For A Political Revolution At The Co-op - Part 5

Far from being swallowed up in a sea of capitalism, workers at
the Mondragon Co-ops in Spain have gone from strength to
strength, moving into high-tech production, the establishment
of a Co-operative University etc.  The workers enjoy pensions
way in excess of anything British workers can expect, and now
they have joined forces with the US Steelworkers Union to
spread worker-owned co-ops across North America.

In Parts 3 and 4, I looked at the suggestion by the AWL that the problems that arose at the Co-op, were inevitable, because worker-owned property will always be swallowed up by the sea of Capitalism that surrounds it, and so instead of trying to establish worker-owned property, workers should simply settle for that property to be owned by the Capitalist State, and to plead with it to allow them to exercise some form of democratic control over it. In other words, it is calling on workers to effectively give up all hope of Socialism – because what applies to a co-operative applies equally to a workers' state, unless a socialist revolution occurred in all the major countries of the world simultaneously – and instead to resign themselves to the idea of state capitalism with a human face! In effect, that is what the AWL have done in their undeclared Popular Front with that bourgeois state and with “Democratic Imperialism”.

In the 1930's, Stalin developed the idea of the
Popular Front, in which workers were told to
join with their bourgeois enemies to fight for
"democracy", and thereby to subordinate their
interests to those of capital.  In the post-war
period that was codified into the principle of
"peaceful co-existence", by which the USSR
agreed to restrain the working-class globally
in return for Imperialism leaving them alone
to develop "Socialism In One Country".  Today,
the AWL do the same thing, except their ambition
extends no further than a desire to build Fabian,
Welfare Socialism, which is no more than a form of
radical Liberal, state capitalism.

That, of course, has nothing to do with Marxism. It is merely an application of the idea of “Peaceful Co-existence” developed by Stalinism. As Hal Draper points out, in the quotes given in Part 4, the whole basis of Marx's approach was to foster the independent action of the working class from below in revolutionary opposition to the bourgeoisie and its state. Marx refers to the development of the workers' co-operatives, and the workers' democracy that is necessarily established upon it, within the bowels of Capitalism, as “Workers Self-Government”. It is why he and Engels opposed any invasion of that state on the workers affairs, and why he sought to restrict the expansion of the role of that state. Its why he sought to restrict how much that state could collect in taxes from the workers. So, in the Programme of the First International he wrote, in favour of direct rather than indirect taxation,

“Because indirect taxes conceal from an individual what he is paying to the state, whereas a direct tax is undisguised, unsophisticated, and not to be misunderstood by the meanest capacity. Direct taxation prompts therefore every individual to control the governing powers while indirect taxation destroys all tendency to self-government.”

Programme Of The First International 

The idea purveyed by the AWL that workers should plead with the capitalist state for property to be nationalised, and that they should then plead with that state to hand over control of that property to “the people” - democratic, social or popular control – let alone to the firm's workers is, of course, preposterous. Not, only was such a statist approach decried by Marx and Engels but the idea was also condemned by Trotsky much later. He wrote,

“It would of course be a disastrous error, an outright deception, to assert that the road to socialism passes, not through the proletarian revolution, but through nationalization by the bourgeois state of various branches of industry and their transfer into the hands of the workers’ organizations.”

Nationalised Industry and Workers Management 

Here, Trotsky is writing about the situation in Mexico, where a left-nationalist regime had nationalised the British oil companies, and sought support from the Mexican workers against foreign intervention. In order to obtain that support, the Mexican government attempted to involve the workers in the running of those enterprises. Faced with that position Trotsky addresses the question of what Marxists in Mexico should say to the Mexican workers. On the one hand, Marxists, for the reasons he gives above, cannot advocate nationalisation, and have to explain to the workers why any offer of “workers control” will be a trap. On the other, following Lenin's approach in “Left-Wing Communism”, nor could they simply call on the workers to have nothing to do with such an offer from the government, because the workers would not understand it. A similar problem existed in Britain in the 1970's, when a number of firms, in order to incorporate the workers put forward the idea of “profit-sharing schemes”. Trotsky writes,

The Cardenas Government attempted to draw in the Mexican
 workers to the running of the nationalised industries as a form of
Corporatism designed to provide defence against imperialism.
Trotsky argued that whilst Marxists cannot call for nationalisation,
and have to explain to workers the trap that "workers control" poses
under such conditions, nor could they tell workers to have nothing
to do with the government offer, because the workers would not
 understand such a position.  It would be a form of ultra-leftism.
Just because Marxists do not raise demands that are bourgeois demands
does not mean that we are "politically indifferent" to the policies that
different sections of the bourgeoisie pursue.  We seek to utilise whatever
we can to advance the position of workers.

“One can of course evade the question by citing the fact that unless the proletariat takes possession of the power, participation by the trade unions in the management of the enterprises of state capitalism cannot give socialist results. However, such a negative policy from the revolutionary wing would not be understood by the masses and would strengthen the opportunist positions. For Marxists it is not a question of building socialism with the hands of the bourgeoisie, but of utilizing the situations that present themselves within state capitalism and advancing the revolutionary movement of the workers.” 

That is a repetition of the position adopted by Marx in Political Indifferentism. There Marx makes exactly this point, that although Marxists do not advocate such state intervention, and have to explain to workers why it cannot provide them with any solution, nor does that mean that Marxists have to necessarily oppose such developments, where they offer workers potential advantages, or where they represent a relatively more progressive development – for example, as Lenin sets out in Imperialism. There Lenin, without advocating the establishment of capitalist monopolies, sets out why they are relatively progressive, and why, therefore, Marxists do not call for them to be broken up, or for a return to some kind of “free market”. Lenin quotes Hilferding approvingly,

““It is not the business of the proletariat,” writes Hilferding “to contrast the more progressive capitalist policy with that of the now bygone era of free trade and of hostility towards the state. The reply of the proletariat to the economic policy of finance capital, to imperialism, cannot be free trade, but socialism. The aim of proletarian policy cannot today be the ideal of restoring free competition—which has now become a reactionary ideal—but the complete elimination of competition by the abolition of capitalism.””

Lenin continues,

“Let us assume that free competition, without any sort of monopoly, would have developed capitalism and trade more rapidly. But the more rapidly trade and capitalism develop, the greater is the concentration of production and capital which gives rise to monopoly. And monopolies have already arisen—precisely out of free competition! Even if monopolies have now begun to retard progress, it is not an argument in favour of free competition, which has become impossible after it has given rise to monopoly.”

Back To Part 4

Forward To Part 6