50 Years Ago: Socialists in Peace and War (1965)

The 50 Years Ago column from the September 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

(Kautsky and others had argued that while Socialists should oppose the outbreak of war, if war comes they should remain silent. Rosa Luxemburg answered this. The following are extracts from her article).

‘But now “war is a fact” and, as it turns out, after the outbreak of war Socialists are to be guided by entirely new principles . . . In plain language this means: The Proletariat has not one fundamental principle as scientific Socialism hitherto maintained, but two, one for peace and another for war. In time of peace we are to suppose, the workers are to take cognizance of the class struggle within the nation and of international solidarity in relation to other countries; in time of war, on the other hand, class-solidarity becomes the dominant feature of international affairs and the struggle against the workers of other countries dominates the proletarian view of foreign relations. To the great historic appeal of the Communist Manifesto is added an important amendment, and it reads now, according to Kautsky’s revision: “Workers of all lands unite in peace and cut one another’s throats in war!” Today Down with the Russians and French!”, tomorrow, “We are brothers all!”

‘This convenient theory introduces an entirely novel revision of the economic interpretation of history. Proletarian tactics before the outbreak of war and after must be based upon exactly opposite principles. This presupposes that social conditions, the basis of our tactics, are fundamentally different in war from what they are in peace. According to the economic interpretation of history as Marx established it, all history is the history of class struggles. According to Kautsky’s revision we must add: except in times of war.’

[From the article, 'The Rebuilding of the International', Socialist Standard, September, 1915.]

Letters: Crypto-Leninistic? (1970)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1970 issue of the Socialist Standard

Crypto-Leninistic?

It is difficult to avoid the impression that the Socialist Party of Great Britain is Crypto-Leninistic when it claims that capitalism was necessary to build up the organization of production until it could be replaced by democratic control of society. If people are inadequate to develop their economy communally and co-operatively, then by what means does competence magically descend on them after elitist-controlled growth. It takes blindness to ignore the achievements in voluntary collectivization (free sharing of talents and resources) of the Spanish anarchists in the 1930’s and to disregard the potential of the Mahknovites in the Russian Revolution. Again on what grounds does the SPGB condemn the Bolshevik usurpations when it alleges that capitalism is necessary in primitive countries (see p.45 Russia 1917-1967). I am very disappointed in the Companion Parties (WSP. SPGB. et al). This lack of faith in the ability of the people to control their own destiny was certainly not shared by Rosa Luxemburg who is otherwise favourably regarded by the WSP. 1 regret having to be so critical and I hope this disagreement is based on a misunderstanding.

Yours for Socialism.

Roger Lee.

Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.A.

Reply: 

Roger Lee will be pleased to know that he has misunderstood us. When we say that the development of capitalism was necessary before Socialism could be established, we are thinking in world terms. By the end of the last century capitalism had performed this task of building up the material basis for Socialism. From then on it has been a reactionary system everywhere. We reject the view that the coming of capitalism to the backward countries now (or to backward Russia after 1917) is necessary before Socialism can be established.

When we wrote on page 45 of our pamphlet Russia 1917-1967: “That Russia had to follow the capitalist road and employ capitalist methods was inevitable”, we meant this to be understood in the context of the conditions then existing, i.e., that Russia was economically backward and that a majority of the workers both there and in other countries of the world did not want or understand Socialism. In fact we specially spelt this out on the previous page of the same pamphlet:

  . . . in the conditions that existed in Russia and the absence of a strong world socialist movement no other development was possible. Russia had to go through the stage of capitalism (emphasis added).

The land area of Russia and its people could have formed part of a world socialist community after 1917 had there been a majority of Socialists in the industrialised parts of the world. The brutal Bolshevik industrialisation of Russia was not historically necessary, whatever “crypto-Leninists" might say (if that is what they do say).

We are aware that throughout the history of capitalism there have been examples of workers (and peasants) organising themselves democratically to produce wealth. These however were not examples of Socialism but they do confirm that ordinary people can run society's affairs without a boss class — an argument we have always put forward.

Editorial Committee.

Recent Tapes Library additions (1975)

Party News from the March 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Blogger's Note:

An audio recording of Harry Young's meeting on Rosa Luxemburg is available on the SPGB website.

I wonder if any of the other meetings listed above are in the party archive?

Socialism on tape (1991)

From the February 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

From the above list, the following recordings are available on the SPGB website:

• Capitalism or Socialism? DEBATE between The Socialist Party (E. Hardy) and the Conservative Party (Arthur Johnston). (1983)
• 'Looking forward': The way ahead for Socialists. DEBATE between The Socialist Party (Steve Coleman) and Socialist Organiser (Simon Pottinger). (1983)
• Is Britain Worth Dying For? DEBATE between The Socialist Party and Lady Olga Maitland (Women and Families for Defence) (1984).
• After The Miners Strike — Which Way Forward For Socialists? DEBATE between The Socialist Party and Socialist Workers Party (speaker Colin Tipton) (1985).
• Did Lenin Distort Marx? DEBATE between The Socialist Party and Monty Johnstone (Communist Party. Marxism Today) (1982).
• The Crisis In Capitalism — What Is The Next Step? DEBATE between The Socialist Party (speaker Clifford Slapper) and Bill Etherington (General Secretary. Durham Mechanics NUM) (1986)
• The Politics of Rosa Luxemburg, Speaker Vic Vanni (1983)
• Marxian Economics And Capitalist Textbooks. Speaker Adam Buick. (1987)
• Marx's Conception Of Socialism. Speaker E. Hardy (1987)
• The Gulf Crisis — Another War for Oil. Central London rally with panel of speakers (1990).

Education Conference on Working-Class Culture (1986):

• Folk Music and Workers' History. Speaker: Sandy Easton
• Educating the Workers. Speaker: Brian Rubin
• Soap Operas and Working-Class Life. Speaker: Gary Slapper

Education Series on Marxian Economics. Speaker: E. Hardy (1980).

• Labour Theory of Value.
• Crises and Depressions. (Part 2, Part 3.)
• Productivity.
• Rent, Interest and Profit.
• Marxist and Monetarist Theories of Inflation.
• Taxation and the Working Class.

Notes by the Way: “No Reparations, No Indemnities” (1948)

The Notes by the Way Column from the January 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

“No Reparations, No Indemnities”

At the time the Communists seized power in Russia their favourite slogan for winning the support of the war-weary workers of Europe was “No Reparations : No Indemnities.” They bitterly attacked the Allied victors for trying to collect vast reparations from the defeated Central Powers, opposed the Versailles Treaty and encouraged the rebuilding of Germany as a great power. As Foreign Commissar Molotov was still saying after the outbreak of war in 1939, but before Russia was attacked, “We have always held that a strong Germany is an indispensable condition for a durable peace in Europe.” (Speech to Supreme Soviet, 31/10/39.) In 1929 the British Communists put forward the same plea at the General Election. They demanded “repudiation of all imperialist treaties and pacts—the Versailles Treaty, the Locarno Pact, the Kellog Pact” and “annulment of the Dawes Plan ” (a plan for the collection of reparations from Germany).

Now the tune is altered. Russia’s demand is for the payment by Germany of 10,000 million dollars as reparations. (Manchester Guardian, 15/12-’47.) Curiously the Daily Worker during the meetings of the four Foreign Ministers in London in December, while this was being discussed, was very coy about reporting it and managed on more than one occasion to report the debates without mentioning the figure. Perhaps they have a fear that readers may remember what they used to say about the futility and iniquity of reparations.

* * *

Why Workers Read the “Daily Worker”

The following is a notice issued by the Daily Worker and published by them as an advertisement in the News and ‘Book Trade Review and Stationers’ Gazette (6/12/47). It needs no comment.

