STALIN AND THE MODERN NATIONAL QUESTION

G.A. Petrov, Doctor of Military Science
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin – the great political activist of the XX century and a great scientist, politologist, philosopher, sociologist and remarkable designer of political strategies and tactics. A one time superb leader (apparatchik), Stalin solved problems in a concrete and practical way, formulated by him in the sphere of history, politics and sociology. What is characteristic of modern researchers specializing in social disciplines, is the complete abstraction of formulating problems – if they do not directly examine separate countries, regions, events etc, and if they are in the captivity of empirical material, then they are not in a fit state to formulate common regularities, patterns and rules. Even when these researchers call themselves “continuers of Marxist methodology” the only thing that appears “Marxist” about them is their surface knowledge of Marxist tenets (quotations), for explaining these or those facts being observed. What set J.V. Stalin apart from others was that even when dealing with directly practical questions, he never broke away from the theoretical precepts “gone through by him” because of an extensive and deep analysis of all the history of the detailed process of revolutionary practice. This was the true Marxist attitude towards the objectiveness of truth and reality, because the “objectiveness of reality is not a question of theory, but question of revolutionary practice”. The main distinguishing feature of J.V. Stalin as a theorist and practician in areas of his activity was his revolutionary-mindedness. Without an understanding of this, it is impossible to define the greatness of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin. Ignoring the works of Stalin in the sphere of social thinking will inevitably lead to regression in social theory, and in the sphere of political activity lead to bloody outcomes. This becomes especially apparent when examining Stalin’s work on the national question. As a practician of revolutionary struggle, he clearly understood the significance of national policy, and as a theorist, he made a most complete fundamental investigation into the national question from the position of a materialist understanding of history using the dialectical method when analyzing social phenomena. This special quality of Stalin made him a master of proofs – if one proceeds on the basis of practice (the sole criterion of truth and reality); the proofs of Stalin may only be rejected from the position of selfish class interests and not from the viewpoint of truth and reality.1
After Stalin, enemies of Soviet power and communism could only ignore his investigations, but could not analysis and discover substantial definitions for an optimal and progressive continuation of research into the theory of national relations and attitudes.2
The theory of nations put forth by Stalin back in 1913 became a classic, but in the sphere of social thought, the classically flawless tenets are rejected on socio-political and selfish grounds. In the sphere of practice on the national question under J.V. Stalin, every 10-15 years corrections and updates were entered into the ethnos of each separate nation and people, for it was well known that with each moment in history, a community on the basis of language, culture, unity of economic systems and territories inevitably alters historically in all the directions of its special characteristics.
All outstanding politicians, according to the demands of reality, were masters – pragmatists, and without an evaluation of the real interrelations between social groups, it is impossible to achieve the desired result. Stalin was just that kind of pragmatist that distinguished him from other revolutionaries-romantics: as V.I. Lenin had still noted, the revolutionary Narodniks and early Mensheviks had suffered with this isolation from reality “with revolutionary romantism”. Political programmes can be implemented only within a framework of considering the interactions of all opposing forces – participators in historical events including openly reactionary ones. Such are the dialectics of history, and “we know only one science, and that is the science of history”. In the development of national relations, Stalin always warned of the impermissibility of running too far ahead: from the tribal-ethnical communality having still not been defined as a people, having found itself at the stage of only just forming historical self awareness, and with this, unable to separate historical prejudices from national character (portrayed in the unity of culture), up to the forming of a nation, a socialist nation, according to his instructions there exists a lengthy epoch – an epoch of three – four generations. This particularly related to the Crimean Tatars, the Tatars of the Lower Volga Regions, and the townspeople of the Caucasus, the Kazakhs, Kirgiz people and others.
As an “infantile disorder” of the process of forming peoples, which can turn out fatal in national relations, there first appears uncontrolled nationalism, naïve in form, that is – “ours” and “not ours”, anti-proletarian according to Stalin and reactionary in content. Support for the national liberation movement assumes, first of all, the suppression of the reactionary sides of national self awareness (“any nationalism in the epoch of imperialism is reactionary”); secondly, it is necessary in any way possible, to support international forces, educate them in the spirit of proletarian revolutionary patriotism and internationalism. It was namely on these questions that J.V. Stalin had always been in dispute with pseudotheorists of the national question: Pyatakov, Bukharin, Trotsky. Unfortunately, in the mass study of the history of the CPSU, it is namely this dispute that as a rule, was hushed up (especially in the past 45-50 years), allegedly to “prevent the spreading of the views of these pseudotheorists”, but in actual fact, to make Stalin’s theses and deductions that were relevant to concrete national policy in the sphere of national culture – “national in form, socialist in content”- abstractly empty.
May the reader be reminded that J.V. Stalin was guided in the theory of nations by the thesis on the “historical community” according to language, territory and national character being reflected in a community of culture, and in the community of economic life (unity of social-economic systems in the sharing of the “national market”). V.I. Lenin adopted the Stalinist formula of nations and the national question, and when answering the Black Hundreds, indicated the dual nature of national culture: “reactionary culture” and “democratic culture”, but V.I. Lenin believed to be possible, the creation of a new international community within the framework of a new kind of federalism. This point of view triumphed in 1922 in connection with concrete historical conditions: the activity of the III International; the necessity of unity of Soviet power and the national aspirations of the peoples of the East; the revolutionary situation (unrealized by the European proletariat) in the majority of Western European countries.3 The Soviet type of federalism demonstrated its vitality only in unity with the Stalin national policy. The rejection of the Stalin national policy by the opportunist leadership of the CPSU led, together with a whole list of treacherous acts on the part of “national” leaders of the CPSU in all the republics of the Soviet Union, towards national betrayal first of all, of the Soviet people as the highest social and legal subject of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, to the betrayal of the communist ideals and rights of Man, recognized by the whole cultural world of the XX century.4 It is completely natural that in almost every Union republic, by the process of betraying socialism and acts of state treachery, former leaders of the republican communist parties were nominated for this purpose.
J.V. Stalin was constantly aware that in the absence of territorial unity, we possess no “national character” or tribal relations. Stalin’s pupil and comrade-in-arms A.A. Zhdanov in 1939 made a sufficiently comprehensive criticism of the “practical solution to the national question”, when national belonging was defined according to the principle of “descent”, “blood-tribal criterion”. Although the criticism was clear-cut and well defined, the practical question on national belonging continued to be decided at the class-four education level of heads of passport offices in the departments of the militia, or of inspectors of register offices (ZAGS). Ethno cultural and ethno confessional attitudes affecting every Soviet citizen at an everyday level, could have been solved without an especially bloody approach, had the complexity of the “Soviet way of life” been preserved in its valued- moral content, but we were witnesses to the destruction of this set of social arrangements, starting from the “results of the XX Congress of the CPSU”. The generation of people in the 1960-s on the question of solving national relations went off in two directions: bourgeois cosmopolitan (a set of abstract “values common to all Mankind”, very often associated and close to religious obscurantism, right up to middle-age mysticism) and, openly nationalist, restorative under the guise of national bourgeois-feudal traditions and prejudices. Every Soviet citizen has experienced the destructiveness of these two trends, although they have been contrived to develop within wide “communist propaganda”. The standard formula that inside the USSR the “national question, as defined by the classics of Marxism, had been solved,” together with its own categoricalness suffered out of stupidity, as the final solution to the national question is possible only then, when the culture of all the peoples of the world integrates into a single, unified culture common to all Mankind. J.V. Stalin spoke about this back in 1928. The question concerning who is the “classic of Marxism” is not a question of theory, but a practical question. The classic research into the national question, the Stalin legacy is an achievement of all Mankind. We shall not dwell especially on the problems of “national socialism”, “national communism” and other “true socialisms”, the theoretical criticism of which was given by K. Marx and F. Engels, and the practical criticism, which was given by the people of the world in their struggle against fascism, Nazism and other ideologies and practices of the most reactionary defenders of capitalism of the XX century. We shall only point out that attempts to avoid the formulation of the national question in the USSR appeared especially in 1987-1989 in the USSR (this, on the eve of the “national dismantling” of the communo-criminal structures in almost all the republics of the Union), when educational subjects devoted to the national question were dropped from the list of compulsory subjects in party education. The case of a future investigation and judicial examination is to determine who was personally interested in bringing about that situation.
Who then defines the national question at this point in history? The national question has four main directions of definition:
1. It remains the main component in the common solution to the development in the direction of social equality. The true realization of absolute rights of Mankind (human rights) over the whole territory of the country (the right to life, the right to education for the future generation, the right to creative labour, the right to knowledge accumulated by Mankind, the right to an information guarantee for existence and coexistence of each person within a unified language environment), is the criterion for a solution to this problem. These rights are absolute since they are valid in any social environment, but are not being realized anywhere.
2. Solving the problem of social equality between people and the process for guaranteeing implementation after its solution, may be realized only on the basis of unified and indivisible public, social ownership over the system of social saving funds for all the means of providing absolute human rights for every citizen.
3. The formulation of the defence and realization of common ownership is possible only by way of a revolutionary (that is, a constantly historically changing, depending on the stage of development of objective conditions for providing social equality in the framework of guarantees of absolute human rights) government structure, permanently accountable to all members of society.
4. The providing of a complete an all-embracing integration of cultural achievements of all the peoples of the world, with the providing of conditions for each citizen to use this information-subject fund of social existence in accessible language form. It is obvious and clear that programmes of “cultural-national” autonomies under this, which J.V. Stalin struggled against all the time, are rejected for what they are – for there is no place for national isolationism.
Conclusion: from the Stalin formula – “national in form, socialist in content” – Mankind’s culture should be transformed into the formula – “national language in form, unified communistically and international in content culture of all Mankind”. All material, social and material-production conditions for all humanity will become unified, national-language forms of life, and cultures are preserved while people of separate national-ethnic belonging exist.
The correctness of the national question regarding separate ethnic communities is decided starting from common directions of determining national problems.
As an example, it is possible to examine the “problem of the Caucasus” or the “Chechen problem”. Events in the Caucasus have shown that in historical development, a section of mountain people have not departed from the boundary of tribal attitudes, their definition and self-determination go against the rights of other peoples and representatives of people of other nationalities. On the territory of Chechnya up to “perestroika”, and actually up to the counter-revolutionary process and expansionism of international capital with the assistance of the compradors on the territory of the USSR, there lived about two million inhabitants. 450 thousand of them were Chechens. The crime of “genocide” was carried out against the non-Chechen population. And here primordially, is how the “national problem” stood, not even talking about the deportations in the 1940-50-s of the XX century, which concerned all peoples (ethnic groups) who brought about genocide in relation to the majority of representatives of other communities: the “Sudetan Germans”, Gdansk Germans”, Pomeranian Germans, Baltic Germans, Japanese in the USA etc. The experience of the Second World War made it obligatory for each ethnos to answer as a community for their own leading representatives. The provision of absolute human rights for every person is the criterion of responsibility. According to the expression of one of the Chechens in 1994: “Stalin deported us, but did not kill us”. The “defenders”, “lawyers” of the “repressed peoples of the USSR” make it the aim to destroy these peoples (so that there would be no “questions raised about them”). The responsibility of a nation for their own representatives is determined by the peoples of the world as a right to separate statehood. Humanity has sacrificed more than 100 million lives in the XX century for the sake of this principle; J.V. Stalin stood for this principle in 1946 at a meeting with a Finnish state delegation. Such is the practical aspect of the modern-day national question.

