MAO TSE-TUNG July 1964
By the Editorial Departments of Renmin Ribao (People's Daily) andHongqui (Red Flag), China, of 14 July 1964. The source is a pamphlet publishedby Foreign Languages Press, Peking 1964.
Transcribed by Rolf Martens in 1997.
The theories of the proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of theproletariat are the quintessence of Marxism-Leninism. The questions ofwhether revolution should be upheld or opposed and whether the dictatorshipof the proletariat should be upheld or opposed have always been the focusof struggle between Marxism- Leninism and all brands of revisionism andare now the focus of struggle between Marxist-Leninists the world overand the revisionist Khrushchov clique.
At the 22nd Congress of the CPSU, the revisionist Khrushchov cliquedeveloped their revisionism into a complete system not only by roundingoff their anti-revolutionary theories of "peaceful coexistence" and "peacefultransition" but also by declaring that the dictatorship of the proletariatis no longer necessary in the Soviet Union and advancing the absurd theoriesof the "state of the whole people" and the "party of the entire people".
The Programme put forward by the revisionist Khrushchov clique at the22nd Congress of the CPSU is a programme of phoney communism, a revisionistprogramme against proletarian revolution and for the abolition of the dictatorshipof the proletariat and the proletarian party.
The revisionist Khrushchov clique abolish the dictatorship of the proletariatbehind the camouflage of the "state of the whole people", change the proletariancharacter of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union behind the camouflageof the "party of the entire people" and pave the way for the restorationof capitalism behind that of "full-scale communist construction".
In its Proposal Concerning the General Line of the International CommunistMovement dated June 14, 1963, the Central Committee of the Communist Partyof China pointed out that it is most absurd in theory and extremely harmfulin practice to substitute the "state of the whole people" for the stateof the dictatorship of the proletariat and the "party of the entire people"for the vanguard party of the proletariat. This substitution is a greathistorical retrogression which makes any transition to communism impossibleand helps only to restore capitalism.
The Open Letter of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the press ofthe Soviet Union resort to sophistry in self-justification and charge thatour criticisms of the "state of the whole people" and the "party of theentire people" are allegations "far removed from Marxism", betray "isolationfrom the life of the Soviet people" and are a demand that they "returnto the past".
Well, let us ascertain who is actually far removed from Marxism- Leninism,what Soviet life is actually like and who actually wants the Soviet Unionto return to the past.
What is the correct conception of socialist society? Do classes and classstruggle exist throughout the stage of socialism? Should the dictatorshipof the proletariat be maintained and the socialist revolution be carriedthrough to the end? Or should the dictatorship of the proletariat be abolishedso as to pave the way for capitalist restoration? These questions mustbe answered correctly according to the basic theory of Marxism-Leninismand the historical experience of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
The replacement of capitalist society by socialist society is a greatleap in the historical development of human society. Socialist societycovers the important historical period of transition from class to classlesssociety. It is by going through socialist society that mankind will entercommunist society.
The socialist system is incomparably superior to the capitalist system.In socialist society, the dictatorship of the proletariat replaces bourgeoisdictatorship and the public ownership of the means of production replacesprivate ownership. The proletariat, from being an oppressed and exploitedclass, turns into a ruling class and a fundamental change takes place inthe social position of the working people. Exercising dictatorship overa few exploiters only, the state of the dictatorship of the proletariatpractices the broadest democracy among the masses of the working people,a democracy that is impossible in capitalist society. The nationalisationof industry and collectivization of agriculture open wide vistas for thevigorous development of the social productive forces, ensuring a rate ofgrowth incomparably greater than that in any older society.
However, one cannot but see that socialist society is a society bornout of capitalist society and is only the first phase of communist society.It is not yet a fully mature communist society in the economic and otherfields. It is inevitably stamped with the birth marks of capitalist society.When defining socialist society Marx said:
What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it hasdeveloped on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just asitemerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect,economically, morally and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges.
[Marx, "Critique of the Gotha Programme",Selected Works of Marx andEngels, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1958, Vol. 2, p.23.]
Lenin also pointed out that in socialist society, which is the firstphase of communism, "Communismcannot as yet be fully ripe economicallyand entirely free from traditions or traces of capitalism".
[Lenin, "The State and Revolution", Selected Works, FLPH, Mos-cow, 1952, Vol. 2, Part 1, p. 302.]
In socialist society, the differences between workers and peasants,between town and country, and between manual and mental labourers stillremain, bourgeois rights are not yet completely abolished, it is not possible"at once to eliminate the other injustice, which consists in the distributionof articles of consumption ‘according to the amount of labour performed’(and not according to needs)", and therefore differences in wealth stillexist.
[Ibid., p. 296.]
The disappearance of these differences, phenomena and bourgeois rightscan only be gradual and long drawn-out. As Marx said, only after thesedifferences have vanished and bourgeois rights have completely disappearedwill it be possible to realize full communism with its principle, "fromeach according to his ability, to each according to his needs".
Marxism-Leninism and the practice of the Soviet Union, China and othersocialist countries all teach us that socialist society covers a very,very long historical stage. Throughout this stage, the class struggle betweenthe bourgeoisie and the proletariat goes on and the question of "who willwin" between the roads of capitalism and socialism remains, as does thedanger of restoration of capitalism.
In its Proposal Concerning the General Line of the International CommunistMovement dated June 14, 1963, the Central Committee of the Communist Partyof China states:
For a very long historical period after the proletariat takes power,class struggle continues as an objective law independent of man’s will,differing only in form from what it was before the taking of power.
After the October Revolution, Lenin pointed out a number of times that:
a) The overthrown exploiters always try in a thousand and one ways torecover the "paradise" they have been deprived of.
b) New elements of capitalism are constantly and spontaneously generatedin the petty-bourgeois atmosphere.
c) Political degenerates and new bourgeois elements may emerge in theranks of the working class and among government functionaries as a resultof bourgeois influence and the pervasive, corrupting influence of the pettybourgeoisie.
d) The external conditions for the continuance of class struggle withina socialist society are encirclement by international capitalism, the imperialists’threat of armed intervention and their subversive activities to accomplishpeaceful disintegration.
Life has confirmed these conclusions of Lenin’s.
In socialist society, the overthrown bourgeoisie and other reactionaryclasses remain strong for quite a long time, and indeed in certain respectsare quite powerful. They have a thousand and one links with the internationalbourgeoisie. They are not reconciled to their defeat and stubbornly continueto engage in trials of strength with the proletariat. They conduct openand hidden struggles against the proletariat in every field.
Constantly parading such signboards as support for socialism, the Sovietsystem, the Communist Party and Marxism-Leninism, they work to underminesocialism and restore capitalism. Politically, they persist for a longtime as a force antagonistic to the proletariat and constantly attemptto overthrow the dictatorship of the proletariat. They sneak into the governmentorgans, public organizations, economic departments and cultural and educationalinstitutions so as to resist or usurp the leadership of the proletariat.
