Global Turmoil
Capitalist crisis, a socialist alternative
Section One: World Relations
Chapter One: Turning points in the Twentieth Century
In this century there have been three decisive turning points for socialism and Marxism: the Russian Revolution and the establishment of the first planned economy; the situation immediately after the Second World War, with the establishment of deformed workers’ states in Eastern Europe and China; and the collapse of Stalinism in the USSR and Eastern Europe from 1989 to 1991. Each period has had a decisive effect upon the class struggle and in shaping world relations. We may add that Trotsky’s analysis of the bureaucratic degeneration of the Russian Revolution and of Stalinism, - which was correctly reckoned by him to be a greater contribution to the theoretical arsenal of the workers’ movement than even his role as the organiser of the October Revolution and of the Red Army - was indispensable in understanding the post-1945 situation and even the period today.
With the exception of the CWI, not one serious trend of opinion, either from the ranks of the bourgeoisie or the ex-social democratic and ex-Stalinist leaders, or even those still claiming to come from a Marxist or Trotskyist tradition, correctly understood either the collapse of Stalinism or its political after-effects. The strategists of capital believed that the liquidation of the planned economies of the USSR and Eastern Europe provided the ideal platform for a new capitalist millennium, which would stretch into the next century. The only remaining world military superpower, the USA, would now be allowed to strut the globe imposing ‘order’ in a new ‘Pax Americana’. The market, having established a new ‘paradigm’ with economic crises, recessions and slumps conjured away by a new global ‘humane’ capitalism, would be the vehicle for initiating a new period of peace, prosperity and harmony.
The ex-Social Democrats and Stalinists merely echoed the thinking of the bourgeois, as did the overwhelming majority of trade union leaders. In the majority of cases and in most countries they have attempted to swing the workers’ parties away from socialism and the class struggle, and in the process have transformed many of these parties into bourgeois formations. Many Marxists and even Trotskyists, completely losing their bearings, have reacted in a one-sided and therefore erroneous fashion. One section has implicitly accepted that ‘the game is up’, that the collapse of the Soviet Union and with it the planned economies has postponed to the indefinite future the struggle for socialism and the task of creating mass revolutionary parties. Another section is in ‘denial’ and cannot accept reality even when it strikes them on the nose. They stubbornly refute any suggestion that a social counter-revolution, the dismantling of the planned economy and its replacement by capitalism, has taken place in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. The CWI, on the other hand, recognised in 1989-90 that capitalism was being restored and that the process has been largely completed in all the republics of the former USSR and in Eastern Europe.
At the same time, we concluded that while this was a defeat for the world proletariat it was not the same kind of crushing social reverse and the change in world class relations that followed the triumphs of Hitler, Mussolini and Franco. Its effects were primarily ideological in that it allowed the bourgeois to conduct an unbridled triumphalist campaign in favour of the ‘free market’, of capitalism, without having to look over their shoulder and for comparisons to be drawn with the economic achievements of the planned economies of the USSR, Eastern Europe, China and Cuba. This in turn undoubtedly had an effect on the broad consciousness of the working class. ‘Socialism’, as an ideal and also as a ‘practical possibility’ for providing the basics of existence particularly for the starving masses of Africa, Asia and Latin America, dimmed. This undoubtedly strengthened the bourgeoisie not just from an ideological point of view, but in its neo-liberal attacks on the working class world-wide.
Acceptance of the market, coming to terms with ‘the reality of globalisation’, was a necessary credo for the bourgeois to introduce flexibility, short-time working, lengthening of the working day, etc. This undoubtedly did modify the relationship between the working class and the bourgeois to the advantage of the latter. But this could not be compared to the situation, which confronted the proletariat following the victory of fascism in the 1930s. In the fascist countries the workers' organisations were shattered, the proletariat atomised and incapable of resisting the onslaught of triumphant capital. The basic task was to painfully assemble the elements of new workers’ organisations. The outright triumph of fascism in a number of countries set back the whole of the proletariat even in those countries where they did not have dictatorships on their backs. The defeat of the proletariat in Spain in particular was the political precondition for the second world war.
