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Fighting for socialism
One hundred issues
 WHEN
WE launched Socialism Today in 1995, we outlined a number of key issues
and ideas that we believed should be the main themes to be developed in
the magazine (What future for socialism today?)
At the height of the mood of international
capitalist triumphalism that following the fall of the Berlin wall, we
set out to combat the idea, regrettably widely accepted on the left,
that economic planning could no longer be regarded as an alternative to
the capitalist market. Linked to this was the delusion, induced by the
bubble economy of the late 1990s, that capitalism was now able to ride
out crises, delivering continuous growth and ever-rising prosperity.
We pointed to the rapid bourgeoisification of the
traditional workers’ parties as their leaders adopted completely
pro-market views, and raised the need for new, independent political
representation of the working class. We reiterated the decisive role of
the working class in fighting for a change of society, and reaffirmed
the need to fight for "an anti-capitalist programme based on the
ideas of Marxism and the perspective of a socialist transformation of
society".
As the magazine of the Socialist Party (England and
Wales), our approach has naturally expressed the political thinking of
the Party and the Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI). Events
since Issue No.1 of Socialism Today have, in our view, confirmed the key
importance of the issues we raised and validated our approach.
As a guide to activists, we have attempted to
provide commentary and analysis of the main events that have taken place
in Britain and internationally. We have also carried a range of
historical articles, and regularly covered the global environmental
crisis in our "Global Warning" feature. And as we cannot live
by politics alone, we have regularly published articles and reviews
covering literature, art, films, science and other cultural issues. All
this material, going back to Issue No.31, is
available on our website and later this year we will be producing a
complete index to issues 1 to 100.
HOW MANY TIMES have bourgeois leaders ‘finally’ exorcised the
spectre of Marxism?
In January, fifteen years after the ‘collapse of communism’ and
the ‘triumph of capitalism’, the European Parliament recently
adopted a resolution condemning "the crimes of totalitarian
communist regimes". (Guardian, 26 January)
This was proposed by the right-wing Swedish MEP, Göran Lindblad,
who called for an international conference on the issue, as well as the
revision of school textbooks throughout Europe to portray communism as
the totalitarian twin of fascism.
This ideological offensive was not a genuine attempt
to clarify the character of the former Stalinist regimes of the Soviet
Union and Eastern Europe. It is yet another attempt to use the record of
Stalinism to discredit genuine communism and socialism.
Stalinism was a grotesque deformation of real
communism. Under Stalin, a privileged bureaucracy usurped the power of
the working class and ruled through grotesque totalitarian methods. This
arose from the isolation of the Russian revolution in an economically
backward country. Despite the bureaucracy, the planned economy rapidly
transformed the USSR from a poor, under-developed country into a modern
industrial state. Ultimately, however, the bureaucratic stranglehold –
counterpart of a complete lack of workers’ democracy – led to
economic collapse. Undoubtedly, this discredited the idea of economic
planning in general, though in reality it demonstrated only the
bankruptcy of Stalinism. At the same time, the history of purges, labour
camps, the suppression of all dissent, and the perversion of genuine
Marxist ideas, discredited the idea of communism.
There are still people on the left, of course, who
continue to act as apologists for Stalinism. Commenting on the Lindblad
resolution, for instance, Seamus Milne (Guardian, 16 February) rightly
asks why the European Parliament is taking no steps to publicise and
repudiate the bloody history of European colonialism and imperialism.
While referring to the social gains achieved by workers in the former
Soviet Union, however, Milne sidesteps the issue of totalitarian
repression and the lack of workers’ democracy under Stalinism.
"No major political traditions", he says, "is without
blood on its hands". Readers might well get the impression that
Milne regards the former Soviet Union as an authentic, if imperfect,
model for socialism. Socialists have to clearly explain its
contradictory nature, positive (planned economy) and negative
(bureaucratic dictatorship). This is a vital part of our task of
clearing the ground for a revival of genuine Marxism in the workers’
movement.
There is no doubt that capitalist leaders fear the
strengthening of anti-capitalist and specifically socialist ideas, which
reflects a growing radicalisation of the working class in response to
the neo-liberal offensive. Lindblad himself revealed the real motive of
his initiative. It is not just to remember the victims of communism, but
to combat "communist nostalgia", for public ownership and
class struggle and "elements of communist ideology such as equality
or social justice [which] still seduce many". In the past, of
course, even social democrats claimed they stood for equality and social
justice. In January, however, Euro MPs voted 99 to 42 (with 12
abstentions) for a brutal class message: There is no alternative to
capitalism and any attempt to change the system will lead to violence
and totalitarianism.
