Sino-Soviet Split Document Archive
Transcription: Maoist Documentation Project.
HTML: Adjusted by marxists.org, April 2010.
This is not only a question of ascertaining the nature of the Yugoslav state, but it also involves the question of which road the socialist countries should follow: whether they should follow the road of the October Revolution and carry the socialist revolution through to the end or follow the road of Yugoslavia and restore capitalism. In addition, it involves the question of how to appraise the Tito clique: whether it is a fraternal Party and a force against imperialism or a renegade from the international communist movement and a lackey of imperialism.
On this question there are fundamental differences of opinion between the leaders of the CPSU, on the one hand, and ourselves and all other Marxist-Leninists, on the other.
All Marxist-Leninists hold that Yugoslavia is not a socialist country. The leading clique of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia has betrayed Marxism-Leninism and the Yugoslav people and consists of renegades from the international communist movement and lackeys of imperialism.
The leaders of the CPSU, on the other hand, hold that Yugoslavia is a socialist country and that the League of Communists of Yugoslavia bases itself on Marxism-Leninism and is a fraternal Party and a force against imperialism.
In its Open Letter of July 14 the Central Committee of the CPSU declares that Yugoslavia is a "socialist country" and that the Tito clique is a "fraternal Party" that "stands at the helm of the ship of state".
Recently Comrade Khrushchov paid a visit to Yugoslavia and in a number of speeches he revealed the real standpoint of the leaders of the CPSU still more clearly, and completely discarded the fig-leaf with which they had been covering themselves on this question.
In Khrushchov's opinion, Yugoslavia is not only a socialist country but an "advanced" socialist country. There, one finds not "idle talk about revolution" but "actual construction of socialism", and the development of Yugoslavia is "a concrete contribution to the general world revolutionary workers' movement", [1] which Khrushchov rather envies and wishes to emulate.
In Khrushchov's opinion, the leaders of the CPSU and the Titoites are "not only class brothers" but "brothers tied together ... by the singleness of aims confronting us". The leadership of the CPSU is a "reliable and faithful ally" of the Tito clique. [2]
Khrushchov believes he has discovered genuine Marxism-Leninism in the Tito clique. The Central Committee of the CPSU was merely pretending when it asserted in its Open Letter that "differences on a number of fundamental ideological questions still remain between the CPSU and the Yugoslav League of Communists". Now Khrushchov has told the Tito clique that "we belong to one and the same idea and are guided by the same theory", and that both stand on the basis of Marxism-Leninism. [3]
Khrushchov has cast the Statement of 1960 to the winds. The Statement says:
The Communist Parties have unanimously condemned the Yugoslav variety of international opportunism, a variety of modern revisionist "theories" in concentrated form.
It says:
After betraying Marxism-Leninism, which they termed obsolete, the leaders of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia opposed their anti-Leninist revisionist programme to the Declaration of 1957; they set the L.C.Y. against the international communist movement as a whole....
It says:
[The leaders of the L.C.Y. were] dependent on so-called "aid" from U.S. and other imperialists, and thereby exposed the Yugoslav people to the danger of losing the revolutionary gains achieved through a heroic struggle.
It further says:
The Yugoslav revisionists carry on subversive work against the socialist camp and the world communist movement.... they engage in activities which prejudice the unity of all the peace-loving forces and countries.
The Statement is absolutely clear, and yet the leaders of the CPSU dare to say: "In accordance with the 1960 Statement, we consider Yugoslavia a socialist country."[4] How can they say such a thing!
One would like to ask:
Can a country be socialist when, as the Statement says, it is guided by a variety of international opportunism, a variety of modern revisionist theories?
Can a country be socialist when, as the Statement says, it has betrayed Marxism-Leninism and sets itself against the international communist movement as a whole?
Can a country be socialist when, as the Statement says, it carries on subversive work against the socialist camp and the world communist movement?
Can a country be socialist when, as the Statement says, it engages in activities which prejudice the unity of all the peace-loving forces and countries?
Can a country be socialist when the imperialist countries headed by the United States have nurtured it with several billions of U.S. dollars?
This is indeed out of the ordinary and unheard of!
Apparently, Comrade Togliatti speaks more plainly than Comrade Khrushchov, Togliatti did not mince his words; he said the position taken by the Statement of 1960 on the Tito clique was "wrong".[5] Since Khrushchov is bent on reversing the verdict on the Tito clique, he should be more explicit; there is no need to pretend to uphold the Statement.
Is the Statement's verdict on Yugoslavia wrong and should it be reversed? Togliatti says it is wrong and should be reversed. Khrushchov in effect also says it is wrong and should be reversed. We say it is not wrong and must not be reversed. All fraternal Parties adhering to Marxism-Leninism and upholding the Statement of 1960 likewise say it is not wrong and must not be reversed.
In doing so, in the opinion of the leaders of the CPSU, we are clinging to a "stereotyped formula" and to the "jungle laws" of the capitalist world [6] and are "'excommunicating' Yugoslavia from socialism".[7] Furthermore, whoever does not regard Yugoslavia as a socialist country is said to be going contrary to facts and making the mistake of subjectivism,[8]whereas in shutting their eyes to the facts and asserting that Yugoslavia is a socialist country they are "proceeding from objective laws, from the teaching of Marxism-Leninism" and have drawn a conclusion based on "a profound analysis of reality".[9]
What are the realities in Yugoslavia? What sort of conclusion ought one to draw if one proceeds from objective laws, from the teachings of Marxism-Leninism, and makes a profound analysis of the realities in Yugoslavia?
Let us now look into this question.
One of Khrushchov's arguments to affirm that Yugoslavia is a socialist country is that private capital, private enterprise and capitalists do not exist in Yugoslavia.
Is that true? No, it is not.
The fact is private capital and private enterprise exist on a very big scale in Yugoslavia and are developing apace.
Judging by the record in all socialist countries, it is not strange to find different sectors, including a private capitalist sector, existing in the national economy of a socialist country for a considerable period after the proletariat has taken political power. What matters is the kind of policy adopted by the government towards private capitalism--the policy of utilizing, restricting, transforming and eliminating it, or the policy of laissez-faire and fostering and encouraging it. This is an important criterion for determining whether a country is developing towards socialism or towards capitalism.
On this question the Tito clique is going in the opposite direction from socialism. The social changes Yugoslavia introduced in the early post-war period were in the first place not thoroughgoing. The policy the Tito clique has adopted since its open betrayal is not one of transforming and eliminating private capital and private enterprise but of fostering and expanding them.
Regulations issued by the Tito clique in 1953 stipulate that "citizens' groups" have the right to "found enterprises" and "hire labour". In the same year, it issued a decree stipulating that private individuals have the right to purchase fixed assets from state economic establishments.
In 1956 the Tito clique encouraged local administrations to foster private capital by its taxation and other policies.
In 1961 the Tito clique decreed that private individuals have the right to purchase foreign exchange.
In 1963 the Tito clique embodied the policy of developing private capitalism in its constitution. According to provisions of the constitution, private individuals in Yugoslavia may found enterprises and hire labour.
With the Tito clique's help and encouragement, private enterprise and private capital have mushroomed in the cities in Yugoslavia.
According to the official Statistical Pocket-Book of Yugoslavia, 1963 published in Belgrade, there are over 115,000 privately-owned craft establishments in Yugoslavia. But in fact the owners of many of these private enterprises are not "craftsmen" but typical private capitalists.
The Tito clique admits that although the law allows private owners to employ a maximum of five workers each, there are some who employ ten or twenty times as many and even some who employ "five to six hundred workers". [10] And the annual turnover of some private enterprises is over 100 million dinars. [11]
Politika disclosed on December 7, 1961 that in many cases these private entrepreneurs are actually "big entrepreneurs". It says:
It is difficult to ascertain how wide the net of these private entrepreneurs spreads and how many workers they have. According to the law, they are entitled to keep five workers who are supposed to help them in their work. But to those who know the ins and outs of the matter, these five persons are actually contractors who in turn have their own 'sub-contractors'.... As a rule, these contractors no longer engage in labour but only give orders, make plans and conclude contracts, travelling by car from one enterprise to another.
