The 'equilibrium' upon which the planetary imperialisms have rested since the end of the Second World War, since Yalta, is being overturned because of the economic collapse of the USSR and the resulting implosion of its bloc. Next to the economic disaster that has befallen its rival, the western bloc seems to be the mighty victor: the exuberant abundance of the shop-windows in the big industrial countries is the best weapon of western propaganda in contrast to the dramatic shortages in the east. However, the illusion of economic victory in the west looks like being short-lived: the economic crisis of generalized overproduction, which has been going on for over 20 years, is a world-wide crisis. Following the under-developed countries' slide into bottomless misery at the end of the 70s, the economic collapse of the eastern bloc at the end of the 80s, far from demonstrating the vitality of the industrial countries of the west, is on the contrary a harbinger of the world-wide catastrophe that is to come. The next decisive step towards this will be the economic collapse of the most developed industrial countries. What we're seeing is less a victory of the west than the defeat of the east. The whole evolution of the western economies over a number of years points to a tomorrow that is anything but bright.

What happened on Friday 13 October 1989? In one session, Wall Street plunged by 7%, and this despite the massive intervention of the so-called 'institutional' investors, for whom the American state immediately opened up new lines of credit so they could buy shares and stop the slide.

After a weekend of intensive meetings in the great central banks of the main western economies, the effects knocked on; on Monday 15 October, Frankfurt went down 13%, Paris 6.9%, London 4.6%, although Tokyo stood firm. However, the joint measures adopted by the economic powers began to take effect: that same day Wall Street improved by 3.4%. In the week that followed, the indices stabilized.

But all this was a clear warning. 200 billion dollars went up in smoke. A new purge was im­posed on stock market speculation. Despite the heavy bill, the central banks rejoiced over their 'technical mastery'. They had limited the dam­age. However, there was no euphoria. On the contrary. This new upset for stock exchange speculation only fuelled disquiet. 1987 was no accident. OK, the markets were stabilized, but for how long?

Capitalists aren't particularly suspicious peo­ple, but they will end up being just that. The month of October is decidedly prone to stock exchange collapses. 1929, and more recently in 1987. However, apart from these repetitive as­pects, the conditions in which these collapses have taken place are very different. Obviously the situation of the world economy is very dif­ferent in the 80s from what it was in 1929: we have already dealt with this amply in the International Review and we won't go over it again here1.

But while the same causes - the raising or interest rates by the big banks - have pro­duced the same effects - the drying up of credit reviving fears of recession and provoking panic on the stock exchange - between October 1987 and October 1989 the international situation has changed a great deal. There has been a marked acceleration in the decline of the American economy and the instability of the world situation has been considerably accentu­ated.

Faced with the recession, a headlong flight into the debt

During the 1970s, the huge credits doled out to the under-developed countries of the periphery made it possible, to a great extent, to absorb the overproduction of the industrialized coun­tries. However, this policy reached its limits with the crisis of the dollar. The 900 billion dollars borrowed by the poor countries of Latin America, Africa and Asia will never be repaid. These fragile economies were ravaged by debt and inflation. They lost all solvencies and were definitively closed as outlets for the commodities produced on a massive scale in the industrial world. The world market contracted brutally and, following in the wake of the American economy, the economy of the whole planet plunged into recession at the beginning of the 80s.

Recession is the worst of all evils for capi­talism. It means a fall in production, factory closures, the development of unemployment and a dizzying rise in unpaid debts. It expresses in a brutal way the impasse that capitalism has reached. Such a situation endangers the stabil­ity of the dollar, the world market's leading currency and symbol of American power and domination. Such a situation is untenable for American capitalism, because it not only threat­ens its economic power, but also its position as an imperialist giant.

The USA isn't just the world's main economic power, it's also the dominant imperialist power within the dominant bloc. Maintaining economic activity and growth is a priority for America to safeguard its own economic and imperialist in­terests. After two years of economic purges im­posed by the austerity policies of the first term of the Reagan presidency, the American state then had to get its economy on the move once again. This was done on the basis of what American imperialism required in order to face up to its Russian rival. The invasion of Afghanistan by the Red Army at the end of 1979 brought a vicious heating-up of inter-imperialist tensions, and led the USA to undertake a vast program of modernizing its armaments. The American 'revival' was a revival of arms pro­duction, a recovery based on the development of the war economy. The USA's military budgets swelled up beyond measure, and at the same time the budget deficit became more and more colossal, despite a drastic reduction in social spending.

However arms production has the particular feature of being a pure destruction of capital which acts as a fetter on economic development as a whole. Armaments are neither consumer goods permitting the reproduction of the labor force, nor a means of production permitting an accumulation of capital. The economic catastrophe of the eastern countries clearly expresses this reality: the absolute priority given to the war economy for decades has led to the asphyxiation of the whole economy.

To a lesser extent, but just as clearly, this reality has also been imposed on the USA. Since the 1950s America's competivity on the world economic arena has been eroded more and more. It's certainly not one of the lesser paradoxes that we are now seeing the countries which were defeated in the Second World War, Japan and Germany, beating all records for competivity. This is due to the fact that these countries, after the war that they lost, rebuilt their destroyed economies on a more modern basis, using what were then the most advanced technologies, whereas the USA's productive apparatus at the end of the war hadn't been destroyed, but had been worn out by the demands of arms production and was to a large extent out of date and obsolete. This relative loss of competivity at the end of the war was further exacerbated in the years that followed, since the defeated countries were forbidden by treaty to engage in rearmament, and were thus able to invest in production without sacrificing this to the needs of the war economy; the USA, on the other hand, had to maintain an imposing military sector, corresponding to its role and needs as leader of an imperialist bloc. This severely limited its competivity on the economic level.

The Reagan presidency's policies of 'recovery' via the war economy thus had the principal result of further weakening the competivity of the American economy. The budget deficits run up to finance the military effort were thus supplemented by trade deficits which also broke all records throughout the 80s. In order to finance these colossal deficits, the USA had to go into debt, and this soon pulverized the records reached by the previously most indebted countries. Today, the debts owed by countries like Brazil or Mexico (a hundred billion dollars for each in 1980), which made financiers tremble at the beginning of the 80s, almost look ridiculous compared to the American debt at the end of the 80s: more than 500 billion dollars of external debt and an internal debt estimated at between 6000 and 8000 billion dollars. The annual American budget was pruned by 170 billion dollars for the payment of the debt. This situation can only get worse and the debts can only get bigger.

An extremely significant pointer to the weakness of the American economy is the fact that, during the 1980s, foreign investment in the USA went well beyond American investments in other parts of the world. Whole chunks of the American economy are today the property of Japanese and European enterprises.

American capitalism, in its search for fresh money, has used all the resources accruing to it because of its status as the world's first economic power and leader of the most powerful imperialist bloc. His Majesty the Dollar has imposed his supremacy in the following ways:

- the American federal bank, in the name of liberalism, has guided the world economy in a very statist manner, through its policy of interest rates;

- a policy of supporting the dollar has been imposed on the main industrialized countries, who have become the USA's money-lenders.

This policy has made it possible to put a temporary brake on the slide towards recession, and to keep the most industrialized countries afloat. It has been accompanied by an intense ideological campaign about the glories of the capitalist economy. In 1987, euphoria still reigned: official 'growth' was beating all the records and inflation was at its low point. The stock market slide was soon halted and speculation took wing again.

The crisis of credit: the limits of a policy

The official, pseudo-growth of the second Reagan Presidency was in fact a hidden recession of the world economy2. What really happened was a growth in the destruction of capital and an artificial growth of the unproductive sectors. Economic activity was maintained in an artificial manner: production wasn't really paid for, commodities were exchanged against debts. In these conditions production was not directly production of value. Capitalism can only keep up such a semblance of economic activity through cheating the laws of the market on a vast scale, but this only destabilizes the world economy more and more and builds up a gigantic pile of waste.

This situation has been masked by the increasing manipulation of economic indices and the deafening noise campaigns about the efficiency of the USA's 'liberal' economic policies: the famous Reaganomics.

But since 1987, the situation has changed a lot. The euphoria has subsided, doubt has crept in. The official statistics, confronted with the reality of the crisis, have been obliged to bear some relation to reality, otherwise they would be of no use whatsoever. Official 'growth' has begun to go into decline while inflation has made a definite comeback. The example of Britain is particularly significant in this respect. Britain had a policy of Reaganomics before the USA did, but it is no longer able to hold back the rise of inflation, whereas lending rates have gone up and plunged the economy into recession.

Of course the American economy, the worlds no 1, is of a different caliber from Britain's, and the dollar isn't the pound Sterling. Moreover, the USA can profit from its position as head of the bloc and impose a discipline which suits its interests. However, the blind laws of the market are at work here; they have already hurled the under-developed countries of the periphery into an economic chaos from which there is no escape; today they're bringing down the British economy; and they are also eroding the economic power of America, which is at the centre of the economic contradictions of world capitalism.

For years now, through the recourse to credit, a mountain of dollars has been in circulation. As it stands, the debt of the peripheral countries has reached 1300 billion dollars. The external debt of the USA has gone up to 500 billion dollars, but this hides the internal debts, where the accumulated borrowings of the state, of enterprises and individuals, are estimated at between 6000 and 8000 billion dollars. The development of credit which can never be repaid, in fact of fictitious capital, is completely out of synch with the development of the real economy, of actual production3. Financial and stock exchange speculation hasn't solved anything. Stimulated by the policy of 'leveraged buy-outs'4, enterprises have seen their share values go up five or 10 times, but the development of production in no way justifies this rise.

In these conditions, the laws of the capitalist market are pushing for a more real relationship between the value of the dollar and the actual production of wealth. Inflationary pressures are getting stronger and stronger. Faced with these pressures, the policy of the American Federal Bank has had to yield and lower the rates, to reopen the flood-gates of credit, in order to avoid a rapid decline in growth, which would have catastrophic consequences for the world's economic equilibrium.

Before the mini-collapse of the stock exchange in October 1989, the managers of one hundred of the biggest American enterprises had sounded the alarm, disturbed as they were by the slow-down in activity concretized in a brutal fall in the profits of US enterprises (the flowers of American capitalism, like General Motors, Ford and IBM, saw their profits fall by between 30 and 40% in the third quarter of 1989. They thus asked the Federal Bank to lower interest rates and maintain growth).

Given the disquiet of the world's financiers in their daily reading of the various economic indices, the particular event which, in a purely phenomenological way, gave rise to the stock market panic of October 1989, might appear rather trivial. However, it is a significant expression of the present difficulties of the world economy. In the 'buy-out' war fought by the capitalists of the whole world, the incapacity of a group of speculators to get the credit they needed at the stock exchange to finance a buy­out they'd launched for United Airlines, one of the main US air companies, unleashed a torrent of panic. Why? Because this meant the end of easy credit, the end of the gigantic buy-outs made possible by this credit, and thus the end of the artificial growth of stock market shares. Once again the USA recoiled in front of the economic implications of a policy of austerity, of rigor vis-a-vis the dollar. At the beginning of November 1989, the Federal Bank had to lower its rates and re-open the coffers of credit. While this policy might hold back the fall in production, it is incapable of stimulating growth. More and more, the new credits put into circulation will be used to pay for previous debts, or to fuel speculation, and less and less to feed production.

The more credit grows, the less effective it is in the real economy, and the rate of growth will decline in an irresistible manner. On the other hand, the policy of easy credit does have a direct effect today, and that is to encourage inflation. In fact, the Federal Bank has chosen inflation rather than face the immediate danger of a catastrophic fall in production.

For years, American economists and political leaders have been talking about a 'soft landing' for the American economy, and in fact the USA's economic policies have managed to avoid excessive damage: the American airplane has managed to make a gentle descent. But where will it land? Won't all the difficult maneuvers it's tried up to now lead to a break-down? Won't the fuel of credit fail it in the end?

From the moment the American economy stops flying, it will mean a new and brutal dive into recession by the world economy. The American market will be closed to Japanese and European imports, there will be a growing incapacity to pay back debts, a new surge of inflation, a major financial crisis centered around the dollar. These perspectives for the world economy have been there in potentio since the beginning of the 80s, and all the USA's economic policies have been aimed at putting off the evil day by manipulating the law of value.

This policy of 'putting off till tomorrow' has only been possible because of the particular status of the USA as not only the world's main economic power, but also as chief of the most powerful imperialist bloc, imposing its diktats on the most developed economies of the planet: the countries of Europe, notably West Germany and Japan. The functioning of the group of the seven most industrialized countries of the western bloc, the 'Group of Seven', has symbolized this imposition of US economic diktats on the countries of its bloc. This discipline, especially as it affected Germany and Japan, has been the sine qua non of economic stability throughout the 80s. Despite the catastrophe of the 'third world', the overall descent of the world economy, the industrialized countries' slide into the morass of a hidden recession has taken place in a 'soft' manner ­from the economists' point of view, of course.

However, the conditions which allowed the USA to carry out these economic policies have now changed:

• the dilapidated state of the American economy contrasts sharply with the relative health of its main economic rivals, Japan and Germany. Whereas the USA has run up huge trade deficits, Japan and Germany have broken all the export records. In contrast to the post­war reconstruction period, today European and Japanese capital is buying up whole chunks of the American economy. The locomotive is running out of steam, and at the same time as inflation is coming back in force, there is a recession on the American horizon. There is a threat of a dollar crisis and the USA's position of economic leadership is beginning to look shaky;

- the economic collapse of the Russian bloc, just as it has reasserted the unavoidable reality of the law of value within the capitalist system, is now overturning the global balance between the blocs which has 'organized ' the world since Yalta. The discipline which the USA has managed to impose on its main economic competitors, Europe and Japan, was held together only by the imperialist threat from the Russian bear. A bolt has been pulled back in the east, and this will overturn the relationships between the main economic powers of the western bloc.

The collapse of the Eastern Bloc and destabilization of the economy

The new decade is opening up under the auspices:

- of a dramatic dive into the economic crisis, which is based on generalized overproduction in relation to existing markets - markets which are going to get even more restricted;

- of a growing destabilization of the equilibrium which has dominated the world since the second world war.

The collapse of the Russian bloc will lead to the destabilization of the western bloc, and this will have particularly important implications on the economic level (among others). Faced with the threat of economic bankruptcy, America will be compelled to close its markets to European and Japanese imports, and the centrifugal tendencies within the bloc will get stronger and stronger. Since the Russian threat will no longer be credible, America's protective umbrella will also lose its justification. Such a situation will give rise to claims for independence by Japan and Germany, concretized in a growing trend towards 'every man for himself', each power trying to protect its own privileged markets in the face of the open recession which will impose itself with irresistible force.

The two planks which guaranteed the supremacy of the dollar, America's economic and imperialist strength, are being eroded. The solvency of the dollar was guaranteed more by the dominant imperialist role of the USA than by its economic strength. The value of the dollar is in fact largely fictitious, based on the 'confidence' inspired by the USA, and this 'confidence' will more and more be shaken by world events. Within the perspective of the development of the crisis, what's at stake is the dollar's hegemonic role on the international scene, and thus its future solvency. The international financial system, centered round the dollar, is like a house of cards. It threatens to collapse at the least breath of wind, and it's a veritable storm that's brewing.

As long as what's left of US 'growth' provides Europe and Japan with outlets for their production, all the industrialized countries have an interest in maintaining the present status quo, but this situation is provisional. The perspective of the American market's slide into recession means a new contraction of the world market and thus a fall in European and Japanese exports; consequently, recession for them as well. However, the economic situation in these countries isn't as bad as that of the US. They can still have some recourse to credit to preserve a relative stability in their privileged markets - Europe for Germany, and South East Asia for Japan. But this credit can only be based on the growing power of currencies that will challenge the all-powerful dollar: the deutschmark and the yen. And such a policy is no more a way out of the crisis than was Reagan's. It would only express the truly ruined state of the world economy and the bankruptcy of the USA. It would only briefly restrain the development of the crisis and keep illusions going a bit longer, but at a much more limited level than before.

Capitalism can't envisage a crisis without a capitalist solution. It can't accept that its contradictions are insurmountable. It's always looking for new illusions, new mirages to dream about. The convulsions in the east, which hold the prospect of opening up the economies of eastern Europe to the west, are creating the hope that there will be new markets for western commodities, a new shot of oxygen that will allow 'growth' to continue. This hope will be short-lived.

Ten years ago, China raised the same hopes, but the western capitalists were soon disenchanted. Even though China with its billion inhabitants has enormous economic needs, in the logic of capital this doesn't turn these needs into solvent markets. China is a population giant and an economic dwarf.

If today the countries of the east European 'glacis' can hope to free themselves from Russian domination, it's because of the economic collapse of the Russian bloc. Consequently, their devastated economies are similar to those of all the under-developed countries, ie insolvent. When the Berlin Wall was opened, hundreds of thousands of East Germans had ecstasies in front of the packed shop windows in the west, but their own pockets were empty: if they were able to make a few meager purchases, it was essentially thanks to the 100 marks 'generously' handed out by the West German state. In any case, the countries of Eastern Europe (excluding the USSR) had a total GNP of 490 billion dollars in 1987, a bit more than half the GNP of France, which was 880 billion. Such a market, even if it was healthy, couldn't suffice as an outlet for world overproduction, and so make it possible to avoid the plunge into open recession a recession in which the east European countries have been stuck for a number of years.

The solution of credit, the western manna called for by the leaders of the east, in particular Walesa who's become the representative of the interests of the Polish economy, is no solution at all. Given that these economies are in ruin, ravaged by decades of aberrant Stalinist management, the credits needed for an economic 'reconstruction' of ·the eastern countries are beyond the means of the western economies. They'd be investing in a pure loss: we already have the example of Poland, with its 40 billion dollars debt and the persistent bankruptcy of its economy. In fact billions of billions of dollars would be required for the job. In a period when the whole world is drowning in debt; when, faced with the contraction of the market, as competition is becoming more and more acute, a new 'Marshall Plan' is no longer possible. The loans from the west, rather than permitting the industrial development of these countries, have the aim of stabilizing the situation on a day-to-day basis. In such conditions, these western credits are largely symbolic.

At the beginning of the 80s, the under­developed countries of the periphery of capitalism the 'third world' slid into irredeemable economic disaster. . At the end of the 80s, it's the turn of the eastern bloc - the 'second world' - to go into economic collapse. The 'first world', the big western industrialized countries, in comparison to the general bankruptcy, still looks like an island of health and wealth. This situation can only reinforce the illusions about 'liberal' and 'democratic' capitalism, and constitutes the basis for the intensive ideological campaigns of the western bloc. However, all the conditions are there for the economic failure of the whole capitalist world, especially its most developed poles, to be exposed to the light of day. Since the mid-80s, through economic 'cheating' and deceptive statistics, the bourgeoisie of the industrialized countries has kept up the illusion of growth. This official lie, which the ruling class itself needs to believe, is reaching its end. Despite all the manipulations they've been subjected to, the economic indices are already translating the deepening economic bankruptcy of capitalism. The illusions about growth, about economic development, are going to tumble sharply, along with the official indices themselves, which will be obliged to reflect the reality of an accentuated descent into recession and the accelerated development of inflation.

The whole basis for the domination of capital is being eaten away by the world economic crisis, whose development may be relatively slow, but is nevertheless ineluctable.

JJ

Stalinism has been the spearhead of the most terrible counter-revolution that the proletariat has undergone throughout its history: a counter-revolution which made possible World War II, the greatest slaughter of all times, and which plunged the whole of society into a hitherto unparalleled barbarism. Today, as the economies of the so-called "socialist" countries collapse and with the de facto disappearance of the imperialist bloc dominated by the USSR, Stalinism as a political and economic form of capitalism and as an ideology is in its death-throes. One of the working class' greatest enemies is dying; this will not make life any the easier for it, quite the contrary. As it dies, Stalinism is doing capitalism one last good turn. This is what we propose to demonstrate in the following article.

Stalinism is undoubtedly the most tragic and repulsive episode in human history. Not only does it bear the direct responsibility for the massacre of tens of millions of human beings, not only has it imposed for decades a merciless terror on almost a third of humanity, above all it has shown itself the worst enemy of the communist revolution, in other words of the precondition for the human species' emancipation from the chains of exploitation and oppression, and this in the name of the communist revolution itself. In doing so, it has been responsible for the destruction of class consciousness within the world proletariat during the most terrible counter-revolution of its history.

Stalinism's role in the counter-revolution

Ever since the bourgeoisie first established its political domination over society, it has seen in the proletariat its own worst enemy. During the bourgeois revolution at the end of the 18th century, whose Bicentenary has just been celebrated with great pomp, the capitalist class understood how subversive Baboeuf's ideas were, for example. This was why they sent him to the scaffold, even though at the time his movement could not constitute a real threat to the capitalist state.[1]

The whole history of bourgeois domination is marked by the massacre of workers in order to protect it: the massacre of the Lyon "canuts" in 1831, of the Silesian weavers in 1844, of the Parisian workers in June 1848, of the Communards in 1871, of the 1905 uprising throughout the Russian empire. The bourgeoisie has always been able to find executioners from within its classical political formations to do this kind of job.

But when history inscribed the proletarian revolution on its agenda, then these political parties where not enough to preserve its power. It fell to the traitor parties, parties that the workers themselves had created previously, to shore up the traditional bourgeois parties, or even to take the lead amongst them. These new recruits to the bourgeoisie had a specific role to play; they were indispensable and irreplaceable because their origins and their name gave them the ability to keep the proletariat under their ideological control, in order to sap its consciousness and to draw it under the banners of the enemy class. The greatest feat of the Social-Democracy as a bourgeois party lies not so much in its direct responsibility for the massacre of the Berlin proletariat in January 1919 (when, as War Minister, the Social-Democrat Noske fulfilled his responsibility perfectly as the "bloodhound" of the bourgeoisie, to use his own expression), but in the part it had already played as recruiting sergeant during World War I, and the part it was to play afterwards as an agent of mystification, division and dispersal within the proletariat, against the revolutionary wave which put an end to and followed the War.

It was only possible to enroll the European proletariat under the banner of "national defense", and to unleash the carnage of World War I in the name of the "defense of civilisation", thanks to the betrayal of the opportunist wing which dominated most of the parties of the IInd International. In the same way these parties, which continued to call themselves "socialist" and so preserved a large degree of credit within the working class, played a vital part in maintaining reformist and democratic illusions amongst the workers, which disarmed them and prevented them from following the example given by the Russian workers in 1917.

During this period, the elements and fractions which, come wind come storm, had held high the banner of internationalism and proletarian revolution, regrouped within the communist parties, the sections of the IIIrd International. But in the period that followed, these parties were to play a similar role to that played by the socialist parties. Gangrened from within by opportunism, which spread with the defeat of the world revolution, faithful executors under the leadership of an "International", which having once pushed the revolution vigorously forward was being transformed more and more into a mere diplomatic instrument in the hands of the Russian state as it sought its integration into the bourgeois world, the communist parties went the same way as their predecessors. Like the socialist parties, they were finally completely integrated into the political apparatus of the national capital in their respective countries. As they went, however, they played their part in the defeat of the last outbursts of the post-war revolutionary wave, as in China 1927-28, and above all contributed decisively to the transformation of the defeat of the world revolution into a terrible counter-revolution.

After this defeat - in fact, counter-revolution - the defeat and demoralisation of the proletariat were inevitable. However, the form of this counter-revolution in the USSR itself - not the overthrow of the power that had emerged from the Revolution of October 1917, but the degeneration of the state and party that held power - meant that it was incomparably longer and deeper than it would have been had the revolution succumbed to the white armies. Following its integration into the post-revolutionary state, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) was converted from the vanguard of the 1917 proletarian revolution and of the Communist International of 1919, to the main agent of counter-revolution in the USSR and the principal executioner of the working class.[2]

But the aura of prestige surrounding its past revolutionary action, continued to maintain the illusion amongst the majority of the communist parties and their militants, as among the great masses of the world proletariat. Thanks to this prestige, some of which was reflected on the Communist Parties in other countries, the militants and the masses were able to tolerate all Stalinism's betrayals during this period. The desertion of proletarian internationalism under the pretext of "building socialism in one country", the identification of "socialism" with the capitalism which was reconstituted in the USSR in its most barbaric forms, the struggles of the world proletariat's subjection to the demands of the defense of the "socialist fatherland", and in the end of the defense of "democracy" against fascism, were so many lies which deceived the working masses largely because the parties which lived by them, presented themselves as the "legitimate" heirs of the October revolution, which they themselves had assassinated.

This identification of Stalinism with communism, probably the greatest lie in history and certainly the most repulsive, which has been aided and abetted by every fraction of the world bourgeoisie,[3] was what made it possible for the counter-revolution to reach the depths it did, paralysing several generations of workers, delivering them bound hand and foot to the second imperialist slaughter, and either eliminating altogether or reducing to the state of utterly isolated little groups the communist fractions which had fought against the degeneration of the Communist International and its parties.

During the 1930's especially, it was left to the Stalinist parties to derail onto a bourgeois terrain the anger and combativity of workers brutally hit by the world economic crisis. By its depth and extent, this crisis was the indisputable sign that the capitalist mode of production was historically bankrupt, and so in other circumstances could have been the lever for a new revolutionary wave. But the majority of workers who wanted to head towards just such a perspective remained snared in the meshes of Stalinism, which claimed to represent the tradition of the world revolution. In the name of the defense of the "socialist fatherland" and of anti-fascism, the Stalinist parties systematically drained the period's proletarian struggles of any class content, and converted them into props for bourgeois democracy, when they did not simply become preparations for imperialist war. This was particularly the case with the "Popular Front" episodes in France and Spain, where an enormous workers' combativity was derailed and wiped out by an anti-fascism that claimed to be "working class", peddled essentially by the Stalinists. In Spain the Stalinists showed clearly that even outside the USSR, where they had played the part of executioners for years, they could equal and even surpass their social-democratic masters at the job of massacring the proletariat (see, in particular, their role in suppressing the Barcelona proletariat's uprising in May 1937, described in the article in the International Review n°7).

In terms of the number of victims for which it is directly responsible, Stalinism is every bit as bad as fascism. But its anti-working class role has been far greater, since its crimes have been committed in the name of the communist revolution and the proletariat and so have also provoked a historically unprecedented reversal of working class consciousness.

Whereas at the end of World War I and in the immediate post-war period, when the world-wide revolutionary wave was developing, the Communist parties' impact was directly related to the combativity and consciousness of the entire proletariat, from the 1930's onwards the evolution of their influence has been inversely proportional to class consciousness. At their foundation, the Communist parties' strength was a barometer of the strength of the revolution; once Stalinism had sold them to the bourgeoisie, the strength of these parties, which continued to call themselves "communist" was no more than a measure of the depth of the counter-revolution.

This is why Stalinism has never been more powerful than immediately following World War II. This was the culminating point in the counter-revolution. Thanks in particular to the Stalinists, who had made it possible for the bourgeoisie to unleash yet another imperialist carnage, and whose "resistance" movements were among the best recruiting-sergeants, the Second World War, unlike the First, was not followed by a revolutionary upsurge of the proletariat.

The "Red" Army's[4] occupation of a large part of Europe, and the Stalinists' participation in the "liberation" governments made it possible to silence, either by terror or by mystification, any attempts by the proletariat to struggle on its own class terrain; it was plunged into still deeper disarray than before the war. Far from clearing the ground for the working class (as the Trotskyists claimed to justify their support for the "Resistance"), the Allied victory to which the Stalinists had contributed only increased the proletariat's submission to bourgeois ideology. This supposed victory of "Democracy" and "Civilisation" over fascist barbarism allowed the ruling class to restore the democratic illusion, and belief in a "humane" and "civilised" capitalism. It thus prolonged the night of the counter-revolution by several decades.

Moreover, it is no accident that the end of this counter-revolution, the historic recovery of the class struggle in 1968, coincides with an important weakening of the Stalinist grip throughout the world proletariat, and of the illusions over the nature of the USSR and the anti-fascist mystification. This is particularly clear in the two Western countries with the most powerful "communist" parties, and where the most important struggles of this recovery took place: France and Italy.

How the ruling class uses Stalinism's collapse

This weakening of Stalinism's ideological grip over the working class is largely due to the workers' discovery of what the supposedly "socialist" regimes really are. In the "socialist" countries, the class obviously realised very quickly that Stalinism was one of its worst enemies. The workers' revolts in East Germany 1953, in Poland and Hungary 1956, were proof that workers in these countries no longer had any illusions about Stalinism. These events (along with the Warsaw Pact's military intervention in Czechoslovakia in 1968) also helped open the eyes of numbers of workers in the West as to Stalinism's real nature,[5] but not to the same extent as the struggles in Poland during 1970, 1976, and 1980. Because they were much more directly placed on a class terrain, and because they took place at a time of general resurgence of working class combat, they revealed much more clearly to the eyes of workers in the West the real anti-working class nature of the Stalinist regimes. This moreover is why the Stalinist parties in the West took their distances from the repression of the workers' struggles by the "socialist" states.

The collapse of the "socialist" economy highlighted by these workers' struggles also helped to wear down the Stalinist lie. However, as this collapse became more and more obvious, and as the Stalinist lie has faded, the Western bourgeoisie put it to good use by developing campaigns around the theme of "capitalism's superiority to socialism". In the same way, the Polish workers' powerful illusions in democracy and the trade unions, especially following the formation of the "Solidarnosc" union after 1980, have been exploited to the hilt to improve the unions' image in the eyes of workers in the West. The strengthening of these illusions, especially after the repression of December 1981 and the outlawing of "Solidarnosc" goes a long way to explaining the disarray and retreat of the working class at the beginning of the 1980's.

In autumn 1983 the upsurge of a new wave of workers' struggles in the developed Western countries, notably in Western Europe, and their simultaneity on a world scale, demonstrated that the working class was beginning to emerge from the grip of the illusions and mystifications which had paralysed it in the previous period. The weakening of illusions in the trade unions was revealed in strikes such as the 1986 French rail strike, or the 1987 teachers' strike in Italy, where workers acted outside or even against the trade unions; it was also revealed in the way the leftists, in these and some other countries, started setting up the "coordinations": structures of control put forward as "nonunion". During the same period, the rising rate of abstentions, especially in working class constituencies, was a sign of the decline in the electoral mystification. Today however, thanks to the collapse of the Stalinist regimes and the frenzy of accompanying media campaigns, the bourgeoisie has succeeded in reversing this tendency of the mid-1980's.

If the events in Poland during 1980-81 - not the workers' struggles of course, but the union and democratic trap which closed in on them and made possible the repression that followed -allowed the bourgeoisie to create a considerable confusion among the proletariat of the most advanced countries, then today's general and historic collapse of Stalinism can only lead to a still greater disarray.

This is the case because today's events are at an altogether different level from those of Poland in 1980. They are not confined to one country. An entire imperialist bloc is involved, starting with its most important country, the USSR. Stalinist propaganda could present the difficulties of the Polish regime as being due to Gierek's "mistakes". Nobody today, not even these countries' new leaders, is trying to lay all the blame for today's difficulties on the fallen leaders of the past. According to many of these leaders, especially the Hungarians, what is in question today is the entire economic structure and the aberrant political practices which have marked the Stalinist regimes from their outset. The fact that their leaders recognise these regimes' total collapse is obviously all grist to the mill for the Western bourgeoisie's media campaigns.

The bourgeoisie also gets maximum mileage from the collapse of Stalinism and its bloc because this collapse is not due to the action of the class struggle, but to the complete bankruptcy of these countries' economies. In the colossal events taking place today in Eastern Europe, the proletariat as a class, with a policy antagonistic to capitalism, is painfully absent.

In particular, last summer's miners' strikes in the USSR were something of an exception; the weight of illusions they harboured reveal the proletariat's political weakness in these countries. Moreover, unlike the miners' strikes, most of the strikes which have occurred recently in the USSR were not aimed at defending workers' interests, but were situated on a nationalist and so completely bourgeois terrain (Baltic countries, Armenia, Azerbaijan...). Not a shadow of a working class demand is to be seen in the massive demonstrations taking place in Eastern Europe, in particular in East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Bulgaria. These demonstrations are completely dominated by typically and wholly bourgeois democratic demands: "free elections", "liberty", "resignation of the ruling CP's", etc. By comparison, the impact of the democratic campaigns that followed Poland 1980-81 was somewhat limited by the fact that these events sprang from the class struggle. The absence of significant class struggle in the Eastern countries today cannot but strengthen the devastating effects of the bourgeoisie's present campaigns.

On the more general scale of the collapse of an entire imperialist bloc, which will have enormous repercussions, the fact that this historic event has taken place independently of the proletariat's own action cannot help but produce within the class a feeling of powerlessness, even if the event was only possible, as the Theses demonstrate, because up to now the bourgeoisie has been unable to enroll the proletariat on a world level for a third imperialist holocaust. After overthrowing first the Tsar and then the bourgeoisie in Russia, it was the class struggle which put an end to World War I by bringing about the collapse of Imperial Germany. This is the main reason that the first revolutionary wave could develop on a world scale.

By contrast, the fact that the class struggle was only of secondary importance in the collapse of the Axis countries after World War II played an important part in paralysing and disorientating the proletariat in its immediate aftermath. Today, it is not irrelevant that the Eastern bloc should be collapsing under the weight of the economic crisis, rather than under the blows of the class struggle. If the latter had happened, it could only have strengthened the proletariat's self-confidence, not weakened it as is the case today. Moreover, to the extent that the collapse of the Eastern bloc comes after the period of "cold war" with the West, which the latter seems to have "won" without striking a blow, it will create a feeling of euphoria amongst the populations in the West, including the workers, and a feeling of confidence in their governments similar (though to a lesser degree) to that which weighed on the proletariat in the "victorious" countries after the two world wars, and which was even one of the main causes of the defeat of the revolutionary wave following the First.

Clearly, this kind of euphoria, which is obviously catastrophic for the consciousness of the working class, will be much more limited today, since the world is not just emerging from an imperialist bloodbath. However, the damage will be made more severe by the euphoria infecting the population in some of the Eastern countries, and which will have its impact in the West. At the opening of the Berlin Wall, for example, the press and certain politicians compared the atmosphere in Berlin with that of the "Liberation" following World War II. It is no surprise that the population of East Germany should feel the same about the demolition of this symbol par excellence of Stalinist terror as did the populations subjected to years of occupation and terror by Nazi Germany. But history has shown us that this kind of emotion is one of the worst obstacles to the development of proletarian consciousness.

The East European population's satisfaction at the collapse of Stalinism, and above all the increase in democratic illusions that it will make possible, is already having a strong effect on the proletariat in the Western countries, especially in Germany whose weight within the world proletariat is especially important in the perspective of the proletarian revolution. Moreover, even if the reunification of Germany is not an immediate practical possibility, the proletariat in Germany will have to confront all the nationalist lies that this perspective cannot but reinforce.

These nationalist mystifications are already very strong amongst workers in most of the Eastern countries. They do not exist only within the different republics that make up the USSR. They also weigh heavily on the workers in the "people's democracies", due notably to the brutal manner whereby the "Big Brother" kept his imperialist grip on them. These mystifications have been reinforced by the Russian tanks' bloody interventions in East Germany 1953, in Hungary 1956, and in Czechoslovakia 1968, and by the decades of systematic pillage of the satellite countries' economies. Along with illusions in democracy and trade unions, these played an important part in disorientating the Polish workers in 1980-81, opening the door to the repression of December. They will gain new energy with the disintegration of the Eastern bloc which will make the development of the workers' consciousness still more difficult.

These nationalist mystifications will also weigh on the workers in the West; this will not (apart from in Germany) occur through a direct increase in nationalism amongst the working class, but rather through the discredit and distortion of the very idea of proletarian internationalism. This conception has already been completely disfigured by Stalinism, and in Stalinism's wake by the rest of the bourgeoisie, which identified it with the USSR's domination of its bloc. In 1968, the intervention of the Warsaw Pact's tanks in Czechoslovakia was carried out in the name of "proletarian internationalism". The Eastern bloc's collapse, and its population's rejection of Stalinist style "internationalism", will inevitably weigh heavily on the consciousness of workers in the West.

And the Western bourgeoisie will miss no opportunity to oppose real proletarian internationalism with its own "international solidarity', understood as support for the stricken Eastern economies (or simply appeals for charity), or for their populations' "democratic demands" when they come up against brutal repression (remember the campaigns over Poland in 81, or more recently over China).

In fact, the ultimate aim at the heart of the bourgeoisie's present campaigns to taint the very perspective of world communist revolution with the collapse of Stalinism. Internationalism is only one element of this perspective. The nauseating refrain of the media: "communism is bankrupt; communism is dead" sums up the fundamental message that the ruling class in every country wants to stuff into workers' heads. The lie of the identity between Stalinism and communism, which has already been peddled by all the forces of the bourgeoisie in the past during the worst moments of the counter-revolution, has once again been taken up with the same unanimity. In the 1930's, the bourgeoisie used it to enroll the working class behind Stalinism and to complete its defeat. Today, now that Stalinism has lost all its credit in workers' eyes, the same lie is being used to turn them away from the perspective of communism.

In the Eastern bloc, the workers have already suffered this disorientation for some time: when the term "dictatorship of the proletariat" means police terror, when "the power of the working class" means the cynical power of the bureaucrats, when "socialism" means brutal exploitation, shortages, poverty and waste, when school children are forced to learn by heart quotes from Marx and Lenin, inevitably they will turn away from such notions, in other words reject what is the very foundation of the proletariat's historical perspective, refuse categorically to study the basic texts of the workers' movement; the very terms "workers' movement" and "working class" become obscenities. In such a context, the very idea of a proletarian revolution is completely discredited. "What is the use of starting again as in October 1917, if it only ends up in Stalinist barbarity?"This is the dominant feeling today amongst virtually all the workers in the Eastern countries. The Western bourgeoisie aims to profit from the collapse of Stalinism to spread a similar confusion among the workers in the 'West. And so obvious and spectacular is the system's collapse that for the most part, this works.

All the events which are rocking Eastern Europe today, and whose repercussions are world-wide, will thus for a time weigh heavily, and negatively, on the development of consciousness in the working class. At first, the opening of the "iron curtain" which divided the world proletariat in two will not permit the workers in the West to help their class brothers in the East profit from the experience they have gained in their struggles against the traps and mystifications deployed by the world's strongest bourgeoisies. On the contrary, in the immediate and for some time to come, it will be the strong democratic illusions of the workers in the East that will spill over into the West, thus weakening the gains made already by the workers there. This is how the bourgeoisie is using against the working class the death agony of Stalinism, which was once the weapon par excellence of the counter-revolution.

The perspectives for the class struggle

In a world context of deepening capitalist crisis, the collapse of the Stalinist regimes, essentially as a result of their total economic bankruptcy, can only make their situation worse. For the working class in these countries, this means unprecedented attacks and poverty, even famine. This situation will inevitably provoke explosions of anger. But the political and ideological context is such in the East, that it will be some time before the workers' combativity can lead to a real development of consciousness (see the article in this issue of the International Review). Developing chaos and convulsions on the economic and political level, the barbarity and decomposition of capitalist society which appears almost in caricatural form in the East, will not lead to an understanding of the need to overthrow the system until such an understanding has developed among the decisive proletarian battalions in the great working class concentrations of the West, and especially in Western Europe.[6]

As we have seen, at present these sectors of the world proletariat are themselves being subjected to a flood of bourgeois propaganda, and are being affected by a retreat of consciousness. This does not mean that they will be incapable of fighting back against the economic attacks of capitalism's irreversible crisis. What this means above all is that for a while at least, these struggles will be much more the prisoners of the state's organs for controlling the working class, with the trade unions to the fore, than they have been recently; this is already visible in the most recent combats. In particular, the unions will benefit from the general reinforcement of democratic illusions. They will also find easier ground for their maneuvers with the development of reformist ideology, as a result of the strengthening illusions as to "capitalism's superiority" over any other form of society.

However, the proletariat today is not the same as in the 1930's. It is not emerging from a defeat like that of the revolutionary wave that followed World War I. The world capitalist crisis is insoluble. It can only go on getting worse (see the article on the crisis in this issue): after the collapse of the "Third World" countries during the 1970's, and the implosion of the so-called "socialist" economies today, the next on the list will be the more developed countries which up to now have been able to push the system's worst convulsions out to the periphery. The inevitable revelation of the utter bankruptcy, not of any one sector of capitalism but of the entire mode of production, cannot but undermine the very bases of the Western bourgeoisie's campaigns about "capitalism's superiority".

In the end, the development of the workers' combativity will open out into a new development of their consciousness, which today is being interrupted and counter-acted by Stalinism's collapse. It is down to the revolutionary organisations to contribute determinedly to this development, not by trying to console the workers, but by showing them clearly that however difficult it may be, the proletariat can take no other road than the one that leads to the communist revolution.

FM 25/11/89

[1] It is significant that the "revolutionary" and "democratic" French bourgeoisie had no hesitation in sweeping aside the "Declaration of the Rights of Man" which they had just adopted (and which they make so much fuss about today), by outlawing all workers' associations (the Le Chapelier law of 14 June 1791). This ban was only lifted almost a century later, in 1884.

[2] The degeneration and betrayal of the Bolshevik party did not go unresisted, both by the working class, and within the party itself. In particular, Stalinism wiped out all the leaders of October 1917, and most of the militants. See, on this question, the articles on "The degeneration of the Russian revolution" and on "The Communist Left in Russia", in International Review n°3, and n°8-9.

[3] In the late 20's and throughout the 30's, the "democratic" bourgeoisie in the West was far from showing the same revulsion for "barbaric" and "totalitarian" Stalinism as it did during the Cold War and still does today. It gave unfailing support to Stalin in his persecution of the "Left Opposition", and its principal leader Trotsky, for whom the world became a "planet without a visa" after his expulsion from the USSR in 1928. "Democrats" all over the world, starting with the Social-Democrats in power in Germany, Britain, Norway, Sweden Belgium and France demonstrated their disgusting hypocrisy by setting aside their "fine principles" such as the "right" of asylum, as far as Trotsky was concerned. All these fine people found very little to protest about during the Moscow trials when Stalin liquidated the Bolshevik Party's old guard, accusing them of "Hitlero-Trotskyism"; they were even abject enough to spread it about that "there is no smoke without fire".

[4] A further proof, if one were needed, that the regimes set up in Eastern Europe following World War II (as of course, the regime then existing in the USSR itself) have nothing to do with the power established in Russia in 1917, lies in the part played in their origins by the imperialist war. The working class nature of the October revolution is illustrated by the fact that it arose against the imperialist war. The anti-working class and capitalist nature of the "people's democracies" is demonstrated by the fact that they were set up thanks to the imperialist war.

[5] This is obviously not the only factor that allows us to explain Stalinism's waning impact within the working class, any more than that of bourgeois mystifications as a whole, between the end of the war and proletariat's historic resurgence at the end of the 1960's. In many countries, moreover (especially in Northern Europe), since World War II Stalinism has no longer played anything but a secondary role in controlling the workers, when compared with Social-Democracy. The weakening of the anti-fascist mystification, for lack of a "fascist" scarecrow in most countries, and the waning influence of the trade unions (whether Social-Democratic or Stalinist) after all their work in sabotaging the struggle during the 60's, also allows us to explain the diminishing impact of both Stalinism and Social-Democracy on the proletariat. This is why the latter was able to reappear on the scene of history as soon as the first attacks of the open crisis fell.

[6] See our analysis in "The proletariat of Western Europe at the centre of the generalisation of the class struggle" in International Review n°31.

Presentation to the Theses on the Economic and Political Crisis in the USSR and the Eastern Countries

The "Theses" published in this issue were adopted at the beginning of October 1989. Since then, events in the East have rushed ahead, telescoping into each other week after week, leading to situations which would have seemed inconceivable only 6 months ago. Hardly has August, which saw the trade union (!) Solidarnosc leaping from clandestinity to head the government, drawn to a close than Eastern Europe is shaken by other events of great his­torical importance.

Hungary, whose "communist" party has changed its name and declared its desire to be­come social-democratic, has thrown the, cloak of "people's democracy" and its membership of the "socialist" camp into the dustbin of history, to become a plain republic. This year in East Germany, supposedly the most stalwart member of the Eastern bloc, more than 100,000 people belonging to the most qualified sectors of the workforce, have abandoned "real socialism" for West Germany; nonetheless, increasingly massive demonstrations are developing in every city, demanding pell-mell free elections, the legalisa­tion of the opposition, and the freedom to travel. Honecker has been forced to resign, to be definitively expelled only a few weeks later from a party which has been forced to renounce its role of exclusive leadership and to open the Berlin Wall, the symbol of the strengthening in 1961 of the division decided at Yalta in 1944. In Bulgaria, then in Czechoslovakia, the regimes inherited from Stalinism are also collapsing. This acceleration of the situation, these convul­sions generalising throughout the Eastern countries, confirm the framework set out in the Theses as to Stalinism's historic crisis and its roots. Moreover, the speed with which events are moving means that what was then only a perspective is now a reality: the definitive col­lapse of Stalinism and the complete disintegra­tion of the Eastern bloc, to the point of becom­ing a fiction fit only for the dustbin of history.

This situation, where the USSR and Eastern Europe no longer form an imperialist bloc, is the most important historical turning point since World War II and the historic resurgence of proletarian combat at the end of the 60's, both on the imperialist level (all the imperialist groupings that emerged from the Yalta agree­ments will be seriously destabilised), and on the level of what remains more than ever the only alternative to the decomposition, barbarity, and growing chaos provoked by the historic crisis of the capitalist system on a world level: the proletarian struggle.

The bankruptcy of Stalinism: a crisis of capitalism, not of communism

The Theses develop at some length what lies at the roots of this bankruptcy:

• the overall, worldwide crisis of the capi­talist mode of production;
• the failure of the extreme, caricatural form of state capitalism represented by Stalinism, which was both a factor in, and a product of the counter-revolution in Russia.

This aberrant nature of Stalinism has only increased the difficulties of already weak and backward national capitals in confronting the crisis and the consequent exacerbation of com­petition on the already over-saturated world market. We will not here go any further into the roots of Stalinism and the Eastern bloc's definitive collapse; rather, we will aim to bring its evolution up to date.

Recent events have been the occasion for a barrage of lies, and in the lead the biggest and vilest of them: the claim that this crisis repre­sents the failure of communism, and of marxism! Over and above their various antagonisms, democrats and Stalinists have always formed a holy alliance in saying to the workers that so­cialism (however deformed) reigns in the East. For Marx, Engels, Lenin, Luxemburg, for the entire marxist movement, communism has always meant the end of the exploitation of man by man, the end of classes, the end of frontiers, all made possible only on a world scale, in a soci­ety governed by the abundance of "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs", where "the government of men gives way to the administration of things". The claim that there is anything "communist", or even ap­proaching "communism", in the USSR and the countries of the Eastern bloc, ruled by exploitation, poverty, and generalised scarcity, is the greatest lie in the history of humanity.

In the East, the Stalinists have only been able to impose this lie by means of the most brutal terror. "Socialism in one country" was set up and defended at the price of an ap­palling and bloody counter-revolution, which first systematically liquidated everything that remained of October 1917 and above all of the Bolshevik Party in Stalin's jails, before sub­jecting tens of millions of human beings to de­portation and death. This ferocious dictator­ship, this hideous concentrate of the worst bar­barity of decadent capitalism, owes its existence to two weapons only: terror, and the lie.

This lie is an important asset to all the frac­tions of the bourgeoisie faced with the night­mare "specter of communism", the threat posed to their domination by the proletarian revolution. The revolution of October 1917 in Russia, and the world revolutionary wave that followed it up until the 1920's has been up to now the only point in history where the proletariat has overthrown (in Russia 1917), or really threat­ened (Germany in 1919), bourgeois rule. Since then the ability to identify the proletarian revolution of October with its own executioner, the Stalinist counter-revolution has been a major advantage for all our fine "democrats" in de­fending bourgeois order. For several decades, the proletariat's positive identification, thanks to the immense prestige of October, of the rev­olution with Stalinism, communism with the Eastern bloc, was the most powerful ideological factor responsible for its continued powerless­ness. This was how it was led to the slaughter in World War II, precisely in the name of the defense of the "socialist" camp, allied for the occasion to the "democratic" camp against fas­cism, after being allied to Hitler at the begin­ning of the war. The proletariat has never been as weak as when the Stalinists were strong, and still crowned with the halo of Red October. But as this belief in the supposedly socialist nature of the USSR crumbled under the blows of the recovery of class struggle in both East and West following 1968, to the point of a deep-seated rejection of Stalinism throughout the proletariat, it was still more vital for the "democracies" to keep alive the monstrous fic­tion of "socialism" in the East. As the spur of the renewed open capitalist crisis, on a world scale, pushed the workers to enlarge and strengthen their combat against the bourgeoisie and its system, as more and more the question was posed of what perspective the working class should give to its combat, the bourgeoisie had absolutely to avoid any encouragement of the revolutionary perspective within the prole­tariat by the exposure of history's greatest lie: the identification between Stalinism and commu­nism.

This is why it is more than ever important for the ruling class to keep up this fiction. After being used "positively", this monstrous association between "revolution" and "Stalinism" is now being used negatively, to create disgust for any idea of a revolutionary perspective. At the very moment when, for the whole of human­ity, the historic alternative between socialism and endless barbarism is being posed more and more sharply, it is vital for the bourgeoisie to discredit the communist perspective in the workers' eyes as much as it can.

This is why, as Stalinism collapses for good, the "democrats" are redoubling their efforts to keep this disgusting lie alive: "October 1917 = Stalinism", "marxism = Stalinism", "USSR = com­munism". There are no bounds to the cynicism of the ruling class, as it displays the pictures of tens of thousands of workers fleeing from "socialism" to get to the countries of "abundance and liberty" that the Western capi­talist "democracies" are supposed to be. The aim is to discredit in the workers' eyes any perspective for a society other than that based on profit and the exploitation of man by man. "Democracy" is supposed to be, if not the best system, at least the "least bad" system. Finally, and this is a real danger, the ruling class is trying to draw the workers in the East into fighting for interests that are not their own, to join the struggle between the cliques of "reformers" and Stalinists - Gorbachev and Yeltsin against Ligachev in the USSR, "New Forum" against SED in East Germany, etc -- not to mention between the different "nationalities".

Every time that the working class has fallen into this kind of trap, it has ended up not only gaining nothing, but being massacred, as it was in the 1936-39 Spanish Civil War, for the mirage of the bourgeois "republic". In reality, Stalinists and "democrats", Stalinists and "anti-Stalinists" are nothing but two facets of a same face: the face of bourgeois dictatorship. We should remember that during World War II, the British and American "democracies" had no com­punction in allying themselves with Stalin against Germany. Their opposition since then, which has led to the world's division into two antagonistic spheres of influence, does not spring from an ideological opposition, between a "socialist" and a capitalist bloc. It is the ex­pression of two capitalist and imperialist blocs which have become rivals.

Only when the USSR took advantage of the collapse of German imperialism to transform its inherited European sphere of influence into an imperialist bloc did the "democracies" suddenly discover that they had a duty to oppose this "totalitarian", "communist" system. Before the war, the USSR was only an isolated second-rate power; then, it was possible to ally with this same "totalitarian and communist" system. This was no longer the case in the 50's, now that the USSR had become a first-order imperialist power, and therefore a serious imperialist rival!

This is why, while the proletariat must reject with disgust Stalinism and the Stalinists, it must also reject the camp of the "democrats" and "anti-Stalinists". There is nothing to choose between them; if the proletariat does so, then it can only abandon its class terrain and become the hostage and powerless victim, in a struggle which is nothing to do with it, of the two capi­talist hangmen of the proletarian revolution: Stalinism, and "democracy".

Never forget, that it was the Social-Democracy which crushed the revolution in Germany in 1919 and 1923, condemning the Russian revolution to a terrible isolation, and so opening the way to Stalinism and fascism.

The end of the Russian imperialist bloc, the end of Yalta: towards worldwide chaos

Stalinism's collapse cannot but provoke profound and widespread convulsions, to the point where they create a situation of veritable chaos in what was up to now the world's second imperi­alist power.

Day by day, the bourgeoisie is losing control of events.

The trade union Solidarnosc joins the Polish government, with the declared aim of "liberalising the economy" and "drawing closer" to the West; unable to prevent it, Moscow pre­tends to encourage the move.

The Stalinist party in power in Hungary changes its name, proclaims itself social-demo­cratic, and demands neutral status for the country, as well as membership of the Council of Europe, one of the West's most important or­ganisms. This comes down to leaving the Warsaw Pact: Gorbachev sends a telegram of congratulations.

In Bulgaria, in Czechoslovakia, in East Germany, the old Stalinists are pushed aside. East Germany opens its frontiers, and hundreds of thousands of people rush to escape.

Everywhere (except in Romania at the time of writing), changes are happening daily, any one of which, only a few years ago, would have brought in the Russian tanks. This is not as it is generally presented, the result of a deliber­ate policy on Gorbachev's part, but the sign of a general crisis throughout the bloc, at the same time as Stalinism's historic bankruptcy. The rapidity of events, and the fact that they are now hitting East Germany, the central pillar of the Eastern bloc, is the surest sign that the world's second imperialist bloc has completely disintegrated.

This change is by now irreversible, and af­fects not just the bloc, but its leading power, the USSR itself. The clearest sign of Russia's collapse is the development of nationalism in the form of demands for "autonomy" and "independence" in the peripheral regions of central Asia, on the Baltic coast, and also in a region as vital for the Soviet national economy as the Ukraine.

Now when the leader of an imperialist bloc is no longer able to maintain the bloc's cohesion, or even to maintain order within its own fron­tiers, it loses its status as a world power. The USSR and its bloc are no longer at the centre of the inter-imperialist antagonisms between two capitalist camps, which is the ultimate level of polarisation that imperialism can reach on a world scale in the era of capitalist decadence.

The disintegration of the Eastern bloc, its disappearance as a major consideration in inter-imperialist conflict, implies a radical calling into question of the Yalta agreements, and the spread of instability to all the imperialist con­stellations formed on that basis, including the Western bloc which the USA has dominated for the last 40 years. This in its turn will find its foundations called into question. During the 1980's, the cohesion of the Western countries against the Russian bloc was an important factor in the latter's collapse; today, the cement for that cohesion no longer exists. Although it is impossible to foresee exactly the rhythm and forms that this will take, the perspective today is one of growing tension between the great powers of the Western bloc, the eventual recon­stitution of two new imperialist blocs at an in­ternational level, and in the absence of any proletarian response a new worldwide massacre. The definitive collapse of Stalinism, and its corollary, the disintegration of the Eastern im­perialist bloc, are thus already pregnant with the destabilisation of all the imperialist group­ings that emerged from Yalta.

The calling into question of the imperialist' order inherited from World War II, and the fact that the formation of two new imperialist camps will inevitably take time, does not at all mean the disappearance of imperialist tensions. The generalised crisis of the capitalist mode of pro­duction can only push all countries, both great and small, and within them the different frac­tions of the ruling class, to try to settle their differences on the battlefield. The Lebanon, Afghanistan, Cambodia, El Salvador, etc are still torn by war today. Far from encouraging peace, the disintegration of the blocs which emerged from Yalta, and the decomposition of the capitalist system which underlies it, implies still more tension and conflicts. The appetites of the minor imperialisms, which up to now have been determined by the world's division into two major camps, will only increase, now that these camps are no longer dominated by their leaders as before.

Stalinism is not dying a peaceful death, giv­ing way to other "democratic" forms of bour­geois dictatorship. There will be chaos, not a "soft" transition. As the Stalinist carcass rots, the whole Eastern bloc is threatened with "Lebanonisation". The confrontations between rival cliques of bourgeois nationalists in the USSR itself, the tensions between Hungary and Romania, East Germany and Czechoslovakia, Romania and the USSR, East Germany and Poland, etc, the beginnings of pogroms that we are witnessing today in Moldavia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, open a perspective of generalised decomposition, a concentrated form of all the barbarity of decadent capitalism.

Implications for the proletariat of the Eastern Bloc's general decomposition

Behind the reforms, the democratisation, the at­tempts to liberalise the economy, behind all the fine speeches about the "radiant future", the reality for the workers is already a serious de­cline in their already difficult living conditions. In Poland and the USSR, everything is in short supply; even in Moscow and Leningrad, which are traditionally better stocked, such staples as sugar and soap have become almost impossible to find. More and more articles are rationed, and the rations are diminishing. The winter will be extremely hard: the measures of liberalisation decided in Poland and Hungary, and begun in the USSR, mean that scarcity will continue and that the black market will become inaccessible for the workers, since the rate of inflation is moving towards three figures, as in Poland, and the ending of price controls affects staple products first of all. The liberalisation of the economy, and its corollary, autonomy for indi­vidual enterprises will mean the appearance and growth of mass unemployment. The extent of this unemployment can be measured if we con­sider that in Poland one third of all workers will be made redundant if non-profitable compa­nies are forced to close (according to the Solidarnosc government's own economic experts).

In the USSR, where there are already in re­ality several million unemployed, between 11 and 12 million workers will have to be made redun­dant in the next five years. More than half the factories in Hungary should be closed because they are obsolete and uncompetitive! What the immediate future holds in store for the prole­tariat in the East is thus a terrible poverty, comparable to that in "Third World" countries.

Faced with these attacks, the proletariat will fight, and will try to resist, like for example the Siberian miners, who have gone back on strike to demand that the government respect the agreements negotiated after the strikes this summer. There are, and there will be, more strikes. But the question is: what will be the context in which these strikes occur? There can be no ambiguity as to the reply: one of ex­treme confusion due to the Eastern working class' political weakness and inexperience, which will make the workers especially vulnerable to the mystifications of democracy and trade unions, and to the poison of nationalism. We can see this already in Poland and Hungary, or in the USSR where Russian workers are striking against Baltic workers and vice versa, or in the struggles between Azeris and Armenians.

Undoubtedly the most tragic symbol of the Eastern proletariat's political backwardness is the events in East Germany. Here is the prole­tariat of a highly industrialised country, right in the heart of Europe, which fought at the forefront of the German revolution in 1919 (in Saxony and Thuringia), and which was the first to express its rejection of Stalinism in 1953, and which today is demonstrating en masse, but to­tally drowned in the population as a whole. "Gorby! Gorby!", they chant, demanding pell-mell democracy, the legalisation of the opposition, but never, even in embryonic form, putting for­ward the specific demands of the working class. It is a terrible thing to see the German working class "organised" behind the Lutheran church, and drowned in "the people" in general!

There is such a strong, gut hatred of Stalinism, that even the word "proletariat" seems cursed, contaminated by the rotting car­rion of Stalinism.

As it dies, Stalinism poisons the atmosphere, and in doing so renders the bourgeoisie one last and precious service, by condemning in the eyes of workers in the East the very idea of raising specific working class demands; just the idea of revolution is transformed into a dis­gusting nightmare.

This heritage of the Stalinist counter-revolu­tion weighs terribly. Even if there can be no doubt that the workers' combativity in the East will rise to confront the increasingly intolerable attacks on its living conditions, the class' con­sciousness will have immense difficulty in mov­ing forward. We cannot exclude the possibility that large fractions of the working class will let themselves be enrolled and massacred for inter­ests that are totally foreign to them, in the struggles between nationalist gangs, or between "democratic" and Stalinist cliques.

Internationally, the whole proletariat has to confront increased difficulties in the develop­ment of its class consciousness as a result of this new situation (see the article on this sub­ject, published in this issue).

Perspectives

We are entering a completely new period, which will profoundly modify both the present imperi­alist constellations (the Western bloc will also be affected, though to a lesser degree and at a less frenetic pace, by convulsions and instabil­ity; this is inevitable to the extent that its main reason for existing - the other bloc - has dis­appeared) and the conditions in which the class has fought up to now.

At first, this will be a difficult period for the proletariat. Apart from the increased weight of democratic mystifications, in the West as well as in the East, it will have to under­stand the new conditions within which it is fighting. This will inevitably take time, whence the depth of the "reflux" analysed in the Theses. In particular, the proletariat will have to confront head-on the democratic mystification, and especially its two most pernicious pillars: social-democracy and the trade unions.

Only the working class at the heart of capi­talism, above all in Western Europe, is really capable of combating this mystification. Consequently, its historic responsibility has grown considerably, on the same scale as the fantastic acceleration of history during the last few months. Only the Western working class, through the development of its struggles, can really help the workers in the East to overcome the deadly trap of democratic illusions which yawns before them.

More than ever, the economic crisis remains the proletariat's best ally, the stimulant for the unavoidable confrontation with "democracy". The perspective of a new open recession, whose symptoms can be seen developing rapidly today (see the article on the crisis in this issue), by speeding up the collapse at the heart of capi­talism in the West, by sweeping away illusions in an economic recovery, and by laying bare the historic bankruptcy of the whole capitalist mode of production and not just of its Stalinist avatars, will help the proletariat to understand on the one hand that the crisis and collapse in the East is only an expression of the capitalist system's general crisis, and on the other that it alone holds the solution to capitalism's historic crisis and generalised decomposition.

The redoubled attacks on its living condi­tions will not only force the working class to renew and spread its struggles; they will clearly reveal the utter bankruptcy of "liberal" and "democratic" capitalism, and so force the proletariat to struggle within what remains the only real perspective: the world communist rev­olution. More than ever, in this chaos, the fu­ture belongs to the proletariat.

RN : 19/11/89

Understanding the decadence of capitalism, Part 8

There’s a brand new fashion in the proletarian milieu, a smart little theory which its trend setting designers present as a long-lost secret of marxism, permitting them to explain the historical evolution of capitalist society without – and here’s the beauty of it – having to drag in that commonplace, old-hat theory of decadence which the ICC in particular has been going on about for so long. The ICC and other ‘Philistine’ currents (such as the KAPD, Bilan and Internationalisme) may argue that capitalism passed from its ascendant to its decadent phase at the time of the first world war, putting the proletarian revolution on the agenda and rendering obsolete the old tactics of the workers’ movement (support for parliamentarism, national liberation struggles, etc.); but the truly fashionable just turn up their noses and sneer. No, no, they say, the real secret of capitalism’s evolution is contained in the notion of the transition from its phase of ‘formal domination’ to its phase of ‘real domination’ – a notion which Marx himself developed but which has been given a whole new significance by its contemporary purveyors.

Take a look at the whole ‘neo-Bordigist’ wing of the milieu. There’s the grandly-named Revue Internationale du Movement Communiste, a joint publication issued by Communisme ou Civilisation (France), Union Proletarienne (France), Grupo Communismo (Mexico) and Kamunist Kranti (India). The first three of these groups all lay claim to the ‘formal-real domination’ framework. C ou C have written three long volumes explaining the ins and outs of the theory. Then there’s the newly formed, and even more grandly titled Movement Communiste pour la formation du parti mondial, the result of a regroupment between Cahiers Communistes (France) and A Contre Courant (Belgium). Number O of their review contains a statement of ‘programmatic reference points’, which again emphasises the importance of understanding the notion. And it’s not just the neo-Bordigists. The crypto-councilists who call themselves the ‘External Fraction of the ICC’ don’t want to look old fashioned either. According to a text in Internationalist Perspective n°7 (written by comrade MacIntosh as a contribution to debate but not publicly answered by any other member of the EFICC), the “epochal change from the formal to the real domination of capital” is not only a decisive element in the development of state capitalist, but also “result in the permanent crisis of the capitalist mode of production... renders the contradiction in the capitalist production process insoluble.” According to the EFICC, the ICC remains utterly blind to this starting scientific breakthrough because it has lost all interest in theoretical deepening. To be honest, like many other fashions of the 80s, this ‘theory’ isn’t entirely new. In fact, just as punk fashions were largely a rehash of 50s styles, so the magical properties of ‘formal-real domination’ were first advertised in the late ‘60s by the Invariance group around Jacques Camatte. Invariance was a group that broke with the ‘official’ Bordigism of the PCI (Programma) and began to evolve on certain questions (ie recognising the historical contribution of the German left communists). But its adoption of formal-real domination as the cornerstone of its theoretical edifice didn’t prevent it rapidly abandoning marxism and vanishing into the void of modernism. Indeed, its misuse of the concept definitely helped it on its way. For Invariance, by completing its real domination, especially in the post-1945 period, capitalism, far from being historically obsolete, decadent, sunk in a permanent crisis, had not only demonstrated a capacity for almost unlimited growth, but had become so powerful that nothing could stand in its way. For the modernist Camatte, ‘real-domination’ had come to mean the total, omnipresent triumph of capital, the integration of the proletariat, the end of the perspective of working class revolution. Henceforward, the hope for communism lay as much with the animals and the trees as with the proletariat.

Today’s pioneers of the concept don’t identify with the modernist Invariance, which long ago passed into its final nirvana along with other modernist sects who took up the formal-real domination idea (Negation, Union Ouvriere, etc). But what they do share with Invariance is an inflation, a blatant misuse, of Marx’s notion of formal and real domination. In order to make an outline response to the ideas forwarded by these elements (which is all we intend to do at this stage), and thus come to the defence of the theory of decadence, as other articles in this series have done, we must first go back to what Marx himself said about this concept.

MARX ON THE TRANSITION FROM FORMAL TO REAL DOMINATION

The fact that Marx’s most developed formulation of this notion is contained in a chapter of Capital not published until the 30s, and then virtually unknown until the 60s, has to some extent allowed the latter-day theorisers to surround the whole concept with an air of mystery, to give the impression of a long-buried secret finally brought to light. The EFICC add spice to this mystery when MacIntosh claims that “their basic concepts would have been incorporated into the later volumes of Marx’s projected Capital had the lived to complete them” (IP 7) – which may well be true, but which also down plays the fact that the basic concepts were already there in the only volume of Capital he did complete: Vol 1. The arguments contained in the chapter published later (published in English as ‘Results of the Immediate Process of Production’) are essentially an elaboration of what is contained in the completed volume. In Vol 1, Marx introduces the concept of the ‘formal” and “real subsumption of labour under capital” in his chapter ‘Absolute and Relative Surplus-value’:

“The prolongation of the working day beyond the point at which the worker would have produced an exact equivalent for the value of his labour-power, and the appropriation of that surplus labour by capital – this is the process which constitutes the production of absolute surplus value. It forms the general foundation of the capitalist system, and the starting point for the production of relative surplus-value. The latter presupposes that the working day is already divided into two parts, necessary labour and surplus labour. In order to prolong the surplus labour, the necessary labour is short-ended by methods for producing the equivalent of the wage of labour in a shorter time. The production of absolute surplus-value turns exclusively on the length of the working day, whereas the production of relative surplus-value completely revolutionises the technical processes of labour and the groupings into which society is divided. “It therefore requires a specifically capitalist mode of production, a mode of production which, along with its methods, means and conditions, arises and develops spontaneously on the bases of the formal subsumption of labour under capitalism. This formal subsumption is then replaced by a real subsumption,” (Capital Vol 1, p 645 of the 1976 Penguin ed).

In short: formal subsumption involves the extraction of absolute surplus value, real subsumption the extraction of relative surplus-value. Historically, the advent of this formal subsumption corresponds to the passage from domestic industry to manufacturing: “A merely formal subsumption of labour under capital suffices for the production of absolute surplus value. It is enough, for example, that handicraftsmen who previously worked on their own account, or as apprentices of a master, should become wage labourers under control of the capitalist,” (ibid).

When we turn to the ‘unpublished’ chapter, we find exactly the same concepts, only explained at greater length. For example: “The real subsumption of labour under capital is developed in all the forms evolved by relative, as opposed to absolute surplus-value. With the real subsumption of labour under capital a complete (and constantly repeated) revolution takes place in the mode of production, in the productivity of the workers and in the relations between workers and capitalists,”  (Ibid, p. 1035).

In another passage, Marx makes it clear that the passage from the formal to the real subsumption of labour corresponds to the transition from manufacture (when capitalist grouped together numbers of handicraftsmen and extracted surplus-value from them without any fundamental change in the methods of production) to large-scale industry: “... capital subsumes the labour process as it finds it, that is to say, it takes over an existing labour process, developed by different and more archaic modes of production. And since that is the case, it is evident that capital took over an available, established labour process. For example handicraft: a mode of agriculture corresponding to a small independent peasant economy. If changes occur in these traditional established labour processes after their takeover by capital, these are nothing but the gradual consequences of the subsumption. The work may become more intensive, its duration may be extended, it may become more continuous or orderly under the eye of the interested capitalist, but in themselves these changes do not affect the character of the actual labour process, the actual mode of working. This stands in striking contrast to the development of a specifically capitalist mode of production (large-scale industry, etc); the latter not only transforms the situations of the various agents of production, it also revolutionises their actual mode of labour and the real nature of the labour process as a whole. It is in contradiction to this last that we come to designate as the formal subsumption of labour under capital what we have discussed earlier, viz. the takeover by capital or a mode of labour developed before the emergence of capitalist relations,” (Ibid, p. 1021).

To sum up: the “epochal” change from the formal to the real domination of capital was one which had already occurred when Marx was writing, since it was the same thing as the transition from manufacture to modern industry, which took place at the end of the 18th century and the beginning of  the 19th century. And as Marx explains in his chapter on ‘Machinery and Large-Scale Industry’ in Vol 1 of Capital, it was this passage that was a decisive factor in the rapid and unprecedented expansion of the capitalist mode of production in the ensuing period. In other words: the most dynamic phase of ascendancy of bourgeois society was founded on the basis of the real domination of capital.

HOW THE EPIGONES MISUSE MARX

1. The Wanderings of Invariance

This is how Marx defined the concepts of formal and real domination. How do the epigones manage with it? “The phase of formal subsumption of labour to capital (XVI – XVIII century) and the phase of real subsumption (XIX - XX)” (‘Les Deux Phases Historiques de la Production Capitaliste, I’ in C ou C no. 5, p.3). Or again:

“In the last third of the 18th century we have the affirmation of the phase of real subsumption, whose mode of extracting surplus value is based on relative surplus value,” (Ibid, p. 33). The problem is with the conclusions that C ou C draw from this: they use it to provide an other argument against the notion of decadence and in favour of the ‘invariance’ of marxism since 1848, since for them communism becomes possible as soon as the phase of real domination begins. This is how they present their work on the ‘Two Historic Phases’: “We hope in this way to clear some of the ground of all the confusions and mystifications which the periodisation of capital is subject to. Finally, the pseudo-concept of a ‘decadence’ of the capitalist mode of production falls to pieces as soon as you open Marx’s unpublished chapter of Capital... “If you consider the capitalist mode of production decadent because it has ceased to play a progressive and revolutionary role, then we’ve been in full decadence since 1848, since from that time on, capital was already sufficiently developed to pose within itself the material bases of communism. Qualitatively, this date has, for us, tolled the bell once and for all. It’s a correct understanding of the periodisation of capital which permits one to affirm, among other things, the following: communism has been possible since 1848,” (ibid, p.4). At first sight, Mouvement Communiste has the same position:

“Marxism has declared the capitalist mode of production to be ‘in decadence’ since 1848, by posing, from this date, the necessity and possibility of the communist revolution,” (MC, no 0, p. 21). But dig a little deeper and you’ll discover that MC are only neo-neo-Bordigists. To take an important example: whereas C ou C, like its acknowledged predecessor, the pre-modernist Invariance, has no shame about affirming the “revolutionary”, “anti-imperialist” character of national independence struggles, in that they allegedly accelerate the passage from formal to real domination in the ex-colonies (cf C ou C no. 9, p.47), MC can’t stomach anything to do with national liberation struggles, and so bends the theory of formal-real domination to suit its own purposes: “With the passage of the capitalist mode of production to its phase of real domination ... which was, on a global, world-wide scale effected by the beginning of the 20th century – the historic balance of forces between the fundamental antagonistic classes means the liquidation of the tactics of support for progressive bourgeois factions fighting against feudalism, of support, in the interests of the permanent revolution, of certain struggles for the constitution of nation states ... as well as the specific tactics of the double revolution. All that remained on the agenda, on a world scale, was the elaboration of ‘direct and/or indirect’ tactics in complete conformity with the purely proletarian and communist revolution,” (ibid, p. 20-21). The same goes for the old tactics of parliamentarism and organising in trade unions. So now we find that for MC, the truly “epochal” change, the one that requires a wholesale alteration of the programme of the workers’ movement isn’t actually the transition from formal domination to real domination, but the point at which this transition is completed on a global scale – which, by a remarkable coincidence, just happens to coincide with the period that certain ‘Philistines’ define as the beginning of the decadent period of capitalism.

In fact this shiftiness, this subtle bending of the periodisation of formal and real domination to suit the particular views of this or that group, isn’t restricted to MC. We find the same with the original trend-setters, Invariance, for whom the real change takes place sometimes in 1914, sometimes earlier, sometimes between 1914 and 1945 and sometimes not until after 1945. And we get similar evasiveness with the EFICC, as we shall see. But for the moment, let’s turn to the true ‘invariants’ C ou C, and their idea that communism has been possible since 1848. We have already dealt at length, in a previous article in this series (see IR 48) with the arguments of the GCI, who claim that communism has been on the agenda since the beginning of the capitalist system. Suffice it to say here that C ou C, despite their claims to marxist orthodoxy, are, no less than the GCI, totally at odds with historical materialism on this crucial question. Central to Marx’s own definition of historical materialism in the Preface to a Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy is the notion that a new society only becomes possible when the old one has become a permanent fetter on the development of the productive forces. Certainly 1848 was a historical watershed, since it witnessed both the first real appearance of the proletariat as an autonomous force (July days in Paris, Chartism, etc), and the first scientific statement of the general principles of communism (the Communist Manifesto). It thus announced that the proletariat was the future gravedigger of capitalism. But in 1848 capitalist relations of production were not at all a fetter on the productive forces; on the contrary, having arrived at the stage of large-scale industry (i.e. of real domination), they were in the process of conquering the whole globe. In 1848 Marx and Engels may have believed in the imminence of the communist revolution. But by the 1850s they had not only reversed their view but also considered that the most important task in front of them was to understand the historical dynamic of capital and so to determine the point at which the system’s inner contradictions would become a permanent barrier to capital itself. They fully recognised that this was something for the future, because capitalism was, before their very eyes, going through its most ‘heroic’ period of expansion and growth Das Kapital is itself the product of this necessary period of reflection and clarification.

The problem with the Bordigists is that they tend to confuse objective, material conditions with the subjective awareness of the proletarian vanguard: in short, they think that the party is omnipotent. In 1848 the communist minority was able to affirm the perspective of communism as the final goal of the workers’ movement; for the neo-Bordigists of C ou C, this marxist prevision is turned into an immediate possibility, as though it was enough for the communists to will it into existence. Marxism has a name for this ideological deviation: idealism.

2. The EFICC: Centrist as Always

With the EFICC’s discover of formal-real domination, its habitual centrism towards councilism becomes, in this particular matter, centrism towards Bordigism. While C ou C and the rest have explicitly developed the framework as an attack on the notion of decadence, the EFICC wants to have its cake (decadence, state capitalism) and eat it (formal-real domination). Through the pen of comrade MacIntosh, they claim that the transition from formal to real domination provides a “causal link” in the chain leading to both the decadence of capitalism and its specific mode of organisation – state capitalism. Unhappily, on how the advent of real domination ‘causes’ the decadence of capitalism, we have no more than the short passage cited above, which itself is no more than a footnote to MacIntosh’s article. We wait breathlessly for the next instalment. But we already note that MacIntosh now has virtually nothing to say about one of the links in the causal chain which he used to talk about very articulately when he used to talk about very articulately when he was in the ICC – namely Luxemburg’s theory of the exhaustion of pre-capitalist markets as a fundamental determinant of the onset of decadence. We wonder whether Rosa’s theory is going to be dumped by the EFICC, who in their quest for reasons for existing are discarding more and more of the basic analyses of the ICC. But for the moment, we can’t pursue this line of thought any further.

In any case, the brunt of MacIntosh’s article is taken up with showing how the transition from formal to real domination compels capitalism to adopt its statified form. It’s a very long article, which contains some interesting contributions on the role of the state in marxist theory. But the argumentation it puts forward about how the transition from formal to real domination explains state capitalism is very thin indeed. To justify his theses, MacIntosh cites certain passages from the ‘Results’, where Marx says that under the real domination of capital, “the real lever of the overall labour process is increasingly not the individual worker” but “labour power socially combined”, and that this shift requires “...the use of science... in the immediate process of production” (Internationalist Perspectives n°7, p. 21, citing Capital, op cit. pp. 1039-40, 1024). From these brief passages MacIntosh leaps to the conclusion that only the state can organise, scientifically, the extraction of relative surplus value from the collective labourer: hence state capitalism and the totalitarian organisation of modern social life. The flaws in this argument aren’t hard to detect. First, while the socialisation of labour is an ‘organic’ product of capitalist development, like the concentration of capital, state capitalism is a response to the break-down of this organic development, a product of the exhaustion of the possibilities for the ‘peaceful’ extension of capitalist production. To find the real causes of state capitalism, you have to explain why the organic growth of capital in its ascendant phase was violently interrupted, and for this Luxembourg’s theory provides a coherent and consistent answer. Secondly, MacIntosh has got his periodisation all mixed up, as we have already argued in our article in International Review n°54. The appearance of the collective labourer, the application of science to the production process, was a development going on in Marx’s own time – in the ascendant phase of capital, in the nineteenth century. The development of state capitalism takes place in the twentieth century, in the epoch of decadence. What MacIntosh has done here is to identify the epoch of ascendancy with the phase of formal domination, and the epoch of decadence with the phase of real domination. As we said earlier on, C ou C are at least consistent with Marx when they place the transition from formal to real domination inside the ascendant period; they’re also within a certain logic to use this as an argument against decadence and to claim that communism has been possible since 1848. But the EFICC are just plan confused.

THE SHIFTING BORDERS OF REAL DOMINATION

In Internationalist Perspectives n°12, the EFICC claims to answer our previous criticisms of their periodisation of capital:  " ...the ICC chose to interpret the category of the real domination of capital as meaning not the generalisation of the extraction of relative surplus-value to the whole of the capitalist mode of production, not the decadence of capitalism on the extraction of relative-surplus value, but the mere appearance of this category on the capitalist landscape, its very inception – thereby situating it at the very outset of capitalism ... In fact, far from being situated in the 18th century, or even in 1848, the change from the formal to the real domination of capital was only completed after 1914, its final triumph stretching into recent decades with the spread of the real domination of capital to virtually the whole of the vital agrarian sector.”  We’ve already noted the tendency for the purveyors of this theory to shift the borders of real domination to suit their particular version of the story. Invariance, for example, became more and more interested in chronicling the advances of real domination during the 20th century precisely in order to shore up their vision of an all-powerful, all-encompassing ‘community of capital’. MC and the EFICC, on the other hand, are rather too attached to the class positions they learned from the ICC and so want to emphasise that the crucial change took place at the beginning of the 20th century, when the old tactics of the workers’ movement had to be abandoned. All this takes us a long way from Marx, for whom the categories of formal and real domination had a very much more precise use. They were never put forward as the ultimate secret of the evolution of capital, as the key to the crisis of the system, and so on. It’s not by chance that Marx developed the concepts in Vol 1 of Capital, where he deals not with the crisis but with the ‘internal’ relationship between labour and capital, with the direct mode of exploitation at the point of production. Certainly the concept was important for explaining the enormous expansion of capital in his day, but it had no pretensions beyond this.

This can hardly satisfy our latter-day theorists who want the concept to be a worthy rival to the theory of decadence (or, in the case of the EFICC, a new explanation for decadence). For them it has to be pumped up into a huge, all-embracing concept that can account for all the changes in the economic, social and political life of capital. But in doing so, the concept loses all the precision it had with Marx, and becomes utterly blurred and vague. But this also suits the ‘formal-real’ theorisers, since it allows them to mould the notion to their own needs. Take the EFICC, for example. They began by talking about the “epochal” change from formal to real domination as a determining factor in the historical crisis of capital and its evolution towards a statified form. Then the ICC replied: if this change can be located in a particular ‘epoch’, it took place within the ascendant period – so in what way is it an explanation for decadence and state capitalism? So the EFICC try to wriggle out of this by arguing that the ‘epochal change’ may have begun in the 18th century but it’s still going on today... Of course, they’re not exactly wrong here: there remain, especially in the ‘third world’, whole areas of production still only formally dominated by capital. Indeed, there remain whole areas that haven’t even reached this stage yet. It’s a safe bet to say that the final, complete and universal triumph of real domination will never come. But if the effective transition is one that has been going on for 200 years, how on earth are we going to measure the specific changes in the life of capital that this process has brought about? At this point, the whole thing becomes so vague that it begins to disappear from sight. The only way to avoid this vagueness is to recognise, with Marx, that the decisive shift in the mode of capitalist exploitation took place in the ascendant period and that from then on capitalist development and expansion didn’t go through a mechanical repetition of this change in each country or region but took place on the basis of real domination, of large-scale industry with its scientific exploitation of social labour. There’s another serious error contained in the view that emphasises the 20th century, especially the post 1945 period, as the ‘true’ epoch of real domination. Since the shift to real domination was a decisive factor in the phenomenal growth of capital during the 19th century, why shouldn’t the same be true of the 20th? Or, rather, if the change from the formal to the real domination takes place in the 20th century doesn’t it imply that 20th century; doesn’t it imply that 20th century capitalism, far from being decadent, is in its period of greatest growth and development?

This, in fact, is precisely the conclusion reached by Invariance, and one that greatly facilitated its collapse into modernism. It’s also echoed by the current neo-Bordigists who love to ridicule the theory of decadence by pointing to the enormous growth rates in the post-45 period. For the EFICC, which still clings to the notion of decadence, it’s important to at all costs avoid such a conclusion, but logic certainly isn’t in its favour. The current fashion in the proletarian milieu for denigrating the theory of decadence must be seen in this light: it’s a reflection of the penetration of bourgeois ideology into the workers’ movement, and must be combated as such. At the same time, the task of discovering an ‘alternative’ to the theory of decadence as a foundation-stone of revolutionary politics gives an artificial life to a whole host of sects and parasitic groups who would otherwise be hard-pressed to justify their existence; furthermore, because they tend to downplay the catastrophic nature of the present crisis, which is an expression of the veritable death-agony of the capitalist system, the false theorisation about formal-real domination provide a perfect argument in favour of a sterile academicism which looks with snobbish disdain  at those revolutionaries who have committed themselves to a militant intervention in the class struggle. Unfortunately for our professors and experts in marxism, history is accelerating so quickly today that it will soon be disturbing the serenity of their studies with the vulgar stomp of its boots on the streets outside. CDW

“While this general prosperity lasts, enabling the productive forces of bourgeois society to develop to the full extent possible within the bourgeois system, there can be no question of a real revolution. Such a revolution is only possible at a time when two factors come into conflict: the modern productive forces and the bourgeois forms of production... A new revolution is only possible as a result of a new crisis; but it will come, just as surely as the crisis itself” (Marx, The Class Struggle in France).

The recent collapse of the Eastern bloc is, along with the historic resurgence of the proletariat at the end of the 60's, the most important event since World War II. What has taken place since mid-1989 has put an end to a world situation which has lasted for decades. The 'Theses on the economic and political crisis in the USSR and the Eastern bloc countries', drawn up in September 89, provide a framework for understanding the causes of these events, and their implications. Most of this analysis' main points have been amply confirmed in recent months. This is why it is unnecessary to go over it again at length here, other than to take account of the major events which have occurred since the publication of the last issue of our Review. By contrast, it is essential for revolutionaries to examine the implications of this new historical situation, because its differences with the previous situation are extremely significant. This is what we propose to do in the following article.

For several months, the evolution of the situa­tion in Eastern Europe has apparently fulfilled all the bourgeoisie's dreams of "peaceful democratization". However, by the end of December 89, the "Theses'" forecast of murderous confrontations was to be tragically con­firmed. The bloodbaths in Romania and Soviet Azrbaidjan are not likely to remain an excep­tion. This country's "democratization" consti­tutes the end of a period in Stalinism's collapse: that of the disappearance of the "people's democracies"[1]. At the same time, it inaugu­rates a new period: that of bloody confronta­tions throughout this part of the world, and es­pecially in the one European country still ruled by a Stalinist party (apart from tiny Albania) the USSR itself. Recent weeks' events in Russia confirm the authorities' com­plete loss of control over the situation, even if for the moment Gorbachev seems capable of maintaining his position at the head of the Party. The Russian tanks in Baku are certainly no demonstration of the strength of the USSR's ruling regime; on the contrary, they are a ter­rible admission of weakness. Gorbachev had promised that the authorities would no longer use armed force against the population: the bloodbath in the Caucasus has completely writ­ten off his policy of "restructuring". What has happened in this region is only a foretaste of far greater convulsions which will shake the USSR, and eventually bring it crashing to the ground.

The USSR plunges into the chaos

In just a few months, the USSR has lost the im­perialist bloc that it dominated up until last summer. From now on, the "Eastern bloc" no longer exists; it has been ripped to shreds, at the same time as the Stalinist regimes in power in the "peoples' democracies" collapsed like a house of cards. But a reversal on this scale cannot stop there: given that the prime cause behind the bloc's decomposition is the utter economic and political bankruptcy of its domi­nant power faced with the inexorable aggrava­tion of the world capitalist crisis, it is in­evitable that this collapse should be most bru­tally expressed within this same ruling power. The nationalist explosions in the Caucasus, the 'armed confrontations between Azeris and Armenians, the pogroms in Baku, all these con­vulsions which were at the origin of the "Red" Army's massive and bloody intervention, are yet one more step towards the collapse and breakup of what was, less than a year ago, the second world super-power. The open secession by Azrbaidjan (where even the local Supreme Soviet set itself against Moscow), but also by Armenia where the streets are patrolled by armed forces which have nothing to do with the official regime, are only the beginning of a se­cession of all Russia's surrounding regions. The Moscow authorities, by using military force, have tried to put a stop to such a process whose next stages are heralded by the "peaceful" secession of Lithuania and the na­tionalist demonstrations in the Ukraine during January. But repression can at most only put off the deadline. Even in Baku, not to mention in the surrounding towns and countryside; the situation is far from being under control. The media silence since Russian troops went in does not mean in the least that things have 'gone back to normal'. "Glasnost" is selective in the USSR, just as it is in the West. The aim is to avoid encouraging other nationalities to follow the example of the Armenians and Azeris. And even if the tanks have for the moment sup­pressed the nationalist demonstrations, for the government in Moscow, nothing is settled. Until recently, only a part of the population has been actively mobilized against Russian tutelage; the tanks' arrival, and the massacres that followed, have welded the whole Azeri population against the "occupier". Today, it is not only the Armenians who go in fear of their lives: the Russian population within Azrbaidjan is also threatened thanks to this military operation. Moreover, the authorities in Moscow do not have the means to use the same methods to "maintain order" everywhere. For one thing, the Azeris only represent 5% of all the USSR's non-Russian population. We can only wonder what means the government would have to employ to put down 40 million Ukrainians, for example. Moreover, the authorities cannot even count on the loyalty of the "Red" Army. Soldiers from the various national minorities that today are clamoring for independence are less and less inclined to go and get killed to defend continued Russian domination over these same minorities. The Russians themselves are increasingly reluctant to take on this kind of job. This can be seen in demonstrations such as those of 19th January in Krasnodar (southern Russia), whose slogans have shown clearly that the population is not ready to accept a new Afghanistan; as a result of these demonstrations, the authorities were obliged to demobilize the reservists who had been called up only a few days previously.

