An Old Bolshevik resigns (open letter of Arnošt Kolman)

Page 4 TODAY, Wednesday 3rd November 1976.-

AN OLD BOLSHEVIK

RESIGNS

We reprint below an Open Letter of resignation from the Soviet Communist Party from veteran member Arnosht Kolman (58 years' membership) to Party leader Leonid Brezhnev.

While we do not necessarily endorse everything in the letter, and it stops a long way short of attempting a tull political analysis of the Stalinist bureaucracy in the Soviet Union (remaining conspicuously silent on the period of the 1930s), the letter is particularly interesting in that it attacks the bureaucracy not as a 'new ruling class' - as the state capitalists in the International Socialists would have us believe - but, in line with Trotsky's analysis, as "the privileged castes of the Party" Kolman has broken from the bureaucracy but not from socialism, and at no the gains of the October Revolution. For these reasons his principled statement reflect also the unspoken feelings of considerable numbers of dissidents still Uninn) is worthy of serious study by Trotskyists.

point attacks (which must in the Soviet in the Soviet Union: dissidents are harshly persecuted, tens of thousands of them are languishing in jails, concentration camps and psychiatric jail hospitals, many being punished for their religious beliefs only.

In the sixtieth year of Soviet power there are no elementary intellectual freedoms and there is no freedom for the creative artists...

As far as the nationalities policy is concerned, the history of the Soviet Union is nothing but an uninterrupted chain of territorial annexations, forced 'unification' or Toreign lands, subjection and discrimination against many nationalities in the country, ship. It is perfectly logical that under such circumstances and as a result of the colossal expenditure on arms, the sustenance of the vast KGB network and of the party and state apparatus, the country's economic situation grows worse and worse. Inflation and rising denied, are accelerating.

Productivity in industry is extremely low, industrial production is of poor quality and, judged by its technical parameters, it falls way behind similar production in the West.

And is it not a tragedy that 60 years after the Revolution the agriculture of Europe's former granary is unable to produce enough bread, meat, fish and even potatoes to satisfy the needs of its own population?

Can one simply ignore all these facts with- out drawing conclusion from them?

I am not going to deny the successes achieved by the Soviet Union in ending illiter- acy, in the fields of education, science, tech- nology and in securing a better living standard for a considerable section of the population.

But man does not live by bread alone.

A human being must be able to say aloud what he thinks, write down what he thinks, read what takes his fancy, choose his place of abode freely, and go wherever he wants.

AFRAID

But we are once again afraid; just as under prices, officially To: L.I. Brezhnev, General Central Committee of the Party, Kremlin, Moscow. — wish to inform you that I am leaving the Somet Communict Party Tam R4 and have Secretary of the Soviet Communist een a party member for 58 years.

I joined its ranks in order to fight for social ustice, for a happy future for mankind. Now, after long and painful reflection, I have come to this difficult decision.

I was born in Prague and came to Russia as a prisoner of war during the First World War.

During Kerensky's rule I was held in solitary confinement for six months for anti-war propaganda, and I was freed by the October Kevolution. As a Red Army soldier, I fought on four fronts for the establishment of Soviet power.

In the 1920's I worked illegally in vermany, was a member of the Central Com- mittee of the German Communist Party. I was sentensed to five years' hard labour, but after half a year's solitary I was freed in exchange with the Soviet Union].

COMINTERN

Auerwards I held responsible ideological posts in the Comintern, in the Central Com- mittee, in the Moscow party committee and in the Soviet Academy of Sciences.

I was also elected member of the Moscow party control commission and the Moscow party district commission. I knew Lenin personally, worked with Krupskaya, Kruschev and many others. During the Second World War I worked in the Political Command of the Soviet Army in charge of units fomenting disaffection in the ranks of enemy troops. It was at this very time that my sister was burnt in a gas oven in one of Hitler's concen- tration camps, while my brother, one of the founders of the Czechoslovak Communist Youth League, was murdered by Stalin.

