Excerpted from "On Khrushchov’s Phoney Communism and Its Historical Lessons for the World" （Comment 9）
REFUTATION OF THE SO-CALLED STATE OF THE WHOLE PEOPLE
At the 22nd Congress of the CPSU Khrushchov openly raised the banner of opposition to the dictatorship of the proleatriat, announcing the replacement of the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat by the "state of the whole people". It is written in the Programme of the CPSU that the dictatorship of the proletariat "has ceased to be indispensable in the U.S.S.R." and that "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 concept of the state is a class concept. Lenin pointed out that "the distinguishing feature of the state is the existence of a separate class of people in whose hands power is concentrated".
[Lenin, "The Economic Content of Narodism and the Criticism of It in Mr. 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 which one class represses another. Every state is the dictatorship of a definite class. So long as the state exists, it cannot possibly stand above class or 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 revolution is to overthrow bourgeois rule and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat. After the victory of the socialist revolution, the proletariat and its party must strive unremittingly to fulfil the historical tasks of the dictatorship of the proletariat and eliminate classes and class differences, so that the state will wither away. It is only the bourgeoisie and its parties which in their attempt to hoodwink the masses try by every means to cover up the class nature of state power and describe the state machinery under their control as being "of the whole people" and "above class".
The fact that Khrushchov has announced the abolition of the dictatorship of the proletariat in the Soviet Union and advanced the thesis of the "state of the whole people" demonstrates that he has replaced the Marxist-Leninist teachings on the state by bourgeois falsehoods.
When Marxist-Leninists criticized their fallacies, the revisionist Khrushchov clique hastily defended themselves and tried hard to invent a so-called theoretical basis for the "state of the whole people". They now assert that the historical period of the dictatorship of the proletariat mentioned by Marx and Lenin refers only to the transition from capitalism to the first stage of communism and not to its higher stage. They further assert that "the dictatorship of the proletariat will cease to be necessary before the state withers away" and that after the end of the dictatorship of the proletariat, 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 his Critique of the Gotha Programme, Marx advanced the well-known axiom that the dictatorship of the proletariat is the state of the period of transition from capitalism to communism. Lenin gave a clear explanation of this Marxist axiom. He said:
In his Critique of the Gotha Programme Marx wrote: "Between capitalist and communist society lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. There corresponds to this also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat." Up to now this axiom has never been disputed by Socialists, and yet it implies the recognition of the existence of the state right up to the time when victorious socialism has grown into complete communism.
[Lenin, "The Discussion on Self-Determination Summed Up", Collected Works, 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 only by those who understand that the dictatorship of a single class is necessary not only for the proletariat which has overthrown the bourgeoisie, but also for the entire historical period which separates capitalism 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 historical period throughout which the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat exists, is not merely the period of transition to the first stage of communism, as alleged by the revisionist Khrushchov clique, but the entire period of transition from capitalism to "complete communism", to the time when all 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 referred to by Marx and Lenin is the dictatorship of the proletariat and nothing else. The dictatorship of the proletariat is the form of the state in the entire period of transition from capitalism to the higher stage of communism, and also the last form of the state in human history. The withering away of the dictatorship of the proletariat will mean the withering away of the state. Lenin said:
Marx deduced from the whole history of Socialism and of the political struggle that the state was bound to disappear, and that the transitional form of its disappearance (the transition from state to nonstate) would be the "proletariat organized as the ruling class".
[Ibid., pp. 256-57.]
Historically the dictatorship of the proletariat may take different forms from one country to another and from one period to another, but in essence it will remain the same. Lenin said:
The transition from capitalism to Communism certainly cannot but yield a tremendous abundance and variety of political forms, but the essence will 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 Lenin but an invention of the revisionist Khrushchov that the end of the dictatorship of the proletariat will precede the withering away of the state and will be followed by yet another stage, "the state of the whole people".
In arguing for their anti-Marxist-Leninist views, the revisionist Khrushchov clique have taken great pains to find a sentence from Marx and distorting it by quoting it out of context. They have arbitrarily described the future nature of the state (Staatswesen in German) of communist society referred to by Marx in his Critique of the Gotha Programme as the ‘state of communist society’, which is no longer a dictatorship of the proletariat".
[M. A. Suslov, Report at the Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee of the CPSU, February 1964 (New Times, English ed., No. 15, 1964, p. 62.]
They gleefully announced that the Chinese would not dare to quote this from Marx. Apparently the revisionist Khrushchov clique think this is very helpful to them.
