SV: M-TH: Re: German crash landing..
Hinrich wrote... > > It's *because of* the hostile takeover of the GDR and it's *because of* the > huge investments in buildings accompanied by high property speculation and > speculation in dwellings and office buildings. Holzmann AG - second biggest > German construction concern - went bust with 30.000 jobs. Another 40.000 > jobs at enterprises dependent on Holzmann AG are hardly to be saved. Thanks H. Sounds like Sweden ten years ago went *speculation* led to the banks almost collapsing and a huge bailout by the state. Whats "Rhenish Capitalism"? And is this buyout connected to the recent letter the AFL-CIO bureaucracy sent out about its pension fund involvement in this stuff? And finally Germany certainly will still be a key to what ever happens in Europe. Bob --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Re: M-TH: Re: Meszaros article
I do not have the time to say too much, but would like to say that I also found Meszaros' article a really good read, and would like people to take up the challenge to articulate a clear vision and strategy for socialism unemcumbered with the baggage of our political past >I am copying my response to the Meszaros article on the Socialist Register >list. > >--Jim Lawler > > >I have just read Istvan Meszaros' very thoughtful piece on communism. I >agree with him that we are headed downhill, spiraling into catastrophe. > >What does that mean? It means great economic disruption and generally >chaotic conditions. The question will become, what to do about the chaos? > >There will be two possibilities: an end to democracy, with military rule by >the very people who are responsible for the catastrophe, or a radically >different kind of society -- a free society in which the great potentials of >modern science and technology are made use of in an earth-friendly way so as >to allow human beings the freedom to express themselves freely. > >Because of the turmoil that Meszaros predicts, people will be looking >for alternatives that make sense. The society that he describes can be >presented as amazingly sensible, while the alternative -- the world we are >living in now, with the addition effective dictatorship -- as insane. > >What we need to do now is to formulate the vision that Meszaros describes in >simple, attractive and concrete images, so that ordinary people can picture >the alternative. The communist alternative is really very simple. If enough >people see that soon enough, the "barbarism" side of the alternative will be >rejected. > >Has anyone tried to do this? > >--Best wishes, > >Jim Lawler > >___ >Dr. James Lawler >Philosophy Department >SUNY at Buffalo >Buffalo, NY >USA 14260 >Base e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > forwards to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Work phone: 716-645-2444 x770 >Work fax: 716-645-6139 >Home phone: 905-687-6651 > >___ >Dr. James Lawler >Philosophy Department >SUNY at Buffalo >Buffalo, NY >USA 14260 >Base e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > forwards to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Work phone: 716-645-2444 x770 >Work fax: 716-645-6139 >Home phone: 905-687-6651 > > > > --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
M-TH: Meszaros article: "Communism Is No Utopia"
The following article, by Istvan Meszaros, is copied from the Socialist Register listserve. The title as stated in that list is, "Communism Is No Utopia." Best wishes, Jim Lawler ** Is Communism a utopia? The answer to the question depends on what we mean by communism and what we mean by utopia. My own attitude is that it is not a utopia. Communism concerns control. It envisages a different way of controlling our social interchanges, our relationship to nature. The moment I speak of control, the question arises: what sort of control? In the past it was assumed that political control would do the trick. Now we know from bitter experience that it did not, that it could not succeed. If you look around the world today, most of the former communist parties have abandoned the name 'communist'. The original CPGB now calls itself the 'Democratic Left'. God knows how long that will stay. And if you think of one of the most important communist parties of the past, the Italian CP, it has disintegrated. It has become reduced to something meaningless, a government party. The prime minister of Italy today is a former communist, but he would run away from any suggestion that he might have anything to do with communism. That is the reality of what happened in the last 10 years. If we look at the former Soviet Union and the east European countries, there has been a complete change, a complete abandonment of all principles. The former communist leaders of eastern Europe have turned themselves into capitalists, who parasitically profit from former state property, transferring it to themselves or their offspring. It is quite scandalous, but this is what happened. The problem goes deeper when we think of how Stalin defined communism. For him, communism meant overtaking the United States in coal, pig iron and steel production. How seriously can you take any