“IT GETS AROUND. 

News has a habit of spreading. People soon get to know what’s happening. For instance, there’s a lot of talk in the sporting world about the consistent success of Cayton, the Daily Worker’s racing tipster. After all, 752 winners in the flat racing season is worth talking about! So you will understand why more people are asking for the Daily Worker. If you have difficulty in getting copies get in touch with us, we might be able to help.”

* * *

Some “Austerity” Fortunes

Among the fortunes reported in the Press recently on the death of the holders are the following:

Mr. H. Mountain, £1,122,616;

Sir W. McLintoch, £410,203;

Mr. Hermann Marx, £1,262,492;

Marquess of Lansdowne, £1,023,792;

Mr. Frank Hodges, one-time Secretary of the Miners’ Federation, £132,959.

Mr. Frank Hodges after leaving the trade, union movement went into the more lucrative occupation of company director.

All of the amounts given above are before payment of death duties

Another interesting news item recently was a comment by the City Editor of the Evening Standard (9/12/47) on the Ellerman fortune. After stating that Lord Ellerman holds £519,000 Deferred Stock of the Ellerman Shipping Lines, his holding being estimated to have a present value of over £2,500,000, and also holdings in a group of investment and brewery companies worth another £1,050,000 the Editor goes on as follows about the total present value of all investments :

“No firm estimate can be made of the Ellerman fortune today, but many people in the City believe that he would not lose in the comparison with his father. The first Sir John left £40 million.” (Evening Standard, 9/12/47.)

* * *

Grain Shortage?

”BUENOS AIRES, Wednesday. — The Argentine has been forced to burn £125,000,000 worth of crops, chiefly maize, says a Government statement tonight.

“It blames an economic blockade which keeps out machinery, cars, and rolling stock.

“Ports and railway terminals are jammed with grain which cannot he loaded in ships.” (Daily Express, 30/10/47.)

* * *

Growing Imperial Importance of Equatorial Africa

The following is an extract from an article on Equatorial Africa in the Times (14/11/47).

“As the British Empire in its old significance tends to shrink, with the gradual advance of its peoples to self-government and with the transfer to United Nations trusteeship of responsibility for certain territories at present administered by Britain, attention must he increasingly directed to the remaining British Colonies. That several of these are to be found in Africa is a fortunate fact in view of the withdrawal of British power from Egypt, the uncertain future of Palestine, and the consequent insecurity of the Mediterranean and Suez Canal route to those parts of the Commonwealth and Empire lying in the East.

“The search for alternative routes more secure from attack and for areas more conveniently situated for the disposition of imperial military resources must focus attention on West and East Africa, where there are great territories which, on examination, may be found to provide in great measure alternatives capable of making up for losses elsewhere. It might on the face of it seem that from a general move southwards into Africa only military advantages would accrue, such as safer lines of communication, areas suitable for British troops, and even alternative resources of man-power to succeed those lost by the changing conditions in India.”

* * *

Echo from Bikini

“King Juda of Bikini and his 165 subjects are to be uprooted afresh and shipped to a new island. Eighteen months ago their ancient atoll home was sacrificed to the atom bomb tests. Now, in the words of an official American Navy report, they are ‘a destitute, defeated, frustrated, poverty-stricken and hungry people.’

“Before the bombs exploded they were persuaded to make their ‘contribution to the advancement of science.’ Lock, stock and barrel they were moved to Rongerik Island, 120 miles away.

“There they found: 416 acres, instead of the 1,500 they were used to ; fire, which devastated their coconut trees ; and a lagoon with poisoned fish.

“They were driven to cutting palms and eating the leaves.” (News-Chronicle, 4/10/47.)

* * *

“The Greatest Social Reform Parliament in History.”

The Labour Party likes to make the claim that it is a Socialist party committed to the introduction of a Socialist system of society, but whenever its leaders set out to defend themselves against the Tory Opposition their line is always the very different one that they are a better social reform party than any of their predecessors. In a speech at Bermondsey Mr. Herbert Morrison is reported by the Daily Mirror (16/12/47) as making the claim thai “the present Parliament is destined to be the greatest social reform Parliament in history.”

He may prove to he right but the workers will discover that after all the Labour Party reforms have been put into operation Capitalism will still be with us.

* * *

I.L.P. History

In the Socialist Leader (6/12/47) Mr. F. A. Ridley writes an article on the theme “Had Rosa Luxemburg lived, Stalin might never have come to power in Russia, nor Hitler in Germany.” He writes:

“For had that amazing woman survived, she, at the head of German Communism, might have been able to establish a ‘Balance of Power’ in the new International which would have offset the Russian domination that subsequently monopolised it, in other words the ‘Third International’ might have become really international.”

Without going into elaborate arguments to answer this too-easy re-writing of history it should surely be obvious that as Socialism was impossible in 1918 because there were too few Socialists inside and outside of Russia, the Russian Government, if it had failed to control its instrument, the Third International, would have scrapped it and created other instruments for carrying out its foreign policy. We might just as well say that if Ramsay MacDonald had not been born or had succeeded in his first ambition, that of becoming a Liberal M.P., the Labour Party might have been Socialist.

Or perhaps now that Mr. Ridley has shown Stalin where he is wrong Stalin will mend his ways and do what Ridley thinks Luxemburg would have done.

* * *

A.R.P. Again

The following is from an Editorial, “Atom Age A.R.P.,” in the Daily Mail (12/12/47).

“To most people the revival of the A.R.P. service on a national scale is like a blow between the eyes. 

” ‘It is little more than two years since the end of the last war,’ they say, ‘ and now we seem to be getting ready for the next one. Has the world gone mad?’

“No, it has not gone mad, because it always was in that condition. But there are degrees of lunacy, and the wild state of this age is shown by the extent of the new Civil Defence plans.

“The aim in future is that everyone shall be trained in these warlike duties. The professional element will be provided by a full-time force of A.R.P. ‘commandos’ ready to move anywhere at a moment’s notice. An ‘incident’ in a future war may be the blotting-out of an entire town.”

In the meantime the war-time allies have finally ended the London meeting of the four Foreign Ministers quite unable to agree about the future of Germany. More or less open hostility now replaces the protestations of everlasting friendship. And the remedy is not more A.R.P. but the abolition of Capitalism.

Edgar Hardcastle

Chapter Two: Reform or Revolution (1984)

From Samuel Leight's book, The Futility of Reformism

An acceptance of capitalism is indicative of a political approach that must inevitably enmesh itself with the reformation of the system and not with its abolition. Conversely, a genuine opposition to capitalism implies an understanding and knowledge that should preclude any desire to embark on a reformist program, recognizing the futility of such action, irrespective of the merits of the reforms contemplated. 

Wherever and whenever there is a program of reforms you will always find the "Leaders" ready and willing to perform, but always unable in the end to properly fulfill the promises which originally were so artfully dangled. Reforms never live up to their expectations because the very nature of capitalism invariably sabotages the performance of the reformers. Even when certain problems get resolved they are replaced with new ones, generally of an equal or greater magnitude. Apart from the wasted energy and time that reformism engenders, the danger of such activity lies in the inevitable apathy and disillusionment that arises in the aftermath. These are the breeding grounds for dictatorial regimes. 

It is a political delusion to think that one can shelve the case for socialism and still serve the interests of the working class by helping to reform capitalism in its quest for greater efficiency. The interests of the majority can only be served by the elimination of a system that can never be made to operate on their behalf irrespective of how it is manipulated or reformed. Socialist, political energies are channeled solely for the achievement of socialism — we do not concern ourselves directly with the administration of a system whose major social evils are irremovable notwithstanding the nature of the reforms that may be introduced. Reforms leave the fundamental basis of the system unaltered. It is this social and economic core, resting up on the class ownership of the means of production and distribution, that gives rise to the insoluble problems. 

