The Third Way. Ota Šik 1972
The ‘Marxists’ habitually cite the socialist revolution in Russia as demonstrating the correctness of Marxist doctrine. The argument is only partly true, however. Undoubtedly, some of the assumptions concerning the course of events in particular situations were borne out in Russia. Yet it would be difficult, in all conscience, to maintain that this revolution has in any way confirmed the theories about the twilight of capitalism, the necessity of socialism or the progressive nature of the new system indeed, that it has been, strictly speaking, instrumental in establishing a socialist type of society.
Marx and Engels – true to their theory that the groundwork for a socialist society could be laid only at an advanced stage of capitalism – envisaged the first socialist revolutions taking place in the leading capitalist countries of Western Europe. They were convinced that the break would come almost simultaneously, or as a chain reaction, in countries such as Britain, the United States, France and Germany. Opinions about which country was most ripe for revolution varied according to the maturity of the revolutionary organizations and the growth of political awareness among the workers. Although Britain, the leading capitalist country, was far and away the most advanced economically, her proletariat was lacking in militancy. Consequently, Marx believed that the revolution was more likely to start in France, whereupon Britain would launch a war to crush it, the British workers would be revolutionized in the process, and the conflagration would spread to their country.[1]
Later, Marx’s thoughts turned to Germany where, starting with a bourgeois-democratic revolution, permanent revolutionary struggle by the proletariat might gradually steer the course along socialist lines. He voiced here for the first time the idea of a permanent revolutionary situation, with a transition from bourgeois-democratic to socialist revolution,[2] an idea later to be applied to Russia by Lenin.
Although they revised their views on particulars and voiced self-criticism in this respect.[3] Marx and Engels adhered to their basic idea of revolutionary movements coming to a head more or less simultaneously in several of the leading capitalist countries. But needed in paving the way to socialism was a militant worker organization allied with the other sectors of the working population.[4]
In his Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism Lenin departed from the generally accepted Marxist view. With the entire world now dominated by capitalism, he argued, the time was ripe for the advent of socialism. The world revolution need not necessarily start in an advanced country; in view of the uneven rate of development in the capitalist countries, it could be initiated in a weak link of the imperialist chain.[5] The most probable breaking-point would be where the working class and its allies were the most revolutionary, and the ruling class, with its state machine, the weakest.[6] And a situation of this kind could be envisaged in Russia, where the proletariat was rapidly gaining in revolutionary awareness, with the broad masses of the impoverished peasantry being drawn into the revolutionary movement.[7]
Basing himself on this new theory, Lenin directed the Russian Communist Party towards the preparation of socialist revolution. He was, of course, aware that, in view of the country’s economic backwardness, and the industrial workers constituting a tiny minority – although fairly concentrated and well organized – nothing could be achieved without backing from the mass of the peasantry. The latter, however, could not be won for a socialist, but only for a bourgeois-democratic revolution – against Tsarist absolutism, for radical land reform and sweeping away all remnants of feudalism. By spurring on this movement, with the working class taking the lead in alliance with the peasantry, a democratic worker-peasant dictatorship would be established. This revolutionary dictatorship, in addition to accelerating capitalist development in Russia, would be expected to kindle the revolutionary fire in other countries and create favourable conditions for advancing to socialism. Such, in brief, was Lenin’s tactic of the bourgeois-democratic revolution and its transition to socialist revolution.
He recognized that revolution could not be modelled according to preconceived ideas and wishes, what mattered were the objective circumstances. The precise political goals to be aimed at, the political campaigning to be undertaken, had to stem from the objective economic situation with its corresponding social structure and pattern of interests. While the subjective factor – the political parties, leaders, programmes, organizational capacity, etc. – carried considerable weight, they could not make any fundamental difference. In other words, it is possible for a political party to stoke the fires of a revolutionary situation, to take timely advantage of it, but it cannot hope to precipitate events by skipping the necessary phases of evolution. And since Lenin was aware of how things stood in Russia, he campaigned over the years for a bourgeois-democratic revolution which would be in the interests of an absolute majority of the population, namely the peasants, and would accelerate progress on capitalist lines.[8]
As it turned out, Lenin’s political aims could not be accomplished; history took a different course. Before its downfall, Tsarist absolutism had plunged Russia into the catastrophe of world war, and it was the war which ultimately undermined the regime so far that it could be overthrown. The bourgeois government which took over for a brief spell did nothing to improve the economic and social plight of the country. Russia at the close of the First World War was at much the same economic level as in the days when Lenin envisaged a bourgeois-democratic revolution as the only feasible course.
