Vol. XIII (2007), no 20 - The International Newsletter of Communist ...

The International Newletter of Communist Studies Online XIII (2007), no 20 127
Renkama, Jukka: Ideology and Challenge of Political Liberalisation in the
USSR. 1957-1961. Otto Kuusinen's "Reform Platform", the State Concept
and the Path to the 3rd CPSU Programme, Helsinki, SKS, 2006. 396 p.
(Reviewed by Tauno Saarela, Helsinki).
Otto Ville Kuusinen’s reputation as a significant international and Soviet politician was based
on his activities as secretary of the Communist International in 1921-39 and as member of the
leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) from the end of the 1950s to
the beginning of the 1960s.
In his recent dissertation, Jukka Renkama has studied the later phase, during which
Kuusinen tried to liberalise the ideological stands of the CPSU. His contributions to that
liberalisation consisted of some proposals concerning the notion of the "dictatorship of the
proletariat" in 1957 and also the programme of the CPSU in 1961. During that time he was
involved in editing the book The Fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism. The effort of
liberalisation concerned mainly the question of how the state could be characterised in the
Soviet Union in the late 1950s. Kuusinen still shared the opinion that the communists, after
the take-over of the power, had to establish a dictatorship of the proletariat, but he did not
want to say that there existed a dictatorship of the proletariat in the Soviet Union. This
choice was guided by the wish to express a vast support of socialism in the Soviet Union but
also by the fear of recurrence of the violent past.
Renkama’s book is an excellent study in the history of ideas. It consists mainly of the
comparison of various ideas and concepts. Renkama performs that comparison very well, but
it might have been possible to pay more attention to the situation in which the texts were
written. To speak about the character of the state was not the same issue for those who
reached out for power as for those who already held the power, that is, it was not the same
issue for Marx and Engels as it was for Kuusinen in the 1950s. Considering this would have
given some possibilities to the author to shorten and combine the analysis of various concepts
and ideas.
Renkama relates Kuusinen’s thinking to other contemporary proposals by studying the
programmatic texts written in Hungary, Yugoslavia and China. Thus he aptly reveals the
internationalism of the communist movement. That internationalism would also have given
reasons to ponder on the possible challenge the Western communist parties posed the CPSU
after the Hungarian events in 1956, in particular.
Renkama does not consider Kuusinen and the other communists as almighty as that he would
not dare to consider the inherent contradictions in their thinking. Kuusinen, for instance,
opted for the development of a self-government but on the other hand considered selfevident
that the communist party continues to have a leading position. The analysis of
contradictions deriving from that is carried out in an excellent way.
Renkama brings up the questions concerning the relationship between general ideological
statements and the practical political and economic issues. For instance, the idea that
capitalist countries were to attack socialist countries could be a reason to argue for strong