STALIN RESURRECTED?

Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalin in 1956 (they are seen together above) produced the most important crisis fol world Stalinism, whose disintegration is further exposed by the refusal of the Chinese (Mao Tse Tung seen with Stalin below) to attend this year's Congress of the Soviet Communist Party.

It is in this atmosphere that the question of resurrecting Stalin its head.

How can the contradictions of a workers' state in a backward, isolated country, its economy distorted by bureaucratic control as well as.by A Journal of International Marxism Published by the International Committee of the Fourth International High Street, CONTENTS and *rotskyism capitalist TintiWond market and military in the Communist Parties strength, plan its economic the capitalist countries, they future? insist on the 'good sides' of Wartime get-together, Churchill, Roosevelt How can the relations between a bureaucratised Party, a managerial élite, and a growing and powerful working class in Russia and Eastern Europe, be regulated?

How can the policy of collaboration with US imperialism, upon which the Soviet bureaucracy has embarked, be carried through in a situation where the Chinese Communist Party is split from the 'official' communist movement? Behind agenda It is these questions which lie behind the agenda of the 23rd Congress: the five-year plan and the revisions of Khrushchev's 'adventurist' targets; relations in the international communist movement; possible revision of the Party constitution; and, most publicised, the possible reconsideration of the role of Stalin.

This last question has been insistently raised in high circles in the USSR in the last few months.

Khrushchev, of course, gave no Marxist explanation of how it was possible for 'socialist' society to sustain the abuses of the Stalin period. He attributed these to Stalin's megalomania.

Under the guise of seeking a more Marxist explanation, some historians and writers, and now leading generals, all of them without doubt sponsored by definite forces in the higher ranks of the Party, have called for at least a measure of rehabilitation of Stalin.

Stali carve up the world Marxist works which answer the burning problems of the Communist movement Writings of Leon Trotsky Permanent Revolution (with Results and Prospects) The New Course The First Five Years of the S.W.4 Communist International Where is Britain Going?

Platform of the Left Opposition (1927)

Death Agony of Capitalism (Transitional Programme) Draft Programme of the Communist International: A Criticism of Fundamentals, 1928 Germany: The Key to The International Situation The Only Road for Germany Radio, Science, Technique ane Society Hue and Cry over Kronstadt Three Articles on Workers' Control The Workers' State and the Question of Thermidor and Bonapartism 9d. The Revolution Betrayed Culture and Socialism & Art and Revolution The Intelligentsia and Socialism Through What Stage Are Passing?

Stalinism & Bolshevism Stalinism and Trotskyism in the USA Available from:

New Park Publications I 186a Clapham High St., Stalin's work; they draw attention to the tendency, particularly among the youth, to reject out of hand the heritage of Stalinism.

Last week this persistent campaign on behalf of Stalin (intended as the ideological backing for a drive against opposition to the bureaucracy) received a reply from a number of leading Soviet intellectuals and public figures, including Peter Kapitsa, atomic phycisist, Ivan Maisky, ballerina Maya Plisetskaya, and a number of writers and academidicians.

They warn that the rehabilitation of Stalin would precipitate a split between the Soviet and Western Communist Parties.

The important thing is that this group of intellectuals no doubt feel they have some sort of 'protectors' in the Communist Party hierarchy.

No 1956 These intellectuals insist that 'the people will never understand or accept even a deviation in part from the resolutions taken against Stalin's personality cult- in 1956'. In other words, the Soviet workers will not stand for any going back from 1956; it would be dangerous to the bureaucracy itself if discipline were to be enforced with the help of Stalin's ghost.

Whether the Congress will publicly discuss any of these questions is of course doubtiul, but it is t fear of the working class is the USSR and all dominate this conference of bureaucrats.

On the eve of Growing support for W feeling hopelessly ORLD imperialism, cornered in a world-wide crisis, is getting more ruthless in Its attempt to strangle the workers' militancy and their conscious or instinctive revolutionary tendencies.

In the under-developed countries, American imperialism, along with its European counterparts, in their struggles to hang on to, or spread their spheres of 'influence and exploitation', have to resort to bloody coups, military dictatorships or semi-dictatorships.

Vietnam, Indonesia, Ghana, Rhodesia, Santo Domingo, and Greece are the latest examples of the swift replacements of so-called 'popular governments' by open or hidden dietatorships, unleashing a policy of terror against the workers and peasants in order to force their living standards down and to crush the workers and their left-wing tendencies.

ERE rule ends

Greece, up to 1963, was governed by the ERE Party, representing sections of Greek capitalists, who are connected with American capital.

This party in fact contains some of the most reactionary elements in Greece. It is solidly monarchist, and advocates 'strong' government against the masses.

Making use of the general opposition of the people against such a policy, the Centre Union, led by Papandreou, promised 'democratic freedom' and a rise in living standards. Aided by the Stalinist EDA, Papandreou came to power.

