Georgii Shakhnazarov, Peaceful Coexistence and Social Progress. 1975
Original Source: Georgii Shakhnazarov, “Mirnoe sosushchestvovanie i sotsial’nyi progress,” Pravda, 27 December 1975, 4-5.
1.
The mutual relationship between the lessening of international tensions and social progress is one of the most urgent questions at the moment. In connection with it arise a multitude of questions beginning with the simplest: does the lessening of tensions influence social progress and if so, how? Or, on the other hand, does social progress influence the lessening of tensions and if so, in what way, and how effectively? These and other questions are being asked throughout the world and politicians, scholars, newspaper commentators, and television journalists are offering answers. Naturally, their answers vary depending on their political outlooks, convictions, and ability to process the complex dialectics of contemporary social development.
This is not about an academic debate but rather the sharpest ideological confrontation. The opponents of détente in capitalist countries seek to attract public opinion to their side by complicating the question and confusing people. The extreme right asserts that the weakening of international tensions will only be to the advantage of the socialist countries and represents a maneuver by communists to weaken the vigilance of the “Free World,” and unleash “subversive” activity. The extreme “left” in its turn asserts that détente is beneficial only to capitalism and represents a capitulation before the class enemy, a rejection of the goal of revolution. Between these two positions not a few other positions avoid their extremism but share their premises.
The relationship between détente and social progress, upon reflection, is none other than the refraction of the cardinal question of the relationship of revolution to peace. V. I. Lenin provided the key to this question. Its substance in brief was as follows. Communists are not advocates of spreading revolution by military means because war brings enormous devastation to the popular masses, and because revolution is an objective process which cannot be ordered at will but arises from the conditions of class struggle in each country. The awakenings of rights of any people independently defines their fate; communists are opposed to the export of both revolution and counter-revolution. Corresponding to this eminently reasonable principle of international relations in the transitional revolutionary epoch when there exist simultaneously on the planet both socialist and capitalist states, is the principle of peaceful coexistence.
From the first days of its existence, the land of the Soviets proclaimed a policy of peace and pursued it unswervingly. This was when socialism was weak and its enemies asserted that the Bolsheviks adhered to peaceful coexistence out of tactical considerations, that is, tried to survive by conserving their strength and later overthrowing capitalism by military means. So it is today when socialism is incomparably stronger and has turned into a global system exercising ever more decisive influence on events around the world. When we say that “peaceful coexistence” is not a tactic but a strategy of a Leninist party, and behind it stands the philosophy of the working class – this is humanism – its certainty in insuperable laws of social development, in the inevitability of the historically conditioned triumph of our side.
Such an orientation of the revolutionary workers movement and the corresponding policy of socialist states have real significance for the clarification of the question about the relationship of peace to revolution. This orientation and this policy decisively rebut the specious arguments of western prophets about the supposedly crafty communists hiding under the cover of peaceful coexistence with the “Free World” while on the sly swallowing it up….
How concretely do international tensions and their reduction act on internal development? Answering this question necessitates taking into account basic qualitative differences between the two social systems.
For socialism, international tensions and the threat of imperialist aggression connected with them, continual economic and political pressure of various kinds, and all manner of subversive acts compel a significant allocation of resources toward defense and the adoption of additional measures to protect revolutionary gains. All this one way or another has an impact on social life. And it is completely understandable how détente opens up the possibility for the application of objective laws of new formations – the concentration of production first of all on tasks of peaceful construction satisfying the material and spiritual needs of the masses and the furthest development of the laboring and political capacities of socialist democracy, etc.
As far as capitalism is concerned, such international tensions signify the possibility for imperialist reaction to externalize the “communist” threat to try to arouse militarism more overtly and mercilessly oppress the workers movement by introducing extraordinary measures to punish “subversive” elements and trample on the most basic of democratic rights. Moreover, declaring themselves the fortress defending national interests and all others as hidden supporters of foreign interests, conservative parties use international tensions as leverage to pressure voters, trying to artificially enhance the balance of political forces in their favor. This is why the weakening, and still better, the removal of tensions in the international arena removes from the hands of reaction the main key or “screws” to the deceit of the toiling masses. According to the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the USA, Gus Hall, peaceful coexistence enables the natural laws of capitalism to play themselves out, exposing them to the whole world.
Finally, international tensions serve to mask the application by imperialism of the most crude and violent forms of repression against national liberation movements. All colonial wars and acts of imperialist aggression in the past several decades require justification in terms of defending the “farthest advances of freedom” to prevent “communist penetration,” etc. Détente significantly expands the possibilities for national and social liberation to stand up against imperialist pressure, to use their expanding political potential to establish normal conditions for commercial exchange and the application of other measures to overcome existing gaps in economic development.
