{"id":734,"date":"2019-09-18T14:39:13","date_gmt":"2019-09-18T12:39:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/marxistworkersparty.org.za\/?page_id=734"},"modified":"2019-09-18T14:49:10","modified_gmt":"2019-09-18T12:49:10","slug":"chapter-four","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/?page_id=734","title":{"rendered":"Chapter Four"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Crisis of the\nStalinist States<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Despite the subsequent\ndegeneration of the Russian revolution, its effects continue to reverberate\naround the world. By overturning the barriers of capitalism in an area covering\none-sixth of the earth, the revolution allowed a backward country to rise in\nthe space of two generations to what is now the second greatest industrial\npower.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the fifty years from 1913\n(which was the high point of the pre-revolutionary economy in Russia) total industrial\noutput increased more than 52 times, compared with 6 times in the USA and twice\nin Britain. This was despite the terrible destruction wrought, and tens of\nmillions of lives lost by the people of the Soviet Union in this period, as a\nresult of imperialist invasions, civil war and famine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the same fifty years,\nindustrial productivity in the USSR increased by 1 310%\u2014as compared with a 332%\nincrease in the capitalist USA, and a 73% increase in capitalist Britain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fastest rate of growth of the\nproductive forces in the USSR took place in the decade before the Second World\nWar, when industrial production grew at an annual average of 20%. Despite the\ndevastation of the Soviet Union in the War, state ownership and economic\nplanning allowed a rapid recovery. Industrial growth averaged 10% in the 1950s,\nand 8,5% in the 1960s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Output of electricity increased\nfrom 91 billion Kwh to 740 billion Kwh between 1950 and 1970. Oil production\nincreased from 38 million tons to 353 million tons. Similar dramatic increases\nwere achieved in all the industrial sectors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the case of steel, which is\nthe single most important indicator of the industrial base of an economy,\nproduction was only 4,3 million tons in 1928 (the start of the first five-year\nplan). By 1970 it had reached 116 million tons. (Today it is 150 million\ntons\u2014more than the United States, and more than the whole of the EEC.) Also the\nproduction of consumer goods multiplied. The output of knitwear rose from 197\nmillion units in 1950 to 1 134 million units in 1970, and the production of\ndomestic refrigerators from 1 500 to 4 100 000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1950, the average annual\nconsumption of meat per head of population in the USSR was 26 kg; by 1970 it\nwas 48 kg. Milk consumption rose from 172 kg to 307 kg; eggs from 60 to 158;\nfish from 7 kg to 15 kg; sugar from 12 kg to 39 kg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the people of the Soviet\nUnion, the strength of the planned economy meant (by the mid-1970s) 25 doctors\nand 112 hospital beds for every ten thousand people; rents at an average of\n4,5% of total family expenditure; 20 weeks’ paid maternity leave; retirement at\n60 for men and 55 for women. In transport, housing and heating, tremendous\nadvances have taken place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the end of the post-war\nupswing of capitalism in the West, the Soviet Union was spending twice as much\non social welfare per head of population as the British \u2018welfare state\u2019, and\nfive times as much on education, science and culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the Marxist point of view,\nthese facts are the historical justification of the Russian Revolution, and\nprovide overwhelming proof of the superiority of planned economy over\ncapitalist anarchy. They were achieved despite<\/strong>\nthe Stalinist degeneration of the revolution and the horrible bureaucratic deformity\nof the workers’ state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The overthrow of capitalism in\nEastern Europe after the Second World War led to similar leaps forward by\neconomies that were in most cases relatively backward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the end of the War, the\nStalinist dictatorship in Russia robbed the equivalent of R80 billion in money,\ngoods and industrial plant from East Germany, annexed Rumanian and Polish\nterritory and plundered the whole of Eastern Europe by imposing distorted terms\nof trade on the ‘fraternal socialist countries’. Yet the superiority of state\nownership and planning meant that these economies were able to grow at over\n9,5% per year in the 1950s, and over 6,5% per year between 1960 and 1973\u2014much\nfaster than any of the major capitalist countries with the exception of Japan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Progress<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Impressive though these\nachievements may be, they nevertheless fall far short of the progress which\nwould have been possible had the bourgeoisie been overthrown in the advanced\ncapitalist countries and the socialist revolution carried through\ninternationally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With regimes of workers’\ndemocracy, and the integration of the productive forces and economic planning\nworld-wide, all the problems of poverty, oppression and war would already have\nbeen eliminated from the face of the earth. Contrasted with workers’ democracy\nand socialism, the national bureaucratic dictatorships of Russia, Eastern\nEurope and the other deformed workers’ states have always been a reactionary\nshackle on the development of society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nonetheless, given the delay of\nthe social revolution in the industrialised countries of the West, the\nStalinist bureaucracies have played a relatively\nprogressive<\/strong> role in comparison with capitalism. They have (at least in the\npast) been able to develop the productive forces at a far higher rate than the\nbourgeoisie, even though, as Trotsky explained, at three times the cost. The development of the productive forces is\nthe mainspring of human progress.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Considered historically, the\nStalinist bureaucracies have played the role in relatively backward countries\nof organising the development of industry in an epoch when the capitalist class\ncould no longer do so. Thus, in this sense, Stalinism has played the role\npreviously performed by capitalism in other countries in its own progressive\nstage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Delay<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The whole existence of Stalinism\nhas depended on the delay of the world revolution\u2014on the ripeness of the world\nfor socialism combined with the defeats of the proletariat and its failure to\ntake command of the productive forces internationally and reorganise society on\nthe basis of its own democratic rule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The totalitarian regimes of\nStalinism do not represent a new historical stage in the development of\nhumanity, but a deformity and distortion in the course of the transition of\nsociety from capitalism to socialism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The process of history can be\nvery slow, and very convoluted, but it is also very thorough. The almost\n70-year existence of the bureaucratic regime in Russia, and subsequently in the\nother workers’ states, is really only the blinking of an eye in the span of\nhistory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The transition from feudalism to\ncapitalism extended over centuries and produced a wide variety of regimes. Over\na long period the bourgeoisie, owning the most advanced means of production,\nbecame the dominant economic class and ruled the economic system\u2014without having\nyet attained direct command of the state. In France, for example, capitalist\npredominance over production was established well before the French Revolution\nwhich led to the establishment of their political rule. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In contrast, the transition from\ncapitalism to socialism requires the conscious control of the producers over\nevery aspect of production, society and the state. Workers’ democracy is\nabsolutely necessary in order to carry through socialist<\/strong> transformation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bureaucratic castes which\nhave usurped power from the working class, in a series of relatively\nundeveloped countries in peculiar historical circumstances (see Chapters 2 and\n5 of South Africa\u2019s Impending Socialist\nRevolution<\/em>), are no more than a temporary aberration. The progress of the world revolution, the rise to power of the working\nclass in the industrialised countries of capitalism, would remove the entire\nbasis on which Stalinism has existed, with the result that these regimes would\nbe swept away.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, even while the\nsocialist revolution in the West has been delayed, the development of industry\nin the deformed workers’ states of the East has itself laid the basis for the\nreplacement of the bureaucracies by regimes of workers’ democracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The very successes of the planned\neconomy in the USSR, Eastern Europe and elsewhere have provided, for an\nextended period, a basis of stability for Stalinist rule. In the process the\nbureaucracies have hardened as a privileged aristocratic caste, now largely\nhereditary, and growing ever more apart in life and outlook from the mass of\nworking people on whose backs they sit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Precisely as the productive\nforces have developed, so the possibility has grown of more and more\nexaggerated privileges, disparities of income, and all the associated trappings\nof status, power and prestige. And the more the state-owned and planned\neconomies progressed, the more their bureaucratic overlords swelled with the\ndelusion that their system would last forever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the decades after the Second\nWorld War, while the bourgeoisie in the West became supremely confident that it\nhad solved the problems of capitalism and could look forward indefinitely to a\nrosy future, the Stalinist bureaucracies of the East drew similar conclusions\nfor themselves on an opposite economic foundation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in the West, capitalism was\npreparing its gravedigger in the form of the renewed strength of the working\nclass; and in the East likewise the planned economies have prepared the social\nforces and conditions for the overthrow of Stalinism. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(In this chapter we are dealing\nwith the situation in Russia and Eastern Europe. We shall refer in the next\nchapter to the essentially similar processes affecting the Chinese Stalinist\nregime.