From the profits made by these entrepreneurs, one can see that they are one hundred per cent capitalists. Svet reported on December 8, 1961 that "the net income of some private handicraftsmen reaches one million diners per month", and the Belgrade Vecernje novosti said on December 20, 1961 that in Belgrade "last year 116 owners of private enterprises each received an income of more than 10 million dinars". Some entrepreneurs "received an income of about 70 million dinars" in one year, which is nearly U.S. $100,000 according to the official rate of exchange.
In Yugoslav cities not only are there private industrial enterprises, private service establishments, private commerce, private housing estates and private transport business, there are also usurers, who are known as "private bankers". These usurers operate openly and even advertise their business in the newspapers; one such advertisement runs as follows: "A loan of 300,000 dinars for three months offered. 400,000 dinars to be returned. Security necessary."[12]
All these are indisputable facts.
We would like to ask those who are bent on reversing the verdict on the Tito
clique: Unless it is your intention to deceive, how can you assert that
Yugoslavia has no private capital, no private enterprise and no capitalists?
Let us now consider the situation in the Yugoslav countryside.
Does it no longer have capitalists, as Khrushchov asserts?
No, the facts are quite the reverse.
The fact that Yugoslavia has been swamped by capitalism is even more striking in the countryside.
Marxism-Leninism teaches us that individual economy, petty-producer economy, generates capitalism daily and hourly, and that only collectivization can lead agriculture on to the path of socialism.
Stalin pointed out:
Lenin says that so long as individual peasant economy, which engenders capitalists and capitalism, predominates in the country, the danger of a restoration of capitalism will exist. Clearly, so long as this danger exists there can be no serious talk of the victory of socialist construction in our country. [13]
On this question the Tito clique pursues a line running counter to socialism.
In the initial post-war period a land reform took place in Yugoslavia and a number of peasants' working co-operatives were organized. But in the main the rich-peasant economy was left untouched.
In 1951 the Tito clique openly declared its abandonment of the road of agricultural collectivization and began to disband the peasants' working co-operatives. This was a serious step taken by the Tito clique in betraying the socialist cause. Such co-operatives decreased from over 6,900 in 1950 to a little more than 1,200 at the end of 1953, and to 147 in 1960. The Yugoslav countryside is submerged in a sea of individual economy.
The Tito clique declares that collectivization has not proved of value in Yugoslavia. It makes the vicious slander that "collectivization is the same as expropriation" [14] and is a path which "preserves serfdom and poverty in the countryside for the longest possible time".[15] It advocates the ridiculous idea that the development of agriculture should be "based on the free competition of economic forces".[16]
While dissolving many of the peasants' working co-operatives, the Tito clique has promulgated one law and decree after another since 1953 to encourage the development of capitalism in the rural areas, granting freedom to buy, sell and rent land and to hire farm hands, abolishing the planned purchase of agricultural produce and replacing it with free trading in this sphere.
Under this policy, the forces of capitalism spread rapidly in the rural areas and the process of polarization quickened. This has been an important aspect of the Tito clique's work of restoring capitalism.
Polarization in the countryside is firstly revealed in the changes occurring in land ownership. Slavko Komar, formerly Yugoslav Secretary for Agriculture and Forestry, admitted that in 1959 poorer peasant households with less than 5 hectares of land each, which constitute 70 per cent of all peasant households, owned only 43 per cent of all privately-owned land, whereas well-to-do peasant households with more than 8 hectares of land each, which form only 13 per cent of all peasant households, owned 33 per cent of all privately owned land. Komar also admitted that about 10 per cent of the peasant households bought or sold land every year.[17] Most of the sellers were poorer families.
The concentration of land is actually much more serious than is apparent from the above data. As revealed in the July 19, 1963 issue of Borba, the organ of the Tito clique, in one district alone there were "thousands of peasant households with far more than the legal maximum of 10 hectares of land". In Bijeljina Commune, "it was found that five hundred peasant households owned estates of 10 to 30 hectares". These are not isolated cases.
Polarization in the rural areas also manifests itself in the great inequalities in the ownership of draught animals and farm implements. Of the 308,000 peasant households in the province of Vojvodina, which is a leading grain-producing area, 55 per cent have no draught animals. Peasant households with less than 2 hectares of land each, which constitute 40.7 per cent of all peasant households, have only 4.4 per cent of all the ploughs in this region, or an average of one plough to 20 households. On the other hand, the rich peasants own more than 1,300 tractors and a great deal of other farm machinery as well as large numbers of ploughs and animal-drawn carts.[18]
Polarization likewise manifests itself in the growth of such forms of capitalist exploitation as the hiring of labour.
The February 7, 1958 issue of Komunist revealed that 52 per cent of the peasant households in Serbia owning more than 8 hectares of land hired labourers in 1956.
In 1962 Slavko Komar said that the heads of some peasant households had in recent years "become powerful" and that "their income is derived not from their own labour but from unlawful trade, from the processing of both their own products and those of others, from illicit distilling of spirits, from the possession of more than the prescribed maximum of 10 hectares of farmland, which is obtained by purchasing, or more often by leasing land, fictitious partition of land among family members, seizure or concealment of public land, from the acquisition of tractors through speculation and from the exploitation of poor neighbours by cultivating their land for them".[19]
Borba stated on August 30, 1962 that "the so-called kindhearted producer... is a leaseholder of land, a hirer of labour and an experienced merchant.... Such people are not producers, but entrepreneurs. Some never touch a hoe all the year round. They hire labour and only supervise the work in the field and they engage in trading".
Usurers, too, are very active in the Yugoslav countryside. Interest rates often run to more than 100 per cent per annum. In addition, there are people who, taking advantage of the plight of the unemployed, monopolize the labour market and practice exploitation in the process.
Deprived of land and other means of production, large numbers of poverty-stricken peasants can live only by selling their labour power. According to figures given in Politika of August 20, 1962, about 70 per cent of the 1961 cash income of Yugoslav peasant households with less than 2 hectares of land came from selling their labour power. These peasants are fleeced right and left and lead a miserable life.
As facts show, the Yugoslav countryside is dominated by the exploiting class.
In arguing that Yugoslavia is a socialist country, the Open Letter of the Central Committee of the CPSU states that the "socialist sector" in the rural areas of Yugoslavia has increased from 6 to 15 per cent.
Unfortunately, even this pitiable percentage is not socialist.
By the socialist sector of 15 per cent the leaders of the CPSU can only mean such organizations as the "agricultural farms" and "general agricultural co-operatives" promoted by the Tito clique. But in fact the "agricultural farms" are capitalist farms and the "general agricultural co-operatives" are capitalist economic organizations engaging mainly in commerce. They do not affect the private ownership of land; what is more, their main function is to foster the development of the rich-peasant economy.
Problems of Agriculture in Yugoslavia, a work published in Belgrade, states that "judging by how they are organized today and how they function", the co-operatives "do not in the least signify socialist reconstruction of agriculture and of the countryside. They are working not so much for the creation of socialist strongholds as for the development and promotion of capitalist elements. There are cases in which these cooperatives are kulak associations".
The Tito clique has given the "general agricultural cooperatives" the monopoly right to purchase agricultural products from the peasants. Taking advantage of this special privilege and of uncontrolled fluctuations in prices of farm produce, the so-called co-operatives speculate and through such commercial activities exploit the peasants in a big way. In 1958 Yugoslavia had a poor harvest. The co-operatives and other commercial organs took the opportunity to raise the selling prices of farm produce. The year 1959 brought a better harvest and the co-operatives broke their contracts with the peasants and reduced their purchases, not even hesitating to let the crops rot in the fields.
The "general agricultural co-operatives" and the "agricultural farms" hire and exploit a large number of long-term and temporary workers. According to data in The Statistical YearBook of the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia of 1962, long-term workers hired by the "co-operatives" alone totalled more than 100,000 in 1961. A large number of temporary workers were also employed. As disclosed by Rad on December l, 1962, hired labourers "are very often subject to the crudest exploitation (the working day may be as long as 15 hours), and usually their personal income is extremely low".
