COMMENT ON KHRUSHCHEV'S DENUNCIATION OF STALIN AND SUBSEQUENT STATEMENTS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78-02771R000200380003-3
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 164
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 6, 1998
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: July 3, 1956
• Content Type: NSPR

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COMMENT ON KHRUSKBEVIS DENUNCIATION OF STALIN
AND SUBSEQUENT .STATEMENTS
Third Report
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US STI.
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LY. Times
JUN 10 1956
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USSR
New York Times
July 3 1956
. Texj ?of . the' Soviet, Cothmunist Party:
, ,
Arinouncerneht_ o....n:_the_ Anti-Sta1in-7 Cam paign1
......__._,
The following is the tom plate the tasks set by the Twentieth tion of the working class and
text of the resolution by theCongress. its party from the major roes, - Of late the bourgeois press--
Centrat Committee of the oviet
The period which Ms elapsed Cons advanced by the Twen- ', bas launched an extensive elan-
S
Communist party, as, distributed since the congress has at the .! tieth Congress of the party derous anti-Soviet campaign,
by The United Press. Most of same time revealed the great ? which are clearing the way to , which the reactionary circles
living force of ES decisions for further successes of the cause
the . text appeared. in into eiii- are trying* to base on certain
the international Communist - of peace, socialism and unity of facts connected with the con-
fleas of Tho New York Times and workers movement, and the working class. The heel- damnation by the Soviet Corn-
yesterday but transmission from for the struggle of all progres- 1 aions of the twentieth party rnunist party of the personality
London was still incomplete sive forces for the strengthen- , congress, the domestic and for- cult of J. V. Stalin. The pro-
when the final editioii. went to ing of universal peace. 'repot*. I eign policy Of the Soviet Gov- meters of this campaign are
Fess, tent fundamental theoretical ernment, have caused confu- making every effort to confuse
theses on. peaceful coexistence Mon in the imperialist quarters the issue and conceal the fact
' of states with different social of the United States and other that the question at issue Is a
i systems, ' on the possibility of states. past stage in the life of the
! preventing wars during the The courageous and .consist- Soviet country. They also want
present era, and on tile various - ent foreign policy of the to pass over in silence and to
forms of transition of countries U S. 5, R. in insuring peace distort the fact that the Corn-
,
' to socialism, set .forth by the and cooperation between states, munist party of the Soviet Un-
Congress, are having a benefA. irrespective of their social or-
ion and the Soviet Gevernment
cial influence on the interne- ' der, finds support among the during the years since Stalili'a
tional situation, ave promoting brolide.st people's masses in all .death have; with exceptional
the easing of tension and the countries of the world, is pergistence and determination
, strengthening of the unity of ,widening the front of peace- been liquidating the conse-
action of all forces struggling loving states, and is causing a quences of the personality cult
for peace and democracy, for deep crisis of the "cold-war" and are successfully implement-
a further consolidation of the policy, the policy of setting up dug the new tasks in the in-
positions of the world system military blocs and the arms :Wrest of strengthening peace,
of socialism. ' ?building communism, in the in-
While among the Soviet Pea; drIitve,
i
s not fortuitous that the terest of the broad people's
pie, among the working people loudest hue and cry around th3 masses,
in the people's democracies
and throughout the world, the ;struggle against the personality Launching a slanderous cam-
cult in the U. S. SAL has been Paign, ,the ideologists of the
historic decisiona of the Twen-
tieth ' Congress have caused raised by, United States ' ha- bourgeoisie'are again, though
perialist circles, The presence unsuccessfully, endeavoring to
great enthusiasm and a now of negative phenomena, con- east a; shadow on the great
upsurge of creative initiative nected with the personality ideas of Marxism-Leninism, to
and revolutionary energy, in cult, suited their book, so that undermine the trust of the
the camp of the enemies of the I by exploiting these facts, they working people in the first So-
working class they have given could struggle against social- cialist country in the world,
rise to alarm and-rancour, Re- I ism. Now that our party is the U. S. S. It., and to sow
actionary quarters of the Unit- I courageously overcoming the confusion in the ranks of the
ed ,States and several other I consequences of the personality international Communist and
capitalist countriss are clearly J cult, ?the imperialists see in it workers movement.
perturbed by the great pro- I a factor which is accelerating The experience of history
gram of struggle for strength- i the progress of our country to teaches that the enemies of
ening peace mapped out by tile communism, - and which is
international proletarian unity
Twentieth Congress. Their anx- weakening
the positions of
have in the past repeatedly
iety grows as this program is Capitalism,
being. activelyand consistently tried to Make use of what they
Endeavoring to -weaken the thought were favorable mo-
put into effe t. . great attracting forces of the rnents for undermining the in-
Anti-Red Attacks Noted decisions of the Twentieth Con- ternational amity of the Ceee.
- grass and their effect upon the rnunist and worker parties, for
Why is it that the enemies of
communism and socialism are broadest people's masses, the splitting the international work-
:
concentrating their attacks on ideologists of capitalism are re- log movement and foCweaking
,
the shortcomings about which
sorting to all sorts of tricks the forces of the Socialist
.
and devices to distract the at- camp, but every time the Com-
party spoke at the Twentieth
the Central Committee of our . tention of the working people ! muniet and Workers parties
;
Congress? They are doing so
from the advanced and inspir- discerned the maneuvers of the
1
In order to distract tile eaten- Ing ideas posed before man- ? enemies of socialism, closed
kind by the paciali4 world. ; , their ranks still closer, demon-
.
The Central Committee of the
Communist party of the Soviet
Union notes with tiatisfactiOn ?
that the decisions of the his-
tone Twentieth Congress of the
Communist party of the Soviet
Union have met with full ap-
proval and ardent support by
the whole of our party, the
whole of the Soviet people, fra-
ternal Communist and Workers
parties, the working people of
the great commonwealth of So-
cialist countries, by millions of
people in capitalist and colo-
nial countries,
And this is understandable,
since the twentieth party con-
gress, which Marks a new stage
In the creative development of
Marxism-Leninism, has given a
thorough analysis of the pres-
ent international and internal
situation, has armed the Com-
munist party and the whole of
the Soviet people with a
majestic plan for the further
struggle of building of commu-
nism, has opened new pros-
pects 'for joint actions of all
-
parties of the working class for
eliminating the threat of an-
other war, and for the interests
of the working people,
implementing the decisions of
the Twentieth Congress, the
So-
viet people, under the leader-
ship of the Communist party,
are attaining new anciontstatid-
s ing successes in all spheres of
political, economic and cul-
tural life of the country. - The
Soviet people have rallied still
closer around the Communist ?
party and are displaying high -
creative activity In tile strug-
gle for the implementation of :
1
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strafing their indestructible po-
litical unity and unswerving
loyalty to the ideas of Marx-
ism-Leninism,
Bed Errors Conceded
The fraternal Communist and
Worker parties also discerned
this maneuver of the enemies
? of socialism in time and are
giving it the rebuff it deserves.
x.At the same time it would be
wrong to close one's eyes to
the fact that certain of our
friends abroad have not got to
-the bottom of the question of
. the personality cult and its
consequences and are toler-
ating at times a wrong in-
terpretation of certain of its
aspects.
In its criticism of the person-
ality cult the party proceeds
from the principles of Marx-
ism-Leninism, Already for more
than three years our party has
been waging a consistent
struggle against the person-
ality cult of J. V. Stalin, firmly
overcoming its evil conse-
quences.
Naturally, this question occu-
pied an important place in the
work of the Twentieth Con-
gress and its decisions. The
congress noted that the Cen-
tral Committee, quite rightly
and timely, came out against
the personality cult, the spread
of which belittled the role of
? the party and the popular
masses, lowered the role of col-
lective leadership in the party
and frequently brought about
grave omissions In work and
gross violations of socialist
laws. The congress empowered
the Central Committee to carry
out consistent measures to en-
sure the complete elimination
of the personality cult, so alien
to Marxism-Leninism; to ligtii-
date its ConsequencesIn all
spheres of party, state 'and
ideological work, and to imple-
ment strictly the norms of
party life and the principles of
the collectivity of party leader-
ship laid down by the great
Lenin.
In the struggle against the
cult of personality the party
leadership is guided by the
]i flown tenet of Marxism-Len-
inism on the roles of the popu-
lar masses, party and indi-
vidual personalities in history,
on the inadmissibility of the
personality cult of a political
leader, however great his
merits.
The founder of scientific corn-
11114111S111, Karl Marx, stressing
his dislike of "any personality
cult," used to say that he and
Friedrich Engels joined the
League of Communists ''on con-
dition that everything contrib-
uting to the superalitious wor-
ship of authorities be thrown
out of the Charter."
in founding oup Communist
party, Vi, Lenin fought mr-
remittingly against the anti-
Marxist conception of the
"hero" aod the "crowd" and
resolutely condemned the prac-
tice of setting the individual
hero over the popular masses.
"The wisdom of tens of mil-
lions of creators," V. I. Lenin
used to say, "creates some-
thing immeasurably higher than
the greatest foresight of
genius."
? Cult Found Obstacle
In putting forward the ques-
tion of the struggle against the
personality cult of J. V. Stalin,
the Central Committee proceed-
ed from the fact that the per-
sonality cult contradicts the
nature of Socialist order and
became an obstacle on the way
to the development of Soviet
democracy and the advance-
ment of the Socialist society to-
ward communism.
The twentieth party congress,
on the initiative of the Central
Committee, ,deemed it neces-
sary to 'speak out courageously
and frankly abstit the grave
consequences of the personality
cult and the serious errors tol-
erated during the latter period
of Stalin's life, and to call upon
the entire party to make a
joint effort to put an end to
everything the personality cult
entailed. At the same time the
Central Committee was fully
aware that the frank admission
of errors tolerated would be
linked to certain shortcomings
and losses which might be ex-
ploited by enemies. The coura-
geous self-criticism in the ques-
tion of the personality cult was
a now and brilliant proof of the
force and strength of our party
and of the Soviet Socialist
regime, One can say with as-
surance that not a single one
of time ruling parties of the
capitalist countries would ever
have risked taking a similar
step. On the contrary, they
would have tried to conceal
'such unpleasant facts front the
people and pass over in silence
such unpleasant facts.
But the Soviet Communist
party, brought up on the revo-
lutionary principles of Marx-
ism-Leninism, told the whole
truth, no matter how bitter.
Tho party resolved to take' this
step exclusively on its own
initiative, being guided by the
consideration that if the stand '
taken against the cult of Stalin
caused some temporary dif-
ficulties, it would still, from
the point of view of the vital
interests and' ultimate aims of
the working class, have a vast
positive result. This creates
firm guarantees that in the fit-
-fit?re phenomena similar to the
personality cult can never ap-
pear in our party and our coun-
try and that in the future the
leadership of the party and the
, country will be carried out col-
lectively on the basis of a
1 Marxist -Leronist policy and
wide inner party democracy,
with the active creative partic-
ipation of millions of workers.
Having taken a resolute stand
against the personality cult and
its consequences, having open-
ly subjected to criticism the
' mistakes to which it gave rise,
the party has demonstrated
once more its devotion to the
immortal principles of Marx-
ism-Leninism and the interests
of the people, its solicitude for
creating the best conditions for
the development of the party
and Soviet democracy in the
interests of successful Commu-
nist construction in our coun-
? try.
The Central Committee notes
that the discussion in party
organizations and at general
meetings of workers of the
question of the personality cult
and its consequences took place
amid great activity of party
members and nonparty men,
that the Central Committee
line found full approval and
support among the party and
people.
The publicizing by the party
of the facts of the violation of
Socialist law and other errors
connected with the personality
cult of J, V. Stalin naturally
cause feelings of bitterness and
profound regret. But the Soviet
people understand that the eon-
domination of the personality
cult was necessary in tile inter-
ests of the construction of com-
munism, whose active partic-
ipants they are. The Soviet
people sees that the party has
In recent years insistently car-
sled out practical measures
aimed at removing the con-
sequences of the personality
cult in all spheres of party,
state, economic and cultural
construction. As a result of this
work the Party, whose internal
forces are no longer fettered,
has come still closer to the
people and is now in a state of
unprecedented creative activ-
ity.
II
How could the personality
cult of Stalin, with all its nega-
tive consequences, arise and
acquire such currency under
the conditions of a Soviet So-
cialist regime?
When examining this question
, one must bear in mind both the
objective and concrete condi-
tions in which the building of
socialism in the U. S. 8.1R.
took place, as well as some
subjective factors connected
with the personal quantities of
Stalin.
The October Socialist Revo-
1 lution entered history as a clas !
sic eexa.mple or the revolution- ,
soar transformation of capital- ?
ist society, carried out under .
the leadership of the working '
class. By the example of the
heroic struggle of the Bolshe-
vik party, the first Socialist
state in the world, Communist
parties in other countries and
all progressive and democratic+
forces are learning the experi-
ence of solving the vital social
1--questions arising from present-
day social development.
,? In the course of almost forty
' years, the building of a Social-
ist society of workers of our
country, vast experience has
1 been accumulated which is be-
. hag creatively studied and ?as-
, similated by workers of other
Socialist states, in accordance
: with their concrete conditions,
' This was the first experience
I. in history of building a Social-
ist society which was formed
i in the process, the test in prac-
tice of many truths thitherto
' only known to Socialists in
general outline and theory. For
more than a quarter of a cen-
tury, the Soviet land was the
only country which paved for
mankind the way to socialism.
It was like a besieged fortress
situated in a capitalist encircle-
ment, After the abortive inter-
vention of fourteen states in
19181922, the enemies of the
Soviet country In the West
,
and East continued to prepare
new "crusades" against the
It, S. S. It,
Enemies sent Into the
U.. S. S. H. a large number
of spies and divereionists who
tried in every way to under-
mine the first Socialist state in
the world. The threat of a new
imperialist aggression against
the U. S. S. H. became partic-
ularly 'intense after the advent
to power of fascism in Ger-
many in 1933, which proclaimed
as its ain't the destruction of
conummism, the destruction of
the Soviet Union, ? the first
weakers' state in the world. Ev-
eryone remembers the forma-
tion of the so-called anti-Com-
inthrn pact and the 'Berlin-
Rome-Tokyo axis, which were
actively supported by the forces
of all international reaction. In
an atmosphere of a growing
threat of war, the rejection by
the Western powers of the
measures to curb :faecism and
organize collective security re-
peatedly proposed by the So-
viet Union, the sta to was com-
pelled to strain every nerve to
strengthen defeeisie and strug-
gle against the intrigues of the
harmful 'capitalist encircle- ,
ment. The party had to train
the whole people in a Rpiiit of
constant vigilance and readi-
ness in the face of foreign
enemies, .
Early Struggle :Related
Tile intrigues of international
reaction were all the snore dan-
gerous because for a long time
an 'embittered class struggle
had been going in the country
and the question of who would
gain the upper hand was being
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decided. After the death of
Lenin, hostile trends became
active in the party, Trotskyites,
right-wing opportunists and
bourgeois nationalists whose
position was a rejection of
Lenin's theory on the posaibil-
ity of the victory of Socialism
In one country.
This would actually have led
to the restoration of capitalism
in the U.S.S.R. The party un-
leashed a merciless struggle
against these enemies of Lenin-
ism.
Fulfilling Lenin's behests, the
Communist party set a course
towards the Socialist industrial-
ization of the .country, the col-
lectivization of agriculture and
the realization of a cultural
revolution.
In the course of solving these
majestic tasks of building a
Socialist society in one sepa-
rate country, the Soviet people
and the Communist party had
to overcome unimaginable dif-
ficulties and obstacles. In the
shortest space of time, our
country, without any economic
help whatsoever from abroad,
had to liquidate ,its centuries-
old backwardness and reshape
the entire national economy on
new Socialist foundations.
This complicated national and?
international situation demand-
ed iron discipline, evergrowing
vigilance and a most strict
centralization of leadership
which inevitably had a negative
effect on the development of
certain democratic features.
In the course of a fierce
struggle against the whple
world of imperialism, our
country had to submit to cer-
tain rentrictions of democracy,
justified by the logic of the
etruggle of our people for so-
cialism in circumstances of
capitalist encirclement. But
these restrictions, were already
at that time regarded by the
party and people as temporary,
subject to removal as the So-
viet state grew stronger and
the forces of democracy and
:socialism developed throughout
the world, The people de-
liberately accepted these tem-
porary sacrifices in view of
the ever-new successes daily
achieved by the Soviet social
order.
All these difficulties on the
path of building socialism were
overcome by the Soviet people
under the leadership of the
Communist party and its
Central Committee, which:con-
sistently carried out Lenin's
general line.
? The victory socialism in
our country in conditions of
enemy encirclement and a con-
stant threat of attack from out-
side was a world-historic deed
pn the part of the Soviet peo-
ple, Miring the first five-year
plans, as a result of intense
and heroic efforts by the people
and party, our economically
backward country made a
gigantic leap in its economic
and. cultural development. On
the basis of the successes in
Socialist construction the living
standards of the workers were
raised and unemployment was
liquidated for good, The pro-
foundest cultural revolution
took place in the country.
In a short space of time the
Soviet people reared numerous
cadres of a technical intelli-
gentsia, which took its place on
the level of world technical
progress and put Soviet science
and technology among the first
in the world. The inspirer and
organizer of these victories was
the great party of Communists.
On the example of the U.S.S.R.,
workers and peasants who had
taken power into their own
hands could successfully build
and ? develop their Socialist
state without capitalists and
land-owners, expressing alsd
defending the interests of wide
people's masses. All this played
a great inspiring role in the
growth and influence of Com-
munist and Workers parties in
all countries of the world.
`Devoted to Marxlsrn-Leninism'
Holding the position of Gen-
eral Secretary, of the Central
Comnaittee of the party for o.
lengthy period, S. V. Stalin,
together with other leaders,
actively struggled for the reali-
zation of Lenin's behests. He
was devoted to Marxism-Lenin-
ism, and as a theoretician and
good organizer headed the
struggle of the party against
the Trotskyites, right-wing op-
portunists and bourgeois na-
tionalists and against the in-
trigues of capitalist encircle-
ment.
In this political and ideologi-
cal struggle Stalin acquired
great authority and popularity.
However, all our great victo-
ries began to be incorrectly
connected with his Larne. The
successes attained Ly the Com-
munist party and the Soviet
country and the adulation of ;
Stalin went to his head. In I
this atmosphere the cult of Sta-
lin's personality began gradu-
ally to take shape.
The development of the per-
sonality. cult was to an enor-
mous extent contributed to by
some individual traits of J. V. ?
Stalin, whose negative char-
acter was already pointed out
by V. I. Lenin. At the end of
1022 Lenin sent a letter to the
current party congress, in
which he said:
"Comrade Stalin, by becom-
ing General Secretary, has con-
centrated vast power in his
hands. I am not certain that
he will always be able to use
this power sufficiently careful-
In a postscript to this letter
written at the beginning of
January, 1923, V. I. Lenin
reverted to the question of
some personal traits of Stalin
Intolerable in a leader.
"Stalin is too rude," wrote
Lenin, "and this shortcoming
which is quite tolerable in our
midst and among us Commu-
nists, becomes intolerable in the
office of the General Secretary.
I therefore invite the comrades
to think of a way of removing
Stalin from this post and ap-
pointing to the post another
person who in all other respects
differs from Comrade Stalin?
to wit, is more tolerant, more
, loyal, more polite, more atten-
tive toward comrades and less
I capricious."
i At the thirteenth party can-
' gress, which was held soon
? after V. I. Lenin's death, his
letters were made known to
the delegates. As .a result of
the discussion of these docu-
ments it was recognized as ex-
pedient to leave Stalin at his
post as Secretary General, on
condition, however, that he
took Lenin's criticism Into
consideration and drew all the
, necessary conclusions,
; Having remained at the post
? as ,General Secretary, Stalin, in
the first period after Vladimir
Ilyich's death, took into ac-
count his critical remarks.
Later on, however, Stalin, hav-
ing excessively overrated his
merits, believed in, his own
Infallibility.
Plenary sessions of the Cen-
tral Committee and congresses
of the party were held irregu-
larly, and later they were not
convened for many ,years. In
fact, Stalin found himself out-
side criticism.
Great harm to the cause of
Socialist construction and the
development of democracy in-
side the party and the state
was inflicted by Stalin's er-
roneous formula. that as the
Soviet Union moved toward
socialism the class struggle
would/ allegedly become more
and more acute. This formula,
which is only correct for cer-
tain stages of the transition
period, when the question of
"Who will beat whom?" is be-
ing solved, when a persistent
class struggle for the building
of the foundations of socialism
was in progress, was put for-
ward into the first plan in
1937 at a moment when social-
ism had already triumphed in
our country and the exploiting
classes and their economic base
had been liquidated.
Berla's Role Related
In practice, this erroneous
theoretical formula was the
basis for the grossest violations
of Socialist law and mass re-
pressions? .
It was in these circum-
stances that special conditions
were created in particular for
the state security organs, in
1
, whom enormous confidence re;
:! posed as a result of their MA
dubitable services to the peck,
' Ole and country in the defense
of the conquests of the revolu-
tion. For a considerable period
of time the state security or-
gans justified this confidence
and their special position did
not cause any danger. The
, situation changed when the
: control of them by the party
and Government was gradual-
ly replaced by the personal con-
trol of Stalin and the normal
administration of justic was
often superseded by his per-
sonal decisions.
The situation became even
more complicated when the
criminal band of the agent
of international imperialism,
[Lavrenti P.1 Berle, was put
at the head of the state se-
curity organs. Serious viola- .
tions of Soviet law and mass
repressions occurred. As a re- .
suit of enemy machinations, .
many honest Commonists and
Soviet non-party men were
; slandered and suffered inno-
cently.
The twentieth party congress
and the entire policy of , the
' Central Committee after the
death of Stalin bear vivid tes-
timony to the fact that within
the Central Committee of the
party a Leninist core of leaders
had come into being who cor-
rectly understood pressing re-
quirements in the sphere both
Of internal and external policy,
It cannot be said that there
was no counter-action against
- the negative manifestations
which were connected with the
personality cult and put a
brake on the advance of
socialism.
Moreover, there were certain
periods, for instance during the
war years, when the individual
acts of Stalin were sharply
restricted, when the negative
consequences of lawlessness
and arbitrariness were substan-
tially diminished.
It is known that precisely
during this very war period
members of the Central Com-
mittee and also outstanding
Soviet war commanders took
over certain sectors of activity
in the rear and at the front,
made independent decisions, -
and through their organiza-
tional, political, economio and
military work, together with
local party and Soviet organi-
zations, insured the victory of
the ? Soviet people in the war.
After victory the negative con-
sequences of the cult of per-
sonality re-emerged with great
force.
Action Said to Be Barred
The Leninist core of the Cen-
tral Committee immediately
after the death of Stalin set a
course of resolute struggle
against the personality cult
and its grave consequences.
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(it Might be asked why these
people did not take an open
stand against Stalin and re-
move him from the leadership?
this could not he done In
the circumstances Which had
arisen.
Facts undoubtedly bear out
that Stalin was guilty of many
lawless deeds, particularly in
the later period of his life. It
should not be forgotten, how-
ever, that the Soviet people
knew Stalin as a person who
always acted in defense of the
U. S. S. R. against the In-
trigues of the enemies and
struggles for the cause of so-
cialism. At times be applied
' in this struggle unworthy
methods and violated the Len-
-inlet principles of party life.
Therein lay the tragedy of
Stalin.
But all this made the strug-
gle against the lawless deeds
perpetrated at the time more
difficult, since the success of
Socialist construction and the
consolidation of the U. S. S. R.
were attributed to Stalin. Any ,
action against him in those
conditions would not have been
understood by the people, and
this does not mean there was
a lack of personal courage in-
volved. It is obvious that any-
one who had acted in that sit-
uation against Stalin would not
have received support from the
people, Moreover, such a stand
would in those conditions have
been regarded as ? a stand
against the cause of Socialist
construction and a blow against
the unity of the party and the
whole state, extremely danger-
ous in the presence of capitalist
encirclement.
In addition, the successes
which the working people of
the Soviet Union attained un-
der the leadership of their
Communist party aroused jus-
tifiable pride in the heart of
every Soviet person and created
an atmosphere in which indi-
vidual mistakes and shortcom-
ings seemed less important
against the background of
enormous successes, while the
negative consequences of these
mistakes were quickly made
good by the colossal growth of
the vital forces of the party
and Soviet society. ,
One should also bear in mind
that many facts and wrong ac-
tions of Stalin, especially as
regards the violation of Soviet
became known only in
recent times, after his death,
mainly in connection with the
expesure of the Berle, gang and
the establishment of party con-
trol over the organs of state
security.
Such are the main conditions
and causes which resulted in
the emergence and currency of
the personality cult of J. V.
Stalin. Obviously, everything
that has been said explains,
I but in no way justifies, the I
Stalin cult and its conse-
quences, which have been so
sharply and justly condemned
by our party. "
III
Indisputably the personality
cult has inflicted serious harm
on the cause of the Commu-
nist party and Soviet society.
It would, however, be a
serious mistake to deduce front
the past existence of the cult
of personality seine kind of
changes in the social order in
the U. S. S. R. or to look for
the source of this cult in the
nature of the Soviet social
order. Both alternatives are
absolutely wrong, as they do
not accord with reality and
conflict with the facts.
In spite of all the evil which
the persoanlit3i cult of Stalin
has done to the party and
the poeple ,it could not change
and has not changed the na-
ture of the social order.
Even Stalin was not big
enough to change the state.
No personality cult could
change the nature of .the .So-
cialist state, based on pub-
lic ownership of the means
of production, the union of
the working class and peas."
antry, and the friendship of
peoples, although this cult did
inflict serious damage on the
development of Socialist dem-
ocratism and the upsurge' of
the creative initiative of the
millions.
To imagine that an individ-
ual personality, even such a
large one as Stalin, could
change our politico-social or-
der means to enter into pro-
found contradiction with the
facts, with Marxism and with
truth and to give way to ideal-
ism. This would mean to at-
tribute to an individual per- ,
sonality *Such excessive and su-
pernatural powers as an abil-
ity to change the order of a
society and a social order in
which the many-million strong
masses of working people axe
the decisive force.
As it is known, the nature of
the social-political regime is
determined by the nature of
the means of production, to
who:MI the means of production
belong and in the hands of
what class, political authority
is vested. The whole world
knows that in our country, as
a re i ult of the October Revolu-
tion and the, victory of social-
ism, the Socialist means of
production have been consoli-
dated and that for nearly forty
been in the hands of the
working class and peasantry.
Thanks to this, the Soviet
social regime is gaining in
strength from year to year and,
Its productive forces are grows
Ing. This is a fact which even
our ill-wishers cannot fail to
admit.
The consequences of the per-
sonality cult were, ea is known,
certain serious mistakes in the
leadership of various branches
of the party and Soviet state,
both in the internal life of the
Soviet country and in its for-
eign policy. One can, in parti-
cular. point to serious short-
comings countenanced by Stalin
in the direction of agriculture,
in organizing the country's pre-
paredness to repel the Fascist
invaders, and in the gross ar-
bitrariness which led to a con-
flict with Yugoslavia of indi-
vidual sides of the Soviet state's
life, particularly in the last
years of I. V. Stalin's life, in
the development of Soviet so-
ciety. But, it goes without say-
ing, they did not divert it from
the correct road towards com-
munism.
Our enemies assert that the
personality cult of Stalin was
. not engendered by finite his-
torical conditions which have
already sunk into the past but
by the Soviet system itself, by
what they consider to he its
link to democratism and so on.
Such slanderous assertions are
refuted by the entire history of
the development of the Soviet
state. The Soviet as a new
democratic form of state au-
thority arose as a result of the
creative revolutionary activity
of the broadest popular muses
who had risen to the struggle
for freedom. They were and re-
main organs of genuine popular
authority. It is precisely the
Soviet regime which created
the possibility of discerning the
immense creative energies of
the people.
World War H Test Cited
It set in motion inexhausti-
ble forces inherent in the Popu-
lar masses, drew millions of
people towards conscious dire,
tion of the state, into creative
participation in the construe-
tion of socialism. In a histori-
cally short space of time the
Soviet state came out victorious
from the most difficult of tests
and passed its baptism of fire
in the World War II,
When the last exploiting
classes were liquidated in our
country, when socialism became
the dominant eyetem in' the
entire natienal economy, while
the international situation of
our country had radically
changed, the scope of Soviet
democracy has been incalcu-
lably expanding and is conti-
nuing to do so.
Unlike any kind of bourgeois
democracies, Soviet democracy
not only proclaims the right of
all members of Soviet society,
without exception, to work,
education and leisure, partici-
pation In state affairs, freedom
of speech and of the Mess,
freedom of consciousness and
also a real possibility for the
free development of personal
abilities and other democratic
rights and freedoms, but also
insures them materially.
The essence of democtacy
lies not in formal indications
but in whether. the political
authority services and reflects
in act on the Will and basic
interests of the Majority of the
people and workers, The entire
internal and foreign policy of
the Soviet state proclaims the
fact that our regime is a truly
democratic ?popular' regime.
The highest aim of the Soviet
state is to raise the popula-
tion's living standards in every
respect and secure a peaceful
existence for its people.
A testimony to the further
development of Soviet democ-
racy are the measures, which
are being put 'through fur the
party and government for ex-
tending the rights and compe-
tence of union republics, the
strict adherence to law and re-
organization of the system of
planning with the aim of fos-
tering local initiative, activa-
ting work in local soviets and
developing' criticism and self-
criticism.
In spite and regarillesS of the
personality cult,. the mighty
Initiative of the Popular masses
led by the Communist party
and engendered by our regime
has performed its great histori4
cal task, overcoming all bar-
riers on the way to the con-
struction of socialism, And in -
this the democratic nature or
the Soviet regime finds its
highest expression. The out-
standing victories of socialism
in our country did not come of
themselves. They were gained
thanks to the tremendous or-
ganizational and educational
work of the party and its local
bodies, thanks to the fact that
the party has always brought
up its cadres and all Commu-
nists in a spirit: of loyalty to
marxiem and leninism, in a
spirt of devotion to the cause
of communism.
The Soviet society is strong
through an awareness of the
masses. Its historic destinies
were determined' and are still
being determined by the crea-
tive labors of our historic work-
Ing class, our -glorious collec-
tive farm peasantry nod pupa.
lay intelligentsia..
For liquidating the conse-
quences of the personality cult.
for restoring Bolshevik norms
of the party life and by deploy-
ing Socialist democracy, our
party achieved a farther
strengthening of its ties with
broad masses, rallied them still
closer under the great Lenin-
ist banner
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The fact that the party itself
boldly and openly posed the
question of liquidating the per-
sonality ? cult, the question of
inadmissible mistakes made by
Stalin, is a convincing testi-
mony that our party firmly
stands on guard for Leninism,
the cause of socialism and com-
munism, the maintenance of
Socialist law and interests of
the people, and the safeguard-
ing of the rights of Soviet citi-
zens. ThiS is the hest proof of
the force and viability of the
Soviet Socialist regime. It
speaks at the same time for
the determination to eradicate
to the end the consequences of
the personality cult and not al-
low mistakes of such a nature
to be repeated hi the future.
The condemnation by our
party of the personality cult of
? Stalin- and its consequences
evoked the approval and wide
response of all brotherly Com-
munist and Workers' parties.
Noting the significance of the
Twentieth Party Congress to
the entire international Com-
munist and workers' move-
ment, the Communists of for-
eign countries regard the strug-
gle against the personality cult
? and its consequences as a strug-
gle for the purity of Marxist
and Leninist ,principles,. for a
creative approach to the solu-
tion of contemporary problems
of the international workers'
movement, for its firmation
and further development of
principles of proletarian inter-
nationalism.
In statements of a number of
brotherly Communist parties,
approval and support is ex-
pressed for the measures
against the personality cult
carried out by our party. The
organ of the Central- Commit-
tee of the Chinese Communist
Intrt5:', the People's Daily,' de-
scribing the conchisions reach-
ed and discussing the decisions
of the Twentieth Party Govern-
ment held by the Politburo of
the Chinese Communist party,
says in an editorial entitled
?'''historic experience of dicta-
torship? of proletariat: .
"The Communist party of the
Soviet Union, following Lenin's
- behests, deals seriously with
some grave errors countenanced
? y Stalin in directing Socialist
construction and the conse-
quences they have provoked.
'Because of the gravity Of these
.consequences, the Soviet party
was faced with the need, while
admitting the great services of
V. Stalin, to reveal with all
'urgency the essence of the 'rills
.-
takes Stalin allowed to occur
and to urge the entire party to
beware of a repetition of this,
and to urge it resolutely to
eradicate the consequences en-
gendered by these shortcom-
ings."
Chinese Bed Backing Quoted
"The Communists of China
profoundly believe that after
sharp criticism developed at
the Twentieth Congress, all ac-
tive factors which were se-
verely restricted in the past
because of certain political mis-
takes will indubitably be set in
motion everywhe're, that the
Communist party of the.Sovict
-.Union and the ? Soviet people
will be united as never before
in the struggle to build a great
Communist society as never
before seen in history, in a
struggle for a stable peace
throughout the world." .
"The merit of the leaders of
the Soviet Communist party,"
reads a Statement by the Polit-
buro of the French Communist
party, "lies in their having un-
dertaken to correct the mis-
takes and shortcomings con-
nected with the personality
cult, a fact that testifies to the
'force and Unity of the. great
party of Lenin, to the confi-
dence which it enjoys among
the Soviet people, and swells
Its authority among the inter-
national workers' movement.''
The general secretary of the
National .Committee of the
United States Communist party,
Eugene. Dennis, noting the tre-
mendous significance of the
twentieth congress, states in
his well known article: "The
twentieth congress strength-
ened universal peace and social ;
progress. It marked a new
statge in the development of ?
socialism . and in the struggle ?
for peaceful coexistence which
started in -the time of Lenin,
was pursued in subsequent year
and is becoming more and more
effective and successful,''
At the same time it should be
noted that when discussing the
question of. the personality cult
a' correct interpretation of thq ?
reasons which engendered it
has not always been given. For
instance, a substantial and in-
teresting interview given by
Comrade [Palmiro] Togliatti
[Italian Communist leader] -to
the magazine Nuovi Argumenti
contains, alongside many of the
most important and ecirrect de-
ductions, also some incorrect
ones. One cannot, in Particular,
agree With Comrade 'Togliatti
when he asks whether Soviet 1
society has not reached. "cer-
tain forms of degeneration?"? '
There are no foundations for
such a question. It is .all the
more incomprehensible because
In another part of his interview
Comrade Togliatti says quite
correctly: "It mtiSt be deduced
that the essence of the Socialist
regime was not lost, since none
of the preceding gains were
lost, nor did the regime, lose
support of the working masses
of workers, peasants and Intel- .
lectuals who form Soviet soci-
ety. This support proves in it-
self that, in spite of everything,.
society retained its main demo-
cratic character." '
And indeed without the sup-
port of the broadest popular
masses of the Soviet regime
for the policy of the Commu-
nist party, our' country would
not have been able to create
in an unprecedentedly short
space of time a powerful So-
cialist industry or to carry out
collectivization of agriculture
and it would have been unable
to gain a victory in the World
War II, on whose outcome the
fate of all mankind rested,
As a result of the complete
route of Hitlerism, Italian
fascism and Japanese mints.
risrn, the forces of the Com-
munist movement extensively
developed, grew in scope and ,
became mass Communist par- .
ties in Italy, France and other
capitalist countries. People's
democracies were established
In a number of countries of
Europe and Asia, a world sys-
tem of socialism arose and was
consolidated, and the national
liberation movement which led
to the disintegration of the col-
onial system attained unprece-
dented successes.
Br
The Soviet party congress,
unanimously approving the de-
cisions of the party, which con-
demned the personality cult,
the Communists and all Soviet
people see in them a proof of
the increased force of our party,
Its Leninist adherence to prin-
ciples, its unity and integra-
tion. "A party of the revolu-
tionary proletariat," V. I. Lenin
said, "Is sufficiently strong to
criticize itself openly, to call
mistakes and weaknesses by
the[r right names," Guided by
this principle of Lenin's, our
'prtrty will continue to disclose
boldly, to criticize openly and
,,to remove resolutely the miss
takes and blunders in its work.'
The Central Committee con-
siders that work accomplished
up to now by the party on the
elimination of the personality
cult and its consequences al-
ready have given positive re-
sults,
Proceeding from the decisions
of the Twentieth Party Con-
gress, the Central Committee
urges all party organizations:
Consistently adhere in all our
work to the most important
tenets of Lenin's Marxist-Len-
Mist teachings of the people as
creators of all the material
(several words illegible) trans-
formations of society for the
victory of communism,
Insistently to continue Lenin's
principles of party leadership
pursued in past years by the
Central Committee--the highest
principle of collective leader-
Ship?to maintain tile norm of
party life laid down by the
charter of our party for devel-
opment or criticism and self-
criticism,
To re-establish fully the prin-
ciples of Soviet Socialist democ-
racy expressed in the Constitu-
tion of the Soviet Union, to
correct to the end the viola-
tions of revolutionary Socialist
law.
To mobilize our cadres and
all Communists as well as
broadcast to the masses of
workers the struggle for the
practical implementation of
tasks of tile Sixth Five-Year
Plan, developing for this pur-
pose the creative initiative and
energies of masses?the true
creators of history.
Difficulties Said to Be Passed
The Twentieth Party Con-
gress Indicated the most im-
portant feature of our era is
the conversion of socialism into
a world system. The most dif-
ficult period in the 'develop-
ment and establishment of so-
cialism is behind its. Our' So-
cialist country has ceased to be
an isolated island in an ocean
of capitalist states, At present
more than a third of entire
mankind is building a new life
under the banner of socialism,
The ideas of socialism pene-
trate the thoughts of many mil-
lions of people of capitalist
countries. The ideas of so-
cialism immensely influence tile
people of Asia, Africa and
Latin America who are oppos-
ing all forms of colonialism,
The decisions of the Twen-
tieth party Congress were re--i
ceived. by all advocates of
peace, socialism and, in all '
democratic progressive circles ,
as an inspiring program for
consolidating universal peace,'
for the interest of working
people in the triumph of the
cause of socialism, ?
Under contemporary condi-
tions, wide inspiring prospects
open up before the Communist
parties' entire international
workers' movement to achieve ?
together within all peace-loving
forces the prevention of a new
world' war, to ,restrain monop-
olies and insure lasting peace ,
and security for the people,
stop the armament race and
relieve the toilers of the heavy
burden of taxation engendered
by it, defend democratic rights
and freedoms which ensure for
1 workers a better life and hap-
py future.
, It is precisely in this that
millions of simple people of all
countries of the World are vi-
, taly interested. The peaceful
policy and every new success
1 of the Soviet Union, (ComIntl-'
1 nig) China and all other cowl-.
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tries following the road to
socialism contribute to a great
extent to the successful solu-
tion of these problems.
Under new historic condi-
tions, such international work-
ing class organizations as the
Comintern and Cominform
ceased their activities. It does
not follow from this that in-
ternational solidarity and the
need of contacts between rev-
olutionary and brotherly par-
ties which adopted the positions
of Marxism-Leninism have lost
significance.
At the present time, when
forces of socialism and the in-
fluence of the ideas of social-
ism have grown immeasurably
throughout the whole world,
when individual ways toward
socialism are becoming appar-
ent in various countries, Marx-
ist parties and the working
class must naturally retain and.
strengthen ideological unity of
International brotherly solidari-
ty in the struggle against the
threat of a new war and in the
struggle Against the unpopular
forces of monopoly and capital,
Which are striving to suppress
all revolutionary progressive
movements.
Communist parties are united
by the great aim of liberating
the working class from the opt.
pression of capital. They are
united into one by loyalty to
' the scientifio ideology of Marx-
ism-Leninism, by the spirit of
proletarian internationalism,
and boundless devotion to the
Interests of the popular masses.
In their activity under con-
temporary conditions the Com-
munist parties proceed from
the national peculiarities in the
conditions of every country,
and are expressing with the
greatest fullness the national
interests of their peoples. At
the same time, realizing that
the struggle for ? the interests
of the working class, for peace
and national 'independence of
their countries, is a matter of
the whole international pro-
letariat, they rally together and
strengthen their ties and coop-
eration among themselves.
The ?ideological unanimity
.and bOtherly solidarity of ,
Marxist -parties of the work-1
'Mg class of various countries
is all the more necessary "be-
cause capitsllist monopolies. are .
creating their own internation-
al unions arid' blocs '4
similar' to' NATO, SEATO and
"She Baghdad Pact, itimad
against peace-loving nations,
against the national-liberation
movement, against the working
class, and the vital interests
of the toilers.
While the Soviet Union has
done much and is continuing
to do much for the reduction
of international tension?and
this is acknowledged now by
everybody ?American monopo-
list capital at the same time
continues appropriating large
sums for intensifying subver-
sive activity in the Socialist
countries. At the height of the
"cold war," as it is known,
the American Congress- of
(in addition to funds
being spent unofficially) allo-
cated $100,000,000 for the pur-
poses of subversive activity in
the countries of people's de-
mocracy and the Soviet Union.
Now, when the Soviet Union
and other Socialist countries
are doing. everything possible
to reduce international tension,
the adherents of the "cold
war" are trying to activize the
"cold war,", which is con-
demned by the peoples of the
whole world. This is shown by
the decision of the American
Senate on an additional appro.'
priation of $25,000,000 for sub-
versive activity, which is 'cyn-
ically being called "an encour-
agement of freedom beyond the
Iron Curtain."
We must soberly appraise
this fact and thaw relevant de-
ductions' from it. It is clear,
for instance, that the anti-peo-
ple's demonstrations in Poznan
were paid from this source.
However, the provocateurs and
the diversionists, who were paid
from the overseas funds, had
only enough courage for a few
hours.
The workers of Poznan re-
btiffed the enemies' sallies and
provocations. The plans of the
dark gentry of the "cloak and
dagger" failed. So did their
foul provocation against the
people's authority in Poland.
Subversive activities in the
People's Democracies will also
continue to fail in the future,
although such actions are gen-
erously paid for from monies
appropriated by American mo-
nopolists. One can say that
this money is being spent for
nothing.
Careless Attitude Opposed
All this demonstrates that
one must not show a careless.
attitude 'toward the new ma-
chinations ? of the imperialist
agents, who are trying to pene-
trate iuto Socialist countries
for the purpose of undermining
the achievements of the work-
ers. The forces of imperialist
reaction are attempting to di-
vert the workers from the cor-
rect path of the struggle for
their interests, to poison their
souls with lack of confidence in
the success of the cause of so-
cialism.
Contrary to all the machina-
tions of the ideologists of the
capitalist monopoly, the work-
ing class, led by the experi-
enced Communist vanguard,
which march on its road, which
has led to the historic achieve-
ments of socialism, and -will
lead to new victories of the
cause of peace, democracy and
socialism. One can be confi-
dent that the Communist and
workers parties of all coun-
tries will raise their glorious
Marxist banner of proletarian
internationalism even higher.
The Soviet people are justly
proud that Our Motherland
was the first to chart the path
to gocialism. Now, when social-
ism has become a world sys-
tem, when brotherly coopera-
tion and mutual assistance
have been established between
Socialist countries, new favor-
able conditions have developed
for the flourishing of Socialist
democracy, for the further con-
solidation of the material-pro-
duction base of communism,
the steadfast upsurge of the
standard of living of the work-
ers, for all round development
of the personality of a new
man?builder of the Communist
society.
