p The struggle against the USSR and the other socialist countries is undoubtedly the most important line in the fight which present-day anti-communism is carrying on against the forces of social progress.

p While pursuing a single strategic line in its policy and ideology, anti-communism operates against world socialism along two main tactical lines, which constantly supplement and combine with each other.

p The first of these is an expression of aspirations of those circles of the monopoly bourgeoisie which support the extreme reactionary and openly militaristic line aimed at destroying socialism in an armed attack. It is based on outright voluntarism, and an anti-scientific and adventurist reliance on the “positions-of-strength” policy.

p The second tactical line expresses a much more cautious approach by the imperialists to their fight against socialism. This line includes the “bridge-building” doctrine which was proclaimed by former US President Lyndon B. Johnson, a doctrine to which the USA and a number of capitalist 82 countries still adhere. This line is also being followed by politicians and ideologists of imperialism who assume that it is now a risky thing for the capitalist world to contemplate a world-wide thermonuclear war, and that it is better to operate through local wars and subversive operations inside the socialist countries. Not daring to mount a frontal attack against the socialist world, imperialism seeks to undermine the unity of the world socialist community, to weaken the unity of the working people in the socialist countries, and to erode socialism from inside.

p This new tactics is marked by intensified attempts to cover up the reactionary purposes, and the reactionary policy and ideology with a pseudo-democratic, “liberal” and pseudoscientific phraseology. But “quiet” anti-communism is as dangerous as the loud and open calls for a crusade against the socialist countries.

p Under the cover of liberal demagogic talk, the class enemies of socialism seek to change the character of the political power in the socialist countries, to explode the Communist Parties from inside, and to eliminate their leading role in socialist society, without which it is impossible to build or to continue to develop socialism.

p With that end in view, the imperialists have been making intensive efforts to involve the class enemies (former exploiters) of socialism in organised and purposeful anti- socialist activity within the socialist countries, to revive and galvanise the political activity of those who had been members of disbanded counter-revolutionary parties, to make extensive use of Social-Democrats and revisionists, and also to involve in anti-socialist activity men who are politically immature, backward, with inadequate ideological training, or simply ignorant. The purpose of this is to try to corrupt the intelligentsia and the young people, making a desperate effort to speculate on past mistakes and shortcomings, so as to denigrate the heroic path of the Soviet and other peoples of the socialist countries and to spread mistrust of socialism and the Communist Parties.

p It is these class purposes, which are hostile to socialism, that constitute the main content of the present-day policy pursued by the leading imperialist powers with respect to the socialist countries. A well-known anti-communist expert, Professor Gordon Skilling, insists that the policy ^of the Western powers with respect to the socialist countries “should 83 be subtle and restrained, avoiding loud propaganda and threats of intervention, and encouraging the peaceful evolution of national communism within the communist bloc”.  [83•1  Other anti-communist experts make no bones about the need to induce structural changes within the socialist countries. One view expressed at a “scientific” conference of anticommunist ideologists was that “the proper Western policy toward East Central Europe at the present juncture is that of peaceful engagement, i.e., the coordinated use of cultural exchange, financial credit, and diplomatic maneuver to promote the erosive forces already at work in the area.”  [83•2 

p The “bridge-building” doctrine, which appears to be an amicable one and which has been proclaimed with respect to the socialist countries by leading US political figures, in actual fact pursues far from friendly aims. Together with the export of goods, the imperialists seek to export to the socialist countries their bourgeois ideology, and together with the advertisements of the products, advertisements of the capitalist way of life and the prospects for a restoration of capitalism.

p It is not surprising that the Communist Parties are the main objective of the bourgeois ideologists’ attacks.

p The Communist Party, a party of the working class, and the vanguard of the whole people, is in possession of a scientific theory of social development, it organises and educates the masses, sets an example of the communist attitude to work, carries on a struggle against any manifestation of bourgeois ideology or survivals of the past, moulds the working people’s communist outlook, helps those who lag to overcome their vacillations and preconceptions, and creatively formulates the pressing problems of the day. The imperialist machinations can, of course, have some effect and inflict some damage on the socialist construction only if the party leadership is relaxed, if vigilance is dulled in the country, and if the class approach to social phenomena is not practised in the various sectors.

