Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Reactionary anti-communist bourgeois theories that conceal the restoration of capitalism in Soviet Union (1953-1990) Part C

Reactionary anti-communist bourgeois theories that conceal the restoration of capitalism in Soviet Union (1953-1990) Part C

B. The reactionary anticommunist bourgeois theory of "developed socialism" of the Khrushchevite social-democracy

Cont.

3. Transition period "from capitalism to socialism" or "from capitalism to communism"?

The question of exact, but firstly proper delimitation of the ‘’Transition period’’ is one of the most significant and central matters of Marxist Theory, because with this, in theoretical level are connected directly, closely and (without separation) the questions of:

1) The Marxist perception of socialism-communism that, in addition to others, has as a basis and recognizes only two phases of the unified communist society and

2) The Dictatorship of the Proletariat, more accurately the necessity of its preservation till the communist classless society, which at the political-practical level is connected to the fate of socialism, and its preservation, establishment and development or its destruction, like it occurred on Soviet Union, after 1953: a) with the violent overthrow of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat that at the same time, abolished socialism at the political level (there is no socialism without the Dictatorship of the Proletariat), and b) to the economic sector, it launched the gradual restoration of capitalism, with the application of financial reforms of capitalistic character, restoration that was completed in the mid 1960s.

Exactly in that central and key importance question, theoretical and political-practical, the treasonous revisionist social-democratic group of Khrushchev-Brezhnev devised, after 1953, a counter-revolutionary NEW antimarxist position as the "Transition period from capitalism to socialism" - replacing the known Marxist position for the "Transition period from capitalism to communism" -restoring a blatant rank and altogether failed attempt to falsify Lenin. To give, apparently, "persuasion" to their conscious falsification they quote ONLY a part of an excerpt of Lenin, that is contained in the "Greetings to the Hungarian Workers" (27.5.1919), concluding, with its "help", in the distortion of Marx: "therefore, according to Marx and Lenin, the state of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat is the state of the Transition period from capitalism to socialism" (N. Khrushchev: "The 22th Congress of CPSU", page 206, Athens 1961).

The distorted-crippled, from Khrushchevite anticommunism, expert of Lenin from "Greetings to the Hungarian Workers" was used, in later decades, extensively in reports of international Khrushchevite revisionism, among which we report only case: In the "Political economy of Socialism" (Moscow 1971) German: "Politische Oekonomie des Sozialismus" page 51, Berlin-DDR 1973.

First, before reporting the distortion of Lenin i.e. the amputation-clipping of his extract, lets underline that there is no reference to the "Transition period from capitalism to socialism" anywhere in the work of Marx-Engels. It was the Khrushchevite social-democrat falsely claim in that infamous Congress and that is exactly the reason they don't quote any, not even one, relevant extract from their work.

Ever since, after the counterrevolutionary 22nd Congress (1961) the antimarxist "theory"-position of the "Transition period from capitalism to socialism" dominated the reports of the capitalist Soviet Union of the era and those of the countries of the restored capitalism in eastern Europe, was proclaimed the official position and became the dominant bourgeois theory in those countries and at the same time consisted the position of every antistalinist Khrushchevite revisionist social democratic party in the planet (including the "K"KE as well).

From the hundreds of publications (articles, books, brochures, comments, etc. ) lets mention as an indication just four feature experts. According to the Khrushchevite revisionist academic P. Fedoseyev “ the period of transition from capitalism to socialism starts with the victory of socialist revolution and the establishment of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat and ends with the elimination of capitalistic property (“Voprosy Ekonomiki” Nr 5/1975, page 27) and: the “transition period from capitalism to socialism” starts “with the seizure of political power by the working class and ends with the establishment of socialism” (“Politische Oekonomie des Sozialismus”, page 51, Berlin-DDR 1973, Moscow 1971), and: “The Transition period starts in every country the moment the political power of working class will be established, and ends with the completion of socialist transformations, with the establishment of socialist productive relations” (“Political Economy Manual”, page 8-9, Moscow 1979), and finally, according to Prof. Anatoli Butenko , economist: “Transition period from capitalism to socialism is a historical period of growth, which starts with the political revolution and the establishment of the working class's power and ends with the total elimination of the exploitation of man by man, with the victory of socialist productive relations, with the creation of the bases of socialism” (“SOZIALIZM THEORIE UND PRAXIS, Monatliches Sowjetisches Digest”, 3/1979, page 55, APN-Verlag, Moscow 1979).