notion of 'communism' which defines the idea in such totally vacuous and utterly fetishistic terms. You can double the United States pig iron production, and you have not moved one inch in the direction of communism. This shows the difficulty. Even if you have a political organisation which calls itself communist, as the former Soviet Communist Party and others did, that does not give you any guarantee that its ideas can be taken seriously. On the other side - the utopia side - you have serious problems. In one sense I sympathise with the people who say we definitely have to accept that utopia has value. That under the present miserable conditions, we have to envisage a social transformation which shows something beyond it. And if they call us utopian for that reason, so be it. We accept it. One of those who took this position was Marcuse. Some of his writings on the subject are brilliant. But what happened later? Poor Marcuse realised that the kind of strategy he envisaged, and his way of talking about the agency of social transformation which could take us to this idealised state of utopia, were identified with students and outsiders in general. His theorem turned out to be very utopian in another sense - he became an extreme pessimist. Towards the end of his life, in his last works, such as *The aesthetic dimension*, he embraced a totally pessimistic view of the world, saying that it was not made for man, that it had not become more human, that there are only islands of good in the sea of evil, to which one can escape for only short moments of time. In the Marxist tradition, from the beginning, utopia was questioned and criticised. The most sustained work was Engels's long essay on the development of socialism from utopia to science. Engels stressed that the utopian conception of socialism - found in Owen and the French socialists - envisaged a way of establishing a new social order which would be the product of enlightened, far-sighted people capable of persuading others that such a society was good and worth striving for. It was a sort of moral appeal, a set of ideas that would produce a great change in society. Marx asked the question, who is going to educate the educators, what are the circumstances under which the conditions become favourable for this kind of enormous leap from the existing social framework? There are those who would throw out the baby with the bathwater. If you think of more recent approaches, this idea - from utopia to science - was carried to the extreme by those who dismissed any element of social value. Moral values became labelled as negative and unscientific. A false opposition was made between science and values. Yet there is no way of avoiding the realisation that when we talk about a different kind of society - communist society - that involves values. The realm of freedom is not something that simply falls out of the sky and hits us, and then everything is all right. It is a very complex social transformation, and at the same time involves a certain conception of humanity and its conditions of existence. Take
M-TH: Re: Meszaros article
I am copying my response to the Meszaros article on the Socialist Register list. --Jim Lawler I have just read Istvan Meszaros' very thoughtful piece on communism. I agree with him that we are headed downhill, spiraling into catastrophe. What does that mean? It means great economic disruption and generally chaotic conditions. The question will become, what to do about the chaos? There will be two possibilities: an end to democracy, with military rule by the very people who are responsible for the catastrophe, or a radically different kind of society -- a free society in which the great potentials of modern science and technology are made use of in an earth-friendly way so as to allow human beings the freedom to express themselves freely. Because of the turmoil that Meszaros predicts, people will be looking for alternatives that make sense. The society that he describes can be presented as amazingly sensible, while the alternative -- the world we are living in now, with the addition effective dictatorship -- as insane. What we need to do now is to formulate the vision that Meszaros describes in simple, attractive and concrete images, so that ordinary people can picture the alternative. The communist alternative is really very simple. If enough people see that soon enough, the "barbarism" side of the alternative will be rejected. Has anyone tried to do this? --Best wishes, Jim Lawler ___ Dr. James Lawler Philosophy Department SUNY at Buffalo Buffalo, NY USA 14260 Base e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] forwards to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Work phone: 716-645-2444 x770 Work fax: 716-645-6139 Home phone: 905-687-6651 ___ Dr. James Lawler Philosophy Department SUNY at Buffalo Buffalo, NY USA 14260 Base e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] forwards to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Work phone: 716-645-2444 x770 Work fax: 716-645-6139 Home phone: 905-687-6651 --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
M-TH: Re: German crash landing..
