Greek unions call 48-hour strike November 6-7

Greece's two main unions GSEE (the General Confederation of Greek Workers)  - ADEDY (the Civil Servants' Confederation) have called a 48-hour general strike November 6-7 to protest government plans to pass new austerity measures including spending cuts, tax increase and state-asset sales.

The last general strike was on October 18.

The Movement for the Reorganisation of the KKE 1918-55 supports the strike and has released posters, flyers, etc. to support the struggle.

Archive: Greek unions call general strike October 18 - Greek unions call general strike September 26 - Greek unions call 48-hour strike February 10-11 - Greek unions to hold new general strike February 7 -Greek unions call strike December 1 -Greek unions call 48-hour strike October 19-20 -Greek unions to hold new general strike October 19 and nationwide civil service strike October 5 - Greek unions call 48-hour strike June 28-29 - From our intervation to the June 15 general strike - Greek unions to hold new general strike June 15 - Mobilisations of GSEE-ADEDY on June 4 - Greek unions to hold new general strike May 11

Greek unions call general strike October 18

Greece's two main unions GSEE (the General Confederation of Greek Workers)  - ADEDY (the Civil Servants' Confederation) have called a 24-hour general strike October 18 to protest government plans to pass new austerity measures including spending cuts, tax increase and state-asset sales.

Rescue creditors are demanding that Greece's conservative-led government slashes a further €11.5 billion in budget costs over the next two years — resulting in a new round of wage and pension cuts.

The last general strike was on September 26.

The Movement for the Reorganisation of the KKE 1918-55 supports the strike and has released posters, flyers, etc. to support the struggle.

Archive: Greek unions call general strike September 26 - Greek unions call 48-hour strike February 10-11 - Greek unions to hold new general strike February 7 -Greek unions call strike December 1 -Greek unions call 48-hour strike October 19-20 -Greek unions to hold new general strike October 19 and nationwide civil service strike October 5 - Greek unions call 48-hour strike June 28-29 - From our intervation to the June 15 general strike - Greek unions to hold new general strike June 15 - Mobilisations of GSEE-ADEDY on June 4 - Greek unions to hold new general strike May 11

Anasintaxi 375 (1-30/9/2012 B)

Photos from the demonstrations against A. Merkel’s visit (October 9, 2012)

The European Popular Democracies of the 20th century: a specific form of the dictature of proletariat

The European Popular Democracies of the 20th century:

a specific form of the dictature of proletariat

1. Between August 1944 and May 1945 the Red Army, in its overwhelming advance toward Berlin, freed from the Nazy rule Poland, Hungary, Rumania, Czechoslovakia and the East Germany, favouring also the liberation of Jugoslavia and Albania.

In those countries were set up against the Nazi occupiers some antifascist fronts (for example, the Patriotic Front in Bulgaria, the Indipendence Front in Rumania, the National Antifascist Front in Czechoslovakia, the Antifascist Front of National Liberation in Albania, and so on). With the exception of Albania, where the Communist Party (afterwards, the Party of Labour) undertook by oneself the direction of the new democratic-popular State arised from the war of liberation, in other countries taked shape some coalition governments with the partecipation of several political parties, expression of different social classes.

The communists who took part in those governments had, at the beginning, the task of assuring the democratic development of those countries against the reactionary and fascist survivals, of constructing inside the Front a bloc of left-wing forces, and of preventing the right-wing forces from strenghtening their traditional ties with the urban middle-classes and the country folk. Profound agrarian reforms were bringed about and some nationalisations were introduced; new organs of popular power were established, as the Popular Counsels in Albania, the Committees of the Patriotic Front in Bulgaria, the Committees of the National Front in Czechoslovakia, and so on.

But from the theoretical and political point of view, the problem of prospect. Which was the class nature of these new regimes of popular democracy? And which «road» they should xxxx follow in their development towards socialism?