In conjunction with this approach, we nevertheless urge our fellow workers to maintain and improve their standards of living through active participation in the Trade Union movement. However, such activity should always be kept in proper perspective with the realization that Trade Unions are limited in their scope. They demonstrate the class struggle in ever-constant action, as distinct from the separate policy of reformism to which we are opposed. 

With logic and socialist insight, we advocate peaceful, democratic revolution as the only political course to follow. At the same time, we recognize the necessity for the working class to continuously strive at safeguarding and improving their economic conditions, through appropriate, well-conceived Trade Union activity, in the interim. 

Can the working class "relate" to such a policy? We emphatically claim that they can, and should —without delay! 

Socialism, of course, can never be established or operated without a socialist majority. Once this fundamental position is fully appreciated it becomes obvious that any so-called Socialist Party that advocates a policy of reforms would automatically attract to its ranks reformists but not revolutionists. In no time at all any Party which naively attempted to take a dual position of reformation combined with "revolution" would be swamped and outnumbered by the reformists and would be politically castrated as far as socialism is concerned. The Fabian Society, established in January 1884, as a Society and not as a Political Party, and the Social Democratic Federation, which changed its name to the Social Democratic Party in 1908, both originating in England, are examples of reformist organizations that, in addition, purported to advocate socialism. The Fabian Society's doctrine was "the inevitability of gradualness," while the SDF referred to their reforms as "stepping stones to Socialism." A small group of secessionists from the SDF, opposing the reformist approach, formed the Socialist Party of Great Britain in 1904 with an object and set of principles that uniquely distinguished them as a Socialist Party in every sense of the term. 

Rosa Luxemburg in her work entitled "Reform or Revolution" written in April 1899, stated in her Introduction: 

"The daily struggle for reforms, for the amelioration of the condition of the workers within the framework of the existing social order, and for democratie institutions, offers to the Social-Democracy the only means of engaging in the proletarian class war and working in the direction of the final goal — the conquest of political power and the suppression of wage-labor. Between social reforms and revolution there exists for the Social-Democracy an indissoluble tie. The struggle for reforms is its means; the social revolution, its aim." 

This statement is fallacious in content and deviates from the significance of her title which poses a choice between reform or revolution. 

Another unacceptable aspect supported by Rosa Luxemburg, is the theory that at some stage of development, due to the contradictions of the system, capitalism will "collapse" and that, quoting, "Without the collapse of capitalism the expropriation of the capitalist class is impossible." We would deny this statement and substitute a vital alternative position: without a socialist working class socialism is impossible! Capitalism has demonstrated its remarkable staying-power and adaptability from crises to crises, through recessions and depressions. And even if a "collapse" occurred, socialism could never be introduced unless the vast majority were already converted to the socialist case and properly organized to attain political power. When this situation happens it would of course be completely unnecessary to wait for a "collapse," because socialism becomes immediately practical. However, in fairness to Rosa Luxemburg, affectionately called Red Rosa by the SPGB for her heroic class-conscious defense in her trial at Weimar in 1907, she also supported a positive role to be played by the working class, and indicated that the workers might achieve power before the breakdown of the system took place. The socialist position looks for no anticipated crash that would mark the death-throes of capitalism—on the contrary, we emphasize that the socialist revolution depends upon a sufficiency of socialists and we work towards this end. 

As and when socialist delegates become elected to the Congresses and Parliaments throughout the world, with a mandate for socialism, they will of course be confronted from time to time with reformist measures, and called up on to either vote or abstain, approve or otherwise. They will be instructed in these matters by their respective Socialist Parties. The guiding principle will revolve around the interests of the working class together with the achievement of socialism. The socialist delegates will therefore act within this framework. They will also never lose any practical opportunity for propagating, at the applicable time, the case for socialism. When the World Socialist Parties finally get representation in the seats of power, we can rest assured that the ruling class and their aides will be churning out a plethora of reforms in order to appease the growing, awakening socialist working class in an effort to delay the inevitable. The foregoing scenario is in no way analogous to the advocacy of reforms as an initial attempt to gain political support' and vote-catching representation. 

With the magnificent, international declaration and enactment that every human being is the common owner, with democratic control, of the means of production and distribution, with free access to all goods and services, a new era commences. Poverty, unemployment, insecurity and war become immediately and irrevocably eliminated. Their cause, the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution by a minority, in a "commodity society," would have been eradicated. The structure of a socialist society makes their existence an economic and social impossibility. What reform, or series of reforms, could match, or in any way be comparable with, this position and attainment? 

There can be no poverty in a classless society, technologically capable of satisfying the needs of the population, with free access to all goods and services. 

There can be no unemployment, or employment, when all men and women are co-owners of the means of production and distribution, giving of their abilities in useful work for society as well as for themselves. 

There can be no insecurity when all "needs" can be satisfied as the result of "common ownership" and "free access." 

There can be no war when humanity is united as a whole without states, national boundaries, or armed forces; with production and distribution solely for use, and not for profit, eliminating money, wages, exchange, and the "market place." 

Audit each of these categories today, after the deluge of all the reforms that have been passed since the advent of capitalism, for complete justification of the case for socialism.

On August 20, 1980 a report from Washington (UPI) stated: “The World Bank estimated this year 780 million people throughout the world are living in ‘absolute poverty.’ It described this as ‘a condition of life so characterized by malnutrition, illiteracy and disease as to be beneath any reasonable definition of human decency’.”

On September 29, 1981 according to the National Advisory Council on Economic Opportunity, “Twenty-five million Americans are poor” and “Another 30 million—if they lose a job, get sick or burn out—could be poor.” On August 2, 1983 the U.S. Census Bureau stated that the number of Americans classified as poor increased by 2.6 million, from 31.8 million in 1981 to 34.4 million in 1982. The official poverty rate, reflecting the portion of the population living in poverty, was 14 per cent in 1981. The 1982 rate was the highest since the start of the “War on Poverty” in 1965, when the rate was 17.3 percent. Of course, by socialist standards, poverty is the economic lot of the whole of the working class, at all times under capitalism—but, be that as it may.

Unemployment in Great Britain reached 14 per cent of the work force in September, 1982; and in the U.S.A. 10.8 per cent in November, 1982—both record figures since the Great Depression and World War II. Canada had a post-Depression high of 12.6 per cent in March, 1983. According to researchers at Williams College and the University of Minnesota, as reported in the Wall Street Journal on October 21, 1982, each percentage point increase in the unemployment rate correlates with 318 additional suicides. They estimate that the current recession is prompting 1,200 to 1,300 suicides a year.

If an unparalleled Arms Race between the major powers is touted as the supposed road to peace, then this futile pursuit alone is sufficient unto itself to condemn the anarchy, wastefulness and social stupidity of modern-day capitalist society. Of course, peace is non-existent under capitalism—in fact, the director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, in May 1977, stated that since September 1945 there has not been a single day in which the world was free of war.

Here, we have only briefly touched upon the major social evils, ones that reforms are completely unable to penetrate with any kind of practical solutions. The reformists, therefore, also direct their ingenuity and efforts towards the “minor sores” of society. These have included so-called high taxes, “the economy,” balancing the budget (but not yours), inflation, violence, crime, pollution, premature death and ill-health caused directly by the system, racism, “freedoms” and “human rights.” And, lest we forget, the “privilege” of working class women having “equal rights” with the men of being exploited on equal terms. Presumably, also, the right to be massacred in the wars, alongside the men, for their masters’ interests—all this in the name of “equality”!

