The speech was made at the "International Seminar on Modern Definitions - Communism and Human Rights" on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of CPC (M-L) in Toronto, Canada, on 3 March 1995.

Dear comrades,
It is a great honour for me to be with you at this seminar on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the foundation of the CPC/ML. In the name of the CC of the KPD and all German communists I bring you greetings and our best wishes for your further work for revolution and socialism in Canada.
It is a great opportunity for us to present you with some of the results of the internal discussion in our party about socialism, the coming to power of revisionism, the faults and limits in our theory and the consequences for a modern definition of socialism.
As you know Germany was divided into two parts: The western capitalist part, and the eastern former socialist, later revisionist degenerated part. From the refounding of our party in 1968 onwards, our party fought against the capitalist system and against revisionist degeneration as well. Against the revisionist traitors we defended as did all Marxist-Leninist parties in the world the principles of Marxism such as revolution, the dictatorship of the proletariat, etc. In 1976 our party founded an illegal section in revisionist East Germany. This illegal section of KPD fought not only in the theoretical field against revisionism but in practice. The comrades of this section developed the class struggle against the revisionists in power and fought for the overthrowing of the revisionists and reinstalling of workers' power and socialism. Many of them were imprisoned for years by the revisionists. So our party had the unique opportunity of fighting and learning under capitalist conditions and under revisionist conditions. And as well some of our comrades have lived under former socialist conditions. It was a great obligation for our party to have the opportunity to live and to fight against capitalism and revisionism in theory and practice.
Nevertheless, our anti-revisionist struggle was limited. We defended the principles of Marxism against the revisionist distortions of Marxist theory and to a certain extent we analysed the situation in revisionist society. But our criticism of and fight against revisionism were limited because we never fully analysed the material and economical bases of revisionist society and the material and economic sources of the revisionist victory over socialism.
We painfully experienced the deficiency in our theory when the revisionist regime in East Germany broke down and Germany was reunited under capitalist-imperialist conditions. In this situation the vast majority of the German people were influenced by a huge wave of anti-communism and rejected socialist ideas. Even the progressive ones were full of doubts. And we communists saw that we had no sufficient explanations for what had happened and for the future of our country. We saw that our criticism of revisionism was mainly on the surface.
We again painfully felt this lack of theory when socialist Albania degenerated within a short time and broke down. We saw that we were not prepared for this, that we had a lot of idealistic illusions in socialist Albania etc.
In this situation we decided to use our unique possibilities of knowing socialism, revisionism and capitalism to start investigations into what in socialism had happened, how revisionism could win and what consequences we should draw from this. We decided to make these investigations without any restrictions and limitations. I want to present you some of the results of our discussion. Our discussion is not at the end. We will continue our investigations in this field. And we are ready to work together with all Marxist-Leninist parties to develop a scientific work. to evaluate the experiences of socialism and revisionism and to enrich Marxism-Leninism.
First when we speak about socialism we must be aware that socialism is not our final aim. Socialism is a transitional society. Socialism is the first step to communism, a society without classes, state power and political parties including the communist party. But we cannot achieve communism in one step. Due to the limitations of the productive forces and the material development of the society, due to the backward traditions, culture, education, which we cannot eliminate by our wishes only, by our consciousness, we are forced to make compromises between our final aim, communism, and those material limitations and backward elements within the new society -and this compromise is socialism. Socialism is a big step, a big success compared with capitalism. But we must be aware that there will remain backward elements of the old society in such society. This means that socialism is not a society with fixed rules, with fixed never changing relations between the different classes and strata; but on the contrary, socialism is a society of continuous struggle and development; if not, it will stagnate and at least degenerate.
For example: being communists we proclaim the full emancipation of women. In socialism as a first step we will guarantee this emancipation of women by law and we will support it by the socialist state. But nevertheless, this will not lead to a full emancipation of women in reality. Because there exist backward traditions, cultural elements and remnants of the old social relations which are obstacles for a full realisation of emancipation. A long and conscious struggle and hard work to change the social relations will be necessary from the proclamation of emancipation to the full realisation of emancipation.
