LET HISTORY JUDGE STALINISM

the Origins and Consequences of Stalinism' (Macmillan £5.75) is the first independent attempt in the Soviet Union to understand the Stalin era which has come out of that country. It is a damning indictment of Stalin and Stalinism which confirms everything which Trotsky wrote about the bureaucratic degeneration of the first workers' state. From the great tension under which it is written, its passion drawn from the sufferings of millions of people, is also a testimony to the fact that the conquests of the October 1917 Revolution have not been destroyed.. Medvedev writes as a communist intellectual, an oppositionist who is harassed and persecuted for his struggle to tell the truth as he sees it. His book has great merits and deserves a careful study both for what it provides in the way of corroboration for the Trotskyist analysis and what it leaves out. On some crucial questions it is fundamentally wrong and misleading. Medvedev clings to the hope that the bureaucracy will reform itself. In this he resembles the revisionists like Deutscher and Pablo. He fails to see the revolutionary alternative to Stalinism provided by the struggle of the Left Opposition. He does not accept that only a political revolution which overthrows the parasitic Stalinist bureaucracy can preserve the social and economic conquests of 1917 which he upholds. The following series of articles submit Medvedev's book to detailed scrutiny with the aim of pursuing the struggle against Stalinism to the end. It will deal in particular with his errors and omissions and point the way for a more rounded analysis which must begin with the works of Trotsky which are cited in the footriotes.

BY TOM KEMP PART 1 By next March it will be 20 years since the death of Josef Stalin was greeted by the leadership of the world's communist parties with tributes to his genius as a Marxist-Leninist which matched the adulation he had received during his lifetime.

Yet today, even in the Soviet Union, despite some attempts to rehabilitate him, his name is scarcely mentioned and a whole epoch of history is thus treated in a distorted way.

In the communist parties outside the Soviet Union a similar embarrassed silence prevails. After a few attempts to explain away his crimes in the period of 'de-Stalinization' which followed the revelations' by Khrushchev at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in February 1956, which remained extremely superficial, the matter was allowed to drop out of sight as quietly as possible.

Yet the fact remains that after Lenin's death in 1924, Stalin rapidly emerged as the dominant figure in the party and state apparatus in the Soviet Union. Disposing first of his opponents and then of his erstwhile allies, he ruled in an increasingly arbitrary fashion, wiping out hundreds of thousands of communists during the purges of the 1930s, to become one of the cruellest and bloodiest tyrants in hailed that period somet Union and in the communist parties as an infallible leader and theoretical guide and accorded an adulation which was not only foreign to the working class and revolutionary movement, but exceeded that required even by most other dictators. His word was law not only in political matters, but in history, philosophy, linguistics, literature and art.

The Communist Party leaders in Britain as well as other countries claimed to be Stalin's disciples and accepted completely without criticism every word which was issued from the Kremlin. Maurice Thorez was proclaimed as the leading Stalinist in France and it was implied that every other communist leader reflected something of his glory. In the East European countries each national leader was, in effect, a lesser Stalin according his own due measure of reverence and obedience.

It must be said that the respect for Stalin and belief in him as a great leader and Marxist revolutionary found an echo among sections of the working class and not only those directly under the influence of the communist parties. For many Stalin, mistakenly, personified the hopes and aspirations of the October Revolution and during World War Il he seemed to symbolize the heroic struggles of the Red Army and the Soviet people upon which the masses Europe depended for their liberation from the fascist yoke.

At the same time, the acceptance of Stalin was not universal in the working-class movement by any means. If the purges and trials, the suppression of opponents and the deification of Stalin were accepted and approved by the communist parties and all the fellow-travellers, knowledge of the crimes of Stalin had penetrated sections of the labour movement.

On the one hand, the Trotskyists in particular carried on a tireless campaign to expose these crimes and to explain politically how Stalinist policies had betrayed the revolution and destroyed the Bolshevik Party.