Every major political party in the U.S.A., Europe and elsewhere that has taken on the job of running capitalism has done so on a reformist ticket, failing dismally as far as the interests of the working class are concerned. And it can never be otherwise. Capitalism will always remain a system of perpetual crises, with unending competition and confrontation, both on the social and individual levels, all this impervious to reforms and reformism.

Lenin's Legacy (1983)

From the March 1983 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is irrelevant that in Russia the means of production are (mostly) not privately owned. Capital can be owned collectively: "the capitalists as a whole take direct part in the exploitation of the total working class by the totality of capital". [1] Bukharin emphasised the "class monopoly in the means of production", when "vulgar economists” had eyes only for private capitalists. [2] Engels wrote:

State ownership of the productive forces is not the answer . . . neither the conversion into joint-stock companies nor into state property deprives the productive forces of their character as capital . . . The workers remain wage-earners, proletarians”. [3]

Russian economic and political conditions differ from the West in that the means of production and distribution are formally owned by the state, and that there is a monopoly of political power by one party which consequently exercises monopolistic control over the means of production and distribution. Inequalities arising from the Party’s dictatorship have created a new exploiting class, powerful and privileged. "The workers remain wage-earners, proletarians."

Lenin preached and practised what Marx condemned. Lenin, a product of the Russian "intelligentsia", was caught up in the struggle against feudalism when the Russian proletariat was still only a fraction of the workforce. His policy was to control workers’ organisations by setting up secret cells. “The Party must be the vanguard, the leader of the broad mass of the working class”, he wrote. [4] Marx however declared: “The emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves". [5]

Engels considered that in Russia "both the proletariat and the bourgeoisie exist only in sporadic form and have not passed beyond the inferior stage of development" Against Tkachev's view that Russians were "the chosen people" who could bypass capitalism altogether, he argued: "the existence of the bourgeoisie is . . . as necessary a condition for the socialist revolution as the proletariat. A person who maintains that this revolution could be carried out more easily in his country because it has neither proletariat nor bourgeoisie proves by his statement that he has understood nothing of socialism”. [6]

Marx held that Russia was not yet capitalist: “if Russia is tending to become a capitalist nation . . . she will not succeed without having first transformed a good part of her peasants into proletarians’’. [7] Fifty years later, Stalin presided over the ruthless process of primitive accumulation when

great masses of men are suddenly and forcibly torn from their means of subsistence and hurled as free and "unattached" proletarians on the labour-market . . . And the history of this, their expropriation, is written in the annals of mankind in letters of blood and fire. [8]

In 1918, the Socialist Party of Great Britain declared: "there is no ground whatever for supposing that (the peasants) are ready or willing to accept social ownership of the land". Could Russia be ready for socialism? “Unless a mental revolution such as the world has never seen before has taken place, or an economic change has occurred more rapidly than history has ever recorded, the answer is ‘No'.” [9]

Since the essential preconditions for a socialist revolution did not exist, the irony of history changed Lenin and his successors into midwives of capitalism, not socialism. The “vanguard party” with its "advanced theory” had to follow the bloody path of primitive accumulation, to clear the way for the capitalism they had willed to destroy.

Lenin gained power in a backward country whose economy had collapsed. The European revolutions he confidently expected failed to occur, and no class in Russia supported socialism. “The worst thing that can befall a leader of an extreme Party is to be compelled to take over a government in an epoch when the movement is not yet ripe", wrote Engels.[10] Since neither the economic nor the political conditions for socialism existed, any attempt to introduce socialism by abandoning the market economy and commodity production was utopian and doomed to disaster.

The Vanguard Party

Lenin claimed that "by its own forces the working class can only arrive at a trade union consciousness . . . the workers can acquire class political consciousness only from without, that is, only outside of the economic struggle, outside of the sphere of relations between workers and employers".[11] This view did not come from Marx but from the Narodnik tradition “Neither now nor in the future is the people, left to itself, capable of achieving the social revolution. Only we. the revolutionary minority, can". wrote Tkachev. [12] In 1891 Axelrod argued that the workers' struggle was industrial, not political: “in the struggle for political freedom. the advanced sections of the proletariat follow the revolutionary circles and the fractions of the so-called intelligentsia". [12]

Lenin believed in this leadership role: “the intellectuals are good at solving questions ‘of principle'. They are good at drafting plans and supervising the execution of plans". [12] His view reflected the undeveloped state of the Russian working class. It was not held by Marx who, while recognising the importance of theory, also recognised the workers’ ability to organise themselves without the leadership of a self-appointed élite. The early utopian socialists, he wrote, saw in the proletariat only "the most suffering class . . . incapable of any historical initiative"; to them "the gradual, spontaneous class organisation of the proletariat" was inconceivable. [13] These comments apply equally to Lenin.

Marx's view of the socialist revolution was that it will be achieved by the working class — "the only really revolutionary class”. They will organise themselves. Vanguardism is a denial of Marx's most basic proposition.

The Dictatorship of the Party

On leaving Switzerland, Lenin wrote: "the Russian proletariat is less organised, prepared and class-conscious than the proletariat of other countries . . . Russia is a peasant country and one of the most backward of European countries”. [14] He seized power knowing this, and knowing the Bolsheviks were a minority. To retain power he established a dictatorship.

Within weeks he created the Cheka, an “absolutely independent organisation . . . with power to carry out searches, arrests and executions". [15] Dzerzhinski. the head of the Cheka, was to become head of the VSNKh, set up to control the economy. The Constituent Assembly was dissolved, and trade unions were under the control of the Party.

Tackling starvation in the cities, Lenin declared the problem “has to be solved by military methods, with absolute ruthlessness". [16] Terror was not ruled out. “The dictatorship is a rule based directly upon force and unrestricted by any laws", he wrote. [17] Forget democracy: "no essential contradiction can exist between the Soviet, that is, the socialist democracy, and the exercise of dictatorial power by a single person”. [18]

Marx wrote of “the dictatorship of the proletariat" meaning the organisation of the proletariat as the ruling class, as exemplified in the democratic Paris Commune. Lenin, latching on to the phrase, interpreted it to mean instead dictatorship by the vanguard with himself at the head. He echoed the Blanquist theory of "a dictatorial power, whose mission it will be to direct the revolutionary movement . . . to be strong, to act quickly, the dictatorial power will have to be concentrated in as small a number of persons as possible". [19]

Rosa Luxemburg protested:

the historical mission of the proletariat . . . is to create, in place of the bourgeois democracy. a Socialist democracy, and not to destroy democracy altogether . . . The dictatorship of the proletariat consists in the manner of application of democracy, not in its abolition . . . this democracy must be the work of the class and not of a small minority in the name of the (working) class.

She was particularly opposed to “the abolition of the most important guarantees for a healthy public life and for the labouring masses — the freedoms of the press, of association and of speech”. [20]

Marx loathed press censorship: "the censored press . . . is a flabby caricature without liberty, a civilised monster, a horror even though sprinkled with rosewater". [21] Lenin’s dictatorship demanded it.

The Missing Link

Lenjn argued that “socialism" was a transition stage to “communism”. During this "rather lengthy process”, when "all citizens would be converted into workers and employees of one huge ‘syndicate' — the whole state”, the state would wither away. [22] This confused theory is contrary to the views of Marx and Engels, who both used the terms socialism and communism interchangeably.

Lenin asserted that "the first fact that has been established with complete exactitude by the whole theory of development, by science as a whole . . . is that, historically. there must be a special stage or a special phase of transition from capitalism to communism”. [22] “Science as a whole" had nothing to do with this “fact”: believing that the workers were not ready for socialism, since their class-consciousness had to be taught them by intellectuals, he did not accept that they could make "complete communism" work. That was "utopian” — so in the meantime, the aim had to be the “transition” stage.

