Letter: Capitalist power: economic or political? (1986)

Letter to the Editors from the September 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Capitalist power: economic or political?

Dear Editors.

The lead editorial in your April 1986 issue. "Lessons of the fall of Marcos” indicates that it is the SPGB that has not learned the lesson from this event.

You state that you "have always argued that it is possible to establish socialism by peaceful democratic means, through the working class organizing into a mass political movement and using existing elective institutions, imperfect as they are from the standpoint of pure democracy" You further state that your "attitude has often been criticized by people who argue that 'no ruling class has ever given up power peacefully' and that the capitalist class will never let the workers use elections to dislodge them but would refuse to accept a socialist electoral victory ".

You state that "recent events in the Philippines which led to the downfall of President Marcos have confirmed this analysis of what is likely to happen when a government enjoying only minority support tries to defy a majority movement". Obviously you draw the lesson from this event that the capitalist class will relinquish power whenever the socialists attain an electoral majority.

Turning the pages of your April issue we find a lengthy article, title "People power", dealing with the fall of Marcos. A photo shows a picture of a huge demonstration with a large sign stating "We won" and your writer s comment "But not for socialism"! This article proves that the ruling class did not give up power! So what is really the lesson to draw from this event? Certainly not the lesson that you drew from it. Your "People's power' article shows that Aquino had the support of the most conservative elements of the immensely Catholic hierarchy, that the US sent Philip Habib to discover what they might expect from Aquino and having got a satisfactory response, decided to cut their losses and run. They advised Marcos to leave with $240,000 in cash and crates containing $1.179.000 in cash. The writer states that Aquino promised more than she can deliver, that much of Philippine industry is owned by American multi-nationals, which have been only too happy to exploit cheap domestic labor. That Marcos supporters still hold crucial positions in the judiciary, civil service and local governments. That two-thirds of Marcos' supporters are in power until 1990 That Generals Entile and Ramos were architects of Marcos martial law but have been incorporated in the new administration. That the Aquino family own one of the world's largest sugar plantations, that her cabinet contains not one single representative of "the people" they are all businessmen and members of the political elite.

Does this indicate that the ruling class gave up power?

Those who argued that no ruling class ever gave up power peacefully simply because the majority voted against them is true. What happened to Allende in Chile? Did the ruling class accept the decision at the ballot box? What lesson did the SPGB draw from that episode?

It was Daniel De Leon who warned that the ruling class will not allow the revolutionary socialist majority to take political power unless the working class were organised with an economic power (Socialist Industrial Unions) that could enforce their decision at the ballot box by taking possession of the industrial establishments of the land and assuming the conduct of the nation's production thereby locking out the capitalist class.

The motivating force in society is economic. The Capitalist class maintains its dominance of society because it owns and controls the industrial facilities of modern society. The only force that can unseat them is a superior economic power. Today the working class runs and operates the industrial facilities of society but are not conscious of their latent power. If the working class is made class conscious and organizes into an economic organization that has as its goal the taking over of the industries they operate, they will have organized a superior economic power to that of the capitalists. If they then constitute a majority at the ballot box they would be organized to take, hold and operate the industries whether or not the ruling class recognizes their political victory.

The "Lessons of the fall of Marcos" confirms that the ruling class did not give up power and that De Leon's warning was correct. The lesson the SPGB must learn from the Fall of Marcos and the fall of Allende is that the socialist ballot must be backed up by an economic force capable of enforcing it.

Fraternally.

Sam Brandon

Riverdale, New York

Reply:

Our correspondent is labouring under a misapprehension. We never said that the change of President in the Philippines was an example of a ruling class giving up power peacefully, and certainly not that it was a "socialist electoral victory" (any more than Allende‘s was). We merely said that it represented a case of, as we put it in a passage Sam Brandon himself quotes, "what is likely to happen when a government enjoying only minority support tries to defy a majority movement".

Such a government cannot hold on to power for any length of time because, to function, any government has to have a minimum of support and acquiescence among the population. When this support turns into active opposition then the government in question cannot continue. This has some relevance to the establishment of socialism to the extent that, faced with the majority wage and salary-earning class organised into a socialist movement, the last government of capitalism will have no choice but to bow out. gracefully or otherwise.

Oddly enough, as far as we can tell. Sam Brandon agrees with us on this point since he. like us. envisages the possibility of an essentially peaceful abolition of capitalism and for the same sort of reason: that if the socialist-minded working class is sufficiently determined and organised (he says at the point of production) then they can force the capitalist class to respect any socialist election victory We didn't say anything different in our editorial on the fall of Marcos when we stated that "what is decisive is not so much the socialist electoral victory as the understanding and the determination to achieve socialism which this would reflect". It is absurd to imagine that all the workers need to do to achieve socialism is to vote for it. Certainly this is not. and never has been, our position. The workers must play an active part in the establishment of socialism for the simple reason that, socialism being a society based on voluntary co-operation, it can only work with majority understanding and participation. 

In other words, it is not the socialist victory at the polls as such that would lead to the last capitalist government relinquishing power but the fact that this victory would be a reflection of the understanding, determination and. naturally, organisation of the vast majority of workers. This organisation for socialism will also extend to the places of work (the existing trade unions will obviously be completely transformed when a majority of their members are conscious, determined socialists) but it will be essentially political.

Sam Brandon cites the example of Allende in Chile. Here he is on very dangerous ground since if he really thinks that Allende was a socialist and that his election as President of Chile in 1970 was a socialist electoral victory, then we would be forced to challenge the extent to which he himself has grasped the meaning of socialism. Allende and his so-called socialist party stood for the establishment of a state capitalist regime in Chile (and did not even have majority support since he only polled 36 per cent of the votes). But we will give Sam Brandon a chance and allow him to withdraw the absurd implication that the coming to power of Allende was an example of a socialist electoral victory not backed up by the "superior economic power" of workers organised in "socialist industrial unions" that he advocates.

Certainly the capitalist class do possess immense economic power which they use to force the working class to work for them on their terms but the question at issue is the source of this power, not its existence or non-existence. In the last days of feudalism and the early days of capitalism this power did derive in large part from the fact that the capitalist entrepreneur did play a key role in the process of production. Organising and trading skills were essential to the economic process and it was this that gave the rising capitalist class a base from which to challenge, on the political field, the power and privileges of the then land-based ruling class.

But once they had won political power it was this, not their economic power, that enabled them to dominate society and reshape social institutions in their interest. The subsequent evolution of capitalism led to the disappearance of the original economic power of the capitalist as an essential element in the process of production. Now, and for a long time, it is paid workers who can and do run industry from top to bottom. The capitalists do indeed still possess immense economic power but this is now entirely a result of the fact that they possess political power.

Capitalist ownership of the means of production no longer rests on the personal role of the capitalist in the productive process, but purely on the fact that (in the West) they possess legal property deeds entitling them to draw a legal property income from the exploitation of the working class. As these legal titles are enforced by the state, capitalist ownership of the means of production is "political" in the sense that it depends entirely on their control of political power (as is immediately obvious in the case of the state capitalist class in Russia and other such countries). Their property titles are merely a licence to exploit wage-labour granted, and enforced, by the state.

That the economic power of the capitalist class now entirely depends on the fact that they control political power has of course important implications for socialist tactics. For it means that the struggle to overthrow the capitalist class must be political, not economic. The "economic power' of the capitalist class cannot be overthrown by organising a general strike to take and hold the means of production because the source of this power is political not economic. In any event, in any trial of economic strength the capitalist class will always be able to win as long as they control political power.