Without in any way minimising the difficulties, the situation which now confronts the working class and Marxism could in no way be compared to this. The political after effects of the collapse of Stalinism and the 1990s as a whole were different. The basic power of the proletariat, although weakened, remained intact with its capacity to struggle largely undiminished. Moreover the bourgeois has been compelled in this period to emphasise the ‘free’ aspect of its doctrine of ‘free-market capitalism’. The Wall Street Journal boasts: "Two decades ago the world had only a few dozen democracies… today well over 100 states can plausibly claim to have elected governments, including most countries in Latin America, many in the post-communist world and a significant number in Asia and Africa." Of course, they fail to add that these ‘new democracies’ provide a screen behind which the rule, sometimes brutal, of big business and the military continues. The German Marxist Wilhem Liebknecht described the Reichstag (parliament) in Germany as a "fig leaf" to hide the real dictatorial character of the Kaiser's regime. However this regime was relatively mild compared to some of the "new democracies". Elections of a kind are held where the military and police resort to death squads, kidnapping, torture and suppression of human, trade union and democratic rights.
The trend towards "democracy" particularly in the under-developed and semi-developed countries arises from a number of causes. Democracy, even in a mangled truncated form, is necessary to give a certain legitimacy to capitalism and imperialism.
Nevertheless the acceptance of ‘democracy’ is beneficial also for the proletariat, particularly in those societies in which open or veiled dictatorships recently held sway. We will see when we come to the situation in Africa and Asia that this has opened up a space for the development of the workers’ movement, particularly of the trade unions.
Capitalism in objectively worse position
The major contradiction of the 1990s so far is that while capitalism has scored an ideological victory, at the same time it has not solved any of the major problems that confronts it. On the contrary, it is objectively in a worse position. Structural mass unemployment, poverty, hunger and homelessness have been enormously aggravated, even when compared to the decade of the 1980s. This has been the source of mass oppositional movements of the proletariat in Western Europe, together with increased national, ethnic and racial tension in Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America. In the societies that were promised an undreamed of plenty, if only they would restore capitalism, we have seen an unprecedented collapse of the productive forces. And there is no prospect in the immediate period ahead, even according to the experts of the system itself, that these problems will be overcome. On the contrary the 1990s can be compared to a prelude or an overture of a symphony. All the themes, evident in the 1990s albeit in an undeveloped form, will now unfold in all their full drama in the symphony of ‘the new millennium’. The contradictions inherent in world capitalism, which will develop with such explosive force, rather than heralding ‘the final triumph’ of neo-liberal capitalism, guarantee the re-emergence in a powerful mass form of the ideas of socialism.
The more farsighted strategists of capital ruminate on the fact that in this decade, since the collapse of Stalinism, the triumph of their system has been marked by one serious recession in the earlier part of the decade, and now we stand on the eve of a more devastating recession and perhaps even a major global slump. The unemployed or semi-employed still form one-third of the world labour force. The June 1998 demonstrations at the G8 Summit have highlighted the inexorable growth of mass hunger and poverty in the so-called underdeveloped world. In dealing with the colonial and semi-colonial world we will comment on the ‘debt problem’ later. But even in the advanced industrial countries, with the single exception of the USA and for special reasons, hardly a dent has been made in structural mass unemployment.
USA - The international policeman?
A revolt of the working class in Europe throughout the 1990s has taken on a mass form: the miners’ movement in Britain in 1992, the Belgian public sector general strike in 1993, the mass revolt of the Italian workers in opposition to the rise of the right, particularly the 1994 alliance of Forza Italia and the neo-fascists of Fini, and the 1995 public sector strikes in France followed by the explosive lorry drivers’ strike. These are just some of the more prominent examples of the combativity of the proletariat. Britain seems to be the exception, with the number of strikes the lowest for a century. But the movement of rail workers and others in 1998 denotes the explosion that is coming, particularly on the scandal of low pay. All of these factors - economic depression, social protest and resistance by the proletariat - have severely circumscribed the power of the bourgeoisie in seeking to establish President Bush’s ‘new world order’. It is true that in 1991 the success of Desert Storm in the earlier part of the decade, made possible by special and unique reasons, partially mitigated the political effects of the early 1990s recession. But US imperialism’s desire to play the role of an unchallenged world policeman came to grief in Somalia and was dramatically emphasised in the new confrontation with Saddam’s Iraqi regime in the early part of 1998. A combination of factors allowed Desert Storm to be mounted: domestic support within the US, at least in the initial bombing phase; the Arab coalition which saw no alternative but to confront Saddam; and above all, the support of Yeltsin and the newly emerging bourgeoisie in Russia. At the time of Desert Storm the latter was too weak to develop its own imperialist appetite, which now brings it into collision with US imperialism.
