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Title: What was the USSR? Author: Aufheben Date: 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 Language: en Topics: USSR, state capitalism, critique, statism, Libertarian Communism, Left Communism, Council Communism, Trotskyism, Trotsky, Lenin, Stalin, Ticktin, Bordiga, the state Source: Part I in *Aufheben* #06 (Autumn 1997). Part II in *Aufheben* #07 (Autumn 1998). Part III in *Aufheben* #08 (Autumn 1999). Part IV in *Aufheben* #09 (Autumn 2000). All parts retrieved from http://libcom.org/library/what-was-ussr-aufheben
The Russian Revolution and the subsequent establishment of the USSR as a
âworkersâ stateâ, has dominated political thinking for more than three
generations.
In the past, it seemed enough for communist revolutionaries to define
their radical separation with much of the âleftâ by denouncing the
Soviet Union as state capitalist.[1] This is no longer sufficient, if it
ever was. Many Trotskyists, for example, now feel vindicated by the
ârestoration of capitalismâ in Russia. To transform society we not only
have to understand what it is, we also have to understand how past
attempts to transform it failed. In this and future issues we shall
explore the inadequacies of the theory of the USSR as a degenerated
workersâ state and the various versions of the theory that the USSR was
a form of state capitalism.
In August 1991 the last desperate attempt was made to salvage the old
Soviet Union. Gorbachev, the great reformer and architect of both
Glasnost and Perestroika, was deposed as President of the USSR and
replaced by an eight man junta in an almost bloodless coup. Yet, within
sixty hours this coup had crumbled in the face of the opposition led by
Boris Yeltsin, backed by all the major Western powers. Yeltsinâs triumph
not only hastened the disintegration of the USSR but also confirmed the
USA as the final victor in the Cold War that had for forty years served
as the matrix of world politics.
Six years later all this now seems long past. Under the New World
(dis)Order in which the USA remains as the sole superpower, the USSR and
the Cold War seem little more than history. But the collapse of the USSR
did not simply reshape the âpolitics of the worldâ â it has had
fundamental repercussions in the âworld of politicsâ, repercussions that
are far from being resolved.
Ever since the Russian Revolution in 1917, all points along the
political spectrum have had to define themselves in terms of the USSR,
and in doing so they have necessarily had to define what the USSR was.
This has been particularly true for those on the âleftâ who have sought
in some way to challenge capitalism. In so far as the USSR was able to
present itself as âan actually existing socialist systemâ, as a viable
alternative to the âmarket capitalism of the Westâ, it came to define
what socialism was.
Even âdemocratic socialistsâ in the West, such as those on the left of
the Labour Party in Britain, who rejected the âtotalitarianâ methods of
the Lenin and the Bolsheviks, and who sought a parliamentary road to
socialism, still took from the Russian model nationalization and
centralized planning of the commanding heights of the economy as their
touchstone of socialism. The question as to what extent the USSR was
socialist, and as such was moving towards a communist society, was an
issue that has dominated and defined socialist and communist thinking
for more than three generations.
It is hardly surprising then that the fall of the USSR has thrown the
left and beyond into a serious crisis. While the USSR existed in
opposition â however false â to free market capitalism, and while social
democracy in the West continued to advance, it was possible to assume
that history was on the side of socialism. The ideals of socialism and
communism were those of progress. With the collapse of the USSR such
assumptions have been turned on their head. With the victory of âfree
market capitalismâ socialism is now presented as anachronistic, the
notion of centralized planning of huge nationalized industries is
confined to an age of dinosaurs, along with organized working class
struggle. Now it is the market and liberal democracy that claim to be
the future, socialism and communism are deemed dead and gone.
With this ideological onslaught of neo-liberalism that has followed the
collapse of the USSR, the careerists in the old social democratic and
Communist Parties have dropped all vestiges old socialism as they lurch
to the right. With the Blairite New Labour in Britain, the Clintonite
new Democrats in the USA and the renamed Communist Parties in Europe,
all they have left is to openly proclaim themselves as the ânew and
improvedâ caring managers of capitalism, fully embracing the ideals of
the market and modern management methods.
Of course, for the would-be revolutionaries who had grown up since the
1960s, with the exception of course of the various Trotskyist sects, the
notion that the USSR was in anyway progressive, let alone socialist or
communist, had for a long time seemed ludicrous. The purges and show
trials of the 1930s, the crushing of the workersâ uprisings in East
Germany in 1953 and in Hungary in 1956, the refusal to accept even the
limited liberal reforms in Czechoslovakia in 1968 and the continued
repression of workersâ struggles in Russia itself, had long led many on
the ârevolutionary leftâ to the conclusion that whatever the USSR was it
was not socialist. Even the contention that, for all its monstrous
distortions, the USSR was progressive insofar as it still developed the
productive forces became patently absurd as the economic stagnation and
waste of the Brezhnev era became increasingly apparent during the 1970s.
For those ultra-leftists[2] and anarchists who had long since rejected
the USSR as in anyway a model for socialism or communism, and who as a
result had come to reassert the original communist demands for the
complete abolition of wage labour and commodity exchange, it has long
since become self-evident that the USSR was simply another form of
capitalism. As such, for both anarchists and ultra-leftists the notion
that the USSR was state capitalist has come as an easy one â too easy
perhaps.
If it was simply a question of ideas it could have been expected that
the final collapse of the USSR would have provided an excellent
opportunity to clear away all the old illusions in Leninism and social
democracy that had weighed like a nightmare on generations of socialists
and working class militants. Of course this has not been the case, and
if anything the reverse may be true. The collapse of the USSR has come
at a time when the working class has been on the defensive and when the
hopes of radically overthrowing capitalism have seemed more remote than
ever. If anything, as insecurity grows with the increasing deregulation
of market forces, and as the old social democratic parties move to the
right, it would seem if anything that the conditions are being lain for
a revival of âold style socialismâ.
Indeed, freed from having to defend the indefensible, old Stalinists are
taking new heart and can now make common cause with the more critical
supporters of the old Soviet Union. This revivalism of the old left,
with the Socialist Labour Party in Britain as the most recent example,
can claim to be making just as much headway as any real communist or
anarchist movement.
The crisis of the left that followed the collapse of the USSR has not
escaped communists or anarchists. In the past it was sufficient for
these tendencies to define their radical separation with much of the
âleftâ by denouncing the Soviet Union as state capitalist and denying
the existence of any actually existing socialist country. This is no
longer sufficient, if it ever was. As we shall show, many Trotskyists,
for example, now feel vindicated by the ârestoration of capitalismâ in
Russia. Others, like Ticktin, have developed a more sophisticated
analysis of the nature of the old USSR, and what caused its eventual
collapse, which has seriously challenged the standard theories of the
USSR as being state capitalist.
While some anarchists and ultra-leftists are content to repeat the old
dogmas concerning the USSR, most find the question boring; a question
they believe has long since been settled. Instead they seek to reassert
their radicality in the practical activism of prisoner support groups
(âthe left never supports its prisoners does itâ),[3] or in the
theoretical pseudo-radicality of primitivism. For us, however, the
question of what the USSR was is perhaps more important than ever. For
so long the USSR was presented, both by socialists and those opposed to
socialism, as the only feasible alternative to capitalism. For the vast
majority of people the failure and collapse of the USSR has meant the
failure of any realistic socialist alternative to capitalism. The only
alternatives appear to be different shades of âfree marketâ capitalism.
Yet it is no good simply denouncing the USSR as having been a form of
state capitalism on the basis that capitalism is any form of society we
donât like! To transform society we not only have to understand what it
is, we also have to understand how past attempts to transform it failed.
In this issue and the next one we shall explore the inadequacies of
various versions of the theory that the USSR was a form of state
capitalism; firstly when compared with the standard Trotskyist theory of
the Soviet Union as a degenerated workersâ state, and secondly, and
perhaps more tellingly, in the light of the analysis of the USSR put
forward by Ticktin which purports to go beyond both state capitalist and
degenerated workersâ state conceptions of the nature of the Soviet
Union.
To begin with we shall examine Trotskyâs theory of the USSR as a
degenerated workersâ state, which, at least in Britain, has served as
the standard critical analysis of the nature of the Soviet Union since
the 1930s. Then we shall see how Tony Cliff, having borrowed the
conception of the USSR as state capitalist from the left communists in
the 1940s, developed his own version of the theory of the USSR as a form
of state capitalism which, while radically revising the Trotskyist
orthodoxy with regard to Russia, sought to remain faithful to Trotskyâs
broader theoretical conceptions. As we shall see, and as is well
recognized, although through the propaganda work of the SWP and its
sister organizations world wide Cliffâs version of the state capitalist
theory is perhaps the most well known, it is also one of the weakest.
Indeed, as we shall observe, Cliffâs theory has often been used by
orthodox Trotskyists as a straw man with which to refute all state
capitalist theories and sustain their own conception of the USSR as a
degenerated workersâ state.
In contrast to Cliffâs theory we shall, in the next issue, consider
other perhaps less well known versions of the theory of the USSR as
state capitalist that have been put forward by left communists and other
more recent writers. This will then allow us to consider Ticktinâs
analysis of USSR and its claim to go beyond both the theory of the USSR
as state capitalist and the theory of the USSR as a degenerated workersâ
state.
Having explored the inadequacies of the theory that the USSR was a form
of state capitalism, in the light of both the Trotskyist theory of the
Soviet Union as a degenerated workersâ state and, more importantly,
Ticktinâs analysis of the USSR, we shall in Aufheben 8 seek to present a
tentative restatement of the state capitalist theory in terms of a
theory of the deformation of value.
It is now easy to deride those who have sought, however critically, to
defend the USSR as having been in some sense âprogressiveâ. Yet for more
than a half a century the âdefence of the Soviet Unionâ was a central
issue for nearly all ârevolutionary socialistsâ, and is a concern that
still persists today amongst some. To understand the significance of
this it is necessary to make some effort to appreciate the profound
impact the Russian Revolution must have had on previous generations of
socialists and working class militants.
It is perhaps not that hard to imagine the profound impact the Russian
Revolution had on the working class movements at the time. In the midst
of the great war, not only had the working masses of the Russian Empire
risen up and overthrown the once formidable Tsarist police state, but
they had set out to construct a socialist society. At the very time when
capitalism had plunged the whole of Europe into war on an unprecedented
scale and seemed to have little else to offer the working class but more
war and poverty, the Russian Revolution opened up a real socialist
alternative of peace and prosperity. All those cynics who sneered at the
idea that the working people could govern society and who denied the
feasibility of communism on the grounds that it was in some way against
âhuman natureâ, could now be refuted by the living example of a workersâ
state in the very process of building socialism.
For many socialists at this time the revolutionary but disciplined
politics of Bolsheviks stood in stark contrast to the wheeler-dealing
and back-sliding of the parliamentary socialism of the Second
International. For all their proclamations of internationalism, without
exception the reformist socialist parties of the Second International
had lined up behind their respective national ruling classes and in
doing so had condemned a whole generation of the working class to the
hell and death of the trenches. As a result, with the revolutionary wave
that swept Europe following the First World War, hundreds of thousands
flocked to the newly formed Communist Parties based on the Bolshevik
model, and united within the newly formed Third International directed
from Moscow. From its very inception the primary task of the Third
International was that of building support for the Soviet Union and
opposing any further armed intervention against the Bolshevik Government
in Russia on the part of the main Western Powers. After all it must have
seemed self-evident then that the defence of Russia was the defence of
socialism.
By the 1930s the revolutionary movements that had swept across Europe
after the First World War had all but been defeated. The immediate hopes
of socialist revolution faded in the face of rising fascism and the
looming prospects of a second World War in less than a generation. Yet
this did not diminish the attractions of the USSR. On the contrary the
Soviet Union stood out as a beacon of hope compared to the despair and
stagnation of the capitalist West.
While capitalism had brought about an unprecedented advance in
productive capacity, with the development of electricity, washing
machines, vacuum cleaners, cars, radios and even televisions, all of
which promised to transform the lives of everyone, it had plunged the
world into an unprecedented economic slump that condemned millions to
unemployment and poverty. In stark contrast to this economic stagnation
brought about by the anarchy of market forces, the Soviet Union showed
the remarkable possibilities of rational central planning which was in
the process of transforming the backward Russian economy. The apparent
achievements of âsocialist planningâ that were being brought about under
Stalinâs five-year plans not only appealed to the working class trapped
in the economic slump, but also to increasing numbers of bourgeois
intellectuals who had now lost all faith in capitalism.
Of course, from its very inception the Soviet Union had been subjected
to the lies and distortions put out by the bourgeois propaganda machine
and it was easy for committed supporters of the Soviet Union, whether
working class militants or intellectuals, to dismiss the reports of the
purges and show trials under Stalin as further attempts to discredit
both socialism and the USSR. Even if the reports were basically true, it
seemed a small price to pay for the huge and dramatic social and
economic transformation that was being brought about in Russia, which
promised to benefit hundreds of millions of people and which provided a
living example to the rest of the world of what could be achieved with
the overthrow of capitalism. While the bourgeois press bleated about the
freedom of speech of a few individuals, Stalin was freeing millions from
a future of poverty and hunger.
Of course not everyone on the left was taken in by the affability of
âUncle Joeâ Stalin. The purge and exile of most of the leaders of the
original Bolshevik government, the zig-zags in foreign policy that
culminated in the non-aggression pact with Hitler, the disastrous
reversals in policy imposed on the various Communist Parties through the
Third International, and the betrayal of the Spanish Revolution in 1937,
all combined to cast doubts on Stalin and the USSR.
Yet the Second World War served to further enhance the reputation of the
Soviet Union, and not only amongst socialists. Once the non-aggression
pact with Germany ended in 1940, the USSR was able to enter the war
under the banner of anti-fascism and could claim to have played a
crucial role in the eventual defeat of Hitler. While the ruling classes
throughout Europe had expressed sympathy with fascism, and in the case
of France collaborated with the occupying German forces, the Communist
Parties played a leading role in the Resistance and Partisan movements
that had helped to defeat fascism. As a result, particularly in France,
Italy, Yugoslavia and Greece, the Communist Parties could claim to be
champions of the patriotic anti-fascist movements, in contrast to most
of the Quisling bourgeois parties.
The Second World War ended with the USA as the undisputed superpower in
the Western hemisphere, but in the USSR she now faced a formidable
rival. The USSR was no longer an isolated backward country at the
periphery of world capital accumulation centred in Western Europe and
North America. The rapid industrialization under Stalin during the 1930s
had transformed the Soviet Union into a major industrial and military
power, while the war had left half of Europe under Soviet control. With
the Chinese Revolution in 1949 over a third of human kind now lived
under âCommunist ruleâ!
Not only this. Throughout much of Western Europe, the very heartlands
and cradle of capitalism, Communist Parties under the direct influence
of Moscow, or social democratic parties with significant left-wing
currents susceptible to Russian sympathies, were on the verge of power.
In Britain the first majority Labour government came to power with 48
per cent of the vote, while in Italy and France the Communist Parties
won more than a third of the vote in the post-war elections and were
only kept from power by the introduction of highly proportional voting
systems.
What is more, few in the ruling circles of the American or European
bourgeoisie could be confident that the economic boom that followed the
war would last long beyond the immediate period of post-war
reconstruction. If the period following the previous World War was
anything to go by, the most likely prospect was of at best a dozen or so
years of increasing prosperity followed by another slump which could
only rekindle the class conflicts and social polarization that had been
experienced during 1930s. Yet now the Communist Parties, and their
allies on the left, were in a much stronger starting position to exploit
such social tensions.
While the West faced the prospects of long term economic stagnation,
there seemed no limits to the planned economic growth and transformation
of the USSR and the Eastern bloc. Indeed, even as the late as the early
1960s Khrushchev could claim, with all credibility for many Western
observers, that having established a modern economic base of heavy
industry under Stalin, Russia was now in a position to shift its
emphasis to the expansion of the consumer goods sector so that it could
outstrip the living standards in the USA within ten years!
It was this bleak viewpoint of the bourgeoisie, forged in the immediate
post-war realities of the late 1940s and early 1950s, which served as
the original basis of the virulent anti-Communist paranoia of the Cold
War, particularly in the USA; from the anti-Communist witch-hunts of the
McCarthy era to Reaganâs âevil empireâ rhetoric in the early 1980s.
For the bourgeoisie, expropriation by either the proletariat or by a
Stalinist bureaucracy made little difference. The threat of communism
was the threat of Communism. To the minds of the Western bourgeoisie the
class struggle had now become inscribed in the very struggle between the
two world superpowers: between the âFree Worldâ and the âCommunist
Worldâ.[4]
This notion of the struggle between the two superpowers as being at one
and the same time the final titanic struggle between capital and labour
was one that was readily accepted by many on the left. For many it
seemed clear that the major concessions that had been incorporated into
the various post-war settlements had been prompted by the fear that the
working class in the West, particularly in Western Europe, would go over
to Communism. The post-war commitments to the welfare state, full
employment, decent housing and so forth, could all be directly
attributed to the bourgeoisieâs fear of both the USSR and its allied
Communist Parties in the West. Furthermore, despite all its faults, it
was the USSR who could be seen to be the champion the millions of
oppressed people of the Third World with its backing for the various
national liberation movements in their struggles against the old
imperialist and colonial powers and the new rapacious imperialism of the
multinationals.
In this view there were only two camps: the USSR and the Eastern bloc,
which stood behind the working class and the oppressed people of the
world, versus the USA and the Western powers who stood behind the
bourgeoisie and the propertied classes. Those who refused to take sides
were seen as nothing better than petit-bourgeois intellectuals who could
only dwell in their utopian abstractions and who refused to get their
hands dirty in dealing with current reality.
Of course, by the early 1950s the full horrors and brutality of Stalinâs
rule had become undeniable. As a result many turned towards reformist
socialism embracing the reforms that had been won in the post-war
settlement. While maintaining sympathies for the Soviet Union, and being
greatly influenced by the notion of socialism as planning evident in the
USSR, they sought to distance themselves from the revolutionary means
and methods of bolshevism that were seen as the cause of the
âtotalitarianismâ of Russian Communism. This course towards âdemocratic
socialismâ was to be followed by the Communist Parties themselves 20
years later with the rise of so-called Euro-communism in the 1970s.
While many turned towards âdemocratic socialismâ, and others clung to an
unswerving commitment to the Communist Party and the defence of the
Soviet Union, there were those who, while accepting the monstrosities of
Stalinist and post-Stalinist Russia, refused to surrender the
revolutionary heritage of the 1917 Revolution. Recognising the
limitations of the post-war settlement, and refusing to forget the
betrayals experienced the generation before at the hands of reformist
socialism,[5] they sought to salvage the revolutionary insights of Lenin
and the Bolsheviks from what they saw as the degeneration of the
revolution brought about under Stalin. The obvious inspiration for those
who held this position was Stalinâs great rival Leon Trotsky and his
theory of the Soviet Union as a degenerated workersâ state.
It is not that hard to understand why those who had become increasingly
disillusioned with Stalinâs Russia, but who still wished to defend Lenin
and the revolutionary heritage of 1917 should have turned to Leon
Trotsky. Trotsky had played a leading role in the revolutionary events
of both 1905 and 1917 in Russia. Despite Stalinâs attempts to literally
paint him out of the picture, Trotsky had been a prominent member of the
early Bolshevik Government, so much so that it can be convincingly
argued that he was Leninâs own preferred successor.
As such, in making his criticisms of Stalinist Russia, Trotsky could not
be so easily dismissed as some bourgeois intellectual attempting to
discredit socialism, nor could he be accused of being an utopian
ultra-leftist or anarchist attempting to measure up the concrete
limitations of the âactually existing socialismâ of the USSR against
some abstract ideal of what socialism should be. On the contrary, as a
leading member of the Bolshevik Government Trotsky had been responsible
for making harsh and often ruthless decisions necessary to maintain the
fragile and isolated revolutionary government. Trotsky had not shrunk
from supporting the introduction of one-man management and Taylorism,
nor had he shied away from crushing wayward revolutionaries as was
clearly shown when he led the Red Army detachments to put down both
Makhnoâs peasant army during the civil war and the Kronstadt sailors in
1921.Indeed, Trotsky often went beyond those policies deemed necessary
by Lenin and other Bolshevik leaders as was clearly exemplified by his
call for the complete militarization of labour.[6]
Yet Trotsky was not merely a practical revolutionary capable of taking
and defending difficult decisions. Trotsky had proved to be one of the
few important strategic and theoretical thinkers amongst the Russian
Bolsheviks who could rival the theoretical and strategic leadership of
Lenin. We must now consider Trotskyâs ideas in detail and in their own
terms, reserving more substantial criticisms until later.
follows some readers may think we are treating Trotskyâs theory with too
much respect. For some it is enough to list his bad deeds. Some focus on
his actions in 1917â21, others more on Trotskyâs later failure to
maintain revolutionary positions which culminated with his followers
taking sides in the Second World War. From this it often concluded that
Trotskyâs Marxism was always counter-revolutionary or, as many left
communists argue, that at some point Trotsky crossed the class line and
became counter-revolutionary. Either way Trotskyâs theory of a
degenerated workersâ state can be summarily dismissed as a position
outside the revolutionary camp. For us, however, Trotskyâs theory of the
USSR, and its dominant hold over many critical of Stalinism, reflects
fundamental weaknesses of orthodox Marxism that should be grasped and
overcome. There are very powerful reasons why heterodox Marxists have
found it hard to grasp the USSR as capitalist. In rejecting Trotskyâs
theory of the USSR as a degenerated workersâ state it is not for us a
matter of showing how he âbetrays the true revolutionary heritage of
pre-1914 social democracy and orthodox Marxismâ, but rather it involves
recognizing how true he was to this tradition.
There is little doubt that Trotsky remained committed throughout his
life to the orthodox view of historical materialism which had become
established in the Second International. Like most Marxists of his time,
Trotsky saw history primarily in terms of the development of the forces
of production. While class struggle may have been the motor of history
which drove it forward, the direction and purpose of history was above
all the development of the productive powers of human labour towards its
ultimate goal of a communist society in which humanity as a whole would
be free from both want and scarcity.
As such, history was seen as a series of distinct stages, each of which
was dominated by a particular mode of production. As the potential for
each mode of production to advance the productive forces became
exhausted its internal contradictions would become more acute and the
exhausted mode of production would necessarily give way to a new more
advanced mode of production which would allow the further development of
the productive powers of human labour.
The capitalist mode of production had developed the forces of production
far beyond anything that had been achieved before. Yet in doing so
capitalism had begun to create the material and social conditions
necessary for its own supersession by a socialist society. The emergence
of modern large scale industry towards the end of the nineteenth century
had led to an increasing polarization between a tiny class of
capitalists at one pole and the vast majority of proletarians at the
other.
At the same time modern large scale industry had begun to replace the
numerous individual capitalists competing in each branch of industry by
huge joint stock monopolies that dominated entire industries in a
particular economy. With the emergence of huge joint stock monopolies
and industrial cartels, it was argued by most Marxists that the
classical form of competitive capitalism, which had been analysed by
Marx in the mid-nineteenth century, had now given way to monopoly
capitalism. Under competitive capitalism what was produced and how this
produced wealth should be distributed had been decided through the
âanarchy of market forcesâ, that is as the unforeseen outcome of the
competitive battle between competing capitalists. With the development
of monopoly capitalism, production and distribution was becoming more
and more planned as monopolies and cartels fixed in advance the levels
of production and pricing on an industry-wide basis.
Yet this was not all. As the economy as a whole became increasingly
interdependent and complex the state, it was argued, could no longer
play a minimal economic role as it had done during the competitive stage
of capitalism. With the development of large scale industry the state
increasingly had to intervene and direct the economy. Thus for orthodox
Marxism, the development towards monopoly capitalism was at one and the
same time a development towards state capitalism.
As economic planning by the monopolies and the state replaced the
âanarchy of marketâ in regulating the economy, the basic conditions for
a socialist society were being put in place. At the same time the basic
contradiction of capitalism between the increasingly social character of
production and the private appropriation of wealth it produced was
becoming increasingly acute. The periodic crises that had served both to
disrupt yet renew the competitive capitalism of the early and
mid-nineteenth century had now given way to prolonged periods of
economic stagnation as the monopolists sought to restrict production in
order to maintain their monopoly profits.
The basis of the capitalist mode of production in the private
appropriation of wealth based on the rights of private property could
now be seen to be becoming a fetter on the free development of
productive forces. The period of the transition to socialism was fast
approaching as capitalism entered its final stages of decline. With the
growing polarization of society, which was creating a huge and organized
proletariat, all that would be needed was for the working class to seize
state power and to nationalize the major banks and monopolies so that
production and distribution could be rationally planned in the interests
of all of society rather than in the interests of the tiny minority of
capitalists. Once the private ownership of the means of production had
been swept away the development of the forces of production would be set
free and the way would be open to creating a communist society in which
freedom would triumph over necessity.
Of course, like many on the left and centre of the Second International,
Trotsky rejected the more simplistic versions of this basic
interpretation of historical materialism which envisaged the smooth
evolution of capitalism into socialism. For Trotsky the transition to
socialism would necessarily be a contradictory and often violent process
in which the political could not be simply reduced to the economic.
For Trotsky, the contradictory development of declining capitalism could
prompt the revolutionary overthrow of the capitalist class long before
the material and social preconditions for a fully developed socialist
society had come into being. This possibility of a workersâ state facing
a prolonged period of transition to a fully formed socialist society was
to be particularly important to the revolution in Trotskyâs native
Russia.
developed the theory of permanent revolution in collaboration with
Parvus. After Parvus withdrew from Marxist politics the theory
eventually became ascribed to Trotsky.
While Trotsky defended the orthodox Marxist interpretation of the nature
of historical development he differed radically on its specific
application to Russia, and it was on this issue that Trotsky made his
most important contribution to what was to become the new orthodoxy of
Soviet Marxism.
The orthodox view of the Second International had been that the
socialist revolution would necessarily break out in one of the more
advanced capitalist countries where capitalism had already created the
preconditions for the development of a socialist society. In the
backward conditions of Russia, there could be no immediate prospects of
making a socialist revolution. Russia remained a semi-feudal empire
dominated by the all powerful Tsarist autocracy which had severely
restricted the development of capitalism on Russian soil. However, in
order to maintain Russia as a major military power, the Tsarist regime
had been obliged to promote a limited degree of industrialization which
had begun to gather pace by the turn of century. Yet even with this
industrialization the Russian economy was still dominated by small scale
peasant agriculture.
Under such conditions it appeared that the immediate task for Marxists
was to hasten the bourgeois-democratic revolution which, by sweeping
away the Tsarist regime, would open the way for the full development of
capitalism in Russia, and in doing so prepare the way for a future
socialist revolution. The question that came to divide Russian Marxists
was the precise character the bourgeois-democratic revolution would take
and as a consequence the role the working class would have to play
within it.
For the Mensheviks the revolution would have to be carried out in
alliance with the bourgeoisie. The tasks of the party of the working
class would be to act as the most radical wing of the democratic
revolution which would then press for a âminimal programmeâ of political
and social reforms which, while compatible with both private property
and the limits of the democratic-bourgeois revolution, would provide a
sound basis for the future struggle against the bourgeoisie and
capitalism.
In contrast, Lenin and the Bolsheviks believed that the Russian
bourgeoisie was far too weak and cowardly to carry out their own
revolution. As a consequence, the bourgeois-democratic revolution would
have to be made for them by the working class in alliance with the
peasant masses. However, in making a revolutionary alliance with the
peasantry the question of land reform would have to be placed at the top
of the political agenda of the revolutionary government. Yet, as
previous revolutions in Western Europe had shown, as soon as land had
been expropriated from the landowners and redistributed amongst the
peasantry most of the peasants would begin to lose interest in the
revolution and become a conservative force. So, having played an
essential part in carrying out the revolution, the peasantry would end
up blocking its further development and confine it within the limits of
a bourgeois-democratic revolution in which rights of private property
would necessarily have to be preserved.
Against both these positions, which tended to see the historical
development of Russia in isolation, Trotsky insisted that the historical
development of Russia was part of the overall historical development of
world capitalism. As a backward economy Russia had been able to import
the most up to date methods of modern large scale industry âready madeâ
without going through the long, drawn out process of their development
which had occurred in the more advanced capitalist countries. As a
result Russia possessed some of the most advanced industrial methods of
production alongside some of the most backward forms of agricultural
production in Europe. This combination of uneven levels of economic
development meant that the bourgeois-democratic revolution in Russia
would be very different from those that had previously occurred
elsewhere in Europe.
Firstly, the direct implantation of modern industry into Russia under
the auspices of the Tsarist regime had meant that much of Russian
industry was either owned by the state or by foreign capital. As a
consequence, Russia lacked a strong and independent indigenous
bourgeoisie. At the same time, however, this direct implantation of
modern large scale industry had brought into being an advanced
proletariat whose potential economic power was far greater than its
limited numbers might suggest. Finally, by leaping over the intermediary
stages of industrial development, Russia lacked the vast numbers of
intermediary social strata rooted in small scale production and which
had played a decisive role in the democratic-bourgeois revolutions of
Western Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
On the basis of this analysis Trotsky concluded as early as 1904 that
the working class would have to carry out the democratic-bourgeois
revolution in alliance with the peasant masses because of the very
weakness of the indigenous Russian bourgeoisie. To this extent Trotskyâs
conclusions concurred with those of Lenin and the Bolsheviks at that
time. However, Trotsky went further. For Trotsky both the heterogeneity
and lack of organization amongst the peasant masses meant that, despite
their overwhelming numbers, the Russian peasantry could only play a
supporting role within the revolution. This political weakness of the
peasantry, together with the absence of those social strata based in
small scale production, meant that the Russian proletariat would be
compelled to play the leading role in both the revolution, and in the
subsequent revolutionary government. So, whereas Lenin and the
Bolsheviks envisaged that it would be a democratic workers-peasant
government that would have to carry out the bourgeois revolution,
Trotsky believed that the working class would have no option but to
impose its domination on any such revolutionary government.
In such a leading position, the party of the working class could not
simply play the role of the left wing of democracy and seek to press for
the adoption of its âminimal programmeâ of democratic and social
reforms. It would be in power, and as such it would have little option
but to implement the âminimal programmeâ itself. However, Trotsky
believed that if a revolutionary government led by the party of the
working class attempted to implement a âminimal programmeâ it would soon
meet the resolute opposition of the propertied classes. In the face of
such opposition the working class party would either have to abdicate
power or else press head by abolishing private property in the means of
production and in doing so begin at once the proletarian-socialist
revolution.
For Trotsky it would be both absurd and irresponsible for the party of
the working class to simply abdicate power in such a crucial situation.
In such a position, the party of the working class would have to take
the opportunity of expropriating the weak bourgeoisie and allow the
bourgeois-democratic revolution to pass, uninterrupted, into a
proletarian-socialist revolution.
Trotsky accepted that the peasantry would inevitably become a
conservative force once agrarian reform had been completed. However, he
argued that a substantial part of the peasantry would continue to back
the revolutionary government for a while, not because of any advanced
ârevolutionary consciousnessâ but due to their very âbackwardnessâ;[7]
this, together with the proletariatsâ superior organization, would give
the revolutionary government time. Ultimately, however, the
revolutionary governmentâs only hope would be that the Russian
revolution would trigger revolution throughout the rest of Europe and
the world.
While Trotskyâs theory of permanent revolution may have appeared
adventurist, if not a little utopian, to most Russian Marxists when it
was first set out in Results and Prospects in 1906, its conclusions were
to prove crucial eleven years later in the formation of the new
Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy which came to be established with the Russian
Revolutions of 1917.
The revolution of February 1917 took all political parties and factions
by surprise. Within a few days the centuries old Tsarist regime had been
swept away and a situation of dual power established. On the one side
stood the Provisional Government dominated by the various liberal
bourgeois parties, on the other side stood the growing numbers of
workers and peasant soviets. For the Mensheviks the position was clear:
the organizations of the working class had to give critical support to
the bourgeois Provisional Government while it carried out its democratic
programme. In contrast, faced with a democratic-bourgeois Government
which they had denied was possible, the Bolsheviks were thrown into
confusion. A confusion that came to a virtual split with the return of
Lenin from exile at the beginning of April.
In his April Theses Lenin proposed a radical shift in policy, which,
despite various differences in detail and emphasis, brought him close to
the positions that had been put forward by Trotsky with his theory of
permanent revolution. Lenin argued that the Bourgeois Government would
eventually prove too weak to carry out its democratic programme. As a
consequence the Bolsheviks had to persuade the soviets to overthrow the
Provisional Government and establish a workersâ and peasantsâ government
which would not only have the task of introducing democratic reform, but
which would eventually have to make a start on the road to socialism.
With this radical shift in position initiated by the April Theses, and
Trotskyâs subsequent acceptance of Leninâs conception of the
revolutionary party, the way was opened for Trotsky to join the
Bolsheviks; and, together with Lenin, Trotsky was to play a major role
not only in the October revolution and the subsequent Bolshevik
Government but also in the theoretical elaboration of what was to become
known as Marxist-Leninism.
While both Lenin and Trotsky argued that it was necessary to overthrow
the Provisional Government and establish a workersâ government through a
socialist-proletarian revolution, neither Lenin nor Trotsky saw
socialism as an immediate prospect in a backward country such as Russia.
The proletarian revolution that established the worker-peasant
dictatorship was seen as only the first step in the long transition to a
fully developed socialist society. As Trotsky was later to argue,[8]
even in an advanced capitalist country like the USA a proletarian
revolution would not be able to bring about a socialist society all at
once. A period of transition would be required that would allow the
further development of the forces of production necessary to provide the
material basis for a self-sustaining socialist society. In an advanced
capitalist country like the USA such a period of transition could take
several years; in a country as backward as Russia it would take decades,
and ultimately it would only be possible with the material support of a
socialist Europe.
For both Lenin and Trotsky then, Russia faced a prolonged period of
transition, a transition that was fraught with dangers. On the one side
stood the ever present danger of the restoration of capitalism either
through a counter-revolution backed by foreign military intervention or
through the re-emergence of bourgeois relations within the economy; on
the other side stood the danger of the increasing bureaucratization of
the workersâ state. As we shall see, Trotsky saw the key to warding off
all these great perils of Russiaâs transition to socialism in the
overriding imperative of both increasing production and developing the
forces of production, while waiting for the world revolution.
In the first couple of years following the revolution many on the left
wing of the Bolsheviks, enthused by the revolutionary events of 1917 and
no doubt inspired by Leninâs State and Revolution, which restated the
Marxist vision of a socialist society, saw Russia as being on the verge
of communism. For them the policy that had become known as War
Communism, under which money had been effectively abolished through
hyper-inflation and the market replaced by direct requisitioning in
accordance with the immediate needs of the war effort, was an immediate
prelude to the communism that would come with the end of the civil war
and the spread of the revolution to the rest of Europe.[9]
Both Lenin and Trotsky rejected such views from the left of the Party.
For them the policy of War Communism was little more than a set of
emergency measures forced on the revolutionary government which were
necessary to win the civil war and defeat armed foreign intervention.
For both Lenin and Trotsky there was no immediate prospect of socialism
let alone communism[10] in Russia, and in his polemics with the left at
this time Lenin argued that, given the backward conditions throughout
much of Russia, state capitalism would be a welcome advance. As he
states:
Reality tells us that state capitalism would be a step forward. If in a
small space of time we could achieve state capitalism, that would be a
victory. (Leninâs Collected Works Vol. 27, p. 293)
Trotsky went even further, dismissing the growing complaints from the
left concerning the bureaucratization of the state and party apparatus,
he argued for the militarization of labour in order to maximize
production both for the war effort and for the post-war reconstruction.
As even Trotskyâs admirers have to admit, at this time Trotsky was
clearly on the âauthoritarian wingâ of the party, and as such distinctly
to the right of Lenin.[11]
It is not surprising, given that he had seen War Communism as merely a
collection of emergency measures rather than the first steps to
communism, that once the civil war began to draw to a close and the
threat of foreign intervention began to recede, Trotsky was one of the
first to advocate the abandonment of War Communism and the restoration
of money and market relations. These proposals for a retreat to the
market were taken up in the New Economic Policy (NEP) that came to be
adopted in 1921.
By 1921 the Bolshevik Government faced a severe political and economic
crisis. The policy of forced requisitioning had led to a mass refusal by
the peasantry to sow sufficient grain to feed the cities. Faced with
famine, thousands of workers simply returned to their relatives in the
countryside. At the same time industry had been run into the ground
after years of war and revolution. In this dire economic situation, the
ending of the civil war had given rise to mounting political unrest
amongst the working class, both within and outside the Party, which
threatened the very basis of the Bolshevik Government. Faced with
political and economic collapse the Bolshevik leadership came to the
conclusion that there was no other option but make a major retreat to
the market. The Bolshevik Government therefore abandoned War Communism
and adopted the New Economic Policy (NEP) which had been previously
mooted by Trotsky.
Under the NEP, state industry was broken up in to large trusts which
were to be run independently on strict commercial lines. At the same
time, a new deal was to be struck with the peasantry. Forced
requisitioning was to be replaced with a fixed agricultural tax, with
restrictions lifted on the hiring of labour and leasing of land to
encourage the rich and middle-income peasants to produce for the
market.[12] With the retreat from planning, the economic role of the
state was to be mainly restricted to re-establishing a stable currency
through orthodox financial polices and a balanced state budget.
For Trotsky, the NEP, like War Communism before it, was a policy
necessary to preserve the âworkersâ stateâ until it could be rescued by
revolution in Western Europe. As we have seen, Trotsky had, like Lenin,
foreseen an alliance with the peasantry as central to sustaining a
revolutionary government, and the NEP was primarily a means of
re-establishing the workers-peasants alliance which had been seriously
undermined by the excesses of War Communism. However, as we have also
seen, Trotsky had far less confidence in the revolutionary potential of
the peasantry than Lenin or other Bolshevik leaders. For Trotsky, the
NEP, by encouraging the peasants to produce for the market, held the
danger of creating a new class of capitalist farmers who would then
provide the social basis for a bourgeois counter-revolution and the
restoration of private property. As a consequence, from an early stage,
Trotsky began to advocate the development of comprehensive state
planning and a commitment to industrialization within the broad
framework of the NEP.
Although Trotskyâs emphasis on the importance of planning and
industrialization left him isolated within the Politburo, it placed him
alongside Preobrazhensky at the head of a significant minority within
the wider leadership of the Party and state apparatus which supported
such a shift in direction of the NEP, and which became known as the Left
Opposition. As a leading spokesman for the Left Opposition, and at the
same time one of the foremost economists within the Bolshevik Party,
Preobrazhensky came to develop the Theory of Primitive Socialist
Accumulation which served to underpin the arguments of the Left
Opposition, including Trotsky himself.
As we have already noted, for the orthodox Marxism of the Second
International whereas capitalism was characterized by the operation of
market forces â or in more precise Marxist terms the âlaw of valueâ â
socialism would be regulated by planning. From this Preobrazhensky
argued that the transition from capitalism to socialism had to be
understood in terms of the transition from the regulation of the economy
through the operation of the law of value to the regulation of the
economy through the operation of the âlaw of planningâ. During the
period of transition both the law of value and the law of planning would
necessarily co-exist, each conditioning and competing with the other.
Under the New Economic Policy, most industrial production had remained
under state ownership and formed the state sector. However, as we have
seen, this state sector had been broken up into distinct trusts and
enterprises which were given limited freedom to trade with one another
and as such were run on a profit-and-loss basis. To this extent it could
be seen that the law of value still persisted within the state sector.
Yet for Preobrazhensky, the power of the state to direct investment and
override profit-and-loss criteria meant that the law of planning
predominated in the state sector. In contrast, agriculture was dominated
by small-scale peasant producers. As such, although the state was able
to regulate the procurement prices for agricultural produce, agriculture
was, for Preobrazhensky, dominated by the law of value.
From this Preobrazhensky argued that the struggle between the law of
value and the law of planning was at the same time the struggle between
the private sector of small-scale agricultural production and the state
sector of large-scale industrial production. Yet although large-scale
industrial production was both economically and socially more advanced
than that of peasant agriculture the sheer size of the peasant sector of
the Russian economy meant that there was no guarantee that the law of
planning would prevail. Indeed, for Preobrazhensky, under the policy of
optimum and balanced growth advocated by Bukharin and the right of the
Party and sanctioned by the Party leadership, there was a real danger
that the state sector could be subordinated to a faster growing
agricultural sector and with this the law of value would prevail.
To avert the restoration of capitalism Preobrazhensky argued that the
workersâ state had to tilt the economic balance in favour of
accumulation within the state sector. By rapid industrialization the
state sector could be expanded which would both increase the numbers of
the proletariat and enhance the ascendancy of the law of planning. Once
a comprehensive industrial base had been established, agriculture could
be mechanized and through a process of collectivization agriculture
could be eventually brought within the state sector and regulated by the
law of planning.
Yet rapid industrialization required huge levels of investment which
offered little prospects of returns for several years. For
Preobrazhensky there appeared little hope of financing such levels of
investment within the state sector itself without squeezing the working
class â an option that would undermine the very social base of a
workersâ government. The only option was to finance industrial
investment out of the economic surplus produced in the agricultural
sector by the use of tax and pricing policies.
This policy of siphoning off the economic surplus produced in the
agricultural sector was to form the basis for a period of Primitive
Socialist Accumulation. Preobrazhensky argued that just as capitalism
had to undergo a period primitive capitalist accumulation, in which it
plundered pre-capitalist modes of production, before it could establish
itself on a self-sustaining basis, so, before a socialist society could
establish itself on a self-sustaining basis, it too would have to go
through an analogous period of primitive socialist accumulation, at
least in a backward country such as Russia.
With the decline in Leninâs health and his eventual death in 1924, the
question of planning and industrialization became a central issue in the
power struggle for the succession to the leadership of the Party. Yet
while he was widely recognized within the Party as Leninâs natural
successor, and as such had been given Leninâs own blessing, Trotsky was
reluctant to challenge the emerging troika of Stalin, Kamenev and
Zinoviev, who, in representing the conservative forces within the state
and Party bureaucracy, sought to maintain the NEP as it was. For
Trotsky, the overriding danger was the threat of a bourgeois
counter-revolution. As a result he was unwilling to split the Party or
else undermine the âcentristâ troika and allow the right of the Party to
come to power, enabling the restoration of capitalism through the back
door.
Furthermore, despite Stalinâs ability repeatedly to out-manoeuvre both
Trotsky and the Left Opposition through his control of the Party
bureaucracy, Trotsky could take comfort from the fact that after the
resolution of the first âscissors crisisâ[13] in 1923 the leadership of
the Party progressively adopted a policy of planning and
industrialization, although without fully admitting it.
By 1925, having silenced Trotsky and much of the Left Opposition, Stalin
had consolidated sufficient power to oust both Kamenev and Zinoviev[14]
and force them to join Trotsky in opposition. Having secured the
leadership of the Party, Stalin now openly declared a policy of rapid
industrialization under the banner of âbuilding socialism in one
countryâ with particular emphasis on building up heavy industry. Yet at
first Stalin refused to finance such an industrialization strategy by
squeezing the peasants. Since industrialization had to be financed from
within the industrial state sector itself, investment in heavy industry
could only come at the expense of investment in light industry which
produced the tools and consumer goods demanded by the peasantry. As a
result a âgoods famineâ emerged as light industry lagged behind the
growth of peasant incomes and the growth of heavy industry. Unable to
buy goods from the cities the peasants simply hoarded grain so that,
despite record harvests in 1927 and 1928, the supply of food sold to the
cities fell dramatically.
This crisis of the New Economic Policy brought with it a political
crisis within the leadership of the Party and the State. All opposition
within the Party had to be crushed. Trotsky and Zinoviev were expelled
from the Party, with Trotsky eventually being forced into exile, leaving
Stalin to assume supreme power in both the Party and the state. To
consolidate and sustain his power Stalin was obliged to launch a reign
of terror within the Communist Party. This terror culminated in a series
of purges and show trials in the 1930s which led to the execution of
many of the leading Bolsheviks of the revolution.
Perhaps rather ironically, while Stalin had defended the New Economic
Policy to the last, he now set out to resolve the economic crisis by
adopting the erstwhile policies of the Left Opposition albeit pushing
them to an unenvisaged extreme.[15] Under the five year plans, the first
of which began in 1928, all economic considerations were subordinated to
the overriding objective of maximizing growth and industrialization.
Increasing physical output as fast as possible was now to be the number
one concern, with the question of profit and loss of individual
enterprises reduced to a secondary consideration at best. At the same
time agriculture was to be transformed through a policy of forced
collectivization. Millions of peasants were herded into collectives and
state farms which, under state direction, could apply modern mechanized
farming methods.
It was in the face of this about turn in economic policy, and the
political terror that accompanied it, that Trotsky was obliged to
develop his critique of Stalinist Russia and with this the fate of the
Russian Revolution. It was now no longer sufficient for Trotsky to
simply criticize the economic policy of the leadership as he had done
during the time of the Left Opposition. Instead Trotsky had to broaden
his criticisms to explain how the very course of the revolution had
ended up in the bureaucratic nightmare that was Stalinist Russia.
Trotskyâs new critique was to find its fullest expression in his seminal
work The Revolution Betrayed which was published in 1936.
As we shall see, in The Revolution Betrayed, Trotsky concludes that,
with the failure of the revolution elsewhere in the world, the workersâ
state established by the Russian Revolution had degenerated through the
bureaucratization of both the Party and the state. To understand how
Trotsky was able to come to this conclusion while remaining within
Marxist and Leninist orthodoxy, we must first consider how Trotsky
appropriated and developed the Leninist conception of the state, party
and class.
From almost the very beginning of the Soviet Union there had been those
both inside and outside the Party who had warned against the increasing
bureaucratization of the revolution. In the early years, Trotsky had
little sympathy for such complaints concerning bureaucratization and
authoritarianism in the Party and the state. At this time, the immediate
imperative of crushing the counter-revolutionary forces, and the
long-term aim of building the material basis for socialism, both
demanded a strong state and a resolute Party which were seen as
necessary to maximize production and develop the productive forces. For
Trotsky at this time, the criticisms of bureaucratization and
authoritarianism, whether advanced by those on the right or the left,
could only serve to undermine the vital role of the Party and the state
in the transition to socialism.
