[Marxism] Re: State Capitalism--addition

[Robert Montgomery <ilyenkova@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Few people who actually lived there had any such illusions.<

As Joe reponded this is simply an assertion. Obviously, there's no way
to count heads but there is testimony from sources who most on the list
would consider authoritative that the Solidarnosc movement was more than
a disappointment for the Polish working class and ultimately a disaster
for the society as a whole. Following a talk at UMass to mostly Polish
expatriates in 1994 I was able to speak at length with the late Daniel
Singer, author of the proSolidarnosc, The Road to Ddansk, and a Polish
emigre who returned home frequently.

After initial high hopes that the 1980 strike at the Gdansk shipyard
presaged an embryonic movement for workers democracy and socialism,
Singer was painfully disillusioned. He saw the initial worker based
movement as being hijacked by a clique of petty bourgeois intellectuals
typified by Jacek Kuron in league with the more backward clericalist
peasantry, and turned into a movement for capitalist restoration. No
friend of the Polish bureaucracy, Singer viewed the restoration of
capitalism in his native country as a disaster. He spoke of BMW
showrooms selling $40,000 cars while the average worker's standard of
living had declined precipitously. Singer spoke of this as a *great
tragedy*. He assigned equal blame for the outcome on the Polish
Stalinists and the Walesa led Solidarnosc. As for his mainly Polish
audience, heads nodded in agreement, and speakers echoed the outlook
Singer articulated. The general sentiment was that it was better to
emigrate to the U.S. than go home to the bitter ashes of neoliberal
capitalism. I don't know whether Singer ever published anything to this
effect so this account is merely anecdotal, as I'm sure others will
point out.

I work now with many emigres from the former USSR and also tutor ESL
emigres from Moscow and St. Petersburg. Not a single one disputes that a
great immiseration has descended on their former homeland. Some are
nostalgic for the old USSR; most wish that *some form of democratic
socialism* had evolved and lamented the ascendancy of *gangster capitalism.*


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