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““Seven decades is not a long time in civilization’ s centuries-old ascent, but history has known no gther period like it for the scale of achievement our country has attained since the victory of the October Revolution,”’ CPSU General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev said, Nov. 2, in Moscow ina major speech marking the Revolution’s 70th Anniversary.

Following a basic analysis of the major development landmarks of the revolutionary history in Russia, he noted in particular that Marxism-Lenin- ism as a creative teaching is not a summary of ready-made guidelines and

doctrinaire principles.

“Those who treat Marxism dogmatically and pedantically cannot under- stand its main element: its revolutionary dialectic,’’ Gorbachev said. This, he continued, is the highlight of all of Lenin’s post-Revolution activity. As examples, Gorbachev pointed to the ‘‘political and moral exploit of the Brest peace,’’ the decision to launch ‘‘a new economic policy, which substantially

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widened the notions of socialism, society of ‘‘civilized cooperators.”’

and Lenin’s thesis on socialism as a

The following is a summary of CPSU leader Gorbachev's remarks pre- pared by Novosti Press Agency. In subsequent issues, the Tribune will carry

additional materials.

peaking of the peri- od after Lenin’s death, Gorbachev stressed that in the 1920s and _ the 1930s, although the Party and society had Lenin’s blueprint for socialism, the search for the road ahead involved a sharp ideological struggle. The report mentions as the charac- teristic traits of this struggle the complexity of the problems around which it was waged (industrialization, collectiviza- tion, the possibility of building socialism in the USSR): and its indissoluble connection with developments and processes in the economy, politics, and all the other areas of people’s life.

The character of the ideological struggle, Gorbachev noted furth- er, was also complicated by per- sonal rivalries in the Party leader- ship. Some authoritative leaders had taken a factional stance and were provoking a split in the Par- ty. This applies first of all to Trot- sky, who had, after Lenin’s death, shown excessive preten- sions to top Party leadership. A further compounding fact was that the Trotskyites were acting in common with the new opposition led by Zinovyev and Kamenev.

But in the end the Party spoke out for the line of the Central Committee and against the oppos- ition. The Party’s leading nu- cleus, headed by Stalin, upheld Leninism in the ideological battle and got approval of its political line from most of the Communists and working people.

Gross Violations of Legality

At the same time, notes the re- port, that period also saw some losses. The Soviet leader men- tioned specifically the rise of the

command and administer sys- tem of Party and State direction of the country (once estab- ished in the economy, it spread to its superstructure, holding back the progress of socialist de- mocracy), the strengthening of bureaucracy and the re- treats from Lenin’s policy in regard to the peasantry during collectivization. “‘Quite obviously,’’ he said, “‘it was the absence of a proper level of democratiza- tion in Soviet society that made possible the personality cult, the

violations of legality, the wanton

_ repressive measures of the 1930s.

“To remain faithful to histori cal truth,’’ continued Gorbachev; ‘‘we have to see both Stalin's incontestable contribution to the struggle for socialism, to the de fence of its gains, and the gross political errors, and the abuses committed by him and by thosé around him. The Stalin per sonality cult was not inevitable, because it is alien to the nature 0! socialism, represents a departure from its fundamental principles and, therefore, has no just fication. However, neither gross errors, nor departures from the principles of socialism could dt vert the Soviet people from. thé road they took or the choice they made in 1917.”

This was also brought out in thé grim trials of the Great Patrioti¢ War — one of the most gloriou! and heroic chapters in nation history. The war showed that thé Soviet people, the Party: socialism and the October Rev olution are inseparable, notes thé report.

Stereotypes Crumbling

After the war, the Soviel people in an extremely short period rebuilt the war-ravage towns and villages, and rebuilt from the ruins, the factories at mills, collective and state farms: schools, colleges and cultul institutions. But during this very same time a contradiction be tween what our society had bé& come and the old methods of leadership was making itself fel! even more appreciably.

It required no small courage the Party and its leadership: headed by Khrushchev, ! criticize the personality cult and its consequences, and to 1 establish socialist legality. Tb old stereotypes in domestic and foreign policy began to crumble: Attempts were made to eliminalé the bureaucratic commal methods of administration, which were firmly established in the 1930s and 1940s, and to imp greater dynamism to socialism.

However, noted the Sovié leader, no small number of sv jectivist errors were commite® and they did much to discredit the progressive initiatives. The mal cause of the failures of the ™ forms was that they had not pee! backed up by an unfolding of th democratization process.

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