It is thus clear that these agricultural organizations of the so-called socialist sector are nothing but capitalist agricultural organizations.
Expropriation of poorer peasants and promotion of capitalist farms form the Tito clique's basic policy in the sphere of agriculture. Back in 1955, Tito said:
We do not abandon the idea that the day will come in Yugoslavia when small farms will be combined in one way or another.... In America they have already done so. We must find a solution to this problem.
In order to take the capitalist path, in 1959 the Tito clique promulgated the Law on the Utilization of Cultivated Land, stipulating that the land of peasants working on their own, who cannot farm it according to requirements, is subject to the "compulsory management" of the "general agricultural cooperatives" and "agricultural farms". In effect, this means the expropriation of poorer peasants and the forcible annexation of their land to develop capitalist farms. This is the path of capitalist agriculture, pure and simple.
In speaking of the transition from small peasant economy to an economy of large-scale farming, Stalin said:
There you have two paths, the capitalist path and the socialist path: the path forward--to socialism, and the path backward--to capitalism.
Is there a third path? Stalin said, "The so-called third path is actually the second path, the path leading back to capitalism." "For what does it mean to return to individual farming and to restore the kulaks? It means restoring kulak bondage, restoring the exploitation of the peasantry by the kulaks and giving the kulaks power. But is it possible to restore the kulaks and at the same time to preserve the Soviet power? No, it is not possible. The restoration of the kulaks is bound to lead to the creation of a kulak power and to the liquidation of the Soviet power--hence, it is bound to lead to the formation of a bourgeois government. And the formation of a bourgeois government is bound to lead in its turn to the restoration of the landlords and capitalists, to the restoration of capitalism."[20]
The path taken by Yugoslavia in agriculture during the past ten years and more is precisely the path of restoring capitalism.
All these are indisputable facts.
We would like to ask those who are bent on reversing the verdict on the Tito
clique: Unless it is your intention to deceive, how can you assert that there
are no capitalists in Yugoslavia?
The restoration of capitalism in Yugoslavia manifests itself not only in the fact that private capitalism is spreading freely both in the cities and in the countryside. Still more important, the "public" enterprises, which play a decisive role in the Yugoslav economy, have degenerated.
The Tito clique's economy of "workers' self-government" is state capitalism of a peculiar kind. It is not state capitalism under conditions of the dictatorship of the proletariat but state capitalism under conditions in which the Tito clique has turned the dictatorship of the proletariat into the dictatorship of the bureaucrat-comprador bourgeoisie. The means of production of the enterprises under "workers' self-government" do not belong to one or more private capitalists but to the new type of bureaucrat-comprador bourgeoisie of Yugoslavia, which includes the bureaucrats and managers and which the Tito clique represents. Usurping the name of the state, depending on U.S. imperialism and disguising itself under the cloak of socialism, this bureaucrat-comprador bourgeoisie has robbed the working people of the property originally belonging to them. In reality, "workers' self-government" is a system of ruthless exploitation under the domination of bureaucrat-comprador capital.
Since 1950, the Tito clique has issued a series of decrees instituting "workers' self-government" in all state-owned factories, mines and other enterprises in communications, transport, trade, agriculture, forestry and public utilities. The essence of "workers' self-government" consists of handing over the enterprises to "working collectives", with each enterprise operating independently, purchasing its own raw materials, deciding on the variety, output and prices of its products and marketing them, and determining its own wage scale and the division of part of its profits. Yugoslav decrees further stipulate that economic enterprises have the right to buy, sell or lease fixed assets.
In the enterprises under "workers' self-government", ownership is described by the Tito clique as "a higher form of socialist ownership". They assert that only with "workers' self-government" can one "really build socialism".
This is sheer deception.
Theoretically speaking, as anyone with a slight knowledge of Marxism knows, slogans like "workers' self-government" and "factories to the workers" have never been Marxist slogans but slogans advanced by anarchist syndicalists, bourgeois socialists and old-line opportunists and revisionists.
The theory of "workers' self-government" and "factories to the workers" runs counter to the fundamental Marxist theory of socialism. It was completely refuted by the classical Marxist writers long ago.
As Marx and Engels pointed out in the Communist Manifesto, "The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State... "
Engels wrote in Anti-D�hring, "The proletariat seizes political power and turns the means of production into state property."
Having seized political power, the proletariat must concentrate the means of production in the hands of the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat. This is a fundamental principle of socialism.
In the early period of Soviet power following the October Revolution when some people advocated handing the factories over to the producers so that they could "organize production" directly, Lenin sternly criticized this view, saying that in reality it meant opposition to the dictatorship of the proletariat.
He acutely pointed out:
... Any direct or indirect legalization of the possession of their own production by the workers of individual factories or individual professions or of their right to weaken or impede the decrees of the state power is the greatest distortion of the basic principles of Soviet power and the complete renunciation of socialism.[21]
It is thus clear that "workers' self-government" has nothing to do with socialism.
In fact, the "workers' self-government" of the Tito clique does not provide self-government on the part of the workers; it is a hoax.
The enterprises under "workers' self-government" are actually in the clutches of the new bureaucrat-comprador bourgeoisie represented by the Tito clique. It controls the enterprises' property and personnel and takes away much the greater part of their income.
Through the banks the Tito clique controls the credit of the entire country and the investment funds and liquid capital of all enterprises and supervises their financial affairs.
The Tito clique plunders the income of these enterprises by various means, such as the collection of taxes and interest. According to the statistics of the "Report on the Work in 1961 by the Federal Executive Council of Yugoslavia", it took away about three-quarters of the enterprises' net income in this way.
The Tito clique seizes the fruits of the people's labour which it appropriates chiefly for meeting the extravagant expenses of this clique of bureaucrats, for maintaining its reactionary rule, for strengthening the apparatus which suppresses the working people, and for paying tribute to the imperialists in the form of the servicing of foreign debts.
Moreover, the Tito clique controls these enterprises through their managers. The managers are nominally chosen by competition by the enterprises but are in fact appointed by the Tito clique. They are agents of the bureaucrat-comprador bourgeoisie in these enterprises.
In the enterprises under "workers' self-government", the relations between managers and workers are actually relations between employers and employees, between the exploiters and the exploited.
As matters stand, the managers can determine the production plans and the direction of development of these enterprises, dispose of the means of production, take the decisions on the distribution of the enterprises' income, hire or fire workers and overrule the resolutions of the workers' councils or management boards.
Abundant information published in the Yugoslav press proves that the workers' council is merely formal, a kind of voting machine, and that all power in the enterprise is in the hands of the manager.
The fact that the manager of an enterprise controls its means of production
and the distribution of its income enables him to appropriate the fruits of the
workers' labour by means of various privileges.
The Tito clique itself admits that in these enterprises there is a wide gap
between managers and workers not only in wages but also in bonuses. In some
enterprises, the bonuses of the managers and higher staff are forty times those
of the workers. "In certain enterprises, the total amount of the bonus
which a group of leaders received is equal to the wage fund of the entire
collective."[22]
Moreover, the managers of the enterprises use their privileges to make a lot of money by various subterfuges. Bribery, embezzlement and theft are still bigger sources of income for the managers.
The broad masses of the workers live in poverty. There is no guarantee of employment. Large numbers of workers lose their jobs with the closing down of enterprises. According to official statistics, in February 1963 the number of the unemployed reached 339,000, or about 10 per cent of the number of the employed. In addition, every year many workers go abroad seeking work.
Politika admitted on September 25, 1961 that 'there exists a great gap between some workers and office employees; the former look upon the latter as 'bureaucrats' who 'swallow up' their wages".
These facts show that in the Yugoslav enterprises under "workers' self-government", a new social group has come into being consisting of the few who appropriate the fruits of labour of the many. It is an important component of the new bureaucrat-comprador bourgeoisie in Yugoslavia.
By promoting "workers' self-government", the Tito clique has completely pushed the enterprises originally owned by the whole people off the path of socialist economy.
The main manifestations of this are the following:
First, the abandonment of unified economic planning by the state.
Second, the use of profits as the primary incentive in the operation of the enterprises. They may adopt a variety of methods to increase their income and profits. In other words, in the enterprises under "workers' self-government" the aim of production is not to meet the needs of society but to seek profits, just as in any capitalist enterprise.
