THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE SOVIET UNION

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August 1, 1959
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Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 THE COMMUNIST PARTY Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 r' THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE SOVIET UNION A New Look at the Foundations of international Communism By Alan Braith Revised Edition August 1959 ? Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release @ 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF iHE SOVIET UNION Table of Contents The Party of Lenin and Ehrushchev II "Democratic Centralism," the Key to Party Power III Soviet Government as a Party Facade IV The Soviet Police System V Labor in the Soviet State VI The Party's Management of Agriculture VII The Party's Position on Religion VIII The Party's Role in Education IX Soviet Press: the Voice of the Party X Propaganda Aims and Methods XI Soviet Culture and "Party Spirit" XII The Party and the Question of Nationalities XIII Front Organizations: Vehicles for Party Goals XIV Moscow's Role in International Communism XV Some Conclusions Historical Highlights Glossary of Communist Terminology Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release @ 50-Yr 2 02 . C - oo4nonilnnni R Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02: CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 V I PICTORIAL HIGHLIGHTS 1917-1959 The Party's Founder and His Heirs The Old Bolsheviks The Formative Years The Era of Stalin Heads of the Secret Police Khrushchev in Action The Anti-Party Group Some Members of the Party's Inner Circle ,---\ Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R00400011nnni_R Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 Democratic Centralism LIFE Dr COMMUNISM "The Communist Party must be built on the basis of democratic central- ism. The main principles of democratic centralism are the election of the upper body by the lower body; the absolute compulsory nature of the decisions of the upper body for the lower body, the latter being subordinated to the former; and the existence of an authoritative party center as the undisputed direct institution of the party life from one congress to another." Resolution of the Second Congress of the Communist International, 1920 Communist Morality "When people talk to us about morality we say: For the Communist, morality consists entirely of compact united discipline and conscious mass struggle against the exploiters...We say that our morality is entirely sub- ordinated to the interests of the class struggle of the proletariat." V. I. Lenin -- "Tasks of the Youth League" October 20, 1920 One-party System "The class which took political power in its hands did so knowing that it took this power alone. This is contained in the concept dictatorship of the proletariat. This concept has meaning only when a single class knows that it alone is taking political power in its hands and does not deceive itself or others with talk of 'popular, elected' government 'sanctified by the whole people'." Communist Culture V. I. Lenin, speech to Transport Workers March 27, 1921 "The entire course of our cultural development is determined by the policy of the Soviet state, the Bolshevik world outlook." Bolshevik, No. 10, 1947 The Old Bolsheviks Stalin (far left) shown with Old Bolsheviks (left to right) Alexei Rykov, Lean Kamenev, and Gregory Zinoviev, a trio later purged by the dictator. Nikolai Bukharin Yakov Sverdlov Valerian Kuibyshev G. K. Ordzhonikidze Among early leaders of Russian communism was a group of revolutionaries now commonly known as "Old Bolsheviks." Many of them later were purge victims. Included (left to right) are Nikolai Bukharin, Yakov Sverdlov, Valerian Kuibyshev, and G. K. Ordzhonikidze; below (left), Leon Trotsky in exile, shortly before his assassination by a Stalin agent in Mexico, 1940. At right, Trotsky is shown reviewing Red troops during the revolutionary period. His fame as a military leader is ignored by Communists who execrate "Trotskyism." Leon Trotsky in exile. Trotsky as army commander during Revolution. Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release @ 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02: CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 During the revolutionary period, Lenin swayed crowds of workers and soldiers by propagating apt slogans. 4.1'140;sv The Party's Founder and His Heirs V. I. Lenin (1870-1924), founder of Soviet Communism, successfully led his minority Bolshevik Party in the 1917 Revolution and inaugurated the single-party rule characteristic of Communist regimes. He also produced body of Communist doctrine which provides basic criteria, in theory and practice, for Communist parties everywhere. The principles authored by Lenin include "iron discipline" as a duty for all party members and "democratic centralism," or control by a small elite group -- the cen- tral committee -- over the party and its administrative organs, policies and programs. Lenin is venerated by all Communists above --other leaders, living or dead, throughout the world. The Formative Years Lenin's return to Moscow from exile in April 1917, as pictured in the idealized painting at left, was a prelude to the November coup by Lenin's well-organized followers, but the popular elections after the Revolution gave the Bolsheviks only one fourth of the votes. In January 1918 Lenin forcibly dissolved the Constituent Assembly, ending free elections in Soviet Russia. Thereafter, Bolshevik rule was maintained by Red troops, such as those shown below, while other Communist elements, on orders from the party leaders, engaged in looting churches and persecuting priests. This was the first anti-religious campaign by Communists, who oppose all faiths. , Josef Stalin (1879-1953), adapted Lenin's theories in building a totalitarian state under his absolute control. He made use of the party apparatus in eliminating all his rivals through a series of purges carried out by the secret police in 1936-1938. Nikita Khrushchev (1894- ), emerged as the dominant party leader shortly after the death of Stalin in 1953. Drastic revamping of industry and agriculture has marked his regime, combined with an aggressive foreign policy centering mainly in economic fields. Churches were stripped of religious treasures in the atheistic campaign. The picture of Stalin and Lenin (at right) was widely circulated after Stalin gained absolute power, in order to imply that he was Lenin's sole heir in party leadership, but Lenin's own words indicated distrust of the youthful Stalin. As dictator, Stalin used all the party's propaganda facilities to enhance his role in the party and state. Red troops patrolled streets during the November Revolution, 1917. Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release @ 50-Yr 2014/04/02 ? CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 The Era of Stalin During the collectivization drive, 1929-1931, millions of farmers lost their land. Individual farmers or kulaks (shown above) were persecuted, deprived of all possessions and exiled to Siberia. For more than three decades Stalin was the dominant leader of the Soviet Union and for most of that time, an absolute dictator who liquidated all his rivals, pushed collectivization at the cost of ten million or more lives, inaugurated a ruthless program for heavy industry at the expense of consumer goods, destroyed the power of trade unions, and turned the USSR into a totalitarian police state. His faithful lieutenants included such party aides as Molotov, Malenkov, and Kaganovich. In the later stages of Stalin's career police chief Beria helped secure the dictatorship. Heads of the Secret Police Following the Bolshevik power seizure in 1917, Lenin's regime established the secret police to protect the proletarian dictatorship and crush the party's political opponents. First of the variously named police organizations was the Cheka (1918-1922), headed by Felix Dzerzhinsky, who set the pattern for police terrorism and extra-legal activities which characterized Communist police organizations until the downfall of Beria in 1953. Up to that year, the secret police system comprised a huge complex of functions and responsibility involving forced labor and its output. Since then, the Committee of State Security (KGB) has exercised a decreased authority. Felix Dzerzhinsky (1877-1926) was noted for administrative ability and ruthless methods. Khrushchev in the 1930's was At Yalta in 1945. Molotov a valued assistant of Stalin. was an adviser to Stalin. Genrikh Yagoda, police head during the purges, was himself arrested and shot in 1938. Nikolai Yezhov followed Yagoda, held the title for two years, and then disappeared. Lavrenti Beria ruled a vast police empire under Stalin, but was liquidated in 1953. Pallbearers at the funeral of Stalin in March 1953 included (extreme right) Beria, (center) Malenkov, Stalin's son Gen. Vassily Stalin, (behind Malenkov) Molotov, Bulganin and Kaganovich. Beria was later executed and the others have been removed from their high positions. 1 en. Ivan Serov, police chief through 1958, was associated with Baltic and Hungarian police terrorism. Alexander Shelepin, present head of the KGB, was a leading figure in Communist youth movements. Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Co .y Ap roved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 Khrushchev in May 1955 headed a delegation to Yugoslavia,' marking a temporary reconciliation with President Tito. At the 20th CPSU congress in February 1956, Khrushchev delivered an electrifying speech assailing the late dictator Stalin for promoting the "cult of personality." At the 21$t CPSU congress in February 1959, Khrushchev is shown applauding a speaker during the final session. The main topic' of discussion was the Seven-Year Plan. Khrushchev in Action After Khrushchev achieved control of the party central committee, he emphasized "unity and discipline" as party aims. He also overhauled the economic ministries, initiated industrial decentralization plans and revamped the collective farms. Extensive changes in education are in process of development. Cultural fields have been a frequent topic of his pronouncements, stressing adherence to the party line. The party chief has made many visits to other countries in pursuit of Soviet foreign policy objectives connected with trade expansion in the less-developed countries. 1-party" purge, Khrushchev (left) and Mikoyan (right) were close associates of then Premier Bulganin (center). Veteran diplomat V. Molotov in S'ullinis day was a leading party figure and spokesman. Georgi Malenkov while premier promised the Soviet people an "era of abundance." The Anti -Party Group Lazar Kaganovich held high posts in the party and state from the time of Stalin. From the death of Stalin in March 1953, the CPSU central committee was the focus of a power struggle which moved through several stages. With Malenkov as premier, the principle of "collective leadership" for the time being prevailed. This soon crumbled, however, when the new leaders, fearing the vast power wielded by their associate Beria as head of the secret police, conspired against him. In July 1953 he was arrested and in December was executed with his immediate aides. Meanwhile, Malenkovls remaining authority was being threatened by the steady rise of first secretary of the CPSU presidium, Khrushchev. By the spring of 1957 Khrushchev controlled most of the party apparatus and prepared to move against his rivals. In June 1957, in a sensational inner-party conflict, Khrushchev's faction won a majority vote of the central committee plenum and ousted the "anti-party" group comprising Malenkov, Molotov, and Kaganovich, as well as former Foreign Minister Shepilov. Premier Bulganin's ouster came in March 1958, when he was replaced as premier by Khrushchev. In 1959 no other contenders for party leadership appeared. Dmitri Shepilov rose from editor of Pravda to Foreign Minister in 1956. Nikolai Bulganin, as premier, often accompanied Khrushchev on tours. Declassified in Part - Sanitized Co .y Ap ? roved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 . CIA RDP81 01043R004000110001-R Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 Some Members of the Party's Inner Circle At the 21st CPSU Congress, members of the presidium of the central committee are shown standing back of Khrushchev on the rostrum. In 1959, First Deputy Premiers Anastas Mikoyan and Frol Kozlov, along with Party Secretaries Aleksey Kirichenko and Mikhail Suslov, were rated the most influential members of KhrushcheOs inner circle. Kozlov and Kirichenko, both 51, and Ekaterina Furtseva, 49, were believed to be Khrushcheves favorites among the younger Presidium members. Otto Kuusinen, 77 and a party worker since 1904, was a senior adviser on Communist Party relations. Former Premier Bulganin, although Khrushchevls inseparable companion in earlier days, was in oblivion as a disgraced member of the 1957 "anti-party" group. tuslov Kirichenko 4 Chapter One THE PARTY OF LENIN AND KBRUSHCHEV Nikita S. Khrushchev, in the course of a long speech opening the Soviet Communist Party's 21st congress in January, 19591gave a one-sentence expla- nation of his organization's operating philosophy. "Our party," he said, "imparts the idea of the struggle for communism to the consciousness of the masses in the form of quite definite tasks; it organizes and directs the efforts of every collective, of all people: toward the solution of these tasks." The Soviet Premier and Party Chief's brief statement merely confirmed what has been known for a long time -- that the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (see footnote) is the most powerful single influence in the USSR and that its program affects the day-to-day life of every citizen. These four aspects of the CPSU's role are widely recognized: 1. The CPSU is the USSR's sole policy-determining and enforcing body. 2. The CPSU operates and controls all Soviet governmental organizations. 3. The CPSU performs similar functions for those countries which have been incorporated into the Soviet satellite system. 4. The CPSU has assumed the role of advisory director for all inter- national Communist activities, although this function, normally, is more implicit than openly declared. The implication is clear, nevertheless, that Communist parties in other countries are expected to model their activities, at least ideologically, after the Soviet pattern. From timi. to time, of course, as in crises such as the Hungarian uprising of 1956, it is necessary for the CPSU to take direct, instead of advisory action. At the 7th Party Congress, March, 1918, the All-Russian Social-Democratic Party (Bolsheviks) was renamed the All-Russian Communist Party (bolsheviks) or RKP (b). The 114th Party Congress, in 1925, changed the name to All-Union Communist Party or VKP (b). At the 19th Party Congress, in 1952, the VKP (b) became the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). In this monograph the last-named designation is used throughout for reasons of simplification and clarity. 1 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 Declassified in Part- Sanitized Copy Approved for Release @ 50-Yr2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 - 2 Chapter One Organizationally speaking, the CPSU's primary power is vested in its Central Committee, a body composed of about 270 members and candidate mem- bers. The inner circle of this group, known as the Presidium and made up of a few individuals of top stature, is popularly regarded as being the real decision-making and policy-formulating unit. The Central Committee as a whole, however, has been known to overrule its Presidium. The most recent instance of this was in 1957, when the Committee supported Khrushchev against the "anti-party" group which had a temporary majority in the Presidium. Another part of the top-level Party structure is the Secretariat, to which Khrushchev has given detailed attention. This body of experienced officials is in the potentiallr powerful position of managing, on a day-to- day basis, the CPSU's highly-involved organizational affairs. The Secre- tariat, of course, has immense practical influence through its direct line connections with subordinate secretariats at all levels of the party struc- ture. Under the over-all direction of the Central Committee, various control and auditing organizations help to maintain the party as a closely-Supervised, monolothic structure traditionally opposed to rival theories, ideas or methods, especially within the Communist movement. At the heart of the CPSU's system is the Leninist dogma of "democratic centralism," which can be described briefly as the rule that decisions of top officials or bodies are binding on all lower bodies and on all party mem- bers. To carry out its decisions, the CPSU has devised a hard core of well- trained, dedicated individual functionaries known as cadres. Khrushchev, it has been noted, stressed the importance of this cadre corps at both the 20th and 21st party congresses. He told the 20th congress in 1956 that a primary goal is to "improve the selection, education and distribution of cadres." In 1959, the 21st congress was told of new plans to "revitalize" and expand the party's cadres. Cadres undergo intensive training and operate under what is essentially a military discipline. Both at home and abroad, the cadre is the key unit in the party's day-to-day activities. Cadres not only guide the work of party and non-party organizations, including those of writers, artists, en- tertainers, scientists, etc. -- they also are charged with maintaining a close guard against indifference or deviationism which might crop up in any of these groups. The party also places high priority on its tools of propaganda and agitation. Khruchshev, for example, has stressed the necessity to "make fuller and more efficient use of all means of ideological influence...such as propaganda, agitation, the press, radio, cultural-educational organiza- tions and institutions) science, literature and the arts." In the Soviet ?-? .; 4 THE PARTY OF LENIN AND KIIRUSFEBEV -3 "agitprop" field alone, there are almost 400,000 full-time agitators: or- ganizers, lecturers and other activists, their work supported by some 6:000 party training schools. It is obvious that this highly developed political machine is vastly more complex than the minority group of radical revolutionaries which comprised the Bolshevik party of 1917. Remarkable parallels exist, never- theless: between the party's modus operandi today and the working style of Lenin's original Bolsheviks. One of the most otvious parallels is found in the seemingly changeless concept that opposition views can not be permitted because they would tend to detract from the party's efficiency and effectiveness. Within days of the Bolshevik coup of November 7: 1917, Lenin had implemented this philosophy by rejecting various proposals that representatives of other political parties be allowed some measure of participation in the new Bolshevik government. Forty years later, Lenin's original theory of monolithic rule was still apparent in the disciplinary measures taken against the "anti-party" group of Malenkov, Molotov, Kaganovich, Shepilov and Bulganin. There is another parallel in Lenin's 1917 suspension of non-Bolshevik publications and today's practice of maintaining the Soviet press and radio as direct extensions of the CPSU. As an illustration of continuity in party outlook, Lenin's 1917 promise to restore freedom of the press "as soon as the new order is consolidated" needs only to be placed alongside Premier Khrushchev's 1957 statement that "we cannot let the press organs fall into unreliable hands. They must be in the hands of the workers that are the most loyal: most reliable, most staunch politically, and most devoted to our cause." Lenin's plan to "consolidate the new order," in other words, is still in process. The CPSU's practice of periodically rewriting its own history is another outgrowth of the basic Communist view that only one policy line can be allowed to exist at any given time. This concept is particularly useful in handling sudden policy switches: as in 1956 when Khrushchev's secret speech at the 20th party congress signalled the beginning of de-Stalinization and a concentrated effort to create a new historical evaluation of the whole Stalinist era. The same approach can also be applied in adjusting the official reputa- tions of men like Molotov and Malenkov, or other -former party "heroes" who fall from power or become, in the party's viewpoint, suspected. of revisionism or other "anti-party" tendencies. From the standpoint of established party doctrine, there is nothing illogical about the exposure and denunciation of key members of the Central Committee itself when current strategy so dictates. Because of the CPSU's tendency to refute its own former leadership, it is not surprising to find that only one man, V. I. Lenin, is now considered to have been "all-wise" as both activist and theorist. Although Karl Marx Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02: CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 4 - Chapter One is still honored as a sort of theoretical godfather to modern communism, it is Lenin alone who has become the party's real symbol. Thus: while Marxism-Leninism is still used as the Party's doctrinal label, it is the "Leninist central Committee" which assumes responsibility and credit for all Soviet undertakings. THE ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE OF THE C. P. S.U. t510ENTRAL In this general connection, the party's seemingly paradoxical emphasis on "peaceful coexistence" is explained by a concept called "communist moral- ity." The phrase simply identifies the CPSU theory that any action is justified if it advances the cause of Communism. According to the doctrine of "Communist morality," therefore, it becomes quite logical for the party to advocate "peaceful coexistence" as an international policy while simul- taneously engaged in campaigns to undermine the legitimate governments of non-Communist nations. ? '461111 PARTC:M.1 CONTROL -,?1 'CONNITTEE,ap The Large Soviet Encyclopedia, in an official definition, says "Com- munist morality" is merely "the defense of the interests of the victory of communism." Communist morality as practiced by the CPSU, however, has proved un- acceptable to a number of party members and sympathizers outside the Soviet Union. Soviet intervention to end the Hungarian national uprising of 1956, for example, had serious repercussions throughout the international Communist movement, prompting a wholesale series of defections. One of those who broke with communism because of Hungary was S. W. Scott/ who had been New Zealand's leading Communist for almost 30 years. Scott commented later that he had found that many Communists had an "attitude to ethics which is intensely dangerous." The concept that the "end justifies the means," he added, "is all-pervasive in the Communist movement." As one solution to its vexing problem of trying to maintain ideological solidarity throughout the Communist movement, the CPSU has turned more and more to a kind of Lenin-worship. The party's founder, through the years, has been made into the image of a legendary hero who is above criticism. Lenin's voluminous writings, moreover, provide party leaders with an invaluable reservoir of quotations which can be cited, or paraphrased as is frequently the practice, to support almost any of the CPSUis current policies. The party has adopted a similar approach in its references to the Bolshevik revolution of 1917. This event, which brought Lenin to power, Is now depicted as having been the direct result of a mass workers' up- rising against Czarism. Missing from current CPSU annals are certain historical facts, principally that Lenin's coup of November 7, 1917/ was essenti-lly a counter-revolution. The Czar's actual overthrow, it will be remembered, was accomplished some eight months earlier through a spon- taneous: popular uprising known as the "February" revolution. Lenin was still in exile at this time and his Bolshevik supporters were an unorganized minority. What the Bolsheviks really accomplished by means of their No- vember 7, 1917 take-over was to stop an eight-month-old experiment in representative government and mike possible the gradual substitution of a system of one-party control. Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 'REPRESENTATIVES *T R4 141'0 'PRESIDIUM 1 fS ECR ETARIATI 44. - :REPRESENTATIVES COMTE, PRESIDIUM SECRETARIAT REPRESENTATIVES COMO ALSO USA, AUTONOMOUS REPUBLIC - Olt El IN NE ALSO AUTONOMOUS REGION arm= CrICI 7 as 1111 X111111.111A ALSO CITY (COROD) ea AREA ( 0 KRUC Ka aria mi '1-zixosalszEivar t2SIDEMEIS17311111 CONTROL NE CPSU - lilt AUDITING LINE a eLuLAI7ELDEIE MIME MI III III NMI IBM 111111011.111.111 URA ? MN "WIWI 1 WlerAIAMIBUILB 51 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 EXECUTIVE LME CONSULTATIVE ELECTIVE LINE.r LI NE CI oiltia.11 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02: CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 0 .. 0 01 7 0 X 0 Z 0 e. -I A Z 0 ? ti Z 0 P 4 .... n 0 fih?,---111 cr-o CD.J1-00.- CZ ? 4 )- Z CC I- f2g- a 0 co z 0 co W WMW4051U Cnt+Prgrol F-CLUCCD=`!E CLCC40 = Cr*-"acc OCE aeo ? Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy A ease ? THE, PARTY OF LENINAND.KHRUSHCBEV -5- Party literature of the present, in fact, tends to gloss over the more realistic aspects of early Communist history in favor of a highly idealized version of the revolution as a mass triumph of the working class. Leninism, therefore, has become less a term suggesting revolutionary violence and Intrigue and more a generalized ideological label which can be used to cloak the party's every decision with doctrinal respectability. It is true) however, that while many of Lenin's original ideas have been found impractical, a large part of his realistic operating philosophy has survived. There is a familiar ring, for example, in this March 27, 1921, statement by the party's founder: "The class which took political power in its hands did so knowing that it took this power alone. This is contained in the concept 'dictatorship of the proletariat.' This concept has meaning only when a single class knows that it alone is taking political power in its hands and does not deceive itself or others with talk about 'popillar, elected government sanctified by the whole people.'" As early as 1922, Lenin had formulated basic working policies which differ little from those followed by the CPSU today. Lenin's principles included: maintenance at all costs of the one-party system; suppression by the party's dominant faction of all internal opposition; the use of force, as necessary, to maintain discipline. Interestingly enough, it was Stalin who popularized Lenin's term "iron discipline," still regularly employed in party exhortations, Radio Moscow broadcasts and Pravda editorials. Throuel a selective use of Lenin's methods, the CPSU has attained an unprecedented degree of power in the USSR. It operates the Soviet government and sets the line of development for the USSR's military forces, agriculture, industry, education, youth activities, literature and the arts. While the party is literally everywhere, its comparatively mall member- ship (roughly four percent of the Soviet Union's population) and the infini- tesimal numbers actually engaged in making policy tend to give it an air of secrecy and mystery. Thus, it has become a common practice for Soviet workers at all levels to refer to the party leadership merely as "they." Not every- body knows just who may be meant by "they," but nobody doubts what is meant -- whichever faction may be in control of the party at the moment. 5 - r /04/02 . CIA-RDP81_n1ne.q prinennninnn4 n 6 Declassified in Part- Sanitized Cop Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02: CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 Chapter Two "DEMOCRATIC CENTRALISM," THE KEY TO PARTY POWER The concept of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" comes from the Communist Manifesto issued. by Marx and Engels in 1848, but its antithesis -- "democratic centralism" -- dates from Lenin. Both expressions are currently used in Communist parlance, but only the last-named has meaning in terms of party power. At the 6th Congress of the Bolshevik Party, July-August 1917, some months before the Bolshevik Revolution, new precepts were adopted which provided that all party organizations should be built on the principles of democratic centralism, defined in the following rules as: (1) all directing bodies, from top to bottom, should be elected; (2) party bodies should give periodical accounts of their activities to respective party organizations; (3) there should be strict party discipline and subordination of the minority to the majority; and (4) all decisions of higher bodies should be absolutely binding on lower bodies and on all party members. Although the 6th Congress ostensibly provided for democratic bodies through elections, genuine free elections were never contemplated by Lenin, who scorned "popular, elected governments sanctified by the whole people." He distrusted all electoral procedures except as they contributed to the ascendancy of his party and to the centralist rule of its inner hierarchy. After the forcible dissolution of the All-Russian Constituent Assembly in January 1918, the Bolshevik (Communist) regime carried no mandate from the people based on free elections. The establishing of the Supreme Soviet under the 1936 Constitution proved to be meaningless; it had then, and has now, no genuine legislative authority. Of the "higher bodies" referred to in Rule 4 promulgated by the 6th Bolshevik Congress, the Central Committee of the CPSU is the paramount controlling organ of the party. The post of party secretary was used by Stalin as a stepping-stone in his rise to dictatorial power. The title is now held by Nikita Khrushchev, and there is every indication that he is in complete control of the party machinery. The 11th Congress of the CPSU, March 1922, set the autocratic pattern of the central committee. Immediately following the Congress, Stalin on April 4: 1922/ was named secretary-general of the party. Declassified in Part - Sanitized Cop Approvedf RI ? -Yr ? "DEMOCRATIC CENTRALISM," las KEY TO PARTY POWER - 7 - Lenin had found Stalin a useful subordinate in helping to carry out his own policies suppressing opposition; nevertheless, he began to have misgivings in regard to Stalin's character and ambitions. In May 1922 -- a month after Stalin's appointment -- Lenin, Stalin, and Nikolai Bukharin, a prominent "Old Bolshevik," appeared at a trade union congress, where they forced the union representatives to accept CPSU control of the trade union movement. But in the following December, Lenin was highly critical of the part played by Stalin in a controversy involving a national Communist movement in the Georgian Soviet Republic. In a note of December 31, 1922, Lenin wrote that a "fatal role was played here by Stalin's haste and preoccupation with the administrative aspect (of the Georgian situation) and also by his rage against the noto- rious 'socialist nationalism.' Rage in general usually plays the worst role in politics." Lenin himself favored a policy of conciliation -- "It is better to be excessively tractable and lenient towards the national minorities than not to be sufficiently so." Stalin, however, in his "preoccupation" with the creation of a highly centralized totalitarian state, detested nationalism in any form, especially as manifested in the non-Russian Soviet republics. His "rage" against alleged expressions of nationalism reached a climax during World War when in 1944 he announced the liquidation of six autonomous regions and republics on the grounds that they had been "traitors" to the Soviet Gov- ernment. Despite liberal provisions -- on paper -- in the Soviet Constitution, for the autonomy of the constituent republics of the USSR, they are little more than feeble replicas of the central government and subject, in the last analysis, to the will of the CPSU. The Central Asian national entities, nevertheless, serve a useful propaganda purpose of Moscow. For example, at the Cairo "Afro-Asian Soli- darity Conference," December 25, 1957 - January 1, 1958, the 15-man Soviet delegation was composed largely of representatives of Central Asian so- called republics -- a circumstance that enabled the USSR to appear in the guise of an Asian country. The concern of Lenin and Stalin over "socialist nationalism," or independent communism, continues to be reflected in current NDSCOW policy. Today it is called revisionism. Tito's insistence on following his own independent road to communism led to Moscow's break with the Yugoslav Communist Party in 1948, and after the long-drawn feud with Tito was patched up o it was renewed with greater bitterness in 1958. 04/0 . - P81-0104f1PnnAnnn -4 8 - Declassified in Part - Sanitized Co .y Ap roved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02: CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 Chapter Two Following the decision of the Polish regime in 1956 to seek its own "road to socialism" (communism), further Soviet concessions were made, in terms of methods and timing, not in ultimate goals. Aside fram Poland, the CPSU has shown no disposition to ease its hold on the Communist parties of the other satellite states. Soviet control of the satellites, as well as the Baltic states and other annexed areas, basically is a military-political problem and reflects the CPSU's concern with the military aspects of communism, which characterized the party from the very beginning. It is noteworthy that although Marx and Engels pictured the proletarian revolution in terms of workers' mass movements, Lenin and his successors used military terns in referring to the structure and functions of the Bolshevik or Communist Party. In 1904, when Lenin was faced by a split in Social Democratic ranks, he wrote from Geneva: "To the extent that a real (workers') party is formed: the class-conscious worker must learn to distinguish the mentality of the soldier of the proletarian army from the mentality of the bourgeois intel- lectual who flaunts his anarchist talk." Stalin was even more specific. In March 1937 -- during the Moscow purge trials -- he told the Central Committee of the CPSU: "In our Party, if we have in mind its leading strata, there are about 3,000 to 4,000 first-rank leaders whom I would call our Party corps of generals. Then there are 30,000 to 40,000 middle-rank leaders who are our Party corps of officers. Then there are about 100,000 to 150,000 of the lower-rank Party command staff who are, so to speak, our Party's non- commissioned officers." Stalin neglected to remind the central committee that this "party army" had already suffered great losses through a succession of purges, and that more were to come. During the period 1936-1938, about 25 percent of the high-ranking officers of the Soviet Army were executed, and 75 percent of the Supreme War Council. First Party Secretary Nikita Khrushchev told the 20th Congress of the CPSU in his secret speech of February 25, 1956: "It was determined (by the presidium of the central committee) that of the 139 members and candi- dates of the Party's Central Committee who were elected at the 17th Congress, 98 persons, i.e., 70 percent, were arrested and shot, mostly in 1937-1938... The same fate met not only the Central Committee members but the majority (56 percent) of the delegates to the 17th Party Congress." The Stalin purges affected not only the party and the army; in the end, tens of thousands of persons with no party or military connections were victims of the countrywide blood bath. Khrushchev, however, showed no emotion over the fate of the non-party victims. "DEMOCRATIC CENTRALISM," Ulik, KEY TO PARTY POWER -9 The purges carried out by Stalin, to pave the way for his absolute dictatorship, were a by-product of the principle of democratic centralism, coupled with the concept of party discipline. In a speech to the Second Congress of the Comintern (the subversive organization of international communism, also known as the Second Inter- national), Lenin declared: "In the present epoch of acute civil war, the Communist Party will be able to perform its duty only if it is organized in the most centralized nanner, only if iron discipline bordering on military discipline prevails in it, and if its Party center (Central Committee) is a powerful organ of authority, enjoying wide powers and the general confidence of the members of the Party." Shortly after the death of Lenin in 1924, CPSU Secretary-General Stalin proclaimed: "Iron discipline in the Party is inconceivable without unity of will, without complete and absolute unity of action on the part of all mem- bers of the Party...It follows that the existence of factions is incompatible either with the Party's unity or iron discipline." StPlin used the party rules of iron discipline and absolute unity to eliminate his first important rival, Leon Trotsky. Trotsky was expelled from the party in 1927 and sought refuge in Mexico, where he was assassi- nated by a Stalinist agent on August 21, 1940. In the mass blood-letting of the Moscow trials of the 1930's most of Stalin's former associates -- the "Old Bolsheviks" -- fell before firing squads; so, also, the organizer of the Red Army, Marshal Tukhachevsky and seven top generals. In June 1953, Minister of Interior Lavrenti Beria and his close associates were arrested by the post-Stalin leaders who, in turn, under- went a milder purge at the hands of Party Secretary Khrushchev and his faction four years later. (Beria was executed in December.) Khrushchev in his report to the Supreme Soviet, May 7, 1957, on his new decentralization program for industry, at the same time reaffirmed the principle of democratic centralism for the party. "Yes," said Khrushchev, "we have not repudiated, nor do we intend to repudiate Lenin's principle in the management of the national economy -- the principle of democratic centralism." No months later, the same principle was invoked in the ouster of the "anti-parte group -- Malenkov, Molotov, and Kaganovich. At the end of October, Zhukov was removed from his Defense Ministry post and consigned to obscurity, charged with "frustrating party control of the armed forces." Declassified in Part- Sanitized Co?yAp?roved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 ? CIA RDP81 01043R00400011onni_R -10- Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 Chapter Two In the course of decades of party purges in the USSR, all of the nota- ble victims considered themselves devout followers of Marxism-Leninism, all believed in and followed the principles of democratic centralism, party unity, and iron discipline. But they helped to create and perpetuate a ma- chine they could neither control nor escape. Recently, the party organ Kommunist denounced the movement to do away with democratic centralism within the party. The journal also censured national Communists who would like each country to find its own road to communism. Of greater interest than these rebukes to revisionist attitudes is the fact that such doctrinal heresies do exist as a challenge to orthodox Marxism- Leninism. Chapter Three SOVIET GOVERNMENT AS A PARTY FACADE ? -11- The 1936 Constitution of the USSR endowed the Supreme Soviet with some 25 categories of legislative powers. However, these broad powers were not at any time exercised and exist only as nominal functions. The real focus of power in the USSR does not lie in the Supreme Soviet or its presidium, but in the CPSU central committee and its presidium.' The proceedings of every session of the Supreme Soviet are directed to predetermined ends by key central committee members elected to it, but de- spite its lack of actual authority, the Supreme Soviet is pictured in Soviet domestic propaganda as the elective will of the people. Abroad, in propa- ganda terms addressed to sympathetic opinion, the Supreme Soviet passes as a "workers' parliament." The Supreme Soviet is divided into two separate bodies -- the Council of Nationalities and the Council of the Union. The Council of Nationalities is made up of 25 members from each of the Union Republics, 11 from each Autonomous Region, and one from each National Area. The Council of the Union is composed of deputies elected on the basis of one for each election district of approximately 300,000 population. Direct popular elections were still being held in the 1920's, but they were restricted to rural and urban soviets (local assemblies). The 1936 Constitution extended the suffrage privilege to the highest bodies, central and regional, but in practice the constitutional provisions are nullified by the method of selecting candidates. Article 141 of the Constitution states: "The right to nominate candi- dates is secured to public organizations and societies of the working people: Communist Party organizations, trade unions, cooperatives, youth organi- zations and cultural societies." However, all these organizations are wholly dominated by the CPSU which, at local levels, determines the eligibility of candidates through election commissions of its own selection. Electoral campaigns are usually preceded by a month or two of intensive propaganda, by press and radio, designed to stress the importance of the coming elections, but the only issues are those connected. with party slogans, production plans, and the like. At such times the Soviet press is filled with exhortations such as (Pravda): "construction of the Communist society," "greater solidarity of the peoples of the USSR in their struggle for the successful fulfillment of great constructive tasks set by the Party and Government," and so forth. Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 ? CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 - 12 Chapter Three Candidates are chosen at pre-election conferences of public organizations under strict party guidance. All nominees are unanimously approved, and no attempt is made to weigh the qualifications of one nominee against those of another. The final list names only one candidate for each election district. In the March 1958 elections: there were 1:378 candidates and precisely that number of candidates were elected to the Supreme Soviet. Another peculiarity of the Soviet electoral system is the practice of conferring honorary nominations on CPSU leaders by an unlimited number of constituencies. Thus Pfavda on February 6/ 1950, in reporting a local elec- toral conference said: "The meeting unanimously decided to nominate, as candidates to the Soviet of the Union, Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov, Georgi Maximilianovich Malenkov, and Ivan Nikolayevich Krapivin." Krapivin, a shop foreman and the real nominee, was designated as the candidate after the conference had received form letters from the three no- tables thanking them for the honor and declining the nominations. The prestige value of districts which party leaders actually represent reflects their standing in the party hierarchy. For example, in the pre-election campaign of 1958, when Premier Bulganin was assigned a candidacy in a remote and obscure district, his down-grading in the party was obvious and his replacement as Premier came as no surprise. Many candidates elected to the Supreme Soviet are not party members, but its controlling body, the Presidium, is made up exclusively of CPSU members. (The 31-member Supreme Soviet Presidium, of which Klementi E. Voroshilov is Chairman, should not be confused with the presidium of the CPSU central com- mittee. The central committee has 125 full members and 119 candidate members. Its presidium consists of 15 full and 10 candidate members. About half of the members of the CPSU central committee presidium are also on the Supreme Soviet Presidium; the rest are deputies heading important commissions.) Under the Constitution, the Supreme Soviet is vested with plenary powers in every field of legislation, but in practice its plenum merely confirms or ratifies decisions taken by the Presidium, and this body in turn is a facade for the CPSU central committee, the de facto governing authority of the USSR. Since the outcome of all election campaigns is a foregone conclusion -- government candidates win by more than 99 percent (in the last election, by 99.97 percent) -- the question may be raised as to why the Soviet Government, and all other Communist regimes, are at such pains to hold elections. There are two main reasons for this exercise in mass obedience. First, there is the announced purpose of emphasizing the "unity" between the people and the Communist leadership. Secondly, under balloting con- ditions prevailing under communism/ a voter, in ordek to register SOVIET GOVERNMENT AS A PARTY FACADE -13- opposition to a candidate, must enter a special roam or booth for this pur- pose. In such an instance, his name can be taken down by officials present. Thus, by and large, the voting process -- which is practically manda- tory -- is also a test of loyalty to the regime. From the days of Lenin, the real struggle for power has always taken place within the political zone that cannot be touched by any pretense of popular mandate or responsibility -- the CPSU, the government bureaucracy: and such appendages as the armed services and the secret police. Since the death of Stalin in 1953, this struggle has narrowed down to the CPSU central committee. In 1923: while Lenin was incapacitated, the 12th Party Congress adopted a resolution offered by Gregory Zinoviev, supported by Leo Kamenev and Stalin, which proclaimpd: "The dictatorship of the working class can be guaranteed only in the form of a dictatorship of its vanguard, i.e.: the Party." This was the first public assertion of the primacy of the CPSU's political-organizational apparatus -- the party machine -- over the party itself and the state. Following the death of Lenin in 1924, Stalin pre- pared to crush all his potential rivals for power, but he moved slowly and carefully until the "Great Purge" of 1936-1938. Stalin liqpidated the Zinoviev-Kamenev faction in 1936, and then turned on the group that included such "Old Bolsheviks" as Alexei Rykov, Nikolai Bukharin, and Mikhail Tomsky (the Communist trade union leader who committed suicide). Bukharin, Rykov, and NKVD chief Yagoda were executed in March 1938. During the series of Moscow purge trials, more than 70 percent of the members and candidate members of the CPSU central committee and 60 percent of the delegates at the 17th Party Congress (1934) were liquidated. The Soviet Army's officer corps and high command were decimated: and millions of minor victims in no way connected with the leaders were executed or sent to forced labor camps. Controlling all the levers of power: Dictator Stalin faced the 18th Party Congress in March 1939 with a new, hand-picked central committee. However, to insure that the principle of democratic centralism would be observed, he gave the secret police commissar of Interior Lavrenti Beria the official right to investigate and, if need be, arrest and prosecute members of the CPSU central committee itself. This was an "unconstitutional" invasion of the "rights" of party members, but not essentially different from Stalin's previous acts. Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 ? CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release - 14 - Chapter Three During World War II, the subordinate role of the party machine remained practically unchanged, but after the war, Politburo member Andrei Zhdanov tried to rebuild the party apparatus as an even stronger political force. Zhdanov died on August 31, 1948, and subsequently, all of his close associates in the central committee and in his own Leningrad organization were liquidated. This is known as the "Leningrad Case," referred to by Khrushchev in his attack on the "cult of personality" in 1956. Immediately after Stalin's death, a realignment of intra-party elements took place. At the first central committee plenum on March 14, 1953, Malenkov, who then held the posts of Premier and ranking secretary of the party presid- ium, yielded the latter title to a less conspicuous party figure, Nikita Khrushchev. In September, Khrushchev became first secretary of the central committee -- from which vantage point he began his tortuous ascent to domi- nation of the party. The first target of Khrushchev -- supported by his colleagues in "collective leadership" -- was Minister of Interior Beria, whose vast powers, embodied in the MVD, posed a grave threat to both the government bureaucracy and the party machine. The liquidation of Beria, who was arrested on July 102 1953 (charged with treason) and executed with other accomplices on December 23, shattered the hold of the secret police. From the time that Khrushchev became first secretary of the central committee until the deposition of Malenkov as Premier on February 8, 19552 there was a steady decline in the strength of the bureaucracy vis-a-vis the party apparatus, although this was not fully apparent for another two years. During this period, Khrushchev was actively engaged in reshuffling the party organization. He secured the dismissal of large numbers of party secretaries in the union republics and replaced them with his own appointees. At the same time, the farm bureaus of the regional soviets were abolished and the vital area of agricultural control passed to the jurisdiction of special party secretaries who were Khrushchev supporters. When the 20th Party Congress Met in February 1956, the party apparatus already was largely in the hands of Khrushchev and his central committee faction, the presidium secretariat. At the 20th Congress, Deputy Premier Anasta Mikoyan declared: "Our Party now has at its disposal a strongly welded leading collective (leadership)...But the most important thing is that this collective, guided by Lenin's idea, Lenin's principles of the Party's structure and the Party's leadership: has within a short space of time achieved the restoration of Lenin's norms of Party life from top to bottom." This statement was window- dressing to Khrushchev's bid for power in the party. 50-Yr 2014/04/02: CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 SOVIET GOVERNMENT AS A PARTY FACADE - 15 - Until mid-1955, central government officials who were members of the Council of Ministers, as well as members of the CPSU central committee presidium, played a stronger role than members of the central committee secretariat headed by Khrushchev. Khrushchev was an exception to the dual functions of the upper party hierarchy. In his own words: "concentrating on work in the central commit- tee" gave him no time to perform other administrative duties. However, his preoccupation with the central committee did give him an opportunity to undermine the administrative bureaucracy which, by 1957, had grown to huge dimensions. Thus, when he moved against the bureaucrats, he did so in the name of efficiency. On March 29: 1957, the CPSU central committee issued Khrushchev's report on the "Further Organizational Improvement of Management of Industry and Construction" -- the now-famous "decentralization" plan, which was adopted at a special session of the Supreme Soviet on May 10. Khrushenev's program called for abolishing more than half of the 52 All-Union central ministries and for setting up approximately a hundred "councils of national economy" based: he said, on the "Leninist principle of democratic centralism in the field of economic construction." However, decentralization was only part of Khrushchev's scheme; it also struck a powerful blow at ministerial prestige and prerogatives. In June came the dramatic downfall of the "anti-party" group -- Molotov, Malenkov, and Kaganovich, all of whom were central government officials. Linked to the fate of these conspirators was Shepilov, who was deprived of his post of candidate member of the presidium. Having disposed of his opponents in the bureaucracy -- reportedly with the aid and concurrence of Marshal G. K. Zhukov Khrushchev prepared to eliminate the Marshal himself, who symbolized another lever of power in the Communist system -- the Soviet Amy. On October 26, the day when Zhukov returned from a visit to Yugoslavia and Albania, Moscow announced that he had been replaced as Minister of Defense. A week later, his expulsion from the CPSU presidium was announced together with charges leveled against him by the central committee. Of the four major offenses of which Zhukov was found guilty by the central committee, the first was the most significant -- that he had "frustrated party control of the armed forces." With Zhukav's downfall, the power of the remaining presidium members was only a shadow of what it had been: following Stalin's death. Six of the 10 veteran presidium members -- the "heirs of Stalin" -- had been deposed, and the party machine headed by Khrushchev had in turn imposed its will on the ministerial bureaucracy, the army, and the presidium itself. Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R1)n4nnnlqnnn I _Q Declassified in Part- Sanitized Co yAp rovedforRelease ? 50-Yr2014/04/02:CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 16 Chapter Three The party machine, built on the secretariat of the CPSU central committee presidium, includes a score of executive departments and a highly disciplined hierarchy of subordinate secretaries and executive staffs, which operate from republic (provincial) levels down to the oblasts (regional) and lesser admin- istrative and political units of the USSR. Directly under the secretariat is the "party apparatus," or executive staff, whose channels of power and authority extend to every aspect of Soviet life and reach out even beyond the Soviet orbit. One of the most important of the central committee's subordinate organs is the Department for Agitation and Propaganda (Agitprop). Agitprop has performed a vital service to Khrushchev in his rise to power, as it did for Stalin. Controlling all information and propaganda media, Agitprop outlets have furnished Khrushchev with a sounding board and concurrently have bestowed on him an aura of preeminence appropriate to his party standing. The assumption of the premiership by Khrushchev -- conducted in the name of the central committee and ratified by the Supreme Soviet -- gave official sanction to the maneuvers whereby he has won a position in the CPSU and Soviet Government resembling in some respects that of Stalin: but differing in others. The rise of Khrushchev to the position of authority he now enjoys to a large extent is the fruit of his political maneuvering within the CPSU, starting with his secretaryship of the Ukrainian party organization, 1938-1949. The core of Khrushchev's "machine" within the 14-member central com- mittee presidium is made up chiefly of Ukrainian party notables, eight of whom served under him in the earlier period. Thus, the Soviet Government in effect is a facade for a tightly knit political machine within the CPSU central committee. Declassified in Part San iti - o y Ap.roved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : 17 Chapter Four Ta SOVIET POLICE SYSTEM The principal architect of present-day communism -- V. I. Lenin -- in a speech at the 7th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), March 8, 1918, made the statement: "Soviet power is a new type of state, in which there is no bureaucracy, no police, no standing army, and in which bourgeois democracy is replaced by a new democracy -- a democracy which brings to the forefront the vanguard of the toiling masses, turning them into legislators, executives, and a military guard, and which creates an apparatus capable of re-educating the masses." Whether or not Lenin believed this, he had already been instrumental in framing a political and administrative system that would negate every item of his assertion. Chief of the weapons used by Lenin's Bolsheviks to forge absolute power was the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission, known as the Cheka -- first of the secret police organizations set up in the USSR. The Cheka was established by a decree of the Council of People's Com- missars of the RSFSR (Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic) on Decem- ber 20, 1917. Directed to combat "counterrevolution, sabotage and specula- tion," the RSFSR Cheka was empowered to supervise local Chekas and officially was subordinate to the Council of People's Commissars, the supreme govern- mental body. During its existence, 1918-1922, the Cheka, like its successors, had a high degree of independent authority in the interpretation of Soviet laws and party regulations as well as in administrative matters. Since it was given broad powers to suppress "counter-revolutionaries," its victims in- cluded thousands of political opponents of the Communists. A 1924 report by the Soviet Supreme Court showed that those executed by Chekists were peasants; about 25 percent intellectuals and office workers made up 20 percent of the "others," 8.5 percent. almost half of were workers; death list and The terroristic activities of the Cheka were explained by Lenin as necessary to safeguard the dictatorship of the proletariat. In November 1918 he said: "The Cheka directly realizes the dictatorship of the proletariat and in this resect its role is inestimable. There is no other way to the liberation of the masses save by suppressing the exploiters." However, the great majority of Cheka victims were not exploiters in any sense; they were simply non-Bolsheviks. Chekas sprang up throughout the Soviet Union and were used by local or regional Communist parties to terrorize the people into accepting Communist rule. .01 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 - 18 - Chapter Four When the Civil War ended: the Soviet Government was eager to achieve domestic stability and placate world opinion. Under a decree of February 6: 1922: the Cheka was abolished and its place was taken by the State Political Administration, or GPU. The GPU lost certain Cheka functions when some categories of crime were transferred to the "People's Courts" for adjudication. Whatever the official or de facto powers of the Cheka and GPU: their basic characteristic -- un- bridled "revolutionary" terrorism -- was fixed by the ruthless methods of their first chief: Felix Dzerzhinsky, who established a pattern followed by succeeding heads of the secret police. When the first Soviet Constitution was adopted in January 1924, the GPU ceased to exist: but its personnel was absorbed by the new United State Political Administration: or OGPU: which was an All-Union organ. With the establishment of the OM, again headed by Dzerzhinsky, there was created a vast network of police controls and secret tribunals which dispensed justice, according to OGPU standards. Gradually, every citizen from factory worker and peasant to party bureaucrat -- was subject to the probing and possible arrest and trial by various OGPU organs and agents. IMO/ This accretion of powers is shown by the record: the system of forced labor camps: initiated in 1918: was centralized under the OGPU in 1924; frontier areas became a responsibility of the OGPU guards in 1927: the in- ternal passport system was introduced in 1932 as part of OGPU's operations and in the same year the regular police force or Militia was placed under the OGPU. The CGPU's most drastic mission was to carry out Stalin's decree ordering the collectivization of all Soviet farms. The mass persecutions by OGPU agents and deportations of peasants, 1929-1933: numbered millions of victims. Stalin later told British Prime Minister Winston Churchill that forced industrialization and collectivization cost the USSR 10 million lives; in addition, other millions filled the OGPU-run forced labor camps. In July 1934: the OGPU was renamed the Peoples Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD): which retained control of all Soviet police forces up to February 1941. During this seven-year period, the NKVD took on the complex pattern of functions, powers and activities which, with some changesschar- acterized the Soviet police system until the downfall of Minister of Interior Lavrenti Beria in July 1953. Many NKVD activities were the result of its control of the huge forced labor camps: which provided cheap and expendable labor for building rail- roads: constructing irrigation systems: lumbering, mining, etc. Coal, gold and other metals, forest products, fisheries and other basic natural resources of the USSR comprised part of the vast economic-police empire of the NKVD, which functioned almost as a state within a state. THE SOVIET POLICE SYSTEM - 19 The NKVD's most dreaded function -- that of investigation, interroga- tion and secret trials -- was brought into full play during the Moscow purge trials of 1936-1938. Under Stalin's overall direction, the MKVD was judge: jury and executioner. In this series of purges: the CPSU leadership was decimated and the armed forces were shorn of most of their higher officers. Before this period of mass executions ran its course: the MKVD chief, Genrikh Yagoda:was himself accused of intriguing with conspirators and shot in 1936. His successor, Nikolai Yezhov: lasted for two more violent years and then disappeared. In 1938 Stalin appointed a fellow Georgian, Lavrenti Berial to head the NKVD police organization. Beria: who had been a member of the party's central committee for four years: rose rapidly in the party ranks. During the war years, Beria served as Commissar General for National Security and: after April 1943: he held two redesignated posts -- Minister of Interior (MVD) and Minister for State Security (MGB) -- until his arrest in July1953. (See footnote.) In a report to the 18th Congress of the CPSU: February 1939: Stalin acknowledged mistakes in respect to the pu vs: but explained complacently: "Nevertheless:the purge of 1933-1936 was unavoidable and its results on the whole were beneficial. Our Party is now somewhat smaller in membership: but on the other hand: it is better in quality." The purges to which Stalin referred were relatively minor and involved no such large-scale bloodshed as those in the late 1930's 'which he failed to mention. Starting with the Soviet annexation of eastern Poland in 1939 and of the Baltic states in 1940: the NKVD was responsible for the mass deportations and police terrorism in all the newly conquered lands. The barbarous measures taken by the NKVD in the Baltic Republics were the responsibility of General Ivan Serov, then Deputy Commissar and later chief of the Soviet secret police. (General Serov also was reported to have had a hand in the Soviet suppression of the Hungarian freedom rebellion in November 1956. In December 1958: Serov was replaced by Alexander Shelepin: former head of the Communist Youth Organ- ization or Komsomol.) After the wartime reorganization of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Beria coordinated and directed the work of both the MVD and the MGB -- a situation that gave him unparalleled powers, limited only by the decisions of Dictator Stalin. During World War II, certain changes took place in the official designation of the NKVD. On February 3, 1941, it had been divided into two People's Commissariats, that for Internal Affairs (NKVD) and that for State Security (NKGB). In 1946, because of the redesignation of the People's Commissariats as Ministries: the NKVD and the NKGB became, respectively, the MVD (Ministry of Internal Affairs) and MB (Ministry of State Security). ? -4, Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release @ 50-Yr 2014/04/02 ? CIA RDP81 01043 04 1 ni Declassified in Part- Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02: CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 - 20 - Chapter Four The military strength of the combined organizations under Beria's control came to an impressive total. A defecting NGB officer estimated that the MGB alone had about one million troops of various categories in 1953. But this concentration of police and military powers proved Beria's undoing. After Stalin's death in March 1953, Lena was a member of the "collective leader- ship" that took over the reins of government. But the very existence of such an untrammeled authority as that wielded by Berle posed a threat to the new leaders, and in July 1953 they conspired in his arrest. Following the execution of Beria in December 1953: the MVD was shorn of most of its economic powers and, in March 1954, the internal security or secret police functions were transferred to the Committee of State Security (KGB) under the Council of Ministers -- a potent arm of the CPSU. Thus the central committee regained control of the police system, including Counter- intelligence, one of its most important functions. The subordinate relation of the KGB to the CPSU was again emphasized at an All-Union conference of leading officials of the police organization, held in MOSCOW in May 1959. The conference heard a report by KGB Chairman Shelerin and an address by A. I. Kirichenko, a member of the CPSU central committee presidium. Of significance is the letter sent by the KGB leaders to the CPSU central committee, which was published in Pravda on May 18. This communication in effect was a policy statement -- an unprecedented action for the KGB. The letter said in part: "The Twenty-first Party Congress comprehensively defined the role and place of the state security organs in the system of the Soviet state and their tasks as political organs of the Party under modern conditions, during the period of the construction on a broad front of a Communist society in our country." The KGB letter stated further: "Soviet Cheka officials (see footnote) have interpreted this as a fighting program for their activities, as a demand on the part of their own Communist Party to hoist the banner of revolutionary vigilance even higher...We Soviet Cheka officials well understand that a curtailment of our punitive functions within the country by no means signifies that we have less work to do or that the efforts of our enemies have slackened... Aggressive imperialistic states have at the present time raised subversive activity against the USSR and countries of the socialist camp to the level of state policy..." CHEM is the Russian language abbreviation for the Extraordinary Commission for the Struggle with Counter-Revolution. Although the official designation of the Soviet internal security police has been changed several times since it was established, the term Cheka is still commonly used to describe the secret police and its personnel. Declassified in P San iti - opy Approvedor Release ? Tilt; SOVIET POLICE SYSTEM - 21 - "Under these circurntances," the KGB letter added, "we are obliged to reply to the active efforts of our enemies with decisive counter-blows by the organs of state security and to direct the point of the proletarian sword primarily against the agents planted in the USSR and the countries of the socialist camp." This excerpt points to domination by the KGB over the police organizations of the satellite countries. In the 1959 KGB communication to the CPSU, the name of the Cheka's first chief, Felix Dzerzhinsky, is invoked as a model for the present police organization to emulate. The passage states: "In the future we shall continue to perfect the forms and working methods of the Cheka...to educate all officials of the state security organs in the spirit of unlimited devotion to the Communist Party...in the spirit of the glorious traditions of the All-Union Cheka, and to imbue our entire activity with the style and working methods of the brilliant Bolshevik- Leninist F. E. Dzerzhinsky." The KGB policy statement implies that there are no internal enemies within the USSR. However, any individual who furthers the activities of external agents, even involuntarily, may be charged with aiding and abetting enemy agents. The mention. of Dzerzhinsky and his methods is significant because under him the Cheka exercised authority and. powers that were inde- pendent of the courts. 50-Yr 2014/04/02: 22 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 Chapter Five LABOR IN TIE SOVIET STATE The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) speaks to labor with two voices, depending on whether Communist spokesmen are discussing labor in the free world or within the Communist bloc. The gist of the official Communist thesis is: first, that all workers under capitalism are exploited, whereas, in the "workers' state" (under communism) they enjoy all the freedoms ascribed to them, in Marxist- Leninist ideology, under the dictatorship of the proletariat. A further contention of Communists is that, as a result of the "Great October Revolution" -- the Bolshevik power seizure of November 7, 1917 '? a Communist government was established in the USSR, which expresses the collective will of workers and peasants and is responsive to their needs. On a worldwide basis, the CPSU exerts a dominant influence in the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU), whose affiliates in the free world are controlled by Communists or fellow travelers. The picture of working-class life under "scientific socialism" (communism), presented by WFTU organizers and propagandists, differs materially from the actual situation of labor in the USSR. This situation is not due solely to the governing bureaucracy or to the hierarchical structure of the CPSU itself; the subordinate place of labor in the USSR -- except as a means of production -- stems from the policies of Lenin. During the period of political turmoil attending the Bolshevik Revolu- tion, Lenin's followers used the slogan "All power to the soviets!" as a means of gaining the support of the workers' councils (soviets) which had sprung up in Russian industrial centers in 1917. ? However, Lenin distrusted the soviets, as he did all manifestations of popular or democratic sentiment. He also viewed the trade unions as potential competitors for power in the emerging new order. Lenin's pri- mary allegiance, in fact, was not to the workers apostrophized in the Marx-Engels Communist Manifesto ("Workers of the world, unite!"), but to the Bolshevik Party in its "vanguard role" of leading the proletarian revolution. Although Communists, the world over, pay lip service to the principles of the Communist Manifesto, all Communist regimes follow Lenin's example in their treatment of the workers. ? 1 LABOR IN THE SOVIET STATE -23- Following Lenin's forcible dissolution of the All-Russian Constituent Assembly in January 1918, a period of economic chaos set in, soon aggravated by civil war. In April, the Central Council of Trade Unions -- under the prodding of Lenin -- decreed the introduction of "work norms" (required standards of work performance), piece rates and bonuses. These became per- manent features of labor under communism. During 1920, unrest among trade union rank-and-file members came to a head in the Workers' Opposition, an organization that called for trade- union direction of industry, democratic rule in the CPSU, and participation in government. These labor dissidents, however, were beaten down at the 10th Communist Party Congress in March 1921 and their platform was condemned as a "complete rupture with Marxism and Communism." Lenin's victory in the party congress came at a time when the sailors of the Kronstadt Naval Base, who had helped Lenin to power, were demanding new elections by secret ballot, free speech, freedom of the press, free trade unions and an end to political commissars in the armed forces. Under Lenin's orders, the Kronstadt uprising was brutally suppressed by Red troops led. by Leon Trotsky and Mikhail Tukhachevsky. (Marshal Tukhachevsky was liquidated by Stalin in June 1937). The trade unions under the militant leadership of M.P. Tomsky still retained a considerable degree of independent action, but the 10th Party Congress, spurred by Lenin, initiated the first of a series of party purges, including the ousting of those who favored a strong role for labor in government. In May 1921, Tomsky was temporarily dismissed as chairman of the Central Council of Trade Unions. Although he was reinstated, he was gradually re- duced to obscurity in party matters. In June 1929 (with Stalin in control of the CPSU), Tomsky was removed as head of the trade unions and in July 1930 he was dropped from the Politburo. During the first of the Moscow purge trials, in August 1936, he committed suicide. The political and administrative impotence of the trade unions, which Lenin had fostered, was brought to completion by Stalin. Thus, in 1940, the leading authority on Soviet law, A. I. Denisov, accurately described the status of the unions when he wrote: "Formally, the Soviet trade unions are not a (Communist.) Party organi- zation but, in fact, they are carrying out the directives of the Party. All ? leading organs of the trade unions consist primarily of Communists who execute the Party line in the entire work of the trade unions." Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 - 24 - Chapter Five Al]. the characteristics of labor under communism -- the work norm system, piece rates based on the norms, and "socialist emulation," or production speed-up drives -- were established in the early 1920's and perfected in the mid-1930's. During World War II, the few remaining rights of the workers were abolished, and all infractions of "labor discipline" were subject to harsh penalties under the Penal Code. Many of these punitive measures were repealed after the death of Stalin but the more "liberal" policy toward labor of the post-Stalin period does not basically alter the status of the trade unions as an arm of the state's enforcement and administrative machinery. State domination of trade unions, as developed in the USSR, characterizes all Sino-Soviet Communist regimes. Under this system, plant elections have no meaning other than acceptance by the workers of candidates whom they can neither freely choose nor refuse. Union activities are confined to the settle- ment of minor grievances, drives for "socialist emulation" (higher productivity), and carrying out state welfare programs. The work norm principle is closely associated with the term "socialist competition" or "emulation." In the 1930's the speed-up technique was intro- duced by using pace-setters, known as Stakhanovites (from Stakhanov, the first noted pace-setter), who set a production record in a given operation on a short-time basis. This then became the norm for all workers performing the same operation. When the term Stakhanovite fell into disrepute because of endless, exhaust- ing emulation drives, the exhibition-work performers were called "advanced workers" or "innovators." By fixing the maximum performance of "advanced workers" as the minimum required of all workers in an enterprise, base pay rates were established for "progressive and premium" piece-work. A common device of Communist plant management is to set a higher norm, thus effecting an actual cut in wages, since failure to meet a "progressive norm" means loss of take-home pay. The popular uprisings in East Germany in 1953 and in Poznan, Poland, in 1956, were sparked largely over the question of higher norms. During the people's rebellion in Hungary in October 1956, one of the demands of the Cen- tral Council of Hungarian Trade Unions was a 'general end to production norms with the exception of factories where workers or workers' councils desire their maintenance." Lenin in 1918 deprecated the Bolshevik policy of "paying high wages to experts because of a shortage of specialists" and favored the "reduction of all salaries to the level of the average worker." This in practice proved to be impractical and in 1931 Stalin denounced wage equalization and called for progressive wage scales based on piece-work output. ? LABOR IN TER SOVIET STATE - 25 - Since the 1930's, wage differentials have been used to attract skilled workers to heavy industry and to induce their migration to new industrial cen- ters in the Urals and eastern Siberia. At the same time, the "advanced" workers have been rewarded with special bonuses, premiums, privileges and honors. There has been an increasing gap between the wages of the skilled labor aristocrats and the average worker. In an effort to close this gap and also raise "labor productivity," CPSU leader Nikita Khrushchev in 1956 proposed to abolish multiple bonuses aria replace them by a single bonus for over-fulfillment of the work norm in each enterprise and industry. As a further step in this direction, managers of state enterprises have been authorized to raise production norms at any time -- thus reducing take-home pay -- if this leads to higher per capita productivity. In Soviet factories and industries, collective agreements are entered into between labor and management but these agreements -- between captive labor unions and Communist management -- bear no resemblance to those in effect in the free world. Comments on bad working conditions appear frequently in the Soviet pro- vincial press. As a newspaper in the Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic stated on September 7, 1956: "Some plant directors are concerned with only one stipulation of collective agreements -- the fulfillment of production plans -- and ignore clauses concerning the protection of labor." Through all these complaints runs the refrain: "The officials were only interested in the ful- fillment of the production plan." Trade union visitors from the free world, who have toured Soviet plants and installations have been shocked by the prevalence of unhealthful and hazardous working conditions, and the absence or poor condition of safety equipment. Both of these situations drew sharp criticism from a delegation representing the British National Union of Mine Workers which visited Soviet coal mines in 1956. A report by the British miners' chief Sam Watson cited the "shocking" conditions in the Soviet coal mines, especially the sight of women working underground, "some of them pushing heavy tubs of coal in wet places virtually unfit for strong men to labor in." The visitors found women on crutches and even pregnant women working in the mines. When Soviet mine officials were questioned about this, they replied that since men and women were equal in the USSR, there is no reason why women should not work below ground." Watson pointed out in reply that the pyramids were built by "equal men and women slaves." Although it has long been obvious that Soviet trade unions have no real power, their importance in the Soviet social order was extravagantly publicized Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 ? CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 - 26 - Chapter Five in 1957. The occasion of the first celebration, in June, was termed the "50th anniversary of the Soviet trade union movement." This is entirely mis- leading. During the Czarist period, the Bolsheviks had little or no influence in the Russian trade unions, and they did not bring the union movement under complete party domination until 1922. For internal and external reasons, the trade unions were given a prominent place in the party's calendar of events in 1957. Plenary sessions of the All- Union Central Council of Trade Unions were held in June, August, and December, The CPSU central committee awarded the affiliated unions the "Order of Lenin" at the August meeting, and at the December conference, some 7,000 trade unions and members received orders and medals. On December 17, the central committee decreed an expansion of trade union activities. The Soviet domestic situation was at least partly responsible for these steps. Repeated official emphasis on increased labor productivity already had indicated that a decline in worker enthusiasm was troubling the party's eco- nomic planners. It had even been necessary, in some cases, to curtail annual production goals. Khrushchev's new economic decentralization program also necessitated certain readjustments in the Soviet labor union organizations. A further attempt to raise labor productivity, per worker and per produc- tive unit, was evident in the decision of the CPSU central committee, announced on April 21, 1958, to introduce the 7-hour day in some branches of heavy in- dustry and the 6-hour day for work underground, such as mining. On the basis of the established 6-day week, the new working hours for certain industries will be 41 hours weekly. These measures, to be carried out in 1958-1959, call for the restudy of wage scales. Since Soviet wage scales are tied in with work norms, workers may have to put in unpaid overtime, in addition to working at higher speed, in order to enjoy any benefits from re- duced hours. On the other hand, shorter hours may spur productivity by reduc- ing absenteeism and by giving workers an added incentive to maintain their output at the previous levels. A clue to the labor cost element in the new policy was the proviso in the central committee announcement..." as and when enterprises are ready to reduce the length of the working day and introduce the new conditions of pay- ment for work, so as not to permit the lowering of the volume of industrial production, labor productivity, or excessive expenditure of the established wage funds." According to the central committee's directive, responsibility for in- suring that production is increased -- without materially adding to total wage expenditures in each enterprise -- will rest with the party and trade union organizations. LABOR IN THE SOVIET STATE 27 The CPSU central committee's objectives for the trade unions in 1958, as set forth in the committee's decisions of 1957, were to intensi- fy Communist-run union activities and broaden their scope within and out- side of the Communist bloc. Soviet trade union representatives dominated the 4th World Conference of Trade Unions, held in Leipzig, East Germany, in October 1957. Moscow's policy is to bolster the Communist-controlled World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) and, at the time, to push Communist infiltration of non- Communist unions throughout the free world, especially in the underdeveloped countries. In this endeavor, every effort is being made by Communist trade union- ists to picture the Soviet trade unions as free agencies of the Soviet workers. As part of the propaganda picture of "free Soviet trade unions," two decrees issued in July 1958 are significant. On July 16, a Supreme Soviet decree was released, which on the surface gives local factory trade unions an increased voice in plant management. On July 18 a decree issued jointly by the Council of Ministers and the Central Council of Trade Unions deals with the so-called Permanent Production Conferences, which have existed on paper for the past 35 years and are now being activated. According to the first decree, factory trade union committees have been granted the right to approve managerial appointments and to demand dis- ciplining of managerial personnel who are derelict in their duty. The union committees also may challenge the dismissal of workers by management, and they are to have more say in regard to overtime work, welfare and safety measures, etc. The principal aim of the production conferences, on the other hand, is to ensure that state enterprises "fulfill and overfulfill production plans." These conferences, now scheduled to hold regular meetings, bear a superficial resemblance to the Yugoslav "workers' councils," but they are subordinate to the plant committees and therefore subject to CPSU control. Despite Moscow's claims that the two decrees promote "industrial demo- cracy," there is no evidence that the hold of party cadres .on plant committees will be relaxed. On the contrary, they will have broader powers to threaten any management that fails to carry out state production plans. Although the factory committees may be of advantage to the workers in certain limited respects, plant management -- taking orders from the Trade Union Council, a CPSU mouthpiece -- will continue to fix wages, work norms and working conditions in all Soviet industrial establishments. Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50 Yr 2014/04/02 ? CIA-RDP81 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 -28- Chapter Five In Khrushchev's report to the 21st CPSU Congress on the Seven Year Plan, a large section was devoted to a labor program, which is tied in with the overall production plan, 1959 through 1965. The main features of the Seven Year Plan in respect to labor calls for: (1) mobilization of some 11.5 million workers; (2) lowering production costs by nearly 11.5 percent; and (3) an increase in mil capita productivity of 45 to 50 percent. Criticizing the "outdated, too-low work norms," Khrushchev made it clear that increasing the work norms will not be accompanied by a corre- sponding increase in wages, percentagewise. For example, when the work norm in an industrial plant at Sverdlovsk was raised.about 25 percent, wages increased only about 12 to 15 percent. Workers thus had to speed up unit production by one fourth but labor costs were held down by the small increases in wages paid out to workers. Fur- ther, when the work norm is raised, workers who fail to meet the new standard of production receive less take-home pay than before. Raising wages of the 8 million workers in low-paid occupations accord- ing to Khrushchev, will be done without increasing total wage and salary costs. It will be done at the expense of the higher income groups of skilled labor in preferred occupations. Current emphasis on the creation of "Communist labor brigades" also suggests a revival of the Stakhanovite system and "Communist competitions." The program for labor under the Seven Year Plan was discussed by Swiss economist Ernst Kux in an article published in Neue Zurcher Zeitung, Zurich, Switzerland, December 16, 1958. Kux pointed out that "while Khrushchev asserts that working hours are to be shortened without a lessen- ing of labor salaries, it will nonetheless bring in actual fact a reduc- tion of the real income of the laborers." Kux commented further that "the shortening of working hours and the raising of wages change nothing in the present situation of the Soviet worker, and one asks, with Lenin, how 'dozens and dozens of millions of people can be led to communism without material interest'." Khrushchev's answer to this is the promise of greatly increased mechanization of production but, in the words of economist Kux, "the Soviet economy will be hampered by excessively exploited and overage factories, by a tight labor market and by an agriculture which lags behind industrial production." Nevertheless, the possibility of a reasonable advance in living standards, even though far below anticipated goals, is not to be discounted. The price to be paid, according to Kux, lies in "new efforts on the part of the population" resembling those of the Stalinist period. 29 Chapter Six THE PARTY'S MANAGEMENT OF AGRICULTURE From the time of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, agriculture has been one of the weakest links in the Soviet economy. .This is not due solely -- as in the case of the lag in housing and consumer goods -- to continuing emphasis on heavy industry. However, the guns-instead-of-butter philosophy of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) accounts for some agricultural failures. The inadequacy of farm output in general has resulted mainly from the application of party dogmas to farming methods, organization and administration. Party control of farming has fluctuated from time to time; a stage is fast approaching wherein farm workers will be under a form of regimentation similar to that of industrial labor. Communist Party leader and Premier, Nikita Khrushchev, claims that the Soviet collective farm (kolkhoz) system follows the agricultural principles of Lenin. This is inaccurate. It was Stalin, and not Lenin, who forcibly imposed collectivization on Soviet Russia's peasantry and in the process caused the death of millions. Other millions of victims ended their days in Siberian forced labor camps. In 1918 Lenin told the Council of People's Commissars: "Every intelli- gent Socialist (Communist) will agree that socialism (communism) cannot be imposed on the peasantry by force, and we can rely only upon the force of example and on the masses of the peasants assimilating living experiences." After Lenin's death in 1924, Stalin moved gradually toward personal domination of the party and state. In 1928 he launched the first Five-Year Plan and at the same time decreed the collectivization of agriculture. The Stalinist policy of mass collectivization in 1929 was followed by the decision to liquidate the main opponents of the program -- the well-to-do farmers, known as kulaks. Under Stalin's prodding, this step was formal- ized by a resolution of the 16th Party Congress, June-July 1930. The kulaks, who numbered about a million peasant families, were evicted from their farms, banished to forced labor, or executed. Although this campaign was aimed ostensibly at the more affluent farmers, opposition to Stalin's policy was so widespread that in many areas the entire peasant population suffered at the hands of the OGPU (secret police). Millions of peasants burnt their grain and slaughtered their herds. As a result, a famine of catastrophic proportions in 1931-1932 claimed several Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 ? CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001 8 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02: CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 - 30 - Chapter Six million victims in southern Russia and Soviet Central Asia. Unorganized resistance to collectivized farming continued for many years. Khrushchev, in his report "On the Further Development of the Collective Farm System and the Reorganization of NTS (Machine Tractor Stations)," issued by the central committee on February 25, 1958, had this to say of the period when the peasants were being driven into collectivization: "Millions of the poorest peasants and farm laborers were saved from -enslavement by kulaks, poverty and ignorance...The creation and stabilization of the collective farm system is a victory of the Leninist general line of our party." The MTS network was established as an intrinsic part of the collectiviza- tion system and up to about 1957 had been identified-with it in all Communist thinking. The Khrushchev proposal to reorganize the MTS, approved by the Supreme Soviet on March 31;was therefore considered revolutionary, although since 1956 some changes in the NTS status had become apparent. The state-operated MTS from the beginning had two primary functions -- one economic and the other political. As collective farms (kolkhozes) were not allowed to awn their own machinery, the mission of the MTS was to service adjacent kolkhozes by performing mechanical services -- plowing, harvesting and the like -- on a contract basis. The number of NTS rose from six in 1928 to more than 7,000 in 1940, reached a peak of 9,000 in 19552 and declined to 8,000 in 1958. The recent reduction in numbers was due to the assignment of MTS machines and personnel to state farms (sovkhozes). An equally important function of the NTS was to act as a political watch- dog over the kolkhoz membership and management. Until recently, the Communist Party was scantily represented in rural areas and among collective farm members. Although overt opposition of peasants had ceased by the late 1930's, their dis- satisfaction and indifference was expressed by failure to meet production goals, neglect of collective labor, and huge losses in grain harvests. The MTS, with virtual police powers, exercized pressure on the kolkhozes through control of all mechanical processes, and also through the activities of party secretaries and political instructors attached to MTS "zones." Since 1955, the party's hold on the collectives has been tightened by appointing party nominees as directors of the kolkhozes and by the assignment of tens of thousands of party members to rural areas. These steps were made somewhat palatable by granting the kolkhozes more leeway in production plan- ing and by upping the prices paid by the state for kolkhoz products. The Stalin period was characterized by oppressive compulsory deliveries to the state of kolkhoz products, low prices paid to the collective farms, THE PARTY S MANAGEMEIT OF AGRICULTURE -31- and the extraction of all possible income from agriculture in order to pro- vide the State with capital for the expansion of heavy industries. After the death of Stalin in 1953, the kolkhozes were promised better treatment, but there was little improvement until 1956. In the meantime, a noteworthy transformation in the pattern of Soviet agriculture took place, which has continued at an accelerated rate. Since 1940, the trend in kolkhoz administration has been marked by a steady decline in kolkhoz numbers, and a consequent increase in their average size. Thus, in 1940 there were 235,000 collective farms; in 1955 there were 85,000, and today there are about 72,000. The larger kolkhozes, with areas of 10,000 to 20,000 acres or more, may have several thousand persons living on them, including 500 or more peasant households, artisans, araftsmen, etc. They are, in fact, agricultural communities, rather than farms. Another tendency has been the increasing emphasis given to the develop- ment of the state farm (sovkhoz) system. Although the number of sovkhozes has not shown an impressive increase -- from 4,000 in 1940 to 5,800 in 1957 -- their average size has more than tripled. As a result, the aggregate area of state farms has grown from 8.8 percent of the total cultivated area in the USSR in 1940 to 25 percent of the total today. The expansion of state farm areas is due largely to the fact that since 1952 some 89 million acres of virgin and fallow land have been put to the plow -- almost all of it organized as savkhozes. State farms have also grown by the absorption of adjacent collective farms -- a process that has been stepped up in the past three years. Unlike kolkhoz members, who have a limited vested interest in the col- lective farm to which they belong and share its "profits," workers on state farms have no communal rights or interests whatsoever; they are merely day laborers employed by the state. This distinction is important because Khrushchev favors the sovkhoz system and plainly intends to bring the kolk- hozes into line with it. In his "theses" on the reorganization of the MTS, Khrushchev referred to the state farms as a "superior form of ownership" and a "higher level of socialization." He advocated "raising the level of socialization of collective farm ownership and bringing it up to the level of. national awnership...through a thorough consolidation and development of both state and collective farm ownership." Khrushchev added: "The work of collective farmers, based on a broad application of modern machinery, will approach in its characteristics the work of industrial workers." 2. Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release? 50 -Yr 2014 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 - 32 - Chapter Six This is pure Stalinist doctrine, not Leninism. Speaking at the 19th Congress of the CPSU in 1952, Stalin attributed Soviet agricultural failures to the existence of two kinds of property -- completely nationalized property, such as industry, and kolkhoz property. Stalin envisaged the future nationalization of all forms of property, including collective farms, within a unified system of "all-national ownership." This, he believed, would do away with the existing "money economy" and its "market exchange." However, he was willing to tolerate the "market exchange" as a concession to kolkhoz farmers, but was opposed to letting them awn their farm machines. Although Khrushchev's proposal -- to allow the kolkhozes to purchase farm machinery from the MTS and to transform the latter into Repair Technical Sta- tions (RTS) as state sales and service depots -- seems completely at variance with Stalin's principles, it amounts to the same thing, that is, the eventual transition of collective farmers to the status of day laborers working for the state. If the Communist Party is to exercise complete control of the kolk- hozes, the question of ownership is immaterial. ? In his theses Khrushchev pointed out that the number of party members working in the kolkhozes increased by more than 230,000 between 1954 and 1958. This increase, plus the 80,000 newly appointed kolkhoz directors nominated by the party, means that the party now has a firm grip on the collective farmers and their management. Khrushchev stated specifically that the political func- tion of the MTS is no longer needed -- which explains his readiness to grant the ownership of machines to the kolkhozes. While emphasizing the party's dominant influence over the kolkhozes, Khrushchev also warned that further administrative purges, extending from collective farm directors to group foremen, were in prospect. In this con- nection, he praised "experienced workers, who have undergone a serious sch9o1- ing in organizational work and who have proved their skill in militantly implementing the decisions of the party and government on the upsurge of agriculture." Khrushchev added that collective farmers must be educated "day by day, in a spirit of conscious discipline." This is essentially the party doctrine applied to industrial workers. Another Khrushchev statement, linking his point of view to Stalin's, was his reference to the fact that although kolkhoz members work the land, they do not awn it. Also, on the status of the indivisible funds (funds that may not be divided among kolkhoz members as dividends), Khrushchev said that the indivisible funds are "wealth created by the nation"; hence, they are in the category of "all-national ownership." ' THE PARTY'S MANAGEMENT OF AGRICULTURE - 33 - The indivisible funds are used by the kolkhozes for the purchase of MTS machines and equipment, and the entire operation is being carried out under strict party supervision through the party appointees in collective farm management and other party agencies. The collective farms, in addition to MTS purchases, are under heavy obligations for other aspects of the reorganization program. MTS personnel transferred to kolkhoz payrolls need additional living quarters; MTS machines require storage facilities, and the farms have been advised to undertake an expanded road-building program -- at their awn expense. In connection with the transformation of kolkhoz structures, there have been broad hints that the last vestiges of private farming -- the small per- sonal plots worked by collective farm households -- are to be liquidated. (Recurrent official complaints charge that farmers neglect collective work- norm requirements in favor of labor on their own plots.) A Moscow broadcast of March 25, 1957, quoted a party functionary as stating that, as a result of the new policy, "the practical necessity for collective farmers with subsidiary establishments (private plots) will cease. Receiving for their labor from the communal establishment considerably more than from the subsidiary one, collective farmers will themselves voluntarily forego their private cows and the cultivation of private kitchen gardens." Further confirmation of Khrushchev's objective of creating a rural proletariat was supplied during the 1958 session of the Supreme Soviet. A plan for a new nationwide farm union was submitted by Dmitri Poliansky, a member of the CPSU central committee from Krasnodar -- a wheat-growing region. The new union would embrace workers of collective farms, state farms, and former MTS, now the RTS. Since Soviet trade unions are used almost exclusively as functional armsof the state control apparatus, a farm union would serve a like purpose. According to Poliansky, the "organization of such a trade union would ensure an increase in labor discipline and labor productivity." It would also erase any remaining distinctions between collective farmers and regimented industrial workers. A further radical innovation in the agricultural system was announced by Khrushchev in a speech of June 17, 1958, to the CPSU central committee. The plan involves abolishing the previous system of compulsory deliveries of farm products and for payment by the state in cash instead of in kind. Offhand, the new program seems to offer inducements for greater production by state and collective farmers. But whether collective farm workers actually derive substantial benefits -- in consumer goods, better housing, etc. -- remains to be seen. Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50 -Yr 2014/04/02 ? CIA-R Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 Chapter Six Cash payment in fact was essential to the complicated bookkeeping of the state and collective farms, once they engaged in buying machinery from the former MIS. Khrushchev explained that the new state purchase price will vary from region to region, depending on production costs, and also from year to year, according to harvest conditions. He stated further than the pro- curement system henceforth must guarantee delivery to the state of an increased volume of agricultural produce, and at reduced costs. These, in essence, are the same criteria that govern production by state industrial establishments. In his speech, Khrushchev declared that agricultural technicians trans- ferred from MTS to collective farms must be responsible for bringing about the planned "upsurge" in agriculture -- at low cost -- and intimated that the salaries of experts will depend on their success in achieving these ends. In explaining his program, Khrushchev often refers to the "creative initiative" of the collective farmers and their "voluntary" efforta to increase production, but in view of the party's iron grip on all facets of agriculture, these are euphemisms. By January 1959, about tO percent of the collective farms (kolkhozes) had purchased MTS machinery, according to an official report. In another report, Minister of Agriculture Matskevich disclosed that between January 1, and May 1, 1956, the number of collectives decreased from 7b,000 to 72,000 -- a drop of about 7.7 percent. (During the entire year, the number of kolkhozes declined by more than 10,000.) Taken together, these items indicate that a considerable number of collectives have been unable to finance the purchase of MTS machines, and that the uneconomic farms are being rapidly absorbed into larger farm units. Recently, a further drastic change in the kolkhoz structure was suggested in a series of articles by Soviet farm experts. Published in official journals, these pieces are presumed to represent the thinking of the Khrushchev faction. In the course of the technical discussion some startling data on the col- lective farm situation was given by the writers. Figures were cited showing the great disparity between the income of farm workers on the most profitable kolkhozes, compared with average farm incomes and those of farms with marginal productivity. Agrarian writer Ivan Vinnichenko, in an article in the June 1958 issue of the periodical October, pointed out that it is an anachronism for some col- lectives to pay 30 rubles for a labor-day while at the opposite extreme there are many farms that cannot afford to pay more than one and a half rubles for the same amount of work. 0 THE PARTY'S MAIAGEMEW OF AGRICULTURE - 35 - (Note: The average income for communal farm work is 3.65 rubles per work day plus one to one and one-half kilograms of payment-in-kind. This total is below the average subsistence level, but the deficit per worker is compensated by products of individual garden plots.) The "millionaire" kolkhozes are those raising preferred industrial crops such as cotton, which have been heavilY subsidized by the state, or they are in areas of exceptional fertility and operate under competent management. Any attempt to introduce even modified equalization of income between these privileged establishments and the less productive kolkhozes, which are far more numerous, poses formidable problems for Soviet agricultural planners.* Vinnichenko also called attention to the widespread practice of hoarding grain on the most profitable farms, in order to sell on.the open market where prices are twice as high as those paid by the state agencies. Storage of grain surpluses in the homes of peasants, he Said, results in a heavy loss through spoilage. The trend of the comments by the experts indicate that marked changes in Soviet agrarian policy are in the making. These developments, it appears, will include an all-cash system of remuneration for the more advanced farms and a reappraisal of incames of both the average kolkhozes and those at the lowest economic levels. 0 A program offered by the experts calls for the creation of a unified ? cooperative system, based on the amalgamation of large numbers of economi- cally weak farms into a series of kolkhoz unions. The.planning, purchasing, and distribution apparatuses of several districts and even of regions would be coordinated in a single kolkhoz union (kolkhoz soiyuz). Such a system, while attractive Khrushchev, would further remove the from direct interest in the land and the creation of huge aggregations of. cultural technocrats. to the mass planners headed by individual collective farm members its products. The scheme envisages land and equipment, directed by agri- The goals for agriculture, announced by Khrushchev as part of the Seven Year Plan, call for the production of 1965 of 165 million to 180 million tons of wheat (as compared with recent average harvests of slightly more than 100 million tons); of 16 million tons of meat, and 100 million tons of butter. 0 The planned increase in wheat output can only come through increasing prc4uctivity per hectare (one hectare equals 2.47 acres), and not by opening Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 -36- Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 Chapter Six up new lands. In fact, Khrushchev told the 21st CPSU Congress that future use of virgin and fallow land will be on a "reduced scale" and will not provide a further increase in gross grain harvests. On the other hand, the planned production of 30 million tons of fertilizer, if achieved, will cause only a modest increase in productivity per hectare. Marked increases in meat and milk production depend to a large extent on tripling fodder production -- from 30 million tons to 90 million tons by 1965. There are at present no prospects for such a phenomenal rise in fodder output, and Khrushchev himself refers to the "lag in fodder production" as a continuing problem. In a speech on June 29, 1959, to the CPSU central committee plenum, Khrushchev admitted that "organizational guidance of farming is not perfect" and criticized party work in agriculture. "Bureaucratism must be stopped as quickly as possible," he said. Malenkov in October 1952 voiced the same complaint at the 19th CPSU Congress where he was the principal speaker. He also censured, without naming, the author of a plan to establish "agro-towns" -- a form of urbanized, industrialized agriculture which Khrushchev had proposed in 1950. Rejected by Stalin at that time, the idea has again been broached as a projected development in Soviet agricultural planning. 00 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release -37- Chapter Seven THE PARTY'S POSITION ON RELIGION In 1843 Karl Marx said: "Religion is the opiate of the people; our duty is to deliver the people from this opiate." Lenin in 1909 enlarged on the Marx aphorism by declaring: "Religion is the opium of the people -- this dictum of Marx's is the cornerstone of the whole Marxist view of religion. Marxism has always regarded all modern religion and churches and all religious organizations as instruments of bourgeois reaction." Stalin in 1927 introduced a new note by stating: "Science and religion are two incompatible concepts. The Communist State works for the glory of science and thus is incompatible with religion." Thirty years later, this maxim was given current relevancy in connection with the successful launching of the first earth satellite by the USSR. Shortly after Sputnik was launched in October 1957, Moscow radio announced that the achievement had "immense importance for atheistic propaganda" be- cause Sputnik made it "impossible to believe in religious fabrications about God Almighty." A few days later, Radio Moscow broadcast a lengthy youth lecture on science and religion. The broadcast stressed that the "correct world out- look is the direct antithesis, the full antithesis to religion...Every scientist, if he is indeed a scientist, proves by his work that God does not exist." During the past three decades, the Soviet approach to the inculcation of atheism has gone through several phases, the latest being that of scien- tific education as an antidote to religion. In the period immediately following the 1917 Revolution, churches and mosques were pillaged; persecution was widespread although relatively un- systematic. However, the various Union Republics began drafting highly restrictive laws in regard to religious practices. For example, the criminal code of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic (RSFSR), enacted in 1926, specified that "instruction of the under-aged or minors in religious doctrines in state or private educational institutions and schools or the violation of the rules estab- lished for this is punishable by corrective labor for a period of one year." Under this provision, thousands of priests were sent to forced labor camps during the collectivization period, 1929-1931. Untold. numbers of =nabs and other religious leaders received the same treatment. 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 11' -38 Chapter Seven The RSFSR Code also forbade religious organizations to engage in chari- table work, create mutual assistance funds, or carry on other extra-clerical activities. Although criminal penalities against this type of church work are no longer imposed, the Soviet Government makes it difficult, if not im- possible, for church organizations to conduct social and charitable activities. Another MISR decree, followed by similar actions taken by the other Soviet republics, deprived religious groups of their property, their legal status, their right to maintain schools, and all grants from the government. Nationalization of church property led to the closing of the majority of Christian churches and Islamic mosques. By 1933 it was estimated that 50 to 60 percent of the Orthodox churches -- largest of the denominations in the USSR -- had been closed. Information on the closing of mosques is more specific. In 1942, Soviet War News, an official periodical, revealed that whereas there had been 7,000 mosques in European Russia alone before the Bolshevik Revolution, only 1,312 remained throughout the entire USSR. Some 8,000 Muslim schools had been terminated by the government. The antireligious campaign in the Baltic States began with the Soviet troop occupation. In Lithuania, Which was predominantly Roman Catholic, the leading personnel of religious organizations were arrested. by Soviet authorities in 1940. Some were executed, while others were sent to forced labor camps in the USSR. In Estonia and Latvia, as well as in Lithuania, church property was confiscated, religious publications were suspended, and religious teaching was outlawed. In 19143, when the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union posed a serious threat to the country, Stalin temporarily decreed a policy of religious tolerance which, for the first time, gave some meaning to the provision of the 1936 Constitution guaranteeing "freedom of religious belief." Soviet war efforts thereafter were supported by pronouncements from Moscow's Orthodox Patriarchate. Also, a "Central Asian Muslim Administration" was set up to promote wartime loyalty among the Muslims. Although overt religious persecution was less pronounced in the USSR after the end of World War II, a new antireligious campaign began in Eastern Europe as the border states fell under Soviet domination in 1948-1950. Leading Roman Catholic and Protestant figures in the satellite states were imprisoned or subjected to house arrest. Only those Orthodox church. leaders who adhered to the party's policies were spared. At the sane time, Patriarch. Alexei of Moscow sought to impose his authority on the Eastern European Orthodox churches, none of which had previously acknowledged the primacy of the Moscow patriarchate. THE PARTYIS POSITION ON. RELIGION - 39 - Places of worship that were closed in the USSR between 1918 and 1940 were turned into atheist museums, cinemas, social clubs or warehouses. After the death of Stalin in 1953, some churches were reopened and several mosques were restored. Although the Soviet Constitution proclaims the theoretical right of religious freedom, the CPSU itself remains adamant in its opposition to all religion as basically incompatible with communism. Lenin, for example, once declared: "we (the Bolsheviks) demand that religion should be a private affair as far as the State is concerned, but under no circumstances can we regard religion as a private affair as far as our Party is concerned." Members of the CPSU and the League of Communist Youth (Komsomol) are required not only to profess atheism but also to take an active part in anti- religious activities and propaganda. For example, the youth organization's official publication, Komsomolskaya Pravda on February 12, 1957, quoted a decree of the Komsomol central committee making it compulsory for all Komsomol groups to "improve scientific atheistic propaganda among youth." In the same month, an. editorial in the Central Asian newspaper Altaskaya Pravda, while repeating that it was necessary to step up atheistic propaganda, tried to reconcile the party's antireligious drive with Soviet constitutional provisions regarding freedom of worship. "The Soviet State," said the editorial, "guarantees its citizens full and unlimited freedom of conscience in accordance with Article 24 of the Constitution. This article stipulates freedom of worship as well as freedom to conduct antireligious propaganda, at the discretion of citizens. "Our (Communist) Party has demanded and continues consistently to demand that its organizations increase dissemination of atheistic knowledge and assist workers to free themselves of religious prejudices. "However, it must be noted with regret that some Party, trade union, Komsomol, and other organizations whose duty it is to conduct mass cultural educational work, are too mindful of freedom of conscience, and for one reason or another forget about freedom to conduct antireligious propaganda and about arming workers with a materialistic world outlook and natural, scientific, atheistic knowledge." Soviet propaganda's dual stand on religion is illustrated in the case of the treatment given to Islam. Moscow radio broadcasts on the subject of Islam differ materially, depending on whether the broadcast is for domestic or Middle East consumption. In July 1956, for example, Radio Moscow, in a broadcast to the Middle East in Arabic, quoted the "Chairman of the Muslim Board of the European Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 - 40 - Chapter Seven. Part of the USSR and Siberia" as saying: "Our children are being educated in freedom." But the same station, in a broadcast to the Soviet home audience a month earlieribad stated: "The only attitude of Soviet schools toward religion is one of irreconcilable hostility." Four regional Muslim "boards" -- puppet Islamic organizations -- now operate under the supervision of the Soviet Council of Religious Cults. The carefully selected Muftis who head these boards are promoters of party policies. They also originate propaganda directed toward Muslim countries outside the Soviet bloc. On visits to Arab lands, the Soviet Muftis repeat CPSU propaganda themes, claiming religious freedam in the USSR, while Ignoring Soviet campaigns against Islam. Thus, a brochure intended for domestic consumption, titled "Islam, its Origin and its Social Content:" calls Islam a "profoundly reactionary re- lation." Originally written by Soviet Academician L. I. Klimovich in 1936, the book was revised for publication in 1956. It is published. in Moscow under the sponsorship of the All-Union Society for the Dissemination of Political and Scientific Knowledge, an organization controlled by the cen- tral committee of the CPSU through its member, Mitin, the society's presi- dent. In this work, central committee first secretary Nikita Khrushchev is quoted (Pravda, Demcember 11, 1955) as having stated during a trip to India: "Representatives of many religions live in the Soviet Union. However, this does not create any misunderstandings in our country, and the Soviet people live and work as a united family. "The problem of religion is a problem of the conscience of every person and every nation." Some three months earlier, on September 22, 1955, Khrushchev had told a visiting French delegation: "We remain atheists, and we will do all we can to liberate a certain portion of the people from the charms of the religious opium that still exists." In May 1957 the party sponsored an atheist conference in Moscow which was attended by some 350 antireligious propagandists. Following the conference, the "League of Militant Godless," disbanded in 1941, was revived. A. more ambitious undertaking was the establishment of the "House of the Atheist" at Odessa, the first institution devoted exclu- sively to atheistic indoctrination and training. The "House of the Atheist" is described as the center of "antireligious and cultural enlightenment work among the population." It trains atheist propagandists and sends activists into workers' hostels and clubs. 0 0 THE PARTY'S POSITION ON RELIGION - 41 - In 1958, a "University of Atheism" was established at Ashkabad, Turk- menistan, and a similar institution was organized in Leningrad toward the end of the year. Other such institutions are in process of formation. On another front, the year-end issue of Red Star, organ of the Soviet Army, was devoted to the subject of antireligious activities in the ranks of the Soviet military establishment. The article disclosed that on December 29, 1958, a conference took place in the Main Political Admin- istration of the Soviet Army and Navy which "discussed the position and tasks of atheistic propaganda." Red Star reminded its readers that "it must always be borne in mind that our (Communist)Party has been and is considering atheist propaganda an integral part of Communist education." The December 1958 issue of the magazine Partiynaya Zhizn (Party Life), semimonthly organ of the CPSU central committee, complained that 'a "certain section of party and Soviet workers adhere to the mistaken opinion that with the liquidation of the class base of the church in our country, the need has vanished for active atheist propaganda...Our Party has always taken and now takes a position of militant atheism and irreconcilable aggressive ideological struggle against the narcotic of religion." The article also said that the central committee's decree of November 10, 1954, "On Mistakes in the Execution of Scientific Atheistic Propaganda among the Population", had. been misunderstood to imply a relaxation of the "systematic struggle against religious ideology and the beginning of a curtailment .of antireligious propaganda." The article added: "All this has created favorable conditions for clergymen and sectarians and their religious activities." A significant admission by Party Life was the statement that some members of the Communist Party "themselves participate in various altar rites and ceremonies, forgetting that this is incompatible with the title of Party member." References in the press of the non-Russian republics during 1958 revealed that not only Communist party members but also members of the Komsomol in some areas had engaged in religious rites and attended meetings of believers. Warnings against these practices were reiterated in official organs of the Central Asian republics, Georgia, the Ukraine and the Baltic States. In the case of the Armenian SSR, a paradoxical situation developed. In October 1958, the fiftieth birthday of Vazgen I (head of the Armenian Apostolic Church) and the third anniversary of his enthronement as Supreme Patriarch (Catholicos) of all Armenian believers, within and outside of the Soviet Union, was celebrated at Echmiadzin, Soviet Armenia. Present at the two-week ceremonies were representatives of the Armenian Apostolic Church from the USSR and from non-Communist countries. Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 - 42 - Chapter Seven The ceremonies were given full coverage by the Soviet press and radio. The wide publicity given to the event suggests there was an element of political motivation, designed to appeal to Armenians outside the Soviet bloc, mainly in Turkey and Iran. Party Life, however, in an article published two months after the religious event in Soviet Armenia, reaffirmed the party's attitude toward such celebrations. It stated that it would be "incorrect to think that a growth of religiosity is occurring in our country, that the number of believers is growing. On the contrary...there is occurring a gradual but unbroken process of the final departure of believers from religion and its organizations." The Large Soviet Encyclopedia, which accurately reflects party policy on all subjects, carries numerous articles dealing with religion. Published under the auspices of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, the current edition of the Encyclopedia refers to religions rituals and doctrines in terms of myths and legends. The Encyclopedia's assaults on Roman Catholicism are concentrated largely on the Vatican as an institution and on the late Pope Pius XII personally. A typical statement declares: "The Vatican widely utilizes the press, radio and films for the purpose of aggressive propaganda, under religious disguise, of reactionary political ideas, and the struggle against communism and progressive scientific thought." References to Protestantism in the Encyclopedia endeavor to equate Protestants with "capitalistic exploitation" and "colonialism." The opening paragraph on the general subject states: "Protestantism, as a bourgeois variety of Christianity, justified capitalistic enterprises, profit and exploitation...In the USSR, Protes- tantism in the form of Lutheranism is spread to a certain extent in the Latvian and Estonian SSR's. The social roots of Protestanism, as of all religions, have been exterminated in the USSR." Under the heading of Islam, the Large Encyclopedia has this to say: "In the Eastern countries beyond the (Soviet) border -- in Turkey, the Arabian countries, Iran, Afelanistan, Pakistan, Indonesia -- where Islam is the religion of the state, it continues to remain one of the weapons in the hands of local reaction and foreign imperialism." -43- Chapter Eight THE PARTY'S ROLE IN EDUCATION The place of education and culture under "scientific socialism" (commu- nism) had not been precisely defined when Lenin -- founder of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) -- died in 1924. Up to that time, millions of children in the Soviet Union had been receiving instruction of sorts -- most of it rudimentary -- during years of civil war, famine, and social and economic chaos. What pedagogic methods should be utilized to further communism and strengthen a Communist Govern- mend was a subject of debate then, and for another decade, while Joseph Stalin was forging his personal domination of the party and state. In 1934y Stalin told a visiting journalist: "Education is the weapon the effect of which depends upon the one who holds it in his hands, and the one who is struck with it." The doctrine that education is one of many "weapons" in the hands of a Communist regime -- and a vitally important one -- is still a cardinal principle in all Communist-run countries. This was stated in an article published in the official Soviet journal Culture and Life of August 31, 1947: "The Soviet school cannot be satisfied to rear merely educated persons. Basing itself on the facts and deductions of progressive science, it should instill the ideology of communism in the minds of the young generation, shape a Marxist-Leninist world outlook and inculcate the spirit of Soviet patriotism and Bolshevik ideas in them." Another important factor in the development of Soviet education, and the keystone of its present structure, is the emphasis on science. Communist devotion to science is bound up with the Marxist doctrine of the "material- istic world outlook." Both Marx and Lenin and their disciples looked upon the Communist version of science as the bulwark of "scientific socialism" (communism), and as an. antidote to the "opiate of religion." Lenin envisaged scientific progress as the only means of lifting Russia from its technological backwardness to the status of a modern Communist state. However, when Stalin inaugurated the first Five Year Plan, designed to create a powerful industrial and military state, he was faced at once with the scar- city of Soviet technicians, industrial managers, and scientific specialists. This lack of trained personnel was so acute during the 1930's that foreign technicians, including those with "bourgeois" backgrounds, were brought in to fill the void and help guide the USSR toward the goal of industrialization. Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001 8 104. Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release Chapter Eight Even at the start of World War II, the Soviet Union was so deficient in the technical means of carrying on modern warfare that the Soviets had to rely to a large extent on help from the Western allies. Hence, in the postwar years, every effort was made to turn out an increasing number of techniciams, industrial managers, and scientists. These have become priv- ileged classes in the Soviet social order and are relieved of many of the ideological demands the party imposes on peasants and industrial workers. The Soviet statistical handbook (1956) states that the number of "specialists with higher and secondary special education employed in the USSR national economy" on January 1, 1956/ totaled about 5.5 million. This figure includes doctors, lawyers, journalists, and other professional people as well as technicians, engineers, managers of state enterprises: etc. Of this total, 25 percent were listed as engineers and 7.5 percent as agricultural specialists of various kinds. The predominance of engineers testifies to the Communist Party's concern for heavy industry, especially in military fields, mining, construction, transportation, etc. The scien- tific, managerial and technical personnel constitute an elite class, with incomes ranging into the upper levels of remuneration in Soviet society. The emphasis in Soviet education on science -- particularly as applied to the processes of heavy industry, atomic and projectile development and so forth -- again represents a spectacular extension of the party dogma that regards education primarily as a "weapon against capitalism." This "weapon" has another use in Moscow's trade and aid agreements with underdeveloped countries, where the ultimate purpose is political rather than economic. In most instances: an economic assistance pact calls for a multitude of Soviet specialists to be sent -- as a vanguard for political infiltration -- to the recipient country. These specialists are not likely to be directly engaged in subversive activities, but they prepare the ground for it. Lenin's concept of party "unite anediscipline" has affected the whole structure of Soviet education. Specifically, it has meant that the content of Soviet textbooks and all teaching material, once established by party functionaries, is not subject to critical inquiry or reappraisal by teachers or students. Party control of the school system and all pedagogic literature has led to anomalous situations. In the years immediately following World War II, the rationale of Soviet culture and education underwent a series of shifts in the party line, due in part to conflicts within the party itself. From mid-1948 on, a science controversy, which began in the field of genetics, spread to the other natural sciences and to medicine. It was the result of a dramatic rise to scientific power of Trofim Lysenko, a geneticist who von the backing of Stalin. 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 THE PARTY'S ROLE IN EDUCATION - 45 - At a meeting of the Lenin Academy of Agricultural Science, July 31, 1948/ Lysenko advanced a doctrine of genetics which brought him fame 'within the USSR and derision from leading geneticists in the free world. According to Lysenko, dialectical materialism proves that environment -- and not inherited genes -- is the prime factor in determining individual charac- teristics. For a few years, Lysenko was virtually dictator of natural sciences in the Soviet Union and his opponents were ruthlessly demoted or purged. But by 19532 the Lysenko doctrines were discredited and their author had been deposed as science czar. However, Soviet genetics is still dominated by party dogmas. Recently, Lysenko's scientific status was restored. As another example, from the late 1930's and up to the death of Stalin in 1953, the entire subject matter of instruction, with .a few exceptions, was permeated with Marxism-Leninism-Stalinism -- the main emphasis being on the last-named member of the trinity. After CPSU chief Khrushchev downgraded Stalin in February 1956, it be- came necessary to revise large sections of the textbooks and reference. works then in use -- a task that has not yet been completed. Also, publication of Volume 29 of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, containing Stalin's biography; was held up and the following volume was issued instead. The Encyclopedia itself, in its treatment of historical events inside and outside of the Soviet bloc countries, is largely a compilation of Marxist- Leninist propaganda and dialectical sophistries. This is especially evident in the bias shown toward all religious subjects. Since the preparation of the Great Encyclopedia is conducted under strict party supervision, any changes in the party line or in the standing of Soviet notables is reflected in revisions that are constantly taking place. The Communist Party's objective -- to mold the "Communist man" from childhood to adult years -- depends for success on the government's ability to insulate all pupils and students from "bourgeois" influences and informa- tion. This Iron Curtain, which has been imposed on the educational system for almost forty years, was lifted briefly during the Sixth Festival of Youth, held in Moscow in 1957. The $150-million propaganda spectacle: staged for the purpose of in- fluencing. the thousands of youthful visitors, backfired to some extent as Soviet young people were brought into direct contact with groups from the free world. Free world students attending the festival were struck by two charac- teristics of the Soviet youths they encountered -- first, an intense curiosity about the outside world, and secondly, profound ignorance of its realities. Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001 8 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 46 - Chapter Eight On the other hand, except for a minority of more knowledgeable students, few of the Soviet young people were disposed to criticize either the tenets of Marxism-Leninism or the CPSU. Nevertheless, there was considerable skep- ticism regarding the official version in the Soviet press of the Hungarian freedom rebellion. The most thoroughly indoctrinated young persons -- and these least amenable to outside arguments -- were members of the Komsomol youth organi- zation. The Komsomols in fact are the main channels of CPSU influence and control at secondary school and higher institutional levels. The party also sets its doctrinal line through control of the official organs, Teachers' Gazette and Komsomolskaya Pravda. The Young Communist League, or Komsomol, with its network of komsomols extending throughout the educational system and into the armed services, continues the work of the Young Pioneers -- an organization for inculcating Marxism-Leninism in its simplest form in elementary schools. Komsomol members, ages 14 through 26 number about 18 million. From this organization are drawn the candidate members and members of the CPSU, after they have proved their devotion to the party in various ways. One of the most important functions of the Komsomol is to carry on the party's continuing anti-religious campaign. Komsomol members, like CPSU members, are expected to profess atheism and to strive to "root out the remnants of superstition" in the people. A new role for the Komsomol was proposed by Khrushchev in a speech at the Komsomol Congress, April 1958. The Premier called for a drastic reorgan- ization of Soviet education and demanded that the Komsomol organizations take an active part in carrying out the plan. This involves state-directed labor service, on farms and in factories, by all youths who seek more advanced technical instruction. As outlined by Khrushchev, the plan is to select more candidates for a college education from talented factory and farm workers and, secondly, to send university students to collective farms and industrial plants for ex- perience in manual work. Beginning at the secondary school level, students will be directed into labor fields; if, during their apprenticeship, they show marked proficiency -- and also measure up to Communist Party standards in party work and enthusiasm -- they may become candidates for higher edu- cation or specialized training. The reasons given by Khrushchev for his radical program do not explain all the factors back of the CPSU decision. He said that in 1957 at least 700,000 high school students were denied admission to higher educational institutions and that from 1953 through 1956 the number turned away was 2.2 0 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 0 THE PARTY'S ROLE IN EDUCATION - 47 - million. This situation, he said, was due mainly to the fact that these institutions, which include correspondence schools, lack facilities for admitting more than 450,000 new students annually. Further light was thrown on the Soviet educational situation by an editorial in Moscow's newspaper Pravda of September 25/ 1957. The editorial considered the "growth of a new c1ass -- the Soviet privileged elite -- in relation to higher education. The Pravda article admitted that "only a small fraction of secondary school graduates are admitted into higher and technical schools." Those who fail to gain admission must seek employment in industrial plants and 'nines and on collective farms. The editorial pointed out/ however, that young people belonging to the "new class" do not want to accept the status of workers because at that level they find it hard to get ahead. Pravda suggested that a safety valve for such young people might be a period of work in industry as a prerequisite to a higher education, but conceded that this would not solve the problem of caste formation. The Pravda article highlighted a situation in Soviet education which has long prevailed, namely that the children of the new class -- the class of party functionaries, bureaucrats, managerial personnel, higher special- ists and engineers -- have been favored over all others in educational opportunities. Pravda itself has given the ratio of privileged to non- privileged candidates for admission as three to one. Khrushchev declared that the selection of candidates for admission to higher educational institutions "must be made according to the standards of preparation, inclination, and assurance that the person will justify the expense involved, and that he can really become a useful leader and organizer of production." Thus, the factor of "increased labor productivity" becomes a decisive element in higher education. The Khrushchev plan was accepted by the CPSU central committee presidium on September 20, 1958, and received formal endorsement by the central com- mittee plenum on November 12. Four dais later, the central committee, in conjunction with the Council of Ministers, issued "theses" on the proposal, for public discussion. The theses clarified a number of points sketched in by Khrushchev. It was made clear, for example, that the union republics are expected to pass laws requiring compulsory schooling for at least eight Years. (Education in the USSR is the responsibility of the constituent republics.) As presented in the theses, the program calls for: A proposed second stage of secondary education, during which most students will do productive work and study part time in three types of schools: (1) schools for working and rural youth; (2) secondary general education labor poly-technical schools; and (3) technical schools, or teknikums. Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50 -Yr 2014/04/02: IA- Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 - 48 - Chapter Eight Students in the first two types of schools, who successfully complete the prescribed three-year program, will be eligible for admission to higher institutions of learning. However: these students will have less class-roan time in the 9th through 11th grades than those in the present 9th and 10th grades. Some of the more promising students in these grades may be given a shorter working day or be released from production two or three days a week. Special schools for gifted children in the arts and music will be continued. Significantly', the original Khrushchev proposal has been modified in that not all students at university levels will be required to hold full- time jobs during the first two or three years. The exceptions, according to the theses, will be students engaged in the "complicated theoretical disciplines," namely, future engineers and scientists of above-average ability. The revised version also indicates that four or five years, in- stead of a much shorter period: will be needed to carry out the program in its entirety. The means for implementing the Khrushchev scheme -- and a weapon in the hands of the CPSU -- is the authority granted the Komsomols and trade unions to name those who may go on to a higher or advanced technical education. Since both the Kamsomols and the trade unions are instruments of the party, the decision in each case amounts to selecting individuals who meet the party's requirements as to reliability and "enthusiasm." In his speech to the 21st Congress of the CPSU, Khrushchev said, in. this connection: "Some workers do not appreciate the danger of bourgeois influences on Soviet youth: but consider the bourgeoisie is far away and does not touch our youth. But this is a fallacy. We cannot ignore the possibility of bourgeois influences and must conduct a struggle against it, against penetration into the midst of Soviet people: and especially of the youth, of foreign views and tastes." The new educational program, in short, is designed to reduce the possibility of "bourgeois influences" by a tightly controlled work-study system. 0 Chapter Nine SOVIET PRESS: THE VOICE OF THE PARTY Soviet literary works have occasionally deviated from the dictates of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), but this is practi- cally impossible in the case of the press and radio. The structural relation of these media to the party precludes ideological or policy lapses. The CPSU central committee's organs of publishing control comprise: (1) the Soviet news agency TASS, a state monopoly; (2) the Chief Administration for Literary and Publishing Affairs, known as Glavlit; and (3) the central committee's Section for Agitation and Propaganda, or Agitprop. All printed material in the USSR, with the exception of certain publications and newspapers directly under orders from the central commit- tee, are supervised by Glavlit agents. Glavlit control and censorship cover every stage in publication. In addition to Glavlit's operations, the Soviet press at central, regional, and local levels is under the general supervision of Agitprop through its section on press and publications. As an administrative arm of the CPSU central committee, Agitprop is a keystone in the party struc- ture, transmitting and directing the day-to-day execution of central commit- tee policy and directives. Since Agitprop is concerned primarily with the political education of non-party workers, peasants, and intelligensia, and this objective is likewise the guiding principle of all media of communication, Soviet press and publications are subject to Agitprop guidance. (Lecture propaganda among the workers is directed by the Voluntary Society for the Dissemination of Political and Scientific Knowledge.) For external consumption, the propaganda flow from the CPSU central committee is transmitted through the committee's Foreign Section, which utilizes the distribution facilities of local Communist parties and Communist front organizations. Agitprop also provides material to local Communist parties on a mutual exchange basis. Outside the USSR, TASS gathers news transmits outgoing foreign and domestic of use to the central committee and news in accordance with central committee policy. Communists from the time of Lenin have considered the press a vital link in indoctrinating and controlling the masses. As far back as 1901, Lenin said of the press under communism: "The role of a newspaper is not confined solely to the spreading of ideas, to political education, and to attracting political allies. A paper is not merely a collective propagandist and collective agitator; it is also a collective organizer." Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release @ 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 - 50 . Chapter line Lenin also gave the Bolshevik answer to freedom of the press when he said of the Communist-run press: "The periodical and non-periodical press and all publishing enterprises must be entirely subordinated to the Central Committee of the (Communist) Party, irrespective of whether the Party as a whole is legal or illegal at the given moment." In similar vein, Stalin? declared in 1939: "The press is the only im- plement which helps the Party to speak daily, hourly, with the working class in its awn indispensable language." The Soviet press, and the Communist press in general, however, does not speak the language of the working class. On the contrary, it uses the formalistic idiom of Marxism-Leninism, screened through whatever party line is current in Moscow. Party chief Premier Nikita Khrushchev follows Marxist-Leninist precepts in regard to the press. As reported in the official central committee organ Kommunist, No. 12, 1957, he stated: "Just as an army cannot fight without weapons, so the Party cannot suc- cessfully carry out its ideological work without such a sharp and militant weapon as the press. We cannot surrender the organs of the press to unre- liable hands; they must be in the hands of the workers who are most faithful, most reliable, politically staunch and loyal to our cause." Inasmuch as this statement appeared after Khrushchev had achieved the downfall of his inner-party adversaries, the reference to loyality may be construed as loyalty to himself personally, as well as to the revamped central committee. Among those who felt the heavy hand of Khrushchev was Dmitri Shepilov, one-time editor of Pravda. Extraordinary measure are taken that of Moscow and the USSR regions, Communist press in the free world -- and the party's hour-by-hour view of to insure that the Communist press -- as well as the satellite press and the follows the broad lines of Soviet policy events. The Soviet censorship agency Glavlit censors every Soviet book, journal, film and radio broadcast; every lecture, exhibition and photograph. Theoret- ically, newspapers are exempt from Glavlit censorship, because they come under the heading of "party publications." However, as Glavlit is designated the watchdog of all "state secrets" -- and information of almost every description is so classified -- Soviet newspapers in practice do no escape Glavlit's attention. Glavlit representatives are attached to all but the smallest newspaper staffs. The press departments of party committees, to which the papers -- both national and provincial -- are responsible, also exercise censorship. Finally, the CPSU central ccumittee issues minutely detailed instructions to the press on a continuous basis. ? SOVIET PRESS: THE VOICE OF THE PARTY - 51 - The Soviet press is organized to cover every level of readership and every occupational segment. No group, large or small, is without its appro- priate newspaper or journal. In general, there are three types of newspapers and periodicals. The All-Union press consists of Some 25 newspapers with nationwide circulation, chief of which is Pravda, organ of the central committee of the CPSU. Another important parer is Izvestia, the Government organ. Other All- Union newspapers are issued by leading national organizations. Among these is Thud, organ of the All-Union Trade Union Council. Since the Trade Union Council takes its guidance from the CPSU central committee, Thud reflects the party line in all trade union matters. Reflecting diverse professional interests, but entirely subservient to the party are: Teachers' Gazette, published. jointly by the Teachers' Union and the Ministry of Education; Red Star, the Army's paper, and Soviet Fleet, official Navy publication; the Youth League organ, Komsomolskaya Pravda, and others. Periodicals expressing the party viewpoint include Party Life, journal of the central committee, and Kommunist, the central committee's theoretical and political magazine; Problems of Philosophy, leading expression of Commu- nist philosophy; Soviet Culture, Literary Gazette, New World, and Theater, representing various cultural phases of Soviet life. It is in the latter area that some "deviations" from the party line have appeared, resulting in the tightening of party control over the last two publications. Aside from the All-Union press, about 500 republic, regional and territorial papers have a combined circulation of more than 10 million. There are more than 4,000 city and district papers and several thousand factory and farm papers, of purely local interest. But even the most ephem- eral of these little sheets is not immune to district party committee censor- ship and control. The provincial press is directed by the central committees of the party in the constituent republics, autonomous areas, etc. At varying distances from Moscow, these regional papers carry a far greater proportion of reveal- ing and critical comment on local conditions than is the case with Moscow Pravda. They are also more likely to voice the dissatisfaction of the non- Russian inhabitants of their areas with some aspects of Communist life. Critical comments for the most part appear as Letters to the Editor, exposing the shortcomings among comrades and superiors in the collective farms, industrial plants, and the local bureaucracy. This form of criticism is officially encouraged as samokritika, or self-criticism, and it is designed to further efficiency or call attention to bureaucratic blunders. However, the correspondence is carefully screened, to insure that comments never overstep the party line. Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 52 Chapter Nine All lines of Soviet news and broadcasting converge in the Telegraphic Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS), which gathers and distributes domestic news and also conducts news operations on a worldwide basis through a net- work of offices in the free world. By a joint decree of the All-Russian Central Ekecutive Committee and the Council of Ministers in 1925 and 1935, TASS was given a monopoly of domestic and external Soviet news gathering and distribution. Officially, TASS is responsible to the Council of Ministers, but it directly-reflects the central committee's line and policies. TASS is more than a news agency. It also works closely- with Communist news media and parties outside of the Soviet bloc, and it services Communist newspapers in the free world gratis. TASS operations are intimately asso- ciated with Soviet Intelligence abroad, and employees of TASS have been publicly identified as participants in several well-known espionage trials in free world countries, specifically, in Canada, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Australia. In the case of the spy trial in Sweden, October-November 1951, TASS representative Viktor Anisimov was shown to be directly involved. The atti- tude of the Swedish press toward TASS was summed up by the Stockholm Morgan- Tidningen on October 31, the day after the spy story broke. The paper commented: "We know from the Russian press and radio that news about Sweden dis- patched by TASS is highly distorted and false. News not intended for publication -- i.e., spy reports -- however, is both correct and detailed. TASS correspondents' real task thus does not appear to be the operation of a news service in the accepted sense, but to conduct propaganda against countries where they are stationed." TASS offices and correspondents are located in most of the major cities of western Europe, in a few Latin American cities, and in a wide belt ex- tending from North Africa through the Middle East to the Far East. The emphasis placed by Moscow on propaganda and political penetration in the last-named region is reflected in the recent stepped-up activities of TASS, ranging from Cairo, Egypt, to Djakarta, Indonesia. Corresponding to TASS's activities in the press field are its radio transmittals. From its home radio station in Moscow, TASS transmits short- wave broadcasts in Morse code or Hellschreiber, a form of teletype. Voice transmission is reserved for Radio Moscow and other Soviet broadcasting stations. Since the impact of broadcasting is more immediate and compelling than that of the press, the broadcasts of TASS in the guise of news -- register the hour-by-hour propaganda line of Agitprop, hence of the CPSU central cormittee. SOVIET PRESS: THE VOICE OF THE PARTY - 53 - The Soviet press and radio also have an important role in shaping public opinion in the USSR regarding drastic shifts in the upper hierarchy of the CPSU itself, or changes in the party line. Here, the technique varies from case to case. For example, when members of the "anti-party" group were ousted from their posts in July, 1957, supporting angles were added to the story by newspapers and broadcasts until it reached a crescendo several weeks later. The dismissal of Marshal Zhukov as Defense Minister, on the other hand, was cautiously disclosed and there was little comment in the Moscow papers until, a week later, the central committee released an itemized indictment of the Marshal. Then the final disposition of the ousted officer was obscured by the sensational publicity attending the launching of the Sputniks. During the periodic elections for deputies to the Supreme Soviet, Pravda invariably conducts a campaign of public "enlightenment" which re- states the Marxist-Leninist dogmas about "capitalist democracy" versus "Communist democracy." Thus, in its issue of February 9, 1958, in prepa- ration for the March 19 elections, Pravda issued an "Appeal of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party to all Electors," which said, in part: "But can one really regard as democratic the States where the wolfish laws of capitalism operate, where the works and factories, railways and banks, land and its minerals, are in the hands of millionaires and milliardairs; where the fruits of the labor of hundred of millions of people are taken by a handful of predatory exploiters, while the masses of working people, the creators of all material benefits, are brutally exploited and are deprived right and left of the necessary conditions for human existence?" This is the orthodox Communist picture of the outside world -- espe- cially of life in the United States -- which it is the mission of the Soviet press and radio and school system to implant in the minds of all citizens of the USSR. Again, the current foreign policy directives of the central committee are hammered home almost daily through the party-controlled press and radio. For example, Pravda on January 7, 1958, reiterated the call for setting up "united fronts" in free world countries, as a step toward Communist ascen- dancy -- a theme that was sounded by Khrushchev in 1956 and was repeated in the "declaration" of Communist leaders in Moscow in November, 1957. Said 1X.M14: "Communists and Socialists can jointly strive for the unification of the working peasantry, craftsmen and intelligentsia around the working class. On the basis of setting up a workers' and peoples' united front...Communists and Socialists can obtain a majority in Parliament and transform it from a weapon of bourgeois dictatorship into a genuine instrument of popular power." ? 0 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02: CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 - 54 - Chapter Nine Needless to say, Pravda did not print the rejection of this proposal by the Fifth Socialist International, meeting in Vienna, July 1957, coupled with a scathing denunciation of the Moscow-backed Hungarian regime. On May 2, 1958, Pravda again appealed for a Popular Front, citing thellgrowing economic crisis in the capitalist countries." This appeal was followed by letters from the CPSU central committee to the Socialist parties of Italy, France, Britain, West Germany, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium and Austria. At the same time, the Soviet press was loud in denouncing Social Democrats for "lapsing into Social Democratic attitudes" -- which was termed one of the sins of "revisionism." In June 1958 came the shocking news of the execution of Hungarian leader Imre Nagy and three associates in the people's freedom rebellion. First revealed in the Moscow press, this cynical betrayal was lauded by Pravda in defiance of world opinion, including that of all Socialists. The great variety of ways in which Agitprop censors the domestic press and obstructs news facilities for foreign correspondents were discussed by U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs Andrew H. Berding in a speech of June 24, 1958. Among notable omissions of basic information about the USSR in the Soviet press, Berding listed: crime statistics and other social data, in- cluding figures on patterns of income and consumption; wholesale and retail prices; agricultural procurement prices paid by the state; production figures in a wide range of items, from grain to non-ferrous metals and precious stones. There have been no meaningful statistics on the breakdown of the Soviet population by social groups and nationalities for 19 years. Civil disorders in 1953 in two forced labor camps and an outbreak at Tiflis in 1956 were not reported; nor have other symptoms of popular unrest appeared in print. Soviet propaganda repeatedly attacks nuclear tests by Western powers, but the Soviets in 1958 acknowledgedonly 12 such tests of their own, although many more than that number were conducted. The most recent and extensive test series -- completed just prior to their announced suspension of testing -- was not formally published. No figures have been issued on fallout from Soviet testing, although it is known to .have been very heavy. Accurate information on Western political institutions, according to Berding, is not revealed, and in the international field, "accounts of United Nations proceedings are warped beyond recognition." One technique used in this connection by the Soviet press is to print in full a speech by a Soviet delegate to the UN, while suppressing all other speeches by UN representatives on the same subject. Herding stated that censorship of dispatches of American and other foreign correspondents stationed in Moscow is constant and extensive. This ? 11 1.7,4 SOVIET PRESS: THE VOICE OF TO PART! - 55 - censorship, he said, is marked by two objectionable characteristics -- deletion of material and delay in transmitting outgoing cabled news. "As for recent delays," said Berding, "there was a 17-hour delay in clearing Khrushchev's reMarks at the British Embassy on June 12, and then only with some omissions." Berding cited other instances involving 24,- hour and 30-hour delays in transmission. Moscow's press censorship of foreign correspondents is by no means as rigorous or all-pervasive as it was in the days of Stalin; by contrast, it seems fairly liberal. However, censorship persists and operates in ways that are incomprehensible to foreign newsmen. The reasons are known only to the party censors in Agitprop. Foreign visitors to the USSR find that the average Soviet citizen -- with rare exceptions -- is not disposed to question the accuracy or validity of what he reads daily, whether in the Moscow or provincial press, or in his own trade paper. The Iron Curtain, which has been lifted to a considerable degree as regards travel within the USSR, still tightly encloses the millions of readers of the party-controlled press and publications. This is also true of news broadcasts from outside the USSR. For example, the heaviest Soviet jamming of foreign radio transmissions occurred in August 1958, when the entire debate of the UN General Assembly on the Middle East situation was broadcast. Radio jamming, that is, the use of noise-producing devices on numerous radio frequencies, is practiced constantly by the USSR. Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 -56- Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 Chapter Ten PROPAGANDA AIMS AND METHODS The current outpouring of Communist propaganda ?.especially of prop- aganda originating directly or indirectly in the USSR -- raises questions regarding the purpose and credibility of this vast output. Political analysts have conceded that Moscow's worldwide exploitation of many subjects, such as the launching of the Sputniks, serves legitimate aims comparable to those of other governments. The achievements of Soviet scientists, for example, have been applauded everywhere. But there are areas of Soviet propaganda and uses to which it is put, which differ mark- edly from those of the news, information and propaganda media from free- world sources. The basic differedce between Communist propaganda and that of non- Communist agencies and governments lies in differing principles of gov- ernment, social standards, and the ethics of mass communication. If much of Soviet propaganda material is demonstrably false or shows glaring omission of fact, that circumstance does not in itself disturb its purveyors. Neitherwas the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) con- cerned over the 1958 execution of the leaders of the Hungarian people's rebellion, on orders from Moscow. Soviet Party leaders, in fact, are in- dignant that world opinion should be outraged by this cynical betrayal. For a member of the CPSU to question the rightness of such an action would be a question of "Communist morality." V. I. Lenin, founder of modern communism, once stated: "At the foundation of Communist morality lies the struggle for the strengthening and perfecting of communism." That is, any action or statement is morally right if it serves Communist ends. Whether based on fact, fiction, or half-truths, propaganda is a normal expression of social, political, and governmental life. It has other uses indicated by the dictionary definition: "Any organized or concerted group efforts or movement to spread a particular doctrine or system or principles." In the latter sense, propaganda has been the life-blood of the Com- munist movement from the beginning. It is still a major function of the CPSU, and of the party's vast ramification of agencies and subsidiaries within the Communist bloc and in the free world. In the Soviet Union -- even more than was the case in Nazi Germany -- official propaganda is on a par with diplomacy, the armed services and the secret police. It is a fundamental element of Soviet diplomacy, and Mos- cow's foreign policies cannot be disassociated from CPSU propaganda. PROPAGAMA AIMS AND METHODS - 57 - Propaganda is the main weapon used by all Communist regimes against non-Communist governments and peoples; internally, it is a principal means of fortifying the regime and promoting the objectives of the ruling Com- munist Party. Mao Tse-tung, Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, gave an expla- nation of Communist propaganda which applies equally to all other countries under Communist control. Speaking of domestic propaganda, he said: "What is a propagandist? Not only is the teacher a propagandist, the newspaper reporter a propagandist, the literary writer a propagandist, but all our (party) cadres in all kinds of work are also propagandists...Anyone engaged in talking with another person is engaged in propaganda work." The specific doctrine or system of principles furthered by CPSU prop- aganda and that of all other Communist parties is Marxism-Leninism. But in practice, there is less reference to the founders of communism than to such easily understood slogans and catchwords as "peaceful coexistence," "increased labor productivity," "upsurge of agriculture," "anti-colonialism," and the like. Lenin himself appreciated the practical advantages of slogans in spreading bolshevism. In 1917, his Bolshevik Party did not propagate the dictum of the Communist Manifesto: "Workers of the world, unite!" Instead, he coined new slogans with immediate appeal: "All power to the soviets (workers' councils)!" and "Bread, peace, and freedom!" Reporting to the 9th Congress of the CPSU in March 1920, Lenin de- clared: "It was only because of the Party's vigilance and its strict dis- cipline...because the slogans issued by the Central Committee were taken up by millions of people like one man, that the miracle could take place which actually did take place. It was only because of that, we were able to win." This statement itself is misleading propaganda. Lenin's minority Bolsheviks won because on January 18, 1918, Lenin ordered armed sailors from the Kronstadt Naval Base to disperse the freely elected All-Russian Constituent Assembly in which the Bolsheviks commanded only 25 per cent of the votes. The systematic falsification of the CPSU's own history, as well as the misrepresentation of current events to suit the party's version of them, reached the height of organized deception under Stalin and has been con- tinued by his successors. Soviet propaganda is closely associated with Communist semantics, which give slanted meanings to such terms as "democratic," "peace-loving," "pro- gressive," and the like. Institutions and regimes approved by the Com- Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release @ 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Ap roved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 - 58 - Chapter Ten munists are tagged with euphemisms such as "people's democracies," "peo- ple's diplomacy," and so forth. Opposing ideas and institutions are characterized as "bourgeois reactionary," "aggressive circles," "imperi- alists," etc. . A whole category of invectives is reserved for dissidents within the party: "dogmatists," "revisionists," "deviationists," "anti-party," etc., especially after the victorious faction in one of the recurring intra-party struggles has ousted or eliminated its rivals. A semantic gilding is also applied to international pro-Communist front organizations, and to Communist-inspired international conferences, meetings, and assemblages. A multitude of "peace" and "friendship" societies and or- ganizations echo Soviet propaganda and repeat Moscow's diatribes against "warmongers" -- that is, all those who refuse to accept a Communist-dic- tated peace. In the complex of propaganda agencies and outlets, the Central Com- mittee's Section for Agitation and Propaganda, known as Agitprop, is the principal instrument for disseminating domestic propaganda. The Foreign Section of the Central Committee directs propaganda outside the USSR, utilizing local Communist parties and front organizations. Agitprop pro- vides material to these parties on an exchange basis. Soviet economic plans have long been the subject of sustained domestic propaganda, embodied in such slogans as "fulfillment and overfuifillment of the Plan," "socialist emulation," and so forth. (See Chapter Five). Thus, Khrushchev in addressing the 21st Congress of the CPSU on Jan- uary 27, 1959, declared: "When fulfilled, the Seven Year Plan will so greatly increase the economic potential of the USSR that it will, together with the growth of the economic potential of all the Socialist countries, give peace a decisive edge." At another point Khrushchev said: "This new balance of (economic) forces will be so patently evident that even the most die-hard imperialists will clearly see the futility of any attempt to start a war against the Socialist camp." The propaganda themes stressed in these statements repeat the claim for Communist economic superiority and at the same time reiterate the Lenin- Stalin formula that "imperialists" threaten Communist states and start wars-. a favorite axiom of the international Communist front organizations, es- pecially the World Peace Council. nP I PROPAGANDA AIMS AND METHODS - 59 - The distinction between Communist propagandists and agitators was first set forth by Lenin in 1902. He said that a propagandist: should ex- plain events, such as the "inevitable transformation of capitalist society into Socialist (Communist) society," according to the Marxist formula and thus present "many ideas." An agitator, on the other hand, should "direct all his efforts to presenting a single idea to the masses." The "single idea," for example, may mean agitating for a strike or other local distur- bance, without introducing any Marxist terminology whatever. "Consequently," Lenin added, "the propagandist operates chiefly by means of the printed word; the agitator operates with the spoken word." This distinction, though made before the invention of radio, now a principal medium of propaganda, to some extent is still maintained in Communist activities. On a large scale, the downfall of the Republic of Czechoslovakia was the result both of intensive and prolonged anti-govern- ment propaganda prior to February 1948, and of mass mobilization on Feb- ruary 24 of street mobs, led by Communist agitators, which threatened the Government of President Benes. Of primary importance to CPSU propaganda objectives is the former All- Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries (VOKS). VOKS was reorganized in February 1958 as the Union of Soviet Societies for Friendship and Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries. The VOKS publi- cations, Culture and Life, was taken over by its successor. On April 21, 1958, an affiliate of the above-named organization was set up at a meeting in Moscow, accompanied by a fanfare of publicity. This is the Soviet Society of Friendship and Cultural Ties with Countries of the Arab East. The establishment of this organization underscores a key Soviet propaganda objective -- the campaign to link the USSR and its policies with the Arab nations. The successor organization to VOKS performs substantially the same functions as those of VOKS. As one of the political arms, and hence of the CPSU central committee, VOKS was responsible for all Soviet cultural exchange matters and relations with the innumerable "friendship" groups throughout the world. VOKS also arranged for overseas tours by Soviet groups such as musicians, dancers, and theatrical troupes. Its cultural advisers helped select films, art and literary works and other exhibits sent out of the USSR. Agitprop's connection with publishing; which extends indirectly to satellite publishing, accounts for the huge output of propagandas material in the form of books, pamphlets, periodicals, etc., distributed in many parts of the free world. (Several Soviet publications are under the ad- ministrative control of the Ministry of Culture). 