The Chinese Revolution and The Theses of Comrade Stalin - Part 13 of 47

Trotsky quotes Lenin, at length, from March 1917, to illustrate this point. To defeat Tsarism, Lenin says, its not necessary for the workers to support the government, but for the government to support the workers.

“For the only guarantee of freedom and of the final destruction of tsarism is the arming of the proletariat, the consolidation, the extension, the development of the role, the significance, and the power of the workers’ and soldiers’ soviets.” (p 26)

All else is bourgeois lies and deception, Lenin says.

“Our revolution is a bourgeois revolution, therefore the workers must support the bourgeoisie; that is what the worthless politicians from the camp of the liquidators say. Our revolution is a bourgeois revolution, say we, the Marxists; therefore the workers must open the eyes of the people to the deception of the bourgeois politicians, must teach it to put no trust in words, to rely upon its own forces, its own organization, its own unity, its own arms.”” (p 26)

In 1917, after the February Revolution, the Mensheviks argued that, in, now, supporting a continuation of the war, they were not engaged in bourgeois-defencism, but in “revolutionary-defencism”. Stalin, Zinoviev and Kamenev also adopted this position, until Lenin intervened. The concept required acceptance of the idea that what existed in Russia was some type of non-class state, because, not even the Mensheviks claimed it was a workers' state, and to have admitted it was still a bourgeois state, would mean accepting that any support for continuing the war, then, amounted to bourgeois-defencism/social-patriotism.

The Stalinists adopted the same position in China, in proposing the Popular Front of the “bloc of four classes”, and merging the Chinese communists into the KMT. They perpetrated the same betrayal in the Spanish Revolution, in the French Popular Front, Czech Popular Front, and Brazilian Popular Front. In the 1970's, the Popular Front government of Allende proved to be another such disaster that was swept aside by Pinochet's coup.

This same deception, and popular frontism, is the basis of the position of the USC, in relation to Ukraine, but worse. Ukrainian workers have no part in the Ukrainian government, which is as corrupt and vile as that of Putin in Russia. Yet, the USC would still have us believe that this government, and its war backed by NATO, is, somehow, a “people's war”, i.e. a war of all Ukrainian “people”, devoid of any class content whatsoever, or even more bizarrely, somehow, a war waged by Ukrainian workers that socialists should support!

The popular front position of the Stalinists, in China, saw the USSR arming the KMT, and, yet, as with Spain, in 1936, Chile, in 1973, and Ukraine, today, the great mass of workers remained unarmed, and unorganised into an independent workers militia.

“Matters had gone so far on this track, that on the eve of Chiang Kai-shek’s coup d’état, Pravda, in order to expose the Opposition, proclaimed that revolutionary China was not being ruled by a bourgeois government but by a “government of the bloc of four classes”.” (p 27)

The pro-imperialists of the USC, of course, are not so brazen as to claim that Zelensky's government is a popular front government, though they do continually try to deny its corrupt and authoritarian nature, as well as its links to the Nazis of the Azov Battalion and Right Sector, and the extent to which its strings are pulled by NATO imperialism. But, that simply makes their position all the more untenable, in trying to claim that its war is a “people's war”, a national liberation war, and so on.

The position of the Stalinists provoked no opposition, from within the Comintern, and, today, the same approach not only provokes no opposition, in relation to Ukraine, from large sections of a “left” that claims some descent from Trotskyism, but is advocated by it!

“Yet it is tantamount to trampling under foot the fundamental principles of Marxism. It reproduces the crudest features of Russian and international Menshevism, applied to the conditions of the Chinese revolution.” (p 27)

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Chapter 1 – A Scientific Discovery, 2. Constituted Value or Synthetic Value - Part 14 of 20

In a society where little was required of unskilled workers, as machine minders, and where almost limitless supplies of such labour seemed available, as it left the countryside for the towns, multiplied rapidly due to its predominantly young demographic, such a view was understandable. However, Marx sets out, in Capital I, that, quickly, these conditions killed off three generations of workers in the space of one generation, and the health of workers deteriorated to an extent that it risked the destruction of the labour-power itself upon which the system was based.

As Engels pointed out, in the note cited earlier, this view, expressed here, reflects that earlier concept of immiseration they both subsequently dropped. As Marx sets out in The Grundrisse, the basic means by which capital minimises the costs of reproducing labour-power is by revolutionising production, raising productivity, and so cheapening wage goods, but, also, as set out in The Civilising Mission of Capital, must also continually expand the consumption horizons of workers. By doing so, it creates a market for ever wider ranges of commodities, without which it cannot realise the surplus value created in production.

Moreover, the nature of the worker in production and society is changed. The worker must become educated, as a worker, consumer and citizen, and resources spent on producing such labour-power requires that it continue to function for as long as possible, both in terms of lifespan and days available for work. That required them to be maintained in good condition, as with an expensive machine, which requires not only healthcare, and reasonable living conditions, but, more importantly, wholesome food. That creates a contradiction in the interests of capital in general, and capital at the level of the firm, i.e. of many capitals, as set out in The Grundrisse.

“To return to M. Proudhon's thesis: the moment the labour time necessary for the production of an article ceases to be the expression of its degree of utility, the exchange value of this same article, determined beforehand by the labour time embodied in it, becomes quite usable to regulate the true relation of supply to demand, that is, the proportional relation in the sense M. Proudhon attributes to it at the moment.” (p 61)

Marx explains that in Theories of Surplus Value, Chapter 20. He gives the example of knives. Their value may fall to a sixth of what it was, as a result of a rise in productivity, manifest in a six-fold rise in their output. However, just because the price of six knives is now only that previously of one, it does not mean I will buy six rather than one. My demand for knives depends on whether I have a need for more of them.

Conversely, if the demand for knives rises, suppliers will seek to increase their supply to match it, because, in doing so, they will make more profit. However, it may be that, to increase supply involves increased costs/diminishing returns. If the costs rise to such an extent as to wipe out the profit, then capital would not increase production/supply. Market prices would then rise, as demand exceeds supply. Some of the more efficient producers might, then, be able to increase production, and still make profits, increasing their market share.

“It is not the sale of a given product at the price of its cost of production that constitutes the “proportional relation” of supply to demand, or the proportional quota of this product relatively to the sum total of production; it is the variations in supply and demand that show the producer what amount of a given commodity he must produce in order to receive in exchange at least the cost of production. And as these variations are continually occurring, there is also a continual movement of withdrawal and application of capital in the different branches of industry.” (p 61)

There is no fixed, constituted proportion, Marx says, only a continual movement, in which demand and supply fluctuate. He gives Ricardo's account of that movement.

“It is only in consequence of such variations that capital is apportioned precisely, in the requisite abundance and no more, to the production of the different commodities which happen to be in demand. With the rise or fall of price, profits are elevated above, or depressed below their general level, and capital is either encouraged to enter into, or is warned to depart from, the particular employment in which the variation has taken place.”