p It is a law underlying the existence of the Marxist- Leninist parties that they must be ideologically and organisationally united, and carry on a tireless struggle for it. The 84 Communists of the USSR have scored all their victories in the most difficult historical conditions only because they acted as a conscious, united, and ideologically coherent organisation. They were able to overcome the great difficulties which arose on the way of socialist construction in the USSR only because they took the implacable Leninist attitude to Right and “Left” revisionists, and resolutely condemned and outlawed factions, working to unite the Communists in thought and act.

p It is not surprising therefore that the ideologists of anticommunism and the revisionists have concentrated their most intensive attacks against Lenin’s doctrine of the Party. The anti-communist experts have openly stressed that in the long term activity by revisionists within the Parties may lead to the elimination of the Communist Party’s leading role in the socialist countries, to a growth of opposition trends within them, to be followed by political and economic changes within the socialist community, along the lines designed by imperialism, which means nothing but the restoration of capitalism in the socialist countries.

p The anti-communist experts believe that ideological changes must be followed by changes in the political superstructure of socialism, and they have recommended that this should be “improved” after the “model” of bourgeois democracy.

p The ideologists of anti-communism and their revisionist henchmen have been carrying on fierce attacks on socialist democracy with a pretended concern for “democratisation” and “liberalisation”. Actually, these are attempts to introduce in the socialist countries Western-type multi-party systems, including opposition parties, parties which fight each other, which bourgeois ideologists present as models of democracy.

p However, it is well known that so-called political pluralism, that is, a system of rival political parties fighting each other in the capitalist countries, is a reflection of the class structure of capitalism, with its inherent inter-class and intra-class contradictions, and that it is in no conceivable sense a “model” for socialism.

p The existence and activity of many parties “fighting for power” in the capitalist countries does nothing to modify the nature of the bourgeois state. This system merely provides the opportunities for rivalry between groups of 85 bourgeoisie within one and the same class, and ultimately reflects the competition which is proper to the capitalist mode of production.

p As for the truly opposition political parties and organisations (Communist and Workers’ Parties, Left-wing trade union associations and other organisations and alliances which are outside the system of bourgeois dictatorship) these are subjected to persecution, reprisals and terrorism, while the powerful propaganda machine in the hands of the bourgeoisie steadily heaps the most refined slander, distorting their purposes, their theoretical principles and methods—in short, everything is being done to compromise them in the eyes of the broad masses of the population.

p The true test of a state’s democratic structure is not at all the number of parties, but the socio-economic system, which determines who owns the means of production, and what part the working people have to play in running the state. In the socialist countries, the forms which the “multi-party” or “one-party” system assumes depend on the concrete historical conditions, but whatever the form of government in the period of transition from capitalism to socialism dictatorship of the proletariat is the only acceptable substance of the state system.

p The ideologists of anti-communism and the revisionists keep attacking the Marxist-Leninist doctrine of the proletarian dictatorship, which they present as being the very opposite to democracy, and equate dictatorship and violence. The fact is, however, that the main functions of the proletarian dictatorship are known to be constructive, and that the dictatorship of the proletariat is a democracy for the majority of the population, and is a form of class alliance between the proletariat and the non-proletarian sections of the working people. The proletarian dictatorship’s functions of economic organisation and education and cultural development for the purpose of establishing a socialist society is combined with the use of force when it comes to overthrowing the exploiters or putting down their resistance.

p Indeed, in the socialist countries, the capitalists have been deprived of the freedom to own factories and landed estates, to oppress the working people, to use the mass media to deceive the people, to fight for a restoration of the power of the exploiters, and to maintain ties with the foreign bourgeoisie for those ends. This “lack of freedom” depends on the fact 86 that in the transition period the exploiters inevitably have hopes of restoration hopes which develop into attempts at restoration. (

p That is why lany form of a multi-party system in the transition period is possible and appropriate only where the non-proletarian parties accept the leading role of the Marxist-Leninist party, which is equipped with a scientific theory, and where all the non-proletarian parties accept socialism and express the interest of the working people.

