The decomposition of capitalist society
.... The third point to be highlighted (see the resolution for the first two points) is the duration of this phenomenon of decomposition. The latter was first identified by the ICC in autumn 1986 during the terrorist attacks in Paris. This of course does not mean that the phenomenon only appeared then. In fact, it emerged throughout the 1980's.
Implicitly, the ICC had already pointed to this kind of phenomenon in the resolution on the international situation adopted at its 6th Congress in November 1985 (and which took up the analysis contained in an internal text written in October 1983). This document showed that, increasingly, the serious aggravation of political convulsions in the peripheral countries made it impossible for the great powers to rely on them to 'keep order' at the regional level, and forced them to intervene directly and militarily. This was based especially on the situation in Lebanon and Iran. Iran in particular was a relatively new kind of situation: a militarily important member of one bloc went out of control, without falling into the hands of the opposing bloc. This was not due to any weakening of the bloc as a whole, nor to any improvement in the situation of the national capital in question: quite the contrary, since these new policies led straight to economic and political disaster. From the standpoint of the interests of the national capital, there was no rationality in the evolution of the situation in Iran, since it led to the seizure of power by the clergy: a social stratum which has never been competent to manage the economic and political affairs of capitalism.
The rise of Islamic fundamentalism, and its political victory in a relatively important country, was itself one of the first signs of decomposition. This upsurge of religion in a number of third-world countries cannot be considered as a return to the golden age of religion's dominant influence on social life. The wheel of history never turns backwards. The third world countries, like certain countries of the Eastern bloc which are particularly infested with religion, are not returning to feudalism. Capitalism has long since subjected these countries to its laws - not of course through any significant development of their productive forces on a capitalist basis, but by the irreversible destruction of their 'natural' economy. In these countries, the upsurge of religious fundamentalism is a sign of the decomposition of capitalist society's ideological superstructures which should be put on the same level as the spread in the developed countries of mysticism and drug addiction.
We can thus note that the first signs of decadent capitalism's entry into its phase of decomposition appear at the end of the 70's, to reach full fruition throughout the 80's (in this sense, these years were indeed years of truth both for the bourgeoisie and for the working class, both of which began to be confronted with the final phase of the capitalist mode of production). It is important to take account of this if we are to understand both the causes and the perspectives of the upheavals that have shaken the world in the last two years. It also determines, as we will see later, a clear understanding of the dynamic of the class' struggle and development of consciousness since the beginning of the 1980's.
The collapse of the Eastern bloc
.... The historic tendency towards state capitalism, which is a precondition for understanding Stalinism, appears first, not in backward countries, but on the contrary in the most advanced. For revolutionaries during WWI (and for Lenin in particular), Germany was the typical example. Classically, the state's control over the whole economy appeared as an organic process of the national capital, affecting first and foremost the most developed sectors both of the economy and of the bourgeoisie, in particular through an increasing inter-penetration of the bourgeoisie and the state apparatus. The organic and generally gradual development of the state's control over civil society (although in some cases it was accompanied by a violent settling of accounts within the bourgeois political apparatus, as in the case of fascism) made it possible for the advanced countries to maintain the classic mechanisms of the capitalist economy, and especially the market sanction as a stimulant to company competitivity and the 'rational' exploitation of labor. It also had the merit of keeping in place most of the ruling class' economic personnel, which allowed the national capital to benefit from their experience.
The development of the Stalinist form of state capitalism is quite different, and had nothing 'organic' about it. On the contrary, it appears as a sort of historical 'accident' as a result of the revolution and counter-revolution in Russia. Inasmuch as the state which arose after the revolution in Russia also led the counter-revolution, it was obliged to take exclusive control of the national capital. As a result, it abolished the internal market mechanism, and for the most part deprived itself of the services of the one-time specialists of capitalist exploitation. The criteria for belonging to the exploiting class are no longer economic as under classical capitalism (which makes it possible to select and train competent personnel for this task of valorization), but political. Economic power is essentially determined by rank in the 'nomenklatura' - the Party-State hierarchy. Servility, cunning, and lack of scruples are the essential talents for rising in the party, but are not necessarily the most useful in running the national capital, especially since there is no internal market sanction to provoke emulation and weed out the incompetents from among those 'responsible' for the economy. The whole management personnel is completely uninterested in valorizing the national capital. This cynicism and lack of interest infects the whole productive apparatus, and especially the workers. This kind of 'management', where the main 'stimulant' for the workforce consists of police compulsion, may work in a relatively backward and self-sufficient economy; it is completely inadequate to meet the demands of the world market. The Stalinist regime owed its extreme fragility in the face of the economic crisis, as well as its brutal collapse, essentially to this 'accidental' way in which it was formed.
The reasons behind the Eastern bloc's weakness are much the same. Traditionally, imperialist blocs have been formed gradually; their component bourgeoisies have been willing to associate themselves with, or at least to rally behind, the dominant economic power, whose preeminence depended first and foremost on its economic potential. This was not at all the case with the formation of the Russian bloc. On the contrary, this too appears as a sort of historical accident. At the head of the bloc is a backward country with a low level of industrialization, less developed than many of its vassals and so totally unfitted to hold its rank. It owes this privilege solely to the peculiar circumstances at the end of WWII, when the allies 'compensated' it for opening a second front against Germany by handing over control of the countries of central Europe. It was thus only military force that rallied the bourgeoisies in these countries to the Russian bloc. And for the most part, the USSR only maintained its grip on its 'allies' by continued military force (Hungary 56, Czechoslovakia 68), even when the latter were run by Stalinist parties. The fact the bloc had to be held together in this way was an expression of its extreme weakness. And it was this weakness that was revealed in 1989.
We should therefore emphasize the gulf separating the central capitalist countries from those of the ex-Eastern bloc, in their relative ability to resist the crisis. Even if the chaos that is becoming endemic to the latter is indicative of capitalism's evolution worldwide, it would be wrong to think that the advanced countries will undergo the same kind of situation in the short term.
.... This being said, it is clear that the specific weakness of the Stalinist state and of the ex-Russian bloc does not explain everything. In particular, it does not explain why this collapse happened at the end of the 80's and not at the beginning, for example. It is here that the framework of decomposition becomes indispensable.
"The absence of any perspective (other than day-to-day stop-gap measures to prop up the economy) around which it could mobilize as a class, and at the same time the fact that the proletariat does not yet threaten its own survival, creates within the ruling class, and especially within its political apparatus, a growing tendency towards indiscipline and an attitude of 'every man for himself'. This phenomenon allows us in particular to explain the collapse of Stalinism and the entire Eastern imperialist bloc.
".... The spectacle which the USSR and its satellites are offering us today, of a complete rout within the state apparatus itself, and the ruling class' loss of control over its own political strategy is in reality only the caricature (due to the specificities of the Stalinist regimes) of a much more general phenomenon affecting the whole world ruling class, and which is specific to the phase of decomposition" ('Decomposition, Final Phase of the Decadence of Capitalism, point 9, International Review no. 62).
The collapse of the Stalinist regimes is thus one of the expressions of decomposition. In particular, it is an expression of one essential element: capitalist society's utter lack of perspective. Similarly, the present situation of the USSR itself (and of parts of Eastern Europe), disintegrating under the blows of nationalist movements, is another illustration of one major result of this absence of perspective: the tendency towards the breakup of social life, towards 'every man for himself' (...)
The new pattern of imperialist conflicts
As with the examination of the collapse of Stalinism and the eastern bloc, when we analyse the evolution of imperialist conflicts we have to take into account what derives from the general framework of decadence, and what derives more particularly from the phase of decomposition. This is obviously true for the Gulf war (...) Unlike the EFICC, for example, who identify imperialism, imperialist blocs, and state capitalism, we pointed out that while imperialism (as well as state capitalism) is a permanent and universal feature of decadence, the same isn't true for the imperialist blocs. This is why we were able to announce that the collapse of the eastern bloc would lead to the disappearance of the western bloc, while at the same time we could foresee that the end of the blocs would not at all inaugurate an era of peace.
Having said this, it is important to underline the fact that even though you don't need blocs for wars to erupt, and even though the formation of imperialist blocs isn't an automatic product of imperialism, the latter does exert a very strong pressure towards their formation. This is why we wrote in Jan 90 "the disappearance of the two imperialist constellations which emerged out of the second world war carries with it the tendency towards the formation of two new blocs" ('After the collapse of the Eastern bloc, decomposition and chaos', in IR 61). This is an important point for understanding what was at stake in the Gulf war. If we don't take it into account, we will miss the real antagonisms operating in the present period and which were lurking underneath this war.
One of the essential aims of the USA's show of force was to issue a preemptive warning against any ambition to set up a new imperialist bloc. It's obvious that the conditions for this aren't there at the moment (...) However (...) it is important right now for the worlds' first power - in reality the only superpower - to bar the way to such a perspective, to dissuade any country from pursuing it. In more concrete terms, a certain number of sectors of the bourgeoisie may have been counting, following the collapse of the Eastern bloc, on the strengthening of the 'European Community' and the setting up of an EC armed force which could eventually form the basis of a bloc led by Germany ....
The Gulf war has destroyed any hope in an eventual European bloc. If there was a particularly clear result of this conflict, which all sectors of the bourgeoisie have underlined, it was, apart from the military non-existence of Japan and Germany, the total political non-existence (not even to mention military) of Europe: there were almost as many positions on the war as there were states in Europe ... We can thus say that, at least on the level of squashing any move towards the formation of a new bloc, the USA has for the moment achieved its aims even beyond what it might have hoped for.
Understanding this function of the Gulf war as a barrier against the formation of a new bloc is essential faced with the false interpretations that have developed (...) in particular, it is important to refute the thesis, dear to the leftists, that it was a North-South conflict, a conflict between the advanced countries and the underdeveloped ones.
A conflict between advanced countries and backward ones?
.... It's true that there are common interests among the great powers to limit the spread of the chaos now present in the third world. This was in fact one of the keys to the Gulf war. The crusade for 'world order' and 'international law' was able (though with difficulties of all kinds) to gain the assent of all the permanent members of the Security Council and the financial support of Germany and Japan thanks to the pressure exerted by the USA on their former allies and their former rival.
But what was this pressure based upon? Partly on economic and financial aspects (attitudes adopted in the negotiations about the customs duties for Europe and Japan, the financial aid accorded to the USSR). But this was only the visible part of the iceberg. In reality, the USA's deal with its 'allies', notably during Baker's tour in November 1990, which allowed the US to get the Security Council to vote in favor of military intervention, involved recognizing that the US would play the role of world cop in exchange for its 'protection' and 'aid' in case of difficulties resulting from global instability. In order to make a really convincing demonstration, the US acted like any other racketeer: you break the shop window (this was the trap laid for Iraq) in order to convince the shopkeeper that he has an interest in paying for 'protection'. In the chaotic world that has emerged from the end of the 'cold war', there are plenty of opportunities for regional 'disorders' - in Africa, in Indochina, between India and Pakistan, as well as, with the break up of the Eastern bloc and of its leader, in central Asia, central Europe and the Balkans. Moreover, the proliferation of nuclear weapons (which, at the moment, as well as the five 'big' powers who are permanent members of the Security Council, are already in the hands of countries like Israel, India, Pakistan, Brazil, and will tomorrow be owned by still more) is another dangerous factor. The big advanced countries obviously have an interest in limiting this instability which threatens what remains of their spheres of influence and markets. This is why they ended up lining up behind the only power which really has the means to be the planet's policeman, as it showed precisely through the Gulf war.
But the 'world order' proposed by this policeman is not entirely convenient to other countries because it is designed to suit its interests to the detriment of other imperialist interests. In the chaos now opening up, the world's most powerful bourgeoisie has to play this role because it has most to lose from this chaos and it alone has the means to do anything about it. And this is what it has done. But the way it has done it, the spectacular and brutal nature of its action, also signals that it will not tolerate any 'disorders' (ie encroachments on its own interests) by the advanced countries any more than by countries like Iraq. This is why, contrary to most of the 'allies' who preferred to rely on economic and political pressure, the American bourgeoisie had no option but to destroy the essential military and economic potential of the 'wrongdoer' (an option which these other countries were trying to sabotage up to the last moment)[1]. With the classic method of gangsters, the boss of the bosses rubbed out a second rate hood in order to win the allegiance of the other bosses. And for the lesson to be well understood, for the demonstration to have a weight well beyond the sort of thing it did in Panama for example, the USA couldn't just use any old scapegoat. It required the 'enemy' to have a certain credibility, to be powerfully armed in order to justify the enormous deployment of US military power: spy satellites, AWACS, 6 aircraft carriers, huge guns firing 1200kg shells, cruise missiles and Patriots, 7 ton bombs, fuel air bombs, Abrams tanks, etc, all of this serviced by 600,000 soldiers. It was also necessary that the intervention involved a part of the world which has a real strategic importance: with Operation Desert Storm, the USA has demonstrated to the countries of Europe and to Japan, which are more dependent on Middle East oil, that supplies of this raw material so vital to their military and economic power are dependent on American good will.
In fact, the thesis of a 'holy alliance' of the advanced countries against the instability and chaos reigning in the third world is close to an extremely dangerous theory that has long been fought by revolutionaries: the theory of super-imperialism. It is based on the hypothesis that the great powers can overcome, or at least contain, their imperialist antagonisms in order to establish a sort of 'condominium' over the world. This is a thesis which has been refuted by the whole history of imperialism and which certainly won't become correct in the phase of decomposition. In reality, since the existence of capitalism and particularly since the system established its domination over the whole world, all the major phenomena of its way of life didn't start in the periphery and then affect the center, but on the contrary first appeared in the central countries. This is particularly true with all the major features of decadence such as imperialism, militarism and state capitalism, whose first major manifestations affected the advanced countries of old Europe before extending to the rest of the world where they often took on a caricatured form. It's the same for the open crisis of the capitalist economy, notably the one that began to develop in the mid 60s, even if the most disastrous effects were for a while pushed onto the countries of the periphery. In fact, like all societies in history, capitalism does not collapse from its periphery but from its center. And decomposition is no exception to this; it's a phenomenon that we first identified in the advanced countries even if has taken on the most caricatured forms in the third world.
