Plyushch :
Letter to the Spanish,
Italian, and French
Communist Parties
We arepter seni by Leonid Plyshch to the Italian, French, a are publishing below, with the agreement of the author, and Spanish Communist parties on the occasion of the recent meeting of the leaders of these parties in Madrid. Plyushch has received no response. Far from being limited to the occasion of the Madrid meeting, the letter, we believe, poses fundamental questions, whatever our disagreements with some of its points may be. 22
The interest of the letter lies first of all in the very fact that it was addressed to the Communist parties, stressing the importance their response could have not only for the Soviet government but also for the opposition itself. This was not the first such initiative. Plyushch mentions the call to the Budapest conference, the letter of General Pyotr Grigorenko and the writer Kosterin, and the letter from Communists in the USSR sent to the European CPs. None of these letters
has been answered. This observation calls for a mobilization of our forces. No one should be astonished if Soviet oppositionists, stifled by repression, address themselves to Carter so long as the workers movement does not take up their defense. The second important aspect of this letter is the analysis it makes of Soviet society and its crisis. We share Plyushch's opinion that the workers of the East European countries are completely excluded from power, suffer the worst sort of repression, and in no way control the fruits of their labor. Along with him, we affirm that this has nothing to do with socialism, but is a particular kind of society whose basis and contradictions must be analyzed by Marxists. But we do not share his theoretical analysis or his characterization of the Soviet Union as "bureaucratic state capitalist, do we agree with his claim that a process of "fascicization" is under way, even though the Soviet bureaucracy incontestably uses some of the worst methods of fascist regimes in order to deprive the workers of any possibility of expression and organization. Finally, Plyushch refers to the Helsinki accords and to the role they play in the opposition movements in the countries of East Europe. Undeniably, the rebirth of opposition, basing itself on these accords even if only to demand the application of the Soviet constitution and Soviet law, indicates the role that Helsinki has played - and that the Dear comrades, I consider it my duty to address you, for 1 think that the destinies of the countries of the "socialist" bloc, of the international workers movement, and of the world in general depend in large part on the decisions that will be taken at the conclusion of your gathering. Before relating to you the events now unfolding in the USSR, I would like to present an analysis of the situation in the countries of the Warsaw Pact. 1. Most of the Marxist oppositionists of the Soviet Union believe that socialism does not exist in the "socialist" countries, the societies of which are subject to a particularly arduous form of exploitation, a bureaucratic state capitalism. 2. In the era of the scientific and technological revolution in which we are living, bureaucratic and police management of the economy has led to an economic and political impasse in the countries of the Warsaw Pact. The economic crisis is linked to:
a. Non-respect for the principle of material incentives in the remuneration of labor.
b. The unscientific system of planning and management.
Belgrade conference will play - in struggles against repression in these countries. But it is not possible to judge these accords solely from the angle of the oppositionists in the East European countries and of democratic rights. First of all, the Western governments have a real interest in masking their anti-worker policies at home behind a certain denunciation of attacks on freedom in the countries that call themselves communist. In general, this is an aspect of the accords which the oppositionists in. East Europe either do not perceive or underestimate, since the situation of the Western working class - at least in Europe - appears to them infinitely positive when compared to the repression that exists in East Europe. The Helsinki accords form a whole: They defend the economic, military, and diplomatic interests of governments in power, to the detriment of the workers, regardless of the regimes concerned. The status quo which they seek to perpetuate means the repression of all those, East and West, who want to change such regimes. That is why we can in no way call for "respect for and extension of the Helsinki accords. " On the contrary, we can show how the existing governments do not even respect their own laws. The greatest aid we can extend to the oppositionists in the East European countries is to publicize their situation and the situation of all the workers of these countries before the workers of the Western countries, those who have no class privileges to camouflage.
c. Excessive centralization, bureaucratization of management.
