Another view of Stalin (34 page)

 .

Ibid. , p. 393.

`In 1933--34 the kulaks were already smashed, an insurrectionary movement ceased to be a real possibility, and therefore in the centre of the Right organization a period again set in when the orientation toward a counter-revolutionary conspiratorial coup became the central idea ....

`The forces of the conspiracy were: the forces of Yenukidze  plus Yagoda,  their organizations in the Kremlin and in the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs; Yenukidze  also succeeded around that time in enlisting, as far as I can remember, the former commandant of the Kremlin, Peterson,  who, a propos, was in his time the commandant of Trotsky's  train.

`Then there was the military organization of the conspirators: Tukhachevsky,  Kork  and others.'

 .

Ibid. , p. 419.

`During the period preceding the Seventeenth Party Congress, Tomsky  broached the idea that the coup d'йtat with the help of the armed counter-revolutionary forces should be timed exactly for the opening of the Seventeenth Party Congress. According to Tomsky's  idea, an integral part of this coup was to be a monstrous crime --- the arrest of the Seventeenth Party Congress.

`This idea of Tomsky's  was subjected to a discussion, though a very cursory one; but objections to this idea were raised on all hands ....

`Pyatakov  objected to this idea not for considerations of principle, but for considerations of tactics, because that would have aroused extreme indignation among the masses .... But the fact alone that this idea was conceived and that it was subjected to a discussion speaks sufficiently clearly of the whole monstrosity and criminality of an organization of this sort.'

 .

Ibid. , p. 425.

`In the summer of 1934 Radek  told me that directions had been received from Trotsky,  that Trotsky  was conducting negotiations with the Germans, that Trotsky  had already promised the Germans a number of territorial concessions, including the Ukraine ....

`I must say that then, at that time, I remonstrated with Radek.  Radek  confirms this in his testimony, just as he confirmed at a confrontation with me that I objected to this, that I considered it essential that he, Radek,  should write and tell Trotsky  that he was going too far in these negotiations, that he might compromise not only himself, but all his allies, us Right conspirators in particular, and that this meant certain disaster for all of us. It seemed to me that with the growth of mass patriotism, which is beyond all doubt, this point of view of Trotsky's  was politically and tactically inexpedient.'

 .

Ibid. , p. 430.

`I advanced the argument that since this was to be a military coup, then by virtue of the logic of the things the military group of the conspirators would have extraordinary influence, and, as always happens in these cases, it would be just that section of the joint upper group of the counter-revolutionary circles that would command great material forces, and consequently political forces, and that hence a peculiar Bonapartist  danger might arise. And Bonapartists  --- I was thinking particularly of Tukhachevsky  --- would start out by making short shrift of their allies and so-called inspirers in Napoleon  style. In my conversations I always called Tukhachevsky  a ``potential little Napoleon,''  and you know how Napoleon  dealt with the so-called ideologists.

`Vyshinsky:  And you considered yourself an ideologist?

`Bukharin:  Both an ideologist of a counte-revolutionary coup and a practical man. You, of course, would prefer to hear that I consider myself a spy, but I never considered myself a spy, nor do I now.

`Vyshinsky:  It would be more correct if you did.

`Bukharin:  That is your opinion, but my opinion is different.'

 .

Ibid. , pp. 431--432.

When it was time for his last statement, Bukharin  already knew that he was a dead man. Cohen  can read in this speech a `fine defence of real Bolshevism` and a `denunciation of Stalinism'. On the other hand, a Communist hears a man who struggled for many years against socialism, who took irrevocable revisionist positions, and who, facing his grave, realized that in the context of bitter national and international class struggles, his revisionism had led him to treason.

`This naked logic of the struggle was accompanied by a degeneration of ideas, a degeneration of psychology ....

