[Not an endorsement or otherwise of the two pieces, from diametrically opposing standpoints, reproduced below. Just to highlight the earthshaking character of the event
Relevant to note, particularly by the self-proclaimed "Marxists", that Marx himself had said of his philosophy that it "in its very essence [is] critical and revolutionary". It unrelentingly exhorts to judge ideas in terms of "reason" and challenge received wisdoms without any show of reverence. Alas, that's a long forgotten and exiled Marx!] I/II. http://www.sa.org.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2130&Itemid=125 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall: The left's response to the collapse of Stalinism Tess Lee Ack "*When a person dies, the autopsy reveals the nature of their illness. The collapse of the Stalinist regimes in Russia and Eastern Europe makes it possible to be absolutely clear about the nature of those regimes. There was no resistance to the collapse from the mass of people. They didn't defend the system. That shows they didn't believe the regimes had anything to do with socialism or workers' power." *- Tony Cliff, author of *State Capitalism in Russia*, interviewed in 1999. For six decades - from the late 1920s to the early 1990s - the "Russian question" was a key issue confronting anyone who wanted to change the world. The Soviet Union was held up by friend and foe alike as the embodiment of socialist ideals. Indeed, one of the few things that many on the left and the right agreed about was that Russia, and the Eastern European states created in its image after World War II, were socialist. But not everyone bought this idea. How did these repressive one-party dictatorships square with the Marxist vision of human liberation? How could you possibly describe societies in which a distinct layer of privileged bureaucrats lorded it over millions of oppressed and exploited workers as classless? And if socialism could be brought from without, by Soviet tanks for example, what was the role of the working class? Such questions go to the heart of what socialism really is, and what kind of society we're fighting for. So the argument about the class nature of the USSR, Eastern Europe, China and Cuba was no abstract theoretical debate, but one with enormous practical consequences. After World War II Tony Cliff developed his pathbreaking analysis of the USSR and its satellites as state capitalist. This analysis restored the Marxist idea of the self-emancipation of the working class to its central place in the struggle for socialism. Cliff argued that what mattered was not the form of property, but the actual class relations defining the social relations of production - i.e. whether the working class had real control over production and society more generally. The Communist Parties (CPs) established after the Russian Revolution dominated the left around the world for decades, and for most of that time - through all the purges and betrayals - they remained loyal to Moscow. However, the Stalinist monolith began to crack in the 1950s. Krushchev's "secret speech" denouncing Stalin in 1956 and Russia's invasion of Hungary to suppress a workers' revolution in the same year led to disorientation and ferment in the Communist movement and resulted in the loss of many party members. Some CPs in the following years raised concerns about "humanising communism"; they attempted to distance themselves somewhat from Russia and to appear to be taking a more independent line. But this had little impact on their political practice: the Stalinist legacy was deeply ingrained. Left social democrats were also heavily influenced by Stalinism, often expressing sympathy or support for Russia and the Communist bloc. The main opposition to the Stalinist parties were the various orthodox Trotskyist groups which regarded Russia as a "degenerated workers' state". (They defined the Eastern European countries, where Russia had used its military might to establish replicas of itself, as "deformed workers' states".) According to this view, these societies were deeply flawed and political reform was needed to get them back on the right path to socialism. But nonetheless the Stalinist states were to be supported against the West. So for example, some orthodox Trotskyist groups, such as the Socialist Workers' Party in Australia (now the Democratic Socialist Perspective, publishers of *Green Left Weekly*), supported Russia's invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. For those who saw Russia as somehow superior to Western capitalism, even those who identified as anti-Stalinist, there were implications for the positions they took and the way they operated politically that not only put them at odds with Marxist orthodoxy and traditions, but often led to them to take sides *against* workers and the oppressed. As crisis gripped Russia and the Eastern bloc in the 1980s, discontent among their populations rose and began to find expression even before rebellion swept across Eastern Europe in 1989. The independent trade union movement * Solidarnosc*(Solidarity) that emerged in Poland in 1980 posed an enormous challenge to the Stalinist regimes. It was also a test for the left in the West: one that many failed. It was to be expected that the still-Stalinised CPs would line up with the Polish