The Mystifications of State Capitalism

[page 1]

The Mystifications of Siate Capitalism eel i al cele it ie ti ot ie Ernest Mandel

j

10p An |.M.G. Publication

[page 2]

Introduction zixst Group published a pamphlet. “The : “, which was Emest Mandel’s answer toa sibe nom Theory”, written from a “state capitalist”

TAG: faye ral int of avcew Bs we : Avis: sime time, International Socialism published z reps Ps Ch 27 1 the pamphlet. This article is the repounce cto Harman’s prc Now all of this ugh! seem ct De a rathe: 2 aJemic waste of time when issues like the tight against the Tory Industrie) Relations Bill are so urgent and vital. (Of course. such enue & ost : the protagonists in this controversy allowed their pre-sccupstion ait! : matters ta prevent them from taking part in the wider struggies Or the 2o>trars. members of both the [MG and International Socialist will be Pound playicne leading roles in the fight against the IRB).

But more than that: marxist theory is a total theory. Clarity on the fundamental questions of the dav is vital if one is to have a correct approach to even the most elementary aspects of the class struggle. There is involved in the dispute about the class nature of the Soviet Union, the most important question of marxist theory: the whole nature of the epoch we are in. The “workers statist” secs the world as being one in which capitalism has been destroyed as a social system in one third of the world: it is therefore, the epoch of transition from capitalism to socialism. The ‘state capitalist” on the other hand if he is consistent -sees the world as one in which the first workers state has been overthrown in 4 “state capitalist” counter-revolution. He sees the establishment of a network of “state capitaiist”’ reesmes, one at least of which has made hugh advances i under-developed country —China. If the latter thinke: takes his marxism seriously day even an elementary acquaintance with Mara’s writings. eg. “A Contnbution is the Ceituque of Political Economy” will demonstrate the wili ooqeiude that the teenueth centuy is not the century Of the mortal crisis at capita’ wm but that of triumphant “state capitalism”. From this conclusion all Kings of practical things fow—from a Marxist pointof mew it would be guste “utopian” to introduce socialist demands as part of the strategy of the fight against the IRB if one thinks of the present epoch as one of advancing “State Capitalism”. From the “workers statist” point of view nes tain seaee swargiist demands as an integral part of that strategy i5 totally Teformist and w1 practice. 3 3 dangerous and ineffective method of struggle. Many “state cupitalist™” the Kars have tned to dodge this dilemma by being “inconsistent it Is that aspect of “state capitalist” theary get and practice that Ernest Mande! deat. with in the original pamphlet.

The IMG has taken the deession t2 republish this pamphlet for a very practical reason: so popular was the sssue of :ts yournal, Jnternational, in which this article appeared that we saan sold out. Moreover, the fame of this particular article has spread far and wide and requests arrive for it from all over the world.

Those interested in further reading shvuld obtain the pamphlet, “The Inconsistencies of State Capitalism’, and two works by Trotsky: “The Class Nature of the Soviet Union” and “In Defense of Marxism”. From the “state capitalist” point of view, Tony Cliffs “Russia—A Marxist Analysis” is the most teadily available statement of this argument.

[page 3]

The Mystifications of State Capitalism in his attempt to answer our criticisms of the theory of ‘state capitalism‘41? Chris Harman carefully avoids all the main problems. He does not tell us whether “state capitalism” is a mode of production equal to or different from the capitalism analysed by Marx. He does not prove that, if it is equal to “capitalism”, its 40-year history in the USSR cen be explained by the ‘‘laws of motion” as revealed in Das Kapital. He does not even give us an inkling of the mysterious ‘laws of mation” which guide Russian ‘’state capitalism" as different from those of capitatism—if it is a different mode of production, He does not explain to us whether the (re}introduction of ‘state capitalism” in @ relacivety backward country having successfully achieved the overthrow of capitalism is inevitable, ir. the zbsence ef victorious world revaluiion, as a result of ‘pressure from the world rnarket’’, or whether it can be avoided (and if so, howl. He does not answer the question whether there is an inevitable period of transition between capitalism ana socialism, wherever the socialist revolution takes place, He does not relate the emergence of “‘state capitalism’ on one-third of the gicke to the question whether capitalism has stilt a glenaliy progressive rote to play or not, i.e. whether we are justified in soeaking of ar epoch af "general crisis of capitalism’’, whether worid revolution is on the agenda or is for the time being only a utopian pipedream Ane ne does not relate the theory of ‘state capitalism’ to the realities of the class struggle on a world scale in the last twenty years, except by the childish device of talking about “national liberation movernents led iy the petty-bourgeoisie’’--presumably unrelated to the capitalist mode uf production, capitalist private property and the imperialist world system. We do not know whether for Harman, mare than fo; Michae! Kidzon, the ‘tropical trotsk yists’’ have a choice ar no choice, whether capitalism can be overthrown in 2 country like Ceylon or not, and we are teft with the preposterous proposition that it has somehow not been overthrown in China, Cuba, North Korea, North Vietnam, and is not in the process of being overthrown in South Vietnam.

Having left out all the key questions, the only thing Harman can do is to make numercus debating points, mostly without any interest.!2! He skulks around, throwing a few pehbles into the pond. This is then cailed ‘'serious and scientific debate’ which we are supposed ta be incapable of. But even these pebbles contain their pinch of warth, because they underline once again how, when you start from the incorrect theoretical presumption, you are forced not only to make incorrect political conclusions, but also to “develop’' theory further and "3 3

[page 4]

further in a mystifying way: instead of explaining reality, hide it ail ina cloak of formulas which sound very “deep” but tend to obscure real sociai relations and real social struggles.

First Mystification: Commodity Fetishism Harman concedes that capta:is as a system of generalised commodity production isa far summary of part (71 of Marx’s conception of that system's nature. That soncess-c7 alteady deals a death blow to Kidron's contention about dur taying ™-ssec tne central capitalist dynamic”: the very term ‘“commod ty ofatuct 27 was lacxing fram Kidron’s definition of capitalism 8.1 Harmar. he 1g a" adept of the school of “state capitalism’’ which hinges o> the assump! on that there can be * capitalism “in a country like the USS where obviously there is not generalised commodity production, has to try and take bac« his cancession as soon as he made it. He therefore finds a way Out by accusing us of ” leaving the concept of ‘commodity’ as unproblematic |, of not taking up ” a point central to Marx‘s whole analysis of commodity production.......that the commodity cannot be taken at face value.’'9)

In our naivety we thought that the mysteries of commodity production had all been revealed in Oas Kapita/. In particular we quoted Marx as explaining that (at the beginning of The /nconsrstencres of State Capitalism}, *’ objects of use only become commodities because they are products of private labour, carried on independently from each other.” But this, you see, leaves the concept ‘‘unproblematic’’. Harman will teach us some deeper, ‘‘below the surface’, truths about commodities. But what we get is exactly the same quotation which we quoted from part IV of Chapter | of Das Kapita/, into which Harman simply proceeds to inject a mystification. We can catch the mystifier red-handed, so to speak, in the following passage.

Yes, capitalism is, as Mandel argues, competition on the basis of commodity production. But to fully understand it one has to go further (?) and see that what makes man-produced objects—and above all labour power—into a commodity, is precisely competition between producing units that has advanced to the point where each is compelled to continually rationalise and rearrange its internal productive processes so a$ to relate them to the productive process of the others.”’ 4! Now, that isnot what Marx saysit oart 'V of Chapter | of Das Kapitat {the famous passage on “‘commod:ty fetishism’’|, He says clearly that “the fetish character of the commodity” results from the “specific social character of labour which produces commodities.’ He precises that use values become cammoditres only because they are products of private labour carried out independertly from each other. And he goes on to make his point crystal clear In a society divided by division of labour, but in which mutual dependence of individuals—i.e. the social character of labour—continues to assert itself iwhére every family does not live completely autarchically and independently from other units), there are two ways in which this inter-relation can be established. Im a society in which there is common {collective or cooperative-—Marx uses the word “gemeinschaftliche’) property of the means of production, labour is 4

[page 5]

immediately social, i.e. it is the community (or its leaders, e.g, the eiders in certain tripai communities) which consciously allots resources to different branches of production, On the contrary, in a society in which there is private property, social labour is not directly recognised as such. Private individuals establish connections between each only as ‘‘commodity owners”, appearing on the market. The social nature of their labour is only recognised post festum, to the extent to which they succeed in selling thejr commodities. Commodity fetishism consists in this, that relations between things, commodities, hide and obscure a specific relation between men, resu/ting from the fragmentation of social labour into private labours carried on independently from each other, f.e. resulting from private property.