2.
Thus, the lessening of international tensions occasions favorable influence on social progress in all basic sectors of the modern world. And this is not simply a theoretical contention. It is well known that the current process of détente began not today and not yesterday but with the Program of Peace issued by the 24th Congress of the CPSU, with the collectively agreed policy of the countries of the socialist commonwealth. Supported by all progressive and peace-loving forces, it led in recent years to many fruitful results. In other words, détente already has definite achievements, but now not with emotion but on the basis of facts we must assess the impact on the development of social processes.
Here are the main facts. During the early phase of détente, the heroic struggle of the Vietnamese people against imperialist aggression achieved victory, contributing to victories in Laos and Cambodia. In this very period occurred the further strengthening of the international positions of socialist states, the resolution of such enormous problems as the international recognition of the GDR, and the lifting of the blockade around Cuba. Also this period saw the fall of the fascist regime in Spain. New advances of the workers and democratic movements throughout the capitalist world also occurred.
The positive influence of détente on the progressive social forces is beyond dispute; only those who do not want to see it would disagree. So too is the influence of progressive social forces on détente. It is expressed in the fact that the states of the victorious socialist revolutions are the initiators of the struggle for détente. The advances of national liberation movements, their new successes, simultaneously mean an expansion of the front for the building of peace, because the states of a socialist orientation are vitally interested in confirming the principles of peaceful coexistence, and in practice support the strengthening of socialist countries and other peace-loving forces. Finally, it is apparent that the strengthening of the working class and democratic forces in capitalist countries means additional possibilities for pressure on ruling circles to force them to observe the principles of peaceful coexistence.
So are our ideological opponents correct when they contend, despite the objective connection between détente and social progress, that only the socialist countries stand to gain? Definitely not if they conflate the interests of capitalism with the vital interests of the peoples. Détente guarantees peaceful coexistence for all countries and peoples, preventing nuclear war and threats of total destruction.
The reduction of international tensions by no means leads automatically to social progress. It only creates the preconditions for freer unfolding of the class struggle.
When factory workers at Renault strike, this is not the result of détente, but the inadequacy of working conditions, of workers’ social situation. When in the USA Negroes rebel, it is not the result of détente but anger over racism.
Nobody can guarantee capital the preservation of its rule. Responding to those who ask for such a guarantee, General Secretary of the CPSU’s Central Committee, L. I. Brezhnev at the (1973) World Congress of Peace Forces noted that “Lenin – this greatest of revolutionaries – said: revolution is made neither by decree nor agreement. One can add that revolution, class struggle, and liberation movements also cannot be cancelled by decree or agreement. There is no force on earth that could turn away the inexorable process of the renewal of public life. Where there is colonialism there will be national liberation. Where there is exploitation, there will be struggle for the emancipation of labor. Where there is aggression, there will be resistance to it.”
It has to be said that from time to time statements by leading politicians appear in the western press that contain healthy recognition of the fact that peaceful coexistence does not mean and cannot mean the social status quo. Bourgeois ideologues at the same time are extremely stingy in acknowledging the alignment of forces on the world stage. They feverishly search for instances of the conspiratorial “communist threat” to “substantiate” imperialist policies. As a result of such searches, the thesis is born that socialist countries must “pay” for détente by rejecting several principles of socialism’s political system.
Western propaganda … tries to depict the situation whereby “concessions” required of socialist states answer the requirements peaceful coexistence in the spirit of agreements concluded in recent years such as the Concluding Act taken by the European Meeting on Security and Cooperation in Helsinki. It especially emphasizes the necessity of complete and precise adherence to questions of the exchange of information, the expansion of cultural and other contacts, etc.
All of these issues have great significance for the normalization of relations among sates for the growth of trust among peoples. The Soviet Union and other socialist countries repeatedly emphasized their readiness to cooperate in fruitful exchanges of cultural values. Such a policy flows from the most internationalist, humanitarian principles of our worldview. And if we look at the facts, then it is the western countries that will have to lower the iron curtain, which for many years permitted the imperialist reactionaries to deny access to the ideals and cultural values of socialist countries. Thus according to data in the newspaper The Daily World, throughout the years of the Soviet Union’s existence, a total of 5,305 different books were published by American authors, while in the USA, since 1917 only approximately 500 titles appeared by pre-revolutionary Russian and Soviet authors. In 1972-73, 40 American plays appeared on the Soviet stage, while in the USA, 4 plays from before the revolution and not one from the Soviet era appeared. In the last two years, American cinemas did not show one Soviet film.