Let the bourgeois ideologists
concoct fables about "crises"
of communism, and about
"confusion" in the ranks of
the Communist party. We are
used to hearing such incanta-
tions by the enemies. Their
forecasts always burst like
soap bubbles. Luckless fore-
casters like these have come
and gone but the Communist
movement, the immortal and
life-giving ideas of Marxism-
Leninism triumphed and are
continuing to triumph. This
will also be the case in the
future. No foul, slanderous at-
tacks of our enemies can stop
the irresistable trend of his-
torical development of man-
kind toward communism.
Time CENTRAL COMMITGER1 THE
COMMUNIST PARTY O' T4E1 SO-
- WET UUION. 30 June 106.
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Pravda, 3 July (as broadcast by radio)
Pravda has published the decision of the Central Com-
mittee of the CPSU On Overcoming the Personality Cult and
Its Consequences." This document, which is of great politi-
cal theoretical significance, gives a vivid picture of the
mighty upsurge of creative initiative and revolutionary
energy which has been evoked by the historic decisions of
the 20th CPSU Congress in the ranks of our Party and all
of the Soviet people, in the ranks of the fraternal Commu-
nist and workers parties.
On the basis of a Marxist-Leninist analysis of the
most important phenomena of international and internal life
and the activity of the Party in the present epoch, in this
decision the CPSU Central Committee gives clear answers to
the problems presented by life and directs the efforts of
the Party and the people toward the solution of the most
important problems set forth by the 20th CPSU Congress.
The Central Committee of the CPSU notes with satisfac-
tion, the decision states, that the decisions of the his-
toric 20th CPSU Congress have met with the full approval
and ardent support of the whole of our Party, all of our
people, the fraternal Communist and workers parties, the
working people of the great commonwealth of Socialist coun-
tries, and millions of people in capitalist and colonial
countries.
This is understandable because the 20th Congress, which
marks a new stage in the creative development of Marxism-
Leninism, has given a thorough analysis of the present inter-
national and internal situation, has armed the Communist
Party and all the Sovieu people with a majestic plan for a
further struggle for the building of communism, and has
opened new prospects for the joint action of all parties
of the working class for the elimination of the threat of
another war and for the interests of the working people.
A very short period has elapsed since the 20th Congress
of the Party, but even during this short period the great
life-giving force of its decisions have found concrete mani-
festation in the new successes of the Soviet people in all
sectors of Communist construction. The Soviet people have
rallied Still more closely around the Communist Party, their
leader.
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They are fully determined to carry out in the future
too the wise Leninist policy of the Party, the policy of
a further consolidation of the might of the Socialist
Fatherland, the policy of peace and cooperation with all
countries.
The decisions of the 20th CPSU Congress and the suc-
cesses of our Party and the Soviet people in the course of
their practical realization are in the center of attention
of the world public. While the program for the struggle
for the stabilization of peace and the vital interests of
the people--set by the 20th Congress--was greeted with
satisfaction and aroused great inspiration among the work-
ing people of all countries, it has given rise to alarm
and rancor in the camp of the enemies of the working .class.
The reactionary circles of the United States and several
other capitalist countries are clearly perturbed by the
increased influence of the ideas of socialism, by the active
and consistent struggle of peace-loving peoples for a lessen-
ing of international tension and for the strengthening of
the cause of peace.
In the decision of the CPSU Central Committee, it is
pointed out that lately the bourgeois press has launched
an extensive, slanderous anti-Soviet campaign which the
reactionary circles are trying to base on certain facts
connected with the condemnation by the CPSU of the cult of
J. V. Stalin.
By organizing this campaign the enemies of socialism
are making every effort to weaken the power of attraction of
the decisions of the 20th CPSU Congress in order to distract
the attention of the working class and its Party from the
important tasks set by the 20th Congress. They are resort-
ing to all sorts of tricks and devices in order to distort
the policy of the Communist Party, in order to cast a shadow
on the great ideas of Marxism-Leninism, in order to under-
mine the trust of the working people in the first Socialist
country in the world, the USSR, and in order to sow confusion
in the ranks of the international Communist and workers'
movement.
The ideologists of the bourgeoisie, by launching various
slanderous inventions in regard to the cult of personality,
are trying to conceal the fact that what is involved is a
stage that already has been covered. But they will not
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succeed in distorting the truth, in falsifying history!
The whole world knows the persistence and determination
with which the Communist Party and the Soviet Government
are liquidating the consequences of the personality cult
and are successful implementing (great) tasks in the interests
of the strengthening of peace and the building of Communism,
In the interests of the broad masses of the people.
The CPSU Central Committee stresses in its decision
that, in its criticism of the personality cult, the Party
proceeds from the principles of Marxism-Leninism, from the
premise of Marxist-Leninist theory in regard to the role
of the masses, parties, and individuals in history.
As is well known, at the 20th CPSU Congress, the ques-
tion of the cult of the personality and its consequences
were examined in detail. The bold and principled criti-
cism of the cult of personality, developed on the initiative
of the Central Committee, was supported by the whole of our
Party and the entire Soviet people. It was clear testimony
of the strength and the might of our Party and of the Soviet
socialist society. Only a Party nurtured on the revolutionary
principles of Marxism-Leninism, which expresses the basic
interests of the people and which enjoys their boundless
support, could act so boldly and with such fortitude.
The Party has considered that, although its statement
against the cult of the person of Stalin would evoke certain
temporary difficulties, in the long run--considering the
basic interests and the final objectives of the working
class--it would produce great and positive results.
This also serves as a firm guarantee that any such mani-
festations as the cult of personality can never reappear in
our Party and country and that henceforth the leadership
of the country by the Party will be carried out collectively/
on the basis of Marxist-Leninist policy, with the active
and creative participation of millions of workers.
Millions of people, both in our country and abroad,
studying the decisions of the CPSU Central Committee, will
find in them exhaustive explanations of the causes which .
led to the emergence and the spread of the cult of the per-
sonality, and they will approve all the decisions which
have been and are being carried out by the Communist Party
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and ,its Central Committee to overcome the cult of person-
ality and its consequences. The CPSU Central Committee has
profoundly analyzed both the objective conditions which led
to the spread of the personality cult and the subjective
factors connected with the personal features of Stalin,
the negative nature of which has been pointed out by Lenin.
The Soviet people are reading the decisions of the
20th CPSU Congress. This 20th Party Congress and the en-
tire policy of the Central Committee since Stalin's death
clearly show that, within the Central Committee of the
Party, there existed a nucleus of Leninist leaders who cor-
rectly understood the immediate requirements of both internal
and foreign policies. Immediately after Stalin's death,
the Leninist nucleus of the Central Committee began a deter-
mined struggle against the personality cult and its wretched
consequences. The positive results of this struggle are
having a beneficial influence on the entire multilateral
activity of our people.
The enemies of socialism-affirm that the cult of the
person of Stalin has resulted not from definite historic
conditions which are already part of the past but from the
Soviet system. Such slanderous assertions are denied by
the entire history of the development of the Soviet State.
A long, difficult, and glorious road has been covered
? by our Motherland under the leadership of the Communist
Party. It was the first country in the world to pave the
? way to socialism for mankind. It had to overcome age-old
economic, cultural, and technical backwardness; it had to
build socialism under conditions of severe struggle against
the class enemies and their agents within the country as
well as against the intrigues of international imperialist
reaction.
For more than a quarter of a century, the land of the
Soviets, like a besieged fortress, found itself in condi-
tions of capitalist encirclement and under a constant threat
of imperialist aggression. The complex international and
internal situation required iron discipline and the strictest
.centralization of leadership. Under such conditions it was
necessary to impose certain limitations on democracy which
were justified by the logic of the struggle of our people
in conditions of capitalist encirclement.
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Historic experience shows that all the difficulties
and obstacles on the road to the building of socialism were
overcome. As a result of the heroic efforts of the Soviet
people and the Communist Party, our country took a gigantic
leap forward in its economic and cultural development and
became a mighty Socialist state. The world wide historic
successes of socialism in the Soviet Union have marked the
triumph of the Leninist general line of the Party.
The strength and vitality of the Soviet socialist order
and its superiority over the bourgeois order have been
proved by the unprecedented tempo of the economic and cul-
tural development of our country. The Soviet order has
set into motion the inexhaustible forces of the masses of
the people. It has involved millions of people in the
struggle for socialism. Soviet society has the strength of
the consciousness of the masses. Its Tate is determined by
the constructive labor of the heroic working class, the col-
lective farm peasantry, and the peoples intelligentsia.
It is this which demonstrates that the Soviet order has
emerged with honor from the most difficult trials both in
peace and war.
Today the Central Committee and our entire Party are
concentrating their main effort on carrying out the decisions
of the 20th CPSU Congress, which contain a detailed program
for the further strengthening of the Soviet order, for the
development of its economy and culture, for the constant
improvement of the well-being of the workers and the all-
around development of socialist democracy. Toward this end
are directed the measures being carried out by the Party
and the Government for the broadening of the rights and
the competence of the Union Republics, for the strictest
observance of the law, for the reorganization of the planning
system, for the development of local initiative for the acti-
vization of activities of the local Soviets and for the -
development of criticisms and self-criticism.
Basing itself on the decisions of the 20th Party Con-
gress, the CPSU Central Committee appeals to the Party
organizations: consistently to observe in all their work
the most important postulate in the teaching of Marxism-
Leninism on the people as the makers of history and the
creators of all the material and spiritual riches of mankind;
on the decisive role of the Marxist party in the revolutionary
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struggle for the reorganization of society and for the vic-
tory of communism; persistently to continue the work car-
ried on in the past years by the Central Committee of the
Party by the strict observance in all Party organizations,
from top to bottom, of the Leninist principle of Party
leadership and, above all, of the highest principle, that
of collective leadership; the observance of the norms of
Party life as determined by the charter of our Party, and
the development of criticism and self-criticism.
To reestablish fully the principles of Soviet socialist
democracy as expressed in the constitution of the Soviet
Union and to correct fully all infringements of revolutionary
socialist legality; to mobilize our cadres, all the Commu-
nists, and the broadest masses of the workers in the struggle
for the practical realization of the tasks of the Sixth
Five Year Plan, developing by every means the creative
initiative and the energy of the masses who are the true
makers of history.
The decisions of the CPSU Central Committee on the
abolition of the cult of personality and its consequences
are of the greatest international importance. This docu-
ment shows the extent of the reactions and the approval of
all the fraternal Communist and workers parties in regard
to the historic decisions of the 20th CPSU Congress. It
also points out that the fraternal parties are learning
in good time of the maneuvers of the enemies of socialism,
who are attempting to introduce confusion into the ranks
of the international Communist and workers movement, and
that they are showing a worthy resistance.
At present, when the forces of socialism have immeasur-
ably increased, when socialism has become a world system,
and wh2n the variety of roads to socialism in the various
countries are becoming apparent, the Marxist parties of
the working class must naturally preserve and strengthen
their international fraternal solidarity in the struggle
against the threat of a new war, against the antipopular
forces of monopoly capital which are striving to suppress
all revolutionary and progressive movement.
In particular, such a fact as the U.S. Senate's allo-
cation of large sums for subversive activities in the coun-
tries of socialism and the infamous provocation of the
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imperialist agents in Poznan, directed against the people's
rule, show that it is impossible to permit carelessness in
the face of the new intrigues of the imperialist agents
who are striving to penetrate into the socialist countries
in order to cause damage to the workers and undermine their
achievements.
Our Motherland, which was the first to pave the way
to socialism, today is in the full flOwer of its creative
forces. The Soviet people, armed with the historic decisions
of the 20th CPSU Congress and consolidated around the Commu-
nist Party, are advancing firmly and confidently. In the
closest unity with the Soviet Union, under the banner of
socialism, inepired by the Marxist-Leninist doctrine, the
great People's China and all the countries of People's Demo-
cracy are building a new life. The ideas of peace, demo-
cracy, and socialism have the support of many millions of
workers in the capitalist, colonial, and dependent countries.
No angry or slanderous attacks by our 'enemies will suc-
ceed in halting the inviolable progress of the historic
development of mankind toward communism.
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Pravda, 6 July, (as broadcast by radio), excerpt
The enemies of socialism have frequently made the allega-
tion against our Party that, as a result of the establishment
of the political domination of the working class in our doUntry,
the basis of democracy was undermined. In reality, however,
the political domination of the working class is the only means
for the defense of all the workers from the yoke of capitalism,
from the coercion of the bourgeoisie, from imperialist wars,
from class and national enslavement and for the insurance of
a real people's rule.
The historic experience of the Soviet Union confirms this
convincingly. The Soviet regime has set into motion innumerable
forces inherent in the popular masses. It introduced millions
of people to a conscious administration of the state, to the
building of socialism. At a certain phase the complicated
international and internal situation in which our people had
to live demanded iron discipline, a constant acceleration of
vigilance, the strictest centralization of leadership.
As noted in the decision of the CPSU Central Committee on
the overcoming of the cult of the individual and its consequences,
this could not but have had a negative effect on the development
of certain democratic forms. In the course of the obdurate
struggle against the whole world of imperialism, our country
had to introduce certain restrictions of democracy justified
by the logic of the struggle of our people for socialism under
the conditions of capitalist encirclement. But even then these
restrictions were considered temporary by the Party and people,
due to be eliminated with the strengthening of the Soviet State
and the development of socialism throughout the world.
In spite of a certain restriction of some democratic forms
caused by the complicated situation, the Soviet regime from
the first days of its existence consisted of a higher degree
of democracy than any bourgeois democratic country. This is
understandable because in contrast to the (bourgeois)
democratic countries, under the Soviet regime authority is
practiced in the interests of the majority of the population.
Steadily realizing Lenin's national policy, the Communist
Party be,ame the inspirer and organizer of the friendship of the
Soviet peoples. It is in the USSRthat for the first time, not
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formally but in actual fact, the equality of the nationalities
has been insured. To all members of the society without
exception the right to work, to education and leisure, to
participate in state affairs, the freedom of speech, of press,
of conscience, as well as real opportunities for the develop-
ment of individual abilities, and all other democratic rights
and liberties, have been insured.
In the recent years the Party has adopted new measures
for the development of the democratic foundations of our
society's life. These measures include the extension of the
rights and competence of the Union Republics, the strengthening
of the socialist legislation, the reconstruction of the
planning system for the purpose of releasing local initiative,
the development of :criticism and self-criticism. The task is
now to develop Soviet socialist democratism as before and with
all persistency, and to induce an ever increasing number of
workers to active participation in state administration.
Our socialist state owes all its successes to the leader-
ship of the Communist Party. Sometimes it is asked: Why does
only one party exist in the USSR? A multitude of parties is
inherent in a society with different classes and different
interests: this is primarily innerent in a bourgeois society,
where there are antagonistic classes. Before the Revolution
there were many parties in Russia. There was a party of
capitalists, a party of landowners, a party with the loud-sounding
name of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party and others. And there
existed a party of the working class, the Communist Party founded
by the great Lenin. This party succeeded in raising the workers'
to the struggle against the capitalists and landlords, against
the Tsarist regime. Under its leadership the Great October
Socialist Revolution was carried out.
The Communist Party has shown in fact, in the experience
of life, that it is this and no other party which represents
the working class and defends its interests. The petty
bourgeois parties, the Social-Revolutionaries, Mansheviks,
Anarchists and their like, went bankrupt and exposed themselves
in the eyes of the masses as helpers of the bourgeoisie. It is
for this reason that the Russian workers, who came out victorious
the October Revolution under the leadership of the Communist
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Party, entrusted to it the helm of the country's administration.
From year to year the confidence of the people in the Communist
Party and their love for the Communist Party continued to grow
in strength; with the Party leading it farther and farther still,
along the road of building socialism.
At present time, as a result of the victory of socialism,
a new homogeneous society has been created in the Soviet Union
which is devoid of any hostile classes, of any social groups -
whose interests fail to coincide. Therefore there is no social
ground in the Soviet society for the origination and existence
of other than the Communist Party.
Some people abroad are interested in having in the USSR
artificially created non-communist parties?, financed by foreign
capital and serving its interests. But the Soviet people have
no needce such parties. The Soviet people enforce their social
forms on no one; neither do they intend to adopt any alien
social forms. This does not mean, of course, that in other
countries proceeding along the road of socialism other workers
parties should not, under certain historical conditions, be
given the opportunity of taking part in the administration--on
the condition that the leading role is assured for the revolu-
tionary Marxist Party which expresses the interests of the
working class in the most consistent manner.
As for our country, the Communist Party was, is, and will
be the one and only ruler of thoughts, the one to express the
ideas and hopes of the people--their leader and organizer
throughout their entire struggle for communism. Armed with the
Marxist-Leninist theory, strong in its unity, solidarity, and
discipline, unsurpassed in its skill to organize the millions
of the masses and to guide them correctly in a difficult situa-
tion, the Communist Party has been, from the first days of the
Soviet State, confidently steering the ship of our state and
social life toward communism.
Addressing the. Ninth Party Congress in March 1920, V. I.
Lenin said: "It was only because the Tarty was on guard, be-
cause it was strictly disciplined, because the Party authority
united all departments and institutions, because scores,
hundreds, thousands, and then millions of people responded to
the signal given by the Central_ Committee, and because un-
precedented sacrifices were made, that the miracle which has
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happened could have happened. Only because of this were we
able to win against the twofold, threefold, and fourfold
attacks of the entente imperialists, and of the imperialists
of all the world."
Whenever the country was in danger, whenever sacrifices
were required and privations suffered, whenever new difficult
tasks faced the country the Communists were the first to rush
ahead, meeting the difficulties, carrying with them the broad
masses, and inevitably scoring a victory. To be where the
fate of the revolution is decided, the fate of socialism,
the fate of communist construction, has become a law to the
Communist. Thus it was during the years of the Civil War and
foreign intervention when many a son of our Party lost his
life in the struggle against the enemy but would not give up
the gains of the Revolution.
Thus it was during the period of restoration when under
the difficult conditions of the New Economic Policy Communists
were in the advanced ranks of the obdurate struggle against
the class enemy.
Thus it was during the years of the country's socialist
industrialilation and the collectivization of agriculture
when Communists went in large groups to the construction sites
and in the face of the furious hatred and fierce resistance
of the class enemy insured the fulfillment of the Party's
assignments. Thus it was during the years of the Great Father-
land War when the Tarty directed its best forces to the military
fronts and to the decisive sectors of the rear.
The leading role of our Party emerged with even greater
force during recent years, when on the initiative of the Central
Committee of the CPSU the vast measures aiming at a new develop-
ment of the economy, at the liquidation of the backwardness of
a number of branches of our national economy, and primarily
agriculture, and at the acceleration of the pace of cultural
construction began to be, put into practice.
In accordance with the instructions of the local Party
organs, primary organizations of the Party have squarely turned
to face the concrete tasks of economic construction, begun
making a more profound study of the 'economy and technology of
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production, to delve actively into the state of affairs at
enterprises, collective farms, MTS, and state farms. Tens of
thousands of Communists have voluntarily left for work in MTS,
state farms, and collective farms and have by their untiring
organizational work played a singularly important role in
raising agriculture which was begun in the recent period as
is continuing to grow steadily.
Never will the patriotic efforts of our youth who on the
call of the Party have gone to the eastern areas by the hundreds
of thousands to reclaim the new lands and the projects of the
Sixth Five Year Plan be erased from the memories of the Soviet
people. The raising of the level of the leading work of the
Party and all its local organizations is the true road to new
successes in the struggle for the further strengthening of the
Soviet Socialist State, for the upsurge of industry and agri-
culture, for the growth of the well-being and culture of the
workers., Our Party is boldly leading us along this road, for
It unites in its ranks the most progressive, the most conscious
and organized section of .the Soviet people; for it is insepar-
ably bound, with the broadest masses of the workers.
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? Carmaek In The Chrhalan Science M9nitei'",
?tlieal job Mill unthnie." .
-oft
- yOu'LL Ger
youtts LATER
Cenfie!ill in The Newark Newa
"With one party how can he lose?"
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EASTERN EUROPE
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Ttybuna Ludu 11 July
The resolution of the CPSU Central Committee on the over-
coming of the cult of the individUal and its conseqUendes has
found a wide response not only in the Socialist Camp but in
the entire international working class movement and in all our
fraternal parties. For it concerns basic problems--the essenc6,-
of the Socialist system and its victorious struggle against
distortions connected with the cult of Stalin.
This momentous document signifies a further progress of
self-criticism and improvement, brought about in the life of
the Soviet Union and in the activity of the entire international
working class movement by the 20th CPSU Congress. It is one
more Soviet contribution to the fraternal discussion now going
on in all Communist and workers parties. That is why it was
greeted by them with appreciation.
"This document seems to me an exceptionally important
contribution to the elucidation of problems which have been
put forward by the international working class and Communist
movement in connection with the criticism of Stalin's activity.
Formulated at the 20th CPSU Congress,"Comrade Togliatti said.
The enemies of Socialism have unleashed a fierce propa-
ganda campaign round this discussion. The main aim of this
campaign is to whitewash the incurably diseased capitalist
system through an attempt to "prove" that the distortions of
the Stalin period, in whose removal the CPSU has been effectively
engaged for 3 years, allegedly stemmed from the Soviet system
itself. But if it were so, how can one explain the fact that
the CPSU leaders have themselves withCommunist courage made
public these distortion's and declared an inexorable struggle
against them?
The instigators of this slander campaign from the other
side of the Atlantic carefully avoid giving an answer to this
question. For the answer given to this question by the CPSU in
deeds and in works clearly shows that the distortions of the
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Stalin period not only did not stem from the Socialist system,
but were an overgrowth which was harmful and alien to the
essence of this system.
"The courageous and merciless self-criticism in the problem
of the cult of personality," as Pravda rightly points out, "is
a new, telling expression of the vigor and power of our Party,
of the vigor and power of the Soviet Socialist system."
The CPSU Central Committee was aware of the fact that the
open admission of the errors committed would result in certain
negative consequences, providing easy pry for the enemies of
Communism. But these difficulties will be of a passing chara-
ter and will be absolutely incomparable with the enormous,
positive results which correspond to the most vital interests
of the working class.
For does not the courageous and uncompromising unmasking
of all negative manifestations connected with the cult of Stalin
create the best guarantee against any possible repetition of
these severe distortions in the future? For does it not
create a solid foundation for the development of inner party
democracy, collective leadership, and all-round development
of Soviet democracy, based on an active and creative partici-
pation of the masses in governing their own country?
The resaution of the CPSU Central Committee contains a
more extensive answer than the documents of the 20th CPSU
Congress to the question how in conditions of the Soviet
Socialist system the cult of Stalin, with all its severe con-
sequences, could have originated and spread. The Soviet
comrades are thus not only analysing the subjective factors
connected with the personal traits of Stalin, but above all
the historical conditions in which the USSR was building
Socialism.
The exceptionally difficult and complex international
and internal situation of the USSR--a fortress encircled by
the enemy--required an iron discipline and centralization of
leadership, which exerted a negative influence on the develop-
ment of Socialist democracy. But already at that time,
emphasizes the resolution, the-Party and the nation regarded
these restrictions as temporary ones.
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The resolution of the CPSU Central Committee emphatically
stresses the harm done to Socialist construction and to the
development of democracy within the Party and in the Soviet
State by Stalin's erroneous thesis on the sharpening of the
class struggle with the progress of the Socialist construction
in the USSR. This document states that this thesis was correct
only with regard to the given stages of the transition period.
While in practice, in conditions created by the victory of
Socialism, it served to justify mass repressions and the most
brutal infringements of Socialist legality.
The resolution of the CPSU Central Committee sheds light
on the situation which made it difficult for the Leninist core of
the Central Committee to come out against Stalin and to wage
a struggle against the unlawful acts which were being committed
at that time. In conditions in which in spite of Stalin's
errors the nation was in hard toil pushing forward Socialist
construction, steps against Stalin would not have met with the
support of the nation.
. In conditions in which the successes of Socialist construc-
tion were most closely linked in the consciousness of the nation
with the name of Stalin any step against Stalin would have been
understood as a step against the cause of Socialism itself, as
an extremely dangerous, in conditions of capitalist encirclement,'
undermining of the unity of the Party and of the whole State'.
Immediately after the death of Stalin the Leninist core of the
Central Committee started a determined struggle against the
cult of the individual and its severe consequences.
"It is evident," the closing part of the respective part of
the resolution reads, "that all this explains, but by no means
justifies,the cult of J. V. Stalin and its consequences which
have been so sharply and justly condemned by our Party."
The resolution of the -CPSU Central Committee categorically
refutes the thesis that as a result of the cult of personality
and the distortions connected with it, the Socialist character
of the Soviet social system, whose foundations are social owner-
ship of the means of production, the worker-peasant alliance,
and friendship among nations) has changed.
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The cult of the individual, the breaches of legality,
have done great harm to the development of Socialist democracy
and hampered the creative initiative of the masses. The cult of
Stalin, who found himself above any criticism, led to serious
errors and neglect in the management of agriculture. In pre-
paring the country to face Nazi invasion, it led to brutal
arbitrariness which resulted in a conflict with Yugoslavia.
All these errors, although they have done great harm to
the State and hampered the development of the vital forces of
the Soviet community, were unable, however, to divert this
community from the basic road of development towards Communism.
We know from communiques and press articles, from reports
by people returning from the Soviet Union, that in recent years
great transformations toward the democratization of life, the
consolidation of Socialist legality, the improvement of the
living standards of the working people, transformations being
implemented by the Party and the government consistently,
step by step, in accordance with the principle of the unity
between works and deeds, between theory and practice, have
been taking place in the USSR.
This finds its expression in the development of Soviet
democracy, in the steps being undertaken by the Party and
the government with a view to extending the rights and powers
of the Union Republics, to insuring strict observance of
legality, to stimulating local initiative, to enlivening the
activeness of local Soviets, as well as to stimulating criti-
cism and self-criticism.
Would it have been possible to reclaim through administra-
tive means 33 million hectares of virgin land during about two
years? It was possible to implement this enormous task, as
Pravda. rightly emphasizes, only owing to the consciousness, full
initiative,and heroic labor of the people's masses.
The resolution of the CPSU Central Committee cites state-
ments of the fraternal Communist and workers parties and of
their individual leaders concerning the 20th Congress. Worthy
of note are the polemical accerits in the appraisal of the
interview with Comrade' Togliatti.
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As far as this polemic is concerned, worth stressing is
the fact that on both sides it is characterized by the most
friendly exchange of views between comrade Communists, an
exchange which not only does not weaken but strengthens
proletarian internationalism and the profound organic unity
of the international working class movement.
The concluding part of the resolution of the CPSU Central
Committee contains an appeal to all Party organizations
steadily to implement the political, organizational, and
economic directives of the 20th Congress. The resolution points
out that in conditions of the transformation of Socialism into
a world system, new inspiring prospects of victories in the
struggle for peace and Socialism are being opened up before
the'internatipnal working class movement,
The diversity of roads leading to Socialism in various
cbuntries is taking shape, but, at the same time, the
international brotherhood and solidarity of our movement are
becoming of especial importance. "In their activity in the
present conditions," says the resolution, ."all Communist Parties
take as their starting point the individual national traits and
conditions of each country, and express as fully as possible
the national interests of their peoples."
Bearing in mind that the struggle for the interests of
the working class, for peace and national independence of their
countries is at the same time the cause of the entire inter-
national proletariat, they are merging their efforts and
strengthening their mutual bonds and cooperation.
This solidarity in the struggle for common aims we use to
oppose the maneuvers of the advocates of the cold war, who are
relentlessly engaged in attempts at sowing division in
Socialist countries.
The new document of the CPSU Central Committee will
undoubtedly be of great importance for discussion and practical
activity which draw their strength from the Leninist ideas
of the 20th Congress. The article reprinted by us from Pravda's
July 8 issue, entitled "The Soviet, Truly People's System is
Lasting and Unbreakable," is an essential commentary to this
resolution.
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The resolution of the CPSU Central Committee should be
carefully studied by every Party member. Our Party and working
class, together with the whole international working class
movement, will do their best to draw all the conclusions from
this document which correspond to our tasks in the struggle for
the development of people's democracy and the victory of
Socialism.
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HUNGARY
Szabad Nep,? 3 July (as broadcast by radio)
Attempts at disrupting the unity of the Party have gained
ground recently. After the events of the past few days the
majority of Party members expected the Central Committee to
define its attitude. After the 20th CPSU Congress profound
changes were set in motion in Hungary. Collective leadership
is asserting itself more and more in the Party, and communist
criticism and self-criticism are coming into full play in
Party organizations, factories, villages and offices. Workers
criticize the faults of Party work, and the shortcomings of
the state .and economic administration ever-more boldly, and
submit clever and competent proposals to remedy them.
Our Party and Government have rehabilitated our comrades
who were condemned unjustly, granted large-scale amnesty to
others who were sentenced for political crimes, and have taken
firm measures to enforce socialist legality. Acting on the
proposal of the Central Committee, the Government has'already
taken various steps to eliminate bureaucracy from administration;
the field of competence of managers and local councils has been
widened and their economic independence increased.
Those fruitful debates which dealt with various political,
ideological, and economic questions in the light of the 20th
CPSU Congress were also levers of our growing and steadily
developing democracy. The debates were particularly fruitful
about the directives of our Second Five Year Plan. Hundreds
of thousands of workers, working peasants and intellectuals
took part in these debates, most of which were very useful and
instructive in that they widened the political horizon of the
workers. Many valuable proposals were made which are well worth
taking into consideration. All this proves that Party democracy
and the democratic character of our entire national life are
developing ever-more vigorously under the guidance of our ?arty's
Central ComMittee, The Central Committee wants to speed up
this trend of development in the future.
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However, the resolution passed by the Central Committee
several days ago pointed out that the healthy development which
began after the 20th CPSU Congress is threatened by the fact
that opportunist, demogogic views and even ideas hostile to
the Party and the People's Democracy have gained ground in
many places, first of all in the debates of the Petofi Club
of the UTM (Union of Working Youth), in some weeklies and
periodicals, for instance in certain numbers of the Irodaimi
U sa (Literary Journal) and the Beke Es Szabadsag (Peace and
freedom), and also in certain meetings arranged by some Party
and mass organizations.
Journalism was hardly mentioned at the latest debate of
the Petofi Club, although it was convened to discuss problems
relating to the press and information. Instead, many opportunist,
harmful, and even hostile views were expressed on that occasion.
Some called for a new revolution, for a new ides of March and
for structural changes.
What kind of new revolution could take place in Hungary
where there has already been a revolution, a socialist revolu-
tion, led by the most progressive social class, the working
class which is in close alliance with the working peasantry and
every worker? We are, therefore, justified in pointing out
that such a new revolution could be directed only against
socialism. We can also justly point out that in the language
of socialism new revolutions of this kind are called counter-
revolution. Our working class and working people are well aware
of this.
Tibor Den i has used that debate for launching an open and
brutal attack on Party loyalty. He attacked the leaders of
the Party and the Party's activists. He said that liberation
would start only now. But our liberation took place in 1945.
Such statements, therefore, disparage and reject all that has
been created and achieved by our people in the course of almost
12 years of freedom.
Tibor Den i appealed to his audience to disseminate his
anti-Party views all over the country. He launched an open
appeal for anti-Party (organizational work?) which has nothing
to do with debates on ideological questions or with democracy.
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Deri's speech was received with profound indignation by, and
aroused stormy protests from, the Communists who attended
the debate.
Certain speeches delivered during the latest debates, the
cheers and expressions of approval with which they were re-
ceived, and the debates on literature have clearly expressed
the disparagement of the leading role of the working class and
the Party. Those who allege that the working class is not active,
does not deal with policy and does not understand the signifi-
cance of the 20th CPSU Congress, decry the working class.. Those
who express such ideas by word of mouth or in writing do not
know the truth.
The Hungarian working class led the struggle for a revolu-
tionary change during the Horthy fascism under the leadership
of the Party. It is the leading force of our socialist construe:-
tive efforts today. Its political conduct is infinitely better
than the policy of those who attack the Party and our people's
democratic system. The working class fights, and will continue
to fight, boldly against everything that might endanger our
achievements or the application of the lessons ? of the 20th
Congress in our country.
It cannot be accidental that these opportunist, harmful
and anti-Party views were voiced by those who still maintain a
close and systematic contact with Imre Nagy, who has been
expelled from the Party because of his anti-Marxists views,
hostile to the Party and the People's Democracy, and his fac-
tionalism.
Unfortunately, these brutal and anti-Party views were not
always met by the rebuff they deserved. This happened because
these debates, and especially the recent debates arranged by
the Petofi club, were attended not only by honest people who
loved the Party dearly and who wanted to help and to further
socialist construction--although a number of them have been
misled by demagogy--but because the debates increasingly be-
came rallying points for individuals opposed to the Party and
the ideas of socialism, including persons who have been expelled
from the Party and bourgeois elements.
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. These people turned the debates into scenes of attacks
against the People's Democracy. They out-shouted and disturbed
those speeches which presented the correct Party attitude, but
they enthusiastically applauded every attack on the Party and
the People's Democracy. They were not disturbed by the presence
at these debates of representatives of the imperialist press
who eagerly seized the opportunity to write of the slanders told
about our political system.
All these events outraged honest and loyal Communists and
non-Party citizens, workers and intellectuals alike. They
justly expected the Central Committee to reply and to inform
public opinion.
We are convinced that the overwhelming majority of the
Party membership, workers, working peasants, and intellectuals
have received with satisfaction the Party Central Committee's
resolution, published last Sunday, which rejects and condemns the
attack which is developing against the Party, the working class
and the working masses to be on guard.
We must be on our guard. We have been reminded of this
duty not only by the debates, hostile to the Party, which took
place in the Petofi Club, but also by the imperialist provoca-
tion at Poznan. The Central Committee's resolution is an appeal
to every supporter Of the People's Democracy: Do not allow the
demagogues to mislead you, because only with the Party and
guided by the Party can you successfully struggle for the
assertion of the ideas of the 20th Congress and for the develop-
ment of socialist democracy.
The Central Committee of our Party is exerting supreme
efforts to assert the spirit of the 20th Congress in the Party
and in the whole country more quickly. It fights unequivocally
against (word unintelligible,?Ed.) and its remnants, against
sectarianism, against hardened and ossified views and dogmatism.
It intends to struggle with an even greater determination for
the all-round development of socialist democracy.
In order to achieve it, it is necessary that Communists
should fight, .above all with political weapons, by conviction,
for the purity of Marxism-Leninism and for the policy of the
Party, that they should watch over the unity of the Party,
f.)
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that they should prevent the driving of a wedge between the
Party and its leaders, and that they should rally behind the
Central Committee in serried ranks.
It is the duty of the press to Tend adequate support tO
this endeavor and to arm Communists and every supporter of our
regime with ideological weapons so that they can struggle for
the purity of ideological and political life. Lately, the
press has failed to take a sufficiently strong stand against
incorrect views. It did not condemn the anti-Party (character?)
of certain debates. It was not by accident that many of our ?
comrades have sharply criticized a Szabad article, pub-
lished under the title "The Sunshine of InTalectuality" which
gave a false appraisal bf the debates in the Petofi Club.
Our Party does not reject everything which was said at
these debates or was printed in the press. It does not condemn
those who took part in the debates. This is made evident by
the Central Committee resOlution. We must state as an estab-
lished fact that these debates were actively attended by a
Very large number of Party and non-Party members, honest people,
loyal to the Party who love our regime. Many correct speeches
were delivered during the debates, and many correct articles
and workers' letters appeared in the press.
Many of these criticized, and justly, the mistakes com-
mitted in the past and at the present. The Party and its
Central Committee (paid?) due attention to the correct critical
remarks made about their policy and work by Party and non-Party
members who are loyal to the Party and our demoeratic system,
who want to help the Party to correct mistakes, and in the
elaboration of new and important ideological and political
problems.
Of course, many important and correct measures have been
taken already, and it is an unhealthy sign that theae were not
-mentioned during the debates. Indeed, many such mistakes were
criticized at the debates whose correction has been in progress
for a long time. Correct critical remarks, however, must be
dealt
The Central. Committee and the Government will elaborate
appropriate measures With a view to Continuing the democratization
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of our public life and to developing our ideological and
economic work. Erroneous views were also uttered in the
course of the various debates, views which were simply due to
lack of experience or lack of information. In such cases the
mistake can be corrected by explaining the correct, Marxist
and Party-like attitude. One of the most important tasks of
these debates is to clarify incorrect views and to develop
correct views.
The resolution of the Central Committee is not directed
against these incorrect views; what it rejects are the opportunist
views hostile to the Party. We must wage an energetic ideological
and political struggle against opportunism, all the more so
since it can easily become a weapon in the hands of the class
enemy.
The Central Committee and the Party want democracy, a
socialist democracy where there is no room for the enemies
of the people, but where views are clarified in Party-like
debates. What we need are debates which help us to solve our
problems, strengthen the unity of the Patty, consolidate the
ties between the Party and masses, solve important ideological
questions and promote the work of the Party and our productive
efforts.
The Central Committee of our Party is resolved to proceed
steadily on the road defined by the 20th Congress. It raises
high the banner of socialism. All those who have placed :their
faith and .confidence in the ideas of the 20th Congress, and who
want to struggle and to work with the people and for the people
must rally under this banner.
3
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CZECHOSLOVAKIA
Rude Pravo, 4 July, excerpt (as broadcast by radio)
Yesterday our press published the decision of the
Central Committee of the CPSU on the cult of personality
and its consequences. This is an important document not
only for the CPSU and the Soviet people but for the entire
international workers movement. It contains a lesson for
our Party, ,too, which always considered its older and
more experienced co-fighter, the ,CPSU, as its teacher.
From it we shall continue to learn how to apply Lenin's
theories and norms of Party life by Utilizing its exper-
iences in a creative and not mechanical way.
Only a short time has elapsed since the 20th Congress
of the CPSU. Yet even in this brief period it has become
clear to the world that the decisions accepted by the
Soviet Communists have great and vital force, that they
strengthen the position of socialism, democracy and peace,
and bring forth an unprecedented revolutionary enthusiasm
and initiative from the workers. It is also evident that.
this great program for the strengthening of peace, social-
ism, and working class. unity, outlined by the CPSU Congress
has greatly upset the reactionary political circles, above
all those in the United States.
Recently a new wide-spread slanderous campaign against
the USSR and the People's Democracies and against the great
ideas of socialism and communism has been launched. The
more consistently Communist parties implement their_ pro-
gram, the greater becomes the anger and fury of the enemies
of socialism. As a pretext for their unbridled attacks they
use certain facts connected with the criticism of the cult
of personality around J. V. Stalin and the 6erious mistakes
which occurred during the last years of his life.
From the U. S. imperialist circles with their corrupt
press down to politicians of the.type of Fanfani; the
Italian Christian Democrat, they all speak about the "bank-
rupt* of communism," of "confusion" inside the Communist
parties, of"disintegration" of the socialist regimes. The
ultimate aim of this performance of gravediggers of socialism
16 to undermine the confidence in the leading socialist power,
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to create confusion in the ranks of the international
workers movement and to cover up their own fear. Yet
they cannot deceive anyone.
It is well known that in the course of the debates
on the results of the CPSU Congress, inherently honest
people in our country asked: "Will not the bold and open
criticism and self-criticism weaken the position of social-
ism?" Such views, even if proffered with honesty, failed
to appreciate basic principles. To speak openly and boldly
of the grave consequences of the cult of personality was
necessary, if all the Communist parties were to overcome
jointly and quickly all its bad influences.
Obviously in the beginning this bitter truth caused
painful sadness and even some difficulties inside certain
Communist parties. Yet all these negative sides are minute
compared with the tremendous positive results which have
already become apparent and will appear even stronger in
the future from the point of view of the basic interests
and aims of the working class.
Quills, dipped in the ink of anti-Soviet and anti-
socialist .hatred, try to draw as distorted pictures as pos-
sible. Filling reams of paper, they endeavor to prove that
the causes of the cult of personality were not objective,
historic conditions and subjective factors, but the Soviet
.regime itself and its undemocratic character. Yet just as
It is impossible to hide the sun behind a dirty hand, no
slander can prove that the Soviet regime is undemocratic.
The lie of the alleged Soviet lack of democracy, kept
alive with every possible effort, will not gain laurels
for anti-Communist fighters. The past decades have shown that
true human freedom and democracy was not safeguarded by mono-
polist capitalism, but by socialism. Can any country west
of the Elbe or east of Peiping insure for its citizens a
permanently growing living standard, the right to work,
education and leisure?
The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, just as the other
fraternal parties, has approved and supported the measures
taken by the CPSU against the cult of personality and its
consequences. It has drawn practical conclusions for its
future work from the decisions of the CPSU Congress. The
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general inner Party discussions and the recent Party con-
ference have shown that the results of these conclusions
are beginning to take shape. It is necessary to continue
on this road, to be consistent and to enforce Leninist
principles in all spheres of our life. Socialism has be-
come a world system, opening up for all Communist Parties
and for the entire working class movement wide vistas0 All
the Communist parties, while guided in their work by individ-
ual national characteristics and their special situation
and expressing the interests of their own nation's, realize
at the same time that it is necessary to constantly strengthen
the tips of international solidarity in the fight against
the common enemy. This unity and loyalty to the principles
of proletarian internationalism is the more necessary in
the face of the various aggressive blocs of capitalist
countries and the subversive activities directed against the
countries of the socialist camp.
The Antipopular events in Poznan, which were.planned
carefully and long in advance, have taught us to rid our-
selves of carelessness and smugness. Capitalist monopolies
and certain political circles, so long as they continue to
exist, will not treat us with excessive liberalism.
Yet the plans of the black knights with cloak and dag-
ger will fail in the same way as the fairy tales of the
bourgeois ideologist who forecast the crisis and breakdown
of Communism. Their proclamations are neither new no
original. Metternich and the Russian Tsar in their time
made similar forecasts. Where are they today? They dis-
appeared below the trapdoors of history while the ideals
of communism continue to be victorious. The followers of
these prophets, who still foretell the end of communism
with astrological formulas,' will soon see that despite their
'vociferous slander of socialism, they are bound to be en-
gulfed eventually by the logical development of history.
The powerful engine of history rolls forward on its rails.
No obstacle can holdup this advance towards communism.
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EAST GERMANY
Neues Deutschland, 8 July
It was impossible to discuss at length at the Third SED
Conference all problems resulting from the'new situation and
from the criticism of the personality cult. The Politburo of
the Central Committee of the SED welcomes the decision of the
Central Committee of the CPSU of June 30, 1956, on the over-
coming of the personality cult and its consequences. It re-
commends, therefore, that all Party members and Party organi-
zations thoroughly study this important decision, explain it
to the workers, and draw from it conclusions for improving the
political, economic, and ideological work of the Party.
The propaganda of our opponents alleges that Stalin's
mistakes were rooted in the Soviet system, in its social, con-
stitutional, and political order and in Marxism-Leninism in
general. Unfortunately some representatives of progressive
Ideas were influenced by this argument.
It must be said with all emphasis: The aggressive German
imperialists and militarists also helped to make it possible
for Stalin's mistakes to develop. It was they who, tolerated
and actively supported by their allies in the United States,
Great Britain, and France, brought German fascism to power in
order to use it as an assault force against the Soviet Union.
In this way they have been creating since 1933 an atmosphere
of permanent threat to and undermining of the Soviet Union.
