Workers World on the socialist countries
This was written in response to a reader in Britain, who
asked about Workers World's position on the socialist
countries.
Dear Bertolt:
On your question as to whether Workers World
considers "the former Soviet Union, the Eastern European
countries before 1989, North Korea, Cuba, etc. as socialist
countries," the answer is yes. But let me elaborate.
Beginning with the 20th century, the relentless expansion of
the capitalist system generated imperialist wars, socialist
revolutions and national liberation struggles, as Lenin put it.
The period of transition from capitalism to socialism on a
world scale began with the Russian Revolution, but it has
lasted much longer than he and earlier Marxists expected, and
has seen grave setbacks for socialism. In this period, however,
no third social system and no new propertied class have
appeared in the world.
We broadly define as socialist those countries where the old
state of the exploiting classes was smashed and the new regimes
expropriated the means of production and established some form
of planned economy. Freed of the profit motive, economic
development could be reorganized to satisfy basic human needs.
This generally came about through the revolutionary
intervention of the masses (USSR, China, Cuba, Vietnam, Korea
and others). However, in most of Eastern Europe, the
destruction of the old state structures came not through mass
revolution but through military defeat of the bourgeois fascist
regimes by the Soviet Red Army at the end of World War II.
There have been other very significant revolutions that we
do not characterize as socialist. They have remained within the
framework of capitalist property relations but have achieved
much greater independence from imperialist control--the
bourgeois nationalist revolutions in Iraq and Libya, for
example.
Those who argue that the growth of bureaucracy and political
repression in the USSR represented a new form of class society
cannot explain why it collapsed. The answer is that the
bureaucracy was not a new class but a privileged grouping with
a dual character. On the one hand, it was a drag on the
struggling new socialist system, but on the other it organized
the economy at a time of many remarkable gains for the workers
and peasants. Because of its planned economy, the Soviet Union
was able to grow from a semi-literate, semi-feudal society to
an industrial space-age power in just two generations, and
despite suffering immense destruction in World War II. But it
could not sustain its socialist development against the
hostility of the entire bourgeois world, fascist and
"democratic" alike.
The governing group before Yeltsin had no special property
rights in the Soviet system--that is, it was in no way a ruling
class in the Marxist sense of the word. But it did have
privileges, both legal and illegal, that separated it from the
masses and whet the appetite of many in its ranks for ownership
of the means of production they managed. The imperialists
alternately threatened the Soviet leaders with nuclear
extinction and tried to seduce them with grandiose promises.
Once the workers' state was dismantled, many members of this
stratum of Soviet society found it easy to make the transition
to capitalism. But it was only then that they were able to take
possession of the country's wealth, and even then it was often
through trickery and gangster tactics.
They had been members of a grouping that enjoyed privileges
within the workers' state. Some then made the transition to
being members of a capitalist owning class that has usurped the
workers and reintroduced the most vicious forms of
exploitation.
The pulling down of the Soviet state and the looting of what
had been socially-owned property--much of it done by the same
imperialists who had been totally concentrated on its
destruction--has brought a world of woes to the workers there
and the revival of the most bitter national antagonisms,
pulling apart the union itself. All the social indices prove
what a devastating development this has been.
It has also created great hardships for oppressed,
underdeveloped countries trying to progress economically that
had greatly benefited from the existence of a socialist bloc,
which helped them acquire technology and hold the imperialist
robbers at bay.
We feel totally vindicated in having been staunch supporters
of the USSR against imperialist intervention and internal
reaction, even as we warned again and again of the growth of
bourgeois elements within, and differed with the policies of
the leadership on many world questions. If you look at our web
site--www.workers.org --you will find a very comprehensive
analysis of the USSR by the founder of Workers World Party, Sam
Marcy.
In his book "Perestroika: A Marxist Critique," for example,
Marcy wrote:
"From the point of view of administration, the Soviet state
is in the hands of a vast bureaucracy. But the ownership of the
means of production, meaning the bulk of the wealth of the
country including its natural resources, is legally and
unambiguously in the hands of the people--the working class,
who make up the overwhelming majority of the population. Those
in the governing group are merely the administrators of the
state and state property. ... The ownership of the means of
production in the hands of the working class is truly the most
significant sociological factor in the appraisal of the USSR as
a workers' state, or socialist state as it is called in
deference to the aspirations of the people."
That was written in late 1989, before the breakup of the
Soviet state led to the widespread selling off of the people's
wealth.
Each socialist revolution has been shaped--and, in that
sense, limited--by the material and social conditions it has
inherited from the past and by whether it has any allies to
turn to or is isolated in a sea of hostile capitalist states.
Whatever subjective failings one can point to flow from these
hard facts.
The fall of the USSR has had a profound effect on
working-class movements and national liberation struggles
around the world. It has especially emboldened the U.S.
monopoly capitalists, who now openly flaunt their imperial
ambitions. But it has in no way negated the class struggle.
That is on the rise again, driven forward by the insatiable
need of the capitalists to extract greater surplus value from
the workers, especially as technology advances and competition
for markets becomes more vicious.
We are confident that the worldwide struggle for socialism
must revive, not only in oppressed countries but especially in
the imperialist centers. What the oppressed all over the world
need in order to shake off their chains are strong
working-class movements that can challenge the imperialists at
home--right in the belly of the beast, as our Cuban comrades
say. It will happen. The spread of capitalist
globalization--capital moving to where wages are lowest and
destroying local economies, forcing workers and peasants from
around the Third World to seek jobs in the imperialist
countries--makes international class solidarity and struggle
all the more needed by workers of all nationalities.
Let's fight for socialism as we want it to be, and as it can
be when imperialism is defeated, while valuing and learning
from the great sacrifices and struggles that have been taking
place all over the world.
Deirdre Griswold
Editor, Workers World newspaper
Reprinted from the Nov. 6, 2003, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
Subscribe wwnews-subscribe@workersworld.net
Support independent news http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php)
HOME
:: U.S. NEWS ::
WORLD NEWS ::
EDITORIALS ::
SUBSCRIBE ::
DONATE
Email
this article
Printable
page