This reply to a declaration by Britain’s postwar Labour foreign minister Herbert Morrison was first published in the Soviet newspaper Pravda on 1 August 1951. According to files released from the former CPSU archives, it was slated for publication in a forthcoming volume of the works of Josef Stalin.
In the end, only 13 volumes of Comrade Stalin’s works were actually produced, covering the period from 1901 to 1934 (ie, missing a great deal of the period of socialist construction, all of the second world war and all of the postwar reconstruction period from 1945 until Stalin’s death in 1953). While the plan to publish volume 14 was announced just before the 20th congress of the CPSU (held in 1956), the anticommunist turn at that congress effectively terminated the completion of this project.
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Mr Morrison has put forward two sets of questions: questions concerning internal politics and those dealing with external politics.
Internal politics
Mr Morrison affirms that in the Soviet Union there is no freedom of speech, press or personal freedom.
Mr Morrison is grievously mistaken. In no other country exists such kind of freedom of speech, press or personal freedom, organisations for workers, peasants and the intelligentsia as in the Soviet Union. Nowhere are there as many clubs for workers and peasants, as many newspapers specifically for them as in the Soviet Union. Nowhere has the working class been organised in such a systematic manner as in the Soviet Union.
It is not a secret for anyone that the entire working class, literally all the workers of the USSR, have been organised into unions, just as all the peasants have been organised into cooperatives.
Does Mr Morrison know this? Obviously, he does not. Apparently he does not even have the desire to know. He prefers to derive his knowledge from the complaints put forward by the representatives of the Russian capitalists, expelled from the country by the will of the Soviet people.
In the USSR there is no freedom of speech, the press or organisations for the enemies of the people, for the landowners and the capitalists who have been overthrown by the revolution. Similarly, there is no freedom for the incorrigible thieves, for the saboteurs sent abroad on intelligence assignments, for terrorists, killers and for those criminals who shot at Lenin, killed Volodarski, Uritski, Kirov, poisoned Maxim Gorky, Kuibishev.
All these criminals, starting from the landlords and capitalists to the terrorists, thieves, killers and those involved in subversive activities, are out to achieve only one thing – to restore capitalism in the USSR, restore the exploitation of man by man and flood the country with the blood of workers and peasants.
The prisons and labour camps exist only for these gentlemen and only for them.
Is it for these people that Mr Morrison is trying to achieve the freedom of speech, press and personal freedom? Does Mr Morrison really think that the people of the USSR would agree to give these people the freedom of speech, press and personal freedom: that is, the freedom to exploit the workers?
Mr Morrison remains silent about the other freedom, which has a deeper meaning than the freedom of speech, press etc. He does not say anything about the freedom of the people from exploitation, about the freedom from economic crisis, from unemployment, from poverty. Perhaps Mr Morrison is not aware that all these freedoms have existed in the USSR for a long time.
And it is precisely these freedoms that are the basis of all other freedoms. Is it because of this that Mr Morrison ashamedly keeps quiet about these basic freedoms, because these, unfortunately, do not exist in Britain and the British workers still continue to live under the yoke of the exploiting capitalists, irrespective of the fact that in Britain the Labour party has been in power for the last six years.
Mr Morrison insists that the Labour government is a socialist one, that the radio programmes organised under the control of such a government should not meet with any hindrance from the side of the Soviets.
Unfortunately we cannot agree with Mr Morrison. At first when the Labour party came into power one could presume that it would follow the path of socialism. However, later it turned out that the Labour government differs little from any other bourgeois government, aiming at maintaining the capitalist structure and providing the capitalists with considerable profits.
In reality, the profits of the capitalists in Britain are growing from year to year but the wages for workers remain frozen. More so, the Labour government is defending this anti-worker, exploitative regime by all kinds of measures, persecuting and even arresting the workers. Can such a government be called socialist?
One would have thought that with the Labour government in power, capitalist exploitation would be eliminated, measures taken for the systematic lowering of the prices of the goods for mass consumption, and the material conditions of workers be improved in a substantial way. Instead we see in Britain the capitalists’ profits rising, the wages of the workers being frozen and an increase in the costs of basic commodities. No, we cannot call such politics socialist.
As far as the radio broadcasts to the Soviet Union from Britain are concerned (the BBC), they, as is well known, are mostly targeted at encouraging the enemies of the Soviet people in their striving to restore capitalist exploitation. It is understandable that the Soviets cannot support such anti-people propaganda, which in fact amounts to interference in the internal matters of the USSR.
Mr Morrison states that the Soviet power in the USSR is a monolithic power because it represents the power of only one party, the party of the communists. With this reasoning we can say that the Labour government is also a monolithic government since it represents the power of one party, the Labour party.
The point, however, is not this. The point is that the communists in USSR, firstly, operate not in isolation, but in a bloc with the non-party people. Secondly, in the historical development of the USSR, the party of the communists proved itself as the single anti-capitalist, people’s party.
In the course of the last 50 years, the people of the Soviet Union have been witness to all the main parties that existed in Russia: the landowners’ party (the Black Hundreds), the party of the capitalists (the Kadets), the Menshevik party (the right ‘socialists’), the party of the Social Revolutionaries (the defenders of the kulaks) and the party of the communists. In the course of the unfolding revolutionary developments, our people rejected all the bourgeois parties and made the choice in favour of the communists, taking into account that this party is the only anti-landowner and anti-capitalist party.
This is a historical fact and it is understandable that the peoples of the USSR entirely supported the Communist party in its struggles.
How can Mr Morrison counter this historical fact? Does Mr Morrison think that just for the sake of a doubtful game of opposition one may turn around the wheel of history and resurrect these parties that had died long ago?
