this is done under the slogan of ``bringing socialism closer
to democracy''.
theories
and
critical
studies
[4]
Translated from the Russian
Contributing authors: V. Artyomov, E. Batalov,
Anti-communism is imperialism's ideology and policy directed against socialism, the revolutionary working-class movement and all other democratic forces. It dates back to the days when the working-class movement became organised and began its struggle against capitalist exploitation and bourgeois rule. Today, as in those days, anti-communism is used as a weapon for holding up social advancement. Its aim is to split the revolutionary forces and undermine socialism. The growing international influence exercised by the socialist community and Marxism-Leninism compels modern imperialism to resort to new and diverse forms of anti-communism. Seen from this angle, it becomes crystalclear that present-day anti-communism mirrors the deepgoing crisis of bourgeois ideology. Anti-communism is imperialism's principal ideological and political instrument, whose purpose is to slander the socialist system and misrepresent the policy and aims of the Communist parties and the teaching of Marxism-Leninism. Under the spurious slogans of anti-communism imperialist reaction persecutes and intimidates all advanced, revolutionary movements and endeavours to sow dissension among the working people and paralyse the militancy of the working class. All the enemies of social progress---the financial oligarchy, the military, the fascists, the reactionary clericals, the colonialists, the landowners, and all the ideological and political 8 __RUNNING_HEADER_LEFT__ CONTEMPORARY ANTI-COMMUNISM: POLICY AND IDEOLOGY accomplices of imperialist reaction---have now united under this black banner. Determined opposition to anti-communism is one of the conditions for the success of the genuinely democratic and communist movement. The eminent German author and humanist Thomas Mann called anti-communism the most colossal absurdity of our epoch.
Anti-communism spells out not only slander against the scientific philosophy of the working class but also ruthless persecution and suppression of its most consistent spokesmen: Communists, democrats and other fighters for social advancement. In the class struggle anti-communism is used not only against the Communists but also against the working masses, against progressive mankind as a whole. However, it is spearheaded first and foremost against the revolutionary vanguard of the anti-imperialist forces and seeks to isolate the Communists from the people and use every possible means for suppressing the international communist movement.
The first practical experience of the organised struggle of the proletariat's vanguard was generalised by Marx and Engels in the Introduction to the Manifesto of the Communist Party, in which it is stated: ``A spectre is haunting Europe---the spectre of communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre... = .''^^1^^ In the subsequent decades the class battles have shown that with the growth of the class struggle of the proletariat and its organised movement the methods employed by anti-communism become more subtle. The ruling circles of the bourgeoisie have never abandoned every possible means which they feel can safeguard the outworn capitalist social system. They fight the Communist and Workers' parties, and every democratic movement that threatens capitalist rule, not shrinking from physically destroying Communists and democrats.
Although the substance of anti-communism has remained unchanged at all the phases of history, its forms have been modified. Under the impact of the mounting influence of 9 __RUNNING_HEADER_RIGHT__ STRATEGY OF IMPERIALISM AND PRESENT-DAY ANTI-COMMUNISM socialism and the revolutionary working-class movement, when it is becoming increasingly more obvious that capitalism is on the defensive, the ruling circles of the bourgeoisie have to adapt themselves to the new situation. This, naturally, limits the possibility for open forms of anticommunist policy and ideology. For that reason, alongside undisguised, violent forms of anti-communism they have recourse to more flexible methods, combining frontal assaults with efforts to ``soften'' socialism and erode it from within.
Time has distinctly brought to light the following phases of anti-communism.
The first phase embraced the period from the rise of the communist movement to the October Socialist Revolution in Russia. During that period the ruling classes used primitive anti-communism, chiefly in the form of anti-Marxism, in their striving to subordinate the working-class movement to bourgeois influence and obstruct the formation and growth of independent parties of the proletariat.
Following the Paris Commune the ruling classes resorted to every possible slander and falsification in order to halt the spread of revolutionary Marxism in the international revolutionary movement. By portraying the revolutionary spokesmen of the working class as ``enemies of the state'', ``traitors'', ``homeless tramps'', ``criminals'' and = __NOTE__ Missing `` before murderers ``murderers'' seeking to shake the foundations of the family, society, civilisation and morals, they counted on stopping the offensive of the revolutionary working-class movement.
Lies, slander, bans, persecution, imprisonment, exile and violence failed to hold up Marxism's advance and its further development in Marxism-Leninism. Working-class organisations grew stronger and, finally, in the early 20th century the working class of Russia with Lenin at its head created the first party of a new type. Thus, alongside objective conditions the subjective prerequisites matured for the overthrow of capitalism, which had by then entered its imperialist stage of development.
10However, the ruling bourgeoisie of the imperialist states had no intention of surrendering its positions without a battle. On the contrary, the development of the first phase of capitalism's general crisis and the victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution and the advance of socialism in the Soviet Union marked the beginning of the second phase of anti-communism.
The most prominent specific of that phase was that as a result of socialism's successful development the contradiction between socialism and imperialism became the principal contradiction of the new epoch. Anti-communism's distinctive feature is that it has always been directed against the leading revolutionary forces. Since from the moment of its establishment the Soviet state led by the Communist Party showed that it was the main force of the world revolutionary process, anti-Sovietism became the core of anticommunism. For all reactionaries, beginning from the fascists and ending with the ``Left'' opportunists, antiSovietism became a hallmark determining the substance of their reactionary, anti-socialist policy and ideology. It evolved into the predominant state doctrine in the imperialist countries.
Acting on the recommendations of Winston Churchill, who urged a war against ``Bolshevik tyranny'' as early as 1917, imperialist leaders embarked upon a crusade against historical progress, against socialism.
Fascism, which aims at exterminating Communists and all other consistent democrats and forcibly uprooting MarxistLeninist ideals from people's minds, has been the most open and inhuman form of anti-communism. Its rise to power in Germany was the first direct step toward the political, ideological and military preparations for the Second World War. The world will never forget fascism's crimes, its monstrous persecution, barbarous torture and extermination of Communists and other fighters for democracy, against imperialism. This was all done under the guise of fighting communism. But the results of the second phase of 11 anti-communism proved even more strikingly than hitherto that the anti-communist stand of the imperialist bourgeoisie has no future. Fascism's defeat led to the emergence of the world socialist community and struck another blow at the ideology and policy of anti-communism.
But the weakening of imperialism's positions by no means signified that its ideological champions were prepared to lay down their arms. They persisted in their efforts to reanimate anti-communism and make it more effective by resorting to new forms and methods.
The third phase of anti-communism, which began after the Second World War, was characterised by an intensifying struggle between imperialism and socialism, which had spread beyond the frontiers of one country and developed into a world system. A new wave of anti-communism swept across the world as a result of the cold war policy pursued in those years by the imperialists.
But monopoly capital and its accomplices were unable to halt the historic advance of the revolutionary forces, much less reverse it. By the end of the 1950s it had become obvious that nothing had come of imperialism's design of ``rolling back'' communism by high-handed military, political and economic pressure on the socialist countries. Despite all the efforts of anti-communism, the socialist countries steadily built up their economic, political and defensive might. The cohesion of the socio-political community of socialist states and the formation of the world socialist economic system disrupted imperialism's political strategy of undermining and overthrowing the new system in at least one of these countries. The Soviet Union's scientific and technological achievements in the development of thermonuclear energy and the build-up of a powerful missile potential made it highly dangerous for the imperialists to continue using their traditional means of international policy. Socialism gave the peace forces enormous resources for curbing imperialist aggression. The untenability of the calculations on the success of the 12 ``policy of strength'' became increasingly evident to imperialism's political strategists. This was admitted by one of the architects of the policy of ``rolling back'' communism, John Foster Dulles, when in November 1956 he categorically refused to render military assistance to the counter- revolutionaries in Hungary. He declared that such interference would trigger a nuclear war.
Later imperialism was unable to hinder the victory of the revolution in Cuba and, in 1961, to prevent the GDR from exercising her sovereign rights in Berlin.
The change in the world balance of forces compelled imperialism to bring its policy and ideology into conformity with the new situation. Open military, economic and political pressure on the socialist countries gradually gave way to a policy of undermining the world socialist community by ``eroding'' the social system in the socialist countries and disuniting these countries and other anti-imperialist forces. The end goal of imperialism's political strategy has remained unchanged, namely, to preserve and, if possible, strengthen and enlarge capitalism's position, to disable and crush the liberation movement. Imperialism's counter-revolutionary activity, which is openly directed mainly against MarxismLeninism and its champions---the socialist countries and the Communist and Workers' parties---in fact has as its objective the suppression of all the forces fettering arbitrary rule by the imperialist bourgeoisie. It is mirrored by the propaganda and policy of various non-government and government agencies in the bourgeois states. With the development of state-monopoly capitalism, anti-communism was raised to the level of state policy in the capitalist countries. The efforts to overwhelm the socialist states and the communist movement in the capitalist world form the pivot of imperialism's political strategy. The failure of anti- communism as a result of the further growth and consolidation of the revolutionary forces and the change in the world balance of forces, which became particularly evident in the 1960s-1970s, induced imperialism to begin a feverish quest 13 for ways of adapting itself to the changing situation. To this end, imperialism's leaders are perfecting their political strategy, which more fully reflects the class aims of the monopoly bourgeoisie in the different countries, the principal orientations of the struggle to achieve these aims, and the means, methods and forms of this struggle, including their replacement and combination. As the concentrated expression of economics and politics, imperialism's anti- communist political strategy inevitably mirrors the appearance of new phenomena in these spheres.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 2. ANTI-COMMUNISM'S POLITICAL STRATEGY TODAYThe new aspects of modern capitalism's development that powerfully influence the political strategy of imperialism and determine its specifics are analysed in the documents of the 1969 Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties in Moscow, the 24th Congress of the CPSU and the congresses of other fraternal parties. Of these, the principal aspect is that imperialism has to adapt itself to the qualitative changes that have taken place in the balance of class and political forces in the world as a result of the further growth of socialism's might and its impact on the economic and political processes in capitalist countries.
Peaceful coexistence and mutually beneficial co-operation between countries with different social systems are winning ever wider recognition in international relations. This has consistently been the objective of the Soviet Union and other countries of the socialist community. The implementation of the Peace Programme, adopted by the 24th Congress of the CPSU, which outlines the concrete ways and means of relaxing world tension and ensuring the security of all nations, has eloquently demonstrated the utter hollowness of imperialism's ``positions of strength'' policy. The positive changes in USSR-US relations, the treaties signed between European socialist and capitalist countries on the 14 recognition that existing frontiers are inviolate and on the renunciation of the use of force in the settlement of international disputes, and the expansion of economic, commercial, and scientific ties between socialist and capitalist countries are convincing evidence of the switch in the development of international relations from tension and the cold war to detente and peaceful co-operation between states with different social systems. The socialist community and all the revolutionary forces are increasingly forcing on imperialism their solution of the historic dispute between the two world social systems through peaceful competition. This competition, which is unfolding against the background of the scientific and technological revolution, is influencing the whole of imperialism's present political strategy.