In this article we intend to examine - through the declarations of some leaders of the communist parties of those countries - the positions assumed by their parties, and how those positions were later modified through a process of profound Bolshevik criticism and self-criticism. (Editor's bold face).

2. «The struggle for socialism is different to-day from the struggle of 1917 and 1918 in the tzarist Russia, in the times of October revolution. It was essential, then, to overthrow the Russian tzarism, it was essential the dictature of proletariat in order to pass to socialism. Since then, more than thirty years are elapsed, and the Soviet Union, as a socialist State, has become a great world power. […] Is indubitable that both the great and the little nations are destined to pass to socialism, because that is historically inevitable for the little and the great peoples. The crucial point of the question, and we marxist-leninists should know it well, is this: every nation will carry out the passage to socialism not through a road already drawed, not exactly as occurred in the Soviet Union, but proceeding along its own road, in accordance with its historic, national, social and cultural peculiarities» (G. Dimitrov, Report to the Congress of the Bulgarian Worker Party, February 1946).

«Our people is for a parliamentary republic which should not be a plutocratic republic. It is for a popular republican regime and not for a bourgeois republican regime. What means this? This means: 1) that the Bulgary will not be a soviet republic, but a popular republic in which the leading function will be performed by the very large majority of the people - by the workers, the peasants, the artisans, the intellectuals linked to the people. In this Republic no dictature will be, but the fundamental and decisive factor will be the labouring majority of the population» (G. Dimitrov, Discourse of September, 16, 1946).

«The experience and the marxist-leninist teachings show that the dictature of proletariat and the construction of a soviet regime are not the only road leading to socialism. In certain conditions, socialism can be achieved through other roads. The defeat of fascism and the sufferings of the peoples have revealed in many countries the true face of the dominant class and have increased, at the same time, the confiance of the people in itself. In similar historical moments new roads and new possibilities do appear. […] We are marchng on our road toward the socialism» (K. Gottwald, Discourse to the Central Committee of the Czechoslovakian Communist Party. October 1946).

«We must show how the edification of the popular democracy and the road leading to socialism are interdepending. The communist parties have learned, in this last quarter of century, that there is not a single road to socialism, but that the only road leading effectively to this aim is the road followed taking into account the situation of each country. […] Only the popular democracy allows to our country the march toward socialism through the social evolution, without the civil war» (M. Rakosi, Discourse to the 2nd Congress of the Hungarian Communist Party).

3. In these analyses, in these theoretical and political positions, are evident some indefinitenesses, confusions and errors, owing both to an initial and not very mature experience of the «new roads», and to a not clear relation between the immediate task (the consolidation of the new democratic regimes arised from the antinazi and antifascist victory) and the long-term tasks of the edification of socialism. There is also an excessive and unilateral emphasis on the national element, who is «isolated» and untied from its links with internationalism.

Thiese declarations acknowledge and state rightly that each nation will carry out the passage to socialismo not «through a path already drawed», but «according one's own road, in conformity of its own historical, national, social and cultural peculiarieties». There were some particularities in that historical situation: for example, the driving out of power of the old dominant classes not at the conclusion of a civil war, but on account of the armed presence of the Red Army on the territory; the survivance of the parlamentary institution (an inheritance of the pre-war period) who coexisted with the new organs of popular power. But these particularities are confused with the fundamental question of the class nature of the new power. Is not asserted, or is overshadowed, the leading role of the working class and of its party - the communist party - in the power system of the popular democracy (a role that is decisive and irreplaceable in the dictature of proletariat).

In the following years these errors of analysis and perspective were autocritically rectified, as we have above mentioned. But one must not forget that, inside some communist parties, there were also some right opportunistic tendencies wich arrived to the open theoretic revision of the fundaments of marxism-leninism.