The same process which led, a few months ago, to the explosion of the Russian bloc, is continuing today with the explosion of its lead­ing member. Like the Stalinist regimes them­selves, the Eastern bloc was only held together by terror, and by the threat - carried out on several occasions - of brutal military repression. No sooner did economic collapse and the result­ing paralysis of the economic and military appa­ratus destroy the USSR's ability to exercise such repression, than its empire fell apart. But this disintegration brings in its wake the disintegration of the USSR itself, since it also is made up of a mosaic of nationalities under Russian domination. Stalinism's merciless re­pression only prevented the nationalism of these minorities from appearing openly; enforced si­lence only served to strengthen it, and now that Gorbachev's "perestroika" has removed the immediate threat of repression, it has been un­leashed. As a result, repression is today once more on the cards, but it is already too late to turn back the wheel of history. The political situation, like the economic, is now completely out of the control of Gorbachev and his Party. All that "perestroika" has brought is still emp­tier shelves in the shops, still more misery, and the liberation of the worst kind of chauvinism and xenophobia, accompanied by every sort of pogrom and massacre.

And this is only a beginning. The chaos which holds sway today in the USSR can only get worse, since neither the ruling regime nor the state of its economy offer any other per­spective. The failure of "perestroika" (ie the 'step-by-step' attempt to adapt a political and economic apparatus paralyzed by the deepening world crisis) becomes more evident every day. A return to the previous situation, the reasser­tion of complete centralized control of the eco­nomic apparatus, and of the terror of the Stalin or Brezhnev era, even were it to be attempted by the apparatus' "conservative" sectors, would solve nothing. These methods have already failed, and perestroika started from the recog­nition of this failure. Since then, the situation has wor-se.ne d considerably at every level. The still powerful resistance on the part of the bu­reaucratic apparatus, which can see the very bases of its power and privilege dissolving un­der it, must lead to new massacres, but without surmounting the overall chaos. Finally, the es­tablishment of more classical forms of capitalist domination self-management for individual factories, the introduction of market criteria of profitability - may be the only alternative pos­sible; .in the short term, it can only heighten economic chaos. We can see its consequences today in Poland: 900% inflation, an unstoppable rise in unemployment (in the 4th quarter 1989, the production of manufactured foodstuffs fell by 41%, and of clothes by 28%). In the midst of this kind of economic chaos, there is no room for "gradual democratization" and economic sta­bility.

Thus, whatever the policy finally decided on by the leading bodies of the Communist Party of the USSR, whoever eventually succeeds Gorbachev, the result will hardly be any differ­ent. For this country, the perspective is one of growing convulsions, but on a far greater scale than those of the last few weeks: starvation, massacres, armed vendettas between members of the "Nomenklatura", or between populations drunk with nationalism. The communist October Revolution of 1917 fell victim to its own isola­tion; Stalinism established its power on the corpse with appalling barbarity. Today it is dying in barbarity and chaos.

The situation in the USSR and in most of the East European countries will increasingly resem­ble that of countries in the 'Third World'. Less and less will the situation of countries like Lebanon, subjected to the total decomposition of all social life and the law of the armed gang, be limited to zones outside the heart of capitalism. Today, the whole part of the world until re­cently dominated by the second world power is threatened with just such a 'Lebanonisation'. And this is in Europe itself, only a few hundred kilometers from the world's oldest and largest industrial concentrations.

This is why the collapse of the Eastern impe­rialist bloc does not only mean an upheaval for the countries within this zone, and for the im­perialist arrangements that emerged from World War II, it also brings with it a general instabil­ity which cannot help affecting every country in the world, including the most solid amongst them. In this sense, revolutionaries must be able to come to grips with these upheavals, bring up to date the analytical framework which remained valid up until last summer, when our last International Congress was held (see International Review no.59), but which events have since partly overtaken. This is what we now propose to do for the three "classic" as­pects of the international situation:

- the capitalist crisis,

- inter-imperialist conflicts,

- the class struggle.

The capitalist crisis

It is on this point that the analyses of the last Congress retain their greatest validity. In fact, the world economy's evolution during the last 6 months has fully confirmed the Congress' analy­sis of the aggravation of its crisis. The illu­sions, based in particular on the 1988-89 figures for GNP growth, which the bourgeois "specialists" tried to present as proof of "growth" and "an end to the crisis" have been blown away (see the articles in this and the previous issue of the International Review).

As far as the Eastern ex-bloc countries are concerned, "Glasnost" not only allows us to get a more realistic view of their real situation, it also makes it possible to measure the full extent of their economic disaster. Previous official figures (like those used in the report on the international situation presented to the 8th Congress), which already revealed a disaster on a large scale, have proved to be well short of reality. The economies of the Eastern countries resemble a vast ruin, their agriculture (despite employing a far higher proportion of the population than in Western countries) absolutely in­capable of feeding the population, and their in­dustry not only out-of-date and obsolete, but completely paralyzed and unable to function due to failures in transport and the supply of spares, mechanical fatigue, etc, and above all due to a general lack of interest on the part of its human elements, from the blue-collar workers to the managing directors. Almost half a cen­tury after World War II, the economy which ac­cording to Khrushchev at the beginning of the 60's was to catch up and overtake those of the Western countries and so "prove 'socialism's' superiority over capitalism", looks as if the war had only just ended. Although the complete economic bankruptcy that has become evident in recent years is behind the collapse of the Eastern bloc, this bankruptcy has not yet hit bottom: far from it. And this is all the more true in that the world economic crisis not only can only get worse, but will be still further amplified by the consequences of the disaster that has struck the Eastern bloc.

We have to emphasize what nonsense it is (nonsense that is put about by some sectors of the bourgeoisie, but also by certain revolutionary groups) to suppose that the Eastern economies' opening to the world market will give the capitalist economy as a whole a "shot ­arm". Reality is quite different.

In the first place, for the Eastern countries to help improve the situation of the world economy, they would have to constitute a real market. There is no shortage of needs, any more than there is in the Third World. The question is: how can they buy what they lack? And here is where we immediately perceive the absurdity of such an analysis. These countries have nothing to pay with. They have absolutely no financial resources; in fact, they joined the ranks of highly indebted countries long ago (in1989, the combined foreign debt of the ex-"people's democracies" stood at $100 billion[2], ie a figure comparable to that of Brazil, for a roughly equal population and GNP). For them to buy, they must first be able to sell. But what can they sell on the world market, when the major cause of the Stalinist regimes' collapse (within the context of the overall capitalist crisis of course) was precisely their complete lack of economic competitivity on precisely the same market?

Some sectors of the bourgeoisie answer this objection with the idea of a new 'Marshall Plan' ­to rebuild these countries' economic potential. In reality, although the Eastern countries' economies have some points in common with that of Europe as a whole at the end of the last war, a new 'Marshall Plan' is completely impossible today. This plan (whose aim was not so much to rebuild Europe but to prevent it falling under the control of the USSR) was able to succeed only because the entire world (except the USA) had to be rebuilt. There was no problem, at the time, of a generalized over-production of commodities; and the origins of the open crisis which we have known since the end of the 60's lie precisely in the end of the reconstruction of Western Europe and Japan. This is why a massive injection of capital to develop the Eastern countries' economic and especially industrial potential cannot be on the cards today. Even supposing that their productive capacity could be put back on its feet, the commodities they produced would only overburden an already saturated world market. The countries emerging ­from Stalinism today are in the same situation as the under-developed countries: the policy of massive injections of credit in the latter during the 70's' and 80's only ended in disaster ($1500 billion of debt, and economies in a still worse state than previously). The fate of the Eastern countries (whose economies are in many ways ­like those of the Third World) cannot be any different. The financiers of the great Western nations have no illusions on this score: they are hardly falling over themselves to bring capital to the newly "desalinized" countries, which are nonetheless clamoring for it (Poland for example, is sending its Nobel prize 'worker' Walesa out to beg for $10 billion in the next three years). And since Western bankers are anything but philanthropists, there will be neither loans nor massive sales from the more developed nations for those countries which have just 'discovered' the 'virtues' of liberalism and 'democracy'. The best they can hope for is the dispatch of emer­gency credit or aid to avoid open bankruptcy and famines which would only aggravate the convulsions that rack them. And this is hardly going to give the world economy a "shot in the arm".

The DDR (East Germany) is obviously an exception amongst the countries of the one-time in the Eastern bloc. This country will not in fact survive as such. Its coming absorption into West Germany has by now been reluctantly accepted not only by all the great powers, but even by its present government. However, the economic integration which is the first step in this "reunification" process, and which is the only way to curb the massive exodus of the popula­tion from East to West Germany, is already posing considerable problems both for West Germany itself and for its Western "partners". Financially, the salvage of the East German economy will represent an enormous burden. Although the investments which will certainly be made may provide a temporary "outlet" for some branches of West German and European indus­try, they will also aggravate still further the capitalist economy's overall endebtedness, while at the same time increasing the saturation of the world market. This is why the recent an­nouncement of the forthcoming monetary union between the two Germanies (a decision which was more political than economic, as is evi­denced by the reluctance of the Federal Bank's president) was far from arousing general enthusiasm in all the Western countries. On the economic level, the DDR is in fact a poisoned gift for West Germany. For dowry, the DDR brings with it only a dilapidated industry, a worn-out economy, a mountain of debts and truckloads of Ost-Marks which are hardly worth the paper they are printed on but which the Federal Republic will have to buy at top rates as soon as the Deutsche Mark becomes the common cur­rency of both Germanies. The printing press has a busy time ahead; inflation likewise.

In fact, the capitalist economy can expect no diminution of its crisis from the collapse of the Eastern bloc, but increasing difficulties. On the one hand, as we have seen, the financial crisis (the mountain of insolvent debt) can only get worse, while the declining cohesion, and even­tual disappearance of the Western bloc (see be­low) hold a perspective of increasing difficulties for the world economy. As we have long since pointed out, one of the main reasons behind capitalism's ability until now to slow down the rhythm of its collapse has been a state capitalist policy at the level of the entire Western bloc (ie, the dominant sphere of the capitalist world). Such a policy presupposes a serious degree of discipline on the part of the various countries that make up the bloc. This discipline has been obtained largely thanks to the United States' authority over its allies, as a result of its economic, but also its military strength. The US 'military umbrella' against the 'Soviet threat' (as well, of course, as its and its currency's pre­ponderant position in the international financial system) was given in exchange for deference to US aims in the economic domain. Today, with the disappearance of the USSR as a military threat to the states of the Western bloc (especially those of Western Europe and Japan), the USA has lost much of its ability to put pressure on its 'allies'; all the more so in that the US economy, with its enormous deficits and its continued drop in competitivity on the world market, is fast losing ground to its major competitors. The tendency will therefore be increasingly towards an attempt by the best performing economies, with Germany and Japan in the lead, to disengage them serves from US tutelage to play their own game on the world economic arena; this will lead to a sharpening of trade wars and an increase in the capitalist economy's overall instability.

In the final analysis, we must affirm clearly that the collapse of the Eastern bloc and the economic and political convulsions of its erstwhile members, do not presage the slightest improvement in capitalist society's economic situation. The Stalinist regimes' economic bankruptcy as a result of the general crisis of the world economy only heralds the collapse of the economy's most developed sectors.

Imperialist antagonisms

The world's geopolitical configuration as it has lasted since World War II has been completely overturned by the events of the second half of 1989. There are no longer two imperialist blocs sharing the world between them.

It is obvious, even to those sectors of the bourgeoisie which for years have been alarmed by the danger of the "Evil Empire" and its "formidable military strength", that the Eastern bloc has ceased to exist. This has been con­firmed by a whole series of recent events:

- the main Western leaders' (Bush, Thatcher, Mitterand especially) support for Gorbachev (often accompanied by extravagant words of praise);

- it is apparent from the results of the re­cent summit meetings (Bush-Gorbachev, Mitterand-Gorbachev, etc) that the antagonisms which opposed East and West for forty years really are disappearing;

- the USSR's announcement that it intends to withdraw all its troops based abroad;

- the already planned reduction in US mili­tary spending;

- the joint decision to cut rapidly the num­bers of Soviet and US troops stationed in cen­tral Europe (essentially in the two Germanies) to 195,000, which in fact corresponds to a with­drawal of 405,000 men by the USSR, and of 90,000 by the USA;

- the attitude of the main Western leaders during the events in Romania, asking the USSR to intervene militarily to support the "democratic" forces against the final resistance of Ceausescu's followers;

- the support also given by the West to the intervention in Baku by Russian tanks in January.

Ten years after the universal outcry pro­voked among the Western countries when these same tanks arrived in Kabul, this different at­titude could not be more indicative of the com­plete overthrow of the planet's imperialist order. This has been further confirmed by the Conference held in Ottawa in early February (jointly presided by Canada and Czechoslovakia) between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, during which the USSR acceded to virtually all the Western demands.

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. Contrary to the idea defended by the CWO, it is not just the great powers at the head of a bloc that are imperialist. 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, 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.

Up to now, during the period of decadence, such a situation where the various imperialist antagonisms are dispersed, where the world (or at least its decisive zones) is not divided up between two blocs, has never lasted long. The disappearance of the two major imperialist con­stellations which emerged from World War II brings with it the tendency towards the recom­position of two new blocs. Such a situation, however, is not yet on the agenda, due to:

- the permanence of a certain number of structures belonging to the previous order (eg the continued formal existence of the two great military alliances, NATO and the Warsaw Pact, and their corresponding military deployments);

- the absence of a great power capable of taking over the role which the USSR has definitively lost: leader of a bloc able to con­front the USA.

A country like Germany, once it is reunified, would obviously be well placed to fill this role. This is why there is already a good deal of common interest between Western countries and the USSR in slowing down (or at least trying to control) the process of this reunification. However, while on the one hand we must take account of a considerable weakening (which can only get worse) of the US bloc's cohesion, on the other we have to be careful not to announce prematurely the formation of a bloc headed by Germany. From the military standpoint, it is far from ready to play this role. Because Germany was beaten in World War II, its army is far from the equal of its economic strength. In particu­lar, West Germany has to date not been allowed to deploy nuclear weapons. The enormous quantity of nuclear weapons on its territory are entirely under NATO control. This is all the more true in that the tendency towards a new share-out of the planet between two military blocs is countered, and may even be definitively compromised, by the increasingly profound and widespread decomposition of capitalist society, which we have already pointed out (see International Review no. 57) .

This phenomenon of decomposition, which has developed throughout the 1980's, springs from the inability of either of society's two funda­mental classes to impose their own historic an­swer to the hopeless crisis into which the capi­talist mode of production is plunging. Although its refusal to be marched off behind the ban­ners of the bourgeoisie, as it was in the 1930's, has to date prevented capitalism from unleash­ing a Third World War, the working class has still not found the strength to set forward clearly its own perspective: the communist revolution. And although, as a result, society is temporarily "frozen" and without any perspec­tive, this does not put an end to the crisis, nor does it make history come to a halt. History's "course" is expressed in a spreading putrefac­tion of the entire social body, whose various manifestations we have already analyzed in the International Review: the drug scourge, the generalized corruption in high places, the threat to the environment, the proliferation of so-called 'natural' or 'accidental' disasters, the develop­ment of criminality, despair, and nihilism amongst young people. One expression of this decomposition is the bourgeoisie's growing in­ability to control not only the economic but the political situation also. This state of affairs is of course particularly advanced in the countries on the capitalist periphery, which arrived at in­dustrial development too late, and which were therefore the first and hardest hit by the cri­sis. Today, the developing economic and political chaos in Eastern Europe, the local bour­geoisie's complete loss of control over the situ­ation, is a new sign of this general phenomenon. Even the strongest bourgeoisie, in the advanced European countries and in North America, is well aware that it is not immune from this kind of convulsion. This is why they fully support Gorbachev in his attempts to "put his empire's house in order", bloodily if necessary as in Baku. They are too frightened that, like the fall-out from Chernobyl, the spreading chaos in the East may cross the frontier and invade the West.

The evolution of the German situation is sig­nificant in this respect. The fantastic speed of events since last autumn in no way means that the bourgeoisie has been infected by a frenzy of "democratization". In reality, while the situ­ation in the DDR has long since ceased to have anything to do with any deliberate policy of the local ruling class, this is now increasingly true of the West German bourgeoisie, and indeed of the world bourgeoisie in general. Only a few weeks ago, German reunification was desired by none of the 'victors' of 1945 (three months ago, Gorbachev envisaged it happening "in a cen­tury"), for fear that the reconstitution of a "Greater German" hegemony in Europe should sharpen its imperialist appetites; today, it is seen as the only way to combat the chaos in the DDR, and by contagion in its neighboring countries. Even the West German bourgeoisie finds that things are going "too fast". In to­day's conditions, this reunification which it has advocated for decades can only bring it new difficulties. But the longer the moment is put off, the greater the difficulties will become. If the West German bourgeoisie, one of the most solid in the world, is forced to run to keep up with events, this says much about what the rest of the world ruling class can expect.

Given the world bourgeoisie's loss of control over the situation, it is not certain that its dominant sectors will today be capable of en­forcing the discipline and coordination necessary for the reconstitution of military blocs. A bourgeoisie which is unable to master the situa­tion at home is ill placed to impose itself on others (as we have seen with the collapse of the Eastern bloc, whose prime cause was precisely the economic and political collapse of its domi­nant power).

This is why in our analyses, we must clearly highlight the fact that while the proletarian so­lution - the communist revolution - is alone able to oppose the destruction of humanity (the only "answer" that the bourgeoisie is capable of giving to the crisis), this destruction need not necessarily be the result of a third World War. It could also come about as a logical and ex­treme conclusion of the process of decomposi­tion.

For most of the 20th century, the historic alternative of "socialism or barbarism" high­lighted by marxism has taken the form of "socialism or imperialist world war", and in re­cent decades, thanks to the development of nuclear weapons, the still more terrifying "socialism or destruction of humanity". This perspective remains absolutely valid following the Eastern bloc's collapse. But we must be clear that this destruction may be the result either of imperialist world war, or of society's decomposition.

The ebb in consciousness within the working class

The 'Theses on the economic and political crisis in the Eastern countries' (International Review no.60) point out that the Eastern bloc's collapse and the death of Stalinism will cause an ebb in the proletariat's consciousness. The reasons behind this reflux are analyzed in the same is­sue, in the article 'New difficulties for the pro­letariat'. They can be summed up as follows:

- the collapse of the Eastern bloc and the death of Stalinism will allow an upsurge of democratic illusions, not only in the proletariat of Eastern Europe but in the West as well, in just the same way as the appearance in 1980 of an 'independent' union in Poland, but on a far greater scale given the extent of today's events:

"the fact that this historic event has taken place independently of the proletariat's own action cannot help but produce within the class a feeling of powerlessness" (ibid);

- "to the extent that the collapse of the Eastern bloc comes after the period of 'cold war' with the West, which the latter seems to have 'won' without striking a blow, it will create a feeling of euphoria amongst the populations in the West, including the workers, and a feeling of confidence in their governments similar (though to a lesser degree) to that which weighed on the proletariat in the 'victorious' countries after the two world wars" (ibid);

- the dislocation of the Eastern bloc cannot but exacerbate feelings of nationalism in the pe­ripheral republics of the USSR and in the ex­-‘people's democracies', but also in some Western countries, and especially in a country as im­portant as Germany as a result of reunification;

- "These nationalist mystifications will also weigh on the workers in the West ( ... ) through the discredit and distortion of the very idea of proletarian ititernationeliem, This conception has already been completely disfigured by Stalinism, and in Stalinism's wake by the rest of the bourgeoisie, which identified it with the USSR's domination of its bloc" (ibid);

- "in fact ( ... ) it is the very perspective of world communist revolution [that is tainted] with the collapse of Stalinism ( ... ) In the 1930's, the bourgeoisie used [the lie of the identity between Stalinism and communism] to enroll the working class behind Stalinism and to complete its defeat ( ... ); now that Stalinism has lost all its credit in the workers' eyes, the same lie is being used to turn them away from the perspective of commu­nism" (ibid).

We can complete these elements by consider­ing the evolution of what remains of the Stalinist parties in the Western countries.

The collapse of the Eastern bloc implies eventually the disappearance of the Stalinist parties, not only in those countries where they were at the head of the state, but also in those where their function was to control the working class. Either these parties will be radically transformed, as is happening with the Italian CP at this very moment, by the complete abandon­ment of everything that set them apart (including the name), or they will be reduced to the status of little sects (as is already the case in the United States and in most of Northern Europe). They may still be of interest to eth­nologists or archaeologists, but they will no longer play any serious part in controlling and sabotaging the workers' struggles. The place they occupied in a certain number of countries will be taken by the social-democracy or its left wing. As a result, the proletariat will less and less have the occasion to confront Stalinism as it develops its struggle; this can only increase the impact of the lie which identifies Stalinism and communism.

The perspectives for the class struggle

The Eastern bloc's collapse and the death of Stalinism thus create new difficulties for the development of consciousness within the prole­tariat. Does this mean that these events will also provoke a noticeable slowdown in the class struggle? On this point, we should remember firstly that the Theses speak of a "reflux in consciousness", and not an ebb in proletarian combativity. They even make it clear that "capitalism's increasingly brutal attacks will force the workers to enter the combat", for it would be wrong to imagine that a reflux in con­sciousness would necessarily be accompanied by an ebb in combativity. We have already pointed out on a number of occasions the non-identity between these two elements. This is not there­fore the place to go back over the question in general. In the precise case of the present sit­uation, it should be emphasized that the present reflux in consciousness does not spring from a direct defeat in combat of the working class. The events which are today sowing confusion in its ranks took place completely outside the working class and its struggles. Consequently, demoralization is not the major problem today. Although the class' consciousness may be affected, its combativity fundamentally is not. And with the increasingly brutal attacks which are about to be unleashed, this potential could make its appearance at any moment. We must not be taken by surprise by the foreseeable ex­plosions of this combativity.We should neither interpret them as calling our analysis of the reflux of consciousness into question, nor "forget" that it is our responsibility to inter­vene within them.

Secondly, we must be careful not to establish any continuity between the evolution of prole­tarian struggles and consciousness during the period preceding the collapse of the Eastern bloc, and now. In the period which has just come to an end, the ICC criticized the dominant tendency within the proletarian political move­ment to under-estimate the importance of the class' struggles, and the steps made in the de­velopment of class consciousness. The fact that today we are insisting on the reflux in this de­velopment of consciousness does not in the least mean that we are calling into question our anal­yses of the previous period, in particular those which were drawn up by the ICC's 8th Congress (see International Review no.59).

It is true that 1988 and the first half of 1989 were marked by certain difficulties in the de­velopment of the class struggle and conscious­ness, and especially by a return to the fore by the unions. This had already been brought up before the 8th Congress, notably in the editorial of International Review no. 58, which pointed out that "this strategy (of the bourgeoisie) has for the moment succeeded in disorieriteting the working class and hindering the march towards the unification of its combat". However, our analysis drew on the data of the then current international situation to point out the limits of this difficult moment. In fact, the difficulties encountered by the workers in 1988 and early 1989 were on the same level (though more seri­ous) as those of 1985 (pointed out during the ICC's 6th Congress; see the 'Resolution on the International Situation', adopted by the Congress and published in International Review no.44). They did not in the least exclude the possibility of "new, increasingly determined and conscious, mass upsurges of the proletarian struggle" (IR 58), just as the slow-down in 1985 had led in 1986 to such important movements as the massive Belgian strikes during the spring, and the strike on the French railways. By contrast, the proletariat's difficulties today are on quite a different level. The collapse of the Eastern bloc and of Stalinism is a great historic event, whose repercussions will be immense on every aspect of the world situation. From the point of view of its impact on the working class, such an event cannot be placed on the same level as any series of bourgeois maneuvers such as we have seen during the last 20 years, including the use of the left in opposition from the beginning of the 1970's.

The period that has opened up today is in fact quite distinct from the last 20 years. Since 1968, the general movement of the class struggle has developed, despite moments of slow-down or brief setbacks, in the direction of increasingly conscious struggles, increasingly free from the grip of the trade unions. By contrast, the conditions in which the Eastern bloc has collapsed, and in particular the fact that Stalinism was not beaten by the working class but by an internal political and economic implosion, determine the development of an ideological veil (even inde­pendently of today's flood of media campaigns), and a disarray within the class on a quite dif­ferent scale from anything it has had to con­front up to now, even including the defeat of 1981. We have to say that even were the Eastern bloc's collapse to have occurred at the height of the proletarian struggles (eg late 83- early 84, or in 1986), this would have changed absolutely nothing as to the reflux that the event would have provoked in the class (even though it might have delayed its effects being felt).

This is why in particular, we have to update the ICC's analysis of "the left in opposition". This was a necessary card for the bourgeoisie at the end of the 70's and throughout the 80's due to the class' general dynamic towards in­creasingly determined and conscious combats, and its growing rejection of democratic, elec­toral, and trade union mystifications. The diffi­culties some countries encountered in setting it up (in France for example) in no way alter the fact that this was the lynchpin of the bour­geoisie's strategy against the working class, il­lustrated by the right-wing governments in the USA, Germany, and Britain. By contrast, the class' present reflux means that for a while this strategy will no longer be a priority for the bourgeoisie. This does not necessarily mean that these countries will see the left return to government: as we have said on several occa­sions (see, in particular, the IR no.18), this is only absolutely necessary in periods of war or revolution. By contrast, we should not be sur­prised if it does happen, nor should we put it down to 'accident' or to a 'specific weakness' of the bourgeoisie in these countries. Society's general decomposition means for the ruling class a growing difficulty in mastering its political game, but we have not reached the point where the strongest bourgeoisies in the world are go­ing to leave the social front unprotected against a threat from the proletariat (even in the fu­ture, it would be dangerous to count on this kind of weakness in the ruling class).

From the standpoint of the class struggle, the world situation thus presents very different characteristics from those prevailing before the Eastern bloc's collapse. However, highlighting the extent of the reflux in consciousness within the class should not lead us to call into ques­tion the historic course, as the ICC has analyzed it for the last 20 years (even if we are led to make it more precise: see above).

Firstly, the course towards war is excluded today since there do not exist two imperialist blocs.

Secondly, we should underline the limits of the class' present reflux. In particular, al­though we have compared in kind the demo­cratic mystifications which are being reinforced today in the proletariat, to those unleashed during the post-war 'Liberation', we must also point out the differences between the two situ­ations. On the one hand, the major industrialized countries, and thus the very heart of the world proletariat, were involved in World War II. Consequently, democratic euphoria weighed di­rectly on the proletariat in these countries. By contrast, the sectors of the class, in the Eastern countries, which are today in the front line of these mystifications, are relatively pe­ripheral. The proletariat in the West has to confront these difficulties because of the "wind from the East", not because it is itself "at the heart of the storm". Moreover, the post-war democratic mystifications were powerfully ampli­fied by the 'prosperity' that accompanied recon­struction. For two decades, the belief in democracy as "the best of all possible worlds" could find support in a real improvement in working class living conditions in the advanced countries, and on the impression that capitalism gave of having overcome its contradictions (which even impressed certain revolutionaries).

Today, the situation is entirely different. The bourgeois talk about the 'superiority' of 'democratic' capitalism will come up against the stubborn facts of an insurmountable and in­creasingly profound economic crisis.

This being said, nor should we lull ourselves to sleep with illusions. Even if world war is no longer a threat to humanity at present, and perhaps for good, it may be replaced by the decomposition of society. This is all the more true in that, while the outbreak of world war requires the proletariat's adherence to the bourgeoisie's ideals, which is hardly on the agenda for its decisive battalions, decomposition has no need at all of this adherence to destroy humanity. The decomposition of society is not in fact, properly speaking, an 'answer' - even a bourgeois one - to the world economy's open crisis. On the contrary, this phenomenon is able to develop precisely because the ruling class is unable to bring the proletariat under its banner in order to give its real answer to the crisis: world imperialist war. By developing its struggle (as it has done since the end of the 60's), and by refusing to march behind the banners of the bourgeoisie, the working class can prevent the bourgeoisie from unleashing world war. By contrast, only capitalism's over­throw can put an end to society's decomposition. Just as they cannot prevent capitalism's eco­nomic collapse, so the proletariat's struggles cannot hold back social decomposition.

In this sense, whereas up to now we consid­ered that "time was on our side", and that the slow development of the class' combats allowed it, and its revolutionary organizations, to re­build an experience that had been swallowed up by the counter-revolution, we can no longer continue to do so. There can be no question of becoming impatient, and trying to "force the hand of history", but revolutionaries must be aware of the situation's increasing seriousness if we want to live up to our responsibilities.

This is why, while their intervention must emphasize that the historic situation still re­mains in the hands of the proletariat, and that the class is perfectly capable, through its com­bat, of overcoming the barriers that the bour­geoisie puts in its way, we must also insist on how high are the stakes, and therefore on its responsibility.

The present perspective for the working class is thus one of continuing combat in the face of growing economic attacks. For some time, these struggles will take place in a diffi­cult political and ideological context. This is especially true, of course, for the proletariat in countries where 'democracy' is being newly in­stalled. In these countries, the working class is in a position of extreme weakness, confirmed daily by events (inability to express the least independent class demand in the different ‘popular movements', enrollment in nationalist conflicts, especially in the USSR, even partici­pation in typically xenophobic strikes against an ethnic minority, eg recently in Bulgaria). These countries give us an example of a working class ready to be enrolled in imperialist war.

For the proletariat in the Western countries, the situation is of course very different. It is far from being subjected to the same difficulties as in the East. The reflux in consciousness will be expressed in particular by a strong return of the trade unions, whose work will be made easier by the increase in democratic mystifica­tions and reformist illusions: "the bosses can pay", "profit sharing", "taking part in growth", mystifications which all make it easier for the proletariat to identify their interests with those of the national capital.

In particular, the continuing and worsening rot of capitalist society will have still worse ef­fects on class consciousness than during the 80's. It weighs down the whole of society with a general feeling of despair; the putrid stink of rotting bourgeois ideology poisons the very air that the proletariat breathes. Right up to the pre-revolutionary period, this will sow further difficulties in the way of the development of class consciousness.

There is no other road for the proletariat than to reject inter-classist participation in the struggles against certain aspects of this mori­bund society (eg ecology). The only terrain where it can for the moment mobilize as an independent class (and this is all the more crucial in today's flood of democratic mystification, which only recognizes 'citizens' or 'the people') is the one where its interests cannot be con­fused with those of other classes in society, and which, more globally, determines all other as­pects of society: the economy. And it is pre­cisely in this sense, as we have said for a long time, that "the crisis is the proletariat's best ally". The worsening crisis will force the pro­letariat to come together on its own terrain, to develop the struggles which are the precondi­tion for it to overcome the present barriers to its consciousness; it will open the workers' eyes to the lies about capitalism's 'superiority'; it will force them to lose their illusions as to capital­ism's ability to come out of the crisis, and therefore also as to all those left parties and trade unions which want to attach them to the 'national interest', with their talk of "profit sharing" and suchlike nonsense.

Today, as the proletariat struggles against the smokescreens that the bourgeoisie has suc­ceeded in blinding it with for the moment, Marx's words are truer than ever:

"The question is not what a particular pro­letarian, or even the proletariat as a whole at a particular moment, imagines the goal to be. It is, what is the proletariat's being, and what in accordance with this being it will be obliged historically to do".

It is up to revolutionaries, and to our organization in particular, to contribute fully to develop the class' consciousness of the aim as­signed to it by history, so that it can transform into reality the historical necessity of the rev­olution: never has the need been more urgent.

The ICC : 10-02-90

* The above text was based on a report adopted by the ICC at an international meeting held at the end of January 1990

[1] The feeble resistance put up by almost the old leaders of the "people's democracies", and which made possible such an "easy" transition in these countries, does not in the least mean that these leaders, any more than the apparatus of the Stalinist parties, have sacrificed their power and privileges willingly. In fact, this phenomenon demonstrates not only these regimes' complete economic bankruptcy, but their extreme political fragility. We have pointed out this fragility long ago, but it has turned out to be far greater even than could have been imagined.

[2] Poland and Hungary are "champions" amongst these countries, with the debts of respectively $40.6 and $20.1 billion dollars, in other words 63.4% and 64.6% of their annual GNP. Brazil, comparatively, looks positively "sensible", with a debt of only 39.2% of GNP.

The collapse of the Russian imperialist bloc is an event of truly historic proportions, bringing to an end the world order established by the great powers in 1945. It goes without saying that an event on such a scale is a real test for the political organizations of the working class, a kind of ordeal by fire which will show whether or not they possess the theoretical and organizational armory demanded by the situation.

This test operates on two closely connected levels of revolutionary activity. First, the events in the east have initiated a whole new phase in the life of world capitalism, a period of flux and uncertainty, of growing chaos, which makes it absolutely indispensable for revolutionaries to develop a clear analysis of the origin and direction of events, their implications for the major classes in society. Such an analysis must be based on solid theoretical foundations that are able to stand up to the storms and doubts of the moment, and yet must also reject any conservative attachment to schemes and assumptions which have proved themselves obsolete.

Secondly, the collapse of the eastern bloc has opened up a difficult period for the working class, in which we have seen the workers in the east being engulfed by a tide of democratic and nationalist illusions, and in which the entire world bourgeoisie has seized the opportunity to assault the workers' ears with a deafening campaign about the 'failure of communism' and the 'triumph of democracy'. In the face of this ideological torrent, revolutionaries are called upon to intervene against the stream, to hold fast to basic class principles in response to a cacophony of lies which is having a real impact on the working class. As far as the ICC is concerned, we refer readers to the articles of this International Review and the preceding issue, as well as our territorial press. The aim of this article is to examine how the other groups of the revolutionary milieu have responded to the test[1].

The IBRP: One step forward, but how many back?

We will begin by examining the response of the International Bureau for the Revolutionary Party, which is the most important force in the proletarian political milieu outside the ICC. The IBRP's main components are the Internationalist Communist Party (Battaglia Comunista) in Italy and the Communist Workers Organization in Britain. These are serious groups with a regular press, and it is natural that most of their re­cent issues should have focused on the events in the east. This is important in itself, since, as we shall see, one of the main features of the milieu's response to events has been ... no re­sponse at all, or at best a lamentable delay in responding. But since we do take the IBRP seri­ously, our main concern here is with the con­tent or quality of their response. And although it is too early to draw up a definitive balance sheet, we can say at this stage that although there are elements of clarity contained in the articles written by the IBRP, these positive ele­ments are weakened if not undermined by a se­ries of misunderstandings and outright confu­sions.

The CWO (Workers Voice)

Our initial impression is that of the two main components of the IBRP, it is the CWO which has responded more adequately.

The collapse of the eastern bloc is not only an event of enormous historic proportions: it also has no exact precedent in history. Never before has an entire imperialist bloc fallen apart, not through military defeat or proletarian insurrection, but first and foremost through its total incapacity to cope with the world economic crisis.

In this sense, the manner in which these events have unfolded, not to mention their ex­traordinary rapidity, could not have been pre­dicted. As a result, not only was the bourgeoisie taken by surprise - the revolutionary minority was as well, and this includes the ICC. Thus, we should give credit to the CWO for seeing as early as April/May last year that Russia was losing its grip over its east European satellites (in Workers Voice no 47) - a position that we wrongly criticized in World Revolution 125 as a concession to the bourgeoisie's pacifist cam­paigns, since we were late in seeing the real disintegration of the Stalinist system.

The December/January issue of Workers' Voice (WV 49), the first to be published after the ef­fective collapse of the bloc, leads with an article that correctly denounces the lie that 'communism is in crisis' and, in various other articles, dis­plays a level of clarity on the following three central iasues:

- the disintegration of the Stalinist regimes is the product of the world economic crisis, which hits these regimes with particular sever­ity;

- this crisis isn't the result of 'people's power', still less of the working class. The mas­sive demonstrations in the GDR and Czechoslovakia are not on a proletarian terrain;

- these are "events of world historic impor­tance", signifying "the incipient collapse of the world order created towards the end of the Second World War" and opening up a period of the "reformation of capitalist blocs."

However, these insights, important as they are, are not taken to their conclusion. Thus, although the end of the post-45 imperialist set-up is seen as "incipient", it remains unclear whether the Russian bloc really is finished or not. The events are said to be of "world his­toric importance", but this is hardly conveyed by the rather frivolous tone of the front page articles, or by the fact that this statement is tucked away on page 5 of the paper.

More importantly, the CWO's insights are based more on an empirical observation of events rather than being grounded in a clear analytical framework, which means that they may easily be eclipsed as events move on. In our 'Theses on the Economic and Political Crisis in the USSR and the Eastern Countries' (International Review 60), we have attempted to provide such a framework; in particular, we have explained why the collapse has been so sudden and thorough-going by highlighting the peculiar rigidity and immobility of the Stalinist political/economic form. In the absence of such a framework, the CWO is equivocal about how profound the collapse of Stalinism really is. Thus, although one article says that Gorbachev's policy of non-intervention - which meant that there was nothing holding up the Stalinist gov­ernments in eastern Europe - was "hardly voluntary but one which is being forced on the Kremlin by the appalling state of the Soviet economy," elsewhere they give the impression that behind non-intervention is a conscious strategy by Gorbachev to integrate Russia into a new Europe-based imperialism and to improve the economy through the import of western technology. This underestimates the degree to which the Russian bourgeoisie has lost control of the situation and is simply fighting for sur­vival on a day-to-day basis, with no serious long-term strategy at all.

Again, the CWO's treatment of the mass demonstrations in Eastern Europe, and the enormous exodus of refugees from the GDR, fails to grasp the gravity of the situation. These phenomena are rather airily dismissed as part of a "middle class revolt against state capitalism", motivated by a desire for posh western goods: "They wanted BMWs and Estee Lauder too!. Listening to them talk of waiting 10 years for a new car made one's heart bleed!" This con­temptuous attitude misses a crucial point: the workers of the GDR and Czechoslovakia participated en masse in these manifestations, not as a class, but as individuals atomized into 'the peo­ple.' This is a serious matter for revolutionaries because it means the working class was being mobilized behind the banners of its class enemy. The CWO takes a rather silly side-swipe at the ICC because the repression that we had seen as one possibility for the East German bourgeoisie didn't take place. But the tragic and bloody consequences of the workers being dragged onto the false terrain of democracy were illus­trated very graphically by the events in Romania just over a month later, and again by the violent developments in Azerbaijan and other outlying republics of the USSR.

By the same token, the December WV doesn't really respond to the campaigns about ‘democracy' in the west, nor does it take any position on the negative consequences these events are having for the class struggle, east and west.

The PClnt (Battaglia Comunista)

Although the CWO and Battaglia are part of the same international regroupment, there has always been considerable heterogeneity between the two groups, both on the programmatic level and in their response to immediate developments in the world situation. With the events in the east, this heterogeneity stands out very clearly. And in this case, it appears that Battaglia - de­spite being the group with the greatest political experience - has been beset by far worse con­fusions than the CWO. This becomes evident when you examine the last few issues of Battaglia Comunista.

October: Battaglia publishes an article 'The western bourgeoisie applauds the opening up of the eastern countries', which affirms that the Stalinist regimes are capitalist and that the source of their troubles is the world economic crisis. But here, as we argue in a critique of this article in Revolution Internationale 187, the good points end, and the rest of the text shows an extraordinary underestimation of the level of economic and political collapse in the east. While our 'Thesis', adopted at around the same time ­ie before the spectacular events in East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and Rumania ­recognized the effective disintegration of the Russian bloc, BC sees the "eastern empire still solidly held under the Russian boot". And, again in contrast to our 'Thesis', it seems from this article that BC thinks that the formation of 'democratic' (ie, multi-party ) regimes in eastern Europe is perfectly compatible with the cohesion of the bloc. At the same time, for BC, the eco­nomic crisis which is behind these events may have hit the western countries in the 70's, but it only hit the Stalinist regimes "more recently" - whereas in fact these countries have been sinking into an economic morass for the last twenty years. Perhaps this strange illusion about the relative health of the Stalinist economies explains their touching belief that opening up the eastern 'market' represents a real hope for the world capitalist economy:

"The collapse of the markets in the periph­eries of capitalism, for example Latin America, has created new problems of insolvency for the reward on capital ... The new opportunities opening up in eastern Europe could represent: a safety-valve with regard to this need for in­vestment ... If this wide process of east-west collaboration becomes concretized, it would be a shot of oxygen for international capitalism."

We have already published an answer to the bourgeoisie's claims about the 'new opportuni­ties' opening up in the east (see IR 60), so we will say no more than this here: the eastern economies are in a state of ruination no less se­vere than the economies of Latin America. Riddled through by debt, inflation, waste and pollution, they offer precious little to the west in terms of opportunities for investment and ex­pansion. The idea of the east as a 'new market' is pure bourgeois propaganda and, along with our article in RI we have to conclude that Battaglia has fallen for it hook line and sinker,

November: at the time of the massive demon­strations in the GDR and Czechoslovakia, in which millions of workers marched behind the banners of 'democracy', without raising a single class demand, BC unfortunately leads with an editorial titled 'Resurgence of class struggle in the east', which is further evidence of Baltaglia's difficulty in keeping up with the sit­uation. The article in question refers not to the events in eastern Europe but, in the main, to the miners' struggles in the USSR, which, though they had developed on a massive scale the previous summer, had by then been well and truly eclipsed by the democratic and na­tionalist 'revolution' sweeping the bloc. Furthermore the article contains some ambigui­ties about the democratic demands raised by the Russian workers alongside demands expressing their real interest as a class. Although it admits that the first type of demand can easily be used by the 'radical' wing of the ruling class, we also find the following passage:

"... For these masses imbued with anti-Stalinism and the ideology of western capitalism, the first possible and necessary demands are those for the overthrow of the 'Communist' regime, for a liberalization of the productive apparatus, and for the conquest of 'democratic freedoms'. "

There's no doubt that the workers in the Stalinist regimes have, during the course of their struggles, raised bourgeois political de­mands (even when these aren't infiltrated in from the outside by agents of the enemy class). But, these demands aren't "necessary" to the proletarian struggle: on the contrary, they are always used to lead the struggle into a dead­-end, and revolutionaries can only oppose them. But Battaglia's use of the term "necessary" is not at all due to the slip of the pen. It is fully in line with the theorizations  about the "necessity" for democratic demands contained in their 'These on the tasks of Communists in the Peripheral Countries'[2]; it is clear that the same logic is now being applied to the countries of the former eastern bloc.

In all, this issue of Battaglia constitutes a very inadequate response to the flood of 'democratic' mystifications that has been un­leashed on the world proletariat. Having refused to recognize the real resurgence of class struggle for over 20 years, Battaglia suddenly starts seeing it and proclaiming it at the very moment that the bourgeoisie's 'democratic' offensive has forced it into a temporary retreat!

December: even after the events in the GDR, Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria, BC publishes an article 'Collapse of illusions in Real Socialism' which contains a number of different lines of thought, but which seems to be directed against the ICC's these of a collapse of the bloc.

"Russian Perestroika involves an abandon­ment of the old policy towards the satellite countries, and has the objective of transforming the latter. The USSR must open up to western technologies, and COMECON must do the same, not - as certain people think - in a process of the disintegration of the east bloc and of the total disengagement of the USSR from the European countries, but in order to facilitate, through reviving the COMECON economies, the revival of the soviet economy."

Once again, as with the CWO, we are given a description of a process that corresponds to a well-laid plan by Gorbachev aimed at integrating Russia into a new European prosperity. But whatever fantasies Gorbachev or Battaglia might indulge in, the actual policies of the Russian ruling class are being imposed on it by a pro­cess of inner disintegration over which it has no control, and whose outcome it cannot hope to foresee.

January: This issue contains a long article 'La Deriva del Continent Sovietico' which devel­ops similar ideas about the aims of Gorbachev's foreign policy, but which at the same time seems to admit that there might indeed be a 'dislocation' of the eastern bloc. Perhaps BC has made some progress here. But if there is a step forward, its article on the events in Romania constitutes several steps backwards - towards the leftist abyss.

Bourgeois propaganda from right to left portrays the events in Romania last December as an authentic 'people's revolution', a spontaneous uprising of the whole population against the hated Ceaucescu. It's true that in Timisoara, in Bucharest and in many other towns hundreds of thousands of people, fired by a legitimate loathing for the regime, took to the streets in defiance of the Securitate and the army, pre­pared to give their lives for the overthrow of that monstrous apparatus of terror. But it's also true that these masses, this amorphous 'people' in which the working class was never present as an autonomous force, was only too easily used as cannon fodder by Ceaucescu's bourgeois opponents, those who are now running the more-or-less unchanged machinery of state re­pression. The 'reformist' Stalinist politicians, army generals, and former Securitate bosses who now constitute the 'National Salvation Front' had to a large extent laid their plans well in advance: the National Salvation Front itself had been set up, in secret, up to six months before the December events. They were just waiting for the moment to arrive, and it came with the mas­sacres in Timisoara and the ensuing mass demonstrations. One minute the army generals were ordering their soldiers to shoot the demonstrators; the next minute, they 'went over to the people' ie, used the people as a stepping stone to climb into the seat of government. This wasn't a revolution, which in today's period can only take place when the proletariat organizes itself as a class and dissolves the bourgeoisie's state apparatus, in particular the police and the army. At best this was a desperate revolt that was immediately channeled onto a capitalist po­litical terrain by the still very much intact forces of the bourgeois opposition. In the face of this immense tragedy, in which thousands of workers gave their life blood for a cause that was not their own, revolutionaries have a clear duly to speak out against the tide of bourgeois propaganda that describes it as a revolution.

But how does BC respond? By falling head­first into the trap: "Romania is the first country in the industrialized regions in which the world economic crisis has given rise to a real and authentic popular insurrection with the result­ing overthrow of the reigning governments," ('Ceausescu is Dead, but Capitalism lives On'). Indeed, "In Romania, all the objective conditions and nearly all the subjective conditions were there for turning the insurrection into a real and authentic social revolution" (ibid). And it's not hard to guess which particular "subjective" factor was missing: "the absence of a genuine class political force left the field open to the forces who worked for the maintenance of bour­geois relations of production," (ibid).

"A real and authentic popular insurrection" ­what kind of creature is this? Strictly speaking: insurrection means the armed seizure of power by an organised, conscious working class, as in October 1917. A "popular insurrection" is a contradiction in terms, because the "people" as such, which for marxism can only mean an amorphous conglomerate of classes (when it's not a code-word for the forces of the bour­geoisie), cannot take power. What's really hap­pening here is that, once again, Battaglia is yielding an uncomfortably large amount of ground to the bourgeoisie's campaign's about the 'people's revolution', campaigns in which the leftists have played a particularly important role.

These passages also reveal Battaglia's deep-­seated idealism when it comes to the question of the party. How can they possibly claim that the only "subjective" element missing in Romania was the political organization? An indispensable subjective element for the revolution is also a working class that is organizing itself in its autonomous, unitary organs, the workers' coun­cils. In Romania, not only was this not happen­ing, but the working class wasn't even fighting on its most elementary terrain; throughout the December events, there was no sign of any class demands being raised by the workers. Any strikes that did take place were immediately channeled into the bourgeois "civil war" which ravaged the country.

The political organization of the class isn't a dues ex machina. It can only gain a significant influence in the class, it can only tip the scales towards revolution, when the workers are mov­ing towards massive and open confrontations with the bourgeoisie. But in Romania, the work­ers weren't even struggling for their most basic class interests: all their courage and fighting spirit had been mobilized in the service of the bourgeoisie. In this sense, they were further away from revolution than all the defensive struggles in western Europe over the last decade, struggles which Battaglia has had such difficulty in seeing at all.

Considering that the IBRP is the second main pole of the international proletarian milieu, Battaglia's disarray in the face of the 'wind from the east' is a sad indication of the more general weaknesses of the milieu. And given Battaglia's weight within the IBRP itself, there's a strong possibility that the CWO will be pulled back towards Battaglia's confusions rather than push towards greater clarity (in particular, we must wait to see what they say about the ‘revolution ' in Romania). In any case, the IBRP's inability to speak with one voice about these historic events is a revelation of a weakness which will be mercilessly punished in the coming period.

Bordigism, Neo-Bordigism, Councilism, Neo-Councilism, etc

As we've said, outside the ICC and the IBRP, the most characteristic response has either been silence, or a refusal to throw aside the routine of regular or infrequent publication, and a fail­ure to make a particular effort to respond to these world-historic changes. Though even here there are different degrees.

Thus, after a long silence the Ferment Ouvriere Revolutionnaire in France published an issue of Alarme in response to the events (though not until the end of January). The edi­torial is a relatively clear response to the bour­geoisie's campaigns about the 'failure of commu­nism'. But when in a second article the FOR de­scend from this general level to the concrete events in Romania, they come up with positions very dose to those of Battaglia: this may not have been a revolution, but it was an "insurrection", and "although probably no-one in Rumania dreamed of talking about communism, measures like the arming of the workers, the maintenance of committees of vigilance and their taking charge of the organization of the struggle, of production (food and medical necessities, to be defined in their nature, their quantity and quality), the demand for the dissolution of the armed bodies of the state (army, militia, po­lice ... ), and the conjunction with for example the committee occupying the presidential palace, constituted the first steps of a communist rev­olution.

Like Battaglia, the FOR has long been de­pressed about the 'absence' of the class strug­gle; now it sees the "first steps of a communist revolution" at a moment when the working class had been derailed onto the terrain of the bour­geoisie. It's the same when it considers the 'positive' effects of the collapse of the Russian bloc (which it seems to recognize, since it writes "we can consider that the Stalinist bloc has been defeated''). According to the FOR this will help workers see the identity of their con­ditions internationally. This may well be true eventually, but to stress this point at this mo­ment is to ignore the essentially negative impact that the bourgeoisie's current ideological offen­sive is having on the proletariat.

The 'orthodox' Bordigist current still pos­sesses a certain political solidity, being as it is the product of a historic tradition in the revo­lutionary movement. We can see the 'remnants' of this solidity, for example, in the latest edition of Le Proletaire, publication in France of the International Communist Party (Programma Comunista).

In contrast to the misplaced enthusiasm for the events in Romania displayed by BC and the FOR, the Dec/Jan/Feb issue of Le Proletaire takes a firm stand against the idea that a rev­olution, or at least the "first steps" towards one, has been emerging out of the mass mobilizations in eastern Europe:

"As well as the aspirations towards freedom and democracy, the common trait of the demon­strators in Berlin, Prague and Bucharest is na­tionalism. Nationalism and democratic ideology, which claim to englobe 'the whole people' are class ideologies, bourgeois ideologies. And in fact it is the bourgeois or petty bourgeois strata frustrated at having been kept away from power who have been the real actors in these movements, and who have finally succeeded in replacing their representatives in the new gov­ernments. The working class did not manifest it­self as a class, for its own interests. When it came out on strike, as in Romania or Czechoslovakia, it was in response to the calls by the students, as a simple, undifferentiated component of the 'people'. Up till now, it hasn't had the strength to reject these calls for the union of the people, for the national union of all classes. "

Even when these mobilizations take on a vio­lent character, they don't add up to a 'popular insurrection': "in Romania, the murderous com­bats which decided the outcome were between the regular army and the special repressive forces ('Securitate'), ie between fractions of the state apparatus, not against this apparatus."

Concerning the historic causes and results of these events, Le Proletaire seems to recognize the key role of the economic crisis, and it also affirms that "the disintegration of the western bloc is the necessary consequence of the disin­tegration of the eastern bloc." It is also aware that the so-called collapse of 'socialism' is being used to muddy the consciousness of workers everywhere, and so correctly denounces the lie that the eastern bloc regimes were anything but capitalist.

On the negative side, Le Proletaire still ap­pears to underestimate the real scale of the collapse in the east, since it argues that "although the USSR has perhaps been weakened, it is still, for world capitalism, responsible for maintaining order in its zone of influence": in fact, world capitalism is well aware that the USSR can no longer even be relied on to main­tain order inside its own borders. At the same time, it overestimates the capacity of the work­ers in the east to overcome illusions in democ­racy through their own struggles - indeed, it seems to think that it will be the struggles against the new 'democracies' in the east that will help workers in the west to reject these illusions, whereas if anything, the reverse is true.

Given that the ICP has, in the past, been in­creasingly pulled towards openly bourgeois po­sitions on such crucial issues as 'national liber­ation' and the union question, Le Proletaire's relatively healthy response to the events in the east proves that there is still proletarian life in the organism. But we don't think that this rep­resents a really new lease of life: it's the Bordigists' 'classic' antipathy to democratic illu­sions, rather than any critical reexamination of the opportunist basis of their politics, that has allowed them to defend a class position on this question.

The same could be said for the 'other' ICP, which publishes Il Partito Comunista in Italy and Le Gauche Comuniste in France. In refer­ence both to the events in China last summer, and East Germany last autumn, it is able to as­sert clearly that the working class did not emerge on its own terrain. In the article 'In China, the state defends the freedom of Capital against all comers', it comes to the difficult but necessary conclusion that "even though the ma­chine-gun fire which swept the streets was also turned against it (the Chinese proletariat) it had the strength and the will not to be drawn into an example that was certainly heroic, but which didn't concern it." (Le Gauche Comuniste)

With regard to East Germany, it writes: "For the moment there are inter-classist movements situated on the democratic and national terrain. The proletariat is being drowned in a petty bourgeois mass and does not differentiate itself at all at the level of political demands."

Not bad. But how on earth can the ICP reconcile this sober reality with the article it pub­lished on the miners' strikes in Russia, where it claims that the proletariat in the Stalinist regimes is less permeated with democratic ideology than the workers in the west![3]

Outside the orthodox Bordigist currents we have a number of sects who, like their 'Italian Left' spiced with a dash of modernism or anarchism, but above all, accademicism. And so several months into these epoch-making events, nothing has disturbed the tranquility of groups like Communisme ou Civilisation or Mouvement Communiste (pour le parti communiste mondiale, of course), who continue with their schedule of ­research into the critique of political economy, convinced that they are treading in the foot-steps of Marx when he retired from the 'formal party' in order to concentrate on Das Kapital. As if Marx would ever have remained silent in face of historical developments on such a scale! But to date, even the more activist elements in this current, like the Groupe Communiste Internationaliste, seem to be nodding off in the warmth of their libraries. It is cold and windy outside, after all.

What about the councilists? Not much to re­port. In Britain, silence from Wildcat and Subversion. A London-based group, the Red Manace, apologize for not putting anything about Eastern Europe in the January issue of its bulletin. Its energies have been focused on the far more pressing necessity of denouncing ... Islam, since that is the main content of the leaflet it has produced recently. However, since this leaflet also equates Bolshevism with Stalinism, the October revolution with the bour­geois counter-revolution, it also provides a useful reminder of how councilism echoes the campaigns of the bourgeoisie, who are also ex­tremely eager to show that there's a simple line of continuity between 1917 and the Stalinist labor camps.

As for the neo-councilists of the 'External Fraction of the ICC', we can say little at this stage, since their current issue is contemporary with last summer's events and they haven't seen fit to publish any special items in response to subsequent developments. But their current is­sue (Internationalist Perspective no 15) doesn't inspire much confidence, to say the least. For the EFICC, the installation of the Solidarnosc government in Poland didn't imply any loss of control by the Stalinists: on the contrary, it re­vealed their capacity to use the democratic card to fool the workers. Equally, one can hardly ex­pect a clear class response to the bloodbath in Romania since they saw behind the massacres in China not a savage feud between bourgeois fac­tions but an embryonic mass strike, and they roundly denounce the ICC for failing to spot this. And if recent statements at some public meetings in Belgium are anything to go by, the EFICC will continue to be guided by that old principle of the workers' movement - saying the opposite of what the ICC says. They seem espe­cially keen to deny that the eastern bloc has collapsed. An imperialist bloc can only collapse through military defeat or the class struggle, they say, because this is how it's happened in the past. For a group which pretends to be the scourge of all ossified, dogmatic versions of marxism, this looks like a pathetic attempt to cling to tried and tested schemas. But we'll say no more until we have their positions in black and white.

The new period and the responsibility of revolutionaries

Although we are dealing with a situation that is still evolving, "We already possess enough elements to conclude that the events in the east have sharply exposed the weaknesses in the existing proletarian milieu. Outside of the ICC, which despite some initial delays and errors has been able to carry out its basic responsibilities in the face of these developments, and apart from the limited elements of clarity displayed by the more serious political groups, we have seen varying degrees of confusion or a complete inability to say anything at all.

For us this situation does not give rise to any hollow feelings of 'superiority', but it does emphasize the enormous responsibility weighing on the ICC as the most coherent reference point in the political milieu. Given that we are enter­ing a period of reflux in the consciousness of the class, the difficulties of the milieu are not going to attenuate in the years ahead. On the contrary. But this is no argument for falling into passivity or pessimism. For one thing, the acceleration of history is going to accelerate the process of decantation that we have already ob­served to be going on in the milieu. Ephemeral and parasitic groups who have shown them­selves utterly incapable of responding to the new period are going to be ground up by the remorseless wheels of history, but even the more substantial currents in the milieu are go­ing to be shaken to their foundations if they are not able to overcome their errors and equivocations. This process will certainly be painful, but it need not be negative - providing the most advanced elements in the milieu, and the ICC in particular, are able to put forward a clear orientation that can serve as a 'guide to the perplexed' in a perplexing moment of his­tory.

And there again, a general retreat in the consciousness of the class, ie at the level of the extension of consciousness throughout the class, does not signify the 'disappearance' of class consciousness, an end to its development in depth. We have already seen, in fact, that the events in the east have provided considerable stimulus to a minority of elements who are seeking to understand what's going on and who have entered into or renewed contact with the political vanguard. Even this development will be subject to fluctuations, but the underlying process will continue. Our class has not suf­fered a historical defeat, and there is every possibility that it will recover from its present set-backs to challenge capitalism in a more profound way than ever before.

For the revolutionary minority, this is un­doubtedly a time when the tasks' of political clarification and general propaganda will tend to take precedence over a more agitational kind of intervention. But that does not mean that revo­lutionaries should be retreating into their studies. Our task is to remain in and with our class, even when our intervention is carried out in more difficult conditions and will often be com­pelled to go 'against the stream'. More than ever the voices of the revolutionaries must make themselves heard today; indeed, this is one of the preconditions for the class to overcome its present difficulties and push its way back to the centre of the historical stage.

CDW, February 1990

[1] At the time we're putting this issue together, we received a number of new publication: Workers' Voice, Battaglia Communista, Supplement to Internationalist Perspective, but didn't have time to integrate a critique of these publications into this article. Generally speaking, WV maintains the same analysis of the period, while denouncing the dangers for the proletariat more clearly. BC seems to some extent to be moving away from its delirium about the ‘popular insurrection' in Romania. IP entirely minimizes the collapse of the bloc, and, while keeping quiet about its great ‘theoretical' discovery about ‘the transition from the formal to the real domination of capital' as an explanation for the situation in the USSR, sees the situation as being well controlled by Gorbachev. The minority position in the same IP admits more clearly the collapse of the Russian bloc and its roots in the economic crisis. The evolution of positions shows that events are pushing towards some kind of clarification, but the problem of the general framework of analysis is still posed in the way we envisaged in the present article, before this latest publications. 

[2] See our critique on this text in IR 46

[3] See our article ‘The responsibility of Revolutionaries' in Revoluzione Internazionale 62.

Introduction by the ICC

The article we reproduce below was published by the Gauche Communiste de France (GCF) in no. 10 of their magazine Internationalisme, which came out in May 1946. Internationalisme saw itself as the continuation of Bilan and Octobre, published by the International Communist Left before the outbreak of the Second World War. The GCF had its origins in this current and maintained its general orientations. But Internationalisme wasn’t just a continuation of Bilan: it also went beyond it.

The Russian question was at the centre of the preoccupations and discussions of the proletarian political milieu at the beginning of the 1930s, and these debates became more and more intense during the war and in its aftermath. Broadly speaking, there were four different analyses in these debates:

1)         Those who denied any proletarian character to the revolution of October 1917 and to the Bolshevik Party and who saw the Russian revolution as no more than a bourgeois revolution. The main defenders of this analysis were the groups of the councilist movement, in particular Pannekoek and the Dutch Left.

2)         At the opposite extreme, we find Trotsky’s Left Opposition for whom, despite all the counter-revolutionary policies of Stalinism, Russia still retained the fundamental acquisitions of the October proletarian revolution: expropriation of the bourgeoisie, a statified and planned economy, monopoly of foreign trade. Consequently, the regime in Russia was a degenerated workers’ state and had to be defended each time it entered into armed conflict with other powers: the duty of the Russian and international proletariat was to defend it unconditionally.

3)         A third ‘anti-defencist’ position was based on the analysis that the regime and the state in Russia were ‘neither capitalist nor working class’, but a ‘bureaucratic collectivist regime’. This analysis saw itself as a complement to the Marxist alternative: capitalist barbarism or proletarian revolution for a socialist society, adding a third way, that of a new society not foreseen by Marxism: a bureaucratic anti-capitalist society[1] [10]. This third current had its adepts in the ranks of Trotskyism before and during the war, and in 1948 some of these broke with Trotskyism to give birth to the Socialisme ou Barbarie group under the leadership of Chaulieu/Castoriadis[2] [11].

4)         The Italian Fraction of the International Communist Left fought energetically against this aberrant theory of a ‘third alternative’ claiming to bring a ‘correction’, an ‘innovation’ to marxism. But since it itself hadn’t developed an adequate analysis of the real evolution of decadent capitalism, it preferred in the meantime to stand on the solid ground of the classic formula: capitalism = private property; limitation of private property = a move towards socialism. Applied to the Russian regime this gave rise to the following position: persistence of a degenerated workers’ state with a counter-­revolutionary policy, non-defence of Russia in case of war.

This hybrid, contradictory formula, which opened the door to all sorts of dangerous confusions, had already provoked criticisms within the Italian Fraction on the eve of the war, but these criticisms were somewhat eclipsed by a much more urgent question - the perspective of the outbreak of generalised imperialist war, which was denied by the leadership of the Fraction (the Vercesi tendency).

The discussion on the class nature of Stalinist Russia was taken up again, during the war, by the Italian Fraction that had been reconstituted in the south of France in 1940 (this had been done without the Vercesi tendency which denied any possibility of the existence of a revolutionary organisation, with its theory of the social disappearance of the proletariat during this war). This discussion quickly led to the categorical rejection of all the ambiguities and sophistries contained in the notion of the degenerated workers’ state defended by the Fraction before the war. Instead the Stalinist state was analysed as a product of state capitalism[3] [12].

But after 1945 it was above all the GCF, which, in its review Internationalisme, deepened and widened the notion of state capitalism in Russia, integrating it into an overall conception of the general tendencies of capitalism in its period of decadence.

The article we’re republishing here was one of many texts by Internationalisme devoted to the problem of state capitalism. The article by no means exhausts the question on its own, but in publishing it, leaving aside its undeniable interest, we want to show the continuity and development of thought and theory in the international left communist movement that we come from.

Internationalisme put a definite end to the ‘mystery’ of the Stalinist state in Russia by showing that it was part of a general, historic tendency towards state capitalism. It also pointed out that the specificities of Russian state capitalism, which far from expressing a “transition from the formal domination to the real domination of capital” as our dissidents in the EFICC stupidly claim, have their source in the triumph of the Stalinist counter-revolution after the October revolution had annihilated the old bourgeois class.

But Internationalisme didn’t have time to push its analysis of state capitalism further, particularly the question of the objective limits of this tendency. Even though it did write that “The economic tendency towards state capitalism, although it can’t be completed in a total socialisation and collectivisation inside capitalist society, nevertheless remains a very real tendency” (Internationalisme no. 9), it wasn’t able to develop an analysis of the reasons why this tendency couldn’t be completed. It’s up to the ICC to approach this problem in the framework drawn up by Internationalisme.

We have to show that state capitalism, far from resolving the insurmountable contradictions of the period of decadence, in fact only brings new contradictions, new factors that end up aggravating the situation of world capitalism. One of these factors is the creation of a swollen mass of parasitic strata, a growing loss of any sense of responsibility by these state agents who, paradoxically, have the job of directing, orienting and managing the economy.

The recent collapse of the Stalinist bloc, the multiplication of scandals about the corruption that reigns in the state apparatus all over the world is a confirmation of this ‘parasitisation’, if we may so speak, of the whole ruling class. It’s absolutely necessary to pursue this work of researching into and exposing the tendency towards the parasitism and irresponsibility of all high functionaries, a tendency accelerated under the regime of state capitalism.

MC (1990)

The Russian Experience

Internationalisme, no. 10, Gauche Communiste de France, 1946.

There’s no doubt any more: the first experience of the proletarian revolution, both in its positive acquisitions, and even more in the negative lessons that can be drawn from it, is today at the base of the whole modern workers’ movement. As long as the balance sheet of this experience hasn’t been made, as long as its lessons haven’t been brought to light and assimilated, the working class and the revolutionary vanguard will be condemned to running on the spot.

Even if we imagine the impossible, i.e. that the proletariat comes to power through a combination of miraculously favourable circumstances, it wouldn’t be able to hold out in these conditions. In a very short while it would lose control of the revolution, and would soon be shunted back towards capitalism.

Revolutionaries can’t be satisfied simply with taking a position on the Russia of today. The problem of the defence or non-defence of Russia has long ceased to be a debate within the camp of the vanguard.

The imperialist war of 1939-45, in which Russia showed itself, before the eyes of the whole world, to be one of the most bloody and rapacious of the imperialist powers, has once and for all revealed those who defend Russia, in whatever form they present themselves, as agencies, political arms of the Russian imperialist state within the proletariat, just as the 1914-18 war revealed that the Socialist parties had definitively become integrated into the national capitalist state.

We don’t intend to go back over this question in this study. Neither will we be looking at the nature of the Russian state, which the opportunist tendency within the international communist left still tries to portray as ‘proletarian with a counter-revolutionary function’, as a ‘degenerated workers’ state’. We think that we’ve finished with this subtle sophistry which claims that there is an opposition between the proletarian nature and the counter-revolutionary function of the Russian state, and which, without making any analysis or explanation of Russia’s evolution, leads directly to the reinforcement of Stalinism, of the Russian capitalist state and of international capitalism. We also note that since our study of and polemic against this conception, which appeared in no. 6 of the Internal Bulletin of the Italian Fraction in June 1944, the defenders of this theory haven’t dared to reply openly. The communist left of Belgium has made it known officially that it rejects this conception. The Internationalist Communist Party of Italy doesn’t yet seem to have taken a position. And while we don’t find an open, methodical defence of this erroneous conception, neither do we find an explicit rejection of it. Which explains why, in the ICP’s publications, we see constantly the term ‘degenerated workers’ state’ when they are in fact referring to the Russian capitalist state.

It’s obvious that this isn’t just a matter of terminology, but one of the persistence of an incorrect analysis of Russian society, of a lack of theoretical precision, something we also find in relation to other political and programmatic questions.

The aim of our study is exclusively concerned with drawing out the fundamental lessons of the Russian experience. We don’t intend to write a history of the events which unfolded in Russia, however important they were. Such a task is beyond our capacities at present. We only want to look at that part of the Russian experience which goes beyond the context of a particular historical situation and contains lessons valid for all countries and for the whole social revolution to come. In this way we hope to make our contribution to a study of fundamental questions whose solution can only come through the efforts of all the revolutionary groups in the framework of an international discussion.

Private property and collective property

The Marxist concept of the private ownership of the means of production as a fundamental element of capitalist production, and thus of capitalist society, seemed to imply the validity of another formula: the disappearance of the private possession of the means of production would be equivalent to the disappearance of capitalist society. Thus throughout Marxist literature we find that the disappearance of the private ownership of the means of production is presented as synonymous with socialism. But the development of capitalism, or more precisely, of capitalism in its decadent phase, displays a more or less accentuated, but nevertheless generalised tendency towards the limitation of the private ownership of the means of production - towards their nationalisation.

But nationalisations are not socialism and we won’t spend any time here demonstrating this. What interests us here is the tendency itself, and its class nature.

If you consider that the private ownership of the means of production is the fundamental basis of capitalist society, any recognition that there’s a tendency towards limiting this kind of ownership leads to an insurmountable contradiction: capitalism is beginning to abolish itself, to undermine the very basis of its existence.

It would be a waste of time to juggle with words and speculate on the inherent contradictions of the capitalist regime.

When one talks, for example, about the mortal contradiction of capitalism, i.e. that in order to develop its production, capitalism needs to conquer new markets, but that in the act of acquiring these new markets it incorporates them into its system of production and so destroys the market without which it cannot live, one is talking about a real contradiction, arising out of the objective development of capitalist production, independent of its will, and presenting an insoluble problem for it. It’s the same thing when one refers to imperialist war and the war economy, in which capitalism, through its internal contradictions, produces its own self-destruction.

The same applies to all the objective contradictions of capitalist evolution.

But it’s a different thing with the private ownership of the means of production: it’s impossible to see what forces are obliging capitalism deliberately and consciously to take on a structure which would alter its very nature and essence.

In other words, in proclaiming that the private ownership of the means of production is the nature of capitalism, you are at the same time proclaiming that capitalism can’t exist without private ownership. By the same token, you are saying that any change towards limiting this private ownership means a limitation of capitalism, a change in a direction opposed to capitalism, an anti-capitalist direction. The question of the scale of this limitation isn’t the issue here. To get lost in quantitative calculations, or to try to demonstrate that the scale involved is negligible, is simply to avoid the question. In any case it would be wrong: you only have to refer to the breadth of this tendency in the totalitarian countries and in Russia, where it involves the entire means of production, to be convinced of this. What’s at issue here isn’t the scale of the tendency, but its very nature.

If the tendency towards the liquidation of private ownership really meant a tendency towards anti-capitalism, you would arrive at the following stupefying conclusion: seeing that this tendency operates under the direction of the state, the capitalist state would then be the agent of its own destruction.

And indeed, all the ‘socialist’ partisans of nationalisations, of the command economy, all the makers of ‘plans’ who, if they’re not consciously trying to strengthen capitalism, are nevertheless reformers in the service of capitalism, like the groups Abondance, CETES, etc, end up with this theory of the anti-capitalist capitalist state.

The Trotskyists, who don’t reason very well, are obviously in favour of these limitations, since for them anything opposed to the alleged nature of capitalism must necessarily be proletarian. They may be a bit sceptical, but they think it would be criminal to neglect the least opportunity. For them, nationalisations are a weakening of capitalist private property. If, unlike the Stalinists and the Socialists, they don’t actually say that they are a slice of socialism inside the regime of capitalism, they are convinced that they are ‘progressive’. In their cunning way, they hope to get the capitalist state to do a job which would otherwise have to be done by the proletariat after the revolution. “It means that there’ll be less for us to do” they say, rubbing their hands in the conviction that they’ve outsmarted the capitalist state.

But “that’s reformism,” exclaims the left communist of the Vercesi type. And, as a good ‘Marxist’, he gets down not to explaining the problem, but to denying it, trying for example to prove that nationalisations don’t exist, can’t exist, that they’re nothing but inventions, demagogic lies of the reformists.

Why this indignation, this persistent denial, which at first sight seems rather surprising? Because the point of departure is the same as that of the reformists, and on it rests the whole theory of the proletarian nature of Russian society.

And since they have the same criterion for appreciating the class nature of the economy, to recognise such a tendency in the capitalist countries could only mean recognising that capitalism is evolving into socialism.

It’s not so much that this position clings to the ‘Marxist’ formula about private property, but rather that it’s fixated on the formula in reverse, on its caricature, i.e. that the absence of private ownership of the means of production is the criterion for the proletarian nature of the Russian state. This is why it’s led to deny the tendency towards, the possibility of, limiting the private ownership of the means of production within capitalism. Rather than observing the real and objective development of capitalism and its tendency towards state capitalism, and thus rectifying his position on the nature of the Russian state, Vercesi prefers to hold onto the formula and save his theory of the proletarian nature of Russia, and too bad for reality. And since the contradiction between the formula and reality is insurmountable, reality is simply denied, and the game is complete!

A third tendency tries to find the solution in the negation of Marxism. “This doctrine”, it says, “was true as long as it was being applied to capitalist society, but what Marx didn’t foresee, and what ‘goes beyond’ Marxism, is the emergence of a new class which is gradually, and to some extent peacefully (!) taking over economic and political power in society at the expense both of capitalism and of the proletariat.” This new (?) class is, for some, the bureaucracy, for others, the technocracy, and for yet others, the ‘synarchy’.

Let’s leave all these speculations aside and get back to the main issue. It’s an undeniable fact that there is a tendency towards limiting the private ownership of the means of production, and that this is accentuating each day in all countries. This tendency is concretised in the general formation of a statified capitalism, managing the main branches of production and the economic life of the country. State capitalism isn’t the speciality of one bourgeois faction or of a particular ideological school. We’ve seen it installed in democratic America and Hitler’s Germany, in ‘Labour’ Britain and ‘Soviet’ Russia.

We can’t in the limits of this study go into an in-depth analysis of state capitalism, of the historic causes and conditions determining this form. We will simply say that state capitalism is the form corresponding to the decadent phase of capitalism, just as monopoly capitalism corresponded to its phase of full development. Another remark. A characteristic trait of state capitalism seems to be that it develops in a more accentuated manner in direct ratio to the effects of the permanent economic crisis in the various capitalist countries.

But state capitalism is not at all a negation of capitalism, still less does it represent a gradual transformation into socialism as the reformists of various schools claim.

The fear of falling into reformism by recognising the tendency towards state capitalism resides in the mistaken notion of the nature of capitalism. This isn’t defined by the private ownership of the means of production, which is just one form of capitalism, characteristic of a given period, the period of liberal capitalism. What defines the nature of capitalism is the separation of the producer from the means of production.

Capitalism is the separation between past labour, accumulated in the hands of an exploiting, directing class, and the living labour of another class. It matters little how the possessing class distributes its wealth among itself. Under capitalism, this distribution is constantly being altered through economic competition or military violence. However important it may be to study the way this distribution is carried out, this isn’t what we’re looking at here.

Whatever changes may take place in the relations between different layers of the capitalist class, looking at the social system of class relations as a whole, the relationship between the possessing class and the producer class remains capitalist.

The surplus value extracted from the workers in the production process may be distributed in different ways, the parts going to finance, commercial, or industrial capital may be more or less large, but this changes nothing about the nature of the surplus value itself. For capitalist production to take place, it’s a matter of complete indifference whether there’s individual or collective ownership of the means of production. What determines the capitalist character of production is the existence of capital, i.e. of labour accumulated in the hands of one class that commands the living labour of others in order to produce surplus value. The transfer of capital from individual, private hands into state hands doesn’t signify a change in the nature of capitalism towards non-capitalism, but is simply a concentration of capital ensuring a more rational and efficient exploitation of labour power.

What has been shown up as false here isn’t the Marxist conception, but simply a restricted understanding of it, a narrow and formal interpretation of it. What gives a capitalist character to production isn’t the private ownership of the means of production. Private property and the private ownership of the means of production also existed in slavery and in feudal society. What makes production capitalist production is the separation of the means of production from the producers, their transformation into a means of buying and commanding living labour power with the aim of making it produce surplus value, or in other words the transformation of the means of production from a simple tool in the production process into something which exists as capital.

The form in which capital exists, whether individual or concentrated (trust, monopoly, state) doesn’t undermine its existence any more than the scale of the surplus value produced, or the forms the latter takes (profit, land rent). Forms are simply manifestations of the substance and can only express it in various ways.

In the epoch of liberal capitalism, the form in which capital existed was essentially that of private, individual capitalism. Thus Marxists could without any great inconvenience use a formula that basically represented the form as a way of expressing and representing the content.

When it came to propaganda among the masses, this actually had the advantage of making it possible to translate a somewhat abstract idea into a living, concrete image that could more easily be grasped.

“Private possession of the means of production = capitalism” and “getting rid of private possession = socialism” were striking formulae, but they were only partially true.

The inconvenience only arose when the form tended to change. The habit of representing the content through the form, which at a given moment did correspond to each other, was turned into a false identification, and led to the error of replacing the content with the form. We find this error taking place very clearly in the Russian revolution.

Socialism requires a very high level of the development of the productive forces, which is only conceivable in the wake of a considerable concentration and centralisation of the forces of production.

This concentration will involve the dispossession of private owners of the means of production. But this dispossession, whether at national or international level, this concentration of the forces of production after the triumph of the proletarian revolution, is only a condition for the movement towards socialism, but in itself it’s not socialism at all.

The most far-reaching expropriation may lead to the disappearance of the capitalists as individuals benefiting from surplus value, but it doesn’t in itself make the production of surplus value, i.e. capitalism itself, disappear.

This assertion may at first sight appear paradoxical, but a closer examination of the Russian experience will prove its validity. For socialism to exist, or even a move towards socialism, it’s not enough for expropriation to take place: what's essential is that the means of production cease to exist as capital. In other words, the capitalist principle of production has to be overturned. 

The capitalist principle of accumulated labour commanding living labour with a view to producing surplus value must be replaced by the principle of living labour commanding accumulated labour with a view to producing consumer goods to satisfy the needs of society's members.

It’s in this principle alone, that socialism resides.

The mistake of the Russian revolution and of the Bolshevik Party was to have put the accent on the condition, on expropriation, which in itself isn’t socialism or a factor that pushes the economy in a socialist direction, and to have neglected or relegated to second place the basic principle of a socialist economy.

There’s nothing more instructive in this matter than reading the numerous speeches and writings by Lenin on the necessity for a growing development of industry and production in Soviet Russia. For Lenin the development of industry was identical to the development of socialism. He used openly and more or less indifferently the terms state capitalism and state socialism, without really distinguishing them. Formulations like ‘socialism = soviets plus electrification’ expressed the stammerings and confusions of the leaders of the October revolution in this domain.

It is very characteristic that Lenin’s attention was fixed on the private sector and on small peasant property, which according to him were the source of the danger of the Russian economy evolving towards capitalism. In so doing he completely neglected the much more decisive and concrete danger coming from state industry.

History has clearly shown that Lenin was wrong on this point. The liquidation of small peasant property could and did involve a strengthening not of a socialist sector, but of a state sector whose development meant the reinforcement of state capitalism.

There’s no doubt that the difficulties the Russian revolution ran into because of its isolation, and because of the backward state of its economy, would have been gradually attenuated by the development of the world revolution. It’s only on the international scale that there can be a socialist development of society and of each country. It remains the case that even on an international scale, the fundamental problem resides not in expropriation, but in the basic principle of production.

Not only in the backward countries, but even where capitalism has reached its highest state of development, private property will subsist for a certain period and in certain sectors of production, and it will only be completely absorbed slowly and gradually.

However the danger of a return to capitalism will not come mainly from this sector, because a society in evolution towards socialism will not be able to return towards a primitive stage of capitalism, one which capitalism itself has left behind.

The real danger of a return to capitalism will come essentially from the statified sector: All the more so because here capitalism attains an impersonal, almost ethereal form. Statification can serve to camouflage, for a considerable period, a process opposed to socialism.

The proletariat will only overcome this danger to the extent that it rejects the identification between expropriation and socialism, to the extent that it is able to distinguish statification with a ‘socialist’ adjective from the actual socialist principle of production.

The Russian experience teaches us and reminds us that it’s not the capitalists who make capitalism, but the reverse: it’s capitalism which engenders capitalists. Capitalists can’t live outside of capitalism but the reverse isn’t true.

The capitalist principle of production can continue to exist after the juridical, even the material disappearance of capitalists as the beneficiaries of surplus value. In this case, surplus value, just as under private capitalism, is reinvested in the production process in order to extract a greater mass of surplus value.

Before long, the existence of surplus value gives rise to men who form the class that appropriates surplus value. The function creates the organ. Whether they are parasites, bureaucrats, or technicians who participate in production, whether surplus value is redistributed in a direct manner, or indirectly through the intervention of the state, in the form of high salaries or various types of privileges (as is the case in Russia), this changes nothing about the fact that we’re dealing with the rise of a new capitalist class.

The central element in capitalist production is the difference between the value of labour power, determined by necessary labour time, and that labour power which reproduces more than its own value. This is expressed in the difference between the labour time necessary for the worker to reproduce his own subsistence, and for which he’s paid, and the extra labour time for which he isn’t paid and which constitutes the surplus value taken by the capitalist. The distinction between socialist production and capitalist production lies in the relationship between paid labour time and unpaid labour time.

Every society needs an economic reserve fund in order to ensure the continuation and enlargement of production. This fund is drawn from an indispensable amount of surplus labour. At the same time a quantity of surplus labour is required to meet the needs of the unproductive members of society.

Capitalist society is tending to destroy the enormous mass of accumulated labour drawn from the ferocious exploitation of the proletariat. In the aftermath of the revolution, the victorious proletariat will be faced with ruins and with a catastrophic economic situation, inherited from capitalist society. It will have to reconstruct an economic reserve fund.

This means that, at the beginning, the amount of surplus labour the proletariat has to perform will be as great as it was under capitalism. Thus the socialist economic principle will not, in its immediate application, be able to be measured quantitatively in the relation between paid and unpaid labour. Only the trajectory, the tendency towards altering this relationship can serve as an indication of which way the economy is going, as a barometer of the class nature of production.

The proletariat and its class party will thus have to be extremely vigilant. The greatest industrial conquests (even where the part going to the workers is greater in absolute terms, but less in relative terms) can easily involve a return to the capitalist principle of production.

All the subtle arguments about private capitalism disappearing through the nationalisation of the means of production can’t hide this reality.

Refusing to be misled by this sophistry, which aims at perpetuating the exploitation of the workers, the proletariat and its party will immediately have to embark upon an implacable struggle to halt any tendency towards a return to capitalism, and to impose by all the means available an economic policy that leads in the direction of socialism.

In conclusion, we will cite the following passage from Marx to illustrate and summarise our thinking: “The great difference between the capitalist principle of production and the socialist principle is this: with the first the workers confront the means of production as capital, and can only set it to work to increase the surplus product and the surplus value in the interests of their exploiters. With the second, instead of being occupied by these means of production, they use them to produce wealth in their own interests.” (Source unknown in English).

The polemic which we continue in this publication isn't an academic debate about history. The proletariat's only weapons are its organizational capacity and its consciousness. This consciousness is historic, because it's an instrument of and for the future, but also because it feeds on the past experience of two centuries of proletarian struggles. Here, it's a question of transforming for the present and the future the terrible experience of revolutionaries in the years that preceded and followed the Second World War, in particular of knowing how and within what conditions the revolutionary groups can become real political parties of the proletariat. But to do this, it's necessary to put some historical facts in their true light and to fight the falsifications which, unfortunately were developed, even among the revolutionary milieu.

In Part 1[1] we showed how, in the crucial years between 1935 and 1937, the Fraction of the Italian Left abroad paid the price of a terrible political isolation to keep unbroken the red thread of marxist continuity as all the other left currents sank into democratic anti-fascism, including the most important amongst them: the Trotskyists[2]. This dramatic historic demarcation laid the political and programmatic foundations which remain today the basis for the forces of the international communist left. We have also shown that for the comrades of BC (Battaglia Comunista, the organ of the Partito Comunista Internazionalista), all this is valid only up to a certain point, since for them the central question in 1935 was to respond to the passage of the old parties into the counter-rev­olutionary camp with the transformation of the Fraction into a new Communist Party. This position, which in 1935 was defended by an activist minority (who split from the communist left the following year to take part in the "anti-fascist" war in Spain), was rejected by the majority of the Fraction. They remained faithful to what had always been the Left's position: that the Fraction could only be transformed into a new Party with the renewal of the class struggle. According to the comrades of Battaglia, the majority which defended this supposedly incorrect "wait and see" position in1935 had abandoned it in 1936, only to return to ­it in 1937 with disastrous consequences.

In particular, the majority's most prestigious spokesman, Vercesi, "settled the controversy in 1936 between the "wait-and-see" Bianco and the pro-party Piero-Tito in favor of the latter: 'we have to consider that in the present period, although we do not have and cannot yet have any influence on the masses, we are confronted by the need to act no longer as a fraction of a party which has betrayed, but as a party in miniature' (Bilan, no. 28). In practice, in this phase, Vercesi appears closer to a more dialectical vision, whereby the treason of the centrist parties should be answered by the creation of new parties, not to guide the masses (who were not ready to follow anyway) towards the seizure of power by sheer willpower, (...) but to represent the broken class continuity, to fill the political void which had appeared, and to give the class once again that political reference point which is indispensable even in periods of reflux, and which would, even on a tiny scale, be capable of growing with events, rather than waiting for them to bring the messiah with them. But in 1937, he went back on these positions, and in ­his 'report on the international situation' once again put forward the fractions as the only possible political expression for the moment, implicitly renouncing any transformation at all. ( ... ) Quite apart from Vercesi's individual chopping and changing, when war broke out the Fraction to all intents and purposes ceased to function. This meant an end to all the publications (internal bulletins, Prometeo, Bilan, and Octobre), and a decline in, if not an end to contacts between the French and Belgian sections. In 1945, the Fraction broke up, without having resolved in practice one of the most important problems which had led to its creation at Pantin in 1928. The Party was born nonetheless, in 1942 under the impulse of comrades who had remained in Italy (Partito Comunista Internazionalista). At the end of the war, this party was joined by many of the elements of the dissolved Fraction."[3].

As usual, the comrades of BC have rewritten history to suit themselves. Firstly, Vercesi was not the spokesman of the "wait-and-see" (as Battaglia calls it) majority; he was trying to find a compromise between two positions which surfaced, though ambiguously, at the end of the1935 Congress. Early in 1936, Vercesi once again made use of an expression which did in fact contain the ambiguity that the majority fought against, and which is quoted in the above extracts. True, the exact quote speaks of "the need to act no longer as a fraction of a party which has betrayed, but - if we can put it like this - as a party in miniature". But even in this conditional form, which the comrades of Battaglia have rather dishonestly removed, the expression remains full of ambiguity, when it tries to present the Fraction as a party with a small number of militants, when in fact it is a form of organization specific to phases of the class struggle when the existence of a party big or small is impossible. The real spokesmen for the majority had every reason to protest at these contradictory formulations which introduced on the sly the idea that it would have been possible to move towards acting as a party, when the preconditions were absolutely non-existent. It is no accident that an article by Bianco (in Bilan no.28) against Vercesi's, was titled "A little clarity, please!". And indeed, this clarity as to the fact that current conditions only made possible the existence of a Fraction was reestablished, though not in 1937 as Battaglia's article would have it. It was events in Spain that brought matters to a head, when the minority cut loose definitively and sank into anti-fascism. This clarified in practice what talk about "putting an end to 'wait­ and-see-ism'" leads to. Faced with this upset, Vercesi came to his senses, and for the moment (but alas, only for the moment) he gave up his ideas about "new phases". By standing full­-square on its positions during the crucial period from July '36 to May '37 (massacre of the of workers in Barcelona), the Fraction was able to lay the foundations for today's International Communist Left, though only at the price of a total isolation from a political milieu completely in the grip of democratic decomposition. This terrible pressure could not help leaving its mark within the Italian, and in the new Belgian Fractions. A few comrades began to put for­ward the idea that the very fact that war was approaching brought the moment of proletarian counter-attack nearer, and that to be ready for these future reactions, it was necessary to begin a "different" activity. Towards the end of 1937, Vercesi began to theorize the idea that rather than a World War, there would be a mul­titude of "local wars" designed as "preventive massacres" against the proletarian threat sprung from who knew where. To prepare for these convulsions, it was necessary to "do more", and suddenly there reappeared, though in other terms, the idea that the Fraction should act - "if we can put it like this" - as a miniature party. To have the "activity" of a party, in September 1937 the Fractions em­barked on an absurd project of collecting funds for the victims of the war in Spain, in order to compete at the level of "mass" work with the Social-Stalinist organisms such as "Secours Rouge" ("Red Help"), by descending to the same level. While in December 1936, Bilan no.38 reprinted the 1933 proposal for an International Information Bureau, noting bitterly that it remained impossible even to get this minimum proposal accepted, in September 1937, Vercesi de­clared in Bilan no.43 that a mere Information Bureau would henceforth be "irrelevant, and that we must enter another phase of our work" by forming an International Bureau of left fractions. In itself, the formation of a coordinating body for the only two existing fractions was entirely correct. The problem was, that instead of coordinating the activity of clarification and of training new militants, which was the only work possible for the fractions under the conditions of the time, this Bureau was more and more thought of as an organ which should be ready when the class struggle recovered, in or­der to coordinate "the construction of new parties and the new International". In January 1938, still putting the cart before the horse, the publication of Bilan was stopped, and replaced by a review whose name alone - Octobre - an­ticipated new revolutionary convulsions which were nowhere to be seen, and which it was in­tended should be published in French, English, and German! The result of this obsession with "acting like a miniature party" could have been foreseen: the review which was supposed to be published in three languages did not even ap­pear regularly in French, the Bureau virtually stopped functioning, and - far worse - demoralization and resignations spread amongst mili­tants in a state of utter confusion.