Why, if they are so confident of the triumph of
capitalism, are they so concerned about "communist nostalgia"?
No doubt it is because of the rising tide of mass workers’ struggles,
in Europe and around the world, against the effects of an unleashed,
free-market capitalism. Moreover, there is a growing radicalisation of
sections of the working class, with the most politically conscious
looking to the ideas of socialism for an alternative. It is not ‘nostalgia’
but a search for a way forward.
The alternative to capitalism?
BUT WHAT IS the alternative to capitalism? The
collapse of Stalinism – a caricature of socialism, but seen as the
only actually existing form – undermined confidence in the idea of a
socialist transformation of society, even amongst the most active,
politically conscious workers. France, for instance, is experiencing a
new version of the ‘May events’ of 1968. But there is not the same
overwhelming ideological support for socialism as there was 36 years
ago. Workers, young people, students, have no doubt what they are
against. But there is no clarity on what they are for.
A big factor in this crisis of consciousness is the
disorientation and demoralisation of most of the leaders of the left,
including avowedly Marxist organisations. Whether they spell it out
openly or not, many have in reality succumbed to the notion that there
is no alternative to the capitalist market.
The mood of ideological pessimism was recently
expressed by George Monbiot, a prominent figure in the anti-globalisation
and anti-capitalist movement. The European Social Forum (Paris, November
2003), commented Monbiot, represented a bottomless pit of discontent.
(Rattling the bars, Guardian, 18 November 2003) "Whenever anyone
announced that capitalism in all its forms should be overthrown,
everyone cheered. But is this what we really want? And, if so, with what
do we hope to replace it? And could that other system be established
without violent repression?"
Is there life after capitalism? Monbiot’s ‘answer’
is another list of questions: is "totalitarianism the only means of
eliminating capitalism? If so, and if, as almost all of us profess to
do, we abhor totalitarianism, can we continue to call ourselves
anti-capitalists? If there is no humane and democratic answer to the
question of what a world without capitalism would look like, then should
we not abandon the pursuit of unicorns, and concentrate on capturing and
taming the beast whose den we already inhabit".
In other words: No. There is no alternative to
capitalism!
Monbiot cannot see beyond the totalitarian model of
Stalinism. He accepts the claim that socialist revolution inevitably
leads to totalitarian dictatorship, that economic planning is
unworkable. But Stalinism, ‘socialism in one country’, arose from
the isolation of the revolution in an economically and culturally
backward country, in which the working class (though politically
decisive in 1917) was a minority of the population.
Scarcity of resources, continued shortages of
essential goods (housing, food, clothing, etc) produced a new social
differentiation, with the rise of a privileged bureaucratic caste that
concentrated power into its own hands. The national confines of the
planned economy and mismanagement by the bureaucracy limited – and
ultimately strangled – the development of technology and production.
However, the fact that planning failed under Stalinism, that is, under
specific historical conditions, does not prove that economic planning
is, by its very nature, impossible.
Worldwide symptoms of social crisis and the prospect
of environmental catastrophe show that capitalism can no longer take
society forward. Technology and production develop in a completely
distorted way because of the domination of the profit motive and the
anarchy of market competition. Nevertheless, the science and technology
exist to develop the economy internationally to meet the real needs of
the world’s population. But this will only be possible if it is
utilised in a planned way, under the democratic control of the working
class. On the basis of an international plan of production it would be
possible to make rapid strides towards real social equality, to
dramatically raise the living standards of the peoples of the
under-developed countries, and ensure the protection of natural
resources. Undoubtedly, there will be a baneful legacy of capitalist
problems to be overcome.
Why should the elimination of capitalism take a
totalitarian form, as Monbiot believes? In fact, a genuine socialist
transformation can only be carried through with the overwhelming support
of the population. The heavy battalions of the working class
internationally, concentrated in the advanced and some semi-developed
countries, are today on a much higher economic and cultural level than
the Russian working class of 1917. They have a preponderant social
weight, and have experienced political democracy and mass trade union
organisation. In other words, they have the capacity to ensure the
democratic transformation of society and democratic running of socialist
states.
But, argues Monbiot, "as long as incentives to
cheat exist (and they always will) none of our alternatives could be
applied universally without totalitarianism". This is a variant of
the ‘human nature’ objection to socialism: ‘people are selfish and
greedy’. As if the egotistical pursuit of self-interest has not been
generated by capitalism over many generations, based as it is on the
exploitation of workers’ labour power and the accumulation of wealth
by a minority, in other words a system based on greed for profit.
