Movement for the Reorganisation of the Communist Party of Greece (1918-55)

Concerning certain distortions of Stalin’s work and L. Martens’

revisionist view of socialism

This article appears in the issue 16 (May 2008)

of “Unity & Struggle”

It has been more than ten years since the book

“Another view of Stalin” by Ludo Martens was
published. This book was hailed by many
unsuspected and well intentioned communists all
over the world as an “excellent pro-Stalin book”.
However, at the same time a number of
Khruschevite revisionist and opportunist parties
that have traditionally adopted an anti-Stalinist
line advertised and promoted the book in many
ways. Taking into account the virtually
unchanged ideological and political line of all
these parties, Marxists-Leninists-Stalinists
should be suspicious about the “sudden” urge to
publish a book about Stalin. Indeed, a careful
look at the contents of this book we will find out
that, at least, in three very fundamental questions, the answers to which delineate
Marxists-Leninists-Stalinists from Khrushchevite revisionists, Martens maintains
essentially revisionist views.

Question of Stalin

The question of Stalin, that is, the revolutionary theoretical and practical work of the
great communist leader of the world proletariat and classic of Marxism, has been,
since the middle of 1920s, at the centre of a sharp ideological-political struggle
between the revolutionary communists and all kinds of counter-revolutionaries (social
democrats, Trotskyites, anarchists, titoists, Khruschevites and others). All the
fundamental issues of socialism and the revolution come down to this. It marks the
boundary that separates the real Marxists-Leninists and all kinds of revisionists and
opportunists.
In the first and most important question of the revolutionary movement, the question
of Stalin, to which all the fundamental issues of socialism and the revolution come
down to, Ludo Martens propagates, not the crude anti-Stalinism of Khrushchev, but a
more refined and camouflaged version that appeared in the communist movement
between the mid-50’s and the beginning of 60’s, namely the “mistakes’ theory”. The
latter is usually comes from various “anti-Khrushchevite” opportunists and it is
formulated in certain clichéι phrases such as: “Stalin was great but he made
mistakes”. It is exactly this “mistakes’ theory”, of an allegedly “left orientation”, that
is adopted by L. Martens in his “criticisms” of Stalin and exposed in the chapter
“Weaknesses in the struggle against opportunism”.

In this context, Ludo Martens blames Stalin that “this struggle was not done to the
extent that was necessary”, that “he was not able to formulate a consistent theory
explaining how classes and the class struggle persist in a socialist society”(!) that he
“had not completely understood that after the disappearance of the economic basis of
capitalist and feudal exploitation, that there would still exist in the Soviet Union
fertile ground for bourgeois currents”(!), that Stalin “was not able to formulate a
theory about the struggle between the two lines in the Party” and “did not appreciate”
the dangers of “bureaucracy and technocratism” and many other things that Stalin
“was not able to do…,understand” etc.

But if there was any grain of truth in any these accusations related to Stalin’s views on
the most fundamental question of the revolutionary communist movement, namely the
one of socialism-communism, any person of good intentions would ask the following:
in which, then, questions Stalin developed Marxism-Leninism further if not in this
question and how can he be considered a classic of Marxism since he “committed”,
according to his critics, so grave “mistakes” in such fundamental, theoretical and
practical, questions of the communist movement?

Question of socialism

Stalin, as a Marxist, had, first and most importantly, a scientific view of socialism
and, secondly, approached the question of the construction of socialism-communism
in a materialistic, historic-dialectic way in contrast to all the representatives of the
various bourgeois-revisionist currents. He understood the construction of socialism –
the first stage of the communist society which constitutes a period of class struggle
that is inevitable as long as classes still exist during which the dictatorship of the
proletariat is absolutely necessary” (Lenin) – as a long process of revolutionary
transformations that passes through different phases of historical development
wherein a class struggle is waged in all levels that becomes sharper as the
construction of socialism proceeds. The transition period from capitalism to
communism, as Lenin pointed out, “cannot be but a period of struggle between the
dying capitalism and the newborn communism or in other words: between the
defeated but not yet liquidated capitalism and the, new born but still very weak,
communism”.

