EASTERN EUROPE SUPPLEMENT
East European
The following are extracts from a document discussed and unanimously adopted at a January 1990 conference of Socialist Outlook supporters. It was drafted before the fall of Ceausescu's Romanian regime. 1990 will be the year of elections in, at least, Hungary, the GDR, Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union and probably Bulgaria as well. In each of these countries the elections will in effect be a plebiscite on the continued rule of the Stalinist parties. In each of them, the Stalinists will certainly suffer crushing defeats. It is the end of an era.
The eruption of the East European masses in an attempt to overthrow
East Germany's New Forum movement on the march - heralding the demise of Stalinist rule
Stalinism
bureaucratic rule, together with the events in the Soviet Union, represent the most important development in world politics since the victory of the Chinese revolution in 1949. At stake is the continued existence of Stalinism as a significant force in world politics.
The whole world order which arose out of the defeat of Nazi imperialism, finalised at Yalta and Potsdam, is now in question. The division of the European working class imposed by the 'great powers' is rapidly being swept away. The bipolar" character of world politics, dominated by two armed camps, has been shaken to its foundations.
As we approach the 21st century a fundamental turning point has been reached: there is an historic opportunity for the victory of the political revolution, but also great dangers that the working class could be robbed of
NEUES FORUM
the social gains inherent in the bureaucratised workers' states.
The revolution underway has shatteringly confirmed the Trotskyist critique of actually existing socialism'. Trotsky's watchword of defiance towards what was then an ascendent and victorious Stalinism -that 'the laws of history are stronger than the bureaucratic apparatus* - has tumed from a slogan to dramatic reality. To tum this crisis into working class victories, Trotsky's abiding concem - the 'crisis of working class leadership' must be resolved.
The roots of the crisis
The mass upsurge against bureaucratic rule now affects every cast European country. What has clearly sparked this crisis is the growing realisation that the Gorbachev regime lacks either the will or the capacity to intervene militarily in Baster Europe to save Stalinist rule
"the removal of the protective cover of the Red Army rapidly revealed the fundamental weakness and instability of bureaucratic rule. As a parasitic layer, and not a social class, the bureaucracy lacks the deep social roots and mechanisms of support enjoyed by the imperialist bourgeoisies" *bureaucratic rule, unlike capitalism in boom periods, contains no fundamental mechanism towards innovation and the permanent revolutionising of productive technique"
- as happened in Germany in 1953, Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. December's meeting of the Warsaw Pact in Moscow was symbolic in this respect: Gorbachev in effect told the East Europeans to go their own way: the Soviet Union can no longer afford its huge subsidies to the other Comecon countries.
The removal of the protective cover of the Red Army rapidly revealed the fundamental weakness and instability of bureaucratic rule. As a parasitic layer, and not a social class, the bureaucracy lacks the deep social roots and mechanisms of sup port enjoyed by the imperialist bourgeoisies. Its rule has relied entirely on its monopoly of politics, imposed by force.
Compelled to face their own working masses alone, the party apparatuses and secret police forces have crumbled. While the last military action to crush a workers' revolt - the December 1981 coup by General Jaruzelski in Poland - was carried out by domestic forces, it was backed by the perceived threat of direct Russian intervention under the doctrine is at an end.
Underlying the revolt is the nearexasperation of hundreds of millions of East European citizens at the failure of the bureaucratic system to deliver either material prosperity, or political and Despite repeated subventions from the Soviet Union, and vast borrowing (especially by Hungary and Poland), the East European economies failed to develop beyond basic industrialisation and the provision of a social wel
With the exception of East Germany and Czechoslovakia, even these gains have been put in question. Every East European citizen understands thoroughly the waste, inefsclerosis of centralised bureaucratic command economy. These failings have been especially highlighted in the past 15 years, as the gap between these countries and the advanced capitalist countries has increased, both in terms of productive technique and the standard of living of the employed sections of the working class.
Bureaucratic rule, unlike capitalism in boom periods, contains no fundamental mechanism towards innovation and the permanent revolutionising of productive technique: indeed structurally inbuilt in these economies are powerful tenden-
SUPPLEMENT cies towards the reproduction endlessly of the status quo. That is why the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe have fallen behind in the information technology revolution.
However deep the attachment of the proletariat to the social gains of a non-capitalist system, the knowledge that workers in the West are on average more prosperous and in many respects more free, has exerted a permanent pressure.
While the lives of the East Buropean masses are incomparably better than those of the masses in the "third world", they are still - by the yardstick of the overall development of human productive technique and culture - drab, stultefying and impoverished. Now hundreds of millions of people have decided that to gain a better life they will not go on in the old way, and that their leaders are incapable of going on in the old way: these are the classic conditions for the emergence of pre-revolutionary situations.
The pivotal events of the crisis have occurred in Bast Germany. Until the autumn of 1989 it seemed that Eastem Europe was undergoing two separate courses of development -that of Poland and Hungary towards radical marketisation and political and that of Czechoslovakia, East Germany (and in a different way Romania) remaining true to the Stalinist model. But the mass movement of the East German workers smashed this dichotomy and led directly to the events in Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria, leaving the Causescu dynasty in Romania isolated and under seige.