Notes
1. Stalin’s formulas entered into the mass conscience of the Soviet people and were made into aphorisms, proverbs, and sayings – mass stereotypes of social awareness.

2. The “unmaskers” of J.V. Stalin love referring to the “incompletion” of his education. If one approaches this objectively then: firstly, Stalin actually finished studying the whole coarse at the only institute of higher learning in Georgia (except the sitting of the final exam, which was not due to “poor progress”), secondly, objectively by 1903, he was one of the popular and erudite propagandists of Marxism in Georgia, and by 1914, his works were at the level demanded by modern candidate-dissertations. By 1918, J.V. Stalin had become one of the leading specialists-Marxists in the world on the national question. By 1924, Stalin’s political professionalism and quality as a scientist are reflected in his theoretical works.

3. V.I. Lenin believed that with the triumph of socialism in the countries of Western Europe, leadership in the world revolutionary process towards socialism would cross over to them.

4. The first legal relations of guarantees of human rights were portrayed in right – in the Constitution of the USSR of 1936 (The Stalin Constitution, by definition of the Soviet people). The USSR was the only power that recognized in 1975, the norms of the World Declaration of Human Rights

J.V. STALIN IN MY LIFE

J.V. STALIN IN MY LIFE

T.V. Komissarova , AUCPB (All-Union Communist Party of Bolshevik s)

The very first time I saw J.V. Stalin was on the 1st May 1950 when I, a student at the Institute of Foreign Languages, was taking part in the athletics sporting society “Nauka” (Science) parade. The demonstration of the working people had begun. It was a wonderful sunny morning, music thundered out and the mood was uplifting. I was marching in the first right-hand flank column of demonstrators. When we began approaching Red Square, flowing around from the two sides of the Historical Museum, then along the columns of those marching ahead of us athletes we heard a wave of cries: “Stalin! Stalin!” By now, we had already understood that Comrade Stalin was standing on the tribune of the Mausoleum. And at that moment, a remarkable feeling of joy, delight and unity with all those on Red Square enveloped me. I heard only the rhythm of the march and the excited shouts of the marchers also reciting toasts, and then, I saw Him. He was standing, wearing a white military jacket and smiling, greeting with a raised hand the young people passing the mausoleum. It was then, while passing over the bar-shaped stones of Red Square that I experienced this remarkable feeling of unity of the Soviet people. I recalled Mayakovsky’s words: “…a great feeling in the name of class!” It is namely this feeling that I experienced on that day. And now, nearing the end of my life, I can say that this was the happiest day of my life.
And afterwards came the bitterest day: March 1953. All life and being, protested against the ending of the leader’s life; it seemed as if the ground was crumbling beneath my feet. And one single thought was worrying me: “How are we going to manage without him?” I was not able to pass through Kolonny Hall to bid farewell to him. And afterwards, when Red Square was open, thousands of people arrived and stood silently in front of the Mausoleum. I will never forget the silence and the eyes fixed on the new name on the Mausoleum. So much bitterness and anguish.
The second time I saw Stalin was when he was by now inside the Mausoleum.
Afterwards, began the Khrushchev period. The radio never stopped: “the personality cult, the personality cult…!” I immediately hung a portrait of Stalin on the wall at home. One day, my young son asked me: “Mummy, what do they mean by the Stalin personality cult?” I replied: “Son, you are still very young and there is much you still not understand. When you grow up, you will be able to work it all out yourself. Remember one thing though: the people loved him, they sacrificed themselves and gave their lives in his name, went into battle and triumphed over their enemies!”
The years passed. I supervised a scientific library in one of the Scientific Research Institutes in Moscow District. In 1970, we decided to celebrate the 100th Year since the birth of V.I. Lenin and “From Moscow to Berlin”, by setting up two exhibitions. I would like to tell you in more detail about the second one. It was made up of two sections: photo documents from the funds of the Soviet Army and authentic placards from the times of the Great Patriotic War from the funds of the Museum of the Revolution. One hundred photographs reflecting the whole period of the Patriotic War occupied the whole wall of the hall.
The exhibits opened with a leaflet with the speech by Comrade Stalin on the 3rd July 1941 and a photograph of him standing on the tribune of the Mausoleum during the military parade of the 7th November in the same year. A separate stand was devoted to each year of the war. The exhibits ended with a photograph of the Potsdam Conference, where behind a covered table sat the heads of three states, and with the words of V.I. Lenin: “A people will never be beaten where the workers and peasants in their majority recognized, felt and saw that they were fighting for their own Soviet power – power of the working people, that they were fighting for that cause, victory from which their children would be provided with the opportunity to make use of all the best things in culture and all the makings of human labour”.
The exhibition was a big success not only for us in the SRI but also in the sponsored Sovkhoz (state farm) where we later exhibited it.
Each year on Victory Day, and on Stalin’s Birthday, the 21st December, I take flowers to his grave, tied with special ribbon. And my flowers are never the first to ones arrive because there are always flowers, which have already been placed there before mine, and each year, the number of flowers being place is increasing.
When the film “Osvobozhdenie” (Liberation) appeared on the screens, from which I got to hear that J.V. Stalin’s son Yakov was imprisoned inside the German concentration camp “Sachsenhausen”, I swore that if at any time I was in Germany, I would take some flowers there.
And in June 1979 the unlikely occurred – my official work trip to the GDR (German Democratic Republic).
We crossed the state border at dawn on the 14th June. The train was traveling very slowly. It was a misty morning and the first birds were starting to sing their songs. We did not sleep. Instead, we stood by the window and with excitement peered into the early morning stillness. It was that same kind of silence that was broken by the salvo of guns on the 22nd June 1941.
I knew that Sachsenhausen was located 30 km north of Berlin not far from Oranienburg railway station when I was still in Moscow. And here I was, approaching Oranienburg. A large signpost pointed to the right, towards Sachsenhausen. I walked through the quiet German town under a canopy of huge maple trees. At a crossroads, stood a small sign with the words: “Here began the death march”. When our troops began to approach these areas, the Germans, afraid of retribution for their actions, started covering up their traces. Columns of prisoners were deported from the camp under guard in the direction of the Baltic Sea coastline, where they would be loaded onto barges and then drowned at sea. Many of them did not even make it to the coast because they had been shot on the way there. Those who did get there were saved by our tankists, having forced their way through to the coast of the Baltic Sea.
And here I was, at Sachsenhausen. In all, only a few tens of metres away from the houses of the town’s residents and surrounded by a three metre high concrete wall, with barbed wire running along the top of it, behind which run a high-voltage electric wire and behind that, barbed wire rolled into three spiral layers and standing only a few metres away from the watchtowers with their searchlights. This camp was one of the first of its kind and Himmler himself visited it in 1936 to see the opening of it. This was to be the model for all the camps. Sachsenhausen shook me… Not by its size for it was comparatively small compared to Auschwitz. No, what shook me was the well thought out refinement in the methods of taunting and mockery to which the political prisoners were subjected. Nearby stood the headquarters of the SD (security service), and the most refined and barbarous methods were tested on the prisoners in order to break them both morally and physically.
So, inside the camp there was a block where medical experiments were carried out on living and healthy people. For example, a healthy person would have his leg cut open, where afterwards straw and rubbish would be stuffed into the wound and then the leg sewn up again. And after that, when gangrene had set in, they would treat it with medicines and other preparations, which were previously untested. And one has to say that inside this block, everything had been decorated in Dutch tile where glass cabinets stood together with their instruments. Everything was clean and tidy, completely “German”, as they say. The fascists really loved “cleanliness”. They even killed “cleanly” and “neatly”. Before a prisoner was sent to a gas chamber or executed by firing squad, he would be examined by a “doctor” in a very clean room, where on the wall would hang a sign saying: “Cleanliness prevails in here”!!! Or another example; around the “appelplatz” (the square where roll calls took place each day) a path was laid, which was three metres wide and covered with a variety of surface materials (sand, slag, crushed stone and large stones). A certain German firm had chosen this path to conduct a test on the soles of the soldiers’ boots that they were producing, in order to determine the amount of wear and tear would take place on these boots. The prisoners were made to put on a pair of these boots, which were two sizes too small for them, and then a sack of sand would be hoisted onto their backs. They were then forced to walk along this path for hours on end… A hundred thousand prisoners were murdered and tortured at Sachsenhausen, twenty thousand of whom were Soviet prisoners of war.
On the territory of the camp there was a prison “zellenbau” (cell-block) with single cells. This was the “secret” prison that not even those working for the SS knew which prisoners were being held there. Yakov Dzhugashvili, the son of J.V. Stalin was imprisoned in one such cell. By the entrance door can be seen the words: “A special political prisoner of the Gestapo was held here”. It was a small cell, 3x2 metres in size with a trestle bed, small table and stool and a small window so high up that only a tiny bit of sky could be seen. Behind the thick metal door with its peephole, there stood another door made of thick iron bars.
I placed a bunch of flowers, red carnations tied with special ribbon at the entrance to his cell… I had thereby fulfilled by promise.
I took a few stones with me out of Sachsenhausen: a piece of slag from the path where the prisoners were forced to walk around, and two stones, one from the area where prisoners had been hanged by their hands on a hook, and the other from under the window cill of Yakov Dzhugashvili’s cell. I kept these stones for more than a decade, so that afterwards I could give them to somebody who was closest to Yakov Iosevovich Dzhugashvili.
And at one of the wreath-laying occasions at the grave of J.V. Stalin, comrades announced the presence of his grandson Yevgeny Yakovlevich Dzhugashvili. I saw him, approached him, introduced myself and told him about my visit to Sachsenhausen. But I could only give him the stones and booklet about Sachsenhausen the next time we laid wreaths and flower at the grave of J.V. Stalin. It was then that I gave these stones to his grandson Yevgeny Yakovlevich Dzhugashvili at the grave of J.V. Stalin.

STALIN’S FOREIGN POLICY IN THE PERIOD OF THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR AND IN THE POST-WAR YEARS