In contrast to the above intentional distortion, in the antimarxist direction, that “allowed” the Khrushchevite social-democrats to use the so called “Transition period from capitalism to socialism” of Marx-Lenin, Lenin in the famous “Greetings to the Hungarian Workers” (27.5.1919), points amongst others in addition “The chief feature of proletarian dictatorship is the organisation and discipline of the advanced contingent of the working people, of their vanguard; of their sole leader, the proletariat, whose object is to build socialism, abolish the division of society into classes, make all members of society working people, and remove the basis for all exploitation of man by man. This object cannot be achieved at one stroke. It requires a fairly long period of transition from capitalism to socialism, because the reorganisation of production is a difficult matter, because radical changes in all spheres of life need time, and because the enormous force of habit of running things in a petty-bourgeois and bourgeois way can only be overcome by a long and stubborn struggle. That is why Marx spoke of an entire period of the dictatorship of the proletariat as the period of transition from capitalism to socialism (note 87)" (V.I. Lenin: "Greetings to the Hungarian Workers". German: Lenin: Werke, Bd. 29, p. 377, Berlin-DDR 1965)

A simple comparison between this extract of Lenin, and that of the Khrushchevites in the 22th Congress of CPSU (1961) shows that they have skipped-clipped intentionally the first part of Lenin's extract in order to submit their new antimarxist position-myth of the "Transition period from capitalism to socialism" attributing it to Marx-Lenin.

And now some remarks, that contradict-show the blunt and international distortion of Marx-Lenin form soviet Khrushchevite social democrats of the defending team of Khrushchev-Brezhnev, etc., that at the same constitute defense of the Marxist perception of the Transition period from capitalism to communism:

First, from the above complete Lenin's extract with the addition of the "forgotten" on purpose from the Khrushchevite social democrats: "The chief feature of proletarian dictatorship is the organisation and discipline of the advanced contingent of the working people, of their vanguard; of their sole leader, the proletariat, whose object is to build socialism, abolish the division of society into classes, make all members of society working people, and remove the basis for all exploitation of man by man." - they did not quote that part to "document" their

distortion and make it more persuasive is apparent that Lenin in this text uses the term "Socialism" meaning "Communism", because ONLY in "communism" division of the society in classes is eliminated and not in "socialism" where classes still exist even after the establishment-construction of its economic base with its two forms of socialist property (of state-cooperative) "working class, the peasantry, the intelligentsia" remain (Stalin: "Concerning Questions of Leninism", p. 676, 1950, Greek version) which is furthermore confirmed from Lenin's reference in the end of the paragraph to Marx.

Second, furthermore : The note 87 that refers to Marx work: “Critique of the Gotha Programme” confirms the position of revolutionary Marxism for “International period of capitalism to communism”, in which is noted: “Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat." (K. Marx: "Critique of the Gotha Program", written in April-start of May 1875 and published in 1891. Taken from K.MARX/F.ENGELS: Ausgewaehlte Schriften, Bd.II, σελ. 25, Verlag fuer fremdsprachige Literatur Moskau 1950)

And from this Marx’s clear extract which is not open "to many" interpretations, is apparent that when Lenin in the text above talks of "Transition period from capitalism to socialism" means from "capitalism to communism", since Marx in his famous extract does NOT speak of "Transition period from capitalism to socialism" but opposite of "Transition period from capitalism to communism" i.e. the complete classless communist society (See also: K.MARX/F.ENGELS: Werke, Bd.19, p. 28, Dietz Verlag Berlin-DDR 1969))

Third, it would not be possible for Lenin to talk of "Transition period from capitalism to socialism" because:

a) he would distort Marx-Engels and revolutionary Marxism in general,

b) he would reject the Marxist perception of "Transition period from capitalism to communism", if he delimited this Transition period only until socialism, i.e. the first phase of communist classless society,

c) he would reject the necessity of existence of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat until communism, like the Khrushchevite social-democrats traitors did (they had already violently overthrown it after the elimination of Stalin) without which Socialism-Communism could never be built, but neither, finally, the complete classless communist society, in which the state, according to the classics Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin, "wither away" when similar domestic and international conditions are created "For the state to wither away completely, complete communism is necessary". (V.I. Lenin: "The State and Revolution", Selected works, vol. 2, p. 265, ed. of the CC of KKE, "Nea Ellada", 1951)

Fourth, Lenin already in "State and Revolution", one of its latest works (written in August-September 1917, printed in 1918), refers extensively to the issue of the transition period, the two phases of communist society and the "withering away" of the state while in "CHAPTER V" entitled " The Economic Basis of the Withering Away of the State" and the section "2" and immediately below the characteristic subtitle "The transition from capitalism to communism" lists the known above quote of Marx by the "Critique of the Gotha Programme", setting the 'transition period', like Marx, "transition period from capitalism to communism" (V.LENIN: Selected works, Volume II, p. 256, ed. of the CC of KKE "Nea Ellada", 1951).