However, having been forced into opposition and eventual exile Trotsky
was forced to develop his own critique of the bureaucratization of the
revolution, but in doing so he was anxious to remain within the basic
Leninist conceptions of the state, party and class which he had
resolutely defended against earlier critics.
Following Engels, theorists within the Second International had placed
much store in the notion that what distinguished Marxism from all former
socialist theories was that it was neither an utopian socialism nor an
ethical socialism but a scientific socialism. As a consequence, Marxism
tended to be viewed as a body of positive scientific knowledge that
existed apart from the immediate experiences and practice of the working
class. Indeed, Marxâs own theory of commodity fetishism seemed to
suggest that the social relations of capitalist society inevitably
appeared in forms that served to obscure their own true exploitative
nature.[16] So, while the vast majority of the working class may feel
instinctively that they were alienated and exploited, capitalism would
still appear to them as being based on freedom and equality. Thus,
rather than seeing wage-labour in general as being exploitative, they
would see themselves being cheated by a particular wage deal. So, rather
than calling for the abolition of wage-labour, left to themselves the
working class would call for a âfair dayâs pay for a fair dayâs workâ.
Trapped within the routines of their everyday life, the majority of the
working class would not be able by themselves to go beyond such a
sectional and trade union perspective. Hence one of the central tasks of
a workersâ party was to educate the working class in the science of
Marxism. It would only be through a thorough knowledge of Marxism that
the working class would be able to reach class consciousness and as such
be in a position to understand its historic role in overthrowing
capitalism and bringing about a socialist society.
In adapting this orthodox view of the Party to conditions prevailing in
Tsarist Russia Lenin had pushed it to a particular logical extreme. It
was in What is to be Done? that Lenin had first set out his conception
of a revolutionary party based on democratic centralism. In this work
Lenin had advocated a party made up of dedicated and disciplined
professional revolutionaries in which, while the overall policy and
direction of the party would be made through discussion and democratic
decision, in the everyday running of the party the lower organs of the
party would be completely subordinated to those of the centre. At the
time, Trotsky had strongly criticized What is to be Done?, arguing that
Leninâs conception of the revolutionary party implied the substitution
of the party for the class.
Indeed, Trotskyâs rejection of Leninâs conception of the party has often
been seen as the main dividing line between Lenin and Trotsky right up
until their eventual reconciliation in the summer of 1917. Thus, it has
been argued that, while the young Trotsky had sided with Lenin and the
Bolsheviks against the Mensheviks over the crucial issue of the need for
an alliance with the peasantry, he had been unable to accept Leninâs
authoritarian position on the question of organization. It was only in
the revolutionary situation of 1917 that Trotsky had come over to
Leninâs viewpoint concerning the organization of the Party. However,
there is no doubt that Trotsky accepted the basic premise of What is to
be Done?, which was rooted in Marxist orthodoxy, that class
consciousness had to be introduced from outside the working class by
intellectuals educated in the âscience of Marxismâ. There is also little
doubt that from an early date Trotsky accepted the need for a
centralized party. The differences between Lenin and Trotsky over the
question of organization were for the most part a difference of
emphasis.[17] What seems to have really kept Lenin and Trotsky apart for
so long was not so much the question of organization but Trotskyâs
âconciliationismâ. Whereas Lenin always argued for a sharp
differentiation between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks to ensure
political and theoretical clarity, Trotsky had always sought to re-unite
the two wings of Russian social democracy.
To some extent Leninâs formulation of democratic centralism in What is
to be Done? was determined by the repressive conditions then prevailing
in Tsarist Russia; but it was also premised on the perceived cultural
backwardness of the Russian working class which, it was thought, would
necessarily persist even after the revolution. Unlike Germany, the vast
majority of the Russian working class were semi-literate and uneducated.
Indeed, many, if not a majority of the Russian working class were fresh
out of the countryside and, for socialist intellectuals like Lenin and
Trotsky, retained an uncouth parochial peasant mentality. As such there
seemed little hope of educating the vast majority of the working class
beyond a basic trade union consciousness.
However, there were a minority within the working class, particularly
among its more established and skilled strata, who could, through their
own efforts and under the tutelage of the party, attain a clear class
consciousness. It was these more advanced workers, which, organized
through the party, would form the revolutionary vanguard of the
proletariat that would be the spearhead of the revolution. Of course
this was not to say that rest of the working class, or even the
peasantry, could not be revolutionary. On the contrary, for Lenin and
the Bolsheviks, revolution was only possible through the mass
involvement of the peasants and the working class. But the instinctive
revolutionary will of the masses had to be given leadership and
direction by the party. Only through the leadership of the proletarian
vanguard organized in a revolutionary party would it be possible to
mediate and reconcile the immediate and often competing individual and
sectional interests of workers and peasants with the overall and
long-term interests of the working class in building socialism.
For Lenin, the first task in the transition to socialism had to be the
seizure of state power. During his polemics against those on the right
of the Bolshevik Party who had, during the summer of 1917, feared that
the overthrow of the bourgeois Provisional Government and the seizure of
state power might prove premature, Lenin had returned to Engelsâ
conception of the state in the stage of socialism.
Against both Lassalleâs conception of state socialism and the
anarchistsâ call for the immediate abolition of the state, Engels had
argued that, while it would be necessary to retain the state as means of
maintaining the dictatorship of the working class until the danger of
counter-revolution had been finally overcome, a socialist state would be
radically different from that which had existed before. Under capitalism
the state had to stand above society in order both to mediate between
competing capitalist interests and to impose the rule of the bourgeois
minority over the majority of the population. As a result, the various
organs of the state, such as the army, the police and the administrative
apparatus had to be separated from the population at large and run by a
distinct class of specialists. Under socialism the state would already
be in the process of withering away with the breaking down of its
separation from society. Thus police and army would be replaced by a
workersâ militia, while the state administration would be carried out
increasingly by the population as a whole.
Rallying the left wing of the Bolshevik Party around this vision of
socialism, Lenin had argued that with sufficient revolutionary will on
the part of the working masses and with the correct leadership of the
party it would be possible to smash the state and begin immediately the
construction of Engelsâ âsemi-stateâ without too much difficulty.[18]
Already the basis for the workersâ and peasantsâ state could be seen in
the mass organizations of the working class â the factory committees,
the soviets and the trade unions, and by the late summer of 1917 most of
these had fallen under the leadership of the Bolsheviks.[19] Yet this
conception of the state which inspired the October revolution did not
last long into the new year.
Confronted by the realities of consolidating the power of the new
workersâ and peasantsâ government in the backward economic and cultural
conditions then prevailing in Russia, it was not long before Lenin was
obliged to reconsider his own over-optimistic assessments for the
transition to socialism that he had adopted just prior to the October
revolution. As a result, within weeks of coming to power it became clear
to Lenin that the fledging Soviet State could not afford the time or
resources necessary to educate the mass of workers and peasants to the
point where they could be drawn into direct participation in the
administration of the state. Nor could the economy afford a prolonged
period of disruption that would follow the trials and errors of any
experiment in workersâ self-management. Consequently, Lenin soon
concluded that there could be no question of moving immediately towards
Engelsâ conception of a âsemi-stateâ, which after all had been envisaged
in the context of a socialist revolution being made in an advanced
capitalist country. On the contrary, the overriding imperative of
developing the forces of production, which alone could provide the
material and cultural conditions necessary for a socialist society,
demanded not a weakening, but a strengthening of the state â albeit
under the strict leadership of the vanguard of the proletariat organized
within the party.
So now, for Lenin, administrative and economic efficiency demanded the
concentration of day to day decision making into the hands of
specialists and the adoption of the most advanced methods of âscientific
managementâ.[20] The introduction of such measures as one-man management
and the adoption of methods of scientific management not only undermined
workersâ power and initiative over the immediate process of production,
but also went hand-in-hand with the employment of thousands of former
capitalist managers and former Tsarist administrators.
Yet, while such measures served to re-impose bourgeois relations of
production, Lenin argued that such capitalist economic relations could
be counter-balanced by the political control exercised over the
state-industrial apparatus by the mass organizations of the working
class under the leadership of the Party. Indeed, as we have already
noted, against the objections from the left that his policies amounted
to the introduction not of socialism but of state capitalism, Lenin,
returning to the orthodox formulation, retorted that the basis of
socialism was nothing more than âstate capitalism under workersâ
controlâ, and that, given the woeful backwardness of the Russian
economy, any development of state capitalism could only be a welcome
advance.
As the economic situation deteriorated with the onset of the civil war
and the intervention of the infamous âfourteen imperialist armiesâ,[21]
the contradictions between the immediate interests of the workers and
peasants and those of the socialist revolution could only grow. The need
to maintain the political power of the Party led at first to the
exclusion of all other worker and peasant parties from the workersâ and
peasantsâ government and then to the extension of the Red Terror, which
had originally been aimed at counter-revolutionary bourgeois parties, to
all those who opposed the Bolsheviks. At the same time power was
gradually shifted from the mass organizations of the working class and
concentrated within the central organs of the Party.[22] As a result it
was the Party which had to increasingly serve as the check on the state
and the guarantee of its proletarian character.
There is no doubt that Trotsky shared such Leninist conceptions
concerning the state, party and class, and with them the view that the
transition to socialism required both the strengthening of the state and
the re-imposition of capitalist relations of production. Indeed, this
perspective can be clearly seen in the way he carried out the task of
constructing the Red Army.[23] What is more, Trotsky did not balk at the
implications of these Leninist conceptions and the policies that
followed from them. Indeed, Trotsky fully supported the increasing
suppression of opposition both inside and outside the Party which
culminated with his backing for the suspension of Party factions at the
Tenth Party Congress in 1921 and his personal role in crushing the
Kronstadt rebellion in February 1921.
It can be argued that Trotsky was fully implicated in the Leninist
conceptions and policies, and that such conceptions and policies
provided both the basis and precedent for Stalinism and the show trials
of the 1930s. However, for Trotsky and his followers there was a
qualitative difference between the consolidation of power and repression
of opposition that were adopted as temporary expedients made necessary
due to the civil war and the threat of counter-revolution, and the
permanent and institutional measures that were later adopted by Stalin.
For Trotsky, this qualitative difference was brought about by the
process of bureaucratic degeneration that arose with the failure of
world revolution to save the Soviet Revolution from isolation.
In his final years Lenin had become increasingly concerned with the
bureaucratization of both the state and Party apparatus. For Lenin, the
necessity of employing non-proletarian bourgeois specialists and
administrators, who would inevitably tend to work against the revolution
whether consciously or unconsciously, meant that there would be a
separation of the state apparatus from the working class and with this
the emergence of bureaucratic tendencies. However, as a counter to these
bureaucratic tendencies stood the Party. The Party, being rooted in the
most advanced sections of the working class, acted as a bridge between
the state and the working class, and, through the imposition of the
âParty Lineâ, ensured the state remained essentially a âworkersâ and
peasantsâ stateâ.
Yet the losses of the civil war left the Party lacking some of its
finest working class militants, and those who remained had been drafted
into the apparatus of the Party and state as full time officials. At the
same time Lenin feared that more and more non-proletarian careerist
elements were joining the Party. As a result, shortly before his death
Lenin could complain that only 10 per cent of the Party membership were
still at the factory bench. Losing its footing in the working class
Lenin could only conclude that the Party itself was becoming
bureaucratized.
In developing his own critique of Stalin, Trotsky took up these
arguments which had been first put forward by Lenin. Trotsky further
emphasized that, with the exhaustion of revolutionary enthusiasm, by the
1920s even the most advanced proletarian elements within the state and
Party apparatus had begun to succumb to the pressures of
bureaucratization. This process was greatly accelerated by the severe
material shortages which encouraged state and Party officials, of
whatever class origin, to place their own collective and individual
interests as part of the bureaucracy above those of working masses.
For Trotsky, the rise to power of the troika of Stalin, Kamenev and
Zinoviev following Leninâs death marked the point where this process of
bureaucratization of the state and Party had reached and ensnared the
very leadership of the Party itself.[24] Drawing a parallel with the
course of the French Revolution, Trotsky argued that this point
represented the transition to the Russian Thermidor â a period of
conservative reaction arising from the revolution itself. As such, for
Trotsky, Russia remained a workersâ state, but one whose
proletarian-socialist policies had now become distorted by the
privileged and increasingly conservative strata of the proletariat that
formed the bureaucracy, and through which state policy was both
formulated and implemented.
For Trotsky, these conservative-bureaucratic distortions of state policy
were clearly evident in both the internal and external affairs.
Conservative-bureaucratic distortions were exemplified in foreign policy
by the abandonment of proletarian internationalism, which had sought to
spread the revolution beyond the borders of the former Russian empire,
in favour of the policy of âbuilding socialism in one countryâ. For the
bureaucracy the disavowal of proletarian internationalism opened the way
for the normalization of diplomatic relations with the capitalist powers
throughout the rest of the world. For Trotsky, the abandonment of
proletarian internationalism diminished the prospects of world
revolution which was ultimately the only hope for the Russian Revolution
if it was to avoid isolation in a capitalist world and further
degeneration culminating in the eventual restoration of capitalism in
Russia. Domestically, the policy of building socialism in one country
had its counterpart in the persistence of the cautious economic policies
of balanced and optimal growth represented by the continuation of the
NEP, which for Trotsky, as we have already seen, threatened the rise of
a new bourgeoisie amongst the rich peasantry and with this the danger of
capitalist restoration.
However, just as the Thermidor period of conservative reaction had given
way to the counter-revolution of Napoleon Bonaparte which imposed the
dictatorship of one man, so the Russian Thermidor, which ended with the
crisis in the NEP, gave rise to Stalin as the sole dictator. For Trotsky
then, the dictatorship of Stalin represented a âBonapartist
counter-revolutionâ from within the revolution itself, which marked the
final stage in the degeneration of the Russian workersâ state. Yet, just
as Bonaparteâs counter-revolution was a political revolution which while
restoring the monarchy did so by preserving the transformation of
property relations achieved by the revolution, so likewise Stalinâs
counter-revolution preserved the fundamental gains of the Russian
Revolution in that it maintained public ownership of the means of
production along with state planning. Indeed, while Trotsky dismissed
Stalinâs claims that, with the collectivization of agriculture and
introduction of comprehensive centralized planning of the five year
plans, Russia had become fully socialist, he accepted that these were
major achievements in the transition towards socialism.
So, for Trotsky, however degenerated Stalinâs Russia had become, it
remained a workersâ state and as such preserved the fundamental gains of
the revolution. By preserving public ownership of the means of
production and state planning, which opened the way for the rapid
development of the forces of production, Stalinâs regime could be seen
to develop the objective social and material conditions necessary for
socialism. As such, for all its crimes, Stalinâs Russia objectively
represented a crucial historic advance over all capitalist countries.
Therefore, for Trotsky, Stalinâs Russia demanded critical support from
all revolutionaries.[25]
Yet, as we shall see, the increasing tension between the barbarism of
Stalinâs regime, which condemned millions of workers, peasants and
revolutionaries (including many of Trotskyâs own former comrades) to
death or hard labour, and Trotskyâs insistence of its objectively
progressive character, prompted many, including Trotskyâs own ardent
followers, to question his notion that Stalinist Russia was a
degenerated workersâ state.
The obvious objection was that the totalitarianism of Stalinâs regime
was virtually indistinguishable from that of Hitlerâs which had also
gone a long way towards nationalizing the economy and bring it under
state planning. Trotsky dismissed any resemblance between Stalinâs
Russia and Hitlerâs Germany as being merely superficial. For Trotsky,
during its period of decline capitalism would necessarily be forced into
an increasing statification of the economy which would give rise to
authoritarian and fascist regimes. This process towards state capitalism
had already reached an extreme in such countries as Italy under
Mussolini and Germany under Hitler but could also be seen in the growing
statism and authoritarianism in other âdemocraticâ countries such as
France. However, such statification of the economy and the growth in
public ownership of the means of production was being carried out as a
last ditch effort to preserve its opposite, private property. Stalinâs
Russia, on the other hand, was developing on the very basis of the
public ownership of the means of production itself. Stalinist Russia had
crossed the historical Rubicon of the socialist revolution. Thus, while
it may have appeared that Stalinâs Russia was similar to that of
Hitlerâs Germany, for Trotsky they were essentially very different.
A more penetrating objection to Trotskyâs critical defence of Stalinist
Russia concerned the question of the nature of the Stalinist
bureaucracy. Against Trotsky, it could be argued that under Stalin, if
not before, the Soviet bureaucracy had established itself as a new
exploitative ruling class. If this was the case then it could no longer
be maintained that Stalinist Russia was in any sense a workersâ state,
however degenerated. Further, if the bureaucracy was not simply a strata
of the proletariat that had become separated from the rest of its class,
but a class in itself, it could no longer be claimed that the
bureaucracy ultimately ruled in the interests of the working class,
albeit in a distorted manner. The bureaucracy could only rule in its own
narrow and minority class interests. As a result it could be concluded
that either Russia had reverted back to a form of state capitalism, or
else had given rise to a new unknown mode of production; either way
there could be no longer any obligation for revolutionaries to give
Stalinâs monstrous regime âcritical supportâ.
Given that this charge that the Stalinistâs bureaucracy constituted a
distinct exploitative class threatened to undermine the very basis of
his theory of Russia as a degenerated workersâ state, Trotsky was at
great pains to refute it. Of course, it was central to Trotskyâs
critique of the Soviet Union under Stalin that the bureaucracy had
emerged as a distinct social group that had come to dominate the working
class. Indeed, as Trotsky himself put it, the bureaucracy constituted âa
commanding and privileged social stratumâ. Yet despite this Trotsky
denied that the bureaucracy could in any way constitute a distinct
exploitative class.
In denying that the Soviet bureaucracy constituted a distinct social
class Trotsky was able to directly invoke the orthodox Marxist
conceptions of class and bureaucracy. In doing so Trotsky was able to
claim at the same time that he was defending Marxism itself against the
revisionist arguments of his opponents; but, as we shall see, by
invoking the authority of Marx, Trotsky was spared the task of setting
out the basis of his own conception of the nature of class and
bureaucracy with any degree of clarity.
For both Marx and Engels social classes were constituted through the
social relations that necessarily arose out of the particular mode of
production upon which a given society was based. Indeed, for Marx and
Engels, the specific nature of any class society was determined by the
manner in which the exploitative classes extracted surplus labour from
the direct producers.
For orthodox Marxism, such social relations were interpreted primarily
in terms of property relations.[26] Hence, within the capitalist mode of
production the essential social relations of production were seen
primarily in terms of the private ownership of the means of production.
While the capitalist class was constituted through its private ownership
of the means of production, the working class was constituted through
its non-ownership of the means of production. Being excluded from the
ownership of the means of production, the working class, once it has
consumed its means of subsistence, had no option but to sell its labour
power to the capitalist class if it was to survive. On the other hand,
in buying the labour power of the working class the capitalist class
obtained the rights of possession of all the wealth that the working
class created with its labour. Once it had paid the costs of production,
including the costs of reproducing labour-power, the capitalist class
was left in possession of the surplus-labour created by the working
class, as the direct producers, in the specific social form of
surplus-value.[27]
On the basis of this orthodox interpretation of the nature of class,
backed up by various political writings of both Marx and Engels, it was
not hard to argue that, at least within capitalism, the state
bureaucracy could not constitute a distinct social class. The state
bureaucracy could clearly be seen to stand outside the immediate process
of production and circulation, and as such was not directly constituted
out of the social relations of production. Even insofar as the state was
able to go beyond its mere function as the âexecutive committee of the
bourgeoisieâ so that the state bureaucracy could act as a distinct
social group which was able to pursue its own ends and interests, the
state bureaucracy still did not constitute a distinct class since its
social position was not based in private property but in its
extra-economic political and administrative functions. So, even insofar
as the state bureaucracy was able to appropriate a share in the
surplus-value it did so not by virtue of its private ownership of the
means of production or capital but through extra-economic means such as
taxation and tariffs.
So, at least under capitalism, it seemed clear that the state
bureaucracy could not constitute a distinct social class. But what of
the transition from capitalism to socialism? For Trotsky, following
Marxist orthodoxy, the question was clear cut. The revolution of 1917
had swept away the private ownership of the means of production and with
it the basis for the exploitation of âman by manâ which had been
perfected under capitalism. With the nationalization of the means of
production and the introduction of social planning there was no basis
for the state bureaucracy to exist as an exploitative class.
Trotsky made clear his position at the very outset of his consideration
of the social position of the Soviet bureaucracy:
Classes are characterized by their position in the social system of
economy, and primarily by their relation to the means of production. In
civilized societies, property relations are validated by laws. The
nationalization of land, the means of industrial production, transport
and exchange, together with the monopoly of foreign trade, constitute
the basis of the social structure. Through these relations, established
by the proletarian revolution, the nature of the Soviet Union as a
proletarian state is for us basically defined. (The Revolution Betrayed,
p. 248)
To this extent Trotskyâs position is little different from that of
Stalin: the abolition of private property ends the exploitation of âman
by manâ.[28]
Of course, Trotsky could not simply remain content with Stalinâs denial
that the Soviet bureaucracy constituted an exploitative class. Indeed
Stalinâs position even denied the existence of the bureaucracy as a
distinct social group. To make his critique of Stalinâs Russia, Trotsky
had to look beyond the formal and judicial transformation of property
relations brought about by the Russian Revolution in 1917. Trotsky
recognized that, although the nationalization decrees that followed the
October revolution had formally and juridically transferred the
ownership of the means of production from the hands of private
capitalists to society as a whole, this was not the same as the real
transfer of the ownership to the people as a whole. The nationalization
of production had merely transferred the ownership of the means of
production from the capitalist to the state, which, while a necessary
step in the transition to socialism, was not the same as real public
ownership. For Trotsky, in a real sense the âstate owns the economy and
the bureaucracy owns the stateâ.
As Trotsky himself points out, the real property relations, as opposed
to the formal and juridical property relations, is a social reality
acutely apparent to the Soviet worker:
âThe worker in our country is not a wage slave and is not a seller of a
commodity called labour-power. He is a free workmanâ (Pravda). For the
present period this unctuous formula is unpermissible bragging. The
transfer of the factories to the state changed the situation of the
worker only juridically. In reality, he is compelled to live in want and
work a definite amount of hours for a definite wage. Those hopes which
the worker formerly placed in the party and the trade unions, he
transferred after the revolution to the state created by him. But the
useful functioning of this implement turned out to be limited by the
level of technique and culture. In order to raise this level, the new
state resorted to the old methods of pressure upon the muscles and
nerves of the worker. There grew up a corps of slave drivers. The
management of industry became super-bureaucratic. The workers lost all
influence whatever upon management of the factory. With piecework
payment, hard conditions of material existence, lack of free movement,
with terrible police repression penetrating the life of every factory,
it is hard indeed for the worker to feel himself a free workman. (The
Revolution Betrayed, p. 241)
For Trotsky, the overriding need to develop the productive forces in the
backward conditions prevailing in Russia required the state ownership of
production. Through the state the Soviet bureaucracy had, in a sense,
taken real possession of the means of production and as such had come to
constitute a distinct social group. Just as Marx and Engels had observed
that under capitalism the state bureaucracy could in certain situations
obtain a relative degree of autonomy from the bourgeois ruling class, so
in the transition to socialism the state bureaucracy was able to obtain
a relative autonomy from the proletarian ruling class. Indeed, Trotsky
argues that the autonomy of the Soviet bureaucracy is all the greater
than its counterparts under capitalism since the working class is not an
inherently dominating class.
Thus, while the revolution had formally freed the worker from the
dictates of private property and made him a co-owner of the means of
production, in reality the worker found himself in a situation that
seemed little different from that under capitalism. Indeed, subordinated
to the demands of the state bureaucracy the worker may well feel just as
exploited as he had been under capitalism. But for Trotsky, although the
worker may subjectively feel exploited, objectively he was not. The
plight of the workersâ situation was not due to exploitation but to the
objective need to develop the forces of production. Of course, like all
bureaucracies the Soviet bureaucracy could abuse its position to obtain
material and personal advantages and this could reinforce the workersâ
perception that the bureaucracy was exploiting them. But for Trotsky
such material and personal advantages were not due to the exploitation
of the working class by the state bureaucracy, but due to the
bureaucracyâs privileged position within the workersâ state.
Hence while the nationalization of the means of production by the
workersâ state had ended capitalist relations of production and thereby
ended exploitation, the backward conditions in Russia had allowed the
Soviet bureaucracy to gain a privileged and commanding position and
maintain bourgeois norms of distribution. The bureaucracy no more
exploited the working class than monopolist capitalists exploited other
capitalists by charging monopoly prices. All the Soviet bureaucracy did
was redistribute the surplus-labour of society in its own favour. This
is perhaps best illustrated by Trotskyâs own analogy with share-holding
in a market economy:
If we translate socialist relations, for illustration, into the language
of the market, we may represent the citizen as a stockholder in a
company which owns the wealth of country. If property belonged to all
the people, that would presume equal distribution of âsharesâ, and
consequently a right to the same dividend for all âshareholdersâ. The
citizens participate in the national enterprise, however, not only as
âshareholdersâ, but also as producers. On the lower stage of communism,
which we have agreed to call socialism, payments for labour are still
made according to bourgeois norms â that is, dependence upon skill and
intensity etc. The theoretical income of each citizen is thus composed
of two parts, a + b â that is, dividend plus wages. The higher the
technique and the more complete the organization of industry, the
greater is the place occupied by a as against b, and the less is the
influence of individual differences of labour upon the standard of
living. From the fact that wage differences in the Soviet Union are not
less, but greater than in capitalist countries, it must be inferred that
the shares of the Soviet citizen are not equally distributed, and that
in his income the dividend as well as the wage payment are unequal.
Whereas the unskilled labour receives only b, the minimum payment which
under similar conditions he would receive in a capitalist enterprise,
the Stakhanovist or bureaucrat receives 2a + b, or 3a + b, etc., while b
also in turn may become 2b, 3b, etc. The differences in income are
determined, in other words, not only by differences of individual
productiveness, but also by a masked appropriation of the products of
labour of others. The privileged minority of shareholders is living at
the expense of the deprived majority. (The Revolution Betrayed, p. 240).
So, for Trotsky, insofar as the revolution of 1917 had abolished the
private ownership of the means of production the basis for socialist
relations of production had been established. However, in the backward
conditions in which the revolution had been made, bourgeois norms of
distribution still persisted and had become exacerbated by the growing
power of the state bureaucracy in such conditions.
Trotskyâs attempt to develop a Marxist critique of Stalinâs Russia,
while at the same time denying that the Soviet bureaucracy constituted
an exploitative class, was far from being unproblematic. In developing
this critique of the Soviet Union through his polemics against
Stalinists on the one hand, and the left communists and some of his own
followers on the other, Trotsky had little time to present in detail the
theoretical foundations of his arguments. Instead, as we have already
noted, Trotsky for the most part appealed to the commonly accepted
tenets of orthodox Marxism. As a consequence Trotsky failed to set out
clearly his ideas on such fundamental matters as the connection between
the productive forces and the social relations of production, the social
relations of production and property relations, and between production
and distribution. As we have already indicated, perhaps the most
important weakness of Trotsky is his acceptance of the orthodox
reduction of social relations of production to simple property
relations, we shall briefly examine this now.
As we have seen, not only did Trotsky interpret the social relations of
production primarily in terms of property relations but, along with
Stalin, insisted that these property relations had to be given an
immediate expression in the juridical property relations that regulated
society. As Trotsky asserts: âIn all civilized societies, property
relations are validated by lawsâ. But, as we have also seen, in order to
press home his critique of the Soviet bureaucracy Trotsky had to go
beyond the apparent legal property relations of the Soviet Union and in
doing so, at least implicitly, acknowledge that real property relations
may differ from their formal and juridical expression.
Of course, this disjunction between real and formal property relations
is not unknown in capitalism itself. With the development of the modern
corporation from the end of the nineteenth century there has arisen a
growing divergence between the ownership of the means of production and
their management. The modern joint stock company is formally owned by
its shareholders while the actual running of the company is left to the
senior management who can be said to have the real possession of the
means of production. For Trotsky, the social relations of production
would be transformed simply by nationalizing the firm so that it is run
for society as a whole rather than for a few shareholders. With
nationalization, legal ownership is transferred to the state while the
real possession of means of production may remain in the hands of the
management or bureaucracy. Hence, just as under certain circumstances
the management of joint stock company cream off some of the profits in
the form of huge salaries and share options, so under conditions of
underdevelopment the management of state enterprises may also be in a
position to cream of the economic surplus produced by the nationalized
industry.
Yet few would deny that while the management of a capitalist enterprise
may not themselves legally own the firm they still function as
capitalists with regard to the workers. The management functions to
extract surplus-value and as a consequence they function as the actual
exploiters of the workers. Within the Soviet enterprise the workers may
formally own the means of production but in real terms they are
dispossessed. They have to sell their labour-power for a wage. On the
other side the âsocialistâ management are obliged to extract
surplus-labour just as much as their capitalist counterparts, as even
Trotsky admits. It would seem that the actual social relations of
production between the workers who are really dispossessed and the
management who have real possession of the means of production is the
same. What has changed is the merely the formal property relations which
affects the distribution of the surplus-labour, not its production.
In this view Trotskyâs position becomes inverted: the revolution of 1917
only went so far as to socialize the distribution of the economic
surplus while leaving the social relations of production as capitalist.
This line of argument provides the basis for a telling critique, not
only against Trotskyâs theory of a degenerated workersâ state, but also
the âpoliticismâ of the entire Leninist project which had been inherited
from the orthodox Marxism of the Second International.[29] Indeed, as we
shall see, this line of argument has often been taken up in various
guises by many anarchists and left communists opposed to the Leninist
conception of the USSR and the Russian Revolution. Yet, if we are to
grasp what has given Trotskyâs theory of a degenerated workersâ state
its hold as one of the principle critiques of the USSR it is necessary
to consider the importance of âtransitionâ to Trotsky.
As we have seen, the notion that the Soviet Union was in a state of
transition from capitalism to socialism was central for Trotsky. Indeed,
it is this very notion of transition which allowed Trotsky to defend the
orthodox Leninist and Marxist positions alongside Stalin, while at the
same time distancing himself sufficiently from Stalin to make a thorough
critique of the USSR. As we have already pointed out, both Stalin and
Trotsky supported the orthodox position that the real social relations
of production of any established mode of production would have to find
their immediate legal and formal expression. Yet, while Stalin asserted
that with the five year plans and the collectivization of agriculture
the USSR had become socialist, Trotsky insisted that the USSR was still
in a state of transition from capitalism to socialism. Since the USSR
was in transition from one mode of production to another, the formal and
legal property relations could be in advance of the real relations of
production. The disjunction between the real and formal property
relations of the USSR was the result of the real contradictions in the
transformation of capitalist social relations into those of socialism.
Of course for Trotsky, sooner or later formal property relations would
have to be brought into conformity with the real social relations of
production. Either the development of the productive forces would
eventually allow the formal property relations to be given a real
socialist content or else the USSR would collapse back into capitalism
with the restoration of the private ownership of the means of
production.
Furthermore, for Trotsky, it was this contradiction between the formal
property relations and the social relations of production that placed
the bureaucracy in a precarious and unstable position which prevented it
from constituting itself as a class. To defend its position the
bureaucracy had to defend state property and develop the forces of
production. Yet, while the social position of the individual capitalist
was rooted in the private ownership of the means of production that was
backed by law, the individual bureaucrat was simply an employee of the
state who owed his or her position to those higher up in the
bureaucracy. Unable to reproduce itself over the generations through
inheritance Trotsky believed that the Soviet bureaucracy could not last
long. The Soviet bureaucracy was merely a fleeting phenomena of
transition that would one way or another have to pass away.[30]
It was on this basis that Trotsky argued:
To the extent that, in contrast to decaying capitalism, it develops the
productive forces, [the bureaucracy] is preparing the economic basis of
socialism. To the extent that, for the benefit of an upper stratum, it
carries to more and more extreme expression bourgeois norms of
distribution, it is preparing a capitalist restoration. (The Revolution
Betrayed, p. 244)
So, for Trotsky, either the Soviet Union would make the transition to
socialism, in which case the bureaucracy would be swept away, or else it
would into capitalism and the bureaucracy would legalize their position
through the reintroduction of private property and capitalism, and in
doing so transform themselves into a new capitalist class.
Trotskyâs notion that the USSR was in a state of transition from
capitalism to socialism was central to his theory of Russia as a
degenerated workersâ state and, at the time of writing, seemed to give
his theory substantial explanatory power. Yet Trotskyâs prognosis that
the end of the Second World War would see the Soviet Union either become
socialist with the support of world revolution or else face the
restoration of capitalism was to be contradicted by the entrenchment of
the Soviet bureaucracy following the war. As we shall see, this was to
provoke a recurrent crisis amongst Trotskyâs followers.
Trotskyism
For Trotsky, the Stalinist system in the USSR could only be but a
transitory historical phenomena. Lacking a firm legal basis in the
ownership of the means of production, the Stalinist bureaucracy was
doomed to a mere fleeting appearance in the overall course of history.
Indeed, throughout the 1930s, Trotsky had been convinced that the days
of the Stalinist bureaucracy were numbered.
For Trotsky, world capitalism was in terminal decline. The economic
stagnation that had followed the Wall Street crash in 1929 could only
intensify imperialist rivalries amongst the great capitalist powers
which ultimately could only be resolved through the devastation of a
Second World War. Yet Trotsky firmly believed that, like the First World
War, this Second World War would bring in its wake a renewed
revolutionary wave that would sweep the whole of Europe if not the
world. In the midst of such a revolutionary wave the Russian working
class would be in a position to overthrow the Stalinist bureaucracy in a
political revolution which would then, with the aid of revolutions
elsewhere, open the way for Russia to complete its transition to
socialism. Even if the worst came to the worst, and the post-war
revolutionary wave was defeated, then the way would then be open for the
restoration of capitalism in Russia. With the defeat of the proletariat,
both in Russia and elsewhere, the Stalinist bureaucracy would soon take
the opportunity to convert itself into a new bourgeoisie through the
privatization of state industry. Either way the Stalinist bureaucracy
would soon disappear, along with the entire Stalinist system that had
arisen from the degeneration of the Russian Revolution.
As the approach of the Second World War became more and more apparent,
Trotsky became more convinced that Stalinâs day of reckoning would not
be far off. Yet not all of Trotskyâs followers shared his optimism.
Following his expulsion from Russia in 1929 Trotsky had sought to
re-establish the Left Opposition on an international basis seeking to
oppose Stalin within the Third International of Communist Parties.
However, in the face of Stalinâs resolute hold over the Third
International and its constituent Communist Parties Trotskyâs efforts to
build the International Left Opposition within the official world
Communist movement soon proved to be futile. In 1933 Trotsky decided to
break from the Third International and attempt to regroup all those
Communists opposed to Stalin in an effort to build a new Fourth
International.
With the international upturn in class struggle of the mid-1930s, which
culminated in the Spanish Revolution in 1936, increasing numbers of
Communists who had become disillusioned with Stalinism were drawn to
Trotskyâs project. By 1938 Trotsky had felt that the time had come to
establish the Fourth International. Although the various groups across
the world who supported the project of a Fourth International were still
very small compared with the mass Communists Parties of the Third
International, Trotsky believed that it was vital to have the
international organization of the Fourth International in place before
the onset of the Second World War. Trotsky believed that just as the
First World War had thrown the international workersâ movement into
confusion, with all the Socialist Parties of the Second International
being swept along in patriotic fervour, so the same would happen with
the onset of the Second World War. In such circumstances the Fourth
International would have to provide a resolute point of reference and
clarity in the coming storm which could then provide a rallying point
once the patriotic fever had given way to the urge for revolution
amongst the working class across the world.
Yet by 1938 the upturn in class struggle had more or less passed. The
Spanish Revolution had been defeated and Francoâs fascists were well on
their way to winning the Spanish Civil War. With fascism already
triumphant in Italy and Germany and advancing elsewhere in Europe the
situation was looking increasing bleak for those on the left that had
become disillusioned with Stalinism. Furthermore, few could have been as
convinced as Trotsky was that the onset of a Second World War, which
promised to be even more terrible than first, would bring in its wake a
renewed revolutionary situation in Europe, if not the world.
As a consequence, many, even within the Fourth International, came to
draw rather pessimistic conclusions concerning the world situation.
Within such a pessimistic perspective it was easy to conclude that the
socialist revolution had failed, both in Russia and the rest of Europe,
in the early 1920s. From this it was but a short step to argue that
capitalism was not being replaced by socialism, as Marx had foreseen,
but by a new and unforeseen form of society in which all political and
economic life was subsumed by a totalitarian state, which had become
evident not only in Mussoliniâs Italy and Hitlerâs Germany but also in
Stalinâs Russia. This new form of society now seemed destined to
dominate the world, just as capitalism had done before it. This view
found its expression in the various theories of âbureaucratic
collectivismâ that increasingly gained support amongst Trotskyists
towards the end of the 1930s.
The theory of bureaucratic collectivism was originally put forward by
Bruno Rizzi in the early 1930s. Yet it was in 1939 that this theory
became central to the first grave crisis in Trotskyism. As we have seen,
on the basis of his theory of the USSR as a degenerated workersâ state,
Trotsky had argued that, despite all the crimes perpetuated by the
Stalinâs regime, it was necessary, in order to defend the proletarian
gains of the Russian Revolution, to give critical support to the Soviet
Union. As we have also noted, this position became increasingly
difficult to defend as true nature of Stalinâs regime became apparent,
particularly after the Moscow show trials of the 1930s and the role of
the Stalinists in crushing the workersâ revolution in Spain in the May
Days of 1937. For many Trotskyists the last straw came when Stalin
signed a non-aggression pact with Hitler in August 1939. Here was the
USSR openly dealing with a fascist regime!
In September 1939 several leading members of the Socialist Workersâ
Party of the USA, which, with several thousand members, was one of the
largest sections of the Fourth International, announced the formation of
an organized minority faction opposed to the official stance towards the
USSR. In their polemics with Trotsky and his supporters in the American
SWP the notion central to bureaucratic collectivism â that Stalinâs
Russia was little different from that of Hitlerâs Germany â proved to be
a powerful weapon. Indeed, many of the leading figures in this
oppositional faction, which eventually split from the SWP in 1940 to
form the Workersâ Party, came to adopt the theory of bureaucratic
collectivism as their own. As such the theory of bureaucratic
collectivism came to pose the main challenge to orthodox Trotskyism from
within Trotskyism itself.
In his interventions in the fierce polemics that preceded the split in
the American SWP, Trotsky made it clear that he saw the theory of
bureaucratic collectivism as nothing less than a direct attack not
merely on his own ideas, but on Marxism itself. The notion that the
capitalist mode of production was destined to be surpassed, not by
socialism but by a form of society based on bureaucratic collectivism,
clearly broke with the fundamental understanding of history that had
underpinned Marxism from its very inception. Yet, if this was not bad
enough, none of the various versions of the theory of bureaucratic
collectivism went as far to provide an adequate materialist and class
analysis of what bureaucratic collectivism was and how it had come
about. As a result, as Trotsky ceaselessly pointed out, these theories
of bureaucratic collectivism were unable to go beyond the level of
appearance and as such remained merely descriptive.
Such criticisms were seen to be borne out by the eventual fate of the
various theories of bureaucratic collectivism and their leading
proponents. Having abandoned Marxism, the theories of bureaucratic
collectivism lacked any theoretical grounding of their own. As a
consequence they were obliged to look to various strands of bourgeois
sociology and ended up joining the growing stream of bourgeois theories
that saw the increasing totalitarianism and bureaucratization of modern
societies as an inevitable result of the complexities of industrial
society. This was perhaps best illustrated by one of the leading figures
in the split from the American SWP in 1940, James Burnham. As a
university professor, Burnham was recognized as one of the leading
intellectuals in the minority that split from the American SWP, but he
went on to become one of the originators of the theory of the
âmanagerial societyâ which was to become popular amongst bourgeois
sociologists in the â50s and â60s. Yet while the logic of bureaucratic
collectivism led Burnham to become a liberal, for Schachtman, who had
been one of the prime proponents of the theory of bureaucratic
collectivism, it meant eventually ending up as a virulent anti-Communist
who openly backed the McCarthy witch hunts of the 1950s. For those who
remained loyal to Trotsky the fate of these supporters of the
bureaucratic collectivism could only be taken as a stern lesson in the
dangers of straying too far from the teachings of Trotsky and Marxist
orthodoxy.
Yet it should be noted here that not all those who split from the
American SWP at this time were proponents of a theory of bureaucratic
collectivism or variants of one. From the very foundation of the Fourth
International there had been a significant minority with the Trotskyist
movement who had opposed Trotskyâs stance to the USSR by arguing that
Russia was not a degenerated workersâ state but was simply state
capitalist.[31] It was this theory of the USSR as being state capitalist
which was to re-emerge with greater force after the Second World War, as
we shall now see.
Trotskyâs predictions for the end of the Second World War, which had
sustained the hopes of those who had remained loyal to him, were soon
proved to be false. There was no repeat of the great revolutionary wave
that had swept Europe at the end of the First World War; nor was the
grip of either Stalinism or social democracy on the workersâ movements
weakened. On the contrary, both Stalinism and social democracy emerged
from the Second World War far stronger than they had ever been.
As it became increasingly apparent that the realities of the immediate
post-war world contradicted the predictions that Trotsky had made before
his death in 1940, and with them the basic orientation of the Fourth
International, the strains within the Trotskyist movement between those
who sought to revise Trotskyism to meet these new realities and those
who feared such revisionism reached the point of crisis. In 1953, less
that eight years after the end of the war the Fourth International
finally split giving rise to the â57 varietiesâ of Trotskyism that we
find today. One of the crucial issues at the heart of this crisis within
Trotskyism was that of the question of the respective natures of the
USSR and Eastern Europe.
The retreat of the German armies during the final stages of the war had
prompted popular uprisings across Eastern Europe. For the most part
these uprisings had either been contained by the Stalinists, where they
provided the popular base on which to build broad-based anti-fascist
governments, or, to the extent that they could not be contained, they
were either crushed by the advancing Red Army, or else abandoned to the
vengeance of the retreating German forces.
At first Stalin did not seek to impose the economic or political model
of the Soviet Union on the countries of Eastern Europe. The broad-based
anti-fascist governments were elected on traditional
bourgeois-democratic lines and in most cases came to include not only
Communists and socialists but also liberals and representatives of the
peasant and rural classes. Although these governments were encouraged to
carry out nationalizations of key industries, and implement various
social and agrarian reforms, in many respects this differed little from
the policies of nationalization of ailing industry and welfare reforms
that were happening elsewhere in Europe. But as the Cold War began to
set in, and Europe began to polarize between East and West, Stalin began
to impose the Soviet economic and political model on to Eastern Europe.
If necessary, the post-war coalitions were pushed aside and the
wholesale nationalization of industry was carried out and the market was
replaced by centralized planning.
The initial phase of the post-war era in Eastern Europe had presented
Trotskyists with few problems. The uprisings at the end of the war could
be seen as portents of the coming world revolution, while the repression
by the Stalinists could be righteously condemned. Furthermore, the fact
that these uprisings had for the most part failed explained why Eastern
Europe remained capitalist. However, once the âRussification of Eastern
Europeâ began to take place, Trotskyist theory began to face a serious
dilemma.
Of course, the transformation of property relations that had been
brought about by the wholesale nationalization of industry and the
introduction of centralized planning could be seen to reaffirm Trotskyâs
insistence on the objectively progressive role of the Stalinist
bureaucracy. Indeed, it could now be argued that the Stalinist
bureaucracy had not only defended the proletarian gains of the Russian
Revolution but had now extended them to the rest of Eastern Europe.
Yet, if this was the case, did this not imply that the countries of
Eastern Europe had now become degenerated workersâ states like the USSR?
But how could you have a degenerated workersâ state when there had been
no revolution, and thus no workersâ state, in the first place?! It was
now no longer just that a workersâ state was supposed to exist where the
workers had no state power, as Trotsky had argued for Stalinist Russia,
but workersâ statesâ were now supposed to exist where the working class
had never been in power! With the question of Eastern Europe the
fundamental dichotomy of Trotskyâs theory of a degenerated workersâ
state, in which the objective interests of the working class are somehow
able to stand apart from and against the working class in the form of
the alien power of the bureaucracy, now stood exposed.
But if the countries of Eastern Europe were not admitted as being
degenerated workersâ states then what were they? The obvious answer,
given that the principle means of production had been simply
nationalized by the state without a workersâ revolution, was that they
were state capitalist. However, such an answer contained even greater
dangers for orthodox Trotskyists than the first. As Eastern Europe
became reconstructed in the image of the USSR it became increasingly
difficult to avoid the conclusion that if the countries of Eastern
Europe were state capitalist then so must the Soviet Union be nothing
other than a form of state capitalism.
After numerous attempts to resolve this dilemma the official line which
emerged within the leadership of the Fourth International was that the
uprising at the end of the war had all been part of a proletarian
revolution that had been mutilated and deformed by Stalinism. The
countries of Eastern Europe were therefore not degenerated workersâ
states as such, but âdeformed workersâ statesâ. Yet this attempted
solution still implied that the Stalinist bureaucracy was an active
agent in creating the objective conditions of socialism. As we have
seen, Trotsky had argued that the Stalinist bureaucracy was progressive
in that in defending its own basis in state property it was impelled to
defend the objective gains of the proletarian revolution, that is the
state ownership of the means of production. Now Trotskyism had come to
argue that the Stalinist bureaucracy not only defended such proletarian
gains but could now actually extend them! With the Stalinist bureaucracy
now deemed to be a primary agent in the transition to socialism the
importance of the revolutionary role of the working class became
diminished. The way was now opened for Trotskyists in the coming decades
to support all sorts of nationalist movements regardless of the role
within them of the proletariat.[32]
Perhaps rather ironically, Tony Cliff was originally sent to Britain by
the leadership of the Fourth International in an effort to head off any
potential support within the British Section for the theory that Eastern
Europe and the USSR were in any way state capitalist. As it turned out,
it was not Gerry Healey, Ted Grant or any of the other leading figures
of the British Revolutionary Communist Party[33] at that time who came
to adopt the theory of state capitalism but none other than Cliff
himself.
