From J. V. Stalin, On the Opposition,
Foreign Languages Press, Peking, 1974
pp. 667-95.
Vol. 9, pp. 243-73.
Based on J. V. Stalin, Works,
Foreign Languages Publishing House,
Moscow, 1954
The articles and speeches by J. V. Stalin contained in English edition of On the Opposition follow the order of the Russian edition put out by the State Publishing House of the Soviet Union in 1928. The English translation, including the notes at the end of the book, is taken from Stalin's Works, Vols. 5-10, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1953-54, with some technical changes.
   
References in Roman numerals to Lenin's Works mentioned in the text are to the third Russian edition. The English references are indicated by the publisher in footnotes.
page 667
May 13, 1927
    Comrades, unfortunately, I can devote only two or three hours to today's talk. Next time, perhaps, we shall arrange a longer conversation. Today, I think, we might confine ourselves to an examination of the questions which you have formulated in writing. I have received ten questions in all. I shall reply to them in today's talk. If there are additional questions -- and I am told there are -- I shall try to answer them in our next talk. Well then, let us get down to business.
    "Why is Radek wrong in asserting that the struggle of the peasantry in the Chinese countryside is directed not so much against feudal survivals as against the bourgeoisie?
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    "Can it be affirmed that merchant capitalism predominates in China, or feudal survivals?
    "Why are the Chinese militarists, who are owners of big industrial enterprises, at the same time representatives of feudalism?"
    Radek does, indeed, assert something similar to what is stated in this question. As far as I recall, in his speech to the activists of the Moscow organisation, he either completely denied the existence of feudal survivals in the Chinese countryside, or attached no great importance to them.
    That, of course, is a grave error on Radek's part.
    If there were no feudal survivals in China, or if they were not of very great importance for the Chinese countryside, there would be no soil for an agrarian revolution, and there would then be no point in speaking of the agrarian revolution as one of the chief tasks of the Communist Party at the present stage of the Chinese revolution.
    Does merchant capital exist in the Chinese countryside? Yes, it does. And it not only exists, but is sucking the blood of the peasantry no less effectively than any feudal lord. But this merchant capital of the type of primitive accumulation is peculiarly combined in the Chinese countryside with the domination of the feudal lord, of the landlord, and adopts the latter's medieval methods of exploiting and oppressing the peasants. That is the point, comrades.
    Radek's mistake is that he has not grasped this peculiarity, this combination of the domination of feudal survivals with the existence of merchant capital in the Chinese countryside, along with the preservation of medieval feudal methods of exploiting and oppressing the peasantry.
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    Militarism, tuchuns, all kinds of governors and the entire present flint-hearted and rapacious bureaucracy, military and non-military, constitute a superstructure on this peculiar feature in China.
    Imperialism supports and strengthens the whole of this feudal-bureaucratic machine.
    The fact that some of the militarists who own landed estates are at the same time owners of industrial enterprises does not alter anything at bottom. Many of the Russian landlords, too, in their time owned factories and other industrial enterprises, which, however, did not prevent them from being representatives of feudal survivals.
    If in a number of regions 70 per cent of the peasants' earnings go to the gentry, the landlords, if the landlord actually wields power both in the economic sphere and in the administrative and judicial sphere, if the purchase and sale of women and children is still practised in a number of provinces -- then it must be admitted that the predominating power in this medieval situation is the power of feudal survivals, the power of the landlords and of the land-owning bureaucracy, military and non-military, in a peculiar combination with the power of merchant capital.
    It is these peculiar conditions that create the soil for the peasant agrarian movement which is growing, and will continue to grow, in China.
    In the absence of these conditions, in the absence of feudal survivals and feudal oppression, there would be no question in China of an agrarian revolution, of the confiscation of the landlords' land, and so forth.
    In the absence of these conditions, an agrarian revolution in China would be incomprehensible.
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    "Why is Radek wrong in asserting that, since Marxists do not admit the possibility of a party of several classes, the Kuomintang is a petty-bourgeois party?"
    This question calls for a few observations.
    Firstly. The question is put incorrectly. We do not say, and never have said, that the Kuomintang is a party of several classes. That is not true. We have always said that the Kuomintang is the party of a bloc of several oppressed classes. That is not one and the same thing, comrades. If the Kuomintang were a party of several classes, that would mean that not one of the classes linked with the Kuomintang would have its own party outside the Kuomintang, and the Kuomintang itself would constitute one single and common party for all these classes. But is that the state of affairs in reality? Has not the Chinese proletariat, which is linked with the Kuomintang, also its own separate party, the Communist Party, which is distinct from the Kuomintang and which has its own special programme and its own special organisation? It is clear that the Kuomintang is not a party of several oppressed classes, but is the party of a bloc of several oppressed classes that have their own party organisations. Consequently, the question is put incorrectly. In point of fact, in present-day China the Kuomintang can be regarded only as the party of a bloc of oppressed classes.
    Secondly. It is not true that Marxism does not in principle admit the possibility of a party of a bloc of oppressed, revolu tionary classes, and that it is impermissible in principle for Marxists to belong to such a party. That, comrades, is absolutely untrue. In point of fact Marxism has not only recognised (and continues to recognise) the permissibility in
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principle of Marxists joining such a party, but in definite historical conditions has put this principle into practice. I might refer to the example of Marx himself in 1848, at the time of the German revolution, when he and his supporters joined the bourgeois-democratic league in Germany[137] and collaborated in it with representatives of the revolutionary bourgeoisie. It is known that, in addition to Marxists, this bourgeois democratic league, this bourgeois-revolutionary party, included representatives of the revolutionary bourgeoisie. The Neue Rheinische Zeitung,[138] of which Marx was then the editor, was the organ of that bourgeois-democratic league. Only in the spring of 1849, when the tide of revolution in Germany had begun to recede, did Marx and his supporters resign from that bourgeois-democratic league, having decided to set up an absolutely independent organisation of the working class, with an independent class policy.
   