Economically, they employ every means to damage socialist ownershipby the whole people and socialist collective ownership and to develop theforces of capitalism. In the ideological, cultural and educational fields,they counterpose the bourgeois world outlook to the proletarian world outlookand try to corrupt the proletariat and other working people with bourgeoisideology.
The collectivization of agriculture turns individual into collectivefarmers and provides favourable conditions for the thorough remouldingof the peasants. However, until collective ownership advances to ownershipby the whole people and until the remnants of private economy disappearcompletely, the peasants inevitably retain some of the inherent characteristicsof small producers. In these circumstances spontaneous capitalist tendenciesare inevitable, the soil for the growth of new rich peasants still existsand polarization among the peasants may still occur.
The activities of the bourgeoisie as described above, its corruptingeffects in the political, economic, ideological and cultural and educationalfields, the existence of spontaneous capitalist tendencies among urbanand rural small producers, and the influence of the remaining bourgeoisrights and the force of habit of the old society all constantly breed politicaldegenerates in the ranks of the working class and Party and governmentorganizations, new bourgeois elements and embezzlers and grafters in stateenterprises owned by the whole people and new bourgeois intellectuals inthe cultural and educational institutions and intellectual circles.
These new bourgeois elements and these political degenerates attacksocialism in collusion with the old bourgeois elements and elements ofother exploiting classes which have been overthrown but not eradicated.The political degenerates entrenched in the leading organs are particularlydangerous, for they support and shield the bourgeois elements in organsat lower levels.
As long as imperialism exists, the proletariat in the socialist countrieswill have to struggle both against the bourgeoisie at home and againstinternational imperialism. Imperialism will seize every opportunity andtry to undertake armed intervention against the socialist countries orto bring about their peaceful disintegration. It will do its utmost todestroy the socialist countries or to make them degenerate into capitalistcountries. The international class struggle will inevitably find its reflectionwithin the socialist countries.
Lenin said:
The transition from capitalism to Communism represents an entire historicalepoch. Until this epoch has terminated, the exploiters inevitably cherishthe hope of restoration, and thishope is converted intoattemptsat restoration.
[Lenin, "The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky",SelectedWorks, FLPH, Moscow, Vol. 2, Part 2, p. 61.]
He also pointed out:
The abolition of classes requires a long, difficult and stubbornclassstruggle, whichafter the overthrow of the power of capital,after the destruction of the bourgeois state,after the establishmentof the dictatorship of the proletariat,does not disappear (as thevulgar representatives of the old Socialism and the old Social-Democracyimagine), but merely changes its forms and in many respects becomes morefierce.
[Lenin, "Greetings to the Hungarian Workers", Selected Works, FPLH,Moscow, Vol. 2, Part 2, pp. 210-11.]
Throughout the stage of socialism the class struggle between the proletariatand the bourgeoisie in the political, economic, ideological and culturaland educational fields cannot be stopped. It is a protracted, repeated,tortuous and complex struggle. Like the waves of the sea it sometimes riseshigh and sometimes subsides, is now fairly calm and now very turbulent.It is a struggle that decides the fate of a socialist society. Whethera socialist society will advance to communism or revert to capitalism dependsupon the outcome of this protracted struggle.
The class struggle in socialist society is inevitably reflected in theCommunist Party. The bourgeoisie and international imperialism both understandthat in order to make a socialist country degenerate into a capitalistcountry, it is first necessary to make the Communist Party degenerate intoa revisionist party.
The old and new bourgeois elements, the old and new rich peasants andthe degenerate elements of all sorts constitute the social basis of revisionism,and they use every possible means to find agents within the Communist Party.The existence of bourgeois influence is the internal source of revisionismand surrender to imperialist pressure the external source.
Throughout the stage of socialism, there is inevitable struggle betweenMarxism-Leninism and various kinds of opportunism – mainly revisionism-- in the Communist Parties of socialist countries. The characteristicof this revisionism is that, denying the existence of classes and classstruggle, it sides with the bourgeoisie in attacking the proletariat andturns the dictatorship of the proletariat into the dictatorship of thebourgeoisie.
In the light of the experience of the international working-class movementand in accordance with the objective law of class struggle, the foundersof Marxism pointed out that the transition from capitalism, from classto classless society, must depend on the dictatorship of the proletariatand that there is no other road.
Marx said that
"the class struggle necessarily leads to thedictatorshipof the proletariat".
["Marx to J. Wedemeyer, March 5, 1852",Selected Works of Marx andEngels, FLPH, Moscow, Vol. 2, p. 452.]
He also said:
Between capitalist and communist society lies the period of the revolutionarytransformation of the one into the other. There corresponds to this alsoa political transition period in which the state can be nothing buttherevolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.
[Marx, "Critique of the Gotha Programme",Selected Works of Marx andEngels, FLPH, Moscow, Vol. 2, pp. 32-33.]
The development of socialist society is a process of uninterrupted revolution.In explaining revolutionary socialism Marx said:
This socialism is thedeclaration of the permanence of the revolution,theclass dictatorship of the proletariat as the necessary transitpoint to theabolition of class distinctions generally, to the abolitionof all the relations of production on which they rest, to the abolitionof all the social relations that correspond to these relations of production,to the revolutionizing of all the ideas that result from these social relations.
[Marx, "The Class Struggles in France, 1848 to 1850",Selected Worksof Marx and Engels, FLPH, Moscow, Vol. 1, p. 223.]
In his struggle against the opportunism of the Second International,Lenin creatively expounded and developed Marx’s theory of the dictatorshipof the proletariat. He pointed out:
The dictatorship of the proletariat is not the end of class strugglebut its continuation in new forms. The dictatorship of the proletariatis class struggle waged by a proletariat which has been victorious andhas taken political power in its hands against a bourgeoisie that has beendefeated but not destroyed, a bourgeoisie that has not vanished, not ceasedto offer resistance, but that has intensified its resistance.
[Lenin, "Foreword to the Speech ‘On Deception of the People with Slogansof Freedom and Equality’",Alliance of the Working Class and the Peasantry,FLPH, Moscow, 1959, p. 302.]
He also said:
The dictatorship of the proletariat is a persistent struggle – bloodyand bloodless, violent and peaceful, military and economic, educationaland administrative – against the forces and traditions of the old society.
[Lenin: "‘Left-Wing’ Communism, an Infantile Disorder",Selected Works,FLPH, Moscow, Vol. 2, Part 2, p. 367.]
In his celebrated workOn the Correct Handling of ContradictionsAmong the People and in other works, Comrade Mao Tse-tung, basing hismelfon the fundamental principles of Marxism-Leninism and the historical experienceof the dictatorship of the proletariat, gives a comprehensive and systematicanalysis of classes and class struggle in socialist society, and creativelydevelops the Marxist-Leninist theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Comrade Mao Tse-tung examines the objective laws of socialist societyfrom the viewpoint of materialist dialectics. He points out that the universallaw of the unity and struggle of opposites operating both in the naturalworld and in human society is applicable to socialist society, too.
