Proletarian Strategy - Part 3

Co-operatives and Workers States

In Part 2, I demonstrated that the orthodox left position in relation to Co-ops is both Ultra-Left, and at the same time essentially bourgeois – not surprising as Lenin showed that Ultra-Leftism is essentially a petit-bourgeois phenomenon. It is not true that Workers Co-ops are forced to take on the same Management forms and structure, or to make the same kinds of decisions as Capitalist enterprises. But, even were it true, so what? Will not a Workers State also face exactly those problems so long as it operates within a predominantly global Capitalism? Is that an argument then for putting off any revolution until the whole world or a large proportion of it can engage in a simultaneous uprising? We may just as well say, “The idea of a Workers State sounds attractive, but that state would face the same problems as the Capitalist States.” In fact, Lenin had to argue against such Ultra-Leftism amongst the Bolsheviks.

“Or take the Menshevik Vperyod of the same date, which contains among other articles the following “thesis” by the notorious Menshevik Isuv:

'The policy of Soviet power, from the very outset devoid of a genuinely proletarian character, has lately pursued more and more openly a course of compromise with the bourgeoisie and has assumed an obviously anti-working class character. On the pretext of nationalising industry, they are pursuing a policy of establishing industrial trusts, and on the pretext of restoring the productive forces of the country, they are attempting to abolish the eight hour day, to introduce piece-work and the Taylor system, black lists and victimisation. This policy threatens to deprive the proletariat of its most important economic gains and to make it a victim of unrestricted exploitation by the bourgeoisie.'

...Indeed, the Bolsheviks ought to present Isuv with a medal, and his thesis ought to be exhibited in every workers’ club and union as an example of the provocative speeches of the bourgeoisie. The workers know these Lieberdans, Tseretelis and Isuvs very well now. They know them from experience, and it would be extremely useful indeed for the workers to think over the reason why such lackeys of the bourgeoisie should incite the workers to resist the Taylor system and the “establishment of trusts”.

Class-conscious workers will carefully compare the “thesis” of Isuv ... with the following thesis of the “Left Communists”.

'The introduction of labour discipline in connection with the restoration of capitalist management of industry cannot considerably increase the productivity of labour, but it will diminish the class initiative, activity and organisation of the proletariat. It threatens to enslave the working class; it will rouse discontent among the backward elements as well as among the vanguard of the proletariat. In order to implement this system in the face of the hatred prevailing among the proletariat against the ’capitalist saboteurs’, the Communist Party would have to rely on the petty bourgeoisie, as against the workers, and in this way would ruin itself as the party of the proletariat” (Kommunist No. 1, p. 8, col. 2).'

... It serves as a good lesson for the workers, who know that it is precisely the vanguard of the proletariat which stands for the introduction of labour discipline, and that it is precisely the petty bourgeoisie which is doing its utmost to disrupt this discipline. Speeches such as the thesis of the “Lefts” quoted above are a terrible disgrace and imply the complete renunciation of communism in practice and complete desertion to the camp of the petty bourgeoisie.

... The workers, having grown out of the infancy when they could have been misled by “Left” phrases or petty-bourgeois loose thinking, are advancing towards socialism precisely through the capitalist management of trusts, through gigantic machine industry, through enterprises which have a turnover of several millions per year—only through such a system of production and such enterprises. The workers are not petty bourgeois. They are not afraid of large-scale “state capitalism”, they prize it as their proletarian weapon which their Soviet power will use against small proprietary disintegration and disorganisation.

This is incomprehensible only to the declassed and consequently thoroughly petty-bourgeois intelligentsia, typified among the “Left Communists” by Osinsky”

Lenin, Left-Wing Childishness

Moreover, the SWP argument (and not just the SWP, the same message could be found, as Tomlinson shows, from Mandel) displays a terrible pessimism in respect of the fundamental idea of Socialism itself. It essentially sees no advantages in terms of productive efficiency arising from workers ownership of the means of production whatsoever! It places the whole weight of the basis of Socialism on just one very unsteady leg – that of planning. Yet, there is no grounds within Marx, for such a belief. Marx made no such fetish for planning, no such claims for its necessity. The whole emphasis of Marx is, on the contrary, on the necessity of Workers Ownership of the means of production. Even Lenin and Trotsky did not place the whole of their emphasis on planning as the fundamental economic advantage for Socialism. How could they? Lenin introduced the NEP, and encouraged private western monopolies to invest in Russia, and was more than aware of the problems of trying to plan a complex economy.

“It would have to try to solve them by trimming the workforce, by pushing 'flexibility' and generally undermining the conditions that union action has achieved in the industry.” Why? Why could not a worker owned enterprise implement the transitional demand for a sliding scale of hours? Why could it not do what Engels says above a sensible Trades Union would have to do in such a crisis -
“In a commercial crisis the Union itself must reduce wages or dissolve wholly” - in order to preserve itself as an organisation ready to resume the battle. Indeed, given the examples quoted by Marx of the greater efficiency of the Lancashire textile Co-ops, or Connolly's example of the efficiency of the Ralahine Co-op, why could not workers simply rely on that greater efficiency of the Workers' Co-op, to deal with the situation? Greater efficiency does not at all imply greater “exploitation”, it simply means that workers are able to come up with all kinds of innovative ideas to increase production, whilst lowering their workload, when they are conscious that such innovations directly benefit them rather than some Capitalist. This is the fundamental economic strength of Socialism, not planning.

Forward To Part 4

Back To Part 2

The Left & The Crisis

This is an extended version of latter sent to the Weekly Worker, in response to an article about discussions recently within the CPGB - The Polemical Alternative.

I was disappointed to read the Weekly Worker’s analysis of the economic crisis, and where we are within it. Of course, the WW are not alone in the kind of catastrophism that was represented in the article. On the contrary, that kind of view is typical on the Left, some groups, even talked about the “recession” at the beginning of 2008, whilst the world economy was still growing quite strongly, and a full six months before the recession began, following the outbreak of the Financial Crisis, in the Autumn! It is rather sad then that they criticise “Permanent Revolution” for asking the question, “What Happened To The Depression?”, because of all the Left groups, they have been about the only one that has had anything approaching a correct analysis, and as I wrote some months ago, Financial Crisis & Recession, even they wobbled in the depths of the crisis, in the face of a wall of doom-mongering. In fact, I think that the CPGB’s analysis, like most of that of the Left, is based not on Marxism, but on Lassalleanism, just as much of the Left’s politics are based on Lassallean statist notions rather than on the anti-state positions of Marx.

Running, through almost all of the Left’s economic analysis is the idea repeated in the WW article that Capitalism is a system in decay.

“Comrade Bridge pointed out that it was not just a question of capitalism’s cyclical crises that ought to concern us, but the fact that it is a system in long-term decline.”

Lassalleanism

It is an idea that basically flows directly from Lassalle’s “Iron Law of Wages”, the idea that if there is growth, if there is improvement in workers conditions, it is necessarily suspect, it has to be explained as not real improvement, but some kind of mirage, the result of super-exploitation somewhere else etc. In fact, this is another hang-over from Stalinism, which, as Mandel demonstrated, continually spoke in these terms. Soviet economists went through the most extreme panegyrics in trying to demonstrate that living standards in the West were really falling, even when to the most casual observer it was obvious that exactly the opposite was the truth! Yet, it is common to read in the “Where We Stand” columns of even supposedly “anti-Stalinist” organisations, comments such as “Capitalism creates poverty”, which whilst relatively true, in absolute terms is fundamentally, and palpably false. Not for nothing did Marx talk about the revolutionising role of Capitalism, its rescuing millions from the idiocy of rural life, nor of its “Civilising Mission”, in raising workers standards of living, their access to leisure, education and culture, which were fundamental, and necessary for workers to adequately develop the class consciousness that would make them the new ruling class.

Mandel writes,

The apologists for capitalism have always pointed to the reduction in prices and widened market for a whole set of products as the benefits brought about by this system. This argument is true. It is one of the aspects of what Marx called “the civilizing mission of Capital.” To be sure we are concerned here with a dialectical but real phenomenon where the value of labor-power has a tendency to fall by virtue of the fact that capitalist industry produces the commodity equivalent of wages with ever increasing rapidity while it simultaneously has a tendency to rise by virtue of the fact that this value of labor-power progressively takes in the value of a whole series of commodities which have become mass consumer goods, whereas formerly they were reserved for a very small part of the population.

Basically, the entire history of trade between the sixteenth and twentieth century is the history of a progressive transformation from trade in luxury goods into trade in mass consumer goods; into trade in goods destined for an ever increasing portion of the population. It is only with the development of the railroads, of the means for fast navigation, of telegraphy, etc., that it became possible for the whole world to be marshalled into a real potential market for each great capitalist producer.

The idea of an unlimited market does not, therefore, merely imply geographic expansion, but economic expansion, available purchasing power, also. To take a recent example: the extraordinary rise in the production of durable consumer goods in world capitalist production during the past fifteen years was not at all due to any geographic expansion of the capitalist market; on the contrary, it was accompanied by a geographic reduction in the capitalist market, since a whole series of countries were lost to it during this period. There are few, if any, automobiles of French, Italian, German, British, Japanese or American manufacture exported to the Soviet Union, China, North Vietnam, Cuba, North Korea, or the countries of East Europe. Nevertheless, this expansion did take place, thanks to the fact that a much greater fraction of the available purchasing power, which had increased absolutely as well, was used for buying these durable consumer goods.

See: Introduction To Marxist Economic Theory

Rosdolsky, trawled through every reference in Marx to wages, and in the several thousand there was just one that he found, that could be interpreted as suggesting that Capitalism drives down wages and living standards in absolute terms i.e. causes immiseration. But, it is massively outweighed by all of his other comments to the contrary, and in particular in his attacks on Lassalle and the notion of the Iron Law of Wages. In the Critique of the Gotha Programme he reiterates that in a comment, which should serve as an indictment of all those who have followed in Lassalle’s footsteps.

He wrote,

“It is as if, among slaves who have at last got behind the secret of slavery and broken out in rebellion, a slave still in thrall to obsolete notions were to inscribe on the program of the rebellion: Slavery must be abolished because the feeding of slaves in the system of slavery cannot exceed a certain low maximum!”

