(Different from or supplementary to the document “From a tendency to a Party,” prepared for the Sept. 1972 WWP conference)
(Transcribed from hard copy in the possession of Melinda Butterfield)
Section I
It is utterly impossible to understand the tremendous developments that have taken place in the world in the very recent period unless we first take into consideration the vast and profound changes in fundamental class relationships that issued from the great October socialist revolution and spread to an area which encompasses at least a third of the world’s population.
Marxism developed from a theory to an incontestable fact with the victory of the October Revolution in Russia and has since then become confirmed again and again by other positive achievements of the working class and oppressed people in China, in Cuba, In Vietnam, in Korea, and in Eastern Europe.
Marxism has also unfortunately been confirmed in a negative way by the tragic experiences of the German proletariat and the consequent rise of Hitler and Mussolini as well as the defeat of the Spanish working class which resulted in the victory of Franco’s fascist dictatorship, which after 40 years is still in power. The disarming of the Italian and French proletariat at the end of the Second World War and the dissolution of their military organizations is still another example. This helped to stabilize the western capitalist world. In more recent years, the defeat of the great general strike of the French proletariat in 1968 illustrates the same negative confirmation of Marxism. Similarly, the crushing of the Palestinian liberation struggle, the destruction of the revolutionary tendency in the Sudan, and the counterrevolution in Indonesia are examples in the underdeveloped countries of the world. In a large measure it is the fatal policy of the worldwide CPs which are responsible for these defeats. Bourgeois critics of Marxism attribute these defeats to the general failure of Marxism as a scientific doctrine, when in reality it is the failure to apply revolutionary Marxist-Leninist tactics and strategy.
Two Basic Tendencies
Our Party cannot develop much further unless we take into consideration not only the recent worldwide experiences of the proletariat and oppressed people but also, and most importantly, the two basic political tendencies which arose in the Soviet Union immediately after the death of Lenin. These two tendencies were respectively headed on the one hand by Stalin, and on the other by Trotsky.
It is almost half a century since the death of Lenin and the inception of the great conflict between Stalin and Trotsky. The conflict developed over the issues of socialism in one country, promotion and encouragement of the world revolution, relations between capitalist states and socialist states, attitude toward the national liberation movement, and in particular the communist approach to the ruling classes in colonial and semi-colonial countries.
Whether one admits it or not, Trotsky’s views on these issues, although half a century old, and after such vast and extensive transformations in the character of the world situation, are still the best clue to an understanding of contemporary society. It is also important, it is indeed indispensable, for our Party membership especially to know the historical origins of our Party and the issues which separated us from the SWP.
Historical Origins of Workers World Party
These issues ranged all the way from different estimates of the class character of the great Chinese revolution, unconditional defense of the USSR, the other socialist countries and the liberation movements of the world, attitude toward the witchhunt, and a whole series of additional secondary political issues. All of them, however, reduce themselves to one basic fundamental issue: the SWP’s criticism of developments of the Soviet Union and People’s China and the international communist movement were not genuine communist criticism, but bourgeois criticism, and was a break with the fundamental class approach of Trotsky’s criticism of Stalin’s course in the political struggle.
It could not be accidental that on the outbreak of the Korean War in June of 1950, the SWP took the position that the struggle was between two puppet states in which the world proletariat had no fundamental interest, nor should it encourage, support or champion the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea the way we, for example, are today championing the victory of the NLF and the DRV.
The SWP’s subsequent about face on the Korean War was due to our pressure as a political tendency within the SWP. When they changed their position on the Korean War later, it was of a purely literary character. They exploited every regressive development in the Soviet Union so much, that their attacks bordered perilously close to anti-communism. Their attitude reflected the wild and unrestrained red-baiting which was rampant throughout the whole country at the time, and was really a capitulation by the SWP to bourgeois pressure. Their inability to withstand this pressure doomed them to degenerate into a social democratic leftist organization.
It should be added that the entire progressive movement at the time, which numbered in the millions, disintegrated precisely because the CP also capitulated to the witchhunt. Their capitulation differed in form from that of the SWP’s. Whereas the SWP caved in on the red-baiting issue and stepped up its so-called anti-Stalin campaign, the CP so moderated its entire program that it virtually surrendered every form of struggle in the name of “peace” or “peaceful coexistence.” In addition, the CP leadership even feared the breakaway from support of the Democratic Party when a third party led by Henry Wallace took the initiative to fight in a limited way the witchhunt and the cold war which had already been in full swing.
The origin of the SWP’s capitulation, and to some extent that of the CP’s as well, was in the erroneous estimate made of the new world situation which came on the heels of the termination of the Second World War. Heartened by the tremendous wave of post-war great strikes that rocked the country from one end to another, the SWP drew the conclusion that a genuine revolutionary situation was in the offing in the United States. In fact, the principal document for its 1946 convention was entitled “The Coming American Revolution.”
The optimism was wholly unwarranted and disoriented the membership. The failure to have a correct appraisal on the international situation was at the core of the mistake. What was developing in the world was a tremendous offensive of U.S. imperialism, first on the domestic front to crush all progressive political opposition, and secondly to launch a worldwide offensive in the name of anti-communism to crush the rising revolutionary movements and the liberation struggles, and above all to try to provoke the Soviet Union and China into a war. The aggression against Korea was a dramatic manifestation of the new posture of U.S. imperialism and delineated the character of the world struggle between imperialism headed by the U.S. and the socialist camp, which at the time was headed by the USSR and China.
Fail to Anticipate Witchhunt
The failure to anticipate the witchhunt, and later to recognize when it was already in progress, was a fundamental turning point in the SWP’s conversion into a social democratic party.
Again, years later, when the SWP modified its erroneous position on China, it was merely a change in nomenclature and not a change in substance. This becomes especially clear when one considers the enormous political influence the victory of the Chinese Revolution had and what deep meaning it imparted to the worldwide struggle of the oppressed everywhere. The SWP has never really recognized the fact that a genuine socialist revolution took place in China. Nor do we ever read any really favorable pro-China reports in the SWP press. Their condemnation of the Cultural Revolution was in reality an echo of the liberal bourgeois position. In our view the Cultural Revolution was a monumental turning point which saved the Chinese Revolution from bourgeois restoration.
Just as fundamental were our differences with them on the attitude toward the Soviet state. Their attacks in their press had for many years been of a thoroughly bourgeois character. Every literate person in the West knows that there is a great deal of overpowering political repression in the Soviet Union. And this repression is the product both of Stalin’s policies as well as a combination of domestic and international factors. It arose originally out of capitalist encirclement and the widening gap of economic inequality between the bureaucracy and the mass of the workers and peasants in the Soviet Union. But the SWP utilizes the repressions in the Soviet Union to discredit the Soviet Union as a whole. (Unfortunately, but for entirely different reasons, China has joined in on this issue.)
Democracy – Proletarian or Bourgeois
For instance, it is well known that there is a whole strata of Soviet intellectuals, artists, writers, musicians, and others who are persecuted by the Soviet leadership. It is also well-known that a large majority of them, such as Sakharov, are neo-bourgeois restorationists and lean very strongly towards the western imperialist bourgeoisie and not in the direction of the restoration of Leninist proletarian democracy. The SWP not only defends them against repression, but supports their political views. The neo-restorationists are for western-style bourgeois democracy, which is the framework of a bourgeois economic system. The SWP deliberately confuses the struggle of Trotsky for proletarian democracy with the struggle of these rightist elements for bourgeois democracy.
We of course have always been strongly opposed to the political persecution of these elements. It is our firm conviction, however, that the Soviet Union now has a very strong and firm socialist economic foundation and that no right wing elements in the USSR could possibly pose a great danger to the Soviet state. On the contrary, these elements could easily be defeated in open political struggle without the necessity of any repressive measures which in the present situation can only discredit the Soviet Union.
We are therefore for the restoration of the political rights of every Soviet citizen in and out of the party. The repression which the Soviet bureaucracy visits upon these opposition elements not only is grist to the mill of the imperialist ruling classes in the West, but is bound to enhance their standing in the Soviet Union.
Opposition – Left and Right
Trotsky’s political tendency in the struggle against Stalin was called the Left Opposition. It was an eminently correct designation. The SWP and their international collaborators are encouraging right wing opposition and palming it off as revolutionary in the name of the struggle for civil rights in the Soviet Union. Thus the SWP supported the counterrevolutionary Hungarian uprising of 1956 and characterized it as a proletarian revolution, the kind of revolution which made Wall Street and Washington delirious with happiness. We recognized that it was Soviet mismanagement and the fostering of revisionism in the Eastern European countries which caused the uprising.
In more recent years, there have developed basic differences between us and the SWP, such as their almost complete identification with the liberal bourgeoisie and their subordination to bourgeois liberal politicians in the anti-war movement. Their advocacy of the so-called single-issue in the anti-war movement, which means to divorce the imperialist war from the class struggle, is a complete renunciation of Trotsky’s, and of course Lenin’s, position on war and capitalism in the imperialist epoch. Furthermore, they have turned blatantly and even vociferously into proponents of non-violence, covering themselves now and then with the “that will come later” phrase. In the meantime, they have established a common line with the CP on attitude toward the liberal bourgeoisie, and the main thrust of both organizations consists of a struggle to fight for “the liberal constituency” and relegating the class struggle to a period in the dim, dim future.
If we are to understand our approach to the Soviet Union, China, and the world communist movement, it is most essential for us to know what really were the original differences between Stalin and Trotsky and how much of these differences are valid today.
Trotsky and Stalin
The popular conception of the struggle between Stalin and Trotsky is that Stalin propounded the idea of constructing a complete socialist society in a separate country and that Trotsky opposed it. Stalin, it is said, presented his ideas on the basis of Lenin’s and the Bolshevik Party’s teachings and that Trotsky’s opposition was a deviation of a fundamental character from the Bolshevik point of view and from the general political principles that Lenin stood for.
In reality, the Bolshevik party had a firm, clear and principled position on the impossibility of constructing an independent, fully developed socialist society in one country without enlisting the support of the proletarian revolution in several of the advanced capitalist countries.
