Value, Price and Profit, XIII – Main Cases At Attempts of Raising Wages or Resisting Their Fall - Part 2 of 8

So, now, if capital could reduce nominal wages accordingly, which history shows is not easy to do, as money wages are sticky in a downward direction, this fall in money wages would go along with a constant level of real wages. In reality, money wages would not fall accordingly, if at all, and so real wages would rise. As I have set out elsewhere, this is why central banks have devalued the currency/standard of prices, over the last century, so that, whilst money wages remain constant, or rise modestly, and real wages rise, measured against a constant value of the standard of prices, money wages fall, and relative wages fall even more. Real wages rise only because the value of wage goods falls, relative to a constant value of the standard of prices, more than does wages. In other words, inflation hides the real relation.

“Although the labourer's absolute standard of life would have remained the same, his relative wages, and therewith his relative social position, as compared with that of the capitalist, would have been lowered. If the working man should resist that reduction of relative wages, he would only try to get some share in the increased productive powers of his own labour, and to maintain his former relative position in the social scale. Thus, after the abolition of the Corn Laws, and in flagrant violation of the most solemn pledges given during the anti-corn law agitation, the English factory lords generally reduced wages ten per cent. The resistance of the workmen was at first baffled, but, consequent upon circumstances I cannot now enter upon, the ten per cent lost were afterwards regained.” (p 76-7)

The circumstance, here, was that, after the repeal of the Corn Laws, in 1848, which itself occurred near the start of the long wave uptrend (1843-1865) the resultant fall in the value of raw materials led to a rise in the rate of profit, which facilitated a faster accumulation of capital. The fall in the value of materials, and of labour-power, also created a release of both constant and variable-capital that was, then, also available for capital accumulation. This rapid accumulation of capital, particularly in railway and other infrastructure construction, created a surge in the demand for labour, facilitating the rising money wages. A similar thing occurred, but spread over a longer period, as the 1970's/80's technological revolution massively reduced the value of constant capital, leading to a massive rise in the rate of profit, and release of capital, but, much of which went into financial and property speculation, with the start of the new long wave uptrend only commencing after 1999.

“The values of necessaries, and consequently the value of labour, might remain the same, but a change might occur in their money prices, consequent upon a previous change in the value of money.” (p 77)

In Marx's time, this was primarily viewed in terms of a change in the value of gold as the money commodity, because of the convertibility of currency into gold coins – a gold exchange standard, as opposed to a gold standard in which currency is exchangeable for a stated weight of gold itself. The difference is significant, because a gold coin, obtained in exchange for, say, a paper note, only has the same buying power, as the paper note itself. If the market price of gold rises above the mint price of gold, gold coins buy less gold. But, to, then obtain, gold without buying it, requires melting down the gold coins, which itself has a cost, and only becomes viable in large quantities, and if the difference between the market price, and mint-price of gold diverges significantly.

So, as stated, if the value of commodities remains constant, but the value of gold/standard of prices halves, money prices would double. In that case, money wages would also have to double to stay the same in inflation adjusted terms. If money prices doubled, as a result of this inflation, but money wages only rose by 80%, then they would have fallen in real terms, and real wages would also have fallen. If, as a result of rising productivity, the value of commodities falls by 20%, wages should fall by 20%. However, if there is inflation of 50%, both nominal prices and wages would rise. Both nominal and real wages might, then, rise, whilst relative wages fall, because, although the rise in productivity increases the portion of output going to wages, the portion going to profits rises even more.

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Stalin and The Chinese Revolution, 17. The Chinese Question at the Sixteenth Congress of the CPSU - Part 5 of 5

In China, the CP, via its betrayals, lost the support of the industrial workers, without whom the proletarian revolution was impossible. It became increasingly a party of the peasantry, essentially a version of the Left KMT/Russian SR's, especially after the Left KMT allied, again, with the KMT of Chiang Kai Shek. It turned to rural guerilla warfare. Stalin's statement that there was nothing surprising in the fact, if it were true that the peasants had created soviets, shows that this was a process outside the control of the Communist Party, and had nothing to do with the proletarian revolution.

“But we say that the appearance of the soviet government under these circumstances is absolutely impossible. Not only the Bolsheviks but even the Tsereteli government or half-government of the soviets could make its appearance only on the basis of the cities. To think that the peasantry is capable of creating its soviet government independently, means to believe in miracles. It would be the same miracle to create a peasant Red army. The peasant partisans played a great revolutionary role in the Russian Revolution, but under the existence of centres of proletarian dictatorship and a centralized proletarian Red army.” (p 299)

This gives a clue to the nature of Maoism, and the Chinese Revolution of 1949. Not proletarian revolution, but peasant guerrilla war, and the establishment of a Bonapartist, military regime, resting on the peasantry and petty-bourgeoisie. It was a model repeated in numerous places in subsequent decades. But, as Trotsky notes, even a Red Army, requires weapons and other industrial products. They can be supplied from outside, but, in reality, a revolution depends upon industrial workers in the towns and cities, providing them.

In the same way, such a Bonapartist regime still faces the question of class, i.e. the property question. It can try to act in the class interests of the peasant/petty-bourgeoisie, as with Mao, initially, or Pol Pot, but will fail disastrously, or it can try to act in the interests of capital, be it large-scale socialised capital, or statised capital, in order to industrialise, as with the various Arab regimes, or it can base itself on the industrial proletariat, and seek to develop the economy on that basis, which, itself, means committing to permanent revolution.

Stalin, of course, given the weakness of the Chinese Communist Party, and of the Chinese workers, could not base himself on the proximity of a proletarian revolution, in China. That was out of the question, for the foreseeable future. So,

“This is why Stalin, swimming in the wake of the peasant uprising, is compelled, in spite of all his earlier declarations, to link the peasant soviets and the peasant Red army with the bourgeois-democratic dictatorship. The leadership of this dictatorship, which is too heavy a task for the Communist Party, is delivered to some other political party, to some sort of a revolutionary x. Being that Stalin hindered the Chinese workers and peasants from conducting their struggle for the dictatorship of the proletariat, then somebody must now help Stalin by taking in hand the soviet government as the organ of the bourgeois democratic dictatorship.” (p 299)

Stalin wanted to gain the reflected glory of a Chinese revolution, albeit one that his policies had undermined, and despite the fact that this was a bourgeois revolution not a proletarian revolution, whose form masked its class content. It provided cover for the betrayals and failures of Stalinism in the preceding period. Trotsky notes,

“We warn: the Chinese proletariat will again have to pay for this whole shameful concoction.” (p 300)

And, with the coming to power of Mao Zedong's Bonapartist regime, so they did, and the same could be said of similar processes in Korea, Vietnam, Algeria, Cuba et al. The shame of the petty-bourgeois, nationalist “Left” is that, in contrast to Trotsky's warnings, his opposition to the Popular Front, the arming of the KMT, and need to plot and support an independent revolutionary path for the proletariat, based on permanent revolution, they have, instead, acted as cheerleaders for these reactionary nationalist forces, as they are again doing, now, in Ukraine and Russia.

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Northern Soul Classics - I Must Love You - Timothy Wilson

 

Friday Night Disco - Give In To The Power of Love - The Committee

Value, Price and Profit, XIII – Main Cases At Attempts of Raising Wages or Resisting Their Fall - Part 1 of 8

XIII – Main Cases At Attempts of Raising Wages or Resisting Their Fall

The value of labour-power is determined by the value of the commodities required to reproduce that labour-power, i.e. to reproduce the worker. Wages are the market price of that labour-power, and like every market price fluctuate above or below that value, as a result of changes in supply and demand, but always gravitate towards it, as a result of competition between buyers and sellers. Sellers cannot, at least for long, arbitrarily raise prices, because other sellers will grab their share of the market. Only if the value of the commodity itself rises, in the terms of orthodox economics, a shift of the supply curve to the left, will sellers be able to sustainably raise prices to compensate for that change in its value. Similarly, a fall in its value – shift of the supply curve to the right – will result in a fall in its market price, as a result of competition between sellers.

