International communists on the attack against anti-Stalin lies

The following resolution was passed by a gathering of communist and workers’ parties in Minsk, Belarus on 15 December 2019.

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Decisive resistance to anti-Stalinism is an ideological condition for the victory of a modern socialist revolution

We, representatives of the communist and workers’ parties, gathered in the hero city of Minsk for an international conference dedicated to the 140th anniversary of the birth of comrade JV Stalin, entitled ‘Resolute resistance to anti-Stalinism is an ideological condition for victory in the modern socialist revolution’, state the following:

I

Josef Stalin, becoming the head of the party, of the CPSU(b) and the proletarian state after the death of VI Lenin as his faithful disciple, for 29 years led the first country of socialism – the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics – in accordance with Lenin’s scientific principles.

He was the recognised leader of the Soviet people. Under his leadership in the USSR for the first time in human history real socialism was built as the first stage of communism; Stalin’s constitution was adopted – the constitution of the victorious, in its main, socialism; the Soviet people won a heroic battle over Hitler’s Germany which was supported by the labour of the enslaved countries of Europe, and also over imperialist Japan; in the postwar period the national economy was restored at an unprecedentedly rapid pace and the USSR began the transition to the construction of communism.

Under the leadership of Stalin the main obstacles to successful socialist development were eliminated: the activities of harmful and hostile elements who had embarked on the path of subversion and sabotage against the actions of the Soviet government were exposed and suppressed, as well as of the Trotskyites and right deviators, who were threatening the very existence of the Soviet country; a determined struggle against nationalism was waged; and powerful support for internationalist communist, workers’ and national-liberation movements abroad were carried out, in the struggle against imperialism, for peace and socialism.

As a result of Stalin’s activities, the conditions were created for the formation of the world system of socialism, which called into question the further existence of capitalism on our planet.

Having held fast to these obligations, in opposition to the conditions existing in all previous exploitative societies, JV Stalin led the creation of a socialist society, able to manage its own activities on a scientific basis, and developed Marxist-Leninist science in accordance with the requirements of his time, theoretically outlining to Soviet society the path to the realisation of the transition period to communism, and, above all:

– formulated the basic economic law of socialism and outlined the way to create the material and technical base of communism on the basis of scientific planning and the principles of the ‘Stalinist economy’, including its social orientation – a constant increase in wages as social productivity increases and a lowering of prices as the cost of production decreases;

– showed how society can gradually effect the liquidation of separate classes in the transition to communism, as well as of commodity production and of the market on the basis of rise of collective farms and the gradual replacement of cooperative property by state property (for this purpose at first restoration of machine tractor stations and other state bodies is required);

– determined the way of transition to communist public self-government by developing the dictatorship of the working class as the highest democracy under the leadership of the Communist party, which ensures the suppression of the possibility of the counter-revolutionary degeneration of Soviet society.

JV Stalin opened for mankind the only true way of getting rid of wars, especially important today, when the imperialists’ mastery of weapons of mass destruction makes them capable of sending mankind into oblivion. He wrote: “To eliminate the inevitability of war, it is necessary to abolish imperialism.”

Thus, there is every reason to characterise the theory and practice of Stalin as a Stalinist development of Marxism Leninism. This period of development of Marxism Leninism was aimed at the revolutionary victory of the world proletariat, ridding it forever of capitalist exploitation and wars.

II

This explains why imperialism’s struggle against Marxism Leninism took the line of discrediting Stalin’s personality, and of denigrating the practice of building socialism during the period of Stalin’s leadership.

This policy was criminally aided by Nikita Khrushchev, when in 1956 he imposed on the CPSU’s twentieth congress the so-called issue of the “cult of the personality”. Since then, the anti-Stalinists have been fighting the Stalinist theoretical legacy of Marxism Leninism and the Stalinist style of leadership in the construction of socialism in the USSR.

The future of mankind depends on the outcome of this struggle: either men will get rid of the shackles of imperialism by crushing it through the socialist revolution, or they will perish in a nuclear cataclysm, to which the general crisis of the entire imperialist system is inevitably leading.

The decisive factor in the victory over world imperialism, the continuation of the first victorious proletarian revolution – the Great October Revolution – should be the world proletarian organisation of the new Comintern, which would be the heir to the political line of the Leninist-Stalinist Third, Communist, International (1919-43).

Now it is necessary to actively carry out preparatory work in this direction. Such an organisation is designed to combine the national efforts of the communists in the struggle against their own national bourgeoisies with their joint efforts in the struggle against the world financial oligarchy.

III

In the struggle against JV Stalin, the reactionaries slanderously attributed to him immodesty and the creation of a cult of his personality, while keeping silent about the fact that Stalin enjoyed the highest and most deserved respect and authority among the working people. The people remember that the epoch-making successes of the Soviet workers and the world workers’ and national-liberation movement were achieved thanks to the activities and leadership of Stalin.

The theme of so-called ‘mass political repressions’ that were attributed to Stalin was used as a lever to denigrate all his activities. But it would be surprising if the dictatorship of the proletariat, which overthrew the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and landlords, refused to fight against the enemies of Soviet power: against anti-Soviet Trotskyists and Bukharinites, against the traitors to the Soviet Motherland such as Vlasov, Bandera, etc, such as the Basmachis in central Asia and the so-called ‘forest brothers’ (bourgeois nationalists) in the Baltic states, against malicious saboteurs of the political and economic line of development pursued by the Soviet government, etc.

Any state has the right to defend itself, and the Soviet state especially had many enemies. It was a just purification of the Soviet organisations from harmful and hostile elements, without which there would be neither creative nor military victories.