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Russia at the time of the\nRevolution, the working class was less than 15% of the population. In the\nSoviet Union today there are 135 million workers in a population of about 260\nmillion. Taking also the workers’ families into account, all but a small\npercentage of the entire population are working class. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also in Eastern Europe, in what\nwere formerly mainly peasant countries, the working class is now the absolutely\noverwhelming social force. Together with the economic contradictions of\nbureaucratic rule, this prepares the way for the political revolution against\nStalinism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Basis of the Political Revolution<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The tasks which confront the\npeoples of the deformed workers’ states are to replace bureaucratic\ndictatorships with regimes of workers’ democracy, which will mean democratic\ntransformation in every aspect of society and will clear away the barriers in\nthese countries to transition to socialism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The overthrow of the\nbureaucracies will mean a political revolution<\/strong>\nand not a social revolution<\/strong> because in\ncontrast with the West, the fundamental social task of the revolution has\nalready been carried through. This is the abolition of private ownership of the\nmeans of production and the replacement of capitalism by a system of state ownership\nand economic planning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The basis of the political\nrevolution is prepared not only by the rise of the working class, but also in\nthe increasing change of bureaucratic rule from being a relatively progressive<\/strong> factor in the development of the productive\nforces, to an absolutely reactionary<\/strong>\nfetter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The beginnings of this change\nhave been evident for some decades, and it was already anticipated in the\nanalysis made by Trotsky fifty years ago. But in the course of the 1970s this\nchange has become so blatantly obvious that the bureaucracies themselves are\nnow affected with uncertainty, anxiety and dread for the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nobody, not even the ‘all-powerful’\nregimes of Stalinism, can escape the dialectic of history. As things develop,\nthey change, and turn into their opposites. It was possible for the bureaucracy\nto play a relatively progressive role in developing industry when it was still\nmainly a question of laying down the basic infrastructure of a modern economy\nin underdeveloped countries. But the methods of diktat<\/em> and bureaucratic command are incapable of effectively\nmanaging a sophisticated industrial economy, and of ensuring the harmonious further\ndevelopment of the productive forces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a very delicate balance\nin a modern economy between industries making the means of production, and\nconsumer industries. The relationships of interdependence between the various\nenterprises are extremely complex because of the extent of the division of\nlabour and specialisation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under capitalism, despite its\ncontradictions, the market has played the role of an automatic check on\nquality, on productivity, on maintaining the linkages within the productive\nsystem, and on relating the economy to the needs of society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While state ownership and\nplanning frees the economy from the anarchic forces at work under capitalism,\nand from periodic slumps and booms, it increasingly requires the direct\nparticipation of the bulk of working people in planning, managing and\ncontrolling production. Workers’\ndemocracy is as essential to the development of the planned economy as oxygen\nto the human body.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Plan<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an economy freed from market\nrelations, the plan has to determine what goods and services shall be produced\nand by whom, and allocate the means necessary to produce them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Centralised planning has to cover\nincomes, prices, investment, costs, quality, technical progress, the allocation\nof the surplus and much else besides, and co-ordinate the efforts of tens of\nthousands of production units, in respect of vast numbers of products. The\nnumber of products in the Soviet economy today runs to 12 million!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Without workers’\ndemocracy\u2014without the constant involvement, initiative, check and corrective of\nthe producers in every level of the system\u2014all these functions are carried out\nby bureaucratic edict. The various layers of the bureaucracy may involve\nmillions of officials and functionaries, but everything centres on a top\nhierarchy in Moscow, Prague, Warsaw, Sophia, Bucharest, Belgrade, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even with computers, it is\nimpossible for the bureaucracy to manage the economy so as to release the\nmaximum possibilities inherent in the level of the productive forces at each\nstage in the development of industry. In fact, the more sophisticated the level\nof development, the more the system seizes up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plans are incomplete,\ncontradictory and late. Bureaucracy stifles initiative and innovations by the\nworkers, and thereby hamstrings the advance of the productive forces\nthemselves. A dead hand rests on science, education and culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Frustration<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within the bureaucracy, each\nlayer of minions aims to please the higher bureaucrats, so as to ensure\nprivilege and promotion. At the same time, everyone is looking over his or her\nshoulder for the secret police. The system breeds boot-licking mediocrities.\nThere is an enormous inertia of officialdom leading to frustration at all\nlevels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Above all, as Trotsky warned, it\nis in the realm of quality that the system breaks down. Without democratic\ncontrol, production is adjusted merely to the quantities laid down in\nplan-instructions, while the needs of the people for goods of quality are neglected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because quality is difficult to\ndefine, it is impossible to achieve by methods of command. Within the lower\nlevels of the bureaucracy, complex devices of falsifying figures, cheating,\ncutting corners, etc., have been evolved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus, inevitably, monumental\nwaste plagues the system. In the Soviet Union, the regime has itself revealed\nthat up to one half of goods produced in the factories have to be rejected as\nunfit for use. This in turn means severe dislocations throughout the economy\u2014machinery\nleft rusting and unusable for want of parts, delays in the completion of\ninvestment projects, shortages of consumer goods, and so forth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite spending proportionately\nmuch more than do most of the capitalist countries on research and development,\nthe pace of innovation in industry in the Stalinist states has been sluggish.\nAgain this is because of bureaucracy. While the USA and West Germany have been\nputting more than 50% of their inventions into practice within roughly a year,\nRussia takes more than three years to get that far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inventions often require the\nsignatures of 36 different ministries before they can be implemented! Thus, in\na survey of machine-tool factories, it emerged that four-fifths of all\ndecisions to replace equipment were taken because the machine was physically\nworn out, and only one-seventh because it was obsolete. Out of total investment,\ntwice as much is spent on replacing and repairing equipment than is the case in\nthe USA. As a result, repair bills are enormous, occupying one-tenth of the entire\nindustrial work-force.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Agriculture in the Soviet Union\nhas never really recovered from the forced collectivisation under Stalin. At\nthat time the peasants actively resisted and sabotaged production, because of\nthe monstrous way collectivisation was imposed. Today, seeing little advantage\nfor themselves in the advancement of agriculture, seeing the bureaucrats\nlording it over everything and fattening themselves on the backs of society,\nthe peasants and agricultural workers continue a passive resistance to the\ncommands of the regime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rate of growth of agriculture\nhas lagged persistently behind industry. In the 1950s it was under 5% per year;\nin the 1960s only 3%; and in the last four years it has averaged 2%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Productivity<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Much of the growth of agriculture\nin the past has come from extending the area under cultivation, rather than\nraising the productivity of existing farms. In the 1950s agricultural\nproductivity rose only 2% annually; in the 1960s only 1%; and in the 1970s\nproductivity actually fell. This is despite high levels of investment in\nagriculture. Now, moreover, the possibility for extending agriculture is\nreaching its limits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because of relatively higher\nwages, and better conditions in the cities, there has been a big migration of\nyouth from the land. It is now mainly old people who are left on the farms, and\nmany state farms are entirely without mechanics and have very few male workers.\nStudents and factory workers have had to be drafted to bring in the harvests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The real crisis of agriculture is\nshown in the fact that, while private plots cover only 3% of total farmed area,\nthey produced in 1976-79 just over 25% of agricultural output. This induced the\nturn by the bureaucracy last year to a policy of encouraging private farmers’\nplots, the keeping of a cow, chickens, etc, as a means of attempting to relieve\nshortages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But for the bureaucracy there is\nno escape from the absurdities and imbalances produced by Stalinist methods.