p The fact that socialist society was scrutinised through the prism of concepts about an industrial society, which distorted reality, gave rise, as we have mentioned earlier, to the illusory idea that political and ideological processes, which must gradually lead to the restoration of the capitalist class structure, superstructure and, ultimately, relations of production, spontaneously develop in the socialist states parallel with scientific and technological progress. The theoretical foundation for this idea was its propounders’ total disregard for the concrete content of social development and their denial of the existence of opposing class social formations with diametrically opposite specific laws of development. Moreover, it has as its basis the legend, scientifically untenable but entirely acceptable to imperialist class interests, that socialism is a specific, undeveloped form of a single industrial society, of which capitalism is the developed, mature prototype. This is linked with the refusal to recognise socialism and communism as the natural outcome of social development, and the attempt to depict communist, classless society as an unattainable utopia in principle.

p Socialist society’s successful development has compelled all the imperialist ideologists, the “experts on communism” in particular, to modify their “convergence” theory-based ideas.

p Similarly, more realistic views forced their way into the orthodox imperialist mind. The bourgeois newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, which during the first half of the 1960s had given its unqualified backing to the hopes for a spontaneous disintegration of the socialist system, wrote on March 19, 1970: “There can be no question of the systems drawing together as a result of the universally operating ’objective need’ of the scientific and technological revolutions.”

p The stillborn hopes of the “experts on communism” for a relatively swift and easy disintegration of socialism found 99 their theoretical expression in the form of further borrowings from bourgeois sociology. They adopted some of the macrosociological theories and models of social changes that bourgeois sociology had evolved in the preceding years and began to apply them in their studies of socialist society. A specific of these theories and models is that they outline longterm processes of development on the common basis of the “industrial society” theory. Bourgeois sociology’s structuralfunctional method, which falsifies the actual dialectics of the basis and superstructure and studies the superstructure idealistically, without taking the social character of the basis into account, has become the principal method in the studies of communism as well. The fundamental theoretical and methodological errors of bourgeois social theories, in particular the absolutisation of technical factors of social development and the negation of its social content, were thus repeated and even deepened.

p Since the close of the 1960s the “experts on communism” have been engaged in comparative studies of the development of individual socialist countries in order to understand the distinctions in the specifics of the socialist social system in these countries and reinforce the differentiated policy aimed at splitting the socialist community. Moreover, the purpose of these comparative studies is to provide arguments for the ideological struggle and help to work out methods for the selective discrediting of socialism.

p The imperialist evolutionary theory is directed toward the erosion and ultimate dissolution of the leading role played by the Marxist-Leninist Party in socialist society.

p Small wonder, therefore, that the “experts on communism” are completely at variance with objective laws. They offer the theory that the building of socialist society gradually and involuntarily undermines the foundations of the MarxistLeninist Party’s existence. The authors of the evolutionary theory would like to give the impression that counter- revolutionary strategic concepts are based on some general 100 laws of the development of an “integral industrial society”, laws which determine the development of socialist society as well. But inasmuch as “industrial society” represents a theoretical absolutisation of society generally, and the political and social structures of capitalist society in particular, in the distorting mirror of communism studies the development of socialist society is in principle accompanied by the same political and social phenomena as in the development of capitalist society.

p One of the most detailed models has been built by Peter Christian Ludz, a “specialist” on the GDR, who delivered a series of lectures at Columbia University, USA, and had carried out many official missions for the West German Government.

p Ludz takes as his point of departure the thesis that the principles of an “industrial society” exercise a “determining” influence on socialist society and that the latter’s development therefore “cannot be regarded as a process organised and directed by the Party”. He maintains that new important social structural indications had appeared and acquired their own law long ago. This is but a repetition of the old postulate that there are some common laws of “industrial society” which are not influenced in any way by the opposing relations of property and, consequently, by the opposing bases of modern societies. Ludz invents contradictions between the aims of the Marxist-Leninist Party (aims that are scientifically substantiated by the Marxist-Leninist theory) and the actual requirements of scientific and technological development.

p However, he has in mind not real contradictions, contradictions that exist or may appear under socialism. His pattern of contradictions is purely speculative. His imagined conflict between the purpose of the Marxist-Leninist Party— that of building communism—and the requirements of “industrial society’s” development presupposes the formation of opposing groups or factions, each representing one side of the conflict. On one side are the Marxist-Leninist 101 forces, and on the other—specialists in different sciences, technology and the economy, and there are insoluble contradictions between them. This is Ludz’s vision of the present position of the Marxist-Leninist parties in the socialist countries.