The more organic revisionist position was the one expressed in the Unified Worker Party of Poland by the right tendency represented, in those years, by its general secretary Wladislaw Gomulka. In his discourse of 30 November 1946 to the Assembly of activists of Warsaw of the Polish Worker Party and of the Polish Socialist Party [that lately fused themselves in the Unified Polish Worker Party], Gomulka so expressed his views:

«The Polish Worker Party has established its conception of a Polish road to socialism that not implies the necessity of violent revolutionaries shocks in the evolution of Poland and removes the need of a dictature of proletariat as the form of power in the more difficult moment of the transition. On the basis of real elements, whe have realized the possibility of an evolution toward socialism through a popular democratic system in which the power is exercised by the bloc of the democratic parties».

Then he explained «the three principal differences between the road of evolution of Soviet Union and our road»:

«The first difference is this: the social and political changes were accomplished through bloody revolutions, whereas in our country they are accomplished in a pacific way. The second difference consists in the fact that, whereas the Soviet Union had to pass through a period of dictature of proletariat, in our country this period not existed and can be evoided. The third difference that characterizes the roads of evolution in the two countres is that, whereas in Soviet Union the power is in the hands of the Counsel of Deputies. or Soviet, that reunites in itself the legislative and executive functions, and that represents the form of socialist government, in our country the legislative functions and the excutive ones are separate, and a parliamentary democracy is at the base of the national power.

[…] In Russia the dictature of proletariat remained a government form necessary also after the knocking down of the counter-revolution. […] Today the dictature of proletariat has changed its form and was going to extinguish itself with the disappearance of the class of exploiters and of their ideology; its place has been occupied by the soviet democracy as the government form of our country. The enemies of the Soviet Union, who do not understand the significance of the dictature of proletariat, go on asserting that this dictature is still existing in Russia. This is naturally a political nonsense (sic!)».

[…] So we have chosen a Polish road of evolution, and have named it the line of Popular Democracy. On this road and in these conditions, a dictature of the working class, and let alone the dictature of one of the parties, is not necessary and would be aimless. We think that the power should be exercised by the coalition of all the democratic parties. […] The Polish democracy exercises the power through a parliamentary system of many parties, whereas the Soviet democracy accomplish the power of the people through the Soviets. […] The Polish road to socialism is not the road that leads to the dictature of the working class, and the form for the exercise of power by the working masses should not personify itself in a system of Counsels».

Gomulka - who went so far to deny the existence of the dictature of proletariat even in the Soviet Union - so synthesized the essentials characteristics of the Polish popular democracy: «The elimination of the reaction from the power in pacific way, and the accomplishment of great social refoms by the democracy without a bloodshed, without revolution and without a civil war».

These anti-leninist positions (that - it's correct to remember it - never had any right of citizenship in the Party of Labour of Albania under the firm political and ideological leadeship of Enver Hoxha) were defeated later in Poland in consequence of the sharp class struggle developed inside the party. But they re-emerged with Krusciov in the 20^th Congress of CPSU, arising the principal trend of modern revisionism.

As much burdened of errors, and particularly meaningful, is this definition of the countries of popular democracy supplied, in Hungary, by Eugene Varga in the first years of the post-war period:

«It is neither the dictature of the bourgeoisie, nor the dictature of the proletariat. The old State apparatus was not destroyed as in Soviet Union, but it renews itself through the continuous assimilation of the supporters of the new regime. They are not capitalist States in the usual sense of the word, but not even they are socialist States. Their evolution toward socialism is founded on the nationalisation of the principal means of production and on the distinctive character of these States. Even though the State power is maintained as it now exists, they can pass progressively to socialism pushing forward the development of the socialist sector that already exists beside the simple-mercantile sector (peasants and artisans) and beside the capitalist sector that is losing its dominant position».

4. In the second half of 1947 the international situation went through some profound changes, as a result of the passage of the American imperialism to an aggressive and expansionistic politics (creation of military bases in the eastern part of the basin of Mediterranean, loans and military aides to the reactionary regimes in Greece and Turkey, rearmement and support to all reactionary international forces): a politics who had its utmost expression in the «Truman doctrine», the «Marshall plan» and the violent ideological anti-communist campaign unleashed by the American imperialism all over the world.