d. The selection of the management apparatus, the members of which are not chosen according to their talent and capacity for work but according to criteria of conformism, their ability to disregard their personal convictions, and e. The obstacles to the flow of information from the productive base to the management organs (that is, from the bottom up) and from the management apparatus to the base (from the top down). This is linked to the lack of freedom of speech, the press, election, and organization, and to the one-party system and fear of police repression. Information. is distorted at each stage, both vertically (from the top down and from the bottom up) and horizontally, during its circulation from one factory to another. There are many other factors which account for the gap between the economic structure and the contemporary level of the productive forces (the gap between the forces of production and the relations of production). The economic crisis is linked to a spiritual and political crisis (internally and internationally). The spiritual void is the result of a myth current in society which on the one hand provokes a sharp increase in crime, alcoholism, and amoralism, but which on the other hand
23
PLYUSHCH LETTER leads youth toward a form of independent. thought, whether reactionary or progressive. The latter phenomenon has served to give an impetus to the development of what is called "samizdat, " the practical application of the democratic rights promised by the constitution. The economic and spiritual crises determine the political crisis which racks a regime incapable of settling the smallest problems posed in the country. These three crises are interrelated and affect one another. Throughout the "socialist" camp, the crisis strengthens the struggle the satellite peoples are waging for their independence, a struggle which is amplified by the violation of the principles of internationalism and sovereignty of states and Communist parties and by the growth of dissidence among nationalities as a result of these violations. The backwardness of the "socialist" bloc compared with the advanced capitalist countries leads to aggravating the spiritual and political crisis. It also provokes the progressive entry of the "socialist" bloc into the world economic system (the latter phenomenon also results from the general tendencies of the modern economy). At the center of the contradiction between the technical and scientific revolution on the one hand and the rigid structure of the "socialist" countries on the other stand engineers-technicians who are deprived of the means by which to work effectively by utilizing all the possibilities of science and technology, as well as their own abilities. Moral disinterest and comprehension of the connection between the inefficient functioning of the enterprises and the lack of freedom lead the technical intelligentsia to protest against the established order, to struggle for freedom of information and expression, etc. The relationship between freedoms and the present crisis of our civilization (threat of war, destruction of nature, etc.) was clearly formulated for the first time in 1968 by Academician Sakharov in his book Reflections on Technological Progress. He enumerated the reasons for the discontent of the technical intelligentsia in face of the presently established order, and he has become one of the most eloquent representatives of the fighters for the democratization of the country. The other part of the technical intelligentsia is striving to create an undemocratic technocratic and scientifically managed society. They explain the backwardness of the country by the fact that it is directed by ideologues and not by scientists and technicians. They reject all existing ideologies, including communist ideology. The fechnocrats are struggling for power, through appropriating important posts in the party and administration and not through open demonstrations for human rights. 3. The only rational solution to the economic crisis is the democratization of production and economic management - that is, a certain decentralization of production, a more flexible system of management and planning (workers participation in the direction of the enterprises and in planning,. 24 independence of the trade unions, the right to strike, application of the Leninist principle of workers control, scientific system of organization of production, planning, and remuneration of labor, and so on.) Khrushchev made attempts at a certain democratization of the economy; Kosygin went further. But without political democratization (respect for and broadening of the constitution), economic democratization is condemned to perish, for in an atmosphere of fear and bureaucratic and police arbitrariness any reform winds up degenerating. We, Soviet Marxist oppositionists, have arrived at our positions of struggle precisely by basing ourselves on this principle. We are waging our struggle primarily for political rights, and we are united in this struggle with those whose fight has the sole objective of winning the triumph of these rights (freedom of speech, of the press, of demonstration, election, association, etc.) - that is, the political democrats, the national movements (right of nations to self-determination), the religious movements (freedom of conscience). Year by year the democratic movement assembles a few more "dissident" tendencies around the