– N. Ribar –
Review of Spiro Dede’s book “Counter-Revolution Within the Counter-Revolution”
(To be published in October by the November 8th Publishing House)
One of the main problems that remains amongst communists to this day is ideological inflation and naivety. And when one recognizes it, it becomes difficult to digest aspects of historical texts that do not deal with this problem. What is communism? Is it one outlook, which may be called the highest road possible, or is it a force in and of itself? Does it represent a view of men or does it stand above men, as a kind of idealist sword?
I can say decisively that to both questions, my view tends towards the former. To separate communism from the men who espouse it is to lose the real world and fall into fantasy. And, further, who is to say that communists are, as was claimed in the days of the Comintern, “men of a special breed”? Are they men just like any other, capable of immense flaws — both personal and political — or are they keenly equipped with an ability to lead?
I again answer this question with a tendency towards the former. This is not to doubt that the communist ideology provides possibilities others do not — that much is self-evident to any student of the history of the construction of socialism in the Soviet Union and people’s democracies. But, in the final sense, the communist ideology is only as good as the men who espouse it, and sometimes, those men can be not only not positive, but immensely negative.
What does this have to do with the book Counter-Revolution Within the Counter-Revolution, and why do I make such a statement at the beginning of my review of it?
Take a look at its contents. This book is a very valuable one, which outlines the degeneration of the Polish leadership from the time of the war to the 20th Congress of the CPSU, the rise of Gomulka, his ouster and Gierek, and the surge of the ultra-reactionary “Solidarity” trade union. In this sense, it has great merits because it examines all the patterns of the past to find the cause of those events, and it does not fall into the trap which certain people did at that time — that “Solidarity” as a trade union was positive because it was a “union,” allegedly “for the workers.”
But neither does it fall into the reductive explanations of the Polish communist leadership, as well as the Soviet leadership, which glossed over the causes by overemphasizing the external factor, which indeed was not only a large component, but in my view the primary one. Rather than ignore the internal factor, Spiro Dede places a significant amount of blame on the Polish communist leadership, quoting Enver Hoxha significantly to this fact.
It is no doubt that the emergence of “Solidarity” and ultimately the “movements” which overthrew the Soviet Union and the people’s democracies were a direct consequence of the constant concessions of those countries’ communist leaderships to the Anglo-American imperialists.
In Poland in particular, the activity of the Catholic church was widely allowed and promoted after the death of the great Polish leader Boleslaw Bierut. Dependence was sought by the Gomulka-Gierek leadership not only on the Soviet Union, which was something natural after the immense destruction of the war, but on the West with its enslaving loans, credits and aids. By the 1980s, Poland was billions and billions in debt to the West, which as Enver Hoxha rightly pointed out, does not give out such loans without calculating the profits they will exact and the aims they will attempt to impose before hand. This aspect of the book alone makes it more valuable than the Soviet or Polish literature, which tended to downplay all errors.
This is self-evident, and a direct result of the conciliatory policy which Khrushchev announced at the 20th Congress of the CPSU, namely, that rather than building up the socialist camp as a force for itself, “peaceful competition with imperialism” should commence, including economic and political collaboration between the two blocs. Further, this period also saw the rehabilitation of proven, condemned and legally tried agents of the Anglo-American imperialists and their Yugoslav puppet, first of all Wladislaw Gomulka, who then was allowed to become the First Secretary of the Polish policy. The blame for this lack of vigilance, which was naively stupid at best and criminally incompetent at worst, lay at the feet of the Polish communists and the Soviet leadership, led by Nikita Khrushchev. Spiro Dede documents this well and writes about it extensively.
However, the most insightful aspect of the book in my view is the examination of the policy of the Polish communist party both prior to coming to power in 1945 and in the first years of socialist construction. This is immensely valuable in understanding not only Polish history but all of communist history. It is this activity which proves the Polish communists were divorced from the masses, an appendage of the Comintern so filled with spies that the Comintern forcibly dissolved it, even prior to the Second World War. This starkly reminds one of the Yugoslav party’s experience during the inter-war period, in which cadres were decimated many times over.
