(Cont'd. ) carry out the historical role of the capitalist class by accumulating capital. This is perfectly true if one uses the vulgar concept of capital - as do many bourgeois economists - as meaning factories, rolling stock, vehicles, etc. But Marx spent much of Las Kapital showing that by capital he meant something very different; namely, value which produces surplus value. This value represents the power of dead labour-power which the capitalists have expropriated over living labour. Such a concept presupposes that this value is obtained by the monopoly ownership of the means of production by the capitalist class. The bureaucrats of the Soviet Union neither own or seek to own the means of production in that country. Is then the regime in Russia a socialist one? Socialism presupposes both freedom of expression and a surplus of goods. Neither exist in the Soviet Union. What is more there is a political structure which aggressively resists the development of freedom of expression and which preserves the unequal distribution of goods and services. It goes without saying that such a political formation will have to be overthrown, as anyone who has struggled against a similar strata in trade unions will know. But the people who will lead this struggle will not be seeking to change the legal ownership of anything: they will want, however, to change the political control of everything. The prototype of their action was the anti-bureaucratic Hungarian revolution. But unlike that tragic struggle, it is to be hoped that the political revolution in the Soviet Union will be led by a conscious leadership. Otherwise its chances of success are small. How then should socialists evaluate these fifty years? Firstly, despite its distortions the Soviet Union has demonstrated the superiority of socialised property relations over the capitalist system. Secondly, we need to note that the Soviet Union is still in a state of transition, and that another revolution a political one - is necessary before we can see the full flowering of the potentialities of the revolution. Thirdly, socialists have to learn that it is not enough to overthrow capitalism: bureaucracy, in all its forms, must be combatted as a social phenomena (it is good to see that in Cuba an understanding of this problem is developing. Fourthly, we should reject all the pessimistic theories which allege that the October revolution's heritage has been lost. Wherever the nationalised property relations exist in the Soviet Union - and there is no sign that they are likely to be overthrown in the foreseeable future - the most important gain of the October revolution is with us. Thus for socialists the fiftieth anniversary of the October Revolution is a glorious occasion. It is all the better because of the undeniable evidence of the great technical progress of the Soviet Union in these fifty years. When that progress is matched by similar advances in the field of socialist democracy our celebrations will be unqualified. It is up to us to do what we can to assist this advance by getting on with the job of achieving workers' power in Britain. This, plus our warm support of every tendency which struggles for socialist democracy in the Soviet Union, is the best way we can celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the most important event in man's history.
P.S. Since this article was written I have seen a report by Victor Zorza in the Guardian of November 1, that a group of Old Bolsheviks has argued for the scrapping of the official histories of the October Revolution. They want, Zorza says, "a precise and truthful account" of the revolution itself. The fact that the Russian leaders are unwilling to allow the truth to be told about this fifty year old event shows how precarious their position must be.
A Criticism of THE U.S. aNTI-WAR MOVEMENT. Reprinted from The Nation The following piece is from a review by Alan Samuels of the New Legions by Donald Duncan, who was a Master Sergeant in the U.S. army, and quit after his experiences in Vietnam. Alan Samuels is at present in the U.S. Armed Forces. Dunean tellingly describes his arrival, wholly dedicated to winning the hearts and minds of the people. There were many disillusionments: a recruiting officer saying, "Don't send me any niggers"; Americans lighting cigarettes while their Vietnamese counterparts tortured and murdered prisoners; the blatant venality of Saigon's rulers. But Duncan kept his observations to himself... He played it so straight that when he finally did resign he was the most decorated enlisted man in Vietnam, and up for a Silver Star. Duncan's decision was all the more remarkable because the voices for peace had never reached him. He had to work out all the arguments against soldiering on his own. Even to-day the movement does little to encourage future Duncans. Implicit in the cry of Hell No at the induction centres is the idea that the aimless draftee who stumbles nervously past the picket line has already reached a moral par with the Marine who burns huts by zippo lighter. There is little contact between Movement people and army people. Many of those who carry signs calling the GIs brothers seem in fact to be rooting for their death - that is, they gloat at news of Vietcong victories. As for the would-be organizers who enter the service, they often underestimate the practical difficulties of propagandizing in basic training - when your constituency is literally running from dawn till dusk. The hard fact is that the Movement barely understands the working of the war machine. One way the Movement might learn more about the GIs it must influence, if it means business, would be to operate out of the bar-whorehcuse-pawnshop towns near the big training bases, the parasite towns where soldiers drink and dependents live. Perhaps an ombudsman's ear could be tilted toward the post to pick up such scandals as the one that broke this summer at Fort Leonard Wood, where the commanding general had been pressuring men to plead guilty in court-martial cases (this story floated in rumour for months: by breaking it, a Movement journal like Viet Report would have earned the good will of some 35,000 soldiers.) But why should the induction centres be the scene of the Movement's final appeal to GIs ? The day you report, Duncan reminds us, you are frightened and bewildered, hardly in condition to ingest a pamphlet on high politics. And reporting for induction, though traumatic, need not represent a philosophical watershed. Boys of 19 or 20 have not thought it all through and arrived at a firm, homicidal resolve. Many accept induction even though they disapprove of the war. They are not all conformists, certainly not all killers, but they are not up to the enormous sacrifice the Movement now demands of them. It is only after soldiers see that it is possible, on some level, to change their situation that they might think of pressing demands which now seem outlandish and suicidal - such as the right to decline assignment to a given duty station. To expect mass refusale to fight in Vietnam is like thinking American workers woulé have forced through the Wagner Act in 1870. The Movement has now taken the elementary step. Step A of any serious organising process: convincing people that problems they perceive as individual and unsolvable are in fact widespread and, by common action - solvable, Only when that job is done will Duncen Tepear