0 ifid in Part Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 ? CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 - 60 - Chapter Ten The CPSU central committee's Agitprop conducts an unceasing domestic campaign directed toward Soviet citizens en masse and also toward every labor, professional and cultural group individually. Agitprop's field staff has almost 400,000 full-time agitators, organi- zers, lecturers, and so forth. It supervises the output of the press and guides the contents of all specialized publications along party lines. Also, 'lower-level party members can be called upon to help in propaganda work. The domestic censorship exercised over the Soviet press and radio by Agitprop and Glavlit operates in two principal ways. Nothing unfavorable to the Soviet Government or the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) ever appears in the press or is heard over the radio. At the same time, all actions taken by the government and the party are presented in terms of irrefutable "rightness," and all official comments and statements are as- sumed to be matters of "undeniable fact." As a result, the great mass of Soviet citizens have no means of under- standing or judging events that take place outside of the Communist bloc, or even within the bloc itself. The people of the USSR are kept in ignorance of many elemental circumstances in regard to their own government and the ruling Communist party. A further use to which Soviet propaganda facilities are devoted is to publicize the particular leader or faction in the CPSU central committee in control of the party machine. Stalin in his rise to absolute power made full use of the Soviet do- mestic propaganda agencies that were finally merged in Agitprop. Thus, in his life-time, Stalin already was a semi-mythical figure created through the ceaseless propaganda of the press, radio, films, and even arts and sciences. The "cult of personality," which Stalin exemplified and party leader Nikita Khrushchev denounced in his famous "secret" speech at the 20th Party Congress, is an inevitable outgrowth of the Communist system of "democratic centralism" introduced by Lenin. Khrushchev himself, in his climb to the position of "first among equals," assumed control of the Agitprop administration when he took over the party machine in 1957. The three-way relation of CPSU propaganda -- to Soviet foreign policy, Communist front activities, and the promotion of Communist Party objectives in the free world -- is illustrated in the case of two leading propaganda themes, "peace" and "solidarity." The theme of "peacful coexistence,* with variations, is being promoted by Soviet propaganda agencies and affiliates on a worldwide scale. The "solidarity" idea, on the other hand, is limited to the region extending from Africa to the Far East. CPSU attempts to enlist the Socialist parties of Western Europe in Moscow's "solidarity" drive have proved unavailing. PROPAMINDA AIMS AND METHODS - 61 - The theme of Communist-style "peace" has been stressed by Soviet leaders ever since the Bolshevik Revolution, but the start of the present peace offensive by Moscow dates to Autust 1948, when the first Soviet-backed "peace" organization -- the World Congress of Intellectuals for Peace -- met at Wroclaw, Poland. In April 1949, the Communist-run Partisans for Peace established a World Peace Council in Paris, which was and is under tight Communist con- trol. The Council has sponsored a series of world peace congresses from year to year and is the parent body of innumerable national and local "peace" groups and organizations. The formation of a "peace" network under CPSU auspices came immediately after the Soviets' aggressive expansion had brought some 90 million people of Eastern Europe under Moscow's domination. The period when the peace movement was being actively pushed also coincided with the most belligerent action taken by the USSR in the post- war period -- the Soviet blockade of Western Berlin, June 1948 through May 1949, which was balked by the United States airlift. A notable peace hoax was the so=called Stockholm Peace Petition sponsored by Soviet representatives at a World Congress of Partisans of Peace, in Stockholm, March 1950. This appeal gained millions of signatures from those who mistakenly believed it to be wgenuine bid for peace. The Stockholm Appeal was still being circulated in June 1950, when the Moscow- supported North Korean Communist regime launched an invasion of the Repub- lic of Korea. While Soviet propagandists have trumpeted their own "peace" proposals-- echoed by Communist parties and *Communist front organizations throughout the world -- Moscow for years has blocked United Nations efforts to further disarmament by means of an effective international inspection plan. On May 2, 1958, the Soviet representative in the UN Security Council cast the 83rd Soviet veto -- this one against the United States proposal for an international patrol of the Arctic region to prevent a surprise attack being launched by any power, across the Arctic Circle. Khrushchev in a speech on March 14, 1958, called on world opinion to support the Soviet stand on peace. He reiterated the familiar "peace" prop- aganda line of the CPSU and implied that Moscow would resort to a propaganda0 technique set forth at the 20th Party Congress in 1956 -- the use of "peO- pie's diplomacy" to exert pressure on governments for Soviet political ends. This was preliminary to the summoning of another Stockholm conference by the World Peace Council. 0 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 62 IMO Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 Chapter Ten The Council's Bureau and Secretariat met in New Delhi, March 22 through 25, 1958, and drafted a call to all the Communist front organizations, preparatory to enlisting their active support at a Congress for Disarmament and International Cooperation, scheduled to be held in Stockholm from July 16 to 22. The proclamation issued by the Peace Council members at New said, in part: "In a world made up of states with different social and political sys- tems, the peoples must seek roads that lead to harmonious ways of living and working in peace together." No one would challenge such a conclusion; however, the World Peace Council itself condoned the Communist aggression in Korea in 1950 and was silent on the heavy deliveries of Soviet bloc military arms to the Middle East, beginning in 1955, which still continue. Further, the Council did not condem Soviet military intervention in Hungary in November 1956. The technique of "people's diplomacy," in combination with the current "anti-colonialist" professions of Moscow, reached a peak at the Afro-Asian Solidarity Conference in Cairo, December 26, 1957, to January 1, 1958. The Cairo conference was represented in advance publicity as a meeting of "people's representatives," designed to carry on the "Bandung spirit." Both propaganda tags were misleading. The delegates at Cairo did not in fact represent the people of the countries from which they came. They had no official standing and consisted for the most part of officials from Com- munist bloc countries, self-appointed fellow travelers, groups that were hand-picked by Communist front "solidarity committees," or persons known for their opposition to their own governments. The Bandung Conference of 1955, on the contrary, was a meeting of high government officials who were free to express the views of their governments. At Cairo, any conferees who took a stand against the pro-Moscow majority were effectively gagged. Under the circumstances, several independent groups and individuals withdrew from the conference. As a result of Communist tactics, the speeches at the conference and the final resolutions reflected little more than propaganda themes repeat- edly voiced by Moscow, tied to Arab nationalism. The massive 1958 Soviet propaganda offensive came in part from the effort of the CPSU to overcome the party's serious loss of prestige and influence in Communist parties outside the bloc, due to Soviet interven- tion in Hungary. 0 Annroved for Release PROPAGANDA. AIMS AND METHODS -63- Another form of Soviet propaganda is illustrated by Moscow's heated controversy with the Yugoslav Communist Party, which began in the spring of 1958. In this instance, the Yugoslav Communists were accused of "re- visionism" -- a term of opprobrium used by Agitprop media to describe Com- munists who refuse to accept the dictates of the CPSU. In some respects, Communist propaganda has advantages over that dis- seminated by non-Communist governments or agencies. The first is that the Communists have -- and seem to need to have -- no regard whatever for the truth. They can say one thing in one part of the world and something 180 degrees opposite in another part of the world at the same time. The truth is no obstacle in Soviet propaganda. The technique used by Soviet propaganda sudsidiaries in free-world countries is illustrated by the case of the Communist-controlled tabloid published in India. This paper regularly publishes articles purporting to be based on "facts" which actually are either pure fabrications or else distortions of the truth. Such material not infrequently is picked up by Radio Peiping and Radio Moscow and broadcast as "indisputable facts." The identification of Soviet foreign policy with Soviet propaganda was evident at the time when the Communist Information Bureau (Cominform) was established in 1947. Planned and organized by Andrei Zhadanov, the Comin- form had a small membership, composed of representatives of nine Communist parties -- those of the USSR, five satellites, Yugoslavia, France and Italy. From the start, the CPSU dominated Cominform proceedings, but the re- fusal of the Yugoslav Communist Party to yield to Soviet dictation in re- spect to the country's internal policies led to a split in 1948. The Yu- goslav Communists were expelled from the Cominform, amid volleys of recrim- ination which find echoes today in the current exchanges between Belgrade and the Sino-Soviet bloc. The official organ of the Cominform was the weekly newspaper For a Lasting Peace, for a People's Democracy, which set the theoretical and propaganda line for Communist parties everywhere. The paper suspended publication in April 1956, when the Cominform was dissolved. Moscow's subsequent efforts to revive,a Cominform-type world organi- zation were not entirely successful, but general agreement was reached by Communist party leaders assembled in Moscow in November, 1957, to establish a modified version of the earlier organization. 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 - 64 - Chapter Ten. The Communists in Moscow issued a 12-party declaration (not signed by the Yugoslavas) and a "peace manifesto" adhered to by representatives of 65 Communist parties. A communique stressed the primacy of the CPSU and re- peated current Agitprop propaganda themes. The gathering also discussed publication of a new periodical for worldwide consumption by Communist parties. As a sequel to the EDSCOW meeting, representatives of certain Com- munist parties at the end of August 1958 launched a monthly titled Problems of Peace and Socialism. The English-language edition is called World Marxist Review. The editorial office is in Prague, Czechoslovakia. The new periodical, like the earlier one, reflects Soviet propaganda formulas regarding the world situation from the CPSU standpoint. The edi- torial in the first issue, for example, stated that "revisionism is the main danger to the Communist movement in present-day conditions." -65- Chapter Eleven SOVIET CULTURE AND "PARTY SPIRIT" Prior to the Bolshevik Revolution, Russia had an illustrious tradition in literature, drama, ballet and other cultural and art forms. This whole structure, with the exception of ballet, music and the theater, crumbled under the impact of the 1917 revolution. Some literary forms managed to survive for a time without interference from the new Communist bureau- crats. Distinguished writers such as Sholokhov and Zoschenko maintained their literary integrity in the face of increasing regimentation. Lenin, who laid the foundation of a single-party political system in the USSR, also was mainly responsible for the cultural totalitarianism that characterizes all Communist regimes. His ideas on the subject were formed long before the revolution. In a brochure, "The Party Organization and Party Literature" (1905), he outlined the principle of partiinost ("party spirit") as the determining factor in all Communist cultural expression. He wrote: "The principle of party literature consists in the fact that not only may literature not be an instrument of gain for individuals or groups, but also in that it may not be an individual matter at all...Literature must become a component part of organized, planned, unified Social Democratic Party work." (At that time, the Bolsheviks were a minority dissident fac- tion of the Russian Social Democratic Party.) With the rise of Stalin to a dominant position in the party and state, Soviet cultural and creative activities were brought more and more under the control of the CPSU. In 1932, the CPSU central committee dissolved all independent literary and artistic organizations and created in their place a series of unions for each of the cultural fields which, like the industri- al trade unions, represent the party machine. One of these is the Union of Writers. As supreme cultural arbiter, Stalin made use of the censorship organi- zations Glavlit and Agitprop set up in order to supervise press and publi- cations. Glavlit gradually assumed censorship functions over all cultural and creative works. The 18th Congress of the CPSU (1933) laid down a new set of party rules and provided for the establishment of the Section for Agitation and Propa- ganda (Agitprop) as an arm of the CPSU central committee, with authority over domestic cultural outlets and activities. Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 - 66 - Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 Chapter Eleven Meanwhile, Glavlit continues as the party's watchdog, policing cul- tural fields in the interest of party unity and discipline. Soviet books, pamphlets, brochures, etc., bear the imprimatur of Glavlit --."passed for publication." Since 1939, Agitprop, in conjunction with other propaganda and censor- ship organs, has left its imprint on fine arts, films, belles-lettres, his- torical works, music, theater, etc: (See footnote.) . This development can be attributed in large part to Andrei Zhdanov who, in 1939, became a full- fledged Politburo member and for the next nine years held the ear of Stalin in cultural matters. Zhdanov was an ambitious party iealot with considerable military ex- perience who, at the peak of his political career, was .placed in charge of the Soviet-occupied Baltic States, In addition to his political activities, he fancied himself a connoisseur of arts and letters. In 1934 he was the principal speaker at the All-Russian Congress of Soviet Writers-and, five years later, he keynoted the meeting of the 18th Party Congress. From his elevation in the party's innermost circle, Zhdanov proceeded to dictate the terms for all cultural expression in the USSR. World War II interrupted party emphasis on this subject, but by 1946 the Zhdanov tenets *gained wide acceptance. His pronouncements on culture from 1946 to 1948 (the year he died) set the pattern for subsequent party directives in this field. The Zhdanov viewpoint is still accepted by the party's cultural functionaries. Zhdanov, who counted piano-playing as one of his minor accomplishments, lashed out at the composers of his day. In February 1948 he steered a re- solution through the central committee which rebuked the most eminent of the Soviet composers -- Dmitri Shostakovich, Sergei Prokofiev, Aram Khacha- turrian, V. Y. Shebalin, Gabriel Popov, Nikolai Miaskovsky, and others. The central committee accused these musicians of a "formalist trend" and con- cluded: "This music reeks strongly of the spirit of contemporary modern bour- geois culture, the full denial of musical art." wa.7 A few of the so-called "independent" organizations also have responsibility for propaganda in certain fields. For example, until March 1957, the Ministry of Culture was responsible for lecture propaganda among the workers. In March, the CPSU central committee transferred this function to the "voluntary" All- Union Society for the Dissemination of Political and Scientific Knowledge. Regardless of organs or officials given detailed responsibility for cultural aspects of Soviet life, policy in these fields is set by the CPSU central committee and, in turn, is subject to the guidance of the party's indisputable leader. Lenin was concerned with party cultural formulas only in a generalized way; Stalin was more specific about certain subjects, and Khrushchev has made pronouncements on almost every phase of cultural activity. SOVIET CULTURE AND "PARTY SPIRIT" 67 (On June 8, 1958, the CPSU central committee accused Malenkov and Molotov -- together with executed secret police chief Beria -- of having had an "extremely negative influence" over Soviet music. An official cen- tral committee decree of May 28 denounced the trio for criticizing the famous composers who, in fact, were the victims of Zhdanov's persecution, not of the ousted party leaders mentioned.) The attack on the composers in 1948 had no serious lasting effects but the party's dogmatic literary criteria, imposed on writers, critics, and teachers, placed Soviet literature in an ideological straightjacket for almost a decade. Zhdanov was also responsible for the central corn-* mittee's editorial purge of the cultural journals, Zvezda and Leningrad in 1946, and the ensuing regimentation of writers and critics. Soviet authors henceforth were restricted to such themes as five year plans, factory output, collective farm goals, and the standard "anti-capi- talist" approach. The element of romance shriveled to "boy-meets-girl-meets tractor" dimensions. Whether or not the concept of "socialist realism" ori- ginated with Zhdanov, the phrase came into wide circulation in his day and has been a cultural slogan of the party ever since. The party journal Bolshevik in an article of May, 1948, defined "social- ist realise as follows: "Socialist realism, relying on the traditions of classical realism, establishes as the basis of artistic creation not the subjective, arbitrary ideas of the writer, but his detection of objective reality ...In their work, Soviet writers are guided by the policy of the Bolshevik (Communist) Party and the Soviet state." ? An article in Culture and Life, March 11, 1947, proclaimed: "Only that artist is free who is versed in the laws of the historical development of society and who with all his heart is devoted to his people, to the Commun- ist Party, and to the Socialist (Communist) society." Georgi Malenkov, a party rival of Zhdanov, had much to say about the aims of Soviet cultural workers. In December 1947 he told a Cominform meet- ing in Poland: "In the Communist education of the people...the central committee of the CPSU stresses that Soviet writers, artists, and cultural workers can have no other interests save the interests of the people and the state." Five years later, however, at the 19th Party Congress (October 1952) principle speaker Malenkov complained that the "ideological and artistic level of many works is still not high enough." Malenkov continued: "Many mediocre and dull works, and simply pot- boilers which distort Soviet reality, still crop up in literature and art." In reference to the complete lack of satire -- a traditional Russian lit- Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release @ 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 - 68 - Chapter Eleven erary expression -- Nalenkov called for new "Soviet Gogols and Shchedrins whose scorching satire would burn out all that is negative, decaying and moribund, everything that acts as a brake on our march onward." The answer to this, which subsequent discussions failed to bring out, was the fact that a true post-revolutionary satirist and "realist" -- Zoshchenko ("The Adventures of an Ape") -- suffered disgrace at the hands of the Zhdanovists in 1946. There was no guarantee that writers who ven- tured to escape from party stereotypes would not meet a similar fate. The dead hand of partiinost was felt in the story line of plays and motion pictures. By 1952, even the party censors could not fail to notice that empty theaters demonstrated that the "Soviet man," far from being edified by themes illustrating Communist "morality" and "socialist realism," was merely bored. Not until recently have Soviet films ventured to portray characters and situations of greater human interest, such as those in "The Forty-first," "Occurrence in Shaft No. 8," "The Flying Aces," and others. Party limitations imposed on Soviet cultural arts and belles-lettres became a subject of protracted discussions in Pravda and the literary journals in 1953. A novel that touched off a heated debate was "The Thaw," by Ilya Ehrenburg, who had long been a party conformist in his speeches and writings. "The Thaw" was by no means "anti-party," but it treated themes and characters in a manner not set forth in party directives and its author was rebuked at the second Writers' Congress in December 1954. Ehrenburg, however, was too valuable as party propagandist to be per- manently discredited, and he shortly resumed his activities as Moscow's cultural and "peace" emissary abroad. The resentment of some literary critics toward Glavlit censorship was expressed by V. Pomerantsev in a trenchant essay that appeared in the De- cember 1953 issue of Novy Mir (New World). Pomerantsev offered the opinion that the great bulk of Soviet postwar literature was not only "untrue to life" but "insincere." The article indirectly appealed for literary freedom and condemned, without mentioning, the concept of partiinost. A series of letters which endorsed the article was published by Komsomolskaya Pravda, organ of the youth organization, early in 1954. Another critic, Mark Shcheglov, also attacked the party approach to literature in reviewing Leonid Leonav's novel, "Russian Forest." The Leonov work, produced while Stalin was alive, deals with characters who thrive under a Communist regime. Another break with "socialist realism" was registered in a play by L. Zorin, titled "The Guests," which was performed in 1953 and published in Theater magazine in February 1954. Based on the notorious "Doctors' Plot," the play indicated to what extremes Soviet bureaucrats go in their struggle for power. SOVIET CULTURE AND "PART! SPIRIT" -69- As a result of these literary innovations, the three writers were for- mally censured by the party-line Union of Writers. Also, Novy, Nir hastened to apologize for printing the Pomerantsev contributions; its editor, poet Alexander Tvardoysky, was replaced by Konstantin Simonov, who himself was removed in July 1958. Tvardovsky was restored to his former editorial posi- tion, and Simonov regained his party standing after making perfunctory amends. The temporary eclipse of Simonov resulted from Novy Nir's endorsement pif a new play by Valentin Ovechkin, "Facing the land," which "deviated" from tlie party line in regard to Soviet agricultural policies. Between the second Writers' Congress of December 1954 and the outbreak of the Hungarian freedom rebellion in October 1956, the balance of influence between the party formalists and the dissident writers shifted by degrees in favor of the latter. A landmark of this movement was the long controversial novel, "Not by Bread Alone," by noted author Vladimir Dudintsev, which was serialized in the August, September and October issues of Novy Mir and im- mediately became a literary sensation among university students and some mem- bers of the new intelligentsia. The theme of the book is the struggle of an engineer against bureaucratic obstacles. In general, the novel would seem to fall in the category of self-criti- cism (see Glossary) and might therefore have been considered permissible. But since the story offers a grim picture of the subjection of the individual to the party bureaucracy, author and book became the targets of party spokes- men and of party chief Khrushchev. At a reception for writers, artists, sculptors and composers in May 1957, Khrushchev laid down the party line on cultural matters. Khrushchev continued to expound his cultural theories, which were issued on August 28, 1957, under the title "For Closer Links of Literature and Art with the Life of People." He was quoted in the August issue of Kommunist as demanding that writers follow implicitly the principles of socialist realism. Khrushchev singled out Dudintsev's novel and said that its "general direction is fundamentally false." He said further: "One can only regret that certain literary and artistic magazines and publishing houses did not observe this unhealthy and harmful tendency and did not correctly analyze and rebuff it in time. The editors of Novy Mir put their magazine at the disposal of works such as Dudintsev's book." During the year ,following Khrushchev's literary pronouncements, the CPSU and its organs exerted mounting pressure to insure conformity to the precepts of socialist realism in writing, films, theater, ballet, and other cultural media. 0 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 - 70 - Chapter Eleven Soon after the Khrushchev document was issued, the editor of Now Mir was dismissed and the editorial board repudiated the magazinels previous stand on literature and criticism. In October 1957, the Literary Gazette published a series of articles attacking noncomformist writers and Soviet Culture assailed Theater magazine for its "deviations." The October 19 issue of Soviet Culture censured the artists Glazunov and Chlenov for not following the canons of socialist realism in their paintings. Literary Gazette also published the "confession" of poetess Margarita Aliger, who had strayed from the party line in her poetry. She said, in part: "I should follow the teachings and appeals of Comrade Khrushchev's speeches. I think that I will be able fully to explain the profound conclusions which I have drawn for my future only by working wholeheartedly, by remembering al- ways that the main task of a Soviet writer is political work, and that it can only be performed honorably by following unwaveringly the Party line and Party discipline." Despite the surrender of some nonconformist writers to party discipline, others remained silent and offered no further writings for publication. The output of unorthodox writers had found acceptance by the group of university students who published the Young Guard, a magazine with a circu- lation of 75,000 copies. Unable to curb these student tendencies, the Writers' Union took drastic action. In January 1958, the editorial staff of the peri- odical was reorganized and the editor was removed on the grounds that the magazine had not kept to its main task -- the "Communist education of youth." Party control of other forms of cultural expression was illustrated by an article in Theater, February 1958, which dealt with an order issued by the . Ministry of Culture on "measures for the further development of the art of the Soviet ballet." The Ministry complained that "ballets having for their sub- ject the life of the Soviet people appear extremely rarely on the stage of our biggest theaters." Ballet composers and producers were orde.....ed to provide annually for not less than one new production in the mode of socialist realism. The motion picture field also came under scrutiny, according to Pravda of April 6, 1958. The CPSU central committee told a conference of film industry workers that their main task was to insure "profound loyalty to the ideologies and esthetic principles of socialist realism." The CPSU central committee's viewpoint -- that writers should devote themselves to contemporary themes and that socialist realism requires that they adapt their literary work to current party objectives -- was indirectly challenged by Mikail Sholokhov, author of the well-known navel, "And Quiet Flows the Don." SOVIET CULTURE AND "PARTY SPIRIT" - 71 - Sholokhov, according to an interview published in the Hay 1958 issue of the journal of the Czechoslovak Writers' Union, expressed the opinion that a writer should follow his conscience in creative work and resist the pressure of party critics. During the spring and summer of 1958, CPSU cultural spokesmen and offi- cial organs continued to assail cultural revisionism (see Glossary), both in the USSR and in some areas of Eastern Europe. Party emphasis on the errors of noncomformist writings was motivated in part by the growing popularity, outside of the Soviet bloc countries, of Boris Pasternak's novel of life in pre-revolutionary and revolutionary Russia, "Doctor Zhivago." The manuscript of "Doctor Zhivago," Pasternak's only novel -- his repu- tation was based on his poetry and translations of classical drama -- was sent in 1956 to an Italian publisher after it had been denied publication in the USSR. Between that date and December 1957, when it appeared in an Italian edition, Soviet officials tried unsuccessfully to regain possession of the manuscript on the grounds that it was "hostile to the October Revo- lution." After the book was published in Italy, it was issued in English and other languages and soon reached best-seller lists abroad. On October 23, 1958, the Royal Swedish Academy announced that Pasternak had won the Nobel Prize for Literature "for his important achievements both in contemporary lyric poetry and in the field of the great Russian epic tradition." On October 24, the Moscow Literary Gazette lashed out against the award as a "hostile political act" directed against the Soviet state and charged Pasternak with choosing the "path of shame and dishonor." There followed a concerted campaign against the author, conducted by the official press and party spokesmen, and on October 29 the Soviet Writers' Union announced the expulsion of Pasternak and the withdrawal of his appellation "Soviet writer." It was also suggested that he be exiled from the USSR. As official reactions gathered momentum, Pasternak on October 29 wired his refusal of the prize "because of the meaning attributed to the award in the society in which I live." When he learned of the exile proposal, he sent a personal plea to Khrushchev, protesting that such an extreme measure would be "equivalent to death." Although the CPSU reaffirmed its cultural position in this instance, worldwide repercussions against the Soviet treatment of Pasternak damaged the party's cultural standing abroad. According to reports, the banning of the book in the USSR stimulated interest in it among many Soviet students seeking to read and judge it for themselves. Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02: CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 - 72 Chapter Eleven In the six months following the Pasternak affair, the CPSU was intent on overcoming the effects of the book within the USSR and regaining the in- itiative as regards the canons of socialist realism, which have been chal- lenged iri Poland and Yugoslavia. (Yugoslavia is not a Soviet bloc member.) In Hungary, the Writers' Union was abolished by the regime in April 1957, but dissident writers refuse to bow to party dictates. The campaign to reaffirm and strengthen cultural orthodoxy gathered headway after the 21st Congress of the CPSU early in 1959. In the first five months of 1959, writers' conferences were held in the Soviet republics of Byelorussia, Armenia, Georgia, Lithuania, Turkmenia, Kazakhstan, Kirghizia, and the Ukraine. This series of meetings reached a climax in the Third Con- gress of Soviet Writers, held in Moscow, May 18-23. Writers' congresses were also held in Rumania, Czechoslovakia, and East Germany during the same period. At all the meetings of writers, and other connected with the arts, ad- herence to Leninist dicta was stressed, yet many speakers complained of the inferior quality of works that keep strictly to the party line on socialist realism. Major themes of these conferences were "topical literature and party- mindedness in literature." The entire range of previous discussions at writers' meetings in the Soviet republics received detailed treatment at the Third Soviet Writers Congress in May. An impression of complete solidarity between the writers and the CPSU was furthered by the setting and circumstances of the six-day congress, held in the Great Hall of the Kremlin. Some 500 Soviet writers and several hundred guests from the Soviet bloc and elsewhere were present, together with CPSU central committee presidium members who attended in a body. In a keynote address, Alexpy Surkov, first secretary of the Union of Soviet Writers, declared in part: "The rich experience of the Soviet mul- tinational literature shows the life-asserting strength of socialist realism, which is the most progressive artistic method of the present day." (Note: Surkov on May 25 was replaced as secretary of the writers' union by Kon- stantin Fedin.) Speakers from various Soviet republics developed themes made familiar in the Soviet bloc conferences of the previous five months. Although speakers refrained from attacking Pasternak, his fictional method in "Doctor Zhivago" was disparaged by a declaration on the "insolvency of retrospectivity" -- that is, the description of events that occurred many years ago. As against this treatment, writers were urged to keep strictly to "topicality," or the fic- tionized account of current developments in the "construction of socialism." Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved f rR I SOVIET CULTURE AND "PARTY SPIRIT" - 73 - A leading topic of discussion at the congress was the subject: "What must the hero of Soviet literature be like?" The "positive hero," as pic- tured by the speakers, should not be an individualist in isolation (a re- ference to Pasternak's hero, Doctor Zhivago), but an "active participant in the major events of the daily life of the Soviet country." Soviet writers were told that their books should give "fuller and more vivid portraits of our contemporaries, the builders of communism." One speaker complained that much of the writing is "dull, written on a gray back- ground." He added that "we need sparkling artistic colors." On Nay 22, Khrushchev covered the main themes of the conference in a lengthy speech that carried conciliatory overtones but made no concessions as regards the tenets of socialist realism. With reference to writers re- admitted to good standing in the Writers' Unioa (these. didnot include Pas- ternak), he said there should be no recriminations against those trying to overcome "serious mistakes," but that the mistakes themselves should not be forgotten. With respect to fiction depleting aspects of Soviet society in need of reform, Khrushchev warned that "if anyone reveals and lays bare failings and faults, it will be done by the party, by its central committee." This would rule out such books as Dudintsev's "Not by Bread Alone," which pictures the evils and ineptitudes of bureaucracy. The weight of Khrushchev's cultural pronouncements at the congress gives them the effect of binding CPSU directives, not only for writers in the USSR but also for those in Soviet bloc countries who are obliged to follow Moscow's policies. Nevertheless, frequent allusions in other congress speeches to the generally poor quality of writing produced under party directions suggest that the CPSU is by no means sure of its ability to inspire widespread enthusiasm for the stereotypes demanded in the name of socialist realism. 50-Yr 4/0 . - 1-01043RnnAnnn Chapter Twelve Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02: CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 THE PARTY AND THE QUESTION OF NATIONALITIES A leading propaganda theme of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) is the phrase "freedom for colonial peoples." Moscow's professed support of anti-colonialism is. a basic element in Soviet Russia's relations with parties and movements in countries ranging from Africa to the Far East. Yet no empire in history has been more ruthless in suppressing the political and cultural aspirations of nationalities within its own borders. Although in theory a limited degree of autonomy, and even sovereignty, is granted to the component political units within the USSR, in practice the central government alone is sovereign; its functional apparatus, the CPSU, guides the destinies of all the peoples within the Soviet boundaries. The duality between the Soviet constitutional de facto governmental structure can be attributed to the contradictory-principles of Lenin. Be believed in democratic centralism, or the single-party (Bolshevik) control of a Communist state. At the same time, he had less positive views on the multinational relationship between the federated Socialist states of the USSR. On November 2, 1917, a few days before the Bolshevik Revolution, Lenin's party issued a proclamation regarding the "Rights of the Peoples of Russia," and on the same day party leaders proclaimed the "Rights of the Toiling and Exploited People." The first manifesto appealed to subject nationalities within the former Czarist empire; the second repeated the slogan of the Communist Manifesto of 1848 -- Workers of the world, unite:" The November 2 "Declaration of Rights," issued in the names of Lenin and Stalin (then Commissar of Nationalities), stated, in part: "The Council Of People's Commissars has decided to base its work in relation to the nationalities of Russia on the following principle: (1) the equality and sovereignty of the nations of Russia; (2) the right of the nations of Russia to free self-determination, including the right to secede and form independent states." Despite this declaration, the suppression by the Bolsheviks of national movements and the subordination of non-Russians to the Great Russians of western Russia proceeded by several stages. 