In socialist society, class contradictions still remain and class struggledoes not die out after the socialist transformation of the ownership ofthe means of production. The struggle between the two roads of socialismand capitalism runs through the entire stage of socialism. To ensure thesuccess of socialist construction and to prevent the restoration of capitalism,it is necessary to carry the socialist revolution through to the end onthe political, economic, ideological and cultural fronts. The completevictory of socialism cannot be brought about in one or two generations;to resolve this question thoroughly requires five to ten generations oreven longer.
Comrade Mao Tse-tung stresses the fact that two types of social contradictionsexist in socialist society, namely, contradictions among the people andcontradictions between ourselves and the enemy, and that the former arevery numerous. Only by distinguishing between the two types of contradictions,which are different in nature, and by adopting different measures to handlethem correctly is it possible to unite the people, who constitute morethan 90 per cent of the population, defeat their enemies, who constituteonly a few per cent, and consolidate the dictatorship of the proletariat.
The dictatorship of the proletariat is the basic guarantee for the consolidationand development of socialism, for the victory of the proletariat over thebourgeoisie and of socialism in the struggle between the two roads.
Only by emancipating all mankind can the proletariat ultimately emancipateitself. The historical task of the dictatorship of the proletariat hastwo aspects, one internal and the other international.
The internal task consists mainly of completely abolishing all the exploitingclasses, developing socialist economy to the maximum, enhancing the communistconsciousness of the masses, abolishing the differences between ownershipby the whole people and collective ownership, between workers and peasants,between town and country and between mental and manual labourers, eliminatingany possibility of the re-emergence of classes and the restoration of capitalismand providing conditions for the realization of a communist society withits principle, "from each according to his ability, to each according tohis needs".
The international task consists mainly of preventing attacks by internationalimperialism (including armed intervention and disintegration by peacefulmeans) and of giving support to the world revolution until the peoplesof all countries finally abolish imperialism, capitalism and the systemof exploitation.
Before the fulfilment of both tasks and before the advent of a fullcommunist society, the dictatorship of the proletariat is absolutly necessary.
Judging from the actual situation today, the tasks of the dictatorshipof the proletariat are still far from accomplished in any of the socialistcountries. In all socialist countries without exception, there are classesand class struggle, the struggle between the socialist and the capitalistroads, the question of carrying the socialist revolution through to theend and the question of preventing the restoration of capitalism.
All the socialist countries still have a very long way to go beforethe differences between ownership by the whole people and collective ownership,between workers and peasants, between town and country and between mentaland manual labourers are eliminated, before all classes and class differencesare eliminated and a communist society with its principle, "from each accordingto his ability, to each according to his needs", is realized. Therefore,it is necessary for all the socialist countries to uphold the dictatorshipof the proletariat.
In these circumstances, the abolition of the dictatorship of the proletariatby the revisionist Khrushchov clique is nothing but a betrayal of socialismand communism.
In announcing the abolition of the dictatorship of the proletariat in theSoviet Union, the revisionist Khrushchov clique base themselves mainlyon the argument that antagonistic classes have been eliminated and thatclass struggle no longer exists.
But what is the actual situation in the Soviet Union? Are there reallyno antagonistic classes and no class struggle there?
Following the victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution, thedictatorship of the proletariat was established in the Soviet Union, capitalistprivate ownership was destroyed and socialist ownership by the whole peopleand socialist collective ownership were established through the nationalizationof industry and the collectivization of agriculture, and great achievementsin socialist construction were scored during several decades. All thisconstituted an indelible victory of tremendous historic significance wonby the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Soviet people underthe leadership of Lenin and Stalin.
However, the old bourgeoisie and other exploiting classes which hadbeen overthrown in the Soviet Union were not eradicated and survived afterindustry was nationalized and agriculture collectivized. The politicaland ideological influence of the bourgeoisie remained. Spontaneous capitalisttendencies continued to exist both in the city and in the countryside.New bourgeois elements and kulaks were still incessantly generated. Throughoutthe long intervening period, the class struggle between the proletariatand the bourgeoisie and the struggle between the socialist and capitalistroads have continued in the political, economic and ideolgical spheres.
As the Soviet Union was the first, and at the time the only, countryto build socialism and had no foreign experience to go by, and as Stalindeparted from Marxist-Leninist dialectics in his understanding of the lawsof class struggle in socialist society, he prematurely declared after agriculturewas basically collectivized that there were "no longer antagonistic classes"[1] in the Soviet Union and that it was "free of class conflicts"[2], one-sidely stressed the internal homogeneity of socialist society and overlooked its contradictions, failed to rely upon the working class and the massesin the struggle against the forces of capitalism and regarded the possibilityof restoration of capitalism as associated only with armed attack by internationalimperialism. This was wrong both in theory and in practice.
[1: Stalin, "On the Draft Constitution of the U.S.S.R",Problemsof Leninism, FLPH, Moscow, 1954, p. 690.]
[2: Stalin, "Report to the Eighteenth Congress of the C.P.S.U.(B.) onthe Work of the Central Committee", Problems of Leninism, FLPH,Moscow, p. 777.]
Nevertheless, Stalin remained a great Marxist-Leninist. As long as heled the Soviet Party and state, he held fast to the dictatorship of theproletariat and the socialist course, pursued a Marxist-Leninist line andensured the Soviet Union’s victorious advance along the road of socialism.
Ever since Khrushchov seized the leadership of the Soviet Party andstate, he has pushed through a whole series of revisionist policies whichhave greatly hastened the growth of the forces of capitalism and againsharpened the class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisieand the struggle between the roads of socialism and capitalism in the SovietUnion.
Scanning the reports in Soviet newspapers over the last few years, onefinds numerous examples demonstrating not only the presence of many elementsof the old exploiting classes in Soviet society, but also the generationof new bourgeois elements on a large scale and the acceleration of classpolarization.
Let us first look at the activities of various bourgeois elements inthe Soviet enterprises owned by the whole people.
Leading functionaries in some state-owned factories and their gangsabuse their positions and amass large fortunes by using the equipment andmaterials of the factories to set up "underground workshops" for privateproduction, selling the products illicitly and dividing the spoils. Hereare some examples.
In a Leningrad plant producing military items, the leading functionariesplaced their own men in "all key posts" and "turned the state enterpriseinto a private one". They illictly engaged in the production of non-militarygoods and from the sale of fountain pens alone embezzled 1,200,000 oldroubles in three years. Among these people was a man who "was a Nepman...inthe 1920’s" and had been a "lifelong thief".
[Krasnaya Zvezda, May 19, 1962.]
In a silk-weaving mill in Uzbekistan, the manager ganged up with thechief engineer, the chief accountant, the chief of the supply and marketingsection, heads of workshops and others, and they all became "new-born entrepreneurs".They purchased more than ten tons of artificial and pure silk through variousillegal channels in order to manufacture goods which "did not pass throughthe accounts". They employed workers without going through the proper proceduresand enforced "a twelve-hour working day".
[Pravda Vostoka, Oct. 8, 1963.]