As it happens Lenin seems to have foreseen that revisionists would make use of this phrase to distort Marxism. In his Marxism on the State, Lenin gave an excellent explanation of it. He said, "...the dictatorship of the proletariat is a ‘political transition period’.... But Marx goes on to speak of ‘the future nature of the state (gosudarstvennost in Russian, Staatswesen in German) of communist society’!! Thus, there will be a state even in ‘communist society’!! Is there not a contrdiction in this?" Lenin answered, "No." He then tabulated the three stages in the process of development from the bourgeois state to the withering away of the state:
The first stage – in bourgeois society, the state is needed by the bourgeoisie – 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 dictatorship of 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 dictatorship of the proletariat and the withering away of the state are to be found. By precisely this tabulation Lenin made it clear that when communism is reached the state withers away and becomes non-existent.
Ironically enough, the revisionist Khrushchov clique also quoted this very passage from Lenin’s Marxism on the State in the course of defending their error. And then they proceeded to make the following idiotic statement:
In our country the first two periods referred to by Lenin in the opinion quoted already belong to history. In the Soviet Union a state of the whole people – a communist state system, the state of the first phase of communism, has arisen and is developing.
["From the Party of the Working Class to the Party of the Whole Soviet People", editorial board’s article of Partyinaya Zhizn, Moscow, No. 8, 1964.]
If the first two periods referred to by Lenin have already become a thing 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 is not yet withering away, then it ought to be the dictatorship of the proletariat and under absolutely no circumstances a "state of the whole people".
In arguing for their "state of the whole people", the revisionist Khrushchov clique exert themselves to vilify the dictatorship of the proletariat as undemocratic. They assert that only by replacing the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat by the "state of the whole people" can democracy be further developed and turned into "genuine democracy for the whole people". Khrushchov has pretentiously said that the abolition of the dictatorship of the proletariat exemplifies "a line of energetically developing democracy" and that "proletarian democracy is becoming socialist democracy of the whole 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 completely ignorant of the Marxist-Leninist teachings on the state or are maliciously distorting them.
Anyone with a little knowledge of Marxism-Leninism knows that the concept of democracy as a form of the state, like that of dictatorship, is a class one. There can only be class democracy, there cannot be "democracy for the 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 the people – this is the change democracy undergoes during the transition from 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 working people – these are the two aspects of the dictatorship of the proletariat. It is only under the dictatorship of the proletariat that democracy for the masses of the working people can be developed and expanded to an unprecedented extent. Without the dictatorship of the proletariat there can be no genuine democracy 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 proletarian democracy flourish. In the eyes of the bourgeoisie, any country where this occurs is lacking in democracy. But actually this is the promotion of proletarian democracy and the elimination of bourgeois democracy. As proletarian democracy develops, bourgeois democracy is eliminated.
This fundamental Marxist-Leninist thesis is opposed by the revisionist Khrushchov clique. In fact, they hold that so long as enemies are subjected to dictatorship there is no democracy and that the only way to develop democracy is to abolish the dictatorship over enemies, stop suppressing them and institute "democracy for the whole people".
Their view is cast from the same mould as the renegade Kautsky’s concept of "pure democracy".
In criticizing Kautsky Lenin said:
..."pure democracy" is not only an ignorant phrase, revealing a lack of understanding both of the class struggle and of the nature of the state, but also a thrice-empty phrase, since in communist society democracy will wither away in the process of changing and becoming a habit, but will never be "pure" democracy.
[Lenin, "The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky", Selected Works, FLPH, Moscow, Vol. 2, Part 2, p. 48.]
He also pointed out:
The dialectics (course) of the development is as follows: from absolutism to bourgeois democracy; from bourgeois to proletarian democracy; from proletarian 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 democracy will wither away along with the elimination of classes and the withering away of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
To speak plainly, as with the "state of the whole people", the "democracy for the whole people" proclaimed by Khrushchov is a hoax. In thus retrieving the tattered garments of the bourgeoisie and the old-line revisionists, patching them up and adding a label of his own, Khrushchov’s sole purpose is to deceive the Soviet people and the revolutionary people of the world and cover up his betrayal of the dictatorship of the proletariat and his opposition to socialism.
What is the essence of Khrushchov’s "state of the whole people"?
Khrushchov has abolished the dictatorship of the proletariat in the Soviet Union and established a dictatorship of the revisionist clique headed by himself, that is, a dictatorship of the privileged stratum of the Soviet bourgeoisie. Actually his "state of the whole people" is not a state of the dictatorship of the proletariat but a state in which his small revisionist clique wield their dictatorship over the masses of the workers, the peasants and the revolutionary intellectuals.
Under the rule of the Khrushchov clique, there is no democracy for the Soviet working people, there is democracy only for the handful of people belonging to the revisionist Khrushchov clique, for the privileged stratum and for the bourgeois elements, old and new. Khrushchov’s "democracy for the 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 or to fight is watched, followed, summoned, and even arrested, imprisoned or 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 make sarcastic remarks about Khrushchov’s agricultural policy.