p He ignores the fact that socialism objectively creates the most propitious conditions for the free development of science, technology and the economy, that the alliance between politics (which is itself an applied science) and science is one of the key criteria of socialism, and that thus no real social foundation exists for the emergence of conflicts between Marxist-Leninist policy and science. Further, Ludz even has a ready-made recipe for settling the imagined conflict: this recipe requires a “basic restructuring of the Par- ty”,^^4^^ “an organisational structure of the Party that would conform to the economic structure based on the division of labour”,^^5^^ implying by this the relinquishment of the principle of democratic centralism, in other words, the Party’s unity, cohesion and ability to function.

p Johann Georg Reissmiiller, another West German “expert on communism”, has formulated the same aim with less pretension to theoretical backing and with less ambiguity: “The pluralisation of the Party and, subsequently, its possible liquidation.”^^6^^ This is the principal objective of the evolutionary theory.

p The “experts on communism” are, of course, not interested in adequately understanding the actual changes taking place in the social structure in the course of the building of the foundations of socialism, the formation of a develooed socialist society and the transition to communism. Moreover, they entirely ignore the historical place and character of the contradictions that are inevitable in socialist society.

p These contradictions—for instance, between the traditional division of labour into labour by brain and by hand, between the working class and the peasants—have been inherited from the capitalist past, and socialist society cannot 102 eradicate them simply at the wave of a magic wand. They can only be removed at a higher stage of the development of production. In socialist society there still is actual inequality, since it springs from objective distinctions in the content of social labour, and this is reflected in the socialist principle of distribution.

p With these contradictions inherited from the past intertwine contradictions generated by the obsolescence of some aspects, forms and features of the economic and social relations created by socialism itself, and, lastly, contradictions arising from subjective errors.

p First, these contradictions differ fundamentally from the contradictions of an antagonistic class society; they are not antagonistic. Second, they are gradually surmounted with the development of socialist society and its growth into a communist society. A specific of socialist society is its conscious and planned solution of social contradictions. This is unquestionably a complex process. However, already today, in developed socialist society, as a result of the policy of the Marxist-Leninist Party, the scientific prerequisites for the success of this process are being created alongside material prerequisites.

p The contradictions of socialist society imaged by the “ experts on communism” have nothing in common with the actual course of development. These “experts” are only fulfilling their class function of formulating the points of departure for the imperialist strategy of undermining and destroying socialism. In this context they interpret existing contradictions as mounting, antagonistic contradictions, and dispute the possibility for eradicating them in the socialist system.

p The thesis that social stratification is inevitable is acquiring special significance in communism studies in the West. This modern variant of the bourgeois theory of the elite, evolved by Vilfredo Pareto and included in the “industrial society” concept, masks the social influence of the traditional elite groups of capitalist society. A direct outcome of the elite 103 theory is the interest shown by the imperialist ideologists in scientific, technical and creative intellectuals and in functionaries of the Party and state apparatus. The working class is regarded by them, if it at all comes into their field of vision, mainly as an object of social development. They largely ignore the fact that in socialist society the working class is the most organised class which is most closely linked with socialist public property, that it creates the largest portion of all the material values, comprises most of the working people and bears the largest responsibility for the destiny of the whole of society. The growth of the collective farm peasantry is also represented by the “experts on communism” as not meriting attention.

p According to the evolutionary theory, the ultimate goal of imperialist strategy must be achieved by several intermediate phases. One of the most important phases is to be marked by the gradual abolition of socialist democracy and the planting of elements of bourgeois parliamentarism and political freedom for the anti-socialist activity of that leading strata of “industrial society” that aspires “for its own special interests to acquire more independence and greater participation in the exercise of political power”.^^7^^ It must, for instance, get the possibility for propagating “rival platforms” and obtaining a vote on them in the Communist- nonpartisan bloc.^^8^^ Prior to the general assault on the MarxistLeninist Party, the socialist state apparatus must be turned into a bastion of the anti-socialist forces.^^9^^

