Boris Ziherl
Communism and Fatherland
IV.
After the historic victories of the freedom-
loving peoples in the war against Hitlerite Germany and her satellites, above all thanks to the
existence and struggle of the Soviet Union as the
most important objective factor for the post-war
revolutionary changes in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe, the world of socialism has
spread far beyond the borders of the former
Russian Empire and embraced a series of new
states with approximately 100 million inhabitants.
Thus, there are today in Europe — in addition
to the Soviet Union, the first country in which
socialism triumphed — a series of countries
which have already reached a stage of development, as regards their internal social-economic
and political structure, which Comrade Stalin,
in his report to the 18th Congress of the
C. P. S. U. (b) in 1939, called: the first phase
of the socialist state.1 No matter how varied the
ways and degrees of the revolution in these
countries, the power of the capitalists and big
landowners has actually been overthrown in all
of them, and the power of the working people,
led by the working class headed by the communist vanguard, has been established. All these
countries have started the building of socialism
aiming at the total liquidation of exploiting elements. Similar states are being formed in the
Far East, too, in lndo-China, Korea and in
China, where the masses of the people are introducing vital changes into the relationship of
forces between the socialist and capitalist worlds,
through their magnificent struggle being waged
under the leadership of the Communist Party
of China.
The example of the so-called people's democracies confirms Lenin's prediction that the
transition from capitalism to communism will,
of course, be characterised by a multitude of
different forms, but the essence will inevitably
be the same — the dictatorship of the
proletariat.2
In their polemics against the stereotyped and
abstract concepts of the essence of people's democracy, which have also found expression in
the articles of certain Soviet economists and
publicists (e.g. E. Varga), our Party publicists
have been pointing out for a long time, that the
social order in New Yugoslavia represents one
of the many and varied forms of dictatorship of
the proletariat. This was especially stressed by
Comrade Kardelj at the Fifth Congress of the
CPY.3
In addition to the Soviet Union, the first
fatherland of working people, there are today
a series of socialist fatherlands which, together
with the Soviet Union, form the world of
socialism.
In the first chapter we pointed out that the
peoples of the new socialist states have for
centuries been developing within the framework
of other states, in a different social-economic,
political and cultural environment than the
peoples of the Soviet Union, whose common life
within the framework of the same state dates
back beyond 1917. The majority of the people's
democracies, including Yugoslavia are beginning
their socialist construction with relatively much
greater industrial possibilities and with a more
technically developed agriculture than was the
case with socialist construction in the Soviet
Union, not to mention other advantages (e. g. external-political: above all, the existence and role
the Soviet Union). Moreover, we have the
immense experience of socialist construction in
the USSR, generalized in the works of Lenin and
Stalin, which is of inestimable value for the new
socialist countries, facilitating their struggle.
Also of importance is the fact that the majority
o people's democracies have begun socialist
construction after a long, stubborn fight against
national oppression, which reached its culmination in the struggle against the fascist invaders
in World War II, after a long fight for national
affirmation in the political, economic and cultural
spheres.
All these facts give rise to new problems
which — if we take the Marxist-Leninist position
— cannot be solved according to old patterns.
In fact, Comrade Stalin foresaw thirty years
ago that such problems would inevitably crop
up with the progress of revolution. In his
remarks concerning Lenin's draft theses on the
national and colonial question he wrote on
June 12, 1920:
"For the nations which formed part of old
Russia, our (Soviet) type of federation can and
must he considered appropriate as a road to
international unity. The motives are known: these
nationalities either did not have their own state
in the past or lost it long ago, so that the Soviet
(centralized) type of federation can be applied
to them without special difficulties.
"The same cannot be said for the nationalities which did not form part of old Russia.
which existed as independent formations, developed their own statehood, and which will —
if they become Soviet — be compelled to establish
state relations (connections) of some kind or
other with Soviet Russia. For instance: future
Soviet Germany, Poland, Hungary, Finland. When
these nations, which have their statehood, their
army, their finances, become Soviet, they will
probably not wish to enter into federal relations
with Soviet Russia, according to the example of
the Bashkir or Ukrainian federal link…they
would consider the Soviet type of federation as
a formula for diminution of their state independence, as an attack on their independence."4
Almost thirty years have elapsed since
these words were spoken, years filled with much
substance, in the course of which three states,
founded for the most part upon the ruins of
Austria-Hungary, came into being and developed,
and are now part of the group of people's democracies: Poland, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. Of these countries the latter two are
multi-national.
Before touching upon the problem of relations
between the Soviet Union and the new socialist
fatherlands, taking as a point of departure the
exposition of the problem which is the subject
of our study — we shall examine the case of
Yugoslavia. We shall do this not, because Yugoslavia is our country, but because her road has
been the most original, in the sense that her
peoples have, to the largest possible extent,
liberated themselves, because their own struggle
contributed the maximum possible, in the concrete historical circumstances, towards their
liberation. We shall do this also because the
most recent history of Yugoslavia is now being
exposed to the most flagrant misrepresentations
and falsifications.
Notes
1. Stalin: Problems of Leninism, Belgrade, 1946,
pp. 601-602.
2. Lenin: State and Revolution, Belgrade, 1947. p. 33.
3. Fifth Congress of the CPY, Reports and Addresses, Belgrade, 1948, pp. 347-349.
4. Quoted from Lenin: Works. Ill Edition, Vol. XXV.
p. 616 (Note 141).