And Lenin, again, in attacking the Narodniks, also sets out the inadequacy of those ideas that underlie the position of today's “anti-capitalists” and “anti-imperialists”. The social-democrats were accused of wanting to monopolise Marx's theory, whereas it was suggested all socialists accepted his economic theory. Something similar could be said today. Marx explained profit on the basis of the exploitation of labour, and production of surplus value, but, listen to many of the “anti-capitalists”, and their argument is often based upon complaints against monopoly, or the non-payment of taxes and so on. Listen to the “anti-imperialists” and their complaints and theories are based on a return to Mercantilist theories about profit deriving from unequal exchange, super-exploitation and so on.
“... what sense is there in explaining to the workers the form of value, the nature of the bourgeois system and the revolutionary role of the proletariat, if here in Russia the exploitation of the working people is generally and universally explained not by the bourgeois organisation of social economy, but by, say, land poverty, redemption payments, or the tyranny of the authorities?
What sense is there in explaining to the worker the theory of the class struggle, if that theory cannot even explain his relation to the employer (capitalism in Russia has been artificially implanted by the government), not to mention the mass of the “people,” who do not belong to the fully established class of factory workers?
How can one accept Marx’s economic theory and its corollary—the revolutionary role of the proletariat as the organiser of communism by way of capitalism—if people in our country try to find ways to communism other than through the medium of capitalism and the proletariat it creates?” (p 293)
Failing to explain all of these things to the workers, whilst calling on them to fight for political liberty would be to call on the workers to act purely as footsoldiers for the bourgeoisie, and today the demands of the “anti-capitalists” and “anti-imperialists” amount to calls for workers to be footsoldiers of the petty-bourgeoisie. The workers had an interest in the most rapid development of capitalism, because it is by that means that they can then proceed to Socialism, and similarly, the workers have an interest in political liberty, because it is on that basis that they can best fight against their oppression both from feudal institutions and by capital.
“... political liberty will primarily serve the interests of the bourgeoisie and will not ease the position of the workers, but . . . will ease only the conditions for their struggle . . . against this very bourgeoisie. I say this as against those socialists who, while they do not accept the theory of the Social-Democrats, carry on their agitation among the workers, having become convinced empirically that only among the latter are revolutionary elements to be found. The theory of these socialists contradicts their practice, and they make a very serious mistake by distracting the workers from their direct task of ORGANISING A SOCIALIST WORKERS’ PARTY.” (p 294)
At a time when bourgeois relations were at an early stage of development, it was understandable that a democratic opposition to absolutism should engender the idea of common interests between liberals and socialists. Indeed, they did share a common objective in opposing absolutism, but they did not share a common objective in terms of the end goal. For the bourgeoisie, the end goal was the defeat of absolutism and feudal relations, and the domination of bourgeois relations. For the workers that was not an end goal, but merely a temporary and necessary transitional phase, on the road to Socialism. In the same way, today, the “anti-capitalists” and “anti-imperialists”, in specifying only these objectives of what they are “anti”, do not specify what they are “pro”, and so align themselves with petty-bourgeois reactionary forces whose goal has nothing to do with Socialism or the interests of workers, but whose end goal is simply a return to more primitive forms of bourgeois relations.
“There are two ways of arriving at the conclusion that the worker must be roused to fight absolutism: either by regarding the worker as the sole fighter for the socialist system, and therefore seeing political liberty as one of the conditions facilitating his struggle; that is the view of the Social-Democrats or by appealing to him simply as the one who suffers most from the present system, who has nothing more to lose and who can display the greatest determination in fighting absolutism. But that would mean compelling the worker to drag in the wake of the bourgeois radicals, who refuse to see the antagonism between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat behind the solidarity of the whole “people” against absolutism.” (Note *, p 294)
The only difference, here, today, is that the “anti-capitalists” and “anti-imperialists” want the workers to drag in the wake of the petty-bourgeoisie.
No comments:
Post a Comment