LET HISTORY JUDGE STALINISM

Ine : Urgins and Consequences i Salsa (macman a0.9) the first independent attempt in the Soviet Union to undernd the Stalin era which has come out of that country. It is a sta mning indictment of Stalin and Stalinism which confirms dai erything which Trotsky wrote about the bureaucratic eve generation of the first workers' state. From the great tension der der which it is written, its passion drawn from the sufferings unI millions of people, is also a testimony to the fact that the nquests of the October 1917 Revolution have not been COI der stroyed. Medveder writes as a communist intellectual, an positionist who is harassed and persecuted for his struggle OPI tell the truth as he sees it. His book has great merits and serves a careful study both for what it provides in the way of de: rroboration for the Trotskyist analysis and what it leaves CO1 t. On some crucial questions the book is fundamentally oul ong. This series of articles submit Medveder's book to de1 tailed scrutiny with the aim of pursuing the struggle ainst Stalinism to the end. It will deal in particular with i errors and omissions and point the way for a more unded analysis which must begin with the works of Trotsky r01 wh rich are cited in the footnotes. ann af (talinica' (Monmillon (575) loyal to the Leninist policy of revolutionary defeatism.

The communist parties were thrown into acute disarray by Stalin's volte-face! Prepared for many years to adopt a defencist position behind their own ruling class in the coming war under the banner of antifascism, they now had to adopt an entirely different policy in which the warmongers were the governments of Britain and France.

Their embarrassments increased as Stalin carried out his undertakings to Hitler fully and enthusiastically even after the Nazis had made themselves masters of western Europe and had begun to turn their attention and their forces towards the East.

When the Nazis launched their attack on the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, Stalin was taken completely by surprise. He had refused to credit the many reports of war preparations and the warnings which were received ved both from foreign governments and from Soviet intelligence agents who were risking their lives in order to obtain such informaNothing had been done, in the period of the Pact, to prepare for the German attack. The Red Army was still staggering under the blows inflicted by Stalin himself on its high comand and its officer corps. To the last, under Stalin's instructions, the Soviet press issued statements claiming that Germany was strictly observing the terms of the Pact and that there was no truth in the rumours that an attack was being prepared.

Stalin's culpability for the defencelessness of the Soviet Union in the face of the Nazi attack and criticism of his conduct of the Wat were obviously not raised during his lifetime in the Soviet Union. It the 20th Congress which first revealed such facts to the general public and gave the all clear for historians and publicists to investigate his role in the events leading to the war and in the war itself and to demolish the myth of the great war leader.

Medvedev brings together the case against Stalin and argues persuasively against those who, in the past few years, had begun to rehabilitate Medvedev turns a blind eye to the of the bureaucratic which enabled Stalin to wreak the havoc which nearly brought Union and blames everything onto 'the system of one-man rule combined with one man's limitations'. However, given this limitation, he undoubtedly makes clear Stalin's responsibilities. As he insists, against those who now try to resurrect Stalin the great war leader, the facts cited by Khrushchev in 1956 have been been disproved. His judgement in this respect is worth quoting:

'Stalin was in fact a mediocre commander. He did make correct decisions, gave his subordinates correct orders, and accepted from them - often after arguments and resistance - much good advice. But his personal qualities-—his nastiness and narrow-mindedness, his contempt for people and boundless love of power, his suspiciousness and his bureaucratic style of leadership — were bound to affect his behaviour as a commander. The result was something much worse than the mistakes that cannot be avoided in any war. Most of Stalin's wrong decisions were so extravagantly and senselessly costly that they cannot be condoned.' When the German attack began, Stalın had difficulty in believing it. The first orders given to the Red Army left open the pos: ibility that there had been a mistake and Stalin ordered Molotov to see the German ambassador and get in touch with Berlin. Only when Molotov returned to confirm that Germany had declared war did Stalin believe it. For a period, from June 24 to July 2, 1941, Stalin withdrew from public life, apparently believing that all was lost.

What he was doing in those days no one knows for sure. In private Khrushchev once said that he was drinking. At any rate, as Medvedev points out, the system of command