__TITLE__
Socialism
and
Capitalism:
Score
and
Prospects
__TEXTFILE_BORN__ 2007-05-26T20:31:29-0700
__TRANSMARKUP__ "Y. Sverdlov"
PROGRESS
PUBLISHERS
MOSCOW
1971
[1]Translated by Jim Riordem
Edited by Yuri Sdobnikov
Designed by Yuri Klodt
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__COPYRIGHT__ First printing 1971As the year 1917 recedes into the past, the October Socialist Revolution in Russia becomes ever more meaningful and its immense impact on the destiny of mankind more apparent. History has never known events that have so forcibly stamped their mark on social development. The October Revolution in Russia opened the era of revolutionary renewal of the world.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 1. A New Era Is BornThe bourgeoisie came to power at the time of the English Industrial Revolution of the 17th century and the French Revolution of the 18th century. Once they had disposed of the feudal aristocracy and broken the royal power, the bourgeoisie began to flaunt the slogans of liberty, equality and fraternity merely to clear the way for ultimate economic and political domination. It was not liberty that prevailed, but a new form of exploitation of the labouring masses; not equality, but a new and deeper chasm of social and economic inequality; not fraternity, but a savage struggle between antagonistic classes. In the period between 1789 and 1871, the bourgeoisie played a comparatively progressive role in social development. This was not to last long. At the turn of the century, the bourgeoisie found itself on a downgrade, bourgeois democracy increasingly giving way to reaction all along the line. Free-enterprise capitalism evolved into monopoly capitalism. The anti-feudalist bourgeoisie gave way to reactionary finance capital which, in collusion with the surviving feudal lords, took up the cudgels against the rising socialist forces.
The salient feature in world affairs after 1871 was the slow maturation and strengthening of the proletariat. It 5 served notice on the world of its determination to change society when the French workers first shattered the bourgeois state machine in the very heart of capitalist France and established their own revolutionary government---the Paris Commune. In the years that followed, imperialism itself created the material conditions for transition to socialism, and the proletarian revolution became historically inevitable. The labour movement gathered momentum and again and again shook the edifice of capitalism. Yet it was to be some time before the working class could achieve its ultimate aim of gaining power.
Early in the present century, the centre of the world revolutionary struggle shifted to Russia. Marx himself had foreseen this possibility when he wrote, in 1877, that ``the revolution begins in the East, hitherto the unbroken bulwark and reserve army of counter-revolution".^^1^^
The great honour and responsibility of commencing the historical rejuvenation of the world on socialist principles fell to the Russian proletariat. At the turn of the century, the workers of Russia took up the battle against tsarism, the landowners and the bourgeoisie. Russia was then'the weakest link in the imperialist chain and the focus of its contradictions. Moreover, by then the conditions necessary for the victory of socialism had formed on Russian soil. The development of her productive forces had created an economic basis for socialist revolution, and the Russian workers stood out as the most revolutionary-minded, the best organised and the most experienced in class struggle. At their head stood a Marxist-Leninist party guided by advanced revolutionary theory and tempered in many class conflicts. It channelled into a single revolutionary tide the workers' struggle for socialism, the country-wide campaign for peace, the peasants' drive for land and the national liberation struggle of the oppressed peoples of the Russian Empire; it effectively directed these forces to the overthrow of capitalism.
Russia became the cradle of the proletarian revolution; the course of history brought her workers to the forefront of the world socialist and revolutionary movement. Victory in the first socialist revolution came as a logical consequence _-_-_
~^^1^^ K. Marx and F. Kngels, Selected Correspondence, Moscow, 1965, p. 308.
6 of the long battle of Russia's Leninist Party for leadership of the working class in all three Russian revolutions: in 1905, and in February and October of 1917. This struggle also embodied the best revolutionary traditions of workers in other lands, among them the valiant English Chartists, the French and German martyrs of the 1848 barricades, the immortal Paris communards, and the workers of America.Marx once said revolutions were the locomotives of history. Although the definition applies to all social revolutions, it best expressed the October events resulting as they did in an unprecedented acceleration of social progress and serving as the most powerful motor of history the world had ever seen.
The cosmopolitan nature of capital led to the global proliferation of capitalist societies; yet it was merely the substitution of one form of class oppression and exploitation for another. The events of October 1917 brought in their wake the abolition of all exploitation and class tyranny, and the rooting out of the cause: private property in the means of production.
The October Revolution in Russia marked the end of the social pre-history and the start of real history: it was the inauguration of socialist society, with mankind shedding the last form of slavery---capitalist, or wage-slavery.
The October Revolution in Russia fully bore out Lenin's theory that socialist revolution would initially win out in one country. But it was also an international proletarian revolution. Integration of the capitalist world economy and the international nature of the working class spring from the capitalist mode of production, and find expression in the world-wide character of the revolution, while the uneven economic and political development of capitalism leads to proletarian revolutions in various countries at different times.
The global significance and international character of the October Revolution were apparent in the victorious solution of the tasks that had matured not only within the confines of Russia but throughout the world. The revolution marked the first stage in the world socialist revolution and provided a powerful base for its further progress. World events have confirmed that the replacement of capitalism by socialism is historically inevitable, and that the working class alone can 7 save society from the horrors of capitalism in its death throes.
Contrary to enemy forecasts, the October Revolution was neither a passing historical anomaly, nor a chance deviation from the mainstream of social development, nor yet an isolated incident in the history of one nation. The socialist revolution in Russia showed that capitalism had outlived itself, that it had no future, and that in its evolution it had generated the objective and subjective prerequisites for mankind's transition to a new and higher social structure.
Although it had outlived its day, the capitalist class will not voluntarily relinquish power. Indeed, world reaction used its entire arsenal against the Russian revolution, the Russian workers and their allies. It poured all manner of filth and slander on socialism, employed the whiteguard counterrevolutionaries and foreign intervention, war and economic blockade, plots and conspiracies, sabotage and terror---all to destroy the Soviet power, restore capitalism, and halt the course of world-wide socialist revolution. But all these attempts failed.
The October Revolution triumphed under the banner of proletarian internationalism. For many decades progressive workers of Britain, France, Germany and the U.S.A., of nations big and small, had fought for the victory of socialism. And when, at last, their cause triumphed in a country with one-sixth of the world's land surface, the world's workingclass movement rose to new heights. Socialist Russia, which had provided a powerful impulse to the movement all over the world, herself received resolute support from the workers of the world.
The imperialists and their agents in the working class and their accomplices, factionalists and splitters in the communist and working-class movement, have resorted to various shifts and dodges to undermine and disrupt the moral and political unity of the international proletariat, all the world revolutionary forces and the world's first socialist state. But there is no power in the world that can separate the Soviet Union from the world's workers, nor separate the latter from the Soviet Union. The Soviet people are assisting revolutionary and liberation movements, the peoples of other socialist states, the workers of industrially-advanced capitalist countries and of Asian, African and Latin American countries, 8 and mass democratic movements everywhere. In turn, the peoples of the world have pledged their support, and continue to do so, for socialist and communist construction in the U.S.S.R.
This solid brotherhood, which has become a regular feature of contemporary development, has been and will continue to be an inexhaustible source of strength for the world revolutionary process. This mighty alliance is a great force that is doing much to strengthen the hegemony of the working class in world social development and fortify socialism's international positions. As the Declaration of the 1957 Moscow Meeting of Representatives of Communist and Workers' Parties pointed out, the vital interests of workers of all countries today require the support of the Soviet Union and all the socialist countries pursuing a policy of peace throughout the world and providing a bulwark for peace and social progress.
The triumph of the October Revolution and the emergence of the Soviet Union signified a great turning-point in world politics, economics and ideology, a turning-point in the destiny of society---from the old capitalist world to a new socialist world---a most profound change in the minds and lives of hundreds of millions of people. The October Revolution heralded the era of socialist revolutions, an era of liberation of colonial peoples from imperialism. The last half-century has borne witness to the triumph of the great ideas and principles of the October Revolution.
Since October 1917, world revolutionary events have radically altered the face of the earth (see Table 1). The socio-political map of the contemporary world shows, first, that a mass movement is sweeping the world for the universal abolition of capitalist exploitation, social and national oppression, and poverty, and for the establishment of peace, democracy and socialism. Imperialism has forfeited its dominance over the bulk of mankind once and for all.
The second distinctive feature of contemporary society is the peoples' resolution to take the path of socialism and communism. Imperialism has been helpless in preventing the birth and progress of the world socialist system, which has now been firmly established on three continents comprising one-quarter of the world and embracing more than one-third of the world's population---more than 1,000 million people, 9 who have cast off capitalism and are building socialist and communist societies.