Critique of the Gotha Programme

Imperialism & Decay

Of course, Lenin and other Marxists at the beginning of the last century did not help matters by themselves declaring that the “Imperialist” stage of Capitalism was one of decay. But Trotsky, advised his supporters – “Learn To Think”. Rather than simply accepting Lenin’s dictum, Trotsky’s advice should be heeded. Trotsky himself wrote that if Capital survived the crisis of the 1930’s, and was able to restructure, then not only was it possible that Capitalism would return to growth, but that such a prospect was likely. That, of course is precisely what did happen.

On what possible rational basis can any serious economist describe Capitalism as being in “long-term decline”? There is absolutely no basis at all. Far from it, since at least the end of WWII, Capitalism has been in a phase of development that far exceeds its earlier stages. Not only has it created a world market in the true sense of the word, but it has opened up, within that market, the potential for a much freer movement of Productive Capital than existed before, when “Imperialism”, was really a function of marauding Merchant Capital. It has harnessed science to production in ways that make the Industrial Revolution appear pitiful, and consequently it has expanded production, and raised living standards way above anything that seemed possible in the 19th century. And on the back of it, it has spread its preferred political regime, for the accumulation of Capital, bourgeois democracy, more widely than at any other time in history. For Marxists to try to portray Modern Capitalism as in decay or long term decline, can only further damage the image of Marxism in the eyes of the working class.

Twenty-five years ago I wrote about emerging Asian economies at a time when most of the left viewed these economies as being subjects of neo-colonialism at best Imperilaism & The New International Division of Labour. Those economies are now some of the most dynamic and powerful economies in the world. More recently, I have spoken about how the same process of Capitalist development will bring about a similar transformation in Africa. In fact, that transformation appears to be occurring more quickly than I anticipated. According to this recent article on CNBC, there are already 20 investable markets in Africa.



The rise in commodity prices has given some African economies staggering growth rates in recent years, whilst rising food prices is leading economies like Angola to invest billions in developing their fertile soils, on an industrial basis to meet growing world food demand. At the same time, Middle Eastern states with huge oil wealth to invest are buying up huge tracts of land in Africa, purely in order to set up their own industrial agriculture to directly meet their needs, in a confirmation of part of Kautsky’s theory of Imperialism. In doing so not are they rescuing millions of subsistence peasant farmers by transforming them into an agricultural proletariat, but at the same time they are creating the very conditions by which those proletarians will be able to transform those large farms into Worker Co-operatives.

Faith & Objectivity

The fact, that the WW seized upon the events in Dubai to try to bolster their argument, and to attack PR, is symptomatic. But, it is not PR who have been embarrassed by Dubai surely, but the WW’s own analysis, which blew the event up, only to see it disappear as a 48 hour wonder, because in reality it was negligible in its economic importance. It is symptomatic, because much of the Left has based itself not on an objective economic analysis, but on its own hopes for some kind of economic collapse in the false belief that this would improve their own political fortunes. Yet, it is a very misguided approach as I set out in my blog Oh Ye Of Too Much Faith.

What is missing from the CPGB's analysis is any consideration of the question of why capital used Keynesian methods in the US in the 1930s, but essentially nowhere else; why it used such methods during the post-war boom and why it used them now; and why, in contrast, it did not use such methods in the 1930s in Europe, nor in the second slump of the 1980s. The answer is that it used such methods in conditions of long-wave upswing, when sufficient surplus value existed to finance them, and when renewed growth would repay the expenditure, and did not during the periods of long-wave downswing in the 1930s and 1980s when such conditions did not exist. We are in a period of long-wave rise, not decline.

The WW’s comments about China and India, suggesting that they were merely outposts of US Capital, and continue to be dependent upon it, to be honest I found laughable, but they are in the same vein. They are of the school which defines Imperialism in terms of some kind of immutable relationship of dependency, which is highly unMarxist, and undialectical. Dependency theory has never been a very good explanation of Imperialism, at best it had something to say about the relationship under Colonialism. Not only can it tell us nothing about modern imperialism, but, in fact, it misrepresents the real development occurring in many of these economies, thereby telling us less than nothing. In just the same way that firms grow, become dominant, and then decline, to be replaced by other large firms, so national and transnational economies go through a similar process.

To simply see China as dependent upon the US is to ensure that you are completely wrong-footed to understand both current global events, and those which will unfold over the next decade or so. See: Third World War.

Missing The Point

What is worse, is that in following this kind of economic catatrophism the Left fails to deal with the actual economic situation facing workers in Western economies. The reality of that is that in a Global Market for commodities, including Labour Power, and in which Capital can move to where it can most effectively exploit available Labour, the problem facing workers in the West is that the kind of frictions that enabled their relatively high wages of the past, are increasingly removed. No longer can they rely simply upon the fact that their Labour Power is backed up by masses of Capital, so that the higher productivity of labour affords higher wages. Workers in China and India now increasingly are equipped with even more effective machinery than workers in the West, and so on. No longer can workers in the West rely on the fact that it is difficult for Capital to relocate entire factories etc. The experience at MG/Rover demonstrated that, and increasingly as production moves to higher tech industries such relocation becomes even easier. Nor can they rely on the risks for Capital in relocating, as the spread of bourgeois democracy, and the Capitalist State enforcing property laws for all Capital operating within its borders creates the necessary conditions for its expansion and accumulation.

The second slump of the 1970’s and 80’s saw a process of deindustrialisation set in, which was limited, because given the conjuncture in which it was in a more thorough restructuring of Capital would have been devastating for Western economies. But, that process is symptomatic of this reality of the new world capitalist economy. A reality in which workers in the West will face increasing competition from workers in the East, and which will necessarily drive down wages and conditions in the West relative to those in the East. That is a simple matter of economics, and no amount of state ownership, reformism, syndicalism, or calls for more militancy can change it. To the extent that new areas of production such as high-tec production, or areas such as media and finance, which rely upon highly skilled complex labour, in which the West retains some comparative advantage, some workers with the necessary skills can maintain their conditions, but for the rest the next 15-20 years will be very uncomfortable . Capital is already responding by bringing in cheap imported labour to do the low paid, low status work remaining, and which it finds the domestic workforce is currently not prepared to undertake.

The reality we face is one in which Capitalism as a global system is in a period of rapid advance, but one which is full of contradictions. In the West we are likely to see a much more bifurcated workforce than in the past, and ordinary workers will see their relative position decline markedly. Only a political solution can provide workers with a way forward. That political solution cannot flow from Lassalleanism. Workers will no doubt respond in the first instance with traditional methods, but that may lead to Capital being even more inclined to simply up sticks and relocate. International solidarity between workers to prevent that would be nice, but the whole operation of Capitalism, which engenders competition between workers at an individual and collective level mitigates against it. It will then be necessary to respond with new, and not so new tactics such as the Occupation, as demonstrated at Visteon and Vestas, and over recent years by workers in Argentina. But, Occupation alone is not enough, after occupying workers need to resume production under their own auspices, perhaps using the example of the Argentinean workers in demanding that the factory be legally transferred to them. But, that too will require that workers have in hand their own workers plan of production similar to that drawn up by the Lucas workers, to ensure that production is viable in the longer term. Moreover, if these worker Co-operatives remain isolated they will necessarily fail, either economically, or because they will end up becoming simply Capitalist enterprises owned by workers – and that too would probably lead sooner or later to their reconversion into purely private companies. We need the Labour Movement and the left to take seriously the idea raised by Marx and the First International to create a national Co-operative federation through which all of this planning and support could be channelled, and to which each of these separate organisations should be tied.

The repetition of the old formulas by the left are inadequate. For example, in the current WW, James Turley writes,

“Rather, we have to confront the political issues involved. There can be no question - the nationalisation of the banks is an immediate economic measure which should be high up the agenda for any Communist Party. Nationalisation is not a panacea in itself, as is obvious from these developments at RBS. A nationalisation that puts the banking system under the democratic control of the masses, however, is a necessary measure for revolutionaries.”

In Another World

But, as I have written previously this is nonsense Nationalisation, Workers Control and Workers Ownership. Are we to believe that Brown’s Government will voluntarily grant such “democratic control of the masses” – a phrase by the way ruthlessly criticised by Marx in his Critique of the Gotha Programme? If not then does anyone seriously believe that the working class here and now are going to force this demand upon a Brown Government let alone a Tory Government? If not then who exactly is this demand aimed at, what is the means of its achievement? It is thoroughly pointless, and in fact less than that.
Trotsky in the Transitional Programme says of the demand for the nationalisation of the Banks,

“However, the stateisation of the banks will produce these favourable results only if the state power itself passes completely from the hands of the exploiters into the hands of the toilers.”

Are we seriously to believe that power is about to pass into the hands of the toilers? Are we on the verge even of the coming to power of a Workers Government? Of course not, so the demand for nationalisation is and can be nothing more than the old Labourite, Fabian and Lassallean demand for workers to place their faith in the good offices of the bourgeoisie and their state! Its time we had done with this stuff, once and for all.

Historical Proofs and Origins of Value Theory

The following is largely a summary of information provided by Ernest Mandel in his book, "Marxist Economic Theory".

The emergence of Exchange Value is synonymous with the emergence of trade. In primitive societies trade rarely took place because there was usually little or no social surplus to trade, and these societies were run as co-operative societies like large families where land was owned and farmed collectively so there was no concept of trade within the society. Where trade did take place, it was between different tribes or villages as a result of an unexpected surplus, or crisis requiring certain goods to be obtained from outside the tribe. It was under these circumstances that trade began and was commonly a trade of people as part of ceremonies. For example, the daughter of a tribal elder may be married to someone from another tribe. Even then, this trade had some element of labour content. If a woman from one tribe was married into another the other tribe was considered to owe a woman back to the first tribe. The question then arose as to what the basis of exchange would be.

The idea of labour being the only measure by which commodities could be valued relative to each other goes back to Plato who referred to it in “The Republic”. Plato also identified the dual nature of commodities as having a Use Value and an Exchange Value. There is considerable documented evidence to show that labour time has been used from the beginning of trade as the measure of Exchange Value. References for this documentation are given below. The list is far from a complete one.

1. Ruth Bunzel in Frank Boaz “General Anthropology” p346 says primitive people consider only labour “scarce”.

2. The economy of the Indonesian village community is based on calculation of hours of labour expended. (J.H. Boeke – ‘De Theorie der Indische Economie’ p39.)

