Revisiting old problems

[Louis N Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I should start out by saying that the questions that have come up recently
around class relationships and the possibilites for socialism in societies
like China, Cuba, Nicaragua, Peru, etc. are probably the most difficult
for Marxists to understand and solve in the 20th century. Even though
some list members think they have all the answers, there is
considerable question as to Lenin's certitude in the waning months of
his life. Answering a Menshevik critic who attacked the Bolsheviks for
making a revolution where the conditions were not ripe for a socialist
transformation, Lenin cited Napoleon's maxim to the effect that "First
I strike and then I deal with the consequences".

The Bolsheviks had no idea of exactly what would transpire after
seizing power. They, like the PCP in Peru or the Sandinistas in
Nicaragua, did not make a revolution with the kind of self-assurance
that contractors have who make buildings based on a blueprint. The
prime motivation for people who go up against overwhelming odds is
to overcome the brutality and violence of a system that murders people
in a thousand different ways each way. You can die just as easily, but
more quietly, from drinking filthy water as you can from a soldier's
bullet.

That being said, we do have the hindsight of a great number of
socialist experiments in the 20th century to evaluate one against the
other. Some have been more successful than others, but there are solid
arguments on behalf of the proposition that objective conditions in
underdeveloped countries where they take place do not favor the
building of socialist societies. We have to grapple with the evidence
that no matter how pure the motives of the people in leadership
positions are, there are powerful and hostile class forces that can
undermine revolutions both externally and internally.

I have reached the point in my own intellectual and political
development where I must honestly say that I am not sure what the
answers are. I do not want to attack comrades for thinking that they
have all the answers, although my patience with Hugh Rodwell is
sometimes sorely tested. All I have at this point is a series of questions
that I believe are deserving of a dispassionate and serious discussion:

1) What were the real possibilities for socialist development after the
Bolsheviks took power? Much of what they did was based on exigency.
Measures such as War Communism and the NEP seemed to have
taken place, for better or for worse, on the basis of some kind of iron
necessity. Were there other possibilities?

2) What explains the tendency toward bourgeoisification in Cuban,
Vietnamese and Chinese societies since the time of their victorious
revolutions? Is the solution to be found in cultural revolution or are the
antisocialist forces so great that no amount of heroic intervention by
class-conscious revolutionaries can guarantee success?

3) What are the models for socialist development in an agrarian
society? Marx and Lenin never spent much time exploring the
revolutionary dynamics of rural society. What are the lessons of the
Chinese revolution that tapped the power of hundreds of millions of
peasants but still did not seem capable of resolving the basis
contradiction between town and countryside?

4) Can any country build socialism on its own today? What are the
alternatives for Cuba at this moment? Isn't it easy to say, "They should
have know better than to have relied on the USSR. Didn't they know
that the system was going to come to an end in 1990 or 1991.", but
somewhat besides the point? After all they did not have a crystal ball.
What would they be doing differently than what they are doing today?
Keeping out foreign investors? Eliminating all traces of the market in
private agriculture or small businesses such as restaurants?

5) What does socialism mean for extremely peripheral nations like
Burkina Faso, Grenada, Eritrea, etc.? Socialism is supposed to be
about ending the private control of the means of production and
establishing social ownership and planning. What were the means of
production in a country like Grenada? The beachfront hotels?

6) What do we make of the Zapatistas in Mexico? This small band of
poorly armed revolutonaries does not seem to have the concept of
confronting the Mexican state apparatus directly. It uses a combination
of militant direct action, international solidarity and propaganda to
confront the Mexican ruling-class. Is this an intelligent strategy or
simply a reflection that socialist revolution is not on the agenda in
Mexico?

7) What do we make of the assertions of Lenin that the USSR would
perish unless revolutions took place in Western Europe and the infant
socialist republic received powerful aid from those quarters? Is Stalin's
industrialization of the USSR a refutation of Lenin's warning or does
the collapse of the USSR following "perestroika" a confirmation of it?

                            ***********

At any rate, these are the sorts of things that keep me tossing and
turning in bed late at night. I realize that some list members already
have these problems completely sorted out and I of course welcome
their insights. For the rest of us it is an opportunity to revisit some of
the most vexing contradictions in Marxism.


Louis Proyect



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