Lenin and the Bolsheviks never propounded the idea that there could develop an independent socialist society in the Soviet Union unless there developed sooner or later proletarian revolutions in the advanced capitalist countries. Lenin’s conception was the October revolution was merely one link in the worldwide chain of proletarian revolution and that was the keystone of Lenin’s international program.
Stalin in 1924 – First Edition
As late as April 1924, a bare three months after Lenin’s death, Stalin adhered to the position of Lenin and the Bolshevik party and the impossibility of constructing an independent socialist society. Here is what he said:
“To overthrow the power of the bourgeoisie and establish the power of the proletariat in one country does not mean to guarantee the complete victory of socialism. The chief task of socialism, the organization of socialist production – lies still ahead. Can this task be accomplished? Is it possible to attain the final victory of socialism in one country without the combined efforts of the proletarians of several advanced countries? No, it is not. The efforts of one country are enough for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie. This is what the history of our revolution tells us. For the final victory of socialism, for the organization of socialist production, the efforts of one country, especially a peasant country like Russia, are not enough. For this, we must have the effort of the proletarians of several advanced countries. Such, in general, are the characteristic features of the Leninist theory of the proletarian revolution.”
This quotation is from the first edition of Stalin’s book “Problems of Leninism” but was eliminated in subsequent editions and is no longer available in the United States except in certain libraries which maintain all of the Soviet writings on the subject of the October revolution. (It is quoted in Trotsky’s Appendix Two, page 415, of his monumental “History of the Russian Revolution,” vol. iii.) It was, however, well known in the early twenties, that such was Stalin’s view and that when he revised it and made it party doctrine he was also revising Lenin’s original program.
Stalin’s Early Praise for Trotsky
Stalin also knew very well that Trotsky, along with Lenin, was the leader of the October Revolution, and in particular of the October insurrection. For instance, on November 6, 1918, in an article in Pravda, which was reprinted in a collection of articles and speeches entitled “The October Revolution” by Stalin and printed in the United States in editions as late as 1934 (International Publishers) under that title, Stalin made the following statement regarding Trotsky: “All practical work in connection with the organization of the uprising was under the immediate direction of Comrade Trotsky, the President of the Petrograd Soviet. It can be stated with certainty that the party is indebted primarily and principally to Comrade Trotsky for the rapid going over of the garrison to the side of the Soviet and the efficient manner in which the work of the Military Revolutionary Committee was organized. The principal assistants of Comrade Trotsky were Comrades Antonov and Podvoisky.”
Naturally this article, along with many others by other Soviet writers during and even after Lenin’s death which correctly depict Trotsky’s role as Lenin’s principal co-worker during the revolution and during the period of civil war, are now either completely eliminated, distorted or falsified.
The imperialist bourgeoisie hates the USSR because it is the first country were a proletarian revolution succeeded and where the socialist foundations still remain. They have made Stalin the target of their attacks precisely because he and his ruling group constituted the sole political tendency representing the USSR. Many communists and progressives were easily drawn to the defense of Stalin because of the vicious attacks by the bourgeoisie. This engendered blindness to the independent performance of Stalin as a leader of the Soviet Union and the international communist movement.
Few indeed are the people in the international communist movement who remember or care to remember that during the Stalin-Trotsky debate between 1924 and 1927, the bourgeoisie, in their press, made clear they preferred Stalin to Trotsky. “So long as Trotsky remains in the USSR,” Churchill is said to have remarked, “Russia will not move away from its vaunted objective of world revolution.”
When Trotsky was exiled in 1927, the New York Times, in an editorial, gave backhanded support to his ouster and expressed hope that the Soviet new ruling group would become “realistic.” When Trotsky was exiled, none of the imperialist countries would allow him in, except for the shortest intervals. Most viciously opposed to Trotsky’s coming to the U.S. to seek asylum was the liberal New York Times. “This famous guest,” said the Times, “should be kept out of this country.” In contrast, it should be noted, the Times has warmly welcomed all the counterrevolutionaries, including Stalin’s daughter, into the U.S.
The opposition to Stalin in this country has been mainly from the right and it is easy to fall into this kind of trap, particularly during periods of violent anti-communist campaigns. Our Party has steadfastly and consistently steered clear of this, has supported the Soviet Union position wherever and whenever the Soviet leadership took a progressive position, and has always measured its revolutionary communist criticism of the Soviet leadership in the light of prevailing conditions in this country and the level of political development of the workers, particularly those advanced elements who are sympathetic to communism.
Khrushchev’s Attack on Stalin
Khrushchev’s denunciation of Stalin was strictly from the right. In his indictment of Stalin, in which he revealed many of the crimes that Stalin had committed, Khrushchev’s objective role was basically to hasten the pace of accommodation with the West and to strengthen material incentives and widen the inequalities economically in Soviet society. Khrushchev rehabilitated right wing opponents of Stalin but continued the defamation of the revolutionary Left Opposition to Stalin, namely Trotsky and his collaborators.
In the main, however, Khrushchev opened the door to all the neo-restorationist elements which sparked the uprisings in Eastern Europe and culminated in the Hungarian counterrevolution. Brezhnev has not been able to arrest this process nor can any of the Soviet present leaders really do so. It will take new leaders who do not have a past association with either Stalin, Khrushchev or Brezhnev to arrest the regressive trends in the Soviet Union.
CCP Voted for Khrushchev’s Report
Had the Chinese CP leaders taken advantage of the great historical moment when Khrushchev made his infamous denunciation of Stalin (and passed it on to the imperialist powers, who then used it to spring it as a surprise on the international communist movement with a view to crushing it), they might today enjoy the full confidence of the Soviet workers and the world movement. Had they done it, of course, in a timely and in a revolutionary manner. Their silence, however, and moreover, their acquiescence at the time, deprived them of leverage politically with the Soviet workers and with the rest of the movement.
Finally, by voting for Khrushchev’s report to the 20th Congress of the Soviet CP, which contained the indictment of Stalin on a right wing basis, further deprived the CCP leadership of a real opportunity to play a revolutionary role.
When they finally commenced their polemic against Khrushchev, it was too late. Much water had gone over the dam. The Khrushchevite version of revisionism had taken firm hold and the Soviet proletariat as a whole, confused to a large extent by the complex development, retreated to political apathy. It is no wonder that so many foreign observers of the USSR have noted a distinct trend among the Soviet citizens to steer clear of politics and to generally go along with whatever current political group is in authority.
Nevertheless, the Soviet Union has made tremendous economic strides, precisely because it has a socialist economic foundation, i.e., a centrally planned economy, public ownership of the means of production and the absence of a private property possessing class. The standard of living in the Soviet Union has dramatically increased and has achieved social and economic gains of a permanent character which is the envy of workers in capitalist countries where economic chaos and cyclical depressions, as well as imperialist war and political reaction, put in jeopardy any gains made by the workers. No matter how one views the regressive character of the Soviet bureaucracy and their expropriation of the political rights of the Soviet working class, no one can contest that tremendous economic and industrial progress made by the USSR is the result of the new social system which issued from a great proletarian revolution.
It should be added that one of the truly revolutionary contributions made by the leadership of the Chinese CP was that they exposed the fact which we always knew but which was denied in the international communist movement, that social classes in the Soviet Union had really not been abolished, that economic inequality and material incentives introduced by Stalin sharpened class antagonisms in the Soviet Union rather than eliminated them, and that bourgeois norms of distribution were strengthened rather than weakened in the Soviet Union.
CCP View of Soviet Analyzed
Where the difference lies between our interpretation of the nature of the Soviet development since the death of Lenin and that of the CCP is that the Chinese CP leadership blames it all on “Khrushchev and his Clique,” whereas we see it as a profound social development having deep social causes long before Khrushchev took over. The CCP interpretation is that Khrushchev’s rise to power is the result of pure conspiracy of certain leaders. It doesn’t explain why these leaders who had been loyal followers of Stalin suddenly all turned traitors, nor does it explain why the mass of the people, the millionfold tempered proletariat of the USSR, which had withstood so many trials and tribulations and defeated the Hitlerite invasion, did not rise up against Khrushchev when he denounced Stalin.
The CCP leadership have given no sound historical explanation at all for Khrushchev’s rise.
Furthermore, we say it is possible for a political figure or a small political group to momentarily seize the reins of power. This has frequently happened in the history of bourgeois society and in preceding social systems. Whenever the social system is in crisis, coups d’état or palace revolutions are on the order of the day. These are no more than superficial changes in the personnel which administers the state of the possessing classes. They do not vitally affect the broad interests of the masses and leave class relations intact.
But a fundamental change, such as the transfer of power from one class to another, which is what the Chinese CP claims has happened in the USSR, cannot be made by a mere conspiracy or palace revolution. They have to be fought out to the end. The formation of a social grouping like the Soviet bureaucracy which is privileged by its very nature and divorced from the mass of the population, took on flesh and blood when Stalin introduced material incentives on an enormous scale during his industrialization and collectivization drives. The amassing of privileges and emoluments impelled the bureaucracy to abolish the democratic rights of the masses so as to make them powerless to challenge the bureaucracy, precisely because of the privileges they enjoy.
Revisionism Began with Stalin
Stalin proclaimed that socialism had been established in the Soviet Union as early as 1934 and that classes were virtually abolished in the Soviet Union in 1936. To maintain the deception of the masses and to protect the privileges of the bureaucracy, a reign of terror was necessary, entailing purges and frame-ups of such a mass character as to destroy the very possibility of any genuinely revolutionary political opposition developing.
When the Chinese leadership began their polemics against the Soviet bureaucracy, they exposed a great deal of this, but by putting it all at the of Khrushchev and later claiming he and his collaborators had actually restored capitalism in the Soviet Union, they distorted and blurred the class character of the USSR. The USSR is still a socialist or workers’ state and has a socialist foundation by virtue of its planned economy, public ownership of the basic means of production, and the absence of a possessing class.
It was Stalin who introduced revisionism in the Party when he broke with the Party’s principled position on the relationship between the building of socialist construction in the Soviet Union and its relationship to the world proletarian revolution. He was able to be successful in this not merely because of the weariness of the generation of Bolsheviks which had gone through the hard days of imperialist war, insurrection, civil war, and foreign intervention where many of them had been killed.