So the working class must aim at gaining control of political power. Once they have done this then the "economic power” of the capitalist class will burst like a bubble. All the revolutionary socialist majority on the political field will have to do to achieve this is to declare all property titles null and void — to revoke the state licences to exploit wage-labour — and that will be that. Of course, at the same time, workers will also need to be organised in their places of work ready to take over and run industry when capitalist ownership has been abolished. So we are talking about the socialist-minded working class being organised both politically and industrially to achieve socialism, but it will be the political organisation and action, not the industrial, that will abolish capitalist power

Daniel De Leon and Sam Brandon have simply got it the wrong way round: the capitalists' economic power depends on their control of political power rather than vice-versa. This is why we have always advocated that, to achieve socialism, the working class should organise itself into a vast political movement whose aim will be to destroy the capitalists' economic power by depriving this of the political backing without which it is today unable to exist.

Editors.

The assassination of art (1975)

From issue number 1 (1975) of The Western Socialist

In a democratic society, art is politics in the widest sense, a celebration of common values which sweep away the old and clears the way for the new needs of man.

Victor Jara, Chilean play producer, singer guitarist, was a supporter of the Allende regime. In the military coup that followed he was assassinated on 15th September 1973. They broke his guitar fingers before breaking his spine. Bullets were then shot into his body.

He is one more addition to the many creative people in history who have become too dangerous to live. For the arts are not amusements, ornamental skills, diversions, comforts for tired businessmen or social polish for the pretentious. At least, not to the men who wield political power. The arts communicate and communication is the most potent force for progress and change.

History is full of the power of the arts, not the overt expression of dissatisfaction nor the blatant clarion call to rise and fight but the uniquely potent expression of ideas which show that man is ready for change. Art is a barometer and a celebration, a mirror to the emotional and intellectual development of man. The artist says, “This is man, how he feels, how we feel,” and once said, it can never be repealed. The ideas catch fire in the minds of men, not because they are new and logical but because they express clearly what people feel but cannot quite themselves make known.

George Bernard Shaw provocatively said that art is propaganda. It is this but far more. In a democratic society, art is politics in the widest sense, a celebration of common values which sweeps away the old and clears the way for the new needs of man.

This does not mean that artists are consciously political in the modern use of the term. In fact, the moment an art becomes consciously political, it usually ceases to be art. The pamphleteer is not an artist because he knows rationally exactly what he wants to say before saying it. He may express new values but they are communicated on a mechanically logical level. There is no bridge of feeling between the old and the new for the mass of the people, still struggling to understand their own feelings, to make the crossing. Art does not lead the needs of man; it expresses them and man, whose evolution is on a social and economic level rather than a physical one, can develop further because he then knows clearly where he is. He recognizes as his the values expressed by the artist.

But some artists do not communicate in their own time. They may lead the way for other artists to follow but they themselves may be a little too far ahead of their time. These artists are sometimes called “important” as distinct from “great”, the universally recognized artists who signify a whole epoch or “celebrate” a common feeling.

Both kinds of artists can be dangerous to the established powers but the “important” artists are more easily destroyed than the “great” ones. They are less supported, less recognized and their deaths provoke less reaction.

The Un-American Activities Committee could not destroy Charles Chaplin or Arthur Miller nor could the Soviets destroy Yevtushenko but artists with less recognition, ahead of their time and people, are frequently destroyed in the power struggles of the world.

President Allende did not have the control of the Chilean parliament or of the army and his own political programme did not have the understanding of the peasants. He was supported as a leader and all this suggests that he was not really the spokesman for the people. The intellectuals and artists who supported him were therefore not truly representative of the people; they were a little before their time. Victor Jara died because his death meant a delay in his ideas developing among the people. Had he been expressing true national feelings, his martyrdom would have been too dangerous because of the possible reaction. More importantly, his martyrdom would have been irrelevant because his values would already be held by the majority of people anyway.

Throughout the world, the fate of the Allende administration has been hailed by the left and the right wings as an illustration that a majority of people cannot change society by democratic and constitutional methods. In actual fact it merely illustrates the futility of a vanguard group trying to lead an ignorant mass of followers into a change which the majority do not understand. When you can destroy a leader and destroy a cause, destroying a leader is obviously the best solution.

A second moral can be drawn. We must learn to respect and protect our artists whatever their political opinions. A society which neglects them is destroying its capacity to change.

Mark Fury, 

S. P. of New Zealand

Chile: Myth and Reality (1973)

From the October 1973 issue of the Socialist Standard

The events in Chile are already a myth. There, according to left and right-wing commentators alike, a democratically-elected Marxist government was overthrown by the armed forces, so proving the impossibility of establishing Socialism peacefully by using the existing machinery of limited political democracy.

Let us try to scotch this myth now by showing that the failure of the so-called Chilean experiment has absolutely no relevance to the question of whether or not Socialism can be established peacefully and democratically.

Allende and his Popular Unity were not Marxists and were not trying to establish Socialism. The programme of the Popular Unity, an alliance whose main elements were the so-called Socialist Party and the so-called Communist Party, was essentially one of state capitalism for Chile. It called for the break-up the big landed estates, for the nationalisation of foreign-owned and some Chilean-owned industry, and for various social reforms. Even if implemented in full this programme would have left the basic position of the working class in Chile unchanged: they would have remained propertyless wage-workers forced to sell their mental and physical energies to an employer (even if the State) in order to live; production would have remained geared to the market; and the government would still, under pressure from the world market, have had to restrict the consumption of the working class in order to allow the maximum amount of surplus value to be extracted for re-investment.

Secondly, not only was the Allende government not trying to establish Socialism, but it did not even have majority support for its programme of state capitalism. Allende was elected President in September 1970 in a three-way contest, but with only 36 per cent of the vote. Subsequent elections showed that his government never did manage to acquire majority support. The last elections in March this year still gave its opponents 55 per cent of the vote.

Thirdly, because of this limited electoral support, the Popular Unity did not completely control the State machine. Parliament remained in the hands of its opponents who, although they did not have the two-thirds majority needed to impeach Allende himself, harassed his Ministers and delayed and altered ills proposed laws.

For three years those whose vested interests were threatened by the coming of state capitalism to Chile—the American corporations, the Chilean landowners and big capitalists—sabotaged and plotted against the Allende government, but the fact remains that the conflict in Chile was between private capitalism and state capitalism, not between capitalism and Socialism.

That the limited democracy that existed in Chile has been a victim of this conflict can only be a matter of regret for Socialists. For, whatever its limitations, capitalist political democracy at least allows the working class to organise to defend its everyday interests and to discuss differing political views, including those of Socialists. Its suppression in Chile by a military junta represents, in this sense, a step backward for the working class of Chile—not that much of it would have survived had the Popular Unity’s full state capitalist programme been implemented, if the experience of Cuba is anything to go by.

But it still remains true that, in the quite different political conditions (which have never yet existed) of .in immense majority of workers in all the industrialized countries of the world being Socialists and organised to win and control political power, Socialism could be established peacefully. The overthrow of a minority state capitalist government in Chile by forces acting on behalf of private capitalist groups will not deflect us from this position into urging the working class to adopt the futile and dangerous policy of armed insurrection.

50 Years Ago: Chile: myth and reality (2023)

The 50 Years Ago column from the October 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard 

The events in Chile are already a myth. There, according to left and right-wing commentators alike, a democratically-elected Marxist government was overthrown by the armed forces, so proving the impossibility of establishing Socialism peacefully by using the existing machinery of limited political democracy.

Let us try to scotch this myth now by showing that the failure of the so-called Chilean experiment has absolutely no relevance to the question of whether or not Socialism can be established peacefully and democratically.