If the working-day is 12 hours, equal to six shillings (£0.30), and the value of labour-power/wages is six hours, or 3 shillings (£0.15) then profit is also £0.15, and rate of surplus value/profit is 100%. But, as with any other commodity, if a fall in productivity, say in food production, causes the value of labour-power to rise to 8 hours (£0.20), then only 4 hours of the working-day is available as surplus value/profit, or £0.10, so that the rate of surplus value/profit falls to 50%. (Remember, here, that Marx has set the value of constant capital to zero, so that rate of profit and rate of surplus value are the same).

“But now suppose that, consequent upon a decrease of productivity, more labour should be wanted to produce, say, the same amount of agricultural produce, so that the price of the average daily necessaries should rise from three to four shillings. In that case the value of labour would rise by one third, or 33 1/3 percent. Eight hours of the working day would be required to produce an equivalent for the daily maintenance of the labourer, according to his old standard of living. The surplus labour would therefore sink from six hours to four, and the rate of profit from 100 to 50 percent. But in insisting upon a rise of wages, the labourer would only insist upon getting the increased value of his labour, like every other seller of a commodity, who, the costs of his commodities having increased, tries to get its increased value paid. If wages did not rise, or not sufficiently rise, to compensate for the increased values of necessaries, the price of labour would sink below the value of labour, and the labourer's standard of life would deteriorate.” (p 75-6)

As set out earlier, at times of great excess supply of labour, capital may get away with this deterioration, simply using up the excess supply more wastefully, as workers die earlier, or leave the workforce due to ill-health, to be rapidly replaced by others from the dole queue etc. But, there are objective limits. A deteriorated workforce, provides deteriorated labour-power, just as a poorly maintained machine breaks down more frequently, reducing its productivity. Workers may simply resort to passive resistance, or may emigrate. As seen in the 1980's, they may leave the workforce to become inefficient, petty-bourgeois producers, self-employed artisans or traders, window cleaners and gardener etc. Or they may resort to that epitome of individualism and self employment, petty criminal activity, drug-dealing, smuggling and so on.

“But a change might also take place in an opposite direction. By virtue of the increased productivity of labour, the same amount of the average daily necessaries might sink from three to two shillings, or only four hours out of the working day, instead of six, be wanted to reproduce an equivalent for the value of the daily necessaries. The working man would now be able to buy with two shillings as many necessaries as he did before with three shillings. Indeed, the value of labour would have sunk, but diminished value would command the same amount of commodities as before. Then profits would rise from three to four shillings, and the rate of profit from 100 to 200 percent.” (p 76)

Back To XII - The General Relation of Wages, Values and Prices

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Stalin and The Chinese Revolution, 17. The Chinese Question at the Sixteenth Congress of the CPSU - Part 4 of 5

Where the lesson learned by Trotsky was that the weakness lay in the betrayals of Stalinism, as it subordinated the international socialist revolution to its commitment to the alliance with the bourgeoisie, and that the solution to that was to reject that strategy, and build the independent, revolutionary organisations of the working-class, not in sectarian isolation, but on the basis of a workers' united front, the petty-bourgeois “Left” has responded to its, and the workers' weakness by diluting its programme even more, in practice, and by subordinating its programme to that of the bourgeoisie. To exactly which section of the bourgeoisie it subordinates itself has simply become a question of moralism, of what Kantian categorical imperative determines its views of what is the greater or lesser immediate evil, to which it feels bound to respond.

“The influence of the October revolution, in spite of the years of epigone leadership, is still so great in China that the peasants call their movement “soviet” and their partisan bands – ”Red armies”. This shows once more the depths of Stalin’s philistinism in the period when, coming out against soviets, he said that we must not scare off the masses of the Chinese people by “artificial sovietization”. Only Chiang Kai-shek could have been scared off by it, but not the workers, not the peasants, to whom, after 1917, the soviets had become symbols of emancipation.” (p 298)

These “soviets”, of course, were not soviets in the Bolshevik sense, again illustrating the difference between form and content. The Stalinists themselves turned the concept into an administrative shell, a front, much as with the mushroom growth of various front organisations, created by the various “Left” sects, today. The Stalinist soviets were cover for their failures and betrayals, as with the Canton soviet government. But, as described, they were generally based on peasants, not industrial workers, and Menshevist or Narodnik/SRist in nature. However, as Trotsky notes, where the peasants did create, soviets, spontaneously, they necessarily brought with them their own bourgeois-democratic illusions.

“The Chinese peasants, it is understood, inject no few illusions into the slogan of soviets. It is pardonable in them. But is it pardonable in the leading chvostists who confine themselves to a cowardly and ambiguous generalization of the illusions of the Chinese peasantry, without explaining to the proletariat the real meaning of events?” (p 298)

A similar thing can be said about the demand for national self-determination, or The Workers' Government etc. It is, again, the basis of the workers' United Front, as against the bourgeois Popular Front. That ordinary workers might adopt the abstract concept of “national independence”, whether in the form of an oppressed colony, or in the form of Brexit, or Scottish independence, or defence of the Ukrainian fatherland, without consideration of the question of class, is forgivable, because we don't expect workers to spontaneously develop a revolutionary class consciousness. If they did, Socialism would already have long since been established. It doesn't change the fact that their adoption of these concepts means, in practice, adoption of the reactionary agenda of the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois nationalists, whilst the role of the Marxist is to explain that to them. Instead, the petty-bourgeois “Left”, simply tails those workers, and others.

It is forgivable that ordinary workers may confuse a Labour government with a Workers' Government, but, again, it is not forgivable for Marxists to do so. That workers may seek the “lesser-evil” of a Labour government, as against a Tory government may be understandable, but that is not the case for a Marxist, who must explain to those workers the class nature of such a Labour government, and whose interests it will serve, which will not be those of the workers. Failure to do that leads inevitably to disappointment of the workers, and a feeling of betrayal not only by the Labour government, but also, by those elements of the “Left” that failed to warn them of it, and provide them with an alternative.

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No Money For Poor Pensioners, Another £600 million For Zelensky

Starmer and Blue Labour lie as readily, and as frequently, as they breathe. On the same day that they used their fraudulent parliamentary majority to push through a vicious attack on some of the poorest, most vulnerable households, by withdrawing the Winter Fuel Allowance from those not in receipt of Pension Credit, claiming “they had to do it”, because there was no money for it, they also found another £600 million to send to Zelensky's corrupt, oligarchical regime in Ukraine, to continue the war against Russia!

Since 2022, the UK has pledged £12.5 billion in aid for Ukraine, of which £7.6 billion is military aid, with £3 billion in military aid, pledged for this year, alone, and now with this additional £600 million. So, what was that again about there being no money to give a few quid to poor, vulnerable pensioners, in Britain? If we believed Blue Labour, which would be a very silly thing to do given their proclivity to continually lie, the expected savings from depriving pensioner households of vital Winter Fuel payments, would be £1.5 billion, just half of the amount they are sending, this year alone to fund the war being fought by Ukrainian workers, on their behalf against Russia. In fact, as Martin Lewis has set out, if we believed Blue Labour's argument and justification for cutting the payments that they want the 800,000 pensioners not claiming Pension Credit, to claim it, that would also cost around £3.5 billion, wiping out the proposed savings! This is typical of the lies, and just general bullshit that comes out of the mouths of these career politicians, whenever they speak.

