The
ferocious anti-communist campaign is continuing. Everywhere, the bourgeoisie is
using all means at its disposal, and that means ALL, to attack the communist
forces, and especially the very idea of communism. That is to say, not only have
they caused us, in some places more than in others, serious losses, in some
cases even leading to the pure and simple elimination of the party, but they
have tried to erase the historical memory of the peoples, or at least to distort
it so as to make it unrecognizable. They put forth the cynical phrase: "a
slander that something remains."
One
of the latest examples of this vile campaign is the "Black Book of
Communism," published in France by Laffont publishers, by a team of
"historians" headed by one StJphane Courtois and others, among whom
are to be found, of course!, various ex-communists, those who fatten "the
industry of renegades" (Benedetti). As far as I know, this book has only
been published, until now, in France and Italy (it will soon come out in Spain),
but the echo of the inevitable controversy has reached here.
From
the excerpts printed by the Madrid papers, these historians, known as
"revisionists," in order to combat and denigrate the communists and
the communist ideal, employ the same methods as were used to try to rehabilitate
the 3rd Reich: deny the evidence itself, distort the facts, lie and slander. The
crematoria? Pure anti-German propaganda; The gas chambers? They did not exist,
etc., etc. The anti-communist "revisionist" historians are no less
crude, they are the equal of their colleagues in cynicism and falsehood. Thus we
see that they present the Communist Manifesto, the October Revolution, the
liquidation of the tsarist empire and the seizure of power by the people led by
the communists, as mere incidents. Such incidents are the exploits of the
"Aurora", or the International Brigades in Spain, or the Long March in
China, or the red flag over the Reichstag, in the heart of Nazi Germany... For
them, there were only purges, "gulags," Budapest in 1956, Tien An Men
Square, etc. in an abominable historical-ideological-political mishmash.
It
used to be said that things appear different depending on the color of the glass
through which they are looked at. In this case, we find ourselves in front of a
distorting mirror of enormous dimensions. By way of example, let us take what
has been confirmed recently in Madrid by Mr. Rubial, Chair of the PSOE
[Socialist Workers Party of Spain, the party of Felipe Gonzalez, of the GAL
[Anti-terrorist Groups for Liberation] the 29 assassinations, the robbery at a
state level, the fraud and swindle). This person claims with all audacity that
from the start of the German-Soviet Pact (August of 1939), "the communists
began to say that Hitler's ideology was the best for the workers" (Madrid
daily El Pais, January of 1998). Such nonsense does not deserve us wasting a
single line of our magazine (here we are referring to our journal October). But
one must stress that there was not a single protest, not a single article
against such a scoundrel, not a single refutation, nothing, despite the fact
that it was published in the daily newspaper with the widest circulation in
Spain.
It
is evident that this slander, as so many others, is seen as a challenge by the
bourgeoisie, by reaction, and to judge by their silence, it also does not
disturb the CP of Julio Anguita, nor any of those who still call themselves
communists with whom we have had serious differences for years. This attitude of
the revisionists reminds us that it is one thing to make alliances and
agreements on concrete issues, even within a sort of united front, which can
lead to a "United Left", agreements and alliances which can be
tactically correct and even necessary; but it is another thing to downplay, to
reduce the level of the ideological confrontation. We can not fall into the trap
of hushing up the ideological struggle because the bourgeoisie puts us all into
the same bag.
It
is true that the anti-communist campaign does not make a distinction between
Marxist-Leninists and revisionists, between parties which were in Power and
those which are in opposition, between legal and clandestine parties. The blows
concern all of us, although in certain cases we have taken this into account a
little late. This can help bring about joint responses in certain aspects, but
not in all. And of course, in no case can it lead us to keep quiet about our
ideological positions, however much we have to work together with them in
concrete situations.
One
of the "arguments" used by these historians is that, communism is
certainly worse than Nazism, and therefore it must be hit harder. Looked at from
a class point of view, they are right: for the bourgeoisie communism is the real
enemy, since Nazism is nothing more than a concrete form in concrete situations
of capitalism itself. This has been shown clearly in the case of Spain. Franco
was isolated after the Second World War, not so much for his terrible repression
of the Spanish people, for his treachery towards the legally elected Republic,
as for his collaboration and support of the Nazi-fascist Axis during the war.
But
rapidly, with the advent of the so-called cold war, the bourgeois governments
abandoned their hypocritical scruples and supported the Franco dictatorship, for
its savage anti-communism. Franco appeared as a standard-bearer of
anti-communism and defender of "Western civilization." That is to say,
for the bourgeoisie Franco in the final analysis was their product, while
communism in general was the enemy to be eliminated. Or, as it is said that a
U.S. president said about the dictator of Nicaragua: "Somoza is a
son-of-a-bitch, but he is our son-of-a-bitch."
In
this anti-communist campaign, which is causing such damage, the bourgeoisie is
making full use of the weapon of the means of communication and disinformation.
It does not use carefully elaborated arguments, but bombards one continually,
without stopping, monotonously, with made-up phrases and stereotyped schemas.
Let us not be deceived, they have been able to convince some and make others
vacillate; they sow pessimism and defeatism. They use slander and falsehood and
sow demoralization.
Therefore
we can not let down our guard. These divisive attempts that we have experienced
recently in some countries are in good part the fruit of this
counter-revolutionary seed. Theories of catastrophes have arisen which, without
saying so, deny the validity of Marxism and under the pretext of
"enriching" their analysis come to conclusions which they will later
use to justify their treason. They use the pretext that this or that phrase -
always taken out of context, of course - is not completely correct, to reject
the whole thing. As if Marx or Lenin were gods who were not allowed to make the
smallest mistake!