regime. (The Communist Party of Australia was divided on the issue.) But others on the mainstream left - such as the Labor left in Australia and the British miners' union leader Arthur Scargill - refused to support* Solidarnosc*. Such a stance could only discourage workers in the West from identifying with the struggle of their fellow-workers in Poland and offering the solidarity they so desperately needed. It also meant that the only support Polish workers saw forthcoming from the West was from the likes of Reagan and Thatcher - who of course didn't support their struggle in any way, but saw an opportunity to bash their imperialist rival. Most of the orthodox Trotskyist groups had a more supportive attitude to * Solidarnosc*, but they were too small to offer any tangible support. And their acceptance that Poland was some kind of workers' state meant they couldn't have offered a clear way forward to workers there anyway. Russian leader Gorbachev's announcement of a reform program, with its buzz-words of *glasnost* (openness) and *perestroika *(restructuring), caused much excitement among the orthodox Trotskyist groups. For some this was the start of the "political revolution" they'd been waiting for. The well known Trotskyist Tariq Ali, for instance, argued that "Gorbachev represents a progressive, reformist current within the Soviet elite, whose program, if successful, would represent an enormous gain for socialists and democrats on a world scale... Gorbachev needs to complete the political revolution (which is already under way)...". His 1988 book on Russia was titled *Revolution From Above*, and this pretty much sums up the orientation of many orthodox Trotskyists. In Australia the Socialist Workers' Party were all over the place. They enthusiastically supported Gorbachev from mid-1985 until 1990, arguing that his "campaign to create a living socialist democracy in the USSR is making giant strides". They even changed their name to the Democratic Socialist Party in October 1989, explicitly to reinforce their identification with Gorbachev's program. So slavish was their adulation that they produced T-shirts emblazoned with the slogan "Glasnost is it!" As the hoped-for transformation of Russian society failed to materialise, they were inclined to blame the workers: "The Gorbachev leadership has provided the working people with some additions to their anti-bureaucratic armoury and it's up to them to use them." Eventually the DSP became disenchanted with Gorbachev and ended their support for him. By the end of 1990 they had no coherent position on the Soviet Union. From 1991 they published articles highly critical of Gorbachev by dissidents like Boris Kagarlitsky. Amazingly they even ran, without comment, an interview in which Kagarlitsky noted that "some sections of the Western left had an idea that*perestroika* was an attempt to establish a democratic and prosperous state in Russia. This was never true, not for a single day." Underlying all this confusion was a key failing of the orthodox Trotskyists: their refusal to accept that Russia and the Eastern bloc states were *class societies*, in which the interests and aspirations of rulers and ruled were irreconcilably counterposed. So it was both pointless and dangerous to look to the rulers to effect fundamental social change. The orientation, just as in the West, had to be towards the working class and its self-activity and organisation. Throughout Russia and Eastern Europe, there were dissidents - individuals and groups - who were implacably hostile to the regimes; some identified as socialists. The deepening crisis in these states, and the divisions among their ruling classes over how to deal with it, opened up greater possibilities for radicals to get a hearing. There was the real possibility of new revolutionary movements in the Eastern bloc. But because the organisations that dominated the left in the West were either still Stalinist or politically confused, they had nothing to offer leftists in the East. The orthodox Trotskyists' history of supporting these regimes, in however qualified a way, was hardly a recommendation. And the capitulation of some groups to "Gorbymania" further undermined any credibility they might have had. The importance of being clear that the so-called Communist states were in fact state capitalist was again starkly revealed in 1989. In June of that year, the Chinese Communist government crushed the pro-democracy movement. Some orthodox Trotskyists, such as the Freedom Socialist Party, supported the massacre of students and workers in Tienanmen Square. As revolt developed across Eastern Europe, most of the orthodox Trotskyists welcomed the prospect of change and were generally supportive of the opposition. But because they still thought the Stalinist states were better than the West, the collapse of these states caused immense demoralisation. Unfortunately, this has not led to any fundamental reappraisal of the flawed analysis that led them into such a political dead-end. In the absence of clear arguments for the centrality of the working class, about the need for revolution to smash the existing states, against the class collaboration that had been so disastrous for workers' movements in the West - in short, without an orientation to socialism from below rather than above - the