Imperialist conflicts in the phase of decomposition
As for imperialist antagonisms, a typical manifestation of capitalist decadence that can only be exacerbated by decomposition, they don't escape the rule. It is first of all and fundamentally the central countries which are going to unleash them, even if they will find in the instability and chaos of the peripheral countries a particularly suitable terrain for expressing these antagonisms (especially since they can't directly involve wars between the advanced countries given that the proletariat is not defeated). To give any credit to the thesis of a 'North-South ' conflict or to one of its variants is in the end to conclude that capitalism can overcome its fundamental contradictions. This means falling into a reformist view ....
Thus, as we saw with the collapse of the eastern bloc, we have to understand the imperialist conflicts of today in the framework of decadence before we can examine the particularities of the phase of decomposition. These particularities are not foreign to decadence; it is their exacerbation and accumulation on an ever wider scale which introduces a new quality into the life of capitalism today, and it is here that we find the differences between the phase of decomposition and the preceding phases of decadence.
The Gulf war clearly illustrates this reality. In particular it is a striking confirmation of the profoundly irrational character of war in the period of decadence ....
This economic irrationality of war is not a recent 'discovery' by the ICC. In particular, it was dealt with at length in IRs 52 and 53: 'War, Militarism, and Imperialist blocs'). In fact, it isn't even a discovery of the ICC because more than 45 years ago the Gauche Communiste de France could write: "the decadence of capitalist society is strikingly expressed by the fact that whereas wars were once a factor for economic development (ascendant period), today, in the decadent period, economic activity is geared essentially towards war. This does not mean that war has become the goal of capitalist production, which remains the production of surplus value; it means that war, taking on a permanent character, has become decadent capitalism's way of life." (see International Review no. 59)
In this sense, it is necessary to reject any conception that looks for directly economic causes behind the Gulf war, such as oil or the opening up of new markets for the 'winners' etc. We have already seen how inadequate the argument about oil is: even though it was an element for putting pressure on America's 'allies', fixing the price of oil or the revenues this would represent for American capital would not have been sufficient motivation for such a huge and costly military operation. Similarly, while the American firms have obviously taken the lion's share of contracts for the reconstruction of Kuwait, it would be absurd to see the recent war as a means of reviving the economy of the US or the rest of the world. The figures speak for themselves: the profits that would flow back from these contracts are well below the cost of the war, even if you take into account the cheques handed out by Germany and Japan. As for the 'revival' of the world economy, it's clear that this isn't on the agenda. As we have underlined on a number of occasions, war and militarism are in no way antidotes to the capitalist crisis, but on the contrary major factors in aggravating it.
Furthermore, it would be wrong to present the accentuation of imperialist antagonisms, of which the Gulf war is up to now the most obvious expression, as the result of the immediate aggravation of the economic situation, and particularly of the open recession now developing. While it is clear that in the last instance imperialist war derives from the exacerbation of economic rivalries between nations, itself the result of the aggravation of the crisis of the capitalist mode of production, we must not make a mechanistic link between the different manifestations of the life of decadent capitalism[2]. In fact, the major cause explaining why this war broke out in 90-91 is to be found in the situation created by the collapse of the Russian bloc. Similarly in the future the factor which will further accentuate imperialist antagonisms won't be constituted by each successive development of the crisis, but by the increasingly absolute historic impasse in which the capitalist mode of production finds itself.
While the Gulf war is an illustration of the irrationality of the whole of decadent capitalism, it also contains an extra and significant element of irrationality which is characteristic of the opening up of the phase of decomposition. The other wars of decadence could, despite their basic irrationality, still take on apparently 'rational' goals (such as the search for 'lebensraum' for the German economy or the defense of imperialist positions by the allies during the second World War). This isn't at all the case with the Gulf war. The objectives of this war, on one side or the other, clearly express the total and desperate impasse that capitalism is in today:
- on the Iraqi side, the invasion of Kuwait undoubtedly had a clear economic objective: to grab hold of the considerable wealth of this country while hoping that the great powers, as they had done on a number of previous occasions, would turn a blind eye to such a hold-up. On the other hand, the objectives of the war with the 'allies' which was accepted by the Iraqi leaders as soon as they remained deaf to the ultimatum of 15 January 1991, were simply to 'save face' and inflict the maximum damage on the enemy, at the price of considerable and insurmountable damage to the national economy;
- on the 'allied' side, the economic advantages obtained, or even aimed for, were nothing, including for the main victor, the USA. The central objective of the war, for this power - to put a stop to the tendency towards generalized chaos, dressed up in grand phrases about the 'new world order' - did not contain any perspective for any amelioration of the economic situation, or even for preserving the present situation. In contrast to the time of the Second World War, the USA did not enter into this war to improve or even preserve its markets but simply to avoid a too-rapid amplification of the international political chaos which could only further exacerbate economic convulsions. In doing this, it could not avoid aggravating the instability of a zone of prime importance, while at the same time aggravating the difficulties of its own economy (especially its indebtedness) and of the world economy (...)
For some, the present situation of the USA is similar to that of Germany before the two world wars. The latter tried to compensate for its economic disadvantages, illustrated by the fact that it didn't have a significant colonial empire (in fact it was smaller than Belgium's, Holland's or Portugal's before the first world war and nothing at all before the second) by overturning the imperialist division of spoils through force of arms. This is why, in both world wars, it took on the role of 'aggressor' because the better-placed powers had no interest in upsetting the apple-cart. Similarly, the USA's essential advantage faced with the economic threat from Germany and Japan is its crushing military superiority. As long as the Eastern bloc existed, the US could use this superiority as a way of holding its allies together, which enabled it, in exchange, to impose its 'views', especially at the economic level. In such a context, the USA had no a priori need to make great use of its weapons because the essential part of the protection accorded to its allies was of a defensive nature (even though at the beginning of the 80s the USA began a general offensive against the Russian bloc). With the disappearance of the Russian threat, the 'obedience' of the other great powers was no longer guaranteed (this is why the western bloc fell apart). To obtain obedience, the US has had to adopt a systematically offensive stance on the military level (as we have just seen with the Gulf war), which looks a bit like the behavior of Germany in the past. The difference is that today the initiative isn't being taken by a power that wants to overturn the imperialist balance but on the contrary the world's leading power, the one that for the moment has the best slice of the cake.
This difference is significant. The fact that at the present time the maintenance of 'world order', ie basically of American order, doesn't imply a 'defensive' attitude (which was adopted by the Entente or the Allies in the past) on the part of the dominant power, but by an increasingly systematic use of the military offensive, and even of operations that will destabilize whole regions in order to ensure the submission of the other powers, expresses very clearly decadent capitalism's slide into the most unrestrained militarism. This is precisely one of the elements that distinguish the phase of decomposition from previous phases of capitalist decadence ...
The balance of forces between proletariat and bourgeoisie
The proletariat in the period of decomposition
" .... We must be especially clear on the danger of decomposition for the proletariat's ability to raise itself to the level of its historic tasks (...) the decomposition of society, which can only get worse, may in the years to come cut down the best forces of the proletariat and definitively compromise the perspective of communism. This is because, as capitalism rots, the resulting poison infects all the elements of society, including the proletariat.
In particular, although the weakening grip of bourgeois ideology as a result of capitalism's entry into decadence was one of the conditions for revolution, the decomposition of the same ideology, as it is developing appears essentially as an obstacle to the development of proletarian consciousness. ('Decomposition, Final Phase ...', point 14, IR 62)
"Throughout the 1980's, the proletariat has been capable of developing its struggles against the consequences of the crisis despite the negative weight of decomposition, which has been systematically exploited by the bourgeoisie" (IR 59: 'Presentation of the Resolution on the International Situation to the 8th ICC Congress').
Until the collapse of the Eastern bloc, the difficulties resulting from the weight of decomposition had not fundamentally called into question the overall dynamic of the class struggle. But the event was to determine a marked break in this dynamic ....
Already in 1989, the ICC highlighted the new difficulties that this immense historic event would create for the proletariat's consciousness (see the 'Theses on the Economic and Political Crisis in the Eastern Countries', IR 60) ....
This was the context when the working class was dealt another brutal blow: the Gulf war.
The impact of the Gulf War
.... The paralysis of the workers' struggle as a result of the war has been greater, and has lasted longer that which accompanied the collapse of Stalinism. This is because the working class in the central countries has felt itself much more directly affected by the Gulf war, in which these countries were more or less directly involved, than by events in the East, which could appear, as we have seen, as somewhat 'external' (which is why we saw no demonstrations around these events in the West). The collapse of Stalinism, while it encouraged a whole series of highly dangerous illusions in the class (illusions in democracy and a 'world at peace'), and a considerable retreat of any idea of capitalism's replacement by another kind of society, provoked a feeling not so much of anxiety as of euphoria. By contrast, the Gulf crisis and open warfare provoked amongst tens of millions of workers a profound disquiet, which pushed worries about declining living conditions into the background far more strongly, and more durably, than the collapse of the Eastern bloc had done; at the same time, the war created a strong feeling of impotence.
Apparently then, the Gulf war had a still more negative impact on the working class than the collapse of the eastern bloc. But it is precisely the responsibility of revolutionary organizations - the most conscious fraction of the working class - to see behind appearances to the true underlying tendencies within society.
When we consider they way in which the bourgeoisie's main forces maneuvered to make the working class in the central countries accept the military intervention in the Middle East, we cannot help but be struck by their extreme skillfulness:
- at the beginning of the crisis, while most of the population, and especially the working class, was reticent about such an intervention, the Western 'democracies', with the USA in the lead, focused attention on the embargo on Iraq, while at the same time setting up on the spot the most massive military arsenal since WWII;
- at the same time, the pacifist movements set to work to channel into a dead-end all those (workers especially) who refused to have anything to do with this crusade for 'international law';
- when the war did break out, it was presented as a 'clean war', which was causing no civilian victims in Iraq and no casualties among the 'Coalition';
- on the eve of the ground offensive we heard a different story, with the insistence on the heavy losses it would provoke amongst the Coalition forces; the speed of the offensive, and the limited losses thus provoked a feeling of relief in the population (and so the working class) of the countries concerned;
- after the war was over, the horrible massacre of the Kurds, which was planned by the victors, was exploited to justify the military intervention against Iraq, and to provoke the feeling that the offensive should have been continued until Saddam Hussein was overthrown and his military forces completely destroyed.
These maneuver, systematically supported by a servile media, attained their goal - but their very sophistication demonstrated that the bourgeoisie did not have its hands free for warmongering. In particular, it was aware that although this policy was vital in defending its interests (with different nuances according to country, as we have seen), unlike the collapse of the Eastern bloc it could be a non-negligible factor in the clarification of the proletariat's consciousness (...)
Whatever the appearances, the collapse of the Eastern bloc and the Gulf war (not in itself but because of what it announces for the future) have quite opposite dynamics as far as the process of coming to consciousness in the class is concerned (...) in the latter we were confronted by a real anxiety, and fundamental questions, which followed the euphoria that accompanied the events in the East ... and in contrast to this kind of euphoria, anxiety, although at first it may paralyze the workers' combativity, is a powerful stimulant in the present period, for reflection in depth.
It is therefore important to insist on the fact ... that the events of the last two years do not at all call into question the historic course that the ICC has highlighted for more than two decades.
The historic course
The reversal of the historic course would presuppose, in fact, a serious defeat for the working class and the ability of the bourgeoisie to take this defeat as a basis to enroll the working class under its ideological banners. Neither the collapse of the Eastern bloc, nor the Gulf war can be considered as defeats for the proletariat, or as opportunities for the bourgeoisie to bring it under control.
The first event occurred independently of the proletariat's action (and this indeed is why it provoked a reflux in the development of consciousness within it). It has put difficulties on the road towards a revolutionary confrontation, but it has not pushed the proletariat back in any lasting way (this is what we said a year ago when we pointed out that the dynamic of the reflux had come to an end). In particular, the decisive sectors of the proletariat have not really been drawn into the mystifications which have weakened its consciousness, since "the sectors of the class which are today in the front line of these mystifications, those in the Eastern bloc, are relatively peripheral. The western proletariat must confront these difficulties today because of the 'wind from the east', but not because it is itself 'in the eye of the storm'" (IR 61, 'After the collapse of the Eastern bloc, destabilization and chaos').
As for the second event, it is, as we have seen, fundamentally an antidote to the ideological poison poured out with the collapse of Stalinism, and strengthens the healthy effects of the increasingly obvious economic bankruptcy of the capitalist mode of production. The Gulf war could only happen because the proletariat in the advanced countries did not have the strength to oppose it. But it was not a direct defeat, since the masses were not mobilized in a war conducted solely by professionals, and accompanied by a great insistence on the fact that the conscript workers in uniform (in those countries where conscription exists) were not being sent to fight. This insistence, and the low number of 'Coalition' casualties is one of the best proofs that the bourgeoisie fears the war becoming a factor in the development of the working class' struggle and consciousness ....
This is the case because although today imperialist war is fully a part of decomposition, it is not its most typical expression; rather it is capitalism's way of life throughout the decadent period; and it is this decadence which is the necessary objective condition for the system's overthrow.
