The anti-Stalinist left is a term that refers to various kinds of Marxist political movements that oppose Joseph Stalin, Stalinism, Neo-Stalinism and the system of governance that Stalin implemented as leader of the Soviet Union between 1924 and 1953. This term also refers to the high ranking political figures and governmental programs that opposed Joseph Stalin and his form of communism, such as Leon Trotsky and other traditional Marxists within the Left Opposition. In Western historiography, Stalin is considered one of the worst and most notorious figures in modern history. [1] [2] [3] [4]
In recent years, it may also refer to left and centre-left wing opposition to dictatorships, cults of personality, totalitarianism and police states, all being features commonly attributed to Marxist-Leninist regimes that took inspiration from Stalinism such as the regimes of Kim Il Sung, Enver Hoxha and others, including in the former Eastern Bloc. [5] [6] [7] Some of the notable movements with the anti-Stalinist left have been Trotskyism and Titoism, anarchism and libertarian socialism, left communism and libertarian Marxism, the Right Opposition within the Communist movement, and democratic socialism and social democracy.
A large majority of the political left was initially enthusiastic about the Bolshevik Revolution in the revolutionary era. In the beginning, the Bolsheviks and their policies received much support because the movement was originally painted by Lenin and other leaders in a libertarian light. [8] However, as more politically repressive methods were used, the Bolsheviks steadily lost support from many anarchists and revolutionaries. [8] Prominent anarchist communists and libertarian Marxists such as Sylvia Pankhurst, Rosa Luxemburg, and later, Emma Goldman were among the first left-wing critics of Bolshevism. [8] [9]
Rosa Luxemburg was heavily critical of the methods that Bolsheviks used to seize power in the October Revolution claiming that it was "not a movement of the people but of the bourgeoisie." [10] Primarily, Luxemburg's critiques were based on the manner in which the Bolsheviks suppressed anarchist movements. [11] In one of her essays published titled, "The Nationalities Question in the Russian Revolution", she explains: [10]
"To be sure, in all these cases, it was really not the "people" who engaged in these reactionary policies, but only the bourgeois and petit bourgeois classes, who – in sharpest opposition to their own proletarian masses – perverted the "national right of self-determination" into an instrument of their counter-revolutionary class policies."
Because of her early criticisms toward the Bolsheviks, her legacy was vilified by Stalin once he rose to power. [12] According to Trotsky, Stalin was "often lying about her and vilifying her" in the eyes of the public. [12]
The relations between the anarchists and the Bolsheviks worsened in Soviet Russia due to the suppression of movements like the Kronstadt rebellion and the Makhnovist movement. [8] The Kronstadt rebellion (March 1921) was a key moment during which many libertarian and democratic leftists broke with the Bolsheviks, laying the foundations for the anti-Stalinist left. The American anti-Stalinist socialist Daniel Bell later said:
Every radical generation, it is said, has its Kronstadt. For some it was the Moscow Trials, for others the Nazi-Soviet Pact, for still others Hungary (The Raik Trial or 1956), Czechoslovakia (the defenestration of Masaryk in 1948 or the Prague Spring of 1968), the Gulag, Cambodia, Poland (and there will be more to come). My Kronstadt was Kronstadt. [13] [14] [15] [16]
Another key anti-Stalinist, Louis Fischer, later coined the term "Kronstadt moment" for this. [14]
Like Rosa Luxemburg, Emma Goldman was primarily critical of Lenin's style of leadership, but her focus eventually transferred over to Stalin and his policies as he rose to power. [8] In her essay titled "There Is No Communism in Russia", Goldman details how Stalin "abused the power of his position" and formed a dictatorship. [8] In this text she states: [8]
"In other words, by the Central Committee and Politbureau of the Party, both of them controlled absolutely by one man, Stalin. To call such a dictatorship, this personal autocracy more powerful and absolute than any Czar's, by the name of Communism seems to me the acme of imbecility."
