From Roter Morgen
January, 1991
On the 111th anniversary of the birth of J. V. Stalin
111 years ago, on December 21, 1879, J. V. Stalin was born. Under his leadership, in the Soviet Union for the first time in the history of mankind socialism was made a reality.
The KPD [Communist Party of Germany] has always held that the upholding of Stalin is a principle dividing line between Marxism and revisionism, between proletarian revolution and counter-revolution. This is confirmed again in these days. Stalin is blamed by all the bankrupt revisionists for their own failures. What Ulbricht and Honecker [East German revisionist leaders] have done - it was Stalin! The shameful deeds of the Stasi [East German political police] were Stalin's fault. Hunger in the Soviet Union - Stalin bears the responsibility, etc., etc. All the failed revisionists seek the easy way out - Stalin. What a "personality cult" turned on its head, where Stalin, 37 years after his death, is made responsible for everything.
The KPD does not by any means summarily defend everything that existed in Stalin's Soviet Union. Quite the contrary: bureaucratism already very early on had deep roots, it stifled to a large degree the initiative of the masses, it prepared the way for revisionism. But Stalin fought resolutely against such phenomena. He was the decisive obstacle to revisionism, which was first able to seize power after his death.
Also internationally Stalin's deeds were a significant help to all progressive forces. Under his leadership, the Red Army freed the German people from fascism. He unmasked the turn of Titoite Yugoslavia towards imperialism and defended the Albanian people against the attempts of Tito to annex Albania. Had Tito's plan succeeded, the Albanian people would have been subjected to the same dark fate that the working people of Yugoslavia had to suffer, particularly the Albanians in Kosova. Comrade Enver Hoxha said of this:
"Joseph Stalin's aid and intervention at these moments was decisive for our Party and for the freedom of the Albanian people." (Speech in the name of the Central Committee of the PLA [Party of Labor of Albania] at the Meeting of 81 Communist and Workers' Parties in Moscow on November 16, 1960, in Enver Hoxha, The Struggle of the PLA against Khrushchev-Revisionism, from Vol. 19 of his Works, p. 253).
In spite of his resolute struggle against bureaucratism and revisionism, Stalin could finally not prevent the victory of revisionism and the resulting restoration of capitalism. Therefore it is necessary today to learn the lessons and further develop the theory of socialism, the transition society to communism, in the spirit of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin. No matter how we judge the individual actions of Comrade Stalin, for the KPD the evaluation of Comrade Enver Hoxha at the Meeting of 81 Communist and Workers' Parties in 1960 in Moscow is valid now as before:
"Did Stalin make mistakes? In so long a period filled with heroism, trials, struggle, triumphs, it is inevitable not only for Joseph Stalin personally but also for the leadership as a collective body to make mistakes...
"Certain persons immediately smashed statues raised to Stalin and changed the names of cities that had been named for Stalin. But why go any further? At Bucharest, turning to the Chinese comrades, Comrade Khrushchev said: 'You are hitching on to a dead horse. Come and get his bones if you wish.' These references were to Stalin.
"The Party of Labor of Albania declares solemnly that it is opposed to these acts and to these assessments of the work and person of J. V. Stalin." (See above, p. 272 on.)
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