3. The same was true of Japan. “the principle of exchange is people and days. Thus if household A has two people at work on household B’s field for two days, household B is expected to provide its equivalent on A’s fields…” (John Embree – “Mura, A Japanese Village” pp100-1.)

4. In Africa Ralph Piddington tells us that a peasant from the Heh tribe who orders a spear from the smith works on the smith’s land while he is making the spear. “An Introduction to Social Anthropology” p275.

5. Kautilya’s ‘Arthashastra’ p147 says that "in Ancient India during the Maurya epoch labour and products of labour governed the rules of economic life.”

6. Amongst the Incas “tribute was to consist of labour, time and skill as a workman, artisan or soldier.” John Collier “The Indians of the Americas pp 61-2.

7. The same was true of Europe in the early Middle Ages. Villagers were expected to work three days on the Lord’s land and three on their own. (See Polyptique of Saint Germain-des-Pres and the descriptio villarum of the Abbey of Lobbes.

8. “Should a Dadaga wish more of these utensils, he would have to work in the field of the Kota iron worker of whom he requested them while they were being forged.” David Mandelbaum “Notes on Fieldwork in India” in Herskovits “Economic Life of Primiitive Peoples” pp 136-7

9. Moreover, since the dawn of petty commodity production about 3000 B.C. all labour has been considered equivalent, regardless of its special character. On the tablets, inscribed in a Semitic language, found at Susa, the wages in the household of a prince are fixed uniformly at 60 qua of barley for the cook, the barber, the engraver of stones, the carpenter, the smith, the cobbler, the cultivator, the shepherd and the donkey man.Clement Huart and Louis Delaporte “L’Iran antique” p83.

10. “He (the medieval artisan) has to produce, in accordance with fixed conditions, cloth which is ‘not personal but official, municipal’; his labour, one might say is expressly objective not subjective.” Georges Espinas “Les Origines du Capitalisme” Vol 1. p40.

11. In a study of the Guatemala Indians of Panajachel Professor Sol Tax tells us that exchanges and equivalences are strictly calculated and a woman who could not read or write was able to state within a penny the exact cost of production of a carpet on which she had worked the whole of one day. Sol Tax “Penny Capitalism” pp 18, 15, 80

12. The corporations of Antiquity and in those of China and Byzantium and in the European and Arab Middle Ages fixed rules, known to all, laid down alike the labour time to be devoted to the making of each object, the length of apprenticeship, its cost and the equivalent normally to be asked for each commodity. Georges Espinas “Les Origines du Capitalisme” pp 118, 140-2.

Although initially all labour was valued equally later with the division of labour and increased specialisation some highly skilled labour was recognised as more highly valuable or compound labour and adjustments of equivalent labour time to be exchanged with it was made in calculation.

I have already mentioned Plato as one of the first to recognise Labour as the measure of Exchange Value, but the fact that calculation of labour time was so embodied in the act of exchange is illustrated by its continued reference by philosophers down the ages. For example, the idea was later taken up by Thomas Aquinas, and Albertus Magnus. Others such as Duns Scotus and Ibn-Khaldun also used it. For example,

“Everything that constitutes acquisition and funds (of goods) and wealth proceeds only from man’s labour… Without labour, these occupations (crafts, agriculture, mining) would yield no profit or advantage.”

Ibn-Khaldum – ‘Prolegemenes’ Vol 1 p311.

With the advantage of a wealth of empirical data demonstrating that labour was the measure of exchange value William Petty gave the theory its more modern basis. It was also expounded by Benjamin Franklin. Franklin wrote extensively and clearly on the subject.

“By labour may the value of silver be measured as well as other things. As, suppose one man is employed to raise corn, while another is digging and refining silver; at the year’s end, or at any other period of time, the complete produce of corn, and that of silver, are the natural price of each other; and if one be twenty bushels, and the other be twenty ounces, then an ounce of that silver is worth the labour of raising a bushel of that corn. (I have pointed out elsewhere that what we are talking about here is not individual acts of labour but the average socially necessary labour AB) Now if by the discovery of some nearer, more easy or more plentiful mines, a man may get forty ounces of silver as easily as formerly he did twenty, and the same labour is still required to raise twenty bushels of corn, then two ounces of silver will be worth no more than the same labour of raising one bushel of corn, and that bushel of corn will be as cheap at two ounces, as it was before at one ceteris paribus. Thus the riches of a country are to be valued by the quantity of labour its inhabitants are able to purchase.”

And

“trade in general being nothing else but the exchange of labour for labour, the value of all things is, as I have said before, most justly measured by labour.”

Ben Franklin, “A Modest Inquiry into the Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency pp 265 and 267.

Not surprisingly then, Adam Smith also advocated the Labour Theory of Value.

“The real price of everything (Smith however confused value with price on occasion), what everything really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it. What everything is really worth to the man who has acquired it, and who wants to dispose of it, or exchange it for something else, is the toil and trouble which it can save to himself, and which it can impose on other people…. It is natural that what is usually the produce of two days’, or two hours’ labour, should be worth double of what is usually the produce of one day’s or one hour’s labour.”

(Adam Smith – The Wealth of Nations Book 1 Chapter 5)

Indeed all Classical Economists accepted the theory. Marx merely refined it the theory and made it more precise which is why it is wrong to describe it as ‘Marxist’ Theory. There are a number of reasons why serious students of economics should read these original texts carefully. Firstly, they are rarely taught as part of modern economics and if so are glossed over as many modern teachers have a poor understanding of them themselves. Secondly, because of the first point most people uncritically accept modern economic teaching as gospel. Thirdly, we ignore the voices of dead people at our peril, and I for one would prefer to listen to the voices of dead people going back thousands of years (and people who were intellectual giants compared to the minnows of modern economic theory) than the academic scribblings of a few professors with a political agenda.

Finally, another reason is given by two opponents of the theory and particularly of Marx. Joseph Schumpeter wrote in his monumental ‘History of Economic Analysis’ of Marx,

“the totality of his his vision, as a totality, asserts its right in every detail and is precisely the source of intellectual fascination experienced by everyone, friend as well as foe, who makes a study of him’; and elsewhere “at the time when his first volume appeared there was nobody in Germany who could have measured himself against him either in vigour of thought or in theoretical knowledge.”

And from the original Austrian theorist Bohm-Bawerk we read,

“Marx has become the apostle of a wide circle of readers, including many who are not as a rule given to the reading of difficult books."

“Karl Marx and the Close of his System”

Unfortunately, the experience of Stalinism for much of the last century and the effects of Cold War propaganda for fifty years have meant that many people have thrown the intellectual baby out with the bath water, and shun reading these original texts for fear of being seen a communist. Any serious student of economics or of life cannot afford to worry about what others might think of them. They just have to approach their study honestly and with an open mind.

Imperialism and War

This last of the three-part series of documents from the early 1980’s, looks at the question of “Imperialism and War”. The reason for Lenin’s original pamphlet – “Imperialism – The Highest Stage of Capitalism”, was to explain what appeared to be the senseless slaughter of WWI. Lenin sought to explain that the War was a necessary consequence of Imperialism, and showed the need for Workers to overthrow Capitalism in order to avoid a descent into barbarism. The argument at first glance appeared very powerful. Lenin said, Capitalism had become characterised by Monopoly. National economies were now dominated by huge Monopolistic trusts under the control of the Banks – Finance Capital. Just as National Economies were dominated by these Monopolies, so the world was divided up by Imperialistic countries who turned each Colony into their own Monopoly. Finance Capital was driven to do this because it could no longer find profitable avenues to invest at home, and needed protected markets to invest in abroad. By the end of the 19th century Lenin argued the entire world had been divided up amongst these imperialist powers, so that all that was left was for them to go to war in order to obtain for themselves a re-division.

But, even a casual inspection showed what was wrong with this theory. Firstly, Lenin argues that the division of the world, the monopolisation of colonies is a consequence of the development of the monopolisation of production and rise of Finance Capital. There are two problems with this. Firstly, the division of the world amongst the imperialist powers was already completed by the end of the 19th century, and the main scrabble for colonies occurred at that time. Yet, even according to Lenin, the rise of Finance Capital, and the dominance of the Monopolies did not occur until the beginning of the twentieth century. So, if that occurred AFTER the world had already been divided up, it could not have been the cause of that division! Secondly, Finance Capital as analysed by Hilferding, was a description of the situation in Germany, but it did not fit the picture in Britain or France, and yet it was Britain and France who WERE the main imperialist powers, the biggest holders of Colonies. In fact, the British economy was the one, probably LEAST characterised by Monopoly at the beginning of the twentieth century.

But, there were further problems with Lenin’s theory as Bill Warren points out in “Imperialism – Pioneer of Capitalism”. For example, there does not seem to have been any particular increase in overseas investment into the colonies by the imperialist powers during this period compared with the investment of previous decades, and Lenin’s argument that it was this rather than the colonies being simply markets for the imperialist powers surplus production does not seem to be born out by the facts either. Moreover, Lenin says that there is a causal link between Monopoly economic power and colonisation, but he does not make clear what that causal link really is. In fact, the theory seems to contradict another fundamental aspect of Marxist, including Lenin’s own analysis, and that is the theory of combined and uneven development. That theory, which is readily observable, states that different economies develop at different rates, that at any one time, the world will have economies at different stages of development. But, in that case it beggars belief that all of these “imperialist economies” could have arrived at the same stage of development at the very same time i.e. the stage where there economies were dominated by monopoly. It even further beggars belief that this point in time just also happened to coincide with the moment when the entire world had been completely divided up!!! As Warren says, it is difficult not to see Lenin’s pamphlet as anything more than a first draft, and the many caveats that Lenin includes in almost every section – some as Warren says, to the extent of making the statements therein meaningless, is testament to that. Yet, on the basis of this pamphlet, many on the Left still base their explanations of the world economy, and more importantly their attitude towards “anti-imperialism”, and questions of War.

In fact, as the previous documents have shown the division of the world into colonies can much better be explained in terms of the dynamic of feudalism, and of Merchant and Money Capitalism leading to Colonialism than it can by a Finance Capital dominated Imperialism. And when that basic element of Imperialism set out by Lenin – the need for Productive/Industrial Capital to search out new sources of exploitable Labour – does arise, it takes the form not of Colonial powers seeking to divide up the world, but of Multinational companies, whose interest is increasingly to develop global institutions to carry out the functions of the State, and far from seeing their interests lying in the establishment of Colonial rule – which was always extremely costly – see their interests lying in the carrying through of the bourgeois democratic revolution in order that a bourgeois state can arise to shoulder those costs, and to create via some form of bourgeois democracy the best conditions under which Capital in general can operate and accumulate.