Emma Goldman asserted that there was "not the least sign in Soviet Russia even of authoritarian, State Communism." [8] Emma Goldman remained critical of Stalin and the Bolshevik's style of governance up until her death in 1940. [17]
Overall, the left communists and anarchists were critical of the statist, repressive, and totalitarian nature of Marxism–Leninism which eventually carried over to Stalinism and Stalin's policy in general. [17] Conversely, Trotsky argued that he and Lenin had intended to lift the ban on the opposition parties such as the Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries as soon as the economic and social conditions of Soviet Russia had improved. [18]
According to historian Marcel Liebman, Lenin's wartime measures such as banning opposition parties was prompted by the fact that several political parties either took up arms against the new Soviet government, or participated in sabotage, collaboration with the deposed Tsarists, or made assassination attempts against Lenin and other Bolshevik leaders. In one incident in Baku, the British military, once invited in, proceeded to execute members of the Bolshevik Party who had peacefully stood down from the Soviet when they failed to win the elections. [19]
One of the last attempts of the Right Opposition to resist Stalin was the Ryutin affair in 1932, where a manifesto against the policy of collectivization was circulated; it openly called for "The Liquidation of the dictatorship of Stalin and his clique". [21] Later, some rightists joined a secret bloc with Leon Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev to oppose Stalin. Historian Pierre Broué stated that it dissolved in early 1933. [22]
Leon Trotsky and Stalin disagreed on issues of industrialization and revolutionary tactics. [23] Trotsky believed that there was a need for super-industrialization while Stalin believed in a rapid surge and collectivization, as written in his 5-year plan. [23] Trotsky believed an accelerated global surge to be the answer to institute communism globally. [23] Trotsky was critical of Stalin's methods because he believed that the slower pace of collectivization and industrialization to be ineffective in the long run. [23] According to historian Sheila Fitzpatrick, the scholarly consensus is that Stalin appropriated the position of the Left Opposition on such matters as industrialisation and collectivisation. [24] Trotsky also disagreed with Stalin's thesis of Socialism in One Country, [23] believing that the institution of revolution in one state or country would not be as effective as a global revolution. [25] He also criticized how the Socialism in One Country thesis broke with the internationalist traditions of Marxism. [26] Trotskyists believed that a permanent global revolution was the most effective method to ensure the system of communism was enacted worldwide. [25] According to his biographer, Isaac Deutscher, Trotsky explicitly supported proletarian internationalism but was opposed to achieving this via military conquest as seen with his documented opposition to the war with Poland in 1920, proposed armistice with the Entente and temperance with staging anti-British revolts in the Middle East. [27]
He is an unprincipled intriguer, who subordinates everything to the preservation of his own power. He changes his theory according to whom he needs to get rid of.
Overall, Trotsky and his followers were very critical of the lack of internal debate and discussion among Stalinist organizations along with their politically repressive methods. [25] [26] In 1936, Trotsky called for the restoration of the right of criticism in areas such as economic matters, the revitalization of the trade unions and the free elections of the Soviet parties. [29] Trotsky also opposed the policy of forced collectivisation under Stalin and favoured a voluntary, gradual approach towards agricultural production [30] [31] with greater tolerance for the rights of Soviet Ukrainians. [32] [33]
"With all the greater frankness can I state how, in my view, the Soviet government should act in case of a fascist upheaval in Germany. In their place, I would, at the very moment of receiving telegraphic news of this event, sign a mobilisation order calling up several age groups. In the face of a mortal enemy, when the logic of the situation points to inevitable war, it would be irresponsible and unpardonable to give that enemy time to establish himself, to consolidate his positions, to conclude alliances… and to work out the plan to attack.."
From the 1930s and beyond, Leon Trotsky and his American supporter James P. Cannon described the Soviet Union as a "degenerated workers' state", the revolutionary gains of which should be defended against imperialist aggression despite the emergence of a gangster-like ruling stratum, the party bureaucracy. While defending the Russian Revolution from outside aggression, Trotsky, Cannon and their followers at the same time urged an anti-bureaucratic political revolution against Stalinism to be conducted by the Soviet working class themselves.
