8. From Foreign Policy to the National Question¶
Core Argument¶
Chapter 8: From Foreign Policy to the National Question¶
The chapter traces the degeneration of Soviet foreign policy and the eruption of the national question as twin symptoms of Stalinist bureaucratic rule. Under Lenin and Trotsky, the early Soviet state prioritised living standards and relied on revolutionary propaganda and working-class solidarity for defence. Stalin’s bureaucracy, unable to appeal to Western workers without threatening its own rule, abandoned this internationalism. Instead, it pursued massive military spending to compete with imperialism, locking both East and West into an arms race that served the vested interests of their respective ruling layers. By the 1980s, up to 60 per cent of Soviet industrial output was devoted to the military, draining the economy. ‘Peaceful coexistence’ was Stalin’s concept, not Lenin’s, who insisted that a Soviet republic could not exist indefinitely alongside capitalist states and that wars were inevitable.
The crisis in Eastern Europe was sharpened by national oppression. In Poland, the Solidarity movement was betrayed by its reformist leadership, which sought compromise with the bureaucracy and later abandoned the working class entirely. Jacek Kuroń, a former dissident, became labour minister and declared he had to extinguish strikes. Solidarity’s membership collapsed from ten million to one million by 1990 as its leadership became pro-bourgeois, championing capitalist counter-revolution. The Mazowiecki government introduced harsh austerity, abolishing subsidies, decontrolling prices, and reopening the stock exchange, leading to mass unemployment and falling production. Gorbachev signalled non-intervention, undermining Stalinist leaders, while imperialist loans remained largely talk.
In Romania, the National Salvation Front won a sweeping victory against bourgeois opposition parties that demanded the speedy introduction of capitalism. The vote reflected a mass mood among workers and peasants for socialism, not totalitarianism. Elements of workers’ control existed in factories, but the subjective factor—a revolutionary party—was missing. In Hungary, the reformist wing of the bureaucracy opened discussions with the opposition, introducing free elections and privatisation. The old HSWP renamed itself the Hungarian Socialist Party and applied to join the Second International. The transition caused turmoil, and experience of the market provoked a reaction from the Hungarian masses.
Stalin’s regime deported entire national populations, including the Kalmyks, Chechen-Ingush, and Balkars, and promoted Great Russian chauvinism. Khrushchev blamed Stalin alone, but national oppression persisted, notably as anti-Semitism disguised as anti-Zionism. Stalinism created corrupt national bureaucracies that stoked local chauvinism. Gorbachev’s reforms loosened central control, releasing centrifugal forces that broke up the USSR by December 1990. The ensuing independence led to economic disaster and bloody conflicts. Only a regime of workers’ democracy, with a free federation and common production plan, could guarantee genuine freedom and self-determination.