It must not be forgotten that the grave and inexcusable mis-
takes of Stalin with regard to the violation of legality were
committed under these conditions of an agressive policy con-
ducted by German fascism against the Soviet Union. These mis-
takes are not inherent in the Soviet system, however.
The main point for the further democratization of life
in the GDR is and Will be that the masses of the people, by
their cooperation and active work, determine this process and
contribute toward overcoming all bureaucratic obstacles, to-
ward insuring democratic legality, and toward giving the elected
representative bodies of the people full scope. The fact that
mistakes and exaggerations occurred In the observation of demo-
cratic legality was due to the situation of the cold war, tp
the necessity to combat the constant criminal activities of
Western agencies, and to the circumstance that socialist legis-
lation had to develop.
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The implementation of a correct policy, advocated by all
workers, demands increased vigilance on the part of all pro-
gressive forces of society. The events of Poznan, where agents
provocateurs of a reactionary clandestine movement, with the
help of foreign agents based in West Berlin and West Germany,
caused disturbances and bloodshed, show that the enemies of
peace stop at nothing in their efforts thwart the process of
International relaxation of tension and further democratiza-
tion of life in the countries of the socialist camp and the
possibilities of a peaceful road to socialism as indicated by
the 20th CPSU Congress.
The Third SED Conference raised a multitude of problems
which must be solved with the help of Marxist-Leninist theory
and method. "We must state that the socialist education of the
workers and the Marxist-Leninist instruction of Party members
has lagged. This is due to the weakness of the theoretical
work done so far, as well as to the dogmatic traits still pre-
ponderant in Party propaganda_ It is therefore necessary for
the comrade scientists and propagandists to discuss openly how
to overcome dogmatism and how to develop an atmosphere of lively,
creative theoretical work."
In the GDR, too, the consequences of the personality cult
must be completely overcome. "On the basis of its own experi-
ence, the Central Committee of the SED began as early as in
1953 to institute measures against the personality cult; it
stated, for instance, that it is not permissible to continue
to name institutes, enterprises, streets, and so forth after
living persons. But these measures do not mean that all forms
and consequences of the personality cult have already been
overcome. For instance, in the history of the Party and in the
history of the German workers movement it is still customary
to underestimate the part played by the lower party and trade
union organizations, to give hardly any appreciation of it.
The Party organizations must therefore discuss ways in
which the Party can successfully continue the struggle to
overcome the personality cult and its consequences.
Another issue is the better promotion of the Partys
intellectual and spiritual life. Frank and comradely discus-
sion is of the greatest importance for the education of Party
members. It cannot be said that this.spirit already prevails
today in all Party organizations. The Party must also seriously
consider how the development of cadres and the care for all
members and candidates can be imporved. At present there
still exists much indifference toward human beings, as well
as injustices. This must be changed quickly.
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It must be said openly that the Party at present does
not give sufficient explanation to the workers about the
causes of and reasons for certain difficulties and contra-
dictions in the building of socialism. Our agitation and
propaganda sometimes creates the impression that no diffi-
culties whatsoever exist in the GDR, that everything is
going smoothly. This, however, cannot be the case in the
period of transition from capitalism to socialism.
The frequently practiced method of presenting in un-
relieved black and white the comparison between conditions
In the GDR and West Germany is also harmful. We tell the
workers quite frankly that in many spheresof science and
technology it is necessary to catch up with West Germany,
that it is necessary constantly to improve the material and
cultural conditions of the workers in the QDR by stepping up
labor productivity. But the people's democratic order and
the socialist economy in the GDR give the workers work, secu-
rity, freedom, and a constant improvement of their living
conditions, whereas the capitalist order in West Germany is
not based on a stable foundation and is heading toward
grave economic and social traumata.
We still have great economic difficulties to overcome.
The democratization of life must be continued. A creative
atmosphere is to develop in science, learning, and art. We
Shall solve all these tasks if we look boldly ahead and
never lose sight of the goal.
Talk by Professor Eisler on the statement published by the
SED Central Committee on the 20th CPSU Congress and the
Third SED Conference (as broadcast by radio)
Let us imagine ourselves for a moment in the Soviet .
Union, in the period after 1933.* The Soviet Union was gravely -
threatened by German fascism, by the Berlin-Rome-Tokyo axis,
which Was supported by all international reactionaries. The
peoples of the Soviet Union, the Communist Party and the
government of the Soviet Union, had to face, so to speak,
hourly the danger of a military attack by all the imperialists
against the first socialist power' The fascists and imperialiOtp
at the other countries at the same time sent their spies to .
the Soviet Union. They exploited the reactionary, elements
Still existing there for their war preparations.
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In view of such a situation, which was a matter of life
and death for the first socialist country, iron discipline,
a constant increase in vigilance and strict centralization
of the leadership ... were necessary in the Soviet Union....
This involved certain restrictions on democracy. However,
these necessary restrictions were only regarded by the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union and by the peoples of
the Soviet Union as temporary and necessitated by an ex-
tremely complicated and dangerous situation, and were to
be lifted, of course, as soon as this danger was over.
It is clear, however, that in such circumstances any
stand against Stalin, who had great authority, would simply
not have been approved by the Soviet people. The people
would have regarded this as a weakening of the preparations
against the aggressors.
In this situation Stalin began to override the Party
and to flagrantly misuse the great authority which he
possessed. This led to the well-known grave mistakes which
Stalin committed and which have now been rectified. If
the Soviet Union had not been involved in such danger by
German fascism, by the Berlin-Rome-Tokyo axis, it would
undoubtedly have been possible to prevent in good time the
mistakes of Stalin and the personality cult of Stalin, and
to preserve ... the leadership of the communist Party and
its inner-party democracy, and certainly to restore them
at an earlier date.
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RUMANIA
Munca, 4 July (as broadcast by radio)
An old, wise saying of the workers movement states
that the class enemy's praise is the surest sign that you
are on the wrong track. The reverse of this rule is just
as valid: The louder and more furiously the enemy shouts,
the more the blows dealt to him hurt him.
Every slander campaign and attack launched by the
ideologists of capitalism against the revolutionary workers
movement always reflects the panic which has taken hold of
the enemies of the working class. This is why nobody was
surprised that the 20th CPSU Congress brought on furious
attacks by the ideologists of capitalism as a result of the
state of unrest and irritation in which the camp of the
enemies of the working class lives.
Fully approved and supported by the entire Party and
by all the Soviet People, by brother communist and workers
parties, and by millions of working people in the capitalist
and colonial countries, the decisions of the 20th Congress
became at once of worldwide historic importance. They con-
stituted a new phase in the creative development of Marxism-
Leninism and opened up new prospects for the United actions
of all the parties of the working class for the prevention
of a new war and for the promotion of the workers' interests.
The first results are visible to all. The Soviet people
have closed their ranks even more closely around the Commu-
nist Party and are achieving remarkable results in all
fields of the Soviet Union's political, economic, and cul-
tural life. But this is occurring not only in the Soviet
Union. Facts everywhere show the great vital force of the
decisions of the 20th Congress for the international workers
and communist movement, for the struggle of all progressive
forces for the strengthening of world peace.
Adopted by the broad workers masses, the theoretical
theses of principles set down by the Congress are daily be-
coming a force which worries the enemies of socialism and
progress. The theses regarding the peaceful coexistence
of states with different social systems, (the theses regard-
ing?) the possibility of preventing wars, and the diverse
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forms of transition to socialism contribute to the easing
of tension, to the strengthening of the unity of action
of the forces of peace and democracy, and to the continued
consolidation of the positions of the world system of
socialism.
Under these conditions it is easy to understand that
the enemies of socialism and communism are striving with
all their might to distract the attention of the working
class and its parties from the advanced and inspired ideas
which the socialist world is proclaiming.
Reflecting this situation, analyzing the internal and
international events of the current phase, and clearly '
answering the problems raised in life, the decision of the
CPSU Central Committee published yesterday, regarding the
liquidation of the cult of personality and its consequences,
is a document of exceptional importance.
The CPSU Central Committee's docuffient speaks with the
all-powerful voice of truth about the invincible progress
of the historical development of mankind toward communism,
about the emptiness of the illusions of the ideologists
of capitalism--the amateurs who fish in troubled waters.
The tricks of the bourgeois press and of the reactionary
circles which they sought to use in their new anti-Soviet
slander campaign appear (ridiculous?) and foolish to all.
Using as a pretext the facts linked with the cult of person-
ality of Josef Stalin, a cult which the CPSU has condemned,
they conceal the fact that this is a past phase in the life
of the Soviet Union. '
With the dishonesty which was always characteristic,
the ideologists of the bourgeoisie are forgetting the fact
that, beginning 3 years ago, a persevering and firm action
has been carried out for the liquidation of the consequences
of the cult of personality, and that the new tasks in the
interest of the consolidation of peace and the building of
communism, in the interest of the broad,peoplets masses are
being successfully implemented in the Soviet Union.
Everybody can realize that precisely this courageous
and principled criticism of the cult of personality which
is being carried out on the initiative of the CPSU Central
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Committee is an eloquent proof of the force and the solidarity
of the Party and the Soviet socialist system. Only a Party
educated in the spirit of Marxist-Leninist teachings, a
Party serving the people and linked with and supported by
the people can permit itself to take such an open stand.
Not one of the leading parties of the capitalist countries
has and will ever risk such a step on its own initiative.
The decision of the CPSU Central Committee shatters
the slanderous (whispers?) of the inimical ideology which
has tried to show that the appearance of Stalin's cult of
personality was caused not by certain historical conditions
of the past but by the very Soviet system.
How absurd this slander is, is proved by the entire his-
tory of the development of the Soviet state. Led by its
Communist Party, the Soviet Union has traveled a glorious
road, a road which it built by overcoming the greatest dan-
gers and difficulties.
Despite an economic, cultural, and technical backward-
ness of centuries, and under the conditions of a fierce
fight against class enemies at home and abroad,,. the Soviet
people built eocialipM, (and?) carried Marxism-Leninism to
victory.
The Soviet socialist system has amply proved its
superiority by the unprecedented rate of its economic and
cultural development. All this was possible because the
Soviet system put into motion the inexhaustible forces of
the people's masses, gearing the millions of people to the
conscious leadership of the state, to creative, active par-
ticipation in the building of socialism. No isolated per-
sonality, however strong he may be, can change the nature
of such a profoundly democratic system in which the decisive
force is the working people's masses of millions.
Only by an idealistic aberration, by denying Marxism,
by denying the truth can (they?) come to the conclusion that
the nature of a social-political regime is determined by
something other than the manner of production, and the posses-
sion of the means of production and the political power of
the class.
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The socialist manner of production was established
in the Soviet Union almost 40 years ago while the power
rested in the hands of the working class and the peasantry.
This explains why the evil done by the cult of personality
in the leadership of the various branches of the Soviet
Party and state did not and could not divert the develop-
ment of Soviet society from the correct road of evolution
toward Communism.
This explains why the decisions of the 20th CPSU Con-
gress regarding the liquidation of the consequences of the
cult of personality and the reestablishment of the Leninist
norms of Party life, and the development of socialist demo-
cratism are being carried out with so much success.
The CPSU Central Committee's decision rightly stresses
that the entire international communist and workers move-
ment considers the fight against the cult of personality
and its consequences a struggle for the purity of the prin-
ciples of Marxism-Leninism, for a creative approach to the
solution of international problems, and for the establish-
ment and the ceaseless development of the principles of
proletarian internationalism. Not only the militants of
the workers movement, but all working people devoted to the
cause of peace admit the great historical merit of the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union in the implementation
of the decisions of the 20th Congress.
Our working people led by their Party on the road of
building socialism feel profound gratitude to the gigantic
contribution of the CPSU and the Soviet Government in the
victory of the common cause of socialism and peace.
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ALBANIA
Zen i Popullit, A July (as broadcast by radio)
The reaction concerning the discussions of the 20th CPSU
Congress is still being observed throughout the world. The
decisions have been approved everywhere by all the Communist and
workers Parties, workers, and millions of people. The Congresst
most (important?) theses concerning the international situation,
the development of communism in the Soviet Union, and the
respect of Leninist principles by the Party in connection with
the liquidation of the cult of personality have opened great
prospects for the future of mankind by giving a new impetus to
the revolutionary movement in all countries.
Undoubtedly these theses brought about reaction in the
camp of our enemies and .a new propaganda of lies about a so-
called socialist crisis. However, nothing can stop the dis-
semination of the great ideas of this Congress. Moreover, it
should be admitted that we are still in the early stages. Only
4 months have passed since the Congress. However, this period
revealed the great and vital force of its decisions for the
international communist and labor movement, for the struggle of
all the progressive forces for consolidating peace in the world,
as stated in the decision of the CPSU Central Committee regarding
the excesses of the cult of personality and its conseqUences0 ?
carried by our press yesterday.
The June 30 decision of the CPSU Central Committee thoroughly
reviews the reaction in all countries brought about by the great
problems debated at the 20th Congress and minutely analyzes the
results of the reaction of the first phase.
, The decisions of the 20th Congress and the measures for
their implementation, the latest decision of the CPSU Central-
Committee emphasizes, reveal a wholly principled attitude on a
series of problems and (several words unintelligible--Ed.).
Great results are being achieved even now. These results
demonstrate the force of the decisions of the 20th Congress
which in the future will enliven the movement for socialism,
democracy, , and peace to auch-an extent as never has been seen.:
before.
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It unmasks bourgeois propaganda theses which aim at sowing
skepticism about the first socialist country in 'the world, the
Soviet Union, and replies to a number of problems connected
with the cult of the individual. For example, how it was pos-
sible that the cult of Joseph Stalin developed and went to
such an extent under socialist conditions.'
?The 20th Congress was enthusiastically received by all the
people. Now it exercises great influence in the development
of the international situation. The people link closely with
the 20th Congress the obvious results in the easing of inter-
national tension, the dissemination of the idea of peaceful co-
existence, and the revival of hopes for prevention of war at
the present time. It may well be noted that no other socialist
ideas had such a drawing power and exercised such great influence
over the working and progressive movement in the world as did the
decisions of the 20th Congress.
This is what alarms and disturbs.the camp of the enemies
of socialism. It is not without purpose that the bourgeois
propaganda is making so much uproar about the Stalin cult and
it consequences, its intention is to obscure all other matters
and, by condemning the cult of Stalin, to create the impression
that there is confusion and lack of unity among the inter:-
national communist and workers parties, and to minimize Soviet
prestige.
? It is true that the attempts of socialist enemies in this
purpose are gr9at and--despite the fact that they have received
the answer they deserve and they-A-lave been and are being un-
masked--the matter should not be underestimated. On the contrary,
Vigilance must be strengthened and we must step up our fight
against them.
It is a fact that during this period certain persons in
certain People's Democracies--awaiting the most favorable
moment to attack the Party--appropriated the lies of the hostile
propaganda and, screening themselves behind the slogans of the
20th Congress, attacked Communist and workers parties and their
leaders and lied about the Soviet Union and the socialist
system.
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Indeed, was it not the same thing which certain hostile
elements who dared raise their heads at the Tirana Town Party
conference but who received the answer they deserved by the
Party also wanted to do in our own country? It is a fact that
often wrong interpretations are made in connection with certain
matters of the cult of the individual. However, one thing is
clear, the bourgeois propaganda aimed at disturbing the people
is losing ground and the principle of condemning the cult of
the individual is getting stronger every day.
The decision of the CPSU Central Committee systematically
Unmasks bourgeois propaganda theses in connection with the
distortion of the question of the cult of personality. Thus
it showed that the bourgeois propaganda purposely does not
mention the fact that now the question of the cult of the
individual is a past thing in the life of the Soviet Union
and that during the past 3 years the CPSU carried out a deter-
mined struggle to liquidate the cult of the individual and its
Consequences.
Hostile propaganda tries to raise questions such as: Why
was the question of the cult of the individual raised now?
This was done in order to create skepticism about the sincere
and Courageous self-criticism carried out at the 20th Congress.
Asking how the cult of the individual arose, hostile propaganda
pretended that the cult of the individual was broUght about by
the socialist system itself which, therefore,. 18 not 'a democratic
system and so forth.
However, the June 30 decision of the UST-Central Committee
fUily unmasks these slanders of bourgeois propaganda on the '
basis of the facts of life itself. There could be nothing more
false than saying that the cult of the individual did not spring
up as a result of the prescribed historical conditions through
which the, Soviet Union had to pass and stating instead that it
arose because of the socialist system which allegedly 115 not
democratic.
Where else can more be spoken of genuine democracy than in
socialism where the means of production are the people's common
property and the regime JO in the people's hands? In socialism
the people have the means of production in their own hands: as
well as the government, thus-creating the broadest possible
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democracy of their own, while in capitalism neither the pro-
duction means nor the government are in the hands of the
people and in this way there is no democracy for them. This
is true.
By its condemnation of the cult of the individual and its
consequences in the Soviet Union and the People's Democracies,
the CPSU Congress also condemns the violation of socialist laws
and takes measures to strengthen the democracy of the people--
the real masters of the country.
However, no comparison can be made between our socialist
democracy and their bourgeois democracy since these differ as
day differs from night. It also should be said that there is no
more vain hope than thinking that by raising questions and
various doubts the trust of communists and workers in the CPSU
and first socialist country in the world will be threatened.
Attempts to isolate the Soviet Union, continues Zen i I
Popullit, began with the existence of the Soviet Uniarga?
attempts to divide the international workers and Communist
movement also began with its existence. These attempts will
continue for many years to come. However, to try is one thing,
and to succeed is another thing.. The enemies of. socialism will
never achieve this aim because Socialist countries are united
by the eternal Marxist-Leninist ideas and because their own
historic experience has taught them that their strength lies
in their unity--their guarantee for the victory of socialism.
and communism.
Therefore, all the activities of our enemies are doomed
to failure. Our solidarity is getting stronger every day. The
unity around and trust of all socialist countries, Communist '
and workers parties, and working people throughout the world for
the Soviet Union is increasing. However, we must increse
vigilance in order not to leave any gap through which the
enemies of socialism may enter their wedges to harm 1.114 be it
ever so little.
Our Party has taught us to draw lessons from the CPSU.
The historic decisions of the 20th Congress exercised great
influence in our country. They inspired all preparations for.
our Third Congress and all our Congress directives and decisions
:were guided by the 20th Congress. Currently the 20th Congress'
decisions show us the way to fulfill the tasks and directives
of our Third Party Congress.
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Our Party also at once noticed and unmasked the maneuvers of
the enemies of socialism, punished Party enemies who dared raise
their heads on this occasion, unmasked the deceitful bourgeois
propaganda and never allowed a split in its ranks or attacks
against and criticism of the Soviet Union, our friend and
,liberator. Our Party never allowed distortion of the cult of
the individual. It took serious measures to liquidate the cult
of the individual and its consequences; our Party will persist
in this policy.
Our Party is learning valuable lessons from the recent
decision of the CPSU Central Committee on the excesses of the
cult of the individual and its consequences, enabling it to
fight even more effectively against the slanderous propaganda of
the bourgeois ideology, persistently explaining anything con-
nected with the problem of the cult of the individual, liquidating
any attack against the Party and unity of the world communist
and labor movement, consolidating vigilance against the enemies
of socialism, and preventing enemies from sowing confusion in
our own ranks or violating our friendship and ties with the
Soviet Union.
At the same time, Zen i I Popullit concludes, our Party
will continue to respect consistently the lofty principle of
our Party recognizing the people as the creator of history.. It
will implement strictly the Leninist rules in the Party, will
strengthen internal democracy in.the-Party and democracy for
the people, and will march forward toward the country's socialist
construction built on the basis defined by the Third Party
Congress.
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New York Journal-American
* Tues., July 10, 1956-
Forced Feeding Still Necessary
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WE STERN EUROPE
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ITALY
Nuovi Argomenti, No. 20, May-June 1956
The condemnation by the present Soviet leaders of cer-
tain aspects of Stalin's policy, more particularly, of his
method of political leadership, represents, in my opinion,
merely a concession to the growing discontent of the great
masses of workers and farmers and of the federated peoples
of the USSR. In the Soviet Union a profound political
crisis is undoubtedly in progress, which expresses the
constantly sharper contrast between the grandiose develop-
ment of the productive forces and the backward forms of
the dictatorial state, quite inadequate to express the
needs of society. In short, it is a crisis of the totali-
tarian regime at its foundations.
Faced with this crisis, the Soviet leaders have used
Stalin as a huge scapegoat. However, neither the condem-
nation of the Cult of personality, nor the rehabilitation
of thousands of innocent persons "liquidated" as traitors
and enemies of the people, nor the abandonment of the
coarser forms of political and cultural oppression which
were in favor during the Stalin era can, naturally, solve
the basic political problem which lies at the root of the
/crisis of the Russian state. These are palliatives of
scant real value, even if announced with great demagogic
skill. Whether the Russian dictatorship has a personal or
collective political leadership, its anachronistic nature
will certainly not change. Sooner or later, we shall wit-
ness new clamorous episodes of the substantially unsolved
crisis.
I do not think that the parliamentary politiCal form
of Western type is the only one which can be considered
legitimate from the democratic point of view, nor do I
think that it is the best or the most adequate political
alternative to the present Russian dictatorship. However,
.I am also convinced that no regime deserves to be character-
ized as democratic so long as it excludes multiplicity of
political currents, their right to express themselves freely
in the press and in public meetings, and their right to
designate their own men of trust for elective offices. The
pseudo-Marxist declaration that there can be no diversity
of opinion or political choice where there are no contrasts
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of social classes is a ridiculous sophism, all the terms
of which are false. It is precisely the enforced absence
of opposition newspapers in the country, of opposition
currents within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union,
and of opposition tickets in elections which gives a
fictitious character to all the "democratic" formulations
contained in the Stalin Constitution of 1936.
There is a difference of political language not only
between West and East but also among citizens of the same
city, according to their differing concepts of politics or
of social life in general. Thus, as is known, for our own
Fascists and the Nazis, although they were Westerners, op-
position was treason and discussion was deviation, or heresy,
as it is called by the Catholic Church. The diversity of
political language, then, does not have racial, ethnographic,
or climatic origins, but is the difference between closed
societies and open societies. Here it can naturally be
asked why closed societies prevail in certain regions and
in certain epochs.
, Even Russian civilization is of European and Christian
type, but somewhat less differentiated than the West.
Russia did not have the separation of church and state.
Ivan the Terrible knew that it was his duty "not only to
hold the reins of power but also to save souls." Russia
had neither a Scholastic philosophy, nor a Reformation, nor
an independent lay thought (it did not have a St. Thomas,
a Machiavelli, or a Galileo). Russia had no free munici-
palities or cities, except in the limited area of the Baltic.
Russia has never had a freely elected parliament or a parli-
amentary government (the Duma had only a consultative char-
acter), nor free trade unions of workers, nor cooperatives
administered by the members themselves. The socialist move-
ment there was almost always clandestine. Such a tradition,
no doubt, makes the budding and flowering of democratic
forms particularly difficult; but what is incomprehensible
is why a typical exponent of such a backward cultural situa-
tion, like aldanov, was accepted as a guide and censor even
by Western writers and artists.
In spite of everything, I do not believe in fate, and
even less in the inevitability of terror. I do not believe
that there are any situations with but a single mode of exit.
I do not believe in the sanctity of accomplished facts. If
52
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I can admit that, under given circumstances, terror is in-
dispensable for the political schemes of the tyrant, I
deny that it is necessary for his victims.
The fact that the Communists of the entire world be-
lieved, at the time, in the Stalin version of the trials
and conspiracies just as they believe today in the official
condemnation of those Monstrous deeds by Stalin's successors
is one of the many irrefutable proofs that the Communists
of the entire world have been kept under the blindest obedi-
ence to the Moscow leaders. The so-called "Italian way of
Communism," practiced by the Communist Party of Italy since
the liberation and credited to Palmiro Togliatti, seems to
contradict such a crude assertion, but only in appearance.
It is sufficient to remember that the fate of the individual
European countries after the liberation was decreed in the
meetings of the Big Four at Yalta and Potsdam. Italy,
along with the other countries of the West, was then aban-
doned by Stalin to Western influence, in exchange for the
disinterestedness of Churchill and Roosevelt in the fate
of the countries of Eastern Europe. The Communist Parties
of Italy and France had to make a virtue of necessity; any
foolishness in a contrary direction was vigorously repressed
by order of Moscow, just as Stalin himself sent the rebel
Markos to Siberia. Thus the "Italian way of Communism" was
also a Stalin way.
Many reports lead one to suppose that an internal relax-
ation of tension is now going on in Russia, but it is per-
haps premature to say that a new politicalphase has opened.
A decisive turn will be able to take place only when an im-
portant political disagreement is publicly reported and
presented for discussion in the Communist press before being
solved in a meeting of the party and the state, without the
minority's being threatened with extermination.
The vast area, with more than one billion inhabitants,
colored pink on geopolitical maps of the world to indicate
it as socialist, for purposes of electoral propaganda, is a
childish concept, a typical survival of the Stalin epoch.
Among the European countries of people's democracy, and
between them and their brother peoples situated farther to
the east, from the Ukraine to North Korea, the differences
and contradictions are no less profound than among the coun-
tries of the Western Hemisphere. It is not yet possible to
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foresee to what extent the Soviet thaw will allow the
various countries of the two world blocs to regain their
independence. However, one can feel the duty of declar-
ing that this is very desirable in the interests of peabe
and democracy.
Ignazio Shone
LlUnita, 28 June, excerpt from a resolution of the Central
Committee of the Italian Communist Party
The Central Committee of the PCI has been unanimous in
underlining the great value of the decisions of the 20th
Congress of the CPSU, and in approving of the denunciation
and condemnation of the errors and criminal violations of
Socialist legality and of democracy in the Party and the
Soviet state.
Even though the charges and criticisms require a more
thoroughgoing examination, they represent not only new
possibilities of progress for the Soviet Union but also an
essential contribution to the labor and Socialist movement
which, within the framework of international solidarity,
is bound to develop in every country with a new capaCity
for criticism and initiative and an ever increasing autonomy.
The guarantee of the basic freedoms and of the develop-
ment of the human being is an essential element of Socialist
society. The Soviet Union will draw new strength and ever
growing prestige from the full restoration and further
development of these freedoms and of Socialist legality;
the struggle for liberation waged by Communists and workers
in every country will receive a new impetus.
The Central Committee deems that the extensive and in-
tensive debate which is taking place within the Party) on
the problems of the 20th Congress of the CPSU, and to which
Comrade Togliatti has made such an important contribution
with his interview and his report to the Central Committee,
must be carried forward in all Party organizations. This
debate is encouraged because it makes it possible to derive
a lesson applicable also to our Party, for the correction
of errors, and for the improvement of our work, while it
effectively enriches with fresh political and ideological
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content the life of our organizations and is translated
into a more active and solidary participation of all com-
rades in the life and struggles of.the Party.
?This debate is proof of the Party's vitality and
maturity and will contribute to developing the capability
and initiative of all comrades and all.organizations to face
the great problems arising from the new situation, and to
contribute to stating accurately and going deeply into the
themes of our policy and of the Italian road to Socialism.
This intensive activity of critical examination, of
investigation, and of ideological elaboration must flow
together into the discussion preceding the congress and into
the assemblies and preliminary conventions which will pre-
pare the Eighth National Congress of the PCI.
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PRECISELY, THE PROOF!
(Front-page editorial by P. Nenni published in the 1 July 1956 issue of
Avantit)
The article which Avantik published last Sunday and the article on
the highlights of the last Congress in Moscow, which had preceded it by
several months, are among those acts of responsibility toward himself,
toward the Party, toward the workers, which a person who has any degree
of public confidence cannot shirk without failing the first and foremost
of his obligations, which is not to be content to establish a fact, but
to go back to its political, social, and ideological causes, and to ask
himself how and why it happened and what it means. Thus, in going back
behind the events denounced in the Khrushchev report to their political
and ideological causes, we have come face to face with the principle,
from which we cannot deviate far without danger, that corrections of the
hereditary deficiencies of political and social institutions, even of
those which erose in the creative fervor of revolutions, cannot come (as
.Rosa Luxemburg maintained in her controversy with Lenin and Trotsky) ex-
cept from the active and prompt political life of the masses, outside of
which everything becomes bureaucratic and corrupt. The Poznan workers'
revolt reminds us of the same principle, with painful tragicalness -- a
revolt which caught Poland in the process of thawing out, but which shows.
also, and tragically, the slowness with which the new exigencies of demo-
cratic development have been faced in the political and economic and
trade-union fields, and emphasizes the urgency of carrying them forward'
and radically, without any concession to the temptation or to counsels
of repression, which does not cure social sores but rather aggravates them.
The fact that the Khrushchev report has created a "scandal"; that
our newspapers and those of all parts of the world have interpreted it in .
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56
their RITPrOaa aReaSeLlAhaillie: aellIDOAt-Oe2i9Q66261M0663-1Ts
brought a whole slew of attacks or has given occasion to the people of the
most diverse education, who have no knowledge of socialism, either ideo-
logically or in action, to take me and us in hand to teach us haw socialists
behave -- all this has been disregarded. Ue cannot shirk our own duty
through fear of the criticisms or of the speculations to which we may be
exposed. The debate which has been begun must continue. The socialists
and the Communists have much to gain and very little to lose. In time
we shall tally up the results of the controversy. The urgent thing is
to answer those who have stated that they are waiting for proof.
Actually, it is we who have been waiting for proof for some time,
patiently, with a strong dose of forbearance, but also with the feeling
that matters cannot remain as they are.
The proof which Saragat is waiting for us to provide pertains to
foreign and domestic policy. He says so politely. Others say so rudely.
In the cleverest and most padded political comments of the past week
there was, hidden or openly expressed an invitation to jump across the
ditch, to gain for me and for us an air of bourgeois respectability through
renouncement of the pledge to push the situation to the left in order t
join that sort of brotherhood of death which is the so-called democratic
center. They will wait for quite a whiles
Today in the world and in Europe there exist the bases for a new
foreign policy. In Italy there exist bases for a new domestic policy.
The socialists are ready to cooperate in working out its lines, its ob-
jectives, its programs. Time is lost if they invite us to accept the old
De Gasperi foreign policy, now that this policy lacks even the apparent
justification it drew from the danger of war, which, by design or not,
it helped to stir up. They are wasting saliva and ink if they invite us
to accept the Shelba's domestic policy, fed by a usanfedistau ( follower
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of a politico-religous association which e:ftsted in Southern Italy after
the French Revolution and was highlighted by the leadership of Cardinal
Ruffo) and Mc Carthyist spirit, and by conservative fears. Above all, an
invitation of this type if foreign to the trend of our era, which has
emerged, perhaps for a long time, from the spiral of hatreds and fears.
Everything around us is in a state of evolution. Bolshevism is
evolving, dropping the myths so that the conquests of the revolution
flourish and develope, a demoggatic reorganization of the entire Soviet society
Communism is seeking its own read of evolution; at least Italian CoMmunism.
The balance of power between states is gradually evolving. The balance
of strength between classes is evolving. Entire continents and vast
natiOnal groups are in movement, awakening from an ancient lethargy. The
little Italian political world stands still, observes, baAkwat the moon while
the caravan passes by, awaits the surrender of the se4a/tsts, while
everything which has characterized it (this littlewerld) for the past
years goes out, vanishes, and dies.
In this regard it is correct that we socialists do not have to abandon
any of the struggles we have fought in the last ten years: neither the
fight against the military blocs and the Atlantic (Fact) excesses nor
the fight against war intvor of neutrality, nor our opposition to
a domestic policy threaded with provocations and discriminations, nor
the mass action to exact basic rights of existence and dignity for the
workers, nor, above all, the campaign for national and international de-
tente.
The changes which have taken place since 1953, especially in the past
year, in the international situation and in the situation of individual
nations did not rain down from heaven. They are the result of the detente
which we believed in when others denounced it (as they, stia. do) as a trick,
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It will be difficult to achieve anything as long as whoever starts
a discussion with us does not keep this in mind and does not draw its con-
clusions. This fact is known to the internal Christian Democrat forces
who have pushed and are pushing for a meeting, which we do not claim should
take place exclusively on our party's terms, yet will never occur if
based on the principles against which we have fought during the past ten?
years. This fact is certainly known by the social-democrats, who seek
activities in common with In in the hope of socialist unity, for which
(activities) decision of the majority of their party two days ago, which
practically nullifies the forward step taken on the oGiuntel, problem,
has caused profound disallusionment.
At any rate, there is something comical in the row among the center
parties over who will shoulder the responsibility for writing finis to
the centrist political alignment. Fanfani blackmails the social-democrats
with an unloaded pistol, and Malagodi does likewise with Fanfani. If the
social-rdemocrats proceed along the road they have taken in Milan, if La
Pira moves straight forward in Florence, if the same goes for Genoa and
Venice, you can rest assured that nothing at all will happen in Rome,
and if by chance 4 crisis develops it will not be a catastrophe for any-
one
The worst thing is that the social-democrats are in this game, as
well as those who interpreted the 27 May election results as an invitation
not only to a policy of socialist unity but to one of socialist reunifis.
cation.-, Let those Who are asking us for .proof be careful, let them beware
f misstated
-Fortunately. -just as the development of the discussion with the :
'Catholics does net depend upon lenfani (who, it seems wants to be the
'liquidator of everything new forthcoming from the Christian Democratic
:national Congress of Naples) so the development of a socialist policy does.
not depApitro046416 144N4Vizetf81411/01:8A-KOW8118/7.tilaftniAtinbt.tib
Wastion,
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even if in the immediate future it (this policy) will be partly conditioned
by it (the Giunte problem).
It seems to me that the need for a socialist unity policy springs from
basic factors; from the end of the threat of a third world war; from the end
of the terror of a Soviet march to the European Atlantic and the Mediterranean
which beclouded many minds; from the radical changes which have occurred in
international disputes, just as are changing the bases of the domestic struggle,
freed at last from every threat of violent overthrows, brought back--and largely
because of the socialists--.on the road to natural revolutionary evolution.
But since big things, big ideas are still influenced by the small, we
answer those who ask for proof that the things for which we aim are a new
orientation, a new impetus to Italian society, to the State, an impetus which
could and can start from the communes, which are the prime and most sensitive
cell of democratic life.
In conclusion I would like to call the attention of our comrades, of the
workers, and of the large portion of the socialist electorate who placed their
confidence in us a month ago, to the new clear intent of the campaign in Pro-
gress against us which flares up every time we assume new and broader autonomous
responsibilities, that is, the intent to drive us back to positions of sectarian-
ism, extremist, and osocialcommunist" isolation.
This is such an open game that I feel it does not fool anyone.
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UNITED KINGDON
London Times
June 30 1956
Unrest Gets Above the Surface
Only one firm conclusion can be drawn
from the Poznan riots. This is that the
tentative relaxation of the Stalinist
tyranny is resulting in sporadic outbursts
of unrest both in Russia and in the satel-
lite countries. Earlier known cases werel
the east Berlin disorders of 1953 and
those in the Vorkuta prison camp in the
U.S.S.R. itself. This year has brought
the student riots in Tiflis, the gravity of ;
which it is hard to gauge, and Thurs-
day's events in Poznan. There may be,
other cases which are never heard of ;
in the west. The Berlin and Poznan out-1
breaks had this in common, that they
both took place under the eyes of western
observers.
That such a determined assault on
Soviet authority should have been made
in Poland is true to the character of the
Polish people. Their acceptance of Soviet ,
overlordship has been more reluctant
than that of any other satellite country.
They have been the most restive in;
pressing for further concessions now that
the thaw has begun. Poznan, like Berlin,
has a revolutionary tradition. An indus-
trial town with a university, it has always
been the centre of a Catliolic-nationalist
spirit. The Soviet Goiernment has
thought fit to keep a stronl Russian garri-
son in the vicinity, as htve Polish and
German Governments inthe past.
What will be the reactia of the Soviet
authorities if such incidens continue
While it may be easy to quell the indi-
vidual outbreak at Poznan, it is clear ,
that this is no mere flash in the pan, but
rather a symptom of some more general
stirring. The Soviet Government, having ,
denounced Stalinism and in various ways'
set out on more liberal paths, will hardly
be able to stand still The appetite for ,
greater freedom grows by what it feeds
on. The present rulers of Russia might
decide to satisfy it in their own country
at a certain cost, but if they do so in !
the satellites they run the risk of for-
feiting the position of strength they have ,
built up for themselves on their western
frontiers since the war.
Alternatively, they might decide to I
scrap their new experiments and revert
to a policy of Stalinist repression. There
would be a precedent for this. The
situation bears resemblances to that in
1905 when there was a series of outbursts
against the Tsarist regime which
amounted in sum to a state of revolution.
The sequel was the period of authori-
tarian reaction under SroLypiN. It may
still be possible for the Soviet Govern- i
ment to follow suit if it wants. It has
at its disposal all the modern machinery
of repression. On the other hand,. the
' idea of a freer life has begun to spread
among the masses under Soviet rule.
History would suggest that in the long
run it may be irrepressible.
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London Observer
July 1 1956
Poznan Poser for
the Kremlin
By EDWARD CRANKSHAW
THE Polish leadership has been r
admitting the existence of ,
serious discontent among the
workers for some time past. As
long ago as April the First Secre-
tary of. the Polish Communist
Party, Ochab (a man with strong
Stalinist affiliations), said to a
meeting of party activists in War-
saw: "It can hardly be said that
we, as the ruling party, have raised
the standard of living to the level
required by the workers and at the
pace we ourseIves envisaged at one
time."
The average wage in Poland is
officially given as 850 zloties a month;
but in the same speech Ochab
admitted that in fact "several hun-
dreds of thousands" of workers were
still earning less than 500 zloties a
month. On May 20, Zycie Gosparcze
carried an article complaining of low
living standards which stated cate-
'gorically "A person who earns only
1,000 zloties a month cannot make
ends meet. .. Masses of people live
in indescribable conditions.
Long Tradition of
Independence
This is the background to the Poz-
nan riots?and to the feeling of ,the
Polish working class in general : a
state of seething discontent, acknow-
ledged by the Government, and wait-
ing to flare into the open. The motive
was economic rather than political;
but recent political developments
' have had a close bearing on the
present situation.
That the explosion, when it came, ,
occurred at Poznan, was due to a
number of factors. In the first place
Poznan has a long tradition of inde-
pendence. It has a strong German
element, dating from the days of
Prussian rule, and more than once
in the past it has defied the Warsaw.
Government. It is also one of the
main headquarters of Catholicism;
and Catholicism in Poland still stands
for the people against the Govern-
ment. Further, a number of Poznan
, factories have lately switched from
armament production to peace-time
production, and the workers have lost
the extra wages paid to those engaged
in the armament industries.
Real Grievances
Admitted
It is fairly clear that the workers
of the Stalin locomotive works had
been planning for some time past a
peaceable demonstration timed to
coincide with the Poznan trade fair,
in order to obtain the maximum pf
publicity. But feelings were inflamed
by two things ; the arrest of a num-
ber of workers for going on strike,
and the slamming of the door in the
face of a workers' delegation sent to
Warsaw, to lay the case of their fel-
lows before the Government. These
two events Set the demonstration on
fire.
It is not only Poznan, however.
The seriousness of the general situa-
tion in Poland as a whole is reflected
in Government statements. In one
breath the Prime Minister, Cyran-
kiewicz, ascribes the riots to im-
perialist provocateurs and declares,
that those responsible will be
punished with the utmost rigour of
the law; in the next breath he is ad-
mitting the existence of very real
grievances which he puts down to
" economic difficulties" and also to
"mistakes and the incorrect applica-
tion of existing laws." These mis-
takes, he went on to say in a state-
ment which was more of an appeal
than a threat, will be immediately
corrected.
The Polish situation reflects in
acute form the dilemma of all the
satellite Governments. The great
industrialisation programme called
tor the sacrifice of living standards in
the Russian manner. The fulfilment
of this sort of programme is possible
only through the ruthless applica-
tion of police terror. With the
easing of Soviet pressure under the
Kremlin's new look, Poland moved
faster than any other satellite towards
liberalisation, and the power of the
police was curtailed. But the Govern-
ment has not been able to adapt its
economic programme to the new
spirit.
The liberalisation has been real.
The Poles, always impetuous and
reckless, rushed to proclaim the new
freedom, and at the first sign of de-
creasing pressure Polish intellectuals,
writers and poets immediately began
to talk at the tops of their voices with
a lack of discretion which sent shud-
ders down the spines of their friends
in the West. But nothing happened to
them, and they went on talking and
writing, satirising and denouncing the
system against which, so short a time
before, no whisper could be raised.
And when the news of Khrushchey's
denunciation of Stalin went round,
the Poles were the first to see that
everyone knew about it. Nothing
happened to them. At the most they
received a discreet warning from
Moscow not to let things move too
fast.
Trying to Walk a
Tight-rope
This immunity deafly emboldened
rebellious spirits everywhere. And
now the Polish workers have made
themselves felt. They are not
Russians, inured to sullen obedience,
Given a chance, they have proteste4
against the miserable conditions ot
their lives. But a line has to be
drawn somewhere. Economics and
living conditions, unlike political
ideas, touch the hatd facts of life.
The workers of PoZtian are asking
for something which the Govern-
ment cannot in present cirdumstances
provide ; more food, better clothes,
a better life. Ever since the change
of mood in the Kremlin the Polish
Government has been trying to com-
promise, to walk a tight-rope, to give
greater freedom without, the means
to enjoy that freedom.
The great decision now lies with
the Kremlin : a return to repression,
which would make nonsense of Mr.
Khrushchev's earnest protestations--
or the granting of more freedom
and more than the sham of indePen,
den ce?which would call for a
decisive check in the forced in-
dustrialisation prograrntne, at the
expense of existing plans.
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London Times
July 2 1956
RUSSIAN LEADERS EXCUSE THEIR
SILENCE UNDER STALIN
Front Our Special Correspondent
people's democracies are similarly doomed
,to failure, even though such actions are
generously paid for out of funds assigned
by American monopolies."
The decree, which is dated June 30, closes
on this note: " No malicious, slanderous ?
outbursts of our enemies can halt the
invincible historical march of mankind
toward Communism." It calls upon all
party organizations to adhere to the prin-
ciples of Marxism-Leninism, to observe the
"supreme principle" of collective leader-
ship, and to end violations of the revolu-
tionary Socialist laws.
In spite of Lenin's warning, Stalin
retained the post of general secretary and,
according to the account in the decree, did
"reckon with the critical remarks of V. I.
Lenin for a period immediately following
his death." However, later Stalin began
ignoring party democracy, called meetings
of the Central Committee less regularly,
grossly flouted the Leninist principles of
leadership, and "in fact, was 'beyond
criticism." The successes of the people and
party were attributed to Stalin, and in this
MOSCOW, JULY 2
The Soviet leaders who have suc-
ceeded Stalin undertook to-day to ex-
plain why Stalin's errors and excesses,
which are now subject to constant
criticism, were permitted to occur. A
long decree, published in the Communist
Party newspaper Pravda, explains that
it was not lack of personal courage on
the part of the present leaders that per-
mitted the development of Stalin's one-
man dictatorship, known as the cult of
the individual, but rather a set of
historical circumstances which made it
impossible to deter Stalin from mass
oppressions and other crimes.
The decree runs to almost 7,000 words
and is signed by the Central Committee
of the Communist Party of the Soviet
Union. Apparently it seeks to reply to
questions concerning the earlier role of
Stalin's heirs which have been raised
by Russians as well as persons abroad
since the reappraisal of Stalin was begun.