`And on this basis, it seems to me probable that every one of us sitting here in the dock suffered from a peculiar duality of mind, an incomplete faith in his counter-revolutionary cause .... Hence a certain semi-paralysis of the will, a retardation of reflexes .... The contradiction that arose between the acceleration of our degeneration and these retarded reflexes expressed the position of a counter-revolutionary, or a developing counter-revolutionary, under the conditions of developing socialist construction. A dual psychology arose ....

`Even I was sometimes carried away by the eulogies I wrote of socialist construction, although on the morrow I repudiated this by practical actions of a criminal character. There arose what in Hegel's philosophy is called a most unhappy mind. This unhappy mind differed from the ordinary unhappy mind only in the fact that it was also a criminal mind.

`The might of the proletarian state found its expression not only in the fact that it smashed the counter-revolutionary bands, but also in the fact that it disintegrated its enemies from within, that it disorganized the will of its enemies. Nowhere else is this the case, nor can it be in any capitalist country ....

`Repentance is often attributed to diverse and absolutely absurd things like Thibetan powders and the like. I must say of myself that in prison, where I was confined for over a year, I worked, studied, and retained my clarity of mind. This will serve to refute by facts all fables and absurd counter-revolutionary tales.

`Hypnotism is suggested. But I conducted my own defence in Court from the legal standpoint too, orientated myself on the spot, argued with the State Prosecutor; and anybody, even a man who has little experience in this branch of medicine, must admit that hypnotism of this kind is altogether impossible ....

`I shall now speak of myself, of the reasons for my repentance. Of course, it must be admitted that incriminating evidence plays a very important part. For three months I refused to say anything. Then I began to testify. Why? Because while in prison I made a revaluation of my entire past. For when you ask yourself: ``If you must die, what are you dying for?'' --- an absolutely black vacuity suddenly rises before you with startling vividness. There was nothing to die for, if one wanted to die unrepented. And, on the contrary, everything positive that glistens in the Soviet Union acquires new dimensions in a man's mind. This in the end disarmed me completely and led me to bend my knees before the Party and the country ....

`The point, of course, is not this repentance, or my personal repentance in particular. The Court can pass its verdict without it. The confession of the accused is not essential. The confession of the accused is a medieval principle of jurisprudence. But here we also have the internal demolition of the forces of the counter-revolution. And one must be a Trotsky  not to lay down one's arms.

`I feel it my duty to say here that in the parallelogram of forces which went to make up the counter-revolutionary tactics, Trotsky  was the principal motive force. And the most acute methods --- terrorism, espionage, the dismemberment of the U.S.S.R. and wrecking --- proceeded primarily from this source.

`I may infer a priori that Trotsky  and my other allies in crime, as well as the Second International, all the more since I discussed this with Nicolayevsky,  will endeavour to defend us, especially and particularly myself. I reject this defence, because I am kneeling before the country, before the Party, before the whole people.'

 .

Ibid. , pp. 776--779.

From Bukharin to Gorbachev

The anti-Communist author Stephen F. Cohen  wrote in 1973 a very favorable biography of Bukharin,  who was presented as `the last Bolshevik'. It is touching to see how a confirmed anti-Communist `mourned the end of Bukharin  and Russian Bolshevism'!

 .

Cohen,  op. cit. , p. 381.

Another follower of Bukharin,  Roy Medvedev,  did the same in an epigraph:

`Stalinism cannot be regarded as the Marxism-Leninism   or the Communism of three decades. It is the perversions that Stalin introduced into the theory and practice of the Communist movement ....

`The process of purifying the Communist movement, of washing out all the layers of Stalinist filth, is not yet finished. It must be carried through to the end.'

 .

Ibid. , p. 382.