struggle for a state of law, for respect for the constitution and extension of this constitution in the light of the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in the perspective of the authorization of other parties and the right to strike. A paradoxical situation has been created in the country: It is the government, the courts, and the police which infringe on domestic and international law, while the opposition comes forward as the defender of these laws. One of the functions of the opposition is to develop consciousness of these rights among the broadest masses. Up to 1976 the struggle against Stalinism in other countries was waged at varying times and through varying methods (the workers insurrection in Berlin, the Hungarian revolution of 1956, the movement of the Polish intellectuals in 1956 and 1968, the "Prague spring, " the troubles in Szczecin in Poland). In 1976 a trend began to arise toward a consolidation of all the movements in the various countries around a single movement for the defense of rights, which was enriched by the link that was forged with the working class struggling for its economic rights. This consolidation frightened the Brezhnev regime, since it leads to the creation of a united democratic opposition based on the broad masses of workers, thus weakening the possibility of the regime's setting different peoples and social layers against one another. The powers that be cannot commit themselves to the democratic road in resolving the crisis, because for the bureaucracy this would inevitably mean losing its privileges and its economic and political power. Brezhnev is therefore trying another road in his efforts to emerge from the crisis, the antidemocratic road. He is trying to settle the economic crisis with the aid of the West (purchases of wheat and moder technical equipment, extension of trade), basing himself on the desires of the Western capitalists to expand their markets and on the fear of the European governments in face
of the military power of the USSR, as well as the opportunism that this can engender. The Soviet Union sells all its products to the West at prices lower than those which prevail in the Soviet Union itself, seeking only to accumulate currency, to satisfy the appetite for foreign currency. This is an additional burden which falls on the shoulders of our workers, for it causes an increase in the prices of products. The benefits resulting from trade with the West serve essentially to strengthen military power, to aid the temporary allies of Brezhnev or the satellite governments. A paradoxical situation is being created: The aid provided by the West increases the USSR's possibilities of interfering in the internal affairs of other countries, of buying off this or that force which opposes those governments which aid Brezhnev, of setting states against one another. The Brezhnev clique is trying to resolve the political and spiritual crisis by intensifying police terror and by "stepping up the ideological struggle" (that is, again by means of this same terror, through lying propaganda and misinformation about domestic and international events, through misinforming public opinion and Wester governments, through brandishing the threat of war and interfering in the struggle among countries - but only through threats, since Brezhnev is no way preparing to wage war, for he understands the complete absurdity of nuclear war). The Helsinki accords enabled Brezhnev to take to this antidemocratic road to escaping from the impasse. But since the third package of the accords, the political and humanitarian conditions for détente, contradicts the military-police road to emerging from the spiritual and political crisis, Brezhnev is trying to reduce this third package to empty promises which are not controlled by governments and public opinion and whose implementation is not guaranteed. In signing the Helsinki accords, the regime fell into the trap of its own promises about the circulation of people and new leftist journal on east europe
"A growing number of socialists and communists of all persuasions are taking a stand against the suppression of democratic rights in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Bourgeois claims that the British Left turns a blind eye to Eastern Europe while protesting against oppression in Chile or Southem Africa or Northern Ireland are being increasingly exposed as hollow hypocrisy. "But up to now socialists have lacked a source of frequent and reliable information on events in that part of the world. Most socialists have to turn to the bourgeois press for their information. Yet the latter reports selectively and from its own particular angle. At the same time, coverage in the papers of the Left remains scanty. The first aim of this bulletin is to help fill this gap by giving those concerned about repression in Eastem Europe and the Soviet Union a more comprehensive and regular source of information about events there." Thus begins the provisional statement of aims published in the first issue of the new journal Labour Focus on Eastern Europe. "The purpose of this bulletin, " the statement explains, "is to inform, not to debate the nature of the East European states nor to discuss the strategy that should be adopted by socialists in Eastern paigning for democratic rights. " Sponsors of the new journal include Tariq Ali, Tamara Deutscher, Leonid Plyushch, Hillel Ticktin, and others.
