In his reply to me in OP, Prospect No.14, Lambert shows he is intent on putting Stalin in the dock, even if this means rejecting Marxism-Leninism on important issues. The themes which Lambert covers are the following: bureaucracy, leader-centralism, enemies of socialism, revisionism, degeneration, the battle for democracy, more light, and capitalist policies.

I will deal with these issues presented by Lambert one by one.

BUREAUCRACY.

The first is ‘bureaucracy’. Lambert takes me to task when I argued that Stalin’s opposition to the consolidation of the Soviet Bureaucracy into a class needs no substantiation. Lambert argues that Tony could find no textual evidence for his views. I therefore advise Lambert to read the introduction to ‘Stalin Letters to Molotov’.

Lambert argues that the Communist Movement, i.e., the forces of the Third International, rejected Trotsky’s views about a counterrevolutionary bureaucracy. Trotsky only came out with these views after he lost political power, so it is not surprising that the Communist Movement regarded this as sheer opportunism.

Lambert rejects the view that under certain conditions bureaucracy could transform itself into a new ruling class, both under capitalism and socialism, and that there would be strong tendency in this direction in the absence of institutions of democratic representation and scrutiny. In the case of capitalism such a bureaucratic class would share power with the old capitalist class, in much the same way as the old capitalist class compromised and shared power with the old landed aristocracy. So Lambert is not only wrong but also dogmatic when he says bureaucracy ‘cannot’ transform itself into a new ruling class.

STALIN AND ‘LEADER-CENTRALISM’.

Lambert argues that ‘ The permanent cessation of multanimous practice across the CPSU obviously resulted in the stultification of democracy among the advanced workers’. What is the evidence for this? Don’t ask Lambert; he doesn’t provide any answer. What is obvious is that Lambert equates democracy with factionalism.

Lambert’s view of the CPSU is completely abstract. But a real communist party as it matures with experience increases its unity. Lambert doesn’t realise that the communist party becomes more united, factionalism declines more and more as class society weakens and socialist solidarity increases. In other words Lambert fails to see that the advance to socialism leads to increasing social and political unity, unlike under capitalism where we see a proliferation of political parties and factions, corresponding to the disunity of people under bourgeois rule.

Lambert’s attack on the unity of the CPSU under Stalin is an attack on the working class itself, which made this unity possible. It was not Stalin alone who was responsible for the decline of factionalism in the CPSU, but also the working class. For Lambert, therefore, the advance of socialism should lead to increasing disunity, the proliferation of political parties and factions, but this petty-bourgeois view is at variance with Marxism-Leninism, which teaches that socialism leads to increasing unity of society, not disharmony and political disunity.

ENEMIES OF SOCIALISM.

In Lambert’s world-view, all the enemies of socialism are open, and clear for anyone to see. He doesn’t seem to understand that there are ‘concealed enemies of socialism’, something that Stalin, as a Marxist-Leninist, knew only too well. Gorbachev was a ‘concealed’ enemy of socialism who threw of the communist mask when it no longer suited his purpose. People like Khruschev and Brezhnev were simply front men for the counterrevolutionary processes developing in the Soviet Union. The bourgeois counterrevolution needs to wear the mask of socialism for a certain period of time until it is strong enough to reveal itself openly.

REVISIONISM.

Lambert makes the absurd claim that Stalin was the father of ‘Modern Revisionism’. However, Lambert does not give a Marxist, class definition of revisionism. We will do this for him. Emerging in the Communist Movement, revisionism is the distortion of Marxism in the direction of serving the interest of a capitalist class. Lambert’s definition of revisionism has nothing to do with Marxism, so his talk about Tony’s ‘modern revisionism’ is empty braggadocio.

According to Lambert, Stalin’s ‘revisionism’ took on a utopian form, regarding the transition from capitalism to communism. For Lambert the term ‘communism’ is an abstract phrase devoid of content, and the same applies to the term ‘transition’. For Lambert the transition to the higher phase of communist society only begins after the international state of socialism, but this is a crude repudiation of dialectics and Marxism-Leninism. Why was Lenin able to regard Communist Subbotniks as characteristics of the higher phase of communist society, even though the USSR was backward in relation to the more advanced capitalist countries. Lambert fails to grasp how the contradiction between the lower and higher phase of communist society is based on their identity. So Stalin’s 1936 constitution was correct from the standpoint of Marxism-Leninism and dialectics as far as the transition to communism is concerned.

