Hari Sharma had requested this document quite some
time back on this list, it was needed by Jan Myrdal. I
am afraid it took quite long to get hold of.
A hard copy of the journal The Radical Humanist is
available at Columbia University.
MN Roy it will be recalled was expelled from the
communist movement in 1929 for writing in the Brandler
press. It is sometimes thought that Roy was expelled
for his activities in China but this is not so, there
is a small noting by Stalin on this which weas
published on this some years back. In his last years
Roy was close to the views of Bukharin on
"decolonisation" theory which was rejected by the
Comintern in 1928. This "theory" argued that India was
rapidly developing industry and that along with that
was undergoing "decolonisation". It was a view also
shared by Trotsky at that time. Roy broke with Marxism
and went over to 'Radical Humanist' theory but
nevertheless still retained a positive view of Stalin.
The Radical Humanist, March 15th, 1953
The Death of Stalin
M.N. Roy
During these years of cold war between the communist
and the anti-communist worlds, Stalin personified the
fearful spectre of Communism invoked by Karl Marx a
century ago, He was the most hated, feared and
maligned man of our time. As the leader of an
admittedly dictatorial system, he was ruthless and at
home committed and connived with many unnecessarily
cruel acts, which shocked the civilized world. But at
the same time, he led a numerous people inhabiting
one-sixth of the globe out of mediaeval darkness and
economic backwardness. Centuries before him, Peter the
Great endeavoured to do the same thing. For that
patriotic endeavour, he has gone down in history as a
great man. No great man has ever been an angel.
Greatness is always purchased at the cost of goodness.
Stalin did not do anything worse. He certainly
deserves a place among the great men of history. And
modern historiology has not yet killed the Carlylean
belief that the history of the world is a composite
biography of great men.
Following the conventional injunction, De mortuis nil
nisi bene, (nothing but good be said about the dead),
the press of the anti-communist world may be somewhat
charitable in the obituary notes on Stalin. The death
of Stalin, which had to come some day, will plunge the
communist world in gloom and consternation. But let us
hope that it will have a beneficial repercussion on
the anti-communist world. The disappearance of the
fearful spectre may eliminate the fear psychosis
against which President Truman in his farewell message
very wisely warned the American people. The fear is
not of Communism. All sensible people know that the
world cannot stand still. Capitalist free enterprise
and formal parliamentary democracy have exhausted
their progressive potentialities. Civilised mankind
requires a new ideal. Communism in practice has turned
out to be not what it professed to be. But while
denouncing all its defects, it must be admitted that
no better alternative to the unstable and unpromising
status quo has yet been offered. This failure of the
crusaders against Communism increases its appeal and
strength. If the civilised world, in the present
all-round crisis, is compelled to choose between the
status quo, which, cannot be maintained except through
a war, and an unknown future of hope, the natural
instinct of self-preservation will persuade, it to
choose the latter.
Fear and hostility will not check the advance of
Communism. Nothing short of another world war will do
that miracle. Blinded by righteous indignation against
the misdeeds of the dictatorial regime of Stalin, the
non-communist world overlooked the fact that the years
of cold war have been a period of preparation for a
gigantic clash of arms to free the world from the
menace of Communism. That, indeed, is a laudable
abject. But will not the end be defeated by the method
of attaining it?
In order to justify the large-scale preparation for
war at the cost of the economic security of Western
Europe, thus actually helping the spread of Communism,
the leaders of the anti-communist world have argued
that Stalin at the head of the clique of wicked men of
the Kremlin was conspiring for the conquest of the
free world, and the latter, therefore, must prepare
for defence at all cost. Freedom is precious. Economic
security must be sacrificed for defending it. On the
face of it, this may be a plausible argument, although
the dangerous fallacy of rearming the European peoples
by undermining their economic security has of late
been recognised by not a few responsible and
farsighted leaders of the democratic world. But for
the present, that is not our point, which could be
argued at length and convincingly. Several years ago,
in this journal, we expressed the apprehension that
the programme of rearming Europe would rather help
Communism than check the dreaded Russian aggression,
should it take place.
For the moment, our plea is that some justice should
be done to the most maligned man of our time. He
deserves justice; because, but for his caution and
wisdom, and also his fanatical faith in the
inevitability of revolution, war might have already
overtaken the civilised world. If .the charitable
obituary notices on his death do not acquit Stalin of
the charge of preparing a war against the democratic
world, they would be hypocritical and unrealistic.
Twenty-five years ago, soon after he took the destiny
of Russia and the entire communist world in his hand,
Stalin began applying himself to the stupendous task
of building up an army which would, in course of time,
be able to stand up against a world of enemies. As an
orthodox Marxist and rigid believer in the teachings
of Lenin, he took it for granted that the capitalist
world was bound to risk a war to bring about the
downfall of the Socialist Republic. It was not easy to
accomplish that task in an industrially backward
country. To overcome that difficulty, Stalin gave the
development of heavy industries first place in the
programme of the economic reconstruction of the U
.S.S.R. He was the greatest military genius of our
time. He realised that an industrially backward
country will remain militarily weak, as had been the
case with Tzarist Russia. The programme of forced
industrialisation compelled Stalin to commit the cruel
act of massacring most of the old Bolsheviks, some of
whom, like Bukharin, for example, advocated the
Dantonist point of view that, having made a
revolution, now let the people enjoy its benefits. But
the farsight of Stalin was more concerned with the
future of the revolution. He argued that they had made
a revolution and established the first Socialist State
in the world, and now their duty was to prepare for
its defence.
