Facebook Instagram Twitter YouTube

At the Source of Eastern Europe’s Bureaucratic Governments : the Degeneration of the Soviet Union

On the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution, Left Voice in collaboration with Révolution Permanente, will publish a series of articles on the different aspects of one of the most heroic struggles of the working class in the 20th century.

Philippe Alcoy

December 5, 2016
Facebook Twitter Share

The nature of the Hungarian Stalinist regime is obviously closely linked to that of Stalinism in the Soviet Union. The main Stalinist leaders in Hungary were directly attached to the bureaucratic apparatus that ruled the Soviet Union. The brutality of Hungary’s police regime was very similar to that which existed in the Soviet Union since the mid-1920s. There was, however, an important difference. Although the bureaucracy benefited from a relative legitimacy among the masses in the Soviet Union, the Stalinist leaders in power in Hungary had almost no legitimacy among the workers and peasants. During the war, like so many other Stalinist leaders in Europe (the French Communist Party’s Maurice Thorez for example), they fled to the Soviet Union to live there. Unlike the Communist Party’s rank and file, they did not fight against the occupier. They only returned to Hungary once the country was liberated from Nazi occupation. Their main mission was to represent the Soviet bureaucracy’s interests locally. As such, their subordination to Moscow was absolute.

But Moscow’s policies were the political expression of a completely bureaucratized ruling minority. This bureaucracy was the very result of the bureaucratic degeneration of the Soviet Union. The economic, cultural and social backwardness of Czarist Russia compared with the West, further aggravated by the WWI and years of civil war in the early 1920s, along with the isolation of the new workers’ state after the failure of revolutions in Europe, were the main causes of this degeneration.

Although the social bases of the workers’ state, notably the nationalization of the means of production, were maintained, a bureaucracy politically expropriated the country’s workers and peasants. The state apparatus controlled by Stalin and this bureaucratic caste became a tool to repress and oppress the working class: the soviets were dissolved, the trade unions were emptied of their contents and, in total service of the bureaucracy, confined to the role of disciplining the working class. The Stalinist police dictatorship progressively eliminated, with the most barbaric methods, all revolutionary opposition, including Leon Trotsky who was assassinated by a Stalinist agent in Mexico. However, this totalitarian construction was not unfailing. The internal and external contradictions became stronger and pushed the bureaucracy to oftentimes waver abruptly from right to left. The situation was thus far from stable.

At the end of WWII, the Red Army’s role in defeating Nazi Germany gave, although only momentarily, Stalinism a great prestige among the masses on a global scale. Its militarily achievements allowed it to establish in Central and Eastern Europe a series of so-called “socialist” regimes, fashioned in the very image of Stalinism in the Soviet Union. In other words, these regimes were bureaucratically deformed workers’ states from the very start.

In 1937, in his “The USSR in War”, Trotsky, predicting a scenario of this kind, wrote that “in the territories scheduled to become a part of the USSR, the Moscow government will carry through the expropriation of the large landowners and statification of the means of production. This variant is most probable not because the bureaucracy remains true to the socialist program but because it is neither desirous nor capable of sharing the power, and the privileges the latter entails, with the old ruling classes […] Inasmuch as Stalin’s Bonapartist dictatorship bases itself not on private but on state property, the invasion of Poland by the Red Army should, in the nature of the case, result in the abolition of private capitalist property, so as thus to bring the regime of the occupied territories into accord with the regime of the USSR.”

These regimes inherited all the economic, political and social contradictions of the Soviet Union, but with weaker and less consolidated state apparatuses. The risks of revolt and revolution were thus potentially stronger. As such, one could have possibly expected that revolutionary movements capable of overthrowing the Stalinist bureaucracy and regenerating the deformed workers’ state could come from the countries of the “Eastern Bloc.” The Hungarian Revolution was probably the most convincing piece of proof for this.

Facebook Twitter Share

Philippe Alcoy

Philippe is an editor of Révolution Permanente, our sister site in France.

Twitter

Europe

Robert Habeck Wrote a Play Praising a Right-Wing Mass Murderer

Germany's Green vice chancellor strikes many as an idealist who has been struggling with the tough realities of government. Yet before he was a national politician, he wrote a play that opens a window into a dark soul.

Nathaniel Flakin

December 1, 2023

Fact Check: Did German Leftists Try to Bomb West Berlin’s Jewish Community Center in 1969?

Answer: No. The bombing was undertaken by West Germany’s domestic secret service, originally founded by Nazis.

Nathaniel Flakin

November 29, 2023
Tombstones in Germany defaced with Swasticas.

“Stop Thief!” The German State Attacks Migrants to Distract from Its Own Antisemitism

German politicians claim that antisemitism is an “imported problem.” Even a cursory look at the facts, however, shows that anti-Jewish hatred is not caused by pro-Palestinian protests. No, the source is German capitalism.

Nathaniel Flakin

November 21, 2023

Competing Rallies at Berlin’s Free University

On successive Fridays, there was a pro-Palestinian and a pro-Israeli rally at the Free University. One was dominated by international students, including many Jews and Palestinians, calling for solidarity — the other was dominated by German politicians spewing racism. Guess which was which.

Nathaniel Flakin

November 13, 2023

MOST RECENT

All That's Left, the podcast from Left Voice.

#AllThatsLeftPod: What the Historic UAW Victory Means for the Working Class

In this episode of the podcast, we discuss the historic UAW victory, its shortcomings, and the tasks for the future.

Left Voice

December 5, 2023

The New Hollywood McCarthyism Emerging Around Palestine

Over the past week, a new Hollywood McCarthyism has emerged: multiple people in Hollywood have jobs and representation over their support of Palestine. We must denounce and fight these attacks which weaken the movement and scare supporters into silence.

Sybil Davis

December 3, 2023
A UAW sign is held next to a "Free Palestine" sign

The UAW Has Called for a Ceasefire. It’s Time for All of Labor to Stand Up.

The UAW International union has joined calls for a ceasefire and is exploring how to divest from Israel. This is a step which should inspire union activists to take up the fight to bring their union into the fight against Israel's attack on Gaza and the struggle against imperialism.

Rose Lemlich

December 2, 2023

The World Kissinger Built Must Die Too

Henry Kissinger died at 100 years old. But his legacy remains in the brutal world system he built and the future generations of imperialist ghouls he inspired. They all must go.

Samuel Karlin

November 30, 2023