SOCIALISM

The Slovo critique:socialism utopian

and scientificJOHN HOFFMAN* - better known to many of our readers as theCommunist writer DIALEGO - responds to the debate between JoeSlovo and Patio Jordan (Labour Bulletin Vol 14 No 6 and Vol 15 No 3).He argues that 'backward circumstances' led to a 'backward socialism'which had more in common with the utopian socialism condemned byMarx than with the scientific socialism developed by him. Scientificsocialism builds on and extends the political democracy and liberal rightsestablished by bourgeois democracy - and so the dictatorship of theproletariat should be seen as a post-Jiberal state. In contrast, thebackward socialism of Stalin glorified authoritarian, pre-liberal forms ofpolitical rule.

Slovo's pamphlet has beenwidely discussed and gener­ally welcomed. It is in myview a veritable model of a'discussion paper'. It is cou­rageous and critical. It raisesuncomfonable and difficultquestions in a searching andopen-minded way. Every­thing, Slovo insists, must bejustifiedaoew. We can nolonger assume that there areany axioms or assumptiooswhich can be taken forgranted - hence the tiLie ofthe pamphlet: Has SocialismFailed?

Indeed since Slovo's

pamphlet appeared, the Ger­man Democratic Republic(GDR) - a country with a spe­cial relationship with theSouth African liberationmovement - has ceased toexist as a national entity andthe USSR itself, the countryof the October Revolution, isin the grip of a social, econ­omic and political crisis oftruly awesome proponions. Itmay well be that in desper­ation, its rulers will introducesome fonn ofcapitalism inorder to revive its economyand maintain its politicalcohesion.

The unthinkable dancesmenacingly before our veryeyes. In a situation lik.e this,who can deny the need forthe k.ind of '110 holds barred'critique which Slovo has in­itiated? It was Marx himselfwho adopted as his ownmOlto the Latin tag: 'de omni­bus dubitandum '. Questioneverything! This is surely thehistorical moment for each ofus to do likewise.

Have Marxists beenoverthrown by history?The British communist jour­nal Marxism Today carried

• John Hoffman was born irl Zimbabwe and now reaches pclitics at I.eicesl9r Univemity. Eng/and. Ha hasboot! a frequent conrnburor to Afriearl Communist and alllhor 0I1hf1 pamphlet Philosophy and ClassStruggm, undsr the nom-de-plume Dialogo. He has authowdseveral books. has boon active in the BritishAnti-Aparthflid Movem6tl1 and was for many years a member 01 rhfI Communist Parry 01 Great Brilain.

57 $ALB Vo/IS No 7

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on its February cover in 1990a Karl Marx spattered witheggs and tomatoes - thechampion of the people nowthe hapless target of popularwrath. Some conuibutors tothe journal pointed wilh iII­concealed glee to what theysaw as a painful and terribleirony. Marxism, they argued,has fallen viclim to its owndialeclical processes. It hasbegun to supersede itselfbe­fore our very eyes. With thecollapse of communist partystates in Ea$tem Europe,Marxism, in a word, hasbeen overthrown by history.

Given the 'shock-waves',as Slovo calls them, trig­gered by the events of 1989(p I), it seems tome !hat the'overthrow of Marxism'thesis deserves a consideredresponse. After all, the argu­ment is no more scandaIoosthan the queslion whichSiovo takes as the title of hispamphlet. Unless we canfind a convincing reply tothose who say that MarJ[ismitself has collapsed with theBerlin Wall and the socialistSlates, we do not deserve tobe taken seriously. For on theface of it, the 'historical pe­tard thesis' appears aplausible reaction to the fateof so many states and partieswho have adopted Marxismas their official creed.

Moreover it is an argu­ment which recalls Marx'sown criticisms of the~mighty Hegel" - the philos­opher whose idealist theoryof dialectics decisively in­fluenced the development ofMarxist thought. For Marxcriticised Hegel by basically

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Has Marxism been'overthrown by history'?

turning his own theoryagainst him. Hegel, we re­call, had argued !hatdialectics exist in both nawreand society as an incll:orableand universal force forchange. The founders of Mar­xism agreed. But, theycontended, these radicalpremises are contradicted s0­

cially by Hegel'sconservalive view ofproperty, class divisions andthe state, and philosophicallyby the way he ascribed his­torical movcment to the'labours' of a metaphysicalgod - a divine creator subjectto none of the dialectical pro­cesses he supposedlyembodied.

Is it possible !hat Marxismitself has now fallen victimto a similar kind of internal(or, as it is sometimes called,'immanent') critique'! The ar­gument might be presented

58

as follows. Marxism Standsor falls as a lheory which istied to and seeks confirma­tion in historical praclice.~The dispute over the r<'4llityor non-reality of thinkingthat is isolated from practiceis purely scholastic ques­lion~; thus runs Marx'sfamous second thesis onFeuerbach. Theories, in otherwords, are nm autonomOllsvisions which simply arise inthe minds of people. Theyare mental reflections of thematerial world. They derivefrom practice and they guidepractice. Theory and practiceare inCJl:tricably linked.

"Can we simply blamethe practise?"This being so, what then arethe implications of the crisesand traumas which have af­meted the socialist worldsince 1989'! Ever since theRussian Revolution, 'dissi­dent' Marxists havecomplained of an apparentgulf between Marxist theoryand Marxist practice. Mar­ll:ism, they argued, is a theoryof emancipation and yet(they assert) its self-pro­fessed adherents have builtsocicties which are autocraticand repressive in practice.Trotskyists contend that thefault lay with Stalin and theStalinists. Others haveblamed Lenin. In the 1%Osand 1970s it became fashion­able in New Left circles toinsist thai the problem hadbeen created by Engels who,it was said, had over-simpli.fied and vulgarised Marx'swriting.