Also, the Party was obliged to bring back the bourgeois intelligentsia whom they desperately needed to help reconstruct the country, which was in chaos as a result of the civil war and imperialist intervention. They, in turn, formed a reliable conservative bulwark for Stalin’s policy of retreat from the world revolution. Concentrating exclusively on domestic affairs, the bourgeois intelligentsia quickly saw they could play a leading role and crowd out the revolutionary working class elements. This became the order of the day. The proletarian wing of the Party led by Trotsky was even more concerned with the domestic economy, but was not for abandoning the world revolution.
Trotsky again and again explained that the repression alone could not have possibly succeeded in crushing the Leninist wing of the party led by him, but that the failure of the revolutions in the West and the consequent stabilization of the capitalist system in Western Europe, in particular, plus the weariness of the Russian proletariat as a result of famine, civil war, and dislocation, made possible Stalin’s rise and the retreat from Lenin’s communist program.
SWP Distorts Trotsky – Attacks Stalin from Right
The SWP, following the lead of the liberal bourgeoisie, concentrates its attack against Stalin principally on the basis of his repressive measures, leaving out the significance of divergent class groupings in the Soviet Union who are orienting towards restorationism. They omit Trotsky’s prognosis that the bureaucracy will use repressive measures against bourgeois elements to retain the fundamental socialist foundations on which the bureaucracy, in the final analysis, rests.
Thus, when in 1949 Stalin revalued the ruble in such way as to compel all those who had considerable sums of money accumulated during the Hitlerite war against the USSR to turn it in for new money or lose it, he was in essence using repressive administrative measures to curb the excessive privileges of the bureaucracy which had enriched itself during the war while as many as twenty million lives in the Soviet Union were lost.
It is impossible to prosecute the class struggle in the United States in an effective and revolutionary manner unless we understand how these fundamental differences between Stalin and Trotsky have affected the world movement. It is least of all possible to understand the character of the struggle that the Chinese CP has waged against the Soviet leadership without knowing the elementary points of divergence between Stalin and Trotsky and why they have such tremendous importance for the world movement.
Because Stalin has done everything in his power to destroy physically all of the genuine adherents of Trotsky’s point of view anywhere in the Soviet Union, it is virtually impossible to get a hearing for Trotsky’s real views, especially if they are presented under his name. Moreover, the conversion of the SWP after Trotsky’s death into what amounts to a left social democratic organization has compounded our difficulty and forced us to disassociate ourselves from any of the organizations who call themselves Trotskyist, most of whom pursue, in a general way, the social democratic politics of the SWP.
We have consistently adhered to Lenin’s and Trotsky’s principled positions, although we have not politically declared ourselves, for a considerable period, as revolutionary proponents of his theoretical and political position. This has enabled us to reach people with our program which we otherwise would not have been able to do and enabled us to maintain contact with revolutionary liberation movements and more effectively support them, such as the Vietnamese, Koreans, Cubans and others as well.
Trotsky’s Works Indispensable
Nevertheless, as far as the Party is concerned, it has become more urgent than ever to thoroughly acquaint the broadest possible sections of our friends and particularly the new Party members with the great classic writings of Trotsky. These are absolutely indispensable for the conduct of the class struggle, for a clear understanding of world developments, and the carrying out of Party tasks in the struggle against opponent political tendencies. Just as important is it to understand the position our Party has taken in the last decade which is a continuation of the Marxism in our epoch that both Lenin and Trotsky fought for in their lifetimes.
As we have said, to rehabilitate Trotsky’s standing in the revolutionary movement in the face of the overwhelming opposition from the Soviet Union, China and other socialist countries is virtually impossible. If the matter was entirely up to us, we might leave this task for later generations: “Truth crushed to earth will rise again.” We have continued to pursue Trotsky’s and Lenin’s revolutionary line without necessarily pushing Trotsky name, in order to get a wider hearing for his ideas. It is to be particularly noted, beginning with the late ‘60s, there has been a steady increase in the interest in Trotsky’s works, and his is being more widely read today than at any time in the past several decades.
The needs of the class struggle make it obligatory for us to pursue the task of continuing his theoretical and political conceptions, which also include Lenin’s views of the nature of the present era. Without Trotsky, we would scarcely be in a position to analyze the intricate and complex relationship between the Soviet bureaucracy, the Soviet masses, and the international communist and working class movement.
It would be difficult to know, without a thoroughgoing study of the writings of Trotsky, how Stalin’s pursuit of the dogma of building socialism in a separate country led to the abandonment of the world revolution, the renunciation of revolutionary methods of struggle, and the liberation of oppressed people. We would not know that Brezhnev’s capitulation on the Haiphong mining stems from Stalin’s abandonment of proletarian internationalism.
Turning Point
A turning point in the world situation, and particularly in the relations between the socialist and capitalist world, has been reached. It was climaxed by Nixon’s visit to China and the USSR and the agreements which have been reached by these visits. It puts into sharper focus the trend toward a détente, toward some form of modus vivendi or accommodation between the two antagonistic social systems.
This trend has been in existence for many many years and if as appears likely has been finally consummated, it will have a profound effect on the international working class movement, the world’s oppressed, and the people in the socialist countries as well. It is exceptionally important for us to give this trend the utmost attention, to carefully study it, particularly as it affects the struggle in the United States.
What has been slowly evolving is a new and perhaps different constellation of world social forces than has existed since the termination of the Second World War. Any analysis of the domestic situation from a revolutionary Marxist-Leninist point of view must first of all be based on the character of the world situation. If that is not understood, no revolutionary working class policy can endure. They who turn away from considerations of the international situation either because of its complexity, its setbacks, or out of sheet pessimism, or seek to make the movement an ideological appendage of one or another of the socialist countries, are sure to mislead the movement in this country.
Just as pernicious are also those elements in the movement who say that the international situation is not important. This, too, leads to a narrow, provincial, and therefore distorted view of the obligations of the movement in this country towards the rest of the international proletariat and the world’s oppressed. It ultimately ends in capitulation and acceptance of the internationalism of the bourgeoisie.
Importance of International View
It is of the utmost importance that we take into account that Stalin’s turn to the dogma of socialist in one country was based in no small part on his erroneous evaluation of the new international situation, i.e., the character of the temporary capitalist stabilization in the West in the very early twenties and of his general underestimation of the significance of the struggle of the world’s oppressed and the international proletariat in relation to the Soviet Union. Even more remarkable is it to note that the SWP’s initial error which led them to a fundamental break with Trotsky’s internationalism was their erroneous estimate of the new international situation as it developed at the end of the Second World War and what its consequences entailed for the people in the United States as a whole and for the radical movement in particular.
Isn’t it interesting that both Stalin and the SWP’s turn to revisionism had their ideological origins in an underestimation of the new turn in world events. They both were captive to a provincial nationalist approach towards world developments. In the case of Stalin, he imagined the temporary stabilization of capitalist countries would be of a long-lasting character and hence the struggles of the proletariat and the oppressed peoples abroad were not nearly as important to the destiny of the Soviet Union as a socialist state as Lenin and Trotsky had thought.
In the case of the SWP, they thought that the tremendous revolutionary wave that was unleashed by the victory of the USSR over Hitler and Mussolini as well as Tojo, would not evoke a violent reactional response from the U.S. imperialist establishment, and in any case, was not likely to affect the resurgent militancy of the workers in the post-war wave of strikes. They dismissed the witchhunt as a temporary, fleeting, ephemeral episode.
The present turn in the international situation is far more complex and just as significant as the turn at the end of the Second World War. Hence it deserves even greater attention so that our Party may make whatever tactical changes that are required by the situation.
If Détente is Consummated
The détente between the USSR, China and the U.S. is likely to affect the termination of the Vietnam War. A complete victory for the Vietnamese people will tilt the relations between the socialist countries as a whole and the capitalist world in one direction. An agreement to end the war in a manner that is substantially less than a victory and contrary to the wishes of the Vietnamese people would of course tilt the relations between the capitalist and socialist countries in another direction.
The world revolutionary movement will indeed by profoundly affected by the nature and terms on which the Vietnam War is finally ended. In any case, the Vietnamese have already given the world a most splendid example of revolutionary determination, courage, fortitude, flexibility in tactics and in strategy, and the ability to mobilize the world public opinion on a scale hitherto undreamed of when one considers the formidable enemy it opposes and the fact that it is such a small country.
Ruling Class Needs Breathing Spell
Unquestionably, a worldwide détente between socialist and capitalist countries would change the character of the international situation. It would give imperialism a breathing spell, and like previous breathing spells, it would usher in an interval of so-called peace. These, we have learned from Lenin’s teachings, are merely preparatory stages for the launching of new struggles.
In the context of the present world situation, the U.S. ruling class would strengthen its own position considerably. It has become clear to almost any attentive observer of the American scene that the ruling class needs, above everything else, a respite from the world struggle. The deepening social crisis which engulfs practically all layers of society in the U.S. makes this almost imperative. There is a large body of bourgeois public opinion which holds that such a respite would restore, in the eyes of the world, the image that the U.S. is said to have had, at least in some parts of the world, as a “peace-loving country.”
For one thing, the State Department would be able to utilize this interval to repair its tattered relations with its various imperialist allies, which have become imperiled by its preoccupation with the Vietnam War. The Pentagon, too, is said to need a breathing spell to get some of the public pressure exerted upon it off its back so that it can pursue quietly and much more unobtrusively the perfection of its military technology and enable it to acquire the necessary Congressional appropriations without the publicity which the media is forced to give it under present conditions.
The capitalist establishment moreover needs time for what bourgeois politicians call “domestic housecleaning,” that is, time to devise a new strategy to stifle the developing class struggle in the United States, to stabilize the exploitation of the workers by the bosses as well as the national oppression of the Black, Puerto Rican and Chicano minorities.
The liberal bourgeoisie has long clamored for such a development under the slogan of “unifying the nation” and eliminating the “strife within the country.” The CP and the SWP, notwithstanding their own propaganda, also feel that the lessening of international tensions that would come as a result of a détente would lessen political repression. Bourgeois democracy would flourish and the pressure for militant and revolutionary methods of struggle would be happily diminished if not altogether eliminated. Life would become one long period of election campaigns and slow, gradual, peaceful development. This social-democratic utopia, which is a space-age version of Bernstein’s and Kautsky’s theory, like the dreams of the liberal bourgeoisie for a stable, peaceful perspective for U.S. capitalism – lacks a materialist basis.
