[PEN-L:1287] Re: Argentina and Russia

[Gregory Schwartz <grishas@xxxxxxxx>]

Dear pen-l'rs,

See my comments below.

Louis Proyect wrote:

> (posted originally on Mark Jones's Leninist-International list. Nestor is
> in Argentina, where he has been politically active for several decades)
>
> El 26 Aug 98 a las 9:03, Chris Burford nos dice(n):
>
> [snip]
> If I do not recall wrongly, fascism can be "technically" defined as the
> terrorist dictatorship of great capital.  If the Lebed government, in the
> name of the Mother Russia, or of the Greatness of Ivan Kalita, or of the
> Boyards, or Whatever you Want, returns the large enterprises to state
> ownership, puts the debt to default, ends with the mafias and the
> "Brothers", redeploys the military might of Russia, etc., will he be doing
> the policies of great capital?  Or he will just be doing the policies of
> the Russian State,
> with a class content that will have to be debated but _will not_ be the
> "great capital" in the sense "great capital" was behind criminals such as
> Pinochet or Videla, namely great
> capitalists of the imperialist countries, the only ones that count on the
> global scene (re. Samir Amin).

This is not altogether implausible in Russia in the next (not-too-long)
while. However, this will need mobilization of increadible proportions;
something the Russian bureaucrats are not likely to be prepared for and
something the Russian workers may not easily swallow. We cannot, after all,
liken Germany and Russia, with all their variagated histories and
socio-cultural 'baggages'. Which brings me to the next point: if we take
seriously Marx's (and Hegel's before him) notion that history moves
dialectically, we must also bear in mind that this means "[people] do not
make history on their own...." and unless there is a revolution, the 'drek'
of history, as Marx referred to it, follows them, albeit in permutated
fashion. This 'drek' in Russia is its the social relations of production that
have been formed by the Soviet administrative command system and the
lethargic bureaucracy which is bent on continuing to operate on many of its
former (i.e. Soviet and Tsarist before it) principles. Add to this the
lackyism of the Russian intelligentsiia and the opportunism of a number of
newly-formed clans and you have a recepe for what Aijaz Ahmad identifies as a
'peripheral' state based more on the caste system than a modernising state
like Nazi Germany which could induce in its subordinates the discipline and
obedience to the law of the Aryan race that would be appropriate to this form
of accumulation.

This is not a suggestion that there are more than basically two antagonistic
classes. Nor is this an attempt to rule fascism a la Germany in Russia out of
hand. The point is to stress that to construct something of the sort in
Russia would require a long time; so long, in fact, that such efforts would
most likely be overshadowed by the inability of the newly formed state to
deliver the goods to its hungry workers. After all, Hitler could not have
been sucessful had he only in his arsenal moving speeches. In addition, he
could rely on old financiers and industrialists like Krupp, whereas in Russia
such people are simply unavailable (this notwithstanding the current likes of
Berezovsky (the owner of Lada auto manufacturing and various media), Potanin
(financier), etc.)

All we could do for the Russian workers is support (in any way possible)
nothing short of autonomous workers' organisations and a mass workers' party.
Which means we would be well advised to reject most of what follows:


> Russian bourgeois regime may be doing some of the work the Russian
> proletariat desperately needs to be done: reassemble the limbs of the
> country, now torn by the
> hounds.

As well as the following:

> ... if he [i.e. Mark Jones -- G.S.] is not [right about the possibility of
> a revolution -- G.S.], then we should have to decide whether a right-wing
> Russian government, with the support of an Army that wants to be a fearsome
> force in the global scene, and with the backing of the "lesser bureaucrats"
> of yesteryear who want to restore the Russian (if not Soviet, at least
> Russian) state _against_ the will of the whole band of highwaymen that meet
> in Davos each year, if such as regime, however revolting it may be, can be
> seriously termed "fascist". I doubt that there can be a regime more
> "fascist" in this sense than that of Yeltsin, I have a feeling that his is
> a Platonic Republic of the true Fascists, the great imperialist
> bourgeoisies:  so perfect that any change will have to be for worse.

This is a little scewed. First of all, Yeltsin's regime cannot properly be
tremed 'fascist'. To say this would be to lose sight of what is the central
element of fascism (i.e. increased labour discipline and greater productivity
to affect sucessful valorisation and to sustain the the expanded reproduction
of capital in the face of crisis). Yeltsin has done nothing of the sort, not
only because his regime has brough further disintegration of stability, a
slackening of labour discipline (through the reinforcement of workers'
negative control over the production process by the workers, see Burawoy,
1993, NLR), a collapse in manufacturing and agriculture, and greater reliance
on imports and foreign debt, but also because 'value' (understood as a
process involving the extraction of surplus labour under the conditions of
socially necessary labour time) is not produced and capital (which "manifests
itself as capital through valorisation -- Verwertung" /Marx/) does not exist
at the systemic level. The reason: the 'drek' of history and the reproduction
of administrative command elements into the post-Soviet regime.

Second, the nationalists (including the Communist Zyuganov) are the same
bureaucrats (in scope and in scale) that were during the 'yesteryears', and
they attend the Davos meetings together with the so-called 'highwaymen' (in
1996 & 1997). They are an indigenous ruling class in aspiration; trying to
make the necessary connections betwee themselves and the Western bourgeoisie.
For, as E. Mandel has aply shown, it is in fact much less precarious for the
local ruling classes to pursue accumulation by remaining parasitic on the
existing methods of production and relations of production while becoming
component to metropolitan accumulation process, and only thus the component
to the expanded reproduction of capital on a global scale.

This is only my understanding of what's going on/what awaits Russia, though I
am not much interested in forcasting. I would be happy to leave this to the
bourgeois economists.In solidarity,

Greg.

--
Gregory Schwartz
Dept. of Political Science
York University
4700 Keele St.
Toronto, Ontario
M3J 1P3
Canada

Tel: (416) 736-5265
Fax: (416) 736-5686
Web: http://www.yorku.ca/dept/polisci