Allende and his Popular Unity were not Marxists and were not trying to establish Socialism. The programme of the Popular Unity, an alliance whose main elements were the so-called Socialist Party and the so-called Communist Party, was essentially one of state capitalism for Chile. It called for the break-up of the big landed estates, for the nationalisation of foreign-owned and some Chilean-owned industry, and for various social reforms. Even if implemented in full this programme would have left the basic position of the working class in Chile unchanged: they would have remained propertyless wage-workers forced to sell their mental and physical energies to an employer (even if the State) in order to live; production would have remained geared to the market; and the government would still, under pressure from the world market, have had to restrict the consumption of the working class in order to allow the maximum amount of surplus value to be extracted for re-investment.

Secondly, not only was the Allende government not trying to establish Socialism, but it did not even have majority support for its programme of state capitalism. Allende was elected President in September 1970 in a three-way contest, but with only 36 per cent of the vote. Subsequent elections showed that his government never did manage to acquire majority support. The last elections in March this year still gave its opponents 55 per cent of the vote.

Thirdly, because of this limited electoral support, the Popular Unity did not completely control the State machine. Parliament remained in the hands of its opponents who, although they did not have the two-thirds majority needed to impeach Allende himself, harassed his Ministers and delayed and altered his proposed laws.

For three years those whose vested interests were threatened by the coming of state capitalism to Chile—the American corporations, the Chilean landowners and big capitalists—sabotaged and plotted against the Allende government, but the fact remains that the conflict in Chile was between private capitalism and state capitalism, not between capitalism and Socialism.

That the limited democracy that existed in Chile has been a victim of this conflict can only be a matter of regret for Socialists. For, whatever its limitations, capitalist political democracy at least allows the working class to organise to defend its everyday interests and to discuss differing political views, including those of Socialists. Its suppression in Chile by a military junta represents, in this sense, a step backward for the working class of Chile—not that much of it would have survived had the Popular Unity’s full state capitalist programme been implemented, if the experience of Cuba is anything to go by.

But it still remains true that, in the quite different political conditions (which have never yet existed) of an immense majority of workers in all the industrialized countries of the world being Socialists and organised to win and control political power, Socialism could be established peacefully. The overthrow of a minority state capitalist government in Chile by forces acting on behalf of private capitalist groups will not deflect us from this position into urging the working class to adopt the futile and dangerous policy of armed insurrection.

(Socialist Standard, October 1973)

These Foolish Things: All power corrupts . . . (1995)

The Scavenger column from the September 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

All power corrupts . . .

Harold Geneen from Bournemouth is 85. ITT, the enormous business empire he built up so ruthlessly in the United States, making gross profits of £16 billion, is beginning to break up without his ruthless dominance.

Employing over 300,000 people and owning telephone networks, the chain of Sheraton hotels, Avis car rentals, a bread firm. Abbey Life insurance and many other companies, ITT consolidated its wealth and power through corruption and bribery. Under Geneen’s control, it helped the CIA undermine Salvador Allende’s government in Chile, and he became known as the most powerful man in the capitalist world.

Recent commentators suggest that such tycoons arc now features of capitalism’s unrespectable past. They have conveniently ignored the increasing shadows being cast by men like Rupert Murdoch.

Poverty causes violence

“From 1950 onwards, the average rate of increase in crimes of violence was an extra 3,000 a year. Between 1980 and 1986, it rose at a rate of 4,000 a year. But in the eight years since 1987, there have been, on average, a grisly 12,000 more violent crimes a year . . .

“ . . . we know more about what causes violence than we do about almost any other human behaviour . . . Studies of identical twins and of adopted boys show that genetics, testosterone levels and brain damage play little or no part in creating a violent character. It is the history of the violent man that is critical, not his physical makeup. In short, it is what happened to him in his family . . .

“A universally accepted Home Office study, which ran from 1958 to 1990, followed 411 boys from age eight to 32. It showed that 40 percent of those from the poorest homes become seriously violent at some point. The poorer the boy’s home, the greater the likelihood of a violent outcome . . .

“The future holds little hope. When it comes to violence in Britain, it looks as though things can only get worse.” Oliver James, Night and Day, 16 July 1995.

Trinkets

Bulgari, the Italian firm that recently went public, produces exclusively for the international capitalist class. The prices they charge ensure that. They sell a platinum watch for £106,000, necklaces for over a million pounds each, and Claudia Schiffer’s engagement ring from David Copperfield at £3 million.

The Scavenger

Chile during and after Salvador Allende (2023)

From the September 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

September 11 marks 50 years since the violent death of the elected president of Chile, Salvador Allende, in 1973, and the overthrowing of his government by a military coup backed by the CIA, establishing a brutal dictatorship presided over by General Augusto Pinochet. This caused the death of thousands of Chilean workers, students, union leaders, political activists, and many were incarcerated, ‘disappeared’, and tortured via electric shock, sexual abuse, beating and waterboarding.

The election and death of President Allende took place in the middle of the Cold War and the struggles for world hegemony between the USA and the Soviet Union and the influence of Cuba in Latin America. Chile was hemmed in by several conservative and military dictatorships in the region backed by the USA government who also protected the economic interest of the US capitalist class, along with the internal ruling class. There was also a huge economic crisis facing Chilean capitalism.

The objective of the US government was to avoid another enclave like Cuba on its own backyard since Cuba had a heavy political influence in Latin America, and the Cuban government had diplomatic, commercial, and military relations with the Soviet Union, and was backing guerrillas in several Latin American countries.

The government of Chile called itself socialist in the same way that the Cuban government called itself socialist or Marxist-Leninist, and Fidel Castro was a close ally of the Chilean government. Moreover, Castro himself visited Chile in 1970 in the middle of the social upheaval caused by miners’ strikes.

The government of Chile proclaimed the so-called ‘Chilean path to socialism’, as Cuba also had proclaimed the Cuban road to socialism. The reality is that neither one of them were establishing a socialist society, but state capitalism as in the Soviet Union, China, and North Korea. The basic principles of a capitalist society were retained, including wage slavery, production for profits and the domination of a state apparatus over the working class.

Allende was elected in 1970 with the support of a coalition of leftist political parties known as the Popular Unity, obtaining one third of the votes with a narrow margin of 36.2 percent over Jorge Alessandri, the former president of Chile who obtained 34.9 percent, and the Christian Social Democrats who got 27.8 percent. As such, Allende was not elected by a majority of votes but, according to the Chilean constitution of the time, if no presidential candidate obtained a majority of the popular vote, Congress would choose one of the two candidates with the highest number of votes as the winner, and the decision was effectively made by the Christian Social Democrats which approved his nomination as president of Chile.

Social reforms

The government of Allende, immediately after his nomination as President, initiated various social-democratic reforms for the Chilean working class, and the nationalization of large industries such as copper, iron, coal, cement and large extensions of land, the creation of a health and medical program, a food program, and education for the poor. All those reforms were described as the Chilean path to socialism, but in reality, they were reforms made for and within the context of a capitalist society, and they would not have turned Chile into a socialist society run in the name of the workers. Instead, the economic reforms would have established a state-capitalist system of production administered by the state, the same process that took place in Cuba in 1960.

They established diplomatic and commercial relations with countries on which the US had placed embargos and commercial blockades, such as Cuba, Vietnam and North Korea, and several African and Asian countries, and they also became a member of the Non-Aligned countries movement (Third World). They developed a relationship with the Soviet Union but their relations with the US were not of the same order as the previous conservative government who had openly aligned with the US capitalist class. The nationalization of several US corporations created further friction with them.