In this "first phase” he decreed: “all citizens (would be) transformed into the salaried employees of the state, which consists of the armed workers . . . the whole of society will have become a single office and a single factory . . . escape from national accounting and control will inevitably become incredibly difficult, a rare exception, and will probably be accompanied by swift and severe punishment". [22] Russia did indeed become one vast labour-camp, but it differs from what Lenin claimed for his “socialism". Bureaucracy multiplied instead of disappearing, "equal pay" was soon abandoned, and "strict accounting and control" was replaced by widespread corruption.

The unpleasant reality of the totalitarian state was masked by theories about a "socialist state” — a contradiction in terms. The existence of the state ("the executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie” [24]) implies and reflects the existence of an exploiting class. The state in Russia has the same function as in any other country: "the main object of the state has always been to secure, by armed force, the economic oppression of the labouring majority by the minority which alone possesses wealth”. [25]

The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Marx’s conception of socialism means that, as Engels explained, “with the disappearance of an exclusively wealth-possessing minority there also disappears the necessity for the power of armed suppression. or state power”. [25] Since the state in Russia has not disappeared, after more than sixty years, we must conclude that its existence is proof positive of the existence of “an exclusively wealth-possessing class”, and exploiting class.

Ironically, Lenin in 1917 wrote opposing "the widespread view that . . . state monopoly capitalism is no longer capitalism, but can already be termed "state socialism’.” [26] However regulated and planned, he argued, the system remained capitalism. On this, at least, he was in agreement with Marx and Engels.

Charmian Skelton

References:

1. Capital Vol. Ill, chap. x.

2. The Economic Theory of the Leisure Class, 1914.

3. Anti-Dühring

4. Quoted by Rudolf Sprenger. Bolshevism.

5. Inaugural Address to the International Workingmen’s Association.

6. Social Problems in Russia (1874), quoted by Daniel Norman, Marx and Soviet Reality.

7. Letter, 1877.

8. Capital Vol. I. chap. xxvi.

9. Socialist Standard, August. 1918.

10. The Peasant War in Germany.

11. What Is To Be Done? 1902 .'

12. Quoted by Sprenger, Bolshevism.

13. Communist Manifesto.

14. Quoted by R. Payne, Lenin.

15. Decrees of 20 Dec, 1917, and 26 Sept, 1918.

16. Speech of 2 Feb, 1920, quoted by Alec Nove, An Economic History of the Soviet Union.

17. The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky, 1919.

18. Speech 28 April 1918. quoted by Kautsky, The Dictatorship of the Proletariat.

19. Quoted by Martov, The State and Socialist Revolution. 1919.

20. The Russian Revolution, quoted by D. Norman. op. cit.

21. Quoted by D. Norman, op. cit.

22. The State and Revolution, 1917-18.

23. Left-wing Childishness and Petty Bourgeois Mentality, 1920.

24. Communist Manifesto.

25. Engels, letter to van Pappen, 1883.

26. The State and Revolution.

Assassinations or class struggle? (2025)

Street art in San Francisco

From the February 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

Luigi Mangione allegedly assassinated the capitalist Brian Thompson, CEO of a health insurance company, after seeing his own mother’s prolonged suffering after being denied health insurance coverage in North America, where healthcare is unsocialised by design. The shot was heard around the world and ignited the long dormant class consciousness of North America. The outpouring of support for Mangione’s alleged act has been politically surprising for many of the lapdogs of capital. The media especially has been caught on the back foot, seeing political pundits booed by their own audience as the public celebrate the alleged act.

Capitalism and political violence go hand in hand. As Malcolm X said, ‘violence is American as cherry pie.’ It’s just not usually cutting in this direction. We will see this same political opera play out again and again as capitalism tumbles from one crisis to the next, economic and environmental, and as society becomes more individualistic and fragmented from both wings of the political spectrum, as well as an increase in violence inspired by conspiracy theorists. Examples abound from ‘pizzagate’ or the ‘MAGA bomber’ Cesar Sayoc.

Western society’s morals advocate for people to only use peaceful means of achieving social change, but capitalism is anything but peaceful. The inherent tensions between classes in a capitalist society lead to situations where violence is inevitable when the oppressed are spoken to everyday in the language of violence by capital.

The state, as argued by Max Weber, is defined by its monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force. In this regard, the 1 percent wields power through the apparatus of the state, enforcing laws and maintaining order to protect its property. So, when the working class resorts to violence, it is typically a reaction to an unyielding system that allows no channels and permits no voice.

Consider the words of Marxist revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg, who once stated, ‘Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently.’ Where the state fails to provide avenues for dissent, the working class feels compelled to take matters into their own hands, an act not of frivolity but of desperation. To condemn such an act will serve the oppressive structure of the status quo that continues to render peaceful protests ineffectual.

The job of a socialist party in this context is not to support the wild actions of rugged individualists but to provide paths of mass action with a coherent philosophy, uniting disparate efforts into a collective strategy. Antonio Gramsci emphasised the importance of a ‘war of position’ in establishing hegemony, advocating for a broad ideological struggle that counters individualistic acts of defiance with systemic solutions. The party must provide structure to the movement, demonstrating that the fight against oppression is not one of isolated and ultimately futile gestures but part of a large revolutionary struggle.

The late historian Eric Hobsbawm pointed out the ‘social bursts’ of violence that erupt during times of severe inequity. The working class mobilisation amidst such strife, far from being vilified, should be understood within the broader narrative of class conflict.

The state’s response to dissent is a reflection of its inherent class interests. The role of a socialist party is not only to channel individual acts into a collective aim but also to recognise and respond to the realities of revolutionary action, acknowledging that, while peaceful revolution is its aim, understanding the circumstances that lead to violence is crucial in the pursuit of a free society. It is through this synthesis of theory and practice that the socialist movement can articulate its vision for the future, one where productive resources are held in common, and where the state, and its monopoly of violence, will be a thing of the past.

A. T.

Not reliable (2024)

Book Review from the December 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

A World to Win. The Life and Works of Karl Marx. By Sven-Eric Liedman. Verso. 2018.

Liedman is a retired professor of the history of ideas at the University of Gothenburg. This 700-page intellectual biography of Marx was first published in Swedish in 2015. As a description of the development of Marx’s ideas, linked to contemporaneous economic and political events and his changing personal circumstances, it is interesting and informative enough. When, however, it comes to discussing Marx’s economic theory it is far from reliable.

Liedman has Marx as a crude underconsumptionist who explained crises as resulting from the total market-price of what is produced inevitably exceeding, from time to time, total paying consumer demand, resulting in a glut which has to be cleared before production can resume, leading to the next glut. He also sometimes confuses ‘constant’ and ‘fixed’ capital and even ‘variable’ and ‘circulating’ capital.

As a historian of political philosophies Liedman is particularly interested in Marx’s theory of ‘the fetishism of commodities’ (his view that where there is widespread production of articles for sale — commodities — the producers come to be dominated by the movement of their own creation that commodities are) but a passing remark later shows that he hasn’t even understood that Marx envisaged the abolition of commodity-production:

‘Luxemburg can be said to have been correct on another point in relation to Lenin and his followers: in the future society Marx sketched out, there is a market for goods and not a completely regulated planned economy. But the market is equal, in contrast to the kind that characterised capitalist society’ (pp 426-7).

Marx as a ‘market socialist’! Incredible. In fact, the section of Capital on the fetishism of commodities appears before Marx introduces the concept of capital and capitalism; it assumes a market economy with no exploitation of the producers.

Luxemburg too envisaged future society as a ‘natural economy’ where there would be production directly for use and no longer for sale. He also has Rosa Luxemburg (p. 594) as a member of the Reichstag in 1914 when women in Germany didn’t even have the vote.