Now we can re-read this whole sub-chapter of Marx's on commodity fetishism from A to Z, not once will we find a mention of the mystifying formula of Harman's: ‘What makes man-produced objects...into a commodity, is precisely competition between producing units that has advanced to the point where each is compelled to continually rationalise and rearrange its internal productive processes so as to relate them to the productive process of the other”. And the reason why Marx could not follow Harman‘s “deeper” analysis of the commodity is of course the fact that he knew quite well that commodity production had been gaing on for thousands of years before capitalism blossomed as a separate mode of production—and that only under that separate mode of production does commodity production lead to ‘‘competition between producing units...compelled to continually rationalise and rearrange its internal productive processes’’. Mediaeval handicraftsmen were commodity producers, but their “productive processes’’ were not “continually rationalised and rearranged’’; they remained very stable for long periods, sometimes several centuries. ; Harman’s mystification begins by defining the commodity by its endresult, capitalist competition, instead of defining capitalist competition as a result of generalised commodity production. It puts the historical sequence and the theoretical analysis on its head. It then goes on by mystifying competition itself. Once one “forgets” that for Marx, commodity production is essentially social labour fragmented into ‘’private labours carried on independently from each other’, one can then separate ‘compulsion to continually rationalise and rearrange productive processes so as to re/ate {sic} them to the productive process of the others” fram its social basis and economic purpose, deny that competition born from commodity production is always in the last instance competition for selling commodities owned by different proprietors ona market, and discover that the ‘‘compulsion’’ which exists for any workers state, even managed by the most perfect system of workers control, to defend itself against imperialist armaments, or to relate, in some way or to some extent, its output to that of the outside world, is ‘‘proof” of the existence of....capitalism, A very nice way of ‘‘deepening’’ Marx’s analysis indeed.

Second Mystification: “Reification of the Pian’’ No wonder that Harman, not having understood the relation of commo- 5

[page 6]

ate later, cannot Understand what plaaning oo ty orotuctien ta P to soclai iapour, ard accuses us of ‘‘reifying the eal, “@SrsITrée « é nap. Foe avcarg ta Pal on Russia a

“a total system of reified relations is set up in which the anarchic and unplanned ‘sic: interaction of the products of labour determines the tabour process, in which dead labour dominates living labour, in which every concrete act of labour is related to abstract labour on a world scale in whch, aithough there may be many partial {1} negations of the law of eal.e, these are on the basis of the law of value,”“'6) an, completely unproved action competition with are fan x tae 2 ussian economy’? tne West conamic essults? One The on with tne $vest + the stardard of tiving of _TPatat wo Id prevent the Y aDs-dushy the impassibi- Srelateat ta the class struggle going :cr the attempt of the wurle bourgecisie to reinto tne USSR: Bot by this, ane has not yet proved os, there nas to be capitalism “in which sayiet' labour is related to abstract labour ona avery CANCTaTe ant: world Stave rp yranted what he sssumus, but in the absence of any a nystification, Otherwise he concrete pr: os are the last analysis’ tor in the long tre cap talist world market: that Soviet y Ucumsetitioc wth, say, US4 or British for wwages are wages: that ovestment flows from one branch snou!a 27 “relative profitability’ ithe search for surplus ta another aes: an praductiity of labour, as compeofit: that t pared te Aw 2 bu industratsation of the country, under-developed countries hike -t did pre I st syste n, governed by “‘the EancomMpassed + string af the sart, then the whole jave Of value | talk about 2 ararchic and unplanned inter- Vapstract lane. term.ing Soviet labour processes action af tae o nd self against Hitler's armies vath because S.. and the 4 6 workers state would have talr is just a “The anly ‘need plass-r generai have is that of ensuring a proportionate divisior: of inputs to produce desired outputs; people...not ‘plans’ determina whether this output should be large or smalt, and for that matter whether it be the result of an ‘optimal utilisation of resOurces’ or otherwise = Lays tarman. de a3es nat seam tT. qotice that exactly one sentence castigatea us for Vasc’ ming human properties to things,

[page 7]

of accepting reified appearances’, he repeats exactly the same “mistake: for what is this “need” of *’plans’’ in general ‘to ensure proportionate division of inputs to prockice desired outputs’, independently of social relations between human beings?

The solution of the riddle lies in the understanding of what a planned economy resulting from an overthrow of capitalist property relations really means. “State capitalists’- and not only they—generally tend to reduce production relations to relations between producers and “overseers of labour”’ at factory level. But that is of course a gross oversimplification, and a distortion of Marxism. For Marx, production relations are a/f relations between producers which are indispensable for the “production of their material life’ at a given level of development of productivity of himan labour, This means that they encompass not only the relations /nside factories, but also those between factories.

Production could not go on for one week in Russia without raw materials being sent from one factory ta another, machines going to where they are needed {inclusive to raw material producing units), matertal resources being constantly shifted from one place to snother. i a’

Under capitalisrn, the “law of value’ governs these shifts. All producer goods are commodities. All producing units react to increases or decreases of sates of their commodities on the market, to increases or decreases of profits. The ‘law of value’’—1.e. commodity production— allocates and re-allocates resources behind the backs of the producers in a society in which social labour ts fragmented into private labours as a result of the private property of the means of production.

Once these means of production are collectively owned, however, they are no more commodities. They are not sold and bought on the market. The “law of value’ ceases to govern their aliocation and reallocation between different producing units. “Competition between “commodities” or ‘capitals’ has ceased to be the basic force to regulate investment. And then the only ather means to assert the social nature of human fabour is planning.

In other words: conscious economic “planning”, far from being “rei fied appearances” or “a thing”, ($s a specific set of relations of produc. tion resulting from the suppression of the private praperty of the means of production and the beginning of the withering away of commodity production, through which labour performed in collectively owned factories is recognised as immediately social labour. '®! And this essential part of the conquest of the socialist October revolution not only should not be eliminated from the Saviet econamy by the coming political revalution against the bureaucracy, but it should be consolidated, strengthened and generalised: for there is no other alternative to the rule of the “‘law of value’. Even those who call the coming revolution in the USSR a "social" one should recognise this.

Now, when we wrote that “the inner logic of a planned economy calls for maximising output and optimising deployment of resources’, Harman shouts triumphantly: “A ‘plan’ has no inner logic to accumulate” {p. 38). We beg his pardon: the word “accumulate” fespecially: 7

[page 8]

bean surreptitiously introduced by himself. We accumulate 2ajrte! “inner logic to accumulate’. “We spoke about “the gids speax abit an inner log < of a romy for maximising output and optimising deployment of -escurces'’ “hat does that meat, in the light of what we just stated shust tne nature of plansing as a specific set of production relatic i i suppression of private property of the means of produce st revolution? Obviously, that when means of production heve steaned being commodities. but when there is still a Scarcity tf cuds. 4 guns, and the-efore a need to ensure rapid economic growth, fe: raf the producers tie, their inclination to “min- “ and maxim ise” their standard of living} cafls for ent of resources. The farther this will be from ai ge the workload for the producers, and the etun. This rig, woich would even be true ona tory of tie world revolution!—as long as we ian, és probiems of industrialisation and increasstil very vicgently with us; as saturation of ity Oar demang ov pas o. sisurrer Quads nas 1St yet Deen achieved for all men— iS Of Course MUCK treer cn a relatively beckwara country and under Canta: ct encurclenie nt, wr.ch imposes the supplementary constraint of military self cetence against imserialist threats [the mam constraint remaiiis that ii over cveriag backwardness, te, the low standard of Nivitig avid % ure uf the mass of the producers. 2 are talking of “reaximising output’ and of We steess again that if resources’. Wwe are not talking of ‘’accumu- “optemis.ng ded ayer OF Umexinising investment’ ', We tried to ‘anan of “ap: invest Mert (like that practisecl under the two first prove that x Five-Year Plans fof igad 16 Maximum output and optimum deploy”. nant of resources 2!. That is one of the aspects where the bureau- TIGES

é of the economy comes into confiict with the “inner cat re) ana.ng” ioe. the production relations born from the October > means the only one. \ve think that “in the long tion ani by recencilabte. Either the workers will consolidate rut » alirrinating bureaucratic mismanagement, and ha moanise plan 2" of the bureaucratic managers of the econoor the “consumer ir, ning and reintroduce private property. These, like micwil destray p ins of the Savisit economy, are incompresevera: other ne theory that some form of ‘‘capitalism” exists hens:ble in iA in the USSR, ; “nly he understood ir. the light of the theery which 5¢e5 the So. :et ecanomy and society as a society of transition DeYWE2t Ca pitalis: yard socizlism. And in the light cf the same theory it iy ty ‘iden. that r'3rvac’s tdentification of “maximisation of output" weith | rex wti@ey -of use values with exchange values~is exactly ars ' retical mystifying sleight-of-hand which Kidron was guilty of Voy onwe revealed in The Inconsistencies of State Capftal Rat arent tas Sovet workers expleited by the bureaucrats, Harman ; t andei “forget the wags labour/capital relation- § accused of “forgetting” even in his definition of capiwat “forget” anything; we just tried to explain the

[page 9]

specific nature of the relationship between labour and capital, as anzinst all other forms of “exploitation”

Producers have been exploited +n all societies since the begirning of disintegration of primitive communism (even in the ‘'sacisty of transition” between tribal communism and the first form of class society. there was exploitation of labour -see the siisise of commiunai larour in favour of tribal chiefs.