Strikes

From the very beginning of the Allende government, thousands of mine workers in different parts of the country went on strike for high wages and better working conditions, as their real wages had gone down due to high levels of inflation. The response of the Allende government was to send in the military and police to reprimand them and tell them to make sacrifices to produce for the so-called homeland. Fidel Castro regarded the workers as reactionaries and counter revolutionaries, demagogues, agitators and agents of US imperialism. The Left, instead of supporting the workers, supported the so-called socialist government; the Communist Party which was part of the Popular Unity also supported the actions taken by the military and the police against the workers, and the strikes continued spreading to others sectors of the working class including the transport workers.

The Popular Unity government was obliged to incorporate the military as part of the state administrative apparatus, under the name Popular Army. But the Popular Unity government was no longer able to run an economy based on state control of the means of production, and had weak support. The military duly took the opportunity to execute a bloody coup d’état, and Allende either shot himself or was assassinated.

The Pinochet dictatorship

The subsequent conservative government of Augusto Pinochet (which the leftists often call fascist) lasted for a period of 16 years, and all reforms implemented during the government of Allende were reversed and most sectors of the economy were privatized including workers’ pensions. This is what the leftists wrongly call neo-liberalism, though the reality is probably in some ways more in line with monetarism. The reversal of all those Allende reforms is a clear indication that reforms implemented by leaders can also be reversed, they are not permanent, and sometimes those reforms are implemented in order to try to pacify the working class. There is certainly no guarantee they will succeed, as Allende’s didn’t.

Chile since Pinochet

In 1988 a plebiscite was held and the majority of the Chileans workers voted for the removal of the presidency and dictatorship of Pinochet, and a new election subsequently took place. A Christian Democrat president was elected, and several legal actions brought against Pinochet and the military. He was indicted and placed under house arrest where he died, but the military kept the power of the state and its agencies, despite the fact that various presidents, governments and Congresses from different political tendencies were elected including social democrats and leftists. None of them were able to resolve the underlying problems of the people.

The present government of Boric was elected with a coalition of ‘Communists’ and ‘Socialists’ offering many promises for workers and for women. A new constitution was put to the vote and rejected by the electorate, including the indigenous Mapuches. The government of Boric knew in advance that the new proposal was most likely going to be rejected and they arguably wanted it to be rejected because they knew that most of the constitutional clauses were not going to be implemented due to the fact that the right-wing faction controls the Congress and was not going to allow any drastic economic and political changes.

The case of Chile is a clear indication that the problems facing the working class cannot be resolved by left-wing or right-wing governments and that the problems are not the leaders, political parties, fascism, neoliberalism, or other political tendencies, or the exact implementation of reforms – the real underlying problem, whatever the regime, is capitalism.

MF.

The singularity of a socialist revolution (2023)

From the September 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

According to the Left there have been multiple socialist revolutions. Or, more precisely, there have been many political dramas that are claimed by both the Left and by the protagonists involved to have been socialist in nature. A great pantheon of heroes has been created to satisfy the Left’s desperate need for messianic figures which include such individuals as Karl Marx, Rosa Luxemburg, Lenin, Trotsky, Castro, Che Guevara, Nelson Mandela, Hugo Chavez and even the likes of Mao Zedong and Joseph Stalin! One thing most of these have in common is failure but can we consider all or any of them to be socialists? We can say that the socialism of Marx and Luxemburg was profoundly different in nature from the political structures favoured, and in some cases created, by the others in the list. Fifty years ago this month is the anniversary of the ‘martyrdom’ of another great hero of the Left – Salvador Allende. Perhaps by considering his ideology and activity we can further explore the profound political divide between his (and the Left’s) notion of a socialist revolution and that of Marx before the subsequent evolution of the theories of ‘state socialism’, Bolshevism and reformism.

The ‘Socialist Party of Chile’ was formed in 1933 as an attempt to unite the various groups that identified as ‘socialist’. Like so many Leftist ‘broad churches’ it was plagued by division and disagreement but by 1967 it had embraced the oxymoron of Marxism/Leninism with its de-rigueur ‘central committee’. Allende managed to get himself elected as president in 1970 through his popularity with wider leftist movements and the formation of a ‘Popular Unity’ coalition. In this way he believed he could create socialism by nationalising the major industries of Chile. Why he believed this, as the Left still do, is primarily down to the influence of the Bolshevik coup of 1917 in Russia. Lenin had transformed Marx’s view, that nationalisation was a good way to accelerate the productive forces and so make socialism possible, into a perverse form of socialism itself. Capitalism was in its infancy in Russia and Lenin knew that there was no chance of creating the mass consciousness and productive forces needed for a socialist revolution so he created the concept of a vanguard who could lead the masses to ‘communism’ via an intermediate stage he called socialism. In the absence of a full understanding of Marxian politics this became the ideological orthodoxy of the Left, showing a callous disregard for the misery and suffering it had caused in Russia and emphasising an unprincipled greed for power that Bolshevism represented. Thus the scene was set for yet another ill-fated episode in the long political tragedy that was state capitalism.

Although we cannot see into the mind of anyone it is quite possible that Salvador Allende was primarily motivated by a real concern for the poor and oppressed among his people, but what we can identify with certainty are the reasons for his failure: calling an economy and society socialist when it is based on wage labour and capital, even when the means of production are owned by the state, is politically incoherent at best and downright duplicitous at worst; socialism can never be created in one country alone since it inherits the global structure that capitalism has instigated and which makes socialism possible; without majority mass consciousness socialism cannot be imposed by any elite, however well intentioned they may be. There can only be one global socialist revolution (in contrast to the Socialist Party of Chile’s Bolshevik-inspired piecemeal concept of a Confederacy of Socialist Republics) and any claim that there have been and will be many socialist revolutions is born of political naivety, egotistical hubris or an opportunist lust for power.

The failure of the Allende regime was inevitable since any kind of capitalism is subject to the same global economic pressures that ensure that the exploitation of labour for profit is foremost. Those who claim that it would have survived without the interference and ideological hostility of the USA are missing the point that state capitalism is just as bad, if not worse in many respects, as is ‘free-market’ capitalism from the perspective of the exploited masses. The moral outrage that masquerades as ‘realpolitik’ among the Left is in reality a mixture of contempt for the intelligence and potential of the working class combined with an elitist idealism which can only be described as bourgeois. They cannot conceive of a moneyless, stateless democratic global society and so they believe no one else can – certainly not the uneducated masses. The Marxian understanding of social revolution is not concerned with the changing identities of governments who attempt to facilitate or control capitalism but with the emergence of a mass consciousness that will replace production for profit with production for need.

It cannot be doubted that the subsequent dictatorship regime led by General Augusto Pinochet and supported by the CIA was a nightmare for the Chilean people. While capitalism lasts there will always be malicious empires like that of the USA whose job it is to destabilise and destroy any regimes that are considered to be against their imperialist interests. While visiting the UK in 1998 Pinochet was arrested on charges of genocide and the British people had to witness his stomach-churning and grotesque defence by Thatcher and his subsequent release from house arrest by Labour’s Jack Straw. Allende was a courageous individual but, in the end, like his fellow Leftists who have achieved power, he changed nothing.

Wez.

Letter: Are we anti Latin American? (2022)

Letter to the Editors from the May 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard

Are we anti Latin American?

Dear Editors

In your last issue, reviewing ‘The Truth About Trotsky’, you state ‘In 1937 Leon Trotsky, from his exile in Central America…’. Well, he was not exiled in Central America, he was exiled in Mexico. Unless of course you did that intentionally placing Mexico outside North America, thus implying that only the two English speaking countries, USA and Canada belong to North America, therefore Mexico as a Spanish speaking should be in Central America.

The shape of the American continent, from Alaska to Cape Horn, is that of geographical giant with a thin isthmus in the middle linking North from South America. In that sense, even if it burns the writer reviewing the book on Trotsky, Mexico’s place is in the North of the continent.

