(Militant International Review, No. 15, Autumn 1978, p. 23-32)
By Peter Taaffe
In the past year the British Communist Party has received unprecedented attention from the mass media. The polemics with the dissident Stalinist wing and its eventual splitting away to form the „New Communist Party“ was extensively reported. This has been followed by the recent three separate one-hour TV programmes on the CP’s National Congress.
The CP leadership hopes that this publicity together with its refurbished image of a „democratic and open party“ and the issuing of a new version of its programme „The British Road to Socialism“ will arrest its decline and put it on the road to recovery and to become a mass party.
This decline is well documented in the publications of the CP itself. Thus in Comment (its fortnightly review) the National Executive Committee reported: „Between the 34th and 35th Congresses our membership fell from 28,519 to 25,293. We have to date issued only 21,145 members with their 1978 cards and the position of the YCL is even more serious with only 1,042 cards issued“ (27/5/78), In other words the membership of the party has dropped by 25%! Yet this is only half the picture. At the CP Congress it was admitted by the leadership that only 56% of the members paid dues. The „New CP“ has further claimed that at least 10,000 of the claimed membership exist only on paper. The alarm of the rank and file is evident in the letters column of Comment: „The harsh reality is that we are suffering from a loss of 7,000 members in 4 years, almost the same as at the time of the Hungarian events“ (24/6/78).
The same collapse is shown also by the drop in sales of their daily the Morning Star (with a claimed daily home readership of 21,000) and the dismal showing of the Party in local and parliamentary elections. In some local government elections the vote for its candidates ranged from 10% to a derisory 0.5% of the poll. More ignominious was the fact that 23 some candidates were beaten by the tiny sect of the International Marxist Group: „Socialist Unity got more votes than the party in five out of the seven known contests, and the ecology movement got more votes in three out of the five contests“ Comment (8/7/78). Added to this is the recent defection of leading lights like Jimmy Reid together with a whole number of key industrial figures.
And yet this decline has taken place at a time when a genuine revolutionary party or tendency should be growing by leaps and bounds. The crisis of British and world capitalism has in turn resulted in a crisis of reformism within the mass organisations of the working class. The Labour right wing has presided over massive cuts in the living standards of the working class. The Tribune Left has not counterposed to them a clear alternative. Like the King in Hans Christian Anderson’s story, they have lost their clothes – they are reformists without reforms. It is only necessary to compare the Labour Government of 1945, which was enabled to carry through extensive reforms (due to the world economic upswing), with the present right wing Labour Government with its counter reforms to see how naked and vulnerable before the advanced workers is the present right wing Labour leadership. Under the hammer blows of the last 4 years hundreds of thousands of workers have looked for an alternative to the ideas and programme of the right wing. Many of these are groping for a Marxist programme which accounts for the growth in the support and the influence of the Militant.
Why have these workers not found in the Communist Party the alternative for which they are seeking? The leadership have attempted to explain this in terms of the present mood of the working class, bad organisation, hostile mass media etc. In reality the CP is still enmeshed in its Stalinist past, from which it has not completely broken or drawn a balance sheet of. At the same time it does not offer a clear alternative revolutionary perspective and programme to other political trends with in the labour movement.
Fifty years ago Leon Trotsky brilliantly predicted that the adoption of the Stalinist theory of „Socialism in One Country“ would lead to the patriotic and reformist degeneration of the Communist parties which made up the „Communist International‘. He forecast that they would go from agencies and „border guards“ of the Russian bureaucracy into partial reformist agencies of their own ruling class. In the event of a war between Russia and the capitalist West he expected that the Communist parties would be found on the side of their own ruling class and against the Russian deformed workers‘ state. Yet events seemed to confound Trotsky’s prediction. In the Second World War the leadership of the CPs remained as pliable tools of Moscow obediently responding to every change in „line“.
Stalinist past
But the break-up of the Stalinist. monolith, the convulsions within the CPs caused by the Hungarian revolution and the Czechoslovak intervention, together with reformist decay of the leadership, has resulted in the complete working out and confirmation of Trotsky’s prognosis. The French CP proudly paint themselves in the „colours of France“. The Italian Communist Party now loyally subscribes to NATO while the French CP have become noisy champions of the French „independent nuclear deterrent“. In the event of a war between Russia and the capitalist West – which is completely ruled out in the foreseeable future – the CPs would undoubtedly be found on the side of their own ruling class like the Social Democratic leaders in the First World War.