What is soec/fic under capitalism is not s:maty that pertat the product of labour is appropriated by other c.asses or fayers of society, as part af the sorial surplus produced by the Soviet workers is, far sure, appropriated by the bureaucracy. het is specific of canitaiisn is that exploitation takes the farm of labo a" Dower becoming a camnartity which is being bought by the owners of the maars of producti whose price :5 determ-nad by the laws of supply aia demand on tae “labour market’, and the fiuctuations of the reserve army cf fabour, Having sold ther labour power to the owners of the means ef prod.uction, the producers have to abendan the property of the products of their tabour to that very same class which moronalises the moans ot production This class thus appropriates the suraius vai coateimed in the products of laber:r, rea .ses that surplus yvatue by 7 modities, and transforms it ato ed None of these processes are at tha b

ment went up, but wer Wer, they have gure ug tre ros way wener fic ! ployment reappecred, i the ‘5Qs, after Kris nev's fall, i the middle ‘60s: they are, in other words, unielated to any fluctuation on the labour market”

The largest part of the social surolus peouart nthe USSSA consist of surpius vélue which m be realised thru: cornmodities!, but in additiaia: + in use-values. It is arecisely because “accumulation” of use-values anid not of cuPltal, ‘hat th iN MOQ way a necessary agent for economic quayth: vy have been realised, since 192/ <1: thisvery day, by the producers’ within the framawors of # piarned ecerumy. And f very same reason it is oreferaa:” not ta spea’ sbout exploitative’ af the Soviet workers 7 the sqert:c.c sense uf the term. but la stare thes the Dureaucracy aparonr:st@s wl & paras-Lc and 4 tant part ot the corsurre- gab mediaevai robber barons 0 were nat a ciéss nexplart-ag the : mere ants which they regularly slundered, as long as they had the pontical power todo so. 1"!

Third Mystification: The Industrialisation Process in the USSR Harman argues thet 'f we were right in saying that the corsumer needs of the bureaucracy do not oravide any soci mic senarism far t Hi

[page 10]

assuring Maximum economic grawth, this growth could only be explained by the “pressures of rivat ruling classes outside Russia”. “Pressures of world capitalism led to a rapid change in the mode of production in agriculture on an unprecedented scale... This was necessitated not by the arbitrary ‘desires’ of the bureaucracy, still less by the ‘logic of the plan’, but by pressures to build up heavy industry on a scale that could not be sustained without farcible pumping of surplus agricultural produce out of the countryside...

Secondly, in industry there was also a change in the mode of production... Building up of heavy industry in competition with the West was on the basis of such measures. It was that which brought them about. In other words, production and the conditions of production were no Jonger determined by the needs of the people, i.e. by the production of use values, but by the ‘needs’ of competition, the production of exchange values.“'!2!

The petitio principis is worthy of a textbook: the "exchange values” suddenly pop up at the end af the reasoning, without having been defined, demonstrated or even proved to exist with so much as a single word. It will be haro for Harman to prove that the machine-tools of the factories of “'aanitogorsk, that the equinment of the Dnjepostroy, or the lathes of the automobile works of Alascow suddenly became com:

Modities, only because the warkers who produced them received lower wages, Or Decuuse their conditons of labour” were no more determined by their needs. And as lang as you don't have commodities, you have no exchange values.

But the nystificatian goes much deeper, Harman presents things as if iIndustriaksatior sprang up because of ‘pressures of rival classes” {presumably the international bourgeaisie' outside Russia, He should admit that a point coula be made about this pressure coming above all from ‘aside Russian society ‘kulaks and Neomen!. in fact, hadn't Trotsky and the Left Oppos- tion foreseen years before 192/ that as a result of the NEP tie, of the reanteoduction of wide-scale petty commodity production: there would be a process of primitive accumulation of private capital whien would cut acrass the needs for developing state industry, and that ths would Jead to w snarpening of the class struggle which would express itself in an attenpt of rich peasants to starve the workers by making dg selivery strike of grain surplus? Wasn't this exactly what happened 7 the winter 1927-8?

That this “inter iai pressure” imore correctly: sharpening of the class struggle av! polarisatso1 of class farcesi in Russia was linked to “‘externat pressure, neither Trotsky nor ary Trotskyist would deny. Let us leave aside the qugestian which of them was basic, and which was--at that moment subord nate. isn't it clear, however, that acceterated industriaisacon and siohoning off of part of the agrarian surpius product ta further industrialisation were alsa 'al in the interests of the working c'ass olen the “logic af the plana lie. of the new production relations created by the October revplutio: indispensable to thwart the tendency towards restoratio7 of capitalism which would come about as a rest ot strengthened proenit-ve orivate capital accumulation in Soviet ‘c

[page 11]

society trying ta link up with the capitalist warld market? Wasn't it mecisely Trotsky and the Left Opposition who were clamouring for ™ore rapid growth, more planning, mare industrialisation, before 1928? sere they perhaps the spokesmen of *’state capitalism’, or expressing the ‘pressures of rival ruling classes abroad'’ by doing so?

By differentiating growth” before 1928 and “urge to accumulate” a*ter 1928, Harman commits a double mystificatian, Before 1928 growth was too sow for fulfilling the needs of the peapie |i.e. the workers and poor peasants). After 1928, there was no “‘urge to accumuate’ (Harman hasn't proved the transformation of means of production “to commodities, exchange values, capital, after 19281 bur 2 speed-up of growth findustriatisation) under specific forms. But without a speed- -a of industrialisation, not only could the needs of the people not have been satisfied, but the tramstormation of the means of production into commodities, capital, i.e. the restoration of capital, wauld have been _navoidable. So the ‘state capitalists’ sleight-of-hand appears here again ina striking way. What was in reality an empirical, panicky, -ncalculated and barbarous attempt to prevent the reintroduction af capitalism into Russia, to prevent the absorption of Russia by the zaoitalist world market and the “law of value”, is presented as a suczumbing to pressure of capitalism! of Of course industrialisation and collectivisation of agriculture were ntroduced under such a form and under such leadership that the immesate and long-term interests of the Soviet proletariat were deeply marmed. They were introduced under the leadership and to protect the -Mterests of a specific social layer of Soviet society, the Soviet bureaueracy, which during this periad crystallised into a hardened caste.

Incidentally, when Harman dismisses the ‘desires of the bureaucracy” as 3 motive force for the way the change occurred, he mystifies and reifies social relations: how can the ‘pressure of world capitalism’ lead to changes inside Soviet society unrelated to the interests and ‘‘desires”’ of specific layers of that society?i The specific form of Soviet industrialisation resulted from a political and soctal defeat of the working class from the hands of the Soviet bureaucracy. But that industrialisation itself meant also a political and social defeat of capitalism (as well Russian capital, or semi-capitatist primitive capital accumulation, as international capitalism) from the hands of the bureaucratically deformed workers staté. It is because they are unable to understand this specific and unforeseen combsnation of social and economic conflicts in Russia and on a world scale, that the adherents to the theory of ‘‘state capitatism'’ cannot make head or tail of the warld they have been living in over the fast thirty years.

Let us formulate the question in other words. Was it in the interests of Russian producers to greatly and rapidly increase the mass of modern means of production in Soviet society in the late ‘20s? Only an ignoramus can answer this question with “no”. Was it therefore in their interest to ‘accumulate means of production” [as use values, of course}?

