Soviet Revolutionary Communists (Bolsheviks) was an early anti-revisionist movement claimed to be an underground political outfit in the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

which criticized the leadership of

Nikita Khrushchev Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and chairman of the country's Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev s ...

as revisionist. It upheld the legacy of

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...

and accused the post-Stalin Soviet leadership of deviating from the socialist path. It represented the line taken by the

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

and People's Republic of Albania after the

Sino-Soviet Split The Sino-Soviet split was the breaking of political relations between the China, People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union caused by Doctrine, doctrinal divergences that arose from their different interpretations and practical applications ...

. Little is known about the group.Jacobsson, Benny. ''Sovjetunionen idag - Kritik av KPML(r):s prosovjetiska politik''. Stockholm: Kommunistiska Arbetarförlaget, 1984. p. 106.

Programme document

A programmatic document of the group was released in connection with the 1966 congress of the

Party of Labour of Albania The Party of Labour of Albania ( sq, Partia e Punës e Shqipërisë, PPSh), sometimes referred to as the Albanian Workers' Party (AWP), was the ruling and sole legal party of Albania during the communist period (1945–1991). It was founded o ...

. It was moreover claimed that the document had been distributed clandestinely amongst communists in the Soviet Union.Jacobsson, Benny. ''Sovjetunionen idag - Kritik av KPML(r):s prosovjetiska politik''. Stockholm: Kommunistiska Arbetarförlaget, 1984. p. 114. The document harshly criticized the wealthy lifestyles of the upper sections of the Soviet bureaucracy, argued that such lifestyles were in contradiction to socialism. The first known English-language edition of the document was released in Albania at this point. In the beginning of 1967 a French language translation was published through French and Belgian leftwing publications. In the same year a Swedish language edition was published by KFML, with a preface by Nils Holmberg.

Possible Albanian hoax

Since the only information about the group comes from contemporary official Albanian sources, there has been speculation about whether the group actually existed or was simply a fictional construct of the Albanian Party. In any case, the existence of 'Revolutionary Communists' within the Soviet Union was used in the Albanian rhetoric to claim legitimacy for their position within the international communist movement, i.e. that they represented the original Bolshevik line of

Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...

and Stalin.

Possible Involvement of Molotov

At the time the programme document began circulating in Western Europe, a general assumption amongst its Western distributors was that the group had been formed around the former Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs, V.M. Molotov. This assumption was based on a study of the language used in the text and direct references to Molotov and his associates in inner party struggles. Molotov had been expelled from the CPSU after the takeover by Khrushchev.Note de l’éditeur, Proclamation-Programme des Communistes (Bolcheviques) Révolutionnaries Soviétiques
/ref>

References

External links

English version of the Programme in PDF
{dead link, date=October 2010, bot=AnomieBOT History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Soviet opposition groups Anti-revisionist organizations

Programme document

Possible Albanian hoax

Possible Involvement of Molotov

See also

References

External links