\nFor instance (as Soviet officials have admitted), waste, inadequate storage\nprovisions, and poor packaging and distribution mean that at least 50% of all\nfruit and vegetables grown get spoiled by the time they reach the shops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, the lag of\nproductivity in agriculture has necessitated enormous subsidies in order to\nkeep food prices from rising steeply. Thus, today, it is actually cheaper for\nfarmers to buy bread and feed it to their pigs, rather than feed them grain! Pravda<\/em> has recently announced stiff penalties\nfor peasants who do this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The crisis of agriculture under\nStalinism is an important ingredient in the developing crisis of the whole\nsystem, because of the role of agriculture in determining the standard of\nliving of the population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The last three years of\ndisastrous harvests in the USSR have produced serious shortages of fodder, and\nmade it exceptionally difficult to increase meat production. Indeed, in 1980 there\nwas a 3% drop in meat production, with possibly a 5% drop in meat supplies to\nthe cities. Rationing has been imposed in some cities, while queueing for food\nand other consumer goods has become endemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the past 15 years,\nindividuals’ deposits in savings banks have increased more than eight times\nover, mainly because of the shortage of consumer goods on which to spend the\nmoney. Those city-dwellers who can afford it carry a month or two’s salary with\nthem at all times, to snap up scarce items in bulk as they appear the shops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ‘parallel market’ (what used\nto be called black market) has not disappeared over time but, on the contrary,\nis flourishing. It now covers not only consumer goods, but even steel, coal and\nother materials! Increasingly, goods are obtained and even allocated to\nfactories by means of the bribery and corruption of officials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bureaucracy breeds corruption,\nand this is a permanent feature of the Stalinist system. Of course, the most\nsenior bureaucrats rail publicly against corruption, just as they condemn\nmismanagement, waste, inefficiency, red tape\u2014in fact ‘bureaucracy’ itself. In\nlike manner might the devil preach against sin!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Action is taken from time to time\nwhen these abominations reach such proportions that the rule of the bureaucracy\nitself might be jeopardised if they were allowed to continue unchecked. Also,\nallegations of corruption against senior officials tend to surface when\nstruggles are taking place behind the scenes within the bureaucracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just a few recent examples should\nbe enough to show the extent and scale of corruption (although volumes of cases\ncan be compiled from the official press itself, going back decades).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the ‘Caviar scandal’ of 1980,\nmore than 200 officials of the Ministry of Fisheries (including top Secretariat\nmembers) were arrested in connection with a multi-million rouble swindle which\nhad apparently gone on for ten years. By arrangement with a Western firm, they\nsold caviar under the label of herring and deposited their share of the\nrake-off in secret Swiss bank accounts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Embezzled<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In June 1981, the deputy minister\nfor the petro-chemical industry in the Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan was placed\non trial for corruption, with four other officials. Over four years he had\nembezzled 4 million roubles with the help of senior management in one of the\nfactories under his control. The funds were spent on a luxurious administration\nbuilding instead of on laboratories, and on buying cars, apartments and holiday\nhomes for themselves. But how was this\nnot detected for four years?!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we go to press, there is news\nof the arrest of Kolevatov\u2014the most senior official in charge of Russian\ncircuses. For years, it is alleged, he had extorted from circus performers a bribe\nin return for giving them permission to go on overseas tours. When his home was\nraided he was found with diamonds worth more than a million roubles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Simultaneously there are reports\nin the Russian press of a scandal at the visa office, where bribes have been\ndemanded for permission to Soviet citizens to travel abroad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These instances merely lift a\ncorner of the lid on the sewer of corruption and pilfering in the Stalinist\nsystem. In one way or another every layer of society is affected. As a result,\nto protect the publicly-owned economy from personal plunder, over two million\nguards and watchmen have to be employed in the USSR \u2013 30 times the\ncorresponding figure for capitalist Britain, which has only a quarter of the\nSoviet population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Replaced<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1974 the Soviet Minister of\nCulture, Mrs Furtseva, was exposed and dismissed for embezzling the equivalent\nof R100 000. She replaced the misappropriated funds\u2014but where, in a supposedly\n\u2018socialist\u2019 country could she possibly lay her hands on such big sums,\ncompletely out of the reach of ordinary workers? The question answers itself in showing the real privileges, incomes and\nopulent standards of the top bureaucracy of managers, generals and politicians.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the Soviet Union, many\nCommunist Party officials earn five times the wage of the average worker\u2014and\nMarshalls of the armed forces more than 20 times as much. To this must be added\nall the perks and privileges which go with power. Special luxury shops, special\nholiday facilities and rest homes, special medical services, special suburbs,\nluxury flats, country villas, cars with chauffeurs, and special schools are\nreserved for an elite of approximately 250 000 top party and state officials\nand their families.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bureaucratic segregation from the\nmass of the working people even extends to having specially reserved lanes of\nthe streets for their limousines to drive down, so that their highnesses are\nnot delayed by irritating traffic jams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brezhnev, for example, is well\nknown to have a fleet of private limousines. Even Kissinger, the representative\nof American capitalism, was staggered when he visited Russia by the lavish\nopulence and luxury enjoyed by members of the Communist Party Politburo\u2014on a\nscale which only multi-millionaires in the USA can afford.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Stalinist bureaucracy has\nnothing in common with the Bolshevik regime led by Lenin and Trotsky, except\nthe economic foundation resulting from the overthrow of capitalism. In the\nearly years of the revolution, when privileged salaries four times the wage of\nordinary workers had to be paid to technicians and specialists because of the\nterrible shortage of skills, Lenin frankly described this as a “capitalist\ndifferential”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Bolsheviks did not profit\nfrom these conditions. When, for instance, in 1918, the business manager of the\nCouncil of People’s Commissars tried to raise Lenin’s salary on grounds of his\ntremendous workload, Lenin denounced it as “illegal” and wrote the\nman a severe reprimand. Krupskaya (Lenin’s widow) wrote in her memoirs that he\ngot very angry when any attempts were made to create favoured living conditions\nfor him. “I remember how angry he was over a pail of khalva<\/em> which Malkov, then commander of the Kremlin, once brought\nhim.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stalinism is separated from Leninism\nby a chasm of history\u2014of bloodshed, degeneration and corruption. Now history\nhas prepared its downfall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The very development of the economy\nwhich the bureaucracies believed would consolidate their rule, on the contrary\nundermines it completely. More and more, bureaucratic planning and command is\nstifling the advance of production, not only in the USSR but throughout Eastern\nEurope as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rate of growth in the COMECON\ncountries averaged 10% in the 1950s, 7% in the 1960s and only 5% in the 1970s.\nThis slow-down reflected the gradual clogging up of the productive system and\nits increasing suffocation under the deadweight of bureaucracy. By the end of\nthe 1970s the Stalinist oases of Eastern Europe and Russia were in the grip of a\nsevere economic crisis which the following graph plainly illustrates: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

From being relatively progressive\nin their development of the productive forces, the bureaucracies have become absolutely reactionary<\/strong>. There is no way\nout of the impasse facing the peoples of these countries except the political\nrevolution and the establishment of workers’ democracy, which alone can lead to\nsocialism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Economic, Social and Political Contradictions<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The claims of the Stalinists that\nRussia has achieved “mature socialism” and that the present generation\nwould “live in communism\u201d have boomeranged, and now stand as an unanswerable\nindictment of the bureaucracy in the eyes of the masses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is an enormous cynicism\namong ordinary people towards the lies and postures of the bureaucracy. This is\nreflected in the jokes which circulate among the workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ingrained scepticism towards the\nofficial propaganda of the radio, television and press such as Pravda<\/em> (“Truth”) and Izvestia<\/em> (“News”) has given\nrise to the popular saying that “there is no Izvestia<\/em> in Pravda<\/em>, and\nno Pravda<\/em> in Izvestia<\/em>.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the food queues there is a\nstanding joke about the difference between ‘socialism’ and ‘communism’:\n“Under socialism you cannot get any meat. Under communism you know you\ndon’t need meat.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Living standards of the\npopulation continued to rise up to about the mid-1970s, which provided a means\nof reinforcement of the Stalinist regimes. But now, with few exceptions, living\nstandards are stagnating. Economic plans have to be revised downwards, and\nthere is no possibility of returning to the rates of growth of the past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, the economies of the\ndeformed workers’ states are now growing at a rate only slightly faster than\ncapitalism, and can even be exceeded by some of the capitalist countries during\ntemporary periods of boom. Thus, while we are in the epoch of the social revolution\nin the West, we are also in the epoch of the political revolution in the East.