Russia's fate (1989)

From the February 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

The March 1924 edition of the Socialist Standard had this to say on the death of Lenin:

So far was he from changing the course of history. . . that it was the course of history which changed him . . . Today Russia stands halfway on the road to capitalism. The communists in their ignorance may howl at this, but Russia cannot escape her destiny.

The Socialist Party stood alone at the time in rejecting claims that Russia had achieved anything more than this: it stood not on the threshold of socialism, but on its way to full integration into the capitalist world economy.

Today we can test the socialist argument against the historical record. Has Russia escaped the destiny predicted for it by us in 1924? President Gorbachev answered the question in his speech to the United Nations in December:

The world economy is becoming a single organism and no state, whatever its social system or economic status, can normally develop outside it.

Alan D'Arcy