On the other hand, fear of Stalinist methods reinforced the grip of reformism and 'anti-communism' on large sections of workers, especially in countries like Britain and the USA, where the communist tradition had never been strong. The fact that this

After Lenin's death in 1924 (above), Stalin rapidly emerged as dominant figure in the party and state apparatus sentiment rested on a basis truth as far as the crimes Stalin was concerned made all the more tragic..

It was not the least of the counter-revolutionary eftects of Stalinism that it divided the working class and strengthened the reformists' hold over it.

The struggle against Stalin and the degeneration of the first workers' state which produced Stalin was carried on from the beginning by Leon Trotsky and by the •Left Opposition in Russia in the 1920s. As long as any kind of discussion and debate was possible, Trotsky and his co-thinkers exposed every step of the Stalinist betrayal.

But through his control of the instruments • of repression, Stalin was able to defeat the let Opposition, rotty, ling destroying physically all of its supporters.

in the 16 years before his assassination by a Stalinist agent, first of all as the leader. Russia and then as an exile building the International Left Opposition which in 1938 was to become the Fourth International, Trotsky of Stalins detailed analysis lies, crimes and betrayals. He explained in Marxist terms the social basis from which the monstrous phenomenon of Stalinism had grown.

These writings are invaluable theoretical capital for all those breaking from Stalinism, as well as those coming to Marxism for the first time, who are searching for an explanation and practical advice on how to fight it.

The bureaucracies in the Soviet Union and the East European countries are mortally afraid of Trotskyism.

They are afraid of admitting that there was an alternative to Stalin's course, afraid that a full and frank disclosure of the past will bring to light their own questionable origins and bring them to a rapid and terrible reckoning.

That is why so many aspects of Soviet history and the history of the international communist movement must remain a closed book or be dealt with the The reception accorded to Alexander Solzhenitsyn's 'One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch' during the brief period of the 'thaw' and then the ban on his other novels, "The First Circle' and Cancer Ward" in the reaction which followed, is highly significant. There is clearly a huge audience for books which deal truthfully with Soviet life in the Stalin era.

The whole question of the Stalin era is, moreover, a part of Soviet life and experience whether or not it is written about in the books or adequately dealt with in the histories.

The generations which suffered under Stalin have not all died off. The purges are still part of living memory. Many came back from camps and prisons in the 1950s and 1960s after Stalin's death. They have stories to tell which some have written down or spread by word of mouth, even though they may not reach the official organs.

Even in these, the truth has filtered through to limited extent and in a selective and one-sided manner. 'De-Stalinization' meant that no shred of credibility remained as far as the trials and purges were concerned. It was, i in fact, stopped when public curiosity, and the desire to know the full truth in order that the guilty could be found and punished threatened to open the flood gates which would prepare the way for the political revolution.

A desire to know, to be sure, to explain what the official history passes over in silence or with an eloquent lie is widespread in the Soviet Union. It finds expression in the writing of the samizdatunderground literature which passes from hand to hand in typewritten or duplicated form.

Works by the Medvedev brothers have taken this form in the past. As members of the Communist Party they have sought, however, to get their works produced by the official publishing houses. Roy Medvedev tried to have his.

analysis of the causes and consequences of Stalinism brought to be percited in the Soviet Union. For, it Medvedev could get away with what he writes, what would the next author want to say, and the one after that...?

The minds the bureaucrats in the publishing houses must have boggled. But the decision did not rest with them; it must have been taken at the highest level as a question of state.

Medvedev's book was evidently considered too dangerous for circulation Soviet Union, both for what contains and for what thoughts and demands it might provoke.

Somewhere in the Kremlin, instructions were given to the publishing houses not to touch it. It is not impossible, however, knowing how other forbidden books have reached the outside world, that the bureaucracy permitted even facilitated its communication to foreign publishers through Victor Louis. agent like the notorious Inside the Soviet Union book like Medredev's still represents a threat; but outside only confirms what is generally known and brings to light some fresh and valuable evidence. Most interesting, of course, is the fact that such a book can written by Soviet intellectual the bureaucracy may not object to that being known, even if it is not yet willing to let it be published.