Adam Buick

Letter: Imperialism (2010)

Letter to the Editors from the September 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

Imperialism

Dear Editors

It was reported on Sunday 11 July 2010 that a boy of seven works a 98-hour week in Delhi to supply products to the British high street chain Poundland.

What is the SPGB position on the conception of imperialism through Lenin, Bukharin and Luxemburg and the idea of an aristocracy of labour?

Wirral Socialists 

(http://www.wirralsocialists.com)

Reply:

We have never accepted the view that a section of the working class in the developed capitalist countries – the so-called “aristocracy of labour” of skilled workers – shares in the proceeds of the exploitation of colonial and now ‘Third World’ countries, The wages paid to skilled workers here reflect the higher quality – due to more education, training and skill – of the labour power they have to sell.

It was only in 1920, in a preface to the French and German editions, of his Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism that Lenin introduced the idea that a section of the working class in the imperialist countries shared in the booty extracted from capitalists, workers and peasants in the rest of the world. This was to try to secure the support of anti-colonial movements for his beleaguered regime in Russia. It was a political manoeuvre – “workers and colonial peoples unite” – that went against the basic principle of Marxian economics that wages represent the value of the labour-power a worker sells and contain no element of surplus value.

The original 1916 edition of the pamphlet did not contain this. It was a fairly run-of-the-mill analysis of imperialism and colonialism as put forward by Social Democrats of the time: that it was due to the higher profits to be made in the colonies and less developed countries than at home. The only real objection was to its subtitle of “the highest stage of capitalism” since capitalism had been “imperialist” in the 18th century too.

Rosa Luxemburg’s Accumulation of Capital (1912), however, was based on a faulty analysis of capitalism: that it suffered from a chronic shortage of home purchasing power that drove capitalist countries to seek markets outside capitalism, in the less developed parts of the world. Apart from its descriptive parts it is of little value.

The Bolshevik Bukharin’s Imperialism and the World Economy (1916) developed the idea of a single capitalist world economy and anticipated the role that the state was to play in supporting the overseas economic interests (markets, raw material resources, investment outlets, trade routes) of the capitalist firms established within its borders.

All three (and others) were trying to analyse the phenomenon of capitalism coming to dominate the whole world, as it did towards the end of the 19th century, to which the term “imperialism” was given. This was not the best term since imperialism is not something separate from capitalism and all capitalist countries, not just those normally labelled “imperialist”, are prepared to use force to further the vital economic interests of their capitalist class. – Editors.

Capitalism and the fallacy of reform (2024)

From the April 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

Recently, Sir Keir Starmer announced his ambition for a ‘patriotic economy’ through the championing of home ownership and the building of new model towns. Evidently, the Labour leader is attempting to harness the middle ground, by blending Thatcher and Attlee. Many recall the faux revolution of ‘right to buy’ which, forty years on, has spawned a social housing crisis. Throw in the legacy of the 1946 New Towns Act, which sought to construct model towns in the aftermath of the Second World War, and you have yet another Social Democratic fudge to reform capitalism.

Starmer is not alone in seeking to reinvent the wheel. Every Labour leader has bound themselves to the yoke of the system. Ramsay Macdonald all too willingly succumbed to the protracted economic crisis of the interwar years, content at playing establishment bank manager in a period of decline. The Attlee Government, despite the strides made in welfarism, struck the rocks, and yielded to the rules of capitalism, laying the course for twenty-five years of Butskellism. Harold Wilson had us believe that a new Britain could be forged in the white heat of technology, but this fire burned in the hall of capitalism, prostrated by markets and a depreciating pound. James Callaghan surrendered what vestiges of leftism remained, implementing the kind of monetarism Thatcher later claimed as her own. Need anything be said of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown – the would-be heirs to the Iron Lady?

No, the British labour movement, like so many Social Democratic movements the world over, has always been a willing hostage to capitalism, engaging in a futile quest to reform it, rather than introduce socialism. In some respects, they cannot be blamed, for the boom-and-bust integral to the existence of capitalism has attracted many in vainglorious quests to improve it and acquire the eternal elixir of socioeconomic harmony. Many also point to the idea that capitalism has in fact undergone transformations as justification for reform, such as the shift from industrial capitalism to the information age. The rise of technology and globalisation has apparently altered the dynamics of production, trade, and employment. Some have also claimed the attainment of adaptation within capitalism – the Nordic model, exemplified by countries like Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, supposedly combines capitalist elements with a strong welfare state. This model allegedly seeks to prioritise social equality, education, and healthcare, challenging the notion that capitalism must follow a rigid, laissez-faire approach.

However, reformist approaches are an illusion and cannot ameliorate the structural antagonisms which provide the fundamental basis for capitalism. Even in the venerated Nordic economies high inflation and interest rates, youth unemployment and poverty persist. Finland is in recession while the Swedish economy is weakening. Norway, propped up by oil and gas exploitation faces fiscal challenges with high public spending. The message is clear: under capitalism, boom will always lead to bust.

The system requires inequality and the exploitation of workers, else there would be no profit or incentive to accumulate. Over the past hundred years, Social Democratic efforts to introduce welfarism and redistribution have failed to eradicate this inequality and exploitation. Today, the rich are richer and the poor poorer. The gap has widened, and reformism has served only to pacify the masses so that the top one per cent can acquire more. Today, the poorest 50 percent hold only 8 percent of global wealth, while the richest 10 percent earn over 50 percent. The top 1 percent alone owns 35 percent of global wealth, takes 19 percent of income, and emits 17 percent of global carbon emissions (International Monetary Fund, Global Inequalities). This has occurred despite the founding of welfare states in some countries, free healthcare, state education, social security, and the ‘redistribution’ of wealth.

It appears the capitalist system has assimilated Social Democracy and turned it into a weapon to perpetuate exploitation. Harold Macmillan once said of Britons in the 1950s that they had never had it so good – (hardly an accolade considering decades of economic instability and destructive war). In truth, any semblance of prosperity is nothing more than the offering of more crumbs off the capitalist plate. You may receive sustenance, but the people at the top still get a hearty meal. If anything is true of today it is that the rich have never had it so good.

Alas, Social Democrats have been hood-winked, in no small way thanks to the Social Democratic theorist Eduard Bernstein (1850-1932). In Evolutionary Socialism: A Criticism and Affirmation (1899) Bernstein did not believe in capitalism’s inevitable destruction; he accepted the strength of its capacity to adapt and advocated reform so that humanity could transition from capitalism to social democracy. He contended that as workers attained greater rights, their grievances would diminish, making revolution implausible. In this, he is perhaps accurate. The extension of rights and the offering of the ‘crumbs’ have pacified the masses and encouraged social democrats to continue along the path of reformism. However, his call for reform contradicts his appraisal of capitalism’s adaptational strength. Everything promulgated within the system is consumed by the system. Nothing changes.

Like Bernstein, today’s Labour and Social Democratic parties do not champion any meaningful alternative – in fact, they are complicit in the perpetuation of capitalism. As Bernstein’s contemporary, the socialist revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919) contested:

‘…people who pronounce themselves in favour of the method of legislative reform in place of and in contradistinction to the conquest of political power and social revolution, do not really choose a more tranquil, calmer and slower road to the same goal, but a different goal’. Consequently, their goal is ‘not the realisation of Socialism, but the reform of capitalism.’

She did not mean workers should not fight for mitigations within the system – indeed we cannot suspend ourselves nor exist outside of it – but we must acknowledge that meaningful change can only be attained by transcending the capitalist system. Once this has been achieved and socialism established, humanity must then work to continually improve socialism so that it fulfils its basic mission of meeting the needs of all. Here, and only here, is where socialism truly becomes evolutionary.

