Getting to grips with Thatcherism represented a decisive move towards a 'strong state' somewhere between the two? labour movement. Jullo Etchart/Reflex
This approach is not only illuminating for our understanding of the politics ol today's Soviet bureauuracy and the implications of perestroika, pendent for its implementation upon a certain relationship of class forces In this sense it is useful to look again at the question of detrition of but also a reminder that the Thatcherite package of policies has been de- In the December-January issue of Socialist Owlook, Phil Hearse stressed the sinüster strengthening of the state machinery and its use by the Thatcher govemment, as well as her dominant personal role in the cabinet, and warned of the possibility that the goverment is becoming a "semi bonapartist combination hetween parliamentary democracy and In posing the question this starkly, Phil' s article has unleashed a num- ber of heated responses (see Letters page). Many feel that the heavy qualifications needed in using the tem "semi- bonapartist" to characterise Thatcherism are so far-reaching as to question the value of the label. In • Would a semi-honaparist regime, in the sense that Trotsky talked of bonapartist dictatorships in the 1930s, really remain subject to regular • Has the Tory Party been refashuoned behind the scenes into the Page 23 the Thatcher goverment and its ever-increasing powers. cloctions in which it could be simply voted out of office? deed the questions arising from it flow thick and fast: power-base of a new dictatorial regime? that has been established since 1979. forms of dictatorship: THATCHERISM has in the past few years become the measuring stick for political ideology and metbod not only in western Europe, Australia and New Zealand but also - especially since Thatcher's Polish visit - in the perestroika is bringing in its train a growing appreciation of the politics Pranda was comparatively muted, stressing her success in turning around the economy, accelerating its growth and stahilising the British share of The Batish ruling class tumed in desperation to Thatcher, writes Mr Recent articles in two important Soviet publications show that of the Iron Lady", according to the Finuncial Times. While an article in world trade, anotber author, writing in Sotrialistichenkaya industriya was privatised atling industries and sacked incom- Both writers point admiringly to the growth of share ownership and home ownership in Britain, and regard the Thatcher reforms as a unified perestroika-style package. Both agree that Lahoor is unlikely to win the next clection, and both are contemptuous of the trade unions, of which ship was paralysed by bureaucracy and fear of the scientific technical Ley Makarevich, and chose well- In nine ycars she had "lifted the country Makarevich points nut: Overcoming them proved easy, since the leader- campaign around democratic rights. SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 12 February 1989 petent bureaucrats." (FT December 6) Stalinist states as well. out of its depressed state". positively culngistic.
Jy since Kinnock's takeover asleader in 1983, been reinforced by the al- Before resorting to new definitions and labels to characterise. torical understanding of how Thatcherism developed from a glint in the eyes of a handful of right wing ideologucs and the bar-room daydicams of the more hrutul employers into the present rampant offensive against Insofar an Thatcherism represents a qualitatively now political force - personified by and imposed through the decisive personality and authority of Thatcher herself, ruthlessly selecting, purging and remodel!- ing her cabinet in her own image — it derives not from a new dictatorial grip on the state machinery so much as the conscious adoption of a van- guard role by the party of the capitalist class, energetically using the Thatcherism, we must be certain that the prosent situation has outgrown the old terms and explanations. Yet there seems no reason to alter our hia powers already open to them. And this strength of purpose has, especial most total collapse of Labour and trade union opposition. working class rights and Living standards. DEPTH act in the increasingly savage fashion we have seen since 1979. Yet in ten, which has always been wide open to the arbitrary abuse of a large majority by a right wing party - provided only that it is able to maintain • Is it true that the incipient revolutionary strength of the working ing and breathtaking though they he - qualitatively more draconian than those prevailing in other advanced bourgeois democratic countries (West There are other problems with the use of the term semi- bonapartirm". By implicitly (through the analogy with actual dictator- ships) exaggerating the extentto which Thatcher' sauthoritarian approach rests upon extra-parliamentary support, it runs the serious risk of foster- ing illusions that a real" bourgeois parliamentary government could not fact Thatcher is simply taking advantage of the British parliamentary sys- class forces the British bourgeoisie to contemplate such extraordinary • Are Thatcher's anti-union and anti-democratic measures - sweep- 2 measures in order to preserve its class rule? Germany, the USA, Japan)?