One
can not deny that the communist movement, as a whole, is passing through an ebb
period, and in various aspects, of retrogression (this happened in Spain, for
sure). However, these blows that we have suffered do not mean that reaction has
achieved a definitive triumph over communism. It has not achieved this, nor will
it, because the march of history, with all its ups and downs, is moving in the
opposite direction. For this reason, because reaction knows that the communist
ideals are alive, it must maintain and develop this ferocious anti-communist
ideological campaign, using all the means at its disposal, including traitors
and degenerates.
The
bourgeoisie, with its ideologues of various labels, tries to sow pessimism among
the peoples, the idea that "one can not do anything," it says clearly
that rebellion is impossible, that the revolution has failed "as the
collapse of the USSR and the socialist camp proves." The anti-communist
campaign is aimed at disarming, in the first place, of the working class, which
is logical from a class point of view. But if we look around us, and it seems to
me that it is not only the case of Spain, if it is the case that the workers are
struck in the first place, it is also the workers who are resisting these
attacks best. At times they remain without arguments, they do not know how to
respond, but they maintain themselves firm along general lines. On the other
hand, the petty bourgeoisie, a good part of those intellectuals who previously
considered themselves "red," are the most vacillating, they are the
ones who fall down, lose their direction and are given to philosophizing
lamentably. They separate themselves from the working class, and therefore lose
what would be the most valid reason for being, to convert themselves, some
consciously and others unconsciously, into shamefaced and shameful mouthpieces
of the bourgeoisie.
The
bourgeois monotony about "the failure of socialism," "the
impossibility of the revolution," seeks to identify the degenerate States
of the former socialist camp with the idea of communism and revolution. And
these petty bourgeois strata also fall into that trap, strata that are always
vacillating, but which definitively "end up playing the game of the
bourgeoisie" (Engels). It is again a crude but dangerous distortion. What
collapsed was not socialism, what had failed was not the noble ideals of
communism. Nor is this a new distortion:
"Our
opponents cry out about the collapse of socialism... What is dying at this hour
is not socialism in general, but a brand of socialism, a saccharine socialism
without the spirit of idealism and without passion, with the manners of a
governmental office-holder, and with the paunch of a respectable paterfamilias;
a socialism without audacity or frenzy, a devotee of statistics, up to its neck
in amicable agreements with capitalism; a socialism preoccupied only with
reforms; a socialism that has sold its birthright for a mess of pottage; a
socialism that controls people's impatience in order to aid the bourgeoisie - a
sort of automatic brake on audacious proletarian action." (Paul Golay,
quoted by Lenin in "The Voice of an Honest French Socialist,"
[Collected Works, Vol. 21, pp. 350-51].)
Years
have passed and the circumstances have changed a lot, but it is still clear that
it is not socialism that collapsed, but that form of opportunism rooted in the
USSR. The USSR that collapsed noisily has nothing to do with the USSR that shook
off the chains of tsarism, which, with the heroic spirit of its workers and
peasants headed by the communists, began to build socialism, it is not the USSR
that defeated Nazism. It was not the State created by Lenin and the Bolsheviks.
Those
countries, the USSR, Hungary, Poland, etc., etc., had ceased to be socialist,
their governments had fallen into the hands of bureaucratic cliques which,
little by little, were eliminating the socialist gains and achievements of their
peoples and of the communists; cliques which ended up converting themselves into
a new bourgeois class, with their own interests alien to those of the people;
which transformed the dictatorship of the proletariat (or proletarian democracy)
into a dictatorship of the apparatus over the proletariat.
We
have to recognize that we have suffered a setback; it is useless to deny it. A
setback which has much to do with our own errors. It is also useless to deny
this. But that is another subject. It is a question of seeing how to face more
efficiently the anti-communist offensive. The philosopher Carlos Paris was right
when he said:
"Should
the left resign itself to bowing to the inevitable before this situation,
looking for a little corner in which we can put some balm on injustice and
repression? Or should it continue its criticism and its historical struggle to
transform the world and to create a new society? It seems to me that the answer
is transparently clear."
Despite
the difficulties suffered, we should not fall into pessimism. Moreover, we are
overcoming the difficulties and problems which have tormented us. Little by
little we are getting out of the tunnel. Everywhere our parties and
organizations are registering advances, in some places vigorously, in others
slowly, but we are moving forward. One of the factors, in my judgement, of this
movement is in the formation of the Conference of M-L Parties and Organisations.
It is true that there are many things holding us back, that there are still
ambiguities and a lack of definitions in various aspects, that there are
organizational and functional deficiencies. Nevertheless, the little that we
have already achieved lets us look to the future with lucid optimism.
With
a common effort, we will let the Conference move forward, develop and assume a
much more important role, more effective (perhaps in the beginning only in
orientation), in the ideological as well as the organizational sphere.
And
returning to the anti-communist campaign, it would be very positive to
coordinate our efforts and responses, responses which should not limit us to
reaffirming our principles, but also:
1-
Delimiting clearly the boundaries between communists and social-democrats.
2-
Regaining possession of the achievements of the past, beginning with the Great
October Revolution, and without forgetting a principal aspect of our conception
of the struggle, which is international solidarity, of which the glorious and
heroic International Brigades are just one example.
3-
Centering our propagandistic efforts among the working class and the popular
sectors (giving special attention to the youth), and not leaving aside the
intellectuals who, at a particular time, can play an important role.
It
is evident that these three points (they do not have to be the only ones, or
perhaps even the most important ones) can be separated. The subjects are vast,
as is the work that we have ahead of us. Our forces are scarce, in some places
more than in others, and our development is unequal (dialectically it could not
be otherwise). It seems to me that the unity of efforts, despite the problems
that endure, will help us to clear the road. "... the answer is
transparently clear."
Raul
Marco
March 1998
Communist
Organisation October of Spain