In his Report to the Conference of Information of the representatives of nine communist parties (Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, France and Italy), set in Poland in September 1947, Andrej Zdanov denounced the tendency of the United States of America to the world rule, underlined the formation - at the international level - of two camps (the imperialist anti-democratic camp and the anti-imperialist democratic camp), and criticized the tendency, present in some communist parties, to interpreting the dissolution of the Communist International as if it meant «the liquidation of any link, any contact between the brotherly communist parties».

As the conclusion of that Conference was build up the «Information Bureau of Communist and Worker Parties», and inside the parties were reconsidered some important questions of theoretical and political nature, inclusive those relatives to the class nature of the States of popular democracy.

5. In his Report to the 5^th Congress of the Bulgarian Worker Party (19 December 1948), G. Dimitrov stated:

«In order to proceed with decision and firmness on the road leading to socialism, it's necessary to utterly clarify the ideas about the character, the function and the perspectives of the popular democracy and of the State of popular democracy. On that matter, we must define with more precision some positions we had until now, and rectify other positions, starting from the experience accumulated up to now and from the more recent data on this complex question. Briefly, in what lies the question?

Firstly. The State of popular democracy is the State of a period of transition and has the task of ensure the development of our country toward socialism. This means that, although the power of capitalists and of large landowners has been demolished and the goods of these classes have become property of the people, the economic roots of capitalism are not extirpated, the capitalistic elements aiming to restore the capitalistic slavery remain and still develop. Therefore the march toward socialism is possible only conducting an implacable classs struggle against the capitalistic elements in order to utterly liquidate them.

Secondly. In the conditions created by the military defeat of the aggressive fascist States, in the conditions of the rapid worsening of the general crisis of capitalism and of the huge strenght of the Soviet Union, our country, like the other countries of popular democracy, having obtained the assurance of a strict collaboration of the USSR, is seing the possibility of accomplishing the passage to socialism without the creation of a soviet regime, through the regime of popular democracy, provided that this regime will strengthen and develop itself with the aid of Soviet Union and of the countries of popular democracy.

Thirdly. The regime of popular democracy, representing in these particular historical conditions the power of the labouring people under the guidance of the working class, can and must - as the experience has already proved - exercise with success the functions of the dictature of proletariat in order to liquidate the capitalistic elements and the landowners knocked down, in order to crash and liquidate their attempts of restoring the power of capital».

As much important and rich of teachings is the analysis performed, in his Report to the First Congress of the Unified Polish Worker Party (December 1948), by the new secretary of the Party, Boleslaw Bierut, who had denounced the positions of Gomulka as the issue of a «nationalistic narrowness» and of a «petty-bourgeois mentality», as «a return to opportunistic social--democratic conceptions, no utterly defeated and unceasingly coming alive again; against them our party has incessantly conducted and must onduct a without quarter fight».

In that Report, Bierut so indicated the role and character of the State of popular democracy:

«The Polish road to socialism, in spite of its particular characters, is not something of essentially different, but only a variant of the general road of development in direction of socialism, a variant which can exist just thanks to the victory of socialism in USSR, with regard to the specific nature of the new historical period which determines the conditions of the historical development of Poland.

«What is a State of popular democracy according to the marxist-leninist theory? How is definable the essence, the class contents and the character of the popular democracy? Some people were inclined to think that the popular democracy was a system qualitatively and essentially different from a system founded on the dictature of proletariat. In the definition of the system of popular democracy in Poland as a specific Polish road toward the new regime, its particularity was often understood in the sense that it was considered a special process of development whose point of arrival was impossible - from what some people said - to establish previously.