timid ask the MORI pollsters" view of how policies should he tailored to avoid electorate = ensuring no commitment to change the status quo). We have poited the party than that of the current Labour analysis to define necessary tasks, and convince the electorate (or in any case out that Tehhit's approach - here echoing Thatcher herself - is much closer to Le "Leninist" notion of the vanguard role of Party leadership. Tebbit's method is the polar upposite of the Labour leadership's offending the existing prejudices of the Socialist Ostlook has previously editorialised on former Tory chair Norman Tebbit's definition of the role of political Icadership - moving from then through determined action to imple- meat the policy decided and if possile radical change. measures from the very nutset. This is of A second prblem with the insistence upon the term 'senui- bonapartism" Is that by overstating what is new about open to a majority govemment of the left, powers depends upon the connivance of both the medin and the establishment -the chy and the like - which would certainly intervene to disrupt any progressive course why the notion of a parliamentary mad to socialism, whether in the Mar- tism Today or Militan ("Enahling Act") veron, war a pipedream long before Neil Kinnock and Co jettisoned the word The same options have never been since the full use of these parliamentary judiciary, police, military, Lords, monar- 'socialism' from Labour's vocabulary. sufficient discipline over its MP's. mad to socialism
developed class conscious socialist Icadership capable of withstanding a full-scale onslaught from the employers, The traditional power-base of Leaming the lessons from Edward Heath's half beared efforts at anti- union laws and his inclegant relreats, culminating in the electoral defcal of February 1974, and utilising the new police anti-picket squads set up comc under attack during the Labour govemment, and was the list to The Thatcher years have been marked hy a relentless drive to exploit tal against a workers' movement which passive, complacent trade union and political leadership. Even the more the shop stewards movement, in manufacturing industry, had alrendy every opportunity opened up for the bosses by this leadership crisis Thatcher and the strongest elemeuts of her team grasped the role of generals leading the counter-attack of British capi- despite-or partially because of - the con- cessions and retomis it had won since the militant shop stewards movement and rank and file forces lacked any war, was saddled with a hureaucratised. suffer the squecze of recession under the Tones. Police powers have increased: but key is political paralysis of labour movement particulady pernicious if (unlike Phil Hearse's Labour movement) such alliances are scen as a wubstitute for working class political action, or as a step towards coalitionist anti-Thatcher" clectoral While oily a died in the-wool secturian would disagree with Phil Hearse that every democratic right must be defended against Tory attack Sociahat Ourlook - could be the search for desperate last-gasp on the model of the Stalinists" Ill fated 1930s ments of the middle class and bourgeoisic, precisely those elements who proposals, but as with Marxism Today and its fellow travellers in the , anti-authoritarian ele have done so little to fight any aspoct of Thatcher's policies up to now. 'Popular Fronts", aiming to appeal to "democratic", Thatcherism it can — in the manner of ≥ capimlation to the apparcht strength of One such solution that has bea mised - though not by anyone writing in Marxism Today's lixation with and Thatcherism - npen the door to defeatist "democratic alliances' This would he Popular Fronte
weakened by the recession; and wave after wave of privatisation to liberate resources for tax cuts and effect what Thatcher expects to be an Through monetarist discipline in the first phase, employers were up almost across the board in manufacturing industry. As bad heen seen during the period of Labour government, trade union leaders and shop stewards accustomed to negotiating on wages and conditions in times of by the Labour goverment to smash strikes at Grunwick and other firms ly for each confroutation. The Tory strategy relied upon the salami - and took for gratited the Thatcher war allowed to pick the best time to provoke cach fight, and then ahle to utilise the full farces of the state to hold the line, as unions It was therefore no accident that the Thatcherite priorities were - in order - monetarist policies to squeeze inflation through mass wiemploy- ment; anti-union laws to bang home the atlack on unions already press-gunged into imposing massive closures, redundancies and speed- SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 12 February 1989 refusal of TUC and Labour leaders to fight for united mans action. in the late 1970s, Thatcher resolved to prepare the ground more thorough- irreversible how against the corporatin' state sector. tactics of picking off one section at a time were confronted one hy one. palling crisis of leadership that has confronted the workers' movement in sues such as Clause 28), There is no sign, for instance, of substantial layers of the white petty bourgeoisie getting angry over the immigration laws, the anti-union laws, or the laughably anti-democratic Housing Act, designed (by counting abstentions as votes for change) to force even more However wide we may wish to throw the campaigning net, and whatever success we have in doing an, the decisive factor in each of these ing class. And here the issuc of leadership is absolutely central, Indeed, what Pravda and Sotsialisticheskaya Industriya point out, but many British analysts forget, is thar Thatcher's successes to date can only be properly understood in the context of analysing the unresolved and ap- tent to which this can be scen as a front-line response to Thatcherism is limited, not least by the minuscule extent to which more than a handful of the middle classes, let alone wet Tories, are prepared to hecome in- volved in lighting the govemment (except perhaps on rare, emotive is major struggles remains the role and the mass organisations of the work- through campaigns involving the widest possible united fronts, the ex council houses into private hands.