p From the standpoint of imperialist aims it is quite logical that the struggle against Marxism-Leninism and the leading role of the revolutionary Party of the working class is a prime task of the evolutionary theory, and the “experts on communism” are making every effort to give such a struggle an ideological and theoretical foundation. In this context there is a growing striving to enhance the social significance of ideology. This is most strikingly seen in Ideology and Society (Ideologic und Gesellschaft), a book by Eugen Lemberg, in which he attempts to work out a universal theory of 104 ideological systems and prove that ideology is a vital and basic element of social processes.^^10^^

p Lemberg believes that he can squeeze Marxism-Leninism into his “dialectical” pattern of ideological stages that claims to bring to light the laws and forces determining the development of all ideologies. A comparative study allows Lemberg to “discover” a “universally significant” three-phased, or ideally typical, process of development that is allegedly mandatory for all ideologies: “the period of revolutionary struggle before the conquest of power, the consolidation and expansion of newly-won power and, lastly, a departure from aims to the means of power, the phase of deideologisation and decline that simultaneously signifies the birth of a new ideology.”^^10^^ With this by no means dialectical but rather metaphysical and extremely speculative pattern Lemberg hopes to forecast desirable ideological processes in socialist society.

p In this he is not alone. Brzezinski, too, stresses that ideological subversion is the chief form of the imperialist struggle against socialism. Early in 1968 he declared that changes in ideology would help to effect political changes.^^11^^

p The growing significance that the “experts on communism” attach to the struggle against Marxism-Leninism is demonstrated by the programme character of these postulates. On the one hand, the evolutionary theory urges bourgeois social psychology to step up its efforts to improve the methods of ideological struggle. On the other hand, it helps anti-communists working on radio and television to substantiate the increasing efforts to activate the export of various bourgeois ideologies to the socialist states.

p Erich Honecker, First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, noted that the ideological struggle was acquiring increasing significance, that it was growing in volume and intensity.^^12^^

p Imperialism is striving to use peaceful coexistence for more vigorous ideological subversion.

p With capitalist society’s contradictions growing steadily deeper and imperialism’s inability to suggest an alternative to socialist society becoming increasingly obvious, the accent is being placed more and more on evolutionary concepts of society as propounded by the revisionists and the SocialDemocrats. The “experts on communism” have realised that the exhortations of the revisionists that socialism should not be abolished but only improved and made more attractive are almost ideal for camouflaging imperialist aims in the struggle against socialism. The possibility of utilising revisionism has become much greater, the reason for this being that in its key aspects, regardless of the subjective intentions of its exponents, its political concept falls into line with the objectives of the evolutionary theory. This concerns the restriction and ultimate abolition of the leading role of the working class and its Marxist-Leninist Party, the attacks on Marxism-Leninism under the slogan of its “modernisation” and adaptation to the latest achievements of science, the abolition of socialist democracy and the injection of elements of bourgeois-parliamentary democracy. In addition, this concerns the repudiation of centralised state planning and administration in fundamental areas of social development and, lastly, the repudiation of a conscious moulding of social relations under socialism and the glorification of spontaneous development.

p In the mid-1960s and particularly after revisionist trends became active in Czechoslovakia, the “experts on communism” got down to a serious study and propagation of revisionism.

p But even after the collapse of the imperialist plans in Czechoslovakia in 1968 the “experts on communism” did not relinquish their hopes for the success of the evolutionary theory, which had been given the trappings of revisionism, although some leading “experts” criticised the “abstract and essentially Utopian nature of the revisionist teachings” and urged revisionism to adopt a positivist orientation.^^13^^ The “experts on communism” hope that capitalist reforms, whose 106 substance is veiled by social-democratic ideology with the slogan of “democratic socialism”, will allow them to exercise an ideological influence on the social forces in individual socialist countries, where traditional reformist views persist. Moreover, they take into consideration the close political and ideological resemblance of social-democratic doctrines to the basic elements of revisionist ideology.

p In conclusion, a brief characteristic must be given of the place the evolutionary theory accords to bourgeois nationalism in the imperialist onslaughts against social- ism.

