communism itself, as a politi- cal objective, a historic goal of the finished, with its partially completed Today, abandon any socialist preten- sions, and raise a new flag as a retor- mist current within capitalism? elements beginning to
Pace 15 the capitalist system is more acceptable now is a middle class delusion" in which imponalist powers contested capitalism's capitalist relations of rather than a stimulus lo the means of and pass, Imperialism has generated houses: he defined the period since cal cpoch of imperialism. This would between themselves for markets and supplies of cheap raw materiais and labour power. In the imperialist production begin to act as a fetter be a period of wars and revolutions, Since then we have scen this prog the tum of the century as the histori nosis subjected to the test of history - the highest labour power. ing market for its products chases the bourgenisie over the whole surface of the globe. I must nestle everywhere. world market given a cosmopolitan tional ground on which it stood. All old established natinnal industries settle everywhere. The bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the tion in every country To the great chagrin of ractionists, it has drawn from under the foet of industry the na- come antiquated before they can of "The need of a constantly expand character to production and consump SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 23. April 1990 tional, racial and sexual oppression. em is more acceptable now than it was 100 years ago is a middle class delusion. This is even more the case if we consider the plight of workers and peasants super-caploiled by mitl- tinational corporations and domestic capitalists in the so-called "tied live - the struggle to pat an end to hunger and material want, In exploita tion, to the threat of war, and to na- and rampant problems of homeless ness, the idea that the capitalist sys Communism as a historic objec
ment of society conditoned by thar *In explaining these remarkable Lines, Lenin adds: Bourgeois law in jects of consumption assumes of course, inevitably a bourgenis Mate, vance of its norms It follows (we are survive for a certain fime, but also even a bourgeois state without the pains from capitalist socicty, Law can never be hipher than the economic structure and the cultural develop- relation to the distribution of the ob- paratus capable of compelling obser- still quoting lenin) that under Com- muniem not only will hourgeois law for law is nothing withnut an ap bourgeoisie!" existenco" not only did not disappear Lenin also never dwelt upon it, and this too was not accidental. Ho did not foresee so prolonged an isclation of the Soviet state. Nevertheles the cilation. provides an indispensible theoretical key to the wholly concrete difficulties and sicknesses of the Soviet regime. On the historic basis destitution, aguravated by the destructions of the imperialist and civil wars, the 'struggle for individual the day after the overthrow of the bourgecisie, and not only did not abate in the succeeding years, but, on the contrary, assumed at times an un- revolution in a hackward country. SUPPLEMENT heard-of ferocity.. wars a-plenty: and yet revolution in the USSR and subsequently in Chira have shown the huge oconomic ad- vances that can be triggered even in backward economies once the con bankrupt bourgecisics of Eastem Europe also paved the way for the working class to make social gains in lenna of jobs, housing, education and welfare provisions that would never have boen conceded under capitalism. However the contradictory aspect of this development has been the emergence in the USSR of a parasitic bureaucracy (replicated in subsequent stalinist regimes): this represents the straints of capitalism are removed. The social overturna to employ the Communism, *The lowest stage of
"Insofar as the state which as- - that is, the malerial privileges of a minority - by methods of compulsion, insolar does it also remain a "bourgeois state, geoisie. These words contain neither praise nor blame: they merely name things with their Along with the bourgeois sities and the inequalities most every issue - especially sumes the task of socialist transfor- even though without a bour- state, the struggle for neces ktalinism turned back on il- mation is compelled to delend ine- real names." the (Revolution Betrayed, New Park Trotsky was firm in stressing the huge economic advances that had been made since the revolution. but Edition, pp 56-58) antithesis of a dynamic development of the productive forces. With the working class politically gagged and excluded from control or manage- ment of industry, and power in the consumer the hands of a conservative, cormpt cconomic isolation of the Soviet and later stalinist burcaucracies ments in the west, made it in- evitable that the initially primitive economies would fall ever further behind, especially in the area of most rapid technological change - from the technological develop bureaucracy, conditions created for stagnation. This, combined production This, the long as even a begins at that level to which modest 'Ford' term of Marx, privilege of a near.. ... So remains the capitalism has drawn advanced minority, the most
the economic levels possible under of women, youth, and national minortice to bourgeois ideology: all hy As the outcome of a transi- development, in which the supply of useful goods must be not only suffi- cient to eliminate the daily struggle for necessities, but must also outstrip capitalisi, communism was always impossible in any single country - let this is traced through Eastern Europe A false start in bureaucratised economy: Trotsky in detail. the oppression fought bitterly against the efforts of in March 1932. The country cannot get out of a famine of goods. There is oracles announce The country has the stalinists to characterise the 1930s "*Is it not moustrous?" - we wrote a stoppage of supplies at every step. Children lack milk. But the official USSR as 'socialist*: the growth of bureaucracy simply on had ideas or bad individuals, he pointed first and foremost in the material base, the USSR's economic hackwardness and isolation, and the weakness of the Communist cadre ar a result of the prolonged wars of in- fervention and civil war. From this he In analysing the bureaucratisa- tion of the USSR, Leon Trotsky wrote his incisive analysis Revolution Betrayed, which today repays fresh aften- ments in Eastern Europe. Reject- ing any idealist attempt to blame tion as an explanation of develop- goods. there survive relations and (Revolution proper to a Betrayed) bourgeois society." customs all the