Socialists can take some comfort from the fact that, notwithstanding the futility of Social Democratic attempts to reform the system, capitalism is by no means an eternal fact, nor inherent to human nature. Closer examination reveals that it is more accurately understood as a phase in human development. Throughout history, economic systems have undergone significant transformations, and capitalism is just one stage in this ongoing progression.

The advent of capitalism brought forth key principles, such as private ownership of the means of production, free-market competition, and the profit motive. The transition from feudalism to capitalism was not without conflict, as evidenced by the social upheavals and labour movements of the 18th and 19th centuries. These movements sought to address the challenges posed by the industrialisation of society, including issues of worker exploitation and poor working conditions.

There is, therefore, hope that humanity can transcend capitalism. It requires a widespread global consciousness, an acceptance of the truth that the system we currently perpetuate is harsh and damaging to us all, and that reforming that system equates to nothing more than that perpetuation.

While capitalism has undoubtedly played a significant role in shaping modern economies, it is not a reflection of human nature, as its apologists, ignoring the historical and cultural evidence, have claimed since the time of Adam Smith, if not before.

Human societies have demonstrated adaptability and a capacity for diverse economic systems throughout history, and while no thinking socialist can dispute the transformative impact of capitalism; the extent of technological advancement and human dominion over the environment, one would do well to remember that it does not symbolise the culmination of all conceivable endeavours to organise as a species. To rest on the laurels of capitalism is to commit the mistake of previous generations, specifically those who held up religion, imperialism, feudalism, and slavery as essential preconditions for civilisation. We must take what we have learned under capitalism and use it to build a better version of the world – one of peace, community, and equality. In short, a socialist world.

John Elliston

50 Years Ago: Rosa Luxemburg on the Co-operative movement (1989)

The 50 Years Ago column from the March 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

Co-operative Societies are no more able than trade unions to end capitalism. As Rosa Luxemburg points out (pp. 35-6) they can survive within the present system only if they become pure capitalist enterprises. They have to compete with capitalist firms, and to do so successfully they must adopt capitalist methods of production.

  “Labour is intensified. The work day is lengthened or shortened, according to the situation of the market. And, depending on the requirements of the market, labour is either employed or thrown back into the street. In other words, use is made of all the methods that enable an enterprise to stand up against its competitors in the market. The workers forming a co-operative in the field of production . . . are obliged to take toward themselves the role of the capitalist entrepreneur—a contradiction that accounts for the usual failure of production co-operatives, which either become pure capitalist enterprises or, if the workers’ interests continue to predominate, end by dissolving”.

How capitalist the co-operatives have become in England may be seen from the fact that their employees, like employees in any capitalist concern, have frequently had to strike against their conditions of work.

[From a review of Rosa Luxemburg's "Reform or Revolution". Socialist Standard, March 1939.]

Letter: Capitalism’s limits? (2010)

Letter to the Editors from the December 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Editors

Capitalism is reaching its expansionary limits and being driven by these limits to substitute saturation for expansion. It is turning inward and “eating out its own guts”. The result is “barbarism”. 

“Normal” capitalism generated profits through expansion (growth). Apart from some margin for maneuver in near-earth outer space, it no longer has room for profitable expansion. This drives the system to “expand” inward, deriving profits from forcing down production costs by cutting wages, forcing more family members onto the labour market, and imposing higher productivity levels on workers (intensified exploitation), thereby increasing the quantity of commodities but degrading their quality. Here again, force is an essential factor.

As Rosa Luxemburg wrote in The Accumulation of Capital in 1913, capitalism always needs an “outside” somewhere. Although material conditions have changed since Rosa’s time, this remains true in a “metaphorically substantive” sense. 

With capitalism expanded to its spatial limits and turned inward, exploitation and profits grow apace. The biosphere, however, is a fixed system of reproduction. It took “time out of mind” to generate the hydrocarbon fuels that production for profit has consumed in the course of less than 200 years. It is true that “biological resources, if rationally exploited, are renewable and therefore practically everlasting” (Standard, November 2010, p. 6). But globalised capitalism does not follow a rational logic and already has a toe in the waters of barbarism. Socialists must be the lifeguards on this shore: there is no alternative to socialism.

Joe R. Hopkins, 

Florida, USA.

Reply: 

As we pointed out in a reply to a letter in the September issue, Rosa Luxemburg’s book was based on a faulty analysis of capitalism even if its descriptive parts about the barbaric effect of the spread of capitalism are good. We don’t accept that capitalism does have any “spatial limit” – Editors.

Anti-imperialism is not anti-capitalism (2020)

From the October 2020 issue of the Socialist Standard

We continue our series on the origins of the mistaken view that workers in the advanced capitalist countries share in the exploitation of those in the so-called ‘underdeveloped’ countries.

Link to Part 2 

In his 1920 Preface to Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism Lenin comments:

‘Capitalism has grown into a world system of colonial oppression and of the financial strangulation of the overwhelming majority of the population of the world by a handful of “advanced” countries’.

 Colonialism is not quite the same thing as imperialism. It entails the annexation of, and direct political control over, other territories by a state which is not necessarily true of imperialism. For Lenin, political independence was indeed achievable ‘within the bounds of world imperialist relationships (A Caricature of Marxism and Imperialist Economism, 1916).The classical Marxist diffusionist view held that, with capitalism’s development and the increasing internationalisation of capital, nationalism would decline as a social force. Unfortunately that hasn’t yet happened. However, here we are focussing on what ought to be the attitude of socialists towards nationalism.

Early twentieth century Marxists, like Rosa Luxemburg, were already arguing that nationalism had become reactionary. Capitalism had outlived its usefulness to progress, having prepared the ground for socialism by raising society’s productive potential to an unparalleled degree. While that potential continues to expand with technological innovation it is increasingly being squandered in all sorts of ways.

Nationalist struggles

Lenin’s take on nationalism was different. The rise of monopoly capitalism associated with imperialism entailed the ‘super-exploitation’ by a few oppressor (imperialist) nations of the oppressed (colonised) nations on the capitalist periphery. Nationalist movements in the latter, were – allegedly – qualitatively different from those in nineteenth century Europe in an era of ascendant capitalism. As Jim Blaut summarises:

 ‘The nationalism of colonies and semi-colonies is called into being by the intensification of exploitation and oppression. In an important way, this is a new phenomenon…, it cannot be assimilated to the theory of national movements which emerge during the rise of capitalism and have as their purpose or goal the simple creation of a bourgeois state. The nature of colonialism is such that producing classes suffer along with whatever young or incipient bourgeoisie may exist. Therefore the national liberation movements in colonies and semi-colonies are profoundly different from the national movements of earlier oppressed nations such as those in non-colonial portions of the Tsarist Empire. It is not innately a bourgeois struggle against feudal forces for the creation of a classical bourgeois state. It is a multi-class struggle directed primarily against imperialism’ (The National Question: Decolonising the Theory of Nationalism, 1987).

Since imperialism and monopoly capitalism were linked, this suggested that ‘national liberation struggles’ could serve as the harbinger of ‘global proletarian revolution’ which would likely erupt first where the impact of imperialist exploitation was harshest – namely, those economically backward countries still transitioning to capitalism. That required workers there to take the lead in this struggle, so it ‘could be turned onto a socialist trajectory or a non-capitalist trajectory which would result in socialism’. National struggle was thus clothed in the rhetorical language of class struggle. Trotsky similarly opined: 

‘The sectarian simply ignores the fact that the national struggle, one of the most labyrinthine and complex but at the same time extremely important forms of the class struggle, cannot be suspended by bare references to the future world revolution’ (Independence of the Ukraine and Sectarian Muddleheads, 1939).

