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7 Probs. Communism 15 (1958)
The Spectre of Revisionism

handle is hein.journals/probscmu7 and id is 195 raw text is: viewed Yugoslav communism as the bate noire which brought instability and disruption to Eastern Europe, and they have not forgiven the Yugoslavs their share of responsibility in sparking the Hungarian uprising. It seems fairly obvious that they had had more than enough of Tito's tactics of sniping and veiled allusions, and they may well have urged an all-out frontal battle against Belgrade as the pole of attraction for all revisionism. The recent reaffirmation of the 1948 Cominform reso- lution against Yugoslavia has added an ominous push to the satellites' retreat toward Stalinist ideological posi- tions. The resort to increasingly oppressive political and economic measures raises the equally ominous possibility of their full return to Stalinist political methods. For the moment, implications of the new anti-Titoist crusade are a matter of speculation: but it is reasonable to sup- pose that, barring future upheavals, they can give only new impulse to the restalinization of Eastern Europe. The Spectre of Revisionism by Donald S Zagoria EVER SINCE THE summit meeting of Communist Party national leaders at Moscow last November, the Communist world has been experiencing an intense official struggle against revisionism. Khrushchev him- self, addressing the Supreme Soviet in honor of the fortieth anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, went so far as to equate revisionism with treason '-an equa- tion which, in retrospect, may be said to have fore- shadowed the recent execution of Imre Nagy. Khrush- chev's indictment was promptly followed by the joint ideological declaration, subscribed to by twelve of the thirteen governing Communist parties represented at the summit meeting, which singled out revisionism as the main danger to the international Communist movement. These developments were the prelude to a vehement and concerted propaganda struggle which has since been waged in the Communist camp against all forms of revisionist thought. The campaign has brought forth striking admissions both of the spread of revisionist ideas and of the extreme gravity with which the Soviet leadership views this phenomenon. Pravda, for exam- ple, on January 17, 1958, pointed to a growing tend- ency among unstable elements in the Communist 'Khrushchev's address of November 6, published in Pravda, November 7, 1957. Mr. Zagoria is a young American student of Soviet and East European affairs. This is his first published article. movement to reject the basic tenets of Marxism. The review Moskva (No. 1, 1958) underscored Pravda's warning with this alarmist declaration: Revisionism and national communism must be beaten and destroyed ideologically . . . either we bury revisionism, or revisionism buries us. There is no third course. Thus, after a brief interlude of relative ideological d6tente in the wake of the historic Twentieth Congress, the Soviet ideological pendulum has been swinging back toward strict doctrinal conformity and monolithic dis- cipline, and revisionism has been thrust to the top of the list of Communist cardinal sins. What, then, is revisionism in the present context of the international Communist movement; and what are the most impor- tant elements in revisionist thinking which have led Moscow to see in it almost as mortal an enemy as cap- italism itself? Profile of Revisionism Although denial of Marxism on the main issues, has been cited in official Communist sources as the chief distinguishing characteristic of revisionist thought,2 2-E.g., see article entitled, Error, Deviation, Revisionism, Dogmatism, in the theoretical organ of the Hungarian CP, Tarsadalmi Szemle, January 1958.

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