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Class, Party, and, State and The Eastern European Revolution

Evolution or Discussion on Eastern European States, 1946-1951

Remarks By M. Stein Opening Political Committee Discussion On International Executive Committee Resolution On Eastern Europe

Political Committee Meeting, July 12, 1949

The extension of the power of the Soviet bureaucracy beyond the borders of the USSR, which was one of the consequences of World War II, has posed the following questions: (1) Does the basic Trotskyist analysis of the Kremlin bureaucracy retain its validity under the new conditions of Stalinist expansion? and (2) What is the nature of the regimes established by the bureaucracy in the new territory it acquired?

These questions were the subject of an extensive discussion in the world Trotskyist movement which came to a close at the World Congress in April 1948 with the adoption of the thesis on “The USSR and Stalinism.” However, the Seventh Plenum of the IEC, which in its representation and deliberations almost had the weight of a world congress decided to reopen a discussion in the International on the nature of the buffer countries.

This was motivated by two considerations: (1) The year 1948 witnessed a new phase in Stalinist policy in these countries, which requires an analysis and the education of the ranks in an understanding of this problem. (2) Some shadings of difference developed among the supporters of the World Congress Thesis which required an airing. Namely, while there was general agreement at the Seventh Plenum on the totality of the buffer countries, some comrades felt that Yugoslavia belongs in a category by itself for reasons I shall deal with later. I am not dealing with the position of the British RCP which represents no new factor in the discussion, since its point of view was already presented to the World Congress and overwhelmingly rejected by it.

In introducing the discussion it is best to start with a summary of the evaluation of the buffer zone as contained in both the World Congress Thesis and the Seventh Plenum resolutions. The plenum resolution is only an extension of the World Congress document. It brings the situation up to date within the framework of the basic analysis made at the World Congress.

The fortunes of war left the Stalinist bureaucracy as the undisputed heir to the Balkan countries excepting Greece, parts of Austria, Finland and Eastern Germany, Manchuria, and. Northern Korea in Asia. They inherited these countries in which the state apparatus had collapsed as a result of the war, military defeats, Nazi occupation, the guerrilla war, Russian occupation, etc. The possessing classes in these countries had been extremely weakened or had virtually disappeared.

Anglo-Amen-can imperialism was in no position to intervene and had abandoned the impotent bourgeoisie of these countries to the mercy of the Stalinist bureaucracy. From 1944 to l946 this non-intervention corresponded to the agreements arrived at at Teheran, Yalta and Potsdam and constituted the price world imperialism paid Stalin for crushing the German proletariat and for his active aid in strangling the insurgent Greek and Italian movements, and for reconstructing the capitalist states and economies of the Western European countries.

Following 1946 the imperialist powers failed to come to the aid of the bourgeoisies in the buffer countries, because the relationship of forces, both military and political on the European continent, were as yet unfavorable for a showdown fight. They had to confine themselves to the so-called Cold War.

What did the Stalinist bureaucracy do with the countries and their peoples—with their political and economic structure—over which it was now the master? A review of the Stalinist course will bring into bold relief the contradictory nature of the counter-revolutionary nationally-limited bureaucratic caste resting on the foundation of nationalized property relations created by the October Revolution.

The first stage of Stalinist policy is characterized by the crushing of all initiative by the masses. Towards this end it deliberately promoted national hatred and chauvinism between the countries within its own orbit and between all of them, on the one hand, against the Germans on the other. The Stalinists retraced the national boundaries and uprooted over ten million people in the process expelling them from one country into the other. The Germans were expelled from Eastern Prussia, Upper Silesia and the Sudeten area. Rumanians were expelled from Bessarabia, Poles were expelled by the Russians from the area east of the Curzon line, Czechs were expelled from Carpathia, Hungarians were expelled by the Czechs from South Slavia, etc.

.They concluded alliances with the most reactionary, forces in the buffer countries --Rumanian Court, Finnish bourgeoisie, semi-fascist Bulgarian formations, national democrats in Poland, etc. Any manifestation of working-class opposition was repressed. Whatever remnants of the bourgeoisie could be found were drawn into a national front. to constitute the framework of capitalist states .

The economic policy of the Stalinist bureaucracy in the buffer countries consisted of merciless pillage of their resources through reparations, mixed corporations, seizure of so-called German property and phony trade agreements. In addition, these countries had to pay the cost of maintaining the Soviet occupation troops and in the case of Germany of forced labor by prisoners of war. The policy of pillage was practiced not only against the countries which had been at war with Russia, such as Hungary and Rumania, but also against “allied” countries, such as Czechoslovakia where some 60 large plants were dismantled. From the German territory ceded to Poland Stalin removed some 25-30 percent. Of all industrial tools, according to Minc, the Polish Minister of Industrial Production. Each one of the buffer countries was left more or less in this period to its own depleted resources as far as economic reconstruction was concerned.

Nationalizations at this stage were limited to enterprises seized by the workers at the end of the war, where there were no legal owners in the country. Otherwise the bourgeoisie retained its economic position. The Stalinist bureaucracy and the Stalinist parties sought to utilize capitalist production relations for their own advantage.

It was only after the Marshall Plan took form and the Kremlin was compelled to ban the participation of its satellite countries in the plan, that the Soviet bureaucracy turned its attention toward the consolidation of its dominant positions in Eastern Europe on a long-range basis. It was forced thus to counteract U.S. efforts to push the Russian bureaucracy back into the confines of the USSR.

The exigencies of the Cold War forced the Kremlin bureaucracy to undertake the liquidation of the strong positions of the native bourgeoisie in the buffer countries—to make an effort to develop these countries economically, to seek to limit Kulak grip on agriculture, and to undertake some sort of planning.