Third, the colonial system of imperialism is being incinerated in the flames of the national liberation movement. The Russian revolution also marked a turning-point in the course of the national liberation movement, uniting the struggle of the proletariat and other revolutionary forces for socialism and the struggle of oppressed peoples against colonial tyranny. The national liberation revolutions have destroyed colonial empires and dealt a crushing blow to the citadels of colonialism. Dozens of independent national states have emerged on the ruins of the colonial empires. The revolutionary democratic forces of several newly free states are now directing their development along noncapitalist lines.
Table 1 Territory and World Population by mid-1970 Territory Estimated population mln. sq km % of total mln. people %f total The world ....... 135.8 100 3,615 100 Socialist countries . . . 35.2 25.9 1,215 31.4 Of which U. S. S. R. 22.4 100.6 32.6 9.4 68.0 the U. 16.5 74.1 24.0 6.9 50.7 S.S.R., 242.8 2,400 705 205.3 1,695 196', Mosct 6.7 66.4 19.5 5.7 46.9 )W, 1970, Other countries . ... Advanced capitalist countries ..... Of which U. S. A. . . ... Developing nations . . . Source: The Economy of p. 92 (Russ. ed.).Two worlds, that of socialism and capitalism, have been confronting each other internationally ever since the socialist revolution took Russia out of the sphere of capitalist laws. This ushered in an era of contention, coexistence and competition of the two systems, an epoch of decline, disintegration and ultimate demise of capitalism, and of growth, fortification and ultimate triumph of socialism throughout the world. Capitalism cannot extricate itself from 10 the deep crisis that has seized bourgeois society from top to bottom, engulfing its economic and political order, its productive forces, domestic and foreign policy, and its entire ideological superstructure.
It is ridiculous to seek some kind of conspiratorial force or export of revolution behind the world proletarian revolution, the disintegration of colonialism, and the expansion of the world revolutionary movement. Lenin roundly condemned the ``Left''-wing Communist efforts to ``spur'' revolutions; this he branded as completely at odds with Marxism, which had always rejected the ``spurring'' of revolutions which matured in step with the exacerbation of class contradictions. Lenin and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union have always most vigorously resisted any attempts to force the pace of revolutions by means of war, and adventurist theories of exporting revolution, which always find adherents among the petty bourgeoisie, especially at crucial moments in history. The socialist revolution is not a palace revolt, nor is it a putsch by a small band of heroes. It is a movement embracing the great mass of the working people.
Imperialist policy-makers, particularly those in the U.S.A. who consider it their duty to police the world and exploit it, resort to all manner of plots, adventures and export of counter-revolution in order to hamper social progress and underpin the tottering edifice of capitalism. However, none of these policies can modify historical necessity; in fact they merely serve to fortify it.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 2. Impact of the October RevolutionThe historic significance of the October Revolution is not confined to its revelation of the coming end of world bourgeois domination. The succinct yet forceful description Lenin gave of its international impact was that the ice had been broken, the path cleared and the way shown. He saw the international importance of the October events not just in their effect on revolutionary movements elsewhere, but in that the essential pattern of the Russian revolution was bound to recur on a world scale.
The revolutionary changes in the U.S.S.R. led to the 11 complete and final victory of socialism and transition to communist construction. The years since 1917 have provided a unique test of the vitality and strength of the socialist economy. They have amply demonstrated that the socialist system is a superior form of social organisation in peace and in war.
As pioneers on a difficult and uncharted journey, the Soviet people may pride themselves on having overcome the obstacles in building socialism while surrounded by hostile capitalist powers; they have transformed a weak and backward country into a mighty industrial and agricultural power which can boast a high economic and cultural standard. The three essential ingredients in Lenin's plan for building socialism were socialist industrialisation, the collectivisation of agriculture and a cultural revolution. These aims have been realised.
Soviet industrialisation was a great achievement of the working class, who spared no effort or material sacrifice to take their country out of its state of backwardness. In a relatively short time, by its own efforts and without outside help, the country created a large-scale socialist industry with a stable high rate of development and an advanced technology that has placed it among the world's leading scientific and technological powers. By 1941, after the first three fiveyear plans, the U.S.S.R. had attained complete economic autarky and had become a powerful industrial state.
At long last, a solution was found for the age-old peasant problem---the transformation of tiny scattered peasant farms into socialist co-operatives largely settled the issue of socialism in the U.S.S.R. Literally millions of small peasant farmers voluntarily joined the collective farms (kolkhozes). Alongside these Soviet state farms (sovkhozes) spread throughout the countryside. Collectivisation once and for all rid the countryside of the curse of the kulak cabal, of class stratification, of impoverishment and starvation. Once Soviet farming had been established on a large-scale, well-equipped socialist foundation, a genuine revolution occurred in economic relations and in the whole pattern of the peasant way of life.
The cultural revolution liberated the common people from their ignorance and spiritual enslavement, and made available to them all the cultural riches accumulated by mankind 12 over the ages. The intelligentsia grew out of the ranks of the working people. The country in which the vast bulk of the people had been illiterate took a giant step forward towards the summit of science and culture.
It required titanic efforts from the Soviet people to turn backward Russia into an economically advanced and culturally ilourishing socialist power. It was no easy task to overthrow the power of the bourgeoisie, the landowners and the tsar in a backward peasant country. But it was even harder to defend the Soviet power against counter-revolution and foreign intervention, and to set up a viable economy and reshape agriculture in the exasperating internal and external conditions. As Lenin had rightly foreseen, ``it was easier for the Russians than for the advanced countries to begin the great proletarian revolution, but ... it will be more difficult for them to continue it and carry it to final victory, in the sense of the complete organisation of a socialist society".^^1^^ Socialist construction was made incredibly difficult by the economic, technical and cultural backwardness that was the legacy of tsarism. Furthermore, for virtually thirty years the U.S.S.R. stood alone as the world's only socialist state, due to delay in the development of the world socialist revolution. This complicated still further the construction of socialism. Nevertheless, the Soviet people managed to accomplish their task, consciously accepting the tremendous sacrifices and deprivations involved for the sake of securing the independence of their country, boosting the nation's resources and fulfilling their internationalist duty.
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (C.P.S.U.) led the Soviet people to victorious socialism through hard battles against the ``Left''-wing Communists, the Trotskyites advocating ``revolutionary war'', the Right-wing opportunists, national-deviationists and other groups hostile to the ideas of Leninism, and against the doubters, the capitulators and the adventurists. Events have fully borne out the correctness of the policies of Lenin and the Communist Party he founded; they have refuted the prophesies of Trotsky about Thermidor reaction, the ``bourgeoisification'', and the imminent demise of the revolution.
Whatever aspect of social relations we examine today, _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 29, p. 310.
13 great changes are apparent as a consequence of the revolution and socialist construction.The prime political accomplishment is the establishment of a new type of state, a socialist state, and of a higher form of democracy---socialist democracy. In social relations, the people's age-old dream has come true: parasitic classes of exploiters are a thing of the past; no more is man oppressed by man. The working class has come to be the governing force, and the peasants now farm on socialist lines. Soviet society consists of the classes of workers and collective farmers, who are not divided by any antagonistic differences. The people's intelligentsia is taking an active part alongside these friendly classes in building communism.
The revolution in the ideological field has been profound in content and far-reaching in social significance. MarxismLeninism, the ideology that fully dominates political thought in the Soviet Union today, is a truly scientific world outlook. A socialist culture has taken shape, and collective principles have come to dictate relations between Soviet people.
Radical changes have also taken place in material production, the decisive sphere of man's social activity. The paramount economic gain lies in establishing public ownership of the means of production. Soviet power has nationalised industry, the railways, banks and the land. It has abolished the landed estates and realised the peasant's ageold dream of land for himself. In a relatively short period, the Soviet people built a strong socialist economy and now, on this basis, they are successfully tackling their main economic task of building the material and technical base of communist society.
From 1913 to 1969, Soviet industrial output increased nearly 85 times, and that of the U.S.A. 8 times, of West Germany 6, Britain about 3, and France about 4 times. In economic power, the Soviet Union is today the world's No. 2, all the while narrowing the gap with the U.S.A. and fast becoming the world's leading industrial country.