“When we look at the markets of a large town, and observe how regularly they are supplied both with home and foreign commodities, in the quantity in which they are required, under all the circumstances of varying demand, arising from the caprice of taste, or a change in the amount of population, without often producing either the effects of a glut from a too abundant supply, or an enormously high price from the supply being unequal to the demand, we must confess that the principle which apportions capital to each trade in the precise amount that is required, is more active than is generally supposed.” (p 61-2)

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The Chinese Revolution and The Theses of Comrade Stalin - Part 12 of 47

Lenin, in 1917, raised the demand for the Constituent Assembly, in conditions where the bourgeois revolution was underway, and was seeing the establishment of workers, peasants and soldiers soviets. It was these revolutionary organs which, for Lenin, were the means of establishing the Constituent Assembly, and, as with Trotsky's approach, in The Action Programme, the purpose of doing so was not any thought of supporting bourgeois-democracy, as some kind of good in itself, or means of obtaining breathing space, but was because large sections of workers and peasant retained illusions in it that had to be shattered in its practice.

Would that happen? No one could say in advance; history would decide, but, as Marx set out in the 1850 Address, the independent organisation of the workers, arms in hand, was a necessary means of making it more difficult for the bourgeoisie to deceive them, and to use the institutions of bourgeois-democracy against them. It creates the potential for the growing over into the proletarian revolution, and guards against counter-revolution.

“The slogan of the Constituent Assembly becomes an empty abstraction, often simple charlatanry, if one does not add who will convoke it and with what program. Chiang Kai-shek can raise the slogan of a Constituent Assembly against us even tomorrow, just as he has now raised his “workers’ and peasants’ program” against us. We want a Constituent Assembly convoked not by Chiang Kai-shek but by the executive committee of the workers’ and peasants’ soviets. That is the only serious and sure road.” (p 24)

Compare that with the Menshevist position of those on “the Left”, today, who argue the case to “support” bourgeois-democracy, when its under attack from fascists, a line also taken by the USC to justify a popular front with NATO and the Ukrainian capitalist state, against Russian “fascism”. Bukharin, who acted as Stalin's attorney, during this period, justified the popular front (bloc of four classes) by referring to the prevalence of feudalism in the Chinese economy, which plays the same role as “fascism”, as justification for popular frontism, by opportunists, today. Even were Bukharin's claims correct, Trotsky notes, it would be no more justification than was the existence of feudal remnants in Russia in 1917. In 1917, had the Bolsheviks adopted that position, they would have been in no position to have mobilised against the coup by Kornilov. In China, it meant that they were disarmed when that coup was undertaken by Chiang Kai Shek.

“No matter how great the specific weight of the typically “feudal” elements in Chinese economy may be they can be swept away only in a revolutionary way, and consequently not in alliance with the bourgeoisie but in direct struggle against it.” (p 25)

In an undeveloped, agrarian economy, like China, as with Russia, the agrarian question cannot be resolved by legislation from above, as it had been in Britain, France and most of Western Europe. The raising of agricultural productivity requires a development of industry, in the towns. That not only provides the machines required, but it also means that it provides the industrial commodities for consumption that the peasants require, now that domestic production is destroyed.

In Russia, that was supposed to be the basis of the smytchka, the alliance between workers and peasants. But, industrial production lagged, and did not provide the commodities the peasants needed. Peasants held back their production, as agricultural prices fell, and industrial prices rose – the Scissors Crisis – a gap that continued to widen, like the blades of scissors. That led to administrative seizures of peasants production, which, in turn, provoked a rebellion by peasants, destruction of commodities and so on.

The fact that, in such conditions, revolutionaries support the forms of the bourgeois revolution should not be confused with the different substance contained in the position of the revolutionaries compared to that of the reformists. To quote Lenin from a different context, the revolutionaries support bourgeois-democracy in the same way that a rope supports a hanged man. For the Stalinists to have cited the bourgeois nature of the Chinese revolution, against the Trotskyists, simply exposed this difference between the reformist and revolutionary perspective.

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Chapter 1 – A Scientific Discovery, 2. Constituted Value or Synthetic Value - Part 13 of 20

Proudhon argues that the most useful things require the least time to produce, and society begins by producing the easiest things, and only moving on to the more time consuming things as it satisfies its basic needs. But, no such relation exists. The most useful thing humans require is food, but, to provide the required food might take many hours, depending on the material conditions, whereas, again, depending on the conditions, pieces of gold may lie on the ground, only requiring a short time to collect.

And, what Proudhon omits is any consideration of class antagonism, and its role in determining both demand and supply, consumption and production.

“The very moment civilization begins, production begins to be founded on the antagonism of orders, estates, classes, and finally on the antagonism of accumulated labour and actual labour. No antagonism, no progress. This is the law that civilization has followed up to our days. Till now the productive forces have been developed by virtue of this system of class antagonisms. To say now that, because all the needs of all the workers were satisfied, men could devote themselves to the creation of products of a higher order – to more complicated industries – would be to leave class antagonism out of account and turn all historical development upside down.” (p 59)

Marx gives a number of examples, from throughout history, in different modes of production, in which, not only were the needs of the masses not met, but many of them lived at below subsistence levels, whilst society devoted labour-time to satisfying the luxury consumption needs of ruling classes. Marx's argument, in this regard is not entirely sustainable either, where he writes, “The price of food has almost continuously risen, while the price of manufactured and luxury goods has almost continuously fallen”, and “In our age, the superfluous is easier to produce than the necessary.” (p 59-60)

As Marx's later analysis, in Capital, demonstrates, the value of necessary commodities is drastically reduced too, and capital needs to do that, in order to reduce necessary labour, and raise surplus labour, so as to increase relative surplus value. Marx's argument is somewhat strained, in trying to put the opposite view to Proudhon, in relation to utility, rather like, later, Lenin used to “bend the stick” in his polemics with opponents. The argument that wool and flax were somehow of greater utility than cotton looks odd, and the argument, in relation to spirits as against beer and wine, does too, because not only did the ruling-class enjoy their consumption of spirits, but they also, increasingly, saw the consumption of spirits by workers as detrimental to their interests of having an adequate supply of functioning labour-power. It is why they promoted temperance.

That “bending of the stick” detracts slightly from Marx's correct argument that the reason many of these cheaper commodities are produced in great quantities is not because of their great utility to the mass of consumers, but precisely because they are cheap, and so enable the exploiting class to reproduce the labourers at least cost.