This being said, although the consequences of decomposition will be wholly negative for the working class right up to the revolutionary period, this does not imply any calling into question of the historic course. Certainly, as we have seen, it is an extremely serious threat for the working class and for the whole of humanity, since it can lead to their destruction. And this danger is all the more serious in that "while unleashing the world war demands the proletariat's adherence to the bourgeoisie's ideals ... this is not a precondition for decomposition to destroy humanity" (IR 61, op cit). But unlike world war, the effects of decomposition (apart, of course, from the collapse of Stalinism) are relatively slow to act, and have not to date been able to block the development of the struggle and of proletarian class consciousness (as we saw during the 80's with the development of the 3rd wave of struggles). Moreover, the permanent state of war combined with the growing collapse of the capitalist economy will necessarily provoke the proletariat's mobilization on its own class terrain, which is a powerful antidote to the typical poisons secreted by decomposition ....
Similarly, the combat that the proletariat will be forced to engage, through the class solidarity which it implies, will be a prime factor in overcoming the tendencies towards the atomization of the workers, and the 'every man for himself' attitude prevalent especially in corporatism.
This does not mean that decomposition will not henceforward put a negative pressure on the working class. It simply means that decomposition has not to date, and is not likely to provoke a defeat of the proletariat and its enrolment under the bourgeoisie. This is why revolutionaries have the responsibility of putting forward all the potential within the class for the development of its struggle and consciousness.
ICC 20.4.91
[1] The unremitting loyalty of the British bourgeoisie to the policies of the USA expresses both the particular intelligence of the former, which has understood that the stakes are too important, for capitalism as a whole, to risk participating in the aggravation of global instability by trying to oppose the US, and a carefully considered defense of its national interests, which, since the first world war, have been firmly associated with the American bourgeoisie which supplanted it. Through this loyalty to the most powerful bourgeoisie, the British bourgeoisie has at the same time acquired a 'right hand man' status from which it can expect certain guarantees. Such an alliance also has the advantage that there is no threat of a simple colonization (as is the case in Canada) to the extent that 'big brother' is 5000 km away. If a country like France has not, in general, shown such docility towards the US, it's because there's no place for two 'right hand men' next to the US. This is why France has had a particular alliance with Germany for over 30 years, an alliance which, with the rise to power of its big neighbor, is threatening to become a bit of a burden. This is another barrier to the formation of a 'European bloc'.
[2] This was already true for the First World War which did not break out as a direct result of the crisis. There was, in 1913, a certain aggravation of the economic situation but this was not especially greater than what had happened in 1900-1903 or 1907. In fact, the essential causes for the outbreak of world war one in August 1914 resided in:
- the end of the dividing up of the world among the great capitalist powers. Here the Fashoda crisis of 1898 (where the two great colonial powers, Britain and France, found themselves face to face after conquering the bulk of Africa) was a sort of symbol of this and marked the end of the ascendant period of capitalism;
- the completion of the military and diplomatic preparations constituting the alliances which were going to confront each other;
- the demobilization of the European proletariat from its class terrain faced with the threat of war (in contrast to the situation in 1912, when the Basle congress was held) and the dragooning of the class behind the flags of the bourgeoisie, made possible above all by the open treason of the majority of the leaders of social democracy, a point that was carefully verified by the main governments.
It was thus mainly political factors which, once capitalism had entered into decadence, had proved that it had reached an historic impasse, determined the actual moment for the war to break out.
The same phenomenon could be seen at the time of the Second World War. The objective conditions for the war were there at the beginning of the 30s when the system, the reconstruction over, once again faced an impasse. Once again, it was mainly political factors of the same order which ensured that the war did not break out until the end of that decade.
In the same way, while the main reason that capitalism did not unleash a third world war during the 50s was that the reconstruction gave it a certain margin of maneuver, we must also take into account another factor: the weakness of the Eastern bloc and especially of its leader. The latter, which found itself in a similar situation to Germany prior to the two world wars since it was worst placed in the division of the imperialist cake, made a certain number of attempts to improve its position (Berlin blockade of 48, Korean war in 52). But these attempts were easily repulsed by the US and its bloc, which preventing them from leading to a third world war.
IR67, 4th Qtr 1991
With the violent massacres of the Persian Gulf, world capitalism has revealed its true face and what its 'new world order' is all about: chaos, barbarism and war.
The reality of imperialist war - which has involved, although not in a direct fashion, the whole of the proletariat in the imperialist metropoles - has stimulated a healthy decantation in the proletarian political camp.
On the one hand, a group like the Internationalist Communist Organisation, which has been specialising for many years in the position of support to the 'oppressed bourgeoisies', has fully integrated itself, bag and baggage, into the Iraqi imperialist camp, demonstrating how totally alien and opposed this group is to the very interests of the proletarian political camp.
On the other hand, the milieu as a whole has demonstrated the ability to respond to the challenge posed by the war, in defending clearly the two criteria essential to remaining solidly within the borders of proletarian internationalism:
1) No to the imperialist war. No support to any imperialist camp involved in the war, even and above all if this camp claims to be 'anti-imperialist';
2) No to pacifism, capitalism is war! Only a war against capitalism, only the proletarian revolution can allow a future without war.
By unanimously defending these two solid proletarian basics, the internationalist groups have demonstrated a similar exemplary approach to the one adopted by the revolutionary minorities which, in the full swing of World War 1, intervened to speak against the imperialist massacre.
There is however a striking difference:
In 1916, the huge divergences which existed between the various currents opposed to the war did not prevent these currents launching a unified appeal to the proletariat of all countries, with the famous Zimmerwald Manifesto, which represented a ray of light for millions of workers facing death in the trenches.
Today, the internationalist groups have defended with the same words opposition to the war, showing an even greater level of unity than the one which existed at Zimmerwald. Nonetheless, all this has not been enough to allow them, at least on this occasion, to speak with one voice to the proletariat of all countries.
This is a shame which weighs on the whole of the present communist movement and one which can't be minimised. It's not enough to say that we state the same things and that's good enough. The threat today posed to the working class by capitalism in decomposition is the destruction of the proletariat's class unity in a thousand fratricidal confrontations, from the sands of the Gulf to the frontiers of Yugoslavia. It's for this reason that the defence of its unity is a question of life or death for our class. But what hope can the proletariat have to maintain this unity, if even its conscious avant garde renounces the fight for its unification? Don't anyone tell us that this an appeal to 'kiss and make up', an 'opportunistic avoiding of divergences'. Remember that it was precisely the participation at Zimmerwald which allowed the Bolsheviks to unify the left of Zimmerwald, embryo of the Communist International, and make the definitive separation with Social Democracy. It's precisely because profound divergences exist between internationalists, differences which prevent them talking with the same voice, that it's necessary that these divergences are openly discussed between revolutionaries. The example of discussions between Rosa Luxemburg, Lenin, and other revolutionaries before them shows this. Finally don't anyone tell us that we are wasting our breath, that we're just doing this to show that we're not sectarian and others are.
In l983, our appeal towards the proletarian milieu, which was in the midst of a profound crisis, illustrated by the explosion of Programma Comunista, the transformation of their ex-Algerian section, El-Oumami, into a nationalist Arab group, went almost unnoticed in a general climate of backwardness and sectarianism. Our appeal was an invitation to fight the tendencies which were then dominant in the milieu.
Today, the situation is different. With the integration of the ICO into the camp of the bourgeoisie, the internationalist groups of the Bordigist tradition have responded with an explicit rejection of support to 'oppressed national bourgeoisies', a rejection which marks an important clarification for the whole of the milieu. Instead of a total sectarian isolation, we find today in the different groups a greater will to air their reciprocal critiques in the press or in public meetings. Furthermore, there is an explicit appeal from the comrades of Battaglia Comunista to overcome the present dispersion; an appeal whose arguments and aims we largely share. Finally, there exists - and this must be encouraged to the full - a 'push from below' against sectarian isolation, which comes from a new generation of young elements that the earthquake of these last two years has pushed towards communist positions and who remain baffled by this politically unexplained dispersion.
We are well aware that the difficulties are enormous, and that, for the moment, openness to discussion - when it exists - is very limited. There are those who say that the debate must include only those groups which descend from the communist left of Italy, thus excluding the ICC. There are those who see the debate exclusively as an annihilation of other groups in their press. There are those who think that the real debate won't be possible until a pre-revolutionary phase and there are who are open to discuss with new elements but not with 'old-timers'. As we can see, the roots of sectarianism are too profound for over-ambitious propositions to be made, whether in their content (work toward the reconstruction of the party) or in their form (an international conference for example). What can be done then to concretely overcome this present state of dispersion? It's necessary to facilitate everything that goes towards the increase of contact and debate between internationalists [1] [3]. It's not a question of hiding divergences in order to rush into 'marriages' between groups, but of beginning to openly discuss the divergences that are at the origins of the existence of different groups.
The point of departure is to systematise the reciprocal critique of positions in the press. That may appear a banality, but there are still revolutionary groups who, in their press, seem to be alone in the world.
Another step that can be taken immediately is to systematise the presence and intervention at public meetings of other groups.
A more important step is the confrontation of positions in jointly convoked public meetings by several groups faced with particularly important events, such as the war in the Gulf.
It's clear that all this, and in particular the last point, will not be immediately realisable everywhere and between all the groups. But even if there are only two organisations who meet to publicly discuss their agreements and divergences, that will in any case be a step forward for the whole milieu and we would support it with conviction, even if the ICC wasn't amongst the direct participants at this particular discussion.
Our propositions may appear modest, in fact they are. But faced with decades of unbridled sectarianism, it's already ambitious to only want TO BEGIN a process of confrontation and regroupment between internationalists. And it's the only road that can lead to the decantation and programmatic demarcation which will enable communist minorities to fully play their essential role in the class battles which are being prepared.
ICC July 1991.
[1] [4] It's clear that for us that the groups and organisations of a leftist type (Trotskyists, Maoists, anarchists) are not internationalists. As for the myriad of little groups that gravitate parasitically around the principal currents of the proletarian milieu, the dispersion of militants and the confusion which they nourish means that they can contribute nothing to such a debate.
A torrent of chaos and decomposition is sweeping the world, and has laid low the crumbling walls of one of world capitalism's main bastions. The world's second imperialist power, whose nuclear arsenal alone could have destroyed the whole planet, the "land of the great lie" where the cynical perpetrators of the greatest anti-communist massacre in history have ruled for decades in the name of communism, the ultimate model of the most statified form of capitalist exploitation, has collapsed in convulsions following a still-born coup d'état.
Notwithstanding the hysterical lies of the ruling order's hired propagandists, it is not communism that is dying in the USSR, but Stalinism, and its death-throes are plunging a whole section of capitalism into ever-growing chaos. The violent tremors that are shaking the biggest country in the world are not even the birth pangs of a new, rejuvenated "democratic bourgeois revolution" of capitalism, but a sundering of this world order's weakest links. Just as in Yugoslavia, drowning in blood under the pressure of its nationalist antagonisms, the devastating breath of capitalist decomposition offers no perspective but a headlong decline into chaos.
A government that no longer knows what are its powers, nor whom it is governing; a country which does not know where its frontiers are, because it is exploding into autonomous republics; an army 4 million strong, with 30,000 nuclear warheads, but whose command is completely paralyzed by the threat of an 80% cut in numbers and hardly knows whose orders to obey; a moribund economy strangled by conflicts between its constituent parts, its organs of decision paralyzed. This is the state the USSR finds itself in after the "conservatives'" failed coup d'état, and the triumph of the "forces of democracy".
The coup undertaken by the nomenklatura's conservative fractions, nostalgic for the lost grandeur of empire, had long been denounced as an imminent threat by "reformist" leaders such as Shevardnadze and Yakovlev. Now it has happened. The determining element which forced the "conservatives" to undertake such a desperate adventure seems to have been the signature of the new "Union Treaty", planned for 20th August, which would have been an irreversible step in the USSR's breakup[1]. But the coup was no more than a ludicrous fiasco whose main result was to strengthen the hand of the "reformists", and allow them to regain the offensive. The stalinist straitjacket, or what was left of it, was torn apart in a few days, and the chaos which the old state power had had so much difficulty reining in went completely out of control.
After the disintegration of the Eastern bloc, stalinism is now collapsing at the very heart of its one-time empire. The hurricane which the USSR's weakness unleashed on the stalinist fortresses of central Europe, from Warsaw to Bucharest and from Berlin to Prague, has returned with a vengeance to strike the centre, in Moscow and Leningrad themselves. But here the phenomenon is clearer and of greater significance. In the countries of Eastern Europe, the political upheavals which accompanied the overthrow of stalinism were strongly marked by local specificities: anti-Russian feeling, the idea that all that need be done was to get rid of Russian domination for everything to work better, the fact that stalinism was not the result of a local counter-revolution, but imported by Russian tanks, the active presence of pro-Western political and economic forces impatient for the fruits, however tattered, of the decomposing empire: all this undoubtedly attenuated the anti-stalinist specificity of events. By contrast, Russia is the cradle of Stalinisn, as well as the scene for the 1917 October Revolution. Here, the full extent of stalinism's putrefaction appears in all its sordid reality.
As a result, the ideological campaign that was launched two years ago with the aim of presenting the collapse of stalinism as the bankruptcy of communism, marxism, and the class struggle has plumbed new depths of ignominy.
The bourgeoisie all over the world has taken a delight in showing the "crowds" in the "socialist fatherland" destroying the statues of Lenin, Marx, and Engels: workers spitting on the images of those who declared the possibility of a world without classes or exploitation; the memory of the greatest revolution ever undertaken by the exploited classes utterly deformed from being identified with the stalinist counter-revolution, and trodden under foot in the same streets where the workers in arms once "shook the world"; the bourgeois press indulging in the luxury of full column headlines declaring that "communism is dead!".
Stalinism has been riddled with falsehood since its inception. It could only die, drowned in lies.
The events of 19th-24th August in Moscow, which marked the final downfall of stalinism, are themselves cloaked in falsehood: as to the nature of the confrontations, presented as a "popular revolution"; as to what was at stake in the fighting, presented as a "struggle against communism"; lies as to the future, presented as a world where (after a few inevitable upheavals and sacrifices) peace and prosperity will reign thanks to the miraculous virtues of free competition and the electoral games of bourgeois democracy.