In 1932 International Revolutionary Marxist Centre was founded as an international association of left-wing parties which rejected both more moderate mainstream social democracy and the Stalinist Third International.
During the 1930s, critics of Stalin, both inside and outside the Soviet Union, were under heavy attack by the party. The Great Purge occurred from 1936 to 1938 as a result of growing internal tensions between the critics of Stalin but eventually turned into an all-out cleansing of "anti-Soviet elements". [35] A majority of those targeted were peasants and minorities, but anarchists and democratic socialist opponents were also targeted for their criticisms of the severely repressive political techniques that Stalin used. [26] Many were executed or sent to Gulag prison camps extrajudicially. [35] It is estimated that during the Great Purge, casualties ranged from 600,000 to over 1 million people. [35]
Concurrently, fascism was rising across Europe. The Soviet leadership turned to popular front policy during the 1930s, in which Communists worked with liberal and even conservative allies to defend against a presumed Fascist assault. One of the more notable conflicts could be seen in the Spanish Civil War. While the whole left fought alongside the Republican faction, within it there were sharp conflicts between the Communists, on the one hand, and anarchists, Trotskyists and the POUM on the other. [36] [37] Support for the latter became a key issue for the anti-Stalinist left internationally, as exemplified by the ILP Contingent in the International Brigades, George Orwell's book Homage to Catalonia , the periodical Spain and the World , and various pamphlets by Emma Goldman, Rudolf Rocker and others. [38] [39] [40]
In other countries too, non-Communist left parties competed with Stalinism as the same time as they fought the right. The Three Arrows symbol was adopted by the German Social Democrats to signify this multi-pronged conflict. [41]
Dissidents in the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party, witnessing the collaboration of Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler in the invasion and the partition of Poland and the Soviet invasion of the Baltic states, argued that the Soviet Union had actually emerged as a new social formation, which was neither capitalist nor socialist. Adherents of that view, espoused most explicitly by Max Shachtman and closely following the writings of James Burnham and Bruno Rizzi, argued that the Soviet bureaucratic collectivist regime had in fact entered one of two great imperialist "camps" aiming to wage war to divide the world. The first of the imperialist camps, which Stalin and the Soviet Union were said to have joined as a directly participating ally, was headed by Nazi Germany and included most notably Fascist Italy. In that original analysis, the "second imperialist camp" was headed by England and France, actively supported by the United States. [42]
Shachtman and his cothinkers argued for the establishment of a broad "third camp" to unite the workers and colonial peoples of the world in revolutionary struggle against the imperialism of the German-Soviet-Italian and the Anglo-American-French blocs. Shachtman concluded that the Soviet policy was one of imperialism and that the best result for the international working class would be the defeat of the Soviet Union in the course of its military incursions. Conversely, Trotsky argued that a defeat for the Soviet Union would strengthen capitalism and reduce the possibilities for political revolution. [43]
Josip Broz Tito became one of the most prominent leftist critics of Stalin after World War II. The Communist Party of Yugoslavia and the policies that were established was originally closely modeled on that of the Soviet Union. [44] In the eyes of many, "Yugoslavia followed perfectly down the path of Soviet Marxism". [44] At the start, Tito was even considered "Stalin's most faithful pupil". [45] However, as the Yugoslavian Communist Party grew in size and power, it became a secondary communist powerhouse in Europe. [44] This eventually caused Tito to try to operate independently, which created tensions with Stalin and the Soviet Union. [44] In 1948, the two leaders split apart because of Yugoslavian independent foreign policy and ideological differences. [44] [45]
Tito and his followers began a political effort to develop a new brand of socialism that would be both Marxist–Leninist in nature yet anti-Stalinist in practice. [44] The result was the Yugoslav system of socialist workers' self-management. [44] This led to the philosophy of organizing of every production-related activity in society into "self-managed units". [44] This came to be known as Titoism. Tito was critical of Stalin because he believed Stalin became "un-Marxian". [44] In the pamphlet titled "On New Roads to Socialism" one of Tito's high ranking aides states: [44]
"The indictment is long indeed: unequal relations with and exploitation of the other socialist countries, un-Marxian treatment of the role of the leader, inequality in pay greater than in bourgeois democracies, ideological promotion of Great Russian nationalism and subordination of other peoples, a policy of division of spheres of influence with the capitalist world, monopolization of the interpretation of Marxism, the abandonment of all democratic forms..."