This document begins the process of looking at some of those issues, and the consequences for the drive to War, and how Marxists should relate to it. It also foretold of the looming crisis facing Stalinism six years before its collapse, and locates some of the factors involved in that. I think it contains not only some useful historical material, but some important contemporary ideas. Written in September 1984, it appeared as IB 130 in March 1985.

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Introduction

Trotskyism since its inception has been marked by a drive for ideological clarification. It is not only post-war Trotskyists who have demonstrated ideological confusion. Much of Trotsky’s work during the 1930’s in preparing the way for the Fourth International, was arguing for clarity within the movement. He insisted on the need to be guided in action by Marxist analysis rather than political slogans (for example, the discussions over entry into the French SFIO).

If the problems of building a revolutionary movement, which correctly understood and interpreted Marxist ideas, was difficult for Trotsky and the Trotskyists before the war, then the problems following Trotsky’s death and the Second World War have been immense. It is the scale of those problems, which has caused the disintegration of the Trotskyist movement. Faced with new phenomena, new problems, and with only tiny forces, the post-war Trotskyists have essentially gone down one of two paths (sometimes a combination of both). Either they have responded to situations by blithely repeating old formulas, as an alternative to Marxist analysis, or else they have taken on board ideas, which are alien to Marxism. Probably in no other sphere has this been clearer than in respect to imperialism and war. It is not surprising that the most heated arguments with the expelled Worker Leadership Faction were over these questions e.g. the Falklands, Ireland.

Over the last year or so, we have begun to analyse modern imperialism. This document attempts to contribute to that task, and to build on some of the ideas I have already put forward in past IB’s. The document is divided into the following sections:

1) A General Description of Modern Imperialism
2) The contradictions of World Capitalist Development
3) Sub-Imperialism
4) Permanent Revolution and Anti-Imperialist Struggles
5) Soviet Expansionism
6) War
7) The WSL and the Peace Movement

Section 1
Modern Imperialism – Combined and Uneven Development

In IB’s 67 and 82, I have attempted to describe in some detail the way in which imperialism is bringing about a new division of labour on a world scale. This new division of labour involves a de-industrialisation (in terms of the % employed in [particularly the old] manufacturing industries) of the advanced capitalist countries, and the industrialisation of selected “Third World” countries (concentrated on production of “mature” commodities requiring unskilled labour).

I have also sought to demonstrate a connection between this “internationalisation” of Capital, and a loosening of the link between sections of Capital and the nation state in favour of the creation, or use, of larger international bodies, which can carry out state functions (See IB67 pp8-9). here . There is a logic to this process. When Capitalism first began to develop it needed a national market in which certain conditions existed – common currency etc. Upon this economic base was created a political and juridical superstructure designed to meet the needs of the economic system. Having created a world market, therefore, capitalism also needs to create a world political and juridical superstructure for this economic base. It is unable to achieve this, but it is forced, through the contradictions it faces, to make certain attempts at creating larger bodies than the nation state. For example, faced with the power of US capitalism, and the need for a larger domestic market, European capitalism has been forced to create the EEC. Similar attempts at creating Common Markets have been made elsewhere e.g. the Andean pact. Yet, even at this level, capitalism is racked by the contradiction between the need to form an international state, and he continuing conflicts between the component nation states.

In addition to these bodies, other international institutions have been created – the IMF, World bank, NATO – which take on certain state functions at an international level. For Lenin, and other Marxists at the turn of the century it was the link between Capital (Finance Capital) and the state, which created the inevitability of imperialist war. As Capital competed on an international level for control of markets etc. this competition became inevitably a competition of nation states and hence war. If, however, the link between Capital and the Nation state is broken then there is no necessary competition of nation states. Of course, competition still exists, but it is transferred to a higher level. For example, if the Soviet Union could be militarily defeated (without the annihilation of humanity) there would be a scramble between the US, EEC and Japan to divide up the spoils. It would be competition between these international blocs which would lead to war, not the competition of nation states.

However, the existence of the Soviet Union and other post-capitalist states is, for imperialism, an overriding factor. It welds together the competing blocs to protct capitalism as a world system. Later, I will attempt to show that maintenance of the system is the overriding concern of the capitalists.

As the conclusion to this section, I want to refer to the role of imperialist intervention into anti-capitalist revolutions. The stock-in-trade explanation of most Trotskyists for such intervention (e.g. Vietnam) is protection of economic interest. This explanation is a crude economism, and stems from the various dependency theories of development. In Vietnam, US Capital had no investment, nor was Vietnam particularly vital in terms of trade routes. US intervention was not based on protecting ITS investments, but with maintaining the capitalist system, because it is the development of the capitalist system, which creates the conditions for ALL capitalists to expand capital.

Section 2
The World Economy – Contradictions

The driving force of Capitalism as a SYSTEM is profit. Each individual capitalist is forced to maximise profit in order to expand his capital so as to compete with other capitalists. Competition between the various capitalists forces each to expand production, and meanwhile to reduce the relative amount of labour power employed and to reduce labour costs, as a means of increasing profit. The combination of expanded production and restricted potential consumption creates a crisis of overproduction and a breakdown in the system. These breakdowns also provide a basis for working class revolt. They demonstrate to the working class that the system is unable to meet their basic needs, that it is reactionary, a fetter on development.

Herein lies a contradiction for the capitalists. On the one hand competition is intrinsic to the system. This competition, however, leads to breakdowns in the system, and the potentiality of the system being overthrown. If the system is overthrown there is no more profits, and no more capitalists. For the capitalists AS A CLASS, therefore, MAINTENANCE OF THE SYSTEM is their overriding concern, more important even than short term pursuit of profit. Whilst, therefore, competition between capitalists creates conflicts this is always SUBORDINATE to their UNITY as a class against the working class. The contradiction between the driving force of the SYSTEM i.e. maximisation of profit/competition and the overriding concern of the CAPITALIST CLASS to maintain the system is continually in a process of being resolved. This process can be viewed on two levels.

a) The Economic Level – The Level of the Firm or Industry

At first, there is competition between capitalists on price, for markets etc. But, during strikes, employers combine to beat the workers (employers federations know a defeat for one is a defeat for all i.e. they are class conscious). This same competition between firms becomes its own negation as Capital becomes concentrated.

Under late Capitalism, competition even on price between firms begins to disappear as oligopolists recognise that such competition threatens their existence. Instead competition takes place through advertising etc. Contrary to what some economists argue, however, there is no reason to believe that such oligopolists have no incentive to continue to try to maximise profits by reducing costs. Failure to do so would (a) ultimately leave one company susceptible to attack by its competitors and (b) reduce its ability to diversify into other markets/commodities.

b) The political level – The level of The State

On another level the capitalist class needs a force to ensure the rules of the game are adhered to, and that if necessary there is adequate force available to maintain the system. As Marx puts it, this force – he State – is the Executive Committee of the ruling class. The State, therefore, mediates BETWEEN CAPITALISTS to manage their conflicts, and ORGANISES them AGAINST the working class.

It was the relation between capital and the nation state, which, as I have said was seen by Marxists as the foundation of imperialist war. Competition between competing Capitals becoming competition between nation states. However, this thesis begins to break down if:

1) Capital becomes less nationally based, if it looks more to international bodies to carry out state functions, and, if, therefore, it has less direct ties to any one nation state.
2) The threat to the “maintenance of the system” on a world scale results in capitalists finding methods of managing their conflicts.

Do either of these conditions apply? Yes.

1) For multinational capital it is not any one particular state which is important, but ANY state, which guarantees it certain conditions for operation. For example, Ford is able to locate factories in Britain, Germany, Spain etc. confident in the knowledge that the Capitalist state in these countries will protect it, ensure that the rules of the game are adhered to etc. Indeed, the State may be prepared to provide it with incentives to set up shop as did the British State with Ford in South Wales.

2) Capital has become more international (at least the dominant sections). They are the ones, which look to international bodies to carry out state functions. The development of these international bodies is itself a contradictory process, proceeding in fits and starts as the need to create larger international bodies conflicts with the remaining self-interest of individual nation states.

3) These international bodies are also a means of managing conflicts e.g. EEC measures on overproduction of steel. Interestingly, military conflict (other than imperialist interventions) since the Second World War has not been between competing “imperialist” states, but between less developed capitalist states e.g. Iran/Iraq, India/Pakistan, Israel/Arab States. I will come back to this in the next section.

Certain international bodies e.g. NATO have the explicit function of maintaining the system internationally. In this respect protection of the investments of this or that “imperialist” state is not paramount in determining the intervention of imperialism. I have already referred to the example of Vietnam. For the US the main concern in Vietnam was not that its investments were being threatened, but that CAPITALISM was being threatened. The existence of Capitalism in Vietnam was the precondition for its reproduction, for the existence of a Capitalist State, the installation of Capitalist ideas, norms and values in that society, which would provide the basis for the expansion of Capital – including, of course, US Capital.

A different example can be quoted – that of the Falklands. It is quite clear that the cost to Britain of the Falklands War was far greater than the value of any economic interest it has in the Falklands. Why then did Britain engage in the War. I think Donald McKenzie is right when he said in Capital and Class 19, “What was being punished in the Malvinas War was an offence against the British state, against the system of states, and against Britain’s claimed place in that system”

In other words one of the functions of the State is to ensure that all capitalists adhere to the rules of the game. For modern imperialism, concerned with managing conflicts, an important function of the “system of states” is to ensure that the rules of the game are adhered to internationally, because these rules of the game are the way the ruling class internationally presents a united front against revolution. Once someone is allowed to break the rules that united front begins to break down, it sets an example for others to break the rules.
McKenzie also challenges the idea that the cause of militarism is basically economic. “The costs of militarism are so huge that they can quite possibly exceed even the returns on total worldwide investment. Harman claims that ‘at no stage in the 1940’s or 1950’s did total US overseas investment (let alone the much smaller return on that investment) exceed US spending on arms’” This is an important point raised by McKenzie, but I think he is wrong, because he mistakes what is a real contradiction for Capitalism for simply a logical contradiction, and concludes on the basis of formal logic that economic motives are not, therefore, the cause of militarism. I will return to this in Section 6.