Hi Bob, you asked: >Heard on the tele tonight that one of the biggest >construction outfits in Germany is on the brink of >economic ruin. Over 50,000 jobs appear to be at >stake. Now why in Germany with reunification and >a huge building program does this kind of stuff drop >down like a bomb all of a sudden? It's *because of* the hostile takeover of the GDR and it's *because of* the huge investments in buildings accompanied by high property speculation and speculation in dwellings and office buildings. Holzmann AG - second biggest German construction concern - went bust with 30.000 jobs. Another 40.000 jobs at enterprises dependent on Holzmann AG are hardly to be saved. But what is at stake is not only this joint-stock company and the jobs of all the colleagues. Both the bankruptcy of Holzmann AG (and it's handling by the German banks) and the so-called unfriendly bid by Britain based Vodafone AirTouch to buy Mannesmann AG for DM 250.000.000.000,-- [that's more than 1.000.000.000.000,-- svenska kronor or about Euro 125.000.000.000,--] mark another turning point in the specific history of German capitalism also known as Rhenish Capitalism. Mannesmann AG is based in Duesseldorf, and as it happens to be the town where I am living I can assure you that this town and all of the Rhine and Ruhr region is in a specific mood of turmoil. Now Deutschland AG definitely entered the era of shareholder capitalism. The socialdemoratic-green government - trapped by it's "politics of globalization" - is condemned to excute this epochal change. And the labour and trade union movement is still in the defensive. Add to this - unemployment figures of more than four million (i.e. a quote of nearly 10 per cent in the western parts and nearly 20 per cent in the East o Germany) - the constant deterioration of welfare state institutions and payments - the increasing spendings for new armaments and the reorganisation of the WEU with ex-NATO-secretary Solana as its latest acquisition - the xenophobic hostility in large sections of both the population and the political class then you have the not at all boringly ordinary European normality of 1999. Not the best prospects at the eve of entering a new century of capitalism. Hinrich Kuhls Duesseldorf, Germany. --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
SV: M-TH: Washington and Moscow
Dave replies... > D > We've had this one out many times Bob. By any measure, Russia is not > imperialist. It is poor, and while not little is it getting smaller. > It is a restored former workers' state whose economy is virtually > collapsed. The methodology is Lenin and Trotsky. Imperialism > produces a surplus which it has to invest in colonies and > semi-colonies (today's client states) or loan to its rivals. > Without that, it would have to physically annex regions to get > hold of new markets, resources etc so as to create this surplus, > like Tsarist Russia did. Russia today does not fit either of those > scenarios. Is Rusia's invasion of Chechnya imperialist? Is it > about to grab new resources? No its trying to defend existing > resources established during the Soviet era. Its oppressive yes. > That's why we can't support it. But oppression by itself is not > imperialist. 20 years ago the Red Army invaded Afghanistan, and > you argued correctly that that was to defend Russia from the US > backed Mujadaheen. Now the USSR has collapsed, and the Russian > Federation itself is beginning to break up. While the invasion of > Chechnya cannot be justified, it is primarly defensive.As much as one > third of Soviet oil was supplied by Chechyna. So Russia's invasion is > not imperialist motivated but rather motivated to prevent a total > collapse of the economy. Of course the new bourgeoisie would have > long term plans to expand outside the Russian Federation, but can > they do this now? No way. Well,I don't think that the transition going the other way can be explained by claiming that Russia with its history has become a semi colony. And to say that the "economy has collapsed" must be seen in the context of that it is the planned economy that has collapsed and what is coming out of the ruins is another economy with definite class interests. And yes in Afghanistan we still had a degenerated workers state in the Soviet Union and thus the need to defend it, but to claim that the present war in Chetchenya is "defensive" I find quite mind boggling. There are quite a number of scenarios of why this war and the least viable is defensive. Some even say the bombings in Mosco were the work of thgose who needed a war to consolidate Russia. And if you claim the economy being saved by this war I certainly would like to know which economy? > > D > Which proves my point, that in Chechnya there is no advantage to the > imperialists to see the Caucuses which are part of the > Russian Federation fragment. Keeping control serves Russia's > interests as major oil pipelines pass through to the Russian > Black Sea. But this also serves the US interests, as a united > Russia is better able to pay back its massive debt. Outside the > Russian Federation, the US and EU imperialists are doing deals with > the new bourgeoisies of the former Soviet Republics. Russia is in no > position right now or in the forseeable future to compete for the > spoils in these countries. Naturally various imperialist powers are using this stuff in there own interests. But this certainly does not exclude that the Russians themselves have there own imperialist intentions. In fact one of the big side issues in this war is the message coming from the Kremlin that the west has no business telling the Russians how to deal with this stuff. The latest interesting turn was Yeltsin walking out of the recent meeting with a loud clamour. Leaving the OSSE meeting in a shambles.. > D > Yes well this is an incomplete way of posing the national question. > We agree that we are against Russian intervention. But how to be for > Chechen independence but against its Islamic bourgeoisie? Only by > putting the demand for Chechen self-determination to Russian workers > and troops. That's