Correspondence should be addressed to: Labour Focus on Eastern Europe, Bottom Flat, 116 Cazenove Rd., London N16. Subscriptions (9 issues per year) cost £2.70. Sample copy 30p; for N. America: $8 surface mail, $12 air. LABOUR FOCUS ON
EASTERN EUROPE
A Socialist Defence Bulletin on
Eastern Europe and the USSR
Vol.1. No.1 March-April 1977 25p
Grigorenko asks CPs' aid for Ginzburg and Rudenko
CZECHOSLOVAKIA ERNIE ROBERTS
Jiri Pelikan Charter 77 Trade Unionists and Repression
Jan Kavan - Political Situation in Easter Europe and the USSR:
1. Hartel - Musical Underground "We should be able to check the
Marian Sling - Defence Activity facts and see for ourselves."
6 DOCUMENTS FROM POLAND 25
PLYUSHCH LETTER ideas. Groups to support the Helsinki accords have been formed in the USSR and in Poland, as an extension of the struggle for human rights waged by the opposition. With a new juridical basis, the Helsinki accords could become an additional point of support for the fight for democracy. In my letter to Mr. Marchais (Georges Marchais, the head of the French Communist party - INPRECOR), I tried to formulate the common features of all the currents of the democratic opposition as concerns the Helsinki accords and détente and as concerns the Belgrade conference (the conference scheduled to examine implementation of the Helsinki accords - INPRECOR). We are for respect for the Helsinki accords as a whole, but we are also for precise and extended accords at Belgrade. 4. As long ago as 1963 Khrushchev had opted for the second road to the conservation of power. Brezhnev has gone further, especially since 1967. In 1972 he succeeded in partially strangling the opposition. The Helsinki accords have made it possible for a portion of the opposition to emigrate (to Israel). But the opposition has not been weakened by such emigration; on the contrary, it has been strengthened. Jewish emigration was stopped very quickly after Helsinki. Militarist and chauvinist propaganda is being pushed in the country. The situation in the camps, prisons, and psychiatric asylums is getting worse and worse; the unleashing of the police in the country is becoming increasingly noticeable. More and more often, the KGB and the militia are settling accounts with dissidents by resorting to cynical methods. In order to tranquilize Western public opinion, Moscow "makes concessions" from time to time. There has been a temporary improvement in the policy on the emigration of Jews. Some of these concessions were the expulsion of Solzhenitsyn and my release and Bukovsky's. But these "victories" of the West amount to nothing when measured against the backdrop of the general intensification of reaction. On December 15, the day Bukovsky was "exchanged" for Corvalán, a fire was set in the apartment of Malva Landa, a member of the Helsinki group. Today, February 28, she is to be tried for having allegedly set this fire herself (she thus risks being sent to a psychiatric asylum or being sentenced to three years imprisonment in a camp for common criminals). On December 21 Julia Voznessenskaya was arrested in Leningrad, and on December 25 Vladimir Borisov, a member of the Initiative Group for the Defense of Human
Rights (of which I am a member) was arrested. This is the third time he has been incarcerated in a psychiatric asylum and he will soon be sentenced, which means psychiatric imprisonment. On December 28 searches were conducted at the homes of members of the Ukrainian Helsinki group.