dustries - shortly to reach a new peak with assets - began in part from the monctarist British Gas: and it later developed through mass share issues as a sophisticated bribe to more prosperous sections of the middle clans Though she has been egged on at each stage to go further by visionary prophets of Thatcher has all along simply been carrying the sale of vast elcctricity and water industry squecze on "ines-making" nationalised in- dustries (stcel, shipbuilding. British Air- ways, BL cass): It also stemmed from the lust to uberate vast profits generated in natural monopolies such as British Telecom and the ultra-right, it is still not proven that The drive to privatise the major state in and employed working clast. I MURDOC PICKE STOP É HAMMOND'S SACKED YEAR F HAPPY NEW 'ELATED z Weet relative expansion, had never questioned the 'right of the employet to a protit, and there- fore to make fims 'viable' in capilalial terms at a price of massive redundancies and closures. This inability to challenge the logic of capitalism (transformed into an argument that only through collaboration with employers at every level to prevent strikes could jobsbesaved) has hecome the bedrock of today's politics of new realism' that The same period brought the relaxation of exchange controls, which enabled the big employers and the fmance soctor to maxi- mise their profits despite the recession by channelling vast sums of North Sea oil revenues into investment portfolios over- dominate both TUC and Labour Party.
stralegy. One of her former policy advisors, Patrick Minford, in a rocent essay brands the lemm self-interest of existing tenants to break profits and prospects of estate agents, private Minford then describes the suhsequent thrugh sages of a pre-fommulated overall early exercises in council house privatisation as initially a sideshow" (in Thatcherism, ed Robert Skidelsky). Mobilising the short- cessful in many ways: it won extra Tory voles; it undermined mother area of local government; and it boosted the long term moves towards mass share issues in the privatisation of the big nationalised in- dustries as a logical follow-up' to the unex- pectedly popular success of the housing 'sale of the century. Of course the goal of privatisation could as easily have heen carried out by selling shues primarily to big city institations. As it is, the whole myth of up the public sector in housing proved suc develupers, huilders and landlords. Wapping dispute: landmark in Tory anti-union PUT 6,000 HYENAS OLE ON THE Given this kind of seemingly limitiess elbow room by terrified TUC Icaders, Tory policies successfully tumed the screw on manufacturing in- offensive link up the early struggles which quickly? have succceded under conditions where the & Feare in February he maned up not to lE trade union leaders refused to strengthen and @ support but to isolate the marathon 4 month and the certainty of plant closures to follow. Despite the political weaknesses of the Inbour movement, this first phase could only broke out against a still new and incx- perienced Thatcher government. TUC national steel strike (squashing calls for general strike action and potential support from miners and rail workers) and simul- tancously sold out the BL carworkers; other sections too were held back from struggle until after the steelworkers had heen forced back to work with a hollow "victory on pay
- where a fow more prosperous share- owning workers labour under the delusion that they, too, are capitalists- appears lions of shares to large numhers of individuals is that it makes the task of reversing these measures even more daunting for any suhsequent Labour Throughout die Thatcher years there has been a consistent patler of forcing through measures without undue regard for their short- team popularity, in such a way arto pull up the ladder behind them, making it almost impossible for a relornist Lahour govcinment to relum to the old status quo. Money freed by cuts in social socurity, the housing hudget and other sectors of state spending has been immediately redistributed to tions on local govemment, including ratecapping and soon the Poll Tax, Forcing any Labour reform to contemplate major increases. Privatisation certain to be followed by huge once-and-for-all asset-stripping land sales le have Inken shape empirically rather than to a pre planned formula. However the chief long-tem advantage for the Tores of dispersing mil- template tux increaser in restore previous levels. Similarly Tory restric- have reduced or restricted rules, or thrust the burden from rich to poor, of British Acrospace and the planned kale of the water authorities seem the wealthy and to the employed in tax cuts - forcing Labour to con (or socialist) govemment. "popular capitalism' The lesson for today, howover in that it need not have happened. In 1980 it was not the 'bonapurtist" use of dietatorial powers which kept The Tories next turned their attention to a frontal attack on the trade man Tebbir Once again the TUC showed itself to be all mooth and trousors: aN SCeNt aN the NGA print workers ran up against the new laws and the courts in figliting Eddie Shah's Messenger Group in Warrington. dustry, and quickly threw over 2 million additional workers onto the dole queues. This in turn halted the progress of unionisation in the private sec- tor, and also- alongside cut after cut in unemployment and social security benefits - began to open up what has heen a deliberate and ever widen- Thatcher in office so much as the timidity and treachery of the union unions themselves, in the form of two major Acts puoted through by Nor- By the time the miners, too, had been sequestrated, months into their strike, the TUC had long ahandoned even the pretence that it would defy unjust laws, and union chiefs promoling the 'new realism could hardly conceal their hopes that Scargill and the NUM would be defeated. The und the NGA faced threats of sequestration, the TUC collapsed and ahan- ing gap between the employed and unemployed working class. doned its pledges to give industrial support. 1980 it was not the "bonapartist" leaders.