The outbreak of war in August 1939 com­pleted the collapse, which was made still worse by the switch to clandestinity, the assassination of some of the best militants, and the arrest of many others; the fractions were thus in fact completely disorganized. Things were made still worse by the fact that with the outbreak of war Vercesi, who till then had maintained that the work of the Fraction was useless, and that it was necessary to work as a "mini-party" began to put forward the theory that since there was no reaction from the proletariat, it had "ceased to exist socially" and that in these conditions the work of the Fraction no longer served any purpose.

The constantly recurring theme here is the calling into question of the fraction as the or­gan of revolutionary activity in historically un­favorable periods. From all this, BC tries to draw the conclusion that those who continued to work as a fraction during the war learnt noth­ing from it. In reality, those who - like Vercesi - learnt nothing during the war, were precisely those who refused to work as a fraction. Contrary to what Battaglia would like us to be­lieve, the fraction's activity did not come to a halt. On the initiative of its section in Marseilles, which had been at the forefront of the opposition to Vercesi, the fraction was reorganized at the beginning of 1940, held annual underground conferences, reestablished sections in Lyon, Toulouse, and Paris, and renewed con­tact with comrades who had remained in Belgium. Despite unimaginable material difficul­ties, a discussion bulletin was once again pub­lished regularly, as a tool for training militants, and for circulating the Executive Commission's orientation texts, which served as a basis for discussion with other groups, when they en­tered into contact. This underground work led to the formation (between 1942 and 1944) of a new French fraction, and to closer contact with a number of German and Austrian communists who had broken with a Trotskyist movement that had by then passed into the counter-revo­lutionary camp.

We do not understand how all this could have been done, in incredibly difficult condi­tions, by militants who according to Battaglia took "cosy" refuge in their "theorizations", waiting for the "messianic" arrival of the masses, capable at last of recognizing them as the rightful leadership.

Only armchair theoreticians?

Here we come to the nub of the question. Battaglia considers the fraction as an organ (the term "cultural circle" would be more apt) which limits itself, as long as the proletariat is not on the offensive, to theoretical studies, since there is no point in intervening in the class. On the contrary, it is the fraction that makes it possible to maintain the continuity of communist in­tervention in the class, even in the blackest pe­riods when that intervention encounters no im­mediate echo. This is demonstrated by the whole history of the Left Communist fractions. As well as Bilan, its theoretical review, the Italian Fraction also published a newspaper in Italian, Prometeo, with a bigger circulation in France than the paper of those past-masters of activism, the French Trotskyists. The fraction's militants were so well-known for their commit­ment to the class struggle, that the unions' na­tional leaderships were obliged to intervene di­rectly and brutally to dislodge them from the rank-and-file organizations which defended them. These comrades distributed their press despite being hunted down both by the police and the patriotic unions. They were beaten up, and came back to hand out leaflets with a re­volver stuck in the belt, ready to be shot down where they stood rather than abandon their in­tervention in the class. A worker like Piccino was taken by the Stalinists while selling the press, and handed over to the French police; he was beaten up so badly that he remained crip­pled for life, but nonetheless continued to sell the press. In a letter written in April 29, Togliatti asked for help from Stalin's repressive apparatus to get rid of the "Bordigist debris", admitting that their dedication was causing him more than a few headaches wherever Italian workers were to be found. From the class en­emy, this is the highest form of recognition.

It requires extraordinary nerve to present as slippered theoreticians all those militants who were liquidated in the concentration camps, or arrested by the Gestapo as they secretly crossed the border to keep up contacts with comrades in Belgium, who took part in illegal strikes while on the run from the police and without proper papers, or who only escaped from the Stalinist killers waiting for them out­side the factory gate by climbing the wall to get out. Battaglia writes that the comrades in exile should have fought for the transformation of imperialist war into civil war, and that "more attention should have been paid to Lenin's teaching", especially by "comrades who had grown up in the Leninist tradition". But what else were the comrades of the French and Italian fractions doing when they distributed leaflets calling' for revolutionary defeatism, written in French and German, in German troop trains, or when they risked their lives in the midst of an orgy of patriotism, to call on work­ers to desert the partisans?

Clearly, it is completely wrong to write that "the sole possibility of organizing the slightest opposition to imperialism's attempts to solve its contradictions through war, lay in the formation of new parties". If the transformation into a civil war did not take place, this was not due to any "lack of opposition" from the fractions, but to the fact that world capitalism had succeeded in breaking the first attempts in this direction, first in Italy and then in Germany, so pushing back any revolutionary perspective. According to Battaglia, if the fraction had transformed it­self into a party despite everything, this would of changed things. But how? And in what di­rection?

The Partito Comunista Internazionalista in 1942

To answer this question, let us consider the ac­tivity of the Internationalist Communist Party founded in Italy at the end of 1942 by comrades grouped around Onorato Damen. Unlike the fraction, which broke all its links with the PCI (Italian CP) in 1928, this comrade remained in the party until the mid-30's; in 1933, he was one of the leaders of the Civitavecchia commu­nist prisoners revolt. In the article quoted above, Battaglia Comunista (where Damen was one of the leading militants until his death) waxes ironic on the call made by the 1935 Congress of the Fraction for militants to quit the communist parties which by then had gone over to the counter-revolution. BC wonders: if the party could not be transformed because at the time the masses remained deaf to the frac­tion, then who on earth could this appeal be addressed to? "We can't help wondering whether this call was not made in the hope that there would be no answer forthcoming from the proletariat, so as not to create any problems which would call into question the presenter's abstract schema". Battaglia's irony is particu­larly ill-chosen: this call was in fact addressed to comrades, like Damen, who had remained in the CPs in the hope of being able to defend class positions there, and would have concerned Damen himself, had the Stalinists not already solved the problem by expelling him from the party at the end of 1934. Or does Battaglia think that Bilan was wrong to call on these comrades to leave the CP's which had gone over to the bourgeoisie, and to join the fraction, which was the only place where the battle to reconstitute the class party still continued?

In fact, according to Battaglia, by 1935 it was clear for any marxist that the definitive departure from the PCI automatically implied the formation of a new party. But if this was so clear, why did Damen not form a new party in 1935? Why did he set himself to the patient, underground, work of selecting and training militants, just as the Fraction was doing in ex­ile? If it is true that "the only possibility of organizing any kind of opposition" to the war lay in the formation of new parties, then why was this party not created in 1939, when in re­ality it waited until 1942, after three and a half years of imperialist massacre? According to BC's analyses, these seven lost years should be regarded as either madness or treason. For us, on the contrary, this is the best possible proof that it is not enough, to form a new party, that the old should have gone over to the enemy.

If the PClnt (Partito Comunista Internazionalista) as created at the end of 1942, then this was due to the development of a strong tendency towards the renewal of the class struggle against fascism and the imperial­ist war; in a few months, this led to the strikes of March 1943, the collapse of fascism, and Italian bourgeoisie suing for a separate peace. Although the world bourgeoisie rapidly suc­ceeded in derailing this class reaction of the Italian proletariat, it nonetheless remains true that it was on this basis that the comrades in Italy considered that the time had come to form a new party. It is no accident that the com­rades in exile came, quite independently, to the same conclusion, as soon as the heard the news of the March 1943 strikes: in August, the Fraction's Conference declared open "the phase of the fraction's return to Italy and its trans­formation into a party". This organized return, however, remained impossible, partly due to virtually insurmountable material difficulties (remember that it was only in 1945 that the PClnt founded in Italy was able to make its ex­istence known abroad); these difficulties were made worse by the assassination and arrest of many comrades.

But the fundamental weakness was political: the minority of the Italian Fraction around Vercesi, along with the Belgian Fraction, denied any class nature in the 1943 strikes, and op­posed any organized activity on the grounds that it was "voluntarist". The 1944 annual conference condemned the positions of the Vercesi tendency, and at the beginning of 1945 Vercesi himself was expelled from the Fraction for his participation in the Brussels "Anti-fas­cist Coalition Committee". But this long struggle had helped to reduce the forces available for an organized return to Italy, and in the end it was replaced by a policy of individual return by many militants; once in Italy, they discovered the party's existence and entered it on an indi­vidual basis. This policy was bitterly criticized by a part of the Fraction, and especially by the Fraction in France, which was increasingly de­veloping underground work against the war, and which criticized the Italian Fraction's lack of determination to make an organized return to Italy. Then in spring 1945, came the bombshell: the news that there had been for years a party in Italy, already with "thousands of members", and including such comrades as Damen and Bord iga, The majority of the Fraction was overwhelmed with enthusiasm, and in a hurried conference in May 1945, decided its own dissolution and that its militants should join a party whose political positions they knew nothing about. When the French Fraction supported the minority that opposed this political suicide, the majority of the conference broke off all organizational links with the French group, taking as a pretext the revolutionary defeatist work that the French comrades had carried out with German and Austrian internationalists who did not belong to any of the Fractions of the Communist Left.

This decision to dissolve the Fraction had extremely serious consequences for the later development of the Communist Left. The Fraction was the sole depository of the funda­mental political lessons which had been drawn during the selection of communist forces carried out between 1935 and 1937; it had a historical duty to ensure that new party was founded on the basis of these lessons, which we summed up in the previous article:

1) the party must be formed by individual adherence to the programmatic positions of the Left, set out by the Fractions, and excluding any integration of groups of comrades situated half'-way between the Left and Trotskyism;

2) the party's revolutionary defeatism must be guaranteed by the head-on denunciation of any form of "partisan militia" designed to enroll the workers in the war, such as the Spanish "workers' militias" in 1936.

Since the Fraction was unable to fulfill this function, due to its dissolution in 1945 and the absence of any organized return to Italy, we must now see whether the Party in Italy had been able to form on these bases. And this is not to determine how we should appreciate this party in particular, but to understand whether or not the fraction's work is a vital precondi­tion for the reconstitution of the class party.

****

Let us start with the party's political positions and methods of recruitment. The PCInt's first Congress (28th December 1945 - 1st January 1946) held after the integration of the militants from the Fraction, declared that the PCInt had been founded in 1942, "on the basis of precisely this political tradition"[4] represented by the Fraction in exile from 1927 onwards. The first groups referred to "a platform constituted by a brief document which fixed the directives for the party to follow, and which for the most part it still follows today". It is hard to say how far this document was based on the Fraction's positions for the simple reason that as far as we know Battaglia has always declined to pub­lish it (despite its "brevity"!), while in BC's 1974 pamphlet on the PClnt's Platforms its exis­tence is not even mentioned. What a strange fate for the Party's founding document ... Consequently, we are obliged to refer to the Platform drawn up by Bordiga in 1945 and ap­proved by the first Congress early in 1946.

Without analyzing this text in detail, suffice it to say that it allows the possibility of par­ticipating in elections (a position already re­jected by the Left at the time of the pre-1914 abstentionist fraction of the Italian Socialist Party, led by Bordiga), that it takes "the founding texts of the Moscow International" as its theoretical basis (so rejecting the Fraction's critique of these texts from 1927 onwards), that there is no real denunciation of national libera­tion struggles (a position established by the Left in 1935), and that to crown it all, it exalts the workers' enrollment in the partisans' armed gangs as a "historical event of the first order". The Platform is also unacceptable on other questions (on the trade unions, in the first place), but we have considered here only those points where the Platform is outside the class frontiers already drawn up thanks to the pro­grammatic elaboration of the Communist Left.

The party's methods of recruitment were in harmony with this ideological hodge-podge; or rather, the ideological hodge-podge was the in­evitable result of the methods of recruitment, based on the absorption of groups of comrades holding the most divers, if not wholly contra­dictory positions. In the end, the Central Committee contained the first comrades of 1942, the leaders of the Fraction which had expelled Vercesi in 1944, and Vercesi himself, who was admitted at the same time as the members of the minority expelled in 1936 for having taken part in the anti-fascist war in Spain. There were even admitted groups like the "Fraction of left communists and socialists" from the south, which in 1944 still believed in the possibility of "correcting" first the Stalinist party, and even the Socialist Party (!) along with it. By con­trast, Amadeo Bordiga, the Platform's author and main theoretician, was not even a member (he seems to have joined only in 1949).

On the second question that had been settled during the years from 1935-37 - the danger represented by the partisan militias - the PCInt's degeneration coincided with its numeri­cal growth at the expense of principles. In 1943, the PCInt courageously and unequivocally denounced the imperialist role of the partisan movement. By 1944, it was already obliged to make concessions to illusions on the "democratic" war: "The communist elements be­lieve sincerely in the necessity of the struggle against Nazism and fascism and think that once this obstacle is demolished, they will be able to march towards the conquest of power, destroy­ing capitalism" (Prometeo, no.15, August 1944).

In 1945, the circle was completed with the participation of whole federations (as in Turin) in the patriotic insurrection of 25th April, and the adoption of a Platform which defined the partisan movement as "a tendency for local proletarian groups to organize and arm in order to take and keep control in local situations", only deploring these movements' "inadequate political orientation" (!). This is the same as the position on the Spanish Civil War defended by the minority in 1936, and which led to their expulsion from the Communist Left.

It is clear enough that the PCInt's overall positions did not match the level of clarification already reached by the Fraction, and considered as the unalterable bases for the formation of the new party. The comrades of Battaglia, by contrast, consider the party "formed in late 1942" as the high point of political clarity ex­isting at the time. How do they reconcile this statement with the existence of the kind of confusions and ambiguities which we have only touched on here? Quite simply: by denying that these confusions were those of the party, and attributing them solely to Bordiga's followers, who were to leave the PCInt in 1952 to found Programa Comunista. We have already answered this in the International Review: "in other words: we and they formed the party together: what was good was us, what was bad was them. Even admitting that this were true, it remains a fact that the "bad" was a fundamental and uni­tary element in the party's formation, and that nobody had anything to say about this".

We now aim to show that these weaknesses were those of the party as a whole, and not just of a particular fraction which happened to be passing through. BC has always denied that the Party was open to anyone who was kind enough to join. But according to BC them­selves, the presence of Vercesi on the Central Committee was explained by the fact that the latter "considered it his duty to join the Party"[5]. Is this a political party or a golf club? (though even in a golf club, you have to be ac­cepted by the other members in order to join ... ). Moreover, it should be remembered that Vercesi "considered it his duty to join" the PCInt's Central Committee directly, thus becom­ing one of its main leaders. BC informs us that although Vercesi was on the CC, the Party was not responsible for what he said or did: "The positions expressed by comrade Perrone [ie Vercesi] at the Turin Conference (1946) ( ... ) were the free expressions of a wholly personal experience and a whimsical political perspective, which it is inadmissible to take as reference points in criticizing the formation of the PCInt"[6]. Well said. What a pity that when we read the proceedings of this first National Conference of the PCInt, we find (on page 13) that these "free expressions" of "political whimsy" were nothing other than the report on "The Party and international problems", presented to the Conference by Vercesi on behalf of the Central Committee. But the surprises don't end here, for when we come to page 16, we find that it is none other than Damen himself who gives the conclusion to Vercesi's report, and declares that at this point, "there are no disagreements, just different viewpoints which allow problems to be clarified organically". If Damen thought that Vercesi's report veered on political whimsy, why did he deny that there was any disagreement? Perhaps because he found an unprincipled al­liance with Vercesi useful at the time?

Let us pass now directly to the Platform, written by Bordiga in 1945. Battaglia repub­lished it in 1974, along with a proposed pro­gram distributed by the Damen group in 1944, with an introduction affirming that the 1944 proposal is much clearer than the 1945 Platform. This is certainly true on some points (the eval­uation of the Russian Revolution, for example). On others, it makes much greater concessions than the 1945 document. On the matter of tac­tics in particular, it says: "our party, which does not under-estimate the influence of the other mass parties, defends the 'united front'". However, if we return to the Turin Conference, we find Lecci's (Tullio) report on the work of the Fraction in exile, and its demarcation from the Trotskyists: "this demarcation presupposed in the first place the liquidation of the tactic of the united front of political blocs" (Proceedings, page 8). Certain key points of the 1944 pro­posal were thus already considered by the 1946 Conference as incompatible with the positions of the Communist Left. Let us continue now with a look at the 1974 Introduction to the 1945 Platform:

"In 1945, the Central Committee received a proposal for a political Platform from comrade Bordiga, who, we should emphasize, was not a member of the Party at the time. The document, whose acceptance was demanded in the terms of an ultimatum, was recognized as being incom­patible with the firm positions adopted by the Party on the most important problems, and de­spite some modifications the document was al­ways considered as a contribution to the debate, and not as a de facto Platform ( ... ) As we have seen, the Central Committee could only accept the document as a wholly personal contribution to the debate at a future Congress; this was put off until 1948, and was to highlight very different positions (see the Proceedings of the Florence Congress)"[7]. This is how the com­rades of Battaglia presented events in 1974. To see whether they correspond to reality, let us return to the January 1946 Conference, which was to have taken a position on the "acceptance demanded in the terms of an ultimatum" of Bordiga's Platform. On page 17 of the Proceedings, we read: "At the end of the debate, since no substantial disagreements had appeared, the 'Platform of the Party' was ac­cepted, and the discussion on the 'Proposal for a Program', and on other documents currently being drawn up will be taken up at the next Congress". As we can see, what happened is exactly the opposite of what Battaglia is saying today: at the 1946 Conference, the comrades of Battaglia themselves voted unanimously to accept Bordiga's Platform, which henceforth became the official basis for joining the party (and which was published externally as such). The French delegates also joined the Party at the Conference on the basis of the recognition of the Platform's correctness (page 6), and the resolution on the formation of an International Bureau of the Communist Left begins in these terms: "the Central Committee recognizes that the Platform of the Internationalist Communist Party is the only document which gives a marx­ist answer to the problems encountered with the defeat of the Russian Revolution and with the Second World War, and affirms that it is the ba­sis of this document and the heritage of the Italian Left that the International Bureau of the Communist Left can and must be constituted".

To conclude, let us say simply that there was indeed a document considered simply as a con­tribution to the debate, and whose discussion was put off to the following Congress; only, it was not Bordiga's Platform but... the proposed Program drawn up in 1944 by the Damen group, and which Battaglia is today passing off as the PCInt's de facto Platform during the 1940's. No words are hard enough to condemn the utter falsification of history carried out all these years by the comrades of Battaglia. They descend to the level of the Stalinist falsification of the history of the Bolshevik Party, which wiped out the names of Lenin's executed com­rades, or attributed Stalin's mistakes to Trotsky. To try to give things an air of coher­ence, Battaglia has made its own Platform disap­pear from the Party's history, and in other documents[8] has not hesitated to attribute to "the ICC's ancestors", the comrades of the French Communist Left, the acrobatics of Vercesi, with whom their own "ancestors" made an opportunist alliance in 1945 when they ad­mitted him onto the Party's Central Committee. We are well aware that this is a very harsh judgment. Nonetheless, it is based on the PCInt's own official documents, such as the Proceedings of the January 1946 Conference, which Battaglia has taken care to keep hidden, whereas it has republished the Proceedings of the 1948 Congress, since by then the oppor­tunist alliance with Vercesi had been broken. We submit our conclusions, and our judgment, to the critique of the comrades of the international movement of the Communist Left. If the docu­ments we have cited are false, let Battaglia say so and prove it. Otherwise, it will be clear, once again, who are the falsifiers.

****

At all events, one problem remains to be cleared up: how is it possible that comrades of the caliber of Onorato Damen, who had held high the flame of internationalism during the blackest days of our class' history, should lower them­selves to such a falsification of this period of their own history? How is it possible that the comrades of Programa Comunista (who parted company with Battaglia Comunista in 1952) should come to the point of making all their history from 1926 to 1952 vanish into thin air? From what we have seen in this article, the answer is clear: in the crucial years surrounding World War II, neither were fundamentally capa­ble of ensuring the historical continuity of the Left Fractions, which is the only possible basis of the Party of tomorrow. Certainly, we cannot reproach them for thinking in 1943 that the conditions were ripe for the Party's rebirth, since even the Fractions in exile shared this il­lusion on the basis of the beginnings of a pro­letarian response to the war contained in the 1943 strikes in Italy. But by January 1946 and the Turin Congress, it was clear that capitalism had succeeded in breaking the proletarian re­sponse, and in transforming it into a moment in the imperialist war, through the workers' en­rollment in the partisan gangs. In this situa­tion, it was necessary to recognize that the preconditions for the Party's formation were ab­solutely nonexistent, and to devote the revolutionary forces to the work of a fraction: draw­ing up a balance sheet of events, and training new militants on this basis. Neither group was capable of undertaking this task, and this explains their contortions since then. The Damen tendency began to theorize the idea that the formation of the party has nothing to do with the renewal of the class struggle, so denying their own experience in 1943. The Vercesi ten­dency (close to Bordiga) began to move towards something which was not yet the Party, but which was no longer the Fraction (the old "miniature party" of 1936 was recycled as "enlarged fraction" of 1948), anticipating all Programa Comunista's future balancing acts be­tween the "historic" and the "formal" party. Only the French Communist Left (Internationalisme), which today's ICC recognizes as its predecessors, was able to recognize openly the mistakes it had made in 1943 when it thought the conditions for the Party's formation existed, and to devote itself to the work of drawing up a historical balance-sheet which the times demanded. Whatever its limitations, this work remains the indispensable basis for the work of reconstituting the Party tomorrow.

In a forthcoming article, we will analyze what this contribution represents.

Beyle

[1] International Review no 59, 4th Quarter 1989.

[2] See the ICC pamphlet La Gauche Communiste d' Italie (shortly to be published in English), on the relationship between the Italian Left and the International Left Opposition.

[3] "Frazione-Partito nell ‘esperienza della Sinistra Italiana', Prometeo no 2, March 1929.

[4] "Proceedings of the first national conference of the Internationalist Communist Party of Italy", Publications de la Gauche Communiste Internationale, 1946.

[5] "Letter from Battaglia Comunista to the ICC", published together with our reply, in International Review no 8, December 1976.

[6] Prometeo, no 18, 1972.

[7] "Documents of the Italian Left", Ed. Prometeo, January 1974.

[8] Battaglia Comunista no 3, February 1983; the article has been republished in the International Review no 34, 3rd Quarter 1983, without reply.

The Eastern countries: The crisis is irreversible, restructuring impossible

Events over the last few months in the former Soviet bloc have revealed more and more clearly the completely dilapidated state of all the East European countries and of the USSR in particular. As the reality of the situation was uncovered, the last hopes and theories about a possible improvement fell to pieces. The facts speak for themselves: it is impossible to revive the economies of these countries; their governments, whatever shape they have taken on, whether a 'reformed' version of the old apparatus, with or without the participation of the former 'opposition' parties, or based upon 'new' political formations, are all totally incapable of con­trolling the situation. Every day it becomes clearer that these countries are plunging into a level of chaos that is without precedent[1].

The western countries are not going to bail out the Eastern countries or the USSR

The debacle is complete. The Eastern countries would love to see the big industrialized coun­tries coming to the aid of their ruined economies. Walesa never stops begging for Western aid to Poland. Gorbachev has been pleading with Bush to grant his country 'most favored nation' status, a preferential trade agreement that the USA has always refused to give the USSR, though it was often given to Rumania, the poorest country of the former Eastern bloc. The GDR is waiting for reunifica­tion with West Germany to get the subsidies for those rare sectors of its economy which are not completely devastated.

But the Western countries aren't going to spend even a tenth of what would be needed, because such a venture wouldn't just be risky, it would be doomed to certain failure. There are no more illusions about the possibility of eco­nomic revival in the Eastern countries. There's no tangible profit to draw from a productive apparatus which is totally obsolete, and from a workforce that is not adapted to the draconian norms of productivity imposed by the world­wide trade war now opening up between the main Western industrial powers, essentially the USA, Japan, West Germany and the other coun­tries of Western Europe.

And even if the IMF were to hand out more credits, it would be confronted with a situation similar to that of the so-called 'third world' countries, which are completely insolvent, and have debts of billions of dollars that will never be repaid.

It is symptomatic that the Bush-Gorbachev meeting, which took place at the time of writing, didn't result in any real economic agreement, except for the timid extension of the previously existing ones. No one is counting on the success of the famous 'perestroika'. The main concern of the Western countries in their relations with the East is to find a way to prevent the generalization of the disorder which is now hitting the latter, and which no Western power is happy about. There's no question of commercial or in­dustrial agreements that could bring a shot of oxygen to the economies of these countries; they are already quite asphyxiated.

The Eastern countries can't hope for a new 'Marshall Plan' (through which the USA financed the reconstruction of Western Europe and Japan after the Second World War). If, among those who talk about the 'victory of capitalism', t here are any illusions left in the economic opportuni­ties opened up by the demolition of the 'iron curtain', these vain hopes will soon be swept away by the painful experience of the West German economy in its move towards reunifica­tion with the GDR[2]. For German capital, there may be a short term interest in exploiting the very low paid workforce of the GDR, but the overall prospect is that reunification will open up a huge financial hole and lead to an influx of millions of unemployed and immigrants[3].

At a time when the international financial system is threatening to cave in under the weight of world debt, at a time when massive waves of redundancies are already gaining force, especially in the USA, and will certainly gain in strength in the other developed coun­tries, the latter have no 'markets' or economic benefits to find in the Eastern countries, with only a few rare exceptions. Only a few out-of-­date 'theoreticians', and unfortunately some of these do still exist, even in the proletarian camp[4], have any belief in the mirage of restruc­turing the Eastern economies.

An economy in ruin

The official figures now being supplied by the USSR show that the economy is completely ex­hausted. They pulverize even the estimates that Western specialists have been making over the last few years in opposition to the institutionalized lies that passed for Soviet 'statistics'.

The new statistics admit that the economy is inexorably reaching a zero growth rate, and are thus closer to reality than the pre-Glasnost ones. However, by including in their calculations the military sector, the only sector in which the Russian economy has seen any growth since the mid-'70s, they still greatly underestimate the breadth of the crisis in the Soviet economy.

At best, the USSR is at the same economic level as a country like Portugal; according to estimates, average income is about 3000 pounds a year and that can vary from 9000 to 5400 pounds. That means that the majority of the population has a living standard closer to a country like Algeria than to the poorest regions of Southern Europe.

What's more, the 'classic' characteristics of the crisis in the West, inflation and unemployment, are already beginning to ravage the Eastern countries, and at rates worthy of the worst-affected 'third world' countries. And these 'classic ' scourges of capitalism are coming on top of the equally capitalist scourges of Stalinism: rationing and a permanent shortage of consumer goods. Even the most violent oppo­nents of Stalinism, the most zealous glorifiers of western-style capitalism, are stupefied by the ruined state of the economy in the USSR: "Soviet reality is not a developed economy that needs various rectifications; it's a huge pile of bric a brac that is quite unusable and imperfectible"[5].

'Perestroika' is an empty shell and Gorbachev's popularity in the USSR is now at its lowest ever; the government's most recent 'measures' simply ratify the disaster. There will be official recognition that consumer prices have risen by up to 100%, while wages will be raised 15% to compensate ... And very soon - in five year's for the optimists, in one year for others ­there will be unemployment for millions of work­ers. The figures envisage 40, 45, 50 million un­employed, maybe more. That means one person out of five, and without any allocation of the minimal basis for survival.

And if the situation in the USSR is one of the most catastrophic, the other eastern coun­tries aren't much better off. In the ex-GDR, when monetary union comes in (July 1990), 600,000 workers will immediately be thrown out of their jobs, and this figure will reach four million in the years following, that is, one per­son out of four[6]. In Poland, after prices rose by an average of 300% in 1989, with certain products going up by 2000%, the government blocked wages "in order to deal with inflation". In fact inflation is now officially at 40% and this year the number of unemployed will rise to two million. Everywhere the balance sheet of the 'measures of liberalization' is clear: they have simply made the disaster worse.

The Stalinist form of state capitalism, which was inherited not from the revolution of October 1917, but from the counter-revolution which wiped it out, has fallen into complete ruin; the capitalist economic forms which arose in the so-­called 'socialist' countries have reached a state of total disorganization. But the 'liberal' form of Western capitalism, which is no less a form of state capitalism, but a much more sophisticated form, does not provide any alternative. It's the capitalist system as a world-wide whole that is in crisis, and the developed 'democratic' coun­tries are also faced with it. The lack of markets is not unique to the ruined Eastern countries; it's hitting at the very heart of the most devel­oped capitalisms.

The failure of 'liberalization'

The acceleration of the crisis has laid bare the total absurdity of Stalinist-style state capitalist methods at the level of economic management. It has uncovered the complete irresponsibility of several generations of functionaries whose sole concern was to fill their pockets while on paper respecting the directives of 'plans' that were totally disconnected from the normal functioning of the market. But the fact that the ruling class itself now recognizes that they have to put an end to this irresponsibility, to abandon the permanent attempt to cheat the 'laws of the market' through total state control of the econ­omy, doesn't mean that the bourgeoisie can re­vive the economy though a program of 'liberalization', or regain political control of the situation through a process of 'democratization'. All it can do is recognize the total shambles that exists at all levels. Since the Stalinist rul­ing class has for decades maintained its privi­leges through this kind of cheating, it can go no further than simply recognizing the existing state of affairs, as the last five years of 'perestroika' and 'glasnost' have shown. As we said in September 1989:

" ... just as 'economic reform' has taken on a virtually impossible job, so 'political reform' has very little chance of success. The introduction of a multi-party system, with 'free' elections, which is a logical consequence of the process of 'democratization', is a veritable menace for the party in power. As we have seen recently in Poland, and also to a certain extent in the USSR last year, such elections can only highlight the party's total discredit, and the population's ha­tred for it. Logically, the only thing that the party can expect from such elections is the loss of its own power. Unlike Western 'democratic' parties, this is something that the CPs cannot tolerate, since:

- if they were to lose power in elections, they could never, unlike other parties, get it back in the same way;

- loss of political power would mean the ex­propriation of the ruling class, since its political apparatus is the ruling class.

Whereas in countries with a. 'liberal' or 'mixed' economy, which still have a classical bourgeois class which directly owns the means of production, a change in the ruling party (unless this means the arrival in power of a Stalinist party ) has little impact on this bour­geoisie's privilege s and place in society, in the Eastern bloc such an event would mean, for the vast majority of bureaucrats, whether big or small, loss of privileges, unemployment, and even persecution by the victors. The German bourgeoisie could adapt to the Kaiser, the social-democratic republic, the conservative re­public, Nazi totalitarianism, and the 'democratic' republic, without its essential privileges being called into question. By contrast, a change of regime in the USSR would mean the disappear­ance of the bourgeoisie in its present form, at the same time as the Party. And while a political party can commit suicide, announce its own dis­solution, a ruling privileged class cannot."[7]

In the USSR, Stalinism is, through the his­torical circumstances in which it was born, a particular form of the capitalist state. With the degeneration of the Russian revolution, the state which arose after the expropriation of the old bourgeoisie by the proletarian revolution of 1917 became the instrument for the reconstruction of a new capitalist class, over the corpses of tens of millions of workers and revolutionaries. The form taken by this state was the direct product of the counter-revolution which was at its height from the end of the 1920s to the Second World War. The ruling class was totally identi­fied with the monolithic party-state. With the downfall of this system, the ruling class has lost all control of the situation, not only its control over the other 'socialist' states, but also within the USSR itself. And it has no prospect of stopping this runaway process.

The situation in the East European countries is a bit different. It was at the end of the Sec­ond World War that the USSR, with the blessing of the 'allies', imposed on these countries gov­ernments dominated by the Communist Parties. In these countries, the old state apparatus was not destroyed by a proletarian revolution. It was adapted, bent to serve the needs of Russian imperialism; to a different extent in each coun­try, the classical forms of bourgeois domination were allowed to subsist under the shadow of Stalinism. This is why, with the death of Stalinism and the USSR's incapacity to maintain its imperialist grip, the ruling class in these countries, most of them less underdeveloped than the USSR on the economic level, has rushed to get rid of Stalinism and to reactivate the vestiges of these previous forms.

However, while in theory the East European countries have a better chance of facing up to the situation than the USSR, the last few months have shown that the heritage of forty years of Stalinism and the context of the world crisis of capitalism pose enormous problems to any real bourgeois 'democracy'. In Poland for example, the ruling class has shown that it is incapable of controlling this 'democratization'. It finds itself in the aberrant situation of having a government led by the Solidarnosc trade union. In the GDR, it's the CDU, 'Christian Democrats', who governed alongside the SED (Communist Party) for forty years, who are the main pro­tagonists of democratization and reunification with West Germany. But far from being a re­sponsible political force that can carry out some sort of political reorganization in the country, the main motivation of this party is an appetite for personal gain. And all it has done is to wait for subsidies from its big sister party in West Germany, which is the main source of funds for the whole operation.

The whole inexorable evolution that began last summer with the accession of Solidarnosc to government in Poland, and then took in Hungary's shift to the West, the opening of the Berlin Wall, the separatism of the 'Asiatic re­publics', the secession of the 'Baltic republics' and the recent investiture of Yeltsin in Russia itself, is not the fruit of a deliberately chosen policy on the part of the bourgeoisie. It is the expression of the growing loss of control by the ruling class, and points towards a dive into dislocation and chaos unprecedented anywhere in the world. There's no 'liberalization', but simply the powerlessness of the ruling class faced with the decomposition of its system.

Democratic illusions and the nationalist explosion

'Liberalization' is just empty chatter, an ideo­logical smokescreen which attempts to exploit the very considerable illusions in democracy in a population which has for forty years been shut up in the barracks of Stalinism; its aim is to make people accept a continual deterioration of their living standards. Gorbachev's 'liberalization' has already had its day; five years of speeches have given no concrete re­sults, except for an increasingly unbearable material situation for the population. And this doesn't only apply to the men of the apparatus like Gorbachev. The former oppositionists, even the most 'radical' the great champions of 'democratization', unmask themselves and reveal their real nature as soon as they take on gov­ernmental responsibilities. In Poland for example, there's Kuron, a former 'Trotskyist'[8], a radi­cal imprisoned by Jaruzelski a few years ago; when he became minister of Labor, he boasted about "extinguishing thousands of strikes" in order to able to "organize one hundred". Now he threatens the railway workers with direct repression, and shows the classic attitude of Stalinism faced with the working class. Whatever factions and cliques occupy the centers of power at one moment or another, there's no possibility of the kind of bourgeois democracy that exists in the advanced countries, still less of any kind of 'socialist' democracy.

This idea of 'socialist democracy', according to which all you have to do is get rid of the bureaucrats in power in order to allow a flow­ering of the 'socialist relations of production' that are supposed to exist in the East, is a particular favorite of the Trotskyist sects, who thus reveal themselves to be nothing but the last salesmen of Stalinism.

All the 'oppositionists', whether made up of elements who have come out of the apparatus, or of entire former apparatuses that have re­pented of their past deeds, or of personalities who have been converted by circumstances to putting themselves at their country's service, all of them are defenders of their feeble na­tional capitals, all of them use the democratic illusions held by the great majority of the Eastern populations in order to maneuver themselves into power. But only the big devel­oped countries can really afford the luxury of 'democratic' forms of capitalist class rule. The latter countries' relative economic strength and their political experience enable them to maintain the whole apparatus, from the media to the po­lice, required to impose a grip on society that hides its totalitarianism behind a veil of 'freedom'. Stalinism, which is state capitalism pushed to the absurd point of attempting to negate the law of value, has given rise to a ruling class that is totally inept, ignorant of the ABC of this law, even though its class rule is founded upon it. Never has a ruling class been so weak.

And this weakness also leads, with the dislo­cation of the Eastern bloc and the USSR, to the explosion of the various nationalisms that were only tied to the USSR through military repres­sion, and which have automatically come to the surface as soon as the big boss showed itself unable to maintain its domination by force of arms.

At one time Gorbachev may have given the impression that he was in favor of the expres­sion of 'nationalities' in the USSR. In fact, the central Soviet power cannot use these nation­alisms to strengthen itself. On the contrary, the outbreak of nationalisms, regionalisms, and par­ticularisms at all levels is an expression of the impotence of the Russian regime and the defini­tive loss of its status as head of an imperialist bloc, of its place among the 'great powers'[9]. It's the current conditions that are feeding na­tionalism: without Moscow and the Red Army, the local cliques in power are left naked, and the door is open to the inrush of all the particu­larisms that were only kept out by military ter­ror. The dire consequences of this collapse are only at their beginning. The logic of the situation is the kind of 'democratization' we've seen in Colombia or Peru, or even more likely, the 'Lebanonization' of the whole former Eastern bloc and the USSR itself.

Western ‘liberal' capitalism in turn enters into crisis

In the last instance the crisis in the USSR is the expression of the generalized economic crisis of capitalism, one of the manifestations of the historic crisis of the system, of its decomposi­tion. There's no possibility of any restructuring of capitalism in the East, any more than any 'developing' country has been able to detach itself from 'underdevelopment' since the term 'third world' was invented. On the contrary, the perspective is of an irreversible and world-wide economic collapse.

Since it opened up at the end of the 1960s, the world economic crisis has led:

- in the years 1970-80 to the inexorable downfall of the countries of the 'third world', bringing the most black misery to an immense proportion of the world's population

- at the end of the '80s, to the definitive death of Stalinism, the capitalist regime inher­ited from the counter-revolution of 'socialism in one country', which has similarly plunged the majority of the population of the so-called 'Communist' countries into a state of absolute pauperization that is just as bad if not worse.

During the 1990s the crisis is going to bring this absolute pauperization to the heart of the 'first world' to the industrial metropoles that have already been ravaged by 20 years of mas­sive and long-term unemployment, of insecurity and precariousness at all levels of social life. There will be no‘restructuring'' of capitalism, either in the East or the West.

MG, 3 June 1990

[1] See the analysis of the collapse of the Russian bloc and its implications for the world situation in nos 60 and 61 of this Review.

[2] See ‘The Situation in Germany' in this issue.

[3] Certain elements in Russian government have envisaged a way of restocking the USSR's coffers: sending 16 million Soviet immigrants into Western Europe so that they can send back currency to the USSR...

[4] See the article on the proletarian milieu in this issue.

[5] Le Point, 9-10 June 1990

[6] See ‘The situation in Germany' in this issue.

[7] IR 60, ‘Theses on the economic and political crisis in the Eastern countries'

[8] Cf the ‘Open Letter to the Polish Workers Party' by Kuron and Modzelewski, published in Britain by the International Socialism group, now the SWP.

[9] See the article ‘Nationalist barbarism' in this issue.

The vanguard that came late

The collapse of the Eastern bloc is the most im­portant historic event since the Yalta Accords of 1945 which shared out the world between the two antagonistic imperialist blocs dominated by the USA and the USSR, and since the recovery of the class struggle at the end of the 1960s, which put an end to the dark years of counter­revolution which had reigned since the 1920s. An event on this scale is a determining test for revolutionary organizations, and for the prole­tarian movement as a whole. It does not simply reveal the degree of political organizations' clarity or confusion; it also has extremely con­crete implications. Not only their own political future, but the whole working class' ability to find its way in the tempest of History, depends on their ability to respond clearly to this test.

The activity of revolutionaries is not something fortuitous; it has practical implications for the life of the working class. The ability to develop a clear intervention helps to strengthen con­sciousness within the class. The reverse is also true: confusion in proletarian organizations hin­ders the class' revolutionary dynamic.

How has the proletarian political movement and its constituent organizations reacted to the economic, political, and social earthquake that has ravaged the Warsaw Pact countries since last summer? How have they understood events? These are not secondary questions, mere excuses for sterile polemics; they are vital problems which will have a very concrete influ­ence on the perspectives for the future.

Delay in the political movement: underestimation of the importance of events[1]

Battaglia Comunista's positions began to evolve during the autumn of 1989, but we have had to wait for the New Year to see the first positions adopted by the CWO, the PCI (Le Proletaire), and the FOR. At the end of February 1990, the EFICC published two texts from their internal debates on the situation in the East, but we have had to wait until April to read the Internationalist Perspective no 16 dated winter 1989! The little sects revive in spring, and publish some positions; 'Communisme ou Civilization', 'Union Proletarienne', the GCI, the 'Mouvement Communiste pour la formation du Parti Mondial' all emerge from hibernation. Months had passed, until the end of 1989, when apart from the ICC's positions, workers wanting to understand the viewpoint of the different revolutionary groups have had nothing more to get their teeth into than one meager issue of Battaglia Comunista. In our polemic published in late February, in the International Review no 61[2], we were only able to take account of the positions of three organizations: the IBRP (which regroups the CWO and BC), the FOR and the PCI (Le Proletaire). Six months had already passed since the first important events took place.

Certainly, the collapse of an imperialist bloc under the blows of the world economic crisis is unprecedented in capitalism's history; the situa­tion is a historically new one, and so difficult to analyze. However, quite apart from the dif­ferent positions' content, this delay expresses an incredible under-estimation both of events and of the role of revolutionaries. The passiv­ity of the various political organizations faced with events such as the Eastern bloc's collapse and the questions that this inevitably raises within the working class says much about their state of advancing political decrepitude.

It is no accident that the organizations which reacted the quickest are those whose history attaches them the most clearly to Left Communist traditions and especially to those of the Italian Left, and which have already demon­strated a certain staying power. These are the political and historical poles of reference for the proletarian movement. Fundamentally, the little sects which gravitate around them do not ex­press positions so different that they justify the existence of separate organizations, To differentiate themselves, they can only either plunge from "discovery" to "discovery", ever further into confusion and the void, or ape the positions classically under debate in the revolu­tionary movement, but in a sterile and caricatu­ral manner.

In this polemical article, we will therefore concentrate on the IBRP, which remains, with the ICC, the main pole of regroupment, and the Bordigists, since although this current has col­lapsed as a pole of regroupment it nonetheless remains an important reference point for the debates within the revolutionary milieu. However, we will endeavor not to ignore the positions of parasitic groups such as the EFICC, 'Communisme ou Civilization', or even the GCI which arguably no longer has so much as a toe in the proletarian camp. Clearly, the list is not exhaustive. The latter groups generally cari­cature the weaknesses within the proletarian milieu, and reveal the logical outcome of confu­sions born by the more serious groups.

Faced with the upheavals in the East, on the whole all the revolutionary organizations have been able to set forward, at least on a general theoretical level, two basic positions, which have sometimes had to substitute for any analysis of the situation:

- affirmation of the capitalist nature of the USSR and its Eastern bloc satellites;

- denunciation of the danger of democratic illusions for the proletariat.

Clarity on these two points, which lie at the heart of the proletarian political milieu's exis­tence and unity, is the least we should expect from revolutionary organizations. When it comes to analyzing events, a cacophony of confusion reigns. The delay in taking positions is not just a practical matter, an inability to alter the cosy rhythm of press deadlines to confront historical events; it is a delay in recognizing reality, in simply seeing the facts and espe­cially the fact of the Eastern bloc's break-up and collapse.

In October 1989, BC still sees "the Eastern empire still solidly under the Russian boot", while in December it writes: "The USSR must open up to Western technology, and so must COMECON, not - as some think - in a process of disintegration of the Eastern bloc and the USSR's total withdrawal from the European countries, but by revitalizing the COMECON economies to facilitate the recovery of the Soviet economy". Not until January 1990 did a first clear position appear from the IBRP, in the CWO's publication Workers' Voice: these "events of a world historical significance" mean "the be­ginning of the collapse of the world order cre­ated towards the end of World War II" and open a period of "reconstitution of imperialist blocs".

The two major groups of the Bordigist dias­pora proved to have quicker reflexes than the IBRP: in its September 1989 issue, Il Programa Comunista envisages the disintegration of the Warsaw Pact and the possibility of new alliances, as does 'II Partito Comunista' at the same time. However, these positions remain at the level of hypotheses, and are not devoid of ambiguity: thus in France, Le Proletaire can still write that "the USSR may be weakened; it remains capable of keeping order in its own zone of influence".

In January, the FOR announces timidly, with­out developing the point, that "we may consider that the Stalinist bloc has been beaten".

In spring 1990, the EFICC offers us two po­sitions. This organization's official majority po­sition only sees the events in the East as "an attempt by the Gorbachev team progressively to recreate all the conditions which would allow the Russian state to conduct a real counter-offen­sive against the West". The more lucid minority notes that the situation is escaping the control of the Soviet leadership, and that the reforms are only making matters worse for the Russian bloc.

For 'Communisme ou Civilization', which has published a text in the Revue Internationale du Mouvement Communiste, "the historical importance of current events is due first and fore­most to their geographical position"!! After a long academic screed which considers a multi­tude of hypotheses of every possible description without any clear position emerging, CouC apparently concludes that what is happening in ­the East is a mere restructuring crisis.

As for the GCl and its avatar the 'Mouvement communiste pour la formation du parti commu­niste mondial', whose publications reached us in spring, the collapse of the Eastern bloc is not even envisaged. This is nothing but a re­structuring maneuver to confront the crisis and above all the class struggle.

The organizations of the proletarian milieu have taken months to measure the significance of events, and in most cases their ambiguity on the subject remains; the illusion survives that the USSR might take its ex-bloc in hand again. Six months after the events began, the IBRP can only see the "beginning" of a process, when in fact the USSR has already fundamentally lost all control over its East European glacis. As for the parasitic sects, they have noticed almost nothing. Solidarnosc won the Polish elections this summer, the Berlin Wall has fallen, the Stalinist parties have been ejected from power in Hungary and Czechoslovakia, Ceausescu has been overthrown in Romania, while in the USSR itself the events in the Caucasus and the Baltic states have revealed the full extent of the cen­tral power's loss of control, and the dynamic towards a breakup of the union implicit in the "nationalist awakening". And yet, the political milieu is apparently struck down with sleeping-­sickness. Confronted with straightforward facts, an incredible blindness persists. Our doctors in marxist theory, ensconced in an anx­ious conservatism, have refused to see what even the vulgar scribblers of the bourgeois press cannot help noticing. The proletarian movement's general lack of political reflex in re­cent months is a sign of its profound weak­nesses; incapable, in recent years, of interven­ing determinedly in the struggles of the work­ing class which it did not recognise, the milieu has shown itself impotent in confronting the abrupt acceleration of history of the last few months. A great part of the milieu has re­mained blind, deaf, and dumb. This situation cannot continue indefinitely. They may claim to belong to the working class; but organizations which are incapable of assuming their role are of no use to it, and inevitably become hin­drances to it. They lose their reason for ex­isting.

When we consider how much difficulty the organizations of the political milieu have had in opening their eyes to the reality of the Russian bloc's collapse, which has become ever more blindingly evident as months have gone by, we can get some idea of the confusion that reigns in the analyses that have been developed. We do not intend here to go in detail into all the theoretical avatars elaborated by the various revolutionary political groups - several issues of the International Review would not be enough for the job. Rather, we aim to examine the im­plications of the positions taken up by the mi­lieu on two levels: the economic crisis and the class struggle. We will then consider what are the implications of all this for the life of the proletarian milieu itself.

The economic crisis at the heart of the Eastern Bloc's collapse: a general under-estimation

All the organizations of the proletarian movement see the crisis in the origins of the upheavals in the East, with the exception of the FOR which remains consistent with its surreal position that there is no economic crisis of capitalism today, and so does not mention it. ­However, apart from this general position of principle, the 'evaluation of the crisis' depth and nature determines an understanding of today's events, and this evaluation varies widely from group to the next.

In October, BC wrote: "In the advanced capitalist countries of the West, the crisis appeared above all in the 1970's. More recently, this same crisis of the process of capital accumulation has exploded in the less advanced 'communist' countries". In other words, BC sees no open crisis of capital in the Eastern bloc countries before the 1980's. Was there no "crisis of the process of capital accumulation" in Eastern Europe in the preceding period? Was Russian capital in full expansion as Stalinist ­propaganda claimed? In fact, BC profoundly underestimates the chronic crisis which has lasted for decades. In the same article, BC continues:

"The collapse of markets on the periphery of capitalism, for example in Latin America, has ­created new problems of insolvency for the remuneration of capital ( ... ). The new opportunities opening up in Eastern Europe may repre­sent a safety valve in relation to this need for investment ( ... ). If this widespread process of East-West collaboration comes to fruition, this will represent a shot in the arm for international capitalism". Clearly, BC underestimates not just the crisis in the East, but also the crisis in the West. Where will the latter find the credits necessary to reconstruct the ravaged economies of the Eastern countries? West Germany is preparing to invest billions of marks just to put the East German economy on its feet, without being in the least. sure of the result; to find these billions, it will have to transform its position as principal lender on the world market after Japan to that of a major borrower, which will accelerate the existing credit crisis in the West.

We can only imagine the colossal sums that would be necessary to extricate the entire Eastern ex-bloc from the economic disaster into which it has plunged ever deeper since its inception: the exhausted world economy simply does not have the resources for such a policy; there can be no question of a new Marshall Plan. But above all, how can the stricken economies of Eastern Europe be more solvent than those of Latin America, when countries like Poland and Hungary are already incapable of ­repaying the loans that they contracted years ago? In fact, BC does not realize that the collapse of the Eastern bloc, a decade after the economic collapse of the "Third World" coun­tries, marks a new step into its mortal crisis by the world capitalist economy. The IBRP's analy­sis flies in the face of reality. Instead of a dramatic plunge into the crisis, it sees a possibility for capitalism to get a new "shot in the arm", a means of slowing the decline of the ­economy! With such a vision, it is hardly surprising that BC over-estimates the Russian bourgeoisie's room for maneuver, and envisages ­a possible reconstruction of the Eastern bloc's economy, under the aegis of Gorbachev and with Western support.

The PCI recognizes the economic crisis as being at the origins of the Warsaw Pact's collapse. However, in a polemic with the ICC published in the April 1990 issue of Le Proletaire, the PCI reveals its profound and traditional underestimation of the gravity of the economic crisis: "The extra-lucid ICC in fact develops an alarming analysis according to which today's events are nothing less than a 'collapse of capitalism' in the East! Better still, the March issue of RI informs us that the whole world economy is collapsing".

Needless to say, the ICC does not say, as the PCI would have it, that capitalist relations of production have disappeared in the East. However, with this inaccurate polemic, the PCI demonstrates its own under-estimation of the economic crisis, and in one phrase denies the reality of the disaster which is submerging the planet, and which has plunged the majority of the world's population into a bottomless economic misery. Does the PCI really think that we are still in the cyclical crises of the 19th century, or has it at last realized that today's economic crisis, which it has taken years to notice, is a mortal one which can only become a constantly widening worldwide catastrophe accompanied by the effective collapse of whole sectors of the economy? The PCI, which used to accuse us of 'indifferentism' remains essentially indifferent to the economic crisis; it can hardly see the crisis, and above all cannot understand it. The little academic sects have often specialized in long and boring economic analyses, and pseudo-marxist theoretical innovations.

After a long and insipid screed, 'Communisme ou Civilisation' remains blind to the obvious open economic crisis: it is still awaiting "the outbreak of a new cyclical crisis of the capital­ist mode of production on a world scale in the 1990's". For CouC, the present upheavals in Eastern Europe are the expression of the fact that "the complete passage of Soviet society to the stage of more developed capitalism cannot occur without a profound crisis, as is indeed the case". In other words, the present crisis is merely one of restructuration, of growth, of a capitalism in full development!

The EFICC, which has been going on for years about a "new" theory of the development of state capitalism as the product of capital's passage from a stage of formal to one of real domination, has all of a sudden lapsed into silence as far as this fruit of its learned savants is concerned. This point, which only a short time ago was so fundamental that it justified a diatribe from the EFICC against the ICC for our "theoretical sterility" and "dogmatism" has suddenly lost its importance in the face of the crisis in the Eastern bloc. Understand who can![3]

The proletarian organizations constantly underestimate the depth of the crisis, and fail to understand its nature. Hence their major in comprehensions over the nature of the events which are taking place today. Some groups are only just beginning, under the pressure of facts, to resign themselves to the obvious collapse of the Eastern imperialist bloc under the weight of the economic crisis. However, the fundamental significance of this event, the situation that made it possible, and the dynamic which determined it, escape them completely. With the blockage of the historical situation, where the balance of class forces allows neither the bourgeoisie to go forward into generalized imperialist war, nor in the short term the proletariat to impose the solution of the communist revolution, capitalist society has entered a phase of decomposition and is rotting where it stands. The effects of the economic crisis take on a qualitatively new dimension. The collapse of the Russian bloc is the most striking demon­stration of the real development of this process of decomposition, which is appearing to different degrees and in different forms throughout the planet.[4]

But the political myopia which makes it diffi­cult for these groups to see what is right in front of their noses, makes them quite incapable of grasping the causes and the full dimensions of events. The milieu's meanderings on the cri­sis, which have already largely contributed to paralysing it in the face of recent events, her­ald still greater confusions over the upheavals still to come.

Revolutionary organizations unable to identify the class struggle

Apart from the ICC, the proletarian milieu gen­e rally paid little attention to the workers' struggles which developed in the advanced cap­italist countries from 1983 onwards. The ICC was accused of over-estimating the class strug­gle. In its April issue, BC once again accuses the ICC of trusting "its desires more than real­ity" since these movements "have produced nothing other than economic struggles which have never been capable of generalizing". True, these economic struggles do not mean very much to BC, since according to them we are still in a period of counter-revolution; in this they follow the position of all the Bordigist groups created by the various splits from the PCI since its birth at the end of the war.

BC is incapable of recognizing the class struggle when it is in front of their noses, and as a result even less capable of intervening concretely in it; by contrast they are only too happy to imagine it where it is not. BC sees in the events in Romania in December 1989 an "authentic popular insurrection", and goes on:

"All the objective conditions and nearly all the subjective conditions were present for this insurrection to be transformed into a true social revolution, but the absence of an authentic class political force left the field open to pre­cisely those forces which were for the mainte­nance of class relations of production".

We have already criticized this position in our polemic published in the International Review no 61; this has provoked a response in the April 1990 issue, where BC maintains its po­sition, and adds:

"We did not think it possible that any doubt could arise as to the fact that the insurrection was understood as a result of the crisis, and that it is described as popular and not prole­tarian or socialist".

Clearly, BC either cannot or will not under­stand what the debate is about. The mere use of the term "insurrection" in this context cannot help but sow confusion, and adding the word "popular" only makes it worse. The proletariat is the only class in today's capitalist world ca­pable of leading an insurrection, ie the destruction of the existing bourgeois state. For this happen, the proletariat must first exist as a class fighting and organize d on its own terrain. Clearly, this is not the case in Romania. The workers are atomized, diluted in the discontent of every layer of the population, which has been used by one fraction of the state appara­tus to overthrow Ceausescu. In this situation, where the workers have been dissolved in the "popular" movement, ie where the proletariat as a class was absent, BC discerns "nearly all the subjective conditions ( ... ) for this insurrection to be transformed into a true social revolution"! BC sees, not the extreme weakness of the working class, but on the contrary something grandiose.

All BC's denunciations of the democratic poi­son become a dead letter if they are incapable of perceiving where concretely it is having such a devastating effect on the class' consciousness, and mistake the triumph of the democratic mys­tification for the workers' discontent.

The EFICC has already fallen into the trap that BC is preparing for itself. Like the IBRP, the EFICC had visions over China, and thought it could see the workers' anger ready to burst out. Today it affirms that: "The present illu­sions, the Romanian proletariat's entry into the sinister dance of the struggle for democracy, should not hide the potential combativity for class demands which the Romanian proletariat nonetheless retains". The EFICC here is con­soling itself as best it can, but it is revealing its own illusions as to the working class poten­tial that survives in the short term after the democratic debauch.

In an article entitled 'An insurrection not a revolution', the FOR perceives in Romania "the presence of workers in arms", and adds that "the proletarians rapidly abandoned the leader­ship to the 'specialists' of the confiscation of power". For the FOR, the proletariat has "largely contributed to setting in motion" the changes in the East. Clearly, since the FOR sees nothing of the economic crisis, it has to look elsewhere for its explanation.

BC opens a door to confusion; the ‘Mouvement communiste' and the GCI rush head­long through it. The former's long pamphlet on Romania, which manages to say nothing about the overall situation in the Eastern bloc, is titled: Romania: between the restructuration of the state and upsurges of proletarian insurrection; the latter has published an 'Appeal for solidarity with the Romanian insurrection'! No comment.

We should give credit here to the PCI for avoiding the Romanian trap, clearly stating that in the Eastern countries "the working class has not appeared as a class on the basis of its own interests", and that in Romania "the combats were between fractions of the state apparatus, and not against it". Similarly, the PCI-II Partito Comunista of Florence declares clearly that for the moment the class struggle in the Eastern bloc has been submerged in an orgy of pop­ulism, nationalism, and democracy, and that "the Romanian movement has been anything but a popular revolution". However, while their posi­tions on events in the East demonstrate that these defenders of Bordigism are still capable of identifying and denouncing the democratic lie, and have not yet squandered all their inheri­tance from the Italian Left, they remain inca­pable of recognizing the class struggle when it really does develop at the heart of the industrialized countries. Like BC, the heirs of Bordigism analyze the present period as being one of counter-revolution.

The overall picture speaks for itself. One of these organizations' main characteristics is their inability to recognize and identify the class struggle. Unable to see it  when it does de­velop, they imagine it where it does not exist. This profound confusion obviously renders these groups incapable of intervening clearly within the class. While the ruling class is profiting from the collapse of the Eastern bloc to launch a massive ideological offensive for the defense of democracy, which has got the better of the proletariat in the East European countries, many groups see in this situation the development of working class potential. This turning reality on its head expresses a serious misunderstanding, not only of the world situation but also of the very nature of the workers' struggle. After turning up their noses at the struggles in the developed countries during the 1980s (which de­spite all the traps and difficulties they encoun­tered remained firmly anchored on the proletar­ian class terrain), they now prefer to seek the proof of proletarian combativity in expressions of general popular discontent, where the prole­tariat as a class is absent, and which are con­ducted for objectives which are foreign to it under the banner of "democracy" as in China or Romania.

In such conditions, it is difficult indeed to expect these organizations of the proletarian mi­lieu, which for the most part have seen nothing of the development of class struggle in recent years, or at best have always profoundly un­der-estimated it, to understand anything of the effects on the proletariat of the collapse of the Russian bloc, and the present intense democratic campaign. The latter's confusion faced with these great historic upheavals is expressed by a retreat of consciousness within the class[5]. But how can the proletarian milieu understand the retreat, when they have not even seen the advance? How can they understand the uneven development of the class struggle, with its ups and downs, when they start from the premise that we are still in a period of counter-revolu­tion?

The milieu's weakness takes the form of increased sectarianism

In the previous issue of the International Review, we wrote: "If we consider that the IBRP is the second major pole of the international political milieu, BC's disarray when confronted with the 'wind from the East' is a sad indication of the milieu's more general weaknesses". Sadly, the positions that have developed over the last few months have only confirmed this observation; this has hardly come as a surprise to us. For years, the ICC in its polemics has warned the groups of the milieu against the dangerous confusions within it, but since these groups have remained blind to the class strug­gle, to the collapse of the Eastern bloc, to the present retreat, to the evidence of facts taking place under their very noses, they have also remained deaf to what we have had to say[6]. As a result, they have also remained dumb on the level of intervention, settling more and more into an alarming impotence which has been put, only too clearly into relief in recent months.

However, it is not only on the level of their analyses that these organizations have failed as a factor of clarification for advanced elements of the class seeking a coherent framework for un­derstanding the present situation. Along with their confusion, their traditional tendency to­wards sectarianism has lately deepened also.

Here again, Battaglia Comunista, from whom we have come to expect better, has set a sad example. The intervention by a comrade from the ICC at one of BC's public meetings, simply pointing out the IBRP's massive mistake over events in Romania, and insisting that these were no more than a vulgar coup d'état, has been the excuse for BC to get up on its high horse and threaten to refuse to allow the open sale of our publications at their public meetings. The fact that the Revolution Internationale, the ICC's publication in France, mentioned this upsurge of sectarianism has been enough to provoke the wrath of BC, which has since addressed a vio­lent 'circular letter' "to all the groups and contacts on an international level" to denounce "the lies of the ICC" and the "henceforth ob­jectively piratical nature of the ICC's activity", and to conclude: "While we defy the ICC to con­tinue with this defamatory campaign based on lies and, calumny, in order to avoid more serious reactions we invite all those aware of the facts to draw the necessary political conclusions in their evaluation of this organization". This kind of disproportionate reaction to the intervention by one of our militants at a public meeting in fact expresses BC's growing embarrassment at our criticisms.

The heavy weight of sectarianism in the po­litical milieu is the expression of an inability to debate, and to confront analyses and positions. BC's attitude is in continuity with its sectarian and opportunist attitude when it brought the Conferences of Groups of the Communist Left to an end in 1980. Sectarianism has always been comfortable in the company of opportunism. At the same time as BC is dispatching this ludi­crous circular to the milieu, the IBRP (of which BC is the main group) is signing a common ad­dress on the situation in the Eastern bloc with little groups such as the Gruppe Internazionalistische Komunismen (Austria) or Comunismo (Mexico) whose content springs more from opportunistic concessions than from a search for clarity. BC is for the regroupment of revolutionaries, but without the ICC. This absurd competitive attitude leads straight to the worst kind of opportunism, and increases the confusion in the milieu's debates.

The ICC's ostracism by the old groups of the political milieu, and by its multiple parasitic sects, is not, as we have seen, incompatible with the most vulgar opportunism in the regroupment of revolutionary forces. The EFICC has lately provided the most perfect illustration of this fact: while raining insane abuse on the ICC, it launched itself into a series of conferences with such disparate groups as 'Communisme ou Civilisation', 'Jalons', or 'A Contre Courant', and with isolated individuals. The sects amused themselves with their conferences, and as one might imagine the results were negligeable: at most, some new sects. Today, the EFICC has begun a new flirt with the Communist Bulletin Group, whose origins lie in an act of banditry against the ICC (a real one this time, not an imaginary one such as BC accuses us of). The EFICC is bringing the very idea of regroupment into discredit, but with its nasty stupidity, its bad faith, and the blind hatred of its polemic, it is deforming the whole of revolutionary activity.

For the EFICC, events in the East have ag­gravated its confusion and irresponsibility. Blinded by its own bitterness, the EFICC has treated our positions on the collapse of the Russian bloc as a negation of "imperialism" and "an abandonment of the marxist framework of decadence". One more useless debate will hardly worry the EFICC: this is why it exists. How long will it take it simply to recognize the reality of the collapse of the Eastern bloc? Perhaps then the EFICC will recognize that the ICC's positions were right?  Will it draw any conclusions as to its present attitude?

As for the Bordigist groups, they do not recognize the existence of a political milieu: each one considers itself as the 'Party'. Sectarianism is thus theorized and justified. Nonetheless , the PCI seems to be drawing some lessons at least from its past crisis, and has begun to publish polemics with other groups of the politi­cal milieu. The ICC has even had a polemical response from Le Proletaire, the PCI's publica­tion in France.

What does the PCI object to? Why, to the fact that, we welcomed and agreed with their own position! And they add: "What is important for us in this note is to refute any idea that our position might be analogous to that of the ICC". Let us reassure the PCI: our recognition of the relative clarity of their position on the Eastern bloc has not led us to forget what sep­arates us; but has the PCI been so infected by the sectarian gangrene that our agreement on even one point of their positions should be in­tolerable? Perhaps they will be reassured if we reiterate our conclusion as to the PCI in the article in the previous International Review: "The Proletaire's relatively healthy response to events in the East proves that there is a pro­letarian life in this organism yet. But we do not think that this represents a truly new breath of life: it is more the Bordigists 'classical' antipathy for democratic illusions than a critical reexamination of their politics' oppor­tunist basis which has allowed them to defend a class position on this question".

One of the most worrying conclusions that we have to draw from all this is these organizations' inability to reconsider their theoretical framework in the light new facts, to enrich it in order to understand what has changed. In fact, the acceleration of history has highlighted the incredible conservatism which reigns within the milieu. The sectarianism which has developed in the polemics over the "wind from the East" is the corollary of this conservatism. Since they are unable to recognize the present process of social decomposition, considering it as a mere ICC "gadget", these organizations are obviously incapable of identifying its manifestations either in the proletarian milieu or in their own life, and so of defending themselves against it. And yet, the degradation of relations between the major organizations these last few years is only too clear an expression of it.

Under such conditions, there can be no question in this article of enlarging on these groups' intervention as regards the earthquake which has been shaking the East. No group apart from the ICC has broken its routine, if only to accelerate the frequency of its publica­tions or to publish supplements. Political confusion and sectarian sclerosis have left these organizations incapable of intervening. In its present disarray, created by the "wind from the East" and heightened by the bourgeoisie's cam­paigns, the working class is suffering a retreat in consciousness, and it is hardly the illumina­tion provided by the majority of revolutionary groups which is likely to be of much help to it in emerging from this difficult situation.

The development of the historic course im­poses on the milieu an irresistible process of decantation. The clarification that this process implies, in the present situation of degradation in the relations between proletarian groups, is not happening through the clear and determined confrontation of positions. It will happen nonetheless, but in these conditions it will take the form of an ever greater crisis of those groups which have faced the acceleration of history in confusion, and so put in question their own political survival. The clarification that is unable to emerge through debate will in­stead impose itself in desertions. This is what at stake in today's discussions between the rev­olutionary political organizations.

JJ, 31st May, 1990

[1] This article frequently refers to organizations by their initials a follows:

- Parti Communiste Internationaliste (PCInt), and its publications Battaglia Comunista and Prometeo;

- Communist Workers' Oragnization (CWO) and its publication Workers' Voice;

- International Bureau for the Revolutionary Party (IBRP), which regroups the CWO and the PCInt, and whose publication is the Communist Review;

- Parti Communiste International (PCI) and its publications Le Proletaire and Programme Communiste;

- Ferment Ouvrier Revolutionaire (FOR), publications Alarme and Arme de la Critique;

- External Fraction of the International Communist Current (EFICC), publication Internationalist Perspective;

- Groupe Communiste Internationaliste (GCI);

- Communisme ou Civilization (CouC).  

[2] ‘The Wind from the East and the Response of Revolutionaries'

[3] On this question, see ‘The "real domination of capital" and the real confusions of the political milieu", International Review no. 60.

[4] On this question, see ‘The decomposition of capitalism' in International Review no. 57, as well as the article in this issue.

[5] See ‘Increased difficulties for the proletariat' in International Review no 60

[6] See ‘The political milieu since 1968', in the International Review nos 53, 54, and 56.

Report on the national situation from the section of the ICC in Germany

The development of the contradictions which are at present unfolding in Germany constitutes a fundamental key to the evolution of the situation globally. We are printing below a report of our section in this country which draws out the international dynamic and the different possibilities that it opens up.

The development of the German economy before economic and monetary union

Whereas at the end of the 1980s and the begin­ning of the 1990s the world economy got into ever greater problems, the German economy was still in the midst of a boom. Many records of production, in particular in the car industry, were broken several years running. A new record balance of trade-surplus was again at­tained in 1989. The capacity utilization rate of industry reached its highest point since the early seventies. For many sectors, the lack of available skilled labor has been the principle factor in the past months preventing an expansion of production. Many companies have had to refuse new orders because of this.

This boom is not an expression of the health of the world economy, but of the tremendous competivity of West German capital - the law of the survival of the fittest. Germany has ex­panded brutally at the expense of its competi­tors, as its export surplus amply shows.

Germany's competitive position has been markedly strengthened throughout the 1980s. At the economic level, the main task of the Kohl-­Genscher government has been to make an enormous increase in income available to the big companies in order to put through a tremendous modernization and automatization of the produc­tive process. The result has been an incredible wave of rationalizations, comparable in its extent with that which took place in Germany in the 1920s. The main lines of this policy were:

- over 100 billion Marks saved through cuts in social spending and almost directly trans­ferred to the hands of the capitalists through massive tax reductions;

- a series of new laws passed allowing com­panies to accumulate enormous reserves com­pletely tax free, eg: the creation of private company insurance schemes, through which funds for investment accumulate;

The result has been that big capital today is 'swimming in money'. Whereas at the beginning of the 80s around two thirds of major compa­nies' investments were financed through bank loans, today the top 40 businesses are capable of financing investments almost completely through their own means - a situation com­pletely unique in Europe.

In addition to these financial means, the gov­ernment has increased enormously the power of the bosses over their labor force - flexibility, deregulation, production around the clock in ex­change for a minimal reduction of the working week.

There is no doubt that German industry is profoundly satisfied with the work of the Kohl ­government during the '80s at this level. At the beginning of 1990 the liberal industrial spokesman Lambsdorff proudly announced:

"West-Germany is today the world's leading in­dustrial country, and the one which needs the least amount of protective measures".

For example, whereas all other EEC countries have taken radical protective measures against Japanese car imports, Germany has been able to keep the Japanese percentage of the German car market to a little over 20%, and in value terms exports more cars to Japan than Japan does to Germany.

The plans of the German bourgeoisie for the 1990s, before the collapse of the East

Despite this relative strength, the rationalization wave of the 1980s was supposed to be only the beginning. In the face of total global overpro­duction, of the perspective of recession, of the bankruptcy of the third world and of Eastern Europe, it was clear that the 1990s would pose a fight for survival for even the most highly industrialized countries. And this survival could only be at the expense of other industrial ri­vals.

In face of this challenge, West Germany is far from being so well prepared as would at first appear.

- The sector for the production of the means of production (machines, electronics, chemicals) is tremendously strong. Since Germany never had captive colonial markets, and being a classic producer of means of production, this sector has learned historically that survival is only possible through always being a step ahead of the others.

- Germany was initially much slower than the USA, GB or France, to develop mass production of consumer goods, and especially the car in­dustry. It's essentially after the second world war, with the opening up of the world market for - German exports, while at the same time Germany was to a large extent excluded from the military sector, which allowed it to catch up and become one of the world's leading car na­tions. Today, in face of absolute overproduction, and with international competition in this area being the most intense, West Germany's ex­tremely high dependence on the car industry (around one third of industrial jobs depend di­rectly or indirectly on it) today opens up truly catastrophic perspectives for the German econ­omy.

- The main area where Germany has suffered from the defeat in world war two has been the high tech sector which historically has been de­veloped above all in connection with the military sector, and from which Germany has been largely excluded. The result is that today, de­spite its highly modern productive apparatus, Germany lags massively behind the USA and also Japan at this level.

The perspective for the 1990s was therefore to radically reduce the dependency of the German economy on the car industry, not of course by voluntarily surrendering sectors of this market, but by radically developing the high tech sector. In fact, the German bour­geoisie is convinced that in the 1990s it will either make the breakthrough to the leading high tech nations alongside the USA and Japan, or will completely disappear as a major and in­dependent industrial power. This life and death struggle has been prepared for through the 80s, not only through the rationalization and the accumulation of enormous investment sums, but also symbolized through the formation of Europe's largest high tech company under the leadership of Daimler-Benz and the Deutsche Bank. Daimler and Siemens are supposed to be the twin spearheads of this offensive. This bid of German industry for world hegemony in the 1990s requires:

- absolutely gigantic investments, putting those of the 1980s into the shade, and implying in particular an even more massive transfer of income from the working class to the bour­geoisie;

- the existence of political stability both in­ternationally (discipline of the US bloc) and in­ternally, especially vis-a-vis the working class.

Collapse of the East: German war goals finally achieved

After the fall of the Berlin wall, the imperialist world trembled at the thought of a greater uni­fied Germany. Not only abroad, in Germany itself the SPD (social democracy), the unions, the church, the media have all been warning against a new German revanchism, a danger apparently posed by Kohl's Oder-Neisse ambiguities. Such visions about a new Germany putting the fron­tiers of its neighbors in question, in the foot­steps of Adolf Hitler, does not worry the German bourgeoisie very much. In fact, these warnings only serve to hide the real state of affairs: that with the course towards Europe '92 and the collapse of the Eastern bloc, the German bour­geoisie has today already achieved all the goals for which two world wars were fought.

Today, the triumphant German bourgeoisie has absolutely no need to put any frontiers in question in order to become Europe's leading power. The goals of German imperialism, already formulated before 1914, the establishment of a German dominated 'Gropraumwirtschaft' (large­-scale economic and trade zone) in Western Europe, and the establishment of a German dominated reservoir for cheap labor and raw materials in Eastern Europe, is today practically a reality. This is why all the fuss about the Oder-Neisse border in fact only hides the real victory of German imperialism in Europe today.

But it should be clear: this victory of German imperialism, for which today the liberal foreign minister Genscher and not the right wing extremists are the best representatives, does not imply that Germany can today dominate Europe in the way Hitler had envisaged. There is no German-led European bloc presently being formed. Whereas in World War I and II Germany believed itself strong enough to dictatorially dominate Europe, this illusion is impossible to­day. While at that time Germany was the only important industrial country on the European continent, (not counting Britain), this is today no longer the case (France, Italy). German unifi­cation will only increase the German percentage of EEC production from 21% to 24%. Moreover, whereas the attempted German military takeover of Europe in World War I and II was only possi­ble because of US isolationism, today US imperi­alism is massively and immediately present on the old continent and will take great care to prevent any such ambitions from emerging. Moreover, Germany today is militarily much too weak and possesses no weapons of mass de­struction. For all these reasons, the formation of a European bloc is under the present conditions only possible if there is one force in Europe strong enough to make all the others submit. This is not the case today.

Germany's victory: A Pyrrhic one

As opposed to the 1930s, Germany today is not the "proletarian nation" (KPD-formulation from the 1920s') excluded from the world market and out to overturn frontiers all around it. As long as it is not excluded from access to world mar­kets and supplies of raw material, the German bourgeoisie has absolutely no ambitions or interest in forming a military bloc in opposition to the USA. In fact Germany today is in a certain sense more a 'conservative' power which has 'got what it wants', and which is mainly worried about 'losing what it has got'. And indeed, Germany is a power which has got everything to lose as a result of the present chaos and de­composition. Its main concern now is to avoid its victory' being turned into a catastrophe - a catastrophe which is very likely to happen.

The costs of unification

These costs are not only gigantic enough to en­danger the health of the state's finances and the immediate competitive position of Germany, what is worse, it is more than likely that the capital which will now have to be used for uni­fication was the very instrument which was oth­erwise foreseen to finance the famous break­through to high-tech equality with the US and Japan. In other words, unification, far from be­ing a strengthening at this level, may be the very factor destroying the hopes of the German bourgeoisie of remaining one of the world's leading industrial powers. A true catastrophe.

The costs of Eastern Europe

As much as it will try to erect a new 'Berlin ­wall' along the Oder-Neisse line to keep out the chaos from the east, it is certain that Germany will be obliged to make investments in the im­mediately surrounding countries in order to create a kind of 'cordon-sanitaire' against the total anarchy developing further east. Of course, Germany is going to dominate the east­ern European markets. However, it's interesting to note that the German bourgeoisie, far from shouting triumphantly about this, is today urgently warning against the dangers this implies:

- the danger that the obligations to invest in the east will lead to permanently losing cus­tomers in the west, who are much more impor­tant since they pay in hard cash and are much more solvent,

- the danger of a loss of technical edge for German industry, since the goods Eastern Europe will order will necessarily be of a more simple and sturdy construction than that de­manded by the world market.

The costs of the break-up of the US bloc

This poses the danger, in the long-term, of the falling apart of the lion's share of the world market previously held together by the bloc discipline and militarily policed by the USA. Such an eventuality would be a disaster for West Germany, as a leading export nation and having been, alongside Japan, the main indus­trial beneficiary of the post-war world order.

The costs of any weakening of the European Common Market

The European market, and above all the project of Europe '92 are today menaced by the in­crease of 'each for himself', by the wish to avoid sharing the costs of Eastern Europe, by French reactions against the loss of its joint leadership position with West Germany in Western Europe, which will now be held by Germany alone, etc.

If Europe 1992 (by which we mean the "normalization" and "liberalization" of trade, a certain organization of the battle of each against all, with rules which favor the strongest, and not an impossible "United States of Europe") were to fail, and if the European market were to break up, this would be a total catastrophe for West Germany, since herein lies its main export market. It is therefore an in­correct formulation, often put forward in the bourgeois press, that by going for a rapid re­unification, Bonn has put its own interest above that of the EEC. Bonn's own main interest is the EEC. It has been obliged to make unification straightaway through the incredible acceleration of chaos.

The collapse of the Soviet Union

As long as the USSR still stood on its feet, Eastern Europe was, on the one hand, enemy territory for West Germany and a military threat, but on the other hand, it also guaran­teed a stable neighborhood on Germany's east­ern borders. The terrible chaos today develop­ing in the Soviet Union is a major preoccupation for the USA, is extremely worrying for France and Britain, but for the German bourgeoisie, which is closest to it, it is an absolute night­mare. In the new unified Germany, there will only be Poland separating it from the USSR. Genscher's Foreign Office is haunted by horrible visions of bloody civil wars, of lethal armament dumps and nuclear power stations exploding, of millions of refugees from the Soviet Union flooding towards the west, threatening to com­pletely destroy German political stability.

But if this 'worst possible scenario' is to be avoided, the German bourgeoisie will have to accept an important responsibility to attempt to limit the anarchy in the Soviet Union - which will also represent an enormous economic bur­den. For example: the West German government has committed itself to respecting and fulfilling all East German delivery commitments to the Soviet Union, a promise which is politically in­spired, and will only reluctantly be fulfilled.

Just as the break-up of the EEC would mean the disappearance of the first war-goal victory of German imperialism (Gropraumwirtschaft), the outbreak of total anarchy in the Soviet Union would destroy the second plank, that of Eastern Europe as a supplier of cheap raw materials. This would be all the more tragic for German capitalism, since the Soviet Union is the only suitable reservoir of raw materials not coming from overseas and therefore not depending on the benevolence of the USA.

An example of the negative effects of eastern anarchy on the ambitions of German imperialism: one of Gorbachev's favorite projects is the creation of a tax-free industrial zone in Kaliningrad, which is supposed to become the new Russian window to the west. He intends to transfer Volga-Germans to the ex-German town of Konigsberg in this area as a further incen­tive to draw German capital. Kaliningrad is thus intended to be Germany's window to the east: ie, a 'safe route' to Siberian raw materials, avoiding the Asiatic soviet republics. Today the sepa­ratism and midget imperialism of the Baltic re­publics is making a mess of such plans Landsbergis has already laid Lithuanian claim to Kaliningrad.

Counter-measures of the German bourgeoisie against chaos and decomposition

In view of the fearful acceleration of crisis, economic trade wars, decomposition and the col­lapse of the East, there is a real danger that:

- the German bourgeoisie's effort to make a breakthrough in the struggle for world market hegemony against the USA and Japan now takes place under much more unfavorable conditions;

- Germany may completely lose its privileged place as the surf-rider on the wave of crisis at the expense of its rivals. On the contrary, the real danger is that Germany's position may even become particularly fragile, as in the 1930s, but this time in front of a working class historically undefeated.

- the famous German political stability may be shattered by world-wide decomposition and chaos.

The tendency towards total economic ruin and complete chaos is historically irreversible.

Nevertheless, every tendency has counter-ten­dencies, which in this case won't stop, but which can slow down or at all events influence the course of this movement at certain moments, and ensure that it does not develop equally in all countries. In particular, it necessary to ex­amine the measures the German bourgeoisie is taking to protect itself.

The German bourgeoisie is not only economi­cally the most powerful in Europe, and one rich in often bitter experience, but it also has the most modern political and state structures (eg: the political modernity of the German state by comparison with the British one is just as striking as the difference at the economic level).

The German bourgeoisie has been able to com­bine its 'traditional qualities' with everything it has learnt from its American mentor in the last 40 years (West Germany is in many ways un­doubtedly the most 'Americanized' European country).

Making unification as cheap as possible

Through monetary union, Bonn plans to give the East Germans western money, but as little as possible, thereby having the political justifica­tion to stop them coming over to the west. The aim is to transfer as much of the burden of unification as possible to the GDR itself, to the EEC, and above all (and we will return to this point) to the working class in the East and West. The beneficial aspects of this unification, on the other hand, the West German bourgeoisie intends to try and keep entirely for itself: ie sources of incredibly cheap labour power with which it can also put pressure on the western wages, or access to Soviet raw materials or high-tech such as space programs through his­torically developed connections of East German companies.

Preventing the EEC falling apart

If there is a tendency in this direction, there are also important counter-tendencies, so that it is perhaps premature to say, already today, that Europe 1992, in the sense described above, is condemned to failure from the beginning. These counter-tendencies include:

- the imperious interest of Germany itself to prevent this;

- the interest of other European countries who are terrified by the danger of being over­run by Japan. Even if its true that the ten­dency is towards 'each for himself', gangsters still do tend to club together to face up to an­other gangster.

- the attempt of the West German bourgeoisie to make Europe 1992 acceptable to the USA.

Europe '92 is not a new bloc against the USA. And it probably has no chance of coming into being if the Americans decide to sabotage it.

Bonn is presently attempting to convince Washington that Europe '92 is essentially di­rected against Japan, not against the USA. The West German bourgeoisie is convinced that one of the main bases of the fearful Japanese com­petivity on world markets is the fact that Japan's internal market is completely closed, and that high internal Japanese prices finance dumping on the world market. Bonn claims that when Japan is obliged, by protectionist mea­sures, to construct plants within Europe, these plants are not more competitive than European ones, or at least than German factories. The message is clear: if Europe 1992 can be used to oblige Japan to open up its internal markets, it is possible to vanquish the Asiatic giant. Moreover, Bonn repeatedly points out that the European market, which will then be the largest unified market in the world, is the only means through which the USA can overcome its gigan­tic trade deficits: in effect, Bonn is offering a joint German-American carve-up of the European market. And for the moment, in relation to this project, the policy of the Bush administration does seem to be to reduce its 'special relationship' with Thatcher, and move closer to the United Germany as the new 'strong-man' in Europe, as the best guarantee, for the moment, that European policies go in favor and not against the interests of the USA.

*******

Before World Wars I and II, the marxist left warned the international working class about the coming massacre, and formulated which at­titude the proletariat should take towards it. Today it is our task to warn the workers about the world commercial and trade war now break­ing out on a scale unprecedented in history, and to equip the workers against the deadly danger of economic nationalism: i.e, of siding with its own bourgeoisie. The costs of this war for the working class will be truly horrendous.

German unification and the possibility of a brutal recession

Until now we have shown the gigantic implica­tions of the present chaos and decomposition for German capital in the perspective of the 1990s. But there is also an immediate perspective, that of the effects of economic and monetary union in particular. These effects will be catastrophic in particular for the working class and espe­cially in the GDR itself. It is difficult to predict the immediate outcome of this adventure since it is an unprecedented situation in history. But one possibility may be that it will temporarily put a break on the trend of the world economy to open recession, but at the expense of ruining German state finances, and making the global contradictions even sharper. The other possibil­ity, which we must not exclude in view of the great fragility of the present world conjuncture, is that the monetary and interest rate disor­ders, the investment and stock exchange panics which could crop up, might be the straw which break the camel's back, tipping the world economy into open recession.

What we do know is that the arrival of the German Mark in East Germany is going to pro­voke millions of sackings and an explosion of mass pauperization which in its suddenness and brutality will perhaps be unprecedented in an industrialized country in the history of capital­ism, outside war. It is equally true that the incalculable costs of this drastic measure cannot be covered without a massive burdening of the West German workers ... western unemployment and social security systems, for example, will be brought to the verge of insolvency, since they will have to fund a large part of what happens in the east. Moreover, there is absolutely no guarantee that the main immediate political aim of the monetary union - preventing the migra­tion of East Germans to the west - will even succeed. And still, the dilemma of the West German bourgeoisie in face of a capitalist world crumbling under its feet is shown by the fact that the economic effects of NOT achieving immediate unification will certainly be even more disastrous.

Lambsdorff was not joking when he recently claimed that if all-German elections were not held soon, not only East but also West Germany would soon go bankrupt (he was referring to the continuing existence of the East German stalinist bourgeoisie, which is now dreaming of continuing its over-40 year mismanagement, but this time directly financed from the west).

The disarray of the bourgeoisie after the opening of the Berlin Wall

When the wall fell, the bourgeoisie was caught confused, surprised and DIVIDED. There was a chain of political crises:

- Genscher originally favored a rapid but separate membership of the GDR to the EC, with only federative links to West Germany

- Brandt had to battle behind the scenes to get the SPD on unification lines

- a regional and communal SPD-CDU coalition was necessary to make Kohl end the laws de­signed to attract migration from the east, useful during the cold war, but now leading to disas­ter

- Bonn was briefly obliged to support both the Krenz and the Modrow governments as long as the power vacuum couldn't be filled.

- Bonn had to reverse its initial policy of hesitant economic aid to that of immediate mon­etary union and top speed unification

- the fight of the GDR Stalinist state appa­ratus for a place in the new German state caused a series of crises, from the worsening of the westward migration to the blackmail of leading politicians (not only in the east) by the Stasi (state police - Staatssicherheil)

- Kohl's maneuvers on the Oder-Neisse fron­tier caused internal crises and international scandals

A push for stability towards national unity

The first axis of the re-stabilization offensive has been towards re-establishing the unity of the leading bourgeois currents. Despite all con­flicts and chaos, very rapidly the feeling devel­oped that this kind of historic crisis demanded some kind of national unity. Today there is a real agreement between CDU, FDP and SPD on the fundamental problems raised after the opening of the wall: rapid unification, immediate monetary union (supported politically even by the Bundesbank, although economically it con­siders it suicidal), anti-migration policy towards the east, continuing NATO membership, to be extended in stages to the GDR, recognition of Oder-Neisse border.

Second Round of instability: digesting the GDR

The other axis of "stabilization" simply deflects chaos from one level to another. Full speed uni­fication is impossible without some chaos. It provokes conflicts with the great powers and threatens to further destabilize the USSR. And monetary union is one of the most adventurist policies in human history, perhaps comparable to Hitler's Barbarossa offensive against Russia. The economic massacre of GDR industry will be so bloody, mass unemployment so high (some expect up to 4 million!) that it may even fail totally in its main immediate goal - that of stopping the mass westward migration. The medicine against chaos will probably lead to ... chaos.

