COMMUNISTS: The New Line

Of all the world’s leaders, Joseph Stalin has the most power and publicly says the least. Last week he broke a year’s silence. Bolshevik, the party’s leading double-dome magazine on matters of Communist theology, published a 50-page memorandum from Stalin. Its very title gave promise of the grey gobbledygook that was to come: “Economic Problems of Socialism to Participants in Economics Discussions.” But Pravda acclaimed Stalin’s message as “the greatest event in the ideological life of the party and the Soviet people,” and printing presses began rolling out 1,500,000 copies. The rest of the world began scrutinizing every leaden syllable to find out 1) what Stalin thinks, or 2) wants his followers to think, or 3) wants everyone to think he thinks. The search was rewarding.

Stolen Thunder. Stalin’s message was published on the eve of the first Communist Party Congress in 13 years, and stole the thunder from Malenkov and Molotov, who had been chosen to make the principal speeches. For four hours, Rising Favorite Georgy Malenkov (TIME, Oct. 6) harangued his audience with the old familiar routine, i.e., the “bosses” of the U.S. are bent on “world domination and war,” and therefore the Soviet Union must “strengthen its defense capabilities.” He and Molotov (same theme) spoke for the crowds to hear. But Stalin, whose words Communist strategists the world over will most closely attend, did not talk that way at all.

In fact, for the non-Communist world, the most striking quality in Stalin’s statement was the absence of the customary cant about capitalist “encirclement of the Soviet Union” and the imminent plans of U.S. “warmongers.” Instead, Stalin seemed to pooh-pooh the danger of an attack on Russia, and said that the real threat of war arises from the imperialistic rivalries between capitalist countries for foreign markets. He chided his subordinates, faithfully clinging to yesterday’s party line, for forgetting their lessons that “wars between capitalist countries [are] inevitable.” Comrades who think that ideological rivalry between the Communist East and capitalist West is stronger than economic rivalry among the capitalist states “are mistaken. They see the outer phenomena twinkling on the surface . . . not . . . those deep forces which will determine the course of events.”

“Certain comrades” had been deceived by false appearances. But these false appearances—that is, the strength of the Western partnership—obviously looked pretty impressive to Stalin himself. “Outwardly, everything, as it were, is ‘satisfactory,’ . . . But it would be incorrect to think that this ‘prosperity’ can be maintained ‘forever and ever.’ ” Sooner or later, Japan and Germany would want to get out from “under the heel of American imperialism.” England and France “in the end of ends will be forced to tear themselves out from the embraces of the United States and enter into conflict with them.” These deep forces, operating beneath the twinkling surface, are, conceded Stalin, “acting so far unnoticeably.”

But even the mighty can err. Stalin asked himself: Is “the well-known thesis of Stalin on the relative stability of markets in a general crisis of capitalism” still valid? And how about Lenin’s 1916 thesis that while capitalism rots, it grows “immeasurably more rapidly?” Stalin answered himself: “Both theses must be considered as having lost their validity.”

Help the Inevitable. Stalin’s switch—from accenting the enmity of capitalism v. Communism to stressing intramural struggle between capitalist countries—was a sharp turn in the line, but not a new one. Ever since Marx ruled that capitalism carries within itself the seeds of its own destruction, every good Communist has repeated at one time or another that the greedy rascals must inevitably destroy themselves. And like all good Communists who believe that history is working for them, Stalin last week was not above giving inevitability a helping hand. In passages he knew would be read around the world, he needled Western Europe and Japan for their “subjection” to the U.S., and predicted it could not last.

In London, a British Foreign Office spokesman called in the press and with a straight face announced that he could give them no information about Britain’s impending attack on the U.S. The tabloid New York Daily News puzzled: “How could half-busted Britain and half-crippled France make war on us? Why should we want to conquer them?” These flip responses missed the effectiveness of Stalin’s appeal to European prejudices. With riots, strikes and intimidations, Stalin had tried to scare the Western coalition apart and succeeded only in tightening it. Now, if he could but relax tension in Europe, apathy, laziness and old resentments might do his work for him.

Stalin’s strategy had not changed, if his tactics had: his aim is clearly not to negotiate with the Western coalition, but to smash it.

The Home Front. Superficially, Stalin’s whole article centered on a minor problem, the revision of a new Marxian economic textbook, or what Stalin characteristically called: “Proposals on removing mistakes and inexactitudes in the project and a summary of troublesome questions.” Therefore Dictator Stalin lavished most of his 25,000 words on the internal Russian economy. He laid heavy scorn on one Comrade Yaroshenko who “too simply, in a childlike way” had wondered why the Soviet Union was not hurrying faster from socialism (“to everyone according to his labor”) to the promised Communism (“to everyone according to his requirements”).

Thereupon Stalin in effect attempted to fill a great gap in Marxist theory, and in doing so erected transition into a philosophy. Before there can be Communism, he said, it is necessary to “radically improve housing conditions and raise the real wages of workers and employees a minimum of double if not more,” in order that, in Engels’ words, “Labor shall be transformed from a heavy burden into enjoyment.” Right now, Stalin indicated, Russia’s “productive relations” (Communist doubletalk for social inequality) are too far out of joint to divide things fairly.

Communism can be reached, said Stalin, only after three things are done:

¶ There must be an “incessant growth” in productivity.

¶ There must be a “liquidation of contradictions” in the economy. Collective farms are now able to sell their surpluses on the open market; this must be stopped “without especial haste” but also “without waverings.” In effect, the farmers in the collectives must be nationalized, reduced to the status of hired workers on the land, selling their labor exactly as factory hands do.

¶ The working day must be reduced “at least to six and then to five hours,” so that “members of society should receive the sufficient free time necessary to receive omnilateral education,” i.e., to be taught to be content with their new lot.

Obviously, Communism would not be built in a day.

Two days after Stalin’s article appeared, the Party Congress opened, bringing 2,000 comrades in chauffeured limousines. As the cold rain glistened on the yellow facade of the great palace of the Kremlin, the delegates gave the dictator one of the greatest ovations of his life. Ideologically, the 72-year-old dictator had completely overshadowed everyone at the meeting and set its tone.