In the 19th century, in the days before nations turned towards conscript armies, to fight their wars, they used paid mercenaries. In effect, what we have is a return to those days, at least in part, as wars between imperialist states and blocs, are being fought out as proxy wars, using paid mercenaries. Its not just the role of The Wagner Group in various places across the globe, but also, for example, Ukraine sending troops to fight on behalf of the Sudanese government, the channelling of funds to various jihadist and other terrorist organisations to fight in theatres of war across the globe. The US, UK and EU know that, if they asked their own citizens to go and fight against Russia, in Ukraine, they would rapidly face a rebellion against such a proposal, not to mention that any such action would quickly lead to WWIII, and nuclear extermination of Mankind.

So, they are paying Ukrainian workers to fight as mercenaries on their behalf, subordinated via the hierarchy and discipline of the Ukrainian army, and the Ukrainian imperialist state, with small numbers of British, US, and other European Special Forces, also fighting secretly, as disclosed in the leak of US Defence Department papers. At the start of the last century, the distinction between the revolutionary socialists and the social-patriots was the refusal to vote for war credits to fight such imperialist wars, but, today, we have some who claim to be revolutionary socialists, falling over themselves to demand billions be sent to the corrupt regime in Ukraine to fight such an imperialist war!

At the same time, the imperialists of Blue Labour, who are at the forefront of promoting such wars, and who continue to back, and arm the genocide committed by the Bonapartist, Zionist state in Israel, against Palestinians, claim that there is no money for poor pensioner households, here, and similarly, no money to enable them to remove the two-child limit on Child Benefit, or to finance even a continuation of vital public services at the current abominably low levels! As in Ukraine, the imperialists of Blue Labour, supported by some of the social imperialists that demand more WMD for Ukraine, lyingly talk Israel's right to defend itself, even as its huge military machine literally rolls over the bones of Palestinians, and increasingly attacks its neighbours, in what appears to be a deliberate strategy of annexation, and the provocation of a regional war.

Blue Labour politicians come on TV and claim that the decision to cut the Winter Fuel Payment was “difficult”, but difficult for who? It will certainly be difficult for around 1 million of those deprived of it, who Blue Labour's own figures have previously shown will result in around 4,000 of them dying this Winter! But, it clearly isn't difficult for those Blue Labour politicians that voted for it, or they wouldn't have done so. They are not the ones, with their comfy positions and large salaries and other incomes that will be struggling to pay the bills, heating or otherwise. Even less will all those billionaires and multimillionaires that, now, provide funds to Blue Labour, and gain access to the corridors of power, have any such difficulty. Blue Labour could, if it found the decision so “difficult” have introduced a wealth tax, on such billionaires instead.

Yet, the reality is that once again Blue Labour lies about this “difficult decision”. In 2014, Rachel Reeves stated openly, in the Commons that she wanted to means test the Winter Fuel Allowance, and when the government won the vote on Tuesday, Blue Labour MP's were seen giving double fist celebrations at their victory over the poor, some of whom would have voted for them, but who may not be around next time to do so, as they will have died, even if, at that stage, they would have been so lavish with their vote.

Value, Price and Profit, XII – General Relation of Profit, Wages and Prices

XII – General Relation of Profit, Wages and Prices

If we assume that productivity remains constant, so that the value of constant capital does not change, its value is both preserved in, and reproduced from the end product. In that case, as Marx does in Capital I, its value can be set to zero, so that we can focus the analysis only on the new value created by by current labour, its division into wages and profit, and the effect on values and prices.

“Deduct from the value of a commodity the value replacing the value of the raw materials and other means of production used upon it, that is to say, deduct the value representing the past labour contained in it, and the remainder of its value will resolve into the quantity of labour added by the working man last employed. If that working man works twelve hours daily, if twelve hours of average labour crystallize themselves in an amount of gold equal to six shillings, this additional value of six shillings is the only value his labour will have created. This given value, determined by the time of his labour, is the only fund from which both he and the capitalist have to draw their respective shares or dividends, the only value to be divided into wages and profits. It is evident that this value itself will not be altered by the variable proportions in which it may be divided amongst the two parties. There will also be nothing changed if in the place of one working man you put the whole working population, twelve million working days, for example, instead of one.” (p 71-2)

Its important to note, here, in an age when orthodox economics is dominated by marginalist theories, that when Marx talks about “the quantity of labour added by the working man last employed” he does not mean this literally, in the sense that marginal cost theories talk about the last unit employed. By “last employed” he means only “current labour”, the labour used to process the materials into the end product, as distinct from the “past labour”, i.e. the congealed labour contained in the value of the constant capital. Last employed, here, means the current labour of the collective labourer.

If the share of wages in the new value rises, the share of profits falls. We are talking, here, of proportions, not portions. If the sum to be divided is 100, it may divide 60 wages and 40 profit, but, if the sum to be divided is 200, it may divide 80 wages, and 120 profit. The proportion going to wages will have fallen to 40%, but the size of its portion still rises to 80. A rise in productivity, which reduces the value of commodities may mean that nominal wages remain constant, whilst real wages rise, i.e. the same amount of money wages buys more wage goods, whilst relative wages will fall.

What is important, here, is not the size of the portion, but the proportional relation. If relative wages rise, relative profits fall, and vice versa. Similarly, if 1 million workers are employed rather than one, the total amount of wages and profit will be 1 million times greater, because 1 million times more new value is created, as is its division into wages and profits. It is not this size that is important, here, but the division between wages and profits.

“A general rise of wages would, therefore, result in a fall of the general rate of profit, but not affect values.” (p 73)

That, of course, does mean that the value/price of all commodities would remain constant. That value depends on productivity, and productivity constantly changes. In general, taken over a year, or several years, it rises, reducing the unit value of commodities. That is because higher levels of production bring economies of scale, greater division of labour, more use of fixed capital, improved transport and communications, etc. For some commodities, in the short-run, the opposite may occur, raising their value, and, depending on the function of these commodities – for example energy and materials – their higher value may pass into the value of other commodities, for which they are inputs/raw material. However, similarly, the lower value of all other commodities, resulting from higher social productivity, will pass on into all other commodities for which they are inputs.

“The number or mass of commodities produced in a given time of labour, or by a given quantity of labour, depends upon the productive power of the labour employed, and not upon its extent or length.” (p 73)

Spinning labour of 12 hours, depending on its productivity, might produce 12 pounds of yarn, or only 2 pounds. If 12 hours labour is equal to six shillings (£0.30), then, in the first case, 12 pounds of yarn has a value of £0.30 (£0.025 per pound), and in the second case, just 2 pounds of yarn has a value of £0.30 (£0.15 per pound).

If relative wages remain constant, in the first case, the worker receives the equivalent of 6 pounds of yarn, whereas, in the second case, only 1 pound. In other words, in terms of real wages, the workers wage is higher in the first case, compared to the latter case. Yet, the price of the commodity is low, in the first case, compared to the second. But, even if, in the first case, relative wages also rose, so that relative profits fell, this would not change the value/price of yarn, which would still be much less than in the second case, where relative wages were lower.

