Post by dodger on Jan 6, 2014 15:41:59 GMT
This Will Podmore review is from: Perestroika: Its Rise and Fall (Paperback)
This is an extremely useful account of the counter-revolution in the Soviet Union.
Enemies of socialism dismiss the 70 years of Soviet history with simple labels, or rather libels. Davidow explains: "in place of a careful, deep-going, objective analysis of the complex seven decades of Soviet and party history, there was a one-sided, negative, distorted, dilettantish portrayal, a sweeping rejection of that history, condemning it in the borrowed words of Western bourgeois anti-Soviet propagandists, as `totalitarian', a `failed experiment'."
He notes, "All the extremism has its source in the anti-communism of the `democrats', in the fact that their chief aim is to dismantle socialism and to restore capitalism. And this gives rise to their attacks upon socialism's basic institutions, especially those that defend its state, the army and KGB."
The anti-communists, pro-capitalists, slandered anti-capitalist forces as conservative and reactionary. As Davidow observes, "Anti-communism is the blood brother of fascism. ... Anti-communism must be revealed for what it is, the most virulent form of bourgeois ideology."
The `dissident' Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who expressed support for General Franco, also backed Hitler's assault on the Soviet Union and the Vlasovite traitors who joined that assault. He wrote, "Bolshevism ... had eaten into the body of a Russia sapped by the First World War and it must be defeated at a similar moment in the second."
Davidow points to the roots of revisionism under Khrushchev and Brezhnev: "Paradoxically, the overestimation of the level of socialist development in the USSR led to the underestimation of the role of the working class. If the `complete victory of socialism' had been secured, if the USSR was in the stage of `developed socialism', if antagonistic classes had disappeared, if there already existed an all-people's state, then it would follow that the need for the working class as the leading class in society is considerably diminished, if not eliminated. ... The unacknowledged antagonistic class, existing particularly in the form of the black market forces, played an increasingly active role in the Soviet economy. ... They began to exert increasing pressure for `legitimate' expression, in keeping with the powerful world position of capitalism. They were sustained and encouraged by the moral and material support they received from this source. The channels of democratization, glasnost and political pluralism provided these black market forces with their first real political opening and they rushed to make the most of it."
Davidow points out, "This loss of confidence in socialism is the prime factor in opening the door to anti-communism." Khrushchev's attack on Stalin led to the attack on Lenin, the revolution and Marx. Khrushchev, Brezhnev and then Gorbachev progressively disarmed the CPSU ideologically. Davidow comments, "From Stalin, the `democrats' soon turned their fire on Lenin, the Bolsheviks, the October Revolution." And, "The sole yardstick by which all are measured, no matter how much they hate socialism and the CPSU, is hatred of Stalin."
Gorbachev's `perestroika', under cover of the label of correcting socialism, actually rejected socialism. From the start, it was a counter-revolution against socialism, against the party. Davidow remarks, "A virtual `cultural revolution' was launched against the CPSU. It started almost with the very inception of perestroika."
Gorbachev treacherously capitulated to the rising fascism of Yeltsin. Davidow notes, "never in history did a ruling party literally turn over the mass media to forces bent on its own destruction and of the state it led, as did leaders of the CPSU." So the counter-revolution gleefully seized the media: "In the name of democracy and glasnost, extremist, anti-socialist, anti-Soviet forces were given free, full access to the TV, radio and press, to spread their message of national hatred and strife." National separatists in the Baltics, Moldova, Georgia, Ukraine and Armenia, allied with the anti-communists.
In his 1991 coup, Yeltsin dissolved and outlawed the CPSU, seizing its assets and purging its members. He dissolved the Soviet Union and the All-Union Trade Union. In 1992, he banned the National Salvation Front. He called on the soldiers of the Red Army to reject their oath.
In 1991, 74 per cent of the Soviet people voted for a renewed USSR. The 6th Congress of the Russian Federation voted against Yeltsin's economic `reforms', against his government and against his dictatorial powers. Daily mass pickets in Red Square demanded Yeltsin's resignation. 100,000 marched in Moscow's May Day in 1992. There were strikes by medical workers and teachers. In September, there were nationwide demonstrations by collective farmers and members of the Moscow Federation of Trade Unions. In November, 100,000 marched to celebrate the October Revolution.
An erstwhile supporter of Yeltsin lamented in 1992, "Our children used to rest at well-provided camps; we were able to buy things at prices we could afford; we received free medical care from doctors who respected their Hippocratic Oath; we ate at lunchrooms at prices within our reach; we walked the streets till early in the morning without fear. Now all is falling apart."
The Soviet people need a patriotic renaissance, a workers' nationalism. The working class has to work for socialism, Marxism-Leninism, democratic centralism, and the ideological and organisational unity of the party and the people.