THE VOICE OF ISLAM
Vol. 8, No. 8,
May 1957
By Professor Khurshid Ahmad
The student of world affairs is faced with a queer situation: he finds that the life and prestige of the members and leaders of the revolutionary party, the forerunner of Communist revolution, are most unsafe in the regime they themselves establish. They are heroes only as long as the Communist party is not saddled in power; after the victory of the party most of them turn traitors, bourgeois renegades, corrupt degenerates and what not? The record of the past 40 years provides us with some very strange phenomena, which I propose to present in this article-
Russia was the venue of first Communist Revolution. It is a vast territory, stretching over Asia and Europe, After the abortive attempts of 1905, V.I, Lenin, the established leader of the Social Democratic Party of Russia, organised semi-military bands, known as Soviets. He reorganised the Communist Party and with painstaking planning engineered the revolt of 1917. He was successful. After several months of strenuous struggle the dictatorship of the proletariat was proclaimed over greater part of the Soviet Union. Lenin died in 1924 and Stalin, after a brief political tension, succeeded him. Stalin, instead of pursuing the ideals of World Revolution -so assiduously coveted by Leon Trotsky and others – adopted the policy of “Socialism in one country”. In the Second World War, Soviet Russia emerged as one of the greatest powers of the world and the spread of Communism in the world gained momentum. East Europe was conquered by the Russian Armies. In China, Mao Tse Tung’s revolt was crowned with success. These post-war developments extended the Red sway to more than . fourth of mankind and made the Communist parties of the world jubilant harbingers of world revolution.
What happened to Communist Leaders ?
In the wake of this political success of Communism followed a reign of conspiracies and counter conspiracies and an orgy of terror and callous extravagance. It is astonishing to see that leaders of the revolution, overnight became incarnations of betrayal. The following record speaks for itself:
All members of Lenin’s first post-revolution Politbureau, with the exception of Stalin who succeeded him to power, were executed as ‘traitors’ or ‘spies of Capitalism.’ This group consisted of those luminaries who brought about the revolution in Soviet Russia. Lenin was really fortunate to have died a natural death; otherwise who knows, he too might have been discovered to be a ‘traitor under the mask’. After all. Lenin’s wife was put under house arrest because of some very well-founded’ suspicions. All members of the Party Politbureau as constituted after the death of V.I. Lenin, with the exception of Stalin, met the same fate.
9 out of 11 Cabinet Ministers of the Soviet Government of 1936 (the year the new Constitution was adopted) were shot dead as spies.
5 out of 7 Presidents of the Central Executive Committee (1936) which was the Soviet equivalent of Parliament—were executed.
15 out of 27 top-leaders of Russia who- drafted the 1936 Constitution were sent to the gallows.
After the death of Joseph Stalin (March 1953} the leadership fell upon a triumvirate: Malenkov, Beria and Molotov. Beria, has been shot dead as an agent of the capitalists and imperialists. Malenkov has been dethroned and the rumours about the future of Molotov hardly inspire any hope.
The fate of the rank-and-file.
This happened to the top-leaders. The fate of those who occupied important organisational and operational posts, both civilian and military, has not been different. An idea can be had from the following facts:
43 out of 53 Secretaries of the Central Organisation of the Party were shot dead on the charge of treason.
Nearly all the Secretaries of the Party’s Provincial Organisations of Soviet Union were led to the gallows.
70 out of 80 members of the Soviet War Council were later-on ‘discovered.’ to be agents of the enemy.
3 out of 5 Marshals of Soviet Army were executed as saboteurs.
Nearly 60 percent of Soviet Generals and some 30,000 officers were ‘unmasked’ as spies and traitors.
More than 80 percent of the Secretaries of the Government Trade Union organisations were shot dead or sent to the ‘Concentration Camps for their anti-state activities.
This eye-opening record mirrors the fate of the’ Red Leaders. But Communist leaders are not alone in reaping the prizes of the revolution. The story told by the fate of the Communist party-members is not the least different. Communism had a similar prize in store for them. The experiences of the great socialist sixth of the world are very enlightening in this regard too.
Between 1,500,000 and 2,000,000 party members were expelled throughout the several purges between the two wars. The first purges took place in 1921, when 175,000 out of 585,000 members were expelled. During the second big purge of 1928, some 260,000 members were expelled out of a total membership of 1,300,000. During the great purges of 1934-39 nearly 200,000 party members were (on an average) annually expelled. In 1939 the party had 2,500,000 members and about 2,000,000 ex-members! Thus the ex-Communist Party of the Soviet Russia was as strong as the Communist Party!
Some pertinent question
This brief and cursory survey presents the affairs of the party and fate of its leaders. The conditions in the Eastern European countries also tell the same sordid tale. It seems as if they are the natural consequences of the Red rule. Now some pertinent questions arise. These questions deserve proper thought from all the educated people who are interested in the role of the present-day world ideologies towards reconstruction of mankind.
If no injustice has been done to the leaders and the members of the Party and they have only been punished for their subversive activities, then the communist Parties and communist governments have, instead of training their members in Communism, succeeded in the mission of producing heretics and rebels. The Party has become a gigantic traitor-manufacturing institution.
This hardly inspires hope about the role of Communist Parties-as the vehicles of revolution in the establishment of Communism.
If it is not so, then the conditions in the Party and other spheres of state activity are such that those who join the party with lofty ambitions and those who co-operate with the Government with over-flowing enthusiasm, when they come in the know of these conditions and see them with the eyes under their own brows, they become disillusioned. Their hopes are frustrated and their ambitions “become shipwreck. They lose all their interest and dissociate themselves from the party-activities and are expelled. This also suggests an extremely disturbing state of affairs.
If both these propositions are not correct, then it automatically follows that a reign of terror is unleashed over those who become, in any degree, a danger to the vested interests, and powers that be. Those who deviate even a jot from the party line, or the dictates of the Kremlin despots become the butt of these callous extravagancies. This betrays the internal weakness of the system which holds the sway over one fourth of the mankind. This is a flagrant negation of freedom and democracy and is another, and a most despicable form of barbarism.