Further Decline of the System
At the end of the Second World War, the share of the U.S. in the world’s gross national product was 50%. It then declined sharply over the next decade to 40%. It is now 30%. Its imperialist allies have become its formidable rivals. The relative economic stability of the big socialist countries has made them less dependent on world imperialist economy. The Vietnam War has consumed a tremendous amount of the surplus value extracted from the workers and oppressed people which otherwise would have been used for capitalist accumulation and expansion. American imperialist is not in a position to extend further welfare gains to the bulk of the workers and oppressed in this country, but rather they are on a course of retrenchment and curtailing of privileges and social gains.
All this points in the direction of sharpened struggle. Nor can we say that even if the Vietnam War is ended, that a resumption of imperialist aggression elsewhere, in other areas of the world, is unlikely. What the reformists, the liberals, the SWP and the CP alike forget, if they ever really knew, is that periods of slow, peaceful, gradual development simply mean, if translated into Marxist terminology, that the acute class contradictions and antagonism inherent in the capitalist system are slowly but surely maturing and inevitably must burst out in violent form and upset the arrangement and accommodations that have been made by the Nixons, the Brezhnevs and the leaders of the Chinese CP.
If the détente between the socialist and capitalist countries is, as we said, finally consummated, it will at most slow down the process of retardation within the capitalist world. But it cannot arrest it for long, even if the economic offensive which Nixon has launched succeeds. It is to be remembered that Nixon launched this offensive against the imperialist allies of the U.S. in world trade, commerce and technology – an offensive which Nixon began simultaneously with his effort to reach a rapprochement with the USSR and China.
If the détente should go through, it will most likely, contrary to the expectations of the Soviet leadership, usher in the first long-awaited political trend to the left within the Soviet Union. Not the trend which the Solzhenitsyns, the Pasternaks and the Sakharovs have represented, who are inclined toward the West and the liberal bourgeoisie which has adopted them as their darlings. But a genuinely proletarian revolutionary trend which would stop the regressive tendencies in the Soviet Union and resume its socialist development and revolutionary solidarity with the world working class and the oppressed of the world.
New Left Trend in Soviet Union?
Why should an accommodation with the imperialist countries perhaps usher in a trend to the left in the Soviet working class? The Soviet revisionists reckon that if they settle what they regard as some of the fundamental differences with the capitalist world, it will make things easier for them and relieve them of the crisis which they constantly have to face from imperialist aggression and subversion. Also, it is possible that the tremendous produce of the Soviet economy, of which a large portion goes into the military establishment, may to some degree be diverted for civilian purposes from which the masse of the population may make substantial economic gain.
The calculations of the Soviet bureaucracy are that it would make the Soviet working class more rather than less amenable to their rule. But the historical development of the Soviet working class since the beginning of the Russian revolution shows that they have to a large extent resigned themselves to the bureaucracy’s rule only out of fear than an open conflict with the bureaucracy would redound to the benefit of the imperialists and encourage them in military aggression, if not intervention. But the accommodation will, for one thing, operate to lessen the fear of imperialist aggression and intervention on the part of the Soviet working class so far as the USSR is concerned. Such fear in any case is no longer as warranted as it was in the earlier period because of the military prowess of the USSR. The accommodation would only hasten and encourage genuine revolutionary working class opposition. This prognosis is based on the assumption that the Soviet bureaucracy does not substitute the bogus fear of Chinese aggression for imperialist aggression and intervention.
Furthermore, as the Soviet bureaucracy tends more and more to give political concessions to the neo-restoration elements, it is only inevitable that it would encourage the genuine working class representatives to demand at least equal consideration. In any case, the calculations of the bureaucracy are bound to prove wrong. The course of events both abroad and at home will work against its own interests.
What our Party membership needs most is to deep its political education to gain a profounder insight into the political and theoretical contributions of Trotsky’s work so as to enable us better to cope with new, complex political problems as well as hostile political tendencies who are full of the old prejudices and who will steer the movement into bourgeois channels just as they did with the anti-war movement. Theoretical rearmament will enable the Party to stand its ground in the face of any attack, slander, or vilification which is sure to grow as the Party grows and influences more and more people.
While we seek to strengthen our ideological and political armor, we at the same time must take advantage of every possibility to engage, even more so than in the past, in mass struggle. We must show that the character of our Party as a struggle organization stems from a revolutionary theoretical basis of which the theories of Lenin and Trotsky are the great cornerstone.
Section II
Swift diplomatic changes in the relations between socialist and capitalist countries make it necessary for us to carefully examine once again the entire international situation in the light of fundamental problems facing the party.
At the outset it should be noted that we use the term “socialist countries” only because it has been commonly used over such a considerable period of time. It is not a precise term by which to characterize the social structure in the Soviet Union, China and other countries with a similar class character. When we employ the term “socialist country” we do not mean that socialism has been fully established or that classes have been abolished. It denotes, as far as we are concerned, a country where the bourgeoisie has been overthrown and the landlords dispossessed of the land, where planned economy is in operation based on the common ownership of the means of production, and where the basic industries and the monopoly of foreign trade are in the hands of the government.
Albania is a very small country, but it has a socialist foundation in the sense that the bourgeoisie and the landlords have been overthrown and dispossessed; the basic means of production are in the hands of the government; the economy is centrally organized and planned; and foreign trade is a monopoly of the government.
India and Egypt are larger countries. They may regard themselves as socialist. Much industry is nationalized; but it is a nationalization carried out by the bourgeoisie, which has either expropriated or compensated imperialist ownership. In no sense is it socialist. The bourgeoisie has not been overthrown but is very much in control of the country. The term “workers’ state” was originally used by Lenin, and subsequently by Trotsky, and more precisely delineates the exact social character and stage of development of what is in effect a dictatorship of the proletariat, however varied the form may be.
None of the socialist countries has gone beyond the dictatorship of the proletariat, which is itself a transitional stage towards communism. On the contrary, some have regressed politically from the norm of a revolutionary dictatorship of the working class and of the popular masses generally.
In the case of Yugoslavia, it is a real question as to whether the economic and political foundations of a workers’ state – or a socialist state – still exist, or whether they have become so eroded that in many respects Yugoslavia is scarcely distinguishable from a bourgeois state.
The diplomatic relations between socialist and capitalist states would not ordinarily be considered of such paramount importance were it not for the fact that these relations inevitably have a profound political effect on the international working class and the oppressed peoples everywhere. And diplomatic relations in turn affect to one degree or another the domestic policies in the socialist countries.
Of course, the latter need not necessarily follow on the heels of important diplomatic changes. But as we shall see, it has too often been the case in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and may affect other socialist countries. The fact is that behind these diplomatic changes are also what amounts to changes in the political attitude between competing social systems. The hallmark that invariably has accompanied important diplomatic relations between socialist and capitalist states has been what we would term “peaceful co-existence.” This term needs explanation. Over the many years that it has been used since the death of Lenin, it has become a bag in which almost anything could be thrown. What it meant during Lenin’s time was that there could be intervals of peace between a socialist state and the capitalist world, but that permanent and enduring peace was impossible. Intervals of peace such as have existed in the past between imperialist wars are merely a preparatory stage for another war. Of course, socialist and capitalist states do exist on the same planet. They have existed for a considerable period, and the Soviet Union has been in existence for more than a half century in the midst of a capitalist environment.
If that was all that was involved in the formula “peaceful co-existence,” there would be little indeed to quarrel about. The real issue in the fundamental dispute over peaceful co-existence lies in the fact that it has, since the death of Lenin, become a formula for the abandonment of world revolutionary struggle, as a price for achieving an accommodation between the socialist countries and imperialism. This is the nub of the question.
The capitalists have never understood peaceful co-existence to mean anything else. “You cannot be for peaceful co-existence,” say the capitalists, “if you promote world revolutionary struggle, or give military and political support for the overthrow of imperialism.” Over and over again this has been the uniform refrain in all the imperialist countries: “Stop promoting the world revolution; abandon the class struggle in the Western capitalist countries; don’t dare support, especially in a military way, the liberation movements of the world.”
In Lenin’s time, promoting the world revolution, giving aid and assistance of every type possible to the liberation movements was a number one objective of the Communist International of which the Soviet Union was the chief fortress. In turn it was considered the bounded duty of the world proletariat and the world’s oppressed to unconditionally support the Soviet Union. So much has changed since then! Aside from the fact that there is no longer a Communist International, the objective too has been abandoned. At the present moment the Soviet leadership has made several significant pacts with the Nixon Administration. The idea of peaceful co-existence, of peaceful accommodation is an inevitable concomitant to all these agreements and overrides any and all considerations affecting the international proletariat and the liberation movements of the world. The way in which the Brezhnev leadership capitulated on the Haiphong mining crisis, and in effect utilized the crisis to cement its relationship with the U.S., is a classic example of the abandonment of proletarian internationalism in favor of narrow nationalist interests of the Soviet ruling caste. The fact that the Chinese leadership has in effect followed suit in its attempt to arrive at an accommodation with the U.S. can be partially explained by the revisionist policies pursued by the Soviet leadership in the first place. But the fact that China did follow suit, abandoned its former principled opposition to the dogma of peaceful co-existence and ostentatiously invited Nixon while the murderous war against Vietnam was in full progress, shows that they share to one degree or another Moscow’s policy of trying to arrive at an accommodation with U.S. imperialism – but separately and independently of Moscow.
Of course, the CCP has in the past also stood for peaceful co-existence, but in the dispute with Khrushchev it took a revolutionary position on this vital point.
As these lines are written the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the puppet regime of South Korea have just issued a joint communique which has as its objective the unification of the two Koreas – an agreement which apparently transcends ideology and social systems – or so it says. How this can be done in the light of the fact that South Korea is a puppet regime notoriously controlled by the U.S., where an army of more than 50,000 U.S. troops are still in occupation, and 50,000 South Korean troops are still fighting against the Vietnamese people – is beyond the comprehension of anyone acquainted with these facts. Nevertheless, this effort to unity the country is merely one more link in the chain of peaceful co-existence pacts, which originated under Stalin’s regime, took on a tremendous momentum during the Khrushchev and Brezhnev eras, and finally engulfed the Chinese leadership.