Some people imagined the outcome as a «sui genesis» syntesis of capitalism and socialism, as a particular socio-political system in which lived togheter, on two parallel tracks and on the basis of a reciprocal acknowlegement, the socialist and the capitalistic elements. Other people, believing that the system of popular democracy was a temporary effect of the specific situation determined by the post-war conditions, strived to temporarily stabilize this situation, in the hope that was possible the return, in a second time, to the situation preceding the September [he alludes to the Nazi invasion of the Poland of the 1^st September 1939, Editor's note].

[…] The popular democracy is not a form of syntesis or of a steady coexistence of two social regimes of different nature, but is the form through which are undermined and progressively liquidated the capitalistic elements, and in the same time is the form that allows the development and strenghtening of the future socialist economy.

The popular democracy is the particular form of revolutionary power arised in the new historical conditions of our epoch, it's the expression of the new array of the class forces at international level.

[…] The development of our march toward socialism tooks place through the accomplishment of the basic principles of marxism-leninism in new conditions and in a new international situation.

The principles are these:

1) necessity of the conquest of political power by the working class at the head of popular masses;

2) prominent position of the working class in the alliance with the peasants and in the democratic national front;

3) leadership entrusted to the revolutionary party;

4) class struggle without quarter, liquidation of great capital and of large landowners, offensive against capitalistic elements.

6. The historical experience of the worker and communist international movement is an extraordinary heritage of conquests, of elaborations and events: in virtue of it, some fundamental pages in the search of the road leading to communism have been written. The capability of verifying in the practice the theories and the political positions, of correcting and overcoming the errors, of arriving to new formulations and conclusions, is a distinctive feature of marxism-leninism.

In the last century, the revolutionary creativity of the working class and of the popular masses has produced, in specific historical conditions, different forms of the dictature of proletariat, from the Soviets to the regimes of popular democracy, that we communists must to take heart as powerful tools for the development of our theory and revolutionary practice.

The coming of the popular democracies as new forms of State power of the proletarian dictature, as socialist States in the first phase of their development, that run across various stages and adopt different measures in order to destroy the bourgeois production relations, has a great historical and present importance.

The study of the forms in which is embodied the necessity and inevitability of the political rule of proletariat at the head and in alliance with the labouring masses for the passage to the society without classes is essential for the today's communists. We have the task of conquering the vanguard of proletariat and leading the masses to the conquest of power, applying the principles of marxism-leninism and finding the specific forms of approach to the proletarian revolution and to the construction of the new society, in accordance with the historical conditions and the characteristics of each country.

The idea of the popular democracy is still alive in the conscience of the working class and of the labouring masses, and maintains its great force.

Italy of the future will be a popular democracy? Surely, in the new century opened not long ago, in which we communists go on with our battle, new proletarian revolutions will shake the world and new States will arise from them: but each State will be a particular form of the dictature of proletariat. «Is absolutely sure that all nations will arrive to socialism, but all will arrive with some particularity, each nation in the one or the other form of democracy, in the one or the other variant of the dictature of proletariat» (Lenin).

July 2012 Communist Plat-form (Italy)

The capitalist economy of the Soviet Union in the Khrushchev-Brezhnev period in prolonged stagnation and deep crisis

At "Unity and Struggle" issue 23 (November 2011) we published an article with the title The working class in the Khrushchev-Brezhnev period was no longer the owner of the means of production

At "Unity and Struggle" issue 24 (May 2012) we published the second  of this article with the title In the commodity economy of the Soviet Union, labor power had been anew converted to commodity

The third part published in our blog has the title The commodity economy of the Soviet Union in the Khrushchev-Brezhnev period: a complete and permanent capitalist economy

Here is the fourth part:

The capitalist economy of the Soviet Union in the Khrushchev-Brezhnev period in prolonged stagnation and deep crisis

The restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union did not only bring about the emergence of all the characteristic features of capitalism in the country’s economy but it paved the way for a prolonged economic stagnation, especially during the Brezhnev period, and led the whole society to an unprecedented bourgeois degeneration and in a deep and all-sided crisis that included all the known scourges of the old decadent, rotten and superseded bourgeois society.

