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Leninism or Stalinism? In present-day communist newspapers Leninism is strangely reconciled with Stalinism, although there is a wide gap between them. Lenin advocated proletarian dictatorship, that is overall arming of masses, and he advocated the destruction of professional army and police. Under Stalin people were disarmed strictly, while military and police were the caste of armed men who ruled over the society. Lenin advocated the right of nations to self-determination up to separation. Stalin has suppressed national liberation movements in Caucasus, Central Asia, West Ukraine and Baltic countries by force of arms. He waged the predatory war against Finland and occupied Iran in 1941. Lenin named the plan of creation of Soviet Union “completely erroneous and untimely” (see Lenin, Complete works (Russian-language edition), 5th edition, 45th volume, the article “K voprosu ob avtonomizatsii” (“On the issue of autonomization”)), because that Union was based on brute force and it was the empire in fact. Stalin has kept that article from the people, furthermore, he lied, that the plan of creation of Soviet Union is the idea of Lenin and Stalin (see “The brief course of VKP(b)’s history”). Present-day “communists” continue to lie in the same way: instead of advocating freedom to peoples of Caucasus and Central Asia, they call to return to Soviet colonial empire. Lenin advocates peace without annexations (violent seizure of foreign lands) and indemnities (extortions from beaten peoples). Stalin carried out both annexations (East Europe and Tuva) and indemnities (from the peoples of Germany, Austria, Romania and Finland) as a result of World War II. Lenin said that both imperialist blocs are responsible for world war and it is unimportant what power attacked first and at which territory the war is waged. But Stalin made Germany, Italy and Japan responsible for World War II and relieved USA, Great Britain, Soviet Union and France of all responsibility. Lenin spared the blood of working people, he have made the peace in Brest, while Stalin has driven people as far as Berlin. Lenin advocated the decomposition of village community and the freedom of peasants to leave the community as primary condition of the rapid growth of economy, while Stalin has restored the serfdom in the villages, driving peasants into kolkhozes (collective farms) by force and forbidding peasants leaving kolkhoz. Lenin said, following Marx, that the transition from the serfdom to socialism passes through the development of capitalism, and proposed to develop capitalism in Russia under the leadership of proletarian dictatorship. Stalin lied that Russia have entered into socialism bypassing capitalism, although all features of capitalism were presented: commodity-money relations, contradiction between town and village, between mental and physical work; although Soviet Russia still lagged behind developed capitalist countries in economical sense, while socialism is higher formation than capitalism. Stalin’s lie was kept on by Khrushchevists who lied that there is socialism in our country. Today this lie is used by bourgeois scribblers in order to prescribe attribute the defects of Soviet order, which in fact was capitalist order, to socialism. Although, as a matter of fact, socialism is not a thing of the past, it is a thing of the future. Life reveals wrong theories. Thus, it revealed Stalin’s theory of socialism in USSR too. Indeed, if there was socialism in our country, it wouldn’t change into capitalism as a result of its development, because socialism is higher stage in comparison with capitalism. Lenin opposed god-building and god-seeking, while Stalin shortly after the Lenin’s death became to make the god out of Lenin (and out of himself too), playing on religious prejudices of the people, instead of exposing them. Modern “communists” play on religious prejudices too, inserting Stalin’s portraits, which occupy the half of page, and laudatory articles about “wise and great leader”. “One should read Lenin, not esteem” – Krupskaya [Lenin’s wife] said. The same can be said about Stalin. Modern “communists”, who praise Stalin, forgot what he wrote. Though he betrayed the ideas of Leninism, but, on the other hand, Stalin was talented popularizer of Marxism-Leninism, who stated Bolshevik ideas for masses by simple, understandable language. Many communists forgot, for example, that Stalin considered the struggle of Afghan emir for the independence from British imperialism as revolutionary struggle, in spite of monarchical views of emir and in spite of the lack of revolutionary-democratic program (see “About the foundations of Leninism”). They forgot it and are seethed with anger against Islamic revolution at North Caucasus and Central Asia which is directed against Russian imperialism. Let’s say a few words about Stalin’s repressions. Bourgeois propaganda cries much about them in order to divert the attention from brutal repressions which ruling fascist regime commits today – much more brutal than Stalin’s ones. But, on the other hand, it is wrong to justify Stalin’s repressions, because they served not for the cause of proletariat, but for the cause of strengthening of the young Soviet imperialism before World War II. Criticizing Stalinism we must said a few words about Trotskyism. On the one hand, Trotsky criticized Stalin for great-power chauvinism, but he did it inconsistently, not from Marxist-Leninist positions. In World War I, when Lenin advocated the defeat of the “own” government, Trotsky put forward the slogan “neither victory nor defeat”, i.e. neither enslave peoples any more, nor give the freedom to those peoples which are already under the yoke of Russian Czarism. Lenin exposed Trotsky’s position and argued that such line is advantageous to Czar, landlords and capitalists. Trotsky held such wrong line later too. In 1941, when World War II began (already after Trotsky’s death), Trotskyites, on the one hand, recognized that Stalin’s regime is bureaucratic, police one, at the same time advocates the defense of USSR (see “The Bulletin of Opposition”), the defense of that regime. Trotsky and his followers, calling themselves “Leninists”, never recalled, that Lenin opposed the establishing of Soviet Union. So, Trotskyism and Stalinism are closely related, in spite of the squabbles between Stalin and Trotsky. Both Trotskyism and Stalinism are vulgarizations of Leninism. A. G. November, 2002
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