Despite the immediate opposition, in particular of the European "Great Powers", to the perspective of an immediate unification of Germany after the opening of the Berlin Wall, this pro­cess has also been accelerated in the meantime, particularly with the support of the United States (whose formula for NATO membership of a united Germany is above all a formula for con­tinued American presence in Germany and Europe at the expense not only of Germany, but also of Britain, France and the USSR), and even at the risk of further destabilizing Gorbachev's regime and the USSR. Two reasons for this:

- all the major powers are frightened by the vacuum created in central Europe, which only Germany can fill

- it is the collapse of the USSR which auto­matically makes Germany Europe's leading power, leading to the disappearance of the imperative for Bonn to share western European leadership with Paris, etc. On the contrary, there is little evidence, and no proof, that actual German uni­fication really leads to a strengthening of Germany as a major power. Economically, unifi­cation is certainly a weakening, and any strate­gic-military advantages will probably be more than compensated for by the effects of chaos from the east. It is the realization that unifica­tion does not at all automatically mean a strengthening of Germany which has helped to make it acceptable to the "allies".

Chronologically speaking:

After the opening of the wall, there was a nationalist explosion within the German bour­geoisie, from Kohl to Brandt - "We Germans are the greatest," etc despite the immediate warnings of more sober ones (eg Lafontaine). Panic, fear and envy among the "allies", symbolized by open opposition to unification and Mitterrand's flying visit to East Berlin and Budapest to ensure France got a slice of this delicious cake, were typical.

- the bourgeoisie awoke from its stupid illu­sions. The more clearly Bonn realized that 'the cake is poisoned', the more rapidly the German bourgeoisie is obliged to eat it through the de­velopment of chaos. Now it is Bonn which panics and is made furious by the new attitude of the allies, which is to leave West Germany alone with the problems and above all with the costs of this mess.

Bonn succeeds in convincing the others that it cannot cope with the problem alone and that if they don't participate actively the result may be the destabilization of the whole of west­ern Europe.

The coming elections: an attempt to establish stabilizing structures

In November '89, we noted that in the new situ­ation, the necessity for the SPD to remain in opposition, to better control the working class, was no longer obligatory for the bourgeoisie in view of the retreat in workers consciousness provoked by events in the east, and that the continuation of the Kohl-Genscher government depends on it sorting out its divergences. At present it seems that not divergences, but the extension of stability, ie: West German political structures to the GDR, will be at the centre of the elections: CDU remaining slightly bigger than SPD in a united Germany, the FDP remaining "coalition maker", keeping the "Republikaner" out of parliament. There is no reason to believe that a Lafontaine-led govern­ment would be fundamentally different to the present one.

One problem is tensions and confusions within the political apparatus:

- rivalries between CDU and CSU for influ­ence in the GDR;

- rivalries between SPD and Stalinists for control of the unions in the GDR;

- sharp divergences within the Greens on unification;

- disorientation within the leftists, most of who are clinging to a GDR state and a PDS which nobody in the east (except the remnants of Stalinism's functionaries) and nobody in the west wants any more (including the workers).

However great the stabilization attempts, new waves of anarchy are already on the horizon:

- the final collapse of the USSR;

- the world economic crisis (after the USSR, the USA is likely to be the next big sinking ship to go under);

- the break-up of the NATO.

Class struggle: the combativity of the class rests intact

It's evident that Germany is no exception in the retreat, especially of consciousness, within the working class. On the contrary, the retreat be­gan in Germany earlier than elsewhere, in 88/89, essentially through the situation in the east:

- Moscow's arms reduction proposals pro­voked reformist illusions about a more peaceful capitalism;

* the annual influx of 1 million people from the east;

* the enormous "failure of communism" fuss, already launched after the Peking massacre;

- a deeper impact, through greater proximity to the east, of democratic, reformist, pacifist and inter-classist illusions which in Germany to­day are still greater than elsewhere.

The questions of the unificat.ion of struggles and the contestation of the unions, although posed by the struggles at Krupp in December '87, were already posed less acutely than else­where, and thus for the moment are all the more weakened.

On the other hand, combativity - under the impact of migration from east - instead of retreating further after the opening of wall, as might have been expected, has actually begun to recover (as is shown recently by the token union negotiation stoppages). The absence of even the least sign, for the moment, of any preparedness for material sacrifice for unifica­tion on the part of West German workers is one of the central problems of the bourgeoisie. The very idea seems to drive the last vestiges of patriotism out of many workers.

Crisis and unification: balance sheet of the '80s

The crisis plays an essential role towards unifi­cation, even when the bourgeoisie can prevent its immediate concretization in the struggles. The appearance of mass unemployment at the beginning, of a "new poverty" in the middle, and of the worst housing crisis since the war at the end of the '80s have powerfully increased the potential for a unification of struggles. But this development is contradictory and non-lin­ear.

The modernization offensive in the '80s, the greatest 'rationalization' attack in Germany since the '20s, has partly transformed the world of labor. The modern industrial worker, often su­pervising several machines simultaneously, is faced with such murderous demands on energy, concentration, qualification and permanent re­qualification, etc, that an ever greater part of the population is automatically excluded from productive process (too old, too unhealthy, mentally not stable enough to stand the strain, not qualified enough etc).

This largely explains the paradox of mass unemployment on the one hand, but simultane­ously hundreds of thousands of vacant jobs in qualified sectors on the other hand - total an­archy. Millions are unemployed, not only because there is no work, but also because they cannot match the present incredible demands. This ever-growing mass is no longer useful to capital as a pressure on wages and on those with jobs, so that there is no economic reason for keeping it alive. Thus, the most radical cuts have been in this sector; that's why Bonn stopped building public housing for this sector in the '80s.

The immediate effects of German capital's ra­tionalization-modernization offensive has not solely been favorable to the unification of struggles, but has also contained a certain ten­dency to divide the class into:

- those who can still match the present pro­duction demands, who despite wage discipline, today have more income than 5 years ago, due to enormous overtime work (probably the ma­jority of employed workers), and who, through the present shortage of qualified labor, feel that capitalism needs them, favoring individu­alist and corporatist illusions "we are strong enough on our own";

- those who cannot match these demands, who are increasingly marginalized or outside production, who sink into ever-greater poverty, and are often the first victims of social decom­position (hopelessness, drugs, explosions of blind violence: ie Kreuzberg in Berlin), and feel themselves isolated from the rest of the class. Linked to this (though not identical with it), we have to see the failure of unemployed struggles and the absence of a link to the employed.

Crisis and unification in perspective

The most immediate effects of the historic rup­ture stemming from the collapse of the east in­clude:

- illusions about a boom lasting years through;

* Eastern Europe

* Europe 92

* a "peace bonus" through a radical reduc­tion of military spending

- fears of a new poverty through German unification, thus the situation contains not only a radicalizing effect, but also tendencies to­wards a division of the class (west against east)[1];

- monetary union will at least double the number of unemployed Germans;

- a true job massacre in the sectors over­producing the most seems inevitable, especially in the car industry!;

- the costs of the '90s, the enormous investment programs, the writing off of unpayable debts from peripheral countries, etc, demand further vast income transfers from the prole­tariat to capital.

- if 'rationalization' continues at the present pace, by the mid-1990s, millions of workers will be faced with total exhaustion and will "burn out" before their 40th birthday - the very sub­stance of the class would be threatened.

The main difficulties to the political unification of the class

The re-enforcement of social democracy, the unions, reformist ideology, pacifism, inter-clas­sism. All this cannot be overcome easily, quickly, or automatically, but demands:

- engaging in repeated struggles;

- collective mobilization and discussion;

- communist intervention.

The lessons of the past 20 years of crisis and of struggle have not disappeared, but have been made less accessible, buried under a pile of confusions. So there is no room for compla­cency, the treasure must be brought back to the surface; otherwise the class will fail in its historic task.

The backwardness of GDR proletariat

Although the GDR was part of Germany until 1945, the effects of Stalinism have been pro­foundly catastrophic on the working class. There is a fundamental backwardness which goes beyond even its lack of experience with democracy, 'free' unions, the violent hatred of 'communism', etc. The isolation behind walls has led to a real provincialization of the workers. The "shortage economy" has led to seeing for­eigners as enemies who "buy up everything and leave us with nothing". Soviet "internationalism" and isolation from the world market have encouraged a powerful nationalism. Whereas in West Germany, perhaps 1 worker in 10 is racist, in the GDR 1 in 10 is not racist. The command economy has led to a loss of dynamism and initiative, to sluggishness and servility, forever "waiting for orders", a certain slavishness (not even attenuated by a thriving black market such as in Poland). And the technical backward­ness: most workers aren't even used to using telephones. Stalinism has left the class terribly divided through nationalism, ethnic, religious conflicts, informing (probably 1 worker out of every five regularly informed the Stasi about his colleagues).

We have to be glad that when Germany was divided after the war, 63 million ended on the western, and only 17 million on the eastern side - and not the other way round.

The Western workers' crucial role: the historic alternative is still open

The vast nationalist counter-revolutionary wave rolling from the east has, for the moment, bro­ken on the rock of the West German proletariat. By this we do not mean that in the east the counter-revolution has gained an irreversible triumph. But if they may still participate in revolutionary movements in the future, this is only possible because the workers in the west have not been drawn onto the same bourgeois terrain which in the east today is as powerful as in Spain during the civil war. The working class in West Germany has shown that it does not for the moment have the same inclinations towards nationalism. The typical West German worker today associates nationalism with defeats in world war and terrible poverty, a certain prosperity on the contrary with the EC, the world market, etc. Every second West German in­dustrial depends on the world market. And even the migration from the east has had strong dividing effects essentially on the weaker sectors not within the main 'battalions' of the class.

The proletariat remains a decisive force in the world situation. For example, if the German bourgeoisie, despite the unbelievable costs of unification, the battle for the world market etc, were to embark on a course of rearming to be­come a military super-power, the cost would be so high that it would probably lead to a civil war. The class in the western industrial countries remains undefeated, a force which the bourgeoisie permanently reckon with.

We don't know for sure if the working class can emerge from the present difficulties and re-establish its ­own class perspective. And we cannot even console ourselves with the deterministic illusion that "communism is inevitable". But we know that the proletariat today not only has its chains to lose - but that it still has a world to gain, and that for this it is not, yet too late.

Weltrevolution, 8.5.90

[1] The economy is not automatically and immediately an antidote to the retreat on the question of the unification of struggles. But in the longer term, open recession is a powerful force towards unification. The situation of world capital today is ruinous, even without open recession.

Throughout Eastern Europe and the USSR we are witnessing a violent explosion of nationalism.

Yugoslavia is in the process of dis­integration. "Civilized" and "European" Slovenia demands independence, while subjecting the 'sister' republics of Serbia and Croatia to an economic blockade. In Serbia, the nationalism stirred up by the Stalinist Milosevic has led to pogroms, the poisoning of water supplies and a brutal repression of the Albanian minority. In Croatia, the first 'democratic' elections have seen the victory of the CDC, a violently rescidi­vist and nationalist group; a football match between Dynamo Zegred and Belgrade (Serbia) degenerated into violent confrontations.

The whole of Eastern Europe is being shaken by nationalist tensions. In Romania, a neo-­fascist organization, Cuna Rumana, stuffed full of the old Securitate and with the indirect support of the 'liberators' of the NSF (National Salvation Front), have carried out sadistic beatings of Hungarians who, in their turn, have used the fall of Ceausescu to carry out anti-­Romanian pogroms. For its part, the central government in Bucharest, the beautiful child of the 'democratic' governments, viciously persecutes the Gipsy minority and the ethnic Germans. Hungary, the pioneer of the 'democratic' changes, discriminates against the Gypsies and encourages the demands of the Hungarian minority in Romanian Transylvania. In Bulgaria, the new 'democracy' protects massive and demonstrations against the minority. In the Czechoslovakia of the velvet revolution", the government of the "dreamer" Havel "democratically" persecutes the Gypsies and a violent polemic has broken out involving demonstrations and confrontations, between the Czechs and Slovaks, over the momentous question of whether to call the "new free republic": Czechoslovakia or Czecho­Slovakia.

But above all, it is in the USSR, which until 6 months ago was the second world power, where this nationalist explosion has reached proportions that could call into question the existence of the state. This explosion is partic­ularly bloody and chaotic: the killing of Azeries at the hands of Armenians and of Armenians at the hands of Azeries, of Azerbaijani victims of Georgians, Turks lynched by Uzbeks, the beating of Russians by Kazaks; above all, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, the Ukraine demanding independence.

The nationalist explosion: The decomposition of the living body of capitalism

For bourgeois propagandists, these movements are a "liberation" produced by the "democratic revolutions" with which the people of the East have thrown off the boot of "communism".

This "liberation" has opened up a Pandora's Box. The collapse of Stalinism has unleashed violent nationalist tensions, strong centrifugal forces, which the decadence of capitalism has incubated, radicalized and deepened, in these countries, fed by their insuperable backwardness, and by Stalinist domination which expresses and is an active factor in this backwardness[1].

The so-called "order of Yalta", which for 45 years dominated the world, kept in check these enormous tensions and contradictions which capitalism's decadence inexorably matured towards the total holocaust of a 3rd imperialist world war. The rebirth of the proletarian struggle since 1968 has blocked this 'natural' course of decadent capitalism. But with the inability of the proletarian struggle to go towards its ultimate conclusion the international revolutionary offensive these centrifugal tendencies, increasingly profound contradictions and growing destructive aberrations, are causing the body of capitalist order to rot on its feet; this is what we call its generalized decomposition[2].

This decomposition in the old domain of the Russian bear has 'liberated' the worst racist feelings, nationalist recidivism, chauvinism, anti­semitism, patriotic and religious fanaticism, which have been expressing themselves with all their destructive fury.

"Shamed, dishonored, wading in blood and dripping with filth, thus capitalist society stands. Not as we usually see it, playing the role of peace and righteousness, of order, or philosophy, of ethics - but as a roaring beast, as an orgy of anarchy, as a pestilential breath, devastating culture and humanity so it appears in all its hideous nakedness." (Rosa Luxernburg, The Junius Pamphlet, page 6)

The bourgeoisie usually distinguish between a "savage", "fanatical", "aggressive" nationalism and a "democratic", "civilized", "respectful of others", etc, nationalism. This distinction is a pure swindle, the fruit of the hypocrisy of the "great democratic" states of the West, whose position of strength allows them to intelligently and astutely use the barbarity, the violence and destruction inherent in the principle of every nation and nationalism in decadent capitalism.

The "democratic", "civilized" and "peaceful" nationalism of France, the USA, etc, is that of the slaughter and torture in Vietnam, Algeria, Panama, Central Africa, Chad, or the unquestion­ing support of Iraq in the Gulf War; it is the two world wars which cost more than 70 million murdered through exaltations to patriotism, xenophobia, racism, which were used to hide the acts of barbarity carried out against Nazi rivals: the American bombing of Dresden or Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or the French atrocities against the German population in its occupation zone, as much after the first world war as after the second.

It was the "civilization" and "pacifism" of the "liberation" of France with the defeat of the Nazis, when the "republican" forces of de Gaulle and the PCF jointly encouraged a declaration of a German pogrom. "To each his Boche" was the "civilized" slogan of "eternal" France. These loud and aggressive calls for nationalism have always been embodied by the Stalinists.

It is the hypocritical cynicism of helping the illegal immigration of African workers, in order to have cheap labur at hand, permanently intimidated and blackmailed by police repression (which according to the needs of the national economy sends back to their country of origin thousands of immigrant workers to the atrocious conditions), while at the same time, touchingly weeping "anti-racist" crocodile tears. It is, the brazen hypocrisy of Thatcher, who, while "lamenting" and being "horrified" by the barbarity in Romania, returns 40,000 illegal immigrants to Vietnam, who have been brutally hunted down by Her Majesty's police' in Hong Kong. All forms, all expressions of nationalism, big or small, necessarily and fatally lead into the march of aggression, of war, of "all against all", of exclusivism and discrimination.

If in the ascendant period of capitalism, the formation of new nations constituted a step forward in the development of the productive forces, giving them a framework for expansion and full development - the world market - in the 20th century, in the decadence of capitalism, the contradiction between the world character of production and the inevitable private-national nature of capitalist relations, has exploded. Through this contradiction, the nation, as the basic cell of the regroupment of each gang of capitalists in their war to the death to divide up the supersaturated market, reveals its reactionary character, its congenital nature as a force of division, fettering the development of humanity's productive forces.

"Since the internationalization of capitalist interests express only one side of the internationalization of economic life, it is necessary to review also its other side, namely, that process of nationalization of capitalist interests which most strikingly expresses the anarchy of capitalist competition within the boundaries of the world economy, a process that leads to the greatest convulsions and catastrophes; to the greatest waste of human energy, and most forcefully raises the problem of establishing new forms of social life" (Bukharin: Imperialism and the World Economy, page 62, Merlin edition)

All nationalism is imperialism

The Trotskyists, the extreme left of capital, always "critically" support Russian imperialism, presenting a "positive" picture of the nationalist explosion in the East. According to them, it represents the exercise of the "self-­determination of peoples", which is supposed to be a blow against imperialism and a destabilization of the imperialist blocs.

We have already amply demonstrated the fallacy of the slogan about "the 'right' of peoples to self-determination", including within the ascendant period of capitalism[3]. Here, what we want to show, is that this nationalist explosion, even though it is a consequence of the hecatomb of Russian imperialism and is part of the process of destabilization of the imperialist constellations which for 40 years dominated the world (the "Yalta order"), in no way calls into question imperialism and, more importantly, as with the process of decomposition, it has nothing positive to offer the proletariat.

All mystification relies on false truths and what appears to be the truth, in order to efficiently deceive. Thus, it is obvious that the Western bloc is perturbed and worried by the present process of the explosion of the USSR into a thousand pieces. Its attitude in front of the independence of Lithuania has been, apart from the propagandistic threat of "don't touch Lithuania" and to pat Landsburges and his clique on the head, to give thinly veiled support to Gorbachev.

The United States and its western allies do not have, for the moment, any interest in the explosion of the USSR. They know that such an explosion would produce enormous destabilization, with savage nationalist and civil wars, in which the nuclear arsenal accumulated by Russia could be used. Likewise, a destabilization of the present frontiers of the USSR would reverberate throughout the Middle East and Asia, unleashing equally enormous nationalist, religious, ethnic and other tensions which have accumulated there and are being contained only with great difficulty.

However, the present unanimity of the great western powers is makeshift. Inevitably, as the process, already underway, of dislocation of the Western bloc sharpens - the principle factor of cohesion was its unity against the threat of the Russian bear which has now disappeared - each power will begin to play its own imperialist cards, fanning the flames of this or that nationalist gang, supporting this or that nation against another, backing this or that independent nation, etc, etc.

This form of speculation on destabilization clearly does not call into question that which revolutionaries have defended since the First World War: "So-called 'national liberation struggles' are moments in the deadly struggle between imperialist powers, large or small to gain control over the world market. The slogan of 'support for people in struggle' amounts, in fact, to defending one imperialist power against another under nationalist or 'socialist' verbiage" (The Basic Positions of the ICC). Nevertheless, admitting that the present phase of capitalist decomposition accentuates the anarchic and chaotic imperialist appetites of each nation, however small, does not eliminate imperialism or local imperialist wars, nor does it make them less dangerous; on the contrary, it stokes up the imperialist tensions and deepens and aggravates their capacity for destruction.

What all of this demonstrates, is another class position of revolutionaries: "All national capitals, no matter how small, are imperialist, and could not survive without recourse to imperialist politics. We defend this position with the utmost firmness in front of the speculations of the revolutionary milieu, particularly those expressed by the CWO (Communist Workers Organization), who say that not all national capitals are imperialist, which has given rise to all sorts of ambiguities, amongst them the reduction of imperialism in the last instance, to a 'superstructure' localized to a limited group of super powers, which, like it or not, makes the 'national liberation' of the other nations something that can be positive ". (International Review, no 14: "On Imperialism")

What the present epoch of capitalism's decomposition demonstrates, is that all nations, or small nationalities, all groups of capitalist gangsters, no matter if their private property is the huge territory of the USA or some miniscule neighborhood of Beirut, are imperialists, whose objective and way of life is robbery and destruction.

If the decomposition of capitalism and thus the chaotic and uncontrollable expressions of imperialist barbarity, result from the difficulty of the proletariat to take its struggle towards reclaiming its own being that of an international class and its revolutionary outcome ­then all support for nationalism, (including in its guise as a "marxist tactic" the "we support the small nations which destabilize imperialism" of the Trotskyists) derails the proletariat from its revolutionary road and feeds the rotting of capitalism, the destruction of humanity through decomposition. The only real blow, at the heart of imperialism, is the interna­tional revolutionary struggle of the proletariat, its autonomous struggle as a class, separated from and totally opposed to inter-classism and the nationalist terrain.

The false national community

The present "spring of the people" is seen by the anarchists as a "confirmation" of their positions. It expresses their idea of the "federation of the people" freely regrouped in small communities according to affinities of language and territory. It also expresses their other idea, "Self-management" which says that the decomposition of the economic apparatus makes small units supposedly more accessible to the people. The radically reactionary character of the anarchists position is confirmed by the anarchic and chaotic barbarity of the nationalist explosion in the east. Decomposition, which is reducing vast areas of the world to horrendous chaos, confirms that "self-management" is radical "assemblyism", that adapts itself to and consequently stirs up decomposition.

If capitalism gave something to humanity it was the tendency to the centralization of the productive forces on a world scale, through the formation of the world market. What is revealed by the decadence of capitalism is its incapacity to go beyond this process of centralization and its inevitable tendency to destruction and dislocation: "the reality of decadent capitalism, despite the momentary appearance of the imperi­alist antagonisms as two opposing monolithic entities, is the tendency of decadent capitalism to discord, chaos: this expresses the essential necessity of socialism, which seeks to build a world community" (Internationalisme: "Report on the International Situation" 1945)

The development of these growing tendencies to dislocation, chaos, anarchy, which are becoming increasingly less controllable in entire areas of the world market, are made crystal clear by the decomposition of capitalism.

If today the great nations, which in the last century constituted coherent economic entities, are a too-narrow framework, a reactionary obstacle against the real development of the productive forces, a fountainhead of destructive competition and wars, then the dislocation of the small nations will increasingly aggravate these tendencies towards distortion and chaos of the world economy.

Likewise, in this epoch of capitalist decadence, the lack of social perspectives, the evident manifestation of the destructive and reactionary character of the social order produces a formidable vacuum of values, of guide-lines to hold onto, of beliefs to abide by, in order to support individual lives.

This generates growing tendencies, to clutch onto all sorts of false communities such as the nation, which provide an illusory sense of security through "collective support", which anarchism stimulates with its slogan of "federations of small communes":

"Materially crushed, with no future, vegetating in a completely restricted day-to-day existence, wallowing in mediocrity, they are in their despair prey to all kinds of mystification, from the most pacifist ...  to the most blood thirsty (Black Hundreds, pogronomists, racists, Klu Klux Klan, fascist gangs, gangsters and mercenaries of all kinds). It is mainly in the latter, the bloody ones, that they find the compensation of an illusory dignity. It is the heroism of the coward, the courage of the clown, the glory of sordid mediocrity" (International Review, no 14: "Terror, Terrorism and Class Violence" pages 7-8)

In the nationalist killings, the inter-ethnic confrontations that are taking place in the East, we see the stamp of these petty-bourgeois masses, despairing of a situation they cannot improve, debased by the barbarity of the old regimes in which they often carried out the lowest tasks, stirred up by the openly reactionary bourgeois political forces.

But the weight of the "national community", as a false community with illusory roots also acts on the proletariat. In the East, its weakness, its terrible political backwardness, the outcome of Stalinist barbarity, has determined its absence as an autonomous class in the confrontations that have marked the fall of the old regimes of "true Socialism". This absence has given more force to the reactionary and irrational actions of these strata, consequently, at the same time increasing the vulnerability of the proletariat.

The working class, must affirm itself against the reactionary illusions of nationalism, propagated by the petty-bourgeoisie; must affirm that the "national community", is a mask for the domination of each capitalist state.

The nation is not the sovereign domain of all those "born in the same country", but the private property of the capitalists who organize through the national state the exploitation of the workers and the defense of their interests in front of the relentless competition of the other capitalists states.

"The capitalist state and the nation are two indissoluble concepts subordinated one to the other. The nation without the state is as impossible as the state without the nation. In effect, the latter is the social medium necessary for the mobilization of all the classes around the interests of the bourgeoisie's struggle for the conquest of the world. As an expression of the position of the dominant class, the nation can have no other axis than the apparatus of oppression: the state" (Bilan, no 14: "The Problem of National Minorities" page 474)

Culture, language, history, the common territory which the intellectuals and paid hacks of the national state present as "fundamental" to the "national community", are the product of centuries of exploitation, they are the seal of blood and fire with which the bourgeoisie have capped the creation of their private enclosure in the world market: "For marxists there exists no sufficient criteria to indicate where a 'nation', a 'people' or the 'rights' of national minorities begin or end neither from the point of view of race or history are the conglomerations that the national bourgeois states or groups represent, justified. Language and common territory, are the two factors that animate the academic charlatanism about nationalism, but these two elements have continually changed due to wars and conquests" (Bilan, idem, page 473)

The false national community is the mask for capitalist exploitation, the alibi of the national states to embroil their "citizens" in the crimes that imperialist wars are, the justification for calling on workers to accept pay cuts, lay-offs, etc, etc, because "the national economy needs them to"; the call to recruit them into their "competitive" battle with the other national capitalisms who, with the same vigor, divide and confront the working class in other countries, in order to shackle them to new and worse sacrifices, misery and unemployment. The only progressive community today is the autonomous unification of the working class: "In order for people to become really united their interests must be common. For their interests to be common the existing property relations must be abolished, since exploitation of one nation by another is caused by the existing property relations. And it is only in the interests of the working class to abolish the existing property relations; only they have the means to achieve it. The victory of the prole­tariat over the bourgeoisie represents at the same time the victory over national and industrial conflicts, which at present create hostility between different peoples." (Karl Marx: "Speech On Poland" 1847)

The struggle of the proletariat contains the seed for overcoming national, ethnic, religious and linguistic divisions with which capitalism ­continuing the work of the oppressors of the previous modes of production has tortured humanity. In the common body of the united struggle for class interests these divisions will naturally and logically disappear. The common bases are the conditions of exploitation, which everywhere will tend to worsen with the world crisis, the common interest is the affirmation of their necessities as human beings against the inhuman necessities, each time more despotic, of the commodity and the national interest.

The goal of the proletariat, communism, which is to say a human world community, represents a centralization, a new human community, the highest reached by the forces of production, capable of giving them their full development and expansion. It is the unity of conscious centralization based on common interests produced by the abolition of classes, the destruction of wage labor and national frontiers.

"The illusory community, in which individuals have up until now combined, always took on an independent existence to them, and was at the same time, since it was the combination of one class against another, not only a completely illusory community, but as fetter as well. In a real community the individuals obtain their freedom in and through their association." (Marx and Engels: The German Ideology, page 83, Student edition).

Adalen 16.05.1990

[1] See International Review no 61 our ‘Thesis on the Economic and Political Crisis of the Countries of the East'

[2] See the ‘Thesis on Decomposition: The Ultimate Stage of Decadent Capitalism', in this International Review.

[3] See the series on "Revolutionaries and the National Question" in International Review nos 34 and 43.

It has become blindingly obvious that the longer it continues, the closer capitalist civilisation is taking us towards an ecological catastrophe of planetary proportions.

The basic facts are well known and can be obtained from a growing number of publications, both popular and scientific, so we will not de­scribe them in detail here. A simple list suffices to demonstrate the extent and depth of the danger: the growing adulteration of food through additives and livestock diseases; the contamination of water supplies through the un­restrained use of fertilisers and the dumping of toxic waste; the pollution of the air, especially in the major cities, through the combined ef­fects of industrial emissions and car exhaust fumes; the threat of radioactive contamination from the nuclear reactors and waste-dumps scattered all over the industrialised countries and the ex-Stalinist regimes - a threat that has already become a nightmare reality with the dis­asters at Windscale, Three Mile Island, and above all Chernobyl; the poisoning of the rivers, lakes and seas which have for decades been used as the rubbish tips of the world, and is now resulting in the break-down of the whole complex food chain and the destruction of or­ganisms that play an important role in the reg­ulation of the world’s climate; the accelerating destruction of the world’s forests, particularly the tropical rainforests, also altering the Earth’s climate, inducing land erosion and thus con­tributing in turn to further calamities, like the advancing desert in Africa and floods in Bangla Desh.

Furthermore, it is now apparent that quantity is turning into quality as the effects of pollu­tion are becoming both more global and more in­calculable. They’re global in that every country in the world is affected: not only the highly in­dustrialised West, but also the ‘underdeveloped’ third world and the Stalinist or ex-Stalinist regimes, which are too bankrupt to afford even the minimal controls that have been introduced in the West. Former ‘socialist’ countries like Poland, East Germany and Rumania are perhaps the most polluted in the world; virtually every town in eastern Europe has its horror stories of local factories belching out deadly toxins that cause cancer, respiratory and other diseases, of rivers that burst into flame when you throw a match onto them, and so on. But third world cities like Mexico or Cubutao in Brazil are surely not far behind.

But there’s another and even more terrifying meaning to the word ‘global’ in this context; ie, that the ecological disaster is now tangibly threatening the very life-support system of the planet. The thinning of the ozone layer, which seems to be mainly the result of the emission of CFC gases, is a clear expression of this, since the ozone layer protects all life on Earth from deadly ultra-violet radiation; and it is impossible at this stage to say what the long-term conse­quences of this process will be. The same ap­plies to the problem of the greenhouse effect, which is now being accepted as a real threat by a growing number of scientific panels, the latest being the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climatic Change. The IPCC and others have not only warned of the massive floods, droughts and famines that could result if there is no signifi­cant cut-back in the present level of emissions of greenhouse gases, particularly carbon diox­ide; they have also pointed to the danger of a ‘feedback’ process, in which each aspect of pollution and environmental destruction acts on the other to produce an irreversible spiral of disaster.

It is also obvious that the class whose system has caused this mess is incapable of doing anything about it. Of course, in the last few years nearly all the leading lights of the bour­geoisie have been miraculously converted to the cause of saving the environment. The supermar­kets are stocked full of goods advertising how free they are from artificial additives; cosmetics, detergents and nappy labels vie with each other to prove how much they respect the ozone layer, the air or the rivers. And the political leaders from Thatcher to Gorbachev talk more and more about how we must all work together to protect our endangered planet.

As usual the hypocrisy of this class of gang­sters knows no bounds. The bourgeoisie’s real commitment to saving the planet can be mea­sured by looking at what they are actually pre­pared to do. For example, they made a great fuss about the recent ozone conference in London, where the main countries of the world, including the previously recalcitrant third world giants India and China, agreed to phase out CFCs by the year 2000. But this still means that a further 20 percent of the ozone layer could be destroyed over the next decade; in that pe­riod, a volume of ozone depleting gases would be released representing half as much again as the total volume already released since CFCs were invented.

It’s even worse when it comes to the green­house effect. The US administration has banned the phrase ‘global warming’ from all its official communiques. And the countries who do on pa­per accept the IPCC’s predictions have so far committed themselves to do no more than sta­bilise carbon dioxide emissions at their present level. And above all they have no serious strat­egy for reducing their economies’ dependence on fossil fuels or the private automobile, which are the main contributors to the greenhouse effect. Nothing is being done to halt the de­struction of the rainforests, which both adds to the accumulation of greenhouse gases and re­duces the planet’s capacity to reabsorb them: the UN’s own Tropical Forest Action Plan is en­tirely dominated by logging companies, and be­sides, the denuding of the rainforests by log­ging, cattle and industrial interests, as well as by famished peasants desperate for land or fuel, could only be halted if the third world was suddenly relieved of its massive burden of debt and poverty. As for plans to build defences against floods or to prevent famine, the popula­tions of the most threatened countries, such as Bangla Desh, can expect the same kind of ‘help’ as that given to the inhabitants of the world’s earthquake zones, or the victims of drought in Africa.

The bourgeoisie’s response to all these prob­lems highlights the fact that the very structure of its system renders it incapable of dealing with the ecological problems it has created. Global ecological problems require a global solu­tion. But despite all the international confer­ences, despite all the pious talk about interna­tional cooperation, capitalism is irreducibly based on competition between national economies. Its inability to achieve any real level of global cooperation is in fact being exacerbated today as the old bloc structures crumble and the system slides into a war of each against all. The deepening of the world economic crisis which brought the Russian bloc to its knees is going to aggravate competition and national rivalries; it will mean each company, each country, acting with ever-greater irresponsibility in the mad scramble for economic survival.

Whatever small concessions are made to envi­ronmental considerations, the dominant trend will be for health, safety and pollution controls to be thrown out of the window. This has al­ready been the case over the past decade, which has seen a marked rise in the number of industrial, transport and other disasters, the result of furious cost-cutting in the face of the economic crisis. As the trade war between na­tions hots up, things are due to get a lot worse.

What’s more, this free-for-all will increase the danger of local military conflicts in regions where the working class is too weak to prevent them. Now that these conflicts are no longer contained by the discipline of the old imperialist blocs, they run a far greater risk of unleashing the horrors of chemical and even nuclear war­fare on a ‘local’ scale, massacring millions and further poisoning the atmosphere of the planet. Who can believe that, caught up in a mounting spiral of chaos and confusion, the bourgeoisies of the world are going to work harmoniously to­gether to deal with the threat to the environ­ment? If anything, the results of ecological dif­ficulties - dwindling water supplies, floods, dis­putes over refugees, etc - will further increase local imperialist tensions. The bourgeoisie is al­ready aware of this. As the Egyptian foreign minister Butros Ghali put it recently, " the next war in our region will be over the waters of the Nile, not politics."

In its present phase of advancing decomposi­tion, the ruling class is increasingly losing control of its social system. Humanity can no longer afford to leave the planet in its hands. The ‘ecological crisis’ is further proof that cap­italism has to be destroyed before it drags the whole world into the abyss.

Ideological pollution

But if the bourgeoisie is incapable of repairing the damage it has done to the planet, it cer­tainly doesn’t hesitate to use ecological issues to fuel its campaigns of mystification aimed at the only force in society that can do anything about the problem - the world proletariat.

The ecological question is ideal in this re­spect, which is why the bourgeoisie makes little attempt to hide the gravity of the problem (and may even indulge in a little exaggeration when it suits). Time and time again we are told that problems like the hole in the ozone layer, or global warming, ‘affect us all’, that they ‘make no distinctions’ of colour, class or country. And it is true that pollution, like other aspects of the decomposition of capitalist society (drug ad­diction, crime, etc), does affect all classes of so­ciety (even if it’s usually the most oppressed and exploited who suffer the most). So what better basis could there be for diluting the proletariat, making it forget its own class inter­ests, drowning it in an amorphous mass where there is no longer any distinction of interest between workers, shopkeepers ... or the ruling class itself? The constant ideological barrage about the environment thus complements all the campaigns about democracy and ‘people power’ unleashed after the fall of the eastern bloc.

Look at how they twist the ecological issues to suit their needs. These problems are so terri­fying, so urgent, they say, surely they’re more important than your egoistic fight for higher wages or against job losses? Indeed, aren’t most of these problems due to the fact that ‘we’ in the advanced countries ‘are consuming too much’? Shouldn’t we be prepared to eat less meat, use less energy, even accept this or that factory closure ‘for the good of the planet’? What better alibi for the sacrifices demanded by the crisis of the capitalist economy.

And then there are all the arguments sup­porting the mythology of ‘reforms’ and ‘realistic change’. Surely something has to be done now, they say. So shouldn’t we be looking to see which election candidate offers the best ecologi­cal policies, which party promises to do the most for the environment? Doesn’t the concern expressed by Gorbachev, or Mitterand, or Thatcher prove that the politicians can indeed respond to popular pressure? Don’t the experi­ments in energy conservation, or solar energy, or wind power, which various ‘enlightened’ gov­ernments like Sweden or Holland are carrying out today, prove that change is just a matter of will and enterprise on the part of the politi­cians, combined with pressure from the citizens below? Doesn’t the switch to environmentally friendly products prove that the big companies really can be affected by ‘consumer action’?

And if all these ‘hopeful’ and ‘positive’ ap­proaches fail to convince, then the bourgeoisie can still profit from the feelings of helplessness and despair that can only get reinforced when the isolated citizen peeps out of his window and sees a whole world being poisoned. If you can’t get the exploited to believe your lies, then at least a working class that has been atomised and demoralised doesn’t pose a threat to your system.

The false alternatives of the ‘Greens’

But in the past decade or so a new political force has appeared on the scene - one that claims to stand for a radical approach that puts the defence of the environment above all other considerations: the Greens. In Germany they have become a force to be reckoned with in na­tional political life. In eastern Europe, ecological groups figured heavily in the democratic oppo­sitions that have stepped into the breech left by the collapse of Stalinism. Green parties and pressure groups are appearing in most of the advanced countries, and even in the Third World.

But the Greens are also part of the rotting capitalist order. This is evident when you look at the Greens in Germany: they’ve become a re­spectable parliamentary party, with numerous seats in the national Bundestag and various re­sponsible posts in local and regional govern­ment. The overt integration of the Greens into capitalist normality was symbolised a few years back when the ‘extra-parliamentary’, anarchist rebel of 1968, Daniel Cohn Bendit (remember the slogan ‘Elections, piege a cons’?) himself became an MP in the German parliament, and even ex­pressed his desire to become a minister. In the Bundestag the Greens engage in all the sordid manoeuvres typical of bourgeois parties - now acting as a ‘spoiler’ to keep the SPD in opposi­tion, now forming an alliance with the social democrats against the ruling CDU.

It’s true that the Greens are divided into a ‘realo’ wing which is content to focus on the parliamentary arena, and a ‘fundi’ wing which stresses more radical, extraparliamentary forms of action. And much of the appeal of the Green parties and pressure groups is that they play on people’s distrust of bureaucratic central governments and parliamentary corruption. As an alternative they offer campaigns against local instances of pollution, spectacular protest stunts of the type Greenpeace specialises in, marches and demonstrations, while calling for the devo­lution of political power and ‘citizens’ initiatives’ of all kinds. But none of these activities step an inch outside the general campaigns of the bour­geoisie. On the contrary, they serve to ensure that these campaigns penetrate into the very grassroots of society.

The ‘radical’ Greens are champions of inter­classism. They address themselves to the ‘responsible individual’, to the ‘local community’, to the good conscience of mankind in general. The actions they initiate attempt to mobilise all citizens, regardless of class, into the fight against pollution. And when they criticise bu­reaucracy and the remoteness of central gov­ernment, it’s only to put forward a vision of ‘local democracy’ equally bourgeois in content.

They are no less zealous in their support for the reformist illusion. The actions they organise are invariably aimed at making companies or governments more responsible, cleaner, greener. Just one example: a Friends of the Earth leaflet explaining how Third World debt leads to the destruction of the rainforests. So what’s the an­swer? The big western banks "should cancel all the debts owed by the world’s very poorest countries, and reduce debts owed by the other major debtor countries by at least one half. They can now afford to do so" (‘Stamp out the debt, not the rainforests’). And how will the banks be persuaded of this? "The banks won’t move unless they are shown how strongly their customers feel about this issue. Stamping your cheques with ‘stamp out the debt not the rain­forests’ and taking the ‘Debt Pledge’ are two powerful ways to show them how you feel" (ibid).

Thus the Greens invite us to believe in the effectiveness of ‘consumer power’, and in the possibility of appealing to the better nature of money-bags who think nothing of condemning millions to starvation just by shifting their capital from one country to another. It’s the same when the Greens paint their picture of a possible future: a world where small, ecologically sound businesses never turn into rapacious capitalist giants, a pacifist vision of nation speaking unto nation, in short a gentle, caring, impossible capitalism.

But wait. There are currents in or around the Green movement who claim to be more radical than this, who actually criticise capitalism and even talk about revolution. Some of them are so radical that they claim that marxism itself is no more than the other side of the capitalist ‘megamachine’. Look at the regimes in the east they say: that’s the logical result of marxism’s worship of ‘progress’ technology, industry. Inspired by ‘thinkers’ like Baudrillard, they may even explain in very complex language that marxism is just another ‘productivist’ ideology (in this they are joined by defrocked Stalinists like Martin Jaques, who said at a recent confer­ence of the crumbling British CP that "there is no getting away from the fact that the marxist tradition is productionist at its heart ... the conquest of nature, the forces of production, the commitment to economic growth"). Anarcho-primitivists like the Fifth Estate paper in Detroit call for nothing less than the eradication of industrial-technological society and a return to primitive communism. The ‘deep ecologists’ of Earth First. go even further: for their ideolo­gists, the problem isn’t just industrial society, or civilisation, but man himself ...

Marxism against the Green mystifications

The notion that an abstract entity called ‘man’ is responsible for the current ecological mess is not restricted to a few esoteric Green ideolo­gists; it is in fact a widespread cliché of the conventional wisdom. But in either case, it’s an idea that can only lead to despair, because if human beings are the problem, how can human beings find a solution? It’s no accident that some of the ‘deep ecologists’ have welcomed AIDS as a necessary agent for pruning the world of excess humans ...

The position of the anarcho-primitivists leads to the same bleak conclusions. To be ‘against technology’ is also to be against mankind; man created himself through labour, and "labour be­gins with the making of tools" (Engels, ‘The part played by labour in the transition from ape to man’). The logic of the anti-technological po­sition is to try to get back to a pre-human past when nature was undisturbed by the clangour of human activity: "The animal merely uses its environment and brings about changes in it simply by its presence; man by his changes makes it serve his ends, masters it. This is the final, essential distinction between man and other animals." (ibid)

But even if the ‘anti-technologists’ would be content to return to the hunter-gatherer stage of culture, the result would be the same, since the material conditions of such a society pre­supposed a world population of no more than a few million. These conditions could only be re­stored through a massive ‘cull’ of human beings, something that capitalism in its death-throes is already preparing for us. Thus these ‘radical’ ecologists - products of a disintegrating petty bourgeoisie which has no historical future and can only look back to an idealised past - are recruited as theorisers and apologists for a de­scent into barbarism that is already well under­way.

Against these nihilistic ideologies, marxism, ex­pressing the standpoint of the only class that does have a future today, insists that the pre­sent ecological nightmare can’t be explained by invoking categories like man, technology or in­dustry in a totally vague and ahistoric manner. Man does not exist outside history, and technol­ogy cannot be divorced from the social relations in which it has developed. Man’s interaction with nature can also only be understood in its real historical and social context.

Humanity has existed on this planet for at least several hundred thousand years - most of them at the stage of primitive communism, of hunter gatherer societies where there was a relatively stable equilibrium between man and nature, a fact reflected in the myths and rituals of the primitive peoples. The dissolution of this archaic community and the rise of class society, a qualitative step in the alienation of man from man, also determined new alienations between man and nature. The first cases of extensive ecological destruction coincide with the early city states; there is considerable evidence that the very process of deforestation which allowed civilisations such as the Sumerian, the Babylonian, the Sinhalese and others to develop a large-scale agricultural base also, in the longer term, played a considerable role in their decline and disappearance.

But these were local, limited phenomena: prior to capitalism, all civilisations were based on ‘natural economy’: the bulk of production was still oriented towards the immediate consumption of use values, even though, in contrast to the primitive community, a large part of it was ap­propriated by the exploiting class. Capitalism, by contrast, is a system where all production is geared towards the market, towards the en­larged reproduction of exchange value; it is a social formation far more dynamic than any pre­vious system, and this dynamic compelled it to move inexorably towards the creation of a world economy. But the very dynamism and globality of capital has meant that the problem of ecologi­cal destruction has now been raised to a plane­tary level. For it is not marxism, but capitalism, which is "productionist at its heart". Goaded by competition, by the anarchic rivalry of capitalist units struggling for control of the market, it obeys an inner compulsion to expand to the furthest limits permitted to it, and in this mer­ciless drive towards its own self-expansion, it cannot pause to consider either the health and welfare of the producers, or the future ecologi­cal consequences of how and what it produces. The secret of today’s ecological destruction is to be found in the very secret of capitalist pro­duction: "Accumulate, accumulate. That is Moses and the prophets..." (Capital vol 1, ‘Conversion of surplus value into capital’).

The problem behind the ecological catastrophe, then, is not ‘industrial society’ in the abstract, as so many of the ecologists proclaim: hitherto the only industrial society that has ever existed has been capitalism. This of course includes the Stalinist regimes, who are a veritable caricature of the capitalist subordination of consumption to accumulation; those who blame marxism for the ecological devastation in the east merely lend their voices to the current hue and cry of the bourgeoisie about the ‘failure of communism’ following the collapse of the eastern imperialist bloc. The problem does not lie in this or that form of capitalism, but in the essential mecha­nisms of a society which grows not in conscious harmony with the needs of man and with what Marx called man’s "inorganic body", nature, but for the sake of profit alone.

But the ecological problem also has its specific history within capitalism.

Already in the ascendant period, Marx and Engels had many occasions to denounce the way that capitalism’s thirst for profit poisoned the living and working conditions of the working class. They even considered that the big in­dustrial cities had already become too large to provide the basis for viable human communities, and considered that the "abolition of the sepa­ration between town and countryside" was an integral part of the communist programme (imagine what they would have said about the megacities of the late 20th century ...)

But it is essentially in the present epoch of capitalism, the epoch which since 1914 has been defined by marxists as that of the decadence of this mode of production, that capital’s ruthless destruction of the environment takes on a dif­ferent scale and quality, while at the same time losing any historical justification. This is the epoch in which all the capitalist nations are forced to compete with each other over a satu­rated world market; an epoch therefore, of a permanent war economy, with a disproportionate growth of heavy industry; an epoch charac­terised by the irrational, wasteful duplication of industrial complexes in each national unit, by the desperate pillaging of natural resources by each nation as it tries to survive in the pitiless rat-race of the world market. The consequences of all this for the environment are now becom­ing crystal clear; the intensification of ecological problems can be measured according to the dif­ferent phases of capitalist decadence. The main growth of carbon dioxide emissions has taken place this century, with a considerable increase since the 1960s. CFCs were only invented in the 1930s and have only been used extensively over the past few decades. The rise of the ‘megacities’ is very much a post World War Two phenomenon, as is the development of forms of agriculture that have been no less ecologically damaging than most forms of industry. The frenzied destruction of the rainforests has taken place in the same period, and especially over the last decade: the rate has probably doubled since 1979.

What we are seeing today is the culmination of decades of unplanned, wasteful, irrational eco­nomic and military activity by decadent capital­ism; the qualitative acceleration of the ecological crisis over the past decade ‘coincides’ with the opening of the final phase of capitalist deca­dence - the phase of decomposition. By this we mean that after 20 years of profound and ever-worsening economic crisis, in which neither of the major social classes have been able to carry through their historic alternatives of world war or world revolution, the whole social order is beginning to crack up, to descend into an un­controlled downward spiral of chaos and de­struction (see International Review n°62 ‘Decomposition, final phase of capitalist Decadence’).

The capitalist system has long ceased to rep­resent any progress for mankind. The disas­trous ecological consequences of its ‘growth’ since 1945 is one more demonstration that this growth has taken place on a diseased, destruc­tive basis, and constitutes a slap in the face for all those pundits - some of them unfortunately to be found in the proletarian political movement - who point to this growth in order to challenge the marxist notion of the decadence of capital­ism.

But this doesn’t mean that marxists - unlike most of the bourgeoisie today, and all of its petty bourgeois hangers-on - are abandoning the notion of progress or making any conces­sions to the anti-technological prejudices of the radical Greens.

The marxist concept of progress was never the same as the bourgeoisie’s one-sided, linear notion of a steady ascent from primitive dark­ness and superstition to the light of modern reason and democracy. It is a dialectical vision which recognises that historical progress has taken place through the clash of contradictions, that it has involved catastrophes and even re­gressions, that the advance of ‘civilisation’ has also meant the refinement of exploitation and the aggravation of alienation between man and man and man and nature. But it also recognises that man’s growing capacity to transform nature through the development of his productive pow­ers, to subject the unconscious processes of nature to his own conscious control, provides the only basis for overcoming this alienation and arriving at a higher form of community than the restricted communism of primitive times - a world-wide, unified community that will be based not on scarcity and the submerging of the individual into the collective, but on an un­precedented level of abundance that will supply "the material conditions for the total, universal development of the productive powers of the in­dividual" (Marx, Grundrisse). By creating the material basis for this global human community, capitalism represented an immense step forward over the natural economies which preceded it.

Today the notion of ‘controlling’ nature has been vilely distorted by the experience of capi­talism, which has treated the whole of nature as just another commodity, as dead matter, as something essentially external to man. Against this view - but also against the passive nature-worship which is prevalent amongst many of to­day’s Greens - Engels defined the communist position when he wrote:

"At every step we are reminded that we by no means rule over nature like a conqueror over a foreign people, like someone standing outside nature - but that we, with flesh, blood and brain, belong to nature, and exist in its midst, and that all our mastery consists in the fact that we have the advantage over all other creatures of being able to learn its laws and apply them correctly" (‘The part played by labour....’)

Indeed, despite all its so-called ‘conquests’, capitalism is revealing today that its control over nature is the ‘control’ of the sorcerer’s apprentice, not of the sorcerer himself. It has laid the basis for a really conscious mastery of nature, but its very mode of operation turns all its achievements into disasters. As Marx put it:

"At the same pace that mankind masters na­ture, man seems to become enslaved to other men or to his own infamy. Even the pure light of science seems unable to shine but on a dark background of ignorance. All our invention and progress seem to result in endowing material forces with intellectual life and stultifying hu­man life into a material force." (Speech at the anniversary of the People’s Paper, April 1856)

Today this contradiction has reached the point where mankind stands at a two-pronged fork in the road of history, facing the choice between the conscious control over his own social and productive forces, and thus a "correct applica­tion" of the laws of nature, or destruction at the hands of the very forces that he himself has set in motion. The choice, in other words, between communism or barbarism.

Only the proletarian revolution can save the planet

If communism is the only answer to the ecologi­cal crisis, then the only force that can intro­duce a communist society is the working class.

As with other aspects of the decomposition of capitalist society, the threat to the environment highlights the fact that the longer the prole­tariat delays its revolution, the greater the danger of the revolutionary class being ex­hausted and undermined, of the whole course towards destruction and chaos reaching a point of no return that would make both the struggle for revolution, and the construction of a new society, an impossible task. Thus, in so far as it underlines the growing urgency of the commu­nist revolution, an awareness of the depth of the current ecological problems will play its part in the transition of the proletarian strug­gle from a defensive, economic level to the level of a conscious and political combat against cap­ital as a whole.

But it would be an error to think that the ecological issue per se can be a focus for the mobilisation of the proletariat on its own class terrain today. Although certain limited aspects of the problem (eg health and safety at work) can be integrated into authentic class demands, the issue as such doesn’t allow the proletariat to affirm itself as a distinct social force. Indeed, as we have seen, it provides an ideal pretext for the bourgeoisie’s inter-classist campaigns, and the workers will have to resist actively the various attempts of the bourgeoisie, particularly its Green and leftist elements, to use the issue as a means of dragging them off their own class ground. It remains the case that it is above all by struggling against the effects of the eco­nomic crisis - against wage cuts, unemployment, growing impoverishment at all levels - that the workers will be able to constitute themselves into a force capable of confronting the entire bourgeois order.

The working class will only be able to deal with the ecological issue as a whole when it has conquered political power on a world scale. Indeed it has now become plain that this will be one of the most pressing tasks of the transition period, and is in any case intimately bound up with other urgent problems such as world hunger and the reorganisation of agriculture.

This isn’t the place for a detailed discussion of the measures the proletariat will have to take both to clean up the mess bequeathed by capi­talism and to move towards a qualitatively new relationship between man and nature. Here we want to stress one point only: that the problems facing a victorious proletariat will not funda­mentally be technical but political and social.

The existing technical and industrial infras­tructure is profoundly marred by the irra­tionality of capitalist development in this epoch, and no doubt a very considerable part of it will have to be demolished as a precondition for building a productive base that does not become a threat to the natural environment. But on the purely technical level, a number of alternatives have already been developed, or could have been developed if sufficient resources had been devoted to them. It’s possible already, for exam­ple, through the system of combined heat and energy in fossil-fuel burning power stations, to substantially cut carbon dioxide and other harmful emissions while making efficient use of almost 100% of the waste material produced. Similarly, it’s already possible to develop many other alternative sources of energy : solar power, wind power, wave power, etc, which are both renewable and virtually pollution-free; there are also enormous possibilities contained in the process of nuclear fusion, which would avoid many of the problems associated with nu­clear fission.

Capitalism has already developed its technical capacities to the point where the problem of pollution could be solved. But the fact that the real problem is social in nature is highlighted by the many instances in which capitalism’s own short term economic or military interests have not permitted it to develop non-polluting tech­nologies. We know, for example, that the oil, gas and electrical industries in the USA mounted a campaign to crowd out the development of solar power after World War Two; we have recently learned that the British government collaborated in a report which doctored its figures to prove that nuclear power was cheaper than wave power; the motor industry has long stood in the way of the development of less polluting forms of transport, and so on.

But the issue goes deeper than the conscious policies of this or that government or industry. The problem, as we have seen, lies in the basic operation of the capitalist mode of production, and it can only be solved by attacking this mode of production at its very roots.

Capital wantonly destroys the natural envi­ronment because it must accumulate or die; the only answer is to suppress the very principle of capital accumulation, to produce not for profit but for human need. Capital ravages the world’s resources because it is divided into competing national units, because it is funda­mentally anarchic and cannot produce with the interests of the future in mind; the only answer is the abolition of the nation state, the commu­nisation of all the Earth’s human and natural resources, and the drawing up of what Bordiga called a "a plan for living for the human species". In short, the problem can only be solved by a working class that is conscious of the need to revolutionise the very bases of so­cial life, and which has in its hands the political instruments for carrying through the transition to a communist society. Organised in its workers councils on a world scale, drawing all the world’s oppressed masses along with it, the in­ternational proletariat can and must set about the creation of a world where an unprecedented material abundance will not be in conflict with the health of the natural environment, indeed where both are seen to condition each other mutually; a world in which mankind, freed at last from the domination of toil and scarcity, will begin to enjoy living on this planet.

Peering through the fogs of exploitation and pollution with which capitalist civilisation has shrouded the Earth, this surely was the world that Marx glimpsed when he foresaw, in his 1844 Manuscripts, a society which would embody "the unity of being of man with nature - the true resurrection of nature - the naturalisation of man and the humanisation of nature both brought to fulfilment".

CDW

At the time of writing, the US armed forces are encircling and asphyxiating Iraq. There's every sign that we're heading towards a murderous confrontation for which the populations of the region will pay a terrible price. They will be made victims of privations, bombing, gas, terror. Victims of war. Victims of capitalism.

The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait is fundamentally the result of the new historic situation opened up by the collapse of the eastern bloc. It is another expression of the growing decomposition of the capitalist system. And the gigantic deployment of armed force by the great powers, mainly by the USA to be more precise, reveals their increasing concern to do something about the disorder that is spreading across the world.

But in the long run the reaction of the great powers will lead to the opposite of what they intended, turning into another factor of destabilization and disorder. In the long run, it will further accelerate the slide into chaos, dragging the whole of humanity with it.

There's only one force which can offer an alternative - the world proletariat. And the name of that alternative is communism.

What was supposed to happen after the disap­pearance of the eastern bloc? A new era of peace and prosperity was going to begin. By working together, the USA and the USSR were going to put an end to the conflicts which have ravaged the world since 1945. Perpetuating the Stalinist lie about the socialist character of the USSR and the eastern countries, the western bourgeoisie proclaimed the victory of capitalism over 'communism' and 'marxism'. The eastern countries were going to enjoy the delights of western-style capitalism, and the world economy would be revived by this new market. In sum, the best of all possible worlds was before us. Marx was declared old hat, at best a curiosity. Lenin was triumphantly referred to as the 'great corpse' of the year. Certain bourgeois ideologues, carried away by enthusiasm, even proclaimed the end of history!

Six months. Six months was all it took to ex­plode all these chimaeras, all these lies. As the communist groups, the organizations which re­ally remained faithful to marxism, pointed out then and continue to do so now, capitalism is descending inexorably into economic catastrophe[1].

The countries of the periphery, of the so­ called 'third world', are daily hell for the im­mense majority of their inhabitants; a hell which gets worse and worse.

The countries of the former eastern bloc are sunk in the economic swamp inherited from Stalinist state capitalism; a complete and dra­matic disaster for millions of human beings, without any hope of improvement, or even of any slow-down in the decline.

The USA is entering into open recession, a fact openly recognized by the bourgeoisie itself. The world's first economic power is falling and it's already dragging the main industrial coun­tries, such as Britain, along with it.

Six months later, all the grand declarations about peace are being reduced to naught by the conflict in the Middle East. And the year's 'great corpse', Lenin, returns to affirm with re­newed vigor that "in the capitalist system, particularly in its imperialist stage, wars are in­evitable."[2]

The illusion lasted six months. Now the masks are falling and the reality of the capitalist sys­tem in decomposition comes to the surface - a system of implacable barbarism, a system based on misery, hunger, catastrophes, on the seizure of hostages, on murder and repression, mas­sacres and wars. A system covered in muck and blood, which is what Karl Marx said about capi­talism when it was still in its youth; in its pe­riod of senility, it's showing itself to be far worse.

The lies are crumbling and the new historic situation opened up by the collapse of the countries of Stalinist state capitalism and by the disappearance of the two imperialist blocs, far from opening up a new era of peace, is being revealed in all its horror.

The end of the 'cold war' doesn't mean the end of imperialist conflicts.

"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, 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 the proletariat was 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, partic­ularly in those areas where the proletariat is weakest." ('After the Collapse of the Eastern Bloc, Destabilization and Chaos', International Review 61, 2nd Quarter 1990).

Six months later, the reality of capitalist soci­ety, the reality of a system rotting on its feet and sinking deeper and deeper into chaos, has strikingly confirmed these lines.

Iraq's invasion of Kuwait is part of the slide into chaos

Prosperity and peace, we were promised after the fall of the Berlin Wall. What we've got is crisis and war. The war with Iraq isn't all down to the 'new Hitler' Saddam Hussein. After the events in Eastern Europe, it is another major expression of the phase of decomposition which capitalism has entered. It is the product of the new historic situation opened up by the collapse of the eastern bloc, the product of the growing tendency towards a loss of control over the sit­uation by the world bourgeoisie, towards a war of each against all, towards instability and an­archy throughout the world.

Contrary to what we're being told, the strik­ing aspect of the crisis in the Gulf isn't the unanimity of the great powers in their condem­nation of and opposition to Iraq - we'll come back to this - but the fact that a country like Iraq is daring to defy the order established in the region by the world's leading power, with­out the assent or support of another great power.

Yesterday, ie a year ago, Saddam Hussein would have been led to see reason very quickly by the higher logic of the conflict between two imperialist blocs. Today, his adventure has irre­deemably changed and destabilized the whole of the Middle East. Now all the countries of the region, the countries of the Arabian Peninsula, Jordan, even Syria, are entering into an era of instability. The whole region is going towards 'Lebanonization.'

Inevitably, conflicts of this type, more and more numerous, less and less controlled by the great powers, and are going to proliferate through­out the world because of the economic catastro­phe hitting all countries, big or small, and because of a world situation where the discipline of the two blocs has ceased to exist. As a re­sult, small states stuck in a dead-end will be pushed more and more into military adventures.

After the war against Iran, a horrible butch­ery which left a million dead, Iraq found itself with a debt of more than $70 billion, for a pop­ulation of 17 million inhabitants ($4,000 debt per person, including women, children and the el­derly!), and with an army of ... one million sol­diers.

The country was quite incapable of paying back its debts. Completely asphyxiated, it had no alternative but to play the only ace it held: the biggest army in the region. Not only did it do a bit of armed robbery with the treasuries of Kuwait, it is also trying to assert itself as the dominant power over the entire region which is so important from an economic and strategic point of view. This is the unavoidable path of imperialism which all states are forced to take by the growing economic crisis and the general decadence of capitalist society. And in the phase of decomposition, the transition from trade war to imperialist war has become all the more rapid.

Hussein isn't a madman. He is the man of the situation, a product of contemporary capitalism. He's even the creation of those who are fighting him today. Yesterday the western powers didn't have enough words of praise for his far-sight­edness, his courage, his greatness, when Iraq was their instrument for bringing Khomeini's Iran to heel. Yesterday, the great western democracies themselves armed Iraq with the most modern engines of death. And they contin­ued to do so without any qualms even when he was using these weapons to bombard and terrorize civil populations in the big towns of Iran, and gas Kurdish towns in Iraq itself.

They only stopped, or limited, their military deliveries when Iraq was no longer able to pay for them or for its debts. This is what the world bourgeoisie understands by the defense of 'international law' and 'the rights of man.'

Particularly repulsive is the cynical use of thousands of hostages by Iraq and by... the western powers. It's true that Saddam Hussein's seizure of hostages is a hateful act. It's the deed of a hunted beast, surrounded and with no avenue of escape.

But the hostage issue is being used quite consciously by the western bourgeoisie to build up a deafening propaganda campaign which is intended to justify its war aims and enroll the population behind them. If necessary, it won't hesitate to sacrifice the hostages, blaming it on the 'butcher of Baghdad' as he's now presented in the bourgeois press.

Do we have to remind anyone of the shameful use made of the US embassy hostages in Iran in 1979? It's just been revealed that this episode allowed the CIA - whose director at the time was a certain G. Bush - to get Reagan elected and increase military spending[3].

Let's have no illusion: all possible means, how­ever ignoble and barbaric, and particularly ter­ror and terrorism, are going to be used more and more in the coming conflicts by the various states involved. Because other conflicts will in­evitably arise, other Husseins armed and sup­ported by the great powers will launch them­selves into wars of the same kind. Local imperi­alist conflicts, products of the growing chaos into which capitalism is sinking, are going to further aggravate and accelerate this chaos.

The USA alone can be the world's policeman

Faced with this irreversible tendency towards chaos, the great world powers are trying to re­act. Just as the western countries continue to give their support to Gorbachev in his attempts to deal with the anarchy in the USSR, so they can't remain passive in the face of Iraq's ad­venture and the dangers of destabilization it contains.

The unanimous condemnation of Iraq by the great powers expresses an awareness of this danger and a will to limit and prevent the out­break of these kinds of conflicts. Not because of their concern for universal peace or the well­being of the populations, but in order to main­tain their power and their grip over the world. What they call 'peace' and 'civilization' is just the most brutal and barbaric imperialism, the power of the strongest over the weakest.

Of course it's the USA, the world's leading power, which has reacted with the greatest breadth and determination. The blockade adopted by the UN was imposed above all by the USA. The intervention of western military forces has been carried out under the inflexible leadership of the USA.

The Americans could not allow the Arabian Peninsula to plunge into war, could not let Hussein's Iraq control the world's main sources of oil. And above all they needed to call a halt to the imperialist, adventurist, war-like aspira­tions of the increasing number of regimes which might be tempted to imitate Saddam Hussein.

The godfather of the world's mafia doesn't like it when small neighborhood crooks think that everything is permissible and start disrupting business with unauthorized hold-ups. It also can't allow its authority, and the fear it in­spires, to be put into question. Thus the formidable deployment of American military power, not only to cleanse the outrage with blood, to punish Iraq, and probably even get rid of Hussein, but also to make an example to the whole world and call a halt to the slide into chaos.

The American military force is the biggest since the Vietnam War and is backed up by the biggest logistical operation since the Second World War, according to the US generals.

More than 100,000 men already on the ground in Saudi Arabia. Two aircraft carriers in the Sea of Oman, and others in the Mediterranean. The most sophisticated bombers, the F-111 and the F-117, labeled ‘stealth' because undetectable by radar, are based in Turkey and Arabia. Up to 700 planes, 500 of them fighters. Innumerable missiles pointing at Iraq.

Although this information is supposed to be secret, the admiring bourgeois journalists, be­side themselves with excitement at the joyous approach of open warfare, tell us that offensive nuclear submarines are in place around the air­craft carriers. From the Oman Sea, or from the west of. Cyprus, they could bombard Baghdad with an accuracy of up to 500 meters, we are informed. But that's nothing compared with the cruise missiles which can be launched by the American battleships also in place there; they can hit a target in Baghdad with an accuracy of a few meters. Fantastic, eh? For the journalists, a marvel of efficiency. In reality, a nightmare.

A nightmare because we know quite well that the bourgeoisie, whatever its nationality, is quite capable of the mass bombings of civilians. Because we know quite ,well that the American bourgeoisie, saluted by its allies at the time, didn't hesitate to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 - even though Japan had been asking for an armistice for a month - simply to stop the advance of ... the USSR in the Far East[4].

Because US aviation showed its savoir-faire about hitting human targets when it bombarded Panama (December 1989), the poor quarters es­pecially, leaving 10,000 dead, or Tripoli (March 1986), Because we know very well that Bush and his allies could well decide to raze Baghdad to the ground - with or without hostages - to make an example, just like Saddam Hussein gassed the Kurdish population.

It's the best of all possible worlds, capitalism, which holds millions of human beings hostage and which doesn't hesitate to sacrifice them when necessary.

The weapons are now being deployed on an enormous scale and are extraordinarily destruc­tive. Bush has threatened to respond to gas attacks with more gas attacks, and even with nuclear weapons. Horror has become a banality and the threat of using nuclear weapons has become something natural, quite in the order of things. No one takes offence at it. Not even the bourgeois pacifists who are usually only pacifist in times of peace, but as bellicose as anyone else when the conflicts break out.

But hypocrisy and cynicism don't end there.

It appears, discretely, that the USA deliberately allowed Iraq to engage in its adventure. The international bourgeois press has clearly indi­cated it. For example, the French intelligence "are not unaware of the fact that American in­telligence services had precise enough informa­tion to prove that Iraq was preparing to invade Kuwait ... Probably they took advantage of this 'expected circumstance' (the words of a high official) to justify a military face-off. Weren't the Americans waiting for Saddam Hussein to be 'in the wrong', thus allowing the US to 'legitimately' destroy the Iraqi military infras­tructures which could have been used by the Baghdad regime to produce nuclear weapons?"[5].

Whether true or false - and no doubt it is true[6] - this lays bare the methods of the bourgeoisie, its lies, its manipulations, the way it uses events. It also helps us to see more clearly how cynically it has used the thousands of hostages held by Iraq to prepare 'public opinion' for direct military intervention.

But whether true or false, it doesn't alter the fact that Iraq had no choice in the matter. The country was driven to it. And the USA allowed Saddam Hussein's adventure to happen, exploited it, conscious of a situation of growing chaos and the need to make an example.

The USSR: a second-rate imperialist power

Every day there is further confirmation of the fact that the USSR has fallen to the level of a second-rate power. In this conflict, despite the loss of the Iraqi market for its weapons, it has had no choice but to line up behind American power and policy. It's done this from the start, particularly at the UN. From this point of view, the USA's attitude towards Gorbachev is signifi­cant: Bush doesn't hesitate to call him when he considers it necessary. Of course at Helsinki they kept up appearances. But this has to be interpreted as Bush's way of reinforcing Gorbachev's fragile power in the USSR itself ­in exchange, obviously, for its support in the conflict with Iraq.

The economy of the USSR, which is in a state of incredible dilapidation, is increasingly de­pendent on the support of the western coun­tries. Riots against shortages are on the in­crease. The absence of tobacco and vodka has given rise to violent riots, leaving many wounded. Even basic necessities like bread are in short supply. Real famines are not far off.

A large number of Republics are in a state of civil war, and most of them have declared them­selves sovereign and independent: there are pogroms and massacres between nationalities, and even confrontations between rival militias in the same community (Armenia).

All this shows what a state of disorder, the USSR is in. Its main concern is that the chaos outside, particularly in the Middle East, so close to its borders and its Moslem Republics, doesn't get worse and further aggravate the already considerable chaos within the USSR. We are a long way here from the time when the USSR, at the head of the eastern bloc, tried to throw oil from the slightest local conflict in order to un­settle the status quo favorable to the western bloc.

The USSR's feeble participation on the police operation in the Gulf, whose objectives it fully shares, is due to the weakening of its military apparatus, which can't be measured by the number of ships, planes, tanks and soldiers it possesses, but by the fact that the Red Army is in a state of disintegration and is already inca­pable of controlling the internal situation (as for example in the problem of disarming the Armenian militia); the pathetic argument put forward by a Russian official to justify this low level of participation says a great deal about the impotence of this country ("contrary to the American army, the Red Army is not used to intervening outside its frontiers, and has never done this.")

The war in the Middle East confirms that the USSR can no longer play the role of leader of an imperialist bloc, and that it can't even have its own foreign policy. In less than a year, the former number two world power has fallen to a level below that of Germany, Japan, and even Britain or France.

The new imperialist order: the war of each against all

The breadth of the military measures taken by the USA, the intransigent attitude it has shown, testify to its intention of taking advantage of the situation created by the Iraqi adventure in order to affirm clearly its 'leadership' of the whole world. At a time when Japan or the European countries (especially Germany of course) could be tempted, given the disappear­ance of any threat from the USSR, to challenge the discipline they have observed up to now and make the most of their economic advantages over an American economy that is less and less competitive), the USA's timely demonstration of strength permits it to show that it alone is ca­pable of acting as the world's gendarme.

It's already clear that this local war is going to reinforce the USA's position in relation to the other big powers, who have shown themselves incapable of maintaining the stability of the world by themselves. With the growing tendency towards the dislocation of the whole system of international relations, the USA is no longer able to count on any other country to police such a crucial zone, whose instability won't at all diminish once Iraq has been brought to heel. The USA has decided to maintain a massive mil­itary presence in the Middle East. The first of­ficial declarations already talk about staying at least until 1992.

Furthermore, America's control over this emi­nently strategic region, the world's biggest source of oil, is going to be accentuated. This will be a precious asset given the aggravation of the trade war with Europe and Japan.

And, to avoid any possible misunderstanding, the American press has dotted the 'i's, referring to the wheeling and dealing over who pays the bill for the USA's 'Operation Desert Shield':

"As for Germany and Japan, neither has begun to contribute at a level equal to its need for secure oil supply. To be sure, Bonn is preoccu­pied with reunification. Yet Germany would be shortsighted to underestimate its debt to America's sacrifice. That is even more true for Tokyo." (The New York Times from the International Herald Tribune, 31.8.90).

As we can see, the unanimous condemnation of Iraq by the big industrialized countries isn't the product of goodwill as the press would have it. It's the product of a relation of force, in which the USA imposes its military domination, and in which there's no country able to play the role of leader of a rival imperialist bloc, as the USSR did in the past.

The unanimity of the great powers against Iraq isn't the product of peace, or a factor working for peace; it's the product of imperial­ist rivalries and in the long run will serve to aggravate these rivalries.

This forced unanimity has made it plain to the German and Japanese bourgeoisies that they may be economic giants, but they're still politically impotent. Hence the growing pressure within these countries to change the constitutions they inherited from 1945, which limit their armed forces and their field of intervention. There could be no clearer proof of what diplomacy and international policy means for the bourgeoisie: it's the diplomacy and the policy of weapons, of military force. But even if these constitutional changes are adopted, it will take money, and above all time, before these two countries could equip themselves with a military machine com­mensurate with their imperialist ambitions, ie capable of rivaling the USA at this level.

Capitalism is dragging humanity into the abyss of barbarism

At the time of writing, indeed since August 2, the day of the Iraqi invasion, there hasn't been any sign that the dynamic towards US military action against Iraq is being countered or held back. All the diplomatic approaches can be seen clearly for what they are: preparations for war. What's more, all Hussein's offers to negotiate have been rejected by Bush, who insists that the Iraqi army must be withdrawn from Kuwait. This is the only condition for avoiding war, and even then it's not sure.

Such a retreat would mean political suicide for Hussein - and no doubt suicide pure and simple as well. It's hard to see him bowing to the dik­tats of the great powers now. He can only take his adventure another step forward.

Initially, US intervention will call a halt to the destabilization of the Middle East. But this will be temporary and won't reverse the growing tendency towards the Lebanonization of the re­gion. Similarly, it will temporarily stop the out­break of such conflicts in the world, but with­out reversing the overall trend. The USA's restoration of order, its order, will be based on military force alone. But an order based on ter­ror is never stable, and less than ever today in a period of catastrophic world economic crisis, of growing local tensions. The future is one of the explosions of local and civil wars. And the future is near. In fact, it has already arrived.

Look at the conflicts going on now. There are regular military clashes on the frontier between Pakistan and India. And both these countries al­ready have the atomic bomb ... The war in Afghanistan continues in its murderous manner. In Cambodia. In Lebanon. The list is long. This is capitalism.

In Liberia, the population has been subjected to months of terror, rape, extortion and mas­sacre by armed gangs, basically tribal bands, drunk with blood and killing. And all this under the unblinking eyes of western media and a US military flotilla anchored off Monrovia. But Liberia doesn't have the economic and strategic interests of the Middle East.

In fact, the western bourgeoisies are aban­doning a good part of Africa to its own devices. The great powers' growing disinterest in the chaotic situation prevailing in Africa says a lot about their cynicism and their inability to counter-act the slide into decomposition.

For Africa is a particularly good example of what the rotting capitalist system has in store for us. The continent is being swept by riots, massacres, wars, more and more of them, in­creasingly murderous, nearly all along tribal di­visions: in Liberia, in the former French colonies, in South Africa itself, between the partisans of Buthelezi and of Mandela. Do we need to remind anyone of the famines, the epi­demics, both of 'new' diseases like AIDS and of ones that had practically disappeared, like Malaria? And all of this accompanied by frenzied corruption. But isn't this also happening in a number of countries in Asia, even in the USSR? And this is the only perspective that capitalism offers us.

This descent into the depths of the abyss is accompanied by a decomposition of all the 'moral' values that capitalism lays claim to. We can see this very clearly in the conflict in the Middle East. Impudence, hypocrisy, lies and cor­ruption at every level; gangsterism on a plane­tary scale, millions of human lives under threat. Blind terrorism, murder, assassination have be­comes principles of government. They are even a sign of an accomplished statesman: someone who takes thousands of people hostages is a great strategist. And even greater and more re­spected is the one who doesn't hesitate to sac­rifice these same hostages on the altars of bourgeois law and principle. Whether at the economic, social, political or ideological level or even at the level of its morality and principles, this system is bankrupt and is dragging the whole of humanity towards catastrophe.

The proletariat is the only class with a different perspective

"Historically, the dilemma facing humanity today is posed in the following way: a fall into bar­barism, or salvation through socialism ... Thus we are today living out the truth which Marx and Engels formulated for the first time, as the scientific basis for socialism, in that great document, The Communist Manifesto: socialism has become a historic necessity... not only because the proletariat can no longer live in the material conditions being prepared for it by the capital­ist classes, but also because, if the proletariat doesn't carry out its class duty and make so­cialism a reality, the abyss awaits us." (Rosa Luxemburg, Speech to the Founding Congress of the KPD, December 1918).

Seventy-two years later, these words still ap­ply. They could have been written today. Only the world working class, the proletariat, can offer the alternative to the ghastly cataclysm of capitalism in decay: communism.

The terrible open recession which has begun in the USA, and which is rebounding onto the world economy, is going to mean, for the whole world proletariat, but especially for the workers in the industrial countries of Europe, a redou­bled attack on living conditions: millions of re­dundancies, falling wages, deteriorating working conditions, etc - and we've already seen things getting worse over the last few months.

And what's more, the world bourgeoisie hasn't lost a moment in profiting from the conflict in the Middle East to demand sacrifices in the name of the national interest, and ... the oil price rises. We've already seen this trick twice. It's clear: the workers, particularly those in the west, will be asked to pay for the cost of mili­tary intervention.

The working class must not yield to the siren-­songs about national unity and the defense of the capitalist economy. It must not follow the bourgeoisie and take sides in the conflict against Iraq. This isn't the workers' fight. They have everything to lose and nothing to gain from it. The only ground on which they can fight is that of the struggle for the defense of their living conditions. Against economic attacks, against austerity and sacrifices, against the logic of capital which leads only to poverty and war. Against national unity, against the defense of the nation and bourgeois democracy in all countries.         .

Today, one year after the end of Stalinism and the collapse of the eastern bloc, after the huge propaganda campaign about the victory of capi­talism and the triumph of peace, it's clear for every worker that world capitalism is irre­versibly bankrupt. It's equally clear that deca­dent capitalism means imperialist war. Crisis and war are two moments in the life of capitalism, and the one can only fuel the other. Two sides of one coin. But the new historic element is that the coin itself is decomposing, dragging human­ity in a direction in which crisis and war will increasingly get melded together.

The longer the agony of capitalism goes on, the more devastating its ravages will be. The more the decomposition of capitalist social rela­tions advances, the more it threatens to com­promise the very perspective of the proletarian revolution and handicap the future construction of communism.

The massive and increasing destruction of the productive forces - factories, machines, workers ejected from production; the destruction of the environment, of the countryside, the anarchic growth of dump-cities in which millions live in atrocious conditions, mostly without jobs; the atomization and destruction of social relations; the ravages caused by new epidemics, drugs, famine, war, are so many dramas and catastro­phes making the construction of communist soci­ety more difficult.

The stakes are becoming more and more dra­matic. The proletariat doesn't have an unlimited time to accomplish its tasks. The victory of the proletarian revolution or the destruction of hu­manity - that's the alternative. For the prole­tariat, there's no choice but to wage a struggle that leads to the destruction of capitalism and the construction of another society, in which hunger, war and exploitation are no more.

The road to this communist society will be long and arduous. But there is no other road.

RL 4.9.90.

[1] See the article on the crisis on this issue.

[2] Lenin, ‘Resolution on pacifism and the peace slogan', Conference of the sections in Exile of the RSDLP, March 1915.

[3] A former member of the CIA recently revealed the secret deals made at the time between the CIA and the Iranian authorities, deals which ensured that the hostages would be kept long enough to facilitate Carter's defeat in the elections. (This revelation was published in a number of papers in different countries: Liberation in France, Cambio 16 in Spain...).

[4] As the New York Times and Le Monde Dimplomatique themselves recalled in August 1990.

[5] Le Monde, 29.8.90

[6] It wouldn't be the first time that the American bourgeoisie acted in this way. On a much bigger scale, it lured its future enemy to make the first strike in a war that had become inevitably, so that it could present it as the aggressor. We refer to the Japanese attack on the US fleet in Pearl Harbor (Hawaii) in December 1941, which provoked the US's official entry into the war. Later on it was clearly shown that the US President Roosevelt did all he could to incite Japan to take such an initiative, notably by reducing the bases' defenses to a minimum (most of the US soldiers were on leave), even though he knew perfectly well that Japan was getting ready to enter the war. Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor was used to build up ‘national unity' around Roosevelt, and to silence any dissent, both in the population and in certain sectors of the bourgeoisie. 

What is the importance for the working class of the "hunger revolts" of the most wretched and marginalized populations in the under-de­veloped countries, which have become increas­ingly frequent in recent years (Algeria in 1988; Venezuela, Argentina, Nigeria, Jordan in 1989; Ivory Coast, Gabon in 1990, to name only the most important ones)? What attitude should the revolutionary vanguard adopt towards them?

Revolutionary organizations' answers to these questions depend on their overall analysis of the present international situation and their long term vision of the ground the proletariat still has to cover on the road towards revolu­tion: the proletariat's forms of organization and struggle, and the function they attribute to the class party. As these revolts become both more frequent and more widespread, revolutionaries must intervene directly in them, with clear orientations for the working class. It is therefore of immediate and practical importance to have a clear position as far as these revolts are con­cerned.

Faced with the general confusion in the proletarian political movement, which have welcomed the hunger riots as steps forward for the proletariat's class struggle, sometimes even giving them greater importance than factory strikes, only the ICC has insisted that these actions run the risk of taking the working class off its own terrain.

An expression of capital's decomposition

Several organizations of the proletarian political movement have dealt with the question of hunger riots in their press, demonstrating that their fundamental cause is to be found in the deepening crisis of the capitalist system, and in the resulting increase in exploitation and poverty for the working class and other disin­herited social strata. They have shown how the "plans" and "economic measures" that the capi­talist class has set up to try to save the un­der-developed countries from ruin - ie to try to save their own profits - have led to renewed and brutal attacks on the living conditions of millions of people; the hunger revolts, the large scale pillage of shops and supermarkets are the most elementary response to an intolerable and desperate situation. We ourselves have written, for example, that "These riots are first and foremost the response of the marginalized masses to the increasingly barbaric attacks of world capitalism in crisis. They are part of the tremors which are shaking the very foundations of decomposing capitalist society more and more strongly" (International Review, no 57).

Other groups have written on the same sub­ject:

"The revolt appears ( ... ) as a response to the blows of the crisis. If we consider that the proletarian and semi-proletarian masses of these countries [of the capitalist periphery) have taken part in the movement ( ... ), we must neces­sarily conclude that such a movement consti­tutes primarily an action of the exploited class against the effects of its position" (Prometeo, no 13, November 1989).

"The crisis of Argentine capital, which, day after day, is plunging ever greater masses of proletarians and wage-earners into the most dreadful misery, just as in Venezuela or Algeria, has launched the starving masses into a strug­gle for survival" (Le Proletarire, no 403, October/November 1989).

The fact that we share this general viewpoint as to the causes of these hunger revolts indi­cates the existence of a class frontier separat­ing the proletarian political organizations from those of the bourgeoisie. While the latter can­not deny that increasing poverty is at the basis of these actions, they can never admit that the capitalist system as a whole is the cause (and not just a particular government's "bad eco­nomic policy" or "the IMF's measures against the poor countries"), since this would call their own existence into question.

However, this common viewpoint within the proletarian political movement remains extremely general. Major disagreements remain as to the analysis of the crisis (its origins: tendency to­wards a falling rate of profit or saturation of the market; its nature: cyclical or permanent ...), and these are growing deeper. . The ICC is alone in pointing out the importance of the fact that the crisis has already lasted for 20 years without any solution: the course towards class confrontations means that the bourgeoisie has been unable to deal the proletariat a defeat such that it could draw the class into a world war; however, nor has the proletariat yet been able to impose its own historic alternative: the communist revolution. This historic deadlock between the classes has meant that the crisis has gone on getting deeper. However, society has not remained stable; it has entered what we have described as "the phase of capitalism's de­composition" (see "Decomposition, final phase of the decadence of capitalism", in International Review no 62). For the ICC, it is clear that capitalism can lead to the destruction of human­ity, not only through a nuclear war between the great imperialist powers (a danger which has faded temporarily with the Russian bloc's col­lapse into chaos), but also through an ever more uncontrollable proliferation of aspects of this decomposition: famines, epidemics, drug ad­diction, nuclear disasters... The other revolu­tionary organizations would do better to analyze the implications of all these, at first sight un­related, events, and the consequent tendencies within capitalist society, than simply to content themselves with accusing the ICC of "catastrophism".

We have said, as far as the under-developed countries are concerned, that the capitalist crisis creates the misery which is at the heart of the massive food riots. However, as a product of capitalism's decomposition it has also acquired a different content.

The under-developed countries are less resis­tant to the blows of the crisis, and one after another they have been thrown into the most complete and irreversible ruin. During the 1980s, the debts contracted during the previous decade fell due. It proved impossible to pay them, and the flow of capital into these coun­tries dried up, provoking the recession of 1980- 82, which only the most industrialized countries were able to overcome. The under-developed countries never recovered. During the 1980s, the rate of growth for their production was practically zero. Their industrial weakness made them incapable of competing on the world market, and their internal markets were occu­pied by products from the developed countries, and this has led them to bankruptcy. Their main source of revenue (raw materials: ores, oil, agricultural products) has also collapsed follow­ing the fall in prices due to the saturation of the world market. They have now entered a phase of decapitalization and de-industrialization: fields are left fallow, or turned over to producing the raw materials of the drug trade instead of food; unprofitable mines are closed; oil reserves are left untouched, because capital can be more profitably invested in stock ex­change speculation or in the richer countries' banks, or else has to be used to pay interest on the debt.

In these countries, capital and the "local" bourgeoisie - with the support of the great powers - hang on thanks to a ferocious ex­ploitation of the working class: real wages have been reduced by half during the last ten years, largely by the vicious circle of inflation and austerity "plans", and there is nothing to stop this free-fall into decline. At the same time, the growth in unemployment has created a histori­cally unprecedented situation, which must be carefully analyzed.

As capitalist production stagnates, or falls, millions of workers have been expelled from in­dustry. To them are added millions of young­sters who come to working age, without capital being able to integrate them into productive labor, and millions of ruined peasants emigrat­ing constantly into the cities. According to the bourgeoisie's very inadequate figures, 50% of the working population in these countries is un­employed, while in some places the proportion reaches 70% or even 80%. While it is true that the expulsion of the peasants from their land, the existence of an industrial reserve army, and mass unemployment are all inherent to capitalism in periods of crisis, today they have reached such proportions that they have acquired a new content which demonstrates capitalism's ten­dency towards complete disintegration.

How have these masses been able to survive up to now? Thanks to what is known as the "black economy". This "black economy" is made up of a dense network of relations, headed by powerful capitalist " dealers" (dealers in any­thing, from drugs to household goods), who compete effectively with the "official economy", to the point where in some countries their profits are equal or even superior to those of the latter. They provide "jobs" to the millions of unemployed, essentially as street hawkers.

The masses of so-called "under-employed" - in reality unemployed - are the central element of the hunger riots. Marginalized by capitalism, they are close to the proletariat in that they have only their labor to sell and in this sense potentially constitute an anti-capitalist force; however, in analyzing their nature, we cannot simply assimilate them to the working class as a whole, as different groups in the revolutionary movement have done. Their reflection and their struggle as part of the working class are severely hindered by their exclusion from the process of productive labor. We should note that throughout the last 20 years, we have not seen real movements against redundancies, with corresponding means of struggle and organization. This expresses both the loss of the working class' traditions, as a result of the tri­umphant counter-revolution between the 1920's and the end of the 1960's, and the growing in­fluence of the ideology characteristic of decom­posing capitalism: the ideology of "every man for himself". But as we have just said, the numbers of unemployed are swelled by ruined peasants abandoning the countryside, who, retain their individual, small-holder's viewpoint, and by the constant influx of youngsters who have never been able to work. Even if these latter remain in relation with the working class, since many are the children of workers and live in the same districts, this mass cannot escape the influence of the lumpenproletariat, since it pro­vides also the drug dealers, the petty criminals, the police informers, the hired thugs ...

Thus, while we understand that these riots are caused by the capitalist crisis, and that they are the only response possible for a des­perate and starving mass, we must not forget that they are bereft of any class perspective, nor ignore the very real danger that the work­ing class could be drowned in this marginalized mass if it does not succeed in affirming its own class terrain.

The working class and hunger riots

A new disagreement is emerging between the ICC and other groups in the proletarian political movement, as they take position on the recent hunger riots. For them:

"The proletarian nature of these events" re­futes "those who see in the riots against hunger and poverty a sort of diversion from the class struggle" (Le Proletaire, no 403).

"It is affirmed - without being demonstrated ­that this kind of riot does not spring directly from the class struggle, they are presented as a process of social decomposition (and not also as a struggle against this process), as a revolt without any class profile which accentuates the "lumpenization of society" (Emancipacion Obrera, "Report on the social explosion in Argentina").