Third, the pursuance of the policy of encouraging capitalist free competition. Tito has said to the managers of the enterprises, "Competition at home will be beneficial to our ordinary people, the consumers." The Tito clique also openly declares that it allows "competition, the seeking of profits, speculation and the like" because "they play a positive role in promoting the initiative of the producers, their collective, the communes, etc.".[23]
Fourth, the use of credit and the banks as important levers to promote capitalist free competition. In granting loans, the Tito regime's credit and banking system invites tenders for investment. Whoever is capable of repaying the loan in the shortest period and paying the highest rate of interest will obtain the loan. In their words, this is "to use competition as the usual method of allocating investment credits".[24]
Fifth, relations among the enterprises are not socialist relations of mutual support and co-ordination under a unified government plan but capitalist relations of competition and rivalry in a free market.
All this has undermined the very foundation of socialist planned economy.
Lenin said:
Socialism ... is inconceivable without planned state organization which subjects tens of millions of people to the strictest observance of a single standard in production and distribution. [25]
He also said:
... without all-sided state accounting and control of production and distribution of goods, the power of the toilers, the freedom of the toilers, cannot be maintained, and ... a return to the yoke of capitalism is inevitable. [26]
Under the signboard of "workers' self-government", all the economic departments and enterprises in Yugoslavia are locked in fierce capitalist competition. It is quite common for the enterprises under "workers' self-government" to engage in embezzlement, speculation and hoarding, to inflate prices, bribe, hide technical secrets, grab technical personnel and even to attack one another in the press or over the radio in rivalry for markets and profits.
The fierce competition among Yugoslav enterprises goes on not only in the home market but also in foreign trade. The Yugoslav press says that it is not unusual for twenty or thirty agents of Yugoslav foreign trade establishments to visit the same market abroad, compete among themselves for business, and take away the others' customers or suppliers. "From selfish motives", these enterprises engaged in foreign trade seek to "make profits at any cost" and "is not choosy about their means".
A result of this fierce competition is chaos in the Yugoslav market. Prices vary considerably not only in different cities or regions but also in different shops in the same place, and even for the same kind of goods from the same producer. In order to maintain high prices, some enterprises do not hesitate to destroy large quantities of farm produce.
Another result of this fierce competition is the closing down of large numbers of enterprises in Yugoslavia. According to information provided by the Official Bulletin of the FPRY, five hundred to six hundred enterprises closed down annually in recent years.
All this shows that the "public" economy of Yugoslavia is governed not by the laws of socialist planned economy but by those of capitalist competition and anarchy of production. The Tito clique's enterprises under "workers' self-government" are not socialist but capitalist in nature.
We would like to ask those who are bent on reversing the verdict on the Tito
clique: Unless it is your intention to deceive, how can you describe the state
capitalist economy controlled by the bureaucrat-comprador bourgeoisie as a
socialist economy?
The process of the restoration of capitalism in Yugoslavia is interwoven with the process in which the Tito clique has become subservient towards U.S. imperialism and Yugoslavia has degenerated into a U.S. imperialist dependency.
With its betrayal of Marxism-Leninism, the Tito clique embarked on the shameful course of selling out the sovereignty of the state and living off the alms of U.S. imperialism.
According to incomplete statistics, from the conclusion of World War II to January 1963 the United States and other imperialist powers extended to the Tito clique "aid" totalling some U.S. $5,460 million, of which more than 60 per cent, or about $3,500 million, was U.S. "aid". The greatest part of this U.S. aid was granted after 1950.
U.S. aid has been the mainstay of Yugoslavia's finances and economy. Official
statistics show that in 1961 the loans the Tito clique obtained from the United
States and U.S.-controlled international financial organizations totalled
U.S.$346 million, or 47.4 per cent of the federal budgetary income of Yugoslavia
in that year. With the inclusion of aid from other Western countries, the money
received by the Tito clique from Western countries in 1961 totalled U.S.$493
million, or 67.6 per cent of the federal budgetary income in that year.
In order to obtain U.S. aid, the Tito clique has concluded a series of
traitorous treaties with the United States.
The notes exchanged between Yugoslavia and the United States in 1951 concerning the Agreement Relating to Mutual Defense Assistance stipulated that U.S. Government officials have the "freedom..., without restriction", to observe and supervise the receipt and distribution in Yugoslavia of U.S. military aid material and has "full access to communication and information facilities". The agreement also required Yugoslavia to provide the United States with strategic raw materials.
The Agreement Regarding Military Assistance signed between Yugoslavia and the United States in 1951 stipulated that Yugoslavia should "make the full contribution... to the development and maintenance of the defensive strength of the free world" and should be ready to provide troops for the United Nations. Under this agreement the military mission sent by the United States was to directly supervise the training of Yugoslav troops.
The Yugoslav-U.S. Economic Co-operation Agreement of 1952 stipulated that Yugoslavia must use U.S. aid for "furthering fundamental individual human rights, freedoms and democratic institutions", that is, for furthering capitalism.
In 1954 Yugoslavia concluded a Treaty of Alliance, Political Co-operation and Mutual Assistance with Greece and Turkey, both members of NATO. The treaty provided for military and diplomatic co-ordination among the three countries, thus making Yugoslavia a virtual member of the U.S.-controlled military bloc.
Since 1954 Yugoslavia has concluded a series of agreements with the United States, selling out its sovereignty. More than fifty such agreements were signed in the period between 1957 and 1962.
Because of the conclusion of these treaties and agreements and because the Tito clique has made Yugoslavia dependent on U.S. imperialism, the United States enjoys the following rights in Yugoslavia:
(1) to control its military affairs;
(2) to control its foreign affairs;
(3) to interfere in its internal affairs;
(4) to manipulate and supervise its finance;
(5) to control its foreign trade;
(6) to plunder its strategic resources; and
(7) to collect military and economic intelligence.
The independence and sovereignty of Yugoslavia have thus been auctioned off by the Tito clique.
In addition to selling out Yugoslavia's sovereign rights in a series of unequal treaties with the United States, the Tito clique, in order to secure U.S. aid, has taken one step after another in domestic and foreign policy to comply with Western monopoly capital's demand to penetrate Yugoslavia.
Starting from 1950 the Tito clique abolished the monopoly of foreign trade by the state.
The Act on Foreign Trade Activities promulgated in 1953 permitted enterprises to conduct foreign trade independently and to have direct transactions with Western monopoly capitalist enterprises.
In 1961 the Tito regime introduced reforms in the systems of foreign exchange and foreign trade. Their main content was the further relaxation of restrictions on import and export trade. Complete liberalization was effected in the import of major semi-processed materials and certain consumers goods, and restrictions on the import of other commodities were relaxed in varying degrees. Restrictions were removed on the supply of foreign exchange needed for so-called unrestricted imports.
Everybody knows that state monopoly of foreign trade is a basic principle of socialism.
Lenin said that the industrial proletariat "is absolutely not in a position to recover our industry and to make Russia an industrial country without the protection of industry, which in no way refers to its protection by customs policy, but solely and exclusively refers to its protection by monopoly of foreign trade".[27]
Stalin said that "the monopoly of foreign trade is one of the unshakable foundations of the platform of the Soviet Government" and that the abolition of the monopoly of foreign trade would mean "abandoning the industrialization of the country", "flooding the U.S.S.R. with goods from capitalist countries", and "transforming our country from an independent country into a semi-colonial one".[28]
To abolish the state monopoly of foreign trade, as the Tito regime has done, is to throw the door wide open to imperialist monopoly capital.
What are the economic consequences of the fact that the Tito clique receives large amounts of U.S. aid and keeps Yugoslavia's door wide open to imperialism?
First, Yugoslavia has become a market for imperialist dumping.
Huge quantities of industrial goods and farm produce from the imperialist countries have flooded the Yugoslav market. In pursuit of profits the Yugoslav comprador capitalists, who make piles of money by serving foreign monopoly capital, keep on importing commodities even though they can be produced at home and even when stocks are huge. Politika admitted on July 25, 1961 that it "was everywhere evident" that Yugoslav industry "was suffering blows from the continuous and very complicated competition of foreign industry".