Hence the two anti-Communists, Cohen  and Medvedev,  presented Stalin's following the Leninist  line as a `perversion' of Leninism  and then, as irreconcilable adversaries of Communism, proposed the `purification of the Communist movement'! Of course, this is a tactic that has been well developed over the decades: once a revolution has triumphed and consolidates itself, its worst enemies present themselves as the best defenders of the `authentic revolution' that `was betrayed right from the beginning' by its leaders. Nevertheless, it should be noted that Cohen  and Medvedev's  theses were taken up by almost all the Khrushchevites.  Even Fidйl Castro,  himself influenced by Khrushchev's  theories, has not always escaped this temptation. Yet, the same tactic was used by U.S. specialists against the Cuban revolution. Right from 1961, the CIA started an offensive for the `defence of the Cuban revolution' against the `usurper Fidйl Castro'  who had `betrayed'. In Nicaragua, Eden Pastora  joined the CIA to defend `the original Sandinist program'.

Yugoslavia was, right from 1948, the first socialist country to veer towards Bukharinism  and Trotskyism.  Tito  received massive aid from the United States. Then Titoist  ideas infiltrated themselves in most of Eastern Europe.

During the seventies, Cohen's  book Bukharin  and the Bolshevik Revolution, as well as the one published by British social-democrat Ken Coates,  president of the Bertrand Russell  Peace Foundation,

 .

Ken Coates,  The Case of Nikolai Bukharin  (Nottingham: Spokesman, 1978).

served as the international basis for the rehabilitation of Bukharin,  who united the revisionists from the Italian and French Communist Parties, the Social-Democrats --- from Pйlikan  to Gilles Martinet  --- and, of course, the different Trotskyist  sects. These same currents followed Gorbachev  right to the very end. All these anti-Communists united in the seventies to rehabilitate Bukharin,  the `great Bolshevik' that Lenin  called `the favorite of the whole party'. All claimed that Bukharin  represented an `alternative' Bolshevism and some even claimed him as a precursor of Eurocommunism.

 .

Blanc  and Kaisergruber,  op. cit. , pp. 11, 16.

Already, in 1973, the direction of this campaign was set by the openly anti-Communist Cohen: 

`Bukharinist-style  ideas and policies have revived. In Yugoslavia, Hungary, Poland, and Czechoslovakia, Communist reformers have become advocates of market socialism, balanced economic planning and growth, evolutionary development, civil peace, a mixed agricultural sector, and tolerance of social and cultural pluralism within the framework of the one-party state.'

 .

Cohen,  op. cit. , p. 384.

`This is a perfect definition of the velvet counter-revolution that finally triumphed during the years 1988--1989 in Central and Eastern Europe.

`If ... reformers succeed in creating a more liberal communism, a ``socialism with a human face,'' Bukharin's  outlook and the NEP-style order he defended may turn out to have been, after all, the true prefiguration of the Communist future --- the alternative to Stalinism after Stalin.'

 .

Ibid. , p. 386.

Gorbachev,  basing himself on these `vanguard experiences' of the Eastern European countries during the sixties and the seventies, himself adopted Bukharin's  program. It goes without saying that Cohen  was welcomed with open arms by Gorbachev's  Soviet Union as the great precursor of `new thought' and `socialist renewal'.

Note also that the `Bukharin  school' has much influence in Deng Xiaoping's  China.

The Tukhachevsky trial and the anti-Communist conspiracy within the army

On May 26, 1937, Marshal Tukhachevsky  and Commanders Yakir,  Uborevich,  Eideman,  Kork,  Putna,  Feldman  and Primakov  were arrested and tried in front of a military tribunal. Their execution was announced on July 12.

They had been under suspicion since the beginning of May. On May 8, the political commissar system, used during the Civil War, was reintroduced in the army. Its reintroduction reflected the Party's fear of Bonapartist  tendencies within the army.

 .

Getty,  op. cit. , p. 167.

A May 13, 1927 Commissar of Defence directive ended the control that the political commissars had over the highest officers. The military commander was given the responsibility for `general political leadership for the purpose of complete coordination of military and political affairs in the unit'. The `political assistant' was to be responsible for `all party-political work' and was to report to the commander on the political condition of the unit.