MIA > Archive > Draper > Titoism
From Labor Action, Vol. 13 No. 51, 19 December 1949, p. 3.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive.
Titoism, as national-Stalinism, has its impact not only in the satellite states of the Russian empire. It has flowered also in the Stalinist movements which do not have a state machine under them.
This development has its root in motivations which long antedate Yugoslav Titoism; but its current manifestations have reached the present level only because of the impetus provided by the latter.
In Norway, the general secretary of the Communist Party, Furubotn, and about half the party leadership have been purged as Titoist. In Italy ex-partisan groups under the name of Friends of Yugoslavia, according to reports, are arising inside the Stalinist movement; similar reports from France indicate similar stirrings. In what way is this related to Titoism?
The motivation of national-Stalinism outside the Russian empire (where there is obviously no question of self-determination or national independence of a state power) can be illustrated by two problems which have in recent years beset both the American and French CPs.
As we have discussed in Labor Action in connection with the CIO split, the Communist Party of the United States has been forced into a suicidal split perspective by considerations basically of Russian foreign policy. Even given the bureaucratic road taken by the Murray machine, the reaction of the CP in orienting toward a split and even a possible “third federation” not only cannot be explained on the basis of any view of the interests of American labor; it cannot even be explained on the basis of the far narrower interests of the Communist Party of the U.S.
In imposing a split perspective on the CPUSA, the Russian masters in the Kremlin are not only being scornful of the interests of American labor; they are equally uninterested in the effect of their policy on the future of their own puppet party.
When Bella Dodd, formerly a leading woman trade-union leader of the CP, broke with the party earlier this year, it was precisely on this ground. She did not break with Stalinism; she broke because Russia, for its own narrow national interests, was imposing a suicidal policy on the American party.
Or, to take the other example: in the last miners’ strike in France; though it was based on entirely legitimate and necessary economic demands of the workers, the means with which the strike was waged by the Stalinist leadership of the CGT were determined by Russian foreign-policy interests and not by the interests of French CP control in France, let alone the interests of the French workers. When the Stalinist union leadership ordered the flooding of the mines, it was a case of pure adventurist economic sabotage designed to hamstring Marshall Plan recovery; it had nothing to do with either the necessities of winning the miners’ demands or with political opposition to the Marshall Plan. Such policies have served tremendously to weaken the French CP, and have served to bring the CP to its present low point of influence as compared with the period after the war.
It is an oversimplification to think of Stalinists (even the Stalinist leaders) as being merely the puppets of Moscow. They act as such; but for them the end goal is not simply service to Russia but, through it, the achievement of Stalinist power in their own country. They too Want to Be Like Stalin.
Where they act as puppets of Moscow, it is because they see the road to Stalinist power at home as coming through the ever-greater power of Russia. On this ground, many or most of them can still convince themselves that it is worthwhile to take a beating (as the U.S. and French CPs have had to take a beating) in order to enhance Russian power.
Above all, there was no way for them of seeing that “Stalinist power” and “Russian power” are separable terms. The rise of anti-Russian Titoism in Yugoslavia and its stirrings elsewhere point to such a separation, encourage it, give it a new center toward which to look.
Discontent in the Communist Parties against dictation from Moscow is nothing new, even since the consolidation of Stalin’s control in the. international Stalinist movement. Such breaks as Bella Dodd’s are likewise nothing new. But they have been given a tremendous IMPETUS by the fact that their motivation is similar to Titoism, and so Titoism exercises a compelling magnetic pull. The common factor is: the antagonism between the national Stalinist interests and the interests of Russian imperialist nationalism. Generalized thus, Titoism has a common basis whether or not the dissident Stalinists do or do not have a state power under their feet. It is equally national-Stalinism.