Great changes have taken place in the buffer countries within the past year. Industry, banking, communication, transportation have been almost completely nationalized in Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia—they are on the road to completion in Poland and Hungary. Who1esale trade is equally on the road to complete statification Retail trade and agriculture remain, however, as yet largely in the hands of private proprietors. The private exploitation of agriculture is extremely important for Eastern Europe affecting a large segment of the population: about 80% of the people in Bulgaria and Rumania, about 70% in Yugoslavia, about 50% in Hungary, Poland and Czechoslovakia.

Any attempt at planning in the buffer countries has the obstacle of capitalist relations in agriculture, the Soviet mortgage on the economies of these countries in the form of reparations, mixed companies, etc., the narrow national limits of each of the countries, the apathy and even the passive hostility of the proletariat. The Stalinist bureaucracy which started out in the buffer countries with a policy of pillage and exploitation on the basis of capitalist property relations has been compelled in time to change its course and to seek to bring the economies of these countries into conformity with that of the USSR.

At every stage of development it had to resort to new police measures against recalcitrants. Not only did it destroy all opposition parties but it had to carry out successive purges of its own agents when they gave the slightest expressions to the sentiment of resistance to Stalinist policy. The whole course of the Stalinist bureaucracy in the buffer countries shows once more that it has no historical perspective, that it cannot pursue a fundamental orientation, but reacts empirically to the situation of the moment. -

The resolution summarizes this policy as follows: -

“Because it wanted first of all to strangle all Possibility of a proletarian revolution it was led to conclude a temporary compromise with the bourgeoisie; because its privileges are historically incompatible with the maintenance of the capitalist regime, it had to take the course of the gradual and bureaucratic liquidation of the capitalist forces in the buffer zone.”

There are indications that a new stage in Stalinist policy is in the making. There are signs of growing economic coordination between the different countries and-the constitution of the Council of Mutual Aid, etc. These come in response-to the Tito split and the Marshall Plan. The plenum resolution on the social nature of the buffer countries comes to the conclusion that they are capitalist countries on the road toward structural assimilation with the USSR . This definition takes into account the historical origin of the situation as well as the social physiognomy which is as yet undecided it tries to fix the position of these countries between capitalism and the USSR.

Differences between Buffer Countries and the USSR

1. Necessary but insufficient conditions for planning, even in degenerated bureaucratic form: (a) narrow national framework; (b) lack of material resources; (c) mortgage imposed by Soviet bureaucracy; (d) Predominantly agricultural character, which remains under small private exploitation and reproduces capitalism from day to day on the village scale.

2. The dependence of these countries on world capitalist market—Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary—foreign trade embraces about half the national revenue—and even by 1952 according to present plans—more than half of this trade will be with Western countries.

3. The fact that changes did not come about as a result of victorious revolutions but by military-political measures against the bourgeoisie and the proletariat leads to the conclusion that—with the exception of Yugoslavia—it is unlikely that a civil war would be necessary to reverse the present orientation in countries. The return of these countries to capitalist orbit would not require the destruction of the present state apparatus, but a “purge” in reverse.

The fate of the buffer countries has been decided not only in historical sense, the case of the USSR, but in a more immediate sense. The resolution indicates under what conditions it would be necessary to modify the above definition and say that structural assimilation has been completed. This would require above all that there be effective coordination and planning applied to the combined economies of these countries linked organically to the economy of the USSR. Such an achievement could reverse the present predominant tendency of these countries of dependence upon capitalist economy. This could happen if the national frontiers abolished. it would require the disappearance of the hybrid state apparatuses—saturated with bourgeois elements—and the constitution of a state apparatus of a new type.

As I indicated, the differences expressedat the plenum were of a two-fold character:

1. There were some—namely Jerome, Silva, and Ali—who, while accepting the fundamental line of the resolution, thought that Yugoslavia should be treated in a different category. Jerome’s argument essentially boils down to this: -

a. The state apparatus there was destroyed by the independent action of the masses.

b. The bourgeoisie was largely expropriated in the process of a protracted civil war.

c. When the resolution says, “It is very unlikely if not excluded that a civil war would be necessary to reverse the present orientation of these countries towards a structural assimilation with the USSR” it specifically excludes Yugoslavia.

While making all these distinctions between Yugoslavia and the other buffer countries the resolution nevertheless fails to draw conclusions. In Jerome’s opinion it was necessary to conclude that in Yugoslavia—unlike the other buffer countries—capitalism has been destroyed.

2. De Silva argued that it has been precisely the policy of the Kremlin bureaucracy, whose economic and political measures are designed to exploit the buffer countries, which has blocked the tendency of these countries towards structural assimilation with the Soviet Union. But Yugoslavia, by breaking with the Soviet bureaucracy, has liberated itself from these fetters and can be considered a workers state.

It appears to me that while there is much truth in both these arguments they cannot, nevertheless, be isolated from the totality of the picture. The unstable equilibrium in the relations between the Soviet bureaucracy and capitalist world places Yugoslavia in a particularly vulnerable position. In the meantime it remains a fact that in Yugoslavia as well agriculture, which embraces 70 percent of the people, remains capitalist in character.

Rather than jumping at conclusions as to the social character of the states in Eastern Europe it is far better to await further development. This is especially important when dealing with such hybrid formations directed by bureaucracies whose main concern is with survival and who are capable of all sorts of sharp turns in their struggle to retain police power at all costs.

[From SWP Internal Bulletin , Vol. XI, No. 5, October 1949, pages 14-18]