THE NEW STALINISM
Leichter, Orro
The New Stalinism By Otto Leiehter THE HISTORIC new theories proclaimed recently by Stalin emphasize the divorce of Soviet philosophy from even the distorted Marxism hitherto advocated by the...
...During this period Stalin developed the theme of "peaceful co-existence" and upheld it even after the beginning of the Cold War...
...IV There is only one dynamism in Stalin's static world of two great world powers...
...The new theories should help them appreciate that the long-run menace of the Kremlin does not lie in the field of direct military aggression, but far more in its capacity for mischief in exploiting social and economic weaknesses around the world...
...What are the practical reasons for this new Stalin theory...
...With this seeming abdication of revolutionary aims and means, which he emphasizes as a special point of differentiating between former and present-day communism, Stalin wants his followers to know that "Socialism" need not destroy "Capitalism" because the latter is killing itself fast enough...
...Now that the postwar depression has not materialized, Stalin has invented his "universal crisis...
...This moving force is the unlimited competition between capitalist countries...
...The more reactionary America can be made to seem, the more effective will the new Stalinism function for the Soviet Union...
...Among his books are "America in World Politics," published in Vienna in 1948( and "Austria," a history of the Austrian republic and Austrian labor, published under the pseudonym Pertinax...
...It is, therefore, doomed without any outside interference...
...This approach abandons the basic Marxian concept that economic and social structures are decisive...
...This is the only dynamism contemplated by Stalin in an otherwise static world with two tightly compartmentalized areas...
...It is a shrewd combination that Russian diplomacy has handled with extreme skill...
...His theories do not include the necessity of war or violent revolutions...
...In other words, Stalin wants to tell the West that it is hurting only itself by its economic blockade...
...Ill Stalin goes even further in sacrificing Marxian economic theories...
...Here again, down-to-earth diplomacy is at the basis of Stalin's theory...
...It is not merely political, but economic...
...At the same time, he is saying to his Communist followers inside and outside Russia that "your cause is bound to win...
...As far as the communist world is concerned, peaceful co-existence is possible, Stalin wants it understood...
...He goes to great lengths to explain the possibilities of conflicts between the United States, Great Britain, and France...
...II The theory of the class struggle had been applied by Lenin to international relations...
...This is new, indeed...
...A final clash between capitalist and communist countries and an ensuing world revolution was Lenin's concept...
...Stalin's new teachings mark the end of an era...
...Finally by means of war and militarization of economy, used by them to secure highest profits...
...He implies that business cycles, and depressions caused by them, are not any more the most crucial characteristics of the capitalist world...
...But all these assertions were refuted in the eyes of the suspicious West by former statements on the inevitability of a violent clash between capitalism and communism...
...the matter is soon going to arrive at a situation in which these countries [the 'socialist' countries] not only will not need to import merchandise from the capitalist countries, but themselves will feel the necessity of disposing of surplus merchandise of their own production...
...It is bound to bring about further shrinking of the capitalist sphere...
...Stalin wanted to stamp out old revo-tionary ideologies and establish the theory of world conquest by bureaucratic means...
...Turning the tables on the Western countries, Stalin says with a clear reference to the economic blockade...
...Trotsky expanded this theory...
...Now, new theories have been put into the service of these practical efforts...
...In this respect the contemporary movement for peace is distinguished from the movement in the period of the First World War for the transformation of an imperialist war into a civil war, since this later movement went further and pursued socialist purposes...
...The result of the disintegration is a "universal crisis...
...This must be our counter-action to insure not only an avoidance of war, but the establishment of a better world...
...His mission was two-fold: 1) to calm Western fears of an unavoidable final clash with Soviet Russia, and 2) at the same time bolster Communist confidence in the invincibility of the clause and satisfy his adherents that they can survive and expand without risking war and revolution...
...We have been fighting present-day communism by doing exactly what they wanted us to do...
...The New Stalinism By Otto Leiehter THE HISTORIC new theories proclaimed recently by Stalin emphasize the divorce of Soviet philosophy from even the distorted Marxism hitherto advocated by the Communists...
...Stalin hopes to stop social progress in the democracies by requiring greater expenditures for guns than for butter...
...attempts to appear as a peace-loving power...
...A tougher attitude by the West toward colonies and underdeveloped nations, caused by economic difficulties at home, is exactly in line with the Soviet book...
...Stalin accepted it at times and fought it at others...
...Stalin's principal aim in issuing the new doctrines seems to have been the elimination of certain concepts of Marxian thought which could be used to weaken Soviet claims before the world...
...That is basic in Stalin's new theory...
...The old Marxian concept of dynamic popular and class movements has been replaced by the bureaucratic approach...
...It is the cynical outlook of a successful dictator and a masterly bureaucrat...
...The interruption of economic intercourse between the two parts of the world hits "Capitalism" severely, Stalin implies...
...The jockeying for power by the two blocs is, in reality, Stalin's road to "Socialism...
...Clearly, our driving need is to promote the social defenses of democracy and widen our democratic horizons by extending these improvements to the people of the less developed areas...
...Significantly Stalin has now tried to resolve this question by issuing theories with papal finality: "They [the followers of the old-fashioned concept of class warfare] consider that the contradictions between the camp of socialism and the camp of capitalism are stronger than the contradictions between capitalist countries . . .These comrades are mistaken...
...In this respect the new theories reflect the practice displayed by Stalin from Poland to Czechoslovakia and from Rumania to Eastern Germany...
...The pursuit of opportunism has now led a movement that started as the outgrowth of extreme internationalism to the status of anti-cosmopolitan, anti-Semitic nationalism...