the only way to unite Russian and Chechen masses > against both of their bourgeoisies and to fight for a Socialist > Federation of the former Soviet Union. Well I think the central task is tell inform the Russian workers and soldiers that the main enemy is at home. > > D > What's the confusion about Russia as a capitalist semi-colony? Its > not a workers state, and its not an imperialist state. Its in a > transition which is more likely to see it collapse and fragment > further under imperialist pressure, than become an imperialist state. > Its you who are confusionist. Well tell me now that we live in a vacum. The "Russian" economy has collapsed. No the Soviet Union and its economy has collapsed and in its place there is something else. This you can not describe for me other then being some sort of semi colony. You are empirically labeling the destitution of the masses in the former Soviet Union as semi colonialoist without taking into question the entire new counter revolutionary segments of society that have taken over and are quite successful and philthy rich because of the overturn. However this is not enoug
SV: M-TH: Re: Washington and Moscow
Rob writes... > > Well, they might call it a win in the sense that NATO's silly slaughter in > Yugoslavia got carded as a win, I s'pose. There, as here, the actual > military campaign itself soon (and predictably) reached the point of > publicly apparent untenability, and an intrusion from outside was brought to > bear. There, too, negotiations were persistently ruled out until there was > one. My take is that the Germans won most. > > In the terms, as I understand them, that this slaughter was justified (eg. > to stabilise Dagestan, to rid Russia of allegedly Chechen terrorism, > possibly to protect important oil sources, and mebbe to nip Muslem > seccessionism in the bud), this adventure is a joke, for mine. I predicted > intensified instability, impoverishment and blood'n'guts in Yugoslavia in > April, and I'm predicting it for Russia, Chechnya and Dagestan now. What did ya do turn on the tele or look in your cristalball to predict this? >I also > predict that, as we have a healthy Serbian military still in place in > Belgrade, we shall have a healthy Chechen guerilla force in Chechnya a year > from now (of course, both Serbia and Chechnya have been ruined in the > process, but that's not what we're talking about). I also suspect (mebbe > 'know' is a better word) that there is no tenable exit strategy available to > Moscow other than some sorta external intervention. If they're seen to > flatten Grosny, wave a few bearded heads on pikes about, and then leave > again - all at their own behest - they're gonna look foolish to the point of > political untenability, I reckon. A shattered treasury, a few hundred dead > Russian boys, and not one initially promulgated objective assured. The point about the Serbs well taken. However on Chetchenyen I think the whole point is hardly wether there is a guerilla there now or next year but what happens in Russia. And maybe in western eyes this all looks "foolish" but hardly amongst the Russian masses which the present regime has successfuly galvanized over this stuff which might be the whole point of the war... Bob --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
SV: M-TH: IT stocks?
> G'day Bob, > > Doug's probably fast asleep just now, so here's an interesting piece he > posted on his list the other day. I'd be interested in Thaxist views on > this meself. > > Cheers, > Rob. Well this stuff seems to confirm what the economists are putting out very politely these days as a warning. I think the key in all these things are a couple of things. How much institution speculation is involved and when the bubble bursts what will it drag with it. The institutions (pension funds, trade union funds, insurance funds etc.) seem to have a policy of "basket investment" laws which say not more then a certain amount of capital can go into one basket. But with the blow outs in Asia and now the coming blow out in IT stuff could put a pretty big dent in these institutions causing some big crashes. The other question is if the Fed can garantee this stuff? When the over inflated swedish economy busted it took the destruction of the welfare state to bail out the banks. Bob --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
SV: M-TH: Re: Washington and Moscow
Rob writes.. > G'day Thaxists, > > I don't think it matters whether trying to hang on to the prizes of past > expansionism constitutes an act of imperialism today or not, really. I > reckon we might be missing the point of all this! Um which prizes? And I think the point is the permanent revolution albut directed at a situation which we have never been confronted with before. > > I don't reckon Russia can win this war, and I don't reckon it could ever > have thought it could. Sure, it's always handy to tell other seccessionists > in other areas that there'll be a ghastly price to pay for trying it on (or > support others, as some Chechens did the Dagestanis); and sure, war's a > great way to get the elite's outrageous corruption off the front pages; and > sure, war is good for cohering a grumbling populace, across class lines, > behind the banner in volatile times. But what a war of this sort is not, is > a good idea in its own terms. After all, oil sourcing will be as fraught > after this as it was before, and the chances of further terrorist acts > shan't be diminished one iota either. I think the whole war not seen in international perspective coming out of the destruction of the SU and where we are heading is pointless. Interestingly enough the right wing on the internet points out that it is hardly the middle east or Ireland today which is the crucible but has shifted to the Balkans and the Southern belly of the ex SU..This war like the Balkans is the beginning of jockeying before the next big one. So completely pointless to argue who wins or loses. Although the Islamic revival connected to the middle east certainly is a factor in this. > > I'm sure some brave mujihadeen types are digging