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some older workers in the Soviet\nUnion, not seeing a way forward, actually hark back to the days of Stalin and\nsay that even a bloody tyranny was “better” because at least living\nstandards rose at that time. But in such distorted ways, the ripeness of the\npolitical revolution against Stalinism itself is shown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The stranglehold of bureaucracy\nwill be felt to be more and more intolerable by the working people of these\ncountries, with the result that hardships, shortages, price rises, crimes of\ncorruption, police provocations and brutalities, etc., can lead at any time to\nexplosive movements of the population and set a revolution in motion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Unresolved<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The unresolved national question\nin the Soviet Union and throughout Eastern Europe inflames the situation even\nfurther and can precipitate mass upheavals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In many of the Soviet Republics\nover the years there have been repeated local outbursts of rebellion against\nthe domination of the Russian bureaucracy, struggles for equality, language\nrights, etc. Quickly crushed by military and police action, these events are\nusually only reported much later as news of them creeps past the official\ncensorship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Better known is the seething\nresentment of the peoples of most of the countries of Eastern Europe against\nwhat they feel as domination by the Soviet Union. Within many of these\ncountries too\u2014as in the Kosovo province of Yugoslavia\u2014national divisions and\nantagonisms fester.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because each bureaucracy defends\nand strengthens the existing national state as the basis of its self-interest,\npower and privileges, it is incapable of solving the national question. Only on\nthe basis of workers’ democracy can the free cooperation of the peoples be\nensured and national divisions overcome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For decades now, in attempts to\novercome the suffocating effects of their own system, the bureaucracies have\npassed through a series of zig-zags in their methods of economic planning and\ncontrol. Without in any way altering the character of their regime, they have\nattempted moves towards greater centralisation; then swung over to policies of\ndecentralisation. As each has failed in turn, and seized up in its own\ncontradictions, there has been a renewed swing in the opposite direction\u2014to\nre-centralisation, then to re-decentralisation, and so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bureaucracies have also come\nup against the limits of the national boundaries of their economies, and in the\nprocess the reactionary idea of “socialism in one country” has had to\nbe thrown away. Policies of autarky or self-sufficiency are impossible in a\nworld dominated by modern industry and a highly developed international\ndivision of labour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where cheaper goods, produced on\nthe basis of the most advanced technique, are available on the world market,\nthere is an inescapable pressure on all economies to enter the market in order\nto obtain the advantages of the international division of labour. Especially in\nrelation to electronics, computers and other technologically advanced\nequipment, the Stalinist states have been compelled to turn to trade with the\nWest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time Russia, for\nexample, has been forced to go to the world market to buy grain as a result of\nrepeated bad harvests coming on top of bureaucratic bungling. This year its\ngrain purchases from the West are expected to amount to 42 million tonnes. The\nsituation has now developed where the planting programme of United States\nagriculture is heavily geared towards exports to the Soviet Union.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In order to buy on the world\nmarket, the Stalinist states must also sell on the world market. Total\nEast-West trade has increased six times in the 15 years up to 1980. 30% of East\nEuropean trade is now with capitalist countries, while Russia’s trade with the West\nhas been increasing faster than her trade with Eastern Europe. By 1990, for\nexample, some 30% of West Germany’s gas is expected to be supplied by pipeline\nfrom Siberia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All this demonstrates the\ninseparable inter-relation of the whole modern world economy, as Marxism has\nalways explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Debt<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Forced by the crisis of\nbureaucracy to seek a blood transfusion of technology from the West, the\nStalinist states \u2013 in particular those of Eastern Europe \u2013 also turned to\nborrowing heavily from Western governments and banks. By 1980 the total COMECON\ndebt to the capitalist countries amounted to $70 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Russia’s debt now totals about\n$11 billion (net), and could well double or even treble by 1985. Hungary owes\nmore than $7 billion; East Germany $12 billion; Rumania $9 billion; and Poland\nalone more than $27 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The case of Poland dramatically\nillustrates both the impasse of Stalinism and the complete abandonment by the\nbureaucracy of even the most basic understandings of Marxism. In 1971 the\nPolish bureaucracy, faced with severe economic and political problems, embarked\non a \u2018dash for growth\u2019 with the aid of Western technology bought with Western\nloans. These loans were premised on the ability of Poland to export to the West\nsufficient coal, shoes, textiles and other goods to finance the interest and\nrepayments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like the capitalists, the\nbureaucracy did not have a grain of an idea that the post-war upswing of\ncapitalism would come to an end. They were therefore hit hard by the onset of\nthe capitalist crisis, which has had the result that there is no longer the\nexpected market for Polish exports in the West. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Polish exports slumped, while\npayments of foreign debt fell due, the bureaucracy tried to exact greater output\nfrom the workers and farmers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Faced with the worsening crisis\nof agriculture, the bureaucracy had previously tried to raise food prices\u2014but\nhad repeatedly been forced to back down in the face of determined resistance by\nthe workers. Now the bureaucracy moved again to impose price rises, at a time\nof chronic food shortages and widespread breakdowns in supplies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This precipitated the explosion\nof the Polish revolutionary events from 1980-81.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In turn, of course, the\ninevitable consequence of the revolutionary turmoil was a further dramatic drop\nin production and the virtual grinding to a halt of the Polish economy. The\nWestern banks were faced with the choice of either agreeing to postpone\n(\u2018reschedule\u2019) Polish debt repayments, or else suffer a complete default.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

95% of the debt which was due in\n1981 was in fact rescheduled. Now there is the situation where, to finance the\nimports which it must have to get industry working again, Poland needs another\n$12-15 billion in loans by 1985. The Western banks now want guarantees from\ntheir own governments before advancing more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not only Poland but also Rumania\ncannot meet its debts and requires rescheduling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Inflation<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Running through the economies of\nthe deformed workers’ states today is the infection of inflation. This has\nmainly been imported from the capitalist economies as a result of East-West\ntrade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, the prices of\nimports to Hungary between 1970 and 1977 increased by 165%. By 1979-80 inflation\nin Hungary was running at 12%, while wages rose only 3%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Poland the rate of inflation\nwas between 11% and 9% a year between 1978 and 1980. Now it will be vastly higher\nbecause, under martial law, the regime has been able to impose price rises of\nas much as 400% on consumer goods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia,\nRumania, East Germany and the USSR itself have all announced price rises from 1979\nonwards. Yugoslavia has had a 50% rate of inflation, and on top of that the bureaucracy\nraised food prices massively in August 1981.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inflation is a serious disease\nfor a planned economy, disrupting the complex inter-relations of the productive\nsystem. In the case of the Stalinist states, it adds to the severe dislocations\nand imbalances inherent in bureaucratic rule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Participation on the world market is absolutely necessary and\nunavoidable, as Trotsky pointed out. But it merely heightens the contradictions\nof Stalinism and raises all the more clearly the need for the carrying through\nof the social revolution in the West and the political revolution in the East.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Hungarian Revolution of\n1956<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The first big outbreaks of the\npolitical revolution against Stalinism occurred in Eastern Europe in the\n1950s\u2014most notably in Hungary in 1956.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is a monstrous falsehood to\nallege that the Hungarian revolution was an attempt at capitalist\ncounter-revolution. This, of course, is the way the Hungarian working class was\nslandered by the Stalinist regime and by Communist Party leaders and their hangers-on\ninternationally. It is also the myth put about for their own purpose by the\nimperialists, who have always sought every opportunity to pretend that freedom\nequals capitalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact the movement in Hungary\nproceeded immediately to lay the foundations for a healthy, democratic workers’\nstate. With virtually the whole working population of Hungary in action, the\nbureaucracy lost control of the military-police apparatus of repression, and\nits complete lack of support in society was exposed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With two general strikes\u2014hardly\nthe weapon of \u2018capitalist counter-revolution\u2019\u2014and two insurrections, the\nbureaucracy was overthrown in Hungary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Workers’ councils sprang up,\nlinking up regionally and beginning to take the affairs of society into their\nhands. Weighing up and testing in the initial confusion the different\npossibilities that were available to them, the workers rapidly turned to the\ntask of establishing democracy on the basis of the planned economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instinctively they advanced\nessentially the same programme for workers’ democracy that Lenin had outlined.