But the very weaknesses of the book, which will be examined later in detail, are such as to reduce its danger when circulated abroad.

In the articles which follow the aim will be first to show from Medvedev's account how he brings from inside the Soviet Union confirmation of the Trotskyist analysis of the Stalinist degeneration;

secondly, to show the weaknesses of his analysis and tr correct them by bringing out the true nature of Stalinism and its social roots; thirdly, to show how the struggle against Stalinism must be carried on until it leads to the overthrow of the bureaucracy.

Whatever its limitations, Mededev's book remains great achievement for one working under the difficult and indeed dangerous conditions which still prevail in the Soviet Union. It is massive in indictment of Stalin. It frank and fearless in the 1LS denunciation ot the bureaucracy and its crime. But it is the work remains a loyal Soviet citizen and member of the Communist Partv.

Medvedev has not turned his back on the Revolution of 1917 or on Bolshevism, as he understands it. He has not sought consolation in some fashionable religion or esoteric doctrine. He has not sought refuge in the West, nor is he attracted by capitalist society.

Educated under Stalin, a member of the new Soviet intelligentsia, he has come out courageously for a return to Leninism.

Under the circumstances, many of the shortcomings and errors in his book can be TERROR RAIDS Our man in Belfast has filed a report on the so-called "softlysoftly' policy of the British army. It compares very differently from the capitalist press accounts. Apart from the shooting of a number of unarmed civilians — including a priest and a 14-year-old girlthere have been the terror raids on various Catholic housing estates.

The Divis Flats in Belfast have been the scene of alleged 'IRA attacks' on the army. Our investigator says that this completely contradicts the facts.

The army has in fact been engaged in unprovoked attacks on the homes of the local population.

Take this statement from Kate Smilie who lives in the flats:

*I heard a crack followed by another crack. The first was a bullet which went through the kitchen and embedded above the fireplace. The second was another bullet which came through the windown and embedded in the far bedroom wall. I ran out of my room and into my father's bedroom. I was absolutely terrified."

Kate says the bullet could only have come from the army post which overlooks the Divis flat. By checking the trajectory of the bullet from the broken window and where it was embedded in the wall it came without doubt from the army post.

In the Unity Flats Eamon Loughney showed how the army has adopted a policy of shooting up Catholic homes to terrorize and intimidate.

A bullet whistled through his window, before shattering several walls on the wall over his mother's bed where she was sleeping.

Eamon points out that the previous day the army had wanted to search his house. He refused, saying they needed a warrant. They promised that he would hear from them again. UNCHARITABLE Mr Anthony Barber may think he has his problems. But consider the problems of Liechtenstein. For those whose geography 1s somewhat rough, Liechtenstein (pop. 22,000) is the tiny principality on. Switzerland's northeastern border with Austria.

When the pound was floated last month, Switzerland took a series of tough measures to keep out unwanted hot" money.

Since 1923 the two countries have been closely linked in a customs and monetary union, and the principality uses Swiss money. But in order to prevent unwanted funds coming in through the back door the Swiss decided, somewhat uncharitably, to put Liechtenstein into the foreign category. A spokesman for the principality said that this had caused 'great difficulties' and urgent negotiations were opening with Geneva in order to try and change the decision.

KIM One place where there is no surprise at the new warmth in relations between South and North Korea is ... the Chamber of Trade and Industry in Barcelona, that organization of fascist businessmen, For the past few months the Chamber of Trade has been receiving hundreds of copies in Spanish of A revolutionary history of North Korea' and 'A biography of the great revolutionary leader Kim-Il-sung'.

Apparently the North Koreans think that if the fascists read the great leader's revolutionary biography, they will immediately send off a few trade delegations to North Korea!

Below: Kim-ll-sung of North Korea