The Struggle for Socialism
Today
A reply to the politics of the
Socialist Workers Party
The revolutionary Party
Democratic Structures
We apply democratic centralism — or democratic
unity — as we sometimes now call it — not just in our individual
sections, but also in our International. It is not enough to have an
international outlook. It is necessary also to build an international
organisation, a world party of socialism, to put this into effect. Only
within such an organisation can the lessons of work in other countries
be brought into debates such as we have had over Scotland.
Having said this, we understand that decisions taken
by the International cannot simply be forced onto reluctant sections.
Even after the decision is taken it is necessary to try to convince
those still opposed. We are very hesitant about imposing organisational
sanctions, especially in this post-Stalinist period, when the emphasis
must, in Lenin’s words, be on "patient explanation." In
relation to Scotland, the CWI has registered its disagreement with the
Scottish section but has, at the same time, allowed them a period to put
their tactics into effect.
We are not fully aware how the Socialist Workers
Party is structured. It is clear that yours is a more bureaucratic
centralist than a democratic centralist party. Your decisions are from
the top down, but without the necessary rights of internal debate
guaranteed. Your refusal to allow any democracy in campaigns which you
set up is an indication of an autocratic method of leadership which
extends into the internal life of your party.
When you change the "line" you do so in the
manner of the Stalinist Comintern; a new position appears from above and
is declared to have been the position all along. Your membership learn
nothing from this. They are not "educated" they are
miseducated; they are not left more "informed," only
mystified. An organisation which uses this method of debate can only
hold together if there is a revolving door membership, if those with a
memory of past positions are heading for the exit as the
"line" is changed.
In a genuine revolutionary organisation issues need
to be democratically debated, not just on a national, but an
international level. You have sister organisations in a number of
countries but, as far as we can gather, you have no democratic
international structure, you do not hold a World Congress and do not
have a properly elected international leadership. In building a
revolutionary party it is not possible to proceed from the experience of
only one country. After the Russian Revolution the Bolsheviks made the
building of a new International a central task. Even though faced with
civil war and armed intervention by the imperialist powers they took the
time to bring together delegates from across the globe to found the
Third International. When this International was eventually destroyed by
Stalin, Trotsky turned his attention to bringing together the forces of
a new revolutionary international. Although a political refugee, hounded
across the world by Stalin’s GPU, he devoted much of his efforts
during the 1930s to this task.
This is the importance which revolutionary Marxism
places on an International. As far as we can observe the SWP
organisations around the world are not part of a democratically
structured revolutionary International. When you left the Labour Party
in Britain in the 1960s you made a call for an International — but
then dropped it. Since then you have kept your international structures
a secret and have placed no public emphasis on the need to build a new
workers’ International. This is no secondary issue. If there is no
democratic world structure for debate and decision-making how can
decisions be democratically arrived at? How can the sections be guided
and assisted? Without a World Congress and elected leadership bodies the
line of each section will either be taken by slavishly following the
lead and "advice" of the biggest and most influential section
or it will be a matter of each section "doing its own thing."
It will either be a "dictatorship" by the dominant section or
else a post box, exchanging information. Either way this is not Marxism,
it is not the structure of the revolutionary party.
Your "ambiguity" on the issue of structures
and on the nature of an international is not some minor, secondary
question. It is a serious flaw which must have political consequences.
It is not possible to build a mass revolutionary party based on
bureaucratic methods. And to carry through the tasks of the socialist
revolution it is necessary to build a revolutionary international.
Transitional Programme
On the matter of internal
structures you are at odds with the tradition set down by Lenin and
Trotsky. So on the question of programme. In preparation for the 1938
Founding Conference of the Fourth International, Trotsky drafted a
document, "The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the
Fourth International," which outlines a Transitional Programme for
the new International.
Trotsky argued that it was not
enough to put forward a call for the abolition of capitalism and the
setting up of a new society. Under most circumstances this remains
abstract propaganda, far in advance of the consciousness of the mass of
the working class. As well as immediate and partial demands which arise
from day to day struggles, Trotsky stressed the need for transitional
demands, that is those which relate to present consciousness but point
the way forward to the need for the overthrow of capitalism. As he put
it: "It is necessary to help the masses in the process of the daily
struggle to find the bridge between present demands and the socialist
programme of the revolution. This bridge should include a system of
transitional demands, stemming from today’s conditions and today’s
consciousness of wide layers of the working class and unalterably
leading to one final conclusion: the conquest of power for the
proletariat." (The Transitional Program for Socialist
Revolution, Pathfinder Press, 1983, pg 114.)
Trotsky contrasts a
transitional programme with the programme of reformism, of Social
Democracy. Social Democracy, before its most recent move to the right,
maintained the general objective of a socialist society — but at some
remote future time! "Meanwhile," its programme was for reform
within the framework of capitalism. Trotsky did not reject the struggle
around immediate objectives. He pointed to the absence of any link
between the day-to-day programme and activities and the supposed
objective commenting that "the Social Democracy has no need for
such a bridge, since the word socialism is holiday speechifying." (ibid)
The SWP up to now have rejected
Trotsky’s advice on the need for transitional demands. Examine your
programme set out in the "Where we stand" column of your
paper. This does not begin with demands relating to today’s
consciousness and pointing forward to the need for socialist change.
Rather it has generally opened with a call for "revolution not
reform." Here is a typical example of it’s opening, taken from
your Irish paper of three years ago: "The present system cannot be
reformed out of existence. Parliament cannot be used to end the system.
The courts, army and police are there to defend the interests of the
capitalist class not to run society in a neutral fashion. To destroy
capitalism workers need to smash the state and create a workers state
based on workers’ councils."
This is true, but it is a
theoretical position, not a programme. Under today’s conditions your
call for the smashing of the state and workers councils, when not even
the faintest outline of these exist in reality, is abstract propaganda,
ultra-left musing, nothing more, nothing less. You put the conclusion
which is drawn by Marxists — a conclusion which would only become
clear to the mass of the people in a period of revolutionary upheaval
and dual power — and don’t bother with the reasoning which leads to
this conclusion. It is as comprehensible to the working class audience
as listening to someone read answers without bothering to read out
questions.
