Class Struggle and Unity of Communists

Political statement at the Congress of Soviet Communists CPSU

Speech by Victor Anpilov, slightly abridged. Editor.

Dear comrades!

In front of our Congress, in front of all Soviet communists there was always a historical question of great importance. After all, what has transpired with our country; with the workers and farmers; the USSR; after great suffering, blood and turmoil, the people are not only looking towards Communists for answers, but are asking each one of us: when will this splitting and vacillating cease among the communists, when will you bring to an end and completely beak with the former nomenklatura leaders, who have sold their own party, the country, its own people for 30 pieces of silver as Judas did? When will real communists lead the people towards victory? We are now going to embark on the decisive step to reestablish the rule of the working class, the rule of the party of the proletariat, the party of Lenin-Stalin, under which the working class of Russia was successful in the Great October Revolution of 1917 in bringing to life and history the most truthful and beneficial revolution in the world!

Today, even to the most naive person in politics, the question is clear: the break-up of the first state of workers and farmers in the world was started with the revisionism of the Communist Party of Soviet Union. The resurrection of socialism in the USSR is impossible without the unity of communists into one party. The truth is, that we have no right to give in to vulgarization of the present reaction not only the ideals of communism, hut also the name of Communist Party of Soviet Union! If we will remember that under the name of this party, under whose leadership the Soviet people defeated Hitler's fascism, there is even a little blame upon all of us - therefore we shall state without any wavering: we allowed the name of our party to be defiled, and we vow to cleanse from the dirt that was allowed to tarnish it this honorable name!

Naming our new party the "Party of Soviet Communists," or "Communist Party of Workers of Soviet Union," - suggestions by members of the Organizational Committee - also are not bad suggestions. They are more deeply tied to the role of what communists should be about, allowing specifics for struggle in our brother republics. From another point of view, how many times must we allow the present reactionary forces to control our thoughts and method of work, this reactionary regime that had not asked anyone, either constitutionally or otherwise, about the dismemberment of the USSR, but did it illegally, underhandedly and in secret manipulations, by the act of a drunken get-together of former leaders; they tore apart the feelings of the Soviet people, which culminated in the All-Union Referendum of March 17, 1991, when overwhelmingly the Soviet people voted to have the USSR exist as it is. After the Byelovezh drunken orgy by leaders Yeltsin, Krawchuk and Shushkewich, they became the traitors of the highest order. All cooperation with them or with their regimes is nothing short of helping these renegades against the will of the Soviet people. Where is this line, where for the sake of flexibility before the enemy, is there taking place cooperation with them?

Let me repeat, the question is not what shall be the name. Let the Congress decide this. But facts remain facts. The appearance of many parties and movements after the liquidation of the CPSU, as mushrooms after a rain, the appearance of these many parties and movements was very much to the liking of the present regimes. Even the Union of Communist Parties-CPSU is in many ways helping Nazarbaev, Kuchma and Yeltsin today. Why is it helping them? Because this Union (UCP-CPSU) is a conglomeration of parties, it is not monolithic, united by one discipline and guided by one central body - the Central Committee of one Communist Party. What is preventing the chairman of UCP-CPSU, comrade Oleg Shenin, from heading the process of forming one united communist party? It is the fear that, according to his own words, the most numerous and most organized party - the CPRF (Zyuganov) will not join organizationally, will not want to change its "deep" program, which allows different forms of ownership, which has sold out the class struggle and ideology, which does not even take into account proceeding towards the socialist principle of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Of course, to criticize others is very easy. It is much harder to admit your own mistakes. Yes, the party (CPSU) which was headed by a band of traitors the likes of Gorbachev, Yakovlev, Medvedev, Yeltsin, Shevernadze - a party whose membership in the lower ranks was not able to stop the sell-out of these leaders - such a party was doomed. Why is it that, beginning from April of 1990, I together with comrades in the Initiative of Communists - Kosolapov, Sergeev, Makashov and Tiulkin - were struggling inside the CPSU to set up an anti-Gorbachev center, that was in fact to organize the Russian Communist Party. As is well known, the CPSU nomenklatura very quickly started this process and put in the leadership positions the Gorbachev-Yakovlev cadres, friends and exponents of the market economy: Kuptsov, Polozkov, Zyuganov, Rutskoi, Brachihin, Antovich (this last is now the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Byelorussia). Into the CC of this republican communist party came Tiulkin and Prigarin. But the new formation did not produce anything at all. The dedicated "Initiators" again found themselves outside the leadership, on the streets, picketing, demonstrating with slogans such as, "Down with the command of Gorbachev!" and these "Initiators" were supported only by the newspaper "Molniya".

