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But the obverse also applies : accept the pattern, and there is
no need to defend or justify what was peculiarly barbarous, mur–
derous and pathological about one man's personal rule. The essen–
tials can be safeguarded. This is a recurring experience in revolu–
tions: once a breakthrough to a new political and organizational
level has taken place, the protagonist can be ditched. It is already
clear that, if Moscow has its way, we are going to get Stalinism
without Stalin. Of course Moscow may fail to have its way, even
in
the satellites, and for all one knows Mao Tse-tung may become the
symbol of a somewhat less sanguinary method of depriving the
peasant of his property.
As
against these possibilities one may note
the evident reluctance with which so many Communists in Asian
and Islamic countries approach the subject of de-Stalinization. It is
not inconceivable that, even on the intellectual and moral-political
level, Stalin will remain a hero to the average Communist in, say,
Persia; just as it is probable that his reputation will suffer most
among Communists imbued with the Latin, and especially the
French, revolutionary tradition. Here there may be some belated
conversions to the view that Trotsky was right about the man after
all. But these shadings hardly affect the essential unity of the Com–
munist movement as a world-wide attempt to impose by force a
pattern of society modeled upon the U.S.S.R. Only if the Commu–
nists begin to realize that the attempt is hopeless and anachronistic,
will it be possible to say that the Stalinist inheritance has really been
repudiated.
Traces of such an incipient revisionism have been detected in
some recent utterances of the Italian Communist leadership, and it
is at least conceivable that this mood may eventually spread to
France.
If
it does, the two most important Communist parties in
Europe will in effect have adopted the position already occupied for
some years by the Yugoslavs; for it is the essence of the theoretical
standpoint publicly and privately maintained by Tito, Kardelj and
their closest supporters that, since the entire world is gradually mov–
ing in a socialist direction, the Soviet doctrine on the existence of
"two camps" is outmoded and politically dangerous. This attitude
seems to have survived a succession of political maneuvers; it is evi–
dently grounded in real conviction, and if it ever became the un–
spoken doctrine of West European Communism, it would be very