It is the same with socialist economy. The first steps are compromises. Marx said that state property of the productive means is not the best form of social property, but necessary as the first step to expropriate the expropriators. State property means the first attempt of the workers and society to gain full control over economy and to use the productive means according to the needs of society and its members. But it means as well that society does not have full control. State property itself is the confession that there exist contradictions within society and that a class instrument, the state, is necessary to deal with such contradictions.
This period is necessary. You cannot overcome it by volition, by your wishes. You must prepare the material, cultural, ideological conditions in order to go forward to communism continuously. In socialist economy you have money too, as a mean to exchange products and the law of value is still in function.
How does socialist economy work?
Stalin made the first attempt to analyse it in his book about "Economic Problems of Socialism". His studies were a great advance for Marxist-Leninist science. But nevertheless there were some shortcomings in his analysis.
What did he say?
You have a state sector. In this state sector production is planned according to the needs of society. The exchange of products between state enterprises is regulated by the plan, but in reality it is performed by using money, credits, etc. Stalin said that the money is nothing but a measure for the exchange of the products and that the law of value is not the regulator of the exchange of products but only a means to find out whether a factory works efficiently or not. When the products are sold to the workers they are goods and the law of value is in function. This means that the workers cannot determine the prices and the wages by their pure volition, but according to the law of value only.
You have a second sector in the economy: the farmers co-operative. It is a form of social property, but not state property. It has its limitations because it is not the property of the whole society, but of a social group. In this sector and between this sector and the state sector the law of value is limited but in function; there exists an exchange of goods, not only of products. Stalin says: in this sector money is not only a measure for the exchange of products, it is a real payment for goods.
In trade with foreign countries the law of value is still in function, too. There exists an exchange of goods, not only of products. Foreign trade is regulated by the state plan; but for example prices can only be fixed according to the law of value and according to the prices on the world market. Otherwise foreign trade would be impossible or damage the socialist economy.
We agree with Stalin's general analysis of socialist economy. But in one point we think that he and with him all Marxist-Leninists including ourselves underestimated the law of value and with this the economic and social contradictions in socialism.
In the state sector, Stalin said the law of value and money are only means to control the efficiency of the factories. This is not completely true. If you need money, if the law of value is still in function this is the confession that the plan does not regulate everything. This is the confession that you need old capitalistic means to control production. And this may lead to distortions of socialist economy.
In communist society the law of value will no longer exist. In such society as Marx said the efficiency of economy will be controlled by the law of the "economy of time". This means that society consciously decides whether a product is necessary or not and if it wants to spend or save the time necessary for its production. As you know money is only the expression of the labour necessary to produce a commodity. In capitalism this reality is hidden by money. The money is a god, dominating the real living labour force, the working class. In communism this will no longer be necessary -society will be able consciously and directly to control all expenses of labour force by the measure of time.
When in socialist society we still need money to organise the exchange of products even within the state sector, which formally belongs to the same owner, this means more than an instrument only to control efficiency. It means that money has a limited influence on the exchange of products. and it makes it possible to realise individual interests against society. As well it clearly shows that there exist individual interests within this society. This limited influence of money and of the law of value is a compromise necessary for society. You cannot overcome this period by volition, but only by developing the material basis of the society and the political and social relations within the society.
Let us take an example: Since the beginning of socialism, there existed -limited- corruption, betrayal of the state by the managers of the state enterprises. wasting of resources, etc. And you cannot overcome this situation by volition, because society does not have the full control over the economy; state property is a necessary, but only limited attempt of society to gain the control over the economy. For example when the state plan obliged a factory to deliver 10,000 pairs of shoes to the state trade organisation, some factories delivered these 10,000 shoes formally but with bad quality. Nevertheless, the plan was fulfilled or over fulfilled. And the managers received their money and a bonus. So some of the managers tried to betray the state and to fulfil the plan in a formal way only. They had their own interests and did not work according to the needs of society and according to the interests of the working class. The limitation of state property, statal planned economy gave them space to work for their own interests. And this shows that the law of value had more influence than controlling the efficiency of a factory only. It was a necessary instrument to control the relations between the state factories and the efficiency of the factories, because this was not completely possible by the instrument of the statal plan only.
