Lessons of The Chinese Revolution, A Retreat In Full Disorder - Part 10 of 10

Capitalism cannot simply grow over into Socialism. Under social-democracy, the contradiction reaches its height, but its manifest in the fact that, whilst, objectively, the associated producers, i.e. the working-class, is the collective owner of the socialised capital, control of it rests in the hands of the bourgeoisie (i.e. via their ownership of shares, and appointment of Directors), meaning it retains its position as ruling class. Its immediate interests, of maximising interest/dividends, and capital gains, are, as Marx sets out, in Capital III, contrary to the needs of industrial capital, and so, both the interests of the state, and the long-term interests of the bourgeoisie itself.

Maximising interest/dividends/capital gain is contrary to the need to maximise profit of enterprise, and capital accumulation. The ruling bourgeois class, becomes a fetter on the continued development of capital itself, just as imperialism, constrained within the form of the nation state, creates a fetter on the development of a single world market/state that it can only break free from via wars.

It is only when the workers assert their right that these fetters on capital can be permanently removed, and the potential for capitalism to grow over to Socialism be realised. So, in Russia, in 1917, it is the fact that it is the workers, via the soviets, that exert their social dictatorship, which means that the tasks of the bourgeois-democratic, national revolution can be subsumed, and flow over into those of the international socialist revolution.

“In the October revolution, the democratic tasks grew over into socialist ones – under the unaltered domination of the proletariat. One can therefore draw a distinction (it is understood, only relatively) between the democratic period of the October revolution and the socialist period; but one cannot distinguish between the democratic and the socialist dictatorships because the democratic was – non-existent.” (p 236)

In China, according to Manuilsky's schema, from the start, there will be confiscation of capital, and so on, i.e. the tasks of the proletarian revolution.

“This means that there will not even be a democratic stage of the proletarian dictatorship. Under these conditions, where will the democratic dictatorship come from?” (p 236)

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