In 1945, I was appointed head of the Czechoslovak Communist Party's propaganda department in Prague, but after three years was arrested and shipped back to Moscow, were spent three and a half years without trial - threeof them in solitary confinement - in the Lubianka jail.

EXILED

Di ing this stretch, my wife and daughter were exiled to Ulyanovsk, they lived in appalling conditions.

After my rehabilitation, I was appointed Mirector of the Institute of Philosophy in Prague. Since my retirement in 1963 I have small where been living in Moscow as a pensioner.

After Kruschev's revelations about the bloody crimes of Stalin, euphemistically described as the "personality cult" , I began to understand how deeply distorted the Soviet Communist Party and Soviet power had become, and that I, as a party member must bear my share of responsibility for this.

TURNING POINT

However, 1968 was the real turning point for me, when I had occasion to observe the 'Prague Spring' and see with my own eyes with what enthusiasm the united people of Czechoslovakia backed the strivings of the party to rekindle socialist ideals and the fight for socialism with a human face.

When your tanks and armies occupied Czechoslovakia subjecting it to your political Diktat and merciless economic exploitation - in short turning it into your colony - I lost any illusions I may have had about the nature of your regime. I understood that the Soviet Communist Party had long since ceased to be a political party, that it had been transformed into a mutual society for the early fulfilment of the Five Year Plan. Its members, the congresses, even the Central Committee, have virtually no influ- ence over the shaping of the party's policies, which are determined from your high ruling perch. And in any case, about what sort of social- ism can one talk in the Soviet Union when the place of the former capitalist and landowner exploiting classes has been taken by the privi- leged castes of the party?

WEALTH

They are drowning in wealth, Live isolated from the people, above them and contempt- uous of ordinary folk, not wishing to and incapable of understanding their needs and sufferings. Of what sort of socialism can one talk when you are continuing Stalin's totalitarian dictatorship within the country and a great power policy abroad? The Soviet Union lacks the most elemen- tary , democratic rights: instead of free elections there is . voting for candidates imposed from above: there is no public political life; strikes are forbidden and the trade unions are subservient to state interests; political discussions are forbidden and every- thing is covered by universal censorship; information is subject to the interests of lying propaganda. Basic human rights are crudely trampled on among them the Crimean Tatars, the Volga Germans, Jews, the Baltic nations, the people of the Caucasus and Central Asia, etc. This makes the Soviet Union no less 'a prison of the nations' than Tsarist Russia was.

While preaching about international detente' and "peaceful coexistence' the Soviet Union is in fact amassing at an increasingly fast rate nuclear weapons and rockets, is preparing new generations of mass destruction weapons and is preparing for aggressive wars.

It keeps vast armies outside its frontiers, builds more and more military bases in Europe, Asia and Africa, and is preparing for the occupation of Romania and Yugoslavia.

Under the guise of 'selfless aid' to. the national liberation movements and develop- ing countries, the Soviet Union is carrying out ceaseless attempts to infiltrate their ranks and establish its military and political overlordship in various corners of the earth; it is also supplying arms and providing military support for most reactionary regimes and international terrorists. The political and social structures of the country are in a state of acute stagnation. The Soviet Union has one of the most conservative regimes in the world, with an aging leader- The Russian Revolution - betrayed by Stalinism.

Stalin, we hide our manuscripts, stop trusting one another, write meaningless letters for fear of the censors and sever links with friends...

Isn't it inhuman to take away children from parents, block the reunion of families, deny exit visas to visit relations abroad and to deny the families of political prisoners the right to see their loved ones for years and even to write to eachother? Can one live amid such conditions? And how long can one live like this? I can no longer go on living like this.

My decision to leave the Communist Party does in no way mean that I will be abandon- ing the ideals of socialism with which T became acquainted in 1910 and which have since constituted the main substance of my long life On the contrary I have come to the firm conclusion that my staying in the ranks of the Soviet Communist Party would amount to a betrayal of the ideals of social justice, human- ism and the building of a new and more have strivedy, for te at mistake of which t errors of my ways, and shall go on striving to the end of my days. Academician Arnhost (Ernest) Kolman.

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