First Published: Frontline, Vol. 7, No. 17, February 29, 1988.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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In her letter in the February 15 issue of Frontline, Carol Marsh states that my review of the movie “Repentance” offered a one-sided treatment of Stalin.
This is certainly true. Neither the review nor the movie set out to offer an all-sided treatment of Stalin.
I would agree that, in the main, Stalin’s political leadership was key in the establishment of socialism and the war against fascism. This fact has clearly been obscured by a tendency, which exists in both the USSR and the West, but especially the latter, to emphasize only Stalin’s shortcomings. A well-balanced assessment of the Stalin period, and the man himself, is certainly needed.
However, this does not take away from the importance of probing in depth the negative side of Stalin’s leadership. This has not been done in any truthful, honest way, and is the most urgent task. Bourgeois historians are notable for their falsifications and anticommunist prejudices; Soviet historians have been notable for their silence. In the Soviet Union, the process of identifying the negative features of Stalin’s leadership, begun by Khrushchev, was never completed. It was a matter of summary judgement and the conclusions are difficult to verify. It was cut short after Khrushchev was removed from the party leadership.
Glasnost promises to renew the process of opening up this side of Soviet history. And it is only within the context of glasnost that the one-sided view of Stalin advanced in “Repentance” has any positive political value.
Holding back the revolutionary restructuring of Soviet society is a tendency to downplay the problems and mistakes in the development of Soviet socialism over the past 70 years by dwelling only on its achievements. In this context, “Repentance” is a powerful and important work – even though it sometimes crosses the borderline into idealism and fantasy. Its use of a few notorious anticommunist symbols is clearly seen as much less significant by Soviet audiences, who are struggling with the central question of Stalin’s legacy and do not question his many achievements, than U.S. audiences, who are quick to pick up on any criticism of communists to attack the Soviet Union. But it is hardly appropriate for communists to avoid self-critical works of art simply because U.S. audiences bring their prejudices to the theater with them. The dictum that self-criticism can only play into the hands of the class enemy ought to be done away with forever.
The priority is to put an end to the ritualistic worship of achievements, which most Soviets are well aware of, and undertake a thorough and unrelenting examination of the problems which have for too long been swept under the rug. It does no good to obscure the problems on the pretext that they will play into the hands of the class enemy, or feed into the anticommunist prejudices of the working class in capitalist countries. In fact, the only way the working class will ever develop an accurate understanding of Soviet socialism is by seeing its development as made up of both achievements and mistakes. Let us neither lionize nor demonize Soviet leaders.
I do not know whether the Moscow Trials were rigged and Bukharin was guilty or not. There is plausible evidence on both sides. The fact of the matter is that we do not have access to all of the information used to make the conviction, and to overturn it. Maybe we never will. We will have to decide how much confidence we can place in the judgements made by the Soviet bodies which undoubtedly have access to more information. Hopefully, one of the consequences of glasnost will be that all the records that still exist are made available to everyone.
But whether or not Bukharin and his associates were guilty as charged, there is absolutely no question that there were serious violations of socialist legality in the 1930s. Stalin himself acknowledged as much! But the problem is not simply a matter of setting the historic record straight. The problem is that these abuses are part of a bureaucratic, administrative approach to political questions that continues to hold back the advance of socialism.
Tom Angotti,
New York, N. Y.