Ludo Martens, as mentioned above, blames Stalin that “he was not able to formulate a
consistent theory explaining how classes and the class struggle persist in a socialist
society”.

First of all, the theory of the “persistence of classes” in socialism even after its
economic basis has been constructed, is an anti-Marxist, bourgeois theory because: in
the first place, it contains the bourgeois revisionist view of socialism according to
which the exploiting classes and the proletariat will be preserved; in the second place
it revises the Marxist-Leninist theory of the classes when it maintains that there can be
exploiting classes without private property, that is, after the construction of
socialism’s economic basis and in the third place it completely contradicts the final
goal of the revolutionary communist movement which is the liquidation of all
exploiting classes in socialism and, subsequently, of all classes in communism.

Contrary to the groundless attack of Martens, it is obvious that Stalin, as a Marxist,

neither had formulated, nor could he have done so, a theory on “how classes persist in
a socialist society”, that is, a bourgeois-revisionist theory because it would directly
oppose the theory of scientific socialism-communism. On the contrary, he followed
and put into practise the Marxist theory on the liquidation of the exploiting classes in
socialism and, subsequently, of all the classes in communism. This liquidation
proceeds gradually and it is completed together with the construction of the economic
basis of socialism, that is, with the establishment of the social ownership on the means
of production in the form of state- and kolkhoz-cooperative property and the transition
to the unified type of communist property.

Persistence of the exploiting classes in socialism after the construction of its economic
basis? By purporting the theory “on how the classes persist in a socialist society”, L.
Martens doesn’t specify either which classes (exploiting or not) or which exactly
historical stage of the socialist society (before or after the construction of its economic
basis) he is referring to; this is a characteristic example of the anti-historical, anti-
dialectic approach of socialism. It is obvious, however, that he means the persistence
of the exploiting classes after the construction of its economic basis, and concerning
the Soviet Union, in particular, he refers to the phase after the Constitution of 1936
was voted when Stalin pointed out that in this phase “all the exploiting classes were
liquidated, leaving the working class, the peasants and the intellectuals” (I.V. Stalin
“Questions of Leninism”).

Stalin in his report on the Draft Constitution of USSR (1936), having scientifically
analyzed the new economic, social, class reality of the socialist Soviet Union, rightly
concluded that the country’s class structure had changed since the 1924 the year the
then Soviet Constitution was established: “The landlord class, as you know, had
already been eliminated as a result of the victorious conclusion of the Civil War. As
for the other exploiting classes, they have shared the fate of the landlord class. The
capitalist class in the sphere of industry has ceased to exist. The kulak class in the
sphere of agriculture has ceased to exist. And the merchants and profiteers in the
sphere of trade have ceased to exist. Thus all the exploiting classes have now been
eliminated. There remains the working class. There remain the peasants. There
remains the intelligentsia”.

The above extract from the report should convince even the most recalcitrant
opportunist that Stalin doesn’t talk about “absence of classes” or “elimination of
classes” in the Soviet Union of that period but only about elimination of the
exploiting classes, of landlords, capitalists, kulaks, merchants-profiteers whereas the
classes of workers, the peasants, and intelligentsia remained.

It is necessary to emphasize that Stalin’s analysis of the Soviet Union’s society at that
time is the only one carried out on Marxist lines and its scientific conclusion is
absolutely correct, that exploiting and antagonistic classes neither existed nor could
exist since they had been deprived of the means of production: there are no that
exploiting and antagonistic classes without the existence of capitalist property on the
means of production. “With the term bourgeois class we mean the class of modern
capitalists who own the means of social production and exploit wage labour. With the
term proletariat we mean the class of modern wage labourers who sell their labour
power in order to survive since they don’t possess no means of production at all”
(Engels).