p It is this kind of multi-party system of political organisation of socialist society that the anti-communists quite naturally seek to undermine, all the while hypocritically claiming to be acting in the interests of democracy.

p The assertion that in contrast to the “free and democratic” societies in the capitalist West the communist system is totalitarian is the most common anti-communist argument aimed against the socialist system and its domestic policy, with the vilifying equation of socialism and fascism as the main thesis. This is a fraudulent attempt to play on the people’s hatred for fascism and a simultaneous effort to obscure the true substance of the latter, its class character as a terroristic dictatorship of the most aggressive circles of monopoly capital.

p The roots of the “totalitarian” idea go down to Kautsky’s “democracy or dictatorship” scheme, which was shown to be scientifically untenable by Lenin, in his The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky. Let us recall that Kautsky had the wrong definition of imperialism and denied the class character of the state.

p On the eve of the Second World War, Right-wing SocialDemocratic politicians and ideologists, among them Otto Wels, Curt Geyer, Rudolf Hilferding and Friedrich Stampfer, modified Kautsky’s scheme and converted his interpretation of dictatorship into a myth of “totalitarianism”. They are the ones who launched the malicious invention that fascism and communism were “quite identical”.  [86•1 

p The “totalitarianism” doctrine was subsequently used by the most reactionary and aggressive leaders of US 87 imperialism. President Harry Truman, for instance, referred to this idea in laying down his political line and based his aggressive “Truman Doctrine”, which he proclaimed in March 1947, on the need of standing up to communism and its “totalitarian regimes”.

p The “totalitarianism” idea was borrowed by the politicians and ideologists of resurgent German imperialism. Dr. Gerhard Lozek, of the Institute of Social Sciences under the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, told a conference in Berlin: “Beginning from the mid- 1950s, the content of every major work along the main lines of bourgeois West German sociology, philosophy, historiography, constitutional law and economics, social psychology and, not least important, so-called political science, has been largely determined by the doctrine of totalitarianism.”  [87•1  The anti-communist doctrine of “totalitarianism” was also used by the Bonn authorities to justify the unlawful banning of the Communist Party of Germany, to justify its extraordinary legislation, its striving to obtain nuclear weapons, and to carry on a campaign of terrorism against progressive leaders.

p The ideologists of anti-communism have written a great many books about “totalitarianism”. Among them are Professor Carl Friedrich of Harvard University and Zbigniew Brzezinski, both of whom contributed to a collection entitled Totalitarianism (1967); the French sociologist Raymond Aron, who wrote the book Democracy and Totalitarianism (1965); the US political science specialist, Professor John Gibson, author of the book Ideology and World Affairs (1967), and so on.

p These, like other propagandists of the “totalitarianism” myth, seek to conceal the connection between fascism and capitalism, and to draw a line of distinction between the capitalist state and fascism. Actually, fascism is a product of the private capitalist system in the epoch of imperialism, and bourgeois-democratic and fascist states have common forms of property (domination of capitalist property), existence of antagonistic classes, and the political power of capital (even if it does assume different forms).

p The slanderous assertions that fascism and socialism are merely two different forms of “totalitarianism” is designed 88 to divert the attention of the masses of people in the capitalist countries from the actual and quite real tendency towards a spread of fascism in these states today. This was emphasised by Lenin when he stressed that “imperialism seeks to replace democracy generally by oligarchy”.  [88•1  Today, this is a rapid process in the capitalist countries of the West, where monopoly capital has been developing and improving the bourgeois state’s strong and ramified police and army machine. Bureaucratic officials are coming to play an ever greater role, while the role of parliamentary activity within the system of the monopoly dictatorship is being steadily reduced and parliament’s legislative powers are bein,? whittled down.

p The idle talk about “totalitarianism” in the Soviet Union and other socialist countries is designed to divert public attention from these processes.

p John Gibson says, for instance, that the mark of “ totalitarianism” is the rule of a minority over the majority and a denial of individual rights.