The putsch of August 1991 was the signal to finally liquidate not only the Communist Party, but the USSR. The comrades that were the "Initiators" should have immediately changed tactics at that and left the "republican separatism" for all-union work, left the CPSU and without Gorbachev and Yeltsin. This was not done. The formation of the RCWP (Russian Communist Workers Party) in 1991 in actual fact legalized the liquidation by Yeltsin of the CPSU. This gave the opportunity for Yeltsin, by utilizing the Constitutional Court which was under his command, to stop the work of the Central Committee and to mix into the affairs of each communist party, to take steps to set up others, which would play the role of splinterers. This gave an impetus in all former Soviet republics to also start setting up numerous communist parties and movements. The All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (Nina Andreeva) then immediately distanced itself from the CPSU and its membership. This in itself was the formation of a new party, one of many. All of the "new" parties in their existence had internal splits, formations and reformations, and not even one of them became a vanguard party, able to lead the Soviet people!

At first glance, with so many parties in Russia it is hard to tell the difference. The CPRF, as an example, states that Russia has had its fill of revolutions - meaning that we should not allow an outburst of revolutionary activity which, according to Zyuganov, would lead to "nuclear apocalypse." This nuclear blackmail was used on the robbed people. In the meantime the RCWP (Russian Communist Workers Party) and other parties of Rosskomsoyuz are calling for a country-wide political strike, trying by these means to befuddle the revolutionary spirit... they also expel from its ranks honest, dedicated communists. AUCPB is for a second socialist revolution. The result is one and the same - we have to wait. Wait, when the "honest bankers" are filled with their ill-gotten riches and continue to rob the working class of all it has. To wait until the working class organizations and movements are grown over with structured formalities. Wait until the subjective and objective situations will allow us to have a second socialist revolution, looking at the shameless robbery of all the gains of the Socialist Revolution of 1917.

Future disagreements, splitting, is helping our class enemy immensely. The plotting and discourse among the communists is producing apathy and pessimism amongst a wide section of workers, first of all among the politicized working class. The unity of communists must become a united force against the bourgeoisie from the Carpathians to the Pacific Ocean, from the Arctic Circle to Kushki. Saying this, we must understand that to go back mechanically to the past is impossible and should not be. Our duty is - to analyze the mistakes that were made, that brought about the liquidation of the party and our Motherland. Our task - clearly explain to all communists, to the working class, to all workers and farmers, what must be done so that the mistakes that were made would never again be repeated.

Our Mistakes and the International Communist Movement

The 80th Anniversary is a triumph and tragedy of the Great October Revolution - this belongs to all the communists of the world. Yes, let us admit that they, our friends all over the world, did warn us about the dangers. After the XX Congress of the CPSU, communists of China were the first to warn us of the danger of revisionism and the subversion of the proletarian revolution. Khrushchev called Mao a revisionist, but history has shown that Khrushchev was the biggest revisionist. With the advent of Gorbachev's "perestroika" on behalf of "all human ideals," the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) in 1988 warned us about the oncoming capitalism in the Soviet Union. The articles by Nina Andreeva spread like wildfire all over the world: "I cannot go against my principles." After this article by Nina Andreeva appeared, the process started when these traitors like Gorbachev, Yakovlev, Medvedev, Yeltsin, were unmasked as enemies of the people and helpers of world imperialism. During the summer of 1990 the communists of the German Democratic Republic warned us about the false phrases of Gorbachev about "socialism with a human face," and this of course was followed by the liquidation of the GDR which was forced to unite with West Germany and thus again enter the orbit of NATO.