STALIN’S FOREIGN POLICY IN THE PERIOD OF THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR AND IN THE POST-WAR YEARS
V.K. Popov, Doctor of Historical Science
On the eve of the Second World War the Soviet government, on the initiative of J.V. Stalin, carried out a policy directed towards the preservation of peace and providing assistance to victims of aggression.
In the period from 1936 – 1939 the USSR helped republican Spain in its struggle against the rebellious Franco and fascist Germany and Italy, which had sided with him.
In 1937 militarist Japan attacked China. The USSR provided China with various kinds of assistance and sent its own volunteer fighter pilots who bravely defended the skies over China against Japanese air pirates.
In 1938 the USSR branded the Munchen Agreements as a disgrace, as they threw Czechoslovakia under the jackboots of fascist Germany.
In 1939 Soviet troops provided assistance to friendly Mongolia in repelling Japanese aggression against that country. Under the command of General G.K. Zhukov, the Red Army crushed the Japanese troops.
In that same year on Germany’s proposal, the USSR signed a non-aggression pact with this country. As time had shown, this treaty, having summoned a storm of indignation in the West, answered the interests of the USSR. It allowed the USSR to delay the start of the war by almost two years and to return to our country a number of territories of the Russian Empire, which were torn away from it in the first years of Soviet power (Western Ukraine, Western Byelorussia, the Baltic states and Bessarabia).
The USSR was not to blame for the Hitlerite high echelons recklessly violating that pact with our country and the start of the wide scale aggression by the German troops against the Soviet state.
From the very first days of the Great Patriotic War, Stalin was at the head of the struggle of the Soviet people against German fascist aggression. He became the Chairman of the State Committee for Defence (GKO) and Supreme Chief Commanding of the Red Army. All foreign policy ties were also in his hands, although formally V.M. Molotov was the Peoples Commissar of Foreign Affairs.
One of the most important tasks of Soviet diplomacy in the war years was the forming of an anti-Hitler coalition and the opening up of a second front in Europe. Stalin played a superb role in this affair. Already by 1941 he had put this question forward in his message to Prime Minister W. Churchill.
"It seems to me – he wrote on the 8th July - that the military situation in the Soviet Union as well as in Great Britain would be significantly improved if a second front was formed against Hitler in the West (in Northern France) and in the North (in the Arctic)".
In two weeks Stalin met with the personal representative of the US president, Garry Hopkins, who declared on the orders of F. Roosevelt: "….whoever fights against Hitler is on the right side in this conflict, and we intend to provide assistance to this side".
During Molotov’s trip to Britain and the US in May-June 1942, the question about opening a second front dominated negotiations with Churchill and Roosevelt.
However, agreeing in words on the question about the necessity of opening up a second front, the allies refused the take on any concrete obligations themselves. This note sounded out in the flow of the negotiations between Stalin and Churchill in August 1942 in Moscow. After, the Chairman of the GKO sent a memorandum to the Prime Minister of Great Britain in which, in particular it stated: "The refusal by the government of Great Britain to form a second front in 1942 in Europe is inflicting a moral blow against the whole of Soviet society.., complicates the situation of the Red Army on the front and is inflicting harm on the plans of the Soviet Command. We believe therefore, that in 1942 it is possible and necessary to create a second front in Europe. But England and the United States have again avoided taking on any direct obligations" .
The question concerning the second front occupied the centre of Stalin’s attention right up to almost the end of 1943. It is true that later on he did not take it to the extremes like it was for example, in the responses and answers to American correspondent Cassidy in October 1942.
The correspondent in written form asked about what place the possibility of a second front occupied in the Soviet evaluation of the current situation at that time.
The answer: "A very important, one may even say, paramount place".
"How effective is allied assistance to the Soviet Union?"
The answer: "Compared to the assistance that the Soviet Union is providing the allies with, by taking the full brunt of the main forces of the German fascist troops, the allied assistance to the Soviet Union still has little effect in the meantime".
However, the second front was neither opened in 1942 nor in 1943. This was due there being influential circles in the United States and Britain who were interested in weakening the USSR during the war. It was only at the Teheran Conference in November 1943 where the leaders of the three allied powers had met, that the question on the second front was decided. The US and Britain took the decision to land their troops in Normandy (France) in May 1944. Actually, the second front ("Operation Overlord") was opened on 6th June 1944. By this time the West had understood that the attacking Soviet troops could liberate the whole of Europe from the Hitlerite occupation, using its own forces.
At the end of the war two more conferences of the leaders of the three allied powers were held: The Crimean conference (February 1945) and the Berlin conferences (July - August 1945), which solved the most important questions on ending the Second World War and the post-war political structure. Stalin played a decisive role at these conferences, which was connected to the decisive victories of the Red Army. Stalin gained enormous international authority. Churchill admitted to having together with G. Truman (Truman replaced the by now deceased Roosevelt) stood up when Stalin entered the hall. Despite this, the Western leaders had a "surprise" in store for Stalin – an atom bomb, with which they were now going to use to blackmail the USSR.
During the war against Germany, the Red Army liberated a number of European countries occupied by the fascist regime. These were: Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Yugoslavia, Denmark partially and Norway. Stalin paid special attention to the future of these countries. Earlier, they had been developing along capitalist lines, but after the liberation under the leadership of communist and workers parties they crossed over onto the peoples -democratic road in alliance with the USSR. This was a complicated turning point in the destiny of the people. Not even all the leaders of the communist parties (Tito, later on Nagy, Dubcek) understood the necessity of this.
Despite enormous difficulties the USSR led these countries towards socialism, transferred over to them its wealth of experience and defended them from NATO aggression.
On Stalin’s initiative, the CMEA (Council of Economic Mutual Assistance) and the Warsaw Pact were formed, which provided for the economic and military - political development of these countries.
In 1949, thanks to Stalin’s colossal energy, the atomic weapon appeared in the USSR and the country was finally transformed into a "superpower" , at the same time defending the cause for peace and socialism.
The triumph of the people’s revolution in China and the forming of the Peoples Republic of China was a remarkable post-war "concurrence" of democratic forces. This victory did not give the US any chance of strengthening itself in Asia (besides Japan and South Korea) and turn this region into a military base, directed against the USSR and China.
At the end of 1949 Mao Zedon visited Moscow to participate in the celebration of J.V. Stalin’s 70th Birthday. As a result of negotiations, a treaty was planned for signing between the USSR and China on friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance. The treaty was signed in February 1950. It transformed the friendship between the Soviet and Chinese peoples into a great force in the world, made the disruption of US aggression in the DPRK (Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea) possible and defended the achievements of socialism in Asia.
Together with the successes of Soviet foreign policy in the years during which Stalin led the country, there were individual failures. For example, a question fell through concerning the occupation of the northern part of the Japanese island of Hokkaido at the end of the war, although there were four Soviet divisions allocated for this aim. Stalin cancelled this operation not wishing to aggravate relations with the US. But there was another point to this: Stalin feared the US nuclear weapon, which had only just been used against Japan. If the USSR had occupied part of Japan, the US would have found it harder to transform that country into its own main base in the Far East in order to use it for the suppression of the peoples-democratic forces in the countries of that huge Asiatic region.
Stalin’s attempt at "regaining the consciousness" of Tito, the leader of the Yugoslav communists failed, for the latter had crossed over onto the side of the imperialists and rejected the "Stalinist" model of socialism. Despite various attempts at applying the influence of the USSR, Tito refused to admit that the accusations presented to him were just.
None of this can erase the main thing: under Stalin, especially after the Great Patriotic War, the USSR had been transformed into a mighty power, which the whole world had to take into account. The US started the "cold war" against the USSR and repeatedly made attempts at scaring it with nuclear bombardment, but were compelled to retreat from this in fear of a retaliatory nuclear strike.
On the eve of the Second World War, the USSR had no allies on the international arena (except the Peoples Republic of Mongolia), but towards the end of Stalin’s life, the USSR headed the peoples – democratic camp, which spread over the territory of Europe and Asia. One may safely say that under Stalin the USSR occupied such international positions, which were unseen in Tsarist Russia. Here is why true patriots, supporters of Stalin will never ever forget his victories in foreign policy.
Today’s rulers of Russia have destroyed all of this; they have turned Russia into a beggar. The richest country in the world is rummaging around the globe in search of aid. This is a disgrace for Russia, which it must quickly escape from. But this can only be done under the banner of Stalin, under the banner of socialism. Emperor Peter I chopped out a "window into Europe" for Russia, and Generalissimo Stalin chopped out a "window into the Universe" for the USSR. In this you will find his greatest service to the Soviet people and to progressive Mankind.

THE BUILDING OF THE FOUNDATIONS OF SOCIALISM

THE BUILDING OF THE FOUNDATIONS OF SOCIALISM AND THE STALIN CONSTITUTION OF 1936

U.M. Pitel, AUCPB (All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks)