The nationalist degeneration of both the „Communist“ parties in power and those seeking power is reflected in the Morning Star itself. It has, for instance, recently reported on the armed conflict between „Socialist‘ Vietnam and „socialist“ Cambodia and the virtual rupture of the former with „Socialist China“ which has brought in its train the exodus of 160,000 Chinese from Vietnam. The Chinese Stalinists have in turn reacted in the same hooligan fashion towards the Vietnamese as their Russian counterparts behaved towards them earlier by cutting off aid and withdrawing technicians etc. from Vietnam.
The CP leadership has reacted by wringing its hands in anguish, has declaimed against „differences“ manifesting themselves in this fashion but is incapable of giving a Marxist explanation of these developments.
Something more than a mere difference of opinion must exist for armed clashes to break out between alleged „“socialist“ regimes. In reality these clashes reflect the national antagonisms of the bureaucratic elites which dominate the states in each country. The unification of the productive resources of Indo-China and China in a Socialist Federation would enormously benefit the workers and peasants of the area. But it is not capitalism which now stands in the way of achieving this – these regimes have eliminated landlordism and capitalism and have established planned economies. It is the vested national interests of the privileged stratum of officials who control the state machine, the army and police etc. which is the main barrier to achieving this.
At the same time in the capitalist world the CP leadership in their polemics with one another reflect the arguments and interests of their own ruling class. Thus the French CP has come out against the early entry of Spain into the Common Market on the grounds that it would threaten French agricultural interests. Notwithstanding their common „Eurocommunist“ pedigree with the Spanish party, this has earned them a stinging rebuke from Azarcata, spokesman for the Spanish CP. All of this was reported in the Morning Star without comment! This is not accidental. The British Communist Party has shown the same nationalist, not to say jingoist, tendency in its approach towards the Common Market. Its championing of „British interests“ has led it in the past into an alliance with the chauvinist wing of the Tory Party.
Yet the very existence of the Common Market reflects the impasse of capitalism. From its first days the Communist International, under the leadership of Lenin and Trotsky, stressed that the productive forces, i.e. science, technique and the organisation of labour, needed to be liberated not only from the straitjacket of private ownership but from the national state also. The Common Market is itself an attempt to overcome the contradiction between the colossal growth of the productive forces on the one side and the narrow limits of the nation state on the other. Because of the national interests and insoluble antagonisms between the capitalists they are incapable of unifying Europe.
At best they were able to come together in a limited customs union but with the onset of the world economic crisis it has been increasingly each man for himself. The limited goal of „monetary union“ recently re-affirmed by Schmidt and Giscard d’Estaing is a chimera which will be dissipated by the first serious monetary crisis. Only the working class is capable of unifying the productive forces and the peoples of Europe. This was the theme underlying the Russian Revolution which was saturated with the perspective of the international revolution. Lenin, Trotsky and the Bolsheviks saw the Russian Revolution as the prologue of the European and World Revolution.
Import controls
This approach is a million light years away from the outlook and programme of the British CP leaders. Thus the Parliamentary correspondent of the Morning Star, Martin Gostwick, during the discussion in Comment before the last Congress wrote: „We must also realise that a full hearted commitment to national advance entails our envisaging ultimately diverse roads to socialism im England, Scotland and Wales according to the different national meeds and aspirations of each country“. This earned Gostwick no rebuke or answer from the leadership which therefore presumably agreed with his arguments. Chasing after every „national“ issue the common class and internationalist interests are lost by the CP leadership. Lenin’s attitude that the Russian Revolution would perish unless it developed on the international plane is utterly foreign to them. „British Socialism“ is conceived as a virtual self-contained entity.
Take the CP’s position on import controls for instance. While some of the Tribune Left have questioned or even dropped the demand for import controls, as a result of the criticisms of the Marxists, the CP embellish their support for import controls with the most hair-raising reformist and chauvinist arguments. In outlining the CP’s case for import controls Bob Rowthorne recently wrote in Comment: „In the present day world there are objective conflicts of interests which cannot just be conjured away by an appeal to abstract internationalism. Under any kind of government, left or right, Britain must pay her way and is on occasion bound to do things against the short run interest of workers in other lands. Short of world socialism there is no way of escaping this dilemma“ (13/5/78).