When it comes to day-to-day
activity, theoretical concepts cannot substitute for a programme. Even
the SWP has stumbled on this reality. Your "revolution not
reform" maxim, especially in the crude way in which you present it,
has no immediate practical meaning for workers. If used as a platform
for intervention in the day-to-day struggles of the working class it
will be met — at best — with incredulity and shrugged shoulders.
Those — the SWP included —
who try to intervene under an ultra-left "revolutionary"
banner tend, in the words of Trotsky, to be "toppled by
reality" at every step. Ultra-leftism/sectarianism, when it comes
in contact with reality, tends to find its bodily form in opportunism.
When intervening from the sidelines the SWP are usually the loudest,
most defiant, most "revolutionary." But when it comes to
campaigns that you run, or to any arena in which you have some
influence, you almost invariably switch to limited, often quite liberal
demands and, forgetting the denunciations of treachery you made a moment
before, unite with whomever you can on this programme.
The SWP programme for the
future is "revolution not reform." For the here and now you
find that this will not do and so you put forward an "action
programme"; that is, such demands as arise to "mobilise the
working class to action." We understand that in formulating this
"action programme" the British SWP has recently presented this
as an update of Trotsky’s Transitional Programme — despite having
for years specifically rejected the idea of transitional demands.
You may now pay lip service to
Trotsky on this, but we don not believe you are one step closer to a
transitional method when it comes to formulating a programme. Your
"action programme" remains an immediate set of demands put
forward to try to mobilise people around the SWP and the various
"campaigns" you launch. Between this and the need to
"smash the state," set up "workers’ councils"
etc., there is no connection, no bridge. The "action programme"
is for now, the "revolutionary programme" is for the long
term, for later. And so, masked under a heavy camouflage of
revolutionary sounding phrases, the SWP actually adopts the same
programmatic method as Social Democracy.
In recent election material —
we quote here from your election platform for the Scottish Assembly —
the SWP put forward its "action programme." This included
demands for a minimum wage, trade union rights, and a cut in hours,
which we would include in our transitional programme. We would go
further however and call for a cut in hours without loss in pay and a
minimum wage tied to the cost of living — neither of which your raise.
We would also find a formulation to raise the need for public ownership
under democratic workers’ management of the biggest industries and
financial institutions so that we can take control of the wealth in
society and use this to pay for the improvements to services, to living
standards and to the overall quality of life which we want to introduce.
Your material is at best foggy
on this. Instead of clearly demanding public ownership of the profit
making industries it calls for nationalisation of firms which lay off
workers. On privatisation it demands a halt to sell-offs and the
scrapping of the Private Finance Initiative (PFI). There is not even a
mention of bringing services and firms already sol off back into public
ownership.
Where will the money for
reforms come from? Our answer is found under the headline "Tax the
rich." "We say tax the rich and big business to provide the
money for the services we need. That money could be used to boost the
NHS and education, abolish tuition fees and reinstate full student
grants." That is no different from the position of the Labour left
who in the 70s and early 80s avoided the question of public ownership by
putting forward the idea of a wealth tax. Except that sections of the
left at times went much further than you do. Tony Benn, at one point,
advocated the nationalisation of the top 25 companies in Britain.
Your "action programme"
is in fact a left reformist programme, a set of radical reforms which
could be paid for, within capitalism, by soaking the rich with taxes.
This is your minimum programme to be struggled for now. And what of your
maximum "revolutionary" programme? Yes, the call for
"revolution not reforms" is still there, but as something to
be attained in the future. As your Scottish election literature,
alongside the immediate "action programme," says, "In
the longer term we have to change the whole basis of society."
(our emphasis) Reform now, revolution tomorrow — it is the classic
standpoint of left reformism and has nothing in common with Marxism.
Transitional demands cannot be
divorced from the struggle to implement them. It is true that in a
general sense the demands which make up the Transitional Programme
cannot be fully realised and consolidated within the confines of the
present system. This programme is modest — for a decent standard of
living to be guaranteed to all — but the fight to achieve it raises
the question of where the resources to meet these needs will come from.
This inability of the market to deliver poses the need for an
alternative, for public ownership of the wealth-producing industries so
that additional wealth can be generated to cater for human need, not to
satisfy the thirst of a few for profit. That is why this programme is
"transitional" — the struggle to achieve these demands
brings the working class up against the limitations of capitalism, or,
in Trotsky’s words, to the "doorstep" of the socialist
revolution.
This does not mean that we put
these forward with the rider that they are unachievable, that nothing is
possible under capitalism, that action in parliament will achieve
nothing, that we must have rule by workers councils — in other words
we do not preface our programme with the opening phrases of your
"Where we stand." To do so would be a recipe for paralysis.
Although in a general sense
transitional demands cannot be fully realised under capitalism, this is
not to say that concessions cannot be won. It is possible to wrest
reforms from the system. Faced with powerful social movements, the
capitalists and their representatives at times have to retreat and make
concessions they do not want to make. During the post Second World War
economic upswing real concessions were won and maintained for a whole
period. The demand for wages to be linked to prices which Trotsky put
forward in the 1938 programme were won in Italy, for example, in the
form of the "Scala Mobile," and in other countries.
In the present epoch of
economic crisis and counter reform it is more difficult to win
concessions and, if won, the capitalists will move more quickly to take
them back, either directly or in some other form. Nonetheless it is
still possible to make gains, but only on the basis of a concerted
movement, and increasingly of a movement which goes beyond national
boundaries. Although the general period is characterised more by
struggles of a defensive character it is still the case that reforms can
be won, but increasingly only as a by-product of revolutionary struggle.
We do not believe that this is
the SWP’s attitude to struggle. For you, reality is simple. Capitalism
must go. A revolutionary party is needed and as there is no one or
nothing as "revolutionary" as the SWP all other considerations
must be pushed to the side in the frantic haste to "sell papers and
recruit." Above all the party cannot be diverted from this by
over-involvement in struggles or campaigns, which in any case cannot
achieve anything, but which tie up resources, consume huge amounts of
energy on small tasks and which cannot simply be dropped when a new
issue arises. In the sectarian world of exaggerated self-importance the
tempo of the class struggle must not interfere with the tempo of party
activity.