This brings me to a pattern in your constant depiction of anything political and ideological pertaining Latin America. And is that of a veiled attitude of dismissal every time it is mentioned.

I find this quite offensive – Guzman in Peru ‘was not a Marxist’, ‘Allende in Chile apart from nationalizing the copper, did very little’. AMLO in Mexico, Lula in Brazil, etc, etc.

As a Chilean who came here after being in prison from 1974 to 1976, I cannot help but to think of the typical position of those pseudo Marxists who love criticizing everybody else, without ever themselves doing anything practical for Socialism.

Salvador Allende was the leader of the Popular Unity government 1970-1973 which in itself is an achievement. The first Marxist to be elected by the vote in the Western Hemisphere, he showed that Chile could be transformed. First of all, the nationalization of the banks was the first measure taken by the Popular Unity, copper the second. Many of the big industry, especially textiles, were passed over to the Social Property Area. It created the ‘comandos populares’, which encouraged the participation at the municipal/local level of the working class, the same can be said of the ‘cordones industriales’ where all the big industries surrounding Santiago had been taken or expropriated and were now ran by their workers.

The Agrarian Reform was also a total success. It nationalized the largest privately owned land measuring over 40 hectares. Thus, not only economically benefited the rural workers of the countryside who became syndicalized but also the indigenous population of Southern Chile who for centuries had been reclaiming back their land.

Allende’s government lasted only for three year, but were filled with advances and hopes for most Chileans. In the last local elections before the coup, the Popular Unity had increased their votes supporting the government but, as Kissinger said, the CIA had to push for military intervention before it was too late.

As you can see, this is not an essay or article but a rough letter pointing out that you cannot make swiping statements as you do. I’m planning to continue reading Socialist Standard because it’s worth it.

Nigel de Vere, 

Bromley

Reply:

We take your point that we should not have referred to Mexico as being in Central America. We can assure you that it was an honest mistake – based on a common practice that we should no doubt have questioned – but it was in no way an attempt to belittle any particular country or part of the world.

However, while we apologise for that, we can find no reason to apologise for references in past issues of the Socialist Standard with regard to political events and developments in the Spanish and Portuguese speaking parts of the American continents which you have found offensive. You mention Guzman in Peru, AMLO in Mexico, Lula in Brazil and, in particular, Allende in Chile, and you object to our not considering such people or movements as ‘Marxist’. You are particularly critical of the views we have expressed about Allende’s Chile. While we acknowledge and appreciate your personal opposition to the post-Allende Chilean dictatorship which led to your imprisonment and to your leaving your home country, we cannot accept that the reforms brought in by the Allende government, beneficial as they may have been for many Chileans, had anything to do with Marxism or socialism as we define those terms. They clearly had a lot to do with ‘reformism’, i.e. the attempt by ‘progressive’ governments to run the capitalist system in a more liveable, and often less oppressive, way for workers. And we do not question that this brought with it ‘advances and hopes for most Chileans’. But the kind of reforms you mention, for example nationalisation of banks and industry, in no way amount to the moneyless wageless society without buying and selling based on economic equality and free access for all to all goods and services, which is the basis of Marx’s prescription for a socialist form of society.

Of course nothing prevents those advocating or practising policies of reform from calling themselves Marxist or socialist (or others referring to them in that way, often pejoratively), but our contention is that what they represent is a particular way of running the capitalist system, not a fundamental transformation of that system, which is currently dominant in various forms in all countries. We would contend that nothing in Allende’s policies or practises (though they sadly cost him his life) represented or even pointed the way forward to the wholly democratic society of common ownership and voluntary association that is truly worthy of the name ‘Marxist’ or socialist.

Having outlined our disagreement with you on this point, we nevertheless consider it a credit to your open-mindedness that you say that you will continue to read our journal because ‘it’s worth it’. Needless to say that is something on which we do agree with you.

Editorial Committee.

Letter: Chile and Parliament (1975)

Letter to the Editors from the April 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

Chile and Parliament

I have for a year subscribed to the Socialist Standard. I intend to continue to do so because it is the most informative by far of all the left wing papers. I found also that I could agree with more of the Declared Principles than I could with those of any other group. However, in the “Parliament and Private Armies” essay in the November 1974 issue there is a sentence which highlights a basic disagreement over what Socialist principles are:

Socialism can be achieved only by parliamentary means; once the working class understands and wants Socialism it will send its elected representatives to take control of the governmental machinery . . .

In a socialist society there can be no parliament. “Representative” democracy is the form currently dominating the ideology of the British people and most of the world. I would argue that the basic socialist principle is “direct” democracy; the common decision. The existence of parliament and of the parties within it does nothing towards instilling in the people a sense of direct responsibility.

“I give you the authority to act on my behalf so that I need do nothing to affect my own condition.” 

The battle Socialism is fighting is against false-consciousness. Concurrently with an understanding of pure Socialism, a very simple concept, comes firstly; the realisation of what parliament really is, and secondly the working class organisation capable of the necessary transformation of society.

Remember Chile:

The “democratically” elected Communist and Socialist Party coalition entered the institution of parliament and respected the “right” of the bourgeoisie to limit the UP government’s already reformist measures. The very nature of that UP party determined the coup d'état of 1973.

The parties even went as far as to suppress the Chilean people’s attempt to organise themselves and insisted that they alone were to impose and dictate the form of organisations the people would have.

For such an important case-study as Chile there is a serious lack of any reference to it in the whole of this year’s Socialist Standards.

Anyway I ask the SPGB to explain why you are a Parliamentary party?

G. L. Youldon

Woodford Green

Reply:

In Britain it is Parliament that makes the laws and provides for their enforcement. Parliament controls the armed forces and the police — two instruments of class oppression. It can therefore crush any attempt at the seizure of power by a minority. It will be able to continue doing so as long as the working class votes into power its economic and political enemies. The capture of political power and the machinery of government (Parliament) by a Socialist working class is necessary for the successful carrying through of the Socialist revolution. Before abolishing the need for Parliament it must first be captured.

Using Chile as an example of the “failure” of parliamentary action is mistaken. We think you already half-recognize this. You admit that Allende’s government was “reformist” (i.e. it did not have Socialism as its objective), and that they were undemocratic with dictatorial tendencies. What you do not mention is that the Allende government was also a minority government. It therefore lacked the majority necessary to carry through its reformist programme of nationalization and land reform. One final point — we are not “left-wing”: we are revolutionary.

Editors.

50 Years Ago: Marxism in Chile? (2021)

The 50 Years Ago column from the March 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Salvador Allende is not the first president of Chile to proclaim himself a revolutionary. When Allende’s predecessor, the Christian Democrat Frei, was elected in 1964 he pledged himself to a ‘revolution in liberty’. Two years later found him sending in the army to break a strike in the copper mines; eight people were killed. As Fidel Castro rather neatly put it: ‘He promised revolution without blood and has given blood without revolution.’

Like Allende, Frei was elected on the strength of his promises to solve two basic problems. Firstly the concentration of land in the hands of a few vastly wealthy families while 350,000 peasants have no land at all. And secondly the domination of Chile’s economy by foreign (mainly American) capital, which is held to be responsible for the chronic unemployment in the country (currently running at about 7 percent) and the destitution of a large section of the population (one half of all families live on less than thirty dollars a month).

(…)

Allende’s Chile, just like any other country operating within the world capitalist economy, will have to compete on the international markets to sell its products. The prices of its commodities can be made competitive only by Chile keeping abreast of world developments in industrial innovation, by constantly reinvesting in new plant — by constantly accumulating capital. And this can be done only by Chile’s industries — whether nationalised or not — pumping surplus value out of the working class. That these ‘external coercive laws’ are continuing to operate was made quite clear in a radio speech by the new President when he announced that daily production of coal is to be stepped up from 3,800 tons to 4,700 tons — and then called on the miners to make sacrifices so that Chile’s coal can be sold at competitive prices on the world market.