The manager of a furniture factory in Kharkov set up an "illegal knitwearworkshop" and carried on secret operations inside the factory. This man"had several wives, several cars, several houses, 176 neck-ties, abouta hundred shirts and dozens of suits". He was also a big gambler at thehorse-races.
[Pravda Ukrainy, May 18, 1962.]
Such people do not operate all by themselves. They invariably work handin glove with functionaries in the state departments in charge of suppliesand in the commercial and other departments. They have their own men inthe police and judicial departments who protect them and act as their agents.Even high-ranking officials in the state organs support and shield them.Here are a few examples.
The chief of the workshops affiliated to a Moscow psychoneurologicaldispensary and his gang set up an "underground enterprise", and by bribery"obtained fifty-eight knitting machines" and a large amount of raw material.They entered into business relations with "fifty-two factories, handicraftco-operatives and collective farms" and made three million roubles in afew years. They bribed functionaries of the Department for Combating Theftof Socialist Property and Speculation, controllers, inspectors, instructorsand others.
[Izvestia, Oct. 20, 1963, andIzvestia Sunday Supplement,No. 12, 1964.]
The manager of a machinery plant in the Russian Federation, togetherwith the deputy manager of a second machinery plant and other functionaries,or forty-three persons in all, stole more than nine hundred looms and soldthem to factories in Central Asia, Kazakhstan, the Caucasus and other places,whose leading functionaries used them for illicit production.
[Komsomolskaya Pravda, Aug. 9, 1963.]
In the Kirghiz SSR, a gang of over forty embezzlers and grafters, havinggained control of two factories, organized underground production and plunderedmore than thirty million roubles’ worth of state property. The gang includedthe Chairman of the Planning Commission of the Republic, a Vice-Ministerof Commerce, seven bureau chiefs and division chiefs of the Republic’sCouncil of Ministers, National Economic Council and State Control Commission,as well as "a big kulak who had fled from exile".
[Sovietskaya Kirghizia, Jan. 9, 1962.]
These examples show that the factories which have fallen into the clutchesof such degenerates are socialist enterprises only in name, that in factthey have become capitalist enterprises by which these persons enrich themselves.The relationship of such persons to the workers has turned into one betweenexploiters and exploited, between oppressors and oppressed.
Are not such degenerates who possess and make use of means of productionto exploit the labour of others out-and-out bourgeois elements? Are nottheir acomplices in government organizations, who work hand in glove withthem, participate in many types of expolitation, engage in embezzlement,accept bribes, and share the spoils, also out-and-out bourgeois elements?
Obviously all these people belong to a class that is antagonistic tothe proletariat – they belong to the bourgeoisie. Their activities againstsocialism are definitely class struggle with the bourgeoisie attackingthe proletariat.
Now let us look at the activities of various kulak elements on the collectivefarms.
Some leading collective-farm functionaries and their gangs steal andspeculate at will, freely squander public money and fleece the collectivefarmers. Here are some examples.
The chairman of a collective farm in Uzbekistan "held the whole villagein terror". All the important posts on this farm "were occupied by hisin-laws and other relatives and friends". He squandered "over 132,000 roublesof the collective farm for his personal ‘needs’". He had a car, two motor-cyclesand three wives, each with "a house of her own".
[Selskaya Zhizn, June 26, 1962.]
The chairman of a collective farm in the Kursk Region regarded the farmas his "heredetary estate". He conspired with its accountant, cashier,chief warehouse-keeper, agronomist, general store-manager and others. Shieldingeach other, they "fleeced the collective farmers" and pocketed more thana hundred thousand roubles in a few years.
[Ekonomicheskaya Gazeta, No. 35, 1963.]
The chairman of a collective farm in the Ukraine made over 50,000 roublesat its expense by forging purchase certificates and cash-account ordersin collusion with its woman accountant, who had been praised for keeping"model accounts" and whose deeds had been displayed at the Moscow Exhibitionof Achievements of the National Economy.
[Selskaya Zhizn, Aug. 14, 1963.]
The chairman of a collective farm in the Alma-Ata Region specializedin commercial speculation. He bought "fruit juice in the Ukraine or Uzbekistan,and sugar and alcohol from Djambul", processed them and then sold the wineat very high prices in many localities. In this farm a winery was createdwith a capacity of over a million litres a year, its speculative commercialnetwork spread throughout the Kazakhstan SSR, and commercial speculationbecame one of the farm’s main sources of income.
[Pravda, Jan. 14, 1962.]
The chairman of a collective farm in Byelorussia considered himself"a feudal princeling on the farm" and acted "personally" in all matters.He lived not on the farm but in the city or in his own splendid villa,and was always busy with "various commercial machinations" and "illegaldeals". He bought cattle from the outside, represented them as the productsof the collective farm and falsified output figures. And yet "not a fewcommendatory newspaper reports" had been published about him and he hadbeen called a "model leader".
[Pravda, Feb. 6, 1961.]
These examples show that collective farms under the control of suchfunctionaries virtually become their private property. Such men turn socialistcollective economic enterprises into economic enterprises of new kulaks.There are often people in their superior organizations who protect them.Their relationship to the collective farmers has likewise become that ofoppressors to oppressed, of exploiters to exploited. Are not such neo-exploiterswho ride on the backs of the collective farmers one-hundred-percent neo-kulaks?
Obviously, they all belong to a class that is antagonistic to the proletariatand the labouring farmers, belong to the kulak or rural bourgeois class.Their anti-socialist activities are precisely class struggle with the bourgeoisieattacking the proletariat and the labouring farmers.
Apart from the bourgeois elements in state enterprises and collectivefarms, there are many others in both town and country in the Soviet Union.
Some of them set up private enterprises for private production and sale;others organize contractor teams and openly undertake construction jobsfor state or co-operative enterprises; still others open private hotels.
A "Soviet woman capitalist" in Leningrad hired workers to make nylonblouses for sale, and her "daily income amounted to over 700 new roubles".
[Izvestia, April 9, 1963.]
The owner of a workshop in the Kursk Region made felt boots for saleat speculative prices. He had in his possession 540 pairs of felt boots,eight kilogrammes of gold coins, 3,000 metres of high-grade textiles, 20carpets, 1,200 kilogrammes of wool and many other valuables.
[Sovietskaya Rossiya, Oct. 9, 1963.]
A private entrepeneur in the Gomel Region "hired workers and artisans"and in the course of two years secured contracts for the construction andoverhauling of furnaces in twelve factories at a high price.
[Izvestia, Oct. 18, 1960.]
In the Orenburg Region there are "hundreds of private hotels and trans-shipmentpoints", and "the money of the collective farms and the state is continuouslystreaming into the pockets of the hostlery owners".
[Selskaya Zhizn, July 17, 1963.]
Some engage in commercial speculation, making tremendous profits throughbuying cheap and selling dear or bringing goods from far away. In Moscowthere are a great many speculators engaged in the re-sale of agriculturalproduce. They "bring to Moscow tons of citrus fruit, apples and vegetablesand re-sell them at speculative prices". "These profit-grabbers are providedwith every facility, with market inns, store-rooms and other services attheir disposal".