During this period, not only was there a long-term, general economic stagnation but also a decrease of the national income, a drop in the industrial production and productivity. These were facts that even the then Prime Minister Alexei Kosygin had already admitted as early as 1965. In his speech during the Plenum of CC of CPSU (September 1965), he pointed out: “it must be concluded that during the last years there has been a certain decrease in the national Income and the industrial Production…The increase rate of productivity in industry, an additional important index measuring the efficiency of the social production, has been in decline over the last years” (Α.Ν.Kossygin: Die Verbesserung der Leitung der Industrie, die Vervollkommenung der Planung und die Verstaerkung der wirtschaftlichen Stimulierung der Industrieproduktion. In: «Die Presse der Sowjetunion», 1965, Nr.113, S.6).

A note from the Tirana Radio Station, under the title “The soviet economy in the whirlpool of crisis”, mentions about this: “Over the last years, the soviet economy is going through a severe crisis. The decrease in the growth rate of the production and labor productivity in many branches of the economy, the long-term phenomenon of incomplete utilization of the productive capacities, the failures in the capital investments, the tendency of technical progress to slow down, the militarization of the economy, the inflation, etc are facts that clearly demonstrate that the economy situation is constantly deteriorating. All this shows the disastrous consequences on the country’s economy stemming from the counter-revolutionary policy implemented by the dominant revisionist clique. A general feature of the soviet economy is the irregularity in the fulfillment of plans. In many Republics the general industrial plan of the previous year and the first semester of 1975 has not been fulfilled” (“Tirana Radio Station”, 5/11/1975).

To show the catastrophic results of the capitalist restoration and the difference with the period of socialism-communism in the Soviet Union, the author of the Marxist editorial compares parts of the two periods: “to get a more clear picture of the catastrophic consequences of capitalist restoration in the soviet economy, we present a comparison with the period during which there was still socialist economy: the annual growth rate of the industrial production in the years 1966-1970 was 33% lower than in the years 1946-1955, in fact it was 58% lower in 1974” (“Tirana Radio Station”, 5/11/1975).

The international economic crisis, that started at the end of 1973, affected also the economy of the Soviet Union for which the author mentions: “the decrease in production, an important characteristic of the current economic and financial crisis, into which the whole capitalist-revisionist world has plunged, has seriously impinged on many branches of the soviet industry and especially the branch of machine-building, the chemical industry, the manufacturing industry, the light industry and the production of goods of wider consumption” (“Tirana Radio Station”, 5/11/1975).

Militarization of economy. The restoration of capitalism did not transform Soviet Union only into a capitalist country but, also, into an imperialist super-power which competed the other imperialist super-power of that period, the United States of America, for spheres of influence, having made all sorts of interventions in different countries that included the military occupation of Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan. The reactionary, anti-communist and anti-stalinist socialdemocratic leadership of Khrushchev-Brezhnev very soon oriented the development of the capitalist economy of the Soviet Union towards militarization. The militarization of the economy was, and still is, one of the main and fundamental features of economy of the all imperialist countries. A note from the Tirana Radio Station, in 1976, rightly points out: “the militarization is determined by the nature of the soviet social-imperialism which collaborates and competes with the US imperialism for global domination”. And: “in order to implement their hegemonic and expansionist policy, the soviet social-imperialists employ the most incredible methods but, mainly, rely on the power of arms. This led to a full and mass militarization of the Soviet Union. The soviet economy is oriented towards war. According to data published from scientific organizations of various countries, the military spending of the soviet social-imperialists is about 100 billion rubles that constitutes 44% of total spending in the state budget in the current year. More then 60% of all enterprises in the Soviet Union work, today, directly or indirectly for the war” (“Tirana Radio Station”, 20/10/1976).

