Lenin summarises Mikhailovsky's argument so far, and sets out some of the conclusions Mikhailovsky draws from it. Mikhailovsky argues that materialism has not proved itself scientifically, and yet was spreading quickly amongst the German workers. Why? Because, he argues, instead of dealing with reality, it offers the workers the prospect of a better future under Socialism. Now, of course, there are some socialists who present the requirements for Socialism in this way. They present the argument for Socialism in these Idealist and Moralistic terms, and draw up schemes for such a socialist future. But, the characteristic feature of Marxism, of historical materialism, is that it does not do that. It utterly rejects such a basis for Socialism! As Lenin says,
“Everybody knows that scientific socialism never painted any prospects for the future as such: it confined itself to analysing the present bourgeois regime, to studying the trends of development of the capitalist social organisation, and that is all... Everybody knows that Capital, for instance—the chief and basic work in which scientific socialism is expounded—restricts itself to the most general allusions to the future and merely traces those already existing elements from which the future system grows.” (p 184-5)
It is not Marxism that argues for Socialism on that kind of Utopian, Idealistic and Moral basis, but the earlier socialist and communist movement of the type of Owen, Fourier and St. Simon. It was they who drew up their visions of a world of peace and harmony, of Little Icara, and so on. Marx and Engels rejected that view, instead basing themselves on a materialist analysis of reality, and how that reality was driving towards socialism, having already established socialised capital as a transitional form of property. What Marx and Engels realised was that social development does not flow from the ideas in the heads of people, no matter what geniuses they may be, but flows from material processes unfolding in society itself, of which the ideas are merely a mental reflection. It was these processes which created the working-class, and the actions of the working-class, in forming itself into a class for itself that is the material basis for the creation of Socialism.
“Nevertheless, despite the whole phalanx of very talented people who expounded these ideas, and despite the most firmly convinced socialists, their theories stood aloof from life and their programmes were not connected with the political movements of the people until large-scale machine industry drew the mass of proletarian workers into the vortex of political life, and until the true slogan of their struggle was found.” (p 185)
As Lenin says, it is no coincidence that the working-class movement spreads wherever large-scale machine industry spreads.
“... the socialist doctrine is successful precisely when it stops arguing about social conditions that conform to human nature and sets about making a materialist analysis of contemporary social relations and explaining the necessity for the present regime of exploitation.” (p 186)
Mikhailovsky scoffed at the idea that Socialism would flow from the continued effect of the concentration and centralisation of capital, which transforms it into socialised capital, alongside the mobilisation of millions of workers who take control of this socialised capital. Instead, Mikhailovsky proposed the idea that Socialism would arise from the fact that The Friends of the People would set out the “clear and unalterable” paths of the “desired economic evolution”, “and then these friends of the people will most likely “be called in” to solve “practical economic problems” (see the article “Problems of Russia’s Economic Development” by Mr. Yuzhakov in Russkoye Bogatstvo, No. 11) and meanwhile—meanwhile the workers must wait, must rely on the friends of the people and not begin, with “unjustified self-assurance,” an independent struggle against the exploiters.” (p 186)
The “anti-capitalists” and “anti-imperialists” of today adopt a similar approach, as though capitalism and socialism are not only two distinct modes of production, but that they flow down two entirely separate historical channels. Yet, what Marx's analysis shows is that Socialism and Capitalism, where the latter was established, flow down the same historical channel; the latter being the precursor of, and and necessary condition for the former. Does that mean that Socialism could not emerge somewhere in conditions in which capitalism has not previously existed? No. That was the point Marx made in his letter to Zasulich. But, then, the requirement for that is that Socialism has been created elsewhere, providing a model and the resources for others to follow its lead.
That is also the point that Marx made in his letter to Zasulich, but also that Engels made in his letter to Danielson. There Engels makes the point that, in the actual existing conditions, the best hope for Russia did indeed reside in its own rapid capitalist development. Engels makes a similar point in a letter to Kautsky in relation to Colonialism, saying that, after a socialist revolution, in the West, any national revolution in the colonies, such as India, would have to be allowed to run its course, because the workers in the West would have their own hands full reorganising their own societies.
In the period after 1917, it was, of course, right that the Comintern could orientate towards the Colonial Revolution, and attempt to build real communist movements in those countries, so that the national revolution and proletarian revolution could be combined in a process of permanent revolution. The USSR could act as both a model, and an umbrella under which such revolutions could shelter, thereby stepping over the capitalist stage of development. The Third World Movement was a typically bureaucratised and bastardised form of that model. It meant that bourgeois-nationalist movements, often resting on a state capitalist economy, with a Bonapartist regime, could model itself on the Bonapartist regime in Moscow. At the same time, their “non-aligned” status enabled them to simultaneously play off the imperialist states, in the search for favours, in a way that is parodied in “The Mouse that Roared”.
But, in the same way that the deformed workers states could offer no way forward, without a political revolution to overthrow the ruling bureaucratic caste, nor could the bastardised replica of those regimes offer any way forward in developing economies either. When, eventually, this reality manifested itself, with the collapse of the USSR and its satellites, in 1990, so too this alternative route for the industrialising economies was closed down with it. Today, with no socialist bulwark to provide a model, or the resources required, industrialising economies are placed in the same position as Russia towards the end of the 19th century. Their best hope is a rapid development of capitalism, both to raise them up from their current low levels, but also to more rapidly create the conditions for the transition to Socialism. Yet, like Mikhailovsky, the “anti-imperialists”, in particular, want to deny the industrialising economies that potential. As subjectivists, they want them to somehow travel down some separate, unknown route to Socialism, avoiding the horrors of capitalism, not only conjuring up all of the resources and means of production for such a transition out of thin air, but also arriving at a fully formed class consciousness as a pure act of will, a mental leap, ungrounded by any objective material basis. And, we are assured that this represents Marxism!
No comments:
Post a Comment