In the Soviet Union of that period, there were no antagonistic classes but remnants of
exploiting classes and the new bourgeois elements that inevitably appear during the
transition period from capitalism to communism. Of course, it is perfectly possible
that the numerous remnants of the exploiting classes and the bourgeois elements
(which are not classes according to the Marxist since they had lost their domination in
the means of production) can form illegal organisations and wage their struggle
against socialism-communism in a coordinated way and in increasingly acute forms.
It is therefore obvious that when the revisionist L. Martens attacks Stalin blaming him
that he hasn’t formulated a “theory on how the classes persist” in socialism, in
essence, he criticises him for applying the Marxist theory on liquidation of the
exploiting classes in the course of socialist construction instead of the bourgeois
theory on the “persistence of the classes” (in other words, of the exploiting classes)!

The class struggle during socialism

L. Martens falsely claims that Stalin didn’t formulate a theory explaining “how class
struggle persist in a socialist society” when, as known to everybody, the theory
maintaining the continuation of class struggle in socialism had already been
enunciated by Lenin – “the dictatorship of the proletariat is period of class struggle
which is inevitable as long the classes are not liquidated” – and it was defended and
further developed by Stalin who stressed that “the progress we make, the more
successes we achieve, the sharper forms of struggle these remnants (of the exploiting
classes) will adopt, the more harm they are going to cause to the Soviet State, the
more desperate methods of struggle they are going to employ, as the last resort of
people doomed to disappear”.

Consequently, the further development of the theory maintaining the continuation of

class struggle in socialism by Stalin lies in the thesis that the more socialist
construction advances, the sharper the class struggle becomes, a thesis that was fully
confirmed by the historical course of USSR when, following Stalin’s death, the
dictatorship of the proletariat was overthrown.

When the opportunist L. Martens claims that Stalin “thought that the class struggle in
the ideological sphere would continue for a long time”, he distorts his thesis even
more: first because he restricts the class struggle only in the ideological sphere and
second because he rejects the thesis of the sharpening of the class struggle with the
advance of socialist construction.

But this is not sufficient for L. Martens since, as we saw, he makes the provocatively
false claim that Stalin allegedly didn’t even have a theory on “how class struggle
persist in a socialist society”, obviously implying that he allegedly deviated from
Leninism, that is, he had abandoned the theory of class struggle already formulated by
Lenin!

Another claim made by L. Martens is that “this struggle was not done to the extent
that was necessary” and that “after 1945, the struggle against opportunism was
restricted to the highest circles of the Party”, rendering, thus, Stalin responsible for the
appearance of revisionism which is refuted by the activity of the Bolshevik Party
during that period: first, during the war and afterwards, the Bolshevik Party headed by
Stalin waged a continuous ideological-political struggle against the bourgeois-
revisionist ideology and the various degenerate phenomena; there are the well-known
party decisions and wide discussions held on questions of art-literature (1946),
philosophy (1943 and 1947), political economy (1947-1952), music (1948),
linguistics (1950) etc. Second, the revisionist counter-revolution didn’t prevail during
Stalin’s lifetime but after his death. Stalin’s great historical contribution to the
construction of socialism lies in the scientific analysis of the competitive and the
non-competitive contradictions in the soviet socialist society and the successful
and victorious waging of the class struggle against the internal and external
enemies, preventing thus the restoration of capitalism.
We conclude with two brief observations: the one has to do with Martens’ claim that
Stalin “was not able to formulate a theory about the struggle between the two lines in
the Party” and the other with the claim that he “had not completely understood the
dangers emanating from bureaucracy”. Regarding the first claim, we note that Stalin
as a Marxist could have never formulated a revisionist theory “about the struggle
between the two lines in the Party” which presupposes the existence of two factions in
a party and, as a result, leads to the negation of the revolutionary party of a new type
defended by Stalin. A revolutionary, communist party has only one line: the Marxist-
Leninist-Stalinist line and fights all revisionist, opportunist deviations. As for the
second claim, there is nothing to be said except that it emits the unpleasant odour of
Trotskyism.