Secondly, Yugoslavia has become an outlet for imperialist investment.
Many Yugoslav industrial enterprises have been built with "aid" from the United States and other imperialist countries. A great deal of foreign private monopoly capital has penetrated into Yugoslavia. According to Augustin Papic, the general manager of the Yugoslav Investment Bank, in the period between 1952 and 1956 "the participation of foreign funds reached 32.5 per cent of the total value of economic investments". U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk said on February 5, 1962 that Yugoslavia's source of capital was "largely in the West".
Thirdly, Yugoslavia has become a base from which imperialism extracts raw materials.
In accordance with the Agreement Regarding Military Assistance, the Tito clique has since 1951 continually supplied the United States with large quantities of strategic raw materials. According to the Statistical Year-Book of the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia of 1961, about half of Yugoslavia's exports of important metals, such as magnesium, lead, zinc and antimony, have gone to the United States since 1957.
Fourthly, the industrial enterprises of Yugoslavia have become assembly shops for Western monopoly capitalist companies.
Many major Yugoslav industries produce under licence from Western countries and are dependent on imports of semiprocessed materials, parts, spare parts and semi-manufactured products. The production of these industries is under the control of Western monopoly capital.
In fact, many of the industrial products sold as home products in Yugoslavia are assembled from imported ready-made parts and have Yugoslav trade marks attached. Vesnik u sredu of April 25, 1962 said that "some of our industrial enterprises are becoming a special type of commercial organization, which does not produce but assembles, only sticking its own trade mark on the products of others".
In these circumstances, Yugoslavia has become an integral part of the world market of Western monopoly capital. In the financial and economic spheres it is tightly bound to the capitalist world market and has degenerated into a dependency of imperialism, and particularly of U.S. imperialism.
When a socialist country sells out its independence and sovereign rights and becomes an imperialist appendage, the restoration of the capitalist system is the inevitable result.
The special road of building "socialism" by relying on U. S. aid advertised by the Tito clique is nothing but a road for turning a socialist system into a capitalist system to meet the needs of imperialism, a road of degeneration from an independent country into a semi-colony.
Khrushchov insists that this dependency of U.S. imperialism is "building
socialism". This is fantastic. A self-styled socialism having U.S. aid as
its trade mark is a new variety to be added to the bogus brands of socialism,
which were criticized by Marx, Engels and Lenin, and this is presumably a great
contribution on the part of Tito and Khrushchov in "creatively developing
the theory of Marxism-Leninism".
Judging by the counter-revolutionary role played by the Tito clique in international relations and by its reactionary foreign policy, Yugoslavia is still farther from being a socialist country.
In the international arena the Tito clique is a special detachment of U.S. imperialism for sabotaging the world revolution.
By setting the example of restoring capitalism in Yugoslavia, the Tito clique is helping U.S. imperialism to push its policy of "peaceful evolution" inside the socialist countries.
Under the signboard of a socialist country, the Tito clique is frantically opposing and disrupting the socialist camp and serving as an active agent in the anti-Chinese campaign.
Under the cover of non-alignment and active coexistence, the Tito clique is trying to wreck the national liberation movement in Asia, Africa and Latin America and is serving U.S. neo-colonialism.
The Tito clique spares no effort to prettify U.S. imperialism and benumb the people of the world in their struggle against the imperialist policies of war and aggression.
Under the pretext of opposing "Stalinism", the Tito clique is peddling revisionist poison everywhere and opposing revolution by the people in all countries.
The Tito clique has invariably played the role of a lackey of U.S. imperialism in the major international events of the past ten years and more.
1. The revolution in Greece. On July 10, 1949 Tito closed the border between Yugoslavia and Greece against the Greek people's guerrillas. At the same time, he allowed the Greek fascist royalist troops to pass through Yugoslav territory in order to attack the guerrillas from the rear. In this way the Tito clique helped the U.S.-British imperialists to strangle the Greek people's revolution.
2. The Korean War. In a statement issued on September 6, 1950, Edvard Kardelj, who was then foreign minister, brazenly slandered the Korean people's just war of resistance to aggression and defended U.S. imperialism. On December 1, speaking at the U.N. Security Council, the representative of the Tito clique attacked China for its "active interference in the Korean War". The Tito clique also voted in the United Nations for the embargo on China and Korea.
3. The Vietnamese people's war of liberation. On the eve of the Geneva Conference on Indo-China in April 1954, the Tito clique violently slandered the just struggle of the Vietnamese people, asserting that they were being used by Moscow and Peking "as a card in their post-war policy of cold war".[29]
They said of the Vietnamese people's great battle to liberate Dien Bien Phu that it was "not a gesture of goodwill".[30]
4. Subversion against Albania. The Tito clique has been carrying on subversive activities and armed provocations against socialist Albania for a long time. It has engineered four major cases of treason, in 1944, 1948, 1956 and 1960. Its armed provocations on the Yugoslav-Albanian border numbered more than 470 from 1948 to 1958. In 1960 the Tito clique and the Greek reactionaries planned an armed attack on Albania in co-ordination with the U.S. Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean.
5. The counter-revolutionary rebellion in Hungary. The Tito clique played a shameful role of an interventionist provocateur in the Hungarian counter-revolutionary rebellion in October 1956. After the outbreak of the rebellion, Tito published a letter supporting the counter-revolutionary measures of the traitor Nagy. On November 3 the Tito clique bade Nagy seek asylum in the Yugoslav Embassy in Hungary. In a speech on November 11, Tito characterized the counter-revolutionary rebellion as resistance by "progressives" and impudently questioned whether the "course of Yugoslavia" or the "course of Stalinism" would win.
6. The Middle Eastern events. In 1958 troops were sent by U.S. imperialism to occupy Lebanon and by British imperialism to occupy Jordan. There arose a world-wide wave of protest demanding the immediate withdrawal of the U.S. and British troops. At the emergency session of the U.N. General Assembly on the Middle Eastern situation, Koca Popovic, State Secretary for Foreign Affairs of Yugoslavia, said that "it is not a question of whether we insist on condemning or approving the actions taken by the United States and Great Britain". He advocated intervention by the United Nations, an organization which is under the control of U.S. imperialism.
7. The event in the Taiwan Straits. In the autumn of 1958, the Chinese People's Liberation Army shelled Quemoy in order to counter the U.S. imperialist provocations in the Taiwan Straits and to punish the Chiang Kai-shek gang, which is a U.S. imperialist lackey. The Tito clique maligned China's just struggle as "a danger to the whole world" [31] and "harmful to peace".[32]
8. The U-2 incident. In 1960 the United States sent a U-2 spy plane to intrude into the Soviet Union and sabotaged the four-power summit conference scheduled to be held in Paris. On May 17 Tito issued a statement attacking the correct stand then taken by the Soviet Government as creating "such large-scale disputes".
9. The Japanese people's patriotic struggle against the United States. In June 1960 the Japanese people waged a just and patriotic struggle against the United States, which was unprecedented in its scale. But the Tito clique defended U.S. imperialism, saying that the U.S. occupation of Japan "promoted the democratization of political life in Japan".[33] Subsequently, it attacked the statement of Inejiro Asanuma, the late President of the Japanese Socialist Party, that "U.S. imperialism is the common enemy of the Japanese and Chinese peoples", accusing him of "standing for an extremist line".[34]
10. The struggle of the Indonesian people. The Tito clique tried to sabotage the Indonesian people's struggle against imperialism. It engaged in base activities in an effort to prevent the establishment of a "Nasakom" cabinet in Indonesia, that is, a government of national unity comprising the nationalists, religious circles and the Communists.
11. The Congo event. In the summer of 1960, when U.S. imperialism carried out armed aggression in the Congo under the flag of the United Nations, the Tito clique not only voted for U.S. imperialism in the United Nations but, in accordance with the desire of U.S. imperialism, sent air force personnel to the Congo to take a direct part in the bloody suppression of the Congolese people.
