LET HISTORY beci JUDGE STALINISM

The book by Koy Medyedev translated as Let History juage: the Origins and Consequences of Stalinism' (Macmillan £5.75) ine urgins and conseq is the first independent stand the Stalin era whi damning indictment of everything which Irc degeneration of the first under which it is writte of millions of people, i conquests of the Oct‹ destroyed. Medvedev » oppositionist who is ha to tell the truth as he deserves a careful study corroboration for the out. On some crucial wrong. This series of detailed scrutiny with against Stalinism to th his errors and omissi rounded analysis which which are cited in the fo SOCIALISM IN ONE COUNTRY AND FOREIGN POLICY The most prevalent m take made by bourger juenci atten ich ha : Stal stsky t worl n, its s also ober writes irasser sees i • both Trotsl duest artic i the le enı ons :

must potno: es or slannism (macmman 20./) npt in the Soviet Union to under. Is come out of that country. It is : in and Stalinism which confirm:

wrote about the bureaucratir kers' state. From the great tensior passion drawn from the suffering: • a testimony to the fact that thi 1917 Revolution have not beer : as a communist intellectual, ar d and persecuted for his struggle it. His book has great merits anc for what it provides in the way o kyist analysis and what it leave! tions the book is fundamentall les submit Mededer's book to aim of pursuing the struggle d. It will deal in particular witt and point the way for a morr t begin with the works of Trotsky tes.

commentators and the revisionists who scorn the dialectic and pick up the crumbs from the table of the Kremlinologists is to equate Stalinism with the purges and repression in which Stalin indulged.

On this reckoning, since his successors no longer resort to such methods, or do so in a lesser and more discreet way, Stalinism has either disa disadpeared-to be replaced by by something else-or it has become respectable enough to enter into a dialogue or even ente an alliance with. an This is basically false and un-Marxist. Trotsky took up the political struggle against the development of the bureaucracy long before Stalin resorted to the pathological liquidation of his opponents and established himself as the supreme arbiter of that bureaucracy.

It was Stalin's basic revision of Marxist theory. breaking with proletarian internationalism and propounding the doctrine of 'socialism in one country' which distinguished Stalinism from Marxism-Leninism. It is this theory, and its derivations—'peaceful coexistence' and parliamentary and peaceful roads to socialism — which remain the distinguishing marks of Stalinin the policies of the Com ism to this dav as emhodied munist Party of the Soviet Union and the other self-styled communist narties faithful to LUMIUNIOL partino tarmus the line of Moscow or of When Trotskyists use the erm 'Stalinism' they refer to this doctrine and policy, worked out by Stalin as the ideology and practice of bureaucratic rule.

In this sense Stalinism remains a deadly canker in the working-class movement, made more insidious in some ways because the old dictator himself is not only dead but completely without honour among the Moscow, if not the Peking Stalinists themselves. They propound and adhere, in fact, to a theory and policy which appears to have no specific origin, but is illegitimately credited to Lenin and, at times, to Marx and Engels.

Whether or not Stalin was conscious of fact. the origins of the theory can be traced back to the right wing of German social democracy.

Trotsky points this out in his detailed criticism of the draft programme of the Communist International drawn up by Bukharin to Stalin's order for the 6th Congress in 1928.

In one form or another it appears in the thinking of all reformists who begin always with the national state, their own, and never with the unity of the world economy.

As far back as 1878, in the early days of the German Social Democratic Party, one Herr Vollmar put forward a theory for an 'isolated state' on socialist foundations. He assumed that it would be quite possible, in an advanced capitalist country like Germany, for socialism to be established while the rest of the world remained capitalist. He envisaged, as Trotsky put it— before the Stalinists patented the term!-'the perspective of the neaceful co-existence of and capitalist the socialist systems.

Socialism would triumph peacefully, in Vollmar's view, by selling goods more cheaply in the world market. What a Utopia!

But Bukharin and Stalin took over this theory, or evolved it independently, and erected it into a theory for the Soviet Union and for the entire Communist International. It is the same theory which Khrushchev propounded when he spoke of the triumph of 'communism' as a result of the peaceful competition of the two systems. It is the same theory to which Brezhnev, Kosygin and the leadership of the Stalinist parties adhere to this day This, then, Hitler's accession to power in 1933 daland $A 1yJS Was Ine grealesi Geigar Iu the working class movement. Recriminations began. Above: Bookburning.

heart of Stalinism on the basis of which, by means of forced draught five-year plans and dekulakızation, Stalin claimed to have built socialism in the 1930s. Through all the zigzags of the 'third period' and the Popular Front, into alliance with Hitler and out of it and into the agreements with America and Britain, into the Cold War and out of it, this remained Stalinism's guiding star.

The policy of 'socialism' in a single country meant that the bureaucracy could not afford to see revolutionary movements break out, let alone triumph, anywhere else. Lip-service was given to 'internationalism', ', but in practice it meant unqualified obedience to the needs of the Soviet Union as conceived by the bureaucracy.

Furthermore, the Soviet Union remained a relatively backward country. This was admitted by Stalin and by his successors in their constant, repeated but ever realized, promises to catch up and outstrip' the advanced capitalist countries. While Vollmar had, at least, propounded the theory for one of the most advanced countries, Stalin's theory was applied to a country which remained both backward and isolated.

Taken up with enthusiasm by the bureaucracy as a whole, because it so well suited its needs as a parasitic ruling stratum, the practice of socialism in one country gave it added succour. At the same time it sapped the strength of the international communist movement, transformed the communist parties into 'border

appears to be unaware. Trotsky warned repe atedly of the suicidal dange is of a policy which saw no difference between fascism and bourgeois democracy, which he traced to philosophical roots.

From thee contradienon if the absolute contradiction deduces the eneral negation of the contradiction, even the relative contradiction. This radicalism. sm. For it there be ar error vulgar contradiction whatsoever between democracy and fascism in the spere, of the form of the rule of the bourgeoisie then the two regimes obviously enough must be equivalent. Whence the conclusion: Social Democracy Fascism. For some reason, however, social democracy is dubbed social fascism. And *sociate in this connection has been left unexplained to this ve Trotsky then goes on to ex- moment. plain the difference between democracy as a form of His Master's Voice: Introducing the BBC's 'World at One' programme William Hardcastle: absentmindedly announced: "This is William • I mean William Hardcastle in World at One studio ..

Thousands of trade unionists ndustrial practices, they should be dismissed from the trade union, whose rules they will be flouting, and then from the docks where they will be steadily rendering all jobs uneconomic.' In another passage the author says the past week is