The question of the dictatorship of the proletariat

As all the “anti-Khrushchevian” versions of contemporary revisionism, Ludo Martens

doesn’t raise the issue of the overthrow of the dictatorship of the proletariat after
Stalin’s death and in combination with the 20th Congress of the CPSU – the first and
absolutely necessary condition for the gradual restoration of capitalism in the Soviet
Union. It is more than obvious of every Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist that the open,
official domination of the Khrushchevite revisionist counter-revolution was preceded
by the violent overthrow of the dictatorship of the proletariat and its replacement with
a bourgeois-revisionist dictatorship. Domination of the Khrushchevite revisionist is
tantamount to the overthrow of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the ousting of the
working class from power, the beginning of the capitalist restoration. The overthrow
of the dictatorship of the proletariat was ratified by the 20th Congress and the counter-
revolutionary, social-democratic line it adopted.

Question of the capitalist restoration

L.Martens, just like the “K”KE leadership, regards the period of Khrushchev-
Brezhnev, the period of capitalist restoration in the Soviet Union, as a period of
“socialist construction” and believes that the breach with socialism took place in the
Gorbachev era. He writes that it is only the 28th Congress, on July 1990, that “clearly
affirms a rupture with socialism and a return to capitalism”. At the end of his book,
after having quoted an excerpt from the “History of the Communist Party
(Bolsheviks) of the USSR” in which, among others, is mentioned that “it is from
within that fortresses are more easily captured”, Martens makes the following
comment: “thus Stalin had foreseen what would happen to the Soviet Union the day a
Gorbachev or a Yeltsin entered the Politburo”. This comment is quite indicative and
revealing because it confirms the fact that L. Martens is identified with “K”KE
leadership on this important issue.

But the communists, the Marxists-Leninists-Stalinists, know very well that the
fortress was captured from within not in the time of Gorbachev and Yeltsin, who are
anyway legal “heirs” of Khrushchev and Brezhnev, but almost 40 years earlier, after
Stalin’s death, by the agents of international imperialism Khrushchev, Mikoyan,
Brezhnev, Kuusinen, Suslov and others. Moreover, contrary to the claims of the
Belgian revisionist “the breach with socialism” – first in the level of political power,
and subsequently in other levels – didn’t take place in the 28th Congress (1990) but
shortly after Stalin’s death and this breach was officially inaugurated in the 20th
Congress which paved the way for the gradual liquidation of the socialist productive
relations, through the introduction of capitalist reforms, and restoration of capitalism
in the Soviet Union.

There is nothing paradoxical that the parties of Khruschevite revisionism – including

“K”KE – have published and promoted the book of the Belgian revisionist L.
Martens. Essentially, it expresses their own views on the questions of Stalin,
socialism and the dictatorship of the proletariat. Without abandoning any of these
views, they found an opportunity to wear a “pro-Stalin” mask. The “K”KE in
particular, was unmistakeably carrying out its class mission – as it was when it funded
the publication of Dmitri Volgogonov’s anti-Stalinist abortion “Triumph and tragedy”
in 1989 – assigned one of its chief ideologues, Eleni Bellou, to conclude the book
review in “Rizospastis” with a lengthy presentation of the infamous “mistakes
theory”.

Even within the current of contemporary revisionism – expressed in the “mistakes

theory” – the views L. Martens are clinging to the right. This is shown by the criticism
that these views received by a party that belongs to the same ideological current as L.
Martens’ Workers’ Party of Belgium, namely the Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany
(MLPD). Stefan Engel writes:

”To pose the question of power – dictatorship of the bourgeoisie or the proletariat – is
tantamount, for L. Martens, to the “scholastic restriction of reality. In this way, he
rejects the ABC of Marxism. Lenin clearly emphasized that “there can be nothing
intermediate between the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and the dictatorship of the
proletariat. Any dream for something else is a petty bourgeois attitude. The vacillating
character of the petty bourgeois thinking is typical for neorevisionism, When
Gorbachev appeared in 1985, the petty bourgeois immediately promoted him. In total
euphoria, L.Martens got attached to this current writing, in 1991, that “in this
ideological confusion comrade Gorbachev emerged; he unleashed himself like a
hurricane all over the hibernating country to steer up the dormant consciousness of the
people” (Ludo Martens, "The USSR and the velvet counter-revolution”).