p One needs merely to consider the real facts of life in the USA and in the USSR to discover where a minority rules the majority. Of the 1,517 deputies elected in 1970 to the Eighth USSR Supreme Soviet, 31.7 per cent are workers, 18.6 per cent are collective farmers, and the rest are workers in culture, science, education, office workers and government officials. This social composition of the supreme organ of power largely reflects the structure of the country’s population. Meanwhile, there are no workers or farmers in the US Congress, although 85 per cent of the US population are wage workers. Where then is the majority ruled by a minority? Let us add, too, that all the other Soviets together have over 2 million deputies, with almost 25 million persons working with them as activists. There is also the fact that for the first time in history the right to work, rest and leisure, education and material security in old age have been ensured in the USSR. The much-vaunted US democracy allows unemployment in the country and a state of things under which over 30 million Americans live in poverty, and over 20 million Negroes are in fact deprived of civil rights.

p The anti-communist doctrine of totalitarianism is bound to collapse in face of the blatant anti-democratism of 89 present-day capitalism and with the steady spread of the truth about life in the socialist countries. Accordingly, this slanderous doctrine has been somewhat modified in the last few years. As the tactics of imperialist struggle against the socialist countries is changed, the accent has recently been not so much on the alleged identity of fascism and communism as on the specific features of the various socialist countries with the far reaching aims of their possible subsequent “ softening up”. At the same time, some historians in the FRG have tried to present the fascist regime of 1933-1945 as a nontotalitarian system of power, thereby leaving the concept to be applied entirely to socialism. In this instance (as, let us add, in all the others) we find that anti-communism ultimately serves the most reactionary forces and paves the way for fascism.

p It is extremely important in the interests of peace and social progress effectively to expose the doctrine of totalitarianism.

p In the latter half of the 1960s, bourgeois ideologists produced a new concept, the “administered society”,  [89•1  which they believe to be a good definition of modern totalitarianism.

p That this new concept is likewise a fraudulent one will be seen above all from 1) the attempt to present the guidance of social development by the Communist Parties as the saddling of society with a powerful “political elite”—an attempt to distort the fundamental feature of this guidance, namely, the organic bonds between the Party and broad masses of the working people, and with all the classes and social groups in socialist society; 2) the attempt to contrast the Party’s guidance of social life, and Marxism, rather, the Marxist thesis of the withering away of the state—an attempt based on a neglect of the drawn-out dialectical process of the withering away of the state (which occurs only through the utmost development of democracy, and the presence of the appropriate concrete historical conditions); and 3) the attempts to contrast the interests of Party and state leaders, and various “group” interests: the interests of technical experts, the artists arid the scientists, the critics and the journalists, all of which allegedly have potentialities for a “pluralistic political framework”, implying their “independent influence in the society”.  [89•2  90 This clearly ignores the ideological and political unity of all the social and occupational groups in socialist society. The implication is that within the “administered society” there is bound to be “a very slow erosion of the Bolshevik heritage”.  [90•1  These contrasts are untenable because they ignore the scientific nature of the Party’s guidance, and unjustifiably separate the scientific ideology from the scientific administration of society.

p In 1969, an American anti-communist journal Problems of Communism, tried to establish a direct connection between a new “political model” for the socialist countries and their economic reforms. The political consequences of these reforms were presented as an inevitable weakening of the Party’s leading role, and a strengthening of the role of the technocrats. Referring to a number of revisionist features, which boil down to allegations that the “communist party was incapable of leading a modern industrial society”, the journal advertised the establishment in the socialist countries of multi-party systems reflecting the clash of interests of conflicting groups. These interests of groups, the journal insists, are embodied in the trade unions, in the technocrats and in the various opposition groups within the party itself.  [90•2 

p In reality, the socio-economic system of socialism ensures a gradual elimination of classes and the establishment of social equality.

p Under socialism, all social classes and groups have undergone substantial change, and their further development is marked by a consolidation of their socio-political and ideological unity in the steady advance towards complete social homogeneity. In the past, historical development in antagonistic formations naturally resulted in increasing class differentiation, whereas the formation of socialism results in a gradual overcoming of it.