Tito disagreed on the primary characteristics that defined Stalin's policy and style of leadership. Tito wanted to form his own version of "pure" socialism without many of the "un-Marxian" traits of Stalinism. [45] Tito has also accused Stalinist USSR's hegemonic practices in Eastern Europe and economic exploitation of the Soviet satellite states as imperialist. [46]
Other foreign leftist critics also came about during this time in Europe and America. Some of these critics include George Orwell, H. N. Brailsford, [47] Fenner Brockway, [48] [49] the Young People's Socialist League, and later Michael Harrington, [50] and the Independent Labour Party in Britain. There were also several anti-Stalinist socialists in France, including writers such as Simone Weil [51] and Albert Camus [52] as well as the group around Marceau Pivert.
In America, the New York Intellectuals around the journals New Leader , Partisan Review, and Dissent were among other critics. In general, these figures criticized Soviet Communism as a form of "totalitarianism which in some ways mirrored fascism." [53] [54] A key text for this movement was The God That Failed , edited by British socialist Richard Crossman in 1949, featuring contributions by Louis Fischer, André Gide, Arthur Koestler, Ignazio Silone, Stephen Spender and Richard Wright, about their journeys to anti-Stalinism.
Following the death of Joseph Stalin, many prominent leaders of Stalin's cabinet sought to seize power. As a result, a Soviet triumvirate was formed between Lavrenty Beria, Georgy Malenkov, and Nikita Khrushchev. The primary goal of the new leadership was to ensure stability in the country while leadership positions within the government were sorted out. Some of the new policy implemented that was antithetical of Stalinism included policy that was free from terror, that decentralized power, and collectivized leadership. After this long power struggle within the Soviet government, Nikita Khrushchev came into power. Once in power, Khrushchev was quick to denounce Stalin and his methods of governance. [55] In a secret speech delivered to the 20th party congress in 1956, Khrushchev was critical of the "cult of personality of Stalin" and his selfishness as a leader: [55]
"Comrades, the cult of the individual acquired such monstrous size chiefly because Stalin himself, using all conceivable methods, supported the glorification of his own person. This is supported by numerous facts."
Khrushchev also revealed to the congress the truth behind Stalin's methods of repression. In addition, he explained that Stalin had rounded up "thousands of people and sent them into a huge system of political work camps" called gulags. [55] The truths revealed in this speech came to the surprise of many, but this fell into the plan of Khrushchev. This speech tainted Stalin's name which resulted in a significant loss of faith in his policy from government officials and citizens. [55]
During this Cold War era, the American non-communist left (NCL) grew. [56] The NCL was critical of the continuation of Stalinist Communism because of aspects such as famine and repression, [8] and as later discovered, the covert intervention of Soviet state interests in the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). [57] : 31 Members of the NCL were often ex-communists, such as the historian Theodore Draper whose views shifted from socialism to liberalism, and socialists who became disillusioned with the communist movement. Anti-Stalinist Trotskyists also wrote about their experiences during this time, such as Irving Howe and Lewis Coser. [57] : 29–30 These perspectives inspired the creation of the Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF), as well as international journals like Der Monat and Encounter ; it also influenced existing publications such as the Partisan Review . [58] According to John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, the CCF was covertly funded by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to support intellectuals with pro-democratic and anti-communist stances. [57] : 66–69 The Communist Party USA lost much of its influence in the first years of the Cold War due to the revelation of Stalinist crimes by Khrushchev. [59] Although the Soviet Communist Party was no longer officially Stalinist, the Communist Party USA received a substantial subsidy from the USSR from 1959 until 1989, and consistently supported official Soviet policies such as intervention in Hungary and Czechoslovakia. The Soviet funding ended in 1989 when Gus Hall condemned the market initiatives of Mikhail Gorbachev. [60]
