Labor Action special May 1957: Revolution against Stalinism

Revolution against Stalinism

Revolution in the Russian Empire: For Socialist Freedom and Democracy A Lesson of the Revolution: The Working Class vs The Totalitarian Myth Reform or Revolution in East Europe? New Socialist Movement Can Now Be Built - Toward a rebirth of socialism! Prudence or Cold Counter-Revolution? The Gomulka Way' in the Polish Revolution The Greatest Blow for Peace: The Revolutions Impact on The West and the War Danger The Unexpected Vanguard - The Role of Youth Behind the Iron Curtain From 1950 to 1957, each May Labor Action , the paper of the "Third Camp" Trotskyists, the Independent Socialist League...

Revolution in the Russian Empire: For Socialist Freedom and Democracy

The program of the anti-Communist revolution in Eastern Europe can be summed up in one word: democracy. And its content can be summed up in one phrase: democratic socialism. Today this can be asserted not as a hypothesis, a theory or a hope, but as a fact demonstrated and confirmed by every one of the great revolutionary movements which have challenged the rule of the Stalinist bureaucracy for the past decade and a half. The Ukrainian revolutionary movement fought both Hitler and Stalin during the '40s under the slogans of self-determination and democracy. The East German workers rose in 1953...

A Lesson of the Revolution: The Working Class vs The Totalitarian Myth

The Hungarian Revolution, temporarily defeated by Russian military force, has nonetheless already accomplished outstanding wonders and recorded magnificent victories, and that by virtue of its occurrence alone. It has dealt shattering blows to Stalinist barbarism as a world system, erecting a mighty barrier to Russian and international Stalinist aspirations to global domination. It has produced important ideological repercussions, indeed a veritable revolution in the realm of ideas, which has begun to reflect itself materially among all social classes and forces, and which in the future will...

Reform or Revolution In East Europe?

A totalitarian or despotic society is one in the midst of a deep-seated social crisis. Totalitarianism is needed when it is impossible to rule with the consent of the people. While such a regime presents a picture of monolithic unity, beneath the surface are the severest conflicts and suppressed class struggles. Or else why the need for repression? But to rule in-this manner is extremely expensive in the social sense. It necessitates a tremendous bureaucratic apparatus which is at best a drain upon the economy; it is an expensive way to run the affairs of the society and in the case of...

New Socialist Movement Can Now Be Built - Toward a rebirth of socialism!

The crisis of Stalinism has opened the way for a regroupment and reunification of the socialist movement, especially in the United States. For almost a quarter of a century, American radicalism, and even liberalism, was predominantly under the leadership or influence of Stalinism, whether it appeared under the name of the Communist Party or the Communist Political Association (as it was renamed for a short time). During this period, the Stalinists succeeded not only in overcoming the stagnation and factional exhaustion of the twenties, but in establishing themselves as the largest, most...

'Prudence' or Cold Counter-Revolution? The 'Gomulka Way' in the Polish Revolution

In Hungary the fight was clearly, in the eyes of the world, a struggle between the united Hungarian people in revolution versus the Stalinist totalitarian power resting on Russian tanks. But in Poland the nature of the contending forces and the question of who is on which side have been far more obscured in the common view. In and right after October the popular acceptance was that the Polish, revolution was headed by Wladislaw Gomulka whose democratic bona-fides were naturally guaranteed by the fact that he had suffered in jail from Stalin's hangmen for his "Titoist" deviations. Unlike the...

The Greatest Blow for Peace: The Revolutions Impact on The West and the War Danger

The Hungarian and Polish revolutions of 1956 mark a new period not only in the straggle for socialist freedom against Stalinism, but also in the fight against war and the danger of war. Its impact is not only on the underpinnings of the Russian empire but also on the bases of the Western capitalist war alliance. Yesterday, supporters of the Western camp and its structure of military alliances with some of the most reactionary forces in the world, like Franco and Chiang Kai-shek could scoff at the socialist alternative: the "visionary" idea of a democratic foreign policy which was aimed at...

The Unexpected Vanguard - The Role of Youth Behind the Iron Curtain

In a message to a Paris rally last November, Albert Camus said: "I admit that I was tempted in recent years to despair of the fate of freedom ... I feared that it was really dead, and that was why it sometimes seemed to me that all things were being covered over by the dishonor of our time. But the young people of Hungary, of Spain, of France, of all countries, proved to us that this is not so and that nothing has destroyed or ever will destroy that pure and violent force that impels men and nations to demand the honor of living with integrity." In saying this, Camus was acknowledging a...

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