Far-going qualitative changes are now proceeding throughout all branches of the socialist economy, particularly the chemical industry, precision instrument and machine-- building, radio electronics, fast transport, atomic energy and 14 space exploration. All this symbolises the industrial, scientific and technological buoyancy of the Soviet state. In 1967, a new record of over 100 million tons of steel was reached; that year electric power generation attained a 370-fold increase over 1913.
Notwithstanding its multifarious problems at various stages, the Soviet economy has always maintained its upward trend. The rate of scientific and technological progress and of the application of the latest inventions and modifications has accelerated. All the leading branches of the economy have been re-equipped. The output of consumer goods has been greatly increased. Labour productivity has considerably risen due to the workers' growing initiative and to the introduction of the latest machinery and devices, and mechanisation and automation in all economic sectors. The Soviet Union's scientific and industrial achievements have enabled it to equip the Soviet Armed Forces with the latest military hardware. The Soviet Union's prestige in world affairs has been further enhanced.
The 24th Congress of the C.P.S.U. decided that the main task of the current, Ninth Five-Year Economic Development Plan of the U.S.S.R. for 1971--75 is to bring about a considerable upswing in the people's material and cultural standards through a high rate of development of socialist production, its increasing efficiency, scientific and technical progress and ever faster growing productivity of labour. The line of bringing about a substantial rise in the working people's welfare determines the overall orientation of the country's economic development over a long term, constituting one of the most important prerequisites for the further rapid growth of production.
As the five-year plan is fulfilled, the national income of the USSR is to go up by 37--40 per cent, including the consumption fund by 40 per cent and the accumulation fund by 37 per cent. Industrial output is to go up by 42--46 per cent, and average annual farm output by 20--22 per cent. Real incomes per head are to increase by almost one-third. Heavy industry is to remain the solid basis of the country's economic might, and of the people's growing living standards, but the accumulated production potential makes it possible in the new five-year period to have the output of consumer goods develop somewhat faster than the output of producer goods. 15 The plan provides for an increase of consumer goods output over the five years by 44--48 per cent, and of producer goods, by 41--45 per cent. Labour productivity in industry is to go up by 36--40 per cent, as compared with 32 per cent in the 1966--70 period.
The economic reform is gaining scope and momentum in the country and is having a beneficial effect on the national economy. At the factories and mines that have adopted the new system, production is more efficient, labour productivity is rising faster, and plant and raw materials are more rationally utilised. The guiding aim behind this reform is to improve economic efficiency and to make the utmost use of the advantages of the socialist system. The important economic and social measures now being put through are consistent with the further improvement of socialist democracy.
The Soviet people look on their communist construction and improved economic, political and military strength not simply as an essential domestic affair but as their vital internationalist duty. All forces of socialism and revolution have a stake in what is going on inside the U.S.S.R., because their own interests require the Soviet Union to prevail in the economic competition with capitalism in as short a period as possible. As they advance their economy, the Soviet people reinforce the defence capacity of the entire socialist community, toiling for their class brothers wherever they may be, and labouring for the cause of socialism and all mankind. The general line of the C.P.S.U. in building communism is to combine the national and internationalist duties of the Soviet people.
The Soviet people have been effectively pursuing their mission as pioneers of socialism. The Soviet system, the socialist economic structure and the policy of the C.P.S.U. have withstood the severe test of time. Soviet attainments have shown the world that the working class is capable not only of destroying the old world, but of creating a new and incomparably more progressive society, the most just and advanced system---communism.
International events have provided an answer to the question of future development. History has confirmed that socialism is the only social and political order genuinely capable of solving the social problems confronting humanity. Socialism, whose inevitability had been forecast by Karl 16 Marx and Frederick Engels, whose construction plan had been mapped out by Vladimir Lenin, is now a reality in the Soviet Union. The peoples of the world can now see socialism in practice instead of reading about it in books and manifestoes. They have gained a science verified by the experience of socialist construction and a viable socialist society.
The Soviet people have borne the main brunt of combating imperialism; in defeating fascism in World War II they have also fulfilled their internationalist duty to the whole working-class movement, and to all mankind. The last war was a severe test of the viability of the Soviet state and social system. By their crucial contribution to the defeat of fascism, the Soviet people helped to rescue world civilisation and save the people of the world from fascist bondage and destruction. But for this contribution, socialism today would not be scoring its successes and developing in depth and breadth, the world working-class movement would not be on the upgrade, and the national liberation movement would not have broken down colonialism.
The international proletariat can well regard the U.S.S.R. as its own land. By building socialism, the Soviet working class and the whole people have under the leadership of their Communist Party erected a strong base for the revolutionary movement of the proletariat and all downtrodden classes and nations. They have enriched the world revolutionary forces with experience, equipped them with knowledge of how to attain both the immediate and ultimate goals of the working class, and to ensure the establishment and progress of the new social system. Thus the working class and the entire people of the Soviet Union have fulfilled their greatest internationalist, revolutionary duty.
It has fallen to the Soviet Union to play a highly responsible part in world affairs. As the centre of the world revolutionary movement, the U.S.S.R. bears an immense international obligation to the world's working class and to all opponents of imperialism. The Soviet people are justly proud to hear the fraternal Communist and Workers' Parties say that the Soviet people and the Soviet Communists are true to their internationalist duty and have lived up to their high reputation as the homeland of Leninism.
Today, the Soviet Union is the chief economic, political __PRINTERS_P_17_COMMENT__ 2---235 17 and military bulwark of the world socialist community, which itself is a magnificent achievement of the world's working class.
The U.S.S.R. renders fraternal assistance to other socialist countries, and smooths and accelerates the advance to communism for the whole community of free nations. It stands as a redoubtable bastion, providing encouragement to the communist and working-class movements both in the industrialised and in the less developed countries of the capitalist world. It sustains peoples in their efforts to wipe out the last vestiges of the colonial system, to consolidate and to attain both political and economic independence. It is doing all in its power to save mankind from the threat of thermonuclear war, thereby performing an invaluable service to humanity.
Soviet success in building socialism and communism is due to the fact that the C.P.S.U. has followed undeviatingly Marxist-Leninist policies, boldly providing answers to the new problems engendered by life, giving correct evaluations of changing events, and finding ways of using concrete historical conditions in the interests of the revolution. The indestructible ties with the people and the cohesion of the C.P.S.U.'s ranks have enabled the Party to make the most of Soviet achievements in fortifying the world positions of socialism and of all the forces working for a revolutionary renewal of the world on socialist lines.
The experience of October 1917 and of subsequent Soviet progress has demonstrated that socialism is the only alternative to the ills of exploitation and social and national subjugation. Furthermore, it is now axiomatic that nations can arrive at socialism only by way of a socialist revolution.
Soviet experience has further shown that the working class can only pursue their mission as creators of the new society in firm alliance with non-proletarians, including peasants. An essential law of the proletarian revolution and socialist construction is that leadership must be provided for the non-proletarians by the working class, with the Marxist-Leninist Party as its nucleus. Only with the hegemony of the working class, which rallies all the working people, is it possible to build and strengthen a society in which people are held together by relations of brotherly solidarity and comradely mutual assistance.
18Soviet history shows that a country wishing to make utmost use of the fruits of the scientific and technical revolution in the interest of society as a whole and rapidly boost its productive forces in a balanced manner must base its economy on socialist property in the means of production. It came as no surprise that the world's socialist pioneer has also pioneered the peaceful uses of atomic power and space research, and leads the world in scientific and technological progress. Illustrative of the immense potential of dynamic communism are its sophisticated space rockets and inter-planetary spaceships, powerful nuclear power stations, Soviet manned space ilights, the landing of an automatic station on the surface of Venus, flights round the moon and return to earth, and automatic docking of space equipment in orbit.
The progress of Soviet society is proof that the agrarian and peasant problem can only be solved by a radical transformation of agriculture in a socialist way, through the voluntary association of peasant farmers in agricultural cooperatives to save them from privation and rank poverty, and assure them of progress towards a life of plenty.
The Soviet people have come a long way since 1917, and have shown in practice that socialism alone, by turning the labouring people into masters of all the resources, enables them to develop social production and to distribute material goods in the interests both of society as a whole and of each individual, and use the national income as best befits the interests of society. Socialism alone puts an end to national oppression and creates all the necessary conditions for a voluntary union of free and equal nations and nationalities within a single state.
Soviet experience has shown that socialism eliminates the mercenary motives that underlie relationships in a class society. It opens the way for man's all-round development and genuine freedom. For the first time in history it establishes a basis for equality between people: everyone's identical relation to the means of production and release of all working people from exploitation. There lies true social justice, the supreme evidence of the individual's true freedom.
