That the productive forces should develop to a degree by which Socialism becomes possible is one thing. For that, only the development of the productive forces, and scale of production to establish socialised capital, is required, and, in the developed economies, that existed by the end of the 19th century. However, to be able to establish socialism, in any given, country is quite another.
That the productive forces had developed, globally, for Socialism, did not mean that was the case in Russia, China, or Ethiopia, for example. Moreover, even if the productive forces in, say, Russia had reached an adequate level, the basis of this is the ability to produce for, and successfully sell into, the world market. A development of the productive forces to a minimum level for Socialism is, then, no longer sufficient, because the workers' state must have productive forces that make it more efficient than the capitalist states with which it competes in that world market, just as a workers' cooperative must be, at least, as competitive as its capitalist rivals.
As Connolly describes, in relation to Ralahine, and Marx in relation to the Lancashire textile cooperatives, they were generally more efficient, but they faced higher interest charges, and so on than their bourgeois rivals.
Its not just that a workers' state has to have more developed productive forces, so as to compete with imperialism economically, in the world market, but that imperialism can freeze it out of those markets, deny it access to international payments systems, deny it access to the latest technologies, impose boycotts and so on. What is more, at any time of its choosing, it can simply launch a war against it. So, the idea of Socialism In One Country is a reactionary fantasy.
At each stage, the new society seeks to take over the productive forces engendered within the previous mode of production, but, on the basis of the new property forms and social relations, to free those productive forces from the fetters that the old society and its property forms and social relations imposed upon them.
“After the triumph of the bourgeoisie, there was no longer any question of the good or the bad side of feudalism. The bourgeoisie took possession of the productive forces it had developed under feudalism. All the old economic forms, the corresponding civil relations, the political state which was the official expression of the old civil society, were smashed.” (p 113)
The same idea is conveyed by Lenin and Trotsky, in relation to imperialism. Imperialism represents the development of capitalism into a world, rather than national, system, and so reflects the fact that all those old national structures and peculiarities have become fetters on its development that must be smashed. So, when imperialism does smash those barriers, and establishes these new structures, the workers seek to take over these now more developed structures, not turn them back to those of the 19th century nation state. Lenin notes that Marxists do not advocate national self-determination, nor the creation of any new class state, but propose the self-determination of the working-class, across borders, whilst Trotsky emphasises these points in The Programme of Peace, and says that, if the Kaiser had established a European state, via WWI, Marxists would not call for it to be broken up into nation states, on the basis of national independence, but would recognise its historically progressive nature, and seek to move beyond it, via class struggle, to a Socialist United States of Europe.
The demand for national independence and national self-determination is the demand of the reactionary petty-bourgeoisie, not the working-class. It is no wonder that it continues to be raised by their ideological representatives, be they the Anarcho-capitalists/Libertarians, of the Rees-Mogg variety, or of the petty-bourgeois, Third Camp variety.
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