\nIn the first years of the Russian Revolution, before the bureaucratic\ndegeneration took hold, the Bolsheviks had insisted on four vital safeguards:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 All power to\nbe vested in Soviets, i.e. councils composed of delegates elected from their\nworkplaces and districts, and subject to immediate recall by those who had\nelected them. This obliged delegates to report back to mass meetings of their\nworkmates on the issues under discussion, and harnessed the energies of the\nworkers in the tasks of government. The Soviets were the most sensitive\ninstrument yet devised for measuring the changing consciousness and will of the\nmasses and translating it into action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 All the\nworking people were to bear arms and to be trained in a militia to guard\nagainst abuses under a separate standing army, and so defend the gains of the\nRevolution against attacks from any quarter, internal or external.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 All simple\nadministrative duties were to be rotated among the widest possible number of\nthe working people, to prevent the crystallisation of an entrenched caste of\nbureaucrats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 No official\nof the workers’ state was to receive a salary above that of the average skilled\nworker, plus the necessary expenses to be strictly audited by the workers’\norganisations. This was to ensure that there was no material incentive for\ncareerism to take root among state officials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, by the\nprocess of degeneration explained in Chapter 2, all these safeguards were\ndismantled and eliminated as the Stalinist dictatorship took hold in Russia. In\nthe struggle against Stalinism in the 1920s and 1930s, the International Left\nOpposition had based itself on Lenin’s original programme for workers’\ndemocracy\u2014which became the programme for the political revolution against the\nbureaucracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Demands<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Hungary in 1956, the newly\ncreated revolutionary councils immediately hammered out a programme containing\nsimilar demands:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a broad government comprising\nrepresentatives of the workers’ organisations and the youth; for a “national\nguard composed of workers and young people”; for workers’ councils in all\nthe factories “to establish (a) workers’ management and (b) a radical\ntransformation of the system of central planning and direction of the economy\nby the state”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To these were added basic demands\nfor pension and family allowance increases, and wage rises for the lower paid.\nWith the national average wage at about 1 000 forints, the programme demanded\n“maximum monthly wages to be fixed at 3 500 forints”. This was aimed\nagainst the bureaucrats and army officers who were earning between 9 000 and 12\n000 forints.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Together, these demands formed\nthe essential programme for the political revolution in Hungary\u2014adopted less than three days after the\nuprising began.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Full-scale Russian military\ninvasion was needed to destroy these historic achievements and to smash the\nmovement of the Hungarian workers. In fact, two Russian invasions and the\nslaughter of as many as 50 000 Hungarians was the only basis on which the grip\nof the bureaucracy on society could be restored.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first Russian troops sent to\nHungary became infected with the revolutionary mood, and began to respond to\nthe appeals of their Hungarian brothers and sisters. The bureaucracy had to\ncall in what were then backward peasant troops from Siberia and tell them they\nwere being sent to put down a fascist uprising in Berlin!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On several other occasions, most\nnotably in the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, the bureaucracy has resorted\nto the use of military force against the workers. The developments in\nCzechoslovakia were different from those in Hungary, in that the process\nstarted as an experiment in ‘liberalisation’ by the Czech bureaucracy. This\nevoked a response from the population that threatened to go beyond the ability\nof the bureaucracy to control. But also in Czechoslovakia there was no\npossibility of the restoration of capitalism<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the whole of Eastern Europe,\nand the USSR\u2014as also in China and other states where capitalism has been\ndecisively overthrown\u2014there is now no material or social basis for the\nrestitution of the bourgeoisie. The mass of the population take state ownership\nof the means of production and planned economy as entirely natural, and it\nwould be as absurd to pose the restoration of capitalism there as it would be\nto pose the return of feudalism in Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fact that in these countries\nsome reactionary individuals and small groups of intellectuals can be found who\nfavour a return to capitalism (or in Solzhenitsyn’s case, even a return to\nTsarism!) merely demonstrates the extent to which they have been driven mad by\nthe crimes of the bureaucracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In all these countries it is a\nsocial impossibility to restore private ownership of industry and of the other\nmain means of production\u2014which is what a return to capitalism would\nnecessitate. This would be obvious to anyone who takes the trouble to think the\nmatter through concretely.[1]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Naturally the Stalinists love to\nhighlight the statements of these ‘dissidents’, to use them as a smokescreen\nand justification for the bureaucracy itself. Thus all who oppose the\nbureaucracy are denounced as “enemies of socialism” intent on\nrestoring capitalism. Nevertheless, the movement of history itself explodes\nthese lies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

The Movement in Poland<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Above all it has been the events\nin Poland over the past two years which have exposed internationally the real\ncharacter of the bureaucracies and brought out clearly the essential lessons of\nthe political revolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There have been repeated\nmovements of the Polish workers against the regime since the 1950s. Although\ntemporary and partial victories were achieved, each time the bureaucracy was\nable to reconsolidate its position and impose renewed repression on the masses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in July-August 1980 there was\na renewed mass movement\u2014involving the whole working population in opposition to\nshortages and price increases, and demanding higher wages and the right to\nindependent trade union organisation. (The official ‘trade unions’ in the\nStalinist states are not trade unions at all but instruments of the\nbureaucratic apparatus for disciplining and controlling the working class.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the Gdansk region, power\neffectively passed into the hands of a joint council representing 400 factories\n(in essence, a soviet). Out of this ferment, without the permission of the bureaucracy,\nSolidarity was set-up and its membership quickly swelled to 10 million. Solidarity\nspoke for the Polish people against the parasitic caste that oppresses them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite all the crimes of\nStalinism committed in the name of ‘socialism’, there was not the slightest\nbasis of support on the part of the Polish masses for a return to capitalism.\nThis was made clear in all the mass meetings and conferences of Solidarity,\nwhere what was demanded was democratic change in the direction of bringing the\nplanned economy and state ownership under workers’ control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even the bourgeois press in the\nWest had to drop its conventional propaganda and admit that there was no\nmovement against socialism itself. It was only as the movement declined, and all\nthe more so once the Polish workers were silenced by military dictatorship,\nthat the Stalinists dared raise their voices to claim that a capitalist\ncounter-revolution was under way in Poland. Naturally, the bourgeois media are\nnow only too pleased to report this slander as though it were the truth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is the fate of a defeated\nrevolution to be vilified by its enemies when it cannot answer back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Squandered<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The movement in Poland was a\npolitical revolution to establish workers’ democracy and clear the way for the\ntransition to genuine socialism. But tragically, because of the weakness of the\nforces of Marxism internationally, the Polish working class was led from the\nstart by a leadership which squandered all the opportunities presented to them,\nand condemned the workers to defeat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They did not understand that it\nis impossible to achieve gradual reform of the Stalinist system, and that\nPoland could not be half totalitarian and half free. No genuinely independent\nworkers’ organisation can long co-exist with the Stalinist bureaucracy. Either\nthe bureaucracy had to be totally eliminated and workers’ control established\nover every aspect of production and society \u2014 or else eventual defeat of the\nmovement was inevitable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This position, explained in Inqaba ya Basebenzi<\/em> in January 1981, was\nconfirmed by events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bureaucracy of a deformed\nworkers’ state is inherently totalitarian, and incapable of reform in the\ndirection of workers’ democracy. The totalitarian nature of these regimes, of\ncourse, is made much use of by the bourgeoisie in its propaganda against\n‘socialism’.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is indeed a paradox, which\nneeds to be explained, that (at least in many countries) capitalism has been\nable to tolerate forms of democratic expression, opposition parties,\nindependent trade unions, etc., while similar freedoms are intolerable to\nStalinism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even in its most liberal form,\nbourgeois democracy is a distorted and truncated system, tolerating opposition\nonly within limits which do not fundamentally threaten the property and social\npower of the capitalist class. But the Stalinist bureaucratic castes, in contrast,\ncan maintain their rule only by ruthless police-state methods and the complete\nsuppression of opposition of any kind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reason for this is not, as\nthe bureaucracies claim, because of the threatening encirclement by\nimperialism. The absurd logic of their argument is that ‘socialism’ cannot be\ndefended against capitalism by the workers of the workers’ states\u2014cannot be\ndefended by Lenin’s method of revolutionary internationalism, and an appeal to\nthe fraternal aid in common struggle of the workers of the West. On the\ncontrary, ‘socialism’ has to be defended by the bureaucracy and its secret\npolice against the Polish, Hungarian, Russian,\netc., working classes!