria: today and the situ-ation in the Sovi'4t., Union in 1927-28,then it isineonsist~ntt.ocall for a po-liticaIrevolQ.tion in China.

On the other hand; ife yOQ. call fora politi~al ,revol\itiou:'iJ,l China, then 1;0be consIstent. in·draWUlg,an.analogy with

14 the Sovte't:U:nion~ yooJJ. mu.s"t,ss.Y that the~: situation, in Chi.na:tio4lQl ~s cOlllparable to~. the situation.:in ''the Soy~1;Union after!~. 19~~, or 'af'ter it bec.8llle-olearly estab-\ lished..t~t abarde:!led bureaucratic caste''',f"had seizede,a. Ji,on0polt' at power ~d consol-:" idatediiVS.2PQeition so'ti:rml;r that it1c~!:eOUld1)e'tr_oVedon~ b~'-,a politicalrevo-'cilution..r;;CJ1 . -

For myself, I would like to ada afew observations on Trotsky's use of' theterm "bureaucratic centrism." In 1927-28he distinguished between the Right, whichwas intertwined with the growing bour-geois tendency observable in the SovietUnio~ at the time, the Lef't, representedby the Left Opposition, which was c~r:yingon the tradition and program of Len1n1sm,and the Center, the key figure of' whichwas Stalin. Trotsky's terminology, as wellas his platform at the time, was shapedby the view that the Communist party inthe Soviet Union and the Comintern on aworld scale ca~ld still be ref'ormed. Thusin the letter "What Now?" -- which I as-sume Comrade Pierre was ref'erring to --Trotsky states the position of the LeftOpposition as follows:

"In any case, the Opposition, byvirtue of its views and tendencies, mustdo all in its power to see that the pres-ent zigzag is extended into a seriousturn 'onto the Leninist road. Such an out-come would be the healthiest one, that isto say,involving the least convulsionsfor the party and the cictatorshipoi L:'frot-sky means the dictatorship of the prole-tariat.J This would be the road of a P£2.-found p~ ~t;~,. the indisp'ensablepromise _tpremise'! ~ of ~he ,refo.rm

the "Therm:idoreans can celebrate, approxi-mately, the tenth birthday of thei!' vic-tory." The present political regime int~e TfSSR, he ~aid, is "the regime of 'So-v~et (or antJ.-Sovie1f) Bonapart ism, \closer in type to the Empire than theConsulate."

Trotsky did not say in his articlewhether he cons idered it to have been a.nerror to use the term "bureaucratic cen-trism"in the earlier period. He was con-cerned only about correcting the broadanalogy with the Fr'3n~h revolution; andhe said that wbatever adjustments thiscorrection might call for, it did not al-ter the correctness of the program andpolicies which the Left Opposition hadfought for. These had been vindicated com-pletely by events.

Ve note that by 1929, in his fore-word to The Third InternatiOnlUafterLenin, he used the term 'ifffialinfStcen-trism" instead of "bureaucratic centrism "and distinguisl:led "S'ta1.inist centrism" a~a speC?if'i~ v~ie~ otcen-tr::lism, observingthat J.n dJ.StJ.ncrhon frcml·· centrism in gen-eral, as hitherto seen in the workers move-ment, it had at its ,dispOSal the ideologi-cal and Dlaterialreso~esof the statethat had eme~d ..~~. tile OCtober Revolu-tion. By 1935 he hadedoptedthe term"Soviet Bonapartis:D.. II

Whatever wetaB3'Sa.T today aboutthe use of the te1'a '~'bureaucratic cen-trism" in the blt:e::"tw'enties, it is clearthat the shift to the term· "Stalinist cen-trism" and then "bureaucratic absolutism"or "Soviet Bonapartism" did not signifythat the Trotskyist mO'V9tl1.ent had taken theview that the Kremlin cot/ldno longer fol;"low a zigzag course. D'.n'ing his pact withHitler, Stalin ordered a sharp left turnfor the Communist parties in the Alliedc01~tries. Again in the period~ollowingYorld Yar II, Stalin finally shifted farenough to the left in Eastern Europe totopple a number ~f c~1talllJt.state-s.

Allot this has an i.Dq)ortant bear-ing on oar appreciation of the cO'.lrse ofthe Chinese revolution, but I will leElvethat for another time.

In relation to the question ofusing the label "b'.ll'e-a:.lcratic centrism"to designate the bureaucracy in China,Comrade Livio Maita:::l made the point, if Iunderstood the translator correctly andthe .translatorwastranslating and not be-traying Livi.o, tha:tthe phrase "harde:ned,crystallized caste,ris" not a scientificdesignation. The te:a.n "bureaucracy" ismeaningfut but the term "hardened, crys-tallized caste" does not signify anythingin a scientific sense. I think this re-lates to Comrade Livio's view that theter:n "Stalinism" should be reserved forthe specific period of the worst excessesunder Stalin in the middle thirties, aview I do not at all agree with.

As ide from that, we have used tineterm "hardened caste" and similar tet'JDSto designate the development of the w.-reaucracy to s~ch a point in a workersstate that it completely displaces prole-tarian democracy and establishes its ownrule. In the political arena, we haverecognized .this q~alitative differencefrom "bureaucratism" in gen.eral by call-ing for apolitical revolution.

The attitude of the bureaucracytow~d political power -- towards pro~etarJ.aD democracy -- is a certain indica-tor of the degree to which a caste hasbeen formed. If it succeeds in eliminat-ing proletarian democracy, refusing themasses any PQSsibility lio expresstnem-selves; if it prevents the formation ofindependent proletarian tendenQles andpolitical parties, you ca.:lbe certainthat it has special reasons for this andthat it understands these reasons quitewell. The pointo:t qualitative change inthe crystallizat1.onof this peculiar for-mation is registered by its s~ccess inmonopolizing sta,te power, which it thenuses to consolidate and defenaits spec-ial privilegesa.t the expense o:r the in-terests of the lIlasses and th~ revolution.

In comparing the bureacracies inChina and the Soviet Uniao. from thisstandpoint, I woald say that differencesbetween the two can be recogni~ed. The'Soviet bureaucracy is older, more hard-ened, more entrenched ,with the grecaterwealth and resources of an advancedln-dustrial power at its command, able toafford. a more crass displlq' of oppOrtunism.In other words, a mmber of.d1fferences inquantity or degreeca:l be found - andthese· are important._but·qualitativelythe two formatio:!1S are pretty ·iIlueh the 'same. In both 1nstances" weare 'compelledto call fora poli:tical· revolution and bythat fa