The basic human rights are effectively guaranteed in the Soviet Union: equal right to work, equality of men and women in every sphere of social life, the right to receive an education and paid holidays, the right of all citizens to 19 all-round physical and intellectual development, and to material security in old age, in the event of sickness or disability. Socialism gives people a great sense of certainty in their own and their children's future, a secure feeling that their affluence is permanent, and this engenders a spirit of historical optimism.
World events in the past half century have borne out the historical justice of the October Revolution and the superiority of the Soviet socialist system. At the same time, they have refuted imperialist claims that capitalism is being renewed and given a new lease of life, as an ``affluent society" for all. With the vices of their system staring them in the face, bourgeois politicians are forced to resort to social mimicry and manoeuvre. This simply goes to show that socialism has become a living revolutionary example undermining the foundations of capitalism.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 3. The Socialist SystemWhen socialism outgrew the bounds of one country and became a world system, it was the greatest historical event after the October 1917 Revolution. The socialist system had its beginnings in the Soviet Republic. Favourable conditions for the overthrow of the capitalists and landowners in several European and Asian countries were created by the defeat of German nazism and Japanese militarism in the Second World War, with the U.S.S.R. playing the decisive role, the weakening of imperialist positions in the world, and the mighty surge of the revolutionary liberation and anti-- imperialist movements. This was a major advance for the world socialist revolution.
Post-1917 history naturally falls into two stages which differ primarily in the balance of power between the opposing socio-economic systems. At one time, there was only one socialist country, with the dictatorship of the proletariat established within the national boundaries of one state. In the early Soviet years, Lenin compared the young Soviet Republic, struggling in a hostile environment to beat off the attacks of foreign interventionist armies and domestic counter-revolutionaries, to a tiny island battered by waves 20 of imperialist predators. ``Materially---economically and militarily---we are extremely weak,'' he said. Yet even at that time he foresaw the important part socialism was to play in determining the future of mankind. Lenin said, ``Morally ---by which, of course, I mean not abstract morals, but the alignment of the real forces of all classes in all countries--- we are the strongest of all. This has been proved in practice; it has been proved not merely by words but by deeds; it has been proved once and, if history takes a certain turn, it will, perhaps, be proved many times again."^^1^^
Since the October Revolution sweeping changes have occurred in the lives and destinies of men, nations and whole continents. In its thousand years feudalism had not been able to generate enough economic power to set in motion a community of nations bound by economic ties. Capitalism, emerging in the 16th century, became a world economic system only in the 19th century. It took the bourgeois revolutions 300 years to put an end to the political power of the feudal elite. It took socialism 30 to 40 years to generate the forces for a new world system.
The formation of the socialist community heralded a new stage in the world proletarian revolution. The capitalist encirclement had been broken. Imperialist supremacy gave way to the growing ascendancy of the world socialist forces. Dictatorship of the working class, embodied in the world socialist community, has become an international force that is beginning to exert a decisive influence on world affairs. The world working class and its chief accomplishment---the world socialist community---today stand at the centre of world events.
When the world capitalist economy emerged, the bourgeoisie took especial pride in fulfilling the ``civilising mission" of capital expansion. Not a word was said about the world dichotomy of the industrially advanced and the agriculturally backward, the metropolitan states and their colonies, the oppressors and the oppressed. But that was capitalism's real ``civilising mission''. The world socialist system has developed by quite different laws and on totally different lines, namely, the sovereignty, voluntary accord and full identity of the vital interests of the working people of all _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 33, p. 151.
21 countries within the community. The social, economic and political community of sovereign nations building socialism and communism has become the motive force of world-wide progress. The world socialist economic system rests on common socialist relations of production, and it has developed on the sound basis of the economic laws of socialism.In terms of world history, the socialist community is young, but it has already accumulated valuable collective experience in socialist construction. It is not one country, but a large group of countries that today bear witness to the general nature of the basic trends and laws that lie behind socialist revolution and construction, whatever the economic levels, and the historical and national specific forms.
The world revolutionary movement can now draw on the experience of the people's democracies---another form of proletarian dictatorship---in addition to that of the Soviet power. It can draw on the knowledge of peaceful and nonpeaceful forms of socialist revolution, the use of parliament and of one- or multi-party systems in reshaping society along socialist lines. It has at its disposal the experience of socialist construction in industrial and agrarian less developed countries, including those that have bypassed the capitalist stage of development, and the experience of agricultural cooperation and drawing the peasants into socialism with regard for national and peasant traditions.
In the course of their development, the socialist countries are constantly encountering fresh problems that are as complex and diverse as life itself. Therefore, the advance to socialism and communism insistently calls for a creative approach to all new issues on the well-tried basis of MarxismLeninism, and exchange of opinion and experience. This makes it possible---at the right time---to sum up and make fuller use of the best experience from each country and the entire socialist community; it enables each nation to pursue the most appropriate policy in building socialism and communism. This collective experience of the socialist states is an invaluable asset of all the revolutionary forces. Verified in practice by a whole group of countries, it is a powerful catalyst of social progress throughout the world.
The U.S.S.R., with socialism established fully and completely, is now proceeding with the full-scale construction of communism. Other socialist countries have converted their 22 pluralistic economies into predominantly socialist ones. The success of their policy of socialist industrialisation has created advanced economies. They have built a developed industry and raised the living standards of their people. Not long ago, some of these countries were backward agrarian states; many have now become and others are about to become industrially advanced socialist states. In most of them, industrial production amounts to almost 75 per cent of their gross social product.
Most have successfully tackled or are tackling the seemingly intractable problem of encouraging peasants to switch from small-scale private farming to large-scale cooperative socialist farming. They are all consolidating their socialist systems, improving social relations, raising living standards, and completing construction of the material and technical basis for socialism, where this has not already been accomplished. They have reached the stage of building a developed socialist society before starting on a gradual transition to communism.
In material production, the decisive sphere of social activity, socialism is rapidly gaining on capitalism, as the following figures indicate:
Table 2 Socialist Countries' Share in World Industrial Output 1017 Under 3 per cent 1937 Under 10 per cent 1950 About 20 per cent 1909 About 39 per cent (the Soviet contribution amounted lo almost 20 per cent) Source: The Economy of the U.S.S.R., 1969, Moscow, 1970, p. 92 (Russ. ed.).In 1969 socialist industrial output was two-thirds of that of the advanced capitalist states. Taken together, the socialist countries accounted for 20 per cent of the world's electric power, compared with 14.9 per cent in 1960. They produced virtually a third of the world's steel and cement, over 50 per cent of its coal, grain and sugar-beet, and 40 per cent of its cotton and milk.
The socialist countries' growing share of world output is a material expression of the progressive historical process in 23 which the sphere of imperialist exploitation and capitalist influence is narrowed down while the world positions of socialism are enlarged. The socialist economy has been growing at a faster pace than the capitalist economy.
From 1966 to 1970, industrial output in the socialist countries increased at an annual average of 7.3 per cent, including the U.S.S.R. 8.5 per cent, as compared with the 5.3 per cent for the developed capitalist countries, including 3.3 per cent for the U.S.A. In that same period, national income in the socialist countries grew at an annual average rate of 7 per cent, including the U.S.S.R. 7.6 per cent, as against 4.8 per cent for the developed capitalist countries, and 3.4 per cent for the U.S.A.
The socialist countries have now set themselves the task of outstripping the capitalist system in the share of world production, and the most advanced capitalist countries in industrial and agricultural output per head and in productivity of social labour. The radical economic reforms now under way in the socialist countries are designed to bring nearer the realisation of this goal. They are intended to make the socialist economy more productive by combining central planning with rational application of such factors as profit and material incentives. If the socialist states are to make correct use of the favourable objective opportunities for continued rapid economic progress, they have primarily to apply the general laws of socialist construction, taking into account the interests of the world socialist system as a whole and the historical and economic specifics of individual countries; they have to make full use of the advantages stemming from the very existence of the world socialist community. Today, full value from the economic laws of socialism can be obtained only by applying them both within an international and national framework.
International socialist co-operation of labour is a force accelerating social production in every socialist country, enabling every member-country to use its resources rationally and to the full, to boost the productive forces, to improve efficiency in production, and to organise enterprises so that they reap the benefit of optimum capacity and up-to-date equipment. This also enables them to overcome various difficulties arising from the fact that the states have entered the socialist community at different times and at different 24 levels of economic development, with unequal advantages of raw materials and fuel and power resources.