A popular revolution?
"We have won! Thanks to the Muscovites, and especially the youth, the coup d'état has been defeated, democracy has beaten reaction, and the USSR has been saved" (Yeltsin[2]).
"What we are seeing today is a true popular revolution. At last, liberty has triumphed" (Yakovlev[3]).
This is how the events in Moscow are presented by Yeltsin and Yakovlev, two figureheads of the bureaucratic "reformers". And this is the same tale that has been taken up by all the international media: against an attempted coup d'état by those elements most attached to the old stalinist forms, the "people" and the workers of Moscow rose as one, behind the great Yeltsin. Some journalists have gone one better, and even call the events a "new 1789 French revolution", and Yeltsin "a new Danton".
What is the truth? What part was played by the millions of proletarians in Moscow's suburbs? Who defeated the coup?
The image of Yeltsin on the day of the coup, standing on a tank denouncing the putsch's illegality and calling for a general strike, has been published ad nauseam all over the world. What is less known, is that Yeltsin's call to the workers of Moscow and the USSR was hardly followed, and that the mobilization in the demonstrations were timid, to say the least.
"If there's no heating this winter, then neither Gorbachev, nor Yeltsin, nor Ianaev will heat my home! In my opinion, they're all playing the same game, and the loser will be the people, as always". Such remarks, on the very day of the putsch and from an ordinary Russian "woman in the street"[4] well reflect the two dominant emotions among Russian workers: anxiety faced with a terrible decline in living conditions, and a profound distrust, born of decades of experience, of anything to do with the world of the Nomenklatura and its apparatchiks[5]. The preponderance of such ideas largely explains the low level of "popular" mobilization in response to Yeltsin's appeals.
It is more than likely that had the confrontations been more violent - for example, had the army really attacked the Russian parliament - then the workers in Moscow and elsewhere in the USSR would have played a larger part. Illusions in democracy, nationalism, and the virtues of "market capitalism" still weigh heavily on workers who anyway think that "there can't be anything worse than stalinism". But this time, with the exception of the mines (where Yeltsin controls an influential trade union), and of some large enterprises in big cities like Moscow, there was no massive "popular" mobilization (to the extent that this bourgeois term includes the working class).
Contrary to the official fairy-tale, the coup d'état was not defeated by a "popular revolution", but by the disrepair of the entire political apparatus, and the divisions within the ruling class. The soldiers in the tanks that protected the Russian parliament had not broken with the military hierarchy to fraternize with the demonstrators: they were obeying the orders of General Lebedev, who himself came under the command of the air force chief Shaposhnikov[6] who had gone over to the Yeltsin camp. If the military offensive against the Russian parliament never happened, this was not, as Ianaiev afterwards claimed, to avoid a bloodbath, but because high-ranking officers in both the army and the KGB refused to obey their superiors. The 300 cars and buses used to make barricades around the parliament building were not seized from the Moscow traffic: they were supplied by banks, enterprises, and the Moscow stock exchange. The Russian parliament's telephone links were kept open, not by decision of the telephone workers, but because the American company Sovamer Trading kindly made available its own telephone links through Finland[7].
The real protagonists of events in Moscow were two fractions of the ruling class. Five years of hesitant perestroika have only succeeded in creating profound divisions amongst the apparatchiks, as well as a new layer of enterprise managers who are no longer directly integrated into the state structure. The so-called "conservative" camp, represented by Genady Ianaiev, Pugo, Yazhov, and the other conspirators, consists of that fraction of the nomenklatura which resists the dismantling of the old Stalinist organizational forms, because they see in them a suicide both for themselves and for the empire[8]. Like its "reforming" rival, this fraction is recruited throughout every state institution, for the entire state machine is split from top to bottom: the military-industrial complex, the KGB, the army staff, and above all in the gigantic apparatus of the CPSU. The opposing fraction, whose most flamboyant spokesman is Boris Yeltsin, also springs from the same bureaucratic cesspit, as the putsch itself revealed. Amongst others, it includes the representatives of the "alternative economy" and the leaders of the new economic structures. As Arkady Volski, one of the reforming clique's most representative members, recently stated "In the USSR, the non-state sector of the economy is much larger than is generally thought"[9]. The creed of this gathering of businessmen and repented apparatchiks is to destroy the rigid stalinist machine, to try to save the machine of exploitation itself, and with it their own position as exploiters.
What we have just seen is thus not a "people's revolution" against "reactionary putschists", but a confrontation between two cliques of the same reactionary class, long since condemned by history and infested to the core with divisions and treachery, desperately trying to keep afloat their inexorably sinking "ship of state".
Only the venal stupidity of the ruling class' hired hacks could see a "popular revolution", a "new fall of the Bastille", in the Moscow events or a "new Danton" in the Russian president. The bourgeois heroes of 1789 had the historic stature of men taking part in the revolutionary birth of a new society. By comparison, Yeltsin's apparatchiks are nothing but historic midgets, offspring of the stalinist nomenklatura which is one of the most monstrous and degenerate forms of the capitalist class, confronted with the impossible task of maintaining an "order" in a state of complete putrefaction.
A combat against Leninism?
But the biggest, most gigantic lie, the cornerstone of the whole gigantic edifice of propaganda erected since the collapse of stalinism in the USSR, is the idea that the putschist thugs of Genady Ianaiev are "the last defenders of communism". The same communism whose principles were defined by Marx and Engels. The communism for which the Russian proletarians fought, with Lenin and the Bolshevik party at their head, alongside their class brothers in Germany, Hungary, and Italy.
Only ignorance, and decades of totalitarian lies, scientifically organized and propagated in every country in the world, still gives credit to the identification of stalinism and communism. The most elementary confrontation between the reality of stalinism and communist principles immediately reveals the enormity of the falsehood.
The starting point for the 1917 Russian Revolution was the struggle against war, in other words the struggle against the militarization of the working class under the national flag. Unlike the whimpering pacifists, who as always dreamed of peaceful capitalist nations, the revolutionary struggle against war was fought under the banner of Marx' and Engels' Communist Manifesto: "The workers have no fatherland! Workers of all countries, unite!". Over and over again, the Bolsheviks proclaimed: "The revolution is only a detachment of the world socialist army, and the success and triumph of the revolution which we have accomplished depends on the action of this army. This is a fact which none of us forgets (...) The Russian proletariat is aware of its revolutionary isolation, and it sees clearly that a vital precondition and a fundamental premise for its victory is the united intervention of workers of the whole world" (Lenin, 23rd July, 1918). From the start, the communism of marxists, both in the struggle and as an objective, has never been imagined as anything other than worldwide. By contrast, stalinism as a current was born historically with the rejection, after Lenin's death, of internationalist principles and with its becoming the spokesman for the theory of "socialism in one country". It wallowed in the most abject patriotism and nationalism. During World War II, Stalin took pride in his "democratic" allies' compliments for his "military genius", and in the USSR's 24 million corpses slaughtered on the altar of imperialism.
Communist society is defined by the abolition of wage labor and all forms of exploitation. Stalinism will go down in history a regime where capitalist exploitation reached an unprecedented degree of intensity and barbarity. In the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels wrote: "The old bourgeois society, with its classes and class conflicts, gives way to an association where the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all". In Russia, the "free development" of the state bourgeoisie, the nomenklatura, took place at the price of the direst poverty for the workers.
In the marxist conception, the struggle for communism goes through a phase of "dictatorship of the proletariat", whose first precondition is the massive and active participation of all workers in wielding political power. In 1905, the workers in Russia spontaneously created the "finally discovered form" of this dictatorship (the Soviets, councils of delegates elected and instantly revocable by factory and district committees); in 1917, the Soviets took power. Stalinism only developed on the corpse of these organs, keeping only their name to disguise the institutions of the totalitarian dictatorship of capitalism[10].
Stalinism is not the negation of capitalism, but capitalism statified to the point of absurdity[11].
Today's "conservative" nomenklatura is not the last expression of communism, but like the "reformist" fraction, the direct heir of the stalinist executioners who massacred all the real protagonists of the communist October revolution[12].
The conflict between cliques of bureaucrats in the USSR has nothing to do with "communism". The real antagonism only concerns how to manage the exploitation of the workers and peasants of the USSR: poverty and scarcity under the heel of stalinism, or poverty and unemployment under the whip of the "businessmen".
The only part that the exploited classes can play in this conflict is that of cannon fodder. To join the "democratic" or the "conservative" forces is to run head first into a massacre, and to desert the only struggle which can offer a way out of capitalism's nightmare: the revolutionary struggle of the world proletariat against all the fractions of the exploiting class.
On the way to prosperity, peace, and freedom?
Prosperity?
The economic question lies at the heart of the "victors'" democratic lies: before the putsch, Yeltsin did not hesitate to promise that he would bring the country out of disaster in "500 days".
And with good reason. The USSR's economic situation has been getting consistently worse during the five years of perestroika, with an abrupt acceleration since the beginning of 1991[13]. During the last six months, domestic production has fallen by 10%; imports have fallen by 50%, and exports by 23.4%. By August 1991, inflation had already reached an annual rhythm of 100%. On the financial level, the USSR was no longer able to repay its debts. At the beginning of September, Volski declared that the USSR was "on the brink of financial collapse"[14] - while the oxygen of Western capital, its masters made more and more uneasy by the advancing chaos, has become more and more rarified. The economy is suffering from the effects of political and social instability: the conflicts between republics, and between national groups within the republics, end up in a state of mutual strangulation in wars where economic pressure (eg blocking lines of communication) is constantly used as a weapon; institutional and political instability (accompanied since the putsch by a constant fear of purges) leads to a complete paralysis of the bureaucracy in the decision-making centers of the economy. Famine looms this winter.
The economic crisis is indeed at the centre of the situation in the USSR. It is no accident that the first organ of central power created by the "victors" has been a "Committee for economic management", nor that this same committee has been given the job of forming a new government for the USSR, or what is left of it.
But what of the future, now that the "500 day man" is in power? Now that Yavlinsky, the author of Yeltsin's famous plan, is a member of what serves as a government, his proposal has become a... 5-year plan. Its content? "Shock therapy", "Bolivian-style" as the IMF experts say: "real prices", which means an explosion of inflation (inflation is expected to reach 1000% in four months); a faster privatization of the economy[15], which will mean redundancies for the workers in enterprises considered uncompetitive (unemployment is expected to rise to 30 million by 1992); an increase in the number of people living below the poverty line, to the tune of 170,000 every month.
This is the future that is forecast. The reality will certainly be far worse: bloody civil wars between and within the republics, and the consequent exodus of civilian populations, can only aggravate the disaster. The much proclaimed emergence from the quagmire will not happen in 500 days, nor in 5 years, not just because of the world's dramatic economic situation, but also because the chaos into which the USSR is plunging will make it impossible to master the economic machine.
Freedom?
"Freedom has triumphed at last" proclaimed the father of perestroika, Yakovlev, when it was certain that the putsch had failed. But the freedom he is talking about is the freedom of the new sharks: the converted apparatchiks, the businessmen, the black marketers, the leaders of the powerful mafia, in fact all the scum which has been raised, Reagan-style, to the rank of "hero" in the cult of "free enterprise". What does this "freedom" which "has triumphed at last" mean for the workers and poor peasants? What does freedom mean for the unemployed? What does freedom mean for those who spend most of their time in endless queues in front of empty shops? What does liberty mean when life is a daily struggle to survive in the midst of uncontrolled chaos? Liberty in wretched poverty is only a cynical lie. The only thing which will change for soviet workers, and then only in the industrialized zones, will be the introduction of a chaotic caricature of bourgeois democracy: instead of the gross falsification of stalinist propaganda, they will be treated to the sophistication of democratic falsehood (of elections, media, and trade unions), which lets its own professionals "criticize" freely, the better to stifle any real social criticism, and which encourages a "credible" network of trade union and political organizations within the working class, the better to sabotage its combats from within.
Peace in the USSR?
Even as the USSR withdrew from Afghanistan, and lost its control over Eastern Europe, nationalist conflicts began to explode within its borders. The peripheral republics began to arm themselves, and to proclaim their independence of the centre and the other republics.
The new conquerors also have a plan (though this time without any dates) to restore peace and harmony to the nation: the "Union treaties", which are supposed to give freedom to all and establish new, amicable, ties based on voluntary cooperation. Certainly, the impulsive Yeltsin did let slip a few explicit threats on the renegotiation of borders, but only to withdraw them immediately after.
The putschists intended to prevent the signature of the new Union treaty drawn up by Gorbachev and those republics willing to go along with him. The main effect of the putsch's failure and the triumph of the "democrats" has been to destroy what little coherence remained in the relations between the republics[16]. In the space of a few days, the map of the world has been redrawn, and nobody knows where it will stop: the three Baltic states have had their independence recognized by the Western powers, all the other republics have proclaimed their independence. In a few days, the USSR has ceased to exist.
Most of the republics aim to form, or to reinforce, their own political institutions and their own army. The already catastrophic degree of anarchy is becoming more and more widespread (13). The antagonisms between different republics are getting worse, for example between Armenia and Azerbaidjan over Nagorny Karabakh. And the same centrifugal tendencies are increasing the general disorder within the republics themselves. Minority populations, whether Russian[17], "national" or "ethnic", are all declaring their "autonomy", confronting each republic with the same problem that exists for the USSR as a whole. Moldavia is an especially good example: the new local authorities have declared their intention to integrate their region with the Romanian state, but are confronted with the active resistance of the "authorities" of the Dniestr region (where the majority of the population is Russian or Ukrainian), who are threatening the Romanian part of Moldavia with "economic sanctions"[18]; at the same time, the latter must contend with the Gaugauz region and its russified turkic population; in Georgia, Ossetians are subjected to a merciless repression by the local authorities; the tiny zone of Crimea, which is an integral part of the Ukraine, has proclaimed itself "autonomous", and declared that "Only the people of Crimea have the right to use and possess the land and its riches"[19].