opposition movements in Eastern Europe ended up looking to bourgeois liberals or worse rather than to the far left in the West. The opportunity to help rebuild a revolutionary Marxist movement in Eastern Europe was lost. II. http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/Why-the-Berlin-Wall-fell-twenty-years-later/articleshow/5158537.cms Why the Berlin Wall fell twenty years later 25 Oct 2009, 0256 hrs IST, Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar, TNN We are approaching the 20th anniversary of the fall of Communism. This comprehensively refuted the Communist claim to represent the people. Yet, the claim continues, sometimes dazzling a new generation of youngsters with no inkling of why the Berlin Wall fell on November 9, 1989. In democratic Capitalism, said Karl Marx, the rich became richer and the poor poorer. Marxism inspired young idealists for over a century. Lenin’s revolution in Russia in 1917 was hailed as a new dawn. Stalin’s invasions brought Communism to Eastern Europe. Communist governments there pledged to create a paradise for workers, who would be freed from exploitative Capitalists and instead work for the state, which would give them full employment and welfare. Czech author Milan Kundera says of the Communists, ‘‘They had a grandiose plan, a plan for a brand new world in which everyone would find his place: the creation of an idyll of justice for all. People have always aspired to an idyll, a garden where nightingales sing, a realm of harmony where the world does not rise up as a stranger against man, nor man against other men.’’ Problem: this supposed paradise was imposed at gun-point. Nevertheless leftists cheered, dismissing objectors as Capitalist elitists. These elitists would deservedly be decimated, but the masses would get equality and fabulous benefits in paradise. Alas, this equality was a sham: equality is not possible between those imposing the rules and those imposed upon. Eastern Europeans found that the supposed paradise was actually a cage in which they were fed and watered, but denied basic freedoms to speak, act or move. Masses of youngsters began emigrating from the Communist paradises to the supposed hell-holes of the West. Migration was easiest from East Germany to West Germany. Official migration touched 197,000 in 1950, 165,000 in 1951, 182,000 in 1952 and 331,000 in 1953. It was impossible to pretend that all these youngsters were just greedy Capitalist reactionaries. So, Communist countries closed their borders and jailed those seeking to escape. Kundera says the Communist paradise was supposed to be a place ‘‘where every man is a note in a magnificent Bach fugue; but anyone who refuses his note is a mere black dot, useless and meaningless, easily caught and squashed between the fingers like a fly. Since by (Communist) definition an idyll is one world for all, the people who wished to emigrate were implicitly denying its validity. So, instead of going abroad they were put behind bars.’’ Escape from paradise was forbidden: it might lead to the unthinkable notion that Communism was not paradise after all. The Communist dilemma was worst in Berlin city, divided between a Communist east and democratic west. Escape was easiest and most massive here. So, in 1961 the Communists built the Berlin Wall through the entire Berlin border. Unlike most security walls, this did not aim to keep outsiders out: it aimed to keep citizens caged within. Nevertheless, thousands of East Berliners sought to cross, and hundreds were gunned down. The Brezhnev Doctrine of the Soviet Union held that once a country became Communist, Soviet arms would keep it Communist. Soviet tanks crushed uprisings in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. The same doctrine took Soviet tanks into Afghanistan in 1979. But they suffered a humiliating debacle. When Gorbachev became Soviet president, he withdrew from Afghanistan, ending the Brezhnev Doctrine. In 1989, he told Communist rulers in Eastern Europe that they could no longer depend on Soviet tanks to thwart popular uprisings. Within three months, popular uprisings ousted Communist regimes right through Eastern Europe. In August 1989, Hungary dismantled border barriers with Austria. Within days, hordes of Eastern Europeans, including 13,000 East Germans, escaped into Austria. Mass demonstrations against Communist rule erupted across Eastern Europe. To soothe public anger, the Communists opened the gates of the Berlin Wall on November 9. Within days, Berliners had chipped away and broken the Wall, amidst delirious cheering. Soon after, the Communist government fell. Communists and socialists everywhere, including in India, were dismayed. They could not understand why East Germans blessed with income equality, free social welfare and full employment should flee to the highly unequal West, which bristled with unemployment and social perils. An answer came in a letter to a newspaper editor. ‘‘My daughter’s hamster (a pet white mouse) has food, water, shelter and even medical care, and a cage full of fun curly tubes. The hamster responds by constantly trying to chew his way to freedom. I think we all understand what freedom is, and it is not a gilded cage.’’ --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth?hl=en-GB -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