From the late 1950s, several European socialist and communist parties, such as in Denmark and Sweden, shifted away from orthodox communism which they connected to Stalinism that was in recent history. [61] : 240 The emergence of the New Left was influenced to some degree by the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956 and increasing amount of information available about Stalinist terror. [61] : 285 Albert Camus criticized Soviet communism, while many leftists saw the Soviet Union as emblematic of "state capitalism". [62] After Stalin's death and the Khrushchev Thaw, study and opposition to Stalinism became a part of historiography. The historian Moshe Lewin cautioned not to categorize the entire history of the Soviet Union as Stalinist, but also emphasized that Stalin's bureaucracy had permanently established "bureaucratic absolutism", resembling old monarchy, in the Soviet Union. [63]
After Fidel Castro's visit to the United States in 1959, various American academics began publishing essays and books on the character of the Cuban Revolution and Fidel Castro. Some arguing that Castro was veering away from the goals of the Cuban Revolution, and towards Stalinism. Others argued that the criticisms of Castro were unwarranted. [64] Throughout 1960, many articles were published in the socialist Monthly Review journal, arguing against any rumored "betrayal" of the Cuban Revolution. These articles were influenced by the writings of socialists Paul Sweezy and Leo Huberman, who visited Cuba in 1959. [65]
In 1961, the historian Theodore Draper famously published in the anti-Stalinist Encounter magazine, that Castro had betrayed the Cuban Revolution, and that Castro could bring international war. The article was passed to John F. Kennedy, who considered it before approving the Bay of Pigs Invasion. [66] According to Draper, the Cuban Revolution was a middle class movement for democracy. Fidel Castro, after coming to power, began pursuing a wave of land reforms in 1960 and 1961. During this time, Castro drifted away from his original democratic goals. Eventually, Castro heavily integrated Communist officials into his provisional government, and by Draper's conception, Castro had abandoned the democratic goals of the Cuban Revolution, and his own land reform plans of 1960–1961. [67]
Draper considered his betrayal thesis to be a criticism of the accounts of socialists like Paul Sweezy and Leo Huberman who were sympathetic to Castro. Draper attempted to present a Marxist interpretation of Castroism, that made analogies to Trotskyist conceptions of Stalinism as a betrayer of the Russian Revolution. [68]
Draper's work as a historian of the Cuban Revolution brought him to the attention of the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace, an anti-communist think tank located at Stanford University. [69] Draper accepted a Hoover Institution fellowship and remained there until 1968, at which time he departed, ill at ease with the growing conservatism of the institution. [69] Draper moved across country to accept a similar post at the Institute for Advanced Study located at Princeton University, where he focused his scholarship on the question of race relations. [69]
Lev Davidovich Bronstein, better known as Leon Trotsky, was a Soviet politician, revolutionary, and political theorist. He was a central figure in the 1905 Revolution, October Revolution, Russian Civil War, and establishment of the Soviet Union. In the early years of Soviet Russia, Trotsky and Vladimir Lenin were widely considered its two most prominent figures, and Trotsky was Lenin's de facto second-in-command in the government from 1917 to 1923. Ideologically a Marxist and a Leninist, Trotsky's thought inspired a school of Marxism known as Trotskyism.
Leninism is a political ideology developed by Russian Marxist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin that proposes the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat led by a revolutionary vanguard party as the political prelude to the establishment of communism. Lenin's ideological contributions to the Marxist ideology relate to his theories on the party, imperialism, the state, and revolution. The function of the Leninist vanguard party is to provide the working classes with the political consciousness and revolutionary leadership necessary to depose capitalism.