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact it is not socialism<\/strong> which is defended by the\ntotalitarian system of Stalinism; but the power, privileges, incomes and\nprestige of the parasitic bureaucratic caste itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under capitalism, a form of\ndemocracy (however limited) is possible because it does not necessarily<\/strong> and directly<\/strong> challenge the position of the bourgeoisie as the economic\nruling class. The entire system is based on private ownership of the means of\nproduction, and there is thus a separation between the mechanism of the economy\nand the state. Those who own and control production do not necessarily and\ndirectly control the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, the state intrudes\ninto the economic process, and in the last analysis the state apparatus is the\nmeans for the maintenance and defence of capitalist property.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As capitalism becomes less and\nless able to provide for the material needs of the working people\u2014as the\nworkers’ struggle threatens more and more to overstep the limits of the bourgeois-democratic\nsystem and attack the basis of capitalism itself\u2014the ultimate incompatibility\nof capitalism and democracy is revealed. The suppression of democratic rights\nunder regimes of outright dictatorship becomes the order of the day if\ncapitalism is not overthrown by the working class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Different<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in a society where the system\nof private ownership of the means of production has been abolished, where the state<\/strong> owns and controls land, the\nfactories, mines, the financial system, trade, etc., the situation is intrinsically\ndifferent. The market relations which follow from private ownership are\nreplaced by centralised planning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The superiority of workers’\ndemocracy to bourgeois democracy is bound up with the fact that the working\nclass, in taking power politically, in establishing its own democratic state,\nbecomes at the same time the master of production. Thus, on the basis of\nworkers’ democracy, every aspect of economic, social and political life is\nharmonised and liberated in a transition to socialism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But once the workers’ state falls\ninto the hands of a bureaucratic caste, which rises in power and privilege\nabove the mass of the people, democracy is necessarily eliminated from every\nsphere. Unlike the bourgeoisie, the bureaucracy cannot tolerate even limited\ndemocratic reform, because such reform of necessity must lead directly to\nchallenge the bureaucracy’s economic position\u2014its status, income and privilege.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bureaucracy depends\nabsolutely on its complete monopoly of state power in order to maintain its\nvery existence. This is because it has no necessary role in production, and is\nsimply a parasite, in a society where, on the basis of state ownership, the\nworking class is able itself to organise, manage and control the economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hence the ruthless totalitarian\npolice-state system of Stalinism. Hence also the falseness of the idea that by\n‘pressure’ these regimes can be induced to usher in democratic changes. Unless\nthe movement of the working class in the deformed workers’ states proceeds to\nthe complete overthrow and dismantling of the bureaucratic apparatus, and its\nreplacement by organs of workers’ democracy at every level, it is inevitable\nthat the bureaucracy will again and again inflict defeat on the workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Powerful<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Poland, so powerful was the\nmovement of the working population immediately after August 1980 that the\nregime found itself suspended in mid air without any point of support in the\nbody of society. As Jaruzelski himself warned the ‘hard-liners’, it was quite\nimpossible to use the Polish army at that time against the workers, because it\nwould have disintegrated. It was only the secret police which remained loyal to\nthe bureaucracy\u2014and that is an insufficient basis for rule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even the Polish Communist Party\nunderwent a profound collapse under the impact of the mass movement. Rakowski,\nthe deputy Prime Minister of Poland (in an interview published in February\n1982), was obliged to admit this about the Polish CP:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Disintegrated, I agree. Which is quite clear since the military had to take its place in the government. Who could deny that it went bankrupt, intellectually and politically, that it was unable to organise the society, to get the country out of the disaster, even to defend the state?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

We should say a word at this\npoint about the character of the ‘Communist Parties’ in the Stalinist states.\nUnlike CPs in the capitalist countries, some of which have a mass base in the\nworking class, these organisations are not workers’ parties at all. They are\norganisations of the bureaucracy, for the defence of privilege and for the\nsuppression of the working class. They are organisations of the officials, the\narmy officers, the police and police agents, the managers, the careerists and\nthe stool-pigeons. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Communist Parties are hated\nby the masses in all the countries of Stalinism. In Czechoslovakia, for example,\nsuch is the contempt of the ordinary workers for CP members, that if one of\ntheir fellows joins the party he normally has to move with his family to\nanother area and seek new friends because of the ostracism which results. The\nparallel in South Africa would be the workers’ attitude to supervisors, ‘boss\nboys’ and ipimpi<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By and large, however, the\npredominant element making up the Communist Parties are the higher officials.\nIn the Soviet Union, the CP are referred to as “the bosses” by the\nworkers. Not surprisingly, when we see that a survey on collective farms in\nRussia found that the proportion of managers in the CP was 86% and the\nproportion of workers only 5%. In the engineering industry in Leningrad, the\ncorresponding figures were managers 60% and manual workers only 13%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Communist Parties have no\nrole to play in the political revolution against Stalinism, but as organisations\nof the bureaucracy will disappear with it. As the events in Poland showed, the\nCPs are not immune to the pervasive pressures of revolution, even before the\nbureaucracy is overthrown. They can completely collapse in a short space of\ntime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The initial policy of Solidarity\nwas in fact to exclude all CP members from membership of the union (in much the\nsame way as workers in SA want to keep agents of the bosses out of their\norganisations). Nothing could more clearly demonstrate the attitude of the\nordinary workers to the CP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, after a time, about one\nmillion CP members succeeded in joining Solidarity on the instructions of the\nparty leadership, initially with the intention of trying to bring it under\ncontrol. But such was the ferment in society that these people were affected,\nand instead of the CP having a million members in Solidarity, Solidarity had in\neffect a million members in the CP! This contributed to the disintegration of\nthe latter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This again confirmed Trotsky’s\nperspective that under the pressures of the political revolution, the\nbureaucracy would be split, with the lower layers drawn to the side of the\nworkers, leaving those at the top in complete isolation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was no force in Poland\npreventing the working class from taking state power\u2014and it was held back from\nthis task only by the mistaken policies of its leader-ship. The policies of the\nSolidarity leaders were heavily influenced by the ‘dissident’ intellectuals,\nsuch as Kuron of KOR, and by the Catholic Church hierarchy to whom they turned\nfor advice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Blind to the inner laws of the\nrevolution in which they were caught up, Walesa and the other main leaders of\nSolidarity counselled caution, moderation, limiting the movement to demands for\npartial reforms, and attempting to reach an accommodation with the bureaucracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The continued hold of the Church\non the minds of the Polish masses\u2014itself an indication of their alienation from\nStalinism\u2014turned in fact into a powerful advantage for Stalinism against the\nworking class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Church<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even today it is still being\nargued by supporters of Stalinism in the ranks of our movement that the\ndissent, opposition, etc. in Poland was a result of the counter-revolutionary\nactivities of the Catholic Church.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in reality, the Church\nestablishment in Poland and elsewhere in Eastern Europe long ago reached an\naccommodation with the bureaucracy in order to secure its position. Having over\nthe centuries reconciled itself to the regimes of slave society, then feudalism\nand then capitalism, the Church now reconciles itself to Stalinism also.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Church bureaucrats felt as\nmuch threatened by the prospect of a political revolution as the bureaucrats of\nthe state. Between them, there was a division of labour. While the state tried\nto re-consolidate its instruments of repression, the Bishops worked to hold the\nworking class back from taking power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The church leaders, posing as the\nchampions of humanity, don’t often reveal their true attitudes openly. But in a\nsermon on 24 January 1982, not long after the coup, Archbishop Glemp stated\nthat he considered it essential that General Jaruzelski should continue in\npower, and even described him as the last chance for Poland! “If you fight\nfor freedom with too much enthusiasm you run the risk of losing it,” he\nsaid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And of the Church, the bureaucrat\nRakowski says “They need us as much as we need them.” Even the Polish\nPolitburo hardliner, Olzowski, was reported as saying on Hungarian radio and\ntelevision that “the Church in Poland is a gigantic factor for\nstabilisation.” (BBC World Service, 25\/1\/82) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Threat<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the time of the rise of\nSolidarity in August 1980, the main argument used by the Catholic Church, KOR,\nWalesa, etc., against the carrying through of the political revolution was the\nthreat of a Russian invasion. Indeed, the military manoeuvres of the Warsaw\nPact on the borders of Poland were intended to leave the Polish people in no\ndoubt that Brezhnev would order an invasion in the event that the movement\nproceeded to overthrow the bureaucracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just as in 1956, in the case of\nHungary, the bureaucracies of all the Stalinist states understood that the\nvictory of the political revolution and the establishment of workers’ democracy\nin even one country, would electrify the working people in all these states and\nlead to revolutionary movements in country after country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therefore, in the event of the\noverthrow of the Polish bureaucracy, they would have had to stake everything on\nthe military card.