WAS THE socialist promise false from the start or was it merely unfulfilled?
I believe the promise was not false from the start. It was unfulfilled. And it should be emphasised that even within the deformed socialist societies there were achievements which signalled the great potential of socialism.
But, on balance, a tallure it was. And, demonstrably, it has either collapsed or faces grave crises. Why this has come about is the question we will undoubtedly debate for decades to come....
If what happened had to happen because of an irreparable fault in the essence of Marxist thought and its socialist objectives then that's it; for the moment it may be the 'end of history'. If however, the essence of Marxism with its aspiration towards a socialist order remains valid then to enable us to return to history, we need to uncover what it is that went wrong.
The fundamental failure is the divide between socialism and democracy both within the Party and within society, leading to a gross form of socialist alienation of the producer from all levels of the socio-economic formation.
How did this come about?... I plead guilty to a number of quite loud silences in my earlier intervention in 'Has socialism failed?' In the first place there is a silence which correctly looms large in Pallo Jordan's critique of my intervention (South African Labour Bulletin, no 3 1990, p66), in which he says that I 'identified the symptoms of the illness but not its basic causes.
It is obviously not enough to describe the Stalinist distortion and the effects.
In the interests of future revolutionary practice we need to identify both the origins of Stalinism and the social and economic context in which it was reproduced. These two questions are connected but are, at the same time, distinct. Marx's famous dictum from The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, will help us reflect on them: their own history. But they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past, with the economic circumstances playing an ultimately decisive role.
Clearly, the reproduction of Stalinism in ac tually existing socialism had a significant portion of its roots in the emergence of a stratum with an economic interest to achieve and maintain dominant and privileged position; a point which should have found a place in my earlier intervention.
But as a total explanation, this simplified form of economic determinism has its limits. It throws little light on the origins of Stalinism and even less light on the remedy.
For example an explanation of Stalinism which restricts itself to class reductionism immediately poses the following problem: Socialism, by definition, is not an egalitarian society. Economic reward Men (and no doubt women too - JS) make is determined by contribution rather than by need.
theory + practice • FEB 1992 This implies economic differentials and, therefore, the existence within a socialist order of economically privileged layers, including a state bureaucracy.
A vulgar determinist application of Marxism would ground a conclusion that there was a degree of inevitability for the emergence of Stalinism as a system designed to reproduce and increase the economic differentials of socialist society. But this is clearly a faulty argument.
It is clear that some of the roots of Stalinism as a policy option that became embedded prior to the emergence of a ruling stratum which later used it to protect, expand and reproduce its economic privileges at the expense of its own workers conIn other words, the foundation for the indemocracy, both in the Party and in society, was laid in ideological practices which preceded the emergence of an economically privileged stratum.
Quite a few of the outstanding leaders of the Bolshevik revolution (including Trotsky, Bükharin, nificasit ionist to ering not of its theore scal role in erecting part of its theoretical edifice, but also encouraged some of its practices before Stalin was in the saddle and long before the emergence of an economically privileged stratum.
This, of course did not happen in an intellectual vacuum and cannot be explained by purely subjective factors. Many undemocratic practices are unavoidable during periods of illegality and during exceptional periods of counter-revolutionBut exceptions too often became the rule instead of merely proving it.
the 'oppositionists' who poured a great deal of concrete into the foundations of Stalinism was Leon Trotsky. Isaac Deutscher's documents Trotsky's contribution transforming the trade unions into little more than state apparatuses. In his book Terrorism and Communism, published in 1920, Trotsky's thesis on the 'corruption of the masses by the previous system led him to a concept which substituted a Party dictatorship for a class dictatorship. It also advocated the 'militarisation of labour' and insisted that 'the dictatorship of the Soviets became possible only by means of the dictatorship of the Party!
He maintained that it would be making a 'fetish of democratic principles' if there was an inrepresentatives above the Party (Deutscher, The Trotsky justified the Stalinist policy of subordinating the Soviets politically to the Party (Trotsky, I believe we should exercise some caution accepting comrade Pallo Jordan's rather sweeping judgement that we must turn to the works of 'oppositionists' (including Trotsky) to discover the true meaning of the communist vision. We should certainly study their works, but we are likely, in the case of some of them, to disStalin with his children degrade the ideas of communism.
Another silence in my earlier intervention re lates to the place of Leninism in the body of Marxist learning. I believe that a sizeable portion of the diet of so-called Leninism on which we were all nourished, is really repackaged Stalinism. Much of it was Stalinism in search of legitimation.
Moments of specific revolutionary practice which were presented as universal and timeless maxims of Marxism served to rationalise undemocratic methods both within the Party and in The paraphernalia of undemocratic practices, which may have been unavoidable during excepdone?, Lenin's great work written in 1902, became our organisation bible. The concept of the Party set out in What is to be Done? is wholly inappropriate and inapplicable in conditions of legality and even more so when power is achieved.
Is there, on reflection, anything more unreal for the real world, than the elevation of this brilLenin (which catered for the building of an illegal or semi-legal Party in Czarist conditions) into the kind of catechism it became Another aspect presented as a permanent teature of Leninism is the Stalinist version of the vanguard Party, essentially devoid real democratic content both in relation to inner party functioning and in relation to society. It is a concept and a practice which emerged during periods of illegality and found further expression during of revolutionary upheaval counter-revolutionary assault.
I have no quarrel with the thesis that, in the latter conditions, complete democracy ways practical. But under the guise of universal Leninism, the lack of democracy was given a permanent place in socialist civil society.
The same could be said of the concept of the single party state. This concept has virtually no single party state. This concept has virtually no pedigree or even mention in the classics of MarXISm.
It reflects a very special moment in a very spe cial country's history. But it too was turned into a universal Leninist prescription. Henceforth, it was no longer relevant whether or not the Party had the support of society or even of the class it claimed to represent. Its monopoly of leadership is guaranteed by law and not by political support. No-one is allowed to question its mandate and, eventually, the same applied to the membership in relation to the leadership. All this is in the name of Leninism! And it became a short run from the no tion of the dictatorship of the proletariat to the that there was a degree of inevitability for the which without exception, joined in the popular upsurge in all the countries of Eastern Europe.
We also need to open up discussion on the concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat and its place in the context of longer term socialist aspirations...
Apart from the way the term came to be abused and progressively denuded of its intrinsic democratic content, it is questionable whether the concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat ever had validity in the context of longer term socialist aspirations. Can we equate the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie (in itself a much over-simplified concept in some Marxist works) with what is claimed to be its legitimate Leninist converse for civil society - the dictatorship of the proletariat?
Leaving aside unique moments of revolutionary chaos, the socialist project when in power should surely exercise such power in the interests of the whole of society, a claim which constitutes the essence of The Communist Manifesto. elevate what can, at most be a transient necessity in unique circumstances into a universal and permanent prescription for socialist government.
One thing is clear, with the defeat of the intervention, neutralisation of the economic dominance of the exploiting classes, the concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat lost whatever disputed validity it might have had. Its perpetuation provided a 'Leninist' mantle under which Stalinism was able to flourish. The external threat with its internal agents, both real and invented, provided the rationalisation for the thesis that the stronger socialism grew the more intense the class struggle became. The external threat from imperialism and fascism was certainly real, but the vast chasm be tween socialism and democracy made the whole system more, and not less, vulnerable to these threats.
Charlie van Gelderen ranging over every aspect of national and internaFEB 1992 • theory + practice