“To say now that because the least costly things are in greater use, they must be of greater utility, is saying that the wide use of spirits, because of their low cost of production, is the most conclusive proof of their utility; it is telling the proletarian that potatoes are more wholesome for him than meat; it is accepting the present state of affairs; it is, in short, making an apology, with M. Proudhon, for a society without understanding it.” (p 60-61)

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Northern Soul At The Proms

I wasn't expecting much from the BBC's Northern Soul at the Proms. Usually, TV representation of Northern Soul is pretty poor, cliched, and superficial, with Grayson Perry's Full English episode on Northern Soul, a few months ago, being a pretty abysmal example. On top of that, TV studio versions of the music always lack authenticity, and any actual soul. With the full BBC concert orchestra in the huge bran of the Albert Hall, as against the small, sweaty dance halls of the 1960's, and early 1970's, in which the music literally grew like mushrooms, it didn't seem hopeful. But, actually, I thought it was great.

I thought Darrell Smith gave a particularly powerful rendition of Ray Pollard's, The Drifter. Earlier, he did a very good job of The Night, by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, and If That's What You Wanted, by Frankie Beverly and The Butlers. The evening started with a very good version of The MVP's, Turning My Heartbeat Up, performed by Brendan Reilly, which he followed up with Dobie Gray's, Out On The Floor, and Nick Shirm's performance of Shane Martin's, I Need You. Praise should also be given to the musicians of the BBC Concert Orchestra, conducted by Edwin Outwater, whose performances closely matched the original sounds. Of course, live performances are always different to recordings, even by original artists, and J.J. Barnes version of Our Love Is In The Pocket, is not the same as Darrell Banks version, so it was to be expected that there would be some variation, but I'd say the music and sound was pretty damn close to the original, as I expect was the intention, for fear that Northern Soulies would have been quick to note, otherwise.

If I had any criticism, it is that, as with a lot of coverage of Northern Soul, it was a bit Wigan Casino centric, reflecting the fact that, coming later, it was better known, particularly amongst the younger cohort of the Northern Soul generation, and misses some of the more soulful and lessy poppy roots that dominated the era of The Twisted Wheel, Torch, and Catacombs of the late 60's, and early 1970's. For the same reason, the selection would not have been my choice, but, in a limited time, there is only so many songs you can cover, and it would have been necessary to choose songs that the performers themselves could do justice to. Still, it would have been nice to have seen some of the Twisted Wheel and Torch Classics, covered. Again, with a full orchestra, I had expected the singes to be given a break by having at least one of the many instrumentals that Northern dancers love, covered, but having employed six singers, I suppose they wanted to get their money's worth from them.

Matching the three male singes, were three powerful female singers. Frida Mariama Touray kicked off with Rita & The Tiaras, Gone With The Wind Is My Love. Brendan Reilly returned to perform Tony Clarke's, Landslide, followed by The Trammps, Hold Back The Night.

Natalie Palmer, was the second female singer, giving a rendition of Dana Valery's, You Don't Know Where Your Interest Lies. That was followed by Vula Malinga's powerful performance of Gladys Knight's, No One Could Love You More. Frida returned to perform Barbara McNair's, You're Gonna Love My Baby, followed by an energetic rendition of Sandi Sheldon's, You're Gonna Make Me Love You, which climaxed the first half.

Darrell Smith kicked off the second half with If That's What You Wanted, followed by Lee David's, Temptation Is Calling My Name. Natalie Palmer, was next, with the Wigan favourite, What, by Judy Street, which she followed up with a powerful performance of the Vel-Vets, I'm Gonna Find Me Somebody. Frida performed Little Anthony's, Better Use Your Head. Vula was up next again, doing Yvonne Baker's, You Didn't Say a Word. Darrell did R. Dean Taylor's, There's A Ghost In My House.

The evening was concluded with the traditional Wigan, three before eight, starting with a performance of Dean Parish's, I'm On My Way, by Nick, which he followed with Jimmy Radcliffe's, Long After Tonight Is All Over. The last of the three, Tobi Legend's, Time Will Pass You By, was performed by Vula, but, of course, there had to be more.

Vula sang Gloria Jones', Tainted Love, and the ensemble, finished the night with a performance of Frank Wilson's, Do I Love You (Indeed I do).

At the end of the night, there was a segue to Northern Soul The Movie, which I was surprised the BBC chose rather than Soul Boy, given that its lead actors like Martin Compston, Craig Parkinson et al seem to be part of a BBC stable that have also appeared together in Line of Duty and other BBC productions. I also prefer Soulboy, but then I'm biased, because my son worked on the crew, and appeared in it briefly.

The Chinese Revolution and The Theses of Comrade Stalin - Part 11 of 47

Permanent Revolution, and Lenin's Letters On Tactics, therefore, set out that, in such conditions, a proletarian revolution can take place, establishing a workers' state, or Dictatorship of the Proletariat Leading The Peasantry, but that the economic base, the productive relations, would remain bourgeois, i.e. it would not be a socialist economy or socialist state. The revolution and creation of the workers' state, would simply be the first part of any such process. But, also, as Lenin set out in “Left-wing Childishness”, the economy, in Russia, was not even characterised by large-scale capital. Indeed, much of it remained at the level of peasant agriculture, with a plethora of small, independent commodity producers, and so on.

This meant that the social roots of the bourgeoisie still dominated, in Russia, only suppressed by the power of the workers' state, which had also had to acknowledge reality by the introduction of NEP. A continued growth of commodity production would mean a strengthening of the bourgeoisie, and, at some point, counter-revolution. In addition, even the developed, large-scale capital, in Russia, had to compete against even larger, more advanced capital, on the world market, meaning that, over time, it would lose out, in that competition. Only the international revolution could save it, and so the workers' state would have to act as the instrument of advancing that international revolution.

Even Stalin, in 1924, had accepted that.

“In April 1924, three months after the death of Lenin, Stalin wrote, his brochure of compilations called The Foundations of Leninism:

“For the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, the efforts of one country are enough – to this the history of our own revolution testifies. For the final victory of socialism, for the organization of socialist production, the efforts of one country, especially a peasant country like ours, are not enough – for this we must have the efforts of the proletarians of several advanced countries.”

These lines need no comment. The edition in which they were printed, however, has been withdrawn from circulation.”

(Trotsky – The Revolution Betrayed Appendix)

But, in order to distinguish himself from Trotsky, and permanent revolution, he abandoned that position, and advocated building socialism in one country. The Stalinists bowdlerised Lenin, so as to argue, if its not possible to build socialism in once country, why then did Lenin argue for socialist revolution in Russia, and talk about proceeding to its construction. Trotsky, now, turns to these issues, and sets out the difference between the revolutionary (Bolshevik) position and the reformist (Menshevik) position. It is a difference based upon form and substance. Both may argue for the same thing, for example, a Constituent Assembly, but the means of its creation, and the purpose of doing so, is different.