- as has happened with desperate health authorities selling property to rates of pay. The significance of the "slave labour youth opportunites, youth training, employmcot training and "Restar' schemes (now backed ing such schemes will be denied state benefit) is the overall objective of lowering wage expectations and actual pay levels, The Tories believe this ganisation, beginning in the lower paid jobs: and in addition they are out tions of youth, women and the lowest-paid, some of which dates back to The Thatcherite drive towards decontrol and deregulation is also There are still many Tory projects to complete, not least the full ex- ploitation of the current halance of forces to drive still lower the basic up by new, brutal cuts in social soculity and the threat that youth refus will bring in its train the destriction of what remains of trade union. or- to dismantle virtually all of the protoctive legislation covering the condi- having a contradictory effect on the media, where die proposed prolifera- Lion of television and radio channels runs counter to moralistic attempts Page 25 the more enlightened liberalism of a few Victorian parliamentarians. balance their books. bitter battles of Wapping and the National Union of Scamen's retreat in front of the sequestrators in the P&O dispute simply rubbed in the fact that the unions" bluff had heen called, and that vitually every national It is on this new balance of class forces - backed up and budgeoned home hy new peaks of police thuggery on the picket lines during and since By their tacit suppon for the government, or refusal to combat Thatcher's offensive on the NUM, and their insistence upon drawing false, defeatist lessons of such major class battles since 1980, the TUC leaders have also played a key role in consolidating her political gnp within important sections of the capitalist class and Tory Party. Even employers who suffered squeezed profits from the elier monetarist policies have been placated since she delivered the goods in the form of tax cuts and major blows against the unions. And even more have been unson leader had been shown to be spineless, and the TUC itself increas the miners strike — that Thatcher's authority and authoritarianism rest. delighted by the short-term profits bonanza opened up by privatisation. SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 12 February 1989 ingly an irrelevance.
dustrial worker are scarcely likely to become transformed now into model fighters for the downtrodden and oppressed. The bureaucracy has tions are low, but who bring with them a host of problems and possible serious explanation. Even with fim leadership, victories cannot be guaranteed: withoutit, under such adverse circumstances, defeats and set- Under Thatcher's decisive leadership, the Tory Pay in government ments: but there is no sign that it has quelled the class struggle or won 1926 General Strike, and followed it up after the TUC capitulation with Once again we retum to the question of leadership as central to any haseffected far-reaching changes, reversing or preparing in reverse many of the progressive social reforms carried through by successive gover- Rather than resorting to unprecedented "bonapartist' measures to con- tain the working class, Thatcher has followed the more established path of previous authoritarian Tory govemments - such as that of Stanley Baldwin, which organised massive scahhing operations and defied the never shown much enthusiasm for recruiting workers whose subscrip- over substantial layers of the working class to Thatcherite polities. confrontations with management. P T H backs are certain. sor nows on many issues, and tostuff the BBC and IRA governing bodien We should recognise here, however, that the Thatcher ideal is one in Other Thatcherite irons in the fire include the sweeping reform' of Lo impose censorship of sex and violence, and authoritarian movesto cen (und the so-called broadcasting standards council under Lord Rees: Mogg) with hand picked Thatcherite appointees (the latest examplebeing which, while the most prestigious and 'official" news sources are care- fully vettod and censored, for the most part, as in the USA, most people read and see little or no accurate or serious information. Like broadcast versions of the gutter press, the deregulated sattelite and other tv chan nels would offer little or no 'nows", and that small quota would be swamped by trashy films, soap operas and game shows - leaving the core pertise, and leaving the labour movement even furtber removed from ac- the NHS and education, to open them up for privatisation along American Lines, and force home upon the working class a new reality in which, with the rapid erosion and eventual disappearance of the collective, social elite of the hourgeois state to monopolise political information and ex- the head banging Lord Chalfont installed on the IBA). cess lo mass forms of publicity.