The derisory reference to „world socialism“‚ shows that the author sees it only as a remote possibility. We must live in this sinful world where unfortunately dog eats dog and therefore „we“ will have to join in even if this means hurting workers in other countries. To do him justice he excludes import controls against the third world. It is „strategic controls“ of key industries which would give a breathing space to put them back on their feet which he argues for. The threat of retaliation from Britain’s capitalist rivals is discounted: „Provided these controls are applied intelligently and care is taken they do not fall too heavily on any individual country, they would be unlikely to cause large scale retaliation“. And this „practical“ programme is contrasted to the „utopian“ schemes of the „ultra-left“.
The author is precisely incapable of understanding the real world in which we live. For action of this character to have any benefit on the British economy it would need to deal with the massive imports of manufactured and semi-manufactured goods, which now account for 59% of total imports. Yet any attempt to seriously cut these imports would be bound to provoke retaliation. Already a disguised trade war is taking place between the capitalist powers with governments using subsidies of their industries to bolster them against foreign competition. The major capitalist powers are afraid that this could spiral into an all-out trade war which could have calamitous effects. They are therefore calling for these subsidies to be abolished or scaled down. Any attempt to introduce import controls would provoke retaliation.
Moreover, the capitalists in each country would use the same arguments to their own working class to justify retaliation – the need to protect jobs. The net result would be a contraction of world trade, the cancelling out of any initial advantage gained through imposing import controls with the capitalist back to square one and the working class in a worse situation. But even if in the improbable event, limited „selected“ controls were accepted by British capitalism’s rivals, this would not result in a revival of threatened industries. The greedy British bourgeoisie would in all probability use the absence of foreign competition to increase the prices of their goods which would result in inflation and consequently a cut in purchasing power which in turn would lead to redundancies in other industries.
The CP’s „practical programme“ is in fact the opposite. There is not an atom of a class or socialist approach in this demand and it is, as Bob Rowthorne tacitly admits, an attempt to pander to nationalism: „To conclude on a less nationalistic note…“ The attempt to equate import controls with „“planning“ is bogus. It is impossible to plan the resources of society on the basis of capitalism. The approach of the CP to this issue is just one aspect of its programme „The British Road to Socialism„. This document is permeated with the ideas and approach of Fabian reformism, perhaps of the „left“ variety. Moreover it is shot through with contradictions Thus in the first part of the document on page 22 we read the following criticism of reformism: „The ending of capitalism was either seen as unnecessary, or as a remote aim to be achieved by transforming it through piecemeal reforms‘. Yet later on the document, in its approach towards of a series of „Left Governments“ precisely outlines a programme of „piecemeal reform“. This is what it says about the character of this government: „It would not be a socialist government carrying out a socialist revolution, but one which, in close relationship with the mass struggle outside parliament, would begin to carry out a major democratic transformation of British society“. (Pages 44 & 45).
Peaceful change?
Thus the CP have re-vamped the Menshevik theory of „stages“ for Britain. First would come the kind of government described above but then later: „Subsequent Left Governments would almost certainly be of a different composition – with the Labour Party shifting further to the left, the Communist Party being increasingly represented in government, other progressive forces perhaps being added, and new forms: of Labour-Communist unity being formed“ (ibid). The programme of these governments is clearly circumscribed by the CP.
Thus on the one side it clearly shows the grip exercised over the economy by the monopolies – the top 100 firms control 50% of manufacturing industry and it is predicted that im the next few years they will account for 75% or more. It might be assumed then that the programme would suggest the nationalisation of these monopolies.
Yet the document says: „the key firms amongst the top firms which dominate the economy must be nationalised, while at the same time drastic controls must be instituted over the investment, production, and employment policies of those remaining in private hands (which at this stage would still be in the great majority)“ (Page 38). Why not propose the nationalisation of all the monopolies? The document answers: „Concentrating the measures on the main monopoly groups would create possibilities for dividing the capitalist class and preventing united capitalist counter-action“. (Page 40).
This is put forward as a strategy for a peaceful socialist transformation and the avoidance of Civil War. Against the ultra-lefts on the outskirts of the labour movement Militant has also argued that armed with a clear Marxist programme, such is the balance of class forces in British society, that the socialist revolution can be carried through peacefully in Britain. Yet it has to be said from the outset that the programme of the CP makes the organised resistance of the capitalists not only possible but inevitable! This programme is a guarantee of bloodshed and Civil War!