It therefore would be small wonder that the DPRK, which has to reckon with both the Chinese and Soviet factions and has a menacing puppet regime to the South of it, should quickly take into its calculations what the big socialist countries are doing and, fearful that it may be frozen out altogether from any full-scale arrangements made by the USSR and People’s China without taking its interests into consideration, apparently went ahead and made an arrangement of its own.
All of this illustrates that the socialist countries, headed by the USSR and China, are in the full process of making a more or less permanent arrangement with U.S. imperialism. The imperialists call this “détente.” China and the Soviet Union call it “peaceful co-existence.” There is no doubt however that the era which began with the Korean War has slowly but surely come to the end of a phase in its development. In the first place the decline of imperialist, particularly the decline of U.S. military and economic hegemony, has forced the imperialists in a large measure to surrender, at least temporarily, objectives which a quarter of a century ago they considered permanent. But today the rapid decline and deterioration of the outmoded capitalist system has made it necessary to deal with the socialist countries – that is, the Soviet Union and People’s China – in a way which would have been impossible at an earlier time. On the other hand, the international solidarity between the socialist countries has become eroded to a very large extent. In fact, so far as the Soviet Union and People’s China goes, there exists a deep antagonism. Nationalist rivalry has superseded class solidarity to such an extent that minor differences over geographical boundaries between the two countries led to military engagement and almost to full-scale war. Such a development was never anticipated by the founders of scientific socialism, Marx and Engels, and would have been inconceivable even twenty years ago. Yet the movement has more or less accepted such a state of affairs and adapted itself to it. The fact that two socialist countries could develop such a deep antagonism in the midst of an imperialist war of genocidal proportions against Vietnam not only illustrates how imperialism can utilize this antagonism, but underscores the inability of the respective leaderships in the Soviet Union and People’s China to overcome it. On the contrary, the accommodations with the West illustrate the success of the policy of divide-and-conquer which the Nixon Doctrine is really all about.
Our party has grown up as an independent political tendency in the struggle against a variety of revisionist groupings, both those who adhere to the Soviet line and those who from time to time proclaim themselves followers of Chairman Mao. As is well known, we have consistently supported the revolutionary and progressive policies of the Chinese leadership. We especially gave vigorous and unstinted support to the Cultural Revolution, which was the high-water mark of the Chinese Revolution. In doing so we were aware that what was involved was the struggle against a neo-bourgeois restorationist tendency in the Chinese CP, which held immense danger to the Chinese Revolution and to the general direction of China toward socialism. The struggle was in reality a class conflict and might have endangered the development of China as a socialist country had the Liu Shao Chi faction succeeded. Of course there were a great many errors and shortcomings in the Cultural Revolution. And it is possible to say that many of its achievements were exaggerated. But that is scarcely the point of the whole struggle. The issue was, forward toward socialist construction or backward with the neo-bourgeois restorationist movement. The world bourgeoisie as a whole, and the Soviet revisionists as well throughout the world supported the neo-restorationists. In such a conflict the most important thing is to show which side you are on. Although we were aware of much that might have been wrong form the point of view of tactics, we did not bring this out in our press. For the most important thing to do, particularly in the U.S. at the time, was to show support for the revolutionary as against the reactionary side in the struggle.
Since the inception of our party we have consistently supported People’s China, both against Soviet revisionist attacks and certainly against imperialism. At the same time we were not uncritical supporters of Chinese policy. For instance, we opposed the manner in which the Chinese leadership dealt with the apparent ouster of Defense Minister Lin Piao.
We do not at all agree with China’s characterization of the USSR as a capitalist state. We particularly deplore the fact that they hastily conjured up this characterization immediately on the heels of the test ban treaty, to which People’s China was justifiably opposed. Important as the test-ban treaty may have been, it didn’t affect the internal class structure of the Soviet Union. And judging by other more reactionary deeds of the Soviet bureaucracy, it scarcely merited a full-scale abandonment of a previously correct position – that is that the USSR was a socialist country with a leadership pursuing reactionary policies at home and abroad. But there was no discussion of a theoretical character in the Chinese party at all, so far as anyone here knows. No theoretical documents were issued which justified the abrupt change in the class estimate of the Soviet Union. This is merely one of the fundamental differences we have with the Chinese leadership, but it is a very deep-going one, because it vitally affects the world movement. Moreover, it changes the duties of the working class in the Soviet Union from defending their socialist country against imperialism to one of pursing a defeatist role in the event of imperialist war.
The duty of the workers in an imperialist country in the event of a war, taught Lenin, was to look on the defeat of their own imperialist government as the lesser evil. If the USSR is a “social-imperialist country” (meaning thereby socialism in words, imperialism in deeds), then the duty of the Soviet workers is to defeat “their own imperialist government” in the event of a war with German, British, French or U.S. imperialism. On the contrary, the duty of the workers in the event of an imperialist attack is to loyally defend the USSR in every respect. Thus our difference with the Chinese CP on this question is not one of nomenclature, but of class orientation.
Another difference which is closely related to this is the Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia. The Chinese vigorously opposed the intervention and characterized it as an act of social imperialism. In so doing it revealed its own inconsistency in supporting the Hungarian intervention. What was the difference between Czechoslovakia and Hungary? In both places an actual counter-revolution had raised its head. In Hungary it had all but overthrown the existing regime and in Czechoslovakia it was something in the nature of a “cold” take-over. Of course the revisionist policy of the Soviet leadership was responsible for the degeneration of revisionism into counter-revolution in Czechoslovakia (as in Hungary and Eastern Europe generally). Of course it was aided by U.S. and European imperialism in both cases.
This doesn’t mean that we support any and all interventions by the Soviet bureaucracy. We did so in these cases only because the alternative was the restoration of capitalism, which would have vitally affected the development of all the East European socialist countries and the Soviet Union – and perhaps China – as well.
We supported the Polish uprising of 1970 because it was a legitimate uprising of the workers against the bureaucracy and was not an attempt to overturn the socialist regime in favor of capitalism. It is presumably for that reason that the Chinese leaders also opposed the projected intervention by Khrushchev in the 1956 Polish uprising, because what was involved was not an overturn of the regime but merely a change in the administration. The circumstances which led up to the uprisings of 1956 and 1957 were sparked by the inefficiency and mismanagement of the bureaucracy. We, in 1956, had a position similar to that of the Chinese party. It is interesting to note that Hungary, Poland and Czechoslovakia are giving material assistance to the Vietnamese people. If a counter-revolution had taken place in these countries, the assistance would be going to the Thieu regime, to the applause of the U.S. ruling class. This does not in any way detract from the oppressive character of Soviet domination in Eastern Europe or the national oppression that the Soviet bureaucracy practices in varying degrees within its own borders.
However, in the recent period it is the change of foreign policy by the Chinese leadership which we find most objectionable. It is contrary to the interest of the world revolutionary movement and in particular the liberation movements. The clearest example of this is China’s position in supporting the corrupt, brutal police dictatorship of Yahya Khan and his mad adventure in attempting to subdue the people of Bangla Desh by the kind of mass terror which assumed almost genocidal proportions. The motivation for all this, it appears, was to counteract Soviet influence in India. Counteracting revisionist influence anywhere in the world is the duty of revolutionary Marxists. But it is the ABC that this is done by educating and organizing the workers and peasants in the struggle against the bourgeoisie and the landlords. Instead, the Chinese leaders have taken a leaf from the Soviet revisionists and taken to supporting the bourgeoisie and particularly their current representatives to stymie Soviet revisionist influence.
Indulging in this is merely a reversion to old line power politics as it has been practiced by the world bourgeoisie. The Soviet leaders support the Indian bourgeoisie; so the Chinese CP supports the Pakistani bourgeoisie. Nor is this nationalist rivalry confined to the subcontinent alone. In Iran, in the Sudan, in Ethiopia, in fact everywhere it is at all possible, the Chinese CP is practicing the same revisionist policy in supporting the representative of the national bourgeoisie, whether it be Hailie Selassie, Bhutto, or the Shah of Iran.
It is one thing to support bourgeois nationalist leaders in the struggle against imperialism; it is another thing to do so merely to gain diplomatic and political leverage against the Soviet leadership and thereby abandon the revolutionary class struggle for socialism. It is one thing to support Haile Selassie when he is fighting for national independence, such as happened in the case of Mussolini’s invasion; it is another thing to support Haile Selassie with arms which are used against the home population and against the Eritrean liberation front.
Even in the case of Chile, which at the present time is undergoing a severe social crisis, and were a socialist revolution is really at stake, the Chinese leadership seems to be blind to all of this. Like their Soviet counterparts, they are supporting Allende with not a word of criticism of the course Allende is taking in relation to the very acute social crisis in Chile, with never so much as a word as to what will be the fate of the workers and peasants in the event the counter-revolution triumphs.
From all this it goes without saying that when a pseudo-liberal regime like the Bandaranaike government in Ceylon utilizes the most brutal terror to subdue a genuine insurrection, it is not to be wondered at that the Soviet and Chinese leaders will roundly denounce the insurrectionary elements and support the Bandaranaike regime. Even if one were to assume that the insurrection was ill-timed or that the youthful leaders who were at the head of it had wrongly estimated the relationship of class forces, does it therefore follow that a Marxist-Leninist government should support a bourgeois government against the insurrection?
It is one thing to criticize the timeliness or tactics of the revolutionaries; it is something else to support the suppression of the revolutionaries by a bourgeois government. Ceylon was the unfortunate example where China, the USSR, Britain and the U.S. all were on the side of the counter-revolutionary suppression.
One merely has to look at the July 3rd issue of “Hsinhua, Selected News Item (#27)” to see what a wide divergence there is between the lofty class-struggle phraseology of the Chinese CP line and what it actually does in relationship to such representatives of the national bourgeoisie as Mrs. Bandaranaike, the prime minister of Ceylon (Republic of Sri Lanka). Fully ten pages of print and photographs are devoted to her visit to China and the Chinese reception given to her, including pictures of her and Mao together with other leaders. She was afforded the most sumptuous treatment, as though she were a conquering hero of the proletarian revolution rather than its grave-digger.
