[Marxism] Wherefore art thou Socialism?

[Brian Shannon <Brian_Shannon@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

 I agree with all of Seymour Joseph's brief review of
"Good Night, and Good Luck" -- except with one non-
movie related referance. It was not the “demise of the
socialist states in Europe” that hurt socialism’s image,
it was their bureaucratic, dictatorial existence and
reliance on secret police that gave socialism a bad name.
—Mitchel Cohen in a comment submitted to Portside


Both the “demise” and the dictatorial character gave socialism a bad 
name.

However, the very existence of the Soviet Bloc provided a bulwark and 
pole of opposition to Western Imperialism. The relatively rapid 
implosion of the Soviet Bloc, along with the adaptation to capitalist 
values and structures now going on in China and Vietnam, has been a 
great defeat.

I say this having spent my active political career in the U.S. 
Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party from 1961 to 1978. The conclusion of 
Jack Barns, its present leader, is that the collapse of the Soviet 
Union was a “loss” for imperialism. Why? —Because it also meant the 
collapse of parties that were in competition for the leadership of the 
working class. Thus he turns the material basis of socialist politics 
on his head. I once heard Peter Camejo give a speech in which he 
asserted that the “turnovers” in the graves of Marx, Engels, and Lenin, 
could be a new source of power. We would have to add Trotsky to this 
too, who, along with his sharp attacks on the Soviet Union’s rulers, 
always stood for its active defense of the Soviet state against 
imperialism. *

By the time the Soviet Union collapsed, most of the world’s communist 
parties had lost much of their original vitality and had become regular 
parties operating in competition with smaller, yet well organized, 
left-wing tendencies including our own. Although there are several 
people involved in Portside that were either in or closely associated 
with the U.S. CP, they were political opponents with whom one had a 
difference. None of them would have defended the repressive aspects of 
the Soviet Union. They hoped for internal reform, whereas we, in light 
of the great material privileges of the bureaucracy, were extremely 
dubious of this. The demise of communist parties as organizations, so 
lauded by Barnes, is a blip in working class politics compared to the 
loss of the workers (or “socialist”) states as a 
social/political/economic organization that was a real bulwark, however 
flawed, against imperialism.

Representatives of my political views expected that there would be a 
political revolution of the working class that would replace the Soviet 
bureaucracy. In the end, there was a counterrevolution towards 
capitalism, along with some violence of course, from the top down in 
the interests of both an old and a new elite.

Although there is some nervousness about reclaiming the word, I believe 
that “socialism” is beginning to get its good name back. Socialist 
groups are beginning to gain new members. Young people here see that 
other people around the world are not afraid to identify as socialists. 
We should not be afraid to identify ourselves as well and to openly 
discuss our socialist ideals and experience.

Brian Shannon
__________________

* The so-called neo-cons associated with the Bush administration had or 
have a marginal connection to a group that rejected the political and 
material defense and support of the USSR during WWII and split from 
Trotsky’s U.S. followers and formed their own organization.

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