Both the experiences of the Portuguese Revolution and Chile demonstrate this. Allende and the Chilean CP attempted to apply something approximating to this „strategy“. Under the pressure of the masses Allende nationalised about 30% of the economy and the working class and the government intervened against private firms. Yet the main levers of economic power remained in the hands of the capitalists. They were able to use them to frustrate the government’s plans, to sabotage the economy, fuel the fires of inflation and whip up the resistance of the middle class.
The half-way house represented by the Popular Unity Government neither satisfied the working class or peasants completely but at the same time irritated the capitalists. Moreover it gave the ruling class time to mobilise the forces of reaction and prepare the coup. Many opportunities existed in the three years of the Allende regime for the working class to have taken power peacefully, or relatively peacefully. The last occasion was in June 1973 after the defeat of a right wing coup, with the Masses occupying the factories and the land. If the masses had been armed and the soldiers invited to arrest the reactionary officer caste the capitalists would have been powerless to prevent the socialist revolution. Allende temporised while the workers and peasants demanded action and arms to defend themselves against the counter-revolution. The inevitable bloody coup in September 1973 found the working class completely unprepared and disarmed in the face of the counter revolution.
The same attitude as in pre-September Chile now exists in Portugal. The Revolution has gone much further than in Chile with upwards of 75% of the economy nationalised. Yet because of the policies of the Portuguese CP and Socialist Party leaders reaction was able to make a come-back. This has laid the basis for the recovery of the capitalist state machine and set the scene for a mighty collision between the Portuguese working class and the reaction which is aiming to stamp out the land reforms and the nationalisation of the factories. The lack of a clear Marxist programme by the leaderships of both the main workers‘ parties has already resulted in agonies for the Portuguese working class. Reaction is preparing a „Chilean“ solution in Portugal.
Portugal
But it is not certain if it can achieve this, given the fact that the Revolution has gone much further with a section of the masses armed. Yet the prospect of Civil War could have been completely avoided if the Portuguese working class had possessed a leadership worthy of them. The CP originally had the same programme of a gradual shift towards the Left as outlined in the „British Road“. They dragged at the rear of the masses and were completely unprepared for the sharp turns of the Revolution, particularly in March 1975. Only after the masses had forced the government to nationalise the banks, insurance companies and most of industry did they opt for the „socialist revolution“. A completely peaceful socialist transformation was possible in Portugal on the basis of workers‘ and small farmers‘ democracy.
But the CP attempted to grab a monopoly of power for itself and its military supporters with the aim of establishing a regime like Cuba or Eastern Europe. This provided the reaction with the pretext to cloak itself as the guardians of „democracy“ and hiding behind the Soares leadership it has managed to re-assemble its forces for another trial of strength with the working class.
Rather than dividing the ruling class the strategy mapped out in the „British Road“ is a guarantee of a united resistance of capital to the measure of a „Left Government“. The capitalists are prepared to see the State bale out, through nationalisation, unprofitable and ruined industries. But it is an entirely different matter where profitable industries are concerned. Leon Trotsky pointed out that in 1926 the demands of the labour movement for the already ruined coal industry to be taken over by the State was itself sufficient for the ruling class to prepare for civil war and the general strike. „The appetite increases with eating‘ was the watchword of the ruling class. The nationalisation of coal could have become the springboard for the nationalisation of other, profitable, industries. In 1945 the changed relationship of forces meant that the bourgeoisie had no other choice but to accept the nationalisation of the industry – indeed they welcomed this measure, given the utter bankruptcy of the industry and allied to the lavish over-compensation that they received.
The nationalisation of one or more profitable industries by a Left Government would be the signal for all-out war by the capitalists against the Government which would eventually involve civil war and an attempt to crush the labour movement. Where the relationship of forces is unfavourable to them, gnashing their teeth they may be compelled to accept the takeover of industries and even some important reforms like the 35 hour week. But this would only be in order to buy the necessary time to overthrow the government and take back whatever concessions have been given.
