Workers in Russia v. The Rest (1974)

From the August 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

It might be as well to ensure that readers are not puzzled by the above title because although the Communists were always fond of boasting that Russia covered one-sixth of the earth’s surface, it seems that the name Russia has almost disappeared from the map and we must now deal with a place called the USSR which stands for the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics; or it could be that the middle two words should read the other way round. No matter. Whichever way round, the term “Socialism” in the title is an outrageous piece of trickery.

This little outburst was occasioned by a report on that most wonderful of all unnatural phenomena, a general election in Russia, which took place (if a non-event can be said to take place) in mid-June. Of course, it is by no means the first time that we have read about these charades where the workers are generously permitted to choose between one person. And that one person is put up by the ruling gangsters who call themselves the Communist Party (instead of their correct title — Red Fascists), who are thus saying to their two hundred million political prisoners: 

“Look, comrades (it should really be ‘comrades’ but I don’t think they go in for inverted commas in Pravda), we know that we have ruled you with a rod of iron ever since Lenin’s Red Army thugs kicked out the Constituent Assembly in January 1918, and we intend to keep on your backs for the remainder of this century and next century too, if you let us.

“This may not be what Marx and Engels meant by the Dictatorship of the Proletariat but it’s what we mean. It really means that you, the proletariat, the alleged dictators, are treated worse than the wage slaves of England, America, etc., where they at least have reasonably free trade unions and elections. But it would be wrong if we did not insult you from time to time — sorry (Freudian slip, comrades), that should read ‘consult you’.

“And so, every so often, we have an election according to the democratic procedure laid down in the Stalin Constitution. Well, not quite. We don’t have a period of five years, whatever the constitution says. We hold one when the time is good — for us. Just as they do in Mao’s China and similar proletarian paradises. And it’s a slanderous lie if you are told by people like the SPGB that you are being insulted by being given no choice.

“It’s true you are given no choice of candidates. SPGB types — if there are any — are not allowed to open their mouths let alone put up at elections. We don’t permit opposition. We are not such fools as to give you the chance of kicking us out of our gloriously privileged positions. But you do have a choice. If you don’t like the CP candidate — who is damn well going to represent you whether you like him or hate him — you can vote NO. And you can then place your vote in the special urn provided for scum like you. And you can at the same time place your ashes in the next urn.”

Of course, none of the above is hot news. These circuses have taken place at intervals and many’s the time readers in the west have gawped to see such magnificent results in 99 per cent. majorities coming in. If the Gallup Poll was allowed to operate in Russia, they would be able to make a fortune — and none of those unfortunate boobs. But there was something in the Guardian account of this year’s charade which made the matter worthy of note in the Socialist Standard. The article was by their Eastern Europe expert (god help us) Jonathan Steele. Towards the end of his piece he gave us certain figures which quite clearly had no significance to this “expert” but which were of blinding importance to a Socialist — or even to a non-Socialist who is not brainwashed.

He gave us the figures for the composition of the outgoing Supreme Soviet (ostensibly the ruling parliament of the land, although in reality they are themselves just stooges and the power remains in the hands of the Politbureau which is in turn dominated by the likes of Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Capone, etc.) It is important to note that the figures were given to Steele by the Russians themselves — there is nobody else who could have supplied them. The ruling body of the Workers’ Paradise consists of some 1200 “MPs” and it was stated (round figures only) that 200 are Collective Farm workers and 50 other workers.

It did not occur to Steele to work out that nearly 1,000 of the rulers of the Workers’ Paradise are — well, what? The answer can only be — non-workers. So here we have the admission, by the rulers of the land themselves, that Russia is a Soviet Socialist Republic divided into two classes. Workers and others. Workers and non-workers. Just like a Soviet Capitalist Republic. Just like England, in fact. But how can you expect a Steele to spot this devastating admission when clearly the Politbureau themselves couldn’t see it? And what can non-workers be doing there?

The only answer possible is what non-workers do everywhere else; they live high off the hog, as the Yanks say, on the proceeds of the surplus-value squeezed out of the workers. No other source of wealth is possible anywhere on earth. And there is something else these people do, besides non-working. They Rule. They do so in the Supreme Soviet as we have seen. They are the ruling class as in all capitalist societies even though a small clique sits on top of the pile in Moscow. The SPGB has been saying this since 1917. It is nice to see it confirmed in the columns of the leftist press, and above all out of the horses’ mouths in Moscow.

Finally, the matter of the privileges briefly mentioned earlier. These gangsters don’t rule for fun or for the sake of some twisted Marxist ideology although no doubt they enjoy the use of power like rulers everywhere. On the morning I write these lines, I heard on the radio about one member of the Russian ruling class, Mme. Furtseva, the Minister of Culture (ugh!), who has occupied such a position since the days of Stalin, being criticized for spending £75,000 on building herself a country home. The point to note is that the argument, such as it is, is over whether she had filched the money, not over whether it would be right for her to build such a mansion for herself at a time when living space for the mass of the people is measured out like gold dust. After all, she could not build her mansion surreptitiously and live in it in secret.

The right of the rulers to lord it over the ruled and wallow in luxury in the midst of proletarian squalor is as well-defined in Russia as it is in Animal Farm. So for those who may be still in doubt, let us make it clear that in a Socialist world we will not be divided into pigs and others, into non-workers and workers. In a classless society, there will, by definition, be no working class. We will just be human beings living in harmony because the welfare of each will be the welfare of all. A state of things which manifestly does not obtain in the land of spurious socialism called Russia.

L. E. Weidberg