[Izvestia, Mar. 10, 1964.]
It is not particularly astonishing that the revisionist Khrushchov clique should have on more than one occasion bloodily suppressed striking workers and the masses who put up resistance.
The formula of abolishing the dictatorship of the proletariat while keeping a state of the whole people reveals the secret of the revisionist Khrushchov clique; that is, they are firmly opposed to the dictatorship of the proletariat but will not give up state power till their doom.
The revisionist Khrushchov clique know the paramount importance of controlling state power. They need it for clearing the way for the restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union. These are Khrushchov’s real aims in raising the banners of the "state of the whole people" and "democracy for the whole people".
REFUTATION OF THE SO-CALLED PARTY OF THE ENTIRE PEOPLE
At the 22nd Congress of the CPSU Khrushchov openly raised another banner, the alteration of the proletarian character of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. He announced the replacement of the party of the proletariat by a "party of the entire people".
The programme of the CPSU states, "As a result of the victory of socialism in the U.S.S.R. and the consolidation of the unity of Soviet society, the Communist Party of the working class has become the vanguard of the Soviet people, a party of the entire people". The Open Letter of the Central Committee of the CPSU says that the CPSU "has become a political organization of the entire people".
How absurd!
Elementary knowledge of Marxism-Leninism tells us that, like the state, a political party is an instrument of class struggle. Every political party has a class character. Party spirit is the concentrated expression of class character. There is no such thing as a non-class or supra-class political party and there never has been, nor is there such a thing as a "party of the entire people" that does not represent the interests of a particular class.
The party of the proletariat is built in accordance with the revolutionary theory and revolutionary style of Marxism-Leninism; it is the party formed by the advanced elements who are boundlessly faithful to the historical mission of the proletariat, it is the organized vanguard of the proletariat and the highest form of its organization. The party of the proletariat represents the interests of the proletariat and the concentration of its will.
Moreover, the party of the proletariat is the only party able to represent the interests of the people, who constitute over ninety per cent of the total population. The reason is that the interests of the proletariat are identical with those of the working masses, that the proletariarian party can approach problems in the light of the historical role of the proletariat and in terms of the present and future interests of the proletariat and the working masses and of the best interests of the overwhelming majority of the people, and that it can give correct leadership in accordance with Marxism-Leninism.
In addition to its members of working-class origin, the party of the proletariat has members of other class origins. But the latter do not join the Party as representatives of other classes. From the very day they join the Party they must abandon their former class stand and take the stand of the proletariat. Marx and Engels said:
If people of this kind join the proletarian movement, the first condition must be that they should not bring any remnants of bourgeois, petty-bourgeois, etc., prejudices with them but should wholeheartedly adopt the proletarian outlook.
["Marx and Engels to A. Bebel, W. Liebknecht, W. Bracke and Others ("Circular Letter"), Sept. 17-18, 1879", Selected Works of Marx and Engels, FLPH, Moscow, Vol. 2, pp. 484-85.]
The basic principles concerning the proletarian party were long ago elucidated by Marxism-Leninism. But in the opinion of the revisionist Khrushchov clique these principles are "stereotyped formulas", while their "party of the entire people" conforms to the "actual dialectics of the development of the Communist Party".
["From the Party of the Working Class to the Party of the Whole Soviet People", editorial board's article of Partyinaya Zhizn, Moscow, No. 8, 1964.]
The revisionist Khrushchov clique have cudgelled their brains to think up arguments justifying their "party of the entire people". They have argued during the talks between the Chinese and Soviet Parties in July 1963 and in the Soviet press that they have changed the Communist Party of the Soviet Union into a "party of the entire people" because:
1. The CPSU expresses the interests of the whole people.
2. The entire people have accepted the Marxist-Leninist world outlook of the working class, and the aim of the working class - the building of communism - has become the aim of the entire people.
3. The ranks of the CPSU consist of the best representatives of the workers, collective farmers and intellectuals. The CPSU unites in its own ranks representatives of over a hundred nationalities and peoples.
4. The democratic method used in the Party's activities is also in accord with its character as the Party of the entire people.
It is obvious even at a glance that none of these arguments adduced by the revisionist Khrushchov clique shows a serious approach to a serious problem.
When Lenin was fighting the opportunist muddle-heads, he remarked:
Can people obviously incapable of taking serious problems seriously themselves be taken seriously? It is difficult to do so, comrades, very difficult! But the question which certain people cannot treat seriously is in itself so serious that it will do no harm to examine even patently frivolous replies to it.