Naturally, we have been speaking of the direction of a tendency and not evaluating degrees of possibility. Where Titoism is raging in Eastern Europe, it is (at least as yet) only nibbling at the stateless Communist Parties. Victory for national-Stalinists in a satellite state means that they control their own state; victory for national-Stalinists in (say) the American or French CP merely means control of a party under attack in a hostile capitalist environment, with no power to turn to. Outside the Russian empire, Titoism will lead to great discontent, individual breaks, even group breaks, but is much less likely to lead to the actual conversion of a CP into a Titoist party.
Rather, the Stalinist elements thus broken from the CPs by Titoism in the capitalist countries will, I think, tend to merge into another current set in motion by Titoism.
We have been discussing thus far the appeal of Titoism in the Communist Parties themselves, first inside the Russian satellite dominion, and then outside it. But Titoism has had important effects outside the ranks of the CPs, among those elements who have come to be known as neo-Stalinists (not exactly the same as the common designation “fellow travelers” though the two overlap).
In the United States it is highly interesting to find that four prominent leaders and personalities of the ill-fated Wallace movement have gone over to Tito: O. John Rogge, Jo Davidson, Louis Adamic, and William Gailmor. The number of those who are less prominent is undoubtedly relatively great. In England, the very model of a modern neo-Stalinist, Konni Zilliacus, has come out for Tito. In France, such well-known fellow-traveling intellectuals as Jean Cassou, Claude Aveline and Martin-Chauffier have declared for Belgrade as against Moscow. None of these people have changed their views one Whit by so doing.
What is characteristic of the neo-Stalinist type is that he has been drawn into the Stalinist orbit of sympathy (while often repelled by Russian totalitarianism) not by socialist ideals, even mistaken ones; not by a manipulation of his pro-working-class ideology, which he never possessed; but by his revolt against the degenerating capitalism in the midst of which he lives. He looks toward planning as the key to the difficulties of the social system, and Russia appears to him as the archetype of a planned society. He looks to the state to take hold and fix things up, and in Russia the state has taken hold.
He may be repelled by the accompanying totalitarianism, but he is attracted by the feeling of the new possibilities inherent in a completely statified economy. Russia shows the way ... it shows a progressive way out of the impasse of capitalism ... it is therefore “progressive” ... it is even “economic democracy” without political democracy (Wallace) ...
Democracy is preferable and maybe even Russia will eventually get it if left alone by Wall Street; in any case its absence in Russia is to be deplored; but aside from such regrettable features Russia shows the way ... And in all this, the fate of the working class plays no role whatever for these neo-Stalinists, no more than it did for them before they became neo-Stalinists.
This political tendency became pro-Russian-appeasement in their foreign policy (while remaining no less American patriots at bottom) not because of the “socialist” facade of Stalinism but because of its bureaucratic-collectivist realities. They are attracted by Stalinism as a social system, not by the power of Russian imperialism. As long as the two were inseparable in practice, they could not separate them in thought. It is Tito who has separated the two in practice.
For these ideological representatives of the pull of Stalinist bureaucratic collectivism on our times, Titoism is made to order. It offers the same social system, but not with the deplorable Russian trimmings, which are especially disconcerting to American patriotism today.
Titoism is less Stalinist than the Russian system. That is why it appeals to this stratum, and to others beyond it. At the same time, Titoism is national-Stalinism. Our subjects are released from the imputation of being Russian patriots, which they are not and have not been. The neo-Stalinist tendency runs into and merges with pro-Titoism on the common basis: attraction to bureaucratic collectivism as a social system, opposition to Russian nationalism and its requirements where these conflict with them.
For them, Titoism is not a disease of Stalinism, to be cheered as such. It is Stalinism, their Stalinism, or closer to it, their very own. Through them it becomes a disease of liberalism, from which the neo-Stalinist tendency flows on the one side while on the other side it flows into the swamp of Stalinism.
We have now discussed the impact of Titolism on (1) the Stalinist-parties based on the Satellite states; (2) the Stalinist parties outside the satellite states; (3) the neo-Stalinist tendency outside the Stalinist parties.
(Next week: pro-Titoism among the anti-Stalinists)
Last updated on 11 December 2022