Economic co-operation promoting balanced and proportional growth of the socialist economy has gone a long way from short-term, bilateral trade agreements to multilateral economic ties, co-ordination of key targets in current and long-term economic plans, co-ordination of capital investment and research programmes, and elaboration of common technical policies.
The prevailing international situation increases the need to sustain the solidarity and strength of the world socialist community and promote political and economic co-operation between all the socialist countries; it is more important than ever before to strengthen the international solidarity of the working class, to support the peoples fighting colonialism and neo-colonialism, and to work steadily for a stronger alliance with those fighting for national liberation.
Socialist unity has suffered a serious setback from the divisive course being pursued by the incumbent leadership of the Chinese People's Republic. The great-power chauvinism of Mao Tse-tung and his group in their attitude to the socialist countries, their splitting tactics within the world communist movement, have nothing in common with Marxism-Leninism. Their policy merely harms the cause of socialism and of the world working-class and liberation movement as well as the Chinese people's socialist gains and, objectively, provides sustenance for imperialism in continuing its aggressive policies. For the sake of the unity of all revolutionary forces against imperialism, the Chinese people must overcome the pernicious policy of Mao Tse-tung.
As the socialist community has grown in strength, it has exerted ever greater influence on the destinies of mankind and the whole course of world social progress. It is exerting an ever-increasing influence on the level, way and overall direction of the current scientific and technological revolution, and on the development of productive forces throughout the world. The progressiveness of a social system, particularly in the space and atomic age, implies far more than a mere ability to boost production. The main thing is to harness economic development for the welfare of man, instead of using it to manufacture mass destruction weapons. Socialist economic progress is a convincing example 25 of how rapidly mankind could augment its social wealth and welfare, but for capitalism. Socialism alone is able to apply scientific and technological achievements for the common good; socialism alone can exert rational control of the swiftly growing productive forces. When socialism demonstrates its superiority over capitalism in this vital respect, it gives hope to millions of people all over the world, who see that science could greatly improve their lives and bring lasting permanent peace. More and more people look to socialism for salvation.
The world socialist system, the U.S.S.R. first and foremost, with its impressive economic and military potential, is increasing its influence over the issues of war and peace. Both the Soviet Union and other socialist countries have more than once foiled imperialism's aggressive intentions, halted the export of counter-revolution and saved the world from a catastrophic global thermonuclear war.
Another historic contribution of socialism is that it has greatly accelerated the disintegration of imperialism; now that the world socialist system is the dominant factor in world development, it has a large part to play in the breakup of the world capitalist economic structure. Capitalism's international division of labour is in acute crisis. Now that the imperialist policy of rape and plunder of weak states has come up against the socialist policy of selfless assistance and economic co-operation with less advanced countries on the basis of equal rights and mutual advantage, even small nations who were but recently bound to the colonialists with economic and political ties are able to fend off the economic assaults of the imperialist powers.
The world socialist system is increasing its impact on the condition and struggle of the working class and all working people in the capitalist world, whose campaign for social progress and democracy is inspired by socialism's economic advance, its rising standards of living, the farreaching social rights enjoyed by all working people, and the genuine democracy that prevails in all the socialist countries. At the same time, the growing preponderance of the socialist forces over the capitalist, the moral and material support of the people in these countries by the U.S.S.R. and other socialist countries provide the working people of the capitalist world with increasingly favourable 26 conditions in which to campaign for their immediate and ultimate goals, and pave the way for transition to socialism. In this manner, the conditions of the class struggle have been changing within the capitalist countries; socialist ideas have been gaining ground and the workers' class consciousness mounting.
Socialist revolution may win out by peaceful means or through an armed uprising. Today, however, the strength of world socialism makes non-violent revolution in some countries much more likely than before. Internal counter-revolution is finding it increasingly difficult to gain support from outside, from the international imperialist bourgeoisie, and that is why there is no inevitable necessity that the overthrown exploiters will use force, start a destructive civil war and open foreign intervention.
In this situation, a victorious revolution can immediately concentrate on building socialism and carrying through radical social and economic change. Once it has overthrown the capitalist power, the working class can rely on the economic and political might and fraternal support of the existing socialist countries. Not only can it take advantage of past experience in building socialism and communism; it can be assured of economic, scientific and cultural assistance. And this will greatly help to accelerate the transition to the new way of life and enable new socialist states to consolidate their position in the world.
Even the smaller states can defend their vital interests with the help of the U.S.S.R. and the other socialist nations, and repulse attacks from aggressive imperialist powers. Heroic Vietnam is an outstanding example of this in her courageous fight against the American war machine.
Socialist success in the campaign for peace and democracy is leading to a stronger and broader social base and growing political activity of the general democratic movement against monopoly rule in the capitalist countries. Furthermore, with the growing preponderance of socialism, there is a real possibility today that the remaining colonies and semi-colonies will gain true independence from imperialism even before socialism has completely prevailed and while capitalism and imperialism still remain in a part of the world. While victory in the fight for political independence by the peoples who have broken the shackles of colonial bondage is only feasible 27 with the support of the world socialist system, the more so economic independence, which cannot be gained without socialist backing.
Socialist and communist advances in the U.S.S.R. and the socialist community as a whole and the world balance of power between socialism and imperialism have a substantial impact on the working-class struggle in the advanced capitalist countries and on the successful completion of national liberation and anti-imperialist revolutions. Whether the massive peasant campaigns and popular movements will overthrow the tyrannical regimes largely depends on the successes of world socialism. So, too, does the future of the democratic movements against the monopolies and imperialist governments, against national oppression, and for lasting peace. In politics, economics, technology, science and culture, socialism is fast becoming the world centre of attraction and the decisive force in the revolutionary reshaping of human society.
[28] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter Two __ALPHA_LVL1__ PRINCIPAL TRENDS IN THE ECONOMICEconomic competition between socialism and capitalism is an objective historical process whose content is the drive of the socialist formation for the highest standards in every sphere of economic and social life on the basis of the highest possible productivity of social labour. In this context, the U.S.S.R. has made an important contribution to history by laying a sound economic foundation for promoting world revolutionary progress.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 1. Russia's Economic Level JustTsarist Russia, despite her swift capitalist development and high concentration in industry, was very far behind the world's leading capitalist countries. Her national income per head (within the U.S.S.R.'s present boundaries) was oneseventh of the U.S. figure, one-fifth of the British, one-third of the French, and just over one-third of the German. Russia's national wealth per head came to no more than 13.5 per cent of the U.S. figure. And in fixed capital accumulation---a crucial sector of the national wealth---Russia was farther behind; her industrial plant and equipment, i.e., her production facilities were worth less than one-twentieth of the U.S. figure.
One cause of this was the lopsided structure of the Russian economy. The major part of the national income came from agriculture, where labour was least productive.
The structure of Russian industry did not match up to the needs of a country that wanted to develop independently. Output of producer goods was low. Domestic production covered only one-sixth of the demand for metal-working lathes, one-quarter for textile plant, one-eighth for steam 29 Table 3 Struclurc of Russian and U. S. National Incomes in 1913 (per cent) Russia U.S.A. Agriculture, forestry and fishing . Industry ..... 54.0 21.8 24.1 34.0 Transport . . . 8.9 14.2 Huilding ........ 7.1 fi.7 Trade ...... 8 2 22.0 Total . . . 100.0 100.0 Sources: S. N. Prokopovich, Estimated National Income of 60 Gubernias of European Russia, 1900--1913, Moscow, 1818, p. 64 (Russ. ed.); Historical Statistics of the United States. 17S9-1945, Washington, 1949, p. 14. engines, and one-tenth for spare parts for industrial machinery. Producer goods made up approximately one-third of industrial production, as compared with two-thirds in the U.S.A.
It is not surprising therefore that Russian gross industrial output was one-eighth of the American, and one-thirteenth in per head terms. Industrial labour productivity in Russia was one-ninth of the U.S. level.
In summing up the general state of Russia's economic life on the eve of the First World War, Lenin wrote: ``In the half century since the liberation of the peasants the consumption of iron in Russia has increased fivefold, but Russia still remains an unbelievably, unprecedentedly backward country, poverty-stricken and half-savage, four times worse-off than Britain, five times worse-off than Germany and ten times worse-off than America in terms of modern means of production."^^1^^
The full extent of the economic lag and its tendencies are apparent from the following figures. In 1900 Russia's per head production of pig iron was one-eighth of the American, one-sixth of the German, and one-third of the French. Yet, thirteen years later the gap had increased to oneeleventh of the American, one-eighth of the German, and _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 19, p. 292.