As you see, Marx went even further than the Chinese Communists of our day, who form part of the Kuomintang precisely as an independent proletarian party with its own special organisation.
   
One may dispute or not whether it was expedient for Marx and his supporters to join the bourgeois-democratic league in Germany in 1848, when it was a matter of waging, in conjunction with the revolutionary bourgeoisie, a revolutionary struggle against absolutism. That is a question of tactics. But that Marx recognised the permissibility in principle of such joining is something of which there can be no doubt whatever.
   
Thirdly. It would be fundamentally incorrect to say that the Kuomintang in Wuhan is a petty-bourgeois party, and to leave it at that. The Kuomintang can be characterised in that way only by people who have no understanding either of imperialism in China, or or the character of the Chinese revolution. The
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Kuomintang is not an "ordinary" petty-bourgeois party. There are different kinds of petty-bourgeois parties. The Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries in Russia were also petty bourgeois parties; but at the same time they were imperialist parties, because they were in a militant alliance with the French and British imperialists, and together with them engaged in the conquest and oppression of other countries -- Turkey, Persia, Mesopotamia, Galicia.
   
Can it be said that the Kuomintang is an imperialist party? Obviously not. The Kuomintang party is anti-imperialist, just as the revolution in China is anti-imperialist. The difference is fundamental. To fail to see this difference and to confuse the anti-imperialist Kuomintang with the imperialist Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik parties means to have no understanding of the national revolutionary movement in China.
   
Of course, if the Kuomintang were an imperialist petty-bourgeois party, the Chinese Communists would not have formed a bloc with it, but would have sent it to all the archangels. The fact of the matter, however, is that the Kuomintang is an anti-imperialist party which is waging a revolutionary struggle against the imperialists and their agents in China. In this respect, the Kuomintang stands head and shoulders above all the various imperialist "Socialists" of the Kerensky and Tsereteli type.
   
Even Chiang Kai-shek, who is a Right Kuomintangist, Chiang Kai-shek, who before he carried out his coup engaged in all sorts of machinations against the Left Kuomintangists and the Communists -- even he was then superior to the Kerenskys and Tseretelis; for, whereas the Kerenskys and Tseretelis were warring for the enslavement of Turkey, Persia, Mesopotamia, Galicia, thus helping to strengthen imperialism, Chiang Kai-shek was warring -- whether well or badly --
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against the enslavement of China, and was thus helping to weaken imperialism.
   
Radek's error, and that of the opposition generally, is that he disregards the semi-colonial status of China, fails to observe the anti-imperialist character of the Chinese revolution, and does not observe that the Kuomintang in Wuhan, the Kuomintang without the Right Kuomintangists, is the centre of the struggle of the Chinese labouring masses against imperialism.
   
"Is there not a contradiction between your appraisal of the Kuomintang (speech at the meeting of students of the Communist University of the Toilers of the East, May 18, 1925) as a bloc of two forces -- the Communist Party and the petty bourgeoisie -- and the appraisal given in the Comintern's resolution on the Kuomintang as a bloc of four classes, including the big bourgeoisie?
   
"Would it be possible for the Chinese Communist Party to belong to the Kuomintang if there were a dictatorship of the proletariat in China?"
   
In the first place, it should be noted that the definition of the actual situation in the Kuomintang given by the Comintern in December 1926 (Seventh Enlarged Plenum) is reproduced in your "question" incorrectly, not quite accurately. The "question" says: "including the big bourgeoisie." But the compradors are also a big bourgeoisie. Does this mean that in December 1926 the Comintern considered the comprador bourgeoisie a member of the bloc within the Kuomintang? It obviously does not, because the comprador bourgeoisie was, and remains, a sworn enemy of the Kuomintang. The Comin-
page 674
tern resolution speaks not of the big bourgeoisie in general, but of "part of the capitalist bourgeoisie." Consequently, what is referred to here is not every kind of big bourgeoisie, but the national bourgeoisie of the non-comprador type.
   
In the second place, I must say that I do not see any contradiction between these two definitions of the Kuomintang. I do not see any, because what we have here is a definition of the Kuomintang from two different standpoints, neither of which can be termed incorrect, for they are both correct.
   
