Abstract
The history of mankind may be viewed as one long search for the philosopher’s stone, the total cure for all social ills afflicting human affairs. From Plato to Machiavelli, Hobbes to Hegel, Marx to Weber, to the contemporary school of the behavioral sciences, man has been intent on identifying “reality,” or “truth.” These concepts were dependent, at least in part, on the evolving social, political, economic, technological, and cultural environment which, especially since the time of the industrial revolution, has accelerated productivity. Accompanying and related to the rise in productivity has been a rise in human expectations.
One of the decisive advantages of the democratic camp, which is the principal point of difference with the imperialist camp, is that it is not torn by internal contradictions and struggles.
Georgi M. Malenkov
All Communists are confident that sooner or later the Chinese comrades will take the way of overcoming the differences and help consolidate the unity of the fraternal parties on the basis of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism.
‘World Marxist Review,’ September, 1963
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References
A most concise discussion of this aspect of “revolutionary situations” will be found in Adam B. Ulam, The Unfinished Revolution, Random House, New York, (1960), third chapter, but especially pp. 67–8.
See the brilliant article by Robert C. North, “Soviet and Chinese Goal Values: A Study in Communism as a Behaviour System,” pp. 39–64, in Kurt London (ed.), Unity and Contradiction, Praeger, New York, (1962).
Stalin, in this as in so many other matters, was a follower of Lenin who initiated such a policy with his twenty-one demands to the international communist movement, “Conditions of Admission to the Communist International,” adopted by the Second Comintern Congress on August 6, 1920. But neither in intent nor scope could Stalin be described as a true disciple of his adopted leader, whose humanitarianism was never entirely negated, and whose opponents within the movement were not physically liquidated. For the best account of Stalin’s treatment of his comrades in the international movement see Franz Borkenau, World Communism, University of Michigan Press (1962; first printing, 1939); cf. Günther Nollau, International Communism and World Revolution, Praeger, New York, (1961).
The best known statement is still that of Friedrich Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, in Marx-Engels, Selected Works, v. ii, F.L.P.H., Moscow, 1951, (1884), p. 292.
J. V. Stalin, “Political Report of the Central Committee to XVI C.P.S.U. Congress,” (June 1930), Works, v. xii, pp. 242–387.
Marx was particularly vehement on this point, insisting that blueprints for politics could only be drawn up by prophets, and that the present could neither foretell, nor bind, the future. See chapters x and xi of G. D. H. Cole, Marxism and Anarchism, (v. ii of A History of Socialist Thought), Macmillan, London, 1954.
Loc. cit. But see Elliott R. Goodman, The Soviet Design for a World State, Columbia University Press, New York, (1960), pp. 1–2, who builds on
S. F. Bloom, The World of Mations: N. Y., Columbia University Press, (1941), p. 16, for a very different interpretation as to what Marx “actually meant” by the phrase. (The work is a 1940 Ph.D. dissertation.)
Lenin’s thought on the subject is probably best represented in two articles: “Social Democracy and Contemporary Revolutionary Government (4.12. 1905) in Collected Works (4th ed.), vol. VII, p. 191, and Two Tactics of Social-Democracy in the Democratic Revolution: N.Y., International Publishers, Marxist library, vol. X (1935), pp. 62, 82-4. See also Trotsky The Permanent Revolution (trans. Max Schachtman): N.Y., Pioneer Publishers (1931), pp. 61, 21, 25, 70, 120, and passim.
Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy (ed. Engels), (trans. from the 3rd German ed. by S. Moore and E. Aveling): Chicago, G. H. Kerr and Co. (3 vols., 1906-09), vol. III, pp. 454, 1031 ff.
See paper delivered by Egon Neuberger at the Far Western Slavic Conference, Stanford University, April 27-28, 1963, “An Evaluation of the Council of Mutual Assistance.” An instructive commentary regarding resistance to Soviet aims can be found in a careful reading of Wolfgang Berger, “Socialist Economy and International Cooperation,” W.M.R., vol. vii, no. 2, February 1964, pp. 30–35. See also chapter 5, part. disc. on Rumania.
In part the Mensheviks, and also the Social Revolutionaries, especially the Left S.R.s, were inhibited from taking action against the Bolsheviks. Responsible was revolutionary loyalty expressed in the slogan “No enemies on the Left.” Two works crucial to an understanding of this period are Donald W. Treadgold, Lenin and His Rivals: N. Y., Praeger (1955), especially the concluding chapter; and Schapiro, Autocracy, op. cit., part ii, chapters vii-xi.
For a very perceptive analysis of this phase of communist ideology, and its influence in the decision making process, see Z. K. Brzezinski, Ideology and Power in Soviet Politics: N.Y., Praeger (1962), pp. 79–80.
