Workers World, Vol. 3 No. 20
Communists throughout the world are torn between their deep loyalty to the Soviet Union and their doubts about the political policy of its present leaders, particularly in relation to China.
The Soviet Union, ever since the October Revolution, has served as a beacon light for the working class and the oppressed all over the world. In recent years, its magnificent achievements in the field of science and technology have literally staggered the imagination of mankind. Its military prowess, based on solid achievements in socialist construction, is the most formidable barrier to an imperialist war, even if in the last analysis the USSR cannot prevent such a war.
Many Latin American workers justifiably ask themselves: “What would have happened to Cuba if the USSR had not extended timely help and military protection?” The very idea that the Soviet Union could become militarily so strong that it dared challenge Yankee imperialism right in its “own” backyard was absolutely unthinkable just a bare few years ago.
And the fact that the USSR did come to the aid of Cuba reaffirmed its fundamentally revolutionary socialist structure. By that one act alone, the USSR dealt one of the severest blows to U.S. imperialism and practically changed the outlook of millions of people throughout the world who had looked upon the Yankee imperialists as invincible.
What would the world look like if the mad adventurers in the Pentagon were able to suddenly wipe the USSR off the face of the earth? What would the prospects for socialism look like then? What would happen to the billion-fold mass of the Asian, African and Latin American people under circumstances where the imperialists remained armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons, as they are now, and the Soviet Union was no longer in existence – if reduced to ashes from a nuclear missile attack by the West?
That is why class-conscious workers throughout the world have always wished for and supported every effort on the part of the USSR to arm itself, and they have always fought against the arming of the imperialist bourgeoisie.
Those who turn away from the Soviet Union in horror because of its resumption of nuclear testing are in reality consciously or unconsciously choosing imperialist domination rather than world socialism – or they fail to understand the grim reality of today’s world. They fail to see that its chief feature is the relentless struggle between two diametrically opposed social systems; that one is developing in the direction of socialism, the other dragging humanity down into the abyss of economic stagnation, colonial strangulation and imperialist war.
The loyalty of the world working class to the Soviet Union is not based on maudlin petty bourgeois sentimentality, but on proletarian internationalism, that is, on the basis of its own material class needs in the interest of its own liberation. That’s the only true proletarian internationalism there is. This has nothing in common with petty bourgeois sentimentality or the blind fealty to a “foreign power” which is the police agent’s view of proletarian internationalism.
It is precisely in the interest of proletarian internationalism – i.e., the defense of the socialist interests of the world working class – and not in any love for abstract truth, in and of itself, that there must be a critical examination of the proceedings of the 22nd Congress.
The axis upon which the fundamental debate rotates is the relationship of the Soviet leadership to the Chinese CP (of course, to all other CPs too). When one considers the gravity of the East-West struggle, and the acuteness of the war danger, a revolutionist cannot but hope that at the end of all the Congress deliberations there will emerge a unified front of all the socialist countries in the face of the imperialist aggressor.
We said last December, analyzing the Moscow Conference of 81 Communist parties:
“The world bourgeoisie had been looking hopefully for a split between China and the Soviet Union. But they were sadly disappointed.
“If the Manifesto issued at the end of the Conference can be regarded as revealing anything new, it might perhaps lie in the fact that it has evinced a determination on the part both of China and the Soviet Union to avoid a drastic break. That is all to the good.”
We also went on to explain that “the capitalist press throughout the world has misrepresented from the very beginning the real nature of the differences. They have made it appear that the Chinese CP is for war, whereas the Soviet leadership opposes it, and advocates a course whereby Communism will triumph simply by peaceful competition between the two antagonistic social systems.
“The truth, of course, is that neither China nor the Soviet Union have any reason whatever to be for war, as the capitalists know very well.
“The real point of difference is the divergent attitudes towards imperialism. The Chinese have made it amply clear in innumerable authoritative articles in their official press, and more importantly by their deeds, that they are far more irreconcilable towards imperialism than is the present leading stratum in the Soviet Union.”
Those who favor the point of view advanced by Khrushchev and his supporters maintain that it is easy for China to be more militant only because China can rely on the shield of Soviet rockets and other military and technical support. They question whether this militancy would not evaporate once it was divorced from the Soviet alliance.