Again the answer must be emphatically ‘‘yes’’. Does it therefore make sense to present such a rapid increase in industrialisation as a result of the “pressure of world capitalism’, this meaning an adaptation to capi- 1

[page 12]

talism (of course, workers also make strikes as a result of the “pressure of capitalism’, but strikes arg not exactly an adaptation to capitalism: they happen to be means to fight against it}? There is no sense whatsoever in such a mystifying statement—except the old-time Menshevik and social-democratic '‘sense" that a sucialist revolution in a backward country is impossible and that, whatever you do, capitalism, and only capitalism, can flower there.

But, clarmours Harman, industrialisation was realised through lowering the standard of tiving of the workers, Quite true. Wasn't that therefore an ‘‘adaptation to capitalism”? Wasn't that “accumulation of capital''? “Accumulating” his sophisms, Harman has forgotten his starting point. The “‘pressure’’ was supposed to have taken the form of the need to build a strong armament industry, “heavy industry’, “in competition with the West; it was decidedly not the pressure of ‘competition’ for selling goods on an international market. Sut it is only such a “campetition” which would have made it imperative to lower wages. When Harman says that anly through lowering the standard of living of the Russian workers could there have been rapid build-up of heavy industry and armament industry in Russia, he in reality swaliows the classical apolagy for Stalinism hook, tine and sinker. He implies that, without lowering wages, there could have been no heavy industry, no armaments industry in Russia. But as, without such an armament industry, the USSR would have ceased to exist tong since, given Hitler’s onslaught, it then foliows that Stahnism—“‘lowering wages’ and all the miserable rest— was really unavoidable. Stalin saved the USSR. "You cousdn’t make an omelette without breaking eygs’’, etc., etc, af nauseam. in reality, this ctassical Stalinist apology is rotten and false through and through. The excessive rate of investment did not increase but decreased the ‘rate of accumulation of means of production” in the Soviet Union. Forced collectivisatian did not help, but disorganised, “heavy industry” and “armaments industry’. “Arms competition with the West was not helped but hindered by Stalin’s peculiar set of economic policies. A lower rate of investment, with a much higher productivity of Jabour as the result of higher wages, would have enabled to get much better results than those of Stalin's. Trotsky's alternative economic proposals would have jed to much more efficient ‘‘competition with Western armament and heavy industry" than Stalin‘s.

If that is so, Stalin’: policies can no more be explained by “objective needs of “competing « 7h the West’ They can only be explained by the specific social interests of the privileged Soviet bureaucracy. The difference between Trotsky‘s oalicy and Stalin’s was not that Trotsky was in favour of ‘‘slower econamic growth’, but that he was in favour of a ruthless elimination of social inequalities and a putting of the warking class In command of the industrialisation process. The bureaucracy, not wanting to lose its power and privileges, crushed the working class political proponents and introduced industrialisation, in a delayed and spasmodic fashion, tn such a form as to tremendously increase the bureaucracy’s privileges. By doing so, it also tremendously increased the waste of economic resources lin the first place the waste of Jabour *2

[page 13]

power, of productive enthusiasm of the workers, and of productivity of labour} and ted to a much weaker ‘‘campetitive” position compared to the West than Trotsky’s would have fed to. This is the real, and not the mystified, history of the Soviet socio-economic developments in the late ‘20s and ‘30s. And it leaves na stone of Harman’s laboriously builtup mystifying construction: “‘industrialisation-through-state-capitalismin-order-to-withstand- the-pressure-of-Western-heavy-industry.”

Let us try to put the question into historical perspective. Capitalist industry was born “dripping blood and tears out of all its pores’’, asa result of a violent and barbaric process of primitive accumulation (of exchange values}, Marx denounced the momentous crimes—but he never for one instant forgot to mention that they were historically unavoidable. No ather class of late feudal society could have realised industriafisation but the bourgeoisie, and by no other means. And without industrialisation, no tremendaus increase in human productivity of labour, no historical possibility of freeing man fram the curse of idiotic and repetitive fabour, no possibility for expanding human needs towards realisation of all human possibilities, no possibility for the withering away of alienating social division of labour, In the epoch of imperialism, as a resutt of the common “‘drain’’ by imperialism and native ruling classes on the potential investment fund for industrialisation {the social surplus product) and the tremendous constraint of competition from imperialist mass production, no underdeveloped country can really repeat this process of industrialisation within the framework of the capitalist world market. This is a basic aspect of the ‘‘general crisis of capitalism", on a world scale, since World War |, the basic reason for nearly uninterrupted revolutionary convulsions in the ‘Third World’ for more than forty years.

Asaresult of the socialist October revolution, Soviet Russia broke away from the capitalist world market, from the possibility of imperialist capital and imperialist commodities preventing a tremendous industrialisation process. This was realised on the basis of a planned economy, i.e. by freeing the country from the tyranny of the ‘law of value’’. For sure, this emancipation is only partial, not complete. This industrialisation cannot reach, inside ane country, a higher productivity OE OS eee of labour than was realised by imperialism through international division of labour; it cannot, thereby, achieve the building of a socialist society.

But the Russian profetariat can start such a construction. {t can develop the productive forces and resist “world market pressures’, without having to resort to barbaric means. The bureaucracy’s crimes were neither unavoidable to industrialise the Soviet Union, nor historically necessary, nor progressive in any sense.

Fourth Mystification: Contemporary Capitalism Harman tries to defend Kidron’s preposterous notion that “arms economy” represents a leak which enables capitalist to avoid crises. But in order to extricate himself from Kidron's constant confusion between BB TS te destruction of use values and destruction of exchange values!'3) he has to push the inconsistency of that theory to its extreme. Far he now 3

[page 14]

defines a leak as a slowdown of economic growth. Do we misrepresent him or exaggerate’ Here is what he says himself: “But if there are leaks whereby velue is taken out of the total system, the opportunities for each individual capitalist obtaining value to transform into constant capital will be /ess, and therefore the constraints on each capitatist to expand his means of production will fessen. The immediate pressures to expand constant capital {and therefore production) will diminish, the overall rate of profit will fall less, and therefore there will exist the basis for a longer term steady expansion upon a lower average organic composition of capital.’*!14) {Our stress).

If any sense can be read into this extraordinary nonsense, then it would run as follows: if capitalists accumulate less, the organic rate of capitalism will grow less rapidly, the rate of profit will decline slower, and accumulation can go on longer. This is an obvious truism—provided one does not forget at the end of the sentence what one said at the beginning, to wit: that accumulation can go on Jonger because it is carried an at 3 fower rate. But does this bear any resemblance to the economic history of post-war capitalism, as compared to that of the twenties or the thirties? Has economic growth been slower or quicker? Has capital accumulation been lower or higher? Has the organic composition grown quicker or slower? Has technical innovation been retarded or accelerated? To present the develapments between 1950 and 1965 as being characterised by the fact that “the constraints on each capitalist to expand his means of production have lessened’’ is such a fantastic slap in the face of reality, that mystification here really hits the jackpot!

What Harman is as unable as Kidron to prove is that “arms production” isin any form a “‘leak’’. Arms, we repeat, are commodities produced for profit, exactly like television sets or machine tools. Even if one vssumed that they are entirely paid for by surplus value, they would not constitute a “‘leak’’ but a redistribution of surplus value inside the capitalist class, the non-armament sector having part of its profits siphoned aff—not autside the system, but to finance capita! accumulation in the armament sector. And as this armament sector has a higher organic composition of capital than, say, textile production or even television production, one cannot understand how such a diversion would lead to a slowdown of the increase in the average Organic camposition of capital, or to a reversal of the decline of the average rate of profit.

In reality, of course, it 1$ completely false to assume that armament productian is paid for exclusively by surplus value; Rosa Luxembourg exposed that tiberal-pacifist argument long ago'5!, Armament production is being ‘‘paid’’ for at least in part by a redistribution of the net product between wages and surplus-value (it is largely financed by direct taxes weighing on wages and indirect taxes weighing on consumer goods! }t leads, in an indirect way, to an increase in the rate of surplusvatue, and therefore to an increase in the rate of profit. It sets off temporarity the fall of the rate of profit neither through a decrease in the

14

[page 15]

organic composition of capital nor through a slowdown of economic expansion—but, on the contrary, through stepped-up capital accumutation and increased economic growth, accompanied by an increase in the rate of surplus value. in that way, and in that way only, does ““armaments production” enable ‘‘profitable investment” of surplus-value, as we pointed out in The fnconsistencies of State Capitalism. But inasmuch as it steps up “capital accumulation”, it increases the organic composia tion of capital, and thereby Joses after a certain time on the right side what it gained on the left. Even under fascism, the rate of surpius-value cannot be constantly stepped up ta compensate that process, as Hitler {and the German capitalists} found out to their cost. That’s why armaments production as 2 cure for the tits of capitalism is only a shart term solution. It has the tendency to lead ot war—or to lose its curing virtues.

