The “open letter” defends, in an incoherent way, moreover, the notion of the state of the whole people adopted at the 22nd Congress of the C.P.S.U.
For a Marxist-Leninist, this concept is untenable. Marx, Engels, and Lenin made a profound analysis of what the state is: This concerns the basic concepts of Marxism-Leninism.
In State and Revolution Lenin recalled that Marx had already “ridiculed all the nonsense about ’the people’s state.’” He quoted the judgement made by Marx in The Critique of the Gotha Programme:
“Between capitalist society and communist society comes a period of revolutionary change from the first to the second. Corresponding with this is a period of political transition during which the state cannot but be the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.”
Now no one maintains that there is a communist society in the Soviet Union. To declare, as does the “open letter,” “that there is no need for proletarian dictatorship” is false and anti-Marxist-Leninist.
The “open letter” interprets Marx in its own way in the following manner: “But saying this Marx had in mind communism as a whole, as a single socio-economic formation (of which socialism is the first stage). ...”
No, Marx and Lenin do not need “interpretation” of this kind. Their teachings on the state, based on a scientific analysis, are perfectly clear and explicit in their works.
“The replacement of the bourgeois by the proletarian state is impossible without a violent revolution. The abolition of the proletarian state, i.e., of all states, is only possible through ’withering away.’” (Lenin: State and Revolution.)
In The Question of Housing Engels laid down the “necessity for political action and dictatorship by the proletariat as a transitional stage to the abolition of classes and, with them, of the state.”
There is only one possible form of state in the period between the seizure of power by the working class and communist society, which implies the “extinction” of the state and the “withering away” of the state: the proletarian state. This is the proletariat organized as the ruling class and ensuring its political supremacy.
“The withering away refers to what is left of the proletarian state after the socialist revolution.” (Lenin: State and Revolution.)
In fact “the people’s state” or “the state of the whole people” as Khrushchov’s group call it is opposed to the conception of the proletarian state and proletarian dictatorship and is, to put it clearly, the liquidation of the power of “the proletariat organized as the ruling class.” This means imperiling socialist achievements.
“Only those who have understood that the dictatorship of one class is necessary, not only in all class societies, not only for the proletariat when it will have overthrown the bourgeoisie, but also for the entire historical period which separates capitalism from ’the classless society’ of communism, have assimilated the essence of Marx’s teaching on the state. . . .
“The transition from capitalism to communism will clearly and inevitably produce a great number and a great variety of political forms but they are bound to be in essence the proletarian dictatorship.” (Lenin: State and Revolution.)
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Let us also point out that in the Soviet Union all the means of production are not yet the property of all the people: it is therefore not a case of a full-blown socialist society.
The “open letter” itself acknowledges the existence of classes in the Soviet Union. About a third of the working population works on the basis of the kolkhoz type of ownership which is “group ownership.” This is not yet the common ownership of the means of production or ownership by all the people of which Lenin spoke.
The private plot of land plays an important economic role just as the “kolkhoz market” forms a non-socialist means of exchange of goods between town and countryside.
Moreover, the means of production belonging to the “machine and tractor stations” have been entrusted to the kolkhozes, thus passing from the level of ownership by all the people to that of “group ownership.” This is a case of a step backwards under the pressure of non-proletarian social forces.
The “open letter” is ironic about “idlers,” “hooligans,” “embezzlers” and “parasites.”
They are, it says, “survivals of capitalism.” “Survivals” indeed which persist and actually develop 46 years after the victory of the October Revolution.
Is not the existence of these “survivals” proof of the necessity of proletarian dictatorship?
The emergence of degenerate elements, as has occurred in considerable numbers in the Soviet Union in the past few years, can only be a reflection of a larger social process resulting from bourgeois influence, from a petty-bourgeois environment, and from the corruption practised by it, particularly among state officials.
Moreover, the existence of capitalism in the world, the threats, the plots and the attempts at penetration by the imperialists are not just myths.
Proletarian dictatorship is also necessary in order to be able to lead the whole people to a classless society and to guide the peasantry, including the peasantry in the kolkhozes, and non-proletarian strata in developing a socialist economy.
To reject this concept is opportunism – capitulation before non-proletarian ideology and the threat of degeneration.
Finally, the socialist revolution in each country is an integral part of the world revolution. Only proletarian dictatorship can entirely guarantee this. That is to say that each socialist country must establish and strictly maintain a socialist foreign policy consisting principally in mutual assistance with other socialist countries, support to the revolutionary movement of the working class throughout the world, and support to the national-liberation movements.
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The wish expressed by the Khrushchov group to abolish proletarian dictatorship, and also its use of bourgeois democratic phraseology and terminology, are the results of the ideology and the actions of non-proletarian strata and the peasantry on the one hand, and capitulation under imperialist pressure on the other.
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It is extremely important to show the similarity between the revisionist ideas of the Khrushchov group with regard to socialist revolution in the U.S.S.R., the role of the Communist Party and proletarian dictatorship and the anti-Marxist-Leninist ideas which have been developed by Khrushchov’s spokesmen in the capitalist countries.
In Belgium the revisionists of the Political Bureau deny, in effect, the class nature of the state, “celebrating the beauties of bourgeois democracy” and of bourgeois parliamentarianism.
The comrades who wanted the constitution of the Belgian Communist Party to proclaim the necessity of proletarian dictatorship for bringing about socialist revolution and wanted the idea of the Communist Party as the vanguard of the working class with communism as its final goal to be upheld in it, have been declared anti-Party.
The Khrushchov group does likewise in the “open letter.” There can be no argument about the link between the revisionism of the Khrushchov group and the revisionism of the Political Bureau of the Belgian Communist Party.