Your day-to-day demands and
slogans are not really an "action" programme or a call to
struggle. The action you see as necessary is to get people on the
streets or into a room so that you can have an audience for your maximum
"revolutionary" programme. The "action" programme is
any demand or slogan which will achieve this. It is not intended as the
first step in a struggle to implement it. Such a struggle would mean
that the party would lose the agility to leapfrog to the next issue and
to put forward the "action" demands on that subject which
might, momentarily, bring a new audience.
Demands which are unrelated to
real struggle do not make up a living programme. At best they are
propaganda, comment, and not a call to action. If the main concern is to
get an audience for the SWP, they can put forward without regard to the
consciousness of the working class and without concern about how to
develop this consciousness, step-by-step, in the direction of socialism.
Opportunism
Ultra-leftism and opportunism
are reverse expressions of each other. In Lenin’s words they are
"two sides of the same coin." The ultra-left urns ahead of the
masses issuing demands which appear abstract and unreal; the opportunist
tail ends the working class seeking the lowest common denominator in
drawing up a programme. In both cases demands are not related or
tailored to existing consciousness and the question of how to develop
this consciousness is not even asked.
In real terms the distance
between ultra-leftism and opportunism is small and to journey from one
side to the other requires only a small step. Those, like the SWP, who
regularly make this journey, are unable to relate demands to
consciousness and have no need of a programmatic bridge, no use for the
transitional method of Marxism. This is why we cannot define the
differences between ourselves and the SWP statically in terms of a list
of specific disagreements. It is a difference of method. The SWP's
history is one of incessant movement from ultra-leftism to opportunism
and back again. You have been consistent only in your inconsistency,
your somersaulting from one political position to another, your
discarding, disowning and even denying of your old ideas in the process.
There are as many examples as
there are areas of work in which you have been engaged. Your recent
letter still holds that Broad Lefts in the unions are electoral
alliances with left bureaucrats and therefore a stain on
"revolutionary purity." On electoral politics all are
"damned" who take the parliamentary road. Yet, in recent SWP
campaigns you invite "left" trade union officials onto your
platforms and make no criticism of them when they are there. You also
have invited speakers from the Irish Labour Party and other political
parties and again make no criticism of what they say. Ken Livingstone,
in your language, "betrayed" the struggle to stop the Tories
closing down the Greater London Council (GLC). Recently he championed
the NATO attacks on Serbia and Kosovo. Yet, the SWP in London have run a
campaign backing Ken Livingstone to be selected as New Labour's
candidate for Mayor of London.
In the 1970s and 1980s you
attacked Militant for being within the Labour Party in Ireland and in
Britain — and in other social democratic parties, elsewhere. You
argued that we were "reformist" because we worked within these
mass parties. Yet, in the last few years your members in Germany, France
and in a number of other European countries have joined the social
democratic parties and are working within them.
There is a difference between
what we did when we were in the Labour and social democratic parties and
what you are doing today. We worked within them at a time when they were
unmistakably connected to the working class through the trade unions,
both in terms of individual membership and broad support. Our view —
that the working class in moving into political activity would first
turn to these organisations and attempt to change them — was at least
partially borne out. In Britain, for example, the Labour Party was
radicalised during the early 1980s and shifted significantly to the
left, drawing a large section of the working class with it. Within the
party we worked openly, always putting forward our ideas and maintaining
our separate publications.
During the 1980s the left
suffered a series of defeats within these parties. In both Britain and
Ireland the expulsion of Militant was a milestone in the shift to the
right. The rightward drift has been reinforced during the 1990s. Within
all of the social democratic parties in Europe a counter-revolution
against the left has either been carried out or is being carried
through. The umbilical connection with the working class has been broken
or is being broken. Those which are not already bourgeois parties are in
the process of becoming so.
You chose to dismiss the idea
of working within the mass working class parties at that time when the
basis existed for fruitful work as part of the left within them. Yet now
that they have shifted to the right, are no longer working class in
composition and have no prospect of moving back to the left, you have
chosen to put your forces inside them in a number of countries. Given
the rule changes and dictatorial control now exercised by the right wing
leaderships it is no longer to carry out the revolutionary work we were
able to do within these parties in the past. The only way to stay within
them is to keep your head down, to bury yourself so deep you will be
undetected. This is precisely the manner in which your forces are now
working. From the revolutionary denunciations of the past you have moved
over to an opportunist accommodation to social democracy.
So when we discuss co-operation
now or in the future with the SWP we will want to know if the
convergence of ideas which makes this possible is because of a
fundamental rethink and change of method on your part. Or is it just a
case that the political pendulum which carries you from sectarianism to
opportunism, and back again, just so happens to be passing close to the
position we adopted, but without any consideration of the changed
situation?
As you point out in your
letter, our organisations have long differed over the question of the
class character of the former Stalinist regimes in Russia and Eastern
Europe. To some degree the collapse of these regimes after 1989 has
rendered this difference historical. But not entirely.
The collapse of Stalinism has
been a process which is not yet complete in all parts of the world. The
Castro regime remains in power in Cuba. We characterise this as a
deformed workers state. According to the SWP it is and always has been
capitalist. Were the regime to fall and were the capitalist calls in
waiting in Miami to return Cuba to its former status as an offshore
haven for US capital, we should have very different attitudes.
Despite our criticisms of the
Castro regime we would see this as a setback, a counter-revolution in
terms of property relations. But, if you were consistent and applied the
same approach as you did to what happened in Russia and Eastern Europe,
you would see this not as a reverse but as an "opportunity."
According to your letter "We saw the collapse of these regimes not
as a setback for socialists, but as an opportunity to begin the fight
for real socialism in these countries."
The difference is still a live
issue even in relation to Russia and Eastern Europe where the
restoration of capitalism has been carried through. The CWI is carrying
out work in a number of these countries. An essential theoretical
foundation for this work is an understanding of what happened after
1989. We begin from the position that there was a change in property
relations and capitalism was restored. If we held your view that this
counter revolution was not a "defeat," not a victory for world
capitalism, but a sideways move from one form of capitalism to another,
we would have no adequate explanation for the demoralising and
disorienting effect on the working class, the throwback of consciousness
with the re-emergence of reactionary ideas which had not had an
organised expression since Tsarism, nor for the economic and social
collapse which has followed.