Because the popular front government is responsible for Chile’s capitalist economy, inevitably it is being brought into conflict with the workers and peasants. Already there have been several strikes, some involving the occupation of factories, both in the capital Santiago and in the provinces. In December 1970 telephone workers in Santiago took over the central telephone building and held some hostages, calling for the immediate introduction of new salary scales which the government said it would introduce in time. In the same month three thousand municipal workers stopped work for 48 hours after demanding pay rises which the ‘Communist’ Minister of Finance refused, while fifteen thousand administrative workers were on strike too.

(Socialist Standard, March 1971)

Rear View: Rashford’s missed penalty (2020)

The Rear View Column from the December 2020 issue of the Socialist Standard

Rashford’s missed penalty

Oliver Twist asked for more in 1838. Many more did in 1904: ‘We are told that over 100,000 school children in London alone go breakfastless to school. For them there is little hope for a sturdy manhood. Arrest the progress of physical deterioration amongst the children through the provision of meals by the State to all school children and you will do much to strengthen the physique and stamina of the race’ (Socialist Standard, September 1904). Fast forward 116 years: ‘… UK lawmakers voted against a motion that would have extended free school meals to children over school vacations, helping to offset a growing hunger crisis in the country that has left as many as a fifth of children in households regularly beset by hunger. The vote was a disappointment for Marcus Rashford, one of England’s brightest young soccer stars…’ (time.com, 23 October). We have been used to reformists scoring own goals for two centuries. Any reforms we could win for ourselves on the basis of the capitalist system will always be circumscribed by the need to keep the capitalist system functioning. Mendacious parasites will tell you otherwise. Blair, for example, stated in 1999: ‘Our historic aim will be for ours to be the first generation to end child poverty forever, and it will take a generation. It is a twenty-year mission, but I believe it can be done.’ Twenty years later, the Daily Mirror ran this headline: ‘DWP child poverty figures a ‘national scandal’ as 4.1 million kids are hit’ (mirror.co.uk, 28 March, 2019). ‘The Socialist objective is not a society where everything comes right in the end, because kind old gentlemen give away turkeys. What are we aiming at, if not a society in which ‘charity’ would be unnecessary? We want a world where Scrooge, with his dividends, and Tiny Tim, with his tuberculous leg, would both be unthinkable’ (George Orwell, Tribune, 20 December 1943, published under the name ‘John Freeman’).

Che? No way!

‘Twenty left publishers from around the world release a joint edition including two essential texts by Che Guevara on the fifty-third anniversary of his assassination by the CIA in Bolivia. These texts, with insight from Aijaz Ahmad and María del Carmen Ariet García, provide us with a clear and resolute summation of Che’s spirit of conviction, scientific insights, human compassion, and unrelenting will to achieve the victory of the oppressed over the oppressors’ (thetricobtinental.org, 8 October). Compassion? ‘These people [of Cuba] you see today tell you that even if they should disappear from the face of the earth because an atomic war is unleashed in their names … they would feel completely happy and fulfilled…. ’ (part of Che’s address to the First Latin American Youth Congress in July 1959, three years before the Cuban missile crisis). ‘What I wanted to stress is that the working class is not putting forth its full effort’ (televised speech, 1961). ‘By working on the proletariat’s sense of responsibility, we hope to greatly improve the quality as well as the presentation of industrial products’ (article in Cuba Socialista, 1962). ‘The perfect revolutionary, the member of the ruling party, must work every hour and every minute of his life, during these years of very hard struggle that lie ahead of us’ (speech to textile workers, 1963). In fact, for each of Guevara’s references to the future communist society, he made at least a dozen pleas urging the Cuban workers to increase production.

Leaders get lost!

‘Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel highlighted the imprint left on the Latin American progressive forces by the victory of the Popular Unity of Chile, which brought socialist Salvador Allende to power in 1970…. The revolutionary process of the 1970s remained in Latin American history with its painful but unavoidable lessons for future revolutionary processes in our region, he assured. He also said that during his visit to the Palacio de La Moneda during his stay in Santiago de Chile, in 2013, the historical leader of the Revolution, Fidel Castro, told him that there was a spirit in that place and invited him to find it. That invitation, coming from a Marxist like Fidel Castro, was totally devoid of mysticism. He was, without a doubt, calling us to review a history that still has much to teach us’ (cadenagramonte.cu, 16 October). Yes, we should learn the lessons of history. Regarding Chile, in her book Democracy and Revolution: Latin America and Socialism Today, D. L. Raby writes ‘with a president voted in by only 36 per cent of the electorate and a coalition which only briefly achieved a little more than 50 per cent (in April 1971), there was no real mandate for revolutionary change.’ And this is what Fidel said when urging Mexican businesspeople to invest in Cuba, in 1988:’We are capitalists, but state capitalists. We are not private capitalists’ (Walter Daum, 1990, The Life and Death of Stalinism). The job of revolutionary socialists, wherever they are, is to make the world socialist revolution and this boils down now to the immediate task everywhere of spreading socialist ideas among the working class.

Nuclear winter or a socialist summer?

‘The weapons, known as intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs, are intended as part of a near-total replacement of the American nuclear force over the next few decades at a total cost of more than $1.2 trillion…. The nuclear modernization program was launched by the Obama administration and has been continued by President Donald Trump’ (apnews.com, 20 October).

Marxism in Chile? (1971)

From the March 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard

Salvador Allende is not the first president of Chile to proclaim himself a revolutionary. When Allende’s predecessor, the Christian Democrat Frei, was elected in 1964 he pledged himself to a “revolution in liberty”. Two years later found him sending in the army to break a strike in the copper mines; eight people were killed. As Fidel Castro rather neatly put it: “He promised revolution without blood and has given blood without revolution.”

Like Allende, Frei was elected on the strength of his promises to solve two basic problems. Firstly the concentration of land in the hands of a few vastly wealthy families while 350,000 peasants have no land at all. And secondly the domination of Chile’s economy by foreign (mainly American) capital, which is held to be responsible for the chronic unemployment in the country (currently running at about 7 per cent.) and the destitution of a large section of the population (one half of all families live on less than thirty dollars a month).

Frei’s initial boast was that 100,000 landless peasants would be settled on their own farms. But his attempts at redistributing the land were firmly resisted by the great landowners and in the six years between 1964-70 less than a third of those who had been promised plots of land got them. Estimates of the number of peasants resettled vary considerably, from 18,600 families relocated (Economist, 12 September, 1970) to 30,000 families (Time, 19 October). Similarly American interests in Chile (total US capital in the country stands at about $1,000m., including more than $500m, in the copper mining industry) fought vigorously to avoid Frei’s tentative moves towards nationalization. The Christian Democratic programme involved such schemes as the ‘Chileanisation’ of the $200m. American-owned Anaconda Company, with the government arranging to buy 51 per cent. of the company’s stock, as well as putting pressure on foreign companies to promote more Chileans to top management posts.

Predictably enough, Frei’s inability to fulfil his promises and make any significant inroads on peasant and working class misery, while at the same time he scared conservative elements with his talk of land expropriation and nationalisation, led to a polarisation in Chile’s politics in the 1970 presidential election. The slump in the popularity of the Christian Democratic candidate (Frei had got an overall majority in 1964, while his party’s nominee — Tomic — got only 27.8 per cent, of the vote in September 1970) has been partly explained by the behaviour of the frightened landowners and others who switched their allegiance to the right wing candidate, Jorge Alessandri. But, of course, the landowners form only a tiny fraction of Chile’s population and for Alessandri to get the 34.9 per cent, of the votes which he did, he had to attract the support of hundreds of thousands of workers and peasants committed both to capitalism and the traditional form it takes in Chile. That this was the case is made quite clear by the fact that Alessandri topped the poll in Chuquicamata, the principal copper mining centre in the country and obviously therefore an area with a high concentration of workers.

