Only he is a Marxist who extends the recognition of the class struggle to the recognition of the dictatorship of the proletariat. This is the touchstone on which the real understanding and recognition of Marxism is to be tested.   V. I. Lenin 
Economic & Philosophic Science Review 
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No 1191 July 01 2003                                                                                                                             25p

The Stalinist legacy, revising Marxism into reformist, peaceful-pressure delusions as the supposed answer to imperialist warmongering crisis, is still catastrophically undermining the necessary REVOLUTIONARY understanding for the international working class. Peace campaigning might be OK as a propaganda tactic, but it is a DISASTER when believed-in as the WAY TO SUCCESSFULLY CONTAIN imperialist warmongering, now back in the saddle and on the way towards WWIII as world crushing economic crisis (ruled out by Stalinism) drives all before it, affecting EVERYONE's lives on the planet, and solvable only by the OVERTHROW of capitalism everywhere, not by the peaceful-coexistence tutoring of it, as Stalinism wanted.

Purely abstract, academic arguments about the last 100 years on whether specific international class-struggle turning points did, or did not, see Marxist-Leninist science of society appropriately applied, are sterile if the current crisis in the battle against imperialism's demented, dangerous, warmongering turn is not made a key part of that historical perspective, and if the horribly confused weakness of current anti-imperialism is not taken fully into account.

The understanding that the global exploitation tyranny, the coming catastrophic economic crisis, and the terrifying threat of escalating warmongering disasters, can only be ended by the revolutionary overthrow of the world monopoly-capitalist ruling class, is barely alive at the moment, especially throughout the West.

That this retreat from Marxist-Leninist science about how the world can alone be transformed, - through class-war and revolution, - happened over a long period of time during which the Third International Communist Parties were the overwhelmingly dominant influence on the international anti-imperialist struggle, cannot be denied.

It is the "No to war", and "Everything through democracy and negotiations" reformist delusions which totally dominate large parts of the international anti-imperialist struggle (especially in the West). Where world developments are heading next, and how will all the crisis-conflicts be resolved, are the questions forcing the debate about how things got into the confused mess they are in, and what solid, class-struggle, historical experiences are there to go on, for fighting a way through the confusion.

Looking for a Marxist line is synonymous with looking for an explanation of international events which turns out to be correct, and which thereby has enabled everyone's dream of a socialist world of harmonious cooperation (to replace cut-throat capitalist exploitation and warmongering domineering tyranny), to be brought closer.

The sterile, academic disputes about this, or about who in particular was responsible for this outcome, are mostly just a reflection of an unwillingness or an inability to back a consistently REVOLUTIONARY line in the present-day international class struggle.

Thousands of factions derived from old Third International parties seek to cover the traces of their own current or recent opportunist backsliding via such superficial posturing on behalf of this or that "revolutionary hero".

Fake-'lefts' of every description love to champion little snippets of "hard man" gesturing with a quote from Trotsky, or Stalin, or Mao, or Ho, or carrying the hammer-and-sickle symbol, etc, etc, - but meanwhile in real life get on with their latest crawlarsing manoeuvres for position around the Labour Party, or Scargill's equally reactionary reformist demagogy, or the Alliance, or the peace movement, etc, etc.

Even wider than Lalkar circles, some SLP elements close to Scargill still love to posture with Stalin memorabilia to imply their "communist determination and toughness" while in reality nourishing their only real political existence by swallowing the scabby, weak, cowardly crap spewed up by Scargill's Little-Englander nationalism, his petty bourgeois trade-union conservatism, and his "anti-terrorist" demagogy on behalf of "freedom and democracy", etc, etc.

Another form of this careerist servility, masquerading as "revolutionary toughness", takes the shape of pseudo-historical academic wordiness (Lalkar and others) making a fetish of Stalin's safer utterings and decisions while ignoring all the dodgier and more difficult pronouncements and actions, - yet all the time relating absolutely none of it to current world problems in terms of philosophical relevance.

Thus, Arafat or Saddam are given uncritical support, but the disastrous outcomes of rowing-in behind Soekarno (nationalist Indonesia leader) too naïvely, or the petty-bourgeois Republican parliament in Spain, etc, etc, are not examined for useful parallels and lessons.

The great historical issue in all this is the absolute necessity of being 100% correct in the characterisation of the era.

Reassessment of specific details of Third International history, and after, will probably go on for ever, arguing about how, precisely, one thing led to another, and about which words, at which time, should be interpreted as having led the retreat from Marxist-Leninist understanding, etc.

But where the Communist Movement ended up, - in total Revisionist confusion, cannot be doubted.

Consider the 1960 declaration in Moscow by 81 international communist parties:

The decay of capitalism is particularly marked in the United States of America, the chief imperialist country of today. U.S. monopoly capital is clearly unable to use all the productive forces at its command. The richest of the developed capitalist countries of the world - the United States of America - has become a land of especially big chronic unemployment. Increasing under-capacity operation in industry has become permanent in that country. Despite the enormous increase in military appropriations, which is achieved at the expense of the standard of life of the working people, the rate of growth of production has been declining in the post-war years and has been barely above the growth of population. Over-production crises have become more frequent. The most developed capitalist country has become a country of the most distorted, militarised economy.

The Declaration points out that the working class and its vanguard - the Marxist-Leninist Party - seek to achieve the socialist revolution by peaceful means. This would accord with the interests of the working class and the people as a whole, with the national interests of the country.

