Stalin Falsifies Communist History¶
Core Argument¶
In this chapter, the author launches a polemic against Stalin’s 1945 Victory over Japan broadcast, arguing that it epitomises the Soviet Union’s degeneration from socialist internationalism into tsarist chauvinism. The core argument is that Stalin’s speech, which dwells on Russian national resentment over the 1905 defeat by Japan, contains no reference to socialism or solidarity with Japanese workers and peasants. Instead, it appeals to the reactionary legend of a “black stain” on national pride, a sentiment the author insists is entirely antithetical to Bolshevism.
The chapter draws on the historical context of the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905) to expose the contradiction between Stalin’s 1945 rhetoric and the actual Bolshevik position at the time. The author cites the 1939 History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, published under Stalin’s own editorship, which describes tsarist Russia’s imperialist ambitions in the Far East: the seizure of the Liaotung Peninsula, the construction of the Chinese-Eastern Railway, and the occupation of Northern Manchuria. The text notes that tsarist Russia, alongside Japan, Britain, Germany, and France, suppressed the Boxer Uprising in China. The war with Japan is characterised as a conflict between two imperialist predators, with the Bolsheviks under Lenin welcoming tsarist defeat as a blow to the autocracy that would strengthen revolution. The author quotes Lenin’s dictum that “the fall of Port Arthur meant the beginning of the fall of the autocracy.”
The key evidence deployed is the stark inconsistency between Stalin’s own earlier publication and his later chauvinist appeal. The 1939 History explicitly states that the Bolsheviks held the defeat of the tsarist government in the “predatory war” to be useful. By 1945, Stalin has abandoned this class analysis entirely, replacing it with a nationalist narrative of vengeance and national honour. The author notes that this is not an isolated slip but a symptom of a deeper degeneration that has accelerated since 1939, and predicts that yet another rewritten version of party history will follow the many that have preceded it.
The polemic is directed squarely against Stalin and the bureaucratic caste that has supplanted Bolshevik internationalism with Great Russian chauvinism. The chapter also implicitly argues against any defence of the Soviet Union as a workers’ state, instead presenting its foreign policy as a continuation of tsarist imperialism. The tone is one of unmasking: Stalin’s own words are used to refute his later position, and the reader is left with the conclusion that the Soviet leadership has abandoned the very foundations of Marxism.