When, in 1925, I spoke of the Kuomintang as the party of a bloc of the workers and peasants, I by no means intended to describe the actual state of affairs in the Kuomintang, to describe what classes were in fact linked with the Kuomintang in 1925. When I spoke of the Kuomintang then, I was thinking of it only as the type of structure of a distinctive people's revolutionary party in the oppressed countries of the East, especially in such countries as China and India; as the type of structure of such a people's revolutionary party as must be based on a revolutionary bloc of the workers and the petty bourgeoisie of town and country. I plainly stated at that time that "in such countries the Communists must pass from the policy of a united national front to the policy of a revolutionary bloc of the workers and the petty bourgeoisie" (see Stalin, "The Political Tasks of the University of the Peoples of the East," Problems of Leninism, p. 264[139]).
   
What I had in mind, therefore, was not the present, but the future of people's revolutionary parties in general, and of the Kuomintang in particular. And I was absolutely right in this. For organisations like the Kuomintang can have a future only if they strive to base themselves upon a bloc of the workers and the petty bourgeoisie, and in speaking of the petty bourgeoisie one should have in mind principally the peasantry, which
page 675
constitutes the basic force of the petty bourgeoisie in the capitalistically backward countries.
   
The Comintern, however, was interested in a different aspect of the matter. At its Seventh Enlarged Plenum it regarded the Kuomintang not from the standpoint of its future, of what it should become, but from the standpoint of the present, of the actual situation within the Kuomintang, and of just what classes were in fact linked with it in 1926. And the Comintern was absolutely right when it said that at that moment, when there was not yet a split in the Kuomintang, the latter did in fact comprise a bloc of the workers, the petty bourgeoisie (urban and rural) and the national bourgeoisie. One might add here that not only in 1926, but in 1925 as well the Kuomintang was based upon a bloc of precisely those classes. The Comintern resolution, in the drafting of which I took a very active part, plainly states that "the proletariat forms a bloc with the peasantry, which is actively entering the struggle on its own behalf, with the urban petty bourgeoisie, and with part of the capitalist bourgeoisie," and that "this combination of forces has found its political expression in a corresponding grouping within the Kuomintang party and the Canton government" (see the resolution[140]).
   
But inasmuch as the Comintern did not confine itself to the actual state of affairs in 1926, but also touched upon the future of the Kuomintang, it could not but state that this bloc was only a temporary one, that it was bound in the near future to be superseded by a bloc of the proletariat and the petty bourgeoisie. It is precisely for this reason that the Comintern resolution goes on to say that "at the present time the movement is on the threshold of a third stage, on the eve of a new regrouping of classes," and that "at that stage of development the basic force of the movement will be a bloc of a still more
page 676
revolutionary character -- a bloc of the proletariat, the peasantry and the urban petty bourgeoisie, with the ousting [*] of the greater part of the big capitalist bourgeoisie" (ibid.).
   
That is precisely the bloc of the workers and the petty bourgeoisie (peasantry) upon which the Kuomintang should have relied for support, which is already beginning to take shape in Wuhan after the splitting of the Kuomintang and the desertion of the national bourgeoisie, and about which I spoke in my address to the Communist University of the Toilers of the East in 1925 (see above).
   
Thus we have a description of the Kuomintang from two different aspects:
   
a) from the aspect of its present, of the actual state of affairs in the Kuomintang in 1926, and
   
b) from the aspect of its future, of what the Kuomintang should be, as the type of structure of a people's revolutionary party in the countries of the East.
   
Both these descriptions are legitimate and correct, because, embracing the Kuomintang from two different aspects, in the final analysis they give an exhaustive picture.
   
Where then, one asks, is the contradiction?
   
Let us, for the sake of greater clarity, take the "Workers' Party" in Britain (the "Labour Party"). We know that there is in Britain a special party of the workers that is based on the trade unions of the factory and office workers. No one hesitates to call it a workers' party. It is called that not only in British, but in all other Marxist literature.
Notes on |
page 914
[137]
This refers to the Cologne Democratic League, which was formed in the period of the German bourgeois revolution of 1848. The League included workers as well as bourgeois-democratic elements. Karl Marx was elected a member of the district committee of the democratic leagues of the Rhine region and Westphalia and was one of its leaders.
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[138]
The Neue Rheinische Zeitung, published in Cologne from June 1, 1848 to May 19,1849. It was directed by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. The editor-in-chief was Karl Marx. On the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, see Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works, F.L.P.H., Moscow, 1951, Vol. II, pp. 297-305.
[p.671]
[139]
See J. V. Stalin, Works, F.L.P.H., Moscow, 1954, Vol. 7, p. 149.
[p.674]
[140]
This refers to the resolution of the Seventh Enlarged Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Comintern, on the situation in China, adopted on December 16, 1926. (For the resolution of the plenum see the book Theses and Resolutions of the Seventh Enlarged Plenum of the executive
Committee of the Comintern, Moscow-Leningrad, 1927.)
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