'Socialism in one country

THE narrow, parochial outlook that Khrushchev (or his Soviet 'ghost writer') displays in this book was also a characteristic of the entire caste that came to power under Stalin's leadership.

'Socialism in one country' was not just Stalin's programme, but the political expression of a whole philosophy which dominated the Bolshevik Party following the double hammer blows of Lenin's death and the temporary defeat of the revolution in Germany and the rest of W Europe.

Further defeats in Britain (the 1926 General strike) and China (Chiang Kai-shek's massacre of the Shanghai workers in April 1927) only strengthened the belief among Khrushchev's generation that the Soviet Union had to make its own way, unaided. to socialism.

The revolutionary role and potential of the western working class and the colonial peoples was paid lip service to, but in practice, written off.

Together with hundreds like him, Khrushchev's career as a loyal Stalinist prospered in direct proportion to the defeats of the working class in the imperialist countries.

We find, in these writings, no echo of the British General Strike, the Chinese Revolution, the rise and victory of German rascism, and the titanic class battles in spain and France.

Historic

All his energies during this historic epoch were concentrated on resolving the internal crises of the Stalinist bureaucracy, on beating back the challenges to Stalin's leadership mounted by not only the Trotskyist Left Opposition but the right opposition of Bukharin and Rykov.

And side by side with this vicious factional struggle (in which Stalin's GPU and not political argument, was the final arbiter) there developed the bureaucracy's struggle to defend its own economic foundations— the nationalized property relations created by the 1917 revolution.

But fearing the movement of the masses as much as the threat from the right, Stalin defended these property relations by reactionary means.

When the rich peasants (Kulaks) staged their revolt against the regime, the bureaucracy leaned 99.999. .. a ..... Brass bands and Bolshevism THE TERROR of Bolshevism shown by ruling-class circles at the end of the First Woild War was tremendous. Discussions in the Cabinet were frequently about how to combat the menace, especially among returning soldiers.

I doubt whether the panic was much allayed by the following letter, circulated as a secret memo to the Cabinet in November 1918, and to be found in the Cabinet papers at the Public Records Office.

Addressed to Mr Austen Chamberlain, it is from Lt-Col J. Norton Griffiths, KGB, DSO, a Tory MP:

"There is a strong current of what might be called "revolutionary ideas" runnirg. This is an aftermath of the long duration of the war.

'One of the best ways of counteracting this, in my opinion, is that every brass band in the country should be let loose as often as possible, and to encourage flag-waving-one form of letting off steam.

'I also suggest the early release-even starting now on a small scale-of men who have got more than two wounded stripes.

*Directly Germany caves in, parading in all the principal towns in celebration should take place— in short everything possible should be done to work up a high patriotic feeling from the results of victory.' Not surprisingly, another memo appears, this one from Sir Alfred Mond, describing these ideas as 'insufficient'. Rather more was needed to stem the revolutionary tide. The ruling class found it in the treachery of the labour leaders. on the working class and poor peasants for support, but made no political concessions to them.

Stalin's iron grip on the state and Party in fact tightened even more in the years of collectivization and industrialization (19291933).

These administrative, bureaucratic methods had their counterpart in the Kremlin's foreign policy, which based itself increasingly on manoeuvres between rival imperialist powers, using the working class of the capitalist states to threaten and pressurize the working classes into agreements with the Soviet bureaucracies.

While Stalin - together with Bukharin-allied himself with the rich peasant against the working class and against Trotsky, the International pursued a policy of collaboration with reformist trade union leaders (like the TUC General Council) and bourgeois nationalists in the colonial world (Chiang in China).

In each case, these alliances led the working class to defeat, and strengthened the imperialist enemies of the Soviet Union.

When Stalin broke from Bukharin in 1929 and launched his adventurist collectivization programme, the entire International was forced to swing to the ultraleft with him.

His reformist allies of 1926 were by 1929 being denounced as 'social fascists'.

Banned

United-front agreement between reformist and communist parties to fight fascism were banned after all, there could be no united action by communists with 'social fascists'). In Germany this policy led directly to the victory of Hitler.

Then in 1935, as the new privileged layers thrown up by Stalin's industrialization programme began to congeal, there came the turn towards the 'popular front', ', a policy which involved class-collaboration between the parties of the working class and so-called "liberal sections of the ruling classes in the main capitalist states conflict with Nazi Germany.

Stalin took the Soviet Union into the • League of Nations (dubbed by. Lenin a 'thieves' kitchen') and signed a military pact with the leaders of French imperialism.

The social foundations of this openly reformist and, in practice, counter-revolutionary policy, were well understood by the most astute bourgeois commentators.

A report on the Soviet Union published by the London Royal Institute of International Affairs stated at the time:

"The internal development of Russia is tending to throw up a "bourgeoisie" of managers and officials who possess sufficient privileges to make them highly content with the status quo. ...

171 3021% In the olumns, M.

It is possible to regard the various purges as part of a process by which all who desire to change the present state of affairs are being rooted out.

'Such an interpretation lends colona to the rode that tussie is over, and that henceforward her rulers will only seek to conserve the gains which the revolution has brought them?

Khrushchev's rise to power and privilege inside the Party can only be understood against this broad setting of Stalin's political counter-revolution.

Khrushchev, himself, could only have been dimly aware of early years of his political carehe Each of these important stages in Stalinist policy passed Khrushchey by far as their inter- national implications were concerned.

Though deeply involved in implementing each internal policy decision of Stalin, he makes no reference to their international consequences until he reaches the Stalin-Hitler pact of August 1939.