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, the qualitative\nchange in the position of the Stalinist regime over the past 25 years meant\nthat an invasion would have been an extremely dangerous course for the\nbureaucracy to pursue. Therefore they held back and prepared to go in only as a\nlast resort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A number of factors combined to\nproduce this hesitation. Firstly, as the Kremlin recognised, and as they were\nno doubt advised by Jaruzelski, in the first period of the Polish movement at\nleast there would have been a determined armed resistance by the Poles. In all\nlikelihood the Polish army itself would have taken part in the resistance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Probably a drawn-out guerrilla\nwar would have ensued, and possibly as many as a million people slaughtered in\norder to subdue it. This would have had incalculable effects on the Soviet\nUnion’s position internationally\u2014its relations not only with imperialism but\nalso with the ex-colonial world, together with its position in world trade.\nMost important, however, would have been the perilous consequences for the\nbureaucracy within Russia itself, where an enormous revulsion among the people\nwould have swelled up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unlike 1956, the Stalinist\nbureaucracy today has no confidence in the viability of its rule, and can look\nforward with nothing but anxious dread to the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brezhnev proclaimed Russia’s\n“right” to invade Poland as the very essence of “consistent\ninternationalism”! In the pollution and falsification of everything that\nwas fine in the tradition of the Russian Revolution, the Stalinist bureaucracy\nknows no limits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, it is the real proletarian\ninternationalism on which Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky always relied which\nalone could have brought about the overthrow of the bureaucracy and the victory\nof the political revolution in Poland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the Polish working class\ncould have taken power in their own country, they could not have sustained\ntheir victory within the boundaries of Poland alone. What was needed was a decisive and audacious revolutionary policy when\npower lay within their grasp\u2014combined with a fraternal, internationalist revolutionary\nappeal to their brothers and sisters, the working class, of Russia, East\nGermany, Hungary, etc., to actively support them.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only by these means could a\nmilitary intervention of the Warsaw Pact armies have been paralysed and reversed.\nIn turn that would have meant the sweeping of the political revolution\nthroughout Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, spilling over also in Asia. At\nthe same time it would have evoked a tremendous response of the working class\nin the West, and frustrated completely any attempt by imperialism to take\nadvantage of the situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed the Polish revolution\ncould have set in motion an entire international chain of revolutions, social\nand political, in West and East. But without this internationalist\nperspective\u2014their vision narrowed also by prejudices of Polish nationalism\u2014the\nleadership of Solidarity inevitably led the movement to defeat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trying to find an impossible\nsolution within the framework of one country, they based their strategy on the\nillusion of securing a reform of the system while leaving the bureaucracy in\npower in the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therefore Walesa persistently\ntried to prevent Solidarity from being anything more than a trade union, when\nthe whole logic of its development was towards the taking over of state power.\nWalesa even boasted that Poland’s revolution was “unique” in that it\ndid not seek to change the government! Only at the last minute, far too late,\nand under pressure from the rank and file, did the Solidarity leadership\nconcede that confrontation with the regime was inevitable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Challenge<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spontaneously, the Polish working\nclass moved through Solidarity to challenge the privileges of the bureaucracy,\nto expose corruption, and to demand political rights and freedoms\nirreconcilable with Stalinist rule. All the time, however, the top leadership\nof Solidarity acted as a dampener and fire-hose to subdue the movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because of the profound\nfeebleness of the bureaucracy, and its inability to use force initially against\nthe workers, the impasse in the Polish revolution was long drawn out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But no mass movement, however\npowerful, can remain at white heat indefinitely. Without a resolution of the\nquestion of power the movement must inevitably tire and ebb. At the same time,\nthe turmoil of a revolution brings further disruption into economic life and,\nif indefinitely protracted, appears more and more as the cause<\/strong> of shortages, delays, and chaos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the first five months of 1981\nalone, industrial production dropped 12% in Poland. Coal exports fell by\ntwo-thirds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the middle of the year, 60 000\ntractors were immobilised without spares. 5 500 potato combines were unready\nfor the harvest. The country was short of 150 000 scythes, 600 000 forks, 54\n000 milking machines, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because of the suspension of new\nloans from the West, together with selective sabotage of the economy by\nbureaucratic measures and the witholding of supplies from the other Stalinist\nstates, all sorts of spares, materials, and fuels could not be obtained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was an almost complete\nbreakdown of the transport system. Food shortages reached the scale that even\nthe basic rations could no longer be obtained in the shops. ‘Parallel market’\nprices rocketed to five times the official prices and more. Homes were without\nheating. There was a virtual absence of soap and numerous other essentials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All these hardships and more\nwould be endured by the working class in the course of a revolution when they\nhave the perspective of taking power and organising society. But without that\nperspective, facing a nightmare without end, with their movement worn down\nagain and again by the policies, of the leadership, even the most resolute can\nbegin to lose spirit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With considerable cunning,\nGeneral Jaruzelski, at the head of the bureaucracy, bided his time. Over the\nperiod before the coup he carried out (with Russian assistance) a\nreorganisation and propaganda campaign in the armed forces. Having assured\nhimself of the reliability of his troops, and that armed resistance was unlikely,\nhe moved rapidly to impose martial law. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now the same rank-and-file\nsoldiers who only months before could have been won to the side of the\nrevolution by a bold policy have been left with no real option but to obey\ntheir officers and hold their people under the military jackboot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is the fate of a revolution\nwhich does not complete its work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From such a defeat there can be\nno immediate recovery. While the hatred of the Polish people for their\nbureaucratic masters is deeper than ever, it will be a matter of years before\nthere can be a revival of a mass movement on the scale of the past two years.\nThat revival will come; the reprieve of the Polish bureaucracy is only\ntemporary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Political Revolution is International<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

In the other deformed workers’\nstates of Eastern Europe and the USSR, political revolution can break out at\nalmost any time. There is no solution to the problems of the economy and\nsociety either in Poland or in any of these countries on the basis of\nStalinism. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anxious to forestall revolutionary\nuprisings in their own countries, the various bureaucracies are making U-turns\nand zig-zags in the hope of revitalising their system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In some cases, there are\nexperiments in giving greater scope to market forces\u2014in effect legalising\naspects of the existing ‘parallel market’\u2014as a means of cutting through the\nentanglements of red tape. These do not, as some people imagine, represent a\nturning back to capitalism. But nor do they provide a way out of the impasse of\nbureaucracy, and will soon lead to new contradictions, seizures and reverses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Rumania, which has the lowest\nliving standards in Eastern Europe, the bureaucracy had attempted to escape\nfrom the suffocating effects of its own rule by attempting a policy of\nhigh-pressure industrialisation with the aid of loans from the West.\nIntoxicated with this, President Ceausescu had boldly asserted Rumanian ‘national\nindependence’ from Moscow. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Dislocation<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the onset of economic crisis\nin the West, the slowing of exports, and severe problems in agriculture, produced\nserious dislocation. Shortages of food became chronic, and there was a\nmushrooming of queues. The miners’ strike in the Jiu valley in 1977, and the\nrenewed strikes of miners and other workers in October 1981 in Rumania,\nprofoundly disturbed the bureaucracy. Its anxiety was redoubled by the Polish\nevents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consequently, Ceausescu has\nexecuted an about-turn. Investment is to be diverted to agriculture, industrial\ngrowth is to be inhibited by slashing imports, while at the same time an\nattempt will be made to increase exports by 14%!