He was unable to fulfil all his 'promises', ', and soon the workers began to fight back. The government replied with fresh repressions.

Faced with increased it was suddenly announced in Moscow that four plays running there are to be immediately taken off the stage. All of these plays deal with the Stalin period, and one of them is by Tvardovski, who made a very critical speech at the 22nd Congress on these questions. All this is in preparation for moves at the 23rd Congress.

In recent months the bureaucracy has mounted a wave of repression in Russia and Eastern Europe, not only against writers but also against Trotskyists and other militant workers. Any moves at this Congress are against that backcloth.

Declined

The Chinese Communist Party, feeling more and more the campaign of the Soviet bureaucracy to isolate the Chinese revolution as part of its accommodation to US imperialism, has rejected the invitation to send fraternal delegates, not even considering it worthwhile to take advantage of the platform offered there to attack the 'modern revisionists'.

This indicates how far the disintegration of international Stalinism has proceeded. This disintegration is a necessary part of the development of the conditions which now favour so markedly the reconstruction of the Fourth International.

The task of the Trotskyists is to base themselves upon that international working class so tearea by the pureaucracy, and to appreciate the events at the Soviet Party Congress from that standpoint. Greek Trotskyists tancy by the workers, the capitalists, particularly the pro-American sections, began thinking of ways to strengthen their hold on the working class and finally resorted to the July 1965 coup, carried out on their behalf by the King, with a few of Papandreou's ministers, who simply sacked the elected government.

'Peaceful' struggle

A new government was formed and swiftly began passing anti-working-class legislation, exiling left wingers, etc.

Papandreou and the Stalinists called on the people to wage 'peaceful struggle against the coup' (!) and for 'a return to normality of the Papandreou type—in other words, for a solution within capitalism.

The EDA, having deep petty middle-class roots, meekly followed the capitalist slogans of Papandreou for a 'return to constitutional monarchy, and capitalist 'normality' under the already discredited Papandreou government.

Only the Trotskyists, a mere handful in numbers, put forward correct slogans for the overthrow of the monarchy, and for a plebiscite for a constituent assembly, coupled with calls for strikes and the creation of workers' committees to fight back and defeat the capitalist attacks.

The correctness of the slogans was proved by the fact that they were readily taken up by the demonstrators and gave fresh impetus to the struggle.

By August, the demonstrations became violent. Cars were set alight, barricades were )RRESPONDENT set up and bloody clashes the police were common.

The Trotskyists fought in the front lines and Comrade Petroulas became the first victim of the fight.

They fought hard to broaden the social aspect of the struggle and to lead it towards socialist solution to the crisis. In this uphill struggle, they found the Stalinists and the organs of the very government which the EDA called 'fascist' unified in the common effort to smash the Trotskyists and end their rising influence among the workers.

Stalinists splitting

The Stalinists have managed to temporarily arrest the force of the workers' movement, but their party is already splitting up and is torn apart by various opposed tendencies within it.

On the other hand, members of the Workers' Vanguard (Trotskyists) are carrying on their struggle and more and more workers today are realising that the real solution of the problem can only be that (left to right) Molotov, Voroshilov, Beria, Malenkov, Bulganin, Khrushchev, Kaganovich Mikoyan.

Stalin was a pall the funeral of the assassinated Kirov.

Stalinists have never explained the exact circumstances of his death and the biood-bath precipitated by it.

Neither have his alliances with the most reactionary and imperialist states been satisfactorily explained. He is seen here with Pierre Laval, extreme right wing representative of the French government, at the signing of the Franco-Soviet pact in 1934 and with Ribbentrop, Hitler': emissary, after the sign of the Stalin-Hitler non-aggression pact of August 23, 1939, with Matsuoka, Japanese envoy, after the signing of the Russo-Japanese nonagyrossion pact of April 13, 1941. of a social change. They remember the past br trayals of the Stalinists in 19 15 and are beginning to turn to the Workers' Vanguard.

Thus, the new party of the working class in Greece is now being built as a section of the International Committee of the Fourth International, the world party of the international proletariat.

Stand witnessed

The Stalinists in Greece may go on denouncing the Trotskyists as 'fascist provocateurs' 'police agents', etc. But the working class has witnessed the stand the internationalists took last summer-squarely on the side of the masses.

As none of the problems which led to the crisis have been or can ever be solved within the capitalist system, the struggles ahead will provide fresh evidence of the Stalinist collaboration with capitalism on the one hand, and of the loyalty and revolutionary sincerity of the Trotskyist movement, on the other.

Stalinism will find it an impossible task to take on the working class again.

Student Sotiris Petroulas the first victim in last summer's clashes. He was found dead after a police rush on a crowd of demonstrators.

ril 19 WSLETTER Page :Three business