The Mensheviks see the Constituent Assembly as a fundamental element of the bourgeois-democratic revolution, a staging post along the path of social development, providing head room for workers to organise and express themselves. It is a form for the workers to negotiate with capital, as an extension of the trades unions, over the terms of their continued exploitation, and, as such, never goes beyond that level of bourgeois trades union consciousness. For the Mensheviks/reformists/social-democrats, it is an end in itself. The means for its establishment, therefore, are not important, and so, for them, take the form of a cross-class appeal to support bourgeois-democracy.

For Lenin, the substance was entirely different. Indeed, a look at Marx's 1850 Address shows that it was for him too. For Marx, the workers supported the bourgeois in their demands for a Constituent Assembly, and so on, and yet, all the time, were encouraged to build their own organs of self-government, workers' democracy, workers' militia, and so on, in opposition to it. Its the same approach that Trotsky sets out in The Action Programme for France.

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Chapter 1 – A Scientific Discovery, 2. Constituted Value or Synthetic Value - Part 12 of 20

Marx deals with this fallacy, also, in Theories of Surplus Value, Chapter 20, in dealing with Say's Law, and its application by Ricardians. The fallacy derives from a failure to understand that demand is a function of use-value, as set out earlier. If no consumer finds any use-value in a given commodity, then, no matter how cheaply it is produced, the supply will exceed the demand. Similarly, if no consumer finds adequate use value in a commodity, at its market value, supply will exceed demand.

But, Proudhon needs this relation, because it is the basis of his schema for the operation of his future society, in which small commodity producers continue to produce commodities, which are then sold at these labour values, and for which there is always, then, adequate demand at these prices. It requires a law, such as the following, to that effect.

“Products will in future be exchanged in the exact ratio of the labour time they have cost. Whatever may be the proportion of supply to demand, the exchange of commodities will always be made as if they had been produced proportionately to the demand.” (p 58)

In effect, this is what the Stalinist states did, in using administrative prices. The consequence was huge waste, as large quantities of unwanted products were produced, and, on the other hand, unsatisfied demand for other products led to the development of black markets, and a search for foreign currency. A similar thing was seen in the EEC's Common Agricultural policy that introduced guaranteed prices to farmers, and led to the creation of huge wine lakes, butter mountains and so on.

This same irrationality is seen in the demands of petty-bourgeois socialists, and reformists for nationalisation of this or that failed firm or industry. The basic reason for the failure is that it produced commodities for which there was insufficient demand at the prices it needed to produce an adequate profit. That is not changed by nationalising it, and, as with Proudhon's schema, to continue on that basis would require the state to buy up its overproduction. To do so requires draining surplus value from the rest of the economy, and, thereby, dragging it down too. It is replacing economic laws with government diktat.

“Let M. Proudhon take it upon himself to formulate and lay down such a law, and we shall relieve him of the necessity of giving proofs. If, on the other hand, he insists on justifying his theory, not as a legislator, but as an economist, he will have to prove that the time needed to create a commodity indicates exactly the degree of its utility and marks its proportional relation to the demand, and in consequence, to the total amount of wealth. In this case, if a product is sold at a price equal to its cost of production, supply and demand will always be evenly balanced; for the cost of production is supposed to express the true relation between supply and demand.” (p 58)

That would, of course, as Marx set out above, be completely backwards and absurd. But, Proudhon does try to establish this absurdity by arguing that the labour-time required for production indicates its correct proportional relation to needs “so that the things whose production costs the least time are the most immediately useful, and so on, step by step. The mere production of a luxury object proves at once, according to this doctrine, that society has spare time which allows it to satisfy a need for luxury.” (p 58)

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Northern Soul Classics - Rat Race - Righteous Brothers Band

 

Abraham, Martin and John - Marvin Gaye

 

The Chinese Revolution and The Theses of Comrade Stalin - Part 10 of 47

Trotsky set out the difference between the revolutionary approach of permanent revolution, and the bourgeois reformist approach of the stages theory that is again seen, today. Lenin pointed out that reforms are steps on the path to a revolutionary break, but this doesn't reveal the different mindset the revolutionary has to such a process, compared to the reformist. In part, the concept of transitional demands explains that difference, but, taken out of context, transitional demands become either just another set of reforms, utopian, revolutionary phrase-mongering, or some kind of means of tricking the workers. The difference is better summed up in the way the revolutionary posits the purpose of reforms, and the means by which they are to be won. Trotsky's Action Programme For France is a good example of that.

The Stalinists argued against Trotsky's position, in relation to China, by saying that it implied the country was on the verge of achieving The Dictatorship of the Proletariat. For the Stalinists, and the Menshevik stages theory, that was something much further into the future, after China had passed through a lengthy period of capitalist development, and bourgeois-democracy. Here, we have to make an important distinction between a proletarian revolution, and a socialist revolution, and between a workers' state, and a socialist state, which goes to the heart of the divide between permanent revolution and socialism in one country.

Marxist theory explains that socialism in one country is impossible. Indeed, capitalism in one country is impossible. Marx set out that primary capital accumulation only occurred because of an expansion of international trade, including the slave trade, development of colonies and so on. Capitalist machine production requires, not just national, but global markets. Socialism is only possible on the basis of the development of the productive forces that this developed, global capitalism establishes.

In Marx's Letter to Zasulich, and Engels' Letter to Danielson, they set out that Russia could “theoretically” by-pass the stage of capitalist development, but only on the basis of socialist revolutions in the advanced economies of Western Europe. As Engels put it that would provide both the model and the technology that Russia would require. However, Engels points out that no such revolution had occurred, and so the point was moot. As Plekhanov put it, asking whether capitalism in Russia was inevitable was the wrong question. It already had developed, and was continuing to develop at a pace.

That part of the issue was resolved for China, because proletarian revolution had already occurred in the USSR, providing, at least, the model, if not the advanced technology that China would require for a socialist transformation. But, that leaves the other question, which is that Marxist theory requires that, for socialism, the productive forces must be sufficiently developed, and, in Russia, in 1917, and, in China, in 1925, they were not.

Herein lies the crux of the debate between permanent revolution and socialism in once country. The perspective laid out by Lenin and Trotsky, in 1917, was that it was not possible to build socialism in Russia, and yet the workers were leading the revolution, which was a bourgeois revolution, and were dragging behind them a large peasant mass, engaged in a Peasant War. In other words, building socialism was not possible, but a proletarian revolution was taking place anyway, and, it was not possible to artificially limit or stop that process simply at the stage of a bourgeois-democratic revolution. To try to do so, as the Mensheviks did, would lead to the workers abandoning them, and turning against them, and, as happened in 1848, a reactionary, counter-revolution taking place.

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Chapter 1 – A Scientific Discovery, 2. Constituted Value or Synthetic Value - Part 11 of 20

All of this sought to determine the basis of the value of commodities, but commodities are commodities because they are produced to be exchanged for other commodities or money, and so also have an exchange-value. Marx now examines this in relation to Proudhon's definition of “constituted value”.