12. The Laotian question. When U.S. imperialism stepped up its intervention in Laos in January 1961, the Tito clique spread the view that the United States "is really concerned for the peace and neutralization of Laos".[35] When U.S. imperialism engineered political assassinations and armed conflicts in Laos in May 1963, the Tito clique attacked the Laotian patriotic forces for "putting all the blame on the United States".[36]
13. The U.S. Alliance for Progress programme. In August 1961 the United States forced various Latin American countries to sign the Alliance for Progress programme, which was a new U.S. imperialist instrument for the enslavement of the Latin American people. This programme of aggression was strongly opposed by the Latin American people but was praised by the Tito clique as "meeting in a large measure the requirements of the Latin American countries".[37]
14. The Sino-Indian border conflict. Ever since the Indian reactionaries created tension on the Sino-Indian border in 1959, the Tito clique has consistently supported the expansionism, aggression and provocations of the Indian reactionaries against China. It openly spread the lie that "the demarcation of the boundary was already completed at the beginning of the present century and put into the shape of the well-known McMahon Line",[38] and did its best to confuse right and wrong, making the slander that China "permits itself to revise its border with India wilfully and by force"[39] and "committed aggression" against India.[40]
15. The Cuban revolution and the Caribbean crisis. The Tito clique has made numerous comments attacking Cuba, saying that Cuba "believes only in revolution"[41] and that the Cuban revolution is "not so much a model as an exception to the road of revolution".[42] During the Caribbean crisis in the autumn of 1962, the Tito clique defended U.S. imperialist aggression, saying that "the difficulties started when the Cuban revolution trod on the pet corns of the U.S. companies",[43] and that "if it is said that the United States was irritated by the establishment of rocket bases in Cuba, in its close neighbourhood, that would be understandable".[44]
From all this, people cannot fail to see that for the past ten years and more the Tito clique has desperately opposed the socialist countries, tried to sabotage the national liberation movement, maligned the anti-imperialist revolutionary struggle of the people in all countries and actively served imperialism, and especially U.S. imperialism.
Khrushchov has said repeatedly that there is "unanimity" and
"accord" between the leadership of the CPSU and the Tito clique in
their positions on international problems.[45]
Well, then, we would like to ask whether or not there is unanimity or
accord between your activities and the counter-revolutionary crimes of the Tito
clique. Please answer, if you have the courage.
In the final analysis, the fact that capitalism has swamped Yugoslavia in both town and country, the degeneration of an economy owned by the whole people into a state capitalist economy and the decline of Yugoslavia into a dependency of U.S. imperialism are all due to the degeneration of the Party and state power in Yugoslavia.
Fighting heroically against the German and Italian fascist aggressors during World War II, the Communist Party and people of Yugoslavia overthrew the reactionary rule of imperialism and its lackey in Yugoslavia and established the people's democratic state power under the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Not long afterwards, the leading group of the Yugoslav Communist Party betrayed Marxism-Leninism and embarked on the path of revisionism, bringing about the gradual degeneration of the Party and state power in Yugoslavia.
The Yugoslav Communist Party had a glorious tradition of revolutionary struggles. The betrayal of the Tito clique met first of all with strong resistance inside the Party. To suppress this resistance, the Tito clique used its power to expel and purge from the Party a great number of Communists loyal to Marxism-Leninism. In the period from 1948 to 1952 alone, more than 200,000 Party members, or half the original membership of the Yugoslav Communist Party, were expelled. Taking action against the so-called Cominform elements, it arrested and slaughtered large numbers of Marxist-Leninists and revolutionary cadres and people, the number of Communists and active revolutionaries arrested and imprisoned alone exceeding thirty thousand. At the same time, the Tito clique opened the door wide to counter-revolutionaries, bourgeois elements, all kinds of anti-socialist elements and careerists seeking position and wealth through their membership cards. In November 1952 the Tito clique declared that "the appellation Party no longer fits" and changed the name, the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, into the League of Communists of Yugoslavia. In violation of the will of all honest Communists in Yugoslavia, it changed the character of the Yugoslav Communist Party as the vanguard of the proletariat and made the L.C.Y. the virtual instrument for maintaining its dictatorial rule.
In the socialist countries, state power is under the leadership of communist political parties. With the degeneration of a communist into a bourgeois political party, state power inevitably degenerates from the dictatorship of the proletariat into the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.
The state power of the dictatorship of the proletariat in Yugoslavia was the fruit of the protracted and heroic struggle of the Yugoslav people. But as the Tito clique turned renegade, this state power changed its nature.
The Tito clique has declared, "The means of the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat, i.e., of the socialist state system, become increasingly unnecessary."[46]
But is there no dictatorship in Yugoslavia any longer? Yes, there is. While the dictatorship of the proletariat is indeed no more, the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie not only exists, but is a brutal fascist dictatorship at that.
The Tito regime has set up many fascist prisons and concentration camps, where tens of thousands of revolutionaries have been tortured to death by every kind of inhuman punishment. At the same time, the Tito regime has pardoned large numbers of counter-revolutionaries and traitors in the anti-fascist war. Replying to a United Press correspondent on January 7, 1951, Tito admitted that 11,000 political prisoners had been pardoned in Yugoslavia. On March 13, 1962 another 150,000 counter-revolutionaries living in exile abroad were pardoned. The dictatorship over these enemies of the people was indeed abolished and they have obtained "democracy". Whatever fine-sounding phrases the Tito clique may use, its "democracy" is only a democracy for the small number of old and new bourgeois elements; for the working people it is out-and-out dictatorship. The Tito clique has transformed the revolutionary state machinery, which was built up to suppress the small minority of exploiters, into a state machinery for suppressing the proletariat and the broad masses.
The degeneration of the state power in Yugoslavia occurred not through the overthrow of the original state power by violence and the establishment of a new state power, but through "peaceful evolution". In appearance, the same people remain in power, but in essence these people no longer represent the interests of the workers, peasants and the working people but those of imperialism and the old and new bourgeoisie of Yugoslavia.
Utilizing state power and controlling the economic lifeline of the country, the Tito clique exploited the Yugoslav working people to the utmost extent and brought into being a bureaucrat-capitalist class. Being dependent on U.S. imperialism, this class is strongly comprador in character and is also a comprador capitalist class. The state power controlled by the Tito clique is that of the dictatorship of the bureaucrat-comprador bourgeoisie.
The above facts show from various aspects that the policy pursued by the Tito regime is one of restoring and developing capitalism, namely, of reducing Yugoslavia to a semi-colony or a dependency.
The degeneration of the state power in Yugoslavia has led to the destruction of the socialist economic system and the restoration of a capitalist economic system. When a new bureaucrat-comprador bourgeoisie has gradually come into being with the re-establishment of the capitalist economic system in a new form, it demands the intensification of the bourgeois dictatorship and the development of a political system suited to the capitalist economic system so as to consolidate its ruling position.
This is how the process from the degeneration of the Party and state power to the restoration of capitalism in the entire social and economic system has been realized step by step in Yugoslavia. The process of degeneration has gone on for fifteen years. This is the record of how a socialist state "peacefully evolves" into a capitalist state.
The Tito clique maintains its rule in Yugoslavia by relying on U.S. imperialist support, the state machine of the dictatorship of the bureaucrat-comprador bourgeoisie, the labour aristocracy bought by it, and the rich peasants in the countryside. At the same time, it uses various cunning means to disguise its reactionary features and hoodwink the people. But its reactionary policies are extremely unpopular. The degeneration of the socialist state into a capitalist state, the degeneration of an independent country into a semi-colony or a dependency of imperialism, runs counter to the basic interests of the Yugoslav people, and cannot but be opposed by all the honest Communists and the overwhelming majority of the people of Yugoslavia.
We are in deep sympathy with the people and Communists of Yugoslavia in their
present predicament. Although the Tito clique can ride roughshod over the people
for a time, we are confident that whatever high-handed measures and whatever
tricks of deception it may resort to, no ruling group will come to a good end
once it is against the people. The Tito clique is of course no exception. The
deceived people will gradually wake up in the end. The people and Communists of
Yugoslavia who have a glorious history will not submit to the renegade Tito
clique for ever. The future of the Yugoslav people is bright.