"To say, as some do, that these movements only illustrate society's state of decomposition as a generic aspect of the decadence of imperi­alist capitalism, is completely useless chatter which only serves to hide their own political blindness and absence of Marxist method ... but the principal and most important significance of these struggles is that within them is expressed a strong material movement of our class against the effects of the crisis. And it is the class' material movement that Marxists consider to be the indispensable condition for the development of the subjective, political movement" (Battaglia Comunista).

Contrary to the ICC then, for these groups the mass looting of shops is proletarian in na­ture, these riots are an integral part of the proletariat's class struggle. This means that we will have to re-examine what we mean by "class struggle".

It certainly goes without saying that a pre­condition of the proletarian struggle is ... that proletarians take part in it. Nor, indeed, do we deny that workers take part in these riots. Quite the contrary, we have pointed this out constantly, but insisting at the same time that this represents a danger for the class. And while it is true that for a struggle to be prole­tarian in nature workers must take part in it, it does not follow that any struggle involving workers is necessarily proletarian. For example, the ethnic or nationalist movements which draw in masses of workers, whose position may also be desperate, are bourgeois in nature.

Workers do indeed take part in these strug­gles, but not regrouped as a class, rather as individuals dissolved in the hungry underem­ployed masses that we have described above.

Other groups, such as the PCI or the CWO, simply make no distinction here, and see in these revolts nothing other than the proletariat in action. Though we should note that Battaglia Comunista seems to have no iced a difference, since they ask us: "Is this wretched and marginalized mass [elsewhere they speak of "semi-proletarians"] on the side of the prole­tariat or of the bourgeoisie" which already im­plies that this marginalized mass cannot be ex­actly identified with the proletariat). "Is its struggle's potential in favor of the proletarian revolution or of the preservation of the bour­geoisie?". BC answers this question straight away, but obliquely: "It is with the poor and marginalized masses that the proletariat of the peripheral countries will be able to conquer during its decisive assault of the capitalist State".

Quite so. The proletariat can and must con­duct its revolutionary struggle with the marginalized masses. But it is not enough to say "with the marginalized masses". The prole­tariat must guide these masses, draw them into its struggle, work to make them adopt its class viewpoint and historical perspective; not the re­verse, which is what happens when the prole­tariat allows itself to be drawn into the desper­ate response of the marginalized masses.

Another quotation: "But above all, these masses' struggle is, in the final analysis, a re­volt against the capitalist order and not against the proletariat and its immediate and historic demands" (Prometeo, no 13).

We too have said that these revolts are "against the capitalist order": "Abruptly woken from its dreams by an explosion of unimagined violence, the bourgeoisie has witnessed the dra­matic collapse of its "social peace"" (ICC section in Venezuela, Communiqué on the revolt).

But here again, we should pay attention to terms. For while the working class struggle necessarily breaks bourgeois order, the reverse is not true: not all destabilization of the bour­geois order in itself implies an anti-capitalist proletarian struggle. Emanncipacion Obrera expresses the same confusion as BC, but more crudely, when it refers to the "recuperable tri­umph" of the revolt in Argentina: "And it was not just any struggle, but a struggle which broke not only the trade union and democratic political control, but also the legal framework" (Report on the social explosion in Argentina).

EO here is harking back to the leftism for which "illegality" is synonymous with "revolutionary". Terrorist actions, lumpenpro­letarian attacks, are also "illegal", yet nobody would consider them as part of the proletarian struggle. Do we mean by this that the riots are the work of lumpens, or of terrorists? No. But it is clear that both these social tumors, lumpens and "guerrilleros", are like fish in wa­ter in these riots; this is their milieu ("expropriations", "executions", "armed actions" ... ), which is why they encourage it so ardently - and the proletariat should be warned of this danger also.

Our meaning is simply this: it is true that any workers' struggle necessarily breaks bourgeois legality, since any strike or resistance confronts capital's juridical-political apparatus, and must overcome it if it is to succeed in spreading; by contrast, not every "illegal" action is in itself a struggle of the working class.

If the participation of workers and the fact of breaking the bourgeois order are insufficient in themselves, what is it then that allows us to define an action as being part of the working class' struggle? The immediate demands, and the historic objectives which are inseparable from them. In other words, the struggle's ori­entation, its perspective. What we call: "the class terrain".

Let us consider the positions of the different groups on this subject. As far as we know, only EO has gone so far as to state that the hunger riots obtain satisfaction for immediate demands, which - with the break from legality ­is supposed to be the second element of the " recuperable triumph" of the revolt in Argentina.

"To begin with, faced with a concrete situation of hunger and very low wages, the movement of struggle [EO refers here to the revolt] has in­volved a real improvement in the "wage" of those taking part [sic]. Apart from anything else, they have shown themselves that it is pos­sible to do something [?], that it is possible to struggle and that this struggle can bear fruit" (op. cit.).

This frivolous statement, which tends to iden­tify the struggle for wages with looting, is quite simply disproved later in the same text, when it describes how the police, during the savage repression of the revolt, swept through the poor districts confiscating everything they could lay their hands on. But for the working class, the greatest danger is precisely that it should abandon its movement of strikes and street demonstrations on its own class terrain, for its own demands, and in the revolutionary perspective, and begin to think that looting is the only solution to the misery of its present condition. And EO is pushing in this direction when it says that the revolt "bore fruit". Other groups have not gone this far, but both BC and the PCI have welcomed EO's document without criticizing this position, since they were above all concerned to use it to attack the ICC.

Let us see what some groups have to say as to the perspective contained within the riots.

CWO: "For revolutionaries the problem is posed in these terms: how can the Venezuelan working class transform this combative but desperate re­sistance into something which will not finish in brutal repression" (Workers' voice no 46, April/May 1989).

PCI: "There is no doubt in this situation that the proletariat will continue to be at the fore­front of the social scene, and what we can hope is that the spontaneity of the revolts in the community will be replaced by a more organized struggle, outside the control of the reformist apparatus, unifying the action of the proletariat and protecting it more effectively against the blows of repression" (Le Proletarire, no 406).

EO: "Its limit lies in the absence of revolu­tionary perspective, the lack of objectives even in the medium-term, and obviously the absence of any revolutionary proletarian organization, which leaves the movement completely vulnera­ble".

Nobody in the proletarian political movement has denied this last, very frank, statement by EO as to the absence of any revolutionary per­spective. The groups simply avoid the problem. Let us pose the question then: if these revolts are part of the proletarian class struggle, why should revolutionaries fight for the struggles to become "something else" (CWO), or for them to "be replaced by a more organized struggle" (PCI), rather than, for example, struggling for the riots to organize themselves, spread, and rise to a higher level?

The answer seems obvious: because if these hunger riots follow their own dynamic, they can only lead to a dead-end. As a desperate, disorganized reaction, incapable of confronting the forces of repression seriously, they can only lead to the masses being crushed by the re­pression, and to finding themselves in a still worse situation than before at every level: ma­terial, organizational, of consciousness.

This is precisely what we have emphasized.

This is why we have warned the working class against any tendency to let itself be drawn into these riots, calling on it to stand on the terrain of its own struggle, instead of irresponsibly urging the class - explicitly or implicitly - to plunge into this kind of action, with great salutes to "the struggles of the working class".

However, BC even suggests that these hunger riots may have a perspective:

" ... apart from the question of their number, there exists a qualitative difference between the struggles which have always existed in the pe­ripheral countries and the riots of recent years ... we cannot but note the difference between an ordinary, economic strike [?] and a revolt, ac­companied by confrontations in the street, as a response to an extraordinary and generalized attack ...

"The intensity of the confrontation determines not only the intensity of the bourgeois repres­sion which follows, but also within certain limits, its policy ...

"While social peace would make it possible to accept without conditions the IMF's diktats, or more generally the situation of crisis at an in­ternational level, the break in social peace op­poses it with limits, or at least serious obstacles ... If the change in attitude ... on the part of governments in the peripheral countries has any influence on the amount of surplus value which is drained from the periphery towards the cen­tre, it would determine a deterioration of the conditions which have made it possible to man­age the crisis and maintain social peace in the metropoles... We want to emphasize that we are speaking here of a possibility... since it is not at all certain that this will happen ... "

BC does not recognize the continuity that links the workers' strikes of recent years in the same movement. In another part of the same text, it sees in the strikes in Europe nothing but "episodes" of no consequence, "ordinary everyday struggles which have not disturbed the social peace in the least". For BC, the international waves of strikes during the last 20 years are nothing but a figment of the ICC's imagination. But this is nothing new; we are accustomed to BC not seeing workers' struggles when they are there, and seeing them when they are not.

What is new is that BC, starting from the idea that the hunger revolts are "qualitatively dif­ferent" from workers' strikes, and sees the for­mer as stronger and more important, not be­cause the immediate "fruits" that excite EO, but because of the grandiose perspectives they open up. For according to BC, looting shops:

- sets limits, creates obstacles for the eco­nomic policy of the governments of the periph­ery;

- can make governments change their opinion as to the application of the "plans" dictated by the IMF;

- can, as a result, weaken the fragile eco­nomic stability of the metropoles

- and could as a result break the social peace within the latter.

To sum up, according to BC looting shops will cause world capitalism to cave in. We can an­swer this affirmation, which is frivolous to say the least, simply by pointing out that none of these revolts has "limited" the application of capital's plans, or even "created obstacles to them" - unless we are to believe naively in the crocodile tears of bankers and governments. The only thing which has changed is the greater brutality with which these plans are applied. The rest of BC's speculations become completely meaningless.

It is true that the economies of the central countries are moving towards an open recession, but this has nothing to do with the riots which have supposedly prevented the "management of the crisis". On the contrary, it is because the "management of the crisis" has already given everything it could, because the plans have al­ready been applied, that the open recession is once again striking capitalism in the central countries.

BC also speaks of "violent riots with con­frontations in the street", giving the impression that these combats were between comparable forces. Here, we prefer to let the CWO speak, which although, with BC, a member of the IBRP, nonetheless has a very different opinion of the "confrontations in the street":

"... in the streets of Caracas and other towns, in particular in the poorest districts, there has been armed resistance to the forces of the State. But where did this resistance come from? Was it a right-wing provocation ... ? Was it a reawakening of the urban guerrilla ... ? Or were the inhabitants of these zones trying desper­ately to avenge the victims of terror? What is certain is that this was not the armed expres­sion of a new proletarian movement. Proletarian movements have no need to sacrifice the work­ers they defend or to make them act outside a mass movement politically prepared to carry the struggle forward".

What is true is that the revolt "is not an ex­pression of the proletarian movement" right from the start, and not just in its phase of "resistance".

After all this, where are we? What of the hunger riots? In fact, these are desperate ac­tions in which workers, insofar as they take part, do not act as a class; actions whose only immediate result is capital's ferocious repression, and which contain no revolutionary per­spective. They are actions which should "become something else".

However, the groups that we have mentioned of the proletarian political milieu continue to salute these hunger riots as "struggles of the working class" since for them the lack of per­spectives in such actions can only have one ex­planation: they are not led by the party.

"If only the Party existed ..."

PCI: "These spontaneous actions, while they re­veal the class weakness ... and the absence of the revolutionary organization ... nonetheless al­low us to perceive a gleam of hope, since they bear witness that the class is not prepared to do nothing while its children die of hunger. The task of revolutionaries is to form and de­velop the revolutionary organization, the class party capable of gathering this will to struggle, and directing this revolutionary energy against class objectives" (Le Proletaire, no 403).

EO: "Its limit lies in the absence of a revolu­tionary perspective ... and of course the ab­sence of a proletarian revolutionary organization, which leaves the movement completely vul­nerable" (opcit.).

BC: "Were there, in this revolt, more semi­-proletarians or sub-proletarians than factory workers? The question makes us laugh ... If the proletariat was not yet sufficiently present in the movement, then this is a limitation of the proletariat and its (still virtually non-existent) political organization, and not of the revolt it­self."

So by following the "Bordigist" path, which makes the party the god of the revolutionary movement, these groups think they have re­solved any doubts as to the nature of these re­volts. But this position, which wants to look so "tough", in reality, hides their inability to offer the proletariat any kind of orientation in the revolts.

Let us remind the reader here that the ICC considers the party to be a vital organ of the proletarian struggle, which gives it an orienta­tion in its revolutionary combat. But the prob­lem here is not to know what will happen to these riots one day when the party exists, but what should be the attitude of revolutionaries today, when existing conditions cause these re­volts to proliferate. If hunger riots are prole­tarian struggles of equal or even greater im­portance than "ordinary" strikes, then revolu­tionary groups should behave in consequence.

For example, with a strike, revolutionaries draw lessons from it and make them known to the rest of the class, so that the next strikes are stronger and confront the state apparatus in more favorable conditions. When a strike breaks out, revolutionaries gather their strength and intervene actively in it, calling for its extension, asking other sectors to join the combat, denouncing the maneuvers of the trade unions and other enemies, they put forward proposals for action and organization; in short they carry out a labor of agitation and propa­ganda with a view to spreading revolutionary consciousness among the workers ...

What should be the attitude of revolutionaries towards this other form of "class struggle": the hunger riot? Should they encourage them? Should they take part? Should they call work­ers to take part in the looting? Should their propaganda explain that these revolts make it possible to win "gains" and that they destabilize the capitalist system?

What we have to say seems to make some com­rades laugh. It should not. All these groups do nothing but go round in circles about a very serious problem: they call "class struggle" ac­tions in which they are not prepared to commit themselves. All they can do is spout formulas of this variety:

"We hope that these revolts will be replaced by a more organized struggle" (PCI);

"Proletarian movements do not need to sacri­fice the workers they defend" (CWO);

"It is obvious that a similar movement will not be repeated in the months to come, for the bourgeoisie would provoke a terrifying bloodbath and a very serious defeat, which is not the case today. And all those that have taken part know this" (EO);

"We want to emphasize that we are speaking here [as regards speculations about future ri­ots] of a possibility... since it is not at all certain that this will happen ..." (BC).

This is the attitude of these groups faced with the hunger riots:

- they welcome them loudly as important milestones of class struggle... but are incapable of offering the slightest alternative concrete proposals for action. They leave this task ... to the future party;

- they admit, unwillingly, that the destiny of these riots can be nothing other than to smash into the wall of repression; that they bear in themselves no revolutionary proletarian per­spective, and that the energy wasted in these combats should be used differently, in other kinds of action, in a real class struggle;

- however, this does not prevent them from continuing to "criticize" the ICC, because this is the only organization which has openly de­nounced the danger these riots constitute for the proletariat, and which distinguishes clearly this kind of action from the terrain of the working class.

These groups' attitude can be summed up in two sentences:

- inability to understand the accelerating upheavals in capitalism's life that we are living through;

- irresponsibility in fulfilling the function for which the class they belong to created them.

Leonardo

This resolution was adopted before the 'Gulf Crisis' which began on 2 August. It deals with the general perspectives for the international situation, with its main aspects, and as such remains perfectly valid today. In particular, the events which took place in the Middle East are an immediate illustration that "the future that capitalism offers us is thus not only one of insoluble crisis, of ever more devastating economic effects (famine in the backward countries, absolute pauperization in the advanced ones, generalized poverty for the whole working class), but also increasingly brutal military confrontations wherever the proletariat hasn't the strength to prevent them, and finally a growing chaos, the bourgeoisie's loss of control over the whole of society, and ever more unrestrained barbarism ... "

The world situation is dominated today, and will be for some time to come, by one major histori­cal event: the brutal and definitive collapse of the Eastern imperialist bloc. This is because this collapse:

- illustrates the depth, gravity, and insoluble nature of the crisis of the capitalist economy;

- confirms decadent capitalism's entry, dur­ing the 1990s, into a new and final phase of its existence: the general decomposition of society;

- has created a general destabilization of the entire world geopolitical organization set up at the end of World War II;

- has a major impact on the consciousness and the struggle of the proletariat, in that the Eastern bloc has been presented since its cre­ation, and by every fraction of the bourgeoisie, as the "socialist bloc", and the heir to the pro­letarian revolution of October 1917.

1) The fundamental causes of the Eastern bloc's collapse are to be found in:

- the congenital economic weakness and backwardness of its dominant power, the USSR, as a result of the latter's late arrival in capi­talism's historical development, and which con­sequently prevented it from becoming a viable bloc leader (the USSR's accession to a position it could not maintain was due to the particular political and military conditions prevailing at the end of World War II);

- the complete economic collapse of the countries making up the bloc, and in the first place of course, of the USSR itself.

This collapse is the result of the inability of the form of state capitalism existing in these countries (which was set up in the USSR on the ruins of the proletarian revolution, fallen victim to its international isolation) to confront the in­exorable aggravation of the world capitalist cri­sis.

Although this form of' state capitalism was able to emerge victorious from a generalized imperi­alist war, it has proved unadapted to confront a situation of extreme competition on the world market, provoked by the crisis of over-produc­tion, because:

- of the major handicap for the competitivity of each national economy, represented by the war economy which reached its most caricatural expressions in the USSR;

- and, above all, because of the total lack of responsibility in all those involved in production (from the factory director to the factory hand and the kolkhoz agricultural, worker) as a result of the economy's complete centralization, the fu­sion, under the aegis of the Party-State, of the political and productive apparatus, and the elimination of any market sanction for economic failure.

The spectacular economic collapse of the whole so-called "socialist" economy represents the law of value's revenge, under the blows of the world crisis, on this particular form of the cap­italist economy, which had tried for years to cheat it on a grand scale.

2) In this sense, the disappearance of the Stalinist type economy, and the frantic reintro­duction of market mechanisms in the Eastern countries, opens no real perspective for a re­covery of the world economy, which has itself only stayed afloat during the last two decades by cheating the same law of value. With one or two exceptions and specific situations (such as East Germany), the Eastern countries as a whole, and the USSR in particular, will not be able to provide the industrialized countries with a new market. Their needs are enormous, but they have no means of payment, and today's historic conditions forbid the creation of any kind of new "Marshall Plan". The latter was able to raise the West European economy from its ruins because it came during a period of post-war reconstruction. Today, by contrast, any development in the East of a competitive industry would inevitably be confronted with the general saturation of the world market.

As was already the case during the 1970s with the "Third World" countries, Western credits aimed at financing such a development in the Eastern countries could only result in a further swelling their debt, consequently increasing still further the weight of debt on the whole of the world economy.

3) In fact, today we are witnessing the burst­ing of the bubble which promised the "end of the crisis" thanks to "liberalism" and "Reaganomics", which had their hour of glory during the 1980s. The supposed "successes" of the Western economies were in reality based on a headlong flight essentially into a colossal level of debt, in particular by the world's greatest economic power: the United States. This coun­try, thanks to enormous trade and budget deficits, and a frenzied arms race, has made it possible to stave off for a few more years the deadline of a new open recession. This latter is the bourgeoisie's great fear; this is what most clearly highlights the complete bankruptcy of the capitalist mode of production. But this "Western" way of cheating with the law of value could only exacerbate still further the funda­mental contradictions of the world economy. Today, the entry of the United States, and of Great Britain, into a new open recession is an illustration of that reality.

As on previous occasions, this new recession of the world economy can only bring the other Western economies down with it.

4) The coming closure of the US market will rebound (as it is already doing on countries like Japan) on the whole world market, leading to a fall in production in the West European economies (even if in the short term German production may be sustained by the process of unification). Moreover, the attenuation of the effects of the world crisis by the policy of state capitalism at the level of the Western bloc will play less and less of a role as the latter disin­tegrates as an inevitable result of the disap­pearance of its Eastern adversary.

More than ever, then, the perspective for the world economy is one of worsening collapse. For a time, the central capitalist countries have been able to push the most brutal effects of a crisis whose origins lie at the centre, onto the countries of the periphery. Increasingly, the most extreme forms of the crisis will boomerang back, with full force, on the central countries. Although they have more resources to limit the damage, the Western capitalist metropoles will now follow the Third World and the Eastern bloc on the black list of economic disaster.

5) The aggravation of the capitalist economy's worldwide crisis will necessarily provoke a new exacerbation of the bourgeoisie's own internal contradictions. As in the past, these contradic­tions will appear on the level of military antag­onisms: in decadent capitalism, trade war cannot but lead to armed conflict. In this sense, the pacifist illusions which may develop following the "warming" of relations between the USSR and the USA must be resolutely combated: mili­tary confrontations between states are not going to disappear, even though they may no longer be used and manipulated by the great powers. On the contrary, as we have seen in the past, militarism and war are decadent capitalism's way of life, and the deepening of the crisis can only confirm this.

By contrast with the previous period, how­ever, these military conflicts no longer take the form of a confrontation between the two great imperialist blocs:

- on the one hand, the Eastern bloc has ceased to exist, as we can see from the fact that its dominant power is already reduced to fighting for its very existence; for the USSR, the perspective is one of the Union's reduction to Russia alone, which will no longer be any­thing but a second-rate power, a good deal weaker than the major West European powers;

- on the other, with the disappearance of the Russian bloc's military threat, the Western bloc has itself lost its main reason for existing and has entered a process of disintegration which can only increase, since as marxism has long demonstrated, there can never exist a world ­dominating "super-imperialism".

6) This is also why the disappearance of the two imperialist constellations which have divided the world between them for more than 40 years, brings with it the tendency to the reconstitu­tion of two new blocs: one dominated by the United States, the other by a new leader. Due to its geographical position and its economic power, Germany is well placed to play this role. However, such a perspective is not on the agenda today, since:

- Germany is still relatively weak militarily (it does not even possess nuclear weapons), and this weakness cannot be surmounted overnight;

- the organizational structures of the Western bloc (OECD, NATO, EEC, etc) still exist formally; above all, the great economic power of the USA tends to limit its "allies" room for maneuver, and it will do everything it can to hold back Germany's military reinforcement);

- the phenomenon of decomposition affecting the whole of society constitutes a major hin­drance; the chaos it provokes within the ruling class limits the latter's ability to enforce the discipline necessary to the formation of new im­perialist blocs.

7) In fact, although the structures inherited from the old organization of the Western bloc have already lost their primary function, they are today being used to limit the growing ten­dency to disorganization, to the "every man for himself" spirit developing within the bour­geoisie. In particular, the political chaos which has already gripped the USSR (in particular in the form of the proliferation of nationalist de­mands), and which can only increase, holds a real threat of contamination for Eastern and Central Europe. This is one of the main reasons for all the fractions of the Western bourgeoisie's unanimous support for Gorbachev. This is also why West Germany, whose perilous absorption of the GDR has put it in the front line of this threat of chaos from the East, has for the mo­ment become a "faithful" ally within NATO.

However, the very fact that a country like Germany, which has been a "model" of economic and political stability should now be seriously shaken by the tempest from the East says much about the general threat of destabilization hanging over the whole European and world bourgeoisie. The future that capitalism offers us is thus not only one of insoluble crisis, of its ever more devastating economic effects (famine in the backward countries, absolute pauperization in the advanced ones, generalized poverty for the whole working class), but also of increasingly brutal military confrontations wherever the proletariat has not got the strength to prevent them, and finally a growing chaos, the bourgeoisie's loss of control over the whole of society, and ever more extreme and unrestrained barbarism whose conclusion, like a world war, can only be the destruction of humanity.

8) For the moment, the growing chaos within the ruling class, and the weakening that this represents for it, is not in itself a favorable condition for the proletariat's struggle and the development of its consciousness. History has already shown on a number of occasions that the bourgeoisie is perfectly capable of over­coming its internal contradictions when faced with a threat from the working class, to put up a formidable united front against it. More gen­erally, in overthrowing the bourgeoisie, the proletariat can count only on its own strength, not on the latter's weakness.

Furthermore, the 1980s, which marked deca­dent capitalism's entry into its final phase of decomposition, have revealed the ruling class' ability to turn the various aspects of this de­composition against the proletariat:

- inter-classist campaigns on ecological, hu­manitarian, or anti-fascist themes against threats to the environment, famine, or massacres and signs of xenophobia;

- the use of despair, of nihilism, of the "every man for himself" attitude, to attack the class' confidence in the future, and to under­mine its solidarity and to catch it in the traps of sectoralism.

9) This negative weight of decomposition on the working class has appeared especially on the question of unemployment. Although this can act as a factor in the awareness of the histori­cal dead-end of the capitalist mode of produc­tion; during the 1980s it has instead helped to encourage despair, the "each for himself" atti­tude, and even lumpenisation amongst not-in­significant sectors of the working class, espe­cially among young workers who have never had the opportunity to be integrated into a collec­tivity of work and struggle.

More concretely, whereas in the 1930s, under far more unfavourable historical circumstances (because they were dominated by the counter­revolution), the unemployed were able to organ­ise and even to conduct, large-scale struggles, this has not been the case at all in recent years. In fact, it has proved that only massive struggles by employed workers can draw the unemployed sectors of the working class into the struggle.

10) The bourgeoisie's ability to turn the col­lapse of its own society against the working class has been particularly illustrated by the collapse of Stalinism and the Eastern bloc. Between the 1920s and 60s, Stalinism was the spearhead of the terrible counter-revolution that descended on the working class. Its his­torical crisis and disappearance, far from clear­ing the political ground for the class' combat and for the development of its consciousness, has on the contrary provoked a marked retreat in this consciousness. The fact that the "socialist" bloc perished from its own internal contradictions (exacerbated by the world economic crisis and the development of decomposi­tion), rather than at the hand of the proletariat, has made it possible for the bourgeoisie to in­crease the weight of reformist, unionist, and democratic illusions, making it more difficult for the proletariat to draw out the perspectives for its combat. The retreat of the working class is on the same level as the event which caused it: the worst it has undergone since the historic recovery of the struggle at the end of the 1960s; in particular, it is a good deal worse than the retreat that followed the defeat of 1981 in Poland.

11) Nonetheless, the undoubted depth of the present reflux in proletarian consciousness does not in the least call into question the historic course towards class confrontations, as it has developed over the last twenty years. The ex­tent of this reflux is limited by the fact:

- that contrary to the 1930s and the post­war period, it is not the proletariat of the cen­tral capitalist countries which is in the front line of these democratic campaigns; the bour­geoisie is using the "wind from the East", origi­nating in regions where the secondary sectors of the world proletariat live;

- this "wind from the East" has itself largely lost its impetus with the first results of the policies of "market liberalization", much vaunted as a cure for the ills of the Stalinist type econ­omy; the irredeemable aggravation of the eco­nomic situation, the loss of even the bare mini­mum of security in employment and of consump­tion, cannot but undermine the illusions in both East and West as to the "benefits" of "liberal" capitalism as applied to the East;

- despite its disarray, the proletariat has not suffered a direct defeat, nor the crushing of its struggle; its combativity has thus not really been affected;

- this combativity is bound to be stimulated by the increasingly ferocious attacks that the bourgeoisie will be forced to unleash; this will allow the proletariat to regroup on its own ter­rain, outside all the inter-classist campaigns.

More fundamentally, the spectacle of the growing bankruptcy of the capitalist economy in all its forms, and especially those that dominate the advanced countries, will be a vital factor in laying bare all the lies about "capitalism's vic­tory over socialism", which are at the heart of the ideological campaign that the bourgeoisie has unleashed on the proletariat.

12) The working class still has a long and dif­ficult road before it to its emancipation. It is all the more difficult in that, unlike the 1970s, time is no longer on its side given the increas­ing and irreversible plunge into decomposition of the whole of society. Nonetheless, the work­ing class has in its favor the fact that its struggle is the only perspective for a way out of barbarism, the only hope for humanity's sur­vival. As the crisis deepens inescapably, and as its struggles inevitably develop, the way is open for the proletariat to become aware of its historic task. The role of revolutionaries is to participate fully in today's class struggle, in order to lay the foundations for it to emerge as well armed as possible from the present difficult situation, and to set forward, tts revolutionary perspective with confidence.

1991 begins under the threat of an appallingly bloody war, involving a massive intervention by the army of the world's greatest capitalist power, the United States, alongside a plunge into open recession for the whole world economy, huge attacks against the working class in the developed countries and an ever more dreadful misery not only in the "Third World" but also in the countries of the one-time "Eastern bloc", with the USSR, ravaged by famine, in the forefront.

The world is not beginning a "new international order", but is already in the final phase of the capitalist mode of production's decadence: decomposition[1]; At the heart of this turmoil of war of all against all, the United States is determined to defend by every means lit its disposal its worldwide domination of the existing "order".

War in the Gulf: Towards the massacre

As we write, James Baker, the second personal­ity of the US state, has just completed a tour of meetings with heads of state in Saudi Arabia, Syria, the USSR, and France, during which he reminded his audience of the USA's determina­tion against Iraq in the "Gulf crisis". Bush has returned from Czechoslovakia, where he repeated his call to follow behind the US in its military crusade. The American army is coducting large scale maneuvers. The number of troops is to be raised to 400,000. Hundreds of thousands of press-ganged Iraqis are ate front. The Israeli army is on war alert, and all the region's armies, police, and militia are in turmoil. The Middle East is on the verge of a new and unprecedentedly violent bloodbath.

Contrary to the propaganda on the end of the "Cold War", which was to mark the beginning of a new "world order" of peace, war has "heated up" at every level, and it is the chaos of the international situation, the decomposition of the capitalist system, that are accelerating.

"Disarmament"? A race for still more effective weapons, better adapted to "modern" warfare, while old, useless weapons are sent to scrap; the principal countries involved in the "conferences" and "agreements" are more and more directly involved in military conflicts, with the USA at their head.

"Peace"? The proliferation of conflicts, the direct involvement of the American army, the dispatch of troops and equipment to the battle­field by several countries, including the most developed, in quantities unheard of for decades, with an unprecedented recession of the whole world economy as backdrop[2].

The "international community"? The resistance and opposition is sharpening between the United States and their erstwhile "allies" of a "Western bloc" henceforth consigned to the dustbin of history.

The resistance of the developed countries

The dislocation of the anti-Iraq coalition: toward "every man for himself"

Hardly two months after the US managed, in August 1990, to create a facade of unity within the "international community" against the "madman Hussein" by unleashing the "Gulf cri­sis", every member of the same "community" is now out for its own interests.

Saddam Hussein's liberation of all the French hostages, without any apparent negotiation, has shown the real worth of the USA's "allies'" solemn promise a few days previously not to negotiate separately with Iraq. Apparently, Claude Cheysson (previously French Minister of Foreign Affairs) has held discussions with his Iraqi opposite number during his recent voyage to Amman. A whole galaxy of top personalities has been to Baghdad to negotiate the liberation of hostages officially, and certainly other things more discreetly: Willy Brandt, ex-Chancellor of West Germany and both Nobel peace prize win­ner and President of the "Socialist International"; Nakasone, ex-Prime Minister of Japan, Gorbachev's adviser Primakov, the Chinese Foreign Affairs minister, and the ex­-PM's of more secondary countries such as Denmark and New Zealand, parliamentary delega­tions from Italy and Ireland, etc.

All this coming and going is not the result of individual initiatives. Willy Brandt's visit was certainly approved by the German government; the Chinese minister's visit is obviously official; Cheysson made no denials when he gave the game away as to his own mission.

We have come a long way since the general condemnation that greeted this summer's voyage by Kurt Waldheim. Nor is this a division of labor designed to trap Iraq, with the Americans playing the "tough guys" and the rest the conciliators. The British and American reactions show this clearly enough. The brutal refusal to negotiate with Iraq, the outraged criticisms by Bush, Thatcher, and Baker, prove the extent of the disagreements that are spreading within the "ONU" coalition.

Clearly, Hussein's "special treatment" of cer­tain countries (France especially) is not disin­terested. He is obviously aiming to drive a wedge between the different "allies" of the anti­-Iraq coalition. If Saddam has bargained like this with his stock of hostages to obtain the visit of this or that well-known political figure, it is because he was well aware of the splits existing between the various countries. And this policy has encountered a certain success.

When the US demanded from the UN Security Council a resolution authorizing the recourse to armed force, the resistance of France, the USSR, and China, all permanent members of the Security Council, meant that in the end the res­olution called for nothing more than strengthening the embargo!

While the USA is constantly reinforcing its military potential in the Gulf, faithfully aided and abetted by Britain, and as its stance be­comes increasingly threatening and intransigent, France drags its feet, withdraws its troops from the front, reopens the diplomatic option with Mitterrand's UN speech, his meeting with Gorbachev, and Rocard's first declaration since the beginning of the crisis on the need to "explore every possibility of negotiation". Japan and Germany remain silent.

The unity of the "free world" has come to an end. The events of October 1990 were the first real signs of the basic tendency underlying the new conditions created by the disappearance of the Russian imperialist bloc in 1989: the disap­pearance of the Western bloc, the acceleration of decomposition, the struggle of every capitalist state against its rivals, for its own interests, and in the forefront the set-to between the major industrialized countries.

Might makes right

The USA is ready to act without consulting the "allies", the UN, or anybody else. If the American bourgeoisie is ready for war against Iraq, to sacrifice thousands of its "boys and girls", then this is not for Kuwait, nor to defend "international law", but to show off its strength and determination to the other devel­oped countries. The French bourgeoisie, for ex­ample, has been forced out of its traditional zones of influence in the Middle East, first of all from Iraq itself, but also from Beirut since the USA gave Syria t the green light for the an­nexation of Lebanon in an operation every bit as bloody and violent as Hussein's of Kuwait.

Quarrels proliferate in every domain:

- dissolution of the secret network of influ­ence and control set up by the USA following World War II (the Gladio "scandal" which started in Italy, but has since spread to Belgium, France, Holland and Germany);

- US diktat in the GATT negotiations over European subsidies to the farming sector; proliferation of industrial espionage "affairs", against the Japanese in particular, but also against the French.

And all this is chickenfeed compared to the divergence of interests between the great industrialized powers, which will widen, and be­come more and more open, as the economic and trade war doubles in intensity with the brutal acceleration of the crisis.

The opposition between the USA, abetted by Britain, and the rest

The collapse of the Russian imperialist bloc has overthrown the planet's entire politico-military and geo-strategic balance of forces. And this situation has not only opened a period of com­plete chaos in the countries and regions of the ex-Eastern bloc, it has accelerated the tenden­cies towards chaos everywhere, threatening the world capitalist "order" of which the USA was the principal beneficiary. The latter has been the first to react. The US provoked the "Gulf crisis" in August 1990 not only to gain a definitive foothold in the region, but above all, and this was decisive in the decision, to make an example, as a warning to anyone who might want to oppose their status as the capitalist world's mightiest super-power.

For the USA, the situation is clear. Its na­tional interest as the world's greatest power (by far) is absolutely identical with the global interest of capital faced with the dynamic of de­composition which is leading to the break-up of the whole system of international relations. Amongst the great powers, only Britain has show unswerving support for the US, because of the traditional orientation of its foreign pol­icy, of its interests in Kuwait, and above all be­cause its own previous experience as world "leader" has allowed the British ruling class to understand much better what is at stake in the present period.

For the other powers (2), by contrast, the situation is much more contradictory. While all have an interest in slowing the tendency to­wards decomposition, which is behind the unanimous condemnation of the invasion of Kuwait, the reinforcement of the USA nonethe­less goes against their own interests.

The military operation undertaken by the US, which was supposed to bring peace to the Middle East through a war justified in every­one's eyes because it was defending "democracy" and "freedom", has proved to be the beginning of the rout rather than the welding of the great "democratic" powers.

In fact, these different countries are caught in a trap. By playing its part as world police­man right from the start, against a second-rate country, the US aims not only to contain the chaos developing in the Third World, but also that threatening to become endemic among the developed countries. The US proposes to con­tain not just the ambitions of small peripheral states, but also and above all those of the cen­tral states. By contrast, while the latter clearly have an interest in the first US objective - the maintenance of order in the peripheral zones ­they have none in the second.

By flaunting its military might, the US demon­strates the others' relative weakness. Right from the start, the US sent in its troops with­out waiting for its "allies'" agreement; the latter were forced to rally round under pressure rather than out of conviction. As long as the action against Iraq takes the form of an em­bargo or diplomatic isolation, they can pretend to play minor roles, and so insist on their own minor individual interests. By contrast, a mili­tary offensive can only emphasize the enormous superiority of the US, and its allies impotence. This is why the latter are much less interested in a military solution which can only strengthen the US position, and allow it to impose its will still more strongly.

These countries are incapable today, and will remain so for a long time, of rivaling the USA on the political and military level. Japan and Germany are seriously backward in the military domain. French mobilization and armament only exist inasmuch as they are integrated into the American military system, as we can see from the lamentable French effort in Saudi Arabia, which remains utterly dependent on US support. The same is true of Great Britain. The US' main economic rivals are either unarmed, or com­pletely incapable of standing up to the USA. Iraq provided the opportunity, and it is public knowledge today that the US knew in advance about Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, and let it hap­pen, if not more.

The USA: Middle East giant, world giant

The general context in which world capitalism's greatest power is floundering cannot but push it into war, to defend its own hegemony against the collapse of whole sections of the capitalist world, dragging their suffocating local bour­geoisies or regional imperialisms into military adventures that present a danger for the "pax americana" called into question by the new situ­ation. Ever since the end of the Iran-Iraq war, the United States has been determined to pre­vent Iraq from upsetting the "equilibrium" of forces in the region. It is this "equilibrium" on the military level between the different coun­tries that lets the US enforces its control, under the disguise of an "umpire".

As the economy collapses, the USA knows that it must use military force to keep control of the world economy. While the US used the economic weapon against its Russian imperialist rival during the decades since Vietnam, it will in­creasingly have to use its military supremacy to keep its "leadership" of the capitalist system.

Only the solution: the class struggle

There will be no war between USA and USSR, but the "logic of war" under way today shows that imperialism's rampage has not stopped even for a second. Today it is threatening to put the Middle East to fire and sword. And this is only the beginning of a whole series of armed conflicts and military operations, of bloody "ethnic" and national wars.

In the developed countries, the proletariat is not confronted with a general mobilization, as it was at the outbreak of World Wars I and II. It has not been enrolled for war, as is the case for the proletariat in Iraq and other countries. But nonetheless, the war in the Middle East, the total imbalance throughout the region, the enor­mous destruction that would be caused by a war, the bloodbath being plotted today by world capital to maintain a residue of international "order", none of these things are "far away", or foreign to the working class in the industrialized metropoles. This proletariat is not yet paying with its blood in the trenches or under the bombs, but it is in the forefront to pay the bill for the maintenance of capitalist "order", with a redoubled attack on its living conditions.

Reinforced exploitation, inflation and unem­ployment, falling wages, pensions, and benefits, "flexible" working hours, the constant decline in standards of health, transport, housing, educa­tion and security, all add up to economic at­tacks on a scale unprecedented since World War II.

General mobilization under the national flag to fight in the national army is not on the agenda in the developed countries, because the prole­tariat has not suffered a massive and decisive defeat in its economic struggles against auster­ity, in its attempts to extend and control its struggles throughout the 1980's. But the heavy price already paid in the blood of workers en­rolled directly for imperialist massacre, heralds that which threatens the workers in the great industrial concentrations.

For the last twenty years, the working class has been able to hold back the planet's total destruction in an inter-imperialist holocaust, es­pecially during the period of great workers' struggles, internationally, in 1968-75, 1978-81, and 1983-89.

Today, capitalism is rotting where it stands, and the threat of total destruction is there more than ever. The "balance of terror" no longer exists: the "balance" that was formed by the two great super-powers has certainly gone, but the "terror" remains, and will get worse.

The alternative of socialism or barbarism is more than ever on the agenda. Capitalism will not die of its own accord. It will not drag hu­manity down into instant nuclear terror, but its own dynamic means that its continued survival can only mean a bottomless horror; its survival will lead to the same result.

This catastrophic course on which the contin­ued existence of production relations in the world has engaged us can only be stopped by the development of the proletariat' class strug­gle, an awareness of its own strength as a so­cial force, of its own interests distinct from those of other classes, and antagonistic to all the particular interests of all the other classes and strata in society. By defending its own interests, the proletariat is the only force capa­ble of taking charge of the destruction of capi­talism's political power on a world scale, which guarantees the "order" of this agonizing world order.

Only the struggles of the working class inter­nationally, and first and foremost those of the workers in the major industrialized countries, can block the armed power of world capitalism. The dynamic of the capitalist system itself can only lead to war-mongering barbarism. There can be no "peace" under capitalism, still less today than during the preceding twenty years.

JM, 18th November 1990

[1] See "Decomposition, final phase of the decadence of capitalism", in International Review no 62, 3rd quarter 1990.

[2] See the articles "The world economy of the edge of the abyss" and "Militarism and decomposition" in this issue.

The incomprehensions affecting the proletarian milieu are nothing compared to the utter stupidity revealed by the leaflet published on 28 September 1990 on the Gulf crisis by the 'External fraction of the ICC' (EFICC). The title of the leaflet, 'Don't Take Sides in the Gulf War' is itself indicative of the EFICC's councilist leanings. This group hasn't managed to grasp the fact that, in the face of war, the role of revolutionaries isn't to place themselves 'outside of the melee' like the pacifist Romain Rolland during world war one, but to call on the proletariat to defend its own side, its own class interests against all bourgeois camps. This incapacity to see the organization of revolutionaries as an active, integral part of the workers' combat is also shown, in an even crazier manner, in the content of the leaflet itself. Whereas the aim of such a leaflet today ought to be to disseminate the communist position on war as widely as possible within the working class, in particular against all the lies of the bourgeoisie, this document appears mainly as a polemic ... against the ICC. A fine aim!

But the real stupidity of the EFICC comes out when it tries to produce an 'analysis' of the current world situation. This little circle claims that it took up the torch of 'theoretical deepening' which the ICC has allegedly abandoned. And so very 'deeply', the EFICC explains the Gulf war by plunging into ... oil. A wonderful theoretical effort! But this isn't all. What's blindingly obvious to everyone, especially with this war - the disappearance of the former eastern bloc - escapes the profundity of the EFICC:

"Neither does this crisis prove that Moscow is no longer a factor on the inter-imperialist chessboard. The Kremlin, which had thousands of military advisers in Iraq, must have known about the Iraqi plans weeks in advance. The fact that it did nothing to prevent the invasion of Kuwait and that it didn't seek to play a ma­jor role in 'solving' the crisis that followed, does not betray impotence, but rather the fact that the crisis and its prolongation serves Russia's capitalist interests. The increase in oil prices gives its economy a desperately needed shot in the arm (80% of its hard currency earnings come from oil and gas) and make Eastern Europe more dependent on trade relations with Moscow."

Reading these meanderings, you'd think that you sere dreaming.

It's not even necessary to refute them just reproducing them makes the EFICC look completely ridiculous. In fact it's been clear for a long time (since its origins, actually) that the EFICC's only reason for existing is to 'annoy the Martians', in this case, the ICC. Its very name proves it. Thus, as with two-year old children, in order to affirm their personality, the members of the EFICC have to be against everything the ICC has said since they left it. And since nearly a year and a half ago we announced the collapse of the eastern bloc - something that has since become evident - the EFICC has had to maintain the opposite against us and against reality itself, which has shown quite clearly that Gorbachev's policies had nothing to do with (don't laugh!) a Machiavellian plan "aimed at detaching western Europe from the American bloc".

It's true that, before that, the EFICC had blessed us with another analysis (which was thrown in the bin as soon as it had been ex­hibited), according to which 'perestroika' was the USSR's transition "from the formal to the real domination of capital" (a phenomenon which the EFICC discovered 140 years after Marx and 20 years after Canatte, a defrocked Bordigist).

This same stupid rancor against the ICC, this propensity for combining lies and foolery can also be found in JA's article 'Making Sense of Events in eastern Europe' published in International Perspectives no 17. By peremptorily affirming that "the theory of state capitalism is based on the existence of military blocs", JA (and the whole EFICC, which finds nothing objectionable here) prove their ignorance and mental confusions: marxists have never said that state capitalism derives from the formation of blocs. The two phenomena indeed have a common origin: imperialism, and, more generally, capitalist decadence, but this doesn't mean that they have a cause and effect relationship to each other. With JA's logic, from the observation that measles causes both spots and fever, you'd have to conclude that the spots cause the fever.

But JA really gives the game away when she has the ICC saying that "sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll have finally been the death of Western civilization". One wonders how much this is bad faith and how much plain stupidity. Probably the latter most of all, because any reader of our press can recognize the absurdity of such an accusation. Unless it's more a matter of pathology: such behavior can only be seen as the product of delirium brought on by extreme rancor.

Today the EFICC is at a dead-end: either it recognizes that it was wrong all down the line about the 'theoretical degeneration' of the ICC (which would mean recognizing that it never had any reason for existing) or it will go on with its absurdities. What will then happen to it is what has probably happened to the FOR with its obstinate refusal to recognize the existence of the capitali.st crisis: unable to recognize an obvious reality, it will go down to its death. That would anyway be for the best all round: it would be its first intelligent act since its creation.

FM

On several occasions, the organization has been led to insist on the importance of the question of militarism and war in the period of decadence[1], both from the viewpoint of the life of capi­talism itself, and from the proletarian stand­point. With the rapid succession of historically important: events during the last year (collapse of the Eastern bloc, war in the Gulf) which have transformed the whole world situation, with capitalism's entry into its final phase of decom­position[2], it is vital that revolutionaries be absolutely clear on this essential question: militarism's place within the new conditions of today's world.

Marxism is a living theory

1) Contrary to the Bordigist current, the ICC has never considered marxism as an "invariant doctrine", but as living thought enriched by each important historical event. Such events make it possible either to confirm a framework and analyses developed previously, and so to support them, or to highlight the fact that some have become out of date, and that an effort of reflection is required in order to widen the ap­plication of schemas which had previously been valid but which have been overtaken by events, or to work out new ones which are capable of encompassing the new reality.

Revolutionary organizations and militants have the specific and fundamental responsibility of carrying out this effort of reflection, always moving forward, as did our predecessors such as Lenin, Rosa, Bilan, the French Communist Left, etc, with both caution and boldness:

- basing ourselves always and firmly on the basic acquisitions of marxism,

- examining reality without blinkers, and de­veloping our thought "without ostracism of any kind" (Bilan).

In particular, faced with such historic events, it is important that revolutionaries should be capable of distinguishing between those analyses which have been overtaken by events and those which still remain valid, in order to avoid a double trap: either succumbing to sclerosis, or "throwing the baby out with the bath water". More precisely, it is necessary to highlight what in our analyses is essential and fundamental, and remains entirely valid in different historical circumstances, and what is secondary and cir­cumstantial - in short, to know how to make the difference between the essence of a reality and its various specific manifestations.

2) For a year, the world situation has under­gone considerable upheavals, which have greatly modified the world which emerged from the sec­ond imperialist war. The ICC has done its best to follow these events closely:

- to set out their historical significance,

- to examine how far they confirm or invalidate analytical frameworks which had been valid previously.

Although we had not foreseen exactly how these historic events would take place (Stalinism's death-agony, the disappearance of the Eastern bloc, the disintegration of the Western bloc), they integrate perfectly into the analytical framework and understanding of the present historical period that the ICC had worked out previously: the phase of decomposi­tion.

The same is true of the present war in the Persian Gulf. But the very importance of this event and the confusion that it highlights among revolutionaries gives our organization the responsibility of understanding clearly the im­pact and repercussion of the phase of decompo­sition's characteristics on the question of mili­tarism and war, of examining how this question will be posed in this new historical period.

Militarism at the heart of capitalist decadence

3) Militarism and war have been a fundamental given of capitalism's life since its entry into decadence. Since the complete formation of the world market at the beginning of this century, and the world's division into colonial and com­mercial reserves by the different advanced cap­italist nations, the resulting intensification of commercial competition has necessarily led to the aggravation of military tensions, the constitution of ever more imposing arsenals, and the growing subjection of the whole of economic and social life to the imperatives of the military sphere. In fact, militarism and imperialist war are the central manifestations of capitalism's entry into its decadent period (indeed the beginning of the period was marked by the outbreak of World War I), to such an extent that for revolutionar­ies at the time, imperialism and decadent capi­talism became synonymous.

As Rosa Luxemburg pointed out, since imperi­alism is not a specific manifestation of capitalism but its mode of existence throughout the new historical period, it is not particular states that are imperialist, but all states.

In reality, if militarism, imperialism, and war are identified to such an extent with the period of decadence, it is because the latter corre­sponds to the fact that capitalist relations of production have become a barrier to the devel­opment of the productive forces: the perfectly irrational nature, on the global economic level, of military spending and war only expresses the aberration of these production relations' contin­ued existence. In particular, the permanent and increasing self-destruction of capital which re­sults from this mode of life symbolizes this system's death-agony, and reveals clearly that it has been condemned by history.

State capitalism and imperialist blocs

4) Confronted with a situation where war is om­nipresent in social life, decadent' capitalism has developed two phenomena which constitute the major characteristics of this period: state capi­talism and the imperialist blocs. State capital­ism, whose first significant appearance dates from World War I, corresponds to the need for each country to ensure the maximum discipline from the different sectors of society and to re­duce as far as possible the confrontations both between classes and between fractions of the ruling class, in order to mobilize and control its entire economic potential with a view to con­frontation with other nations. In the same way, the formation of imperialist blocs corresponds to the need to impose a similar discipline amongst different national bourgeoisies, in order to limit their mutual antagonisms and to draw them to­gether for the supreme confrontation between two military camps.

And the more capitalism plunges into its deca­dence and historic crisis; these two characteris­tics have only become stronger. They were ex­pressed ·especially by the development of state capitalism on the scale of an entire imperialist bloc since World War II. Neither state capital­ism, nor imperialism, nor the conjuncture of the two, express any kind of "pacification" of the relationships between the different sectors of capital, still less their "reinforcement". On the contrary, they are nothing other than capitalist society's attempts to resist a growing tendency to dislocation[3].

Imperialism in the phase of capitalist decomposition

5) Society's general decomposition is the final phase of capitalism's decadence. In this sense, this phase does not call into question the spe­cific characteristics of the decadent period: the historic crisis of the capitalist economy, state capitalism, and the fundamental phenomena of militarism and imperialism.

Moreover, in as far as decomposition appears as the culmination of the contradictions into which capitalism has plunged throughout its deca­dence, the specific characteristics of this period are still further exacerbated in its ultimate phase:

- decomposition can only get worse, since it results from capitalism's inexorable plunge into crisis;

- the tendency towards state capitalism is not called into question by the disappearance of some of its most parasitic and aberrant forms, such as Stalinism today; on the contrary[4].

The same is true of militarism and imperialism, as we have seen throughout the 1980's during which the phenomenon of decomposition has ap­peared and developed. And this reality will not be called into question by the disappearance of the world's division into two imperialist constel­lations as a result of the Eastern bloc's collapse.

The constitution of imperialist blocs is not the origin of militarism and imperialism. The oppo­site is true: the formation of these blocs is only the extreme consequence (which at certain mo­ments can aggravate the causes), an expression (and not the only one), of decadent capitalism's plunge into militarism and war.

In a sense, the formation of blocs is to impe­rialism as Stalinism is to state capitalism. Just as the end of Stalinism does not mean the end of the historical tendency towards state capital­ism, of which it was one manifestation, so the present disappearance of imperialist blocs does not imply the slightest calling into question of imperialism's grip on social life. The funda­mental difference lies in the fact that whereas the end of Stalinism corresponds to the elimina­tion of a particularly aberrant form of state capitalism, the end of the blocs only opens the door to a still more barbaric, aberrant, and chaotic form of imperialism.

6) The ICC had already worked out this analysis when it highlighted the collapse of the Eastern bloc:

"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 erstwhile "partners" are concerned, 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" (International Review, no 61).

"The aggravation of the capitalist economy's worldwide economic crisis will necessarily pro­voke a new exacerbation of the bourgeoisie's own internal contradictions. As in the past, these contradictions will appear on the level of military antagonisms: in decadent capitalism, trade war cannot but lead to armed conflict. In this sense, the pacifist illusions which may de­velop following the "warming" of relations be­tween the USSR and the USA must be resolutely combated: military confrontations between states are not going to disappear, even though they may no longer be used and manipulated by the great powers. On the contrary, as we have seen in the past, militarism and war are decadent capitalism's way of life, and the deepening of the crisis can only confirm this. In contrast with the previous period, however, these mili­tary conflicts no longer take the form of a confrontation between the two great imperialist blocs ... " (International Review, no 63, 'Resolution on the International Situation').

Today, this analysis is fully confirmed by the war in the Persian Gulf.

The war in the Gulf: first signs of the new world situation

7) This war is the first major manifestation of the new world situation since the collapse of the Eastern bloc (in this sense, its importance today is a good deal greater):

- Iraq's "uncontrolled" adventure, grabbing another country belonging to its own one-time dominant bloc, confirms the disappearance of the Western bloc itself;

- it reveals the accentuation of the tendency (specific to capitalist decadence) for all coun­tries to use armed force to try to break the in­creasingly intolerable grip of the crisis;

- the fantastic military deployment by the USA and its "allies" highlights the fact that in­creasingly, only military force will be able to maintain a minimum of stability in a world threatened by growing chaos.

In this sense the war in the Gulf is not, as most of the proletarian political milieu claims, "a war over the price of oil". Nor can it be re­duced simply to a "war for control of the Middle East", however important this region may be. Similarly, the military operation in the Gulf is not just aimed at forestalling the chaos developing in the Third World.

Of course, all these elements have a role to play. It is true that most Western countries have an interest in cheap oil (unlike the USSR, which is nonetheless participating in the action against Iraq as far as its limited means will al­low), but it is not the means that have been put in motion that will make oil prices fall (they have already pushed crude prices up far higher than what Iraq was demanding).

It is also true that the USA has an undeniable interest in controlling the oil-fields, and that this strengthens its' position relative to its com­mercial rivals: but then, what makes these same rivals support the US efforts?

Similarly, it is obvious that the USSR has a prime interest in the stabilization of the Middle Eastern region, close as it is to Russia's central Asian and Caucasian provinces, which are al­ready agitated enough. But the chaos develop­ing in the USSR does not concern this country alone. The countries of Central, and then of Western Europe are particularly concerned by what is happening in the old Eastern bloc.

More generally, if the advanced countries are preoccupied by the chaos developing in certain regions of the Third World, this is because they themselves are more fragile as a result of this chaos, because of the new situation in the world today.

8) In reality, the fundamental object of the "Desert Shield" operation is to try to contain the chaos which is threatening the major developed countries and their inter-relations.

The disappearance of the world's division into two great imperialist blocs has meant the disappearance of one of the essential factors which maintained a certain cohesion between these states. The tendency of the new period is one of "every man for himself", and eventually for the most powerful states to pose their candida­ture to the "leadership" of a new bloc. But at the same time, the bourgeoisie in these coun­tries is well aware of the dangers of this new situation, and is trying to react against this tendency.

Faced with the new degree of general chaos represented by the Iraqi adventure (secretly encouraged by the United States' "conciliatory" stance towards Iraq before the 2nd August with the aim of "making an example" of it after­wards), the "international community" as the media call it, which is far from covering only the old Western bloc since it also includes the USSR, had no other choice than to place itself behind the world's greatest power, and more especially behind its military power which is the only one capable of policing any corner of the world.

The war in the Gulf shows that, faced with the tendency towards generalized chaos which is specific to decomposition and which has been considerably accelerated by the Eastern bloc's collapse, capitalism has no other way out in its attempt to hold together its different compo­nents, than to impose the iron strait-jacket of military force[5]. In this sense, the methods it uses to try to contain an increasingly bloody state of chaos are themselves a factor in the aggravation of military barbarism into which capitalism is plunging.

No prospect of the formation of new military blocs

9) Although the formation of blocs appears his­torically as the consequence of the development of militarism and imperialism, the exacerbation of the latter in the present phase of capitalism's life paradoxically constitutes a major barrier to the re-formation of a new system of blocs tak­ing the place of the one which has just disappeared. History (especially of the post-war pe­riod) has shown that the disappearance of one imperialist bloc (eg the Axis) implies the dislo­cation of the other (the "Allies"), but also the reconstitution of a new pair of opposing blocs (East and West). This is why the present situ­ation implies, under the pressure of the crisis and military tensions, a tendency towards the re-formation of two new imperialist blocs.

However, the very fact that military force has become - as the Gulf conflict confirms - a pre­ponderant factor in any attempt by the ad­vanced countries to limit world chaos is a con­siderable barrier to this tendency. This same conflict has in fact highlighted the crushing superiority (to say the least) of US military power relative to that of other developed coun­tries (and to demonstrate this fact was a major US objective): in reality, US military power is at least the equal of the rest or the world put to­gether. And this imbalance is not likely to change, since there exists no country capable in the years to come of opposing the military potential of the USA to a point where it could set itself up as a rival bloc leader. Even in the future, the list of candidates for such a position is very limited.

10) It is, for example, out of the question that the head of the bloc which has just collapsed ­the USSR - could ever reconquer this position. The fact that this countr y was able to play such a part in the past is in itself a kind of aberration, a historical accident. Because of its serious backwardness on every level (economic, but also political and cultural), the USSR did not possess the attributes which would have al­lowed to form an imperialist bloc "naturally" around itself[6]. It was able to do so "thanks" to Hitler (who brought it into the war in 1941) and to the "Allies" who at Yalta paid Russia for having formed a second front against Germany, and for the tribute of 20 million dead paid by its population, by allowing it control over the area of Eastern Europe occupied by its troops at the end of the German collapse [7].

Moreover; it was because the USSR was inca­pable of keeping up this role of bloc leader that it was forced to impose a ruinous war economy on its productive apparatus in order to pre­serve its empire. The Eastern bloc's spectacu­lar collapse, apart from confirming the bankruptcy of a particularly aberrant form of state capitalism (which did not spring from an "organic" development of capital either, but from the elimination of the "classical" bour­geoisie by the 1917 revolution), could not but express history's revenge on this original aberration. This is why, despite its enormous arse­nals, the USSR will never again be able to play a major role on the international stage. All the more so, since the dynamic behind the disloca­tion of its external empire will continue to work internally, and will finish by stripping Russia of the territories it colonized during previous centuries.

Because it tried to play the part of a world power, which was beyond its capacities, Russia is condemned to return to the third-rate posi­tion it occupied before Peter the Great.

Nor will Germany and Japan, the only two po­tential candidates to the title of bloc leader, be able to assume such a role within the foresee­able future. Japan, despite its industrial power and economic dynamism, could never pretend to such rank because it is too far removed from the world's greatest industrial concentration: Western Europe. As (or Germany, the only country which could eventually play such a role, as it already has in the past, it will be several decades before it can rival the USA on the military level (it does not even possess atomic weapons!). And as capitalism plunges ever deeper into its decadence, it becomes ever more necessary for a bloc leader to a crushing military superiority over its vassals in order to maintain its place.

The USA: the world's only gendarme

11) At the beginning of the decadent period, and even until the first years of World War II, there could still exist a certain "parity" between the different partners of an imperialist coalition, although it remained necessary for there to be a bloc leader. For example, in World War I there did not exist any fundamental disparity at the level of operational military capacity be­tween the three "victors": Great Britain, France and the USA. This situation had already changed considerably by World War II, when the "victors" were closely dependent on the US, which was already vastly more powerful than its "allies". It was accentuated during the "Cold War" (which has just ended) where each bloc leader, both USA and USSR, held an absolutely crushing superiority over the other countries in the bloc, in particular thanks to their posses­sion of nuclear weapons.

This tendency can be explained by the fact that as capitalism plunges further into deca­dence:

- the scale of conflicts between the blocs, and what is at stake in them takes on an in­creasingly world-wide and general character (the more gangsters there are to control, the more powerful must be the "godfather");

- weapons systems demand ever more fantas­tic levels of investment (in particular, only the major powers could devote the necessary re­sources to the development of a complete nu­clear arsenal, and to the research into ever more sophisticated armaments);

- and above all, the centrifugal tendencies amongst all the states as a result of the exacer­bation of national antagonisms, cannot but be accentuated.

The same is true of this last factor as of state capitalism: the more the bourgeoisie's different fractions tend to tear each other apart, as the crisis sharpens their mutual competition, so the more the state must be reinforced in order to exercise its authority over them. In the same way, the more the open historic crisis ravages the world economy, so the stronger must be a bloc leader in order to contain and control the tendencies towards the dislocation of its differ­ent national components. And it is clear that in the final phase of decadence, the phase of de­composition, this phenomenon cannot but be se­riously aggravated.

For all these reasons, especially the last, the reconstitution of a new pair of imperialist blocs is not only impossible for a number of years to come, but may very well never take place again: either the revolution, or the destruction of hu­manity will come first.

In the new historical period we have entered, and which the Gulf events have confirmed, the world appears as a vast free-for-all, where the tendency of "every man for himself" will operate to the full, and where the alliances between states will be far from having the stability that characterized the imperialist blocs, but will be dominated by the immediate needs of the mo­ment. A world of bloody chaos, where the American policeman will try to maintain a mini­mum of order by the increasingly massive and brutal use of military force.

Towards "super-imperialism"?

12) The fact that in the coming period the world will no longer be divided into imperialist blocs, and that world "leadership" will be left to the United States alone, in no way validates Kautsky's thesis of "super-imperialism" (or "ultra-imperialism") as it was developed during World War I. This thesis had already been worked out before the War by the Social­-Democracy's opportunist wing. Its roots lay in the gradualist and reformist vision which con­sidered that the contradictions (between classes and nations) within capitalist society would di­minish to the point of disappearing. Kautsky's thesis supposed that the different sectors of international financial capital would be capable of uniting to establish their own stable and pa­cific domination over the entire world. This thesis, presented as "marxist", was obviously fought by all the revolutionaries, end especially by Lenin (notably in Imperialism, highest stage of capitalism), who pointed out that a capitalism which had been amputated of exploitation and competition between capitals was no longer cap­italist. It is obvious that this revolutionary position remains completely valid today.

Nor should our analysis be confused with that of Chaulieu (Castoriadis), which at least had the advantage of explicitly rejecting "marxism". According to this analysis, the world was mov­ing towards a "third system", not of the har­mony so dear to reformists, but through brutal convulsions. Each world war led to the elimina­tion of one imperialist power (Germany in World War II). World War III would only leave one bloc, which would impose its order on a world where economic crises would have disappeared and where the capitalist exploitation of labor power would be replaced by a sort of slavery, the reign of the "rulers" over the "ruled".

Today's world, emerging from the collapse of the Eastern bloc to face a generalized decompo­sition, is nonetheless totally capitalist. An in­soluble and deepening economic crisis, increas­ingly ferocious exploitation of labor power, the dictatorship of the law of value, exacerbated competition between capitals and imperialist antagonisms between nations, unrestrained militarism, massive destruction and endless mas­sacres: this is its only possible reality. And its only ultimate perspective is the destruction of humanity.

The proletariat and imperialist war

13) More than ever then, the question of war remains central to the life of capitalism. Consequently, it is more than ever fundamental for the working class. Obviously, this ques­tion's importance is not new. It was already central before World War I (as the international congresses of Stuttgart (1907) and Basel (1912) highlighted).

It became still more decisive during the first imperialist butchery (with the combat of Lenin, Luxemburg, and Liebknecht, and the revolutions in Germany and Russia). Its importance re­mained unchanged throughout the inter-war pe­riod, in particular during the Spanish Civil war, not to mention of course its importance during the greatest holocaust of the century between 1939-45. And this remained true, finally, during the various "national liberation" wars after 1945 which served as moments in the confrontation between the two imperialist blocs.

In fact, since the beginning of the century, war has been the most decisive question that the proletariat and its revolutionary minorities have had to confront, much more so than the trade union or parliamentary questions for ex­ample. It could not be otherwise, in that war is the most concentrated form of decadent capital­ism's barbarity, which expresses its death-agony and the threat that hangs over humanity's sur­vival as a result.

In the present period, where the barbarity of war will, far more than in previous decades, be­come a permanent and omnipresent element of the world situation (whether Bush and Mitterrand with their prophecies of a "new order of peace" like it or not), involving more and more the de­veloped countries (limited only by the prole­tariat in these countries), the question of war is still more essential for the working class.

The ICC has long insisted that, contrary to the past, the development of a new revolutionary wave will come not from a war but from the aggravation of the economic crisis. This analy­sis remains entirely valid: working class mobilization, the starting point for large-scale class combats, will come from economic attacks. In the same way, at the level of consciousness, the aggravation of the crisis will be a fundamental factor in revealing the historical dead-end of the capitalist mode of production. But on this same level of consciousness, the question of war is once again destined to play a part of the first order:

- by highlighting the fundamental conse­quences of this historical dead-end: the de­struction of humanity,

- by constituting the only objective conse­quence of the crisis, decadence and decomposi­tion that the proletariat can today set a limit to (unlike any of the other manifestations of de­composition), to the extent that in the central countries it is not at present enrolled under the flags of nationalism.

War's impact on class consciousness

14) It is true that the war can be used against the working class much more easily than the crisis itself, and economic attacks:

- it can encourage the development of paci­fism;

- it can give the proletariat the feeling of impotence, allowing the bourgeoisie to carry out its economic attacks.

This in fact is what has happened to date with the Gulf crisis. But this kind of impact cannot but be limited in time. Eventually:

- the permanence of military barbarity will highlight the vanity of all the pacifist talk;

- it will become clear that the working class is the main victim of this barbarity, that it pays the price as cannon-fodder and through in­creased exploitation;

- and combativity will recover, against in­creasingly massive and brutal economic attacks.

This tendency will then be reversed. And it is obviously up to revolutionaries to be in the forefront of the development of this conscious­ness: their responsibility will be ever more de­cisive.

15) In the present historic situation, our inter­vention in the class, apart of course from the serious aggravation of the economic crisis and the resulting attacks against the whole working class, is determined by:

- the fundamental importance of the question of war;

- the decisive role of revolutionaries in the class' coming to consciousness of the gravity of what is at stake today.

It is therefore necessary that this question figure constantly at the forefront of our press. And in periods like today, where this question is at the forefront of international events, we must profit from the workers' particular sensitivity to it by giving it special emphasis and priority.

The ICC: 4/10/90

[1] See ‘War, militarism, and imperialist blocs' in International Review nos 52 and 53.

[2] For the ICC's analysis on the question of decomposition, see International Review nos 57 and 62.

[3] Nonetheless, we should emphasize a major difference between state capitalism and imperialist blocs. The former cannot be called into question by conflicts between different factions of the capitalist class (except in cases of civil war, which may be characteristic of certain backward zones of capitalism, but not of its advanced sectors): as a general rule, the state, which represents the national capital as a whole, succeeds in imposing its authority on the different components of that capital. By contrast, imperialist blocs do not have the same permanent nature. In the first place, they are only formed with a view to world war: in a period when this is not an immediate possibility (as in the 1920s), they may be very well disappear. Secondly, no state is particularly ‘predisposed' towards membership of a particular bloc: blocs are forced haphazardly, as a function of economic, political, geographical and military factors. There is nothing mysterious between this difference in stability between the capitalist state and imperialist blocs. It corresponds to the fact that the bourgeoisie cannot aspire to a level of unity higher than the nation, since the national state is par excellence the instrument for the defense of its interests (maintaining "order", massive state purchasing, monetary policies, customs protection, etc). This is why an alliance within imperialist bloc is nothing other than a conglomerate of fundamentally antagonistic national interests, designed to preserve these interests in the international jungle. In deciding to align itself with one bloc or another, the bourgeoisie has no concern other than to guarantee its own national interests. In the final analysis, although we can consider capitalism as a global entity, we must never forget that it exists concretely in the form of rival and competing capitals.

[4] In reality, it is the capitalist mode of production as a whole, in decadence and still more in its phase of decomposition, which is an aberration from the viewpoint of the interests of humanity. But within capitalism's barbaric death-agony, certain of its forms, such as Stalinism, which spring from specific historic circumstances, have characteristics which make them still more vulnerable, and condemn them to disappear even before the whole system is destroyed either through the proletarian revolution, or the destruction of humanity.

[5] In this sense, the way that the world "order" is maintained in the new period will more and more resemble the way the USSR maintained order in its ex-bloc: terror and military force. In the period of decomposition, and with the economic convulsions of a dying capitalism, the most barbaric and brutal forms of international relations will tend to become the norm for every country in the world.

[6] In fact, the reasons behind Russia's inability to act as locomotive of the world revolution (which was why revolutionaries like Lenin and Trotsky expected that the revolution in Germany would take Russia in tow) were the same as those which made Russia a wholly inappropriate candidate for the role of a bloc leader.

[7] Another reason that the Western powers gave the USSR a free hand in Central Europe, was that they expected the latter to police the proletariat in the region. History has shown (in Warsaw in particular) how well-placed their confidence was.

Imperialist war is a test of fire for the organizations which claim to belong to the working class. It is in fact one of the questions that enables one to determine the class nature of a political formation. The Gulf conflict is a new illustration of this. The classical bourgeois parties, including the 'Socialist' and 'Communist' parties, have obviously acted in conformity with their nature by aligning themselves openly with the policy of war, or by calling for 'international arbitration' which is simply a fig-leaf for the war-drive. As for the organizations that call themselves 'revolutionary', like the Trotskyists, they have also shown what camp they're in by calling openly or hypocritically, according to circumstance[1], for support for Iraq. This test has thus made it possible for the groups who are on a proletarian class terrain to stand out clearly, it has given them the opportunity to make the voice of internationalism be heard, like the revolutionary currents during the two world wars.

But while the groups of the milieu have on the whole affirmed a principled class position against the war, most of them have done so with arguments and analyses which, far from bringing clarity to the proletariat, are more a factor of confusion.

Since the beginning of the Gulf crisis, the ma­jority of the proletarian organizations have not failed in their basic internationalist responsibil­ity: whether in their press on in the form of leaflets, the whole proletarian milieu has taken a clear position of denouncing imperialist war, rejecting any participation in either camp, and calling on the workers to wage their struggle against capitalism in all its forms and in all countries[2]. In brief, the existing proletarian organizations have shown ... that they are in the camp of the proletariat.

However, in order to be able to take an inter­nationalist position, some of them have had to draw a prudent veil over the arguments that are their stock-in-trade. This is the case, for example, with the support the proletariat is supposed to give to 'struggles for national in­dependence' in certain under-developed coun­tries.

Internationalism and ‘struggles for independence'

At the beginning of this century, the workers' movement witnessed a very animated debate on the question of national liberation struggles (see in particular our series of articles in International Reviews 34 and 36). In this debate, Lenin was the leading light of a position which held that the proletariat could support certain struggles for national independence even though the phenomenon of imperialism had already in­vaded the whole of society. However, this did not prevent him, during the course of the first world war, from taking up a completely interna­tionalist position - clearer, in certain respects, than that of Rosa Luxemburg, who defended the opposing point of view on the national question. At the Second Congress of the Communist International, it was Lenin's position which be­came that of the international. However, reality (especially the Chinese revolution of 1927.) rapidly demonstrated the falsity of Lenin and the CI's position, so that by the 1930s, the Left Fraction of the Communist Party of Italy - even though it was from the 'Leninist' tradition - had abandoned this position.

But even so, the majority of the groups who claim descent from the 'Italian Left' continue to defend the positions of the CI as though noth­ing had changed. This leads them into the most amazing contortions.

Thus we can only salute the internationalist concern of the International Communist Party when it writes that:

"The workers have nothing to gain and ev­erything to lose from supporting imperialist conflicts ...Whether oil rent enriches the Iraqi, Kuwaiti or French bourgeoisie won't change the lot of the proletarians of Iraq, Kuwait or France: only the class struggle against capitalist exploitation can do that. And this class struggle is only possible if it breaks out of the 'national union' between classes, which always means sac­rifices for the workers, who are divided by pa­triotism and racism before being massacred on the battlefronts," (Leaflet of 24 August, 1990, published by Le Proletaire).

But this organization would do well to ask it­self how the Arab proletarians could defend their class interests by enrolling in a war for the constitution of a Palestinian state, as the ICP calls on them to do.

Such a Palestinian state, if it ever saw the light of day, would be no less imperialist (if less powerful) than Iraq is today, and the workers there would be no less ferociously ex­ploited. It's no accident that Yasser Arafat is one of Saddam Hussein's best friends. For the 'Bordigist' current (to which Le Proletaire) be­longs, it is time to recognize that over the last 70 years, history has frequently demonstrated the falseness of these positions.

Otherwise, its tight-rope walk between inter­nationalism and nationalism can only end in it falling either into the void, or the bourgeois camp (which is what happened, at the beginning of the 80s, to a good part of its components like Combat in Italy and El Oumami in France).

This contradiction between internationalism and nationalism, which is an essential condition for belonging to the proletarian camp, and the support for national struggles is 'resolved' by another Bordigist organization, but not in a very clear way. In October 1990, we read in Il Programa Comunista:

"One can understand that, in their despair, the Palestinian masses cling to the myth of Saddam, as they did yesterday and in different circumstances to the myth of Assad; the devel­opment of events will soon show that the 'heroes' of today, like those of yesterday are just repre­sentatives of the state's will to power, and that the path to their emancipation lies only through the socialist revolution against all potentates, Arab or non-Arab, in the Middle East."

Here we can see all the ambiguity of Programa's position.

In the first place, the concept of the 'masses' is confusionist par excellence. The 'masses' can mean anything, including social classes like the peasantry which, as history has shown, is far from being allies of the proletarian revolution. For communists, the essential issue is the com­ing to consciousness of the proletariat - this is the reason for their existence. Now, there does exist a Palestinian proletariat and it is relatively numerous and concentrated, but it's particularly intoxicated with nationalism (just as the Israeli proletariat is).

In the second place, we don't see why we have to be particularly 'understanding' about the Palestinian population's submission to na­tionalist ideology. The fact that the petty bour­geois strata who constitute a large part of this population are infected by nationalism is not surprising, since it corresponds to their nature and place in society. But the fact that the pro­letariat itself is a victim of this infection is a real tragedy expressing its weakness in relation to the bourgeoisie.

One can always 'understand' the historic, so­cial and political causes of such a weakness (as, for example, one could 'understand' the reasons why the European proletariat was mobilized be­hind the banners of the fatherland in 1914), but this doesn't mean that one should make the slightest political concession to this weakness. Those who, during the First World War, spent their time 'understanding' the nationalism of the French, German or Russian workers were the 'social chauvinists' a la' Plekhanov or the 'centrists' a la Kautsky, and certainly not rev­olutionaries like Lenin, Luxemburg and Liebknecht who devoted all their energies to fighting this nationalism.

Why this particular interest in the Palestinian 'masses' if one is calling on them to make the socialist revolution? Only the proletariat is re­ally capable of responding to such an appeal ­and it is an appeal that has to be addressed to the workers of all countries.

The revolutionary combat can't only be waged in the Middle East; it has to be world-wide. And the enemies to be overthrown aren't just all the 'potentates' but all the bourgeois regimes, and especially the 'democratic' regimes which domi­nate the most advanced countries.

Here we can see all the absurdity of the Bordigist position. Out of a stupid loyalty to the 'classic' position of Lenin and the Communist International, the Bordigists continue to recite, like a litany, all the old phrases about the 'masses' in the colonial or semi-colonial coun­tries. After what happened in Vietnam, Cambodia and other 'liberated' nations, Palestine is one of the last places where illusions in 'national liber­ation' still exist (among those, of course, who want to delude themselves).

Today, however, it's obvious that the struggle for an 'independent and democratic' Palestinian state has reached an impasse, and we're seeing an effort to abandon the classic position which held that workers could support certain national struggles. But it's done without openly saying so, in the same shamefaced way that they 'understand' bourgeois mystifications.

However, the fundamental problem posed by this 'loyalty' to the erroneous positions of the Communist International is that it leads to ridiculous contortions. The real gravity of holding desperately to this position (even if the pressure of reality forces one to abandon its substance) resides in the fact that it is the fig­-leaf that different varieties of leftism hide be­hind so ignominiously in their support for impe­rialist war.

It's in the name of 'national liberation' strug­gles 'against imperialism' that these leftists, like the 'Pure Juice' Stalinists, have helped to enroll large numbers of workers in inter-imperialist massacres (remember Vietnam!).

Today the leftists, and particularly the Trotskyists, are calling on the Iraqi workers to go out and get themselves butchered, and once again it's in the name of this 'anti-imperialist' struggle. In this sense, any lack of clarity on the national question can only facilitate the dirty work of the 'radical' sectors of the bour­geoisie.

'Revolutionary defeatism' and internationalism

It's not only the position supporting 'national liberation' struggles which leads to concessions to leftist campaigns. It's the same with the slo­gan of 'revolutionary defeatism' which, also in the name of 'tradition', has been employed by certain groups in relation to the Gulf war.

This slogan was put forward by Lenin during the First World War. It was designed to respond to the sophistries of the 'centrists', who while being 'in principle' against any participation in imperialist war, advised that you should wait until the workers in the 'enemy' countries were ready to enter into struggle against the war before calling on workers in 'your' country to do the same. In support of this position, they put forward the argument that if the workers of one country rose up before those in the oppos­ing countries, they would facilitate the imperi­alist victory of the latter.

Against this conditional 'internationalism', Lenin replied very correctly that the working class of any given country had no common in­terest with 'its' bourgeoisie. In particular, he pointed out that the latter's defeat could only facilitate the workers' struggle, as had been the case with the Paris Commune (following France's defeat by Prussia) and the 1905 revolution in Russia (which was beaten in the war with Japan). From this observation he concluded that each proletariat should 'wish for' the defeat of 'its' bourgeoisie.

This last position was already wrong at the time, since it led the revolutionaries of each country to demand for 'their' proletariat the most favorable conditions for the proletarian revolution, whereas the revolution had to take place on a world-wide level, and above all in the big advanced countries, which were all in­volved in the war. However, with Lenin, the weakness of this position never put his intran­sigent internationalism in question (we can even say it was precisely his intransigence which led to the error). In particular, Lenin never had the idea of supporting the bourgeoisie of an 'enemy' country - even if this might be the logical conclusion of his 'wishes'.

But the incoherence of the position was used later on a number of occasions by bourgeois parties draped in 'communist' colors, in order to justify their participation in imperialist war. Thus, for example, after the signing of the Russo-German pact in 1939, the French Stalinists suddenly discovered the virtues of 'proletarian internationalism' and 'revolutionary defeatism', virtues they had long ago forgotten and which they repudiated no less rapidly as soon as Germany launched its attack on the USSR in 1941. The Italian Stalinists also used the term 'revolutionary defeatism' after 1941 to justify their policy of heading the resistance against Mussolini. Today, the Trotskyists in the numer­ous countries allied against Saddam Hussein use the same term to justify their support for the latter.

This is why, in the Gulf war, revolutionaries have to be particularly clear on the slogan of 'revolutionary defeatism' if they don't want to give an involuntary aid to the leftists.

This weakness, from the internationalist point of view, in the slogan of 'revolutionary de­featism' can be seen in II Partito Comunista no 186:

"We are not however indifferent to the out­come of the war: as revolutionary communists, we are defeatists, and thus favor the defeat of our country and more generally of the western countries; we wish for the most resounding defeat of US imperialism which, being the most powerful in the world, is the worst enemy of the international proletarian movement, the guard-dog of planetary capitalism."

Il Partito "wishes for" the defeat of American imperialism ... like the leftists, whose 'anti-impe­rialist' crusades are just pretexts for calling on workers to participate in imperialist war.

Obviously, Il Partito rejects such participa­tion. But what's the use of "wishing" for some­thing if you renounce any means of turning this "wish" into reality? For communists, theoretical reflection isn't a kind of gratuitous speculation; it's a guide for action.

As for the leftists, they're consistent in their position. And here precisely is the great danger of Il Partito's position. With its "wishes", this organization encourages rather than combats the 'anti-imperialist' mystifications which weigh on a part of the working class. And in doing so, its internationalist protestations don't carry much weight against the logic of leftism.

Whether it wants to or not, Il Partito becomes a conduit for the leftists' ideology. Fortunately, however, the position of this group doesn't stand much chance of being heard.

It's 't rue that the defeat of the world's main gendarme would weaken the whole bourgeoisie much more than its victory. The annoying thing is that this sort of scenario exists only in the abstract, where you can plan anything you like.

In reality, unhappily, in the absence of divine intervention, victory goes to the strongest ­even Saddam Hussein, despite his megalomania, doesn't believe he can defeat the USA[3]. Thus, by openly revealing itself as a species of futile and puerile speculation, by showing how ridicu­lous and absurd it is, Il Partito's 'analysis' at least has the merit of reducing the danger in­herent in this false position of 'revolutionary defeatism'.

However, the errors of revolutionaries aren't always so inoffensive. In particular, we should guard against slogans like "For us, the workers of all countries, the main enemy is 'our' own state", a slogan which is included in the state­ment by the International Bureau for the Revolutionary Party (IBRP), entitled 'Against Bush and western imperialism; against Saddam and Iraqi expansionism; No to war in the Middle East', (reproduced in Battaglia Communista September 90 and Workers Voice no 53).

It's no accident that this slogan is the same as 'The main enemy is our own bourgeoisie', which is a leaflet distributed in France by a group called ‘Internationale Ouvriere pour Reconstruire la IVeme Internationale', ie a Trotskyist group. This slogan (which is similar to that of 'revolutionary defeatism') was also put forward during the first world war, notably by the Spartatists in Germany. Today we can see how easily it can be recuperated by the bourgeoisie.

In fact, any slogan addressed to this or that sector of the proletariat, attributing it with tasks that are distinct or different from those of other sectors, is ambiguous and can easily be turned against the working class by the leftists. Even if the world proletariat is separated in to national sectors because of the divisions in bourgeois society itself, its historic struggle has to head in the direction of a world-wide unity. It's precisely the task of revolutionaries to contribute actively to this world-wide unity.

This is why a communist organization today can only have one single program - as is the case with the ICC - not a different one for each country. As Marx wrote: "the proletariat can only exist on the scale of world history, just as communism, which is its activity, can only have a world historic existence."

In the same sense, the perspectives revolu­tionaries have to put forward are the same for all countries and all sectors of the world prole­tariat, contrary to what the IBRP does in its document when it tries to concretize the afore­mentioned slogan. In fact, this document, pre­sented as the emanation of the same organization, exists in two versions, and we have to say that the one aimed at English-speaking workers has a much more leftist ring than the Italian version (we await the French and German ver­sions). In the English version, but not the other, we read:

"We have to fight its [our 'own' state's] war plans and preparations in every possible way. This means in the first instance that we demand the immediate recall of all Western forces sent to the Gulf. All attempts to send further forces must be opposed by strikes at ports and airports, for example. If fighting breaks out we must call for fraternization between western and Iraqi soldiers and turning the guns on the offi­cers.

"Second, it means fighting attempts to impose more austerity and cuts in services in the name of the 'national interest' ...

"This oil crisis, as in 1974, will provide them with the perfect alibi to explain away the fail­ings of the system. Our response must be to ig­nore the lies, ignore the nationalist hysteria, and fight for a higher standard of living. In particular, we call on the British North Sea oil workers to step up their struggle and prevent the bosses increasing production. This strike must be extended to include all oil workers and extended to other workers. No sacrifice for im­perialism's war!"

In the first place, we must unfortunately point out that the British branch of the IBRP makes the first point of its intervention the classic slogan of all the leftists within the so-called 'anti-war' movement: "western troops out of the Gulf". It thus makes its own little contribution to the campaigns of the extreme left of the bourgeoisie which not only aim at ensuring that the Gulf is controlled by the 'Arab people' (ie , the local imperialisms), but above all at peddling the illusion that you can block the bourgeoisie's war-drive through legalistic campaigns based on 'peace demonstrations' and the 'mobilization of public opinion'. And we know that these illu­sions are the best way of diverting workers from using the only weapon they have against the development of the war: the struggle on their own class terrain, rejecting the inter-classism of the pacifist campaigns.

Such erroneous positions aren't new for the CWO, the British branch of the IBRP, they put forward the same leftist "Imperialism out of the Gulf", when the armada intervened in the Iran-Iraq war[4].

Concerning the CWO's call for strikes in the ports and airports, we can say that it received an echo in France where the sailors in Marseille stopped work to delay (for one day) the de­parture of troops for the Gulf. We should how­ever point out that this strike was called by the Stalinist-controlled CGT. And there's nothing surprising in this: if these crap-heads decided to launch such a 'spectacular' action, it's because they knew perfectly well that at the present time such a method of 'struggle' holds no dan­gers at all for the bourgeoisie.

The point is that it's not through particular struggles in this or that sector that the work­ing class can fight the bourgeoisie's war-drive (and this is equally true for the oil workers, whose solidarity with their Iraqi class brothers can't take the form of a specific struggle in 'their' sector, even if, suddenly seized by scru­ples, the CWO then calls for its extension).

The war-drive is the only response the bour­geoisie as a whole can have to the irreversible crisis of its system, and to the generalized de­composition that this crisis is engendering to­day. Only the struggle of the whole working class, as a class, on the terrain of the class, and not as this or that specific category, can really serve to counter imperialist war. It alone can open the door to the proletariat's only his­toric response to imperialist war: the overthrow of capitalism itself.

For the same reasons, the call for "fraternization between western soldiers and Iraqi's soldiers" and "turning the guns on the officers" isn't valid as an immediate perspective in the present situation.

This slogan is perfectly correct in general. It is an application of the internationalist position of calling on workers to 'turn the imperialist war into a civil war'; and it was one of the ways this call was concretized at the end of the first world war, notably between the Russian and German soldiers. But such a concretization presupposed a considerable degree of maturity in the consciousness of the proletariat: this didn't exist at the beginning of the war but de­veloped during the course of it. On the other hand, this consciousness didn't exist at the end of the second world war. For example, the German workers who were ready to desert gen­erally advanced the idea because in the occu­pied countries the chauvinism among the work­ers was so great that the German soldiers risked being lynched.

Today, we're obviously not in the period of counter-revolution that prevailed in 1945, but the present situation is also a long way away from the one at the end of the First World War as far as the consciousness of the class is con­cerned. This is why an immediate, on the ground response by the proletariat to the Gulf war is not on the cards. Once again, the prole­tariat's response to this war will essentially be posed away from the main battlefronts, in the big metropoles, and this fundamentally on a historic level.

The role of revolutionaries isn't to engage in a purely verbal radicalism and put forward recipes for stopping the Gulf war there and then. It is to defend, within the proletariat as a whole, a clear view of what's really at stake in the Gulf war, and the responsibility this poses to the class and its struggles.

And here we can see that the political inabil­ity of the different groups of the proletarian milieu to put forward slogans appropriate to the present situation is linked to the problem of understanding what's really at stake in this sit­uation today.

Incomprehension of what the war is about

Like many of the more serious commentators in the bourgeois press, most of the groups have managed to show that the immediate origins of the Iraqi adventure: not Saddam Hussein's 'megalomaniac folly', but the fact that Iraq, af­ter 8 years of a terrible and murderous war with Iran, was gripped by a catastrophic eco­nomic situation and a foreign debt of nearly $80 billion. As Battaglia Communista wrote in its September issue: "the attack on Kuwait was thus the classic gesture of someone who's at the point of drowning and is prepared to risk everything."

But on the other hand, the fundamental rea­sons for the formidable military deployment by the USA and its acolytes completely pass these groups by.

For Le Proletarire: "The USA has clearly de­fined the 'American national interest' which has led them to act: guaranteeing a stable supply of and a reasonable price for the oil produced in the Gulf. The same interest which made them support Iraq against Iran now makes them support Saudi Arabia and the oil sheikdoms against Iraq" (from the leaflet cited above).

The CWO puts forward the same idea, also in a leaflet:

"In fact the crisis in the Gulf is really about oil and who controls it. Without cheap oil, prof­its will fall. Western capitalism's profits are threatened and it's for this reason and no other (our emphasis) that the US is preparing a bloodbath in the Middle East."