Unfortunately many communist parties that were enamored of the policies of Gorbachev in the leading Western capitalist countries fell for this demagogy. This situation transformed itself into wars, robbery, crime, all geared towards the establishment of capitalism in the former Soviet republics. "Pink" communists in many countries thus bit their tongues, ignored what was happening in the Soviet Union and gave the country up as insignificant. But the real "red" communists did not get scared, did not give up on socialism; they started to analyze, they started to take action. Thus communists of the Greek Communist Party, as their First Secretary Alrka Papariga wrote many times. Also the Workers World Party of USA took the correct stand and saw what was happening. The October 8th Movement in Brazil also started to write and explain what was happening in our country. The leader of the Party of Labor of Belgium, Ludo Martens, not only wrote books about the events, he also organized world conferences in Belgium where communist and workers movements gathered to analyze and come to correct conclusions as to what had transpired in the USSR. Leaders of the Korean Democratic Republic also made statements regarding revisionism by the Gorbachev-Yeltsin clique.

In Canada (where the Communist Party was ill with revisionism and anti- communism from former Ambassador Alexander Yakovlev while he was in Canada), Comrade Michael Lucas practically on bare ground established a center for studying this process, which was steamrolling on the territory of USSR, established the journal "Northstar Compass," thus getting Soviet communists in contact with the whole world.

The Syrian Communist Party has added enormous energy into this process of exposing the revisionists in the former USSR and in other so-called "communist" parties.

In the projected program of Soviet communists we have taken into account the analyses and ideas of our foreign comrades. It is now absolutely clear that the revenge of the counter-revolution in the USSR was caused by two factors: internal and external.

Enemies of October from 1918 to NATO

Let us ask ourselves a question: why is it that the October Revolution, the Soviet State, the successes of people building a socialist society, have made world capitalism plus the hidden elements inside our Motherland such bitter enemies of ours? The brilliant answer to this question was given by Vladimir Lenin in his work "What is Soviet Power?" "The truth is that for the first time, a workers' state is guiding its own destiny on a mass scale, and it is this class that capitalism exploits in the first place. Even in the most democratic state, in the most humane state, if the capitalist class prevails, if the land belongs to private capital, the ruling class owns and exploits the majority of the people. For the first time in the world, power is in the hands of the working class... only the workers and peasants are controlling the Soviets - and to these Soviets is given all the power"...

We are going to return many times to Lenin and his writings in order to guide us in our work. Even then, the young Winston Churchill stated openly that: "We must strangle the Bolshevik baby in its cradle." They were ready to strangle us but their hands were too short. The young Soviet state organized the Red Army which defeated the interventionists. Even in 1919 the then Premier of England Lloyd George stated the following: "Is it not time even now to propose to the following people to establish their own independence: Georgia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Bessarabia, the Baltic provinces and maybe even Siberia. We must understand that a united Russia (USSR) will always present us with a danger to Europe and our interests".

After the Second World War, this Lloyd George doctrine was taken up by U.S. imperialism. In November of 1945 General Eisenhower, future president of the USA, stated: "It is no use hiding the fact that we are thinking of going to war with Russia!" In a secret document of the CIA (CNB 20/1) of August 18, 1948, this was stated: "The Government during these political times must concentrate even more on our future attitude towards Russia... Our aim - to liquidate the USSR as an entity." This was followed by immense monetary outlays towards this goal. Billions of dollars were assigned towards this end, establishing spies, hidden anti-Soviet centers of propaganda, encompassing the anti-Soviet elements that were well-hidden inside the structures of the Soviet Union. There were different variations of this aim... the plan was detailed during 1940s by Allen Dulles.