For all Trotsky’s labyrinthine attempt to assimilate class struggle to national struggle, he was attempting to square the circle. ‘National struggle’ can only be advanced by watering down, and compromising, the class struggle. It is an attempt to impose from above a fake commonality of interests between classes whose own interests are diametrically opposed.

Though Lenin himself rhetorically committed himself to the concept of ‘proletarian internationalism’ and the repudiation of ‘national chauvinism’, it is difficult to see how one could ever successfully prosecute any ‘national liberation struggle’ without also fostering national chauvinism as its motivating ethos.

In any event, subsequent global developments exposed the fundamental flaws in his thinking. Particularly after the Second World War, vast swathes of the ‘developing world’ were granted political independence from their erstwhile colonial masters. Indeed, since then there have been further – successful – attempts at achieving political independence though these have tended to follow a somewhat different trajectory, resulting in the formation, along mainly ethnic lines, of new breakaway states as the product of civil war within existing states – for example, Southern Sudan. These latter developments do not fit well within the Leninist framework and its simplistic division of the world into ‘oppressor countries’ and ‘oppressed countries’.

In any case, history has emphatically vindicated Luxemburg’s repudiation of Lenin’s argument that socialists should support national liberation struggles to expedite a ‘global proletarian revolution’. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Instead, capitalist relations of production along with an accompanying capitalist mind-set has become firmly entrenched in the countries concerned. Hence the unedifying spectacle of erstwhile ‘Marxist’ guerrilla fighters transmogrified into well-heeled business people or corrupt politicians, hobnobbing with multi-nationals in a bid to pimp out the nation’s cheap labour force to overseas investors while cracking down on dissent and spiriting away a sizeable chunk of the nation’s revenue into some private offshore account. If you are going to ride the capitalist tiger don’t be surprised where it takes you.

World revolution

Yet ignorant Marx critics still routinely trot out the ridiculous refrain that Marx ‘got it all wrong’ in that the revolutions he hoped for occurred first, not in the advanced countries, but on the capitalist periphery. What these critics overlook is that these were not the revolutions Marx had in mind. Rather, they were capitalist revolutions enabling the transition to capitalism.

In the German Ideology Marx suggested the coming communist (socialist) revolution would likely be spearheaded by the advanced countries precisely because communism presupposed the advanced development of the productive forces: 

‘Empirically, communism is only possible as the act of the dominant peoples “all at once” and simultaneously, which presupposes the universal development of the productive forces and world intercourse bound up with them’.

We don’t need to take the idea of instantaneous global revolution too literally. Obviously, there will be some time lags involved in the spatial transformation from global capitalism to global socialism. However, Marx insisted on the absolute necessity of majoritarian socialist consciousness before that could happen. The logic of his diffusionist model suggested that if one part of the world had a socialist majority, other parts would not be far behind.

For Lenin, the ‘law of uneven development in capitalism’ meant it was impossible to achieve socialism simultaneously across the world. But, this was a reference to the objective preconditions for socialism – not the subjective preconditions – and, if anything, it would support Marx’s contention that a socialist revolution would likely occur first in the advanced countries where the productive forces were most developed. But Lenin’s ‘law’ has long been completely irrelevant to the socialist objective, anyway. Socialism can only be a global alternative to capitalism and it is the productive potential of the world as a whole that crucially matters, not any one part of it.

Why then his obsessive preoccupation with this ‘law’? A clue can be found in his article On the Slogan for a United States of Europe (1915):

‘The victory of socialism is possible first in several or even in one capitalist country alone. After expropriating the capitalists and organising their own socialist production, the victorious proletariat of that country will arise against the rest of the world—the capitalist world—attracting to its cause the oppressed classes of other countries.’

This implies not only the uneven development of the productive forces but the uneven growth of socialist consciousness itself. Lenin’s view was that workers in the advanced countries, by benefitting from imperialism, would be much more resistant to socialist thinking compared with their counterparts in the backward countries where national liberation struggle would more readily translate into ‘proletarian revolution’.

So when he spoke of organising ‘socialist production’ within a single country initially, the logic of his argument about how he saw a global proletarian revolution unfolding suggested he had in mind an economically backward country. However, it is precisely in such a country that material conditions would be least propitious for socialism. Furthermore, insofar as socialism and capitalism can no more coexist than one can mix oil and water, this would imply severing links with global capitalist supply chains exacerbating the hardships experienced there.

Lenin’s attempt to argue his way out of this impasse was disingenuous. Instead of the ‘victorious proletariat of that country’ literally ‘organising their own socialist production’ what he really had in mind was a process of ‘building socialism’ involving the implementation of state capitalism which he saw as being organically linked to socialism.

Ironically, far from advocating autarky, Lenin favoured closer integration with global capitalism and imperialist investment in the Soviet economy under his New Economic Policy his government was forced to adopt in 1921:

‘Get down to business, all of you! You will have capitalists beside you, including foreign capitalists, concessionaires and leaseholders. They will squeeze profits out of you amounting to hundreds per cent; they will enrich themselves, operating alongside of you. Let them. Meanwhile you will learn from them the business of running the economy’ (The New Economic Policy, 1921).

This partnership with Western capitalists continued under Stalin, the former providing much of the capital and expertise to finance Soviet industrialisation. Prominent among these was Henry Ford to whom Stalin expressed his gratitude, calling him one of the world’s greatest industrialists and obsequiously adding, ‘May God preserve him’ (history.com/this-day-in-history/ ford-signs-agreement-with-soviet-union).

Who is ‘imperialist’?

This was not just a one-way street, however. Just like the ‘Monroe doctrine’ enunciated by the American president James Monroe in the early nineteenth century, opposing further colonisation in the Americas by European powers only in order to hypocritically assert US imperialistic hegemony over the region, so the same can be said of Soviet imperialism.

The realisation that workers in the West were not going to rise up to support the Soviet regime prompted a strategic shift by that regime towards supporting nationalist struggles in developing countries as a means of undermining its Western rivals. For all its paper commitment to the principle of ‘national self-determination’, this did not stop the Soviet Union exercising its own political (and economic) muscle when it came to those countries falling within its own sphere of influence, installing puppet regimes and threatening or carrying out military intervention in countries like Hungary (1956) and Czechoslovakia (1968).

All this prompts the question – what exactly is meant by ‘imperialism’ – and, by extension, ‘anti-imperialism’ – today? Lenin developed his theory of imperialism in opposition to Kautsky’s ‘ultra-imperialism’ which envisaged the major imperialist powers forming a federation which would make military conflict largely redundant or irrational – a pious hope, indeed.

But Lenin’s own theory was shaped by the then existing reality of colonialism which in the post-war era has largely disappeared. At the same time we have witnessed the rise of giant multinational corporations, some with a larger revenue base than most states. If imperialism is about the conflict between nation-states how does this hold up in an era of ‘neo-liberal’ governance?

Concerning Lenin’s distinction between ‘imperialist countries’ and ‘oppressed countries’, Michael Roberts and Guglielmo Carchedi, have identified ‘10 countries at the most that fit the bill as imperialist’-– essentially the G7 countries plus one or two small states – by analysing cross-border flows of profit, interest and rent. As Roberts notes, little has changed in the century since Lenin wrote on the subject: ‘it’s still the same countries’ (bit.ly/35j9Y98).

But if being an ‘imperialist country’ means being a net ‘recipient of cross-border income flows’, then it seems improbable you will ever get rid of imperialism while capitalism (and its ‘cross-border income flows’) exists since what we are talking about here is essentially a zero sum game. Eliminating one imperialist power simply creates a vacuum into which another will inevitably step.

Thus, nationalistic ‘anti-imperialism’ has proved to be not only a fundamental distraction from the class struggle for socialism but also fundamentally futile on its terms.

Robin Cox