Yet in coming to the viewpoint that it was not only Eastern Europe that
was state capitalist but also the USSR, Tony Cliff was determined not to
follow in the footsteps of so many former Trotskyists who, having
rejected Trotskyâs theory of Russia as a degenerated workersâ state, had
come to reject Trotsky and even Marxism itself. Instead, Cliff was
committed to developing a state capitalist theory of the USSR which
remained firmly within both the Trotskyist and orthodox Marxist
tradition. Against those who argued that the theory of the USSR as a
degenerated workersâ state was central to Trotskyâs Marxism, Cliff
replied by arguing that not only were there numerous examples in
Trotskyâs own writings where he indicated serious doubts concerning his
conclusion that the USSR was a degenerated workersâ state but that
towards the end of his life Trotsky had shown signs of moving away from
such conclusions altogether. Indeed, Cliff sought to claim that had
Trotsky lived then he too would have eventually come round to the
conclusion that the USSR had become state capitalist, and certainly
would not have dogmatically defended a position that flew in the face of
all the evidence as his loyal followers in the leadership of the Fourth
International had done.
Cliff originally presented his rather heretical ideas in 1948 in the
form of a duplicated discussion document entitled The Nature of
Stalinist Russia. After several editions and accompanying amendments and
additions, this text now takes the form of a book entitled State
Capitalism in Russia which provides us with a definitive statement of
Cliffâs position.
Cliff devoted much of the first third of State Capitalism in Russia to
presenting a mass of evidence with which he sought to show both the
exploitative and repressive nature of the USSR. Yet, as powerful an
indictment of the Stalinist regime as this may have been, the evidence
Cliff presented was far from sufficient to convince his opponents within
either the Revolutionary Communist Party or the broader Fourth
International. For orthodox Trotskyists such evidence could simply be
taken to confirm the extent of the degeneration of the Soviet Union and
did little to refute the persistence of Russia as essentially a workersâ
state. As Cliff himself recognized, it was necessary to demonstrate that
the apparent exploitative and repressive character of the Soviet Union
necessarily arose, not from the degeneration of the Soviet Union as a
workersâ state but rather from the fact that under Stalin the USSR had
ceased to be a workersâ state and had become state capitalist. Yet to do
this Cliff had first of all to clarify what he meant by âstate
capitalismâ and how such a conception was not only compatible with, but
rooted within the orthodox Marxist tradition.
For orthodox Marxism, capitalism had been defined as a class society
dominated by generalized commodity exchange which arises from the
private ownership of the means of production. On the basis of such a
definition it would appear, at least at first sight, that the notion of
state capitalism in the absolute sense was a contradiction in terms. If
all of the means of production are nationalized, the capitalist class
expropriated and the law of value and the market replaced by state
allocation and planning, then it would appear that capitalism must have
been, by definition, abolished. If it was accepted that, for the most
part, the Russian Revolution had led to the abolition of the private
ownership of the means of production, then it would seem clear that,
from a Marxist point of view, capitalism in any form could not exist in
the USSR. (And of course this is the common objection we find advanced
against all theories of state capitalism in the USSR.)
However, as Cliff was keen to point out, it had also been central to
orthodox Marxism that the capitalist mode of production was transitory.
Capitalism was merely a phase in human history whose very development
would eventually undermine its own basis. As capitalism repeatedly
revolutionized methods of production it advanced the forces of
production to an unprecedented degree. Yet in advancing the forces of
production capitalism was obliged to increasingly socialize production
as production was carried out on an ever larger and more complex scale.
The more social the production process became the more it came into
conflict with the private appropriation of the wealth that it produced.
As a result capitalism was obliged to negate its very own basis in the
private ownership of production and in doing so it prepared the way for
socialism.
As we have noted before, already by the end of the nineteenth century
most Marxists had come to the view that the classical stage of free
competitive capitalism, that had been described and analysed by Marx in
the 1860s, had given way to the final stages of the capitalist era. The
growth of huge cartels and monopolies and the increasing economic role
of the state was seen as negating the market and the operation of the
law of value. At the same time the emergence of joint stock companies
and the nationalization of key industries meant the replacement of
individual capitalist ownership of the means of production by collective
forms of ownership which implied the further negation of private
property. Indeed, as Engels argued, the development of both monopoly and
state capitalism was leading to the point that the capitalist class was
superfluous to the production process itself. Capital no longer needed
the capitalist. As Engels himself states:
[T]he conversion of the great organizations for production and
communication into joint-stock companies and state property show that
for this purpose the bourgeoisie can be dispensed with. All the social
functions of the capitalists are now carried out by salaried employees.
The capitalist has no longer any social activity save the pocketing of
revenues, the clipping of coupons and gambling on the stock exchange,
where different capitalists fleece each other of their capital. Just as
at first the capitalist mode of production displaced the workers, so now
it displaces the capitalists, relegating them, just as it did the
workers, to the superfluous population, even if in the first instance
not to the industrial reserve army.
But neither the conversion into joint stock companies nor into state
property deprives the productive forces of their character as capital.
In the case of joint stock companies this is obvious. And the modern
state, too, is only the organization with which bourgeois society
provides itself in order to maintain the general external conditions of
the capitalist mode of production against encroachments either by
workers or by individual capitalists. The modern state, whatever its
form, is an essentially capitalist machine; it is the state of
capitalists, the ideal collective body of all capitalists. The more
productive forces it takes over as its property, the more it becomes the
real collective body of all capitalists, the more citizens it exploits.
The workers remain wage earners, proletarians. The capitalist
relationship is not abolished; it is rather pushed to an extreme. But at
this extreme it is transformed into its opposite. State ownership of the
productive forces is not the solution of the conflict, but it contains
within itself the formal means, the key to the solution. (Engels,
Anti-DĂŒhring, p. 330)
So for the old orthodoxy of the Second International it was undoubtedly
accepted that there was an inherent tendency towards state capitalism.
Indeed it was this tendency which was seen as laying the basis for
socialism. Yet it had also been central for both Lenin and the new
Bolshevik orthodoxy. Not only did the increasing negation of private
property and the law of value indicate the ripeness for socialism, but
the fusion of the state and capital within state capitalism explained
the increasing imperialist rivalries that had led to the First World
War. As the competitive struggle between capital and capital became at
the same time a struggle between imperialist states, imperialist war
became inevitable. As Bukharin remarks in Imperialism and the World
Economy, which provided the theoretical basis for Leninâs theory of
imperialism:
When competition has finally reached its highest stage, when it has
become competition between state capitalist trusts, then the use of
state power, and the possibilities connected with it play a very large
part. The state apparatus has always served as a tool in the hands of
the ruling classes of its country, and it has always acted as the their
âdefender and protectorâ in the world market; at no time, however, did
it have the colossal importance that it has in the epoch of finance
capital and imperialist politics. With the formation of state capitalist
trusts competition is being almost entirely shifted onto foreign
countries; obviously the organs of the struggle that is to be waged
abroad, primarily state power, must therefore grow tremendously... If
state power is generally growing in significance the growth of its
military organization, the army and the navy, is particularly striking.
The struggle between state capitalist trusts is decided in the first
place by the relation between their military forces, for military power
of the country is the last resort of the struggling ânationalâ groups of
capitalists. (Bukharin, p. 124)
So it could not be doubted that the notion that capitalism was
developing towards state capitalism, such that its very basis within
both the law of value and private property was increasingly becoming
negated, was clearly rooted within orthodox Marxism. The question then
was whether state capitalism in an absolute sense was possible. Could it
not be the case that after a certain point quantity would be transformed
into quality? Was it not the case that once the principle means of
production had been nationalized and the last major capitalist
expropriated capitalism had necessarily been objectively abolished? And
was this not the case for Russia following the October revolution?
To counter this contention, that could all too easily be advanced by his
Trotskyist critics, Cliff argued that the qualitative shift from
capitalism to the transition to socialism could not be simply calculated
from the âpercentageâ of state ownership of the means of production. It
was a transition that was necessarily politically determined. As we have
seen, the tendency towards state capitalism was a result of the growing
contradiction between the increasingly social forms of production and
the private appropriation of wealth. Collective, and ultimately state
ownership of the means of production were a means to reconcile this
contradiction while at the same time preserving private appropriation of
wealth and with it private property. Thus the tendency towards state
capitalism involved the partial negation of private property on the
basis of private property itself.
So at the limit, state capitalism could be seen as the âpartial negation
of capitalism on the basis of capitalism itselfâ. So long as the state
economy was run to exploit the working class in the interests of an
exploitative class then the economy remained state capitalist. However,
if the working class seized power and ran the state economy in the
interests of the people as whole then state capitalism would give way to
a workersâ state and the transition to socialism could begin. Thus state
capitalism was a turning point, it was the final swan song of
capitalism, but once the working class seized the state it would be the
basis for the transition to socialism.
However, it could be objected that many revolutionary Marxists,
including Trotsky himself, had explicitly denied that capitalism could
reach the limit of state capitalism. Indeed, against the reformists in
the Second International, who had argued that capitalism would naturally
evolve into state capitalism which could then be simply taken over by
democratically capturing the state, revolutionary Marxists had argued
that, while there was a tendency towards state capitalism, it could
never be fully realized in practice due to the rivalries between
capitalists and by the very threat of expropriation of the state by the
working class.
Cliff countered this by arguing that such arguments had only applied to
the case of the evolution of traditional capitalism into state
capitalism. In Russia there had been a revolution, that had expropriated
the capitalist class and introduced a workersâ state, and then a
counter-revolution, which had restored capitalism in the form of state
capitalism run in the interests of a new bureaucratic class. For Cliff,
the Russian Revolution had created a workersâ state, but, isolated by
the failure of socialist revolutions elsewhere in Europe, the workersâ
state had degenerated. With the degeneration of the workersâ state the
bureaucracy increasingly became separated from the working class until,
with Stalinâs ascendancy, it was able to constitute itself as a new
exploitative class and seize state power. With the bureaucracyâs seizure
of power the workersâ state was over-turned and state capitalism was
restored to Russia.
This periodization of post-revolutionary era in Russia not only allowed
Cliff to overcome the objection that Trotsky had denied the possibility
of bourgeois society fully realizing the tendency towards state
capitalism, but also allowed him to accept most of Trotskyâs analysis of
the Russian Revolution and its aftermath. Cliff only had to part ways
with Trotsky for the analysis of the ten years following 1928, where
Trotsky maintained that the USSR has remained a degenerated workersâ
state while Cliff argued that it had become state capitalist. Yet, as we
shall see, this periodization, despite all its advantages for Cliffâs
credibility as a Trotskyist, was to prove an important weak point in his
theory. But before looking at the weak points of Cliffâs theory of state
capitalism we must first examine more closely what Cliff saw as the
nature of state capitalism in Stalinâs Russia.
As we have seen, although Cliff uncritically defended the orthodox
Marxist definition of capitalism, he was able to counter the objections
that the USSR could not be in any sense capitalist because there was
neither the law of value nor private property, by arguing that state
capitalism was the âpartial negation of capitalism on the basis of
capitalism itselfâ. So what did he mean by âthe partial negation of
capitalismâ? Clearly capitalism could not be completely negated
otherwise it would not be capitalism; so in what sense is the negation
of capitalism partial? With Cliff the meaning of the partial negation of
capitalism becomes most evident in terms of the law of value.
Following Marx, Cliff argued that under capitalism there is a two-fold
division of labour. First of all there is the division of labour that
arises between capitalist enterprises which is regulated by the law of
value that operates through the âanarchy of the marketâ. Secondly there
is the division of labour that arises within each capitalist enterprise
which is directly determined by the rational and conscious dictates of
the capitalists or their managers. Of course the second division of
labour is subordinated to the law of value insofar as the capitalist
enterprise has to compete on the market. However, the law of value
appears as external to it.
For Cliff the USSR acted as if it was simply one huge capitalist
enterprise. As such the law of value no longer operated within the USSR,
it had been negated with the nationalization of production and the
introduction of comprehensive state planning. But, insofar as the USSR
was obliged to compete both economically and politically within the
capitalist world system it became subordinated to the law of value like
any capitalist enterprise. In this sense, for Cliff, the law of value
was only âpartially negated on the basis of the law of value itselfâ.
Yet, if neither market nor the law of value operated within the USSR
this implied that products were not really bought and sold within the
USSR as commodities, they were simply allocated and transferred in
accordance with administrative prices. If this was true then it also
implied that labour-power was not really a commodity; a conclusion that
Cliff was forced to accept. Indeed, as Cliff argued, if labour-power was
to be a commodity then the worker had to be free to sell it periodically
to the highest bidder. If the worker could only sell his ability to work
once and for all then he was little different from a slave since in
effect he sold himself not his labour-power. Yet in the USSR the worker
could only sell his labour-power to one employer, the state. Hence the
worker was not free to sell to the highest bidder and labour-power was
not really a commodity.
At first sight Cliff provides a convincing theory of state capitalism in
the USSR which not only remains firmly within the broad orthodox Marxist
tradition, but also preserves much of Trotskyâs contribution to this
tradition. As the post-war era unfolded leaving the Stalinist
bureaucracy more firmly entrenched than ever, Cliffâs analysis of the
USSR became increasingly attractive. Without the problems facing
orthodox Trotskyist groupings following the apparent failure of
Trotskyâs predictions of the fall of the Stalinist bureaucracy, Cliff,
under the slogan of âneither Washington nor Moscowâ, was in a perfect
position to attract supporters with the revival of interest in Leninism
and Trotskyism of the 1960s and 1970s. Indeed, with the International
Socialists Group, which then became the Socialist Workersâ Party, Cliff
has been able to build one of the largest Leninist groupings in Britain
whose most distinctive feature has been its refusal to takes sides in
the Cold War.[34]
However, despite the attractiveness of Cliffâs theory of state
capitalism in the USSR, on close inspection we find his theory has vital
weaknesses which have been seized on by more orthodox Trotskyists.
Indeed, these weaknesses are so serious that many have concluded that
Cliffâs theory is fatally flawed. This opinion has even been recognized
within the SWP itself and has resulted in various attempts to
reconstruct Cliffâs original theory.[35] As we shall argue, these flaws
in Cliffâs theory arise to a large extent from his determination to
avoid critical confrontation with both Trotsky and the broader orthodox
Marxist tradition.
There are three main flaws within Cliffâs theory of state capitalism in
the USSR. The first concerns Cliffâs insistence that the final
ascendancy of Stalin, and with this the introduction of the first five
year plan, marked a counter-revolution which overthrew the workersâ
state established by the October revolution and turned Russia over to
state capitalism. The issue of when the USSR became state capitalist is
clearly a sensitive one for Trotskyists since, if Cliff is unable to
hold the line at 1928, then what is to stop the date of the defeat of
the revolution being pushed right back to 1917? Lenin and Trotsky would
then be seen as leading a revolution that simply introduced state
capitalism into Russia! Such fears were clear expressed by Ted Grant in
his response to Cliffâs original presentation of his theory in The
Nature of Stalinist Russia. Then Ted Grant warned:
If comrade Cliffâs thesis is correct, that state capitalism exists in
Russia today, then he cannot avoid the conclusion that state capitalism
has been in existence since the Russian Revolution and the function of
the Revolution itself was to introduce this state capitalist system of
society. For despite his tortuous efforts to draw a line between the
economic basis of Russian society before the year 1928 and after, the
economic basis of Russian society has in fact remained unchanged. (Ted
Grant, The Unbroken Thread, p. 199)
The first line of attack that has been taken by orthodox Trotskyists has
been to argue that if there had been a counter-revolution against,
rather than from within, the revolution itself, which restored Russia to
capitalism, then the workersâ state would have to have been violently
smashed. Any attempt to argue for a gradual and peaceful restoration of
capitalism would, as Trotsky himself had said, simply be ârunning
backwards the film of revisionismâ.[36] Yet, despite the expulsions of
Trotsky and the United and Left Oppositions in 1928, the leadership of
the Party and the state remained largely intact. Indeed there seems more
of a continuity within the state before 1928 and afterwards rather than
any sharp break that would indicate a counter-revolution, let alone any
violent coup dâĂ©tat or violent counter-revolutionary action.
Cliff attempted to counter this line of attack by arguing that while it
is necessary for a proletarian revolution to smash the bourgeois state
in order to construct a new revolutionary proletarian state, it is not
necessarily the case that a counter-revolution has to smash an existing
workersâ state.[37] The example Cliff used was that of the army. In
order to create a workersâ state the bourgeois standing army has to be
transformed into a workersâ militia. But any such transformation
inevitably would be resisted by the officer corp. Such resistance would
have to be violently crushed. In contrast, the officers of a workersâ
militia may become increasingly independent to the point at which they
become part of the bureaucracy thereby transforming the workersâ militia
into a bourgeois standing army. Such a process, in which a workersâ
militia becomes transformed into a standing army, does not necessarily
meet any concerted resistance, and as a consequence may occur gradually.
Yet such an argument by itself fails to pin the counter-revolutionary
break on 1928. Indeed, Cliffâs example would seem to imply that the
counter-revolution was brought about by Trotsky himself when he took
charge of re-organizing the Red Army in 1918 on the lines of a
conventional standing army! The only overt political indication Cliff is
able to present for the bureaucratic counter-revolution is the Moscow
show trials and purges, which he claims were:
the civil war of the bureaucracy against the masses, a war in which only
one side was armed and organized. They witnessed the consummation of the
bureaucracyâs total liberation from popular control. (State Capitalism
in Russia, p. 195)
Yet the Moscow show trials occurred in the 1930s, not in 1928.
What was crucial about 1928 was that it was the year that marked the
beginning of the first five year plan and the bureaucracyâs commitment
to the rapid industrialization of Russia. For Cliff, by adopting the
overriding imperative of industrializing Russia, regardless of the human
cost this would involve, the Soviet bureaucracy had taken on the
historic role of the bourgeoisie. In adopting both the economic and
historic functions of the bourgeoisie the bureaucracy had transformed
itself into an exploitative class. Whereas before 1928 the bureaucracy
had simply been a privileged layer within a degenerated workersâ state
that was able to gain more than its fair share of the nationâs wealth,
after 1928 the bureaucracy became the state capitalists who collectively
exploited the working class.
Of course, it was not difficult for Cliff to show that there had been a
sharp decrease in the material conditions of the working class following
the introduction of the first five year plan as the bureaucracy sought
to make the proletariat pay the huge costs of the policy of rapid
industrialization. However, Cliffâs argument that this sharp decrease in
material conditions of the working class represented a qualitative shift
towards the exploitation of the working class by the bureaucracy was far
from convincing. If anything Cliffâs attempts to show a qualitative
shift in social relations of production only serve to indicate that
bureaucratic exploitation of the working class had existed before 1928.
Yet perhaps more devastating to the credibility of Cliffâs line of
argument among Trotskyists was that by suggesting that with the
imposition of the policy of rapid industrialization the bureaucracy had
finally transformed itself into an exploitative class, and in doing so
transformed Russia from a degenerated workersâ state into state
capitalism, Cliff was in effect attacking Trotsky! Had it not been the
main criticism advanced by Trotsky and the Left Opposition against
Stalin that he had not industrialized soon enough?! Was not the central
plank of Trotskyâs understanding of the Russian Revolution that the
productive forces had to be advanced as fast as possible if there was to
be any hope of socialism? If this was so, was not Cliff accusing Trotsky
of advocating state capitalism?! Ultimately Cliff is unable to
circumvent Trotskyâs intrinsic complicity with Stalin. As a consequence,
the failure to break with Trotskyism led to this vital flaw in Cliffâs
theory of state capitalism in Russia.
Yet this is not all. Cliffâs failure to critically confront orthodox
Marxism opened up another even more important weakness in his theory of
state capitalism which has been seized upon by his more orthodox
Trotskyist critics. This weakness stemmed from Cliffâs denial of the
operation of the law of value within the USSR.
As we have seen, for Cliff the USSR was constituted as if it was one
huge capitalist enterprise. As such there could be no operation of the
law of value internal to the USSR. However, as Marx pointed out, it is
only through the operation of the law of value that any capitalist
enterprise is constrained to act as capital. If there was no law of
value internal to the state economy of the USSR what made it act as if
it was a capitalist enterprise? The answer was the Soviet Unionâs
relation to world capitalism. It was through the competitive political
and economic relation to the rest of the capitalist world that the
Soviet Union was subordinated to the law of value, and it was through
this subordination to the law of value that the capitalist nature of the
USSR became expressed.
However, as Cliff recognized, the Soviet Union, with its huge natural
resources, had become largely self-sufficient. Foreign trade with the
rest of the world was minimal compared with the amount produced and
consumed within Russia itself. As a result Cliff could not argue that
the international law of value imposed itself on the Russian economy
through the necessity to compete on the world market. Instead, Cliff had
to argue that the law of value imposed itself indirectly on the USSR
through the necessity to compete politically with the major capitalist
and imperialist powers. In order to keep up with the arms race,
particularly with the emergence of the Cold War with the USA, the USSR
had to accumulate huge amounts of military hardware. This drive for
military accumulation led the drive for accumulation elsewhere in the
Russian economy. Indeed, this military competition could be seen to spur
capital accumulation, and with it the exploitation of the working class,
just as much, if not more so, than any economic competition from the
world market could have done.[38]
However, as Cliffâs Trotskyist critics point out, for Marx the law of
value does not impose itself through âcompetitionâ as such, but through
the competitive exchange of commodities. Indeed, it is only through the
exchange of commodities that value is formed, and hence it is only
through such exchange that the law of value can come to impose itself.
Military accumulation is not directly an accumulation of values but an
accumulation of use-values. In a capitalist economy such an accumulation
can become part of the overall process of the accumulation of value, and
hence of capital, insofar as it guarantees the accumulation of capital
in the future by protecting or else extending foreign markets. However,
in itself military accumulation is simply an accumulation of things, not
capital. So in capitalist countries military spending suppresses value
and the law of value temporarily in order to extend it later. Given that
the Soviet Union did not seek to expand value production through the
conquest of new markets, military production meant the permanent
suppression of value and the law of value in that it was simply the
production of use-values required to defend a system based on the
production of use-values.
For the more sophisticated Trotskyists, Cliffâs attempt to invoke
military competition as the means through which the USSR was
subordinated to the law of value exposed the fundamental theoretical
weakness of Cliffâs theory of state capitalism in Russia. The argument
put forward by Cliff that under state capitalism âthe accumulation of
value turns into its opposite the accumulation of use-valuesâ is nothing
but a sophistry which strips away the specific social forms that are
essential to define a particular mode of production such as capitalism.
As they correctly point out, capital is not a thing but a social
relation that gives rise to specific social forms. The fact that
military hardware is accumulated is in no way the same thing as the
accumulation of capital. Without the production of commodities there can
be no value and without value there can be no accumulation of capital.
But Cliff argues there is no production of commodities in the USSR,
particularly not in the military industries, since nothing is produced
for a market, thus there can be neither value nor capital.
This point can be further pressed home once Cliffâs critics turn to the
question of labour-power. For Marx the specific nature of any mode of
production was determined by both the manner and forms through which the
dominant class are able to extract surplus-labour from the direct
producers. Within the capitalist mode of production surplus-labour is
extracted from the direct producers by the purchase of the workerâs
labour-power as a commodity. As a consequence, surplus-labour is
expropriated in the form of surplus-value which is the difference
between the value of labour-power (i.e. the costs of reproducing the
workerâs ability to work) and the value the worker creates through
working. However, for Cliff, labour-power was not a commodity in the
USSR and was not therefore really sold. But if labour-power was not a
commodity it could not have a value, and hence any surplus-labour
extracted could not take the form of surplus-value. If surplus-labour
did not take the form of surplus-value how could the USSR be in any
sense capitalist in strict Marxist terms?!
The third fatal flaw in Cliffâs theory of state capitalism in Russia,
and one that arises from his commitment to orthodox Marxism, is the view
that state capitalism is the highest stage of capitalism. As we have
seen, it is central for Cliff that state capitalism was the highest
stage of capitalism since it was from this premise that he could claim
that state capitalism was at the point of transition from capitalism to
socialism. But if state capitalism is the highest stage of capitalism,
and if it is accepted that the USSR is state capitalist, then this would
seem to imply that, in some fundamental sense, the USSR should be in
advance of Western capitalism. Of course, this may have seemed
reasonable in the late 1940s. After all, under Stalin the USSR had made
an unprecedented leap forward with the rapid industrialization of
Russia, and it seemed that the Soviet Union was set to out-perform most
of capitalist economies in the West in the post-war era. However, in the
following decades the economic stagnation and economic waste of the
âSoviet systemâ became increasingly apparent, culminating with the
collapse of the USSR in 1990. This, combined with the globalization of
capital, which has seriously undermined the efficacy of state
intervention in Western capitalism, has meant that the notion that
capitalism is tending towards state capitalism is now far less
convincing than it was fifty years ago. As we shall see in the next
issue, although Cliff did develop a theory to explain the economic
stagnation in the Soviet Union it proved insufficient to explain the
final crisis and collapse of the USSR. This point has been taken up with
relish by Cliffâs more orthodox critics, who now feel vindicated that
the Stalinist system has proved ephemeral and, as Trotsky predicted,
capitalism has been restored, albeit after some delay.
So, despite its practical appeal during the post-war era, Cliffâs theory
of state capitalism in Russia was theoretically, at least for orthodox
Trotskyists, fatally flawed. Indeed, for the more sophisticated
Trotskyists Cliffâs theory is usually dismissed with little more ado,
and then presented as an example of the weakness of all theories of
state capitalism. But Cliffâs theory of state capitalism in the USSR is
by no means the original or foremost one, although it is perhaps the
most well known. In the next issue we shall begin by considering other
theories of state capitalism in the USSR that have arisen amongst the
left communists before turning to examine Ticktinâs efforts to go beyond
both the theory of Russia as a degenerated workersâ state and state
capitalist theories.
Having disposed of the theory of the USSR as a 'degenerated workers'
state', Ticktin's theory presents itself as the most persuasive
alternative to the understanding of the USSR as capitalist.
Its strength is its attention to the empirical reality of the USSR and
its consideration of the specific forms of class struggle it was subject
to. However, while we acknowledge that the USSR must be understood as a
malfunctioning system, we argue that, because Ticktin doesn't relate his
categories of 'political economy' to the class struggle, he fails to
grasp the capitalist nature of the USSR.
Here we present the second part of our article âWhat was the USSR?â. In
our last issue, we dealt with Trotskyâs theory that it was a
âdegenerated workersâ stateâ, and the best known theory of state
capitalism which has emerged within Trotskyism â that of Tony Cliff. Our
original intention was to follow that up by dealing with both the less
well-known theories of state capitalism developed by the left communists
and with Hillel Ticktinâs theory that sees itself as going beyond both
Trotskyâs theory and the state capitalist alternative. Due to
foreseeable circumstances totally within our control, we have been
unable to do this. Therefore we have decided not to combine these
sections, and instead here complete the trajectory of Trotskyism with an
account and critique of Ticktinâs theory, and put off our treatment of
the left communists till our next issue. However, this effective
extension of the articleâs length leads us to answer some questions
readers may have. It can be asked: Why bother giving such an extended
treatment to this question? Isnât the Russian Revolution and the regime
that emerged from it now merely of historical interest? Shouldnât we be
writing about what is going on in Russia now? One response would be to
say that it is not possible to understand what is happening in Russia
now without grasping the history of the USSR. But, while that is true to
an extent, the detail we are choosing to give this issue does deserve
more explanation.
As Loren Goldner puts it, in a very interesting article published in
1991:
Into the mid-1970s, the âRussian questionâ and its implications was the
inescapable âparadigmâ of political perspective on the left, in Europe
and the U.S. and yet 15 years later seems like such ancient history.
This was a political milieu where the minute study of the month-to-month
history of the Russian Revolution and the Comintern from 1917â1928
seemed the key to the universe as a whole. If someone said they believed
that the Russian Revolution had been defeated in 1919, 1921, 1923, 1927,
or 1936, or 1953, one had a pretty good sense of what they would think
on just about every other political question in the world: the nature of
the Soviet Union, of China, the nature of the world CPs, the nature of
Social Democracy, the nature of trade unions, the United Front, the
Popular Front, national liberation movements, aesthetics and philosophy,
the relationship of party and class, the significance of soviets and
workersâ councils, and whether Luxemburg or Bukharin was right about
imperialism.[39]
However, that period seems to be at a close. It seems clear that the
Russian Revolution and the arguments around it will not have the same
significance for those becoming involved in the revolutionary project
now as it did for previous generations.
Posing the issue slightly differently, Camatte wrote in 1972: âThe
Russian Revolution and its involution are indeed some of the greatest
events of our century. Thanks to them, a horde of thinkers, writers and
politicians are not unemployed.â[40] Camatte usefully then draws
attention to the way that the production of theories on the USSR has
very often served purposes quite opposed to that of clarification of the
question. To be acknowledged as a proper political group or â as Camatte
would say â gang, it was seen as an essential requirement to have a
distinctive position or theory on the Soviet Union. But if Camatte
expressed reluctance to âplace some new goods on the over-saturated
marketâ, he nonetheless and justifiably thought it worthwhile to do so.
But is our purpose as clear? For revolutionaries, hasnât the position
that the Soviet Union was (state-) capitalist and opposed to human
liberation become fairly basic since â68? Havenât theories like
Trotskyâs that gave critical support to the Soviet Union been
comprehensively exposed? Well, yes and no. To simply assert that the
USSR was another form of capitalism and that little more need be said is
not convincing.
Around the same time as Camatteâs comments, the Trotskyist academic
Hillel Ticktin began to develop a theory of the nature and crisis of the
Soviet system which has come to hold a significant status and
influence.[41] Ticktinâs theory, with its attention to the empirical
reality of the USSR and its consideration of the specific forms of class
struggle it was subject to, is certainly the most persuasive alternative
to the understanding of the USSR as capitalist. But again it can be
asked who really cares about this issue? Ultimately we are writing for
ourselves, answering questions we feel important. To many it seems
intuitively the politically revolutionary position â to say the Soviet
Union was (state) capitalist and that is enough. Weâd contend, however,
that a position appears to be revolutionary does not make it true, while
what is true will show itself to be revolutionary. For us, to know that
Russia was exploitative and opposed to human liberation and to call it
capitalist to make oneâs condemnation clear is not enough. The
importance of Marxâs critique of political economy is not just that it
condemns capitalism, but that it understands it better than the
bourgeoisie and explains it better than moralistic forms of criticism.
The events in Russia at the moment, which reflect a profound failure to
turn it into an area for the successful accumulation of value, show that
in some ways the question of the USSR is not over. In dealing with this
issue we are not attempting to provide the final definitive solution to
the Russian question. Theory â the search for practical truth â is not
something that once arrived at is given from then on; it must always be
renewed or it becomes ideology.
In Part I we gave a lengthy treatment of what has probably been the best
known critical theory of the Soviet Union: Leon Trotskyâs theory of the
âdegenerated workersâ stateâ. While critical of the privileges of the
Stalinist bureaucracy, lack of freedom and workersâ democracy, Trotsky
took the view that the formal property relations of the USSR â i.e. that
the means of production were not private property but the property of a
workersâ state â meant that the USSR could not be seen as being
capitalist, but was instead a transitory regime caught between
capitalism and socialism which had degenerated. It followed from this
that, for Trotsky, despite all its faults and monstrous distortions, the
Soviet Union was ultimately progressive. As such, the Soviet Union was a
decisive advance over capitalism which, by preserving the proletarian
gains of the October Revolution, had to be defended against the military
and ideological attacks of the great capitalist powers.
However, as we saw, for Trotsky the Soviet Unionâs predicament could not
for last long. Either the Russian working class would rise up and
reassert control over their state through a political revolution which
would depose the bureaucracy, or else the bureaucracy would seek to
preserve its precarious position of power by reintroducing private
property relations and restoring capitalism in Russia. Either way, for
Trotsky, the rather peculiar historical situation in which Russian
society found itself, stuck half-way between capitalism and socialism,
could only be a fleeting phenomena. Indeed, Trotsky believed that this
situation would be resolved one way or another in the immediate
aftermath of the second world war.
Yet, as we now know, Trotskyâs prediction that the Soviet Union would
soon be either overthrown by a workersâ revolution or else revert back
to capitalism with the bureaucracy converting itself into a new Russian
bourgeoisie failed to come about. Instead the USSR persisted for another
forty years rendering Trotskyâs theory increasingly untenable. As a
consequence many Trotskyists were led to break from the orthodox
Trotskyist position regarding Russia to argue that the USSR was state
capitalist. In Britain the main debate on the nature of Russia arose
between orthodox Trotskyismâs âdegenerated workersâ stateâ and the
neo-Trotskyist version of state capitalism developed by Tony Cliff. As
we pointed out in Part I, while the orthodox Trotskyist account
obviously had big problems, this alternative theory of state capitalism
had three vital weaknesses: 1) Cliffâs attempt to make the point of
counter-revolution and the introduction of state capitalism coincide
with Stalinâs first five year plan (and Trotskyâs exile); 2) his denial
that the law of value operated within the USSR; and 3) his orthodox
Marxist insistence that state capitalism was the highest stage of
capitalism which implied that the USSR was more advanced than Western
capitalism.[42]
As a result, throughout the post-war era, orthodox Trotskyists were able
dogmatically to defend Trotskyâs theory of the USSR as a degenerated
workersâ state; they were content that, while the rival state capitalist
theory may appear more politically intuitive, their own was more
theoretically coherent. Indeed, with the collapse of the Soviet Union in
1990, many Trotskyists felt vindicated in that Trotskyâs predictions of
the possible restoration of capitalism now seemed to have been proved
correct, albeit rather belatedly.[43]
However, there have been a few more sophisticated Trotskyists who, in
recognizing the inadequacies of the theory of the USSR as a degenerated
workersâ state, have sought to develop new conceptions of what the USSR
was and how it came to collapse. One of the most prominent of these has
been Hillel Ticktin.
By the 1970s, the chronic economic stagnation and gross economic
inefficiencies of Brezhnevâs Russia had become widely recognized. Few
âsovietologistsâ were not now sceptical of the production figures pumped
out by the Soviet authorities; and everyone was aware of the long queues
for basic necessities and the economic absurdities that seemed to
characterize the USSR.
Of course, Trotsky himself had argued that, in the absence of workersâ
democracy, centralized state planning would lead to waste and economic
inefficiency. Yet, for Trotsky, it had been clear that, despite such
inefficiencies, bureaucratic planning would necessarily be superior to
the anarchy of the market. Yet it was now becoming apparent that the
gross inefficiencies and stagnation of the economy of the USSR were of
such a scale compared with economic performance in the West that its
economic and social system could no longer be considered as being
superior to free market capitalism.
In response to these perceptions of the USSR, orthodox Trotskyists,
while accepting the inefficiencies of bureaucratic planning, could only
argue that the reports of the economic situation in the Soviet Union
were exaggerated and obscured its real and lasting achievements. Yet it
was a line that not all Trotskyists found easy to defend.
As an academic Marxist specializing in the field of Russian and East
European studies, Ticktin could not ignore the critical analyses of the
Soviet Union being developed by both liberal and conservative
âsovietologistsâ. In the face of the mounting evidence of the dire state
of the Russian economy it was therefore perhaps not so easy for Ticktin
to simply defend the standard Trotskyist line. As a result Ticktin came
to reject the orthodox Trotskyist theory of the USSR as a degenerated
workersâ state and the notion that the Soviet Union was objectively
progressive that this theory implied.
However, while he rejected the theory of the USSR as a degenerated
workersâ state, Ticktin refused to accept the notion that the USSR was
state capitalist. Immersed in the peculiarities of the Soviet Union,
Ticktin maintained the orthodox Trotskyist position that state
capitalist theories simply projected the categories of capitalism onto
the USSR. Indeed, for Ticktin the failure of all Marxist theories of the
Soviet Union was that they did not develop out of the empirical
realities of the USSR. For Ticktin the task was to develop a Marxist
theory of the USSR that was able to grasp the historical peculiarities
of the Soviet Union without falling foul of the shallow empiricism of
most bourgeois theories of the USSR.
However, in rejecting Trotskyâs theory of the USSR as a degenerated
workersâ state Ticktin was obliged to undertake a major re-evaluation of
Trotsky. After all, alongside his theory of permanent revolution and
uneven and combined development, Trotskyâs theory of the degenerated
workersâ state had been seen as central to both Trotsky and Trotskyism.
As Cliffâs adoption of a theory of state capitalism had shown, a
rejection of the theory of a degenerated workersâ state could prove
problematic for anyone who sought to maintain a consistent Trotskyist
position. However, as we shall see, through both his re-evaluation of
Trotsky and the development of his theory of the USSR, Ticktin has been
able to offer a reconstructed Trotskyism that, by freeing it from its
critical support for the Soviet Union, has cut the umbilical cord with a
declining Stalinism, providing the opportunity for a new lease of life
for Leninism in the post-Stalinist era.[44]
For orthodox Trotskyism, the theory of the USSR as a degenerated
workersâ state stood alongside both the theory of combined and uneven
development and the theory of permanent revolution as one of the central
pillars of Trotskyâs thought. For Ticktin, however, the key to
understanding Trotskyâs ideas was the notion of the transitional epoch.
Indeed, for Ticktin, the notion of the transitional epoch was the
keystone that held the entire structure of Trotskyâs thought together,
and it was only by fully grasping this notion that his various theories
could be adequately understood.
Of course, the notion that capitalism had entered its final stage and
was on the verge of giving way to socialism had been commonplace amongst
Marxists at the beginning of this century. Indeed, it had been widely
accepted by most leading theoreticians of the Second International that,
with the emergence of monopoly capitalism in the 1870s, the era of
classical capitalism studied by Marx had come to an end. As a result the
contradictions between the socialization of production and the private
appropriation of wealth were becoming ever more acute and could be only
be resolved through the working class coming to power and creating a new
socialist society.
Faced with the horrors and sheer barbarity of the first world war, many
Marxists had come to the conclusion that capitalism had entered its
final stage and was in decline. While nineteenth century capitalism,
despite all its faults, had at least served to develop the forces of
production at an unprecedented rate, capitalism now seemed to offer only
chronic economic stagnation and total war. As capitalism entered its
final stage the fundamental question could only be âwar or revolutionâ,
âsocialism or barbarismâ.[45]
Yet while many Marxists had come to the conclusion that the first world
war heralded the era of the transition from capitalism to socialism,
Ticktin argues that it was Trotsky who went furthest in drawing out both
the theoretical and political implications of this notion of the
transitional epoch. Thus, whereas most Marxists had seen the question of
transition principally in terms of particular nation-states, Trotsky
emphasized capitalism as a world system. For Trotsky, it was capitalism
as a world system that, with the first world war, had entered the
transitional epoch. From this global perspective there was not some
predetermined line of capitalist development which each nation-state had
to pass through before it reached the threshold of socialism. On the
contrary the development of more backward economies was conditioned by
the development of the more advanced nations.
It was to explain how the development of the backward nations of the
world were radically reshaped by the existence of more advanced nations
that Trotsky developed his theory of combined and uneven development. It
was then, on the basis of this theory of combined and uneven
development, that Trotsky could come to the conclusion that the
contradictions of the transitional epoch would become most acute, not in
the most advanced capitalist economies as most Marxists had assumed, but
in the more backward nations such as Russia that had yet to make the
full transition to capitalism. It was this conclusion that then formed
the basis of Trotskyâs theory of permanent revolution in which Trotsky
had argued that in a backward country such as Russia it would be
necessary for any bourgeois revolution to develop at once into a
proletarian revolution.
Thus, whereas most Marxists had assumed the revolution would break out
in the most advanced capitalist nations and, by destroying imperialism,
would spread to the rest of the world, Trotsky, through his notion of
the transitional epoch, had come to the conclusion that the revolution
was more likely to break out in the more backward nations. Yet Trotsky
had insisted that any such proletarian revolution could only be
successful if it served to spark proletarian revolution in the more
advanced nations. Without the aid of revolutions in these more advanced
nations any proletarian revolution in a backward country could only
degenerate.
Hence Trotsky was later able to explain the degeneration of the Russian
Revolution. The failure of the revolutionary movements that swept across
Europe following the end of the first world war had left the Russian
Revolution isolated. Trapped within its own economic and cultural
backwardness and surrounded by hostile capitalist powers, the Russian
workersâ state could only degenerate. With this then we have the basis
of Trotskyâs theory of the USSR as a degenerated workersâ state.
Yet the importance of Trotskyâs notion of transitional epoch was not
only that it allowed Trotsky to grasp the problems of transition on a
world scale, but also that it implied the possibility that this
transition could be a prolonged process. If proletarian revolutions were
more likely at first to break out in less advanced countries it was
possible that there could be several such revolutions before the
contradictions within the more advanced nations reached such a point to
ensure that such revolutionary outbreaks would lead to a world
revolution. Further, as happened with the Russian Revolution, the
isolation and subsequent degeneration of proletarian revolutions in the
periphery could then serve to discredit and thereby retard the
revolutionary process in the more advanced capitalist nations.
However, Ticktin argues that Trotsky failed to draw out such
implications of his notion of the transitional epoch. As a result
Trotsky severely underestimated the capacity of both social democracy
and Stalinism in forestalling world revolution and the global transition
to socialism. Armed with the hindsight of the post-war era, Ticktin has
sought to overcome this failing in the thought of his great teacher.
For Ticktin then, the first world war indeed marked the beginning of the
transitional epoch,[46] an epoch in which there can be seen a growing
struggle between the law of value and the immanent law of planning. With
the Russian Revolution, and the revolutionary wave that swept Europe
from 1918â24, the first attempt was made to overthrow capitalism on a
world scale. With the defeat of the revolutionary wave in Europe and the
degeneration of the Russian Revolution, capitalism found the means to
prolong itself. In the more advanced capitalist nations, under the
banner of social democracy, a combination of concessions to the working
class and the nationalization of large sections of industry allowed
capitalism to contain the sharpening social conflicts brought about by
the heightening of its fundamental contradiction between the
socialization of production and the private appropriation of wealth.
Yet these very means to prevent communism have only served to undermine
capitalism in the longer term. Concessions to the working class, for
example the development of a welfare state, and the nationalization of
large sections of industry have served to restrict and, as Radical
Chains put it, âpartially suspendâ the operation of the law of
value.[47] With its basic regulatory principle â the law of value â
being progressively made non-operational, capitalism is ultimately
doomed. For Ticktin, even the more recent attempts by Thatcher and
âneo-liberalismâ to reverse social democracy and re-impose the law of
value over the last two decades can only be short lived. The clearest
expression of this is the huge growth of parasitical finance capital
whose growth can ultimately only be at the expense of development truly
productive industrial capital.
As for Russia, Ticktin accepts Trotskyâs position that the Russian
Revolution overthrew capitalism and established a workersâ state, and
that with the failure of the revolutionary wave the Russian workersâ
state had degenerated. However, unlike Trotsky, Ticktin argues that with
the triumph of Stalin in the 1930s the USSR ceased to be a workersâ
state. With Stalin the bureaucratic elite had taken power. Yet, unable
to move back to capitalism without confronting the power of the Russian
working class, and unable and unwilling to move forward socialism since
this would undermine the eliteâs power and privileges, the USSR became
stuck half-way between capitalism and socialism.
As a system that was nether fish nor foul â neither capitalism or
socialism â the USSR was an unviable system. A system that could only
preserve the gains of the October Revolution by petrifying them; and it
was a system that could only preserve itself through the terror of the
Gulag and the secret police.
Yet it was such a monstrous system that presented itself as being
socialist and demanded the allegiance of large sections of the worldâs
working class. As such it came to discredit socialism, and, through the
dominance of Stalinism, cripple the revolutionary working class movement
throughout the world for more than five decades. Thus, although the USSR
served to restrict the international operation of the law of value by
removing millions from the world market, particularly following the
formation of the Eastern bloc and the Chinese Revolution, it also served
to prolong the transitional epoch and the survival of capitalism.
By drawing out Trotskyâs conception of the transitional epoch in this
way, Tictkin attempted finally to cut the umbilical between Trotskyism
and a declining Stalinism. Ticktin is thereby able to offer a
reconstructed Trotskyism that is free to denounce unequivocally both
Stalinism and the USSR. As we shall now see, in doing so Ticktin is led
to both exalt Trotskyâs theoretical capacities and pinpoint his
theoretical weaknesses.
Following Leninâs death, and with the rise of Leninâs personality cult,
Trotsky had endeavoured to play down the differences between himself and
Lenin. As a consequence, orthodox Trotskyists, ever faithful to the word
of Trotsky, had always sought to minimize the theoretical differences
between Lenin and Trotsky. For them Trotsky was merely the true heir to
Lenin.
However, by focusing on Trotskyâs key conception of the transitional
epoch, Ticktin is able cast new light on the significance of Trotskyâs
thought as a whole. For Ticktin, although he may well have been more
politically adept than Trotsky, Leninâs overriding concern with
immediate Russian affairs constrained the development of his theoretical
thought at crucial points. In contrast, for Ticktin, the sheer
cosmopolitan breadth of Trotskyâs concerns in many respects placed
Trotsky above Lenin with regards to theoretical analysis.
But raising the standing of Trotsky as a theorist only serves to
underline an important question for Ticktinâs understanding of Trotsky.
If Trotsky was so intellectually brilliant why did he persist in
defending the USSR as a degenerated workersâ state long after lesser
intellects had recognized that such a position was untenable? To answer
this Ticktin puts forward several explanations.
