Date: Sun, 06 Apr 1997 15:06:06 +0200
Subject: M-G: Bordigists in sheeps chothing. Part 3


At last Neil thinks that he has the "trotskyists" pinned down on the former
degenerated Soviet Union and the deformed workers states in eastern Europe.

This time he takes Hugh to task over "nationalizations".

Neil sees no difference in the "nationalisations" in the Soviet Union nor
in the former deformed workers staters of east Europe when compared with
the "welfare" states like Sweden where the Social Democrats in their
peaceful march towards "Socialism" nationalized parts of or all of certain
industries in a country which has seen neither war or revolution.

Now even a state capitalist like Neil who openly admits his sympathies with
the Bordigists, and sees trade unions as the enemy of the working class,
and things like elections are just a bunch of bougeois hokus pocus wants to
take us into some pretty far out generaizations in regards to
"nationalisation" of the means of production.  Neil as always is driving
with huge black patches over his eyes I will try and explain the
differences between the former Soviet Union (a degenerated workers state)
the eastern European countries (deformed workers states) and Sweden a
capitalist imperialist state (with a pro capitalist Social Democratic
leadership.) to him and others who are coming on to the list.

The former Soviet Union which Neil paints up from its inception as state
capitalist was and is the home of the first and only victorious October
Revolution led by the Bolshevik Party under the leadership of Lenin and
Trotsky among others. The nationaized property forms came out of a
victorious revolution by the workers and peasants with guns in hand who not
only took power but confiscated in the name of the Soviets and the
Bolshevik party just about everything in the form of banks, large
industries and the land. 

Naturally in backward Russia even with the leadership of the Bolshevik
party when it was still in the hands of people like Lenin and Trotsky the
nationalized property forms in the face of 4 years of imperialist war and
the following imperialist encirclement of the new Russian republic, was
hardly the first place that even Lenin or Trotsky would have liked to start
the long march towards Communism via the transitional state of the then new
Soviet republic. 

But that is what they had to work with and the ensuing NEP and five year
plans must be seen in light of the realities that the young workers
republic in "backward" Russia had to work with. But to come as the state
capitalists do and write off the Soviet Union must be seen not only in
their bankrupt economic critism's but in that it in no way has any concrete
connection to the concrete realities that the Bolsheviks were faced with at
the time. But is the ideas of a petty bougeois opposition trying to paste
theory onto concrete revolutionary reality that the Bolsheviks were faced
with.

In fact it is just a cheap shot in order to avoid the key political
question of rolling up your sleevews after October 1917 and trying to
extend October to one or more advanced industrial country as the Leninists
try to do knowing that the economic pre-eqiisites in Russia were not very
bright. But that was the revolution they had and what is it they were
exactly surpose to do in the situation.Well they rolled up there sleeves
and began to work under some rather extreme circumstances. One can say the
right or wrongs about the NEP or this or that five year plan but the
fundemental political and economical superstructure was the dictatorship of
the Proletariat.

Now the post war deformed workers states in East Europe. If one were to
believe Neil it was this fucking rosy "peaceful" march by the Red Army
though the forest on a picnic Sunday outing and not a military occupation
after four years of war that was never seen the like of in destruction
before on the European continent. In fact reality was the fact that there
was not to much industry left in tact at the end of the war! So the
nationalization of industries that Neil talks about is a fucking ghost.
Although the industries that were left were hardly nationalised but
occupied and then physically moved inside the borders of the Soviet Union!
Especaially in East Germany. So in fact the so called nationalization Neil
is talking about is in fact the military victory and occupation of these
states by the forward marching Red Army. Connected to and entrenched
paranoid Stalinist bureaucracy in the Soviet Union who rather then build up
a new Europe on the basis of proletarian power  and who saw all foreigners
as the enemy imported and transplanted many of the organistional forms
direct from the Soviet Union on to these occupied territories.  

It was the paranoid political superstructure of Stalinism that hardly was
interested in "state capitalism" at all but the physical removal of
political opponents and whole industries to the Soviet Union that was the
living reality. Although in certain areas Checkoslavakian for example
industries that were left in tact (arms industy)  developed because of the
industrial skills of the checks rather then any kind of planned state
capitalism by the leaders in the Kremlin. And even if it was! It was and is
certainly defensible against *real* imperialism in regards to the overall
situation at the end of the war..

