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The Soviet Theory of “People's Democracy”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

Ruth Amende Rosa
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Extract

The concept of “people's democracy” has posed a real ideological dilemma for the U.S.S.R. Prior to the spring of 1948 Soviet theory was confronted with the fact that—partly because of Soviet policy itself—eastern Europe was not developing toward socialism by exactly the same pattern of violent revolutionary change which the U.S.S.R. had experienced, but in a manner more closely approximating gradual “reform.” To a very considerable extent it was in the interest of the Soviet Union to emphasize the differences between its own development and that of the “new democracies” in order to quiet national and non-Communist fears in those countries. At the same time, the U.S.S.R. apparently felt obliged to establish its own position of ideological “leadership” in eastern Europe and, simultaneously, to fit the concept of “people's democracy” into the body of orthodox Marxist-Leninist doctrine.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 1 , Issue 4 , July 1949 , pp. 489 - 510
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1949

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References

1 This article was completed while the author was holding the New Jersey State Fellowship under appointment by the American Association of University Women.

2 “People's democracy”—or “the new democracy,” as it is sometimes called-refers, in Soviet terminology, to the political, economicand social system which has been established since the end of World War II in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Rumania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Albania.

3 Varga, the well-known economist, is of course, a most note-worthy exceptionto this statement. The views on “people's democracy” which he expressed in his book, Izmeneniia v ekonomike kapitalizmu v itoge vtoroi mirovoi voiny, and in a subsequent article in Mirovoe Khoziaistvo i Mirovaia Politika were denounced in an officially sponsored “discussion” of his “errors” in May, 1947. Cf., Varga, , “Demokratiia novogo tipa,” Mirovoe Khoziaistvo i Mirovaia Politika, No. 3, 1947Google Scholar; and “Diskussiia po knige E. Varga ‘Izmeneniia v ekonomike kapitalizma v itoge vtoroi mirovoi voiny,’ 7, 13, 21 inaia 1947 g., Prilozhenie k zhurnalu Mirovoe Khoziaistvo i Mirovaia Politika, No. 11, 1947.

4 Cf., pp. 499 ff., infra.

5 “Rezoliutsiia Informatsionnogo biuro o polozhenii v Kommunisticheskoipartii Iugo-slavii,” Pravda, June 29, 1948, p. 2. The “Cominform,” it should be noted, is more formally referred to in Soviet publications as the “Information Bureau of Several Communist Parties.”

6 Cf., pp. 499 ff., infra.

7 Numerous examples illustrate this statement. For one, cf., Leontiev, A., “Ekonomicheslcie osnovy novoi demokratu,” Planovoc Khoúmttvo, No. 4, 1947, p. 75.Google Scholar

8 Cf., pp. 499 ff., infra.

9 Communism, in Soviet terminology, is the second and “highest” stage of socialism, in which men are compensated for their labor according to their needs, rather than according to the amount of labor expended (as under socialism).

10 Cf., pp. 509 ff., infra.

11 Pravda, June 15, 1948, p. 3; and lu. Frantsev, , “Natsionalizm-oruzhie imperialistiches-koi reaktsii,” Bolshevik, No. 15, 1948, p. 45.Google Scholar

12 The importance attached to this point in Soviet theory is well illustratedby a dogmatic attack on Varga which appeared in the August, 1947, issue of Slaviane. Cf., Medvedev, I., “K voprosu ob ekonomicheskikh osnovakh narodnoi demokratu,” Slaviane, No. 8, 1947, pp. 33 f.Google Scholar Varga (cf., Varga, , op. cit., p. 11)Google Scholar had strongly affirmed his faith in the doctrine of violent and continuing revolution. However, he had also expressed the view that the Czechoslovak people had seized power peacefully and at one stroke, thereby proving themselves an exception to the general principle. This position was condemned as heretical and revisionistic.