[Lenin, "Clarity First and Foremost!", Collected Works, FLPH, Moscow, 1964, Vol. 20, p. 544.]
Today, too, it will do no harm to examine the patently frivolous replies given by the revisionist Khrushchov clique to so serious a question as that of the party of the proletariat.
According to the revisionist Khrushchov clique, the Communist Party should become a "party of the entire people" because it represents the interests of the entire people. Does it not then follow that from the very beginning it should have been a "party of the entire people" instead of a party of the proletariat?
According to the revisionist Khrushchov clique, the Communist Party should become a "party of the entire people" because "the entire people have accepted the Marxist-Leninist world outlook of the working class". But how can it be said that everyone has accepted the Marxist-Leninist world outlook in Soviet society where sharp class polarization and class struggle are taking place?
Can it be said that the tens of thousands of old and new bourgeois elements in your country are all Marxist-Leninists? If Marxism-Leninism has really become the world outlook of the entire people, as you allege, does in not then follow that there is no difference in your society between Party and non-Party and no need whatsoever for the Party to exist? What difference does it make if there is a "party of the entire people" or not?
According to the revisionist Khrushchov clique, the Communist Party should become a "party of the entire people" because its membership consists of workers, peasants and intellectuals and all nationalities and peoples. Does this mean that before the idea of the "party of the entire people" was put forward at its 22nd Congress none of the members of the CPSU came from classes other than the working class? Does it mean that formerly the members of the Party all came from just one nationality, to the exclusion of other nationalities and peoples?
If the character of a party is determined by the social background of its membership, does it not then follow that the numerous political parties in the world whose members also come from various classes, nationalities and peoples are all "parties of the entire people"?
According to the revisionist Khrushchov clique, the Party should be a "party of the entire people" because the methods it uses in its activities are democratic. But from its outset, a Communist Party is built on the basis of the principle of democratic centralism and should always adopt the mass line and the democratic method of persuation and education in working among the people. Does it not then follow that a Communist Party is a "party of the entire people" from the first day of its founding?
Briefly, none of the arguments listed by the revisionist Khrushchov clique holds water.
Besides making a great fuss about a "party of the entire people", Khrushchov has also divided the Party into an "industrial Party" and an "agricultural Party" on the pretext of "building the Party organs on the production principle".
[N. S. Khrushchov, Report at the Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee of the CPSU, November 1962.]
The revisionist Khrushchov clique say that they have done so be- cause of "the primacy of economics over politics under socialism" [1] and because they want to place "the economic and pro- duction problems, which have been pushed to the forefront by the entire course of the communist construction, at the centre of the activities of the Party organizations" and make them "the cornerstone of all their work" [2]. Khrushchov said, "We say bluntly that the main thing in the work of the Party organs is production" [3]. And what is more, they have foisted these views on Lenin, claiming that they are acting in accordance with his principles.
[1. "Study, Know, Act", editorial of Ekonomicheskaya Gazeta, No. 50, 1962.]
[2. "The Communist and Production", editorial of Kommunist, No. 2, 1963.]
[3. N. S. Khrushchov, Speech at the Election Meeting of the Ka- linin Constituency of Moscow, Feb. 27, 1963.]
However, anyone at all acquainted with the history of the CPSU knows that, far from being Lenin's views, they are anti-Leninist views and that they were views held by Trotsky. On this question, too, Khrushchov is a worthy disciple of Trotsky.
In criticizing Trotsky and Bukharin, Lenin said:
Politics are the concentrated expression of economics . . . Politics cannot but have precedence over economics. To argue differently means forgetting the A B C of Marxism.
He continued:
... without a proper political approach to the subject the given class cannot maintain its rule, and consequently cannot solve its own production problems.
[Lenin, "Once Again on the Trade Unions, the Present Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Bukharin", Selected Works, International Publishers, New York, 1943, Vol. 9, pp. 54 and 55.]
The facts are crystal clear; the real purpose of the revisionist Khrushchov clique in proposing a "party of the entire people" was completely to alter the proletarian character of the CPSU and transform the Marxist-Leninist Party into a revisionist party.
The great Communist Party of the Soviet Union is confronted with the grave danger of degenerating from a party of the proletariat into a party of the bourgeoisie and from a Marxist-Leninist into a revisionist party.
Lenin said:
A party that wants to exist cannot allow the slightest wavering on the question of its existence or any argument with those who may bury it.
[Lenin, "How Vera Zasulich Demolishes Liquidationism", Collected Works, FLPH, Moscow, 1963, Vol. 19, p. 414.]
At present, the revisionist Khrushchov clique is again confronting the broad membership of the great Communist Party of the Soviet Union with precisely this serious question.