NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #3/NN_1993_3.iso/spool/alt/activism/21118

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Date: 20 Jan 93 17:33 PST
Subject: We Told You So:MIM on ex-USSR (Rvw)
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Subject: We Told You So:MIM on ex-USSR (Rvw)
From: nyxfer!mim (Maoist Intl'ist Mvmnt)


Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit



We told you so: the Crisis of the ex-Soviet Union
1/18/93

"Capitalism in the USSR? An Opportunist Theory in
Disarray" by Bruce Occena and Irwin Silber

Line of March: A Marxist-Leninist Journal of Rectification
Oct/Nov 1980

Reviewed by the Maoist Internationalist Movement

Line of March is now defunct. Before it died though it fooled many
Maoist leaning Marxist-Leninists in to slipping first into
confusion, then into revisionism and then finally into oblivion.
Twelve short years ago, it was hip to get down on Maoism
within the Marxist-Leninist circles. Now we can look back on what
happened and see who was right. The following are quotes from Line
of March. The reader can see for themselves who was right, the
Maoists or the Line of March.

As we will see, despite claims   otherwise, the main thing that
motivated the Line of March critique of Maoism was  foreign policy
issues--both in China and the United States. The real thing on the
Line of March's mind was never the actual mode of production in the
Soviet Union. It didn't care about that, only that the enemy of my
enemy must be my friend. In practice, the Line of March ignored the
aspirations and movements, particularly in the Third World, of
oppressed nations to liberate themselves of both imperialism and
social-imperialism.

"No other question has been the source of greater controversy
among Marxist-Leninists than this one. The thesis of capitalist
restoration provides the theoretical underpinning for the
international line of the Communist Party of China and its various
followers. As that line has increasingly degenerated into active
class collaboration with U.S. imperialism, it has become
increasingly necessary to study its theoretical foundation." (p. 46)

"By extension, this 'modest proposal' has also called into question
the Marxist understanding of the laws of historical development,
postulating the possibility that socialism can revert to the inferior
mode of production with relative ease and under somewhat
mysterious circumstances. The question has cast a shadow of
uncertainty over the nature of the present epoch, whether we are
witnessing the transition from capitalism to socialism or instead
the emergence of a new, more insidious form of capitalism with a
socialist guise. The controversy around this question has brought
substantial disorder and confusion to the ranks of the international
communist movement." (p. 48)

MIM adds: That's for sure, confusion to them. They along with the
Communist Workers Party went from a more Maoist line to a pro-
Soviet line and within years both groups went defunct. Hence we
learn from practice what it meant to try to come up with a line in
between pro-Soviet phony Marxism and Maoism. For that matter, the
Communist Party itself, the defenders of phony communism are now
disintegrating as well, while MIM continues to grow.

"For the past several years it has become increasingly clear that all
attempts to rebuild a Marxist-Leninist trend internationally are
inextricably bound up with the repudiation of this capitalist
restorationist thesis. This is especially clear politically since the
thesis that the Soviet Union is a capitalist country provides the
theoretical foundation for the general line of collaboration with U.S.
imperialism held and practiced by the Communist Party of China."

MIM adds: We Maoists had always stressed that there is always both
contention and collusion amongst imperialists. We are not
surprised by the current period of collaboration between the
United States and the Soviet Union (and now ex-Soviet Union). Line
of March on the other hand is clueless, no doubt one of the reasons
it is not around anymore.

"Most importantly, the still fragile Marxist-Leninist trend has no
basis for complacency around this question. We must guard against
the legacy of pragmatism which expresses itself in a tendency to
merely break with the incorrect political line without thoroughly
settling accounts with the theoretical assumptions involved." (p.
51)

MIM adds: This sounded good, but then all the article did was talk
about foreign policy as if the mode of production in the Soviet
Union were determined by foreign policy! Talk about pragmatism,
this dispensed with theory in order to take a convenient stand on
foreign policy questions.

"In the U.S. this has included the work of Jonathan Aurthur
(Socialism in the Soviet Union, Proletarian Publishers) and Albert
Szymanski (Is the Red Flag Flying? Zed Press). The most recent and
important contribution, in our opinion, is The Myth of Capitalism
Reborn by Michael Goldfield and Melvin Rothenberg (Line of March
Publications) which tackles some of the complex theoretical
questions involved in the controversy from a firm foundation of
Marxist political economy and methodology." (p. 52)

MIM comments: It just goes to show what happens when you don't do
as thorough a job as Maoist revolutionary scientists. Two of the
above three are gone and the third one we don't hear from much
about the ex-Soviet Union anymore.