Although the International was officially pursuing 'antifascist' Popular Front policy right through to the summer of 1939, Stalin had begun to sound out the possibility of a deal with Hitler much earlier.

The military purges of June 1937, which wiped out a section of the Red Army leadership favouring military agreement with France anticipated Stalin's pact more than two years later.

But for Khrushchev, who was at this time excluded from the ruling clique around Stalin, the news of the pact was a bombshell.

And here too, he is very frank about Stalin's policies and motives. Official Stalinist histories refer to the pact as simply one of 'non-aggression' But Khrushchev thought differently:

It was very hard for us—as Communists, as anti-fascists ... to accept the idea of joining forces with Germany. [Emphasis added.] Paradox It was difficult enough for us to accept this paradox ourselves. It would have been impossible to explain it to the man in the street.

'Therefore we couldn't admit outright that we had reached an agreement on peaceful co-existence with Hitler.

'Co-existence would have been possible with the Germans in general but not with the Hitlerite fascists...

Not only was the Soviet Union terribly compromised in the eyes of millions of workers all over the world as a result of Stalin's deal with the butchers of the German labour movement, but it also enabled Hitler to prepare for his future invasion of the USSR.

FRr toM The Nazis gained most from the trade and economic agreements which followed the signing of the pact, as Khrushchev 'According to the treaty, we were supposed to give the Germans a certain amount of wheat, oil, and other products. We made all our deliveries punctually.' The Nazis, on the other hand, did everything they could to slow down the deliveries of the goods to the Soviet Union.

Another side to the Stalin-Hitler pact kept secret by the Kremlin was its collaboration with the Nazi Gestapo after the partition of Poland.

Conference

There have been claims that Stalin's NKVD (successors to the GPU) met Gestapo leaders for a conference in Krakow, some time in 1940.

Though Khrushchev does not refer to such a meeting, he does A review by Robert Black mention the activities of NKVD boss in the Ukraine, I. A. Serov, *who later added to his notoriety by carrying out Stalin's order to deport six Soviet national minorities to central Asia:

'Serov's duties required him to have contacts with the Gestapo. A Gestapo representative used to come to Lvov on official business. ...

'I don't know what sort of a network the Gestapo had in the Ukraine, but it was extensive. The cover [i.e., pretext] for this network was an exchange agreement whereby people on Germanoccupied territory who wanted to return to their homes in the former Polish territory now occupied by Soviet troops were allowed to do so...

But there was also a considerable traffic in the other direction as well, a fact that speaks volumes for the repressive national policies of the Stalinist regime in the Ukraine.

Khrushchev goes on to relate a scene described Serov:

•"There are long lines standing outside the place where people register for permission to return to Polish territory.

•"When I took a closer look I was shocked to see that most of the people in line were members of the Jewish population.

• "They were bribing the Gestapo agents to let them leave as soon as possible to return to their orginial home .. • Bribes Comments Khrushchev:

'The Gestapo agents were eagerly accepting the bribes, getting rich, and shipping these people straight to the gas chambers. There was nothing we could do to stop them...

'Nothing we could do .. .. and yet these revolting scenes took place on Soviet - ruled territory! 6.45 7.10 8.00 8.50 9.00 9.20 10.30 11.00 9.00 9.20 6.30 7.00 7.30 8.00 9.00 10.00 10.30 11.25 11.55 12.10 THE DOCTORS.

STAR TREK. 'The Devil In the Dark'.

THE FIFTIES. December 1950.

NINE O'CLOCK NEWS and weather. contemporary politics.

Weather.

BBC 2 11.00-11.20 a.m. PLAY SCHOOL, 6.35-7.00 p.m. OPEN UNIVERSITY. Arts. 7.05 HARDY HEATING INTERNATIONAL. 7.30 NEWSROOM and weather.

Fred Davis.

ELIZABETH R. 'The Enterprise as Elizabeth I.

NEWS ON 2 and weather.

LATE NIGHT LINE-UP.

REGIONAL All regions as above except:

Midlands, _E Anglia: 6.00-6.45 Nationwide. Midlands today.

Look East, weather. 11.42 News, weather.

North, NW, NE, Cumberland and Westmorland: 6.00-6.45 Nationwide. Look North, weather. 11.42 News, weather.

Wales: 6.00-6.45 Wales 6.45-9.10 weather. Nationwide.

Heddiw. 7.10-7.30 A question of sport. 7.30-8.00 Mlaen a ni.

11.20-11.50 Late call. 11.42 Weather.

News. 5.55 Today.

ARNIE. 'Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow'. THIS IS YOUR LIFE.

CORONATION STREET.

I SPY. 'Carmelita Is One Of Us'.

A FAMILY AT WAR. 'A Separate Peace NEWS AT TEN.

ASSOCIATION FOOTBALL. Scottish League.

PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING.

WHAT THE PAPERS SAY. a.m SURVIVAL IN THE CITY. Ivor English of the Midlands Art Centre.

Jagi-n ıya / sevan. er. 1.4 -1.53 Chelt: nhan • 4.30 Goose. 5.15 Terry.

BBC Scotland: 10.25-10.45 Around Scot• land. 2.30-2.50 Modern studles.

6.00-6.45 Reporting Scotland.

Nationwide. 11.42 News, weather.

N. Ireland: 10.25-10.45 Ulster in focus. 6.00-6.45 Scene around 1X, weather. Nationwide.

3.00 If Profile. News, weather.

Sports, weather. i.

Spotlight SW, News, weather.

Mills