Section 3
Sub-Imperialism

Before we can talk about sub-imperialism it is first necessary to clarify what is meant by imperialism. The term imperialism has, it seems to me, been used so indiscriminately that it has lost its meaning. For example, Lenin refers to Tsarist Russia as imperialist when he is advocating a position of revolutionary defeatism. Yet, in the sense that most Marxists (including Lenin) refer to imperialism (export of Capital) Russia could in no sense be considered imperialist. On the contrary, Trotsky talks of the consequences for Russia had the revolution not taken place in terms of its complete subordination to imperialism. He compares it to China.

Trotsky himself in “In Defence of Marxism” refers to the Moscow bureaucracy’s tendency to “expand its power, its prestige, its revenues” as the “element of imperialism in the widest sense of the word which was a property in the past of all monarchies, oligarchies, ruling castes, medieval estates, and castes.”

Some basic definitions are needed. Trotsky, in the above quote refers to forms of imperialism in non-capitalist societies. “History has known the ‘imperialism’ of the Roman state based on slave labour, the imperialism of feudal land ownership, the imperialism of commercial and industrial capital, the imperialism of the Tsarist monarchy etc.”

But, capitalist imperialism is something quite different from past forms of imperialism. It is, as Lenin put it, “the highest stage of capitalism”. It is the stage where it has created a world market, and is attempting to forge a world economy. The nature of imperialism does not remain constant throughout this process. I have outlined the various stages I think can be identified in the process in IB67.

To the extent, therefore, that imperialism is the stage of capitalism where it is attempting to create a world economy it is incorrect to refer to this or that country or bloc as imperialist, because imperialism refers to the stage of development on a world scale, not to the stage of development in this or that country. It is as meaningless as saying that within any given capitalist economy small firms are not capitalist (or as capitalist) compared to large trusts, because they don’t have the same power in the market etc., that they are in some way in our ‘class camp’. That is the logic which the CP has pursued, and which leads it to its anti-monopoly alliance.

In short, imperialism is capitalism on a world scale. It is clearly different from capitalism on a national scale in so far as the continuing existence of nation states (and blocs of states) results in conflicts, and whereas within a single country the State acts to resolve conflicts between different sections of Capital, on a world scale capitalism has no such body. Nevertheless, I have referred to certain bodies, which attempt – in embryonic form – to take on some functions of the State.

Just like capitalism on a national scale contains a range of firms from Unilever to a small firms, so imperialism contains a range of economies from the US to Upper Volta. Just as in a national economy some firms grow and others decline, so too for imperialism some economies grow/develop others decline. And, just as on a national scale, capital diversifies whilst at the same time becoming more concentrated, so under imperialism, capital disperses from one country to another, spreading its fingers across the globe and then clenching its fist as it pulls these separate economies together becoming more concentrated in economic blocs.

The US had a head start in this. The Civil War pulled together the separate economies of the US into a whole, giving US capital the kind of market, which the EEC is now trying to create. The problem for the EEC is that it wants to avoid another war to achieve the process.

If imperialism is understood in this way it makes no sense to talk about this group of countries being imperialist, and that group of countries being oppressed by imperialism. All are part of the same imperialist SYSTEM. Firstly, such a method of analysis is not Marxist. Marxist analysis is based on CLASS, not NATIONALITY. Secondly, what is often meant by ‘oppressed’ is not oppressed in the military/political sense, but oppressed in the sense of being ripped off by multinational companies, and banks etc. In fact, these are two separate issues. For those countries which are oppressed in the first sense of the word, we would obviously fight for the right of self-determination, whilst struggling for socialist revolution, building the revolutionary party etc. But, for countries in the second category it makes no sense to talk about self-determination or national liberation – liberation from what? Its like arguing for national liberation for the corner shop which is being ‘oppressed’ by the bank manager, and the giant food wholesalers. As Lenin points out in the ‘Theses on the National and Colonial Question’

“It is not sufficient for the Communist Parties to expose unflinchingly in their propaganda and agitation both on the Parliamentary tribune and elsewhere the continually repeated offences in every capitalist state, in spite of all the ‘democratic’ constitutions, against the equality of nations and the guaranteed rights of national minorities. It is also necessary first to clarify constantly the point that only the soviet order is capable of assuring nations true equality by uniting first the proletariat and then the whole mass of the toilers in the fight against the bourgeoisie, and secondly to give direct support to the revolutionary movements in dependent nations and those deprived of their rights, through the Communist Parties of the countries in question.

“Without the last particularly important condition the struggle against oppression of the dependent nations and the colonies and the recognition of their right to a separate political existence remains the kind of mendacious hypocrisy that we see in the parties of the Second International.” (emphasis added).



We should in this sense stop talking about oppressed nations, and get abck to talking about oppressed classes. For the oppressed classes in these countries it is not imperialism which oppresses them, but Capital. For workers in Taiwan, for example, it makes no real difference whether that Capital is Taiwanese, American or British, any more than for a British car worker it matters whether they are exploited by BL, or Ford, or Nissan.

It is more useful to see that within the imperialist system there is a gradation. Within that gradation it is possible to identify certain countries which are qualitatively more powerful than all the rest – the ‘imperialist’ countries i.e. those which have been the ones which have carried capitalism out into the world and been responsible for forging the world economy, and which consequently dominate it; it is possible to identify others which are of second rank in terms of their wealth etc. (e.g. Argentina), and others which are industrialising rapidly (the NIC’s); and it is possible to identify others which remain in abject poverty and misery, whose societies more resemble barbarism than capitalism.

Given this ranking, it is possible to refer to certain countries within the second rank as ‘sub-imperialist’. Certain criteria can be set out to define what this sub-imperialism amounts to. For example:

1. The existence of a substantial economic infrastructure i.e. communications, education, administration
2. The existence of a capitalist state apparatus
3. The existence of a modernised capitalist economy in which the Agrarian Revolution has been accomplished.
4. The existence of a developed financial system.
5. The existence of a sizeable domestic bourgeoisie
6. Moves by this bourgeoisie to expand its influence outside its national borders by (a) export of capital, or (b) attempts to expand its territory by military strength, or (c) becoming the local agent of imperialism, becoming a regional policeman e.g. Iran under the Shah.

It is not necessarily the case that a sub-imperialist country is militarily active in those countries to which it is exporting capital or commodities. As Fred Halliday points out, “There is little reason to believe that Brazil’s strategic role in Latin America has a dependent connection to its economic role; its exports, for example, are not in the main, sent to those countries where its support for right-wing military forces has been exercised.” Halliday suggests the following concept of sub-imperialism, “(a) a continuing if partial strategic subordination to US imperialism on the one hand, and (b) an autonomous regional role on the other.” (Iran: Dictatorship and development p283).

What is noticeable is that many of the wars that have taken place since the Second World War have been between countries which might be described as sub-imperialist, or which at least fall into the category of the second rank. A parallel could be drawn with the fact that just as early capitalism sees all out competition which is transformed to a more regulated competition under late capitalism, so under imperialism, the ‘imperialist’ states passed through a stage of all out competition, including two world wars, which has given way to a regulated competition as ‘maintenance of the system’ on a world scale has become the main concern of the bourgeoisie. Similarly, the second rank nations are passing through a stage of all out competition, each trying to become the dominant force in its region e.g. Argentina/Chile, Iran/Iraq. The conflicts between India/Pakistan, and Israel/the Arab states could also be cited, but obviously these are more problematic and other factors are involved.

This is not to say that these countries are at the same point on the same path as the ‘imperialist’ states were 50 or so years ago. No. They are at a different point on a different path. Nor is it to say that the economies of these countries are developing in the same way that the economies of the ‘imperialist’ states did. The way the economies of the ‘imperialist’ states developed was conditioned by the fact that they were first. When they began to expand overseas they did so into virgin territory, boldly creating capitalism where no capitalist had gone before. As Marx put it,

“The cheap prices of its commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls, with which it forces the barbarians’ intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate. It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilisation into their midst, i.e. to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image.”

(Communist Manifesto - emphasis added)

The economies of the ‘non-imperialist’ countries, including those in the second rank have been affected in the way they developed by the existence of the ‘imperialist’ states, and by the way those states have structured the World Economy, just as a small firm starting out in Britain today is affected by the existence of huge monopolies. Where the two imperialist wars were about dividing up the world between the ‘imperialist’ states, the wars between Argentina/Chile, Iran/Iraq are about who will be the dominant local power, and essentially, therefore, who will be the agent of the ‘imperialist’ states, and in particular the US.

Section 4
Permanent Revolution and Anti-Imperialist Struggles

What is the basic postulate of Permanent Revolution? That the ‘national’ and ‘democratic’ revolutions could only be accomplished via the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Has that been true? No, many national revolutions have taken place led by petit-bourgeois nationalists; none have established the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. In many countries the tasks of the ‘democratic’ revolution have been established without the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. The post-war period has seen the Dictatorship of the Proletariat (albeit in a deformed bureaucratised manner) established in China by a Peasant Army, in Cuba by petit-bourgeois nationalists, and in Vietnam by Stalinists.

In Permanent Revolution, Trotsky says, “A Democratic Dictatorship of the Proletariat and Peasantry, as a regime that is distinguished from the Dictatorship of the Proletariat by its class content, might be realised only in a case where an independent revolutionary party could be constituted, expressing the interests the peasants and in general of petit-bourgeois democracy – a party capable of conquering power with this or that degree of aid from the proletariat, and of determining its revolutionary programme. As all of modern history attests – especially the Russian experience of the last twenty-five years – an insurmountable obstacle on the road to the creation of a peasant’s party is the petit-bourgeoisie’s lack of economic and political independence and its deep internal differentiation. By reason of this the upper sections of the petit-bourgeoisie (of the peasantry) go along with the big bourgeoisie in all decisive cases, especially in war and in revolutions; the lower sections go along with the proletariat; the intermediate section thus being compelled to choose between the two extreme poles….. there is not and cannot be any intermediate stage, that is no Democratic Dictatorship of the Workers and Peasants. (pp277-8)

Permanent Revolution

Trotsky based this on the experience up to then, but as pointed out above, recent history provides many instances of successful revolutions carried out under the leadership of the petit-bourgeoisie. As Marxists, we have to acknowledge that and develop our theory accordingly, not ignore it simply because it does not fit in with orthodox theory. Such an attempt to analyse how and why the petit-bourgeoisie has been able to successfully lead revolutions in Cuba, Nicaragua, Mozambique etc. etc. and to characterise the nature of the subsequent regimes (are they a form of he Democratic Dictatorship or Workers and Peasants?) is not attempted here, but such an analysis should be undertaken by the League.