One of the highlights of this strategy is that imperialist leaders are making every effort to use the scientific and technological revolution to bolster the position of the old system in the struggle against socialism and other revolutionary forces. Relying on its historically preconditioned, temporary economic superiority, state-monopoly capitalism widely uses science and technology as a key instrument of its economic, political and ideological struggle against socialism. In this context state interference in the economy in the interests of monopoly capital has mounted steeply. The state has undertaken comprehensive programmes of research not only in technology but also in economics and politics. Parallel with their quest for the forms and methods of long-term regulation of the capitalist economy on a national and an international scale, the capitalist countries are trying to find the ways and means of exercising a longterm influence on social relations, on the class struggle at home and on the international scene.
As a result, imperialism's political strategy is becoming more complex and purposeful, embracing an ever-wider area of social life. With the growth of the ramified state mechanism and the spread of its operation to new spheres of economic life and social relations state-monopoly 15 capitalism enlarges the possibilities of its large-scale anti- communist activities, for which it utilises all the means at its disposal, including the achievements of the scientific and technological revolution. The activities of the bourgeois political parties are acquiring an increasingly anti-communist orientation. Innumerable specialised anti-communist organisations, operating in the most diverse areas of social life, are springing up. State-monopoly capitalism uses the large state apparatus and the mass media for its anti-communist policies and propaganda. Imperialism's long-term, comprehensive political strategy covers economic, military and foreign policy, propaganda in individual countries and in international relations.
Here the bourgeois social sciences are beginning to play a growing role. State-monopoly capitalism's need for recommendations founded on knowledge of the actual situation is fostering the numerical growth of specialised research centres.
In the US, over 200 centres devise imperialism's anticommunist strategy and tactics. In West Germany there are nearly 100 centres of this kind. Scores of such institutions function in Britain. The socialist countries and the international communist movement are minutely studied in France and some other capitalist countries. In addition to national centres, there are international research institutions that work on problems of anti-communist strategy and tactics. One of them is the Atlantic Institute in Paris set up on NATO funds.
Anti-communist theorists draw up not only situation reviews but also long-term forecasts and formulate conclusions and recommendations providing the ``scientific'' basis for global anti-communist policy and propaganda. For instance, no sooner had Peking broken the unity of the socialist countries and begun to pursue a policy hostile to the Soviet Union than the Columbia Research Institute on Communist Affairs, headed by Zbigniew Brzezinski, began drawing up recommendations on the forms and methods of stimulating 16 the ``erosion'' of socialism. As soon as ``Leftist'' elements became active in the revolutionary movement in Latin American countries, a House Subcommittee in Washington recommended, on the basis of a report from a team of experts, that the appropriate US agencies use ``Leftist'' and ``ultra-Leftist'' elements against the Communist parties.
To give its anti-communist strategy a theoretical foundation imperialism enlists the services of many bourgeois scholars and politicians, who by joint effort seek to evolve the ways and means of weakening and undermining the revolutionary forces opposed to imperialism.
These theorists of anti-communism are working in three main directions.
First, they are evolving increasingly more subtle forms and methods of falsifying Marxism-Leninism and slandering socialist society and the Communist parties. They misrepresent the theory of scientific communism, counterposing what they call ``humane socialism'' and ``new'', ``national'' models of socialism to existing socialism and endeavouring to neutralise the programmes of the Communist parties of capitalist countries with allegations that Marxism-Leninism is a purely ``local'' phenomenon and that it is unsuitable for the ``civilised'' West.
Second, they construct various concepts designed to build a ``scientific'' foundation for the policy of the imperialist states toward the socialist countries, the countries of the Third World and the working-class movement in the industrialised capitalist states.
The 1969 International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties noted that pseudo-scientific constructions, such as the ``convergence'' theory, served exactly that purpose. It was pointed out that imperialism was using the ``convergence'' and ``industrial society'' theories in its efforts to undermine the positions of the working class and socialism and persuade the working people that by an `` internal evolution of socialism'' and some ``modernisation of 17 capitalism'' it would be possible to achieve a mutually acceptable synthesis of the two opposing social systems. But when by the beginning of the 1970s the course of world history, particularly the enhanced unity and solidarity of the socialist community, and the progress made by socialist economic integration had demonstrated the hollowness of the `` convergence'' theory, the anti-communist theorists advanced new ideological constructions.
The ``convergence'' theory was augmented with the concepts of ``post-industrial'' or ``technetronic'' society. Ignoring the class content of social processes and proclaiming scientific and technological advancement as the principal factor of history, the architects of these concepts proceed from the assumption that mankind's---particularly the socialist countries'---gradual ``de-ideologisation'' is inevitable under the impact of the scientific and technological revolution and spearhead their theories against scientific socialism. According to Zbigniew Brzezinski, author of the ``technetronic society'' theory, by the year 2000 the world will be divided into five groups of countries differing solely by their scientific and technological level and led by the most advanced post-industrial states of the technetronic era (the USA and others). He maintains that the socialist system is inconsistent with the requirements of scientific progress. The duty of the ``advanced countries'', he says, is to ``create a propitious climate for the positive evolution of the East European political systems and, eventually, within the Soviet Union = itself''^^2^^. The purpose of such theories is to use the detente in Europe and the expanding economic, scientific and technological co-operation between capitalist and socialist countries for ideological subversion in the socialist states in order to initiate their ``de-ideologisation''.
Third, increasing prominence is being given to evolving alternative ideology and policy which would replace scientific communism and enable the imperialist bourgeoisie to create qualitatively new means of combating socialism.
A specific of imperialism's present political strategy is that
__PRINTERS_P_17_COMMENT__ 2---2810
18
it increasingly acquires a global character. Over half a
century ago, in analysing imperialism's trend toward the
creation of international alliances against the liberation
movement, Lenin noted the emergence on this foundation of
imperialism's international anti-communist strategy as a
concentrated expression of the monopoly bourgeoisie's
international class interests. Drawing attention to the
inexorable internationalisation of capital and foreseeing the
inevitable growth of the class solidarity of the imperialists
in their savage struggle against socialism, Lenin called this
``the main economic trend of the capitalist =
system''.^^3^^ The
imperialist forces of different countries now strive more
than ever before to work out a common political strategy
that would take the international experience of the class
struggle into account and be directed against the
international communist movement.
In their efforts to chart a common political strategy against world socialism, the working-class movement and the national liberation revolutions, the imperialists are trying to use the internationalisation of economic life that has been speeded up by the scientific and technological revolution, the accelerated formation of multinational monopolies, state-monopoly capitalism's spread beyond national boundaries and the appearance of international state- monopoly organisations. The emergent multinational monopolies and state-monopoly associations of the bourgeoisie serve as the basis for further expanding the latter's international co-operation and framing imperialism's general strategy.
This strategy is seen in the identical aims of the political actions of capitalist states (particularly in internal policies ---anti-communist legislation, social manoeuvring), in the parallel actions of the organisations of the monopoly bourgeoisie, political parties, businessmen's associations and so on. In many ways this sort of co-ordinated action by the capitalist states is facilitated by the system of bilateral and multilateral contacts established between the bourgeois 19 governments after the Second World War. The US remains the principal economic and military power in that system of capitalist states and exercises considerable influence on the overall class strategy of the capitalist world. However, the relative strengthening of the position of some of the US partners in military blocs, particularly the appearance of a new ``power centre'' in Western Europe following the formation of the Common Market and Japan's enhanced strength, compels US imperialism to give consideration to the specific interests of other imperialist powers. Yet, US imperialism endeavours to continue influencing other capitalist countries and pursue a common policy in the main areas of the class struggle.
Imperialism's common anti-communist policy manifests itself to a still greater extent in the actions of bourgeois states and non-government organisations co-ordinated through a specially formed system of international alliances. The imperialist countries have utilised their common class political interests and the integrational processes that have been speeded up in the economy of the capitalist world by the scientific and technological revolution to build up a system of military-political and economic organisations and international state-monopoly associations having a mechanism for subordinating, to one extent or another, the interests of individual capitalist countries to the class interests of all the member-states and for pursuing a common policy.
The objective community of the imperialist bourgeoisie's ultimate class aims does not automatically lead to the coordination of the anti-communist policy of the different imperialist powers. Each pursues its own objectives. The non-coincidence of the general and specific interests of the imperialist powers, the unevenness of their economic and political development, augmented by the current scientific and technological revolution, and inter-monopoly competition are aggravating the contradictions between countries belonging to imperialist blocs. However, in a situation 20 marked by the ever sharpening struggle between the two world systems, the capitalist powers, despite the growing contradictions dividing them, strive to combine their efforts in order to preserve and strengthen the system of exploitation and oppression and retrieve the positions they have lost. For that reason imperialism's global policy is implemented as a trend pushing its way through the continued internal struggle between the members of the imperialist camp. This trend manifests itself differently relative to the different revolutionary forces and in different concrete situations.
Complete coincidence of the global anti-communist policy of the leading imperialist powers is possible in limited cases of the acute conflict between the two social systems, when fear for the future of the entire capitalist system pushes the imperialists towards maximum unity. In a situation where a day-to-day struggle is waged by international reaction against the world liberation movement, constant and farreaching co-ordination of the policies of the imperialist states is only achieved in those areas of the struggle and in those geographical regions where the common class interests of the monopoly bourgeoisie are affected most of all or where by using the processes of economic integration the bourgeoisie can find a ``common denominator'' for the conflicting interests of its various groups.
The community of imperialist policies is mirrored in the structure and activity of the agencies of the military- political and economic blocs set up to co-ordinate these policies. The system of multilateral military-political blocs embraces most of the capitalist world. These blocs are NATO, OAS, SEATO, CENTO and ANZUS. To a varying degree these blocs serve to co-ordinate the policies of their members and play dissimilar roles in imperialism's general anticommunist policy.
The most important of these blocs is the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, which includes most of the imperialist states and serves as the main instrument of aggression. The principle of military integration underlies the military 21 policy of NATO's members. A plan for the enlargement of the NATO armed forces for 1973--1977 was adopted by the NATO Council at its meeting in Brussels in December 1972. This plan emanates from the unified military doctrine, which, in its turn, springs from the common aim of the class strategy of the NATO countries' ruling circles to create a superiority in armed forces that would allow them to impose their will on the socialist countries and the world liberation movement. Despite the relaxation of tension the military budgets of the NATO states, particularly of the so-called Eurogroup, continue to grow. The five-year programme for the build-up of armaments, adopted by them in 1970, is annually overfulfilled. In the US and other NATO states great attention is accorded to the qualitative improvement of armaments and to the uninterrupted modernisation of the bloc's entire military machine. If we discount the NATO members' usual ``defensive'' demagogy, we shall clearly see the bellicose anti-communist orientation of these military preparations. The ``threat of communism'' bogey and references to ``military security'' were used by the NATO leaders to subordinate the foreign policy of individual countries to the common policy pursued by the bloc's member-states mainly as regards relations with socialist countries.
It is much more difficult today than in previous years to co-ordinate the policy of member-states through NATO organs. ``Hard'' methods are combined with ``soft''. This concerns not only the joint fanning of world tension with the purpose of furthering the arms race. The bloc's organs also use the detente to ``build bridges'' to the socialist countries through, among other things, the bilateral relations of the bloc's members with individual socialist countries.
In the capitalist countries NATO militarism is a mainstay of extreme imperialist reaction, which seeks to subordinate the entire policy of these countries and suppress the revolutionary working-class and democratic movements. 22 Support for the dictatorship in Spain and encouragement of the reactionaries in West Germany are indicative of NATO policy's anti-democratic character.
This repressive policy is directed against the national liberation movement as well. NATO bears much of the responsibility for the encouragement of the racists in South Africa and Rhodesia.
