A Butenko, G Popov, B Bolotin and D Volkogonov, The Stalin Phenomenon. Novosti, Moscow, 1988, pp64, 40p

This pamphlet shows the limits which the Soviet bureaucracy intends to impose upon the current historical debate within the Soviet Union. Just as Gorbachev's address on the 70th anniversary of the October Revolution went no further than Khrushchev's critique of Stalin in his 1956 Secret Speech, the official debate today promises to be little more revealing than that of the post-Stalin thaw.

Many of the old distortions are cranked out. To quote Volkogonov (currently writing the official Stalin biography):

'After his expulsion from the Soviet Union, Trotsky retained one lasting and maniacal passion to the end of his life: hatred for Stalin. Nobody wrote as many caustic, malicious, offensive, vile, and degrading remarks about Stalin as Trotsky. In these works Trotsky's true self shone through even more: he was fighting not for the truth, but for himself, the would-be dictator.'

Butenko endorses the old Stalinist canard that Trotsky's rejection of the possibility of building Socialism within one country was also a rejection of Leninism. As for Stalin himself, we are assured that the personality cult is alien to the nature of Socialism. But it's legitimate to ask whether this puerile, idealist concept is alien to Marxism. It's revealing that the Stalinists are still using this banality to 'explain' the rise of Stalinism.

However, in a novel twist, Stalin's sins occurred because, according to Volkogonov, 'Stalin himself was to assume precisely the command-bureaucracy style, violence and toughness advocated by Trotsky'. In other words, Stalin was a Trotskyite! Yet:

,...we also remember that it was in those very years that the Dnieper Hydropower Station and the Magnitogorsk Steel Complex were built, and that those years knew such people as Papanin, Angelina, Stakhanov, and Busygin. Those years saw the laying of the foundations for everything we stand upon today. '

This is the key to the riddle. The Soviet Union of today is the product of the l930s. Gorbachev and Co are the direct descendants of Stalin's bureaucracy which came to power through the demise of proletarian power. The hounding and persecution of the Left Opposition in the late 1920s was the final act in the destruction of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The Soviet bureaucracy cannot and will not carry out an honest political reappraisal of Soviet history because this would destroy any claim to its historical legitimacy.

Finally, one can glean some interesting implications. Bukharin is appreciated only for his role in the defeat of the Left Opposition. His economic programme is considered as inadequate. Seeing that Stalin is condemned for refusing to accept the market under Socialism, it is clear that the bureaucracy is warning against too much economic liberalism whilst demanding some of it. Bukharin, Rykov, Zinoviev, Kamenev and Radek are all shown as victims of 'the repressions during the Stalin personality cult'. Seeing that their rehabilitations are being processed, we can assume that Trotsky, not noted as a 'victim, still remains beyond the pale, even though Volkogonov recently considered Stalin to be 'politically and morally responsible' for his murder (The Guardian, 30 June 1988).

The manner in which the Soviet bureaucracy wishes the historical debate to proceed is clear. We are obliged to try and smash through these constraints and re-establish the debate on the basis of the truth.

Paul Flewers