“This would be so because the price of the pound of yarn is regulated by the total amount of labour worked up in it, and not by the proportional division of that total amount into paid and unpaid labour. The fact I have mentioned before that high-price labour may produce cheap, and low-priced labour may produce dear commodities, loses, therefore, its paradoxical appearance. It is only the expression of the general law that the value of a commodity is regulated by the quantity of labour worked up in it, and the quantity of labour worked up in it depends altogether upon the productive powers of labour employed, and will therefore, vary with every variation in the productivity of labour.” (p 74)

Back To XI, The Component Parts Into Which Surplus-Value Decomposes

Forward To XIII - Main Attempts At raising Wages Or Resisting Their Fall

Stalin and The Chinese Revolution, 17. The Chinese Question at the Sixteenth Congress of the CPSU - Part 3 of 5

“To speak of a soviet government without speaking of the dictatorship of the proletariat means to deceive the workers and to help the bourgeoisie deceive the peasants. But to speak of the dictatorship of the proletariat without speaking of the leading role of the Communist Party means once more to convert the dictatorship of the proletariat into a trap for the proletariat.” (p 297-8)

Again, this shows how far the “Left” has degenerated, compared to the Stalinists and even Mensheviks, of the 1920's. Today's “Left” does not even cloak its social-patriotism and social-imperialism in the concept of a defence of “revolutionary democracy”, as the Mensheviks did, in arguing a defence of Kerensky's Russia. The Ukrainian social patriots, as well as the social imperialists of the USC et al, simply act as cheerleaders, even for Zelensky's corrupt, crony-capitalist regime, whilst the pro-Putin social-imperialists simply act as verbal cannon fodder for the opposing camp of Russia and China, just as, in the past, the petty-bourgeois “Left” has acted as cheerleaders for the Viet Cong, Algerian NLF, Khomeini, PIRA and so on.

As they abase themselves as Sherpas for one reactionary bourgeois or petty-bourgeois nationalist movement after another, all concern for the interests of the global working-class and international socialist revolution is abandoned. One group of those moralists backed Gaddafi, in the name of his “anti-imperialism”, whilst, in 2011, we had the equally, if not more, grotesque image of people who still call themselves Trotskyists backing medievalist jihadists, backed by the feudal Gulf Monarchies and NATO imperialism, to overthrow Gaddafi, in the name of “democracy”, with the inevitable catastrophic consequences for Libyan workers.

These sects carry uneducated discussions on the meaning of The Dictatorship of The Proletariat, in their papers, and make ridiculous demands for the establishment of a Workers Government, when, in fact, the only party, currently, that could form a “Workers Government”, as an alternative to the Tories, is Starmer's reactionary, nationalist Blue Labour! Otherwise, as with the Stalinist administrative calls for soviets, in China, in 1927, we are to believe that the calls, in themselves, bring forth such changes, by some miraculous, spontaneous process. It, again, completely confuses labels and forms with class content.

“The Chinese Communist Party, however, is now extremely weak. The number of its worker-members is limited to a few thousand. There are about fifty thousand workers in the Red trade unions. Under these conditions, to speak of the dictatorship of the proletariat as an immediate task is obviously unthinkable.” (p 298)

Yet, as Trotsky describes, these numbers, even in conditions of counter-revolution, are superior to those we have today, which shows just how disastrous has been the role of Stalinism, and of the petty-bourgeois “Left”, in the intervening period, as it has become increasingly separated from the working-class, and turned itself into a series of competing student debating societies that plays at being revolutionaries, whilst, in reality, being mere cheerleaders for one liberal cause after another. Trotsky noted that one of the main factors in the continued support for the revolution, by the Chinese workers and peasants, was the effects on their own consciousness of the Russian Revolution, despite the subsequent betrayals of Stalinism.

Today, in conditions in which the further development of capitalism/imperialism, and of the global working-class, should have been the material basis for an even greater international revolutionary movement, the opposite is the case, because, rather than learning the lessons of the betrayals by Stalinism, the petty-bourgeois “left” has compounded them, as it collapsed into moralism and bourgeois-nationalism, voluntarily subordinating itself, and becoming mere cheerleaders of one bourgeois cause after another, as a perfect example of its stageism, and Popular Frontism, rather than basing itself on the concept of permanent revolution, and the workers' united front.

It doesn't even seem to understand the basis upon which Marxists supported the bourgeois-national revolutions of the 19th century (permanent revolution), and instead turns it into some kind of moral quest, in its own right. The basis for Marxists supporting the bourgeois-national revolution, in the 19th century, was that it was part and parcel of the need to create the conditions in which capitalism itself could develop most freely, and rapidly.

Why did Marxists want that? Because, as Marx set out, it is that, which is the precondition for the development of a large, concentrated and class conscious proletariat, as well as of the productive forces required for Socialism. In other words, the destination was C, but to get there required passing through B, but the aim was to make that passage as rapidly as possible, and where possible, go straight to C, skipping over B entirely. That was the meaning of Engels Letter to Danielson, for example. The petty-bourgeois "Left" is still treating the world as though the conditions of the 19th century, and its battles were determinant, rather than those of even 20th century imperialism, of a global ruling class and proletariat, in which the searching after bourgeois national solutions has become absolutely reactionary.

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Forward To Part 3

Kursk, Donbass, Sudetenland, Alsace-Lorraine - Part 7 of 7

So, this shows this same division of Ukraine into the Westward looking, ethnic Ukrainians in the West and Centre, as against the Eastward looking, ethnic-Russian regions in the East, and South, and Crimea, which is far from the description of an almost overwhelming, popular revolt against Yanukovytch, and support for the EU and NATO, presented by western media, and the social imperialists. In those conditions, the attempt to hold on to Eastern and Southern Ukraine, and Crimea, by the Kyiv regime, following the 2014 coup, was bound to provoke a response, especially as the attempts to hold on to those regions, involved the use of the paramilitary forces of the Nazis of the Azov Battalion, and Right Sector, and came with further ultra-nationalist policies from the Ukrainian state in relation to use of the Russian language and so on.

Russia has undoubtedly taken advantage of that to expand into Eastern Ukraine, even though, initially, it sought to keep the ethnic Russian regions of Ukraine, as autonomous regions within Ukraine, so as, thereby, to continue to exert influence in elections to the Ukrainian parliament and Presidency. That was the purpose of the Minsk Agreements, but for the West, as Angela Merkel revealed in an interview with Die Zeit, on December 7th 2022, “The 2014 Minsk agreement was an attempt to give Ukraine time,” and “It also used this time to become stronger, as you can see today.” In other words, this was another example of the point made by Lenin, and cited by Trotsky that it was really just a case of one set of bandits, NATO-Ukraine, planning for war, and just waiting to have its new supply of knives ready, but, then being thwarted by the other bandit, Russia pre-empting them.  “It was clear to all of us that this was a frozen conflict, that the problem had not been solved, but that is precisely what gave Ukraine valuable time,” Merkel told Die Zeit.

And so, we come, now, to the NATO/Ukrainian invasion of Russia, in its Kursk region. Unlike, the Russian invasion of Eastern and Southern Ukraine, and Crimea, there is no attempt to even claim that this is being done to liberate ethnic Ukrainians from oppression. It is being portrayed as simply a strategic operation, both to encumber Russian military advances in Ukraine, and also to act as a bargaining chip in eventual negotiations over the return of Ukrainian territory. The real reason, of course, as I set out a while ago, is that its a stunt ahead of the US Presidential elections, geared both to give false hope of some Ukrainian victory, to ensure continued US funding and weapons, and also to assist Kamala Harris and the Democrats to win in the upcoming elections to prevent a Trumpist victory, which threatens future US backing for the war.