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Simultaneously, the bureaucracy\nhas turned again towards Moscow, in search of the advantages of cheap Soviet\noil and subsidies, as well as to seek shelter in anticipation of the coming\npolitical storms. Increasingly now, the crisis of the economies and regimes of\nEastern Europe is turning them into a millstone round the neck of the Russian\nbureaucracy, and a drain on the Soviet economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While economic austerity is bound\nto continue for the Rumanian and other workers, the bureaucracy offers them\npolitical phrases both plentiful and cheap. Thus Ceausescu has announced his\nintention of dropping the formula “dictatorship of the proletariat”\nin favour of “a state of workers’ democracy”! (No matter that neither\nphrase applies to his regime of bureaucratic absolutism, which, of course, is\nto remain unchanged. In fact there is now virtually a Ceausescu family dynasty\nat the head of the Rumanian bureaucracy.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We cannot go into the situation\nin all these countries here. All of them to one degree or another are affected\nby economic and political difficulties. In Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia these\nare particularly severe. In contrast, Hungary and East Germany are temporarily\nable to maintain relatively higher rates of growth. But here, too, the fear by\nthe bureaucracy of explosions of the working class is indicated in the\nrepressive nature of the regimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In East Germany, during the\nheight of the Polish events, even trains from Poland were turned back at the\nborder to prevent the German people seeing the Solidarity slogans painted on\nthe sides!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But wherever the political\nrevolution against Stalinism breaks out first, it can only be in the Soviet\nUnion that the process will be completed. Social revolution is international,\nand so is the political revolution. That has been sharply demonstrated by the examples\nof Hungary and Poland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A regime of workers’ democracy\ncannot survive within the boundaries of one country. The process must spread or\nit will be reversed. Victorious revolutions are possible in all the countries\nof Eastern Europe, but to sustain victory, enormous difficulties of carrying\nforward the process internationally will be faced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But when the giant proletariat of\nthe Soviet Union begins to move, there will be no force on earth which can stop\nit. The largest, and probably the most educated and cultured working class in\nthe world, it will rediscover its revolutionary traditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mass strikes during May 1980\nwhich closed the huge Togliatti and Gorky auto works (employing 170 000 and 200\n000 workers respectively), gave a foretaste of this. More recently, fearing the\nrepercussions in the Soviet Union of the Polish events, the Russian Politburo\nhas complained to the official trade unions that they should not be quite so\nservile to the state. They should make some effort (says the Politburo) to\narticulate the grievances of the workers instead of leaving the regime to be\ntaken by surprise!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finding itself cut off from the\nworking people by a wall of contempt, hostility and sullen resistance, the bureaucracy\nhas turned to sociological opinion surveys\u2014in factories, schools, among youth\ngroups, pensioners, and others\u2014in order to find out what people are thinking!\nThe results are sent to factory directors, city authorities and local party committees\nto be used as a basis for decision-making.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is also an indication that\nthe effectiveness of the secret police informer network, which has served the\nbureaucracy thus far as a gauge of the workers’ views, has become inadequate.\nThere could hardly be clearer proof of the complete absence of any organs of\nworkers’ democracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the Soviet workers move on\nthe road of political revolution, there will be no army that will be able to\nintervene against them, once the troops of the Red Army defy the orders of the\nbureaucracy and cross to the side of the working class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And once the repressive power of\nthe Kremlin bureaucracy is paralysed, there will be nothing to inhibit a\nmovement of the working population throughout Eastern Europe, which would also spur\nmovements towards social revolution in the West.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

World War?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, with the delay of the\nsocial revolution and the delay of the political revolution, the peoples of\nEast and West continue to live under the shadow of the arms race, of nuclear\nweapons and the threat of annihilation. While world war would become a real prospect\nin the circumstances explained in Chapter 3, the onset of such a war is not an\nimmediate perspective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A conventional attack by\nimperialism on Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union is now an impossibility. In\nthe period since the Second World War, Russia has developed its conventional\nforces to the point where it and its Warsaw Pact allies have an overwhelming\nmilitary advantage over imperialist forces in Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Warsaw Pact tanks, artillery and\naircraft outnumber NATO’s by nearly three to one. The Warsaw Pact has 47\ndivisions in northern and central Europe compared to NATO’s 27. By spending 2-3\ntimes the proportion of GNP on arms as, e.g., the USA, the Soviet Union is now\nestimated to have an overall advantage of about four to one in conventional\nterms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Small wonder that in NATO’s most\nrecent full-scale manoeuvres, ‘Operation Crusader’, the whole exercise was\nbased on the calculation of the generals that a Soviet advance across Western\nEurope could be held back for no more than three or four days. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Suicidal<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, the Stalinist\nbureaucracies have no interest in initiating a military invasion of the West\neven if they could do so without precipitating nuclear war. An attempt to\nestablish bureaucratic dictatorship, on the Stalinist model over the powerful\nworking class of Western Europe\u2014when the bureaucracies are having trouble as it\nis maintaining their regimes in their own countries\u2014would be a suicidal absurdity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In terms of nuclear weapons,\nRussia now has tactical superiority in the European ‘theatre’ and has achieved\nat least strategic parity with the USA in the event of an intercontinental\nnuclear war. Both countries, together with the rest of mankind, would be wiped\nout in such an event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because of the economic\ntransformation which has been carried through in the deformed workers’ states,\nimperialism remains in fundamental antagonism to them. Most of all, the\nantagonism is directed towards the most powerful, the Soviet Union.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While US imperialism would not\nshrink from any real opportunity to destroy the Soviet Union by nuclear\nweapons, this is now impossible as a conscious policy of the ruling class\nbecause of the certainty of destruction in return.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For all these reasons, world war\nis ruled out in the short-term and even the medium-term. In the longer term,\nfor the reasons already explained, the holocaust of nuclear war nevertheless\nhangs over us if the socialist revolution in the West is not victorious in the\ncoming one to two decades. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, it is in the interests\nof both the capitalists and the Stalinists to employ the threat of world war as\na means of subduing the working class of West and East. In the case of Russia\nparticularly, the fear of war is a very powerful weapon of propaganda in the\nhands of the bureaucracy, because within living memory the population has\nexperienced millions of deaths and the most terrible suffering and privations\nas a result of imperialist invasion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a contradictory way,\nimperialism and Stalinism buttress each other. As a prop to its own rule, the\nbureaucracy maintains an uneasy relationship of \u2018d\u00e9tente\u2019 with imperialism and\nforswears any encouragement or support for social revolution in any of the\nindustrialised capitalist countries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the opposing character of their economic systems, Stalinism, as\nmuch as imperialism, fears any struggle of the workers to take power into their\nown hands. This is because a regime of workers’ democracy in any important\nindustrialised country would serve as a beacon to the working class of East and\nWest, and set in motion the downfall of both Stalinism and imperialism.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ripeness of the whole world for socialism, and the pressing urgency of socialist revolution is indicated in these perspectives. It has now become a race, in fact, between the social revolution in the West and the political revolution in the East. Whichever occurs first, it will mean the transformation of the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Continue to Chapter Five<\/a>
<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n

[1]<\/a>\nThis perspective, originally\nwritten in 1982, was proved incorrect by the restoration of capitalism across\nthe countries of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the 1990s. This\nparagraph is an unfortunate slip in posing perspectives for the Stalinist\ncountries in absolute terms. Trotsky himself in fact anticipated the\npossibility of capitalist restoration as far back as 1936 if there was a\nsignificant delay in the political revolution, a point that is emphasised throughout\nthe MWT\u2019s The Legacy of Leon Trotsky<\/em>\n(1990) \u2013 Eds. 2017<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Crisis of the Stalinist States Despite the subsequent degeneration of the Russian revolution, its effects continue to reverberate around the world. By overturning the […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":709,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-734","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"acf":[],"_hostinger_reach_plugin_has_subscription_block":false,"_hostinger_reach_plugin_is_elementor":false,"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=734"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/734\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":742,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/734\/revisions\/742"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}