...Its basis is the ever intensifying disintegration of the world economic system of capitalism on one hand and the growth of the economic might of countries which have fallen away from capitalism...
...An analysis of Stalin's new theories exposes the traps his policies have set—traps we have not succeeded in avoiding...
...Capitalism can never recover from the consequences of the disintegration of the world market...
...It is a two-faced theory...
...By straining the economic resources of such countries as England and France to the utmost, Russian policy attempts to make them more vulnerable to revolutionary developments in Iran, Egypt, Tunis, and Morocco...
...He upholds the Marxian doctrine of the inevitability of war just for the capitalist countries and the Western world...
...The change was not formulated for theory's sake or to provide harmless recreation for an aging leader...
...Monopoly capitalism is the latest, and obviously, the last stage of capitalism...
...Stalin, thus, wants a clear line to be drawn between yesterday's Bolshevism and today's Communism...
...Russia is constantly playing on French fears of German rearmament and on British apprehensions about Japan's resurgence in Asia and in world markets...
...But this is, so to speak, an intramural affair in the capitalist world...
...The division of the world into two power blocs is the central theme...
...Changes in the structure of the world are to be achieved not by genuine popular movements, but by political puppets propelled into power by Soviet leaders in the face of declining American influence...
...As long as there is imperialism—and all capitalist countries, and only they, are imperialist to Stalin—there will be wars: "In order to destroy the inevitability of wars, it is necessary to destroy imperialism," Stalin argues...
...This, in a nutshell, is Stalin's view of the present world: a shrinking capitalism on one side and expanding communism on the other, with the universal crisis in the capitalist orbit sharpening as OTTO LEICHTER, American correspondent for a number of Swiss dailies and Swiss and Austrian magazines, is the author of several books and many articles on political and economic affairs, many of which explore the theory and practice of Marxist movements...
...Neither economic friction nor any other conflict between them is necessary...
...Stalin's new theories, explained in a rambling and often incoherent paper, can be boiled down to: Capitalism and Communism need not clash violently, for present-day Communism "does not pursue the purpose of overthrowing capitalism and the establishment of socialism...
...Stalin's basic concept is a world divided into two tightly closed compartments called Capitalism and Socialism...
...To strengthen this line of reasoning and to develop slogans which could be used in anti-American propaganda in Asia and Africa, Stalin stresses the exploitation of the underdeveloped countries...
...In so doing he confounds the economic basis of 19th Century Britain with the completely different aspect of American capitalism at its present stage...
...But social developments may foil his design...
...The abandonment of revolutionary tactics is not new in Stalin's policies...
...we need not risk anything...
...After the end of World War II Soviet economists expected a great U. S. depression to become the most decisive factor in world affairs...
...It is well known that strong Soviet efforts were recently made to influence the West to do business with the Soviet orbit...
...Many Americans, particularly those who are exploiting the country's natural anti-Communism, have failed to understand this over-all Stalin strategy...
...A review of his attitudes in the past fifteen years shows that Stalrn often rejected old Marxian thoughts of popular revolutions or a repetition of the Bolshevist Revolution...
...To sustain these foundations of the new Soviet philosophy Stalin was forced to omit several of the more important teachings of the Marxian school in its Bolshevist version...
...Ever since the Nazis attacked Russia in 1941, the Soviet theorists have struggled with the doctrine of international class warfare...
...We have geared most of our effort to counter Soviet military aggression...
...Why is peaceful co-existence possible...
...a result of the "falling away" from capitalism of more countries...
...He aimed his foreign policy at cooperation with capitalist countries when, for instance, Russia entered the League of Nations in 1936 and Litvinov coined phrases like "collective security" and the "indivisibility of peace...
...The crisis is no longer the result of business cycles alone...
...Stalin undertook the work solely to promote the speedy increase of Soviet power and influence throughout the world...
...Behind the new theories is the goal of forcing the West to exhaust its economic reserves in an armament race while the U.S.S.R...
...The last ties which connected Russia with the original philosophy of the Russian Revolution are being severed as Stalin moves to adjust Soviet philosophy to present day needs and free his successors from the last vestiges of such ideologies so they may pursue a completely opportunistic policy...
...When Stalin speaks of the two systems, his line dividing the world is determined by one criterion only: foreign policy concepts which put a country into the camp of either the United States or the Soviet Union...
...Stalin formulates its laws "approximately," as he says, in this way: "Assurance of maximum capitalist profits by means of exploitation, and impoverishment of a majority of the population of a given country by means of enslavement and systematic plundering of the peoples of other countries, especially backward countries...
...Revolutionary movements at present may be a bad example for the Russians and, particularly, for the peoples in the satellite countries...
...Stalin abandoned this line for an all-out anti-Western foreign policy during the Hitler-Stalin pact in 193941...
...The turmoil within the capitalist world has grown worse...
...The so-called universal crisis is basically a theory of capitalist self-destruction...
...Now Stalin uses his new theories to support this diplomatic play...
...Both are governed by different economic principles...
...As Stalin puts it, "The most important result of the Second World War in its economic consequences must be considered the disintegration of a united, all embracing world market...
...Conflicts caused by unlimited competition among capitalist countries—by the struggle for markets and the demands of imperialism and colonialism—remain inescapable, but only within the sphere of capitalism, according to Stalin...
...Allegiance to the dependence on America or Russia is now the great world divide...
...Beyond these short-term considerations there are long-run designs in Stalin's theory...
...Stalin wants to calm the West...
Vol. 17 • March 1953 • No. 3