In addition to its police functions, the NATO machine grinds out propaganda in the member-states. These functions are discharged by the NATO Public Relations Committee and a number of other propaganda divisions. The NATO information service uses the official press and private mass media, various Atlantic research centres and public organisations for the anti-communist and anti- Soviet indoctrination of public opinion in non-socialist countries and for ideological subversion in the socialist states.
As non-military means of struggle acquire increasing weight in imperialism's class strategy, the bloc's leaders endeavour to promote the social aspects of NATO's activities. For instance, in 1969 NATO set up a special committee charged with co-ordinating research and practical work in social studies. In the quest for non-military means of anticommunist policy an important place is occupied by the elaboration of plans for using the integrational processes in the capitalist economy to achieve the closest possible unity among the NATO member-states. NATO strategists count on the international intertwining of capital, particularly of US and West European capital. Since American corporations are five times bigger than the leading British and West German companies and ten times bigger than the largest French monopolies in the corresponding fields, the Atlantic strategists calculate that NATO's economic foundation will rest on the dominant position of the US monopolies in these mammoth super-trusts in the Atlantic zone.
The bloc's leaders are currently making every effort to invigorate this process and looking for forms and methods, 23 acceptable to most of the capitalist states, of restructuring the economic and political relations between them. These efforts are directed toward creating a mechanism for smoothing the contradictions between the NATO members, which would thus be adapted, as much as possible, to the changes in the balance of strength between them and would be in a position to compensate for concessions of some participants in one sphere (military or political) with concessions by other participants in some other sphere (economic, scientific, and so on). They thereby expect not only to strengthen NATO, which is cracking under the weight of internal contradictions between the member-states, but also obtain, in addition to the military and propaganda machine, an economic mechanism for the struggle against world socialism and other revolutionary forces. In 1973, in this very context, Washington proposed the adoption of a new Atlantic Charter as an all-embracing document defining the principles of economic, political and military co-operation among the member-states. Although the attitude of NATO's West European members to this idea was contradictory, the proposal itself led to the drawing up of a number of documents serving as the basis for the all-sided co-ordination of the policies of the industrialised capitalist countries.
The steps to improve the NATO mechanism are closely linked with imperialism's striving to use the international state-monopoly associations, notably the European Economic Community, in its anti-communist policy. Circles close to NATO underscore the importance of the links with the EEC.^^4^^
Imperialism's efforts to improve and enlarge the alliance of the capitalist states in the Atlantic are part and parcel of their drive to set up a global system of inter-imperialist bonds embracing the entire capitalist world. Efforts in this direction are being made in Latin America, too. Various projects for the creation and enlargement of blocs covering non-socialist Asian countries, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa are mooted. They are aimed at 24 coordinating all aspects of the international activities of the capitalist states and creating a sort of ``ultra-imperialist alliance'' that would combine the might of the capitalist states and monopolies on an international scale.
Lastly, still another highlight of imperialism's anti- communist strategy closely bound up with its other specifics is that the tactics of carrying it out are growing more flexible and varied in the different regions of the world and relative to different countries. Diverse forms and methods and their combinations are being applied. In these tactics there are two basic courses. It is, first, the course (that was particularly widespread in the past) toward frontal attacks on the revolutionary forces---open aggression, cold war, fascist terror and military coups. However, today imperialism has to take into account the new balance of forces on the international scene, the possible consequences of a world nuclear-missile war and the present improvement of international relations. In this situation the ruling circles of the imperialist states are laying particular stress on local wars that would strike at individual contingents of the forces opposed to imperialism. This is demonstrated by the military adventures launched by imperialist forces against the Arab states, particularly the Israeli aggression. By means of ``small'' wars, sudden local attacks on socialist and newly-independent states and military-fascist coups imperialism counts on gradually coming closer to its end goal, the suppression of the world liberation movement.
However, under present-day conditions of the competition and struggle between the two world systems predominance is gained by the second tactical course, whose salient features are flexibility and circumspection. It rejects frontal attacks in favour of disuniting and disintegrating the revolutionary forces through the subtle use of economic, political and ideological levers. These tactics amount to a policy of a ``quiet counter-revolution'' relative to socialist countries, neocolonialism as regards Third World countries, and various forms of social manoeuvring by monopoly capital.
25The new forms of the policy which imperialism has to employ in view of socialism's growing might pursue the aim of more secretly helping to achieve the old imperialist goals. In the present situation, as well, anti-communism remains a distinctive feature of imperialism's political strategy, but in its concrete expression it comes forward as an instrument of ideological subversion against socialism. The policy and ideology of imperialism continue to direct their main efforts against socialism and its principal force, the Soviet Union. This focusses attention on the attempts being made to destroy the unity of the socialist countries and generate the ``erosion'' of socialism from within. The more flexible, subtle and differentiated anti-communist propaganda directed at individual socialist countries seeks to use nationalistic tendencies, ``national-communist'' variants of socialism and ``national models of socialism'' as the means of engineering a split in the community of socialist countries.
This enhances the anti-communist role of the Right-wing
leaders of Social-Democratic parties and their slogan of
``social-democratisation'' in the socialist countries. In the
US the benefit of this slogan to imperialism's aggressive
strategy was quickly appreciated. The formula of ``
social-democratisation'' has become a major component of
imperialism's global strategy. This new form of anti-communism
unquestionably signifies a re-examination of former attitudes.
The old forms of slandering and rejecting socialism
can hardly be expected to be successful today. A steadily
diminishing number of people are inclined to believe the
assertions that ``communism stands for poverty, suffering
and terror''. Taking these changes in public opinion into
account, the anti-communism of the Right-wing
SocialDemocrats, acting hand in glove with the anti-communist
propaganda of the present-day revisionists and ``Left''
opportunists, now attacks the political and economic
foundations of socialism, the leading role of the working class and
its party, democratic centralism and public ownership. All
26
this is done under the slogan of ``bringing socialism closer
to democracy''.
At the 1969 Moscow Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties it was noted that the calculations on the disintegration of the communist and entire revolutionary movement from within now form a major policy line of imperialism's class strategy. This line is closely intertwined with other policies. The new, more flexible forms and methods of anticommunist policy and propaganda accompany the old, traditional forms and methods: in Europe, the course toward an expansion of peaceful co-operation is combined with the stepping up of the ideological struggle. In Latin America, the ``big stick'' policy is alternated with neocolonialism in its various aspects.
It must be stressed, however, that the renewal of the policy and ideology of anti-communism is not a straightforward, conflict-free process. The changes in the world balance of forces have powerfully aggravated the contradictions in the camp of the monopoly bourgeoisie.
On the one hand, imperialism has not renounced armed action against the revolutionary movement, although the stake on the distintegration of that movement differs with regard to each of the three main revolutionary forces: the peoples building socialism and communism, the working class of the industrialised capitalist countries, and the movement for social and national liberation of the oppressed peoples and the peoples of the developing countries. However, the futility of the policy of direct, frontal attacks, whose continuation is still advocated in the NATO countries by the champions of the cold war and of the existence of blocs, is acknowledged even in the traditional citadels of anti- communism---the US and West Germany. The successful restructuring of Soviet-US relations on the basis of peaceful coexistence and the turn toward normal peace-time relations and mutually beneficial co-operation between the Soviet Union and West Germany in combination with the consistent, principled struggle waged by the Soviet Union and 27 other socialist countries for an improvement of the international climate in a situation witnessing the growing might and cohesion of the socialist community are yielding tangible results.
On the other hand, in this situation imperialism's most aggressive forces are persisting in their efforts to disunite the forces of world socialism. There are two distinct aspects in this anti-communist policy. The first aspect is the striving to undermine the cohesion of the world socialist community, the friendship between the Soviet Union and the other socialist states, particularly among the members of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance and the Warsaw Treaty Organisation. The second aspect is that this policy is aimed at shattering and undermining the socialist system and finding the possibility of eroding it in the Soviet Union and in the other socialist states.
Both these interrelated aspects of imperialism's strategy reflect the aspiration of the proponents of the ``bridge building'' doctrine, who preach using the easing of international tension and the promotion of commercial, scientific and technical relations with the East European socialist countries for ideological subversion in these countries, whipping up nationalistic feeling and encouraging revisionist elements. By bringing sustained, differentiated ideological, political and economic influence to bear on the socialist countries the imperialists strive to divide them in their attitude to various economic, political and international problems and subvert the socialist community. The initiators of this strategy, dating back to the mid-1960s, calculated on enticing individual socialist countries with economic, scientific and technological co-operation with the capitalist states and, as the price for this co-operation, on compelling them to pare down their links with the Soviet Union. This policy, pursued by some capitalist states, is aimed at encouraging nationalistic, anti-socialist and revisionist elements in the East European countries and, with their assistance, shattering the foundations of the socialist system.
28
The objectives and methods of this strategy are quite frankly stated in the numerous writings of its exponents--- from Zbigniew Brzezinski in the US to Richard Lowenthal, a high priest of social-reformism in West Germany. These writings give prominence to ideological subversion---the organisation of systematic attacks on the leading role of the working class and its vanguard---the Communist Party---in socialist society, and on Marxist-Leninist ideology. The strategists of anti-communism have picked, as the instrument of their ideological subversion, petty-bourgeois nationalistic and revisionist, opportunist elements in the East European countries who oppose socialism under the banner of `` national models'' of socialism, ``democratising'' and ``liberalising'' socialism, and so on.
They believe that they will be aided by the difficulties attending the formation of the unprecedented international relations based on socialist internationalism that are sometimes misinterpreted by petty-bourgeois and revisionist elements. Incessant nationalistic, anti-Soviet propaganda is conducted under cover of quests for ``national socialism''.
The strategists of imperialism pin high hopes on the Peking leadership's hostile actions against the Soviet Union and the entire socialist community. Peking's readiness to form an anti-Soviet bloc with any reactionary forces such as the fascist junta in Chile and revanchist elements in West Germany, and their ceaseless attempts to split the socialist community receive the approval of anti-communist politicians and ideologists. Peking's policy toward socialist countries fully accords with the imperialist efforts to ``erode'' the socialist community. To the great joy of the imperialist adversaries of detente, the Maoists made an attempt, at the 10th Congress of the CPC in 1973, to ``substantiate'' Peking's anti-Sovietism with statements about the threat of a ``sudden attack on our country by social-imperialism''. Cloaked in pseudo-Marxist verbiage, these anti-Soviet fabrications of the Maoists essentially harmonise with the slanderous 29 assertions of the most bellicose bourgeois anti-communists. Peking's anti-Soviet policies and its attacks on the unity of the socialist countries and the world communist movement and on the efforts of the peace-loving states and peoples to ease international tension are harming the cause of peace and international socialism.
