THE BULK of this year's Socialist Register contains articles marking the 20th anniversary of Khrushcnev s sccret speecnto me 2tr Congress of the CPSU and the Soviet invasion of Hungary.
The significance of these articles is Inal tney deal witn the impact of the 1956 events within the Communis rarues outside. Eastern Europe. Most of the authors were BOMBSHELL The 20th Congress revelations in February 1956, coming from a central leader of the CPSU, exploded like a bombshell throughout the Parties hushenevs specca was denvere. in a secret session from which delegates from other Crs were excluded, and details of the report leaked only slowly.
Articles reporting the Congress Dy bnusn party icaders containco only hints of what had been said. It was April that two articles by Harry Pollitt (then CP general secretary) summarised the speech.
As John Saville reveals, even summary omitted 'specific details that made the impact of the fact, for instance, that 1,108 delegates to the Soviet Party Con gress of 1934 — out of a total of 1.966. including Central Commit tee members - had been arrested by 1938 (and almost all of them done to death, it could be added).' The reaction of the CP leadership was summed up by R. Palme Dutt in the May 1956 issue of Labour Moniny: "That there should be spots on any sun would only startle an inveterate Mithrasworshipper.* The full text of the speech only appeared in June not in the CP press, but in the issue to it.
One article in Socialist Register contains interviews with leading members of the French and Italian communis Parues in 19so, and shows that Khrushchev's speech was part of the struggle for the CPSU leadership.
Jean Pronteau, a member of the PCF Central Committee in 1956, recalls confronting Maurice Thorez, its general secretary, learning of the secret speech on a trip to roland 'He looked at me expressionless:
report? replied: "The report Khrushchev made in cosea session me secre rеpoгt."
I started to get worked up. and took out of my briefcase the notes I had taken in Poland. point Thorez said to me: "Oh! So you've got it. You should have said so straight away."
'And he added in a pontifical manner: "Anyway, just remember one thing. This report doesn't exist. besides, soon it will never have existed. We must pay no attention to it.
Thorez's position throws light on the possible motives of the CI understood the quiet pleasure he showed, when the group" almost managed to seize power and overthrow Khrushchev.
*It was a near thing. Molotov, Malenkov and Kaganovitch had a majority in the Presidium. If it hadn't been for Zhukov's tanks, beaten.' Thorez' position throws light on the possible motives of the CP leaders in Britain in suppressing debate in the party. John Saville describes the fight he and other CP members waged in trying to raise questions about the 20th Congress Ine DarLy Dress Finding the official organs Observer. which devoted a whole | the Daily Worker and World News closed to debate, Saville and Edward Thompson produced their own journal, The Reasoner. In the course of the year leading up to the special CP Congress in April 1957, the CPB lost 7,000 members, a fifth of its total.
The Socialist Register articles also raise a question which has been ignored, not surprisingly, in the debate among CP leaders on after *Socialist Democracy Problems', in Marxism Today this year. This is the complicity of the CPB leadership in the crimes of the Soviet bureaucracy.
CASE Malcolm case of Edith Bone, At that member and Daily Worker corres pondent who was released after seven years Hungary, following the return of Nagy as Prime Minister.
*...it rapidly became known, and was admitted by Campbell Pollitt at the EC, that during Edith Bone's disappearance several times her. and had received no satistac tion whatever from the Hungarian Party, or "anti-Party retary.. It was all very well for Pollitt to say that "unity" must be defended at all costs, but the costs had to be Bones, noe by the Polite ent borne joyed innumerable trips and holidays in Eastern Europe. been It has taken Gollan twenty years to produce criticisms which fought to suppress in 1956 article by kalpn vanoand in tai Socialist cribes Gollan's article in Marxist Today (January 1976 issue, now available as a pamphlet):
*It is in fact a lamentable document, written in wooden style associated by long usage such mealy-mouthed, ful ambiguities Panel most ine CommunIs! erning Stalinism ences.
Despite its limitations, Gollan's article and the fact that the CPGB Political Committee sanctioned its 1956. restricted outlets of the Morning Star letters column, Comment and Marxism Today. But as Miliband limited to branch Sacrosarc ensures that no nationally organised opposition to the leadership can develop.
TURN The 'mealy-mouthed' criticism inal ine crub is now prepared to make of the CPSU is not the result • a snut towares Rather it is part of the general turn ov a numocE or CuroDcan Crs tO distance This has been a reaction to the Tcougnance into the struggle over the recent DCHOG TO InC tices of the Soviet bureaucracy. It has also OCCI pressure from the European social democratic parties sought to shift forces in the working class in their favour through defence of democracy in the workers states.
light on questions portance for revolutionary Mar ists. We will therefore be taking up Some GDR citizenship removed. a British CI landhalle. imprisonment permission to perform, they "inquired" about When he Rakosi its general sec refused readmission Edith An Register accurately des familiar productions, full of careand euphegenerals content commonplace formulas in movement and its consequVolker Braun Kirsch, and Gunther reflects a shitt since nent nantes on tuls us! Now there are at least the or ine sco the-signal for further been expelled from the notes, discussion in the CP is still Robert Havemann and other prominent opposition level and the on factions"
Dominan!
language to its minimum:
That you'll go TrOLSKVISI Surely you see that.
stronger influence Comin vention into real struggles.
polical entertainer a reaction to the public appearances which have t0 leave the West the relation of Yet he combines bureaucrat/ the post./ Socialism has of extreme imthe German Democratic Republic. Now, the fierces critic of the Stalinist bureaucracy, he has had his Nothing is left to him in the West except the solidarity of the thousands joined him in the Internationale at the Schwaber The expulsion of Biermann was a trick. For many although he had eventually been refused record or publish turned down opportunico tu leave the country. abandon me struccle ne nac cnosen, tor tear that wond not be resomities. as ne wrote ram better of the halves, but I must endure double the received an invitation from the West German metalworkers union to do a concert tour, he appiled for and was granted an exit and re-entry visa poison side the dosine the 1950s. ine opposition inside the GDR since the 1950s que an' pi • writers sent a resolution to tne party leadersnip wnici been supported by hundreds of intellectuals Biermann's COnTUSIOn of GDR he intends to live in Italy.
Hermann and other the SED, have latched onto what is - he had onportunist ano ronust hiberal workers states' treatment of dissidents to the betrayals of workers power revolutionary Marxism will have in inat Dosition RICHARD CARVER Sarah Professor weakness, which reflects the intellectual opposition workers states is ms musions cureconnon He has said inatine taus to recan damission tou where he sees rowing and progressive Communist Party, Ironica who are clearly left critics o essentially criticism of the How this attitude will survive prolonged exposure and undemocratic practices of the questionable Already Biermann has made clear criticisms of the reformis line orine chilean or. ine can develop hIs unucI standing of the need tor workers democracy in un of werners intes man the cape to res smash the capitalist states clearest mouthpiece in the workers states. Sadly he is not ye
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