30 one-fourth of the French. The oil figures tell the same story: in 1900, Russia produced 9 per cent less than the U.S.A., but 81 per cent less in 1913. Table 4 National Income and Industrial Growth in Russia and U.S.A., 1000--13 (per cent) liussia U.S.A. Overall national income growth . 2.8 3.6 net industrial production . . . 3.8 4.0 Per head national income .... 1.2 1.7 net industrial output per head of population . 2.0 2.6 Sources: S. N. Prokopovich's estimate in P. I. Lyashchenko, A Jlistory of the National Economy, Vol. II, Moscow, 1956, pp. 348--49 (Uuss. ed.); Historical Statistics of the United States, 17S9-1945, pp. 14, 26, 231.By the end of the last century railway construction in Russia was well under way, but while it helped to develop industry and expand the home market, its scope was inadequate in relation to the country's territory and population. In length and density of track per 10,000 population, Russia lagged far behind the U.S.A. and Europe's major capitalist countries (see Table 5).
Agriculture was the chief source of livelihood for over four-fifths of the people of Russia, and provided the state with most of its resources. Yet in 1913 net agricultural production stood at about 60 per cent, and per head agricultural production at 40 per cent of the corresponding U.S. indexes.
Russia's industrial workers had a much lower living standard than their American comrades. In 1913, Lenin estimated that industrial wages were 4 times lower than in the U.S.A., and average farm wages 4.6 times lower.^^1^^ The material condition of most Russian peasants was much worse.
The cultural level of Russia's working people, mostly peasants, was one of the lowest in Europe. According to the _-_-_
~^^1^^ Ibid., Vol. 19, p. 36. V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Fifth Russ. ed., Vol. 23, pp. 168--69.
31 Table 5 Railways in Russia arid Major Capitalist Countries in 1913 (1,000 km) Railway track per 1,000 sq km per 10,000 population U.S.A. . . 402.0 63.4 68.0* 40.8 38.1 51.3 117.8 3.2 76.2 121.7 41.7 9.5 5.1 10.3 8.3 Germany Russia France ...... Great Jiritain * Within the 1939 Soviet boundaries. Source: The World Economy. Collection of Statistical Materials. 1913--1927, Moscow, 1928, pp. 272--74, 670--72 (Russ. ed.). 1897 Census, only 21 per cent of the population could read or write. Four-fifths of all children and adolescents had no schooling at all. On this score Lenin wrote: ``There is no other country so barbarous and in which the masses of the people are robbed to such an extent of education, light and knowledge---no other such country has remained in Europe; Russia is the exception."^^1^^ By comparison with America, Russia had one-fourth the number of people studying per 1,000 population. Lenin went on to say that ``America is not among the advanced countries as far as the number of literates is concerned. There are about 11 per cent illiterates and among the Negroes the figure is as high as 44 per cent. But the American Negroes are more than twice as well-off in respect of public education as the Russian peasantry".^^2^^One of the main reasons for Russia's backwardness was the survivals of feudalism and serfdom in every aspect of economic, political and social life. Draught animals and mainly wooden implements were common to Russian £arms; just prior to the 1914--18 war Russia had 8 million oneblade and 3 million multi-blade wooden ploughs (and 6 million iron ploughs) and 5,700,000 wooden harrows. _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 19, p. 139.
~^^2^^ Ibid., pp. 139--40.
32 Harvesting machinery and steam threshers were the preserve of the big and medium landowners. Though there were less than 30,000 big landowners in 1913, they had as much land (70 million dessiatines^^1^^) as 10 million peasant farmers. This gave a big landowner on average as much land as 330 poor peasant families; the average poor peasant holding amounted to 7 dessiatines, compared with the big landowner's 2,300 dessiatines.The landed estates were therefore the economic basis for preserving what was left of feudalism. The impoverished peasant, indentured in every possible way, continued to toil for the landowner. By 1913, in various parts of Russia, the share of land tilled by peasants on the metayage basis was between 21 and 68 per cent of their own land. Virtually half of all the peasant farms remained essentially sub-marginal, producing practically no marketable produce and therefore unable to purchase goods in exchange. The remnants of serfdom kept the peasants poor and oppressed, reduced purchasing power in the country, and restricted the internal market for industry. The rapid social differentiation given a fresh impetus after the 1905 revolution made things much worse for the great bulk of the peasants. By 1912, more than 31 per cent of all Russian farms were horseless.
The social and cultural backwardness of the Russian countryside stunted initiative, preserved the old routine farming methods and kept farming technically and economically backward. Development was held up by the semifeudal nature of agrarian relations, and rested mainly on obsolete techniques and scattered small-scale commodity subsistence and near-subsistence farms. The three-field system predominated. Only 4 per cent of the arable land was under industrial crops. Consequently, in 1913 Russia had to import about one-half of her requirements of cotton, over 80 per cent in raw silk, and a large part of her wool.
Russia attracted substantial capital investment from abroad. At the turn of the century Russian capital was unable to sustain a sufficiently high rate of capital accumulation or create its own technological base for development and this impelled her ruling circles to encourage foreign investments. On the eve of the First World War, Russia accounted for _-_-_
~^^1^^ 1 dessiatine = 2.7 acres.
__PRINTERS_P_33_COMMENT__ 3---235 33 27.5 per cent of French invested capital, 23.4 per cent of the Belgian and 15.4 per cent of the German with total foreign investment in Russian industry amounting to more than 2,000 million rubles, or almost one-third of all the jointstock invested in Russia. Although native Russian capital dominated the economy, foreign capital was being invested faster: between 1900 and 1913, foreign capital grew by 85.5 per cent and Russian capital by only 59.3 per cent. The former held sway in a number of leading industrial sectors, notably mining, metal-working and machine-building. Onehalf of the capital invested in the coal mines of the Ukrainian Donets Basin was foreign. In iron ore, oil and metallurgy, foreign investment was as high as 80 per cent.The influx of foreign capital certainly played some part in developing the economy and raising the level of technology. But the cost was excessive. Foreign capital was predatory and every year took away from Russia much more in super-profits. In the 14 years just before the war, foreign investment in Russian industry totalled 1,198 million rubles, which produced a net profit for export of 1,767.5 million rubles.
Between 1894 and 1913, total foreign payments, excluding repayments of foreign loans, amounted to over 2,800 million rubles, much more than the book value of basic capital in Russian industry accumulated by 1913 over many decades. Another important way of robbing Russia was the granting of loans to the tsarist government to finance its anti-national home and foreign policy. On the eve of the war, Russia had the world's largest external debt. From 1895 to 1914 it rose by 144 per cent to 5,000 million rubles, with the state revenue at 4,600 million rubles. Between 1900 and 1913, debt repayments by the Russian government came to 2,400 million rubles. Russia's chief creditor was France, which accounted for 80 per cent of the foreign debt.
Russia's economic backwardness also told on the pattern of her exports. Although millions of Russian peasants lived a life of starvation, hundreds of millions of rubles were earned every year on the sale of grains and other farm produce. Official government policy was ``starve, but export''.
Participation in the imperialist world war only added to the country's economic misery. By the end of the war, the national income had fallen by more than a quarter, from 34 16,400 million to 12,200 million rubles. In the first year, military expenditure absorbed 27 per cent of the national income; by the third year of hostilities, it was eating into over 50 per cent of the national income. By the end of the war, the disorganisation of industry, agriculture and transport had reached catastrophic proportions.
According to the 1917 Census, at least one-third, sometimes as many as one-half, the farms in most gubernias had no labourers. The mass requisitioning of horses for the army had removed the basic productive force from agriculture: in 50 gubernias of European Russia, the number of draught horses had declined from 17,900,000 in 1914 to 12,800,000 by 1917, i.e., almost 30 per cent. This situation had a damaging effect on the principal agricultural crops. As a result, the country was faced with a terrible food crisis and famine. Spreading unemployment added to the plight of the workers in town and country.
Lenin summed up the situation in the following words:
``The war has created such an immense crisis, has so strained the material and moral forces of the people, has dealt such blows at the entire modern social organisation that humanity must now choose between perishing or entrusting its fate to the most revolutionary class for the swiftest and most radical transition to a superior mode of production.... The war is inexorable; it puts the alternative with ruthless severity: either perish or overtake and outstrip the advanced countries economically as well... . That is the alternative put by history."^^1^^
The Russian proletariat, and later the Soviet people, took up the challenge of history and resolutely tackled the most difficult economic problems that were crucial to the fortunes not only of Russia but of all mankind.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 2. Start of Economic CompetitionThe drive to transform the socio-economic structure of Russia began immediately after the uprising on November 7, 1917. The Soviet Government was officially installed on _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 25, pp. 363--64.
