What is the nature of the present period? It can't be analyzed on the basis of the current political situation. That is altogether inadequate.We have to look at the broader world economic situation in order to not only understand this period but be able to put into effect an appropriate political program.
There is always a great temptation for Marxists to paint the current situation in terms of imminent economic or political collapse. But that is a poor guide for a mature political party whose members seriously regard the party's prognosis as a guide to action. The party's political conclusions are derived from its economic analysis. This takes priority in considering not only broad political initiatives but more immediate, local ones.
By any standards, the current political situation is very much akin to the period after World War I in this country--although not in Europe, Latin America or Asia.
The war had brought about relative capitalist stability, and the working class was not in revolutionary motion. This aided the capitalist class in planning its economic programs, which assumed the stability of relations between capital and labor.
Indeed, the period following World War I was one of stable relations between capital and labor, between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Economic development in the U.S. got a tremendous lift from post-war reconstruction in Europe.
Bourgeois economists attributed the significant economic upturn to the genius of U.S. industrialists, reserving particularly florid praise for Henry Ford and the development of the auto industry.
In those days, isolationist sentiment was strong in this country. U.S. military preparations following World War I were minuscule by comparison to today's. No one counted on military expenditures to create a wave of capitalist prosperity. On the contrary, all the capitalist powers were demilitarizing.
The Europeans, too, were concentrating on economic development, although Germany was in dire straits because of the huge war reparations it was forced to pay by the Versailles Treaty.
The boom period of economic growth in the U.S. lasted from about 1921 to 1929 and created widespread illusions about the capitalist system. At that time, the politics of the American Federation of Labor were exclusively focused on "punishing our enemies and rewarding our friends." This meant supporting this or that senator or representative chosen by the Republicans or Democrats. There was not even a show of independence from this policy.
It took a virtual collapse of the capitalist system, triggered by the stock market crash of 1929, to wash away this wholly negative and ineffective policy.
Communist International split over economic assessment
The Communist International, composed of revolutionary workers' parties from many countries, had been formed in 1919 after the Russian Revolution. It met several times during this period but was split over an assessment of the world economic situation.
The more right-wing forces within the Communist movement, headed by Nikolai Bukharin, saw a prolonged period of capitalist upturn. The rest of the Communists held that capitalism was very fragile and wouldn't last very long. The period of stability would be followed by a big crisis.
Of course, Bukharin didn't rule out the possibility of a capitalist economic crisis. But he pointed out what was happening then, in the early 1920s. He forecast a protracted period of capitalist stability. This prognosis couldn't be correctly assessed within the International because of the political differences.
In the U.S. Communist Party, Bukharin's view was most prominently supported by Jay Lovestone, at that time general secretary of the CP. William Z. Foster, who would later replace Lovestone as head of the party, was with the left wing.
U.S. aggressiveness
The current economic situation is characterized by the aggressive struggle of the U.S. for world markets, in which it has cast Japan as the principal rival. Japan, in responding to the U.S., is not going out of its way to build its military forces.
Nothing points up the aggressiveness of the U.S., however, as much as its plans to build 30 Seawolf attack submarines at an initial cost of $60 billion. This is an imperialist adventure of almost unprecedented belligerence in so-called peacetime.
Such an astonishing expenditure on military craft in peacetime should have aroused a great deal of public opposition. But it would be naive to believe that such a measure could evoke significant public protest at this time.
What overshadows the cost of the project and its political danger is that such a huge undertaking is expected to enhance the economic situation and bring thousands of new workers into industry.
Like the period after World War I, the current era has also been one of capitalist expansion and relative stability in class relations, even though the standard of living of the workers in the U.S. has been dropping for some time.
In the early days of the bourgeoisie, economic dependence on militarism was viewed ominously. Where would it lead?
But for many years now, militarism has been a major and necessary ingredient in capitalist expansion. They cannot disengage from it without causing havoc to the system. And despite all the talk of conversion to a peacetime economy with the end of the Cold War, Pentagon spending remains the biggest item in the budget. The decline of the U.S. social order is seen by the fact that it has to have militarism to bolster economic growth.
However, militarism is no longer the effective stimulant to the economy it once was. Like an addictive drug whose potency dwindles with use, it takes larger and larger outlays to produce the same effect.
Where is competition leading?
It is close to 150 years since Commodore Perry sailed into Tokyo Bay and "opened up" Japan. Since then both the U.S. and Japan have grown to giant size, accumulating massive contradictions of an economic character that lead them into collision. If, in the pre-monopoly stage of capitalism, there were not sufficient progressive forces capable of steering the economy into cooperative rather than competitive channels, how is it possible a century and a half later?
Can it be said today that the prospects for peaceful cooperation or even peaceful competition can overtake the regressive forces of capitalist monopoly that lead not only to monopolist competition among the imperialist powers but to war itself?
It is in this light that we have to examine the U.S. plans to build attack submarines, B-2 bombers, Comanche helicopters, new aircraft carriers, and all the other extravagantly expensive military hardware that is already in the pipeline. How is it possible to talk about a transition to a peaceful world social order when this is the reality?
When Commodore Perry sailed into Japanese waters, the forces within the U.S. for peaceful coexistence among nations were far stronger and the economic basis for imperialist expansion was relatively small by comparison with today.
How then can we talk of a peaceful transition to a stable capitalist system? Isn't it more appropriate to talk of the revolutionary reconstruction of society in order to avoid situations that lead inevitably to imperialist conflagration?