? CALCULATED RISK
The Communist Party document declares
that certain capitalist and imperialist ele-
ments are trying to take advantage of the
calculated risk of the de-Stalinization pro-
gramme, which was undertaken in an effort
to release, long repressed initiative on the
farm and in the factory, by "resorting to
all manner of tricks and ruses to distract
the attention of working people from the
progressive and inspiring ideas the Socialist
world puts forward before humanity."
Although the Soviet Union is seeking to
correct mistakes of the Stalin past and is
' "doing very much to bring about a relaxa-
tion of international tension?and this is
; now recognized everywhere? American
monopoly capital continues to assign large
sums of money to strengthen subversive
activities in Socialist countries."
The decree states that at the peak of the
cold war the United States Congress appro-
priated $100m. for the purpose-of conduct-
ing subversive activities in Communist
countries, and that recently another $25m.
has been appropriated for the same purpose.
SUBVERSION IN POLAND
: Such funds, the decree says, have been
used to stimulate the Poznan riots. "Agents
provocateurs and subversive elements who
were paid out of the oversea funds had
enough go ' in them only for a few hours.
The toilers of Poznan resisted hostile sallies
and provocations. The plans of the dark
knights of cloak Lod dagger have fallen
through, their dastardly provocation against
the people's power qi Poland has failed.
future attempts atsubversive actions in
atmosphere, the decree explains, any effort
by the men around Stalin to oppose him
would not have been supported ' by the ?
people.
The decree poses the question which
undoubtedly has been widely asked in the
Soviet Union: "Why, then, had not these
people [the present leaders] come out
openly against Stalin and removed him
from the leadership ? In the prevailing
conditions this could not be done. The ?
facts unquestionably show that Stalin is
guilty of many unlawful acts, that were
committed particularly in the last period
of his life. however, one must not forget
at the same time that the Soviet people
know Stalin as a man always acting in
defence of the U.S.S.R. against the
machinations of enemies and working for
the cause of Socialism."
The decree stresses that it was not that
the present leaders had lacked personal
courage to oppose Stalin. "Any opposition ?
to him under these circumstance," it says,
"would not be understood by the people,
and it is not at all a matter of lack of
personal courage. It is clear that everyone
who in these circumstances would come out
against Stalin would get no support from
the people."
Another reason given for lack of action .
against Stalin while he lived was that
"many facts and wrong actions of Stalin, .
particularly in the sphere of violating Soviet
law, became known only lately, after Stalin's
death, chiefly in connexion with the expo-
sure of Beria's gang and the establishment
of party control over the security organs."
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SPECTATOR, JUNE 22, 1956
MEN IN IRON MASKS
HEN Communist leaders in other countries can
accuse the reigning group in the Kremlin, and not
merely those who happen to be awaiting execution,
both of personal faults and of inadequate Marxism, it is plain
that strange moves are afoot. Togliatti has now pointed out
(what was plain enough to non-Communists already) that
Khrushchev's excuses for his own and his colleagues' failure to
stop Stalin are inadequate, and that he seems not to have con-
sidered what is at fault in the Soviet system that such a dictator-
ship could arise. Khrushchev is said to have told Nenni that
he realised these revelations might wreck the French and
Italian Communist Parties, but they had been made for urgent
internal reasons. And the soundest interpretation of the secret
speech is that it was a result of the struggle for power within
the Party Praesidium. The original attack on the 'cult of
personality' seems to have been an emergency measure to
prevent Khrushchev's assumption of supreme power. Khrush-
chev, if this is right, then acted on the old political principle
'If you can't beat them, join them,' and took over sponsorship
of the move?several parts of his speech are clearly directed
against Malenkov and others. (And the struggle continues. The
Army paper Voyenny Vyestnik has now been heavily counter-
attacked from above simply for repeating Khrushchev's criti-
cism of Stalin's military skill.)
The speech should not be taken as gospel there is a great
deal of omission and some obvious falsification. But it at last
revealed the truth of striking and important political cases
which have for decades been as much debated as that of the
Man in the Iron Mask.
There is a great deal of dynamite in all this which is now
exploding all through the Communist world. The ruling group
itself was just that small minority who managed to keep Stalin's
confidence to the end?a very considerable reflection on their
characters, as in the case of Catesby, Ratcliffe and Lovell.
Moreover, Khrushchev undermines the legitimacy of their
whole succession. He states, for instance, that ninety-eight out
of the 139 members of the Central Committee elected in 1934
were shot in the next year or two, and, again, that Stalin ille-
gally expelled Andreyev from the Politburo. The latter has not,
however, been reinstated, nor have the few imprisoned sur-
vivors of the old Central Committee re-entered public life.
1 he faisty 0 Khrushchev's position does not escape Togli-
atti, who ill4kes sound points against the Russians. But, no
more than Khrushchev's speech itself, is Togliatti's statement
lacking in disingenuousness. On the far periphery of the Com-
munist world America's leading pro-Soviet writer, Mr. Howard
Fast, is confessing in the pages of the New York Daily Worker
that he all along knew about Stalinist persecutions in Russia.
But Togliatti, who was in Moscow as one of the top operatives
of the Comintern during the whole terror, and saw his col-
leagues arrested by the score, affects to deny all knowledge of
these things. The pattern is simple. The Soviet leaders blame
Stalin alone. Those who were a little farther away blame Stalin
and the Soviet leaders. But the facts were quite adequately
known, and the rest of us_ are perfectly entitled to blame, as
accomplices in varying degrees, all members of the Communist
movement at least down to Mr. Fast's level. Neither the
Khrushchev speech nor the Togliatti statement shows any signs
of being due to the sudden rush to the head of a passion for
objective truth. They must be seen as political manceuvres :
Khrushchev's as a desperate effort to secure his position against
the Kremlin's barmecides, Togliatti's as a tentative step to-
wards carving out a fief for himself (perhaps in concert with
Tito) among the crumbling remnants of the Stalinist ideological
empire.
The present leaders both in and out of Russia are using the
tones of Leninist democracy. These certainly sound better than
those of Stalin, but, still, we know what Leninist democracy
was like. Khrushchev's attack on Stalinist terrorism is confined
entirely to terrorism exercised against Communists. He notes
with approval that 'Lenin without hesitation used the most
extreme methods against enemies.' Where Stalin went wrong
was that he 'chose the path of repression and physical anni-
hilation not only against actual enemies' but also against
Communists. Such are the limits of the new 'liberalisation':
Togliatti and Co. see nothing wrong here.
We may as well note that Khrushchev finally and irrefutably
justified NATO and the Western atomic bomb programme,
which some people would have had us drop. For he not only
revealed that the USSR was only a few years ago ruled by a
bloodthirsty maniac, but explicitly confirmed that 'the wilful-
ness of Stalin showed itself also in the international relations
of the Soviet Union' so that 'during Stalin's leadership our
peaceful relations with other nations were often threatened,
because one-man decisions could cause, and often did cause,
great complications.' Nor are we offered any guarantee against ;
repetition, even if we make the thoroughly unproved assump-
tion, urged on us by the Bevanbrook axis, that we can trust the
present rulers. So long as the Soviet State is sealed off politically
and ideologically from its own people and from the world, just
as its armaments are withheld from UN inspection, we cannot
check their professions. But if they were trustworthy they
would have nothing to hide.
While a threat of disintegration hangs over the Communist
movement, let us not close our eyes to the danger which faces
the rest of us. It is quite likely that a modus vivendi will after
?
all be reached between the Kremlin and the Togliattis. A more
flexible, and less obviously anti-national, Communtst enemy
might be a greater danger than ever to the free nations. In spite
of occasional anodyne remarks, no Communist has disavowed
the objective of a one-party world, nor the use of violence and
fraud, of 'extreme methods' in fact, to bring it about.
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TIIE ECONOMIST, JULY 7, 1956
Trotsky to the Pantheon?
THE communist dialogue is in spate. Prodded by western
communist interventions, Pravda has had to publish
a diluted version of Mr Khrushchev's secret speech. This
is really the main purpose of the lengthy official declaration
explaining the attacks on the " cult of the individual."
Moscow now claims communist approval from Peking and
Paris for its new line, but denies Signor Togliatti's charges
about signs of degeneracy in Soviet society. Stalin's heirs
must also defend themselves against accusations of com-
plicity in their master's crimes. Their defence is twofold.
On the one hand, they now put more stress on his positive
achievements and also on Russia's encirclement; who, they
ask, would have understood them if they had sniped at
the commander of a besieged fortress ? At the same time
they hint that during the war a "Leninist nucleus" of
soldiers and politicians did by-pass Stalin's orders. This
distinction between more and less " Stalinist" members
of the central committee. may well foreshadow further
removals from the leadership.
Revelations succeed one another at an unexpected pace
and little can now be kept behind closed doors for long.
Lenin's testament, one of the eighteen documents which
Mr Khrushchev apparently released during the secret
session of the congress to explain his attack on Stalin, has
now been published in Kommunist, the theoretical organ
of the party. The "testament " is a document in which
Lenin outlined the prospects for the party and his assess-
ment of its leaders, foreshadowing a clash between Stalin ,
and Trotsky. His tribute to both was tempered by criticism
of their main weaknesses. The appendix to the testament
is a subsequent letter in which Lenin requested Stalin's
removal from the key post of secretary-general. This this
Russians can now read, and the release must be followed I
quickly by the publication of other restricted texts circu-
lated by Khrushchev. These include Lenin's final violent
outburst against Stalin's treatment of minorities and his '
letter asking Trotsky to lead the attack on the Russifying
Georgian in that debate.
New evidence and fresh disclosures seem to be forcing
Khrushchev's hand in permanence. He wanted to keep the I
change gradual and discreet, but was immediately forced
into the open. He began his criticism of Stalin in the name
of the Stalinist faction, and still defends his master's early
years; but now, in the face of Lenin's judgment, many will I
ask him and his colleagues whether they were not backing I
the wrong man and the wrong line from the very start. Who
could have said a few months ago that Lev Davidovich
Trotsky may end up in the Pantheon of the Soviet I
revolution? Not Mr Khrushchev.
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THE ECONOMIST, JULY 7, 1956
Lessons of Poznan
ARSHAL TITO'S reconciliation with Moscow and the revolt
in Poznan are related events, two manifestations of the
change that has been at work throughout the Soviet orbit
since Stalin's death. Tito's visit to Moscow illustrates the extent to
which Stalin's heirs have revised not only their master's methods of
dealing with smaller communist countries, but also his very concept
of what a satellite should be. The Poznan rising is evidence of the
explosive forces which such a revision can release.
At the height of the cold war, from 1949 onwards, the very mention
of a country's "own road to socialism" was a punishable crime,
branding the bold spokesman as a traveller on the heretical road that
led to Belgrade. With President Tito's visit to Moscow, Titoism has
ceased to be a heresy. True, it never at any time involved the scrap-
ping of communism or the abandonment of one-party rule. It would
be wrong to see, in Jugoslavia or in eastern. Europe, an evolution
towards any political system remotely acceptable to the liberal ideas
of the west. Titoism was, rather, a national revolt against Moscow's
orders which broadened out into a rejection of the dictation of ideas
by Stalin.
By how much has the situation changed since Stalin's death? The
communiqu?ublished at the close of the Moscow talks accepted
Titoism as orthodox, and actually made it a heresy to question the
concept of "own roads to socialism." In recent months Mr Khrush-
chev and his colleagues have apparently been urging the eastern
European leaders to seek their own remedies and solve their own
problems. Yet, scarcely had Marshal Tito on his way home left
Bucharest?once the Cominform seat from which the denunciation
' had come, his visit thus marking symbolically the end of the schism
' ?when the Poznan cannonade began.
For. eastern Europe the dismantling of Stalinism is really a dual
process. The countries are groping aft er their own identity, while
simultaneously throwing the fetters of Stalinist doctrine on to the
historical scrap-heap. The forces unleashed by the "thaw," as this
process has come to be called, have never represented as great a threat
to the foundations of Soviet society as to the communist regimes of
eastern Europe, for reasons which are obvious. Although the cloci-
trine of the Russian revolution came from the west, the revolution
itself came from within Russia, and it has lasted nearly forty years
already. During this period Russian society has been torn apart and
reshaped, and new generations brought up to whom the status of
the free, property-owning peasant is as little known as that of the
, landlord or the merchant.' In eastern Europe, though it could rely
on degrees of support which varied from one country to another,
the revolution was not an indigenous force but a ready-made product
imported in the luggage of the victorious Soviet Army. '(President
Tito's position as a successful resistance leader was quite exceptional
and largely explains his strength.) The last tzu years have not been
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enough to uproot all remnants of the past, all old con-
victions and longings. Over wide , areas the Catholic
Church still claims the allegiance of a large part of the
population. The land, except in Bulgaria, is still largely
in the hands of peasant smallholders suspicious of a
regime philosophically committed to their elimination.
The Poznan outburst has now shown that the industrial
working class is not immune from discontent, either.
Poland has a long romantic tradition of desperate
struggle in seemingly lost causes. Yet this is not the
Oily reason why the first explosion should have taken
place there. Poland is the best test-tube for the study
of the metamorphosis of a satellite, because it is there
that the experiment has gone furthest. Throughout
the postwar period Polish Communist rulers, heirs of
leaders executed in Stalin's jails, showed a greater reluc-
tance in carrying out Moscow's orders than did other
satellite bosses. Rajk, Kostov and Slansky had been
executed, but the rehabilitation of Wladyslaw Gomulka,
!lie disgraced Polish party secretary, did not have to
be posthumous. When Stalin's heirs gave the signal
to relax the discipline, the Poles began to move forward
with a singular enthusiasm. The rejection of Stalinism
provoked a greater intellectual ferment there than else-
where. The Polish Communist party suffered an
apparently genuine fit of conscience which led it into
violent condemnations of its own hypocrisies in the past.
Writers, after years of euphemism, dipped their pens
in black ink to describe the seamy side of a People's
Democracy with such gusto that Polish newspapers
have lately been kept off the news-stands in Prague,
Sofia, and Bucharest.
The whole trend seemed to develop with official
blessing. The Sejm (parliament) was allowed to raise
, a critical voice; imigrZs were invited back; the AK?
the resistance movement directed from London during
the war?was rehabilitated. Thousands of prisoners
were released by a mass amnesty, while the UB?the
security police?was attacked for violating " socialist
legality," its chiefs sacked or imprisoned, and its hold on
the population greatly weakened by persistent criticism
, of its abuses both from above and from below. A new
reign of freedom was being proclaimed from the house-
tops, but the economic measures to quieten the result-
ing expressions of discontent were taken belatedly and
could not, in any event, keep pace with the political
wave. Workers may well have read in all these signs
the permission to stake their demands bluntly, and
opponents of the regime a chance to precipitate a crisis.
That the first outburst should have taken place in
Poznan itself, in the Polish west, is somewhat more
perplexing. Poland may have a tradition of insurrec-
tion; bloody clashes with the police were not unknown
before the war; but Poznan is not the heir of that
tradition. This stolid city, so long in Prussian posses-
sion, was a stronghold of the right-wing National
Democrats, and its labour was far from being a social-
ist vanguard. Anti-German feeling, ingrained by his-
tory, formed a link between this region and the
communist government. At the same time the pros-
perous, westernised population of Poznan probably
resented the economic disorder and the ensuing short-
ages more actively than any other. The spark was
apparently given by a blundering revision of work
schedules, amounting to a cut in earnings. Was the
patience of the Poznan workers really exhausted and the
revolt an expression of blind, uncalculating despair,
or did a peaceable demonstration for the righting of
grievances get out of control? It is for the moment
impossible to disentangle a clear answer from the con-
flicting evidence. Yet, whoever pulled the trigger, the
communists themselves candidly admit that " legitimate
grievances of the workers " made the rising possible.
The communist government will obviously seek con-
solation in the special character of Poznan and excuses
in "the work of foreign agents". But when the pro-
letariat deserts a " proletarian dictatorship ", Marxist
rulers must ponder seriously the real reasons for the
discontent, and its extent. It is not easy from outside
to measure the standard of life in eastern Europe or
to draw precise comparisons with the prewar level.
The Poles claim that consumption a head of foodstuffs
and other consumer goods is higher now than before
the war. At the same time they admit that real wages
have risen only imperceptibly since 1950, that acute
shortages are being felt, and that many wages are still
little above the starvation level. One possible explana-
tion of the contrast between certain claims and the
known facts of poverty and dissatisfaction may lie in the
extremely rapid growth of the urban population
throughout eastern Europe. Poznan itself has now
375,000 inhabitants against 275,000 in 1939. Peasants,
come to town, acquire new tastes ; their pressure on the
supply of consumer goods grows quickly heavier.
But the growth of the urban population is only one
aspect of the rapid industrialisation on the Stalinist
model which eastern Europe has shared with the Soviet
Union, and of which the industrial workers have prob-
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ably had to bear a large part of the burden. Massive
investment, the stress on heavy industry and since 1951
on defence, overcrowding, high food prices?all these
had to be paid for industrialisation at breakneck speed.
This was the economic basis of Stalinism in Russia.
The cast European leaders have been trying to change
their Stalinist political edifice without adapting its
economic foundations.
What next ? Has the new wave sweeping through
eastern Europe been broken on the Poznan dam, and
will it now recede ? Prophecy is a difficult art, but
some lessons can be drawn from the precedent of
Berlin three years ago. The parallel between the two
events is striking: in each case the revolt followed
quickly upon the first signs of relaxation, and in each
it was a blunder over wage-rates that precipitated the
_
storm. In Berlin after the June rising of 1953 a,clear
attempt was made to put the political lid back on. Now,
too, the advocates of going slow in dismantling the
Stalinist empire, whether in Budapest, Prague or
Moscow, will seek in Poznan an argument for their
case and for the maintenance of a strong grip by the
security police. Yet, even in eastern Germany the
economic concessions were maintained and the current
of political relaxation reasserted itself.
Mr Cyrankiewicz, the Polish premier, has declared
that the process of " democratisation " will go on un-
abated. Something may well be set in motion immedi-
ately to relieve the economic grievances. Poland alone
of the countries of the Soviet bloc has not yet pub-
lished its new five-year plan ; there may still be an
opportunity to shift the balance of economic effort in
the consumer's favour. Events may force other
countries as well to revise their integrated plans in the
same direction. Nor need the political process be
arrested. The partisans of the new line, arguing that
what is required is more and not less of the same
medicine, may continue to carry the day, leaving
Poznan as a tragic reminder of the risks involved not
only in establishing, but also in relaxing, a dictatorship
and an empire.
Whatever shape the transformation should take, the
West can no longer view it with the mental rigidity
born of the earlier phase of the cold war. Then, when
the countries of eastern Europe were being moulded
to the same pattern and thrust into the Stalinist strait-
jacket, it was convenient to lump them together as
Moscow's satellites. Now that the strait-jacket is being
lifted the behaviour of each east European country
must once again be looked at for itself.
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THE ECONOMIST, JUNE 30,1956
Nenni on Liberty
IT is in Italy that the Khrushchev version has created the
greatest intellectual ferment. After Signor Togliatti's
challenge to Moscow, it was the turn last week of Signor
Nenni. His essay in Mondo Operaio is probably the most
balanced assessment to have come as yet from a leftist
political figure. Signor Nenni criticises Mr Khrushchev for
not providing any historical interpretation of Stalinism and
shows ?the contradiction between the achievements of the
Soviet Union and the portrait of the maniac who apparently
presided over the country's destiny. For him, Stalin's heirs
cannot find an excuse in terror, because "they had been
placed in positions of responsibility . . . precisely to face
difficult situations." Finally, he traces the progressive sub-
stitution of the Bolshevik dictatorship for that of the prole-
tariat, and of Stalin's rule for that of the party, and
concludes that what Russia now needs above all is a change
of institutions in the direction of democracy; he thus ends
with a measured plea for personal liberty.
What lesson for the future Signor Nenni draws from all
this is less clear. His essay is not a mere attempt by a
former Stalin Prizewinner to extricate himself from a
predicament. He and his party are likely to benefit from
the new situation. They may well gain from both sides: '
the Communist disarray should bring them some fresh,
support on the left, while their new emphasis on democracy
? and liberty could win them the sympathy, not only of Signor
Saragat's Social Democrats, but also of the left wing of the
Christian Democratic party. How will Nenni manoeuvre.'
in the circumstances ? He can use his stronger position to
influence Communist policy. He may also look increasingly
to his right and progressively relax the "pact of action ".,
now uniting him with the Communists.
His decision will be fateful for the international working
class movement. For the moment he merely claims that
new relations will have to be worked out. The end of the
Cominform and the dethronement of Stalin mark, in his
opinion, the end of an era in the international movement
? as well, and this would indicate that he thinks of creating ,
a new united international rather than of joining the existing
anti-communist one. Signor Nenni has aces up his sleeve,
?
, but nobody can tell whom he will choose as partner in the
game.
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FRANCE
Franc-Tireur, 30 June-1 July
Against the back drop of the workers' revolt in Poznan,
against misery, oppression and totalitarian dictatorship,
Franc-Tireur publishes today and widely distributes--in
collaboration with the Socialist Party and its organ, Le
Populaire de Paris--the extraordinary secret report in
which, before the members of the 20th Congress of the CPSU
the First Secretary of the party, Nikita Khrushchev, offi-
cially revealed what we have never failed to denounce: the
suffering, the oppression, the absolute dictatorship of
the 20 years of Stalin's reign which weighted down the
Russian people and the people's democracies, leaving aside
the sinister effects that worldwide Stalinism had on the
labor 'movement' everywhere.
Before deciding to publish and distribute among the
largest popular audience this tremendous confession by one
of the old comrades and associates of Stalin we have wanted
to wait until the authenticity of the report was clearly and
irrefutably established. We wanted to wait for confirmation
or else for denials that were sure to come from Moscow or
from the different Communist parties should the slightest
doubt exist.
Now official and unofficial confirmation has come from
everywhere, first from the US and Great Britain, then from
Italy where the ex-Stalinist leader Togliatti was forced to
:discuss the secret report and to pass timid criticism on a
'collective leadership Which has decided at this time to make:
a single man responsible for the "errors" and "faults" which .
,could well have been collective. The confirmation was issued
by the Italian socialist leader Pietro Nenni who goes even
farther and places the blame at the door of the system, the
dogmas, and the methods which made such failures arid crimes
possible.
Cautious confirmation has begun to trickle in from OMIlr'
munist parties and finally from Moscow which is taking
shelter behind the reactions of certain parties abroad in
'acknowledging the existence and authenticity of the extra-
ordinary document.
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Published and distributed jointly by Franc-Tireur and
Le Populaire de Paris, organ of the Socialist Party, the
supplement should reach all socialist workers, all demo-
crats and, we hope, through joint efforts also the long-
abused, misled, and bewildered Communist masses from which
the party of Messrs. Thorez, Fajon, Servin, etc., has
painstakenly tried to hide this official testimony from
the Kremlin, every line, every fact and every reference
of which must forever doom their lies and servility.
Let us read this secret official report. Let nobody
shrink from reading the four pages that we have left intact
so as to preserve the full impact of the tragic account;
all we have done is insert a few subtitles some of which,
in quotes, are exact reproductions of Khrushchev's words.
Except for some theoretical considerations and allu-
sions to the period of Lenin's life that serve as a sort
of prologue to the speech but which do not touch the 25
years of Stalin's regime, the supplement represents the
full text of Khrushchev's indictment of his old master,
Stalin the Terrible.
It is, in fact, the portrait of a modern Ivan the Ter-
rible, a documented and minute description of all the acts
that Khrushchev-himself repeatedly refers to as monstrous,
of all the acts that Khrushchev himself calls disgraceful.
The acting First Secretary of the CPSU and all his
comrades in the collective leadership well knew this tyrant
before whom he and they seem to have trembled so long, but
decided to disclose his true nature and his crimes only
three years after his death.
When to the indignation, stupefaction and consternation
of his audience the author of this report revealed that Stalin
caused millions of innocent men to be massacred or deported,
that he displaced whole groups of people, that he fabricated
out of whole cloth monstrous indictments the mystery of which
has at last been brought to light, that by physical and moral
torture ?he made Communists in Russia and elsewhere admit
imaginary crimes--he did not tell us anything new, he merely
admitted facts.
Franc-Tireur had never ceased proclaiming them, the so-
cialist party had never ceased announcing them, all sincere
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old Communists, survivors of purges and executions, had
never ceased talking of them. As our comrades of Populaire
will remember, Guy Mollet, summed up what French democrats
were thinking when he said on the occasion of Stalin's
death: "History will record the harm he has done to the
labor movement."
And :16w?sooner than we had expected--the role of his-
tory is taken by Mr. Nikita KhrushcheN/J provisional medium
of the glaring truth, a valuable, ranking, and irrefutable
witness, because he was at Stalin's side, who claims today,
along with the other successors, that he no longer wants
a "Btalinine" atmosphere.
Who will henceforth be able to deny the long list of
horrors and extravagances of the Stalin regime? Who?
Surely not those who showered fulsome praise on all his
acts and all his moves and who now wish to go on with the
business of the day and to make us believe that all is for-
gotten?as if rehabilitation of the dead were sufficient to
free from responsibility a system that bred the hangmen!
And what a list it is: What -a table of bloody contents!
All, that one needs to do is follow the chapters of the report.
Now Khrushchev himself reestablishes the truth and
tries to steal a march on history and inherent Justice.
But history has outstripped him already. Mr. Khrushchev .
is too late.. The revolt of the Polish workers and peopled
following the revolt in East Berlin is a sign that perhaps
history marches faster than is desired by Mr. Khrushchev
and all those who believe that the faults and crimes of a
single man can explain and justify everything, and'that the
cult of personality can be destroyed by putting the entire
blame on the shoulders of a single person.:
It is perhaps to the involuntary credit of Mr. KhruShchey
to have confirmed with so many dramatic trappings what we
already knew, to have proclaimed the moral victory of truth
and of liberty, and thereby to have opened the way for the
most excruciating and simultaneously the most damning revision
of the great lies and stifling dogmas In the name of which
was enacted all that the First Secretary'of the-CPSV denounces.
today, and which we on our part take pride in bringing to the
attention of the French peoplein the greateet possible degreeo
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L'Humanite, Paris, 27 Jun 1956
Our party has rarely been attacked from so many sides.
Speculating on the conditions under which the Khrushchev
report was presented and made public and on the emotion aroused
.by the serious acts for which Stalin is being reproached,
certain individuals ask us, others advise us, others urge us
strongly--a question of emphasis--to reorganize our party from
top to bottom, to turn everything upside down, to renounce
everything which has contributed to the grandeur and the auth-
ority of our party. Without letup, Le Figaro and L'Aurore,
as well as L'Observateur? L'Express, and Le Popularre? are
trying to cultivate the party renegades and traitors, from
Lecorre to Herve? with the hope that their calumnies will
have some effect within the party, and with encouragement and
congratulations in advance to this or that Communist intel-
lectual who is told that he has too much intelligence to
accept the party line.
While all the lessons of the 20th Congress of the CPSU
seem to indicate to us that new steps are being taken forward
by the international revolutionary movement, it is natural
that everyone wants us to go backward. Not forward toward
the magnificant Marxist-Leninist discipline which is sought
by the CPSU and which deserves authority in the international
worker movement, but toward an opportunist morass where this
.movement would be if a new type of workers party (the Communist
Party) had not appeared in response to an appeal by Lenin.
The final word is issued by the Socialist press, which is
leading the way in this campaign. Charles'Ronsac? in an article
in Demain, fancies that the Khrushchev report and its effect
on the French Communists "offers the French Socialists a golden
opportunity to tear the working masses" from the .influence of
our party. To our daily efforts to form a Communist-Socialist
united front, Le Populaire responds with a daily anticommunist
article. Recently reporting a speech about the 20th Congress
of the CPSU made by a Socialfbt leader returned from the USSR,
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this newspaper writes: "In a speech made to the Tours Congress
by Leon Blum, he points out that, at that time, the Socialists
who remained faithful.to the old tradition had the right, point
of view."
This is the theme, whether conscious or not, of so many
attacks on our party. They only make us more attached to our
Communist ideal.
Is it still necessary to ask the question, "Who was right?"
Another Socialist leader returned from the USSR, Andre Philip,
in order to judge the accomplishments of Socialism there, was
forced to compare it to his dream of Socialism: Just where is.
the Socialist Party's Socialism 35 years after Tours? It is
nowhere. Nowhere does Andre Philip find an accomplishment or a
work of the Socialist Party to compare to that of the Soviet
Union.
And we? We have the USSR. And with the USSR, already a
whole world system of Socialism, from the Elbe to the Pacific.
And hundreds of millions of men of all the countries who are
excited by these accomplishments and who are becoming more
capable of imitating them. Should one nullify all of this
under the pretext that errors and faults, mainly those of Stalin,
were able to affect this impressive totality of victories?
There is no question of that. It has never been so obvious
that capitalism is dying. Leninism is living and has no lesson
to learn except from itself.
, Is our party in such a state that is necessary to submit
It to a radical change? The 2 January elections have answered
that question. It is the first party of the country. It is
growing in influence and organization. This year it has re-
cruited tens of thousands of new members. Its press ,circulation
has increased. The Socialist Party leaders--since it is from
this height that they pretend to judge us--have enfeebled their
party almost continually since the pre-war period.
, Which party really shows the way to the working class, to
the nation if it is not the Communist Party? We congratulate
ourselves at this time tO see-so many Socialists taking such
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welcome positions on so many different points and taking
common action with us on these points. We are happy about
what these stands mean, not only on the part of isolated
militants,,but.by sections and federations of the Socialist
Party: it is the Socialist Party in its entirety, anxious to
seek other roads, which will join in common action with our
party tomorrow. But who has pointed out these ways? Who
has helped the Socialists discover them....
The Socialist Party or the Communist Party? We do not
make it a question of preference to those who agree to fight
at our sides, but instead give a proud answer to those who
censure us.
These attacks can only lead the Communists to close their
ranks. They strengthen their confidence in the party. This
is true particularly of the insults and slander aimed at the
sorely tried party leaders, particularly Maurice Thorez, whom
the party is fortunate in having at its disposal for the good
of the working class and all the country, and who have grown
as the party has grown. To denounce the cult of the individual)
which was done in the Soviet Union, the French Communists--who
have committed, shall we say, only minor sins in this realm--
do not forget the role of men in the formation and continued
forward progress of their party. The present anti-communist
campaign finds our party stronger and more united than ever.
Reactionaries will find it useless to suggest to the Com-
?
munists that, for them, political courage is to accuse their
party and its leaders of everything and nothing. Political
courage, for the Communist masses, is pride in being Communists
in the face of reaction. And it is because they are confident
of the merits of their party that French Communists, on the
eve of their 14th Congress, will work all the more resolutely
among the masses and among the workers of all opinions to
form a'united workers front, a new Popular Front, and a
socialistic. France.
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WEST GERMANY
Freies Volk (Communist), 2 July (as broadcast by radio).
In answer to open questions, the secretariat of the
party executive of the KPD sends us the following statement:'
The bourgeois press has published the unauthorized text
of a report of the 20th Party Congress of the CPSU, which
was released by the U.S. State Department and is attributed
to Comrade Khrushchev. In this connection, members and
functionaries of our party as well as the public have asked
a'great number of questions of the party executive. This
is understandable, since the report deals extensively with
gross blunders and arbitrary actions committed by Stalin
in addition to his already known errors and mistakes. We
shall try to answer frankly and openly all such questions,
which were asked in honest conviction and out of cOncern.
Already before the 20th Party Congress, the leadership
of the CPSU began correcting mistakes which had occurred
under Stalin's leadership, canceling aribtrary actions of
the past and restoring completely the Socialist legality.
The open criticism of the 20th Party Congress, which at the
same time represented the severest Self-criticism, as well
as the changes already made guarantee that a repetition of
similar 'mistakes will be impossible. They express the inner
strength of the CPSU, its unity, and solidarity.
:Aside from uncovering the correcting of these mistakes,
as was done at the 20th Party Congress) the CPSU is now
faced with the task of ascertaining through a thorough
analysis how such mistakes were possible. The precondition
and guarantee for the theoretical and practical solution Of
this great task are created by the broad discussion of these
problems in the CPSU and among the Soviet public and by the
creative initiative of the masses aroused thereby as well
as by the liberation of science from dogmatism, which is
closely connected with the cult of the individual.
.The uncovering of the causes for the mistakes which .
'occurred in the Soviet Union will be of advantage to those
countries which are proceeding on .the way toward the
con-
struction of Socialism. As a result, they will be able in
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their own construction work to avoid the mistakes made in
the Soviet Union. For the KPD and the working class of
West Germany, too, important' new conclusions appropriate
to conditions in West Germany will follow from the appli-
cation of Marxist-Leninist science, which will help to
successfully conduct the fight for peace, democracy, and
social progress.
By restoring collective leadership, the Soviet Union,
during the past years and after the 20th Party Congress of
the CPSU has attained considerable achievements in its
foreign policy which is based on the consolidation of peace,
on the principles of coexistence, and on the desire for a
relaxation of tensions and for disarmament. These achieve-
ments are the result of the collective policy of the CPSU
and the Government of the Soviet Union. With their publica-
tion, the aggressive circles want to shake the confidence
in the collective leadership of the CPSU, in the Soviet
Union, and in the cause of Socialism altogether. They there-
by hope to counteract the increasing international relaxa-
tion of tensions and the growing power of the workers move-
ment.
It is no accident that it was the Federal Republic
which in recent months activated the agitation against the
Soviet Union in connection with Adenauer's attempt to push
through general conscription and the further militarization
of West Germany even against the will of the people. There
is a close connection between Adenauer's speeches, saying
that the Soviet Union is the "deadly enemy," the distorting
assertions about the Soviet Union's German policy, and the
U.S. State Department's publication of the report ascribed
to Khrushchev. The West German population is beginning
to realize that the establishment of friendly relations
and the development of trade with the Soviet Union are neces-
sary in the German people's own interest.
The aggressive forces, on the other hand, which expect .
new business from militarization, see in this development
a great danger to themselves, since they have always explained
the accelerated militarization to the people with the alleged
"threat from the East." This is the reason why.: they Oppose
the Soviet Union's efforts for further relaxation of tensions,:
for disarmament and security, which deeds have proven to be
undeniably honest. This is why--in spite of all proof to. .
the contrary--they keep up the assertion that nothing has
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changed in the international situation and through the cor-
rection of Stalin's mistakes.
In reality, not only criticism and self-criticism were
exercised in the Soviet Union, but illegalities and symptoms
of degeneration alien to Socialism were abolished. In
doing so, Socialism once more proved its superiority over
the capitalist system.
While Socialism has freed itself from the deviations
and illegalities alien to it, domestic arbitrary actions
and suppression and aggression toward the outside are the
characteristics of imperialist reign.
Contrary to the demands of large segments of the West
German public, the monopolists and militarists stubbornly
stick to their policy which harms the interests of the
people, finds expression in illegalities toward the citizens,
and finally endangers the existence of our entire people
and peace in Europe through the threat of another aggressive
war. As a result of this situation, the Communists in the
Federal Republic, as well as all those who regard a policy
of peace, of democracy and understanding the basis for
German reunification and for an independent German policy,
find it necessary to oppose the anti-Soviet agitation which
serves the imperialists to camouflage their antidemocratic
manipulations directed against peace.
We Communists proudly state that the KPD always was,
is, and will be the standard bearer of Socialism, of friend-
ship with the first Socialist state, the USSR, and of the
proletarian internationalism. We shall continue and strengthen.
this fight in the interest of the German working class, our
people, and peace in Europe.
Although the uncovering of the causes which led to the
mistakes committed is a task which still has to be solved
' by the CPSU--and after all can only be solved by the CPSU--
we still believe that in judging these mistakes the develop
ment of the Soviet Union and its position as the only Socialist
state during the first 30 years of its history must be taken
into consideration. The Soviet Union developed as the only
Socialist state at a time when it was surrounded by a world
of enemies. The imperialists left no doubt that they wanted
to crush the first workers and peasants state with all avail-
:able means, including military intervention. No sooner had
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the Russian workers and peasants won the victory in their
own country, when the armed intervention of the imperialist
powers began. The German imperialists and militarists,
the imperialistis of Britain, France, the United States,
and Japan attacked the young Soviet state with their armies.
Even after this attempt was thwarted, the imperialists
never ceased trying to start a new war of intervention
against the Soviet Union.
From the beginning, the German imperialists played an
especially aggressive role among the imperialist interven-
tionists against the Soviet power. In 1917, they answered
Lenin's peace 'offers, the first foreign-political step of
the new Soviet state, with strengthened military attacks.
Even after the peace of Brest-Litovsk did they continue
their invasion of the Baltic states and the Ukraine.
After the Soviet Union, in the Rapallo Treaty, had de-
sisted from demanding German reparations, thereby leading
Germany out of her complete isolation, the German imperialists
had the then Foreign Minister Rathenau murdered and through
the Locarno Treaty led the Weimar Republic into the anti-
Soviet policy of the imperialist Western Powers. Finally,
through the person of Hitler they pushed those political
forces into power which had declared war against the Soviet
Union and the destruction of Socialism the core of their
policy. Thus, the German imperialists were always the
pioneers of that anti-Soviet encircling and invasion policy
which has brought untold damage to the German people and
the peoples of the Soviet Union.
The workers and peasants of the Soviet Union won the
victory in an economically backward country with a weak
industry and backward agriculture. As a result of the
capitalist encirclement, the transformation of this state
into a progressive industrial and agrarian state became a
question of life or death for the first Socialist state in
the world. The Soviet Union had to master this task of
overcoming the industrial and agricultural backlog through
its own efforts in an inimical environment and in a short
time. This was only possible by overcoming great difficulties
and necessitated the creation of a strong centralized ap-
paratus-
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However, the creation of a strong centralized apparatus
brings about the great danger of bureaucratism and the weak-
ening of initiative on the lower levels. It cannot be
denied that this fact made it easier for Stalin--who had
gained great merits in the history of the-CPSU and especially.
in carrying out Lenin's general plan for the construction
of Socialism in the country--to increase his personal power.-
He believed that acts which led to the glorification of his
person and to the broadening Of his personal power were in
the interest of the Soviet state and the Soviet people.
Some comrades and Social Democrats ask why the other
members of the CPSU leadership did not correct Stalin's mis-
takes any sooner. In the past, and especially after Lenin's
death, Stalin acquired great merits in carrying out the
general principles established by Lenin against Trotskyites
and Bucharin followers. Stalin was doubtlessly one of the
strongest Marxists. Had the CPSU followed the way suggested
by the Trotskyites and rightists, this would have led to
the liquidation of the workers and peasants power in the
Soviet Union and to the restoration of capitalism. It is
not difficult to imagine today the course of the Second .
World War and the attack of the Hitler fascists against
the Soviet Union had not the Soviet Union built up a power-
ful heavy industry in accordance with the generaLparty
line, and had it not collectivized agriculture, but accord-
ing to the plans of the rightists had instead given priority
to the development of the consumer-goods industry.
In that case, the Soviet Union would not have had the
defense strength with which it could meet the fascist at-
tack and finally smash it.
According to the reports of the leading comrades of
the CPSU, the serious mistakes did not begin to show-until
after the 17th Party Congress of the CPSU. This, however,
was at a time when the international situation became ex-
tremely critical, when the German fascists and Japanese
imperialists openly propagated the attack against the Soviet
Union, when the British and French imperialists tried to
orient the German, Italian, and Japanese imperialists to-
ward the Soviet Union in their demand for a new distribution
of the world and attempted to settle the differences in the
imperialist camp at the expense of the Soviet Union.
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Considering Stalin's great authority, the attempt to cor-
rect his errors and mistakes already at that time doubt-
lessly would have led to serious differences and to a
serious weakening of the Soviet Union's power and authority.
Such a situation-might have become a grave danger to the
existence of the Soviet Union before and during the Second
World War. This also explains the difficult situation in
which the other leaders of the CPSU found themselves at
that time and until Stalin' death.
Immediately after Stalin's death, the leadership of the
CPSU began correcting his mistakes, condemning the cult of
the individual and revoking arbitrary measures taken by
Stalin. The leadership of the CPSU finally openly criticized
Stalin's mistakes at the 20th Party Congress, disregarding
the fact that this criticism might be used against the Soviet
Union by the supporters of the capitalist society. This
open criticism also warrants a thorough abolition of all
mistakes committed and proves the intention of preventing a
repetition of such mistakes in the future.
We deny representatives of the capitalist society the
right to express hypocritical indignation about Stalin's
arbitrary actions for having caused much bloodshed and tears
among the working masses. They (the representatives of the
capitalist society--Ed.) unscrupulously destroyed the life
of a whole city by dropping.an atom bomb, they unscrupulously
prepare a new atom war, they cause an infinite number of ?
deaths in order to keep up the colonial system in Africa and
Asia, they are responsible for the crimes of Hitler fascism,
and they participated in such crimes. The uncovering of
the causes which led to such mistakes and which made arbitrary
actions possible, as well as their prevention in the future,
are a matter for the workers movement exclusively.
If we are asked why leading German Communists did not
any sooner realize the gross mistakes made under Stalin's
reign, we have to declare: We had no reason to doubt the
necessity for the severest measures against the imperialist
agencies, after we ourselves experienced the furious and
criminal attacks of the reaction at the German workers moVe-
ment and our party.
We had no reason to doubt that the murderers Of Rosa
Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht, Ernst Thaelmann, Rudolf Breitscheid,
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and tens of thousands of other German antifascists would
do everything in their power to organize in the Soviet
Union, too, the work of enemies of the party, of spies
and murderers. This is actually what happened, and it
is still going on today on German territory. To this end,
agents organizations were set up in the Federal Republic
and West Berlin, which plan the murders of Social Demo-
crats and Communists (see the murder list of the BDJ) and
which send agents, spies, and diversionists to the GDR in
order to disturb the peaceful construction of the German
Democratic Republic through acts of sabotage, arson, poison,
and acts of violence, as the fascist riots of June 17, 1953.
To oppose this was and is at any time the duty of the
Socialist state. If in doing so the justified and necessary
defense against imperialist crimes against the Soviet. state
was transgressed in the Soviet Union, and if the security
organs committed illegal acts against and infringed on inno-
cent persons, we condemn these events as much as the other
Communists do. However, those who themselves did and still
do everything in their power to disturb the peaceful
Socialist construction in the Soviet Union and in other
countries have the least right to coMplain,aboUt it. Who-
ever wants to know the root of evil in today's world must
realize that capitalism is the source of all evil and of
all crimes of our time. Socialism, however, is the source
of hope for humanity. Socialism shows humanity the way to
liberation from the curse of exploitation, national suppres-
sion, and war. Herein lies the world-historic importance
of the victory of the workers and peasants, first in the
Soviet'Union and now also in the People's Democracies,
from the German Democratic Republic to People's China.
The cannon kings of the Rhine and Ruhr hate Socialism
not because of possible mistakes but because ? of its vic-
torious strength, because of the liberal and progressive
spirit which the Socialist theory and practice increasingly
arouse in the hearts of the West German. workers. It is this
spirit which the imperialists, these deadly.enemies of the
working class and of humanity, want to extinguish. That. is
why they are now crying that a "genuine change" must not
be confined to eradicating Stalin's mistakes, but that we
must also turn away from Marx, Engels, and Lenin. How could
the workers ever turn away from the idea of their liberation,
after it has already been victorious on one-third of the
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earth: How could humanity part with the idea of a future
truly worthy of human beings, when this is already being
put into living practice by a billion people between the
Elbe River and the Pacific Ocean:
The 20th Party Congress of the CPSU has given all
nations a new great perspective.- The imperialists will
not be able to obscure the great fact of the construction
of Socialism and of the further economic and cultural pro-
gress of the Soviet Union under the Sixth Five Year Plan.