Our analysis of the collapse of
Stalinism is fundamental for our work within the former Stalinist
states. It is also important in the rest of the world since an
explanation of what went wrong in Russia is essential if we are to
convince workers and youth that socialism can work. For these reasons
our differences with the SWP over the class nature of these states
remains a live issue.
Trotsky’s Analysis
Contrary to what you have
implied recently in your paper we were never "defenders" of
these regimes. You argue as though our analysis of the USSR somehow
places us at variance with Trotsky. In your letter you say: "While
denouncing Stalinism and claiming adherence to the letter of the
Trotskyist tradition, you nevertheless regarded these regimes as
"deformed" or "degenerated workers states."
This comment is ironic indeed;
ironic because one of the greatest contributions made by Trotsky to the
history of Marxism was his analysis of Stalinism. Trotsky was exiled,
persecuted, members of his family were murdered, his supporters in
Russia and elsewhere were butchered, all because of his unstinting and
incisive criticism of the Soviet bureaucracy. We stand with Trotsky when
he described the Soviet bureaucracy as "one of the most malignant
detachments of world reaction," ("Preface to Spanish language
edition of Revolution Betrayed," Writings, 1936-37, p. 378).
We are also with Trotsky when he presented the other side of the
equation and described the USSR, with this "malignant
bureaucracy" at the help, as still a workers state, albeit a
"degenerated workers state."
In fact, every argument you
present in your letter to justify your theory of state capitalism was
answered by Trotsky in the 1930s. We therefore make no apology for
quoting extensively from Trotsky in dealing with these points. You
dismiss the characterisation of the former USSR as a deformed workers
state. Of "revolutionaries" who, in the 1930s, likewise reject
this label and flirted with the idea of "state capitalism"
Trotsky was particularly scathing: "But can such a state be called
a workers’ state — thus speak the indignant voice of moralists,
idealists and revolutionary snobs…," ("Workers State
Thermidor and Bonapartism," Writings, 1934-35).
Stalin came to power because
the defeats of the revolutionary movement in Europe left the 1917
revolution isolated to Russia. Socialism could not and cannot be built
in one country, least of all in an underdeveloped country as Russia was
at that time. The isolation of the revolution and the exhaustion of the
working class allowed space for a privileged layer to emerge. Stalin was
the personification of the interests of this bureaucratic caste.
Trotsky in 1935 posed the
questions "What does Stalin’s ‘personal regime’ mean and what
is its origin?" He answered himself thus: "In the last
analysis it is the product of a sharp class struggle between the
proletariat and the bourgeoisie. With the help of the bureaucratic and
police apparatuses the power of the ‘saviour’ of the people and the
arbiter of the bureaucracy as the ruling caste rose above the Soviet
democracy, reducing it to a shadow of itself." ("Again on the
question of Bonapartism," Writings, 1934-35, p. 208).
Under Stalin political power
was wrested from the working class and placed in the hands of a
privileged bureaucratic caste. But not all the gains of the 1917
revolution were lost. The economy remained in state hands; there was
planning, albeit carried out in a crude and bureaucratic manner; and the
state held a monopoly over foreign trade. The economic foundations of a
workers’ state remained in place.
The bureaucracy did not become
a class. It did not own the industries which it managed. While the
bureaucracy, by dint of privilege, was self-perpetuating it did not
enjoy the right of inheritance. Its relationship to the economy was more
akin to that of the heads of nationalised industries in the west to the
industries they manage. These people are privileged, they are as removed
from their workforces as the capitalists, but they are not capitalists.
The capitalist class is defined
by what it owns, not by what it consumes. The Soviet bureaucracy
consumed a large slice of the surplus wealth produced by the working
class. But this is not unique. Every bureaucracy rewards itself for its
commanding position by creaming off a larger share of wealth for itself.
Unlike the capitalists, the Stalinist rulers did not have ownership of
the surplus, and could not have unless they undid the other gains of
1917 and privatised the economy. Trotsky was absolutely clear and
categorical on this: "Still the biggest apartments, the juiciest
steaks and even Rolls-Royces are not enough to transform the bureaucracy
into an independent ruling class." ("The class nature of the
Soviet State," Writings, 1933-34, p. 113).
According to your letter you
"never accepted the argument that the ‘planned nature’ of their
economies meant that they could escape the contradictions of capitalism
and crisis." In fact, the contradictions of capitalism, other than
its relationship to the capitalist world economy, did not apply to the
USSR. The cyclical rhythm of capitalist production, of boom and slump,
was absent. There was no crisis of overproduction such as affected
capitalism in the 1930s and is a spectre which has returned in the
1990s.
This does not mean that there
was no crisis or that there were no contradictions. But the
contradictions of the Soviet economy, and the reasons for the economic
impasse which eventually brought Stalinism to its knees, were different.
The most fundamental contradiction was between the fact of a planned
economy and the bureaucratic administration of the plan. Not for nothing
did Trotsky argue that the planned economy needs democracy just as the
human body needs oxygen. For a period the advantages of state ownership
and a form of plan, however bureaucratically drawn up and autocratically
implemented, did lead to significant economic improvement. The USSR went
from being a backward country, an India, to the second world superpower,
something which would not have been possible on the basis of capitalism.
Once the economy reached a
certain degree of sophistication the disadvantages of bureaucratic
methods, of the absence of democratic decision making, began to outweigh
the advantages of public ownership and of planning. By the Brezhnev era,
certainly by the end of this time, the economy had ground to a halt and
the bureaucracy, by their crude methods, were incapable of taking it
forward. Stalinism came up against its economic limitations, not the
limitations or contradictions of capitalism, but the restraints imposed
by the stifling fact of bureaucratic misrule. The choice, ultimately,
was not of ongoing rule by the bureaucracy but either its removal and
the establishment of workers’ democracy or else a return to
capitalism.