This past of the Polish communists explains why they played no role in either defending their country from the invasion of Hitler or welcoming the objectively positive Soviet territorial gains in Ukrainian and Byelorussian lands. They remained on the sidelines in this historic struggle.
It is not a bourgeois statement to admit that the Polish communists would never have come to power if not for the great liberation mission of the Red Army which saved the Polish people and all Slavdom from destruction and extermination. This proves that despite ideological aspirations, the real ratio of forces in the world determined the final outcome.
But, in the end, this truth expressed in Spiro Dede’s book betrays itself. What was the solution for the Polish people to get out of the crisis of “Solidarity,” the danger of the Vatican and the aggressive West? Allegedly, in forming a “genuine Marxist-Leninist party,” overthrowing Gierek and the pro-Soviet order, and establishing a society such as the Albanians had and were continuously building. Looking at it in retrospect, and not only in retrospect, such an idea seems comedic.
Dede begins by explaining that millions upon millions of workers have joined the anti-communist, open counter-revolutionary, pro-American “Solidarity” movement. How is that a “genuine Marxist-Leninist party,” in gaining the Polish “subjective factor” for revolution, would win over the minds of these millions who become convinced through extremely sinister propaganda that the Polish government, responsible for their present situation, was an “evil,” “communist” government? This question the book never answers.
It is assumed that, through the kind of naivety that defined a Comintern communist, the ideological force of “real communism” could extricate the people from this situation in and of itself. It is presented as if this “real communism” only needed to be shown to the workers, who have “material interests on the side of communism,” for them to quickly realize that their government is allegedly a “capitalist” one in control of “Soviet social-imperialism” and that the dependence on American imperialism would be more of the same.
It is unfortunate that the book expresses this view throughout because it is this kind of view which, as is called in English, is a “pipe dream.” The Polish working class, going out in the millions for directly anti-communist aims, was not going to overthrow the system they had been told was “communist,” led by ultra-reactionary circles, and then go on to build a “real communist” society. While inflating the ideology of communism in and of itself, this tendency places a secondary role on important other subjective factors, such as the utilization of mass Western propaganda. Ironically, the utilization of mass Western propaganda played a primary role in the collapse of the people’s democratic system in Albania itself.
The question of the patriotic Polish people at that time could only be: How do we correct the orientation of the Polish state, while acknowledging that the main threat to Poland is from the West and their ultra-reactionary internal agents? In this case, it was the external factor and not the internal factor that was the primary one. I therein raise the important question: if this was a primarily external contradiction, was the call for the overthrow the Polish leadership a correct one? Was the outrage at the possibility of Soviet intervention an emotion serving the world communist movement or the forces of American reaction? Was not the correction of the orientation of the Polish leadership and the ensuring of peace by any means possible the first task of the patriotic Poles? As is known, General Jaruzelski came to power and ensured stability until the Soviets betrayed the people’s democracies and Gorbachev collaborated to dissolve the Warsaw Treaty.
Spiro Dede’s book inflates the Marxist dogma of the primacy of the internal contradiction to such proportions that he presents it as ipso facto true that the Polish working class only needs guidance, to exercise its power and then both the internal pro-capitalists and revisionists are “finished.” It is worth repeating my earlier statement that ideology is only as good as the men who practice it — it is not a force in itself. And when there are no such men, how can one reasonable expect a “real communist movement,” never mind one that would take the self-reliant road of the Albanians?
Life, especially in this period through to 1989-91, did not present problems so simply. The contradictions, especially in the people’s democracies, were extremely complex. Enver Hoxha personally acknowledged this in his Report to the 8th Congress of the Party of Labour of Albania when he gave the “Solidarity” movement as an example that of the two superpowers, the Americans were stronger, on the offensive, and the Soviets were weaker, on the defensive. This was not the dogmatic rendering sometimes seen in Dede’s book.