„Not so” answer the sages of the CP leadership. The concept of a „broad democratic alliance” is a guarantee that the handful of monopolists can be isolated; „the broad democratic alliance needs to be not only an expression of class forces, but of other important forces in society”. To the question what „other forces“ will form the basis of the „broad democratic alliance“ the document answers:
„There is therefore an objective basis for an alliance between the working class and many in these sections of the capitalist class, against the common enemy – the big British and international capitalists. There will be big problems in building such an alliance, since the smaller employees are in a contradictory position in relation to the monopolists and the working class. They face the prospect of being squeezed out by the big firms, but are often also linked to them as suppliers, or as distributors of their products. They usually see it as in their interests to keep wages down for the sake of their profits, and the working conditions are often worse in small workplaces. On the other hand, small employers generally face problems when the living conditions of the working class fall and unemployment rises.
The labour movement needs to show them that there is no solution to their problems in lining up with big business against the workers. It must seek to win them to the side of the working class, and prevent them becoming a prey to right-wing and fascist propaganda. This means campaigning for specific measures to assist them, such as cheap credits, restrictions on monopoly price manipulation, control of rents, relief from high rates, the abolition of VAT, etc., as well as winning them for the wider democratic demands of the labour movement.“ (Pages 20-21).
Thus the correct idea of the working class drawing behind their banner sections of the petit-bourgeoisie is mixed up here with the completely ruinous and anti-Marxist concept of an alliance of the working class with „many in these sections of the capitalist class“. This is not an accidental slip by the CP leadership. The need to win the intermediate layers in society has been advanced as a justification for alliances on occasions with those parties claiming to represent these sections. This Popular Front concept has led the CP in the past to propose a bloc with some in the Tory Party and Liberal Party. This was the case in the Common Market campaign and it has been taken a step further in their campaigns on racialism, including the Anti-Nazi League. An all-class movement for „fun“ and against the „nasty Nazis” will not eradicate racialism and fascism. Only the labour movement mobilised on a socialist programme is capable of eliminating those conditions which breed racialism and fascism and can combat this poison. The labour movement does not debar anyone from participating in the struggle against fascism and racialism. All who support such a programme for replacing the society which breeds this evil are welcome to join in, including Tories and Liberals. A programme like this, linked to action, is the way Tory workers and the middle class can be won away from Thatcher and Co.
But so mis-educated are CP members on this issue that the rank and file can suggest in the readers column of Comment an alliance with alleged „liberal“ Tories such as James Prior! Is this not the conclusion which must be drawn from the above explanation of the „broad democratic alliance“? Yet if a rank and file Labour Party member were to put forward such ideas he would be howled down in most Labour Parties. On this and many other issues the CP is to the right of the average Labour Party member.
In an echo of the demands which Militant has suggested for small-businessmen the document puts forward the following demand for this section: „There would be practical measures to help small businesses, shopkeepers and farmers, in the form for example, of cheap credits, the abolition of VAT and rent controls.“ Such a programme would indeed help to win these layers over to the labour movement. Yet a Left Labour Government would be utterly incapable of implementing such a programme unless it had control of the main levers of power. This would in turn mean the nationalisation of the 200 monopolies, the banks and insurance companies and a state monopoly of foreign trade, In not linking the demands for small businessmen with the programme for taking over the commanding heights of the economy this document is utterly utopian and will be seen as such by those at whom it is aimed.
Higher wages for workers in small enterprises would be possible on the basis of a planned economy. But where economic power still remains in the hands of a few monopolies, when wage increases are granted the capitalists will attempt to cancel them out through inflation. In so doing they hope to kill two birds with one stone. They can blame the inflation on the „greedy workers“ and thus win sections of the middle class to their banner and prepare the way for the overthrow of the Government. Is this not the way that reaction was able to find a basis for itself in Chile and presently in Portugal? The real lessons of these events is a book sealed with seven seals so far as the CP leadership is concerned.
They advance a programme which purports to avoid civil war and yet its „piecemeal“‚ nature is a guarantee of the opposite. This is even tacitly admitted where the programme concedes: „The ruling class will fight against this process by every possible means … there would be the utmost resistance from the ruling class with violent campaigns in the media, hostile demonstrations, economic sabotage by big business … illegal methods, sabotage and an armed coup could also be resorted to“ (Page 4)
„Left intellectuals”
Any thinking CP worker will say to himself: Our leaders concede the possibility of civil war on the basis af this minimum and moderate programme of only taking over a few key firms. If this is so, is it not better propose the complete elimination of the power of the ruling class by taking over all the monopolies and instituting a planned economy under democratic workers management and control? This would put the issues in a completely transparent fashion before the labour movement. If implemented by a Socialist Government this approach would completely cut the ground from under the feet of the bourgeoisie. It would allow the complete satisfaction of the demands of the petit bourgeoisie and cement a real alliance with the working class and against the Tory, Liberal and Nationalist Party leaders. It would ensure the peaceful socialist transformation by completely undermining the social reserves of capitalism.
