Footnotes

2.Lenin's last letters and articles contained the basic directions and goals of the cultural revolution which he believed should take place in the Soviet Union. In his article "On Cooperation" he examined the issue of culture in the light of solving economic problems.

3.There was in this country a strong movement toward catching up with the U.S. per capita GDP (55% in 1985; up from 11.5% in 1913). Per capita income was calculated as a quantitative indicator, given that it operates in a completely different way in the two social systems, reflecting radically different social relations.

4. Lenin  showed the close  connection  between the  national  question and solving   the   problems of socialist   construction.  He attacked  the erroneous views that the consistent application of self-determination would split the peoples. He proved that the national issue does not exist outside the sphere of class relations and the class struggle, and that its solution is determined by the class unity of the working people.

5.The most important of the "reforms" were: "the safeguarding of private ownership" by means of the law which recognised a "variety of forms of ownership and production, and competition between them"; the change in the political and state system with the weakening of the CPSU as the vehicle for the exercise of power and with the reinforcement of the institution of President of the Union; the weakening of the CPSU in the basic sectors of economic   and   social   life,   in   the   sectors   of   defence   and   security; replacement of the soviet political system of power by a type of political system which bore greater similarities to capitalist parliamentarism; the effort that was undertaken to neutralise the role of the Soviets, the party committees; the gradual assumption by the President of the country of superpowers, and his retaining the title of General Secretary of the CC of the CPSU; changes in the country's foreign policy, aiming primarily at ideological and political reconciliation with capitalism in the name of the struggle for peace and the prevention of thermonuclear war; abandonment of internationalist solidarity with the socialist countries of Europe.

6.Seventy countries in Africa, Asia and  Latin American acquired their national independence. Most of them relied on the economic and scientific assistance of the socialist countries in order to address their economic problems. Another decisive factor which necessitated differentiation was the shift in the military balance of forces, when the USSR arrived at the point of equilibrium of its arsenal with that of the USA. Also influential were the defeat of the USA in Vietnam and the gains of the national liberation movement which led to the collapse of colonialism.

7. The Johnson doctrine, especially after 1964, with the policy of "bridges" toward the eastern European countries. On the contrary, the balance of terror was maintained toward the USSR by means of nuclear weapons, and the policy of isolation toward the German Democratic Republic. Methods were selected which would favour the collapse of the socialist system from within. The theory of "independence from the USSR" was promoted, and propaganda  developed  saying  that  "the  progress  of  Eastern   Europe depends on extending relations and softening the confrontation with the West".

8. Imperialism's use of ideological subversion as an ideological weapon was put forward strongly by Y. Andropov, GS of the CC of the CPSU, who called it the policy of subversion from within.

9. A direction which was elaborated by the 15th Congress. The CPSU attached weight to  increased productivity by small  and  medium-sized holdings and to technological equipment. The nationalisation of the land was not contrary to the right of owning land by owners of small and middle peasantry. He saw the role which could be played by small holdings, and the forms which could be used to merge scattered holdings, from the simplest forms, the "companionships", to cartels. The attitude toward small holdings   and   small-scale   production   was   to   provide   assistance   not opposition.   He  rejected the  destruction  of the  lowest  organisation   of production in the name of the highest. At the same time he put forward the advantages   of   kolkhozes   and   sovkhoses.   The   aim   of  the  full-scale organisation of the economy started out with the political goal of defeating certain sections of the kulaks in the countryside and then the elimination of the kulak class as a whole.

10. Financial year 1920-21: More than 11% increase in the national income in comparison with that of the previous year. While in the developed capitalist countries - USA, England Germany -- it did not exceed 2-4%. For the same financial year, an 18% increase in production was noted in large industry in comparison to that of the previous year. Source: History of the CPSU p. 446, Synchroni Epohi Editions.

11. Decision of the CC on 15.3.1930 and personal article by J. Stalin based on   this   decision,   which   points   out   mistakes   which   hindered   the consolidation of the alliance, raises the issue of recognising the mistakes and correcting them in as many regions and cases as this is possible, where faits accomplis have not been created through deviation or a wrong course of action.

12. J.V. Stalin: Complete Works (in Greek), Vol 12, p. 56-88. Meeting of economic cadres. The problem was stressed of the negative stance taken by economic and trade union cadres to the application of the socialist principle to earnings, the problem of delays in satisfying the workers' new material and cultural needs. The necessity of developing the socialist consciousness on the basis of satisfying new needs was pointed out. The issue was raised of applying the principle of economic self-sustenance of enterprises; that the sources of socialist accumulation should be broadened by mobilising the internal resources of industry, introducing and stabilising the principle of economic self-sustenance in all enterprises, the substantial reduction of production cost, the increase of inner-industrial accumulation in all branches of industry without exception. The leadership of the party considered that the progress of socialist construction would be judged by the solutions to these problems so as to ensure the un-diminished superiority of socialism as regards the rates of development of the productive forces in comparison with those of developed capitalism.

