9. We focus on the experience of the USSR, because it constituted the vanguard of socialist construction. The further study of the course of socialism in the rest of the European states, as well as of the course of socialist power in the Asian countries (China, Vietnam, DPR Korea) and in Cuba is necessary.
The socialist character of the USSR is grounded on the following: the abolition of capitalist relations of production, the existence of socialist ownership to which (despite various contradictions) cooperative ownership is subjugated, Central Planning, workers’ power and the unprecedented gains benefiting all working people.
These cannot be negated by the fact that, following a certain period, the Party gradually lost its revolutionary guiding character and, as a result, counter-revolutionary forces were able to dominate the Party and the government in the 1980s.
We characterize the developments of 1989-1991 as a victory of the counter-revolution. They constituted the last act of the process that led to the strengthening of social inequalities and differences and of the forces of counterrevolution and social regression. It is not accidental that these developments were supported by international reaction, that socialist construction, especially during the period of the abolition of capitalist relations and of the founding of socialism, up until the Second World War, concentrates the ideological and political wrath of international imperialism. We reject the term “collapse”, because it underestimates the extent of counter-revolutionary activity, the social base on which it can develop and predominate, due to the weaknesses and deviations of the subjective factor during socialist construction.
The victory of counter-revolution in 1989-1991 does not prove a lack of the basic level of development of the material prerequisites necessary to begin socialist construction in Russia.
Marx noted that mankind does not set itself but the problems that it can solve, because the problem itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution have been born. From the moment that the working class, the main productive force, struggles to carry out its historic mission, even more from the onset of the revolution, the productive forces have developed to the level of conflict with the relations of production, with the capitalist mode of production. In other words, the material prerequisites for socialism, upon which revolutionary conditions have been created, already exist.
Lenin and the Bolsheviks considered that problems of a relative backwardness in the development of the productive forces (“cultural level”) would not be solved by any intermediate power between the bourgeois and proletarian powers, but by the dictatorship of the proletariat. 
Based on the statistical data of that period, capitalist relations of production at the monopoly stage of their development predominated in Russia. It was on this material basis that revolutionary power depended for the socialization of the concentrated means of production.  The working class of Russia, especially its industrial segment, founded the soviets as organizational nuclei of revolutionary action, under the guidance of the CP (b), in the struggle to conquer state power. The Bolshevik Party, under the leadership of Lenin, was theoretically prepared for the socialist revolution: analysis of the Russian society, the theory of the weak link in the imperialist chain, evaluation of the revolutionary situation, the theory for the dictatorship of the proletariat. It exhibited a characteristic ability to serve its strategy with the corresponding – at each stage of the development of the class struggle – tactics: alliances, slogans, manoeuvring, etc.
However, socialism faced additional specific difficulties, due to the fact that socialist construction began in a country with a lower level of development of the productive forces (medium-weak, as V. I. Lenin characterized it) compared to the advanced capitalist countries  and with a large degree of unevenness in its development, due to the extensive survival of pre-capitalist relations, particularly in the asiatic ex-colonies of the tsarist empire. Socialist construction began following the enormous destruction of WW I and in the midst of the civil war. Subsequently, it faced the immense destruction of WW II, while capitalist powers, like the USA, never experienced war within their borders. In contrast, they used war to overcome the big economic crisis of the 1930s.
The gigantic economic and social development that was accomplished under these conditions proves the superiority of the communist relations of production, even at their initial stage of development. The developments do not confirm the assessments of several opportunist and petit bourgeois currents. Social democratic viewpoints regarding the immaturity of the socialist revolution in Russia have not been confirmed. Neither have Trotskyite positions claiming that it was impossible to construct socialism in the USSR. The viewpoint that the society that emerged after the October Revolution was not socialist in character or that it quickly degenerated after the first years of its existence, and therefore that the interruption of the 70-year course of the history of the USSR was inevitable, is subjective and cannot be backed up by the facts.
We reject the theories that claim that these societies were some sort of “a new exploitative system” or a form of “state capitalism”, as various opportunist currents claim.
Furthermore, the developments do not validate the overall stance of the “Maoist” current vis-a-vis the construction of socialism in the USSR, the characterization of the USSR as social-imperialist, the rapprochement of China with the USA, as well as the inconsistencies in matters of socialist construction in China (e.g. the recognition of the national bourgeoisie as an ally in socialist construction, etc.).
Our own critical assessment considers as given the defence of the construction of socialism in the USSR and in the other countries.
10. The counter-revolution in the USSR did not result from an imperialist military intervention, but rather from within and from the top, as a result of the opportunist mutation of the C.P and the corresponding political direction of Soviet power. We assign priority to the internal factors, to the socio-economic conditions that reproduce opportunism on the basis of socialist construction, without of course underestimating the long-term effect and the multi-faceted interference of imperialism in the development of opportunism and its evolution into a counterrevolutionary force.
Based on the theory of scientific communism we formulated a study along the following lines:
- The economy, that is, the developments in the relations of production and distribution during the foundation of the basis of socialism and its subsequent development, as the basis for the emergence and the resolution of social contradictions and differentiations.
- The operation of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the role of the CP under socialism, the lower stage of communism.
- The strategy of and the developments in the international communist movement.
11. The course of building a new society in the Soviet Union was determined by the ability of the Bolshevik C.P to fulfill its revolutionary, guiding role. First and foremost, to process and formulate the requisite revolutionary strategy at each step; to confront opportunism and to provide a decisive response to the new, emerging demands and challenges of developing socialism-communism.
Up until World War II, the bases for the development of the new society were created. The class struggle which led to the abolition of capitalist relations and the supremacy of the socialized sector of production, on the basis of Central Planning, was being carried out with success. Impressive results were achieved concerning the growth of social prosperity.
Following World War II and the post-war reconstruction, socialist construction entered a new phase. The Party was faced with new demands and challenges regarding the development of socialism-communism. The 20th Congress of the CPSU (1956) stands out as a turning point, since at that congress a series of opportunist positions were adopted on matters relating to the economy, the strategy of the communist movement and international relations. The correlation of forces in the struggle being waged during the entire preceding period was altered, with a turn in favor of the revisionist-opportunist positions, with the result that the Party gradually began to lose its revolutionary characteristics. In the decade of the 1980s, with perestroika, opportunism fully developed into a traitorous, counter-revolutionary force. The consistent communist forces that reacted during the final phase of the betrayal, at the 28th CPSU Congress, did not manage in a timely manner to expose it and to organize the revolutionary reaction of the working class.
Assessments on the economy during the course of socialist construction in the USSR
12. With the formulation of the first Plan of Central Planning, the following issues regarding the economy already came to the center of the theoretical debate and of political struggle: Is socialist production commodity production? What is the role of the law of value, of commodity-money relations under socialist construction?
