EUROCOMMUNISM AND THE STATE 5 rendered by the CI, the fraternal parties and the Soviet Union? And should this be a source of embarrassment or a matter of pride? The Bolsheviks and Spain In his book^ Carrillo quotes a letter signed by Stalin, Molotov and Voroshilov to Gaballero, the Spanish Prime Minister heading the Popular Front. That letter, dated December 21, 1936, not only offers to put at the disposal of the Republican Government military advisers, but gives very sound revolutionary advice. Carrillo throughout bis book argues as if the other CPs and the CI never bothered to consider that the conditions in different countries were different and required different approaches and tasks. Stalin's letter to Caballero exposes the charge: ^The Spanish Revolution is opening up roads which are different in many respects from the road travelled by Russia. This is determined by the difference in conditions in the social, historical ahd geographical spheres, the demands of the international situation, which are not the same as those which confronted the Russian Revolution. It is very possible that the parliamentary road may turn out to be a more effective procedure for revolutionary development in Spain than it was in Russia."8 Stalin gives further friendly advice: Promulgate decrees of an agrarian and fiscal nature which would satisfy the peasants; arm the peasants. ^It would also be a good thing to attract the peasants to the Army and to form in the rear of the fascist armies groups of guerillas made of peasants."4 He then asks the Government to win over the petty and middle bourgeoisie and bring the representatives of the Republican parties closer to the Government. Undoubtedly, very sound and concrete advice—to combine the anti-feudal agrarian and democratic revolution with the anti-fascist struggle. A Parliament elected on the basis of a victorious revolutionary programme, based on the armed might of the peasantry, would be ^a more effective procedure for revolutionary developments in Spain than it was in Russia." Carrillo'^ Interpretation But what has Garrillo to say about this advice? He considers that possibly it was just a tactical move by the Soviet Party. He comments: "Although there are some people who have seen these ideas as a tactical move by the Soviet Party designed for a particular set of circumstances —and in the light of things which happened subsequently or which we came to know abdnt later, it is possible that they arc not without justification—the fact is that many of us took altogether seriously the possibility of that road, which was corroborated more or 'less conclusively by the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and which corresponds to our idea of the advance to socialism with democracy."5