towards armed struggle in those con- perialism; and if they developed a He also points out that there democratic system at home. But genuine internationalism in these are largely dreams at the n Europe. Although he does present moment. mention this explicitly, the The Cubans are clearly in a diffias have known for some years cult position. Russia is the only & to cut their aid to cuba. way in which Czechs have hope they have. They represent the brightest hope for socialism throughof the material supplied to out the world and are more conhas been bad: and he reveals scious than any of us of the dangers le first time that Yugoslavia of imerialism. Our reaction should repared to sell arms to Batista not be to disassociate ourselves from 8 but refused to sell arms to them, They have not "sold out", nor evolutionary Government in do they support the justificatory lies put our by Tass The task is, as re is much in Fidel's speech Fidel does, to withdraw the political revolutionary socialists in lessons of the Czech events. His suprn Europe can support. He port for the Russians, far from the correct lessons from the representing the abandonment by ention; he makes a thorough Cuba of its revolutionary position, le of the bureaucratic state. is in his opinion a consistent and he central issue is less clear: militant reaffirmation of it. We can, 80cia 18m Czechoslovakia nevertheless, disagree.
Dwarf Foreign Correspondents
Evidence is beginning to mount of a secret Chinese Note I was sent to the Soviet Union soon after the invasion of oslovakia by the Warsaw Pact countries. In this the Chinese aid to have issued an extremely serious warning to the Soviet tucracy regarding Rumania. The latter is the only Communist ry in Europe barring Albania with whom the Chinese have tained friendly relations. The message seems to have been placed on alert and more troops were massed after a 4-hour ng in Peking between the Chinese Prime Minister, Choui, and the Rumanian Ambassador in Peking. It was also the anians who gave Peking details of the invasion of Czechokia. if past behaviour is any guide the Chinese threat is fairly ble. At the time of the Indo-Pakistan conflict in 1965 a - known that if the Indian troops harassed East Pakistan h is separated from the rest of Pakistan by 1000 miles of n territory) China would intervene. The warning was enough. Also the ferocity of the Chinese reaction to the occupation troops HOTO Czechoslovakia poses critical questions for the international workers' movement. The bourgeois press have had a field day aligning themselves with the "heroic struggles of the Dubcek regime" The discredited British Labour Party miraculously found a conscience years of silence over Vietnam and even paraded their cynicism in Hyde Park. The British Communist Party, still silent over the arrests of Left Wing Student leaders in France, found themselves unable to align themselves with their old scoutmasters, while their French counterparts, who in May betrayed • revolution and handed back occupied factories to the bourgeoisie, voiced their inde pendent disapproval. It's been many years since such a disreputable band found such a common unity. But it is in precisely this unity that the real lack of analysis of the crisis reveals itself. What brings these odd bedfellows together is not their solidarity but their confusion. Never before has the absence of Marxist theory been so keenly felt and never before has there been such a vital need for the Left Opposition.
What is this crisis? It is the crisis of the Stalinist bureaucracy. What is Stalinism? It was a word found on the lips of many a demonstrator at Hyde Park and the Russian Embassy.
To the liberal, the social democrat, it spells repression, censorship, the police state.
To the capitalist it is a weapon used to dicoredit Commaniem oppose bourgeois freedom with red enslavement.
To the British Communist Party it was some historical period in the development of Soviet socialism which officially and miraculously came to an end after Kruschev's speech at the 20th Party Congress.
CHE De-Stalinisation The rise of the bureaucracy and invasion of Czechoslovakia. existence were heralded by Party its embodiment in Stalin must be The Czech ruling bureaucracy Members who saw no contradiction seen in the context of the historical moves towards liberalising policies in their previous silence over the processes of the Soviet revolution. which undoubtedly veered towards decades. Several factors lead to this expres- the capitalist road yet at the same Such analyses are crude, reflect- sion; the inheritance of an indus- time opened up the possibility of opposition and dissent. The Stalinhistory. problems; the failure of the German ists in the Kremlin responded with By Stalinism we mean the bureau- revolution of "19 intensified these tanks and the liberal Stalinists of cratic state, a deformation of the problems; and isolated the first . the Czech regime were forced to workers' state, a dictatorship of the workers state: internally the con- compromise. They cannot shift from bureaucracy rather than the dictator- between the DCAST the axis of repression. Now Dubcek • ship of the proletariat, a degenera- and the proletariat brought to the for all his tears is forced to confront tion of the principles of Bolshevik forefront economic contradictions the people with an unsatisfactory Leninism. at their sharpest. In the compromise. With a whole people Clues the What we saw in the Soviet Union proletariat strove to consolidate and mobilised decisions were still taken under Stalin was the rise develop their gains, while in the behind closed doors by the leading bureaucracy, the turn away from countryside the kulaks and back- bureaucrats. And Dubcek could internationalism nationalism, ward elements peasantry only offer the people the advice, from the world revolutionary move- turned towards counter-revolution "Avoid trouble and leave the job ment. and capitalist enterprise. Such con- of government to us."