The British Road to Socialism is neither a perspective of the likely course of events in Britain in the next period nor is it a clear revolutionary programme capable of showing a way forward for the working class and the labour movement. Consequently it cannot establish the CP as the major force within the British working class. On the contrary it is a programme which in large measure is indistinguishable from the Tribune tendency within the Labour Party. Indeed Gwilym Roberts, Tribune MP, when invited to comment on the programme in the Morning Star pointedly wrote: „Many of the economic policies and those for extending workers‘ democracy are similar to the policies of the National Executive of the Labour Party. Where is the revolutionary type of Socialism one would expect from the Communist Party? It appears to have been completely lost in a document from which the Communist Party emerges as a minute, impotent version of the Labour Party“! (25/3/77)
This harsh, but undoubtedly correct, estimation of the CP spells further decline in the future. There would at least be some justification for a separate party if it had a distinct programme differentiated from all other trends within the labour movement. But the CP is merely a smaller version of the Tribune Left. And the mass of the advanced workers, being practical people, will always prefer the big Left party to a similar but smaller one.
The CP in Britain has never been more than a sizeable propaganda organisation. But in the past, basking in the aura of the October Revolution, it was a pole of attraction for an important layer of industrial militants. While it has not completely lost its industrial base it no longer attracts all the best industrial militants. Instead, its ranks have been filled out with a layer of left wing academics with the same haughty contempt for the working class and the labour movement as the sectarian grouplets on the fringe of the labour movement. These sects see themselves as the bearers of „socialist consciousness“ with which they must imbue the working class. They justify this with quotes from Lenin’s „What is to be done“, which Lenin himself subsequently repudiated. Now the „liberal“ wing of the CP emulates the sects. Thus Martin Jacques – editor of the CP theoretical magazine Marxism Today – recently wrote in the Morning Star: „Without the left intellectuals, the labour movement cannot emerge as a leading force.‘ (15/7/78)
Of course the working class needs those with specialised knowledge who are prepared to put this at the disposal of the labour movement. But before becoming „teachers“ the „left intellectuals‘, who Jaques speaks of, should first go to school in the Labour Movement and learn from the working class.
Yet those who are now coming to prominence in the leadership of the CP have emerged from the student movement which is perhaps the only field in which the CP managed to retain an important presence.
Like the sects these worthies see the working class and the Labour Movement as putty to be moulded by the „intellectuals“ who will instruct the workers in „socialist consciousness“. That vital aspect of Marxism – of learning from the working class and generalising their struggles in the form of a programme and perspective – is entirely foreign to them. This clearly emerges in their muddled criticism of „Economism“ which if it means anything is a criticism of the CP which fails to link the struggles on wages, hours, conditions etc., with the idea of the socialist transformation of society.
In reality the criticisms of alleged „Economism“‚ is a disguised attempt to turn away from the organised working class in Britain as the anchor around which all struggles must be organised. The Trade Union and Labour Movement is seen as just one of many areas of struggles to be put on the same plane as the student movement, women’s lib, gay lib etc. Along this road the CP can become a half-way house for radical and chic „intellectuals“ but will never become a serious mass working class force. On the contrary it could degenerate into an insignificant sect as the Independent Labour Party did in the past.