Dear Comrades! There is just a short time to go before Mankind enters the third millennium – the XXI century. Reflecting on the historical landmarks of the passing century, many scientists of the world name without doubt the Great October Socialist Revolution as the main event of the century, which led to the building of the first state of workers and peasants, and the personality of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin occupies one of the leading places among the most superb leaders – the genius continuer of the cause of great Lenin, leader of the Soviet people, managing in conditions of violent resistance from internal and external enemies, being guided by the doctrine of Marx and Lenin, in practice realising the building of socialism in our country, a great military leader having managed to organize the people for achieving Victory over fascism in the Second World War and having founded the world system of socialism.
On the 21st December this year (1999) all honest Soviet people of the former Soviet Union, and countries abroad will commemorate the 120th Anniversary of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin’s birthday. J.V. Stalin’s name and cause are immortal, just like Marxism-Leninism and the experience of the Great October Socialist Revolution are immortal.
And Stalin is not to be blamed because of deliberate destruction of the foundations of socialism, and that inside a country, which was called the Soviet Union the temporary restoration of capitalism, has taken place. These bitter facts only confirm the historical correctness of the tenets of the Marxist-Leninist political economy of socialism, to deviate from which, J.V. Stalin warned, no leader must do if he is of course, a true Marxist-Leninist. Khrushchev, Brezhnev and Gorbachev deviated from these fundamental tenets and therefore prepared for the success of the restoration of capitalism.
For almost half a century, practically everything that had been created and connected with the life of several generations of Soviet people in the Soviet period, and connected with the name of J.V. Stalin, has been deliberately subjected to, and continues to be subjected to distortion, desecration and outrage. This entire filthy lie has been psychologically and prudently presented all these years that the philistines who there are very, very many of, have believed it and continue to believe it today. In actual fact, this was a true clouding of minds and stupefying of the working masses and hidden class treachery of the CPSU (Communist Party of the Soviet Union). The discrediting of Stalin and all of his activity was carried out and continues to be carried out today, with the aim of introducing an anti-state-like frame of mind as well as destructive turmoil in social consciousness, which the present-day restorers of capitalism so desperately need. And the result of this is present and can be seen. There is no unity within the communist movement, in the ranks of the communists a certain confusion is being observed, including a decrease in activity, expressing itself in the little-effective organisation of resistance to capitalism and in the contradictory attempts at a theoretical comprehension on what is happening around us. When referring to Marxism-Leninism, the communists express opposite points of view in relation to Marxism-Leninism itself.
So, when examining the question on the building of socialism in the USSR, the following question has been put to various scientific circles where various evaluations and discussions have been developed around this question: "Did we have socialism?" And there are quite a few scientists about who will answer negatively to the question on socialism in the USSR.
The party RPC (Russian Party of Communists), the Marxist platform and Professor A. Solovyev from Kostroma completely deny the existence of socialism in the USSR. Professor M. Popov from Leningrad and chief editor of the newspaper the "Independent Communist Digest" A. Provozin from Kiev including their followers, reject "the building of socialism in the main". Communists of the RCP-CPSU (Russian Communist Party- Communist Party of the Soviet Union) do not recognize the "complete victory of socialism" and equate it with the "fundamental building of socialism". The ACPB (All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks) and the workers movement unified around the newspaper "Arguments and Counter-arguments" maintain that socialism in the USSR had been built and fundamentally built. But the RCWP (Russian Communist Workers Party) states that socialism had been built but that there was no Soviet power.
Attempting to find an explanation for the restoration of capitalism, the communists reject in one sense or another the existence of socialism in the USSR, consciously or unconsciously aiming to fully ease the task for themselves by saying: "Socialism cannot be defeated". They declare that if this did happen, this would mean that there was simply no socialism. And as a whole, all these pronouncements, debates and discussions lead to accusations being made against J.V. Stalin, since it is the phrase about the "building of socialism in the main" in the 1930-s that is attributed to him.
Studying the works of J.V. Stalin gives evidence first of all about the farfetchedness of the initial thesis that socialism in the USSR was for "the most part built". Stalin made no such declarations either in the 1930-s or in the years following (more so, he never spoke about a complete victory of socialism in our country).
Stalin’s main accuser, Professor A. Solovyev (a fanatical anti-Stalinist and typical "child of the thaw" with all the consequences emanating from this) in an article entitled "For Leninism without Stalinism" published in the newspaper "Nash Vybor" No 3 from 1992, and in the newspaper "Shto Delat?" (What is to be done?) No 4 from 1994 and reprinted in the "NKD" (Independent Communist Digest) No1–3 from 1994, attributes to Stalin the following statement: "We have already implemented for the most part, the first phase of communism – socialism", ascribing it to 1939 and referring to a second source "The CPSU in resolutions". The reference to the second source speaks of the author as having not read the first source, with this, also disclosing himself and the editor of the "NKD" of also having not read this work.
The statement about the fulfillment in the main, of the building of socialism was indeed made by J.V. Stalin and not even in 1939, but in 1936 when presenting the draft of the new Constitution of the USSR (J.V. Stalin) ("Questions on Leninism", M.OGIZ, 1945, p. 514). There is a certain amount of difference between the terms ‘built’ and ‘fulfilled’. The term ‘construction’ or ‘building’ of socialism, like the term, a complete and full victory of socialism, is used by the classics only at the level of agitation. At a scientific level this term is not used because it is scientifically unsound in relation to the first phase of communism.
A word about communism and socialism.
Communism is an age-old dream of Mankind. This is the only social formation, which answers to the expectations and hopes of mankind. Marxism-Leninism teaches us that a direct leap from capitalism over to communism in social development is impossible.
In the works of Marx and Engels (Vol 19, p.27, Russian version) one can read the words of K. Marx: " Between capitalist and communist society there lies a period of the revolutionary transformation of the first into the second. A political transition period conforms to this period and the state during this period can be no other than the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat". This transition period of social development gained a definition – socialism, with the motto: "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his work".
V.I. Lenin (Vol 31, p.179, Russian version) writes: "From capitalism, Mankind can cross directly over to socialism only, that is, to the common ownership of the means of production and distribution of products by measure of the work fulfilled by each".
From this it follows that socialism is only the lower, initial phase of communist society. "The task of socialism is the transfer of all the means of production over into the property of all the people" (V.I. Lenin, Vol 35, p. 411, Russian version).
"Only the construction that can deserve to be called socialist will be able to produce according to a major plan, aiming for a uniform use of economic values. Only socialism can make possible the wide distribution with true form, subordinate social production and distribution of products for scientific purposes relative to making life easier for the workers, give them a chance of prosperity". (V.I. Lenin, Vol 36, p.381).
On the 25th October 1917, on the day that the Great October Socialist Revolution took place, the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets proclaimed the policy of socialist construction in Russia. Russia had to proceed along a difficult and unexplored road of socialist construction alone under the conditions of capitalist encirclement.
After V.I. Lenin died, Stalin swore an oath in public not to deviate from the socialist path of development, to be loyal to the ideas of Lenin and preserve the unity of the Communist Party. Stalin remained loyal to this oath right up until his last breath.
Leafing through pages of history of those years, we see the confident stride of the Country of Soviets along the path of socialist construction, where J.V. Stalin stood at the helm.
Socialist industrialization transformed the country into a powerful industrial power capable of providing further technological progress using its own strength. In the agrarian sector, collectivisation solved the urgent task of replacing the low commodity individual economy with major mechanized production, having changed the whole system of life in the village. The Cultural Revolution liquidated illiteracy and opened up a wide expanse for the development of the creative power of the working masses, formed the workers-peasants intelligentsia, united brotherly friendship and mutual aid of the people of the country.
In the years of the first five year plans, a scientifically planned system of economic management was set up based on constant growth in labour productivity and lowering the manufacturing costs of products. Competition, shock work and the Stakhanovite movement became the school of class education, by means of mobilizing the masses towards the building of a new society. During the years of socialist construction, capitalists, merchants, traders, wealthy farmers (Kulaks) and speculators were liquidated as a class of exploiters.
The deep changes in the life of the people of the Soviet Union, the decisive successes of socialism in the country were expressed in the new Constitution of the USSR, adopted in 1936 by the VIII Congress of Soviets. The Constitution consolidated that worldwide-historical fact that the USSR had entered into a new period of development, into a period of completing the building of a socialist society and the gradual transition over into a communist society.
According to the Constitution of the USSR, Soviet society consists of two mutually friendly classes – workers and peasants. The Soviets of Workers Deputies make up the political basis of the USSR. Socialist ownership over the means of production is the economic basis of the USSR. All citizens of the USSR are guaranteed the right to work, rest, education, material provision in retirement as well as in the case of illness and disability, and equal rights of citizens regardless of their nationality, race or gender. In the interests of strengthening socialist society, freedom of speech, print, assemblies and meetings, the right to unify into social organisations, inviolability of personality, inviolability of housing and secrecy of correspondence are guaranteed. All these unseen before in history great rights and freedoms for the workers were provided materially and economically by the whole system of a socialist economy not knowing crisis, anarchy or unemployment. Along with the Constitution, serious obligations were placed on all citizens, and they were as follows: to observe the laws, labour discipline, to act in an honest manner towards social, public duty, to respect the rules of socialist everyday life, to protect and strengthen socialist property and defend the socialist Fatherland.
What the best and most progressive minds of humanity had been dreaming of for hundreds of years, the Constitution of the USSR had made into immutable law – a Constitution of a socialist society with a developed socialist democracy.
The peoples of the USSR unanimously named the Constitution in honour of its creator – the Stalin Constitution. For the working masses of the USSR it was the result of struggle and triumphs, and for the working people of the capitalist countries – a great programme of struggle. The exclusively high prestige of the ACP(B) (All-Union Communist Party (Bolshevik)) and the party-state leadership headed by Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin revealed itself in all the work, which had been carried out on the building of socialism.
The Great Patriotic War was a historical test of strength for the born in battles and labour struggle of the socialist state. In the war years, socialism, the peoples of the Soviet Union under the leadership of the great military leader, Supreme Chief Commanding of the Red Army, J.V. Stalin endured this unseen test with honour.
And today, out of all the overthrowers of Stalin, shamelessly manipulating people with lies and personal ignorance, not one person has been found, and will not be found, who could demonstrate how, in those inhumanely difficult and extreme conditions, to not only keep socialism on its feet, but also make the Soviet Union the greatest power on our planet. Stalin’s actions were optimally possible and correct. Everything that Stalin had done, he had done in the interests of the absolute majority of our people and even in the name of saving the whole of Mankind. This has been convincingly proven by History itself.
The world and our "new" bourgeoisie continue to bitterly despise J.V. Stalin, because Stalin today is a symbol of revolutionary communism, is a loyal, true Marxist-Leninist, the builder of the first socialist state in the world. Stalin – this is a powerful blow to the world capitalist system, from which it will never ever recover. Stalin – this is the proletarian strategist who never lost in the battles against world capitalism, not one class battle. Stalin – this is the glorious chapter in the history of our Fatherland, which awaits its own thoughtful and impartial researchers.
Today, the attitude towards Stalin should become the criterion of how much of a communist, patriot and even of purely decency a person is. The ACPB (All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks) is today the transmitter of the ideas of J.V. Stalin and it will honour and carry the triumphant banner of Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin into the XXI century.
Dear Comrades! In finishing off my speech I would like to appeal to he participators of this conference concerning a publication in the newspaper "Sovetskaya Rossiya" (Soviet Russia) on 6th July 1999 entitled "The living and the dead", conversations by a correspondent of the newspaper Sergei Ivanov with one of the country’s leading political psychologists, Doctor of Philosophical Sciences of St Petersburg State University, professor at the Department of General History at the Russian State Pedagogical University, Egyptologist, Andrei Leonidovich Vassoevich. The well-known scientist gives a brilliant, scientifically based rebuff to the present-day Kremlin outcasts who are planning to encroach upon the Lenin Mausoleum. Towards the end of the conversation, Andrei Leonidovich says: "The preservation of Lenin’s body in there (the Mausoleum) is only half a deed. We need to put forward the question on the restoration of historical justice in full volume, and return Generalissimo Stalin to the Mausoleum. I shall remind you that the circumstances surrounding the removal of his body from the Mausoleum and its burial were kept strictly secret. This act was carried out very hastily, in a thief-like manner and under a lot of fear. It cannot be excluded, as some witnesses are saying about this, that the body of Stalin was buried in the ground still inside the airtight sarcophagus, as it was inside the Mausoleum. Then in that case, it would have been fully preserved. This problem needs to be examined and addressed. For this, the deputies of the State Parliament (Duma) including the leftist opposition should pass a decree on the carrying out of an expert evaluation of the body of J.V. Stalin. If, all the same, such a miracle did occur, and as a result of exhumation, it could be established that the remains of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin had not decayed, then the duty of those elected by the people –the Deputies of the State Parliament and also the government (if it really is interested in strengthening accord in society, would be to adopt a decision on fairness, in relation to Generalissimo Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin and on the returning of his body back to the Mausoleum".
I fully support the proposal of the well-known scientist Andrei Leonidovich and appeal to the participators in this conference with a request that they too support the scientist’s proposal, and by measure of their possibilities, contribute to making this a reality.
The founders of the Soviet State, Lenin and Stalin, must live forever!