“Let us note in the first place that the single phrase “relative or exchange value” implies the idea of some relation in which products are exchanged reciprocally. By giving the name “proportional relation” to this relation, no change is made in the relative value, except in the expression. Neither the depreciation nor the enhancement of the value of a product destroys its quality of being in some “proportional relation” with the other products which constitute wealth.

Why then this new term, which introduces no new idea?” (p 57)

If the value of a metre of linen falls from 10 hours of labour to 8 hours of labour this does not change the fact that, as a commodity, it stands in a proportional relation to a litre of wine, which has a value of 10 hours of labour. It only changes the proportions of the relation.

““Proportional relation” suggests many other economic relations, such as proportionality in production, the true proportion between supply and demand, etc., and M. Proudhon is thinking of all that when he formulates this didactic paraphrase of marketable value.” (p 57)

Value is an absolute measure based upon the labour-time required to produce a given quantity of a product/commodity. For a product, it is a measure of individual value, and, for the commodity it is its social value or market-value, determined, via competition, by the average of these individual values. But, exchange-value is a relative measure of value. It is the value of one commodity measured in terms of a quantity of some other commodity. For example, a metre of cloth has an exchange value of a litre of wine, or 20 kilos of potatoes. Value is measured directly by labour-time, but only indirectly as exchange-value, by some other commodity.

As Marx sets out in Theories of Surplus Value, Chapter 20, it is impossible to derive exchange-value without first having derived value, because exchange value is simply the proportional relation between the values of different commodities. You cannot arrive at the conclusion that 1 metre of cloth has an exchange-value of 1 litre wine, unless, first, you know that 1 metre of cloth has a value, say, of 10 hours of universal labour, and so does a litre of wine.

“The rate at which two commodities exchange does not determine their value, but their value determines the rate at which they exchange. If value were nothing more than the quantity of commodities for which commodity A is accidentally exchanged, how is it possible to express the value of A in terms of commodity B, or C, etc.? Because then, since there is no immanent measure common to the two commodities, the value of A could not be expressed in terms of B before it had been exchanged against B...

Relative value means first of all magnitude of value in contradistinction to the quality of having value at all. For this reason, the latter is not something absolute. It means, secondly, the value of one commodity expressed in the use-value of another commodity. This is only a relative expression of its value, namely, in relation to the commodity in which it is expressed. The value of a pound of coffee is only relatively expressed in tea; to express it absolutely—even in a relative way, that is to say, not in regard to labour-time, but to other commodities—it ought to be expressed in an infinite series of equations with all other commodities. This would be an absolute expression of its relative value; its absolute expression would be its expression in terms of labour-time and this absolute expression would express it as something relative, but in the absolute relation, by which it is value.”

(Theories of Surplus Value, Chapter 20)

This does not mean that, in terms of market prices, these proportional relations will apply, for the simple reason that market prices are determined by supply and demand. If the demand for commodity A exceeds the supply, its market price will rise above this exchange-value, until the supply rises to satisfy the demand, and vice versa. Setting aside the question of prices of production, as against exchange-values, the exchange-value acts as the fulcrum, the equilibrium price of orthodox economics, around which those market prices fluctuate, so that, if we assume that supply and demand is in balance, this is the price at which the commodity is sold.

“M. Proudhon inverts the order of things. Begin, he says, by measuring the relative value of a product by the quantity of labour embodied in it, and supply and demand will infallibly balance one another. Production will correspond to consumption, the product will always be exchangeable. Its current price will express exactly its true value. Instead of saying like everyone else: when the weather is fine, a lot of people are to be seen going out for a walk. M. Proudhon makes his people go out for a walk in order to be able to ensure them fine weather.” (p 57-8)

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The Chinese Revolution and The Theses of Comrade Stalin - Part 9 of 47

Trotsky's comment,

“Installed within the Guomindang and its leadership, the national bourgeoisie has been essentially an instrument of the compradors and imperialism. It can remain in the camp of the national war only because of the weakness of the worker and peasant masses, the lack of development of the class struggle, the lack of independence of the Chinese Communist Party and the docility of the Guomindang in the hands of the bourgeoisie.” (p 21)

could be applied, in its entirety, to Ukraine, because the reality is that, if the Ukrainian workers were organised independently, and effectively, to defend and advance their interests, including against the limitations of Zelensky's regime, in fighting for independence, then the current, anti-worker measures, implemented by Zelensky, would be multiplied ten-fold, the paramilitary forces of the Azov Battalion, and Right Sector, would be turned immediately against those Ukrainian workers, rather than Russia, and NATO would be pressing for a peace deal with Putin, to save all their hides from a rising workers revolution!

“It is a gross mistake to think that imperialism mechanically welds together all the classes of China from without. That is the position of the Chinese Kadet, Dai Tshi Tao, but in no wise ours.” (p 21)

It is also the position of the USC, when it comes to Ukraine, when they ignore the issue of class, and talk about a “people's” war, i.e. a war of the whole Ukrainian people, irrespective of class. It is the position of bourgeois nationalism and Stalinism. But, of course, what is happening, in Ukraine, is not an anti-imperialist struggle for national independence, anyway, because Ukraine is already an independent nation state, as was say, France, Britain and Germany, prior to WWI, and is massively armed and supported by NATO imperialism. What is happening is, rather, an inter-imperialist war, like WWI and II, for strategic advantage.

“Imperialism is a highly powerful force in the internal relationships of China.” (p 21)

And, it is in Ukraine too, with the massive connections to US imperialism (visibly in its connections to the Biden family and regime), and its subordinates in the EU.

“The main source of this force is not the warships in the waters of the Yangtze Kiang – they are only auxiliaries – but the economic and political bond between foreign capital and the native bourgeoisie. The struggle against imperialism, precisely because of its economic and military power, demands a powerful exertion of forces from the very depths of the Chinese people.” (p 21-2)

That was the last thing the Stalinists wanted in China, as they promoted the Popular Front “bloc of four classes”, and its the last thing their modern equivalents, in the USC etc., want, in relation to Ukraine. And, the same applies to those who adopt a similar, but mirror image, in their support for Putin.

“But everything that brings the oppressed and exploited masses of the toilers to their feet inevitably pushes the national bourgeoisie into an open bloc with the imperialists. The class struggle between the bourgeoisie and the masses of workers and peasants is not weakened, but, on the contrary, is sharpened by imperialist oppression, to the point of bloody civil war at every serious conflict. The Chinese bourgeoisie always has a solid rearguard behind it in imperialism, which will always help it with money, goods and shells against the workers and peasants.” (p 22)

The extent to which what is happening in Ukraine is not an anti-imperialist struggle, is also demonstrated by this. The Ukrainian ruling class, and its state are not opposing US/NATO imperialism, they are embracing it.