No less committed to capitalism were the 36.3 per cent. of the voters who opted for the ‘Popular Unity’ candidate, Salvador Allende. Allende has built up a popular front around the so-called ‘Communist’ and ‘Socialist’ parties which also takes in the Radicals and a number of smaller organisations such as ‘Independent Popular Action’ and an offshoot from the Christian Democrats — the ‘Action Union for Popular Unity’. These movements have allied themselves on the basis of an extensive reform programme which, if carried through, will lay the foundation for a restructuring of the Chilean economy along state capitalist lines. Its broad outlines consist of nationalising the copper industry, the banks, the strategic industries and the monopolies in the distributive sector — or, as Popular Unity jargon has it, of nationalising “all the activities which conditions the economic and social development of the country”. Tied in with this, there is to be an “extension of agrarian reform”, measures “to assure monetary stability” and a “plan for social security: health, work, housing.”

All this has been expressed by Allende in popular slogans such as “A half litre of milk per day for each child” or “We want our people to eat, to have work, to have homes, to have the guarantee of health.” And it is small wonder that he has found a responsive audience (including, as he points out himself, the “enlightened capitalists”) when more than half of all children in Chile are recognised to be undernourished and hundreds of thousands live in tenements where one or even two families jammed in a single room is considered normal.

Yet not only does the united front programme not represent an advance towards Socialism as many Popular Unity supporters imagine, but the fact is that Allende’s policies will not even radically alter class relations within the existing capitalist society in Chile. Those who are pinning so much hope on nationalisation should remember that this will not be an entirely new phenomenon. Already the state in Chile controls the power industries (including oil), the steel industry, the railways and — in part — telecommunications. As for the banks, which the new government is in the process of nationalising completely, even under Frei sixty per cent. were controlled by the state. It is obviously relevant, then, to ask just what benefits previous experiments in nationalisation have brought to Chile’s working men and women — and why this new wave of takeovers by the state should produce any different results?

In a public announcement to mark the constitutional amendment which will allow the state to take over the copper industry, in December 1970, President Allende said: “Since 1930 the big companies which exploit the copper deposits have realised profits totalling $3,700m., which represent 40 per cent. of the total wealth of Chile . . . The nationalisation of copper will be worth $70m. a year to Chile.” The popular interpretation which is being put on statements like this is that these profits from the nationalised industries are to be directed towards building more houses for workers, pushing up wages and generally improving the quality of life of the masses of the people. But will capitalism allow such priorities to influence the running of Chile’s economy?

Since Allende is proud to announce that he has read his Marx, he must know that:

  … the development of capitalist production makes it constantly necessary to keep increasing the amount of capital laid out in a given industrial undertaking, and competition makes the imminent laws of capitalist production to be felt by each individual capitalist, as external coercive laws. It compels him to keep constantly extending his capital, in order to preserve it, but extend it he cannot except by means of progressive accumulation.

Allende’s Chile, just like any other country operating within the world capitalist economy, will have to compete on the international markets to sell its products. The prices of its commodities can be made competitive only by Chile keeping abreast of world developments in industrial innovation, by constantly reinvesting in new plant — by constantly accumulating capital. And this can be done only by Chile’s industries — whether nationalised or not — pumping surplus value out of the working class. That these “external coercive laws” are continuing to operate was made quite clear in a radio speech by the new President when he announced that daily production of coal is to be stepped up from 3,800 tons to 4,700 tons — and then called on the miners to make sacrifices so that Chile’s coal can be sold at competitive prices on the world market.

Because the popular front government is responsible for Chile’s capitalist economy, inevitably it is being brought into conflict with the workers and peasants. Already there have been several strikes, some involving the occupation of factories, both in the capital Santiago and in the provinces. In December 1970 telephone workers in Santiago took over the central telephone building and held some hostages, calling for the immediate introduction of new salary scales which the government said it would introduce in time. In the same month three thousand municipal workers stopped work for 48 hours after demanding pay rises which the ‘Communist’ Minister of Finance refused, while fifteen thousand administrative workers were on strike too.

It could happen, as a result of events in Chile, that as the anti-working class policy of the Popular Unity government emerges more and more clearly, this could be blamed on its electoral strategy. There will, of course, be a number of confused people prepared to argue this way, suggesting that it was Allende’s reliance on the vote which prevented the building of Socialism in Chile, but socialists must explain that it was not the method of using the democratic machinery of elections which has proved inadequate. The capitalist system has persisted for the far more elementary reason that all of the movements in the popular front stand for capitalism and were voted into power by workers and peasants who are also still thinking along entirely capitalist lines.

Indeed, far from elections having been proved worthless, perhaps the only positive lesson for the working class to come out of Allende winning the Presidency is the way it showed how control of the state is all important.

Chile is politically the most advanced country on the South American continent, where there has been no coup d’état for almost forty years. The fact that workers there have achieved basic democratic rights which enable them to organise trade unions and vote freely is a measure of the level of political maturity reached. Once in power Allende found he could push through the reform programme of his government, even against considerable minority opposition, because the armed forces were always at his disposal. In the same way, when there is a socialist majority in Chile, the most ready means of advancing to Socialism will be for the workers there to use their votes to capture the state machine . In that way, they will be able to reorganise society on the basis of the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production, a very different thing from nationalisation. That will be the real socialist revolution — but, meanwhile, the good name of Marxism is being dragged through the dirt in Chile.

John Crump

How the Ruling Class Rule in Britain (2015)

From the February 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

Critics of the Socialist Party often ask why we would want to bother standing for election, when the real power is in the hands of the Establishment, and if an election went against their wishes, they’d just suspend democracy. Our answer has always been simple: the capitalist class is not united, but competing one against the other. They cannot trust each other with state power, because the temptations of cheating and corruption are too great. They need the political democracy and its openness in order to have a reliable machine to protect their general interests of property and contract. They need the army of workers who run the state to work for them.

Recent research by the University College London Constitution Unit shows how integral the elected parts of the state are. Their reports The Policy Impact of House of Commons Select Committees and The Policy Impact of Parliament on Legislation use a combination of empirical and interview research to assess how much influence parliament has on the policy over the executive and on the laws as finally produced by the state.

They found ‘Committees are highly prolific, and producing increasing numbers of reports. Between 1997 and 2010 select committees probably produced almost 1,500 inquiry reports (or 110 a year) and almost 40,000 recommendations and conclusions, of which 19,000 (or 1450 a year) were aimed at central government.’ Further, according to their examination of that work ‘around 40% of recommendations are accepted by government, and a similar proportion go on to be implemented. Calls for small policy change are more likely to be accepted and implemented, but around a third of recommendations calling for significant policy changes succeed.’

Further, their interviews with civil servants found that the question of ‘How could this policy be defended in front of a select committee’ loomed large in their minds at the policy formulation level. Indeed, the Constitution Unit’s work ‘identifies seven additional types of influence: contribution to wider debate, drawing together evidence, spotlighting issues and changing ministerial priorities, brokering (improving transparency within and between departments), accountability, exposure, and generating fear’(LINK). These layers of influence are important, as Select Committees have no formal (i.e. legal) means of enforcing their findings, their power is informal and political.