The disproportionality of such an unequal exchange of spiritual values, if one can apply to the sphere of culture economic terminology, is evident.
3.
Of course, the troubadours of anti-communism are least of all interested in progress on cultural cooperation. On the contrary, even in the Berezka dances and the Moiseev folk dance ensemble they seize upon opportunities for propaganda. Commentators on the radio stations “Liberty” and “Free Europe” not to mention other organs of mass information prefer to ignore the theme of cultural exchange. Day in and day out they claim that socialist countries must demonstrate a willingness to liberalize their regimes.
What do they mean by liberalization? Most often, two basic themes are involved: first, the expansion of human rights, and second, pluralism in the political system.
It is completely understandable why the socialist countries repudiate these pretenses. It is not that communists are against the expansion of civil rights, as bourgeois propaganda insinuates. On the contrary, at each stage of socialist development, the social and political rights of citizens of our society have been expanded and filled with richer content. In the countries of socialism, the participation of citizens in the affairs of state, the management of production, the improvement of legislation, and the system of popular representation in other democratic institutions has expanded. The lessening of tensions, propitious international conditions, are additional factors enabling the further growth of socialist democracy in its natural direction toward the ideals of communist social self-administration.
Inarguably, where antagonistic classes no longer exist, the core interests of the toilers, independent of their class affiliation, coincide. Precisely in this lies one of the greatest achievements of socialist society – socio-political and ideological unity of the people. Such unity cannot exist under capitalism, as a consequence of which in western countries the question of “pluralism” among contradictory political tendencies and forces is so urgent. Understandably, in socialist conditions, definite social and occupational differentiation exists. Our Communist Party, the Soviet state, expressing the fundamental interests of all toilers, constantly is reconciling and taking into account in its policies the specific demands of each sector of the population. They all have regular opportunities to express and put into effect their interests. This refers to trade unions, the Komsomol, different kinds of associations, creative organs, etc. The whole extensive network of social organizations has the possibility of making its contribution toward socialist development, satisfying the needs of separate strata of society and of society as a whole. The unity of all classes and groups, of all nations and peoples of the USSR around the Communist Party, inspired by the boundless faith of all the people is an incontrovertible fact vouchsafed by historical experience. It clearly is expressed in the new powerful surge of political and labor activism among the masses in honor of the forthcoming 25th CPSU congress.
We categorically reject the pretense of the “liberalization” of the regime because it only implies the bourgeois interpretation of human rights and the “pluralism” of the political system.
The substance of the “pluralism” our critics claim we lack is the expression of the interests of different sectors of society, the possibility of schisms, the formation of political opposition, and even the “free play” of political forces including anti-socialist ones.
Those who in the West demand the expansion of human rights under socialism do not apply the interests of the free multifaceted development of the individual, the possibility of choosing one’s occupation, to study, to obtain knowledge, to grow in creative and civic relations, to express one’s socially engendered opinions, to constructively participate in affairs of state. No, in their view, human rights are needed only to permit opposition to the socialist order. Therefore, imperialist propaganda concerns itself entirely with the spouting of words identical to those it uses against its own people.
A question arises: are those who demand “payment” for détente demanding the absurd? Would the working class, peoples of socialist countries, who defended their revolutionary victories even when relatively weak now abandon them when they have every means of defending them?
It is not difficult to understand the calculus of our most trenchant critics – to disrupt the deepening of détente and at the same time to cast responsibility for this on the socialist countries. Already one form of disguising their intentions to achieve their purposes is that the exploiting class, whose very existence is based on the suppression of democracy and the rights of labor, expelling them from the social goods, simultaneously ranting on about freedom.
It is completely understandable that if the socialist countries cited as preconditions for détente the resolution of the social question under capitalism, they would be accused of sabotaging it. This fact that the entire structure of exploitation continues to function in the capitalist world – the exploitation of labor, various forms of fascist and racist obscurantism, the persecution of free thought, politically motivated discrimination….
Détente contributes to social progress, and social progress to détente. But only those who want neither détente nor social progress would make conditional the movement toward peace on the basis of obviously unacceptable demands. Behind these statements is hostility toward peoples’ interests, in the matters of peace, freedom, and humanism. Such declarations cannot change the objective course of history. The laws of social development inexorably take their own, and behind them, the last word.
G. Shakhnazarov
Doctor of Juridical Sciences
Translation: Lewis Siegelbaum.