Now, the past twenty years have been characterised by a much quicker rate of capital accumulation, of economic growth, of development of the productive forces in the imperialist countries, than the i. at period 1919-1939. If arms production is not the main explanation for this, there must be another one. Harman cannot follow our argument that each of the long-term periods of rapid economic growth under capitalism (1849-1876; 1900-1918: 1940-45-1965; have been characterised by a new industrial revolution (a quick transformation of basic industrial technology}, followed by long-term periods in which existing technology became generalised throughout the system. He confuses: technical faventions with tnnovation, and presence of surplus caprtai potentially capable of innovation, with circumstances inducing actual investment of that surplus capital for these innovation purposes, 4 friendly bit of advice: please compare the rate of surpius-vaiue (or the increases Of productivity of labour), say, in 1928 in the USA, Germany, France, Japan, Italy, with those of, say, 1963 in these last countries {and 4950 or 1960 in the USA): perhaps this will explain to you part oT the mystery.

Evidently, the long cycles linked with industrial revolutions have to be explained by the inner motive forces of capitalism, i.e. must be seen in terms of long cycles of “’over-accumulation” and “under-accumuletion”, We shall have occasion to come back to this in detail elsewhere.

Fifth Mystification: Permanent Revolution When dealing (briefly) with the political implications of the thesry of state capitalism for the under-developed countries, Harman again is forced to mystify realities and theories, which are quite transparent: “The theory of the permanent revolution according to Trotsky | know asserts quite unequivocally that the tasks of the bourgeots revolution in the under-developed countries can only be solved by the working class, led by a class-conscious revolutionary party. It is not “menshevism” to assert that as a matter of fact not only has no such party yet led the working class to the taking of power in Vietnam, or China or Cuba, but those that did take power executed (in Vietnam and China} or imprisoned (in Cuba) those trying to build such parties... Nor for that matter have the regimes in China, “5

[page 16]

Vietnam or Cuba carried through all the tasks of the national bourgeois revolution. \t is mere apologetics to pretend that they have solved the problem of industrial develapment.‘"'76) The mystification begins by replacing a set of social relations by an ideal political norm, and then goes on to dissolve concrete historical tasks into vague generalisations (‘solved the problem of industrial development"). By doing so, Harman has to entangle himself in passing into a new contradiction. He seems to have forgotten that the historical function of ‘‘state capitalism’’ was to ‘defend itself against capitalism by imitating capitalism’’, in building up heavy industry. Now we are told that Chinese “‘state capitalism’ is unable to ‘imitate’ capitalist industrialisation. The industrialisation of China (a backward country of 700 million inhabitants!) has not yet been “‘solyed"’, according ta Harman’s yardstick. But has it made a decisive step forward compared to the prewar situation? Did China, under Chiang Kai-Chek, have a huge industry for producing industrial consumer goods and industrial machinery, including some of the most modern ones? Could it have built up such an industry In competition with the capttalist workd market? Harman doesn’t even understand the question, let alone answer it.

But all this is beside the point, For Trotsky has a clear and precise summary of the theory of permanent revolution, which sweeps away all the cobwebs of Harman's mystifications: ‘With regard te countries with a belated bourgeois development, especially in colonial and semi-colonial countries, the theary of the permanent revolution signifies that the complete and genuine solution of their tasks of achieving demacracy and national emancipation is conceivable only through the dictatorship of the proletariat as leader of the subjugated nation, above all of its peasant masses. “Not only the agrarian, but also the national question assigns to the peasantry—the overwhelming majority of the population in backward countries—an exceptional place in the democratic revolution. Without an alliance of the proletariat with the peasantry, the tasks of the democratic revolution cannot be solved, nor even seriously posed.

But the alliance of these two classes can be realised in no other way than through an irreconcilable struggle against the influence of the national-liberal bourgeoisie. “No matter what the first episodic stages of the revolution may be in the individual countries, the realisation of the revolutionary alliance between the proletariat and the peasantry is conceivable only under the political leadership of the proletarian vanguard, organised in the Communist Party. This in turn means that the victory of the democratic revolution is conceivable only through the dictatorship of the proletariat which bases itself upon the alliance with the peasantry and solves first of all the tasks of the demacratic revolution. “ & democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry, asa regime that is distinguished from the dictatorship of the proletariat 16

[page 17]

by its class content, might be realised only in a case where an independent revolutionary party could be constituted, expressing the interests of the peasants and in genera! of petty-bourgecis democracy —a party capable of conquering power with this or that degree of aid from the protetariat, and of determining its revolutionary programme.

As all modern history attests—especially the Russian experience of the last twenty-five years—an insurmountable obstacte on the road to the creation of a peasants’ party is the petty-bourgeoisie’s lack of economic and political independence and its deep internal differentiation. By reason of this the upper sections of the petty bourgeoisie {of the peasantry} go along with the big bourgeoisie in all decisive cases, especially in war and revolution: the intermediate section being thus compelled to choose between the two extreme poles.

Setween Kerenskyism and the Balshevik power, between the Kuomintang and the dictatorship of the proletariat, there is not and cannot be any intermediate stage, that is, no democratic dictatorship of the workers and peasants, 17) (Our stress}. Let us first stress the fact that Trotsky starts from social and historicat problems, and not from political norms. Fhe words “class conscious revolutionary party’ do not appear once; and when he uses the formula “Communist Party” or “Bolshevik power'', he means it evidently ina socio-historical sense, i.e. a party capable of crushing capitalist-feudal power, like the Bolsheviks did in Russia in October. What the exact relations of that party are with revolutionary Marxism and self-organisation of the working class is not automatically implied in that historical role—and not an absolute precondition to this role. We have had a Paris Commune which was not led by a ‘class conscious revolutionary party”, even before the theory of state capitalism was born. And we know that in its history, the working class has been led again and again, in its great majority, by parties which were opportunist or centrist, in all shades passible and imaginable, not only in periods of relative quiescence, but even in periods of great revolutionary upheavals, !18)

Tratsky defines the tvo key historic tasks of the bourgeois-democratic revolution in the backward country as the conquest of national independence and the agrartan revoiution (the uprooting of all sermifeudal remnants and imperialist encroachments which brake the development of the productive forces in the countryside). He never says, and we never said, that this leads automatically to a thorough industrialisation of a backward country, after the victory af a socialist revolution. He only says, and so did we, that this apens the road for for industrialisation which a combination of imperialist and interna! cvactionary class structure otherwtse block quite efficiently, Now let us make the test for the four countries involved in the controversy. Is China today a semit-colonial country? Does imperialism maintain indirect rule as it does in Brazilia, Lagos or New Delhi. not to mention smailer countries? Is Cuba still under the thumb of Smerican imperialism, as it was during the Batista regime? Is American for French or perhaps British?) imperialism still the rea} ruler in Hano-, ;ust as it obviously is Saigon? Were the spies of the ‘’Pueblo” just captured by ‘agents of American imperialism” in Pyong Y ang thyough an unfortu- 4

[page 18]

nate oversight?

Anybody who does not have a completely mystified view of the present word wiil hardly doubt as to how to answer these questions. itis obv-aus that these countries conquered complete and thorough independence from imperialism rot only formal-political, but also economic independance and this through violent revolutions, generally ending ir blocay enti nperialist wars, “er can There be the slightest doubt that a thorough-going agrarian ravOlutior 'as a matter of fact, a more thorough-going one than that of Russia after 1977!: toak place in these countries, sweeping away any remnant of landiard-usurer-comprador-Kulax bourgeois rule in the Seuttrysiae .i.g. with the exception of more urbanised Cuba, for between 80 and 90°. of the pooulation of these countries).

