The Socialist Standard of August 1918 dealt with the Bolshevik seizure of power by making quite clear that this was not—and could not be—a Socialist revolution. Both the essential prerequisites—social production for abundance of wealth and a majority of the people understanding and wanting Socialism — were lacking. We were almost alone in this view. Sixty years later, after incalculable damage has been done to the cause of Socialism a report in the Guardian (June 30) quotes the leader of the Spanish Communist Party as saying: “Russia is not socialist and the Communist Party is not Marxist”.
We are asking the working class to learn the lesson of history, which is to reject the advice of “superior intellectuals” and act on the principle enunciated by Marx before Lenin was born: “The emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself.” How much more will the workers endure before they “do their own thing”? For whatever Carrillo and the other so-called Euro-communists like Marchais of France and Berlinguer of Italy may admit in their current schism with Russia, the last thing they will suggest is that the workers should reject all leaders—including them. And although Carillo tries to keep the Stalinist witch La Pasionaria out of sight she has been made the titular President of the party and is now MP for Oviedo.
Carrillo now actually calls the Kremlin a Church and the CP of the USSR the Inquisition—and in Spain that passes for a damning criticism. But what is it all worth? The real crux of the matter is that Carrillo’s supporters have no raison d’etre if they cut themselves off from the Kremlin (could their British comrades run the Morning Star if the Kremlin stops paying for many thousand copies a day for export to the dustbins of Eastern Europe?). The largest leftist party in Spain, which ran a manifesto appealing to all classes of society including industrialists, stands for all the reforms and nationalization programmes that any non-Socialist could wish for. While Carrillo, publicly proclaims his loyalty to the Bourbon king and the capitalist flag.
L. E. Weidberg