First of all Ticktin argues that Trotsky made the mistake of regarding
Stalin as a âcentristâ.[48] Throughout the period of the New Economic
Policy (NEP) what Trotsky feared more than anything was the restoration
of capitalism through the emergence of a new class of capitalist farmers
and middlemen. For Trotsky at this time, Stalin, and the bureaucratic
forces that he represented, was a bulwark against danger of capitalist
restoration. He was a lesser of two evils. Thus Trotsky had always ended
up deferring to Stalin rather than risk the triumph of the Right. It was
this attitude towards Stalin as a centrist that was carried through in
Trotskyâs perception of Stalinâs Russia throughout the 1930s.
While this immediate political orientation might explain the origin of
Trotskyâs position with regard to Stalinâs Russia of the 1930s it does
not explain why he persisted with it. To explain this Ticktin points to
the circumstances Trotsky found himself in. Ticktin argues that with his
exile from the USSR Trotsky found himself isolated. Being removed from
the centre of political and theoretical activity and dulled by ill
health and old age the sharpness of Trotskyâs thought began to suffer.
As a result, in the final few years of his life Trotsky could only cling
to the positions that he had developed up as far as the early 1930s.
The decline of Trotskyâs thought was further compounded by the weakness
of rival theories of the USSR with the Trotskyist movement. As we saw in
Part I, Trotsky was easily able to shoot down the theory originally put
forward by Bruno Rizzi, and later taken up by the minority faction
within the American SWP, which argued that the USSR was a new mode of
production that could be described as bureaucratic collectivism. The
ease with which Trotsky was able to dismiss such rival theories of the
nature of the USSR as being unMarxist meant that he was not obliged
seriously to reconsider his own position on the Soviet Union.
Yet, as Ticktin recognizes, while such circumstantial explanations as
old age, exile and lack of credible alternatives may have contributed to
an understanding of why Trotsky failed to radically revise his theory of
the nature of Stalinâs Russia they are far from constituting a
sufficient explanation in themselves. For Ticktin there is a fundamental
theoretical explanation for Trotskyâs failure to develop his theory of
the USSR at this time which arises due Trotskyâs relation to
Preobrazhensky.
For Ticktin, the fundamental obstacle which prevented Trotsky from
developing his critique of the USSR is to be found in the very origins
of this critique. As we saw in Part I, Trotskyâs theory of the USSR as a
degenerated workersâ state originated from earlier criticisms of the
Party leadership and the NEP that had been advanced by the Left
Opposition during the 1920s. In advancing these criticisms, there had
been a distinct division of labour. Trotsky, as the sole member of the
Left Opposition within the Politburo, had concentrated on the broad
political issues and detailed questions of policy. Preobrazhensky, on
the other hand, had been left to set out the âeconomicsâ which underlay
these political and policy positions of the Left Opposition.
As we saw in Part I, Preobrazhensky had sought to develop a political
economy for the period of the transition of Russia from capitalism to
socialism in terms of the struggle between the two regulating mechanisms
of capitalism and socialism that had been identified by the classical
Marxism of the Second International. For the orthodox Marxism of the
Second International, the basic regulating principle of capitalism was
the blind operation of the âlaw of valueâ. In contrast, the basic
regulating principle of socialism was to be conscious planning. Form
this Preobrazhensky had argued that during the period of transition from
capitalism to socialism these two principles of economic organization
would necessary co-exist and as such would be in conflict with each
other.
However, for Preobrazhensky, in the relatively backward conditions
prevailing in Russia there was no guarantee that the principle of
planning would prevail over the law of value on purely economic grounds.
Hence, for Preobrazhensky, it was necessary for the proletarian state to
actively intervene in order to accelerate accumulation in those sectors
of the economy, such as state industry, where the principle of planning
predominated at the expense of those sectors, such as peasant
agriculture, where the law of value still held sway. It was this theory
of âprimitive socialist accumulationâ which had underpinned the Left
Oppositionâs criticisms of the NEP and their advocacy of an alternative
policy of rapid industrialization.
When Stalin finally abandoned the NEP in favour of centralized planning
embodied in the five year plans many members of the Left Opposition,
including Preobrazhensky himself, took the view that the Party
leadership had finally, if rather belatedly, come round to their
position of rapid industrialization. As a consequence, Preobrazhensky
along with other former members of the Left Opposition fully embraced
Stalinâs new turn and fell in line with leadership of the Party.
Trotsky, on the other, maintained a far more critical attitude to
Stalinâs new turn.
Of course, even if he had wanted to, Trotsky was in no position to fall
in behind Stalin and the leadership of the Party. Trotsky was too much
of an enemy and rival to Stalin for that. However, Trotskyâs broader
political perspective allowed him to maintain and develop a critique of
Stalinâs Russia. While Trotsky welcomed Stalinâs adoption of a policy of
centralized planning and rapid industrialization he argued that it was
too long delayed. The sudden zig-zags of policy from one extreme
position to another were for Trotsky symptomatic of the
bureaucratization of the state and Party and indicated the degeneration
of Russia as a workersâ state.
Through such criticisms Trotsky came to formulate his theory of the USSR
as a degenerated workersâ state. Yet while Trotsky was able to develop
his critique of the new Stalinist regime in political terms, that is as
the political domination of a distinct bureaucratic caste that had taken
over the workersâ state, he failed to reconsider the political economy
of Stalinâs Russia. In accordance with the old division of labour
between himself and Preobrazhensky, Trotsky implicitly remained content
with the political economy of transition that had been advanced in the
1920s by Preobrazhensky.
For Ticktin it was this failure to develop Preobrazhenskyâs political
economy of transition in the light of Stalinâs Russia that proved to be
the Achillesâ heel of Trotskyâs theory of the USSR as a degenerated
workersâ state. Of course, given that Trotsky could at the time
reasonably expect the USSR to be a short-lived phenomenon he could
perhaps be excused from neglecting the long and arduous task of
developing a political economy of the USSR. For Ticktin, his followers
have had no such excuse. As we shall now see, for Ticktin the central
task in developing Trotskyâs analysis of the nature of the Soviet Union
has been to develop a political economy of the USSR.
So, for Ticktin, the Achillesâ heel of Trotskyâs theory of the USSR as a
degenerated workersâ state was his failure to develop a political
economy of Stalinist Russia. Yet, at the same time, Ticktin rejected the
notion that the USSR was in any way capitalist. For him, Trotsky had
been correct in seeing the October revolution, and the subsequent
nationalization of the means of production under a workersâ state, as a
decisive break from capitalism. As such any attempt to develop a
political economy of the USSR could not simply apply the categories
developed by Marx in his critique of capitalism since the USSR had
ceased to be capitalist. Instead it was necessary to develop a new
political economy of the USSR as a specific social and economic system.
Ticktin began his attempt to develop such a political economy of the
USSR in 1973 with an article entitled âTowards a political economy of
the USSRâ which was published in the first issue of Critique. This was
followed by a series of articles and polemics in subsequent issues of
Critique and culminated, 19 years later, with his Origins of the Crisis
in the USSR: Essays on the Political Economy of a Disintegrating System.
Although Ticktinâs work undoubtedly provides important insights into
what the USSR was and the causes of its crisis and eventual collapse â
and as such provides an important challenge to any alternative theory of
the USSR â after all these years he fails to provide a systematic
political economy of the USSR. As the subtitle to Origins of the Crisis
in the USSR indicates, his attempt to develop a political economy of the
USSR was overtaken by events and all we are left with is a series of
essays which seek to link his various attempts to develop a political
economy of the USSR with an explanation of the Soviet Unionâs eventual
demise.
As we shall argue, this failure to develop a systematic presentation of
a political economy of the USSR was no accident. For us it was a failure
rooted in his very premise of his analysis which he derives from
Trotsky. Yet before considering such an argument we must first of all
briefly review Ticktinâs attempt to develop a political economy of the
USSR.
The task facing Ticktin of developing a Marxist political economy of the
USSR was not as straightforward as it may seem. What is political
economy? For Marx, political economy was the bourgeois science par
excellence. It was the science that grew up with the capitalist mode of
production in order to explain and justify it as a natural and objective
social and economic system. When Marx came to write Capital he did not
aim to write yet another treatise on political economy of capitalism â
numerous bourgeois writers had done this already â but rather he sought
to develop a critique of political economy.
However, even if we admit that in order to make his critique of
political economy Marx had to develop and complete bourgeois political
economy, the problem remains of how far can a political economy be
constructed for a mode of production other than capitalism? After all it
is only with the rise capitalism, where the social relations come to
manifest themselves as relations between things, that the political
economy as an objective science becomes fully possible. But this is not
all. Ticktin is not merely seeking to develop a political economy for a
mode of production other than capitalism but for system in transition
from one mode of production to another â indeed for a system that
Ticktin himself comes to conclude is a ânon-mode of productionâ!
Unfortunately Ticktin not only side-steps all these preliminary
questions, but he also fails to address the most important
methodological questions of how to begin and how to proceed with his
proposed âpolitical economyâ of the USSR. Instead he adopts a rather
heuristic approach, adopting various points of departure to see how far
he can go. It is only when these reach a dead end that we find Ticktin
appealing to questions of method. As a result we find a number of false
starts that Ticktin then seeks to draw together. Let us begin by briefly
examine some of these false starts.
In Origins of the Crisis in the USSR, Ticktin begins with an analysis of
the three main groups and classes that could be identified within the
USSR: namely, the elite, the Intelligentsia and the working class.
Through this analysis Ticktin is then able to develop a framework
through which to understand the social and political forces lying behind
the policies of Glasnost and Perestroika pursued in the final years of
the USSRâs decline. Yet, despite the usefulness such class analysis may
have in explaining certain political developments within the USSR, it
does not itself amount to a âpolitical economy of the USSRâ. Indeed, if
we take Marxâs Capital as a âmodel of a political economyâ, as Ticktin
surely does, then it is clear that class analysis must be a result of a
political economy not its premise.[49]
If âclassâ proves to be a non-starter in developing a political economy
of the USSR then a more promising starting point may appear to be an
analysis of the fundamental laws through which it was regulated. Of
course, as we have seen, this was the approach that had been pioneered
by Preobrazhensky and adopted by Trotsky and the Left Opposition in the
1920s. Preobrazhensky had argued that the nature of the transition from
capitalism to socialism had to be grasped in terms of the conflict
between the two regulating mechanism of capitalism and socialism: that
is between the law of value and the law of planning. Indeed, as we have
also seen, one of Ticktinâs most important criticisms of Trotsky was his
failure to develop Preobrazhenskyâs political economy of the Soviet
Union after the triumph of Stalin in the early 1930s.
It is not surprising then that we find Ticktin repeatedly returning to
this line of approach in his various attempts to develop a political
economy of the USSR. Ticktin proceeds by arguing that Preobrazhenskyâs
theory was correct for Russia up until the collectivization of
agriculture and the first five year plan. Up until then there had
existed a large market-oriented peasant agricultural sector alongside a
state-owned and planned industrial sector (although even this was still
based on quasi-autonomous enterprises run on a âprofit and lossâ
criteria). As such, the âlaw of planningâ[50] and the law of value
co-existed as distinct regulating mechanisms â although they both
conflicted and conditioned each other through the relations both between
and within the industrial and the agricultural sectors of the economy.
With the abolition of peasant agriculture through forced
collectivization, and the introduction of comprehensive central planning
geared towards the rapid industrialization of Russia, the two laws could
no longer co-exist as distinct regulatory mechanisms that predominated
in different sectors of the economy. The two laws âinterpenetratedâ each
other, preventing each otherâs proper functioning. As a result there
emerged under Stalin a system based neither on the law of value nor on
the law of planning. Indeed, for Ticktin these laws degenerated, the law
of planning giving rise to the âlaw of organizationâ and the law of
value giving rise to the âlaw of self-interest of the individual unitâ.
Yet it soon becomes clear that as the number of laws in Ticktinâs
analysis proliferate their explanatory power diminishes. In the Origins
of the Crisis in the USSR, where he pursues this line of argument the
furthest, Ticktin is eventually obliged to ask the question what he
means by a âlawâ. He answers that a law is the movement between tow
poles of a contradiction but he does not then go on consider the ground
of these contradictions.
Perhaps Ticktinâs most promising point of departure is that of the
problem of the endemic waste that was so apparent even for the least
critical of observers of the USSR. This became most clearly evident in
the stark contrast between the increasing amounts the Soviet economy was
able to produce and the continued shortages of even the most basic
consumer goods in the shops.
Following the rapid industrialization of the USSR under Stalin the
Soviet Union could boast that it could rival any country in the world in
terms of absolute levels of production of industrial products. This was
particularly true for heavy and basic industries. Russiaâs production of
such products as coal, iron, steel, concrete and so forth had grown
enormously in merely a few decades. Yet alongside such colossal advances
in the quantity of goods produced, which had accompanied the startling
transformation of Russia from a predominantly peasant society into an
industrialized economy, the standard of living for most people had grown
very slowly. Despite repeated attempts to give greater priority to the
production in consumer industries from the 1950s onwards, the vast
majority of the population continued to face acute shortages of basic
consumer goods right up until the demise of the USSR.
So while the apologists of the USSR could triumphantly greet the
publication of each record-breaking production figure, their critics
merely pointed to the lengthy shopping queues and empty shops evident to
any visitor to Russia. What then explained this huge gap between
production and consumption? For Ticktin, as for many other theorists of
the USSR, the reason clearly lay in the huge waste endemic to the
Russian economic system.
Although Russian industry was able to produce in great quantities, much
of this production was substandard. Indeed a significant proportion of
what was produced was so substandard as to be useless. This problem of
defective production became further compounded since, in an economy as
integrated and self-contained as the USSR, the outputs of each industry
in the industrial chain of production became the inputs of tools,
machinery or raw materials for subsequent industries in the chain.
Indeed. in many industries more labour had to be devoted to repairing
defective tools, machinery and output than in actual production!
As a result, waste swallowed up ever increasing amounts of labour and
resources. This, together with the great resistance to the introduction
of new technology and production methods in existing factories, meant
that huge amounts of labour and resources had to be invested in heavy
industry in order to provide the inputs necessary to allow just a small
increase in the output of consumer goods at the end of the industrial
chain of production.
Taking this phenomenon of âwasteâ, Ticktin sought to find a point of
departure for a political economy of the USSR analogous to that which is
found in the opening chapter of Marxâs Capital. In Capital Marx begins
with the immediate appearance of the capitalist mode of production in
which wealth appears as an âimmense accumulation of commoditiesâ. Marx
then analysed the individual commodity and found that it is composed of
two contradictory aspects: exchange-value and use-value. By examining
how this contradictory social form of the commodity is produced Marx was
then able to develop a critique of all the categories of political
economy.
Likewise, Ticktin sought to take as his starting point the immediate
appearance of the Soviet economic system. However, for Ticktin, this
economic system did not present itself as an immense accumulation of
commodities. Indeed, for Ticktin, wealth did not assume the specific
social form of the commodity as it does for capitalist societies.
Of course, as Bettelheim has pointed out, although all production is
formally state owned actual production is devolved into competing units.
These units of production, the enterprise and the various trusts, buy
and sell products to each other as well as selling products to
consumers. Therefore the market and commodities still persisted in the
USSR. In response, Ticktin argues that such buying and selling was
strictly subordinated to the central plan and were more like transfers
of products rather than real sales. While money was also transferred as
a result of these product transfers such transactions were simply a form
of accounting with strict limits being placed on the amount of profits
that could be accumulated as a result. Furthermore, the prices of
products were not determined through the market but were set by the
central plan. These prices were as a result administered prices and were
therefore not a reflection of value. Products did not therefore assume
the form of commodities nor did they have a value in the Marxist sense.
Hence, for Ticktin, the wealth did not present itself as an immense
accumulation of commodities as it does under capitalism but rather as an
immense accumulation of defective products.
So, for Ticktin, since products did not assume the form of commodities,
the elementary contradiction of Soviet political economy could not be
that between use-value and value, as it was within the capitalist mode
of production. Instead, Ticktin argued that the elementary contradiction
of the Soviet system presented itself as the contradiction between the
potential use-value of the product and its real use-value. That is, the
product was produced for the purpose of meeting a social need determined
through the mediation of the bureaucracyâs âcentral planâ; as such, it
assumed the âadministered formâ of an intended or potential use-value.
However, in general, the use-value of the product fell far short of the
intended or potential use-value â it was defective. Thus as Ticktin
concludes:
The waste in the USSR then emerges as the difference between what the
product promises and what it is. The difference between the appearance
of planning and socialism and the reality of a harsh bureaucratised
administration shows itself in the product itself.
(Origins of the Crisis in the USSR, p. 134)
The question then arises as to how this contradiction emerged out of the
process of production which produced such products.
For Marx the key to understanding the specific nature of any class
society was to determine the precise way in which surplus-labour was
extracted from direct producers. With the capitalist mode of production,
the direct producers are dispossessed of both the means of production
and the means of subsistence. With no means of supporting themselves on
their own accord, the direct producers are obliged to sell their
labour-power to the capitalist class which owns the means of production.
However, despite how it may appear to each individual worker, in buying
the labour-power of the workers the capitalists do not pay according to
the amount of labour the workers perform, and thus the amount of value
the workers create, but they pay the level of wages required to
reproduce the labour-power of the workers as a whole. Since workers can
create products with a value greater than the value they require to
reproduce their own labour-power, the capitalists are able to extract
surplus-labour in the form of the surplus-value of the product the
workers produce.
Thus for Marx the key to understanding the essential nature of the
capitalist mode of production was the sale of the workerâs labour-power
and the consequent expropriation of surplus-labour in the specific
social form of surplus-value by the class of capitalists. For Ticktin,
however, the workers in the USSR did not sell their labour-power.[51]
Yet, although he denies that labour-power was sold in the USSR, Ticktin
does not deny that the working class was dispossessed of the means of
production. There is no question that Ticktin rejects any idea that the
workers somehow owned their means of production due to the persistence
of some form of âdegenerated workersâ stateâ. Indeed, it is central to
Ticktinâs argument that the workers alienate the product of their
labour.
However, the dispossession of the direct producers of the means of
production is not the only essential pre-condition for the sale of
labour-power. The other all-important pre-condition of the capitalist
mode of production is that there exists generalized commodity exchange.
If, as Ticktin maintains, there was no generalized commodity exchange in
the USSR â and thus, as he infers, neither value nor real money â how
could labour-power itself assume the form of a commodity that could be
sold?
Of course, Ticktin admits that workers were formally paid wages in the
USSR, just as goods were bought and sold, but for him this did not
amount to the real sale of labour-power. To understand why Ticktin
thought this, it is necessary to look at his conception of the wage and
money in the USSR.
Under capitalism the principal if not exclusive means of obtaining
wealth is money. For the worker, money assumes the form of the wage.
However, in the USSR, money, and therefore the wage, was far from being
a sufficient or exclusive means of obtaining the workerâs needs. Other
factors were necessary to obtain the goods and services the worker
needed â such as time to wait in queues, connections and influence with
well-placed people in the state or Party apparatus, and access to the
black market. Such factors, together with the fact that a large
proportion of the workersâ needs were provided for free or were highly
subsidized â such as housing, child-care, and transport â meant that the
wage was far less important to the Russian worker than to his or her
Western counterpart. In fact it could be concluded that the wage was
more like a pension than a real wage.
Under capitalism the wage appears to the individual worker as the price
of their labour. The more that individual workers labour the more they
are paid. As a consequence, the wage serves as a direct incentive for
each individual worker to work for the capitalist.[52] In the USSR, the
wage, being little more than a pension, was a far weaker incentive for
the Soviet worker.
But not only was the wage an inadequate carrot, management lacked the
stick of unemployment. Under capitalism the threat of the sack or
redundancy is an important means through which management can discipline
its workforce and ensure its control over production. In the USSR,
however, the state guaranteed full employment. As a result, managers,
facing chronic labour shortages, had little scope to use the threat of
dismissals to discipline the work force.
Lacking both the carrot of money-wages and the stick of unemployment,
management was unable to gain full control of the workersâ labour. From
this Ticktin concludes that, although the workers may have been paid
what at first sight appears as a wage, in reality they did not sell
their labour-power since the workers retained a substantial control over
the use of their labour. As the old British Rail workersâ adage had it:
âmanagement pretends to pay us and we pretend to work!â
However, although for Ticktin the workers in the USSR did not sell their
labour-power, and therefore did not alienate their labour, Ticktin still
argues that the workers alienated the product of their labour. Since the
workers were alienated from the product of their labour they had no
interest in it. Therefore the workersâ main concern in exercising their
control over their own labour was to minimize it. On the other side,
management, although taking possession of the final product of the
labour process, lacked full control over the labour process that
produced it. As a result, the elite lacked control over the production
of the total product of the economy, and with this the production of
surplus-product necessary to support itself.
It is with this that Ticktin locates the basis of the fundamental
contradiction of the Soviet system. On the one side stood the demands of
the elite for increased production necessary to secure the extraction of
a surplus-product; on the other side, and in opposition to it, stood the
negative control of the working class over the labour process which
sought to minimize its labour. The resolution of this contradiction was
found in defective production.
Through the imposition of the central plan, the elite sought to
appropriate the products of the labour of the working class necessary
both to maintain its own privileged position and for the expanded
reproduction of the system as a whole. To ensure the extraction of a
surplus-product that would be sufficient to meet its own privileged
needs, and at the same time ensure the expansion of the system, the
elite was obliged to set ambitious and ever-increasing production
targets through the system of central planning.
However, the actual implementation of the central plan had to be
devolved to the management of each individual enterprise. Faced with the
ambitious production targets set out in the central plan on the one side
and the power of the working class over the labour process on the other,
the management of the enterprise were obliged to strike a compromise
with its workers which in effect subverted the intentions of the plan
while at the same time appearing to fulfil its specifications. To do
this, management sought to meet the more verifiable criteria of the
plan, which were usually its more quantifiable aspects, while
surrendering the planâs less verifiable qualitative criteria. As a
consequence, quality was sacrificed for quantity, leading to the
production of defective products.
Yet this was not all. In order to protect itself from the
ever-increasing unrealizable demands of the central planners, the
management of individual enterprises resorted to systematically
misinforming the centre concerning the actual conditions of production
at the same time as hoarding workers and scarce resources. Without
reliable information on the actual conditions of production, the
production plans set out in the central plan became increasingly
divorced from reality, which led to the further malfunctioning of the
economic system which compounded defective production through the
misallocation of resources.
Thus, for Ticktin, because the Russian workers did not sell their
labour-power, although they alienated the product of their labour, the
elite was unable fully to control the labour process. As a consequence
the economic system was bedevilled by waste on a colossal scale to the
point where it barely functioned. As neither capitalism nor socialism,
the USSR was in effect a non-mode of production. As such, the crucial
question was not how the USSR functioned as an economic system but how
it was able to survive for so long. It was in addressing this problem
that Ticktin came to analyse the crisis and disintegration of the USSR.
Despite the fact that the capitalist mode of production is based on
class exploitation, capitalist society has yet to be torn apart and
destroyed by class antagonisms. The reason for the persistence of
capitalist society is that the capitalist mode of production gives rise
to a powerful ideology that is rooted in its very material existence.
The basis of this ideology lies in commodity fetishism.[53] In a society
based on generalized commodity exchange, the relations between people
appear as a relation between things. As a result, social relations
appear as something objective and natural. Furthermore, in so far as
capitalism is able to present itself as a society of generalized
commodity exchange, everyone appears as a commodity-owner/citizen. As
such, everyone is as free and equal as everyone else to buy and sell.
Thus it appears that the worker, at least in principle, is able to
obtain a fair price for his labour, just as much as the capitalist is
able to obtain a fair return on his capital and the landlord a fair rent
on his land.
So capitalist society appears as a society which is not only natural but
one in which everyone is free and equal. However, this âfree marketâ
ideology is not simply propaganda. It arises out of the everyday
experience of the capitalist mode of production in so far as it exists
as a market economy. It is therefore an ideology that is rooted in the
everyday reality of capitalism.[54] Of course, the existence of
capitalism as a âmarket economyâ is only one side of the capitalist mode
of production and the more superficial side at that. Nevertheless it
provides a strong and coherent foundation for bourgeois ideology.
However, if, as Ticktin maintains, there was no commodity exchange in
the USSR there could no basis for commodity fetishism. Furthermore,
lacking any alternative to commodity fetishism which could obscure the
exploitative nature of the system, there could be no basis for a
coherent ideology in the USSR. Instead there was simply the âbig lieâ
which was officially propagated that the USSR was a socialist
society.[55] But this was a lie which no one any longer really believed
â although everyone was obliged to pretend that they did believe it.[56]
As a consequence, Ticktin argues that the nature of social relations
were fully transparent in the USSR. With their privileged access to
goods and services, everyone could see the privileged position of the
elite and their exploitative and parasitical relation to the rest of
society. At the same time, given the blatant waste and inefficiency of
the system, no one had any illusions in the efficacy of âsocialist
planningâ. Everyone recognized that the system was a mess and was run in
the interests of a small minority that made up the elite of the state
and Party bureaucracy.
But if the was no ideology in the USSR, what was it that served to hold
this exploitative system together for more than half a century? Ticktin
argues there were two factors that served to maintain the USSR for so
long. First, there were the concessions made to the working class. The
guarantee of full employment, free education and health care, cheap
housing and transport and an egalitarian wage structure all served to
bind the working class to the system. Second, and complementing the
first, there was brutal police repression which, by suppressing the
development of ideas and collective organization not sanctioned by the
state, served to atomize the working class and prevent it from becoming
a revolutionary class for-itself.
It was through this crude carrot-and-stick approach that the elite
sought to maintain the system and their privileged place within it.
However, it was an approach that was riven by contradictions and one
that was ultimately unviable. As we have seen, it was these very
concessions made to the working class, particularly that of full
employment, which meant that the elite were unable to gain full control
of the labour process and which in turn resulted in the gross
inefficiency of the system. Unwilling to surrender their own privileged
position, the Soviet elite were unable to move towards socialism.
Therefore the eliteâs only alternative to maintaining the grossly
inefficient system of the USSR was to move towards capitalism by
introducing the market. But such a move towards the market necessarily
involved the introduction of mass unemployment and the withdrawal of the
eliteâs concessions to the working class.
The elite therefore faced a continual dilemma. On the one side it sought
to move away from its inefficient economic system by introducing market
reforms; but on the other side it feared that the introduction of such
reforms would cause a revolutionary response in the Russian working
class. Ticktin argues that it was this dilemma which underlay the
history of the USSR following the death of Stalin and which explains the
crisis that confronted Gorbachev and the final demise of the USSR.
Ticktinâs analysis of the history of the USSR and its final crisis and
demise does not concern us here.[57] We now need to examine the problems
of Ticktinâs âpolitical economyâ of the USSR.
We have devoted considerable space to Ticktinâs theory of the USSR since
it provides perhaps the most cogent explanation of the nature of the
USSR and the causes of its decline which has arisen out of the
Trotskyist tradition. Shorn of any apology for Stalinism, Ticktin is
able to develop a theory which seeks to show the specific internal
contradictions of the Soviet system. As such, it is a theory that not
only goes beyond the traditional Trotskyist theory of the USSR as a
degenerated workersâ state, it also provides a formidable challenge to
any approach which sees the USSR as having been in some sense a
capitalist system.
Indeed, it would seem to us that any attempt to develop a theory of the
USSR as being essentially a capitalist system must take on board and
develop a critique of some of the central positions put forward by
Ticktin. Perhaps most importantly, after Ticktin and of course the
collapse he describes, it is obvious that the USSR can in no way be seen
as some higher and more developed stage of capitalism, as some state
capitalist theories might imply. What becomes clear from Ticktin is that
any understanding of the USSR must start from its malfunctioning: it
must explain the systematic waste and inefficiencies that it produced.
If the USSR was in any way capitalist it must have been a deformed
capitalism, as we shall argue.
However, while we accept that Ticktin provides a powerful theory of the
USSR, we also argue that it has important deficiencies which lead us
ultimately to reject his understanding of the nature of the USSR.
When we come to develop and present our own theory of the USSR, we will
necessarily have to critique in detail the central premise of Ticktinâs
theory â that the USSR was in transition from capitalism to socialism.
For the moment, however, we will confine ourselves to criticizing the
problems that arise within the theory itself.
As we have already noted, Ticktin not only fails to present a systematic
presentation of a âpolitical economy of the USSRâ, he also fails to
clarify his methodological approach. As a result, Ticktin is able to
escape from addressing some important logical questions regarding the
categories of his political economy.
Although he attacks state capitalist theories for projecting categories
of capitalism onto the Soviet Union, Ticktin himself has to admit that
many categories of bourgeois political economy appeared to persist in
the USSR. Categories such as âmoneyâ, âpricesâ, âwagesâ and even
âprofitsâ. In capitalism these categories are forms that express a real
content even though they may obscure or deviate from this content. As
such they are not merely illusions but are real. Ticktin, however, fails
to specify how he understands the relation between the essential
relations of the political economy of the USSR and how these relations
make their appearance, and is therefore unable to clarify the
ontological status of such apparent forms as âmoneyâ, âpricesâ, âwagesâ
and âprofitsâ. Indeed, in his efforts to deny the capitalist nature of
the USSR, Ticktin is pushed to the point where he has to imply that such
categories are simply relics of capitalism, empty husks that have no
real content. But, of course, if they have no real content, if they are
purely nominal, how is that they continue to persist? This failure to
address fully the question of form and content becomes most apparent
with the all important example of the wage and the sale of labour-power.
As we have seen, the crux of Ticktinâs analysis of the USSR was his
contention that, although they alienated the product of their labour,
Soviet workers did not sell their labour-power. So, although they were
paid what at first sight appears as a wage, on close inspection what the
workers received was in fact more akin to a pension.
However, in his attempt to compare and contrast the form of the wage as
it exists under capitalism with what existed in the USSR in order to
deny the application of capitalist categories to the Soviet Union,
Ticktin fails to gasp the full complexities of the wage-form as it
exists within the capitalist mode of production. As we have already
noted, under capitalism workers are obliged to sell their labour-power
to the capitalists. However, to both the individual capitalist and the
individual worker, this sale of labour-power appears in the wage-form as
not the sale of labour-power as such but the sale of labour;[58] that
is, the worker appears not to be paid in accordance to the value of his
labour-power (i.e. the value incorporated in the commodities required to
reproduce the workerâs capacity to work), but in terms of labour-time
the worker performs for the capitalist.
There is, therefore, a potential contradiction between the wage-form and
its real content â the sale of labour-power â which may become manifest
if the wages paid to the workers are insufficient to reproduce fully the
labour-power of the working class. There are two principal situations
where this may occur. First, an individual capitalist may be neither
willing nor able to offer sufficient hours for an individual worker to
be able to earn a âliving wageâ. Second, the individual capitalist may
pay a wage sufficient to reproduce the individual worker but not enough
to meet the cost of living necessary for the worker to bring up and
educate the next generation of workers. In this case, the individual
capitalist pays a wage that is insufficient to reproduce the
labour-power in the long term.
In both these cases the interests of the individual capitalist conflicts
with the interests of capital in general which requires the reproduction
of the working class as a whole. Of course, this is also true in the
case of unemployment. An individual capital has little interest in
paying workers a wage if it has no work for them to do that can make it
a profit; however, social capital requires an industrial reserve army of
the unemployed â unemployed labour-power â in order to keep wages down,
and this has to be maintained. The result is that the state has to
intervene, often under pressure from the working class itself, in order
to overcome the conflict of interest between individual capitals and
social capital. It was through this imperative that the welfare state
was formed. Health care, free state education and welfare benefits all
have to be introduced to overcome the deficiencies of the wage-form in
the social reproduction of the working class.
Thus, under capitalism, there is always an underlying tension within the
wage-form between the wage being simply a payment for labour-time and
the wage as a payment to cover the needs of the worker and her family.
As a result, under capitalism, the payments made to ensure the
reproduction of the labour-power of the working class is always composed
not only of the wage but also benefits and payments in kind. In this
light, the USSR only appears as an extreme example in which the needs of
social capital have become paramount and completely subsume those of the
individual capital.
Yet, in denying the capitalist nature of the USSR, Ticktin also argues
that the working class did not sell its labour-power in the USSR because
labour-power did not exist as a commodity. But then again, as Ticktin
fails to recognize, labour-power does not exist immediately as a
commodity under capitalism either. A commodity is some thing that is
alienable and separable from its owner which is produced for sale.
However, labour-power is not produced primarily for sale, although the
capitalist may regard it as such, but for its own sake. It is after all
simply the potential living activity of the worker and is reproduced
along with the worker herself: and as such it also inseparable from the
worker.
Labour-power is therefore not immediately a commodity but must be
subsumed as such in its confrontation with capital. Labour-power
therefore is a commodity which is not a commodity; and this does not
simply cease to be the case when it is sold. Normally when someone buys
a commodity they obtain the exclusive possession and use of it as a
thing â the commodity ceasing to have any connection with its original
owner. But this cannot be the case with labour-power. Labour-power, as
the subjective activity of the worker, is inseparable from the worker as
a subject. Although the worker sells her labour-power to the capitalist,
she must still be present as a subject within the labour process where
her labour-power is put to use by the capitalist.
Capital must continue to subsume labour-power to the commodity form and
this continues right into the labour process itself. The struggle
between capital and labour over the labour process is central to the
capitalist mode of production. The attempt to overcome the power of the
working class at the point of production is the driving force of
capitalist development, with the capitalists forced to revolutionize the
methods of production in order to maintain their upper hand over the
resistance of their workers.
The fact that the workers in the USSR were able to assert considerable
control over the labour process does not necessarily mean that they did
not sell their labour-power. It need only mean that, given the state
guarantee of full employment, the workers enjoyed an exceptionally
favourable position with regard to management and were able to resist
the full subsumption of labour-power to the commodity form within the
labour process.
Again, as with the case of the wage-form, it could be argued that the
difference between the USSR and the capitalism that exists in the West,
at least in terms of the essential relation of wage-labour, was simply a
question of degree rather than of kind. The failure to recognize this
and grasp the full complexities of the wage-form and the commodification
of labour-power could be seen as a result of Ticktinâs restrictive
understanding of capitalism which he inherits from objectivist orthodox
Marxism.
First, in accordance with orthodox Marxism, Ticktin sees the essential
nature of capitalism in terms of the operation of the âlaw of valueâ.
Hence, for Ticktin, if there is no market there can be no operation of
the âlaw of valueâ and hence there can be no capitalism. Having shown
that products were not bought and sold in the USSR, Ticktin has all but
shown that the USSR was not capitalist. The demonstration that even
labour-power was not really sold simply clinches the argument.
However, we would argue that the essence of capitalism is not the
operation of the âlaw of valueâ as such but value as alienated labour
and its consequent self-expansion as capital. In this case, it is the
alienation of labour through the sale of labour-power that is
essential.[59] The operation of the âlaw of valueâ through the sale of
commodities on the market is then seen as merely a mode of appearance of
the essential relations of value and capital.
Second, Ticktin fails to grasp the reified character of the categories
of political economy. As a consequence, he fails to see how
labour-power, for example, is not simply given but constituted through
class struggle. For Ticktin, there is the âmovement of the categories
and the movement of class struggleâ as if they were two externally
related movements. As a result, as soon as the working class becomes
powerful enough to restrict the logic of capital â for example in
imposing control over the capitalistâs use of labour-power â then
Ticktin must see a decisive shift away from capitalism. Ticktin is led
to restrict capitalism in its pure and unadulterated form to a brief
period in the mid-nineteenth century.[60]
As Ticktin admits, contemporary capitalism has involved widespread
nationalization of production and the administration of prices, the
provision of welfare and the social wage; moreover, in the two decades
following the second world war, capitalism was able to maintain a
commitment to near full employment. As such, contemporary capitalism,
particularly in the years following the second world war, had features
that were strikingly familiar to those in the USSR. However, for
Ticktin, such social democratic features of twentieth century capitalism
were simply symptoms of the decline of capitalism in the transitional
epoch. The USSR was therefore only like contemporary capitalism insofar
as both Russia and Western capitalism were part of the same transitional
epoch: the global transition of capitalism into socialism. Whereas in
the USSR the âlaw of valueâ had become completely negated, in the West
the advance of social democracy meant only the partial negation of the
âlaw of valueâ.
The problem of Ticktinâs notion of the transitional epoch is not simply
the restrictive understanding of capitalism which we have already
mentioned, but also its restrictive notion of socialism and communism.
For Ticktin, in the true tradition of orthodox Marxism, socialism is
essentially the nationalization of production and exchange combined with
democratic state planning. As a consequence, for Ticktin, the Russian
Revolution must be seen as a successful socialist revolution in that it
abolished private property and laid the basis for state planning under
workersâ control. It was only subsequently that, due to the backwardness
and isolation of the Soviet Union, the workersâ state degenerated and as
a result became stuck half-way between capitalism and socialism.
Yet, as many anarchists and left communists have argued, the Russian
Revolution was never a successful proletarian revolution. The revolution
failed not simply because of the isolation and backwardness of Russia â
although these may have been important factors â but because the Russian
working class failed fully to transform the social relations of
production. This failure to transform the relations of production meant
that, even though the working class may have taken control through the
Bolsheviksâ seizure of power and established a âworkersâ stateâ, they
had failed to go beyond capitalism. As a result, the new state
bureaucracy had to adopt the role of the bourgeoisie in advancing the
forces of production at all costs.
If this position is correct and Russia never went beyond capitalism,
then the basic assumption, which Ticktin himself admits is the very
foundation of his analysis, that the USSR was stuck half-way between
capitalism and socialism, falls to the ground. Nevertheless, Ticktinâs
notion that the USSR was a distorted system due it being in transition
from one mode of production to another is an important insight. However,
as we shall argue in Part IV of this article, the USSR was not so much
in transition to socialism as in transition to capitalism. However,
before considering this we shall in Part III look in more detail at the
various theories of state capitalism that have arisen within the left
communist tradition.
In the previous articles we examined various Trotskyist and
neo-Trotskyist positions on the nature of the USSR.
We now turn to the theories of the less well known but more interesting
Communist Left, who were among the first revolutionary Marxists to
distance themselves from the Russian model by deeming it state
capitalist or simply capitalist. The Russian Left Communists' critique
remained at the level of an immediate response to how capitalist
measures were affecting the class, whereas in both the German/Dutch and
Italian Lefts, we see real attempts to ground revolutionary theory in
Marx's categories in a way distinct from Second International orthodoxy.
Any analysis of the USSR necessarily involves an underlying conception
of what the Russian Revolution was. The Trotskyist approaches that we
have previously considered are all based on the conception of the
Russian Revolution as being an essentially proletarian revolution that
somehow degenerated. By contrast a consideration of Left Communist
theories allow us to question this underlying assumption, and as a
result provides vital insights into the development of a theory of what
the USSR was.
The Russian revolution seemed to show for the first time that workers
could actually overthrow a bourgeois capitalist state and run society
themselves. After almost all of the socialist parties and trade unions
of the mainstream Second International workers movement patriotically
supported the slaughter of the first world war, the Bolsheviks it seemed
had reasserted an internationalist revolutionary Marxism. But if the
Russian revolution was initially a massive inspiration to proletarians
across the world, being a first outbreak in the revolutionary wave that
ended the war, its impact after that is more ambiguous. The word
âcommunistâ became associated with a system of state control of the
means of production, coupled with severe repression of all opposition.
The workers movement across the world was dominated by this model of
âactually existing socialismâ, and the parties who oriented themselves
to it. The role of these regimes and parties was to do more to kill the
idea of proletarian revolution and communism than ordinary capitalist
repression had ever been able to. So those in favour of proletarian
revolution had to distinguish themselves from these official communist
parties and to make sense of what had happened in Russia. A group that
did so was the Left Communists or Communist Left.
The Communist Left emerged out of the crisis of Marxist Social Democracy
that became acutely visible during the war. Left Communist currents
emerged across the world. Those with politics that we and Lenin could
describe as left communist were generally the first revolutionary
militants from their respective countries attracted to the Russian
Revolution and to the Communist International (Comintern) set up in
1919. In some countries notably Germany, Italy a majority of those who
formed their respective communist parties had left communist politics.
However their experience was â sooner or later â to find themselves in
disagreement with the policies promoted from Moscow and eventually
excluded from the Communist International.
Two main wings of the Communist Left managed to survive the defeat of
the revolutionary wave as traditions: the German/Dutch Left[61]
(sometimes known as Council Communists) and the Italian Left (sometimes
referred to as Bordigists after a founding member). While their analyses
were not the same on all points, what really defined them was a
perception of the need for communist revolutionary politics to be a
fundamental break from those of Social Democracy. Such a break
necessarily implied an attempt to overcome the dichotomy between the
political and the economic that was central to the theory of the Second
International.
Although they disagreed at what time it occurred, their perception was
that the Bolshevik party slipped back into, or never quite left Social
Democratic positions. Identifying themselves as revolutionary and as
Marxist the common problem for these currents was to understand what had
happened in a way that was true to both. While saying the Soviet Union
was capitalist allowed a revolutionary position to be taken up against
it, they found it necessary to do this in a way that made sense in terms
of Marxâs categories and understanding of capitalism. Out of their
different experiences they developed very different theories of the
degeneration of the Russian Revolution and of the capitalism that
developed in the USSR.
However these oppositions to the Moscow line were largely eclipsed by
the strength of Stalinism in the workersâ movement and by a later
opposition to this that grew up around Leon Trotsky, the exiled leader
of the Russian Communist Party and state. Due to the revolutionary
credentials and prestige of its founder, Trotskyism established itself
as the most visible and numerous opposition to the left of the official
âCommunistâ movement. Particularly in Britain, which has not really
generated its own left Marxist tradition, it managed to plausibly
present itself against Stalinism as the genuine revolutionary Marxism.
For this reason we devoted the previous articles to a presentation and
critique of theories of the USSR coming out of Trotskyism: the orthodox
Trotskyist theory of the degenerated workers state, Tony Cliffâs version
of state capitalism, and Hillel Ticktinâs recently influential theory of
Russia as a specifically distorted and untenable society.[62]
We argued that a weakness of all these theories was that they moved
within a certain kind of orthodox Marxism. Identifying with the Soviet
state under Lenin and Trotsky, they assumed that, on the basis of the
traditional Marxist premise that socialism is the abolition of private
property in the means of production through its wholesale
nationalisation by the state, that there had been a successful socialist
revolution in Russia which in some way had degenerated. They disagreed
on what type of system had emerged, but they generally saw it as hinging
on the lack of workersâ democratic control of nationalised property. For
Trotskyism, Leninism is the revolutionary alternative to the Second
International, and Trotskyism was the revolutionary continuation of
Leninism against Stalinism. The existence of a Communist Left threatens
this picture. It shows that Trotskyism was by no means the only Marxist
opposition to Stalinism. In fact, as weâll see, it questions whether
Trotskyism has been a ârevolutionaryâ opposition at all.
However while Trotskyism, through the flexible tactics it was willing to
adopt, could exist on the fringes of a Stalinist and social democratic
dominated workersâ movement, the left communists, their politics
fundamentally oriented to revolutionary situations, were reduced by the
thirties to a far smaller and more isolated existence. It was only after
Stalinismâs hold on the revolutionary imagination began to break in 1956
and with the wave of struggles beginning in the sixties that there was a
resurgence of interest in revolutionary tendencies to the left of
Trotskyism, like the Communist Left. The focus on Councils and workersâ
self-activity that was basic to the German Left was taken up by groups
like Socialism or Barbarism (and its linked British group Solidarity)
and by the Situationist International.[63] The German Communist Left
which declared itself anti-Leninist was more immediately attractive to
those rejecting Stalinism and the critical support given it by
Trotskyism than the Italian Left which, because it emphasised the party,
seemed like another version of Leninism. However after â68 partly due to
a perceived weakness of a merely âcouncilistâ or âlibertarianâ
opposition to Leninism, there was a renewal of interest in the Italian
Left which was the other main Communist left to have handed down a
tradition.[64]
In this article we shall look at the various theories of the Russian,
German/Dutch and Italian Communist Left. We shall ignore certain other
communist lefts because either they have not managed to pass down any
theoretical writings on the question or because as, say, with the
British Left they largely followed the German/Dutch left on the question
of the Russian Revolution.[65] Our point of departure is that Communist
Left which developed within the Russian Revolution itself and which
received Leninâs wrath before the rest. Though the Russian Left cannot
be said to have developed the same body of coherent theory as the other
two, its very closeness to the events gives its considerations a certain
importance.
What is striking about the Russian Left Communist current is that it
emerged out of an environment that was both dissimilar and similar to
the their European counterparts. As we will see in the following
sections, the German and Italian Communist Lefts emerged as an
opposition to social democracyâs accommodation with and incorporation
into bourgeois society. In Russia the situation was somewhat different.
Still being an overwhelmingly agricultural and peasant country under the
autocratic rule of the tsar, bourgeois society had not become dominant,
let alone allowed the establishment of social democracy within it. In
fact, the very repressive character of the tsarist regime meant that the
gradualist approach of stressing legal parliamentary and trade union
methods that prevailed in Western Europe was largely absent in Russia,
and there was a general acceptance of the need for a violent revolution.
This need was confirmed by the 1905 revolution, which saw mass strikes,
the setting up of soviets, wide-spread peasant uprisings â in general a
violent confrontation of revolutionary workers and peasants with the
forces of the state. But whilst this context set the Russian Social
Democrats apart from their European counterparts, there was also an
underlying continuity between the two. In fact, Lenin throughout tried
to stay true to the orthodoxies of Second International Marxism, and
accepted Kautsky, the chief theorist of German social democracy, as an
ideological authority.[66] Basic to this form of Marxism was the notion
of history inevitably moving in the right direction by concentrating and
centralising the productive forces, so that socialism would be simply
the elimination of the private control of those forces by the capture of
state power and social democratic administration of them in the interest
of the whole of society. But whereas the developed character of West
European capitalism meant that in these countries this theory
dove-tailed with a gradualist and parliament centred approach, due to
the backwardness of Russian society, it took a revolutionary form.
The revolutionary side of Leninâs Marxism, as against other European
social democrat leaders, was expressed most clearly when he took an
uncompromising position of revolutionary opposition to the war.[67] On
this fundamental issue Russian left communists had no reason for
disagreement with Lenin. Nevertheless, this was to occur on other
issues, such as Leninâs position on nationalism, and his view (until
1917) that Russia could only have a bourgeois-democratic revolution.