Marxism–Leninism is a communist ideology that became the largest faction of the communist movement in the world in the years following the October Revolution. It was the predominant ideology of most communist governments throughout the 20th century. It was developed in Russia by Joseph Stalin and drew on elements of Bolshevism, Leninism, Marxism, and the works of Karl Kautsky. It was the state ideology of the Soviet Union, Soviet satellite states in the Eastern Bloc, and various countries in the Non-Aligned Movement and Third World during the Cold War, as well as the Communist International after Bolshevization.
Stalinism is the totalitarian means of governing and Marxist–Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union (USSR) from 1924 to 1953 by dictator Joseph Stalin and in Soviet satellite states between 1944 and 1953. Stalin had previously made a career as a gangster and robber, working to fund revolutionary activities, before eventually becoming General Secretary of the Soviet Union. Stalinism included the creation of a one man totalitarian police state, rapid industrialization, the theory of socialism in one country, forced collectivization of agriculture, intensification of class conflict, a cult of personality, and subordination of the interests of foreign communist parties to those of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which Stalinism deemed the leading vanguard party of communist revolution at the time. After Stalin's death and the Khrushchev Thaw, a period of de-Stalinization began in the 1950s and 1960s, which caused the influence of Stalin's ideology to begin to wane in the USSR.
Trotskyism is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Russian revolutionary and intellectual Leon Trotsky along with some other members of the Left Opposition and the Fourth International. Trotsky described himself as an orthodox Marxist, a revolutionary Marxist, and a Bolshevik–Leninist as well as a follower of Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, Vladimir Lenin, Karl Liebknecht, and Rosa Luxemburg. His relations with Lenin have been a source of intense historical debate. However, on balance, scholarly opinion among a range of prominent historians and political scientists such as E.H. Carr, Isaac Deutscher, Moshe Lewin, Ronald Suny, Richard B. Day and W. Bruce Lincoln was that Lenin’s desired “heir” would have been a collective responsibility in which Trotsky was placed in "an important role and within which Stalin would be dramatically demoted ".
Bolshevism is a revolutionary socialist current of Soviet Leninist and later Marxist–Leninist political thought and political regime associated with the formation of a rigidly centralized, cohesive and disciplined party of social revolution, focused on overthrowing the existing capitalist state system, seizing power and establishing the "dictatorship of the proletariat".
The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International, was a political international which existed from 1919 to 1943 and advocated world communism. It was led and controlled by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and maintained strict conditions of affiliation in order to exclude social democratic parties and more moderate or non-Marxist socialists. The international was intended as a replacement for the Second International, which had dissolved in 1916 during World War I.
Communism is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered around common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange that allocates products to everyone in society based on need. A communist society would entail the absence of private property and social classes, and ultimately money and the state.
Before the perestroika Soviet era reforms of Gorbachev that promoted a more liberal form of socialism, the formal ideology of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) was Marxism–Leninism, a form of socialism consisting of a centralised command economy with a vanguardist one-party state that aimed to realize the dictatorship of the proletariat. The Soviet Union's ideological commitment to achieving communism included the national communist development of socialism in one country and peaceful coexistence with capitalist countries while engaging in anti-imperialism to defend the international proletariat, combat the predominant prevailing global system of capitalism and promote the goals of Russian Communism. The state ideology of the Soviet Union—and thus Marxism–Leninism—derived and developed from the theories, policies, and political praxis of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin.
Marxism is a method of socioeconomic analysis that originates in the works of 19th century German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marxism analyzes and critiques the development of class society and especially of capitalism as well as the role of class struggles in systemic, economic, social and political change. It frames capitalism through a paradigm of exploitation and analyzes class relations and social conflict using a materialist interpretation of historical development – materialist in the sense that the politics and ideas of an epoch are determined by the way in which material production is carried on.