THE LIE ABOUT STALIN: 22nd JUNE 1941

THE LIE ABOUT STALIN: 22nd JUNE 1941

V.M. Zhukhrai, writer, Doctor of Historical Sciences

The leader of the German fascists, Adolf Hitler, whilst instructing his own propagandists, said: “If we want to score a victory, we must actively make use of lies. They have to be big. The bigger the lies the quicker people will believe them. When we score a victory, nobody will ask us whether we spoke the truth or whether we lied”. Goebbels, the minister for fascist propaganda and developing the ideas of his fuhrer said that a lie repeated a thousand times becomes a truth. And it was according to this Hitlerite recipe that our enemies used their criticism of Stalin’s activity as soon after he had died. And here is a probable lie. In the newspaper “Glasnost” (Openness) where we had been preparing material concerning the case of Kirov’s murder, there are examples of lies given, which were poured over Stalin and our party. I do not wish to quote all of the examples, you probably know them already, and so I will stop on just one example. In the press it is said that when the Bolsheviks took the Crimea, they executed by firing squad 100 thousand officers of the White Guard. At that time the whole of Kolchak’s army consisted of 26 thousand men, 6000 of whom were officers. You can see what I mean about lies, can’t you? Therefore, our comrades asked to explain several interesting moments in the life and activity of Stalin, which in much, reveal the methods of our class enemies and which in practical examples illustrate the fallacy of this lie. Many people have already read my book “Stalin - the truth and the lies”. Now my new book has been published entitled “Stalin and politics”, and also articles have been published concerning the case surrounding the murder of Kirov and the case concerning Tukhachevsky. In other words, we have fulfilled the task of somehow assisting our propagandists in the preparation for the socialist revolution, because they have been in the main, going along with this lie. Those comrades who have given speeches before me have very good reports. I was very pleased with them. Our conference was a lot worse than this one. The reports have simply been excellent at your conference. Excellent reports.
And so, Comrades, allow me to stop on several questions. The first thing, which is usually asked, is why Comrade Stalin, on the 22nd June 1941 did not go on the radio and make a speech to the Soviet people? And enemy of Soviet people Khrushchev, carrying out the will of his masters on the other side of the Atlantic declared that Stalin had become confused, afraid, locked himself away in his dacha (country house) and sat there for three days. What? Stalin, a professional revolutionary, a man who back in 1902 in Baku, walking at the front of a demonstration under a red banner, where tsarist troops had opened fire killing 45 workers, was never afraid of anybody or anything. All those Comrades who knew Comrade Stalin say this. And Zhukov, even though he was an enemy of Stalin at heart, did much so that Khrushchev did what he did, unfortunately. Vinogradov, second in command of the rear around Moscow and who had met Comrade Stalin every day, told me about this. He says that a significant number of our military leaders, including Zhukov, became quite nervous, the only calm, even-tempered person being Stalin. Do you know what Rokossovsky says concerning this? That is to say, that all the data we have indicates that this business concerning Stalin locking himself away for three days at the start of the war, is nothing but a Khrushchevite lie, since that same Khrushchev himself was at this time in Kiev, and could not have seen how Stalin was behaving. Nevertheless, such a lie was released, and it was from here that I first of all started, when writing a book, a book I had been working on for almost 20 years or so, and had to verify all the facts, which were on hand. Therefore I began by finding out the real reason why Comrade Stalin, on the night of 22nd June 1941, suddenly at the start of the second night left the Kremlin, when all the country’s leadership were at their posts expecting an attack from fascist Germany. Throughout that year Comrade Stalin had been leaving at 5 am. This pattern had been set, so he left at 5 am. And on the eve of such hard days, he had suddenly left! And while closely scrutinizing this question, luck fell into my hands on two occasions.
First of all, I was well acquainted with Professor Preobrazhensky, a well-known academician and specialist in ear, throat and nose disorders. Preobrazhensky was the only doctor who in the period of 20 years had treated Stalin. Comrade Stalin had a very weak throat and in the latter years it became sore quite often because of angina; he had a very weak throat. However, he refused to have his glands removed. Boris Sergeivich knew this condition well. Speaking of which, when I began asking him about this, we then met to discuss this many times, for we were working together at the same institute and he had at one time, saved my life.
He began telling me that on the night of the 22nd June 1941 he was called out to Volinskoe. And when he arrived he saw Comrade Stalin lying under a blanket on the couch inside the hall where meetings of the politburo usually took place, and who said in a broken voice: “Take a look to see what is wrong with me. I’m not feeling at all well. I can hardly talk or swallow”. And when, says Preobrazhensky, I took a look at Comrade Stalin’s throat I was horrified. What he was actually suffering from was terrible phlegmatic angina, an abscess in the throat. And when I took his temperature, it was well over 40. I said: “Comrade Stalin, you have to get to hospital immediately or you will suffocate”. Stalin said: “Unfortunately that can’t be done now. And don’t mention a word to anyone about my illness. Not even the guards”. Zhukov confirms this in his memoirs: when he phoned Stalin and heard his irregular breathing, he could not say why he had stayed quiet for a long time. And when he told him that the Hitlerites had started attacking us, it was then that Stalin went to the Kremlin. And Stalin’s chauffeur, Mitryukhin says: “I watched Comrade Stalin coming out and could see him swaying. We knew that Comrade Stalin did not drink and was never drunk, but here he was, shaking; when he got into the back seat of the car and sitting behind me, I could see that this man was gasping for breath”. And it was in this semi-conscious state that Stalin arrived in the Kremlin. This is why he was laid up for three days without food. It is true what Lozgachev, one of Stalin’s bodyguards writes, that Stalin did drink one cup of tea. Therefore it was obvious that Comrade Stalin could not make a speech on radio under such conditions.
I was also lucky to have found out that Lilya Alexandrovna here, an old friend of mine and wife of Vice General Vlasik, also knew about theses things very well. We together met Comrade Stalin’s personal guard, Colonel Borisov from the personal guards, the so-called “ninth”, which was standing on the night of the 22nd at the gate of Volinskoe dacha. And he has this on tape; for the three whole days that Stalin was there all the time, nobody came over to the dacha. Only Preobrazhensky came over who was brought over by Poskrebyshev and nobody else. And Comrade Stalin did not leave to go anywhere either. Well it has been said that diaries, records by some of the secretaries had been found, and let this be on the conscience of Boldin and Gorbachev. I do not believe these records. I know that Comrade Stalin did not allow anybody to record who came to see him. Lenin had such records made but Stalin did not. And Molotov at the same time confirms that they had not seen Stalin for three days. Also, Peoples Commissar of the Naval Fleet, Kuznetsov, who noted that he was with Stalin on the 24th June writes in his memoirs: “I could not find Stalin for three days. I arrived at the Kremlin, phone all the telephone numbers, but Stalin was nowhere to be found”. So. This is the way things stand concerning this lie about Stalin.

J.V. STALIN AND SOCIALISM

J.V. STALIN AND SOCIALISM

A.M. Chernyak, Russian Communist Workers Party (RCWP)

