Section Two: Crisis of Postwar Stalinism¶
Core Argument¶
The postwar Stalinist order began to fracture in 1948 when the Yugoslav Communist Party was expelled from the Cominform. Tito had resisted Moscow's demand for absolute control over satellite states, pushing instead for a Balkan federation that threatened Soviet dominance. The Cominform's accusations—that Yugoslavia shadowed Soviet specialists, lacked internal party democracy, and used arguments "borrowed from Trotskyism"—revealed that Tito had turned Stalin's own methods against him, building an independent state apparatus. Grant argues that once national Communist parties control their own military, police, and economy, they gain leverage against Moscow, accelerating differentiation within international Stalinism.
This crisis was the culmination of a longer degeneration. The Third International, founded in 1919 to overthrow world capitalism, was progressively transformed into an instrument of Soviet foreign policy. Stalin's anti-Leninist theory of "socialism in one country" (1924) marked the turn away from revolutionary internationalism. The Comintern's disastrous zigzags—relying on capitalists in China, denouncing social democrats as "social fascists" in Germany, then embracing Popular Fronts with liberal capitalists—culminated in enabling Hitler's rise without working-class resistance. By 1943, American imperialism demanded the Comintern's dissolution, and Stalin complied, openly siding with capitalist counter-revolution.
Within the USSR, the party was transformed from an instrument of workers' rule into a bureaucratic machine, with 90–95% of its composition now officials, managers, police, and labour aristocrats. The bureaucracy cannot permit inner-party democracy, reinforcing its regime through terror and ideological falsification. Yet its pretence of returning to Lenin's methods reveals a deep popular longing for October's traditions, foreshadowing political revolution.
The Hungarian uprising of 1956 was the test: a heroic national struggle comparable to the Paris Commune, led by workers and youth demanding workers' councils, workers' management, and equality with the USSR. The Kadar government and Russian troops represented Stalinist counter-revolution. The Communist Party leadership's claim to have learned from mistakes is contradicted by its support for Kadar's repression. The theory of socialism in one country laid the basis for Stalin's degeneration and prevented the international division of labour that would have required democratic workers' control. Only a political revolution replacing bureaucratic rule with mass democratic control can clear the path toward socialism.