By the late 1970s the

French Mantist Louis AI­thusser (once the greatchampion of the Mantist clas­sics) could conclude lhatMarxism ilSelf is in crisis,and disillusioned radicalsjoined with liberals and con­servatives in arguing lhatMarxism is an inherentlyautocratic and IOIalilarian tIlL­ory because the societieswhich invoke its name areautocratic and tota1iWian inpractiu. The Polish philos­opher in exile LesekKolakowski in a subslalllialthree volume work describedMarxism as "the greatest fan­tasy of our century" andinsisted: "Communism re­alised it [the fantasy - eoa'] inthe only way feasible in anindusuial society, namely, bya despotic system of govern­ment~ (Kolakowski, pp 523;527).

Marxism in other words isnot only an oppressive Iheorybut - the argument runs - itstands condemned as such byis own premises. Cenlral toits !heory of knowledge is!he link it asserts betweentheory and practice. If !henMarxist!hooreticians alwaysend up establishing systemswhich are autocratic and re­pressive, can we simplyblame the practice without atthe same time implicating thetheory? Manists - of allpeople - cannot plausiblyargue that theories bear no re­sponsibility for the historicalpractice enacted in theirname.

Cenlral bo!h to Slovo'spamphlet and to !he respon­ses which it has alreadyprovoked is this basic prob-

lem. If Siovo is to convincewith his argument that ~the

fault lies with us, not with so­cialism~ (p 11), !hen he muststimulate us to find argu­ments which successfullyrefute what I have called the'overthrow of Marxism'thesis.

The 'argument ofcircumstances'In his pamphlet Slovo refersto !he fact !hat socialist the­ory was applied "in newrealities which were not fore­seen by the founders ofMarxism" (p II). A numberof the responses to hispamphlet make the samepoint, emphasising in particu­lar the problem of uying tobuild socialist societies inbackward counuies. HarryGwala quotes the words ofthe late Paul Baran: "social­ism in backward andunderdeveloped counuieshas a powerful tendency tobecome backward and under­developed socialism". This,Gwala comments, is the kindof scientific approach wewould expect ofMaaist-Le­ninists who employ theirtools of dialectical material­ism (Gwala 1990, p 40).

I will call this the 'argu­ment of circumstances' sinceit seeks to explain the appar­ent gulf betwecn Marxisttheory and practice by refer­ring to the hostile andunpromising environment inwhich real socialist societieshad to emerge. The argumentis on the face of it an effec­tive rejoinder to the'overthrow of Marxism'thesis since it explains the

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problems, errors, exeessesand distortions of the social­ist countries wi!h the 'tools'of Marxist theory ilSelf.After all, Marxism ilSelf ac­knowledges lhat newsocieties will necessarily beshaped by the circumstancesin which they emerge. Doesnot Marx say (for example)that a communist society isin every respect stampedwith the binhlTtaJks of theold society from whosewomb it emerges?

In other words, the distor­tions within 'existingsocialism' reflect a unity oftheory and practice in diffi­cult and unforeseencircumstances. Harry Gwalaspeaks of the effect whichTsarist autocracy had on Bol­shevik organisation; the factthat before World War II,communists in Eastern Eu­rope lived mostly underdictatorships rather thandemocracies, and they werecompelled tactically to formalliances with their own na­tional bourgeoisie and richpeasants. As a result, Gwala~ues,theknetsofMM­

xism-Leninism weresomewhat diluted, but (andthis is the point) in wayswhich Man:ism itself canadequately explain.

Jeremy Cronin puts par­ticular emphasis on the needto "locate errors within abroad objective situation".He stresses the problemsgenerated by civil war andexternal invasion, both afterthe revolution and duringWorld War II. Russia's econ­omic backwardnessdramatically affected the

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qualir.y of its socialist struc­tures while the isolation ofthe country meant that it hadto exuaet a surplus from itspeople. a circumstancewhich resulted in the massiveoppression of the peasants(Cronin 1990, p 98).

Again the point of the 'cir­cumstances argument' is thatthe apparent conuadiction be­tween Marxist theory andpractice is explicable intenns of the harsh and hostileenvironment in which social­ist countries had todevelop.The 'fault'lies with history.Far from Marxism beinghoist upon any historical pe­tard, its explanatory powerhas if anything been ~n­

hanc~d by its capacity toprovide a materialist analysisof painful and difficult cir­cumstances.

It is significant howeverthat although Slovo does him­self allude to the relevance ofcircumstances, he is wary ofthe argument as a response tothe uaumas of 1989. Butwhy his reservations? If back­ward circumstances create abackward socialism, doesn'tthis observation vindicaterather than undennine a Mar­xist theory of history?

The problem ofJustificationJeremy Cronin commentsthat Win writing his pamphlet,Slovo felt that any historicalexplanation might seem likespecial pleading,like an at··tempt to explain away errorsand deviations". As SlovohimselfpulS it, historical cir­cumstances help "to explain,but in no way justify, the

April 1991

awful grip which Stalinismcame to exercise in every sec­tor of the socialist worldw(p11).

This comment goes to thehean of the problem. I saythis because the sharp distinc­tion Siovo makes herebetween wexplaining" histori­cal circumstances and"justifying" them is nOl assuaight.forward as it seems.For Marxists must surelyargue that moml positions ul­timately derive from ascientific assessment of ma­terial circumstances. Thereare no 'supra.historical'verities to which we can tum- no 'transcendental ideals'which stand outside of thehistorical process. This iswhy M3IJl. and Engels insistin the Communist Manifeslothat "the theoretical conclu­sions ofCommunistsW

merely express in generaltenns "actual relations spring.ing from an existing classstruggle, from an historicalmovement going on underOUt very eyes". 'Commun­ism' is not an abstract ideal:it is the real movementwhich abolishes the presentstate of things.

Ifwe argue therefore thatthe socialist societies

60

emerged through painful anddifflCu!tcircumstances as his·torically progressivephenomena, then we are notsimply explaining these cir­cumstances. We are also (atleast in a general sense) justi­fying them as well. What weare saying is this: "We cer­tainly don't like some oCthethings which have happenedin the name of Marxism inthe socialist countries and wewould not condone suchcriminal excesses and tacti­cal blunders if they occurredin our own movements. Butgiven the circumstances inwhich the USSR and EasternEurope had to develop, howcould things have been other­wise?"