Today, in a number of capitalist countries the working class, headed by its vanguard, has the opportunity, given a united working class and popular front or other workable forms of agreement and political co-operation between the different parties and public organisations, to unite a majority of the people, win state power without civil war and ensure the transfer of the basic means of production to the hands of the people. Relying on the majority of the people and resolutely rebuffing the opportunist elements incapable of relinquishing the policy of compromise with the capitalists and landlords, the working class can defeat the reactionary, anti-popular forces, secure a firm majority in parliament, transform parliament from an instrument serving the class interests of the bourgeoisie into an instrument serving the working people, launch an extra-parliamentary mass struggle, smash the resistance of the reactionary forces and create the necessary conditions for peaceful realisation of the socialist revolution. All this will be possible only by broad and ceaseless development of the class struggle of the workers, peasant masses and the urban middle strata against big monopoly capital, against reaction, for profound social reforms, for peace and socialism.

In our time, when communism is not only the most advanced doctrine but a social system which actually exists and which has proved its superiority over capitalism, conditions are particularly favourable for expanding the influence of the Communist Parties, and vigorously exposing anti-communism - a slogan under which the capitalist class wages its struggle against the proletariat - and for winning the broadest sections of the working people for Communist ideas.

In the opinion of Communists the tasks which must be accomplished first of all if peace is to be safeguarded are to stop the arms race, ban nuclear weapons, their tests and production, dismantle foreign war bases and withdraw foreign troops from other countries, disband military blocs, conclude a peace treaty with Germany, turn West Berlin into a demilitarised free city, thwart the aggressive designs of the West-German revanchists, and prevent the revival of Japanese. militarism.

Is lasting world peace possible?

We Communists reply:

War is not inevitable, war can be prevented, peace can be preserved and made secure.

This conviction of ours is prompted not only by our will for peace and hatred of the warmongers. The possibility of averting war follows from the actual facts of the new world situation.

The world socialist system is becoming an increasingly decisive factor of our time. Embracing more than one-third of mankind, the socialist system with the Soviet Union as its main force uses its steadily growing economic, scientific and technical might to curb the actions of imperialism and handcuff the advocates of military gambles.

The international working-class movement, which holds high the banner of struggle for peace, heightens the vigilance of the peoples and inspires them actively to combat the aggressive policies of the imperialists.

The peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America, many millions strong, who have won their freedom and political independence, and peoples fighting for national emancipation are becoming increasingly active champions of peace and natural allies of the peace policy of the socialist countries.

The neutral countries, which disagree with the aggressive policy of the imperialists, work for peace and peaceful coexistence.

The World Peace Movement now numbers many millions of people. In every country the members of that movement strive to safeguard their homeland from a new military conflagration.

By rallying to a resolute struggle, all these forces of peace can foil the criminal plans of war, safeguard peace and reinforce international friendship.

Peace does not come of itself. It can be defended and consolidated only through joint struggle by all the forces of peace.

We Communists appeal to all working people, to the peoples of all continents:

- Fight for an easing of international tension and for peaceful co-existence, against cold war, against the arms race! If used for peaceful purposes, the vast resources squandered on armaments would make it possible to improve the condition of the people, to reduce unemployment, to raise wages and living standards, to expand housing construction and to enhance social insurance.

Prevent the further stockpiling of nuclear weapons and the arming of the German and Japanese militarists with weapons of mass annihilation !

Demand the conclusion of a peace treaty with the two German states and the conversion of West Berlin into a demilitarised free city!

Combat attempts by the governments of the imperialist powers to involve new countries in the cold war, to draw them into the orbit of war preparations!

Demand the abolition of foreign military bases, the withdrawal of foreign troops from other countries, and prohibition of the establishment of new bases. Fight for the liberation of your countries from the aggressive military pacts imposed upon them! Work for agreements on nuclear-free zones! 		

Demand the immediate prohibition of the testing, manufacture and use of nuclear weapons and all other weapons of mass annihilation.

Insist on the immediate conclusion of a treaty on general, complete and controlled disarmament.

May modern science and technology no longer serve the manufacture of weapons of death and destruction! May they serve the good of people and the progress of mankind!

May friendly co-operation and extensive commercial and cultural exchanges between all countries triumph over war alignments!

In our epoch THE PEACE FORCES ARE SUPERIOR TO THE FORCES OF WAR!

The peoples will achieve the lofty and cherished goal of safeguarding peace if they pool their efforts and fight resolutely and actively for peace and friendship among nations. Communists will devote all their energies to this cause.

PEACE WILL TRIUMPH OVER WAR!

The above excerpts are a fair reflection of this document's preponderant world view and also the balance of coverage in its 40 pages, totally concentrating on the fight for peace.

National liberation, communist unity, and united front activities with social democrats, are treated, - but socialist revolution and proletarian dictatorship get just one brief mention as academic possibilities.

But what had been the world reality during this last period of decline into total Revisionist-reformist stupidity??

Here is a brief list of the most blatantly brutal acts of imperialist war, tyranny, and aggressive subversion throughout those years from 1945 to 1989:

IRAN, 1946 Nuclear threat: Soviet troops told to leave north (Iranian Azerbaijan). 

YUGOSLAVIA, 1946 Naval: Response to shooting-down of US plane.

URUGUAY, 1947 Nuclear threat: Bombers deployed as show of strength.

GREECE, 1947-9 Command operation: US directs extreme right in civil war.

CHINA, 194&-9 Troops: Marines evacuate Americans before Communist victory.

GERMANY, 1948 Nuclear threat: Atomic-capable bombers guard Berlin Airlift.

PHILIPPINES, 1948-54 Command operation: CIA directs war against Huk Rebellion.

PUERTO RICO, 1950 Command operation: independence rebellion crushed in Ponce.

KOREA, 1950-3 Troops, naval, bombing, nuclear threats: US and South Korea fight China and North Korea to stalemate: A-bomb threat in 1950, and vs. China in 1953. Still have bases.

IRAN, 1953 Command operation: CIA overthrows democracy, installs Shah.

VIETNAM, 1954 Nuclear threat: Bombs offered to French to use against siege.

GUATEMALA, 1954 Command operation, bombing, nuclear threat: CIA directs exile invasion after new government nationalises US company lands; bombers based in Nicaragua.