13 Stalin, J., Leninism, New YorkGoogle Scholar, international Publishers, 1942, p. 34.Google Scholar

14 For one exception, cf., Trainin, I. P., “Demokratiia osobogo tipa,” Sovetskoe Gosu-darstvo i Pravo, No. 1, 1947. p. 7.Google Scholar

15 Varga, , op. cit., p. 3.Google Scholar

16 Trainin, , op. cit., p. 8.Google Scholar

17 Lenin, I. V., State and Revolution, New York, International Publishers, 1932, p. 31.Google Scholar “The transition from capitalism to Communism will certainly bringa great variety and abundance of political forms, but the essence will inevitably be only one: the dictatorship of the proletariat” (sic). Cf., also p. 71 for a similar statement by Marx.

18 Cf., Konstantinovsky, I., “New Role of the Peasantry in the East-European Countries, New Times, No. 19, 1947, p. 5Google Scholar; and Trainin, , op. cit., p. 12.Google Scholar

19 Stalin, op. cit., with particular reference to the chapters entitled “The October Revolution and the Tactics of the Russian Communists,” “The Party's Three Fundamental Slogans on the Peasant Problem,” and “The Slogan of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat and the Poor Peasantry in the Period of Preparation for the October Revolution.” Cf., also Stalin, J., Problems of Leninism, New York, International Publishers, 1934, pp. 22–25 especially. 28Google Scholar

20 Trainin, , op. cit., p. 12.Google Scholar

21 According to Soviet usage, the “toilers” are those persons whoearn their living by labor of some sort, either physical or mental. The term “workers” is applied only to those who earn their living by physical labor in industry.Both terms will be used in the Soviet sense throughout this paper.

22 This was in striking contrast with the theoretical position of the workersin the U.S.S.R., where, according to Stalin, the proletariat ceased to be a “proletariat” and became a “working class” only after socialism “in the main” had been achieved and there remained no capitalist elements to exploit theworkers or to be repressed by them. Cf., Stalin, Leninism (“On the Draft Constitution of the U.S.S.R.”), op. cit.

23 Leontiev, , op. cit., p. 68.Google Scholar

24 Ibid.

25 Trainin, , op. cit., p. 13.Google Scholar

26 Leontiev, , op. cit., p. 13.Google Scholar

27 The “external class enemy” was defined as the “intriguing Anglo-American imperialists,”

28 The Resolution is specifically stated to have been drawn up and published on the initiative of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Cf., “Rezoliutsiia Informatsionnogo biuro,” op. cit., p. 2.

29 The Central Committee of the Polish Workers' Party described the theoretical basis of the “new phase” as follows: “To the extent that the basic socio-political reforms estab lished in the framework of people's democracy are carried out, the countries of people's democracy progress toward tasks directed toward the attainment of socialism, which require a further sharpening and deepening of the class struggle.” Cf., “Rezoliutsiia plénuma tsentralnogo komiteta Polskoi Rabochei Partii,” Pravda, September 9, 1948, p. 3.

30 Gomólka was denounced by the Polish Workers' Party in September 1948 for “errors” substantially the same as those of Tito. He was replacedby Bierut as general secretary of the party.

31 “Rezoliutsiia Informatsionnogo biuro,” op. cit., p. 2.

32 “Doklad Beruta na aktíve PPR,” Pravda, September 10, 1948, p. 3.

33 Kuusinen, O., “Are you for or against the Soviet Union?” New Times, No. 39, 1948, p. 5.Google Scholar

34 It now appears that at least one Communist official has publicly identified “people's democracy” with the dictatorship of the proletariat. After this article was written, Mátyás Rákosi, general secretary of the Hungarian Workers' Party and deputy premier of Hungary, was quoted in the New York Times (January 23, 1949, p. 21) as follows: “A people's democracy is, according to its function, a dictatorship of the proletariat without the soviet form.” The purpose of the proletarian state, Rákosi said, is the suppression of the “class enemy”—the bourgeoisie. “The presence of the Soviet Army'made it possible for the “people's democracies” to “exercise thefunction of a proletarian dictatorship in comparative peace and without a bloody civil war.

35 Leontiev, A., “Vosmoi tom Sochinenii I. V. Stalina,” Bolshevik, No. 17, 1948, p. 25.Google Scholar

36 Cf., p. 498, n. 33, supra.

37 The Soviet pattern of political organization through a hierarchy of “people's councils” had been adopted only in Yugoslavia and Albania.