Of course the actual wayin which events tum out canalways be different at thelevel of detail. Perhaps, Jere­my Cronin notes, a moreco-operative approach withthe peasantry might havebeen possible in the 19205.Both Stalin and Trotsky ar­gued for a wharsh approach tothe peasantry" whereasBukharin toolc the oppositeview. Cronin takes the pointpressed strongly by Pallo Jor­dan that the writings ofanti·Stalinists deserve to beseriously if critically reac!.

But if what happens ingeneral terms is judged to behistorically necessary, howthen can we condemn it?This point emerges particular­ly poignantly in the case ofPallo Jordan's fierce critiqueof Stalinism. "It is our task,"Jordan says emphatically, ~toexplain what has led to theauocities we condemn," and

he takes Slovo to laSk foridentifying the symptomsrather than the causes of theillness (199Oa, p 67). Buthow successful is he in get­ling round what I have calledthe 'problem of justification'?

Jordan divides Stalin'scritics into IWO basic campswhich derive from lhecon­o-asting position orTrotsIcyand Bukharin. 80lh Russiansaccepted that the isolation ofthe revolution in a backwardCOl1tlll}' created conditionsfor the emergence of a para­sitic: bureauc:rncy. HoweverTrotsky favoured the posi­

tion supported by the leftoppositionist Preobl amen­sky, Ihar. the USSR wouldhave 10 indusuialise at the ex­pense of the peasanuy,whereas Bukharin arguedthat the worker-peasant al­liance should be maintainedso that the economy could bedeveloped at a much moreleisurely pace. This was apolicy debate with momen­tous historical con$C(lUencessince once the 'gentler'policies of the New Econ­omic Policy (NEP) (favouredby Bukharin) were aban·

doned, then (Jordan tells Wi)the Soviet Stale began to aclin a dieworial manner likethe Tsarisl. state before it.

This raises two pointswtuclt are relevant to theproblem ofjustifICationthrough historical explana­tion. The ftrSl is that Jadanhimself acknowledges thaiTrotsky· although a bilter 0p­

ponent of Stalin - supportedpolicies which created theconditions for authoritarianrule in general. Indeed, Trot­sky had already displayedmarked 'Stalinist' tendenciesin his argument with Leninover the II'ade unions whenhe favoured mititarising theworkers. Stalin may havebeen more successful thanTrotsky in combining Mar­xisl rhelOric and Russiannationalism, but there is noth­ing in Jordan'sown accountto show thai had the USSRdeveloped under Trotskyistleadership, its characlUwould have been fundamen­taUy different. -Once.- as heputs it, -theCPSU suc­cumbed to the needs ofprimitive socialist KCUmu!.a­lion, there was no way ofbreaking the cycle- Qordan19903, P 74).

BUI what about thepolicies advocated byBukharin· greater freedomfor small property ownersand private enterprise? Thisbrings me 10 the second pointraised by Jordan's critique ofSlovo. It is revealing that atno time does Jordan suggestthat it have been f>tller forthe USSR 10 have continuedwith Ihe NEP (as Bukharinwanted) than to have em-

61

Pallo JordanPhoIo:~aIItWil

barked on a programme ofrapid industrialisation (whichboth Stalin and Trotsky sup­ported). However even ifBukharin's policies had woothe day, Jordan argues (Ithink correctly) that the seedsof the authoritarianism whichreached such horrendous pro­portions under Stalin hadalready been sown during thecivil war and its immedialeaflermath, ie even befCR!hedecision to abandon the NEPwas taken.

1be Social-Revolution­aries and other right.wingsocialist parties were bannedin 1918. Three years later !hesailors olthe Kronstadt garri­son rose in rebellion againstwhat they perceived 10 be anew tyr.tMy. In March of !hesame year factions were out­lawed in the CPSU and inthis way, JCl"dan comments,"the cancer had been plantedin the body of Ihe patty-. Sig­nincantly, as Jordan himselfmakes clear, both Trotsl:.yand Bukharin supported thesuppression of oppositionaltendencies. His dilemmatherefore is this:

His own analysis demon-

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DEBATEstrates Wi! the problem ofauthoritarianism and repress­ion arose OUI of thecircumstances swroundingthe fate of the Russian Revol­ution. He claims that theSovielleadership faced 'arange of alternatives al allthe crucial turning points ofits history', but in fact he isquite unable 10 give any indi­cation as to how UlItkr thesecircumstances, authoritarianpolicies could have beenavoided. Although hostile toStalin, he notes that Stalin'sapproach was supported bythe overwhelming majorityof Soviet Communists. Withthe adoption of a strategy ofprimitive socialist industriali­sation, he tells us, theauthoritarian die was casl,and yet he appears 10 supponTn:KSky rather thanBukharin. Even if Jordan'ssympathies are more Bukhari·nite than we suspect, thepoint is that Bukharin him­self (as Jordan points out)displayed the same willing­ness as the other Bolsheviksdid 10 crush dissent and oppo­sition.

In what sense thereforecan it be said that under thecjrClUtlS/(l/IUS things couldhave been significantly differ­ent? Indeed in one version ofhis critiqueJordan arguesthat the rise of Stalinism wasnot inevitable but it was his­torically necessary.Necessity, he says, impliesan element of choice but thechoice is not unlimited "forthe alternatives themselvesare structured by previouschoices and inherited circum­stanees~ (Jordan 199Gb, P

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34). In other words, generaltrends always manifest them­selves through particular(and thus 'accidental') cir­cumstances so that theprecise configuration ofevery event could alwayshave been different. I agree.

. The same (it seems 10 me)could also be said about adialectical view of 'inevita­bility' as well, but this is justa terminological point Whatis significant here is that Jor·dan concedes that some formor other of authoritarian rulewas historically necessary inthe USSR after the RussianRevolution.