EGYPT, 1956 Nuclear threat, troops: Soviets told to keep out of Suez crisis; Marines evacuate foreigners.

LEBANON, 1958 Troops, naval: Marine occupation against rebels.

IRAQ, 1958 Nuclear threat: Iraq warned against invading Kuwait

CHINA, 1958 Nuclear threat: China told not to move on Taiwan isles.

PANAMA, 1958 Troops: Flag protests erupt into confrontation.

VIETNAM, 1960-75 Troops, naval, bombing, nuclear threats: Fought South Vietnam revolt and North Vietnam; 1-2 million killed in longest US war; atomic bomb threats in 1968 and 1969.

CUBA, 1961 Command operation: CIA-directed exile invasion fails.

GERMANY, 1961 Nuclear threat: Alert during Berlin Wall crisis.

CUBA. 1962 Nuclear threat: Naval blockade during missile crisis; near-war with USSR.

LAOS. 1962 Command operation: Military build-up during guerrilla war.

PANAMA, 1964 Troops: Panamanians shot for urging canal's return.

INDONESIA, 1965 Command operation: Million killed In CIAassisted army coup.

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC, 1965-6 Troops, bombing: Marinas land during election campaign.

GUATEMALA. 1966-7 Command operation: Green Berets intervene against rebels.

DETROIT, 1967 Troops: Army battles Blacks, 43 killed.

UNITED STATES. 1968 Troops: After King is shot; over 21,000 soldiers in cities.

CAMBODIA, 19119-75 Bombing, troops, navel: Up to 2 million killed In decade of bombing, starvation and political chaos.

OMAN, 1970 Command operation: US directs Iranian marine invasion.

LAOS, 1971 Command operation, bombing: US directs South Vietnamese Invasion; 'carpet-bombs' countryside.

SOUTH DAKOTA, 1973 Command operation: Army directs Wounded Knee siege of Lakotas.

MIDDLE EAST, 1973 Nuclear threat: World-wide alert during Middle East War.

CHILE, 1973 Command operation: CIA-backed coup ousts elected Marxist president.

CAMBODIA, 1975 Troops, bombing, gas: Captured ship, 28 die in helicopter crash.

ANGOLA, 1976-92 Command operation: CIA assists South African-backed rebels.

IRAN. 1980 Troops, nuclear threat, aborted bombing: Raid to rescue Embassy hostages; 8 troops die in helicopter-plane crash. Soviets warned not to get involved in revolution.

LIBYA, 1981 Naval jets: Two Libyan lets shot down in manoeuvres.

EL SALVADOR, 1981-02 Command operation, troops: Advisors, overflights aid anti-rebel war, soldiers briefly involved in hostage clash.

NICARAGUA, 1981-90 Command operation, naval: CIA directs exile (Contra) Invasions, plants harbour mines against revolution.

LEBANON, 1982-4 Naval, bombing, troops: Marines expel PLO and back Phalangists, Navy bombs and shells Muslim and Syrian positions.

HONDURAS, 198" Troops: Manoeuvres help build bases near borders.

GRENADA, 1983-4 Troops, bombing: Invasion four years after revolution.

IRAN, 19214 Jets: Two Iranian jets shot down over Persian Gulf.

LIBYA, 1986 Bombing, naval: Air strikes to topple nationalist government.

BOLIVIA, 1986 Troops: Army assists raids on cocaine region. 
 
IRAN, 1987-8 Naval, bombing: US intervenes on side of Iraq in war.

LIBYA, 1989 Naval jets: Two Libyan jets shot down.

VIRGIN ISLANDS. 1989 Troops: St Croix Black unrest after storm.

PHILIPPINES. 1989 Jets: Air cover provided for government against coup.

PANAMA, 1989-90 Troops, bombing: Nationalist government ousted by 27,000 soldiers, leaders arrested,  2000+ killed.

So where did this utterly lunatic nonsense come from about putting the evils of imperialism out of business via peaceful, reformist pressure???

The history of the Third International after Lenin is full of notorious disputes where the Stalinist leadership is accused of retreating from a correct long term revolutionary perspective of the only possible way to defeat imperialist reaction ultimately, into opportunist Revisionist delusions which implied that real anti-imperialist progress could be made by Popular Front compromises with petty bourgeois "democracy".

A series of "rightist" or "leftist" deviations allegedly caused setbacks to the struggle for world revolutionary socialist understanding in, for example, China in 1927 where Comintern over reliance on Nationalist military "allies", and over-exaggeration of the strength of reactionary imperialist influences, helped inflict tragic massacres and defeats on the young Chinese Communist Party; in Germany in 1932-33 where supine expectations that a NAZI failure at "democratic" government would boost the Communist Party's chances of ruling, led to the wiping out without a fight of the strongest CP in the world outside of the USSR; in China in 1933-34 where the Comintern representative Otto Braun this time caused Red Army defeats and losses by prematurely abandoning mobile guerrilla warfare for grandiose full-frontal assaults for which conditions were not yet ripe and which the young future leaders of the CPC like Mao, Zhou Enlai, and Zhu De all opposed; in Spain in 1936-39 where all of the emphasis was put on saving the petty-bourgeois Republican parliament as the best defence against Franco's fascist coup, thus almost guaranteeing a counter-revolutionary victory in the Civil War (given the international circumstances of the time with the West still encouraging Hitler-Germany expansionism; etc, etc.)

Instead of the defeat and demoralisation in Spain restoring the Comintern's revolutionary perspectives faith, the World War II experiences immediately after only strengthened Moscow's hope in long term alliances with "anti-fascist bourgeois" forces against "German and Japanese militarism", regularly singled out as in the 1960 declaration (above).

The delusion of the "anti-fascist Allied Powers" began to totally dominate Moscow's thinking after 1945, by then more enormously influential than ever.