13. These problems were put forward and constituted an object of criticism in February-March  1937 during the Plenary Session of the CC of the AUCP/B which discussed the issue of preparing the party organisations for the elections to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. The CC decided to establish the closed, i.e. secret ballot and to eliminate the practice of co- optation. Particular significance was attached to joint action and the alliance of communists and non-party members in electing common candidates to be deputies, thus demonstrating the progress in the unity of the socialist society in a practical way.

14. History of the CPSU  (in Greek), Ed. S.E.  1980, pp. 532-535. Also, documentation from the 20th Congress of the CPSU.

15.  The state forms were different from one country to another. Apart from Czechoslovakia, Poland and the part of Germany which was liberated by the Red Army, in all the others formally, and in Romania substantially, a monarchical regime was retained. Czechoslovakia remained with a purely bourgeois political system consisting of the office of President and a parliamentary republic. In the GDR, the socio-political transformations and revolutionary power were developed without a central authority. The system was aimed against the external and internal enemies and their local collaborators. The expropriation of fortunes and the nationalisation of basic branches of industry took place with the demand that enterprises which had been ceded to the Third Reich come under workers' control.

16. The 20th Congress continued the line of giving priority to industrial development and to  extensive  development,  although  there was  an opposing view advocating abandonment of this line. At the 23rd Congress, the line in favour of scientific and technological progress was adopted, with special weight attached to development of the agrarian economy. The 25th in 1976 elaborated the line of quality and efficiency. The 26th in 1981 elaborated the theory of developed socialism and raised the issue of transition to intensive development.

17. Here serious difficulties arose. They have different origins, but were never linked with the essence of the established, collective ownership, which proved its advantages. On the contrary, a significant number of the deficiencies which once disturbed the regular work in one or the other sector of the popular economy were due to the divergence from the rules, and from the demands of economic life, whose definitive foundation was social ownership of the means of production. Source: Y.V. Andropov: "Leninism lights our way", selected articles and speeches, p. 310. 'The tried and tested principle of organising the entire socialist society is democratic centralism, which permits a successful combination of free creation by the masses with the advantages of a unified system of scientific leadership in planning and management". Ibid. p. 320.

18. In party documents and various discussions, particularly during the period when Y. Andropov was GS of the CC of the CPSU, strong references were  made to the  ideological  controversy  among the views  of the ideologists of the bourgeois class, and with reformism as well, regarding divergence of the USSR "model" and that of other socialist countries from the theoretical model of Marx, Engels and Lenin. Criticism was levelled at the specific "form of socialist state organisation and democracy" with the argument that it did not correspond to the Marxist prospect of communist self-government, at  the   existence   of  "isolated"  individuals  who  were circumventing social ownership, and at the "crisis of the theory of Marxism- Leninism, which should be 'revitalised' with the ideas of Western sociology, philosophy and political thought."

19. The 21st and 22nd Congress, where they were incorporated into the constitution of the Soviet Union in 1977.

20. The 26th Congress of the CPSU: As real democracy is impossible without socialism, so socialism is impossible without the firm growth of democracy. In his speech to the Plenum of the CC of the CPSU in 1980, L.I. Brezhnev stressed that the  problem of the correct relation  between centralism and democracy is one of the most important. He emphasized that a centre was required to manage effectively the network of the national economy as an integral whole, and to address the tendencies to narrow-mindedness and local egoism. On the other hand, it was necessary for the smooth functioning of the economy to develop, as far as possible, initiatives at the grass roots level, in the workers' collectives and among the leading cadres in the society. The problem was to solve most of the practical problems precisely where this could be done quickly without unnecessary hesitations and voting.

21. Lenin (vol. 36, p. 47) stressed that socialism in life will not be smooth. It will be unimaginably complex. In his speech "the immediate tasks of soviet power" (p. 206), he was occupied with the arrangement of the links, their form and connection, with the difference between one or another in the historic chain of events, which are not simple crudely-cut things, as is the usual chain made by the blacksmith.

22. Marx, giving the total movement of history, showed the transitional character of socialism in the sense of the first phase of the communist society. Lenin, confronting the problem of the socialist revolution and the immutable laws of building the socialist society, also studied the period of transition from capitalism to socialism, with the victory of the socialist revolution and the creation of the political system of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The Classics, referring to the various phases in building the socialist society, do not separate it artificially from the communist one. They pointed out the single essence of socialism and communism, and the scientific differences which they saw as a difference in economic maturity. Stressing the transitional nature of the socialist society has nothing to do with the erroneous   and   anti-scientific views which,   in   the   name   of transitionality,   deny   fundamental   differences   between   capitalism   and socialism.

23. The 13th Congress of KKE. Documents, p. 22, published by the CC of KKE.

24.  V.I. Lenin, Complete Works (in Greek), vol 36, p. 171.

25. Communism in its first phase, its first step, which is the socialist society, cannot be economically completely mature, completely free of the problems inherited from capitalism. Of course, this position has nothing to do with the revisionist, opportunist view which, in the name of the transitional and incomplete character of the socialist society, argues for the preservation and development of principles and methods which are characteristic of the capitalist society.