Consequently, an opposing left fraction around Bukharin[68] and Pyatakov
formed within the Bolsheviks. They contended that the war had prompted
great advances of finance capital and state capitalism in Russia that
made socialist revolution a possibility.. Fundamentally they saw the
issue as one of world revolution of which Russia could be part. A key
text for them was Bukharinâs Imperialism and World Economy. In it he
drew heavily on the essentially reformist Hilferding to argue that world
capitalism, including Russia, was moving in the direction of state
capitalist trusts where the state became appropriated by a finance
capital elite. However, he took a much more radical interpretation of
the political significance of these developments. The âsymbiosis of the
state and finance capital eliteâ meant that the parliamentary road of
Social Democracy was blocked and socialists had to return to the
anti-statist strand in Marxâs thought. The state had to be destroyed as
a condition of socialism. However for the Russian situation, what was
key about Bukharinâs analysis of imperialism and state capitalism was
that it allowed Russian left communists to abandon the classical Marxist
line (held by both the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks) that Russia was
only ready for a bourgeois-democratic revolution..
But despite Leninâs initial hostility to the heretical ideas coming out
of this left fraction,[69] after the February revolution he showed that
he would not let his orthodoxy prevent him from being open to events.
Just as the Bolshevik leadership thought that a long period of
development of bourgeois society was on the horizon, it was clear from
the continuing actions of the workers and peasants that the
revolutionary period was by no means over. Workers were setting up
factory committees and militantly contesting capitalist authority at the
point of production; peasant soldiers were deserting the front and
seizing land. Responding to this, and against the Bolshevik leadership,
Lenin in 1917 seemed to take up all the essential positions of the left
communist tendency within the party. In the April Theses he called for
proletarian socialist revolution. To give this a Marxist justification,
he argued in The Impending Catastrophe and How to Avoid It that the war
had revolutionised Russian society by developing state capitalism.
Meanwhile, he was writing State and Revolution, which saw him at his
most un-social democratic; he even acknowledged the Dutch left
communist, Pannekoek. Due to the now clearly revolutionary line of the
Bolshevik party, it consequently became the pole of re-groupment for
revolutionary Social Democrats and for radicalised workers. All those
against the war and for taking the revolution forward were drawn to the
Bolsheviks: Trotskyâs followers, many left Mensheviks, but most
importantly vast numbers of radicalised workers. Thus revolutionaries
with politics closest to the European left communists were not as with
them, fairly small minorities fighting within Social Democratic parties
against their clearly non-revolutionary politics, but instead were a
sizeable part of a party â the Bolsheviks â whose leader Lenin seemed to
accept many of their theoretical positions, and whatâs more brought the
party to act on these by overthrowing the provisional government and
declaring âAll Power to the Sovietsâ.
But if the revolutionary side of Lenin seemed in 1917 to break from
social democratic orthodoxy â if it seemed to the left that he had
become one of them â soon after October, they were to doubt it. A
dichotomy between political and economic aspects of the revolution
became apparent in his thinking. For Lenin, the proletarian character of
the revolution was assured in the political power of a proletarian
party; âeconomicâ issues, like the relations at the point of production,
were not of the essence. More and more Leninâs attention returned to
Russiaâs backwardness, its unripeness for immediate social
transformation and thus the paradoxical notion that state capitalist
economic developments under the proper political guidance of the party
might be the best path towards socialism. This turn in Leninâs thinking
was obscured at first by another question: how to respond to Germanyâs
terms for peace at the Brest Litovsk negotiations. Whilst the group
known as the Left Communists were for rejecting these conditions and
turning the imperialist war into, if not an outright revolutionary war,
then a defensive revolutionary partisan war,[70] Lenin insisted on
accepting Germanyâs terms for peace. Peace, he argued, was needed at any
price to consolidate the revolution in Russia; to win âthe freedom to
carry on socialist construction at homeâ.[71]
The Left responded again by stressing the internationalist perspective,
and argued that an imperialist peace with Germany would carry as much
danger as the continuation of the imperialist war. Such a peace, by
strengthening Germany â which had faced a massive wave of wildcat
strikes in early 1918 â would act against the prospects of world
revolution. Hence, Leninâs apparent choice of temporarily prioritising
the consolidation of the Russian revolution over spreading the world
revolution was, for them, a false one. By taking a limited nationally
oriented perspective at Brest Litovsk what would be consolidated, they
argued, was not âsocialist constructionâ but the forces of
counter-revolution within Russia. As such, the left communists were then
the earliest proponents of the view that you cannot have socialism in
one country.
But whilst the Left Communists position initially had majority support
from the Russian working class, this support faded as Germany launched
an offensive. Leninâs arguments, which he pursued with vigour, then
prevailed leading to the treaty of Brest Litovsk, under which the
Bolshevik government agreed to German annexation of a vast part of the
area in which revolution had broken out including the Baltic nations,
the Ukraine and a part of White Russia.[72]
The sacrifice of pursuing world revolution for national âsocialist
constructionâ became all the greater as it became clear exactly what
Lenin meant by this term. In face of the Bolsheviks not having a very
clear plan of what to do economically after seizing power, the first
five months were characterised by the self-activity and creativity of
the workers. The workers took the destruction of the provisional
government as the signal to intensify and extend their expropriation of
the factories and replacement of capitalist control by forms of direct
workers control. This process was not initiated by the Bolshevik
government, but by the workers themselves through the Soviets and
especially the factory committees. The Bolsheviks reluctantly or
otherwise had to run with the tide at this point. This period was a high
point of proletarian self activity: a spontaneous movement of workers
socialisation of production, which the Bolsheviks legitimized (one might
argue recuperated) after the event with the slogan âLoot the Lootersâ,
and their decrees on Workers Control and the nationalisation of
enterprises. The workers were euphoric with the communist possibilities
of abolishing exploitation and controlling their own destinies.
However, by spring (as the treaty of Brest Litovsk was signed), Lenin
pushed the Bolsheviks to initiate a different economic policy called the
New Course involving a more conciliatory attitude towards âcreative
elementsâ in the business communityâ. While Lenin didnât disown entirely
what the workers had done, there was the clear message they had gone too
far. Their acts should now be curtailed and controlled. In their place,
he talked of setting up joint state/private capitalist trusts. The basic
idea seemed essentially to be a mixed economy with co-operation between
public and private sectors. Although the Mensheviks welcomed these
measures as the abandonment of the âillusory chase after socialismâ and
a turn to a more moderate realistic path, Lenin still tried to
differentiate himself from the Mensheviks, by stating that as long as
the state remains in the hand of the proletarian party, the economy
would not degenerate into normal state capitalism. Significantly, the
other side of this focus on the âproletarian stateâ was that Lenin,
while wanting a return to capitalist methods of economic organisation
saw no need for the other main Menshevik demand: for independent workers
organisation. As Lenin put it, âdefence of the workersâ interests was
the task of the unions under capitalism, but since power has passed to
the hands of the proletariat the state itself, in its essence the
workers state, defends the workers interests.â
It is this New Course which the Left Communists were to oppose in their
theses[73] published in response to the peace treaty. In it they
identified the peace treaty as a concession to the peasants, and as a
slide towards âpetty bourgeois politics of a new typeâ. They saw
bureaucratic centralisation as an attack on the independent power of the
soviets, and on the self-activity of the working class, and warned that
by such means something very different from socialism was about to be
established. The New Course talk of accommodation with capitalist
elements in Russia was seen as expressive of what had become clear
earlier with Leninâs willingness to compromise with imperialism over
Brest Litovsk, namely an overall drift towards compromise with the
forces of international and internal capital. The left communists warned
that behind the argument for saving and defending Soviet power in Russia
for international revolution later, what would happen was that âall
efforts will be directed towards strengthening the development of
productive forces towards âorganic constructionâ, while rejecting the
continued smashing of capitalist relations of production and even
furthering their partial restoration.â[p10] What was being defended in
Russia was not socialist construction, but a âsystem of state capitalism
and petty bourgeois economic relations. The defence of the socialist
fatherlandâ will then prove in actual fact to be defence of a petty
bourgeois motherland subject to the influence of international
capital.â[p9]
It is not surprising that Lenin was forced to reply to this accusation
of pursuing state capitalist economic policies. What is revealing though
is that when he did so in Left Wing Childishness and Immediate Tasks, it
was not by justifying the recent measures as a form of socialism, but by
fully endorsing state capitalism and arguing it would be an advance for
Russia. He now brought into question his prior arguments that Russia was
part of a world state capitalism and thus ripe for socialism, which had
seemed necessary to justify proletarian revolution in 1917. Lenin again
returned to the notion of Russiaâs backwardness. A theory of transition
based on the Second International acceptance of unilinear âprogressiveâ
stages came to the fore. He noted that all would agree that Russia being
in transition meant that it contained elements of socialism and
capitalism, but he now said the actual situation was even more
complicated. In a model that we will see was key to his understanding,
Lenin argued that Russiaâs backwardness meant it actually combined five
types of economic structure:
peasants who sell their grain);
Russia, he claimed, while having advanced politically was not
economically advanced enough for direct advances towards socialism. The
state capitalism, that he had earlier seemed to agree with the left
communists had arrived in Russia was, now he said only a shell pierced
by the lower forms of economy. The real battle in Russia, he contended,
was not that of socialism and capitalism, but of state capitalism and
socialism on one side versus all the other economies on the other.
Economic growth and even economic survival he contended depended on
state capitalist measures. The ones he argued for included the paying of
high salaries to bourgeois specialists, the development of rigid
accounting and control with severe penalties for those who break it,
increased productivity and intensity of labour, piece work and the
âscientific and progressiveâ elements of the Taylor system.
The overarching repeated demand from Lenin was for âdiscipline,
discipline, disciplineâ and he identified this with the acceptance by
the workers of one-man management â that is âunquestioned obedience to
the will of a single person.â The arguments of the left that this was
suppressing class autonomy and threatened to enslave the working class
was just dismissed by Lenin with the insistence that there was
âabsolutely no contradiction in principle between Soviet (that is,
socialist) democracy and the exercise of dictatorial powers by
individuals.â [ p 268] All it was apparently, was a matter of learning
âto combine the âpublic meetingâ democracy of the working people â
turbulent, surging, overflowing its banks like a spring flood â with
iron discipline while at work, with unquestioning obedience to the will
of a single person, the Soviet leader, while at work.ââ [ p 271] The
point for Lenin was that as long as it was a proletarian state that
introduced these measures it could prevent regression down the rungs of
the ladder and prepare for the eventual movement up towards socialism.
Left wing opposition to Leninâs line at this point had two main thrusts,
which in part reflected a division in the 1918 left communists. One side
we might call âtechnocraticâ, emphasised opposition to precisely what
the Mensheviks welcomed, namely the suggested compromises with private
capitalists. They argued that whoever controlled the economy would
control politics, capitalist economic power would dissolve the power of
the Soviets and âa real state capitalist systemâ and the rule of finance
capital would be the result. The other thrust of left communist
criticism was against the re-employment of authoritarian capitalist
relations and methods within production. As Ossinsky in particular
argued, one man management and the other impositions of capitalist
discipline would stifle the active participation of workers in the
organisation of production; Taylorism turned workers into the appendages
of machines, and piece-wages imposed individualist rather than
collective rewards in production so installing petty bourgeois values
into workers. In sum these measures were rightly seen as the
re-transformation of proletarians within production from collective
subject back into the atomised objects of capital. The working class, it
was argued, had to consciously participate in economic as well as
political administration. In this best tendency within the 1918 Left
Communists, there was an emphasis on the problem with capitalist
production being the way it turned workers into objects, and on its
transcendence lying in their conscious creativity and participation,
that is reminiscent of Marxâs critique of alienation. It is the way the
Russian left communists arguments expressed and reflected workers
reactions and resistance to the state capitalist direction of the
Bolsheviks and workers aspirations to really transform social relations,
that there importance lay. Such sentiments ran through the left
oppositions, even if until 1921 their loyalty to the party generally
stopped them supporting workers practical expressions of resistance. As
Ossinsky put it:
âWe stand for the construction of the proletarian society by the class
creativity of the workers themselves, not by the ukases of the captains
of industry. If the proletariat itself does not know how to create the
necessary prerequisites for the socialist organisation of labour, no one
can do this for it and no one can compel it to do this. The stick, if
raised against the workers, will find itself in the hands of a social
force which is either under the influence of another social class or is
in the hands of the soviet power.. Socialism and socialist organisation
will be set up by the proletariat itself, or they will not be set up at
all: something else will be set up â state capitalism.â[74]
These arguments of Ossinsky represented the best element in the left
communistsâ positions: a recognition that the mass creativity and
autonomy of the workers was essential to any move towards communism,
thus that nationalisation or statisation of production was not enough.
Leninâs view was that direct workers control of their own activity was
an issue for the future and that in the meantime iron discipline was
required.
The conditions of civil war and imperialist invasion that Russia fell
into in the second half on 1918, altered the conditions of debate and
broke the Left Communists as a cohesive opposition. On the one hand,
where the alternative to the Bolsheviks was White armies committed to
the restoration of the old order, criticism by workers and peasants of
the measures the party was taking, was tempered. But apart from this
pragmatic issue, the civil war also exposed the inadequate foundation
much the left communist criticism had been based on. Considering that,
for many left communists, their critique of the New Course, and the
consequent accusation of state capitalism, was based mainly on the
notion of compromise with private capitalists, and perceived concessions
to the peasantry, in the face of what was to be called âwar communismâ
they had very little left to criticise. Not only did a whole wave of
nationalisations take place, virtually wiping out the previous role of
the private capitalist, but if there was one thing war communism was
not, it was system based on concessions to the peasants. It consequently
became difficult for them to describe Russia as state capitalist.
In fact, the technocratic wing of the Left Communist even went as far as
welcoming âwar communismâ as a real advance to communism. And when war
communism resulted in mass inflation virtually wiping out money, they
equally saw it as a general move to an economy in kind with all sorts of
transactions, even wages, ceasing to use money. The self-emancipatory
wing, (which was to provide both the original arguments as well as
personnel of the later left oppositions of the Democratic Centralists
and the Workers Opposition) took a more cautious stand. They had tended
to focus their criticism on the excessive centralisation of power and
the bureaucratic capitalist methods of the state economy, to which they
counter-posed a restoration of power and local initiative to the soviets
and other workersâ bodies. But without the other components of their
earlier critique, and considering that Lenin himself had described state
capitalism â with all its management methods â as playing a progressive
part, the left oppositions ceased to describe it as such.
The mistake of confusing the war-time measures as a step in the
direction of socialism became clear as the war came to an end and the
Bolsheviks tried to step up the war economy measures.[75] The fallacy of
associating state-control with socialism, despite the intensification of
capitalistic production relations, became clear as workers and peasants
reacted to their material situation with a wave of strikes and
uprisings. The Kronstadt revolt in particular showed the giant gulf
between the state and the working class. Despite this general
discontent, both outside and within the party, Lenin responded with, on
the one hand, the New Economic Policy (NEP), and on the other, the
banning of factions with the famous statement that was to characterise
the regime thereafter: âHere and there with a rifle, but not with
opposition; weâve had enough oppositionâ.
It is important then to grasp that the NEP, which was essentially a
return to the moderate state capitalism championed by Lenin in the New
Course debate, did not mark an abandonment of communism, but merely a
change in the form of state capitalism. Central to the New Economic
Policy (NEP) was a changed relation to the peasantry with a progressive
tax in kind replacing state procurement and leaving the peasants free to
trade for a profit anything left above this. Free trade which had not
disappeared was now legal. On the industrial front small scale
production was totally denationalised and many, though not the largest
factories, leased back to their former owners to run on a capitalist
basis. For the working class there was reintroduced payment of wages in
cash and charges for previously free services. The command economy of
the âwar communismâ years was abandoned in favour of the running of the
economy on a commercial basis. Nevertheless the commanding heights of
the economy remained under state control and the basis for systematic
state planning in terms of forecasting etc. continued to be developed.
In fact, the very continuity between the New Course and the NEP also
showed up in the fact that Lenin, in trying to justify the NEP in the
pamphlet Tax in Kind, reprinted large parts of his earlier critique of
the Left Communists, including the â5 socio-economic structuresâ model
of the Russian economy.
In 1921 Lenin gave the same reply to Workers Opposition accusations of
state capitalism as he had to the Left Communists in 1918, namely that
state capitalism would be a tremendous step forward from what Russia
actually was, which was a âpetty producer capitalism with a
working-class party controlling the state.â[76] The key thing about the
regime developing at the time of NEP was that, accompanying economic
concessions to private capitalism, was intensified political repression,
the banning of factions in the party, and non-toleration of any
independent political tendencies in the working class. As Ciliga later
observed, before the NEP the intensity of repression of left opposition
had varied, after this date all opposition was repressed on principle
and the treatment of prisoners grew worse.[77]
It was in this context of political repression and economic
re-imposition of capitalist forms that a number of small opposition
groups emerged, which again took up the notion of state capitalism. What
was common to these new groups was that, unlike the previous left
communist tendency and the later left opposition of Trotsky, these
groups did make a decisive break from the Bolshevik party. One such
group that emerged was the Workers Truth centred around an old left
adversary of Lenin, Bogdanov. In issuing an Appeal, starting with Marxâs
famous âthe liberation of the workers can only be the deed of the
workers themselvesâ, they argued that the Bolshevik party was no longer
a proletarian party, but rather the party of a new ruling class, and
thus they called for a new party.[78]
With at first a little less theoretical clarity, it was however, the
Workers Group, centred around Miasnikov, that made the biggest impact on
the class. The main opposition strand had been the Workers Opposition,
which while appearing to support the working class, had essentially been
demanding a transfer of power from one party faction to another, namely
that organised in the trade unions. Miasnikov and his supporters had at
this point rejected both the state economic bodies and the trade unions
as bureaucratised forms, and in arguing for a return of power to the
soviets, had implicitly questioned the party. Miasnikov stood out even
more by not supporting the repression of Kronstadt, which he described
as an abyss the party had crossed. This willingness to break with the
party was crucial because oppositions until then, though reflecting
discontent outside the party, had remained wedded to it seeking refuge
in organisational fixes that failed conspicuously to deliver.
In 1923 they produced a Manifesto appealing to both the Russian and
international proletariat. Rather than theoretical considerations their
description of the NEP as standing for the âNew Exploitation of the
Proletariatâ simply tries to express the conditions that the workers
were facing. They denounced the attacks on the working class the
Bolshevik regime was carrying out making a point that echoed
Luxemburg:[79] âthe bourgeoisie has, and will have, no better advocateâ
than the âsocialists of all countriesâ because they have the ability to
disorientate the proletariat with their phrases. Or again: âa very great
danger threatens the achievements of the Russian proletarian revolution,
not so much from outside as from inside itself.â Expressing this
emphasis on the world proletarian movement the workers group took a
resolutely internationalist line. They were sure that the Russian
proletariatâs only hope lay in aid from revolution elsewhere. They
argued that the Bolshevik policies of a âsocialist united frontsâ and
workers governments were acting against that hope of world
revolution.[80]
However, the real significance of the group was the fact that they took
their criticism of the state capitalist direction of the Bolsheviks to
its logical conclusion of supporting proletarian opposition to the
regime. In late â23 a wave of strikes broke out and the Workers Group
became involved gaining an influence for their Manifesto among the
proletariat and prompting their suppression by the secret police. Soon
their existence was relegated to the prison camps or in exile. It was
here that they moved away from their focus on the NEP, and started to
question war communism. There their state capitalist analysis became
more and more influential in the camps where, as Ciliga observed, a
political life repressed elsewhere continued. They extended their
critique to the sort of âsocialismâ that the Bolsheviks had tried to
create even before NEP, arguing that because it was based on coercion
over the working class and not the free creation of the class, was in
reality a bureaucratic state capitalism.
We have looked then at those arguments of the Russian Left most
illuminating for an understanding of the Revolution. The importance of
the 1918 Left Communists was not just the fact that they right from an
early stage argued that there was a danger that not socialism, but
capitalism would emerge from the revolution, but also because in his
battles with them, Lenin most explicitly revealed his own support for
âstate capitalismâ. The importance of Miasnikovâs Workers Group lay in
them being the most significant of the post 1921 groups who took their
criticism of the state capitalist direction of the Bolsheviks to its
logical conclusion of supporting proletarian opposition to the regime.
Their confrontation with the Russian state was far more consistent and
coherent than that of Trotskyâs Left opposition. However we cannot say
that they provided the theoretical arguments to solidly ground a theory
of state capitalism. We will turn now to the tendencies in Europe, with
whom they made contact, to see if they had more success.
In Germany the beginning of the century was characterised by a tension
between official and unofficial expressions of working class strength.
On the one hand, the Social Democratic Party (SPD), which had founded
and dominated the Second International, had grown to an unprecedented
scale (almost becoming a âstate within a stateâ), and was receiving
steadily larger proportion of votes in elections. On the other, there
was also an increased militancy and radicalisation of class struggle,
manifesting itself in more and more strikes and lockouts[81] â struggles
that in many cases went beyond economic demands and took on a mass and
political character. While a left radical current within the SPD was to
see these as a way the class was developing towards revolution, the
mainstream party and trade union leadership set itself against these new
forms of class struggle. In the years to come these two expression of
the working class were to drastically clash. Indeed the direct struggle
between class and capital would become that of revolutionary tendency of
the proletariat and social democracy siding with and representing
capital.
The counter-revolutionary character of the gradualist practice of the
SPD first came brutally to light when, in the interest of preparing for
the next election, the party stepped in to demobilise a wave of
industrial struggles and suffrage agitation that swept Prussia in 1910.
Although leading to some fierce arguments over strategy between Kautsky
and the emerging radical left tendency, it was only with the war that
these oppositions made moves towards a split with the party. Despite
always having had a position of opposing imperialist wars, the SPD and
the unions turned to social patriotism â the party voted for war credits
and the unions signed a pact to maintain war production and prevent
strikes. As a result, two main opposition tendencies emerged: the
left-communist tendency that split from the party, and the Spartacists
that at first tried to stay within the party and reform it from within.
However, their different responses to the SPDâs turn to social
patriotism, was emblematic of what was to follow. Whilst the left
communists throughout put themselves on the side of revolution, the
Spartacist leadership never entirely managed to break from social
democratic conceptions.
But whilst SPDâs support for the war was important in generating a
radical left tendency, it was only in the face of the German Revolution
that the overtly counter-revolutionary character of social democracy
became clear to large numbers of workers. The Russian Revolution had
been a massive inspiration for revolutionaries and the class struggle in
Germany. In early 1918 there was a wave of mass wildcat strikes. And
although the SPD put a lid on these struggles, the opposition kept
growing. Finally in November, revolution broke out when sailors mutinies
and a generalised setting up of workers councils ended the first world
war. The ruling class, knowing that it could in no way contain the
revolutionary wave, turned to social democracy to save the nation, and
appointed the SPD leader as chancellor. Knowing that direct
confrontation would get them nowhere, they set themselves to destroy the
councils from within. The Spartacists, trapped within a âcentristâ
faction of social democracy, could only watch while it helped the SPD in
this task. The SPD thus managed to get a majority vote at the first
National Congress of Workers and Soldiers Councils in favour of
elections to a constituent assembly and for dissolving the councils in
favour of that parliament. At the same time the trade unions worked hand
in hand with management to get revolutionary workers dismissed and to
destroy independent council activity in the factories. Councils against
parliament and trade unions became the watch word of revolutionaries.
Recognising the depth of their failure, the Spartacists broke from
social democracy and joined the left communists to form the Communist
Party of Germany (KPD). And in January 1919, within days of this
founding conference, the KPD was tested in combat. Prematurely provoked
to action by the government, revolutionary workers in Berlin attempted
to overthrow the SPD government in favour of a council republic. The KPD
put itself on the side of the insurrection, which was crushed by the SPD
minister Noskeâs freicorps â a volunteer army of proto-fascist
ex-officers and soldiers. The Spartacist leaders, Luxemburg and
Liebknecht, were arrested and murdered. Over the next months
revolutionary attempts in Bavaria, Bremen, Wilhemshaven and other
places, were likewise defeated in isolation. Social democracy, through
armed force when necessary, but more fundamentally through the
ideological hold it and its trade unions had over the working class, had
defeated the revolution and saved German capitalism.
However, within the class there was also a process of radicalisation.
Large numbers of workers, recognising the counter-revolutionary role of
the SPD and the unions, and having fought SPD troops and police on the
streets, rejected the parliamentary system and left the unions. As an
alternative they formed factory organisations to provide a means for
united proletarian action, and to be ready for the re-formation of
revolutionary council power. While the majority of the KPD, including
the rank and file Spartacists, supported these developments, the
Spartacist leadership still wanted to participate in elections and the
trade unions. In mid-1919, by a series of bureaucratic manoeuvres they
managed to exclude the majority from the party. The Bolsheviks
essentially sided with this rump leadership. The basis of the split
between the German communist left and the Bolsheviks was prepared.
In March/April 1920 the split in the KPD was to become permanent. At
this time the freicorps that the SPD had used to crush the revolution,
turned on their masters and launched a coup: the Kapp putsch. The trade
unions called a general strike, which the working class responded to
solidly, bringing the country to a stop. The coup collapsed, but workers
were now mobilised across the country. In the revolutionary stronghold
of the Ruhr the workers had formed a 80,000 strong Red Army that refused
to disarm. Although having been saved by this revolutionary upsurge, the
SPD saw their role as the same as it had been a year previously, namely
to make sure than the struggles did not develop into full scale
revolution. Only this time, they did not have the same working class
credibility that had previously allowed them to control the situation.
Faced by this, they chose a dual strategy: to re-establish their
socialist credibility they talked of forming a government composed only
of workers parties, whilst at the same time sending in their â now loyal
once more â troops to attack and disarm the Ruhr.
The two sides of German âcommunismâ reacted totally differently to these
events. The excluded majority of the party put themselves with the
working class reaction from the beginning and supported the Red Army in
the Ruhr when the SPD troops attacked it. The rump leadership of the
KPD, while it had initially said it would not âlift a fingerâ for the
SPD government, quickly changed its position to total support. It
offered itself a âloyal oppositionâ to the proposed âworkers
governmentâ, and called on the armed workers to not to resist the SPD
troops. Thus the revolutionary potential of the situation was defeated
by social democracy with the support of the Moscow supported KPD, who
claimed to be a revolutionary break from social democracy. The left
communist side of the KPD, feeling no rapprochement was possible with a
group that had tacitly supported the violent suppression of the class,
formed itself as the Communist Workers Party of Germany (KAPD),
orientated totally towards the councils. The question is of course how
these lessons affected their view of the Russian Revolution.
For these revolutionaries the history of the German workers movement had
shown the fundamental opposition between the methods of social democracy
and revolution. It had seemed to them that âBolshevik principlesâ such
as the suppression of bourgeois democracy and its replacement by the
dictatorship of the proletariat through workers councils, were key to
overcoming the opportunism of the SPD and winning the revolution in
Germany. It was in this sense that âBolshevismâ had helped their break
from Social Democracy. The fact that the line coming out of Moscow
seemed to favour some of the social democratic elements the left
communists were breaking from, was merely seen as being based on their
unfamiliarity with the West European situation. They thought the
Bolsheviks were falsely generalising from the Russian situation, in
which the use of parliamentary methods etc. might have been necessary,
to the west European situation where the break with parliamentary
practices, and the emphasis on councilism was essential for the
revolution to succeed. Even when Lenin launched Left-Wing Communism â An
Infantile Disorder a vicious polemic against them and in support of the
KPD line, they still thought it was a matter of Lenin not understanding
the conditions for revolution in the West. Even when [Otto] Ruhle, their
delegate to the Second Congress of the Comintern, returned arguing that
Russia was âsovietâ only in name, the majority opposed his view.
However, Ruhleâs councilist argument that what Russia showed was that
party-rule was a bourgeois form, that ârevolution was not a party
affairâ, but a matter of councils and unitary factory organisations
only, was later to become the dominant position of the remains of the
German Left.
However, at this time, it was only when the Comintern adopted a line of
a âunited frontâ, and ordered the KAPD to liquidate and re-join the KPD,
which had by then merged with left social democrats, did they start to
rethink their position. By late 1921 â as a result of hearing about the
NEP, the suppression of strikes, as well as Russiaâs willingness to make
commercial and military treaties with capitalist powers â they decided
that the Bolsheviks and the Comintern had left the field of revolution.
They began to consider that there might have been internal conditions
forcing the counter revolutionary policies abroad. The White
counter-revolution had failed, yet Russia was acting in a capitalist way
both at home and abroad. What was the explanation for this?
In 1917, when the German Social Democrats had supported the Menshevik
line that Russia was only ready for a bourgeois revolution, the German
Left had welcomed October as the first crack in bourgeois power â the
start of world revolution. Now with it appearing that the Bolsheviks
were retreating from the proletarian socialist path, the German Left
started a move back to orthodoxy. Starting with a revised notion that
October was a dual revolution, they were to end by deciding it was a
bourgeois revolution through and through. Key to their understanding was
the perceived dominance of the peasants in Russia.
This first manifested itself when, in the Manifesto of the International
they tried to set up as a revolutionary alternative to the Comintern,
they not only qualified their previous view of the socialist character
of the revolution by going for a notion of dual revolution, but drew the
further conclusion that the end result had not been socialism, but state
capitalism. As Gorter put it, âin the large towns it was a change from
capitalism to socialism, in the country districts a change from
feudalism to capitalism. In the large towns the proletarian revolution
came to pass: in the country the bourgeois revolution.â[82] The
reference to the passing of the socialist side of the revolution was a
reference to how, as they argued, the NEP had not merely been a
âconcessionâ to the peasantry, as the Bolsheviks talked of it, but had
been a complete capitulation to the peasant â for them, bourgeois â side
of the revolution. The effect was that the proletarian side of the
revolution had been sacrificed, and what had been put in its place was
instead a form of state capitalism.
It was the central, if implicit, role of the Agrarian Question and the
Internationalist perspective was to play in their theories that led them
to return, ironically to Luxemburg. In 1918 she wrote a text â The
Russian Revolution â in which, while declaring solidarity with the
Bolsheviks, she made some deep criticisms of their actions in Russia,
nearly all of which the German Left were to take up as their own.
Written before the German Revolution, her condemnation of the Bolsheviks
was, however, secondary to her condemnation of the passivity of the
German Social Democrats for not following their revolutionary example.
She had no time for the Menshevik line echoed by the Social Democrats in
Germany that Russia was only ready for a bourgeois revolution. Instead
she insisted that the problems of the Russian Revolution were âa product
of international developments plus the Agrarian Questionâ which âcannot
possibly be solved within the limits of bourgeois societyâ and thus that
the fate of the revolution depended on the international proletariat,
especially the German proletariat without which aid the Russian
Revolution could not fail to become distorted, becoming âtangled in a
maze of contradictions and blunders.â (p. 29) The German Left â not
guilty like the Social Democrats of betraying the Russian revolution â
could see itself as theoretically untangling these contradictions and
blunders which the failure of world revolution had led the Russian
Revolution into.
The blunders Luxemburg criticized the Bolsheviks for were: their line on
national self determination; their suppression of the constituent
assembly and voting; their tendency towards a Jacobin Party dictatorship
rather than a real dictatorship of the proletariat involving the masses;
and their land policy which she said would create âa new and powerful
layer of popular enemies of socialism on the countryside, enemies whose
resistance will be much more dangerous and stubborn than that of the
noble large landowners.â [p 46] Giving this last point decisive
importance, the German Left supported all of Luxemburg criticisms except
for her position on the Constituent Assembly.
In fact the importance they attached to this last point became even
clearer when Gorter, in drawing upon Luxemburgâs assessment of the party
dictatorship, nevertheless put a different slant on it. This came out
when in The International Workers Revolution,[83] started by quoting her
statement: âYes: dictatorship... but this dictatorship must be of the
work of the class and not that of a leading minority in the name of the
class: that is to say, it must, step by step, arise from the active
participation of the class, remain under its direct influence, and be
subordinated to the control of publicity and be the outcome of the
political experience of the whole people.â In other words, Gorter agreed
with Luxemburg that the dictatorship of the proletariat was not the
undemocratic dictatorship of the party, but rather the quite democratic
dictatorship of the whole class. However he added that what she âdid not
understandâ was âthat all this could not happen in Russia; that no class
dictatorship was possible there, because the proletariat was too small
and the peasantry too mighty.â This orientation to the need for a
majority proletariat had thus taken him to question the possibility of
socialist revolution in Russia.
Gorter moved to the view that the bourgeois measures the Bolsheviks had
made were being forced by Russiaâs backwardness. He argued that the
minority status of the proletariat in Russia had forced a âparty
dictatorshipâ, and stated that despite not being organised, the
âelementary powerâ of the peasantry âforced the Bolsheviks â even men
like Lenin â to stand against the class from which it had sprung, and
which was inimical to the peasantry.â But what he did criticise the
Bolsheviks for, however, was their programme and the action they had
prescribed to the proletariat in advanced countries, which had blocked
the world revolution, and hence made the building up of world capitalism
possible. It was only because of the latter that the bourgeois measures
in Russia had become unredeemable.
Ruhle was to go even further than Gorter in this fatalistic direction.
Going away from Gorterâs notion of a dual revolution, he argued that the
revolution had been bourgeois from the start. He grounded this view on
what he called âthe phaseological development as advocated by Marx, that
after feudal tsarism in Russia there had to come the capitalist
bourgeois state, whose creator and representative was the bourgeois
class.â[84] So considering the historical circumstances, the Russian
Revolution could only have been a bourgeois revolution. Its role was to
get rid of tsarism, to smooth the way for capitalism, and to help the
bourgeoisie into the saddle politically. It was in this context that the
Bolsheviks, regardless of the subjective intentions, ultimately had to
bow for the historical forces at play. And their attempt to leap a stage
of development had not only showed how they had forgotten the âABC of
Marxist knowledgeâ that socialism could only come from mature
capitalism, but was also based âthe vague hope of world revolutionâ that
Ruhle now characterised as unjustified ârashness.â
But whilst this move to a semi-Menshevik position was indeed a move back
to the exact same position they had previously criticised the Social
Democrats for having, it also had its merits. Where the earlier German
Left focus on the New Course and NEP as a reversion to capitalism had
the deeply unpleasant implications that both war communism and Stalinâs
âleft turnâ was a return to socialism, the rigidly schematic position of
Ruhleâs theory allowed him to question the measures of nationalisation
used in both these periods:
ânationalisation is not socialisation. Through nationalisation you can
arrive at a large scale, tightly run state capitalism, which may exhibit
various advantages as against private capitalism. Only it is still
capitalism. and however you twist and turn, it gives no way of escape
from the constraint of bourgeois politicsâ.
It was Ruhleâs semi-Menshevik and fatalistic interpretation of Russia
that, like his full blown councilism, was at first resisted, but then
largely accepted by the German Left. This came out in what was its
closest to a definitive statement on the Russian question: the Theses on
Bolshevism.[85]
The position the German Left was arriving at, and which came out in
their Theses, was that the class and production conditions in Russia,
first forced the dictatorship to be a party rather than class one, and
second forced that party dictatorship to be a bourgeois capitalist one.
But where this general idea, in Ruhle, had been solely confined to
describing the historical forces that were at play behind the backs of
the Bolsheviks, and regardless of their subjective intentions, in the
Theses it took a more conspiratorial form. The Bolsheviks had not merely
been forced into a position of unwittingly carrying out a bourgeois
revolution, but had done so intentionally. From the very start they had
been a âjacobinalâ organisation of the ârevolutionary petty
bourgeoisieâ, who had been faced with a bourgeoisie that neither had the
collective will nor strength to carry out a bourgeois revolution. So by
manipulating the proletarian elements of society, they had been able to
carry out a bourgeois revolution against the bourgeoisie. Consequently,
âthe task of the Russian Revolution [had been] to destroy the remnants
of feudalism, industrialize agriculture, and create a large class of
free labourersâ. But despite this rather conspiratorial element of the
theory of the German Left, they escaped arguing that if the
revolutionary proletariat had just realised the true nature of the
Bolsheviks, they could have avoided the fate that was awaiting them.
Rather, the fact that the Bolsheviks had taken the form of a
revolutionary bourgeoisie was precisely because of the backwardness of
Russia, and the consequent development had been inevitable.
It was this notion of the Bolsheviks taking the role of the bourgeoisie
that allowed them, like Ruhle had done, to avoid seeing Stalinâs âleft
turnâ as a step in the right direction, and instead they saw it as an
attempt by the Soviet state to master the contradictory tension of the
two forces it had been riding: a âbolshevistic, bureaucratically
conducted state economyâ based on a regimented terrorised proletariat,
and the peasant economy which âconceals in its ranks the private
capitalist tendenciesâ of the economy. [p57] Or in other words, not as
with Trotskyâs Left Opposition, a tension between the socialist and
capitalist sectors, but between the state capitalist and petty
capitalist sides of the economy.
So like the Russian left communist current, the German Left was to end
up characterising Russia as state capitalist, or as they called it
âstate production with capitalist methods.â Whilst the commanding
heights of the economy were bureaucratically conducted by the Bolshevik
state, the underlying character was essentially capitalist. This they
grounded by arguing that âit rests on the foundation of commodity
production, it is conducted according to the viewpoint of capitalist
profitability; it reveals a decidedly capitalist system of wages and
speedup; it has carried the refinements of capitalist rationalisation to
the utmost limits.â Furthermore, the state form of production, they
argued, was still based on squeezing surplus value out of the workers;
the only difference being that, rather than a class of people
individually and directly pocketing the surplus value, it was taken by
the âbureaucratic, parasitical apparatus as a wholeâ and used for
reinvestment, their own consumption, and to support the peasants.
These arguments were a statement of the classic state capitalist case:
Russia was capitalist because all the categories of capitalism continued
to exist only with the state appropriating the surplus value and the
bureaucrats playing the role of capitalists. And in keeping with the
notion of state capitalism postulated by Marx and Engels, they ended up
grasping it as a higher stage of capitalism. As they argued, âThe
Russian state economy is therefore profit production and exploitation
economy. It is state capitalism under the historically unique conditions
of the Bolshevik regime, and accordingly represents a different and more
advanced type of capitalist production than even the greatest and most
advanced countries have to show.â[58â59]
However, the problems with grounding the accusation of state capitalism
on the basis that all the capitalist categories continued to exist soon
became apparent. To say that production was oriented to capitalist
profitability seemed questionable when the immediate aim seemed to be
the production of use-values, particularly of means of production with
no concern for the immediate profitability of the enterprise. Also to
say that goods were produced as commodities when it was the state
direction rather than their exchange value which seemed to determine
what and how many goods were produced, also required more argument.
While the state unquestionably seemed to be extracting and allocating
surplus products based on exploitation of surplus labour, to say that it
took the form of surplus value seemed precisely a point of contention.
It was these apparent differences between Russian and western capitalism
that led them to use the terms âstate capitalismâ and âstate socialismâ
interchangeably. And it was these theoretical problems of the German
Left that Mattick was later to try and solve. However, the main
direction of German Left theoretical effort in relation to the Russia
question was not to analyse the system in the USSR, but to build
alternative models of transition to the statist one they identified as
responsible for the Russian disaster. On the one hand, they were tempted
by a mathematical model of labour accounting that was supposed to
overcome money and value,[86] on the other, they made elaborate plans of
how workers councils could run society instead of the a party-state.[87]
Seeing his role as one of continuing the German council communist
tradition, and preserving its insights, Mattick first made explicit what
had been implicit in their assessment of Bolshevik policies.[88]
Recognising that Leninism was merely a variant of Kautskyist social
democracy, he made it clear that the Bolshevik conception of socialism
was from the start very different from, and in opposition to, the one
coming out of the councilist left. The reality of what Russia turned out
to be was not merely a reflection of the particular historical
circumstances it was faced with, but was embedded in the very ideology
of the Bolsheviks. This essentially Second International ideology had
seen the fundamental contradiction of capitalism as consisting in it
being, on the one hand, an anarchic system in which the law of value
regulated the market âbehind peopleâs backâ and, on the other hand,
having a tendency towards the socialisation of the productive forces,
and the development of more and more centralised planning and control.
Socialism was thus seen as the rational solution to this anarchy through
the appropriation, by a workers party, of the planning and
centralisation that capitalism was itself developing.
Mattick, following the councilist tradition, saw this statist vision as
having entirely lost the perspective of socialism as the abolition, by
the workers themselves, of their separation from the means of
production; of the abolition of the capital/labour relation and their
consequent ability to control the conditions of life â to establish a
society based on the free association of producers, as Marx had called
it. It was this perspective that allowed him, like previous left
communists, to say that the Bolsheviks, by taking the means of
production into the hands of the state, had not achieved socialisation,
but only the ânationalisation of capital as capitalâ ownership by
government rather than private capitalists. It was in this way that he,
against Trotsky and Stalin, could make the obvious point that the means
of production were not controlled by society as a whole, but still
existed vis a vis the workers as alien capital, and as such Russia had
not abolished the capital/labour relation fundamental to capitalism.
However, while this point was important, it was not enough proof in
Marxian terms of the existence of capitalism. The questions remained:
how did the system operate?, what was its drive or regulating
principles?, what laws governed it? And on these questions he was
orthodox enough a Marxist to accept that complete statification of the
means of production was a modification of capitalism with serious
implications for the validity of fundamental value categories.
Specifically the problem consisted in to what extent the law of value
still governed the economy in Russia. As Marx had argued, one of the
main defining characteristics of capitalism is that the market is
governed by the law of value. This means that instead of having a system
in which production is consciously planned so as to meet peopleâs needs,
we have a system in which these needs are only meet indirectly through
the exchange of commodities on the market. And the only regulatory
principle on the market is that of supply and demand. Against the
previous left communist tendency to classify Russia as state capitalist
without trying to ground it in the categories of value, Mattick even
made the further point that âto speak of the law of value as the
âregulatorâ of the economy in the absence of specifically capitalist
market relations can only mean that the terms âvalueâ and âsurplus
valueâ are retained, though they express no more than a relation between
labour and surplus labour.â [p321] The problem for Mattick was of course
that, considering he took Russia at face value and thought it was a
genuinely planned system, it became difficult to at the same time call
it capitalist. Considering that the market would no longer be run along
the lines of indirect forms of commodity exchange governed by the law of
value, but would be directly planned according to need, it would be
problematic to say that the law of value existed at all.
Ultimately, this led Mattick to concede that state capitalism in Russia
lacked what was a defining feature of capitalism, namely the law of
value. No longer having this option open to him, Mattick reverted back
to his previous reasons for calling Russia capitalist, coupled with the
vague point that it was âa system of exploitation based on the direct
control of a ruling minority over the ruled majority.â[p321]. But while
he still insisted on the continuity of exploitative social relations,
the fact that Mattick thought that the law of value had ceased to exist,
led him to affirm the argument of the previous German Left that Russia
was an advanced form of capitalism. This even to the extent that it had
overcome some of the main problems of private-property capitalism,
namely competition, crises and, as a result of the consequent stability,
to some extent class antagonisms.
The notion that Russia could not have a problem with crisis sounds
ironic today. There is also the further irony that while the main point
of Mattickâs book â on which it succeeded pretty well â was to attack
the view, so prevalent in the post-war boom, that Keynesianism had
resolved capitalismâs crisis tendency. But a more pressing problem with
his theory of Russia lies exactly with what he set out to prove, namely
that Russia, despite its apparent differences from western capitalism
was still capitalist in Marxâs terms. Although trying to say that what
he was describing was just a change in the form of capitalism, from
âmarketâ to âstate-plannedâ, this was open to the objection that value
relations such as those that occur through the market are not incidental
â they are of the very essence of the capital relation. And although
Mattick rightly pointed to the fact that Russia was still based on the
exploitation of the majority by the minority, one could easily argue
that the defining point about capitalism is exactly that this
exploitation occurs through the indirect form of commodity exchange with
all its mystifications. Indeed, it could be argued that Mattick
virtually implied that Russia was a non-capitalist form of exploitation
that used capitalist forms to cover up the arbitrary nature of its
exploitation. It is in the light of the major concessions to the
differences between the state system and normal capitalism Mattick was
willing to make, that critics would be justified in doubting the
validity of the term at all. Hence instead of solving the problems of
the theory of the German Left, that led them to use the terms âstate
capitalistâ and âstate socialistâ interchangeably, he merely exposed
them.
In a 1991 interview, his son Paul Mattick (Jnr) speculated that the
collapse of the USSR might have indicated that his father was wrong and:
whether it wasnât a mistake of all the people, members of this
ultra-left current, among whom I would include myself, to think of the
Bolshevik form, the centralized, state controlled economy, as a new
form, which we should think of as coming after capitalism, as
representing, say, a logical end point of the tendency to monopolization
and centralization of capital, which is a feature of all private
property capitalist systems. Instead, it seems to really have been a
kind of preparation for capitalist, development, a pre-capitalist form,
if you want. â
This is exactly what the leading thinker of the Italian Left had argued.
We now turn to the other main left communist position, that of the
Italian left. Like the German and Dutch Lefts the Italian Left
originated, in the years before the first world war as a left opposition
within a Second International party, in their case the Socialist Party
of Italy (PSI). But whereas German social democracy had exposed itself
as both reactionary and actively counter-revolutionary, the very
radicality of the Italian working class, and consequent strength of the
Left, meant that reformism in the PSI was not as hegemonic as in the
SPD. In 1912 the party even expelled an ultra-reformist wing over its
support for Italyâs Libyan war, and when the world war broke out and the
Italian working class responded with a Red Week of riots across the
country reaching insurrectionary proportions in Ancona, the PSI alone
among the western Social democratic parties did not rally to the nation.