Russia occupies more than 20% of Ukraine, in the East, South and Crimea. Western media talk about the Ukrainian invasion of Kursk occupying 1,000 square kilometres, which sounds a lot until you compare it to the 62,000 or so square kilometres of Ukraine occupied by Russia. To put it further into context, it is an area equivalent of only around 20 miles by 50 miles. The total area of the Kursk region is 30,000 square kilometres, so that the area occupied amounts to just 3%. The total area of Russia, is 17 million square kilometres, so it is just 0.006% of it occupied by Ukraine, or less than a pin prick. It would hardly constitute much of a bargaining chip.

Nor does the invasion have any strategic logic, as other military strategists have noted. Ukraine cannot advance further into Russia than this pin-prick, because it does not have the forces to do so, even with the support of NATO forces actually involved, but not acknowledged by it publicly. In order to undertake this invasion, Ukraine has had to take its best troops and weapons away from elsewhere in Ukraine, thereby, weakening its defence of those areas. As a result, Russia, which did not move large numbers of troops or equipment to defend Kursk, has made more rapid advances in Eastern Ukraine, now being on the verge of having control of the whole of Eastern Ukraine, including, now, the large and strategically important city of Pokrovsk.

The Ukrainian forces in Kursk, had a rapid success, precisely because it was a surprise attack into a Russian oblast that Russia saw no need to significantly defend, because there is no significant strategic advantage gained by Ukraine in invading it. Its troops and weapons are, now, pretty much tied up there, unable to move forward, and, for now, unable to retreat, because to do so would be demoralising, and does not serve the real purpose of providing false hope ahead of the US Presidential elections. They need to sit there, pretty much as sitting ducks, until November, as the Russians pound them from the air with missiles, drones, aircraft, and attack helicopters, as well as long range artillery.

Already, many of those advanced tanks and other equipment supplied by Britain and other NATO countries appear to have been taken out from the air, as Ukrainian forces suffer the disadvantage of all attacking forces, against defenders. According to Forbes magazine it lost at least 4 tanks, and 41 armoured vehicles, within the first few days.  As of 27th August, Forbes also reports that Ukraine has lost 87 pieces of heavy equipment, whilst making little further progress, with its supply lines, now, stretched.  It has also lost one of the 10 F-16 fighters supplied to it by NATO, and as Russia has taken advantage to make much more rapid advances in Eastern Ukraine, an increasing number of Ukrainians complain that Zelensky, who now has no democratic mandate, is more concerned with attacking Russia than defending Ukraine.

Rather than moving troops from Eastern Ukraine, Russia has moved troops from elsewhere in Russia, and, almost at a time of its choosing, it can move troops and weaponry in through the neighbouring oblasts in a pincer movement that will encircle the Ukrainian forces in Kursk.

Western media has, also, tried to justify the aims of the invasion by claiming that, by bringing the war to the people of Russia, it will provoke further internal opposition to Putin. Since when has that ever worked? Thomas Hobbes wrote 400 years ago that it was fear of external enemies that enabled sovereigns to accrue absolute power in their hands, granted to them by the people. When Britain, France and the other allies began to mobilise against Nazi Germany, it gave a boost to Hitler, who was likewise able to rally even many of those that opposed his regime, in defence of the fatherland. After all, we are told that Russia's invasion of Ukraine has united its own population for its defence, so why would anyone not believe that the threat of invasion would have the same consequence when it comes to Russia?

Workers cannot ally themselves with their own ruling-class, or the ruling class of some other state, as the means of their liberation.  The Main Enemy Is At Home.  The solution is only international workers solidarity.  We are for the self-determination of the working-class, as a global class, not the reactionary demand of national self-determination, which means defence of the capitalist fatherland, and so of the same capitalist state that is our exploiter and oppressor.

Back To Part 6

Why Is Starmer Defending Putin's Brexit?

Starmer makes great play of his efforts to support Ukraine in its war against Russia, emphasising the idea that it is about defending democracy against the incursions of Putin's Russia.  Every day, the media is full of stories about the role of Russia in seeking to undermine western democracies, not only via such direct military action, but via the use of funds, agents, and bots.  We have had, in the last couple of days a meeting of the chiefs of the CIA and MI6, with a press conference given on such dangers, and activities.  So, why, then, is Starmer and his government continuing to support Putin's Brexit?

At the time of the referendum, Starmer was prominent in opposing Brexit, and it was his main platform, after the referendum, during Corbyn's leadership, in setting out his six tests, and promoting the cause of a second referendum.  So, why, has he been so adamant in continuing with a Brexit that everyone knows was bought and paid for by Putin, and that everyone now, also, knows has been disastrous?

At the time, it was clear that Putin and his regime was interfering in the referendum, and that funds were being channelled into the coffers of various organisations backing Brexit.  I set out, back then, that the links between Farage, Johnson, and elements in Putin's regime, and even Putin himself were fairly well known, not to mention the links with Trump, Bannon and those behind Cambridge Analytica and so on.

What s more, the Electoral Commission and the police uncovered the facts that the Leave Campaign had seriously breached electoral law, in terms of financing, financing that appears to have been channelled via these various routes from Russia, and yet, although they issued the heaviest fines they could, those fines amounted to little in the grand scheme of things, and the result of the referendum was allowed to stand, despite the breaches, and despite the external intervention.

Around 80% of Labour members, and a similar amount of Labour voters want to go back into the EU.  By the time this parliament is finished, and the further horrors of Brexit unfurl, that is likely to be more like 90%.  What is more, a clear majority of the electorate as a whole want to re-join the EU.  Yet, Starmer obstinately refuses to respond to their wishes.  That in itself is unusual for a populist like Starmer.  Indeed, although Starmer conforms to all of the traits of a Bonapartist, his insistence on irrationally opposing certain policies that are popular seems bizarre.

The decision to continue with the removal of Winter Fuel payments from pensioners is another case in point, as is the insistence on not ending the Two Child Limit on Child Benefit.  Even moderate, centre-right Labour MP's are opposing those positions, and it is even more opposed by the electorate, including many of those that Blue Labour has claimed to be continuing to back Brexit, in order to appease.  As the video above indicates, had the referendum been an actual parliamentary election, the findings of the breach of electoral law would have voided it, and required a new ballot.  So, why is Starmer and Blue Labour continuing with it?  After all, its not only unpopular with the electorate but simultaneously undermines Starmer and Reeves economic policy.

Why focus on trying to blame the Tories for the mess they have inherited, based on their fiscal stance, when the most obvious failure has been Brexit?  Starmer seems irrationally obsessed with trying to play the role, not only of Bonapartist, but also of authoritarian pursuing unpopular policies, but to what end?  The Tories have used the attacks on pensioners and and parents, whilst attacking Starmer for conceding pay rises to doctors and train drivers. 

In fact, although the media frame the pay rises as being 15% for example, the reality is that this 15% is over three years, or only 5% a year, which is in line with other pay increases.  Given that many of these workers have had real pay cuts over a number of years it doesn't even catch them up for what they have lost.  In fact, the alternative was to see workers in these particular sectors simply move elsewhere, exacerbating the problem created by Brexit of various labour shortages.

Many of the issues arising with the various targeted benefits are self-inflicted, and could be easily resolved.  Child Benefit itself should be scrapped, and, instead, what is required is a much higher weekly Minimum Wage, as well as higher benefits for those not in work.  That would save significant amounts currently spent on bureaucracy to check who was entitled to these specific benefits, and paying them out.  The same is true with things like Housing Benefit, Council Tax Benefit and so on.