[Selskaya Zhizn, July 17, 1963.]
In the Krasnodar Territory, a speculator set up her own agency and "employedtwelve salesmen and two stevedores". She transported "thousands of hogs,hundreds of quintals of stolen slag bricks, whole wagons of glass" andother building materials from the city to the villages. She reaped highprofits out of each re-sale.
[Ekonomicheskaya Gazeta, No. 27, 1963.]
Others specialize as brokers and middlemen. They have wide contactsand through them one can get anything, in return for a bribe. There wasa broker in Leningrad who "though he is not the Minister of Trade, controlsall the stocks", and "though he holds no post on the railway, disposesof wagons". He could obtain "things the stocks of which are strictly controlled,from outside the stocks". "All the store-houses in Leningrad are at hisservice." For delivering goods, he received huge "bonuses" – 700,000 roublesfrom one timber combine in 1960 alone. In Leningrad, there is "a wholegroup" of such brokers.
[Literaturnaya Gazeta, July 27 and Aug. 17, 1963.]
These private entrepreneurs and speculators are engaged in the mostnaked capitalist exploitation. Isn’t it clear that they belong to the bourgeoisie,the class antagonistic to the proletariat?
Actually the Soviet press itself calls these people "Soviet capitalists","new-born entrepreneurs", "private entrepreneurs", "newly-emerged kulaks","speculators", "exploiters", etc. Aren’t the revisionist Khrushchov cliquecontradicting themselves when they assert that antagonistic classes donot exist in the Soviet Union?
The facts cited above are only a part of those published in the Sovietpress. They are enough to shock people, but there are many more which havenot been published, many bigger and more serious cases which are coveredup and shielded. We have quoted the above data in order to answer the questionwhether there are antagonistic classes and class struggle in the SovietUnion. These data are readily available and even the revisionist Khrushchovclique are unable to deny them.
These data suffice to show that the unbridled activities of the bourgeoisieagainst the proletariat are widespread in the Soviet Union, in the cityas well as the countryside, in industry as well as agriculture, in thesphere of production as well as the sphere of circulation, all the wayfrom the economic departments to Party and government organizations, andfrom the grass-roots to the higher leading bodies. These anti-socialistactivities are nothing if not the sharp class struggle of the bourgeoisieagainst the proletariat.
It is not strange that attacks on socialism should be made in a socialistcountry by old and new bourgeois elements. There is nothing terrifyingabout this so long as the leadership of the Party and state remains a Marxist-Leninistone. But in the Soviet Union today, the gravity of the situation lies inthe fact that the revisionist Khrushchov clique have usurped the leadershipof the Soviet Party and state and that a privileged bourgeois stratum hasemerged in Soviet society.
We shall deal with this problem in the following section.
The privileged stratum in contemporary Soviet society is composed of degenerateelements from among the leading cadres of Party and government organizations,enterprises and farms as well as bourgeois intellectuals; it stands inopposition to the workers, the peasants and the overwhelming majority ofthe intellectuals and cadres of the Soviet Union.
Lenin pointed out soon after the October Revolution that bourgeois andpetty-bourgeis ideologies and force of habit were encircling and influencingthe proletariat from all directions and were corrupting certain of its sections.This circumstance led to the emergence from among the Soviet officialsand functionaries both of bureaucrats alienated from the masses and ofnew bourgeois elements. Lenin also pointed out that although the high salariespaid to the bourgeois technical specialists staying on to work for theSoviet regime were necessary, they were having a corrupting influence onit.
Therefore, Lenin laid great stress on waging persistent struggles againstthe influence of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideologies, on arousingthe broad masses to take part in government work, on ceaselessly exposingand purging bureaucrats and new bourgeois elements in the Soviet organs,and on creating conditions that would bar the existence and reproductionof the bourgeoisie. Lenin pointed out sharply that "without a systematicand determined struggle to improve the apparatus, we shall perish beforethe basis of socialism is created."
[Lenin, "Plan of the Pamphlet ‘On the Food Tax’",Collected Works,4th Russian ed., Moscow, Vol. 32, p. 301.]
At the same time, he laid great stress on adherence to the principleof the Paris Commune in wage policy, that is, all public servants wereto be paid wages corresponding to those of the workers and only bourgeoisspecialists were to be paid high salaries. From the October Revolutionto the period of Soviet economic rehabilitation, Lenin’s directives werein the main observed; the leading personel of the Party and governmentorganizations and enterprises and Party members among the specialists receivedsalaries roughly equivalent to the wages of workers.
At that time, the Communist Party and the government of the Soviet Unionadopted a number of measures in the sphere of politics and ideology andin the system of distribution to prevent leading cadres in any departmentfrom abusing their powers or degenerating morally or politically.
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union headed by Stalin adhered tothe dictatorship of the proletariat and the road of socialism and wageda staunch struggle against the forces of capitalism. Stalin’s strugglesagainst the Trotskyites, Zinovievites and Bukharinites were in essence areflection within the Party of the class struggle between the proletariatand the bourgeoisie and of the struggle between the two roads of socialismand capitalism. Victory in these struggles smashed the vain hopes of thebourgeoisie to restore capitalism in the Soviet Union.
It cannot be denied that before Stalin’s death high salaries were alreadybeing paid to certain groups and that some cadres had already degeneratedand become bourgeois elements. The Central Committee of the CPSU pointedout in its report to the 19th Party Congress in October 1952 that degenerationand corruption had appeared in certain Party organizations.
The leaders of these organizations had turned them into small communitiescomposed entirely of their own people, "setting their group interests higherthan the interests of the Party and the state". Some executives of industrialenterprises "forget that the enterprises entrusted to their charge arestate enterprises, and try to turn them into their own private domain".
"Instead of safeguarding the common husbandry of the collective farms",some Party and Soviet functionaries and some cadres in agricultural departments"engage in filching collective-farm property". In the cultural, artisticand scientific fields too, works attacking and smearing the socialist systemhad appeared and a monopolistic "Arakcheyev regime" had emerged among thescientists.
Since Khrushchov usurped the leadership of the Soviet Party and state,there has been a fundamental change in the state of the class strugglein the Soviet Union.
Khrushchov has carried out a series of revisionist policies servingthe interests of the bourgeoisie and rapidly swelling the forces of capitalismin the Soviet Union.
On the pretext of "combating the personality cult", Khrushchov has defamedthe dictatorship of the proletariat and the socialist system and thus infact paved the way for the restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union.In completely negating Stalin, he has in fact negated Marxism-Leninismwhich was upheld by Stalin and opened the floodgates for the revisionistdeluge.
Khrushchov has substituted "material incentive" for the socialist principle,"from each according to his ability, to each according to his work". Hehas widened, and not narrowed, the gap between the incomes of a small minorityand those of the workers, peasants and ordinary intellectuals. He has supportedthe degenerates in leading positions, encouraging them to become even moreunscrupulous in abusing their powers and to appropriate the fruits of labourof the Soviet people. Thus he has accelerated the polarization of classesin Soviet society.