Ags these are self-evident facis, Harman has to involve himself in nother rcansistenc; whe defining these countries as ‘state capitat’. For the inescagaz's conclusion this would lead him to would be to declare these © state can talist’’ regimes as highly progressive! Evidentty, if tomorres a coneworking class party were to be capable of sweeping ae, al tres wth smperialist exploitation and all remnants of exploitation of poco: peasants by landiords, usurers, merchants, kulaks, ES 421 as ‘nate ali roral unemployment, in countries bike India or Brazil, this vy ald 62 a gigantic historical step forward, which atl Marxists shes.) Halli as at least as progressive as the great French revolution ‘the mene = :§ permanent revolution states that in the epoch of imperia- : any More be achieved but by a proletarian party; but _ Mave beer wrong, think Cliff-Kidron-Harman ‘sartialy ‘wong. iad the rsvatutions which actually achieved these mighty euyals .eyer a ‘state capitalist’ will have to admit that they were “aycint cas, and ot friendly negotiations at tea parties}? Commumist part *s aod,-n the case of Cuba, a revolutionary organisation called tne “July 26 Vovement’ which was of non-communist origin. ‘These martes vere workers’ parties in nothing but their name,”’ thunders Warman, Panhy? “het about tneir social composition? Would Harman den, that av reaavtant part of the (relatively small] Indo-Chinese, and the .more moortant' North Korean and Chinese proletariat (not to speak sbout the Cuner: plantation and sugar industry proletariat) gave politi sort, wide allegiance, and even participated to the best of Joes nm these parties? And what about their programme? Was that gharacterised omy “the blac of four classes” (we shall come back to this in a munatz.? Wasn't that bloc, or the “new democracy”, only concerved a3 4 transitior.a' stage towards the dictatorship of the proletariat, mich yas spent out «no black and white as the historical goal of these cartes loy Castro after the beginning of the revolution, it is true, but noch earlier than the Cuban C.P. itself understood this}? Does Harman kKoow ae. measant party” which has a programme in favour of the deotetarsh 0 of the proletariat, which claims to fight for collective provert, o* gli nears of production and even to set out to build a classless comm orist society? “Words, wards, just words,” Harman obstinatefae)

[page 19]

hy insists. “In essence, these are peasant parties, petty-bourgeois peasant parties.”

But this is precisely where you make your break with the theory of ‘he permanent revolution, dear ‘’state capitalist’’ blunderers, we answer. For the mainstay of that theory is the snability of the peasantry to puild a revolutionary party of its own. If the peasantry is able to salve the problem of agrarian revolution and national independence by itself, the very possibility of the dictatorship of the proletariat in a backward country disappears. Where the working class is a small minority of society, this possibility on/y exists in function of the /ncapacity of the peasantry to successfully centralise and lead its own struggles for solving basic bourgeois-democratic tasks, Trotsky is crystal-clear on this in the above-quoted conclusion from Permanent Fevolution. The peasantry split into two parts: one, the richer, going with the bourgeoisie; the other, the poorer, going with the proletariat. This happened in China after 1945, in Vietnam after 1945, in North Korea after 1945, in Cuba after 1959, exacriy like in Russia after March 1917 or in China after 1925, Sa either you defend the preposterous proposition that national -adependence and agrarian revolution were nat realised in these Zountries—or you have to admit what seems to us self-evident: that ‘Mao, Ho Che Vinh, Kim 4! Sung, Castro, were leaders of proletarian parties, certainly bureaucratised ones, of Stalinist origins (in the first three cases|, certainly opportunist ones, certainly parties a far cry from revolutionary Marxism—but nevertheless working-class parties (in the same sense as the French and the Itatian C.P. are bureaucratised oppor. tunist working-class parties!.

The question does not stop there, The Chinese, Vietnamese, North Korean, Cuban, revolutions didn't limit themselves to establishing complete independence from direct or indirect imperialist rule, and radical agrarian revolution. They also abolished all native capitalist oroperty as wali, eliminated the native bourgeoisie, and destroyed the hourgeois state {the Yugoslav cevolution did of course the sametl9) | Nobody in his right mind really believes that the Chinese bourgeaisie :s ruling today in Pexing. Ask any Chinese capitalist in Hong Kong, Taiwan or Honoiulu. he'll tell you. He <nows. He cannot afford to be mystified by ‘state capitalist’ rhetoric. Sa here we have an even more mysterious Situation for the poor adherents to the theory of ‘‘state capitalism”. “Petty bourgeois leaders” (peasant parties) are seemingly not only able to elim nate tmoeriahst rute and liberate the peasants from age-old landlora-moneylender-comprador exploitation; they can even destroy the “native” capitalist ruling class as well, together with ts bourgeois ary and its bourgeois state. And Harmen has the cheek to pretend that this prepasterous aroposition is not in complete contra. Giction with the theary of oermanent revolution! “The Vietnamese merit sugpart, because they are conducting a sational liberation struggle’: this is Harman's lame answer to our pointing out the inconsistency of supporting the NLF and seeing in it st the same time “the nuclecs of a future state capitalist exploiting class’. Let us leave aside the ridiculous comparison between the Vietnam war and the Kenyan or Cypriot struggle, we are eager to have 19

[page 20]

Harman point out to us the five hundred thousand British soldiers sent to Kenya or Cyprus!?0!. But here again Harman in reality is forced to accept one typical Stalinist mystification, peddied by the C.P. ‘peace movements” ail aro.ind the world: the mystification that ‘essentially’ the South Vietnamese are tighting for the ‘independence’ of their country against a ‘foreign aggression”, and nat at all against capitalism.

The reality is of course otherwise. In South Vietnam, a civil war started right after the Gereva agreement!2'!. People rose because the fascist Diem reyime clapped them into concentration camps by the tens of thousands, and eliminated the agrarian reforms realised in the territories liberated in the South by the Viet-Minh, before the Geneva truce. This civil war unfolded for years before there was any North Vietnamese intervention. Large-scale inper-alist intervention only took place when this civil war was on the paint of being successful. Its purpose was not to introduce ‘national oppression” into South Vietnam, but to prevent the overthraw of capitalism there. U.S. imperialism was afraid that such an overthrow would threaten capitalism in the whate of South-East Asia, and stimulate permanent revolution on an even wider scale, This, and only this, can explair the stupendous investment of arms, men and capital to stop the Vietnamese revaiution--and not U.S. imperialism’s “hatred” of national liberation struggles, which it could quite go along with !see Indonesia, Algeria, ¢tc.! as long as capftalisrn wasn't threatened.

The question which Harman has to answer is the one relative to the class nature of the forces involved ia that civi! war. On the one side there were the landlords, the usurers, the fascist Diem bureaucrats. the compradors, the kulaks, the imperialists. Who was on the other side? Only the poorer peasantry? {Is ‘t then capable of leading a centralised revolutionary struggle all by itself, not only against a tottering caliection of semi-feudal overlords, but even against the mightiest imperialist power on earth? Was Trotsky then so wrong tn “underestimating the peasantry” ‘s capacity for sndependent political struggle? Or was there, after ai!, also the working class, and a working class party—a bureaucratised one of Stalinist origins, undoubtedly; but after all a working class one—leading those masses?

Harman feels it necessary to throw the pebble of the “bloc of the four classes’ into the pond, too: “it would be it,ieresting to see Mandel justify his own claimed commitment to the theory of permanent revolution in the light of the avowed (!) palicy of the Chinese before taking power and of the NLF today being the ‘bloc of the four classes’.""!22! Marx taught us to judge peaole not an what they say about themselves but by what they do (by their abjective role in society!. Harman the mystifier now turns this lesson upside-down, Never mind whether the Chinese C.P, has expropriated all private sroperty of the means of production from the capitalist class, whether it has destroyed their state and their economy, left not one regiment from their army. That is unsubstantias. As that party has the “avowed policy” of the “bloc of 20

[page 21]

* sue classes’, any upright state capitalist has to presume that Chiang <ar-Chek and his henchmen are still today in power in Peking. How stuoid can one get?

A “policy” is not a set of words on paper, but a line one follaws in action. The “’bloc of the four classes’ meant the subordination of the =P. tothe Kuomintang, the subordination of the workers to the oourgeais army (which hastened to disarm and kill the warkers}, the 2fisal ta touch the property of the landiords, urban capitalists and * ch peasants in the countryside, for fear of “upsetting” the (bourgeois) aemy, There were certain formal similarities between Mao's line between “337 and 1946, and the disastrous line pursued by the Chinese C.P. vetween 1925 and 1927, although even before 1946 there was a basic 2 *ferance: instead of disarming his own forces, Vlao maintained them "dependent from the bourgeois army, which tried again and again to sash them militar:ly, and faled, In the towns, the similarity was probazy Nore than formal, aithough the Janznese imperialist occupation stroduced a complicating ‘and obscur:ng! factor.