This process will be given a further push by the developments in the Stalinist world. The British CP has been compelled like its brother parties in the rest of the capitalist world to take up a more critical stand towards the more abhorrent features of the „socialist countries“. It has not gone as far as the Spanish CP leader Carillo who has echoed some of the criticisms made by Trotsky of Stalinism: „The October Revolution has produced a state which is evidently not a bourgeois state, but neither is it as yet the proletariat organised as the ruling class, or a genuine workers‘ democracy … the question is whether the State, which is no longer capitalist, is not an intermediate phase between the capitalist and genuine socialist state, in the same way as the absolute monarchies were an intermediate phase between feudalism and modern capitalist parliamentary democracies; a phase which, through an analysis of its characteristics and functions, would enable a mere objective and scientific explanation to be given of the Stalin phenomenon and others like it“ (Eurocommunism and the State, pages 164/5)
Stripped of its verbiage, convoluted language and avoidance of calling things by their right name, Carillo has all but admitted the Trotskyist analysis of the regimes of Russia, Eastern Europe etc. It was Trotsky who characterised these societies as transitional between capitalism and socialism. He also showed in a whole number of brilliant works that a bureaucratic elite had usurped power from the working class and established a Bonapartist (a military police dictatorship) which rested on a planned economy. Moreover, he showed that a new political revolution of the working class in these countries would be necessary in order to remove the privileged elite and move towards Socialism.
Workers‘ democracy
But there is nothing principled or „Marxist“ in Carillo’s approach. Like the reformist Left in Britain Carillo can sometimes be very radical towards events abroad but the opposite at home. By criticising the Stalinist regimes he calculates this will redound to his credit in Spain itself. He quite cynically remarked after last year’s elections that the attack of the Russian Stalinists on him and his policies would have given him many more votes if it would have been made during the campaign itself instead of shortly afterwards!
In the past the greatest asset of the Communist Parties was that they were linked, to the „land of October”. But these developments show that the identification with the Stalinist regimes is now an enormous minus for them. To maintain any credibility they must criticise the worst abuses of these regimes. But they have not broken the historical and golden threads which bind them to the Russian and East European elites. They are riven with splits and contradictions which become more glaring at each stage. Thus the Morning Star, Marxism Today, and Party spokesmen can reverently refer to these regimes as „socialist“ while the same journals detail the monstrous measures resorted to in order to silence its opponents. Is it little wonder that one writer to Comment can baldly state: „The British working class do not trust us“. So long as the Party is linked, in the eyes of the advanced workers, never mind the broad mass of the working class, to the Stalinist elite it will never become a mass party or even a big propaganda organisation.
But the British CP is still dependent on Moscow for financial support: something like 12,000 copies of the Morning Star are sold in Russia and Eastern Europe. It is therefore easy for the British ruling class to identify the CP as a supporter of totalitarianism, no matter what protestations to the contrary the CP makes. This will have been further underlined by the spectacle on TV of the General Secretary of the CP, Gordon Maclennan, being embraced by the representative of the Russian „politburo“ the gangster elite of the elite
Such a charge, despite the attempts of the media to do so, cannot be made to successfully stick against the Marxist Left of the Labour Party which has defended the planned economy but at the same time called for the replacement of the ruling stratum by workers‘ democracy. It is evident from the pages of Comment (24/6/78) that the rank and file of the CP are groping in the same direction.
Thus a recent letter put the issue starkly:
„Tim Riordan quotes part of a statement of Lenin’s on the high salaries paid at that time for the services only of top bourgeois specialists. These, he wrote in 1918, were ‚a compromise, a departure from the principles of the Paris Commune and of every proletarian power, which call for the reduction of all salaries to the level of the wages of the average worker‘. However, if they worked right, he said, the Soviet would be able ‚in the course of one year‘ to ‚rid ourselves of this evil legacy of capitalism‘ with its ‚corruptive influence‘. (Lenin Collected Works, Vol. 27, pages 249 – 251)
The Programme of the Russian Communist Party, drawn up under Lenin’s guidance in 1919, presented the matter in the same way, whilst stressing the Party’s ’striving to secure equal remuneration for all labour‘.
However, Lenin made no compromises on what he called ‚perhaps the most important point as far as the problem of the state is concerned‘, namely ‚the reduction of the remuneration of all servants of the state to the level of workmen’s wages‘, as Marx had urged. (Collected Works, vol.25, page 420). And all Party members, in whatever sphere they were working were limited to a similar ‚Party maximum‘ till about 1930.
Whilst claiming to be the most faithful defenders of Lenin’s heritage, the Soviet leaders practice a thoroughly revisionist course in this sphere today with the enormous privileges to which Comrade Riordan refers.
A.R. Jones
Bromley“
Lenin laid down four conditions for a healthy workers‘ state: 1) No Standing army, but the armed people. 2) All officials, managers, etc. to be elected with the right of recall. 3) All officials to receive the same wage as a skilled worker (technicians, specialists etc. to be paid no more than a maximum of four to one) 4) Power to be vested in Soviets with the regular rotation of duties („when everyone is a bureaucrat nobody is a bureaucrat‘).