The Winter Fuel Allowance was first introduced by Gordon Brown, as a bureaucratic quick fix after he came under attack for that year's pension increase amounting to only 75p.  Again, it requires huge amounts of bureaucracy to administer, and even more if its made means tested.  It should be scrapped, and incorporated into a much higher state pension, as part of bringing UK pensions into line with those in the EU.  The same is true of National Insurance.  Its Income Tax by another name.  It requires a huge bureaucracy to administer the collection of the contributions, and another one to administer the pensions and benefits calculated on the basis of those contributions.  Pointless.  In the end, if you don't have sufficient contributions, the state has to fund a supplementary income to you via other benefits, paid out of the tax system anyway.  And, the very highly paid not to mention the wealthy do not contribute proportionally to it anyway.

But, setting those objections aside, Starmer's refusal to budge on these benefits seems just irrational.  However, so does his stance on Brexit, and refusal to support re-joining the EU, the Single Market, or even agreeing to free movement for the under 30's.  On the one hand, Starmer makes great play of the insidious role of Putin's Russia, he sends billions of pounds of weapons and assistance to Ukraine to fight the war against Russia, and yet, at the same time, he continues to act as apologist for, and defender of Putin's greatest success so far, his bought and paid for Brexit!!!

Value, Price and Profit, XI – The Different Parts Into Which Surplus Value is Decomposed - Part 4 of 4

Marx, then, moves on to deal with the point I set out earlier of the difference between the Labour Theory of Value, and a cost of production theory of value, of the difference between the value of the commodity resolving into these different funds, or the value of its different components constituting its value. It is the difference between the current reproduction cost model, and historic pricing model. Marx also sets out the difference between the resolution of the value into revenues and capital, in the process of reproduction.

“That part of the value of the commodity which represents only the value of the raw materials, the machinery, in one word, the value of the means of production used up, forms no revenue at all, but replaces only capital. But, apart from this, it is false that the other part of the value of the commodity which forms revenue, or may be spent in the form of wages, profits, rent, interest, is constituted by the value of wages, the value of rent, the value of profits, and so forth.” (p 68)

To illustrate this, Marx ignores wages and looks just at the resolution of the surplus value into profit of enterprise, rent, interest and taxes.

“But it would be quite the reverse of the truth to say that its value is composed of, or formed by, the addition of the independent values of these three constituents.” (p 69)

This concept remains a significant element of bourgeois economics and ideology, today. As Marx describes it, in Capital III, and Theories of Surplus Value, for bourgeois ideology, it is as though land produces rent and capital produces interest just as naturally as a pear tree produces pears, as though this fruit were to spring forth on its own account. On that basis, the landlord will always demand a given amount of rent, and the lender of money-capital a given amount of interest. These costs of production are, then, seen as feeding into the price of the commodity.

Similarly, the rise in asset prices, for example of shares and bonds, particular as part of pension funds, is seen as producing greater revenues in interest/dividends, as though this is automatic, rather than, actually, being determined by the amount of profit produced by the use of the underlying assets, i.e. the industrial capital. In fact, if industrial profits do not rise, whilst share prices do – a function of capitalisation – then the reality is that dividend yields must fall, or else a growing proportion of profits must be allocated to dividends, and smaller proportion to capital accumulation, thereby, undermining the reproduction of capital itself, in the longer-term. That is what has been seen, in the last forty years, and, particularly, the last twenty, with, as Haldane indicated, the share of dividends from profit accounting for 10% in the 1970's, and 70%, today.

If dividends accounted for that same 10%, today, then, given astronomically inflated asset prices, dividend yields would sink to more or less zero, showing just how much of a bubble those asset prices represent, and why a huge crash of those asset prices is inevitable if a collapse of capitalist production, itself, is to be avoided.

We have, previously, described that, if an hour's labour produces a value equal to sixpence (£0.025), a working day of 12 hours produces £0.30 of new value, of which £0.15 resolves into wages, and £0.15 into surplus value/profit.

“This surplus value of three shillings constitutes the whole fund which the employing capitalist may divide, in whatever proportions, with the landlord and the money-lender. The value of these three shillings constitutes the limit of the value they have to divide amongst them. But it is not the employing capitalist who adds to the value of the commodity an arbitrary value for his profit, to which another value is added for the landlord, and so forth, so that the addition of these arbitrarily fixed values would constitute the total value. You see, therefore, the fallacy of the popular notion, which confounds the decomposition of a given value into three parts, with the formation of that value by the addition of three independent values, thus converting the aggregate value, from which rent, profit, and interest are derived, into an arbitrary magnitude.” (p 69)

If total profit is £100, and the total capital advanced is £500, then, the rate of profit is 20%. However, this total advanced capital comprises both constant capital – say £400 – and variable-capital/wages – say £100. It is only labour that produces new value – here £200 – divided into wages and profit. If we compare the profit/surplus value to the wages, then, its clear that this ratio is 100%, and not the 20% that is the rate of profit. The ratio of surplus value to wages is the rate of surplus value, which shows the real extent of the exploitation of labour.

In Capital II, Marx and Engels show that, because the capital advanced, as wages, turns over many times, during the year - Engels assumed an average of 8 times, in 1865 – the actual degree of exploitation, the annual rate of surplus value, was much higher. In his Capital III, Chapter 4, Engels calculates an average annual rate of surplus value of over 1,300%. In the further 150 years since then, not only has a massive rise in productivity reduced the value of labour-power, and so raised the rate of surplus value, but the rate of turnover of capital has also risen significantly, to probably at least 50, so that the annual rate of surplus value, is now probably well over 20,000%!

Marx says that, in his further comments, he will use profit to mean the whole surplus value, and rate of profit to mean rate of surplus value, i.e. profit relative to wages.

Back To Part 3

Forward To XII - The General Relation of Profits, Wages and Prices

Stalin and The Chinese Revolution, 17. The Chinese Question at the Sixteenth Congress of the CPSU - Part 2 of 5

Its Tsereteli's ideology of “Revolutionary Defencism” that today's social-imperialists have adopted as cover for their social-patriotism. It stands, as it did then, in opposition to the Leninist position of revolutionary defeatism, of The Main Enemy Is At Home.

Today, the social-imperialists do not even make a show of that kind of Menshevism, but offer up, voluntarily, their support for Zelensky's corrupt, capitalist regime. And, out in the open, Zelensky's regime sits in conferences in London with US and EU billionaires, and their political representatives, discussing how the Ukrainian workers can be better exploited, and Ukrainian resources pillaged, when the war ends. That was the offer made to Zelensky and the Ukrainian oligarchs for turning Ukraine into an unsinkable aircraft carrier for NATO imperialism, parked on Russia's borders.

Of course, if Ukraine cannot fulfil its mission of defeating Russia, on NATO's behalf, just as Saddam was unable to defeat Iran, on its behalf, NATO will abandon it, as is already becoming apparent. But, as in Afghanistan, China stands ready to fill the vacuum, and it will not matter to Zelensky, or his replacement, whether he lines his pockets with Yuan rather than Dollars, in exchange for arranging the exploitation of Ukrainian workers and resources.

Meanwhile, those same Ukrainian workers, whose exploitation was being discussed around the table, in London, like the scene at the end of “Animal Farm”, and who are the one's, currently, dying for the greater glory of NATO/Ukrainian imperialism, were conspicuously excluded from those discussions.

Trotsky notes,

“What kind of soviets are the Chinese? If the Chinese Communist Party can say nothing about them, then it means that it is not leading them. Then who is? Apart from the Communists, only accidental, intermediate elements, people of a “third party”, in a word, fragments of the Guomindang of the second and third sort, can come to the head of the soviets and create a soviet government.” (p 297)

And, in fact, that was prescient of the Bonapartist regime established by Mao Zedong, in 1949, not on the basis of proletarian revolution, but of a peasant, guerrilla war, not communism, but Left KMTism. Later, as two competing national socialisms of Russia and China were to come into conflict, the Russian Stalinists were also to make this observation of the class nature of Maoism. But, in his speech, Stalin was to act as the cheerleader of what became Maoism, just as the petty-bourgeois “Left”, subsequently became the cheerleaders of all other reactionary, anti-working-class, nationalist forces.