in at Grosny for the last > big show, but I'm equally sure the balance of the Chechen guerilla force is > a long way away. That's the nature of the guerilla, innit? Not to get > caught in decisive pitched battles against overwhelming forces? When the > masonry stops smoking and the bodies stop rotting, there'll still be a > significant guerilla presence and, if anything, it'll have a more > sympathetic milieu within which to swim around and reproduce. And Russia is > certainly in no position to garrison Chechnya with thirty or forty divisions > for the foreseeable future. Nope, western mediation was always gonna be > quietly invited in to do the dealing that would allow a 'peace-with-honour' > scenario for Moscow. I reckon they'll flatten what's left of Grosny to make > their point, and then allow themselves to be talked out of the ruins of > Chechnya. I give it three weeks, meself. The weather gets very nasty after > that, for one thing. Well Iran won't be taken in three weeks nor the entire Islamic world and revival of the modern crusades in a sense. > > So I reckon this war is very much about the now - and an issue so pressing > as to make the likely longer term price one worth paying. And thus do I get > back to my opening paragraph. Is it A, B or C? Or a combination. Or > something else altogether? Mebbe setting up a succession in Moscow? > Installing a pro-Muscovite/West puppet government so that Chechens will be > too busy with a civil war to organise against their oppressors? Moscow > joining the West in some global putsch against Islam - Chechnya but a > world-political football? Actually this raises and interesting point. Certainly the old half dead alcoholic Yeltsin's demise can lead to a whole lot of things. But my take is that capitalist Russia with its own imperialist intentions will find some sort of successor.By the way a right wing nationalist or fascist solution which even Dave argues is and option certainly must be seen as some sort of class solution. Or do you thing a fasist takeover can be implemented through imperialist intervention. This would make all the writtings on fascism stand on its head I believe. > > All very risky plays, for mine - but then mebbe the situation is so fraught > that big risks are tenable. [Even a possible post-bellum popular revulsion > against Moscow which might (just might) help foster some class solidarity > with left-inclined malcontents in Eastern Europe - I can't see any ensuing > between Russian workers and Chechens for a generation or so - anti-Chechen > racism is rife in Russia, I'm told). Well any serious worek between western workers and Russian workers sooner or later will have to take place in the trenches. But pointing out that all the reforms now under attack in the west are directly connected to the destructiuon of the SU certainly might be helpful.. > > Anyway, when was the last time demonstrably resolute guerillas with reliable > sources of munitions and moral support in the region and significant support > among the people, were decisively beaten on their own patch? Actually this point I find very very interesting. The ICL has the position that the path of guerrilla war leading to deformed workers
SV: M-TH: Washington and Moscow
Chris interestling writes. > > > On the main theoretical difference between Dave and Bob, I am alarmed to > find myself agreeing with both of them. Rather than argue however between > Russia as a developing imperialist state or as a colony, I would like to > suggest a formula I heard at a seminar on the world economy in London 8 > days ago. It was from someone from a Trotskyist background. It was that > there are such things as sub-imperialisms. The definition would be where > the entity keeps some share of surplus value for itself. Interesting take. How would you characterized countries like India,Pakistan. With Russia we are dealing with a country in transition from a degenerated workers state to what? Is the question. A quite new and extremely difficult question. > I think despite our many other differences all of us can see that the West > has been particularly soft on Yeltsin for entirely discreditable reasons. > It is essentially allowing him to play the idea of becoming a > sub-imperialism. They calculate that he will have to compromise and accept > a subordinate position within a global capitalism dominated by the US. I doubt in the long run that imperialism is united or agree on Russia. The destruction of the SU has unfortunately put us back in pre 1914 positions albut with nuclear weapons. > > BTW I note contributors denouncing the possibility of a western > "humanitarian intervention" into Chechnya. What you are not distinguishing > is between a military attack and financial pressure, of the sort that got > the Indonesian troops to withdraw from East Timor. It is quite clear that > the west could have imposed the latter, and for *imperialist* reasons > decided not to. They would rather do business with a corrupt Yeltsin/Putin > regime that oppresses subject nationalities, than a lefter Primakov type > regime. "humanitarian" intervention has nothing to do with what is going on. This is a struggle for positions before the next buig round. > > Perhaps Dave or Bob will not buy it, but what about "sub-imperialism" as a > relevant half-way concept for what Russia under Yeltsin is trying to achieve? Well to put a label on it I like the capitalist Russia with imperialist intentions. Perhaps capitalism in the accumilating stage which in a sense is as impossible as the colonial bourgeoisie being able to carry out the democratic aspects of a bourgeois revolution in the imperialist stage of development. I say that sub-imperialism, as well as a democratic capialist regime in Russia is impossible! You know this reminds me of the theory of peremanent revolution albut in a situation which in history is entirely new to us. I mean this is the first time we are confronted with capitalist counter revolutions in the degenerated and deformed workers states. Bob --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
M-TH: German crash landing..