It is incorrect to argue theoretically that the law of value is a law of motion of the communist mode of production in its first (socialist) stage. This approach became dominant since the decade of the 1950s in the USSR and in the majority of C.Ps. This position was strengthened due to the retention of commodity-money relations, during the planned transition from individual to cooperative production. This material base exacerbated theoretical shortcomings and political weaknesses in the formulation and implementation of Central Planning. During the subsequent decades opportunist policies further weakened Central Planning, eroded social ownership and strengthened counter-revolutionary forces.
13. The first period of socialist construction up until World War II faced the basic, primary problem of abolishing capitalist ownership and of handling in a planned fashion the social and economic problems that had been inherited from capitalism and had been exacerbated by the imperialist encirclement and intervention. It was during this period that Soviet power reduced dramatically the deep unevenness that the revolution had inherited from the tsarist empire.
During the 1917-1940 period the Soviet power noted, for the most part, successes. It carried out the electrification and industrialization of production, the expansion of transport means, and the mechanization of a large part of agricultural production. It initiated planned production and achieved impressive rates in the development of socialist industrial production. It successfully developed domestic productive capacities in all the industrial branches. Production cooperatives (kolkhozes) and state farms (sovkhozes) were created, and in this way the basis for the expansion and supremacy of socialist relations in agricultural production was established. The “cultural revolution” was realized. The formation of a new generation of communist specialists and scientists was begun. The most important achievement is the complete abolition of capitalist relations of production, with the abolition of hired labor power, thus laying the foundation for the new socio-economic formation.
14. The implementation of certain “transitional measures”, within the perspective of the complete abolition of capitalist relations, was inevitable in a country like Russia of the years 1917-1921.
The factors that forced the Bolshevik C.P to implement a temporary policy of preservation, to a certain extent, of capitalist production relations were: the class composition, where the petit- bourgeois agrarian element was in the majority, the lack of a distribution, supply and monitoring mechanism, the large scale of the backward small-sized production and, mainly, the dramatic worsening of sustenance and living conditions, due to the destruction caused by the civil war and the imperialist intervention. All these factors made the development of medium-term Central Planning difficult at that point.
The New Economic Policy (NEP), which was implemented following the civil war, constituted a policy of temporary concessions to capitalism. It had the basic goal of restoring industry from the ravages of war and, on this basis, to build in the field of agricultural production relations that would “attract” farmers into the cooperatives. A number of enterprises were given over to capitalists for use (without them having ownership rights over them), trade was developed, the exchange between agricultural production and the socialized industry was regulated based on the concept of the “tax in kind”. The possibility was provided to the peasants to put on the market the remaining portion of their agricultural production.
The maneuverings and temporary concessions to capitalist relations that are demanded under certain circumstances and special conditions are not in any way an inevitable characteristic of the process of socialist construction. It is presumptuous and misleading to utilize NEP, as was done by the leadership of the CPSU with perestroika during the 1980s, to justify the turn towards private property and capitalist relations.
15. The new phase of development of the productive forces at the end of the decade of the 1920s allowed the replacement of NEP by the policy of “socialism’s attack against capitalism”, that had as its main goal the complete abolition of capitalist relations. The concessions towards the capitalists were withdrawn and the policy of collectivization was developed, that is the complete cooperative organization of the agricultural economy, mainly in its developed form, the kolkhoz . At the same time, the sovkhozes, the state-socialist units in agricultural production that were based on the mechanization of production and whose entire product was social property, were developed (albeit in a limited way).
The first five-year plan began in 1928, 7 years after the victory of revolution (the civil war ended in 1921). Soviet power experienced difficulty in formulating a central plan for the socialist economy from the very beginning, mainly due to the continuing existence of capitalist relations (NEP) and the exceptionally large number of individual commodity producers, mainly peasants. Weaknesses were also evident in the subjective factor, the Party, which did not have cadre specialists to guide the organization of production and was thus obliged for a certain time to depend almost exclusively on bourgeois specialists.
The specific conditions (imperialist encirclement, the threat of war in combination with the extensive backwardness) forced the promotion of collectivization at accelerated rates, something which sharpened the class struggle, especially in the rural areas. There were of course mistakes and certain bureaucratic excesses in the development of the collectivization movement in agricultural production, that were pointed-out by the Party itself in its decisions of that period . However, the orientation of Soviet power for the reinforcement and the generalization of this movement were in the correct direction. It aimed at the development of a transitional form of ownership (cooperative) that would contribute to the transformation of small individual commodity production into directly social production.
16. The policy of “socialism’s attack against capitalism” was carried out under conditions of intense class struggle. The kulaks (the bourgeoisie in the village), social strata that benefited from the NEP (NEPmen) and sections of the intelligentsia that originated from the old exploiting classes reacted in many ways, including acts of sabotage against industry (e.g. the “Shakhty affair” ) and counter-revolutionary activities in the villages. These class-based, anti-socialist interests were reflected within the C.P, where opportunist currents developed.
The two basic “opposition” tendencies (Trotsky – Bukharin), that operated during that period, had a common base in absolutiizing the elements of backwardness in Soviet society. During the 1930s their views converged to the thesis that the overcoming of capitalist relations in the USSR was premature. Their positions were rejected by the AUCP (Bolshevik) and were not confirmed by reality.
Along the way, several opportunist forces established contacts with openly counter-revolutionary forces that were organizing plans to overthrow Soviet power in cooperation with secret services from imperialist countries.
The prevailing conditions dictated the direct and resolute confrontation of these centers with the trials of 1936 and 1937, trials that revealed conspiracies with elements in the army (the Tukhachevsky case, who was rehabilitated following the 20th Congress), as well as with the secret services of foreign countries, particularly of Germany.
The fact that some leading cadre of the Party and of Soviet power spearheaded opportunist currents proves that it is possible even for vanguard cadre to deviate, to bend when faced with the sharpness of the class struggle and to finally severe their ties with the communist movement and pass over to the side of the counter-revolution.
17. Following World War II, the debate on the laws of socialist economy, a debate that had subsided due to the war, was intensified once again. A confrontation developed around specific problems  between two basic theoretical and political currents, the «marketeers» and the «anti-marketeers» (tovarniki and anti-tovarniki), a confrontation that involved Party cadre and economists.
I.V. Stalin, as General Secretary of the C.C of the Party, was in the forefront of the organized intra-party discussion and supported the anti-market direction. He contributed to the formulation of political directives in that direction, for example the merging of kolkhozes, the dissolution of «auxiliary enterprises» in the kolkhozes (production of building materials). He confronted the current that pushed for the strengthening of commodity-money relations , rejecting proposals to hand-over means of mechanized production to the kolkhozes. He recognized that socialist production is not commodity production and, thus, that the law of value cannot be reconciled with its fundamental laws. He highlighted the role of Central Planning in the socialist economy. He argued that the means of production are not commodities, despite the fact that they appear as commodities “in form, but not in content.” They become commodities only in external trade . He also recognized that the operation of the law of value (of commodity-money relations) in the USSR had its roots in cooperative and individual agricultural production, that the law of value does not regulate socialist production and its distribution.
