The pages of the Socialist Standard have always pointed out the differences between the various competing capitalist states. These differences fall into two main categories.
The first concerns the amount of democracy permitted to the workers. The UK, certain parts of Western Europe and the United States are examples of countries where the expression of an opinion contrary to the interest of the ruling class does not mean persecution. It would be misguided to over-emphasise this point: the freedoms that are available come down to the bourgeois right of freedom of contract. That means the freedom of the capitalist to exploit the workers. The worker has the freedom to be short of the essentials of life, to be exploited.
In addition in the countries where freedom of expression does exist, it is strictly limited. There is no right to hold public meetings in the streets, or anywhere else for that matter. Nonetheless, the freedom of expression that prevails in the UK and some other countries is of some value to the working class. It is easier to put the Socialist case in London than in Budapest or Peking.
Whilst the first difference between the various political systems is therefore of some interest to the working class, the other main difference is not. This concerns state control, or nationalization as opposed to private enterprise. As far as the workers are concerned, exploitation by individual capitalists is just as bad as exploitation by a monolithic state organisation. Even Bukharin and Preobrazhensky were able to see this in 1919. Referring to the fact that under state capitalism all enterprises come under the dominance of the state they said:
State capitalism, centralising all those organisations, converting them all into the instruments of a single united organisation, contributes immensely to the power of capital. Bourgeois dictatorship attains its climax in State Capitalism . . . State capitalism uniting and organising the bourgeoisie increasing the power of capitalism has, of course greatly weakened the working class. (The ABC of Communism, Pelican edition p. 164).
Despite years of hard effort by the Socialist Party, two myths remain. The first is that state capitalism or some form of nationalization is of benefit to the workers. The second is that those countries that have a high degree of state control have in fact introduced Socialism or are at least in the process of doing so. Both these delusions are held by various sections of the political "left” despite the mass of evidence against them.
Take Russia first. The reality of state capitalism with all that it implies was made plain by Alexander Shelepin the former head of the Russian secret police when he was over here in March and April of this year as the guest of the TUC. The Guardian reported him as saying that the Russian unions were struggling to increase their living standards and to participate both in a share of the profits from industry and in industrial management (2nd April 1975). The next day The Sun reported him boasting that "Things were getting better every year. Wages were being increased.” Presumably in this workers’ paradise wages were previously "lower”.
The existence of wages is the hallmark of capitalism. Capitalism implies a certain relationship between people, depending on whether they own capital or merely the ability to work. The workers in selling themselves day after day to the capitalist enrich not themselves but the owners of capital whose wealth their work increases.
But despite the frantic action of the so-called communist parties throughout the world, the illusion that Russia is anything but a brutal fascist dictatorship, red-raw capitalism, is now held by very few. Instead, tragically people looking for hope from elsewhere (instead of working things out for themselves) have turned to China. Information on China is limited; nonetheless the papers are full of examples, for those prepared to see them, that what is going on in China is the build-up of a form of state capitalism. For instance, The Guardian reported Mao’s argument that there is an acute danger of capitalism reappearing just as he says that it has done in the Soviet Union. Mao is supposed to be urging the workers to keep up the struggle for Socialism (3rd April). If Socialism has been established why struggle to achieve it? If capitalism has been abolished how does it reappear?
The arguments go deeper. There are two fundamental conditions for the establishment of Socialism (which must be a world-wide event). The first is the technology capable of production in abundance. This patently was not possible in Russia in 1917 or in China in 1949. The second is the desire of the working class, based on knowledge and understanding, to establish and run a social system where all wealth is owned in common by the whole of mankind, where production takes place for use, and where all that is made by man, is freely available to man. This condition never existed in Russia or China and as yet exists nowhere in the world. But the measure of the political awareness of the working class, is their level of understanding of Socialism. Without Socialist knowledge, Socialism is no more possible than walking on water. Those that claim they are introducing Socialism for the working class (or have introduced it) are hoodwinking humanity.
Ronnie Warrington
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