External politics
Mr Morrison claims that the Labour government stands for maintaining peace, that it is of no threat to the Soviet Union, that the North-Atlantic treaty (Nato) is a non-aggressive pact for armaments, that Britain is forced to go on the path of arms race because after the second world war the Soviet Union has not demobilised its army sufficiently.
In all these claims of Mr Morrison, unfortunately, there is not a drop of truth.
If the Labour government really stands for peace then why is it shying away from a peace pact of the five powers? Why does it voice its opinion against the reduction of arms by all the big powers? Why does it speak against a ban on nuclear weapons? Why does it persecute people standing on the path of peace? Why does it not ban the war propaganda in Britain?
Mr Morrison wants that we should believe him in words. But the Soviet people cannot believe anyone in words, whosoever it may be. They demand action and not declarations.
In the same way, Mr Morrison’s statement that the USSR has not demobilised its army sufficiently after the second world war is rather lame. The Soviet government has already declared that it has demobilised, that its army presently is almost of the size that it was in the peacetime before the second world war. The British army, on the other hand, is twice as large as it was before the war. However, these irrefutable facts continue to be opposed by loud unsubstantiated declarations.
Maybe Mr Morrison would like that the USSR should have an army not needing weapons. An army actually takes up too much from the government budget and the Soviet people would willingly go in for the dismantling of its regular army, if there was no threat of war from outside. But the experience of 1918-20 has taught us otherwise. Then the British, Americans, French (together with the Japanese) attacked the Soviet Union and tried to take away Ukraine, the Caucasus, central Asia, the far east and the Arkhangelski region and tormented it for three years.
This has taught us that the USSR must maintain its necessary minimum regular army so that it can defend its independence from the imperialist aggressors. There has not been a single instance in history when the Russians have invaded the territory of Great Britain, but history knows of a whole range of instances, when the British invaded the territories of Russia and captured them.
Mr Morrison says that the Russians have refused to cooperate with the British on the German question, on the question of restoration of Europe. This is a white lie and Mr Morrison could not be believing his own words. The truth, as is known to all, is that it is not the Russians who have refused cooperation but the British and the Americans, as they knew that the Russians would not go on the path of restoring fascism in Germany, on transforming west Germany into a zone for aggression.
As for cooperation for the economic restoration of Europe, then the USSR has not refused cooperation. On the contrary, it has itself suggested to implement a programme on the principles of the equality and sovereignty of European countries, without any diktats from outside, without the diktat of the United States of America.
In the same way, the declarations of Mr Morrison that the communists came to power in the people’s-democratic countries by force, that the Cominform is engaged in coercive, propaganda activities, are unfounded. Only people who are hell bent on slandering the communists can make these statements.
As a matter of fact, the communists came to power in the people’s-democratic countries by way of general elections. Obviously, the people of these countries threw out the exploiters and the foreign secret service agents. This is the will of the people. The voice of the people is the voice of God.
As for the Cominform, only those who have lost all sense of balance can say that it is engaged in coercive propagandistic activities. The Cominform documents have been published and continue to be published. They are known to all and fully refute any slanderous or defamatory statements against the communists.
One must emphasise here that using force is not a method followed by the communists. On the contrary, history shows that it is actually the enemies of communism and other foreign secret service agents who practise these coercive methods.
One need not go far for such examples. Recently, the prime minister of Iran was killed, so was the prime minister of Lebanon and the king of Trans-Jordan. All these killings have been carried out with the sole aim of forceful change of power in these countries.
Who killed these people? Was it the communists, the supporters of the Cominform? It is rather amusing to put forth such a question. Perhaps Mr Morrison, who is better informed, would help us to sort out this matter?
Mr Morrison states that the North-Atlantic treaty is a defence pact. It has been formed not with the objective of aggression; on the contrary, is directed against it.
If that is true, why did the initiators of this pact not invite the Soviet Union to participate in it? Why did they cordon off the Soviet Union? Why did they sign it secretly, behind the back of the USSR? Has not the USSR proved that it can and wishes to fight against aggression, by fighting against Hitler’s and the Japanese aggression? Was its struggle against aggression worse than that of Norway, which is a signatory of the pact? How can one explain this absurdity?
If the North-Atlantic treaty is a defence pact, why did the British and Americans not agree to the proposal of the Soviet government to discuss this pact at the level of the council of ministers of foreign affairs? Is it not because the North-Atlantic treaty contains clauses about aggression against the USSR, and that the initiators of this pact are compelled to hide this from the society at large? Is it not because the Labour government has agreed to turn Britain into a military and air base for the United States of America to attack the Soviet Union?
This is why the Soviet people reiterate that the North-Atlantic treaty is a pact of aggression, targeted against the USSR.
This is particularly visible from the aggressive actions of the Anglo-American right-wing circles in Korea. Already two years have passed since the Anglo-American forces are tearing apart the freedom-loving, peaceful people of Korea, destroying Korean villages and cities, killing women, children and the aged.
Can one call these bloody acts of the Anglo-American forces defensive? Who can confirm that that the British forces in Korea are defending Britain from the Korean people? Would it not be more honest to call these acts a military aggression?
Let Mr Morrison show us even a single Soviet soldier who would direct his weapons against any peace-loving people. There is no such soldier. And let Mr Morrison explain convincingly why British soldiers are killing the peace-loving citizens of Korea. And why is a British soldier dying far from his country in an alien land?
This is the reason why Soviet people consider that contemporary Anglo-American politics is instigating a new world war.
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To understand the true role and history of the Labour party read:
H Brar, Britain’s Perfidious Labour Party
H Brar, Social Democracy, the Enemy Within