The Open Letter of the Central Committee of the CPSU asserts that for a time "the CPC leaders had no doubts as to the nature of the socialist system in Yugoslavia", and that now the Chinese leaders have "changed their position on the Yugoslavian question so drastically".
True, Yugoslavia was once a socialist state. For a time the country advanced along the path of socialism.
But soon after, owing to the Tito clique's betrayal, the Yugoslav social system began to degenerate step by step.
In 1954, when Khrushchov proposed to improve relations with Yugoslavia, we agreed to treat it as a fraternal socialist country for the purpose of winning it back to the path of socialism and watching how the Tito clique would develop.
We did not entertain very much hope for the Tito clique even then. In its letter of June 10, 1954 to the Central Committee of the CPSU, the Central Committee of the CPC pointed out that the fact should be taken into account that as the leaders of Yugoslavia had already gone quite far in their dealings with imperialism, they might reject our effort to win it over and refuse to return to the path of socialism; "but even though this should occur, it would not involve any political loss to the camp of peace, democracy and socialism--on the contrary, it would further expose the hypocrisy of the Yugoslav leaders before the people of Yugoslavia and of the world."
Unfortunately, our words have proved all too true! Indeed the Tito clique has flatly rejected our effort to win it over and gone farther and farther along the path of revisionism.
After it refused to sign the 1957 Declaration, the Tito clique put forward its out-and-out revisionist programme in 1958 and set this banner of modern revisionism against the 1957 Declaration which is the common programme acknowledged by all Communist and Workers' Parties. The process of restoring capitalism in Yugoslavia has been realized step by step. And internationally, the Tito clique is serving more and more energetically as a counter-revolutionary special detachment of U.S. imperialism.
In these circumstances, the attitude every Marxist-Leninist Party should take towards the Tito clique is no longer the one it should take towards a fraternal Party or a fraternal country, nor should it be that of winning the Tito clique over, but it should be one of thoroughly exposing and firmly combating this gang of renegades. The 1960 Statement has given its clear conclusion on this point.
The Open Letter of the Central Committee of the CPSU has deliberately evaded the series of important events which occurred after the meeting of the fraternal Parties in November 1957 and also the conclusions unanimously reached at the meeting of the fraternal Parties in 1960, and tries to defend the erroneous stand of the leadership of the CPSU by quoting a sentence from the editorial on Yugoslavia in Renmin Ribao of September 12, 1957. This is futile.
The facts prove that our position with regard to the Tito clique conforms
with reality, is a principled position, and is in accord with the common
agreement of the meeting of the fraternal Parties in 1960. On the other hand,
the leaders of the CPSU have tried in a thousand and one ways to reverse the
verdict on the Tito clique, which testifies to their betrayal of
Marxism-Leninism, their abandonment of the 1960 Statement, and their rendering
of assistance to the U.S. imperialists and their lackeys in deceiving the people
of Yugoslavia and of the whole world.
Khrushchov says that the Yugoslav leaders have removed very much of what was considered erroneous. But the Titoites do not admit that they have committed any errors, much less removed them. The Titoites say that they have "no need" to correct any error [47] and that "it would just be a waste of time" [48] and "simply superfluous and ridiculous" to expect them to do so. [49]
Let us look at the facts. Have the Titoites changed their revisionist programme? No, they have not. Have they accepted the 1957 Declaration and the 1960 Statement? No, they have not. Have they changed their revisionist domestic and foreign policies? Again, no.
The new constitution adopted by the Yugoslav Federal People's Assembly in April 1963 most clearly shows that the Tito clique has not in the least changed its revisionist stand. The constitution is the legal embodiment of the out-and-out revisionist programme of the Tito clique. Edvard Kardelj said in his report on the draft of the new constitution that it is the "legal-political and organizational embodiment" of the concepts of the programme of the L.C.Y.
Khrushchov is warmly fraternizing with the Tito clique not because it has corrected any of its errors but because he is following in Tito's footsteps.
Consider the following facts:
1. Tito denounces Stalin in order to oppose Marxism-Leninism in its very fundamentals. Khrushchov completely negates Stalin for the same purpose.
2. Both Tito and Khrushchov repudiate the fundamental theories of Marxism-Leninism, both malign as dogmatists the Chinese and other Communists who firmly uphold Marxism-Leninism, and both describe their own revision of Marxism-Leninism as a "creative development" of Marxism-Leninism.
3. Both Tito and Khrushchov laud the chieftains of U.S. imperialism. Tito says that Eisenhower "is a man who persistently defends peace",[50] and that Kennedy's effort "will be helpful to the improvement of international relations and to the peaceful settlement of pressing world problems".[51] Khrushchov says that Eisenhower "has a sincere desire for peace",[52]and that Kennedy "shows solicitude for the preservation of peace".[53]
4. Both Tito and Khrushchov play up the horrors of nuclear war in order to intimidate the people of the world into abandoning revolutionary struggle. Tito says that once a nuclear war breaks out, it will be the "annihilation of mankind".[54] Likewise, Khrushchov says that once a nuclear war breaks out, "we will destroy our Noah's Ark--the globe".[55]
5. Both Tito and Khrushchov preach that a world without weapons, without armed forces and without wars can be brought into being while imperialism still exists.
6. The Tito clique proclaims that "active peaceful coexistence' is the cornerstone of Yugoslavia's foreign policy,[56] while Khrushchov declares that peaceful coexistence is the "general line of the foreign policy" of the Soviet Union.[57]
7. Both Tito and Khrushchov proclaim that the possibility of peaceful transition from capitalism to socialism has increased. The Tito clique says that "mankind is irresistibly entering a long way into the era of socialism through different ways".[58] Khrushchov says that the road of the October Revolution can be replaced by the "parliamentary road".
8. Tito advocates the introduction of "political and economic integration" [59] of the world through "peaceful competition". Khrushchov also advocates "all-round co-operation" with imperialism through "peaceful economic competition".
9. The Tito clique sabotages the national liberation movement and national liberation wars in every way. Khrushchov opposes the national liberation movement and national liberation wars on the pretext that "any small 'local war' might spark off the conflagration of a world war".[60]
10. The Tito clique has renounced the dictatorship of the proletariat. Under the slogan of "the state of the whole people", Khrushchov also renounces the dictatorship of the proletariat.
11. The Tito clique denies that the Communist Party should be the vanguard of the working class. Likewise, Khrushchov says that the CPSU "has become a party of the entire people" [61]
12. The Tito clique, flaunting the "non-bloc" label, is opposing the socialist camp. Khrushchov also says that "expressions like blocs etc., are temporary phenomena".[62] They both want to liquidate the socialist camp.
From these facts one must conclude that, both in domestic and foreign policy, Khrushchov really regards Tito as his teacher and is sliding down the path of revisionism hard on Tito's heels.
Khrushchov has abandoned Marxism-Leninism, scrapped the 1960 Statement and wallowed in the mire with the renegade Tito clique, in complete violation of the interests of the Soviet Union, the Soviet people and the people of the whole world. This will not be tolerated by the great Soviet people, the overwhelming majority of the members of the CPSU and cadres at various levels, all of whom have a glorious revolutionary tradition.
The great Soviet people and the membership of the CPSU will never agree with Khrushchov's collusion with the Tito clique in opposition to the fraternal Parties which uphold Marxism-Leninism.
The great Soviet people and the membership of the CPSU will never agree with Khrushchov's collusion with the Tito clique and collaboration with imperialism in opposing socialist China, Albania and other fraternal countries and in disrupting the socialist camp.
The great Soviet people and the membership of the CPSU will never agree with Khrushchov's collusion with the Tito clique and collaboration with the reactionaries of all countries in opposition to the people of the world and to revolution.
The great Soviet people and the membership of the CPSU will never agree with Khrushchov's efforts to follow the example of the Yugoslav revisionists, change the nature of the Party and the state and pave the way for the restoration of capitalism.
Khrushchov has caused dark clouds to overcast the Soviet Union, the first
socialist country in the world. But this can only be an interlude in the history
of the CPSU and of the Soviet Union. People who are deceived and hoodwinked for
a time will gradually wake up in the end. History has confirmed, and will
continue to confirm, that whoever wants to turn back the Soviet people in their
advance is like the grasshopper in the fable which wanted to stop the chariot.
