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

 

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[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

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[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.