p In the period of transition from capitalism to socialism, with an acute struggle under way between the vanquished but not yet destroyed, not completely worked out capitalism, and the steadily growing forces of socialism, there still exists a social base for the fight against socialism, and attempts to make use of it are being made primarily by imperialist 91 reaction and its agents, and then also by those who have fallen under the influence of anti-communist propaganda.

p Under full-scale socialism, class antagonisms have already been eliminated but class distinctions still remain, although these are also being gradually obliterated. However, there are no social groups with conflicting interests, and the fundamental interests of all the social sections are organically identical. This explains why it is a reactionary utopia for the ideologists of anti-communism to hope that the peoples of the socialist countries will return to a “pluralistic model” of democracy, in which there will be a “scramble for power”.

p It is quite another matter that the reactionary classes have been doing their utmost to revive and invigorate the antisocialist elements in the socialist countries, to galvanise the survivals of capitalism in the minds of men, and to influence their thinking by means of bourgeois propaganda.

p One well-worn anti-communist myth which slanders and grossly distorts the foreign policy of socialism is that communism is “aggressive”, and seeks to “export revolution”. It is being strenuously spread by the US and West German ideologists of anti-communism, among them Meissner, Lowenthal and Wagenlehner. It is designed not only for propaganda, but also for purely practical political purposes, and is being used in an effort to vindicate NATO’s aggressive policy, the arms drive and the imperialist interference in the affairs of other nations.

p The slander about the “export of revolution” and the “communist menace” is being maintained by speculation on the ignorance of some people who do not know the principles underlying the foreign policy of the socialist states, and the theory of scientific communism.

p Lenin kept giving reminders that revolutions are not made to order, and that they mature within capitalist society as a result of the objective contradictions of capitalism. He wrote: “The rule of capitalism is being undermined not because somebody is out to seize power. ’Seizure’ of power would be senseless. It would be impossible to put an end to the rule of capitalism if the whole course of economic development in the capitalist countries did not lead up to it.... No power could destroy capitalism if it were not sapped and undermined by history—-We do not want a ‘seizure’ of power, because the entire experience of past revolutions teaches us that the only stable power is the one 92 that has the backing of the majority of the population. ’ Seizure’ of power, therefore, would be adventurism, and our Party will not have it.”  [92•1  Revolutions, said Lenin, “break out when tens of millions of people come to the conclusion that it is impossible to live in the old way any longer”.  [92•2 

p That is the Leninist stand taken by the present-day international communist movement.

p It is the inalienable right of each people to choose its own social system. Socialist revolution is not imported and cannot be imposed from outside. It is the result of internal development, and of extreme aggravation of ,sbcial contradictions within the given country.

p Why then is it that despite the fact that the anti- communist “export of revolution” slander has been totally refuted both by the practice and by the theory of MarxismLeninism this cliché of reactionary propaganda now and again occurs in the speeches and writings of the ideologists of imperialism?

p The answer is that the “export of revolution” idea has a very definite ancillary role to play in the anti-communist policy of imperialism, a policy of exporting counter- revolution and armed suppression of popular movements for social emancipation and national liberation. The only purpose behind the bourgeois ideologists’ fraudulent assertions that any liberation movement is caused by “outside interference”, “Moscow’s machinations”, and so on, is to cover up the reactionary policy which is designed to stop social progress. However, it is evident that even this slanderous propaganda has recently been losing ground because it is entirely unsubstantiated. The US bourgeois publicist, Walter Lippmann, wrote that the erroneous assumption is sometimes made that revolutionary uprisings against established authority are manufactured in Moscow, and that they would not happen if they were not instigated, supported and directed from one of the capitals of communism. Lippmann has to admit that “ revolution is a homegrown product”.  [92•3 

p The US publicist, Robert Taber, rejects the anti- communist claims that revolutionary change in Cuba was engineered by the “hand of Moscow”. He says that a million 93 Cuban women and children had never worn shoes, while half a million peasants had never tasted milk since babyhood nor meat in their lives.  [93•1  Another US journalist, Herbert Matthews, says that the Cuban revolution did not result from “subversive” communist activity, but from the fact that in Latin America communism proved to have material and practical attractions.  [93•2 