Khrushchov sabotages the socialist planned economy, applies the capitalistprinciple of profit, develops capitalist free competition and underminessocialist ownership by the whole people.
Khrushchov attacks the system of socialist agricultural planning, describingit as "bureaucratic" and "unnecessary". Eager to learn from the big proprietorsof American farms, he is encouraging capitalist management, fostering akulak economy and undermining the socialist collective economy.
Khrushchov is peddling bourgeois ideology, bourgeois liberty, equality,fraternity and humanity, inculcating bourgeois idealism and metaphysicsand the reactionary ideas of bourgeois individualism, humanism and pacifismamong the Soviet people, and debasing socialist morality. The rotten bourgeoisculture of the West is now fashionable in the Soviet Union, and socialistculture is ostracized and attacked.
Under the signboard of "peaceful coexistence", Khrushchov has been colludingwith U.S. imperialism, wrecking the socialist camp and the internationalcommunist movement, opposing the revolutionary struggles of the oppressedpeoples and nations, practising great-power chauvinism and national egoismand betraying proletarian internationalism. All this is being done forthe protection of the vested interests of a handful of people, which heplaces above the fundamental interests of the peoples of the Soviet Union,the socialist camp and the whole world.
The line Khrushchov pursues is a revisionist line through and through.Guided by this line, not only have the old bourgeois elements run wildbut new bourgeois elements have appeared in large numbers among the leadingcadres of the Soviet Party and government, the chiefs of state enterprisesand collective farms, and the higher intellectuals in the fields of culture,art, science and technology.
In the Soviet Union at present, not only have the new bourgeois elementsincreased in number as never before, but their social status has fundamentallychanged. Before Khrushchov came to power, they did not occupy the rulingposition in Soviet society. Their activities were restricted in many waysand they were subject to attack. But since Khrushchov took over, usurpingthe leadership of the Party and the state step by step, the new bourgeoiselements have gradually risen to the ruling position in the Party and governmentand in the economic, cultural and other departments, and formed a privilegedstratum in Soviet society.
This privileged stratum is the principal component of the bourgeoisiein the Soviet Union today and the main social basis of the revisionistKhrushchov clique. The revisionist Khrushchov clique are the politicalrepresentatives of the Soviet bourgeoisie, and particularly of its privilegedstratum.
The revisionist Khrushchov clique have carried out one purge after anotherand replaced one group of cadres after another throughout the country,from the central to the local bodies, from leading Party and governmentorganizations to economic and cultural and educational departments, dismissingthose they do not trust and placing their protégés in leadingposts.
Take the Central Committee of the CPSU as an example. The statisticsshow that seventy per cent of the members of the Central Committee of theCPSU who were elected at its 19th Congress in 1952 were purged in the courseof the 20th and 22nd Congresses held respectively in 1956 and 1961. Andnearly fifty per cent of the members who were elected at the 20th Congresswere purged at the time of the 22nd Congress.
Or take the local organizations. On the eve of the 22nd Congress, onthe pretext of "renewing the cadres", the revisionist Khrushchov clique,according to incomplete statistics, removed from office forty-five percent of the members of the Party Central Committees of the Union Republicsand of the Party Committees of the Territories and Regions, and forty percent of the Municipal and District Party Committees. In 1963, on the pretextof dividing the Party into "industrial" and "agricultural" Party committees,they further replaced more than half the members of the Central Committeesof the Union Republics and of the Regional Party Committees.
Through this series of changes the Soviet privileged stratum has gainedcontrol of the Party, the government and other important organizations.
The members of this pivileged stratum have converted the function ofserving the masses into the privilege of dominating them. They are abusingtheir powers over the means of production and of livelihood for the privatebenefit of their small clique.
The members of this privileged stratum appropriate the fruits of theSoviet people’s labour and pocket incomes that are dozens or even a hundredtimes those of the average Soviet worker and peasant. They not only securehigh incomes in the form of high salaries, high awards, high royaltiesand a great variety of personal subsidies, but also use their privilegedposition to appropriate public property by graft and bribery. Completelydivorced from the working people of the Soviet Union, they live the parasiticaland decadent life of the bourgeoisie.
The members of this privileged stratum have become utterly degenerateideologically, have completely departed from the revolutionary traditionsof the Bolshevik Party and discarded the lofty ideals of the Soviet workingclass. They are opposed to Marxism-Leninism and socialism. They betraythe revolution and forbid others to make revolution. Their sole concernis to consolidate their economic position and political rule. All theiractivities revolve around the private interests of their own privilegedstratum.
People have seen how in Yugoslavia, although the Tito clique still displaysthe banner of "socialism", a bureaucratic bourgeoisie opposed to the Yugoslavpeople has gradually come into being since the Tito clique took the roadof revisionism, transforming the Yugoslav state from a dictatorship ofthe proletariat into the dictatorship of the bureaucrat bourgeoisie andits socialist public economy into state capitalism. Now people see theKhrushchov clique taking the road already travelled by the Tito clique.Khrushchov looks to Belgrade as his Mecca, saying again and again thathe will learn from the Tito clique’s experience and declaring that he andthe Tito clique "belong to one and the same idea and are guided by thesame theory". This is not at all surprising.
[N. S. Khrushchov, Interview with Foreign Correspondents at Brioni inYugoslavia, Aug. 28, 1963.]
As a result of Khrushchov’s revisionism, the first socialist countryin the world built by the great Soviet people with their blood and sweatis now facing an unprecedented danger of capitalist restoration.
The Khrushchov clique are spreading the tale that "there are no longerantagonistic classes and class struggle in the Soviet Union" in order tocover up the facts about their own ruthless class struggle against theSoviet people.
The Soviet privileged stratum represented by the revisionist Khrushchovclique constitutes only a few per cent of the Soviet population. Amongthe Soviet cadres its numbers are also small. It stands diametrically opposedto the Soviet people, who constitute more than 90 per cent of the totalpopulation, and to the great majority of the Soviet cadres and Communists.The contradiction between the Soviet people and this privileged stratumis now the principal contradiction inside the Soviet Union, and it is anirreconcilable and antagonistic class contradiction.
The glorious Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which was built byLenin, and the great Soviet people displayed epoch-making revolutionaryinitiative in the October Socialist Revolution, they showed their heroismand stamina in defeating the White Guards and the armed intervention bymore than a dozen imperialist countries, they scored unprecedently brilliantachievements in the struggle for industrialization and agricultural collectivization,and they won a tremendous victory in the Patriotic War against the Germanfascists and saved all mankind. Even under the rule of the Khrushchov clique,the mass of the members of the CPSU and the Soviet people are carryingon the glorious revolutionary traditions nurtured by Lenin and Stalin,and they still uphold socialism and aspire to communism.
The broad masses of the Soviet workers, collective farmers and intellectualsare seething with discontent against the oppression and exploitation practisedby the privileged stratum. They have come to see ever more clearly therevisionist features of the Khrushchov clique which is betraying socialismand restoring capitalism.
