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Stalin and The Chinese Revolution, 9. Against The Opposition - For The Guomindang - Part 2 of 2

Attacking this Marxist position, the Stalinists of the ECCI, said, in relation to China, at its Eighth Plenum,

“The ECCI rejects most determinedly the demand to leave the Guomindang ... The Guomindang in China is precisely that specific form of organization where the proletariat collaborates directly with the petty bourgeoisie and the peasantry.” (p 275)

In other words, rather than the KMT being the party of the bourgeoisie, it was the realisation of the Stalinist concept of the “two-class workers and peasants party”. Trotsky cites the words of Rafes in the theoretical journal of the CPSU, whose argument could come from the mouths of social-imperialists, today.

““Our Russian Opposition, as is known, also considers it necessary for the Communists to leave the Guomindang. A consistent defence of this viewpoint would lead the adherents of the policy to leave the Guomindang, to the famous formula proclaimed by comrade Trotsky in 1917: 'Without a tsar, but a labour government!’, which, for China, might have been changed in form: 'Without the militarists, but a labour government!’ We have no reason to listen to such consistent defenders of leaving the Guomindang.” [Proletarskaya Revolyutsiya, p.54.]” (p 276)

The social-imperialists, today, adopt the same stance, to support NATO/Zelensky, in the case of one camp, and Putin/China in the other camp. Token references to the Ukrainian and Russian workers are thrown in, in order to give left cover to the reactionary war being fought by both sides, shrouded also in the psychedelic fantasy of a “people's war”, as against the reality of the actual war being fought out by two not only heavily armed, but nuclear armed imperialist camps.

“The slogan of Stalin-Rafes was: “Without the workers, but with Chiang Kai-shek!” “Without the peasants, but with Wang Jingwei!” “Against the Opposition, but for the Guomindang!”” (p 276)

Today, the slogan of the social-imperialists is 'against the Marxists and International Socialism, but with NATO and Zelensky', in one camp, and 'with Putin/China' in its mirror image. And, illustrating the hypocrisy of the AWL, whilst they argue this position that not defending “Ukraine” is equal to supporting Russia, when it comes to the Zionists genocidal massacre of Palestinians in Gaza, not only are they silent in arguing that failure to defend Gaza is equal to supporting the Zionist state, but they vociferously proclaim the right of that Zionist state to “defend itself”!

Back To Part 1

Value, Price and Profit, IV – Supply and Demand - Part 1 of 2

IV – Supply and Demand

Weston only argued against rising wages on the basis of the supposed negative economic consequences that flowed from it for workers themselves. But, as part of this argument, he spoke in purely subjective terms about wages being high or low. However, to talk about wages being high or low is meaningless, unless it is stated against what they are being compared, and also, to state what metric is being used. If we take temperature, then, measured in centigrade, the boiling point of water is 100 and freezing 0. In Fahrenheit, however, it is 212, and 32. So, to say that 100 degrees is hot is meaningless, unless we know whether this is 100 degrees Centigrade or Fahrenheit. However, 100 degrees of either may be described as hot compared to 0 degrees of the same metric, but is meaningless without this comparison.

It is not the whim of makers of thermometers that determines the boiling point is 100 degrees centigrade, and the freezing point 0 degrees. They are determined by natural laws. As Marx sets out, in Capital and elsewhere, the values of commodities, of which labour-power is one, are determined, not by natural, but by economic laws. It only makes sense to describe wages as high or low when compared to such objectively determined value.

“He will be unable to tell me why a certain amount of money is given for a certain amount of labour. If he should answer me, “This was settled by the law of supply and demand,” I should ask him, in the first instance, by what law supply and demand are themselves regulated.” (p 35)

Supply and demand, as Marx sets out in Capital, and Theories of Surplus Value, can never explain the actual value or price of a commodity, including labour-power. They can only explain movements of market prices, up or down. If demand exceeds supply, market prices move up, and vice versa. But, this movement, up or down, implies a movement away from some other price, a price at which both supply and demand would be equal – the equilibrium price, as orthodox economics calls it.

But, then, at this price, the power of demand and supply to explain anything ceases, because it is no longer a question of explaining why the market price moves up or down, but of explaining why it is £1 rather than £10, or £100. To say, as the subjectivists, like Samuel Bailey, or the neoclassical economists, did that it is because, at this price, the sellers of commodities are prepared to sell, just as much of the given commodity as consumers want to buy is no answer at all, because it simply pushes the analysis back a further step to the question of why sellers are prepared to sell that quantity, at that price, and why buyers demand that quantity at that price. Marx sets this out, at great length, in Theories of Surplus Value, Chapter 20.