In Bosnia, the US in concert with the European powers partially managed to play a policeman’s role, in reality it held the ring. But this was possible only after years of mutual and bloody slaughter and with the major combatants having exhausted themselves. In Haiti also, in the US’s own ‘backyard’, and with overwhelming military force, the US was able to intervene. But in all other situations it has been shown incapable of imposing its military will, let alone confronting the intractable problems that have accumulated in the ‘post-communist’ world. In the early 1998 conflict with Saddam, over biological and chemical weapons of war, the Clinton administration found itself hemmed in by a combination of domestic opposition and opposition from its Arab allies. Even ‘Stormin’ Norman’ Schwarzkopf warned that a sustained bombing campaign against the Iraqi regime threatened to "repeat the mistakes of Vietnam". The pounding of Vietnam, particularly of North Vietnam, rather than weakening, actually consolidated the population behind the North Vietnamese regime. Moreover in the US itself the memory of Vietnam was rekindled in the vocal opposition expressed in the ‘town’ meetings convened by Madeleine Albright, US Secretary of State, as a means of mobilising US public opinion to confront the Iraqi regime. Even more vocal and hostile were the statements of those like Mubarak, Arab bourgeois par excellence and a puppet of US imperialism.
Summing up the fear that air strikes against Iraq would provoke uprisings throughout the Middle East, Mubarak declared in the British Financial Times: "We have to deal with public opinion in the Arab and Islamic world, and we’re going to face a helluva problem. This is very dangerous - I cannot stand against the whole weight of popular opinion… This is not 1991, the US has lost credibility in the Middle East… You’ll not find one [Arab] leader who will say publicly: ‘We support the air strike’."
In the US itself, over 50% in a CNN poll were against the bombing of Iraq. Many at the village meetings declared: ‘Why bomb Iraq when Turkey has bombed the Kurds and Saudi Arabia has tortured dissidents.’ However, faced with the dilemma of what to do about Saddam, US imperialism was damned if it acted effectively, and damned if it didn’t. This was summed up by the British Financial Times: "It is dangerous to attack but more dangerous to do nothing."
Of decisive importance is the social situation in the US, where the memory of Vietnam is an ever-present check on the ability of US imperialism to play the role of world policeman. That is why bourgeois commentators refer to it as ‘the super-power reduced to shouting from the sidelines’. When military intervention is sometimes used it is of a purely police-type character: ‘go in, stabilise and get out’. Imperialism, moreover, is tending more and more to act by proxy. This explains the rise of ‘military companies’, that is mercenaries, which are playing, in the words of the British Financial Times, "a growing role [which] has coincided with the collapse of Communism. Western governments have little strategic interest in intervening in other countries’ civil wars."
The option of intervening with full-scale military force under the UN banner, US imperialism in disguise, has faded in the wake of the Somalia debacle. Moreover, there is not much "domestic appetite for a country’s soldiers to fight in other people’s wars". At the same time, the scaling-down of the military capability of most of the advanced industrial countries has led to a surplus of private ‘military expertise’. This has come together with the collapse of the USSR, and the virtual disintegration of the Red Army at one stage, and has led to "an abundance of cheap ex-Soviet weaponry". The much-publicised intervention by the mercenary outfit, Sandline, in Sierra Leone is an example of this. In reality, despite the inflated self-publicity of the ‘directors’ of Sandline, the overthrow of the ‘rebel’ regime was largely the work of the Nigerian-led Expeditionary Force (ECOMOG).