Transitional Regimes
Your letter scorns the idea
that these regimes were "transitional." Trotsky, however,
repeatedly refers to their "transitional" character. The
triumph of Stalin was a step back from October 1917, but not a complete
step away from the gains of that revolution. Trotsky’s view was that
if the bureaucracy remained in control, at some point the pressures of
world capitalism would tell. Counter-revolution, perhaps initially in
the form of the invasion of cheaper goods from the more developed
capitalist economies, would triumph. It would be the triumph of higher
productivity, of "less labour," in the advanced capitalist
states, over the less productive, more labour intensive, industries in
the isolated Russian economy. The bureaucracy, or a section of it, would
seek to transform itself into a capitalist class. Only a movement of the
working class to overthrow the bureaucracy could offer an alternative
way out.
In the Transitional Programme
he writes: "The USSR embodies terrific contradictions. But it still
remains a degenerated workers’ state. Such is the social character.
The political prognosis has an alternative character: either the
bureaucracy, becoming ever more the organ of the world bourgeoisie in
the workers’ state, will overthrow the new forms of property and
plunge the country back into capitalism; or the working class will crush
the bureaucracy and open the way to socialism."
Trotsky’s either/or
prognosis, developed particularly in his classic book, The Revolution
Betrayed, was correct, but it took a whole historic period to work
itself out. What Trotsky could not have foreseen was that Stalinism
would emerge from the Second World War enormously strengthened. The
defeat of Germany and the exhaustion of the British and US troops, who
were not prepared to follow those generals who wanted to continue the
war against Russia, allowed the powerful Red Army to conquer Eastern
Europe unopposed.
Having taken control of the
state, the new rulers proceeded to take over the economy and set up
regimes modelled on the Stalinist regimes in Russia. The peculiar
circumstances allowed that capitalism was abolished, from above, with
the support of a large section of the working class, but not as the
conscious and independent action of that class. Again, it was the
particular circumstances of the time which allowed the guerrilla armies
which later seized power in China and Cuba to follow the Russian example
and eradicate landlordism and capitalism.
These did not become socialist
societies, but were precisely "transitional" regimes in which
the choice was either political revolution to overthrow the bureaucracy
or else ultimately counter-revolution and their reintegration into the
capitalist world market. Since they had not been at any point healthy
workers’ states the term "degenerated workers’ states"
used by Trotsky to describe Russia was not quite accurate. We used the
term "deformed workers’ state" as a more precise definition.
Counter-revolution
The emergence of the USSR as a
world superpower allowed the regime a relative stability for a period.
Trotsky’s 1930 perspective was postponed. However, what happened in
1989 and after brilliantly bore out his analysis. The fall of the Berlin
Wall and the opening of the eyes of East Germans to the goods and
lifestyles which seemed to be available in the West ushered in the
counter-revolution which ended with the restoration of capitalism. In
Russia and Eastern Europe, most of the bureaucracy went along with the
restoration — bearing out what Trotsky had also said — that faced
with the choice of a workers’ movement for political freedom or the
restoration of capitalism they would look to the latter as the only way
to maintain their privileges.
Counter-revolution, as with
revolution, means decisive change. It is clear that the events of
1989-91 marked such a change in Russia and Eastern Europe. The old
Stalinist states collapsed, the state apparatus in part "moved
over" and in part was replaced. The new states which emerged were
intent on re-establishing capitalism. The overthrow of the old state
apparatus ushered the beginning of a change in property relations. It
was a repeat of 1917, only this time in reverse.
If the SWP believes that the
USSR was capitalist you need to show at what point the
counter-revolution in property relations was carried through. The
victory of Stalin in the late twenties and the thirties, and the purges
which followed, represented a political victory for this caste. The
property relations — state ownership and the plan — which were
established in the years after 1917 were maintained. If this was state
capitalism then what was set up by the Bolsheviks was state capitalism
also. Or else we would have to draw the entirely un-Marxist conclusion
that a change in political rule is tantamount to a change in the social
system. In other words, we would have to start out from what is in fact
the underlying theoretical premise of reformism.
In fact, this is your entire
argument. You say in your letter "For the SWP, as for Marx, the
decisive criterion is social relations of production — which class
controls industry and society. The key question is whether the working
class is really in control and is the real ruling class. For those with
eyes to see it was obvious that workers not only did not control
industry but were systemically deprived of basic democratic rights. To
describe such societies as a ‘workers state’ as the Socialist Party
and its predecessors did, is to make words lose all meaning." (11
January letter)
For Marx, the decisive question
was which class owned industry, not whether that class exercised
democratic control in management of that industry. There have been
occasions when the capitalist class have lost direct control over the
state, but so long as property relations remain unchanged, they remain
the ruling class. You have mixed up changes to the superstructure —
the method of political rule — with the more fundamental question of
the economic base. We determine the class nature of society by examining
its economic foundations.
Must the working class have a
direct hold on the levers of political power before we can use the term
"workers state"? Let Trotsky answer you on this:
"The dictatorship of a
class does not mean by a long shot that its entire mass always
participates in the management of the state…The anatomy of society is
determined by its economic relations. So long as the forms of property
that have been created by the October revolution are not overthrown, the
proletariat remains the ruling class." ("The class nature of
the Soviet State," Writings, 1933-34, p. 104).
And again: "But this
usurpation (by the bureaucracy) was made possible and can maintain
itself only because the social content of the dictatorship of the
bureaucracy is determined by those productive relations that were
created by the proletarian revolution. In this sense we say with
complete justification that the dictatorship of the proletariat found
its distorted but indubitable expression in the dictatorship of the
bureaucracy." ("The Workers State Thermidor and Bonapartism,"
Writings, 1934-35, p. 173).
In basing your characterisation
on the fact that the working class were deprived of democratic rights,
were oppressed and in a sense "exploited," you are in the camp
of liberalism, not Marxism. We have already quoted Trotsky on his
attitude to the "moralists" who looked at the horrors of
Stalinist rule and indignantly professed that this could not be a
"workers state." From there your argument gets worse. The
regimes in Eastern Europe, you say, cannot be "workers states"
because they were installed from above. Marx, you remind us, had argued
that "the emancipation of the working class must be accomplished by
the working class."
Bonapartism
This indeed is the standpoint
of Marxism. But the same Marx who argued in a general historical sense
that the bourgeois, or capitalist, revolutions which overthrew feudalism
were the historic tasks of the rising capitalist class, also pointed out
that in some cases the capitalists relied on other forces to carry this
out.
