re: "third world" revolutions

[James Devine <jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

In search of a way in which the N. Korea-type revolutions were
"proletarian," I had written >>Now it's true that the USSR-type revolutions
have helped _create_ a proletariat, by pushing industrialization. But
that's something that capitalism does too.<<

Louis responded: >>This is the central feature of 20th century revolutions:
They tend to occur in peasant nations and they are caused by the miseries
of colonialism and neocolonialism. Once the comprador bourgeoisie is
overthrown and the imperialist bourgeosie is beaten back, the Communist
Party embarks on an development path that stresses industrialization as
rapidly as possible. This has led some Sovietologists to conclude that the
CP is a bourgeoisie.<<

I wouldn't call the CPs a "bourgeoisie," but they sure did _substitute_ for
the bourgeoisie in promoting industrialization.

(At least in their rhetoric, the CPs were substituting themselves for the
proletariat. Trotsky criticized this kind of substitutionism very early
(seeing it in Lenin's party-building policies), in a work that most
Trotskyists ignore or don't know about.)

>>The problem is that the bourgeoisie generally lacks the political will to
move the development process forward. It capitulates under pressure from
imperialism. In the entire 20th century, there has been only nation in
Latin America that has successfully broken the cycle of underdevelopment
and that is Cuba. ... Cuba moved forward because the capitalist class was
liquidated and a revolutionary party begand to sink roots in society. The
July 26th movement, as opposed to the Bolshevik Party, became less
bureaucratic and more revolutionary the longer it stayed in power.<<

I don't think it's just a matter of the Castroites "sinking roots." They
were forced by US aggression (Bay of Pigs, etc.) to rely on popular
participation much more than other CP-ruled nations. Art MacEwan, for
example, shows that Playa Giron brought a whole new layer of leadership
into the Cuban government.

The July 26th movement may have been less bureaucratic than the CP of Cuba,
but it was just as elitist. Its battle in the hills meant that it was
largely isolated from urban workers. Further, Fidel Castro very quickly
made it clear that he was in charge, shunting aside (or jailing) his
competitors. (Especially in the early stages, Cuba lacked the relatively
attractive side of bureaucracy, the minimization of the role of a single
individual's personality in favor of clear definition of goals.)

BTW, both Raul Castro and Che Guevara were members of the CP of Cuba in
1959. The antagonism between J26 and the CP should not be overdrawn.

>>The only course available for backward countries has been revolutions
that overthrow the capitalist class. The workers in these countries tend
not to be in the leadership because industry is underdeveloped... So it
fell to the peasants and the Communist Party to overthrow capitalism. And
they did.<<

Right. Many if not all of the Trotskyists miss this: they see the failures
of the CP-ruled nations as "a crisis of leadership," which in very crude
terms means that if Stalin had been replaced by Trotsky, everything would
have gone fine. In more accurate terms, only the party really needed to be
replaced, in a political revolution.

I'm not one of those folks who yell about "the revolution betrayed" (the
title of one of Trotsky's books), since it's quite possible that a true
proletarian revolution was _impossible_ in the countries that adopted
bureaucratic socialism.

>>If Jim doesn't want to award the Chinese Revolution the title of
"proletarian", that is his privilege. Meanwhile the capitalist class knew
full well that Mao's Red Armies were a threat to their class rule. The
march toward socialism does not take place in a straight line.<<

Sure, Mao was a threat to capitalism and landlordism (not to mention
imperialism). But a threat to one kind of class rule does not always mean a
movement to classless society. It can easily mean a replacement of one
class by another, just as the rise of capitalism replaced the feudal lords
with the bourgeoisie.

>>It is altogether likely that the peasant-led socialist revolutions can no
longer succeed...<<

Part of the reason for this is that (if I'm not mistaken), the peasantry is
rapidly being replaced by a rural proletariat in most countries.

>> I have reached the point where I tend to accept the differences around
these questions that all good socialists will have. "State capitalism" is
no litmus test for me.<<

That's a healthy attitude. It's lack of that kind of attitude that has made
many leftist discussions of "the nature of the old USSR, etc." sectarian,
boring, and futile.

In another missive, Louis writes: >>Every socialist revolution in an
agrarian society faces enormous contradictions at the outset ... rooted in
the contradictions between the needs of an urban working class and peasant
society....<<

right. That's one reason why a true proletarian revolution may have
been impossible in China of 1945, etc.

>>... But when you factor in economic blockade, low intensity warfare and
internal subversion, you end up with a complete mess.<<

BTW, I think it's a good idea for any revolutionary leadership to _expect_
external attack and internal subversion.

>>... [F. Castro's] suspicion toward a free press might seem Stalinist to
some, but considering the role of "La Prensa" in Nicaragua, our judgment
should be measured by the reality of imperialist subversion.<<

Right. But no matter how sympathetic we are to the plight of Cuba in the
face of imperialism, we can't ignore the fact that such opposition to a
free press can and does represent a barrier to the flowering of workers
democracy and democratic socialism in the future. Further, such a battle
against democracy can easily change from being a "necessary evil" to
something good, something that preserves the power of the bureaucrats.

The suppression of democratic tendencies in Cuba is a different kind of
victory for imperialism than an explicit counterrevolution. It's the
prevention of a "good example," a true alternative to capitalism and class
society in general. This is of course was the almost explicit motivation of
the Reaganistas in their war against Nicaragua.



in pen-l solidarity,

Jim Devine   jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://clawww.lmu.edu/1997F/ECON/jdevine.html
Econ. Dept., Loyola Marymount Univ.
7900 Loyola Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90045-8410 USA
310/338-2948 (daytime, during workweek); FAX: 310/338-1950
"Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way
and let people talk.) -- K. Marx, paraphrasing Dante A.