To please the West, the Comintern had already been formally dismantled, and the Soviet bureaucracy resolved that its highest priority internationally would be to show its Western imperialist "allies" that the USSR would always be a reliable partner in all international agreements.

Thus the Greek Communist revolution, which had ousted the German imperialist occupiers, was allowed to be butchered by re-invading imperialist forces led by British and US troops because of a "spheres of influence" wartime agreement; the United Nations fraud was set up with full Soviet backing, taking advantage of a Soviet absence in 1950 to launch an official UN war on North Korea to try to reconquer it for capitalism; the military seizure of Palestine by Zionist imperialism to set up the bastard colonial state of "Israel" not only got through the UN but even had the USSR providing Tel Aviv with military supplies in the early genocidal offensives to 'ethnically cleanse' the Palestinian nation from its homeland.

So dominant was the mood of peaceful, class collaborative, reformist pressure after 1945 that the British CP actually opposed having the khaki election (when an enormously enthusiastic anti-imperialist population gave Labour its first ever landslide majority government, bringing in wholesale nationalisation as "socialism" in Britain).

The CP agitated for the imperialist warmonger Churchill's wartime coalition-government to be allowed to continue ruling without an election.

Soon, the totally class-collaborative British Road to Socialism was adopted, not just with Moscow's approval, but mischievously rumoured to have been "written by Stalin".

At the time, the CP had 50,000 members, two MPs, scores of councillors, and a flourishing daily paper. The "peaceful road" shite totally destroyed all that, and where are those programmatic illusions now?? Still throttling the last dregs of life out of the pitiful, tiny, factional remnants of that once great movement.

But even the several more thousand anecdotal notorieties allegeable against the Comintern's 60-year Revisionist reformist legacy, will not convince some diehard fake-'left' posturers that Stalin himself can be blamed for any of the disasters which occurred.

The continuation of this "revolutionary" fantasy-world depends on blaming "anyone but Stalin" for the ludicrous mess which the international communist movement ended up in.

Even if some of the worst Revisionist formulations CAN first be traced to the Soviet bureaucracy AFTER Stalin (e.g. Kruschev, etc), what kind of "towering genius" was this to have only succeeded, in 30 years of unchallengeable authority and power in the Comintern, in leaving it in the hands of such TRAINED Revisionist dolts who signed the 1960 declaration from 81 communist parties??????

But this is all just infantile nonsense by these museum-Stalinists, - still opportunistically posturing their "revolutionary toughness" while in reality sunk into the most cowardly anti-Leninist, compromise manoeuvres and betrayals that can be imagined.

Plus it is utter nonsense anyway (in terms of Stalin's own identifiable input into international communist understanding, being itself, supposedly, clear of Revisionist confusion).

Just the opposite.

To try to illuminate these museum-Stalinist fantasies once and for all, let the WHOLE of the relevant chapters of his Economic Problems, 1952 book be quoted, - those sections specifically characterising the international class struggle, much of it remarkably good stuff, but the WHOLE effect, utterly and incurably flawed.

The door to the 1960 nonsense is opened wide by Stalin's 1952 nonsense which establishes	 peaceful, reformist pressure by triumphant socialism as the DOMINANT force for TAMING the threat to civilisation from the evils of imperialism.

It is TOTAL NONSENSE:

The disintegration of the single, all-embracing world market must be regarded as the most important economic sequel of the Second World War and of its economic consequences. It has lead the effect of further deepening the general crisis of the world capitalist system.

The Second World War was itself a product of this crisis. Each of the two capitalist coalitions which locked horns in the war calculated on defeating its adversary and gaining world supremacy. It was in this that they sought a way out of the crisis. The United States of America hoped to put its most dangerous competitors, Germany and Japan, out of action, seize foreign markets and the world's raw material resources, and establish its world supremacy.

But the war did not justify these hopes. It is true that Germany and Japan were put out of action as competitors of the three major capitalist countries: the U.S.A., Great Britain and France. But at the same time China and other, European, people's democracies broke away from the capitalist system and, together with the Soviet Union, formed a united and powerful socialist camp confronting the camp of capitalism. The economic consequence of the existence of two opposite camps was that the single all-embracing world market disintegrated, so that now we have two parallel world markets, also confronting one another.

It should be observed that the U.S.A., and Great Britain and France, themselves contributed - without themselves desiring it, of course - to the formation and consolidation of the new, parallel world market. They imposed an economic blockade on the U.S.S.R., China and the European people's democracies, which did not join the "Marshall plan" system, thinking thereby to strangle them. The effect, however, was not to strangle, but to strengthen the new world market.

But the fundamental thing, of course, is not the economic blockade, but the fact that since the war these countries have joined together economically and established economic cooperation and mutual assistance. The experience of this cooperation shows that not a single capitalist country could have rendered such effective and technically competent assistance to the people's democracies as the Soviet Union is rendering them. The point is not only that this assistance is the cheapest possible and technically superb. The chief point is that at the bottom of this cooperation lies a sincere desire to help one another and to promote the economic progress of all. The result is a fast pace of industrial development in these countries. It may be confidently said that, with this pace of industrial development, it will soon come to pass that these countries will not only be in no need of imports from capitalist countries, but will themselves feel the necessity of finding an outside market for their surplus products.

But it follows from this that the sphere of exploitation of the world's resources by the major capitalist countries (U.S.A., Britain, France) will not expand, but contract; that their opportunities for sale in the world market will deteriorate, and that their industries will be operating more and more below capacity. That, in fact, is what is meant by the deepening of the general crisis of the world capitalist system in connection with the disintegration of the world market.

This is felt by the capitalists themselves, for it would be difficult for them not to feel the loss of such markets as the U.S.S.R. and China. They are trying to offset these difficulties with the "Marshall plan," the war in Korea, frantic rearmament, and industrial militarization. But that is very much like a drowning man clutching at a straw.