With the failure, as the 1968 events in Czechoslovakia demonstrated, of the attempts to draw individual countries away from the socialist community through a policy of ``selective coexistence'', the anti-communist ideologists and politicians began to look for more flexible ways of undermining the unity of the socialist states. The ``bridge- building'' rhetoric gave way to verbiage about a ``new strategy in the interests of peace''. One of the aims of this ``new'' strategy, which pursues the old anti-communist goals, was very eloquently stated in the anti-communist journal Preuves in the summer of 1971. While sounding the alarm over the plans for the economic integration of the CMEA memberstates, the journal urged the American and other Western governments to expand dramatically their economic, scientific and technological relations with all socialist countries, including the Soviet Union. It suggested that such relations should be used to make the CMEA member-states dependent on the capitalist economy and thereby slow down socialist integration. It stressed that in this area it was important that the US and other NATO countries should coordinate their policies, maintaining that nothing but a common economic strategy by the West would finally lead to the ``evolution of the socialist = countries''.^^5^^
Another aim of imperialism's latest anti-socialist strategy
was brought to light by the Western propaganda campaign
under the hypocritical slogan of ``protecting human rights''
in socialist countries. The initiators of this campaign seek to
take advantage of the detente and make changes in the
internal order of the socialist countries an indispensable
condition for the easing of tension. The ``liberalisation'' of
the socialist system, i.e., the liquidation of the actual
30
achievements of socialism, and the emasculation of the socio-
political rights of the peoples of socialist countries are depicted
by the bourgeois ``champions of human rights'' as a
guarantee of international security. They ignore the indisputable
fact that with the world divided into two systems
international security can only be achieved through the full and
absolute observance of the principles of peaceful
coexistence, particularly non-interference in the internal affairs of
other countries. The perseverance of the architects of this
propaganda campaign is due to their striving to use the
expansion of economic, scientific, technological, cultural and
political relations between capitalist and socialist states to find
channels for invigorating bourgeois survivals in people's
minds and destroying the unity of the peoples and countries
of the socialist community. This has been quite openly
declared by Zbigniew Brzezinski, one of the inspirers of this
strategy of ideological subversion. ``Persistent efforts to
improve relations with the communist states,'' he said, ``will J
help the forces that press for =
liberalisation.''^^6^^
The theorists of anti-communism vainly hope for a ``growing diversity of communisms'', for these hopes are widely at variance with the objective trend toward the unity of the socialist countries by virtue of the essentially internationalist character JQ{ their state system, which in all these countries rests on an identical economic basis (public ownership of the means of production), an identical political system (government by the people headed by the working class) and the ideology of Marxism-Leninism. The internationalisation of economic life, expedited by the scientific and technological revolution, gives rise to an increasing number of problems that can only be resolved by the concerted efforts of the countries belonging to the socialist community. The basic interests of each of the socialist countries---opposition to imperialism's aggressive policies and successful building of the new society---determine the need for a reliable system of all-sided fraternal co-operation that for each of these countries has become a natural norm of 31 life. In the course of this co-operation each has found the ways of combining its interests with the common interests of the community and of arriving at a just solution of problems that are unsolvable in capitalist society. Directed scientifically by the fraternal Marxist-Leninist parties, the broadening political, economic, scientific, technical and cultural co-operation among the socialist states leads to a mutual adaptation of national economic patterns and the levelling up of the economic and cultural development of these countries. This renders hopeless the search of imperialism's strategists for fissures in the relations between socialist states. Evidence of the expanding relations between these countries is provided by their co-ordinated foreign policy, their common foreign-policy strategy, the fulfilment of the comprehensive programme for the economic integration of the CMEA member-states, the further cultural affinity of the socialist countries and the closer contacts among the fraternal parties. In stressing the need for further unity and co-operation among the socialist countries, Leonid Brezhnev said: ``Today we require unity, co-operation and joint action chiefly in order to accomplish more quickly and effectively the tasks of developing socialist society and building communism. Moreover, we require unity, cohesion and co- operation in order to safeguard and consolidate the peace, so vital for all the peoples, as successfully as possible, to carry forward the international detente, and to effectively repulse all aggressive sallies of the imperialists, all attempts to impinge on the interests of = socialism.''^^7^^
Imperialism's policy of physically crushing or demoralising the forces opposed to it clearly manifests itself also relative to the revolutionary working-class movement of the industrialised capitalist countries and to the anti-imperialist movement of the Third World countries. This policy is spearheaded against the Communist parties---the revolutionary vanguard of the liberation movement.
By the very logic of the class struggle the reactionaries invariably respond with savage counter-assaults to the 32 upsurge and widening of the working-class and democratic movements. The monopoly bourgeoisie resorts more frequently to extreme, authoritarian policies, organises violence, seeks to strangle the liberation movement, activates fascist groups, and so on. These trends are mirrored in the spread of anti-communist and anti-labour legislation.
Imperialist interference in Chile's internal affairs and the encouragement of the 1973 military coup in that country, Israel's aggressions against the Arab states, and the conspiracies and coups organised by the imperialists with the aid of internal reactionaries are diverse manifestations of this policy in the Third World. The local reactionaries are strengthened not only by the international organisations, agencies and services of the imperialist states. They are aided by the multinational monopolies, which give them the means to conduct a political struggle and to bring off coups. The military-fascist coup in Chile is a striking example of the union between the carefully camouflaged interference of various external imperialist forces and internal reaction, which adopted the stance of an ``independent national force''. The efforts of imperialist reaction in the Third World countries are likewise directed chiefly against the Communist parties, all opponents of monopoly capital being charged with affiliation to them. -
The hope of suppressing the revolutionary movement and advanced thought by force, cherished for decades by the bourgeoisie of different countries, has thus proved to have no leg to stand on. Moreover, the direct actions of the reactionaries are being resolutely repulsed by the progressive forces. For that reason, in view of the struggle with socialism the ruling circles of the capitalist countries are particularly apprehensive that the class struggle may evolve into a mass revolutionary movement. Hence imperialism's striving to apply ideological, political and economic forms of struggle that would be more flexible than outright repressions. This striving has three directions. First, it is expressed in the attempts to lessen the revolutionising influence of 33 Marxism-Leninism on the peoples in non-socialist countries by trying to discredit socialism and the Communist parties in the capitalist countries. Here the international character of anticommunist strategy stands out in particularly bold relief. Second, in combining repressions with social manoeuvring the imperialists seek to form an alliance with the Right and ``Lett'' opportunists, to demoralise the communist movement in the capitalist countries as an international force and secure the revisionist degeneration of the Communist parties of individual countries. Third, the anti-communist strategists make no little effort to work out alternatives to scientific socialism and programmes for strengthening exploiting society that would rally all the forces opposed to communism.
The propaganda efforts of the anti-communist theorists and publicists to discredit socialist society are centred on the Soviet Union, the first socialist state and the economic, political, ideological and moral bulwark of the world revolutionary process. The anti-communists distort the actual state of affairs in Soviet society, belittle the real achievements of the Soviet people following the Great October Socialist Revolution and, playing on the difficulties and errors in the building of the new society, give out their own distorted picture for a ``model'' of socialism as the inevitable effect of the practical application of Marxist theory.
In the anti-Soviet campaign that has been mounting in recent years the accent is increasingly placed on attacks on the Soviet Union's consistent foreign policy, in which a firm rebuff to imperialism and support for the revolutionary liberation movement are invariably combined with an unswerving course toward peaceful coexistence of countries with different social systems.
While twisting the significance of the Soviet-US talks in Moscow and Washington and the peace initiatives taken by the Soviet Union and other socialist countries to ensure security and co-operation in Europe and Asia, the anti- communist ideologists and politicians of all hues---from __PRINTERS_P_33_COMMENT__ 3---2810 34 reactionary bourgeois to the Peking Great-Power chauvinists and ``ultra-Left'' Trotskyists---endeavour to negate Soviet policy's anti-imperialist spirit and clear-cut class orientation and attribute Great-Power ambitions to it.
Soviet foreign policy has always been a class, socialist policy for its content and aims. It has been a policy of struggle against imperialism, against all forms of exploitation and oppression, for freedom and human dignity, for democracy and socialism. The socialist character of this policy makes it peaceful and consistent in the struggle against the imperialist forces of aggression and war. This has been the Soviet state's immutable guideline from the moment it was formed, a guideline that is embodied in the Peace Programme adopted at the 24th Congress of the CPSU. The considerable strengthening of the position and unity of the socialist countries and the growth of the influence exercised by their co-ordinated policy on the course of world developments have compelled the capitalist countries to recognise the principles of peaceful coexistence as norms of relations between countries with different social systems. It is due to these factors that the relations of the Soviet Union and other socialist countries with many bourgeois states have shifted toward detente and mutually beneficial co-operation.
The consistent efforts-exerted by the socialist community with the Soviet Union at the head to make peaceful coexistence a universally recognised standard of relations between states with different social systems in no way signify concessions to imperialist policy and ideology. ``The CPSU has always held, and now holds,'' Leonid Brezhnev noted, ``that the class struggle between the two systems---the capitalist and the socialist---in the economic and political, and also, of course, the ideological domains, will continue. That is as it should be because the world outlook and the class aims of socialism and capitalism are opposite and irreconcilable. But we shall strive to shift this historically inevitable struggle onto a path free from the perils of war, of dangerous conflicts and an 35 uncontrolled arms race. This will be a tremendous gain for world peace, for the interests of all peoples, of all = states.''^^7^^
The class character of socialist foreign policy makes it impossible to spread peaceful coexistence to ideology. The expansion of contacts between people of different countries, of contacts fostering mutual cultural enrichment, the growth of trust between nations and the consolidation of peace and goodneighbourly relations, require the unfolding and continued activation of an uncompromising struggle against reactionary ideology, particularly against all forms of anti-communism.
The efforts of imperialism and its partisans to denigrate socialism in the eyes of the people of non-socialist countries are accompanied by pressure on the Communist parties true to Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism.
Bourgeois propaganda disseminates insinuations to the effect that the Communist parties are ``degenerating''. Brzezinski, for instance, asserts that ``in the West the Communist parties are no longer either innovative or revolutionary'', that they ``have moved toward diluting their . .. ideological tradition''. As proof, he refers to their participation in national institutions, i.e., in parliaments and municipal councils, and in the governments of some countries. Brzezinski needs this reference to make credible his conclusion that the ``revolutionary standard has already passed into the hands of more ideologically volatile and activist = groups''.^^8^^
The fact that imperialism's strategists pin much of their hopes on ``ideologically volatile and activist groups'' is seen very clearly in the activities of the ``Left-radical''--- Trotskyist, Maoist and other---``ultra-revolutionary'' elements, whose principal aims are to slander the Communist parties, undermine the unity of the anti-monopoly and anti- imperialist forces by imposing an adventurist policy on the democratic movement and deceiving the young people who join the revolutionary movement. The role played in this activity by the Peking leaders, who give every encouragement to the formation of Maoist groups all over the world, 36 is a particularly serious threat to social progress. The provocative exhortations of the Maoists have objectively helped the intrigues of imperialism and local reaction in a number of Asian, African and Latin American states and stimulated fascist trends in the industrialised capitalist countries. Shrouded in ``Marxist'' terminology, these exhortations calling for immediate violent action play into the hands of extreme imperialist reaction, who willingly identify the ``ultra-revolutionaries'' with Communists in order to clear the way for repressions against the democratic forces.
The efforts of bourgeois policy and propaganda to dis- j credit existing socialism and isolate the communist movement from the people in the capitalist countries are supplemented with the manoeuvres of the Right-wing leaders of the Social-Democratic parties. Despite the nascent trend in some countries toward co-operation between Communists and socialists, the Right-wing leaders of the Social- Democratic parties in most countries of the capitalist world are waging an ideological and political struggle against the Communist parties. The revisionists and renegades expelled from the communist movement are acting in the same direction. The Right-wing Social-Democrats and the revisionists, united under the banner of anti-Sovietism, oppose what they call ``humane socialism'' to the ``Soviet model''.