Confusion in the imperialist camp
The response of the imperialist leaders to the events in castern Europe has been one of confusion: only the Christian Democrats in West Germany have responded equanimity, seeing the events as strengthening their hand against their imperialist rivals. Both French and British imperialism have responded with alarm.
Overall, the existing world order depends, for imperialism, on the existence of NATO and the bloc system; the division of Europe; the presence of US troops in Europe to ensure their "leadership" of the Western world; the existence of nuclear powers with special rights and a special status intemationally. While the crisis of Stalinism creates the possibility of historie defeats for the deformed workers" states, it also creates an epoch of instability which puts in question the whole world order which has ensured the hegemony of the bourgeoisie.
For Thatcher and British capitalism the stakes are clear. Britain's international position depends fundamentally on its status as the possessor of nuclear weapons. This depends in return of the largesse of the USA: Britain's nuclear weapons are in fact provided by the United States - in tum a function of the 'special relationship" by which Britain acts as the USA's junior and faithful ally within the NATO alliance - and in the EC. Already Thatcher has suffered a decisive defeat of the modemisation of battlefield nuclear weapons. Once the bloc system and the nuclear competition are in question, then Britain's usefulness as 'sidekick' to the US is removed.
Evidently for both Britain and France the idea of a united capitalist Germany is anathema. It means the domination of Europe, even more than today, by potentially the most powerful capitalist state in the world. British industry in particular would be totally marginalised. Mitterand's dream of Franco-German joint hegemony of the EC would be in tatters.
France's response to the crisis has been to demand the tighter integration of the European Community to act as a joint pole of attraction for capitalist restoration in the cast, as opposed to leaving this role to West Germany alone. But this is a panic strategy: at the Strasbourg summit West Germany was happy to go along with moves towards faster economic and political integration, because it knows that, whatever the official format, restoration of capitalism in caster Europe, or even just a big increase in trade, will unfold to the advantage of the country with the largest economy, the best geographical conditions and the biggest established links - on all three criteria West Germany itself.
The response of the United States has been cautious. George Bush was careful to insist after the Malta summit that the cold war was by no means over. Otherwise, he said, there would be no justification for US troops in Europe. A world without the bloc system and the fundamental East-West divide would create immense problems for the US, which relies for its leadership of the West on its military and political leadership (and the second depends on the first). Once inter-imperialist competition is
Page 12 SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 20, Dec-Jan 1989-90
more and more reduced just to economic competition, then the USA is in a much weaker position vis-a-vis West Germany and Japan.
While Bush has personally supported moves towards faster European integration, this is not necessarily the position of US capital as a whole. In any case, caught between penetration of castern markets by the EC as a whole or simply that of West Germany, the US is faced with two evils between which it is difficult to decide,
In general, again with the partial exception of the West German leaders, the main response of the imperialist leaders has been to stress order" and "stability". While the discomfiture of the Stalinist leaders may be pleasing to them, the mobilisation of the masses contains a potential which is deeply disturbing. Thus the visit of US Secretary of State Baker to Hans Modrow, giving support for "orderly" change, is an obvious sign of US concems. This is also the source of Thatcher's insistence that the Warsaw Pact must remain, and the process must not go "too fast".
The historic stakes
In the medium lerm there are evidently three possible outcomes of the present upsurge, and they might not be the same for each country. Either capitalism will be restored; or the political revolution will win; or bureaucratic rule will be consolidated. But in an overall historic sense the choice is between the restoration of capitalism and workers power.
In part the outcome depends on the close interaction between the events in East Europe and those in the Soviet Union. If the crisis of perestroika were to result in the fall of Gorbachev and the restoration of a hardline Stalinist leadership. this could well spur a counter-offensive by the bureaucracy in the East European countries. But this seems an unlikely development, and any sharp attempt to restore the previous system of bureaucratic domination, especially one based on force, would result in a gigantic explosion, with incalculable consequences.
More likely, the events in Eastern Europe which have now overtaken those in the USSR itself, can easily flow back into the Soviet Union, fuelling demands for an end to the Communist monopoly of power. Such a development would really place Gorbachev's position in jeopar-
SUPPLEMENT Czechoslovakle: the Stalinists tried and falled to invoke workers against students dy: the CPSU's monopoly is central for the continuance of bureaucratic rule in the Soviet Union itself.
Leaving aside some unexpected and momentous event in the Soviet Union, the outcome is much more likely to lie in a protracted triangular struggle between restorationist forces imperialism: the bureaucracy, or rather those sections of it which want to defend Stalinist rule; and the working class.
In practice, as most dramatically shown by Poland, whole sections of the bureaucracy will aid the process of trying to defeat the workers economically and politically in order to prepare the ground for Wester investment and the restoration of capitalism.
The main obstacle to the restoration of capitalism is the working class itself. The working class in each country must be defeated in a series of frontal battles if property is to be re-privatised, domestic bureaucratic-bourgeoisie established, and the social gains of the masses wiped out. Two obviously related questions are at issue here: the level of mobilisation of the masses, and their overall political consciousness. Both are presently in deep flux.
While a spontaneous fight against austerity can delay the restoration of capitalism, only a conscious fight for a democratic socialist order can lead to the victory of the political revolution. Two central problems mise themselves here.
First, it is an open