This state of affairs has confronted the economists with two questions:

a) Can it be affirmed that the thesis expounded by Stalin before the Second World War regarding the relative stability of markets in the period of the general crisis of capitalism is still valid?

b) Can it be affirmed that the thesis expounded by Lenin in the spring of 1916 - namely, that, in spite of the decay of capitalism, "on the whole, capitalism is growing far more rapidly than before" - is still valid?

I think that it cannot. In view of the new conditions to which the Second World War has given rise, both these theses must be regarded as having lost their validity.

Some comrades hold that, owing to the development of new international conditions since the Second World War, wars between capitalist countries have ceased to be inevitable. They consider that the contradictions between the socialist camp and the capitalist camp are more acute than the contradictions among the capitalist countries; that the U.S.A. has brought the other capitalist countries sufficiently under its sway to be able to prevent them going to war among themselves and weakening one another; that the foremost capitalist minds have been sufficiently taught by the two world wars and the severe damage they caused to the whole capitalist world not to venture to involve the capitalist countries in war with one another again - and that, because of all this, wars between capitalist countries are no longer inevitable.

These comrades are mistaken. They see the outward phenomena that come and go on the surface, but they do not see those profound forces which, although they are so far operating imperceptibly, will nevertheless determine the course of developments.

Outwardly, everything would seem to be "going well": the U.S.A. has put Western Europe, Japan and other capitalist countries on rations; Germany (Western), Britain, France, Italy and Japan have fallen into the clutches of the U.S.A. and are meekly obeying its commands. But it would be mistaken to think that things can continue to "go well" for "all eternity," that these countries will tolerate the domination and oppression of the United States endlessly, that they will not endeavour to tear loose from American bondage and take the path of independent development.

Take, first of all, Britain and France. Undoubtedly, they are imperialist countries. Undoubtedly, cheap raw materials and secure markets are of paramount importance to them. Can it be assumed that they will endlessly tolerate the present situation, in which, under the guise of "Marshall plan aid," Americans are penetrating into the economies of Britain and France and trying to convert them into adjuncts of the United States economy, and American capital is seizing raw materials and markets in the British and French colonies and thereby plotting disaster for the high profits of the British and French capitalists? Would it not be truer to say that capitalist Britain, and, after her, capitalist France, will be compelled in the end to break from the embrace of the U.S.A. and enter into conflict with it in order to secure an independent position and, of course, high profits?

Let us pass to the major vanquished countries, Germany (Western) and Japan. These countries are now languishing in misery under the jackboot of American imperialism. Their industry and agriculture, their trade, their foreign and home policies, and their whole life are fettered by the American occupation "regime." Yet only yesterday these countries were great imperialist powers and were shaking the foundations of the domination of Britain, the U.S.A. and France in Europe and Asia. To think that these countries will not try to get on their feet again, will not try to smash the U.S. "regime," and force their way to independent development, is to believe in miracles.

It is said that the contradictions between capitalism and socialism are stronger than the contradictions among the capitalist countries. Theoretically, of course, that is true. It is not only true now, today; it was true before the Second World War. And it was more or less realized by the leaders of the capitalist countries. Yet the Second World War began not as a war with the U.S.S.R., but as a war between capitalist countries. Why? Firstly, because war with the U.S.S.R., as a socialist land, is more dangerous to capitalism than war between capitalist countries,; for whereas war between capitalist countries puts in question only the supremacy of certain capitalist countries over others, war with the U.S.S.R. must certainly put in question the existence of capitalism itself. Secondly, because the capitalists, although they clamour, for "propaganda" purposes, about the aggressiveness of the Soviet Union, do not themselves believe that it is aggressive, because they are aware of the Soviet Union's peaceful policy and know that it will not itself attack capitalist countries.

After the First World War it was similarly believed that Germany had been definitely put out of action, just as certain comrades now believe that Japan and Germany have been definitely put out of action. Then, too, it was said and clamoured in the press that the United States had put Europe on rations; that Germany would never rise to her feet again, and that there would be no more wars between capitalist countries. In spite of this, Germany rose to her feet again as a great power within the space of some fifteen or twenty years after her defeat, having broken out of bondage and taken the path of independent development. And it is significant that it was none other than Britain and the United States that helped Germany to recover economically and to enhance her economic war potential. Of course, when the United States and Britain assisted Germany's economic recovery, they did so with a view to setting a recovered Germany against the Soviet Union, to utilizing her against the land of socialism. But Germany directed her forces in the first place against the Anglo-French-American bloc. And when Hitler Germany declared war on the Soviet Union, the Anglo-French-American bloc, far from joining with Hitler Germany, was compelled to enter into a coalition with the U.S.S.R. against Hitler Germany.

Consequently, the struggle of the capitalist countries for markets and their desire to crush their competitors proved in practice to be stronger than the contradictions between the capitalist camp and the socialist camp.

What guarantee is there, then, that Germany and Japan will not rise to their feet again, will not attempt to break out of American bondage and live their own independent lives? I think there is no such guarantee.

But it follows from this that the inevitability of wars between capitalist countries remains in force.

It is said that Lenin's thesis that imperialism inevitably generates war must now be regarded as obsolete, since powerful popular forces have come forward today in defence of peace and against another world war. That is not true.

The object of the present-day peace movement is to rouse the masses of the people to fight for the preservation of peace and for the prevention of another world war. Consequently, the aim of this movement is not to overthrow capitalism and establish socialism - it confines itself to the democratic aim of preserving peace. In this respect, the present-day peace movement differs from the movement of the time of the First World War for the conversion of the imperialist war into civil war, since the latter movement went farther and pursued socialist aims. 

It is possible that in a definite conjuncture of circumstances the fight for peace will develop here or there into a fight for socialism. But then it will no longer be the present-day peace movement; it will be a movement for the overthrow of capitalism.