Polemics were waged against “market” economists and political leaders who argued that the law of value is in general a law of the socialist economy as well. A correct criticism was also raised against those economists who supported the complete abolition of distribution in monetary form, without taking into account the objective limitations still placed by the productive base of the society at the time.
A weak spot in this approach was the thesis that the means of consumption are produced and distributed as commodities . This thesis was correct only to the extent that it concerned the products of socialist production that were destined for the external trade, as well as the exchange of products between the socialist industry and cooperative and individual production. It was incorrect as far as it concerned the remaining means of consumption of socialist production, which are not commodities, even though they are not distributed freely.
This approach estimated correctly that in the USSR cooperative ownership (kolkhoz) and the circulation of products of individual consumption in the form of commodities had begun to act as a brake on the powerful development of the productive forces, because they blocked the full development of Central Planning in the full spectrum of production–distribution. It outlined the differences between the two cooperating classes, the working class and the kolkhoz agrarian class, but also the need to abolish them through the planned abolition of commodification of agricultural production and the transformation of the kolkhozes into social property . At the beginning of the 1950’s, the Soviet leadership estimated correctly that the problems at the economic level were an expression of the sharpening of the contradiction between the productive forces that were developing and the relations of production that were lagging behind. The development of the productive forces had reached a new level after the post-war reconstruction of the economy. A new dynamic push for the further development of the productive forces demanded a deepening and extension of the socialist (immature communist) relations. The delay of the later concerned: the Central Planning, the deepening of the communist character of the relations of distribution, a more energetic and conscious workers’ participation in the organization of labour and in the control of its administration from the bottom up, the eradication of all forms of individual commodity production, the subordination of the more developed cooperatives to the directly social production.
The need had matured for communist relations to be expanded, consciously, in a well-planned manner, that is theoretically and politically prepared, and to gain supremacy in those fields of social production where, in the previous period, their full dominance was still not possible (from the point of view of their material maturity, the productivity of labour).
The maturity of the expansion of communist relations in agricultural production concerns to a significant extent the capacity of industry to provide corresponding machinery, the capacity of Central Planning to carry out works for the amelioration of agricultural productivity, protection from weather calamities, etc. Despite the fact that at the beginning of the 1950’s there still existed unevenness in the USSR, important pre-conditions of mechanization and infrastructure had been created that provided the opportunity to move in such a direction. The Progress Report of the C.C of the C.P (b) to the 19th Congress mentions a number of data that prove the aforementioned conclusion – the existence of 8,939 Machine Tractor Stations, the increase in tractor pulling power by 59% relative to the pre-war level, the implementation of irrigation and land reclamation projects during the post-war reconstruction period, the advances in the merging of kolkhozes into bigger ones during the 1950-1952 period (97,000 kolkhozes in 1952 compared to 254,000 in 1950), etc. 
However, there still remained small kolkhozes  which had to merge into bigger ones in the direction of the socialization of agricultural production, as was supported by the leadership of the Bolshevik C.P. The goal was set of excluding the left-overs of the production of kolkhozes from market distribution and their transition to the system of exchange between the state industry and the kolkhozes. A discussion was also initiated on the prospects of creating a unified economic body, which would contribute in the direction of an «all-embracing production sector» that would have the responsibility of allocating the entire production of consumer products.
The party and state leadership took a clear stand in the debate regarding the issue of the necessary proportions between Department I of social production (production of the means of production) and Department II (production of means of consumption). It correctly stood for the essential priority of Department I in the planned proportional distribution of labour and of production among the different branches of socialist industry. Expanded reproduction and socialist accumulation (social wealth), necessary for the future expansion of social prosperity, are dependent on this category of production (Department I).
The correct positions and directives of Stalin and the «anti-marketeer» economists and cadre of the C.P did not manage to lead to the elaboration of a comprehensive theoretical plan and a corresponding political line, capable of confronting the market-oriented theoretical positions and political choices that were being strengthened. Powerful social pressures, as well as discrepancies, deficiencies and fluctuations that existed within the «anti-marketeer» current, contributed to this.
18. Social resistance (by kolkhoz peasants, executives in agricultural production and in industry) to the need for an expansion and deepening of the socialist relations of production was expressed, at an ideological and political level, through an internal party struggle at the beginning of the 1950’s. The sharpened debate, which ended with the theoretical acceptance of the law of value as a law of socialism, signified political choices with more immediate and powerful consequences on the course of socialist development, in comparison with the pre-war period, when the material backwardness made the effect of these theoretical positions less painful.
These forces were expressed politically through the positions adopted in the decisions of the 20th Congress of the CPSU, a congress which proved to be one of supremacy of the right opportunist deviation. Political choices were gradually adopted that expanded commodity-money (potentially capitalist) relations, in the name of correcting weaknesses in Central Planning and in the administration of the socialist productive units.
In order to solve the problems that arose in the economy, ways and means that belonged to the past were used. With the promotion of “market” policies, instead of reinforcing social ownership and Central Planning, the homogenization of the working class (with the widening of the abilities and capacities for multi-specialization, for alternation in the technical division of labour), workers’ participation in the organization of labour, workers’ control from the bottom up, the reverse trend began to strengthen itself. In such a setting the level of social consciousness gradually backslided. The previous experience and the effectiveness of the factory soviet, of the Stakhanovite movement in quality control, in the more effective organization and administration, in inventions for the conservation of material and labour time, were lost.
The “market-oriented” economists (Lieberman, Nemtsinov, Trapeznikov, etc.) mistakenly interpreted the existing problems of the economy, not as subjective weaknesses in planning, but as consequences stemming from the objective weakness of Central Planning to respond to the development of the volume of production, to the variety of sectors and the variegation of products required for the fulfillment of new social needs.
They claimed that the theoretical cause was the voluntarist denial of the commodity character of production under socialism, the underestimation of the development of agriculture, the overestimation of the possibility of subjective intervention in economic administration.
They maintained that it was not possible for the central organs to determine the quality, technology and prices of all commodities, the level of salaries, but that the use of market mechanisms was also required to facilitate the goals of a planned economy.
It was in such a way that, at a theoretical level, theories of “socialist commodity production” or “socialism with a market”, the acceptance of the law of value as a law of the socialist (immature communist) mode of production, which operates even in the phase of socialist development, prevailed. These theories constituted the basis for the formulation of economic policies .
19. The policy of weakening Central Planning and social ownership escalated after the 20th Congress. In 1957, the branch ministries that directed industrial production across the entire USSR and at each republic were dissolved and the Organs of Regional Administration “Sovnarkhoz” (Regional Economic Councils) were formed. In this way the central direction of planning was weakened . Instead of planning the transformation of the kolkhozes into sovkhozes, and especially instead of initiating the planned transfer of the entire production of the kolkhozes to state control, in 1958 the tractors and other machinery  passed into the ownership of the kolkhoz , a policy that had been rejected in the past. These changes not only did not solve the problems, but, on the contrary, they brought new problems to the surface or created additional ones, such as a shortage in animal feed and a regression in the technological renewal in the kolkhoz.