Not one head of the USSR has ever been subjected to such attacks and such a hounding from the bourgeois mass media as J.V. Stalin and of course, V.I. Lenin. If bourgeois criticism of Khrushchev, Brezhnev and other former leaders was good-natured, one may even say friendly in character, then against J.V. Stalin as well as against V.I. Lenin it always was and is meant to destroy. And it is understandable why. If, under the leadership of V.I. Lenin the power of the bourgeoisie in Russia was overthrown and Soviet power, that is, the power of the workers was established, then after he died, when J.V. Stalin stood at the helm of the country, the bourgeoisie in our country came to an end. Stalin not only liquidated inside the USSR private property and the bourgeoisie as a class, but also washed out of the country using an iron broom, all kinds of crooks, shrewd businessmen, speculators and swindlers who had sponged off the people. Figuratively speaking, J.V. Stalin ridded our country of the spirit of the bourgeoisie. Under his leadership a completely new society was built inside the USSR, based on new principles, with a new culture, new morals and a new ideology. This was socialism of the proletarian type, a society of labour, where everything belonged to the people of labour, since they were the masters of their own country and all of its wealth. The bourgeoisie of all countries cannot forgive J.V. Stalin for this. What had been achieved in the USSR was far too dangerous for the capitalist countries, since the workers of these countries could follow the example of our country (the USSR). This is why they did not allow us to live peacefully and build our own future. Attempting to undermine from within if only to slow down the flow of socialist construction, the enemies sent spies, saboteurs, economic saboteurs into our country, supported the “fifth column” created out of the defeated classes, which arranged conspiracies, terrorist acts, poisoned drinking wells and set fire to grain storehouses (granaries). The young Soviet state was compelled to defend itself. It was here, that this defence of socialism from internal and external enemies was used by western special services relying on fabrications by Trotsky, Khrushchev, Solzhenitsen and other renegades, for whipping up and fabricating the myth about the so-called “Stalin repressions” or the “Great Terror”. This myth became the main weapon for anti-communists in their information war against socialism and communist parties.
Unfortunately, the theorists of present-day communist parties up to now have not worked out antidotes against this poison and have not deeply and convincingly enough, exposed this lie. As a rule, communists defending J.V. Stalin from attacks do not deny that repressions took place, but only lower the number of those who were repressed, claiming that there were not 40 million people repressed like Solzhenitsen and the bourgeois press maintain, but only 642 thousand during the period of 33 years (from 1921 until 1954). Those same communists admit that there were repressions and dance to the tune of the democrats. The word “repressions” is understood to be the arrest of innocent people, that is, crimes carried out by the authorities, evil deeds against innocent people. But J.V. Stalin was never an evildoer and did not occupy himself with arresting honest people, like opponents of socialism claim. J.V. Stalin was guided in all of his actions by the interests of the defence of Soviet power and socialism, and demanded with this, an observance of socialist legality. In particular, the material of the January Plenary meeting of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolshevik) (CC ACP(B) of 1938, and the decree of the Sovnarkom of the USSR and the CC ACP(B) from 17th November 1938 testify this.
The Civil War in our country did not end in 1920 as is written in history textbooks, but continued in another hidden form throughout the whole period of building socialism and continues up to now. Therefore those 642 thousand enemies of peoples’ power, having died in the flow of the class struggle in the USSR should be added to those who died in the years of the Civil War on the side of the Whites. They all came out against the power of the workers and peasants and got what they deserved.
The small number of Soviet people had in that period unjustifiably suffered was not due to the conscience J.V. Stalin, but due to the Trotskyites and careerists who had penetrated the organs of security and the party. In 1938 many had already been exposed and were severely punished.
The purges inside the army, which were carried out in 1937-1939, the arrest of military chiefs involved in Tukhachevsky’s conspiracy, the dismissal of politically unreliable or politically unstable and incompetent elements from the army, and their replacement by young commanders who were decisive and devoted to the party and cause, did not weaken the army, like the “democrats” try to make us believe, (and this lie is repeated by several “communists”), but on the contrary, they strengthened and reinforced it. Even our opponents noticed this at that time.
For example, Goebbels explains the collapse of Hitler” troops in his diaries, by putting it down to this pre-war reforming of the Red Army (now called “repressions” inside the Army). Indeed, it was those people such Zhukov, Rokossovsky, Chernyakhovsky, Vasilyevsky, Valyutin and thousands of other generals entering the divisions and corps that took the war to the victory of the USSR. And the “democrats” try to instill in our minds that it was because of the repressions in the army that there was nobody left to command it, and that if the Uboreviches, Yakirs and Korks had commanded the troops, then they would have quickly triumphed in the war, they say. But simple logic suggests to us that in this case we would have lost the war, since inside the army would have turned up not just General Vlasov (who was not purged in time), but ten of General Vlasov’s ilk. The liquidation of the “fifth column” in the USSR during the pre-war period in a surprising way influenced the moral climate in society. There wasn’t the fear that the democrats instill into the population today. On the contrary, an atmosphere of joyful spirits, enthusiasm, a common uplift and labour inspiration dominated. Newsreels of those years recorded buoyant laughter on the faces of Soviet people who were certain of their future and knowing what they wanted. The 1930-s were the years of youth of the Soviet country, the years of inspiration of the work of our people in the name of a common goal. Every communist should know this and defend those years from slander, and not agree with those who paint a dark picture of them. One can quote many a statement with kind words directed towards the 1930-s from those who lived and worked at that time. Here is what Marshal G.K. Zhukov writes about them in his memoirs: “Each period of peace has its own specific features, its own colour and its own charm. But I would like to say a kind word about the pre-war period (in the USSR- translator), in that it was notable for the unique, distinctive uplift in mood, optimism, and a kind of inspiration and at the same time, efficiency, modesty and simplicity of the people. We had started to live well, very well indeed!” (G.K. Zhukov, “Reminiscences and thoughts” (Vospominaniya I razmyishleniya), m. 1970, p.196 (in Russian). History testifies that inside all the former socialist countries, counter-revolution was started by attacks against J.V. Stalin. That was how it was in Czechoslovakia during the “Prague spring” in 1968 when Dubcek was leader of the communist party there. It was the same with us here when at the head of the CPSU stood our own Dubcek, that is, Gorbachev. We remember how on one autumn day in 1987 the whole mass media suddenly began whipping up grim anti-Stalin hysteria inside the country. This was the start of a war, the start of counter-revolution in the USSR, the liquidation of the socialist system and the restoration of criminal, colonial capitalism. These are truths, which do not need a lot of explaining or clarification.
More complicated and difficult to explain is the question as to reason why a section of the communists (or people calling themselves communists) up to now does not except J.V. Stalin but stands on Khrushchevite or more exactly, Trotskyite positions. Why does the position of a leader of one of the communist parties, A.A. Prigarin on the question about Stalin, coincides with the position of the “democrats”, and that from the leadership of the RCWP (Russian Communist Workers Party), A.V. Kryuchkov and V.A. Tyulkin, you very rarely hear a commendable word towards J.V. Stalin and the Stalin epoch? The fact that people have been duped by anti-communist propaganda and that the “democrats” have made a scarecrow out of Stalin and with it, are frightening the philistines, is obvious. But communists and more so the leaders of the communists should know the laws of social development, the laws of class struggle, and not give in to the untruths of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois opportunist propaganda. Khrushchev was not the first of the leaders of the communist party who openly spoke out against J.V. Stalin and who contrasted Lenin with Stalin. Trotsky was the first. Khrushchev only armed himself with Trotsky’s main thesis about Stalin allegedly deforming socialism in the USSR and that the main struggle against Stalin was the return to “Leninist democratic socialism”. Therefore the key to understanding why, after Stalin had died, the CPSU crawled down to Trotskyite right-opportunist positions, and towards understanding the present-day disorder, one has to search in the period of the 1920-s, in the years of the struggle against Trotskyism. After Lenin had died, the communist party headed by Stalin was not homogeneous and monolithic. Around 10% of the communists were newcomers from other petty-bourgeois parties: Mensheviks, anarchists, SR-s (Socialist Revolutionaries) etc. Trotsky himself, along with his supporters only entered the Bolshevik party after the February Revolution in 1917. And he did not enter it because he had suddenly started seeing the light and had become a Bolshevik; no – he remained as he was before this – a Menshevik. He entered the Bolshevik party because he could see that the Bolsheviks were coming to power, and he hoped that by entering the party of his former opponents he would be able to undermine it from within and transfer it over onto Menshevik petty-bourgeois positions. The Trotskyites and newcomers from other parties alien to the Bolsheviks, although having in the past been revolutionaries, expressed the interests of the petty-bourgeoisie and were guided in their struggle, not by the aim of building a socialist society, but by the ideals of petty-bourgeois democracy. It needs to be born in mind that pre-revolutionary and post-revolutionary Russia was a peasant, a petty-bourgeois country and therefore petty-bourgeois ideas weighed down heavily on the party, penetrated the party, and therefore communists often became carriers of these ideas, perhaps not even realising it themselves. The same is happening today; it is sometimes hard to differentiate a communist with petty-bourgeois views from that of a communist defending proletarian aims. Lenin back in those days noted the danger of the petty-bourgeoisie as being the bitterest enemies of communism, since they hourly and each minute generate capitalism. And in this light it needs to be understood that the bitter struggle waged by J.V. Stalin and his supporters against Trotskyism in the 1920-s was a struggle against the petty-bourgeoisie, for socialism. This was a struggle of two lines inside the party – proletarian and petty bourgeois. Members of the Politburo and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolshevik) (ACP(B)) were divided into two groups. J.V Stalin’s group supported by the absolute majority in the party and working class and expressing the proletarian line inside the party, led the country towards socialism. Trotsky’s group, around which all opposition forces rallied and which had the support of a section of the intelligentsia and students, expressed the petty-bourgeois tendency in the party and came out against the building of socialism and stood for the continuation of NEP (New Economic Policy) and market relations. This dividing line, which appeared in the 1920-s, exists today throughout the communist movement as a whole. The petty bourgeoisie cannot exist without private property and is always dreaming of creating that kind of society where private property and communists will peacefully coexist side by side. Isn’t this what G.A. Zyuganov the leader of the CPRF (Communist Party of the Russian Federation) wants when he proclaims the peaceful coexistence of all from of property and all classes? And what about A.A. Prigarin who publicly denounces Stalin and Brezhnev-type socialism and calls for some other kind of “new” socialism? What kind of new socialism? What is the novelty? All these “socialisms”, be they devised by communist Kurashvili or social-“democrat” Fyodorov or multimillionaire Brintsalov are nothing other than that same capitalism, only slightly touched up with democratic and socialist phraseology. The greatness of Stalin consists in that in the 1920-30-s he defeated the petty bourgeois opposition, and for the first time in world history, built true proletarian socialism inside the USSR. He brought into practice the ideas of Marx, Engels and Lenin and built a society, which the oppressed classes had been dreaming about for thousands of years, a society, which the socialist-utopists had been dreaming of but did not know how to build, and a society, which workers of oppressed countries of today are dreaming about. One needs to note that V.I. Lenin in the last years of his life strenuously searched for a way out of NEP towards a society without commodities, but he did not live to see socialism. J.V Stalin, relying on the ideas conveyed by V.I. Lenin, in his last articles and also on his own knowledge and willpower, built a society, which historians are today calling “pure” socialism, compared to the “dirty”, vulgarized socialism of Khrushchev and Brezhnev. J.V. Stalin’s contributions to the working out of the theoretical conception of socialism and its embodiment in practice were so great, that his name is directly linked to socialism. If we say the words of V.V. Mayakovsky, then we can say: “When we say Lenin, we mean the Party and when we say Stalin, we mean socialism.” Socialism in our country went through two periods: the proletarian period from 1929 until 1956 (including the years of building socialism), when the dictatorship of the proletariat was being exercised and at the head of the country stood the Bolshevik party, having been guided by the Marxist-Leninist theory, and the second period from 1956 until 1985 – petty bourgeois consumer socialism, when at the head of country stood the Khrushchev-Brezhnevite CPSU having crossed over onto the position of right- opportunism. That catastrophe, which took place in our country – the counter-revolution and the defeat of socialism- was not due to a fault in socialism itself or its bankruptcy, like our class enemies are trying to prove. The tragedy occurred as a result of the Khrushchev-Brezhnevite leadership, having deviated from that policy, which J.V. Stalin had led the country with and torn themselves away from Marxism, rejecting the dictatorship of the proletariat and classes in general, and the class struggle in particular. Several theorists (the group calling itself the “Leninists”) maintain today that with the building of socialism in 1936, the need for a dictatorship of the proletariat was no longer relevant since, they say, there was longer a proletariat but a working class and that there was an ideology common to everyone. This is completely wrong. It is true that with the building of a socialist society, all classes and strata of the population go over onto the position of the working class, and they have a common proletarian ideology. But the working class itself continues to remain the main, root class and continues to dictate its will. The dictatorship of the proletariat or workers’ rule is implemented.
The rejection of this in the Khrushchev-Brezhnev period led to disorganization in the economy as well as ideology and towards the rising up of anti-socialist forces of the so-called “fifth column”, gradually taking power.
Today when the communist movement in the country is divided, and the separate communist parties are not in a condition to organize and raise the workers up to the struggle against the anti-peoples regime, many are coming out in favour of unifying and forming a single Marxist-Leninist party. Is such unification possible? Yes, it is possible. It needs to be a unification based on a programme and Party rules free from opportunistic ideas, and which will fulfill all the demands of Marxist-Leninist theory, including the placing the end goal of the revival of socialism. Not one of the communist parties of the Roskomsoyuz (Russian Communist Union) today has such a programme and rules. The programme of the RCWP for example, presents a mishmash of Marxist, Trotskyite and anarcho-syndicalist ideas. Besides this, it contains slander against J.V. Stalin, which causes outrage among rank and file members of the RCWP. Other parties in the Roskomsoyuz in general renounce our socialist past and are therefore renegades. They are trying to invent something new. But there is no need to reinvent the wheel; we had socialism and we want it back. In order to achieve this, the counter-revolution in inside the country has to be crushed and power taken. How this is to be done is already a special topic of conversation.
The only communist party, which on questions of theory commands the heights and where the draft political programme answers to the above-indicated demands, is the ACPB (the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks). Therefore we need to unify around this party the members of other parties who accept the party political Programme and Party Rules of the ACPB. Only in this way will we be able to form a militant mass Marxist-Leninist party, able to lead the struggle of the working class and all the people, who to a large extent have remained Soviet, towards liberation. Again, as always in difficult periods of history, communists and workers must unite around the names of V.I. Lenin and J.V. Stalin, around a true revolutionary Marxist-Leninist party in order to carry out a successful struggle for driving the occupiers -“democrats” out of our country, for the revival of Soviet power and the socialist system. Again like in the years of struggle against fascism, we have to go into battle under the slogan “For the Motherland - For Stalin!”
J.V. Stalin and the experience of building socialism in our country was and always will be our ideological weaponry. They inspire us and instill belief in victory.

STALIN AND THE MODERN EPOCH

STALIN AND THE STRUGGLE AGAINST TROTSKYISM

By K.P. Islamov, member of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (AUCPB)