p The history of imperialism has shown that nationalism endeavours to obscure the actual class contradictions by accentuating common national specifics. Nationalism has always played a large part in the ideological kitchen of imperialist policy. Small wonder, therefore, that in its attacks on socialism, imperialism does not renounce this tested ideological weapon. Bourgeois social science is taking vigorous steps (which have not yet been adequately studied by MarxistLeninist science) to reason out more thoroughly than hitherto the specific historical background and social roots of nationalism and show that it is a constant element of social development. Karl W. Deutsch, of Harvard University, has spent many years trying to modernise the imperialist theory of nationalism. With the aid of communicative theoretical constructions and quantitative methods he has proclaimed that nationalism is the motor of social change and economic growth in an “industrial society”. This, he contends, has led to the formation of stable social systems of communication, which inevitably isolate themselves from each other and are represented ideologically by nationalism.^^14^^

p Propositions on the emergence of nations, borrowed from the materialists, are placed by Deutsch in the service of antihistorical concepts. He absolutises the economic and socialpsycholosrical conditions of the formation of nations and ignores their class foundation. For that reason there are neither bourgeois nor socialist nations in his functional model 107 of nations, and in this lies its scientific untenability and, at the same time, its suitability for ideological attacks on socialism. According to Deutsch, nationalism and self-isolation are the inevitable product of any industrial development, characterising the development of socialist states over a long period of time.^^15^^ This thesis is designed to help imperialist strategy in its striving to bring about the disintegration of the socialist community. Deutsch entirely ignores the fact that bourgeois and socialist nations have a totally different class basis and different superstructures with dissimilar dominant ideologies and entirely different relations.

p The bourgeois concepts of nationalism serve not only as the theoretical foundation for the striving to hinder the objective, all-sided integration of the community of socialist states, break their unity and cohesion and emasculate proletarian internationalism as the paramount principle of relations between socialist countries. The illusion about “ national, independent trends” in the socialist community and about that community’s gradual disintegration is predominant in the minds of the imperialist experts on Eastern affairs.

p The bourgeois theories of nationalism attempt to substantiate the importance that is attached by the evolutionary theory to undermining the socialist social system.

p Hence the tireless underscoring by the “experts on communism” of national specifics, for instance, their attempts to forecast nationalistic deformations in socialist policy on the basis of the social structure in various socialist states ( considerable predomination of peasants and other non- proletarian strata) or recommend the supplanting of the MarxistLeninist understanding of class by what is described as the incomparably broader and traditional sense of national com- munity^^16^^ allegedly in order to strengthen the socialist system. Attempts are also being made to formulate special regional interests (for instance, in Southeastern Europe).

p The “inevitable isolation” of individual socialist countries in the process of socialist construction, declares Hans Hartl, 108 who is another imperialist expert on Eastern affairs, will give a progressing “national hue to independent socialist models”.^^17^^ With this is linked the assertion that the European socialist states “will ultimately become more European than communist”.^^18^^

p All this is indicative of the imperialists’ aspiration to destroy the socialist social system. They are gambling on the objectively existing ties between nationalism and revisionism that come to light mostly in the frankly anti-Soviet components of revisionist theories and which the “experts on communism” stress in their own way, elevating revisionism to the rank of a “European” ideological school and qualifying Marxism-Leninism as non-European, as inconsistent with European conditions.

p The evolutionary theory has had an integrating influence on imperialist studies of communism, but today it is gradually giving way to more realistic views. An indicative pronouncement was made in 1970 by Wilhelm G. Grewe, former foreign policy adviser to Konrad Adenauer and a champion of the “positions of strength” policy toward socialist countries. He wrote: “In the long run the detente policy reflects the switch to modified aims and methods: renunciation of all short-term efforts with the purpose of liberating the East European peoples from communist regimes. . ., orientation toward long-term internal changes in the Eastern bloc, in the course of which... possible assistance would be rendered with the aim of gradually restructuring the socio-political system in the Eastern states.”^^19^^ This is unquestionably an apt characteristic of the essence and aims of the evolutionary theory. “It is today too early to say,” Grewe continued, “whether this theory of ‘peaceful changes’ will prove to be suitable for use. Its weakness is that it can become effective only with the passage of a long period of time.... Its strong point is the absence of any alternative to it, and even an uncertain chance is better than complete submission to destiny.”^^19^^

These are unusual words for an imperialist proponent of 109 extreme measures. It may be assumed that they were not easy to pronounce. But even Grewe can no longer close his eyes to the continued change of the power balance in the world. In his own way he acknowledges that nothing remains to imperialism save to adapt itself to circumstances over which it has no control.