What is most likely is that the present-day peace movement, as a movement for the preservation of peace, will, if it succeeds, result in preventing a particular war, in its temporary postponement, in the temporary preservation of a particular peace, in the resignation of a bellicose government and its supersession by another that is prepared temporarily to keep the peace. That, of course, will be good. Even very good. But, all the same, it will not be enough to eliminate the inevitability of wars between capitalist countries generally. It will not be enough, because, for all the successes of the peace movement, imperialism will remain, continue in force - and, consequently, the inevitability of wars will also continue in force.

To eliminate the inevitability of war, it is necessary to abolish imperialism.

It is evident that, after the world market has split, and the sphere of exploitation of the world's resources by the major capitalist countries (U.S.A., Britain, France) has begun to contract; the cyclical character of the development of capitalism - expansion and contraction of production must continue to operate. However, expansion of production in these countries will proceed on a narrower basis, since the volume of production in these countries will diminish.

The seventh point.

The general crisis of the world capitalist system began in the period of the First World War, particularly due to the falling away of the Soviet Union from the capitalist system.

That was the first stage in the general crisis. A second stage in the general crisis developed in the period of the Second World War, especially after the European and Asian people's democracies fell away from the capitalist system. The first crisis, in the period of the First World War, and the second crisis, in the period of the Second World War, must not be regarded as separate, unconnected and independent crises, but as stages in the development of the general crisis of the world capitalist system.

Is the general crisis of world capitalism only a political, or only an economic crisis? Neither the one, nor the other. It is a general, i.e., all-round crisis of the world capitalist system, embracing both the economic and the political spheres. And it is clear that at the bottom of it lies the ever increasing decay of the world capitalist economic system, on the one hand, and the growing economic might of the countries which have fallen away from capitalism - the U.S.S.R.. China and the other people's democracies - on the other.
J. Stalin  April 21, 1952

The imperialist world market was nothing like a drowning man clutching at a straw.

Humane, equalled-out, Socialist Camp production and living standards COULD NOT POSSIBLY outperform the market brilliance of imperialism that would be apparent to the world (while its being built on unstable foundations of warmongering exploitation would not be immediately visible).

And it was NOT possible for the peace movement to contain the imperialist war threat ultimately, implying an ability to REFORM it out of harm's way. This was long term CATASTROPHIC nonsense (see below).

All of this totally dominant Third International perspective, fostered by Stalin, was untrue and COMPLETELY MISLEADING.

The communist international movement ended up TOTALLY MISLED.

The biggest joke about adopting Stalin for a "revolutionary hardman” image, of course, is that Revisionism's essence is a RETREAT from the dictatorship of the proletariat, not its ruthless upholding at all.

Bourgeois ideology's anti-communist hysteria paints Stalin black because of the alleged record of his arbitrary, paranoid WEAKNESSES, not his obvious, early-Leninist STRENGTH in bolstering the Soviet proletarian dictatorship when international communist defeats were causing others to think of giving up or abandoning the difficult struggle.

But Stalin abandoned promoting proletarian dictatorship as the only hope for mankind from very early on, certainly keeping the USSR developing on track, but increasingly looking to Popular Front and United Front alliances as the easiest and surest route towards completing the world socialist revolution.

It was a catastrophic Revisionist delusion.

And how do things stand now in the world?

More desperate for the restoration of Marxist-Leninist REVOLUTIONARY science of world development than ever before in history.

The most monstrous capitalist boom in historical records, artificially stimulated by Cold War fears to stretch far beyond the West's wildest dreams of success, - (finally not only outspending the USSR on arms, causing the Soviet economy to suffer, but even persuading the final generation of Revisionist bureaucracy that it must be rigid socialist planning and the absence of market forces which had prevented the Stalinist Revisionist promise of socialism winning the production war with capitalism from being fulfilled, - not the blatantly impossible nonsense of Stalin's perspective itself), - is up.

(It was precisely because he WAS such a loyal and blinkered Stalinist that Gorbachev made the final class collaborative compromise with the imperialist world and dismantled the proletarian dictatorship state to let in 'free-market" forces. The bureaucracy just could not believe that it was Stalin's "catching them up and surpassing them" theory, established in the Economic Problems gospel, which was wrong.

And if peaceful coexistence with imperialism had been so triumphant a Stalinist policy so far, then accepting the even greater cooperation being offered by Reagan and Thatcher for actual disarmament breakthrough savings, and help in "building our common European home", etc, etc, was surely only a further Stalinist step in the right direction?????)

And as that boom fades, the full Stalinist nonsense of the Soviet bureaucracy's determination to take peaceful coexistence with the imperialists all the way, will become ever more painfully clearer and clearer.

Far from being containable by peace protests, imperialist warmongering is getting away with it precisely BECAUSE the anti-war campaigning is so Stalinist dominated that it STILL doesn't see the need to organise for socialist revolution as the only SERIOUS programme to end wars; and it STILL believes, despite 58 years of postwar evidence, that the "anti-fascist” Western bourgeoisie will actually talk itself into disarmament and saying "No to war ever again."

Simultaneously, the Bush/Blair warmongering is also destroying the subsidiary Stalinist Revisionist nonsense about there being "anti-fascist" imperialist powers, the USA and Britain, as opposed to the "fascist" imperialist powers of Germany and Japan, - alone singled out by Revisionist confusion as the "militarist" danger.

As Lenin explained, the "democratic republic" cover for imperialist tyranny is the best deception possible, and Stalinism fell for it:

In a democratic republic, Engels continues, "wealth exercises its power indirectly, but all the more surely", first, by means of the "direct corruption of officials" (America); secondly, by means of an "alliance of the government and the Stock Exchange" (France and America).'

At present, imperialism and the domination of the banks have "developed" into an exceptional art both these methods of upholding and giving effect to the omnipotence of wealth in democratic republics of all descriptions.