Heard on the tele tonight that one of the biggest construction outfits in Germany is on the brink of economic ruin. Over 50,000 jobs appear to be at stake. Now why in Germany with reunification and a huge building program does this kind of stuff drop down like a bomb all of a sudden? Any Germans here who can give us the picture.. Warm Regards Bob Malecki --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
M-TH: Re: China and law of value.
Dave B's excellent summary of the workings of the Law of Value ends this way: >This discussion began with China. The point about getting the LOV >right is that it allows us to recognise that once the LOV is >suspended the potential is there to replace it with a healthy workers >plan that can escape the use/exchange value contradiction >and allocate productive resources in advance to produce use-values. >What we have seen in China is unfortunately so far not only a failure >to achieve that, but an impending full restoration of capitalism in >which the LOV returns with all its brutality as we are seeing in >Russia. This is making things a bit too easy. What happens in a proto-socialist mode of production like the Soviet Union or Red China is that Primitive Socialist Accumulation has to take place, and this is not just the straightforward replacement of a capitalist process of production and exchange by a socialist one. Since productivity, technology and the rest lag behind the world market in such workers states created out of backward societies, there are huge political and economic contradictions to be overcome. As Dave says, the *potential* is there, but it must be realized by protecting the weaker elements of the new society against the pressures of stronger imperialism. What the history of the 20th century has shown us is the paramount importance of politics, social will, in this. As long as there was sufficient social will in the workers states to protect the new property relations (in fact, as long as the enormous power of the revolutionary working class and its poor peasant allies was not completely hogtied by the bureaucracy), imperialism had to make do with indirect sabotage and warfare (this balance of forces was established in the fiasco of the imperialist attempt to crush the October Revolution by direct invasionary force). The new productive relations were quite clearly shown to be more capable of developing the forces of production than capitalist relations, even if they didn't succeed in catching up with imperialism on the world market, let alone overtaking it. They were also shown to combine this development with a huge increase in popular welfare (housing, education, health) in comparison with similar non-workers states. Once the interests of the bureaucratic caste running the show became so contradictory to the interests of the new mode of production that there was a historical choice of either abolishing the bureaucracy or abolishing the workers state, the primacy of the political level at this stage of development was once again demonstrated. Because the working class both nationally and internationally had been effectively beheaded (its mass leadership was counter-revolutionary, and if these treacherous leaderships had any ideas at all they were bourgeois or petty-bourgeois), the economic performance of the workers states was labelled weak, and this was blamed on the proto-socialist system and not on a) the political incompetence and inadequacy of the bureaucracy, or b) the economic belligerence of imperialism. As a result of the disorganization and lack of class consciousness on the part of the working masses, the bureaucracy was able to capitulate to imperialism, turn itself into a (weak, unstable, pariah) bourgeoisie and proclaim the death of socialism. What it meant was the death of Stalinism. So now we have a clear field, again, in the sense that the main historical obstacle to revolutionary socialism in our century -- Stalinism -- has collapsed. But of course there is no political vacuum, all the reactionary forces are trying to get their hands on the keys to the vault, screaming at the top of their voices and trying to cheat masses of ordinary working people into doing their fighting for them. It's just that, with Stalinism gone, our task is so much easier. All we have to do is show ordinary people that they have no real interest in the reactionary scramble for the keys to the vault, but should join with us and take over the whole caboodle. Why, finally, should the political sphere dominate today when basic Marxism contends that the economic sphere is primary? The reason is simple. Capitalism has outgrown itself. It's further economic expansion is blatantly destructive to whole continents and even to previously spared, relatively privileged working masses in the imperialist heartlands. The conditions for such expansion are in fact mass destruction and the reduction to subhuman conditions of huge numbers of human beings. During the incredibly contradictory postwar boom period, thanks to Stalinist collusion with imperialism, it was possible to make a plausible if untrue case that capitalist economic expansion (a necessary condition for its survival) actually involved general development of the productive forces of humanity. That is no longer the case, as the workers in the imperialist countries (the ones most fooled by the expansion equals development arguments) are dis