The liberal wringing of hands by the bourgeoisie over the existence of mercenary companies cannot disguise the fact that they are playing "an increasingly influential role in areas once the domain of sovereign states". (British Financial Times) The same journal adds, "banning them is neither possible - nor necessarily wise". Only 12 countries have signed the 1989 UN Convention on mercenaries, and although UK legislation banning them dates back to the last century, there has not been a single conviction in more than 100 years. The very fact that bourgeois strategists can openly discuss in the press the merits or otherwise of using mercenaries, shows how brazen and open are the imperialist appetites of the major powers. At the time of the intervention of mercenaries in the Congo in the 1960s and 70s there was an outcry from the labour movement in the advanced industrialised world. Now ‘military companies’, such as the South African Executive Outcomes, have played a role over the last few decades in assisting imperialist intervention. The US company, Military Professional Resources, headed by more than a dozen former US generals, is training both the Bosnian and Croatian armed forces while another ‘military company’, associated with James Baker the former US Secretary of State, has trained various parts of the Saudi Arabian forces.
While this sinister development must be opposed by the workers’ movement at the same time the limitations of their effectiveness must also be recognised. A handful of ‘military experts’, no matter how well armed, is incapable of acting against the huge social movements which will develop, particularly in the ‘underdeveloped’ world. A section of US policy makers have allocated to US imperialist forces the role of ‘preventive engagement’. This allegedly can replace "what arms control was in the early 1960s". They recognise they will not be able to prevent "ethnic wars entirely" but selective intervention by the US "before things heat up uncontrollably" could possibly prevent wars or "reduce their intensity and duration". The presence of US troops in Macedonia is intended to play such a role. However, at best, US troops, under the guise in the main of the UN, can only play a temporary delaying and minimalist ‘police-type’ role.
Ethnic and nationalist conflicts
This is particularly the case against the background of a world torn by intensified ethnic and nationalist conflict. Capitalism confronts an economic crisis and resulting catastrophe for millions, as in Asia, social breakdown in parts of Africa and Latin America on a scale never witnessed before, increased impoverishment, hopelessness and despair in the former deformed workers’ states and unmanageable environmental catastrophe. The earlier feelings of optimism and faith in capitalism’s ability to solve humankind’s problems have largely evaporated and in its place has come pessimism bordering on despair. One commentator in the Wall Street Journal uses Colombia as the model of the future for large parts of Latin America, if not the world: "There can be four or five scandals in a single day. Turf wars between ‘paramilitary’ groups and guerrillas, either of which may be backed by drug lords, is remindful… of the battles of medieval warlords in Europe."
Chaos, a break down of ‘social order’, is not just restricted to Colombia. We have seen a similar situation in Algeria with well-nigh 50,000 casualties in a never-ending bloodletting of the most vicious type. Similar situations unfolded in Bosnia, Rwanda, and "you can take your pick of the next African country where a new wave of horrible, mindless violence, will be unleashed". (Wall Street Journal) Events in Albania are perhaps typical of the horror that results from an economic and social catastrophe but without a clear alternative being immediately evident.
We should recall what Marx and Trotsky pointed out, there have been periods in history of stagnation and relapse, when no class has appeared which is capable of taking society forward. Such was the case in the slave-owning economy of Rome. Therefore, it inevitably regressed, a collapse of the productive forces took place. Only on the basis of the new foundations of feudalism, which was a partial reversion to the methods that preceded slave society, did history begin to go forward again.
No confidence in capitalist institutions
We have not reached that situation in the modern world, but the ‘Mad Max scenario’, typified by Albania, threatens to engulf other parts of the world and not just in Africa, Asia and Latin America. There is also a crisis of confidence in all the institutions of the bourgeoisie. On a world scale, the UN, IMF and World Bank, have all demonstrated their role as agencies of imperialism and, particularly, of US imperialism. The bail-out of Indonesia and Thailand has gone hand-in-hand with vicious ‘austerity programmes’ and the ‘liberalisation’ of these economies which directly assists imperialist financial and economic penetration. At the same time, the UN is low on funds with the Republicans continuing to withhold US contributions, partly in order to weaken Clinton’s hand and also because of their mad ‘free-market’ philosophy which would allow all countries to go economically to the wall.