In the mid 1960s, mistakes of a subjective nature in the administration of the agricultural sector of the economy were pinpointed as the cause of the problems . Subsequent reforms included: The reduction in the state procurement quotas from the kolkhozes , the possibility of selling the surplus output at higher prices, the lifting of the restrictions on the transactions of the individual peasant households and the elimination of the tax on private ownership of animals. Debts of the kolkhozes to the State Bank were erased, the deadlines to pay off debt from monetary advances were extended, the direct sale of animal feed to private animal owners was permitted. Thus, the portion of agricultural production which originated from individual households and the kolkhozes and which was freely sold on the market  was preserved and increased, while the lagging behind of livestock production deepened, the unevenness in the satisfaction of the needs for agricultural products between the various regions and Republics of the USSR increased.
A similar policy of reinforcing the commodity (at the expense of the directly social) character of production was implemented in industry, known as the “Kosygin Reforms”  (the system of “economic accounting” – “khozrachet”- of enterprises, having a substantive and not formal character). It was argued that this would combat the reduction in the annual rate of increase of labour productivity and of annual production in industry, that were observed during the first years of the 1960s, as a result of the measures which undermined Central Planning in the direction of the industrial sectors (Sovnarkhoz-1957).
The first wave of reforms was pushed forward in the period between the 23rd (1966) and 24th (1971) Congresses. According to the New System, the supplementary payments (bonuses) of the directors would be calculated not on the basis of the overfulfillement of the plan in terms of volume of production , but rather on the basis of the overfulfillement of the sales plan and would be dependent on the rate of profit of the enterprise. A part of the additional payments of the workers would also come from profit, as would the further satisfaction of housing needs etc. In this way, profit was adopted as a motive for production. The wage differentials increased. The possibility was provided for horizontal commodity-money transactions between enterprises, for direct agreements with ‘consumer units and commercial organizations’, for price-fixing, for the formation of profits on the basis of such transactions, etc. The Central Plan would determine the total level of production and investments only for new enterprises. Modernisation of old enterprises had to be financed out of the profits of the enterprises.
These reforms concerned the entire sector of the so-called «property of the whole people», i.e. including the operation of the sovkhozes (state farms) themselves. With a decision of the C.C of the CPSU and of the Council of Ministers of the USSR (April 13th, 1967), the sovkhozes began to pass into a regime of full economic accounting. By 1975 all the sovkhozes were operating «under full economic accounting» .
The theoretical sliding and the corresponding political retreat in the USSR occurred during a new phase, when the productive forces had developed at a higher level and necessitated a corresponding development of Central Planning. In other words, the need for a deepening of socialist relations had matured.
The market reforms that were chosen were not a one-way street. The confrontation of the economic problems required the elaboration of more effective incentives and indices of Central Planning, as well as of its sectoral, cross-sectoral and enterprise – level implementation. At the same time, proposals and plans for the use of computers and information technology , which could have contributed to improvements in the technical processing of data, in order to improve the observation and control of the production of use values through quantity and quality indicators, were rejected.
Through the market reforms, through the detachment of the socialist production unit from Central Planning, the socialist character of ownership over the means of production was weakened. The principle of distribution “according to labour” was violated.
The 24th CPSU Congress (1971), with its directives on the formulation of the 9th 5-Year plan (1971-1975), reversed the proportional priority of Department I over Department II. The reversal of this proportion had been proposed at the 20th Congress, but had not been accepted. This modification was rationalized as a choice reinforcing the level of popular consumption. In reality, it was a choice that violated socialist law and had negative consequences on the growth of labour productivity. The development of labour productivity – a fundamental element for the growth of social wealth, the satisfaction of social needs and the all-round development of man – presupposes the development of the means of production. Planning should have dealt with greater efficacy with the following need: the introduction of modern technology in industry, in transport services, storage and distribution of products.
The choice to overturn the proportions did not help to deal with contradictions that had been expressed (e.g. the excess income in monetary form and the lack of an adequate amount of consumer goods, such as electronic household appliances, colour TVs). On the contrary, it moved Central Planning away from its basic goal of the rise of social prosperity. It further aggravated the contradiction between the level of development of the productive forces and the level of the communist relations of production-distribution.
During the 1980’s, at the political level, the decisions of the 27th Congress (1986) constituted a further opportunist choice. Subsequently, the counterrevolution was also promoted through the passing of the law (1987), which institutionally legitimised capitalist economic relations, under the guise of the acceptance of the multiplicity of forms of ownership.
At the beginning of the 1990’s, the social democratic approach of “the planned market economy” (the platform of the CC of the CPSU at the 28th Congress) was speedily abandoned in favour of the position of the “regulated market economy” and this was further replaced by the “free market economy”.
20. The direction that became dominant should not be judged today only from a theoretical perspective, but also by its practical results. After two decades of the application of these reforms, the problems had clearly sharpened. Stagnation reared its head for the first time in the history of socialist construction. Technological backwardness continued to be a reality for the large majority of enterprises. Shortages appeared in many consumer products, as well as other problems in the “market”, because enterprises were causing an artificial rise in prices, by hoarding commodities in warehouses or by supplying them in controlled quantities.
An important index of the retreat of the Soviet economy during the 1970’s was the decline in the USSR’s share in the world production of industrial raw materials and in manufacturing.
The ever increasing involvement of market elements in the directly social production of socialism was weakening it. It led to a decline in the dynamics of socialist development. The short-term individual and group interests (with an increase in income differentiation among the workers in each enterprise, between the workers and the managerial apparat, between different enterprises) were strengthened vis-a-vis the overall interests of society. As time passed, the social conditions were created for the counterrevolution to flourish and to finally prevail using perestroika as its vehicle.
Through these reforms the possibility was created for monetary amounts which had been accumulated, primarily through illegal means (smuggling, etc), to be invested in the “black” (illegal) market. These opportunities concerned primarily officials in the management layers of enterprises and sectors, the cadre of the kolkhozes and of foreign trade. Data regarding the so-called “Para-economy” (parallel economy) were also provided by the Procurator General of the USSR. According to these statistics, a significant proportion of the cooperative or state agricultural production was also channelled to the consumers by illegal means.
The income differentiation among the individual agricultural producers, the kolkhozniks, widened, as well as their opposition to the tendency to strengthen the directly social character of agricultural production. A portion of the peasants and of the managerial cadre of the kolkhozes who were getting rich was strengthened as a social layer hampering socialist construction. The social differentiation in industry was even more pronounced through the concentration of “enterprise profits”. The so-called “shadow capital”, the result not only of enrichment through enterprise profits, but also of the black market, of criminal acts of embezzlement of the social product, sought its legal functioning as capital in production, i.e. the privatisation of the means of production, the restoration of capitalism. The owners of this capital constituted the driving social force of the counterrevolution. They utilised their position in the state and party mechanisms. They found support in sectors of the population which were more vulnerable, due to their objective position, to the influence of bourgeois ideology and to wavering, e.g. a significant part of the intelligentsia, sections of the youth, such as the university students . These forces, directly or indirectly, influenced the Party, strengthening its opportunist erosion and its counterrevolutionary degeneration, which was expressed through the policies of “perestroika” and sought the institutional consolidation of capitalist relations. This was achieved after perestroika, with the overthrow of socialism.