Lambert argues that the first form of ‘modern’ revisionism was that of Lenin, who, due to his analysis of imperialism developed the theory of the possibility of socialism in one country, but this view of Lambert depends on a non-Marxist definition of revisionism, as I have already explained. At least Lambert is decent enough not to repeat the Trotskyist lie that Stalin invented ‘socialism in one country’ in 1924. Attributing to Stalin what every well-read worker or intellectual in the communist movement knows came from Lenin was partly responsible for Trotsky’s downfall.

The second form of revisionism, according Lambert, came from Stalin, who had a utopian view concerning the transition to communism in one country. Wild accusations against Stalin is what Lambert serves up, but no evidence which can be supported by Marxism. Lambert, please give Stalin a break. Yesterday the Trotskyists lied about Stalin inventing socialism in one country in 1924. Lambert knows this argument has been exposed as a lie, so he moves the goal post to Stalin defending the idea communism in one country.

In opposition to Lambert, it is necessary to repeat that, according to the Marxist and Leninist class definition of revisionism, modern revisionism, that is, the distortion of Marxism in such a way as to serve the interest of a capitalist class began qualitatively, or openly with Khruschev’s denunciation of Stalin at the 20^th Congress of the CPSU in1956. Lambert’s non-class definition of revisionism does not make any sense from the standpoint of Marxism-Leninism. When Marxist-Leninists speak of revisionism we mean the bourgeoisie, or the ideological and political servants of the bourgeois class in the communist movement. In this sense to call Lenin and Stalin revisionists is outright Slander.

DEGENERATION.

Why did the Soviet Union degenerate? There are several interrelated reasons for this. One reason was given by a speaker at a Stalin Society meeting, who pointed out how many of the best cadres were killed off on the frontline in the struggle against Hitler Fascism. These were the most devoted to the cause of socialism, and they were the first to die. This state of affairs gave the revisionist their opportunity after the Second World War. The fall of these heroes, the best Soviet Communists, had a devastating effect on the future development of the Soviet Union. With the best Communist dead, it was easier for those with concealed revisionist tendencies to increase their power in the party and state.

We hope Lambert takes these facts into consideration when he muses on the various reasons why the Soviet Union returned to capitalism.

DEMOCRACY.

Lambert claims that Stalin did not trust the advance workers with the development of proletarian democracy. This is all abstract, nebulous stuff. The decline of factionalism, increasing communist unity is the result of the successes of a communist party. For Lambert, proletarian democracy, which he claims, with absolutely no evidence, that Stalin did not trust the advance workers to develop, means factionalism and disunity. The law of socialist development is, increasing unity in party and socialist society as socialism advances, with desperate attempts of sabotage by those who do not want to reconcile themselves to socialism. When Lambert looks at the Soviet Union under Stalin, he does not see a reflection of bourgeois political society and he his unable to recognise what he is looking at.

MORE LIGHT.

Lambert is right to call for more light. This is quite correct scientifically. Lambert himself would benefit from more light. But, for Lambert this can happen only if the future communist party returns to multanimous practice, although it is not easy to know what this means. However the danger is that Lambert worships the factional period of the communist movement and even seeks to institutionalise it.

Lambert doesn’t grasp the question of unity and disunity in the communist movement from the standpoint of a class driven perspective. Lenin and Stalin are accused of suppressing democracy in the Bolshevik party. This is what Lambert’s accusations amount to.

CAPITALIST POLICIES.

Modern revisionism begins with the pursuance of capitalist polices in the Soviet Union in an open form. This was in the period of krushchev, Brezhnev and after. Lambert’s claim that Lenin and Stalin were modern revisionist is arrant nonsense. I have shown that this nonsense is possible because Lambert does not regard revisionism from a class point of view, but from the point of view of the bourgeois scholar interested in the affairs of the communist movement. Revisionism is the ideology of those in the communist movement who serve the interest of the capitalist class

Tony, Communist Party Alliance.

March, 23^rd 2001