analysed in the development of at socialist construction with a All of the problems which Trotsky bureaucracy in the USSR applied with equal force to the post-war regimes of Eastem Europe, but with an additional handicap: the Bol- sheviks had at least begun their effort genuinely revolutionary party al the head of a proletarion revolution which galvanised mark mobilisation against the class enemy. In Eastern Europe these elements were almost Lacking: the Communist SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 23, April 1990 entered into the period of socialism!" ther, and (in words which also have a on Nicaragua) branded the bureaucratised Soviet state of the day as a "bourgeois state though without "Marx wrote in 1875: Bourgeois Would it he possible more viciously Echoing Lenin, Trotsky went fur- contemporary relevance to discus law. in inevitable in the first phase of the communist socicty, in that fom in which it issues after long labour so compromise: the name a bourgeoisie! gence not only of hureaucracy, but of development of the productive forces with want the struggle for necessities old crap must revive. This bourgeois forms, norms and idcology: "Two years before the Communist Manifesto, young Marx wrote: "A is the absolutely necessary practical premise [of Communisn] because without it want is generalised, and begins again, and that means that all developed, and for no accidental reason: he never foresaw a proletarian spelled out the inevitability of a resur- thought Marx never Page 16
political argued that of the working "For decades marxists have revolution is the historic task class but the fact that the stalinists have proved less able than the capitalists to SUPPLEMENT politically degenerate from the very outset, and Stalin's Red Army had repressed the spontancour upsurges of the working The new regimes that were im- posed on the buffer" states were ruthlessly purged of any clements pendence. In the nationalised but chaotically disorganised oconomies, Stalin had plundered most industrial From this grim material starting point there was never any prospect of an advance beyond the limited progress As in the Soviet Union, the failure that might display political inde plant of any value as "reparations". class after the fall of Hitler. and achieved by the USSR. bureaucratised
capitalist forces has develop the productive rendered their regimes vulnerable to restoration" tion with a NATO power, the prepared even to try to deliver the type of support theoretically required coupled with nationalist revolts in an Romanian regime declaring com- munism "dead", and the Hungariam solved itself, there are few if any Moscow loyalists in Easter Europe similar moves by Estonia and Latvia), for Gorbachev. Lithuania (and the likelihood stalinist party having largely independence Soviet troops move out of Czechoslovakia: a blow to the working class? of them by the Warsaw Pact. seen as "marxist" and communist hy Ar an ahrtacle to the development bureaucracy identified itself long ago an a reactionary historic force that had to be removed For decades marxists have argued that this is the historic task of the working class in the process of political revolution: but the fact that the stalinists have proved less able than the capitalists o develop the productive forces has rendered their regimes vulnerable to association with the reme devclopment lagging way behind the privileges and corruption among the Pruty clite. The contradictions be- tween such evident inequality and the "official' marxist idenlogy could only police repression, and the imposition of a political monopoly for the vatism and ossified incompetence to end the struggle for necessities led to a revival of the "old crap". Queues, bureaucracy whose stultifying conser- crippled any potential for develop shortages and stunted be preserved through longside grotesque advanced capitalist
Trotsky did not base the defence of self less and less convincing as a scription of young men into the republics in the event of a major war against Gorbachev sending conscripts Does this new situation make communism or the defence of the USSR a hopeless quest? Lenin and the Redgling Soviet workers' state or increasing number of republics within the USSR make the Soviet Union it- Lithuania's lead in rejecting the con Soviet armed forces would certainly be followed by more and more danger: the revolt of Russian women to quell the recent Azerbaijan upris- homogenous military "superpower". ing made this quite clear. capitalist restoration. Now we see ele- for privatisation and restoration, in the hopes of preserving some of their These developments do not prove the obsolescence of communism so much as the gulf between com- munism and stalinism. Any attempt now by restorationists to drive for- ward a capitalist development in tensification of the class struggle, a renewed dive to explant the working class and destroy the limited gains it has secured in the post war years. it create conditions in which Fastern Europe must result in an in switching sides, leading the ments of the old regime power and privileges. tumed increasingly to deals with capitalism as a means to secure access to more modem technology and con- these hidcous replican of Stalin's bureaucratised USSR could grow or They were not "almost' communist regimes, but something qualitatively different, deformed to throw of the bureaucracy was the only way the nationalised means of production could be unleashed to their full potential by the working ment of a properly planned economy There was never any prospect that be peacefully reformed into socialist the extent that a revolutionary over-