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Chapter 1 – A Scientific Discovery, 2. Constituted Value or Synthetic Value - Part 10 of 20

Marx quotes Proudhon's comment in which he criticises Say for noting that “labour”, as a commodity, has a value, and so it creates a “vicious circle” to treat it as the determining cause of value. But, it is quite right that using “labour(power)” the commodity, i.e. not labour, but labour-power, as that basis, does lead to to an inevitable contradiction and vicious circle, which is why Smith ended up in a dead end, and dropped the Labour Theory of Value. Ricardo pointed out Smith's error, but, because he never resolved the difference between labour and labour-power, he, also, never resolved the underlying contradiction.

Proudhon, also, does not resolve that contradiction, and says,

“Labour is said to have value not as a commodity itself, but in view of the values which it is supposed potentially to contain. The value of labour is a figurative expression, an anticipation of the cause for the effect.” (p 54)

As Marx notes,

“We have seen that M. Proudhon makes the value of labour the “determining cause” of the value of products to such an extent that for him wages, the official name for the “value of labour,” form the integral price of all things: that is why Say's objection troubles him.” (p 55)

Contrary to Proudhon, it is not “labour”(power) that produces new value, but labour as function/process, and is its measure. It is, likewise, not the value of labour-power, as a commodity, that produces use values. It is the use value of concrete labour that produces new use values, i.e. it is spinning labour that produces yarn, weaving labour that produces cloth.

“Labour, inasmuch as it is bought and sold, is a commodity like any other commodity, and has, in consequence, an exchange value. But the value of labour, or labour as a commodity, produces as little as the value of wheat, or wheat as a commodity, serves as food.” (p 55)

As stated earlier, Marx, himself, here, still had not made the terminological distinction between labour and labour-power, although all of his argument, here, is based upon that distinction between “labour” as commodity, i.e. labour-power, and labour as value creating process. He makes this terminological distinction, as a result of his further studies, as set out in Capital, and in an annotated version of the current work, presented to N. Utina, in 1876, Marx, indeed, added the words “labour-power” (la force du travail) after the use of “labour” in the above quote, and the same addition is made to the 1896 French edition.

Labour-power “has more or less value, according to whether food commodities are more or less dear, whether the supply and demand of hands exist to such or such a degree, etc., etc.” (p 56)

It is not a “vague thing”, as Proudhon claimed, but is always concrete labour, i.e. the labour-power of a weaver as against the labour-power of a carpenter, and so on, and this reflects the different, specific use values of these different types of labour-power.

Labour-power is bought as a commodity, and all commodities are bought because they have utility for the buyer. There is no utility in a wine producing capitalist buying the labour-power of a weaver. The logic of Proudhon's argument leads him to the conclusion that it is, then, the subsistence wage that is the natural price of “labour”, i.e. current labour-power, “that it is turning the wage minimum into the natural and normal price of immediate labour, that it is accepting the existing state of society. So, to get away from this fatal consequence, he faces about and asserts that labour is not a commodity, that it cannot have value. He forgets that he himself has taken the value of labour as a measure, he forgets that his whole system rests on labour as a commodity, on labour which is bartered, bought, sold, exchanged for produce, etc., on labour, in fact, which is an immediate source of income for the worker. He forgets everything.” (p 56)

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The Chinese Revolution and The Theses of Comrade Stalin - Part 8 of 47

China, whose economy had developed rapidly, as a consequence of imperialism, but whose development was also shaped by that imperialist involvement, which still, predominantly, took the form of colonialism and unequal exchange, needed to shake itself free from those semi-colonial shackles.

“The war of China for its national independence is a progressive war, because it flows from the necessities of the economic and cultural development of China itself, as well as because it facilitates the development of the revolution of the British proletariat and that of the whole world proletariat.” (p 20)

That didn't mean opposition to “imperialism”, defined as capitalism in its mature phase of large-scale, multinational, industrial capital, operating within a global economy. In his writings on the Balkan Wars, Trotsky described that. It meant opposition to the military intervention by the imperialist powers, even if they dressed it up as “liberation from above”, but not at all opposing the commercial activities of imperialist capital, vital for the more rapid development of those countries. After the Civil War, Lenin put great effort into trying to get large companies in the West to make direct investments in Russia, and Trotsky, writing on Mexico's Second Six Year Plan, also set out why it was vital to get such foreign investment. Indeed, one reason for the need for national independence is to break down the trade monopolies that the old colonial empires established, and which are the basis of unequal exchange, so as to open the economy to direct investment from all other economies.

“But this by no means signifies that the imperialist yoke is a mechanical one, subjugating “all” the classes of China in the “same” way. The powerful role of foreign capital in the life of China has caused very strong sections of the Chinese bourgeoisie, the bureaucracy and the military to join their destiny with that of imperialism. Without this tie, the enormous role of the so-called “militarists” in the life of modern China would be inconceivable.” (p 20)

This is also one reason why the claims of the USC, in regard to Ukraine's war being an “anti-imperialist” war, are nonsense, because, of course, the very regime that is fighting the war is, itself, inextricably tied to NATO, and to western imperialism, as the source of billions of Dollars in revenues for the Ukrainian ruling class, but continued exploitation, by that imperialism, of Ukrainian workers.

“It would further be profound naiveté to believe that an abyss lies between the so-called comprador bourgeoisie, that is, the economic and political agency of foreign capital in China, and the so-called “national” bourgeoisie. No, these two sections stand incomparably closer to each other than the bourgeoisie and the masses of workers and peasants. The bourgeoisie participated in the national war as an internal brake, looking upon the worker and peasant masses with growing hostility, and becoming ever readier to conclude a compromise with imperialism.” (p 21)

The regime of Zelensky was tied to imperialism to begin with, and despite the weak position of Ukrainian workers, has acted, still, as a brake upon them, passing further anti-labour laws, attacking their organisations, and so on. Yet, the petty-bourgeois, liberal "Left" still blindly supports this regime, and its war, whilst pretending that the war being fought is not between two two heavily (nuclear) armed, imperialist camps, but is, somehow, a “people's war” fought by Ukrainian workers!!! The USC use quotes about arms supply to rebels, but the arms are supplied to Zelensky not rebels, and certainly not workers. Indeed, Trotsky pointed to the supply of weapons to the KMT, by Stalin (which Trotsky opposed), and the use of those weapons against Chinese workers and peasants by the KMT!

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Chapter 1 – A Scientific Discovery, 2. Constituted Value or Synthetic Value - Part 9 of 20

Proudhon confuses labour with labour-power, and so confuses the determination of the value of commodities by the labour-time required for their production, with the determination of their value by wages, i.e. by the value of labour-power. Labour-power is a commodity, like corn or hats, and so it makes no more sense to try to determine the value of some other commodity by the value of labour-power, than it would to determine it by the value of corn or hats, though Adam Smith did, also, attempt to use corn in that manner.