35 November 8 and issued its decrees on peace and land, following this up with a Law on Workers' Control ( November 27, 1917), decrees establishing the All-Russia Economic Council (December 15, 1917), and nationalising banks (December 27, 1917) and large-scale industry and trade (June 30, 1918). All loans contracted by the tsarist government were cancelled (January 20, 1918), a special decree on socialisation of land was passed (February 19, 1918), foreign trade was nationalised (April 22, 1918), and a state grain monopoly was instituted (May 14, 1918). All these measures were designed to concentrate political and economic power in the hands of the proletarian state and cut short the economic crisis which the imperialist war and tsarist criminal folly had brought on the country.Resistance from the capitalists and landowners, the civil war imposed on the people and the foreign intervention disrupted the operations to put the economy back on its feet; in fact they precipitated a fresh demolition of the productive forces. Between 1914 and 1920, the country lost some 19 million able-bodied men (aged 16 to 49) from death or injury in battle, starvation and epidemics.
The main sectors of the economy suffered a grave setback. Industrial production fell by 1920 to 13.8 per cent of the 1913 level (see Table 6). Of the 4,877 state-run industrial enterprises, only 2,984 factories were said to be operative, and these too were badly crippled. There were no raw materials, no skilled workers, no machinery. Between 1917 and 1920 arable land under grains dwindled by 21 per cent; the grain crop fell by 39 per cent and by 60 per cent in comparison with 1913. During the civil war, the number of farms able to produce for the market dropped to a critical level. The horse and the one-blade wooden plough (sokha) emerged from the world and civil wars as the basic instruments of farm production. The economic significance of these `` unsophisticated machines" even increased during the economic chaos that followed on the heels of the civil war. And to add to the privation, crop failure and famine hit the country in 1921.
By the time the young Soviet Republic had expelled its internal and external enemies and finally set to putting the country in order, the United States of America appeared to stand on an unattainable pinnacle of technological and 36 Table 6 Gross Industrial Output (1913=100) 1917 1920 Mining . . . 09.8 19.1 Metal-working and machine-building . . Chemicals 110.6 94.0 7.5 11.1 Food 32.4 15.9 Leather and footwear 120.7 28.0 Textiles ........ ... 60.2 10.1 Woodworking . . 42.9 16.9 Paper and printing 95.6 15.0 Power and water-supply 1 Other industries \ 68.5 14.2 Total ................ 05.9 13.8 Estimated from The World Economy. Collection of Statistical Materials, 1913--1927, p. K. economic achievement. It had already become the most potent capitalist power in the world, with its advanced industry and highly developed farming. Seen against this industrial background, Soviet Russia's industrial level was very low indeed (see Table 7).
The Russia of 1921 lagged a whole century behind the U.S.A. in the production of virtually all material goods, but Soviet Russia had one important advantage in the coming drive for rapid and extensive technological and economic progress. This was her new, advanced social system and the Party that was at the head of all the Soviet peoples and was equipped with a clear-cut programme for building socialism.
The five subsequent years were to demonstrate that Soviet Russia possessed immense potential for economic progress. Roughly by 1926, the rehabilitation period was over, and the economy began to pick up. Between 1913 and 1928 fixed capital grew by 18 per cent, gross industrial output by 32 per cent, and large-scale industrial output by 52 per cent. The national income had increased by 19 per cent. Even at that early period priority was being given to the manufacture of producer goods, the result of a vigorous 37 Table LI. S. Industrial Superiority, 1920--21 Total industrial output...... Steel ............ Pig iron .......... Coal............. Oil............. Iron ore ........... Engineering and metal-working Chemicals.......... Food ............ Textiles........... Footwear........... Woodworking........ Paper and printing...... Building materials...... 59 times greater 203 322 77 82 419 132 321 29 35 29 78 167 63 Estimated from The World Economy. Collection of Statistical Materials, 1S13--1921, pp. 3, 7, 9. 11, 23, 31--33, 46--47. Figures ot physical output are for 1920, the rest, for 1921. drive to industrialise the country. While steel smelting still stood at the 1913 level, production of producer goods had gone up 55 per cent in 1928 over the 1913 level, machinebuilding and metal-working output was up by 75 per cent and generation of electricity by as much as 157 per cent. The country was forcing the pace in creating the essential levers of economic reconstruction and a technical base for unfettered, independent socialist economic progress.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 3. Lenin's Plan for BuildingLenin firmly believed in the rapid industrialisation of the U.S.S.R. as first priority if socialism were to be built. His plan for building socialism provided for establishing a powerful heavy industry and envisaged two further measures that were to be of historic importance: the organisation of the millions of peasants in co-operatives within collective farms, and a far-reaching cultural revolution. In one of his last works, Lenin was to write: ``Indeed, since political power 38 is in the hands of the working class, since this political power owns all the means of production, the only task, indeed, that remains for us is to organise the population in co-- operative societies. With most of the population organised in cooperatives, the socialism which in the past was legitimately treated with ridicule, scorn and contempt by those who were rightly convinced that it was necessary to wage the class struggle, the struggle for political power, etc., will achieve its aim automatically.'' He further made it clear: ``Strictly speaking, there is `only' one thing we have left to do and that is to make our people so `enlightened' that they understand all the advantages of everybody participating in the work of the co-operatives, and organise this participation. `Only' that. There are now no other devices needed to advance to socialism. But to achieve this `only', there must be a veritable revolution---the entire people must go through a period of cultural development."^^1^^
Socialist economic planning based on social property in the means of production stands to the greatest credit and advantage of the socialist system, and helped to fulfil Lenin's plan for transforming Russia in the shortest possible time. The proletarian government was able directly to control the economy and concentrate on the primary targets.
In the early part of 1918, when the threat of foreign military intervention hung over the country and civil war had become a bitter reality, Lenin writes a Draft Plan of Scientific and Technical Work proposing that the Supreme Economic Council empower the Academy of Sciences to set up a number of specialist bodies urgently to draw up a plan to reorganise industry and boost the economy. He emphasised that socialist organisation of social production should be based on electrification and the correct deployment of industry.
The GOELRO Plan for Russia's electrification was approved by the Eighth Congress of Soviets in 1920 and became a historic landmark in socialist economic planning. It was in fact the initial plan for industrialising Russia. In addition to the building of 30 large power stations with a total capacity of 1,500,000 kilowatts (before the revolution the _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 33, pp. 467, 4C9-70.
39 capacity of all of Russia's power stations amounted only to 1,100,000 kilowatts), the plan envisaged a big increase in the extraction of oil, coal, and peat, the smelting of pig iron, steel, and ferrous metals, and the production of cement, paper, machinery, textiles and mineral fertilisers. In fact, the keystone of the plan was to establish a heavy industry and to revive and restructure transport. The GOELRO Plan saw the light of day when the country lay in ruins and it is not surprising that it appeared to be an extremely audacious and imaginative programme for carrying Russia from the dark ages into socialism.In the wake of the 10--15-year electrification plan, followed the First and Second Five-Year plans. Under those plans, designed to establish the material and technical basis for socialism and abolish what was left of the exploiting classes, socialist industry was developing at unprecedented rates. In the space of two five-year plan periods (1928--32 and 1933--37), the economy was completely restructured on a new technologically advanced foundation. More than 6,000 large industrial enterprises were started, including such world-renowned projects as the Magnitogorsk and Kuznetsk metallurgical combines, the Volgograd, Kharkov and Chelyabinsk tractor works, the Gorky Motor Works, the Rostov Farm Machinery Factory, the Urals and Kramatorsk heavy engineering works, the Dnieper Hydro-Electric Station and the Dnieper Aluminium Combine, and the Berezniki and Voskresensk chemical combines. In the Urals, Siberia, the Far East and the Arctic North, new industrial centres, cities and ports sprang up. The country escaped from technical and economic dependence on the most advanced Western countries.
The widespread socialist industrialisation gave the country a powerful material and technical basis for collective farming. Hundreds of thousands of tractors, combine harvesters and other farm machinery now poured into the countryside and made it possible greatly to extend the area under crops and to grow more wheat.