Conclusions on the role of the Communist Party in the process of socialist construction
21. The indispensable role of the Party in the process of socialist foundation and development is expressed in its leadership of working class state-power, in the mobilisation of the masses to participate in this process.
The working class is formed as the leading force of this new state power, first and foremost through its Party.
The struggle for the foundation and development of the new society is carried out by the revolutionary workers’ power, with the Communist Party, which acts consciously on the basis of the laws of motion of socialist-communist society, as its guiding nucleus. The human being, becoming the master of the social processes, passes gradually from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom. From this flows the higher role of the subjective factor, relative to all previous socio-economic formations, where human activity was dominated by the spontaneous enforcement of social laws on the basis of the spontaneous development of the relations of production.
Consequently, the scientific and class nature of the policies of the CP is a crucial precondition for socialist construction. To the extent that these features become lost, opportunism grows and, if it is not dealt with, it gradually develops into a counterrevolutionary force.
The duty to develop the communist relations of production – distribution pre-supposes the development of the theory of scientific communism by the C.P, through the understanding of the laws of motion of the communist socio-economic formation with the utilisation of scientific study for class oriented purposes. Experience has shown that the governing parties, in theUSSR and in the other socialist states, did not fulfil this task successfully.
Class consciousness in the working class as a whole does not develop spontaneously and in a unified manner. The rise of the communist consciousness of the masses of the working class is determined above all by the strengthening of the communist relations of production and by the level of working class participation, with the leadership of the CP, which is the main vehicle for the penetration of revolutionary consciousness amongst the masses. It is on this material basis that ideological work, as well as the impact of the revolutionary party which consolidates its leading role to the extent that it mobilises the working class to construct socialism, must become rooted.
The consciousness of the vanguard must always be ahead of the consciousness shaped on a mass scale within the working class by the economic relations. From this arises the necessity for the Party to have a high theoretical-ideological level and tenacity, to be unwavering in the struggle against opportunism, not only under the conditions of capitalism, but even more so under the conditions of socialist construction.
22. The opportunist turn which held sway since the 1950’s, the gradual loss of the revolutionary character of the Party, confirm that in socialist society the danger for the development of deviations never disappears. Beyond the imperialist surroundings and their undoubted negative impact, the social base of opportunism remains, as long as forms of private and group ownership, commodity-money relations and social differentiations remain. The material basis of opportunism will continue to exist for the entire duration of socialist construction and as long as capitalism, particularly in the more powerful capitalist states, continues to exist on earth.
The new phase, following World War II, found the Party weakened ideologically and in class terms, with massive losses of cadre experienced and hardened in the class struggle, with theoretical weaknesses vis-a-vis the new problems which were sharpening. It found itself vulnerable to the inner-party struggle which reflected the existing social differences. Under these conditions, the scales tipped in favour of the adoption of opportunist and revisionist positions, many of which had been defeated during previous phases of the inner-party struggle.
The adoption of revisionist and opportunist positions by the leadership of the CPSU and of the other CPs in power, in the end transformed these parties into vehicles which led the counterrevolution in the 1980’s.
The 19th Congress (1952) highlighted the underestimation of and other serious problems in the development of the ideological work of the Party . The official data reveal changes in the number and the composition of the Party membership. At the 18th Congress (March 1939) the C.P (b) numbered 1,588,852 full members and 888,814 candidate members. During the course of World War II, the full members exceeded 3,615,000 and the candidate members 5,319,000 . In the course of the war, the C.P lost 3 million members . At the 19th Congress in 1952, the CPSU numbered 6.013,259 full members and 868,886 candidate members .
The opportunist turn which took place during the 20th Congress of the CPSU (1956) and the subsequent gradual loss of the revolutionary characteristics of the Party, a governing party which was, at the same time, the target of imperialist aggression, made the awakening and mobilization of consistent communists more difficult. A struggle was waged within the ranks of the CPSU before, during  and after the 20th Congress. The period when Andropov was the GS of the CC of the CPSU (November 1982-February 1984), which preceded the period of perestroika, is too brief to be definitively judged. Nevertheless, in articles and documents of the CPSU of this period, references are being made to the need to intensify the struggle against bourgeois and reformist views regarding the construction of socialism, as well as to the need for vigilance vis-a-vis the subversive activities of imperialism.
The consistent communist forces that existed within the CPSU were not able to reveal in time the treacherous counterrevolutionary character of the line which got the upper hand at the Plenum of the C.C of April 1985 and at the 27th Congress of the CPSU (1986). History has shown that at the 28th Congress (1990), on the eve of the final assault of the counterrevolution, there co-existed within the CPSU bourgeois, opportunist and communist forces. The communist forces did not have the strength to prevail, to prevent the victory of the counterrevolution, although they offered resistance during the 28th Congress and later on. They grouped themselves around the «United Front of the Working People of Russia», they put up candidates for the positions of president and vice-president of Russia. Through the actions of the «Movement for a Communist Initiative» in the ranks of the CPSU they tried to achieve the expulsion of Gorbachev from the Party for anti-communist activities .
Despite such resistance, a revolutionary communist vanguard, with ideological political clarity and cohesion, capable of leading the working class, ideologically, politically and organisationally against the developing counterrevolution, was not formed in time. Even if this development could not have been stopped, especially by the 1980’s, it is certain that a powerful resistance, both within the governing parties and within the international communist movement, could have contributed so that today’s struggle for the reconstruction of the international movement would be taking place under better conditions. It could have created the preconditions for the overcoming of its deep crisis.
The development and prevalence of revisionist ideological positions and opportunist policies, the gradual opportunist erosion of the CPSU, and of the other governing C.P.’s, the degeneration of the revolutionary character of state-power and the full-fledged development and victory of the counterrevolution were not inevitable.
We are continuing the investigation of all the factors which contributed to this development. The following factors can be included:
A) – The decline in the level of political Marxist education in the leadership of the C.P’s and overall in the Party, because of the specific conditions of the war, the extensive casualties and the sudden increase in the number of party members, which had among its results the delayed development of the Political Economy of Socialism.
– The relative dependence which communist state-power in the USSR had, from its very outset, on administrative and scientific cadre of a bourgeois origin.
– The historical inheritance of the USSR, from the point of view of the breadth of pre-capitalist backwardness and its uneven capitalist development.
– The changes in the class composition of the Party, in its structure and functioning and their impact on the ideological level and the revolutionary characteristics of the Party, its members and cadre need further investigation.
– The massive losses during World War II and the sacrifices at the level of social prosperity required by the post-war reconstruction, under the conditions of competition with the capitalist reconstruction in Western Europe which was supported, to a significant extent, by the capacity and the need of the USA to export capital.