Their apparent difference from the SPD further came out when in 1919 the
PSI affiliated to the Comintern. The enemy of the Italian Left was thus
not an obviously counter-revolutionary party, but one dominated by the
revolutionary posture of âMaximalismâ, that is, combining verbal
extremism with opportunist economic and political practice, or more to
the point, inaction. This discontinuity between the social democracy in
Italy and Germany was to greatly influence their theoretical
developments. Where the German Left had very quickly reacted to the
current events by making a final break with social democracy and going
for a full blown councilist line, the Italian Left remained much more
favourable to partyism. In a sense we could say that while the German
Left tendency was to overcome the social democratic separation of the
âpoliticalâ and âeconomicâ struggle by putting their trust in a
revolutionary âeconomicâ struggle, the solution that the Italian Left
moved to was an absolute subordination of political and economic
struggles to a genuinely communist âpoliticalâ direction.
The determination to decisively politically break from all reformism
developed in the context of Italyâs experience of the revolutionary wave
â the Biennio Rosso (Red Two Years). This was a period in which workers
set up factory councils, poor peasants and demobilised soldiers seized
land, and where demonstrations, street actions, rioting, strikes and
general strikes were regular occurrences. From the summer of 1919, when
the state nearly buckled in the face of near insurrectionary food riots
and syndicalist forms of redistribution and counter power, to the
Occupations of the Factories in September 1920, revolution seemed almost
within their reach. However, instead of taking an active part in this
revolutionary wave, the PSI and its linked unions refused to act and at
times even actively sabotaged the class struggle. However, where the
German Left had reacted to similar occurrences by breaking with the SPD
and identifying with the council movement, the reaction within the
Italian party was, on the one hand, the Abstentionist Communist Fraction
around Bordiga struggling to eliminate the reformists from the party,
and on the other hand, the LâOrdine Nuovo (LâON) centred around Gramsci
and orientated to councils, but who saw no need to break from the
âMaximalismâ of the PSI.
The adequate basis for the break with âMaximalismâ was finally provided
when, in the context of this intense class struggle, the Italian PSI
delegates, including Bordiga, went to the 2^(nd) Congress of the
Comintern in mid-1920. Key to this Congress was the setting of 21
conditions for membership of affiliating parties. Although Bordigaâs
group had to renounce their abstentionism, the overall target was the
âcentristâ and opportunist tendencies of the PSI. Seeing that the
overall tendency within the Comintern was in their favour, Bordiga even
managed to beef up the disciplinary measures so that complying with the
directives given by the Comintern was a condition for affiliation.
Consequently, the Second Congress turned out to be massively helpful to
them in their battle with the centre/right, and as such their attempts
to forge a genuinely revolutionary communist party in Italy. They came
away strengthened in their fight with the PSI by Leninâs authority, and
felt that their fight for a revolutionary party was in convergence with
the Bolsheviks. Consequently, the ideas beginning to emerge within the
German Left â that Bolshevik prescriptions for the Western proletariat
were not necessarily appropriate; that there might even be a
contradiction between Bolshevism and revolutionary politics; and that
the good of the World Revolution was being sacrificed to the national
needs of the Russian state â not only failed to resonate with the
Italian Left, but quite the opposite seemed to be the case.
With this reinforcement from Moscow the Italian Left finally made their
break with the PSI. This was prompted by the movement of factory
occupations, that exposed the bankruptcy of the PSI and its CGL unions.
As a wage dispute by members of the Metal workers union developed into a
massive wave of factory occupations, and everybody could see that the
situation was critical and had moved beyond economic demands, the PSI
and the unions responded by exposing their absolute inability to act for
revolution. Instead of taking any revolutionary initiative, the PSI
passed the bug to the CGL, who had a vote on whether to go for
revolution or not. The outcome was 409,000 for revolution and 590,000
against. But where the break from social democracy had led the Germans
to a full blown councilist approach, in Italy the defeat of the factory
occupations also marked the end of the councilist approach of Gramsciâs
LâON group. Bordigaâs analysis on the need for a principled break with
PSIâs âMaximalismâ was now accepted by nearly all revolutionaries in the
party, and in early 1921 they formed the Communist Party of Italy (PCI)
under his leadership.
However, the coming together of the communist elements came too late.
Not only was the Bienno Rosso a failed revolution, but a fascist
counter-revolution was on the cards. With the tacit support of the
democratic state, fascist squadrista moved from their rural strongholds
to attack workers neighbourhoods and worker organisations. Although
communist and other workers formed armed detachments to fight back, the
sort of working class reaction that in Germany defeated the Kapp putsch
did not materialise, and by the end of 1922 Mussolini was in power.
Revolutionary setbacks, however, were not just confined to Italy, but
was a general international phenomenon. But instead of recognising this
as being the result of social democracy (or the failure of these parties
to lead the struggles in a revolutionary direction, as the Italian Left
saw it), the Comintern responded by imposing its policy of a âunited
frontâ. For Italy the âunited frontâ line meant demanding the PCI fuse
with Serratiâs PSI, only asking that it first expel its right wing
around Turatti. For Bordiga and the PCI, after their hard fought battle
to disentangle themselves from the pseudo revolutionary maximilism of
Serrati, the demand they unite with him was anathema.[89] They felt that
in the turn to these flexible tactics, the communist political programme
they had arrived at was in danger of being diluted or lost.
But where this, in Germany, led to the final break with Bolshevism, in
Italy it resulted in a total Bolshevisation of the PCI. Ironically it
was the Italian Left that had not only fought to make the Italian Party
Bolshevik (in terms of their perception of the meaning of that term),
but had also insisted on the Cominternâs disciplinary role on national
sections. But now they were to become one of the main victims of that
discipline. Their insistence that socialism was only possible if carried
out on a world-scale and led by an international revolutionary party, as
well as their failure to see that the Comintern was largely dominated by
Russia and used for its own national purposes, meant that they still
perceived the Comintern as this international and revolutionary agent.
Ultimately, this meant that they were willing to accept the rigors of
discipline to policies they totally opposed and indeed felt were
betraying the communist programme, in order to hold on for as long as
possible. This even to the extent that Bordiga, despite his overall
majority in the PCI, conceded leadership to a small faction of the party
led by Gramsci, which was willing to obey Moscow and impose
âBolshevisationâ on the party. Later Bordiga and the fraction around him
were forced out of the party they had created.[90] Still, it would be
many years before would fully identify Russia as capitalist.
So where the Germans, in their councilism, had taken an outright
anti-Leninist stance, the Italian Left took a much more Leninist
approach. Indeed when the Italian Left had finally, in exile, started to
question the nature of Russia, it was in a manner that seemed at first
closer to that of Trotskyâs, rather than the theories coming out of left
communists elsewhere. Against the German left communists, they had
insisted that the argument that the Russian Revolution had been
bourgeois from the start, was a loss of the whole international
perspective that had been shared by all the revolutionary fractions at
the time. But whilst this point certainly allowed the Italians not to
lose the revolutionary significance of October, their logic that if the
revolution had been a proletarian revolution, the state was a
proletarian state that had degenerated, had the down-side of appearing
to be a version of Trotskyâs theory of a degenerated workers state.
The âLeninistâ side of the Italian Left became especially clear with
Bordiga when, in his attempt to gain an understanding of the nature of
Russia, put great emphasis on the very text that Lenin had used to
attack the Russian Left Communists, namely the Tax in Kind pamphlet. By
returning to the Agrarian Question Bordiga bypassed a lot of state
capitalist concerns. Looked at economically, he argues, Russia did not
have the prerequisites for socialism or communism, and the tasks that
faced it were bourgeois tasks, namely the development of the productive
forces for which resolving the Agrarian Question was essential. However,
the war that Russia was part of was an imperialist war that expressed
that the capitalist world as a whole was ready for socialist revolution
and Russia had not only a proletariat who carried out the revolution,
but a proletarian party oriented to world revolution had been put in
power. Thus on the âprimacy of the politicalâ October was a proletarian
revolution. But insofar as Bordiga assumed that, economically speaking,
there was no other path to socialism than through the accumulation of
capital, the role of the proletarian party was simply to allow but at
the same time keep under control the capitalist developments necessary
to maintain social life in Russia.
Ironically however, it was exactly in emphasising Leninâs notion that
capitalism under workers control of the party was the best Russia could
have, that Bordiga could go beyond not only the Trotskyism, that the
Italian Left theory of Russia had initially seemed close to, but more
importantly maybe, the theory of the German Left. As was shown in the
previous article of this series, Trotsky took the nationalisation of
land and industry as well as the monopoly on foreign trade, as evidence
for Russia in fact having the socio-economic foundations for socialism â
hence his notion that the revolution was congealed in âproperty formsâ.
And relying on Preobrazenskyâs contrast between what he saw as the âlaw
of planningâ of the state sector versus the law of value of the peasant
sector, he argued that one of the main obstacles that had to be dealt
with before arriving at socialism proper, was the capitalist features of
the peasant sector. As such he argued that Russia was a more advanced
socialistic transitional economy. The German Left, although differing
from Trotskyâs view in the sense that they maintained that the
revolution had been bourgeois from the start, was in essence very close
to it. This was insofar as they, in line with the traditional state
capitalist argument, saw Russia as a more advanced, concentrated version
of capitalism, leading Mattick virtually to a third system conception.
Bordiga, exactly by returning to Leninâs emphasis on the political,
could avoid going down that path. The clashes between the state
industrial sector and the peasant sector was not, as Trotsky and
Preobrazhensky had argued, the clash between socialism and capitalism.
Rather, as Bordiga argued, it was the clash between capitalism and
pre-capitalist forms. And here lay the real originality of Bordigaâs
thought: Russia was indeed a transitional society, but transitional
towards capitalism. Far from having gone beyond capitalist laws and
categories, as for instance Mattick had argued, the distinctiveness of
Russian capitalism lay in its lack of full development.
This was grounded on Russiaâs peripheral status versus the core
capitalist economies. In a period when world capitalism would otherwise
have prevented the take off of the capitalist mode of production,
preferring to use underdeveloped areas for raw materials, cheap labour
and so on, Russia was an example of just such an area, that through
extreme methods of state protectionism and intervention secured
economical development and as such prevented the fate of being assigned
a peripheral status on the world market. It is this role of the
Bolsheviks as the enforcer of capitalist development that explains why
the USSR became a model for elites in ex-colonial and otherwise less
developed countries.
The failure of both Trotsky and the German Left to see this also showed
up in their confusion with regard to Stalinâs âleft-turnâ. Never having
accepted the Primitive Socialist Accumulation thesis of Preobrazhensky,
Bordiga could make the rather obvious judgement that what Stalin carried
out in the thirties â the forced collectivisation of peasants and the 5
year plans â was a savage primitive capitalist accumulation: a âRussian
capitalism Mark 2â. Stalinâs âleft turnâ was then neither a product of
his impulses nor represented him being forced to defend the âsocialistâ
gains of the economyâ. Rather it came from the pressing need for capital
accumulation felt by Russia as a competing capitalist state. And the
Stalinist excesses of the thirties â âliterally a workersâ hell, a
carnage of human energy.â[91] â were but a particular expression of the
âgeneral universal conditions appropriate to the genesis of all
capitalism.â For Bordiga once the proletarian political side went, what
was striking was the continuity of the problems facing the emerging
capitalism in Russia whether its government be Tsarist or Stalinist:
that of attempting to develop the capitalist mode of production in a
backward country facing world imperialism. In 1953 he states: âThe
economic process underway in the territories of the Russian union can be
defined essentially as the implanting of the capitalist mode of
production, in its most modern form and with the latest technical means,
in countries that are backward, rural, feudal and asiatic-oriental.â
[p43]
Indeed, as Bordiga recognised, the problems involved with the crash
course in capitalist development that the Bolsheviks imposed, also
resulted in certain measures that were to obstruct the full expressions
of a capitalist development. He centred this on its inadequate
resolution of the sin qua non of capitalism: the Agrarian Revolution.
Despite its brutality, Bordiga noted that the collectivisation process
involved a compromise by which the peasants did not become entirely
property-less, but were allowed to retain a plot of land and sell its
produce through market mechanisms. This, as Bordiga saw it, re-produced
the capitalist form of the small-holder, but without the revolutionary
progressive tendency to ruin and expropriate these producers, because
âthe little that belongs to him is guaranteed by law. The collective
farmer is therefore the incarnation of the compromise between the
ex-proletarian state and the small producers past on in
perpetuity.â[25â6] While collectivisation did produce the proletarians
necessary for state industry, Soviet agriculture remained a hybrid form,
an achilles heel of the economy never attaining full subordination to
capitalist laws.
This view of the Russian state being in the service of developing
capitalism in Russia also allowed Bordiga to go beyond the focus on
bureaucracy of Trotskyâs theory, and its mirror in most state capitalist
theories, such as the Germans, of identifying these new state officials
as a new ruling class. Bordiga felt that the obsession with finding
individual capitalist or substitutes for capitalists had lost Marxâs
understanding of capital as above all an impersonal force. As Bordiga
said âdeterminism without men is meaningless, that is true, but men
constitute the instrument and not the motor.â[92] Such a point also
applies to the state: as Bordiga argued, âit is not a case of the
partial subordination of capital to the state, but of ulterior
subordination of the state to capitalâ[p.7] State despotism in Russia
was at the service of the capitalist mode of production pushing its
development in areas that resisted it. However, a weakness of Bordigaâs
analysis was that whereas he looked under the surface of the Soviet
claims about agriculture, he tended to base his view that the state
sector was governed by the law of value simply on the appearance of
forms, like commodities and money, and on Stalinâs claims that value
exists under socialism. So although the Italian Left seemed at first
closer to the Trotskyâs notion of a degenerated workers state, it was
through Bordigaâs literal interpretation of Lenin on the Russian
economy, he could go beyond both Trotsky and the German Left.
As stated in the introduction, any analysis of the Russian revolution
and the society that emerged from it cannot be separated from a
conception of what communism is. Indeed one way in which all the left
communists, unlike Trotsky, could go beyond Second International
Marxism, was by insisting that neither the transition to communism nor
communism itself should in any way be identified with state-control of
the means of production. Indeed nothing short of their proper
socialisation or communisation would do. It was this perspective that
allowed them to distance themselves from, and criticise Russia as being
state capitalist or, as Bordiga put it, simply capitalist.
However, with regard to their specific answers to the question of what a
genuine communisation process would have consisted in, the situation was
slightly more ambiguous. The Germans (and to some extent the Russians),
in their focus on the economic sphere, ultimately ended up with a notion
of communism consisting in workersâ self-management. The important
differentiation between capitalism and communism was correctly seen to
lie in workers overcoming their separation from the means of production.
The idea was that only in the factory, only at the point of production
could workers overcome the domination maintained by bourgeois politics,
cease to act as isolated bourgeois individuals and act as a socialised
force, as a class. This slipped into a factoryism which neglected the
fact that the enterprise is a capitalist form par excellence and that if
the class is united, there it is united as variable capital. It was this
councilist approach that led them to work out rather mathematical
accounting schemes[93] for how the transition to communism could work
and elaborate schemes for how the councils could link up.
The problem with this self-management approach was of course that it
seemed to imply that as long as the enterprises were managed by the
workers themselves, it did not matter that capitalist social relations
continued to exist. It is in this sense that the German Left never
managed to make a full break from Second International Marxismâs
identification with the development of the productive forces and with
the working class as working class.
It was in this respect that the importance of the Italian Left came out.
In emphasising the âprimacy of the politicalâ, they could take a more
social and holistic standpoint. Communism was not just about replacing
the party with the councils, and state-control with workers control.[94]
Communism, they argued, was not merely about workers managing their own
exploitation, but about the abolition of wage labour, the enterprise
form and all capitalist categories. The fundamental question was not so
much that of âwho manages?â but about âwhat is managed?â
But whilst the German Leftâs focus on the economic had led them into the
self-management trap, one thing it did allow them to do was to emphasise
the subjectivity of the working class as an agent of change. This notion
of subjectivity was, if not entirely absent in the theory of the Italian
Left, then reserved only for the party.
The absurdities involved in rejecting any notion of working class
subjectivity became especially clear in the Italian Leftâs assessment of
Russia. There, they argued, communism could be represented in the
correct political line of a ruling party managing a system of capitalist
social relations â a ridiculously unmaterialist position â arguing that
what mattered was not the social relations in a country, but the
subjective intentions of those in power (a perfect justification for
repression based on the notion that âit was for their own good they were
massacredâ). And it was in this respect that the Italian Left had not
completely broken from the politicism/partyism of the Second
International.
Indeed, it was the blind spots in each theory that led to their mutual
incomprehension: whilst the Italian Left saw the Germans as nothing more
than a Marxoid form of anarcho-syndicalism, the Germans in turn merely
saw the Italians as a bunch of Leninists. But if the dogmatic sides of
their respective theories merely served to push them further apart, it
was ultimately the one-sidedness of their respective approaches that
resulted in them not breaking entirely away from the dogmatism of the
Second International. Whilst the Italian Left had arrived at a more
adequate notion of the content of communism, it was the German Left that
was to provide the form through which emancipation could be reached.
In different ways, both the German and Italian left communist currents
managed to maintain a correct political perspective. While the German
Left emphasised workersâ self-emancipation, the Italian Left provide a
better angle on what communism would consist in. Yet, in terms of a
âscientificâ account of the kind of society developing in the USSR, both
fell down.[95]
On the one hand, the German Left slipped into a conception of âstate
capitalismâ that was not grounded in value. Without this essential
category they tended, like Tony Cliff and the Trotskyists, to see the
USSR as a âhigherâ, crisis-free type of economy. Bordigaâs theory, on
the other hand, did not fall into the trap of seeing the USSR as a more
advanced form of capitalism. Instead he recognised that Russia was in
transition towards capitalism. As we shall see, this is an important
insight into understanding the nature of the USSR.
But Bordiga did not really concern himself with value categories. He
largely assumed that the obvious signs of capital accumulation must be
based on commodities, money and wage-labour, all playing the same role
as in the West. It is thus Mattick who exposed the issue more
conscientiously. And if we are really to grasp the capitalist nature of
the USSR, both before and since the fall of âcommunismâ, we must, on the
value question, provide a different answer than his. This will be
explored in our final Part of this article in the next issue.
So our saga on the nature of the USSR draws to a close. While some
readers have awaited avidly for each exciting instalment, others from
the beginning thought we gave disproportionate space to this rather
tired old topic.[96] Another dissatisfied group may be the partisans of
particular theories which were not given the recognition they feel they
deserved.[97] This was unavoidable considering the sheer number of
theories one could have dealt with. The list of political tendencies
which have considered that the USSR was a variety of capitalism includes
âanarchism, council communism, âimpossibilismâ, many types of Leninism
(including Bordigism, Maoism and a number arising out of Trotskyism),
libertarian socialism, Marxist-Humanism, Menshevism, the Situationist
International and social democracy.[98] Some might also question why, of
our previous parts, only one dealt with (state-)capitalist theories
outside Trotskyism. Yet what is striking in looking at these
alternatives is that none dealt adequately with the âorthodox Marxistâ
criticisms coming from Trotskyism. If Trotskyism itself has been
politically bankrupt in its relation to both Stalinism and social
democracy â and this is not unrelated to its refusal to accept the USSR
was capitalist â at a certain theoretical level it still posed a
challenge. We restate the issues at stake in the first few pages below.
While fragmented ideological conceptions satisfy the needs of the
bourgeoisie, the proletariat must acquire theory: the practical truth
necessary for its universal task of self-abolition which at the same
time abolishes class society. Clearing some of the bullshit and
clarifying issues around one of the central obstacles to human
emancipation that the 20^(th) century has thrown up, namely the
complicity of the Left with capital, may help the next century have done
with the capitalist mode of production once and for all.
The problem of determining the nature of the USSR was that it exhibited
two contradictory aspects. On the one hand, the USSR appeared to have
characteristics that were strikingly similar to those of the actually
existing capitalist societies of the West. Thus, for example, the vast
majority of the population of the USSR was dependent for their
livelihoods on wage-labour. Rapid industrialisation and the forced
collectivisation of agriculture under Stalin had led to the break up of
traditional communities and the emergence of a mass industrialised
society made up of atomised individuals and families. While the
overriding aim of the economic system was the maximisation of economic
growth.
On the other hand, the USSR diverged markedly from the laissez-faire
capitalism that had been analysed by Marx. The economy of the USSR was
not made up of competing privately owned enterprises regulated through
the âinvisible handâ of the market. On the contrary, all the principal
means of production were state owned and the economy was consciously
regulated through centralised planning. As a consequence, there were
neither the sharp differentiation between the economic nor the political
nor was there a distinct civil society that existed between family and
state. Finally the economic growth was not driven by the profit motive
but directly by the need to expand the mass of use-values to meet the
needs of both the state and the population as a whole.
As a consequence, any theory that the USSR was essentially a capitalist
form of society must be able to explain this contradictory appearance of
the USSR. Firstly, it must show how the dominant social relations that
arose in the peculiar historical circumstance of the USSR were
essentially capitalist social relations: and to this extent the theory
must be grounded in a value-analysis of the Soviet Union. Secondly it
must show how these social relations manifested themselves, not only in
those features of the USSR that were clearly capitalist, but also in
those features of the Soviet Union that appear as distinctly at variance
with capitalism.
As we saw in Part III, there were a number of theories that emerged out
of the Communist Left following the Russian Revolution that came to
argue that the USSR was essentially a form of capitalism. Most of these
early theories, however, had focused on the question of the class nature
of the Russian Revolution and had failed to go far in developing a
value-analysis of the Soviet System.[99] However, following Mattickâs
attempt to analyse the USSR of value-forms there have been a number of
attempts to show that, despite appearances to the contrary, the dominant
social relations of the USSR were essentially capitalist in nature.
Of course, any theory that the USSR was in some sense capitalist must
reject the vulgar interpretation of orthodox Marxism which simply sees
capitalism as a profit driven system based on private property and the
âanarchy of the marketâ. The essence of capitalism is the dominance of
the social relations of capital. But what is capital? From Marx it can
be argued that capital was essentially the self-expansion of alienated
labour: the creative and productive powers of human activity that
becomes an alien force that subsumes human will and needs to its own
autonomous expansion.
Yet the alienation of labour presupposes wage-labour which itself
presupposes the separation of the direct producers from both the means
of production and the means of subsistence. Of course, in the âclassical
formâ of capitalism private property is the institutional means through
which the direct producers are separated from both the means of
production and the means of subsistence. The class of capitalists owns
both the means of production and the means of subsistence in the form of
the private property of each individual capitalist. In confronting the
private property of each individual capitalist the worker finds himself
excluded from access to the means through he can either directly or
indirectly satisfy his needs. As a consequence he is obliged to sell his
labour-power to one capitalist so that he can then buy his means of
subsistence from another. Yet in selling their labour-power to
capitalists the working class produce their future means of subsistence
and their future means of production as the private property of the
capitalist class. In doing so they end up reproducing the relation of
capital and wage-labour.
Yet this social relation is not fundamentally altered with the
institution of the state ownership of both the means of production and
the means of subsistence. Of course the Stalinist apologists would claim
that the state ownership of means of production meant the ownership of
by the entire population. But this was quite clearly a legal formality.
The Soviet working class no more owned and controlled their factories
than British workers owned British Steel, British Coal or British
Leyland in the days of the nationalised industries. State ownership,
whether in Russia or elsewhere, was merely a specific institutional form
through which the working class was excluded from both the means of
production and the means of subsistence and therefore obliged to sell
their labour-power.
In selling their labour-power to the various state enterprises the
Russian workers did not work to produce for their own needs but worked
in exchange for wages. Thus in a very real sense they alienated their
labour and hence produced capital. Instead of selling their labour-power
to capital in the form of a private capitalist enterprise, the Russian
working class simply sold their labour-power to capital in the form of
the state owned enterprise.
Whereas in the âclassical formâ of capitalism the capitalist class is
constituted through the private ownership of the means of production, in
the USSR the capitalist class was constituted through the state and as
such collectively owned and controlled the means of production.
Nevertheless, by making the Russian working class work longer than that
necessary to produce the equivalent of their labour-power the Russian
State enterprises were able to extract surplus-value just as the
counterparts in the West would do. Furthermore, while a part of this
surplus-value would be used to pay for the privileges of the âstate
bourgeoisieâ, as in the West, the largest part would be reinvested in
the expansion of the economy and thus ensuring the self-expansion of
state-capital.
Hence by penetrating behind the forms of property we can see that the
real social relations within the USSR were essentially those of capital.
The USSR can therefore be seen as having been capitalist â although in
the specific form of state capitalism. However politically useful and
intuitive correct this classification of the USSR may be, the problem is
that by itself this approach is unable to explain the apparently
non-capitalist aspects of the USSR. As anyone acquainted with Hegel
might say âthe essence must appear!â. Capital may be the self-expansion
of alienated labour but it is labour in the form of value. How can we
speak of value, or indeed surplus-value, when there is no production of
commodities, since without markets there was no real production for
exchange?
These criticisms of state capitalist theories of the USSR have emerged
out of the Trotskyist tradition. It is to this tradition that we must
now turn to explore the limits of the state capitalist theories of the
USSR.
The more sophisticated Trotskyist theorists have criticised the method
of state capitalist theories of the USSR. They argue it is wrong to seek
to identify an abstract and ahistorical essence of capitalism and seek
to identify its existence to a concrete historical social formation such
as the USSR. For them the apparent contradiction between the
non-capitalist and capitalist aspects of the USSR was a real
contradiction that can only be understood by grasping the Soviet Union
as a transitional social formation.
As we saw in Part I, for Trotskyists, the Russian Revolution marked a
decisive break with capitalism. As a consequence, following 1917, Russia
had entered a transitional period between capitalism and socialism. As
such the USSR was neither capitalist nor socialist but had aspects of
the two which arose from the struggle between the law of value and of
planning.
As a result Trotskyist never denied the existence of capitalist aspects
of the USSR. Indeed they accepted the persistence of capitalist forms
such as money, profits, interest and wages. But these were decaying
forms â âempty husksâ â that disguised the emerging socialist relations
in a period of transition. This becomes clear, they argue if we examine
these âcapitalist formsâ more closely.
Firstly, it may appear that in the USSR that production took the form of
production for exchange and hence products took the form of commodities.
After all, different state enterprises traded with each other and sold
products to the working class. But for the most part such exchange of
products was determined by the central plan not by competitive exchange
on the market. As a consequence, while the state enterprises formally
sold their outputs and purchased their inputs such âexchangesâ were in
content merely transfers that were made in accordance with the central
plan. Hence production was not for exchange but for the plan and thus
products did not really assume the form of commodities.
Secondly, since there was no real commodity exchange, but simply a
planed transfer of products, there could be no real money in USSR. While
money certainly existed and was used in transactions it did not by any
means have the full functions that money has under capitalism. Money
principally functioned as a unit of account. Unlike money under
capitalism, which as the universal equivalent, was both necessary and
sufficient to buy anything, in the USSR money may have been necessary to
buy certain things but was often very far from being sufficient. As the
long queues and shortages testified what was needed in USSR to obtain
things was not just money but also time or influence.
Thirdly, there were the forms of profits and interest. Under capitalism
profit serves as the driving force that propels the expansion of the
economic system, while interest ensures the efficient allocation of
capital to the most profitable sectors and industries. In the USSR the
forms of profit and interest existed but they were for the most part
accounting devises. Production was no more production for profit than it
was production for exchange. Indeed the expansion of the economic system
was driven by the central plan that set specific targets for the
production of use-values not values.[100]
Finally and perhaps most importantly we come to the form of wages. To
the extent that Trotskyist theorists reject the Stalinist notion that
the Russian working class were co-owners of the state enterprises, they
are obliged to accept that the direct producers were separated from both
their means of subsistence and the means of production. However, in the
absence of general commodity production it is argued that the Russian
worker was unable to sell her labour-power as a commodity. Firstly,
because the worker was not âfreeâ to sell her labour power to who ever
she chose and secondly because the money wage could not be freely
transformed into commodities. As a consequence, although the workers in
the USSR were nominally paid wages, in reality such wages were little
more than pensions or rations that bore scant relation to the labour
performed. The position of the worker was more like that of a serf or
slave tied to a specific means of production that a âfreeâ wage worker.
We shall return to consider this question of âempty capitalist formsâ
later. What is important at present is to see how the Trotskyist
approach is able to ground the contradictory appearance of the USSR as
both capitalist and non-capitalist in terms of the transition from
capitalism to socialism. To this extent the Trotskyist approach has the
advantage over most state capitalist theories that are unable to
adequately account for the non-capitalist aspects of the USSR. This
failure to grasp the non-capitalist aspects of the USSR has been exposed
in the light of the decay and final collapse of the USSR.
One of the most striking features of the capitalist mode of production
is its crisis ridden mode of development. Capitalism has brought about
an unprecedented development of the productive forces, yet such
development has been repeatedly punctuated by crises of overproduction.
The sheer waste that such crises could involve had become clearly
apparent in the great depression of the 1930s. On the one side millions
of workers in the industrialised countries had been plunged into poverty
by mass unemployment while on the other side stood idle factories that
had previous served as a means to feed and clothe these workers. In
contrast, at that time Stalinist Russia was undergoing a process of
rapid apparently crisis free industrialisation that was to transform the
USSR from a predominantly agrarian economy into a major industrial and
military power.[101]
In the 1930s and the decades that followed, even bourgeois observers had
come to accept the view that the Stalinist system of centralised
planning had overcome the problem of economic crisis and was at least in
economic terms an advance over free market capitalism. The only question
that remained for such observers was whether the cost in bourgeois
freedom that the Stalinist system seemed to imply was worth the economic
gains of a rationally planned economy.
While it became increasingly difficult for Trotskyists to defend the
notion that the USSR was a degenerated workers state on the grounds that
the working class was in any sense in power, the USSR could still be
defended as being progressive in that it was able to develop the forces
of production faster than capitalism. To the extent that the rapid
development of the forces of production was creating the material
conditions for socialism then the USSR could still be seen as being in
the long term interests of the working class.
Many of the state capitalist theorists shared this common view that the
USSR was an advance over the free market capitalism of the West. While
they may have disagreed with the Trotskyist notion that the Russian
Revolution had led to a break with capitalism they still accepted that
by leading to the eventual introduction of a predominantly state
capitalist economy it had marked an advance not only over
pre-Revolutionary Russia but also over Western capitalism.
This view seemed to be confirmed by the post Second World War
development in Western capitalism. The emergence of Keynesian demand
management, widespread nationalisation of key industries, indicative
planning[102] and the introduction of the welfare state all seemed to
indicate an evolution towards the form of state capitalism. For many
bourgeois as well as Marxist theorists of the 1950s and 1960s there was
developing a convergence between the West and the East as the state
increasingly came to regulate the economy. For Socialism or Barbarism
there was emerging what they termed a âbureaucratic capitalismâ that had
overcome the problems of economic crisis.
As we noted in Part III, Mattick as one of the leading state capitalist
theorist of the German left, rejected the claims that Keynesianism had
resolved the contradictions of capitalism. Yet nevertheless he took the
claims that the USSR had itself resolved the problems of economic crisis
through rational planning at face value.
However, as we saw in Part II, by the 1970s it had become increasingly
clear that the USSR had entered a period of chronic economic stagnation.
By the time of the collapse of the USSR in 1990 only the most hard line
Stalinist could deny that the USSR had been a bureaucratic nightmare
that involved enormous economic waste and inefficiency.
State capitalist theories have so far proved unable to explain the
peculiar nature of the fundamental contradictions of the USSR that led
to its chronic stagnation and eventual downfall.[103] If the USSR was
simply a form of capitalism then the crisis theories of capitalism
should be in some way applicable to the crisis in the USSR. But attempts
to explain the economic problems of the USSR simply in terms of the
falling rate and profit, overproduction and crisis etc. have failed to
explain the specific features of the economic problems that beset the
USSR. The USSR did not experience acute crisis of overproduction but
rather problems of systematic waste and chronic economic stagnation,
none of which can be explained by the standard theories of capitalist
crisis.
As a consequence of this limitation of state capitalist theories,
perhaps rather ironically, the most persuasive explanation of the
downfall of the USSR has not arisen from those traditions that had most
consistently opposed the Soviet Union, and which had given rise to the
theories that Soviet Union was a form of State Capitalism, but from the
Trotskyist tradition that had given the USSR its critical support. As we
saw in Part II, it has been Ticktin that has given the most plausible
explanation and description of the decline and fall of the USSR.
Although in developing his theory of the USSR Ticktin was obliged to
ditch the notion that the USSR remained a degenerate workers state, he
held on to the crucial Trotskyist notion that the Soviet Union was in a
transitional stage between capitalism and socialism. For Ticktin,
Russiaâs transition to socialism was part of the global transition from
capitalism to socialism. With the failure of the world revolution
following the First World War Russia was left in isolation and was
unable to complete the transition to socialism. As a consequence, the
USSR became stuck in a half-way position between capitalism and
socialism. The USSR subsequently degenerated into a ânon-mode of
productionâ. While it ceased to be regulated by the âlaw of valueâ it
could not adequately regulated through the law of planning without the
participation of the working class.
As we saw in Part II, it is within this theoretical framework that
Ticktin argued that the USSR was the first attempt to make the
transition from capitalism to socialism within the global epoch of the
decline of capitalism that Ticktin was able to develop his analysis of
the decline and fall of the USSR. However, as we also saw while his
analysis is perhaps the most plausible explanation that has been offered
for the decline and fall of the USSR it has important failings. As we
have argued, despite twenty years and numerous articles developing his
analysis of the USSR, Ticktin has been unable to develop a systematic
and coherent methodological exposition of his theory of the Soviet Union
as a non-mode production. Instead Ticktin is obliged to take up a number
of false starts each of which, while often offering important insights
into the nature and functioning of the USSR, runs into problems in its
efforts to show that the Soviet Union was in some sense in transition to
socialism. Indeed, he is unable to adequately explain the persistence
and function of capitalist categories in the USSR.
If we are to develop an alternative to Ticktin theory which is rooted in
the tradition that has consistently seen the USSR as being state
capitalist[104] it is necessary that we are able to explain the
non-capitalist aspects of the USSR that previous state capitalist
theories have failed to do. To do this we propose to follow Ticktin and
consider the USSR as a transitional social formation, but, following the
insights of Bordiga and the Italian Left, we do not propose to grasp the
USSR as having been in transition from capitalism but as a social
formation in transition to capitalism.
But before we can do this we must first consider particular nature of
the form of state capitalism.
Within the traditional Marxism of both the Second and Third
Internationals state capitalism is viewed as the highest form of
capitalism. As Marx argued, the prevalent tendency within the
development of capitalism is the both the concentration and
centralisation of capital. As capital is accumulated in ever large
amounts the weak capitals are driven out by the strong. Capital becomes
centralised into fewer and fewer hands as in each industry the
competition between many small capitals becomes replaced by the monopoly
of a few.
By the end of the nineteenth century the theorists of the Second
International had begun to argue that this tendency had gone so far that
the competitive laissez-faire capitalism that Marx had analysed in the
mid-nineteenth century was giving way to a monopoly capitalism in which
the key industries were dominated by national monopolistic corporation
or price-fixing cartels. It was argued that the development of such
monopolies and cartels meant that the law of value was in decline.
Output and prices were now increasingly being planed by the monopolies
and cartels rather than emerging spontaneously from the anarchy of a
competitive market.
Furthermore it was argued that in order to mobilise the huge amounts of
capital now necessary to finance large scale productive investments in
leading sectors such those of the steel, coal and rail industries,
industrial capital had begun to ally, and then increasingly fuse, with
banking capital to form what the leading economic theorist Hilferding
termed finance capital. Within finance capital the huge national
monopolies in each industry were united with each other forming huge
national conglomerates with interests in all the strategic sectors of
the economy. The logical outcome of this process was for the
centralisation of finance capital to proceed to the point where there
was only one conglomerate that owned and controlled all the important
industries in the national economy.
However, the growth of finance capital also went hand in hand with the
growing economic importance of the state. On an international scale the
development of finance capital within each nation state led to
international competition increasingly becoming politicised as each
state championed the interests of its own national capitals by military
force if necessary. Against rival imperial powers each state had begun
to carve out empires and spheres of influence across the globe to ensure
privileged access to markets and raw materials necessary to its domestic
capital. At the same time the development of huge monopolies and finance
capital forced the state to take a far more active role in regulating
the economy and arbitrating between the conflicting economic interests
that could no longer be mediated through the free operation of
competitive markets.
As a consequence, the development of finance capital implied not only a
fusion between industrial and banking capital but also a fusion between
capital and the state. Capitalism was remorselessly developing into a
state capitalism in which there would be but one capital that would
dominate the entire nation and be run by the state in the interests of
the capitalist class as a whole. For the theorist of the Second
International it was this very tendency towards state capitalism that
provided the basis of socialism. With the development of state
capitalism all that would be needed was the seizure of the state by the
working class. All the mechanisms for running the national economy would
then be in the hands of the workers government who could then run the
economy in the interests of the working class rather than a small group
of capitalists.
But this notion that state capitalism was the culmination of the
historical development of capitalism, and hence that it was capitalismâs
highest stage, arose out of the specific conditions and experience of
Germany at the end of the nineteenth century. Germanyâs rapid
industrialisation following its unification in 1866 had meant that by
the end of the nineteenth century it was seriously challenging Britain
as Europeâs foremost economic power. At the same time the rapid
emergence of an industrial proletariat had given rise to the German
Social Democratic Party which was not only the first but also the
largest and most important mass workers party in the world and as such
dominated the Second International. It is perhaps no surprise then that
the Marxist theorists of the Second International, whether German or
not, should look to Germany. But their generalisation of the development
of capitalism of Germany to a universal law was to prove an important
error.
This error becomes clear if we consider the other two leading capitalist
powers at the end of the nineteenth century: Britain that had been the
leading capitalist power throughout the century, and the USA, along with
Germany were rapidly overtaking Britain in economic development. Of
course, in both Britain and the USA capitalist development had seen the
prevalence of the tendency of the centralisation and concentration of
capital that was to lead to the growth of huge corporations and
monopolies. Furthermore, partly as a result of such a concentration and
centralisation of capital, and partly as a result of the class conflict
that accompanied it, the state was to take on increasing
responsibilities in managing the economy in the twentieth century.
However, there was no fusion between banking and industrial capital nor
was their a fusion between the state and capital on any scale comparable
that which could be identified in Germany either at the end of the
nineteenth century or subsequently in the twentieth century.
The international orientation of British capital that had become further
consolidated with the emergence of the British Empire in the late
nineteenth century, meant there was little pressure for the emergence of
finance capital in Hilferdingâs sense. British industrial capital had
long established markets across the world and was under little pressure
to consolidate national markets through the construction of cartels or
national monopolies.
Equally British banking capital was centred on managing international
flows of capital and investing abroad and was far from inclined to make
the long term commitments necessary for a merger with industrial
capital. British industrial capital raised finance principally through
the stock market or through retained profits not through the banks as
their German counterparts did. While the British state pursued an
imperial policy that sought to protect the markets and sources of raw
materials for British capital it stop short there. The British State
made little effort to promote the development of British capital through
direct state intervention since in most sectors British capital still
retained a commanding competitive advantage.
In the USA the concentration of banking capital was restricted. As a
consequence there could be no fusion between large scale banking capital
and large scale industrial capital. As a continental economy there was
far more room for expansion in the USA before capitals in particular
industries reached a monopolistic stage and when they did reach this
stage they often faced anti-trust legislation. Furthermore, the relative
geo-economic isolation of the USA meant that protectionist measures were
sufficient to promote the development of American industry. There was
little need for the US government to go beyond imposing tariffs on
foreign imports in order to encourage the development of domestic
industry. As a consequence there was not only no basis for the fusion of
industrial and banking capital but there was also little basis for the
fusion of the state with capital.
In the twentieth century it was the USA, not Germany, that took over
from Britain as the hegemonic economic power. While it is true that the
tendency towards the concentration and centralisation of capital has
continued in the USA, that both state regulation and state spending has
steadily increased, and that with the emergence of the
industrial-military complex there has grown increasing links between the
state and certain sectors of industry, the USA, the most advanced
capitalist power, can hardly be designated as having a state capitalist
political-economy. Indeed, with the rise of global finance capital and
the retreat of the autonomy of the nation state, the notion that state
capitalism is the highest stage of capitalism has become increasingly
untenable.
If state capitalism is not the highest stage of capitalism as was argued
by the theorists of the Second and Third Internationals then what was
its historical significance? To answer this we must first of all briefly
consider the particular development of industrial capitalism in Germany
which were provided the material conditions out of which this notion
first arose.
As Marx recognised, Britain provided the classic case for the
development of industrial capitalism. After nearly four centuries of
evolution the development of mercantile and agrarian capitalism had
created the essential preconditions for the emergence of industrial
capitalism in Britain by the end of the eighteenth century. Centuries of
enclosures had dispossessed the British peasantry and created a large
pool of potential proletarians. At the same time primitive accumulation
had concentrated wealth in the hands of an emerging bourgeoisie and
embourgeoified gentry who were both willing and able to invest it as
capital.
The early decades of the nineteenth century saw the rapid
industrialisation and urbanisation of Britain. By the mid-nineteenth
century Britain had established itself as the âworkshop of the worldâ.
Britainâs manufacturers flooded the world markets, particularly those of
Europe. The development of the factory system and the subsequent
application of steam power meant that the products of British industry
were far cheaper than those of European industries that were for the
most part still based on handicraft production.
As a consequence much of the proto-industrial craft production that had
grown up across Europe during the previous two centuries faced ruin from
British industrial production. Whereas in Britain the emergence of
industrial capitalism had seen a retreat in the role of the state and
the emergence of laissez-faire, on the continent the ruinous competition
of British industry forced the European states to take measures to
protect and foster domestic industry. Indeed British economic
competition meant there was no option for the gradual evolution into
capitalism. On the contrary the European ruling classes had to
industrialise or be left behind. If the domestic bourgeois proved to
weak too carry out industrialisation then the state had to carry out its
historical mission for it.
The 1870s marked a crucial turning point in the development of the
formation of the world capitalist economy, particularly in Europe. The
period 1870â1900 marked a second stage in industrialisation that was to
divided the world between a core of advanced industrialised countries
and periphery of underdeveloped countries. A division that for the most
part still exists today.
The first stage of industrialisation that had begun in Britain in the
late eighteenth century, and which had been centred on the textile
industries, had arisen out of handicraft and artisanal industry that had
grown up in the previous manufacturing period. The machinery that was
used to mechanise production was for the most part simply a
multiplication and elaboration of the hand tools that had been used in
handicraft production and were themselves the product of handicraft
production. At the same time the quantum of money-capital necessary to
set up in production was relatively small and was well within the
compass of middle class family fortunes.
The second stage of industrialisation that emerged in the final decades
of the nineteenth century was centred around large scale steel
production, and heavy engineering. Industrial production now presupposed
industrial production. Industrial machinery was now no longer the
product of handicraft production but was itself the product of
industrial production. Industrial production had grown dramatically in
scale and in cost. The quantum of capital necessary to set up in
production was now often well beyond the pockets of even the richest of
individuals. Money-capital had to be concentrated through the
development of joint-stock companies and banks.
In Britain, and perhaps to a lesser extent France, the period of early
industrialisation had created the presuppositions for the future
industrialisation of the second stage. An industrial base had already
been established while the accumulation of capital and the development
of the financial institutions provide the mass of money capital
necessary for further industrialisation. In contrast the division of
Germany into petty-statelets that was only finally overcome with its
unification in 1866 had retarded the development of industrial capital.
As a consequence, Germany had to summon up out of almost nothing the
preconditions for the second stage of industrialisation if it was not to
fall irrevocably behind. This required a forced concentration of
national capital and the active intervention of the state.
This was further compounded by Germanyâs late entrance into the race to
divide up the world. The new industries that began to emerge in the late
nineteenth century demanded a wide range of raw materials that could
only be obtained outside of Europe. To secure supplies of these raw
materials a race developed to divide up the world and this led to the
establishment of the vast French and British Empires of the late
nineteenth century. Excluded from much of the world, German capital
found itself compressed within the narrow national confines of Germany
and its immediate eastern European hinterland.
It was this forced concentration and centralisation of German capital
and its confinement within the narrow national boundaries of Germany and
eastern Europe that can be seen as the basis for the tendencies towards
the fusion both between industrial and banking capital and between the
state and capital that were peculiar to Germany at the end of the
nineteenth century. As such the tendency towards state capitalism that
was identified by the theorist of the Second International owed more to
Germanyâs late industrialisation than to any universally applicable
tendency towards state capitalism. Indeed, the twentieth century has
shown, those economies that have managed to overcome the huge
disadvantages of late industrialisation â such as Japan and more
recently the âNewly Industrialising Countriesâ (NICs) such as South
Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, Brazil and Mexico â state-led development has
played a crucial part in their success.[105]
However, state capitalism only remained a tendency in Germany. In the
USSR the fusion of the state and capital can be seen to have been fully
realised. We must therefore turn to consider the case of the late
development of Russia.
As we saw in Part I, the Russian autocracy had made repeated efforts to
âmoderniseâ and âindustrialiseâ the Russian economy. With the abolition
of serfdom in 1866 and the introduction of the Stolypin agrarian reforms
in the early 1900s the Tzarist Governments had sought to foster the
growth of capitalist agriculture. At the same time the Tzarist regime
encouraged foreign investment in the most modern plant and machinery.
However, the Tzarist efforts to modernise and industrialise the Russian
Empire were tempered by the danger that such modernisation and
industrialisation would unleash social forces that would undermine the
traditional social and political relations upon which the Russian
imperial autocracy was founded. Indeed, the prime motive for promoting
the industrialisation of the Russian Empire was the need for an
industrial basis for the continued military strength of the Russian
Empire. As military strength increasingly dependent on industrially
produced weapons then it became increasingly important for the Russian
State to industrialise.
As a consequence, the industrialisation of pre-Revolutionary Russia was
narrowly based on the needs of military accumulation. While Russia came
to possess some of the most advanced factories in the world the vast
bulk of the Russian population was still employed in subsistence or
petty-commodity producing agriculture. It was this economic structure,
in which a small islands of large scale capitalist production existed in
a sea of a predominantly backward pre-capitalist agriculture, that the
Bolsheviks inherited in the wake of the October Revolution.