In view of the fact that the ``classical'' bellicose anticommunism and anti-Sovietism of the bourgeoisie have been discredited in the eyes of the peoples, the imperialists are making wide use of the reformist, revisionist and `` Leftradical'' varieties of anti-communism. The elements propounding these varieties are generously financed from the various funds of the big bourgeoisie, the mass media are placed at their disposal and they receive the support of the metropolitan press. Small wonder that the renegades and turncoats cast out by the revolutionary working-class movement are hailed as heroes by the yellow press and given a prominent place in ``theoretical'' compositions of bourgeois anti-communists, such as Brzezinski.
37Appreciating that the anti-Soviet campaign serves the aims of imperialism's anti-communist strategy in the nonsocialist countries, the Communists give a rebuff to these attacks. Thus in a joint communique of November 17, 1971, issued in Paris by the French and Italian Communist parties, it is noted: ``The two parties condemn anti-communism and anti-Sovietism, wherever they are manifested, as contravening the interests of the revolutionary, democratic and national movements and furthering divisive activities and imperialism's aggressive = policy.''^^9^^
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 3. CONTRADICTIONS AND INEVITABLE DOOMThe certain modifications that have been introduced into present-day anti-communist policy will, ultimately, not save it from collapse. The very need for these modifications is an indication that the positions of anti-communism are weak. However, in view of the refined, camouflaged, flexible methods used by this policy these modifications unquestionably make it more dangerous.
There is a huge gap between the aims of anti- communism's political strategy and the attainment of these aims. This gap is due mainly to the incompatibility between imperialism's end purposes and the means that it has for achieving these purposes. The fact that in some sectors of the struggle imperialism is mounting a counter-offensive does not mean it is able to halt social progress and reverse the world-wide transition from capitalism to socialism.
Imperialism is futilely aspiring to use the scientific and technological revolution to remake the economic and social structure of the capitalist countries in the interests of monopoly capital and disunite and undermine the forces opposing it. The reality of capitalist exploitation, the contradictions of capitalism and the class struggle in the capitalist countries are constantly erecting new obstacles to anticommunism.
38In the 1960s, despite the many distinctions between them, bourgeois social theories gave prominence to the basic view that the coming decades, notably the 1970s, would witness the reorganisation of the capitalist system, in the course of which capitalism's main contradictions and ailments, particularly economic crises and class contradictions, would be removed with the foundations of capitalist society remaining inviolate. Bourgeois ideologists believed that the scientific and technological revolution would help achieve a swift growth of production and attain an unprecedented economic growth rate. This, they felt, would allow increasing profits and wages and carrying out a broad programme of social reforms, thereby eliminating class contradictions and the class struggle.
Experience, however, has shown that although the acceleration of scientific and technological progress has led to a growth of production, the largest growth has been registered by profits. This resulted in an aggravation of capitalism's main contradictions and a sharp intensification of the class struggle, rather than in an ``epoch of social peace''. By the early 1970s the imperialist economy was experiencing its most difficult period since the end of the Second World War. The cyclical crisis, stagnation, the energy crisis, the monetary crisis, inflation and the aggravation of the trade war have intertwined. The early 1970s have lucidly demonstrated that under capitalism the scientific and technological revolution cannot resolve social and cultural problems in the interests of the people.
In the face of the Soviet Union's peace policy bourgeois propagandists are finding it extremely hard to sustain the bogey of ``the Soviet Union's expansionist ambitions'' and ``the threat from the East''. But this by no means signifies that the rabidly reactionary forces of imperialism are not endeavouring to revive outworn anti-communist slander in order to change the political situation in their own favour. A key role in these attempts is played by anti-Soviet campaigns. In pursuing their peace policy the Soviet Union and 39 other socialist countries have, especially in recent years, achieved obvious and, for many people, tangible successes and provided so much proof of their desire for peace that this sort of anti-communism cannot hope to succeed.
The economic might of the socialist community that is increasingly used to satisfy the material and cultural requirements of the working people is lending more weight to the influence exercised by the socialist economic system, thereby cutting the ground from under the anti-communist slander. Here an immense role will be played by combining the achievements of the scientific and technological revolution with the advantages of the socialist system.
The high level and universality of socialist public education and the fact that the state is directing its economic, political and cultural work toward satisfying the material and cultural requirements of the people and moulding the new socialist citizen are demolishing the anti-communist aspersion that socialism paralyses the creative development of the individual.
The new balance of forces between socialism and imperialism has, particularly in Europe, crushed the cold war policies. For many imperialist states the prime issue today is the restoration of normal economic and political relations with socialist countries.
Imperialist policy toward the Third World nations has
likewise proved to be abortive. Imperialism's economic
resources for social manoeuvring are limited, while the fog
of verbiage about ``partnership in development'' is
inescapably dispersing, laying bare the exploiting nature of
imperialist partnership. This is eloquently demonstrated by
the Alliance for Progress activities in Latin America which
have been abandoned even by its United States sponsors.
Ultimately we observe an exacerbation of the contradictions
between imperialism and the peoples of the developing
countries whose liberation struggle is steadily widening. The
events of recent years indicate that in the developing
countries the processes leading to the restriction and even
40
unsaddlement of the large Western monopoly corporations and
the creation of an independent economy are gaining ground.
The contradictions between the Third World nations and
the imperialist powers are also mounting over many key
issues of international politics. This has been strikingly
shown at the 1973 Algiers Conference of non-aligned states,
which demonstrated their determination to resist imperialist
diktat and arbitrary rule. Despite the efforts of anti-
communist policy and propaganda, the Third World countries
are establishing close co-operation with socialist states.
The fiasco suffered by the imperialist ``positions of strength'' policy in relation to the socialist countries has brought to light the fact that each of the imperialist states pursues its own aims and interests and holds its own views on questions of war and peace. For instance, despite imperialism's desperate efforts to internationalise the conflict in Vietnam, that conflict only intensified the inter-imperialist contradictions. Moreover, the successes achieved by embattled Vietnam with the support of the Soviet Union and other socialist countries put an end to the imperialist aggression. Combined with the unremitting efforts of Soviet foreign policy to find the way to a peace settlement in the Middle East, all-round Soviet support for Egypt and Syria in their struggle against Israeli aggression in the autumn of 1973 struck yet another blow at the ``positions of strength'' policy. Further, undisguised US support for Israel in that military conflict sparked an explosion of discontent in West European NATO states and a sharpening of contradictions within that bloc. Notwithstanding the efforts of US diplomacy, the NATO Council was unable, at its session in December 1973, to work out a common stance on the Middle East conflict. The Soviet Government and the CPSU have always declared their firm determination to abide by the socialist, Leninist policy in opposing imperialism and continuing their support for nations that assert their right to independence and social progress.
The calculation of the anti-communist strategists on 41 capitalist integration is not justifying itself either. Although the international intertwining of capital has been stepped up in the imperialist blocs, the competitive struggle intrinsic to capitalism continues between the monopolies, and under state-monopoly rule inevitably leads to a struggle between states for influence in these blocs. Monopoly capital retains its basic national-exclusive character, and its agreements with its partners are based on a balance of forces that in the epoch of the scientific and technological revolution can only be temporary on account of uneven economic and political development.
The general crisis of capitalism and the intensifying competitive struggle between the monopolies for markets are heightening the interest of many capitalist countries in contacts with the socialist market, whose capacity is steadily growing and which is free of market fluctuations. Hence the failure of the innumerable attempts to make the capitalist countries pursue a common economic strategy.
The aggravating inter-imperialist contradictions are making it difficult for the imperialist powers to attain their class aims, particularly in the Third World, where the discrepancy between their common and specific interests is particularly pronounced. NATO is in the throes of a serious crisis. The aggressive blocs set up in Asia are cracking. Western Europe is turning into an arena of strife between capitalist countries. The gulf between the USA and the Latin American members of OAS is widening. Latest developments are showing that neither the processes of integration nor the class interests of the imperialist concerted action against world socialism have removed the contradictions between the imperialist states.
The mounting inter-imperialist contradictions are holding up the currently predominant tendency toward the unification of imperialist forces and the subordination of their policies to their common purpose of fighting world _ socialism, national liberation revolutions and the working-class movement.
42
In the teaching of Marxism-Leninism the international
communist and working-class movement has a weapon that is
omnipotent because it is correct. The Communists
unswervingly counter the ideological subversion by imperialism
and its sycophants, and detect and expose imperialism's
new political manoeuvres. The differentiation in anti-
communism is evidence of the growing futility of the ideology
and policy of imperialism and the increasing influence of
socialism and the teaching of Marxism-Leninism.
[43]
__NUMERIC_LVL1__
CHAPTER TWO
__ALPHA_LVL1__
A CRITIQUE OF THE ANTI-COMMUNIST
``THEORIES'' OF THE ECONOMY OF SOCIALISM
AND CAPITALISM
__ALPHA_LVL2__
[introduction.]
The slander levelled at the socialist economy and economic policy has long been part of the arsenal of anti- communist propaganda.
The economy as the principal area of the drive to build a developed socialist society and create the material and technical basis of communism is the target of intensive ideological attacks by the enemies of socialism.
The anti-communist ideas about the economy of socialism and capitalism have undergone considerable modifications. The appearance of one theory or another and the choice of one or another method of fighting socialism depend on many factors, the chief ones being the achievements of socialism and the alignment of forces in the world.
The first anti-communist theories about the socialist economy were founded on the belief that socialism could not be built and that all the attempts to that end were doomed to failure.
Such was the basic concept of the first critics of socialism
as an economic system, namely, the founders of the 19
thcentury subjective school of bourgeois political economy
(Eugen Bohm-Bawerk, Leon Walras and others). Walras, for
instance, emphasised time and again that the socialists neither
knew nor understood economic laws. He regarded the
system of dynamic equilibrium, allegedly generated by
44
__RUNNING_HEADER_RIGHT__
ANTI-COMMUNIST THEORIES OF SOCIALIST & CAPITALIST ECONOMY
spontaneous market competition, as the best means of achieving
a highly effective economy. As he saw it, socialism with its
measures to eradicate social vices in fact spelled out coercion
over economic laws. He contended that by introducing into
the principle of the distribution of resources a moral
criterion, that was alien to the interests of production, socialism
was undermining the foundations of the economic system
itself.
Immediately after the October Revolution in Russia the monopoly bourgeoisie and its spokesmen hoped that the socialist economy and socialism itself would prove to be unviable. Robert Wilton, correspondent of The New York Times at Petrograd, wrote at the time: ``Obviously, Bolshevism is a destructive, not a constructive, agency.... Thus from an economic point of view the continuance of the present regime is an impossibility. From a political standpoint it is equally = absurd.''^^1^^
However, as the course of events upset all these forecasts, socialism won growing actual recognition as a viable economic system. From the theory that socialism would unescapably collapse the bourgeois ideologists began gradually to go over to the theory that socialism would inevitably lag behind the capitalist countries.
The successful building of socialism in the 1930s, the outcome of the Second World War, the building of a developed socialist society by the Soviet people after the war, and the achievements of the other socialist countries led to a further change in the attitude of the theorists of anti- communism. Bourgeois science and propaganda had to acknowledge not only the very possibility of the existence of a socialist economy but also many of socialism's economic advances. In recent years this recognition took the form of the theory of the ``convergence'' of the two socio-economic systems. The declaration of the architects of this theory to the effect that the finest elements of the two systems converge contains the admission that these finest elements are to be found in socialism. This attitude is essentially at 45 variance with the formerly predominant belief that socialism would inevitably fail and collapse.