But for our Borgidist in sheeps clothing none of the above makes any
diffence. He lumps it all in to his state capitalist bag and marches off
into the desert. 

However their is a difference beteen Neil and lets say the state caps that
used this debate at the beginning of the war in order to desert the
neccessity of defending the Soviet Union against imperialism despite the
Stalinists in the war, like the Shactmanites who were a petty bougeois
opposition in the then Trotskyist SWP of Cannon's.

For Neil is one would say a clone version of the Schactmanites who for
entirely different reasons came about this (storm in a waterglass) debate
on nationalisations and state capitalism to avoid the revolutionary
responsibility of taking a fundemental defencist line on this question.
Sort of like the "August 1918" demarcation line for the Schamanites and
Neil who a number og generations later is using the "state capitalist" line
in order to justify his ultra left line on just about everything which
makes him become and unconcious ally of capitalism and the imperialist
bougeisie!

What I mean is that the Schamanites would be saying today about the demise
of the Soviet Union "good" as they wipe the sweat of fear" confronting
their own boubeoisie's at home with the revoltionary line of defeatism. 

Whereas Neil is saying "good" now that we got the Soviet Union and East
Europe out of the way it is time to take on the "reactionary" trade unions.
Ultimitely to different lines of approach but in the end winding up on the
wrong side of the barricades of the working class.

Finally the "nationalisations" in the "welfare" states like Sweden under
the reformist Social democracy and Keynesian politics of the post war
model- This is hardly the same as the nationalisations in the former Soviet
union and Eastern European States described above. 

But in fact came on the advances of the Red Army and the possibility of the
nationalised property forms of Stalinism spreading into the countries still
controlled by imperialism and their armies. In fact keynesian politics was
nothing else but a platform to fool the working class and at the same time
use tax money to save what was left of capitilism and imperialism on this
continent after the destruction of the war and the occupation of Europe by
the Red Army and the nationalised property forms of the Stalinists who
despite their counter-revolutionary political line countered with
bureaucratically deformed nationalisations based on the Red Army and the
Stalinist bureaucracy rather then any capitalist class...And in peaceful
Sweden it was not even that but but the question of a historic compromise
with Social Democracy in order to by time until the disastrous situation on
the European continent would change in the favor of imperialism again.

However all of the nationalisations whether they were in the former Soviet
Union based on October. If they were in the former Eastern European
deformed workers states because of the military occupation of the Red Army.
Or the nationalisations here in Sweden which came under more peaceful forms.. 

All of them for Communists are DEFENSIBLE as a higher forms of organisation
form in the interests of the proletariat!Despite there being
bureaucratically deformed in the former degenerated and deformed workers
states they were one of the pillars which stopped the Stalinists from
handing it over to the imperialists in the 40ties instead of now in the
80ties. And in the capitalist-imperialist Sweden they were reforms that the
workers understood were going in their direction and not the otherway.

Naturally this does not mean that there is a Stalinist stages of
bureaucratic degenerations and deformations are neccessary as a rule on the
wat to Communism. Exactly the opposite they are and were road blocks
endangering the great gains made by October!

Now a question to our state capitalists who have for weeks now been going
on with this storm in a water glass debate. Why is it that it is just those
nationalisation forms that you critisize the "Trotskyists" for defending
against imperialism just those things that the real imperialists are going
after in not only in the former degenerated and deformed workers states,
but in imperialist Sweden is just those type of nationalised property
forms? Gulp Gulp guys!

Can you deny that their is a difference? 

Why is it exactly these forms that the restorationists are attacking all
along the line? I mean you been running around here for weeks telling us it
is all the same shit. Well, obviously the "real" capitalists and
imperialists just don't agree with the state capitalist of the "left" on
M-I as elsewhere. 

Because it it just these nationalized property forms that they are taking
back all across the line....

Now this must say something even to the brightest state cap "leftist" about
the rotten political line they have been hawking for one reason or another
since the late 30ties! Sorry if I find this stuff hard to believe. But then
again I believe that Trotsky and Cannon for example were fundementally
right about the state capitalists.

Warm Regards
Bob Malecki      
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