In a recent article on the 22nd Congress of the ¢.P.S.U., published in Socialist Review, Tony Cliff candidly admitted "much of what happened was uneyweected." Cliff is a considerable scholar, who reads iussian and most Uuropean languages fluently, so it is a pity that the events of that Congress stole up on him and tock him unawares, If he had road the press of the Fourth Intornational, for instance, the July 1961 issue of La Verite des Traveilours, he would in advance have been offered a very clear picture of what about to take place. Tut essontially Clif was surprised by events because the theory with which he approaches Soviot reality is a very unhelpful instrument through which to grasp it. The extent to which this theory fails can be understocd cloarly when we contrast some of Cliff's predictions made in Socialist Review with what has actually happened.
In May 1953, Socialist iteview addressed itself to the problem of cast= ing a horoscope for the future of terror as a weapon in the hands of Stalin's heirss
"A regime of bureaucratic State Capitalism with the terrific social
strains it involves, needs the blood of a purge to make its wheels go
xound. The present set-up at the top is therefore tomporary."
The last sentonce of this paragraph has beon upheld in a manner by no means consistent with first. Not to be intimidated by this, in March, 1955, after the fall of Malenkov, Socialist iioview returned to the foresaken and by now unsav— oury grouts of its teacup, to omerge with renewsd faith in its forecast. After repeating the gist of its comments of 1953, and adding, under the crosshead "No Liberalisation of the Stalinist logime" that
"all those who believed in the possible liberalisation of the Stalinist
Regime were suro to bo disappointed.",
it went on to explains
"The contradictions in liussian society were such that nothing could
hold the system together except for the iron hoops of totalitarian
dictatorship."
Further s
"The abyss beeween the output of heavy industry (above all guns) and
light industry is so great that only a ruthless totali tarian
dictatorship can keep the system together."
and, to make quite sures
"The iron hand is a necessity for such an cconomic and social regime
as bureaucratic state capitalism. At the top of the regime must stand
a dictator who metes out punishments and rowards, who is omiipotent,
omiscieont, a demisod."
Now that the 2énd Congross has passed, and Khrushchov has shown himsclf to be at most a hemi-semi-demigod, with hands and heels made rather of clay than iron, the forocasts of Socialist Review must be discretely shelved. Far from ‘standing at the top', omnipotent, Krhushchov is obviously jostling at the top with groups and problems which not only force furthor and further along the dangerous paths of 'liberalisation! and 'destalinisation!, but which 2lso pose the question of the ultiamte dismantling of the whole buroaucratic machine by thae who suffer from its rule. Yet, arbitrary and undemocratic thcugh the bureaucracy is, it is absurd to compare it with the terror of Stalin's time, If the machine noeds the blood of a purge to mekes its whcels go round! it must at this moment be noar to grinding to a thirsty halt!
All this has not escaped Cliff. In the latest issue of the American New Politics he has discovered a now phenomenon. No longer have we an ironhanded "bureaucratic state capitalism" s: now is the epoch of ¢ guoss? Yes "Telfare state captialism." Whether or not this drinks blood wo are not told. Wor are wo told what happened to the old sort of state e1pitalism, with which we are becoming so familiar, len have been able to ovolve five sense through which they act on and interprot the worlds but it scems that Cliff learns only through the restricted use of one of his, He has to wait for events to kick his bottom before he recoGnises them}