In relation to the arms trade: “The soviet social-imperialists expanded the arms trade outside their borders. Along with the US imperialists, they have become the greatest arms dealers. Since 1955, when the Soviet Union emerged in the arms market, it has sold to other countries arms worth of some dozens of billion dollars. Only in 1974, it sold arms worth of 5,5 billion dollars and surpassed even USA in selling war aircrafts securing huge profits from trading with such lethal tools. This is because such a plane can bring as much profit as the retail of 1000 private cars. According to some data from various news agencies, until the middle of the previous year, the Soviet Union sold more than 14,500 tanks, more than 8,000 surface-to-air missiles and more than 1,900 Ming-21 aircrafts. All these arms were sold to satellite countries and to some developing countries bringing extremely large profits. In this way, the Soviet Union tries to transfer part of the load of the militarization and the arms race to the back of less powerful countries and other peoples. At the same time, the Soviet Union is supplying arms to many reactionary governments…Moreover, it must be mentioned that the soviet social-imperialists have become the main suppliers of the most important strategic raw materials such as oil, natural gas, enriched uranium, titanium and various others of the imperialist and militarist circles of West Germany, USA, Japan etc (“Tirana Radio Station”, 20/10/1976).

Wages – degree of exploitation of the proletariat – class differentiation. After the overthrow of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, the victory of the Khrushchevian revisionist counter-revolution, the loss of the political power and the control of the means of production, transformed the working class of the Soviet Union to proletariat, which is forced to sell its labor power in order to survive.

The exploitation of the proletariat through the extraction of surplus value, primarily, in the sphere of production and, secondarily, in the sphere of distribution and through the income redistribution at the level taxes and inflation, is secured, besides the capitalist production relations, by the bourgeois “all people’s” state: “the exploitation and the oppression of workers in the Soviet Union is organized and managed by the state. This is expressed, most and foremost, in the rights of enterprise and kolkhoz directors, in the management and selling of means of production as well as in the corresponding jobs. According to soviet revisionist press acknowledgments, in 5 large cities of the Soviet Union and in two industrial centers of the Republic of Lithuania, there are agencies that sell and buy job vacancies. The revisionist directors decide themselves about the amount of salaries and premiums, the hirings and firings or measures against the workers etc. In Kharkov, an enterprise manager launched 233 discipline measures against 125 workers and imposed money sentences to 350 workers. In 292 soviet enterprises, 70,000 workers were fired because they could not withstand the oppression” (“Tirana Radio Station”, 13/1/1976).

In the Soviet Union, “the degree of exploitation of workers in material production increased by 23% during the 1960-1971 period” (“Tirana Radio Station”, 18/8/1976).

During the Khrushchev-Brezhnev period, the differences between the workers-farmers salaries and those of the new bourgeoisie members were huge: “the capitalist exploitation and oppression of the working class and the wider masses by the new soviet bourgeoisie that is in power is expressed in the income distribution that shows a sharp contrast between working people and the capitalist enterprise directors. While the average wage for a worker reaches 70 rubles and for a farmer reaches 35 rubles, the wage of an enterprise director is about 15 times larges without taking into account other kinds of income they receive in the form of bonuses, privileges and other extras. The director of an enterprise that makes electric lamps in Moscow receives 1,000 rubles as a month salary whereas the wage of a worker is between 60 and 80 rubles… The enterprise directors have the right to determine, according to their wishes, the workers’ wages. Using various pretexts, they push wages downwards or they do not give workers any bonus at all. According to statistics, the 82% of the money sums given to the first 704 enterprises that adopted the new “Schtekino system” of labor rate increase, that is, they introduced the cruel oppression of workers, was shared by the directors, engineers and the technicians and only 12% of these sums was utilized as a “material motive” for the workers. It is, thus, self-evident that the high salaries and the large bonuses of the directors of the soviet capitalist enterprises come from the surplus value created by the workers” (“Tirana Radio Station”, 13/1/1976). “Depending on the position they occupy in the bureaucratic soviet revisionist state and party system, the party cadres, the higher clerks, the technocrats, the enterprise directors and others are getting 10-fold to 25-fold of the average worker’s wage. This is also true for the kolkhozes where the wage differences are about 1:30” (“Tirana Radio Station”, 4/2/1976).