0 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy A d for R e ease THE PARTY AND THE QUESTION OF NATIONALITIES - 75 - Three weeks after the first declaration was issued, another party manifesto was addressed to "all toiling Muslims in Russia and the East." This proclamation urged "all those whose mosques and prayer-houses were destroyed, and religion and customs trampled upon, to build up their faith and customs and to enter on a national life freely and unhindered." Not the former Czarist government, but its successor, the Bolshevik regime, effectively destroyed Muslim cultural and religious institutions and "trampled upon" Muslim national aspirations. Following the collapse of Czarist authority, many of the former sub- ject nations declared their independence. Almost without exception, the new regimes in the Ukraine, Transcaucasia, and Central Asia elected anti- Bolshevik governments, for the most part under Menshevik (conservative Social Democratic) control. Communism, in fact, had little appeal outside of the large cities of the Russian Federated Socialist Republic (RSFSR). During the civil war, 1918-1922, Bolshevik troops fought White Guard" armies and engaged in guerrilla warfare with Social-Revolutionary and other non-Bolshevik contingents. The Red troops in time crushed all of their opponents and, in so doing, overthrew one anti-Bolshevik regime after another. In 1917 an autonomous government was set up at Kdkand in Uzbekistan, but a year later, Bolshevik soldiers executed the Uzbek leaders and commissars from, Moscow established a Communist regime at Tashkent. In 1918 the Turkestani tried to form an independent "democratic republic" -- a movement that was not entirely extinguished for almost two decades. The Moscow Government concluded a treaty with the Republic of Georgia on May 7, 1920, which stated: "Russia recognizes unconditionally the existence and independence of the Georgian State, and voluntarily renounces all sovereign rights which belonged to Russia with respect to Georgian people and territory." In violation of the treaty, Soviet forces crossed the Georgian frontier on February 21, 1921, seized Tiflis, and immediately proclaimed the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic. Two other Caucasian republics had already fallen to Soviet armed forces -- Azerbaijan in the spring of 1920 and Armenia in November of that year. A short-lived revolt by the Tatars was also suppressed. Stalin's purge trials of 1936-1938 also provided an excuse for the suppression of the "Pan-Turanian" movement and the execution of its leaders, Mir Seyed Sultan-Galiev and Faizulla Khodzhaev, together with thousands of their alleged followers. Actually, the crime of Khodzhaev was his objection to Moscow's policy of making Uzbekistan exclusively a cotton-growing area. 5 - r /04/02 . CIA-RDP81-01n4f1Pnn4nnni,znnnl - 76 - Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02: CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 Chapter Welve Between 1940 and 1946, mass deportations and, in some instances, the obliteration of national governments, were carried out by Stalin's orders. The liquidation of autonomous political entities in the USSR and the deportation of their citizens involved, in 1941: the extinction of the Volga German Autonomous Republic and the deportation of the population, followed by similar treatment of the Kalmyks, Balkars, and Karachais in 1942. Liquidation of the autonomous areas of the Crimean Tatars and Chechen-Ingushi and mass deportations of their people came in 1944-1945. Altogether, more than a million people were the victims of Stalin's policy, carried out in the lower Volga, Crimea, and Caucasus. In 1956, Communist Party chief Nikita Khrushchev announced that several of the deported nationalities would be "restored" to their native homes, but the number actually resettled was not announced and there was no mention of the 400,000 Volga Germans and 260,000 Tatars who suffered persecution en masse. The Soviet conquest of the Baltic Republics occurred in two stages, 1940-1941, and 1944-1945 (Nazi occupation intervened). These actions were accompanied by terrorism, police brutalities, and large-scale deportations of Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians. Hundreds of thousands of Baltic peoples were sent to the interior of the USSR, and the national intelligentsia of the three countries was decimated, except for those who found refuge abroad. Besides the outright subjugation of non-Russian nationalities, ethnic groups and races in the USSR in many instances have been weakened and diluted by the forcible intrusion of alien stocks from. western Russia and elsewhere. Thus, untold numbers of Ukrainians, Great Russians, Belts, Poles, and others have been resettled in Kazakhstan, Turkmenia, the Buryat-Mongolian Autonomous Republic, etc. As a result, in some Union Republics there are now more non-natives than indigenous inhabitants. For example, in Kazakhstan there are more Russians than Kazakhs, while in Uzbekistan, Turkmenia and Kirghizia, Great Russians are the second largest ethnic element. Besides measures involving mass deportations and rssettlement, a further means of disintegrating national ethnic stocks has been through a policy of "national demarcation," that is, the arbitrary rearrangement of traditional boundaries, carried out in the southern Soviet republics and elsewhere. Other measures include the "russianizing" -- as far as possible -- of all nationalities or, at least, CPSU insistence on the superiority of Great Russian achievements. The central government's educational system, imposed on all areas of non-Russian nationality, is a.further'lever in the hands of the party. Finally, the entire Soviet economic structure, centralized in the "party machine," tends to isolate and disperse any surviving national groupings. THE PARTY AND THE OESTION OF NATIONALITIES - 77 - Occasionally, the discontent of non-Russians with their lot breaks into print. This happened in 1957, when the long-smoldering resentment of Kazakh intellectuals against Moscow's averlordship was disclosed in Kazakhstan Pravda, organ of the Kazakh Communist Party. On January 13, 1957, Kazakhstan Pravda leveled charges against the Kazakh-language journal of the writers' union, Kazakh Adebieti, which was accused of printing "false, pernicious, and defamatory" articles with regard to Soviet policy in Kazakhstan. According to Kazakhstan Pravda, the writers' journal had been guilty of the following "misrepresentations": the "interests and wishes" of Kazakhs were being ignored; (non-Kazakh) "specialists" were brought in to direct livestock raising and other local enterprises, and Soviet officials consistently violated the Leninist principle of "nationality" within the USSR. Kazakh Adiebeti was also charged with having complained that Kazakh national epics had been placed on a "black list" by Soviet literary censors and that all references to Kazakh literature of the pre-Bolshevik period were omitted from school textbooks. Apart from the Kazakh Communist Party's attack on the literary journal, all evidence points to the truth of the writers' contentions. Official party reaction to the controversy was the comment, inspired by the CPSU central committee, that only "approved" versions of national epics and other literary works from which all "feudalistic encrustrations" had been removed would be published. In connection with the Soviet suppression of national epics, the case of Kazakhstan is not exceptional. The Kirghiz epic "Manas," the Azerbaijan folk epic "Dede Korkud" and the Turkmen "Korkud Ata" have also been con- demned by Moscow's cultural mentors. This is in line with the CPSU policy of stressing the cultural superiority of the Great Russians over all other regional cultures. A typical effusion on this theme was an article by Stalin Prize Winner Cheisvili, a Georgian, which appeared in the newspaper Zarya Vostoka of May 29, 1954. Cheisvili said, in part: "Socialist Georgia awes the development of its economy and culture to its strong friendship with the Russian people, and their constant, dis- interested, and sincere assistance...The wise Lenin-Stalin policy of the Communist Party unites the Georgian people with the Great Russian people, the people of the glorious Ukraine and all the nations of the vast country." The independence of Georgia was extinguished in 1920; the last spark of nationalist expression was crushed in the spring of 1956, following disturb- ances in Tiflis. Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 ? CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Co .y Approved for Release - 78 - Chapter Twelve On November 7, 1954, the newspaper Soviet Kirghizia quoted Yunusaliev, rector of Kirghiz State University, as follows: "Such truly grandiose successes of the Kirghiz people were attained only through the revolutionary-transform- ing role of the Soviet Government, the wise leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and the constant brotherly help of the Great Russian people." Kirghizia was one of the victims of Moscow's policy of "national demar- cation" which placed part of its original population in adjacent republics. The influx of western Russians has been such that at present the Kirghiz people constitute little more than half of the population and the ratio of Kirghizians to newcomers is constantly diminishing. The systematic destruction of the historical and cultural heritages of peoples within the boundaries of the USSR was followed by a similar process of denationalization in the annexed Baltic states. This reached full intensity about 1946 and has continued ever since then. As an exiled Estonian educator wrote: "When the whole nation is destined to die, its culture, language, and national character have to be destroyed first. When the Soviet Union annexed Estonia, it did not start only the physical destruction of the nation by means of deportations, arrests and murders of Estonians, but even more, the spiritual destruction and doom of this determined and freedom-loving nation." This epitaph on Estonia applies equally to Latvia and Lithuania. After the Baltic countries were absorbed by the USSR, their national constitutions were consigned to oblivion and their respective legal systems were altered to conform to that of the Soviet Union. A former Latvian judge testified: "They (the Russians) appointed people's courts after the annexation. They discharged all judges, and now the whole jurisdiction was in the hands of 'people's judges' who were simply appointed by the Communist Party." The school systems of the Baltic nations have been remodeled on the Soviet educational pattern and their national histories have been rewritten under the direction of Muscovite historiographers. For example, a one-volume History of the Estonian Republic, published in 1952, offers a Marxist-Leninist explanation of the "emergence of an independent Estonian state as a result of prior historical events and devel- opments." However, according to this Communist version, the era of Czarist imperialism (1700-1917), because it was Russian, was more liberal and conferred more benefits on Estonia than the independence won by the country in 1917-1918, which was based on western-type democracy until its overthrow by the Communists. The falsification of national histories and the perversion of national cultures followed the take-over of Eastern Europe by Soviet armed forces and Declassified in Part - Sanitized C .y Approved for Release 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 THE PART! AND THE QUESTION OF NATIONALITIES -79- agents. The establishment of "people's democracies," concluded by 1948-1949, led to the complete revamping of educational systems in the satellite countries and the rewriting -- under Moscow's direction -- of textbooks, histories, etc. In this pedagogic material, again, the superiority of Russian culture and achievements is emphasized at all times. As the products of Western *culture, publishing, and journalism were withdrawn from public circulation in Eastern Europe, printed material carrying the Communist, pro-Moscow line everywhere was substituted. The Communist-run presses in the satellites are assigned heavy publishing quotas as part of the production plans of the puppet regimes. Also, Soviet publi- cations in vast quantities are distributed, many of which are compulsory reading for students in the satellite countries. Despite the persistent and ruthless suppression of nationalist tendencies in the USSR and Moscow's unremitting efforts to wipe out genuine nationalism in Eastern Europe, the Hungarian freedom rebellion of October-November 1956 demonstrated that the embers of national spirit have not been extinguished in the satellite nations. The question of nationalities therefore is still a matter of deep concern to the CPSU central committee. The bitter conflict between Moscow and the Yugoslav Communist Party, which was renewed in the spring of 1958 after a three-year detente, illustrates another nationalist problem that plagues the CPSU. This issue is known as "revisionism," or the refusal of a Communist Party outside of the USSR to follow Moscow's dictates in every respect. Within the USSR, the question was settled in the 1920's by the harsh suppression of independent Communist parties and the purging of their leaders. Movements for national communism were most vigorous in Byelorussia and the Ukraine, reaching the height of their influence during the civil war period (1918-1922), when Lenin and his associates were engrossed in military operations elsewhere. Once these were completed, Lenin and his subordinate Stalin turned their attention to the autonomous Communist parties on the periphery of the USSR. Within a short time, the doctrine of democratic centralism was imposed on all non-conforming Communists by a combination of Bolshevik armed force, intrigue, and pressure by the "centralists." In the Ukraine, however, vestiges of nationalist sentiment persisted in the Ukrainian Communist Party through World War II. The movement was crushed by Khrushchev, at the instance of Stalin, after the war ended. By 1947, when the Communist Information Burueau (Cominform) was estab- lished, it seemed that the principle of CPSU dominance of international communism was firmly accepted, but Tito's quarrel with Moscow in the follow- ing year exposed a weak link in the CPSU international system. 50-Yr 2014/04/02: CIA-RDPR1-n1naqpnnArv-m-p2rww - 80 - Chapter Tvelve Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02: CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 ? After a period of adjustment between the parties, May 1955 to April 1958, the controversy was renewed; revisionism is now a major heresy in CPSU ideological dogma. The battlefield embraces the entire international Communist movement. 0 ? Declassified in Part - Sanitized C PY 81 Chapter Thirteen FRONT ORGANIZATIONS: VEHICLES FOR PARTY GOALS Wherever Communist parties are active -- and even in some countries where the party is outlawed -- there are Communist "front" organizations. Some of these, on an international scale, have millions of members; their affiliates at national levels may enlist the support of several thousand fellow travelers and sympathizers. District units may run to a dozen or so, or a few hundred members. They represent the local spearhead of an international front -- usually under a different name. ? Whatever their designations, front organizations have several features in common -- they echo Moscow's propaganda and also serve the aims of local Communist parties. In any event, all front activities are traceable, directly or indirectly, to dtrectives issued by the central committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). Another characteristic of the front organizations is that, ostensibly, they offer some form of appeal to non-Communists. Although their tactics, meetings, and administration are under firm Communist control, their front activities are generally conducted by persons who are not identified with a Communist Party. This, too, is the result of a policy adopted by the OPSU more than a decade ago. Broadly, there are two types of front organizations. One is based on adherence to a generalized propaganda theme, such as "peace," "peaceful coexistence," "anti-colonialism," "solidarity," etc. The other category of front organizations includes all those set u on occupational, educational, or social lines. The latter fronts repeat the generalized propaganda themes but also further Communist ends in their particular fields. An outstanding example of the generalized front organization is the World Peace Council, with its innumerable affiliates -- "partisans of peace," "peace committees," and so forth. The principal functions of national and local "peace committees" and "partisans of peace" are (1) under the guidance of Communists, to draw in non-Communists who are sympathetic to the cause of world peace; and (2) to further the aims of Soviet foreign policy or serve the local Communist Party in the guise of "peace" propaganda. Most of this propa- ganda pictures the Communist bloc regimes as "peace-loving"; contrarywise, non-Communist powers are depicted as ruled by "aggressive cliques" of "war- mongers." ease ? 5 - r /04/02 . CIA-RDP81_nine.q prinennninnn4 n Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release - 82 - Chapter Thirteen Moscow's "solidarity" propaganda, tied in with the theme of "anti- colonialism," is now concentrated largely in the "Afro-Asian People's Solidarity Council," an outgrowth of the Afro-Asian Solidarity Conference held in Cairo between December 26, 1957, and January 1, 1958. National "solidarity committees" are being organized in a number of the countries from which the so-called people's representatives came to the Cairo meeting. The growing network of "solidarity" groups, with headquarters in Cairo, is more than an outlet of CPSU Agitprop and Arab nationalist propaganda. The Council also represents an extension of Soviet foreign policy in its attempt to identify the USSR as an Asiatic power -- with interests in the Far East, Near East and Africa. Although the World Peace Council (established in 1949) with its sub- sidiaries represents the largest complex of front groups and organizations, it was not the first in the field. Other major international front organi- zations were organized in 1945 and 1946, immediately after the conclusion of war in Europe, during the year when the United Nations became a viable international organization. The Communist-controlled international fronts have never endorsed the principles of the United Nations Charter in respect to any particular situation that brought forth a Soviet veto in the UN Security Council. The World Peace Council, for example, followed Moscow's lead when the Security Council in June 1950 labeled the North Korean regime an aggressor and later leveled the same charge against Communist China. The USSR refused to accept the UN ruling in both cases. Among the principal international front organizations that follow occupational or other specialized interests of members (with the dates of their founding) are the following: World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU), 1945 World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY); 1945 Women's International Democratic Federation (WIDF), 1945 International Union of Students (ills), 1946 World Federation of Teachers' Unions (FISE), 1946 International Association of Democratic lawyers (IADL), 1946 International Organization of Journalists (ICJ), 1946 Similar international organizations serve other leftwing and fellow- traveling occupational groups. Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Rel ? 50 50-Yr 2014/04/02: CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 FRONT ORGANIZATIONS: VEHICLES FOR PARTY GOALS -83- The multitude of national front organizations in various nations include groups such as societies for "cultural relations with the USSR," national "friendship" associations for promoting ties with Communist bloc countries, sports associations, and so forth. Many fronts have special designations, such as"Congress of Mothers in Defense of Children," "Union of Families of Political Exiles and Prisoners," and the like. Often a Communist front assumes a name closely resembling that of a non-Communist association having a legitimate social welfare or other objective. In no case does any Communist-controlled front -- large or small -- comment adversely or pass rPsolutions condemning social, economic or political conditions within the Communist orbit. Nor does any front ever take a stand against the foreign policy of the USSR, the satellite countries, or the Communist regimes in the Far East. Since the largest proportion of members in international fronts comes from Communist bloc countries, the claimed membership of any front is difficult to assess, especially as membership for stated occupations and professions is practically mandatory in Communist countries. The present worldwide ramification of front organizations was anticipated, in theory, by Lenin when he wrote: "Every sacrifice must be made, the greatest obstacles must be overcome, in order to carry on agitation and propaganda systematically, perseveringly, persistently and patiently, precisely in those institutions, societies and associations -- even the most reactionary -- to which proletarian or semi- proletarian masses belong." However, aside from the World Federation of Trade Unions, certain leftwing farmers, unions, and the like, other Communist fronts are not of proletarian origin or background. For the most part, their members belong to the intelligentsia and not to the industrial or agricultural working classes. This shift in emphasis is due to the postwar policy of the CPSU, designed to enlist student, professional and technical groups in a drive for world communism. The propaganda uses to which front organizations may be put was illustrated by the Sixth World Festival of Youth, held in Moscow, July 28 - August 11, 1957. This spectacular event was the offshoot and propaganda showpiece of the WFDY and the IUS, which had sponsored five previous youth festivals between 1947 and 1955, all of them held in satellite countries.* When the WFDY was founded in November 1945 at the World Youth Conferende in London -- convened by the Communist-controlled World Youth Council -- it professed to be nonpolitical and all-embracing in membership. Because of its obvious pro-Soviet activities, however, by 1949 most of its non-Communist affiliates had withdrawn to form their own organization, the World Assembly *The Seventh World Youth Festival, on an even more lavish scale, was held in Vienna, Austria, July 26-August 4, 1959. -Yr 4/0 . - 1-01043RnnAnnni - fill - Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 Rimpligr ThtptgAn MN I4-1 (WA41. 14.10P 40.44111) PFanntWitonfi thAt wthhdrow from the WFDY 40111p14/4 Numgool g';1 fin And the International Union FII?PHRIA.140. iiU4 (100)1 A factillAcjii0FHpidpn 411 Wits oopurred in Ag), when ito executive ARMM1141A A44411104 1410 YliffP044V PAPplele Yoah orgAntgation. The committee fORADINHA AA11140 Ih flipAlAtt yoffilis 10AdArA utrAitorn to the Cause of NARR A11 AOMHAVAIII AM OARAPIIAPA ink) tihe oAmp of the imporialiet warmongers." NAVAtA OliAVWV OVOVIOAPBA AAWIAn tudent rights and freedoms as gnioi NW 0 ONWA pAglik4 ANA froadOme Are found in the Communist bloc 4101114A OW\ movA4W 1.1* plott imprIV a WFDYla members. The suppression WW1 MAI: AM WWI Ahoo-tytt\q* ArreateJ and imprisonment of li1ikWAVA.%1 4Wt440 AriaNItt, MA 1410414 00Mmont from the WFDY executive M9A4A0. 'A*Ack wi,mamw cNg4N;A4#0 t4a, (WmpAls AJ.X tiv Ontr central i.ft01 -4? 1\4 AWW,A4 4cA? 44WW,AP oAAotAona rAVX,-4t).4...-.141e Cheek. q A4 OVAA ckMWAt4 YoWAAR CVWKMAA4-04arWaQV travelers. _ 1:00, ki,A4 woALAA oNa4 3.4woume, whikAveomh:tea that of' the usu. IL\k*YKX, 0,A4 gyvn.tng. 4he Xttg ji4 the WW4 Qcngeaa c? Youth, ?iYWO04. t414.k41, ky Voq o.NQIA:141;w Numittee (4, 4*W 61/441,ARN.1,V lin -04 41:g444,01 eNectAUYe cimm&ttee Xzlitra.Li W. 4, .NM.I.k110,4 44*4.44N4tt- YINISKPA 44c4a* A04- aqt$N1AW:.% ezdend. ZttZA: the VWcAWk% *?qx,0444.11 iNk tNN0Q04:Lx 11,W.Q0c141-, cilitat and. W.44 9,WAn414. T40' 12P- 24`04;?t4IJ1 3Z4-4. agrinkIect wita. 1,1?A;Y\N410,44;k4$ bs4tt t(114 *0-411,40 4,1431Ro. G`QIUligrti:at Etntis net %,koN:\a,4i,i 14.4W( 1N.NkLt IhapstO 4q4( 40.)4.1g4I4Q.jchannel'a,?. 'AU cM*kk,t: liOA, mem4re, .q0 40- awnizaz-- OP 1:41-40 sRkN411/1.1rthi4 t1:1470i 7tj. r.azeeatit: 7NQA CAutmo--Ka,t, x-h44Na- sAu.4at.4. ax* tAg*-1,1*.t,c1 y.tA\-"P\D"? 'ILA444/1), =9-1gt: 11.'4':1-4404-`324 ^cztt=c3A11-7 be, \V:4: 401c&ix 1.-N0Kg0A A1.4 ANIpt, -sh4,;VFDYth frtatm,?zLt--Li arrx latt144A.gt*2 CQ QA . AQ,Ke sy04, ozz Tztt. Nolzla ?gs.vQ.Liapt A>L104tlS in, as4tAx fromas, at 0.4A0Y-V,1.44-1044:: nIn cv;akil t11: si2x1,1 AilpmhirieegegE:Llr e4icaoeq?. 41 she.? sf.zikto, _'24,ye,st!mt,14.44. fog-a=ullos $x:14:04u44etoa4-41:114,-sn,for,ccli.010.72-ZgliRtSztvicei. 0 II FRONT ORGANIZATIONS: VEHICLES FOR PARTY GOALS It also issues separate magazines* for agricultural, architectural and medical students. Trade union internationals affiliated with the WFTU also have their own trade papers with a Communist slant. . Membership in the International Union of Students is drawn mainly from Communist bloc countries; for example, the Soviet Komsomol organi- zations are listed in toto as belonging to the IUS. As in the case of the WFDY, complete administrative control of IUS is vested in a closed body -- the executive committee of the World Students' Congress. The Congress, which has met four times since its founding in 1946, is not amenable to democratic procedures. Again, like the WFDY executive committee, the IUS executive committee took no action on Soviet intervention in Hungary. Its Prague headquarters remained silent on the executions of Hungarians. An occasional function of local affiliates of the WFDY and IUS is to provide the active nucleus of mob actions directed against targets set by a national or local Communist Party. Local Communists, generally speaking, act on instructions prepared in Moscow but they may use their own discretion as to the exact moment to foment disorders or violence. Communist-directed student agitators have formed the spearhead of mobs in Singapore, Tokoyo, Lebanon and other Near East areas, Caracas and other Latin American cities, and elsewhere. In many instances, a relatively small band of student provocateurs has been able to spark an outbreak involving hundreds of thousands of demonstrators. In addition to its agitation activities, IUS conducts systematic propaganda through its official organ, World Student News,and in a series of pamphlets of topics associated with CPSU propaganda themes. In many ways, the World Federation of Trade Unions is potentially Moscow's most important implement of agitation, infiltration and subversion in the free world. As in the case of other fronts, WFTU claimed membership figures have little significance, since the WFTU itself concedes that about 80 percent of its affiliated members are from Communist countries. The claimed WFTU membership in the free world is less than one-third of the known membership of the non-Communist International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU). Nevertheless, WFTU affiliated unions are a real menace to the free trade union movement in some countries, especially in economically less developed areas where trade unionism is just emerging. -85- Although the WFTU was founded in 1945 as a nonpolitical organization it soon fell under Communist influence and by 1949 was firmly under Communist domination. This led to the withdrawal of three powerful affiliated Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 ? - 86 - Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 Chapter Thirteen national unions -- British, American, and Dutch, who then formed their own organization, ICFTU. The WFTU's official organ, World Trade Union Movement, follows every shift in Moscow's propaganda line and faithfully echoes Soviet foreign policy and propaganda statements. The steps by which the WFTU passed to Communist control are evident from figures on membership in the three governing bodies, between 1945 and.1948. The WFTU executive bureau in 1945 was made up of 4 Communists and 5 non-Communists; in 1948, there were 6 Communists and only 3 non-Communists. The executive committee of the bureau in 1945 had an even balance of 11 each, Communists and non-Communists. Three years later, there were 14 Communiste on the committee, as against 6 non-Communists. The WFTU General Council in 1945 had a total of 64 members, of which 38 were non-Communists; by 1948 the ratio was 34 Communists to 30 non-Communists. The accretion of Communist strength in front administrations is accomplished by a variety of tactics: pressure or hard bargaining aimed at the non-Communists; manipulation of meetings or conferences by the hard- core party cadres, especially in the initial or preparatory stages of a conference; devious voting procedures, or sheer aggressive persistence pitted against the indifference or apathy of the rank-and-file members. For example, when Communists were engaged in taking over the WFTU, a stream of newly created unions from economically underdeveloped countries applied for affiliation. Previously, the total membership of .the new unions had been given as several tens of thousands, but the total figure jumped to more than a million at the time when they came to vote in a WFTU conference. The validity of their membership claims could not be checked. Working organizations of the WFTU which reflect the executive committee's policy line are the regional liaison bureaus and the national affiliated unions. The Latin American Confederation of' Labor (CTAL), for example, is recognized by WFTU as the liaison bureau for all Latin America. Another form of transmission belt between the WFTU and affiliated unions are the trade departments, known as Trade Union Internationals (TUIs). These provide international links between workers in a particular field or industry and the central WFTU apparatus. EXamples of TUIs are those of the international transport workers, metal and engineering workers, agricultural and forestry workers, and the trade union departments of public service enterprises, recently merged as the "Public and Allied Employees TUI." S. FRONT ORGANIZATIONS: YEEICLES FOR PARTY GOALS The Miners TUI (headquarters, France), the TUI for Chemical, Glass, Oil and Glassware Workers (Budapest), and the Metal and Engineering Workers TUI (Vienna) illustrate the penetration of Communist-controlled trade department unions into key industries. Directives issued during the meeting of Communist leaders in Moscow in November 1957 called for intensifying WFTU activities during 1958, especially in underdeveloped countries. Latin America and the Middle East were singled out as prime targets for increased WFTU penetration. An official WFTU handbook, "Report of the Activity of the World Federation of Trade Unions, November 1953 - June 1957," records WFTU's support of Soviet propaganda themes. During the past two years, "friendship societies" have proliferated in some parts of the free world and throughout the Communist orbit, with notable increases in Egypt, Sudan, Pakistan, Nepal, India, Japan, and Indonesia. These societies, oriented to members of the Communist bloc, use a variety of tactics to fora new societies, increase their membership, exercise political pressure and promote the propaganda objectives of the CPSU. They employ the familiar Communist devices of coercion, flattery, subterfuge, respectability-through-association, and slogans designed to win popular support. In same instances, government and civic officials unwittingly have lent themselves to Communist aims by consenting to attend or participate in activities sponsored by a national friendship society. Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 ? CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001 8 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 88 Chapter Fourteen MOSCOW'S ROLE IN INTOZNATIONAL CONAIUNISM The bitter controversy that came to a head in 1948 and again in 1958 between the Yugoslav Communist Party (League of Communists of Yugoslavia) and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) again raised the ques- tion of "independent communism." Since both parties to the argument profess to follow Marxism-Leninism, the debate hinges partly on the definition of the "leading role" assumed by the CPSU in international communism, and also, on the practical results of differences in theory between the two Communist parties. (Other Communist parties in the Sino-Soviet bloc quickly followed suit in denouncing the Yugoslav position.) The Yugoslav Communist Party congress, which opened on April 22, 1958, at Ljubljana, was boycotted by observers from the Communist parties of the USSR, the satellite states (except Poland) and Communist China. The ini- tial target of the CPSU attack on the Yugoslays was a draft program of the congress which, prior to the meeting, came under fire from Soviet theorists writing in Kommunist, organ of the CPSU central committee. Stripped of ideological phrasing, the substance of the Kommunist charge was that the Yugoslav Communists are guilty of the grave heresy of "revisionism" -- in this instance, stemming from their refusal to accept without qualification Moscow's policy line in all matters, domestic and foreign. One section of the congress program was singled out by Kommunist for special censure -- the Yugoslav assertion that "by reason of its strong international political position, or because of the different degree of economic development, it is possible for one socialist country (i.e., the USSR) to maintain by various means its unequal relation with one or several other socialist countries." The Kommunist writers argued that this point was immaterial, and declared that "Marxism-Leninism does not reject the possibility of one or another Communist party of socialist (Communist) country playing the leading role during a definite historical period." The Yugoslav position regarding the "leading role" in international communism assumed by the CPSU has long been a subject of discussion among Communists outside of the USSR, and during the split between Moscow and Marshal Tito of Yugoslavia, led to widespread purges of upper-level Com- munists in the satellites. The question itself is deeply imbedded in Communist Party history and dialectics. Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 1 MOSCOW'S ROLE IN INTERNATIONAL COMMUNISM MP 89 Mil Communist leader V. I. Lenin discoursed at length on this problem; his party subordinates, Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky, had conflicting views in regard to it. The CPSU theorists nevertheless ignore the recorded statements of Lenin on international communism. He believed that the "pro- letarian world revolution" started with the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, and that the USSR -- as the first Communist State -- should have the support of Communist parties throughout the world. But he did not demand specifi- cally that the Soviet party should be the sole voice of international com- munism. In 1920 Lenin wrote: "Every party that wishes to affiliate to the Communist International (Comintern) must render selflessly devoted assist- ance to every Soviet republic in its struggle against counter-revolutionary forces." At the time, Lenin still pictured the Soviet Union as a federation of Soviet republics, guided but not wholly dominated by Moscow. Yet the Comintern itself was a creation of the party's central com- mittee and although non-Russians occupied prominent posts in its top leader- ship, the Comintern, as a worldwide conspiratorial organization, was rigidly governed by the CPSU in Moscow from 1919 to 1943. The Comintern was a highly organized body with a system of regional bureaus, agents, couriers, etc., operating through a secretariat that was responsible solely to the CPSU central committee; it did not consult affiliated Communist parties in regard to its broad policies. It was dis- solved during World War II by Stalin as a gesture of conciliation toward his Western allies. The war had scarcely ended when Stalin revived the old Marxist-Leninist slogans about "capitalist encirclement," the "inevitable conflict between the two camps" (communism and capitalism), and the "downfall of capitalism" predicated on "capitalist contradictions." In this renewal of Soviet antag- onism to the West, Stalin had the able assistance of Andrei Zhdanov. The successor to the Comintern -- but with a different structure -- was the Communist Information Bureau, or Cominform, which was largely the creation of Zhdanov. At its first meeting in Szklarska Poreba near Warsaw, September 1947, Zhdanov outlined the principle functions and aims of the Cominform. Mainly, he voiced the opposition of the Kremlin to the newly announced Marshall Plan for United States aid to devastated Europe. (On Zhdanov's insistence, Poland and Czechoslovakia were forced to reject participation in the Marshall Plan.) In this connection Zhdanov referred to the "insolent and aggressive policy of the U.S.A." and added: "The Communists parties must head the re- sistance to the plans of imperialist expansion and aggression in all fields." 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 90 Chapter Fourteen At this time, the USSR was supporting armed guerrillas in northern Greece and had threatened the Turkish Government. Following Zhdanov's plan for the subjugation of Eastern Europe, minority Communist parties in all the border states were engaged in undermining existing governments and in some cases had already succeeded in overthrowing them. At this time, also, the Soviet penetration and exploitation of China's provinces of Sinkiang and Manchuria were still proceeding and Outer Mongolia had become a full-fledged satellite of Moscow, several years before. The Cominform was made up of the Communist parties of the USSR, the satellites, Italy and France. It had no hard-and-fast organizational structure and held only four meetings of public record: the inital meeting near Warsaw in 1947; a meeting in Yugoslavia in January 1948; a session in June 1948 (when the Yugoslav Communist Party was expelled); and finally, a meeting in Hungary on November 27, 1949, which reaffirmed the policies of the organization and repeated the attack on Tito. The sole publication of the Cominform was its weekly newspaper, For a Lasting Peace, for a People's Democracy, issued in several languages. This organ was discontinued in April 1956, when the Cominform was dis- solved. (For the new monthly on international communism see Chapter X .) The Cominform weekly, to which leading Communists of various national parties contributed, voiced the policy of the CPSU central committee on all matters pertaining to international communism. It provided party-line guidance to Communist leadership throughout the world and offered appropri- ate information for the benefit of upper-level party members and "cadres." In addition to the ideological guidance exercised through the Cominform, the CPSU itself has always had a worldwide apparatus for exerting practical control of the most Communist parties outside the Soviet bloc. The disso- lution of the Cominform therefore had little effect on Moscow's ability to steer the international Communist movement -- with a few exceptions -- along the lines set by the CPSU central committee. The ending of the Cominform coincided with Moscow's effort to restore amicable relations with Belgrade. This began with a visit to Yugoslavia in May 1955 of Soviet party leaders Khrushchev and Bulganin, and a return visit by Tito in June 1956. As a result of the latter conference, a joint statement was issued by the conferees, in which "freedom of will and equal- ity" was conceded to the Yugoslav Communist Party by the CPSU. Soviet armed intervention in the Hungarian freedom rebellion adversely affected the standing of the CPSU in western Europe. Western European Communist parties declined in prestige and membership and Communist in- fluence in trade unions, wherever it existed, was seriously impaired. Defections and resignations -- from Communist front organizations and parties -- including writers, artists, fellow-traveling politicans and others, were numerous throughout western Europe. By mid-summer of 1957, the Com- munist movement in western Europe was at its lowest ebb since 1939. MOSCOW'S ROLE IN INTERNATIONAL COMMUNISM - 91- Meanwhile, agitation for a new type of international Communist party organization began to take shape under CPSU prodding. In January 1957, a conference was held in Budapest, which was attended by Khrushchev and Georgi Malenkov (then Deputy Premier), and party leaders from Hungary, Rumania, Bulgaria, and Czechoslovakia. On January 7-8, a two-day conference took place in East Berlin between German Communist leaders and a Soviet delegation. A statement over Khrushchev's signature said that the "Communist parties of the world should close ranks and reach unity of views and actions on fundamental questions of building socialism (communism)." Developments in the USSR during the summer and fall of 1957 indicate that Khrushchev had two main objectives as regards the CPSU. First, he planned to win undisputed control of the party machine. Secondly, he pro- posed, if possible, to re-establish the primacy of the CPSU in the inter- national Communist movement, which had been shaken by the aftermath of the Hungarian rebellion. The ousting of the "anti-party" group -- Malenkov, Bulganin, Molotov, Kaganovich, and Shepilov -- at the beginning of the summer was followed in October by the dismissal of Marshal Georgi Zhukov as clpfense Minister and his removal from the central committee presidium. The next step came in November, when leaders of some 65 Communist parties met in Moscow, in connection with the 40th celebration of the Bolshevik Revolution. At a meeting, November 14-16, representatives of 12 Communist regimes signed a lengthy Twelve Party Declaration. Although the Yugoslav delegation was in Moscow, it did not sign the declaration. Three principal themes emerge from this declaration, namely: (1) the assertion of ideological unanimity among the signatories, and its corollary, the denunciation ofrevisitionist tendencies; (2) Communist pro- fessions of support for nationalism and (3) a reaffirmation of CPSU prin- cipales, set forth at the 20th Party Congress of February 1956, prescribing "roads to power" which should be taken by the Communist parties of the free world. The subjects treated in the Moscow Declaration contribute variously to CPSU propaganda and organizational objectives. For example, the asser- tion that the Declaration reflects "identity of views of the parties on all questions examined" is an attempt to minimize the known divergence in some particulars between the Yugoslav Communist Party and the CPSU. So, too, the bitter attack on revisionism and dogmatism suggests that ideol- ogical differences in the international Communist movement are more pre- valent than Moscow cares to admit. Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 -92- Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 Chapter Fourteen Citing the tendency of revisionists to demand free and open dis- cussion of ideological matters, together with democratic procedures in settling them, the Declaration proposes to ban all factions and groups which, in its own words, "sap party unity." These pronouncements in essence repeat the Leninist-Stalinist formula regarding democratic central- ism -- that is, authoritarian party control by the CPSU central committee. The Moscow Declaration also supports "national liberation movements" while denouncing "imperialism" and "colonialism." At the same time, the Declaration condemns nationalism within the Soviet bloc, which it labels "bourgeois nationalism" and "chauvinism." Thus, the Communist parties support "national liberation struggles" outside of the bloc while they suppress all such tendencies within their own boundaries. The Moscow Declaration produced other inconsistencies. While it pays lip service to the principles of complete equality, sovereignty, and non- interference in the relations between Communist states, it refers to the CPSU as playing the leading role in deciding bloc policies. (Significantly, the Chinese Communist delegation acknowledged the primacy of both the USSR and the CPSU in international communism.) Another important section of the Declaration has to do with Communist goals in the free world. The signers state frankly that their unalterable aim is to impose communism on all areas of the world -- by parliamentary means if practicable, by violence if necessary. This again is the sub- stance of the policy guidance for Communist parties laid down at the 20th Party Congress. The Moscow Declaration urges a flexible approach to the achievement of world communism, relying especially on the tactic of the "united front," whereby liberal and Socialist parties would be enlisted in political coali- tions. The Declaration makes it plain that once the Communists are in power they will "smash the resistance of the reactionary forces" and in the process liquidate all other parties, including their temporary allies in the "front." In another variation of the "united front" idea, the Declaration pro- poses to line up "workers, peasant masses, and urban middle classes against monopolistic capital.. .in order to gain far-reaching social reforms." Taken at face value, this seems to be a tactical retreat from the orthodox dogmas of Marxism-Leninism, which scorned any concessions to the "bourgeoisie," but Lenin himself advocated an occasional tactical retreat for the Bolsheviks in order to consolidate their ranks for further advances. MOSCOW'S ROLE IN INTERNATIONAL COMMUNISM - 93- An analysis of the Declaration shows that the Communists of the Soviet bloc are concentrating on underdeveloped countries, rather than trying to expand in industrialized western Europe, where they have recently experi- enced setbacks. At the end of the session of representatives from some 65 countries, November 16-19, 1957, the conferees issued a "Peace Manifesto," which is closely related to the Twelve-Party Declaration, but with a somewhat dif- ferent connotation. In the Manifesto, the CPSU, while claiming the "lead- ing role" in international communism, tried to give the impression that "collective leadership" would prevail among the Communist parties of the world. In February 1956, Khrushchev had told the 20th Party Congress that the "leadership of the Communist Party of China and the Communist and workers' parties of the other countries of people's democracy must work for the great cause of Socialist (Communist) transformation, taking into account the peculiarities and special conditions of every country...It is quite likely that the form of transition to socialism (communism) will become more and more diverse." Nevertheless, by the spring of 1958 the OPSU was furiously at odds with the direction being taken by the Yugoslav Communist Party. The CPSU attack on the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, amounting to political interference in the internal affairs of that country, has a direct bearing on an instrument to which the CPSU has publicly subscribed-- the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence. A double standard in the interpretation of the five principles has been apparent in Soviet foreign relations since 1954, when they were first announced as a preamble to the Sino-Indian agreement on Tibet. The five principles were promptly endorsed by Moscow Pravda. The five principles are: (1) mutual respect for each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty; (2) nonagression; (3) noninter- ference in each other's internal affairs; (4) equality and mutual benefit, and (5) peaceful coexistence. The five principles were promulgated on June 28, 1954, in a communique signed by Prime Minister Nehru of India and Prime Minister Chou En-lai of Communist China. They were supported in their entirety by the CPSU through its official organ Pravda in its issue of July 1. On September 30, Andrei Vishinsky, Soviet representative to the United Nations, addressing the UN Assembly, defined Soviet foreign policy as based on the five principles. On June 2, 1955, (then) Soviet Prime Minister Bulganin and President Tito of Yugoslavia issued a joint declaration which expanded the five principles to include a pledge of "noninterference in internal affairs for any reason whatsoever," and expressed "condemnation of any attempt to im- pose political and economic domination on other countries." Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 Chapter Fourteen On June 23, 1955, Prime Ministers Bulganin and Nehru issued a further declaration that made Principle 3 even more specific: "Noninterference in each other's internal affairs for any reason -- of an economic, political, or ideelogical character." On various occasions, Soviet spokesmen in referring te Soviet relations in the Middle East and Far East have reiterated Soviet adherence to the "five principles of the Bandung Conference" (held in April 1955). However, at the Bandung Cmference (in which the USSR was not represented), the official representatives of 29 Asian and Middle East governments issued a 10-point -- not a 5-point -- Declaration on the Promotion of World Peace and Cooperation, based mainly on the Charter of the United Nations. Less than a year and a half after the Bulganin-Nehru pronouncement on the five principles, came Soviet intervention in Hungary, followed by in- creasing Soviet pressure on Poland to conform to CPSU policy directives. The CPSU attack on the Yugoslav Communists, which had been smoldering for same time:came into the open in March 1958, and reached a climax dur- ing and after the meeting of the Yugoslav Communist congress in April. Khrushchev's strictures on the Yugoslav Communists, delivered before the Bulgarian Communist Party congress on June 3, 1958, were echoed by other leaders in the Sino-Soviet bloc during the months that followed. His ar- raignment of the Yugoslays was only slightly modified in his speech to the 21st Congress of the CPSU on January 27, 1959. The first issue, August 1958, of World Marxist Review, a monthly magazine launched by representatives of Communist parties within and out- side the Communist bloc (excluding the Yugoslays) stated that "revisionism is the main danger to the Communist movement in present-day conditions." This dictum has become a slogan of the CPSU and its affiliated Communist parties. Since the CPSU campaign against the Yugoslav Communists would seem to violate Principles 3 and 4 of the five principles, it is significant that this contradiction and other discrepancies in Soviet foreign policy were explained away by a leading Soviet theoretician, A. P. Butenko, in an article published a month after Khrushchav denounced the Yagoslavas in Bulgaria. The Butenko article, which appeared in YonrosiFilosofii (Problems of Philosophy, organ of the Soviet Academy of Science), in No. 6, 1958, en- deavors to rationalize the contradictions between Soviet theory and practice in regard to peaceful coexistence. The article is titled "National Com- munism as an Ideological Weapon of the Bourgeoisie," but its implications are not confined to the subject of -revisionism. aPPOCC=VY.PlIkketWaitkR,WW... Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? MOSCOW'S ROLE IN INTERNATIONAL COMMUNISM - 95 - The line of reasoning expounded by Butenko runs as follows. While ascribing the "false" slogans of national communism to bourgeois propaganda, Butenko attributes the theories of revisionism to "separate, ideologically unstable elements in the Communist movement" itself. He cites as hotbeds of revisionism Yugoslavia, Hungary, and Poland. Yugoslavia is singled out as a country where revisionism persists unabated and is officially condoned by the League of Communists. In this connection, Butenko refers to attempts by the Yugoslays to "galvanize certain anarcho-syndicalist ideas" (the Workers Council), and accuses the Yugoslays of casting doubt on the international significance of "experience in the development of socialism (communism) in the USSR" "under the guise of the criticism of mistakes committed during the period of personality cult" (Stalin). Another theme in the Butenko article is the assertion that the foreign policy of any Communist country must be stripped of purely national inter- ests and concentrated on a common foreign policy which proletarians in every country are obliged to support in the interest of "proletarian soli- darity." As against this CPSU doctrine, Butenko cites as revisionist examples, the Yugoslav press and "Imre Nagy, a Hungarian revisionist." The reference to Nagy, Hungarian Premier at the time of the Hungarian rebellion, intro- duces the familiar Soviet version of the uprising and its aftermath. In line with the CPSU propaganda on the subject, Butenko argues that Hungary would have fallen into the hands of the imperialists had the Soviet Union followed the five principles in this instance. In the economic field, too, Butenko claims that the five principles must be superseded by considerations of "strengthening the economic positions of socialism (communism) in other countries and in the entire world." That is, according to Butenko, the Soviet economic domination of Eastern Europe should be viewed in the light of the whole Communist bloc economy in its relation to capitalist economies. Backgrounding this part of the Butenko article was a significant eco- nomic development that took place in May, 1958, a fortnight before Khrushchev visited Bulgaria. This was a conference of representatives of Communist regimes belonging to the Council of Economic Mutual Assistance, known as Comecon or CEMA. (Comecon was set up in 1949 as the Soviet answer to the Marshall Plan. It called for close integration of the economies of the USSR and the satellite states. Yugoslavia is not a Comecon member. Comecon meetings held in 1958-1959 stressed another objective: specialization by members of the Soviet bloc in industrial production, in order to avoid competitive output between the bloc countries.) 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 96 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 Chapter Fourteen The Comecon communique, issued on May 25 at the end of a five-day session, called for closer economic-military planning among all members of the Sine-Soviet bloc and implied an intensification of the bloc trade-and- aid offensive in less-developed countries. The aim is to increase the de- pendence of underdeveloped countries on bloc markets and, eventually, to open the way to Communist political penetration. Butenko concludes that even outside the Communist bloc, the principles of national independence should be considered as purely nationalistic, un- less associated with Communist bloc interests. National rights, says Butenko, must be subordinated to the interest of the Communist struggle on a worldwide scale. If Soviet interests are served, the national struggle is "progres- sive"; if they are not, the nationalistic movement is "regressive" or reac- tionary. "It is known," declares Butenko, "that at the present time, nationalism plays a progressive role under the banner of the struggle against imperial- ism and colonialism in a number of countreis (India, Egypt, Indonesia, and others). However, each time when nationalism was fostered by the exploiters with a view of dividing the toilers, it invariably performed a reactionary role. National communism caters precisely to such reactionary aims." The virtual repudiation of the five principles of peaceful coexistence in inter-bloc relations and their tactical espousal in Soviet propaganda for the outside world, is of concern to uncommitted nations, for if they fall within the Soviet orbit, they are immediately subjected to another and dif- ferent interpretation of the five principles, justifying force by an inter- vening Communist regime. -97- Chapter Fifteen SOME CONCLUSIONS Despite the Soviet Communist Party's position of power and influence in the USSR, the organization is faced with a number of actual and poten- tial problems. It has been suggested, for example, that Soviet youth, the third generation to experience the realities of Communist rule, is bored and restless to a degree causing veteran party officials to worry consider- ably about the future. Edward Crankshaw, the noted British analyst of Soviet affairs, says the whole youth picture is complicated by the attitudes of those who were very young when the Stalin era ended in 1953. "They were school children, Pioneers or very junior Komsomol members when Stalin died," Crankshaw comments. "And very soon they were suddenly told that this great leader and teacher, this being, quasi-divine, had feet of mud and had committed abominable crimes. With this came new oppor- tunities for freedom of expression and, at the same time, comparative mate- rial abundance. They wanted desperately to believe in something -- prefer- ably the swift fulfillment of Lenin's ideals, of which Khrushchev was always talking. But what did Khrushchev offer them? On the political side the spectacle of dog-fight between one Kremlin faction and another, and a sus- tained exhibition of inspired opportunism; on the side of self-expression a very sharp reminder, early in 1957, that the party still knows best in everything; on the ideological front, the Hungarian spectacle, and; for ideals, a stone." Premier Khrushchev's 1958 announcement of a new program of less formal schooling and more physical work for the rank and file of Soviet young people appeared to be at least partly motivated by the party's awareness of the points raised by Crankshaw. Aside from the obvious intention to strengthen the party's ideological controls over youth, the Khrushchev program promised to provide vitally-needed increases in the Soviet labor force. It has long been apparent, in view of the party's continued emphasis on heavy industry, that Soviet markers were going to be called upon for higher and higher rates of productivity in the years to come. Proceedings of the CPSU's 21st congress, held in late January and early February of 1959, merely served to underscore the party's recent emphasis on the necessity for a stepped-up economic pace. As Khrushchev and other speakers pointed out, one of -the party's principal future tasks is to stimulate the USSR's rate of industrial and agricultural production. Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 ? CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 A. Declassified in Part - Sanitized Cosy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 - 98 - Chapter Fifteen Khrushchev 's new seven-year-plan, indeed, accounted for most of the Official agenda of the congress. It has been known for some time, of course, that Khrushchev is publicly committed to a kind of international prestige gamble; he has staked communism's economic reputation on its ability to match or out Produce the democratic powers. There are several reasons for the Soviet Party's new emphasis. on making the USSR a showplace of Communist economic achievement. One is that the Soviet bloc countries have long been at a disadvantage in living standards compared with other nations. For reasons of prestige, there- fore, it has become advisable to press harder for observable results. A suggestion of the problem's urgency, as an ideological issue, is contained in an observation made a feu' months ago by a Yollmg Chinese- speaking Soviet citizen who has been much in demand as interpreter for Soviet delegations visiting China and for Chinese delegations visiting the USSR. "It is very embarrassing," this interpreter confided to the writer Robert C. North, "to show the Chinese through our country. They go around, looking, and don't say a word. Then, suddenly one of them will say something like this: 'Well, Comrades, you Russians have had socialism for forty years. How does it happen that you are still living like this?' A second reason for the CFSUls apparently increasing concern with economic matters is that the party's ultimate success or failure depends upon its ability to provide a satisfactory living standard for the peoples of the USSR. The people cannot help but judge the party by the material results of its policies. The CPSU's future leadership pattern is another matter of consider- able interest and conjecture. A frequently raised question: Will the role of Khrushchev, or his successor, develop more and more toward new forms of the Stalinist "cult of personality" or will there be a reversion toward the theoretical but never realized concept of "collective leader- ship"? On the international front, signs of strain already have been noted in the CPSU's relationships with the Chinese Communist Party, although these have been smoothed over, at least outwardly, in public declarations of fraternal solidarity. The question of each individual party's right to its awn "road" in the "building of communism," however, is expected to be a continuing hazard to Soviet ideological supremacy. The CPU's running feud with the Yugoslav Communists has served to focus the atten. tion of all parties on the issue of orthodox (Soviet) vs. national com- munism. rlarlaccT rl in Part SanitizedC A sae CONCLUSIONS - 99 - In Eastern Europe, the 1956 Polish and Hungarian uprisings brought into the open a number of questions which have caused heated debates inC Communist circles, particularly within the CPSU's higher levels. The main issue here, one which is reported to have contributed to the split between Khrushchev and the "anti-party" group in 1957, appears to be basic: Can the CPSU liberalize its intra-bloc controls without running the danger of widespread disaffection or outright rebellion? In other words, can the party survive in its present form without the Stalin- like colonial disciplines of the past? Meanwhile the Soviet Communist Party is always faced with the task of implementing its historical mandate to sponsor a world revolution. Whether in the tactical guise of "peaceful coeldstence" or in the actual day-to-day leadership of Communist parties in other countries, this Leninist objective must always be at the heart of long-range party stra, tegy or the whole raison dletre of international comonlif.mk will be in danger of withering away. As primary tools in the international campaign, the various organized Communist parties have an estimated total membership of 31.6 millions, roughly 28 millions of these located in the Soviet Union, Communist China and other countries of the Sino-Soviet bloc. Internationally, Communist party representatives work both overtly and covertly through a system of espionage linkages, diplomatic, commercial and cultural missions, and front organizations such as "peace committees", women's and youth groups. Pressures of various sorts are regularly applied to trade unions and occupational entities -- teachers, lawyers, journalists, scientists, etc. Propaganda -- printed, broadcast and mord-of-mouth, is constantly employed. It should be noted that the CPSU's international strategy has tended, in recent years, to emphasize what is known as a "quest for legitimacy." This is the theory that it is more expedient, under certain conditions, for revolutionary Communist parties to play dawn the use of violence in their control efforts, seeking instead to build up their strength in national legislatures, and to prepare the ground in other ways before making their moves for power. Part of this approach, of course, is vigilance in the spotting of opportunities to divide non-Communist countries from within and to disrupt their defensive groupings. Methods of this kind might be called part of Lenin's famous "zig-zag" policy. The founder of Soviet communion once said: "The strictest loyal- ty to the ideas of commanisammst be combined with the ability to make all the necessary practical compromises, to 'tack,' to make agreements, zig- zags, retreats and so on, in order to accelerate the (party's) coming in- to power." roved for Release @ 50-Yr 2014/04/02 CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 100 - Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release @ 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 Chapter Fifteen Lenin's basie thinking an the strategy of world conquest is strongly reflected in the modern Communist line as spelled out in the famous 12? party declaration of November, 1957. This declaration, issued after a Moscow meeting of those party leaders most closely associated with the Soviet Communist bloc, makes it clear that the nonviolent or "parliamentary road to communism" is only a tactical approach for use in special situations. When resistance is encountered,. the declaration adds significantly, "the possibility of non-peaceful transition to socialism (communism) must be borne in mind." -101- HISTORICAL HIGHLIGHTS An Annotated Chronology of Key CPSU Developments From 1917 to 1959 (This chronology is restricted to matters most directly related to the 'Soviet Communist Party's structural and ideological development.) November 7, 1917 Lenin's Bolshevik Party gained control of the Russian government in a coup based on skillful organization of its minority forces, a successful campaign to neutralize military units stationed in the capital city of Petrograd (now Leningrad), and a shrewd exploitation of the chaotic con- ditions created by World War I. (The government overthrown by the Bolsheviks was a provisional multi- party aaministration elected eight months earlier, after Czar Nicholas II was deposed by the spontaneous popular uprising known as the "February" revolution. This provisional government, according to plan, was to surrender its power to a Constituent Assembly. That body, as the supreme authority in Russia, was to draft a constitution and establish a new form of government on a permanent basis. Despite its short-lived existence, the provisional or "Kerensky" government made substantial progress in the introduction of democratic reforms; it abolished all class distinctions, disbanded the Czar's secret police, proclaimed freedom of press and assembly, and took action to end discriminatory measures against national minorities.) November 8-9, 1917 In the first hours of its newly-achieved control, Lenin's party ordered the confiscation and redistribution to peasants of large Russian land holdings. Some non-Bolshevik publications were suspended, although a promise was made that freedom of the press would be restored when the new order had been con- solidated. (In later years, the party changed its early views on land rights, introducing collectivization and moving steadily toward the concept that farmers, under a system of state ownership and control, should be treated in much the same way as industrial workers. Similarly, Lenin's promise of a free press was discarded as undesirable and impractical in a Communist system.) Note: All dates in this chronology, in keeping with current practices in the Soviet Union, are based on the Gregorian calendar adopted in 1918. This advances all 1917 anniversaries by 13 days and explains why the October 25 Bolshevik revolution is now listed as having occurred on November 7. Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 -102- Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release HISTORICAL HIGHLIGHTS November 25, 1917 Russian citizens, in what was to be their first and last opportunity to cast ballots for non-regime candidates, voted four to one against the Bolsheviks in an election of delegates to the long-awaited Constituent Assembly. This parliamentary assembly, whose election had been scheduled long before the Bolshevik coup on November 7, was supposed to organize a permanent, representative type of Russian government. (Although Lenin had committed himself to a free election, he imme- diately charged "falsification by bourgeois elements" when the voting went so heavily against the Bolsheviks. "The crisis in connection with the Constituent Assembly," he asserted in what proved to be a prophetic state- ment, "can be settled only in a revolutionary way, by revolutionary measures." On January 18 and 19, 1918, Bolshevik troops dispersed the Constituent Assembly.) December 20, 1917 The Bolsheviks organized their own secret police organization, called the Cheka. This disciplinary and security force, under a succession of names, was to become a fixture in the Soviet Communist Party structure (Its creation also constituted one of the Bolsheviks' most notable early reversals of reform programs introduced by the liberal provisional govern- ment a few months before.) December 31, 1917 The Byelorussian Congress, representing the hopes for self-rule of some seven million Byelorussians, was dispersed by Bolshevik forces, al- though the Bolsheviks had previously agreed that various national groups would be granted the right to secede from Russia proper. On the same date, the Bolsheviks made one of their first moves in the direction of atheism as an official policy by legalizing a civil ceremony on a Rar with the traditional religious wedding rite. LSI 1918 The Bolshevik Party made its final break with representative government by ordering military guards to disperse the just-convened Constituent Assembly, because this body, in which the Bolsheviks were a minority, refused to accept Lenin's ultimatums. This action ended the last hopes of many Russian liberals that the totalitarian pattern of the two-month-old Lenin regime could be reversedy or at least altered to accomodate the views of non-Bolshevik political parties. February 10, 1918 The new regime repudiated all financial Obligations incurred by the previous Russian government. Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy A e ease ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02: CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 HISTORICAL HIGHLIGHTS - 103 - March 12, 1918 The Bolshevik government, because of Petrograd's exposed position amid growing opposition forces, transferred its headquarters from Petrograd to Moscow. April 22, 1918 All Soviet Union adults were made liable for compulsory military and labor service. April 25, 1918 Leaders of the All-Russian Muslim movement were arrested at Ufa as part of what later developed into a major anti-religious campaign. (On December 7, 1917, Lenin had promised that the religious customs and traditions of Islam would be respected by his regime.) June 30, 1918 The Bolsheviks decreed that strikes or any other form of work stoppage constituted treason. (A month previously it had been necessary to declare martial law in Moscow because of mounting civilian unrest. Early in July anti-Bolshevik insurrections were reported in Moscow, Petrograd, Yaroslav, and 23 other Russian cities.) July 12, 1918 Religious instruction was forbidden in Soviet schools. July 16, 1918 Bolshevik-Communist agents executed Czar Nicholas II and all members of his family in the basement of a house at Ekaterinburg (now Sverdlovsk) where they had been imprisoned for some time. August 30-31, 1918 A large-scale series of executions and other reprisals was touched off by the killing of a Cheka official named Uritsky and an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Lenin. March 2, 1919 Lenin founded the Third International, an organization designed to help spread the Communist revolutionary doctrine in other countries. November 29, 1920 Nationalization of the Soviet economy was virtually completed by the party's assumption of control powers over all enterprises employing more than 10 persons, or more than five if motor power was employed. 5 - r /04/02 . CIA-RDP8i-01nafl prinAnnninnn4 0 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 - 104 - HISTORICAL HIGHLIGHTS February 11-12, 1921 Government troops invaded the Republic of Georgia in a move which emphasized the party's plan to absorb into the RSFSR national groups which only recently had been assured of retaining their independence. March 8-16, 1921 The 10th Communist Party congress gave the Central Committee blanket authority to wipe out, by whatever means necessary, all opposition to party policies. This decree was not published until 1924. March 17, 1921 As a result of Bolshevik-Communist political and economic policies, the Kronstadt sailors (previously the backbone of the "October" Bolshevik revo- lution) revolted against the Bolshevik regime. Rebel forces held off govern- ment troops for ten days, despite heavy losses of dead and wounded. August 11, 1921 Party leaders introduced the New Economic Policy (NEP) in an effort to overcame growing difficulties with the civilian population. For a number of years, NEP provided a general relaxation of economic discipline. June 1922 Leaders of the "SR" party, a social revolutionary group which opposed Lenin's policies, were arrested. April 17-25, 1923 Stalin emerged as the most powerful figure at the 12th Party Congress, conducted without the seriously ill Lenin. December 5, 1923 Leon Trotsky openly attacked Stalin and his supporters by demanding greater democracy within the party and an end of the organization's repressive methods. January 16-18, 1924 At the 13th Party Congress, Stalin accused Trotsky and his followers of "deviating" from Lenin's conception of party unity. The Stalin faction asserted its opposition to the principle of democratic discussion. ? HISTORICAL HIGHLIGHTS January 21, 1924 -105- Lenin died after a long illness, intensifying the competition among his would-be successors. October 21-23/ 1926 Stalin ended his association with Zinoviev and Kamenev, the three having formed a ruling triumvirate during Lenin's illness. Zinoviev and Kamenev, along with Trotsky, lost their high party positions. December 2-19, 1927 The 15th Communist Party Congress found the Stalin faction in control. The Trotsky faction was banished, Trotsky himself later being exiled and ultimately assassinated. October 1, 1928 A new era of heavy emphasis on industrialization and collectivization of the USSR began with announcement of the first Soviet five-year plan. November 10-17, 1929 A conflict within the Communist Party's Central Committee ended with the expulsion of Bukharin and several sympathizers. The expelled group had . advocated a more conciliatory policy toward Russian peasants balking at Stalin's collectivization measures. 1929-32 0 This was a general period of collectivization emphasis. The party, under Stalin's leadership, moved rapidly to consolidate its political and economic controls. Heavy pressure was applied against peasants and others 0 accused of resisting Communist policies. (Stalin told Winston Churchill, years later, that 10 million people had died as a result of the forced collectivization program in the USSR.) December 1, 1934 Sergei Kirov, recognized as one of Stalin's staunchest supporters, was assassinated. August 19-24, 1936 The Stalinist purge of party leaders reached a peak of intensity with the execution of 16 veteran party officials. The victims included Gregory Zinoviev and Leon Kamenev, who with Stalin had comprised a ruling triumvirate for a period before and after Lenin's death. Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 - 106- HISTORICAL HIGHLIGHTS December 5, 1936 Adoption of the new Soviet constitution helped to consolidate the party's centralized control over Russia, the Ukraine, Byelorussia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia, Turkmenia, Uzbekistan, Tazhikstan, Kazakhstan and Kirghistan. January 23-30, 1937 The second major purge trial resulted in death sentences for 13 more veteran Communist party leaders, including the noted economist Yuri Pyatakov and former Central Committee Secretary Leonid Serebryakov. Four others, among them the Comintern secretary Karl Radek, were imprisoned and deprived of their "political rights." (On December 19, 1937, it was disclosed that eight more party leaders had been executed.) June 12, 1937 The continuing party purges struck at the highest levels of the Red Army. Marshal Tukhachevsky and seven other top generals were executed, along with undisclosed numbers of their subordinates. March 2-12, 1938 In the third major purge trial, 18 high-ranking party members were sen- tenced to death and several others were imprisoned. Those executed included veteran revolutionaries Alexei Rykov, Nikolai Bukharin, Nikolai Krestinsky, and H. G. Yagoda, the former secret police chief. The purge sentences, 1936-1938, were only a minute fraction of the victims whose numbers ran to tens of thousands at all levels of the party and military services, in addition to a vast multitude of persons in no way connected with the party or the military. Every constituent republic and autonomous area was affected. May 3, 1939 V. M. Molotov was named Commissar of Foreign Affairs. He replaced Maxim Litvinov, who was dismissed after 18 years of service. 1939-45 The events of the World War II period, notable for a general emphasis on patriotic nationalism, are not summarized in this chronology because they pertain more to national than party history. Toward the end of this period, it is true, the party's post-war plans for annexing its present satellites in Eastern Europe began to be apparent. Other significant developments of the war years included military absorption of the Baltic states and a vast program of deportation for various ethnic groups of the USSR on charges they had engaged in "treasonable" activities. A number of republics, such as the Crimean and Chechen-Ingush, were wiped out even as nominal entities in a general drive for centralized control by the Communist party apparatus. HIS HIGHLIGHTS October 6, 1947 -107- The Communist Information Bureau (Cominform) was established to regu- late the activities of Communist parties in the Soviet satellites and in other countries where Communist representatives were operating either openly or underground. December 30, 1947 Soviet control was established in Rumania as Communist representatives forced the abdication of King Michael and took over the government. February 25, 1948 A Soviet-dominated political faction took over the government in Czech- oslovakia. June 28, 1948 Yugoslavia was ousted from the Cominform because President Tito refused to accept the Soviet Communist Party's ideological domination. April 27, 1949 The Soviet Congress of Trade Unions, meeting after a lapse of 17 years, acknowledged that all labor activities in the USSR were subject to regulation and control by the Communist Party. October 5-15, 1952 The 19th Soviet Communist Party Congress, the first in thirteen years, produced a recommendation that Communist parties in other countries should associate themselves with "national" movements as a means of advancing the objectives of international communism. The party also supported plans for continued emphasis on heavy industry. March 5, 1953 Party spokesmen disclosed the death of Stalin. (Georgi Malenkov became Premier and CPSU secretary the next day. March 14, 1953 Khrushchev replaced Malenkov as CPSU secretary, marking beginning of Khrushchev's rapid rise to top leadership. June 17, 1953 Soviet party officials sent troops to break up workers' uprising in East Germany. Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release - 108 - HISTORICAL HIGHLIGHTS July 10, 1953 Lavrenti Beria, veteran Soviet secret police chief, was charged with treason. (After a campaign of denunciation in the party press, Beria was executed in December of the same year.) August 8, 1953 Premier Malenkov launched what proved to be a short-lived policy of boosting the production of consumer goods. September 7, 1953 Khrushchev was given new title, First Secretary of CPSU Central Committee. August 17, 1954 Alexander Tvardovsky was dismissed as editor of the Soviet literary monthly, Novy Mir. He was found guilty of publishing articles critical of the basic Communist cultural doctrine of "socialist realism." December 15-26, 1954 The second congress of Soviet writers was marked by criticism of the "gray flood of colorless, mediocre literature pouring from the pages of our magazines and flooding the book market." February 8, 1955 Malenkov resigned as Soviet Premier, to be replaced by N. A. Bulganin, a move reported as stemming from Nikita Khrushchev's opposition to Malenkov's "soft" line on heavy industry. On the same eventful day, V. IL Molotov made a serious ideological slip by stating in a speech before the Supreme Soviet that the Soviet Union was in a process of building socialism. This contradicted the CPSU position on the growth of communism. Later, after being subjected to sharp criticism, Molotov admitted in a public confession that he had made a "theoretically and politically dangerous" mistake. May 27, 1955 Khrushchev and Bulganin arrived in Belgrade in an effort to smooth over the party's past differences with Tito. February 24, 1956 Khrushchev, in a sensational 20th Party Congress speech, denounced Stalin as a tyrant and murderer whose "personality cult" had damaged the party's program. This speech, followed by a "de-Stalinization" campaign in the USSR, had serious repercussions throughout the international com- munist movement. It was never, however, published in the Soviet Union. 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 ?., HISTORICAL HIGHLIGHTS - 109 - June 1 1956 Former Pravda editor Dmitri Shepilov replaced V. M. Molotov as Soviet foreign minister. June 17, 1956 The Italian Communist leader Palmiro Togliatti demanded that Soviet officials explain why they had been unable to stop Stalin's excesses. Togliatti's statement reflected the widespread ideological concern which Khrushchev's February speech had created in the minds of party followers in many countries. June 30 1956 The Soviet Communist Party's Central Committee condemned the "cult of personality" which had developed under Stalin but warned against criticism of the Communist system itself. September 3, 1956 Soviet party leaders sent special instructions to Communist officials in the satellite countries, warning against adoption of viewpoints similar to Tito's "many roads" of nationalistic approach to the building of com- munism. October 19-21, 1956 In a series of warnings prompted by evidences of rebellion in Poland, Soviet Party Chief Khrushchev warned the Poles that "if you do not obey we will crush you" and Pravda accused Polish leaders of "shaking the founda- tions of Communism." (The Poles remained firm at this time. As one result, Soviet Marshal Rokossovski was ousted from his position in the Polish Politburo and removed as Polish minister of defense.) October 23 - November 4 1956 The Soviet Communist Party's right to dominate the USSR's Eastern European satellites was challenged again, this time by a spontaneous nation- wide uprising in Hungary. The Hungarian rebellion was ended by full-scale use of Soviet troops and armor in an assault beginning November 4. (This action produced world-wide criticism of the Communist party and resulted in heavy membership and prestige losses throughout the world.) January 17, 1957 Khrushchev signaled a modification of the party's line on Stalin by praising the late dictator as having been in many ways a "model Communist." Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 .11 - 110 - Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 HISTORICAL HIGHLIGHTS March 12, 1957 Soviet Communist leaders condemned the concept of "national communism" and warned satellite countries that obedience to Moscow was required. March 30, 1957 Khrushchev, in what proved to be the first of a series of moves to stimulate Soviet industrial productivity, disclosed a plan to reorganize the national economy. He proposed to overcome bureaucratic stagnation in central control ministries by establishing a substitute network of regional economic organizations. (Khrushchev's decentralization program was promptly approved by the central committee and became a key part of the party's campaign to boost productivity levels.) April 19, 1957 The Soviet regime declared a moratorium on state bonds valued at 260,000,000,000 rubles., This fund was frozen for 20 years, with complete repayment not scheduled until 1997. The bonds had been sold to citizens of the USSR through a system of "voluntary" subscriptions over a period of years. (Khrushchev had disclosed the forthcoming action on April 8.) July 3, 1957 Public announcement was made of a new purge of top-ranking party members, following reports of serious dissension within the Central Committee. Prin- cipal victims were former premiers V. M. Molotov and Georgi Malenkov, to- gether with the veteran economic expert Lazar Kaganovich and former Pravda editor and foreign minister Dmitri Shepilov. They were accused of "anti- party activities." Marshal Zhukov, reportedly as a reward for supporting Khrushchev against the party leadership, was made a full member of the Presidium. (Premier Nicolai Bulganin later was downgraded and charged with membership in the previously purged "anti-party" group.) August 28 1957 A new warning to Soviet writers, some of whom had evidenced liberal tendencies in the post-Stalin period, was sounded with publication of three Khrushchev speeches centered around the party's decision that all Soviet literature must reflect strict adherence to Communist policies. October 26, 1957 Marshal Zhukov was dismissed as Soviet defense minister. (In the anti- Zhukov propaganda campaign which followed, the former Soviet military hero was accused of having resisted the party's efforts to control the armed forces. Although not linked with the "anti-party" group, Zhukov was removed from his briefly-held Presidium post and relegated to official obscurity. The occasion also was used as a means of stressing the party's intention of tightening its ideological controls throughout the Soviet military organi- zation.) HISTORICAL HIGHLIGHTS November 14-19, 1957 Communist representatives from various countries gathered in Moscow for large-scale celebrations of the 40th anniversary of the Bolshevik revo- lution (November 7), held meetings to discuss the party's international strategy. These sessions produced a 12-party declaration (which Yugoslavia refused to sign) and a "peace manifesto," the general tenor of which was to assert the Soviet Communist Party's ideological primacy as organizer and leader of the international communist movement. March 27, 1958 Nikita Khrushchev replaced Nikolai Bulganin as premier, thus becoming the first Communist leader since Stalin to head both party and government in the USSR. (Four days later Bulganin was made chairman of the USSR's state bank.) April 22-24, 1958 Soviet ideological pressure became a major issue at the Yugoslav Com- munist Party Congress in Ljubljana. President Tito and other Yugoslav officials condemned current Moscow criticism as a "senseless" return to the policies of 1948, when Yugoslavia was ousted from the Cominform. Communist countries of the Soviet bloc, meanwhile, had boycotted the Yugoslav congress because the Yugoslav party's draft program was at variance with Soviet interpretations of Marxism-Leninism. (Early in May, the Chinese Communist Party followed up Soviet denunciations of Yugoslavia's independent policies by beginning a series of sharply-worded condemnations. The Peiping People's Daily, for example, accused the Yugoslays of revisionist actions "aimed at splitting the international Communist movement" and of persisting in their nationalist views in opposition to the Moscow party declaration of the previous November.) May 28, 1958 Yugoslav sources disclosed that the Soviet Union had postponed for five years the granting of previously agreed credits to Yugoslavia amounting to 285 million dollars. This, it was charged, was an attempt to punish Yugo- slavia for its refusal to accept the Soviet Communist Party's ideological leadership. September 5, 1958 Former Premier Bulganin, who on August 15 had been removed from his state bank position and made chairman of the remote Stavropol regional economic council, was ousted from the CPSU presidium. (On November 12, Premier Khrushchev disclosed that Bulganin had been an original member of the 1957 "anti-party" group.) Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50 Yr 2014/04/02 ? CIA-RDP81 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02: CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 - 112 - HISTORICAL HIGHLIGHTS September 21 1958 Khrushchev announced a new party plan to increase the Communist con- sciousness of Soviet young people. This proposal, endorsed by the Central Committee in November, called for less formal schooling and more work in factories and on collective farms. Too many young people, Khrushchev declared, were apathetic toward the building of communism. October 23 1958 Announcement that Boris Pasternak had been awarded the 1958 Nobel prize for literature posed a major literary policy problem for Soviet party offi- cials. Pasternak's most famous work, the novel "Dr. Zhivago," had been banned in the USSR as a worthless and malicious work which "rejected" the achieve- ments of communism. The party solved the problem by expelling Pasternak from the Soviet Writer's Union; attacking him as a slanderer and threatening him with exile. (Pasternak's resultant refusal to accept the Nobel award, how- ever, failed to diminish the wave of adverse criticism which Soviet handling of the Pasternak case created throughout the non-Communist world.) December 13, 1958 ? First Secretary Alexei Surkov of the Soviet Writer's Union, told the Russian Republic's writers' congress that because a number of writers had been "disoriented" by the Pasternak affair, closer ideological surveillance of Soviet literature would be maintained "from now on." 0 January 27 - February 5, 1959 ? The 21st Soviet Communist Party Congress endorsed Khrushchev's new seven-year plan for boosting national economic production rates, along with other decisions already adopted by the Central Committee. The Congress also featured a number of speeches denouncing members of the "anti-party" group along with confessions of complicity by Mikhail Pervukhin and M. Z. Saburov. In a final resolution, the Congress stated its agreement with disciplinary measures against the "anti-party" group already taken by the Central Committee. a - 113- GLOSSARY OF COMMUNIST TERMINOLOGY Words and expressions in Communist dialectics in general fall into one of the following categories: (1) those originating with the doctrine of Marxism-Leninism, such as "capitalism," "proletariat," etc.; (2) epithets and invectives frequently used in attacks on non- Communist elements outside the Sino-Soviet bloc, such as "imperialists" and "warmongers"; (3) words of censure or condemnation for Communist Party members TAD stray from the party line, such as "dogmatist," "revisionist," and "deviationist"; (4) words given a special meaning for propaganda purposes, unlike that in traditional dictionaries, such as "democratic," "progressive," "peaceful coexistence," and the like; (5) words referring to CP organs or functions, such as "cadres" and "activists"; (6) words relating to Communist'arts and letters, such as "formalisn" and "socialist realism"; (7) organizational terms such as "sovkhoz," "kolkhoz," "Komsomol,"; (8) words such as "hooligan," which have been given a new interpreta- tion. Sources for the glossary include: Works of Marx and Engels, including the Communist Manifesto; the writings and speeches of Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, and other CPSU leaders; Soviet reference works, including the Large Soviet Encyclopedia, Dictionary, of the Russian Language, Short Philosophical Dictionary, Political Dictionary, Diplomatic Dictionary; Soviet newspapers and periodicals, including Pravda, Bolshevik, Science and Life; Moscow radio broadcasts; proceedings of the CPSU; official decrees and laws issued by the Supreme Soviet; propaganda material distributed under the auspices of the CPSU central committee; and special booklets and brochures, such as the Agitator's Handbook. Only the key terms of communism are defined in the glossary which follows. Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 ? CIA RDP81 01043 04 ni Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release - 114- GLOSSARY (CPSU refers to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union; CP refers to any Communist Party.) ACTIVIST (activ),-- a member of a group or organization furthering CP programs. Activists may or may not be Communists but they promote Communist objectives along specific lines. Normally, the term refers to leading CP cadres. (See Cadres) AGGRESSION -- according to the Dictionary of the Russian Language, the "armed attack by one or several imperialist countries against other countries with a view to the occupation of their territories, their forcible subjugation and the exploitation of their people." In line with the distinction in Communist ideology between "just" and "unjust" wars, Communist regimes are never considered to be aggressors. (See War) AGITATOR -- in a Communist state, a CP - trained person, usually a party member, engaged in "exhorting the people" to meet production norms, support the party's policies and programs, etc. In non- Communist countries a Communist agitator may incite unrest, promote strikes for political ends, etc. An agitator deals with specific and generally local issues, while a propagandist spreads broad Communist principles and doctrines.(See Propaganda) ANTI-PARTY -- a term of opprobrium, meaning contrary to the precept of democratic centralism. (See Democratic Centralism) APPARATUS (apparat) -- the party machine or administrative core, which conliari?the operational functions of the party. It may also refer to a regional party component. The apparatchiki (CP functionaries) in general are concerned with internal party management. (See also Democratic Centralism) ATIEIST -- an unbeliever. In Communist theory, a party member must profess disbelief in a Deity, accept the "materialistic world outlook," and actively work against religious faith in the people. (See Dialectical Materialism; Religion) BOLSHEVIK -- a member of the extreme revolutionary wing of the Russian Social Democratic Party headed by Lenin, which led the Bolshevik Revolution of November 1917and in1918became the All-Russian Communist Party (bolsheviks).. BOURGEOIS -- a derogatory adjective, associated in Communist usage with "survivals" of "reactionary" sentiments under communism. Applied to non-Communist countries, "bourgeois democracy," "bourgeois nationalism," etc. are invidious terms. BOURGEOISE -- the property-owning middle class, considered to be the enemy of communism. (See Capitalism; Marxism) Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 ritvz GLOSSARY - 115- CADRES -- party members who form the basic staff or hard core of the CP at any level and in every field of party organization. They are chosen for reliability and competence in their own fields. (In Communist China, cadres are not necessarily CP members.) CAPITALISM -- the social, political and economic antithesis of communism, which was treated at length in its historical development by Marx and Engels. Technically, it is an economic system in which the ownership of land and natural wealth, and the production, distribution and exchange of goods are effected by private enterprise under competitive conditions. In Communist usage, the words "capitalism" and "capitalist" are always linked with the "exploitation of oppressed workers." (See Communism; Proletariat) CAPITALIST ENCIRCLEMENT -- a dictum set forth by Lenin and echoed by Stalin, based on the belief that capitalist states have the aim of en- circling and destroying the USSR as the center of world communism. In recent years the phrase has passed out of Soviet usage, replaced by the propaganda expression "aggressive circles" which are pictured as seeking war. (See Peace; War) CELL -- smallest organized unit of a CP; in countries where the CP is outlawed, party cells exist as undercover units. CHAUVINISM (See Nationalism; Great Power Chauvinism) COEXISTENCE -- a Communist premise current since Lenin, often repeated by Stalin and Khrushchev, usually as "peaceful coexistence," that is, rivalry between the "two camps" -- capitalism and communism -- which avoids actual hostilities. An eventual resort to war is not ruled out by Communist theorists. (See Peace; Peaceful Coexistence; War) CLASSLESS SOCIETY -- a Marxist tenet assuming that with the triumph of communism, the State will "wither away" and all class distinctions will be abolished; this has not happened under any Communist regime, but in theory would be possible after all other conditions for a Communist society had been achieved. (See Marx) CLASS STRUGGLE -- a postulate of Marxism-Leninism, which argues that in capitalist society there are two principal classes -- the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, or "exploited workers." From this situation, Communists posit a class struggle, ending in victory for the workers. (See Bourgeoisie; Dictatorship of the Proletariat) 50-Yr 2014/04/02: CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 - 116 - GLOSSARY COLLECTIVIZATION -- an agricultural system under communism, in which farmers pool their land and equipment in state-directed coopera- tives. (See Kolkhoz) COLLECTIVE LEADERSHIP -- a term referring to decisions taken by the "collective whole" (Pravda, April 16, 1953) at meetings of CP committees, especially the CPSU central committee, as against "single-handed management" (Party Life, April 1956), that is, dictatorial decisions by a CP leader. (See Cult of Personality; Democratic Centralism.) COLONIALISM -- a term with a special invidious meaning, referring to areas or countries whose people do not enjoy full sovereignty and are under some form of administration by "imperialist"powers. The hegemony exercised by the USSR over Eastern Europe is not considered colonialism by Soviet definition. (See Imperialism) COMINFORM -- an abbreviation of Communist Information Bureau (1947-1956), an organization of representatives of the Communist parties of the USSR, five satellite states, France, Italy, and Yugoslavia (expelled in 1948), to afford party line guidance to other Communist parties. There is no present counterpart of this organization, but a group of CP representatives publish the World Marxist Review in Prague, which indicates the party line that should be followed in international communism. COMINTERN -- abbreviation of Communist Third International (1919-1943), an international CP organization, established to further Communist objectives wherever possible on a worldwide basis. COMMUNISM -- originally, in Marxist-Leninist theory, a state of society pictured in the slogan: "From each according to his abilities; to each according to his need." Lenin assumed that the transi- tion from capitalism to communism would be socialism, or the "common ownership of the means of production and the distribution of the product according to the work of each." This would be the period of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" (which see). Lenin and Stalin envisaged a high productive and industrial base for the creation of a Communist society. Stalin initiated this program in a series of Five Year Plans. (See Collectivization; Five Year Plans; Norm) COMMUNIST MANIFESTO -- the public declaration of communism and its aims, issued by Marx and Engels in 1848, centered about the slogan: "Workers of the world, unite! " (See Dictatorship of the Proletariat) ? GLOSSARY -117- CORRECTIVE LABOR -- a Communist legal term, referring to sentences imposed for various crimes or misdemeanors, ranging in severity from exile or confinement in forced labor camps to penal labor in the home community. CRITICISM, SELF-CRITICISM-- an important party technique re-emphasized by the 19th CPSU Congress (1952): an obligation of party members to "develop self-criticism and criticism from below, to expose and eliminate shortcomings in work, and to fight against a show of well-being and against being carried away by success in work"; also applied to exposing the shortcomings of Marxist parties ani other workers' organizations. CULT OF PERSONALITY -- a term denoting autocratic party rule by a party head (Stalin), contrary to the principle of collective leadership. Khrushchev at the 20th Party Congress charged that Stalin en- couraged the cult of personality. (See Democratic Centralism; Collective Leadership) CULTURE, SOCIALIST -- in the generalized sense, the development of arts and sciences under communism, with a Marxist-Leninist content. The negative form, uncultured or ill-mannered (nekulturny), refers to public behavior contrary to Communist social norms. (See Formalism; Socialist Realism; Subjectivism) DEMOCRACY -- a word used in a special sense by Communists, usually with a qualifying adjective. Thus, "bourgeois democracy" refers to the parliamentary system in non-Communist states, in contrast to the "highest form" -- "Soviet democracy." A transitional form is "people's democracy," referring to the Communist-controlled regimes of Eastern Europe. The adjective "democratic" connotes adherence to, or sympathy with, the principles of Marxism-Leninism. (See also Progressive) DEMOCRATIC CENTRALISM -- a phrase coined by Lenin to describe one- party rule,centralized in a small, dedicated leadership. In theory, the controlling element, the party's central committee, is chosen through an elective process by party organizations at various levels, from lowest to highest. Decisions of the central committee are then binding on the lower bodies. (See Leninism) DEVIATIONISM -- a term meaning to stray from the straight course of the party line. In Stalin's day there were "right deviationists" or "rightists" -- party members who favored permanent political coalitions with Socialist parties, etc. -- and "left deviationists," party members who were too inflexible in their views. Today the epithet is applied principally to parties or groups that do not acknowledge the primacy of the CPSU, such as the Yugoslav Communists. (See Party Line) Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 ? CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 -1 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 - 118 - GLOSSARY DIALECTICAL MATERIALSIM -- a basic concept of Marxism-Leninism: the economic interpretation of history and social phenomena. From this comes the "materialistic worlioutlook," enjoined on Communists, which rejects ethical or spiritual causation. Dialectical materialism combines two Marxist concepts: (1) that the material world alone possesses reality; and (2) that progressive changes occur in nature and society as a result of conflicts between opposing or contradictory forces or elements. (See Marxism) DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT -- the cornerstone of the Marxist-Leninist doctrine, involving the "class struggle" between the organized workers or proletariat and the bourgeoisie. Marx pictured the proletarian dictatorship as taking place during the period of "revolutionary transformation" from capitalism to communism. (See Marxism; Leninism; Proletariat) DIVERSIONIST -- originally a saboteur, but now taken to mean an alleged agent of a foreign power or sympathizer with a non-Communist state, operating in a Communist regime; sometimes an epithet de- scribing party members who lend themselves to such activities. (See also Trotskyism) DOGMATIST -- a disparaging term for one who harbors the idea that Marxism-Leninism constitutes a body of fixed principles which supplies a ready-made solution to every problem under communism; in general, one who lacks flexibility in meeting new problems. (See also Objectivism; Party Spirit) EGALITARIANISM (EQUALITARIANISM) -- a term originally applied to the Marxist principle: "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs." For a brief period after the ? Bolshevik Revolution, Lenin tried to establish equality of wages for all kinds of work, but soon found that lack of money incentive resulted in loss of production. Stalin denounced "equalization" as a "piece of reactionary petty-bourgeois absurdity." Elimination of the Marxist concept has resulted in a wide spread between the incomes of the lowest-paid workers and Soviet elite groups. FIVE-YEAR PLANS -- a series of state planning operations conducted by the Soviet Government, starting in 1928 w hen Stalin initiated the first Five Year Plan, together with collectivization. In 1959 the Government launched a Seven Year Plan. Under state planning, each branch of state administration has specified goals which it must meet over defined time intervals. Overall responsibility for pre- paring and checking the execution of the national plan is con- centrated in the State Planning Commission or Gosplan. (See Collectivization; Norm; Socialist Emulation; Stalinism) 11 GLOSSARY - 119 - FORMALISM -- a word usually applied to cultural attitudes, meaning contrary to the party doctrine of "socialist realism." A formalist is one who is more concerned with the form of culture than its social significance, or Who practices "art for art's sake." (See Socialist Realism) In another sense, a formalist is one who fails to adjust his work and conduct to party criticism. (See Dogmatism) FRACTIONALISM -- a word defined as the "appearance of groups with special platforms and with the ambition to form in some degree a unit and establish their own group discipline" (within the party). (See Democratic Centralism) FRONT, POLITICAL -- a political coalition, including the Communist Party as an element.. Earlier fronts were generally termed "popular fronts," that is, alliances with Socialist or Labor parties; recently, the emphasis has been on "natiossal fronts," or coalitions with nationalist parties. Use of the word to mean a Communist- controlled organization, such as the World Peace Council, is not Communist terminology. GREAT POWER CHAUVINISM -- by Communist definition, the "national politics of the bourgeoisie of a dominating nation which is exploiting and oppressing other nations." The expression in general is limited to theoretical discussions. (See Bourgeoisie; Capitalism; Colonialism) HOOLIGANISM -- activities of youthful trouble-makers, who are guilty of public misbehavior ranging from rowdyism to more serious offenses. IMPERIALISM -- in Leninist theory, the final development of the capitalist system, frequently associated in the context of colonialism. (See Capitalism; Colonialism; Leninism) INTELLIGENTSIA -- the educated and professional groups or class; under communism, considered an important element of the CP -- "one of the active builders of communism" (CPSU pronouncement, March 23, 1959). INTERNATIONALISM -- in acceptable Communist usage often referred to as "proletarian internationalism," of which the Third (Communist) International (Comintern) was an early expression. Soviet News stated in 1950: "An internationalist is not one who verbally recognizes international solidarity or sympathizes with it. A real internationalist is one who brings his sympathy and recogni- tion up to the point of practical and maximum help to the USSR and support and defense of the USSR by every means and in every possible form." This definition rules out the Socialist interna- tional, which is not committed to support and defend the USSR. (See Comintern; Proletarian Internationalism) Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 - 120- Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 GLOSSARY KOLKHOZ -- Russian language abbreviation for collective farm, a "self- governing" peasant cooperative, in which the land technically belongs to the state but its use is reserved to the collec- tive farm members. Collective farm workers are required to give a large proportion of work-day labor on the communal land, usually 100 to 150 work-days annually. Farm women are usually required to work less than men (100 to 150 work days) and men may - put in as much as 300 work days. (See Work-Day) Most equipment ? used by the collective is communally owned, but kolkhoz members have small private plots which they work with manual tools. Produce from the individual plots may be sold on the free market, Collective farm products are purchased by agencies of the state. Since 1957, collective farms have been acquiring power machinery from the machine tractor stations (MTS), which formerly per- formed machine operations on a contract basis. KOMSOMOL -- Russian language abbreviation for the Young Communist League, an organization of about 20 million members which indoctrinates young people in the theory and practice of communism. Komsomol methbers also perform various other services furthering CP programs and policies. KULAK (lit. "fist") -- a term of abuse current during the collectivization drive of 1929-1934, referring to well-to-do peasants, especially those who hired day labor. Later, the term referred to any peasants who opposed Soviet agricultural policies. (See Collec- tivization) LENINISM -- generally used as Marxism-Leninism, the "one and only ideology of the USSR" (Pravda, April 22, 1951). Lenin adapted and ex- panded the theories of Marx and Engels, giving them practical application based on the October Revolution. He also developed the principle of the Communist Party as a "militant staff of the working class" in its "vanguard role." He initiated single- party (Bolshevik) control of the government in the guise of "democratic centralism." In the realm of dialectics, Lenin projected Marx's theoretical analysis of capitalism to its modern or "imperialist" phase, which he considered to be the final stage of capitalism. (See Capitalism; Communism; Democratic Centralism; Imperialism; October Revolution; Vanguard) LIBERALISM -- a word with an invidious or acceptable meaning, depend- ing on the context. As an element in "bourgeois morality," Communists disparage liberalism, but not if it is linked with pro-Communist groups or movements; thus, "progressives, liberals, and Communists" (cf. Cominform Journal, June 1951). (See Democracy; Progressive) ??? Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? GLOSSARY - 121 - LIBERATION -- a word in frequent Communist use, denoting the liberation of colonial peoples from "imperialist" rule, or the liberation of peoples such as those in Eastern Europe, from capitalism. A common expression is the "liberation of the countries of the people's democracy from fascist oppression." (See People's Democracy) MARXISM -- the revolutionary socialism of Marx and Engels, which was given concrete illustration in the Communist Manifesto. The basic con- cepts of Marxism include the class struggle; the materialistic interpretation of history and social phenomena; and the analysis of capitalism as exploitation of the workers. (See Bourgeoisie; Class Struggle; Communism; Communist Manifesto; Dialectical Materialism; Dictatorship of the Proletariat; Workers) MASSES -- the great body of the people; the working people as dis- tinguished from the organized workers or proletariat. (See Proletariat) MORALITY -- in Communist usage, a word with two specific meanings, i.e., in reference to "bourgeois morality" or ethics derived from religious beliefs, and "Communist morality," based on Marxism- Leninism. The Short Philosophical Dictionary states: "From the point of view of Communist morality, 'moral' is only that which facilitates the destruction of the old world and strengthens the the new Communist regime." NATIONALISM -- a concept having various meanings in Communist usage. Thus "bourgeois nationalism" is the self-determination of a bourgeois state, which may be supported by the USSR if it furthers Soviet foreign policy or weakens the capitalist world. In recent years, national movements in the less-developed countries have been supported by the Soviet Government as a means of opposing or thwarting "imperialists." On the other hand, "national socialise or an independent form of communism, within the USSR or in the satellite states, is considered inadmissable. (See Deviationism) NORM -- the quota of individual output or work performance required as a minimum in a given period of time, tied in with wage levels calculated on the basis of norms. Failure to fulfill the designated norm results in pay deductions. (See Socialist Emulation; Stakhanovite) 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release if- - 122 - GLOSSARY NEUTRALISM -- a word with various shades of meaning in Soviet theory and usage, not identical with "neutrality," which is a situation of fact. The Large Soviet Encyclopedia refers to neutralism in trade unions as "an opportunist theory towards the political struggle of the proletariat, widely spread in capitalist countries by reactionary leaders." Strictly speaking, Marxism-Leninism, asserting the dogma of the "two worlds" (capitalism and socialism), excludes neutralism in international relations. In practice, however, Soviet policy is to favor neutralism in some uncommitted countries in the belief that these may be open to Communist influence. (See Imperialism; War) OBJECTIVISM -- according to the Short Philosophical Dictionary: explanations of the necessity and laws of the historical process which justify and praise the capitalist system and conceal bourgeois views with a pretended 'theoretical absence of party spirit (partiinost)." Objectivism, if charged against Communist historians, philosophers, etc., is a serious accusation. (See Bourgeois; Dialectical Materialism; Party Spirit) OCTOBER REVOLUTION -- the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks, headed by Lenin, on November 7, 1917. The difference in date is due to the fact that in Russia the Old Style calendar was in use until the Gregorian calendar was adopted by the Soviet Government in 1918. (See Bolsheviks) OPPORTUNISM -- a charge leveled against moderate Socialists, non-Communist trade unions, and political parties favoring "reformism," or the acceptance of social advances short of Communist revolutionary goals. PARTY LINE -- the official CP policy or pronouncement an any subject at any given time, which is binding on all party members. (See Democratic Centralism) "Any PARTY SPIRIT (partiinost) -- usually applied in cultural fields, as an "inalienable condition of socialist realism...Its realization in practice is the expression of the interests of the toiling masses." (Large Soviet Encyclopedia). Party-mindedness in the arts and literature reflects CP attitudes toward all cultural and creative activities. (See Socialist Realism) PEACE -- a word usually linked in Communist propaganda with the objectives of the Soviet bloc -- the "peace camp" -- as against those of the "imperialists." The peace theme is the stock-in-trade of Communist front organizations, such as the World Peace Council. (See Front; War) ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 o GLOSSARY - 123 - PEACEFUL COEXISTENCE -- an international situation postulated in Communist theory as the continuing existence, without armed conflict, of the two "camps" -- communism and capital- ism. However, the idea of temporary peaceful coexistence of the two systems is stressed as a tactic. At no time do Communists publicly state that permanent coexistence is possible or likely; on the contrary, they maintain that peaceful coexistence is only a provisional truce in the "inevitable conflict" between the two systems, according to the dictum of Lenin, in which the triumph of communism is inevitable. Thus the tactical endorsement by Communists of the principle of peaceful coexistence goes hand in hand with the Leninist assumption that lasting peace will come about only when the entire world has fallen under communism. (See Coexistence;Peace; War) PEOPLE'S DEMOCRACY -- a term attributed to Stalin to describe the Communist-controlled regimes of Eastern Europe. In Soviet theory, a people's democracy is an intermediate form of government between parliamentary "bourgeois democracy" and "Soviet democracy," which is considered the highest form of workers' government. (See Bourgeoisie) PETTY BOURGEOISIE -- the lower middle class, viewed by Communists in some underdeveloped countries as a possible ally in national fronts against conservative parties and groups. POLITBURO -- originally the political bureau of the CPSU central committee. In 1952 the designation was changed to presidium. Many Communist parties outside the USSR retain the name politburo. POPULAR -- a laudatory term, meaning communistic or deserving of Com- munist support; applied to group movements, political aims, or regimes. (See Democracy; Progressive) PROGRESSIVE -- like the word "democratic," associated with pro-Commu- nist groups or movements. It has a special meaning in con- nection with norms. A "progressive norm" is a unit of pro- duction within a given period of time, achieved by "advanced workers" or "innovators" who set the pace for the average workers. (See Norm; Socialist Emulation) Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 GLOSSARY - 124 - PROLETARIAN INTERNATIONALSIM -- before the Bolshevik Revolutiontsig- nified the international solidarity of workers, aimed at the overthrow of capitalism; after the Revolution, proletarian internationalism in addition called for the suIport of the Soviet State by the world labor movement and support of the world labor movement by the "toilers of the USSR." (See Dictatordhip of the Proletariat) PROLETARIAT -- defined by Marx and Engels as the class of workers brought into existence under the capitalist systeF, whose members do. not own property or the means of production. They are pictured as a class to be organized and led by the CP for Communist political purposes. (See Bourgeoisie; Capital- ism; Dictatorship of the Proletariat; Marxism) PROPAGANDA -- In Communist usage, the word has wide theoretical and functional application, including (1) the systematic indoctri- nation of the people under communism in Marxism-Leninism; (2) the use of all media of communication, education, and culture for the same purpose; (3) support of numerous agencies and organizations in and outside of the USSR for spreading Commu- nist principles and attacking capitalist countries. Communist front organizations are a common medium serving the last-named objectives. A propagandist, according to the Political pismaagi, engages in the "intensive elucidation of the writings of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, and of the history of the Bolshevik party and its tasks." PURGE -- a word adapted from the idiom of fascism and Nazism, not a part of Communist terminology but, in practice, the elimination or liquidation of opposition elements within the party or state. (See Democratic Centralism; ?arty Line) REACTIONARY -- a term with a wide range of derogatory meanings; thus, "bourgeois reactionaries" are opposed by "progressive, demo- cratic" forces. (See Bourgeois; Deviationism; Diversionist; Progressive) REALISM (See Socialist Realism) RELIGION -- according to Marx, the "opiate of the people." Since religious faith denies the Marxist materialistic interpreta- tion of history, Communists consider religion an inveterate enemy of communism. Members of the CP are required to sub- scribe to atheism and to further atheistic indoctrination of people living under communism. (See Atheism; Marxism) GLOSSARY - 125- REFORMISM (See Opportunism) REVISIONISM -- as used by the CPSU, the term refers to an ideological and political movement among the Socialist, Marxists, and Communists, seeking to revise certain dogmatic teachings of Marx, which were later expounded by Lenin and Stalin as immutable "laws," to be followed unflinchingly by all Communists and their sympathizers inside and outside the Communist orbit. Applied to Communist culture, it is a critical word, stigmatizing CP dissidents who do not follow the CPSU interpretation of Leninist cultural doc- trine, especially as regards socialist realism. (See Socialist Realism.) REVOLUTIONARY -- in Soviet usage refers to one who "without arguments, unconditionally., openly and honestly without secret military consultations, is ready to protect and defend the USSR, since the USSR is the first proletarian revolutionary State in the world that is building socialism." (Stalin, Collected Works) (See Stalinism; Trotskyism) SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM (See Communism) SECTARIANISM -- refers to evangelical Christian sects in the USSR as distinguished from the Orthodox Church. In Science and Life, 1950, V. G. Sokolov called for a "systematic ideological struggle against the anti-scientific reactionary ideology of sectarianism." While the Soviet Government tolerates the Orthodox Church, the CPSU campaigns actively against sectarian denominations. (See Religion) The term also applies to other forms of deviationism in the Communist movement. SELF-CRITICISM (See Criticism, Self-Criticism) SOCIALIST EMULATION -- a term used in connection with increasing pro- ductivity, usually in industrial plants; also, a movement to encourage rank-and-file workers to raise individuals output by competition with pace-setters called "innovators" or "advanced workers." The same principle is invoked in "socialist competition" -- competition between "work brigades" in the same plant, or between plants producing similar goods, to see which reaches production targets first, or exceeds production quotas. (See Five Year Plans; Norm; Stakhanovite) SOCIALIST REALISM -- defined in the Large Soviet Encyclopedia as a "means of reflecting life in art peculiar to socialist society. It demands the true portrayal of reality in its revolutionary development. The problem of literature is the truthful and profound delineation of a new people, creators of socialist society, and of their fight for communism." An article in Bolshevik, May 15, 1948, stated that "socialist realism Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 - 126.- Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? 50-Yr 2014/04/02: CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8 GLOSSARY establishes as the basis of artistic creations not the subjective, arbitrary ideas of the writer, but his detection of objective reality." In practice, this concept has resulted in a vast output of mediocre works. (See Culture, Socialist; Formalism; Subjectiv- ism) SOVKHOZ -- a farm, usually of large dimensions, operated as state enter- prise, where the farm workers are paid in cash on a work-day basis and do not share collectively in profits. (See Kolkhoz; Work-Day) SOVIET -- Russian language word for council. In the USSR there are soviets at all levels, from villages to cities. The Supreme Soviet of the USSR is an elective body which in theory legislates for the Soviet Union. (See Democratic Centralism) STAKHANOVITE -- from the Donbas miner Stakhanov, who in the period of the early five-year plans produced above-average quantities of coal and taught other miners his method. Pace-setters in industrial plants were known by his name until the speed-up system fell into temporary disrepute; they are now called "innovators" or "advanced workers." (See Norm; Socialist Emulation) STALINISM -- CPSU policies and practices associated with J. V. Stalin. Two leading principles of the party which Stalin initiated were (1) "socialism in one country," that is, establishing communism in the USSR without relying on a world revolution; (2) the nationalities policy, whereby nationality groups composing major population elements in union republics, especially the non-Russian republics, form states that are "national in form, socialist in content." Following Khrushchev's speech at the 20th Party Congress in 1956, Stalinism became a term of re- proach. (See Cult of Personality; Nationalism; Trotskyism) SUBJECTIVISM -- personal views or writings which conflict with the Marxist-Leninist doctrine that the material world exists in all its aspects as "objective reality." (See Socialist Realism) TROTSKYISM -- commonly used as a term of abuse, derived originally from the divergent theories of Stalin and Trotsky, the latter arguing that world revolution should be promoted as an aid to establishing communism in the USSR. Trotsky insisted that a "permanent revolution" was a prerequisite to the establishment of a Communist regime, and that this was a necessary condition for building socialism in the Soviet Union. He also advocated wide discussion within the party on measures proposed by the top leadership. Trotskyism in general connotes Communist heresy, or refusal to accept the primacy of the CPSU in international communism. (See Deviationist; Party Line; Stalinism) Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release ? J GLOSSARY - 127 - VANGUARD -- used generally in the phrase "vanguard role," meaning the assumption of leadership by the Communist Party in guiding revolutionary workers toward communism and, where communism has been established, determining the structure and policies of the "workers' state." (See Democratic Centralism; Lenin- ism; Proletariat) WAR, COMMUNIST THEORY OF -- according to the Soviet Diplomatic Dic- tionary: "Lenin recognized two kinds of war, imperialist TiaTiTind therefore unjust, and wars of liberation, and therefore just." The Marxist-Leninist view that "imperial- ist" states are by nature aggressors and a Communist State, by definition, is peace-loving, does not exclude the possibil- ity of a "preventive war" by a Communist regime. The epithet "warmongers" refers to the dogma that "capitalist ruling circles" are always plotting to attack Communist States. (See Aggression; Capitalist Encirclement; Imperialism; Liberation; Peace) WORK-DAY -- a unit of time-production, used as a measure of wages generally on collective or state farms. It does not cor- respond to a working day, as commonly understood. Under some conditions, such as harvesting, a worker can put in more work-days than there are days in the week. (See Norm; Socialist Emulation) WORKERS, OR WORKING MASSES -- in Marxist-Leninist doctrine, the broad mass of toilers, from which emerges the "working class" organized in unions and politically conscious. The CP is considered the "vanguard of the working class," entitled to leadership because of its scientific knowledge of social and economic principles, and its ability to organize and establish a socialist society. (See Dictatorship of the Proletariat; Marxism; Vanguard) 50-Yr 2014/04/02 : CIA-RDP81-01043R004000130001-8