There will be no return to peace in what was once the USSR. The underlying forces which are throwing all these nationalist antagonisms are the same that are plunging the entire planet into chaos. Economic paralysis, the development of poverty and the consequent disintegration of the social fabric, the explosion of antagonisms between different capitalist factions, this entire course of decomposition of the "capitalist order", has become irreversible in the USSR and everywhere else. It can only be stopped by the revolutionary action of the world proletariat.
World peace?
The promise of peace plays an important part in the gamut of mystifications of the "democratic forces". To announce the reduction of military spending thanks to a thawing in international relations is an effective propaganda argument, in the USSR even more than in other countries. By announcing their continued pursuit of Gorbachev's policy in this respect, the "reformists" are making the most of it.
This is an argument which in fact makes a virtue out of necessity: if Gorbachev's USSR has become less of a threat, it is because it has no choice in the matter. The days when the USSR could ensure its allies' victory in Vietnam against the USA are indeed long gone. The complete impotence of Gorbachev's government against the US diktat during the Gulf war is eloquent in this respect. On the international stage, the leaders of the Kremlin have been reduced to the status of beggars, kept waiting on the doorstep at the "great powers'" summits. Under such conditions, the USSR is hardly in a position to conduct an aggressive policy.
This does not mean that the "reformers'" victory will bring peace with it: quite the reverse. It is impossible to measure all the consequences of the disintegration of the biggest country in the world. From the Baltic Sea to the North Pacific, a huge powder-keg is just waiting to erupt. As the "Russian bear" lets its prey slip, the greed of the surrounding countries, but also of the great powers, increases correspondingly. And even if the pickings are often bereft of any economic value, the permanent conflict of imperialism forces all countries, and especially the dominant powers, to do all they can if only to prevent their rivals getting stronger. Moreover, the USSR's political instability and centrifugal nationalisms will prove contagious.
The list of "trouble spots" created by the empire's collapse is a long one: Japan is demanding the return of the Kurile islands, seized by the USSR at the end of World War II[20]; the longest frontier in the world, between China and the USSR, is one of the planet's greatest military concentrations, and the object of a series of quarrels just waiting to spring to life; China itself, the last major bastion of stalinism, is also subject to the same internal political and nationalist tensions as the USSR; the enmity between India and Pakistan has been still further intensified; the frontier zones with Iran and Turkey are already seriously destabilized by the conflicts in the Caucasus (Azerbaidjan, Armenia, Georgia); and last but not least, the whole of Central Europe, from Romania to the Baltic, is a veritable jigsaw of nationalities (Romanians, Hungarians, Germans, and... Russians), riven with archaic nationalisms and ancient feuds, which will create still more centers of tension.
The tremors are already being felt well beyond the confines of the empire's frontier. The process of dislocation of the ex-Western bloc, begun with the collapse in the East, is bound to accelerate with the disappearance of the "common enemy", and the conflicting appetites for the shreds of the USSR. The effects have already spread as far as Cuba.
The fires of the Gulf war revealed the lie of the "peace" that our rulers promised after the destruction of the Berlin Wall. The new promises of peace that are being made as the USSR disintegrates are no less hollow. The shockwave of the USSR's collapse is only beginning to make itself felt.
Yugoslavia
The bloody civil war in Yugoslavia is a crying demonstration of the destructive tendencies sweeping capitalism, and which the USSR's collapse has only served to accelerate. Yugoslavia's dislocation is partly a result of the movement of destabilization which began two years ago with the end of the Eastern bloc and of blocs in general. The defeat of the putsch in Moscow has also encouraged the separatism of the Croats. But this nationalist bloodbath is above all an expression of the destructive tendencies which are present throughout capitalism: the tendency to "look after number one", towards the dislocation of capitalism's organization under the pressure of the economic crisis, and to "settle" problems through military means[21].
As we go to press, the war is both spreading and intensifying: the "federal" army and Serb forces are starting new offensives against Croatia with naval blockades and aerial bombardments. The fighting has reached Zaghreb, which lives in constant fear of air-raids. In their turn, the Croat armies have launched a "general offensive". In Montenegro and Voivodina the federal government has called up its reservists. The slaughter has taken a qualitative step forward.
In this war, proletarians and peasants, unable to free themselves from the poison of nationalism are massacring each other for the sordid and absurd interests of the bourgeois cliques that rule them. The war is no longer limited to the "Third World": it is happening in Europe, only a few kilometers from Austria and Italy, which, like Hungary, are already receiving refugees from the civil war.
Combining cynicism and hypocrisy, the governments of Western Europe claim to play a "peacekeeping" role, when in fact some of them (Germany and Austria in particular) are directly supporting the Slovene and Croat separatists. The ceasefires "brokered" by the European powers have all collapsed, while the idea of sending a European peacekeeping force has only served to highlight the imperialist antagonisms between them (the opposition between Germany and Britain on this question, in fact conceals the fundamental and growing antagonism between US and German capital)[22].
This is the peace that the "pacifist reformers" and champions of the "new world order" have to offer us.
Yugoslavia is not "an isolated case". It is the future, not only for the USSR, but for the whole planet, unless the capitalist mode of organization is destroyed, unless the working class puts an end to a system which is plunging head first into suicide.
The end of the class struggle?
But is the proletariat capable of carrying out this gigantic task? The lynchpin of the deafening ideological campaign around the events in the USSR is to reply "no!" to this crucial question. Pushing their ignominy a step further, the bourgeoisie's ideologues, who had already announced two years ago the "end of communism", are now finding new arguments to tell us, not only that the final goal of communism has collapsed in the USSR, but that marxism and the very idea of the class struggle are dead. And if they occasionally recognize a difference between stalinism and the October revolution, it is only to describe the latter as "utopian", and to conclude that "the class struggle, even with the finest ideals can only lead to the gulag". The media repeat endlessly: "class struggle has come to an end".
After the "Third World" and the Eastern bloc, the Western industrial powers - less affected until now - are in their turn plunging into an open recession, heralding new and violent attacks against the living conditions of the entire world proletariat. And the world bourgeoisie expects us take its dreams for reality: a definitively beaten and apathetic working class, workers ready to slaughter each other in wars to defend "their nation", and to sacrifice themselves to save the profits of "their company".
This propaganda is based on the limitations of the workers in the East, mired in "nationalist" ideology[23] and illusions in "capitalist democracy, the source of well-being and freedom", and on the low level of combativity, especially during the last two years, among the workers in the West.
But for the proletarians in the East, the opening of a class perspective depends essentially on their class brothers in the Western powers. As long as Western workers have not shown clearly, in struggle, their rejection of capitalism and the democratic lie, the workers in the ex-stalinist countries will keep their illusions in the possibilities offered by the creation of "new democratic nations". The precondition for the workers in the East to overcome their ideological limits is essentially the same as the condition that could have prevented the October revolution from dying of suffocation: the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat in the central countries.
It is true that the Western, and especially European proletariat has suffered a retreat in its combativity, under both the weight of the new ideological campaigns and the confusion they have created, and the daily and ubiquitous repression of unemployment or the threat of unemployment. But it is neither defeated, nor apathetic, nor gangrened by nationalism and democratic illusions. The oldest proletariat in the world, because it has suffered at the forefront of two centuries of capitalist war, because it lives in the part of the world where the interdependence of the international economy is the most obvious, is the least subject to the mystifications of nationalism[24]. This is why, during the Gulf war, the governments of these countries did not take the risk of using conscripts, and used professional armies to conduct their massacres. The same is true for the democratic lie: after more than a century of experience, the general disgust for politicians, the high level of abstention at elections (unless the vote is... obligatory), the workers' rejection of the union machines, all demonstrate how worn out these mystifications are.
After reducing the proletariat of the "Third World" and the Eastern countries to misery, the Western bourgeoisie is now attacking the living conditions of this fraction of the world proletariat, more violently than at any time since the beginning of the 1980's. Even if conditions today, marked by the weight of ideological campaigns and the debilitating atmosphere of capitalist decomposition, make a proletarian mobilization more difficult at first, it is nonetheless inevitable as the bourgeoisie's attacks increase.
No, whatever the claims of bourgeois propaganda, the time has not come for an "end to class struggle", but on the contrary its intensification, and its development at a higher level. It is the struggle of the workers in the central countries which will open a perspective for the world proletariat, for it will sweep away the nationalist lies and the illusions in a "better capitalism". This alone will open the way to the decisive confrontations which will put an end to capitalism, not only in its stalinist form, but in all its forms.
RV, 20/09/1991
[1] Other immediate factors help to explain the putschists' decision: the violent acceleration of the economic crisis, especially since the beginning of 1991, and the fear of further destabilization as a result, especially during next winter; Gorbachev's improved relations with Yeltsin during recent months, which directly threatened the government positions conquered last winter by the "conservatives".
[2] Le Monde, 24/08/91
[3] International Herald Tribune, 23/08/91
[4] Liberation, 21/08/91
[5] The Russian workers know that today's anti-stalinist heroes are nothing but ex-stalinists, who owe their position today to their skill in navigating through the quagmire of the bureaucracy. They know that Yeltsin had no hesitation in flirting with the anti-Semitic Pamyat organization, that Shevardnadze used to be a three-star KGB general, and that Gorbachev's most powerful protector was Suslov, one-time favorite of Stalin.
[6] Nezavissimaia Gazeta, 22/08/91. An article in the same issue declared that "The putschists' biggest problem was probably the elite troops".
[7] Liberation, 27/08/91
[8] See International Review no 60, September 1989, "Theses on the economic and political crisis in the USSR and the Eastern countries"
[9] A year ago, Arkady Volski founded the "Scientific and Technical Union", designed to bring together the country's main industrial managers; today, it claims to represent 60% of Soviet industry. This association, a sort of bosses' and bankers' union, along with the Union of businessmen and proprietors, is a veritable spearhead for the adepts of the market. Its role has grown constantly, during and since the putsch. It comes as no surprise that Volski should be one of the co-founders, along with Edward Shevardnadze and Alexander Yakovlev, of the "Movement for the union of the forces for democracy and reform".
[10] For an analysis of the nature of the October revolution and of stalinism, see our pamphlet Russia 1917, the start of the world revolution.
[11] Capital is possessed by the state, and managed by the bureaucracy. The nomenklatura's income is made up of surplus-value extorted from the workers. Profit is distributed, not in the form of dividends or private property, but in the form of "wages" and "perks".
[12] The persecution of the "old Bolsheviks", hunted down, deported, pushed to suicide, assassinated and shot down by stalinism; the monstrous Moscow trials of the 1930's, organized with the same methods as used by the Nazis and conscientiously broadcast by all the "democratic" media, putting on show the old Bolshevik leaders condemned to death after being forced to accuse themselves of the worst crimes: all this will remain forever one of the blackest and bloodiest pages of working-class history. When the GPU - the forerunner of the KGB - assassinated Trotsky in 1940, not one member of the 1917 Bolshevik central committee was left alive... except Stalin.
[13] See "The USSR in tatters" in the previous issue of the International Review.
[14] International Herald Tribune, 02/09/91.
[15] "Privatizing" the Soviet economy is altogether more difficult than in the other ex-Eastern bloc countries. Here, the whole of social life is oriented towards one goal: military power. What can it mean to "privatize" the only thing the economy is capable of producing: weapons, military and space research, millions of soldiers and their equipment, tanks, aircraft, warships, submarines, satellites, etc?
[16] The resulting chaos at the centre has been all the more dramatic in that the backbone of central power, the CPSU, has been outlawed. After five years of perestroika, the constitution had already become illegible, so much had it been modified and remodified following the twists and turns of the struggle for power amongst different fractions of the political apparatus. It is trodden under foot daily, both by the various republican governments declaring their independence, and by the central authorities completely incapable of following a coherent line. The day after the coup d'état, the central institutions plunged into the domain of the "temporary" without any idea whether they will ever emerge from it. And this is true both for the USSR as a whole, and for the republics, as they all try to establish some kind of rules in the midst of chaos.
[17] There are almost 25 million Russians living in the different republics of the USSR.
[18] The Dniestr controls almost 80% of Moldavia's gas and electricity supplies.
[19] International Herald Tribune, 6/9/91
[20] In theory, the USSR and Japan have been at war since 1945.
[21] See "Militarism and Decomposition" in the International Review no.64, October 1990.
[22] For an analysis of the war in Yugoslavia, see the ICC's different territorial publications (list on the back cover of this issue).
[23] There is a great difference at this level between the workers in the USSR's great industrial centers, who are less affected by the nationalist poison if only because they live in the empire's metropoles, and those in the USSR's peripheral republics or the countries of the ex-Eastern bloc, where "anti-Russian" feeling has been extensively used by the local ruling class to create a feeling of a "unity of national interest" between the exploited and their exploiters.
[24] This does not mean that it has been immunized for ever. The bourgeoisie takes every opportunity to try to infect it with the most abject "nationalism" against immigrant workers, or against the refugees flooding in from the East.
A few weeks before the events in the USSR, the ICC held its ninth International Congress. As the reader will see from the documents presented at this meeting which are published below, the break-up of the USSR, as well as the war in Yugoslavia, which are clear products of the dynamic opened up by the disappearance of the eastern imperialist bloc, did not surprise us and are an illustration of the orientations that we had drawn up at this Congress. They are in fact a confirmation of what we have been saying since the very beginning of the explosion of the eastern bloc, in the summer of 1989: throughout this period, our organization has shown itself capable of analyzing the main tendencies of the new historic situation that was opening up, in particular the perspective of chaos and of the disintegration of the eastern bloc and the USSR.