– Problems and contradictions during the course of assimilation of the countries of Eastern and Central Europe into the socialist system.
– The fear of a new war, due to the imperialist interventions in Korea etc, the Cold war, the Holstein dogma of West Germany (the non-recognition of the GDR, and its characterization as a «zone of soviet occupation»).
B) Imperialist strategy adapted itself in form during the different periods of the revolutionary workers’ power (direct imperialist assault in 1918 and 1941, proclamation of the “cold war” in 1946), including a differentiated policy of diplomatic relations and commercial transactions with certain states of Central and Eastern Europe, as well as a more direct ideological and political pressure on the USSR. The interventionist policy of international imperialism towards the countries of socialist construction utilized the subversive role of international social democracy.
The international correlation of forces during World War II favoured the strengthening of opportunism, which finally prevailed during the 1950’s. The multi-faceted external pressure from the beginning of the 1940’s took the following forms:
– German imperialist occupation of a significant part of the USSR
– Imperialist encirclement of the USSR through its forced alliance with the USA and Great Britain
– Problems in the strategic line of the international communist movement, particularly in the C.P’s of the USA and Great Britain, that is in the C.P’s of the main imperialist powers, which became allies when a significant part of the USSR was under German occupation.
– Pressure from petit-bourgeois forces in the liberation fronts and their governments in the states newly allied to the USSR.
The external pressure intermingled with the internal pressure from petit-bourgeois forces (or even from cadre of a bourgeois origin in the economy and the administration). The private (individual) commodity production became stronger in the USSR with the incorporation of new territories following World War II.
All of the above constitute factors for the development of opportunism, conditions under which a large growth of the Party’s ranks and a loss of cadre and members of the Revolution took place.
The evolution of the social composition of the Party, of the structures and of the internal Party procedures (the reasons for the long delay in holding a congress) and their influence on the ideological level and on the revolutionary characteristics of the Party as a whole, of its members and cadre, are objects of further study.
C) The problems of strategy and the split in the international communist movement.
The course of Soviet power
23. The theoretical foundation for the analysis of the course of Soviet power is that state-power under socialism is the dictatorship of the proletariat. It is the power of the working class which is not shared with anyone, as is the case in all forms of state-power. The dictatorship of the proletariat is the instrument of the working class in the class struggle which continues by other means and forms.
The working class, as the bearer of the communist relations which are being formed, as the collective owner of the socialised means of production, is the only class which can lead the struggle for the total supremacy of communist relations, for the “eradication” of classes and the withering away of the state. Through its revolutionary state-power, the working class as the ruling class implements its alliance with other popular strata (e.g. the cooperative small owners of town and country, the self-employed in the service sector), as well as with scientists-intellectuals and technicians originating from the upper-middle strata who are not yet workers in directly social (socialist) production. Through this alliance, the working class seeks to lead these strata in the foundation and development of socialism, towards the total supremacy of communist relations.
Such an alliance contains of course compromises, as well as struggle, since there exist objective contradictions between these social forces, since this alliance groups together common, as well as distinct, potentially competitive interests. Contradictions which, if they are not solved in the direction of expanding and deepening socialist relations, are liable to sharpen into antagonistic contradictions.
The dictatorship of the proletariat is retained until all social relations become communist, i.e. as long as there is a need for the state as a mechanism of political domination. Its necessity is also the result of the continuation of class struggle internationally.
24. The political choices concerning the superstructure, the institutions of the dictatorship of the proletariat, workers’ control, etc are closely connected with the political choices at the level of the economy, since the most essential duty of the dictatorship of the proletariat is the formation of the new social relations.
In the first Constitution of the RSFSR  and in the first Constitution of the USSR of 1924 (as well as in the constitutions of the Republics of 1925), the relationship between the masses and the state machine was effected through the indirect electoral representation of the workers, with the production unit being the electoral unit. The right to vote was ensured only for working people (not generally for the citizens). The bourgeoisie, the landowners, anyone who exploited another’s labour power, priests and monks, counterrevolutionary elements were denied the right to vote. The concessions towards the capitalists during the NEP period did not include political rights.
In the Constitution of 1936 direct electoral representation was established through geographical electoral wards (the region became the electoral unit and representation was proportional to the number of residents). The holding of elections in electoral assemblies was abolished, replaced by their holding through electoral wards. The right to vote was granted to all via the generalized secret ballot.
The changes in the Constitution of 1936 aimed at solving certain problems , such as the lack of direct communication of party and soviet officials with the base and with the operation of the Soviets, bureaucratic attitudes, etc, as well as at guaranteeing the stability of Soviet power in the face of the coming war.
The critical approach to these changes focuses on the need to study further the functional downgrading of the production unit as the nucleus of organisation of workers’ power, due to the abolition of the production unit principle and of the indirect election of delegates through congresses and assemblies. We need to study its negative impact on the class composition of the higher state organs and on the application of the right of recall of delegates (which according to Lenin constitutes a basic element of democratism in the dictatorship of the proletariat).
25. Following the 20th Congress (1956) the powers of the local soviets on questions which concerned “economic accounting” and “self-management” of socialist enterprises were strengthened. In this way, democratic centralism at the political level receded to bring it to par with the retreat of Central Planning at the economic level. Measures were adopted which strengthened the “permanence” of officials in the soviets, through the gradual increase of the terms of office of their organs and an expansion of the possibility for the exemption of delegates from their duties in production.
At the 22nd Congress of the CPSU (1961) mistaken assessments and approaches concerning “developed socialism” and the “end of class struggle” were adopted. In the name of “non-antagonistic contradictions” between social classes and groups, the thesis that the USSR was a “state of the whole people” (consolidated in the constitutional revision of 1977) and the CPSU a “party of the whole people” was adopted. This development contributed to the adulteration of the characteristics of the revolutionary workers’ state, to the deterioration of the social composition of the Party and its cadre, to the loss of revolutionary vigilance, which was theorised with the thesis for the “irreversibility” of the socialist course.
Through perestroika and the reform of the political system in 1988, the Soviet system degenerated into a bourgeois parliamentary organ with a division of the executive and legislative functions, a permanence of office holders, an undermining of the right to recall, high remuneration, etc.
26. Practical experience reveals the gradual distancing of the masses from participation in the soviet system, which – particularly during the 1980s – had attained a purely formal character. This distancing cannot be attributed exclusively or primarily to the changes in the functioning of the Soviets, but to the social differentiations which were becoming stronger through the economic policies being followed, to the sharpening of contradictions between individual and group interests on the one hand, and the collective social interest on the other. It was in this fashion that the criteria of workers’ control were degenerating or were adopting a formal character.
So long as the leadership of the CPSU adopted policies which weakened the social character of ownership and strengthened narrow individual and group interests, a feeling of alienation from social ownership was created and consciousness was eroded. The road to passivity, indifference and individualism was opened, as practice was becoming more and more removed from the official pronouncements, as the rates of the expanded industrial and agricultural reproduction declined, in tandem with the rates of satisfaction of the ever increasing social needs.