The 20th Party Congress of the CPSU has shown the nations
that war is no longer inevitable but rather, that they
have the power to prevent another war. It has solved new
important problems in the spirit of Marxism-Leninism.
Concerning the question of the form of transition to Social-
ism, it was proved that the victory of Socialism in the
Soviet Union and the coming into existence of a world. camp
of Socialism in the capitalist countries has created the
possibility of carrying out the transition to Socialism in.
a peaceful and parliamentary way.
The example of the victory of the cause of the workers.
and 'peasants and of the construction of Socialism in the
Soviet Union is today--as regard the form--no longer the
only model for the victory of Socialism in other countries.
For this reason, it is stated in the declaration concerning
the relations between the Federation of Communists of Yugo-
slavia and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union that
both sides take the point of view that Socialism develops
differently in different countries and under different con-
ditions, and that the fact that Socialism develops in many
ways contributes to its strengthening. They start from
the fact that all tendencies to force their opinion regard-
ing the definition of ways and forms of Socialist develop-
ment (on others?Ed.) are alien to both sides. They agree
that the aforementioned cooperation must be based on complete
voluntariness and equality of rights, on friendly criticism;
and on the comradely character of the exchange of opinions
in the disputed questions between our parties."
For the Communist Party of Germany, too, consequences
result from the change in the world situation, from the fact
that the Soviet Union no longer is the only Socialist country
but that Socialism has gone beyond one country and has teen
victorious in a number of countries. The fact that Germany
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is split and that there exist two German states certainly,
makes our situation different from that of other countries.
As long as the Western occupation forces and the ruling
circles of the Federal Republic stick to the idea that a
reunified Germany must be included in NATO, the military
bloc system of the United States, as long as these circles
refuse to acknowledge that the reunification of Germany is
a matter for the Germans themselves and that therefore
negotiations between the governments and parliaments of the
two German states are necessary, the reunification of
Germany will be impossible.
This means, however, that the two German states will
continue to develop in different directions, since con-
ditions in these two German states are becoming increasingly
different. In the German Democratic Republic, Socialism is
being built up. It is in the interest of the entire German
working class that the construction achievements in the
GDR prove to the entire German people the superiority of
the Socialist economic system over the capitalist system.
The Federal Republic, on the other hand, is a monopolist
capitalist country, in which the German militarists are
trying to consolidate and enlarge their position through
the militarization of West Germany. Without doubt, the con-
struction of Socialism in the GDR is carried out not with-
out difficulties and mistakes. How could this be different
in view of the especially hard conditions of Germany's
partition, under which the workers and peasants in the GDR
have to master the management of economy and state. How-
ever, all the difficulties and mistakes that have occurred
in the GDR and will yet be made in the future are diffi-
culties in development, which in the process of the ful-
fillment of the economic plans and the full unfolding of
democratic life will be overcome. Therefore, the future
belongs to the development of the GDR.
The KPD and SED separated organizationally already in
January 1949. The KPD agrees with its sister party, the
SED, in questions concerning Germany as a whole, for instance
that Germany must be united on a democratic and peaceful
basis, that reunification is possible only throUgh negotia-
tions between the governments and parliaments of the two
German states, and that the achievements of the German
Democratic Republic must be preserved.
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Since, however, the development of the two German
states is basically different, conditions for the work of
both parties are becoming increasingly different, and in
many questions of policy the two parties become also in-
creasingly different.
The policy of the KPD is determined exclusively by
its special position in the Federal Republic. As far as
the KPD is concerned, it is striving for a democratic
change of the situation in the Federal Republic, the unity
of action of the working class, as well as the cooperation
of all antimilitaristic forces in the interest of peace
and security in Europe as well as for the peaceful solu-
tion of the German question.
For this purpose, it submitted to the working class
and to the entire population at the 23rd and 24th assembly
of the party executive suggestions which it desires to
develop further and to implement together with all positive
forces of the people.
If functionaries of the party find fault with the fact
that they were not informed in time by the party leadership
of the serious mistakes and the arbitrary actions committed
by Stalin, so that the opponents were given a chance to
surprise the party with their publications, such criticism
i5 in principle justified.' The secretariat of the party
_executive and the first secretaries of the Land party
groups were fully informed on the entire course of the 20th
Party Congress of the CPSU. The principle questions of
Stalin's errors and gross mistakes were extensively exposed
and discussed in the presence of many functionaries of the
party. However, the secretariat of the party executive
and the leading functionaries must state self-critically
that they did not make sufficient efforts to bring about
the full ,unfolding of the decision within the party and to
fully clarify for our members and functionaries all problems
of the 20th Party Congress, including questions connected
with the cult of the individual and Stalin's abuse of power.
The attempts of the enemies of the working class to
revive anti-Communist agitation and to use the necessary
correction of Stalin's mistakes and errors against the
Communist Party will consolidate our party even more. Al].
speculations that this may create insecurity in our party
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are bound to fail, as they did in the past. The Communists
will openly discuss all questions in their party units and
executive boards and will remove all differences of opinion
and obscurities in free discussion. ,What we need in our
party is open discussion in order to clarify things this way
and to bring about unity of action. In this manner, the
efforts of elements inimical to the party--whose policy has
long since gone bankrupt--to reach new influence will hope-
lessly fail.
Clarity about basic questions of our policy, the main-
tenance of unity and solidarity of our party are also the
indispensable prerequisites for strengthening our enlighten-
ment work among the masses, for establishing community of
action between Social Democrats and Communists, and for
developing a broad popular movement against militarization
and for peace, unity, and democracy. In view of our posi-
tion and our task in the Federal Republic, we must decide
on the forms of our party work, we must abouse the initiative
on the lower levels, we must overcome the dangers of bureau-
cratic rigidity and we must strengthen our influence on
the masses in order to solve the problems of freedom for the
working people and of social justice.
Christ und Welt, 14 June, excerpt
Khrushchev speaks exclusively of the bloody injustice
done to the members of the Communist Party by mass-mui,derer
Stalin. There is not a single reference, not even an aside,
to the infinite suffering inflicted upon the Russian people
as a whole during the Stalin era. Not a single sentence
mentions, for instance, that millions died of hunger as the
victims of the precipitate collectivization of agriculture.
The concentration camps in which, after all, not only some ten
thousand Communists are vegetating, but millions of people,
are also completely skipped in his speech.
? At one point Khrushchev takes exception. to Stalin's
having removed complete ethnic communities from the Caucasus
? during the War. However, he calls this an extraordinary deed
mainly because all comrades and Komsomol members of those groups
had to go along with that amorphous move into exile.
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A superficial reading of his speech might lead to the
wrong conclusion that Khrushchev is attacking dictatorship as
such. Far from it: All 24 columns deal exclusively with an
internal party strife, i.e., with the fact that Stalin turned
into a sinister despot in the eyes of the Communists them-
selves.
Khrushchev is and remains a Stalinist, as far a8 his view
on the events up to the 17th Party Congress (1934) is concerned.
He explicitly approves of the elimination of Trotsky,' Zinoviev,
Kamenev, and Bukharin. He says, to be sure, that murder and
torture would not have been necessary to accomplish it. Yet
here lies the real reason why his list of Stalin's mass-murders
remains so incomplete. Indeed, 7,679 Communists murdered by
Stalin have been exonerated (most of them posthumously), but
there are evidently groups within the party and the army which
will not be exonerated. As far as those groups are concerned,
Only Stalin's method, not his principle, has been condemned.
Thus, KhruShchev speaks as the head of a victorious faction
within the party, the Tito faction, as it were, which finally
has won the upper hand against Zhdanov.. The speech states
explicitly that the struggle against the Trotskyites and
Bukharinites was necessary because both deviations "would
have led to a renewal of capitalism or to a surrender to the
world-bourgeoisie." Here Khrushchev is even using orthodox
Stalinist terminology.
At one point, Khrushchev comes Very close to the truth
when he says that the invention of the concept "enemy of the
people was at the source of all ?the trouble. This concept,
he says, implied automatically that ideological errors of
persons arrested needed no longer be proved. A person exposed
as an enemy of the people must be liquidated automatically.
Reviewing Khrushchev's endeavor to answer the question
why the members of the Politburo did not prevent Stalin from
committing his crimes, Wirsing continues as follows:
? Khrushchev said that members of the Politburo had given
active support to Stalin because he was one of the "strongest
Marxists and his logic and strengthhad influenced the cadre
of the whole party." And, finally, it had been Stalin who had
originally held up the banner of Leninism against rightist,
and leftist deviationists.'
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N6 word reveals any insight into the underlying causes
which had to result in terror. Khrushchev is satisfied with
the superficial explanation that all this was part and parcel
of the personality of Stalin. The rest of the world, however,
is not satisfied with that explanation. After reading the
secret speech, we know that an indescribable corruption of all
concepts of law and injustice must have taken place in the
USSR within the last 30 years. Can that be made undone by the
pen-stroke of a secret speech?
However often Khrushchev calls Stalin a brutal murderer,
we still have nothing else but a rebellion of sons against
their father, and that goes to say a family affair. Of course,
the shock caused even in the tiniest Siberian village by the
downfall of the super-size monument Stalin is likely to have
unfathomable consequences. However, Khrushchev is trying to
destroy only half of the monument, as it were. The feet of
the despot, resting on a pedestal erected by Lenin, remain.
This fact it is which, more than the disclosure of all the
cruelties of the sinister Georgian, must concern us. Not
only with regard to stalin, but more so with respect to
Khrushchev, is this secret speech a deeply disquieting docu-
ment.
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.AUSTRIA
Und Ziel, (Communist) July/August,,Issue (as broadcast by radio)
Seldom has an event stirred public opinion and, above
all, the workers. movement as much as the 20th- Congress of.
the Soviet Communist Party. Even though--as with any big.
historical event?the actual and real proportions of the
problems become clearer with the passage of time, the
phenomena characterized by the term "cult of personality"
are still in the center of questions, thoughts, and concern.
Since the moment when we found out that injustice could
happen inol Socialist state, that Socialist legality was
violated, and that offenses were possible which are contrary
to the principles of Socialism, all this has been a burning
wound in our breast. In view of the superhuman achievements
and. efforts in the construction of Socialism, we overlooked
too easily that Socialism is being. constructed by human
beings, and that with insufficient control human weakness
can cause. harmful political effects. Socialism is not an
automatic guarantee for kindness and justice, but only the
basis on which justice can be achieved and secured in a
fighting effort.
One could say now?and occasionally this is being said
and written?that these were the mistakes of a brother party,
that these were, after all, not our mistakes. However,- we
are not satisified with this point of view. We declare.
openly that we also do not understand those Socialists whose
sleep is not disturbed bythe fact that a Socialist govern-
ment permits the slaughtering in Algeria of human beings
who want nothing but freedom for their country. We cannot
let it suffice to tell those "philantroplsts" who would
sprinkle pepper into our wounds to devote their efforts to
fighting for the rehabilitation of the Rosenbergs. For
Indeed, the witnesses for the prosecution against the couple
turned out to be police informers, and no atomic scientist
still believes the lie that the Soviet Union needed reports
from the Rosenbergs for the production of atomic bombs.
However, the longing for Socialism is so closely linked
with the working people's love of justice that the depravity
of imperialist regimes cannot be a consolation for the fact
that in the Socialist state the gravest injustice could
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happen to innocent people. The only thing which gives U. [5
strength and security is the fact that the errors were
recognized, that the offenses became known and were openly'
proclaimed. Open self-criticism, the criticism of the
cult of personality, and the firm measures for a democratic
control of the state security service are the greatest pos-
sible guarantee against a repetition of such things. This
is the attitude reflected in the words of Karl Marx in
"The 18th of Brumaire" that proletarian revolutions are sub-
ject to persistent self-criticism, that they fall back con-
stantly on that which has been seemingly accomplished, in
order always to make a new beginning -after having denounced
thoroughly and severely all half-measures, weaknesses, and
wretchedness inherent in-their experience.
Self-criticism is an essential characteristic of pro-
letarian revolutions and proletarian revolutionaries. By
saying that errors and offenses were committed it is made
clear that they were not necessary and could have been pre-
vented. However, simply to answer the question, "how was
this possible?" with "cult of personality" would amount to
turning this idea into a new cliche. For even if the ex-
cessive power of a single person furthered arbitrary decisions,
and consequently the personal weaknesses of an individual
had grave results, the cult of personality cannot be attri-
buted to one person alone.
Here one must consider the development as a whole,
which made possible the cult of personality and its effects.
One must consider the struggle of life and death which
the Socialist state had to wage for its existence, encircled
by capitalist countries, confronted with the enormous task.
to turn a backward agricultural country into a modern indus-
trial country out of its own power.
This was a time in which iron discipline was an absolute
necessity for the change and defense of the country. This
also made possible the expansion of the state security
service and its detachment from democratic control.
To present matters in such a manner as if there had
never been any imperialist saboteurs and spies, as ifthere
had been no constant threat of war against the Soviet Union,
as if the achievement of Socialist construction had not
been the basic problem of the international workers' movement,
would mean to agree with those who consider the errors and
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offenses characteristic of the development, who do not con-'
-older the errors in carrying out the "general line" but
consider the general line itself as an error.
However, the decisive thing, the "general line," the
great political concept, was correct. It led to the con-
struction of the Socialist state, to the destruction of
fascism, to the establishment of the workers' might on a .
quarter of the Globe. This would probably have been possible
in an easier manner and with less sacrifices. It is bitter
for us to discover that Socialist legality could be violated,
but it would be foolish to overlook the.fact that these of-
fenses happened in the course of the greatest revolution
In the history of mankind.
Particularly, the criticism of the cult of personality
has reminded us again that great revolutions are not the
work of particular individuals but, above all, the result
of the working people and the broad masses who overthrew
the power of capital, established Socialism, and took over
the administration of their state and their economy. The
sudden progress from the pine torch to modern power installa-
tions, from illiteracy to extensive scientific training was
the result of the participation of millions in the leader-
ship of the state, their fatherland. Grave errors reduced
the possibilities of Socialist democracy but could not cancel
them, becausethey did not cancel Socialism. Had it been
otherwise, would this enthusiasm have been possible, this
drama of Socialist construction, this vigor of Socialist
patriotism? Has any other state ever found the strength to
achieve such victories after such military defeats?
To try to explain the errors does not mean to excuse
or belittle them. The revolution is not a delicate work of
art, said Mao Tse-tung once. It was so the least where it
was victorious first, where the first state was established
without and against the capitalists'in a world of capitalist
states.
In the course of a great change in the distribution of
power in the world, new paths toward Socialism have become
possible, easier paths but not easy ones, for the exploiters
will never voluntarily give up _their profitable rule. The
fact that new possibilities have appeared is, above all, due
to the existence and development of the first Socialist coun-
try, in the history of. which errors were committed but the
policy of which was principally correct, because it was his-
torically right.
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In the discussion on the problems posed by the 20th
Congress of the Soviet Communist Party, the question arose
whether the Communists will not have to reassess their
position toward the Soviet Union. It was said.. that the
events have shown that one cannot simply and blindly trust
the Soviet Union. The proof: Yugoslavia, where we came
into an awkward situation as a.result of our blind trust
in the policy of the Soviet CoMmunists.
No Communist and no Communist Party Is freed of .the
necessity of independent and critical thinking. We are
not at all obliged to defend each speech and each article
from the Soviet Union and each measure of the -Soviet
authorities if we are not convinced of their correctness.
The leadership of a Socialist state, too, can make mistakes,
and even though the collective leadership considerably re-
duces the possibility of errors, it also IS not infallible.
However, for any revolutionary workers'party it remains ? a
matter of course not to be neutral in the international
class struggle and to demonstrate its unswerving solidarity
with all revolutionary forces, and of course also with
those who have already overthrown the power of capital in
their country.
It is also a matter of course for us that the Socialist
state, in which this happened the first time, is considered
the great source of power in the struggle of the workers
for the victory of Socialism all over the world- It is
also clear to us that a country, lin which there can be no
groups and classes to profit from war and to be Interested:
in war, has always pursued a policy of peace and will con-
tinue to carry out this policy. OUT ties with Socialist
construction and the Socialist peace policy are therefore
unconditional, not because we trust the Soviet Union blindly,
but because we consider it a Socialist state and a Socialist
power of peace.
Certainly, we have participated in a grave error as
regards the attitude toward and the estimate of Yugoslavia
committed by. the. Soviet Communists, but not because of blind
trust. The criticism directed against the Yugoslav Commu-
nists by the Communist Parties of the Information Bureau
in 1948 appeared correct and justified to us on the basis
of the available material, also on the basis of Yugoslav
material. The decision of the Information Bureau one year
later, the slandering of the leaders of the Yugoslav Commu-
nists as fascists, took place on the basis of material
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provided by the Soviet state security service, which we did
not know about. Not knowing these facts'? should we have
described the resolution as incorrect at that time, in
opposition to all Communist Parties? We would have scarcely
achieved more than the splitting of our own party. Thu's,
we committed a grave error together with the Communist
Parties and with the Soviet Communists, an error which we.
are now admitting along with the other Communist Parties.
We do not think that the chief lesson to be drawn
from this should be "caution" toward the party of the Soviet
Union. The open self-criticism of the Soviet Communists,
regardless of prestige and enemy propaganda, is for us
another reason for trusting them. We must be more critical
and more independent in our assessments than tip to now,
but we must also maintain Unswerving class solidarity in
the same manner as up to now.
The self-critical examination of the past, the open
admission of mistakes and error makes it easier to meet
the great task with which the workersimovement is confronted:
to bring about a rapprochement of Socialists and Communists
in order to utilize the full potential of the workers move-
ment for the vital interests of the working people, for -
peace, and for Socialism. The Communist Movement is shedding
certain rigid forms and formulas, parts of an armor which
were fashioned in a difficult struggle but which in the
course of time hampered our own mobility--and hampered not
only the blow of the enemy but also the touch of a friend.
Consider for instance the certainly not incorrect for-
mula of the "two camps" which has now become inadequate and
does not take into consideration the complexity of world
politics. The alternative of neutrality has offered also
bourgeois states a chance to draft-away from the American
grip and to 'expand the "zone of peace." In the theoretical,
scientific and cultural fields, various views are being
reassessed and critically considered in an atmosphere of
discussion. Of course, the discussion is carried out on
the basis of scientific Socialism, of Marxism-Leninism. The
Communist Party is a fighting group of people with the same
ideas, based on a specific ideology. The free discussion
within the Communist movetent does not mean that one can
voice views which are contrary tit) this ideology.
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The self-criticism of the Communist movement makes
easier the rapprochement of Socialists and Communists, and
there is no doubt that this rapprochement would acquire a
rapid pace if the leaderships of the Socialist Parties
would show the same self-critical attitude toward their
.
policy and toward their past. It would be erroneous,
however, to attribute the increased possibilities of united.
action of Socialists and Communists only or particularly
to the self-criticism at. the 20th Party. Congress. As far
as the Congress is concerned, the decisions made there,
which were derived from sociological development?that
war can be avoided, and that the path toward Socialism .
must not necessarily lead via civil war--have contributed
to removing anti-Communist prejudices, prejudices such as
"the Communists are speculating on a war, they are uncon-
ditionally in favor of force," etc., which appeared in the
course of years of anti-Communist slander and which hampered
the rapprochement of Socialists and Communists.
Above all, the entire development of world politics
has made the rapprochement of Socialists and Communists
easier. The rigid fronts of the Cold War have begun to
crumble, and groupings which for years defended the American
policy have detached themselves from American control. This
includes bourgeois groups as well as Socialist Party leader-
ships.
The danger of German rearmament has increased the
recognition among many Socialist leaders in West European
countries that It is necessary to come to an understanding
with the countries of the East, particularly with the Soviet
Union. The possibility of agreement between the Socialist
and Communist Parties is within reach in several countries.
Of course, in order to mr.Jce this a reality much effort
is still necessary. In the leaderships of the Socialist
Parties there are still powerful politicians who are opposed
to any joint action with the Communists and in some cases
against any detente with the Soviet Union, The Communists
cannot quit criticizing such Socialist leaders in general,
they cannot give up the criticism, of views and methods
which are contrary to the principles of their ideology and .
the workers' movement.
Few parties have as much experience in the policy of
a Popular Front as the Communists of France. However, the
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French Communists refused to express confidence in the
Socialist Government as regards the Algerian problem,
they could not approve of it without violating the most
elementary principles of proletarian internationalism.
The greatest possible flexibility in the efforts to bring
about action unity of Socialists and Communists can be
based only on firm adherence to the principles, including
the conviction that the workers of any country need a
strong Communist Party as a boosting force in the interest
of workerslunity.
What the Communists found out in connection with the
criticism of the cult of personality at the 20th Party Con-
gress has caused uneasiness and confusion among their
ranks.. This was due to the nature of the information and
to the form in which it was revealed. HoWever, the stir-
ring discussions and examinations and the clarifying result
to which they will lead will initiate a new era in which
the attraction and popularity of the Communist movement
among the masses will lead to_new great successes of the
international working class.
Volksstimme, 26 June (as broadcast by radio)
?
The discuSsions and results of the 20th Congress of
the Soviet Communist Party have started wide discussions
In the entire Communist world movement. For Months, the
Communists have been discussing not only the (startling?)
facts which the 20th Party Congress revealed about the ef-
fects of the cult of the individual but are also dealing
with thenew views worked out by the Party Congress regard-
ing the possibility of preventing wars, the possibility of
new roads to Socialism, workers'unity, and many other
-principles -of the workers' movement. A wide, useful, and
creative discussion is being held in the Communist Parties
of all countries.
The Austrian Communists also, immediately after the
20th Party Congress, began discussions on these problems,
but the intensity of the election campaign led to a neces-
sary interruption of the discussions and to a concentration
of all the party strength on the election campaign. Only
a few days after May 13, however, the Central Committee of
the Austrian. Communist,Party held a meeting which discussed
the election outcome, reviewed the party's attitude in the
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election struggle, and drew conclusions for the continuation
of the struggle and work of the party.
It was self-understood. that this discussion, ? introduced.
by a. report by party chairman Koplenig, became the beginning.
of a conscientious reviewing of the policy of our party,
and that the members- of the Central Committee, in discussing
the new tasks of the party, tried to draw the necessary
conclusions for the struggle of the Austrian workers from
the results ofthe 20th CPSU Congress. The Central Committee
of the KPO decided immediately to continue the discussions
begun at the meeting in the local party organizations and .
to. summarize the results of the discussions of party members
and officials. at a.new meeting of the Central Committee.
In addition, the Central Committee decided to prepare
a discussion on the possibility of a peaceful and parlia-
mentary course of Austria on her road to Socialism within
our party and within the entire working class. For weeks
now, Communists all over Austria have been discussing all
problems of their workand policy in meetings of party
members, officials, or activists. Thousands of Communists
are voicing their views and. are fervently. discussing the
entire policy of the party. Many.problems of our policy .
are being reviewed, weaknesses and mistakes are beingad-
mitted, and many- valuable suggestions for the further strug-
gle of our party are being made.
The discussions reveal the deep love for the party and
the efforts made to work out the new policy of our party. .
Sometimes, also,, harsh language is used, and not everything
said is quite correct, but this could not be otherwise and
is not harmful as long as this criticism is guided by the
will to help the party. It is-the very essence of the dis-
cussions that the positive and correct views will assert
themselves finally and lead.to an improvement of the work.
Naturally, the problems of the 20th Party Congress
play a decisive role in the discussions of the Austrian
Communists. They discuss with passion and deep sincerity
the effects and results of the cult of the individual and
are searching for the cause which led to such serious errors
in a Socialist country. This problem was not completely
clarified at the 20th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party.
We Austrian Communists are of the opinion that the measures
already taken before the 20th Party Congress and decided
upon at the Party Congress must be continued so that perma-
nent and firm guarantees are established that such develop-
ments alien to the very spirit of Socialism will be prevented
In the future.
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In view of the fact that unconfirmed details of Com-
rade Khrushchev's report at the 20th Party Congress on
the consequences of the cult of the individual were pub- ,
lished in the press :of our opponentsthe Politburo of the'
Austrian Communist Party's Central Committee some time ago
requested the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist
Party to place this document at the disposal of our party.,
We Austrian Communists voice the belief that questions of
such big international importance must be treated in a
manner which takes into account the conditions under which
the Communist Parties in the capitalist countries are waging
their struggle.
The enemies of the workers' movement are hoping to capi-
talize on the serious discussions conducted by Communists
all over the world.. These are empty hopes. By means of
discussions, we Communists are overcoming mistakes and
shortcomings in our work. With newmethods, we will estab-
lish better relations with the Socialists and fight .more
successfully for the establishment of workers' unity, and
thus for the cause of the workers' movement and the victory
of Socialism.
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Arbeiter-Zeitung (Socialist), 27 jun 56
As the last party still clinging to Moscow's apron
strings, the Austrian. Communist Party has now finally "taken
a stand" on the results of the 20th Congress of the .CPS1J,
though in a somewhat weary and vexed way. The Oesterreichische
Volksstimme yesterday reported on the "course .L5T-171-76?dts-17--
sions"" which allegedly 'took place at party?meetings.and con-
ferences. What was discussed and what the result was, can
however not be found in the report.
? It is very clear, however, that Moscow deemed. It super-
fluous to even send their insignificant Austrian comrades
the text of Khrushchev's speech which is already- known to
the whole world. But even had they. received ?a copy,- they
would not have dared offer an opinion with out special orders.
At the most, they would venture to -quote Togliatti once more.
There they stand with their huge new printing plant, which.
publishes nothing but the diminutive issues of their press,
and fear bankruptcy. ? Can they say anthing? ? How can they knew ..
whether the masters of today will .not be relieved by others
already tomorrow? Whether or not a new change of course will
come about which will force the Communists to swallow the. Lies
of today just as they must now choke dowh the lies of yester-
day?
That is why they are just stammering a few words agalrist
the "cult of personality" and have thred only once to speak
about the "grave mistakes" in Russia. But -- in the whole
Volksstimme article, Stalin's name does not appear once! One
can never know...
But they cannot get- away with it that easily! Dld not
the Austrian Communists again and again sPread. Stalin's name
over all their press as the "greatest person of our epoch" ---
yes or no? .
It is ture or not that on the day after Stalin's death,
when Abeiter-Zeitung? in the first paragraph of its editorial,
stated that he was not a great man, they assailed us with. a ?
tremendous cry of rage? Is it true or not that they not only
accepted all Stalin's infamous acts but praised them as the
brilliant accomplishments of the Great Brother and even also
of Socialism, whether they were the blood orgies of the. groat ?
"ChiStka" or the gagging of art and science, whether the in-
suiting tirades against Tito or the arrest of the Jewish
doctors? And is it true or not that 25 years ago the same
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Koplenig headed the Communist Party of Austria as he does -
today? Is it true or not that the same little bureaucrats,
who reveled in the "cult of personality" for their whole
lives, are now acting as though this had all never existed?
They did' not know anything? They have just now been informed
of the true nature of Stalinism? We do not believe that
even the members of the Communist Party are so stupid as to
believe that. Can the few idealists, who doubtlessly still
exist among the Communist laborers and clerks, bear to con-
tinue languishing away under such conditions?
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New York Times
July 10 1956
FRAM DECLARES
SOVIET PERIL RISES
Anti-Stalin Drive Is Shift in
Tactics, Not Aim, Latter
to Virginia gditor Says
WINCHESTER, Va., July 9
- - - Generalissimo Francisco
Franco, Spanish Chief of State,
warned today that the new, So-
viet policy constituted A "great-
br danger over a long period of
Lime."
The downgrading of Stalin
"does ,not represent any change
in objectives,' he said in a letter
to Harry F'. Byrd Jr., editor
and publisher of The Winchester
Star and The Harrisonburg
Daily News-Record.
The anti-Stalin campaign, Gen-
eral Franco added, is just 'a
variation in tactical strategy to
better attain these objectives.'"
Mr. Byrd, who two years ago
had had a lengthy interview with
.the Spanish leader in Madrid,
had recently sought his ap-
praisal of the Soviet Union's
"new look." The Franco letter
appeared with a copyright ar-
ticle in today's issues of the two
Virginia newspapers.
Text of the Letter
The text of the letter follows:
man/dation iersm the SpatikshA
El Pardo.Palace,
June 2,_ 1958.
The Hon, Harty F. Byrd Jr.
Dear Friend:
I received your kind letter of
April 30, in which you asked
me for my opinion on the new
anti-Stalin attitude which has
been proclaimed by the leaders
of the Kremlin. It is not diffi-
cult to see through their tactic:
I believe, like yourself, that the
present expression of Soviet
policy does not represent any
change in the objectives pur-
sued, but rather a variation In
tactical strategy to better at-
tain these objectives; having
SPAIN
tried some procedures, they put-
others into action which they
judge more appropriate. The
near future will confirm this.
In any form, it constitutes a
clear expression of the dyna-
mism and agility of their pol-
icy.
The very grave accusations of
Khrushchey I:Nikita S. Khru-
shchev, Soviet Communist par-
ty chief] and the attendant
publicity results from a compli-
cated and difficult crisis in the
Soviet policy. What else could
justify permitting this very
grave impact, which adversely
affects the internal and exter-
nal prestige of communism?
They could have effected the
change and justified what they
call a new collective course as
the crowning of some labor, as
the end of one period and the
beginning of another, without
having to resort to making
these extremely grave ACCUSR,
flans public, and creating a
havoc which adversely affetts
communism in general and
which has been turned against
them as accomplices and col-
laborators. When they must de-
fend themselves in this fashion,
It is because somebody is at-
tacking and attacking strongly.
Army's Bole Discussed
It has been known for some
time that the Communist lead-
ers and the principal figures
of the Communist party, like
the generals and military lead-
ers, felt themselves under the
constant menace of Staliniat
terrorism, with its periodic
purges and shots in the back
without any possible defense
against them. Stalin's death
brought them together with the
aim of freeing themselves from
this terror. In the process, the
Army had to play a principal
role, This explains its part in
the new situation,
From the point of view of
Communist foreign policy, the
growing repudiation of sub-
servience by the Communist
parties of other nations to
Moscow and Soviet imperialism
made advisable rectification
of a strategy which jeopard-
ized the attainment of Com-
munist expansion abroad. It
became necessary to place the
blame on someone, to give a
semblance of sincerity to the
rectification, The immediate
reconciliation With Tito I Presi-
dent. Tito of Yugoslavia] dem-
onstrates this. _
Polley 'Bad for West'
To the light of the foregoing,
we must. conclude that the
change in tactics obeys internal
needs of cOmmunism, and we
must deduce, as a result, that
what they consider good must
necessarily be bad for the
West. There are no other rea-
sons which could justify (such]
fundamental changes in a poli-
cy which has expanded their
frontiers to unprecedented lim-
its and which has permitted
them to occupy one of the
fore,piost places in the com-
munity of nations,
What is evident is that Rus-
sia today needs time and space
to consolidate its conquests and
It s new internal situations, and
It. is to this that the new policy
responds: to show themselves
in sheep's clothing, attract at-
tention and create problems in
other areas, which, by permit-
ting them to consolidate their
situation, also permits them to
assimilate what they have at-
tained so far, Time is a power-
ful ally for them.
In brief: The letting up of the
moment constitutes a. greater
danger over a long period of
time. I ani sure that you, who
know Russia and the unchang-
ing aims of Communist. policy, '
will not be far from this point
of view.
Very cordially yours,
F. Fmksico.
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BELGIUM
Le Drapeau Rouge, Resolution of the Central Committee of the Com-
munist Party of Belgium, 26 June '
Though not in possession of the official version of the speech.
by Comrade Khrushchev criticizing Stalin, the Central Committee of
the Belgian Communist Party, at a meeting in Brussels on 23-24 June,
is of the opinion that several points in it call for the following
statements:
1. The Central Committee believes that, despite its painful
aspects, the discussion opened by the 20th Congress of the CF-SU in
socialist countries and in communist and progressive circles all
over the world contains elements of great interest to all those who
fight for the triumph of peace and of socialism.
Under these circumstances, the Central Committee is aware
of the important contribution to the .debate in progress made by
the recent statements of a number of party brothers and, in partic-
ular, by Comrade Togliatti: secretary general of the Italian Com-
munist Party.
He expresses the hope that the labor and the democractic
press, which published the complete text of the documents emanating
from the US Department of State, will demonstrate their objectivity
by publishing likewise all other documents on the disputed subject.
2. The Central Committee considers intolerable the violations
of revolutionary legality and of the rules of socialist democracy
committed in the USSR.
The implacable hatred of the capitalist world for the Com-.
munist Party of the USSR: which was first to lead its people to a
definite victory over capitalism, explains, though it does not con-
done, the atmosphere of exaggerated distrust in which the grave
offenses were made possible.
3. The Central Committee admits that the Belgian Communist
Party erred when, in the ardor of its fight in defense of the coun-
try of socialism: it did not pay enough attention to the possibility
of avoidable excesses which have now been denounced.
It is happy to see the Communists of the USSR and of the
people's democracies frankly admit their errors.
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It is convinced that a serious search for the origin of
these errors will strengthen the measures already taken to prevent
a repetition.
The Central Committee believes that the courageous denuncia-
tion of these errors enhances the prestige of the socialist countries
among the Belgian workers and militant socialists who today in over
growing numbers acknowledge the triumph and the superiority of the
socialist system of production and its groat contribution to the good
fortune of mankind.
In the course of events in the socialist world the Central
committee recognizes important elements of a nature to promote the
unity of action which is indispensable to Belgian workers in the
struggle against capitalism and for the maintenance of peace and the
development of social progress.
4. The Central Committee sees in the brilliant victories won
in the socialist countries in the economic, social and political
fields, and particularly in the triumph of the belief in peaceful
coexistance over the machinations against peace,--exalting stepping
stones on the victorious road of mankind towards socialism.
Long live the Communist Party of the Soviet Union/ -
Long live the unity of Belgian :workers based on triumphant
Marxism, guarantee of irresistable and rapid progress towards-social:1_3ml
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SWEDEN
Daa:ens Nyheter, 19 June
Everything indicates that when Togliatti behaves as he
now does, it is primarily in order to prevent a crisis in
his own party, and to prevent, as far as possible, the infor-
mation on Stalin now being published, not in the interests of
truth but in Khrushchev and Company's interests, from becom-
ing a weapon directed against the Western European Communist
Parties that wallowed in the mud before the despot. East of
the Iron Curtain there is no one to remind the present rulers
of their revolting paeans of praise to Stalin, or of their
equally revolting rage against Tito--and he who is nauseated
has nowhere else to go. ,But in countries where a free opinion
exists, the Communists are daily forced to eat their own words,
and it is plain to see that the turnabout as concerns Stalin
has caused confusion in the Communist ranks, and defection in
various quarters. But on the .other hand it is hardly neces-
sary to point out that a Communist Party critical of Moscow
.is a self-contradiction--such parties have neverlived long
(Yugoslavian Communism-expected). Unconditional acceptance
of Soviet policies--the day-to-day Soviet policy--has ever
since the acceptance by the Third Internationale in of
the infamous "21 Theses" been the first Commandment of the
Communist catechism.
The destruction of the Stalin myth, however, has placed
the Communist parties of Western Europe in a great dilemma,
further aggravated by the honors showered upon the former
"Fascist," "murderer of workers," and "Warmonger," Tito in
Moscow..t.
It is, of course, impossible to determine what the con-
sequences will be in the long run of Togliatti's maneuver and
how other Western European Communist Parties will react.
According to London telegrams, speculation is rife there con-
cerning a more extensive "revolt against Moscow"--which
seems a little fantastic. On the other hand, a sensation is
constituted by the declaration of the British Communist organ
the Daily Worker to the effect that "the Soviet leaders have
lost a certain amount of prestige," that the violation of
"Communist democracy" in-the Soviet Union must be explained
better than Khrushchev .has done thus far, and that the result
of Togliatti's declaration will be that Apeople will begin
to think for themselves"--a point of view which would mean
political suicide for a Communist. Khrushchev, with his
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speech condemning Stalin, has evidently set a stone rolling
which will be hard to stop.
Ny_Dag, (Communist) 20 'June
The chairman of our Italian brother party, Palmiro
Togliatti, with his interview statement on Khrushchev's
Stalin speech has caused tremendous perplexity and speculation
in the capitalist world. Since we have not yet obtained a
copy of the interview in. Unita and only have come by mis-
cellaneous rumors concerning its ?contents through the instru-
mentality of the clever reporting art of bourgeoise news agen-
cies and correspondents, it is premature to make an. accurate
?evaluation of the contents. On the other hand, some evaluation
of the statements of our opponents, which, have no more basis
than the reports mentioned above, can be made.
According to these statements, not until now when he has
been pressed by the Socialist leader, Nenni, and because of
the supposed election defeat, has Togliatti taken a. stand in.
the matter. To this it can be said that as early. as. March,
Togliatti published a long article, which was. reprinted In the
entire Swedish Communist press, in which he analyzed_Stalin'S
errors and tyranny and .the reasons therefor. The curious
thing at. that time was that Nenni polemiclzed against Togliatti
and was hostile toward the .expcsition of Stalin's errors. And
then let us add that the figures from the zTtallaq Interior
Ministry- published last week showed that the Italian Communist
Party did not suffer defeat at all, but on the contrary, success-
fully defended its strong positions and continues to have twice
as many adherents as the Socialist Party with whom the Comm-
unists are carrying on friendly and successful. cooperation.
Anotherconclusion which the commentators have drawn
from the Tbgliatti interview, is that he states that a way to
socialism different from the Soviet way should be followed In
Italyand that the special conditions in that country should -
be taken Into consideration in this connection. Naturally.
Togliatti did not suggest this as something novel inasmuch as
he had said the same thing a long time Our Swedish
party had adopted this point of view as early as the Congress
of 1944; it was expressed even more clearly at the 1946 Con-
gress; and it was confirmed in the party program in .1953. ?
The concept was interpreted by. the 20th Congress of our Soviet
brother party in February of this year, at which timeTogliatti
also commented on it. Permit us also to add that all the
countries which have entered into the Way. of Socialism since
the Second World War have pursued their own ways, which have
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taken into consideration the special c.,ircumetances which
existed in these countries. This would have been impossible,
however, if the Soviet people had not built up their social-
istic order in the way of the Soviet'.
But the ,most malevolent of all is the attempt to portray
Togliatti 's interview as an admission that our Italian brother
party had carried out its policies on "orders from Moscow" --
which Moron-Tidningen, among others, pretends to believe.
In line wiffiThis base portrayal, Togliatti thus has now
chosen Tito's way and so refuses to "take orders from the
Kremlin" any longer. This is a pgrtrayal which befits reac-
tionaries and war provocateurs, bUt has ,nothing to do with
reality. The Italian Communist Party and all other Communist
parties- determine their. policies themselves with reference to
the circumstances in their countries, and allow themselves to
be guided by the current interests of their own working people
and the historical goals of the working class. There are no
international organizations which coordinate the policies of
their respective parties with'the,policies of their brother .
parties in other countries.
In our opinion it would have been beneficial if Khrush-
chev's speech had been made public, since this would have
forestalled all the versions which, have appeared in various
capitals this spring and which have been trumpeted forth as
the original. Even if this speech may give aesomewhat one-
sided picture of Stalin's work, since it dwelt mainly on Stalin's
weaknesses and the mistakes he committed and does not illumin-
ate the entire situation in which these weaknesses could have
their play, either, still the truth, even though it is painful,
is better than a silence which leaves room for all kinds of
interpretations, caricature, and calumny. We cannot, however,
judge what reasons determined that, the world still has not
received an authorized version of Khrushchev's speech.
On the other hand, the leaders of the Soviet Union have
shown the whole world that they have settled accounts with
past oppression and errors and in all areas are further deve-
loping and deepening the socialist democracy.- The internal
reorganizing and the external offensive for peaceful coex-
istence and relaxationHof tensions give new fruitful impulses
to the international labor movement and clears the way for
coodination of the efforts of all progressive forces. Svenska
Dagbiadet fears that this, as well as the continuing debate
on the principles of the collective leadership, will strengthen
the Communist movement still more. We are convinced that this ?
will happen.
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DENMARK
Sodial-Demokraten, 13 June, -excerpt
Even though the LTommunisI7 leaders may .be able still to
deal with the membership as robots, this will be of little use.
For, which way are the robots to be turned? Should the lie
be stuck to that the leaders did not know what the whole world.
knew, of the horrors of the Stalin period? Or should it be
maintained that everything that happened in the Soviet. Union
during a 25-year period-mass murder, terror, torture?was-
acceptable and only to he regarded as expedient methods on
the road to paradise? Should the arch enemy, the Social
Democrats, be. approached with offers of a.popular front, or
should an attempt be made to return to pure revolutionary
Leninism? - None of these problems have been solved,- and the
confusion continues under cover of a pained silence...'. For
a time, the leaders may save themselves by continued .silence.
But they are unable to stop the process of dissolution which
has set in. .
25 June
A close analysis of Khrushchev's speech failed to disclose
a single word of criticism of the Soviet system of dictator-
ship, and that Khrushchev's condemnation applied to Stalin's
despotism over the party) not over the people.
It is wishful thinking, according to the editorial, to
expect a fundamental change in the system of dictatorship, but
the severe shock to the faith in dictatorship will in the long
run carry with it consequences, and it is here that the break.
with Stalinism opens a perspective which the present Soviet
leaders had not foreseen.
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NORWAY
Arbeiderbiadet; 25 June, excerpt
Reidar Larsen has been selected to speak for the'Nor-
weglan Communists in the matter of the Stalin. down2;radingi
This looks simply heroic: A young, unknown man stands
forth alone and "bawls out" the mighty leaders, both dead
and living, of the Soviet Union. But in reality there is
no heroism. Note what has happened. The Italian Communist
leader Togliatti spoke first'. He said that "the Communist
movement needs and desires greater freedom for its own judg-
ment" and that conditions in the Soviet Union "no longer can
be an obligatory pattern for other Communist states". The
Frendh Communists followed up this criticism. A resolution
by the British Communist Party had the same content -- and,
what is most important, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia,.
behind the Iron Curtain, folloWs in Togliatti's footsteps.
The new Communist line may be found in these and other .
statements. They follow each other in well ordered sequence.
First the large ones, then those not so large, then the small
ones, and the Norwegian Communist Party brings up the rear.
We may be rather sure that the Kremlin spoke first. No
rebellion is involved. The Kremlin has only given new signals,
.which are evidently being followed, not however, without inner
turmoil.
Nevertheless the most important thing now is how the
Communists intend to prevent the same horrors being repeated.
At present, they have gotten no further than to wonder what
the causes of the horrors could have been. The fateful errors
must have begun some place, they say, and they urge the Soviet.
Communists to explain. They are just as confused as people
looking for a needle in a haystack.
There is no reason to make the problem so complicated.
The explanation is simple. We ask the Communists whether the
world has ever seen a dictatorship not guilty of suppression,
cruelties, and miscarriages of -justice. The tragic part of
the new situation is that the Communists condemn the dictator,
but not dictatorship. We believe that many Communists under-
stand that dictatorsbtp must lead to suppression. But they
are not allowed to state their views.
