Soviet Revolutionary Communists (Bolsheviks)

Soviet Revolutionary Communists (Bolsheviks) was claimed to be an underground political outfit in the Soviet Union which criticized the leadership of Nikita Khrushchev as revisionist. It upheld the legacy of Joseph Stalin and accused the post-Stalin Soviet leadership of deviating from the socialist path. Little is known about the group.Jacobsson, Benny. "Sovjetunionen idag - Kritik av KPML(r):s prosovjetiska politik". Stockholm: Kommunistiska Arbetarförlaget, 1984. p. 106.]

Programme document

A programmatic document of the group was released in connection with the 1964 congress of the Party of Labour of Albania. It was moreover claimed that the document had been distributed clandestinely amongst communists in the Soviet Union.Jacobsson, Benny. "Sovjetunionen idag - Kritik av KPML(r):s prosovjetiska politik". Stockholm: Kommunistiska Arbetarförlaget, 1984. p. 114.] The document harshly criticized the wealthy lifestyles of the upper sections of the Soviet bureaucracy, argued that such lifestyles were in contradiction to socialism. [Jacobsson, Benny. "Sovjetunionen idag - Kritik av KPML(r):s prosovjetiska politik". Stockholm: Kommunistiska Arbetarförlaget, 1984. p. 88.]

The first known English-language edition of the document was released in Albania at this point. In the beginning of 1967 a French language translation was published through French and Belgian leftwing publications. In the same year a Swedish language edition was published by KFML, with a preface by Nils Holmberg. [ [http://websok.libris.kb.se/websearch/showrecord?searchId=17059&nr=1 LIBRIS ] ]

An Albanian hoax?

Since the only information about the group comes from contemporary official Albanian sources, there has been speculation about whether the group actually existed or was simply a fictional construct of the Albanian Party. [See for example this document: [http://freespace.virgin.net/pep.talk/SovUnion.htm] ] In any case, the existence of 'Revolutionary Communists' within the Soviet Union was used in the Albanian rhetoric to claim legitimacy for their position within the international communist movement, i.e. that they represented the original Bolshevik line of Lenin and Stalin. [A document produced by the Central Committee of the PLA in 1972 stated "In this grave situation created by N. Khrushchev's betrayal the time has come for you Soviet communists to perform your lofty revolutionary duty towards your glorious party, people and country, towards the proletariat and peoples of the whole world, not to allow the treacherous Khrushchevite clique to jeopardize the future of socialism and communism. The Soviet revolutionary communists have never sat back on the strength of their traditions and merits of the past. Today more than ever before these traditions should be reasserted in the same revolutionary spirit, with the same determination and devotion to principle, to defend the glorious name of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, to raise high its revolutionary banner, flung to the ground by N. Khrushchev." Source: [http://www.marx2mao.com/Other/OL64.html] ]

Involvement of Molotov?

At the time the programme document began circulating in Western Europe, a general assumption amongst its Western distributors was that the group had been formed around the former Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs, V.M. Molotov. This assumption was based on a study of the language used in the text and direct references to Molotov and his associates in inner party struggles. Molotov had been expelled from the CPSU after the takeover by Khrushchev. [ [http://www.geocities.com/komintern_doc/komintern065.htm#0 Note de l’éditeur, Proclamation-Programme des Communistes (Bolcheviques) Révolutionnaries Soviétiques] ]

External links

* [http://www.geocities.com/komintern_doc/komintern065.htm French version of the Programme in fulltext]

References