ON THE COMINFORM

6 The Cominform and the national question. Struggle against the revisionist...

6

The Cominform and the national question.

Struggle against the revisionist "specific-national road to socialism".

At the Cominform conferences, the revisionist thesis of renouncing the dictatorship of the proletariat in one's own country was put forward on the grounds of the very existence of the Soviet Union.

The dissolution of the Comintern and the associated diversions to world socialist revolution were undoubtedly linked to the Second World War, into which the Soviet Union was drawn. This was the "Great Patriotic War". This designation clearly expresses that Soviet patriotism in defence of the first socialist state in the world was of great importance for the victory of Stalin's Soviet Union over Hitler's fascism. Since Lenin's and Stalin's Soviet Union still played the decisive role for the world communist movement, it concentrated on its main task, namely, to mobilise all forces in the worldwide struggle against Hitler's fascism, which was waging war against the Soviet Union in order to wipe out this "hotbed" of world communism and to annex the vast territory of the Soviet Union by force.

On the fertile soil of the national liberation movement against Hitler's fascism, modern revisionism flourished with its ideology of the so-called "national road to socialism", especially in the people's democracies that were under the protection of the Soviet Union. Bourgeois nationalism gained influence after the end of the war, of which Yugoslavia is the most striking example. Undoubtedly, this influence did not begin during the Second World War or at the time of the Cominform. This nationalist influence already began with the dissolution of the Comintern, which also left the individual sections, the communist parties, to their own fate, which made it easier for the inner-party enemies to strengthen their revisionist influence in them. Thus the hitherto close connection between the communist parties and the CPSU (B) was not dissolved, but it was severed to a considerable extent, which was to continue through the Second World War and then proved to be an intolerable stumbling block after the Second World War, prompting Stalin to found the Cominform. This was bitterly necessary because the national road to socialism had also cleared the way for the dissolution of the communist party of a new type by means of unification with the social democratic party. With the resolution of the Cominform in 1948, which was mainly due to Stalin, a stop was put to the so-called "national road to socialism", which in essence was nothing other than the road of bourgeois socialism, i.e. the road of capitalism, and thus turning away from the Soviet Union. With this albeit heavy blow of the Cominform, however, the revisionist ideology of the "national road to socialism" was far from being eliminated. Some modern revisionists were arrested and sentenced to death, but most of them feigned "self-criticism" in order to hide their true intentions, namely to continue their "national road to socialism" secretly as long as Stalin was still alive.

As a hostile ideology to proletarian internationalism, nationalism fomented national discord among the people's democracies, especially against Stalin's Soviet Union, with the slogan of no longer being "patronised" by Stalin and instead choosing their own way - "as far as possible out of reach of Stalin's long arm" - which found its sharpest expression in Tito's bloc formation against Stalinism. In accordance with the aspirations of the modern revisionists, the building of socialism was to be confined to the individual people's democracy and the joint building of socialism under the leadership of Lenin's and Stalin's Soviet Union was to be shunned. With this divisive nationalist line, the road to socialist internationalism was to be stopped and blocked. This hostile isolationist course was a serious crime against the Soviet Union, which had done everything for the building of socialism in the countries of the People's Democracy, although it itself suffered most from the great losses caused by the war. The theory of the "national road to socialism" was justified by the principle of the creative application of Marxism-Leninism to the special conditions in the various countries of the People's Democracy. But theory and practice were already diverging at the time of the Cominform, the mutual trust of the people's democracies was violated, and especially the trust in Lenin's and Stalin's Soviet Union.