brutal anti-union laws and savage wage-cutting before the 1930s ushered Indeed 'strong government" was also the style of Thatcher's hero less repression of strikes and trade union nights: Churchill also led the post-war Tory opposition into the lobbies to oppose the National Health Service Bill, representing a continuity of that strand of Tory thought It is instructive to remember thateven Churchill's largely ancontested personal prestige in 1945 was not xufficient to prevent the working class, ing a landslide victory to a radical Labour manifesto. Thatcherism has could be defcated given the right combination of circumstances and a A measure of the truly wretched political level of today's trade union and Lahour leadership is that Baldwin's government had to organise a full-scale scabbing operution and confrunt a General Strike hefore it could establish a balance of forces favourable for its attacks on the working Winston Churchill in the leadership of the wartime coalition, with its ruth- among them returing soldiers, sweeping him out of office and deliver- sunk no deeper roots than Chuchill's patriotic wartime bandwagon: it which always - long hefore Thatcher - rejected the welfare state: in the new borrors of the means test. determined Labour Icadership. provisions of the welfare state, in Thatcher's famous phrase "there is no The common thread through all of these proposals is to break down absence of any serious political or industrial opposition - been able to prosperous layers, exploiting and pandering to their greed, their racism, of Thatcher's policies as the lack of any credible opposition that has more than a skin-decp impact on most voters, who are far from sharing the collective strength of the working class, break down collective institu- tions, and supplant in their stead individualism, self-interest, and divide- and-rule. For every measure which strikes heavy blows and furtber alienates and antagonises the unemployed, the low-paid, the most ex- ploited sections of the working class, black communities, women and the more socially aware sections of the middle classes, Thatcher has - in the counterpose a consolidation of her electoral base among the most However the polls indicate that it is not so much the electoral appeal Despite appearances and the popular preoccupation with yuppy valves, there is little evidence that Thaicherite politics have made much such thing as socicty, just individuals and families". national chauvinism, and anti-communism. decisively strengthened the Tory hand.
class: Churchill required not only the patriotic fervour of the war period Icadershipsto impose his vicious anti union laws. Yet Thatcher has since 1979 been allowed to confront and inflict huge selhack on a much larger and stronger trade union movement without undergoing the ordeal of a General Strike, or any sustained united fightback by the trade union Indeed the defeatist politics of the union leaders have now also trans- Inted themselves, via "new realism" into the total collapse of the Labour Party as an effective opposition, despite all of the opportunities that there Though workers continue from time to time to rebel against particular Tory attacks, the full-scale political retreat that is taking place under the banner of Labour's 'policy review" threatens to change the political Ax one correspondent points out (Lellers page), if we have Kinnock, who needs bonapatism? It is indeed ironic that while most workers remain relatively impervious, the section of society most impressed and affected by Thatcherite propaganda and values should he the political but the total complicity of the Labour, Lade union and Communist party have been to combat the evils of the new "free market" coonomy, profile of the labour movement for years to come. movement whatever. tions as poverty, unemployment, the NHS and education, the Pall Tax and other issoes - and also on matters of morality" such as abortion and unconvinced by the Tory line. Indeed the new White Paper proposals on the NES seem to represent in thus respect one of the most risky projocts The same sitution applies in the industrial situation: though the employers by dint of brute force, appalling levels of class collahoration fior many top unich leaders, and the straitjacket of anti-union laws, have in some instances succeeded in raising levels of exploitation and produc- tivity, this should not he read as workers accepting the employers' line. Time and again disputes erupt over pay or conditions as soon as workers Much is made in Marism Today and elsewhere of the changing face of the working class in the 1980s, and the supposed end of traditional trade unionism. Again this is largely an excuse for the failure of desig- In some areas it is clear that the traditional manufacturing industries have the Prime Minister's views, Poll information suggests that on such ques restrictions on media coverage - the cloctorate has remained stubbomly ner left" forces to relate to the actual working class as it has developed. Feel they have an opportunity to fight back: to be attempted.
