VALUABLE ADMISSIONS OF PROFESSOR MILIBAND (Parts 2-3 of 7)

[hariette@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (hariette spierings)]

(VALUABLE ADMISSIONS OF PROFESSOR MILIBAND - 2 -)

A QUEST BEGAN WITH HIGH HOPES

We took this step after acquainting ourselves with Miliband's vast
theoretical works and finding in them grounds to believe that he understood
the particular conditions of semi-feudalism and semi-colonialism that compel
the revolutionaries of similar countries of the Third World to follow a
specific strategy for the achievement of their aims.

In his work "Marxism and Politics" Miliband had written: "The position is in
many ways rather better in regards to the politics of the different
countries which are arbitrarily subsumed under the label "Third World".  But
here too, it would appear to the non-specialist that, as far as political
analysis is concerned, no more than some paths have been cleared, and that
the main work of theorising the known practice remains to be undertaken, and
it is only in the undertaking of it that it will be possible to discover
which theoretical
categories of Marxism are relevant to the experience in question, which need
to be modified, and which should be discarded".

Also, in page 29 of the same book we read: "The development of these
countries has been exceedingly distorted by colonialism and external
capitalist domination, direct and indirect; and this has naturally reflected
in their economic, social and political structures.  But this also means
that Marxism, primarily fashioned in and for a bourgeois/capitalist context
has, to say the least, to be adapted to the very different circumstances
subsumed under the
notion of "underdevelopment".

Moreover, Miliband also appear to understand that: "One of these different
circumstances is that in a large number of these countries, there has
existed no strong indigenous class of large-scale capitalists, since the
major industrial, extractive, financial and commercial enterprises are
likely to be mainly owned and controlled by foreign interests. The
indigenous capitalist class has often tended to be economically rooted in
medium and small-scale enterprise, and partially dependent upon the foreign
interests implanted in the country. Correspondingly, the working class is
relatively small, compared with the
population of the countryside, and concentrated on the one hand in a number
of large enterprises and dispersed on the other in a multitude of small
ones"........."In effect, the mass of the working population is of peasant
character, and the main "relations of production" in these countries tend to
be between landlord and peasant in a multitude of different patterns and
connections. But this also means that class conflicts in these economies
occur on a very different basis and assume a very different form from those
encountered in advanced capitalist countries.  This does not mean that
Marxist "guidelines" are inoperative in the analysis of these conflicts.
But it does very strongly emphasise the danger of a simple transposition of
the Marxist mode of analysis of advanced capitalist societies to countries
whose capitalism is of a very different nature".

SOME AWKWARD RIDDLES

In his work "The State in Capitalist Society", Miliband had written:
"Whether existing communist parties can ever turn themselves into agencies
appropriate to a new socialist politics is a matter of conjecture".

In Peru there is today an undeniable revolutionary situation; there is also
a CommunistParty (dubbed "The Shining Path" by the bourgeois press) leading
this revolutionary transformation of society precisely because it has
analyzed concretely the specific problems of the country.

This Communist Party has grasped well the facts described by Miliband's previous
quotations and it is advancing in its liberating tasks. Surely this could be
regarded as a clear example of a Communist Party turning itself into an
appropriate agency for a "new socialist politics", thus providing the answer
to Miliband's "conjecture".  In any case, even from an "non-specialist"
point of view such as Miliband's, the Peruvian situation certainly merits
attention.

We note that Professor Miliband has rightly upheld Lenin's teaching that:
"Without revolutionary theory there cannot be revolution".  Surely such a
theory must of necessity nourish itself from all concrete new elements
arising in the world. Otherwise, such a theory would not be universal or
consistent, revolutionary or even truthful.  It would fall short of - and
therefore lack - the very virtue with which Lenin characterised Marxism:
"The teaching of Marx is all powerful because it is true. It is complete and
harmonious, providing men
with a consistent view of the universe, which cannot be reconciled with any
superstition, any reaction, any defence of bourgeois oppression". (The Three
Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism, V.I. Lenin 1913 V.19)

THREE IMPOSSIBLE THINGS BEFORE BREAKFAST

Today, the facts about the events unfolding in Peru are being distorted,
suppressed, minimised and hidden away by the imperialist bourgeoisie and by
the opportunist left in equal measure.