Pornography and currency had been planted in their apartments. On January 4, 1977, searches were conducted of the homes of members of the Moscow Helsinki group. On
26
January 8 there were explosions in the Moscow subway system. On January 10 Victor Louis, a well-known journalist and Soviet misinformer, an agent of the KGB, commented that these explosions were linked to Helsinki ("current of uncontrolled information of Western origin") and the dissidents. The KGB very rapidly threatened Sakharov for his statement that the explosions were a KGB provocation. The first position taken by Carter resulted in the arrest of Ginzburg (on February 4), who was directing the aid fund for political prisoners and their families. Currency was "discovered" at his home (he had already been arrested several times and knew the methods of the KGB too well to have kept currency in his home, even supposing he had engaged in speculation in this domain). The second position taken by Carter resulted in the arrest on February 7 of some members of the Ukrainian Helsinki group, the writer Rudenko and Professor Tikhii. Next it was the turn of Orlov, a professor and member of the Moscow Helsinki Group. They are now preparing to settle the fate of the members of the Moscow Helsinki Group, with the aid of provocation (the case of Piatkuson). Tourchin, a member of the Soviet affiliate of Amnesty International, was threatened with arrest on February 14 (provocatively, they told Sakharov that Touchin had already been arrested). In Czechoslovakia on February 17 a man, unknown for the moment, was accused of military espionage and sentenced to fifteen years in prison. Two other unknown men were sentenced to two and a half years and one and a half years for "sabotage." Arrests have also occurred in Rumania and Bulgaria. Special psychiatric hospitals have now made their appearance in Bulgaria and East Germany (as has been revealed by Professor Havemann, a well-known fighter against Nazism and Stalinism). On February 26 and 27 criminal fires broke out in Moscow. Although no one has yet been indicted for the explosions in the Moscow subway, we must now expect a broad propaganda campaign or the opening of judicial inquiries into terrorist organizations. It is not ruled out that the KGB could create such an organization with the aid of its agents and lumpen elements of society. These criminal fires broke out, as if by accident, just before February 28, the day the "arsonist" Malva Landa was brought to trial. This whole series of events is coordinated with propaganda diffused by the press. On February 2 Litteraturnaya Gazeta published the testimony of one Petrov-Agatov, a writer and former political prisoner who has been in both camps and psychiatric hospitals. I do not know the reasons for his "recantation, " but his article oozes lies and provocations. He slanderously describes the activities of the fighters for human rights, whom he presents as individuals devoid of morality, as alcoholics, sexually depraved, cynical, vain, and bought off by the West. He even accuses them of being
atheists. This is particularly the slanderous picture he paints of Ginzburg and Orlov. (Many people who have emigrated to the United States, Britain, France, Italy, and Germany know them both.) On February 11 a big article appeared in Pravda under the headline "What is Behind the Noise About 'Human Rights'?" Comparing these articles, the searches, and the arrests, one cannot avoid realizing the objective Brezhnev is pursuing. He wants to convince Western public opinion of two things: a) that we counterpose the struggle for human rights to détente; b) that the exchange of ideas and the expansion of contacts among people, the extension of the rights of Western joumalists, and the third Helsinki package in general are causing the emergence of terrorism, pornography, and an anti-Soviet state of mind in the USSR and serve to morally corrupt unstable Soviet citizens. In particular, the consolidation of the opposition now taking shape, engendered by the similarity of social problems and initial aims, is presented and interpreted as the result of "orchestration" of the situation by reactionary Western forces. The signers of Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia are called right-wing counterrevolutionaries, which means that their Western defenders are of the same stripe (including some Communists). Ivan Chevtsov, a known anti-Semitic writer, is the author of the novels "The Lice, " "Love and Hate, " and "In the Name of the Father and the Son" (1964, 1960, 1970), in which he popularizes all the ideas contained in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the forgery of the Black Hundreds and the Tsarist Okhrana (the secret police - INPRECOR). Between 1972 and 1975 Emelianov, the conference chairman of the conscience society, drafted three courses on Zionism impregnated with Nazi anti-Semitism. The French League Against Racism and Anti-Semitism won the suit it entered against the Soviet Embassy for publishing this booklet, accusing the Embassy of having recopied an old antiSemitic article written before the revolution. In January 1977 the popular vulgarization magazine Ogonek began publishing a series of pro-Nazi articles (see, for example, No.5 of this review, dated January 1977, which contains an article on the Eichmann case entitled "The Espionage Tentacles of Zionism"'). The declaration of the "Christian" Petrov-Agatov on the atheism of the dissidents points in the same anti-Semitic direction: the Christians rise up against the Jews, the godless. The regime is trying to incite believers against us: Grigorenko and I, who are Ukrainians, and Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov, who are Russians, have all been presented in various conferences as hidden Jews. They are trying to inculcate the people with the notion that the opposition is the work of a Jewish and American imperialist plot. Anti-Semitism is closely linked to a broader chauvinist propaganda: anti-Chinese, anti-American, anti-English, antiTatar. All this contributes to the fascicization of the country.