The fervent wish of the suffering, starving multitude was peace and bread for all, land and freedom for the peasants. The Bolshevik Party voiced these aims most clearly, its radical slogans matched the needs of the day. And when, in October 1917, the revolution triumphed, it was accomplished not on behalf of socialist policies, but rather as the advent to power of the party on which the bewildered masses pinned their hopes. Disappointed by the failure of the government parties to enter into peace negotiations, the people looked to the Bolsheviks as the sole champions of their interests, and this support won the Party a majority in most of the Soviets.
History has repeatedly demonstrated that people in their millions, when beset by want, hunger and fear, and wearied by war, are only too ready to hearken to the prophets of a better future, especially when faith in the old regimes and parties has been shattered. No matter how insubstantial the ideas or premises, whether they were backed by supernatural or ‘scientific’ theories, so long as they chimed with the mood of the masses at the crucial moment, they could win their support.
To what extent, then, does the communist takeover in Russia, described as the onset of the great socialist revolution, confirm the correctness of Marxist doctrine? The events undoubtedly confirmed that capitalism, in its early stages, brings impoverishment to the masses, that devastating imperialist wars are products of capitalism, that when the proletariat is led by a revolutionary party, its objective situation makes it susceptible to revolutionary influence. And where the workers find that the state is incapable of serving their vital interests, where they win the support of an equally impoverished and enslaved peasantry, and where, lastly, the repressive might of government has been undermined, in situations of this nature the old regime can be toppled. Power can then be taken over by the party whose revolutionary battle against the old order and championing of the oppressed have won the people’s confidence.
All this the revolution confirmed and, in this sense, it also confirmed some of the theoretical postulates of Marxism-Leninism. But can this be taken to imply that the revolution was, in fact, socialist in character? Does the circumstance that the party achieving power was resolved to pursue socialist aims justify the conclusion that, in the given economic and social situation, these aims were really attainable? Does the fact that this party, on coming to power, effected changes in the economic and political system which were said to be socialist, really signify that the measures were, in truth, socialist? Can a party that has succeeded in winning political power really cause an entire population to skip an essential phase of economic development, or can it merely speed the advance along the course already entered upon? And does the society constructed by the economic, political, social and cultural measures instituted by this party really offer that socialist emancipation of man envisaged by Marx and Engels?
To answer these questions satisfactorily would require a thorough examination of the communist system as it exists today. We must underline here and now, however, that the socialist socio-economic relations envisaged as attainable at a very high level in the development of the capitalist forces of production cannot be installed without the preliminary phase of economic advance. Lenin, who had once firmly rejected any possibility of by-passing the capitalist phase,[9] later dismissed the arguments of those who, in criticizing his socialist programme, pointed to Russia’s economic backwardness. Suddenly, he insisted that the driving force needed to advance the forces of production could be provided purely by raising the ‘cultural level’ of the people,[10] entirely overlooking the circumstance that a state-monopoly system cannot be equated with socialism.
When it came to practical measures, Lenin’s programme was, nevertheless, to introduce the state monopoly which he had already envisaged as a stepping-stone to socialism in Russia. Under the constant revolutionary guidance of the Communist Party, this system would be converted into a socialist system. But whatever Lenin’s subjective vision may have been, he never offered any explanation or theoretical guarantees concerning this social transformation. He was not, apparently, impressed by the need to draw up a blueprint for the future socialist society, to define the ways in which it would differ from the transitional phase of state monopoly, nor to suggest the institutional framework which would allow progressive, forward-looking forces to take issue with the conservative forces in the society.
As things turned out, Marxist-Leninist doctrine certainly provided no guarantees for the transformation of the Russian state monopoly into socialism in any shape. The construction of big state-owned industrial and commercial concerns, the forcible establishment of agricultural co-operatives under state control, the introduction of command planning by the state, suppression of the basic market functions, setting up of a political system of absolute, one-party monopoly, subordination of the state and all public organizations to this party, censorship of all ideological and cultural life by the Party, police persecution of all dissenting views or attempts to organize, and so on – all these are essential features of the state-monopoly phase. They were established either during Lenin’s lifetime, or after his death, with due reference to his theoretical work. And, regardless of whether those who invoked Lenin’s name in those days were right or wrong in their interpretation of his thought, many so-called Marxists continue to cite these as the basic features of ‘socialism’.