The reason that sellers are prepared to sell a given quantity, at a particular price, is that the commodity, itself, has an objectively determined value, which, in a money economy, takes the form of a cost of production. The producer of the commodity will not, willy-nilly, produce the commodity in quantities that can only be sold at prices below this cost of production. The value/cost of production of the commodity, then, becomes the determining factor. If suppliers can sell the commodity at this value, they will produce and supply it. If not, some of the least efficient suppliers will go out of business, and supply will be reduced, so that market prices will rise, and remaining producers can sell their output. If demand exceeds the supply, so that suppliers get more than the cost of production, they will be incentivized to produce more, and additional suppliers will enter production.

Back To III - Currency and Wages

Stalin and The Chinese Revolution, 9. Against the Opposition – For the Guomindang - Part 1 of 2

9. Against the Opposition – For the Guomindang

The Opposition argued for leaving the KMT. Did this mean abandoning the revolution? Of course not. As Marx had set out, in 1850, it does not prevent the workers from establishing tactical alliances with other forces, on an ad hoc, or even more structured basis. What it does do is to protect the class interests of workers, emphasise their separate and antagonistic interests to those of the bourgeoisie, petty-bourgeoisie, and peasantry. It emphasises that, at some point, these bourgeois classes will betray them, and prepares for it.

Today, when Marxists argue against supporting the war of the Ukrainian state, this is presented as abandoning the defence of Ukrainian workers. Not at all. We argue that such defence can only, really, be achieved by the independent organisation of those workers, and not by their subordination to the Ukrainian capitalist state, or Zelensky's corrupt regime. The same applies to Russian workers. The liberal opportunist position, in that regard is the same as that put forward by the Russian liberal Ivan Kirillovic, in 1912, to justify liberal interventionism by imperialism in the Balkan Wars. Kirillovic argued in identical words to that of the social-imperialists today,

“... we can't shut our eyes to the fact that what is involved here is the liberation of Slav people from Turkish rule. Not to sympathise with such a war, not to support it, would simply mean to support, indirectly if not directly, Turkish rule over Slavs.”

(The Balkan Wars, p 325)

Rejecting this idea that socialists and the working-class have the same shared goal as “liberal” or “democratic” imperialism, in overthrowing such oppression, Trotsky wrote, in response to Kirillovich,

“The emancipation of the Macedonian peasantry from feudal landlord bondage was undoubtedly something necessary and historically progressive. But this task was undertaken by forces that had in view not the interests of the Macedonian peasantry but their own covetous interests as dynastic conquerors and bourgeois predators...No, there is consequently no need to idealise the Turkish regime or the regime of Russia's village community in order to express at the same time one's uncompromising distrust of the uninvited 'liberators' and to refuse any solidarity with them.”

(ibid)

Trotsky, expanded on that, in a response to the Russian liberal Miliukov,

“But it is not at all a matter of indifference by what methods this emancipation is being accomplished. The method of “liberation” that is being followed today means the enslavement of Macedonia to the personal regime in Bulgaria and to Bulgarian militarism; it means, moreover, the strengthening of reaction in Bulgaria itself... only a struggle against the usurpation of history's tasks by the present masters of the situation will educate the Balkan peoples to play the role of superseding not only Turkish despotism but also those who, for their own reactionary purposes, are, by their own barbarous methods, now destroying that despotism...

Our agitation, on the contrary, against the way that history's problems are at present being solved, goes hand in hand with the work of the Balkan Social Democrats. And when we denounce the bloody deeds of the Balkan 'liberation' from above we carry forward the struggle not only against liberal deception of the Russian masses but also against enslavement of the Balkan masses.”

(ibid, p 293-4)

Back To 8. Stalin Repeats His Experiment with the “Left” Guomindang

Forward To Part 2

Genocide Joe Gone. No To Holocaust Harris

Genocide Joe has, eventually, stood down as the Democrat candidate for the Whitehouse, despite the fact that it has been clear for at least a year that he was not in full control of his faculties, and was gifting the election to Trump. The reason the Democrat establishment ignored that, and pressed ahead with his nomination, was always relatively clear, and has, now, been confirmed. They knew that if Biden stood aside, it would open the door to a political debate and struggle, inside the party, over which they did not have full control, as seen in the last two elections when they had to pull out all the bureaucratic stops to prevent Bernie Sanders getting the nomination. By leaving it until last minute, just as with the selections of Labour MP's, it put control in the hands of the party machinery, allowing them to by-pass even the limited party democracy.