Among the ranks of the Soviet cadres, there are many who still persistin the revolutionary stand of the proletariat, adhere to the road of socialismand firmly oppose Khrushchov’s revisionism. The broad masses of the Sovietpeople, of Communists and cadres are using various means to resist andoppose the revisionist line of the Khrushchov clique, so that the revisionistKhrushchov clique cannot so easily bring about the restoration of capitalism.The great Soviet people are fighting to defend the glorious traditionsof the Great October Revolution, to preserve the great gains of socialismand to smash the plot for the restoration of capitalism.
At the 22nd Congress of the CPSU Khrushchov openly raised the banner ofopposition to the dictatorship of the proleatriat, announcing the replacementof the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat by the "state of thewhole people". It is written in the Programme of the CPSU that the dictatorshipof the proletariat "has ceased to be indispensable in the U.S.S.R." andthat "the state, which arose as a state of the dictatorship of the proletariat,has, in the new, contemporary stage, become a state of the entire people".
Anyone with a little knowledge of Marxism-Leninism knows that the conceptof the state is a class concept. Lenin pointed out that "the distinguishingfeature of the state is the existence of a separate class of people inwhose handspower is concentrated".
[Lenin, "The Economic Content of Narodism and the Criticism of It inMr. Struve’s Book",Collected Works, FLPH, Moscow, 1960, Vol. 1,p. 419.]
The state is a weapon of class struggle, a machine by means of whichone class represses another. Every state is the dictatorship of a definiteclass. So long as the state exists, it cannot possibly stand above classor belong to the whole people.
The proletariat and its political party have never concealed their views;they say explicitly that the very aim of the proletarian socialist revolutionis to overthrow bourgeois rule and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat.After the victory of the socialist revolution, the proletariat and itsparty must strive unremittingly to fulfil the historical tasks of the dictatorshipof the proletariat and eliminate classes and class differences, so thatthe state will wither away. It is only the bourgeoisie and its partieswhich in their attempt to hoodwink the masses try by every means to coverup the class nature of state power and describe the state machinery undertheir control as being "of the whole people" and "above class".
The fact that Khrushchov has announced the abolition of the dictatorshipof the proletariat in the Soviet Union and advanced the thesis of the "stateof the whole people" demonstrates that he has replaced the Marxist-Leninistteachings on the state by bourgeois falsehoods.
When Marxist-Leninists criticized their fallacies, the revisionist Khrushchovclique hastily defended themselves and tried hard to invent a so-calledtheoretical basis for the "state of the whole people". They now assertthat the historical period of the dictatorship of the proletariat mentionedby Marx and Lenin refers only to the transition from capitalism to thefirst stage of communism and not to its higher stage. They further assertthat "the dictatorship of the proletariat will cease to be necessary beforethe state withers away" and that after the end of the dictatorship of theproletariat, there is yet another stage, the "state of the whole people".
[Pravda editorial board’s article, "Programme for the Building of Communism",Aug. 18, 1961.]
These are out-and-out sophistries.
In hisCritique of the Gotha Programme, Marx advanced the well-knownaxiom that the dictatorship of the proletariat is the state of the periodof transition from capitalism to communism. Lenin gave a clear explanationof this Marxist axiom. He said:
In hisCritique of the Gotha Programme Marx wrote: "Betweencapitalist and communist society lies the period of the revolutionary transformationof the one into the other. There corresponds to this also a political transitionperiod in which the state can be nothing butthe revolutionary dictatorshipof the proletariat." Up to now this axiom has never been disputed bySocialists, and yet it implies the recognition of the existence of thestate right up to the time when victorious socialism has grown intocomplete communism.
[Lenin, "The Discussion on Self-Determination Summed Up", CollectedWorks, International Publishers, New York, 1942, Vol. 19, pp. 269-70.]
Lenin further said:
The essence of Marx’s teaching on the state has been mastered onlyby those who understand that the dictatorship of asingle classis necessary not only for theproletariat which has overthrown thebourgeoisie, but also for the entirehistorical period which separatescapitalism from "classless society", from Communism.
[Lenin, "The State and Revolution",Selected Works, FLPH, Moscow,Vol. 2, Part 1, p. 234.]
It is perfectly clear that according to Marx and Lenin, the historicalperiod throughout which the state of the dictatorship of the proletariatexists, is not merely the period of transition to the first stage of communism,as alleged by the revisionist Khrushchov clique, but the entire periodof transition from capitalism to "complete communism", to the time whenall class differences will have been eliminated and "classless society"realized, that is to say, to the higher stage of communism.
It is equally clear that the state in the transition period referredto by Marx and Lenin is the dictatorship of the proletariat and nothingelse. The dictatorship of the proletariat is the form of the state in theentire period of transition from capitalism to the higher stage of communism,and also the last form of the state in human history. The withering awayof the dictatorship of the proletariat will mean the withering away ofthe state. Lenin said:
Marx deduced from the whole history of Socialism and of the politicalstruggle that the state was bound to disappear, and that the transitionalform of its disappearance (the transition from state to nonstate) wouldbe the "proletariat organized as the ruling class".
[Ibid., pp. 256-57.]
Historically the dictatorship of the proletariat may take differentforms from one country to another and from one period to another, but inessence it will remain the same. Lenin said:
The transition from capitalism to Communism certainly cannot but yielda tremendous abundance and variety of political forms, but the essencewill inevitably be the same:the dictatorship of the proletariat.
[Ibid, p. 234.]
It can thus be seen that it is absolutely not the view of Marx and Leninbut an invention of the revisionist Khrushchov that the end of the dictatorshipof the proletariat will precede the withering away of the state and willbe followed by yet another stage, "the state of the whole people".
In arguing for their anti-Marxist-Leninist views, the revisionist Khrushchovclique have taken great pains to find a sentence from Marx and distortingit by quoting it out of context. They have arbitrarily described the futurenature of the state (Staatswesen in German) of communistsociety referred to by Marx in hisCritique of the Gotha Programmeas the ‘state of communist society’, whichis no longer a dictatorship of the proletariat".
[M. A. Suslov, Report at the Plenary Meeting of the Central Committeeof the CPSU, February 1964 (New Times, English ed., No. 15, 1964,p. 62.]
They gleefully announced that the Chinese would not dare to quote thisfrom Marx. Apparently the revisionist Khrushchov clique think this is veryhelpful to them.
As it happens Lenin seems to have foreseen that revisionists would makeuse of this phrase to distort Marxism. In hisMarxism on the State,Lenin gave an excellent explanation of it. He said, "...the dictatorshipof the proletariat is a ‘political transition period’.... But Marx goeson to speak of ‘the futurenature of the state (gosudarstvennostin Russian,Staatswesenin German) of communist society’!! Thus, there will be a state even in‘communist society’!! Is there not a contrdiction in this?" Leninanswered, "No." He then tabulated the three stages in the process of developmentfrom the bourgeois state to the withering away of the state:
The first stage – in bourgeois society, the state is needed by thebourgeoisie – the bourgeois state.