Beginning with the sad memory of the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), all kinds of slanderous tall stories about the events of the 1930-s have been incessantly hammered into the minds of ordinary people, by the rightist- Khrushchevite revisionists (or more accurately, the Khrushchevite-Trotskyites) and in particular, the latest Zionist “democrats”.
For unmasking and denying theses tall stories, we need to turn to several very important and educational fragments from the history of the USSR.
However strange this may seem, one has to begin by mentioning separate areas in a book that was written by V.D. Uspensky, Doctor of Historical Sciences entitled “The leader’s secret advisor” [1]. This book contains quite a lot of filth surrounding Stalin’s name. But the book also contains true pearl grains. These are in those areas where Uspensky casts light on the essence of Trotskyism and of Trotsky himself. They are extremely important pieces of evidence and are the key starting points for understanding all our post-October history.
The first and main starting point is that Uspensky says the following about Zionism using Stalin’s words: “Zionism and Zionists make up the shock expansionist detachment of world imperialism. For their domination over Russia, the Trotskyites are carrying out against us (that is, against the Bolsheviks – K.P.) an irreconcilable battle on all bastions: ideological, economical and national” [2]. We shall ourselves add to this by saying first of all, that it was a battle for the placement of their own cadres into the high levels of leadership of the party, and taking over the party’s Central Committee.
The second important starting point is that Uspensky reveals Trotsky’s direct connection with clans of Zionists in Europe and the USA. Uspensky says that while in emigration, Trotsky never felt any financial hardship, having during this time been in and around the private offices of leading activists of these clans in London, Paris, Madrid and New York. It therefore logical that he had to fulfill the task set before him by these clans – the seizure of all power inside Russia by way of revolution, quickly and economically.
This is the most important evidence of the Doctor of Historical Sciences, V.D. Uspensky. For it is not Trotsky’s “works” and the labeling of Trotskyism as a “petty bourgeois trend” inside the communist movement, but this connection (and this task), which reveals all there is to know about the essence of the struggle of the Trotskyites against the Bolsheviks, inside the party and in the international arena.
It is from here the fact becomes clear that Trotsky and the Trotskyites in 1917 joined not with their own relatives, the Mensheviks, but with their opponents, the Bolsheviks. Why? Because, neither the Mensheviks nor the Socialist Revolutionaries (SR-s) intended taking power (via the Soviets) into their own hands. The Bolsheviks had already aimed themselves towards carrying out this task.
The third important point is this snatching up by the Trotskyites, in the years of revolution and civil war, of the many leading posts and positions at higher and mid-levels within the army, organs of repression, mainly the NKVD (and a smaller number inside Dzerzhinsky’s VCHK –OGPU), and also inside the bodies of judicial enquiry. All of these organs were saturated (to a certain extent) by the Trotskyites right up to the end of the 1930-s. This is a very important point in the understanding of those tragic events of 1937 – 1938, and the tragedy of 1941 at the start of the war.
The struggle of the Trotskyites for complete control of the leadership in the USSR and primarily in the party leadership (“the battle for the Central Committee”), can be sharply divided into two stages:
The first stage - An open, legal ideological-political struggle up to 1927;
The second stage – A hidden, illegal struggle having been disguised by the Trotskyites, and by now, not so much an ideological struggle, as a sabotage-terrorist struggle and the carrying out subversive work – after 1927.
The first stage [3] is characterized by the aim of the Trotskyites of attracting over onto their side the majority (if only a relative majority) of party members by way of so-called “general party discussions”.
The first of these attacks at the end of 1920 (the discussion on the trade unions) was repelled by Lenin, but it did manage to split for a time, the small-numbered at that time (in all 19 people) Central Committee, where Lenin ends up in the minority.
The second discussion unleashed by Trotsky against the party, was the general party discussion on the “46th platform” at the end of 1923, when Lenin, very ill at the time, was excluded from this struggle. The discussion was a difficult one for the party, and most of the difficulty in repelling this frenzied attack by the Trotskyites fell onto Stalin’s shoulders. But Stalin carried out the task splendidly and the ideological and organisational attack by the Trotskyites was repelled resulting in cadre losses for them in the army, political headquarters of the Republic (PHR) and the Revolutionary Military Soviet of the Republic (RMSR). Stalin also smashed ideologically a discussion, which followed in autumn 1924 by the Trotskyites, and this resulted in Trotsky himself losing an important post for him as Chairman of the RMSR.
Trotsky went quiet for a time, but not for long.
In 1925 the “New Opposition” surfaces, headed by Zinoviev and Kamenev (N.K. Krupskaya joined them, as Kamenev to Krupskaya was a close friend back in emigration), and at the start of 1926 the Trotskyite – Zinovievist faction was formed. Krupskaya breaks with the opposition. In the period 1926 – 1927 a fierce fight takes place between this faction and the Leninist –Stalinist majority Central Committee, and another attempt made at unleashing a general party discussion, including carrying out a true Trotskyite referendum inside the party, leads to a most disgraceful and deadly result for those same Trotskyites. And as a consequence of this, the final ideological- organisational destruction of Trotskyism took place together with a subsequent (and very significant!) cadre reshuffle and movement of several activists of the faction according to the party line, to outlying districts, like for example, Smigly and others.
Here it is extremely important to bring to the forefront, several of the instructions and directives of the leaders of the faction to their own supporters during this fight. Here they are, documentarily recorded by history:
1. Zinoviev’s words at the plenary session of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolshevik) in July 1926:
“The faction that we have is serious and is going to be with us for a long time!” [4].
What is true must be true. Secretly de-facto, the activity of this anti-Stalin faction did continue to function for a long time and was serious. And the 20th Congress of the CPSU in 1956 as well as the events that followed it is in essence, the continuation of the activity of this faction under new conditions, in another form and with new faces.
2. During the ideological-organisational defeat of Trotskyism and cadre movement of several activists of the faction to the outlying districts, the Trotskyites in blind malice lost their heads and all sense of measure. Their leader Trotsky openly declares the “Clemenceau thesis”. The concept of this thesis lies in Trotsky’s threat of carrying out a military coup, threatening that in the case of a war (the imperialists against the Soviet Union), and the enemy reaching even only a few tens of kilometres from the capital, they (the Trotskyites) will carry out a change in party and Soviet leadership”. In essence, Trotsky repeats this same “Clemenceau thesis” in his accompanying letter to the “83rd platform” to the CC and CCC (Central Control Commission) (May-June 1927) [5].
In order for the enemy to get close to the capital the corresponding conditions need to be created by way of treacherous acts being carried out in the highest ranks of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army (RKRA), as was exactly spotted by A.A. Rumintsev in his famous article entitled “Stalin’s time”. And considering the well-known presence of the Trotskyites inside these ranks (since Trotsky and his ilk had led the Red Army for a long time), the “Clemenceau thesis” was by far no empty threat!
And the tragedy of 1941 is, to a significant extent, the realization of this “Clemenceau thesis” inside the army by the hidden Trotskyites!
3. The third document distributed (and by now illegally!) during the ideological-organisational defeat of the faction, were instructions by the leaders of the faction to their confederates on disguising themselves, where in particular, it says: “Keep voting for the Central Committee until your hands wither away, and at the same time, carry out work in building an opposition of most active members” [6]. In other words – disguise yourselves! And disguise themselves they do!
The crossing over to illegal work by the Trotskyites began back in 1926 [7]. From 1928 the disguising was carried out in the form of mass declarations to the Central Committee about a “break with Trotskyism”. And quite a few Trotskyites on the strength of this, remained at their various leading posts, desperately clinging on to power. But the carefully conspired Trotskyites within the party, army and NKVD, one can assume, started forming their own cadres even earlier, in the form of all those Yagods, Khrushchevs, Yezhovs, Melisovs, Frinovskys, and Uboreviches etc.
4. The fourth important document is Trotsky’s directives to his by now already secretly disguised confederates, including those who were in the process of disguising themselves. He laid out these directives in two letters sent to Berlin, allegedly for making copies of, under the name of Petr Pereverziev. These letters were intercepted (possibly via the OGPU and quite possibly with Trotsky’s help) and quickly published on 15th January 1928 in the newspaper “Pravda”. Let us remind ourselves that at the time, the chief editor of “Pravda” was N.I. Bukharin. What were these instructions? In the first letter Trotsky attacks the “capitulators”, that is, those who had really broken away from the opposition. He demands that they carry out the instructions and directives of the faction’s leaders and not those of the Central Committee of the ACP(B). Trotsky declares that anyone who does not carry out these directives is a conscious opponent, and demands a merciless struggle be waged against them. What was this merciless struggle? Was it to be an ideological one? But Trotsky had already been beaten and finally defeated by Stalin in the ideological struggle, not long before. No, this merciless struggle by the Trotskyites was in the form of terror and no other. And this terror being brought about by them was carried out via the organs of repression (NKVD), by their own people who had been planted there, their secret confederates and moreover, under the flag of struggle against the…Trotskyites. The final result would be – either get shot or end up inside a camp supervised by Trotskyites and under a regime where one would had not have survived for long…
But Trotsky did not direct his merciless struggle against his own former confederates. This was only the background on which such a struggle and terror had to be carried out against all “Stalinists” at all leadership levels. It is namely against them that Trotsky directs this merciless struggle, this terror, which was in his second letter. In it, he directly states that if you, the opposition, the disguised Trotskyites place yourselves in opposition to the USSR as to a bourgeois state, and oppose the ACP(B) like opposing a “petty bourgeois party”, then you are transforming yourselves into a sect (which is what happened in reality –K.P.). “No, you Trotskyites have to carry out a struggle towards taking over the ACP(B)”, orders Trotsky. Trotsky without any hesitation gives cynical advice: For this, you need to strike the leadership of the ACP(B). Strike hard. And strike hard they do! [8].
The second stage in the struggle by the Trotskyites for seizing power in the USSR is none other than the large-scale bloody attempt at fulfilling this directive. We shall examine how this took place.
In 1934 the OGPU unified with the NKVD into the single Peoples Commissariat of the NKVD (NARKOMAT). Secret Trotskyite Henreich Yagod becomes the Peoples’ Commissar of the NKVD (some called him Hershel Iyeguda) having sneaked into the “top” using relation ties with Y.M. Sverdlov, by this time already dead. What then happened was something that the Trotskyites had been striving to achieve for a long time. Now they could begin striking at the Stalin leadership at all levels, striking at the leadership on an All-Union scale. And on 1st December 1934 in Smolny, a shot thunders out: - S.M. Kirov is murdered, Stalin’s most reliable support in his battle against Trotskyism, not just his friend, but also the closest person to him.
The short-lived investigation by the NKVD was murky. Stalin, who had been shaken by this murder, insists on the forming of a commission on clarifying the situation concerning the affairs and activity of the NKVD in general.
To start with, this commission of the CC seals up Yagod’s office and safe [9]. And documents are found there, proving the tendency and actions of Yagod making him guilty, and his connection (and of those of other leaders of the NKVD) with the now underground opposition, which had been formed and headed by those occupying major posts, Zinoviev, Kamenev and Enukidze. We note that at the start of the work of the commission, Yagod is not arrested, but is transferred to other work and designated as Peoples’ Commissar for Communications. Gradually the amount of saturation by the Trotskyites inside the high ranks of the NKVD is revealed [10]. Krupskaya, having become familiar with the material of the work of the commission is horrified, and demands on the pages of “Pravda” “the severest punishment for those grass snakes”. Bukharin, Preobrazhensky, Radek and others having earlier “repented”, demand the same on pages of newspapers [11]. But the investigation also reveals trails leading from Zinoviev and Enukidze into the army. Trotskyite Putna, head of the Soviet Military Mission in Berlin is arrested. He had kept quiet for nine months, and it was only after documents obtained from Czechoslovakia were presented to him, did he begin talking.
So, the military Trotskyite conspiracy in the high ranks of the Red Army was revealed; at the head of the conspiracy was the extremely vain Marshall of the Soviet Union, Deputy Chief of General Staff (that is, of A.I. Yegorov), M.N. Tukhachevsky. On 1st June 1937 he puts an end to his evidence – a true confession made, covering many pages. Many surnames appear in it including those one we already know – Trotsky, Enukidze, Putna… At the end, Bukharin’s surname is called [12]. But a long time before this, the investigation and work of the commission of the Central Committee revealed that somewhere, some threads would reach out towards Bukharin, Preobrazhensky, the same Radek and other officials.
Gradually, a true underground organisation is revealed together with its own people in the outlying regions (Faizula, Khodzhaev in Uzbekistan), with connections in the army (Tukhachevsky and others), and in the NKVD. For a solution as to what to do with Bukharin’s organisation and its leaders, a special commission of the CC is set up, with J.V. Stalin, N.K. Krupskaya, M.I. Ulyanov, N.S. Khrushchev and N.I. Yezhov as its members. The presence of Lenin’s widow and his sister gave sufficient guarantee as to the objectiveness of the commission’s work – they did not forgo the truth. For everybody understands who is of whom, and that not one hair will fall unnoticed without a conclusion being drawn by the commission.
And still nobody finds out the true face of such people in the high echelons as N.S. Khrushchev, promoted to a position of responsibility by L.M. Kaganovich, storming up the hierarchal ladder by 1937 – first secretary of the Moscow State Committee of the ACP(B), like L.Z. Mekhlis - at one introduced by the Trotskyites to the post of Stalin’s secretary, in 1937 – Head of GPU of the RKRA (Workers and Peasants Red Army), like N.I.Yezhov, having in 1936 become Peoples’ Commissar on the NKVD. All that power in their hands! What possibilities they possessed!
One can safely confirm that it was Mekhlis together with Yezhov who were the organizers of the mass repressions inside the Red Army relating to those heads of the military who were devoted to the Soviet Motherland, the Party and Stalin, and thereby fulfilling Trotsky’s same directive.
And some of their first victims were outstanding military leaders, like the one closest to Stalin, Marshal of the Soviet Union, Chief of Staff of the RKRA A.I. Yegorov, accused of conspiracy, although no such evidence was found relating to this, and probably did not even exist. Arrested by Mekhlis and Yezhov’s men, Yegorov hastily shoots himself. Blyukher, another prominent military chief, also a Marshal of the Soviet Union, is arrested and dies in prison [13]. A “case” is made against First Secretary of the CP(B) of the Ukraine, Kosier, who then also quickly shoots himself. His post is then occupied by N.K. Khrushchev the one and only. Having become master of a republic with a size, population and industry equal to that of France and together with this, having occupied a post in the Politburo of the Central Committee, he quickly gets down to work. What sort of work? One can judge this in a letter he sent to Stalin (the letter was first published in April 1992 in the newspaper “Dyelo”, chief editor being A.A. Rumyantsev): “Dear Comrade Stalin! The Ukrainian and Kiev party organisations (in essence, Khrushchev himself – K.P.) are monthly sending out to Moscow, lists for the repression of 15 –17 thousand people; Moscow confirms only 2 – 3 thousand. Please take immediate action”.
As we can see, this threesome – Khrushchev, Yezhov and Mekhlis carried out Trotsky’s shady directive. No matter how paradoxical and annoying this seems, the Trotskyites here, were even assisted by Stalin’s report at the plenary meeting of the CC in March 1937, published in newspapers and directed towards the unmasking by the party and people, of those Trotskyite double-dealers who were disguising themselves behind a party membership card. A good report, but the tragedy was in that within the highest ranks of leadership, this threesome and their ilk were in there with them. The Trotskyites are assisted in all this, by all kinds of petty quarreling and rowing inside the collectives, by all kind of informing and slandering…
Already in 1937, letters start finding their way into the Central Committee concerning groundless arrests and expulsions from the party. And in January 1938 a resolution passed by a plenary meeting of the CC is published, where attention is drawn to all these facts. And immediately, letters and complaints started streaming out about the ghastly affairs, which had been going on by the NKVD. Once again, the CC works on verifying the activity of the NKVD in accordance to what was in these letters. Yezhov is removed from his post of NARKOM of the NKVD and is designated for a time the post of NARKOM of river transport. The commission of the CC, Supreme Court, procurator and various commissions check the “cases” of those repressed…. Terrible cases. Yezhov is arrested. An investigation follows…. Yezhov, somehow unnoticed by the Soviet people disappears from the field of vision. Nothing more is heard of him…. The resolution of the SOVNARKOM of the USSR and CC ACP(B) of November 1938 “On arrests, procurator surveillance and the carrying out of investigations”, also remained unknown to the Soviet people. This was where all these facts about flagrant despotism where arrests, “investigations” about mass repressions had taken place, were summarized. The CC of the party had all the grounds to declare in this “resolution” that: “the enemies of the people (that is, the Trotskyites along with their ilk) having sneaked into the organs of the NKVD in the center of the country as well as in the outlying regions and continuing their subversive work, have been attempting in any way possible, to complicate the investigations and intelligence affairs. They have been deliberately distorting Soviet laws, carrying out forgeries and falsifying documents of investigations, subjecting to arrest on trivial grounds, and even without any grounds whatsoever, formed with provocation in mind, “cases” against innocent people, and at the same time have taken all steps to conceal and save from destruction, their own accomplices in anti-Soviet activity”. We owe it to R.I. Kosolapov’s book entitled “A word to Comrade Stalin”, for our awareness of this important document.
A question is often asked as to why millions of Soviet people did not know, and still do not know about all the documents listed here, including the ones about the Trotskyites and about the affair of Yezhov? It seems the answer is clear: because it helped the remaining organizers, except Yezhov, of this vile anti-Soviet wave of Trotskyite repressions of 1937 – 1938 escape responsibility (then). And it was a success. We note that in the November (1938) “resolution”, a question circulates concerning the activity at that time, of the Main Political Directorate of the RKRA – Mekhlis and other such “die-hards” inside the party as, Khrushchev. For L.M. Kaganovich is visible behind them and these scoundrels are hiding behind his broad shoulders with party membership cards in their pockets (and not just Kaganovich, but Molotov and Voroshilov too, having proved themselves to have been of political shortsightedness by not figuring out Yezhov and Mekhlis). But it was not only this!
The concealing of all these documents allowed the Trotskyites, having survived inside the party, to further organize themselves, and with a lucky combination of circumstances, attack Stalin using slander using the usual method of the Zionists - Trotskyites of shifting their own sins over onto their opponents. This slander is the “ideological” weapon of the Gorbachev-Yeltsinist anti-Soviet counter-revolution. These are those bastions, redoubts and long-time hotspots, which the counter-revolution is clinging onto now, using its monopoly over the mass media. Therefore it is of paramount importance, the sacred affair for communist parties (if they in fact true Communist, Bolshevik parties) to organize and carry out, figuratively speaking, a powerful arch-preparation for the destruction of these long-time hotspots of the counter-revolution. And this “preparation” is conceived in the form of publishing in large numbers, small brochures with all the material on this subject published in them, including the preparation of material for publication. Much needed for the realization of the “preparation”, is a working meeting of the leadership of all such communist parties in order to find a practical solution to the formation of a united publishing fund, where all the necessary funding would be transferred from theses parties, corresponding to pre-determined quotas for each party. The question on who will head the fund will also be decided.
Returning to those distant 1920-s and 1930-s, it needs to be emphasized that by far not all officials of Jewish nationality were Trotskyites (agents of Zionism) in the high and mid-leadership levels of personnel. Quite a few of them were Soviet people – hard line supporters of Leninist-Stalinist policy, such people as for example, Emelyan Yaroslavsky, Sergei Ivanovich Gusyev (Yakov Davidovich Drabkin), Aron Alexandrovich Solts and Isaac Izrailevich Shvarts. Working inside the Central Control Commission (CCC) and in the apparatus of the CC, these old Bolsheviks lost a lot of blood to the Trotskyites and other opponents in Stalin’s battle against Trotskyism. And such words as: “It’s all the same to me whether or not this or that leader is a Jew. It is probably even better that he is a Jew”, were often heard. Why was this so? Because of the simple reason that the person saying it is attentive to the “rank and file person”, he does not deceive, is honest and in short, is a true Bolshevik.
And Doctor of Historical Sciences V.D. Uspensky in his “Secret advisor” does not get around to this question in silence. He especially emphasizes that: “starting from my own clear formula: there are no good or bad nationalities, but there are good and bad people” (from the political point of view, of course). Joseph Vissarionovich led a clear cut borderline between Jews as representatives of one of the nationalities of the world, and between carriers of Zionism. He said that “the main mass of the Jewish population are like everybody else. Zionism is another thing. Zionism is the shock expansionist detachment of world imperialism. And Trotsky and his supporters are aggressive agents of Zionism. For domination over Russia, the Trotskyites are carrying out against us (that is, the Bolsheviks –K.P.) an irreconcilable battle on all bastions – on the ideological, economical and national ones”.
Since Trotsky’s death, Trotskyism has not disappeared, since imperialism still remains, and with that, and Zionism too (in the form of Zionists in their majority, financial clans, oligarchs of the USA and the European “Seven” of NATO). Trotskyism is only constantly altering its appearance, coming out “under other labels”, as Uspensky puts it, and today inside Russia these are the “democrats”. After the victory of their counter-revolution, the Zionists in our country are acting openly and cynically as well as arrogantly. They, together with the so-called “Russian nationalists” are morally terrorizing Soviet people of Jewish nationality, therefore when unmasking Zionism one should not slide into fanatical anti-Semitism. Do not forget that agents of imperialism were and always will be of any nationality, from bourgeois nationalists to all kinds of anti-Soviets. And do not forget also that agents of Zionism always knew how to disguise themselves with unpardonable demagogy, cloaking themselves every time in a mask, which is the most convenient one for that moment, so at the right time they can strike a blow against their opponents. Figuratively speaking, agents of Zionism are political chameleons, armed with the sting of a scorpion. That is why the struggle against Zionism is such a hard one.

