‘‘Czechoslovakia after Hungary’’–II

Parimal Dasgupta

They expect CM and SRC's  political position as the political position of the Marxist-Leninist Party. That is why they want their position to be given special attention.

In their articles about me the political position articulated by them primarily revolves around the following:
a)   CM and SRC's political view on the developments in Czechoslovakia and the internal contradictions of revisionism as well as the contradiction of people with social imperialism and in this context their understanding of the strategy of the proletariat.
b)  Their position on the 1951 document of the Communist Party of India (CPI) and the 1964 document of the CPI(M).
c)   CM's views on the strategy and revolutionary practice / programme for organizing India's land struggle based on Mao tse Tung thought.

Their, i.e. CM and SRC's entire political thinking can be found in their positions on these three key issues.

First let me mention that in an open letter to SRC published in the Communist—1st May 1969 issue, I had written about the significance of "revolutionary struggle", "revolutionary insurrection" and also presented new facts about the situation in Czechoslovakia. SRC did not reply to this 'open letter'. The answers to most of the points raised by CM and SRC are to be found in this article.

CM and SRC have been complaining that I have not mentioned this or that, have not used this word or that. What is not there in my article is their concern; what is there is not what they have bothered to comment on or express their views. Whatever words they want to be there needs to be there; it cannot be expressed in any other way. Expressing in a different way, according to them would be equivalent to revolutionary deviation. I doubt even if Mohammad bin Tughlaq1 thought like this. This is a way of thinking whereby what you have not mentioned is what you have done. Not a healthy way of thinking I must say. They complain that I have talked about Soviet "military invasion" not "military aggression" in Czechoslovakia. It would have been better if SRC had elaborated as to what would constitute an "aggressive military invasion". When I write that the Soviet Union, in order to expand and protect their market and power, is carrying out military invasion does it mean that the military intervention is to aid a liberation struggle? They also complain that I have not called the Soviet imperialists. I do not know what is their definition or understanding of imperialism. To create a market for its products and using military power to protect that market—is this not the core of imperialism? If I explain this role of the Soviet revisionists then what else do I need to explain? They specially complain that I still refer to Soviet Russia and the post war states in the Balkan as socialist. What I wrote was: "From the flow of events it may be said that in the states within the Warsaw Treaty such kind of opposition will surface in many forms and anti-Soviet feelings will be consolidated. The current conflict between Soviet Russia and Czechoslovakia is the present reflection of that trend. This has happened because of the laws of their economy. This is the contradiction of a socialist state run by revisionists and this is quite akin to the contradictions of a capitalist state". Is this not a correct analysis? Did CM realize the significance of what I meant by "quite akin to the contradictions of a capitalist state"? Instead of going into a derailed analysis of a socialist state, I will mention what the Albanian Communist Party has to say on the development in Czechoslovakia: "the revisionist aggression against the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, which was committed in the name of Warsaw treaty......"

Thus, by referring to Czechoslovakia as a socialist republic the Albanian Communist Party has committed a grave deviation. It seems that names and external forms trouble CM and his group very much; fundamental and core issues seem unimportant to them. Their other allegation is that I have not talked about Soviet-US understanding but have only focused on their contradiction. In my article is there any mention or analysis that Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia has happened or is justified because of US-Soviet contradiction? What I have said in my article is that after the 20th Party Congress the Soviet leadership "has adopted a policy of creating an environment of-co-operation with the US and use the other socialist countries as markets for their goods"; here co-operation with the US does not mean that the Soviets will not have any contradictions with the US or that US will not devise any moves against the Soviets. It is but natural that such contradictions and moves against each other is part of their relation. Expressing support for the Soviet policy on Czechoslovakia is a well thought out diplomatic move of the US. CM and his group do not see the two aspects—co-operation and contradiction in the US. Soviet relationship; they only see the co-operation. But the Chinese Communist Party (CPC) has in its analysis of the current contradictions as they prevail in the world political situation accepted the contradiction between the imperialist and social-imperialist countries as one of the contradictions. Thus CM and his group's view on this is actually in opposition to the view of the CPC.

Since I mentioned about counter-revolution in Czechoslovakia, CM and SRC have said that my views are close to what the CPI(M) thinks or actually supports their views. In this matter CM has discovered an innovative approach. He writes that where capitalism has been reestablished under revisionist leadership, to locate counter-revolution there is tantamount to supporting imperialist aggression. Has the re-establishment of capitalist relations of production or capitalism per se under the revisionist leadership happened in August of 1968 or has been happening from some time earlier? This has happened over the last 7-8 years. In June 1968 the leadership of the Albanian Communist Party especially, Enver Hoxha wrote about strong counter-revolutionary activities in Czechoslovakia, so, as per CM's logic, he has in effect supported the imperialist aggression. Following CM's logic we have to arrive at such a conclusion. CM's political understanding is that those who are against Soviet aggression in Czechoslovakia are supporters of revolution and those who point out Czechoslovakia's reaction are supporters of imperialist aggression (and thus against revolution). The faction of Dange's party or those from the international revisionist parties who have opposed Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia can thus be part of CM and his group's selling up of a revolutionary united front—such an objective basis exists and the situation seems ripe. The Soviet revisionists and the CPI(M) leadership want to depict the reaction in Czechoslovakia as independent of the reactions of the current leadership of the Czechoslovakian Communist Party. This in effect supports the logic of the Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia. What I had written was: "The situation related to the two thousand word appeal is actually the creation of the current leadership of the Czechoslovakian Communist party.... But where lies the root of the situation and events in Czechoslovakia? It lies in the ideological shift in the Soviet party and the emergence of revisionist politics and in the actions and reactions around this process". Thus to defeat this reactionary' force and bring about a new situation, revisionist leadership of both Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia have to be crushed. This was the basic call in my essay. But CM's call and strategy and tactics are different. I will come to that later.