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Friheten, 23 June
A very- important debate has begun in the -international
labor movement. Experiences -- positive and negative -- are
being evaluated. Settlement is being made With occurrences
contrary to basic principles, in order to prevent their re- ?
ourrence. Present day perspectives for new victories in the
struggle for socialism are being analyzed, and the line for
the new forward march being drawn.
The immediate occasion for the debate is what took:
place at the 20th Congress, CPSU, but it is of greater ex-
tent.
Naturally and necessarily, the Communist Party of Nor-
way must take part in the debate -- with a special viewto
our conditions and problems We urge the readers of Frihoten
and Party members to take part in the discussion..
Some people ask what the opinion of the Party is. But
in this discussion there is no question of "ready-made stand-
points." The bourgeois press, ? the enemy of socialism, will,
now as before, make sensations, and seek to spread-their own
confusion to others. Our most effective reply will be an open
and honest discussion, by means of which we may learn from
past experience and from the present situation.
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FINLAND
Suomen.Sosialidemokraatti, 19 June .
When for decades we have become accustomed to the
religious echo by the Communist Parties of the entire
world of the statements of the Soviet Communist Party
headquarters, it is not without reason that the surprising,
independent stand of the Italian Communist leader, Palmiro
Togliatti, is described as sensational. The leader of
the West's largest Communist Party has pointed his criti-
cism at the Soviet leaders outright,--and directed the
discussion regarding Communist mistakes along new channels
even in his own party. Why were all those evil deeds per-
mitted,.and afterwards the blame loaded onto the back of
the leader who during his time was treated as a god?
What is important is not necessarily that this is the
first time that the expose of the Stalin cult has created
discussion but that this is the first time that the dis-
cussion comes from the mouth of a well-known Communist
leader. It seems that the conferences of Marshal Tito--
the rebel who has risen to a position of respect in the
Communist camp--and Togliatti, prior to Marshal Titos
ceremonious Moscow trip, have truly directed policies to-
ward change. The strong criticism from the leader of the
West's largest Communist Party cannot help but influence
the West's smaller Communist Parties into taking a stand
even though it doubtless will result in headaches for some
of them.
Togliatti's stand was in large part also affected by
internal political matters. The Italian Communist Party
suffered defeat in the communal elettions and it now appears
in danger of losing its earlier ally, the Nenni Leftist
Socialists. Togliatti has made his decision, and from all
appearances, Marshal Tito's counsel has greatly influenced
him. As we remember, the Communists have suffered reversals
in all elections following the anti-Stalin campaign--this
has occurred in Austria as well as the Netherlands. Togliatti's
example cannot but be influential. But too much must not
be expected from the change. Even during the era of the
smile there is reason to reCall the story of the Trojan
horse. That he who was previously infallible is later under
criticism is a cheering *sign for the democracies. But it must
always be remembered that new words do not change old objectives.
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It appears obvious that the present day workers movement,
which promotes the highest ideals of every nation and all man-
kind, is facing a new great progressive era. This has partly
resulted from the recent, and still continuing, Soviet expose.
and criticism of mistakes which at first aeemed very painful,
but later has been felt as a more liberating, daring and stimu-
lating breath of air throughout the world.
Thus, it is natural that the conclusions; of various
bourgeoise papers (as Helsinzin Sanomat and Ilta Sanomat),
whose strongest characteristic is that of not taking an inde-
pendent stand, concerning the Communist "ripping of seams" and
crises" do not reach the heart of the matter. On the other
hand, we can be encouraged in that currently the previously
mentioned types of papers have seldom been liberal In publi-
cizing and discussing those matters which Create healthy
broad scope discussions of problems in the present worker's
movement.
A result of this type of broad scope deliberation and
discussion is the decrease of the suspicion and fear of many
honest persons of Socialists and Communists, and toward .
Socialism and Communism. The impression that Communists are
the instigators of some underhanded orders is eliminated and
the belief that the present day workers movement promotes the
freedom of all working people is strengthened. This type of
development creates an even firmer foundation among all nations
for a feeling of friendship for the USSR and other Socialist
countries and strengthens peace and security between nations.
We have every reason to be thankful for. the fact that the
Italian Communist Party's well known leader, Paimiro Togliatti,
has given a broad scope statement on those matters which we .
have mentioned in the preceding paragraphs. The Finnish press
has had only relatively few small, inaccurate and even erroneous
translated and interpreted fragments of Togliatti's statement
But even at that it appears that it arouses significant
ideological discussions of those general mistakes which. might .
have affected the progress of the entire international workers
movement up to the present time. The initiation of this type
of discussion on the international scale will undoubtedly hasten
the ideological growth and unity ofthe workers' movement and
will deepen the Consciousness that not only is this ideological
growth and unity necessary and advantageous to all countries,
but also that itawakens the so-called rank-and-file of a broader
workers movement to their clear and definite rights and freedoms,
which includes the freedom to criticize. This signifies that
an organized democracy is developing into that which it should -
be.
In complete contradiction to the conclusions of the
bourgeoise press, there is no doubt that Togliatti's statement
might be an indication of the beginning of a new and rich
progressive era in the present day workers' movement.
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Oohing In s Vbetatel, Maolifiurib.
"Look art, Comrade, you're Wilkes II on yourself."
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NEAR EAST
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INDIA
Indian Communist Party Reaction, 13 July,. excerpt,-(as'broadcast
by radio)
The facts mentioned in Khrushchev's report reveal that
together with great successes in building socialism in the
Soviet Union, there also occurred during the latter part of
the life of Stalin instances of distortion of Soviet democracy,
infringement of Socialist legality by excesses and arbitrary
acts and violation of norms of inneT Party life.
In view of the seriousness of the mistakes committed
and in view of damage caused by them, it was necessary to take
resolute measures to rectify the mistakes and undo the damage
done.
It was necessary to wage a. determined struggle against
the cult of personality, a cult alien to the spirit of Marxism-
Leninism. By undertaking these tasks, the Soviet Communist
Party leadership has rendered great service to the cause of
Socialism.
While fully recognizing the negative features and grave
defects that developed in Stalin's methods of leadership, the
Central Committee of the Communist Party of India considers
that a one-sided appraisal of his role during the last 20
years of his life, years of mighty development in the Soviet
Union and the world Communist movement, caused bewilderment
among the masses and can be utilized by enemies of Communism
to confuse them.
The Committee, therefore, is 'of the opinion that are
objective assessment of Stalin's life and work in their entirety,
Stalin's great achievement and serious shortcomings, is essential
for successfully fighting the cult of the individual and for
effectively combating the prevailing confusion.
The Central Committee declared it was necessary to under-
take a fuller analysis of the causes which led to the arbitrary
acts and excesses. It added, "To ascribe all shortcomings and
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and arbitrariness to defects of an individual falls short Of
Marxist-Leninist standards of historical objectivity.
Khrushchevis revelations have been seized upon by
imperialists and other enemies of the working people to denounce
the Soviet Union and undermine the confidence of the people in
the Socialist system.
Enemies of the workers are at pains to make out that the
violations of Soviet democracy and excesses committed are
inherent in the Soviet. system.
There is a serious danger of many honest and progressive
elements being influenced by this propaanda, which the Com-
munist Party of India considers it imperative to expose and
combat.
It is evident that a system in which such violations and
distortions. were inherent could not have unleashed the creative
energies of hundreds of millions of people on a scale never
known before,- and have brought about such unprecedented social
transformations.
The mistakes and excesses that occurred in the Soviet
Union were not due to the principles of Marxism-Leninism or
the Soviet system, but to deviations from them in practice.
These deviations occurred against a background of great -
victories of socialist reconstruction., carried out in an extremely
difficult period.
The Committee is confident that the world Communist movement
will profit by the experience of the Soviet Union and take ef-
fective measures for the defense and extension of democracy in
every sphere.
While Socialism has become the common 'goal of all progres-
sive Mankind in OUT present epoch, each country will however
proceed to this goal in its own way.
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Free Press Journal, 30 June, excerpts
The Poznan revolt is only the beginning of a revolutionary
fight for liberation in Soviet Satellite Countries.
The trouble in Poland is almost. according to schedule.
If "polycentrise? the word alleged to have been coined by
Tito to describe the new international Communist relationship,
can permit a hitherto subdued Togliatti and a habitually'
yessing Thorez to assert the right of criticism, it is no
wonder that in Poland ideological autonomy has been expressed
in much more aggressive terms. The Polish Communist Party has
the largest mass of nationalism in its mental make-up of any
East European Communist Party.
Since the post mortem struggle against Stalin began,
foreign correspondents in Warsaw had often reported Pales
talking of a "second revolution." They sense that international
and national Communist leadership has been growing at a greater
pace in Poland. than elsewhere, and the authorities conscious
of it have been trying to respond to it.
The Poznan trouble indicates that the rate of liberalization,
now that the weight of international compulsion has been re-
moved, is not considered fast enough. It is also significant
that the demand for release from party bureaucratic compulsions
-should start at Poznan, which has the highest proportion of
industrial workers in its population. As polycentrism becomes
the international pattern of Communism, internally different .
groups and parties will have to be tolerated, and the industrial
workers, who are ideologically Given a. very high status in
society, will claim their right to organize and express their
opinion earlier than other groups. .The Polish trouble is only.
the beginning of a vast movement.
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AFRICA
Dakar, Afrive Nouvelle, 26 June
The End of a Myth
On 25 February during a secret session of the 20th
Congress of the Communist Party of the USSR, Nikita Khrush-
chev presented a report on the cult of personality. This
report, which has Oust been published by the entire world
press, is without doubt the most violent condemnation
known of Stalinis conduct as head of the Soviet state. The
successor of the Russian generalissimo acknowledged par-
ticularly that the late little father of the Russian people
had eliminated during his lifetime hundreds of early Com-
munists, after having extorted by force from them confessions
of imaginary crimes, and that he had massacred tens of thous-
ands of opponents of the Russian Revolution.
Such facts cannot surprise us. We have known them
for a long time. One can, however, ask what effect they
have on all those who have believed in Marxism. Thus, this
regime which was to free man from all alienations has been
able to breed the most terrible dictator of all times. And
this doctrine, which has always proclaimed the impossibility
of a person influencing history, has been able to produce
a personality strong enough to impose himself for 30 years
on the fatherland of Communism, influencing, said Khrushchev
himself, "in a bad way the international labor Movement"
because he was more concerned with the power of his state
than with the happiness of his people.
One understands that the Western Communist parties may
have difficulty in admitting such revelations. Would not
the acceptance of these revelations as true at the same time
strike a terrible blow at so-called scientific socialism
and historical mateilialism?
Must one conclude that Thorez and Togliatti are going
to choose the path of a new Titoism? It is not very probable.
But they will enjoy henceforth a greater freedom of action.
However, we do not delude ourselves: this evolution
corresponds to the present interest of the Soviet Union.
As Pineau stated at Washington, the USSR Is obliged today
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to face duties which exceed its means in Europe as well as
Asia, and the USSR begins to understand that it will need
time to meet its obligations in China, India and the Near
East. As war is no longer imminent, the USSR no longer
has the same need to maintain a fifth column in every
foreign country.
All the same, nothing has changed in the Soviet con-
ception. At no time did the Khrushchev report have a word
of pity for the millions of victims of the dead tyrant.
And if the abuse of viblence is condemned In it, the prin-
ciple of its use is not.
One chance remains for the West, however. Time can
work for the West if it knows how to utilize the future to
promote a policy of aid to underdeveloped countries and of
cooperation between peoples. Those who believe in God
must in any case employ it: such a policy demands a great
love of people and an unconditional respect for the rights
of the human being, which it is. difficult to exhibit if
one cannot see in each being the image of a divine creator.
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MOROCCO
Le Courrier du Maroc by Christian Houillion, 19 June
Francois Mauriac has a new hobby. He aspires to become
the Egeria of the Communist Party. It is certainly never too
late to do good, and the Christian, bourgeois, and masochistic
member of the Academy is opportunely embarking on a quest for
new sources of enthusiasm.
Thus, while recalling problems raised by Stalin's con-
demnation and complaining about the Communists' silence and
-their attachment to the former dictator of all the Russias,
the defects of whom he calls to mind, Mauriac explains to tne
"young French Communists" why he has adopted their worries:
"Don't tell us we are getting involved in what should not
concern us. To the contrary, At is of utmost concern to us,
because History's conjunctures may perhaps force us once aain
to take the same road as you do, as in the days of the Spanish
War and the Resistance." And, lavish with his advice, Mauriac
proclaims, using Tito as an example: "Young French Communists,
this is the example which I hold up to you, the man by whom I
wish you would be inspired." So, now the young French.Com-
munists are provided with a new mentor, an eminent adviser.
Thorez and Jacques Duclos no longer have anything to teach
their legions; a bourgeois has taken it upon himself to out-
line Party line!
Now, Mauriac's anti-Stalinism breaks out at the very
?
moment when the French, Italian, and British Communist Parties
are in disagreement with Moscow. The language of the Khrushchev
report has convinced neither Thorez, Togliatti, nor Harry Pollitt
of the dictator's evilmindedness.
In fact, people from both sides of the fence cannot. forget
that, under Stalin, Russia made considerable progress since the
last Czar; Togliatti has just argued that case in an article
which caused a certain amount of comment. And the Westerners
know something about Russia's progress: Khrushchev and Bulganin
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have received quite a brilliant heritage, and it does not,
seem honorable for them to insult thememory of a'dead man for
whom they, however, were once the willing accomplices,
Although recognizing Stalin's errors (what statesmati.
doesn't commit errors), certain Communists refuse to believe
that he is the sinister person described by Khrushchev and
Mauriac. Furthermore, Togliatti specifies: "It seems more
just, in my opinion, to recognize that despite his mistakes,
Stalin had the approval of a large part of the nation, and,
first of all, that of the leading-group in the government.
The error of Stalin's collaborators was in not realizing soon
enough that they had let him do everything he pleased, until
the day when it was too late to prevent him from doing so
without a total upset."
The attack launched by Mauriac Is justified even less
because he sets himself up as an enemy of the cult of personality,
when he himself has kept up a similar cult for many months,
having as an idol a political man for whom"he IS very indulgent.
And, finally, it is unwise to deduce from the Khrushchev
report that there will be an extensive upheaval in international
Communist strategy, The Communist 'Parties which are silentwill
perhaps be brought into line by Khrushchev, until the time when,
in a few years, a collaborator of Russia's new Master comes
forward and pronounces the 'anti-Khrushchev indictment. .Atrresent,
the Russians have kept the same objective in the world as Stalin,
and Moscow's recent diplomatic actions are proof of this. Tactics
have changed and smiles have been substituted for Molotov's
"Nyet," but the outcome leaves no room for doubt; young French
Communists probably do not need Mauriac to convince them of the
chance for success of the plan perfected a-long time ago by
Lenin and Stalin. Many "traitors" in Russia have recently been
rehabilitated. It is not by attacking Stalin's memory that the
Proteus-like member of the Academy will be most likely to "take
the road" with his young Communist friends! '
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Le Courier du Maroc by Jacques Rouvier, 11 June
The publication of the complete text of the Khrushchev
report at Moscow is very interesting. We are familiar with
the essential point, namely the condemnation of Stalin. They
also tell us that 98 out of 139 members of the Central Committee
elected in 1934 were arrested and shot. Nevertheless, a series
of questions would normally be posed for Communist parties:
first, the acolytes of Stalin who supported him and permitted
him to pursue his policy are presently in power; there are
then two possibilities, either they approved this policy and
profited from it, or they did not approve it and certainly
lacked the essential element of the character of a leader.
However. that may be, the masses first were told that the great
majority of the Central Committee are traitors and everyone
agreed on this and thanked the brilliant Father of the People.
Now one announces that the brilliant Father of the People was
a poor madman and everyone is also in agreement. The fact
which is certain is that the methods remain but that the men
change. Before there was one man; now there are several men.
In the interior of the party rumblings are making them-
selves heard because there are several rival ,2,7tDups. However
that may be, the goals remain the same, but it is also certain
that if internal struggles should continue, the external power
of Russia would decrease as it was diminished at the time when
Stalin carried out his purges and especially when he suppressed
his whole general staff.
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TUNISIA
Le Petit Matin, 26 June
The problems raised in the French Communist Party .by
the publication of the Khrushchev report and the denuncia-
tion of the crimes of Stalin are becoming 'greater and
greater in volume.
It is known that after having maintained a long silence
on this report, the Communist Party decided to break it
this week with a declaration of its, political bureau pub-
lished 24 hours after the interview given, by Togliatti to
a liberal Italian review.
It appears from this declaration and this interview,
both of which were approved by the British Communist Party,
that Western Communists, while approving the spirit which
dictated the Khrushchev report,_ refuse to subscribe with-
out more analysis to all the accusations made against
Stalin. In other words, the Western Communist parties de-
sire that henceforth problems posed in the Soviet Union
are not obligatorily their problems.
There is no question, say the French Communist leaders,
that the next Congress of Le Havre will take as the basis
of its work the conclusions of the 20th Congrees of the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, the
adaptation to this relative autonomy with respect to the
USSR presents delicate problems to the French Communist
leaders.
The Central Committee discussed this Friday and adopted
a resolution which will be printed elsewhere. Furthermore,
we will have occasion to discuss later on the way in which
the party directorate intenda to approach the Congress of
Le Havre.
In the meantime, it is interesting to note two positions
expressed this week in the weekly press by two intellectuals,
one of whom was excluded from the party several months ago,
Pierre Herve, and the other, Claude Roy, who is still a party
member, but who has often demonstrated a certain independence
of spirit.
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In France Observateur Pierre Herve attacked Maurice
Thorez very violently. The following are passages from
his article: "There is no collective direction in the
French Communist Party: Maurice Thorez rules through his
creatures and his creatures rule through him. There is
no democracy in the party: the manner of preparation for
the Congress of Le Havre would furnish proof if there were
need for it. In the conferences of federations and sections,
the representatives of the leadership maneuver in a way to
prevent criticisms being entered in the voted resolutions.
The machine is scarcely shaken. The Federal Secretaries
have their lists of delegates checked by the Central Com-
mittee. These arrangements are made so that the breath
coming from Moscow does not reach Le Havre.
One should not draw from this the conclusion that there
is nothing more to do: it is necessary to fight fascism
wherever it is, including inside the Communist Party. No
democrat, no advocate of socialism stands to gain anything
by the increased nationalist and reactionary tendencies
which come to light in the Communist Party. It seems to
me that, on the contrary, a renovation of the methods of
the French Communist Party can only be obtained in accord
with the conclusions of the twentieth congress of the Com-
munist Party of the USSR."
The following passage is from an article by Claude
Roy in LfExpress: "The Khrushchev report Is only interest-
ing, agonizing, and haunting for those Christians as you
and Communists as ourselves who 'have in common an inability.
to be happy in the world as it is.' It is to those alone
that serious problems are presented today. To those who
have never forgotten the victories won over misery and
iniquity from the Oder to the Yellow Sea; to those who have
perhaps forgotten sometimes that man is never all of one
piece, that truth is not the property of a single man, that
trust is not unconditional, and that revolutions are not
monolithic. It is to those men and primarily to the members
of the Communist Party that the knowledge of having been
sometimes mistaken is a silent suffering because it is
appropriately indescribable. It is those men that are
aroused, nevertheless, from the silence of chagrin by the
resolute will never to let such happenings occur again."
A great debate is henceforth open which is evidently
one of the most important events of recent years. Is the
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new current which is exhibited in the interior of the Com-
munist Party capable of reversing in the near future the
former methods? There is the question which all men ask
themselves who think that it is possible to march the
road of progress only by means of a great rallTof which
the Communist Party is necessarily one of the essential
components.
Tunis-Soir? (quotes from French Non-Communist Press on the
Reaction of the French. Communist Party to the
Khrushchev Speech) 19 June
Le Fi aro Marcel Gabilly commented as follows: "If
today the French Communist Party criticizes openly the
Khrushchev report, the same as Togliatti did two days ago
and the London Daily Worker yesterday, this does not mean
at all that it raises the flag of independence against
Moscow. It is entirely because Moscow has, by its own
chief, modified its instructions.
"The synchronism with which the Communist parties pro-
test at Rome, at London and at Paris is remarkable. This
discipline shown by each crying 'Viva la liberte' deceives
no one.
L'Aurore commented as follows: "One awaited with
curiosity the reaction of the French Communist Party. This
appeared yesterday in a declaration of the political bureau.
The text is similar to a Spanish inn: one finds there what
one brings there. Thorez and Dticlos.carry off the clownish
feat of praising Stalin as the designer of 'Leninism' and
of crushing him according to the accusations made by -
Khrushchev.
Thorez and Duclos execute an about-face, proclaiming
the virtues of the recent Mosbow congress, asking Khrushchev
humbly to communicate to them the :text of his indictment
against Stalin, and reaffirming at the end their 'close
solidarity' with the Communist Party of the twit."
Franc-Tireur: Charles Ronsac wrote as follows: "The
brief statement of the political bureau is a sinister joke."
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Whom do the French Communist Party leaders think
they will convince that they 'have been ignorant' of the
facts revealed by the report and which they are refrain-
ing from even mentioning again? Thorez, Duclos, Fajon,
Billoux and Co., not to mention Aragon and Courtade, have,
on the other hand, the nerve of calling the 'extravagant
eulogies' addressed to Stalin during his lifetime erroneous,
whereas their own eulogies would make up a most obsequious
anthology.
Finally these leaders reveal themselves as super-
Stalinists in having Stalin play in the October Revolution
a role which Soviet historians will henceforth challenge
and, especially, in crediting him with the lion's share
in 'the formation of all Communist parties.' This last
avowal is important because it is sincere. It is thanks
to Stalin and in his name that these men, accomplices of
an 'arbitrary repression,' have for years deceived and
fooled a large part of French workers."
Les Echos commented as follows: "In reality, there is
generWrcoWsion in the Communist camp. In the peoples'
democracies the Cominform leaders of yesterday are adapting
themselves somehow or other .(and mostly poorly1 eapecially
in attempting to save their personal positions) to the de-
Stalinization. Only Poland,. and more cautiously Rumania
which awaits Tito's visit, make the reversal resolutely.
In the USSR there is no visible sign of regret for
Stalinism among the youth (at least up to the present time)
or among the directing circles. But this regret is very
possible in. the Communist International, if it has not
already begun with the position adopted by Togliatti. There
is no longer a Communist Mecca nor an unquestioned prophet.
And that is an event which gives to the 'Khrushchev report'
an historical importance."
Tunis-Soir, 21 June
La Voix du Nord Andre Stibio commented as follows:
"At 'Ga." present time our impression is that the Western
Communist parties are passing through a profound crisis,
which they scarcely attempt to disguise, and that their
plans do not go as far as certain individuals claim. Their
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immediate goal is more prosaic: it is to regain a little
balance, to rediscover more solid doctrinal foundations,
and to overcome the type of paralysis with which they have
begun to be affected since Stalin was,cast down from his '
pedestal, denounced with an unusual violence by those who
were his companions and his accomplices, before becoming
his posthumous prosecutors."
Jacques Le Desert stated in Le Midi Libre as follows:
"How can one imagine that in a paYITY as strongly organized
as the Communist Party, where nothing is left to chance,
where everything is so minutely examined and weighed, the
important officials were ignorant 2f the whole content of
the Khrushchev report, the conclusions of which the official
organ of their party, nevertheless, commented favorably
upon about 20 March?
How can they admit that they could underestimate the
importance it had for them, and that they had done nothing
in this instance to get information?
And if Thorez and Duclos had the report for a long
time, which is at least.probable, they could have published
it themselves in L1Humanite for the edification of their
political friends.- Te regret which they exhibit today
of not having been able to do so is.then only hyproorisy."
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IRAN
Etelaat, 6 June
The exact text of the speech delivered by Khrushchev at
the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the USSR was
published by the US Department of State yesterday. This text
has apparently .reached the Americans through one of the Com-
munist parties of the satellite states.
While Tito is on a visit to Moscow, let us see what
could have motivated the US Department of State to publish
this speech..
In the first place, in publishing this speech, the US
Department of State has scored a major propaganda counter
attack, using a tactic often employed by Soviet propagandists,
namely, quoting directly the speech of a Soviet leader. Using
the very words of a Kremlin leader attacking another Kremlin
leader is a most effective means of counter propaganda.
Another aim of the publication of the speech is to erase
from the minds of people the notion that after the death of
Stalin, a new era of liberalism descended on the USSR. By
publishing the speech, the US Department of State wants to
go on record as having informed the world, the American pub-
lic included, that no basic change has taken place in Soviet
policy, and that the much publicized Soviet transformation
is not a reality at all.
Moreover, to the world at large, the publication of the
speech will reveal American diplomacy as maintaining an un-
abated fight against international Communism. Also, since
Washington's attention is constantly focused on the Satellite
states, the US Department of State wants to make it clear
that it has not relinquished the idea of securing the freedom
of these states.
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Nash. Pea
JUL1 194
_
"I Said, virOLT TOO CAN SHA'RE THE BETTER LIFE!'"
4=Faminixt?ocsc-
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FAR EAST
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JAPAN
Nippon Times
June 6 1956
- TT, ? -Ile Red Tsar
- The publication of the text of Mr. Khrusbchev's "secret"
speech, made before the Communist Party Cohress in Mos-
cow on February . 25,- shows that the speaker minced no
.'words in giving the assembled Reds a revelation of Stalin's
dictatorship at its worst.
The picture thus drawn of the dead Soviet leader is that ?
of. one of the cruelest despots who ever disgraced the
.huMat-trace but how far others shared his crimes, or per-
-haps instigated them, is not so clear. Certainly people who
'nicknamed. Stalin in his. lifetime "Red Tsar" were justified.
He seems to have regarded everyone with suspicion and as
possible object for "liquidation" but his greatest fault in:
the eyes of his successors, who now sax..they have forsworn
dictatorship, is that he turned his terror against the Corn-
munist .Party itself.
While we must hesitate to ? declare that Stalin was a
-necessary product of the Russian people in a state of revolu-
tionary excitement, it is possible that to some extent he',
thiaji..:.be regarded as a consequence of Russian history?.
history marked by so many extremes.
But many perusing Mr. Khrushchey's speech, and bean
? ing in mind the events that - have happened and are -still;
happening in Red satellite countfies, will be inclined to ask
-"Is a dictatorship the logical outcome' of communism?" and ?
"'Tan communism exist without a dictatorship?" The an-
swers to these questions may well be "yes" and "no" respec-
tively. But we need not be, like the Reds theniseiveo, too -
dogmatic. The answers .we seek are likely to be given
within the next few years through practical developments.
This much is possible?the coMmunism.that we have
known in action since the Bolshevik revolution in Russia
MAY* superseded by what we generally call socialism to-,
day?a socialism susceptible of being adapted to variouS
countries according to their special circumstances.
It may be asked what is the difference between com-
munism and socialism? It is not always, easy to say. But
perhaps it would not be wrong to pronotince that cotninun-
? ism, although it wears the outward tratipings of socialist
? ideas, clings to a vicious dogmatism opposed to the spirit -
. a free inquiry and the judgment of issues on the merits of
each case. Moverover, it seems certain that it is just this
_vicious dogmatism that is apt to 'make the crimes of Stalin
.and other dictators possible.
In other words, these men, and the supporters who
make their'existence possible, can only 'see one side of any
Issue and when 'they are thwarted by opposition, they turn
instinctively to murder and the prison camp to enforce
their views.
Those other questions as to how far socialism itself .is
a hound proposition, and how far human competitiveness
and. individualism Might to be discouraged under modern
conditions of life Mint be judged fairly and calmly as occa-
sion arises in the 'practical affairs of nations.
. What. is certain is thaf.the' state of things revealed In
Mr. Khrushehev's speech is totally inconsistent with human
welfare. And we are reminded :that those who now direct
the course os the, system rose to eminence under his tute-
-lagre. DO they want us to believe that they were poor
pupils? '
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Yukan Sankei Ji, 19 June
An unidentified writer states as follows:
? When I wrote, at the time of Stalin's death, that
Stalin was a great slaughterer rarely seen in history, I
received many scathing letters. However, the 10 June is-
sue of the international edition of the New York Times,
which I received yesterday, carried Khrushchevis detailed
comments on Stalin's terrorism during the 1930s.
I got up at 0400 hours this morning and began read-
ing the article, but I am having difficulty because
Khrushchevis speech Is printed solidly in small type. But
I did discover that my views and Khrushchevis speech are
completely in accord on Stalin's large-scale murder in the
1930s; that is, that Stalin brutally murdered Trotsky,
Zinoviyev, Bukharin, etc. when they were not revolutionary
but merely engaged in ideological arguments; that Stalin
condemned to death many other innocent people; and that
Lenin would not have committed such cruel acts but, on the
contrary, he probably would have placed these people in
important posts and resolved the issue politically.
Khrushchev confirmed my accusation that Stalin was a
murderer rarely seen in history. I would like to hear
from those Communist Party sympathizers who criticized me.
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?
MALAYA
Singapore, Nan-yang, Shang-pao, 21 April 1956
Official Soviet propaganda has for sometime been en-
larging its adulation of Lenin, in order to fill the
blank left by Stalin, a gap which the collective leader-
ship system cannot fill. By restoring the former glory
of Lenin, the Soviet leaders doubtless hope to destroy
Stalin's black record, and follow a more glorious path.
This tendency was already discernible after Stalin's
death. It was seen not only in the striving anew to
build up Lenin as all-knowing, but also in the greater
emphasis on collective leadership. It stressed the rights
of citizens and condemned the cult of the individual. It
admitted the mistakes of Stalin, and opposed his methods
and policies, foreshadowing the eventual casting aside of
Stalin's image.
The new rulers had long before made everything ready;
the praises of Stalin ceased Very quickly after his funeral.
There was less and less mention of his name on radio and
in the press, and more and more praise of Lenin's sagacity
and intelligence. Anniversaries of Lenin's birth and
death are celebrated with the highest rituals and applause.
He is pictured as the sole example of Sovietism, and the
source of inspiration. It is made clear through secret
hints, that Stalin's many cruelties may be blamed on his
departing from pure Leninist theory.
Lenin's writings are being searched for quotations
justifying every new turn in Soviet policy; articles in the
papers inform the public about Lenin's collective leader-
ship, and his understanding of peaceful coexistence, social
laws, religion, and even of art and music. When change in
policy demands, Lenin become S an elder statesman of heavy
industry. To emphasize this point, at the Central Committee
Meeting in January 1955, Mr. Khrushchev said that the great
Lenin was the sole repositor of the correct line. Stalin's
name was still mentioned, but the word "great" was omitted.
In Soviet propaganda, the collective leadership system
is now continually tied in with Leninist theory. Before the
20th Congress, it was a.topic for regular discussion in papers
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and on radio. Commentators on party affairs clearly have
discovered that it is safe to talk about Lenin. Early
Communist strivings are also mentioned, Lenin's struggles
with the.Mensheviks, his wisdom in guiding the revolution,
and so forth. Lenin's small book, published long ago, in
which he jeers at the Menshevik slogan of "one step for-
ward, two steps backward," has become a teaching history
topic by A-Ii-K'o-sai Tu-chia-ting over Moscow radio.
In Mr. Khrushchev's long address to the 20th Congress
in Moscow in February, the first part was adding to Lenin's
testamentary instructions. He said correctly that Marx-
Leninism condemned the cult of the individual, and the
making of an outstanding leader to be the top-ranking hero
and miracle-worker. Those all became, during secret con-
ferences over several days, forerunner of his amazing
attack on Stalin.
Naturally enough, satellite propaganda wanted to be
on the safe side. They very carefully took over this whole
topic of collective leadership, at the same time holding
fast to as much of the Lenin line as was harmless. Most
recently, the Budapest official daily Szabad Nep reported
that the Soviet Communist party congress had severely criti-
cized crooked interpretations of harmful Leninist ways of
administration, and had restored Lenin's collective leader-
ship system, and the party's principle of democracy.
As to the reports of riots in Tiflis, opposing Khrushchev's
accusation of Stalin, the most Unusual feature was: the
Georgia Zarva Vostoka's editorial was to be broadcast on
16 March, when that paper in carefully measured terms stressed
Georgia's "ties with our brothers, the great Soviet people."
However, because it held to Leninism, the paper observed
that the party congress decisions reiterated Lenin's dictum
that socialism cannot do away with national differences and
personality, but in fact assured the growth of the whole
economy and culture of existing nations.
Every sentence that Lenin uttered about coexistence with
capitalist nations, is being used again, and made into script_
suitable for newspaper or radio. These sentences, at last
year's Geneva conference were considered, to contain many
parts to smile at. A political commentator, Li-hang-tjal-wu,
may serve as an example. He. said: "Lenin's profound opinion
was that each?nation should have the right to choose its own.
form of government and way of life. Lenin was a genuine
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hater of interference in other men's affairs. He felt that
a nation's right of self-determination was sacred and also ,
inviolable. He not only proclaimed that peaceful coexist-
ence with capitalist nations was possible, but also com-
mercial cooperation on a basis of mutmal respect.".
When at present some rulers have taken away the rights
of public security and police, and attacked the. individual
arbitrary methods, Lenin's "Laws of Society" is revered
as a model. This is the same as when there is a big turn
in policy, regarding coexistence or heavy industry, in
principle or in party matters, Lenin's pronouncements have
become a Bible.
Stalin never desired to oust Lenin; .he used Lenin,
and created "Stalinist Leninism." In some essays on
Stalinism, he again explained things about Lenin. Khrush-
chev in his big speech, shows a tendency to do the same
thing. We recall that this was Stalin's way of getting
into the Central Committee. In a dignified way he played
the role of representing Lenin,. stirring up trouble for
Trotsky, and finally destroyed Trotsky's faction. And
Trotsky himself was also like Stalin; he began his work
in the role of an expounder of Lenin.
The present Soviet rulers have brought out Lenin's name
and destroyed the name of a leader who has already left
this world; and have revived Lenin's teachings in order to
discredit old policies which have failed. Als6 they have
explained the new policies as proper. This method helps
the Soviet rulers because the various cruelties of Stalin's
rule, and his disregard of freedom, his purges, killings,
and slave-camps, etc., have aroused Anger the world over.
The method of bringing out Lenin paves the way for restoring
the Soviet system to a place of honor. At least, "coexist-
ence" must be like this. 4
At the same time, it seems that the Soviet leaders
really want to lessen-the pressure on the Soviet people,
and in the past three years they may be said to have done
.so little. Also while those- policies of Stalin's were
cruel, yet at that time they were seen to be necessary, and
were not discredited and left no traces to lessen "efforts
to push agriculture," or "more severely to cause consumers
to assume the task of heavy industry."
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In a word, the new leaders, as Mr. Khrushchev now ad-
mits,'when they were grovelling in service to Stalin, suf-
fered many insults; and now we see that there has come
about a situation more reasonable, more free, more humane.
They plainly admit that Stalin's policies did not succeed.
Outwardly, his cold war led the West to unite against the
Soviet Union, and to build a terrifying military defensive'
rampart; which rampart has proved itself a heavy road-
block in the way of Soviet economic growth; and also if
continued, will cause more suffering to the Soviet people
who have been in trouble for so long. Within the nation
they have aroused a feeling of fear and unrest.
In summary the psychological effect sought for by the
reviving of the adulation of Lenin is to create among the
satellite nations the identification of the current Soviet
leadership with those qualities of wisdom, abilities to
counsel and organize, and the harmonious leadership of
Lenin which the satellite nations have not forgotten. The
purpose of reviving this adulation of Lenin is also directed
toward socialist elements abroad who have been alienated
by Stalin's mistakes, but who still have respect for Lenin.
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INDOCHINA
Saigon, Le Journal d'Extreme Orient, 6, June
The Department of State has just published, without
assuring its authenticity, a version of the "anti-Stalie
speech delivered by Khrushchev at the 20th Congress of the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
The revelation of contents of this document causes some
experts to think that Stalin was assassinated and was not
victim of a cerebral hemorrhage as.-the official version
has it.
Khrushchev has reportedly stated in fact that Stalin
was on the verge of launching a murderous purge against
certain members of the Politburo, including Molotov and
Mikoyan. "It is not be be excluded," he Zhrushchei7 has
reportedly said, "that had Stalin remained at the helm for
several months more, Comrades Molotov and Mikoyan would not
have delivered speeches at this congress. Evidently, Stalin
had plans to finish off the old members of the Politburo."
Sensing that Stalin, driven by his morbid fear for con-
spiracy, would go ahead to eliminate them with his usual
savageness, his most intimate collaborators wanted so much
for him to disappear before their own condemnation. The
American experts recognize, however, that the Khrushchev
speech, even if it is justified in its assumptions, does
not bear any conclusive indication on this historical riddle.
This document is a long indictment against the person
and his methods of dictatorship. Khrushchev has reportedly
imputed to Stalin the abuses committed during the purges,
the responsibility for the initial disaster of the war and
the rupture with Yugoslavia, and the death of 70 per cent
of the members of the Central Committee of the Party.
Finally, he has reportedly exposed the conflkets which set
the Communist despot against Wroshilov, Molotov, Mikoyan,
and Zhukov.
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INDONESIA
Interview, Aidit, 5 July (as broadcast by radio)
Jakarta--Stalin did more good than harm during the
time he was in power in the USSR, Mr. Aidit, secretary
general of the Indonesian Communist Party, said today..
He added: "Stalin's only fault was that he promoted the
power of a single man instead of collective leadership."
Mr. Aidit said that the Indonesian Communist Party--
the most important one in Southeast Asia--would continue
"to consider Stalin one of the greatest leaders of Commu-
nism" and would keep his portrait on the walls of the
Party headquarters in Jakarta.
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UNITED STATES
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UNITED STATES
New York Times
July 3 1956
THE 011122.11:40/01 Rik
Despite their breast beating and
self-accusation, the Communist lead-
ers refuse to face up to the central
issue involved in the overthrow of
the Stalin myth. The Communists
outside of Soviet Russia, who boast
that they have a "scientific" expla-
nation for everything, want to know
how and why Stalin's crimes and the
Stalin myth could happen. And the
Moscow Communists, who proclaim ?
the Marxist theory that history is -
made not by individuals but by eco-
nomic forces and "class" action, now
attempt to put all the blame for
Stalinism on Sralin,
But the real issue, long evident to
free men everywhere, is that the
horrors of Stalin's rule were not
primarily the result of the aberra-
tions of Stalin or any other man
but are instead inherent elements
and inevitable products of the whole
Communist system, which requires
a Stalin to run it and therefore must
always create a Stalin or collapse
in chaos and revolt.
The reasons why responsibility for
these evils rests not so much on
men as on the system are self-
evident. Communism represents a
violent itnd in practice a permanent
revolution to overthrow all non-
Communist social systems and Gov-
ernments and to wipe out all but one
of the existing "classes" in order to
establish a "dictatorship of the pro-
letariat" which annihilates all oppo-
nents. .When successful resistance
by the. non-Communist world makes
it, necessary, this revolution may he
carried on, .as in the Thirties and
now again, by the Trojan horse tac-
tic of temporary "coexistence" and
a "united front" with "progressive"
elements to capture parliaments and!
bring. Communists to power legally..
But, as proclaimed anew by the
Communist leaders themselves, the 1
revolution is always the parainV.,.
objective, to be pursued, when b.
Communist resistance weakens, bjls
violence, terror and war.
In this revolution of extermination
the end justifies the means and abro-
gates both the rights of the indi-
vidual and the mond and ethical
restraints of civilization. Further-
more, since such a revolution. can be
staged onlYWa.conspiracy,.tt Misfit
be staged, as Lenin reeggnized, by a
small group of ruthless men, who in
turn will be dominated by the most
ruthless among them. This man
thereby inevitably becomes a dicta-
tor whose arbitrary will becomes
law that spells life or death for
millions.
But the same inevitability of dic-
tatorial rule continues to prevail
even after a Con?nunist system is
established. For communism, even
when called "socialism," rests in
theory on "community" ownership
of all means of production, distribu-
tion and exchange, which in practice,
and despite the promise of a "with-
ering away" of the state, means a
monopoly of state capitalism. This
means expropriation and "liquida-
tion" of all "capitalists," from large
industrialists to small shopkeepers
and farmers, and the transfer of all
productive property to the state. It
means the centralized management,
operation ,and planning of a whole
national economy and every ?part of
It. by a vast bureaucracy under a
top command which makes the state
the only employer and seeks to real-
ize its political aims and cover up
its blunders and inefficiency by ter-
rorizing and exploiting both the
managers and the workers to the
point of making them all serfs of
the state. Finally, it means the
roestant prevention ind suppression
of all opposition to MI system,
whether due to men's innate desire
for freedom or to a possessive in-
1i7
?iiii-nit iiii,-hls Ore that- would inter-1
fere with state operations.
.All this demands and inevitably
leads to a concentration of totali-
tarian power?not only political but
also economic, social, educational
and every other powers-in the top
command of the state. And this top
command is again the small groin)
of ruthless men who have clawed
their way to the top, and who, being
usurpers, twist inevitably rule by
means of a ruthless police terror.
They may seek to "liberalize" their
rule and decentralize their state op-
erations; they may temporarily
tate Lenin's "new economic policy"
An respect to rebellious peaSants;
they may even pose as a "collective,
leadership," But the end result is
still dittatorship, ' -Which inevitably
leads to the tyranny of the man who,
in the constant struggle for power,
is fastest on the trigger, and to
poverty and human degradation for
,the masses.
In all this, C01111111111iSfil merely
confirms . an ancient wisdom , sum-
marized by Lord Acton in the maxim
that "power tends to corrupt and
absolute power corrupts absolutely."
The founding fathers of the United
States knew it when they voted for
the separation of political powers,
not to speak of economic power. The
Socialists realized it when they not
only repudiated Marx' revolution in
favor of democratic evolution but
also, in view of the Soviet example
and their own experience with no-
' tionalizationp of industry, began to
veer away ftom total state owner-
ship. The unmasking of Stalin
' should serve to warn those who still
Isee in communism a short cut to
linhistrial deveiopinent and do not
reckon the price.
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Datly Worker, New York, June 18 1956
The U.S.A. aiidKhrushcheis
Siseciul Re oft'
PERII . previous
.gitthering of apolitical par-
ty anywhere hascaused as
ranch workhofde interest
and provoked-sOth a stir of
public opinion ? as the 20th Con-
gress of the cps.u.
Reactions to and develop- ?
merits since the Congress in the
past four months have been
varied. In many quarters, .
eluding in certain Left circles,
there are, some for whom the
revelations about Stalin have
taken up the whole horizon and
who seem temporarily to have
lost sight of the political if-
icanee and far-reaching
of the 20th Congress as a whole.
But there. is also a growing .
number of non-C ommun is t
groups and individuals who see
in the 20th Congress, and in the
very revelations about Stalin,
a completely new possibility for
re-evaluating their own views
regarding relations wills Commu-
nists. And these past weeks have
seen (not only in .New York) an
increasing number of 'impor-
tant and stimulating Minimal I
discussions taking place between
Communists arid nm-Commu-
nist liberal and labor leaders.
John Foster Dulles and the
State Department recognize
that there is a changing political
climate abroad and at home, a
change sharply away from the
atmosphere of the -Cold War.
They are keenly aware of the
fact that the 20th Congress has
stimulated this whole trend.
The State Department for in-- ,
stance is uneasy at the rap-
prochement between Belgrade ,
and Moscow, the cutting of So-
viet armed forces, the Soviet
invitation to General Twining,
and the fact that a scone Gallop
Isair
jeans favor thistiChrushehey and
.flulganin be invited to visit
here. it .hopes that through its
publication and Use of its ver-
sion of the special Khrusircheii
report, it can disrupt the trend
toward peaceful co-existence
among Americans and the "nen- ?
teals,' disorient the Left, and
SOW disunity among Commu-
nists at home and abroad.