The Left Opposition was a faction within the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) from 1923 to 1927 headed de facto by Leon Trotsky. It was formed by Trotsky to mount a struggle against the perceived bureaucratic degeneration within the party leadership headed by Stalin during the serious illness of the Bolshevik founder Vladimir Lenin and after Lenin's death in January 1924. The Left Opposition advocated for a programme of rapid industrialization, voluntary collectivisation of agriculture, and the expansion of a worker's democracy.
A workers' council, also called labor council, is a type of council in a workplace or a locality made up of workers or of temporary and instantly revocable delegates elected by the workers in a locality's workplaces. In such a system of political and economic organization, the workers themselves are able to exercise decision-making power. Furthermore, the workers within each council decide on what their agenda is and what their needs are. The council communist Antonie Pannekoek describes shop-committees and sectional assemblies as the basis for workers' management of the industrial system. A variation is a soldiers' council, where soldiers direct a mutiny. Workers and soldiers have also operated councils in conjunction. Workers' councils may in turn elect delegates to central committees, such as the Congress of Soviets.
Revolutionary socialism is a political philosophy, doctrine, and tradition within socialism that stresses the idea that a social revolution is necessary to bring about structural changes in society. More specifically, it is the view that revolution is a necessary precondition for transitioning from a capitalist to a socialist mode of production. Revolution is not necessarily defined as a violent insurrection; it is defined as a seizure of political power by mass movements of the working class so that the state is directly controlled or abolished by the working class as opposed to the capitalist class and its interests.
A socialist state, socialist republic, or socialist country, sometimes referred to as a workers' state or workers' republic, is a sovereign state constitutionally dedicated to the establishment of socialism. The term communist state is often used synonymously in the West, specifically when referring to one-party socialist states governed by Marxist–Leninist communist parties, despite these countries being officially socialist states in the process of building socialism and progressing toward a communist society. These countries never describe themselves as communist nor as having implemented a communist society. Additionally, a number of countries that are multi-party capitalist states make references to socialism in their constitutions, in most cases alluding to the building of a socialist society, naming socialism, claiming to be a socialist state, or including the term people's republic or socialist republic in their country's full name, although this does not necessarily reflect the structure and development paths of these countries' political and economic systems. Currently, these countries include Algeria, Bangladesh, Guyana, India, Nepal, Nicaragua, Sri Lanka and Tanzania.
Soviet democracy, also called council democracy, is a type of democracy in Marxism, in which the rule of a population is exercised by directly elected soviets. Soviets are directly responsible to their electors and bound by their instructions using a delegate model of representation. Such an imperative mandate is in contrast to a trustee model, in which elected delegates are exclusively responsible to their conscience. Delegates may accordingly be dismissed from their post at any time through recall elections. Soviet democracy forms the basis for the soviet republic system of government.
Proletarian internationalism, sometimes referred to as international socialism, is the perception of all proletarian revolutions as being part of a single global class struggle rather than separate localized events. It is based on the theory that capitalism is a world-system and therefore the working classes of all nations must act in concert if they are to replace it with communism.
World communism, also known as global communism or international communism, is a form of communism placing emphasis on an international scope rather than being individual communist states. The long-term goal of world communism is an unlimited worldwide communist society that is classless, moneyless, stateless, and nonviolent, which may be achieved through an intermediate-term goal of either a voluntary association of sovereign states as a global alliance, or a world government as a single worldwide state.
Far-left politics in the United Kingdom have existed since at least the 1840s, with the formation of various organisations following ideologies such as Marxism, revolutionary socialism, communism, anarchism and syndicalism.
The Stalinist Legacy: Its Impact on 20th-Century World Politics is a 1984 book of various authors organized by Pakistani-British author, activist, historian Tariq Ali. The book features articles composed by prominent Anti-Stalinist socialists Isaac Deutscher and Ernest Mandel, Soviet poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko, and Communist bloc leaders Nikita Khrushchev, Josip Tito and Leon Trotsky.
propagated the anti-Stalin ideas of other personalities, such as those of Professor Ota Sik