“It is easy to talk tough,” they maintain, “as long as the Soviet Union bears the brunt of military defense of the whole socialist camp.”
They point out that even in Laos, it is the USSR which has the primary responsibility for military equipment and material and ultimately for all the grave risks involved in the Southeast Asia liberation struggle.
Furthermore, if the ideological dispute were to degenerate into a split between the two states, is it not likely that China will settle down to a form of “national communism” and begin to flirt with imperialist powers on the pattern of Tito? Tito, we must not forget, was also to the left of Stalin before his expulsion.
Finally, it is contended that while the Soviet leadership and Khrushchev in particular, give the appearance of being more conciliatory towards imperialism, on the basis of the public pronouncements which he is obligated to make in a very tense international situation, his actions nevertheless show him to be far less of a conciliator than he is painted up to be by his leftist critics.
Khrushchev’s supporters point to the action of August 13th which successfully sealed off East Berlin, and to all intents and purposes scored a major victory for the socialist camp and the German Democratic Republic in particular. The mere effort to accomplish this modest victory placed the Soviet Union in the greatest military danger. Isn’t this an example of real proletarian internationalism?
Some or even all of the contentions above may prove ultimately to be valid. Only time can tell. However, there are certain absolutely incontestable facts in relation to China for which the Soviet leadership bears full responsibility.
When the Chinese People’s Republic was finally established, one of its most urgent needs was to gain legal recognition in the world community and thereby hamper, if not altogether stop, the economic blockade established by the U.S.
Accordingly, the Soviet UN representative in 1949 demanded the immediate seating of Communist China and the ouster of the Chiang Kai Shek clique.
The UN’s failure to accede to this demand prompted the USSR to boycott the UN with the definite implication that it would never return unless Communist China was seated. But subsequently, the Soviet leadership retreated from this position and returned to the UN. In Chinese eyes, this could scarcely be justified. It helped to deepen the isolation of China and to intensify its economic problems at home.
When the time ripened for a diplomatic confrontation between the East and the West, Khrushchev arrogated to himself the position of sole representative of the socialist camp. To a revolutionary government representing a quarter of humanity, this was a shabby disregard of proletarian internationalism. This attitude was especially noticeable on the occasion of the Camp David meeting with Eisenhower and the Paris Summit Conference, both of which, incidentally, proved to be fiascos so far as gains for the socialist countries were concerned – as the Chinese predicted.
In agreeing to meet with the West without China, Khrushchev was not only dealing an affront to the leaders of a great revolution, he was also lending implicit support to the exclusion of a great country from the councils of the world. It is not possible that the Chinese CP leaders regard it in any other light.
In presenting his report to the 22nd Congress, Khrushchev could not help bearing all this in mind. The Congress, which opened in a mood of tremendous optimism, soon took on a somber, if not ugly, appearance when Khrushchev opened his public attack on the Albanian leadership. None but the most credulous could possibly believe that the attack was not also directed against the Chinses and possibly other quarters.
He was therefore courting a wide-open split at a time when it was least of all desirable from the point of view of the acute war danger and the unity of the socialist states.
Assuming, but not entirely conceding, that the Albanian leadership is guilty of all the sins he accuses them of, his thoroughly undemocratic method of treating the matter was a clear-cut case where the “cure” was positively worse than the disease.
And is it really true that the “cult of personality” is the real basis for the attack on the Albanians? If so, it should be the responsibility of the Albanians themselves to deal with their own internal problems.
And if the political struggle causes a rupture between the two most powerful socialist states as the imperialists are hoping, the onus of the split will be completely on the side of Khrushchev and the present leaders of the Soviet CP.
For our part, as revolutionists, we are on the side of China, which has put up the most resolute and consistent struggle against imperialism.
But given the character of the period in which we live and the imminence of the war danger, revolutionists can only hope that whatever the outcome of the political struggle, there will be no rupture in the relationship between the socialist states, and that on the contrary, there will be forged a revolutionary united front of the socialist states, the colonial peoples, and the working class of the world, in the interest of victory in the struggle against world imperialism.
Last updated: 11 May 2026