Labour, as opposed to labour-power, is not a commodity, but is, itself, the value creating process, the essence and measure of value. That is why, as Marx's later analysis showed, it is meaningless to talk of the value of labour, as against the value of labour-power, because labour, itself, has no value. It would be like asking what is the value of value?!

“Thus it is going against economic facts to determine the relative value of commodities by the value of labour. It is moving in a vicious circle, it is to determine relative value by a relative value which itself needs to be determined.

It is beyond doubt that M. Proudhon confuses the two measures, measure by the labour time needed for the production of a commodity and measure by the value of the labour. “Any man's labour,” he says, “can buy the value it represents.” Thus, according to him, a certain quantity of labour embodied in a product is equivalent to the worker's payment, that is, to the value of labour. It is the same reasoning that makes him confuse cost of production with wages.” (p 53)

Adam Smith also makes the error of sometimes measuring the value of commodities by labour-time and sometimes by wages.

“Ricardo exposes this error by showing clearly the disparity of these two ways of measuring. M. Proudhon goes one better than Adam Smith in error by identifying the two things which the latter had merely put in juxtaposition.” (p 54)

Proudhon's aim is to arrive at a proper proportion in which workers should share out the total product of their labour. He needs to do this, as will be seen later, as the basis of his petty-bourgeois schema for “labour-notes”.

“To find out the measure for the relative value of commodities he can think of nothing better than to give as the equivalent of a certain quantity of labour the sum total of the products it has created, which is as good as supposing that the whole of society consists merely of workers who receive their own produce as wages. In the second place, he takes for granted the equivalence of the working days of different workers. In short, he seeks the measure of the relative value of commodities in order to arrive at equal payment for the workers, and he takes the equality of wages as an already established fact, in order to go off on the search for the relative value of commodities.” (p 54)

What is wrong with this has already been elaborated in Engels' Preface, and is also set out by Marx in The Critique of the Gotha Programme. Not all labour is productive of value; labour is not equal, but comprises simple and complex; not all labour is socially necessary; not all products are consumption goods/revenue; not all production can be consumed by workers, because a) some must cover insurance funds for accidents, where capital is destroyed, b) some must be set aside as social funds for young, old and sick members of society, c) some must be set aside for capital accumulation.

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The Chinese Revolution and The Theses of Comrade Stalin - Part 7 of 47

The Stalinists were also still strong in the student movement and academia, where their reactionary, petty-bourgeois “anti-imperialism”, and “anti-capitalism”, represented by the “anti-monopoly alliance”, chimed with the ideas of petty-bourgeois Liberals, concerned with the interests of the small producer, hostility to “unequal exchange” and so on. They were able to form a rotten bloc against the New Left that grew to challenge them, during the 1960's, but which, itself, was infected, in this milieu, by the ideas of petty-bourgeois moralism, and nationalism, ending up tailing it, in search of the odd new student recruit.

Time and again, they recited Trotsky's Permanent Revolution, and hostility to Popular Fronts, and alliances with vicars, but, as CND, and the anti-Vietnam War movements brought tens of thousands of that milieu on to the streets, the more they ignored the theory, and immersed themselves into these petty-bourgeois, cross-class movements, and, in the process, reduced themselves to mere cheerleaders for petty-bourgeois nationalism and pacifism. The same was true when it came to opposing the rise of fascist parties, like the NF, in their own countries, via rotten blocs such as the Anti-Nazi League.

“The imperialist yoke is supposed to serve as a justification for the policy of the “bloc of four classes”. The yoke of imperialism leads allegedly to the fact that “all” (!) the classes of China look upon the Canton government as the “national government of the whole of China in the same way” (!). (Speech of comrade Kalinin, Izvestia, March 6) This is essentially the position of the right Guomindang man, Dai Tshi Tao, who pretends that the laws of the class struggle do not exist for China – because of imperialist pressure.” (p 20)

The same line is put forward, today, by the USC, in support of its obeisance at the feet of the reactionary government of Zelensky, in Kyiv, despite the fact that, behind it, stands the overwhelming global might of NATO imperialism. But, that is simply the reductio ad absurdum of the whole ideology of “idiot anti-imperialism”, pursued by the petty-bourgeois "Left", in the post-war period. It lined up behind all kinds of reactionary, anti-working-class forces, in country after country, knowing full well what kind of regime they would install if successful, simply on the basis of pursuing the limited, bourgeois-democratic goal of national independence, and “anti-imperialism”, oblivious to the class struggle, within the given country, and, usually, in total contradiction to it.

It was much easier to emphasise opposition to US imperialism, and the visible expression of it, in the Viet Cong, if you were in a throng of thousands of students, in Grosvenor Square, than if you were a Vietnamese worker, or poor peasant, oppressed by that same Viet Cong. It was easy to march along chanting the name of Ho Chi Minh, as though that was something to be proud of, when his name should have sickened you to the stomach, as his forces were busy murdering thousands of Vietnamese Trotskyists, much as the forces of Chiang Kai Shek had murdered thousands of Chinese Communists in Shanghai, in 1927. Is it any wonder that this disgraceful Left cover given to these vile reactionaries, and petty-bourgeois nationalists, during that time, and even acquiescence in their description as being Marxists, has besmirched the idea of communism for more than a generation?

But, a student march that, also, focussed attention on the anti-working class nature of the Viet Cong, and Stalinist regime in Hanoi, and sought to build support for the truly revolutionary forces, in Vietnam, would have attracted only a small fraction of the numbers, and been openly attacked by the Stalinists and their fellow travellers, as the Trotskyists were in 1925-7, for doing precisely that, in relation to China.

The same was true, in relation to the national liberation struggle in Algeria, and again, in 1979, in relation to the Iranian Revolution. It was easy to look at thousands on the streets of Tehran, without questioning the class dynamics of what was happening, and to connect that to thousands on the streets, in western capitals, that blindly called for the downfall of the Shah, without consideration of what would replace his regime.

The same was true, after 1969, with support for the petty-bourgeois, nationalist struggle of the Provisional IRA. But, notably, at a time when large, left groups, like the SWP and Militant, were contesting the CP for members, amongst workers, as industrial militancy surged, it was not long before these groups dropped their previous cheerleading activities for PIRA, for fear of losing industrial workers, whose approach to other workers being shot and blown up, in Britain, was not at all as sanguine as that of petty-bourgeois students and intellectuals.

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No Music

On Tuesday morning, my son Simon's life long friend Rik died from cancer.  They had been like brothers from the time they were at Playgroup, or Greyboop, as Simon pronounced it at the time.  He was just 38.

Chapter 1 – A Scientific Discovery, 2. Constituted Value or Synthetic Value - Part 8 of 20

So, even if the value of labour-power rises, because the value of wage goods rises, and so relative surplus value falls, the capitalist must still reproduce the consumed labour-power, on the same scale. It is the use-value of labour-power that must be reproduced, and not its previous value/historic price, and, consequently, if wages rise, the capitalist must, now, use a portion of their profit to reproduce that labour-power, leading to a tie-up of variable-capital, as well as a fall in the rate of surplus value, and rate of profit.