Even the ‘classic’
bourgeois revolution — in France 1789-1815 — unfolded with a rich
complexity which confounds the one-dimensional historical view of the
SWP. The backbone of the revolution at its high point in 1792-94 was the
urban poor, the sans culottes, who acted in alliance with the Jacobin
left wing of the bourgeoisie. But the power of the plebeian masses who
overthrew absolutism began to encroach on the bourgeoisie. The period of
Thermidor leading to the triumph of Bonaparte saw many of the gains of
the revolution, such as the declaration of universal male suffrage,
removed. Bonapartism meant rule by the sword. The state rose above
society and, by military means and by decree, ‘arbitrated’ between
the rival class interests. This was a step back in terms of political
rights but the new capitalist class relations which were established by
the overthrow of feudalism and absolutism remained fundamentally in
place.
In 1815, Bonaparte was defeated
by the forces of reaction in Europe. The Bourbons were restored. In
appearance it was back to pre-1789. But the substance was different.
Capitalist property relations remained in place. If the class nature of
the state was just a matter of the political superstructure then France
after 1815 would have been a feudal state. This was clearly not the
case. The rising bourgeoisie had to surrender political power, but in
the main the property rights created by the revolution stayed in place.
The revolutions of 1830 and
1848 did away with the Bourbons and with the dynasty of Louis Philippe
of Orleans. The working class was by now more powerful than in 1789, but
was not yet capable of taking power. The bourgeois, trembling in the
face of the growing strength of the working class, were divided and
unable to rule. As the struggle between these two modern classes could
not be fought to a decisive conclusion, the state stepped into the
equilibrium and once again assumed the role of arbiter. The Second
Republic achieved mainly by the armed working class in 1848 became the
Second Empire under the dictatorship of Napoleon’s nephew, Louis
Napoleon Bonaparte.
The state arbitrated but
ultimately came down on one side, the side of the bourgeois. Even in the
"classic" example of France the rule of the bourgeois was
finally consolidated by a Bonapartist regime which took direct political
power from the capitalists, and which creamed off a good proportion of
the wealth for itself. Engels, in his introduction to Marx’s The
Civil War in France, written just over a hundred years ago, uncovers
these complex and seemingly contradictory processes in a living manner
which contrasts sharply with the crude one-dimensional approach to
history which the SWP applies to the less complex processes of
revolution and counter-revolution in Russia.
"Louis Bonaparte took the
political power from the capitalists under the pretext of protecting
them, the bourgeois, from the workers, and on the other hand, the
workers from them; but in return his rule encouraged speculation and
industrial activity — in a word the dominance and enrichment of the
whole bourgeoisie to an extent hitherto unknown. To an even greater
extent it is true, corruption and mass thievery developed, clustering
around the imperial court, and drawing their heavy percentages from this
enrichment." (The Civil War in France, Progress Publishers,
1968 edition, p 8.)
In other cases the bourgeois
played even less of a role in "their" revolution. In the case
of Germany the unification of the country was carried through from above
by the reactionary Prussian nobility through the "blood and
iron" methods of their representative, Bismark. The German
bourgeoisie were too cowed by the power of the working class which had
been demonstrated in the revolutionary uprisings of 1848, to play any
role. "Their" rule came into being under the militaristic
banner of the reactionary rulers of the Prussian House of Hohenzollern.
Stalinism was a modern form of
Bonapartism. The political gains of the revolution were wiped away.
Tsarist autocracy was replaced by Stalinist autocracy. But as in France
the social gains of the revolution were not abolished. Even though the
working class did not have political power, Russia did not return to the
orbit of capitalism. It was not in any sense a capitalist state.
This is not to say that there
can be an exact parallel between the bourgeois revolutions of the 18th
and 19th centuries and the scientific revolutions. 1789 in
France may have been carried through by the majority, the great mass of
the oppressed in France, but it inevitably had to end as rule in the
interests of a minority, the capitalists. In the words of Engels it may
have proclaimed "the Kingdom of Reason," but in reality it
established "the Kingdom of the bourgeoisie." The socialist
revolution, on the other hand, is not carried out by the majority, it
allows that majority, for the first time in a real sense, to rule. It is
therefore correct to say that the socialist revolution cannot be
completed by any class or section of society other than by the working
class. But this is not to say that the course of the socialist
revolution, like the bourgeois revolutions, cannot be tortuous, that it
cannot move along dead ends, or that all sorts of transitional
formations cannot be thrown up along the road to its completion.
Marx and Engels were absolutely
right when they stated that the working class would be the
"gravedigger" of capitalism and that no other class could play
this role. But truth is always concrete. A general statement made by
Marx over one hundred years earlier does not alter what actually
happened in Eastern Europe, and under slightly different conditions in
China, Cuba, Vietnam and a number of other countries. The inability of
imperialism to hold back the colonial revolution and prevent the coming
to power of guerrilla armies, or of other forces hostile to the West,
combined with the "model" of the already existing Stalinist
states, meant that in these cases one part of the task of the socialist
revolution was carried through without the working class playing the
leading role.
Does this contradict Marx’s
general aphorism on the role of the working class? Does it mean, as you
claim, that "workers revolution" becomes only "one option
among many possible roads to socialism,"(11 January letter)? In
order to arrive at this conclusion you use terminology with a looseness
that really does "make words lose all meaning." In the space
of a few sentences your letter interchanges the terms
"deformed" or "degenerated workers states" as though
all mean the same thing. So, if we argue that deformed workers’ states
have been carved into being by Red Army bayonets, this comes to mean
that "genuine socialism" can be created and society liberated
in this way.
Of course it means no such
thing. As Trotsky said, the Stalinist regimes were transitional, not
socialist. This did not mean that they could evolve gradually and
peacefully into healthy workers’ states. The bureaucracy would not
voluntarily surrender its privileges and step aside any more than the
capitalists in the West would voluntarily hand over their property. The
transition to "genuine socialism" required the revolutionary
overthrow of the bureaucracy.
Political Revolution
We did not support or defend
these regimes. We defended all that was left of the October revolution,
the state ownership of industry — as did Trotsky: "The economic
foundations of the USSR preserve their progressive character. These
economic functions must be defended by the toiling masses of the whole
world and all friends of progress in general with all possible
means," ("The End," Writings. 1936-37, p. 189). To
defend the economic foundations did not mean defending or giving any
measure of support to the bureaucracy. As history has demonstrated the
only way to preserve what was left of 1917 was to overthrow the
bureaucracy.