That being so, how is itpossible for him to colUkmlldevelopments which hejudges at the same time to behistorically necessary? He ex­hens South Africans to"rediscover the true meaningof the communist vision" andpraises the oppositionists inthe socialist world who stoodout against the ~degradaLion

of the ideals ofcommunism~(199Oa, p 74). But the uuth isthai (from a Marxist point ofview) ideals and visions canonly emerge from and be re­alised in concrete historicalcircumstances, and his ownaccount gives us no reason to

62

suppose that a significantlyless repressive outcome washistorically possible.

His historical explanationemphasises the basic circum­stances which others havenoted and leaves him withthe same dilemma. Back­ward circumstances lead 10 abackward socialism. It is uuethat Pallo Jordan is muchmore critical ofStalin andStalinism than say HarryGwala (although Gwala him­self finds thai Stalin'sexcesses are ~notjustified").

The problem, however, isthat since he offers no argu­ment 10 suggest that aradically different scenariocould have occurred, it ishard 10 see how he can extri­cate himself from theimplicit justificaLion embo­died in the ~circumslaIlces

argument".

The dictatorship of theproletariat as apost·liberal stateup unLiI now we have as­sumed that the system whichemerged in the USSR afterthe revolution was autocraticand authoritarian in charac­ter. Although some Marxistsmight dispute this, it is (inmy view) greatly to Slovo'scredit that he calls a spade aspade and does nothing 10

hide the fact that the RussianRevolution posed seriousproblems for the develop­ment ofdem.ocraLicinstituLions in the new so­ciety.

Thcre may be moments inthe life of a revolution, Slovoargues, ~which justify a post­ponement of full democratic

processes~ and he feels itnecessary lO raise (withoutactually addressing) ~the

question of whether the Bol­sheviks were justified intaking a monopoly of statepower during the extraordi­nary period of both internaland external assault on thegains of the revolution~ (p17). The point is put delicate­ly but the thrust of hisargument is clear. Should theBolsheviks have dissolvedthe Constituent Assembly inJanuary 1918 when this ac­tion led many socialists athome and abroad 10 condemnthe new Bolshevik govern­ment as a dictatorship?

Siovo records the fact theBolsheviks received less thana third of the popular votewhen the assembly waselected. The elections tookplace before October 1917.The assembly only met afterthe revolution. Lenin arguedthat as a result the assemblyhad ceased 10 be repre­sentative of Russian opinionbut, as Slovo recalls (pp 14­16), even so significant arevolutionary as the Germansocialist Rosa Luxembourgdisagreed. She expressedgrave reservations over theaction by warning that "free­dom only for the supportersof the government is no free­dom atall".

Siovo cites these wordsand argues that they "maynot" have been appropriate inthe special conditions whichprevailed after the revolutionin 1917 since (as she puts it)"without a limitation ondemocracy", there was noway in which the revolution

could have defended itself ina situation of civil war andmassive intervention fromoutside. The comment is ofconsiderable significance, forin describing the dissolutionof the assembly as a /imita­tion on democracy, Siovoimplicitly chaHenges the ar­gument which both Leninand Trotsky used to justifytheir actions at the time.

For the Bolsheviks did notjustify dissolving the assem­bly as a restriction orlimitation on democracy.They presented it as the adop­tion of democracy in 'ahigher form'. The democracyof the soviets was, they con­tended, a thousand timeshigher than the old bourgeoisdemocracy as represented bythe Constituent Assembly. Itwas this argument in panicu­lar that Rosa luxembourgcriticised. Despite her opposi­tion 10 the dissolution of theConstituent Assembly, shewas (like Stovo) prepared 10acknowledge that the Bolshe­viks might have had a casefor limiting democracy inconditions of extreme crisis.What she was, however, un­ambiguously opposed 10, wasthe way in which the Bolshe·viks, as she put it, had madea ~vinue out of necessity~.

They had presented a limita­tion on democracy as thoughit was a higher form ofdemocracy itself.

But it might be arguedthat on this matter the Bolshe­viks were right and that Rosaluxembourg was wrong. Bysuppressing a minority of ex­ploiters, they were creating,as Lenin said at the time, a

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"democracy for the majority"on the grounds that a wetalOr­ship for the bourgeoisie is ademocracy for the workers.Dissolving the ConstituentAssembly, banning opposi­tion parties, restrictingfreedom of the press etc. didnot constitute a 'limitation'on democracy since the sup­pression of class enemies isitself implied by the veryidea of a socialist state as the'dictatorship of the proleta·riat' .

Siovo is right to be waryof this argumenL The truth isthat the concept of the dicta­torship of the proletariat asdeveloped in me Marxistclassics denotes a form of thestate which builds uponrather than suppresses liberalpolitical institutions. Theclassical Marxist view is thatdemocracy under capitalismis inadequate and formalsince in itself it does not giveworkers resources andpower. However the politicaland legal rights which wor­kers do enjoy undercapitalism are profoundly im­portant for they serve lOeducate the class in themeaning of freedom andemancipation. Liberal orbourgeois democracy is de­scribed by Marx and Engelsas a system which "perfects"the state in the sense Wt itpromises self-govemment intheory - all citizens are equalin the eyes of the law - and inthis way compels the wor­kers 10 struggle forself-government in practice.

It should be noted wtLenin himself had genera1lyanalysed bourgeois democ-

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DEBATEracy in these terms up toaround January 1918 - thedate on which the Consti­tuent Assembly wasdissolved. This is why Iwould not really agree wilhKarl von HoIdt's argumentthat Lenin's view of democ­racy is generally problematic(von Holdt, 1990). Of courseLenin (like Man and Engels)saw political democracy as'bourgeois democracy', buthe stressed that his democ­racy was a necessaryprecondition for socialism it­self. It was a system whichhad to be transcended andnot suppressed. It was a ques­tion of making lhe 'formalfreedoms' of bourgeois~ciety 'real' - not dismissingthem as mere fictions to beswept away.