But despite all efforts of the
State Department, even some
conservative spokesmen and
many literals view the 20th
Congress as inauguratisag a pe?
riod in which the 'industrial and
teclintilogical supremacy of U.S.
capitalism will have in meet on
an equal level with the historic,
peaceful competition of Soviet
socialism. And the, special report
of Khruslichey is viewed in
numerous non-Comemnist as
well as in Cosiunuoist circles as
an evidence of that strength and
confidence which enables the
Soviet Union today to break
with some veto ',wistful features
of the past, aod to pave the way
for a vast expansion of democ-
racy in its internal We.
This perspective and these
changes wrist inevitably bring
about modifications in the ?posi-
tions of all forward-kiaing
groups, trade unionists, liberals,
Socialists, no less ,than Commu-
nists. Anti it is the recognition of
these big changes that has creat-
ed the growing number of re -
ts for mutual chariges and
re-
quests
mi discussions by non-
'Consumerists democratic glossies
in a number of cities in An
past weeks. .
THE KH1IUSHC11EV report
on Stalin tells a tragic story.
Shocking and painful as it is,
however, it is a part of history,
*ENNIS
Communists most save-itse
crjhr-
age to face up to 'it, analyse it,
and draw conclusions from M.
Over 'the last forty years lm-
esacted a terrible price
oirtaslissn the Soviet pea* and their
les whOdared le storm the
heikhts and tonal soaitainii.- This
we knew. Now belatedly, we
see that the heroic path In the
most monumental and progres-
sive advance in Minion history.
was made all the more difficult
at a certain period by shocking
crimes and crass violations of
socialist law and ethics.
We especially, because we are
Cornon u nists, understand and
share the profound grief and
shock of the Soviet people. The
crimes and brutalities that sullied
the tatter period of Stalin's lead-
unforgiveable. Nor
did hey have any historical or
"necessity." Netlike%
can justify the use of tortures
and rigged trials; large-scale de-
portations; provocative rend chau-
vinist adjusts as in the case of
Yugoslavia; the pessecution of
the few .M doctors and snuffing
omit the lives of more than a score
of Jewish cultural figures.
Socialism could _sot continue
to illow such terrible injustices
to go undisclosed or unremedied.
That is, the meaning of the ma-
?rally and politically courageous
corrective measures undertaken
in the Last three years. We can
expect to see these measures am-
plified as IChrushebev's extremely
frank report is critically discussed
by millions of Soviet citizens.
?
. THERE ARE MANY ques-
tions about which A of us are
thinking deeply. Many are the
honest questions of friends, as
well as of those who strongly
disagree with us. Some axe the
loaded questions pressed by the
148
State- DePariMenrinef its s
voices .
" Indio and press.
Why did these things happen?
Were they inevilible? Are they
inherent in soCialtsm, in Com-
munist philosophy?
A pet Theme of the State De-
, partinent is that the special
Khruslichev report rejects "only"
those injustices which were per-
petrated against "the wrong
people." The claim is made that
the refection of Stalin's methods
must be ertended to the mice-,
bon of Lenin and Leninism and
of socialion as a whole.
But not even the brazen ad-
vocate of atomic "brink of war"
policies can obscure the history
of the last four decades. The
liberating teachings of .Lenin
have already -triumphed in one-
of the globe. The socialist
world system has arrived and.
is irrevocably established. It
wants and needs peace. It con-
siders that war is no longer in-
evitable, as it was in Lenin's time,
that a thernso-imelear war would
Inc a catastrophe, hut that it can
be prevented. It is confidently
competing on o pc-Ambit basis
with capitalism in every. sphere
of human aspiration and en-
deavor. It recognizes with a
new Maturity that the paths,to ?
socialises are mune and that in
.hxlay's world more and more
peoples and countries will he
able to hew a parliamentary and
democratic road to socialism in
accord with their own national
traditions and experience.
- As for Lenin's methods," but
two facts need be recalled. Un-
der his leadership the first act
of the new Soviet Republic in
1917 was to proclaim peace and
bring an end to the massivri
blood-letting visited on the Rus-
sian people dining World War
I. And in 1921 while foreign
armies of intervention were still
trying to being down the Soviet
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"Thilon,"Tinin ei2ea iirrern?W For-Releaseiiies2.
to the death penalty and any Czarist racism
3/Q8111_:-CIA7RDP78-0277 1 R000200380003-3
IOU sod try NiVe alwaYs been -P:411:fnlent Propaganda: the inhe
,wartr to na- the visions. antf-Soviet intrignen tent eyds of Sodity's world ari
mass repre,ssive matures. tional " ereaal de-
? veleproent and seff:esesession for
IN THIS connection it is well peoples and nations for whom
to ponder a renestion that now the ancient Russian empire had
urine would like to conceal: been one vast prison.
Who were the real architects in the early leen when so,
of a Policy of terror in respect . eialism had been built-not-
to the Soviet Union? Those who withstanding an easermn pres7
tried ra -inv* the wrath of sures'and attacks-Stalin pronml-
heaven taw 'emu AP enISO The gated an analysis and a coarse
first land of secisfie* 'Alert& of action that underminftl the
IC is ib 41stelle: at 'Waken !sew socialist Constitution and
Mercian piit 1c facilitated the @Seems viola-
Ihnv this new seel;t1built in tions thlit are now
being
corrected This was the t
one of the riarest la 'Yard of ? ? ?
that Aid' the victory of socia
nations, was foreed to run the-
gauntlet of every type of attack
and suffering! Civil war and
military intervention pressed by
the strongest governments of
Europe, America, and Asia;
inendess blockade and enforced
famine; economic and political-
beycons devastation by the
.heades of Hitler; and then, With
the wounds still_ aping, ten
years of bitter cold war-these
were the sacrifices and suffering
exacted by reactionary capitalism
from those who dared to build
. a new wt,rTdI .
? it is this grim background that
nerve .a life and death character
no the struggle over policy in
the yeung:aocialist state. Indos-
trialise or perish; catch up eco-
nomically with the leading cap-
italist ptrivers or be crushed by
thene-these are the conditions
that help ngain, although they
do not justify, an atmosphere M
width, for a period of time un-
der Stalin's leadership, after tie
foundations of socialism were
established, such gruesome de-
partnres from socialism were
ossible, as klaushchey fear-
disclosed.
As a result- of the near m? ira-
culous _progress of the Soviet
people, the Soviet state and the
C.P.S.U. over these hard and
turbulent years, the great pres-
tige cd Stalin grew. The USSR
became afirst rank industrial na-
tion. ft wiped out illiteracy. it
developed an unprecedented
system of social ownership of
the means of production and
full eruploymem, of free medical
aid, education and social security
for its people. Workers and
farmers achieved a political, eco-
nomic. and cultural status and
dignity undreamed of under the
Czars, and, in many ways,
unmatched in the advanced cap-
and espionage sponsored and
financed by American Big &ni-
nes& Moreover," we knew the
history of our own labor move-
ment and that the great eco-
mimic struggles andifree speech
fights of the past decades are re.
plete with tragic esampire of
strike-breaking Itrld wreckage
caused by labor spier, informers
and provocateurs.
The *nide phenomena of
false "confessions" aria fabric-
ated "evidence"-evfl products of
a feverishly suspicious anti hys-
terial atmosphere exploited by a
ion, the desperate thes enemy Yea hoe, a Rena, and other agents
would become even more dan- of hoperialism--bave only now
genius, would organize leaves- beers proved by the opening
ed resistance internally, and archives kept secret for umey
would penetrate every echelon years. Similar to the aecret
of the Soviet state, the country's telligence agencies in mu own
economy, and even the Party country, Ile the FBI and CIA
and its leadership. which hive dictatorial powers,
It 'would be naive testidaic Haunt the Constitution, and, are
tbet the Soyiet slirkinot not aorziontable even to Con.
Ana& "Irit gress, Resist and his accomplices
'r91. 7".777.1'_ -obviously were able to perpet-
the aaaatn Der .-eimerrosa urw, rate their* crimes against the
people ..?n hysterical rt" Trople under the guise of "na-
portions in ninth Vilitlitte&U bawd serenity.,?
opposition and ,sericblis AR thin vans not the Ifni of
mese of opinion became suspect. socialism" hut a bitter product
At the same thee there de- of contradictions said abases alien
veloped greater, centralization of to socialism which a socialist so-
state power and the cultivation ciety could not digest nor tole-
of hero worship of Stalin, espe- rate, Certainly we Communists,
cially during and after World of all people, caw* ignore nor
War H, and the breakdown of make light of these facts.
Party and Soviet collectivity, Nonetheless history cannot
and restrictions in creative intel- judge an epic social advance
lectual and-cultural life. And it prienanly by the evils and rais-
was during this period that the takes and departures from its
security organs of the USSR oh - principles that :may arise in the
woad and wielded a' normal tumultuous period of its growth
and dangerous powers and eche- and pingres. The wise aod
inally violated the Soviet Consti? moving words of one of our,
tution. own meat revolutionary then-
? reticians., Thomas Jefferson, re-
'IOW WAS IT possible for garding the French Revolution,
so many Camantunists in the arg worth remembering way,
We anti so many non-Cons-' "In .the :Wiggle which was
munist statesmen and political necessary, many guilty pensons.
lenders, to wept the ilea that see without the for= of hist
treason and treachery had as- and with them some innocent.
slimed such fantastic PrePerrielle These I deplete as much as any-
in the Soviet Union as, were; body and shall deplore seine of
claimed in the series of posges, them to the day of my death.
and trials that took place the Bin time bleb wm rescue
1930's and subsequently?,'; and embalm their memories,
For one thing, this was the while their posterity will be en-
period of the climatic rise of joying that very liberty for which
Hitler and his notorious Fifth they would never have hesitated
Column, gathered openly under to offer ma their Sees.'
the "anti-ComMtern hapner. (Letter to Wass Short, Pa.
Secondly, especially we here 3, 1793).
?
in the strongest imperialist coon-
CONTRARY to the State De-
- those .eik easpiialisesasnot of ,sO"
cialism. Inherent in socialism is:
the ending of exploitation Of man
by man; the eliminatioii. of the
causes of war, depressions, and
racism. The inherent spirit of
socialism is hinnanuational, and
social freedom. Its victory in the
USSR, and subsequently ns
China and the other peoples
democracies,'. Ina brokers the
back of coirinialism, and in the
last ten. years has inspired a
winning upsurgee to national lin
oration and social advance of
over a billion colored peoples.
The e0000111tie royalists hate
sociatism-not for its failings, but.,
for its strength, for its inherent
social progress and liberating
values.
Hoie hypocritical is their ef-
fort to sensatioualine and make
capital of the Soviet Union's de-
termined effort to erase the
abuses against socialist *stint
and democracy! One need only
mention that the State Depart,
meat is not prevented fawn ner-
tolling the merits" of fascist
Spain by Franco's crimes against:
the cede. it :is riot bothered
by ., indescribable cotiuption
degeneracy, and rottenness of the
;
puppet' regime of Chiang Kai-
shein Nor is it adverse to the
unconstitutional racist rule by
,.force and violence of Eastland,
Talmadge arid Shivers, aided and
abetted by McCarthy and Wal-
ters, Jenner and Nixon-which
is sanctioned as an "accepted
way of life" for a sizeable part
of our own U.S.A.
This, then, is a clue as to
which of today's prevailieg world
social systems feathers the lc-
hereof evil."
?
IN TAR DISCUSSION on
the 20th Congress eisriently
being centered around the spe-
cial rinustachey report,- ques-
tions frequently arise about the
present Soviet leadership. Did
some of them try to bring about
before the last three
changes
arCould the past evils have
been checked earlier? How big
and serious are the elemgcs now
under way?
Many questitnis remained
unanswered. The Xhrushchey re-
port, which was primarily a doc-
umented supplement to his main
political report to the 20th Con-
gress, reflects only a part of the
149
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neers of -aocialism in the USSR--
. tech can come onl - -from a - - 1
er leaders, The key thing is the vli 5 despite a I their errors, inalpele
popular character of the eroeessi -
either re-assessment of facts and Gees and -def?osehaee ewe
embracing the whole Soviet
a fell exchange of views, possible the establishment of a
.
We see now that we made worldwide sad :dist- system, and
people. It is demonstrated M the
some serious mistakes. Based have enormously facilitated the
sharp discussions anteing writers
-upon mistakm information, as in path to ,sochalisin everye,here?
and Rientists. in the factories
and on collective farms, as re- .e.
the case of the rupture with That road in On On
r W emirate!
ported in the newspapers daily. Yugoslavia or the former Nittla" Will be worked out by the Amer
'j'.w ecently announced steps to
-
don in Soviet apiculture?we de- ican people in accord with our
l r
diventralize the ministries of jus fended and accepted the aide- own corelitimis and traditions,
a -
tensible and unacteptable with Certainly we American( om-
tiee and economic planning seem
attitudes, We too monists advocate and strive fart
to be especially significant. This :uncritical
would mark an historic turn- glibly, or idealisticalle, assumed a democtatic, constitutional and
that the great job of bnilding so- peaceful ('nurse (II ewe," (tilts
statefrom a highly centralized
tate wee certain e?rea?caatie chdism could take place without formation whereby tiw maturity
excesses which inuitaley pre- major mistakes. We refused to of the American people ultimate
stetted a contradiT -
believe. and regarded as slander, ly will move forward and estefe
kiki to the
further development of Soviet any news that purported to tell lish a new social system on the
democracy. of grave injustices in the social- basis of American needs atid ex-
s or-
Socialist democracy has broad ist coun , perienee, tradition and lab
tries. .
and strong economic and poht- While correctly repudiating democratic political relatiouships.
kat rommations for its further and counteracting the vile dead-
Within the framework of a
development in the USSR. There
or and ante Soviet hostility el dice n
. common concern for pea at
ce ul
b tin exploiting class that by Corporate interests end theft the progress and advancement of
virtue of its great wealth and agents, we were often into/maid socialism in all countries, we
corporate power can assume the of the critical opinions and view, mAmr.,:ai
rticenilgeinmariptiiiiiiili,e,stso?urwoh,,?ilte
decisive, commanding positions points of many labor end liberal ai
of the economy and of public ex-
spokesmen. We too often treat- position as an independent N-
i.y Scieri-
InegSiOn and political life. There ed criticism from shore trade !Meal party with a tri l
is no material obstacle to de- unionists and liberals as though tibe attitude towards all eartee-
niocracy's flowering as the ab- it came from the psofeasion?i and social plemomena ? should
normal conditions cif the struggle anti-Coraununist and A liti-SOViet Cwtanritdins iLtohtsies' (0,furs::ct,ti-!tiiiiistiliti? too, t.
for survival lade and the social- batters,
the principles of hiternational
ble.
ist constitution is made inviol-
regretewithotit reseri,,tion or working class sohdarity which, as
For all this we feel profound
a
Certainly the minds of men equivocation. Lincoln noted, is a hallmark of
aid their public instutions are-
past
But we also do not detract one genuine patriotism.always influenced not only lis., the iota from . the deep pride we In the our gaze was often
y c
h m
historic achievements of the past fell in the fact that throughout exelusivel 00 Ilw histori pies
and present, but by the hang- the years we American Cornme. Of stieiali'in against overwhelms
pinTring that hat gr. me on, ana
which may continue for years to
come, in the CPSU and among
the Soviet people. -44
There is no inistakiog the his-
toric process which is at work
today. For example. for yelses it
has been fashiomible in Wash-
ington to cheracteriee all the
peace talk aiming the Soviet
people and the concrete peace
proposals of their leaders as a
cover for "war-like" or "aggres-
sive" intentions. Bet when a
number of American travelers in
the last three years began to
visit the USSR, they omicheled
that no country could organize
for war by so completely imbu-
ing all its calicos with the idea
of peace. And many conserva-
tive statesmen and millions of
common folk in the West have
concluded also that mm ''aggres-
sor" could voluntarily relinquish
all its military bases abroad and
unilaterally reduce its sinned
forces, as has been dune by the
Soviet Union in the past few
years.
In a.. similar way, along with
the elimination if gross Huts-
tieei of socialist law aml ethics
and harmful liero-worship, the
process of mess popularization
of the historic decisions of the
20th Congress seems to be well
under way whereby critical in.
qui and expression, and Cu!.
turnl and scientific interchange
overs of former evils and ITIN
are coming into their own,filooi
with a SCAM of governmenta takes. No one Can say that new
mistakes. of an entirely different
the
andempan7 measures to eases*
type no do
ete enforcement-4 the doubt, inay Mit be made
Soviet constitution and the ea... in socialist count ties again. To
pension ol democracy in tlie expect irdallibilitY in any group
of leaders is to compound the
USSR.
Even a skeptic must admit time basice error of the past and to
ciraidence have learned nothing from the
fortitude, integrity.
bitter mistake in elevating a
and Leant spirit with which die
present soviet leadership has Stalin to the pedestal of a demi-
God. One of the key tests of
moved since 1953 to bring about
political integrity and soeielist
the present thaw in international
socialist de. strength is the fraok recognition
ok.,,tts, to expand most important,
Iota-racy, and effectuate a mark.. a efrot and,
self-correction. And by the rec-
ed rise in living and cultural
end ol the last three Years and
standards. Self-criticism in its
their present public disclosures,
highest form and in its only ef-
diseessions and rectificatems; it
fleeter, form is being applied in
appears as a matter of fact, that
tlw Soviet Union today?i.e., ac; the C.P.S.U. is meeting this test.
tual selleorrection. Not least of ?
all, the steps being taken to re-
AN _,THE CURRENT world-
store genunw collective: leader-
Wine discussions on the SpeCial
ship providing
pfr7 l_aeil,qo
ltdthicimeSvos forets Khrusheher report. we American
c
Conniniiiists have much to think
overcoming and eliminating all over. A myriad of questions have
departures and violations of so-
peen opened up to which all of
realist legality and principle, its have the responaibility to re-
But this is not just a matter fleet and seek answers?answers
nists resolutely champicated the ing odds' And if, ceitai" '-
cause of socialism, proletarian spects, our previous els; in now
appears one-sided in retrospect,
internationalism and Anlerlean.
nOW near-sighted to the point
Soviet friendship. This we con- ,
or Doneness would it be to see
tenue to do actively and proudly,
today only the grotesque distor -
For this has always been, and
is today, in the hest interest of lions made in the last years of
Stalin's leadership, and to lose
America and of world peace.
FDR, for example, near the sight of the historic achieve-
eees of his life,aeferaee em silents of soCialism and the grand
establishment orfriendly ;;:rl panorama of a new world before
good neighborly relations with us!
the Soviet Union as "the crown- ?
ing achievement" of his Admin. IT IS NO surprise that mane
istration. The corrections nom. of es react in different ways to
being made by the USSR, the the questions that have erupted
eradititm of all that is alien lc with such impact. The Daily
socialism, facilitate this goal oh Worker has opened the was' for
amity and peaceful co.misultee, a democratic discussion and it
And as this process continues, vigorous clash of opiniim. In the
millions of Americans will begin process, many invaluable coa-
ti) secsocialism lit a new light. tributions have been made. A
and with the understaeding that number of views and approaches'
socialist society is a changing, have been put forth. it would be
evolutionary, and (lemma's, en_ unrealistic to expect al/ of us to
proving system. agree with all of them.
In this Connection. MOW so- As for myself, there are ideas
cialistorended Arnericans will lie- expressed in, ,
some of the letters,
gm to realize that the bard and auricles. MO
sacrifice, struggles of the oio- iug in die Daily Winker whichi
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I cannot avw wtlit. I as not
agree with approaches that
minimize the errors now reveal-
ed. I cannot agree, on the other
band, with sweeping anti-So-
viet indictments that fail to take
historical -fact and perspective
into account and that, regard-
less of intent, foster hostility
toward socialist countries. I
share the attitude of a frank
and honest self-critical apology
to honest people we have mis-
takenly condemned. But I can-
not accept the viewpoint that
wipes out and, undermines pride
and confidence in the Socialist
countries. Nor do I share the
cynical attitudes that would
minimize or blot out the historic
contributions of us American
Communisti to the working
class and to our nation-contri-
butions past or present, not to
speak of the future.
I mu confident that our Party
-in the process of strengthening
its ties with the labor and Ne-
gro people's movements and all
other democratic forces, and by
exercising the greatest independ-
ent Marxist judgment-will prove
fully capable of helping solve
riot only the social questions of
the future, but also the vital
problems now confronting the
American people. And parenthe-
tically, let me add, that our "po-
litical independence" will not be
measured by- how much we
"criticize" or "pressure" other
vanguard parties but, above all,
by how we boldly and creatively
apply, in accord with American
coralitiona and needs, the prim-
-CI-ICS of sciesitiWe socialism to
help solve the immediate and
fundamental problems of our
own. the American people.
This article does not attempt
to deal with some of -the pig-
-questioni-conceriiing
the American Left. inclusive of
the Communists, can move for-
ward and draw the necessary
conclusions from the past, cf- ?
feet certain basic and tong over-
due changes in certain aspects
of their programmatic positions,
structures, and methods of work,
and exert greater political in-
fluence on the course of political
and social events.
These problems are now be-
ing more widely considered not
only by us Communists, but by
many labor, liberal, Left, and
socialist - minded people and
groups. Opinions need not, -ind
should not, jell prematurely.
There is room for much thought
and expkvation inside and out-..
side our ranks - for collective
thought and action rooted in the
political realities of our country.
Above all, there is the need
for greater mass political and
economic activity, .such as
around the key issues in the
1956 elections, now, even while
the current discussions go on.
This, above all else can provide
the framework for new gains
and perspectives for a broad,
popular realignment, as well as
for the eventual emergence el
a new mass party of socialism.
When all has been said and
done about the 20the Congress
(and that subJect won't be ex-
haustedlor 'some time to ennie):
one thing will remain above all
else: the 20th Consuls strength-
ened world peace and social
progress. It marked a new stage
in the advancement of socialism,
and in the struggle for peace-
ful co-existence that began in
Lenin's day, continued in the
following years. and is becom-
ing ever more effective and
successful.
This policy captured the
?
151
-Iiiigination of niankied and was
upheld even in the face of mas-
sive; hot and cold war threats,
provocations. and the encircle-
ment of the U.S.S.R. by A-bomb
'bases from 1946 on.
The emergence of socialism- as.
a world system, and the dis-
integration of the colonial
empires has enriched and given
new meaning to many basic
Marxist precepts. One such
Leninist proposition that now
acquires new social significance
is that socialism and capitalism
can live nod' peacefully 'Oliveto
in the sieve World, that civiliza-
tion in now on the thresh! eld
of a lasting peace-beoeuse of
the new world reiatienships,
and through the heightened
mass intervention and unity of
the peoples.
The peoples and govern-
ments of the U.S.A. and the
USSR can be friend's, can live
and let live, as good neighbors.
If anything, that is all the more
clear after the publication of the
State Department's Itig scoop"
0141 iapiap .200nt On IMO ganen
world-wide trend towards peace-
ful co-existence and social
progress than :could King
Canute Vetrees a Mitt to the
ocean's . waves.
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Approved For flitrelaSe'201101081)1NOA-Ppfac-CaatfOrMi9V0003-3
A FRATERNAL DISCUSSION
lin Editorial
WE PUBLISH hi this issue the complete text of a
statement by the Central Committee of the Communist
Party of the Soviet Union on the Stalin discussion.
This discussion, now going on among the various
Comnitunist Parties, is something new in the history of the
communist movements. .
It is a fraternal, critical discussion, conducted on an
equal basis among Marxists who are seeking the scientific
answers to profound questions of importance to them-
selves, to the workingclass and to the general cause of
democracy and .socialism.
This discussion confounds the foes of socialism who
Insist that there is nothing new in the Communist move;.
?mews and that the unmistakable evidence of independence
and equality is all a "plot."
- The _recent declaration of the Communist Parties of
the Soviet Union and of. Yugoslavia stated that the "tide-
gatkms have agreed, guided by the principles of Marxism- -
Leninism, to a prompt mutual cooperation and exchange
of views in tin field of socialist scientific thought both in
their mutual relations and in the international workers'
movement in general."
It is in this .spirit that various Communist Parties, ,in-
chiding the American, raised questions regarding the
speech of Nikita Khruslichev on Stalin?particularly with
regard to the need for a deeper explanation of the errors
and crimes ascribed to Stalin.
In the latest chapter in this discussion, the Central
Committee of the Coimminist Party of the Soviet Union
has now given its reply to some of these questions. Many
Marxists will feel satisfied ,with the answers which the,
Soviet communist Party now presents. Many will feel that
the final answers still need to be found and that the dis-
cussion must continue.
The Daily Worker will have more to say on the So-
viet Communist Party's statement in the future and we
will keep our readers informed, as the discussion goes on,
of the views of Marxists here and throughout the world.
A deeper probing of the errors in the Soviet Union
can only result in speeding the profound changes already
getting under way in that country. It can be of invalnable
help to the Communist movements elsewhere, and to the
cause of co-existence and world peace.
152
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Daily Worker, New York, July 8 1956
?Dennis Comments on
Soviet CP Statement
Eugene Dennis, Ceneral Secretary of the Communist
Party, yesterday issued the following comment on the recent
resolution of the Central Uommiitee of the Communist Party
of the Soviet Union:
"The Soviet Communist Party's the solidarity of the internatkmal
resolution is a most welcome 4.-ie working class movement. These
velopment in the friendly inter- ,'cold war' forces are not interest-
change of opinion among Marxists !ed in making peacefol co-existence
of the world. It correctly turns at..ia settled national policy; they seek
tention to the profound significance to prolong world tensimis and main"
of its 20th Congress, with its his, 1 Nip a suicidal arms race. They
toric decisions paving the way for vainly seek to frustrate the will of
reaching on the non- , I.
new socialist aslvances and its far- the peoples for world peace which
Co was reflected at Bandung and Gen-
inevitability of war anti the possi2eva and continues to grow. ?
Witty for peaceful paths to Social. "In my opinion the resolution ol
lion in democratic countries. .the CSU goes a long way.: in ex-
"The resolution correctly esti- ?plairring?while clearly not justify-
mates the sinister aims of those reling.--what has become.. known as
actionary circles who would bury, the growth of the cult of the incli-
the tremendous achieventenb; of the : vidual and the unforgioeahle viola-
20th Congress under an avalanche lions of Socialist legalityand ' prin-
of slieculation about the re-evatita- ciples that took place in the latter
tion of Stahn. It coincides with period of Stalin's leadership The
autestimate that reactionary circles substance of this matter will be dit
here and elsewhere are trying to cussed shortly by our Nationil
distort and utilize Rbrushrhev't Commitee which will then mike-
special report on Stalin to disrupt turd: express its vieive
153
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Washington Post
July 2 1956
Matter of Fact .
Was Stalin Murdered?
ABOUT. A WEEK after Jo-
iteph Stalin died, one of these
reporters had a long talk with
George Kennan, who had very
recently been recalled as Am-
bassador to the Soviet Union.
Kerman ventured a prediction
about the future and a guess
about the immediate past, and
both are worth recalling in
view of what has happened
since,
Kennan's prediction w a
that Stalin might very well
become within a few years the
chief ideological devil of the
Soviet Union and world com-
munism. It seemed a strange
notion at the time, since
Khrushchev and Company in
Moscow, and all important
Communists elsewhere, were
vying with each other in ful-
some tributes to the "great
Inst leader." But in the light
of recent 'events, Kennan's
prediction about the future
lends added weight to his
guess about the past.
Kennan's guess was that the
men around Stalin had mur-
dered him, or at least been
implicated in his death, lie
had, Kennan said, no solid
evidence that Stalin had been
murdered, any more than he
had solid evidence that Stalin
would become an ideological
devil. In both cases, it was
a matter of atmosphere and
of instinct. Kennan vividly
described the atmosphere in
Moscow which he had so re-
cently left?the fear and ha-
tred of the old tyrant so thick
In the air that you could al-
most smell it.
IF STALIN was not a mad-
man before he died, Kennan
said, he was just this side of
madness a judgment fully,
vindicated by Nikita Khrush-
chev's hair-raising description
of Stalin's last years. It seemed
to Kennan a reasonable con-
jecture that Stalin's subordi-
nates had done away with him,
_
? ? ? ?By Joseph and Stewart Alsop
not only to save their own
lives but because the struc-
ture of Soviet power might be
endangered by the dictator's
near madness.
Kennan's guess was only a
guess, and there is still no
positive proof that Stalin was
murdered. But if you re-read
Khrushchev's famous speech,
in which he denounced Stalin
as a murderer, and consider
? other recent events in the
light of Kennan's guess, it be-
gins to seem rather like the
missing piece of a puzzle.
W h y, for example, did
Khrushchev make his speech
at all? This is the question
which has mystified all the
experts. Before the speech
Kennan's successor, the able
Charles E. Bohlen, and every
other diplomatic observer in
Moscow had reported that the
Khrushchev-Bulganin regime
w as solidly installed. For
more than a year a carefully
planned process of chipping
away at Stalin's reputation had
been in progress.
WHY, THEN, should
Khrushchev abandon the
chisel for the meat axe and
hack away so ruthlessly at the
memory of the dead dictator?
He no doubt underestimated
the risks he was taking, but
he is a shrewd man, and he
must have known that the
risks were real and grave.
Why take them?
If Kennan's guess was accu-
rate, the answer is clear. A
collective sense of blood guilt
can be a source of unity, and
could in part explain why the
"collective leadership" has
worked successfully, contrary
to many expert predictions.
But blood guilt can also be a
source of danger, the danger
of blackmail by a party to the
secret. There are two ways of
dealing with such a danger.
There is Stalin's way, killing
all who knew the secret. The
other way is to transform the
act itself into a necessary and
even laudable one.
Certain passages of Khrush-
climes speech also take on a
new meaning in the light of
Kennan's guess. For example,
Khrushchev singled out Molo-
tov and Mikoyan by name, and
said that even they would not
have survived had Stalin lived.
Mikoyan and Molotov,
Kennan has speculated, are
precisely the two men who
were almost certainly not
Implicated in Stalin's death?
Mikoyan hated Stalin, but he
is a cautious man, and Molotov
retained to the end a spaniel-
like devotion to his cruel
master Thus Khrushchev's
words may have been a warn-
ing and a reminder. The
whole tone of Khrushchev's
speech, in fact, with its re-
peated emphasis on Stalin as
a murderer, supports Ken-
nan's conjecture for murder
Is the natural retribution for
murder.
FINALLY, there is the more
recent mystery. Why did
Pravda, Khrushchev's own
party newspaper, publish an
article by the American Com-
munist Eugene Dennis, criti-
cizing Khrushchev by name,
and asking why he and his
colleagues did nothing to pre-
vent Stalin's crimes? Such an
article in the Soviet press has
always been the prelude to an
official answer. Might not the
answer be that Khrushchev
and his colleagues did indeed
do something, and something
rather drastic and decisive to
curb the murdering tyrant?
Perhaps it will never be
known for certain whether
Kennan's conjecture was as
accurate as his prediction.
But at least Kennan's guess
throws an interesting new
light on the events which have
shaken the whole structure of
Soviet power.
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Washington Daily News
July 9 1956
Soviet Signs in tile Win
pAata. July. 9?The West is watch-
ing two tests this week of the
Soviet "new look."
One is the treatment of the Poles
arrested in the Poznan massacre.
The other will be the Moscow meet-
Mg of the Supreme Soviet Wednes-
day.
The de-Stalinization campaign has
been an attempt to persuade the
Russians, their satellite peoples, the
neutral countries and the NATO
nations to trust a regime which no-
body trusts in fact?not even the
communists.
This was to be done by making Stalin the sole
criminal for all the long bloody record shared by
Stalinist Khrushchev and Co.
Under this "change," the Russian people would
work harder, the satellites would prefer chains to
freedom, the neutral countries would become "peace
partners" of Moscow, and NATO defense would melt
sway under the warmth of Soviet smiles and arms
"reduction."
? *
THIS trick worked well?up to a point. It won some
co-operation inside Russia and the satellites. It
softened up Marshal Tito and lured Yugoslavia back
toward the fold. It brought more countries into the
neutral camp, and spread appeasement in the West.
But the Soviet trick was not quite perfect, There
could be no obvious return to the 'old look" without
flaking the whitewash off Khrushchev and Co.
The satellite peoples, encouraged by the slight re-
laxing, soon began to ask when their Stalinist dictators
would be fired and when they were going to get
more bread and freedom. Allied governments began
to ask when Khrushchev was going to submit his
155
By Ludwell Denny
'Disarmament" to an international inspection inforce-
ment agency, and make good his pledge for German
reunification and free elections in the Soviet zone.
Some answers are now in. The others will be indi-
cated at least in part by the Poznan "trials'' and the
Supreme Soviet meeting.
Kremlin acts already prove there is no basic change
In forejgn policy. But many intellectuals, laborites and
nationalists of Western Europe are still hopeful of a
"basic change" in Kremlin criminality and aggression.
Hence the importance of Poznan. The ruthless mass-
acre of Polish demonstrators crying for bread is hard
for any non-communist to explain away.
Therefore, the Socialist International Organization,
the European committees, hi-partisan groups of Brit-
ish and other parliamentary members, the trades
unions and even neutralist newspapers, are demanding
a public, fair trail for the Imprisoned Poznan demon-
Strators.
Of 'course, nobody will ever know how many have
been executed. But unless the Kremlin permits the
Polish puppet dictatorship to hold a few show trials
and release some Innocent victims of Its fantastic
"foreign agent" charge, Ithrushchev's deStaliniza-
tion propaganda will begin to flop, eirerywhere.
? ? ?
Kremlin's problem before the rubber-stamp
? Supreme Soviet is less damatic but similar to the
Polish problem?how to denounce Stalin without de-
Stallnizing? How to maintain a dictatorship without
police state terror now? Above all how to give the
Soviet and satellite slaves more bread without cutting
back heavy industry priorities for global supremacy?
One easy answer will be shouted to all these ques-
tions: "American imperialists and militarists are to
blame for everything?including Stalin." That's not as
effective propaganda as it used to be. The Kremlin is
beginning to hurt.
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New York Time
June 30,1956
Foreign Affluis
Can Cornmanism, Face Its
Inner Crisis?
By4C. L SULZBERGER
?PARIS, June 30--,There are indi-
cations that the IllOhme im the
Soviet Orbit may be getting out of
'hand. Palish riots are but one syrup.
torn of the agonies .And perplexities
resulting from relaxetton'.. COTO*
nist leaders both from satellite .0114
Western European Parties are !lip-
ping off to Moscow tOtilikalicit edvica:,
1 The organizational beeies in Italy.
France, Poland, Bulgaria Czechoslo-
vakia ?and possibly Hungary have
either gone or sent trusted agents
to the Soviet Union to find out what
is going on. They are likely, to be
startled.
For Khrushchev has resolved to
let the Russian people in on the open
secret of his anti-Stalin views. He
had already disclosed these to the
February Bolshevik Congress and
distributed various documents sup-
porting his diatribe. Substantial por-
tions of his speech have been printed
and sent out to party _agitators both
within the U.S. S. R. and the satel-
Rtes.
The Next Steps
Now he has decided to go further.
Next month, when the Supreme So-
viet meets, the "Stalin Constitution"
of 1936 will be revised. Further-
more, the entire text of the famous
February speech will be published.
Moscow contends that the State
Department's version is incomplete.
Together with this sensational
document the Bolshevik leadership
plans to circulate Lenin's so-called
"testament," in which the first rev-
olutionary boas denigrated Stalin.
Finally the minutes of the Central
Committee meeting in which Stalin
was named general secretary of the
party and promised faithfully to fol.
low in Lenin's footsteps will be
printed.
The East German Precedent
It is unlikely that even the bloody
Poznan strike will deter Khrushchev
from this audacious program. For,
lunhaPpily enough the uprising
seems doomed to go down in history
as a repetition of the huge 1953
demonstrations in East Germany.
In that instance the Western
World sat by uncomfortably while
Soviet troops and tanks squashed
Incipient rebellion. Then the pbppet
Pankow Governmmit revised a few
of its most irritabnit restrictive
measures that heditriven the work-
ers to desperation.
An Awkward Positi? on,
Certain observers feel the Polish
police authorities mit have known
in advance that some form of action
was contemplated in Poznan. They
may even have planned to permit it
?until it got out of hand. In any 'I
event, however, the local militia and
army appear amply strong to quell
it without, visible Soviet assistance.
If this proves to be the case, the
West will again be left in the embar-
rassed position of supporting free-
dom and advocating it in its official
propaganda but proving powerless
to really help. It is much like the
legend of the Italian officer during
World War I who summoned his
platoon around him in a trench,
shouted "Avanti" and rushed off on
a charge. "Bravo" shouted his sol-
diers, laying down their arms to
watch him and applaud.
Lack of Consultation
Unfortunately, despite the urging
of many diplomatic experts, the
Allied powers never got together
after the East German insurrection
to decide what, if anything, could be
done were such an uprising to recur
behind the Iron Curtain. The answer
certainly is not easy. But there is
no evidence that the West has ever
seriously sought to find it or to Co-
-ordinate Its own position.
Surely this is now urgently neces-
sary. For, after the meetings of
Communist leaders commencing in
Moscow and after the sensational
developments contemplated at next
month's gathering of the Supreme
Soviet, a new wave of reactions.
hopes, _debates and possibly turbu-
lence limy again shiver through the
orbit.
Communist Worries
Khrushehev is making an ex-
traordinary experiment with forms
of liberty and independent thinking
to which the people of the U. S. S. R.
are not accustomed. Therefore, even
the most expert Communist politi-
cians cannot with' certainty predict
eventual results. But, while Russia
has been habituated to Belshevik
dictatorship for almost,Iour decades
and to Czarist autocracy for many
centuries, no such submissive tradi-
tions are inherent in the satellites.
This is clearly what worries the
delegates from the East European
capitals who are seeking counsel in
Moscow. How are they to ration
original, thinking among their re-
sentful popolations when the. food
for thought Is being ladled out right
In the Kremlin? And how, ask the
party, bosses of Italy and Prance,
are they to keep their organizations
'together as vihrinit7P4tleaf lorce
when all the idols they ,have been
'trained to adore are being toppled?
' .The great paradox of, 'communism
Is being unveiled to those who 'wor-
ship it. This is the proof, as cited
by Khrushchev, that the most evil
type' of classical dictatorship cannot
only occur but can develop in its
most abhorrent form within a, class-
:less society. Obviously this proves
the dialectics of Marxism-Leninism
must be wrong. What, the Commu-
nists' must be inquiring of each
other, can be done about tails star-
tling fact they now, acknowledge?
Is Poznan?and brutal repression?
again to be the only answer?
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Washington Evening Star
July 9 1956
Orwell in Pravda ?
-
In connection with their continuing
de-Stalinization program (it might also
be called a fumigating operation), Rus-
sia's "collective leaders" have been at
pains to declare that theirs is "a truly
democratic popular? regime." However,
speaking through a follow-up editorial in
Pravda, they have hastened to add that
nothing could be more foolish than sug-
gestions, from the outside world that the ,
Kremlin may in due course permit the
establishment of opposition political par-
ties in the Soviet Union.
To Westerners, of course, it is an
absolute contradiction in terms for any
government to say that it presides over
a "democracy" while at the same time
severely proclaiming that it will tolerate
the existence of no political party other
than its own. But Mr. Khrushchey and
his colleagues?expert as they are in the
totalitarian art of turning reality and the
meaning of words completely upside
down?have given us a typical Communist
'explanation of this most ingenious and
absurd paradox. Reading like something
from George Orwell's "Animal Farm" or
"1984," it, is an explanation that ought
to be mulled over by all who have enter-
tained the hope ,thatk post-Stalin Russia
may now be starting to move, slowly but
surely, toward genuine freedom. ,
As set forth in Pravda, the explana-
tion begins by asking why there is only
one political organization in the USSR.
157
There then follows an answer that upends
all common sense and chops logic to the
point of massacre. But let the "collec-
tive leaders" speak for themselves in this
gem of Orwellian fantasy. As they por-
tray it, the Soviet Union?unlike "bour-
geois" countries, which are made up of
many clashing groups?is a fully "unified
society", so blessedly lacking in "antago-
nistic classes" and so much in agreement
with itself that "there is no social
ground . .. for the creation and existence
of other parties in addition to the Corn-
, munist Party." Hence, in Pravda's words,
"the Communist Party has been and will
be the only master of the minds anll
thoughts" and actions of the Russian
, people.
Moreover, emphasizing that they "are
in no need" of any other kind of political
representation, Pravda quotes from Lenin
to warn that the Russian people must
work with "absolute subordination" under
the "iron discipline" of the Communist
Party. This says about all that needs to
be said at the moment. Clearly, even
with Stalin dead and defamed, the Soviet
' "democracy" apparently intends to re-
main essentially as hard and as despotic
a taskmaster as ever. And inherent in
it?despite the present "collective" and
smiling nature of its dictatorship?is the
substance of a tyranny still capable of
committing crimes at least as vast and
monstrous as its predecessor's. The free
world would be recklessly wishful to think
otherwise.
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New York Times
July 5 1956
THE SOVIET "EXPLANATION"
Responding to the clamor created
by the State Department's publica-
tion of Khrushchev's secret attack
on Stalin, the Soviet Communist
party's Central Committee has is-
sued an answer designed to still un-
rest among foreign Communists.
Whether it will achieve that objec-
tive remains to be seen. Italian
Communist leader Palmiro Togliatti
has indicated approval of the new
statement but has not retracted his
original assertions about Soviet "de-
generation." The Daily Worker
, here has indicated that not all
American Communists may be fullY
satisfied.
Fortunately, we of the free world
ere not subject to any compulsion
to fol,;-ow Moscow blindly. Exam-
inlr,g the new Soviet Communist
statement objectively, it soon be-
comes clear that it is a dishonest
document, based upon false premises
and deliberately aimed to divert at-
tention from the really basic ques-
tions raised by Stalin's crimes. There
Is even considerable na?t?n the
statement, as when it asserts that no
capitalist country would ever admit
? to making mistakes. Whoever wrote
that seems to have forgotten that
In free countries it is precisely the
function of opposition parties and
of the free press to point out such
mistakes. Only in a one-party dic-
tatorship can the ruling group hide
monstrous crimes, as was done in
Russia for 'so long.
What emerges most clearly from
? the statement is that 'the present
rulers in Moscow refuse to account
for their own personal role in,
Stalin's criminal rule. Their pre-
tense that they dared nqt move
against Stalin because he was so
"popular" is obviously nonsense.
They were Stalin's closest hench-.
men, creatures he had elevated to
positions. of, power and privilege.
When he died, their claim to con-
tinued power was that they had
been his closest "comrades at arms."
While he lived, they led the chorus
0P-sycophantic adulation for Stalin.
How can they now escape respon-
sibility as his accomplices?
The statement also makes clear
that the present rulers :wish to as-
sure perpetuation of their dictatorial
rule. They repeat again the myth
that the means of production are in
the hands of the workers and peas-
ants. They deny that the bases of '
Stalinist misrule must be sought in
the Soviet system.' The former as-
sertion is patently disproved by
Khruslichey's own description of
Stalin's absolute power. The latter
denial is an astounding rejection of
Marxism by men who claim to be
Marxists. Stalin could never have
achieved his absolute power if there
were not stroug forces within the
country whom his rule benefited.