The second stage – in the period of transition from capitalism to communism,the state is needed by the proletariat – the state of the dictatorshipof the proletariat.
The third stage – in communist society, the state is not necessary,it withers away.
He concluded: "Complete consistency and clarity!!"
In Lenin’s tabulation, only the bourgeois state, the state of the dictatorshipof the proletariat and the withering away of the state are to be found.By precisely this tabulation Lenin made it clear that when communism isreached the state withers away and becomes non-existent.
Ironically enough, the revisionist Khrushchov clique also quoted thisvery passage from Lenin’sMarxism on the State in the course ofdefending their error. And then they proceeded to make the following idioticstatement:
In our country the first two periods referred to by Lenin in the opinionquoted already belong to history. In the Soviet Union a state of the wholepeople –a communist state system, the state of thefirst phaseof communism, has arisen and is developing.
["From the Party of the Working Class to the Party of the Whole SovietPeople", editorial board’s article of Partyinaya Zhizn, Moscow, No. 8,1964.]
If the first two periods referred to by Lenin have already become athing of the past in the Soviet Union, the state should be withering away,and where could a "state of the whole people" come from? If the state isnot yet withering away, then it ought to be the dictatorship of the proletariatand under absolutely no circumstances a "state of the whole people".
In arguing for their "state of the whole people", the revisionist Khrushchovclique exert themselves to vilify the dictatorship of the proletariat asundemocratic. They assert that only by replacing the state of the dictatorshipof the proletariat by the "state of the whole people" can democracy befurther developed and turned into "genuine democracy for the whole people". Khrushchov has pretentiously said that the abolition of the dictatorshipof the proletariat exemplifies "a line of energetically developing democracy"and that "proletarian democracy is becoming socialist democracy of thewhole people".
[N. S. Khrushchov, "Report of the Central Committee of the CPSU", and"On the Programme of the CPSU", delivered at the 22nd Congress of the CPSU,October 1961.]
These utterances can only show that their authors either are completelyignorant of the Marxist-Leninist teachings on the state or are maliciouslydistorting them.
Anyone with a little knowledge of Marxism-Leninism knows that the conceptof democracy as a form of the state, like that of dictatorship, is a classone. There can only be class democracy, there cannot be "democracy forthe whole people".
Lenin said:
Democracy for the vast majority of the people, and suppression by force,i.e. exclusion from democracy, of the exploiters and oppressors of thepeople – this is the change democracy undergoes during thetransitionfrom capitalism to Communism.
[Lenin, "The State and Revolution",Selected Works, FLPH, Moscow,Vol. 2, Part 1, p. 291.]
Dictatorship over the exploiting classes and democracy among the workingpeople – these are the two aspects of the dictatorship of the proletariat.It is only under the dictatorship of the proletariat that democracy forthe masses of the working people can be developed and expanded to an unprecedentedextent. Without the dictatorship of the proletariat there can be no genuinedemocracy for the working people.
Where there is bourgeois democracy there is no proletarian democracy,and where there is proletarian democracy there is no bourgeois democracy.The one excludes the other. This is inevitable and admits of no compromise.The more thoroughly bourgeois democracy is eliminated, the more will proletariandemocracy flourish. In the eyes of the bourgeoisie, any country where thisoccurs is lacking in democracy. But actually this is the promotion of proletariandemocracy and the elimination of bourgeois democracy. As proletarian democracydevelops, bourgeois democracy is eliminated.
This fundamental Marxist-Leninist thesis is opposed by the revisionistKhrushchov clique. In fact, they hold that so long as enemies are subjectedto dictatorship there is no democracy and that the only way to developdemocracy is to abolish the dictatorship over enemies, stop suppressingthem and institute "democracy for the whole people".
Their view is cast from the same mould as the renegade Kautsky’s conceptof "pure democracy".
In criticizing Kautsky Lenin said:
..."pure democracy" is not only anignorant phrase, revealinga lack of understanding both of the class struggle and of the nature ofthe state, but also a thrice-empty phrase, since in communist society democracywillwither away in the process of changing and becoming a habit,but will never be "pure" democracy.
[Lenin, "The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky",SelectedWorks, FLPH, Moscow, Vol. 2, Part 2, p. 48.]
He also pointed out:
The dialectics (course) of the development is as follows: from absolutismto bourgeois democracy; from bourgeois to proletarian democracy; fromproletarian democracy to none.
[Lenin,Marxism on the State, Russian ed., Moscow, 1958, p. 42.]
That is to stay, in the higher stage of communism proletarian democracywill wither away along with the elimination of classes and the witheringaway of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
To speak plainly, as with the "state of the whole people", the "democracyfor the whole people" proclaimed by Khrushchov is a hoax. In thus retrievingthe tattered garments of the bourgeoisie and the old-line revisionists,patching them up and adding a label of his own, Khrushchov’s sole purposeis to deceive the Soviet people and the revolutionary people of the worldand cover up his betrayal of the dictatorship of the proletariat and hisopposition to socialism.
What is the essence of Khrushchov’s "state of the whole people"?
Khrushchov has abolished the dictatorship of the proletariat in theSoviet Union and established a dictatorship of the revisionist clique headedby himself, that is, a dictatorship of the privileged stratum of the Sovietbourgeoisie. Actually his "state of the whole people" is not a state ofthe dictatorship of the proletariat but a state in which his small revisionistclique wield their dictatorship over the masses of the workers, the peasantsand the revolutionary intellectuals.
Under the rule of the Khrushchov clique, there is no democracy for theSoviet working people, there is democracy only for the handful of peoplebelonging to the revisionist Khrushchov clique, for the privileged stratumand for the bourgeois elements, old and new. Khrushchov’s "democracy forthe whole people" is nothing but out-and-out bourgeois democracy, i.e.,a despotic dictatorship of the Khrushchov clique over the Soviet people.
In the Soviet Union today, anyone who persists in the proletarian stand,upholds Marxism-Leninism and has the courage to speak out, to resist orto fight is watched, followed, summoned, and even arrested, imprisonedor diagnosed as "mentally ill" and sent to "mental hospitals".
Recently the Soviet press has declared that it is necessary to "fight"against those who show even the slightest dissatisfaction, and called for"relentless battle" against the "rotten jokers" who are so bold as to makesarcastic remarks about Khrushchov’s agricultural policy.
[Izvestia, Mar. 10, 1964.]
It is not particularly astonishing that the revisionist Khrushchov cliqueshould have on more than one occasion bloodily suppressed striking workersand the masses who put up resistance.
The formula of abolishing the dictatorship of the proletariat whilekeeping a state of the whole people reveals the secret of the revisionistKhrushchov clique; that is, they are firmly opposed to the dictatorshipof the proletariat but will not give up state power till their doom.
The revisionist Khrushchov clique know the paramount importance of controllingstate power. They need it for clearing the way for the restoration of capitalismin the Soviet Union. These are Khrushchov’s real aims in raising the bannersof the "state of the whole people" and "democracy for the whole people".