Marxists from Marx onwards have always underestimated the resilience of Capitalism, and the ability of he bourgeoisie to adapt in order to stave off revolution and maintain the system. Trotsky’s Theory of Permanent Revolution was partly based on such an underestimation. Not only has the ‘democratic’ revolution been achieved in country after country without socialist revolution, but the US has used its power and influence to persuade some ruling groups to carry through the ‘agrarian revolution’ as a means of increasing stability, and staving off rural revolt. As Halliday says,

"The function of such a policy is both to eliminate a real or possible revolutionary threat from a discontented peasantry, and to create a new social grouping in the rural areas which will support government policies…. This two-pronged policy also explains why since the Second World War the US government has encouraged land reform in countries under its influence. The initial thinking on this was developed in relation to Japan, where a group of sociologists including Talcott Parson saw the need for a stable state to have a contented peasant class. Subsequent to reform in Japan, US advisers helped supervise reforms in China (prior to 1949), Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Egypt, Bolivia – and Iran. (Iran pp134 –5)

Does this mean that the Theory of Permanent Revolution is no longer relevant? No. As a description of what has happened the theory has obviously been wide of the mark, but the main importance of any Marxist theory is not as a description of events, blindly unfolding, but as a guide to action. Had large revolutionary parties, and a Communist International existed in the post-war years then the events of the post-war period would have been different, and probably more in line with Trotsky’s description.

Whilst ‘national’ and ‘democratic’ revolutions have taken place without establishing the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, the subsequent regimes have not provided any great steps forward for the working class, and poor peasantry. There is still a need to point out the need for, and fight for socialist revolution. Indeed, there is more need to do so than ever. In a world where capitalism has been turned into a world system the ONLY way to achieve any kind of independence of the economic consequences of that system is by breaking from it. The ONLY way to break free from the system is by SOCIALIST not nationalist revolution. Even then, the economy of even the largest country cannot totally free itself from the effects of the world economy. For that reason Permanent Revolution is also more relevant than ever in another sense.

“The conquest of power by the proletariat does not complete the revolution but only opens it. Socialist construction is conceivable only on the foundation of the class struggle, on a national and international scale. This struggle, under the conditions of an overwhelming predominance of capitalist relationships on the world arena, must inevitably lead to explosions, that is, internally to civil wars and externally to revolutionary wars. Therein lies the permanent character of the socialist revolution as such, regardless of whether it is a backward country that is involved, which only yesterday accomplished its democratic revolution, or an old capitalist country which already has behind it a long epoch of democracy and parliamentarism.”

And,

“The above outlined sketch of the development of the world revolution eliminates the question of countries that are ‘mature’ or ‘immature’ for socialism in the spirit of that pedantic, lifeless classification given by the present programme of the Comintern. Insofar as capitalism has created a world market, a world division of labour and world productive forces, it has also prepared world economy as a whole for socialist transformation.”

Permanent Revolution pp 278-9 Pathfinder Press 1974)

And for Lenin,

“A determined fight is necessary against the attempt to put a communist cloak around revolutionary liberation movements that are not really communist in the backward countries. The Communist International has the duty to support the revolutionary movement in the colonies only for the purpose of gathering the components of the future proletarian parties – communist in fact and not just in name – in all the backward countries and training them to be conscious of their special tasks, the special tasks, that is to say, of fighting against the bourgeois-democratic tendencies within their own nation. The Communist International should accompany the revolutionary movement in the colonies and the backward countries for part of the way, should even make an alliance with it; it may not, however, fuse with it, but must unconditionally maintain the independent character of the proletarian movement, be it only in embryo.”

(Theses on the National and Colonial Question pp 181-2 from Vol. 1 The Second Congress of the Communist International – New Park 1977)

Second Congress of the Comintern

Trotskyists in the post-war period have had an extremely opportunist attitude to ‘anti-imperialist’ struggles. The worst variant has been the USFI which has sat on the sidelines acting as cheer leaders for the various petit-bourgeois nationalist forces, has abandoned the task of establishing Trotskyist parties in these countries, and which has had a totally uncritical attitude to the petit-bourgeois nationalist regimes which have subsequently been established. But, most other Trotskyists have shared a similar attitude. The process goes something like (a) give pretty much uncritical support, (b) raise every so often the need to establish Trotskyist parties, (c) wait until the petit-bourgeois actually win power and hen start to slag them off.

This attitude is not only unserious, but a criminal dereliction of the revolutionary duty to patiently explain why the petit-bourgeois nationalist programme is inadequate, why the petit-bourgeoisie, if they win power, will attack the working class, and why, therefore, we need to group the revolutionary forces from within the ranks of the nationalists to build a revolutionary party.

Section 5
Soviet Expansionism

The Soviet Union is not imperialist in the sense describe earlier. Is it, however, expansionist? Yes, and no. Trotsky, in “In Defence of Marxism”, refers to the element of ‘imperialism’ in the policies of the Kremlin bureaucracy, and discusses its expansionism in relation to Poland and elsewhere.

“The Kremlin participates in a new division of Poland, the kremlin lays hands upon the Baltic states, the Kremlin orients towards the Balkans, Persia and Afghanistan; in other words, the Kremlin continues the policy of Czarist imperialism. Do we not have the right in this case to label the policy of the Kremlin itself imperialist” (p26 Pathfinder)

In Defence of Marxism

Trotsky distinguishes himself, however, from the petit-bourgeois and Menshevik description of such expansion as imperialist. “This historical geographical argument is no more convincing than any of the others… The lines of revolutionary expansion were the same as those of Czarism, since revolution does not change geographical conditions. That is precisely why the Mensheviks at that time already spoke of Bolshevik imperialism as borrowed from the traditions of Czarist diplomacy.” (Ibid – emphasis added )

Wherein, therefore, lies the difference between ‘revolutionary’ expansion, and the Kremlin’s expansion into say Afghanistan? Again Trotsky.

“Robespierre once said that people do not like missionaries with bayonets. By this he wished to say that it is impossible to impose revolutionary ideas and institutions on other people through military violence. This correct thought does not signify, of course, the inadmissibility of military intervention in other countries in order to co-operate in a revolution. But, such an intervention, as part of a revolutionary international policy, must be understood by the international proletariat, must correspond to the desires of the toiling masses of the country on whose territory the revolutionary troops enter. The theory of socialism in one country is not capable, naturally, of creating this active international solidarity, which alone can prepare and justify armed intervention. The Kremlin poses and resolves the question of military intervention, like all other questions of its policy, absolutely independently of the ideas and feelings of the international working class. Because of this, the latest diplomatic ‘successes’ of the Kremlin monstrously compromise the USSR and introduce extreme confusion into the ranks of the world proletariat.”

And, he goes on, “We have never promised to support all the actions of the red Army, which is an instrument in the hands of the Bonapartist bureaucracy.”

In other words, revolutionary expansion is an expression of class solidarity, bureaucratic expansion is an attempt to expand the sphere of influence of the bureaucracy, and to create not socialism, but a society assimilated to the reactionary model of the Soviet Union.

In the post-war period we have seen the Kremlin expand into Eastern Europe, and now Afghanistan. However, the expansion into Eastern Europe was with the agreement of imperialism. In Afghanistan, it was forced into a situation of invading or else losing face as a client regime was kicked out. Another factor, detrmining the invasion of Afghanistan was almost certainly a concern by the bureaucracy about the spread of ‘Islamic Revolution’ to the rapidly growing Soviet Islamic population. Both Eastern Europe and Afghanistan act as a buffer zone against hostile states on the Soviet borders. Both in Eastern Europe and Afghanistan the process of transformation (E. Europe) or military conflict (Afghanistan) has been pretty much directly under the control of the Kremlin.

At the same time, the bureaucracy has shown a marked reluctance to expand its influence by coming to the aid of revolutions in Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia etc. Only after the event has it extended its influence. Simply to describe the bureaucracy as ‘expansionist’, therefore, is inadequate. It is expansionist under certain conditions i.e. where it is not going to come into conflict with imperialism., and where it can keep the situation under its control. Afghanistan is a partial exception to that because there was the possibility that it might bring the bureaucracy into conflict with imperialism. They obviously decided, however, that it was worth the risk with the US having little stomach after Vietnam, and being in a situation of having to do something to save face.

I think there is a danger of putting Soviet expansion down to purely economic motives in the same way that some Trotskyists have put down all imperialist intervention to economic motives. The Soviet bureaucracy certainly is greedy, but that is not a sufficient reason to explain its expansionism. For example, if the Soviet bureaucracy, when it invaded Afghanistan, was simply motivated by greed, and saw its opportunity because of the weakness of imperialism, why choose Afghanistan? Why not invade Iran? After all in many ways the conditions were better. Firstly, there is a working class in Iran; secondly there is a Stalinist Party with at least some support in the working class; there was mass opposition to the Shah, which at first had no organised expression (it was only towards the end of the revolutionary situation that the clerics hijacked it). Certainly, its difficult to see what the bureaucracy can gain economically from Afghanistan, but the potential for looting Iran is obvious.

Again, if we look at the discussions at the recent Comecon summit there were apparently big arguments over the amount of economic support that Comecon countries were making to Cuba, Vietnam, Ethiopia, Mozambique etc. A number of Soviet satellites which had applied for membership were apparently turned down because of the economic burden that Eastern European members of Comecon felt this would place on them. Within Comecon too, the financial flow is not all one way. When oil prices increased in 1974, for example, the Soviet Union continued supplying oil to other Comecon countries way below the world price. To have increased the price of oil would have been easy for the Soviet Union, and if it were solely motivated by greed, a rational thing to do, but the cost would have been crisis in the economies of Eastern Europe, and political instability similar to what happened in Poland. Instead, the Soviet Union acts a bit like a bank, controlling Comecon, taking out resources, and handing out subsidies and loans. IN this way it can maintain some control.