increasingly Warsaw Pact is a dead duck" "it has been obvious that the Page 17 liances based on the coercion of a tion of exporting revolution on the points of bayonets, and recognised that in the last unalysis the defence of the strategy of the new Communist International on grandiose military al- Great Power upon neighbouring sat- the Soviet Union depended upon thie ternational working class. Most im- portant of all was to break theisola- tion of the Russian Revolution by supporting struggles for the over- telite regimes. They rejected any no- revolutionarly mobilisation ofthe in throw of capitalism in at least one ad negotiated a revolutionaries can put forward a programme of class action to combat the multinationals and defend work- mle spread beyond Poland it has heen Pact is a dead duck. With Czechos- withdrawal of Soviet troops, East Germany moving swiftly to unifica- Increasingly obvious that the Warsaw Collapse of the Warsaw Pact: a blow to the working class? Ever since the crisis of ing class living conditions. SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 23, April 1990 The bureaucracy not only acts as ment of the means of production, but tive curricula of schools and univer- and bourgeois monity, and fostered and bourgeois democracy as part of the popular backlash against all things in securing its political monopoly on the levers of power, it deforms every aupect of daily life, from the regime in the factories to the narrow restric- perstitions that are now resurfacing. absurd illusions in western capitalism an impediment to the proper develop preserve the backward religious su sities. The same pressures
40 as the spread of poverty European oconomics fo the pace of wester capitalist development spells out the weakness of poverty and lunger in the "third world and in- penalist countries as well in Poland contin that a years of intensive school- East deliver adequate con- sumer goods or to match bureatictatic planning", the huge sale despite of the the "marxism" While failures ing. SUPPLEMENT sequent twists and or sympathy for build socialism in • single country". with capitalism on tums in Stalin's foreign policy did no: comprehension this policy: instead in 1924 he began to native, nationalist vision of seeking to coexisting not change his fun- showed proclaim his alter- a world scale, Sub vanced country. Stalin while "The notion of defence of the reinforced in the post-war USSR was a purely period" military
their political and trade union muscles movements elsewhere. In Broil a huge trade union movement and the against restoration of capitalin ly intensily the misery. Those who need in delend die privatisation will soon witness all the As workers in Eastem Europe flex for the first time in several gènera- tions, beser by confusion atising from the collapse of the old official or- thodoxies, the new phase of clasx struggle runs alongside the emer- gence of new combalive workers or the market will simip- cconentes: evidence they need. Privlleged, but not a ruling class: a bureaucrat's limo leaves the Kremlin isolation of the Nicaraguan revolution Gorbachev inherited a legacy of counter-revolutionary foreign policy. with an conomic nss which has compelled him to shift his ing a negotiated balance of forces ness, imperialism has dug in to force the ground the effect of Gorbachev's conciliatory tum has been felt by and of the fighters of El salvador) tactics. He decided that the arman race had to give way to attempts at achiev- with imperialism: spotting this weak- major concessions. Yet while the su- perpower hype focusses on the top- level talks on warheads and tanks, on with Hitler, as tion had to he subordinate to the defence of the USSR'. By the mid 1930e the Popular Front policy had enshrined the notion of a political al- the capitalist class, at the expense of ary aspirations of the wester Com- In the late 1930s this switched to a safeguard and extend the power of the castem Poland and Finland. This notion of a purely discarding any socialist or revolution- Liance with "democratic" USSR by invading damental view that any nther revolu- policy of alliance munist parties.
opening up for the development nf in South Africa nd South Kores One positive aspect of the chaotic upheavals in Eastern Europe is that ments can develop with much less built. There is a new political space class struggle politics, amad all the and contradictions of the class struggle Workers Party with 4 mass base of support have been built; movement - making it mote likely that revolutionary currents can lie large, dynamic trade union organisa- these and other new workers" move. political pressure from the are challenging NATO-Warsaw Pact standoff, while, The result has been a prodictable each way setback: imperialism has clearly gained the apper hand in the like a union leader who calls off a strike before negotiations, Gorbachev finds his position weakened in his dealings with the White House by the scthacks of betrayed struggles in capitalism and of stalinism has not been refuted but confirmed by recent Difficulties and chances liberation fighters around the world Regimes portrayed by some The basic marxist Central America. military defence of the USSR was cupation of the East European buffer zone, and the general framework of USA's development of nuclear weapons was met by a parallel Soviet ing East European regimes into the Warsaw Pact - but all the time the disposition of the Kremlin was to op- pose, isolate and limit working class reinforced in the post-war period with the annexation of the Ballic states, the carve-up of Poland, the Red Army oc- the "spheres of influence" deals struck with the imperialist powers. The military drive to explode ever-more deadly nuclear bombs and missiles: NATO was countered by press gang and anti-imperialist struggles, negotiations, "like a union strike before weakened in leader who Gorbachev calls off a finds his position
for the mass striggles and political independence of the working SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 23, April 1990 particular time The defeats inflicted by the mas ses on stalinism do not autonatically lead on to ancialism: but neither docs The challenge is there for the marxist Trotskyist