Q&A – Britain’s Road to Socialism

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Ranjeet Brar presented his new book, published by the CPGB-ML, on Saturday 24th September 2022, in Saklatvala Hall in Southall, West London.

His book can be found here: https://shop.thecommunists.org/product/britains-road-to-socialism/

This is the Q&A that followed with contributions also by Joti Brar, deputy leader of the Workers Party.

The points raised and discussed include id politics, the Soviet Union, Josef Stalin, the anti-fascist Struggle, the war in Ukraine, the economics of socialism, and our attitude towards comrades of the CPB, and how we can build a united communist movement, and of course the substantive economic program of socialism in Britain.

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13 thoughts on “Q&A – Britain’s Road to Socialism”

  3. The USSR went from feudalism to outer space in 30 years and had the largest GDP growth in the history of the world. And unlike the United States, all without having to loot and destroy the global south.

    There are plenty of criticisms that one can have in regards to socialism but only a propagandist or an ignoramus would say “socialism never works”.

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  5. With all due respect, while recognizing enormous achievements of the Soviet Union in building the first ever socialist society under Joseph Stalin, we also have to acknowledge that Stalin, although a true communist, wasn't an infallible angel, and he did make some serious mistakes some of which proved fatal to the fates of the USSR.

    Those mistakes are not necessarily solely due to Stalin himself. He and the Soviet leadership and people were under enormous threat of imperialist powers on all sides, and had to take drastic measures to get prepared for the looming war by undertaking massive and unprecedented industrialization in a span of only a few years. But still we need to analyze those mistakes so that we don't repeat them in the future:

    1. Stalin was convinced that socialism in the USSR was irreversible, which ultimately proved to be wrong, but lulled the Soviet people into a sort of class slumber and complacency.

    2. Stalin moved the CPSU from a party of scientific Marxist revolutionaries to a very broad party where every honest hard-working worker was welcome. This watered down the party into a rather amorphous mass of people, who were good at heart, but often ignorant of the Marxist theory and unable to make right decisions and anticipate threats before it was too late.

    3. Stalin promoted many future leaders like Khrustchev, Brezhnev, etc., who lacked deep understanding of Marxist-Leninist theory and were unable to cope with the challenges in front of them.

    4. Under Stalin, too many ardent, knowledgeable, true Bolsheviks and communists were annihilated. Even though some of them made mistakes and at various times were mensheviks or even joined the left opposition, hardly any of them were traitors or foreign spies, they didn't deserve to be persecuted and killed like that.

    5. Under Stalin the polemics and discussions in the party, so characteristic of its early years, gradually disappeared, with many of the people opposing some of the party politics silenced and persecuted. This led to the decline of the party and stalemate in the development of Marxist theory.

    Once again, comrades, let me stress that I recognize all the achievements of Stalin and his leadership, but we cannot close our eyes to some of their big and fateful mistakes and should learn from them.

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  12. I think you are not understanding the historical context of this great shift, as you call it, in the 50s. Nuclear weapons had entered the scene and the Soviet Union desperately needed a reprieve in order to rebuild after the ravages of World War II.

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