Book Review: Be Vigilant on Possible Danger in Peacetime 居安思危 - CCP 中國共產黨 on Collapse of USSR
Updated: Sep 18, 2022
The 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party (7.23, 1921-7.23, 2021)
祝賀中國共產黨建黨一百周年（於1921 年 7 月 23 日，上海法租界， 由陳獨秀， 李大釗，毛澤東， 周恩來， 等人創辦）以及港區國安法實施一周年 (6.30, 2021)
Author: Shenming, Li and Zhihua, Chen
Chinese: 居安思危：苏共亡党二十年的思考 / 居安思危：蘇共亡黨二十年的思考
English: Be Vigilant on Possible Danger in Peace Time - 20 Years' Reflections on Soviet Communist Party's Decline [sic]
ISBN: 9787509720028
Publisher: Social Sciences Academic Press (CHINA) (Mainland China, March 1, 2011)
Videos:
https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1CV411673U/
The direct cause of the collapse of USSR was kleptocracy. It was technically terminated by kleptocrats from the inside of the communist party in December 1991. Kleptocrats in the communist party camouflaged the process of stealing public properties as a ''reform'' or ''collapse'' in order to legitimise their theft. Furthermore, kleptocracy is broadly witnessed in neoliberal privatisation and colour revolutions in both right wing nationalist countries and targeted left wing countries. For instance, privatisation of British Telecom and British Gas in the 1980s (Also see the looting of the state treasury for personal enrichment in South Africa). Thus, kleptocracy itself has nothing to do with Marxism. In fact, it is the opposite of it.
中國共產黨（世界最大執政黨：該黨黨員總數目前為9514.8萬人）對蘇聯瓦解的原因精確地下結論了。那就是如今所謂竊盜統治。簡言之，蘇共內部的竊盜統治份子在政治技術層面終結了蘇共及蘇聯（1991年12月）。甚至，黨內盜賊勢力將他們與外部勢力攜手並肩盜竊公有財產，化公為私的過程包裝成‘改革’或‘解體’的，其實是如此被合法化了的一場打劫。此外，竊盜統治的問題廣泛地在新自由主義的私有化或顏色革命進行的右派和左派政權的國家內目擊的 (如1980年代的英國電信集團和British Gas plc之私有化)，因此‘化公為私’跟馬克思主義純然都是兩碼事，甚至實際上正相反的。
In 2011, Chinese Communist Party (a.k.a. 中國共產黨 / Communist Party of China / CCP / CPC ; 1921-) officially concluded that the collapse of Soviet Union was due to internal causes of Communist Party of the Soviet Union (a.k.a. 蘇聯共產黨 / the Soviet Communist Party / CPSU ; 1883 or 1903 or 1912 - 1991). In other words, the Soviet Union was deliberately terminated by kleptocrats. (Chapter 1)
各種不同的研究觀點都在試圖向世人解釋‘蘇聯解體’的原因： ‘經濟沒有搞好說’， ‘斯大林主義模式僵化說’， ‘民族矛盾決定說’，‘軍備競賽拖垮說’，‘戈氏叛徒葬送說’，‘外部因素決定說’等等。我們看見不同的人得出不同甚至完全相反的結論。但其中最根本的原因是什麼呢？
毛澤東同志告訴我們：任何過程如果有多數矛盾存在的話，其中必定有一種是主要的，起著領導的，決定性的作用。
鄧小平同志在其1992年那個著名的南方談話中明確指出：要出問題，還是出在共產黨內部。
1991年12月，江澤民同志指出：蘇聯東歐的變化，並不是科學社會主義的失敗，而是放棄社會主義道路的結果。
2000年12月，胡錦濤同志也指出：蘇聯解體原因是多方面的，其中很重要的一條，就是從赫魯曉夫丟掉斯大林這把刀子，到戈爾巴喬夫公開背叛馬克思列寧主義。(1)
Chinese communist leaders already knew the answer perfectly as cited above. It's too obvious to see who actually prohibited the communist party and ordered to disintegrate the party in 1991. They were Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin. Their deliberate actions themselves were main and direct causes of the collapse. Listed 'factors' are to distract people's attentions from their actions and responsibilities.
CCP's point of view is highly technical and consciously practical. In fact, they recognised correctness of Leon Trotsky's prediction on the possibility of restoration of capitalism under bureaucratic dictatorship yet they also pointed out that Stalin's practical objection to market economy (e.g. Stalin completely eliminated unemployment in Soviet Union in 1932; he simply did not restore capitalism even though he had the absolute power to do it) indicated Stalin and so called ''Stalinists'' were not two-faced-capitalist reactionaries as ''Trotskyists'' wrongly depicted. Therefore, it's not Stalin or Stalinists who ended the Soviet Union. In reality, the terminators of USSR were neither Stalinists nor Trotskyists. This dialectic view is critically different from the traditional leftists.