The reason why the omnipotence of "wealth" is more certain in a democratic republic is that it does not depend on individual defects in the political machinery or on the faulty political shell of capitalism. A democratic republic is the best possible political shell for capitalism, and, therefore, once capital has gained possession of this very best shell (through the Palchinskys, Chernovs, Tseretelis and Co.), it establishes its power so securely, so firmly, that no change of persons, institutions or parties in the bourgeois democratic republic can shake it.

We must also note that Engels is most explicit in calling universal suffrage an instrument of bourgeois rule. Universal suffrage, he says, obviously taking account of the long experience of German SocialDemocracy, is "the gauge of the maturity of the working class. It cannot and never will be anything more in the present-day state"."

The petty-bourgeois democrats, such as our Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, and also   their twin brothers, all the social-chauvinists and opportunists of Western Europe, expect just this "more" from universal suffrage. They themselves share, and instil into the minds of the people, the false notion that universal suffrage "in the present-day state" is really capable of revealing the will of the majority of the working people and of securing its realisation.

We have already said above, and shall show more fully later, that the theory of Marx and Engels of the inevitability of a violent revolution refers to the bourgeois state. The latter cannot be superseded by the proletarian state (the dictatorship of the proletariat) through the process of "withering away", but, as a general rule only through a violent revolution. The panegyric Engels sang in its honour, and which fully corresponds to Marx's repeated statements (see the concluding passages of The Poverty of Philosophy and the Communist Manifesto with their proud and open proclamation of the inevitability of a violent revolution: see what Marx wrote nearly thirty years later, in criticising the Gotha Programme of 1875, when he mercilessly castigated the opportunist character of that programme) - this panegyric is by no means a mere "impulse", a mere declamation or a polemical sally. The necessity of systematically imbuing the masses with this and precisely this view of violent revolution lies at the root of the entire theory of Marx and Engels. The betrayal of their theory by the now prevailing social chauvinist and Kautskzyite trends expresses itself strikingly in both these trends ignoring such propaganda and agitation.	
THE STATE AND REVOLUTION
[continued below]

Churchill's plan to take Russia

Secret documents in the Public Record Office came to the Daily Telegraph's attention this week. They described Churchill's contingency plans for an offensive strike against Stalin only months after the German surrender. The document which outlined the plan, code-named "Operation Unthinkable", contained a strategy for the "elimination of Russia" which would have started on July 1, 1945

The operation envisaged an attack on Russia by a British and American army using up to 100,000 German troops as a back-up. Its objective:
"the overall or political object is to impose upon Russia the will of the United States and British Empire, [although this] may be defined as no more than a square deal for Poland, that does not necessarily limit the military commitment...This is a very long-term project and would involve: a) the deployment in Europe of a large proportion of the vast resources of the US; b) the re-equipment and reorganisation of German manpower and of all the Western European Allies." 

An appendix to the document considered the possibility of having 100,000 former enemies fighting alongside the Allies: "War-weariness will he the predominant feature of the German civil population. However, ingrained fear of the Bolshevik menace and of reprisals by the Russians should make the German civil population prefer Anglo American to Russian occupation and therefore incline it to side with the Western Allies. [German PoW's would provide]  a very grave source of potential disorder [with] the inevitable anomaly of, changing sides...the known hardships of fighting on the Eastern front...war weariness... Russian propaganda and a certain satisfaction in seeing the Allies embroiled with the Russians:" 
From the Daily Telegraph, October 1

There is an "anti-fascist" bourgeoisie calling the tune only for as long as it suits any imperialist establishment to continue bamboozling its proletariat via the "parliamentary democracy" racket rather than openly embracing intolerant, warmongering chauvinism as the dominant state philosophy of the moment.

The nearly 400 acts of reactionary subversion, military coups, and warmongering interventions by the USA since 1945 put all other fascist imperialist records in the shade.

And in America's Iraq current imitation of German imperialist blitzkrieg-warmongering (in a comparable attempt to get the monopoly-capitalist world out of economic crisis) how does the mass bombing-destruction earlier, and the collective punishment shootings now, differ from anything Germany, or any colonising belligerent, ever did before??

The seriousness of what is now happening in the world is still largely misunderstood by fake-'left' feebleness because such developments effectively were rendered "impossible" by finding no place in the Stalin perspective for the future world's transformation.

A towering, inter-imperialist, economic CRISIS between the hugest conglomerations of monopoly capitalist productive wealth and firepower the world has ever seen, - all desperate for top-dog survival and driving all before them in their mad thrashing-around, - is what is now taking the planet by storm, - and it is a world totally beyond the comprehension of the Stalinist, complacent, Revisionist blinkers of the 1952 road map, - but NOT remotely alien to the continuation of Marxist-Leninist science, once freed from the treacherous and disastrous Stalinist Revisionist nonsense.

Oil and neo-colonialism come into it, but in 2003 and in the midst of the most spectacular economic crisis in history, it is last century's inter-imperialist pattern of WORLD WAR which is the really relevant guide to what is happening, - a possibility which Revisionism CRIMINALLY closed the world's minds to.

And in Marxist-Leninist science, World War III was ALWAYS going to be INEVITABLE, something else which got revised into oblivion by Stalinism.

US imperialism's worldwide blitzkrieging threats are like the Balkan Wars preliminaries to World War I where the Big Powers were throwing their weight around on proxy battlefields to test out each others' strengths and determination.

Or it can be seen as an extension to the Cold War, now brought at last to boiling point by the no-longer-containable GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS which will now impose itself ON ALL WORLD AFFAIRS, DOMINATING EVERYTHING, - once again in the only real world, (with which Stalin's 1952 perspective, which totally suffocated the international communist movement to death, had not the slightest connection, - a smug, complacent, let's-not-do-anything-and-that-way-we-won't-make-any-mistakes, bureaucratic CATASTROPHE in the making, - and the USSR is no longer there, proving it).

