THE MARXIST BROTHERS
By NORMAN KIRBY
ABARE two months have passed since the Comintern, immolated on the funeral pyre of Stalingrad, rose as the Cominform phoenix from the ashes of Warsaw. There was some doubt as to why the event was timed for this particular moment. The implica- tion of the birthday manifesto that the assembled Communist sponsors had in the past experienced difficulty in co-ordinating their actions could scarcely be taken seriously. There was thus much speculation in the West about the policies which might or might not be hidden behind the customary abusive verbiage. It was hardly expected that these policies would emerge so clearly within the space of a few weeks. Yet today it is already quite obvious that the creation of the Cominform marked a definite change in Communist strategy. The phase of "co-operation with all democratic forces" has come to an end. A period of "direct action for the establishment of the rule of the popular masses" has begun. The dividing-line between "democratic and anti-democratic forces" has been con- veniently rubbed out. Instead a new ,line has been drawn which relegates to the enemy camp all non-Communists, not least amongst them the Social Democrats of Eastern Europe who, although claim- ing to be Marxists, have failed to recognise the Third International. In Soviet parlance they are no longer included within the proper meaning of the term "Socialist," but are ranged by the side of the capitalists. This new interpretation of the difference between "Marxist brothers" has enabled the Soviet propagandists to bring out once more the time-honoured slogans of "Capitalists v. Socialists." The particularly vehement abuse which the Cominform manifesto reserved for the Social Democrats has been accompanied by practical measures which have already inflicted grave damage on the Social Democrat parties of Eastern Europe.
The setting-up of the Cominform has given a new edge to the internal controversy centring on the issue of collaboration with the Communists and going back to the Armistice days of 1945. As a result of the Yalta and Potsdam decisions the Social Democrats of Eastern Europe found themselves cut off from their stronger col- leagues in the West, whose sympathetic manner alternating with heartfelt but ineffective protests to the Soviet authorities often proved an embarrassment rather than a help. They only tended to confirm the inevitability of the choice between East and West. Yet the popular appeal of the Social Democrat parties largely rested on the hope that such a choice might after all be avoided. It was quite clear to the Socialist leaders that whichever way they turned they would have to give up part of their policy. They could gain in strength only by taking up a definitely anti-Communist policy which would secure them support from the peasantry and urban middle class. But to do this meant to forswear the Marxist prin- ciples which had guided them for decades. The alternative was that they should form a coalition with the Communists, hoping against hope that they would be able to maintain sufficient influence inside the Government bloc to prevent Eastern democracy from becoming too Eastern, yet knowing that their Communist partners had brought them into the coalition only to ride to power on their backs.
The outcome of this unenviable situation varied according to the character and strength of the Socialist parties in the individual countries. In the event the results have turned out to be neatly graduated on a South-North scale. This is no mere accident of geography, but has its roots in the differing origins and composi- tions of the South-Eastern and Eastern European Socialist parties. They all started towards the end of the last century, but already before 1914 they had developed on separate lines, influenced by German and Russian Marxism respectively. The Socialist move- ments of Bulgaria, Rumania and Serbia looked to St. Petersburg. They were led by doctrinaire intellectuals who thought of the peasantry as hopeless reactionaries and dreamt of a rigidly organised urban working class led by highly trained revolutionary leaders. As there was little industry and the agrarian question formed the dominant issues these policies were somewhat devoid of reality. The Social Democrat parties in these countries therefore never gained much influence.
In Croatia, Hungary, Bohemia and parts of Poland an entirely different development took place. Here the Socialist parties grew pace by pace with the expansion of local industries. For inspira- tion they looked to Vienna and Berlin. Instead of close central control and what would today be called revolutionary indoctrination the emphasis was on local initiative and steady pressure for improved conditions and increased political influence. Membership was largely confined to the skilled workers, who were a comparatively settled and economically secure class. Their outlook was reflected in the reformist policies which the Social Democrat parties of Hungary and Czechoslovakia pursued virtually from their foundation to the present day. They never played a leading part, but always repre- sented a secondary political force of some importance.
Against this historical background it becomes easy to understand the varying fates of the Social Democrat parties behind the Iron Curtain in the last few -months. In each case the nature of the local party had a considerable bearing on the outcome of the conflict between the advocates of outright collaboration with the Communists and the supporters of an independent policy. In parenthesis let it be said that an independent policy is not synonymous with an anti- Communist policy. No political parties in Eastern Europe can today afford to pursue an anti-Communist policy. Frequent public pats on the back by their American sympathisers who overlook this will only speed them along the road to elimination, past the corpses of the Bulgarian and Rumanian bourgeois opposition parties. In these countries the Social Democrats have suddenly found them- selves at the extreme Right of the officially recognised political scene. In these circumstances the ascendancy of the pro-Communists over the Independents in the Rumanian and Bulgarian Social Demo- crat parties was a foregone conclusion. The tendency towards the Eastern school of Marxism had always been there. The rank and file had little to say in the choice, and the majority of the intellectuals at the top found it comparatively easy to square their theories with the exigencies of a situation in which both their physical and their political existence depended on submission to their Marxist brothers of the Third International.
Further north, in Hungary and Czechoslovakia, the two sides are more evenly balanced, and the outcome between the Left and Right Social Democrats is as yet undecided. Bourgeois parties standing further to the Right still remain in some strength. The Social Democrats are therefore not so afraid of becoming lonely stragglers in the political wilderness created by "true popular democracy" a la Molotov. The Czech and Hungarian Social Democrats are not convinced that the Russian Foreign Minister was correct in saying that all roads lead to Communism. On the contrary, their past history and their theoretical background show them quite a few roads leading away from that not so universally desirable goal. In their efforts to maintain this independence of outlook the Czech and Hungarian Social Democrats are fortified by the individualist tradition and solid political training of their followers. In both countries the Social Democrat Congresses held in recent weeks have disavowed the pro-Communist policy of their chairmen.
The pattern of Communist-Social Democrat relations takes on a somewhat different shape in Poland. The creation of Poland from Austrian, German and Russian territories after the 1914-18 war meant that there were elements of both the Western and the Eastern tradition amongst the Polish Socialists. This division became very marked during the 1939-45 war, when the Right wing of the Party took a strongly anti-Soviet line, while the Left sided with the Russians and with their help finally eliminated its opponents. Having gone through the inevitable conflict in a more violent form and at an earlier stage than other Social Democrats in Eastern Europe, the victorious Left wineof the Polish Socialists is ideologically more akin to the Communists and in a better position to hold its own in a coalition with than.
They are thus the only ones to have escaped, at least so far, the full brunt of the Communist attack on their Marxist brothers, the Social Democrats. But what is the underlying reason for this attack? What have the Social Democrats done to deserve it? Actively nothing. Passively—a great deal, measured by Soviet standards. In the eyes of the Communists the original sin of the
Social Democrats is that they stand for the wrong things. They believe in Marxism, but they combine with it a profound faith in the dignity of the individual and his right to an area of freedom from State control. To the Communists these beliefs are a heresy, and, like all dogmatists who fancy themselves on the verge of victory, they are now persecuting the heretics with a bitterness even greater than that permanently reserved for the bourgeois agnostics. This is particularly so because the heretics look as if they might have a chance of proving their theories in practice. The Marshall Plan, little though its originator may have intended this, might provide the Social Democrats of Europe with just such a chance. Hence the grim and declared intention of the Soviet Union to prevent its success and to liquidate or absorb the Social Democrats of Eastern Europe.
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