In my view therefore, lheclassical Manist conceptionof the dictatorship of lheproletariat must be cluuac­terised as aposi-liberal formof the state. It is a system inwhich (in Slovo's words)power is exercised "in lhe in­terests of the overwhelmingmajority of the people~ andwhich embodies 'an ever-ex­panding genuine democracy'(p 15). It is a concept whichtakes for granted freedom ofspeech and association (free­doms which Man andEngels defended throughoutlheir political lives) but looksto a deepening of the demo­cratic process so that lhemass of the population canbegin to exercise real powerover their lives.

What happened after19181 Opposition panieswere banned, critics were

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silenced, and power becameever more concentrated Theclassical Marxist view ofproletarian democracy as alr(JJl:JilionaJ form oflhe state­a state dissolving itsconcentrated powers backinto society - ceased to haveany meaning. To speak of thewithering away of the statein a situation in which thisstate now exercised (increas­ingly) aUlOCrntic powersseemed abswd and paradoxi­cal. The dismallrulh is that'dictatorship of the proleta­riat' as it actually emergedafter 1917 was less repre­sentative - less free and lessdemocratic -lhan lhe bour­geois system of democracy itwas supposed to have sur­passed. It is true that theBolsheviks were not con­fronted after February 1917by a liberal bourgeois democ­racy. They were confrontedby a provisional governmentthat showed a1anning signsof veering towards militarydictatorship. Neverthelessthe suppression of libeta1 pol­itical freedoms in the nameof a higher democrncy in1918led to the tragic polari­sation between thosesocialists who supported Bol­sheviks and those who now

64

called lhemselves 'demo­cratic socialists' becausethey opposed 'dictatorship'.

Skwo himself makes lhepoint that Lenin did not ad­dress in any detail the natureof established socialist civilsociety - questions such asthe relationship betweenparty, state, people's electedrepresentatives, social organi­sations elC. But this is notsurprising. The 'space' forthis kind ofconsiderationwas shut out by the develop­ment ofan authoritarianmodel of socialism whichloolced upon 'civil society'(ie, social institutions outsidethe party and state) as arealm which was basicallysubversive and anti-socialistin character.

It has to be said (and thisis a point at which Siovo him­self hints) that the noting ofthe state as a 'dictatorship' inMarxist theory is a muchmore complicated andnuanced idea lhan is some­times thought. The term'dictatorship' was only usedpositively by Marx and En­gels in rather unusualconteJl:ts where, for example,lhey were building bridgeswith authoritarian minded al­lies whom lhey wished toplacate, or making polemicalpoints against socialists wilh1ibeta1 or anarchist views.11Ie point is that a demo­cratic socialist society is only'dictatorial' in the rather tech­nical sense that like anysociety with a state it must'dictate' to those wholhreaten to destroy its institu­tions. A socialist state,however, which 'dictates' in

Was the 1917 revolution a progressive event?

..-".".', -..... ---,...-SOCIALISM

The problematic characterof the society produced bythe Russian Revolutionmakes it nea:ssary to empha­sise an important point aboutthe 'circumstances argument'which might otherwise bemissed. Marxists do notderive their perspectivesfrom historical evenlll assuch. As materialists, we areonly obliged to derive ideasfrom historical challge. Thischange is only necessarywhen it renects itself in his·torical developments whichare progressive in character,that is, they take human his­tory to a higher stage.

A number of communists(or 'post-communists' asthey sometimes style them­selves in Britain) are nowarguing that the Russian Rev­olution itself is to blame forthe crisis in the socialistworld. The revolution laidthe basis (argument goes) fora post-1918 Leninism whichdeveloped into Stalinism and

~ ......, ". _J> .g::...••.."

1

glorious form of Marxism. Itis therefore with Stalin's(rather than Lenin's) namethat Sklvo rightly associatesthe model of wllat he calls"socialism without democ­racy" (p 3).

The Russian Revolution:8progressivephenomenon?11Iose who argue that the rev·olution produced a repressiveand aulhoritarian society areright to do so. But this pointhas an important bearing onthe problem of justificationas noted above· the problemas to how Mantists cancriticise developments whichare historicaIly inevitable.We have seen earlier howeven staunch anti-Stalinistslike Pallo Jordan argue thatthe Russian Revolution (andall that flowed from it) washistorically necessary and yetwant to vehemently criticisewhat actually happened as aresult.

a way !.hat prevenlll!.he mem­bers of !.his or that class fromenjoying the classical liberalfreedoms of association andspeech, ceases to be demo­cratic.

But what happens whensuch a state represents lhemajority? Isn't this in itselfenough to make it demo­cratic? Those who argue in!.his way overlook a crucialpoint The fact is !.hat a prole­tariat which suppressestraditional civic freedoms,also suppresses itself, if oppo­sition parties and papers arebanned and critics aresilenced, how can anyone insuch a society be said to exer­cise meaningful democraticrights? Engels once declaredthat a nation which oppressesanother cannot itself be free.The same is uue of a classeven when its members con­stitute a majority. A majoritywhich represses a minority(in the sense of lhe overt re­pression which developed inthe USSR after 1918) canonly repress itself since theconditions under which theopinion of the majority canbe properly and reliably ex­pressed no longer reallyobtain.

While it is true that after1918 Lenin himself began tojustify !.he authoritarianmeasures of the new Sovietstate as the expression of ahigher fonn of democracy,he did so hesitantJy and wi!.hcaution. Stalin, by way ofcontraSt, made a full bloodedvirtue outof necessity, extoll-

•ing pre-tiberal forms ofpolitical rule as !.hough theyrepresented a new and more

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therefore the event representsa disaster (and not a triumph)for the socialist movement. Itwas not a step forward but astep backward, and thereforeMarxists should not feel ob­liged to 'justify' the event(and all that nowed from it).TIle revolution fails to qual­ify as 'a real historicalmovement going on beforeour eyes', that is, as a pr0­

gressive development whichmakes the case for real com­munism.