By waiting until what is, for US elections, seen as the last minute, before Genocide Joe stood aside, it has avoided any internal political debate and struggle, based around alternative candidates, and means that they were able to just effectively impose Holocaust Harris as their chosen candidate, instead. In reality, of course, there is plenty of time to have a democratic selection process inside the party, to select a candidate, because the election is not until November. As some US commentators have noted, in Britain and other European countries, the election campaign is conducted in just six weeks, meaning that the Democrats really don't need to have chosen a nominee until around the end of September.

The reason, the Democrat establishment is saying there is no time, is because that plays into their hands of saying they must simply crown Holocaust Harris as their candidate for elected US Monarch, again indicating the sham nature of bourgeois-democracy. Indeed, the reason that the US electoral system has, historically, been such a prolonged affair, is simply a reflection of its, actually, undemocratic and sham nature, in which what really counts is money, and the backing of powerful sections of the US ruling class. The nature of primaries, as a means of selecting candidates for parties removes the real power of rank and file members of the party, enabling anyone who simply registers as a supporter of the party, to have a say in the selection of the candidate, including people who, actually, support the opposing party! It means that, in a system where the political differences between the two parties are minimal, a long election period reduces it to a slanging match of personal insults, and accusations, conveyed via very, very expensive advertising campaigns.

As an indication of that, in the first 24 hours, after Genocide Joe stepped aside, Holocaust Harris received $100 million in campaign donations. Its all a Kabuki Theatre show version of democracy. In 2020, Harris was a potential candidate, but only managed to secure around 2% of support from Democrats (about like Liz Kendall against Corbyn in 2015), and there is no reason to think she would have done better in an actual competitive race, this time. The Democrat establishment knew that. In fact, she would undoubtedly have done worse.

Although, the narrative is being presented that Harris's position, on the genocide being committed by the Zionist state against Palestinians, is better than that of Genocide Joe, the reality is that she has been stood alongside him all the way through it, as have other leading Democrats, not to mention all those European leads, like Scholz, Van Der Lyen, Macron, and Starmer, whose actions quite clearly, now, as a result of the findings of the ICC and ICJ, amount to them being guilty of war crimes. Of course, none of them will ever be hauled before the court to answer for that, again demonstrating the sham nature of bourgeois-democracy and the so called international rules based system.

The Democrat establishment may be able to convince a sizeable number of Democrat voters, over the coming months, that Holocaust Harris should not be held accountable for the war crimes committed by Genocide Joe, as they scramble, now, to get the votes of Arab and Palestinian Americans, but they would never have been able to convince the rank and file members of the party of that, as many of them, already refused to vote for Biden in selection meetings earlier in the year.

As Starmer found, in Britain, and as Macron found in France, their bet that these voters would hold their nose and vote for them, rather than see a Sunak or Le Pen elected, failed. Macron's party got smashed, in the European elections, and has only been saved in the subsequent Assembly elections by a rotten bloc, Popular Front, that stood down candidates in support of them, in the second round, thereby, undermining its own position in the coming months, and ahead of the next Presidential elections.

In Britain, Starmer's reactionary nationalist, Blue Labour performed worse than Corbyn's Labour, in terms of votes, in 2019, which was supposed to have been the worst performance since 1939. Compared to Corbyn's Labour, in 2017, Blue Labour obtained a third less votes, and lost 6% points of the vote share (a drop of around 16%).  Even in those seats it targeted its activity, Blue Labour either lost votes, or barely increased them, compared to, even, 2019.  Compared to 2017, in every seat, almost without exception, it lost votes, and vote share compared to Corbyn's Labour.  It was only the intervention of its fellow reactionary nationalists of Reform that split the Conservative vote in half, which enabled Labour to win.  In every seat, add together the Reform and Conservative vote, and Blue Labour would have lost, reducing its overall position in parliament, again, to worse than that of Corbyn's Labour in 2019!

So, clearly, the Democrat establishment need to have time to put billions of dollars into propaganda, to sell the line that Holocaust Harris is not just the lesser-evil compared to Trump, but that she had a better position on genocide in Gaza than Genocide Joe. She didn't, and doesn't, and there is no reason to think that as President there would be any real change in position. There will be no ending of the massive arms supplies to the Zionist rogue state, no recognition of the genocide it is undertaking, and so on. And, as Owen Jones has pointed out, the line is being given that the issue over Biden was his senility and mental state, but the reality is that he was and is a monster, just as much as Putin, or Xi, or any of the other imperialist butchers around the world. 