The first Soviet Sputnik, the first flight by Yuri Gagarin, shook the world, the USA and world imperialism. No one then could believe that these downtrodden, terrorized people not only could run their country but were also able to put the first man in space. There are stories which are more and more being ratified by some elements of the Western press that the USA did not send Astronaut Armstrong to the moon, that this was done by a very realistic laboratory simulation, since the USA could not be beaten by the "Bolsheviks" who were not able to accomplish the breakthrough into the Cosmos!

COMMENT:

Whether this assertion is true or not, it was not the Soviet Union that started these rumors in the press... this emanated from the USA and other Western news agencies. Editor.

The U.S. imperialists were not able to beat the Soviets to the Cosmos, but they certainly did brilliantly in undermining our country. No one could beat them at this game of intrigue. During the 1930s they put their eggs in one basket of Trotsky, then during the 1980s they certainly put their eggs in the basket of Gorbachev. It was not enough for him to get a Nobel Peace Prize, not enough to get honorariums, gifts; besides this Gorbachev was declared by Germany to be "The Best German!" He was so used to selling his soul and his country, so used to being bought that, when he was in Argentina, he went overboard with his demands: he charged the impresario in Brazil who brought him there $20 for each word he spoke in Buenos Aires. The impresario was so shaken at these astronomical charges that, after calculating his losses, he decided to shoot himself. (These are facts that anyone can verify in the Argentinean press. Editor)

In his greed, Gorbachev not only sold our his friends and business partners, he sold out whole nations. He could not have prevented his traitorous remarks from seeping out when he spoke with former Presidents Bush and Reagan of the USA. Bush, before becoming President of the USA, was head of the CIA. What Gorbachev received for his Judas treachery is still unknown, but his personal guard, General Medvedev, in his book "Man behind the Back" recalls a telephone conversation between Gorbachev and Bush. Gorby always assured Bush over the telephone with these words: "Everything is going fine! All is going according to plan. It is going as was planned!"

Valery Boldin, a consultant and a very close friend of Gorbachev, stated: "The Soviet Union was demolished from within, broken up by a small group of influential leaders of the Party and government." Think about this, comrades,... leaders of our CPSU and Government became the "fifth column" in a role of paid agents, spies of foreign agencies. This was admitted in a moment of weakness by Gorbachev himself, in one of his television appearances when he said: "When the Chairman of our Security Services (KGB), Kriuchkov, came to me for a meeting, he had a portfolio of documents with him, which he said showed concretely that inside the USSR there was a widespread anti-Soviet organization, that is preparing the overthrow of the USSR and plans for military intervention against the Soviet Union by NATO forces. He demanded that I look at these documents immediately. I did not even look at these documents, and without reading them, I put them in my safe." What is this? Is this not an Agent of Influence; he did not have to read the documents given to him by the KGB which was unmasking these traitors inside the USSR... of course not! Gorbachev knew the contents of the KGB investigations!

Moles of Counter-Revolution

Here we can draw our first conclusion. After the victory of the Socialist Revolution, after the victory in the civil war, after the victory of the Great Patriotic War, after the intervention of the USA against Cuba, imperialism was not able to defeat our revolution. With arms in their hands, the workers and farmers could not be defeated. The question of internal enemies is another dilemma. "Moles dig from inside." This book by Alexander Yakovlev, former Ambassador to Canada, called "Bitter Cup - Bolshevism and Reformation of Russia." This former member of the CPSU Political Bureau stated in his book that "you can gain your objectives if you place your people in the leading positions of the government and the army." This book can only be understood if we see Yakovlev and the mole as one and the same.

A state in transition from capitalism to socialism cannot be anything other than the dictatorship of the proletariat... Lenin taught us.

Those who do not understand the dialectics of Lenin's thought, who cannot even now understand that the aim of communists is to establish a classless society, where one class cannot dominate another, will never be able to answer this question: why is it that blind moles of anti-communism were able to undermine the Soviet state?

It is paramount to understand that if the people are unable to hold on to the teachings of Lenin and if the dictatorship of proletariat is diminished and weakened, the society will eventually go into the hands of those who are interested in having a minority class rule over the majority - the building up of ruling privileges, a class of exploiters, to gain the ownership of the means of production.