The working class, the popular masses in general, did not reject socialism. It is notable that the slogans used by perestroika were “revolution within the revolution”, “more democracy”, “more socialism”, “socialism with a human face”, “return to the Leninist principles”, because a large section of the people, who saw the problems, wanted changes within the framework of socialism. Both the measures which initially weakened communist relations while strengthening commodity-money relations, as well as those which later paved the way for the return of private ownership over the means of production were promoted as measures that would strengthen socialism.
The strategy of the international communist movement and developments within it
27. Developments within the international communist movement and the issues of its strategy played an important role in the worldwide class struggle and in the configuration of the correlation of forces .
Problems of ideological and strategic unity were expressed during the entire course of the Communist International (CI), regarding the character of the revolution, the nature of the coming war following the rise of fascism in Germany  and the attitude vis-a-vis Social democracy.
The opportunist groups within the Bolshevik CP (Trotskyites – Bukharinites) were also connected to the ongoing struggle within the CI concerning the strategy of the international communist movement. At the end of the 1920s, during the 6th Congress of the C.I, Bukharin, as president of the CI, supported forces in the C.P’s and the CI which exaggerated the “stabilisation of capitalism” and the unlikelihood of a new revolutionary upsurge, and expressed a spirit of rapprochement with social democracy, especially its “left wing”, etc.
A relaxation in the functioning of the CI as a unitary centre had appeared many years before its self-dissolution (1943) . The dissolution of the C.I (May 1943), despite the problems of unity it had and irrespective of whether it could be retained or not, deprived the international communist movement of the centre and the capacity for the coordinated elaboration of a revolutionary strategy for the transformation of the struggle against imperialist war or foreign occupation into a struggle for state-power, as a common duty concerning every CP in the conditions of its own country .
Irrespective of the reasons which led to the dissolution of the CI, there is an objective need for the international communist movement to formulate a unified revolutionary strategy, to plan and coordinate its activity. A deeper study concerning the dissolution of the CI must take into consideration a series of developments , such as: the cessation of the activities of the Red Trade Union International, in 1937, because the majority of its sections merged with the mass reformist unions, or joined these unions. The decision of the 6th Congress of the Young Communist International (1935), according to which the struggle against fascism and war demanded a change in the character of the communist youth organizations, which led in some cases to their unification with socialist youth organizations (e.g. in Spain, in Latvia, etc).
While the war created a sharpening of the class contradictions inside many countries, the antifascist struggle led to the overthrow of bourgeois power, with the decisive support of the popular movements by the Red Army, only in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
In the capitalist West, the C.P’s did not elaborate a strategy for the transformation of the imperialist war or of the national liberation struggle into a struggle for the conquest of state-power. The strategy of the communist movement did not utilise the fact that the contradiction between capital and labour was an integral component of the antifascist-national liberation character of the armed struggle in a number of countries, in order to raise the question of state-power, since socialism and the prospect of communism are the only alternative solution to capitalist barbarity.
The lack of such a strategy in the C.P’s cannot be justified by the negative correlation of forces, due to the military presence of American and British troops in a series of Western European countries. The C.P’s are obliged to elaborate their strategy irrespective of the correlation of forces. There was a gradual retreat from the concept that between capitalism and socialism there can exist no intermediate social system, and thus no intermediate political power between bourgeois and working class state-power.
This thesis holds true, irrespective of the correlation of forces, independently of the problems which can act as a catalyst for the speeding up of developments e.g. the sharpening of inter-imperialist contradictions, an imperialist war, changes in the form of bourgeois state power which can take place.
28. Following the end of World War II, alliances were restructured. The capitalist states and the bourgeois and opportunist forces which participated in the national liberation struggle in each country (e.g. social democratic forces) united against the communist movement and the socialist states.
Under these conditions, the negative results of the increasing opportunist erosion of some sections of the international communist movement became even clearer. The seriously damaged ideological unity and the lack of an organisational connection between the CPs, after the dissolution of the CI, did not allow the elaboration of an independent unified strategy of the international communist movement vis-a-vis the strategy of international imperialism.
The “Information Bureau” of the Communist Parties , which was established in 1947 and was dissolved in 1956, as well as the international meetings of the C.P’s which followed, could not adequately deal with these problems.
The international imperialist system remained strong after the war, despite the undoubted strengthening of the forces of socialism. Immediately after the end of the war, imperialism, under the U.S hegemony, started the “Cold War”. It was a carefully elaborated strategy for undermining the socialist system.
The “Cold War” included the organization of psychological warfare, the intensification of military spending to exhaust the USSR economically, networks of subversion and erosion of the socialist system from within, open provocations and the incitement of counterrevolutionary developments (e.g. in Yugoslavia 1947-48, in the GDR 1953, in Hungary in 1956, in Czechoslovakia in 1968 etc). A differentiated economic and diplomatic strategy was followed vis-a-vis the new socialist states in order to break their alliance with the USSR, to strengthen the conditions for their opportunist erosion.
At the same time, the imperialist system, with the USA at its helm, created a series of military, political, economic alliances and international lending organisations (NATO, EC, IMF, World Bank, international trade agreements). These ensured the coordination of capitalist states, and bridged some of the contradictions amongst them, in order to serve the common strategic goal of a multi-pronged pressure on the socialist system. They organised imperialist interventions, systematic and multi-faceted provocations and anti-communist campaigns. They used the most up-to-date ideological weapons to manipulate the peoples, to create a hostile climate against the socialist states and the communist movement in general. They utilised the opportunist deviations and the problems of ideological unity of the communist movement. They supported economically, politically, and morally every form of discontent or disagreement with the CPSU and the USSR. They made billions of dollars available from their state budgets for this purpose.
29. The line of “peaceful co-existence”, as was developed in the post-war period, to some extent at the 19th Congress (October 1952)  and primarily at the 20th Congress of the CPSU (1956) , acknowledged the capitalist barbarity and aggression of the USA and Britain, and of certain sections of the bourgeoisie and its respective political forces in the western European capitalist states, but not as an integral element of monopoly capitalism, of imperialism. In this way, it allowed the nurturing of utopian perceptions, such as that it is possible for imperialism to accept on long term basis its co-existence with forces that have broken its worldwide domination.
Since the 20th Congress of the CPSU (February 1956) and its thesis for a “variety of forms of transition to socialism, under certain conditions”, the line of “peaceful co-existence” was also linked to the possibility of a parliamentary transition to socialism in Europe, a strategy that already existed in a number of Communist Parties and ended up gaining the upper hand in most of them. This thesis constituted in essence a revision of the lessons of the Soviet revolutionary experience and a reformist social democratic strategy. The united strategy of capitalism against the socialist states and the labour movement in the capitalist countries was underestimated. The contradictions between the capitalist states, which of course contained the element of dependency, as is inevitable within the imperialist pyramid, were not correctly analysed. The assessment that there was a relationship of “subordination and dependency” of every capitalist country from the USA gained the upper hand . The strategy of the “anti-monopoly government”, as a sort of stage between socialism and capitalism, that would solve problems of “dependency” from the USA, was adopted. This line was adopted even by the CPUSA, i.e. the C.P of the country which was at the top of the imperialist pyramid. In political practice it found expression in the participation of C.P’s in governments which managed capitalism in alliance with social democracy.