Trotsky notes,

“Only yesterday Stalin thought that “it would be ridiculous to think” of the creation of soviets in China prior to the completion of the democratic revolution. Now he seems to think – if his five phrases have any meaning at all – that in the democratic revolution the soviets can save the country even without the leadership of the Communists.” (p 297)

That has been the position of the petty-bourgeois “Left” ever since, which has abandoned the struggle for Socialism, and become mere baggage carriers for assorted bourgeois causes, on the basis of moralism and lesser-evilist liberalism. It seeks, in its political activity, merely to mollify the conditions of workers, sinking into economism and bourgeois reformism, cloaked in kitsch Marxian phraseology, with its discussion of Socialism removed to academic discussion at its own internal educationals, Day and Summer Schools, which reflect its petty-bourgeois nature, and natural habitat in studentism and academia. But, as even that theoretical discussion conflicts with its day to day practice, so the theory itself must be repeatedly bowdlerised and grotesquely distorted, as these sects take on the role of epigones. Their ordinary members and recruits must be cocooned from any alternative view, by the creation of safe spaces, and the use of bureaucratic censorship.

Back To Part 1

Forward To Part 3

Northern Soul Classics - Secret Home - Willie Mitchell

My oldest and best friend, Keith Beardmore, reminded me of this record the other day, which had drifted the depths of my memory banks, so I dedicate it to him.

Friday Night Disco - Poison Ivy - The Coasters

 

Kursk, Donbass, Sudetenland, Alsace-Lorraine - Part 6 of 7

Part of the argument of the social-patriots in Ukraine, and of social-imperialists in the West is that, unlike, say, Alsace-Lorraine, or the Sudetenland, where the majority ethnic population of the region sought to split away, this was not the case in Eastern and Southern Ukraine, and Crimea. As, the above shows, in terms of whether Marxists should support one side – NATO-Ukraine – in what is actually an inter-imperialist conflict, just as with WWI and II, that is irrelevant.

However, there is every indication that the majority ethnic Russians in those regions do, and always have looked East towards Russia for their defence against the oppression faced from the ethnic Ukrainian population, and the Ukrainian state. The fact that, in numerous elections, those regions elected, consistently, pro-Russian candidates, and supported pro-Russian policies, by far larger majorities than were obtained in the independence referenda, is indication of that. Indeed, the fact that Eastern and Southern Ukraine represents only a third of the population, and yet, in 2009, the pro Russian Yanukovytch won the Presidential election with 48.95% of the vote, shows the strength of that pro-Russian sentiment in the East.

The same is true, in relation to the US inspired Maidan coup in 2014 that removed the democratically elected Yanukovytch. Marxists, of course, have no reason to defend Yanukovytch, who, like all Ukrainian Presidents, before and after, was marked by significant corruption. But, precisely, because Yanukovytch was no different than any other such Ukrainian President, in that regard, rather undermines the argument of the Ukrainian social-patriots, and western social-imperialists, in using that as part of their justification for his removal in that coup! Indeed, the Guardian, prior to the current war, wrote extensively on the way Zelensky was just as corrupt as those previous Presidents.  The other justification used is that Yanukovytch had opposed entry into the EU, and sought closer ties with the Eurasian Economic Union. But, this is also misleading.  It logically means, also, justifying a coup against pro-Brexit governments, like that of Starmer, in Britain!!!

Yanukovytch had said that he was happy to have closer ties with the EU so long as he could also have ties with the Eurasian Economic Union, but the EU had said that such a solution was impossible. In fact, such a solution was not impossible as the same arrangement exists in The Northern Ireland Protocol, in which Northern Ireland is treated as part of the EU, as well as part of Britain, outside the EU! Moreover, these positions of Yanukovytch were known prior to his democratic election in 2009, as was his opposition to joining NATO, which, also, only 20% of Ukrainians, as a whole, supported. Consequently, the same division of Ukraine in terms of a Westward looking West and Central Ukraine, where ethnic Ukrainians dominate, as against an Eastward looking Eastern and Southern Ukraine and Crimea, where ethnic Russians dominate was manifest in the coup, to remove Yanukovytch.

Wikipedia, also, provides the data from various polls showing this same division.

“According to December 2013 polls (by three different pollsters), between 45% and 50% of Ukrainians supported Euromaidan, while between 42% and 50% opposed it. The biggest support for the protest was found in Kyiv (about 75%) and western Ukraine (more than 80%). Among Euromaidan protesters, 55% were from the west of the country, with 24% from central Ukraine and 21% from the east.”

It goes on to show not only a division in terms of region, but also of age, with younger people looking towards the EU, whilst a majority of older Ukrainians favoured a relation with the Eurasian Economic Union, which undoubtedly reflects the fact that they still looked back to the days of the USSR, as well as the fact that Russia was still the largest trading partner of Ukraine, until 2019, when it was replaced by China, not the EU.  Even, today, Russia is the destination for 5.2% of Ukraine's exports, and source of 10.9% of Ukraine's imports.  The figures for China are 11.7% and 13.9%, respectively.  Only Poland, on Ukraine's border comes close to those figures, accounting for 7.2% of Ukraine's exports, and 9.4% of its imports.  It is also not another EU country, but Türkiye that is in the highest of Ukraine's trading partners, accounting for 5.9% of Ukraine's exports, and 4% of its imports.

So, although western liberals might see an orientation to the EU, rather than the Eurasian Economic Union, as rational, the situation in Ukraine, particularly, Eastern Ukraine is not so clearcut.  Ukraine has greater trade with the economies of the Eurasian Economic Union than with EU countries, and not surprisingly given that they are its immediate neighbours, but also, that Eurasian economic bloc is growing much faster than the EU, which has gone through 14 years of self-inflicted harm from austerity, and the effects of conservative social-democratic (neoliberal) ideology.  Using the same arguments as those that apply to the Brexiters, there is every reason why Ukraine, particularly Eastern Ukraine, would look East rather than West.

“According to a 4 to 9 December 2013 study by Research & Branding Group, 49% of all Ukrainians supported Euromaidan and 45% had the opposite opinion. It was mostly supported in Western (84%) and Central Ukraine (66%). A third (33%) of residents of South Ukraine and 13% of residents of Eastern Ukraine supported Euromaidan as well. The percentage of people who do not support the protesters was 81% in East Ukraine, 60% in South Ukraine, in Central Ukraine 27% and in Western Ukraine 11%. Polls have shown that two-thirds of Kyivans supported the ongoing protests.”

(ibid)

Back To Part 5

Forward To Part 7

Value, Price and Profit, XI – The Different Parts Into Which Surplus Value is Decomposed - Part 3 of 4

In Capital III, Marx sets out the laws that determine the average industrial rate of profit that shares out the total surplus value, proportionally, amongst the industrial capitals. Only at that point can the laws determining the division of this profit into rent, interest, taxes and profit of enterprise be considered. These revenues of rent, interest, taxes and profit of enterprise are all derived from the surplus value produced by the workers.