The concept of a “counter-revolution within the counter-revolution,” which, while evident, also flattens these problems. Let me give one example:
It is note that one slogan of the “Solidarity” movement was for “self-management” of the Yugoslav type. This shows what immense foresight Stalin had when he condemned the Titoite leadership as an agency of the Anglo-Americans, and also gives credit to the Albanians for never relenting in their correct line which time has only proven. It also shows that the Yugoslav state and society was not “another revisionist” country, but in fact was given missions — sometimes unknowingly, sometimes knowingly — as an anti-Slavic, anti-Russian, anti-Soviet, anti-Eastern proxy of the aggressive West. This distinguished it in history as a socialist country which played an extremely negative role not only internally, but externally as a lynch pin of imperialism.
What, then, was Yugoslavia? A counter-revolution or a counter-revolution within the counter-revolution? And if the latter, what was the first counter-revolution and when was the decisive break with it? In fact, it was a continuous counter-revolution which turned completely in the service of the aggressive West immediately after 1948, and especially when it de facto joined NATO through the 1953 Balkan Pact. Therefore, the phenomena the book describes was a specific one to Poland. And, even in that country, the author places as evidence that the Gomulka-Gierek clique was a “counter-revolution” its erroneous and destructive policy — and this may suffice, but I will not make judgement on this complicated historical problem.
After sharing my thoughts on these problems, on the problem of the force of communist ideology, on the alleged primacy of the internal contradiction, Spiro Dede’s book seems very naive to me.
Unfortunately, even many of the Albanian communists, who remained on the correct path after the 20th Congress of the CPSU, did not learn the necessary lessons from the Second World War. For all the people’s democracies, including Albania, owed their freedom and socialist construction not to the force of communist ideology or overcoming internal contradictions, but to the ratio of forces in the world and external contradictions. First of all, the great force of the heroic Red Army — the saviours of Slavdom and all mankind. Through its incredible strength, the socialist industrialization and collectivization in the Soviet Union and the genius Stalinist military science, it smashed the Hitlerite plague.
Without the Soviet Union, not only would socialism never have existed in any of these countries, but many of its peoples would have been wiped out, exterminated. Another claim throughout the book — one which is never proven — is that “Soviet social-imperialism” allegedly controlled Poland. Only one statistic is cited, showing that the Soviet Union represented the largest share of trade with Poland, and oft-repeated are anecdotal claims of the intervention threat of the Soviet armed forces. Neither points prove dependence or relations of imperialist bondage. Therefore, how easy would it have been for the patriotic Polish people to turn against such a salvific force, despite its weaknesses and flaws, especially when the primary threat came from the aggressive West and their internal agents?
Perhaps the answer lies in the words of the Supreme Commander who led the force which liberated Poland. The great Stalin, who is often accused of acting as a Great Power statesmen, in Molotov-Ribbentrop, at Yalta, in conflict with the Titoites, or even determining the fate of the world on a school globe as Khrushchev claimed, in doing so only demonstrated his incalculable genius such as nobody else in history. His evaluation of the ratio of forces in every situation, and his admission when the external factor was the primary one, his utilization of communist ideology as a sharp weapon, not in itself but of men with definite aims — was outstanding as an entire body of work. Stalin knew that every situation could be exploited in a multitude of varied ways, not always the most “pure,” to ensure the best possible outcome for the progressive historical forces. Such was the aim of his entire life and scope of work.
it is unfortunate that few people have properly grasped these historical lessons. In his final speech, Stalin creatively defined the communist and democratic parties of the world as the most forward “shock brigades,” just as the Soviet Union had been the “shock brigade” which smashed nazi-fascism. He said: “The banner of national independence and national sovereignty has been thrown overboard. Without doubt, you, the representatives of the communist and democratic parties must raise this banner and carry it forward if you want to be patriots of your countries, if you want to be the leading powers of the nations. There is nobody else to raise it.”
Such advice also fit the Polish patriots during the time of “Solidarity,” who were required by history to became this “shock brigade” again and pick up the banner of patriotism and unity of the Polish people, in alliance with their civilizational and political allies. This is what Spiro Dede misses: that patriotism and the balance of forces, not abstract ideological purity, were decisive.