Section III
The Ceylonese insurrection last year is vitally important for an understanding of the current policy of the Soviet Union and People’s China. There is scarcely a situation which more clearly illuminates the actual relationship of these two giant socialist countries to the revolutionary movements of the world than does this great uprising on this small island in the Indian Ocean. For it is in this very uprising that are mirrored all the contradictions between the progressive social system of these socialist countries and the false and harmful policy they pursue in world affairs and in relation to each other.
Insurrection in Ceylon
We should first of all take into account the magnitude of that insurrection against the Bandaranaike regime. Almost all available sources indicate that the actual number of participants in the armed struggle was at a minimum 80,000. Eighty thousands armed students, workers and peasants in the small country of Ceylon, with a population of barely 14 million people, is a formidable armed force by almost any standard. If we add, as most accounts of the insurrection do, several million sympathizers and supporters in one form or another, we get the actual dimensions of this insurrection.
The situation becomes even clearer if assumed as an insurrection of similar proportions took place in the United States. The number of armed participants by these standards would be about a million and two hundred thousand. The number of sympathizers and supporters would necessarily number in the many millions.
Let us further assume that we as a party took the position that the insurrection was ill-timed, or that the strategy and tactics were erroneous, which we by no means concede is what took place in Ceylon. Should we then join hands with the capitalist government in condemning the insurrection, and aiding the capitalist government by giving it material and military support to suppress the insurrection?
Only if we view the Ceylonese insurrection in this light can we more fully understand the tremendous harm done to the world revolutionary movement by the regressive policy pursued by the Soviet and Chinese CP leaders there. No amount of apologetics can erase the fact that both China and the USSR joined hands with the imperialist powers (Britain and the U.S.) in giving aid and assistance to crush the insurrection, notwithstanding the fact that the USSR and China were pursuing an antagonistic policy vis-à-vis each other.
Soviet Union – China: Lesson of Ceylon
The lesson of Ceylon cannot be dismissed as an accidental error of either the Chinese or the Soviet leaders. On the contrary, it has been the foundation stone of their foreign policy. For the Soviet leaders it has been for a very, very long time; for the leaders of China, for several years. Our political position on the Soviet bureaucracy has been made clear over many, many years – since our inception as an independent political tendency. On the other hand, we have been one of the strongest supporters of the People’s Republic of China and have in a general way supported the political policies of the Chinese leadership.
We of course have not been uncritical adherents of CCP policies, but as anyone who has followed our press in the last decade can see, we have supported them on all the fundamental and critical questions, particularly since the inception of the CCP’s progressive struggle against the Soviet leadership.
All the more is it necessary that we make very clear and unambiguous our firm and resolute opposition to the false and harmful policy pursued by the CCP, of which the Nixon visit has become the odious symbol. Just as firm and resolute must be our determination to continue our position to give unconditional support to the revolutionary movement, particularly in colonial and semi-colonial countries, regardless of the position of the leaders of the CCP or the USSR.
Furthermore, our failure to do so will operate as a cover-up for false CCP or USSR foreign policy. It will surely hinder us in our ideological struggle against other political tendencies such as the CP, SWP, RU and others.
RU’s Version
In a pamphlet entitled “China’s Foreign Policy: A Leninist Policy,” published by RU, we find on page 39 their position on the Ceylonese insurrection.
“Last year,” they say, “some so-called ‘revolutionaries,’ mainly misguided students, started a rebellion against the government of Ceylon headed by Prime Minister Bandaranaike. These same ‘revolutionaries’ did not attack the previous government, which was much more rightwing than the Bandaranaike government.”
As the reader can see, the 80,000 armed students, peasants and workers are derisively referred to as “so-called ‘revolutionaries’” and “misguided students.” And the assertion is made that they didn’t attack the previous “much more rightwing government.”
This is a complete misrepresentation of known elementary political facts in Ceylon, which only a foreign apologist for CCP policy could possibly put forth. If anything, the revolutionary students and workers who led this insurrection were more violent in their attacks against the Conservative Nationalist Party than any of the Marxist parties in Ceylon. Furthermore, the revolutionaries gave electoral support to the Bandaranaike government. It was only after disillusionment had set in because of the false promises made by the Bandaranaike government and not carried out, that the insurrection was commenced.
The reader will note that RU unwittingly admits to the right-wing character of the Bandaranaike government when it says that the National Party “was much more rightwing than the Bandaranaike government.” In other words, the Bandaranaike government is right-wing – that is reactionary – but not as much so as the previous one.
Bandaranaike and Senanayake
The truth of the matter is that there is no fundamental difference between the two bourgeois landlord-capitalist regimes from the point of view of the workers and peasants, who have seen both of these regimes in and out of office for many years, while the oppression and exploitation of the masses continues unabated. Indeed, the difference between Bandaranaike and Senanayake is the usual difference between two bourgeois candidates who stand on the same basic class program and serve the same class interests but utilize different verbal approaches for purely electoral purposes. (Both Bandaranaike and Senanayake have previously been Prime Ministers before the 1970 election.)
Why then is China supporting the Bandaranaike regime? One reason, according to RU, is that it opposes “U.S. aggression in Vietnam.” This is another example of a lame apologetic. Everybody knows that the overwhelming majority of the Asian people, especially those in the formerly colonial and dependent countries, are openly and overwhelmingly for the victory of the NLF and the DRV. What Prime Minister Bandaranaike has done is to give lip service “to the cause of the Vietnamese people and for a peaceful settlement.” It’s nothing but pure demagogy. There are any number of bourgeois politicians throughout the whole world who say the same thing. But would we for that reason support them in the suppression of an uprising of the oppressed? A good deal of the answer lies in the second half of the sentence we have just quoted above. “... (Ceylon) has broken from the old policy of hostility towards China.” If a bourgeois government is no longer hostile to China at the moment or for whatever reasons is friendly toward China, then, ipso facto, no insurrection against this government should be supported.
Foreign Diplomacy and Revolutionary Solidarity
We should note that RU admits (p. 40) that in Ceylon “Some sections (why not say which ones, from what class strata and how many) of the Ceylonese people took part in this rebellion because (just listen to this) there are real injustices, real oppression in Ceylon.”
And again, “this movement in Ceylon (so it’s a movement and not just a few so-called revolutionaries) would have strengthened imperialism and so China could not support it.” Isn’t that what all the old line social democrats have said about communists whenever they have led a revolutionary insurrection? If you take up arms it will embolden the ruling class and therefore don’t do it. What makes this argument so outrageously opportunist is that it comes from people who have vociferously championed the slogan that “power comes out of the barrel of a gun.”
Urban or Rural Rebellion – Is that the Issue?
Mindful of the fact that many genuine and sincere supporters of the Chinese revolution will nevertheless not accept the above argument, they hasten to give another alibi: the strategy was all wrong. “The correct strategy for such a country is protracted people’s war, to surround the cities from the countryside; not urban rebellions that can’t succeed and can only aid counterrevolution, this was proved by the Chinese revolution; it is being brilliantly applied in Vietnam.”
The masterminds of RU have rushed with indecent haste to map out a blueprint for how insurrection and revolution should be made in other countries, forgetting in the meantime that the Vietnamese are indeed showing brilliant lessons on how to attack cities, including such significant ones as Quảng Trị and many others. And worst of all, where is it written that a rebellion, that genuine insurrections, cannot be started in the cities? Mao’s army came from the Canton commune. What about the Paris commune? What about the great October revolution?
And finally, even if everything they say is true about the insurrection (and it is not one iota so), does it follow from this that if the revolutionaries are mistaken as to the method and timeliness of the insurrection, that we must support, as did the USSR and China, the class enemy in brutal suppression of the revolutionaries?
Everything that was said about Ceylon by us may be said with equal vigor about the suppression of the Bengali people.
RU asks its followers to go all the way with Chinese foreign policy, including China’s participation in the gory spectacular festivities launched by the hangman of the Iranian people, the Shah of Iran, when he invited representatives of almost 100 governments to attend the Shah’s celebration of “2500 years of monarchy in Iran.”
China and Iran
Why was it necessary for China to send a representative to this special effort by the Shah of Iran to make a display of luxury and opulence in the midst of the most incredible poverty and help him present a liberal image of himself to the world while he executes revolutionaries and jails them by the thousands? Wasn’t the celebration calculated to hide the poverty of the masses and to weaken the state of the revolutionary movement against the Shah? Why was it necessary for a revolutionary government to attend this celebration, a celebration, we should remember, of the consolidation of a slave empire? Cyrus the Great was great because he consolidated the hold of the slave-masters over a whole empire of slaves. And the Shah of Iran ought, in truth, proclaim himself to be a descendant of the ancient slave-master. What diplomatic gain could be made by attending this celebration?
Nationalist Rivalry or Revolutionary Internationalism
To seek real answers to the foreign policies of China and the Soviet Union, we have to look elsewhere than RU. The fact of the matter is that both socialist countries are engaged in out and out national rivalry to win favor with the native bourgeoisie in the underdeveloped countries. A precondition for winning their favor is the establishment of not just normal diplomatic relations nor a mere promise of peaceful co-existence. To win the favor of the ruling class it is necessary to abandon active encouragement and promotion of proletarian revolution.
This is what the USSR did in relation to the Palestinian revolutionaries. It is what China did in Ceylon and in East Bengal, no Bangla Desh. It is to be noted that the Soviet leaders are supporting the Indian bourgeoisie and in particular the Indira Ghandi government while the Chinese CP is supporting the Pakistani bourgeoisie and President Bhutto with equal fervor. This can only be explained by the fact that the ideological dispute between China and the Soviet Union (and in which we supported China) degenerated into a state to state struggle of which nationalist rivalry on the Indian subcontinent is the inevitable result. So far has this rivalry advanced that it would be difficult for either China or the Soviet Union to easily pull back and reverse itself and recommence the pursuit of a revolutionary policy.
Let us suppose for instance that China were to approve or even encourage a victory for the insurrection in Ceylon. Most certainly the first thing that would happen would be a complete turnaround in the attitude of the so-called friendly governments. It would immediately impel the ruling class in Pakistan, Iran, Burma, not to speak of India, either to veer into the orbit further of imperialism or the Soviet Union. Some of these countries near Ceylon would even break diplomatic relations. The revolutionary side of this new policy would be that it would act as a tremendous catalyst in encouraging and promoting the revolution on the subcontinent and elsewhere.