What are we to make ofan argument like this? It iscertainly wmth rememberingthat even in 1917 there weresocialists who opposed theRussian Revolution. Veter­ans like George Plekhanovand Karl Kautsky argued thatRussia was not ready for s0­

cialism. TIle bourgeoisrevolution of February 1917had, they contended, not yetcreated the material and cul­tural basis for thedevelopment of a higher s0­

ciety. To attempt a socialistrevolution under these cir­cumstances was thereforefutile and self-defeating.

Of course Lenin and theBolsheviks assumed that IheOctober Revolution wouldseJVe as the catalyst to social­ist revolutions in Ihe'developed' West and no-oneanticipated that the revol­ution would find itselfisolated in a backwardcountry. But given the factthat Ihis isolation did notoccur, we have to ask thequestion: under these circum­Stances what kind ofsocialism could emerge? Theproblem of democtaey after

Apri/1991

1918 is itself part of a widerproblem - the question ofwhen the development of asocialist society actuallycounts as a progressive ralherthan a reactionary phenome­non. 1be point is IIOt asbiUUTe as it sounds.

In Part 3 of the COmmwl­

ist Manifesto Marx andEngels review a wide varietyof other socialist and com­munist ooctrines prevalent atthe time. One factor in par­ticular differentiates thesesocialisms and communismsfrom the argument advancedin the Manifes/(): the aWUldetowards capitalism. Non-Mar­xist socialisms, the Manifestoargues, either take an uncriti­cal and reformist view ofcapitalism, oreven worse,they take a IXlsition towardscapitalism which is reaction­ary in character. Reactionarysocialists (as Ihe Manifestodescribes them) look back­wards by ~pressing supportfor pre-capitalist ideas of amedieval kind. Communismin this view is not a higherform of society which buildsupon the technologicalachievements and politicalculture of the capitalist sys­tem.lt is merely a (backwardlooking) moral ideal or uto­pia which shuns bourgeoisethics and practices. It is a re­actionary or "crude- (asMarx and Engels sometimescall it) communism becauseit projects socialism as a sys­tem of sl\ared poverty ratherthan as a system whichutilises and builds upon capi­talist abundance.

It is surely not difficult toidentify elements of this

66

"crude communism" in theinstitutions and practices of~isting (or fonnerly ~ist­

ing) socialism. Slovo himselfrefers to the "primitive egali­tarianism" which reachedlunatic proportions under thePol Pot regime, the absenceof cost accounting, a dis­missive attiwde tocommodity production, thepremature abandonment ofmarket forces, and a doctri­naire approach 10 questionsof collectivisation (p 22).

While we are right tocriticise Ihese developments,it is important to be clearabout Iheir character. 1beyare not, strictly speaking, de­viations from socialism assuch. What they are (asMarx's own writings makeclear) are deviations from aparticular ki"d of socialism ­namely a scientific socialism- a socialism which seeks tobuild upon and thus move be­yond the capitalist system. Ascientific socialism is a pro­gressive socialism because itseeks to transcend capital­ism. A socialism whichsimply rejects capitalism onmoral grounds and sets aboutsuppressing the market byforce accords with the kindof socialism which lheMa,,;­festo calls reactionary. In thissense Harty Gwala is right toargue that backward circum­stances create a backwardsocialism. But the implica­tions of this comment aregrave indeed.

For the MOJ1ifeslo makesit clear that a socialismwhich is simply anti-liberaland anti-capitalist is very dif­ferent from socialism which

is post-libenl.l and post-capi­talist in characlel. The onebuilds upon capilalism andits achievements, the othermerely 'negateS' or rejects itThe one harnesses the energyand dynamism of capitalism ­its technology, its libernlculture. its scientifIC achieve­ments - and puts them toprogressive use. The othersimply rejects capitalism byseeking to impose aulOCrnti­cally crude communistnoons so that (and this is thereally uocomfonable point)individuals become even lessfree - even further away fromhuman emancipation - thanthey would be under a sys­tem or Iibenl.l capitalism.

Siovo refers to "episodesof direct compulsion againstproducers· in the develop­ment of socialism after 1917- the forced coUectivisationin the 1930s, the eJ;tensiveuse of convict labour as a di­rect state and party eJ;ercise(P 22). It is true that capital.ism had its own period ofprimitive accumulation inwhich the system comes intothe world dripping blood andgore, and South Africandemocrats for their partknow only too well how capi­talists can for long periods oftime support and connivewith colonial and racistfonns of rule. Nevertheless ifwe want to understand thepopular uprisings in EasternEurope in 1989 and the cur­rent crisis in the USSR, thenwe need to confront the pain­ful fact that individuals canenjoy greater freedom underliberal capitalism than theydo undecoll. fonn of autocratic

socialism which involves the"direct compulsion of the pro­ducers-,

Under capitalism, as En­gels put it, "the principle offreedom is afrumed· and the·oppressed wiU one day seeto it that his principle is car­ried out· (Colluttd Works4,p 474). But what happens ifunder socialism the principleof freedom is dismissed as abourgeois IX"Cjudice (ie, it isnOl. afrumed at all), and wor­kers find themselves subjectto the kind of direct coercioncharacteristic ofpre-capital­iSl systems'! What ishistorically progressive about....,

Our problem therefore islhis: given its tragic is0la­tion, the RlL'lsian Revolutionbrought into eJ;istence a sys­tem which displayed at leastsome of the features of whatMarx and Engels would haveidentified as utopian ratherthan scientific socialism.These features were charac­teristic of a reactionary ratherthan progressive socialism­an autocratic rather than ademocratic socialism - a s0­

cialism thus dramatically alodds with a scientific social­ism which is necessarilypost-capitalist rather than pre-

67

SOCIAllSMcapitalist in illl political andeconomic character.

Marxism and solldarhy:the dilemma of ademocratic socialismThe painful question nowarises: should Marxists havefollowed Plekhanov andKautsky and refused to havesupported the Russian Revol­ution at all'! Should theyhave identified themselvesbody and soul with a social­ism which turned out to bereactionary I3ther than pro­gressive in significantrespects'!