As this letter demonstrates not one of these conditions exist in Russia, Eastern Europe or the other deformed workers‘ states. The „glaring inequalities between the bureaucratic elite, epitomised by Brezhnev with his different sports cars and private swimming pool in his basement, and the Russian workers is evident. To characterise these regimes as „socialist“ is to trample the very idea of socialism in the mud. To the great Marxist teachers socialism meant a society witch from the beginning stood at a higher level than the highest level yet reached by capitalism, i.e. higher than capitalist America today. This would be possible on the basis of a World Socialist Federation. Only with the highest stage of Socialism, I.e. Communism, with a society of super-abundance, would classes and all the last vestiges of capitalist society, the state, money etc. disappear. But at the beginning of socialism it would be possible to begin to dismantle the state machine. Lenin spoke of the „semi-state“ in this context.
Instead of this we have seen an unparalleled development of the instruments of repression, the state machine, in Russia, Eastern Europe etc. A monstrous bureaucratic elite bars the road towards a socialist society. Only a political revolution – which will retain the planned economy but replace the domination of this caste with workers‘ democracy – can take these societies forward. Leopold Trepper
This process of questioning and criticism of the Stalinist regimes by the CP rank and file will be given a further push by the inevitable upheavals which are coming in Eastern Europe and Russia. New „Hungaries“‚ are being prepared by the complete rotting of the Stalinist regimes in these countries. The isolated criticisms of the privileged elites which dominate these regimes by the CP leaders will not be able to end the festering discontent within the ranks of the CP. On the contrary it will stimulate the questioning mood of those workers who remain in its ranks. They cannot fail to question the appellation of „socialism“ which the CP leaders give to regimes which are monstrous caricature of socialism.
Moreover the question will inevitably be posed: what is the origin of these regimes, how did the Russian Revolution degenerate, and what is the social basis and nature of these regimes? A genuine Marxist analysis and investigation of this question would inevitably lead back to the rich treasure house of Trotsky’s writings on Stalinism. Those genuine and sincere Stalinists such as Leopold Trepper, leader of the underground „Red Orchestra“ against the Nazis in occupied Europe during the Second World War, have recognised that only Trotsky and the Trotskyists understood the process which led to Stalinism, and fought to replace it with a programme of workers‘ democracy.
The present CP leadership are incapable of adapting such a position. They are still dependent on Moscow for the necessary wherewithal to maintain their creaking apparatus and only an earthquake could completely rupture this relationship. Moreover even though it has sought to distance itself from the Moscow bureaucracy and Stalinism it has not adopted a genuine Marxist programme and perspective. On the contrary it has gone from Stalinism to a reformist position.
This has in turn encouraged the growth of the „liberal“ or right wing of the CP which the leadership was compelled to lean on against the Stalinist wing at the last Congress. Caught in this vice the CP is doomed to sterility and decline. That does not mean that it may not experience a temporary injection of support at a time of upswing in the class struggle. But any gains will be cancelled out by the upheavals in the Stalinist world and the stormy march of events in Britain itself which will be reflected within the CP. This will lead the ranks not just to question the policy but the methods of organisation and the recent much vaunted „democracy“ of the CP. Criticisms are now permitted but the right of party members to form tendencies and adopt alternative platforms – a vital part of Lenin’s Bolshevik Party – is carefully circumscribed by the leadership. This was underlined by the TV programme where the selection of resolutions for debate, the speakers etc. was carefully controlled by the leadership. As one commentator put it: „Bert Ramelson (a CP leader) ruthlessly crushed the Stalinists in the best Stalinist manner“. So the „new turn“ of the CP will not assure it the growth in numbers and influence which the leadership anticipates. On the contrary, the future holds out only further splits and the undermining of its membership. Yet opportunities for the growth in the support and influence of Marxism will open up in Britain in the next period. But with its present policies and methods these cannot be seized by the CP. The crisis of reformism within the Labour Party and Trade Unions will result in the further adherence of growing numbers of workers to the Marxist Left within the Labour Party. This in turn will prepare the way for the best elements of the CP to travel in the direction of the Marxist Left of the Labour Party.
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