This virtual recognition of socialism's achievements did not signify a change in the basic attitude of the ideologists of the bourgeoisie. The fundamental aim of the various bourgeois theories about socialism remains to distort the nature and mechanism of the socialist system. But today new methods and tactics are being used in an effort to attain that aim.
One of the major new orientations of anti-communist activity relative to the socialist countries is to try to provoke socialism's degeneration, to ``soften'' socialist ideology and the political regime.
To this end the anti-communists are concentrating their efforts mainly on giving a false picture of socialism's socioeconomic system and of the position of the individual in socialist society. Their prime targets are the CPSU and the Soviet Union. Anti-Sovietism is thereby becoming the main content of anti-communist policy and propaganda.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 1. MAIN ANTI-COMMUNIST THEORIESIn anti-communist literature dealing with socialist economy, eloquently-worded and often mutually excluding views are offered on practically every question. These views are constantly modified and corrected to fit in with the aims of the ideological struggle and the requirements of current policy.
At the same time, the views of the vast majority of bourgeois economists have features in common. The modern anti-communist theories dealing with the economy of socialism pursue the common purpose of misrepresenting the social content and popular character of the socialist system. They employ idealistic and metaphysical methods.
46In the attitude common to most bourgeois economists there are several main orientations. These are, first, the so-called neo-classical orientation, whose proponents regard some general economic principles of the socialist economy as functional forms inherent in society at all stages of development, regardless of the socio-economic system.
The second orientation may be characterised as neoliberal. It preaches that objective economic categories and laws cannot exist in a planned, consciously directed socialist economy.
Lastly, the number of economists occupying an intermediate position, as it were, between the two above-mentioned orientations has been growing in recent years. They acknowledge the objective character of some categories of socialism. Moreover, they transplant these laws into an ``ideal'' society that is, of course, fundamentally non-socialist. This is the view of many of the proponents of socio-economic ``convergence''.
Revisionist theories that claim to uphold ``true'' socialism form a group by themselves.
Among the proponents of the so-called neo-classical orientation there are many champions of ``economic psychology'', a relatively new scientific school that has been winning adherents in the USA, France and other capitalist countries. The theorists of this school use the scientific and technological revolution, which is enhancing the significance of social psychology, to psychologise the basic categories of political economy. They declare that they are free of the moral and political influences of any social clans or groups. They argue that socialism simply does not have specific categories and laws on the grounds that economic categories spring from human psychology which does not depend on the specifics of a socio-economic system. In his The Generalised Economy and the Degree of Growth, Pierre-Louis Reynaud asserts that because they are laws of ``economic psychology'', economic laws do not depend on the social system and the relations of production. ``It is thus the human factor,'' he 47 writes, ``seen through the laws of economic psychology and understood as a synthesis of certain data of psychology and economy, which constitutes the bond and infrastructure of the various existing = regimes.''^^2^^
The concept of psychical energy, introduced by economico-psychologists to replace the concept of labour in ``traditional'' political economy, makes the foundation of the general theory of ``economic psychology''. To use Reynaud's words, the ``liberals'', especially the socialists, have found that labour is ``an essential link between the human factor and = wealth''.^^3^^ The concept of psychical energy is much broader than the category of labour.
In assessing this innovation, note must be taken of the conditional nature of the category of psychical energy. Materialist psychologists hold that the present state of knowledge gives no grounds for assuming that alongside electrical, chemical and other forms of energy there is a special, similar-type psychical energy, although metaphorically this concept is used for characterising the ``psycho-energy'' of the organism. To counterpose psychical energy to the category of labour signifies virtually reducing labour to physical labour.
Significantly, the economico-psychologists use the concept of psychical energy to divorce production from exchange, distribution and consumption, which, together with production, comprise the dialectical unity off the process of reproduction. Notwithstanding their specifics, each of these spheres is part of social reproduction, a sphere in which labour activity, which is vital to society, manifests itself.
The introduction of psychical energy as the ``essential link between the human factor and wealth'' under the guise of renouncing the ``one-sided'' approach of ``traditional'' political economy signifies a transition to the posture of subjectivism. This is most strikingly seen on the example of the economico-psychological theory of value.
The economico-psychologists level their heaviest criticism 48 at the labour theory of value in Marxist-Leninist political economy. Had this theory been consonant with reality, Reynaud declares, there would have been material and moral justification for the communist regime and the dictatorship of the = proletariat.^^4^^ Indeed, in the opinion of the economico-psychologists the labour theory is no less onesided than any other. They regard it as an expression of ``workshop = psychology''.^^5^^ While recognising that many workers, who are not Marxists, spontaneously accept the labour theory of value, Reynaud sees this as an indication of the . .. narrowness of Marxism, allegedly expressing the interests of only the factory = proletariat.^^6^^
In place of what they describe as ``obsolete'' and `` onesided'' conceptual patterns, the economico-psychologists offer the theory of ``final value''. They depict the genesis of economic value as the result of the ``opposition of different social strata and their psychological influence on each other''. ``Each stratum defends its theoretical conceptions and the final value cannot be but the result of these various currents.''^^5^^ They regard value as ``absolutely rational and not = ideological''.^^4^^
This negation of the labour theory of value through the ``deideologisation'' of political economy serves as a means of attacking the central Marxist-Leninist idea, namely, that of the historic role of the working class as the leading force capable, in alliance with the other working people, of destroying capitalism and building a new, genuinely humane and just society.
On the basis of their concepts of ``psychical energy'' and ``final value'', the economico-psychologists maintain that ``the mental progress of the individual, and not the class = factor''^^6^^ is the basic law of economic development, arguing that the only way to resolve all social and economic problems is to raise ``the mental = level''^^7^^ of the individual.
The bourgeois economists and sociologists who propound ``economic psychology'' and other neo-classical concepts portray the economic categories of capitalism and socialism 49 as being qualitatively identical. They contend that these categories carry out the same functions in the economic world which has limited resources. They therefore advise a functional analysis of these categories on the basis of the socalled fundamental economic science that rejects the specifics of economic relations.
The existence of some common externally similar economic categories is used to prove that the socialist and the capitalist economies are identical. But in offering this `` argument'' the bourgeois ideologists forget the main thing, namely, the qualitative content of these categories and how these categories manifest themselves in each of the opposing systems. Thus, objectively, wage, interest and profit are forms of the realisation of economic interests under both socialism and capitalism. But the content of these forms and categories and their role and functions differ fundamentally in the socialist and the capitalist economy. For instance, under socialism profit is a concrete form of the movement of the surplus product and has a content that differs essentially from that under capitalism. It materially expresses collective, rather than private economic interests that are intrinsic exclusively to the new social system, to socialism. Under socialism profit is not the principal aim of economic development or the basic regulator of its proportions as in the capitalist system. For that reason, the efforts to ``draw together'' the economy of capitalism and socialism on this basis are quite untenable.
The proponents of the second, so-called neo-liberal, school altogether reject the possibility of using a number of economic categories and forms in the socialist economy, maintaining that in socialist economy categories such as price and profit are purely relative. In the vast majority of cases they entirely deny the objective character of commoditymoney relations under socialism. In their writings the socialist economy is described as a ``command economy'' deprived of ``objective economic expediency''. As a means of enhancing its efficacy they recommend the renunciation
__PRINTERS_P_49_COMMENT__ 4---2810 50
of the ``etatist principle'' and the adoption of a ``market
socialism'' structure that bears a striking resemblance to the ij
state-monopoly structure of the West.
In the arsenal of the neo-liberal theorists, as indeed in that of the proponents of other anti-communist theories, a major place is occupied by deliberately spurious interpretations of the economic reforms carried out in the socialist countries. The new methods of economic management, the improved planning and larger material incentives are seen by these theorists as a ``retreat from the model of socialism''.
The use of economic levers to stimulate labour productivity in keeping with the principles of socialist distribution according to work is portrayed by the anti-communists as a ``departure from doctrine''. The use of commodity-money relations is depicted as a borrowed specific of capitalism, while the considerable attention devoted in the Soviet Union and other socialist countries to achieving a further rise in the living standard---a natural development in socialist society in keeping with its basic laws---is characterised as the implementation of the bourgeois theory of converting socialist society into a ``consumer society''.
In misrepresenting the substance of the economic reform, the champions of bourgeois methods of economic management seek to depict it as a factor stimulating ``convergence''. A typical example is the attitude of Revue economique, an economic magazine which in September 1967 asserted that in order to put the economic reform into effect successfully the socialist countries had to move to free prices and to free private = enterprise.^^8^^
The ``convergence'' theory was a typical theoretical expression of how the minds of a large segment of the bourgeois intelligentsia work. Great hopes were pinned on this theory by the anti-communist academic representatives of monopoly capital and by the liberal bourgeois scholars who sincerely desire peaceful coexistence among nations.
The polymorphous character of this theory and the 51 apparent credibility of many of its arguments made it a dangerous ideological and theoretical threat to Marxism.
The bourgeois ideologists, basing themselves on the `` convergence theory'', claim that a new social system free of the shortcomings of capitalism and socialism would arise. However, the advocates of the ``convergence'' theory see this ``new, synthetic'' society in modern state-monopoly capitalism. They hold that all the latter needs is some partial improvements. As regards socialism, they suggest ``liberalisation'', meaning the gradual weakening of its positions and, ultimately, its degeneration into capitalism, as the means of improvement.
Zbigniew Brzezinski and Samuel Huntington frankly admit: ``.. .most theories of the so-called convergence in reality posit not convergence but submergence of the opposite = system.''^^9^^
In the ``convergence'' theory one can clearly distinguish two basic aspects: first, camouflage of the nature of capitalism and, second, falsification of the essence of socialism.
At the same time, there are some disparities among the advocates of this theory as regards, primarily, their way of reasoning and their objectives. Jean Laloy, who has classified the concepts of ``convergence'', singles out their main objectives. The adherents of the first concept pin their hopes mainly on the ``liberalisation of the Eastern regimes'', as a result of which the distinctions between countries belonging to the two social systems must disappear.
Laloy calls the second concept ``scientific rationalism''. In the opinion of its protagonists the discovery of nuclear energy and other scientific and technological achievements will gradually create a ``new type of solidarity'', which will lead to the eradication of the differences between the social systems.
Laloy characterises the third concept as ``supranational'' or ``European''. It has set its sights on the creation of a ``supranational system'' whose influence would spread beyond 52 its own boundaries and include the East European coun- tries.^^10^^
Despite the differences in their views, all the conscious proponents of the ``convergence'' theory are united by their striving to use it as a means of disproving Marxism- Leninism's time-tested conclusion that the revolutionary replacement of the capitalist by the socialist system is historically inevitable. The fact that the ``convergence'' theory has become widespread is evidence of present-day anti- communism's defensive posture in the face of the mounting achievements of the forces of socialism. In a situation witnessing an aggravation of the ideological struggle, every effort is made to stimulate the activities of various renegades, organise a vociferous campaign to propagate revisionist concepts, use these concepts for ideological subversion in order to undermine the unity of the socialist countries, split the world revolutionary movement and influence a segment of the population in the socialist states themselves and in the capitalist countries.