“They are not derived from land as such or from capital as such, but land and capital enable their owners to get their respective shares out of the surplus value extracted by the employing capitalist from the labourer. For the labourer himself it is a matter of subordinate importance whether that surplus value, the result of his surplus labour, or unpaid labour, is altogether pocketed by the employing capitalist, or whether the latter is obliged to pay portions of it, under the name of rent and interest, away to third parties.” (p 67)

That is no longer the case, however, as Marx sets out, in Capital III, Chapter 27, when the era of the monopoly of private capital ends, and the era of socialised capital begins. With socialised capital, it is the collective property of the workers themselves (associated producers), and so how much of their profit is syphoned off as rent to landlords, interest to money-lenders (banks, shareholders, bondholders, the state) or in taxes, becomes of utmost significance to them.

That is most obvious in relation to the worker cooperatives, where the workers see a large part of their profits taken away in rent, interest and taxes. They can reduce the deductions for interest, if they can mobilise their own funds, and retain as much of the profit as possible, to finance capital accumulation, rather than borrowing to finance it. However, as Marx sets out, in Capital III, Chapter 27, the joint stock companies/corporations are socialised capitals just as much a the cooperatives. It is just that bourgeois laws, created by the ruling-class, deny the workers, as collective owners of them, their rightful control over that property, and hand it instead, to shareholders, who do not own it.

It is of utmost importance, therefore, for workers to demand not just consistent democracy, in order to show the sham nature of bourgeois-democracy, but the consistent application of bourgeois property laws, which require the owners of property to be able to exercise control over it. The owners of socialised capital (be it in the form of a cooperative or a joint stock company/corporation) are the workers (associated producers) in the given enterprise, not the creditors of that enterprise, be they landlords, equipment lessors, banks, bondholders, shareholders or the state.

“It is the employing capitalist who immediately extracts from the labourer this surplus value, whatever part of it he may ultimately be able to keep for himself.” (p 67)

And, as Marx sets out in Capital III, this is not changed when the workers become their own capitalist in the shape of the cooperative.

“Upon this relation, therefore between the employing capitalist and the wages labourer the whole wages system and the whole present system of production hinge.” (p 67-8)

It is this fundamental relation between capital and labour that determines the mass and rate of surplus value, and, thereby, the amount of profit that can be shared amongst the various exploiters, be they landlords, industrial capitalists, money lenders or the capitalist state.

“Some of the citizens who took part in our debate were, therefore, wrong in trying to mince matters, and to treat this fundamental relation between the employing capitalist and the working man as a secondary question, although they were right in stating that, under given circumstances, a rise of prices might affect in very unequal degrees the employing capitalist, the landlord, the moneyed capitalist, and, if you please, the tax-gatherer.” (p 68)

Back To Part 2

Forward To Part 4

Stalin and The Chinese Revolution, 17. The Chinese Question at the Sixteenth Congress of the CPSU - Part 1 of 5

The failure of Stalin to understand the Democratic Dictatorship (bourgeois-democracy), Proletarian Dictatorship (Workers' Democracy), and the relation between them, was made apparent in his speech to the Sixteenth Congress of the CPSU. Its clear that most of the “Left”, today, also do not understand these concepts and the relation between them.

The betrayal and defeat of the Chinese Revolution lay at the door of Stalin and the opportunist, petty-bourgeois nationalist strategy of The Popular Front, which gave primacy to the bourgeois-democratic, national revolution (national self-determination) over the international, socialist revolution (permanent revolution, the self-determination of the working-class). The same is true of the “Left's” position in every subsequent national revolution/struggle.

Stalin, clearly, did not want to discuss the defeat in China, but the historic nature of it meant he could not avoid it. He kept his comments however, to just five phrases out of a report of 10 hours! Even in these five phrases, however, Trotsky says, every one was wrong, and demonstrated the bankrupt nature of Stalinism.

1. “It would be ridiculous to think, [Stalin said] that this misconduct of the imperialists will pass for them unpunished. The Chinese workers and peasants have already replied to this by the creation of soviets and a Red army.” (p 296)

As Trotsky points out, if the misdeeds of imperialism are sufficient to provoke a response from workers, in the form of the creation of soviets and a Red Army, why does imperialism still exist? The same criticism can be made of the moralism of much of the Left, today, in regard to the genocide in Gaza.  The same misdeeds have accompanied imperialism, and before it colonialism, since its inception. It provoked a response, just as the “misdeeds” of capitalism provoked a response, from workers, first in the form of Luddism, and later in the form of trades unions and social-democratic parties, but that is not the same as workers spontaneously developing a revolutionary class consciousness, manifest in the development of a revolutionary party, soviets and a Red Army. On the contrary, the spontaneous responses are, at best, bourgeois and reformist (trades unions, social-democratic parties), and, at worst, reactionary (petty-bourgeois socialism, Luddism).

In this Stalinist approach can be seen also that strand of petty-bourgeois catastrophism that has always occupied a place in the labour movement, in which the path to revolution passes through some economic, environmental or other catastrophe whose effect on workers provokes them, via some mysterious and spontaneous process, into a revolutionary awakening. All history shows the opposite to be the case. And, Trotsky sets out this implication in China too.

2. ““It is said that a soviet government has already been created there.” (p 296)

But, who is it that says this, Trotsky enquires. Was it true? Did Stalin not know whether a soviet government had been established or not? (If he didn't know, then why, as leader of the Communist International, did he not know?) Had it arisen without his knowledge, or the knowledge of the Chinese Communist Party that reported to him, and whose representative was in attendance at the Congress? If the Chinese Communist party did not know about it, then, presumably, it had no involvement in this soviet government, or Red Army, in which case, who was involved in their formation, which class did they represent, which party? This, of course, was significant in relation to all of the subsequent petty-bourgeois nationalist revolutions that cloaked themselves in communist colours, to quote The Theses On The National and Colonial Questions, to hide their reactionary, anti-working-class nature, and which it was the duty of Marxists to expose and oppose, rather than acting as their cheerleaders. Stalin did not even ask the question, and continued.

3 and 4. “I think that if [!] this is true then [!] there is nothing surprising in it.” (p 296)

Trotsky responds,

“There is nothing surprising in the fact that in China a soviet government was created about which the Chinese Communist Party knows nothing and about whose political physiognomy the highest leader of the Chinese revolution can give us no information. Then what is there left in the world to be surprised at?” (p 296-7)

The petty-bourgeois “Left” has continued in the same vein as Stalin ever since. It fails to ask the question of the class nature of those nationalist forces, because it has privileged these bourgeois-democratic, and particularly bourgeois national struggles over the interests of international socialism. It has done so because its petty-bourgeois moralism leads it into “lesser-evilism”, ideologically, whilst, practically, its need to “party-build”, to escape its tiny numbers, led it into the option of seeking to do so organically, by individual recruitment, fishing in the most fertile waters of studentism, and parachuting into existing middle-class protests against “imperialism”, or “fascism”, i.e. cross-class popular frontism.

Finally, Stalin continues,

5. “There is no doubt that only soviets can save China from complete dismemberment and impoverishment.” (p 297)

Again, this show a failure to distinguish form and content. It is not the form of soviets that provides the basis of opposing counter-revolution and the dismemberment of the country, but the revolutionary, class content. Trotsky notes,

“Up to now, we have seen all sorts of soviets: Tsereteli’s soviets, Otto Bauer’s and Scheidemann’s, on the one hand, Bolshevik soviets on the other. Tsereteli’s soviets could not save Russia from dismemberment and impoverishment. On the contrary, their whole policy went in the direction of transforming Russia into a colony of the Entente. Only the Bolsheviks transformed the soviets into a weapon for the liberation of the toiling masses.” (p 297)

Back To 16 The Soviets and The Class Character of The Revolution

Forward To Part 2