"In this sense, Stalin's statement in the 1930s that exploitive
classes in the USSR had been qualitatively broken up (and more
recently a similar statement by the Deng/Hua leadership
concerning China) cannot be dismissed out of hand as having no
basis materially and theoretically as the 'Maoists' have tended to
assert. . . With typical idealist methodology, restorationists argue
that if class struggle exists under socialism then there must be an
exploiting class actually operating within the socialist system." (p.
57)

MIM comments: Perfect and correct! Stalin and Deng did agree on
this question! Somehow there was still class struggle going on in
their societies (they thought), but there was no bourgeoisie!
Amazing metaphysics, on Deng's part, because he has the benefit of
hindsight where Stalin did not.

Only Maoism as practiced in particular by the Gang of Four has a
theory to explain what happened in the Soviet Union. The Maoists
held  that there was a bourgeoisie inside the Communist Party, a
bourgeoisie with access to the means of production and the state
simultaneously. This bourgeoisie struggles to overturn
proletarian dictatorship.

All stripes of revisionism have one thing in common--no
explanation of how capitalism was restored (and by the Yeltsins,
Gorbachevs, Alias etc., the very Communist Party leaders). We at
MIM on the other hand have always said that there is a bourgeoisie
in the party.

Trotskyists, neo-Hoxhaites and others want to tell us that there is
capitalism in the ex-Soviet Union now, but they want to tell us it
was created without a bourgeoisie restoring it through class
struggle!

"Their argument runs somewhat along the following lines. . . .
Because of the anarchy of production, the classical boom-and-bust
business cycle of capitalism characterizes the Soviet economy. The
cause is is the same as in the U.S., periodic crises of overproduction
resulting in decline in the gross national product and massive
unemployment among Soviet workers. . . .What will be immediately
apparent to anyone with a reasonable acquaintance with Soviet
reality is the sheer absurdity of it all. . . .Most bourgeois
Sovietologists would quickly dismiss this theory as having so little
correspondence to Soviet reality on the empirical level as to call
into question the honesty of any who advanced it." (pp. 60-1)

MIM comments: That is why the bourgeois Sovietologists have no
explanation for what happened in the Soviet bloc either, while we
Maoists realize it was just another of those periodic and severe
crises of capitalism. Six years after Line of March published these
words, even the Soviet government admitted it was having a
recession. By 1993 it is quite apparent exactly how bad the
economic crises in the capitalist Soviet Union are. The expansionary
period in the economy after the death of Stalin was no longer than
that experienced by many other capitalist countries in history. The
steady deceleration of economic growth even by official figures
should have clued our critics in, but alas, they did not care much to
look at the economic realities of what they were talking about. In
contrast, interested readers can order several books and essays
from MIM that MIM had distributed on the question.

 "Well-known and widely respected bourgeois scholar, Alex Nove. .
.concludes that despite the economic problems in the Soviet Union,
'people have not become worse off,' there is no threat of economic
collapse, the system is not in chaos, and the quality of planning and
production are not declining." (pp. 61-2)

MIM comments: That again shows what listening to bourgeois
scholars gets you instead of following Marxist political economy,
the operation of the Law of Value in particular. Nove was dead
wrong as now any bourgeois scholar is also able to see.

By the way, the fact that people's livelihood improves is not a proof
of the existence of socialism. Many capitalist countries have
succeeded in enriching their peoples, imperialist ones in
particular. This much the Line of March was good enough to
admit. (p. 66)

"Ironically, the very privileges which this stratum of Soviet society
enjoys--and the privileges are real--suggests that they are not
likely to attempt to undermine the socialist system as it presently
exists which gives them these privileges in favor of a much chancier
capitalist system." (p. 64)

MIM comments: Apart from being an outright apology for the Soviet
ruling class, this shows that the critics of Maoism had adopted the
Western critics' view of the Soviet bureaucracy as "conservative"
and incapable of change. The truth was that it changed much faster
than the "authoritarian" regimes the United States favored. It was
able to make such pro-Western changes because ultimately to the
capitalist class it did not matter what form it used to control the
means of production. If it could get the best deals on private
property, then privatize it! In any case, the Soviet ruling class did
what it thought was best for capitalism in the ex-Soviet Union as a
whole, just like ruling classes do everywhere.

                              -30-

MIM does not give away all its work via e-mail For timeless
and meaty questions, get the magazine MIM Theory.

For more info, write to:
MIM, PO Box 3576, Ann Arbor, MI 48106-3576
email: [e-mail]
   or: [e-mail]


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