The Soviet Union has increased its oil price to Comecon members steadily, and encouraged them to get supplies from elsewhere as it diverts its oil resources more to domestic use. Nor is Comecon immune to the crisis of the world capitalist system. Bob Sutcliffe in WSR 1 described the crisis in the economies of the Stalinist states. Increasingly, it becomes clear that the Kremlin is more and more losing control over the Eastern bloc. For example, Hungary and Rumania have become members of the IMF. There is more and more dissent – Rumania sends a team to the Olympics, and now simply to prevent East Germany’s Honecker from going to West Germany, Pravda launches a massive campaign against both East and West Germany, even saying the East Germans were liquidating ‘socialism’ in East Germany.

Ever since the bureaucracy developed the theory of socialism in One Country, it has had a policy of peaceful co-existence with imperialism. This means that whilst the bureaucracy acts demagogically, and spouts anti-imperialist rhetoric it does nothing, which could bring it into direct conflict with imperialism. Imperialism is free to intervene anywhere in the world, unhindered, and should it be defeated the bureaucracy then steps in to ensure that the new state is brought into the fold.

Ernest Mandel, therefore, is totally wrong when he says, “Thus the fact that the Soviet Union has built and stockpiled nuclear weapons has saved humanity from a nuclear holocaust. Without this ‘balance of terror’ it is practically certain that imperialism would already have used nuclear weapons against the ‘Chinese volunteers’ during the Korean War, against the Indo-Chinese revolution during the second Indo-chinese war, and indeed against other revolutions.”

In fact, however, the Soviet Union has failed to support any of these revolutions with conventional weapons let alone be prepared to use nuclear weapons. These revolutions have taken place despite Stalinism, not because of it.

Mandel’s position is based on an incorrect understanding of the principle of ‘Defence of the Soviet Union’. Such defence does not mean supporting the diplomatic and military manoeuvres of the Kremlin, nor does it mean supporting their right or ability to annihilate the world working class. Indeed, there are a number of reasons why it seems we should support nuclear disarmament in Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, China and other Stalinist states.

If the Soviet Union is unconditionally expansionist then it is as much responsible for the arms race as imperialism. If, however, as I have argued it is expansionist only under certain conditions, then it is still possible to argue that the Soviet Union only responds to imperialism’s escalation of the arms race. It is also possible to draw a distinction between the fact that imperialism is necessarily expansionist whilst there is no such necessity contained within Stalinism. However, even if we continue to lay responsibility for the arms race solely at the feet of imperialism this is still not an argument for retaining nuclear weapons by the Stalinists. Property relations in the Stalinist states will not be defended if we are all blown up. Moreover, imperialism wants to capture lost markets and outlets for capital, not blow them up. Imperialism would be unlikely to start a nuclear war just because the Stalinists had no nuclear weapons. Even if they did it would be better that the Stalinists could not retaliate. At least then we live to fight.

Nuclear warfare is clearly different from conventional warfare. When wars were fought with conventional weapons, the red Armies could be used simply to defend property relations in the Stalinist states. That we would support. It also meant that in order to fight a reactionary, expansionist war the bureaucracies had to win the acceptance, or passive resignation of the working class, which would have to do the fighting. In that sense it left open the possibility of opposition to the bureaucracy. Nuclear warfare, however, requires just a small number of people prepared to push the button – there is no reason to doubt that a sufficient number of such people exist in the Stalinist states. The only avenue for the working class to oppose reactionary nuclear adventures by the rulers in the Stalinist states is by campaigning for nuclear disarmament now.

At the same time, it is important that we link clearly support for nuclear disarmament in the Stalinist states to an insistent demand for ‘Defence of the Deformed and Degenerated Workers States’ through total disarmament of imperialism, opposition to any military moves against the Stalinist states, blacking of all war supplies, and above all by fighting for socialist revolution in the West, and Political Revolution in the East.

Section 6
War

I have said a number of times that imperialism is concerned with managing conflicts within itself, because of its desire to maintain the system. Such ideas are anathema to many Trotskyists, so I had better explain more clearly what I mean by this. What this does not mean is that Capitalism is no longer racked by contradictions, or that the capitalists are able to overcome these contradictions. What it does mean is that they are able to undertake certain measures which stave off or modify the resolution of the contradictions. Just as Capitalism was for a time able to use Keynesianism to stave off and modify economic crisis within national economies, so too imperialism has found ways of temporarily staving off the need to resort to military conflict as a means of resolving its crisis at an international level. However, Keynesianism was only a palliative, a way of staving off the inevitable. It built up problems for capitalism and has found its negation in monetarism, and political reaction. At an international level too, imperialism has not solved the problem of creating a unified world economy with an authoritative state apparatus at its head. All it has managed is to create larger economic blocs, and a range of international institutions. As the crisis of imperialism continues, the need to restructure, to recapture lost markets, and sources of exploitable labour, will become greater. In other words, the fact remains that we live in an epoch of wars and revolutions.

Modern imperialism, then, sees the contradictions raised to a higher level, with economic competition within imperialism now concentrated on competition between the major economic blocs, and between the massive, super multinationals which operate across these economic blocs. At the same time account has to be taken of the post-capitalist societies when analysing today’s lines of conflict. I have argued earlier that the main concern of the capitalist class is maintenance of the system, and that as far as the capitalist class on a world scale is concerned, their internal conflicts are subordinate to their unity as a class against the working class, and the post-capitalist states.

What then is the dialectic of modern war? Earlier I referred to an article by Donald McKenzie. McKenzie argued that militarism could not be put down solely to economic motives, because the cost of arms expenditure far outweighed the return on overseas investment. I would agree with McKenzie that this or that particular intervention cannot always be put down to economic motives, but it is another thing to say that militarism, or the massive amount being spent on arms are unrelated to the workings of the capitalist system.

Firstly, its important to separate out the different types of military expenditure. There is the expenditure on conventional weapons, troops etc. which imperialism needs for interventions, and for use against the working class. Then there is the expenditure on strategic weapons for fighting world wars.

In relation to the first type of expenditure imperialism faces a very real contradiction. On the one hand it is trying to create a World Economy, to bring more and more labour power under the control of Capital. It has expanded beyond its own borders. On the other hand the cost of military expenditure, to protect these overseas investments is higher than the return on the investments. Capitalism is a system of such contradictions (the cost of policing the Miners’ Strike is greater than the cost of conceding on closures). The solution to this contradiction for imperialism has been to concentrate its investment in selected countries, to establish in those countries a capitalist state apparatus, and capitalist norms and values so that the cost of protecting its investments is removed from its shoulders. At the same time, the ‘sub-imperialist’ states, by acting as regional policemen, also lift some of the cost of protection off the ‘imperialist’ states.

The contradiction imperialism faces over strategic weapons are quite different. At first sight, the situation seems quite ludicrous (and from a socialist perspective is ludicrous). There is already massive overkill, and yet the world total for annual expenditure on arms is 600 billion dollars. Some Marxists (Kidron and now Mandel) have tried to put this down to attempts by capitalism to stabilise itself, to overcome the effects of the falling rate of profit – the Permanent Arms Economy. This theory – basically Keynesian – is no answer. For example, why arms? Why not spend on hospitals or schools?

The most likely explanation for the arms race is not any one factor, but a complex intermeshing of factors. The build up of nuclear weapons is not simply a quantitative one. It is successive twists up a qualitative spiral. The aim of both sides is to develop ever more sophisticated weapons systems, which each hopes will enable them to launch a devastating first strike, preventing the other from retaliating. As new weapons are developed, old ones become redundant, and add to the stockpile. What is going on, therefore, is rational within the context of the game being played, even if the result is totally irrational.

Within this context, the military-industrial complex, existing in both blocs, acts to get as big a share of the cake as possible. Within the imperialist bloc the motivation is profit, within the Stalinist bloc it is bureaucrats in the particular sector seeking more prestige. For both blocs too the arms race by presenting an external threat plays an important ideological role, diverting attention from the workers domestic plight. The Stalinist bureaucracy would love to be able to reduce its arms expenditure in order to develop Siberia, improve the Soviet economy, and thus pacify Soviet workers. Imperialism would love to reduce arms expenditure in order to raise surplus value. Neither is able because any reduction would allow the other side to gain a dangerous advantage. What both sides can attempt, however, is to negotiate a reduction in the size of the stockpiles of more or less redundant weapons. Through these negotiations both sides are able to play global, diplomatic chess, presenting proposed reductions in redundant weapons as genuine steps towards disarmament.

The following can be identified as types of war:

1) Wars like the Falklands where the international ‘rules of the game’ are infringed, and alternative means of managing conflict have failed.
2) Wars like Vietnam where imperialism intervenes to prevent socialist revolution.
3) Wars between second rank capitalist states, or by a ‘sub-imperialist’ state against a neighbour, in an attempt to assert regional dominance.
4) Wars/military intervention between the Soviet Union and its neighbours (Afghanistan, Hungary, Czechoslovakia)
5) World wars stemming from economic conflict between the major imperialist blocs.
6) World Wars between imperialism and the Stalinist states.

Types 1,2, and 3 have been the small change since the Second World War, and imperialism has been involved to some extent in all such wars. But, the main motivation behind these wars has not been on the economic level, but the political – ‘policing the rules of the game’ (Falklands), or ‘maintaining the system’ (Vietnam, Korea) or ‘strategic advantage’ (Iran/Iraq).

The Soviet Union prefers to have the Stalinist rulers of each state control the situation for it (Poland), but it has shown itself quite prepared to intervene when it considers things have gone too far. A question mark hangs over the Soviet Union’s ability to carry out such actions in Eastern Europe in future. In Afghanistan it has found itself trapped in a prolonged war, and appears to have learned nothing from the experience of the US in Vietnam. In Czechoslovakia in 1968, it faced dissent amongst its ranks as they fraternised with the workers. With increasing dissent within the Warsaw Pact – Rumania will not allow Russian troops on its soil even for exercises – it could well find itself taking on more than it can chew.

Type 5 remains a remote possibility. There has been a Trade War between the major imperialist blocs for a number of years waged through various measures of protectionism. More and more voices are raised calling for “European” Defence, and in America too there have been calls for America to pull out. There is an increasing militarisation of Japan. The Japanese state has been attempting to re-write school history books, and several films have appeared glorifying Japan’s role in the Pacific War. However, imperialism must recall that after the First and Second inter-imperialist wars they lost territory (first to revolution then to Stalinism).

