The once mighty Third (Communist) International was dissolved by Stalin in 1943 as a gesture to the imperialists. Gorbachev even suggested that there should be joint celebrations between the Soviet ‘Communist’ Party and the West German Social Democrats to celebrate the anniversary of the Second International! This meant that the Russian bureaucracy considered that there were no longer any differences between them and the reformist parties of the West. Evidently for them, everything that Lenin had ever spoken about and written was all nonsense and the entire history of the Communist movement since 1914 was all the result of a slight misunderstanding! This is where decades of Stalinist miseducation had ended up.
After decades of opportunist politics, and with the enormous pressures of capitalism in the long post-war upswing, the process of nationalist and reformist degeneration of the Communist Parties was completed. They became just like any other reformist organisation. Breaking from Moscow, they felt increasingly under the pressure of their own capitalist class and bourgeois public opinion. This was the real meaning of so-called Euro-communism.
In many countries, the Communist Party has collapsed. The British Communist Party ended up in a complete fiasco, split into four tiny groups. Its former ‘theoretician’, the late Eric Hobsbawm, turned into the advocate for Tony Blair’s New Labour. Chris Myant, the international secretary of the CPGB, stated that the October Revolution was “a mistake of historic proportions.” The Spanish Communist Party, which could have taken power in 1976-77, is now a mere shadow of its former self, while the once mighty Italian Communist Party has ceased to exist altogether.
The former Stalinist parties have completed the transition to reformism by eliminating communism from their names and aims, but this was only to recognise what had happened long ago. In this sense, they have become reformist parties little different from the reformist parties of the Second International. They are what Lenin called social-patriotic parties. The leaders of these parties no longer defend the socialist revolution and find the October Revolution an embarrassment.
With the fall of Stalinism after 1989, this process was further intensified. The collapse of Stalinism sent new shock waves through the ranks of the Communist Parties, causing a ferment of discontent, questioning and discussion. Naturally, they had no explanation for the fall of the Soviet Union. For decades, the Stalinist wing of the labour movement had deliberately concealed the real situation in Russia, hiding behind mendacious phrases about the alleged ‘building of socialism’.
The same people had reprinted without comment many of the crimes of the bureaucracy revealed in the Soviet press. They lied to and deceived the rank and file of their parties, among whom were a large number of the most militant and courageous class fighters whose understandable loyalty to the October Revolution and the USSR was shamelessly abused. Now these leaders – those of them who still remain – are silent about their own past role.
The questions and protests of the rank and file remain unanswered to this day. In fact, they have no answer. Having abandoned Marxism and Leninism decades ago, they have now also abandoned Stalinism, the crimes of which they defended enthusiastically, only to go over to reformism and Social Democracy. In most cases, they have even ditched the name of communism altogether, arguing that it has been discredited. In reality, it is not communism that is discredited, but only a monstrous caricature called Stalinism. And it is these very leaders who are responsible for this blackening of the spotless banner of October. This is a crime which can be neither forgotten nor forgiven.
It is really an astonishing fact that the publications of the Communist Parties, even at the present time, still persist in describing the former Stalinist regimes of Russia and Eastern Europe as ‘socialism’ or ‘real socialism’. In other words, they have learnt absolutely nothing about the real character of these regimes. Displaying the most incredible confusion, they talk about the need for ‘more democracy’ – as if it were possible to mix democracy with totalitarianism! This kind of statement shows that they do not have the slightest inkling of the nature of the problem. They have not grasped the elementary fact that the totalitarian regimes in these states were a necessary adjunct of the rule of a privileged bureaucratic caste and were absolutely necessary to preserve this rule.
We reproduce here some extracts taken at random from statements made at Congresses and Central Committees of different Communist Parties at the time (my emphasis throughout):
Indian Communist Party:
The reverses suffered by socialism in the Soviet Union and earlier in Eastern Europe have altered the world balance of forces in favour of imperialism for the present. The process of the restoration of capitalism in the countries of Eastern Europe, the course of dismantling socialism in the Soviet Union and the break up of the USSR in its old form are accompanied by a new imperialist offensive. This has grave repercussions for the socialist countries and the Communist movement… (Statement issued by the Communist Party of India (Marxist), January 1992. From Documents of the 14th Congress of the CPI(M), Madras, 3-9 January 1992.)
French Communist Party:
Although the imperialist forces are using the upheavals in the USSR and other socialist countries in Europe to their profit, attempting to reinforce the political and military domination over the rest of the world… The Communist Party of France has expressed its fundamental divergence from the conception of socialism that prevailed in the USSR, and drawn lessons for itself from this unhappy experience, the crisis and the reversals that have taken place. (Statement issued by the French CC, January 1992.)
Sri Lankan Communist Party:
It is particularly so in view of the major set-back suffered by socialism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. The world balance of forces has changed in favour of imperialism. These developments have adverse effects on the other socialist countries and for the forces of peace and democracy, particularly in the third world countries. (CC statement, January 1992.)
Portuguese Communist Party:
In the new international situation marked by the dismantling of the USSR, following the collapse of the socialist states of central and Eastern Europe, new difficulties will be put to the Communists and other revolutionaries in their struggle for social progress and socialism. (CC of the Portuguese Communist Party, January 1992, my emphasis throughout.)
This is the punishment for decades of opportunism. The leaders are powerless to explain the collapse of Stalinism to their members. To this day, we await an explanation from these people of what happened in Russia and why it happened. For decades, they praised the Soviet Union to the skies and indignantly denied the crimes of Stalinism. Now they pass this over in silence.