In the years immediately following the second world
war, there was no force in Western Europe to stop the
Red Army if it was ordered to march ahead. Even now,
if the Russians decide to overrun Western Europe, they
can reach the Rhine, and even the North Sea and the
English Channel, in a matter of weeks. That is the
opinion of many a strategist of the Western world. It
is also admitted that not before another two years
will the projected European Defence community be in a
position to resist a Russian attack. Why did the
Russians wait all this time, if they really wanted to
overrun Western Europe at the risk of plunging into
the third world war? There are many Russians high up
in the Soviet hierarchy who advocated that line of
action. Zhdanov, who was for a time regarded as the
heir-apparent of Stalin, was the leader of that group.
There is only one explanation that the catastrophic
plunge was not taken. It was Stalin's caution and
wisdom which restrained the ardent advocates of world
revolution.
By orthodox anti-Stalinist Communists as well as by
others, it has been argued that Stalin had abandoned
the ideal of world revolution and was concerned only
with the expansion of his empire. A little reflection
reveals that this hostile allegation credits Stalin
with having stood between the world and another
catastrophic world war.
He did not abandon the ideal of world revolution, but
believed, and stated repeatedly in public, that
revolution could not be exported. It must be brought
about by the indigenous forces. The honesty of this
statement was vouchsafed by the doctrine of Socialism
in One Country. Evidently, Stalin believed, in the
closing years of his life at any rate, that the
example of the success of Socialism in the Soviet
Union would inspire other countries to follow the road
to Socialism. There has been a good deal of talk about
the satellite countries of Eastern Europe.
Undoubtedly, Communism has been placed in power there
by the support of the Russians. The creation of the
so-called satellite States was a strategic necessity.
To surround itself with a ring of friendly and
subservient States was a condition for the defence of
the "Socialist Fatherland". In order to judge Stalin,
or anybody else, objectively, one must look at his
misdeeds from his own point of view. If that is done,
Stalin will appear not as the devilish destroyer of
human freedom, but as an idealist. He has pursued a
false ideal. But as long as it was his ideal, he was
justified in pursuing it. He was careful enough not to
prejudice his ideal by launching on the adventure of a
war. As a Marxist, he believed that the collapse of
capitalism was inevitable, and Communism would rise on
the ruins of capitalism. With that belief, he could
sit back and wait until the inevitable happened.
Meanwhile, he acted according to Cromwell's dictum:
Pray to God, but keep your powder dry.
It is doubtful whether his policy will survive him.
The anti-communist world is feverishly speculating
about his successor. The more rabid anti-communists
are hoping that the death of Stalin will mean the end
of the Soviet Union. To guarantee against this dire
possibility was one of Stalin's great concerns. In
order to gather in his own hand all the reins of
power, he ruthlessly eliminated all the old
Bolsheviks. But at the same time, he all along tried
to bring up a new generation qualified to take up the
reins of power when they would fall from his hands.
Naturally, among the heir-presumptives, there has been
jealousy and rivalry. But in bestowing his favour,
Stalin has never been subjective. He very carefully
measured the merits of a pretender.
For the moment, it is almost certain that Malenkov is
the heir-designate. The untimely death of Zhdanov
removed the danger of, a fierce struggle for
leadership after Stalin's death, such as happened
after Lenin died. Molotov will be a disappointed man.
But the Communist Party of the Soviet Union is
Stalin's creation. It will hail as leader the man
designated by Stalin. And it is known that Malenkov
favours avoidance of any rash policy which would
prejudice the gigantic task of rebuilding the Soviet
Union out of the ravages of the second world war. It
can be reasonably believed that for his preference for
caution Malenkov was chosen by Stalin as his
successor.
So, even after the wise leadership of Stalin is no
longer there, the "wicked men of the Kremlin" may not
run and precipitate the world into a gigantic armed
clash. It will depend on how the anti-communist world
will react to Stalin's death. If even now it will try
to judge Stalin not only charitably, but objectively,
there will be no provocation for his successors to
plunge into any rash action. The absence of Stalin
will make them feel less confident, and they may be
disposed to adopt a more reasonable and 1ess
aggressive policy, if they will be given the
opportunity to do so without losing face.
The following is the obituary of M N Roy in Radical Humanist, with a note by Prof Vijay Singh, via Prof I K Shukla. Interestingly, Roy had a soft corner for Stalin. How could he leave the USSR escaping Stalin's iron walls remains a mystery? After Lenin's death, Stalin slowly buried Lenin's colonial thesis and revived Roy's Supplementary Thesis which was rejected at the 2nd Congress of Comintern, and was circulated after a great deal of amendments by Lenin. All this is now open with the reopening of Comintern Archives, mnainly based on which Prof Sobhanlal Datta Gupta wrote his seminal work, Commintern and the Destiny of Communism in India:1919-1943-Dialectics of real and possible History.
Here is a statement which will outrage the
anti-communist world: Stalin was a man of peace,
although disdained to have peace at any price. He
would go far to avoid war because he believed that,
under the present condition of the world, peace would
promote the cause of Communism. The future of the
world will not be so very gloomy as it appears today
if this truth will be recognised by the anti-communist
world. If that happens, Stalin's death will mark the
beginning of a new chapter in contemporary history – a
chapter of mutual understanding and toleration. Stalin
was undoubtedly the tallest personality of our time,
and as such is bound to leave his mark on history.
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