Those forces, of course, came from
the bureaucracy which ruled under
him, oppressed the great majority
of Soviet people and diverted to it-
self and its own consumption a vast-
ly disproportionate portion of the
national income. A leading Hun-
garian writer recently described his
country's Government as a "regime
of gendarmes and bureaucrats." Was
that not the nature of Stalin's re-
gime yesterday, and of his succes-
sors' regime today?
Moscow's statement attempts to
justify Stalin's dictatorship on the
ground it was necessary to ,combat
external enemies and to transform
the Soviet Union. The first justifi-
cation is a lie, as shown by the ease
with which Hitler and Stalin joined
together in 1939 to partition Poland..
. . _
The two dictators showed then they
had much more in common than
either had with the democracies.
The real reason for the dictatorship
was that Stalin's regime conducted
a bitter war against the great ma-
jority' of its people.. No democratic
society could have robbed the Soviet
peasantry of its land and forced thd
enormous -sacrifices required US
build up Soviet heavy industry' at
such a breakneck pace. It is the
fact of this war agitinst the Soviet
people which Moscow fears to face,
for in this facet qf the matter are
concealed Stalinist , crimes, which
are also crimes of the present rulers.
It would have been unreasonable.
to expect a straightforward account-
ing from those now ruling in Mos-
cow. Such an accounting would re-
quire a really revolutionary, demo-
cratic transformation of the Soviet
Union. But the effort to unload all
Soviet crimes on the sole persohality
of Stalin necessarily involves 'so
many internal untruths and contra-
dictions that it cansot long fool any-
one who can think for himself. An
explanation that does not really ex-
plain cannot end the turmoil that
has been growing in recent months.
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Wash. Evening Star
June 30, 1956
Explosion .at Poznan
Like the East Germans in June of
1953, the Poles of Poznan have now
erupted irij'o a world-resounding explo-
sion of pent-bp feelings against Commu-
nist-imposed hunger and tyranny. At a
cost of much bloodshed, their brief
uprising apparently has been suppressed.
But what they have done?as rank-and-
file workers bravely defying the tanks
and guns of the Red regime?represents
a spirit that is ineradicable, and there
can be no doubt that it is a spirit shared
? by the vast majority of their countrymen.
The Polish people, after all, are over-
whelmingly Catholic. More than that,
throughout the centuries of their history,
there has been bred into their blood and
bones an intense sense of nationalism
intermingled with a profound hostility
toward Russian imperialism, czarist and
' Soviet alike. Repeatedly in the past, just(
as now, they have demonstrated?some-
times with what might be called a reck-
less but altogether admirable romanti-
cism?a devotion to independence so deep
and fierce as to make them fight for their
own, regardless of cost, even against the
worst kind of odds. The Poznan "revolt"
is one example of this ekceptional trait
of theirs, and another ,can be found in
the story of how their cava10?armed
only with sabers?threw itself unflinch-
ingly against , the massive armor of
Hitler's invading legions.
159
So it is not surprising that these
people have regarded the Kremlin-serving
Warsaw regime as an alien and hateful?
thing ever since it was imposed on them.
In recent weeks, in keeping with Moscow's
de-Stalinization program, the regime has
proclaimed numerous liberalizing reforms
?more of them, in fact, than in any other
Soviet satellite?but this sop-throwing
program has not been good enough or
thorough enough to satisfy the great mass
of Poles. Their violent march in Poznan
Is proof of that?an uprising reflecting
hot only a desperate desire for an end
to miserably low living standards, but
also a passionate yearning for independ-
ence. Their hunger, in short, is not for
bodily food alone, but for the substance
of national freedom as well?a hunger to
be rid of the Red tyranny, a hunger to
he genuinely their own masters.
What remains to be seen now is
whether the post-Stalin Kremlin, operat-
ing through the Warsaw Communists,
will react with savage measures, or
whether?as in East Germany three years
ago?some placating moves will be made.
The answer, one way or the other, should
become clear in due course. Meanwhile,
whatever? may develop in the form of
oppression or concession, the world can
be sure of this: That the Poznan explo-
sion, far from being a mere flash of tem-
porary temper, is symptomatic of the
volcanic pro-freedom forces that rumble
? everywhere beneath the seemingly solid
surface of the Red empire.
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N. Lit. T.
JUN 29 1956
The 'Big
The gist of niost of the Communist
reaction outside the Iron Curtain to the
Attacks upon Josef Stalin has been to
agree that the late dictator was (in Eu-
gene Dennis' words) guilty of "crimes
and brutalities." But they have also
asked some questions of the present
"collective leadership" ? comprising men
who were high in Stalin's councils. "Did
any of them," wrote Mr Dennis in the
New York "Daily Worker," "attempt to
change anything in the period which
preceded the last three years? Could one
have stopped the evil goings-on earlier?"
This, of course, is the big question.. It
applies not only to Khrushchev & Co.?
although with most force to them?but to
every one, including Mr. Dennis, who
slavishly followed the Stalinist line while
the Red emperor was alive and only
dared speak of his crimes after he was
dead and repudiated by his successors.
For the crimes of Stalin were not news
to any literate person when Khrushchev
listed them. They had been published
and republished in the press of the free
world. Mr. Khrushchev supplied soma
pertinent details, but the most important
fact of his speech was that he made it at
all, and acknowledged the truth of what
the world knew, but the Communists
woulst not admit. By so doing, he opened
the door to questions concerning his own
role?and that of Premier Bulganin, and
the rest of the Soviet hierarchy.
Long experience of Communist disci-
pline in the face of the twists of Soviet
policy naturally makes the free peoples
suspicious of the unanimity with which
the Communists outside the Soviet Union
walked through that door, and asked the
questions. It could well be that the
ground is being prepared, as official
Washington assumes, for a calculated an
one that will serve the current
party purpose of Waking itself attractive
to "popular front" movements and na-
tionalist drives throughout the world. It
could also be, as Mr. Dulles suggests, that
this process of criticism of the Soviet
leaders by their hitherto subservient tools
In other lands may get out of hand, and
uestion
that discipline may never be restored.
But there will haVe to be much more evi-
dence, much clearer indications of the
drift of Communist policy, before that
possibility can be taken as a solid basis
for Western policy.
Meanwhile, Moscow's answer to its
Communist critics will be awaited with
skeptical interest. Mr. Khrushchev was
very foggy in discussing his own share of
responsibility for Stalin's misdeeds. He
posed the big question himself: "Where
were the members of the Political Bureau
of the Central Committee? Why did they
not assert themselves against the cult of
the individual in time?" But his answers
were. hardly complimentary to him or his
colleagues.
First, they had supported Stalin as
"one of the strongest Marxists." What he
had done against the peasants and the
workers in enforcing collectivization and
Industrialization had their approval.
Then, when he turned his "terroristic
methods" against his own supporters:
"Attempts to oppose groundless suspi-
cions and charges resulted in the oppo-
nent falling victim of the repression."
Finally, the Central Committee was
never, and the Politburo seldom, con-
vened. By Juggling the administration,
Stalin kept it in his own hands or that
of his most pliant assistants. But the
nub of the matter was that Khrushchev
& Co. saw nothing wrong with terrorism
until it threatened themselves, end then
they were too terrified to oppose it.
These answers do not seem to satisfy
the Communists outside the Soviet Union
?who are guilty of the same kind of
intellectual cowardice. They certainly do
not satisfy the free world. If the present
Soviet leadership produces new answers,
the old must not be forgotten. A system
based on fear ruled international Com-
munism ,under Stalin. Mr. Khrushchev
did not attack the system except in One
aspect?"the cult of the individual." The
system remains?the evil thing has not
been wiped out by a speech, nor by the
remarkably unanimous reaction of world
Communism to that Speech.
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TIME, JULY 16, 1956
Back to Heel
"It would be wrong," declared the Cen-
tral Committee of the Communist Party
of the U.S.S.R. last week, "to close one's
eyes to the fact that certain of our friends
abroad have not got to the bottom of the
question of the personality cult." When it
comes to getting to the bottom of some-
thing, nobody can beat the Kremlin's lead-
ers. Etoavn they went in their hip hoots,
-sloshing around in a swamp of doubletalk,
and throwing little bits of misinformation
behind them, like cracker crumbs, for
those who tried to follow them. But they
were not very helpful guides for those who
anxiously sought answers to the questions
implicit in Khrushchev's historic attack
on Stalin at the 20th Party Congress
(MR, June 1s).
Moscow's, long silence had been desper-
ately. hard on Western Communist lead-
em who, unlike their Russian masters, can-
not rely on police terror and a controlled
press to maintain discipline among the
rank and file. Left to their own devices,
men like Italy's Paltuiro Togliatti, leader
of the biggest Communist Party (2,130.-
000 members) outside the Iron Curtain,
had begun to make their own explana-
tions, and to talk recklessly of "polycerr-
trism," i.e., independent policies for each
of the world's Communist parties. To-
gliatti echoed publicly the unsatisfied
questions of his own disillusioned fol-
lowers: How could a tyrant like Sta-
lin come to power under the Communist.
system? Why had the Kremlin leaders
who now denounced Stalin tolerated his
tyranny?
Making Explanations. What Togliatti
demanded was a "Marxist" explanation of
Stalinism, i.e., an explanation of particu-
lar events in terms of vast, impersonal
historic forces. One such explanation?and
the obvious one?for Stalin's rise to arbi-
trary power is the absence of checks
and balances in the Communist system.
Unable to concede this, Moscow's Central
Committee offered an explanation which
explained nothing: "The development of
the personality cult was to an enormous
extent contributed to by some individual
traits of J. V. Stalio."
Firmly repudiating Togliatti's sugges-
tion that Russia's present leaders were,
"co-responsible" with Stalin, the Central,
Committee advanced for the first time the
unsubstantiated claim that there had in.
fact been a staunch "Leninist core" of the
Central Committee arid that on occasion
it opposed Stalin's arbitrary use of power.
""Phere were certain periods, for instance
during the War years when the individual
acts of Stalin were sharply restricted . .
Members of the Central Committee and
Soviet war 'commanders
took over certain sectors of activity in the
rear, and at the front made independent
decisions."
Who's a Coward? "If might be asked,"
noted the resolution, "why these people
did not take an opekeand against. Stalin
and remove him froni leadership." The
answer, said the Central, Committee, flatly
contradicting Khrustichev's earlier admis-.
sion that Stalin's subordinates were afraid
to risk their necks, was not "that there
was a lack of persona! courage." It was,
rather, that:
III "The success of Socialist construction
and the consolidation of the U.S.S.R. were
attributed to Stalin . . Anyone who had
acted in that. _situation against Stalin
would not have received support from
the people."
Ii "Such a stand would have been regard-
ed as . . . a blow against the unity of the
party and the whole state."
II "The successes which . . the Soviet
Union- attained . . . treated an attrnos-
phere in which individual enistak.es and
shortcomiogs seemed less important."
flj "Many wrong actions" of Stalin, espe-
cially as regards the violation of Soviet.
Jaw, became known only after his death."
Coming from the old. Stalin gang who
_
had prospered under him, executed his
will and shared his guilt, this explanation,
was feeble indeed. In the light of the
searching and troubled questions asked by
Togliatti, France's Thorea and. other patty
leaders abroad, it MIPS in fact so intellec-
tually weak as to be insulting. Worse yet,
from Togliatti's point of view, the resolu-
tion contained the -first public rebuke he
had ever received from Moscow. Snapped
the Central Committee; "One cannot in
Particular agree with Comrade Togliatti
when he asks whether Soviet society has
not reached 'certain forms of degenera-
tion."There are no foundations for such
a question."
But one thing it did do was to show
who was boss. Responding to the whistle
like a well-trained dog, Moscow-wise Pal-
Miro Togliatti promptly came to heel He
voiced "unreserved approval" of "the line
followed by the Soviet comrades in the
construction of a socialist society." Then,
to get a little better rending on just what
the line was, he dispatched to Moscow a
team of three top Italian Communists. In
France, party leaders announced that they
were satisfied with the explanation too.
For the present at least, all the brave talk
of polycentrism and individual thinking
was at an end. Or supposed to be.
161
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The Reporter, July 12 1956
The Stalinists Case
Against Stalin
ISAAC DEUTSCHE!!
No oxr who has seen and heard
Nikita Khrushchev speaking on
a platform or arguing with people
will doubt the authenticity of the
text, published by the State Depart-
ment, of his secret speech at the
Twentieth Congress of the Soviet
Communist Party. The text prob-
ably has its gaps, and here and there
the transcript may not be quite ac-
curate. Nevertheless this is the real
thing?genuine Khrushchev saying
indirectly about himself almost as
much as about Stalin.
Yet Khrushchev also gives the
impression of an actor who, while
he plays his own part with superb
self-assurance, is only half aware of
his own place in the great, complex,
somber drama in which he has been
involved. His long monologue is a
cry from the heart, a cry about the
tragedy of the Russian Revolution
and of the Bolshevik Party, but it
is only a fragment of the tragedy.
Impromptu laditissent
Khrushchev himself did not ex-
pect to burst out with this cry. Only
a few days before he made the secret
speech, he did not know that be
was going to make it, or at any
rate he did not know what he was
going to say. Even the composition
of his speech showed that he spoke
more or less impromptu: He dashed
from topic to topic almost indis-
criminately; he ventured spontane-
ously into sidelines; and he threw
out reminiscences and confidences
and asides as they occurred to him.
By its irregularity this speech, de-
livered at the closing session of the
Congress, on February 24 and 25,
contrasted curiously with WS-formal
address at the inaugural session ten
days earlier. The two speeches con-
trast strikingly in content as well.
In his inaugural address Khru-
shchev said, for instance:
"The unity of our party has
formed, itself in the course of years
and tens of years. It has grown and
become tempered in the struggle
against many enemies. The Trotsky-
ites, Bukharinites, bourgeois nation-
alists, and other most wicked en-
emies of the people [italics ours),
champions of a capitalist restora-
tion, made desperate efforts to dis-
rupt from the inside the Leninist
unity of our party, and they all have
smashed their heads against our
unity."
The words might have come
straight from Stalin's mouth. But
ten days later Khrushchev said:
"It is Stalin who originated the
concept 'enemy of the people.' This
term automatically rendered it un-
necessary that the ideological errors
of a man, or men, engaged in 'a con-
troversy be proven; this term made
possible the usage of the most cruel
repression . . . against anyone who
in any way disagreed with Stalin..."
Khrushchev then went on to say
that the Trotskyites, Bukharinites,
and so-called bourgeois nationalists,
whatever their faults, were not en-
emies of the people; that there was
no need to annihilate them; and
that they "smashed their heads" not
against the party's "Leninist unity"
but against Stalin's despotism.
CI.F.ARLY, some dramatic but as
yet undisclosed event must have
occurred during those ten days to
change Khrushchev's tune so radi-
cally, an event which showed
Khrushchev that it would not_do to
sit on the fence and that in the con-
flict between Stalinism and anti.
Stalinism he had to come down on
one side or the other. Did perhaps
the small band of Old Bolsheviks,
wrecks from Stalin's concentration
camps who had been brought to the
conference hall as guests of honor,
stage some demonstration of protest
that shook the assembly's conscience?
Or were the young delegates, who
were brought up in the Stalin cult,
so restive alter Khrushchev's first
ambiguous hints about -Stalin .(and
even more so after Mikorm's more
outspoken remarks) that they forced
him to come out into the open?
Whatever happened, Khrushchev
had to produce an answer on the
spot, and the answer was an indict-
ment of Stalin. To justify his new
attitude, he ordered, no doubt with
the Presidium's approval, that Len-
in's. testament?that long-stippressed
testament in which Lenin urged the
party to remove Stalin from the post
of General Secretary?be distributed
.among the delegates.
To the student of Soviet affaim
Khrushchev's disclosures bring lit-
tle that is really new. A biographer
of Stalin filKIS in them at the most
a few more illustrations of familiar
points. Khrushchev confirms in every
detail Trotsky's account of the re-
lations between Lenin and Stalin to-
ward the end of Lenin's life. Stalin's
old critics are also proved right in
what they said about his method of
collectivization, about ? the purges,
and about the Trotskyite and Bu-
kbarinite "fifth columns?' Nor is there
anything surprising to the historian
in Khrushchev's revelations about
Stalin's role in the last war and
about his miscalculations.
.However, it is not front the .his-
torian's viewpoint that Khrushchev's
performance should be judged. He
spoke not to scholars but to men
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anti women titpprneattlronnitaitsas
generation; to them his words came
as a titanic shock, and as the begin-
ning of a profound mental and
Moral upheaval.
Consider only how Khrushchev's
character sketch of Stalin, drawn
haphazardly yet extremely vividly,
must affect Communists brought up
in the Stalin cult. There they see
him now, the "Father of the Peo-
ples." immured as he was in the
Kremlin, refusing over the last
twenty-five years of his life to have
a look at a Soviet village; refusing
to step Clown into a factory and face
workers; refusing even to cast a
glance at the army of which he
was generalissimo, let alone visit the
Irma; spending his life in a half-
real, half-fictitious world of statistics
and mendacious propaganda films;
'thinning unlevyable taxes; tracing
front lines and lines of offensives on
a globe on his desk; seeing enemies
creeping at him from every nook
and cranny; treating the members
of his own Politburo as his con-
temptible lackeys; denying Voroshi-
boy admission to sessions, slamming
the door in Andreyev's face, or up-
braiding Molotov and Mikoyan;
"choking" his interlocutors "mor-
ally and physically"; pulling the
wires behind the great purge trials;
personally checking and signing 383
black lists with the names of thou-
sands of doomed party members;
ordering judges and NKVD men to
torture the victims of the purges
and to extract fonfessions; "plan-
ning" the deportations of whole
peoples and raging impotently at
the size of the Ukrainian people. too
numerous to be deported; growing
sick with envy at Zitukov's military
fame; "shaking his link finger" at
Tito and waiting for Tho's immi-
nent fall; surrounded by dense
clouds of incense and, like an opium
eater, craving for more; inserting in
his own hand passages of praise to
his own "genius"?and to his own
modesty!?into his official adulatory
biography and into history books;
himself designing huge, monstrous-
e IDGelt8/44 slk1111018162-1KIROOClaitinitigiVtlie depot impose his
himself; and himself writing his own will on the masses? And why did
name into the new national anthem "our heroic people" submit so pas-
which was to replace the Interna- sively?
tionale. Thus did Khrushchev ex- All these questions, which have
pose before his party the huge, grim, so dose a bearing on the Marxist
whimsical, morbid monster befoir Weltanschauung, Khrushchev left
whom the Communist world lay unanswered. Yet if one 'agrees that
prostrate for a quarter of a century. history is made .tiot by demigods but
And yet Khrushchev added: "Sta- by masses and social classes, one has
lin was convinced that all this was still to explain the rise of this par-
necessary for the defense of the in-, titular demigod; and one can ex-
terests of the working classes-against plain it only from the condition of
the plotting of the enemies and Soviet society, die interests of the
against the attack of the imperialist Bolshevik Party, and the state of
camp." When he surmised that even mind of its leadership. But no soon-
those who stood closest to him did er have we descended with Khru-
not share his phobias and spspicions, shchev to this level of recent Soviet
Stalin wrung his hands in despair , history than his lamp is blown out
"What will you do without me?" he and we are once again enveloped by
growled. "You are all blind . . . I" dark and impenetrable fumes.
"He saw this," Khrushchev assured
the Congress again, "from the posi- Three Phases
tion of the interest of the working The political evolution of the Soviet
class . . . of .socialism and Commu- rrgime falls into three main phases.
nisnt. We cannot say. that these were In the first the Bolsheviks under
the deeds of a giddy despot. .. . In Lenin seized power and established
this lies the whole tragedy?" the single-party system, in which
they saw the only way to preserve
Inverted Here Cult their government and safeguard the
The mainspring of the tragedy still October Revolution against domes-
remained hidden from Khrushchev. tic and foreign foes. But having sup-
His whole speech was pressed all other ties, the Bolshevik
denunciation of the hero cult; yet Party itself split into several mutt,-
4 was noshing hut inverted hero -ally hostile factions. The single-
cult. Its only theme was the power, party system turned out to he a con-
the superhuman power, .04 the tradiction in terms: The party was
usurper who "placed himself above breaking into at least three.
the party and above the masses." In In the second phase the rule of
passage after passage Khrushchev the single party was replaced by the
r
argued that all the evil from which rule of a single Bolshevik faction?
the communist patty,. tesoviet that led by Stalin. The principle
people, and the international laborof the rlithic". party was pm'
movement suffered for so long sprang a party that does not
from . this one "individual:* Then iPenrmiits.tindidisvte.rsestalcitraergntiszettof, caopinnsaioten
he said in quite as many passages
guard. its monopoly of power. How-
that it was utterly wrong to imagine
How-
that one man could exercise so much ever' the victorious factims? once it
;_ffnen_'_ on history, for the mai rained power, was in turn torn by
makers of soviet history have been internal rivalries.
In the third phase, the rule of the
the masse, the people, and the "mit
itant Bolshevik Party" bred and -
single faction gave way to the rule
spired y Lenin in
of the single leader, who by the na-
b
Where then was that "militant titre of the whole process had to be
inuderant of any potential chal-
party" when Stalin 'placed himself
lenge to his authority--constantly
above it?" Where was its militancy
and its Leninist spirit? Why and on his guard, constantly bent on
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enforcing his will.
Even while the Bolshevik Party
was suppressing all other pities, up
to 1921 it was still internally free
and deinocratii ally titled. But hav-
ing deprived others of freedom, it.
could hardly help losing its own
Ireedons. Subsequently, the same
thing happened to the Stalinist fac-
tion. Between 1923 and I939 it de-
stroyed "inner party democracy" for
its tiqxments, but internally was stilt
more or less democratically ruled.
Isom phase to .phase the monop-
oly or power grew ever narrower.
it became so, it had to be de-
fended ever more fiercely. The early
Bolsheviks cherished controversy too
much to be able to entince the ban
on disagreement outside the party
with anything like the Stalinist vio-
lence. Even the Stalinist laution, !re-
hire it succumbed to Stalin, only
expelled its opponents and exiled
them rather than executing them.
lowever, what gave the whole de-
velopment its momentmn and its
convulsive anti cruel character were
the social tension's in a nini011 first
ruined and lamished after seven
years oh war, revolution, Lind civil
.war, then rushed through Forcible
industrialization and collectiviza-
tion and drawn into devastating
11111,41ne11t races. All this (Ailed tor
heavy sacrifice, rigid discipline, and
massive coercion, and all provided
Stalin with the justifications and
pretexts for his use and abuse ol the
monopoly of. power.
STALIN did not, thus, appear as a
diabalus ex machino. Yet it was
as a diabolus ex machina that Klan-
shchev presented him.
It is not difficult to grasp why"
?1thruslichey views Stalin in this
light. He and his colleagues repre-
sent the Stalinist faction, or rather
what has remained of it. It is a dif-
ferent faction from the one of twen-
ty years ago. It rules a different
country-the world's second indus-
trial power. h leads a different "so-
cialist camp" --a camp that. contains
one-third iii numkind. It is mit Item in
experience, and is anxious to under-
stand what has happened to it. It is
probing restlessly into its tiwn mys-
terious past. But this is still the
Stalinist factiim, caught in the tan-
gle of its own experiences and its
traditional but now untenable view-
points.
The l'ungle of Reasoning
Khruslichev has described how
the members of the Presidium, the
men who rule the Soviet Union and
manage its vast nationalized emit-
ting (the world's greatest single in-
dustrial concern), spend their days
and weeks poring over the archives
of the NKVD, questioning the of-
ficials who once conducted purges
and extracted confessions, and re-
living in their thoughts the long
nightmare of the past. Yet the un-
derstanding of which the members
of this Presidium are capable-es-
pecially the older ones-has its his-
torically formed limitations, which
they cannot easily transcend. They
cannot see where and why things
had "gone wrong." They, would like
to cross mit, if possible, the last
(hairier of their story-the one in
which Stalin oppressed and "be-
trayed" his own followers. 'They
would still like to think that what
was done in the earlier chapters was
justified and beneficial and need not.
have led to the final debacle and
shame. They would like to remain
Stalinists without and against Stalin,
and to recapture the spirit of the
"sane" and "hutment" Stalinism of
the 1920's, of that Stalinism which
had not yet soaked its hands in the
blood of the Bolshevik Old Guard
and in the blood of masses of peas-
ants and workers. They do not real-
ize that the latter-day "insane"
Stalinist!' had sprung from the ear-
lier "sane" Stalinism, and that it was
not only Stalin's whimsical and cruel
character that was responsible for it.
This approach governs all of
Khruslichey's masoning as revealed
in the February 24-25 speech. It
dictates the range arid nature of his
disclosures. Because Klirushchev
pleaded the case of the old Stalinist
faction "betrayed" by Stalin, his evi-
deuce against Stalin showed huge
gaps and was all too often ambigu-
otts, in spite of the bluntness of the
language he used and the shocking
character of his facts.
Significant .0mistsions
Khrushchev built his: case against
Stalin on three sets of facts: Lenin's
denunciation, in his testament, of
Stalin's "rudeness and disloyalty,"
Stalin's role in the purges, anti the
14trIts of Stalin's leadership in the
war. Under each count of the indict-
ment he treated the facts selectively
so as to turn the evidence against
Stalin himself rather than against.
-the Stalinist faction,
lie conjured up Lenin's ghost, be-
cause only with this ally at his side
multi he, after thirty years of Stalin
worship, hope to obliterate Stalin.
Ile quoted from Lenin's testament
the passages aimed directly against
Stalin, but he passed over in silence
all that Lenin had said in favor of
Trotsky and Iliukharin. Ile assured
his hearers that he now views "ob-
jectively and with detachment- the
party feuds; but he still labeled
Trotsky and Rukharin "enemies of
Leninism," although they were no
longer "enemies of the people." In
the light of Lenin's hill testament,
'Trotskyism and Bukharinism may
be seen as offspring of the Leninist
line :it least as legitimate as even
the early Stalinism. 'Bic testament
has therefore not been published in
Russia even' now---it was distributed
only to the delegates at the Twen-
tieth Congress. And even its his se-
cret speech Khrushchey was afraid of
making too extensive use of it.
Even more eloquent were the gaps
in Khrushchey's story of the purges.
Ile began with dark hints about the
assassination of Kirov in PM, the
event that set in motion the ava-
lanche of terror. He alluded to
Stalin's connivance at the crime but
added that nothing was certain; and
lie left the mystery as deep as ever.
Then he gave a inure or less detailed
and horrifying account of the secret
purges of Eikhe, Postyshey? Kosiot,
(Inbar, Me/Wank, and Rini/utak,
who perished between ? l917 and
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fulness of one man, Khrushchey Because the history of the Soviet
said repeatedly. But if so, "emu-
rades may ask us: Where were the
members of the Political Bureau ... ?
Why did they not assert them-
selves ... ? Why is this being done
1940, and of the purge of Voznes-
ensky in 1951. But he had nothing
explicit to say about the purge trials
of 1936-1938, which shocked the.
world, and in which the defendants
were men of world fame, the recog-
nized leaders of Bolshevism, the
Red Army, Soviet diplomacy, and
the Communist International.
He revealed nothing of the inner
story of die purges of Zinoviev,
Kamenev, Bukharin, Radek, Rakov-
sky, Pyatakov, and Tukhachevsky.
He was silent on Trotsky's assassina-
tion, which was instigated by Stalin
and Rena. Eikhe, Pentyshev, and
Chubar were by comparison insig-
nificant figures. Their names meant
little or nothing?not only to the
outside world but even to the young
Soviet .generation. But they were
men of the Stalinist faction; and.
through Khrushchev, the faction
honored in them its martyrs.
Not for nothing did Khrushchev
tlwell so much tat the fortunes of
the delegates to the Seventeenth
Party Congress held in 1934. (At
that assembly the Stalinist faction
celebrated its final triumph over ali
its adversaries, and in party annals
the Congress is referred to as the
-Victors' Congress?) Of nearly two
thousand of the. "victors," about
sixty per cent were later, according
to Khrushchev,, "arrested on charges
of counterrevolutionary crimes." In
the years 1934-1938 alone, Stalin
annihilated sixty or seventy per
cent of the leaders of his own fac-
tion, and there were uncounted vic-
tims among the rank and file.
In recent years public opinion
outside Russia. has been aware of
the fate of anti-Stalinist victims of
the terror. It is only right that it
should also be aware of the fate of
Stalinist victims. But do not Khru-
shchev and his associates feel the in-
decency of their exclusive concentra-
tion on their own Stalinist martyrs?
One Man to Blame
Throughout Khrushchev's indict-
ment of Stalin ran the motif of self-
exculpation.
- 11- enough authority to take his place.
only now?" Unwittingly he demon'
strated that much more was in play
than the "willfulness of one man."
Stalin had so much scope only be-
cause Khrushchev and his like
accepted his will.
Khrushchev recalled how at first
they all trusted Stalin and zealously
followed him in the struggle against
other factions until they made him
so powerful that they themselves be-
came powerless. Ile showed that
even when they might have been
able to act against him they did
not wish to act. He related that in
1941, when the Red Army reeled
tinder Hitler's first ,onslaught, Sta-
lin's nerve snapped. It -might seem
now that this was an opportunity for
the party leaders to get rid of hint.
Instead they sent a deputation to
Stalin to beg him to seize the reins
. again; and so they condemned them-
selves and their country to another
twelve years of terror and degrada-
tion. None of them had the confi-
dence and courage of Trotsky, who
as early as 1927 foresaw such a turn
of events and said (in his famous
"Clemen(:eau Thesis") that in such
a crisis it would be the duty of party
leaders to overthrow Stalin to wage
war more efficiently.
The Politburo of 1941, fearing
that a change of leadership in the
middle of a war would. destroy mo-
rale, rallied to its oppressor. It
should be noted that this was not
the first situation of this kind. In
exactly the same way, the Politburo
had hoisted a dejected and sulking
Stalin back into the saddle time
years earlier at; the height of col-
lectivization. In every major emer-,
geney the Politburo felt the need of
the "strong arm," and it turned to
Stalin only to suffer under that
strong arm for years. It so magnified
165
Union was one sequence of emer-
gencies, the Stalinist faction was al-
ways at an impasse.
THE oursrmx inevitably irises
whether during all those years no
members of the ruling group made
any attempt to destroy the incubus.
It would have been unnatural if
HO P1? ts at all had been '-hatched
against Stalin. If Khrushchev and
his colleagues really thought that
"it all depended on the willfulness
of one man" (which Trotsky, Zino-
viev, and Kamenev never thought),
might not some of them have con-
'chided that the way out was to elim-
inate that -one man?" Khrushchev
tells us that Postysltev, Rudnitak,
and other leading Stalinists did in-
deed come into opposition to Stalin.
But here too he leaves many things
unsaid; and so the full story of the
Stalinist opposition. to Stalin re-
mains to be disclosed.
The historian finds a further con-
tradiction in Khrushchev's testi-
mony, one that* has in trunnion
with Trotsky's appraisal of Stalin,
although in Khrushchev the contra-
diction is, of course, far cruder.
Khrushchev stressed the achieve-
ments as well as the failures of the
Stalin era. For the achievments?in-
dustrial advance, educational prog-
ress, planned economy, victory in
war?he praised . the masses, the
people, the party, Leninist doctrine,
and even the Central Committee?
the cowed and docile Central. Com-
mittee of the Stalin era. For the
failures he blamed Stalin alone,
If the qualities of one man were
responsible for the Soviet military
disasters of 1941, were they not also
in some measure responsible for the
victories of 1943-1945? If all major
decisions on policy and strategy
were taken by Stalin alone, then it
is at least illogical to deny Stalin
all credit for the results.
At times Khrushchev's, allotment
savored of Tolstoy: In War and
Peace Tolstoy argued that all ideas,
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plans, and decisions conceived by
emperors, generals, and "great men"
were meaningless and worthless, and
that only the innumerable, spon-
taneous, and unco-ordinated actions
of nameless masses of people shaped
history. But Tolstoy was consistent:
He attributed to "great men" no
special influence on history, for evil
any more than for good.
- The Sevaktkllibi
No matter how vigorously Kiwis-
shchev pleaded the alibi for himself
and the present ruling group, he
proved a semi-alibi only. As a prose-
cutor he could hardly convince a
jury that he has not been the de-
cendant's accomplice?at best he
made himself an accomplice under
.duress. He spoke of Beria as that
"villain who climbed up the govern-
ment ladder over an untold number
of corpses." How truer But was
Baia alone? Khrushchev described
with horror the character of a for-
mer official who took part in pre-
paring the purges of l937.-.1938 and
in extracting confessions. The of-
ficial was brought before the Pre-
sidium and questioned. He was, said
libruslichev, "a vile person, with
the 'brain of a bird, and morally
completely degenerate." What did
this repulsive character claim in his
defense? His plea, as reported by
khrushchev? was that he acted on
higher orders which he understood
it be his duty as a party member
to carry out. Khruslichev indignant-
ly rejected this apology as worthless.
Yet almost in the same breath he
used the same apology for himself
and the other members of the Polit-
buro: Under Stalin, he said, "no
one could express his will."
TTascwisv of contemporary Rus-
sia is that die whole elite of the
nation share in one degree or an-
other Stalin's guilt. Certainly,. no
one in Moscow who would set hint.
self up today as Stalin's accuser and
pidge could prove his own alibi.
Stalin made of the whole nation, at
any rate of all its educated and ac-
tive elements, his accomplices. Those
who opposed hint perished, with
very, very few exceptions, long ago.
Khroslichey exposed not only
Malin but Stalinism, not only the
man but his method of government,
and this rendered the continuation
or revival of the Method nearly hit-
passible. He set out to state only the
case of the Stalinist faction against
Stalin, anti he destroyed the case of
the Stalinist faction. Willy-nilly, he
exploded the idea of die monolithic
party and of the monolithic state
in which all must think alike.
Having produced the shock, Miro-
shchev was anxious to soften its im-
pact. "We cannot let this matter get
out of the party, especially not to
the press," he warned his listeners.
"It is for this reason that we are
considering it here at a closed Con-
gress session. We should know the
limits; we should not give ammuni-
tion to the enemy; we should not
wash our dirty linen before their
eyes," However, one may even suspect
that the indiscretion that allowed
the State Department to act as Khrit-
shchev's first publisher wits not un-
welcome to Moscow. It is from- the
mass of the Soviet people that his
speech has been kept secret so far.
166
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The New Leader
June 18, 1956
_
Founder of Soviet Communism set precedents
for almost all of Stalin's later crimes
BACK TO LENIN
By Mark Vishniak
"There was nothing intrinsic in
She Leninist method that protected
it from prostitution. . . . Stalin
became a tyrant because he was
all-powerful and not ail-powerful
because he was by nature a tyrant.
He grew into tyranny precisely be-
cause the character of the Soviet
Constitution enabled him to do
so."?Aneurin Bevan, Tribune,
March 23, 1956.
DESPITE the efforts of present So-
viet leaders to draw a sharp line
of demarcation between the wicked
Stalin and the virtuous Lenin, Sta-
lin's "cult of personality" was actual-
ly reared on a base that Lenin had
created: unconditional subservience
to the Party's will as expressed
through the Central Committee,
which in turn was expressed through
the Politburo, which was finally di-
rected by the Leader or Vozhd.
After Lenin, Stalin became the
V ozhd. Now Khrusichey & Co. have
replaced one-man leadership with
collective leadership, swearing elk-
glance to Lenin and Leninism.
"Collective leadership" is nothing
new. It is closely linked with "demo-
cratic centralism" and "intra-Party
democracy," about which both Lenin
and Stalin wrote quite often. "Demo-
cratic centralism" meant officially
that "all executive organs of the
Party, from the smallest to the high-
est, are elected." The word "elected".
_
should, of course, be understood in
the light of Soviet practice, which
embodies ."firm centralization," "iron
discipline" and "conscious mono-
lithic unity of will and action" (Great
Soviet Encyclopedia, 2nd ed., vol.
13, p. 656). Intra-Party democracy
is defined as "the possibility of elect-
ing [various] bodies and the neces-
sity of accounting to all leading Party
organs from below upward." intra.
Party democracy is also "a collegial
work spirit, the developing of criti-
cism and self-criticism."
What is the difference between the
new "collective leadership" and "a
collegial work spirit"? Under both
Lenin and Stalin, the Bolshevik party
always contended that it was practic-
ing "intra-Party democracy." It was
actually abolished by Stalin, but it
had begun to wither under Lenin.
As early as 1921,, at the Tenth
Party Congreiss, a resolution of Len-
in's was adopted, forbidding the for-
mation of any intra-Party groups on
167
the ground that this could help only
the bourgeoisie and the counter-
revolution. Lenin silenced those who
tried to argue with him.?Trotsky.
Medvedev, Shliapnikov, Kollontay,
Bukharin, and others. He expelled
from the Central Committee old com-
rades-in-arms like Preobrprhensky,
1. N. SmirnoV and Serebryakov. His
explanation for forbidding discussion
was the 'existence of "an encircling
world bourgeoisie, watching for a
minute of wavering to bring back
'their' people to restore the bourgeoi-
sie and landlords." (Lenin, Collected
Works, vol. 26, p. 348)
Ls This very different from the
"capitalist encirclement". which Sta-
lin always cited as justification for
his terror apparatus? Stalin physi-
cally destroyed the people whom
Lenin had only told to "shut their
mouths." That is the chief difference
between the two. ?
Stalin drew . on Lenin's works for
all his shifting theories on the inevi-,
tability or non-inevitability of war
between the Communist and non-
Communist worlds, and on the
achievement cif world Communism
through bloody struggle or through
parliamentary means. Even the so-
called Stalinist. concept of "social-
ism in one country" had its roots in
Lenin's writings of 1916-1923.
I recall only two instances when
Stalin differed significantly from
Lenin.
Early in 1936, Stalin criticized
Lenin's views on Clausewitz. Hiding
behind Engels, he wrote: "Unlike
Engels, Lenin did not consider him-
self competent in military matters.
. . -Lenin approached Clausewitz's
works not as a military man, but as
a politician. . . . Therefore, as far as
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the 'criticism of Clausewitz's military
doctrine is concerned, we, Lenin's
heirs, are not tied to. any of Lenin's
statements, which only limit our free-
dom of criticism." This was followed
by a quasi-scientific "Marxist" expla-
nation: "It is ridiculous to take les-
sons today from Clausewita, who was,
after all, a representative of the man-
*during period of war, while we .
today are in the Machine period."
Despite all this, Stalin concluded with
a prolific quotation from Lenin.
The second instance was in the
realm of Party practice. After Lenin
was shot in August 1918 by Eanya
Kaplan, he wasn't sure he could sur-
vive and told Rykov, his successor as
Premier: "Let no blood be shed
among any of you. . . . " Lenin was
thinking of the French Revolution,
which had devoured its own leaders.
Stalin didn't follow Lenin's advice,
nor have Stalin's heirs in dealing with
Beria, Abakumov, Bagirov and
others.
Stalin did follow Lenin's precepts
in his ultimate disposition of the
peasant problem. At the Tenth Party
Congress in March 1921, at which
the New Economic Policy was pro-
claimed, Lenin spoke at length about
the necessity of a union between the
working class and the peasants, a
"soldering" of the two: "We must
admit openly that the peasants are
not satisfied with the relationship we
have worked out with them, they do
not like it, they do not want it, and
they won't continue it." Lenin
harped on this theme many times in
his last 18 months. In May 1921, he
said once more: "We say openly and
without deception to all peasants: In
order to maintain socialism, we shall
give you all kinds of concessions,
comrade peasants, but only to a cer-
tain extent and within certain limits,
and of the latter we'll be the only
judges." (Italics supplied.)
At the Eleventh Congress, at the
end of March 1922, Lenin repeated:
"Our aim is to prove and to show
how to help the peasants. .. . Either
we will do it or the peasants will send
us to the devil." Such was Lenin's.
conclusion after four-and-a-half years
of leadership.
Stalin remembered these words and
fulfilled them in his own way. When,
in 1928, he decided that the time had
conic to stop concessions to the peas-
ants, he loosed the coercive appara-
tus at full speed and achieved forced
collectivization in record time. Stalin
relied both ou a Leninist precedent
and on Lenin's words after NEP.
The precedent was the formation in
the middle of 1918 of what Lenin
named "Poor Committees" for "a
Crusade for Bread." 'Arise "Poor
Committees" (kombedy)
connnan-
ticered peasant "surpluses," "helped"
in the harvest, fought the "kaiaks,"
and compelled peasants to join the
Red Army. Lenin considered the com-
mittees "a great upheaval which in a
very short time [half a year] helped
us to socialism in the villages." Ten
years later, Stalin also led the vil-
lages toward socialism via forced
confiscation---not only of grain, but
of land as well. lie used Lenin to back
his point. Said Lenin: "The fight is
and will be even more desperate and
more cruel than the fight against
Kolchak and Denikin. . One must
understand the entire meaning of that
fight and convey it to the masses of
workers and peasants so that they
understand: 'Who will beat whom?
Who will win?' The dictatorship of
the proletariat is a fierce, mad strug-
gle in which the proletariat must fight
the whole world, because the whole
world was against us, having hacked
Denikin and Kolehak."
Both Denikin and Kolchak died
long ago, and those who backed them
for a short while have also gone.
Lenin and Stalin are dead, but the
dictatorship of the Communist party
is, unfortunately, still in existence,
still fighting all who dare to disagree ?
with it.
168
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THE NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAY, JULY 8, 1956.
LEADING FIGURES IN COMMUNIST DEBATE?AND WHERE THEY STAND.-
AM/ - MIK
1,11.11RICHT
One of the first
to praise new
anti- Stalin line,
.he is under at.
tack anyway as
former Stalin man and a relent-
less purger. If he relaxes. East
-Germany is fertile for revolt.
()CHAR
Leader in Stalin-
era purges, now
heads satellite
party that went
farthest in liber-
eljzing regime. Riots in Poznan
pose problem of how to de-
Sta finite without losing control.
KHRUSLICHEV
Set new line in
his 20thCongress
talk and has led
in expounding it
since. Now is
seeking to turn resulting criti-
cism from present leaders and set
firm limits on freednin of debate..
agt Llantic
UNITED KINCOOAS
BENELUX
I. THOREZ
A "little Stalin"
despite national-
ist. anti Stalin
pressures at
home, he has
gone along with the new Soviet
line, and apparently will be *bit
to maintain his personal power._
BULGARIA
ec It a as
PORTUGA
TOGLIATTI
In attempt to
hold left-wing
? forces together.
he has gone far-
? ther than other
Communist leaders in criticizing
Soviet system itself, for which
be was called down by Moscow.
TITO ?
The original de-
Stalinizer. now
vindicated by
Masco* and de-
manding rehabil-
itation of "Titiiists"in the satel-
lites. His position has been
strengthened by recent events.
ALBANIA
RAKOSI
Old-line Stalin-
ist, both in re-
pressive policies,
anti-Titoism and
personal power.
Relatively slow to rehabilitate
victims, is being subjected to
criticism by fellow Corrununists.
imams, AD.?.. Assecisted Press, luge-Pato. &wrote,
'
rentrunalat leaders pictured above are those swami meta te have been most specifically affected by de-Stalizination.
169
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*LET'S SAY
WHAT SMALL Wt
WE svE DISSOLVED
-tau 'Nem NEXT?. , THE SOVIET UNION/4
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