I think that we are right topose this question but we arealso right to think long andhard before we answer it af­firmatively. Because the menand women who sacrificedso much to build socialism inthe USSR were acting withgreat selnessness and cour­age. Workers all over theworld were inspired by theirexample. As a result of therevolution. millions ofpeople fought for freedomand equality who would nototherwise have had the con­fidence and courage to do so.Rosa Lw!:embourg, thoughsharply critical of Lenin'stactics, was to say of lhe Bol­sheviks that they wenl aheadas an eJ;ample to the proleta­riat of the world by cryingout "I have dared!" (1972, P251). This, she argued. iswhat is "essential and tndur­ing in the Bolshevik policy·and ·and in this sense, the fu­ture everywhere belongs to'Bolshevism'·.

Can Mantists really callthemselves revolutionaries

SALB VoltS No 7

DEBATEunless, like Rosa Luxem­bourg, !hey fed compeUed toexpress solidarity with thosewho sect to build a betterworld? It is tJue that revol­utions may occur undercin:umstanees in which her­oic efforts an:: likely to fail.To -carry OUl-, Rosa Luxem­boutg declared., -!hedic~ip of!he pro1erariatand the socialist revolution ina single country surroundedby reactionary imperialistrule and in the facc of !hebloodiest world war inhuman history - that is squar­ing!he circleR (19n, p 242).It was a venture which shebelieved was tnIgicallydoomed. Was she wrongtherefore to support it?

The problem is not a newone for Manists although ithas to be said that with !heRussian Revolution it was aproblem which tool:.: on a par­ticularly acute fann. Forcrucial 10 Marxism as a scien­tific socialism is theargument that people are edLl­eated, and can only really beeducated, by material circum­srances themselves. This is Iphilosophical point with criti­cal political implications.The CO#rIIrlWIisl Manifntomakes it clear (as we havesecn) that the thcor"etical C(»

clusions or Communists arenot invented by reformenbut spring from the histoicalmovement 'going on beforeour very eyes'. This is whyMarxists are implacably 0p­

posed 10 conspirators andelitists -10 those who believethat they can manipulateevents or act patemalisticallyon behalf or people. As far as

April 1991

Marxists are concerned, thematerialist argument for cir­cumstances is also I politicalargument for democracy.

But it is here that the pr0b­lem arises.. For the fact thatpeople are educated by cit­CWllSlaJlCeS (and are not'enlighlelJed' by paternalistickadcnhip from on high) ine­vitably means that peoplewill from time to time (Mar­xists included) findlhemselves in circumstanceswtuch are not of lheir choos­ing. Under suchcircumstanCes they may be'compelled' 10 take actionswtuch they know (or whichthey should know as long asthey remain Marxists) arenecessarily problematic incharactel". Thus Engels toldthe Gennan sociaIistJosephWcyderncyer that R we shall

find ourselves compelled tomake commmist uperi­ments and leaps whichno-one Icnows better than our­selves to be untimelyR (citedby Levin 1989, p 69). Mat­xists are part of the historicalprocesses they try to under­stand and like everyone else,they have to learn from theirmistakes. Only 'utopian s0­

cialists' believe otherwise.It is true that Man and En-

68

gels for example fried 10 dis­tance themselves from thosewho nlised communist de­mands during the (bourgeois)democnItic: revolutions of1848. But they were notwholly sveeessful. There isevidence to suggest thatsome of the formulations dur­ing this period were made byMan: and Engels not out oftheoretical conviction bUl inorder to cement tactical al­liances with other socialistswho were impatient at thepace of events. Thus the argu­ment in the CommunistManifest() that I backwardGennany (as it was in 1848)might uperience a proleta­rian revolutionRimmediately" following onfrom I bourgeois revolution,is difficult to square with !heManifesto's general analysisof how workers become classconscious. It is also confra­dicted by other commentsMarx and Engels make at thetime where they envisage the-pennanent revolution" as amuch more protracted pro­« ..

But why should contradic­tions ol this sort arise? Aneven more dramatic exampleis furnished by the upisingof workers in 1871 leading tothe formation of the short­lived Paris Commune.. Manand Engels wen: opposed 10the uprising since they coo­sidered that under thecircumStanCes it could notpossibly succeed. Paris wasringed by the troops of an in­vading Gennan anny whichwould inevitably assist theFrench government (whichhad retreated 10 VersaiUes) to

restore 'order'.But when the uprising did

occur, how did Marx and En­gels respond? Did theycomplain that because the up­rising was 'untimely', theywould therefore have nothingto do with it? Did they usethe occasion to deliver (in aschoolmasterly Menshevikfashion) a severe reprimandto me communards for takingdestiny into their hands be­fore the material conditionsfor political success hadcome 10 fruition? The cre­ators of Marxism did nothingof the kind! As the Civil Warjn France demonstrates, theyfelt compelled out of a senseof solidarity 10 present theCommune as me heroic at­tempt by ordinary men andwomen 10 ~SlOfTIl heaven"and lay the basis for a futurecommunist society.

The workers, Marx writesofthe communards, "have noideals 10 realise~ but ~will

have to pass through longstruggles, through a series ofhistoric processes,lnlnsfor­ming circumstances andmenM (1971, p 76). For this isme point. People have 10

make history for themselves.They can only lcam fromtheir own experience andtherefore from their own mis­takes. II is significant thatRosa Luxembourg defendsthe Russian Revolution in thesame way and for the samereasons that Marx and Engelssupport the Paris Commune.

It is also revealing that theGerman socialist, EduardBernstein should find Marx'scomment about "ideals" 10 beeither "self-deception" or "a

mere play on words on thepartof the author" (1961, p222). For Bernstein and hisfellow 'revisionists' hadceased to believe that a revol­utionary reconstruction ofsociety was either possible ordesirable. They did fIOlminkthat people must do mingsfor themselves and.thereforeidentified themselves as libe­ral rather than tUm,ocraticsocialists in their opposition10 revolutionary develop­ments.