As the real general assembly of the ICC, the most important expression of its centralized and international character, a congress has to draw up a balance sheet of the work accomplished in the preceding period, and, on this basis, define the perspectives for future activity in line with the analysis of the international situation, particularly with regard to the worldwide balance of forces between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. Consequently, this Congress had the essential task of discussing the validity of our analyses (in particular the general analysis about the historic phase of decomposition that capitalism has entered) and of the positions we have taken up in response to the huge historic convulsions that we have been through since the end of 1989:
- the collapse of the Stalinist regimes
- the disappearance of the east-west imperialist configuration that came out of Yalta in 1945
- the Gulf war, which was a product of this situation, and which led to the destruction of Iraq and Kuwait
- the growth of chaos in a number of countries, and particularly in the countries of eastern Europe
- the reflux in the international class struggle.
The new situation: a historic break and a reflux in the class struggle
What balance sheet did the Congress draw about the analyses and positions developed by the ICC - all of them published in the press, and which we shall be referring to - in the face of the gigantic events we have been living through? As the resolution on activities that we adopted put it:
"The events of historic significance which have marked out the last two years have put the organization to the test, obliging it to re-examine the whole of its analyses and activity in the light of the conditions of the international situation ...
"The central criterion for evaluating the ICC's activity over the last two years is, necessarily, given the importance of events, its ability to understand and analyze the significance and implications of the latter."
What do these events signify? What do they imply? This is what the Congress had to return to and take a position on.
The historic phase of capitalist decomposition is at the root of the disappearance of the eastern bloc and the USSR
In the dramatic and catastrophic conditions of the open, irreversible crisis of capitalism, the bourgeoisie has been incapable of imposing on the world proletariat the only perspective that it could offer humanity: a devastating third world war. But at the same time, the proletariat has itself been unable to outline or present its own revolutionary perspective, the destruction of capitalist society. Given this lack of any historical perspective, capitalist society - whose economic crisis has not stopped - is in an impasse and is rotting on its feet like an overripe fruit. This is what we call the new historic phase of the decomposition of capitalism (see 'Decomposition, Final Phase of the Decadence of Capitalism', in International Review 62, third quarter, 1990).
This phase of decomposition, of historic impasse and blockage, is at the root of the collapse of the eastern bloc and the USSR and of the death of Stalinism, as we were able to see as early as October 1989:
"Already the eastern bloc is in a state of profound dislocation. For example, the invective traded between East Germany and Hungary, between 'reformist' and 'conservative' governments, is not just a sham. It reveals real splits which are building up between different national bourgeoisies. In this zone, the centrifugal tendencies are so strong that they go out of control as soon as they have the opportunity. And today, this is being fed by fears from within the parties led by the ‘conservatives' that the movement which started in the USSR, and grew in Poland and Hungary, should contaminate and destabilizes them.
"We find a similar phenomenon in the peripheral republics of the USSR. These regions are more or less colonies of Tsarist or even Stalinist Russia (eg the Baltic countries annexed under the 1939 Germano-Soviet pact). ... The nationalist movements which today are profiting from a loosening of central control by the Russian party are developing more than half a century late relative to the movements which hit the British and French empires; their dynamic is towards separation from Russia.
"In the end, if the central power in Moscow does not react, then we will see the explosion, not just of the Russian bloc, but of its dominant power. The Russian bourgeoisie, which today rules the world's second power, would find itself at the head of a second-rate power, a good deal weaker than Germany for example." ('Theses on the Economic and Political Crisis in the Eastern Countries', adopted in October 1989, IR 60, first quarter 1990).
The decomposition of capitalism further aggravates
imperialist antagonisms, wars and militarism
The effects of this historic phase, in this case the explosion of the eastern bloc and the USSR, in their turn accentuate and reinforce the decomposition of society. This phase is marked by the exacerbation of all the characteristics of decadent capitalism, in particular war, imperialism and militarism (as we showed in the text 'Militarism and Decomposition' in October 1990, IR 62), and state capitalism, all this in a context of growing chaos. This is what we wrote just after the fall of the Berlin Wall, when the world bourgeoisie was singing loudly about the virtues of capitalism and claiming that it could offer humanity an era of peace and prosperity...and announcing its victory over marxism:
"Does this disappearance of the eastern bloc mean that capitalism will no longer be subjected to imperialist confrontations? Such a hypothesis would be entirely foreign to marxism...In the period of capitalist decadence, all states are imperialist, and take the necessary measures to satisfy their appetites: war economy, arms production. etc. We must state clearly that the deepening convulsions of the world economy can only sharpen the opposition between different states, including and increasingly on the military level. The difference, in the coming period, will be that these antagonisms which were previously contained and used by the two great imperialist blocs will now come to the fore. The disappearance of the Russian imperialist gendarme, and that to come of the American gendarme as far as its one-time 'partners' are concerned [Note: by this we meant the disappearance of the western bloc following the death of its eastern rival] opens the door to the unleashing of a whole series of more local rivalries. For the moment, these rivalries and confrontations cannot degenerate into a world war (even supposing that the proletariat were no longer capable of putting up a resistance). However, with the disappearance of the discipline imposed by the two blocs, these conflicts are liable to become more frequent and more violent, especially of course in those areas where the proletariat is weakest". ('After the Collapse of the Eastern bloc, Decomposition and Chaos', IR 61, second quarter 1990).
This is exactly what was to happen in the most bloody manner a few months later, with the war in the Gulf.
The collapse of the eastern bloc: a historic break in the world situation
The disappearance of the eastern imperialist bloc, the death agony of Stalinist state capitalism, the imperialist war in the Gulf, marks a clear break in the evolution of history. In particular for the class struggle of the world proletariat.
The end of the 1960s had opened up a period of slow, non-linear, but real development of workers' struggles throughout the world in response to the attacks resulting from the inexorable aggravation of the economic crisis: 1968-75 (France, Italy, Poland, etc); Poland 1980; the struggles of 1983-88 in Western Europe. This relative strength, this resistance by the world working class, by preventing the different national bourgeoisies from mobilizing the proletariat behind them, is at the origins of the historic blockage which has seen the phenomenon of decomposition become a determining factor in the life of capitalism. The collapse of the Stalinist regimes, which has to be understood in the framework of decomposition, was to lead to a profound reflux in the consciousness of the working class (see IR 60, 'New Difficulties for the Proletariat', and thesis 22 of the 'Theses on the Economic and Political Crisis in the Eastern Countries', already cited). It was still weighing on the working class when the Gulf war came in its turn to influence the balance of forces between the classes:
"Today, this development of consciousness continues to be hampered by the after-effects of the collapse of Stalinism and the eastern bloc. The discredit suffered, for over a year and a half, under the effect of a huge campaign of lies, by the very idea of socialism and the proletarian revolution, is still far from having been overcome ... Likewise the crisis and war in the Gulf, while they've had the merit of silencing all the prattle about 'eternal peace', have also engendered in the first instance a feeling of impotence and an indisputable paralysis in the broad mass of workers in the advanced countries," ('Resolution on the International Situation', adopted by the Congress and published in this IR).
And it's hardly necessary to point out that, since the Congress, the failure of the 'conservative' coup in the USSR in August, the death of the Stalinist CP in the USSR, the break-up of the USSR itself, have provided the world bourgeoisie with an opportunity to relaunch its campaign against the working class about the 'death of communism', using and abusing the greatest lie in all history, the identification between Stalinist state capitalism and communism. No doubt this campaign will prolong a little longer the negative effects that the nauseating putrefaction of Stalinism is having on the proletariat. The world proletariat will have paid very dearly indeed for the Stalinist counter-revolution, in its flesh and its mind.
The 9th Congress of the ICC declared itself in agreement with this analysis and with the various positions taken up in reponse to the events. It thus drew up a positive balance sheet of its activities at the level of the theoretical analysis of the international situation, and of the positions this analysis led it to take up.
Balance sheet of activities
This historic break, the events we have been through since the collapse of the eastern bloc, and the reflux in the class struggle, have demanded an adaptation of our general intervention. From this point of view as well, the Congress drew a positive balance sheet. In all our interventions we have been able to take up a militant position in response to the main questions posed by the present situation, in particular through: the uncovering of the new historic phase of decomposition and of the gravity of what's at stake; the explanation of the historic and particular causes of the collapse of the Stalinist regimes; the denunciation of the bourgeoisie's campaigns, in particular the identification between the Russian revolution and Stalinist barbarism, between communism and Stalinist state capitalism; the denunciation of the murderous and cynical barbarism of the bourgeoisie, of its system and of 'democracy' during the Gulf war, and so on.
At the same time, with the reflux in the struggle and the circumstances in which it took place, "the aspect of propaganda has been uppermost in our intervention, with the press as the main instrument for this ... The territorial publications were on the whole able to respond to the eruption of major events, by advancing the date of their appearance, and by bringing out supplements when necessary" (Resolution on Activities). The ICC, as a unified and centralized whole, distributed an international supplement to its publications at the time of the collapse of the eastern bloc, and two international leaflets in the 12 countries where it is present, and anywhere else it was able to intervene, denouncing the imperialist conflict in the Gulf both at the beginning and the end.
At the level of its organizational life, the ICC has been able to reinforce its international links and centralization, thereby following the orientations adopted at the previous International Congress. The mobilization of the organization, of all its militants, and the strengthening of the links between all its parts and territorial sections, were an essential means for the organization to face up to the demands of the present situation.
While the Congress drew a positive balance sheet of our activities, this didn't mean that we have not shown any weaknesses, notably through delays in the various territorial presses, in particular in our response to the collapse of the Stalinist regimes. These weaknesses were basically a result of the real difficulty there has been in grasping the full breadth of the historic break that has taken place; in putting into question the framework of analyses that corresponded to the period preceding the disappearance of the eastern bloc; in rapidly seeing and understanding the collapse of the bloc; in grasping the negative repercussions that the downfall of Stalinism would have for the working class; in recognizing the reflux in the class struggle.
Facing up to the dramatic acceleration of history
History is accelerating dramatically. There's no point in going back over all the events and over the most recent of them, which is taking place at the time of writing: the end of the USSR. You only have to read the papers and watch the TV. The decomposition of capitalist society is the cause of this acceleration. It affects the whole of society, all classes, including the proletariat. The characteristics of the phenomenon of decomposition are such that they exert on the working class and on revolutionary organizations - the ICC included - a particular weight of petty bourgeois ideology which undermines confidence and conviction in the historic strength of the proletariat and in the role of revolutionary political organizations.
The pressure of bourgeois and petty bourgeois ideology in full decay, and the resulting flight into the most reactionary illusions, such as nationalism, corporatism and even racism; the fact that huge numbers of workers are being thrown into unemployment, with no perspective of finding any other work, or, in the case of the young, of finding any work in the first place, with all the lumpenisation, marginalization and despair that follows (drug addiction, crime, prostitution...): these and many others are dangers that threaten the world proletariat more and more violently, more and more massively. They hinder the development of its consciousness, of its confidence in its revolutionary strength. This situation is developing in a terribly wide-scale manner in the countries of the former eastern bloc. The disorientation, blindness and despair hitting the broad mass of workers in these countries is particularly dramatic. And there's no doubt that the explosion of the USSR, the independence of the republics and the resulting nationalism - all the illusions in democracy and the 'prosperity' of the western countries - will further reinforce the disarray and impotence of the proletariat in this part of the world.
The same kinds of dangers weigh on communist militants and their political organizations. Doubts, skepticism, demoralization, lack of confidence in the working class, go hand in hand with the temptation to take flight into 'private life', into individualism, with the bitter and cynical denigration of any collective and organized militant activity, or the rejection of thought and theory.
Similarly at the collective level, at the level of the functioning of the revolutionary organisation, dilettantism, localism, attitudes of laxity and of 'every man for himself' are also dangers which are a much greater threat to the functioning of communist political organizations than they were in the past.
This pressure also operates at the theoretical-political level. The absence of historical perspective which results from this unprecedented situation of decomposition also manifests itself in a lack of rigorous thought, in a loss of method, in a tendency to mix up categories, in an immediatist, a-historical vision. For communist organizations, this pressure expresses itself in a growing tendency towards immediate and superficial approaches to events, a day-to-day, immediatist approach which fails to understand or even to try to see the unity of the historical process as a whole.
A lack of rigorous thinking, a lack of interest in theory - characteristics which affect the whole of capitalist society and which are in fact getting stronger all the time - manifest themselves through the pressure to give up reading theoretical and historical works, to ignore or forget the 'classics' of marxism and the history of the workers' movement and of capitalist society.
This pressure is also illustrated - we can see it in a number of revolutionary groups - by the tendency to call into question the theoretical and political acquisitions of the workers' movement, and even - whether openly or not - by the rejection of marxism.
It was for this reason that the 9th Congress called upon all parts of the organization, on all its militants, to strengthen the international centralization of the ICC, to be extremely vigilant about matters of organisation and militant life, but also to involve ourselves with all our strength in theoretical reflection and deepening and in the elaboration of our analyses. These are indispensable conditions for being able to make the most effective intervention in the working class.
Intervention in the coming period
In this situation of the growing pressure of decomposition on the proletariat and revolutionaries, of a terrible acceleration of history, the 9th Congress of the ICC drew out the perspectives for its general activities, in particular the perspectives for intervention towards the working class and the proletarian political milieu.
Obviously, the disappearance of the USSR and the disgusting campaign of the bourgeoisie against communism are going to prolong the effects of the reflux that the proletariat has suffered for over two years now. It will also reinforce the necessity for us to strengthen our denunciation of the lie that Stalinism is the same as communism. Since it corresponded to our framework of analysis, this event didn't surprise us and has confirmed the orientations for our intervention as defined by the 9th Congress:
"Our intervention must confront both the need to help the working class overcome the ever-present aftermath of the retreat in consciousness that followed the collapse of the eastern bloc, and the need to facilitate the decantation of consciousness brought about by the Gulf war, which can only be deepened by the fact that the threat of war is more and more present. This is why the main axis of our intervention is to contribute as much as possible to the deepening of consciousness, through the general denunciation of the bourgeoisie and its system, and by highlighting what are the stakes in the new historic situation, linked to the general perspective for the class struggle. Because of this, the question of war must remain a central axis of our intervention" (Resolution on Activities).