Typical in this respect are the activities of Ota Sik. On the pretext of restoring ``true'' socialism through a ``system of democratic economic management'' he attacks the socialist nature of Czechoslovakia's economy and casts aspersions on the Leninist principles of democratic centralism in general. In an article enunciating a positive programme for the attainment of ``true socialism'', he repeats the standard set of bourgeois-reformist demands, which, relative to a socialist country, can only signify one thing---a return to capitalism (the introduction of a modern pluralist system of `` competition of interest groups'', the market mechanism, and so on). Small wonder that Sik regards the Soviet Union as the most formidable obstacle to any advance toward a ``progressive and humane'' socialism.
Despite its outwardly revolutionary character, present-day ``Left'' revisionism likewise has primary postulates in common with the anti-communism of the bourgeoisie. A close scrutiny of the Maoist theories about the economy of 53 socialism shows that they resemble some propositions of the neoliberals. Like the latter, the Maoists in fact reject the objective character of the economic laws of socialism. Screened by far-reaching political aims, the nihilism of the Maoists relative to the economic laws of socialism coalesces with the neo-liberal interpretation of the socialist economy as a ``command economy''. The theories and practices of Maoism show that ideologically and politically it is a pettybourgeois, nationalistic socio-political school with clearcut anti-Marxist, anti-Leninist leanings. Through their policies the Maoists are directly abetting imperialism.
Lately the concepts about the economy of socialism enunciated by the bourgeois anti-communist theorists and their accomplices---revisionists of all shades and hues---have been increasingly dealing with the problems of the economic efficacy and optimisation of social reproduction.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 2. ANTI-COMMUNIST VIEWS ON PLANNINGDevelopments have demonstrated that socialism with its planned economy gives the broadest scope for all-round scientific and technological progress in the interests of society. Today the Soviet Union and other socialist countries are working on the major problem of combining the achievements of the scientific and technological revolution with the advantages of the socialist economic system. Scientific and technological competition is one of the main areas of the class struggle between socialism and capitalism.
Under these conditions economic efficacy and scientific
and technological advancement have become a cardinal
sphere of the ideological struggle. In one way or another
most of the present anti-communist theories on the economy
of socialism touch on these problems. Almost all the
bourgeois works on these subjects have some features in
common. One of these features is their recognition, to one extent
54
or another, of the socialist economy's achievements. The
noted French bourgeois scholar Francois Perroux has
declared that today the Western mind ``has been stunned by
this elementary fact: capitalism has a =
competitor''.^^11^^ Another
feature common to the anti-communist theories on the
problems of efficiency and scientific and technological progress
in the socialist countries is the striving of their authors to
belittle the achievements of the socialist countries in this
sphere and misrepresent the roots and social content of these
achievements.
To this day Warren Nutter, Naum Jasny, Harry Schwarts and other American bourgeois economists assert that because the socialist system is inconsistent with capitalism's individualistic and egoistic stimuli of economic progress it will inevitably = collapse.^^12^^ Some of them assert that socialism hinders the rational management of production, lowers labour productivity and slows down the rates of technological advance.
The untenability of these assertions becomes obvious when they are compared with the facts.
Dynamics of the Growth of Labour Productivity
in Soviet'Industry in the Period 1917--1974
(1913==100)^^13^^
For the rate of growth of labour productivity the Soviet Union is well ahead of the industrialised capitalist nations. In the course of 50 years (1917--1967) the annual labour productivity growth rate averaged 5.3 per cent in the USSR, as compared with 2.3 per cent in the USA, 1.2 per cent in Britain and 2 per cent in = France.^^14^^ This has enabled the USSR to reach the labour productivity level of Britain and France and draw close to the US level.
Another indicator is the growth of industrial output, the national income and the fixed assets of the CMEA countries. During the 25 years from 1949 to 1973, their industrial output grew more than 12-fold, while in the industrialised capitalist states it increased only 4-fold. Since 1950 the national income of the CMEA nations has increased by nearly 470 per cent, which is approximately double the same indicator in the industrialised capitalist states.
In this situation many bourgeois scholars can no longer entirely deny the achievements of the socialist countries in enhancing the efficiency of their economy. The present phase of the scientific and technological competition makes it imperative for the ruling circles of the USA and other capitalist states to have more objective information on economic development in the socialist world.
In the latter half of the 1960s the Joint Economic Committee of the US Congress undertook a series of studies of the Soviet economy. The Committee's experts published several reports in 1966 and in subsequent years. Some of these reports contained a fairly profound analysis of the indicators of industrial, scientific and technological development in the USSR. In analysing the dynamics of labour productivity, one of these experts, James H. Noren, had to note: ``Thus the high rate of growth observed in Soviet industry can be explained, in large part, by the continued commitment of large doses of economic resources---capital investment and = labour.''^^15^^
Another widespread allegation of anti-communist propaganda is that the socialist countries had to pay a 56 prohibitive price for every economic achievement. Assertions of this kind are a fixed idea of the vast literature devoted to the history of socio-economic development in the Soviet Union and other socialist countries. For instance, interest in problems of the transitional period in the history of the socialist countries has grown in recent years in a number of capitalist states. This is mirrored by the many publications on this period in the Soviet Union, the new economic policy, the first socialist reforms, industrialisation and collectivisation, and the cultural revolution in the USSR. The following conclusion may be drawn from an analysis of the articles, reviews, brochures and monographs dealing with these topics, namely that every effort is being made to denigrate the modern achievements of the socialist economy and to give the impression that a huge price had been paid for these achievements, which the bourgeois authors nonetheless acknowledge.
Moreover, efforts are being made to pick out points of difference between the works written by Soviet authors in the period of transition and present-day Soviet economic science and to prove that individual concepts of the 1920s clash with the present policy of the CPSU and the international communist movement. Very indicative in this context are the pronouncements on the works of Y. Preobrazhensky, a noted Russian economist of the 1920s. In the introduction to Preobrazhensky's New Economic Policy published in the West Ernest Mandel calls it one of the outstanding works of Soviet economic = thought.^^16^^ This opinion is shared by Guy Caire in a review carried by the journal Revue economique.^^17^^
What do the Sovietologists find attractive in Preobrazhensky's works? They laud the ``law of primary socialist accumulation'' to which Preobrazhensky had given much of his attention. The substance of this ``law'' was quite thoroughly exposed by the Communist Party in the 1920s. By equating the peasant economy to the colonial economy Preobrazhensky sought to undermine socialist 57 industrialisation, which was founded on economic co-operation between the proletariat and the peasants.
By making much of Preobrazhensky's ideas the anticommunists are trying to scare away from the Communists the innumerable middle urban and rural strata, who, on account of their interests and domination by monopoly capital, objectively remain interested in unity with the proletariat. This laudation of the ``law of primary accumulation of capital'' pursues the obvious aim of belittling the significance of the Soviet experience of socialist construction in the eyes of large segments of the people in the developing countries.
One of the most common ways in which the anti- communists falsify socialism's economic achievements is the manipulation of factors that have nothing to do with the nature of the socialist system. For instance, they depict industrialisation in the USSR as an ordinary development in a backward country entering a certain phase of its evolution. This development, they assert, does not differ from capitalist industrialisation. Characteristic in this respect is an essay by the British anti-communist E. H. Carr in a volume entitled Socialism, Capitalism and Economic Growth. ``The conclusion I should like to draw,'' he writes, ``is that Soviet industrialisation is neither a unique phenomenon, nor a deviation from an established and accepted model, but an important stage in a process of development which began two centuries = ago.''^^18^^
True, some authors of this hue have to admit that the rate
of industrialisation is beneficially influenced by such specifics
of the socialist economic system as public ownership of the
means of production and socialist planning. At the same
time they seek to belittle these factors. One of them, Henri
Chambre, in his book The Soviet Union and Economic
Development endeavours to substantiate the thesis that
collective ownership acted as a certain stimulant only at the
first stage of the Soviet Union's development by virtue of
its economic weakness and backwardness at that stage.
58
Today, he contends, the collectivist relations of production
and institutions conforming to them have become a negative
factor slowing down and even obstructing economic
advancement.
Considerable significance is acquired today by the anticommunist speculations on the new phenomena linked with the scientific and technological revolution that has been unfolding since the 1950s.
The anti-communists give a false picture of the social content and effects of the scientific and technological revolution in the capitalist states. But they are only labouring in vain in trying to portray scientific and technological progress as an instrument of the ``self-abolition'' of capitalist society's antagonistic contradictions. Life is bearing out Lenin's conclusion that under capitalism a conscious application of science only intensifies ``its slavery in the interests of dirty capitalist = greed''.^^19^^
However, bourgeois theorists describe state-monopoly capitalism as an ``optimum'' economic system. The theoretical basis for this attitude is their falsification of the very concept of ``optimum''. They usually interpret ``economic optimum'' as meaning the fullest utilisation of limited resources for the ``maximum usefulness''. Although this ``deideologised'' interpretation of the concept reflects some common elements inherent in production at any of its historical phases, it is formally abstract. It circumvents the basic question of society's socio-economic structure, which is what determines the social content of the term ``optimum'' and the social conditions for its realisation.
True optimal development presupposes not only the choice of methods for the attainment of the aims of production but also the choice of these aims, which are dominated by the relations of production. From this point of view, socialism is the only system that creates the social conditions for the most efficient utilisation of resources in the interests of society. It may be said that socialism ensures the economic optimum. As a problem of a conscious choice of alternatives 59 in economic development on a national scale in the interests of the whole of society, the optimum, as is noted by the Soviet economist Y. Olsevich, ``can be ensured only under socialism, on the basis of public ownership of the means of production''.^^20^^
Socialism is the only society that frees science of bourgeois fetters and creates colossal opportunities for scientific progress in the interests of society as a whole. As is noted in the Programme of the CPSU, with the enforcement of a series of measures in the Soviet Union ``science will itself in full measure become a direct productive = force''.^^21^^ The further enhancement of the role played by science and the acceleration of scientific and technological progress are one of the central aims of the programmes of socio-economic development approved by the 24th Congress of the CPSU and by the congresses of the Communist parties of other socialist countries.
Also an extremely significant aspect of the bourgeois
interpretation of the optimum is that it is static. As a rule,
their definition excludes the need for the most efficient
utilisation of resources that are being developed for
attaining new goals. It is symptomatic that many anti-communist
theorists use the Soviet Union's lag behind the USA in one
field or another as proof of their contention that no
economic optimum exists or is even possible in the socialist economy.
For instance, Stanley H. Cohn, an expert of the US
Congress, tries to prove that there is no optimisation of social
production in the Soviet Union (he asserts that decline and
stagnation prevail in the Soviet economy) by comparing the
GNP of the USSR and the USA. However, the data on the
Soviet Union's lag behind the USA in the total volume of
production or some other similar data have no bearing on the
ability of one social system or another of achieving economic
optimisation. These data can characterise, though only
partially, the efficiency of production within a certain span of
time. At each phase this efficiency depends not only on the
socio-economic system but also on many historical and
60
international factors, including the starting level of development,
the duration of wars, the devastation wrought by them,
natural factors, and so on.