Siovo makes no attempt(he tells his readers) "toanswer the complex questionof why so many millions ofgenuine socialists and revol­utionaries became such blindworshippers in the temple ofthe cult of the personality~ (p12). But at least part of theexplanation surely lies in thetension just noted betweenthe logic of Marxism as ascientific socialism and thepressure ofcircumstanceswhich compels revolution­aries to undertakeexperiments ofa 'utopian'kind. It is true that the ParisCommune lasted only for afew months and did notundertake any unambiguous­ly authoritarian measures inits defence. But what if,againSltheodds, it had main·tained itself in power throughthe introduction, say, of a dra­conian authoritarianism andthe consolidation of Staliniststyle personality cults? Howwould Marx and Engels havereacted then?

The USSR did survive. Itweathered the fierce on­slaughts of counter­revolution and Nazi attack. It

69

SOCIAliSMinvolved millions of itscitizens in the construction ofa new social order. It in­spired millions elsewhere ata time when fascism hadstrangled the Spanish repub­lic and capitalism wascrippled by slump. ~I haveseen the future and itsworks~. The utopian charac­ter of the USSR wasapparently belied by its prac­tical successes and thepopular suppen which Stalinenjoyed. Moreover the capi­talist countries remainedbitterly hostile to the USSRso that it seemed that criti­cism constituted treachery tothe makers of a new world.George Orwell continued toregard himself as a socialistbut his fierce auaek on Stalin­ism in Animal Farm and1984 was, it is said. wonh acool million votes to me Brit­ish Conservative party in thepostwar period.

The need for solidaritycan pose grave dilemmas fordemocratic socialists, and re­flects the fact that the tensionbetween scientific socialismand circumstances whichgenerate utopian perspectivesand practices is a real one. Itis a tension which arises be­cause Marxism as a scientificsocialism sometimes !las toface in two directions at oneand the same time. Preciselybecause our values are rootedin the 'historical movementgoing on before our veryeyes', Marxists cannot ana­lyse society in terms oftimeless 'values' which standoutside the historical process.If this is its enduringstrength, it also creates prob-

SALB Vo/15 No 7

DEBATElems. For whatllappenswhen there are circumstances(as in the case of the RussianRevolution) which compelMarxists to act in wayswhich are contrary to the'logic' of their own !heory?We then have to witness thetragic spectacle of Marxists(as with Lenin after 1918) de·fending the indefensible andtrying to justify what cannotbe justified.

The problem is !herefore,as Siovo says, a "complex"one. The contradictory rela­tionship between Marxisttheory and Marxist practice­between a scientific logicand utopian circumstances ­arises as pan of !he historicalprocess itself, Marxists aresubject to the same historicalcircumstances which compelhumans in general 10 ~enter

social relations independentof !heir will". Long historicalprocesses have 10 be enduredin the struggle for humanemancipation, These pm.cesses involve heroic leapsand untimely experiments,They are also contradictoryin character for they requireMarxists 10 organise politi­cally and supponcocrcivestate institutions in order toreach a world in which lIlestate and (hierarchically or­ganised) politics itself willdisappear.

The lessons of 1989There can be liUle doubt (asSiovo acknowledges) lIlat theprestige and credibility ofMarxism has been seriouslydamaged by !he fact that a"socialism without democ­racy" has been created in !he

Apri/1991

name of Marxism, This hasgenerated a sense of theoreti­caI'crisis' as ow criticsgleefully proclaim that Mar­xists have been overthrownby history.

On the other hand the riseof unpopular and autocraticstates can only be understoodin Marxist terms as develop-­ments which are radically atvariance with the logic of ascientific socialism. The col­lapse of these statesdemonstrates beyond all sha­dow of doubt that utopianforms of socialism are un­workable and ultimatelyunpopular (even if they arenot without some progressivefeatures like the desire forpeace and the solidaritygiven 10 national liberationmovements).

Circumstances imprisonbut they also liberate and theevents of 1989 have helped10 liberate Marxism from thetragic strnit-jacket of circum­stances placed upon it after1911. The popular revol­utions in Eastern Europehave made it possible topoint once again to historicaldevelopments as a vindica­tion of the logic of Marxism(however painful and unwel­come this vindication is).

70

The tensions between theoryand practice remain inherentin the historical process butwe are now in a position toanswer our critics with a con·fidence and a conviction thatwas not possible as long aswe believed that we had todefend the problematic Ie­gaciesofl911.

In a word: Marxists nolonger need to make vinuesoutof necessities. This, itseems to me, is the realles·son of Siavo's courageouscritique and it is the reasonwhy socialism does indeed­have a future. '"

ReferencesBernstein. Eduard 1961. £,,01­OIlioNuySocitJlism, New York,Schocken Books.Cronin. Jeremy 1990, 'Redis­covering our socialist history',SA LDbour Buller;n 15 (3), pp97-100.Gwala, Harty 1m, 'Let usLook at HistoJ)' in the Round'AfricanColltlnlmis/, 123, PI' 39­48.Jordan. Pallo 1990.. 'Crisis ofconscience in the SACP', SA La·bour BuJlelitl15 (3), pp 66_74.199Q), 'Crisis of conscience inthe South African ConummistPan)", S",,'hernAfrie/J 3 (8)pp28-34.Kolakowski. well:: 1978, MainCurrents ofManism vol. 3, Ox­ford University Press.Levin, Michael 1989, MtlJ'%, En·gels and Uberlll Democraq.London, Maemillan.Luxembourg, Rosa 1972, Se.lee/d PoiiJielll WriJings,London, Jonathan Cape.Man. and Engels 1971.0" lhePtlJ'isCommwIl!, Moscow, Pro­gress Publishers.von Holdt, Karl 1990, 'Mar­xism, Leninism and Stalin', SALabour Bullel;" IS (3), pp 94-96.