At 07:49 02/10/99 -0400, Jerry wrote:
>Chris B wrote:
>
>> The Chinese Communist Party
>> described the political system from 1949 as "New Democracy".
>
>As Mao described in a pamphlet called "On New Democracy", the CCP called
>at the time for a political alliance with the bourgeoisie and the
>peasantry in the context of a capitalist economy. There was only one
>problem with their plan (other than the fact that it was class
>collaborationist): the national bourgeoisie didn't support such an
>alliance.
>
>Of course, "On New Democracy" was an extension of the Stalinist two-step
>theory of revolution whereby in semi-colonial countries first you have a
>bourgeois revolution that builds capitalism and -- at some distant point
>in the future -- you (allegedly) support a revolution to build socialism.
>
>Support for such theory and policies today demonstrates that Stalinism is
>alive and well in the hearts of a handfull of intellectuals (especially
>some "Marxists" on the Net.)
What to make of this?
Is this an abstract historical argument? No. The statement that Jerry
commented on is a historical fact, that the CPC called the political system
from 1949, New Democracy.
That does not necessarily mean that anyone making such an historical
comment supports stages now. It is true however that I have defined the
present situation as one in which progressive and socialist forces should
particularly focus the struggle against finance capital and landed capital,
rather than industrial capital, which should be controlled by social
foresight. That is another subject.
But I want to take up Jerry's theoretical criticism of the concept of
stages. He incorrectly labels it as Stalinist, although Lenin identified
with it.
Lenin wrote in Left-Wing Communism: an Infantile Disorder (1920) Chapter 6,
Should Revolutionaries Work in Reactionary Trade Unions?
>Political power cannot be captured (and the attempt to capture it should
not be made) until the struggle has reached a certain stage. This "certain
stage" will be different in different countries and in different
circumstances; it can be correctly gauged only by thoughtful, experienced
and knowledgeable political leaders of the proletariat in each particular
country.
>
He went on to illustrate his point with the following detailed and specific
comment.
>
>(In Russia the elections to the Constituent Assembly in November 1917, a
few days after the proletarian revolution of October 25, 1917, were one of
the criteria of the success of this struggle. In these elections the
Mensheviks were utterly defeated; they received 700,000 votes -- 1,400,000
if the vote in Transcaucasia is added -- as against 9,000,000 votes polled
by the Bolsheviks. See my article, "The Constituent Assembly Elections and
the Dictatorship of the Proletariat", [24] in the Communist International
[25] No. 7-8.)
<
Lenin's approach was that indeed in broad terms there are stages in
relation to the
overall balance of forces.
I cite Lenin's late article "On Cooperation", which envisages a mixed
economy for a generation in the Soviet Union.
I would also cite "Foundations of Leninism" written within 3 months of
Lenin's death and part of Stalin's struggle with Trotsky to appear the most
orthodox inheritor of Lenin's mantle.
It went through many editions, and with Trotskyism
perceived as a continuing threat, it will have guarded against presenting a
false summary of Lenin.
What the evidence cannot sustain
is any idea that Lenin was against orientating strategy to the concrete
stages of the actual balance of forces. And as his analysis of imperialism
showed, this could change in qualitative character according to concrete
circumstances.
>From Chapter 7 of Foundations of Leninism, April 1923:
>>
2) Stages of the Revolution, and Strategy.
Strategy is the determination of the direction of the main blow of the
proletariat at a given stage of the revolution, the elaboration of a
corresponding plan for thd disposition of the revolutionary forces (main
and secondary reserves), the fight to carry out this plan throughout the
given stage of the revolution.
Our revolution has already passsed through two stages, and after the
October Revolution it entered a third one. Our strategy changed accordingly.
<<
It is unlikely that Stalin was obviously summarising Lenin on this point
incorrectly, because of the wide audience both within and outside the party
who admired Lenin.
Under *Lenin's* leadership, the Communist International supported a line
for colonial and semi-colonial countries that regarded the national
struggle against imperialism as revolutionary and part of the world wide
struggle against imperialism. These movements were "national democratic"
and they have swept colonialism off the world. Practice has proved this
analysis correct.
A direct struggle for socialism in the dependent countries would have
divided the anti-imperialist forces and left the imperialists in control.
The democratic component has also advanced with the decline in the number
of countries run by open dictatorships.
The CPC called the constitutional settlement for which it was leading the
Chinese to fight, "New Democracy" to indicate that it was more than a
nationalist bourgeois democratic revolution.
Jerry's summary distorts the dynamic nature of the compromise with
anti-imperialist classes that won the 1949 revolution. It also fails to
understand the need to compromise with a section of the bourgeoisie in
order to be able to ally with the overwhelming proportion of the peasantry.
It fails to understand that the other target of the revolution was feudalism.
>As Mao described in a pamphlet called "On New Democracy", the CCP called
>at the time for a political alliance with the bourgeoisie and the
>peasantry in the context of a capitalist economy. There was only one
>problem with their plan (other than the fact that it was class
>collaborationist): the national bourgeoisie didn't support such an
>alliance.
It is misleading to say it was in the context of a capitalist economy. The
new state took over the property of the comprador bourgeoisie. It is
misleading to call it purely a capitalist economy, although national
capitalists were allowed to function within it. Jerry is incorrect to say
that the national bourgeoisie did not support such an alliance. Some
supported it and most accepted it. What is unmarxist about saying that
capitalism is revolutionary in relation to feudalism?
Far from getting stuck passively in this stage of New Democracy, the
criticism of the CPC and Mao's leadership is that within 10 years of the
revolution it was moving far into the agenda of the socialist revolution
before the economic conditions were laid for it. This then turned into a
leap into forms of communism that were a direct extension of peasant
communism. If anything Mao telescoped the stages too quickly.
Chris Burford
London
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