The working class is going to have to struggle in a situation dominated by the development of chaos, wars and economic crisis. And this is also the context in which we will have to develop our activity and our intervention:
"The general chaos which characterizes the final phase of capitalist decadence, the phase of decomposition, can only be marked by an unleashing of the dominant characteristic of the period of decadence: imperialist conflicts and militarism" (Resolution on the International Situation).
The imperialist wars that are going to break out, even if they don't take the form of a world war between two blocs - at least not for the moment - will be no less murderous. They will give rise to the most awful ravages, and, combined with the other effects of decomposition - pollution, famines, epidemics - they could very well lead to the destruction of humanity. Sharpened more and more by the blows of the economic crisis, imperialist antagonisms between the former allies of the ex-western bloc will spark off and fuel the numerous fires of war that will break out in the phase of decomposition.
This perspective of a multiplication of bloody imperialist conflicts, of a catastrophic development of the effects of decomposition - especially in the countries of Eastern Europe - cannot fail to have consequences for the working class. As we have said, the working class is going through a reflux in its consciousness and its combativity. But as a world class it is not defeated and the historic course still points towards decisive class confrontations. In particular, and this is a crucial point, the experienced and concentrated working class of western Europe has not been mobilized behind the banners of the bourgeoisie.
"In reality, if the disarray provoked by the events of the Gulf may resemble, on the surface, that resulting from the collapse of the eastern bloc, it obeys a different dynamic: while what came from the east (elimination of the remains of Stalinism, nationalist confrontations, immigration, etc) can only, and for a good while yet, have an essentially negative effect on the consciousness of the proletariat, the more and more permanent presence of war in the life of society is tending, by contrast, to reawaken this consciousness...
"The growing evidence of the irreversible bankruptcy of the capitalist mode of production, including and above all its 'liberal' form, the irremediable militarism of this system, will constitute, for the central sectors of the proletariat, a powerful factor in the exhaustion of illusions coming from the events at the end of 1989," (ibid).
The barbarity of war and the multiplication of economic attacks will push the proletariat to return to the path of struggle, and to develop its awareness of the terrible historical stakes being played for. The aim of the 9th Congress was to prepare the ICC for this perspective.
Appeal to the proletarian political milieu
It is in this increasingly dramatic world historic situation that the 9th Congress addressed an 'Appeal to the proletarian political milieu' (published in this issue). Despite the important difficulties of the proletarian milieu, the ICC must participate and work towards the political clarification and unification of what constitutes the political avant-garde of the proletariat. Since its foundation, our organisation has always put this task at the heart of its preoccupations.
"The ICC, because of the importance of its place in this milieu, possesses a primary responsibility ... to use every occasion to help overcome the present situation of dispersion and sectarianism. The Gulf war, which gave rise to a clear internationalist position by revolutionary groups, but in a very dispersed way, and to a lesser extent the collapse of the eastern bloc, whose capitalist nature was affirmed by the groups, albeit in an insufficient and confused framework, provides such an occasion ...
"The 9th Congress of the ICC has decided to address the groups whose existence has a real historic basis, to the exclusion of parasitic groups, with an appeal putting forward the necessity:
- to take heed of the importance of the present historical stakes and the class positions shared by these groups
- to fight attitudes marked by sectarianism
- to work towards a development of contacts and open debate through the press ... through taking part in public and open meetings of groups in the milieu, and eventually through common interventions (leaflets for example) on particularly important occasions," (Resolution on the Proletarian Political Milieu).
The 9th Congress, a moment in the homogenization and strengthening of the ICC
We draw a positive balance sheet of this Congress. It was a moment in the homogenization and strengthening of the ICC. After the overturning of the capitalist order which emerged from the second world war, it has been necessary to 'digest' this historical rupture, to verify our analyses and regroup behind our perspectives, in order to be able to confront the intense period to come.
History continues to accelerate. Dramatic events follow each other at a breakneck pace. The immense majority of the world population lives in extreme misery under the deadly menace of wars, disease, famine and catastrophes of all kinds.
The world proletariat faces redoubled economic attacks in a growing atmosphere of decomposition and war. Even if today it is suffering from a reflux in its consciousness and also in its combativity, it is the only force capable of getting rid of the cesspool that capitalism in decay has become. Inevitably, under the blows of capital, it's going to have to engage in a fight to the death with the world bourgeoisie. The stakes of this gigantic confrontation? The destruction of capitalism, the creation of a communist society, the survival of humanity.
ICC, 1.9.91
9th Congress of the ICC
Imperialist war, crisis and the perspectives for the class struggle in the decomposition of capitalism
We are publishing below the Resolution on the International Situation adopted by the 9th Congress. This text is the synthesis of the two reports presented at this Congress - on the economic situation and the other aspects of the international situation. In order to make more precise and explicit certain points in the Resolution, we reproduce after it extracts from the second report. Owing to lack of space, the passages retained are not always in continuity and fall short of dealing with all the elements covered either by the report or in the discussions at the Congress. At the same time, these passages don't always concern the most important points in the international situation, which have already been amply discussed in other articles from the International Review. Rather we have given priority to the questions that the report deals with more explicitly than these articles.
Resolution on the international situation
The acceleration of history, already identified by the ICC at the beginning of the 1980s, has considerably accentuated since the last congress. Never, since the constitution of our organization, and even since the Second World War, have events of such historic importance unfolded - and in less than two years. In a few months the configuration of the world since the Second World War has been overthrown. In fact, the collapse of the imperialist bloc of the east, which closed the eighties, opens the door to an end-of-the- millennium dominated by an instability and chaos that humanity has never known before. It's up to revolutionaries, if they want to be at the level of their role as the avant-garde of the world proletariat, to fully understand the significance of the convulsions opening up, in order to draw out the resulting perspective for the whole of society and, in the first place, for the working class. In particular, it's up to them to show that the collapse of the Eastern Bloc and the Gulf War are the signs of the entry of the capitalist system into the final phase of its period of decadence: that of the general decomposition of society.
1) As shown in several other texts of the organization, the phase of decomposition:
- "constitutes the final point of convergence for all the fantastic convulsions which have shaken society and the different classes within it since the beginning of the century, in an infernal cycle of crisis-war-reconstruction-new crisis (...); it appears [to the extent that the contradictions and manifestations of the decadence of capitalism...haven't disappeared with time, but have continued and even deepened] as the result of the accumulation of all the characteristics of a moribund system, completing the 75-year death agony of a historically condemned mode of production. Concretely, not only do the imperialist nature of all states, the menace of the world war, the absorption of civil society by the state Moloch, and the permanent crisis of the capitalist economy all continue in the phase of decomposition, but they reach a synthesis and an ultimate conclusion within it."
- "is fundamentally determined by unforeseen and unprecedented historic conditions: the situation of momentary impasse of society, of 'blockage', as a result of the mutual 'neutralization' of its two fundamental classes which prevents either of them from making a decisive response to the open crisis of the capitalist economy...; the incapacity of the bourgeoisie to offer the least perspective for the whole of society and the incapacity of the proletariat to openly affirm itself at the present time." ('Decomposition, Final Phase of the Decadence of Capitalism', International Review 62)
This incapacity of the capitalist mode of production to offer the least perspective to society, outside of a day-to-day resistance to the inevitable advance of its economic convulsions, leads necessarily to the growing tendencies toward generalized chaos, toward a headlong flight of the different components of the social body to "each for himself".
Besides, this phase of decomposition didn't begin with its most spectacular manifestation: the collapse of Stalinism and the Eastern Bloc in the second half of l989. Throughout the eighties the phenomenon of the general decomposition of society bloomed and impregnated in a growing way all the aspects of social life.
2) An event as considerable and unforeseen as the collapse of a whole imperialist bloc outside of a world war or proletarian revolution, such as one saw in l989, cannot be explained fully without taking into consideration the entrance of decadent capitalism into a new phase of its existence: the phase of decomposition. However, the particularities of decomposition alone do not permit an understanding of such an event. The latter finds its origins in the existence of a phenomenon, Stalinism, which can only be analyzed within the general framework of the decadence of the capitalist mode of production and the history of this decadence throughout the 20th Century:
a) Stalinism constitutes a particular manifestation of the general tendency of state capitalism, which is precisely a characteristic of decadent capitalism.
b) However, contrary to the manifestations of this tendency in the majority of other countries (particularly the most advanced), it does not develop in a progressive and organic way within the bowels of capitalist society, but results from specific and 'accidental' circumstances (from the point of view of the bourgeoisie) but which could only be produced in decadence: the temporarily victorious proletarian revolution in a country where the counter revolution was taken in hand by the apparatus of the post-revolutionary state and not by the classical sectors of the dominant class.
c) This same 'accidental' character is found in the constitution of the bloc led by the state which saw the birth of Stalinism. In effect, it's the specific circumstances of the second World War (the most salient manifestation to this day of capitalist decadence) which allowed this backward state to establish its domination over a part of the world with the sole instrument of the same brute force which it utilized within its frontiers. It led to the formation of a particularly rickety imperialist bloc.
The aberrant characteristics of the Stalinist form of state capitalism (total centralization of the economy, absence of the market sanction, elimination of unprofitable enterprises, selection of personnel to manage the national capital on uniquely political criteria), linked to its historical origins, was compatible with the circumstances of world war. But, in revenge, they imposed radical limits on this type of regime with the prolongation of the open crisis of capitalism, when the latter didn't end up in a new generalized holocaust. With the aggravation of the commercial war between nations, these characteristics, in depriving the Stalinist economy of all competivity and of any motivation by its agents, could only end up in its implosion.
In this sense, the economic collapse of the USSR and its 'satellites', which is at the origin of the dislocation of the eastern bloc, finds its roots in the same historic conditions which permitted the entry of capitalism into its phase of decomposition: the prolongation of the open crisis to which neither of the two fundamental classes of society could affirm their own perspective. Thus, it confirms that the collapse of the eastern bloc, the most important historical fact since the worldwide resurgence of the class struggle at the end of the 60s, is a clear manifestation, beyond the particularities of this bloc and the USSR, of the entry of decadent capitalism into its final stage, that of its decomposition.
3) If there's a domain where the tendency to growing chaos is immediately confirmed, of which the break-up of the eastern bloc constitutes the first great manifestation on the world scene, it's that of imperialist antagonisms.
The end of the Russian bloc was presented by the western bourgeoisie as the dawn of a 'new world order' supposed to promote peace and prosperity. In less than a year, the Gulf War has dealt a resounding blow to this lie. It has shown the reality of a phenomenon which, as the ICC immediately brought to light, would necessarily flow from the disappearance of the eastern bloc: the dissolution of its imperialist rival, the western bloc.
This phenomenon was already behind the Iraqi 'hold-up' of Kuwait in August 90. It's because the world had ceased to be carved up by two imperialist constellations that a country like Iraq thought it possible to grab an ex-ally of the same bloc. This same phenomenon was revealed in a clear way during October 90, with the diverse attempts of European countries (notably France and Germany) and of Japan to torpedo American policy in the Gulf, through separate negotiations led in the name of the liberation of hostages. This American policy was to punish Iraq and was supposed to discourage all future attempts to imitate the behavior of this country (and it was to create the conditions for this example that the US did everything, before the 2 August, to provoke and encourage Iraq's adventure).
Washington's policy applies to the countries of the periphery where the level of convulsions are a powerful factor giving rise to this type of adventure. But it is far from limited to this objective. In reality, its fundamental aim was much more general: faced with a world more and more dominated by chaos and 'each for himself', it was a question of imposing a minimum of order and discipline, in the first place, on the most important countries of the western ex-bloc. It's for this reason that these countries (with the exception of Great Britain which chose long ago to make an unbreakable alliance with Uncle Sam) did more than simply drag their feet in aligning with the position of the US and the war effort.
If they needed American power as the world cop, they dreaded a too important show of its power, (inevitable during a direct armed intervention), which would put their own power in the shade. And indeed the military operations at the beginning of the year have clearly shown that only one superpower exists today - other countries can only dream of becoming effective military rivals of the US.
4) In fact, here is the essential key to the Gulf War and the whole world perspective. In a world where the total economic impasse of the capitalist mode of production can only fan the flames of military conflict between nations, the disappearance of the two blocs coming out of the Second World War has put on the agenda the tendency to the reconstitution of two new military blocs. The latter is the classical structure given to the principal states, in the period of decadence, to 'organize' their armed confrontations. Even before the Gulf War, it was clear that neither of the two possible pretenders to the leadership of an eventual new rival bloc to one which would be directed by the US - Japan and above all Germany - was for the moment capable of fulfilling such a role as a result of its extreme military weakness. But taking account of the economic power and dynamism of these countries, which already make them formidable commercial competitors for the United States, it is important for Washington to take the initiative faced with any evolution of international relations that could orientate toward such a redistribution of imperialist forces. That's why the Gulf War could not be reduced to a 'war for oil' or a 'North-South' war. Such a vision, (notably defended by the leftists who used it to justify their support for Iraqi imperialism) only lessens its importance and significance. In the same way all the manifestations of decadent capitalism (militarism, state capitalism, open crisis, etc), all the fundamental antagonisms which are ripping the world apart, find their origin at the heart of capitalism and necessarily set the most important powers on the world scene against each other.
From this point of view, the Gulf War, imposed by the United States on its allies, has delivered the intended results: it has given glaring proof of the immense gap between America and its potential rivals. Notably, it has brought out the total incapacity of the European countries to put forward a common, independent, external policy which in time could have politically prefigured a 'European bloc' led by Germany.