Soviet Union and Ceylon
Now, if the Soviet Union had supported the Ceylonese insurrection, it would have immediately not only lost the favor of the Indian ruling class which it has cultivated for so many years and which it supported unjustifiably against the People’s Republic of China. Supporting the insurrection would, of course, be a signal to all the imperialist countries as well, particularly the USA, that there had been a revolutionary turn in Soviet foreign policy. It would change the character of the international situation and bring in its train incalculable revolutionary momentum to the world movement. If both China and the Soviet Union were united on this policy, it would signal the most spectacular defeat for world imperialism since the victory of the Chinese revolution. The U.S. could scarcely then maintain even a toehold in Vietnam.
To show in an oblique way that both China and the Soviet Union know fully well the significance of supporting, in a real substantial way, revolutionary movements in countries with whose capitalist masters they have friendly relations, we ought to take a good look at what happened to the diplomatic relations between the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the Bandaranaike government.
North Korean Incident
Immediately after the outbreak of the insurrection, the Ceylonese government broke diplomatic relations with the North Koreans for allegedly encouraging the insurrection and giving aid and assistance to the insurgents. Actually, the DPRK had merely been friendly with some of the insurgents before the insurrection. There is no evidence that they actually promoted or engineered the insurrection. Just friendly contact. But it was enough to sever diplomatic relations.
Now of course, if both China and the Soviet Union were working together, they could maintain genuinely diplomatic relations with any capitalist government, imperialist, semi-colonial or independent, without accompanying abandonment of proletarian revolution.
Why Ceylon Government is so ‘Friendly’
After all, the fundamental reasons why even Ceylon needs friendly relations with China and the USSR is not out of friendship for the Chinese revolution, or concern or approval of the socialist transformation in China. Ceylon – just to cite her as an example similar to all capitalist governments which maintain diplomatic relations with the socialist countries – is maintaining friendly relations with China in order to balance her diplomatic position between India and Pakistan, among U.S., British and Japanese imperialists, and to gain whatever advantage she can by maintaining friendly relations with both China and the USSR. At the same time Ceylon is trying to utilize, in its own way, all the antagonisms between the socialist countries and to balance them against the imperialist countries for the purpose of strengthening its position as an exploiting ruling class over the exploited masses in Ceylon.
Does this policy of friendly relations with capitalist countries (whether underdeveloped or imperialist) really serve the true fundamental national, that is, class interests of the Soviet Union and China as socialist states? The answer to this question, as we will demonstrate, is an unqualified NO.
Leninist Conception of Diplomatic Relations
The Leninist conception of the relations between a socialist and capitalist state is that it is possible and desirable to maintain normal and diplomatic relations and to engage in trade and in commerce with them. This, the capitalist countries will do, not because of any friendship toward socialism, but because it arises out of their imperative need for commerce and trade. Wherever the need is mutual for both the socialist and capitalist countries, it will be developed without any accompanying political strings such as the one the ruling classes most of all demand: renunciation of encouraging or promoting proletarian revolution.
We are leaving out for the moment the questions as to whether the trade of the socialist countries should be resumed with the U.S. at a time when U.S. capitalism is in such a deep political and economic crisis. The U.S. needs the trade to overcome it and it would better enable it to prosecute the counter-revolutionary war in Vietnam and elsewhere.
If the Italian government, for instance, finds it to its advantage to have a commercial agreement with the Soviet Union whereby the Italians commit themselves to give industrial know-how in manufacturing certain types of oil pipelines and the Soviet Union in turn commits itself to sell oil in exchange, it is done so because of mutual advantage and not because the Italian government is a peace-loving government. Stalin made an agreement with Mussolini to sell oil to Italy (and this at a time of the Ethiopian aggression by Italian fascism) in exchange for industrial equipment. These commercial relations in general are unstable and vary with the political situation in the world and are not a reliable support for the building of socialism in any of the socialist countries.
And the diplomatic relations that are maintained with capitalist countries for military reasons, that is to balance or play off one imperialist government against another to the advantage of a socialist country, are equally unstable and unreliable. They are of course necessary and helpful. To make them a mainstay of the development of socialist construction in any of the socialist countries and to favor these relationships as against the worldwide class struggle of the oppressed and the proletarian revolution in general is a renunciation of internationalism.
France, NATO and the Socialist Countries
French imperialism has seen to its great advantage to partially disengage itself from NATO and in particular from U.S. imperialism. This is, of course, a temporary diplomatic advantage to the USSR against whom NATO is directed. But the frenzy with which the Soviet and Chinese leaders pursue the friendship of French imperialism, play it up as a great “neutralist” government and even embellish its standing as an anti-colonialist power, helps to elevate the standing of the rapacious and predatory French ruling class against the French proletariat. It is not wonder that when the great French general strike took place in 1968, it took both China and the Soviet Union completely by surprise and each was cautious in the limited lip service it gave to the French workers.
Romania, China and de Gaulle
The Romanian government, which had planned one of those sumptuous diplomatic receptions for de Gaulle at a time when he was threatening fascist counterrevolution against the workers, went right ahead with preparing a tremendous reception for him, demonstrating its complete unconcern and insensitivity to the cause of the French workers. It is no wonder that the Romanians are now regarded by all the imperialist countries as being a “truly independent socialist” country in foreign affairs.
And none other than the Chairman of the Romanian party came to pay his last respects at de Gaulle’s funeral. Chairman Mao himself sent a personal condolence letter to Mrs. de Gaulle. Maoist adherents in this country don’t take these things fully into consideration nor do they ask themselves that if it is okay for Chairman Mao to send a condolence letter to the widow of a neo-fascist oppressor of the French working class, why, for instance, didn’t Chairman Mao send a letter of condolence to the widow of Malcolm X? Or Martin Luther King? This policy of “friendly relations with capitalist countries,” as opposed to strict diplomatic relations, is in the long run self-defeating for the socialist countries.
Early Foreign Policy of CCP
In the early days of the People’s Republic of China, the CCP opposed Khrushchev’s deepening so-called “friendly relations” with the capitalist countries as opposed to strict diplomacy, although the CCP hadn’t opposed these relations when they were started by Stalin. Nevertheless, the CCP played a genuinely progressive role for a considerable period in combatting the dogma of peaceful co-existence. It thoroughly opposed extensive involvement with the ruling classes of the underdeveloped countries. This was of course before the rivalry between China and the Soviet Union began on a large and embittered scale. In particular, it opposed the USSR’s political support to the Egyptian bourgeoisie. And that, of course, was right.
Soviet Union, Egypt and the Aswan Dam
Helping construct the Aswan dam and giving military support to the Egypt government against U.S. imperialist encroachment is progressive. But giving political support to the ruling class is another. As this is written, the Sadat government is in the process of ousting Soviet military advisors. This ouster foreshadows the collapse of Soviet revisionist policy in supporting politically the Sadat repressive government, which it has called socialist and with whom it has a socialist cultural exchange agreement.
Giving military support to the Egyptian government, if it is to be done in a Leninist fashion, must be counterbalanced by a free hand to the Soviet Union (or any socialist government) to help in a revolutionary way its class brothers and sisters against class oppression by the Egyptian bourgeoisie.
As matters stand, the Soviet Union has steadfastly shied away from any criticism of the repressive measures taken by the Egyptian government against the rebellious and striking workers, students, and most of all against communists, many of whom are, of course, subject to jail and political persecution.
The Nationalist Bourgeoisie
In any case the nationalist bourgeoisie is never consistently anti-imperialist. It is anti-imperialist only as long as there is no threat of the workers and peasants against the bourgeoisie. Whenever there is a genuine revolutionary upsurge of the workers and peasants against the foreign imperialist and also against the native ruling class, the same ruling class, no matter to what extreme it carries out its nationalist demagogy, tends to veer back toward imperialism as a safeguard against domestic socialist revolution by the workers and peasants.
The bourgeois regimes in the neo-colonialist countries are Bonapartist in character, veering leftward or rightward as the situation may dictate, playing it “pro-Soviet” or “pro-China” at one time or another, leaning towards imperialism on other more suitable occasions; nationalizing industry in their own class interests now and then, but exploiting and oppressing the masses of the workers and peasants AT ALL TIMES. Such is the characteristic of the Bonapartist regimes of Egypt, India, Sudan, etc., just to cite prominent examples.
Lenin’s Policy to Nationalist Bourgeoisie
The general policy of the Soviet Communist Party and the Communist International when Lenin was alive was to support them only when they take on a struggle against imperialism, but never losing sight of the fact that the main force in the struggle against imperialism are the workers and peasants, and that the anti-imperialism of the nationalist bourgeoisie is temporary, conditional, characterized by vacillation and completely unstable. To make relations with the nationalist bourgeoisie a keystone for a stable foreign policy via peaceful co-existence agreements will, in the long run, be completely self-defeating for the USSR and China.
Soviet Union and Sudan
The Sudan is the most current clear-cut and tragic example. The Soviet Union extended a lot of military, diplomatic and technical assistance to the Sudan. The Soviet government supported the Sudanese nationalist bourgeois leaders. But the bourgeois leaders saw a threat in the existence of a broad, mass Communist Party, the only Black mass Communist Party on the African continent. What happened? Gaafar el-Nimeiry turned into Chiang Kai-shek, executed the CP leaders, and turned completely to the West. He did so not because the Soviet Union didn’t extend sufficient economic, military and technical assistance, but because he saw in the CP a threat to his bourgeois leadership, although the Kremlin took care to discourage revolutionary mass struggle against the Sudanese version of Chiang Kai-shek. Now the Soviet Union has been completely ousted from the Sudan. The same process seems to be in the making in Egypt, even though there is no mass communist movement visible at the moment, although there is deep dissatisfaction by the mass of the workers, peasants, and revolutionary students and intellectuals.