In the section of this book entitled ‘Interlocking of alienation processes’ I indicated those fundamental socialist principles, and those elements essential for overcoming the capitalist alienation processes, which may be regarded as providing the acid test of whether a system is socialist or not. The Soviet system does not stand up to the test, and so long as the people continue to be denied even the semblance of freedom by the iron hand of police oppression, no soil exists for cultivating the principles of socialism. The constant insistence in theory on the allegedly ‘socialist’ features, and their upholding by all the power of the Establishment, leave no room for doubt that ‘socialism’ in the Soviet Union is actually equated with ‘state monopoly’. Nor is any theoretical explanation offered regarding the features distinguishing state monopoly from socialism, and all attempts to explore the subject have been nipped in the bud by the Party and state establishment.
Therein lies the fatal weakness of Marxist-Leninist doctrine – its ignoring of all that history can teach us about systems based on absolute power. Entirely overlooked by this social theory is the fact that whenever a particular social group has taken command to the extent of excluding any provision for ‘checks and balances’ or for free elections, the regime has always degenerated into conservatism. The prerogatives and privileges which ruling minorities arrogate to themselves in pursuance of their power interests cut them off sooner or later from the public at large, leaving no alternative to outright domination. For this very reason, however, history records repeated battles for democratic freedoms. By closing its eyes to all this and by repudiating political theories which take these circumstances into account, by relying solely on the ‘moral fibre’ of the chosen few, official ‘Marxism’ merely demonstrates that the prime concern in the communist system today is not the welfare of the people, but rather to preserve the regime of power.
1. ‘The liberation of Europe, be it the uprising of the oppressed nationalities for their independence, be it the overthrow of feudal absolutism, is conditioned, then, by the victorious uprising of the French working class. But every social upheaval in France runs on the rocks of the English bourgeoisie, of Great Britain’s industrial and commercial domination of the world. For any partial measure of social reform in France, or anywhere on the European continent, to be accomplished is, and remains, all empty dream. And old England will be toppled only by a world war, which alone can provide the Chartist Party, the organized English workers’ party the opportunity, for a successful uprising against their giant oppressor.’ Marx, Engels, Werke (Berlin 1961), vol. VI, pp. 149–50.
2. ‘While the democratic petty-bourgeois wish to bring the revolution to a conclusion as quickly as possible ... it is our interest and our task to make the revolution permanent, until all more or less possessing classes have been forced out of their position of dominance, until the proletariat has conquered state power, and the association of proletarians, not only in one country but in all the dominant countries of the world, has advanced so far that competition among the proletarians of these countries has ceased and that at least the decisive production forces are concentrated in the hands of the proletarians.’ Marx, Engels, Selected Works, (Moscow 1949), vol. I, p. 102.
3. ‘History has proved us, and all who thought like us, wrong. It has made it clear that the state of economic development on the Continent at that time was not, by a long way, ripe for the elimination of capitalist production ...’ Engels in Introduction to Marx, Class Struggles in France, in ibid., p. 115.
4. ‘To conquer political power has therefore become the great duty of the working classes. They seem to have comprehended this, for ill England, Germany, Italy and France there have taken place simultaneous revivals, and simultaneous efforts are being made at the political reorganization of the working men’s party.’ Marx, Engels, op. cit., vol. I, p. 348.
‘The time of surprise attacks, of revolutions carried through by small conscious minorities at the head of unconscious masses, is past. Where it is a question of a complete transformation of the social organization, the masses themselves must also be in it, must themselves already have grasped what is at stake, what they are going in for with body and soul.’ Ibid., p. 123.
5. ‘Uneven economic and political development is the absolute law of capitalism. Hence, the victory of socialism is possible first in several or even in one capitalist country, alone. After expropriating the capitalists and organizing their own socialist production, the victorious proletariat of that country will arise against the rest of the world – the capitalist world – attracting to its cause the oppressed classes of other countries, stirring uprisings in those countries against the capitalists, and in case of need using even armed force against the exploiting classes and their states. The political form of a society wherein the proletariat is victorious in overthrowing the, bourgeoisie will be a democratic republic, which will more and more concentrate the forces of the proletariat of a given nation or nations, in the Sstruggle against states that have not yet gone over to socialism. The abolition of classes is impossible without a dictatorship of the oppressed class, of the proletariat. A free union of nations in socialism is impossible without a more or less prolonged and stubborn struggle of the socialist republics against the backward states.’ Lenin, Selected Works, Lawrence & Wishart, London 1963), vol. 1, p. 671.