That is why Lenin always stated that you should "teach a cook how to govern a state." Under communism the people will rule and guide the state. No one can deny that the Soviet Union was growing economically, culturally and having influence all over the world.

History confirms very succinctly that the Mole Yakovlev was the child of the Mole Trotsky. Both tried to put other Moles in positions of authority and power inside the Soviet State. In fighting these Moles, Stalin utilized a method of activization of ordinary communists and non-party citizens in fighting, exposing and finally liquidating the moles inside the body of the USSR. In June of 1928 the CC AUCP(B) adopted the declaration on the initiative of Stalin towards criticism and self-criticism. He knew that, in planning for the future, criticism from top to bottom must be reversed - criticism must go from the bottom to the top. After this declaration was adopted, there took place a cleansing of party ranks, especially the leadership of elements that were not fulfilling their Communist functions well. There were open meetings where non-party comrades had the same say as party members. Thus the hidden functionaries that had wormed their way as moles into the state apparatus were exposed and dedicated people put in their place.

After 1936, when the New Constitution was adopted, people acclaimed this as an era of people's participation in government.

The internal Moles hid even better inside the government organs of power, awaiting the "liberation from Bolshevism" as expounded by Trotsky. These enemies were in the Army, government, internal security organs - all biding their time. Stalin organized the masses of people in taking part in governing. The participation in elections reached over 90%.

If we consider ourselves Soviet citizens, then the Constitution of 1977 is still the governing force according to all international laws, and thus the party that was constituted on the territory of the USSR is the CPSU. This is the class understanding.

On Red Barricades

The architects of perestroika figured out that after the liquidation of the USSR, unemployment should rise to 20 million workers. Afraid for the fate of their families, workers somehow stay on the job even though they are not paid for close to 10-12 months. Where there is work, the "independent unions" that are in the pockets of private owners try to direct the struggles from the political arena into cooperation with the private owners... towards economic demands, which today are not addressed. Now there are growing Red Unions in Western Ukraine, Siberia and other districts of the former USSR.

Unfortunately, due to their dispersement into many parties and movements, the communists were not able to guide and steer the working class towards the demands against the capitalist class. In the last elections, the working class in the industrial centers of Russia not very enthusiastically voted for Zyuganov. After the traitorous acts of Gorbachev's upper echelons of the CPSU, after the majority of yesterday's Communists became bankers, businessmen, corporate owners of seized Soviet industries - the working class began not to believe communists. Add to this the fact that Zyuganov's platform is not that much different from Yeltsin's, how can we blame the working class? That is the reason for the results of former elections; the working class did not vote en masse for Zyuganov and his policy of cooperation with the present Yeltsin regime.

Unfortunately, for the moment the students are inactive, and since the education system is still more or less based on free education, the young people are not yet altogether politicized. But now that the road is towards payment for education, students will be heard from in the near future.

The selling off of the nation's riches to foreign monopolies, and the systematic liquidation of the readiness of the Russian Army to defend the people, cannot help causing dismay and unrest in the Army, militia, etc. There are still no open rebellions against the regime in the Army. But as our "March On Moscow" showed, the Army is not monolithic and does not obey all the orders of the present regime... especially after the Chechnya debacle.

In principle you can understand why Yeltsin and his regime is afraid of the Army and is thus doing everything possible for it to be ineffective, to quickly disperse the Army and make it into a punishment militia. Not all of the Army or its generals have sold out. Army recruits and the militia have shown that they do not want to defend the racketeers, industrialists or the mafia structures. There is great disarray in the Army, and as soon as the officers understand that to depoliticize the Army is to sell the Army, then the officers themselves will lead the revolt. The Party of Communists and its military wing will save the Motherland together.

When Premier Chernomydrin stated that for 70 years he was taking the wrong road, and now he has found the right road - he became a laughing stock.