Simultaneously, this book embodies CCP's political stance itself. For instance, the fatal sectarian division between Stalin and Trotsky has no longer been their dogmatic limitation on holistic learning of the 20th century socialist experiments at least since 2011. It's quite helpful for CCP and Marxists of today in order to avoid the same mistakes committed by their leading figures of the political faith.
Sectarianism divides activists in practice. And then it causes individualist conflicts for seeking hegemony in the field / market. Instead, holistically learning pros and cons of all leading figures of socialism is more valuable and constructive for them. CCP already chose the latter correctly.
Although both ''communist'' and anti-communist'' ideologues listed many ''causes'' of the collapse of the Soviet Union, those were surrounding factors, atmosphere or aftermath of actions of kleptocrats. For instance, economic malfunctions, separatist movements, imperialist regime change attempts, and military competitions etc.. However they just only listed them randomly, and no one could logically explain the cause and the effect in context.
Simply, some big data perfectly denies any economic reason while Soviet Union was still the world's number 2 advanced economic power in January 1990 ($2.66 trillion nominal GDP) even during the social chaos caused by the 'reform' (1986-1991). (2)
For military aspects, the Red Army had been the world's number 1 largest active army since 1945 to 1991 with annual military budget 200 billion USD or above. Average number of active personnel was stably 5 million people. Furthermore, there were still 92,345,764 people available for military service in 1991. In other words, there was no indication of the military reason or its disintegration. The Soviet Union were not militarily defeated by any one in 1991. This also supports the CCP's analysis on the collapse.
Kleptocrats actively collapsed the Soviet Union. 從一定的意義上講，蘇共所取得的所有成就都是正確理論指導的結果；蘇共之所以亡黨，是從赫魯曉夫領導集團到戈爾巴喬夫領導集團，逐漸脫離乃至最終背叛馬克思主義的結果。(3)
CCP sees the start of the formation of kleptocrats as the Nikita Khrushchev regime era, and they gradually had infiltrated the communist party until the Mikhail Gorbachev regime and finally hijacked it.
Again, kleptocrats were neither genuine Stalinists nor Marxists no faith in socialism because they only saw it as a method for careerism from the beginning. (Chapter 2)
意識形態工作的各級領導權必須掌握在忠誠的馬克思主義者的手中。(4)
Chapter 3 concludes that sincere Marxists must be in charge of ideological jobs to lead the upper structure of the society.
Political monopoly is justifiable only if it genuinely serves the class interests of the working class people in practice and significantly improves their livelihoods.
Of course, it's still questionable as there are almost no honest Marxists in any country today. What is the meaning of the honest Marxist? It inevitably involves a controversy on the definition yet it can be theoretically explained by the original Marxist principles which not fully practiced in China even in 2021.
Chapter 4 is the answer to the main question of the chapter 3 that class nature of the community party is fundamentally the working class neither capitalist ruling class nor all people under class society. As people know, it is quite difficult to distinguish the class nature of the ruling communist party of today under neoliberalism with Chinese Characteristics (Mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau). There is no such MARXIST to justify capitalist exploitation on workers. It is an ethical crisis.
共產黨還是資產黨？所謂共產黨或共產主義聯盟的存在意義是只限於階級社會的。它是勞動者階級在社會轉型的過渡期打贏階級鬥爭的階級工具。換言之，它本身就是在資本主義之下執政之後，較順利過渡到更高階段社會時的勞動者階級的政治組織/平台。只要真的沒有了階級社會，就沒有意義存在，是因為階級矛盾和階級鬥爭也隨著不再存在。
誠然，在階級社會及其資產階級壟斷政治之下，政治否認階級矛盾和階級鬥爭就等於反共，反勞動者階級的思維。
在階級社會及其資產階級壟斷政治之下，共產黨首要的任務就是打破資產階級的政治壟斷。階級社會裡只有資產階級的政治壟斷或是勞動者階級的政治壟斷，此兩者並不兩立（一國兩制被認為是這種？）。理所當然地，共產黨是爭取後者(勞動者階級的政治壟斷)的。
本書當中最重要的，重中之重的一點是共產黨的階級性質的問題。階級性質意味著共產黨的本義，初心，宗旨，本質，靈魂，精神，底線，黨風，總路線，立場，方針，組織原則和旗幟。在資本主義世界，其階級性質必定就是勞動者階級，而非統治階級或所謂‘超階級’觀點的，抽象的全民。階級性質的問題伴隨著任何政黨對階級社會及其階級鬥爭事實的態度和看法。換言之，階級性質就是在本質上的各種社會勢力的指標。
階級分析是指明不同社會勢力及其各種言論/活動的階級性質。
不像某國修正主義者們所提倡，譬如共產主義的資本家（紅色資本家？共產主義的反共者？反共的共產主義者？這就是目前打著紅旗反紅旗的反動勢力），與此正相反，共產黨的階級性質絕非理論或教不教條的問題，而是它的本質問題，決不可動搖的存在意義的問題。誠然，中國境內不少反動勢力進一步將共產黨的勞動者階級性質及其本質概念偷換為‘毛澤東時代’的復古主義來攻擊。在實踐上，不代表也不捍衛勞動者階級的階級利益，甚至於政治否認階級社會及其階級矛盾（如貧富差距）的現實，而一昧服務資本家階級的共產黨絕不算是個共產黨。那實際上是個資產黨。
所謂共產黨，本義正是勞動者階級的政治先鋒隊，它在政治領域的勞動者階級本身的優秀代表，其原意也就是一種勞動者階級團結的最高方式，而絕非游離勞動者階級而高高在上的‘階級代理人’或指特定的‘代理機關’ (如同勞動貴族，官僚階層等，其他屬於資產階級的所謂‘精英’份子)。更不是官僚資本，即在以公有制，集體所有制，公有股等偽裝之下逐步私有化國有財產的手段。
In short, the class nature of the communist party is not a matter of dogmatism / theories as revisionists told in China but it is essentially a matter of raison d'etre of being a communist party.