Under Stalin's long, decisive influence and massive prestige, a phony, calm perspective was invented which would give the Third International's inadequate leadership-record the fewest problems and the fewest new embarrassments.

It was the spontaneously, forever-re-erupting, petty-bourgeois, ideological resurgence, that Lenin endlessly warned the Soviet workers state about, which had triumphed again temporarily, reflecting the influence of the imperialist world economy's phenomenal powers of recovery after 1945, - a reformist ideological comeback which the Stalinist world perspective set the communist movement up for, - (succumbing to it) - almost with perfection by the daydreaming nonsense of his 1952 treatise.

Trotsky's occasional world-analytical brilliance, allied to his permanent individualist billiousness, bequeathed generations of workers EFFECTIVELY predisposed to hostility towards near-ANYTHING needing to be done by workers states in defence of the dictatorship of the proletariat, - a permanent poison-pit of vicious anti-communism, posing as fake-'lefts'.

Stalin's ludicrous delusion of "peace protesting" the world's path to final anti-imperialist containment, and then anti-imperialist triumph via socialism's productive superiority (an insane notion while imperialist cut-throat exploitation markets last - see countless past EPSRs) drugged to stupor the rest of the international working class. Build Leninism. EPSR. 

(Debate with Stalinists, Conway Hall, 2pm. Sun. July 27).

World Socialist Review
(edited extracts from a variety of anti-imperialist struggles)

Brutal Zionist colonisation of Palestine now cementing its theft behind an Apartheid wall.

Israel continues to construct new colonies/settlements and outposts, bypass roads, military checkpoints, and closed military zones. The over 2,000,000 Palestinian in the West Bank are at the mercy of 400,000 illegal settlers (200,000 of which are in East Jerusalem), and one of the most powerful militaries in the world. WHILE all media attention is focused on the latest news of the problems facing the 'road map' to peace in the Middle East, as the body count resulting from the Israeli occupation of Palestine continues to rise, most of the media bas been paying scant attention to a new obstacle to progress.

The Wall (also referred to as the "fence" or "security fence"), which Israel is currently building in the northeast of the West Bank under the pretext of keeping suicide bombers out, has become the latest unilateral offensive in Israel's annexation of lands, destruction of agriculture and property and violation of human rights. When it is completed, some 10% of the West Bank land will have been confiscated.

The location of the Wall is designed to incorporate all Israeli colonies that have been built on Palestinian territories to the eastern side of the Green Line into Israel. The Green Line itself measures at least 350 km in length. Through constructing the Wall, Israel is annexing, confiscating, and bulldozing Palestinian land, uprooting thousands of fruit trees, cutting off Palestinian towns and villages from their surrounding countryside, and fragmenting Palestinian built-up areas in segregated pockets on both sides of the Wall. The Wall is the result of a long-term policy of unilateral segregation.

The Wall represents "de facto annexation" and is illegal under international law, according to United Nations human-rights expert, South African lawyer John Dugard.

Support within Israel for the Apartheid Wall is almost unanimous, including the opposition Israeli Labour Party. Haim Ramon and Binyamin Ben Eliezer, both of Labour, are some of the most outspoken proponents of the Apartheid Wall, calling it not only a security measure but a tactical one that will be part of a "peace plan" that they, given power, would put into effect.

The Wall is a tragic "advancement" of Israel's closure and siege policy and will leave thousands of families landless, jobless, hungry, and hopeless. The image of cities and villages encircled by checkpoints, by-pass roads, and settlements is now being accompanied by an eight-metre concrete wall with trenches, electric fences, sensors, cameras, and armed watchtowers. The prospect of a completed wall is horrific.

Contrary to worldwide news reports, the Wall will not mark the 1967 border between Palestine and Israel, also known as the Green Line, as it is being built up to six miles into Palestinian territory in some areas.

Where the first phase of the wall is to be approximately 115km long, fifteen villages will be trapped between the Wall and the Green Line, while the built-up (residential) areas of at least 15 villages will be east of the Apartheid Wall, with a significant portion of their lands on the other side. The Wall furthers the division of the West Bank into hundreds of small, dependent entities that cannot sustain themselves and that are more akin to disconnected open-air prisons surrounded by Israeli military checkpoints and settlements. If completed as planned, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians will be isolated from the future Palestinian state in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The finished wall is expected to be at least 360 kms long, and a total of 700kms - at least three times as long and twice as high as the Berlin Wall - if Israel decides to completely surround the West Bank. The city of Qalqiliya, which is the urban centre for the entire area, will be completely encircled by the Apartheid Wall, except for an Israeli-controlled gate.

In addition, the Wall separates water sources and networks from agricultural lands. Approximately 30 groundwater wells will be out of bounds, having been separated by the Wall from the villages dependant on them, meaning even further Israeli control over Palestinian water resources. Falamiya village, for example, is to lose its main source of water.

Just laying the groundwork for the Wall, Israeli bulldozers have destroyed some 35,000 meters of water pipes used for both agricultural and domestic use.

This is a barrier that is being erected not just to separate Palestinians and Israelis, but also to strangle the already crisis-ridden Palestinian economy, while making sure that there will be only two options for Palestinians become cheap labour for Israeli factories or leave.

Some 35,000 people live in the areas around the Wall in the northern West Bank. Fourteen thousand of these, from 17 communities, will be trapped between the Wall and the Green Line. Another 3,175 families will be located east of the Wall but with their agricultural lands to the West, losing their livelihoods, sustenance, and heritage. The land confiscation, destruction, and severe restriction of movement will translate into the loss of 6,500 jobs.

The olive oil production of the villages west of the wall, approximately 2,200 tons of olive oil per season, will be destroyed, as will be the production of fruits and vegetables. Some 10,000 animals will not have access to grazing lands. To date, several stores and homes have also been demolished.