The terrible price
In a letter to The Guardian, (No 1178, 7-04-2004) Tom Gill raised the question of the impact of the Second World War on the Communist Party of the Soviet Union as a factor behind the collapse of the Soviet Union. The following article by A S Rebrov, of Krasnoyarsk, Russia, provides information on the heavy loss of Party members during the War. On the eve of the Great Patriotic War the Communist Party of the Soviet Union numbered 3,800,000 members and candidates for membership; all official sources agree with this figure. During this war more than 5,319,00 people were put forward as candidates for admission to the Party (History of the CPSU, GIPL, Moscow 1960 p.576, Russian edition), a figure which is, in my opinion equally reliable. As a consequence, if the Party had had no losses, it would have had, in 1945 approximately 9,100,000 members. After the war, in particular in the years 1945-1952, the ranks of the party had grown in a particularly rapid fashion, to the extent of at least 700,000 per year on the average. It follows that for the beginning of the 19th Congress of the Party [1952], not less than 4,900,000 communists were enrolled in the course of seven post war years [see The CPSU in its resolutions 7th Edition part III p 553]. As a consequence [of these figures]: (1) in 1945 the Party counted in its ranks an approximate total of 1,111,259 (6,013,000 minus 4,900,000) people; (2) while, during the war the Party's losses amounted to nearly 8,000,000 (9,000,000 minus 1,000,000). I am indignant at the attempts by certain writers in the [Russian] contemporary press to substantially reduce the number of losses sustained by the Party during the war, in their dishonest efforts to conceal the Party's role and its importance, in particular to the victory won in this war. They were able to try, at this time, to refute the figures that witness incontrovertibly to the fact that there were not, and are not, more genuine defenders of the country than the Communists who, in this war, shed their life's blood. And the patriots, of whatever colour they might be, could not, if they really intended to fight for the Fatherland, go anywhere but with the Communists, not with the nationalists or the surviving hangers-on of the White Guards, even with emigrants, etc. But the number of the Party members lost during the war has still another important consequence. In the first place these losses most heavily impacted on the true Communists. As a consequence of this, a situation arose in the Party organisations in 1956, where for each Communist who had passed through the crucible of the ideological struggle and the practical work of the party there were six raw, inexperienced newcomers. That is to say, if in a Party organisation there were, for example 21 Communists, three of them at most were seasoned Bolsheviks. But in practice there would be less than that. Now, remember, decisions of Party organisations are taken by a majority. In particular this means that in 1956 there was nobody to bar the way to the establishment of the reign of the Khrushchev clique. The old Bolsheviks V M Molotov, N A Bulganin and others who had endured the fire of the revolution, the Czarist prisons and exile had no-one to depend on in their attempted struggle against the betrayal and adventurism of Khrushchev's clique. And this scoundrel had succeeded in having those who had a hundred times withstood the test of fire and steel, proclaimed an anti-party group. And the Party had swallowed this senseless and cynical insult in silence! The country has firmly taken the road to treachery and the active dismemberment of socialism, which began in this country, the savage sabbath of adventurers, traitors, thieves and swindlers, who hid behind the membership card of the Party of the proletariat. The loss of Communists in the war had as a result the betrayal of the class, and of the Party and its degeneration. This is one of the basic causes of the collapse of socialism. The terrible price of the war and victory. It is part of the answer to the question, "Who is guilty?"* * * Published in Editions Dimocrites, 1 May 1998. Originally in Yedinstvo (Unity) No 14042, 1997 Translated from Russian into French by Jacques Lejeune, and from French to English by Tom Gill.