The objective logic of the economic development of the Soviet Union and other socialist countries increasingly lays bare the untenability of the bourgeois economists' static approach to problems of the economic optimum. Lately, this has led to a trend, typical particularly of the neo-classical school, toward bringing dynamics into the category of the optimum. A case in point is the ``latest'' concept elaborated by the American economist Abram Bergson in his Planning and Productivity under Soviet = Socialism?^^3^^' Taking into account the vulnerability of the static approach to the socialist economy, he endeavours to work out a method of assessing the efficiency of the growing socialist economy that would be acceptable to bourgeois political economy. For this purpose he uses the bourgeois ``structural'' theories of economic development, including the theory of stages of economic growth. But even in their ``dynamic'' form the bourgeois theories ignore social factors. With references to ``dynamic efficiency'' he tries, in effect, to by-pass the question of socialism's historically progressive character as a socio-economic system. This progressive character is seen in the fact that socialism sets and successfully achieves the aims of attaining the world's highest level of efficiency and the planned development of the national economy.
The anti-communists argue that the socialist planned economy, centralised planning and management of the economy and the determining role of the socialist state in economic development are incompatible with economic rationality and true humanism and democracy. The market, i.e., the capitalist economy, they claim, creates the conditions for initiative in the interests of all members of society.
Most of the bourgeois economists are no longer arguing that the plan and the market are incompatible. Many proponents of the ``convergence'' theory (Raymond Aron, Pitirim A. Sorokin and John K. Galbraith, to name a few) 61 regard state-monopoly regulation in the imperialist states as the beginning of economic planning. ``Elements of planning are included in the market economy of the Western industrialised states,'' declares one of these = proponents.^^23^^ ``Planning and socialism are not one and the same thing,'' says another.
As regards the economic development of the socialist countries this theory is based on the deliberately false premise that the basic principles of socialist planning have not justified themselves and should therefore be abandoned. They refer here to centralised planning of the entire economy, the mandatory nature of plans, and to the fact that the principles of socialist planning are identified with administrative methods of economic management.
Characteristic in this respect is the support given by the anti-communists in West Germany and other capitalist countries to the revisionist ``champions of the market economy'' who had suffered a fiasco in = Czechoslovakia.^^24^^
Essentially, the attacks on centralised planning and management of the economy and the laudation of the market as a regulator of production raise the question of the stimuli of economic progress under socialism. Are they the result of a mutual antagonism between branches of the economy and between individuals (which under market regulation is called competition) or are they the result of their co-operation?
Under socialism appropriation is a process that has from the very beginning been consciously given a social character. This has been clearly defined in the works of the classics of Marxism-Leninism, for whom socialist ownership in principle signified appropriation in the interests of the whole of society.
Planned administration of society in the interests of the
working people forms the substance of socialism. Contrary
to this, the mechanism of competition, demanded by the
revisionists, would undermine the homogeneity of socialist
ownership and the power of the working class which rests
on that ownership (this was demonstrated by the inglorious
62
counter-revolutionary theories of the revisionist economists
in Czechoslovakia).
The dogged efforts of the anti-communists of all hues to portray the socialist principle of planning as an attempt by the state to centralise and regulate all aspects of life cannot find tangible justification. Socialism is a highly organised, dynamic system with close interaction and interdependence between the planned regulation on the scale of the whole of society and the initiative of individual enterprises, districts and regions. Centralised state management and planning in the major fields of social development are organically linked with the responsibility borne by enterprises and local bodies, which plan their own work. This system is not merely economically more efficient than the capitalist market mechanism, competition and anarchy of production. It is also much more democratic, for it combines the interests of the working class and all other working people in an integral system of socialist social relations.
During the building of a developed socialist society and the foundations of communism under conditions of intensive expanded reproduction, the basic principles of management and planning of the socialist economy must receive priority development as compared with the principles that were applied during the building of socialism and fundamentally extensive expanded reproduction. This includes the further consistent development of commodity-money relations, which, despite all the attempts by the anti-communists to interpret them in their own way, are one of the main components of the socialist economy. Of decisive significance is the fact that the basic principles of planning and managing the socialist economy remain immutable.
Had the principle of universal regulation, which suppresses all initiative, actually been applied in the socialist economy and had this been really intrinsic to that economy, what motivated the free development of mass initiative that commenced during the very first days of socialism's existence in the Soviet Union? In each new period of development 63 the creative initiative of the working people manifested itself as a profoundly democratic movement. It grew in accordance with the tasks facing society and yielded increasing economic benefits.
For instance, the number of production rationalisation suggestions increased from 591,000 in 1940 to 4,733,000 in 1972. The saving from their utilisation grew from 90 million rubles in 1940 to 3,410 million in = 1972.^^25^^ Similar processes are to be observed in other socialist countries.
There is only one explanation for all this---a spirit of genuine emulation on a mass scale emerges only on the basis of socialist ownership, with help from centralised management and planning, in an atmosphere of comradely cooperation and mutual assistance. This is one of the cardinal advantages of socialism, which shows its superiority over the capitalist principle of competition and monopoly domination, based on massive plunder of social wealth, on the victory of one rival group over another. The question should therefore be not of the abolition of state management and planning, whose importance increases with the growth of the socialisation of labour in all spheres of social production, but of the enlistment of all working people into the administration of the state and the economy.
Bourgeois economists, who can no longer deny the expediency of centralised economic planning, now assert that in view of the present enormous scale of planned production there cannot be democracy and creative activity by the working people anywhere in the world. Centralism and democracy, they claim, are incompatible. John K. Galbraith said that ``a tendency threatening that the huge bureaucratic economic machine ... would occupy the dominant position in society was growing increasingly pronounced in all industrialised = nations''.^^26^^
State-monopoly centralism is thus identified with socialist
democratic centralism. The policies of the Communist and
Workers' parties of the socialist states, including their
economic policy, are permeated with the striving to do as
64
much as possible for the welfare of the people, in the
interests of the working class and all other working people,
and together with them discuss all undertakings, adopt and
carry out decisions. This was clearly expressed in the
documents of the 24th Congress of the CPSU and of the
congresses of the Communist parties of other socialist countries.
The centralism of the socialist state is therefore just as
democratic as the creative initiative of the people in
production or in their residential district. Their participation
in the charting of state decisions is a tested principle of
socialist centralism. The recommendations made by the
people during nationwide discussions and the commitments
that were made during the preparations for the 24th
Congress of the CPSU eloquently exemplify the democratic
character of socialist centralism, which is a principle of
political life in other socialist countries as well. In the
German Democratic Republic, for instance, seven million
people took part in discussing a draft code of labour
laws.
Thus, socialist society takes shape and the socialist economy develops with the active participation of millions of people. Socialist society and economy are improving because the working class and all other working people are growing more skilful in the art of economic management and state administration.
One of the key conditions for this is the growth of the role played by the Party of the working class, which is the highest form of its organisation in the building of socialism and communism. The role of the working class in the development of socialist society and the significance of its initiative and conscious, purposeful activity as the champion of social progress are enhanced in proportion to the growth of its political activity, knowledge, ability to carry out economic and technical tasks, and cultural level. The art of leadership by the Communist Party consists in training the working class to carry out new functions and tasks in the building of communism.
65The Communist Party concentrates its attention on providing political leadership to economic processes, for ``without a correct political approach to the matter the given class will be unable to stay on top, and consequently, will be incapable of solving its production problem either''.^^27^^
By demanding the Communist Party's removal from economic management the revisionists are encroaching on the command heights of socialism, for economy is the main area of the struggle for socialism. It creates the material conditions for progress in all spheres of social life. The experience of socialist construction has proved time and again that social progress depends largely on the ability of the Communist Party to give a politically correct orientation to economic development, constructively implement the leading role of the working class and utilise the creative powers of the working people.
An objective law of the building of a developed socialist society is therefore not the abolition, as is preached by the revisionists, but the growth of the guiding, leading role of the Communist Party in the economy, for the larger the scale of socialist construction and the more complex the tasks it entails, the greater becomes the role and responsibility of the Communist Party.
In its analysis of the present phase of development, the 24th Congress of the CPSU presented a scientific solution to the main problems of the economic policy and socio- political and cultural development of Soviet society. Proceeding from the specifics of the present phase of communist construction, the Congress set forth the fundamental objectives of economic development for 1971--1975 and for a longer term.
The main goal of the CPSU's economic policy is to achieve a substantial rise of the people's living standards. This is what evokes the greatest hostility of the anti-communists. While misrepresenting the humane and democratic character of the programme adopted by the 24th Congress, they __PRINTERS_P_65_COMMENT__ 5---2810 66 have to take into consideration the present-day specifics of the struggle between the two social systems.
In the ideological attacks of the reactionaries against socialism no little importance is acquired by outwardly objective theories, whose authors reluctantly acknowledge some of the socio-economic achievements of the socialist countries but seek to distort the content of these achievements. Moreover, they vociferously declare that the purpose of their criticism is to ``protect humanism''.
The aim pursued by these more subtle falsifiers of the documents and decisions of the 24th CPSU Congress may be clearly seen in analysing the pronouncements of the participants in a ``round-table discussion'' in Turin on the subject ``Where is the USSR of the 1970s heading?''. Organised after the 24th Congress of the CPSU, it was attended by prominent Western anti-communists and Sovietologists. Many of them had to acknowledge ``the improved situation in the USSR'' and the positive character of some of the Congress decisions. In the words of Richard Lowenthal, the Congress adopted a very significant decision---to improve the condition of the Soviet consumer. But Lowenthal, as the other anti-communists, made this admission only in order to misrepresent entirely the reasons underlying the decisions passed at the = Congress.^^28^^
While acknowledging the turn in favour of the consumer, Arrigo Levi, who also attended the ``round-table discussion'', asserted that the Soviet Union did not have the potential to accelerate the output of consumer = goods.^^29^^ His ``computations'' led to the absurd conclusion that under the ninth five-year plan no investments would be made in the services industry. Further, he ``discovered'' that the Congress had introduced a more rigid wage policy, abandoned the economic reform and renounced economic incentives.
In dealing with the socio-economic programme of the 24th CPSU Congress, there has been a distribution of roles among representatives of various schools of anti-communism. The neo-liberals base their criticism on the traditional 67 theories about the ``organic mismanagement'' that is allegedly inherent in the socialist economy. The positive programme of the Congress is characterised as ``wishful thinking'' and the ``sheerest Utopia''. In the distorting mirror of the anti-communists even the task of ensuring an increment in social production through a higher level of labour productivity is characterised as a ``broad offensive against the Soviet working = class.''^^29^^
The ``convergence'' theory advocates hold that the Soviet Union owes its recent economic successes to the `` transplantation'' of some elements of the Western economy to socialism and that the task is to move further in that direction.
The ``Left'' revisionists likewise attack the programme adopted at the 24th CPSU Congress. While the Right opportunists speak of what they call the meagre consumption in the Soviet Union, the ``Left'' revisionists harp on the ``bourgeoisification'' of Soviet society. The Maoists try to justify Peking's anti-popular policies by proclaiming poverty as a factor that automatically determines man's lofty morals. They are making futile attempts to portray concern for people, condemning the rise of the living standard and the flourishing of culture and science as an indication of bourgeois degeneration.
The ideals of scientific communism, reflected and enlarged on in the decisions of the 24th CPSU Congress, are as far removed from the consumption cult propounded by the bourgeois ideologists and the Right opportunists as from the hypocritical extolling of poverty by the ``Left'' revisionists, who deny the humanism of Marxism-Leninism. The `` barrack socialism'' of the Maoists and the ``humane'' or `` democratic'' socialism of the Right opportunists ultimately boil down to betrayal of the interests of the working people.
The duplicity and spuriousness of all these arguments of the anti-communists are strikingly brought to light when they are compared with the facts.
A highly-developed agriculture is an inalienable part of communism's material