All the facts enumerated above confirm the conclusions of our analysis of Brezhnev's attitude toward détente and the Helsinki accords. It is not we but Brezhnev who separates the problem of safeguarding peace, of the rapprochement of peoples, from the problem of human rights. All the tendencies of the democratic opposition are now united in the struggle for respecting the Helsinki accords, etc., whereas the unilateral détente called for by Brezhnev or the cold war would lead our countries to a real adventurist path, a militarist and police path. I do not believe that the. bourgeois-democratic governments of the West will prove intransigent on matters of principle in Belgrade. They will stick to the traditional policy inspired by the spirit of Munich: opportunist conciliation, bargaining over countries and human rights. The cause of peace, the cause of protecting nature, and all the other problems common to all humanity depend on public opinion, on the international workers movement, and on your parties in particular. The various governments must not be permitted to speculate on the Helsinki accords, to reduce détente to nothing, or to limit it to the first two Helsinki packages. Toward this end a vast popular campaign must be waged to pressure the governments to strengthen, detail, and extend application of these accords. 5. But Mr. Marchais's radio statement on the dissidents, the commentaries in l'Unità on the positions of Amalrik and various other articles which have appeared in the Communist press show that there is danger of the struggle for a human socialism, for freedom, being transformed into verbal declarations which only impede the struggle of peoples for peace and freedom. The French Communist party has more than once protested against the limitation of rights suffered by immigrants from Africa, Asia, and Spain. But suddenly, in polemicizing against us, Mr. Marchais refers precisely to these same laws limiting the rights of immigrants. Marchais has also resorted to other dishonorable methods of polemics. We Soviet emigrants, along with our comrades who remain in the Soviet Union, have long doubted the sincerity of the Western Communists. The means Mr. Marchais employs in his polemics, as well as other facts, scarcely permit us to believe that there is a principled difference between "Eurocommunism" and the "communism" of Brezhnev. I have never engaged in any anticommunist propaganda in France. In his letter to l'Unità, Amalrik correctly remarks that the word "anti-Soviet" takes on a paradoxical meaning these days, since the soviets have no power in the USSR and the constitution itself is violated by Brezhnev. Consequently, the movement for civil rights is more soviet than Brezhnev is. Such errors - theoretical, methodological, and practical - can only damage the cause of the struggle for socialism with a human face.
27
PLYUSHCH LETTER The myth of a socialism which is not perfect enough or the myth of the degeneration of a workers state deals a blow to democracy and socialism. How can one speak of imperfect democracy in the USSR when it very simply does not exist, when the degree of exploitation is higher than in the West, and when the level of rights for the workers is lower than in the West? Socialism presupposes:
1) In the economic domain: the principle of material incentives, proportional remuneration for work accomplished, participation of the workers in the management of the enterprises and in distribution and control, and extension of the role of the unions and the other organizations of the toilers in the state, the reduction of the gaps among wage levels. All these specific features show that socialism does not exist in the USSR. The remuneration of labor occurs as a function of the position one occupies. The legal or illegal privileges from which the bureaucrats benefit are so great that the difference between the material condition of a Brezhnev and that of a worker is undoubtedly greater than the difference between a millionaire and a worker in the West. This situation, in addition to causing a decline in productivity, also generates a growth in the number of economic crimes, in corruption, patronage, and the moral degradation of the people. The "workers of popular control" are transformed into one of the links in the chain of plunder of national wealth. The unions, deprived of all independence, are only one of the instruments the bureaucracy uses to supervise the workers. The toilers have no organization that can defend their interests. They are even deprived of the only effective weapon under such conditions, the right to strike. All this explains the weakness of the movement of workers resistance. The few isolated explosions of anger are mercilessly crushed.