But after 1946 a definite chenae set in, essentially under the pressure of a huge uprising of poor peasants and rural semi-proletariat in North Thina. In face of that uprising: and of a renewed military offensive against him by the Chiang Ka: Chek forces, Mao now made a decisive Tar. towards coordinating and cent-alising a peasant revolution throughaut the country, towards destraying the bourgeois army, and conquering Dower tn the towns, destroying capitalist property in the wake of conquering the towns ‘with a certain delay. for sure, but, after all, even the Bolsheviks didn t nationalise industry immediately after taking oower, and had intended ta do “tst li later than it actually occurred, To outa sign of identity “avowec policy of the bloc af the four classes} setween a complete subordination of the C.P to the Kuomintang, and "he destruction of Xugmirteng power by a huge popular revolution led te 4 Dureaucratised working cass party ta bureaucratically deformed ‘ncalist revaintion, if you wisn is a feat of “theoretical acrobatics ~arman can be really proud of Se pointed out that Kidran’s caqclusions about developments in he izanal and semi colonial countries were straight Menshevism—flowing ‘en the Mlonshevik theary that Qussia--“inder the pressure of the world market '—anly capitaiisy was oassible. Harman, having swallowed nme “lenshevik start.ng sat of ‘state capitalism’, is Tow forced to say 3. after having suid A. vor oniy Aas he adopted Menshevisrn, but he ts stopting also snore and ore of sts Stalinst oy products. We have aiready seen how. A.s nterare of the Soviet tndustrialisation orocess is nathing but a renetitien af the ciassical apologetic theories of Stalinism: ‘Without Stalin, oo efficient armaments industry in the JSSR."° Naw Harman adants another Stalinist ’theary’: the theory of “petty-bourgea's” states, neither workers states nor bourgecis states, neither the dictatorship of the oroletaria: nar the decratorship of the bourgevisie, yether fish nor fowl. This remarkable revision of Marxism has been clevated to the level of dogma by...the official programme of the CPSb under Krushchey And how else but vy this Stalinist formula <1

[page 22]

of ‘national democracy’’ can ane summarise Harman's definition of China, Vietnam, Cuba, Yugoslavia, North Korea, as being states of “a petty bourgeoisie trying to transform itself into a capitalist class‘’{23!?

Because for us the Yugoslav, Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean revelutions are distorted socialist revolutions {i.e. led by bureaucratically distorted working-class parties}, we prefer not to call the parties which led these revolutions ‘Statinist’’ parties. For us, Stalinism is essentially a conservative ideclogy of the ruling bureaucratic layer in the Soviet Union, historically committed to the status quo {the extension of its power and privileges into the Eastern European countries, at the end of World War ||, on a world scale historically strengthened and not weakened the status quo, for it was being “‘paid for” by the attempt to stop the overthrow of capitalism in Western Europe and many other places, inclusive China]. Stalinist parties are parties which are subordinating the interests of the working class in their own countries to the interests of the Soviet bureaucracy's diplomacy. They therefore have acted, historically, as props of the capitalist system in their countries. '24:

Of course, the Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, Yugostay, C.P.s are parties of Stalinist origin, many traits of their ideology, interna! structure, attitude towards the masses, were inherited from Stalinism. But these traits, important as they are, and important as are their negative consequences for world revolution and for starting the process of building a sociatist society in their countries—and against which traits we conduct an irreconcilable struggle —are not the decisive factor for determining their social nature. Decisive, on the contrary, is the fact that, when the overthrow af capitalism was put on the agenda, they /ed this overthrow, be it in a distorted and perverted form, instead of preventing it. In order to do so, they had to break with the rule of subordinating themselves to the Kremlin bureaucracy, they had to disobey Statin’s orders and instructions, and to throw overboard, at least in practice, some of the basic tenets of Stalinist “theory”.

To say that the Chinese C.P. is the same kind of party as the Indonesian C.P., the Yugoslav as the Greek C.P., the Vietnamese as the French C.P.—to say, in other words, that there is no “basic” difference between destroying capitalism and upholding it!—is to throw overboard all objective criteria of judgment in favour of partial analogies!25!, To say that “Stalinisen” has been capable of overthrowing capitalism in the most populated country on earth is decidedly giving too much honour to Stalin!

Because the Yugoslav, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Cuban, revolutions were distorted socialist revolutions (the Cuban the least bureaucratised and distorted of them all, for it was led by revolutionary forces not originating from Stalinist ideology or organisations), they are part and parcel of the world revolutionary process-started in October 1917— be it under unforeseen and specific forms. Their victory has meant heavy defeats for world capitalism and imperialism. It has strengthened and not weakened the international revolutionary vanguard, included that part of it consciously fighting for world revolution and for workers’ states under workers’ management through freely elected workers’ councils ithe same can certainly not be said about Stalin's victory in the 22

[page 23]

JSSR). It has weakened and not strengthened Stalinism in the Soviet Jnion, and its stranglehold on the international working class movement. It has deepened both the crisis of capitalism and the crisis of the Soviet bureaucracy, and created more favourable conditions for an extension of the world revolutionary process to the industrialised countries in Western Europe. This logic—and therefore everything which s happening with world revolution in the last decade—is incomprehensble if one falls under the sway of the mystifications of *’state cagitalism’’. it is only made comprehensible by Trotsky's theory of S:alinism and of the Soviet bureaucracy.

August 70, 1970 Ernest Mande! Footnotes ‘. Chris Harman: The /nconsistencies of Ernest Mande/, in internatonal Socialism, December 1969-January 1970—an answer to Ernest Mandel: The inconsistencies of State Capitalism, IMG pamphiet, 1969, tself an answer to Michael Kidron: Maginot Marxism: Mandet’s Economcs, in internationa! Socialism, April-May 1969. ‘2 One example will be sufficient for this type of debating point. Harman takes us ta task because we are alleged to have identified ‘thirst ‘or profit” with ‘‘capita! accumulation” and ‘‘the final money form of capital’’. This is plain unadulterated nonsense, he proclaims (op, cit. 9. 36}. A moment's more careful reading would have shown him that we didn’t identify any abstract ‘thirst for profit’’ with “capital accumulation’ {and certainly not a Chinese usurer’s one}, but “the capétatists’ thirst for profits’. And that ‘thirst’ is indeed determined by the economic compulsion to accumulate capital under conditions of private property (competition). Far from being ‘’nonsense“’, unadulterated or not, this identification (s one of the basic discoveries of Marx's economic theory. ‘3! Chris Harman, op. cit. p. 36, 37. 444 Chris Harman, op. cit. p. 37. 'S} Das Kapita/, Engels Edition, 9th printing, Hamburg, Meissners Verlag, 1921, vat. 1, pp. 39-40, 45-46. 16} = Chris Harman, op. cit. p. 38 (7) tpidem. 8} Inasmuch as only generafised commodity production is suppressed after the overthrow of capitalism, and that partia/ commodity production still survives, the economy is dominated by a struggle between the “law of value” (“spontaneous allocation of resources’’) and “the logic of planning” (i.e. canscious allocation of economic resources in the interests of those who administrate the economy}. This struggle can only end by either a return to capitalism {in that case, “the law of value’ takes over again}, or by a definitive consolidation of planning (in that case commodity production starts to wither away in the field of consumer goods tac}. On the road to this second end-result, the 23