As for Battaglia Communista, it defends the same with even more pretentious language:

"Oil, indirectly and directly, in nearly all the productive cycles, in the process of the forma­tion of monopoly income has a determinant weight and, consequently, the control of its price is of vital importance ... With an economy in clear signs of recession, an alarming public debt, a productive apparatus in strong debit compared to European and Japanese competitors, the USA least of anyone can allow at this time a loss of control of one of the variable funda­mentals of the world economy, the price of oil."

On the other hand, Programma Comunista comes up with the beginning of a response to this argument, which is also put forward by many leftist groups whose only aim is to vilify the rapacity of American imperialism in order to justify their 'critical' support for Saddam Hussein:

"In all this, oil only enters as the last factor. In the big industrial countries, the stocks are full and in any case, the majority of OPEC is ready to increase production, and thus stabilize the price of crude oil."

In fact, the oil argument doesn't go very far towards explaining the current situation. Even if the USA, as well as Europe and Japan, are obvi­ously interested in being able to import cheap oil, this doesn't explain the incredible concen­tration of military force that the world's leading power has installed in the Gulf. This operation can only further augment the USA's already vast deficits and will cost its economy a lot more that the increase in oil prices which Iraq originally demanded.

What's more, with the prospect of a major mil­itary confrontation, the price of oil climbed well above the level that could have been set through negotiations with Iraq, had the USA wanted such negotiations (it's certainly not out of a desire to 'respect' the interests of sheikh Jaber and his crew that the USA has been so intransigent about the occupation of Kuwait). And the destruction that will result from the military confrontation will certainly make things a lot worse. If the USA was really, fundamen­tally concerned about the price of oil, you'd have to say that they're not going about things in the best way - their current approach would be comparable to that of a bull in a china shop.

In reality, the very extent of the military de­ployment proves that what's at stake goes well beyond the question of the price of oil. BC puts its finger on this when it tries to broaden its framework of analysis:

"The breakdown of the equilibrium that came out of the second world war has, in reality, opened up a historic phase in which other ones will be constituted, thus accelerating the com­petition between different imperialist appetites ... One thing is sure: whatever the outcome of this conflict, none of the questions that the Gulf crisis has shown up will be solved in this way."

But this seems to be too much for Battaglia. In the next breath, they once more get drowned in .... oil:

"Once Iraq has been eliminated, for example, it won't be long before someone else poses the same question: changing the re-partition of oil rent on a world scale, because it's this re-par­tition which determines the international hierar­chy which the crisis of the USSR has put into question."

This is really original: he who controls the oil (or 'oil rent' to sound more marxist) controls the planet. Poor old USSR, which doesn't know this, and whose economy and imperialist strength collapsed even though it is the world's biggest producer ... of oil.

As for Programma, while it understands that there's something more important involved than oil, it doesn't manage to go beyond generalities:

"The tangled web of a conflict born out of the interests of a colossal power will only be unraveled by creating new ones, undoing and recom­posing alliances ..."

Good luck to anyone who can understand this. But it won't bring much clarity to the working class. And it's clear that Programma doesn't un­derstand much either.

Underestimating the gravity of the situation

In the final analysis, if there is a common ele­ment among the different analyses of the sig­nificance of the Gulf war, it's a dramatic under­estimation of the gravity of the situation facing the capitalist world today. Like stopped clocks, the communist groups, even when they're able to recognize the convulsions that the world im­perialist arena is going through, do no more than try to fit this new situation into the schemas of the past, just as they are satisfied with repeating slogans which were in any case wrong when they were put forward.

This isn't the place to develop our analysis that capitalism has now entered into the final phase of its decadence: the phase of general decomposition (see International Review nos 57 and 61). Neither will we go back over our own positions on the Gulf war (see the editorials of IR 63 and 64 or on the question of militarism in the current period (see our text 'Militarism and Decomposition' in this issue).

But it is our duty say that the refusal of the communist groups to accept the whole gravity of the present situation (and that's when they don't purely and simply deny that capitalism is a decadent system, like the Bordigists) will pre­vent them from fully assuming their responsi­bilities towards the working class.

The war in the Middle East isn't just a war like all others, faced with which it is enough to reaffirm the class positions of internationalism (especially when this takes the erroneous form of 'revolutionary defeatism'. )

The USA's formidable military deployment is not just aimed at Iraq, far from it. Brining Iraq to heel is just a pretext for 'setting an example' in order to dissuade any future threat, wher­ever it comes from, to warn off anyone who might think of destabilizing 'world order'.

This 'order' was to some degree ensured when the world was divided up between the big 'gendarmes'. Although the antagonism between the latter fuelled and kindled a whole series of wars, it also prevented them from escaping the control of the 'superpowers', and, in particular, from spreading to the point where they threat­ened a generalized war - something the ad­vanced countries weren't ready for because the proletariat hadn't been mobilized.

But the complete collapse of the eastern bloc has simply opened up a Pandora's Box of all the imperialist antagonisms between the various components of the western bloc itself, antago­nisms which had been held in check as long as there was the threat from the rival bloc. The demise of the eastern bloc thus condemned the' western bloc to death. This was expressed by Iraq's grab from Kuwait - prior to this, Iraq had acted as a good defender of western inter­ests against Iran.

However, the main imperialist antagonisms be­tween the former 'allies' of the American bloc don't involve the countries of the periphery but the central countries, ie powerful economies like the western European states, Japan and the USA. While the ex-allies of the latter have an interest in disciplining the second-string coun­tries of the 'third world' when they try to step out of line, they have much less of an interest in a police operation whose main aim is to en­sure their allegiance to the USA. The USA's mil­itary intervention, even though this time round it has forced the ex-vassals to limit their pre­tensions, won't put a definitive end to imperial­ist antagonisms, because they are a part of capitalism's life, and they can only be exacer­bated by the aggravation of the crisis, by the system's irreversible plummet into the convul­sions of its decay and decomposition. Without being a world war, the Gulf is thus the first major manifestation of a slide into chaos and barbarism unprecedented in human society.

This is what revolutionary organizations have to affirm clearly to their class if the proletariat is to become fully aware of what's at stake in its combat against capitalism. Otherwise they will be totally incapable of carrying out the task for which the proletariat has engendered them and will be pitilessly swept away by history.

FM 1.11.1990

[1] For certain Trotskyist organizations, the language is different according to whom they're addressing themselves: in their popular press, their support for Iraqi imperialism is hidden behind all sorts of contortions (we mustn't shock the public), but in their ‘theoretical' publications and their public meetings, which are addressed to a more ‘initiated' audience, they openly call for support for Iraq. Here, means and ends are in perfect accord: like any other sector of the bourgeoisie involved in a war. Trotskyism uses the classical technique of dissimulation, disinformation and lies. 

[2] The silence which Ferment Ouvriere has maintained is quite unacceptable. Apparently the FOR is much more lively when it's running stupid trials of other revolutionary organizations, putting all kinds of words into their mouths (see their article, ‘Encore un plat piqnant du CCI in L'arme de la critique no 6) than when called upon to raise an internationalist voice against the barbarity of capitalist war. But it may be that this silence indicates that the FOR has ceased to exist as an organization. This wouldn't be at all surprising: when a revolutionary organization continues to insist, against all the evidence, that capitalism today isn't in crisis, as the FOR has always done, it losses any possibility of contributing to the development of consciousness in the proletariat, and becomes a pointless organization. 

[3] We must render what is Caesar's unto Caesar and give Bordiga the paternity of this position. It was Bordiga who, at the beginning of the Cold War, put forward the idea that the defeat of the American imperialist bloc by the weaker Russian bloc would create the most favorable conditions for the development of the proletarian struggle. This position was dangerous and could easily play into the hands of the Trotskyists and Stalinists. All the more so because it wasn't as stupid as the position of Bordiga's current epigones, owing to the fact that it was talking about imperialist rivals of comparable strength.

Among the epigones we can also include ‘Mouvement Communiste Mondial' which has published a leaflet called ‘To stop the war, we must stop the economy'. In itself, this new grouplet doesn't represent very much but its document is a significant expression of the aberrations of the Bordigist ‘heritage'. As well as the classic ‘wish' for the defeat of the USA this text - in the gold old Bordigist tradition - takes up slogans put forward by Lenin at the beginning of the century, such as ‘against all oppression of nationalities' and ‘against all annexations'.

Today these two slogans can easily be used by the bourgeoisie in its campaigns of mystification. It's in the name of the struggle against the ‘oppression of nationalities' that the proletarians of the different republics of the USSR are today being called - successfully, unfortunately - to abandon their class terrain and to massacre each other on the rotten terrain of nationalism.

Similarly, the ‘struggle against annexations' is, right now, the battle cry of the United Nations, especially the USA, in the crusade against Iraq. 

[4] In the document jointly sign by CWO and Battaglia, Iraq is very correctly stated as an imperialist country. We should however point out that this is the first for the CWO, which up to now has considered that only the super-powers were imperialist. It's a pity that this organization hasn't explained this change of position to readers. Unless the CWO, despite everything, is still holding up to its old (and stupid) position. This might explain the ambiguous title of the joint document which makes a distinction between ‘western imperialism' and ‘Iraqi expansionism'. There's no doubt about it: the IBRP and political clarity are always falling out with each other.  

The convulsions that are shaking the world (which demonstrate that capitalism has entered its phase of decomposition) are subjecting the organizations of the proletarian political milieu to a rigorous political decantation. The confrontation of their positions must contribute to this decantation, permitting an intervention that will be a factor of clarification and not of greater confusion for the whole of the working class. Unfortunately, this is not the case today.

This acceleration of history is exposing the weaknesses and leftovers in the analysis of the proletarian political organizations. But instead of a serious confrontation of positions, we are seeing second-hand, superficial agreements, in order to produce some form of a "common publication", whose only criteria appears to be a tacit agreement to step up the unfounded attacks on the ICC, which is the only organization that is trying to fully develop its analysis of the present situation and which calls on the milieu to take up its responsibilities. The persistence of such an attitude increasingly risks leading them into a parasitic mode of existence ... and if this constitutes a danger for the organizations which have lost their roots in the left communist fractions but are still capable of maintaining themselves on the class terrain, it is an even greater danger for the relatively young proletarian political regroupments who have not been able - or have not wanted to - to take up the thread of the historical class positions. This has happened with the group Emancipacion Obrera (Argentina).

The defense of the proletarian milieu, even from its friends

Some months ago EO published a pamphlet called We want it all with which, apart from spreading its ideas on the defensive struggles of the proletariat and other themes, it clumsily joins in the prevailing fashion in the milieu of slandering the ICC with such orations as:

"The slogans of the ICC are reduced more or less to 'bread, peace and work' well known slogans of all the world's reformists, Stalinism, Trotskyism and all the other isms form the left that form the left of capital and this includes sections of the bourgeoisie which are not of the left" (page 8).

This is more or less the spirit that animates all the pamphlet: the spirit of ambiguity in the position of EO, the spirit of throwing stones and sleight of hand. Already in the introduction we can read that:

"Along with the positions that they hold which are similar to ours, we have important disagreements with the demands which they (the ICC) have in common with the left of capital" (page 1) " ... not because the ICC is exactly the same as them, but because they have not finished their rupture with the left of capital ..." (page 3).

Thus, according to these comrades the ICC has the same position as the organizations of capital ... without however being one of them. This is confused. But the mistake is not that of the organization being analyzed, but the analyst. An organization which is at the same time bourgeois and proletarian (EO do not talk of errors or divergences, but of slogans and positions) simply cannot exist. And, if the ICC is an organization of capital EO must explain why it has maintained relations with the ICC for years, or else EO hold the opportunist position which sees that a proletarian organization can maintain connections with a bourgeois organization. Otherwise the ICC is a proletarian organization and EO is substituting slander for critique and debate.

It is not only about the ICC that they are confused. When they deal with Rosa Luxembourg and particularly her work Reform or Revolution, it is cited with great scorn as the most pure example of reformism, from which the ICC supports (page 7). EO is incapable of understanding that it was precisely this work which constituted a fundamental weapon with which the revolu­tionary wing of which Rosa was one of the principal leaders of the proletarian party of that time (the Social Democracy at the turn of the century) fought reformism.

They also cite Lenin's work An explanation of the project for the program which the y assume to be: "the most traditional expression of the problem (of consciousness) and with which the majority of the political groups which claim to be revolutionary inside or outside the left of capital, agree" (page 50) and further on: "along with correct points, his limitations are also demonstrated. He was not able to break the resistance of the capitalists and the political alternative of gaining influence in the state" (page 56).

In a novel fashion, EO believes that proletarian and capitalist organizations can "agree" on some things, that is to say, have political positions in common. Furthermore, they completely nullify the revolutionary thought of Lenin - the criticized quotation is in fact a comment by Lenin on the first chapter of the Communist Manifesto about how the force of the proletariat is created through converting its defensive struggles into a struggle for political power - EO reduce Lenin to the level of a vulgar trouble maker whose thinking is identical to that of the ICC:

concerning the ICC: "along with positions similar to ours ... common demands with the left of capital ";

and Lenin: "Along with correct points ... his limitations are also demonstrated".

But here the "limitations" are not those of Lenin, but those of EO who mix up, confuse and scorn the history of the proletarian revolutionary movement. In another part of the pamphlet you read:

"The traditional slogan (raised by Engels, social democracy, Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Mao, Fidel, Tito, etc) that the revolution must immediately pose 'each according to their needs, each according to their abilities' has been exposed as being perpetuated by capitalism" (page 9)                 .

Here EO goes to the extreme of establishing a continuity between the leaders of the proletariat, like Engels, Lenin and Trotsky, with the enemies of the working class, with the most faithful bulldogs of capital such as Stalin, Mao, Fidel or Tito. Neither are Marx and Engels saved from the unbelievable ignorance of these comrades: "The same slogan that made Marx and Engels' Communist Manifesto famous, 'Workers of the world unite!', has shown its serious (sic) limitations".

Thus the first thing that the pamphlet We want it all demonstrates is that Emancipacion Obrera has lost its compass and is unable to clearly distinguish the class frontiers which separates a proletarian organization from a capitalist one; neither has it been capable of understanding that the revolutionary positions of the working class, as well as being expressed in the work of this or that revolutionary, have also developed in continuity with the history of the workers' movement. A continuity of class positions which all proletarian political regroupments must take up, if they do not want to be pushed this way and that by bourgeois ideology often dished up as "new" and "original" ideas and concerns.

This is not a question of bowing in front of the revolutionaries of the past as if they were gods who have no limitations or made no errors, neither to ban any criticism of them or any other revolutionary organization. The point is, that in order to try and undertake a critique which better expresses or which takes forward class positions, it is first necessary to under­stand them or at least to be able to tell the difference between them and those of the enemy.

In fact without knowing it, EO has done its bit for the ideological campaign launched by the world bourgeoisie against the proletariat with the aim of using the collapse of the eastern bloc to identify the proletarian revolution of October 1917 with the state capitalism which brought about its defeat, and which also seeks to establish a continuity between Marx and Lenin with Stalin - to 'prove' that Marxism leads to Stalinism.

Likewise, the opportunist silence by the other groups of the milieu in respect to this pamphlet of EO's (a silence which makes them accessories) is worrying. Perhaps bewitched by EO's attacks on the ICC, they have not been worried by the fact that in reality, EO attacks the class frontiers which define the proletarian political milieu and marxism in general. In such conditions the least the ICC can do is to defend the basic positions of the class and the rev­olutionary political milieu, even though on this occasion the attack which we have to confront is not coming from the enemy, but from friends.

Defensive and revolutionary struggles

What is this "serious limitation" which according to EO comes from Marx and Engels, by way of R Luxemburg and Lenin and finally arrives at the ICC? What is this thinking in which "they agree" with the left of capital and which includes sections of the bourgeoisie that are not of the left? It is the question of the most elemental and basic position of Marxism, with which these comrades become entangled throughout the 60 pages of their pamphlet without finding the thread; the position according to which the defensive struggles of the workers against the effects of capitalist exploitation leads to the development (through its extension, unification, radicalization and deepening) of the working class' revolutionary struggle against the whole of capitalism, destroying it and building a communist society.

And seeing that this position has been defended throughout the history of the workers' movement and is repeated constantly in many ways in Marxist literature - just reread the first chapter of the Communist Manifesto - it is "natural" that EO end up wanting to throw Marxism in to the bourgeois camp. The following paragraphs condense its position. Referring to the struggle for pay rises it says:

"... it is a criminal illusion to believe that the unification of the present struggles (we participate in these struggles and therefore we know what they are like) will create the force that will allow it to destroy capitalism and build communism. Principally for four reasons: 1) The majority of the present struggles are on a limited terrain, trying to conserve the workforce; of course it is necessary to do this, but it is wrong to deny their limitations and worse still when they're contained by slogans like 'bread, peace end work' ... other types of struggles are necessary, around other orientations and with other objectives (EO's un­derlining). 2) These struggles do not create that force, nor does their unity allow the destruction of capitalism: this is destroyed with another kind of struggle, which includes another type of methodology (the insurrection is an example) and of course with other objectives. 3) If the proletarian vanguard is not organized in the party... it will not be possible to create a proletarian alternative capable of destroying capital. 4) This party does not arise spontaneously from these struggles though neither will it arise isolated from the real class struggle ... " (p 11).

All of this can be reduced to one con­tradistinction that EO establish between the "present struggles" and the "other types of struggles that are necessary", EO deny that the defensive struggles form part of the process of the unification of the class on the road to the revolution, and therefore are not part of the "real class struggle". This raises two questions:

Why does EO say "of course" we must carry out these struggles? Answer: "We must struggle for the same 'palliatives' because we do not yet have the force to make the revolution" (p 11). Here EO clearly says that for them there does not exist a relationship between the defensive struggles and the revolution, that if we struggle for "palliatives" it is because it's not possible to do anything else, not because this struggle contributes to the revolution, therefore the two things are counterposed.

EO consider that the present struggles only serve "to obtain palliatives" but at the same times says that "they must take place" and that it participates in them. This reduces the role of revolutionary organization to that of a charitable institution. In reality, revolutionaries intervene in the defensive struggles because they're convinced that they constitute the point of departure for the development of the revolutionary struggle: another question arising from this is how will the intervention of the party help develop this struggle?

But the second main question here is what will this "other type of struggle" be, this "real class struggle" which will create the force and unity of the class? Here EO's confusion is great. On the one hand they talk of the insurrection, but this is not what is in question. This is not a question of defining the culminating point for the destruction of bourgeois power, but of what road the proletariat must take in order to reach this point. The history of the working class knows no other road than the development of the defensive struggles, its strike movements. It is in this struggle that it will forge its unity, its consciousness, its organization, which will permit the revolutionary assault.

Likewise, there does not exist in the pamphlet a clear and explicit idea of what EO understands by "the real class struggle" which will have to take the place of the "present struggles", just allusions. For example, when referring to the hunger revolts it says: "It is certain that these are reactions without perspectives ... but they are a part of the struggle which the ICC deny" (p3). In another part dealing with the angry reactions of workers (such as beating up union delegates or fighting with the police) against the abuses to which they are subjected by the forces of capital, at work and in daily life, it says: "These 'small struggles' also form part of the class struggle and in many case have important components for the revolutionary struggle" (p29), or when dealing with such actions as blocking streets, burning cars which have occurred in some strikes, it thinks: "And of course many means, including desperation, have no perspective or  will not have if the working class only responds as individuals ... but today this is not the situation and if we want to intervene in the real struggle, we have to be part of this reality ..." (page 18).

So here we are faced with 3 different situations:

- the revolts of the desperate hungry masses (see IR 63);

- actions by isolated workers,

- the defensive struggles (which elsewhere it rejects but here it salutes, why?).

What do they have in common? What is the most important component of the struggle, this "real struggle"? Quite simply, desperate violence. According to EO: "Seeing that the necessity of destroying the state does not appear in the demands of the ICC (we will return to this question later) it is logical that they despise and underestimate the moments of confrontations with the forces of capitalist order" (page 15).

Here, Emancipacion Obrera is treading on a very slippery slope: indeed class violence is a "component" of the proletarian struggle and clearly not only during the insurrection to destroy bourgeois power, but also in all of the period which precedes it. The defensive struggles, in order to extend under workers' control, already implies a confrontation with the state apparatus, with the unions, the police, lawyers ... What we always oppose, and denounce in all cases, is when workers lock themselves up, or to put it better, they are trapped by the radical petty-bourgeois, the unions, the police, in acts of isolated, meaningless, desperate violence, which block and cut off the tendencies towards the unity of the class - acts that are implicated in the direct confrontations with the organs of repression which have the ability to mobilize and concentrate its superior force against any group of workers or isolated strike. We call on them not to believe in this desperate violence "without perspectives", which leads to dead ends, to defeats and demoralization of sectors of the working class.

There is nothing more dangerous and stupid than the following statement by EO: "It is criminal today to call on workers to arm themselves with firearms in order to defend their pickets from the police, but it is also criminal not to look for means of self defense in the context of the real forces today" (page 16). In essence, we have here the trap of the radical petty-bourgeois provocateur: inciting one group of workers to confront the police, but at the same time telling them not to use firearms, knowing full well that the police can use them whenever they wish.

This dilemma in respect to what kind of self defense workers should use on their pickets is false: workers always defend themselves as best as they can remember the steel strike in Brazil two years ago, in which the workers were trapped in the buildings of the plant and made up weapons from their tools with which they confronted the army. However, despite their great courage, they were defeated. The real dilemma is between whether workers become trapped in their factory until they are repressed by the police, who unfailingly arrive with superior forces, or whether they leave the factory in order to look for class solidarity, the extension of the struggle and the strength of the mass. Although this is a long and difficult road, it is the only one which can lead not only to winning demands and holding back repres­sion, but it is also the only way to contribute to the forging of the class unity that is essential in order to destroy capitalism. Do the comrades of EO now understand our position?

A last point on the class struggle. Along with the attacks on the ICC because it supports the defensive struggles, EO says, at one time or another that the ICC posed: "a unity without any anti-capitalist perspective ... which of necessity leads to new detente" (page 9) "What we really want to ask the ICC about, is not its support for these (the defensive struggles) but its aim of containing them in an economist political schema" (p 29).

Here, it is not a question of the "limited nature of these struggles", but that the Ice wants to limit them! This is a serious accusation, which identifies the ICC with a tool of the bourgeoisie, the unions, whose function is precisely to try to contain and lead the struggles to defeat. Therefore, EO should have some pretty solid arguments to say this. However, it has none.

This accusation is sustained with very ambiguous phrases about how the ICC does not always put forward the final objective or the armed struggle: "this question is not given the importance that it should have ... some isolated texts show an understanding ... but this is not sufficient" (page 15). "Incidentally" (yes comrades: they say nothing more         than "incidentally") "it appears that neither does the ICC defend in its leaflets the dictatorship of the proletariat" (page 38).

What does this mean? It means that EO has lost any ability to delineate the class frontiers, the positions which separate a capitalist organization from a revolutionary organization of the proletariat, and now thinks that a revolutionary organization is defined by the number of times its writes "to take power", "revolutionary war", "we want it all". This is pitiable, but it makes us think that its "political work in the masses" is very radical petty-bour­geois leftism: giving out leaflets and painting ultra-radical and ultra-revolutionary slogans, which are empty of content, on walls.

Well where is this leading the group Emancipacion Obrera ?

Emancipacion Obrera, set adrift

We have had political relations with EO for more than 4 years, including the publication within the pages of this Review of its "International Proposal" and an initial correspondence (IRs 46 & 49). In that time we have saluted the comrades' preoccupation and effort to contribute to the unification of the world-wide revolutionary forces. However, this does not mean that we do not point out, from our point of view, what constitutes the weaknesses of this group. In particular we reject the idea that the criteria for "recognizing" a revolutionary group should be its "practice" and nothing more. We have said that:

"A 'practice' divorced from any political foundations, orientations, or framework of principles is nothing but a practice suspended in mid-air, a narrow mined immediatism, which can never be a truly revolutionary activity. Any separation between theory and practice that opts, either for theory without practice, or for practice without theory, destroys the unity of the immediate struggle and historical goals" (IR 49, page 18)

Likewise, we have pointed out the urgent necessity of making a real effort towards "trying to reestablish the movement's historical and political continuity"(IR 49,page 20), which is very important for the "young" groups, confronted with the organic rupture of more than 50 years, the product of the defeat of the revolutionary wave at the beginning of the century.

We have also warned them about falling into the attitude of some groups who: "find it more profitable to remain ignorant, or even, purely and simply, to wipe out the past and who think that the revolutionary movement begins with them ... that in their desire to wipe out, to imagine that they come out of nowhere, they are condemned merely to come to nothing" (IR 49, page 20).

What at the time could appear as surmountable "weaknesses" for a young group, today have become a chronic illness: scorn for theory and the rejection of the historical continuity of the workers' movement. And what does EO offer us in its place? Little, really very little.

Thus, the problem of class consciousness appears to EO as a "Gordian Knot" which does not need to be untied, but which it prefers to "cut with an axe" (page 50). For EO, two centuries of debate in the workers' movement is "resolved" without difficulty. Marxism is of absolutely no use - all that is needed is a dictionary.

"If we pay attention [instruct EO] in reality spontaneity is not unconscious: something done spontaneously is done voluntarily... according to the dictionary: spontaneity: voluntary and self movement ... " (page 44). And from this infantile word play, EO draws its conclusion: "spontaneity is not opposed to consciousness, but to organization ... our fundamental task is not that the workers become conscious, but to bring them to take a position, to take a party"[1] (page 45). And further on: "The task of the party... is not to ‘develop consciousness' or that it 'becomes consciousness' but that the class 'takes a party' ... The task of the party is to defend a position, a party (sic!) (page 53);

"The situation of the proletariat will not be resolved because they become conscious of the fact that they are exploited, or that the bourgeoisie is the enemy, that capitalism is shit, many working men and women know it already without becoming revolutionaries. Many workmen and women know it already without help from the 'revolutionaries'. And then? Does it change anything of their reality? The question is, first of all, which is the party you take?" (page 53).

We must ask ourselves: why have we never seen a dictionary where it is clearly stated that spontaneity is voluntary, with which the problem of spontaneity would finished? Why is it until now that nobody has understood that "many workers have already become conscious, and yet this has not changed their reality"? Here, the problem of consciousness no longer exists! Why have so many parties been built and how come up until now it has occurred to nobody that the task of the party was - as its name indicates - "to create the party"? Perhaps we are meant to take seriously the stupidities that EO now serve us, seeing they have discovered the "serious limitations" of Marxism .

If we are going to be serious towards EO, we will have to try to explain to them that the problem of consciousness is not a problem of dictionary definition, but that it is the fundamental question of the proletarian struggle. The struggle for class consciousness, which at the same time is the struggle to overcome and break bourgeois ideology, is nothing but the expression of the proletariat's struggle to impose its own historical objectives by overthrowing the prevailing society.

We also have to try and explain that class consciousness is not what each worker "thinks" or believes they think, but what the working class is called on historically to do. That class consciousness cannot be separated from practice - that the consciousness of the proletariat is expressed as a revolutionary struggle.

Perhaps we could also try to define the framework of the debate in the revolutionary camp on the question of class consciousness, showing that it is based around whether it is the masses that come to this consciousness, or only the vanguard and the position adopted determines the type of intervention and orientations a revolutionary organization has inside the class ... But will this serve any purpose for Emancipacion Obrera?

It is certainly possible to recognize in the position of EO a certain influence of the Bordigist current which considers that the consciousness the masses can achieve is limited to the recognition of the revolutionary party ­to "take the party" as EO say - and that the party is the depository of global class consciousness. However, this tinge is deceitful since EO walk another route. Their considerations on the "limits" of Marxist positions; their rejection of the defensive struggles because they are "limited"; their preoccupation with finding a "real struggle"; their difficulties in distinguishing class frontiers; their insistence on "radical phraseology"; their idea that the class is ready conscious and only needs the party ... all of this is not an expression of a coherent and firm political position, but of desperation. Desperation because the party does not exist yet, because the revolution is not immediately realizable. The title of their pamphlet, We want it all, is an expression of this. As if it was only necessary to publish millions of pieces of paper with the same slogan "We want it all, we are going for it all!" in order for the insurrection to take place.

But desperation is not the essence of revolutionary organization which is capable of retaining, at least in its general lines, the historic course of the class struggle, which gives it its steadfastness and patience. Desperation is only the property of the radical petty-bourgeoisie and unfortunately, Emancipacion Obrera is drifting towards this. We consider it our duty to warn the comrades of EO of this threat, we call on them to react against these radicaloid tendencies which are increasingly evident from each of their new publications.

To the other groups of the proletarian milieu, and particularly those who today maintain close relations with EO, we call on them to carry out their responsibilities of debating with EO about weaknesses. The attitude of "Let it pass", the cultivation of a temporary agreement is opportunism: the gangrene of revolutionary organizations.

Ldo

[1] Note (1). In the original Spanish, this phrase ‘to take a party' has a double meaning: it can be understood as the act of taking a political position or in the literal sense of accepting the leadership of the party.

1. From Marx to the Second International

The present acceleration of history, Capitalism's entry into its phase of decomposition, sharply poses the necessity for the proletarian revolution as the only way out of the barbarism of capitalism in crisis. History teaches us that this revolution can only triumph if the class manages to organize itself autonomously from other classes (the workers' councils) and to secrete the vanguard that will guide it towards victory: the class party. However, today, this party doesn't exist, and many are those who simply fold their arms because, faced with the gigantic tasks that await us, the activity of the small revolutionary groups who do exist may appear to be senseless. Within the revolutionary camp itself, the majority of groups respond to the absence of the party by endlessly repeating its very Holy Name, invoking it like some kind of deus ex machina that can solve all the problems of the class. Individual disengagement and overblown declarations about commitment are two classic ways of running away from the struggle for the party, a struggle which is going on here and now, in continuity with the activity of the left fractions who broke with the degener­ating Communist International in the 20s.

In the first two parts of this work, we analyzed the activity of the Italian Communist Left, which was organized as a fraction in the 30s and 40s, and the premature, completely artificial foundation of the Internationalist Communist Party by the comrades of Battaglia Comunista in 1942[1]. In this third part, we will show that the method of working as a fraction in unfavorable periods when there is no possibility of a class party existing, was the very method employed by Marx himself. We will also show that this marxist method of working towards the party found its essential definition through the tenacious struggle of the Bolshevik fraction in the Russian social democracy. Against all those who gargle eulogies to the iron party of Lenin, and who refer ironically to the 'little grouplets that were the left fractions', we reaffirm that its only on the basis of the work that they accomplished that it will be possible to reconstruct to­morrow's world communist party.

In the article already quoted in the previous parts of this work, the comrades of  Battaglia Communista, having criticized the work of the Left Fraction between 1935 and 1945, concluded their presentation with a curt condemnation of the concept of the fraction in general:

"What is the sense of exclusively linking the notion of the party to the possibility of guiding then at least in a way that leaves no room for the broad masses, denying the political organ of the class struggle any possibility of existing except in revolutionary periods, and delegating to organisms that have never been well defined, or to their successors, the task of defending class interests in counter-revolutionary phases ....

"To argue that the party can only arise in revolutionary situations where the question of power is on the agenda, whereas in counter- revolutionary phases the party 'must' disappear or give way to the fractions, means not only depriving the class, in the most difficult and dangerous moments, of a minimum of political ­reference - which in the end means playing into the hands of the bourgeoisie - but also deliberately creates a void which it will be hard to fill in the space of 24 hours ...

"We cannot support the thesis, contradicted by historical experience, which claims that the Bolshevik party itself played the role of a 'fraction' within Russian social democracy up until 1917 (a thesis defended by the ICC in International Review no 3) ... Russia was the only European country involved in the war crisis of 1914-18 in which, despite conditions being less favorable than elsewhere, witnessed a proletarian revolution, due precisely to the fact that there was a party carrying out the work of a party, at least from 1912. From its beginnings, Bolshevism did not limit itself to fighting the opportunism of the Mensheviks on the political level, to theoretically elaborating the principles of the revolution, to forming cadres and proselytizing, but forged the first links between the party and the class, links which later on, in the heat of a rising situation, were to become real collective channels between the spontaneity of the class and the strategic and tactical program of the party...

"Already in 1902, Lenin had laid the tactical and organizational bases for building the alternative which was a party, unless we take What Is To Be Done to be the ten commandments of the fractionalist faith"[2]

To sum up, according to the comrades of BC:

1. nobody knows the origin of the theory which holds that in counter-revolutionary periods, fractions have to take the place of parties;
2. these fractions are "organisms that have never been well defined" and are thus incapable of giving a political orientation to the proletariat;
3. if the Russian revolution happened at all, it was because Lenin had from 1902 on bases of the Bolshevik party, and not the Bolshevik fraction as the ICC claims.

These assertions, three holes in Battaglia's theo­retical-political coherence, three ideas about the history of the workers' movement, don't stand up to examination. 

Marx, the Communist League, the IWA, and the lessons of the counter-revolution

"I would first like to point out, that following the dissolution of the League, which I had called for, in November 1852, I did not and do not belong to any organization, secret or public; in other words, the party, in the ephemeral sense of the term, for me ceased to exist 8 years ago ... As a result of this, I have been attacked on several occasions, if not openly, then at least in a way that leaves no room for doubt, on account of my 'inactivity' ...  Consequently, of the party you talk to me about in your letter, I have known nothing since 1852 ... The League, as well as the Society of Seasons in Paris and a hundred other organizations, was simply an episode in the history of the party which is born spontaneously from the soil of modern society... In addition, I have tried to avoid the misunderstanding which identifies the 'party' with a League that has been dead for 8 years or with the publication of a paper dissolved 12 years ago. When I talk about the party, I mean the. party in the broadest historical sense" (Marx to Freiligrath, 1860).

As we can see, the theory that proletarian par­ties disappear in counter-revolutionary phases was not an invention of Bilan in the 1930s, but was already Marx's firm conviction in the middle of the last century.

In this reply to the ex-militant of the Communist League, Ferdinand Freiligrath, who was inviting Marx to reassume the leadership of the 'party', Marx made it clear that the party had been dis­solved 8 years before, at the end of the revolutionary wave that began in 1848, as the Society of the Seasons of the Parisian workers and other organizations had been before, once the cycle of struggles of which they had been an expression had come to an end.

It is clear that Marx always had this profoundly materialist attitude, in contrast to the activist prejudices of those who refused to recognize the depth of the defeat and wanted to immediately 'start all over again'. In 1850, when Marx declared that the world economic revival had made the revolutionary perspective in Europe of recede into the distance, the majority of the League's militants (the Willich-Schapper tendency) opposed him and denounced him for trying to 'send everyone to sleep'. Only a mi­nority remained loyal to him and attempted - even after the formal dissolution of the League in 1852 - to devote themselves to the difficult task of 'drawing the lessons of the defeat', by understanding its causes and forging the theoretical instruments which would serve the proletariat in the next waves of struggle.

It is important to underline that the comrades who wanted to keep the League alive at any price were compelled to renege on their political positions and engage in all kinds of intrigues, in artificial alliances with the democrats, al­liances which soon dissolved and left no trace, except for the cinders of activism born out of the artificial attempt to hold on to the party.

By contrast, the patient work of clarification, of forming cadres, carried out by the fraction linked to Marx would bear fruit when the work­ers' movement revived: the marxist cadres were naturally to be found at the head of the International Workingmen's Association when it was formed in 1864 (developing "spontaneously from the soil of modern society"), at a time when there was an international resurgence of the workers' movement.

Marx's position didn't change in 1871, when the defeat of the Paris Commune opened up a new period of retreat in the workers' movement. In these conditions, Marx and Engels quickly say that the days of the IWA were numbered, and at the Le Hague congress in 1872, they propose that the General Council should be transferred to New York, which boiled down to dissolving the organization:

"Given the present conditions in Europe, it is absolutely useful, in my opinion, to shelve the formal organization of the International for the moment ... The inevitable evolution of things can lead of themselves to a resurrection of the International in a more perfected form. In the meantime, it will be enough to make sure that we don't let the best elements in various coun­tries slip out of our hands" (Marx to Sorge, 1873).

Once again, for Marx and Engels, keeping the facade of a party artificially alive in a period of counter-revolution was absolutely pointless; on the other hand, it was essential to carry on the collective work of that fraction of militants that was capable of resisting demoralization and of preparing the future resurgence "in a more perfected form".

To console the comrades of BC, who seem to be terrorized by the possibility that someone can 'decide' that the party 'ought' to disappear at certain moments, we should underline that Marx and Engels never thought of taking such 'decisions'. To 'decide' to dissolve the party is a voluntarist act exactly like deciding to maintain it artificially. Marx did not dissolve the League in an authoritarian manner in 1852, any more than he did the IWA in 1872. He simply ex­plained that revolutionaries had to face up to the inevitable dislocation of these parties, by organizing themselves to preserve the red thread of communist activity even in their ab­sence. If the dissolution of these organs subse­quently confirmed, in both cases, Marx's predic­tions, this was because of the force of events, not the force of Marx's orders.

The dialectic between Party and Fraction works itself out in the historic development of the workers' movement

Now that we have clarified that the 'strange' theory about the disappearance of the proletarian parties in counter-revolutionary periods was developed by Marx himself, let's now turn to the organs which, in these periods, ensured the 'continuity of revolutionary activity, ie the frac­tions.

According to Battaglia, these are organs which "have never been well defined". It is of course true that Marx never wrote a nice propagandist piece in the style of Wage, Labor and Capital on the function of the network of comrades who remained around him after the dissolution of the League and of the IWA. But this doesn't mean that for Marx, the task of drawing up a bal­ance-sheet was not important. It was due to the fact that the notion of the fraction of the class party is by definition linked to the notion of the party itself. The definition of its contours goes hand in hand with the process that leads from the Communist League, which "could make alliances with a fraction of the bourgeoisie", to the Communist International, "which gave itself the task of realizing the world-wide revolu­tion"[3].

As the historic experience of the class made the contours of its vanguard party more precise, so there developed the necessary materials for defining the work of the marxist fraction, which appears in reaction to the party's opportunist deviations. It was only when capitalism entered into its final phase, when the communist revolution was finally on the agenda that the class party could develop in its complete form and by the same token, it became able to secrete real fractions in response to a course towards opportunism and degeneration. The Italian Left drew this lesson in the 1930s:

"The problem of the fraction as we see it - ie as a moment in the reconstruction of the class party - was not and could not have been envis­aged within the First and Second Internationals. What was then called 'fractions', or more com­monly 'right wing' or 'left wing', 'transigent' or 'intransigent' currents, 'reformist' or 'revolutionary' were in the great majority of cases - the Bolsheviks being an exception - simply fortuitous alliances made on the eve of or during congresses, with the aim of carrying through certain agendas with no organizational continuity, in a phase where the seizure of power wasn't posed ... [4].

"The collapse of the Second International when the world conflict broke out cannot be seen as a sudden betrayal, but as the conclusion of a whole process.

The exact notion of the task of a fraction could only be the corollary of the exact notion of the class party"[5].

The process of the maturation and definition of the concept of the fraction thus had its origins (but not its conclusion) in this first network of comrades who had survived the dissolution of the Communist League. Because an understand­ing of where we started from is always indis­pensable for understanding where we're going, we will attempt to analyze in depth the activity of this first 'fraction'.

Certain phrases in the letter to Freiligrath, or other isolated citations from the private correspondence between Marx and Engels, have often been used to demonstrate that these com­rades returned to private life, devoting them­selves to theoretical studies which they later put at the disposal of the masses hungry for knowledge. Reality is completely different.

Engels clarified matters very promptly:

"For the moment, the essential thing is that we have the possibility of getting things published, either in a quarterly review in which we will attack directly, and in which we will ensure our positions against those of others, or in larger works where we can do the same thing without having to mention any of these buffoons. Either one of these solutions is alright by me; but it seems to me that if the reaction gets stronger, the first eventuality will prove to be less cer­tain in the long term, and the second will more and more constitute the only resource we can count on". (Engels to Marx, 1851).

Marx reaffirmed this point:

"I said to him we can't collaborate directly on any small journal, not even a party journal[6], unless it's edited by ourselves. But that at the moment, all the necessary conditions for attain­ing this are absent". (Marx to Engels, 1859).

It wasn't at all a matter of withdrawing into private life, of devoting themselves to theoreti­cal studies with the idea of one day returning to militant activity. For Marx and Engels, the essential thing, the thing to which they devoted all the means at their disposal, was the publica­tion, as regularly as possible, of a revolutionary press that could publicly defend and deepen the perspective of communism and the critique of capitalist society. What they rejected was not this organized and formalized activity, but the attempt to make it possible by collaborating with confused and activist elements who would have made their work completely pointless. If they were unable to maintain a formally organized framework of activity, it was not for lack of trying, but because "all the necessary condi­tions for attaining it are absent". And these conditions were absent because the development of the workers' movement was so weak that in phases of reflux it wasn't possible to maintain even a small organized revolutionary group.

Once again, no one decided that the party 'ought' to disappear, or that the fraction 'ought' to be limited to an informal network of com­rades. It was the objective conditions of the class struggle which determined it: the militants had to either recognize this reality and organize themselves accordingly, or close their eyes and deceive themselves and others by playing tricks which kept up the mere name and appearance of a class organ.

In reality, only those who have no interest in Central Committees that float in the void have played a real 'party' role in counter-revolution­ary phases: the small informal group of com­rades around Marx worked in such a continuous and collective way that they were commonly re­ferred to in the revolutionary milieu as the 'Marx party' - so much so that Marx had to make it clear in his letter to Freiligrath that this party didn't exist. He pointed out that when he referred to party activity, he meant it in "the broadest historical sense" as an activity which maintained political continuity between the different parties. The groups of comrades which carried out this work after the dissolution of the League and the IWA, despite their informal character, can be considered as fractions in ev­ery respect, because they weren't new regroup­ments but real fractions of the old parties.

The 'Marx party' of 1853-63 was none other than the 'Marx fraction' within the League in 1850-52.

The "most capable comrades in various coun­tries" in the period from the dissolution of the IWA to the birth of the second International were none other than the old 'authoritarian' marxist fraction with the IWA. The fractions ­- however they define themselves and organize themselves accordingly to the maturity of the period - thus represent the historical continuity between the different episodes in the history of the party.

The problem of the Fraction in the Second International

Merely asserting that Lenin - leader of the Bolshevik fraction of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party - had something to do with the fractions, provokes a show of contempt by Battaglia, for whom Lenin is the party man, and that's that: it's because the Bolshevik party existed - and not some ill-defined fraction ­that the revolution was able to triumph in Russia.

Before showing that this is yet another falsifi­cation of history by BC, let's recall the historic framework in which the activities of the Bolsheviks and the socialist left in general de­veloped.

The Second International was founded in a diffi­cult historic period for revolutionaries: on the one hand, throughout Europe it was the end of the phase in which the proletariat could play an autonomous role in bourgeois democratic revolu­tions (which henceforth would be carried out 'from above', as with Bismark in Germany); on the other hand, the proletarian revolution wasn't yet on the agenda, since capitalism was in its last, most impetuous phase of economic development. In these conditions Marx (and Engels after Marx's death) considered the ex­istence of a powerful opportunist wing in "the social democratic parties to be an "inevitable fact". They thus advised the marxist elements to avoid premature splits and concentrate on the intransigent defense of class positions within the party, in the expectation that the approach of the revolutionary crisis would lead "automatically" to a split and the emergence of authentic marxist parties[7].

Revolutionaries had to be the most resolute defenders of the unity of the party, momentarily giving up any idea of organizing themselves into currents that were well-defined organizationally, which would have exposed them to the threat of expulsion, and thus of being trans­formed into sects detached from the real move­ment, This was the only effective line of action in this situation and, in fact, it marked a num­ber of successes (accepting of the marxist Erfurt program in 1881).

However, the prolongation over decades of the phase of economic development and social peace not only meant that the existence of an oppor­tunist wing was "an inevitable fact", but that it infiltrated the majority of the party, which would make it difficult for the organization to purge itself when faced with a pre-revolution­ary situation,

At the beginning of the new century marxists were posed with the question of reacting against this negative evolution, moving away from the defense of marxism in "dispersed or­der" to a more coordinated activity within the party. This, however, was by no means easy, because the myth of unity had deep roots in the party leaders were well-placed to present the radicals as divisive elements.  In 1909, the attempt of the militants of the Dutch left to organize as a tendency around the publication Die Tribune was nipped in the bud by expelling them en bloc; this led them to form a mini-party which quickly reproduced, on a small scale, the vices of the original one[8]. The prevalent attitude among the militants of the left was the attempt to push things left­wards rather than directly oppose what was going on. Rosa Luxemburg's behaviour in the German' party was the clearest expression of this.

The only exception, as the passages cited from Bilan no.24 show, was the Russian Bolsheviks who were organized as an autonomous fraction of the RSDLP from 1904 on. It may seem astonishing that the first to move had been these 'backward' Russians, but the explanation for their vanguard role derives precisely from the particular conditions of the Russian empire (which then stretched from Siberia to Poland). In this immense zone in the first years of the century, the bourgeois democratic revolution, which had in all essentials already been achieved in Europe, was still on the agenda. But the late development of the Russian bourgeoisie prevented it from playing a vanguard role in the democratic revolution, while the especially backward character of Tsarism prevented it from carrying out the revolution 'from above' as Bismark had done in Germany.

The Russian proletariat, therefore, was not des­tined to seize the last historic chance of playing an autonomous role within a bourgeois revolu­tion. But, as we have seen, Engels had already foreseen that the approach of a revolutionary crisis would place on the agenda an organizational separation between the marxists and the opportunists. The maturation of a revolutionary situation in the Tsarist territories fully con­firmed Engels' predictions, since it became more and more difficult for the marxists to live under the same roof with the opportunists who were logically inclined to make compromises, not only with the democrats, but with the reaction itself. In Poland, the revolutionaries led by Rosa Luxemburg had already resolved the problem in 1894, by creating a new small party, the SDKP, in opposition to a Polish Socialist Party that was profoundly infected by nationalism. In this way, Rosa Luxemburg had a free hand earlier on, but she never had the chance of gaining experience of the struggle of a fraction in defense of a party threatened with degeneration. This is why she never really managed to develop and under­stand the concept of a fraction. This was a weakness that would be paid for dearly during the heroic struggle of the Spartacists against the degeneration of the German SPD, and would to a large extent be responsible for the fatal delay in the constitution of the German Communist Party in 1918.

On the other hand, the whole battle that Lenin fought for ten years took place inside the party, enabling him to develop and elaborate the political notion of the left fraction, and thus to lay the bases for the IIIrd International.

Beyle

[1] The first two parts were published in IRs 59 & 61. For a deeper analysis of the activity of the Italian Communist Left, we recommend reading our two pamphlets ‘La Gauche Communiste d'Italie, 1927-52', and ‘La GCI et l'Opposition Internationale de Gauche'.

[2] ‘Fraction and Party in the Experience of the Italian Left', Prometeo 2, March 1979.

[3] ‘Towards the two and three quarters International?' Bilan 1, November 1933.

[4] Obviously it has to be understood that at that time a fully developed class party could not have existed. The League and the IWA were both class parties corresponding to the level of development of the workers' movement.

[5] ‘The problems of fractions in the IInd International', Bilan 24, 1935.

[6] Marx means an authentically socialist journal. The undifferentiated use of the word party clearly shows that these were only the first steps towards the historic definition of the structure and function of the class party.

[7] For Marx and Engel's tactics in this period, see in particular their correspondence with the leaders of the German party, reproduced in Marx, Engels, and German Social Democracy, Ed 10-18.

[8] During the First World War, the leadership of the Dutch SPD vacillated towards an ambiguous support for Anglo-American imperialism, censoring the international writings of left-wing militants like Gorter. See The History of the Dutch Communist Left that we will be publishing shortly.

Horror, barbarism and terror: the Gulf war has ex­posed the reality of capitalism.

Horror and barbarism. War, war between imperialist gangsters, continues. The coalition forces have begun their ground offensive. And Iraq will meet with defeat. Hundreds of thousands of dead - we don't know ex­actly how many for the moment - and no doubt as many wounded and missing; massive destruction in Iraq and Kuwait: this will be, and is already, the bloody and terrible result of this conflict.

Horror and cynicism of the bourgeoisie of the 'coalition' countries. Without any shame, reveling in blood, it has boasted of its technical prowess in this war. At first, in order to lull people's reticence about the butchery, it talked about a 'clean war': the missiles were only hitting military buildings. They could go through windows and elevator shafts, but they didn't kill anyone, at least not civilians. How marvelous - it' was no more than a 'surgical' operation. But the macabre reality couldn't be hidden for long. Thousands of civilians died under the massive bombardments of the B 52s and the cruise missiles. Will we ever know the frightful truth of all this? The height of cynicism: when the destruction of the Baghdad bunker undoubt­edly left 400 dead, the Pentagon blamed the civilians, who shouldn't have taken refuge in this bunker and so put themselves in the path of the bombs!

The unlimited admiration of the media, the jour­nalists, the military specialists for all this technical and scientific prowess put in the service of death and de­struction is absolutely disgusting. Capitalism today is incapable of dealing with all sorts of epidemics in the world, cholera in Latin America, AIDS, and many oth­ers. Science and technology are at the service of death and destruction on a huge scale. This is the reality of capitalism.

Terror, capitalist terror, the terror of a rotting so­ciety, has descended on the populations. Terror on a huge scale on Iraq and Kuwait. The American coalition uses the most sophisticated, the most murderous, the most 'scientific' and massive weapons. We are not military specialists, and we have no taste for the sinis­ter statistics. How much was it? At the lowest estimate, 100,000 tons of bombs have been dropped, 108,000 aerial sorties flown. How many cruise missiles launched from war ships in the Gulf, in the Mediter­ranean? The American bourgeoisie and its allies don't hesitate to use the most massive means of destruction ­except of course nuclear weapons, they are for next time no doubt - such as fuel air bombs and napalm. In comparison with this, the horrible exactions committed by Saddam' s soldiers were amateur stuff.

Even within the shelters, the civil populations are not safe. Can you imagine the damage, the fear, the panic and anguish of the children, the women, of men old and young in the midst of all the bombing: the ex­plosions - when Basra was hit, the earth trembled in Iran - the sirens, and all the deaths and the injuries? We know that the American planes were often bombing 24 hours a day. We know that during the first night of the war, one and a half times the equivalent of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima was unleashed on Iraq. We know that during one month, Iraq and Kuwait were hit by more bombs than Germany throughout World War Two!

One Patriot missile costs one million US dollars. The cost of one Stealth bomber is 100 million dollars. The total cost of the war will certainly be more than 80 million dollars, and that's just the most minimal estimate. In fact it will be a lot more, even if you only take into account the massive destructions in Iraq and Kuwait, and all the oil wells. The lowest estimates are already talking about 100 billion dollars for each of these coun­tries. Twenty years' labor by the Iraqi workers has been annihilated. Is there any need to point out that Iraq's debt before the invasion of Kuwait was 'only' 70 billion? We are seeing a vast squandering of goods and riches.

Right now, three quarters of humanity are underfed and live in destitution. Right now, 40,000 children under five years old are dying of undernourishment all over the world. How many more will be marked by its effects throughout their lives?

The capacities of production are at the service of death and destruction, not of humanity and its well­-being. This is the reality of capitalism.

Capitalist dictatorship and totalitarianism

Horror and shameful lies. Alongside the bombardment of Iraq, we have the propaganda bombardment by the media, aimed at the populations all over the world, and in particular the working class. The media are revealed for what they are: servants of the bourgeoisie and its war effort. From the first day of the war, the time of the 'clean war', the mobilization and enthusiasm of the media were sickening. But the manipulation of the news and the gung-ho prattle of the journalists wasn't enough. The different belligerent states, above all the USA and the most 'democratic' ones, imposed a mili­tary censorship worthy of the most vulgar fascist or Stalinist regimes, in order to ensure a completely dicta­torial control over information and 'public opinion.' This is what the much-vaunted bourgeois democracy amounts to.

Another lie: this was a war for the respect of in­ternational law that had been transgressed by the Iraqi bourgeoisie. What kind of law is this, except the law of the strongest, capitalist law? It was either through naked self interest, as in the case of Egypt, Syria or Britain, or through bribes and threats as in the case of the USSR, China and France that the USA obtained the UN's agreement for a military intervention.

Saddam Hussein made a good move when he made a scandal out of the double standards that are operating in all this, when he pointed out that neither the UN nor of course the USA had used the same armed force to ensure that Israel would respect the resolutions calling on her to leave the occupied territories. The bour­geoisie only cares about law, about its law, when it serves its interests to do so.

After the war, neither peace nor reconstruction, but more imperialist wars

Once the conflict was unleashed, all 'reason' and 'morality' went by the board. The USA wants to bring Iraq to its knees, inflict colossal and irreparable de­struction on the country. No matter what the cost this is the implacable logic of imperialist war. The Ameri­can bourgeoisie has no choice. In order to fulfill its po­litical objectives, to affirm without any ambiguity its imperialist hegemony over the world, it is forced to go all the way and use the enormous means of destruction at its disposal. Razing Iraq and Kuwait and ensuring Saddam's total capitulation are the objectives of the American bourgeoisie. These are the orders given to the military.

Saddam Hussein, in his desperation, has been pushed into the suicidal, unbridled use of everything to hand: Scuds, the oil slick in the Persian Gulf, burning the oil­ wells to protect himself from the incessant waves of bombers. He also has no choice.

Two countries, Iraq and Kuwait, have been covered in fire and blood. Their main wealth, oil, is burning and the wells will certainly be devastated for some time to come. The whole environment of the region is gravely threatened. The damage is already considerable. A large part may even be irreversible.

And in the midst of all this bloodletting, we have heard the lying, hypocritical wailing of the bourgeois 'opposition' to the war. The pacifists, the leftists who ­when they are not overtly supporting Iraqi imperialism like the Trotskyists do - call for demonstrations 'against the war for oil' and for peace. But peace is impossible under capitalism. It is just a moment for preparing war. Capitalism carries imperialist war within itself. The war in the Middle East is yet further proof of that.

Even if controlling oil remains important, it's not the main aim of the war. Since 2 August the oil wells of Iraq and Kuwait have been paralyzed, and after that they have been largely destroyed, but this hasn't led to a rise in the price of oil. On the contrary, prices have fallen. There is no threat of scarcity. There is overpro­duction of oil because there is a generalized overpro­duction of commodities and a world recession.

The war is not yet over and what are we seeing al­ready? The ignoble vultures known as 'businessmen' are hovering over the carnage and hungrily seeking what profit they can make in the name of reconstruc­tion. The British companies have waxed indignant about the rapacity of their American rivals. Making war together is a very moral and just thing to do, but business is business. Against these new lies, let's be clear that there won't be the kind of reconstruction that can lead to a revival of the world economy. A country like Iraq was already incapable of repaying its 70 bil­lion dollar debt before the war. This was one of the reasons for its tragic adventure. So how and with what can it reconstruct? And that at a time when world cap­italism has shown itself incapable of re-launching the ruined economies of the former Stalinist capitalist bloc.

All this is just lies and propaganda in order to sell the war and the sacrifices to the populations, and above all to the working class of the most industrialized coun­tries. In order to offer 'reasons' to support the war ef­fort.

But for humanity as a whole there is no reason to support this war or any imperialist war. Still less for the exploited, revolutionary class, the proletariat. Nei­ther on the historic, nor the economic, nor the human­itarian level (see 'The proletariat and war' in this is­sue). This is just a massacre of human lives, an in­credible waste of technical means and productive forces, which will disappear into a bottomless pit. And at the end of it, there won't be peace, but more wars. Contrary to all the lies, there will be no peace from all this, neither in the Middle East or the rest of the planet.

The war against Iraq prepares tomorrow's wars

The defeat of Iraq will obviously be a great victory for the USA. Despite all its declarations about peace, its moralizing about good and evil, the American bour­geoisie is in reality issuing a warning to all those who may be tempted to follow Saddam Hussein's example. The USA is the world's leading imperialist power, the only 'superpower' after the collapse of the USSR. Be­cause it is the only country that can do it, it cannot stand idly by in the face of the multiplication of local wars, the questioning of frontiers, the development of 'every man for himself' between states, in sum, of chaos. This is the warning. They will guarantee the 'world order' of which they are the main beneficiary. This is one of the reasons for the bloody intransigence of the USA, their insistence on razing Iraq, on waging war to the bitter end. But this warning is not only ad­dressed to Saddam's potential imitators - and there are plenty of them. There is another more fundamental rea­son for the USA's intransigence.

It is also and above all to issue a warning to the other great powers, Germany, Japan, the European countries and to a lesser extent the USSR. America's imperialist domination is still very real. Sending its armed forces to the Middle East, making a clear and murderous demonstration of its immense military superiority, dragging others, like France for example, into the in­tervention, waging the war to its bitter end, crushing Iraq in fire and blood - all this is the means it uses to reinforce its global 'leadership'. And above all to snuff out any pretensions towards independence, towards the emergence of another imperialist pole capable of chal­lenging its domination. Even if the latter is highly im­probable for the moment.

This is the reason for the USA's systematic rejection of all the peace plans and proposals for negotiation involving an Iraqi withdrawal, proposed in turn by France on 15 January and the USSR before the land offensive - each time supported by Germany, Italy, etc ... This is the reason for the increasingly intransigent replies, for the increasingly harsh ultimatums issued in reply to these peace proposals.

War, tens of thousands of tons of bombs, hundreds of thousands of dead, incalculable destruction, the razing of Iraq and Kuwait so that the American bourgeoisie can affirm and strengthen its domination, its imperialist grip over a world sunk in crisis, war and de­composition. These are the real aims of the war!

It was through the perspective and unleashing of war that the American bourgeoisie succeeded despite all the problems in forcing the other powers into 'coalition' behind its war aims. Each time that the pressure eased off, the centrifugal tendencies, the tendencies towards opposition to the USA, towards the emergence of an alternative to the USA's war-drive, came to the surface (see the editorial to IR 64). Proof that these countries were well aware that their American imperialist rival had led them into a trap which would make them weaker than ever.

Once the war is over, the tensions between the USA and the European powers, Germany in particular, and Japan, will inevitably develop. Faced with the eco­nomic strength of these countries, their rise to power, the USA will be led more and more to impose an iron grip over these nascent antagonisms, to use the strength at its disposal, ie its military strength, and thus war.

The war against Iraq is the preparation for other im­perialist wars. Not for peace. On the one hand, the aggravation of the economic crisis and capitalism's slide into chaos and decomposition will inevitably push countries into military adventures like Iraq's. On the other hand, and in this situation, the leading imperialist power, faced with chaos, faced with its potential rivals, will more and more use its military strength and war in order to impose its 'order' and its domination. Every­thing is pushing towards the accentuation of economic and military tensions. Everything is pushing towards the multiplication of imperialist wars.

This is what the bloody military victory of the west­ern coalition announces.

In this imperialist war in the Middle East, as in any other imperialist war, it's above all the working class that pays, that is the main victim. It pays with its life when it is in uniform, enrolled by force at the bat­tlefront, or when it simply finds itself under a rain of bombs and missiles. It pays with its sweat, its labor and its misery when it is 'lucky' enough to not be di­rectly massacred.

Marx and Lenin are dead and buried, claimed the bourgeoisie when Stalinism fell apart. However, Karl Marx's watchword 'workers of the world unite' is as relevant and as urgent as ever faced with the national­ist, warmongering madness that is descending on the whole of humanity.

Yes, the international proletariat is the only force, the only social class that can oppose this increasingly in­sane and hellish machine that is capitalism in decom­position. It is the only force that can do away with this barbarism and build another society where the causes of war and poverty have disappeared.

The road is still a long one. However, we must go along it with determination because the most dramatic deadlines are approaching day by day.

The first steps are to refuse to make economic sacri­fices, to reject the logic of defending the national econ­omy. Rejecting national unity and national discipline, rejecting social peace and the logic of imperialist war, this is the road to follow. These are the slogans that revolutionaries must put forward.

The economic crisis, the sharpening trade war, is exacerbating imperialism and war. Crisis and war are two sides of the capitalist coin. The first, the crisis, leads to war. The latter in turns aggravates the crisis. The two are linked. The workers' struggle for its class demands against attacks and sacrifices, and the struggle against imperialist war, are one and the same struggle: the revolutionary struggle of the working class, the struggle for communism.

Workers of the world unite!

RL 2.3.91

As readers of our territorial press will know already, our comrade Marc is dead. In the December issue of our French territorial press, we published, as usual, the list of donations; one was accompanied with these words: “In reply to many letters which have touched me deeply, and for a first combat fought and won, this donation for the ICC’s press...” As always, our comrade fought against his disease with lucidity and courage. But in the end, it was the disease - one of the most virulent forms of cancer - that had the upper hand, the 20th December 1990. With Marc’s death, not only has our organisation lost its most experienced militant, and its most fertile mind; the whole world proletariat has lost one of its best fighters.

Marxism has long since shown, against all the ideas of bourgeois individualism, that history is not made by great individuals, but that since the appearance of social classes, “The history of all societies, to this day, has been the history of class struggle”. The same is especially true of the history of the workers’ movement whose main protagonist is precisely that class which more than any other engages in associated labour, and struggles collectively. Within the proletariat, the communist minorities that express its revolutionary nature also act collectively. In this sense, these minorities’ activities are above all anonymous, and can have nothing to do with any cult of personality. Revolutionary militants cannot exist as such, outside the whole that is the communist organisation. Nonetheless, while the organisation must be able to count on all its members, it is evident that they do not all make an equal contribution to its activity. Certain militants’ personal history, experience, or character - as well as particular historical circumstances - lead them to play a special role in the organisations to which they belong, as motive forces in their activity, and especially in the one activity which lies at the heart of their very reason for existing: working out and deepening revolutionary political positions.

Marc was one of these. In particular, he belonged to that tiny minority of militants who survived and resisted the terrible counter-revolution which battened on the working class from the 1920’s to the 60’s: militants like Anton Pannekoek, Henk Canne-Meijer, Amadeo Bordiga, Onorato Damen, Paul Mattick, Jan Appel, or Munis. Moreover, not only did he maintain his untiring loyalty to the communist cause and his complete confidence in the proletariat’s revolutionary capabilities, he was able to pass on his experience to a new generation of militants, and to avoid becoming wrapped up in analyses and positions that had been overtaken by historical events. In this sense, his whole activity as a militant is an example of what marxism means: the living, constantly developing thought of the revolutionary class, which bears with it humanity’s future.

Needless to say, our comrade was a dynamic force in pushing forward the thought and action of the political organisation within the ICC. And this remained true until his final hour. In fact, his whole life as a militant was inspired by the same approach, by the same determination to defend communist principles tooth and nail, while always maintaining a critical spirit capable whenever necessary of calling into question what seemed to many to be untouchable and “invariant” dogma[1]. His life as a militant lasted 70 years; it be­gan in the heat of the revolution itself.

THE COMMITMENT TO THE REVOLUTIONARY STRUGGLE

Marc was born on 13th May 1907 in Kishiniev, the capital of Bessarabia (Moldavia), at a time when the region was still part of the old Tsarist Empire. He was not yet 10 years old when the 1917 revolution began. This is how he described, on his 80th birthday, this tremendous experience, which marked his whole life:

“I had the good fortune, while still a child, to live through and experience the Russian Revolution, both in February and October. I lived it intensely. You have to understand what it meant to be a “Gavroche” [2], a child in the streets in a revolutionary period, spending the days in demonstrations, going from one to another, from one meeting to another, spending the nights in clubs full of soldiers and workers, and of discussion, talk and confrontations; a time when on any street corner, suddenly, without any preparation, someone might stand at a window and begin to speak: immediately, a thousand people would gather round and begin to discuss. It was unforgettable, and of course it has marked my whole life. On top of this, I had the luck to have an older brother who was both a soldier and a Bolshevik, the Party secretary in our town, and I ran with him, hand in hand, from one meeting to the next where he defended the positions of the Bolsheviks.

I had the good fortune to be the youngest, the fifth in a family where all, one after the other, became members of the Party until they were either killed or expelled. All this meant that I lived in a house always full of people, of youngsters, where there were always discussions going on, for at first only one was Bolshevik, while the others were more or less socialists. They were in constant debate with their comrades, their workmates... It was an enormous good fortune for a child’s education”.

In 1919 during the civil war, Moldavia was occupied by counter-revolutionary Romanian troops. Marc’s family was under threat from the pogroms (his father was a rabbi), and was forced to flee to Palestine. His brothers and elder sister were among the founders of this country’s Communist Party. Here, in 1921, Marc (still not yet 13 years old) became a militant, entering (or rather helping to found) the Communist Party’s youth organisation. He very quickly came up against the position of the Communist International on the na­tional question: a position that, as he put it, “stuck in his throat”. This disagreement led to his first exclu­sion from the Party in 1923. Already, though still an adolescent, Marc displayed a quality which would re­main with him throughout his life as a militant: an un­failing intransigence in the defence of revolutionary principles, even if this meant opposing “authorities” of the workers’ movement as prestigious as the leaders of the Third International, and especially Lenin and Trot­sky[3]. His complete commitment to the proletarian cause, his militant involvement in the communist or­ganisation, and his deep respect for the great figures of the workers’ movement never made him give up the fight for his own positions, when he felt that those of the organisation went against its principles, or had been overtaken by new historical circumstances. For him, as for all the great revolutionaries like Lenin or Lux­emburg, adherence to marxism, to the proletariat’s revolutionary theory, meant an adherence, not to its letter but to its spirit and method. In fact, our com­rade’s audacious spirit (which, again, he shared with all the great revolutionaries) was the other side of his complete and undying commitment to the cause and programme of the proletariat. Because he was steeped in marxism, he was never paralysed by the fear of abandoning it when he criticised the outdated positions of the workers’ organisations. And he first applied this approach against the support for national liberation struggles, which had become a dogma for both the Second and Third Internationals[4].

THE STRUGGLE AGAINST THE DEGENERATION OF THE THIRD INTERNATIONAL

In 1924, Marc, with one of his brothers, came to live in France. There, he joined the Communist Party’s Jewish section, so becoming once again a member of the same International from which he had just been excluded. He immediately joined the opposition fight­ing against the degeneration of the CI and its commu­nist parties. With Albert Treint (General Secretary of the French CP from 1923-26) and Suzanne Girault (one-time Party treasurer), he took part in the foundation of Unite Léniniste. When Trotsky’s platform of the Russian opposition was published in France, he de­clared himself in agreement. By contrast, and unlike Treint, he rejected Trotsky’s declaration that he had been wrong in all his disagreements with Lenin prior to 1917. Marc considered this attitude absolutely wrong, first because Trotsky did not really believe what he was saying, and secondly because such a declaration could only trap Trotsky in all the incorrect positions which Lenin had defended in the past (in particular during the 1905 revolution on the “democratic dictator­ship of the proletariat and the peasantry”). Once again, our comrade showed his ability to maintain a critical and lucid attitude towards the “authorities” of the workers’ movement. His adhesion to the International Opposition, after his exclusion from the PCF in 1928, did not mean that he shared all positions of its most important leader, despite the admiration he felt for Trotsky. And it was thanks to this critical spirit that he avoided being dragged into the Trotskyist move­ment’s slide into opportunism at the beginning of the 1930’s. After taking part, with Treint, in the forma­tion of Redressement Communiste, in 1930 he joined the Ligue Communiste (the organisation which repre­sented the Opposition in France), and became (with Treint again) a member of its Executive Commission in October 1931.

However, after defending a minority position against the rise of opportunism, both men left the Ligue in May 1932, and helped to found the Fraction Commu­niste de Gauche (known as the Bagnolet Group). In 1933, this organisation split and Marc broke with Treint, who had begun to defend a position on the USSR similar to the one later developed by Chaulieu and Burnham (“Bureaucratic Socialism”). He then took part in November 1933 in the formation of Union Communiste, along with Chaze (Gaston Davoust, died 1984), with whom he had been closely linked since the early 30’s when the latter was still a member of the PCF (he was excluded in 1932), and one of the leaders of the “l5ème Rayon” (in Paris’ western suburbs) which defended opposition orientations.

THE GREAT STRUGGLES OF THE 1930’S

Marc remained a member of Union Communiste until the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. This was one of the most tragic periods for the workers’ movement: as Victor Serge put it, this was “midnight in the cen­tury”. And as Marc said himself: “For all the genera­tions which had remained revolutionary, it was a dreadful sadness to live through these years of terrible isolation which saw the French proletariat brandishing the tricolour, the flag of the ‘Versaillais’, and singing the Marseillaise, all in the name of communism”. And this feeling of isolation reached its height in the Span­ish Civil War, when many organisations that had succeeded in remaining firm on class positions were swept away by the wave of “anti-fascism”. This was the case in particular with Union Communiste, which saw the events in Spain as a proletarian revolution, a struggle where the working class held the initiative. To be sure, this organisation did not go so far as to support the “Frente Popular” government. But it did call for enrolment in the anti-fascist militia, and entered into political contact with the left wing of the POUM, an anti-fascist organisation that took part in the gov­ernment of the Catalan “Generalitat”.

Marc was intransigent in the defence of class princi­ples; he could not accept such a capitulation before the ambient anti-fascist ideology, even dressed up as “solidarity with the Spanish proletariat”. He had re­mained in contact with the Fraction of the Italian Left, and when he was unable to turn Union Communiste against its position of support for the war, he left the group at the beginning of 1938, to join the Italian Fraction on an individual basis. The Italian Fraction had been formed in May 1928 in Pantin (a Parisian suburb); in the torment of the Spanish Civil War, and all its betrayals, the Fraction was one of very few groups to remain true to class principles. Its intransi­gent rejection of all the sirens of anti-fascism was based on its analysis of the historic course as one dominated by the counter-revolution. A civil war be­tween, not the bourgeoisie and the working class, but the bourgeois Republic allied to the “democratic” impe­rialist camp, and another bourgeois government allied to the “fascist” imperialist camp, could only end in world war, not revolution. The fact that the Spanish workers took up arms spontaneously against the Franco putsch in July 1936 (a fact which the Fraction wel­comed, of course) opened no revolutionary perspective once they were enrolled in anti-fascist organisations like the PS, the CP, and the anarcho-syndicalist CNT, and gave up the combat on the class terrain to fight as soldiers of the bourgeois Republic led by the “Frente Popular”. And for the Fraction, one of the clearest proofs that the Spanish proletariat was stuck in a tragic dead-end, was the fact that the country wholly lacked a revolutionary party[5].

Marc continued the revolutionary struggle as a militant of the Italian Fraction, exiled in France and Belgium[6]. In particular, he became very close to Vercesi (Ottorino Perrone), who was the Fraction’s main inspi­ration. Many years later, Marc would explain to the young militants of the ICC how much he had learnt from Vercesi, whom he admired greatly. “It was from him that I learnt what it means to be a militant”, he said on several occasions. And indeed, the Fraction’s remarkable firmness was largely thanks to Vercesi, who had fought constantly, first in the PSI (Italian So­cialist Party) at the end of World War I, then in the PCI, for the defence of revolutionary principals against these organisations’ degeneration and opportunism. Unlike Bordiga, who was the PCI’s leading figure at its formation in 1921, and who led the Left in the Party only to abandon militant life after his exclusion from the Party in 1930, Vercesi put all his experience at the service of the continuing struggle against the counter-­revolution. In particular, his contribution was decisive in developing the position on the role of the fraction in a proletarian organisation, especially in periods of re­action and degeneration of the Party[7]. But his con­tribution went much further than this. He understood that the task which falls to revolutionaries after the de­feat of the revolution, and the victory of the counter­-revolution is to draw up a ‘balance-sheet’ (‘bilan’ in French, whence the name of the Italian Fraction’s pub­lication in that language) of past experience, in order to prepare “militants for the new proletarian parties”, and this without “any taboo or ostracism” (Bilan, no 1). On this basis, he inspired within fraction the task of re­flection and theoretical elaboration that made the Italian Fraction one of the most fruitful organisations in the history of the workers’ movement. In particular, although a ‘Leninist’ by training, he was not afraid to adopt Rosa Luxemburg’s analysis of the economic causes of imperialism, and her rejection of national lib­eration struggles. On the former point, he made the most of the debates with the Belgian Ligue des Communistes Internationalistes (an organisation which split from Trotskyism, and moved away from it), whose mi­nority adopted the Fraction’s positions on the Spanish Civil War, to form, with the Fraction in 1937, the In­ternational Communist Left. On the basis of the lessons he drew from the degeneration of the Russian revolution and the role of the Soviet state in the counter-revolution, Vercesi (along with Mitchell of the LCI) worked out the position which rejected any identi­fication between the proletarian dictatorship and the state which emerges after the revolution. Lastly, on the organisational level he gave the example, within the Fraction’s Executive Commission, of how debate should be conducted when serious disagreements emerge. Faced with the minority, which broke all or­ganisational discipline by enrolling in the anti-fascist militia and refusing to pay dues, Vercesi fought the idea of an over-hasty organisational split (although by the Fraction’s rules, the minority’s members could per­fectly well have been expelled) in order to let the de­bate develop with maximum clarity. For Vercesi, as for the Fraction’s majority, political clarity was a vital priority in the role and activity of revolutionary organi­sations.

Many aspects of these lessons corresponded to the po­litical method that Marc had already adopted. He as­similated them fully during the days when he worked alongside Vercesi. And he continued to base himself on the same lessons when Vercesi in his turn began to forget them and turn against marxist positions. Just as the International Communist Left (ICL) was formed, and Bilan gave way to Octobre, Vercesi began to de­velop a theory of the war economy as a definitive anti­dote to the capitalist crisis. Disorientated by the tem­porary success of the economic policies of Nazism and the New Deal, he came to the conclusion that arms production, which does not weigh on the supersatu­rated capitalist market, would allow capitalism to over­come its economic contradictions. He considered that the fantastic rearmament effort engaged by all countries at the end of the 1930’s constituted, not preparations for a future world war, but on the contrary a means of escaping it by eliminating its underlying cause: capi­talism’s economic dead-end. In this context, the vari­ous local wars, and especially the Spanish Civil War, were to be considered, not as dress rehearsals for a future generalised conflict, but as a means for the bourgeoisie to crush the working class, and so put down a rising wave of revolutionary combats. This is why the ICL’s International Bureau called its publica­tion Octobre: because it thought a new revolutionary period had begun. These positions were a sort of posthumous victory for the Fraction’s old minority.

These positions called into question Bilan’s most im­portant lessons, and Marc took up the fight to defend the classic positions of both the Fraction and marxism. This was all the more difficult, because he had to fight against the errors of a militant whom he held in great esteem. But the majority of the Fraction’s members were blinded by their admiration for Vercesi, and fol­lowed him in his mistakes, so that Marc found himself in a minority. In the end, Vercesi’s positions led the Italian and Belgian Fractions into complete paralysis at the outbreak of World War II; Vercesi considered that there was no point in intervening against the war be­cause the proletariat had “disappeared socially”. Marc was unable to take up the fight against this conception immediately, since he had been called up in the French army (despite his “stateless” status)[8]. It was not un­til August 1940, in Marseille in southern France, that he was able to renew his political activity and to re­group the elements of the Italian Fraction living in the same city.

AGAINST THE IMPERIALIST WAR

Most of these militants refused to accept the dissolution of the Fractions that had been proclaimed by their In­ternational Bureau, under Vercesi’s influence. In 1941, they held a conference of the Fraction, reconsti­tuted on the basis of a rejection of the direction taken from 1937 onwards: the theory of the war economy as a means of overcoming the crisis, “localised” wars against the working class, the “social disappearance of the proletariat”, etc. The Fraction also abandoned its old position on the USSR as a “degenerated workers’ state”[9], and recognised its capitalist nature. Throughout the war, in the most difficult conditions of clandestinity, the Fraction was to hold annual confer­ences which brought together militants from Marseille, Toulon, Paris and Lyon; despite the German occupa­tion, it was also able establish links with militants in Belgium. It published an internal discussion bulletin, dealing with all the questions that had led to the col­lapse of 1939. On reading through the bulletin’s vari­ous issues, it is clear that most of the fundamental texts combating the direction taken by Vercesi, or elabo­rating the new positions demanded by the evolution of the situation, are signed ‘Marco’. Our comrade, who had only joined the Italian Fraction in 1938 and was its only “foreign” member, remained its main source of inspiration throughout the war.

At the same time, Marc undertook a series of discus­sions with a group of young militants, mostly from Trotskyism, with whom, in May 1942, he formed the French Nucleus of the Communist Left, on the same positions as the ICL. This group gave itself the objec­tive of forming a French Fraction, but under Marc’s in­fluence it refused any hasty proclamation of a new Fraction, rejecting the “recruitment campaigns” and “entryism” typical of the Trotskyists.

In 1942-43, massive class combats in Italy led to the overthrow of Mussolini (25th July 1943) and the cre­ation of the pro-Allied government of Admiral Badoglio. A text from the Fraction’s Executive Com­mission, signed ‘Marco’, declared that “the revolution­ary revolts which will put an end to the imperialist war will create in Europe a chaotic situation which will be extremely dangerous for the bourgeoisie”; at the same time, it warned against the attempts of the “anglo-americano-russian imperialist bloc” to crush these re­volts from outside, and against the efforts by the left parties to “muzzle revolutionary consciousness”. The Fraction’s conference, held in August 1943 despite Vercesi’s opposition, declared that following the events in Italy, “the Fraction’s transformation into the Party” was on the agenda in Italy itself. However, due to material difficulties, compounded by Vercesi’s inertia since he disagreed with this approach, the Fraction was unable to return to Italy to intervene actively in the combats that had begun to break out. In particular, it was unaware that at the end of 1943, Onorato Damen and Bruno Maffi had formed the “Partito Comunista Internazionalista”, with the help of one-time members of the Fraction.

At the same time, both Fraction and Nucleus had un­dertaken contacts and discussions with other revolu­tionary elements, and especially with German and Austrian refugees, the “Revolutionäre Kommunisten Deutschlands” (RKD), who had emerged from Trot­skyism. With them, the French Nucleus in particular was to conduct direct propaganda against the war ad­dressed to the workers and soldiers of all nationalities, including the German workers in uniform. This activ­ity was obviously extremely dangerous, since it had to confront not only the Gestapo, but also the Resistance. Indeed, it was the latter which proved most dangerous for our comrade. He and his companion were taken prisoner by the FFI (Forces Francaises de l’Interieur), which were stuffed with Stalinists; they escaped from death at the latter’s hands at the last minute. But the end of the war sounded the Fraction’s death-knell. After the “liberation” of Brussels in 1944, Vercesi, in continuity with his aberrant positions, and still turning his back on the principles he had defended in the past, took charge of an “Anti-fascist Coalition”; this latter published L’Italia di Domani, which used its assistance to Italian refugees and prisoners as a cover for a clear support for the Allied war effort. At first, the Fraction did not believe the reports of Vercesi’s activity. When these proved to be true, its EC followed Marc’s lead in expelling Vercesi on 25th January 1945. This decision was not a result of the disagreements on various ana­lytical points that existed between Vercesi and the ma­jority of the Fraction. The policy of the EC, and espe­cially of Marc who adopted Vercesi’s attitude towards the minority of 1936-37, was to conduct the debates with the greatest possible clarity. In 1944-45, how­ever, Vercesi was accused not simply of political dis­agreement but of playing an active, and even a leading, part in a bourgeois organism directly involved in the imperialist war. But this last display of intransigence was no more than the Fraction’s swan-song. At its May 1945 Conference, the Fraction had learned of the PCInt’s existence in Italy, and the majority of its mem­bers decided to dissolve the Fraction and join the new “Party” on an individual basis. Marc fought vigor­ously against what he considered to be a complete negation of the whole approach on which the Fraction had been based. He demanded that the Fraction should be maintained, at least until it had been able to verify the new organisation’s positions, which were still un­clear outside Italy. His caution proved wholly justi­fied, if we consider that the Party in question, joined by elements close to Bordiga who remained in the south of Italy (certain of whom had engaged in entry­ism in the Italian CP), moved towards wholly oppor­tunist positions to the point where it even compromised itself with the anti-fascist partisan movement (see our International Review nos. 32, 34). In protest against this desertion of principles, Marc announced his resig­nation from the EC and left the Conference; the latter also refused to recognise the French Fraction of the Communist Left (FFCL), which had been set up by the French Nucleus at the end of 1944, adopting the basic positions of the International Communist Left. Vercesi, on the other hand, joined the new “Party”, which asked for no account of his role in the Brussels anti-fascist coalition. It was the end of the effort that he had conducted himself for years, to make the Frac­tion a “bridge” between the old party, which had de­serted to the enemy, and the new, which would be re­constituted with the resurgence of the proletarian class struggle. Far from continuing the combat for these po­sitions, he remained ferociously hostile, along with the rest of the PCInt, to the only organisation which had remained faithful to the classic positions of the Italian Fraction and the International Communist Left: the FFCL. He even encouraged a split in the latter, which was to form another FFCL[10]. This group published a paper under the same name as the FFCL’s: L’Etincelle. It welcomed into its ranks the members of Bilan’s old minority, against whom Vercesi had fought at the time, as well as one-time members of Union Communiste. It was this second ‘FFCL’ that the PCInt and the Belgian Fraction (reconstituted after the war around Vercesi in Brussels) were to recognise as the “only representative of the Communist Left”.

Henceforth, Marc remained the only member of the Italian Left to continue with the combat and the posi­tions that had given this organisation its strength and its political clarity. He began this new stage in his po­litical life within the Gauche Communiste de France (French Communist Left), as the FFCL now called it­self

ICC, 199

When it comes to recounting a comrade’s life, and to paying our respects to his commitment, we would have preferred to treat it as a whole and publish this article in full in the International Review. However, because his life was so much a part of this century’s history, and of the revolutionary minorities of the workers’ movement, we have felt it necessary, not just to describe our comrade’s life, but to develop at greater length the most important political questions which he had to confront, and the life of the organisations where he was a member. Given the imperatives of the international situation today, and our limited space, the article has thus been divided into two; the second part will be published in the next issue of this Review.

What's behind the 'new world order' announced by the western powers? What is the historic significance of the Gulf war? What stage has the world economic crisis reached? What are the perspectives for the class struggle? What should be the main themes in the intervention of revolutionaries?

These are the questions examined in this resolution adopted by the ICC in January 1991.

The phenomenon of the acceleration of history, which was pointed out by the ICC at the beginning of the 80s, has accentuated considerably in the last year and a half. In a few months, the whole configuration of the world established at the end of the Second World War was turned upside down. The collapse of the eastern imperialist bloc at the end of the 80s announced and opened the door to an end-of-the-millennium dominated by a greater instability and chaos than humanity has ever known.

1) The most immediately significant and dangerous expression of what is not a 'new order' but a new world chaos is at the level of imperialist antagonisms. The war in the Gulf has highlighted the reality of a phenomenon which flowed inevitably from the disappearance of the eastern bloc: the disintegration of its imperialist rival,' the western bloc. This phenomenon was already at the origins of Iraq's 'hold up' in Kuwait: it was because the world had ceased to be divided up into two imperialist constellations that a country like Iraq believed it possible to lay its hands on a former ally of the same bloc. This phenomenon was also revealed in an obvious manner during October in the various attempts of the European countries (notably France and Germany) and Japan to undermine US policy in the Gulf through separate negotiations in the name of freeing the hostages. The USA's aim is to make the punishment of Iraq an 'example' which will discourage any future temptations to imitate the behavior of this country (and indeed to obtain this 'example' the USA did all it could prior to 2 August to provoke and facilitate the Iraqi adventure[1]). It is targeted at the countries of the periphery, where the convulsions are so far advanced that they are permanently pushed towards adventures of this kind. But it is not limited to this aim. In fact its fundamental goal is much more general: faced with a world that is more and more falling into chaos and 'every man for himself', what's required is to impose a minimum of order and discipline, above all on the most important countries of the former western bloc. It is for this very reason that these countries (with the exception of Britain which long ago chose to .make an unbreakable alliance with the USA) have more than dragged their feet in aligning themselves with the US position and associating themselves with its war effort. While they need American power to police the world, they are concerned that too great a display of this power, which is inevitable in a direct armed intervention, will overshadow their own positions.

2) In fact the Gulf war reveals in a particularly significant way what's at stake in the new period at the level of imperialist rivalries. No longer is the world dominated by two superpowers, and imperialist antagonisms are no longer subjected to the fundamental antagonism between them. But at the same time, and as the ICC said over a year ago, such a situation, far from putting an end to imperialist confrontations, has meant that these confrontations are being unleashed more sharply than ever, in the absence of the discipline of the blocs. In this sense, imperialism and the barbarism of war, which are essential characteristics of the period of the decadence of capitalism, can only be further aggravated in the phase that we are now going through, that of the general decomposition of capitalist society. In a world dominated by chaotic wars, by the 'law of the jungle', it's up to the only superpower left - because it has the most to lose in this world disorder, and because it is the only one that has the means - to play he role of the gendarme of capitalism. And it will only be able to play this role by increasingly imprisoning the world in the iron corset of militarism. In such a situation, for a long time to come, and perhaps until the end of capitalism, the conditions don't exist for a new division of the planet into two imperialist blocs. There may be temporary and circumstantial alliances around or against the USA, but in the absence of another military superpower capable of rivaling the US (and the latter will do all it can to prevent such a power arising), the world will be ravaged by all kinds of military confrontations, which even if they are not able to lead up to a third world war, threaten to bring about the most terrible devastation, up to and including, in combination with other calamities typical of the period of decomposition (pollution, famines, epidemics), the destruction of humanity.

3) Another immediate consequence of the collapse of the eastern bloc is the considerable aggravation of the situation that caused it in the first place: economic and political chaos in the countries of Eastern Europe, and above all in the country which was their leader two years ago, the USSR. In fact this country has right now ceased to exist as a state entity: the considerable reduction in Russia's participation in the budget of the 'Union', decided by parliament on 27/12, simply confirmed the irreversible break-up and dislocation of the USSR. A dislocation that the probable reaction of the 'conservative' forces, and particularly the organs of security (as illustrated by Shevarnadze's resignation) can only delay for short time, while at the same time provoking even more chaos and bloodbaths.

Concerning the former 'peoples' democracies', their situation, while not reaching the same level of gravity as that of the USSR, can also only sink into growing chaos as can be seen right now from the catastrophic production figures (which have fallen by 40% in certain countries) and the political instability which has developed in the last few months in countries like Bulgaria, Rumania, Poland (presidential elections) and Yugoslavia (Slovenia's declaration of independence).

4) The crisis of capitalism, which in the last instance is behind all the convulsions the world is now going through, is itself being aggravated by these convulsions:

- the war in the Middle East and the resulting growth in military expenditure can only have a negative effect on the world economic situation (in contrast to the Vietnam war, for example, which made it possible to delay the American and world economy from entering into recession at the beginning of the 60s), owing to the fact that for a long time now the war economy has been one of the main factors aggravating the crisis;

- the dislocation of the western bloc can only deliver a mortal blow to the coordination of economic policy at the level of the bloc, which in the past made it possible to slow down the rhythm of the collapse of the capitalist economy. The perspective is one of a ruthless trade war (as illustrated by the recent failure of the GATT talks) in which all countries will be mauled;

- the convulsions in the zone of the former eastern bloc will also help to aggravate the world crisis by widening the scope of global chaos and, in particular, by forcing the western countries to devote considerable funds to the attempt to limit this chaos (for example by sending 'humanitarian aid' aimed at slowing down the massive emigrations into the west).