But there were also unjust repressions, which were deliberately cultivated by Trotskyists entrenched in the state machinery, including in law enforcement agencies, and by hidden anti-Soviet careerists for the sake of discrediting the Soviet power and bringing about its fall. Injustice was also allowed to occur by politically illiterate persons and by careerist elements who found themselves in those bodies.

Such actions during the time of Stalin were exposed and suppressed by the state itself, including the rehabilitation of the repressed. The attempt to shift the responsibility for the bloody acts of sabotage to the winner over Trotskyism, JV Stalin, is an insidious tactic of the ideologists of the world financial oligarchy.

The internal and external enemies of the USSR have maliciously distorted the picture of repressions as a whole. It was an remains purposely hidden from the public that JV Stalin supported fair punishment of the enemies of the working people and resolutely suppressed all unfair repressions.

It is also hidden that Stalin played a decisive role in the defeat of Trotskyism, and that this greatly contributed to the suppression of unjust political repression. Hidden also is the fact that on the initiative of Stalin the death penalty was abolished as a form of punishment in the USSR.

His enemies have blamed Stalin for the alleged ‘unpreparedness’ of the USSR to repel Hitler’s aggression, even though the victory of the Soviet people over the Nazi beast clearly highlights the unprecedentedly powerful preparations that were made for repulsing the enemy.

These took the form of the rapid industrialisation of the Soviet state, the collectivisation of agriculture, a cultural revolution, the all-round and comprehensive strengthening of the army, the actual defeat of the ‘fifth column’ – the whole building of a socialist society with its collectivist class homogeneity, moral and political unity, friendship of peoples, labour enthusiasm and social activity of citizens, with the fortress of unity of the vanguard of the working class and its labour allies.

Such concrete measures as the policy of re-equipping the Red Army with modern weapons and the advance deployment of the defence industry in the eastern regions of the country had a positive impact.

The conclusion of the non-aggression treaty with Germany gave the necessary respite for better preparation of the country for defence, allowed the splitting of the Munich front of imperialists directed against the USSR fronted by Germany and Italy, but with England, France and the USA standing behind them.

The reunification of western Belarus with the Belarussian SSR and of western Ukraine with the Ukrainian SSR at the same time allowed the moving of the state borders to the west. The reunification with the USSR of Bessarabia, previously illegally occupied by Romania, and the establishment of new borders with Finland also contributed to the strengthening of the security of the Soviet state.

Stalin’s skillful use of interimperialist contradictions, and his continuation of Lenin’s tactics of compromise must be especially emphasised. As a result of these the ‘democratic’ imperialist states became part of the anti-Hitler coalition and fought in alliance with the USSR against the Hitlerite bloc of states.

The myth of the alleged lack of preparedness of the country under the leadership of JV Stalin for war is cultivated in spite of objective facts, such as the fact that the concentrated power of all of pro-fascist Europe was brought down on the USSR.

Stalin is accused of establishing a system of totalitarianism in the USSR. However, the critics of Stalin frankly ignore the fact that he sought to prevent the bureaucratisation of Soviet society and the associated possibility of its bourgeois rebirth. He sought to intensify the efforts of the workers in the comprehensive communist construction through the development of socialist democracy, criticism and self-criticism

The elimination of antagonistic classes in the USSR made it possible to adopt the socialist constitution of 1936. Stalin laid out in this unprecedented social and political guarantees to workers. The Soviet constitution ensured equal participation in the elections of all citizens of the USSR, gave the right to nominate candidates for deputies from party, trade unions, Komsomol organisations and cooperatives (collective farms, etc).

These measures under the leadership of the Communist party ensured the dictatorship of the working class and guaranteed the protection of Soviet power from internal degeneration and external threats.

IV

After Stalin’s death, it was his opponents who revised the scientific path of the movement towards communism, transforming it into its opposite and sending it into oblivion in all its parts.

This opportunism opened the way for the deformation of socialism, the restoration of bourgeois relations and the revival of nationalism, followed by the explosion of the socialist superstructure and the destruction of the USSR.

The theoretical and practical legacy of Stalin is Marxism Leninism of the epoch of the transition from capitalism to socialism on a world scale.

Thus the purification of the mass consciousness of workers against the slanders of Stalin is the most important task during the ideological offensive of imperialism; an ideological condition for effective resistance of the counter-revolution in the USSR and in the countries of eastern Europe, and for the victory of the socialist revolution in individual countries and around the world.

Today the name of Stalin rightly stands alongside the classics of Marxism Leninism, the luminaries of thought and practice of the world proletariat: Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and VI Lenin.

Glory and eternal gratitude to Comrade Stalin – the great leader of the Soviet people and the entire world proletariat!

Let us repulse the attacks on Stalin and continue the struggle for the cause of Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin!

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The conference also agreed on the following:

– On the proposal of the delegate from Moldova, it instructed the organising committee to draw up and publish a document against the demolition of Soviet-era monuments in a number of states and the prohibition of communist symbols.

– At the suggestion of the delegate from Bulgaria, it supported the creation of an international front against imperialism and fascism and called for the active holding of events dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the victory over European fascism led by Hitler’s Germany.

– At the suggestion of the delegates from Belarus, it supported the international people’s movement ‘Immortal Regiment’ and the widespread annual commemoration of 22 June – the day of the attack in 1941 by Nazi Germany and its satellites on the USSR – as the day of the struggle against imperialism, war and fascism.

– At the suggestion of the delegate from Turkey, it decided to continue the development of the theme of combating anti-Stalinism, including the synthesis of experience in the application of its specific methods.

– On the proposal of the delegate from Ukraine, it agreed to continue the development of Stalin’s plan for the construction of communism and, above all, in its fundamental part – the economic.

– It has discussed the ways to mark the 150th anniversary of the birth of Lenin, whose faithful successor was Stalin.

Conference Organising Committee
In the hero-city of Minsk, 15 December 2019