The class nature of communist parties must be the class interest of the working class people. Meanwhile, the original concept of a communist party was the highest form of unionisation of workers. In other words, it's politically the most advanced form of labor organisation(s) not something fundamentally alienated from labor unions and labor movements.
The primary mission of a communist party is to end capitalist monopoly of politics under capitalism according to the original concept of Marxism.
In chapter 5, CCP accepted Leon Trotsky's theory on bureaucracy. Bureaucrats themselves are not classes but they are just layers of both capitalists and workers in reality. The distinction between the class and the layer is still persuasive that the definition of any class is based on the ownership of methods of production of commodities in terms of capitalist economy.
按照馬克思主義的定義，階級及階層，主要是指經濟領域而不是政治領域的概念。任何社會階級及階層在任何時候都是生產關係和交換關係的產物，也就是自己時代的經濟關係的產物。階級及階層一旦形成，對一定時代的生產關係和交換關係則必然產生反作用。
任何統治階級及其階層一旦形成，則必然企圖進一步建立最大限度有利於自己甚至企圖‘終結’和固化一定的生產關係和交換關係[如復甦資本主義經濟 ]。從一定意義上講，蘇共的特權階層是蘇共亡黨和蘇聯解體的物質力量，甚至可以說是蘇共亡黨和蘇聯解體的原動力。(5)
CCP thinks that the privileged upper layer of the communist party was the driving force on the termination of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and USSR. This is the answer to the main question of this book.
Chapter 6 is mainly about how to accurately organise a communist party and govern the establishment in terms of HR and administrative inspection to maintain the party line. For this, Democratic centralism is not a problem if a communist party can manage everything effectively within the country.
Ultimately, so called organisational principle or the party line is also a matter of its class nature in practice.
蘇聯部長會議原主席尼古拉·伊萬諾維奇·雷日科夫（Nikolai Ryzhkov； 1929-）在總結蘇共亡黨，蘇聯解體的原因時，曾十分痛心地說：是黨的領導者們，正是他們背叛了黨，出賣了國家和人民。(6)
In chapter 7, CCP mentioned the individual function in history however those kleptocrats simultaneously had power to control the methods of production of commodities under planned economy thus it was and still is a matter of historical materialist analysis. They were not exceptions to historical materialism. Moreover, transformation of kleptocrats into oligarchs during westernisation and privatisation process is a proof of accuracy of historical materialism.
Like Muammar Gaddafi's socialist Libya (1969-2011), Soviet Union (1922-1991) was unnaturally destroyed and ransacked by both internal and external forces.
The conclusion of this book is chapter 8. It indicates that CCP's theoretical ability is higher than any other socialist / communist party in the world that a few sentences can summarise the core thought and the entire book of 522 pages see below:
當然，內因是事物變化發展的根據，外因是事物變化發展的條件，外因通過內因而起作用。
美國國務卿貝克(James Addison Baker III; 1930-)在談到蘇共亡黨，蘇聯解體時曾說：我們不是這場‘革命’的領袖，但也不是旁觀者。
這一定程度上較為生動，深刻地說明了蘇共亡黨，蘇聯解體的內外原因的辯證關係[運動]。(7)
According to materialist dialectics, ''external causes become operative through internal causes'' which means that people must realise dialectics of both the internal cause and external cause on this issue. The kleptocrats got ostensible and insensible support from external forces like US imperialists to create the necessary atmosphere (social chaos) in order to stage their political and economic plot in the name of ''reform'', ''openness'', ''humanism'', ''democracy'' and ''peaceful-coexistence'' etc..
In addition to the discussion on the advantages of this book, there are also disadvantages of this book below:
a. CCP writers here think dialectics of practice and theory (a.k.a. materialist dialectics) is limited in actions of the government not individuals. It is a sheer 'revision' to Mao's On Practice (1937).