Fifth, a few months after "Greetings to the Hungarian Workers" (27.5.1919), Lenin again deals with this issue in his article entitle "Economics And Politics In The Era Of The Dictatorship Of The Proletariat" (10.30.1919) and defines the "transition period" as the "transition period from capitalism to communism": "Theoretically, there can be no doubt that between capitalism and communism there lies a definite transition period which must combine the features and properties of both these forms of social economy. This transition period has to be a period of struggle between dying capitalism and nascent communism—or, in other words, between capitalism which has been defeated but not destroyed and communism which has been born but is still very feeble." (Lenin: Volume 39, page 271, 5th ed., Athens 1982). And so this passage, although in this is clearly to "transitional period from capitalism to communism", the Khrushchevite social-democrats humiliating themselves, write "intelligently" - replacing the word "communism" with the word "socialism" - that in this text: "the V. I. Lenin based the necessity of transition from capitalism to socialism" (!!!) («Lehrbuch Politische Oekonomie Sozialismus», p.28, Berlin-DDR 1972, Moscow 1970). Here the distortion of Lenin is grosser and even more ridiculous from the first case i.e. Conscious omission of part of the passage, but also completely blatant by replacing the word "communism" of Lenin, arbitrarily and deliberately, with the word "socialism".

Finally, equally coarse and quite glaring is the distortion of Marx, similar absurdity with the second indent of Lenin, when the Khrushchevite Social Democrats argue that "the necessity of transition from capitalism to socialism hint for the first time Marx, in 1875, in his work "Critique of the Gotha Programme"", and this despite the fact that they themselves cite and part of the famous passage of Marx, which instead read: "between capitalist and communist society ..." and NOT "socialist" as they claim ("Political Economy" (N. A. Tsagolov) Volume IV, pp. 13-14, ed. " Gutenberg", Athens 1980).

Of course, the anti-stalinist, Khrushchevite anti-communists were utterly ridiculous to distort the Marx’s “Critique of the Ghota program” and Lenin’s “Economy and policy in the era of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat” by replacing the word “communism” with “socialism”. However, what is of primary interest to the revolutionary communists and the international communist movement is that the anti-Marxist concept of the “transition period from capitalism to socialism” is one of the main parts of the reactionary, bourgeois, anti-communist theory of “developed socialism” conceived by the Khrushchevites in order to “justify”: the revisionist counter-revolution in the Soviet Union, the dismissal of the necessity of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat until communism, the violent overthrow and replacement of the latter with the dictatorship of the new bourgeoisie (i.e. the bourgeois “all people’s state”), the dismissal of the competitive contradictions and the class struggles during socialism, the whitewash of the elimination of socialism and the gradual restoration of capitalism. This process was presented by the propaganda of the Khrushchevite social-democratic parties – including the reformist “K”KE – as a “progressive” one that, in fact, was going to lead to the “classless communist society” (!!) despite the fact that the “developed” or “actually existing socialism” of the Krushchev – Brezhnev – Gorbachev was nothing more than a actually existing capitalism which inevitably collapsed following its transformation to the traditional type of capitalism of the western capitalism countries at the end of the 1980’s.

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Wednesday, September 16, 2015

