["Concerning the attempted coup, the CP doesn't know…]

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"Concerning the attempted coup, the CP doesn't know whether to shift or go blind, or which faction in the Soviet Reflects the views of the Communist Party, United States of America (CPUSA).

Ever since its subordination to Stalinism in the late 1920s, the CPUSA has been a faithful apologist for the twists and turns of the Soviet bureaucracy in the USSR and internationally.

We don't have space to list all the crimes against socialism and the working people committed by the Soviet Stalinists right up to the present, every one of which was defended by the CPUSA.

Concerning the attempted coup, the CP doesn't know whether to shift or go blind, or which faction in the Soviet bureaucracy to back. Officially, in the Aug. 31 issue of the People's Weekly World, they distance themselves from the coup, claiming it was "unconstitutional." But in an editorial, they blast Gorbachev and his "pro-capitalist policies."

It is reported by Ann Wagoner in The Guardian of Sept. 11 that CPUSA chair Gus Hall sent a cassette tape to party clubs during the coup attempt. The tape said, "We should not join in the bringback Gorbachev campaign... I'm not for any kind of condemnation [of the coup]." He added that a speech made by Gorbachev just before the coup was "a basis for removing a leader of the party, because it's basically an anti-party position." After the coup failed, however, he modified this in a statement to the New have publicly expressed their attraction to the 'Pinochet model' (referring to the harsh economic restructuring carried out by coup-installed dictator General Augusto Pinochet in Chile) and the 'South Korean miracle.' (There are many on the other side of the Moscow barricade that hold such views as well.) Ownership is not a hangup with them....

Bloice ends up hoping that a new party that Gorbachev has called for will save the day, a "party of left-wing forces built on the platform of freedom and democracy" as the "outgoing" Central Committee defined it before it dissolved.

The discreditment and disintegration of Stalinism in the USSR sounds the death knell for the CPUSA. Trained for decades in class collaborationism and toadyism to Moscow, most of its members are rapidly moving even further to the right. Perhaps a remnant of befuddled fools like Gus Hall will remain, gently rocking on their porches and nostalgically recalling the good old days of Stalin and Beria. Good riddance. is thrilling to see people take the first steps toward democracy.

"However, I also have a queasy feeling about this. It's like giving oxygen to a sick patient. The shock may kill the patient."

Later in his article, Kaku develops this contempt for the masses: "Ideologically, however, Gorbachev unwittingly created a vast vacuum. People, especially poor ones, desperately need things to believe bureaucracy to back."

in... I believe that most peasants and farmers in the Soviet Union believed in their system and made heroic sacrifices because they believed that it was right to help humanity and defend their country....

"But then Gorbachev, in effect, said it was all a waste, that they were all dupes, that Communism was a fraud, that they sacrificed for nothing. How would you feel if you had willingly suffered for 50 years because of a cause, only to be told it was all a bad joke, a complete fraud? That your brothers and sisters and parents died for nothing? You would go berserk, of course. And this is what is happening all over the Soviet Union...."

One can only conclude that it is Mr. Kaku who is going berserk, having just woken up to the crimes of Stalinism. If only Gorbachev, he says, had not told the "poor people" that everything was not hunky-dory, everything would be OK. Then the "reforms that should have taken place 25 years ago" maybe could have been implemented from the top, by people who you can bet are not "poor" his appeal for resistance were correct to do so, whether or not they were supporters of Yeltsin himself. But is Yeltsin the 'democratic' leader our media advertised as the coup collapsed? Yeltsin began issuing orders, for example, banning the Communist party 'in the territory of the Russian republic' and numerous newspapers.

"Such decrees are highly dangerous— not because the CP's politics should be defended, but because it appears that Yeltsin is the kind of leader who likes to run things without any parties of opposition organizations at all."

Solidarity sees "not one, but two processes underway in the USSR, both dramatically accelerated by the attempted Stalinist coup and its failure.

One is the process of democracy, initiated 'from above' by Gorbachev and now open to the masses to expand from below.

The other is the attempt to 'marketize' the economy from above and from outside. This would inevitably create a capitalism with enormous inequities, prosperity alongside incredible misery and huge indebtedness to western banks. In other words, it would be the kind of capitalism that exists in Brazil, not western Europe.

"We see these two processes as being on a collision course—not immediately, but perhaps in the not too distant future...

"What lies ahead are years of complex struggles. As socialists our loyalties are clear: with the people and the democratic movement in the streets against the bureaucracy, and also with the workers as they begin to organize their defense against the costs that a new capitalist order will impose [emphasis in original]..."

We can agree with this stand, in the abstract. But there are some serious weaknesses in Solidarity's position.

One concerns the role of Gorbachev and the sector of the bureaucracy he rep-