China and Bangladesh
What the Soviet Union suffered in the Sudan, China suffered in Bangladesh. Yahya Khan’s massacre of the East Bengali people and the suppression of revolutionary struggle by his successor Bhutto in Pakistan, doesn’t fundamentally differ from what happened in the Sudan. If a revolutionary threat develops to the Bhutto regime as a result of the galloping mass dissatisfaction with his repressive policies, he would utilize the same brutal measures in West Pakistan as Yahya Khan used to East Pakistan. The temporary gain that China’s foreign policy makes in maintaining friendly relations to the oppressor of the Pakistani people will boomerang as soon as the masses take a genuinely revolutionary turn against Bhutto.
Imperialism and the Struggle Between the Socialist Countries
The degeneration in the ideological struggle between the Soviet Union and China into nationalist rivalry has strengthened the position of imperialism. Nixon’s rapprochements with both China and the Soviet Union have redounded to the benefit of U.S. imperialism. Certainly both China and the Soviet Union can claim to have made gains in these rapprochements. The Soviet Union sees itself as having made valuable gains with the West German treaty, the ABM treaty, wheat trade agreement, and others that may follow. The Chinese CP may claim a gain in its attempts to break out of isolation imposed by U.S. and Japanese imperialism. But what has been the overall world balance sheet from the viewpoint of international proletarian revolution rather than from the temporary gains, however important they may be to both China and the Soviet Union? Certainly the answer must be that the worldwide revolutionary movement has been set back. Vietnam is the most prominent example. The Palestinians are another, not to mention the Sudanese or the Bengalis.
Since the victory of the Cuban revolution, there has not been a proletarian socialist revolution anywhere in the world. All have been kept in tow by the imperialists. Although the fires of revolutionary warfare are continually rising higher and higher, the imperialists have contained them. In no small measure is this containment of the revolutionary movement due to the “understandings” between the socialist countries. Part of the understanding is an agreement by the imperialists that it is legitimate and legal for socialist powers to vie with imperialism economically and commercially as well as diplomatically for favor and advantage with the native ruling classes in the underdeveloped countries. Yes, competition on THAT SCALE is legitimate if it is confined to permissible limits.
‘Non-Interference in Internal Affairs’
In return, however, the promise of “non-interference in internal affairs,” that is, abandonment of the perspective of proletarian revolution, must be strictly adhered to. Of course, if a spontaneous proletarian revolution takes place, that may be another matter. But these are rare indeed. Even in the case of Cuba, the revolution, that is, the actual seizure of state power and destruction of the bourgeois state machinery by the revolutionary army of Fidel Castro, was an independent effort and splendid initiative of Fidel and his July 26th movement. The CP, it must be remembered, was still following the bourgeois and “constitutional” method line.
It was only after the Soviet leaders recognized that a genuine socialist revolution had taken place in Cuba that they, on the initiative of the Cubans, began to give massive military, technical and industrial support. In no way did the Soviet Union’s leaders promote the development of the revolution before the seizure of state power. Of course, the socialist revolution in Cuba could not have taken place without the existence and support of the Soviet Union and China. It is a most remarkable fact that in such a tremendously revolutionary epoch in which we are living, Cuba has been the only country were a thoroughgoing socialist revolution has taken place and been fully successful since the end of World War II. It was during World War II that both the Korean and Vietnamese people really began their revolution, a revolution to which the imperialists have not reconciled themselves to this day.
The dimensions of the struggle between the Soviet Union and China go far beyond anything that was conceivable by communists just a bare decade ago when the ideological struggle had already been in progress for a number of years. So intense is the rivalry that the most elementary conceptions of the class struggle and the needs of the oppressed people are forgotten.
Defense of Political Prisoners
In this connection, the leadership of the Chinese CP have begun to emulate the Soviet revisionists in yet another important field of the international class struggle. As real revolutionaries, they dealt with political opponents within their own country in a far more reasonable and communist way than Stalin did during the purges of the 1930s – certainly up to and including the period of the Cultural Revolution.
But the development of the antagonism between the Soviet and Chinese leaderships has exacerbated the internal struggle in People’s China and even brought a new and negative element into the Chinese CP’s attitude toward international class war prisoners who happen to be opponents of the Chinese party.
The Angela Davis case is an example of this.
Everyone knows that it is an elementary maxim of Marxist strategy to defend the democratic rights of all the working class and progressive opponents of the capitalist class who are persecuted or framed up by the capitalist state. Marxists generally have been in the forefront in defense of political prisoners against capitalist persecution, regardless of the political ideology of the individual prisoner.
Sacco and Vanzetti – and Dreyfus
Thus communists throughout the whole world defended Sacco and Vanzetti against a frame-up, even though they were avowed anarchists and opposed to Marxism and the conceptions of the class struggle that Marxists hold. Prior to the October revolution, and before the social democracy betrayed during the First World War, social democrats in all of Europe and for that matter throughout the world defended Dreyfus against militarist persecution and frame-up by the French capitalist class, although Dreyfus himself was a bourgeois and loyal to the French military. Similarly, we have defended the Berrigan brothers and hundreds of other political prisoners with whose ideology we have little in common.
The need to defend all who are persecuted by the capitalist courts and the military is obvious. Every vigorous defense, particularly if the broad masses of people are involved in it, weakens the oppressive and repressive structure of the capitalist state and gives confidence to the masses in the struggle against capitalist oppression in general.
CCP Ignores Angela Davis
We must therefore ask ourselves, we it correct for the Chinese CP to completely blot out the name of Angela Davis for practically the entire time that she was a fugitive up until the day of her acquittal? Angela Davis was a political prisoner. She was persecuted for her political beliefs. Shew was persecuted because she was Black and even if everything that the capitalist state accused her of was true, she still would be a victim of capitalist racist justice. Defending her in a struggle against this sort of political repression is an elementary duty not only for all communists but for all progressive humanity. Precisely because she was a victim of U.S. racist justice, it was all the more incumbent upon People’s China to show solidarity. There are a hundred and one ways to show solidarity and the CCP surely know how to do it. Instead, she has become a non-person so far as the Chinese press is concerned.
What do our Maoist friends in this country think of that? When asked about it, the surprised look on their faces showed that they had given no thought to it, this made all the easier for them because the CP press in this country and the Soviet press abroad does not want to call the public’s attention to the fact that People’s China was not offering any type of protest against the Angela Davis persecution. The reasons for it are just as bad as are the Chinese motivations for disregarding the Angela Davis campaign.
In their rivalry with China, the Soviet leaders abroad and the revisionist CP leaders right here felt that by calling the public’s attention to the failure of China to engage in protest against the Davis persecution, might impel China to make overtures to Angela Davis and possibly be an effort to win her over as well and a segment of Black followers along with her. The Chinese CP leadership, on the other hand, felt that by giving publicity to the Angela Davis case they would also be giving the Soviet leaders and the CP in this country a temporary advantage, since adding China’s full weight behind the case, while the Angela Davis case was in the hands of the CP, would end up in a victory for the revisionists.
Why Soviet Leaders Pushed Angela Case
Of course, there is a temporary advantage to the CP in this country as a result of the worldwide as well as national struggle that was engendered by the campaign to free Angela Davis. We too are aware of it. But was there not also a temporary advantage to the anarchists as a result of the worldwide campaign to free Sacco and Vanzetti? What should we consider first? The temporary advantage to an opponent political organization or the long-term fundamental interests of the liberation struggle against racist imperialism?
As it turned out, Angela Davis was freed without the aid of Chinese support and it is of course true that the CP is reaping a harvest as a result of the case, which literally rescued the CP from disaster in light of Brezhnev’s capitulation on the mining of Haiphong and other ports. Again, we too felt that there would be a temporary organizational gain by the CP. But failure to participate loyally is a surrender of the most elementary class struggle conceptions in the struggle against imperialism.
It is pertinent to remember at this time, one of our fundamental differences with the SWP during the witch-hunt when the CP leaders were under indictment in this country. The SWP was most reluctant to give any bonafide support to defend the CP leaders who were on trial or in prison. Whenever they wrote about the indictment or imprisonment of the CP leaders, they always made sure to so overload their “support” with vicious polemical attacks on other issues that anyone who read their material and who was friendly to the CP would say, “With such friendly supporters, who needs enemies?”
The SWP and Angela Davis
In the Angela Davis case, the SWP switched positions only because of the tremendous popularity of Angela Davis with progressive people throughout the country. In contrast however, during the witch-hunt, one had to be downright courageous to support the civil rights of the CP leaders, and that’s where the SWP caved in.
CP and USSR Leaders Defend Angela but not the Panthers
The worldwide support for Angela Davis was initiated by the Soviet CP. This too needs explanation. Moscow’s policy of accommodation with the West and of abandoning revolutionary methods of struggle is well known throughout the world. In the light of the leftist polemical attacks by the Chinese CP which for many years excoriated the Soviet CP as revisionist and reactionary, the Angela Davis case offered the Soviet CP and the worldwide CPs an opportunity to fight for a cause which didn’t go beyond the limitations of the capitalist system.
For Moscow to encourage a revolutionary movement to take up arms is one thing, that would entail a break with imperialism or at least a section of it, but defending an individual’s political rights against a racist frame-up is still within the permissible limits of accommodation. Hence the Soviet CP grasped this opportunity offered by the Davis case to refurbish its tarnished reputation as a fighter against U.S. capitalist persecution and a champion of Black people to boot.
It is to be noted that this vigorous defense of Angela Davis is in a sharp contrast to no defense at all or worldwide publicity and encouragement when the persecution of the Panthers was at stake. Moscow did not at all go out of its way to defend them or set in motion worldwide support for them. The contrast shows the limited possibilities of political support from the Soviet Union when a case-hardened bureaucracy holds the destiny of such a mighty socialist republic in its hands.
It is well to remember that our party loyally defended not only all of the Panther leaders who were jailed and persecuted, but Angela Davis and Ruchell Magee as well. In each of these cases the party demonstrated its principled opposition to capitalist persecution and unconditional support for the defendants. At the same time, we maintained our complete political independence in relationship to the politics of the defendants. Nor did we join the motley crew of social democrats of all stripes, SWP, Labor Committee, Workers League, PL, including the CP, and others, who utilized the trials and tribulations of the Panthers to attack the liberation movement. With us it was an opportunity to demonstrate our support for the liberation movement. Our party came out stronger and more tempered as a result of it all.
Last updated: 11 May 2026