6. ‘To the Marxist it is indisputable that a revolution is not without a revolutionary situation; furthermore, it is a revolutionary situation that leads to revolution. What, generally speaking, are the symptoms of a revolutionary situation? We shall certainly, not be mistaken if we indicate the following three major symptoms: (1) when it is impossible for the ruling classes to maintain their rule without any change: when there is a crisis, in one form or another, among the “upper class,” a crisis in the policy of the ruling class, leading to a fissure through which the discontent and indignation of the oppressed classes burst forth. For a revolution to take place. it is usually insufficient for “the lower classes not to want” to live in the old way; it is also necessary that “the upper classes should be unable” to live in the old way; (2) When the suffering and want of the oppressed classes have grown more acute than usual; (3) When, as a consequence of the above causes, there is a considerable increase in the activity of the masses who uncomplainingly allow themselves to be robbed in but. in turbulent times, are drawn both by, all the circumstances of the crisis and by the “upper themselves into independent historical action ... because it is not every revolutionary situation that gives rise to a revolution: revolution arises only out of a situation in which the objective changes are accompanied by a change, the ability of the revolutionary class to take revolutionary mass action strong enough to break (or dislocate) the old government, which never, not even in a period of crisis, “falls,” if it is not toppled over.’ Ibid., vol. XXI, pp. 213–14. [Note by MIA: In the source of this text the quote is garbled. However in Lenin’ Collected Works the passage is as follows: ‘To the Marxist it is indisputable that a revolution is impossible without a revolutionary situation; furthermore, it is not every revolutionary situation that leads to revolution. What, generally speaking, are the symptoms of a revolutionary situation? We shall certainly not be mistaken if we indicate the following three major symptoms: (1) when it is impossible for the ruling classes to maintain their rule without any change; when there is a crisis, in one form or another, among the “upper classes”, a crisis in the policy of the ruling class, leading to a fissure through which the discontent and indignation of the oppressed classes burst forth. For a revolution to take place, it is usually insufficient for “the lower classes not to want” to live in the old way; it is also necessary that “the upper classes should be unable” to live in the old way; (2) when the suffering and want of the oppressed classes have grown more acute than usual; (3) when, as a consequence of the above causes, there is a considerable increase in the activity of the masses, who uncomplainingly allow themselves to be robbed in “peace time”, but, in turbulent times, are drawn both by all the circumstances of the crisis and by the “upper classes” themselves into independent historical action ... because it is not every revolutionary situation that gives rise to a revolution; revolution arises only out of a situation in which the above-mentioned objective changes are accompanied by a subjective change, namely, the ability of the revolutionary class to take revolutionary mass action strong enough to break (or dislocate) the old government, which never, not even in a period of crisis, “falls”, if it is not toppled over.’ The Collapse of the Second International, Chapter II]
7. ‘At best, it may bring about radical redistribution of landed property in favour of the peasantry, establish consistent and full democracy, including the formation of a republic, eradicate all the oppressive features of Asiatic bondage, not only in rural but also in factory life, lay the foundation for a thorough improvement in the conditions of the workers and for a rise in their standard of living, and – last but not least – carry the revolutionary conflagration into Europe. Such a victory will not yet by any means transform our bourgeois revolution into a socialist revolution – the democratic revolution will not immediately overstep the bounds of bourgeois social and economic relationships; nevertheless, the significance of such a victory for the future development of Russia and of the whole world will be immense. Nothing will raise the revolutionary energy of the world proletariat so much, nothing will shorten the path leading to complete victory to such an extent, as this decisive victory of the revolution that has now started in Russia.’ Ibid., p. 492.
8. ‘The democratic revolution is bourgeois in nature, The slogan of a general redistribution, or “land and freedom” – that most widespread slogan of the peasant masses, downtrodden and ignorant, yet passionately yearning for light and happiness – is a bourgeois slogan. But Marxists should know that there is not, nor can there be any other path to real freedom for the proletariat and the peasantry, than the path of bourgeois freedom and bourgeois progress. We must not forget that there is not, nor can there be at the present time, any other means of bringing socialism nearer, than complete political liberty , than a democratic republic, than the revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry.’ Ibid., p. 541.
9. ‘And from these principles it follows that the idea of seeking salvation for the working class in anything save the further development of capitalism is reactionary. In countries like Russia the working class is, therefore, most certainly interested in the broadest, freest and most rapid development of capitalism.’ Ibid., p. 486.
10. ‘The development of the productive forces of Russia has not attained the level that makes socialism possible.” All the heroes of the Second International, including, of course, Sukhanov, beat the drums about this proposition. They keep harping on this incontrovertible proposition in a thousand different keys, and think that it is the decisive criterion of our revolution.
‘If a definite level of culture is required for the building of socialism (although nobody can say just what the definite “level of culture” is, for it differs in every West-European country), why cannot we being by first achieving the prerequisites, for that definite level of culture in a revolutionary way, and then, with the aid of the workers’ and peasants’ government and the Soviet system, proceed to overtake the other nations?’ Ibid., vol. III, p. 766.
Last updated on 10 April 2021