2) In the political domain: the extension of human rights, the extension of democracy. After the "thaw" between 1956 and 1973, the regime set about to get rid of all forms of dissent in an increasingly brutal manner.
3) In the administrative domain: the reduction of the parasitic role played by functionaries on the body of society and the state. But at present, the role of the bureaucracy has not lessened in the slightest.
4) In the domain of nationalities: equality, the flowering of national cultures, the eradication of chauvinism. But up to now, neither the deported Crimean Tatars, nor the Greeks, nor the Volga Germans have been allowed to return to their homelands. Anti-Semitism takes on increasingly cynical forms year by year. Russification is reaching unprecedented proportions. Internationally, the old habitual policy still prevails, according to the principle of "divide and rule, " and not a
28 genuinely internationalist policy which does not compromise with principles. Often, for conjunctural reasons, this or that reactionary government which persecutes left parties and trade unions is supported (Iran, certain Arab countries, etc.).
5) In the spiritual domain: the flowering of the personality, of culture. There could be no better testimony to the lack of existence of socialism than the indigence of socialist realism. It is also difficult to say that the growth of crime and amoralism is a manifestation of socialism. If crime is increasing, this means that there is an ample social basis for it: the rottenness of society. In the domain of science we are ceaselessly moving backwards. While the West has already gone beyond psychoanalysis, it is still banned in our countries, and our psychologists will someday be compelled to take up everything from the very beginning. This state of affairs is felt in psychology, pedagogy, and psychiatry. The spirit which arose in the "space race" has already turned into retardation.
6) The triumph of the ideas of communism has been transformed into a defeat in our days. Because of the monopoly of thought which has been imposed, official Marxism is rigid and has metamorphized into a new mythological form. A rigid Marxism which does not develop, which does not even question itself according to the laws of dialectics, ceases to be Marxism. It is possible to analyze other elements included in the notion of "socialism. " But the characteristics listed above clearly show that socialism does not exist in the USSR. References to the lack of existence of private property and the absence of unemployment betray schematism, the desire not to take reality into consideration, a metaphysical approach to the world. What we are dealing with is a new form of social exploitation of the "Asiatic type. " A scientific analysis and a new model are indispensable in understanding this society and the reasons for its degeneration. Western Marxists are now moving into this with great timidity, because they are afraid of contributing to reactionary propaganda. But fear of the truth is exactly what contributes to strengthening reaction, whether in the West or the USSR, by keeping the consciousness of the workers imprisoned by a myth. Fear of the truth has never contributed anything to lucidity of thought, nor to the development of science, nor to the struggle for a more just society. In my letter to Marchais I presented the criteria which were decisive for us in judging the sincerity of this or that party. Sixty years of defeat for the October Revolution have taught us Soviet Marxists to keep a cool head in face of the "warm" words of the CPs. I do not understand why Mr. Marchais has interpreted these words as anticommunism. I do not understand why the oral and open criticism 1 made before Mr. Bocquet and later in my more reserved declarations to the press in regard to the French CP and !'Unità have raised the ire of Mr. Marchais. Why didn't Mr. Bocauet respond
to my questions? Why didn't I'Humanité print any response to the essence of my letter, but only accusations, namely that I was participating in police operations and engaging in anticommunist acts? The refusal of an honest and public polemic testifies to the non-Marxist character of the editors of l'Humanité. 