If the value of wage goods falls, it is still the physical use-value of labour-power, i.e. 10 workers, working 10 hours each that must be reproduced, so that to pay those wages, for the coming period, represents a smaller proportion of the new value created by that labour, and appropriated by capital, in the current period. It brings a release of variable-capital that appears, superficially, as an increase in the mass of profit, but also brings a real rise in the rate of surplus value and rate of profit.

“... if the same labour produced twice as many clothes as before, their relative value would fall by half; but, nevertheless, this double quantity of clothing would not thereby be reduced to disposing over only half the quantity of labour, nor could the same labour command the double quantity of clothing; for half the clothes would still go on rendering the worker the same service as before.” (p 53)

Indeed, as absolute surplus value production is limited by the size of the social working-day, capital comes to increasingly rely on relative surplus value, and so has an incentive to continually raise productivity, so as to reduce the value of wage goods, and so the size of the necessary working day, increasing the amount of surplus labour, and so surplus value/profit.

But, as Marx sets out, in Capital III, Chapter 6, and in Theories of Surplus Value, Chapter 22, a similar condition applies to constant capital. As he sets out in the quote above from Capital III, Chapter 49, for social reproduction to continue, it is necessary to replace all of the physical use-values “on a like for like basis”. There is no point continuing to employ 10 workers for 10 hours, if 2 machines are mothballed, and only 80% of the raw material previously processed is advanced to production.

On the contrary, it is the physical size of the constant capital – number of machines, quantity of material – that determines how much labour is employed, given any technical composition of capital. The physical mass of fixed capital – buildings, machines – that the capital can advance depends on how much money-capital the given capital can mobilise from its resources and borrowing, as against the unit value of that fixed capital, the amount of materials advanced depends on that, as well as the extent of commercial credit, i.e. how much suppliers of materials will supply without requiring payment until later.

However, wages, as with commercial credit, are paid in arrears. Consequently, the individual capital can employ any required amount of labour – provided its available – without, necessarily, having the corresponding money-capital to hire it. If, having allocated all of their available money-capital to the purchase of fixed capital and materials, in the appropriate proportions, they need to employ 10 workers to process it, they do not, necessarily, need money to cover these wages, in advance. Having employed the 10 workers for a week, these workers produce commodities with a value added of 500 hours (5 x 10 x 10), and, once sold, the capitalist appropriates the whole of this value, say £500, but, now, out of this £500, they pay the workers wages in arrears, amounting to £400 (8 x 10 x 5 days).

But, again, as Marx describes, it is the physical use-values of this constant capital that must be reproduced, therefore. Unlike variable-capital, the value of constant capital is preserved, and transferred to the value of the final product. So, if a kilo of cotton has a value of 10 hours labour, this value is transferred into the value of a kilo of yarn. Having sold the yarn, the capitalist recovers this 10 hours of value, but, if the value of cotton has risen since then, to 12 hours, the capitalist must buy it at this new higher price, so that a portion of the profit made in the sale of the yarn must now go to the physical replacement of the cotton. In other words, they have made 6 hours of surplus value, say £6, but, now, £2 of it is tied up as capital to physically reproduce the cotton “on a like for like basis”. It appears, as Marx sets out, that the actual amount of profit has fallen, as well as the rate of profit. The rate of profit does fall, but contrary to what Ramsay believed, as described in Theories of Surplus Value, Chapter 22, the amount of profit does not, it is an illusion resulting from this tie-up of capital. The same is true in reverse, when the value of constant capital falls, creating a release of capital.

As I have set out in other posts, commenting on current growth rates, based on GDP, because GDP is only a measure of revenues (v + s), i.e. new value created, and not of output (c + v + s), this is why periods of rapid inflation, such as seen in the latter part of 2021, through 2022 and 2023, result in this kind of tie-up of capital that, then, appears as a reduction in profit, and consequently, of total revenues/GDP, even though, in reality, no such reduction occurred. This explains why GDP was seen to be stagnant, or even falling, despite the fact that new value creation (v + s) was rising, as witnessed by the continued sizeable increases in employment. Capital does not employ additional labour to produce the same, or less, new value!

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The Chinese Revolution and The Theses of Comrade Stalin - Part 6 of 47

Again, this is seen in the zig-zags of today's bureaucratic-centrist sects, in which mistakes are never acknowledged, and positions are put forward ad hoc, as each new event arises, positions which contradict those previously adopted to similar or near identical events. In order to justify each new position, whilst claiming continuity and consistency, not only must a strict, bureaucratic discipline be applied, but deliberate bowdlerisation of past positions and theory must be undertaken. Any significant challenge to leaders results in expulsion or splits, as well as demoralisation amongst activists, other than those that attach themselves to dominant cliques, in the hope of their own advance, if only in feeding their ego. Indeed, the internal life of such gangs is based on such cliques, in the absence of principled factional debate. Its no wonder that the leaders of these sects remain in position longer than any dictator, or that the sects have not only shrunken in size, but decayed politically, and morally.

“Such a method, which, in and by itself, is incompatible with the development of a revolutionary party, becomes an especially heavy obstacle to young parties that can and should learn independently from the experiences of defeats and mistakes.” (p 19)

Where China differed from Russia, in 1905, is that, as the earlier comments set out, China had always suffered from the effects of colonialism, as well as Orientalism. In 1917, one reason the Bolsheviks were led to push through the proletarian revolution was not only the experience of 1848, and the Paris Commune, i.e. the lessons of permanent revolution, but that the example of China's history showed what could happen when imperialism is enabled to take advantage of weak governments, in such large, resource rich areas. As Trotsky pointed out, imperialism not only assisted Milyukov/Kerensky, in removing Tsarism, but also assisted Kerensky in opposing the workers, with its own eyes on Russia's immense resource wealth. The same well-grounded fears influence Russian and Chinese leaders down to today.

“A policy that disregarded the powerful pressure of imperialism on the internal life of China would be radically false. But a policy that proceeded from an abstract conception of national oppression without its class refraction and reflection would be no less false. The main source of the mistakes in the theses of comrade Stalin, as in the whole leading line in general, is the false conception of the role of imperialism and its influence on the class relationships of China.” (p 20)

This is also the basis of the wrong-headedness of the "Left", in relation to imperialism and national independence, as it developed after WWII. In that period, Stalinism continued to weigh heavily on the world labour movement, and it allied itself with bourgeois-nationalist movements, in the same way that Stalin did with the KMT, in the 1920's. That was all the more the case where, during a period of decolonisation, many former colonies, and newly industrialising countries, adopted state-capitalism as a development model. That was codified in the Third World Movement.

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