In order to save their skins, the present regime is willing to give away all the former territories of the USSR to foreign owners and is openly working towards the day when NATO forces will be called in to govern and keep order.

We must organize a two-pronged attack in order to resurrect the Soviet Union. Our program sees the necessity of following in two stages: national-liberation and proletarian-establishment of socialism.

The national-liberation stage is to expel from the country and power all of the anti-people regimes, to stop the anti-national course of colonization of Soviet republics, to attain their full separation from the diktat of world imperialism and the International Monetary Fund. To liberate the Soviet Union, the Party of Soviet Communists is ready to work in unison with all opposition parties and movements, but without deviating from its principal class path towards the full victory and establishment of a Soviet State.

The proletarian stage to establish socialism (which will be based on the principles of the Great October Revolution) on the territory of the USSR must start immediately after the victory of the national-liberation stage in any former Republic of the USSR. Soviet communists must be ready and mobilized and must immediately come to the defense of the Soviet State wherever it is victorious. The first step that will be taken is to expropriate all industries, banks, property that was seized by the present mafia. All steps will be taken to proceed again on the road to socialism.

For a Proletarian Party

Soviet communists understand that in order to achieve our goals it is necessary to struggle without compromise with the bourgeois counter-revolution and its allies. We are raising the flag of unity in order that we may start the struggle on all fronts: economic, political and ideological. Just concentrating on any one by itself will not gain the objective of rebuilding socialism. The Party of Soviet Communists is dedicated to one unified Marxist-Leninist party, overcoming all present illegal boundaries imposed on the USSR. It is against the personal ambitions of the present leaders. We are open to comradely discussions, to discussing concrete proposals, but for opportunists whose ambition is to rule over others, our paths cannot be the same.

We cannot be exclusive, we have to remember that the CPSU must belong to all the people, not only to communists. We know that the process of unification cannot be accomplished in one day. In this regard we can adopt the draft Program at this Congress and on behalf of the Congress send it to all parties, movements and organizations across the USSR, asking them to discuss this Program, add to it or subtract from it, but do not just keep quiet during this critical time for our Motherland! We are ready to start polemics and we are certain that the communists in the ranks of all the parties will make their proper decisions. We are certain that our call will find a favorable reply from the AUCPB (Nina Andreeva). We are ready to start the polemic in the pages of the newspapers "Molniya" and "Glasnost," the organ of the Union of Communist Parties-CPSU in order that in the near future these two newspapers should become one. For us also not to stop our activity after this Congress, let us elect a temporary Central Committee. At the Second Congress, which shall be even more representative, we shall elect the Central Committee... let us remember that the future of the Soviet people is more important than who is going to be elected as the First Secretary!

A united party, formed and nurtured by Lenin and Stalin, brought the working class to power in 1917. They had one program, one constitution, one dedicated morale for everyone. The Party of Soviet Communists must follow absolutely Lenin's norm of party building, must have unity in its leadership and membership. In this regard the present Constitution that was adopted at this Congress states emphatically that the leadership must be discussed, criticized or replaced at open meetings of Communists and non-party worker collectives.

Cooperation between members of our party must be the same as between citizens of our country. There must be freedom to express oneself and also to understand that after decisions are adopted there must be a unified response. We cannot allow any nomenklatura tendencies of the leadership to appear as was the case in the post-1953 era.

Every candidate for leadership or worker in party or government posts must follow the principle of wages laid out by the Paris Commune - the wages of ANY leader or functionary cannot exceed that of a skilled worker. It would be a crime to institute any privileges for party functionaries, and after Soviet power is established, state functionaries. No one cannot receive higher wages than a skilled worker, otherwise it would be against the best interests of our Soviet Motherland. If there should be a breach of this edict the guilty person will be dealt with by the courts of the land.

The Party of Soviet Communists - a resurrected united party of Soviet Communists - will show its internationalist solidarity with the international communist and workers movements without any pretenses; this is in the interest of the united struggle against world imperialist capital under the slogan of "Workers of the World, Unite!"

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