5) This said, it is important that revolutionaries show the ultimate factors behind the aggravation of the crisis:

- the generalized overproduction of a system that can't create outlets for the totality 'of commodities produced, as clearly illustrated by the new open recession which is already hitting the premier world power;

- the frenzied flight into external and internal, public and private debt by this same power all through the 80s; this may have made it possible for production to pick up momentarily in a certain number of countries, but it made the USA into easily the world's number one debtor;

- the impossibility of continuing this policy indefinitely, of buying without paying, of selling against promises which more and more obviously will never be repaid; a policy which has simply made the contradictions all the more explosive.

The demonstration of this reality is all the more important to the extent that it is a primary factor in the development of consciousness in the proletariat in the face of the current ideological campaigns. As in 1974 (when it was the 'greedy oil sheikhs') and 1980-82 (when it was the 'mad Khomeini '), the bourgeoisie will try once again (and has already done so) to blame the present open recession on a 'baddy'. Today Saddam Hussein, the 'bloody and megalomaniac dictator', the 'new Hitler' of our time, is ideal for this role. It is thus vital that revolutionaries make it very clear that the present recession, no more than the ones in 74-75 and 80-82, is not the result of a mere oil price rise, but that it began well before the Gulf crisis and that it reveals the fundamental contradictions of the capitalist mode of production.

6) More generally, it is important that revolutionaries draw out of the present situation the elements most likely to facilitate the development of class consciousness.

Today, the development of consciousness is still being held back by the effects of the collapse of Stalinism and the eastern bloc. The way that the very ideas of socialism and revolution were cast into discredit last year, especially under the impact of a gigantic campaign of lies, is something that has still not been overcome. In addition, the impending massive arrival of emigrants from an eastern Europe that has fallen into chaos cannot fail to create further disarray in the working class on both sides of the old iron curtain: among the workers who imagine that they can escape from unbearable misery by exiling themselves to the western Eldorado, and among those who will have the feeling that this immigration will rob them of the meager 'gains' that they still have. This will make the latter more vulnerable to nationalist mystifications. Such a danger is particularly acute in countries like Germany which will be in the front line of any such flood of immigrants.

However, the increasingly obvious bankruptcy of the capitalist mode of production, including and above all in its 'liberal' form, the growing revelation of the warmongering nature of the system, will play a powerful role in wearing out the illusions that were engendered by the events of late 1989. In particular, the promise of a 'new world order' following the disappearance of the Russian bloc has suffered a decisive blow in less than a year.

In fact, the warmongering barbarity that will more and more be a feature of capitalism in decomposition will increasingly stamp itself on the whole process through which the proletariat becomes conscious of what's at stake in its struggle. War does not constitute in itself and automatically a factor in the clarification of the proletariat's consciousness. Thus, the second world war led to a strengthening of the ideological grip of the counter-revolution. Similarly, although the sound of marching boots which has been heard since last summer has had the merit of refuting all the speeches about the new era of peace, it has also given rise, initially, to a feeling of powerlessness, an undeniable paralysis in the' great mass of the working class in the advanced countries. But the present conditions for the development of the class struggle will not allow this disarray to last for long:

- because the proletariat today, unlike in the 30s and 40s, has come out of the counter-revolution; its decisive sectors are not dragooned behind bourgeois flags such as nationalism, defense of the 'socialist fatherland', or of democracy against fascism;

- because the working class of the central countries is not directly mobilized for the war, it's not gagged by being enrolled under a military authority; this gives it much more latitude to engage in a thorough-going reflection about the barbarism of war, whose effects it will be the first to suffer through increasing austerity and poverty;

- because the profound and increasingly overt aggravation of the crisis of capitalism, of which the workers will evidently be the main victims and against which they will be forced to develop their class militancy, will more and more lead them to make the link between the capitalist crisis and war, between the struggle against the latter and the resistance against economic attacks, which will enable them to protect themselves against the traps of pacifism and inter-classist ideologies.

In reality, while the disarray provoked by the events in the Gulf may on the surface resemble the one provoked by the collapse of the eastern bloc, it obeys a different dynamic: whereas what came from the east (elimination of the vestiges of Stalinism, nationalist conflicts, immigration, etc) can only, for some time to come, have an essentially negative effect on the consciousness of the proletariat, the more and more permanent presence of war in the life of society will tend to reawaken class consciousness.

7) While despite its temporary disarray, the world proletariat still holds the key to the future in its hands, it is necessary to point out that not all sectors of the class are in the same position to offer humanity a perspective. In particular, the economic and political situation developing in the former eastern bloc countries bears witness to the extreme political weakness of the working class in this part of the world. Having been crushed by the most brutal and pernicious form of the counter-revolution - Stalinism - ; carried away by democratic and trade unionist illusions; torn apart by nationalist conflicts and confrontations between bourgeois cliques, the proletariat of Russia, the Ukraine, the Baltic countries, Poland, Hungary etc faces the most extreme difficulties in the development of its class consciousness. The struggles which the workers of these countries will be forced to wage in the face of unprecedented economic attacks will, when they are not directly diverted onto a bourgeois terrain like nationalism, come up against the whole weight of social and political decomposition, which will stifle their ability to serve as a soil for the germination of consciousness. And this will continue to be the case as long as the proletariat of the great capitalist metropoles, and particularly those of Western Europe, is unable to put forward, even at an embryonic level, a general perspective for the struggle.

8) The new stage in the process of the maturation of consciousness in the proletariat, the premises of which are being laid by the present situation of capitalism, is for the moment only at the beginning. On the one hand, the class has to go a long way to shake off the effects of the implosion of Stalinism and the way the  bourgeoisie made use of it. On the other hand, even if it won't last as long as the impact of the former, the disarray produced by the campaigns around the Gulf war has yet to be overcome. In making this step, the proletariat will be confronted by the difficulties sown by the general decomposition of society and by the traps set by the forces of the bourgeoisie, especially the trade unions, which will try to channel its militancy into dead-ends, which includes pushing it into premature battles. In this process, revolutionaries will have a growing responsibility:

- in warning against all the dangers represented by decomposition, particularly, it goes without saying, the barbarity of war;

- in denouncing all the bourgeois maneuvers, an essential aspect of which will be the attempt to hide or deform the fundamental link between the struggle against economic attacks and the more general struggle against imperialist war, which will be an increasingly ubiquitous element in the life of society;

- by putting forward, against all the pacifist mystifications, and more generally, against all the bourgeois ideologies which tend to undermine the proletariat's confidence in itself and its future, the only perspective which can counter the aggravation of war: the development and generalization of the class struggle against capitalism as a whole, with the ultimate aim of overthrowing it once and for all.

4th January, 1991

Note (1): Even if they are not completely in control of this aspect (Iraq also has something to say about it), the date chosen by the USA for beginning the conflict is not the result of chance. For the USA, it's important to act quickly before the dislocation of its former bloc has gone even further; but also before the tendency towards the revival of workers' struggles (following the reflux provoked by the collapse of the eastern bloc, and given an impetus by the world recession) could manifest itself too openly, as it had begun to do before the summer of 90.

[1] Even if they are not completely in control of this aspect (Iraq has something to say about it), the date chosen by the USA for beginning the conflict is not the result of chance. For the USA, it's important to act quickly before the dislocation of its former bloc has gone even further; but also before the tendency towards the revival of workers' struggles (following the reflux provoked by the collapse of the eastern bloc, and given an impetus by the world recession) could manifest itself too openly, as it had begun to do before the summer of 90.

The present acceleration of history, capitalism's entry into its phase of decomposition, sharply poses the necessity for the proletarian revolution, as the only way out of the barbarism of capitalism in crisis. History teaches us that this revolution can only triumph if the class manages to organize itself autonomously from other classes (the workers' councils) and to secrete the vanguard that will guide it towards victory: the class party. However, today, this party doesn't exist, and many are those who simply fold their arms because, faced with the gigantic tasks that await us, the activity of the small revolutionary groups who do exist may appear to be senseless. Within the revolutionary camp itself, the majority of groups respond to the absence of the party by endlessly repeating its very Holy Name, invoking it like some kind of deus ex machina that can solve all the problems of the class. Individual disengagement and overblown declarations about commitment are two classic ways of running away from the struggle for the party, a struggle which is going on here and now, in continuity with the activity of the left fractions who broke with the degenerating Communist International in the 20s. In the first two parts of this work, we analyzed the activity of the Italian Communist Left, which was organized as a fraction in the 30s and 40s, and the premature, completely artificial foundation of the Internationalist Communist Party by the comrades of Battaglia Comunista in 1942[1]. In this third part, we first showed[2] that the method of working as a fraction in unfavorable periods when there is no possibility of a class party existing, was the very method employed by Marx himself. In this issue we will also show that this marxist method of working towards the party found its essential definition through the tenacious struggle of the Bolshevik fraction in the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party. Against all those who gargle eulogies to the iron party of Lenin, and who refer ironically to the 'little grouplets that were the left fractions', we reaffirm that "the history of the fractions is the history of Lenin"[3] and that only on the basis of the work that they accomplished will it be possible to reconstruct tomorrow's world communist party.

"Without the Fractions, Lenin himself would have been no more than a bookworm"

In the passages cited in the previous issue, we saw how Battaglia doesn't lose any opportunity to make ironical comments about What Is To Be Done of 1902 being the perfect text book for the fractionists, and to paint a distorted picture of things for the umpteenth time[4]. If the comrades would stop getting so excited about the word party and would begin a sober study of the history of the party, they would discover that What Is To Be Done in 1902 could hardly talk about the Bolshevik fraction, due to the fact that it was formed in Geneva in June ... 1904 (the meeting of the '22')[5]. It's from here that the Bolsheviks began to develop the notion of the fraction and its relations with the whole party, a notion which took a definitive form with the 1905 revolu­tion, and above all the period of reaction which allowed its defeat[6].

"A faction is an organization within a party, united, by its place of work, language or other objective conditions, but by a particular platform of views on questions"[7].

"A party can contain a whole gamut of opinions and shades of opinion, the extremes of which may be sharply contradictory ... That is not the case within a section. A section in a party is a group of like-minded persons formed for the purpose of securing acceptance for their principles in the party in the purest possible form. For this, real unanimity of opinion is necessary. The different standards we set for party unity and sectional unity must be grasped by everyone who wants to know how the question of the internal discord in the Bolshevik section really stands"[8].

"But as a wing, ie a union of like-minded people in the party, we cannot work without unanimity on fun­damental issues. To break away from a wing is not the same as breaking away from the Party. The people who have broken away from our wing in no way lose the possibility of working in the Party"[9].

The fraction was thus seen as an organization within the party, clearly identified and with a precise plat­form, and which fights to influence the party, with the final aim of seeing its principles triumph in the party "in their purest form", ie. without any mediation or homogenization. The fraction works within the party, with other fractions defending other platforms, so that practical experience and public political debate allow the whole party to recognize which platform is most correct. This coexistence is possible on condition that there is no room in the party for those who have al­ready taken choices which will lead them out of the party, so that keeping them within the organization can only lead to the liquidation of the organization itself. In Russia this applied to the 'liquidators' who fought for the dissolution of the illegal party and its submission to Tsarist 'legality'. There was a fundamental difference between the Bolsheviks and the other fractions pre­cisely on this point: while the latter in general con­demned the liquidators, they still considered them to be members of the party. The Bolsheviks, by contrast, considered that there could be a place in the socialist party for all opinions - except those which are anti-so­cialist:

"The very foundation of conciliation ism is false - the wish to base the unity of the party of the proletariat on an alliance of all factions, including the anti-Social ­Democratic, non-proletarian factions; false are its unprincipled 'unity' schemes which lead to nothing; false are its phrases against 'factions' (when in fact a new faction is formed) ... "[10].

It is interesting to note that these lines by Lenin were directed against Trotsky, who, within the RSDLP, was the main opponent of the organized existence of frac­tions, something he saw as useless and damaging for the party. Trotsky's total incomprehension of the ne­cessity for fraction work would have catastrophic con­sequences during and after the degeneration of the Rus­sian revolution.

"It should be noted that Trotsky - on all the questions relating to the 1905 revolution, and during the whole period that followed - was generally with the Bolshe­viks on all questions of principle and with the Menshe­viks on all questions of organization. His incomprehen­sion of the correct notion of the party, during the course of this period, resulted in him standing 'outside the fractions' in favor of unity at any price.

His pitiful position of today - which is pushing him into the arms of social democracy - proves to us that on this question, Trotsky has learned nothing from events"[11].

Naturally, Lenin was violently attacked, both in the Russian movement and the international movement, for his sectarianism, his mania for splits, and everyone sang fine songs about the 'end of factionalism'. In fact, Lenin was the first to be for the end of factionalism, because he knew quite well that the existence of frac­tions was the symptom of a crisis in the party. But he also knew that the open, practical struggle of the frac­tion was the only remedy for the party's malady, since it was only through a public confrontation of platforms that a clear way forward could emerge.

"Every faction is convinced that its platform and its policy are the best means of abolishing factions, for no one regards the existence of factions as ideal. The only difference is that factions with clear, consistent, inte­gral platforms openly defend their platforms, while unprincipled factions hide behind cheap shots about their virtue, about their non-factionalism"[12].

One of the big lies inherited from Stalinism is that Bolshevism was a monolithic tradition where there was no place for empty chatter and pseudo-intellectual de­bate; this lie is in continuity with the Mensheviks' con­stant accusation that the Bolsheviks were 'closed to de­bate'. Of course, it's quite true that among the Men­sheviks and the conciliators, discussion was 'free', whereas among the Bolsheviks it was obligatory. But it's true in the sense that the first felt free to discuss when it suited them and to keep quiet when they had divergences to hide. For the Bolsheviks on the other hand, discussion wasn't free, it was obligatory, and be­came all the more obligatory when divergences arose within the fraction, divergences which had to be dis­cussed publicly so that they could either be reabsorbed or pushed to their conclusion, with an organizational separation based on clear motives.

"That is why we have initiated a discussion on these questions in Proletary. We have published everything that was sent to us, and reprinted all that the Bolshe­viks in Russia have written on the subject. So far, we have not rejected a single contribution to the discus­sion, and we shall continue to pursue the same course. Unfortunately, the otzavist comrades and those who sympathize with them have, so far, sent us little mate­rial, and, in general, have avoided making a frank and complete statement of their theoretical credo in the press. They prefer to talk 'among themselves'. We in­vite all comrades, otzavists and orthodox Bolsheviks alike, to state their views in the columns of Proletary. If necessary we shall publish these contributions in pamphlet form .... Our supporters should not be afraid of an internal ideological struggle, once it is neces­sary. They will be all the stronger for it"[13].

This demonstrates that Lenin made an enormous contribution to the historic definition of the nature and function of the fraction, in spite of all Battaglia's quips about the "ten commandments of the fractionist faith". Let's note in passing that Battaglia also talks in one phrase about the party alternative from 1902 on, and in another, says that the party was acting as such "at least from 1912". So what was Lenin doing between 1902 and 1912 if he wasn't doing fraction work? Macrobi­otic cooking? Actually what BC is really concerned about is affirming that the Bolsheviks didn't restrict themselves to theoretical work and the formation of cadres, but that they worked towards the masses and thus couldn't have been a fraction. For Battaglia, if you choose to work as a fraction, you're running away from the class struggle, refusing to dirty your hands with the problems of the masses, which means "limiting yourself to a policy of measured proselytism and propaganda, focusing on the study of so-called ba­sic problems, reducing the tasks of the party to the tasks of a fraction if not of a sect"[14].

The lines are drawn: on one side you have Lenin, who thinks of the masses, and who thus can only be in the party; on the other, the Italian Left in exile in the 30s, which works as a fraction and can therefore be no more than a club of students and little professors. We've seen what Lenin's real activity was; let's now look at the real activity of the Italian Left:

"It might seem that the tasks of the fraction are exclu­sively didactic. But such a criticism can be refuted by marxists with the same argument used against those charlatans who consider that the proletariat's struggle for the revolution and for the transformation of the world can be put at the same level as electoral activity.

It is perfectly true that the specific role of the frac­tions is above all a role of educating cadres through the experience of events, and thanks to the rigorous confirmation of the significance of these events. How­ever, it is also true that this work, above all an ideo­logical one, is done in consideration of the mass movements and constantly supplies the political solu­tion for their success. Without the work of the frac­tions, Lenin himself would have been a mere book­worm, not a revolutionary leader.

The fractions are thus the only historic place where the proletariat can continue its work for its class organization. From 1928 until now, comrade Trotsky has completely neglected this work of building frac­tions, and, because of this, he has not contributed to realizing the effective conditions for mass movements"[15].

As can be seen, Battaglia' s sarcasms about the frac­tion as a sect running away from the masses fall very flat. Bilan's concern was the same as the Bolsheviks' "to contribute to the realization of the effective condi­tions for mass movements". The fact that the Bolshe­viks had much greater links with the masses in the 1910s than the Italian Left in the 30s did not derive from the personal features of so-and-so, but from the objective conditions of the class struggle, which dif­fered hugely. The Bolshevik fraction was not made up of a group of comrades who had survived the degener­ation of the party in a period of counter-revolution and deep defeat for the proletariat. It was a part (often the majority) of a mass proletarian party (like all the par­ties of the 2nd International), which was constituted in an immediately pre-revolutionary phase which for two years (1905-6) was to shake the entire Russian empire, from the Urals to Poland. If you want to make a quan­titative comparison between the activity of the fraction of the Italian Left and that of the Bolsheviks, you must refer to a period which has certain historically com­parable aspects, ie. the revolutionary years between 1917 and 1921. In those years, the Abstentionist Communist Fraction (the left fraction of the PSI) de­veloped to the point that when it constituted itself as the Communist Party of Italy, it absorbed into its ranks one third of the membership of the old mass socialist party and all the youth federations. The comrades who had been able to guide this process were the ones who ten years later were militating in the Left Fraction in exile, but by then they had been reduced to a small handful. What had changed? Was it that those com­rades no longer had the will to lead mass movements? Obviously not:

"Since we have been in existence, it has not been possible for us to lead any class movements. It has to be understood that this isn't anything to do with our will, our incapacity, or the fact that we are a fraction. It is the result of a situation of which we have been a victim, just as the world-wide revolutionary proletariat has also been a victim of it" (Bilan 28, 1935).

What had changed was the objective situation of the class struggle, which had gone from a pre-revolution­ary phase which put on the agenda the transformation of the fraction into a party, to a counter-revolutionary phase which compelled the fraction to resist against the tide, to carry on a work which would contribute to the eventual emergence of a new situation, again putting on the agenda the transformation of the fraction into a party.

From the Bolshevik fraction of the RSDLP to the Russian Communist Party

As always, when one criticizes the positions of Battaglia, one has to return to the crucial issue, ie. the conditions for the rebirth of the party. We've seen how BC would like to whitewash Lenin of the infamous charge of adhering to the ''fractionist faith", from as early as 1902. In their willingness to make conces­sions, they grit their teeth and are ready to admit that the Bolshevik party only existed after 1912, on condi­tion that it's clear that the party did exist as such be­fore the revolutionary period which began in February 1917. What they try to avoid admitting at any cost is that the struggle of the Bolshevik fraction of the RS­DLP was concluded by its transformation into the Rus­sian Communist Party (Bolshevik) in 1917, because that would mean admitting that

"the transformation of the fraction into a party is conditioned... by the upsurge of revolutionary move­ments enabling the fraction to assume the leadership of struggles for the insurrection" (Bilan KNOB. 1933). We thus have to clear up whether or not this transfor­mation took place in 1912 - five years before the revo­lution.

What did happen in 1912? In Prague there was a conference of the territorial organizations of the RS­DLP, the groups working in Russia. This conference reorganized the party after it had been demolished by the reaction which followed the defeat of the 1905 rev­olution, and elected a new Central Committee to re­place the one which was thenceforward dissolved. The conference and the CC were dominated by the Bolshe­viks, whereas the other tendencies in the RSDLP didn't participate in Lenin's 'splitting' initiative. At first sight, it looks as though Battaglia is right: a conference of Bolsheviks has taken the initiative of reconstructing the party, independently of the other fractions; thus, from now on, the Bolsheviks are acting as a party, without waiting for the opening of a pre-revolutionary phase. But if we look a bit closer, we can see that things are rather different. The birth of a revolutionary fraction within the old party takes place in reaction to the party's illness, to its inability to come up with an adequate response to the necessities of history, to lacu­nae in its programme. The transformation of the frac­tion into the party doesn't mean that we just return to the old status quo, to the old party purged of oppor­tunists; it means the formation of a new party, founded on a new program which eliminates previous ambiguities and takes up the principles of the revolutionary fraction "in their purest form". Otherwise you would simply be going back to where you started, and that would lay the groundwork for the reappearance of all the opportunist deviations that had just been chased away. And is this what Lenin did in 1912, transform the fraction into a party based on a new program? Not at all. In the first place, the resolution approved by the conference declared that it had been called with the aim of "rallying all the Party organizations in Russia irrespective of factional affiliation, and (of) re-estab­lishing our Party as an all-Russian organization"[16]. It was thus not a purely Bolshevik conference, all the more because its organization was to a large extent car­ried out by the Kiev territorial committee which was dominated by pro-party Mensheviks, and it was a Men­shevik who presided over the commission for the veri­fication of mandates[17]. There was no talk of modi­fying the old program and the decisions taken con­sisted simply in putting into practice the resolutions condemning the liquidators, approved in 1908 and 1910 by "the representatives of all the factions". Thus the conference was not only composed of party mem­bers, "irrespective of factional affiliation", but was based on a resolution approved by "all the factions". It's obvious that this wasn't the constitution of the new Bolshevik party, but simply the reorganization of the old social democratic party. It's worth underlining that such a reorganization was only considered possible "in association with the revival of the workers' movement"[18] after the years of reaction between 1907 and 1910. As we can see, Lenin not only didn't think of founding a new party before the revolutionary battles, but didn't even have the illusion of reorganizing the old party in the absence of a new period of struggle. The comrades of Battaglia - and not only them - are so hypnotized by the word party that they have become incapable of analyzing facts lucidly, reading something as a decisive turning point when it was only an important step in the process of demarcation with opportunism. The election of a Central Committee in 1912 by a conference dominated by Bolsheviks cannot be considered to be the end of the fraction phase and the beginning of the party phase, for the simple reason that in London in 1905 there had been an exclusively Bolshevik conference which proclaimed itself to be the III Congress of the party, and which had elected an entirely Bolshevik CC, considering the Mensheviks to be outside the party. But by the following year, Lenin had recognized that this had been a mistake, and at the 1906 congress the party was reunified, maintaining the two fractions as frac­tions of the same party. In a similar way, between 1912 and 1914, Lenin considered that the period of the struggle of the fraction was coming to an end and that the time had come for a definitive selection. This may have been true from a strictly Russian point of view, but it would certainly have been premature from an in­ternational point of view:

"Lenin's fractional work took place uniquely within the Russian party and there was no attempt to expand it onto the international level. To be convinced of this you only have to read his interventions at different congresses and you'll see that this work remained com­pletely unknown outside the Russian sphere."[19].

In fact, the definitive selection took place in the years 1914 to 1917, in the face of the dual test of war and revolution, dividing the socialists into social patriots and internationalists. Lenin was well aware of this and - as in 1906 when he fought for the unification of the party - in February 1915, replying to Trotsky's Nashe Slovo group, he wrote:

"We agree absolutely with you that the union of all the real internationalist social-democrats is one of the most vital tasks of the present moment"[20]. The problem was that for Lenin the unification of the inter­nationalists in a really communist party was only pos­sible if one made a clear break with those who weren't really internationalists, whereas Trotsky, as usual, wanted to reconcile the irreconcilable, wanted to base the unity of the internationalist party "on the union of all the fractions", including those who weren't pre­pared to break with the enemies of internationalism. For three years, Lenin fought incessantly against these illusions, transferring his fractional struggle for clarity from the purely Russian soil to the international one of the Zimmerwald Left[21]. This grandiose international struggle was the apogee and conclusion of the Bol­shevik's fraction work, which would bear its fruit with the outbreak of the revolution in Russia. Thanks to this tradition of struggle and to the development of a revo­lutionary situation, Lenin was able, as soon as he re­turned to Russia, to propose the unification of the Bol­sheviks with the other consistent internationalists, on the basis of a new program and under the name of the Communist Party, replacing the old term 'social democrat'. This led to the final selection, with the Bol­shevik right (Voitinsky, Goldenberg) going over to Menshevism, while the 'Old Bolshevik' center (Zinoviev, Kamenev) opposed Lenin in the name... of the old program upon which the 1912 conference had based itself. Lenin was accused of being the "gravedigger of the party's tradition"; he replied by showing that the entire struggle of the Bolsheviks had simply been the preparation for a real communist party:

"Let us create a proletarian Communist Party; its ele­ments have already been created by the best adherents of Bolshevism"[22]. Here is the conclusion of the grand struggle of the Bolshevik fraction; here is the real transformation into the party. We say real because, from a formal point of view, the name Communist Party wasn't adopted until March 1918, and the defini­tive version of the new program would only be rati­fied in March 1919. But the substantial transformation took place in April 1917 (VIII Pan-Russian Bolshevik Conference). We shouldn't forget that what distin­guishes a party from a fraction is its capacity to have a direct influence on events. The party is "a program, but also a will to action" (Bordiga), providing obvi­ously that this will is expressed in conditions objec­tively favorable to the development of a class party. In February 1917, there were only a few thousand Bol­sheviks and they had not played any leadership role in the spontaneous uprising which opened the revolution­ary period. At the end of April, there were more than 60,000 of them and they were already standing out as the only real opposition to the bourgeois Provisional Government. With the acceptance of the April Theses and the necessity to adopt a new program, the frac­tion became a party and posed the bases of Red Octo­ber.

In the next part of this work, we will see how the particular, historically original conditions of the degen­eration of the Russian revolution prevented the emer­gence of a left fraction that could resume, inside the degenerating Bolshevik party, Lenin's battle inside the social democratic party. The incapacity of the Russian opposition to form itself into a fraction would later be at the root of the historic failure of the Trotskyist in­ternational opposition, whereas the Italian Left, by car­rying on the methods of Marx and Lenin, was able to form itself into the International Communist Left in 1937[23]. We will also see how the abandonment of these methods by the comrades who founded the Inter­nationalist Communist Party in 1943 has been the source of the incapacity to act as a pole of revo­lutionary regroupment displayed by the two organizations (Battaglia, Programma Comunista) who derive from that party .

Beyle.

[1] The first two parts were published in IR 59 and 61. For a deeper analysis of the activity of this current, we recommend reading our two pamphlets La Gauche Communiste D'Italie 1927-52 and Rapports entre la fraction de gauche du PC d'Italie et l'Opposition de Gauche Internationale 1929-33

[2] See ‘Third Part: from Marx to Lenin, 1848-1917. 1. From Marx to the Second International' in IR 64

[3] Bordiga's intervention at the 6th Enlarged Executive Committee of the Communist International, in 1926

[4] "In 1902, Lenin had laid the tactical and organizational bases upon which were to be built the alternative to the opportunism of Russian social democracy, a party alternative, unless you want to pass off What Is To Be Done as the ten commandments of the fractionist faith"  (‘Fraction and Party in the Experience of the Italian Left', Prometeo 2, March 1979).

[5] The Bolshevik (‘Majority') at the 1903 congress of the RSDLP were the fruit of a temporary alliance between Lenin and Plekhanov. The 1904 fraction called itself Bolshevik in order to lay claim to the positions defended by the Congress majority of 1903

[6] It is significant that the complete theorization of the concept of the fraction by Lenin was not achieved until the years of reaction following the 1905 revolution. It is only the activity of the fraction that makes it possible to hold out in unfavorable periods.

[7] ‘The new faction of conciliators, or the virtuous', Social Democrat no. 24, October 18 (31), Lenin, Collected Works, 17

[8] ‘Conference of the extended editorial board of Proletary, 8-17 (21-30) June 1901, supplement to no 46 of Proletary, Collected Works, 15.

[9] ‘The liquidation of liquidationism', Proletary no. 46, 11 (24) July 1909, Collected Works, 15

[10] Idem note 4

[11] ‘The problem of the fraction in the Second International', Bilan 24, 1935

[12] Idem note 4

[13] ‘On the article Questions of the Day', Poletary no 42, 12 (25) February 1909, Collected Works, 15. Otzovism was a dissident current inside the Bolshevik fraction in the darkest years of the reflux, it tended towards reducing fraction work to that of a mere network.

[14] Political Platform of the Internationalist Communist Party (Battaglia Communista), 1952. In a recent publication of this text (1982), this passage was reproduced unchanged.

[15] ‘Towards the Two and Three-Quarter International', in Bilan 1, 1933; extracts published in the Bulletin D'etude et de Discussion, Revolution Internationale, no 6, April 1974.

[16] 6th General Conference of the RSDLP, Prague conference 6-17 (18-30) January 1912, Resolution on the Russian organizing commission for the convening of a conference, Collected Works, 17

[17] ‘The situation in RSDLP and the immediate tasks of the Party', 16 July 1912, Gazeta Robotnicza no. 15-16, Collected Works, 18: "It was a delegate from that organization (Kiev) that was chairman of the Credentials Committee at the Conference!"

[18] Taken from the resolutions of the conference. Lenin came back to this subject in 1915: "The years 1912-14 marked the beginning of a great new revolutionary upswing in Russia. We again witnessed a great strike movement, the like of which the world has never known. The number involved in the mass revolutionary strike in 1913 was, at the very lowest estimate, one and a half million, and in 1914 it rose to over two million, approaching the 1905 level" (Socialism and War, July-August 1915, Chapter II, ‘The working class and the war', Collected Works, 21.

[19] ‘The problem of the Fraction in the II International', Bilan 24, 1935.

[20] Letter from the CC of RSDLP to the editorial board of Nashe Slovo, 10 (23) March 1915, Collected Works, 15

[21] For a better understanding of the role of the Bolsheviks in the Zimmerwald Left, see our article in IR 57.

[22] ‘The dual power', Pravda no. 28, 9 April 1917, Collected Works, 24

[23] For an analysis of the work of the Italian Fraction in the 30s, see the first part of this work, in IR 59.

IR 65 2nd Qtr 1991

The fantastic violence of the Gulf War has served as a reminder that capitalism means war. The historic responsibility of the working class, as the only force capable of opposing capital, has been highlighted all the more. But to take up this responsibility, the revolutionary class must reappropriate the theoretical and practical experience of its own struggle against war. It must draw from this experience confidence in its revolutionary capacities and the means to fight successfully.

THE PROLETARIAT AND THE WAR IN THE GULF: WHAT IS AT STAKE IN THE HISTORICAL SITUATION

The world working class has suffered from the Gulf war, not only as a massacre of a part of itself, but also as a stupefying blow from the ruling class.

But the balance of forces between the proletariat and the local ruling class is not the same on each side of the battle front.

In Iraq, the government was able to send conscripts to the slaughter: workers, peasants and their children (sometimes only 15 years old). The working class is in a minority, drowned in a rural or semi-marginalised slum population. Its historical experience of struggle against capital is virtually nil. And above all, the absence of any significant struggles on the part of the workers in the most industrialised countries makes it unable to imagine the possibility of a truly internationalist combat. It has therefore been unable to resist the ideological and military control that forced it to serve as canon-fodder for the imperialist ambitions of its bourgeoisie. The ability of workers in these regions to overcome religious or nationalist mystifications depends first and foremost on the internationalist, anti-capitalist stance of the proletarians in the central countries.

The situation is different in the imperialist metropoles of Britain, France or the United States. The bourgeoisie had to send professional armies into the massacre. Why? Because the balance of forces between the classes was not the same. The ruling class knows that the workers are not ready, yet again, to pay the blood tax. Since the end of the sixties and the renewal of struggles marked by the massive 1968 strikes in France, the oldest working class in the world – and which has already suffered two world wars – has acquired an immense distrust of all the bourgeoisie’s politicians and their promises, and of the so-called “working class” organisations (left parties, trade unions), designed to keep them under control. It is this combativity, this disengagement from the ruling ideology, which has up to now prevented the outbreak of World War III, and the enlistment, once again, of the workers in an imperialist conflict.

However, recent events have shown that this is not enough to prevent capitalism from making war. If the working class went no further than this “implicit” resistance, then capital would eventually put the whole planet, including its industrial centres, to fire and sword.

The 1917-23 revolutionary wave, which put an end to World War I, showed that the proletariat is the only force able to stand against the barbarity of decadent capitalism’s imperialist war. The bourgeoisie is doing everything it can to make workers forget this, and to submerge them in a feeling of impotence, especially through the current gigantic campaign on the collapse of the USSR, with its ignoble lie: “the workers’ revolutionary struggle can only lead to the gulag and the most totalitarian militarism”.

For the working class today, to “forget” its revolutionary nature would mean a suicide that would drag the whole of humanity down with it. If it is left in the hands of the capitalist class, then human society is heading for a definitive disaster. The technological barbarity of the Gulf war is there to remind us. If the proletariat, the producer of the greater part of social wealth, lets itself be lulled by the sirens of pacifism and their hypocritical hymns to a capitalism without war, if it lets itself be dissolved in the rotten atmosphere of “every man for himself”, if it is unable to rediscover the path of the revolutionary struggle against capitalism as a system, then the human race will be definitively condemned to barbarity and destruction. “War or revolution. Socialism or barbarism”; more than ever, the question is posed thus.

More than ever, it is urgent that the proletariat reappropriate its historical lucidity and experience, the result of more than two centuries’ struggle against capital and its wars.

THE PROLETARIAT’S STRUGGLE AGAINST WAR

The proletariat, because it is the bearer of communism, is the first class in history to be able to envisage war as something other than an eternal and inevitable scourge. From the start, the workers’ movement declared its general opposition to capitalism’s wars. The Communist Manifesto, whose publication in 1848 corresponded to the first struggles where the proletariat stood forward on history’s stage as an independent force, is unequivocal: “The workers have no country... Workers of all countries, unite!”

The proletariat and war during the 19th century

The attitude of proletarian political organisations towards war has, logically, differed according to historical periods. In the 19th century, some capitalist wars still had a progressive anti-feudal character, in that they encouraged the development of the necessary conditions for the future communist revolution, through the formation of new nations and the growth of the productive forces. On several occasions, the marxist current was thus led to take a position in favour of one camp or the other in a national war, or to support the liberation struggle in certain nations (e.g., Poland against the Russian empire, the bastion of feudalism in Europe).

But in every case, the workers’ movement has always considered war as a capitalist scourge whose first victims are the exploited classes. Important confusions existed, at first because of the immaturity of historical conditions, then because of the weight of reformism. At the time of the First International’s foundation (1864), it was thought that a means to put an end to war had been found in the demand for the replacement of standing armies by people’s militias. This position was criticised from within the International itself, which declared in 1867 “ that it is not enough to abolish standing armies to do away with war; to this end, a transformation of the entire social order is also necessary”. The Second International, founded in 1889, also took position against wars in general. But this was the golden age of capitalism, and of the development of reformism. The International’s First Congress went back to the old slogan of “replacing the standing armies with people’s militias”. At the London Congress in 1896, a resolution on war declared: “the working class in all countries must oppose the violence provoked by war”. In 1900, the International’s parties had grown, and even had representatives in the Parliaments of the most important countries. One principal was solemnly stated: “the socialist members of parliament in every country are required to vote against military and naval credits, and against colonial expeditions”.

But in reality, the question of war had not yet been sharply posed. Apart from the colonial expeditions, the watershed between the two centuries was still marked by peace between the main capitalist powers. It was still the “belle époque”. While the conditions that would lead to the outbreak of World War I ripened, the workers’ movement seemed to be advancing from social conquest to parliamentary triumph, and for many the question of war seemed to be a purely theoretical one.

“All this explains – and we are speaking here from experience – the fact that we, the generation that struggled before the 1914 imperialist war, perhaps considered the problem of war more as an ideological struggle than as a real and imminent danger; the conclusion of several serious conflicts, such as Fashoda or Agadir, without recourse to arms, led us to believe, wrongly, that economic “interdependence”, the ever more numerous and tighter links between countries, formed a sure defence against the outbreak of war between the European powers, and that the different imperialisms’ growing military preparations, rather than leading inevitably to war, confirmed the Roman principle “si vis pacem para bellum”: if you want peace, prepare for war” (Gatto Mamonne, in Bilan no. 21, 1935 [1] [55]).

The conditions of this period of capitalism’s apogee, the development of the mass workers’ parties with their parliamentary representatives and their enormous union bureaucracies, the real reforms torn from the capitalist class, all encouraged the development of reformist ideology within the workers’ movement, and of its corollary: pacifism. The workers’ organisations were infected by the illusion of a capitalism without wars.

Against reformism, there emerged a left wing that stuck to revolutionary principals and understood that capitalism was entering into its phase of imperialist decadence. Rosa Luxemburg, and the Bolshevik fraction of the Russian Social-Democratic party maintained and developed revolutionary positions on the question of war. At the Stuttgart Congress of the International in 1907, they managed to have adopted an amendment that shut the door on pacifist conceptions. This stated that it was not enough to fight against an eventual outbreak of war, or to bring it to an end as quickly as possible, but that during the war it was necessary “to profit in any way possible from the economic and political crisis to rouse the people and in this way hasten the collapse of capitalist domination”. In 1912, under the pressure of the same minority, the Basle Congress denounced the coming European war as “criminal” and “reactionary”, “accelerating the capitalism’s downfall by inevitably provoking the proletarian revolution”.

Despite the adoption of these positions, when war broke out two years later the International collapsed. The leaderships of the national parties, rotten with reformism and pacifism, lined up alongside their national bourgeoisies in the name of “defence against aggression”. The Social-Democrat members of parliament voted the war credits.

Only the revolutionary minorities within the main parties, grouped around the German Spartakists and the Russian Bolsheviks, continued the fight against the war.

The revolutionary struggle puts an end to World War I

The revolutionary forces were now reduced to their simplest expression. When they met for the first time at the international conference of 1915 at Zimmerwald, Trotsky could joke that the proletariat’s revolutionary representatives could fit into a few taxis. But their intransigent internationalist position, their perspective of revolution rising from the war, and that only this revolution rising from the war, and that only this revolution could put an end to the barbarity that had been unleashed, were to be born out by events. By 1915, the first strikes broke out against the privations caused by the war, notably in Britain. In 1916, the workers in Germany and Russia took up the struggle, despite ferocious repression. In February 1917, a demonstration of Russian working class women against shortages set in motion the process that was to lead to the proletariat’s first international revolutionary attempt.

We have not the space here to recount, even briefly, the history of the struggles that put an end to the imperialist slaughter through the Russian workers’ soviets’ seizure of power in October 1917, and the 1918-19 insurrection by the German proletariat. We want here to highlight, nonetheless, two fundamental lessons of this experience.

The first is that, contrary to the claims of the bourgeoisie’s disgusting propaganda, the exploited classes are not impotent and weaponless against capital and its wars. If the proletariat is capable of uniting consciously, if it succeeds in discovering its own enormous strength, then it can not only prevent capitalist war, it can disarm the power of capital and overthrow its armed power by disintegrating it. The revolutionary wave which put an end to World War I has provided practical proof that the combat of the working class constitutes the only force able to halt the military barbarity of capitalist decadence, and this society’s only revolutionary force.

The second lesson concerns the relation between the proletariat’s struggle in the workplace and the struggle of soldiers in the barracks and at the front. However important the soldiers’ struggle, and the fraternisation of German and Russian soldiers in the trenches during World War I, they were not at the heart of the revolution which put an end to the war, but a moment within it. These actions were preceded by a whole fermentation in the factories, whether in the form of strikes, or of demonstrations against the effects of the war. Soldiers’ desertions, and actions against officers only became truly massive and determining once they became part of the proletarian movement, which shook the bourgeoisie’s power in its economic and political centres. Without the massive political and revolutionary struggle of the working class, there is no real struggle against capitalist war.

The proletariat unable to prevent World War II

The proletariat did not succeed in renewing its revolutionary struggle during World War II, despite the hopes of the revolutionary minorities, and despite the workers’ struggles that marked its end, especially Germany, Italy and Greece. The fundamental reason was that the working class had not yet got over the physical and ideological defeat it suffered during the Social-Democrat and Stalinist counter-revolution of the 20s and 30s.

The defeat of the 1919-23 German revolution, the isolation and degeneration of the Russian revolution have had tragic consequences for the whole workers’ movement. The very form that the counter-revolution took in Russia during the 20’s and 30’s – Stalinism – has been a source of inextricable confusion. The counter-revolution came dressed in the clothes of the revolution.

Despite their exemplary combativity, the Spanish workers’ struggles in 1936 were derailed onto the terrain of anti-fascism and the defence of the bourgeois republic. On the international scale, fascism and anti-fascism (notably the left parties and the Popular Fronts) shared the task of enrolling the workers by terror, or by lies presenting bourgeois democracy as a workers’ conquest, to be defended to the detriment of their own class interests. By the time war broke out, the proletariat was ideologically under control. The bourgeoisie turned the workers into cannon-fodder once again, without them being able to rediscover their class consciousness and their ability to resist and organise. The horrors of war were not enough to open their eyes, and set them anew one the road to revolutionary struggle.

The ruling class had also learnt from experience since the First World War. In 1917-18, the bourgeoisie had been “surprised” by the proletarian revolutionary struggle. This time, it kept constantly in mind, at the beginning, but especially at the end of the war, the immense fear it had felt 25 years before. With absolutely conscious cynicism, Churchill left the Fascist government, supported by the Germans, to suppress the workers’ revolts in Italy during 1943; Stalin stopped the Russian army within sight of Warsaw, allowing the Nazis to massacre the popular uprising in the city; and the Allied forces, after the German bourgeoisie’s capitulation and in cooperation with it, prevented the return of POW’s to Germany in order to avoid any explosion that their mingling with the civilian population might have provoked. The reasons for the systematic extermination of the civilian population by the allied bombardments of the working class districts in Germany (Hamburg, Dresden: twice as many dead as at Hiroshima) were not purely military.

During the war, the bourgeoisie was dealing with proletarian generations whose revolutionary strength had been shattered by the deepest counter-revolution in history. All the same, the ruling class took no risks.

On the whole, the effect of the war on the world proletariat was of another annihilation, which it would take decades to recover from.

The renewal of the class struggle since 1968

Since World War II, the planet has not had a moment’s peace. The main imperialist powers have continued to confront each other militarily, mostly through local conflicts (Korea, the Arab-Israeli wars) but also through the so-called “national liberation struggles” (Indochina, Algeria, Vietnam, etc). The working class has only been able to suffer under these wars, as under the effects of capitalism as a whole.

But with the massive strike of 1968 in France, followed by the struggles in Italy 1969, Poland 1970, and elsewhere, the proletariat returned to the historical stage. It rediscovered massive combat on its own class terrain, and escaped the crushing weight of the counter-revolution. At the very moment that the capitalist crisis provoked by the end of the reconstruction period pushed world capital towards a Third World War, the working class was detaching itself from the dominant ideology, slowly, but enough to make its immediate enrolment in another imperialist massacre impossible.

Today, after 20 years of stalemate where the ruling class has been unable to unleash its “solution” of worldwide apocalypse, but where the proletariat has not had the strength to impose its own revolutionary solution, capitalism has entered a state of decomposition which engenders a new kind of conflict: the Gulf war is its first major concretisation.

For the world working class, and especially for workers in the main industrialised countries, the warning is clear: either the class will be able to develop its fight to a revolutionary conclusion, or the dynamic of decomposing capitalism, from one “local” war to the next, will eventually call humanity’s very survival into question.

HOW TO FIGHT AGAINST WAR TODAY?

First of all, what the working class must reject.

Pacifism means impotence

Before the Gulf war began, as before the First and Second World Wars, capitalism was readying its physical weapons, its warmongering brainwash, and its ideological weapon of capitalism.

“Pacifism” is not defined by the demand for “peace”. Everybody wants peace. The warmongers themselves never stop proclaiming that they only want war in order to prepare for peace. The distinguishing feature of pacifism is its claim that it is possible to fight for peace, as such, without touching the foundations of capitalist power. The proletarians whose revolutionary struggle, in Russia and Germany, put an end to World War I, also wanted peace. But their combat’s success was because they fought not with the “pacifists” but in spite of and against them. As soon as it became clear that only the revolutionary struggle would stop the imperialist slaughter, the workers of Russia and Germany found themselves facing not just the bourgeoisie’s “hawks”, but also and especially the original pacifists: the Mensheviks, the “Socialist Revolutionaries”, the Social Democrats, who defended both ideologically and militarily what was dearest to them: capitalist order.

War does not exist “as such”, outside social relations, in other words relations between classes. In decadent capitalism, war is only a moment in the life of the system, and there can be no struggle against war without a struggle against capitalism. To struggle against war without struggling against capitalism is to be condemned to impotence. The aim of pacifism has always been to make the revolt of the exploited against war harmless for capital.

History gives us edifying examples of this kind of manoeuvre. The efforts that we can see at work today were already being vigorously denounced by revolutionaries 50 years ago: “The necessity for the bourgeoisie is precisely that, with hypocritical talk of peace, the workers be turned away from the revolutionary struggle” wrote Lenin in 1916. The use of pacifism has not changed: “The unity of principle between the social-chauvinists (Plekhanov, Scheidemann) and the social-pacifists (Turati, Kautsky), lies in that both, objectively speaking, are the servants of imperialism: the former serve it by presenting the imperialist war as a ‘defence of the fatherland’, while the others serve the same imperialism by disguising the imperialist peace that is being prepared today with talk about a democratic peace. The imperialist bourgeoisie needs both kinds of lackey, with each kind of nuance: it needs the Plekhanovs to encourage the peoples to massacre each other shouting ‘down with the conquerors’; it needs the Kautskys to console and calm the exasperated masses with hymns and declamations in honour of peace,” (Lenin, January 1917).

What was true during World War I has invariably been confirmed since. Today, yet again, with the Gulf war, the bourgeoisie in all the belligerent powers has organised the pacifist machine. “Responsible” (having taken part in government, in the sabotage of strikes and other forms of the struggle of the exploited classes, or having played the recruiting sergeant in previous conflicts) parties, or fractions of political parties are given the job of taking the lead in the pacifist movements. We must “demand!”, they say; we must “impose!”... a peaceful capitalism. From Ramsey Clark (one-time adviser to Lyndon Johnson) in the US, to the Social-democracy in Germany (the same ones who sent the German proletariat into World War I, and was directly responsible for the murder in 1919 of the revolutionary movement’s most important figures, Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg); from the pacifist fractions of the British Labour Party to those of Chevenement and Cheysson in the French PS, via the Stalinist CP’s of France, Italy and Spain (with their inevitable Trotskyist acolytes) whose have long since become master recruiters of canon-fodder: all these fine people have appeared at the head of the great pacifist demonstrations of January 1991 in Washington, London, Paris, Bonn, or Rome. All these patriots (whether they defend big countries or little ones – Iraq for example – changes nothing) obviously believe in peace as little to day as they did yesterday. They are simply playing the part of pacifism: channelling the discontent and the revolt provoked by the war into an impotent dead-end.

After all the “petitions”, the “demonstrations” in the company of all the ruling class’ “concerned people”, the “progressive” priests, the show-biz starts and such like “lovers of (...capitalist) peace”, what can there be left in the minds of those who thought that this would be a means of opposing the war, if not a feeling of sterility and impotence? Pacifism has never prevented capitalism wars. It has always prepared and accompanied them.

Pacifism always has a “radical” fellow-traveller: anti-militarism. In general, this is characterised by a more or less complete rejection of “peaceful” pacifism. It calls for more radical methods to combat war, directly attacking military force: individual desertion and the “execution of officers” are its most typical slogans. On the eve of World War I, its best known exponent was Gustave Herve, and he encountered a certain echo in the face of reformist social-democracy’s flabby pacifism. In Toulon, France, one poor soldier was so far taken in by this “radical” language that he even tried to shoot his colonel. Needless to say, this got nobody anywhere... with the exception of Herve who ended the war as an abject patriot and supporter of Clemenceau.

It is obvious that the revolution will also be expressed in desertions from the army, and the struggle against the officers. But in this case, as in the German and Russian Revolutions, these will be mass actions by soldiers, and a part of the mass proletarian struggle. It is absurd to think that there can be an individualist solution to so eminently social a problem as capitalist war. At best, this is an expression of the suicidal despair of the petty bourgeois incapable of understanding the revolutionary role of the working class, and at worst it is a dead-end consciously used by the police to reinforce a feeling of impotence in the face of militarism and war. The dissolution cannot be achieved by individual actions of nihilist revolt; it can only be the result of the conscious, massive, and collective revolutionary action of the proletariat.

The struggle against war can only be the struggle against capital. But the conditions of this struggle today are radically different from what they were during the revolutionary movements of the past. In the past, proletarian revolutions have all been more or less directly linked to wars: the Paris Commune sprang from the conditions created by the 1870 Franco-Prussian war; the 1905 revolution in Russia was a response to the Russo-Japanese war; the wave of 1917-23, to World War I. Some revolutionaries have deduced that capitalist war is a precondition, or at least a highly favourable condition, for the communist revolution. This was only partly true in the past. War creates conditions that do indeed push the proletariat to act in a revolutionary manner. However, firstly, this only happens in the defeated countries. The proletariat in the victorious countries generally remains much more strongly subjected, ideologically, to the ruling class; this counters the worldwide extension of revolutionary power, which is vital to its survival. Secondly, when the struggle succeeds in forcing the bourgeoisie to make peace, it thereby deprives itself of the extraordinary conditions that gave birth to it [2] [56]. In Germany, for example, the revolutionary movement after the armistice suffered badly from the tendency of many soldiers returning from the front to forget everything but the desire to enjoy the peace they had so dearly won. Moreover, as we have seen above, by the time of the Second World War the bourgeoisie had drawn the lessons of the first and acted to prevent any revolutionary social explosions.

Above all, however, and quite apart from all these considerations, if the present historical course is ever overturned and a war breaks out involving the masses of the proletariat in the imperialist metropoles, then it will set in motion such terrible means of destruction that there will be no, or virtually no, possibility of fraternisation or revolutionary action.

If there is one lesson that workers must retain from their past experience, then it is this: to struggle against war today, they must act before a world war; during it will be too late.

An analysis of today’s historic conditions allows us to state that the conditions for a new international revolutionary situation could arise without capitalism having been able to enrol the proletariat of the central countries in a generalised butchery.

The processes leading to a revolutionary proletarian response are neither rapid nor easy. Those who today lament the lack of an immediate response to the Gulf war by the proletariat in the industrialised countries, forget that the revolutionary response to war in 1917 only came after three years of dreadful suffering. Nobody can say when and how the world working class will raise its combat to the level of its historic tasks. What we do know is that it will come up against enormous difficulties, not the least being the debilitating effects of the general atmosphere of decomposition engendered by capitalism’s advanced state of decadence accompanied by the widespread spirit of “every man for himself”, and the nauseating stink of putrefying Stalinism. But we also know that, contrary to the period of the economic crisis in the 1930’s and of World War II, the proletariat in the central countries is neither physically crushed nor has its consciousness been destroyed.

The very fact that the proletariat in the great powers could not be enrolled in the Gulf war (forcing the governments to use professionals); the multitude of precautions taken by governments to justify the war, are so many signs of this balance of forces.

As for the effects of this war on consciousness in the class, in the short term they have provoked a relative paralysis, accompanied however by an anxious and deep-seated reflection on what is historically at stake.

At this level, the Gulf war is distinct from the World Wars of the past in one particularly important aspect: the World Wars were special in that they hid from the proletariat the economic crises that they sprang from. During the war, the unemployed disappeared into the army, the factories which had shut down restarted to produce the weapons goods necessary for total war: the economic crisis seemed to have disappeared. The situation is quite different today. Just as the bourgeoisie unleashed its hellfire over the Middle East, its economy, at the heart of its industrialised zones, plunged into an unprecedented recession... with no hope of a new Marshall Plan. At the same time, we have witnessed a war that clearly announced the apocalyptic perspective of capitalism, and the deepening of the economic crisis. The first has given the proletariat the measure of what is at stake historically, the second is creating the conditions that will force it, in responding to the attacks on its living conditions, to affirm itself as a class and recognise itself as such.

For today’s generations of workers, the present situation is a new historical challenge. They will be able to rise to it, if they are able to profit from the last twenty years of economic struggles which have taught them the worth of capitalism’s promises, and what this system’s future holds in store; if they are able to take to its conclusion the mistrust and hatred that they have developed for the so-called workers’ organisations (unions and left parties), which have systematically sabotaged all their important struggles; and if they are capable of fully understanding that their own struggle is only the continuation of two centuries of combat by our epoch’s revolutionary class.

To do so, the proletariat has no choice but to develop its struggle against capital, on its own class terrain, a thousand miles from the inter-classiest terrain of pacifism and other nationalist snares.

This terrain can be defined in the most clear-cut way as a viewpoint on each moment of the struggle: the intransigent defence of workers’ interests against those of capital. It is not the trade union terrain, which divides workers by national, region, or industrial branch. It is not the terrain of the unions and left-wing parties, which pretend that “the defence of workers’ interests is the best defence of the nation”, to conclude that workers’ struggles should take account of the nation’s interests, and so of the national capital. The class terrain is defined by the irreconcilable opposition between the interests of the exploited class and those of the moribund capitalist system.

The class terrain has class, not national frontiers. By itself, it negates the foundations of capitalist war. It is the fertile ground where the dynamic develops which will lead the proletariat to assume, from the defence of its “immediate” interests, the defence of its historic interests: the world communist revolution.

Capitalist war is no more inevitable than the aberrations of decomposing capitalism. The capitalist mode of production is no more eternal than were the ancient slave-holding societies, or feudalism. Only the struggle to overthrow this society, and to build a truly communist society without exploitation or nations, can rid humanity of the threat of destruction in the holocaust of capitalist war.

The only struggle against war is the struggle against capitalism. The class war is the only “war” worth waging.

RV

Only the international working class can create a real new world order

As we go to press, the Gulf war has been officially ended. It finished very quickly, much quicker than the military commands had led people to believe, perhaps quicker than they themselves had thought. The editorial article that follows was written at the beginning of the ground offensive by the US-led coalition against Iraq. It is thus dated. However, its denunciation of the butchery of this war is still very relevant. The introduction demonstrates how much the political positions and analyses it puts forward have been confirmed from the very first days of the 'post war' phase.

Introduction

The Gulf War ends: the USA, World Policeman

The end of the war has clearly confirmed the real ob­jectives of the American bourgeoisie: demonstrating its enormous military superiority, not only vis-a-vis peripheral countries like Iraq who are being pushed into military adventures by the severity of the eco­nomic crisis, but also and above all the other world powers, and particularly those who used to make up the western bloc: Japan and the great European pow­ers.

The disappearance of the eastern bloc, by eliminating these powers' need for the American military 'umbrella', has resulted in the disappearance of the western bloc itself and given rise to the tendency to­wards the formation of a new imperialist bloc. The complete effacement, during the course of the war, of the only two serious candidates for the 'leadership' of a new bloc, Germany and Japan, the demonstration of their complete military impotence, is America's warn­ing for the future: whatever the economic dynamism of these countries (in reality, their capacity to stand up to the crisis more effectively than their rivals), the USA is not prepared to let anyone muscle in on its patch. Sim­ilarly, all of France's little attempts to 'affirm its differences' (see the editorial of International Review 64) up until 17 January went up in smoke the minute the USA succeeded in imposing its 'solution' to the crisis: the military crushing of Iraq. Today France is reduced to wagging its tail like a poodle when Schwarzkopf congratulates the French troops for doing an "absolutely superb job", and when Bush receives Mitterrand with all the right civilities. As for the Eu­ropean Community, which some people have seen as future great rival of the USA, it has been com­pletely non-existent throughout the war. In short, if it necessary to identify the real objectives of the making this war inevitable and in waging it to e results are there to make everything crystal clear.

A Pyrrhic Victory

Similarly, with the end of the fighting, we have seen the rapid confirmation of the perspective we put for­ward from the beginning (see IR 63): war would not be followed by peace, but by chaos and more war. Chaos and war in Iraq, as illustrated tragically by the con­frontations and massacres in the cities of the south and in Kurdistan. Chaos, war and disorder throughout the region: Lebanon, Israel, and the occupied territories. In short, the glorious victory of the 'allies', the 'new world order' that they claim to be setting up, are giv­ing their first fruits: disorder, misery and massacres for the populations; wars here, there and everywhere. The new world order? Already the Middle East is more un­stable now than it ever was before!

And this instability won't be limited to the Middle East. The end of the war against Iraq is not opening up the prospect of a diminution of tensions between the big imperialist powers. On the contrary. Thus, the dif­ferent European bourgeoisies are already preoccupied with the need to adapt, modernize and strengthen their weaponry - and that's not with a 'new era of peace' in mind. We are also seeing countries like Japan, Ger­many and even Italy demanding a reevaluation of their international status by calling for a permanent place on the UN Security Council. Thus, while the USA has succeeded through this war in proving its vast military superiority, while it has for the moment slowed down the tendency towards every man for himself, this is re­ally a Pyrrhic victory. The exacerbation of imperialist tensions and the spread of chaos all over the planet are inevitable, as is the aggravation of the economic crisis which is at the origin of all this. And there will have to be more 'punitive actions' like the one inflicted on Iraq, other monstrous massacres to serve as an 'example' and to bolster 'law and order'.

The 'New World Order': Poverty, famine, barbarism, war

Just over a year ago, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the bourgeoisie, its governments and its media, triumphantly claimed that 'liberal' capitalism had won, that an era of peace and prosperity was opening up with the disappearance of the eastern bloc and the opening up of these countries' markets. These lies have been shattered: instead of markets in the east, we have had economies ravaged by chaos. Instead of peace, we have had the most gigantic military intervention since the Second World War. Today, just as triumphantly, the leading sectors of the world bourgeoisie tell us that with the defeat of Iraq, the dawn of the new world or­der has definitely arrived: peace will be achieved, international stability ensured. These lies are also going to be shattered.

The rapid end of the war, the low number of deaths on the 'allied' side, have allowed the bourgeoisie to disorient the working class of the capitalist metropoles, the fraction of the proletariat which is key to the final outcome of the worldwide, historic battle between the classes. Even though many workers feel deeply wounded by the extermination of tens or hundreds of thousands of the exploited and the oppressed of Iraq, they also feel powerless in the face of the campaign of triumphant chauvinism which, thanks to the lies of the media, has temporarily deafened people's minds. But the future of poverty, famine, chaos, and ever more monstrous imperialist massacres, which is all the ruling class can offer, will open the eyes of the working masses and allow their struggles to be more and more impregnated with an awareness of the need to do away with this system. Revolutionaries must play an active part in this development of consciousness.

RF 11.3.91

The Kurdish tragedy is the latest demonstration of the bloody barbarity brought about by so-called 'national liberation' struggles.

The United States, Great Britain, Turkey, Iran, all the different imperialist protagonists who brought about the outrage of the Gulf War, encouraged the Kurds in one way or the other to rise up in armed insurrection for their 'national liberation'. Now we can see how they left Saddam Hussein to crush them and cast them into exile.

They are all accomplices to this genocidal slaughter and they have all used 'national liberation' as a fig leaf for their imperialist ambitions. In this pack of dogs we have to include the Kurdish leaders who have made an agreement with the Butcher of Baghdad to reduce 'national independence' to the 'first step' of 'autonomy', a 'first step' that also took place in 1970, 1975, and 1981...!

Capitalism has entered its final phase: decomposition. A phase in which wars like that in the Gulf and ethnic-nationalist massacres like those in Yugoslavia and the USSR, or the killings between the Arabs and Kurds in Iraq, will increasingly proliferate. Both take place under the same banner of 'national liberation' which, in many cases, is the cynical disguise for the imperialist ambitions of different states, especially the great powers; in the other cases it is just an irrational drunkenness which carries away the brutalised and desperate masses. In both it is an expression of the mortal bankruptcy of the capitalist order, of the threat it represents to the survival of humanity.

Against all of this, only the proletariat can offer a perspective of reorganising society around social relations based on the real unification of humanity, on production dedicated to the full satisfaction of human needs; in sum, a world community of free and equal human beings who work with and for each other.

In order to orient its struggles around this perspective the proletariat must clearly reject the whole ideology of 'national liberation', which serves only to tie it to the old society [1] [62]. In the first part of this article we are going to analyse how, in the revolutionary experience of 1917-23, this mystification represented a crucial factor in the failure of the revolution and provided the capitalist states with a means of salvation that resulted in a tragic procession of war and barbarity, the price mankind has paid for the survival of the capitalist regime over the last 70 years.

The Second Congress of the Communist International (March 1920) adopted the 'Theses on the national and colonial question' whose basic idea was: "All events in world politics are necessarily concentrated on one central point, the struggle of the world bourgeoisie against the Russian Soviet Republic, which is rallying around itself both the soviet movements among the advanced workers in all countries, and all the national liberation movements in the colonies and amongst the oppressed peoples, convinced by bitter experience that there is no salvation for them except in union with the revolutionary proletariat and in the victory of Soviet power over world imperialism" (Documents of the Communist International, ed J Degras, page 138).

This hope was quickly refuted by events from the beginning of the Russian Revolution. The policy of support for 'national liberation' struggles practiced by the CI and the proletarian bastion in Russia created a barrier against the international extension of the proletarian revolution and fundamentally weakened the consciousness and unity of the international proletariat, contributing to the failure of its revolutionary efforts.

A noose around the neck of the Russian Revolution

The October revolution was the first step in the revolutionary movement of the proletariat on a world scale: "That the Bolsheviks have based their policy entirely upon the world proletarian revolution is the clearest proof of their political farsightedness and firmness of principle and of the bold scope of their politics" (Rosa Luxemburg, 'The Russian Revolution' in Rosa Luxemburg Speaks, Pathfinder Press, page 368)

In accordance with this thinking, where the essential issue was the international extension of the revolution, support for national liberation movements in the countries oppressed by the great metropolitan imperialists was seen as a tactic for winning additional support for the world revolution.

From October 1917, the Bolsheviks pushed for the independence of the countries which the Czarist empire had kept subjugated: the Baltic countries, Finland, Poland, the Ukraine, Armenia etc... They believed that such an attitude would guarantee the revolutionary proletariat indispensable support for its efforts to retain power while waiting for the maturation and explosion of the proletarian revolution in the great European countries, especially Germany. These hope were never to be fulfilled:

·         Finland: the Soviet government recognised its independence on the 18th of December 1917. The working class movement in this country was very strong: it was on the revolutionary ascent, it had strong links with the Russian workers and had actively participated in the 1905 and 1917 revolutions. It was not a question of a country dominated by feudalism, but a very developed capitalist territory. And the Finnish bourgeoisie used the Soviet power's gift in order to crush the workers' insurrection that broke out in January 1918. This struggle lasted nearly 3 months but, despite the resolute support the Soviets gave to the Finnish workers, the new state was able to destroy the revolutionary movement, thanks to German troops whom they called on to help them;

·         The Ukraine: the local nationalist movement did not represent a real bourgeois movement, but rather obliquely expressed the vague resentments of the peasants against the Russian landlords and above all the Poles. The proletariat in this region came from all over Russia and was very developed. In these conditions the band of nationalist adventurers that set up the 'Ukraine Rada' (Vinnickenko, Petlyura etc.) rapidly sought the patronage of German and Austrian imperialism. At the same time it dedicated all its forces to attacking the workers' soviets, which had been formed in Kharkov and other cities. The French general Tabouis who, because of the collapse of the central powers, replaced the German influence, employed Ukrainian reactionary bands in the war of the White Guards against the Soviets.

"Ukrainian nationalism... was a mere whim, a folly of a few dozen petty bourgeois intellectuals without the slightest roots in the economic, political or psychological relationships of the country; it was without any historical tradition, since the Ukraine never formed a nation or government, was without any national culture... To what was at first a mere farce they lent  such importance that the farce became a matter of the most deadly seriousness - not as a serious national movement for which, afterwards as before, there are no roots at all, but as a shingle and rallying flag of counter-revolution. At Brest, out of this addled egg crept the German bayonets" (Rosa Luxemburg, idem, pages 382-2);

·         The Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania): the workers' soviets took power in this zone at the same moment as the October revolution. 'National liberation' was carried out by British marines: "With the termination of hostilities against Germany, British naval units appeared in the Baltic. The Estonian Soviet Republic collapsed in January 1919. The Latvian Soviet Republic held out in Riga for five months and then succumbed to the threat of British naval guns" (E.H.Carr, The Bolshevik Revolution, vol. 1, page 317)

·         In Asiatic Russia, Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan: "A Bashkir government under one Validov, which had proclaimed an autonomous Bashkir state after the October revolution, went over to the Orenburg Cossacks who were in open warfare against the Soviet Government; and this was typical of the prevailing attitude of the nationalists" (idem, page 324). For its part the 'national-revolutionary' government of Kokanda (in central Asia), with a programme that included the imposition of Islamic law, the defence of private property, and the forced seclusion of women, unleashed a fierce war against the workers' Soviet of Tashkent (the principal industrial city of Russian Turkestan).

·         In Caucasia a Transcaucasian republic was formed, and its tutelage was fought over between Turkey, Germany and Great Britain. This caused it to break up into 3 'independent' republics (Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan), which fiercely confronted each other, urged on in turn by each of the contesting powers. The three republics supported with all their forces the British troops in their battle against the Baku workers' Soviet, which from 1917-20 suffered bombardment and massacres by the British;

·         Turkey: from the beginning the Soviet government supported the 'revolutionary nationalist' Kemal Attaturk. Radek, a member of the CI, exhorted the recently formed Turkish Communist Party thus: "Your first task, as soon as you have formed as an independent party, will be to support the movement for the national freedom of Turkey" (Acts of the first four Congresses of the CI). The result was a catastrophe: Kemal crushed without leniency the strikes and demonstrations of the young Turkish proletariat and, if for a time he allied with the Soviet government, it was only done to put pressure on the British troops who were occupying Constantinople, and on the Greeks who had occupied large parts of Western Turkey. However, once the Greeks had been defeated and having offered British imperialism his fidelity if they left Constantinople, Kemal broke off the alliance with the Soviets and offered the British the head of the Turkish Communist Party, which was viciously persecuted.

·         The case of Poland should also be mentioned. The national emancipation of Poland was almost a dogma in the Second International. When Rosa Luxemburg, at the end of the 19th century, demonstrated that this slogan was now erroneous and dangerous since capitalist development had tightly bound the Polish bourgeoisie to the Russian Czarist imperial caste, she provoked a stormy polemic inside the International. But the truth was that the workers of Warsaw, Lodz and elsewhere were at the vanguard of the 1905 revolution and had produced revolutionaries as outstanding as Rosa. Lenin had recognised that "The experience of the 1905 revolution demonstrated that even in these two nations (he is referring to Poland and Finland) the leading classes, the landlords and the bourgeoisie, renounced the revolutionary struggle for liberty and had looked for a rapprochement with the leading classes in Russia and with the Czarist monarchy out of fear of the revolutionary proletariat of Finland and Poland" (minutes of the Prague party conference, 1912).

Unfortunately the Bolsheviks held onto the dogma of 'the right of nations to self-determination', and from October 1917 on they promoted the independence of Poland. On 29 August 1918 the Council of Peoples Commissars declared "All treaties and acts concluded by the government of the former Russian Empire with the government of Prussia or of the Austro-Hungarian Empire concerning Poland, in view of their incompatibility with the principle of the self-determination of nations and with the revolutionary sense of right of the Russian people, which recognises the indefeasible right of the Polish people to independence and unity, are hereby irrevocably rescinded" (quoted in E.H. Carr, The Bolshevik Revolution, vol 1, p 293).

While it was correct that the proletarian bastion should denounce and annul the secret treaties of the bourgeois government, it was a serious error to do so in the name of 'principles' which were not on a proletarian terrain, but a bourgeois one, viz the 'right of nations'. This was rapidly demonstrated in practice. Poland fell under the iron dictatorship of Pilsudski, the veteran social patriot, who smashed the workers' strikes, allied Poland with France and Britain, and actively supported the counter-revolution of the White Armies by invading the Ukraine in 1920.

When in response to this aggression the troops of the Red Army entered Polish territory and advanced on Warsaw in the hope that the workers would rise up against the bourgeoisie, a new catastrophe befell the cause of the world revolution: the workers of Warsaw, the same workers who had made the 1905 revolution, fell in behind the 'Polish Nation' and participated in the defence of the city against the soviet troops. This was the tragic consequence of years of propaganda about the 'national liberation' of Poland by the Second International and then by the proletarian bastion in Russia. [2] [63]

The outcome of this policy was catastrophic: the local proletariats were defeated, the new nations were not 'grateful' for the Bolsheviks' present and quickly passed into the orbit of British imperialism, collaborating in their blockade of the Soviet power and sustaining with all the means at their disposal the White counter-revolution which provoked a bloody civil war.

"The Bolsheviks were to be taught to their own great hurt and that of the revolution, that under the rule of capitalism there is no self-determination of peoples, that in a class society each class of the nation strives to 'determine itself' in a different fashion, and that, for the bourgeois classes, the stand-point of national freedom is fully subordinated to that of class rule. The Finnish bourgeoisie, like the Ukrainian bourgeoisie, were unanimous in preferring the violent rule of Germany to national freedom, if the latter should be bound up with Bolshevism." (Rosa Luxemburg, 'The Russian Revolution', Rosa Luxemburg Speaks, page 380)

National liberation will not cure national oppression

The Bolsheviks thought that "in order to affirm the workers' international unity it was first necessary to uproot all vestiges of the past inequality and discrimination between nations". Hadn't these vestiges subjected the workers of these countries to the reactionary nationalism of the Czarist empire? Didn't this create an obstacle to their unity with the Russian workers, who could be seen as accomplices to Great Russian chauvinism? Wouldn't the young proletariat of the colonial and semi-colonial countries have a hostile attitude towards the proletariat of the great metropoles as long as their countries had not become independent nations?

It is certain that capitalism did not create and organise the world market in a conscious way. It developed in a violent, anarchic manner, through antagonisms between nations. Everywhere it sowed all kinds of discrimination and oppression, particularly national, ethnic, and linguistic ones. These weighed heavily on the workers of different countries, complicating the process towards the unification and self-awareness of the class.

However, it was erroneous and dangerous to seek to solve this by encouraging the formation of new nations which - given the saturation of the world market - could have no economic viability, and would only reproduce these wounds on a much vaster scale. The experience of the peripheral peoples of the Czarist empire was conclusive. The Polish nationalists used their 'independence' to persecute the Jewish, Lithuanian and German minorities; in Caucasia, the Georgians persecuted the Armenians and the Azeris, the Armenians the Turkamens and the Azeris, while later on the latter did the same to the Armenians...; the Ukrainian Rada declared its hatred of the Russians, Poles and Jews... and these events were an omen of the terrible nightmare which has unfolded throughout capitalism's decadence: simply remember the Hindus' bloody orgy against the Muslims in 1947, that of the Croats against the Serbs during the Nazi occupation and the revenge of the latter against the former once Yugoslavia was 'liberated' by Tito. And now today we have the bloody witches' Sabbath of nationalist pogroms in Eastern Europe and Asiatic Russia. We have to be clear: 'national liberation' will not stop national oppression, but instead will reproduce it even more irrationally. It is like using petrol to put a fire out.

It is only in the proletariat, in its revolutionary being and in its struggle, that we can find the bases for combating and overcoming all the varieties of national, ethnic and linguistic discrimination engendered by capitalism: "big industry created a class, which in all nations has the same interest and with which nationality is already dead; a class which is really rid of all the old world and at the same time stands pitted against it." (Marx and Engels, The German Ideology)

National liberation pushes the non-exploiting strata into the arms of capital

The Bolsheviks, who always based their policies on the idea of reinforcing the world revolution, thought that they could win over the non-exploiting strata of these nations - peasants, certain middle classes etc - through supporting 'national liberation' and other classical demands of the programme of the bourgeois revolutions (agrarian reform, political freedoms, etc).

These strata occupy an unstable position in bourgeois society; they're heterogeneous, without any future as such. Although oppressed by capitalism they lack any clear or defined interests of their own, and this ties them to the conservation of capitalism. The proletariat cannot win them over by offering them a platform based on 'national liberation' and other demands situated on the bourgeois terrain. Such proposals push them into the arms of the bourgeoisie who can manipulate them with demagogic promises and so turn them against the proletariat.

Clearly the demands of the bourgeois programme, which are most sensitive to the peasants and petty-bourgeoisie (agrarian reform, linguistic freedom within the national terrain, etc), have never been completed by the bourgeoisie. But in the period of capitalism's decadence the new nations are incapable of completing these demands, which clearly constitute a reactionary utopia, impossible under a capitalism that cannot expand, but is increasingly rent by violent convulsions.

Does this mean that the proletariat must take up demands which historical evolution have thrown into the dustbin, in order to demonstrate that it is more 'consistent' than the bourgeoisie?

No way! This approach, which weighed so heavily on the Bolsheviks and other revolutionary fractions, was a poisonous residue secreted by the gradualist and reformist thinking which led social democracy to its ruin. It is a speculative and idealist vision of capitalism, which holds that it has to complete its programme 100%, and in all countries before humanity is ready for communism. This is a reactionary utopia which does not correspond to the reality of a system based on exploitation, a system whose aim is not to carry out a supposed social project but to extract surplus-value. If in the ascendant phase of capitalism the bourgeoisie usually forgot its 'programme' after it had achieved power, making frequent pacts with the remnants of the old feudal classes, once the world market was formed and capitalism entered into its historical decline, this 'programme' was converted into a vulgar mystification.

The proletariat will only open a crack in its revolutionary alternative if it attempts the realisation of 'the unfinished bourgeois programme', and the bourgeoisie will grab onto this as a means of salvation. The best way of winning over the non-exploiting strata to the proletarian cause, or at least neutralising them in the decisive confrontations with the bourgeois state, is for the working class to consistently and fully affirm its own programme. It is the perspective of the abolition of class privileges, the hope of a new organisation of society which will safeguard the survival of humanity; it is the clear and resolute affirmation of the proletariat as an autonomous class, as a social force that openly presents itself as a candidate to take power; it is the massive self-organisation of the class in workers' councils, that will permit the creation of a platform capable of winning over these vacillating and unstable classes.

"Because it cannot assign itself the task of establishing new privileges, the proletariat can only base its struggles on political positions which result from its particular class programme - the proletariat represents, within the diverse classes of capitalist society, the only one able to build the society of the future. It is only on this basis that it can pull the middle social strata into the struggle. These classes will only unite with the proletariat in particular historical circumstances, when the contradictions of capitalist society blossom fully and the proletariat begins to mount its revolutionary assault. Only then will they understand the necessity of combining with the proletariat" (Bilan no 5, 'Principles: weapons of the revolution').

'National liberation': a factor in the disintegration of proletarian consciousness

The proletarian revolution is not a predestined product of objective conditions in which any expedient tactic can serve to carry it out. Although it is a historical necessity and its objective conditions have been furnished by the formation of the world market and the proletariat, the communist revolution is essentially a conscious act.

On the other hand, the proletariat, unlike past revolutionary classes, does not posses any economic power in the old society: it is at the same time an exploited and a revolutionary class. What makes it decisive and unique in history are its weapons for the destruction of the old society: its unity and consciousness, weapons that in turn constitute the foundations for the new society.

Consciousness is vital for the advance of its struggle, in which "on each occasion, the problem that the proletariat has to confront is not one of obtaining the best advantage or the greatest number of allies, but of being coherent with the system of principles which define its class... classes must exist in an organic and political configuration without which, despite being determined by the evolution of the productive forces, it runs the risk of remaining bound for a long time by the old class which, in its turn - in order to resist - will shackle the course of economic evolution" (Bilan no 5, idem).

From this perspective the support for 'national liberation struggles' during the revolutionary period of 1917-23 had disastrous consequences for the world proletariat, for its vanguard - the Communist International - and for the first bastion to carry out its revolutionary task: Russia.

The historical period of decisive confrontations between Capital and Labour was opened up by the First World War. In this period there is no alternative between the international proletarian revolution and the submission of the proletariat to the national interests of each bourgeoisie. Support for 'national liberation', although conceived as a 'tactical' element, led to the disintegration, corruption and decomposition of proletarian consciousness.

We have already seen that the 'liberation' of the peripheral peoples of the Czarist empire did not bring any advantage to the Russian revolution, but rather contributed to the growth of a cordon sanitaire around it: a group of nations with proletariats who were combative and had an old tradition were firmly closed off from the penetration of revolutionary positions, and an insurmountable abyss was opened up between the Russian and German workers.

How is it possible that the workers of Poland, the Ukraine, Finland, Baku, Riga, who had been at the forefront of the 1905 and 1917 revolutions, who engendered communist militants of the clarity and integrity of Rosa Luxemburg, Piatakov, Jogisches etc., were so rapidly defeated and crushed in 1918-20 by their own bourgeoisies and became, in many cases vehemently, opposed to the Bolsheviks' slogans?

There can be no doubt of the decisive influence of the nationalist poison: "The mere fact that the question of national aspirations and tendencies towards separation were injected at all in the midst of the revolutionary struggle, and were even pushed into the foreground and made into the shibboleth of socialist and revolutionary policy as a result of the Brest peace, has served to bring the greatest confusion into socialist ranks and has actually destroyed the position of the proletariat in the border countries" (Rosa Luxemburg, 'The Russian Revolution', idem, page 381).

Just as it pushed the workers of these countries towards the illusory lure of 'independence' and the 'development of the country free from the Russian yoke', 'national liberation' increasingly created a rift between them and the Russian proletariat, with whom they had shared many struggles and at times had taken the first step in decisive combats.

The International, the world communist party, is a pivotal factor in the class consciousness of the proletariat. Its clarity and coherence are vital to the strength, unity and consciousness of the proletariat. Support for 'national liberation' played a decisive role in the opportunist degeneration of the Communist International.

The Communist International was constituted on a central principle: capitalism has entered its decadent epoch, and the task of the proletariat cannot be to reform or improve it but to destroy it: "A new epoch is born: The epoch of capitalism's decay, its internal disintegration; the epoch of the proletarian, communist revolution" (Platform of the Communist International, 1919). However, support for 'national liberation' movements opened a very dangerous crack in this clarity, an opening towards the penetration of opportunism. It introduced into a programme aimed at the destruction of the old order a task that belonged entirely to that same old order. The tactic of combining the revolutionary struggles in the metropoles with the 'national liberation' struggles in the colonies led to the conclusion that the hour for the destruction of capitalism had not arrived yet: it implied that the world was divided into two areas (one 'ripe' for the proletarian revolution and another where capitalism still had to develop) and that capitalist expansion was still on the cards (for marxists 'national liberation' could have no other meaning than this).

This germ of confusion was an open door to the opportunism that increasingly developed with the reflux of the revolutionary struggles of the proletariat in Europe.

The party is not a passive product of the class movement, but an active factor in its development. Its clarity and determination are crucial to the outcome of the proletarian revolution; equally, its confusions, ambiguities and incoherence powerfully contribute to the confusion and defeat of the class. The evolution of the CI in its posture on the national question bears witness to this.

The 1st Congress, which took place when the revolutionary wave was at its height, posed as a task the abolition of national frontiers: "The end result of the capitalist mode of production is chaos, which only the largest productive class, the working class, can overcome. This class must establish a real order, the communist order. It must break the domination of capital, make wars impossible, destroy all national borders, transform the whole world into a community that produces for itself, and makes brotherhood and liberation of peoples a reality" (Platform of the CI).

In the same way, it was a given that the small states could not break the yoke of imperialism and could not but submit to its game: "The goal of Entente policy in the vassal states and in the recently created republics (Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and also Poland, Finland and so on) is to organise national counter-revolutionary movements based on the ruling classes and social nationalists. This movement is meant to target the defeated states, maintain a balance of power among the newly created states, subordinating them to the Entente, retard revolutionary movements within the new 'national' republics, and, lastly, furnish the White guards needed for the struggle against the international revolution and the Russian revolution in particular" ('Theses on the International Situation and the Policy of the Entente', First Congress of the CI). And, in short, it demonstrated that the national state had been condemned by history: having given a vigorous impulse to capitalist development, the nation state had become too narrow for the development of the productive forces.

Thus we can see how the First Congress of the CI laid the bases for overcoming the initial errors on the national question; but these points of clarity were not developed. Instead, because of the defeats of the proletariat and the inability of the CI majority to take them further forward, they were liquidated little by little by the dark shadow of opportunism. The Fourth Congress (1922), with its theses on the Eastern Question, marked an important step in this regression since "proletariat and peasants were required to subordinate their social programme to the immediate needs of a common national struggle against foreign imperialism. It was assumed that a nationally minded bourgeoisie, or even a nationally minded feudal aristocracy, would be ready to conduct a struggle for national liberation from the yoke of foreign imperialism in alliance with the revolutionary proletarians and peasants, who were only waiting for the moment of victory to turn against them and overthrow them" (E.H. Carr, The Bolshevik Revolution, vol. 3, pages 477-8).

With later events, the proclamation of 'socialism in one country', the definitive defeat of the proletarian bastion in Russia and its integration into the imperialist world chain, 'national liberation' was simply turned into a cover for the vile interests of the Russian state. It has not been the only one to use this banner: other states have also adopted it in many different forms, but always towards the same end: the war to the death for the re-division of the saturated world market. These innumerable imperialist wars under the guise of 'national liberation' will be the object of the second part of this article.

Systematising the work of clarification which took place after the degeneration of the Communist International by the fractions of the communist left, the Gauche Communiste de France adopted in January 1945 a resolution on the nationalist movements which concluded thus: "Given that the nationalist movements, due to their capitalist nature do not represent any kind of organic or ideological continuity with the class movements of the proletariat, the latter, if it is to maintain its class positions, must break with and abandon all ties with the nationalist movements".

Adalen 20.5.1991

Chaos

One word is on everybody's lips concerning the present world situation: chaos. A chaos seen as a crying reality or as an imminent threat. The Gulf war has not opened the door to a 'New World Order'. It has merely allowed American capital to reassert its authority, in particular over its allies/rivals in Europe and Japan, and to confirm its role as the world's cop. But society is still caught up in an accelerating whirlpool of disorder, stirred up by the devastating winds of the open recession now hitting the big economic powers. 

Four months after the end of the war blood is still flowing in the Kurdish and Shiite regions of Iraq, the fires of war have not gone out. In the Middle East, behind the talk of peace conferences, military antagonisms are exacerbating and Israel has resumed bombing southern Lebanon. In the Soviet republics, armed conflicts are not being attenuated but are on the increase, concrete evidence that the old empire has fallen apart. In South Africa the black population, supposedly freed from apartheid, lives under the shadow of murderous confrontations between the ANC and Inkatha. In the slums of Lima cholera is spreading, interspersed by the bombs hurled by the Stalinist Shining Path. In South Korea, young people are burning themselves to death in protest against government repression. In India the assassination of the last of the Gandhis reveals the dislocation of the 'world's biggest democracy', which is being torn apart by caste, religious, and national conflicts. In Ethiopia, one of the areas of the globe hardest hit by famine, the collapse of the Mengistu government, which was abandoned by its Soviet protectors, has left the country in the hand of three rival armed nationalist gangs who aim to divide up the country. Yugoslavia is on the verge of breaking up under the pressure of daily confrontations between the different nationalities which compose it. In Algeria young unemployed people dragooned by the fundamentalists of the FIS are being sent to fight the tanks of the FLN government. In the ghettos of Washington, Bruxelles or Paris there has been a series of riots and sterile confrontations with the police. At the heart of Europe, in what used to be East Germany, capital is ready to throw nearly half the workforce onto the dole...

The ruling class cannot understand why society, 'its' society, is plunging irreversibly into a growing disorder in which war vies with poverty, dislocation with despair. Its ideology, the ruling ideology, has no explanation. It only exists to sing the glories of the existing order. In order to maintain its grip, it can only resort to lies and deliberately organized confusion. A confusion which expresses both the stupid historic blindness of the decadent bourgeoisie and the lying cynicism that it is capable of when it comes to protecting and justifying its decrepit 'order'.

War, as we have been reminded in the most horrible way by the events in the Gulf, remains the most tragic expression of this reality, in which organized lying goes hand in hand with the most barbaric chaos.

The Balance sheet of the Gulf war

With the most abject cynicism, the ruling classes of the Coalition countries, the American government at their head, have set about the task of making a travesty of the Gulf massacre. When the eastern regimes collapsed, they made a huge song and dance about the triumph of 'western democratic freedoms' over Stalinist obscurantism; but when it came to the Gulf war they organized the most colossal operation of lies and disinformation in history[1]. An operation marked both by the scale of the means used (the American government had at its disposal, among other things, a television network disseminating its poisonous propaganda 24 hours out of 24 all over the planet) and by the enormity of the lies themselves: Michael Deaver, former 'communications' advisor to Reagan and now a secretary general linked to the White House clearly defined the object to be attained: the war had to be presented as "a combination of Lawrence of Arabia and Star Wars"[2].

This was done. The TV screens were inundated with images of the most sophisticated weapons and everything was done to give the impression that it was all a big Wargame. Not one picture of the victims of the deluge of fire which fell upon the Iraqi soldiers and civilians was allowed to disturb this ignoble spectacle of a 'clean war'.

The balance sheet of the war in Iraq is atrocious nonetheless. We will never know the exact number of victims on the Iraqi side[3]. But all the estimates count in hundreds of thousands. Probably nearly 200,000 killed among the soldiers: young peasants and workers, enrolled by force, a gun in their back, lined up en masse in front of the enemy, with the Republican Guard behind them, ready to shoot any deserters[4]. Nearly two thirds of the soldiers killed died during the aerial bombardments, buried alive in their bunkers; most of those who died during the land war were coldly massacred while trying to retreat. In the civilian population, the bombs must have taken a similar toll among the children, women, old people and others who escaped the forced enlistment.

The country has virtually been razed to the ground by the war. All the infrastructures were hit. "For the period to come, Iraq has been thrown back to a pre-industrial age" declared a UN commission of enquiry sent to Iraq in March. The state of the hospitals and the lack of medication will condemn to death thousands of wounded and the victims of epidemics resulting from the lack of food and water. This is the first result of the operation carried out by the 'heroic armies' of the western powers.

To this atrocious balance sheet you have to add the victims of the massacres of the Kurds and the Shiites.

Because at the very time that the American government was organizing the grotesque spectacle of a patriotic orgy in New York, in which the 'victors' of the Gulf butchery paraded between the skyscrapers of Broadway, in Iraq, the Kurdish and Shiite populations were still being subjected to bloody repression by the Saddam government.

What kind of victory was this? Didn't these soldiers go to the Gulf to stop the 'Hitler of the Middle East' from doing this sort of thing?

The reality, clearly confirmed by the declarations of the Kurdish nationalist leaders, is that it was the American government which coldly and cynically provoked the massacre of the Kurdish and Shiite populations[5]. And if Bush's team has kept the 'Butcher of Baghdad' in power it's because, among other things, he was the best man for doing this job, given his well-known talents in this domain. The massive destruction resulting from this repression, this time shown in detail by the media, was used to try to make us forget the destruction wrought by the Coalition. The allied armies, having sat doing nothing while this new butchery was going on, were now able to appear on all the TV screens of the world in the role of humanitarian saviors of the Kurdish refugees (see in this issue, 'The massacres and crimes of the 'great democracies'').