The Russian Revolution of 1917 was a dual revolution. On the one hand it
was a proletarian revolution. It was the urban working class that
brought down the Tzarist regime in February, defeated the Kornilovâs
counter-revolution in August and then, through the political form of the
Bolshevik Party, seized political power in October. Yet although the
Russian proletariat, in alliance with the peasantry, succeeded in
sweeping away the Tzarist autocracy, and uprooting the semi-feudal
aristocratic ruling class on which it rested the proletarian revolution
was ultimately defeated.
The Russian proletariat failed to go beyond the situation of dual power
in the streets and the factories that had arisen during period between
the February and October Revolution. Unable to take over and directly
transform the social relations of production the contradictions involved
in the situation of dual power were resolved in favour of
nationalisation rather than the communisation of the means of
production. The consequences of which soon became clear with the
re-introduction of Taylorism and the imposition of one man management in
the Spring of 1918.
The Bolshevik Party, which had been the political form through which the
Russian proletariat had triumphed, then became the form through which it
suffered its defeat. The Leninists could only save the revolution by
defeating it. The emergency measures employed to defend the gains of the
revolution â the crushing of political opposition, the re-employment
Tzarist officials, the reimposition of capitalist production methods and
incentives etc., only served to break the real power of the Russian
working class and open up the gap between the âworkersâ Governmentâ and
the Workers. This process was to become further consolidated with the
decimation of the Revolutionary Russian proletariat during the three
years of civil war.
Yet, on the other hand, while the Russian Revolution can be seen as a
failed proletarian revolution it can also be seen as a partially
successful ânational bourgeoisâ revolution. A national bourgeois
revolution, neither in the sense that it was led by a self-conscious
Russian bourgeoisie, nor in the sense that it served to forge a
self-conscious Russian bourgeoisie, but in the sense that by sweeping
away the Tzarist absolutist state it opened the way for the full
development of a Russian capitalism.
In the absence of the Russian Revolution, the Russian Empire would have
probably gone the way of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. The Russian
Empire would have been broken up in the face of international
competition. The more advanced parts may have then been reintegrated
within the orbit of European capitalism, while the rest would have been
dumped in the economically undeveloped world. However, the Russian
Revolution had forged a strong state that, unlike the previous Tzarist
regime, was able to fully develop the forces of production.
In the backward conditions that prevailed in Russia, capitalist economic
development could only have been carried out by through the forced
development of the productive forces directed by the concentrated and
centralised direction and power of the state. It was only through
state-led capitalist development that both the internal and external
constraints that blocked the development of Russian capitalism could be
overcome.
In Russia, the only way to industrialise â and hence make the transition
to a self-sustaining capitalist economy â was through the fusion of
state and capital â that is through the full realisation of state
capitalism. Yet to understand this we must briefly consider the external
and internal constraints that had blocked the capitalist development of
Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century.
In The Communist Manifesto Marx remarks:
The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of
production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication. draws
all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilisation. The cheap
prices of its commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters
down all Chinese walls, with which it forces the barbariansâ intensely
obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate. It compels all nations, on
pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it
compels them to introduce what it calls civilisation into their midst
i.e., to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world
after its own image.[106]
Of course, capitalâs inherent tendency to reproduce itself on an ever
greater scale has led to the relentless geographical expansion of
capitalism to the point where its has long since encompassed the entire
globe. However, this process has been a highly uneven one. The
concentration and centralisation of capital that has led to rapid
capitalist development in one region of the world has presupposed the
plunder and de-development of other regions of the world.
As we have already noted, in the late nineteenth century the development
of industrial capitalism in Western Europe and North America imposed an
international division of labour that still divides the world a hundred
years later. The economic relations that served to promote the rapid
accumulation of capital in the âcoreâ of world capitalism at the same
time served to block the full development of industrial capitalism in
the periphery of world capitalism. To this extent world capitalism
became polarised.
In this process of polarisation Russia found itself in a peculiar
position. On the one hand, as the impact of industrial capitalism spread
eastwards across Europe from Britain, Russia was the last European
country to confront the need to industrialise. As such it was the last
of the late European industrialisers. On the other hand, Russia can be
seen as the first of the non-western countries that sought to resist the
impact of underdevelopment.
To understand this peculiar position that Russia found itself in at the
beginning of the twentieth century, and how it shaped the transition to
capitalism in Russia, we must briefly consider the question of
underdevelopment.
Capitalism, or more precisely the capitalist mode of production, only
becomes established with the emergence of industrial capital. It is only
when capital takes full possession of the means of production and
transforms them in accordance with its own needs that capitalism becomes
a self-sustaining economic system that can dominate society. However,
where ever there has been the widespread use of money arising from the
exchange of commodities capital has emerged in the distinct form of
mercantile capital.
Mercantile capital has had an independent existence since the early
period of antiquity. However, in pre-capitalist modes of production it
has been ultimately parasitic. Mercantile capitalism is driven by
profit. But it is a profit not based on the direct expropriation of
surplus-value but on unequal exchange â buying cheap in order to sell
dear. Mercantile capital was therefore always ultimately dependent on
the predominant means of surplus extraction in any particular society.
Following the crisis in European feudalism in the fourteenth century and
the subsequent emergence of the world market in the sixteenth century
mercantile capitalism came in to its own and began to rapidly expand it
influence. As such it had two contradictory effects. On the one side,
mercantile capitalism brought with it an increase in the production and
circulation of money and commodities and in doing so served to undermine
the traditional pre-capitalist social relations. To this extent it
prepared one of the essential preconditions for the development of the
capitalist mode of production â the creation of an economy based on
generalised commodity exchange. On the other side, insofar mercantile
capitalism remained dependent on the traditional structures of society,
it became a conservative force that blocked the development of an
industrial capitalism.
Mercantile capitalism had grown up hand in hand with the development of
the Absolutist State. In order to free itself from the feudal nobility
the absolutist state was increasingly dependent on loans and money taxes
that had become possible with the monatrisation of the feudal economy
that was being brought about by the rise of mercantile capitalism. Yet,
while the absolute monarchy was dependent on merchants and their bankers
for loans and taxes, they in turn were dependent on the state for the
defence of their monopolies and access to foreign markets.
However, although there was a certain symbiosis in the development of
the Absolutist State and mercantile capitalism, the absolute state was
careful to contain the development of mercantile capitalism. The
excessive development of mercantile capitalism always threatened to
undermine the existing social order on which the Absolutist State rested
as traditional relations of authority were replaced by the cynical and
impersonal relations of the market. Thus while the state encouraged
merchants to profiteer at the expense of foreigners they were far less
inclined to allow such profiteering to cause social discord at home.
Hence the Absolutist State was keen to intervene to regulate trade, not
only to protect the monopoly positions of the favoured merchants, but
also to maintain social peace and stability.
In order to secure its sources of supply mercantile capital had from an
early stage involved itself in production. To this extent the
development of commerce led to the development of industry and commodity
production. However, for the most part mercantile only formally subsumed
production. Mercantile capital left unaltered the traditional craft
based methods of production.
In the late eighteenth century, however, industrial capital began to in
to its own with the rise of factory production and the application of
steam powered machinery. Industrial capital directly expropriated
surplus-value through its domination of the production process. As such
it had no need for the privileges of bestowed by the state on merchant
capital in order to make a profit. Indeed such privileges and monopolies
became a block to industrial capitalâs own self-expansion. Under the
banners of liberty and laissez-faire the industrial bourgeoisie
increasingly came into conflict with the conservatism of mercantile
capital and the established ruling classes that it upheld.
In the course of the nineteenth century industrial capital triumphed in
Western Europe over mercantile capital and its aristocratic allies. As a
consequence, mercantile capital became subordinated to industrial
capital. It became merely a distinct moment in the circuit of industrial
capital; dealing in the sale and distribution of commodities produced by
industrial capital. The profits of mercantile capital no longer came to
depend on state privileges but derived from the surplus-value produced
by industrial capital in production. However, although mercantile
capital became integrated with industrial capital in Western Europe its
relation to industrial capital in other parts of the world was
different.
From the sixteenth century mercantile capital had come to encompass the
entire world. However, while in Europe the corrosive effects of
mercantile capitalism on the established social order had been held in
check by the state, in much of the rest of the world the impact of
mercantile capitalism had been devastating:
In America and Australia whole civilisations where wiped out; West
Africa was reduced to a slave market and no society escaped without
being reduced to a corrupt parody of its former self.[107]
The conditions created by mercantile capitalism in these parts of the
world were far from being conducive for the development of industrial
capital. Industrial capitalism developed in Western Europe, and
subsequently North America where capital had already been concentrated
and where conditions were more favourable. As a consequence, industrial
capital left mercantile capital to its own devises in the rest of the
world. However, as Geoffrey Kay argues:
If merchant capital retained its independence in the underdeveloped
world, it was no longer allowed to trade solely on its own account but
was forced to become the agent of industrial capital. In other words,
merchant capital in the underdeveloped countries after the establishment
of industrial capitalism in the developed countries in the nineteenth
century existed in its two historical forms simultaneously. At one and
the same moment it was the only form of capital but not the only form of
capital. This apparent paradox is the specifica differentia of
underdevelopment, and its emergence as a historical fact in the course
of the nineteenth century marks the beginning of underdevelopment as we
know it.[108]
As the agent of industrial capital merchant capital plundered the
underdeveloped world for cheap raw materials while providing lucrative
outlets for industrial commodities produced in the developed world. To
the extent that it retained its independence mercantile capital shored
up the conservative elites and blocked the development of industrial
capital in the underdeveloped world. Hence:
The consequences were doubly depressing for the underdeveloped world: on
the one side the tendency of merchant capital to repress general
economic development in proportion to its own independent development;
on the other the reorganisation of whole economies to the requirements
of external economic interests.[109]
The emergence of a world polarised between a core of industrially
advanced economies and a periphery of underdeveloped economies was
further compounded with the rise of international moneyed capital.
As we saw previously, the growth in the sheer scale of industrial
production meant that the mass of capital required to set up in
production increased beyond the means of most private individuals.
Furthermore, the further development of industrial production itself
presupposed the existence of industrial production. This had important
consequences on the polarisation of the world economy and the process of
underdevelopment.
Firstly, whereas in England and Western Europe industrial capital had
been able grow up on the basis of the pre-existent craft production. In
contrast undeveloped economies, like the late developing economies in
Europe itself, could not simply repeat the evolutionary stages through
which industry had involved in the core economies since they would be
uncompetitive in the world market. Instead they had to make the leap and
introduce modern plant and machinery. But such modern plant and
machinery was the product of industrial production that for the most
part did not exist in the underdeveloped world. It therefore had to be
imported from the advanced industrial economies.
Secondly, the underdeveloped economies lacked the concentration and
centralisation of capital necessary to finance of the most advanced
capitalist enterprises. It therefore not only had to import productive
capital in order to industrialise, it had to import moneyed capital
either in the form of direct foreign investments by industrial capitals
of the core economies or borrow money-capital from the international
banks and financial institutions.
To the extent that the underdeveloped economies were able to attract
foreign investment or loans it was able develop it industry. But such
industrialisation was for the most part limited and orientated towards
producing commodities demanded by the needs of capital accumulation in
the more advanced industrialised economies. Its serfdom contributed to
the creation of an industrial base on which a self-sufficient national
accumulation of capital could occur. Furthermore, in the long term the
interest or profits on such foreign investments were repatriated to the
core economies and did not contribute to the further national
accumulation of capital in the underdeveloped economies themselves.
The defeat of the Russian Revolution as a proletarian revolution, and
the subsequent failure of the world revolution that followed the First
World War, left the Bolsheviks isolated and in charge of a predominantly
backward and underdeveloped economy. The very existence of the Russian
state, and with it the survival of the âSoviet Governmentâ, now depended
on the Bolsheviks carrying through the tasks of the national bourgeois
revolution â that is the development of national industrial capital.
Yet in order to carry through such tasks the Bolsheviks had to overcome
the formidable problems of underdevelopment that reinforced the internal
obstacles to the modernisation and industrialisation of Russia. The two
most pressing internal obstacles to the development of a national
industrial capital were the problem of finance and the problem of
agriculture.
Russian agriculture was predominantly based on small scale subsistence
or petty-commodity production. This had two important consequences for
industrialisation. Firstly, it blocked the formation of an industrial
proletariat since the bulk of the population was still tied to the land.
Secondly, the inefficient and backward nature of Russian agriculture
prevented it from producing a surplus that could feed an expanding
industrial proletariat.
To the extent that the Russian peasants could be encouraged to produce
for the world market then there could be expected the gradual
development of a capitalist agriculture. As production for profit led to
an increasing differentiation in the peasantry some would grow rich
while others would become poor and become proletarianised. But this was
likely to be a long drawn out process. Profits would be small given the
mark ups of the international merchants and the need to compete with
more efficient capitalist agriculture on the world market. Furthermore,
to the extent that the Russian peasantry produced for the world market,
it could not provide cheap food for an expanding Russian proletariat.
The second important obstacle to industrialisation was finance. The
backward character of Russian capitalism meant that there was little
internal capital that had been accumulated. To the extent that Russia
had industrialised it had been promoted by the state and financed
through foreign investments. But with the revolution the Bolsheviks had
repudiated all the foreign loans taken out under Tzarist regime and had
expropriated foreign owned capital in Russia. Once bitten the
international financiers were going to be twice shy about financing
Russian industrialisation.
If the national development of industrial capital was to be achieved in
Russia, if Russia was to make the transition to capitalism, then
Bolsheviks had to subordinate the fleeting and transnational forms of
capital â money and commodities â to the needs of national productive
capital â the real concrete capital of factories, plant, machinery and
human labour, rooted in Russian soil. This required that the Russian
State take charge of capital accumulation â that is that the transition
to a fully developed capitalism had to take the form of state
capitalism.
Hence, while at the end of the eighteenth century the French Revolution
had opened the way for the development of French capitalism by freeing
capital from the embrace of the state, in Russia at the beginning of the
twentieth century the Revolution opened the way for the development of
capitalism by increasing the embrace of the state over capital.
As we seen, the traditional Marxism of the Second and Third
Internationals saw state capitalism as the highest stage of capitalism.
As such state capitalism could be seen as the first step in the
transition to socialism. As a consequence, Lenin could consistently
argue against the Left Communists â from the imposition of one-man
management and the reintroduction of Taylorism to the introduction of
the New Economic Policy â that the immediate task of the Revolutionary
Government, given the backward conditions in Russia, was first and
foremost the development of state capitalism.
Of course, for Lenin the nationalisation of the means of production and
the introduction of state planning introduced by the Revolution marked a
decisive advance. Under the control of a Workersâ State, state
capitalism would be superseded by socialism. Subsequently, with the
introduction of the five year plans and the collectivisation of
agriculture Stalin could announce that the USSR had at last reached the
stage of socialism and was on the way to a communist society. Trotsky
was more circumspect. While acknowledging the rapid development of the
forces of production that was being made under Stalin, he still saw this
as a stage of primitive socialist accumulation that, while being an
advance over capitalism, had yet to reach socialism.
To the extent that theorist of the capitalist nature of the USSR have
accepted this conception of state capitalism they have been obliged to
argue either that Russia never went beyond state capitalism in the first
place or that at some point their was a counter-revolution that led to
the USSR falling back into state capitalism. Yet, either way, by
accepting that state capitalism is the highest stage of capitalism such
theorists are led to the position of considering the USSR as an advance
over western capitalism. This, as we have seen, is a position that was
to become increasingly difficult to defend in the light the chronic
economic stagnation of the USSR and its eventual decline and collapse.
Indeed, such theories have been unable to explain the contradictions
within the USSR that finally led to its downfall.
In contrast, we have argued that state capitalism, far from being the
highest stage of capitalism, is a specific form for the late development
of capitalism. Yet this presupposes that the USSR was indeed such a form
of capitalism. To demonstrate this we must develop a value analysis of
the USSR.
As we have seen, state capitalist theorists have argued that the USSR
was essentially capitalist in that it was based on wage-labour. The
workers in the USSR were divorced from both the means of subsistence and
the means of production. As a consequence, in order to live, the Soviet
workers had to sell their labour-power to the state enterprises. Having
sold their labour-power the workers found themselves put to work. They
found themselves external to their own subject activity. They did not
work to produce their own needs, nor for the needs of their own families
or communities, but for some alien other. While the workers worked as a
means to obtain a wage through which they could survive, their labour
became independent of them, directed towards aims that were not their
own. In producing products that were not their own they served to
reproduce their position as workers on an ever expanding scale.
Hence, like their counter-parts in the west, the Russian workers were
subordinated to a process of production that was designed and developed
to maximise production with scant regard to the living experience of the
worker in production. As such the worker was reduced to a mere
instrument of production. Like their counter-parts in the West, the
Russian workers worked longer than that necessary to reproduce the
equivalent of their labour-power. Thus, like the their counter-parts in
the West, the Russian workers alienated their labour and were exploited.
If the relations of production were those of self-expanding alienated
labour then they were the productive relations of capital. As such, in a
fundamental sense the USSR was capitalist. But, as we have seen, the
more sophisticated Trotskyist object. Capitalism can not be taken to be
simply the apparent predominance of wage-labour. Capitalist production
presupposes, both historically and logically, generalised commodity
production in which labour-power itself has become a commodity. But, the
Trotskyists insist, products did not assume the form of commodities in
the USSR since there was no market. But if products did not assume the
form of commodities then there can have been no real wage-labour since
labour-power, as a commodity, can not be exchanged for other
commodities. Wages were merely a means of rationing products.
The problem then can be stated as follows. Production in the USSR would
seem to have been essentially a form of capitalist production, being
based on waged labour; but capitalist production presupposes general
commodity exchange. In the absence of the market it would seem that the
exchange and circulation of wealth in the USSR did not assume the
commodity-form and as such was distinctly non-capitalist. But if
commodities did not exist neither could capital.
To resolve this problem we must first look at the unity of production
and exchange that we find in fully developed capitalism. To do this we
shall examine the Circuits of Industrial Capital that Marx sets out at
the beginning of Volume II of Capital.
As self-expanding value capital passes successively through three
distinct forms: the money-capital, commodity-capital and
productive-capital. Depending on which form of capital is taken as the
starting point in analysing the overall circulation of capital we can
identify three distinct circuits of capital each of which reveals
different aspects of the circulation of capital.
The first circuit is that of money-capital (M...Mâ):
M â Cmop + Clp ...P...Câ- Mâ
Here capital in the form of money (M) is used to buy means of production
(Cmop) and labour-power (Clp) necessary to commence production. Hence
with the exchange M â C capital is transformed from money into the form
of commodities. These commodities (labour-power and the means of
production) are then used in the process of production. As such they
become productive capital, (P) which produces commodities of a greater
value Câ. These commodities are then sold for a sum of money Mâ which is
greater than the original capital advanced M.
With this circuit capitalism appears clearly as a system based driven by
profit. The circuit begins and ends with capital as money, and since
money is homogenous, the only aim of this circuit is the quantitative
expansion of capital as money, that is the making of a profit.
But this circuit not only shows how capitalist production is merely a
means through which âmoney makes more moneyâ, it also shows how
capitalist production necessarily both presupposes commodity exchange
and reproduces commodity-exchange. The circuit begins with the commodity
exchange M â C, the purchase of means of production and labour-power
(which of course is at the same time the sale of labour-power and means
of production by their owners) and ends with a the commodity exchange Câ
â Mâ, in which the sale of the commodities produced realises the
capitalâs profit.
However, the process of âmoney making more moneyâ can only become
self-sustaining if it at the same time involves the expansion of real
wealth. This becomes apparent if we examine the circulation of capital
from the perspective of the circuit of productive-capital (P...Pâ).
P...Câ â Mâ â Câ ...Pâ
Here capital in production produces an expanded value of commodities Câ
which are then sold for an expand sum of money Mâ that can then be used
to buy more means of production and labour-power in the commodity-form
Câ. This then allows an expanded productive capital Pâ to be set in
motion in the following period of production From the perspective of
productive capital, the circulation of capital appears as the
self-expansion of productive capacity of capital â the self-expansion of
the productive forces.
Capitalism now appears not so much as âproduction of profitâ but
âproduction for productionâs sakeâ. Capitalist production is both the
beginning and the end of the process whose aim is the reproduction of
capitalist production on an expanded scale. The commodity circulation
(Câ â Mâ â Câ) now appears as a mere mediation. A mere means to the end
of the relentless expansion capitalist production.
The final circuit that Marx identifies is that of commodity-capital
(Câ...Câ).
Câ â Mâ â C ...P ...Câ
With this circuit we can see the unity of capital in circulation and
capital in production. Capital as the circulation of commodities Câ â Mâ
â C appears side by side with the production of âcommodities by means of
commoditiesâ. The overall process of capitalist circulation therefore
appears as both the production and the circulation of commodities.
An analysis of these three circuits of industrial capital would seem at
first to confirm the Trotskyist position that capitalist production
necessarily presupposes generalised commodity exchange. However, these
circuits describe the fully developed capitalist mode of production not
its historical emergence.
As we have argued, the national development of Russian capitalism had
been impeded by its subordinate position in the world economic order.
The independent development of capital in its cosmopolitan forms of
merchant capital and moneyed-capital had acted to block the development
of industrial capital. National capitalist development demanded capital
in the real productive forms of factories, plant and machinery and the
labour of a growing industrial proletariat. As a consequence, if Russia
was to break free from its underdeveloped position imposed through the
world market, productive-capital had to be developed over and against
the independent development of capital-in-circulation i.e. money-capital
and commodity-capital. The free exchange of money-capital and
commodity-capital through the free operation of the market had to be
restricted to allow for the development of productive-capital. Hence the
free market was replaced by the central plan.
Hence, in taking up the âhistoric tasks of the bourgeoisieâ the
state-party bureaucracy adopted the perspective of productive-capital.
The more productivist elements of the Marxism of the Second
International were adapted to the ideology of productive-capital. The
imperative for the relentless drive to develop the productive forces
over and against the immediate needs of the Russian working class was
one that was not merely voiced by Stalin and his followers. Trotsky was
even more of a superindustrialiser than Stalin. Indeed he criticised
Stalin for not introducing planning and collectivisation of agriculture
earlier.
The question that now arises where what were the implications of this
subordination of capital-in-circulation to the development of
productive-capital? We shall argue that these value-forms existed in the
USSR, not as âhusksâ as those in the Trotskyist tradition maintain, but
rather as repressed and undeveloped forms.
As we have seen, Trotskyist theorists place great importance on property
forms when it comes to the question of the nationalisation of the means
of production. State ownership of the means of production, and hence the
abolition of private property, is seen as constituting the crucial
advance over capitalism. However, although the state owned all the
principal means of production in the USSR, the actual legal possession
and operation of the means of production was left to the state
enterprises and trusts, each of which was constituted as a distinct
legal entity with its own set of accounts and responsibilities for
production.
While Trotskyists have tended to gloss over this, seeing these legal
forms of the state enterprises as being merely formal, Bettleheim has
argued that the existence of these separate state enterprises, which
traded with each other and sold products to the working class, meant
that commodity-exchange did exist in the USSR. However, for Bettleheim,
this separation of economic activity into a multitude of state
enterprises was merely a result of the level of development of the
forces and relations of production. The USSR had yet to develop to the
point where the entire economy could be run as a giant trust as had been
envisaged by Bukharin. It was therefore unable as yet to overcome the
commodity-form. In contrast, we shall argue that this division of the
economy into distinct state enterprises was an expression of the
essentially capitalist relations of production.
What is a commodity? The simplest answer is that a commodity is
something that is produced in order that it may be sold. But by itself
this simple definition is inadequate for an understanding of the
commodity as a distinct social form. It is necessary to probe a little
deeper to grasp the implications of the commodity-form.
Any society requires that individuals act on and within the material
world in order to appropriate and produce the material conditions
necessary for the reproduction of themselves as social individuals. As
such social reproduction necessarily entails the constitution and
appropriation of material objects of social needs. However, in a society
dominated by commodity production this process is carried out in a
peculiar manner that gives rise to specific social forms.
Firstly, as commodity producers, individuals do not produce for their
own immediate needs but for the needs of others that are both
indifferent and separate from themselves. The results of their human
activity â their labour â are thereby divorced from their own activity.
The results of their labour stand apart from them as commodities that
are to be sold. Secondly, as commodity consumers, objects of an
individuals need do not emerge out of their own activity as social
individuals but as the ready made property of some other â the producer
â who is separated from them. As a consequence they find themselves
immediately separated from their own social needs through the
non-possession of material objects in the form of commodities.
As a consequence labour â the human activity of the producer â is
separated from need â the needs of the consumer. Hence, for each
particular commodity, producers are separated from consumers and are
only subsequently united through the sale or exchange of the commodity.
The relation between the consumer and the producer is therefore mediated
through the exchange commodities â that is they are mediated through the
exchange of things. To the extent that commodity exchange becomes
generalised then the relations between people manifests themselves as a
multitude of relations between things.
Because the relations of between human beings assume the form of the
relations between things then these things assume the particular social
form of the commodity. In producing a commodity the producer produces
something for sale â that is the producer produces something that can be
exchanged. What is important for the producer is that what is produced
has the social quality that makes it exchangeable. In other words what
is important for the producer is the value of the commodity. In
contrast, for the consumer, what is important is that the commodity has
a number natural properties that meet his own needs as a social
individual but which he is excluded from by the non-possession of the
commodity as an object â that is that it confronts him as a use-value.
The separation of social needs from social labour is thereby reflected
in the commodity-form as the opposition of use-value and value.
The commodity-form is therefore constituted through the opposition of
its use-value and value, which manifests in material form the underlying
opposition of labour from needs in a society, based on commodity
production. However, although objects of need must exist in all
societies â that is we must have access to distinct things, such as
food, clothes and shelter, in order to live â use-values can only exist
in opposition to value. Value and use-value mutually define each other
as polar opposites of the commodity-form. A commodity can only have a
value if it can be sold, but to sell it must have a use-value that some
other needs to buy. But equally a commodity has a use-value only insofar
as the qualities that meets the needs of the consumer confront that
consumer as the ready made products of anotherâs labour, and hence as
natural properties from which they are excluded except though the act of
exchange of another commodity with an equivalent value.
With commodity production social relations become reified. Society
becomes broken up into atomised individuals. Indeed, as Marx argues,
commodity relations begin where human community ends. Historically
commodities were exchanged between communities and only occurred when
different communities came in to contact. As commodity exchange develops
traditional human societies break up, ultimately giving rise to the
modern atomised capitalist societies.[110]
The society of the USSR would have seemed to be no less atomised and
reified than those of western capitalism. To what extent was this a
result of the prevalence of commodity relations? To answer this we shall
first of examine whether there was commodity production in the USSR and
then look at the question of the existence of commodity exchange.
Under capitalism the worker, having sold his labour-power to the
capitalist, works for the capitalist. As such the worker does not work
for his own immediate needs but for a wage. The labour of the work is
therefore external to him. It is alienated labour.
However, unlike the serf, the servant or the domestic slave, the
wage-worker does not work for the immediate needs of the capitalist. The
capitalist appropriates the labour of the wage-worker to produce
something that can be sold at a profit. As such the prime concern of the
capitalist is to make his workers produce a mass of commodities that are
worth more than the labour-power and raw materials used up in their
production. Hence, for both the capitalist and the worker, the product
is a non-use-value â it is something that is produced for the use of
someone else.
A commodity can only be sold insofar as it is a use-value for some
others. Therefore the capitalist is only concerned with the use-value of
the commodity that he produces to the extent that is a necessary
precondition for its sale. For the capitalist then, use-value is merely
the material form within which the value the commodity is embodied.
This twofold nature of the commodity as both a use-value and a value is
the result of the twofold nature of commodity production. Commodity
production is both a labour process, which serves to produce use-values,
and a valorisation process that produces value of then commodity.
Through the concrete labour appropriated from the worker the raw
materials of production are worked up into the specific form of the
product that gives it a socially recognised use-value. Through this
concrete labour the value already embodied in the means of production is
preserved in the new product. At the same time value is added to the
product through the abstract labour of the worker.
In the USSR these relations of production were essentially the same. The
workers alienated their labour. As such they did not produce for their
own immediate needs but worked for the management of the state
enterprise. Equally, the management of the state enterprise no more
appropriated the labour from its workers for it own immediate needs any
more than the management of a capitalist enterprise in the West. The
labour appropriated from the workers was used to produce products that
were objects of use for others external to the producers.
Like in any capitalist enterprise, the management of the state
enterprises in the USSR, at least collectively, sought to make the
workers produce a mass of products that were worth more than the
labour-power and means of production used up in their production. As
such the labour process was both a process of exploitation and
alienation just as it was a two-old process of both abstract and
concrete labour that produced products with both a use-value and a value
i.e. as commodities.
Production in the USSR can therefore be seen as the capitalist
production of commodities. However, while production in the USSR can be
seen as a production for some alien other to what extent can it be
really be seen as a the production of things for sale? This brings us to
the crucial question of the existence of commodity exchange and
circulation in the USSR.
As we have seen, within the circuit of productive-capital, (P...Pâ),
exchange is primarily confined within the simple circulation of
commodities (C â M â C) necessary to bring about the renewal of
production on an expanded scale. Commodities are sold (C â M) by those
who produce them and are purchased (M â C) by those who need them for
the next cycle of production.
From the perspective of productive-capital commodity exchange is
therefore a mere technical means that allows for the expansion of
productive capital. A necessary means for overcoming the division of
producers that arises out of the social division of labour of commodity
production. However, the circulation of commodities is more than a mere
technical matter. The buying and selling of commodities is the alienated
social form through which human labour alienated from human needs is
reunited with human needs alienated from human labour.
Under the classical form of capitalism this social form is market
constituted through the collision of self-interested competing
individuals. As Marx argues:
Circulation as the realisation of exchange-value is implies: (1) that my
product is a product only in so far as it is for others; hence suspended
singularity, generality; (2) that it is a product for me only in so far
as it has been alienated, become for others; (3) that it is for the
other only in so far he himself alienates his product; which already
implies; (4) that production is not an end in itself for me, but a
means. Circulation is the movement in which the general alienation
appears as general appropriation and general appropriation appears as
general alienation. As much, then, as the whole of this movement appears
as a social process, and as much as individual moments of this movement
arise from the conscious will and particular purposes of individuals, so
much does the totality of the process appear as an objective
interrelation, which arises spontaneously from nature; arising, it is
true, from the mutual influence of conscious individuals on one another,
but neither located in their consciousness, nor subsumed under them as a
whole. Their collisions with one another produce an alien social power
standing above them, produce their mutual interaction as a process and
power independent of them.[111]
Through the alien power of the market alienated labour is brought into
conformity with alienated human needs. Products that do not meet needs
expressed through the market do not sell. Labour embodied in a commodity
that is excess of that which is socially necessary is not recognised. At
the same time, the imposition of the commodity form on human needs
serves to incorporate such needs into the accumulation of capital. New
needs that give rise to new forms of commodities expands the range of
material forms through which value can be embodied and expanded. To this
extent the market brings human needs into conformity with alienate
labour within the commodity form.
Yet while the alien power of the market arises out the conflicting
social and technical needs of the individuals that make up society the
alien power of the state does not. The state plan is necessarily imposed
from outside the social-economy. There was thus a fundamental problem
with reconciling social needs with alienated labour. This was reflected
in the relation of use-value and value and the form and functions of
money.
For Proudhon and his followers, the problems of capitalism arose from
the existence of money as an independent form of value. For them, it was
through the intermediation of money that capitalists were able to make
profits and extract interest. As a consequence, Proudhonists proposed
the direct expression of the value of commodities in terms of the labour
time required for their production. Money denominated in units of labour
time would simply act as a means of circulation that would in effect
allow for the direct exchange of commodities in accordance with the
labour expended in their production. Money would not be able to develop
into a social power independent of the direct producers. However,
through his critique of such Proudhonist proposals Marx showed that in a
society of independent commodity producers money must necessarily assume
an independent form of value distinct from all other commodities.
The labour embodied in a commodity is immediately private labour â or
more precisely it is asocial labour. It is only with the sale of the
commodity that this labour is recognised as being part of the total
abstract social labour of society as a whole. Hence the value of a
commodity is only realised or validated as such through the process of
exchange. In production the value remains potential value â a potential
based on previous cycles of production and exchange. When the commodity
reaches the market it has an ideal price based on its potential value
but this is not realised until the commodity is actually sold.
If too much of a particular commodity is produced in relation to social
demand or if the quality is defective than some commodities are not sold
or have to be sold at a discount. In cases such as these the actual
labour embodied in commodities is not realised as abstract social
labour. Indeed it is through this social mechanism that a commodity
economy is regulated. If production of private commodity producers is to
be brought into conformity with social demand than money can not be
simply the direct expression of the labour embodied in commodities. It
must exist as the independent form of value through which the labour
embodied in commodities is socially recognised and validated as abstract
social labour and hence as value.
As a consequence, Marx concluded that money as an independent form of
value could only be abolished if the economy of independent commodity
producers gave way to the planned production of freely associated
producers. In this way the regulation of production by the market would
be replaced by a social plan that would make labour immediately social.
As we have argued, the forced development of productive-capital in the
USSR required the suppression of the development of money-capital and
this involved the restriction of the development of money itself as an
independent form. To this end the regulation of production by the market
was replaced by economic planning. But this was not the planning of a
classes society of âfreely associated producersâ but a plan developed
out of a society of atomised individuals based on class exploitation. As
such the alien power of the market that stands above society was
replaced by the alien power of the state. The imperatives of the state
plan confronted the producers as an external force just as the external
imperatives of the competitive market. The plan replaced the market as
the regulator of commodity production but as such it did not over come
the separation of labour from social needs that remained alienated from
each other.
Money in the USSR: In so far as simple commodity circulation existed as
a part of the circuit of productive capital in the USSR money entered as
merely a means of circulation facilitating the exchange of outputs of
the previous cycle of production for the inputs necessary for the next
cycle of production. But whereas under fully developed capitalism such
circulation could break down â a sale without a purchase or a purchase
without a sale â in the USSR this was precluded by the state plan.
The state imposed plan that allocated capital to each industry,
determined the output and set prices. To this extent the value of the
commodities produced by each capital were not validated or realised
through the act of their transformation into money but were
pre-validated by their recognition as values by the state. Hence
commodities had to be bought and money had to buy. The regulation of the
commodity producers by the law of value was replaced by the state plan.
Yet while the alien power of the market arises out the conflicting
social and technical needs of the individuals that make up society the
alien power of the state does not. The state plan is necessarily imposed
from outside the social-economy. There was thus a fundamental problem
with reconciling social needs with alienated labour. This was reflected
in the relation of use-value and value. This had important implications
for the form and functions of money as it existed within the circuit of
productive capital.
To consider this in a little more detail let us consider the two
transactions that make up the simple circulation of commodities â
firstly the sale of commodities produced by productive capital (C â M),
and then the purchase, (M â C), which ensures the continued reproduction
of productive capital. The commodities that have been produced by
productive capital enter the market with an expanded value and a given
specific use-value. The opposition of value and use-value within the
commodity finds it expression in the external relation of money and the
commodity. The commodity has a price, which is it express its value in a
certain sum of money, and is a certain kind of commodity defined by its
use-value. Thus money appears as the independent and external form of
the value of the commodity while the commodity itself stands as it own
use-value.
For example, let us take an enterprise producing tractors. At the end of
the production period the enterprise will have produced say 100 tractors
that are priced ÂŁ10,000 each. The hundred tractors express their value
as a price that is in the ideal form of a sum of money â ÂŁ1million. This
ideal money -the price of the tractors â stand opposed to use-value
represented by the material form of the tractors themselves.
However, this ideal money, the price of the tractors which serves as the
external measure the value of the tractors must be realised. The
tractors must be sold. Given that the tractors can be sold then the
expanded value of the tractors will now be transformed into the form of
real money. The tractors will have been transformed into ÂŁ1million. As
such the abstract labour will find its most adequate and universal form
â money.
With money the enterprise can now buy commodities for the next period of
production. As the independent and universal form of value, money can
buy any other commodity, which is it is immediately exchangeable with
any other commodity. Yet our tractor firm only needs those specific
commodities necessary for the future production of tractors say 10 tons
of steel. Money need therefore only act as a mere means of circulation
that allows 100 tractors to be exchanged for 10 tons of steel.
In the USSR money was constrained to the functions necessary for the
phase of the simple circulation of commodities within the circuit of
productive capital â that is as an ideal measure of value and as a means
of circulation â and precluded money emerging fully as an independent
form of value. Firstly, as we have seen, the value of commodities was
prevalidated. The ideal price of the tractors was immediately realised
as the value of the tractors since the sale was already prescribed by
the plan. Thus while money acted as an ideal measure of the value of the
commodities for sale it had no independence.
Furthermore, the money received from the sale had to be spent on the
particular commodities necessary for the reproduction of that particular
circuit of productive capital. The ÂŁ1million brought by the sale of the
tractors had to be spent on the 10 tons of steel (or similar inputs). As
such money did not function as an independent and universal form of
value. It was tied to the specific circuit of productive capital (in our
case tractor production). It could not be withdrawn and then thrown into
another circuit. It merely served as a means of circulation that
facilitated the exchange of one specific set of commodities with another
set of commodities.
With the restriction of money to a mere fleeting means of circulation,
and with the pre-validation of the value of commodities, money could not
function as the independent form of value. The commodity did not express
its own value in the external form of money independent of itself but
rather its value was expressed in terms of the commodities use-value. As
a consequence the expansion of value did not find its most adequate
expression in the quantitative expansion of value in the purely
quantitative and universal form money but in the quantitative expansion
of value in the qualitative and particular forms use-values. Value and
use-value were compounded leading to the deformation of both value and
use-value.
Indeed, in the USSR accumulation of productive-capital, that is the
self-expansion of value, became immediately expressed in terms of the
quantities of use-values that were produced (100s of tractors, tons of
steel etc.). However, without the full development of money as money â
money as the independent form of value â the content of such use-values
did not necessarily conform to the needs of social reproduction. Money
had to buy; it had to allow the exchange of commodities. It could not
therefore refuse to buy sub-standard commodities. The quality of the
use-values of commodities was ensured, not by money and hence the
purchaser, but by the state plan. But the state plan, as we have argued,
stood in an external if not an antagonistic position with regard to the
various economic agents whether they were workers or state enterprises.
As a consequence, the use-values prescribed and ratified by the plan did
not necessarily conform to social needs.
The consequences of constrained money: As we have seen, the existence of
money as the independent and universal form of value ensures that
use-values conform to social needs. But furthermore, money as the
independent form of value is also a diffused form of social power.
However, as we have argued, in the USSR money was constrained to the
functions strictly necessary for the circuit of productive-capital and
social needs were prescribed by the state plan. This had two important
implications. The persistence of non-capitalist social forms such as
blat and endemic defective production.
Insofar as technical and social needs developed outside the framework
prescribed by the state plan they had to be articulated by something
other than by money. Money could only buy within the limit established
by the plan. The purchasing power of money was limited. While everyone
needed money, it was insufficient to meet all needs. As a consequence,
non-monetary social relations had to be persevered. Influence and
favours with those in authority, client relationsâ etc. â that is the
system known as blat â became salient features of the Soviet bureaucracy
as means of gaining access to privileged goods or as a means of getting
things done.
As such blat emerged because of the restrictions placed on the functions
of money due to its subordination to productive capital. As such blat
was a distinctly non-capitalist â if not pre-capitalist â social form
that involved direct personal and unquantifiable relations between
people.[112]
However, as we noted the inadequacy of money in the USSR â it failure to
function as the universal and independent form of value â also led to
the endemic production of defective use-values which were to finally
bring the demise of the USSR. This, as we shall see, was directly
related to the class relations of production that arose from capitalist
form of commodity production in the USSR. But before we consider this
fatal contradiction of the USSR we must briefly consider the question of
wages and the sale of labour-power.
The reproduction of labour-power is of course an essential condition for
the reproduction of capital. The reproduction of labour-power can be
described as a simple epi-cycle in the circuits of capital as follows:
Lp â W â Cs
The worker sells his labour-power (Lp) for a wage (W), which he then
uses to buy the commodities (Cs) necessary to reproduce himself as a
worker.[113] In essence this epi-cycle is the same as the simple
circulation of commodities.
However, as we have seen, one of the most telling criticisms advanced by
the Trotskyist critics of state capitalist theories of the USSR has been
the argument that workers in the USSR did not sell their labour-power.
Firstly, because if labour-power was to be considered a commodity then
it must be able to exchange with other commodities but, as we have seen,
Trotskyists denied that there were any other commodities in the USSR.
Secondly worker was not free to sell his labour-power.
However, as we have argued, there was commodity production in the USSR
and there was a restricted form of commodity circulation thus
labour-power could be exchanged with other commodities via the wage.
Nevertheless it is true that the freedom of workers to sell their labour
was restricted. Through various restrictions, such as the internal
passport system the movement of workers was restricted. To the extent
that these restrictions on the movement of labour tied workers to a
particular means of production then they can perhaps be considered more
industrial serfs than wage-slaves.
But on closer inspection these legal restrictions on the movement of
labour appear more as a response to exiting situation which were
honoured more in the breach than in their implementation. With the drive
to maximise production in accordance with the logic of the circuit of
productive-capital labour-power had to be fully used. Indeed, full
employment became an important element in the maintenance the political
and social cohesion of the USSR from Stalin onwards. However, the
maintenance of full employment led a chronic shortage of labour-power.
The fact that in reality workers were to a limited but crucial extent
free to sell their labour-power is shown in the strategy of the managers
of state enterprises to hoard labour. Indeed, the managers of state
enterprises actively colluded with workers to overcome the restrictions
to their mobility in their attempts secure sufficient labour-power to
meet their production targets. Hence the legal restrictions to the free
movement of labour-power were just that: attempts to restrict workers
who were essentially free to sell their labour-power.
Ticktin was well aware of the importance of the chronic shortage of
labour-power and consequence practice of labour hoarding by the state
enterprises. However, Ticktin persisted in denying that labour-power was
sold as a commodity in the USSR on the grounds that the wage was not
related to the labour performed. For Ticktin, although workers often
worked for piece rates which nominally tied their wages to amount they
worked, in reality workers were paid what amounted to a pension that
bore little relation to the amount of labour they performed.
As we argued in Part II, this argument overlooks the contradictory
aspects of labour-power and its expression in the form of a wage.
Labour-power is both a commodity and not a commodity. Although
labour-power is sold as if it was a commodity it is neither produced or
consumed as a commodity since it is not a thing separable from the
person who sells it â but the workers own living activity.
The worker does not produce labour-power as something to sell. On the
contrary he reproduces himself as a living subject of whom his living
activity is an essential an inseparable aspect. Equally, having bought
labour-power, capital can not use it in absence of the worker. The
worker remains in the labour process as an alien subject alongside his
alienated labour.
It is as a result of this contradictory nature of labour-power that the
wage-form emerges. In buying labour-power capital buys the workerâs
capacity to work. But capital has still to make the worker work both
through the sanction of unemployment and through the incentive of wages
linked to amount the worker works. However, while the wage may be linked
to the amount the labour the worker performs it is essentially the money
necessary for the average worker to buy those commodities necessary for
the reproduction of their labour-power. The extent to which the
capitalist can make individual workers work harder by linking the
payment of wages to the labour performed, rather than as a simple
payment for the reproduction of labour-power, depends on the relative
strengths of labour and capital.
Hence the fact that wages may have appeared like âpensionsâ paid
regardless of the work performed, rather than as true wages that appear
as a payment tied to the work performed, does not mean that labour-power
was not sold in the USSR. All that it indicates is the particular power
of the working class in the USSR that, as we shall now see, was to have
important implications.
As we saw in Part II, Ticktin has ably described the distortions in the
political economy of the USSR. But rather than seeing such distortions
as arising from the degeneration of a society stuck in the transition
from capitalism to socialism they can be more adequately seen as
distortions arising from an attempt to make a forced transition to
capitalism from a position of relative underdevelopment. The drive to
towards the development of the productive-capital that led to the fusion
of the state and the replacement of the law of value by the law of
planning can be seen to have led to the gross distortions and
contradictions of the USSR.
Let us consider more explicitly the class basis of such distortions and
contradictions.
Firstly, with the suppression of money as an independent form of value
that could command any commodity the subjectively determined needs of
the workers could not be expressed through the money form. The needs of
the workers were instead to a large extent prescribed by the state. Thus
as the wage did not act as an adequate form that could provide an
incentive. After all why work harder if the extra money you may can not
be spent?
Secondly, as we have seen, the forced development of productive-capital
that precluded crisis led to the chronic shortage of labour. In
conditions of full employment where state enterprises were desperate for
labour-power to meet their production targets the sack was an
ineffective sanction.
As a consequence, as Ticktin points out, the management of the state
enterprises lacked both the carrot and sticks with which control their
workforce. Indeed the workers were able to exercise a considerable
degree of negative control over the labour process. Confronted by the
imperative to appropriate surplus-value in the form of increased
production imposed through the central plan on the one hand, and the
power of the workers over the labour-process on the other hand, the
management of the state enterprises resolved the dilemma by sacrificing
quality for quantity. This was possible because the technical and social
needs of embodied in the use-values of the commodities they produced
were not derived from those who were to use these commodities but were
prescribed independently by the central plan.
As a result, the quantitative accumulation of capital in the form of
use-values led to the defective production of use-values. As defective
use-values of one industry entered into the production of commodities of
another, defective production became endemic leading to the chronic
production of useless products.
Hence, whereas in a fully developed capitalism the class conflicts at
the point of production are resolved through the waste of recurrent
economic crises which restore the industrial reserve army and the power
of capital over labour, in the USSR these conflict were resolved through
the chronic and systematic waste of defective production.
As we pointed out in Part I, the Russian Revolution and the
establishment of the first âworkers stateâ has had a profound impact in
shaping our world. At first the apparent success of the Russian
Revolution showed that there was a realistic alternative to capitalism.
It showed that capitalism could be overthrown by the working classes and
that a socialist, if not communist, society could be constructed on its
ruins. As such it inspired generations of socialists and workers in
their conflicts with the capitalism system, defining both their aims and
methods.