“The new bourgeoisie members have secured high salaries, which are 10-fold to 15-fold larger than the wages of workers and farmers. Hence, the salary of an enterprise director is 1,000 rubles, the salaries of professors, doctors of science and others are as high as 2,000 to 3,000 rubles; all of them lead a luxurious life with cars, villas etc” (“Tirana Radio Station”, 13/2/1976).

While, the living standards of the proletariat and the wider masses were constantly deteriorating not only due to the increased degree of exploitation and the raising prices and taxes, but also due to the under-fulfillment of the plans, the decline in production and the continuous, of unprecedented scale, shortages wide consumption goods (meat, butter, pasta, vegetables, potatoes etc), the new bourgeoisie lived in provoking luxury: “although the necessary commodities for the people are in want, the new bourgeoisie invests large sums for the construction of super deluxe hotels in the Black Sea coast for the rich coming from inside and outside of the country, for the construction of factories that produce Pepsi-Cola and luxury items, super luxury limos and yachts. The production plans for these goods and for the contruction of similar works are always fulfilled on time” (“Tirana Radio Station”, 13/2/1976).

During the Khrushchev-Brezhnev, there was an evident a quick class differentiation in the bourgeois society of the Soviet Union: “the soviet capitalist economy that has been established on the basis of capitalist economic laws and operates according to them, serves as the ground of a continuous class differentiation. The course of class differentiation in the Soviet Union proceeds quickly. On one side, there are all the elements that constitute the new soviet bourgeoisie like the higher cadres of the revisionist party and state, the bureaucratic-military caste, the technocrats and others who receive high salaries and large premiums, and lead a degenerate and luxurious life and on the other side there are the working masses of the town and the countryside. Millions of soviet people, mainly in the countryside, live under the poverty line. In the Soviet Union there are 25,000,000 people that enjoy high living standards, 68,000,000 who live under the poverty line determined by the soviet revisionists themselves. A whole system of taxes introduced by the new soviet bourgeoisie in power, burdens the soviet working people from whom it extracts 11% of their income” (“Tirana Radio Station”, 13/1/1976).

In the 1980’s, the prolonged stagnation of the economy, the obsolete equipment of the capitalist enterprises, the large growth of the black market, the false “fulfillment” of the production plans in industry and agriculture, the systematic legal and illegal appropriation, theft, of the state property, the severe financial bleeding caused by the imperialist war in Afghanistan, etc deepened the all-sided crisis that the capitalist-imperialist Soviet Union was going through and led its capitalist economy to total collapse and bankruptcy.

This catastrophic, dead-end made the new anti-communist group of the bourgeois CPSU headed by the traitor Gorbachev, the “favorite child” of the anti-stalinst, social-democatic Brezhnevite clique, to embark on new capitalist reforms collectively known as “Perestroika” which was not “revolution within the revolution” as claimed by the Krushchevian social-democrats but counter-revolution within the revisionist counter-revolution. The implementation of these new reforms ushered, at the economic level, the transition from the state-monopoly capitalism to the classic capitalism of individual property of the Western capitalist countries and, at the political level, the transition from the bourgeois one-party to the bourgeois many-party system of the Western capitalist countries.

Thus, the Soviet Union, instead of entering “communism” in the 1980’s as promised by the consciously lying anti-communist clique of Khrushchev-Brezhnev – that was demolishing at the same time socialism – experienced, as expected by the revolutionary Marxists, i.e. the Leninists-Stalinists, the total collapse of the restored capitalism, that the same social-democatic leading group had established and demagogically presented, in order to mislead the working class and the peoples, as “real socialism” and reached, its demise as a state at the end of the same decade.