Our position was to fight for
democratic rights, for the limitation of wages and the election of all
officials, for the establishment of rule through genuine workers’
councils. Whereas in the capitalist countries we stand for a social
revolution to change the ownership of the means of production, in these
states we stood for a political revolution to get rid of the bureaucracy
and place the working class in direct control of society. This
revolutionary emancipation could only be achieved by the working class
itself.
The ultimate test of a theory
is the effect it has in practice. The working class in Eastern Europe
moved into action on many occasions against Stalinism. They did so in
East Germany in 1953, in Hungary and Poland in 1956, in Czechoslovakia
in 1968, Poland in 1970, 1976 and again in 1980. On each occasion, the
initial direction of these as revolts was towards political revolution.
Even in 1989-91 the gaze of the masses was at first towards political
change and ending bureaucratic rule. The decision of the East German
bureaucracy to open the Berlin Wall was taken in order to save their own
skins by diverting the movement towards the West and capitalism.
The position of the Committee
for a Workers’ International in intervening in these events was to
support the mass movements and to put forward the demands of the
political revolution. At the same time, we warned against the illusion
that capitalism could deliver Western European living standards.
Ours was a programme to take
the mass movements forward to the establishment of workers’ democracy.
Because of the absence of any leadership to take this programme to the
masses, the pendulum swung very quickly from the possibility of
political revolution towards counter-revolution and the restoration of
capitalism. When this happened, we held our ground opposing the sell-off
of state property, even though this position meant temporary isolation
as the counter-revolution gained pace.
A decade on, our prognosis of
what capitalism would mean has been graphically confirmed. Russia has
experienced an economic and social collapse. The working class has been
demoralised, partially atomised and left unable to resist. Even now,
working class struggles and independent working class organisations are
at an elementary level of development. Such is the scale of the setback
and defeat which was suffered. Another, more subjective measure of the
extent of the counter-revolution is the fact that the group which was
sent by the SWP to work in Russia gave up after a period — telling our
local comrades that they were leaving because it was
"impossible" to build there.
The programme of political
revolution which flows from our analysis of the class nature of the
Stalinist regimes armed the working class politically. It raised
consciousness and pointed the way forward towards "genuine
socialism." It was a call to action, at one and the same time to
remove the incubus of the bureaucracy and to stave off the threat of
counter-revolution. The tragedy of the mass movements which erupted
against the Stalinist rulers from East Germany and Hungary in the 1950s
to the events of 1989 was that there were not sufficient forces armed
with these ideas to have an effect on the outcome.
Capitalism — A Sideways Step
By contrast, the practical
conclusions which flow from the theory of state capitalism could only
have had the effect of disorienting, stunning and paralysing the working
class in the face of the threat of capitalist restoration. If these
regimes are already capitalist it is only a matter of change from one
form of capitalism to another. And if this is so, the only consistent
position socialists could take is one of neutrality, of a plague on both
your houses. Otherwise, they would be backing one form of capitalism as
somehow more "progressive" than another.
Political consistency is not a
hallmark of the SWP. On this question as on all others the tendency has
been to bend opportunistically to the prevailing mood within society,
and to modify your stance accordingly. During the Korean War, in which
the capitalist South, backed by imperialism, took on the deformed
workers’ state in the North, the forerunners of the SWP adopted a
position of neutrality. After all this, to them, was a war between two
capitalist states. The fact that, leaving aside the class character of
North Korea, it was also a case of imperialist intervention in the
ex-colonial world did not make a difference to your party. To understand
your position at the time it is necessary to remember that the Korean
War did not provoke a mass movement of opposition among the working
class either in the US or in Europe.
With Vietnam, it was a
different matter. Opposition to US involvement helped trigger the
student and youth radicalism of the late 1960s. Eventually, the anti-war
sentiment spread to large sections of the working class as well. In
class terms, Vietnam was a mirror of the Korean conflict. North Vietnam
was a deformed workers’ state. In the South there was a puppet regime
of imperialism which was maintained only by the military backing, first
of the French, and then of US imperialism.
This was how most of the left
viewed it — but not the SWP. In SWP terms, it was a war between two
capitalist states — as was Korea. Yet, not altogether surprisingly,
the SWP did not adopt a neutral stance this time. To have done so would
have completely cut off your party from the radicalised youth. In fact
you, along with most of the left, went too far, giving largely
uncritical support to the North Vietnamese and the Vietcong. Our
position was to demand the withdrawal of US forces, but also to
criticise the programme of the Vietcong and warn that the result of a
Vietcong victory, on the basis of this programme, would be the formation
of a Stalinist regime modelled on Russia.
There was no Vietnam-style mood
of popular sympathy for the deposed tyrants of Russia and Eastern Europe
in 1989-91 — and thus no pressure on the SWP to adapt its position
accordingly. But there were huge illusions in capitalism and these were
reflected in the stance you adopted. After the fall of the Berlin Wall,
your German comrades supported German reunification on a capitalist
basis, adding only the rider that this should not be carried through by
Kohl.
When the regime in the USSR
finally crumbled in 1991 your Irish paper greeted the event with the
exultant headline: "Communism is dead. Now fight for real
socialism." The introductory paragraph of your lead article read:
"’Communism has collapsed’ declared the newspapers and the TV.
It is a fact that should have every socialist rejoicing." (Socialist
Worker, September 1991.)
The events of the time brought
Boris Yeltsin to power with a programme for the privatisation of
industry and the opening of Russia to the market and foreign capital.
Inside your September 1991 paper you attack the left for the view that
"Boris Yeltsin represents a step back, a return to
capitalism," and go on to state that "Yeltsin is neither a
step forward nor a step backward." You present Yeltsin as a more
enlightened member of the state capitalist class who, "confronted
with deep crisis, want(s) to haul the economy out of its downward spiral
and to organise production more competitively on the world market…He
is offering the state capitalists in Russia a lifeline for their own
survival." These words appear alongside articles calling for the
break up of the USSR and supporting the demonstrations which were
pulling down the statues of Lenin. "Socialists in Russia should be
on these demos just as the Bolsheviks in 1905 went on a religious
procession to the tsar’s palace."