However, as the true nature of the USSR began to emerge the perception
that it was âactually exiting socialismâ became an increasing barrier to
the development of an opposition to capitalism. If the socialist
alternative to capitalism was a totalitarian police state in which you
still had to work for a boss then most workers concluded that it might
be better to merely reform capitalism. At the same time the attempts of
the Stalinist Communist Parties across the world to subordinate the
worker class movements to the foreign policy needs of the USSR further
compounded this problem.
The struggle against both Stalinism and social democracy demanded an
understanding of the USSR. The question of what was the USSR therefore
became a central one throughout much of the twentieth century. It was a
question, which as we have seen, was bound up with the associated
questions of what is socialism and communism? What was the Russian
Revolution? And indeed what is the essential nature of Capitalism?
Although from a communist perspective that takes as its touchstone the
abolition of wage-labour as the defining feature of communism it would
seem intuitive that the USSR was a form of capitalism, we have seen that
the theories that the USSR was state capitalist have proved inadequate
compared with the more sophisticated theories that have developed out of
the Trotskyist tradition. To the extent that they have shared the
tradition Marxist conception of the Second and Third Internationals that
state capitalism is highest form of capitalism, state capitalist
theories of the USSR have proved unable to explain either the apparently
non-capitalist aspects of the USSR nor its decline and eventual
collapse.
Indeed, while the Trotskyist theory of the USSR as a degenerated
workersâ state has become untenable given the chronic economic
stagnation of USSR that became increasingly apparent after the 1960s,
and which culminated in the collapse of the USSR in 1990, it has been
Ticktinâs radical reconstruction of this theory that has so far provided
the most convincing understanding of the Soviet system and its decline
and fall.
However, as we showed in Part II, Ticktinâs theory still falls short of
the mark. Rather than seeing the USSR as being a social system stuck in
the transition between capitalism and socialism, we have taken up the
point of departure suggested by Bordiga to argue that the USSR was in
transition to capitalism.
We have argued that in order to break out of its backwardness and
subordinate position within the world division of labour the state
bureaucracy, which had formed after the Russian Revolution, sought to
make the transition to capitalism through the transitional form of state
capitalism. In its efforts to industrialise the Russian state sought the
forced development of productive-capital that required the suppression
of the more cosmopolitan and crisis ridden forms of money and commodity
capital. However, while such forced capitalist development allowed an
initial rapid industrialisation the distortions it produced within the
political economy of the USSR eventual became a barrier to the complete
transition to capitalism in Russia.
As such we have argued that the USSR was essentially based on capitalist
commodity-production. However as a consequence of the historical form of
forced transition to capitalism there was dislocation between the
capitalist nature of production and its appearance as a society based on
commodity-exchange. This dislocation led to the deformation of value and
the defective content of use-values that both provided the basis for the
persistence of the distinctly non-capitalist features of the USSR and
led to the ultimate decline and disintegration of the USSR.
As we saw in the last issue in relation to the war in Kosovo the
question of Russia remains an important one on the geo-political stage.
The economic and political problems of breaking up and reintegrating the
Eastern bloc in to the global structure of capitalism is one that has
yet to find a solution, and this is particularly true of Russia itself.
The forced development of productive-capital for over half a century has
left Russia with an economy based on huge monopolies unable to compete
on the world market. At the same time the insistence by the ideologists
of Western capitalism that all that Russia needed was deregulation and
liberalisation has simply given rise to the emergence of money-capital
in its most parasitical and predatory form. As a consequence, Russia
re-subordination to the dictates of the international law of value has
left it with one part of its economy reverting back to barter while the
other is dominated by a mafia-capitalism that is blocking any further
economic development. Hence, despite all the efforts of the USA and the
IMF Russia still remains mired in its transition to capitalism.
[1] For convenience we shall at times use the term âstate capitalismâ
for all theories that consider the Soviet Union to have been capitalist.
As N. Fernandez points out in a forthcoming book, Capitalism and Class
Struggle in the USSR, many theories, for example those of Bordiga and
more recently Chattopadhyay, have for good theoretical reasons avoided
the term âstate capitalismâ in their accounts of the USSR. We will deal
with some of the issues raised by the term âstate capitalismâ in more
detail in Aufheben 8.
[2] âUltra-leftâ is a loaded and ambiguous term. It was originally a
term of abuse used by Lenin against communists and revolutionaries,
particularly in West European countries such as Holland, Germany and
Italy, who refused to accept the Bolshevik model of revolution and the
right of the Russian Communist Party to determine the tactics and
leadership of the world Communist movement. These communists were among
the first to put forward the idea that Russia was a form of state
capitalism. We shall examine such theories in the next issue. On the
term itself it should be noted that most people accused of ultra-leftism
by Leninists would argue that they are simply communists and that the
left, including their accusers, are not. The matter is further confused
by the tendency of Leninists to denounce each other for âultra-leftismâ
for such heinous crimes as not voting Labour. Perhaps more importantly
for us, the term âultra-leftismâ indicates an acceptance, along with
Trotskyism, of the idea of tracing oneâs tradition back to the social
democracy of the Second and Third Internationals. While we will happily
restate our position that the German, Dutch and Italian left communists
did maintain some important lessons from the revolutionary wave
following the First World War, we do not think they had the last word on
what revolutionary theory and practice is for us today. This will become
clearer once we come to examine their theories of the Soviet Union.
[3] Of course, prisoner support work is an important part of any serious
movement against the state, and in the particular circumstances of the
anti-poll tax movement when Militant threatened to grass people to the
police it did define a radical engagement in the struggle. But there is
nothing inherent in leftism that leads it to ignore prisoners. Simply
criticising the âleftâ for not supporting prisoners ends up as little
better than ritual denunciation of the left for being âboring middle
class wankersâ, a poor excuse for a proper critique. Yet it is perhaps
little surprise that prisoner support has become an almost definitive
position amongst many anarchists now that denouncing the left for
supporting the USSR is no longer viable.
[4] There is little doubt that it was the fear that the whole of Western
Europe might go over to the Eastern Bloc in the years following the
Second World War which prompted the American bourgeoisie to pour
billions of dollars into shattered West European economies in the form
of Marshall Aid.
[5] It should be remembered that the reformist parties of the Second
International not only betrayed their commitment to opposing the First
World War and, as such, were complicit in the decimation of a whole
generation of the European working class, but they also played an
important role in crushing the revolutions that swept much of Europe
following the war. For example, it was under the orders of a Social
Democratic government that the German Revolution was crushed and such
revolutionary leaders as Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht killed. Such
crimes could not be that easily forgotten.
[6] Of course, at this point some may object that Trotskyâs record
proves that he was a counter-revolutionary and, as a consequence,
dismiss any detailed consideration of his theory of the USSR as a
degenerated workersâ state. For us an extensive consideration of
Trotskyâs theory of the USSR as a degenerated workersâ state is
important not only because this theory has become a central reference
point for criticisms of the Soviet Union, but also because it is
important to show how Trotskyâs theory emerged directly from the
objectivism of orthodox Marxism and was in no way a betrayal of such
traditions. Hence our focus will remain on the political economy that
developed in the USSR, rather than offering a blow by blow account of
the revolution/ counter-revolution. For details on the 1917â21 period
that undermine the Leninist account of the Russian Revolution see M.
Brinton The Bolsheviks and Workersâ Control (London: Solidarity). For a
more general critique of the orthodox Marxism of both the Second and
Third Internationals see Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle,
Chapter IV (Detroit: Black and Red, 1974).
[7] Trotsky is himself not very clear at this point as to why the very
backwardness of peasantry would lead a substantial part of this class to
maintain its support for a workersâ government committed to introducing
socialist policies. However, this apparently paradoxical position can be
resolved if we consider a little more closely Trotskyâs view of the
peasantry. For Trotsky the backwardness and heterogeneity of the
peasantry meant that it was inherently incapable of developing a
coherent organization that could formulate and advance its own distinct
class interests. As a consequence the peasantry could only accept the
leadership of other classes i.e. either the bourgeoisie or the
proletariat. From this Trotsky could conclude that once the peasantry
had accepted the leadership of the proletariat it would have little
option but to be swept along by the policies of a workersâ government,
even beyond the point where such policies began to impinge on the
peasantsâ own immediate class interests, since they would be unable to
formulate any viable alternative.
[8] See The Revolution Betrayed by Leon Trotsky (Pathfinder Press,
1972).
[9] We shall give more attention to the ideas Leninâs left communist
opponents in Aufheben 8.
[10] Following Engels, it was generally accepted within orthodox Marxism
that there could be no leap from capitalism to a fully fledged communist
society in which the state, money and wage-labour had been abolished. It
was envisaged that any post-capitalist society would have to pass
through a lower stage of communism during which the state, money and
wage-labour would gradually whither away as the conditions for the
higher stage of communism came into being. This lower stage of communism
became known as socialism.
[11] For example, in his Leon Trotskyâs Theory of Revolution, John
Molyneux says âSuffice it to say that in the early years of the
revolution Trotsky stood on the authoritarian wing of the partyâ. Of
course, as Kowalski has pointed out, the divisions of left/right,
libertarian/ authoritarian may over simplify the complex of political
positions taken up among the Bolsheviks during this period. However, it
is quite clear that Trotsky was neither on the left nor the libertarian
wings of the Party at this time.
[12] As both Engels and Kautsky had pointed out in relation to Germany,
the fundamental barrier to the development of industrial capitalism was
the low productivity of traditional forms of small-scale peasant
agriculture. If the urban populations necessary for industrialization
were to be fed then the peasants had to produce an agricultural surplus
over and above their own immediate needs. So long as traditional forms
of agriculture persist the total amount of agricultural produce is
limited. Thus the only way to produce the surplus necessary for
industrialization is to depress the living standards of the peasantry
through such means as high rents and taxation. Yet the scope for
squeezing the peasantsâ already impoverished living standards is
limited. Sooner or later there has to be an agricultural revolution
which, by concentrating production in large scale farms, allows the
introduction of modern mechanized production methods. Under capitalism
this occurred either through the landlords or the richer peasants
appropriating land and transforming themselves into capitalist farmers.
The socialist alternative was to collectivize agriculture. By grouping
peasants together in collectives large scale production would be made
possible without dispossessing vast numbers of poor peasants. In Russia
this agrarian problem was particularly acute. Before the revolution the
peasants had been forced to produce for the market in order to pay rents
and taxes to the landlords and the state. This surplus had then been
used both to feed the urban populations and for export to earn the
foreign currency needed to pay for the import of foreign capital
required for industrialization. However, with the Stolypin reforms of
1906, the Tsarist regime had made a decisive effort to encourage the
development of capitalist agriculture amongst the richer peasants. But
this âwager on the strongâ peasant was cancelled by the revolution. The
expropriation of the landlords and the redistribution served to
reinforce small-scale subsistence agriculture. With neither the
compulsion nor any incentive to produce a surplus on the part of the
peasant, food supplies to the urban areas fell. It had been this that
had compelled the Bolshevik Government to introduce direct
requisitioning under War Communism. With the NEP, the Bolshevik
Government now sought to provide incentives for the richer peasants to
produce for the market. Collectivization was ruled out since for it to
succeed on a large scale it required a sufficient level of
industrialization to allow the mechanization of agriculture. To this
extent the NEP represented, in part, a retreat to the Tsarist policy of
encouraging the growth of capitalist agriculture amongst the rich
peasants. We shall examine further this crucial agrarian question in
more detail in the next issue.
[13] Trotsky coined the phrase âscissors crisisâ in his speech to the
12^(th) Party Congress in April 1923. Trotsky argued that, left to the
market, the uneven development between agriculture and industry could
only lead to violent fluctuations between the prices of industrial goods
and agricultural prices which could only undermine the NEP. Although
agricultural production recovered rapidly after the introduction of the
NEP, industrial production lagged behind. As a result the price of
industrial goods had risen far faster than agricultural prices, âopening
the price scissorsâ and threatening to undermine the incentives for the
peasants to produce for the market in the following season. By October
the predicted crisis struck home with the sales of grain plummeting.
Following this âscissors crisisâ, measures were introduced to control
industrial prices.
[14] While Stalin had established his power-base as head of the
organization of the Party through out the USSR, Zinoviev had built his
power-base as head of the Party in Leningrad, and Kamenev had his
power-base as the head of the Moscow Party.
[15] During the industrialization debate in the mid 1920s, Trotsky,
along with the rest of the Left Opposition, was repeatedly attacked by
Stalin and his followers for being a âsuper-industrializerâ who wished
to abandon the NEP and industrialize at the expense of the peasantry.
This has been a common accusation made against Trotsky by Stalinists
ever since. But it has also been a criticism taken up by anarchists and
others to the left of Trotsky who argue that in adopting the policy of
forced industrialization and forced collectivization after 1928 Stalin
was simply implementing Trotskyâs own ideas. In this way the essential
complicity between Stalin and Trotsky can be demonstrated. In his
article âThe Myth of the Super-Industrializerâ, which was originally
published under a different title in Critique, 13, and now reprinted in
The Ideas of Leon Trotsky edited by Michael Cox and Hillel Ticktin,
Richard Day has sought to defend Trotsky from such accusations by both
distancing him from the more polemical positions of Preobrazhensky and
stressing his support for the workersâ and peasantsâ alliance embodied
in the NEP. But this does not prove much. None of the main protagonists
in the industrialization debate, not even Preobrazhensky, argued for the
abandonment of the NEP and the workersâ and peasantsâ alliance. What is
telling is Trotskyâs own criticisms of Stalinâs eventual policy of
forced industrialization and collectivization. In The Revolution
Betrayed, Trotsky does not criticize Stalinâs industrialization policy
as such â indeed he is careful to praise the great achievements made by
Stalin under this policy â but rather the âzig-zagsâ made in bringing
this policy about. For Trotsky the problem was that Stalinâs reluctance
to adopt the policy of industrialization put forward by the Left
Opposition in the mid-1920s meant a sharper âturn to the leftâ and a
more rushed and unbalanced industrialization later in order to solve the
crisis of 1928. But the crucial question is: if Stalin had shifted the
burden of industrialization onto the peasantry a few years earlier,
would this have been really sufficient to have averted the grain
procurement crisis in 1928 and avoided the disaster of forced
collectivization in which millions of peasants died?
[16] For a critique of orthodox Marxist interpretations of Marxâs theory
of commodity fetishism see âThe Myth of Working Class Passivityâ by
David Gorman in Radical Chains, 2.
[17] It should be noted that What is to be Done? was a particularly
extreme formulation of democratic centralism that emerged out of a
polemic against those Marxists who had argued that the class
consciousness of the working class would necessarily develop out of
economic struggles during a period of retreat in the class struggle.
However, Leninâs position concerning democratic centralism can be seen
to have undergone sharp shifts in emphasis depending on the political
circumstances. At various points before 1917 Leninâs position would have
been little different from that of Trotsky.
[18] As well as Bolshevik left communists, many anarchists were also
taken in by the âlibertarian flavourâ of the conception of
post-revolutionary power outlined in Leninâs State and Revolution. This
led to accusations that Leninâs actions after seizing power were a
betrayal of the ideas he had himself set out in State and Revolution,
and it is then suggested that Lenin had never really believed in them.
But while it is undoubtedly true that Lenin did abandon some of the
measures he called for in State and Revolution, that text was itself
ambiguous, calling for a âsocialist revolution with subordination,
control, and foremen and accountantsâ.
[19] See for example âCan the Bolsheviks Retain State Power?â in Leninâs
Collected Works, vol. 26, p. 87.
[20] The methods of âscientific managementâ advocated by Lenin were
based on those developed by the most advanced capitalist enterprises in
the West and which had become known as Taylorism. Taylorism had been
specifically developed to break the control of the skilled worker over
the immediate production process. Under Taylorism the production process
was re-organized and rationalized in a way which removed the initiative
of the individual worker and concentrated the overall knowledge and
control of how things were produced into the hands of specialized
managers. Leninâs enthusiasm for Taylorism, an enthusiasm shared by
Trotsky, is perhaps one of the areas where Lenin most clearly
distinguishes his position from a communist one.
[21] It should be recognized that most of these armies did not seriously
fight the Bolsheviks. The civil war, as a war between organized armies,
was a battle between the Red Army and the Whites, who had material
support from the West. But, as well as this, vast numbers of peasants
and deserters fought both sides. Indeed, one could say the 1918â21
period was as much a peasant war as anything else.
[22] The introduction of one-man management and scientific management,
together with the consequent transfer of power away from the factory
committees to, first the trade unions and then to the Party, is well
documented in The Bolsheviks and Workersâ Control by M. Brinton. As
Brinton shows this process began at a very early stage in the
Revolution, well before the start of the civil war in the Summer of
1918.
[23] Given the task of organising the military defence of the revolution
Trotsky spent little time in abandoning the Red Guard militias that had
been formed immediately after the October Revolution in favour of
building a conventional standing army. At first Trotsky sought to
recruit from volunteers amongst the more advanced sections of the
working class, and in accordance with the procedures established within
the Red Guards, allowed officers to be elected directly from Soldiersâ
committees and assemblies. However, once he had established a reliable
core for the new Red Army, Trotsky introduced conscription drawing
recruits from the broad masses of peasants and workers. With what he
considered as less reliable troops, Trotsky abandoned the direct
election of officers in favour of the appointment of professional
commanders which were mostly drawn from the former Tsarist army. To
oversee and check any counter-revolutionary tendencies amongst this
officer corp., Trotsky appointed political officers, or commissars,
drawn from the Party each of whom were attached to a particular military
commander.
[24] As Knei-Paz has pointed out, the idea that the emergence of the
bureaucracy represented a Russian Thermidor had been first advanced by
the Democratic-Centralist Opposition in the early 1920s. At that time,
when he still held a leading position within the Party, Trotsky had
firmly rejected the idea of a Russian Thermidor as being
âultra-leftistâ. However, by 1929, facing disgrace and exile, Trotsky
began to come round to the idea and it was only by the mid-1930s that
came to fully formulate it within his criticisms of Stalinism. See B.
Knei-Paz, The Social and Political Thought of Leon Trotsky (Oxford:
Clarendon Press), pp. 394â5.
[25] Trotskyâs âorthodox Marxistâ and objectivist idea of history as
fundamentally about the progressive development of the productive forces
is perhaps the key to understanding the underlying weakness of his
theory of the degenerated workersâ state. For Trotskyâs lyrical accounts
of how Stalinist Russia developed the forces of production we need go no
further than the opening pages of The Revolution Betrayed. On page 8 of
this work Trotsky declares: âWith the bourgeois economists we no longer
have anything to quarrel over. Socialism has demonstrated its right to
victory, not in the pages of Das Kapital, but in an industrial arena
comprising a sixth of the earthâs surface â not in the language of
dialectics, but in the language of steel, cement and electricityâ.
[26] With the publication of Marxâs early writings, particularly the
Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, it is clear that for Marx the
basis of capitalism is not private property but alienated labour. This
point, as we shall see, is vital not only in making a critique of
orthodox Marxism but in any attempt to develop a materialist theory of
the USSR.
[27] Of course, at a more concrete level, it is clear that not all of
the capitalist class directly exploit the working class. Bankers and
merchant capitalists, for example, draw a share of the surplus-value
produced by the industrial capitalists by virtue of their special
functions in financing production, and by circulating the commodities
subsequently produced. Yet these functions can themselves be seen to be
rooted in private property. The bank advances money to finance
production as a loan of its own private property, and duly obtains a
share in the surplus-value in the form of interest. Likewise, by buying
the commodities produced by the industrial capitalist, the merchant
capitalists advance their own money-capital to realize the value
produced for the industrial capitalist ahead of the commoditiesâ actual
circulation. In doing so the merchant capitalists appropriate a slice of
the surplus-value expropriated by the industrial capitalists in the form
of the difference between what they pay the industrial capitalists and
what they sell the commodities for to the consumers.
[28] See The New Constitution of the USSR.
[29] As we have already noted, the notion that the concentration and
centralization of capital inevitably led towards the fusion of state and
capital had been central to the orthodox Marxism of the Second
International. It had followed from this that the decisive shift from
capitalism to socialism occurred with the working class seizing state
power. The main question that then divided orthodox Marxism was whether
this seizure of state power required a revolution or whether it could be
achieved through peaceful democratic means. In What is to be Done? Lenin
came to define his own position regarding the primacy of the political.
Against the âeconomismâ of those who saw socialist revolution arising
directly out the economic struggles of the working class, Lenin had
argued for importance of establishing a political party which could
seize state power. Of course, it was the basis of this âpoliticismâ
which, by implying that the realm of the political can to some extent
determine the nature of society, has allowed Leninists to argue that the
USSR was a workersâ state while at the same time admitting that the
social relations of production may have remained capitalist. As we shall
see in the next issue, it was the inability of most left communists to
fully break from this âpoliticismâ that undermines their critique of the
Bolsheviks.
[30] It was this very transitional character of the Soviet bureaucracy
which meant that it was difficult to define what it was. So although
Trotsky settled on calling it a âcasteâ he accepted this was an
unsatisfactory categorization of the Soviet bureaucracy.
[31] One of the first groups to develop a proper theory was the âstate
capitalistâ minority within the Workersâ Party. This minority later
emerged as the Johnson-Forest Tendency after the pseudonyms of its main
theorists â C.L.R. James and Raya Dunayevskaya. With the collection of
previously unavailable writings we can now see that this theory is much
stronger than it appears from some of their earlier published works and
is far superior to Cliffâs version. See The Marxist-Humanist Theory of
State Capitalism, by R. Dunayevskaya, (Chicago: News & Letters, 1992).
Since the Johnson-Forest Tendency quickly broke from Trotskyism by
rejecting vanguardism and emphasizing workersâ autonomy we shall deal
with them in more detail in the next issue.
[32] See C. Hobson and R. Tabor, Trotskyism and the Dilemma of Socialism
(Westport: Greenwood, 1988).
[33] The Revolutionary Communist Party subsequently broke up and should
not be confused with the Revolutionary Communist Party that is around
today.
[34] Though this has not stopped the SWP giving âcritical supportâ to
some nationalist and Stalinist movements in ânon-imperialistâ parts of
the world.
[35] For a critique of Cliffâs theory of state capitalism from a
Trotskyist point of view see the collection of articles on the nature of
the USSR in Open Polemic, 4 & 5.
[36] That is the reformism that had been put forward by Bernstein and
his followers in the debates in the Second International that there
could be a peaceful transition to socialism through democratically won
reforms.
[37] Cliff was able to cite Trotskyâs reaction to Stalinâs constitution
where he argued that it was the basis for the restoration of capitalism
in the USSR as support for the possibility of peaceful
counter-revolution.
[38] While most Trotskyists in the 1940s clung on to the belief that the
immediate post-war economic boom would be short lived and as a
consequence repeatedly predicted an imminent return to an economic
slump, Cliff was one of the first to seek to explain the persistence of
the post-war economic boom. Central to this explanation was Cliffâs
theory of âa permanent arms economyâ in which high levels of military
spending acted to defer the full effects of the overaccumulation of
capital which had led to the great slump of the 1930s. The notion that
the permanent arms economy was mirrored in the Soviet Union fitted
neatly into Cliffâs overall emphasis on the importance of military
accumulation for modern capitalism.
[39] Loren Goldner, Communism is the Material Human Community
(Collective Action Notes, POB 22962, Balto., MD 21203, USA.). Also
published as âAmadeo Bordiga, the Agrarian Question and the
International Revolutionary Movementâ, in Critique, 23, 1991.
[40] Jacques Camatte, Community and Communism in Russia.
[41] This influence is not confined to the Leninist left. The recent
book from Neil Fernandez â Capitalism and Class Struggle in the USSR â
while opposed to Ticktinâs Leninism acknowledges his work as a âmajor
theoretical achievementâ in terms of grasping the forms taken by the
class struggle in the Soviet Union. The journal Radical Chains has
attempted to develop revolutionary critique by combining some of
Ticktinâs ideas with others from the autonomist and left communist
traditions.
[42] With the growing crisis in the USSR in the 1980s, there were
several attempts by leading theoreticians within the Socialist Workers
Party to revise Cliffâs theory of state capitalism to overcome its
inherent weaknesses.
[43] The collapse of the USSR has forced a major rethink amongst both
Trotskyists and Stalinists. One of the first attempts to draw together
the various positions on the USSR was made in Open Polemic, 4 & 5.
[44] In fact, Ticktinâs theory has assumed a strong role among the
remnants of the British far left that goes beyond just Trotskyism. The
ideological crisis that has accompanied the collapse of the USSR has led
the smaller groups to some fairly serious rethinking. Ticktinâs theory
seems to offer the best hope of keeping their Leninist assumptions while
fundamentally disentangling themselves from what has happened in Russia.
Showing some of the strange realignments that have followed the collapse
of the USSR, a Ticktinite analysis of the USSR seems now to be the
dominant position within the ex-Stalinist group previously known as the
Leninist. Having reclaimed the CPGB title abandoned by the old
Euro-Stalinists (now New Labourites), this group seems to be attracting
quite a few homeless leftists to a project based on going back to the
1920 formation of the original CPGB before the split of Trotskyism and
Stalinism. However, weâd suggest that, for Leninists, now that the USSR
has collapsed, overcoming the division of Stalinism and Trotskyism is
not too hard; understanding much less crossing the gap between Leninism
and communism is a more difficult task.
[45] For a discussion of the different ways Trotskyism and left
communism interpreted the meaning of these slogans, see our article
âDecadence: The Theory of Decline or the Decline of Theory? Part Iâ in
Aufheben 2 (Summer 1993).
[46] See, again, our article âDecadenceâ in Aufheben 2.
[47] See âThe Leopard in the 20^(th) Century: Value, Struggle and
Administrationâ in Radical Chains, 4.
[48] The notion of centrism had originally been applied to those within
the Second International who sought to combine a commitment to
proletarian revolution with a reformist practice â a position best
exemplified by Karl Kautsky.
[49] In Marxâs Capital the question of class is not presented until the
very end of Volume III.
[50] For a critique of this identification of communism with âa law of
planningâ, or indeed even with planning per se, see âDecadence Part IIIâ
in Aufheben 4 (Summer 1995).
[51] Tony Cliff Puts Forward a Similar Position That in the USSR the
Workers Did Not Really Sell Their Labour-Power.
[52] Under capitalism, the individual worker can earn more by working
harder or longer than the average or norm. However, if the individual
workerâs colleagues follow suit, the average or norm of working will be
increased and the individual worker will soon find his wages revised
down to the value of his labour-power.
[53] Focusing on commodity fetishism helps one avoid the mistake of
seeing ideology as predominantly a creation of state and other
ideological apparatuses or institutions. To make people work for it,
capital neither has to rely on direct force nor on somehow inserting the
idea that they should work into peopleâs heads. Their needs, plus their
separation from the means of production and each other, makes working
for capital a necessity for proletarians. Commodity fetishism in one
sense, then, is not in itself an ideology but an inseparable part of the
social reality of a value- and commodity-producing society: âto the
producers, therefore, the social relations between their private labours
appear as what they are, i.e., they do not appear as direct social
relations between persons in their work, but rather as material
[dinglich] relations between persons and social relations between
thingsâ (Capital, vol. 1, Chapter 1, Section 4). On the other hand,
people generate ideology to make sense of their alienated practice; to
the extent that most peopleâs existence most of the time is within
capitalist relations, they generate and adopt ideas to rationalize and
make sense of this existence. Because that reality is itself
contradictory, their ideas can both be incoherent and quite functional
for them. The point here, though, is that no âbattle of ideasâ will
disabuse them of such ideas which are expressive of their reality. Only
in relation to practical struggle, when the reified appearance of
capitalist relations is exposed as vulnerable to human interference, are
most people likely to adopt revolutionary ideas. On the other hand,
leftist intellectuals attempt to be both coherent and critical of this
society. It is in relation to such âcritical ideasâ that, following Marx
and the Situationists, we oppose revolutionary theory to revolutionary
ideology.
[54] There is a key passage in Marxâs Capital that would seem at first
to support Ticktinâs argument that the lack of normal market relations
in the USSR meant that it did not generate the powerful âdull compulsion
of everyday lifeâ that the worker experiences in the West:
"the advance of capitalist production develops a working class which by
education, tradition and habit looks upon the requirements of that mode
of production as self-evident natural laws. The organization of the
capitalist process of production, once it is fully developed, breaks
down all resistance. The constant generation of a relative surplus
population keeps the law of the supply and demand of labour, and
therefore wages, within narrow limits which correspond to capitalâs
valorization requirements. The silent compulsion of economic relations
sets the seal on the domination of the capitalist over the worker.
Direct extra-economic force is still of course used, but only in
exceptional cases. In the ordinary run of things, the worker can be left
to the ânatural laws of productionâ, i.e. it is possible to rely on his
dependence on capital, which springs from the conditions of production
themselves and is guaranteed in perpetuity by them." (Capital, vol. 1,
Chapter 28).
But the lines that immediately follow suggest a quite different way of
grasping the Russian situation:
"It is otherwise during the historical genesis of capitalist production.
The rising bourgeoisie needs the power of the state, and uses it to
âregulateâ wages, i.e. to force them into the limits suitable for making
a profit, to lengthen the working day, and to keep the worker himself at
his normal level of dependence. This is an essential aspect of so-called
primitive accumulation."
A lot of the strange features of the USSR vis-a-vis ânormalâ capitalism
become clear when one sees it as attempting to make the transition
towards capitalism.
[55] The observation that there was a fundamental contradiction between
the reality of the Soviet regime and what it said about itself is hardly
new. The original title of The Russian Enigma by Anton Ciliga, which
brilliantly combines an account of his personal experiences of the
Stalinist regime and its camps with his reflections on the nature of its
economic system, was Au Pays du Grand Mensonge: âIn the Country of the
Big Lieâ.
[56] It is interesting to contrast the views of Ticktin with Debord on
the Soviet lie.
Ticktin argues that, unlike the false consciousness of the Western
bourgeoisie, the set of doctrines promoted by the Soviet elite doesnât
even partially correspond to reality and thus the system has no
ideology. Ticktinâs motivation to deny that these falsehoods are an
ideology is theoretical: âSystematic, conscious untruthfulness is a
symptom of a system that is inherently unstableâ (Origins of the Crisis
in the USSR, p. 18). His view that it is not a viable system leads him
polemically to assert that it has no ideology; for something that is not
a mode of production does not generate a coherent false consciousness.
Debord (Society of the Spectacle, Theses 102â111) similarly describes
Soviet society as based on a lie that no one believes and which has thus
to be enforced by the police. He also points at the way that its
reliance on falsification of the past and present means that it suffers
âthe loss of the rational reference which is indispensable to the
historical society, capitalismâ, making it a poor imitation of the West
in terms of industrial production (108). However Debord does not feel
the need to say that, because it has become manifestly incoherent,
Stalinist ideology is no longer ideology; rather, it is for him an
extreme victory of ideology.
While it has a theoretical consistency, Ticktinâs polemical insistence
that there was no ideology in the USSR imposes a very restricted sense
on the notion of ideology. Essentially it limits the meaning of ideology
to that false consciousness generated by a mode of production which
partially grasps the reality of the world which that mode produces and
which is thus functional to those identifying with that world. However,
ideology can also infect the thought of those who see themselves as
critical of and wishing to go beyond that mode of production. For
example, the Marxism of the Second International, of which Leninism is
essentially a variant, absorbed bourgeois conceptions of the relation of
knowledge to practice, of the need for representation and hierarchical
organization and of progress, which made it into a revolutionary
ideology. Ticktinâs limited conception of ideology allows him to escape
the questions of the relation of the Soviet Unionâs ideology of
âMarxism-Leninismâ to its origins in Leninism, and the ideological
assumptions Trotskyism shares with Stalinism. Debord however, grasps the
totalitarian falsehood of Soviet ideology as a dialectical development
of the revolutionary ideology of Leninism. As he puts it: âAs the
coherence of the separate, the revolutionary ideology, of which Leninism
was the highest voluntaristic expression, governed the management of a
reality that was resistant to it; with Stalinism, this ideology
rediscovered its own incoherent essence. Ideology was no longer a weapon
but an end in itself. But a lie which can no longer be challenged
becomes a form of madnessâ (105).
[57] On the basis of this dilemma for the Russian elite, Ticktin is able
to provide a persuasive account of the post-war history of the USSR
which in many respects is far superior to most attempts by state
capitalist theorists to explain the crisis of the Soviet Union.
[58] See Part VI of Volume I of Capital.
[59] We shall take this point up in far more detail in âWhat was the
USSR? Part IVâ.
[60] Again, see âDecadence Part IIIâ in Aufheben 4 (Summer 1995).
[61] The German and Dutch Communist Lefts were theoretically and
practically intertwined. Two of the most prominent theorists of the
German Communist Workers Party â Pannekoek and Gorter â were Dutch.
Exiled German Left activists often took refuge in Holland. In what
follows we will generally use the termâ German Left to indicate the
whole political current.
[62] âTrotskyâs theory of the Soviet Union as a degenerated workers
stateâ,and âThe theory of state capitalism from within Trotskyismâ in
Aufheben 6,1997,and âRussia as a non mode of Productionâ in Aufheben
7,1998.
[63] Surprisingly perhaps the most interesting and dynamic appropriation
of the Communist Left has not been made in Germany or Italy but in
France. After â68 in particular a modem âultra leftâ tradition has
emerged there in a way unlike other countries. Within this a different
less âpartyistâ appropriation of the Communist left has been made. The
recently republished Eclipse and Re-Emergence of the Communist Movement
(Dauve & Martin, Antagonism Press) is an example of this.
[64] A main way the Communist left is known in Britain is through the
publications and activities of groups emerging in the early seventies,
which claimed to defend the positions of the Communist Left. These
groups on the surface appear to the uninitiated as Party oriented groups
not so different from some of the smaller Trotskyist sects. In most
other countries where it has a presence the Communist left has a similar
type of existence
[65] The history and positions of Communist lefts that developed in some
countries have been effectively destroyed, e.g. those of the Bulgarian
left. The British communist left was represented by Sylvia Pankhursts
group around the Workers Dreadnought (previously the Womanâs
Dreadnought) and the Spur group in Glasgow of whom Guy Aldred was the
leading spokesman. They largely following the German left on the Russian
question so we will not treat them here.There is a good account of them
in Mark Shipwayâs Anti- Parliamentary Communism: The Movement for
Workers Councils in Britain, 1917â45 (Macmillan, 1988)
[66] In Leninist mythology the clear sighted Lenin split with the
Russian Social Democratic Party on the question of organisation and by
so doing created a line of revolutionary Marxism that foresaw and would
be immune to the betrayal of revolution that both the Mensheviks and
European social democrats would fall prey to. However, as both Debord
and Dauve, has pointed out, Lenin was always a loyal Kautskyist â even
when he accused his master of betrayal.
[67] Leninâs clear line on this led to an alliance of the Bolsheviks
with European left communist â the Zimmerwald left â this broke down
because of Leninâs refusal to work with those who rejected the right
[68] Bukharin is better known for the right wing positions he took in
the twenties. Up to â21 he was however a leading figure of the left of
the party, in many ways closer to European Left communists than to
Leninâs very Russian perspectives.
[69] Lenin particularly scorned the position that Pyatakov painted of
revolution: âWe picture this process [the social revolution] as the
united action of the proletarians of all [!] countries, who wipe out the
frontiers of the bourgeois [!] state, who tear down the frontier posts
[in addition to âwiping out the frontiersâ?], who blow up [!] national
unity and establish class unity.â {Leninâs âcommentsâ } To which Lenin
replies âThe social revolution cannot be the united action of the
proletarians of all countries for the simple reason that most of the
countries and the majorities of the worldâs population have not even
reached, or have only just reached, the capitalist stage of
development... Only the advanced countries of Western Europe and North
America have matured for socialism. The social revolution can come only
in the form of an epoch in which are combined civil war by the
proletariat in the advanced countries and a whole series of democratic
and revolutionary movements... in the undeveloped, backward and
oppressed nations. âLenin âThe nascent trend of Imperialist Economism
October 1916 p 50â52
[70] The Left Communists reason for changing their position from one of
proposing revolutionary war to that of defensive revolutionary partisan
war, in fact resides in the openness for Leninâs arguments, when he
pointed out that it would be a rather unrealistic to go for
revolutionary in the face of massive war weariness and peasant desertion
of the front this was a quite unrealistic position.
[71] Speech 28/7/18: CW vol.28, p29.
[72] 60 million people, half the industrial firms, three quarters of the
steel mills and nearly all the coal mines were in this area.
[73] Theses on the Current Situation (1918), Critique, Glasgow,1977.
Also in Daniels Documentary History of Communism. References are to
these numbers.
[74] âOn the Building of Socialismâ Kommunist no2,April 1918,in Daniels
p 85.
[75] Trotskyâs support for militarisation of labour is a classic
example. See Terrorism and Communism.
[76] âThe Tax in Kind (NEP)â CW 32 pp.329â369 here he analyses relation
of petty producer capitalism to state capitalism in 1921. This text will
be key to Bordigaâs understanding of the USSR
[77] In fact at some of the worst times in the civil war the Bolsheviks
gave other socialists and anarchists more freedom. The changing relation
to Makhnoâs partisans being a case in point. See Ciliga in his The
Russian Enigma p251
[78] Appeal of the workers truth Group in Daniels Documentary History of
Communism p 221
[79] Luxemburg referring to the German SDP says âthe troops of the old
order, instead of intervening in the name of the ruling classes,
intervene under the banner of a âsocial-democratic party.ââ The workers
group were making the obvious and necessary extension of this critique
of the SDP to the more radical Social Democracy that the Bolsheviks were
turning out to represent.
[80] As they so eloquently put it: âwhy does Zinoviev offer Scheidman
and Noske [social democrats responsible for defeating the German
revolution] a ministerial seat instead of a gibbet.â
[81] Between 1890 and 1899, 450,000 were involved in strikes and
lockouts; between 1900â04,475,000. In 1905 alone, 500,000.
[82] In 8/10/21
[83] In Workers Dreadnought Feb 24
[84] From the Bourgeois to the Proletarian Revolution,p 7
[85] This text was written by the GIK in 1934 and published in English
by the APCF as the The Bourgeois Role of Bolshevism.References are to
these numbers.
[86] Fundamental principles of Communist Production and Distribution
[87] Pannekoekâs Workers Councils
[88] See Anti-Bolshevik Communism and Marxism: Last Refuge of the
Bourgeoisie
[89] When a fusion was eventually forced through the PSI demoralized by
fascism only comprised 2000 members confirming the Italian left argument
that it was an exhausted tradition
[90] Bordiga,either imprisoned or under surveillance by the fascist
police,withdrew from politics at this time. The Banner of the Italian
Left was upheld by the fraction in exile in Belgium and France
[91] Quoted in Camatteâs Community and Communism in Russia,p 9â10
[92] See Fundamentals of Communist Production and Distribution (Apple &
Mejer, 1990, Movement for Workersâ Councils).
[93] See Dauve âLeninism and the Ultra Leftâ (Eclipse and Re-Emergence
of the Communist Movement. Op. Cit.)
[94] One is not saying that communism can exist in one country or area
before world revolution has generalised but that we can only say that
revolution has triumphed there if a process of suppression of capitalist
relations has begun.
[95] Camatte has attempted to synthesise the positive sides of both
theories. By engaging in a detailed study of what Marx meant by the
partyâ, he argued that this should not be identified with the
traditional formal party associated with Leninism and social democracy.
The âpartyâ was in no way something external to the working class
introducing it to a communist consciousness and organisation it was
incapable of generating by itself. Rather, the âpartyâ should be
understood as an expression of the class, its production of a communist
consciousness of those people who identified with and tried to act for
communism. Rather than in the Leninist vision where spontaneity and
organisation/consciousness are rigidly opposed Camatte returned to
Marxâs understanding that the party is something spontaneously generated
out of the class. It was by relativising this Leninist notion of the
party-form that Camatte could return to the notions of working class
subjectivity of the German Left, whilst as the same time adopting the
more holistic standpoint of the Italian Left. That is, he managed to
overcome the dichotomy between the economic and the political, which had
not only led to their mutual incomprehension, but more importantly in
this context, to very different perception of the nature of Russia. It
is by taking away the foundations on which the German and Italian Left
based their theories of Russia, that Camatteâs discussion of the
party-form did have an indirect relevance for left communist theories of
the Russian Revolution. (Camatte 1961 The Origin and Function of the
Party Form).
[96] Our introduction to the second article in Aufheben 7 was a response
to the second group.
[97] The ICC for example, complained that in out treatment of the
Italian Left we fail to mention the contribution of the particular
branch with which they identify, namely the Left Communists of France
who refused to join the International Communist Party formed by
âBordigistsâ in Italy in 1943. As it happens we have read the article
they refer to â âThe Russian Experience: Private Property and Collective
Propertyâ (in Internationlisme, 10, 1946, reprinted in International
Review, 61, 1990) and do consider it quite good. Its insight that the
form of ownership may change, but the content â past labour dominating
living labour â remains is a basic one shared with many other theories
of state capitalism. But it is only a starting point. Unfortunately we
see no sign that the ICC has managed to advance from this sound
beginning. In a way the article in question points back to the
theoretical rigour and openness of Bilan (Italian Left group in the
â30s) rather than forwards towards the present sclerotic organisation
which claims this heritage.
[98] Capitalism and Class Struggle in the USSR: A Marxist Theory by Neal
Fernandez (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1997). We have found this book useful for
its comprehensive overview of the debate; its treatment of the strengths
and weaknesses of the different theories; and its identification of the
key problems that must be faced by a theory of the USSR grounded in
Marxâs critique of political economy. When it comes to the authorâs own
ânew theory of bureaucratic capitalismâ, however, we are not convinced â
we touch on this in footnote 16 below.
[99] Indeed, when the foremost council-communist theorist, Paul Mattick,
looked at the issue of value, his traditional Marxist assumptions along
with his theoretical integrity led him actually to undermine the German
Leftâs theory of state capitalism by accepting that value did not really
exist in the USSR.
[100] One state capitalist theory that accepted that âprofitâ as it
appeared on the surface of Soviet society was not profit in a Marxian
sense was that developed by Raya Dunayevskaya. In pioneering work in the
late 1930s early â40s, she undertook a functional analysis of the cycle
of capital accumulation as it actually took place in the USSR. She saw
that the role of the âturnover taxâ on consumer goods gave an entirely
âfictitious profitâ to light industries, but this was âmerely the medium
through which the state, not the industry siphons off anything âextraâ
it gave the worker by means of wages.â And this is âwhy this âprofitâ
attracts neither capital nor the individual agents of capital.â However,
as she points out, even in classical capitalism, âthe individual agent
of capital has at no time realised directly the surplus value extracted
in his particular factory. He has participated in the distribution of
national surplus value, to the extent that his individual capital was
able to exert pressure on this aggregate capital. This pressure in
Russia is exerted, not through competition, but state planning.â
(Dunayevskaya, âThe Nature of the Russian Economyâ in The
Marxist-Humanist Theory of State-Capitalism (Chicago: News & Letters,
1992)). However, despite this recognition that in terms of âprofitâ one
had to see through the discourse of the Russian economists to the
reality, she took their admission in 1943 that the âlaw of valueâ did
operate in the USSR at face value as, for her, an admission that it was
state capitalist. She thus saw no reason to take theoretical analysis of
the situation any further.
[101] Of course, the USSR was having a different kind of crisis based on
difficulties, in the absence of unemployment, in imposing
labour-discipline which led to more and more use of terror against both
the working class and even managers. See the Ticktin-influenced history
of this period by D. Filtzer, Soviet Workers and Stalinist
Industrialisation: The Formation of the Modern System of Soviet
Production Relations 1928â1941 (London: Pluto, 1986).
[102] At the height of tripartite corporatism in the 1960s attempts were
made by governments in Western Europe to co-ordinate investment plans of
the major companies that dominated the national economy along with state
investments and wage demands in order to maximise capital accumulation,
This was known as indicative planning.
[103] One possible exception is Chattopadhyayâs The Marxian Concept of
Capital and the Soviet Experience (Westport CT: Praeger, 1994). In his
analysis the specific capitalist development in the USSR (which he does
not label state capitalist) was unable to effectively make the shift
from extensive accumulation based on absolute surplus value to intensive
accumulation based on relative surplus value and the real subordination
of labour. To expand, it thus relied on drawing ever more workers and
raw materials into production on the existing basis; it could not make
the shift to the constant revolutionising of the relations and forces of
production that intensive accumulation demanded.
[104] An important issue for previous theories has been whether the USSR
should be seen as âstate capitalistâ or, as with Bordiga for example,
simply as âcapitalistâ. We shall argue below for a reconsideration of
the meaning of âstate capitalismâ that makes this issue redundant.
[105] In the case of the NICs, this success has been relative. As
recently seen with the Asian crisis, their development is still
subsidiary to that of the more advanced capitalist countries.
[106] Penguin edition, p. 84.
[107] Geoffrey Kay, Development and Underdevelopment: A Marxist Analysis
(London: Macmillan, 1975), p. 99.
[108]
G. Kay, op. cit., p. 100.
[109]
G. Kay, op. cit., p. 103.
[110] One of the most striking features of capitalist society is the
prevalence of atomization. Of course this atomization of society arises
directly from the predominance of the commodity-form and the reification
of social relations that this gives rise to. As Ticktin notes, such
atomization was characteristic of the USSR. However, because he denies
the existence of the commodity-form in the USSR Ticktin has to go
through all sorts of contortions to explain it.
[111] Grundrisse, pp. 196â197, Penguin edition.
[112] For this reason we cannot agree with Neal Fernandezâs assertion
that âblatâ was itself a form of capitalist money. While an individual
could be said to have âmoreâ or âlessâ âblatâ, it is not quantifiable
and calculable in the discrete units necessary for it to play the role
of money. Other attributes it lacks include universality and
transferability. âBlatâ cannot play the impersonal dominating role which
money as a âreal abstractionâ is able to do. However, Fernandez has
drawn attention to the role of this phenomenon, which expressed the
constrained role of money in the USSR, part of the deformation of value.
Blat played the role it did because proper money did not fully function.
[113] Of course, such reproduction may involve other social relations
like those around gender, age and so on.