As Genocide Joe had said decades ago, if Israel didn't exist, the US would have to have created it, as it is the means of US imperialism exerting its will across the Middle-East. From the early 60's, the only reason that the Zionist state has continued to exist, is because US imperialism has enabled it to do so, and, indeed, to expand in line with its Zionist, colonialist nature. US imperialism is not going to demur from that position, now that the Zionists are on the brink of wiping out the Palestinians, much as the US did with the Native Americans, and British colonialism did with the aborigines in Australia, in the 19th century.

But its not just that Holocaust Harris is as responsible as Genocide Joe for US support for the Zionists, she is also responsible for all of the other policies of Biden during that period. In supporting Harris from attacks by Trumpists, Democrats have praised her role in jailing illegal immigrants, for example! There is no reason to think that Harris position on immigration will be any more progressive than that of Biden., and the same applies in a whole range of other anti-working class policies implemented by Biden-Harris over the last four years.

The Democrat establishment have also played the identity politics card.  How will it look to oppose the first black, woman candidate they protest, as though colour and gender have anything to do with the politics of the candidate.  As I wrote at the time of Obama's victory, in 2008, anyone expecting him to improve things for black Americans would be sadly disappointed.  That hasn't changed, and Harris record, as a prosecutor was pretty appalling in that regard too.  Again, for anyone deluded by the claims of the identity politics argument, I give you the examples of Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May, in Britain, or currently, Marine le Pen, and Meloni in Italy.

This shows why workers in the US, as elsewhere, need an independent, revolutionary party of their own.

Value, Price and Profit, III - Wages and Currency - Part 4 of 4

As Marx described in A Contribution To The Critique of Political Economy, if the total value of commodities to be circulated rises, either because the average unit value rises, but the volume remains the same, or because the average unit value remains the same/falls, but the volume expands, more currency is required, if the velocity of circulation remains constant, and the amount of credit transactions is unchanged – MV = PT. If the total value of commodities to be circulated falls, then, inter alia, if the amount of currency is not reduced, the unit value of the standard of prices falls, and unit prices rise.

But, as Marx sets out, in fact, as economies expand, a greater proportion of exchanges take place on the basis of credit, thereby, reducing, proportionally, the amount of currency required. A quickened pace of economic activity, means also a rise in the velocity of circulation of currency, and proportional reduction in the quantity required. When Weston and Marx refer to currency, they mean, here, gold coins, because of the convertibility into gold of money tokens.

“Compare the year 1862 with 1842. Apart from the immense increase in the value and amount of commodities circulated, in 1862 the capital paid in regular transactions for shares, loans, etc. for the railways in England and Wales amounted alone to 320,000,000 Pounds, a sum that would have appeared fabulous in 1842. Still, the aggregate amounts in currency in 1862 and 1842 were pretty nearly equal, and generally you will find a tendency to a progressive diminution of currency in the face of enormously increasing value, not only of commodities, but of monetary transactions generally. From our friend Weston's standpoint this is an unsolvable riddle.” (p 32-3)

Why was that? Because, in the intervening period – a long wave uptrend, ran from 1843 to 1865 – an increasing proportion of trade was conducted on the basis of credit transactions, paper bank notes increased, replacing gold coins, and improved banking raised the velocity of circulation.

“Looking somewhat deeper into this matter, he would have found that, quite apart from wages, and supposing them to be fixed, the value and mass of the commodities to be circulated, and generally the amount of monetary transactions to be settled, vary daily; that the amount of bank-notes issued varies daily; that the amount of payments realized without the intervention of any money, by the instrumentality of bills, cheques, book-credits, clearing houses, varies daily; that, as far as actual metallic currency is required, the proportion between the coin in circulation and the coin and bullion in reserve or sleeping in the cellars of banks varies daily; that the amount of bullion absorbed by the national circulation and the amount being sent abroad for international circulation vary daily. He would have found that this dogma of a fixed currency is a monstrous error, incompatible with our everyday movement. He would have inquired into the laws which enable a currency to adapt itself to circumstances so continually changing, instead of turning his misconception of the laws of currency into an argument against a rise of wages.” (p 33)

Back To Part 3

Forward To IV - Supply and Demand