Ruthless struggle and merciless blows

["Chris, London" <100423.2040@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

In "Lessons of the Maoist Wars" yesterday, I drew attention
to a certain caution by Mao about "merciless blows" compared
to the words of Lenin, (and Adolfo).

For the sake of completeness, and bearing in mind the
connection Hans drew with the issue of Stalinism, I checked
"Foundations of Leninism" by Stalin.

This was written in Arpil 1924 and was in many ways Stalin's
claim to the mantle of Lenin, who had died 3 months earlier.
The text therefore would not have departed too strongly from what
many members of the party would have recognised as the ideas
of Lenin, but it is arguable that Stalin gave them a new twist,
giving questions a simplicity and concreteness that may
not have been there in Lenin.


Chapter 8 is on the Party, and the last of six priniples is

"The Party becomes strong by purging itself of opportunist elements."

This does not mention "merciless blows", but it does mention
"ruthless struggle", which would appear to be much the same thing.
Indeed when Mao complained about some comrades referring to both ideas
too readily he would have been referring to the thirties when the
influence of this sort of thinking would have spread through
the international communist movement.

The section starts uncompromisingly:

"The source of factionalism in the Party is its opportunist elements".

After a paragraph invoking Lenin on the labour aristocracy
being "real agents of the bourgeoisie" in the working class movement,
it continues..

"In one way or another, all these petty-bourgeois groups penetrate into
the Party and introduce into it the spirit of hesitancy and opportunism,
the spirit of demoralization and uncertainty. It is they, principally,
that constitute the source of factionalism and disintegration, the
source of disorganization and disruption of the Party from within.
To fight imperialism with such "allies" in one's rear means to
put oneself in the position of being caught between two fires,
>from the front and the rear. Therefore, *ruthless struggle*
[my emphasis] against such elements, their expulsion from the Party,
is a prerequisite for the successful struggle against imperialism."


There is another paragraph saying that the theory of defeating
opportunist elements by ideological struggle within the Party
is a rotten and dangerous theory.

The section ends with a concise reaffirmation of the statement that
"The Party becomes strong by purging itself of opportunist
elements and an eloquent quotation from Lenin. Emphasis
apparently Lenin's:

"With reformism, Mensheviks, in our ranks," says Lenin, "it is
*impossible* to be victorious in the proletarian revolution, it is
*impossible* to defend it. That is obvious in principle, and it has
been strikingly confirmed by the experience of both Russia and
Hungary...

"In Russia, difficult situations have arisen *many times*, when the
Soviet regime would *most certainly* have been overthrown had
Mensheviks, reformists and petty bourgeois democrats, remained in
our Party...

"In Italy, where as is generally admitted, decisive battles
between the proletariat and the bourgoeisie for the possession of
state power are imminent. At such a moment it is not only absolutely
necessary to remove the Mensheviks, reformists, Turatists from the
Party, but it may even be useful to remove excellent Communists who
are liable to waver, and who reveal a tendency towards 'unity' with
the reformists, to remove them from all responsible posts...

"On the eve of a revolution, and at a moment when a most fierce
struggle is being waged for its victory, the slightest wavering
in the ranks of the Party, may *wreck everything*, frustrate the
revolution, wrest power from the hands of the proletariat;
for this power is not yet consolidated, the attack upon it is still
very strong. The desertion of wavering leaders at such a time
does not weaken but strengthens the Party, the working class
movement and the revolution."

[On the Struggle Within the Italian Socialist Party, Nov. 1920]



Comment: Now it is arguable that some of this was given extra
spin and emphasis as Stalin prepared the ground for the
defeat and  expulsion of Trotsky and his supporters
(eventually leading to their deaths).
It is also arguable that Stalin's organizational operationalising
of these polemical principles, distorted inner party democracy in
a way that Lenin never intended.

However IMO they give strength to the arguments of Barkley Rosser
that it is not possible to criticise Stalin, without
also being prepared to criticise Lenin.

It is also interesting IMO that in the later thirties both
Trotsky and Mao stressed the importance of emphasising dialectics
in the study of marxism.

Chris
London.


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