However, people have heard news about massacres, battles, black-outs, mass
graves, prison massacres, waves of strikes, riots, rampant corruption and
state sponsored drug dealing on a gigantic scale. They have read about
counter-insurgency operations, strategic hamlets, states of emergency and
also of elections and armed electoral boycotts.

Moreover, they have been told that a "left wing socialist" government has
come into office; that "communists" enjoy large parliamentary
representation, control many municipal councils, etc.  They have also heard
that all this "progressive advance" is endangered, frustrated and
overshadowed by an "obscure" organisation with a fancy name, "The Shining
Path".  An organisation described as ruthless, murderous terrorists, a freak
phenomenon of "Indigenous ideologists" with Pol-pot like ideas, dogmatic,
sectarian, and intractable.

Curiously, this image comes from such different sources as the U.S.
magazines Time and Newsweek, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Miami
Herald, Herald Tribune and others.  It also comes from French sources such
as Le Nouvel Observateur, Le Monde,Liberation, L'Humanite - the organ of the
French CP - as well as British, German, Russian, Chinese, Cuban, etc.

Here in Britain, a consensus exists on this issue ranging from The Times,
The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph to "socialist" sources such as The
Morning Star, The New Statesman, City Limits, the Trotskyist Press, etc.

Anyone would have thought that such unanimity, from Murdoch to Tariq Ali and
beyond, should have set alarm bells ringing among our "Marxist specialists".
After all, the "Shining Path", although people from "darkest Peru", were a
part of the known universe and hardly non-human invaders from outer space
against whom all classes could unite in defence of humanity's home.

Therefore, either "absolute truth above class" had been arrived at - uniting
all schools of thought and bringing the historical and political process to
its ultimate end and thus dispensing with the need for Marxist theoreticians
of all sorts - or the facts (stubborn facts) would be a little different
indeed. In any case, a bit of class analysis should of necessity be
undertaken by our "non-specialist", our generalist Marxists.


(VALUABLE ADMISSIONS OF PROFESSOR MILIBAND - 3 -)

A WORD ON VACANT POSSESSIONS ONCE BEYOND THE BORDERLANDS

Peru is a country of 23 million people and the cradle of a very old
indigenous civilization. The country was colonised by Spain since 1524 and
became the administrative, intellectual and economic hub of Spain's South
American empire. Peru achieved its independence in 1824 after the
capitulation of the Viceroy's Armies at Ayacucho before the coalition of
independence armies of Argentina and Colombia led by Simon Bolivar and with
the participation of detachments of Peruvian and other South American rebels.

British imperialism also played a part in the defeat of Spain with the aim
of stepping up their own imperialist penetration. This they managed to do.
In Peru, for example, British monopoly capital dominated the country until
displaced by US imperialism in the first decades of the XX Century.
(Referring to the battle of Ayacucho, George Canning, the British Prime
Minister at the time, wrote: "The deed has been done, Spanish America is now
free and if we play our cards right it will be ours".  Obviously, "a free
Latin America" meant simply "vacant possession" for British imperialism).

Therefore, this independence was more formal than real since, in the era of
imperialism, no true modern nation in the bourgeois sense did arise, despite
the introduction of bourgeois democratic institutions. Feudalism remained
intact or basically unchanged in the "relations of production".  The
weakness of the "indigenous capitalist class" coupled with British, French
and American imperialist political, military and economic action in support
of the old feudal structures.

Backing different factions of the land owning and mercantile classes
(feudalists and comprador bourgeois) in their struggles for supremacy
following and even preceding independence, the imperialists positioned
themselves into even more domination of the political and economic life of
such countries.  They accumulated mineral, oil and commercial concessions,
forced un-equal treaties, peddled shyster loans, milked the weakling former
colonial state with usurious bond and share issues, etc., tried and tested
methods of imperialism in the Third World and elsewhere.  This imperialist
process made the survival of the semi-feudal and semi-colonial condition
under which Peruvian history continues to develop completely inevitable.