The most likely arena for future global war, therefore, is between imperialism and Stalinism – given that there are no healthy workers states. As the contradictions for imperialism mount, as the crisis intensifies, those who have developed concepts of limited nuclear war are likely to become more vocal and influential. The deployment of Cruise, the development of the neutron bomb, the concept of limited nuclear war, and increased arms expenditure by imperialism are not accidents. Trotsky argued that war was “the continuation of politics by other means”, but, he also said that war has its own “independent character”, its own “inner technique”, structure, its methods, its traditions, and prejudices. “This means that the profession of war and its problems cannot be dissolved into social and political categories.” We cannot underplay the possibility of nuclear war, because in the event of its occurrence, by accident or design, the socialist project will be destroyed alongside humanity.

Section 7
The WSL and the ‘Peace Movement’

For the last four years the peace movement has experienced rapid growth. It is a different movement to that of the 50’s and 60’s. It has sprung to life when world capitalism is in the most severe crisis since the 1930’s, and, therefore, when imperialist war is more likely. Where direct action split CND in the 60’s, today it is an accepted tactic. The militancy and determination of the Greenham women far surpasses anything produced in the 60’s. That militancy results from a feeling of desperation at a world that appears to be heading for annihilation. Yet, despite the determination and militancy, despite he growth of support for the peace movement, the arms race continues, Cruise missiles have been installed. In response, the CND leaders are in retreat, looking towards state to state negotiations, and witch hunting their opponents inside CND in order to get away with it.

The Peace Movement has become a truly mass movement. Its size and strength have enabled it to do more than similar movements (for example the ANL) have been able to do in the recent past. For example, many Labour controlled Local Authorities have become Nuclear Free Zones, and through non-co-operation forced the Tories to abandon the Hard Rock exercise. Even right-wing Labour controlled authorities like my own in Stoke have made facilities available to CND, and regularly send representatives to the NFZ’s meetings. This is more the result of the pressure they feel from CND activists than of conviction.

Given the importance of youth within the peace movement there have been massive opportunities for revolutionaries. In my opinion, the WSL has missed most of them. Despite conference decisions our involvement in CND has been minimal, and the success of some of our comrades in getting elected to positions in YCND and CND seems more to me to do with their involvement at an individual level rather than the work put in by the WSL. Last year, for example, I had a discussion with a member of the SL who thought our lack of involvement in CND was due to it being one of the major issues in the faction fight with the WLF.

At CND events and demos we have a much lower profile even than groups like Militant and the Sparts, who are opposed to CND. Yet, the possibilities of linking up the nuclear issue with workers in struggle is immense. A recent example was the Women’s March for Mines not Missiles. The march was extremely poorly organised, and in many ways reflected the lack of a link between the Peace Movement and the Labour Movement. From the experience of Stoke, for example, it appeared that there had been almost no attempt to work through the local Labour Party to organise support for the March. A single letter was sent to the Secretary of the Miners Support Committee only a couple of weeks before the March, and even that wasn’t chased up. Our co-thinkers in the LP can play a vital role in providing this necessary link, especially via Labour CND and the YS.

Our co-thinkers in the LP should in my opinion make a big push to build LCND and TUCND, as well as YCND, because the division of CND into sections can be sued as a lever. Our aim should be to use this lever to turn CND towards the Labour Movement, to organise within it a sizeable section based in the Labour Movement so that at some future point a split with the Liberal/Pacifist wing can be accomplished. Such a split is necessary because of the politics of CND, and its popular frontist character.

To achieve this aim of building a Labour Movement core we need to develop a set of demands with which to intervene. Those demands must demonstrate that (a) simply talking about nuclear disarmament is useless, (b) the social democratic reformist programme of bit by bit disarmament, and of ‘defensive’ rather than ‘offensive’ weapons is equally nonsense. We need, therefore, to link the use of basic conventional weapons (like plastic bullets) to the development of counter-insurgency measures, to the use of those measures against the miners, to the use of troops for strike-breaking, and to the development of a national police force, in order to show that “the main enemy is at home”, and that that enemy cannot be disarmed piecemeal, and does not need ‘offensive’ weapons to attack the working class.

In the article by McKenzie referred to earlier he says, “To talk of militarism rather than ‘exterminism’ – E.P. Thompson’s preferred term – is to say, amongst other things that it is not only the drift towards mass destruction that matters. To talk of militarism rather than the ‘arms race’ is to say that it is not the weapons that matter. To talk of militarism rather than the Cold War is to say that it is not only the East-West divide that deserves attention. To talk of militarism rather than ‘war drive’ is to remind us that the politically effective use of military force often stops short of actual fighting.” (McKenzie Capital and Class 19)

“Without the slightest confidence in the capitalist programme for disarmament or arms limitation the revolutionary proletariat asks one question: in whose hands are the weapons? Any weapon in the hands of the imperialists is a weapon directed against the working class, against the weak nations, against socialism, against humanity. Weapons in the hands of the proletariat and of the oppressed nations are trhe only means of ridding our planet of oppression and war.”

Trotsky – “Declaration to the Anti War Congress at Amsterdam” in Writings 1932)

Such thoughts are anathema to the leaders of CND and to social democrats like Kinnock – today’s “champions of peaceful development” as Trotsky called them. Kinnock was opposed to the mass picketing at Warrington in the NGA dispute, and his disgraceful condemnation of miners pickets throughout the Miners Strike has continued the trend. The idea of taking the arms from the bosses and giving them to the workers would be unthinkable for Kinnock. Kinnock in attempting to persuade the T&G to withdraw their unilateralist motion to last year’s Labour Party conference was again demonstrating the similarity of ideas between himself, the Liberal Pacifists leading CND, the Euro-Stalinists of the CP, and, of course, the Liberal-SDP Alliance. All are anxious to replace the independent mobilisation of the working class for disarmament with the more civilised and politically safe – for them – policy of nuclear freeze, and state to state negotiations. His support for the viciously anti-working class bunch of international gangsters in NATO is well known, and, of course, he supported the servile nationalism dished up by the Labour leadership, in support of British ‘imperialism’ during the South Atlantic War.

“The most influential pacifist force is the Social Democracy. In a period of peace its not stingy with cheap tirades against war. But, it remains tied to ‘national defence’ (in the case of Kinnock Western Defence). This is decisive. Every war, however it may begin, menaces each of the warring nations. The imperialists know in advance that the pacifism of the Social Democracy at the first roar of cannon will be transformed into the most servile patriotism and becomes the most important reserve for militarism.”

(Trotsky ibid.)

We should raise the following demands:

1) Britain out of NATO, NATO out of Britain
2) Troops Out of Ireland
3) Oppose any use of troops for strike-breaking with an immediate General Strike
4) Oppose all military spending
5) Build Workers Defence squads as a preliminary to organising a workers militia
6) Disband the standing army, SPG, and ‘intelligence’ services
7) Ban the use of plastic bullets
8) For Workers Control of the armaments factories, oppose privatisation

At the present time, LP policy is based on a contradiction of unilateral nuclear disarmament, but continued support for NATO. Whilst opposing NATO on this basis we must make it clear that the main opposition to NATO is not its nuclear capacity, but its role as the armed fist of imperialism. We must drag the Peace Movement away from its sole concern with nuclear weapons, and broaden the agenda. This will enable us to raise the question of Troops Out of Ireland, the use of plastic bullets, and he development of counter-insurgency techniques.

Given the recent police riot in Belfast and the repeated police riots against Miners we should also be able to link this with the need for workers defence squads, and opposition to the use of troops, the SPG etc. for strikebreaking. Immediate calls for the disbandment of the standing army are unlikely to take hold, so we should raise separately the question of building workers defence squads as a preliminary to a workers militia. Such a militia would almost certainly exist side by side with the standing army, and in opposition to it.

Again, calls for an end to military spending are unlikely to take hold at the present time, so we should raise separately the demand for workers control of the arms industry, and opposition to privatisation. Such a demand raises a number of possibilities. Firstly, it means that workers in the industry can be won away from the idea that the ‘Left’ wants to throw them on the dole. Secondly, it means that workers in the industry can decide what to produce, and who to sell it to. For example, should they continue to produce arms and sell them on favourable terms to liberation movements, and to workers, or should they use the factories resources and their skills to produce something else. Thirdly, it seems to me that the demand for workers control of the arms industry is better than simply calling for an end to all arms production. For one thing, short of a Workers’ Government the bosses are not going to concede the demand for an end to arms production anyway, and secondly the working class needs an arms industry for its own protection (a) in a revolutionary situation, and (b) after the revolution to protect us from external intervention. The current fight against privatisation of ROF’s is an opportunity to raise the demand for workers’ control.

In addition to building LCND, TUCND and YCND we should also do all we can to extend the links already established with END. Given our position on the EEC we are in a much better position than others on the Left to build END, and through it to link up workers throughout Europe. There appear to be a number of aspects as to how this should be done.

1) Work in END itself
2) Work with the Solidarity TU Working Group
3) Work through the European Parliament

Already, there are a number of MEP’s who could be approached to turn END more towards the Labour Movement in Europe, and there is time now before the next Euro elections to start making links and building for a campaign at the next elections in which we could stand candidates (through the LP) on the same sort of basis as the SCLV (Socialist Campaign for a Labour Victory). Such a campaign could enable us to build links with other revolutionaries in Europe.

Conclusions

This document has attempted to set out an analysis of modern imperialism, and to draw practical conclusions from that analysis about the kind of demands we should raise in situations like the South Atlantic War, and for our work in the Peace Movement. An adequate theory of imperialism is something, which the Trotskyist Movement has been lacking for some time. This document does not pretend to be such a theory, but is intended as part of the discussion on the development of that theory. A discussion on work in the Peace Movement is something, which the WSL has been lacking for some time, and again, hopefully, this document will stimulate such a discussion. But, at the end of the day, discussion is only useful if it produces decisions. We should in the next few months begin to reach some decisions from the discussions on imperialism, ‘anti-imperialist’ struggles, and the Peace Movement. We should produce pamphlets and magazine articles putting over our ideas, and begin to develop our work in the Peace Movement so that we do not miss any more opportunities.

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