6. What, then, do we expect of your parties, taking account of everything that has been said? We would like you to help us fight for an authentic détente, that is, for peace and human rights, against repression in all totalitarian countries. We would like you to help us broaden the mass base of the struggle against repression of political opinions throughout the world. Without a consistent criticism of what transpires in the "socialist" bloc, it will be impossible for you to do this. It is your duty to prevent the pogrom of the opposition which is being prepared in the USSR, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, and Rumania. But this is possible only by denouncing the provocations of the KGB both abroad and within the "socialist" bloc, by adopting a principled position against all violations of human rights, against all manifestations of racism and chauvinism, against the slanders of the dissidents. In committing yourselves to this path, not only will you not add grist to the reactionary mill in your own countries, but you will also prove to your peoples the sincerity of your statements on "Eurocommunism. " And this will aid us in combatting the discrediting of the ideas of "socialism" in the "socialist" countries and in struggling for a just society here, in the West. The committees to defend political prisoners and human rights, as well as Amnesty International, are constantly pointing out new methods of struggle for human rights. You must aid them in this task; and here again, you must even go beyond them. In the context of this struggle we would like to address ourselves directly to the workers, peasants, and intellectuals in order that they contribute massive support (visits to the Embassies of totalitarian countries, meetings on the theme of the Belgrade conference, general protest petitions nationally in France, international petitions for general amnesty, workers strikes preventing economic aid to totalitarian countries which infringe on the Helsinki accords). Since the various governments reject everything we affirm, you can help us to create a control commission to investigate the situation in the psychiatric hospitals, the prisons, and the camps, to get judicial experts to check on legal proceedings, to check the affair of the workers in Ursus, etc. The French police, on the request of the ambassador, prevented representatives of the committee of physicians from entering the Soviet Embassy; you, for your part, can demand of the ambassador that he receive them. Unfortunately, 1 know of cases in which some members of the French CP not only have not aided us, but on the contrary have attempted to make our enterprises fail. If you yourselves have doubts about our information, then:
a) We have irrefutable evidence, often material, to present to you. In analyzing these actual documents, you will be able to verify that we are not denouncing fictitious events.
b) You can demand that your journalists, representatives of the unions and the party, travel to the USSR, study the functioning of the factories, collective farms, schools, institutions, and other establishments.
c) You can meet and discuss with various representatives of various tendencies of the opposition, in various countries. You are better aware of your forces and possibilities than we are, and that is why your tactical and strategic proposals on the struggle for peace, democracy, and "socialism with a human face" interest us. ("Socialism with a human face" is a notion that is open to controversy - for socialism without a human face contradicts the very notion of "socialism" - which was able to arise because of the myth of the existence of socialism in the USSR). 7. I ask you to discuss the letter that I address to you during your gathering, taking account that I represent the left, neo-Marxist wing of the Soviet opposition. I ask you to answer me so that I may send your response to my comrades in the USSR, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Rumania, Bulgaria, and East Germany. Your response, your action, can have a (very strong) influence on the Soviet government, as well as on the evolution of the opposition. I was one of the signers of the appeal addressed to the Communist and workers parties attending the Budapest conference. I also addressed myself personally to your parties to ask for their support. General Grigorenko, a Communist, and the writer Kosterin have also addressed you. A group of Communists in the USSR sent a letter, through me, to the Berlin meeting. (I know them personally.) There has been no response. This has damaged the development of the Marxist opposition and undermined confidence in "socialism with a human face." I hope that "Eurocommunism" will not remain an empty, newly coined word, but will mark a turn in the international workers movement. This hope has weakened after a year of study of "Eurocommunism, " but it nevertheless remains. (A question to Mr. Marchais: Why are Comrades Althusser, Ellenstein, and Parmelin compelled to publish their articles not in l'Humanité but in Le Monde and other noncommunist newspapers?) The evolution of the CPs must be accelerated, toward destroying myths and changing the principles, structure, and methods of struggle of the CPs, because a slow evolution under the pressure of the youth, lack of intransigence in the domain of principles, diplomacy in ideology, and a spirit of conciliation represent a danger to the cause of socialism. With my hope, L.Plyushch
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