“The bedazzled L. Martens used this chance in order to introduce a new appraisal for
the Soviet Union after 1956 and to revise the programmatic basis of the Workers’
Party of Belgium declaring that: “New appraisal means also to take into account that
the economic basis and the core of the political structure remained socialist despite
the influence of the dominant revisionism. New appraisal means, finally, to take into
account the possibility of a positive development, of a Marxist-Leninist rebirth” (ibid)

“When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, neorevisionists regarded Gorbachev as the
main culprit. But Gorbachev didn’t bring the restoration of capitalism, as the
Workers’ Party of Belgium argues. Rather, it is the restoration of capitalism itself that
brought Gorbachev. He completed the capitalist restoration and took openly the side
of the international social democracy. Neorevisionism covers up the fact that the
restoration of capitalism started in Khrushchev’s time".

“According to L. Martens: “it is possible today to get over the divisions among the
Marxist-Leninist parties, broken up in pro-Soviet, pro-Chinese, pro-Albanian and pro-
Cuban factions and achieve their re-unification”. Such a conglomeration is doomed to
fail” (Stefan Engel: Der Kampf um die Demkweise in der Arbeiterbewengung, Essen)
“Concerning the defeat of socialism, the contemporary revisionists reproduced the
bourgeois propaganda: For Erich Honecker, it was “the greatest defeat of the worker’s
movement in global scale”, for the former president of the German Communist Party
Herbert Mis it was “the greatest defeat of socialism” and for the president of Workers’
Party of Belgium Ludo Martens it was “an important regression for the communist
and progressive forces al over the world” (Stefan Engel: Der Kampf um die
Demkweise in der Arbeiterbewengung, Essen).

In a speech in Wuppertall (May 9th, 2002) Stefan Engel underlines that: “A variety of
multi-colored currents of revisionism exists all of which we have summed up under
the term neo-revisionism.

Thus the leader of the Party of Labor of Belgium (PTB), Ludo Martens, in an
adventurous explanation, says on the times subsequent to the Twentieth CPSU Party
Congress:

This great strength of the socialist system could still be felt even when the party
leadership chose the path of revisionism, that is, the path of the progressing
renunciation of Marxism-Leninism. In 1975, the Soviet Union had reached the peak
of its power ..., but this power was already thoroughly undermined by the ideological
and political currents which were soon to destroy it. Breshnevism is the continuation
of a great strength inherited by Stalin and, simultaneously, an ideological and political
degeneration which deepened progressively and which resulted in the complete
destruction of socialism under Gorbachev. ("Leonid I. Brezhnev and the National-
Democratic Revolution", p. 1; our translation from the German)

What an absurd theory!

On the one hand, the CPSU party leadership is said to gave gone the path of
revisionism since 1956. On the other hand, the Soviet Union, in spite of this, could
remain a socialist country and even gain strength until 1975. This means: socialism
can exist and take a positive development even on the basis of revisionism.

This is not a Marxist-Leninist analysis; this is saying farewell to Marxism-Leninism,

Mr. Martens!”

Concluding, we want to underline once again that Ludo Martens is a neorevisionist,

anti-Stalinist (“mistakes’ theory”) that has developed as a prima ballerina of the
international Khruschevite revisionism and supports counter-revolutionary reactionary
positions such as that “Parties who used to belong to different tendencies, who
support the positions of Mao Zedong or Brezhnev, of Che Guevara or Enver Hoxha,
can unite on the basis of Marxism-Leninism, proletarian internationalism and the
struggle against revisionism” (Speech of Ludo Martens in Leningrand Conference,
1997).