Detailed research on the Parliamentary process also illustrates how much power parliamentarians possess. Between 1999 and 2012 the House of Lords voted against the government 506 times, with around 130 (about 40 percent) of those defeats being upheld. Some of these issues were core government matters, such as jury trials, ID cards and detention without trial. In many ways, this demonstrates the important power of this unelected chamber, but, again, its power was informal, as the Commons could have overruled it. The number of defeats for the coalition government is lower, as they have greater representation in the unelected house (LINK).

In fact, as the Constitution unit found, government Ministers would often try to negotiate with peers and Commons back-benchers, because ‘the last thing they want is a vote’. Indeed, the executive operates a sophisticated parliamentary management policy to try and ensure that it is not defeated, making sure that it doesn’t propose anything that parliamentarians will not wear. The appearance of an almighty executive holding sway over parliament is very much that, appearance, and it is one that an executive must work hard to maintain. The first job of government is to look like it is in charge.

The academics found that around 60 percent of amendments to acts of parliament originated with non-government parliamentarians, despite being officially government proposed amendments to its own legislation.

Claiming legitimacy

This is the detailed impact of Parliament on the running of the country. Of course, the executive constitutionally can only be formed based on holding onto a majority in the House of Commons, which in turn means retaining the support of the largest section of the population at large (and usually a majority). Whatever the detail and objective effects of government policy, they can legitimately claim to have the support of the population, albeit with a sophisticated electorate management strategy as well.

The influence of parliament as a body stretches deep into the civil service and the daily operations of government. Its influence lies not in observable command control, but in the minds and imaginations of state actors, who are habituated to at least showing deference to their elected masters. This cannot simply be turned off at the flick of a switch: political democracy is well entrenched within the British state, and a great many politicians and civil servants (as well as their respective hangers-on) have a great deal of interest in maintaining political democracy. To put it bluntly, a lot of people have too much to lose to simply end democracy overnight.

Of course, parliament itself is limited in what it can do. It cannot act in such a way as to destroy its popular support. At the minimum, the politicians would lose elections and lose their jobs. In more extreme circumstances there would be riots and strikes or capital flight. They also have to act, ultimately, in line with the reified reality of the markets. The reliance on state borrowing means they have to placate the owners of debt and property.

To the extent that the executive retains immense patronage, able to buy off cronies with jobs, titles and entry into the revolving door of corporate boardrooms and consultancy work, it retains secretive, unaccountable power. A movement to promote democracy, to throw open the operations of government and to convert them from being government of people into the democratic administration of things will be able to cut off such chains of patronage.

Indeed, the relatively recent innovation on parliamentary votes on war (again, this has an informal status that has been elevated into what constitutional experts call a convention, since state actors behave as if they have to abide by it even if it isn’t enforceable), shows this power, with the defeat over military action in Syria. That is a massive inroad into the peremptory rights of the executive.

None of this is to fetishise parliament  nor its procedures, but instead to show how political democracy is central to the operation of the British state, despite occasional appearances to the contrary. It shows how human relations lie behind the surface machinery of state. Currently the majority continue to support capitalist politicians and parties, but if they were to turn into a movement for socialism, the democratic process is no barrier to them getting their way.

Pik Smeet

What about Chile?

Often, opponents of democratic socialist revolution cite the example of Chile, but that doesn’t bear up to scrutiny. In 1970 Salvador Allende was elected with 36.6 percent of the vote. According to the Constitution, if no candidate achieved more than 50 percent of the vote, the Chilean Legislature had to choose a President (usually the one with the most votes), and in Allende’s case, the Christian Democrats eventually backed him. At that point, the coalition of parties that backed Allende, the Unidad Popular, did not have a majority in neither the Senate nor the Chamber of Deputies.

In 1973, a parliamentary election saw the Unidad Popular defeated, and the Christian Democrats joined the Confederation of Democracy. The right were then able to use their parliamentary majority to harass Allende, and to claim legitimacy. Prior to the coup that ousted Allende, both the legislature and the courts accused him of acting unconstitutionally and undemocratically.

Nonetheless, before Pinochet could launch his coup, he had to assassinate his way through the military chain of command, so committed were the top generals to the constitutional process.

Allende was defeated by a conspiratorial coup, backed by the United States, but this was only possible with widespread popular support. At no point did Allende have an outright majority, not even a preponderant plurality.

Pinochet and socialism (1998)

From the December 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

The arrest of the Chilean ex-dictator Pinochet in London in October reopened the debate about the overthrow by the armed forces of the Allende government in 1973. At the time Leninists and anarchists trumpeted this as confirmation of their argument that it is not possible to use existing limited, political democracy to abolish capitalism. So it is worth restating why what happened in Chile in 1973 is not relevant to our case that capitalism can be abolished by a democratically-organised socialist majority using already-established elective and representative institutions.

The Chilean experience is not relevant for three basic reasons. First, Allende and the People’s Unity (Unidad Popular) alliance which supported him did not enjoy majority support. Second, Allende and People’s Unity did not stand for socialism but for state capitalism. Third, it was an attempt to improve things within the context of a single country on its own.

In the presidential elections held in September 1970 Allende polled 36 percent of the votes cast, just beating his conservative opponent who got 35 percent while the Christian Democrat candidate got 28 percent. In other words, in a three-way contest Allende won by not much more than the minimum possible—one-third of the votes plus one. Under the constitution then in force in Chile, if no candidate won over 50 percent it was left to Congress to decide. Allende was elected president with the help of the Christian Democrat members of Congress, perfectly constitutionally but without majority support for his programme. So he was in a much weaker position vis-à-vis his opponents than a socialist majority would be.

But the support Allende enjoyed was not for socialism anyway. People’s Unity which he headed was an alliance of the Chilean Socialist Party, the Chilean Communist Party and various smaller leftwing groups. Its short-term aim was to carry out various reforms in favour of workers and peasants within the context of capitalism. Its long-term aim, strongly influenced by the Communist Party and people who thought like them within the Socialist Party (of course the one was no more communist in the proper sense than the other was socialist), was something along the lines of what existed in Russia, i.e. state capitalism. Maybe Russian-style total state capitalism can’t be established by peaceful means, but what relevance has this to establishing socialism?

Finally, socialism cannot be established in just one country. The Allende government could not have established socialism even if it wanted to and had, therefore, no alternative but to run capitalism. However capitalism, as we have always insisted, cannot by its nature be run in the interests of the working class majority. So, like other reformists, Allende was unable to deliver on his promises. Even though elections held in March 1973 showed that the support of a third or so of the population for People’s Unity still held up, discontent grew amongst the two-thirds majority which didn’t support it, the discontent exploited by the government’s opponents, encouraged and helped by the CIA (in pursuit of the US strategic interest not to allow Russian state capitalism to establish another bridgehead besides Cuba in their backyard) and multinationals like ITT (who feared nationalisation without adequate compensation).

By September 1973 the conservative (not to say fascist) minded leaders of the armed forces, led by General Pinochet, decided the time was ripe to stage a coup. The presidential palace was bombarded and Allende killed and a brutal regime the like of which the world had not seen since Franco won the Spanish Civil War was installed. A veritable reign of terror, designed to cow the third of the population who still supported Allende, was unleashed. Thousands of opponents were rounded up, tortured and killed; elective institutions were dissolved and working class organisations banned.

No wonder most people were content to see Pinochet arrested and suffer a few uncomfortable moments, if not end his days in a Spanish jail (Thatcher, who saw a kindred spirit, being a notable exception). But this does not alter the fact that the government Pinochet overthrew had nothing to do with socialism but was a government without majority backing aiming to move towards state capitalism in the context of a world in which two super-powers were struggling for domination. The quite different conditions that will obtain on the eve of socialism—mass support for socialism throughout the world—will be sufficient to deter any suicidal attempt by a latter-day Pinochet to halt the progress of history.

Adam Buick