38 Mátyás Rákosi recently carried this position still further when he declared that the dictatorship of the proletariat can be established in eastern Europe without the Soviet form of government. This is possible, he said, because of the protection afforded by the Soviet Union. Cf., the New York Times, January 23, 1949, p. 21.

39 Leontiev, , “Ekonomkheskie osnovy novoi demokratu,” op. cit., p. 76.Google Scholar

40 Burdzhalov, E., “O mezhdunarodnoi znachenii istoricheskogo opyta partii bolshevikov,” Bolshevik, No. 17, 1948, p. 50.Google Scholar

41 Trainin, I. P., “Demokratiia osobogo tipa,” Sovetskoe Gosudarstvo i Pravo, No. 3, 1947, p. 1.Google Scholar Soviet theory has not always been consistent on this point, however. Molotov himself declared, in 1945, that such radical reforms as land reform in “bourgeois” countries weaken the position of the “reactionary-fascist forces and stimulate the rise of the democratic and socialist movement in those countries.” Molotov's early position on this question seems perilously close to revisionism! Cf., “28ia godovshchina Velikoi Oktiabrskoi Sotsialisticheskoi Revoliutsii. Doklad V. I. Molotova na torzhestvennom zasedanii Mos-kovskogo Soveta 6-go noiabria 1945 g.,” Mirovoe Khoziaistvo i Mirovaia Politika, No. 11, 1945, p. 10.

42 Cf. Medvedev, , op cit., p. 38Google Scholar, for a statement of the Soviet theory of attracting small traders to the state by a policy of economic concession.

43 The Yugoslav “error” consisted in their alleged failure to precede nationalization with adequate preparatory measures.

44 “The Development of Agriculture in the People's Democracies,” For a Lasting Peace, For a People's Democracy, No. 20 (23), 1948, p. 1.

45 Varga, , op. cit., p. 5.Google Scholar

46 The New York Times, August 21,1948, p. 4.

47 “Rezoliutsiia Informatsionnogo biuro,” op. cit., p. 2.

48 “Diskussiia po knige E. Varga,” op. cit., pp. 58f.

49 Ibid., p. 59.

50 Trainin, , “Demokratiia osobogo tipa,” Sovetskoe Gosudarstvo i Pravo, No. 1, 1947, p. 14.Google Scholar

51 “Rezoliutsiia plénuma tsentralnogo komiteta Polskoi Rabochei Partii,” op. cit., p. 3.

52 “Rezoliutsiia Informatsionnogo biuro,” op. cit., p. 2.

53 Burdzhalov, , op. cit., p. 37.Google Scholar

54 Moshetov, V. and Lesakov, V., “O demokraticheskikh preobrazovaniiakh vstranakh novoi demokratu,” Bolshevik, No. 22, 1947, p. 47.Google Scholar

55 Leontiev, , “Ekonomicheskie osnovy novo! demokratu,“errors,” Gomólka said: “For no one country among the people's democracies can guarantee its own independence and sovereignty, or develop and go forward to socialism, without the closest cooperation with the Soviet Union.” Cf., “Vystuplenie Gomólka na aktive PPR,” Pravda, September 10, 1948, p. 4.Google Scholar

57 Burdzhalov, , op. cit., p. 51.Google Scholar

58 Central Committee of Communist Party of Yugoslavia to Central Committee ofCommunist Party of Soviet Union, April 13, 1948, in Royal Institute of International Affairs, The Soviet-Yugoslav Dispute, London and New York, 1948, p. 27.Google Scholar

59 The New York Times, November 17, 1948, p. 10.

60 “Doklad Benita,” op. cit., p. 3. Cf., also “The Soviet Union-Standard-Bearer of a New Epoch,” New Times, No. 26, 1948, p. 2.

61 Kuusinen, , op. cit., p. 4.Google Scholar

62 Ibid.,

63 Frantsev, , op. cit., p. 48.Google Scholar

64 “Diskussiia po knige E. Varga,” op. cit., pp. 21 and 43.

65 “Invincible Banner of the Anti-Imperialist Struggle.” New Times, No. 5, 1948, pp. 1f.

66 Frantsev, , op. cit., p. 45.Google Scholar