Asa new year of struggle begins with inflation again on the increase, of Thatcherism is focussed on the element of the situation that we as class leadership of the mass working class party that is supposed to lead the mortgage-payers under pressure, the economy unstahle and the gover- ment still on the offensive, it is important that discussion on the politics struggle can hope to do somcthing about: the necessity forn new, socialist leadership Fighting at every level for mass action by workers to defend democratie rights, the welfare state, jobs, housing and every other post- This means fighting tooth and nail against further concessions to Thatcherism in Labour's policy review, but also spelling nut a more 1990s. Instead of using "Thatcherism" as an excuse for defeatism, u sober recognition of the coniprehensive scope of the bosses" offensive must be coherent, socialist response to the economic and social crisis of the 1980s- SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 12 February 1989 a stimulos to develop the fighthack. war gain that is now under attack. workers who would otherwise have become manual workers in factories have become unskilled, low paid workers in shops. warchouses, hotels sector suggests that the unions are not recruiting and not mobilising these: layers. This should come as little surprise: the same union bureaucrats been all but wiped out: the old stewards committees and union stron- gholds have also been hammered down - from the one side by manage- But the growth of the service sector -retail, catering and other jobs docs not mean that the working class has disappeared: simply that or burger bars - often under highly exploitative conditions. The task for the unions, as before, is to organise these workers and take up their fight Yet despite the odd tokenistic and trendy glossy leaflet targetted ar these often part-time staff, many of whom are women and black workers, the absence of a wave of small and larger- scale disputes in the service who have betrayed and ignored their previous strongest battalions of in- ment and from the other by their own bureaucratic union officials. For adequate pay, working conditions, health and safety. Page
TE m parties make Can Stalinist - ST A
Fourth International (November 1988), a special a ticie by Dave Packer included an assessment of the Pursuing this question, here FINN JENSEN presents a rejoinder, while DAVE PACKER and PHIL HEARSE In our supplement on the 50th anniversary of the Chou En Lai (right) joins Mao for the Long March to Yenan (1934) contradictions involved in the post-war overturns of capitalism under the leadership of Communist Parties. develop the debate, which will continue in future issues of Socialist Outlook. reforms in the Soviet Union, and of the dramatic deformed workers' states are not the only items of The discussions now raging on the left over the political assessment of Mikhail Gorbachev, his developments unfolding in other bureaucratically controversy in the analysis of post-war Stalinism. revolutions?
That was aleo the case with the communist parties in Victnam and Yugoslavia and that is tions. The Vietnamese Communist Party led a To recognise that a few communist parties from the Stalinist tradition have been able to why they were able to lead successful revolo- struggle for 40 years, which after 1954 threatened the very cxistence of North Vicinam in its war to liberate South Vietnam. Not a very break with that tradition and lead successful revolutions should of course not make us jump to the conclusion that that could be a pattem for It is unlikely to be the case in the imperialist countries: In the third world countries we have to analyse each of the communist parties con- Finn Jensen reasoning. In effect it says: Stalinist parties cretely in order to judge whether ay of them have the potential to lead socialist revolutions. This lane of argument proceeds from a self- justifying definition, which is based on circular can't lead revolutions, therefore where revolu- pons have occurred the parties that led them Comrades who hold this view get themscl IF we ask ourselves: can stalinist parties under Page 27 ves in a tangle because the question is badly posed. If we formulate the question slightly dif- ferently, then it is casier to get at the solution. The Philippine CP could be one of them. Mao's break from Stalin's line tangle on Stalinism The way out of a a lot of othet communist parties. typical behaviour for Stalinists! can't he stalinist OED result of a revolutionary leadership that con- sciously used the objoctive situation to lead a socialist revolution? Dave's article is not clear In the 1930s there was a faction fight inside Stalin faction around Wang Ming Iost. Mao did not make an official break with the line of the Stalin's control). But he did not carry out to the Soviet burcancracy, but wanted to lead a developed its own line in opposition to Stalin's Communist International (which was under Mao would not let the CCT be subordinated proletarian revolution to victory. In that sense Mao was a revolutionary, and not a counter- revolutionary Stalinist. At the same time the CCP was a party with severe bureaucratic munist International it had a leadership that Finn Jensen's argument that