He will never succeed in his aim.
The restoration of capitalism in Yugoslavia provides a new historical lesson to the international communist movement.
This lesson shows us that when the working class has seized power, struggle continues between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, struggle for victory continues between the two roads of capitalism and socialism, and there is a danger that capitalism may be restored. Yugoslavia presents a typical example of the restoration of capitalism.
It shows us that not only is it possible for a working-class party to fall under the control of a labour aristocracy, degenerate into a bourgeois party and become a flunkey of imperialism before it seizes power, but even after it seizes power it is possible for a working-class party to fall under the control of new bourgeois elements, degenerate into a bourgeois party and become a flunkey of imperialism. The League of Communists of Yugoslavia typifies such degeneration.
It shows us that the restoration of capitalism in a socialist country can be achieved not necessarily through a counterrevolutionary coup d'etat or armed imperialist invasion and that it can also be achieved through the degradation of the leading group in that country. The easiest way to capture a fortress is from within. Yugoslavia provides a typical case in point.
It shows us that revisionism is the product of imperialist policy. Old-line revisionism arose as a result of the imperialist policy of buying over and fostering a labour aristocracy. Modern revisionism has arisen in the same way. Sparing no cost, imperialism has now extended the scope of its operations and is buying over leading groups in socialist countries and pursues through them its desired policy of "peaceful evolution". U.S. imperialism regards Yugoslavia as the "bellwether" because it has set an example in this respect.
The restoration of capitalism in Yugoslavia will make all Marxist-Leninists see better and enable people to realize more keenly the necessity and urgency of combating modern revisionism.
So long as imperialism exists, there is apparently no ground for saying that the danger of the restoration of capitalism in the socialist countries has been eliminated.
The leaders of the CPSU proclaim that they have already eliminated the danger of the restoration of capitalism and are building communism. If this were true, it would of course be heartening. But we see that in fact they are imitating Yugoslavia in every way and have taken a most dangerous road. This deeply worries and pains us.
Out of our warm love for the great Soviet Union and the great CPSU, we would like sincerely to appeal to the leaders of the CPSU: Comrades and friends! Do not follow the Yugoslav road. Turn back at once. Or it will be too late!
__________________________________________
NOTES
1. N. S. Khrushchov, Speech at a Mass Rally in Velenje, Yugoslavia, August 30, 1963.
2. N. S. Khrushchov, Speech at a Meeting in a Factory of Rakovica, Yugoslavia, August 21, 1933.
3. N. S. Khrushchov, Interview with Foreign Correspondents at Brioni, Yugoslavia, August 28,1963, as reported by Tanjug.
4. "For the Victory of Creative Marxism-Leninism and Against the Revision of the Course of the World Communist Movement", editorial board article in Kommunist, Moscow, No. 11, 1963.
5. Palmiro Togliatti, "Let Us Lead the Discussion Back to Its Real Limit", L'Unita, January 10, 1963.
6. N. S. Khrushchov, Report to the Session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, December 1862.
7. Open Letter of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to All Party Organizations, to All Communists of the Soviet Union, July 14, 1963.
8. Ibid.
9. N. S. Khrushchov, Report to the Session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, December 1882.
10. M. Todorovic, "The Struggle on Two Fronts", Nasha Stvarnost, March issue, 1954
11. Vesnik u sredu, December 27, 1961.
12. Vesnik u sredu, December 6, 1961.
13. J. V. Stalin, "Grain Procurements and the Prospects for the Development of Agriculture", Works, Eng. ed., FLPH, Moscow, 1954, Vol. Xl, p. 8.
14. Edvard Kardelj, Opening Address at the Ninth Plenum of the Fourth Federal Committee of the Socialist Alliance of the Working People of Yugoslavia, May 5, 1959.
15. Vladimir Bakari, Speech at the Sixth Congress of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia.
16. Edvard Kardelj, "On Some Problems of Our Policy in the Villages" Komunist, Belgrade, No. 4, 1953.
17. Slavko Komar, "Some Problems Concerning the Countryside and the Peasant Households", Socializam, No. 5, 1962.
18. The Yugoslav journal Index, No. 2. 1962.
19. Slavko Komar, op. cit.
20. J. V. Stalin, "Speech Delivered at the First All-Union Congress of Collective-Farm Shock Brigaders", Works, Eng. ed., FLPH, Moscow, 1955, Vol. XIII, p. 248.
21. V. I. Lenin, "On the Democracy and Socialist Character of the Soviet Power".
22. Letter of the Central Committee of the L.C.Y. to Its Organizations and LeadershiPs at All Levels February 17, 1958
23. Vladimir Bakaric, Report to the Fourth Congress of the League of Communists of Croatia, April 7, 1959.
24. Augustin Papic, "Investment Financing in Yugoslavia", Annals of Collective Economy, Belgrade, April-November l 959.
25. V. I. Lenin, "Left-Wing, Childishness and Petty-Bourgeois Mentality", Selected Works, Eng. ed., International Publishers, New York, 1943, Vol. VII, p. 365.
26. V. I. Lenin, "The Immediate Tasks of the soviet Government", Selected Works, Eng. ed., International Publishers, New York, 1943, Vol. VII, p. 327.
27. V. I. Lenin, "On the Monopoly of Foreign Trade", Collected Works Russ. ed., SPPL, Moscow, 1950, Vol. XXXIII, p. 420.
28. J. V. Stalin, "Interview with the First American Labour Delegation" Works, Eng. ed., FLPH, Moscow, 1954, Vol. X, pp. 115 and 116.
29. Borba, April 23, 1954.
30. Borba, May 8, 1954.
31. Slobodni Dom, September 4, 1958.
32. Slovenski Porocevalec, September 9, 1958.
33. Komunist, Belgrade, June 2, 1960.
34. Foreign Political Bulletin, February 1, 1962.
35. Borba, January 13, 1961.
36. Politika, May 5, 1963.
37. Komunist, Belgrade, August 17, 1961.
38. Rad, September 12, 1959.
39. Borba, December 26, 1960.
40. Politika, September 3, 1959.
41. The Rebellion of Cuba, Belgrade, November 1962.
42. Politika, January 1, 1963.
43. Komunist, Belgrade, September 13, 1962.
44. Politika, November 13, 1962.
45. N. S. Khrushchov, Speech at a Mass Rally in Split, Yugoslavia August 24, 1963.
46. Edvard Kardelj, "The New Constitution of Socialist Yugoslavia", Borba, September 29, 1962.
47. J. B. Tito, Speech at the Belgrade Railway Station, December 20, 1962.
48. J. B. Tito, Speech at the Seventh Congress of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, April 1958.
49. J. B. Tito, Speech at the Belgrade Railway Station, December 20, 1962.
50. J. B. Tito, Talk with a New York Times Commentator, February 28, 1958.
51. J. B. Tito, Message of Greetings to J. F. Kennedy, Borba, January 21, 1961.
52. N. S. Khrushchov, Speech at the Session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, May 1960.
53. N. S. Khrushchov, Letter to J F. Kennedy, October 27, 1962.
54. J. B. Tito, Report to the Session of the Federal People's Assembly of Yugoslavia, April 19, 1958.
55. N. S. Khrushchov, Speech at a Meeting of the Austro-Soviet Society, July 2, 1960.
56. Koca Popovic Report on Foreign Policy to the Session of the Federal People s Assembly of Yugoslavia, Borba, February 27, 1957.
57. N S. Khrushchov, Report to the 20th Congress of the CPSU, February 1956.
58. Programme of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia.
59. J. B Tito, Replies to Questions by Washington Post Correspondent Drew Pearson, Borba, August 12, 1962.
60. N. S. Khrushchov, Statement at the Press Conference in Vienna July 8, 1960.
61. N. S. Khrushchov, "On the Programme of the CPSU", delivered at the 22nd Congress of the CPSU, October 1961.
62. N. S. Khrushchov, Interview with Foreign Correspondents at Brioni in Yugoslavia, August 28, 1963.