The Marxist-Leninists and workers always fought against such tendencies. This was good and necessary. In the first period of socialist construction these limitations of socialist state property and statal plan economy did not affect the socialist economy so much. By the very rapid development of the economy and the constant improvements of the socialist state, and by the education of a new generation of managers, engineers, skilled workers, etc. the society could gain more and more control over the economy. But when the socialist economy reached a stage of complexity the space for those individuals, who followed their own interests against the interests of the society and the working class, grew more and more. By following the old methods of leading the economy of the first period of socialist construction, society lost more and more the control over the economy. A new stratum and at least a new class could emerge within the socialist society. We think that this was the material basis for revisionism. Revisionism was not mainly a question of wrong ideas or wrong politics, but a result of the material development of socialist economy and the social relations within the socialist economy. This development found its expression in the politics were not the causes for the degeneration; the real causes for the degeneration you can only find in the material basis of the society.
At this stage of the development of socialism the productive forces and the development of the working class, which is an important part of the productive forces, made it necessary to find new forms of leading the economy and the society. One main point was to find new ways for a greater participation of the working class in all decisions concerning the economy, the state, etc. The old forms were no longer sufficient. For example, it was not enough to organise a plan discussion with the workers on factory level only and to discuss with them, how much they could produce, how to save resources, etc. This was necessary, but not enough. The new stage of economic development made it necessary to involve the whole working class more and more in the whole plan discussion on the level of the whole society. For example, to discuss the main directions of the economic development ("shall we develop atomic electric power or other power resources?", "shall we develop train, bus or car and in what relations?", "in what direction shall we develop the social relations within the factories?", "how shall we develop our wage system?", etc.) to discuss the needs of the society, etc. As well it was now necessary to give the working class more and more rights to control the management of the factories. These measures or more might limit the space of those individuals. who act against the interests of the working class and who try to gain more and more control over the economic and political process for themselves only. As well the working class needs more and more political rights to control and influence the socialist state.
But obviously the Marxist-Leninists did not see these necessities. The fought against all the symptoms of degeneration, but mainly on a moral and political level and did not clearly see the material sources. You cannot fight against the backward elements and degeneration by volition. Let us take Malenkov's report to the 19th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. He openly and clearly attacked all the symptoms of degeneration and he made a call to all revolutionary forces to fight against these symptoms. But his explanations and his call were on a moral level. He accused the "anti-socialist elements", the "enemies of the party", etc. This was good, but not enough. As a communist you have to look for the social relations, which create such elements of degeneration and you have to change the social relations. For this you need a consciousness and a communist morality, but you need a clear analysis of the social relations and their development within the socialist society, too. Without this, morality and "consciousness" will lead you to a dead end.
So the new class could establish itself and gain power and control over the state and the economy. And this class in a demagogic way "reformed" socialism and gave more power to the managers of the factories. This was a solution to the problems of the society, but it was a wrong solution, a solution in the wrong direction. By this process the working class lost its power and a new transitional society was created: a pseudo socialist society developing in the direction of full capitalism. All the "reforms" of the revisionists could never solve the problems of that society. That society was a mixture of old forms of planned economy and new forms of more individual rights for the managers. This led to stagnation, bureaucracy, corruption, etc. These societies were not capable of solving their problems because they could not give the working class the leading role, which was necessary for the progressive development of the society. But this was not in the interests of the in fact leading class, the revisionist managers and bureaucrats. This new leading class was not and will not at all be able to be progressive -at no point of development. Its own class interest made this impossible. so revisionist societies never were and will be able to play a progressive role. The economic, material laws do not allow this. And at least all these societies must break down and develop into a capitalist society.
For us this is very important, because today some old revisionists try to give themselves a progressive outlook. And it is more important for us to have a clear analysis of the laws of socialist society in order to show the working class and all progressive forces a realistic way for the construction of a new, socialist society so that they and we ourselves have no illusions in the difficult process of transforming socialism to communism. Only when we have a realistic analysis of socialism and of the experiences of the last decades, will we be respected by the workers and the progressive forces and will they be ready again to fight for a new perspective.
I hope that my remarks on the question of socialism and revisionism will be a contribution to the development of modern definitions in this field.
Thank You.