NOTES
1. References are to the book by Doctor of Historical Sciences, V.D. Uspensky. Part 1 came out immediately after the GKChP provocation of August 1991, entitled “Bravery”, published as a monthly journal.
2. See 1, part 1, ch.12.
3. Much has been written about the first stage of the struggle by the Trotskyites (up until the end of 1927). Here we refer to Emelyan Yaroslavsky’s “History of the ACP(B)”, Part 2 by “Partizdat” publishers, 1934, and the book “The TsKK in the struggle for party unity and purity in the party ranks”, by Irina Mikhailovna Moskalyenko, published by Politicheskaya Literatura, Moskva 1973.
4. See Emelyan Yaroslavsky’s “History of the ACP(B)”, Part 2, p.173, “A short course on the history of the ACP(B), published in 1938, and also I.M. Moskalyenko’s book “The TsKK in the struggle for……….”. These words of Zinoviev are kept silent.
5. About Trotsky’s “Clemenceau thesis”, see Emelyan Yaroslavsky’s “History of the ACP(B)”, Part 2, p. 190 and also I.M. Moskalyenko’s book “The TsKK in the struggle for……….”, p.128. Nothing is mentioned in “A short course on the history of the ACP(B)”.
6. See I.M. Moskalyenko’s book “The TsKK in the struggle for……….”, p.115, about the instructions of the Trotskyites on disguise.
7. As in 6, but ch.IV, pp.107, 109, 112-116, 129. See also Emelyan Yaroslavsky’s “History of the ACP(B)”, Part 2, pp. 174, 183, 198.
8. The main thesis of Trotsky’s directives, see Emelyan Yaroslavsky’s “History of the ACP(B)”, pp. 203-204, I.M. Moskalyenko’s book “The TsKK in the struggle for……….”, but in “A short course on the history of the ACP(B)” nothing is mentioned about this.
9. About the Commission of the Central Committee on the investigation into the activity of the NKVD, see V. Aleksyeev’s article “Witness” in the newspaper “Borba” (The Struggle) No 6, 1992, and also A.T. Ribin’s book “Next to Stalin”, publisher, “Veteran” 1992, p. 58 and 72.
10. See A.T. Ribin’s book “Alongside Stalin”, pp. 57, 62, and 73.
11. See V. Aleksyeev’s article “Witness” in the newspaper “Borba” (The Struggle) No 6, 1992.
12. See the journal “Molodaya Gvardiya” (Youth Guard) No 10, 1994.
13. The claim that there was no participation, or neither could there have any participation by Marshall of the Soviet Union, Chief of Staff of the RKRA, Alexander Ilyich Yegorov, (the same applying to Blyukher) in the military-Trotskyite conspiracy, is based on M.N. Tukhachevsky’s evidence (see note 12). We here cite the words about a conversation with Yakir, concerning Blyukher:
“Yakir asked me what I thought concerning Blyukher’s mood. I answered him by saying that he had grounds to be dissatisfied and disgruntled with the central apparatus (machinery of power) and the leadership in the army, but that Stalin’s attitude towards him was very good.
Yakir said that he knows Blyukher well and at the first opportunity tries to ascertain what his mood is like. I do not know if such probing took place”.
And so, the Trotskyites had practically no hope of banking on Blyukher, not to speak of Yegorov, of whom Tukhachevsky does not even mention. There was no reason to. Both of them – Tukhachevsky and Yakir know well that Alexander Ilyich Yegorov is a “Stalinist”, his relationship and attitude are of the warmest, one may even say the friendliest, going back to the period of the Civil War. V.D. Uspensky talks about this in his book “Secret Advisor”: “…He (Stalin) fully trusted Yegorov in all military affairs….with Yegorov there was no wavering whatsoever….such was the complete, open and headlong trust by Stalin. Such trust is simply impossible to alter, impossible not to justify. But such an honor was awarded only to a few.
Such characteristics that Yegorov and Blyukher possessed were sufficient for the Trotskyites to deal with the Stalinists”. It was so fast and efficient, that Stalin was shocked by the conspiracy in the high ranks of the Red Army – right up to the Deputy Chief of General Staff, Tukhachevsky and the A.I. Yegorov’s deputy – in the turmoil of arrests then, it was simply obvious that Stalin did not figure out the essence of the affair in time, and so did not defend Yegorov and Blyukher in time.