Monbiot, it seems, cannot conceive of a social system operating on a
higher level than capitalism, steadily eliminating scarcity (wiping out
poverty and overcoming inequality). A socialist planned economy, run
under workers’ democracy, would provide the basis for social
cooperation and human solidarity on an international level.
What is Monbiot’s answer to capitalism? Again, he
offers only a series of questions. "How do we threaten power? How
do we capture the political processes which have excluded us? We don’t
yet have all the answers…" Yet Monbiot himself points out that,
"Democracy everywhere looks as if it has been hit by a neutron
bomb. Its structures – the parliaments and their committees, the
elections and referendums – remain intact, but the life within them
has died". Governing parties and their opposition rivals offer no
real choice, there is no discussion on "the kind of economy we
want" or state responsibility for social provision. His explanation
is that the ‘real decisions’ are made at the continental level, in
Brussels, the White House, and corporate boardrooms, and "handed
down to national governments for implementation".
This is true, of course, as far as it goes. But
Monbiot shrinks from a clear class analysis. The real decisions are
taken, as they always have been, by the capitalist class at a national
and international level (with the major imperialist powers dominating
policy). The difference today, under the regime of globalisation (in
contrast to the period of the economic upswing period of 1950-73), is
that the capitalist class has launched an offensive to intensify the
worldwide exploitation of the working class. Compliance with this policy
is forced on national governments through the imposition of neo-liberal
policies. It is the dictatorship of the so-called ‘free market’
dominated by giant banks and transnational corporations. This is why
parliamentary democracy has become a hollow shell, corrupted by big
capitalist money and ruthlessly manipulated by the big-business mass
media.
Rattling the bars?
WHAT IS MONBIOT’S answer? "We must ask
ourselves", he says, "what we can do to recolonise and
revitalise parliamentary politics". "Our task is to find the
means of rattling the bars of our enclosed and corrupted parliaments
without succumbing to their enclosure and corruption".
We are not against rattling the bars if it means
fighting for the independent political representation of the working
class through building new mass workers’ parties. But our aim must be
to fight for the interests of the working class, to combine
parliamentary and extra-parliamentary mass campaigning to fight to
defend workers’ conditions and democratic rights. This will involve
using parliament and parliamentary elections as a platform for
anti-capitalist and socialist policies, while exposing the hollowness
and corruption of the institutions.
Defence of past gains and battles for new reforms
have to be linked by socialists to the need to abolish capitalism and
carry through the socialist transformation of society. This would
certainly ‘rattle the bars’ of bourgeois institutions. But it has
nothing in common with a futile quest for a mythical unicorn – the
fantasy of revitalising parliamentary democracy on the basis of
capitalism.
Monbiot’s strategy, though he does not clearly
spell it out, is one of taming capitalism through a revival of bourgeois
democracy. This idea of a new ‘democratic revolution’ is the
position of many on the left who formerly advocated some kind of
socialist programme but who have retreated and abandoned socialism since
the fall of the Berlin wall.
In reality, democracy can only be ‘revived’
through working-class struggle against capitalism to defend political,
trade union and civil rights. These are being seriously eroded within
the framework of capitalist parliamentary democracy, especially since
the attacks of 11 September 2001 which have provided the ruling class
with a political pretext for enormously strengthening arbitrary state
powers.
At one point Monbiot refers to parliamentary
politics as "the system for which our ancestors lost so much
blood". But historically it has always been the working class that
overwhelmingly provided the forces which forced the bourgeoisie to
concede democratic rights, and workers who made the most sacrifices in
the struggle.
It is the working class that guarantees the
preservation of democratic rights. Ultimately, the deepening of
democracy to embrace control of society from below and economic rights
(to employment, a living wage, decent housing, education, health-care,
and social protection) depends on the creation of a new social order, a
socialist society run on the basis of workers’ democracy. It is a
crisis-ridden, increasingly militarised capitalist system that poses the
threat of authoritarian state repression, not socialism, as Monbiot
believes.
His approach (the democratic taming of capitalism)
completely lacks any class dimension. The anti-capitalist movement which
started in the 1990s expressed the growing radicalisation of students,
young people and sections of workers. The last few years, however, have
seen waves of mass workers’ struggles on every continent against the
big-business, neo-liberal offensive. These struggles reflect an
irreconcilable conflict between the working class and the ruling
capitalist class.
The key question for the next period is what ideas,
what programme, will guide these struggles? In our view, it is only the
programme of socialism and the ideas of Marxism that can offer a
reliable guide to struggle and a viable alternative to capitalism.
Monbiot, though no doubt passionately believing in ‘a better world’,
offers no map to guide us there.
Setting out the ideological underpinnings of the
struggle to change society remains the paramount task for Socialism
Today.
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