The UN, since the collapse of the Cold War, is more openly the creature of US capitalism. Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary General, is a product of the American business school education system. He has declared, as the new philosophy for the UN, "a strong UN is good for big business". Such an approach would have been impossible during the Cold War when, as the British Financial Times correctly declares: "The UN walked a tightrope between capitalism and communism [Stalinism], anxious to avoid offending either superpower." Annan now declares that, "thriving markets and human security go hand in hand". As a mark of the UN’s embrace of big business, CNN, the giant media corporation, recently gave $1bn to the UN. Addressing the international gathering of big business at Davos, he declared: "Business has a compelling interest in the success of this workforce. Creating wealth, which is your expertise, and promoting security, the UN’s main concern, are mutually reinforcing goals."
However, this open, pro-capitalist stance of the UN will increasingly militate against it being accepted as an ‘impartial’ agency, above all by the masses in the ‘underdeveloped’ world in the period of social turbulence and upheaval that we are entering. On the other hand, imperialism needs the appearance of ‘impartial’ agencies to allow it to dominate the world. It is impossible for a single world superpower to dominate an increasingly ‘multi-polar’ world. At the same time, despite the high expectations following the end of the Cold War, the American people have seen its forces drawn into more and more world conflict. During the 40 years of the Cold War, the US military executed ten major interventions. Since the Cold War ended it has intervened 27 times, including Somalia, Rwanda and northern Iraq. However these have not been on the same scale as during the Cold War. This has been against the background of a more than halving of US personnel.
And what has been the net upshot of its interventions? Haiti was the most successful intervention. As the Wall Street Journal comments: "The US occupation had three rules: ‘take no casualties, spend very, very little cash, and get out fast’. Nearly four years later, Haiti’s right-wing thugs have all but disappeared but the suffering and poverty have not, and Haiti’s democracy is paralysed (more than 200 US Army personnel remain stationed in Haiti to provide civil assistance)."
For all of these reasons the US still needs the screen of the UN, albeit that the US Congress will still strike blows at the UN, particularly when it threatens to become too independent. On a national scale also, the institutions of the bourgeoisie - parliament, the police, judiciary, established churches, monarchy (in the case of Britain), etc. - are increasingly discredited.
As the workers’ parties are converted into bourgeois formations, no real mass alternative is therefore offered and participation in elections tends to drop. In America this tendency is very pronounced with less than 50% voting in the 1996 presidential elections. Now the ‘Americanisation’ of European politics is well under way, with diminishing participation in elections and a tendency for workers and particularly youth to search for other extra-parliamentary means to express their opposition on key issues. The corruption of politicians is integrated into the consciousness of the mass of the population along with that of the police and judiciary.
The crisis of bourgeois institutions is best typified by events in Belgium. The horrible paedophile murders, perpetrated by Marc Dutroux, brought to the surface the festering hostility to the state, particularly the police, judiciary, and politicians. The fact that the police had searched Dutroux’s house three times, even hearing children’s voices on one occasion, provoked mass fury. This crisis was compounded when this monster actually escaped for three-and-a-half hours in May 1998. These incidents have fuelled deep-seated suspicion that the police were in league with Dutroux and the paedophile ring operated with police and judicial connivance. This provoked the half-million ‘White March’ in October 1996. This incident has merged in the minds of the masses with the corruption of politicians, mass unemployment, racism, etc. Undoubtedly, if a mass revolutionary party had existed, then on this issue alone, as with the Dreyfus affair in France, not just the government would have toppled but the fate of capitalism in Belgium would have been at stake. The role of the bourgeois state was laid bare. This is an answer to those, like Lutte Ouvrière in France, who take a purely ‘economist’ approach to political processes. Not just economic events, provoking strikes, etc., but incidents like this, as well as crimes against the environment, etc., can be the starting point for a revolutionary explosion.