All this you wrote in 1991 just
as events in Russia decisively strengthened the counter-revolution. The
comparison with the 1905 revolution against Tsarism is absolutely false.
The 9 January 1905 demonstration you refer to was a hundred thousand
strong march, overwhelmingly proletarian in composition, held days into
a strike wave, which, yes, was led by a priest and there were some
people carrying religious icons, but it was hardly a "religious
procession." The massacre that took place that day deepened the
revolution, brought it from the underground to the surface, spread it
from capital to towns and cities across the continental land mass of
Tsarist Russia.
The 1905 massacre ushered in
two months of revolution. The 1991 events prefaced a capitalist
counter-revolution which so far has heaped almost a decade of misery on
the heads of the people of the former USSR. It is a poor revolutionary
who cannot distinguish revolution from counter-revolution, who does not
know the difference between a step forward and a step backward.
The political myopia has
practical consequences. It preaches passivity in the face of the
impending reaction. If Yeltsin is simply a sideways step, another
"capitalist" ruler no better or worse than those who have gone
before why particularly challenge his policies? If the privatisation of
industry is just a switch from one form of capitalism to another, why
resist it, why defend the "capitalist"(!) state ownership?
We have to provide a
theoretical answer to your idea that the Stalinist societies were
actually just another form of capitalism. But surely, the most crushing
refutation of this theory is the fact that its one practical conclusion
was to preach passivity and complacency in the face of
counter-revolution.
The chapter is not yet closed
on Stalinism. In Cuba, the Castro regime struggles on, despite huge
economic problems which have already forced it to partially open up to
the world market. The direction of events is clearly towards capitalist
restoration. It may be that this will take place less traumatically than
in Eastern Europe. Or it could be that resistance by the regime will
produce a more dramatic confrontation.
Cuba is not viewed in the same
way as was Ceaucescu’s Romania or Honneker’s East Germany. Among
large sections of the youth in Europe and the US, but especially so in
Latin America, Cuba evokes images of Che Guevara and of guerrilla
fighters heroically standing against the military might of the US.
Should Castro resist further incursions by capitalism, he could touch a
chord of support and sympathy among the most radical youth, which could
give rise to big movements in defence of Cuba in parts of Latin America.
This may not happen but if it
does we can expect the SWP to abandon the logic which led them to regard
restoration in the USSR as neither a step forwards, nor a step
backwards; the logic which led them to be neutral in the Korean War; and
instead to embrace the more persuasive logic of opportunism and put a
pro-Cuba, and perhaps even a pro-Castro position, which would be more
appealing to radical youth.
In Ireland, the most pronounced
and obvious difference we have had with the SWP has been over the North.
During the course of the Troubles our parties have adopted positions so
divergent that any form of practical co-operation on issues relating to
the North would have been impossible.
For most of this period, the
SWP has approached the conflict from the standpoint of Republicanism,
putting forward what can, at best, be characterised as a left-Republican
position. By contrast, we have rejected all forms of sectarianism and
have consistently advocated the unity of Catholic and Protestant workers
as the only possible road to a solution.
You will, no doubt, deny the
charge that you have been lodged in the camp of left-Republicanism for
much of the last thirty years. Your letter specifically does so and lays
claim to a different political legacy. "The claim that we supported
the tactic of armed struggle is wrong and most probably designed to win
cheap support from forces to the right of both the SWP and the SP — we
have consistently attacked the armed struggle as counterproductive and
helped to initiate labour movement demonstrations which opened the way
to peace," (SWP letter, 11 January 1999).
This illustrates a difficulty
in conducting any form of political dialogue with the SWP. It is not
just that you chop and change your ideas to correspond with the
then-prevailing mood, but that you do so in total denial that there has
been a change, or that you ever said anything different from what you
are saying today. In regards to the North, your party suffers from a
severe case of political amnesia. The above statement from your letter
is quite simply a lie. We will illustrate this by quoting what you
actually said.
These quotes will show that
your views have chopped and changed in what at first might seem an
almost random manner. But there is an underlying consistency in these
shifting sands of political inconsistency. To uncover this, all that is
necessary to do is to take soundings of the mood swings in the Catholic
working class areas. When Catholics welcomed the British Army, you were
silent about the role that troops would play. Only when the repressive
methods of the troops turned this support into enraged opposition did
you oppose their role. When the IRA enjoyed a mass base of enthusiastic
support among the Catholic youth, you defended their military campaign.
Now that the predominant mood is against a return to war, the SWP are
opposed to a return to "futile" military methods.
Today you are against
paramilitary methods and for class unity. Had this change come about
through an honest reassessment and correction of an analysis that has
turned out to be mistaken, we would be prepared to discuss with your
members to see if there is now political common ground between us. No
revolutionary organisation is immune from mistakes. The real test is how
it faces up to its errors, how it goes about correcting them. A change
of position, properly debated and explained at every level of the party,
can strengthen an organisation, creating a firmer theoretical base.
A change carried out in the
manner of the SWP, behind the backs of the membership, with no
explanation except denial that it has taken place, will do no such
thing. It means that we can have no confidence that what you are saying
today will be what you are saying tomorrow, and neither can your
membership have any confidence. The working class will not take
seriously a "revolutionary" organisation whose opinions are
contoured, like desert sand, according to the prevailing political wind.
A change of policy arrived at
blindly and empirically is bound to be piecemeal. So your shift from the
sinking ideology of left-Republicanism to the firmer ground of class
politics, has been partial and incomplete. Your upper body may have
shifted towards the labour movement, your feet remain fixed where they
were, in the camp of left-Republicanism. When class issues are to the
fore, we have the new thinking of the SWP on the North. When the issues
of parades like Drumcree emerged, and a confrontational sectarian mood
developed in Protestant and Catholic areas, your party very quickly
reverted to its old ways of thinking.
In replying to the specific
issues raised in your letter we will refer to the actual record of your
party on the North, not to what you now falsely claim that record to
have been. When it comes to our policies and our role, your letter
contains quite blatant distortions. We will put these to the side and
set out what we have actually said and done.
Continued...