[page 24]

bureaucracy‘s administration of the economy and the state must be overthrown. It is very unlikely that this second process could be achieved without an international extension of the revolution (although what is involved here is something more “primitive’’ than the final end result: the complete disappearance of commodity production, of classes and of the state, i.e. the completed construction of a socialist society, unattainable in a single country). (St Ernest Mande!: Marxist Economic Theory, Merlin Press, 1969, vol. Il, pp. 621-626. Ct An amazing accusation! On page 2 of our pamphlet, we wrote that capitalism 1s the only form of class society in which afl elements of production (land, labour power, labour instruments, etc.} become cammodities. The transformation ot labour power into a commodity—isn't that ‘’a reference’ to the wage labour ‘capital relationship? This is repeated again on page 3, where it says that capitalism is characterised by aclass structure and a mode of production which impty that labour power has become a commodity, ig. by ‘the existence of a proletarian class, forced to sell its tabour power’’. Two tines further on we mention the class struggle between Capital and Labour as resulting inevitably from the laws of motion of capitalism. On p. 12 we explain at length what forces a capitalist corporation to exploit workers in order to accumulate capital, Yet Harman coolly writes: '’Nowhere in the whole section of the pamphlet dealing with the question {presumably the question of the nature of capitatism and of commodity production} is there a single {!) mention of the working class or a single {!) reference to the wage labour. capital relationship” (p. 36)... Nl Trotsky makes this distinction between the bureaucracy’'s “‘appropriatian of the products of the labour of others” {The Revolution Betrayed, New Park Publications, p. 240, 1967), and “exploitation” in the scientific sense of the term I/n Defence of Marxism, Pioneer Publishers, New York, #942}. {%2t Chris Harman, op. cit. p. 38-9. 3) Harman accuses us of “'fatsifying’’ Kidron’s position. But he fails to explain why a war would represent a ‘‘leak of capital’. Slumps devaluate capital, we all agree (and | indicated that, on that point, Kidron was only repeating Marx], But what about wars? ‘Wars and slumps have destroyed immense quantities of output,’ wrote Kidron. Isn‘t that inferring that destruction of exchange values {by a slump} equals destruction of use values (by a war!? How is war supposed to "destroy immense quantities of output’ except through physica! destruction? 4} Chris Harman, op. cit. p. 39. §) Rosa Luxemburg: Die Akkumulation des Kapitals, pp. 370 et fol. Vereiniqung Internationaler Verlagsanstaiten, Berlin 1923. 16) Chris Harman, op. cit. p. 40. 17} Leon Trotsky: Permanent Revolution, New Park Publications, 1962, pp. 152-154. 8! To avoid misunderstandings, and to prevent the inevitable shouts 24

[page 25]

of “‘revisionism” by our dear friends of the Healyite persuasion, let us "epeat for the nth time that Trotsy foresaw and predicted that “under exceptional circumstances (war, defeat, financial crash, mass revolutsonary pressure)”, opportunist and bureaucratised parties like the C.P.s could break with capitalism and initiate a revolutionary process leading to the dictatorship of the proletariat. (See the chapter of the Transitional Programme entitied ‘‘Warkers and Farmers Government”). Isn't that orecisely the description of what happened in Yugoslavia, China, Vietnam, etc.? The essential question is whether this is “highly exceptional” .as Trotsky predicted and we emphatically uphold) or whether this could somehow became a wider ‘‘rule’’, as opportunist split-offs from the Fourth Internationa! (to start with, Posadas, Pablo and the Cey!onese LSSP) are persuaded? "8! Harman cannot resist making another dubious debating point: ‘Why didn't you recognise the Yugoslav socialist revolution when it happened, but only three years later?’ We could start quoting to him some passages indicating that we had at least an inkling that something particular was going on in that country before 1948 (notwithstanding an evident lack of information}. But lagk who's complaining: a member of a group which “‘discovered’’ the establishment of “state capitalism” in the USSR not three but more than twenty years after it had happened... ‘20! \n Algeria, French imperialism engaged on a large-scale colonial war, it is true. But this can be explained not only by the exceptional importance of French investment in the Algerian oil industry—uncompared to any U.S. imperialist investment in Vietnam—but also and especially by the special implications, for French internal politics, of the presence of a large French settlers’ minority in that country, which made millions of petty-bourgeois rabidly attached to ‘’l’Algerie francaise’”’, Nothing of the kind exists in Vietnam with regard to American society. 20) Harman‘s remark, that “in Vietnam, the Stalinist leadership has twice already shown itse!f incapable or unwilling to solve the most elementary of bourgeois national tasks—that of national unity—when opportunities (1) to do were at hand {in 1945 and in 1954)."’ This is an odious travesty of historical truth, for it completely mystifies the precise opponents of ‘’nationa! unity’’. It is not as a result of the Vietnamese CP. ‘‘submitting”’ itself to some “bourgeois’’ leadership {presumably Bao-Dai? or Diem?) or the Chiang Kai-Chek type that national unity wasn't realised in 1945 or 1954, but due to direct foreign intervention of a ten-times-stronger military power (later backed by U.S. imperialism which was one hundred times stronger). Ho Chi Minh in fact proclaimed independence in the whole country, and tried to unify it, but was driven away from the cities by superior foreign military strength (and only thereby}. Perhaps Harman missed out telling Giap how he could have taken the ‘‘opportunity” to beat the French army, navy and airforce in 1945, supported additionally by British and Chiang Kai-Chek forces, Presumably, Dien-Bien-Phu was as easy a battle to organise, for experts of the Harman vintage, as it would have been in 1954 to start open warfare against American imperialism, without granting a breathing 25

[page 26]

space to people who had been fighting for fourteen years. With the same irresponsibility, one could say that the Brest-Litovsk peace showed the Bolsheviks’ “inability or unwillingness to solve the most elementary af bourgeois national tasks” in Russia. Harman should be ashamed of such kind of “arguments” used against revolutionists who have struggled longer against imperialism and capitalism, arms in hand, than any other group in the world since the international working class movement was founded. {22} Harman, op. cit. p. 40. (23) One class ‘trying to transform itself" (sic) into another class is certainly a daring “innovation” in the framework of historical materialism. {241 "The chief accusation which the Fourth Internationa! advances against the traditional organisations of the proletariat is the fact that they do not wish to tear themselves away from the politica! semi-corpse of the bourgeoisie,” writes Trotsky in the Transitional Programme. (2) The Shachtmanite adherents to the theory of a “new bureaucratic class"’ tried at least to be more consistent; they saw in each Communist Party an “instinctive drive’ to establish itself into a new ‘‘fascist-type like’ ruling class, The cold war having given its verdict—and Shachtmanism having disappeared under its waves in a sea of ridicule and renegade behaviour—ane sees haw wrong that prediction was. But why are some C.P.s just ‘“neo-reformists” (i.e. subservient to private capitalism} as the British C.P. presumably is the eyes of /nternational Socialism (like the French, Italian, Greek, Spanish, Indonesian, Brazilian, C.P.s, and the list could be extended ad fb/tum), while just a few others are “trying to transform themselves into 4 new ruling class’? And if this distinction exists, what’s the use of defining both categories of parties by the same label?

26

[page 27]

International

Bi-monthly theoretical journal! of the International Marxist Group. international is a 64-page journal which analyses in detail recent developments in Britain and other parts of the world. In Britain it represents the view of the Fourth Internationa! as well as its British section.

Subs. £1 per annum, €2 airmail to Africa, Asia, Latin America, North America.

Send ta INTERNATIONAL Subscriptions, 182 Pentonriile Road, London N.7. Single copy 5p + postage

[page 28]

IMG PUBLICATIONS*IMG PUBSLICATIONS*IMG PUBLICATIONS*IMG 182 Pentonville Road, Landon N.1. Tel: 01-837 6954

Inconsistencies of State Capitalism. ......... Ernest Mandel : 25p The Mystifications of State Capitalism. ...... Ernest Mande! : 10p The Credibility Gap—The Politics of the SLL... Tony Whelan : 28p The Fight for Control: Militants in the Trade Unions. .......-. beet eee e ae etanee : 2p Manifesto of the Revolutionary Socialist Party, Crechoslovakia ........5....046. : 4p Mactyrs of the Third International; Karl ' Liebknecht, Rosa Luxembourg... ...-..., Leon Trotsky : 8p Fhe Industrial Relations Bill: A Declaration a Peter Hampton : 5p The Changing Rote of the Bourgeois University 000.0 e eee eee Ernest Mandel : Sp Class Consciousness & the Leninist Party... .. Ernest Mandel 3 6p The Leninist Theory of Organisation ........ Ernest Mandel : 1Sp Booklist for Women’s Liberation........... Leonora Lloyd : 10p The Irregular Movement of History ........- Warde : 12%p The Struggle in Bengal & The Fourth International... 0... c eee renee Tariq Ali et al :10p The Post Office Workers v. The State........ John Weal : Sp The Nightecleaners Campaign ...........005 London Socialist an Woman Group 7 Sp Racsm—What It [s: How to Fight ft ........ : 2p Theorics of Workers'Control.............. R. Davis : 8p Statutes of the Fourth International ........ : 10p Please adil 15% for p&p. Orders over £3 sent free,

Printed by The Prinkipe Pres: Ltd. (T.U.}, 182 Pentonville Read, London 8.1. Tel: 01-877 9987