Miliband himself notes: "There has existed no strong indigenous class of
large-scale capitalists, since the major industrial, extractive, financial
and commercial enterprises are likely to be mainly controlled by foreign
interests".

OFF WITH THEIR HEADS, SAID THE QUEEN OF HEARTS

In relation to the semi-feudal condition, Miliband also notes: "The mass of
the working population is of peasant character and the main "relations of
production" in these countries tend to be between landlord and peasant in a
multitude of different patterns and connections".  That is, that although
such countries may be bourgeois democracies in theory, and in juridical and
political form, in essence, in reality, they are semi-feudal in character.

In Miliband's own words: "The development of these countries has been
exceedingly distorted by colonialism and external capitalist domination,
direct and indirect, and this has naturally reflected in their economic,
social and political, structures".  That is, Peru, like all similar
countries, remains in a semi-colonial and semi-feudal condition. Formally
independent and democratic bourgeois, but in reality, fettered by "external
capitalist domination", i.e. imperialism.  A country ruled by a joint
dictatorship of landowners, comprador and bureaucratic bourgeois relying on
the economic, military and ideological
backing of imperialism to maintain their rule over the mass of the people.

In Marxist terms, therefore, and in order to become effectively independent
and true nations in the "bourgeois sense of the word", the necessary
precondition for any meaningful socialist advance, such countries need an
anti-feudal and anti-colonial revolution, i.e., a national democratic
revolution.  In today's world, that means a peasant war led by the
proletariat, a national and social war of liberation against semi-feudalism
and imperialist oppression.

BOLDLY INTO THE IMPERIALIST MAZE

However, Professor Miliband does indeed go further.  In his work "The State
in Capitalist Society" - page 15 - in describing the growing process of
capitalist internationalisation, he says: "But advanced capitalism is also
international in another more traditional sense, namely in that large-scale
capitalist enterprise is deeply implanted in the under-industrialised areas
of the world. The achievement of formal political independence by these vast
zones of exploitation, together with the revolutionary stirrings in many of
them,
have made the preservation and the extension of these capitalist interests
more expensive and more precarious than in the past. But for the present,
this Western stake in Latin America, the Middle East, Africa and Asia,
remains very large indeed, weighs very deeply upon the foreign policies of
capitalist states, and is in fact one of the dominant elements, if not the
dominant element, of present-day international relations". (The underlining
of the word
extension is ours).

Here we have an indication that Miliband grasps well an important element in
understanding the Peruvian situation. That in these countries, we have a
process of capitalist development, of "capitalist extension".  However, this
is a process of development and extension of a kind of capitalism that, far
>from being "indigenous", is in fact indentured by a feudal and tributary
relationship with international finance capitalism, with imperialism, in
Peru's specific case US imperialism. The Peruvian big bourgeoisie, as do all
Third World ruling classes, directly depends upon finance capital for its
capitalist
development and expansion.  It is a bourgeoisie with a symbiotic
relationship and a parasitic dependence on imperialist capital - in other
words, a big bourgeoisie with bureaucratic-comprador features exists in Peru.

Miliband gives us a farther element of fundamental importance to grasp the
essence of the social process in Peru.  In his work "Marxism and Politics",
he says: "The first and most obvious feature of the state in both "Third
World" and communist societies is a very pronounced inflation of the state
and executive power".

A STRICTLY SCIENTIFIC FORMULA

Here we must query Professor Miliband's characterisation as communist
societies of countries that have undergone some degree or another of
socialist transformation in the past.  Professor Miliband, as a Marxist,
would surely agree that in strict scientific terms there are not, and there
cannot be within the era of class society, within the era of monopoly
capital, "communist societie".  That these are merely societies undergoing
different stages in the building of socialism undertaken under specific and
transitional forms of the "state" in which the proletarian dictatorship is
exercised, or can be exercised.

That only when socialism is completely or sufficiently built-up for the
necessity for states and class dictatorships of any kind to be dispensed
with, when class society has actually disappeared from the earth, it would
be possible to speak of a "communist society".


(To be continued)



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