5) However, this immediate success of American policy is not a durable factor stabilizing the world situation to the extent that it could arrest the very causes of the chaos into which society is sinking. If the other powers have had to reign in their ambitions, their basic antagonism with the United States has not disappeared: that's what is shown by the latent hostility that countries like France and Germany express vis-a-vis the American projects for the re-utilization of the structures of NATO in the framework of a 'rapid reaction force' commanded, as if by chance, by the only reliable ally of the US: Great Britain.
Besides, in the Middle East itself, the consequences of the Gulf War (chaos in 'free' Kuwait, revolts of the Kurds and Shiites) have shown that the means employed by the US to impose its 'new world order' are factors in the aggravation of disorder. In this sense, capitalism has no perspective of moderating, still less eliminating, military confrontations. On the contrary, the general chaos which characterizes the final phase of capitalist decadence, that of decomposition, can only be marked by an unleashing of the dominant characteristic of the period of decadence: imperialist conflicts and militarism.
In this situation, contrary to the past, (and here is a major indicator of the qualitative step taken by capitalism in putrefaction) it will no longer be those powers with the smallest share of the imperialist booty which will play the role of 'firelighter', but the power which retains the dominant position, the United States. The preservation by the US of this position will necessarily lead it to increasingly watch out for, and take the initiative in, military confrontations, since it's on this terrain in particular where it can affirm its superiority. In this situation, and even if the conditions for the establishment of a new division of the world into two imperialist blocs - that is, the indispensable premise for military confrontations to end up in a third world war - never exist again, these confrontations, which can only amplify, risk provoking considerable devastation, including, in combination with other calamities specific to decomposition (pollution, famines, epidemics. etc), the destruction of humanity.
6) The end of the 'cold war' and the disappearance of the blocs has thus only exacerbated the unleashing of the imperialist antagonisms specific to decadent capitalism and aggravated in a qualitative new way the bloody chaos into which the whole of society is sinking. But, if it is necessary to underline the extreme gravity of the present situation on the world level, and not just in this or that part of the globe, it is also important to say that these antagonisms don't manifest themselves everywhere in an identical and immediate way. This can be seen in the way the new world configuration unfolded, and in particular in the demise of the eastern bloc and the western bloc. These were not two identical phenomena: in particular, there has not been a parallel process of weakening of each of the two imperialist blocs leading to their simultaneous disappearance. One of the blocs collapsed brutally under the pressure of the total economic bankruptcy of its dominant power while the leader of the other bloc still conserved the core of its capacities. It's the disappearance of the first which has provoked that of the second, not as the result of an internal collapse, but simply because it had lost its essential reason to exist. This difference allows a full comprehension of the present characteristics of imperialist conflicts: like Japan and Germany after the Second World War, the USSR can no longer play a leading role in the world imperialist arena. Henceforth, the fundamental antagonisms will be played out between the 'victors' of the 'cold war'. That's why it's up to the dominant power of the victorious camp to play, for itself, but also for the whole of capitalism, the role of 'world cop'
7) On the other hand, this difference in the process of the disappearance of the two blocs is also mirrored in their internal evolution. Globally, the states of the ex-western bloc are still capable of controlling the political and even economic situation inside their frontiers. But it's by no means the same for the states of the ex-eastern bloc or other Stalinist regimes. From now on, these countries will show in a caricatural way what the phase of decomposition brings - economic chaos will deepen the wounds of rotting capitalism at a stunning pace: massive unemployment provoking the lumpenisation of important sectors of the working class; explosion of drug abuse; criminality, corruption.
The economic and political chaos which is spreading through the countries of the east hits primarily the country that found itself at their head less than two years ago, the USSR. In fact, this country has practically ceased to exist as such since the organs of central power are more and more incapable of exercising control over less and less parts of its territory. The only perspective left for what was the second world power is that of an unrelieved dislocation. A dislocation which the reaction of 'conservative' forces, and particularly the security forces such as those which were mobilized in the Baltic countries and in the Transcaucases, can hold back only a little. In time an even more considerable chaos will be unleashed and with it' bloodbaths.
As for the ex-'people's democracies', while they won't degenerate to the same degree as the USSR, they too can only plunge toward growing chaos as revealed by the catastrophic figures of production (falling 40% in certain countries) and political instability which has manifested itself these last months in practically all the countries of the region (Bulgaria, Rumania, Albania) and particularly in Yugoslavia which is beginning to crack up.
8) The crisis of capitalism which, in the final analysis, is at the origin of all the convulsions of the world at the present time, is itself aggravated by these convulsions:
- the war in the Middle East, the resulting growth of military expenses, the necessary credits for the reconstruction of a part of the destruction (basically a country like Iraq will never overcome the enormous damage suffered during the war) can only affect the economic situation in a negative way (contrary to the Vietnam War which at the end of the l960s delayed the entry of the American and world economy into recession), to the extent that the war economy and generalized indebtedness, have already been primary factors in aggravating the crisis for some time;
- the dislocation of the Western bloc can only give a mortal blow to the coordination of economic policies at the level of the bloc, which in the past could slow the rhythm of the collapse of the capitalist economy. The perspective is a merciless commercial war, in which all countries will lose their feathers;
- the convulsions in the zone of the ex-eastern bloc will increasingly aggravate the world crisis by helping to amplify general chaos. In particular, it will force the western countries to devote important credits to limit this chaos (for example the sending of 'humanitarian aid' designed to delay massive emigration to the west).
9) That said, it's important that revolutionaries put forward what constitutes the ultimate factors aggravating the crisis:
- generalized overproduction specific to a mode of production which cannot create enough outlets to absorb all the commodities produced, and of which the new open recession, today hitting most of the advanced countries, along with the first world power, constitutes a flagrant illustration;
- the unbroken flight into external and internal debt, public and private, of this same power throughout the l980s, which, if it has allowed the momentary relaunching of production in a certain number of countries, has made the United States by far the biggest debtor in the world;
- the impossibility of pursuing this course eternally - buying without paying, selling against promises which more and more evidently will never be kept. It can only make the contradictions still more explosive, notably by a growing weakening of the international financial system.
Underlining this reality is all the more important in that it constitutes a primary factor in the coming to consciousness of the proletariat against the ideological campaigns which have been unleashed these last months, pretending to 'show' that only 'liberal' capitalism can offer prosperity to the population. The causes of economic difficulties are put down to the ambitions of the 'megalomanic and bloody dictator' Saddam Hussein. It is thus indispensable that revolutionaries clearly underline that the present recession, no more than those of l974-75 and l980-82, didn't result from political or military convulsions in the Middle East, but had begun before the Gulf Crisis and that it reveals the fundamental contradictions of the capitalist mode of production.
10) More generally, it is important that revolutionaries bring out, from the present reality, the most essential elements favorable to the coming to consciousness of the proletariat.
Today, this coming to consciousness continues to be hindered by the repercussions of Stalinism's collapse and that of the eastern bloc. The set-back this process has suffered for a year and a half, particularly under the weight of a gigantic campaign of lies discrediting the very idea of socialism and proletarian revolution, is still far from having been overcome.
Besides, the threatened massive influx of immigrants from a chaotic eastern Europe can only create additional disarray in the working class from both sides of the 'iron curtain': among the workers imagining that they will be able to escape intolerable misery by fleeing to the western 'Eldorado' and among those who will think that this immigration risks depriving them of the meager 'benefits' which remain and who will therefore be more vulnerable to nationalist mystifications. Such a danger will be particularly strong in countries like Germany, which are on in the front line against a flood of immigrants.
However the growing evidence of the irreversible bankruptcy of the capitalist mode of production, including and above all in its 'liberal' form, plus the irremediable militarism of this system, is going to constitute, for the central sectors of the proletariat, a powerful factor in the exhaustion of illusions coming from the events of the end of l989. In particular, the promise of a 'peaceful new world' made to us after the disappearance of the Russian bloc, has suffered a decisive blow in less than a year.
11) In fact, the militarist barbarism into which decomposing capitalism is more and more sinking is going to make its mark in a growing way on the development in the class of the consciousness of the stakes and perspectives of its combat. War is not in itself, and automatically, a factor of clarification of the consciousness of the proletariat. Thus, the Second World War ended with the reinforcement of the ideological grip of the counter-revolution. Likewise, the crisis and war in the Gulf, if they've had the merit of silencing all the prattle about 'eternal peace', have also engendered, in the first instance, a feeling of impotence and an indisputable paralysis in the great masses of workers in the advanced countries. But the present conditions of the development of the struggle of the working class mean such a disarray won't last:
- because the proletariat of today, contrary to that of the 30s and 40s, has emerged from the counter-revolution, and has not been mobilized, at least not in its decisive sectors, behind bourgeois banners (nationalism, defense of the 'socialist fatherland', democracy against fascism);
- because the working class of the central countries is not directly mobilized in the war, or gagged by military authority, it has more latitude to develop a profound reflection on the significance of the militarist barbarism which it has to support through redoubled austerity and poverty;
- because the considerable and more and more evident aggravation of the capitalist crisis, of which the workers will evidently be the principal victims and against which they will be constrained to develop their class combativity, will in a growing way develop the conditions that will allow them to make the link between the capitalist crisis and the war, between the fight against the latter and the struggles of resistance against economic attacks, strengthening their capacity to protect themselves against the traps of pacifism and inter-classist ideologies.
12) In reality, if the disarray provoked by the events in the Gulf may superficially resemble that resulting from the collapse of the eastern bloc, it obeys a different dynamic: while what came from the East (elimination of the remains of Stalinism, nationalist confrontations, immigration, etc) can only for a good while yet have an essentially negative impact on the consciousness of the proletariat, the more and more permanent presence of war in the life of the society is tending, by contrast, to reawaken this consciousness. Likewise, if the collapse of Stalinism has had only a limited impact on the combativity of the working class, already shown by a trend toward the revival of struggles in spring 90, the crisis and the war in the Gulf, through the feeling of impotence that it has created amongst the workers of the principal advanced countries (which were practically all implicated in the 'coalition') have provoked an important ebb of combativity - the longest since the winter of 89-90. However, this pause in the workers combativity, far from constituting in itself an obstacle on the road to the historic development of class combats, is above all a moment of decantation, of profound reflection in the whole of the proletariat.
It's for this reason that the apparatus of the left of the bourgeoisie has already for several months been attempting to launch movements of premature struggle in order to short-circuit this reflection and sow more confusion in the workers ranks
13) If despite a temporary disarray, the world proletariat still holds the keys to the future in its hands, it is important to underline that all its sectors are not at the same level in the capacity to open a perspective for humanity. In particular, the economic and political situation which developed in the countries of the ex-eastern bloc testifies to the extreme political weakness of the working class in this part of the world. Crushed by the most brutal and pernicious form of the counter-revolution, Stalinism; hammered by democratic and trade unionist illusions; ripped apart by nationalist confrontations and conflict between bourgeois cliques, the Russian proletariat, of the Ukraine, of the Baltics, Poland, Hungary, etc, find themselves confronted by the worst difficulties in developing their class consciousness. The struggles undertaken by workers of these countries, faced with unprecedented economic attacks, will collide, when they aren't directly derailed onto a bourgeois terrain such as nationalism (which was partly the case for the miners' strike in the USSR last spring), with developing social and political decomposition, stifling their capacity to germinate consciousness. This will continue as long as the proletariat of the great capitalist metropoles, and particularly those of Western Europe, is not up to putting forward, even in an embryonic way, a general perspective of struggle.
14) In reality, today's considerable difficulties of the workers in the eastern countries caused by rampant social decomposition in this part of the world, reveals the impact that the decomposition of capitalism exercises on the development of the struggle and consciousness of the world proletariat.
The confusion and a-classist illusions that a certain number of aspects of decomposition (such as ecological disasters, 'natural' catastrophes, rise of criminality, etc) provoke within it, through the attack on its self-confidence and its vision of the future through the atmosphere of despair which pervades society, through the obstacle to solidarity and the unification of struggles from the ideology of 'each for himself' which is omnipresent today, the growing decomposition of society, the 'rotting on its feet' of capitalism - all this is fundamentally a supplementary difficulty that confronts the proletariat on the road to its emancipation. But the fact that:
- the proletariat of the central countries of capitalism, which will be at the heart of the decisive battles with the bourgeoisie, will be less affected by the most extreme and brutal forms of decomposition than other sectors of the world proletariat;
- that the proletariat for the most part of the eighties developed its struggles and its consciousness when the effects of decomposition were already felt...
These two elements illustrate that the working class still holds the key to the future. And it's particularly true to the extent that the two major manifestations of the life of capitalism with which it will be confronted, the capitalist mode of production's economic crisis and the imperialist war (which are not typical manifestations of the phase of decomposition, but belong to capitalist decadence), will force it to develop its struggles on its class terrain, become conscious of the bankruptcy of this system and the necessity to overturn it.
15) The new level in the maturation of consciousness in the proletariat, which the present situation of capitalism determines, is for the moment only at its beginnings. In particular, the class must travel a difficult road in order to disengage itself from the sequels to the blow of the implosion of Stalinism and the use made of it by the bourgeoisie. Likewise, it's not in an immediate way that the whole of the proletariat will be up to drawing out from the growing military barbarism the historic perspective of its struggles.
In this process, revolutionaries will have a growing responsibility:
- to warn against all the dangers that decomposition represents, and particularly the unleashing of military barbarism which it brings;
- in the denunciation of all bourgeois maneuvers. One of the essential aspects of the latter will be to disguise or denature, the fundamental link between the struggle against the economic attacks and the more general combat against the greater and greater presence of imperialist war in the life of society;
- in the struggle against the campaigns to sap the self-confidence of the proletariat in itself and in its future;
- in putting forward, against all the pacifist or inter-classist mystifications, and more generally, against the whole ideology of the bourgeoisie, the only perspective which can oppose the aggravation of war: the development and generalization of class combat against capitalism as a whole in order to overthrow it and replace it with a communist society.
ICC
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[9] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/historic-events/collapse-eastern-bloc
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