This section represents only a very condensed outline. For the U.S.S.R., see Nathan Leites, A Study of Bolshevism: Glencoe, Free Press (1953)
Alfred G. Meyer, Leninism, H.U.P. (1957), especially chapters v and xiii; Ulam, (1960), op. cit., pp. 168-95. For source material (mainly) see Goodman, op. cit. For a thorough study of the theoretical questions involved, and their practical application in the Soviet Union, see Gustav A. Wetter, Dialectical Materialism: London, Routledge and Kegan Paul (1958 ed.).
Lenin, “The Chief Task of Our Day” (March, 1918), in Selected Works, v. ii.l, p. 444; emphasis in the original.
The best account of these activities is to be found in Schapiro, O.P.S.U., op. cit., especially chapters 15, 16, 20, and 22. See also John A. Armstrong, The Politics of Totalitarianism: N.Y. Random House, (1961), especially the first chapter, particularly pp. 3, 10. Earlier comments regarding the existence of a vast secondary literature applies also to this field. For a really first-rate account of the repercussions of the Stalin-Trotsky struggle as it affected the Soviet Union’s policy toward China during the critical period 1924-27, see Conrad Brandt, Stalin’s Failure in China, H.U.P. (1958).
Trotsky has consistently maintained that it was not he but Lenin who changed his views. Without attempting to resolve the question, it can be stated that the two men reached a substantial working concord (on most points: there were some major disagreements, but these were of a tactical, rather than substantative, nature, as, for example, differences on how to treat with the Germans at Brest-Litovsk). When Trotsky’s formula of “neither peace nor war” proved unworkable, he at least acquiesced with Lenin’s “peace at any price,” as long as soviet power remained unimpaired. Even so, Trotsky represented a majority view of the party’s central committee, and the full force of Lenin’s immense prestige was necessary to have his policies implemented in the instance. One earlier, and very important, difference between them concerned Lenin’s views regarding the “dictatorship of the Proletariat,” and especially “democratic centralism” which, Trotsky (following Rosa Luxemburg) declared would “inevitably” lead to the dictatorship of the communist party over the Russian People. From there it would extend its tentacles over the individual party members, then over the party itself, and culminate in one-man rule. See Leon Trotsky, History of the Russian Revolution, (trans, by Max Eastman): N.Y., Simon and Schuster (1932), especially chapter vi, p. 341, for an early statement of his views. For his later position consult Bertram
D. Wolfe, Three Who Made a Revolution: Boston, Beacon Press, (1948), who quotes Trotsky on p. 253.
See Leon Trotsky, My Life: An Attempt at an Autobiography: N.Y., G. Scribner’s Sons, (1930). A reading of chapters 40 to 42, inclusive, should substantiate this interpretation. We may add that Trotsky was most reluctant to assume any type of purely administrative responsibilities. Given a post on the Orgburo when it was expanded in 1924, he attended one meeting, then decided the work too “boring” to be pursued further. For the best short account of Trotsky’s political activities in English see
Garr, A History of Soviet Russia (6 vs.): London, Macmillan (1950–1959), v. v, pp. 139–52
also John S. Reshetar, Jr., A Concise History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union: New York, Praeger (1960), pp. 193–4. A lengthy but definitive biography will be found in Deutscher’s three volume work on Trotsky, op. cit.
This aspect is incisively dealt with by Julian Towster, Political Power in the U.S.S.R., 1917-1947: New York, Oxford University Press (1948), pp. 126–27, and especially n. 22, p. 126. Political Power remains the definitive work on soviet party-state organization for the period with which it deals.
Loc. cit. The second and third need not be dealt with here. They are “distrust” and “hostility” to both the communist party and its officially elected leadership. One might here simply ask whom Stalin meant by the latter. After all, in late 1924 when this statement was made, Trotsky was still very much a part of the leadership. A careful reading, pp. 365-8, leaves the distinct impression that Stalin, already at that early date, assumed the party’s leadership to be synonymous with himself. But leadership, to Lenin, belonged to no single individual, but to the Party itself. This then raises, and pretty well answers, the question as to who was acting in an “un-Leninist” manner. Two excellent biographical works on Lenin may be consulted with profit: Louis Fischer, The Life of Lenin. New York: Harper and Row (1964)
and Adam B. Ulam, The Bolsheviks. The Intellectual and Political History of the Triumph of Communism in Russia. New York: The Macmillan Co. (1965). Also, compare Stalin’s categories under which he attacked Trotsky with the real issue, as related by Wetter, and discussed on p. 10, n. 4.
The official Soviet view is most authoritatively contained in Grigory Glezerman, The Laws of Soviet Development: Moscow, F.L.P.H. (n.d., c. 1962).
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Mayer, P. (1968). The Unity Theory VS. Socialism in One Country. In: Cohesion and Conflict in International Communism. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-0495-9_1
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