Comrade,
while I agree with you on most of what you say, I think on some basic points
your analysis is flawed: 1.You are talking about (deformed or not) workers'
states where the workers were/and are not the class which made the revolution
and hold power. While this is 'orthodox Trotzkyism' (in reality an invention of
Michel Pablo a couple of years after WW2) I think thast it runs counter to basic
ideas of Marx and therefore of Trotzky: 1. the liberation of the working class
can only be the deed of the working class itself, 2. the socialist revolution
can only occur when the proletariat is led by its most conscious advanced
sector, organized in a Bolshevik vanguard party. Proletarian class consciousness
is the key element, 3. Stalinism constituted an alien and counterrevolutionary
invasion force whithin the working-class movement. By 1940, the Stalinist
bureaucracy had become, in Trotzky's words, an "absolute obstacle in the path of
the country's development", 4. that popular fronts are class collaborationist
blocs created to prevent socialist revolution, not aid and abet it. If this is
so how can the peasantry (a part of the petty bourgeoisie, which can only follow
the big bourgeoisie or the proletariat, as you say) carry out the historic tasks
of the proletariat, even when the working class itself is completely passive? In
fact it seems to me that in the epoch of capitalist decay (imperialism) they
can't even carry out all the fundamental tasks of the bourgeoisie itself (namely
the development of the productive forces to a level high enough to free them
from the imperialst yoke). [By the way: if state ownership in itself was a basic
factor, in the first years of its existence Taiwan would have been more of a
'workers state' than the PRChina]. Also expropriating the bourgeoisie is not
necessarily done by a workers state. Even E.Mandel denied in 1947 ["The Soviet
Union After the War".IIB, March 1947 that nationalization in the buffer-states
signified anything more than the inability of private capital to run these
countries. Then (!) he labeled any idea, that a workers' state, degenerated or
not, could arise without proletarian revolution, as "absurd". One of these later
invented 'degenerated workers' states', Tito's Yugoslavia supported the
imperialist aggression against Korea. And by the sixties Tito's Yugoslavia was
one of the European countries with the highestrate of unemployment and had to ge
trid of parts of its alleged 'ruling class' and make them work in German
imperialist factories (where as Turkish leftists often complained that they were
particularily docile). By the way, while the FI by 1951 one chose to declare
all these states as 'workers' states' their leaders did not claim so but called
them "Peoples' Republics". As far as my information goes muchof the economy in
the Balkans had already been taken over by the state during Nazi-occupation.
How would you feel about characterizing the non-proletarian bureaucratic ruling
classes in the post-WW2-buffer-states and in the national liberated states of
the "3rd world" as 'guardian classes' doing (more or less successfully)the
job of the incapable (and/or largely absent) traditional bourgeoisies and
preparing their return on the scene? I think that the PR China is a good example
as is the development in the European 'workes states' where the new ruling
classes are largely manned by the old ones. A few days ago I read an article in
the 'Mitteilungen' of the 'Communist Platform in the PDS' by a well known writer
from the former GDR, Eberhard Czichon. There he denies that what you have inthe
PRChinaand Cuba was 'socialism'. I know that you will have no problem with
agreeing, but this is quite something for an old 'Stalinist'
A. Holberg
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Owen Jones schrieb:
> Johannes,
>
> Thanks for the welcome, good to hear from you again.
>
> I certainly agree that history has proven wrong the assertion that the
> petty-bourgeoisie, with all its vacillating tendencies, is incapable of
> independence from either the bourgeoisie or proletariat. Indeed, what
> history has shown is that the peasantry is capable of carrying out the
> historic tasks of the proletariat, even when the working class itself is
> completely passive. I need not tell any comrades of the manner in which
> Mao's peasant armies crushed the organised working class of the cities. Most
> would agree that a form of workers' state was set up; some people think it
> was marvellous until the Xaoping Revisionist Capitalist Roader Traitors
> marched in and ruined everything, although I myself see it from the
> beginning as a bureaucratically deformed workers' state, with the
> bureaucracy arising from the ranks of the peasantry which filled the
> guerrilla armies. (What do comrades expect, I'm a trot, so shoot me!)
>
> In the case of China, however, although 97% of the armies were peasants, we
> have to remember that after the 1927 Revolution which was routed by the
> Soviet bureaucracy, hundreds of thousands of workers were emptied from the
> city into the countryside, and the working class was so atomised it ceased
> to exist. However, there was still a core in the armies of ex-urban
> proletarians who had fled 1927, and this made a sizeable difference in my
> opinion, even though they had been forced into the peasantry. The
> vacillating nature of the peasants was clearly very obvious with the
> occasional subordination to Chiang Kai-Shek, although on orders from the
> Soviet bureaucracy, which ended in a disaster people need no reminding of,
> but suffice it so say one million communists dead was certainly a "mistake".
>
> In Cuba, I agree, although the proletariat was not as passive as the other
> examples you listed; it was after all the General Strike which finally broke
> Batista's back. That was a complicated revolution - I would say a
> vindication of Permanent Revolution. It began as a petty-bourgeois
> nationalist revolution with a radical bourgeois-democratic programme, but
> the intense class struggle on the ground eventually caused a rupture in the
> July 26 Movement which ended with the propertied elements in Miami. I do not
> believe, however, that without the Soviet Union, Cuba would have become a
> deformed workers' state (sorry with those comrades who think it is healthy
> in any way, but I cannot believe that, not simply from reading books on the
> matter, since the material I had selected was often hagiographic, but from
> talking to Marxists - and non-Trotskyists at that - who visited the country;
> one of whom on a German Communist Party delegation to Cuba; its benevolence
> is due to such factors as the social weight of the proletariat, its high
> level of cultural development, the strength and radicalisation of the
> petty-bourgeoisie and proletariat, etc).
>
> But basically, these examples you supply, as well as others (like Albania
> or Vietnam), show definitively that the peasantry is capable of seizing
> state power and expropriating the bourgeoisie even with a passive working
> class. What I have not heard is a satisfactory answer from Marxism as to why
> this has been shown to be so.
>
> Yet in the case of Colombia, I think the petty-bourgeoisie is incapable of
> a seizure of power and the overthrow of the ruling class. Perhaps if the
> Soviet bureaucracy still existed, this possibility would exist. It is the
> last Latin American peasant rebellion of modern times that has yet to trail
> of because of the peculiar circumstances of Colombia, in my opinion.
>
> But as I have said, I will read up on the subject, my only purpose was to
> provoke a debate on the matter.
>
> Cheers
>
> Owen
>
>
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