What characterises the bureau- tradictions were reflected in the "The job of Government." How cratic section of Soviet society is its Bolshevik party. The left urged for far from Lenin to this! social parasitism. It lives off the collectivisation of the land while How far from "A developed and workers in the way that a trade the right moved towards the con- stable dictatorship of the proletariat union lives off the workers. It is not in- offieial in western countries the constant threat of intervention solation of the peasantry. Finally presupposes tions in the leading role as a self- that the party funevolved in the processes of produc- from the capitalist countries enabled acting vanguard; that the proletariat tion intermediary. but functions as a political As mediator it must the party to manipulate and come to bureaucratic elements trade unions; that the toilers are welded together by means of choose the middle road of com- power. indissolubly bound up with state promise to straddle opposing forces. In the last analysis bureaucracy through the system of soviets (worTo preserve Ite own. existence it is a compromise between counter- kers' councils) and finally that the must be hostile to change, it must revolution and left opposition. What worker's state is aligned through the seek to sustain the status retain the privileges that a bureau- quo, to it fears mostly is left opposition, for it is the left opposition that • International into with the world proletariat."* a fighting unit cratic hierarchy affords. wrest power from the bureaucracy What is the cure for the deformaTo exist it can brook no opposi- back into the hands of the prole- tion of the workers state that we tion from left or right. To assert its tariat, thus making the apparatus now see in Eastern Europe and the influence it must resort to oppres- redundant. Yet the Soviet Union? The cure is through sion, tyranny, the apparatus of the manipulates fears of counter-revoluunder the banner of nolice state These are the inevit- tion, based on a historical reality to Marxism. Through the creation of able expressions of domination. But justify oppression of all forms international revolutionary parties they are merely symptoms. To prune dissent. So it was that most of the of the world's proletariat, through them as in the much-vaunted de- leaders of the Bolshevik revolution the ruthless criticism of the Stalinist Stalinisation programme of arrested and executed for bureaucracy and its parties. This is Kruschev, was to ignore the root couner revolution by Stalin the only way to the true proletarian cause. The bureaucratic state still Thus the action of the bureau- revolution, the overthrow of remained intact, and still does. It cracy is limited to the contradiction and its twin conniver, still the model for the Soviet between left opposition and counter- Stadinism. Union the Eastern European revolution. has no alternative bloc, still the model for the Western possibility. Nowhere is this more * Trotsky: The Class Nature Communist parties. clearly damonctrated than the of the Soviet State"
NOTE Cape/Lorimer are printing a different Marxist-humanist principles, distorted for 20 years by conservative pression, was seen by many, regretfully, that they would have to fight Communists. To this there was inevitably no reply. Maybe a paternal militarily for their freedom. Thus smile appreciate why we came" or just an and a "one day you will slogans like CCCP"* began appearing. "Vietnam — USA The order from an officer to his men to message was clear -now two imperialisms would have to be conmove on.
- fronted at the same time - - perhaps This propaganda work by the soon by the same methods. Some students were consciously planned Wanted to fight immediately but from the beginning in an attempt to were won by the logic of playing all undermine the morale of the their political cards - by now most soldiers. They were not optimistic of them have been exhausted. Most that they would achieve their results were firm that they would accept no they argued that resistance compromise and in this sense would action was necessary to maintain be to the left of Dubcek should he the morale of young people. They do so. In fact most young people had by no means a monopoly of in Czechoslovakia are inspired by this work. The citizens of Prague Cisar, who they ran as a candidate spontaneously massed around tanks for president against Svoboda. They and armoured cars sometimes using were heartened to hear he had the language of harassment, someescaped from his Russian captors times using language designed to and was underground. It is necessary find an entry through the well- to say that many are to the left of instilled Pravda cliches. The unique- Cisar. ness of the student effort was that This experience for the students they were well aware of the fact that provocation could lead to volatile and youth will have many effects. incidents and shootings, and they For the previously uncommitted, used language designed specifically unconcerned, of which there were for soldiers. "In 1917 Russian they would call upon their Socialist they will give them first allegiance soldiers went home from the trenches to a "nationalist" politic rather than to make a revolution. How do you La socialist ideal. However Dabcek's explain your actions in 1968" How effective this work was it is difficult strength and popularity in this disto say. In the North, Polish soldiers pute may lead them to Czechorefused to enter some towns when slovakia's particular socialist posithey realised what was happening. tion. To those university students In Prague a Russian soldier shot who understand the problem himself at the C.P. H.Q. in protest power, and the distortions of revolutionary Marxist idealism in Eastern against the occupation.
Europe, this will only strengthen The activities of the students over the first few days were seriously their urgency in fighting Russian internal and external totalitarianism. hapered by the fact that several of Whether they win or not will depend their official representatives were on many factors, one of which will out of the country explaining Czech be the latent intellectual revolutiongovernment policy in continuing the "unfinished revolution". Also thAn ary countries. What is certain to them forces in other established student body as a whole was on is that victory will not depend on holidays. Thus as a catalyst they were somewhat impotent. rhetoric and sanctions of Western statesmen. Neanderthal man However over the three days must give way to liberated socialist there was a debate about the impli(Organisation for American Victims of moral and political persecution) It is obvious from recent events in that an organisation be ready to America culminating in the happen- help in the events of these people ings in Chicago at the Democratic having enve their homeland
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on't invade Rumania Peking warns Moscow
e: if the Soviet Union invaded Rumania then the Chinese 1 come to their aid even if it meant opening a second front ongolia. Certainly Chinese troops on the Mongolian border
st from Pakistan for help was answered within three days by hinese who massed their troops on the Indian border and let
ing a good man-bad man theory of trially backward state posed serious