Date: Sat, 17 Feb 1996 16:25:32 +0100
From: m-14970-AT-mailbox.swipnet.se (Hugh Rodwell)
Subject: Re: Rollback of working class privileges


Brad Mayer quoted my position:

>>And now - in the period of the most splendid victory for the world
>>bourgeoisie in its history, namely the humiliation and destruction of the
>>Soviet Union, born of the socialist revolution - you'd think they'd be
>>cock-a-hoop and leading the world in joyful celebrations! But no. In its
>>finest hour, imperialism without the Stalinist counterweight to restrain it
>>is once more revealing its true features of limitless greed, brutality and
>>bloodlust. And chaotic instability - it's lurching about like a crazed
>>elephant and god help anyone in its path.

and developed:

>Of course, I am in general agreement with the *political* analysis and
>perspective here. One small but significant point, though.  The
>Stalinist-dominated worker's states were not a "counterweight" to
>imperialism, but lay at the *foundation* of the postwar imperialist world
>order.  To put it more generally, the gains and victories of the world's
>workers and colonial peoples after the defeat of fascism in World War II
>made the postwar "boom" possible, were absolutely necessary for the
>"boom". Further, for the first time in modern history, the most rapidly
>growing and dynamic economic sectors lay beyond the reach of the
>capitalist mode of production in the worker's states. Capitalism and
>imperialism were confronted with an extraordinary situation never before
>seen, and its politicians were forced by this circumstance to pursue a
>(more or less) conscious policy which featured expanded state
>intervention, expansion of the total industrial base, and
>-consequentially- the extension of privileges to the proletariat of the
>imperialist countries which were lavish in historical comparision
>even to those previously known by this proletariat.
>
>So the postwar expansion was driven forward.  It is more accurate to call
>this expansion a "capitalist dominated boom" than a purely "capitalist
>boom" - the proletariat was now, effectively, the sole historical agency for
>the advance of the productive forces.  In the absence of these partial
>victories of the working class, the bourgeosie would have pursued the policy
>they are implementing today, only worse, since then it would have at a
>minimum meant the destruction of the Soviet Union by the Nazis, and a
>permanent world-wide accomodation between Anglo-American imperialism and
>fascism, at least for awhile before the next interimperialist war.
>Today, the bourgeoisie are simply picking up where they left off in the
>1920's, and are working hard to return us to the horrors of the 1930's
>and early 1940's.

This is a great contribution - I didn't have the heart to excise any of it.

My first thought was: Brad's right. I take his point - 'foundation' not
'counterweight'.

My second thought was: hang on - if this was the case, why did the
bureaucracy junk it? I mean, we can't get away from imperialist economic
hegemony in the postwar period. I think Brad's right when he writes 'the
proletariat was now, effectively, the sole historical agency for the
advance of the productive forces' - this doesn't mean that the workers'
states were 'at the *foundation* of the postwar imperialist world
order'. I think the process was something like this: instead of leading the
world revolutionary upsurge at the end of WWII to the overthrow of
imperialism and the establishing of a worldwide dictatorship of the
proletariat, the Stalinists used this threat to imperialism as a bargaining
chip to reinforce their control of their own patch and ward off future
attacks as far as possible. Once the sellout had taken place, capitalism
was able to expand once more *on its own foundations*, exploiting the new
opportunities presented to it by the Stalinist sellout and kept to a
minimum of unwelcome but health-promoting stability (they didn't like it
but it was good for them) by the working class presence in the postwar
imperialist regimes. Marx went on about the bourgeois democratic regime,
with its recognition of labour as a free social agent (free to sell its
labour power on an 'equal' legal footing with the buyer capital), as the
most adequate regime for capitalist development.

So in fact I think 'counterweight' expresses it better than 'foundation'.
The workers' states were instrumental in initiating the postwar boom, they
were essential to it, in that it would not have taken place without them,
as Brad says, but this was a superstructural, political primacy, not an
economic one. And the controlling position of imperialism in the world
economy meant that over time not even the unprecedented advance of the
productive forces in the workers' states was able to withstand the double
onslaught of imperialist pressure and Stalinist mismanagement and political
antagonism to the interests of the international working class.

In other words, the political foundation of the postwar boom, the relations
between the regimes of imperialism and of the workers' states, was laid by
Stalinism, but the economic foundation of the boom, along with hegemony in
the world market, was capitalist.

It is impossible to overestimate the importance of this debate. If we
understand the relative prosperity of the working class in the advanced
imperialist countries in the postwar period as *temporary concessions* by
the imperialists made to buy off revolution, we can understand the
processes now in train in the new period initiated in 1989. The
imperialists need to take back the concessions. They can't afford them any
more. They are being pressured into 'picking up where they left off' by the
immensity of their own crisis. Too much capital is being produced. Too
little profit is being made. There is nowhere to expand.

It's possible to imagine that a stable bourgeoisie could be established in
the ex-workers' states, and it's possible that China will see a smoother
transition to a bourgeois state than the Soviet Union, and this might
provide another few years of respite to the capitalist system. To imagine
this, however, you have to abstract from the social and political responses
of the working class nationally and internationally to the processes of
impoverishment, enslavement, expropriation and oppression necessary to pull
it off.

In my view, the big struggle is just starting. Only this time the agents of
counter-revolution no longer have a position of self-evident authority at
the head of the big batallions of the working class. The working class is
freer and better equipped to choose leaderships adequate to its needs than
almost ever before. Once this happens, history will start moving so fast,
it'll leave the lightning in the dust.

Cheers,

Hugh




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