The barbarity of militarism and chaos, travestied by a huge machinery of ideological manipulation. This is what the Gulf war was, and this is the future that it announces.

For the exploited classes of the region, in uniform or not, the balance-sheet of the war is one of carnage in which they participated only as cannon fodder, as guinea-pigs for testing the efficiency of the latest and most sophisticated weapons. For the world proletariat, it is a defeat. Another crime by capital which it was unable to prevent. But it is also a lesson, a reminder of what lies in store if it does not manage to get itself together and put an end to this society.

The real victory of American capitalism

Things are very different for the criminals who provoked this war. For the American government, the mission of the soldiers sent to the Gulf was never to protect the local populations against the exactions of Saddam Hussein. Contrary to what they believed themselves, contrary to the propaganda of their governments, the one and only mission of the Coalition soldiers was to make a violent demonstration of force and determination on behalf of American capitalism. A bloody display of power, made indispensable by the international chaos which was unleashed by the collapse of the USSR and which threatened to undermine the position of the world's leading state[6].

It was the Washington government which wanted and provoked this war. It was its ambassador April Glaspie who, during her discussions with Saddam Hussein at the time when the latter was on the verge of invading Kuwait, declared that the USA was indifferent to the Iraq-Kuwait quarrel, which it considered to be "internal to the Arab world"[7]. Saddam was led to believe that the White House was giving the green light to his hold up.

For American capital, the stakes in this operation were much more important than control over Iraq-Kuwait or oil. The stakes were the whole world, the USA's place in a world tumbling into instability. The Soviet military threat, which had enabled the USA to keep the other powers in its bloc in line for 45 years, was no more. And the dust raised by the fall of the Berlin Wall had hardly fallen to Earth when the German and French politicians were already talking about the formation of a European military force, "more independent of the USA"; in Japan, the call for a revision of the constitution imposed by the American government at the end of the second world war, forbidding the Japanese from having a real army, was again rising to the surface...the main economic rivals and creditors of the USA were claiming a new place in the new situation, a new military and political place more in keeping with their economic power.

For the USA, the Gulf war had to be a brutal reaffirmation of its authority over the world, and above all over Europe and Japan. And from this point of view it was a real victory for the American Godfather, at least in the immediate. The events of the months which followed the war clearly illustrated this.

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"The USA, drawing profit from its recent military victory, is in the process of transforming its advantage into a political victory on every continent."[8]

This is how Boucheron, the president of the defense commission of the French National Assembly, recently summarized the international situation. He knows what he is talking about. In Europe, after the Franco-German fanfares that questioned the role of NATO, all the powers have slunk back into line under the pressure of the Americans. The American military has even pushed through the formation of a 'rapid intervention force' within NATO, the bulk of whose forces will be located in Germany, but under the command of America's most faithful ally, Great Britain. For the latter, as for certain eastern countries newly acquired to western influence (Poland, Czechoslovakia), the major fear is of a reunified German capitalism, and they see the American presence as an effective antidote to this menace. The Japanese government has also lowered the tone of all its recriminations, and, like Germany, it has made its 'war contribution' to its great American rival.

As for the countries in the Japanese sphere of influence, they generally look favourably at American pressure in the region because they are afraid of the chaos that would result from Japan's rise to political and military strength. Bob Hawke, the Australian prime minister, openly came out in favour of maintaining American military presence in this part of the world in order to dissuade the regional powers "from acquiring new military capacities which could destabilize the region and unleash a new arms race within it."

The fear of chaos isn't limited to the American government alone. In affirming its role as the world's military and political policeman, the USA is intervening as a 'last resort' against the centrifugal tendencies developing all over the planet, and it is imposing its 'order' with unprecedented arrogance. In Iraq, it dealt with the Kurdish problem in the most cynical manner, ridding itself of the danger of an even greater destabilization of the region, which would have resulted from the political autonomy of a population which lives in five key countries in the region (Iraq, Syria, Turkey, USSR and Iran); in the USSR it refused any real support to the independence movement in the Baltic republics in order to avoid a further destabilization of the former 'Evil Empire'; it also exerts a direct hold over the Moscow government itself, using the pressure of economic aid (see the article 'The USSR in pieces' in this issue); in Ethiopia, which was faced with the threat of breaking up after the victory of the 'rebels', the same authoritarian policeman took it upon itself to organize the London conference which made it possible to form an Ethiopian government around the Tigreans of the EPRDF, and which pressed the Eritrean separatists and the Oromos to cooperate with the new power; in Yugoslavia it's again the US government which has threatened to suspend economic aid if the Serbian bourgeois clique doesn't change its attitude to Croat demands, a situation which is threatening to lead to the breakup of the country; in Pakistan Washington has stopped supplying conventional weapons and a part of its economic aid as long as the Islamabad government fails to provide proof that it is not building nuclear weapons; the American bourgeoisie has even forbidden China from selling Pakistan certain materials that could be used to this end.

This is the 'victory' feted by American capital: the immediate consolidation of its position as the world's number one gangster. It is a victory over its direct competitors, proof of its determination to limit certain aspects of the decomposition which threatens its empire. But the worldwide tendency towards chaos and barbarism will not be held back for all that.

The inevitable slide into chaos

The power of American capital may exert itself all over the planet and momentarily moderate this or that aspect of global chaos. But it cannot reverse the course of the gigantic torrent of blood and filth invading the planet. The new world disorder is not a fortuitous coincidence between different phenomena which are unrelated to each other, and which could therefore be solved one after the other. Behind the present chaos there is a logic, the logic of the advanced decadence of a form of social organization. As marxism and marxism alone analyzed and predicted (the same marxism which the ruling class believes, or would like to have us believe, has been buried with the remains of Stalinism), it's at the very heart of the capitalist relations of production that we can find the key to the impasse which condemns society to this apocalyptic situation.

The economic crisis of capitalism has more and more wiped out the economic capacities of the 'third world' countries. In May 1991, in the aftermath of the huge and destructive waste of the Gulf war, and when the big agricultural powers of the west were deciding to sterilize millions of acres of cultivatable land in order to cope with 'overproduction;', the secretary general of that den of gangsters, the UN, launched an appeal on behalf of Africa, where 30 million people are threatened by famine.

It's this same economic impasse which has led to the collapse of the worm-eaten edifice of state capitalism in the eastern bloc.

It's the economic crisis which, in the industrialized western nations, has led to the industrial desertification of entire areas, generalized job insecurity and unemployment. It's this crisis which is now going through a new acceleration, hitting the centre of the system with full force (see the article on the economic crisis in this issue).

The economic machine is exploiting a diminishing number of workers. A growing portion of society has been ejected from capitalist production, and is being atomized, marginalized, condemned to live by all kinds of little jobs or expedients. This is the generalization of poverty[9]. It's the decomposition of capitalism's social tissue.

Within the possessing class, the economic crisis is also synonymous with sharpening competition. Whether between nations or within each nation, competition is intensifying on the economic and military levels. Blind violence, military language more and more replace economic language. The war of each against all, a feature of capitalism since its beginning, is reaching a paroxysm in this final phase of the system. It's every man for himself in a world without a future.

Capitalist relations of production have become a historic aberration whose survival can only give rise to barbarism, as was the case with slave or feudal relations in their periods of decline. But unlike the past where new social relations (feudal ones after slavery, capitalist ones after feudalism) could begin to develop within the old order, the installation of a new society based on communist relations can only come about on the political ruins of the previous system.

Capitalist logic leads to the economic collapse of the system, but not to its supersession. This can only be the conscious and deliberate act of the world proletariat. If the working class does not manage to take its fight against capital to a revolutionary conclusion, if it does not concretely open up the perspective of a new society, we will not have communism but the barbarous putrefaction of the old capitalist society and the threat of the disappearance of the human species, either through world war, or through decomposition and generalized chaos. The resistance by the proletariat of the central countries against being ideologically dragooned by capitalism has prevented the crisis from leading to world war between two blocs, but it has not been able to slow down the resulting putrefaction of capitalist society. What we are living through today, what is at the source of all the chaos today, is the phenomenon of capitalism simply rotting on its feet, deprived of any perspective.

This is why the action of American capital, however powerful the means it has at its disposal, cannot really reverse this march towards the abyss.

On the level of inter-imperialist conflicts, the Middle East remains an unstable powder-keg in which despite Washington's strongman diplomacy, the explosion of new armed conflicts is inevitable. Already Israel has resumed bombing areas of southern Lebanon and keeps on replying to the pressures on it to 'trade territories for peace' with accusations against Syria for 'devouring Lebanon'[10]. The Gulf war has not brought a definitive peace; it merely demonstrated the means that American capital will use to maintain its supremacy.

As for the economic competition between nations, there are no grounds for thinking that it's going to grow any milder. The aggravation of the economic crisis can only exacerbate it. Here again the action of American capital has functioned as a show of strength to compensate for its weakness vis-a-vis its competitors[11]. "I don't believe that US leadership should be limited to the areas of security and politics. I think that it also has to extend to the economic domain"[12]. This declaration by J Baker does not herald a conciliatory attitude by American capital, but, once again, the method it will use to face up to the economic war.

Whether on the political/military level or the economic level, the perspective is not one of peace and order but war and chaos between countries.

But the tendency towards disintegration also expresses itself within each nation. Whether we're talking about the dislocation of the USSR, of Yugoslavia, of India, of Ethiopia or the majority of African countries, the ravages of poverty and the war to the death between each clique of the capitalist class can only intensify. And a few crumbs of 'humanitarian' aid by the USA or some other power won't reverse the underlying tendencies that are tearing these countries apart.

The class struggle

There can be no struggle against chaos and the dislocation of society unless there is an attack on the source of all this: capitalist social relations. And only the struggle of the proletariat can be an irreconcilable fight against capital. Only the antagonism between labor and capital has the historic and international dimension that is indispensable if there is to be a response to a problem on this scale.

The future of humanity depends on the outcome of the struggle between the workers and the bourgeoisie in all countries. But this in turn depends on the capacity of the workers to recognize the real struggle they have to wage. If the proletariat does not manage to escape from the chaotic whirlpool which causes it to split up along religious, racial, ethnic or other lines, if it does not manage to unite itself by imposing the class terrain as the only terrain worth fighting on, the door will be wide open to the acceleration of chaos and decomposition.

In the underdeveloped countries, where the class is in a minority and has less traditions of struggle, the workers have much more difficulty in escaping the grip of these archaic divisions that are so alien to the class struggle. In the eastern countries, despite all the combativity that has been evident in recent months (in particular with the miners of the USSR and a number of sectors in Bylo-Russia), the working class is weighed down by all the current nationalist, democratic, and of course 'anti-communist' mystifications.

It's in the central countries of western capitalism that the antagonism between capital and labor exists in its most direct and complete from. The working class there represents the majority of the population and its historical experience is the richest, both as regards the mystifications of the bourgeoisie and its own mass struggles. Here are located the decisive battalions of the world proletarian army. The opening up of a new horizon for the workers of the entire world depends on the capacity of the workers in these countries to spring the traps laid by capitalist decomposition (competition faced with the threat of unemployment, conflicts between workers of different national origins, the marginalization of the unemployed), on their ability to clearly affirm their irreconcilable opposition to capital.

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The Gulf war gave rise to a deep disquiet in the world population and in particular in the proletariat of the industrialized countries. The end of the conflict engendered a feeling of relief, reinforced by the gigantic ideological campaigns about the new era of peace, the 'new world order'. But this feeling can only be relative and short-lived as the dark clouds of chaos gather all over the planet and upset the 'optimistic' speeches of the ruling class. Nothing could be more dangerous for the revolutionary class than forgetting what the Gulf war was and what it heralds. In the face of the aggravation of the economic crisis and all the attacks on workers' living conditions that go with it, in the defensive struggles that these attacks will provoke, it is crucial that the working class is able to benefit from all the reflection that this disquiet about the war has given rise to. The class will only be able to raise its consciousness, understand the real dimensions of its struggle and carry out its historic task if it looks reality in the face, if it refuses to be 'consoled' by the seductive speeches of the ruling class, and if it rediscovers its revolutionary program and its principal weapon of political combat - marxism.

RV

16/6/91

[1] Since the First World War, the manipulation of opinion has been seen by the capitalist class as the job of the government. During the 30s, with fascism in Italy and Germany, with Stalinism in the USSR, but also and above all with the more subtle Hollywood democracy of the USA, this has become a truly gigantic enterprise, the major concern of every political leadership. Goebbels, the master of Hitlerite propaganda, cynically summed up the method that was being adopted by every government on the planet: "a lie repeated a thousand times becomes a truth".

[2] Le Monde Diplomatique, May 1991.

[3] The military spokesmen remained systematically vague or silent when questioned on this point "We are not here to discuss the pornography of war" a British colonel replied during a press conference on the balance-sheet of the war (Liberation, 26 March, 91). The official figures for losses on the allied side are on the other hand very precise: 236 men, including 115 Americans, plus another 105 in transport accidents on the way.

[4] We know now that there were massive desertions from the Iraqi army and that this led to ferocious repression by Saddam's elite corps.

[5] It has been proved that American planes dropped leaflets in the Kurdish zones at the end of the war, calling for an uprising against Saddam's regime, and that American officers encouraged the leaders of the Kurdish bourgeois nationalist movements to launch this adventure.

[6] When we say that the US Empire undertook this war to fight against chaos, we are sometimes accused of presenting the war as a 'disinterested' action by the American leaders. But we don't think that the USA was acting altruistically just because the most sordid and selfish interests of the USA are opposed to a disorder that would threaten its dominant position in the world. Those who benefit from an existing order always oppose those who call it into question. For a more developed analysis of the causes of the war, see nos 63, 64 and 65 of this review.

[7] cited by Claude Julien in Le monde Diplomatique, October 1991

[8] cited by J Fitchett in Herald Tribune, 12/6/91

[9] Marx's analysis predicting the "absolute pauperization" of society, which during the 1960s was so decried by the so-called theoretical gravediggers of marxism, is today being confirmed in a striking and tragic manner.

[10] American capital has no illusions on this score. Thus, at the same time as it was piling the pressure on Israel to take up a more conciliatory stance vis-a-vis its Arab neighbors, the USA decided to supply the Israeli state with major new stocks of weapons: 46 F-16 fighters, 25 F-15s, in all 700 million dollars worth of weaponry, transmitted directly from the USA's 'arms surplus'. The new weapons stocks will be able to be used by the armies of both states. What's more the USA is financing 80% of Israel's anti-missile missile program.

[11] Without losing a sense of proportion, the USA has been in a comparable position to that of the USSR, with an economy weaker than that of its main vassals. This is to a large extent due to the weight of military expenses which the head of a bloc inevitably has to bear (see 'What point has the crisis reached' in IR 65)

[12] Herald Tribune, 21/2/91.

Who said: "I am aware that we are on the verge of the dislocation of both economy and state"? Gorbachev himself! With every day that passes, the USSR plunges deeper into chaos. The ship of the state is rudderless, and when Gorbachev received the French President Mitterrand in early May, he gave a catastrophic overview of Perestroika, declaring that the soviets are "floundering in the dark", that "the instrumentation no longer works", and that "the crew is disunited". The new prime minister, Pavlov, a worthy representative of the Party nomenklatura, backs this up, saying that the USSR is threatened with "a colossal decomposition"[1]

Russian capitalism's road to disaster

The time, not so long ago, when the USSR's imperialist power made the world tremble, is definitively over. The USSR no longer has the means to keep up its rank as a world imperialist super-power. On the economic level, it never has had. The USSR, despite its under-development, had been able to challenge its American rival (whose GNP in 1990 was three times greater than its own) by concentrating the whole economy in the hands of the state and sacrificing it completely to the needs of its military power.

For decades, the USSR has devoted between 20% and 40% of national income to arms production and the maintenance of the "Red Army". This priority was imposed at the cost of increasing dilapidation in the rest of the economy. The high-tech sectors fell further and further behind. This then rebounded on the arms industry, with the growing technical superiority technical superiority of Western weapons, which still further handicapped Russian military power. Where technology was lacking, or machines unavailable, the brain and brawn of the proletariat was brutally exploited. Under the iron fist of the Stalinist party, the USSR was transformed into gigantic labor camp.

In the end, the USSR was unable to fight the war which it had prepared for so long. Not only were its weapons completely outclassed, the regime's utter rejection by the population made mobilization necessary for war completely impossible.

Faced with the economic collapse, the nomenklatura was forced into an agonizing reappraisal. Economic modernization became an urgent necessity: for this, reforms were required. Gorbachev was to be the standard-bearer of the new economic policy of Perestroika. However, calling into question the economic dogmas which served as a base for Stalinist state capitalism inevitably also meant calling into question the political dogmas at the heart of Stalinism itself, and in particular the dogma of the dictatorial power of the single party.

Far from putting the economy back to rights, Perestroika hastened the collapse of the politico-economic system established by Stalin. Today, the Russian bourgeoisie must confront not only the aberrations of its economy, but the USSR's accelerating plunge into the infernal spiral of economic, political and social chaos.

The question which posed today is that the very existence of the USSR.

The claim of Stalinism, the most brutal form of state capitalism, to represent communism has been the biggest lie of the century. Every fraction of the bourgeoisie, East and West, from extreme left to extreme right, has cooperated to keep it going. The language of Stalinism has prostituted Marxist vocabulary to the service of the USSR's imperialist ambitions, to providing it with an ideological umbrella and an alibi for the regime's exactions. The decomposition of the USSR today has laid bare the truth that revolutionaries have declared constantly for decades: the capitalist nature of the USSR, and the bourgeois nature of the CPSU.

The economic collapse accelerates

For the 1st quarter of 1991, relative to the same quarter of 1990, the state Office of Statistics announced an 8% fall in GNP, a 13% decline in agricultural production, a 40% plunge in exports, and an increase of 27 billion roubles in the federal budget deficit. Western estimates are more pessimistic still, and estimate the fall in GNP at 15%.

The military-industrial complex, the only branch to function with a minimum of efficiency until now, has become to all intents and purposes useless. The USSR has had to trim its imperialist ambitions. It no longer needs more weapons: it hardly knows what to do with the thousands of tanks and the tons of armaments it is being forced to evacuate from its bases in Eastern Europe. Industry's technological heart is almost at a standstill, while it waits for a hypothetical reconversion to the production of capital consumer goods, which would anyway take years. In the meantime, the USSR no longer knows what to do with the now useless technological pride of its industry.

The USSR's traditional customers in the ex-Eastern bloc are turning towards other suppliers, and Russian industry cannot hope to find other outlets for its products, which are technologically completely outdated, of poor quality, and unreliable. Nor is there any prospect of improvement with trade wars raging all throughout the world market.

The structure of the USSR's trade is characteristic of an under-developed country: it is above all an exporter of raw materials, especially oil, and at the same time an importer of food. In 1998, oil and mineral products accounted for 75% of hard currency earnings, while agricultural trade was in deficit to the tune of $12 billion.

Nonetheless, the oil industry has had to reduce production: because it has not been modernized for years, its equipment is constantly breaking down and hampered by a chronic shortage of spare parts. As a result, oil exports fell by 36 % in volume in the 1st quarter of 1991, relative to the same quarter last year.

Agriculture is in a terrible state. The specter of famine has returned to haunt the country, after being pushed back last year by an abundant grain harvest. Cereal production is expected to fall this year by 10%. A shortage of equipment, silos, transport, and machinery, means that 30% of the harvest is simply lost. The USSR will have to make up the deficit on the world market simply to face up to the immediate needs of an already severely rationed population. It will only be able to do so by going still further into debt.

Traditionally, the USSR has always been highly solvent, with a low level of debt. Today, the country is folding under the weight of a debt estimated at $60 billion. Every month sees new delays or defaults on payment, which has recently led Japan to refuse it any new credits. Gorbachev has been reduced to crying for help, begging for aid and new international loans.

But this picture of economic collapse would not be complete if we did not include the destructive effect on the economy of the dynamic of chaos into which the USSR is plunging.

In several republics, production has been virtually brought to a standstill by nationalist conflicts. The situation in the Caucasus is a revealing example. The road and rail blockade that Azerbaijan has imposed on Armenia - many of which have thus been forced to shut down - it has also created a huge bottleneck which encumbers goods transport throughout the southern USSR, forcing the closure of factories right outside the Caucasus region.

The discontent of workers, faced with a constant degradation of their already wretched living conditions, is constantly growing. Stoppages proliferate, massive strikes explode. In recent months, the miners blocked coal production for weeks.

Confronted with this catastrophic situation, the bourgeoisie is paralyzed and impotent. An important fraction within the party is deeply hostile to reform, and is deliberately sabotaging them, further accelerating the breakdown of the economy. The bureaucratic hierarchy's natural passivity is reinforced by the dithering and impotence of the hierarchs in the Kremlin. With decisions being handed down by different fractions at the center, local chiefs   prefer to wait to see which way the wind turns rather than take any decisions themselves.

In the meantime, the economy is becoming more and more dilapidated; as it waits for decisions which never come, utter disorganization reigns. Against a backdrop of increasing poverty, the black market has imposed its law of generalized corruption on the whole economy.

The paralysis of the ruling class

The form taken by the counter-revolution in Russia determined its ruling class' mode of organization. The state which emerged from the Russian Revolution, and the Bolshevik Party which had become identified with it, had been devoured from within by the Stalinist counter-revolution. The old possessing classes had been expropriated by the proletarian revolution; a new capitalist class was reconstituted within the Stalinist-Party-State, controlling all the means of production and the whole of social life. The political forms of the one-party state corresponded to the juridical form of state ownership of the means of production.

The members of the Party nomenklatura enjoy privileges which guarantee them living conditions which are simply incomparable with those of the proletariat, which subjected to a grinding poverty. The state ensures a luxurious way of life to those who control its functioning: specially reserved housing, access to shops abundantly stocked with all kinds of consumer goods, especially Western, "company" cars; over and above the salary it brings, a post in the bureaucracy is a source of hidden income from all kinds of traffic and dealing. More than any theoretical analysis, the reality of these facts is ample proof that a privileged class does exist in the USSR, a capitalist bourgeoisie which exploits the working class through the state. The form of exploitation differs from that in Western countries, but the end result is the same.

During the last decades, behind the monolithic façade of the so-called Communist party, quasi-feudal clans, Mafiosi, and dynasties have emerged. Wars between cliques have left their corpses behind, in the course of successive purges. Waste and incompetence reign at every level of the party, its leaders more preoccupied by their rivalries for power, source of wealth and influence, and be every kind of corrupt dealing, than by the management of the productive apparatus.

Brezhnev's death at the end of 1982 was the signal for the outbreak of a "war of succession" in the party, strengthening the centrifugal tendencies within it. When, after the brief interlude of Andropov and Chernenko, Gorbachev's accession to the leadership of the Politburo in 1985 confirmed the victory of the reformist tendency, the collapse of the economy was already clear for all to see, and the decomposition of the ruling party and the development of chaos in general already well under way.

Perestroika proposed to promote economic reform without calling into question either the single party or its control of the state; it only accelerated the collapse of the Stalinist regime. To preserve the unity of the party, Gorbachev had to perform a delicate balancing act between conservative and reformist tendencies; this condemned him to taking no more than half-measures, and so to impotence. Ever since this accession to power, Gorbachev's whole art has been to present a belated recognition that the situation was slipping more and more out of state's control, as a determined policy of bold reform. From one day to the next, Gorbachev has been obliged to accept what he had refused the day before. The aim of Perestroika was to save the USSR and its bloc through a policy of reform; Gorbachev, after trying vainly to maintain in power reformist factions under Moscow's control, has had to abandon any control by the USSR over the countries which has used to form its "glacis" in Eastern Europe. After rejecting repressive methods, he has had to send the army to repress nationalist agitation in the Caucasus and Baku, and against the Lithuanian parliament. After allying with the reformers, he has had to seek support from the conservatives, and vice-versa.

The attempts to gain democratic credibility have been a resounding flop. The elections only highlighted the irredeemable unpopularity of the Party apparatchiks. Nationalist and radical reformers monopolize the votes. In the absence of any food to fill the abyss between the population of the USSR and the Stalinist state. The years of horror, when millions of proletarians and peasants fell under the repression of a corrupt and ferocious state will never be forgotten. Under such conditions, despite all his media skill Gorbachev is incapable of controlling any democratic process. The latest referendum on the Union is a fine example. After years of preparation, it only entrenched the perspectives of disunity: the Armenians, Georgians, and Balts are hostile to the union, and refused to take part; the vote embodied the continued decline of Gorbachev's popularity, and the growing influence of his reformist rival Yeltsin.

The party is imploding, blurring at the edges. A myriad of new organizations have appeared. The Stalinist nostalgics, in favor of strong-arm methods to restore order, go arm-in-arm with the ultra-nationalist, anti-semites Pamyat. The radical reformers leave the party to found democratic associations. In the peripheral republics, splits have created new "communist" parties on a nationalist basis, confirming the breakup of the CPSU. Opportunism is raging. For many one-time apparatchiks, the only means of survival are populist and nationalist demagogy. Under the flags of various nationalities that are stirring the USSR, new alliances of convenience are being formed between the old local fiefdoms of the CPSU, the milieu of wheeler-dealers that has emerged from the flourishing black market, the reformists ranging from the worst kind of opportunist to naïve sould full of democratic illusions, and the historically archaic nationalists.

Ever-wider regions of the USSR are escaping from central control. The independentists are in power in the Baltic states, in Moldavia, in Armenia. Everywhere, the prerogatives of the central power are being reined in, the ruling nationalism encourages disobedience to orders from the Kremlin, while the local state bureaucracy, confronted with the paralysis of the center, hesitates between immobility and support for the newly emerging local powers. Power centers are proliferating everywhere.

Party and state have fractured from top to bottom. The recent agreement between Yeltsin and Gorbachev on the devolution of central power over management of mines to the republics, and the creation of a KGB under the control of the Russian government is an indication of the impotence of the central power.

The long miner's strike has demonstrated the Kremlin's inability to impose its will and get production going again. Since it no longer has any control over whole branches of the economy, it has no other solution than to leave management in the hands of the various local authorities. The USSR's economy is in the process of disintegrating into different poles. The central government is even beginning to lose control over international trade: several republics have already begun to trade directly with each other and with the West, accelerating the centrifugal dynamic of the soviet economy.

Like the party, the police apparatus which is so closely linked to it is splitting up more and more, putting itself at the service of the new nationalist centers of power. New police forces and nationalist militia are taking place of the old police forces to closely tied Moscow.

Frontiers have been set up within the USSR, defended by armed nationalist militias. Lithuania has set up frontier posts, and its frontier guards have clashed several times with Moscow police, resulting in several deaths. The conflict between Armenian and Azerbaijani militias has not diminished in the least since the intervention of the "Red" Army. Pogroms, war and repression in Baku have caused hundreds of deaths. The "Red" Army has not bogged down, without being able to impose a solution on the conflict. In Georgia, recent clashes between Georgians and Ossetians grow that a new area of tension has opened. Ethnic conflicts are proliferating at the farthest confines of Russia.

Within this context of disintegration, the only structure which has all resisted the overall decomposition, and the loss of control by the central power, and which still makes it possible to maintain some pretense of cohesion within the USSR, is the army. However, the same dynamic which dominates the USSR as a whole, is at work here also. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers repatriated from Eastern Europe find themselves and their families unhoused, living in conditions of real poverty which are all the more resented in that they have just returned from countries with a higher standard of living. This is aggravating the general malaise that has infected the army since the retreat from Afghanistan. There are out and out battles in the barracks between soldiers of different nationalities. Draft-dodging, desertion, and insubordination are becoming commonplace.

The soviet bourgeoisie no longer has the means to conduct a generalized repression. Although its army can still undertake to keep the peace in some regions, its room for maneuver is nonetheless very limited. The repressive apparatus' hesitations over the situation in Lithuania or the Caucasus express perfectly the disarray and impotence of the Kremlin government. Only a few principles, nostalgic for the Stalinist past, still think that large scale repression is still possible without tipping the USSR still faster into civil war.

The proletariat caught in the whirlwind

Neither the widespread discontent, nor the regime's complete lack of credibility, much less the class struggle, lay behind the collapse of the Stalinist state. The discontent is not new, nor is the state's lack of credibility. As for the class struggle, we only have to remark that there was no significant struggle in the USSR before the miner's strike in 1989.

In the name of the defense of communism and proletarian internationalism, generations of proletarians have been subjected to the bestiality of Stalinism, the product of the defeat of the Russian revolution. In rejecting the regime the workers of the USSR have also rejected all the proletariat's revolutionary tradition, its class experience, leading the descendants of the proletarians of the Revolution into total political confusion, identifying the worst capitalist dictatorship with socialism. In reaction to Stalinism, soviet workers' hopes for change have turned towards the mythical past of national folklore, or towards the wonderful mirage of Western capitalist "democracy".

The proletariat is suffering even more strongly from the devastating consequences of this dynamic of disintegration and decomposition because it did not overthrow the Stalinist regime itself. The democratic illusion has no historical roots in Russia, and remains the domain of petty bourgeois intellectuals. The proletariat is more receptive to populist and nationalist demagogy. The weight of nationalism on the proletariat is due both to the backwardness of Russian capitalism which was unable to integrate the populations colonized by Tsarism, given its economic weakness, and to the gut reaction against the central government, which is the symbol of years of terror and dictatorship.

With Perestroika, in the name of reforms and change, the attacks on workers' living conditions have intensified. Wage rises have not kept pace with the repeated price increases for staple products. Inflation is expected to be in triple figures for 1991. At the beginning of April, the prices of bread rose by 200%, that of sugar by 100%. The same is happening with all staple products. Under the pretext of renewing bank notes, the state stole the saves of wage-earners and pensioners. Rationing is applied to more and more products. Under such conditions, discontent has grown. According to the Office of Statistics, strikes have cost 1.17 million working hours during the first quarter of 1991. But although these developing strikes show that workers have recovered their combativity, and that they are ready to resist the attacks on their living conditions, they also illustrate their political weakness and confusion. We can see this in the miners' strike which hit the whole USSR this spring, or in the general strike in Byelorussia at the same time.

Although this strike began on the economic terrain, their strike committees were soon under the control of the most nationalist elements. The miners' strike shut down production in hundreds of pits, and mobilized hundreds of thousands of workers throughout the USSR; it rejected all the central government's proposals. And yet, the separate negotiations by strike committees with representatives of each republic, led to the movement's fragmentation. In Russia, Yeltsin's nationalist and populist demagogy, promising the miners that they "would have the right to chose their type of management and property" had more effect in stopping the strike than Prime Minister Pavlov's offer to double wages. No sooner than the miners gone back to work than Yeltsin, who had been gaining a cheap radical credibility for Gorbachev's resignation, returned to an alliance with Gorbachev to establish "exceptional rules" banning strikes in transport, basic industry, and enterprises producing for soviet consumers.

The weakness of the proletariat in the USSR in confronting the mystifications of democracy and nationalism means that not only is it incapable of defending any perspective against chaos, its struggles are being dragged off their class terrain and doomed to defeat. Yeltsin has been able to use the miners' strike to reinforce his own political credibility and economic. The central government's recent abandonment of its sovereignty over coal production is only a forecasts of what is to come, and heralds the breakup of soviet capital.

Too weak to resist, the proletariat is also affected by the dynamic of decomposition and disintegration ravaging the USSR. The poison of nationalism is a gangrene which not only hampers the proletariat in its struggle, but is a mortal factor in the destruction of its class identity and the division of the workers. In Armenia, Azerbaidjan, Georgia, the Baltic states, the workers are demonstrating not on their own class terrain, but on the terrain of nationalism, where they are atomized, diluted in the generalized discontent which nationalism crystallizes, enrolled in nationalist militia, drawn into new conflicts as in the Caucasus. The situation of decomposition which has affected the proletariat in the peripheral republics threatens the working class throughout the USSR.

The fear of great powers faced with the break-up of the USSR

Far from rejoicing at the tribulations of their one-time imperialist rival, which had been an object of fear for decades, the Western powers are gripped with anxiety at the consequences of the Stalinist system's collapse.

The break-up of the Russian bloc has determined the disappearance of its Western rival which has lost its reasons for existence, thus liberating worldwide capitalism's natural tendency to struggle "every man for himself". Stalinism's political collapse in the USSR has dragged down its allies all over the world. The various communist parties have had to give up power throughout Eastern Europe; they are replaced by fragile, unstable regimes which has set the seal on their new independence and the USSR's loss of control. At the periphery of capitalism, dictatorships whose sole legitimacy lay in the military and political support they received from the USSR have had to give up power. The ex-Eastern bloc troops have had to withdraw from Angola, and the MPLA has had to give in to Western diktats. In Ethiopia, the loss of Soviet arms supplies forced Mengistu to save his skin by fleeing abroad. One can only wonder how long Castro will survive in Cuba. The example is contagious, and is making all the dictatorships more fragile. The USSR's collapse is a profoundly destabilizing factor in the world situation as a whole.

The reawakening of the nationalities is accompanied by the exacerbation of nationalist tension. The war between Armenia and Azerbaijan is a foretaste of the disorder that will afflict these new states, whose existence is founded on the most archaic and anachronistic aspects of different national cultures.

The gigantic arsenal of the "Red" Army is threatened with dispersal as the USSR breaks up. Tomorrow, nuclear weapons and power stations, thousands, or tens of thousands of tanks and cannon, and guns are liable to fall into the hands of the most anachronistic forces thrown up by the putrefaction of the Stalinist regime. Any idea of the great powers controlling nuclear proliferation will become completely outdated, and the risk of nuclear "accidents" like Chernobyl vastly greater. Chernobyl is no accident: it is the exact concentration of the situation in the USSR.

Faced with such destabilization, the world's other great powers, with the USA and the European powers to the fore have no interest in any acceleration of the USSR's collapse, and disintegration into a multitude of rival states. Together, they will make every effort to support the factors of political cohesion in the USSR, and promote reforms to try to stabilize the economic and social situation.

In these conditions, the West can only support Gorbachev, who is the last guarantor of the USSR's unity, and a proclaimed partisan of reforms. The Western powers have followed this policy strictly for years, but in doing so they trapped themselves in the same contradictions as Perestroika. The least decompose fractions of the Party whose support Gorbachev depends on regroup those most hostile, or most timid towards reforms. With Pavlov as Prime Minister, the old guard is back in command. The most reformist factions have joined the nationalists, and their victory today would mean acceleration of the dynamic towards disintegration. For the sake of maintaining international frontiers and preserving the increasingly theoretical existence of the USSR, Western "democracies" are supporting, by conveniently closing their eyes to it, the repression aimed at calming the fever for independence of the Armenians, Lithuanians, and Georgians. The incapacity of the various Perestroika governments to reform the production going again, has led to desperate appeals for international aid and new loans. Prime Minister Pavlov, who only recently was accusing the West of poisoning last winter's food aid with radio-active elements, now declares that "we won't make it without Western help".

But the Western economies are under pressure from the advancing recession; they do not have the means to coming to the rescue of the soviet economy. The scarcity of funds, and pressing priorities make a new Marshall Plan for Eastern Europe and the USSR impossible. We only have to look at the situation in East Germany, which was the most developed country in the bloc, to see that the chaos of the USSR could absorb billions of dollars without any productive effect. Western loans are going to plug gaps and ease the immediate social tension, without any other result than to put off the day of reckoning.

But if the West is forced to limit its economic aid, it is not so stingy with its political help to Gorbachev. The leader of the soviet state is recognized as its only valid spokesman, and is given first class world media coverage. As for the representatives of the various nationalities emerging in the USSR, whenever they travel abroad they find themselves being lectured. They are advised to be patient, to calm their nationalist ardor, to enter into a dialogue with Moscow. When Yeltsin travelled to Europe last spring, just after demanding Gorbachev's resignation, he was rebuffed time after time. There was no question of the West giving greater credibility to the Russian leader, whose victory would mean the faster breakup of the USSR. Apparently, Yeltsin got the message, since on his return he made a complete U-turn and made an alliance with Gorbachev. The West is using every means it can to put pressure on the different players in the drama of the USSR, in an attempt to calm things down.

But the West does not have the means to prevent the inevitable breakup of the USSR, any more than Gorbachev. The most it can do is to try to slow it down, to gain time in order to control the most explosive aspects of the situation. The impotence of both the West and Gorbachev is an expression of the fact that the same fundamental contradictions which determine the collapse of the USSR are also at work in the rest of the world[2]. The ‘Third World' has preceded the USSR into the chaos it is undergoing today. The USSR's decomposition is not merely a product of its own specificities; it is the expression of a worldwide dynamic, which has been concretized more explosively and faster in the USSR because of the weakness of its capital and its historic specificities.

Unable to find any palliatives, or any way out of its contradictions, world capital has been sinking for more than 20 years ever deeper into crisis. The economic collapse of the USSR, after that of the Third World, and its present "Africanization", reveals the advance gangrene of decomposition which weighs today, ever more strongly, on the planet as a whole[3]. JJ                                 

[1] See International Review no. 60, ‘Theses on the Economic and Political Crisis in Eastern Europe, and the Definitive Bankruptcy of Stalinism' and International Review no. 61, ‘After the collapse of the Eastern bloc, Destabilization and Chaos'.

[2] See International Review no. 57, ‘The Decomposition of Capitalism' and no. 62, ‘Decomposition, the final phase of Capitalist Decadence'.

[3] See the editorial in this issue of the International Review.

The Gulf War is a forceful reminder to the working class that capitalism itself is war, the very height of barbarism, and this can only encourage it to think deeply about the kind of society it 's living in. This is why, throughout the war, the bourgeoisie of the 'democratic' countries systematically hid the extent of the destruction and maneuvers it was carrying out, and why, after the war, it organized a gigantic humanitarian campaign around the massacre of the Kurds in order to make workers forget its own crimes and its responsibility in this massacre. The bourgeoisie of the great 'democracies' has long experience at this level, both in killing and in lies and cynicism. The proletariat must remember the crimes committed by the 'democratic' bourgeoisie, as well as its direct or indirect complicity in the massacres and destruction perpetrated by Stalinism and fascism.

Introduction:

Lies and Cynicism from the Bourgeoisie During and After the Gulf War

Throughout the war, we hardly saw any pictures of the massacres and destruction inflicted on the Iraqi population. The absolute rule was: total blackout and a strict control of the media. To this day there are no precise figures, but it's certain that more than 200,000 civilians and nearly 250,000 Iraqi soldiers were killed, not to mention the wounded and those who will be infirm for the rest of their lives. After all the obscene boasts about 'surgical precision bombing', an American general in charge of the US air force has admitted that out of the 88,500 tons of bombs rained on Iraq, less than 7 % were laser-guided, that 70 % of the bombs missed their target and that the airmen had 'sprayed' their bombs without too much concern for pin-point accuracy, using that old and sinister method of 'carpet bombing'! One can imagine the damage done to civilian areas in such conditions. But little or none of this ever filtered through.

By contrast, the media did their utmost to convey the morbid spectacle of thousands of Kurds, women, children and the old, dying of hunger and cold, lapping stagnant water like dogs and fighting around the trucks for a crust of bread or a bottle of water.

The incredible cynicism and duplicity of the American, French and British bourgeoisie was once again demonstrated in the most sinister manner. Because not only did they use these massacres in order to make people forget their own war crimes - they were also directly responsible for this genocidal massacre which took the total number of war victims close to a million.

The bourgeoisie of the 'Coalition' had deliberately pushed for the Shiite and Kurdish rebellions. They had encouraged the Kurdish bourgeois cliques to proclaim the uprising by leading them to believe they would receive the necessary support; and then they carefully ensured that no aid was forthcoming and that Saddam Hussein had the forces he required to repress the revolt. By laying this trap, in which at least 250,000 people died, the 'Coalition' bourgeoisie killed two birds with one stone.

On the one hand, jt made it easier for their own war crimes to be forgotten by focusing attention on the new crimes of the 'Hitler of the Middle East'; and at the same time, through this massive repression, they prevented the Lebanisation of the whole region, which would have been the result of a successful uprising by the Kurds and Shiites. And they did this without getting their own hands dirty, since that devil Saddam once again took on the butcher's job. This is why although the repression took place under the eyes of the American army, it wasn't until it had been completed that the tearful appeals for humanitarian action began to be issued.

The Machiavellianism of the bourgeoisie, its capacity to manipulate events and send hundreds of thousands of human beings to their deaths, is nothing new. The horrors in the Gulf are the continuation of a long and macabre series. Throughout the decadence of capitalism, the grand 'democracies' have accumulated a huge experience in this bloody game, whether in dealing with the always dangerous situations which arise in a country defeated in war, or in justifying and obscuring their own crimes by fixing attention on the diabolic deeds of the 'other' side.

The Second World War: the crimes and massacres of democracy and anti-fascism

The list of crimes and butcheries perpetuated by those paragons of law and morality, the old bourgeois democracies, is so long that you could hardly do justice to it in an entire issue of this Review. Let's recall the First World War where the main protagonists were democracies, including the Russia of 1917 under the 'socialist' and 'democrat' Kerensky, and where the social democratic parties played a major role as purveyors of cannon fodder. The latter also didn't hesitate to put on the butcher's apron when it came to the bloody repression of the German revolution in January 1919, when thousands of workers perished in the city of Berlin alone. Let's also recall the British, French and American expeditionary corps sent to put down the October revolution; the genocide of the Armenians by the Turkish state with the direct complicity of the French and British governments; the gassing of the Kurds by the British army in 1925, etc ... The more capitalism has sunk into decadence the more its method of survival has become war and terror, and this goes for the 'democratic' states as well as the totalitarian ones.

But in the necessarily limited context of a single article, we will restrict ourselves to denouncing something that, without doubt, stands alongside the monstrous identification between Stalinism and communism as the greatest lie of the century, the so-called war of 'democracy against fascism', of law and morality against Nazi barbarism, which is still the way it is taught in school text books. A war in which the barbarism was supposedly on one side only, that of the Axis powers; a war which, as far as the virtuous democratic camp is concerned, is presented as being a purely defensive one and, to use the current terms of bourgeois propaganda, essentially a 'clean' one.

A study of the second world war not only enables one to measure the enormity of this lie, but also to understand how, during and after the Gulf war, the democratic bourgeoisie drew heavily on the experience it acquired during this crucial historic period.

The terror bombing of the German population

As soon as he came to power in 1940, the head of state of the world's oldest democracy, Britain, and also the real war leader of the Allied camp, Sir Winston Churchill, set up 'Bomber Command' - the central nucleus of the heavy bomber squadrons whose task was to sow terror in the German cities. To justify this strategy of terror, to provide an ideological cover for it, Churchill made use of the massive German bombing of London and Coventry in the autumn of 1940 and the bombing of Rotterdam, the scale of the latter being deliberately exaggerated (the Anglo-American media spoke of 30,000 victims when in fact it was more like 1000).

With this ideological cover assured, Linndeman, Churchill's adviser, could make the following suggestion in March 1942: "An offensive of extensive bombing could sap the moral of the enemy providing it is directed against the working class areas of the 58 German towns which have a population more than 100,000 ..." and he concluded by saying that "Between March 1942 and the middle of 1943 it should be possible to make one third of the total population of Germany homeless."

The British bourgeoisie then adopted this strategy of terror, but in all its official declarations, the government of His Gracious Majesty insisted on the fact that "Bomber Command was only bombing military targets, and any allusions to attacks on working class or civilian areas were rejected as absurd and as an affront to the honor of airmen sacrificing their lives for their country."

The first illustration that this was a cynical lie was the bombing of Hamburg in June 1943. The massive use of incendiary bombs left 50,000 dead and 40,000 wounded, mainly in working class residential areas. The centre of the city was entirely destroyed and, in two nights, the total number of victims was equal to the number killed by bombs on the British side throughout the war! In Kassel, in October 1943, nearly 10,000 civilians perished in a huge tempest of bombs.

Faced with certain questions about the extent of damage caused to the civilian population, the British government invariably replied that "there was no instruction to destroy homes and Bomber Command's targets were always military."

From the beginning of 1944, the terror raids on Darmstadt, Konisberg and Heilbronn claimed over 24,000 civilian victims. In Braunschweig the Allies had perfected their technique to the point where not one comer of the residential areas escaped the incendiary bombs. 23,000 people were trapped by a huge firestorm in the centre of the town and were carbonized or asphyxiated.

However there was a total black-out on all this and an American general (US forces began to participate massively in these 'extensive bombings') declared at the time that: "we must at all costs avoid giving the historians of this war any reason for accusing us 0!4irecting strategic bombing against the man in the street." Fifteen days before this declaration as US raid on Berlin had wiped out 25,000 civilians, and the general must have been quite well aware of this. The lies and cynicism which prevailed throughout the Gulf war are part of a long and solid tradition among our great democracies.

This strategy of terror inspired and led by Churchill had three objectives: first, to accelerate the military defeat of Germany by sapping the morale of the population; second, to stifle any possibility of revolt, and above all of proletarian movements. It was no accident that the terror bombing became systematic at the time when workers' strikes were breaking out in Germany and when (late '43) desertions from the German army were on the increase. Churchill, who had already played the role of bloodhound against the Russian revolution, was particularly aware of this danger. Third and final of Churchill' s objectives, particularly in 1945 with the Yalta conference of February fast approaching, was the question of using these bombings to place the 'democracies' in a position of strength faced with the advance of the Russian army, which Churchill judged to be taking place too rapidly.

The barbarism and murder unleashed by these air raids, whose principal victims were workers and refugees, reached their paroxysm in Dresden in February 1945. In Dresden there was no industry of any importance, nor any military strategic installations, and it was for this reason that Dresden became a place of refuge for hundreds of thousands fleeing the air raids and the advance of the 'Red Army'. Blinded by the democratic propaganda of the Allies, they thought that Dresden would never be bombed. The German authorities were also taken in because they set up a number of civilian hospitals in the city. The British government was well aware of this situation, and some military heads of 'Bomber Command' expressed serious reservations about the military validity of this target. The dry response was that Dresden was a priority target for the Prime Minister, and that was that.

When they bombed Dresden on February 13 and 14 1945, the British and American bourgeoisie knew perfectly well that there were nearly a million and a half people there, a large number of them women and child refugees, wounded, and prisoners of war. 650,000 incendiary bombs fell on the city, producing the most gigantic firestorm of the Second World War. Dresden burned for 8 days and the fires could be seen from 250km away. Certain neighborhoods burned so fiercely that it was weeks before anyone could enter the cellars. Out of 35,000 residential buildings, only 7000 remained standing. The entire town centre had disappeared and most of the hospitals had been destroyed.

On February 14, 450 US Flying Fortress bombers, following on from the British bombers, dropped another 771 tons of incendiary bombs. The balance sheet of what was undoubtedly one of the greatest war crimes of WW2 was 250,000 dead, nearly all of them civilians. By way of comparison, that other odious crime, Hiroshima, claimed 75,000 victims and the terrible American bombing of Tokyo in March 1945, 85,000.

Ordering the bombing of Chemnitz in the days that followed, the commandeers didn't mince their words. The airmen were told: "Your objective tonight is to finish off all the refugees who may have escaped from Dresden." With this butcher's language, one can see that the anti-fascist coalition was fully the equal of the Nazis when it came to barbarism. By November 1, 1945, after 18 months of bombing, 45 of the 60 main cities of Germany had been almost completely destroyed. At least 650,000 civilians died in these terror raids.

And in terms of shameful lying and cynicism, the Allies were equal to a Goebbels or a Stalin. In reply to the questions raised about these terrifying massacres, the Anglo-American bourgeoisie replied, against all evidence, that Dresden was a very important industrial and military centre. Churchill at first added that it was the Russians who had requested the bombing, which all historians today consider to be false; then he tried to push the responsibility onto the military, using it as a kind of smear!

The Labourites, those bloodhounds, those rotten clowns of bourgeois democracy, tried to wash their hands of this horror. Clem Atlee, who succeeded Churchill, drew this reply from the head of Bomber Command: "The bombing strategy criticized by Lord Ailee was decided by Her Majesty's government, in which he [Atlee] served throughout most of the war. The decision to bomb the industrial towns was taken, and taken very clearly, before I became commander-in-chief of Bomber Command."

The strategy of terror was a political decision, taken by the entire British bourgeoisie, and also fully involved that other great democrat, Roosevelt, the man who decided to build the atomic bomb. Democratic barbarism was equal in measure to fascist and Stalinist barbarism. The grandchildren of Churchill and Roosevelt - Bush, Mitterrand, Major - showed that they had learned their lessons well, whether in terms of massacres, blackouts, lies or cynicism[1].

How the democracies made use of the Nazi concentration camps

Another example of this long tradition is the democratic bourgeoisie's ability to hide and justify its own crimes by shining all the light on the crimes of others: in this case, the way the concentration camps were used to justify the imperialist butchery on the Allied side.

We have no intention of denying the sordid and sinister reality of the death camps, but the obscene publicity made about them ever since has nothing to do with any humanitarian considerations, still less with the legitimate horror provoked by such barbarism. The bourgeoisie, both British and American, knew quite well what was happening in the camps; however, strange as it may seem, it hardly talked about them throughout the war and did not make them a central theme of its propaganda.

It wasn't until after the war that it made them the principal axiom of its justification for the world imperialist slaughter and more generally for the defense of its sacrosanct democracy. In fact, the governments of Roosevelt and Churchill were terribly afraid the Nazis would empty the camps and expel the Jews en masse. At the Anglo-American meeting in Bermuda in 1943, the British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden expressed this anxiety and the decision was taken that "no United Nations ship should be equipped to effect the transfer of refugees from Europe." This was clear enough: better they die quietly in the camps!

When Romania, an ally of Germany, wanted to free 60,000 Jews, when Bulgaria wanted to do the same, they were met with a categorical refusal by that great freedom fighter, Roosevelt, for whom "transporting so many people would disorganize the war effort."

The unfortunate adventures in April 1944 of Joel Brandt, leader of an organization of Hungarian Jews, confirmed quite strikingly than the British and American democrats did not give a toss for the suffering of the Jews in the concentration camps: When the bourgeoisie invokes the Rights of Man, it's only for propaganda purposes and so it can quietly get on with its criminal activities behind this fig-leaf.

Eichmann, the SS head of the Jewish section, confided in Brandt, with the agreement of Himmler himself, that the Nazi government wanted to free 1 million Jews in exchange for 10,000 lorries, or even less. Armed with this proposal, Brandt went to see the Anglo-Americans convinced that they would accept. But as it says in the pamphlet, Auschwitz or the Great Alibi, published by the PCI (Programme Communiste), "Not only the Jews but the SS as well were taken in by the humanitarian propaganda of the Allies! The Allies didn't want this 1 million Jews! Not for 10,000 lorries, not for 5000, not even for nothing!"

Brandt met with a complete and categorical refusal from the governments both of Churchill and of Roosevelt, even though the Nazis had proposed freeing 100,000 Jews without anything in exchange as proof of their good faith. So the 1 million Jews were left to die in the camps.

At the end of the war, the USA kept most of the Jewish prisoners in the same camps as the Germans, in the most frightful conditions. The American general Patton even declared at the time: "The Jews are inferior to animals." Once again, where is the difference between a Nazi scoundrel and a democratic one? Throughout the war, the bourgeoisie of the anti-fascist camp didn't care a fig about what was happening to the Jews, or to the population in general. Later on it used the genocide of the Jews to hide its own war crimes, to hide the fact that it was capitalism as a whole that was responsible for the butchery of 1939-45 and all the unspeakable horror that went with it[2].

How democracy dealt with the workers' strikes in Italy (1943) and

the Warsaw Uprising (August 1944)

The massive repression against the Kurdish and Shiite population in Iraq, and the total complicity in these massacres of the countries defending 'human rights', can to a certain extent be compared to the attitude of the Allies during the Second World War. It's not a question of comparing clearly bourgeois movements in which the working class played no role at all, such as the Kurdish nationalist movement, with what happened in Italy in 1943 when the workers, at least in the beginning, were acting on their own class terrain. But once this fundamental distinction has been made, it's important to see what's common in the attitude of the democratic bourgeoisie yesterday and today.

In Italy at the end of '42 and especially in '43, there were strikes in nearly all the main industrial centers of the north. Everywhere, the demand was for more food and higher wages and some workers even called for the formation of factory councils and soviets, which went against the position of Togliatti's Stalinist PCI. The movement was all the more dangerous for the bourgeoisie in that the immigrant Italian workers in Germany also came out on strike and often won the support of their German class bothers.

It was largely in response to the workers' strikes that the decision was taken to dump Mussolini and replace him with Badoglio. The Allies, who had called on the Italian people to revolt against fascism, were then landing in the south and by autumn '43 had totally and solidly occupied the whole of southern Italy.

But anxious about this potentially revolutionary situation, they quickly stopped their advance, at Churchill's request, and stayed put in the south. Churchill, well versed in the experience of the revolutionary wave which ended the First World War, feared like the plague the renewal of such a scenario. So he convinced the USA to "let the Italians stew in their own juice" and to deliberately halt the advance of the Allied army towards the north. His goal was to give the German army the chance to break the back of the working class by occupying the entire north of Italy and all its big working class concentrations.

The German army was thus deliberately allowed to fortify its positions and the Allies took 18 months to conquer the entire peninsular. 18 months in which the workers would be crushed by the German army with the objective complicity of the Stalinists who called for national unity behind Badoglio. With the dirty work being done by the Germans, the Allies armies could then pose as the liberators of Italy and calmly impose their views by installing a Christian Democrat government.

In Greece, a country left to the British in the great division of spoils among imperialist sharks, Churchill again exercised his talents as a champion of freedom and democracy. Workers' strikes and demonstrations broke out at the end of 1944, though this movement was quickly taken over and derailed by the Stalinists who dominated the Greek resistance via the ELAS. ELAS led the Athenian population to confront, virtually barehanded, the British tanks occupying the city.

The democratic tanks of His Very Gracious Majesty bloodily reestablished order, to the point that Athens, which had not been bombed because of its status as a historic city, was soon half reduced to ruin. Churchill said to the British general in charge of the troops: "You are responsible for maintaining order in Athens, and must destroy or neutralize all ELAS bands that approach the town ... ELAS will of course try to push women and children forward whenever the firing begins. But don't hesitate to act as though you were in a conquered city where a local revolt has broken out," (A Stinas, Memoirs of a Revolutionary). Result: caught between the Stalinist anvil and the democratic hammer, thousands of workers perished.

What happened in Warsaw can be compared even more closely to the cynical strategy employed by the western bourgeoisie at the end of the Gulf war. The Red Army was at the gates of Warsaw, 15km from the city, on 30 July, 1944. It was then that the Warsaw population rose up against the German occupation.

For months, the Allies and the USSR had called on the population to rise, promising them all their aid; on the eve of the uprising, Radio Moscow called for an armed insurrection, assuring the support of the Red Army. The whole population revolted and, initially, this popular uprising, in which the workers played a great role, even though the weight of nationalism was very strong, succeeded in freeing a good part of the city from the German military occupation.

The population launched itself all the more massively into revolt because it was convinced it would soon get help. "Allied help for' our uprising seemed to go without question. We were fighting Hitlerism, and so we had the right to suppose that all the nations united in this fight would provide us with effective aid. We hoped that help would arrive immediately," (Z Zaremba, La Commune de Varsovie).

Stalin had initially planned to enter Warsaw right at the beginning of August: the German army was in disarray, and there was no serious military obstacle to this. But faced with such a widespread uprising, he changed plan and deliberately delayed the advance of the Russian army, which was kept waiting at the gates of Warsaw for two months. It only resumed its advance once the uprising had been bloodily crushed by the German army, after 63 days. He coldly declared that "this insurrection was reactionary, that he dissociated himself from this terrible and impudent adventure instigated by criminals," (Z. Zaremba).

Throughout this time, the German troops were regaining position after position in the city; there was no water, electricity or munitions and the insurgents were dwindling more and more. The latter were still waiting for help from the Russian army, but it never came, and Stalin denounced them as "seditious fascists." The population also expected help from the Americans. But apart from fine words of enthusiasm and solidarity from the British and American governments, they got no more than a few derisory parachute-drops of weapons, totally insufficient for opposing the German troops, and in fact serving to increase the number killed and wounded and prolong the vain suffering of the population of the Polish capital.

Confronted with an uprising on such a scale, Stalin had decided, like Churchill vis-a-vis Italy, to let Warsaw stew in its own juice, the aim being to swallow up Poland without encountering any serious resistance from the Polish population. If the Warsaw uprising had been successful, nationalism would have been considerably strengthened and would have thrown a major obstacle in the way of Russian imperialism.

At the same time, Stalin was playing the role of anti-proletarian gendarme, faced with the potential threat of the working class in Warsaw. Indeed, at the end of the war, he fulfilled this role zealously throughout eastern Europe, including Germany. By allowing the German army to crush the Warsaw uprising, he then only had to deal with a population that had been decimated and exhausted, hardly capable of resisting Russian occupation. At the same time he kept his hands clean because the 'barbaric Nazi Hordes' had done his dirty work for him.

On the Anglo-American side, they knew quite well what was going on, but let things be, because Roosevelt had tacitly consigned Poland to Russian imperialism. The population of Warsaw was thus coldly sacrificed on the altar of wheeling and dealing among imperialist sharks. The balance sheet of this deadly trap set by Stalin and his democratic accomplices was particularly heavy: 50,000 dead, 350,000 deported to Germany, a million people condemned to exodus and a city in ruins[3].

The cynicism of the bourgeoisie about the events in Warsaw is all the more monstrous when one recalls that it was the invasion of Poland which made Britain and France enter the war to save 'freedom and democracy' in Poland ...

When one compares the situation of August 44 in Warsaw with the aftermath of the Gulf war, and if you replace the Poles with the Kurds, Hitler with Saddam and Stalin with Bush, one finds the same ruthless cynicism, the same bloody traps where the bourgeoisie, for its sordid imperialist interests, calmly condemns tens or hundreds of thousands of human beings to be massacred - all the while mouthing on about freedom, democracy and the Rights of Man.

The second world imperialist butchery was a formidable experience for the bourgeoisie - both in the art of killing millions of defenseless civilians, and in the trick of hiding and justifying its own monstrous war crimes by 'demonizing' the opposing imperialist coalition. Despite all their efforts to give themselves an air of respectability, the 'great democracies' emerged from the Second World War covered from head to foot in the blood of countless victims

Democracy and colonial massacres

"Capitalism was born with its feet soaked in blood and filth," as Marx put it, and the crimes and genocides it perpetrated throughout the process of colonization clearly illustrate this monstrous birth. "Africa turned into a sort of commercial hunting ground for black skins ... the bones of Indian weavers whiten the planes of India," (Marx), the result of the British colonization of the Indian continent, etc, etc ... An exhaustive list of all these genocides would again be too long for this article.

However, despite all the terrible suffering it inflicted upon humanity, the capitalist system in its ascendant phase was still progressive, because by permitting the development of the productive forces, it was also developing both the revolutionary class, the proletariat, and the material conditions needed for the creation of communism.

This is no longer the case in the "epoch of wars and revolutions", the period when the system enters into decadence and becomes purely reactionary. From now on, colonial massacres are nothing but the terrible blood-price ensuring the survival of a Moloch that now threatens the very existence of the human species. In this context, the numerous colonial crimes and massacres committed by the countries of the 'Rights of Man', the old bourgeois democracies, appear for what they are: pure acts of barbarism[4].

At the end of the second world war, the victors, and in particular the three old democracies, the USA, Britain and France, promised the whole world the coming of an era of freedom and democracy - for wasn't this why so many sacrifices had been made?

Since we have already talked a lot about the role played by the British and the Americans, let's examine the behavior of the third member of this inestimable democratic gang, the country par excellence of the Rights of Man - France.

In 1945, the very day that Germany surrendered, the oh- so democratic government of De Gaulle, then including some 'communist' ministers, ordered the French air force (under the auspices of the Stalinist minister Tillon) to bomb Setif and Constantine, where national movements were daring to put into question the colonial domination of this wonderful French democracy. There were thousands of dead and wounded and some popular neighborhoods were reduced to ashes. In 1947, the French overseas minister, the very democratic and socialist Marius Moutet, organized a terrible repression of the movement for the independence of Madagascar, again using aircraft, and after that tanks and artillery. A number of villages were obliterated, and for the first time the army experimented with the sinister tactic of hurling prisoners out of aero planes to be mangled in the villages below. Total number of dead: 80,000.

At more or less the same time, the same Monsieur Moutet ordered the bombing of Haiphong in Indochina without any prior declaration of war. During the war in Indochina, the French army used torture in the most systematic way: the whole arsenal was employed. It established a very democratic rule indeed: for every French soldier killed, eight villages would be burned. A witness said that "the French army behaved like the Boches did in our country," and added that "as at Buchenwald, where human remains were used as paper weights in the offices of the camp Kommandant, a number of French officers had similar objects in their offices." Once again, there's nothing the Nazis or Stalinists can teach their democratic officer caste counterparts.

And as for the atrocities of the 'Viets', which the press of the time made so much of (let's recall in passing that in 1945 Ho Chi Minh had helped the 'foreign imperialists' to crush the Saigon Commune, cf our pamphlet, Nation or Class?), or later of the FLN in Algeria - these showed that the colonial bourgeoisies had been to a good school and were well able to apply the lessons taught by the very democratic French army.

When the nationalist rebellion broke out in Algeria, the 'socialists' were in power in France and the government included Guy Mollet, Mendis-France and the young Mitterrand, then minister of the interior. All these 'authentic democrats' responded in the same way and full power was confided in the army to reestablish 'republican order'. Very quickly, the most extreme measures were being used: in reprisal for attacks, entire villages were razed to the ground; caravans were systematically machine-gunned by aircraft. Two million Algerians, nearly a quarter of the total population, were chased from their villages or neighborhoods and parked at the mercy of the army in 'regroupment camps' where, according to a report by M Rocard, then a financial inspector, "the conditions are deplorable and at least one child dies every day."

Very quickly, general Massu and his accomplice, Bigeard, later on one of Giscard's ministers, discovered their talents as torturers. Torture became systematic and in Algiers a word became famous: 'disappeared'. A large number of those taken by the soldiery never reappeared. As was underlined in a note from inspector general Wuilhaume, addressed to Mitterrand in 1957: "blows, beatings in the bath, hose-pipes, electric shocks are being used everywhere ... In Boulemane, as in many small villages in the Aures, the torture chamber was operating day and night ... and it was no rarity to see in the officers' mess champagne being drunk from the skulls of fellagas [FLN fighters]".

In 1957 the secretary general of the Prefectory of Algiers, P Teitgen, said this about the tortures to the lawyer P Verges: "All this I know, alas, and you will understand that as a former deportee, I can no longer bear it [and so he was going to resign]. We're sometimes behaving like the Germans did." And he added that he knew all the villas in Algiers where torture was taking place ...

This declaration by a high-ranking official is particularly interesting because it once again highlights the incredible duplicity of the people who govern us, and particularly of the social democrats. Thus G Mollet declared on 14 April 1957 to the Socialist Federation of Marne: "No doubt there have been some rare but deplorable acts of violence. Bui I insist that they flowed from terrorist attacks and atrocities. As for premeditated, thought-out acts of torture, I say that if this happened it's intolerable. On this matter the French army's behavior has been compared to that of the Gestapo. This comparison is scandalous. Hitler gave out directives calling for such methods, whereas Lacoste and I have always given orders absolutely in the opposite sense."

People like Mollet pretended to know nothing, but they were quite aware of what was going on and it was they who were giving the orders. As in any band of gangsters, there are always those who order the crime, and those who carry it out. Attention is always focused on the goons, in this case Massu and Bigeard, in order to whitewash those really responsible, in this case the social democratic crew in power.

The French bourgeoisie, with its 'socialists' to the fore, has subsequently always presented the massacres and atrocities committed in Algeria[5] (from 1957 to De Gaulle's arrival in power in 1958, 15,000 Algerian children disappeared each month) as being the work of bloody handed military types who overstepped their orders. But the one giving the orders was without doubt the 'socialist' government. Once again, who is the biggest criminal: the one who executes the crime or the one who orders it?

The bourgeoisie, in its democratic version, whenever its crimes can no longer be hidden, always tries to present them as an accident, an exception, or as the work of military men over-reaching themselves. We saw this in France vis-a-vis Algeria, in the USA vis-a-vis Vietnam. All this is a sinister fraud whose sole aim is to preserve the great democratic lie.

In order to perpetuate its rule over the working class, it's vital for the bourgeoisie to maintain the democratic mystification, and it has used the definitive bankruptcy of Stalinism to reinforce this fiction. Against the lie of a so-called difference between 'democracy' and 'totalitarianism', the whole history of decadent capitalism shows us that democracy is just as stained with blood as totalitarianism, and that its victims can be counted in millions.

The proletariat must remember that when it comes to defending class interests or sordid imperialist appetites, the 'democratic' bourgeoisie has never hesitated to support the most ferocious dictators. Let's not forget that Blum, Churchill and company called Stalin 'Mister' and feted him as the 'man of Liberation'! More recently, let's recall the support given to Saddam Hussein and Ceausescu by the likes of De Gaulle and Giscard. The working class must take on board the fact that, whether yesterday, today or tomorrow, democracy has never been anything but the hypocritical mask behind which the bourgeoisie hides the hideous face of its class dictatorship, the better to enslave the working class and bring it to its knees. RN

[1] The quotes from this section are from La Destruction de Dresde, David Irving, Editions Art et Histoire d'Europe, and from La Seconde Guerre Mondiale de Henri Michel, Editions PUF.  

[2] Pierre Hempel A Bas La Guerre! A few years ago there was a whole campaign waged by the residues of the 'ultra left' around Sieur Faurisson's alleged 'revelation' about the non-existence of the concentration camps - a campaign largely recuperated by the extreme right. Our point of view has absolutely nothing to do with this campaign, which is suspicious, to say the least. It's true that, before being transformed into death camps, most of the camps were first of all labor camps; it's also true that all the morbid publicity about the camps and the gas chambers, from 1945 to today, was above all aimed at whitewashing all the crimes committed by the 'democratic' camp. But there can be no question of minimizing the very real genocide perpetrated in these camps and of banalising the barbaric horror of decadent capitalism, one of the summits of which were the massacres and crimes committed by the Nazis.

[3] La Commune de Varsovie. trahie par Staline, massacree par Hitler by Zygmunt Zaremba, Editions Spartacus.

[4] On the difference between bourgeois democracy in the ascendance and in the decadence of capitalism, it would be useful to consult our Platform and our pamphlet, The Decadence of Capitalism.

[5] Les Crimes de l'armee francais by Pierre Vidal- Naquet, Editions Maspero. While the French bourgeoisie tries to present Algeria as its last 'colonialist sin', it gives us to understand that subsequently its hands have been much cleaner. In fact, other massacres have been committed since the Algerian war, notably in the Camaroons where some bloody atrocities were committed by the French army.

The first part of this tribute to our comrade Marc, who died in December 1990, was published in the previous issue of the International Review, and dealt with the period from 1917 to World War II.

“In particular, Marc belonged to that tiny minority of militants who survived and resisted the terrible counter-revolution which battened on the working class from the 1920’s to the 60’s: militants like Anton Pannekoek, Henk Canne-Meijer, Amadeo Bordiga, Onorato Damen, Paul Mattick, Jan Appel, or Munis. Moreover, not only did he maintain his untiring loyalty to the communist cause and his complete confidence in the proletariat’s revolutionary capabilities, he was able to pass on his experience to a new generation of militants, and to avoid becoming wrapped up in analyses and positions that had been overtaken by historical events. In this sense, his whole activity as a militant is an example of what marxism means: the living, constantly developing thought of the revolutionary class, which bears with it humanity’s future” (International Review no.65 [72] ).

In this second part, we will follow our comrade’s activity, first in the French Communist Left (“Gauche Communiste de France”, GCF), then during the last period of his life, when his contribution was decisive in the foundation and development of the ICC.

‘INTERNATIONALISME’

In July 1945, the GCF held its second conference. It adopted a report on the international situation drawn up by Marc (reprinted in the International Review No. 59, 4th quarter 1989), which made an overall evaluation of the war years. Starting from the classical marxist positions on the question of imperialism and war, especially against the aberrations de­veloped by Vercesi, this document achieved a more profound understanding of the main problems that the working class confronts in decadent capitalism. This report is on the same level as all the GCF’s contribution to revolutionary thought, which we can see in the various articles published in its theo­retical review, Internationalisme[1].

From 1946 onwards, L’Etincelle ceased publishing. This was because the GCF realised that its predictions of a revo­lutionary end to World War II (in the same way as World War I) had not come to fruition. As the Fraction had feared already in 1943, the bourgeoisie had learnt the lessons of the past, and the “victorious” countries succeeded in preventing any proletarian upsurge. The “Liberation” proved to be, not a stepping-stone to revolution, but the opposite. The GCF drew its own conclusions, and considered that the time was not ripe either for the formation of the Party, or for the agi­tation in the working class, of which L’Etincelle was to have been a tool. The tasks awaiting revolutionaries were still the same as those taken up by Bilan. This is why the GCF de­voted itself henceforth to an effort of clarification and theo­retical-political discussion, unlike the Partito Comunista Internazionalista (PCInt), which for years was agitated by a feverish activism leading to the 1952 split between Damen’s more activist tendency and Bordiga (along with Vercesi). The latter withdrew into sectarian isolation and a self-proclaimed “invariance” (in fact, a fossilisation of the positions of the Communist Left in 1926), which were to be the mark of the International Communist Party which published Communist Program. For its part, the Damen tendency (which, being in the majority, had kept control of the publications Prometeo and Battaglia Comunista) could hardly be accused of the same sectarianism, since it launched into a whole series of at­tempted conferences or common activities with non-proletar­ian currents like the anarchists or the Trotskyists.

The GCF maintained the same open attitude that had been characterised by the Italian Left before and during the war. Unlike the PCInt, which carried “openness” to the point where it did not look too closely at the class nature of those it frequented, the GCF’s contacts, like Bilan’s, were based on precise political criteria that distinguished it clearly from non-proletarian organisations. And so in May 1947, the GCF took part in an international conference organised at the ini­tiative of the Dutch Kommunistenbond (a “councilist” ten­dency), along with amongst others Le Prolétaire which had sprung for the RKD, the Belgian Fraction, and the au­tonomous Turin Federation, which had split from the PCInt due to its disagreements on participation in elections. The Kommunistenbond had also invited the Anarchist Federation, and during the preparation of the Conference the GCF insisted on the need for more precise selection criteria, to eliminate any groups, like the official anarchists, which had taken part in the Spanish Civil War and the Resistance[2].

However, in this period dominated by counter-revolu­tion, the GCF’s main contribution to the proletarian struggle lay in the domain of theory and the programme. The GCF’s considerable effort in this domain led it, in particular, to clarify the function of the revolutionary party, going beyond the classic “Leninist” conceptions, and to recognise the definitive and irreversible integration of the unions, and unionism, into the capitalist state.

In the 1920s, the Dutch-German Left had already seri­ously criticised Lenin’s and the Communist International’s incorrect positions on these questions. The confrontation with this current, first by the Italian Fraction before the war, then by the GCF, allowed the latter to integrate some of these criticisms of the CI.

However, the GCF avoided the Dutch-German current’s excesses on the question of the Party (whose function the latter ended up by denying completely), and at the same time went much further on the question of trade unionism (since although it rejected classical unionism, the Dutch-German Left advocated a form of “rank-and-file” unionism based on the German “Unionen”).

The union question especially illustrates the difference in method between the German and Italian Lefts. The former understood the main lines of a question during the 1920’s (e.g., on the capitalist nature of the USSR, or the nature of the trade unions); but because it failed to elaborate its new posi­tions systematically, it was led either to call into question some of the foundation stones of marxism, or to avoid any further deepening of its positions. The Italian Left, on the other hand, was much more cautious. Before the Vercesi episode in 1938, it was always careful to subject any steps it took to systematic criticism, in order to make sure that they did not depart from the basic framework of marxism. By do­ing so, it was in fact capable of going much further, and of thinking much more audaciously, for example on the funda­mental question of the state.

This approach, which Marc had absorbed in the Italian Fraction, gave him the ability to push forward the immense theoretical work accomplished by the GCF. This work also led the organisation to further elaborate the Fraction’s posi­tion on the question of the state in the period of transition from capitalism to communism, and to develop a vision of state capitalism which went far beyond an analysis of the USSR alone, and brought out the universality of this essential characteristic of the capitalist mode of production’s deca­dence. We can find this analysis in the article on ‘The Evolution of Capitalism and the New Perspective’, published in Internationalisme no.46 (and reprinted in the International Review no.21). This text was drawn up by Marc in 1952, and constituted, in a sense, the GCF’s political testament.

In June 1952, Marc left France for Venezuela. This de­parture followed a political decision by the GCF: the Korean War had convinced the GCF that a Third World War between the Russian and American blocs was both inevitable and im­minent (as the text in question says). Such a war would rav­age Europe, and was likely to destroy completely the few communist groups that had survived World War II. The GCF’s decision to send some of its militants to “safety” out­side Europe had nothing to do with their personal security (Marc and his comrades had all proved, throughout World War II, that they were ready to take enormous risks to defend revolutionary positions in the worst possible conditions), but with a concern for the survival of the organisation itself. However, the departure of its most experienced militant was to prove fatal for the GCF; despite their constant correspondence with Marc, the elements who had remained in France were unable to keep the organisation alive in a period of pro­found counter-revolution. For reasons which we have not space to deal with here, World War Ill did not happen. It is clear that this error of analysis cost the life of the GCF (and of all the mistakes Marc made during his life as a militant, it was probably this one which had the most serious conse­quences).

Nonetheless, the GCF left behind a theoretical and po­litical legacy which laid the foundations for the groups which were to form the ICC.

THE ‘INTERNATIONAL COMMUNIST CURRENT’

For more than 10 years, while the counter-revolution contin­ued to weigh on the working class, Marc underwent an ex­tremely difficult period of isolation. He followed the activity of the revolutionary organisations, which had survived in Europe, and remained in contact with them and with some of their members. At the same time, he continued his own re­flection on a number of questions that the GCF had not been able to clarify sufficiently. But for the first time in his life, he was deprived of the organised activity that consti­tutes the framework for such reflection. As he said himself, it was an extremely difficult test: “The period of post-war re­action was a long march through the desert, especially once the Internationalisme group disappeared after 10 years of existence. The desert of isolation lasted some 15 years”.

This isolation continued, until the day when he was able to gather around him a small group of school students who were to form the nucleus of a new organisation: “Then in Venezuela in 1964, a new group was formed, of very young elements. And this group still exists today. To live for 40 years through the period of counter-revolution and reaction, and all of a sudden to feel hope, to feel that once again the, crisis of capital has returned, and that the young are there, then to watch this group grow little by little, developing during and after 1968 throughout France and then spreading to ten countries… all this is really a joy for a militant. These last 25 years have certainly been my happiest. It is during these years that I have really felt the joy of this development, and the conviction that we were beginning again, that we had emerged from the defeat and that the proletariat was re­grouping, that the forces of revolution were gathering. It is an enormous source of joy to take part in this yourself, to give everything you can, the best of yourself, to this recon­struction. And I owe this joy to the ICC...”

We will not deal here, as we have for the other organi­sations where Marc was a militant, with the history of the International Communist Current (we have already done so on the 10th anniversary of the ICC’s foundation in International Review no.40). We will simply highlight some aspects of the enormous contribution that our comrade made to the process that led to the formation of our organi­sation. Already, before the ICC was formed, the little group in Venezuela which published Internacionalismo (the same name as the GCF’s review) owed mainly to him its ability to move towards greater clarity, especially on the question of national liberation, which was particularly sensitive in Venezuela, and where enormous confusions persisted in the proletarian movement.

Similarly, Internacionalismo’s policy of seeking contacts with other groups in Europe and on the American continent sprang directly from the GCF and the Fraction. And in January 1968, at a time when everyone, and even some rev­olutionaries, talked of nothing but capitalism’s “prosperity” and its ability to eliminate crises, when Marcuse’s theories about the “integration of the working class” were all the rage, and when the revolutionaries that Marc met in the summer of 1967 during a journey to Europe displayed an utter scepticism as to the revolutionary capacities of a proletariat supposedly still in the midst of counter-revolution, our comrade was not afraid to write, in Internacionalismo no.8:

“We are not prophets, nor can we claim to predict when and how events will unfold in the future. But of one thing we are conscious and certain: the process in which capitalism is plunged today cannot be stopped (...) and it leads directly to the crisis. And we are equally certain that the inverse process of developing class combativity which we are witnessing to­day, will lead the working class to a bloody and direct strug­gle for the destruction of the bourgeois state”.

A few months later, the May 1968 general strike in France strikingly confirmed these predictions. Obviously, this was not time for the “direct struggle for the destruction of the bourgeois state”, but for a historic recovery of the proletariat, driven on by the first signs of open capitalist cri­sis, after the deepest counter-revolution in history. These predictions were not the fruit of clairvoyance, but quite sim­ply of our comrade’s remarkable mastery of marxism, and of the confidence which he retained in the class’ revolutionary abilities, even in the darkest moments of the counter-revolu­tion.

Marc immediately set off for France (hitch-hiking for the last part of the journey, since all public transport was com­pletely paralysed). Here he renewed contacts with his old comrades of the GCF, and began discussions with a whole series of elements and groups in the political milieu[3]. This activity, along with that of a young member of Internacionalismo who had already arrived in France in 1966, were determinant in the appearance and development of the Revolution Internationale group, which acted as the original pole of regroupment for the ICC.

Nor can we, here, give a full account of all our com­rade’s theoretical and political contributions within our or­ganisation once it was constituted. Suffice it to say that on all the essential questions that have confronted the ICC, and the class as a whole, on all the advances we have been able to make, our comrade’s contribution was decisive. In fact, Marc was usually the first to raise the new points that needed dealing with. This constant vigilance, this ability to identify rapidly, and in depth, the new questions which demanded an answer, or the old questions which still remained confused within the political milieu, lived in our International Review throughout its 64 previous issues. The articles we have pub­lished on such questions were not always written by Marc. Marc found writing very difficult; he had never studied, and above all he was forced to express himself in languages, like French, which he had only learnt as an adult. Nonetheless, he was always the main inspiration behind the texts that have allowed our organisation to fulfil its responsibility of constantly updating communist positions. To cite only the latest of many examples where our organisation has had to react rapidly to a new historic situation - the irreversible collapse of Stalinism and the Eastern bloc - our comrade’s great vigilance and the depth of his thinking played an essential part in the ICC’s ability to respond in a manner whose validity has been demonstrated by events ever since.

But Marc’s contribution to the ICC was not limited to the elaboration and deepening of its political positions and theoretical analyses. Right up to the last moments of his life, despite the superhuman effort it represented for him, he con­tinued to reflect on the world situation and to discuss with the comrades who visited him in hospital; he continued, too, to pay attention to the slightest detail of the ICC’s life and functioning. For Marc, there was no such thing as “subordinate” questions or tasks which could be left to com­rades with less theoretical training. Just as he was always concerned that all the militants of the organisation should be capable of the greatest possible political clarity, and that the­oretical questions should not be reserved for “specialists”, so he never hesitated to “lend a hand” in all our practical daily activity. Marc has always given the ICC’s younger militants the example of a militant in the fullest sense, committing all his capacities to the life of this organism which is so vital for the proletariat: its revolutionary organisation. Our comrade always knew how to pass on to new generations of militants all the experience he had accumulated at many levels in the course of an exceptionally long and rich militant life. And these new generations could not fully gain such experience just by reading the political texts, but in the organisation’s daily life, and in Marc’s presence.

In this sense, Marc occupied a truly exceptional place in the life of the proletariat. The counter-revolution had elimi­nated, or frozen with sclerosis, the political organisations which the working class had secreted in the past. Marc was a bridge, and irreplaceable link between the revolutionary or­ganisations which took part in the revolutionary wave that followed World War I, and those which will confront the next revolutionary wave.

In his History of the Russian Revolution, Trotsky at one point considers the special and exceptional role played by Lenin. And although he adopts marxism’s classical theses on the role of the individual in history, he concludes that without Lenin to push the redressement and political “arming” of the Bolshevik Party, the revolution would not have taken place, or would have ended in defeat. It is clear that without Marc, the ICC would not exist today, or not in its present form, as the largest organisation in the international revolu­tionary milieu (not to mention the clarity of its positions, on which other revolutionary groups may, of course, have an opinion different from our own). In particular, his presence and activity prevented the enormous and fundamental work accomplished by the Left fractions, and especially the Italian Fraction, expelled from the Communist International, from falling into oblivion. On the contrary, this work was to bear fruit, and in this sense, although he was never known within the working class in the same way as Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg, or Trotsky, or even as Bordiga or Pannekoek (it could not be otherwise in the period of counter-revolution), we do not hesitate to say that his contribution to the prole­tarian struggle stands at the same level of his great predeces­sors.

Our comrade always detested this kind of comparison. Always, he carried out his tasks in the organisation with the greatest simplicity. Never did he demand the “place of hon­our” in the organisation. His greatest pride lay not in the ex­ceptional contribution he made, but in the fact that he had remained faithful in all his being to the combat of the prole­tariat. This too, is a precious lesson to the new generations of militants who have never had the opportunity to experience the immense devotion to the revolutionary cause of past gen­erations. It is on this level, above all, that we hope to rise to the combat. Though now without his presence, vigilant and clear-sighted, warm and passionate, we are determined to continue

ICC, 1991.

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] [75]. 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.

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

Marx said that the truth of a theory is demonstrated in practice. For the proletariat, 70 years of bitter experience have clearly resolved the debate on the national question in favour of the position developed by Rosa Luxemburg and then by the groups of the Communist Left, especially Bilan, Internationalisme and our Current. In the first part of this article we saw how support for "national liberation of the people" played a crucial role in the defeat of the first international proletarian revolutionary wave between 1917 and 1923 (see International Review no 66 [81]). In this second part we will see that the "national liberation" struggles have been an instrument of the imperialist wars and confrontations that have wracked the planet for the last 70 years.

1919-1945 THE IMPERIALIST MANOUEVRES BEHIND "NATIONAL LIBERATION"

The First World War marked the end of the ascendant period of capitalism and its plunge into the cesspit of the struggle between nation states for the division of the saturated world market. In this context the formation of new national states and the national liberation struggles were no longer an instrument for the expansion of capitalist relations and the development of the productive forces. Instead, they were converted into a cog in the generalised imperialist tensions between the different capitalist bandits. Already before the First World War, with the Balkan wars which gave Serbia, Montenegro, Albania etc their independence, Rosa Luxemburg had argued that these new nations were as imperialist as the old powers and were clearly insinuated into the bloody spiral towards generalised war:

"... Serbia is formally engaged in a national war of defence. But its monarchy and its ruling classes are filled with expansionist desires as are the ruling classes in all the modern states... Thus Serbia is today reaching out towards the Adriatic coast where it is fighting out a real imperialistic conflict with Italy on the backs of the Albanians... But above all this we must not forget: behind Serbian nationalism stands Russian imperialism" (The Junius Pamphlet, Chapter VII).

The world which emerged from the First World War was marked by the development of the revolutionary proletariat and this implied two counter posed historical perspectives: the extension of the world revolution or the survival of a decadent capitalism trapped in a spiral of crisis and wars. The crushing of the international proletariat's revolutionary wave signalled the frenzied sharpening of the tensions between the victorious bloc (Great Britain and France) and its powerful neighbour (Germany), aggravated by the expansion of the United States that threatened them all.

In this historical/world context 'national liberation' can not be seen from the point of view of the situation of just one country: "From the point of view of Marxism, in discussing imperialism it is absurd to restrict oneself to conditions in one country alone, since all capitalist countries are closely bound together. Now, in time of war, this bond has grown immeasurably stronger. All humanity is thrown into a tangled bloody heap from which no nation can extricate itself on its own. Though there are more or less advanced countries, this war has bound them all together by so many threads that escape from this tangle for any single country acting on its own is inconceivable," (Lenin, 'Intervention on the Report on the Present Situation, at the 7th (April) Conference of the RSDLP(B), Collected Works, Vol. 2, page 73).

Using this method we can understand how 'national liberation' has been turned into the saviour of the imperialist policy of all states: the direct victors of the First World War, Great Britain and France, used it to justify their dismemberment of the defeated empires (the Austro-Hungarian, the Ottoman and Czarist) and to build a cordon sanitaire around the October Revolution. The United States elevated it to a universal doctrine, the 'principal' of the Society of Nations, in order, on the one hand, to combat the Russian Revolution, and on the other, to undermine the colonial empires of Great Britain and France which constituted the main obstacle to their own imperialist expansion. From the early 1920s, faced with the Treaty of Versailles, Germany used its 'national liberation' as the banner for the recovery of its imperialist potential. The 'just' and 'progressive' principle of the 'national liberation of Germany’, which was defended in 1923 by the KPD and the Communist International after the Second Congress, was transformed by the Nazi Party into the 'Germany's right to living space'. For its part, Mussolini's Italy considered itself a 'proletarian nation' (a concept taken up later by the 'Marxist-Leninist' Mao-Tse-Tung) and demanded its 'natural rights' in Africa, the Balkans, etc.

The work of the treaty of Versailles

During the first years of the 1920's the victorious powers tried to implement a 'new world order' to serve their own interests. Its principle tool was the Treaty of Versailles (1919) officially based on 'democratic peace' and the 'right of self-determination', which granted independence to all the countries in Eastern and Central Europe: Finland, the Baltic countries, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Poland...

The independence of these countries served two objectives of British and French imperialism: on the one side, as we analysed in the 1st part of this series, to confront the Russian Revolution and, on the other, to create around defeated German imperialism a chain of hostile nations that would block its expansion into a zone which, for strategic, economic and historical reasons, constituted its natural area of influence.

The most devious machiavellianism could not have conceived of more unstable states, racked from the beginning by violent internal and external conflicts, obliged to submit to the tutelage of the great powers and to serve in their war games. Czechoslovakia contained two historical rivals, Czechs and Slovaks, and an important German minority in the Sudetenland; the Baltic states encompassed important Polish, Russian and German minorities; Romania housed Hungarians, Bulgaria had Turks; Poland the Germans... But the culmination of this work, without doubt, was Yugoslavia (today again rocked by a terrible bloodbath). This 'new' nation contained 6 nationalities with the most absurdly different levels of economic development one could imagine (from the economically developed Slovenia and Croatia to the semi-feudal Montenegro), whose areas of economic integration lay on the borders of neighbouring countries (Slovenia was complementary with Austria; Voivodina - part of Serbia - is a natural extension of the Hungarian plain; Macedonia is separated from the rest by mountains which connect it with Bulgaria and Greece), and it also contained Catholics, Orthodox Christians and Muslims who are longstanding religious rivals! Even worse, each of these 'nationalities' contains minorities of a neighbouring nationality and more ludicrous still, of neighbouring states - Serbia has Albanians and Hungarians; Croatia is home to Italians and Serbs; Bosnia-Herzegovina has Serbs, Muslims and Croats.

"The recently created small bourgeois states are merely the by-products of imperialism. A whole series of little nations have been created to give temporary support to imperialism - Austria, Hungary, Poland, Yugoslavia, Bohemia, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Armenia, Georgia, etc. Whether openly oppressed or officially protected, in reality they remain vassals. By dominating them by means of the banks, the railways, the monopoly of coal, imperialism condemns them to suffer from intolerable economic and national difficulties, interminable quarrels and bloody conflicts" (Second Congress of the Communist International: 'The Capitalist World and the Communist International, Part 1, International Relations since Versailles’).