p In seeking any kind of arguments to justify their aggressive policy aimed against social progress, the ideologists of anti-communism deliberately confuse the “export of revolution” and a qualitatively new phenomenon, namely, the Soviet Union’s assistance to the progressive and legitimate struggle of the people for their liberation. Lenin wrote: “I am not at all opposed to wars waged in defence of democracy or against national oppression, nor do I fear such words as ’defence of the fatherland’ in reference to these wars or to insurrections. Socialists always side with the oppressed and, consequently, cannot be opposed to wars whose purpose is democratic or socialist struggle against oppression.”  [93•3 

p Another natural expression of the working people’s international solidarity in their fight for social progress is their stand in defence of their socialist gains, against the antisocialist moves of domestic and external counter- revolution.

p The principal task of the foreign policy of the socialist countries is to ensure favourable conditions for socialist and communist construction. The CPSU has been doing its utmost to strengthen the unity and cohesion of the socialist countries, to support the peoples’ struggle for social emancipation and national liberation, to develop co-operation with the young independent states, consistently to abide by the principles of peaceful coexistence between states with differing social systems, and to rid mankind of the threat of a world thermonuclear war.

p The revolutionary and democratic transformation of the world fully meets the interests of all the nations.

p The noble goals of domestic and foreign policy pursued 94 by the socialist countries meets with growing sympathy among the working people in all the countries of the world.

p In its subversive activity against the socialist countries, imperialist reaction relies heavily on nationalism and rei.

p siomsm.

p Anti-communist policy-makers and ideologists have announced a crusade against the unity of the world socialist system and have been attacking the friendship, co-operation and cohesion of the peoples of the socialist countries and their social system. The bourgeois ideologists have produced a wide range of variations on the tantalising prospects of “polycentrism” within the socialist community, openly relying on bourgeois nationalism in their efforts to undermine the unity of the socialist system. The greatest efforts are being made to unhinge the friendship between the fraternal socialist countries and the Soviet Union. The idea is that whenever a socialist country “increases the scope of its external independence” from the Soviet Union, “it should be rewarded”.  [94•1  This tactic of imperialism has been designated by the anti-communist experts as the “differentiated approach” to the socialist countries, depending on the behaviour of the various communist states.

p This new “differentiated approach” to the socialist countries of Europe has a very definite reactionary content, namely, the line towards a restoration of the prewar borders, in particular, the dismantling of the GDR, the first German working people’s state in history.

p Anti-communist reaction and its henchmen have been trying hard to undermine and weaken socialist internationalism. Behind a false front of “concern” for the sovereignty and national interests of the socialist countries they make use of methods which are quite untenable scientifically. Thus, they claim the interests of bourgeois nationalism to be those of the people, and present proletarian internationalism as an anti-national ideology which allegedly implies a national nihilism. In actual fact, national nihilism is alien to proletarian internationalism, which has organic bonds with popular patriotism.

p The international unity of the socialist countries far from excluding in fact implies consideration of the national 95 interest of each socialist country. Moreover, it is socialist internationalism, which cements and unites the world socialist system, that holds out a genuine guarantee of sovereignty for any socialist country. It is an internationalist duty of the Communists of all countries to make a collective stand in defence of the gains of socialism, and to strengthen and develop it.

p The imperialists alone stand to gain from division, and weakened unity and cohesion among the fraternal socialist countries.

p The heightened interest displayed by bourgeois ideologists in the various expressions of revisionism in the fraternal socialist countries of Eastern Europe is also due to the class interests of the imperialists. There is good reason why they have heaped high praise on any deviation from MarxistLeninist principles by revisionist elements, why they have given a positive assessment to any attempt to contrast Marxist-Leninist ideology and scientific knowledge, why they have endorsed the attempts to separate Leninism from Marxism, to contrast national interests and internationalism, to deny the general laws of socialist construction which are applicable regardless of national specifics, and why they deny the international importance of the October Revolution.

The imperialists have allocated vast amounts of money for anti-communist propaganda. An effort is also being made to “modernise” anti-communism, to improve its methods and tactics, and to refurbish its ideological fabric. All of this requires constant attention to the new concepts being produced by the ideological opponents of socialism.