BOYCOTT the September 20 elections– Greece OUT OF EURO-EUROZONE-EU NOW

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Sunday, September 06, 2015

Leadership of "K"KE: Fifth column of the imperialists within parliament also

On August 15, at dawn, the government of SYRIZA-ANEL brought to a vote in Parliament the new "Memorandum of Understanding." This would be the third "Memorandum of Understanding" and, just as the previous two, aims to sell out the country to the imperialists. The new Memorandum, beyond the unpopular measures that it includes (such as reductions in pensions, selling off of state property, increase in taxes, etc.), was voted on during the holiday season with procedures that even the most reactionary governments of the country did not dare to follow. The swift, but mostly unconstitutional procedure, that followed was certainly a product of degrading pressures of the imperialists on the Greek government to pass the 38 prerequisite measures to implement the unpopular program. It is characteristic that while the Parliament would be closed for a few days until August 16, representatives of the imperialists demanded that the Greek government pass the new measures by the morning of August 14.
Although Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras stated in the parliament plenary on February 8, 2015, that “We are each word of the Constitution of this country. It is on this Constitution that we took our oath, It is what we will serve,"[1] he did not hesitate to fulfill, one by one, all the requirements of the imperialists and therefore trample on the civil constitution. Probably this is end of that government. Indeed, the Constitution does not allows changes in the laws about pensions to be voted on as part of other bills, and the cuts in the pensions called for by the two previous Memorandums of Understanding were declared to be in conflict with the Greek Constitution. However, Tsipras did not hesitate to adopt a proposal by the former leader of PASOK E. Venizelos (who drew up the unconstitutional procedures) to rename the bill to overcome the hurdle of unconstitutionality.
It should be noted here that any effort by a minority of SYRIZA MPs not to pass the third 'Memorandum' or to block its enactment (such as that of the president of the Hellenic Parliament Z. Konstantopoulou) by saying that the country would lose its sovereignty through this "Memorandum of Understanding" was pointless, since the country already lost any sovereignty it had when it joined the EEC and later the EU and EMU-EURO. None of them reacted then and all of them defended SYRIZA’s strategic choice of keeping Greece in the EU until now.  This is something that they certainly do not want to mention when they to demagogically try deceive the people.
The president of the parliament Z. Konstantopoulou, along with other SYRIZA PMs, reacted to the re-opening of the parliament to pass the Memorandum and convened an extraordinary Conference of the Presidents of the Parliament on August 12, 2015. The Conference of the Presidents consists of one representative of each parliamentary party and representatives of Parliamentary Committees. At the August 12 conference, the leadership of the Khrushchevite revisionist "K"KE offered once again to support the aspirations of the imperialists. The representative of "K"KE Nikos Karathanasopoulos declared: "Therefore, we the KKE acquiesce and we believe that there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to open the parliament and if it was up to us to decide, the Memorandum would never be brought up for discussion. It is much more brutal, much more reactionary. From this point of view we certainly do not agree with the government's proposal to bring it up as urgent and we denounce this proposal. (...) Second, we disagree with expediting procedures and with the opening of parliament. The position of this party is clear, we repeat it again today. Certainly it does not depend on our own vote whether to open the Parliament or not, because the process and the majority is given". The next day this would be proven to be only a demagogic speech.
What was at stake that day? The day after the Conference of the Parliaments (August 13) the Minister of Finance E. Tsakalotos had to go to the Eurogroup. The question was whether the Minister would attend the Eurogroup meeting with the 3rd Memorandum voted by the Parliament (as demanded by the EU imperialists) or not. It is important to recognize that although the third memorandum of servitude would sooner or later be approved, since there was a large parliamentary support from SYRIZA, ANEL, ND, PASOK and POTAMI, however (although minor) it was also quite important that the Minister of Finance not attend the Eurogroup meeting with an approved law in his hands. All this because the EU imperialists (especially the German imperialists) wanted to show the process as an initiative of the Greek government and not as a foreign intervention in the country (that is, measures taken by the Troika and imposed on the Greek government).
After the majority of the Conference of the Presidents voted in favor of the opening of the Parliament after midnight, the president of the parliament Z. Konstantopoulou proposed that the Parliament resume in the morning while the pro-government proposal was that the Parliament resume at 2 a.m.(!) It is clear Konstantopoulou's proposal could delay the process long enough so that the Parliament would not have time to vote on the Memorandum before the Eurogroup meeting.
Faced with this development, the representative of "K"KE N. Karathanasopoulos said: "For us it makes no difference whether the Memorandum will be voted on at 3 a.m. or at 1 p.m. the next day." And a little later he said: "For us it would very nice to block this process."
In the vote that followed two proposals were submitted. The proposal of the president of the parliament Z. Konstantopoulou envisaged a delay in the enactment in order to follow the procedure laid down in the process of the bourgeois Constitution, which would have prevented the Minister from attending the Eurogroup meeting with the memorandum approved and the proposal of the government. In the vote that followed the result was:
<> Konstantopoulou's proposal (MPs in disagreement with the government's proposal): 8
SYRIZA Parliamentary Spokesperson Nikos Filis' proposal (government): 10
Abstention: 2 (representatives of "K"KE)
This is the crucial point: If the two representatives of "K"KE had supported Konstantopoulou's proposal, it would have prevailed because the vote would be a tie and then the president’s vote would have prevailed. So, the "K"KE could have stopped the Memorandum from being discussed in the Parliament as Karathanosopoulos claimed they wanted the day before. It was in the "K"KE hands whether the Memorandum would have been discussed before or after the Eurogroup meeting. And we explained before that this would be important because the Minister of Finance would not have the Parliamentary approval to sign any agreement with the imperialists by the set date.
However, their stance led to a new vote in which the First Vice President of the House A. Mitropoulos (SYRIZA) changed his vote and the government's proposal prevailed.
This stance of the representatives of "K"KE does not surprise us. All the time they do not see any issue of the intervention of the imperialists in the internal affairs of the country, but they spread the false idea that a direct withdrawal from the euro would be a disaster, that Greece plays an equal role in the imperialist EU and – as they say in their program – "Capitalism in Greece is in the imperialist stage of development."
Faced with all this, the workers, the unemployed and the poor peasants have a task: The reorganization of the Communist Party on the basis of the principles and the program of the revolutionary Communist Party of 1918-1955 that will lead and organize the anti-imperialist and anti-fascist struggle of our people.
[1] http://www.primeminister.gov.gr/english/2015/02/08/primeministers-a-tsipras-speech-during-the-programmatic-statements-of-the-government/
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