Source: The Militant, Vol. 12 No. 48, 29 November 1948, p. 2.
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The rift between the Kremlin and Tito appears to be deepening. In a speech Nov. 16, Tito referred to his opponents in Moscow’s Information Bureau as “wiseacres” and “hacks” and complained of the oppressive economic relations ruthlessly enforced on war-weakened Yugoslavia by the Stalinist bureaucracy.
Tito called once again for the institution of: “correct relations" between “Socialist countries” so that these relations can serve as “an example – a stimulus to further development of socialism in the world and not a brake.”
If Tito had said no more than this, one might conclude that he is beginning to break from Stalinism in the basically important field of program and theory. One might even hope for progress in the direction of the Trotskyist program of world socialism in opposition to both imperialism and Stalinism, particularly since this is the only course that can win Yugoslavia’s independence and at the same time save Tito’s own neck from the Kremlin’s hatchetmen.
However, Tito is doing his utmost to keep the Yugoslav communists from taking that course. He still has hopes of reconciliation with Moscow as indicated by his continued kowtowing toward Stalin.
At the same time he is struggling to find a theoretical basis for what might be called an “isolationist” policy. Thus, he declares: “In their works Lenin and Stalin said that it is possible to establish socialism in one country.”
This reactionary theory was never held by Lenin or any other orthodox Marxist. It was first advanced by Stalin in 1924 as “justification” for scuttling the Marxist program of world socialism. It became the central dogma of the Stalinist bureaucracy. In practice it meant establishing unlimited privileges for a parasitic bureaucracy in the Soviet Union leading to the abysmal degeneration of the first workers’ state which we see today.
Tito declares that “they were thinking of the Soviet Union, but nowhere did they say it would be possible outside the Soviet Union” to build socialism in one country. Now comes Tito’s brilliant extension to Stalin’s “theory.” “Not to mention other countries, I can say that it has been proven in Yugoslavia as well ...”
In his opinion, apparently, the building of socialism has already been secured in Yugoslavia, for he says: “I must emphasize the fact that we could have built socialism in our country more rapidly and easily if various leading people in various peoples’ democracies did not put obstacles in our way.”
In this way, Tito, has succeeded in reducing Stalin’s infamous formula to absolute absurdity. Backward, agricultural Yugoslavia, a tiny Balkan country still suffering from the ravages and dislocations of war, already enjoys the boons of socialist construction!
To show how far-fetched and reactionary this utopian nonsense is let us once, more recall the most elementary meaning of socialism as viewed by Marxism.
From its earliest beginnings, the Marxist movement has always considered, that socialism starts where capitalism leaves off. Socialism brings order and planning into the industrial system. Socialism expands that industrial system and develops it to new heights impossible under capitalism with its wars and depressions and profit limitations.
Since capitalism is an international system, socialism by its very nature must likewise be international. Doing away with the arbitrary national frontiers that now chop across the great worldwide arteries of industry, socialism is based on the integration of economy on a world scale.
That is why Lenin and Trotsky and all the Bolshevik leaders in the early days considered that the Russian workers had won no more than a good foothold in the worldwide struggle for socialism. They did not even believe this beachhead in the international class struggle against capitalism could be held for long Without at least several industrially advanced countries joining the Russian workers in their revolution.
Anyone advancing such a nonsensical formula as “socialism in one country” would, have been laughed off the floor; it’s as ridiculous as proposing to build a nationwide industrial union in one machine shop.
A crisis over “Trotskyism” has shaken the Albanian Stalinist party. The 11th plenary session of the Central Committee convened from Sept. 13 to 24 “on the subject of the situation created in the party as a result of the Trotskyist influence in the leadership of the Yugoslav CP.”
The committee unanimously passed a resolution presented by E. Hodja condemning the “Trotskyist deviations” of the party since November 1944 and the leaders responsible for these “deviations,” Koci Xoxe (Organizational Secretary) and Pandi Kriste (member of the Political Bureau).
They were accused of having “worked knowingly to apply the Yugoslav Trotskyist line in our party. They have not yet made a healthy self-criticism of these faults.”
Xoxe and Kriste were expelled. Both are reported to have gone into hiding.
Others on the carpet did purge themselves of their alleged “Trotskyist” sins: “Comrades Kriste Temelke, Pallumb Dishnica, deputy political secretary, and Xhoxi Bilushi had the most influence and blindly applied the Yugoslav Trotskyist line, but these comrades have recognized their errors and made a self-criticism before, the party.”
The “deviations” began no less than four years ago, according to the resolution:
“The 8th plenary meeting of the CC in February 1944 was prepared on the basis of a platform that was anti-Marxist, anti-Soviet and against our country and party on the part of the Trotskyist leadership of Yugoslavia. The decisions of that meeting have seriously upset and gravely affected the unity of our party, its leadership and its general secretary, Comrade Enver Hodja.”
Last updated on: 29 March 2023