It was thus that C.Ps chose a policy of alliances that included bourgeois forces, those defined as “nationally thinking” as opposed to those which were deemed as servile to foreign imperialism. Such views also held sway in that section of the communist movement which, during the split of the 1960’s, oriented itself towards the CP of China and constituted the Maoist current.
The attitude of many C.P’s towards social democracy was part of this strategy. The view that social democracy could be distinguished into a “left” and a “right” wing became dominant in the C.P’s, seriously weakening the ideological struggle against it. In the name of the unity of the working class, the C.P’s made a series of ideological and political concessions, while the proclamations of unity from the side of social democracy did not aim at the overthrow of the capitalist system, but at the detachment of the working class from the influence of communist ideas and at its alienation as a class.
In Western Europe, in the ranks of many CPs, under the pretext of the national peculiarities of each country, the opportunist current known as “Euro-communism” held sway, a current which denied the scientific laws of the socialist revolution, the dictatorship of the proletariat and revolutionary struggle in general.
Both sections of the communist movement (in power or not) overestimated the strength of the socialist system and underestimated the dynamic of the post-war reconstruction of capitalism. At the same time, the crisis in the international communist movement, which was initially expressed with the complete rupture of relations between the CPSU and the CPC and later with the creation of the current known as “Euro-communism”, deepened.
The mutual interaction of contemporary opportunism between the CPs of the capitalist countries and the governing CPs was strengthened in the conditions of a fear of a nuclear strike against the socialist countries, of the sharpening of class struggle inside the socialist states (Central and Eastern Europe) and of new imperialist wars (against Vietnam, Korea). The flexible tactics of imperialism had an impact on the development of opportunism in the CPs of the socialist states, on the undermining of socialist construction, and of the revolutionary struggle in capitalist Europe and worldwide. Thus, directly or indirectly, imperialist pressure on the socialist states was strengthened, utilizing, among others, both the euro communist current, as well as the Trotskyite and Maoist currents which, to a greater or lesser extent, supported the imperialist attacks against the USSR and the other socialist countries.
An evaluation of the stance of KKE
30. The 14th Congress of the KKE (1991) and the National Conference (1995) evaluated in a self-critical manner the following: we did not avoid as a party the idealisation and the embellishment of socialism, as it was constructed during the 20th century. We underestimated the problems that we observed, attributing them mainly to objective factors. We justified them as problems in the development of socialism, something which has proven not to correspond to reality. We underestimated the complexity of the struggle with the inherited remnants of the past; we overestimated the course of socialist development, while underestimating the tenacity of the international imperialist system.
Our self criticism concerns our mistaken perception regarding the causalities of socialism and the nature of the contradictions in the process of formation and development of the new society. The stance adopted by our Party constituted part of the problem. Our ability to arrive at the correct conclusions was restricted by the fact that our Party did not pay the necessary attention to the need to acquire theoretical sufficiency, to promote the creative study and assimilation of our theory, to utilise the rich experience of the class, revolutionary struggle, to contribute with its own forces to the creative development of ideological and political positions, based on the developing conditions. To a great extent, as a party, we adopted mistaken theoretical assessments and political choices of the CPSU.
Our attitude was influenced to a significant extent by the formality of relations which appeared between the communist parties, by the uncritical adoption of CPSU’s positions concerning questions of theory and ideology. From our experience the conclusion emerges that the respect for the experience of other parties must be combined with an objective judgement of their policies and practices, with comradely criticism concerning mistakes and with opposition to deviations.
The Conference of 1995 criticised the fact that our party uncritically accepted the policy of perestroika, assessing it as a reform policy which would benefit socialism. This fact reflected the strengthening of opportunism within the ranks of our Party during this period.
This critical treatment of the stance of KKE vis-à-vis socialist construction does not denigrate the fact that our Party throughout its history, true to its internationalist character, defended the process of the construction of socialism-communism in the 20th century, even with the lives of thousands of its members and cadre. It militantly propagandised the contribution of socialism. The militant defence of the contribution of socialism in the 20th century was and is a conscious choice of our Party.
KKE did not join the side of those forces which, originating in the communist movement and in the name of criticism of the USSR and the other countries, were led to utter rejection, to the denial of the socialist character of these countries, to the adoption of the propaganda of imperialism; neither did it revise its defence of socialism, despite its weaknesses.
Issues for further study
31. On the basis of the preceding evaluations and directives, the new C.C should organize the deeper study and extraction of conclusions on a series of issues:
* The forms of organisation of workers’ participation, their rights and duties, during different periods of Soviet Power, such as the Workers’ Committees and the Production Councils inthe 1920’s, the Stakhanovite movement in the 1930’s, in contrast to the “self-management councils” under perestroika. Their relationship to Central Planning and the realisation of the social character of ownership over the means of production.
* The development of the Soviets as a form of the dictatorship of the proletariat. How was the relationship “Party – Soviet – working class and popular forces” realized during the different phases of socialist construction in the USSR. Issues concerning the functional downgrading of the production unit as the nucleus of organisation of workers’ power, with the abolition of the principle of the production unit being the electoral unit and of the indirect election of delegates through congresses and assemblies. The negative impact on the class composition of the higher state organs and on the application of the right of recall of delegates.
* The development of the wage policy which was followed during the socialist course of the USSR. The evolution of the working class structure. Further study of the relationship between individual and social in the production and distribution of the product of socialist production.
* The development of relations of ownership and distribution in the agricultural production of the USSR. The differentiations among workers in the socialist production units and services and the stratification within private and cooperative agricultural producers.
* The developments in the class composition of the Party, in its structure and functioning and their impact on the ideological level and the revolutionary characteristics of the Party, its members and cadre.
* The evolution of relations between the member states of the CMA, as well as the economic relations between the member states of the CMA and the capitalist states, especially during the period when socialist construction began to retreat.
* How the form (People’s Democracy) of working class state-power was expressed in the other socialist states, the alliance of the working class with the petit bourgeois strata and the struggle between them. The bourgeois nationalist influences in certain policies of the C.P’s in power, e.g. CPC, the Union of Yugoslav Communists. How the unification after 1945 with sections of social democracy affected the character of the C.P’s in power, e.g. the Polish United Workers’ Party, the Socialist Unity Party in Germany, the CP of Czechoslovakia, the Hungarian Workers’ Party.
* The course of the Communist International and of the evolution of the strategy of the international communist movement.
* The development of the international correlation of forces and its influence on the growth of opportunism in the CPSU. The elucidation of the factors that led to the supremacy of opportunism in the CPSU.