The naming of my essay as "After Hungary, Czechoslovakia" has become the main focus of CM and SRC's attack. Their main political analysis is that by equating the objective conditions of Soviet intervention in Hungary and Czechoslovakia, I have put forward a logic which in effect supports Soviet aggression. SRC has quoted the leaders of CPC extensively to prove his point. I am reminded of an article by Kamal Ghosh in "Communist"—16 June 1969 issue "On Bourgeois Nationalism and CM", where he has correctly analyzed that CM and his group do not actually look at the whole picture but arrive at conclusions by viewing few incidents—"they do not see the forest but base their views on seeing a few trees" he had written. The central focus of my article was that under the leadership of Khrushchev, revisionism, initially in the name of launching a war against Stalin, fomented counter revolution in Hungary and the trajectory of revisionist economic policies and its internal contradictions and Soviet revisionism's policy of securing its market the actions and reactions of it—led to the situation in Czechoslovakia. That is why I wrote in my essay : "Czechoslovakia after Hungary" is the historical resultant of some definite policies. This is the creation of revisionism amidst communism. This is the result of discarding the revolutionary essence of communism, denying the need and importance of a cultural revolution in socialist states, which allowed revisionism to make a strong re-entry in the post-Stalin era...." This is the significance of the title of my essay and an analysis of the results of revisionism. The overall trend of revisionism has to be seen in this political perspective and not on isolated incidents. This does not translate into support of the logic of Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia. The current Soviet leadership is the creator of revisionism and its primary carrier. CM and his group cannot see revisionism in its overall perspective and have no understanding about the primary characteristics of revisionism. That is why CM and SRC, even when they were in the CPI(M)'s regional committees, could not oppose the then party leadership's joining the anti-Stalin chorus and thus effectively supported the anti-Stalin stand. In fact presently also CM believes that under Khrushchev's leadership the revisionists played a revolutionary role at least in Hungary. He has written "The Khrushchev leadership played its role in defending socialism in Hungary". Given the world political situation then, Soviet intervention in Hungary was justified. But this cannot be seen as a progressive role played by revisionists. The later history of Hungary proves this. CM and group had been and continue to be in the dark about the nature and characteristics of the Khrushchev-led revisionism. That is why they have not been able to accept my analysis of the development of revisionism in my essay. They only believe in anti-Soviet politics. Their attack is against the entire Soviet Union. In his essay "India's People's Democratic Revolution" published in Dashahrati issue dated 16 May 1968, CM has written: "To successfully complete the people's democratic revolution in this country one has to actively oppose the country of the Great October Revolution—Soviet Union". He considers the people of the Soviet Union to be our enemy. This is the politics of naked nationalism. CM wants to fight revisionism based on nationalism. His views are opposed to the position of the CPC. In the report presented at the 9th Party Congress of the CPC, Lin Piao writes : "It is our firm belief that the great proletarian class of the Soviet Union steeped in the history of revolutionary traditions and the people at large will surely revolt and be able to uproot this clique consisting of a handful of betrayers....". CM and his group's fight against revisionism is based on nationalism and not on the principles of proletarian internationalism. That is why CM has advised the rich class and the working class of Czechoslovakia to counter the Soviet revisionist attack. This is their strategy to fight Soviet revisionism. This is the theory of nationalist revolution. CM has given a revolutionary stature to the revisionists of Czechoslovakia and has put in place a strategy of destroying a section of revisionists with the help of another section of revisionists. That is why he has not been able to give a call to the proletariat of the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia and other such countries to unitedly fight against all revisionists. This is the difference between my call and their call. It is not at all clear to CM and his group as to what should be the key objective of a proletarian revolutionary programme in states controlled by revisionist leadership. The basis of revisionist rule in these states is the loss of dictatorship of the proletariat. Thus for the sake of communism in such states it is necessary to organize another October Revolution for the reinstatement of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Thus the Albanian Communist Party in its statement on the situation in Czechoslovakia has given a call : "....For the Czechoslovak people the only way to regain their freedom is the road of struggle without compromise to the end against the foreign invaders, the Soviet-German, Polish-Hungarian and Bulgarian revisionists, and against US imperialism and German revivalism and against all the local revisionist and reactionaries. This struggle will be difficult and protracted, but it is the only correct and possible road for the salvation of Czechoslovakia for the defence of freedom and socialism.…."

"The Party of Labour of Albania, the Government of the People’s Republic of Albania and the Albanian People have faith in and call on the genuine Soviet-Bolsheviks and the Soviet people to rise up in struggle against the revisionist clique which is oppressing them, to make another Great October Revolution, to bury once and for all the ill-famed 20th Congress and its tragic consequences on a national and international scale, to overthrow the Brezhnev-Kosygin revisionist clique, to make invading Soviet forces leave Czechoslovakia and all other countries where these forces have been stationed for domination". And in such a situation CM and his group's call is for a nationalist revolution to be led by the rich class. In my essay I had given another call : "Today in Czechoslovakia, Soviet Russia and Warsaw Treaty countries it is essential that new revolutionary communist forces are again organized so that in all these countries they can demolish the revisionist leadership of the Communist Party, re-establish the revolutionary essence of communism and thereby end the contradiction which had been generated between them leading to the establishment of true socialist interrelations based on mutual respect and equality. This is the force which can be the true friend and co-fighter with revolutionary China to bring in communism worldwide. There are signs of the birth of such a force in these countries. Its growth and powerful assertion is a historical necessity".

References :
1.      Mohammad bin Tughluq, a medieval Indian king supposed to be whimsical.
[to be concluded]

Frontier
Vol. 50, No.28, Jan 14 - 20, 2017