This meant improved living standards for the Soviet people. Urban unemployment and rural overpopulation became evils of the past. Between 1913 and 1940 the population increased by 22 per cent while the number of gainfully employed increased by 170 per cent, workers' real wages by 40 85 per cent and real agricultural incomes doubled. For the first time in history, a government had afforded its people education at all levels and a health service both free of charge. The number of general school pupils increased 4.6 times, special secondary school pupils 27 times, and students 7.2 times, doctors 7 times, hospital beds 4.5 times, etc.
Practically all school-age children attended primary or incomplete secondary schools, and adult illiteracy was being wiped out. Between 1918 and 1940, some 1,800,000 young men and women graduated from special secondary schools and 1,200,000 from higher schools. From 1914 to 1941 the number of research institutes increased 6.3 times and research workers 9.8 times.
But living standards could not be markedly improved because the Soviet government had to give priority in use of economic resources to heavy industry, transport and agricultural reconstruction. Sizable resources had to be allocated for defence so long as the capitalist encirclement remained. And the slow rate of growth in agriculture, while the collective farms were being established and a bitter class struggle raged in the countryside, further hindered production of consumer goods.
The fulfilment of the First and Second Five-Year plans resulted in the construction of socialism, the main historical task of the period. All exploiting classes and all causes dividing society into exploiters and exploited were rooted out. The socialist economic system became the foundation of all social progress, so that by 1937--39 the socialist economic sector accounted for 99 per cent of the country's fixed capital and 99.8 per cent of industrial output. By occupation, 97.4 per cent of the population were industrial and office workers and collective farmers; 2.6 per cent were individual farmers and artisans.
The Soviet economic system, based as it is on social property, opened up fresh reserves of productive power---the creative energies and initiatives of millions of working people, which took the form of socialist emulation. They produced at well above the old technical rates, brought out and cleared bottlenecks in industry, thereby making for the fastest growth of production with the available supplies of raw materials and machinery.
Soviet economic plans were increasingly based on the 41 experience of the front-rankers in production and scientific and technological achievements. Research establishments, on the one hand, and shopfloor workers on the other, both played their part in bringing out the immense reserves and potentials latent in a socialist economy. As a result, there was massive participation in the business of planning economic development.
By consolidating the new relations of production, it took the Soviet people 15--20 years to build almost all of the material and technical basis meeting world scientific and technological standards. The boosting of the productive forces during the initial five-year plans---at a much faster rate than in the U.S.A.---brought a qualitative change to the economic competition between the U.S.S.R. and the U.S.A. by enabling the former to reduce the gap separating it from the world's leading capitalist producer.
By 1937, the Soviet Union was already turning out as much as one-third of U.S. industrial production, a 3-fold improvement over 1913, and a 20-fold improvement over 1920. The U.S.S.R. had moved into second place in the world's industrial league. In 1940, it was on the whole poised to enter the decisive stage of economic competition with the major capitalist countries, primarily the U.S.A.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 4. The Great Patriotic War andNazi Germany's treacherous attack put an end to the period of the peaceful economic progress in the Soviet Union, which was plunged into the most destructive and tragic war the world had ever known. The Second World War far outdid World War I in scale of operations, in human participation and in the resources involved. And for the four final years, the Soviet-German front was the war's chief theatre of operations.
The scale of the Soviet war economy far exceeded that of tsarist Russia in the first war (see Table 8). In the 1941--45 period, by comparison with 1914--17, the Soviet Union manufactured 29 times more artillery pieces, 89 times more mortars, 78 times more machine-guns, 6.9 and 6.4 times more cartridges and rifles, respectively. Growth in the Soviet wareconomy potential to the extent of its ability to withstand 42 and repulse the nazi onslaught was a vital consequence of the pre-war industrialisation policy.
When Germany attacked and in the early stages of the war, the Soviet economy compared unfavourably both in volume of military production and in preparedness with that of Germany, which had been reinforced by resources from the occupied territories. Soviet industry had been geared to peaceful development and was not switched in time to mass production of the latest military hardware. Inevitably, the Soviet Union was to suffer for this in the initial period of hostilities. By early 1943, however, Germany had lost her superiority in both the quality and quantity of combat equipment. The Soviet army was now receiving sufficient quantities of modern tanks, planes, anti-tank and antiaircraft artillery, automatic weapons, etc. The Communist Party and the Soviet Government, relying on the potential created by the Soviet system and the socialist economy, mobilised the country's resources for victory. In a short time, the country's economy was completely reoriented to a total war effort.
Table 8 Production of Military Hardware* U.S.S.R. Tsarist Russia Tanks, armoured and selfpropelled vehicles .... 30,000 insignificant Planes . . . 40,000 Artillery pieces ...... 120,000 3,900 Machine-guns 450,000 5,800 Shells, bombs and mines . . 240,000,000 16,300,000 * Average annual production for the three final years of the First and Second World wars. Sources: Y. Y. Chadayev, The Economy of the U.S.S.R., 1941--1945, Moscow, 1965. p. 211 (Russ. ed.); G. I. Shigalin, The National Economy oi the U.S.S.R.During the Great Patriotic War, Moscow, 1960, p. 115 (Russ. ed.).Despite its much smaller industrial base, in comparison with Germany or the U.S.A., the Soviet Union turned out, on annual average, more tanks, self-propelled vehicles, artillery pieces and mortars than either of these nations; in 43 planes, it was second only to the U.S.A. This was a triumph for the Soviet war economy and the Soviet socialist system. The American writer, Max Werner, had this to say:
``All available Russian resources were more strongly concentrated on the war effort, and utilised to a greater degree than the German. Germany had more steel, but in Russia more steel out of every thousand tons was used for arms production than in Germany. Germany had more machinery, but in the Soviet Union a large proportion of all available lathes turned out war materiel. That is why the dramatic struggle of Magnitogorsk against the industries of the Hitlerdominated European continent was possible."^^1^^
To put the Soviet war achievement in true perspective, one must understand the terrible price that Soviet people paid for victory. On the way to V-Day---and without the successful Soviet war effort the Allied victory would have been inconceivable---the Soviet Union suffered shattering losses: as many as 20 million Soviet people lost their lives; the material loss in state and civilian property amounted to the staggering figure of 679,000 million rubles (in 1941 prices). Some 32,000 industrial plants that had previously employed 4 million workers were completely destroyed. The war destroyed 60 per cent of the capacity of steel foundries and of coal production, 65,000 kilometres of railways; 1,710 cities and over 70,000 villages were razed to the ground; 98,000 collective farms, 1,876 state farms and 2,890 machineand-tractor stations were plundered; many millions of head of cattle, pigs and horses were either slaughtered or sent to Germany. Apart from the direct losses suffered---the destruction of approximately one-third of the national wealth--- the Soviet nation bore considerable losses from the lower national income that resulted from the cancellation and reduction of work at many industrial and agricultural enterprises and the overall slowdown of economic growth.
The production of steel, oil, cement and all the basic consumer goods had to be drastically curtailed. By 1945, for example, steel output was down to two-thirds of the 1940 figure, oil production to 62 per cent, cement to about one-third, and the production of consumer goods was more than halved. The standard of living fell victim to the great _-_-_
~^^1^^ Max Werner, Attack Can Win in '43, Boston, 1943, pp. 24--25.
44 war effort: putting the economy on a war footing, spending huge sums on defence and the vast ruin in the occupied territories. Housing and the municipal economy were hardest hit and took longest to recover. As a result, some 25 million people were rendered homeless. Consequently, the war not only deprived the Soviet Union of normal economic development but destroyed much of what had been created before the war at such self-sacrificing effort.Unlike the Soviet Union, the United States substantially gained economically from the Second World War, as it had from the First World War. Its material losses were slight and it benefited from the booming war market that strongly stimulated U.S. industry. Nothing is more indicative of the war-time U.S. industrial upsurge than its increased electric power output. Between 1939 and 1945, U.S. electric stations increased their generation of electric power by 1.7 times.
The U.S. iron and steel industry found the war a considerable boon: capital investment in the ferrous metal industry for 1940--45 amounted to $2,500 million (half of it in government funds). In 1939, only 138 of the 236 blast furnaces were in commission; by 1945, all were working to full capacity. During this period, pig-iron output increased from 51 million to 61 million tons. Production capacities for smelting alloyed steels increased 3.5-4-fold, and those for aluminium 7-fold. The machine-tool industry, whose total output was valued at only $200 million in 1939, improved to $1,321 million by 1942. In chemicals, output of a whole range of important products also grew severalfold during the war.
While the U.S.S.R. was bearing the brunt of the nazi offensive and suffering huge losses, the U.S.A. was making a good profit from the war, setting itself up as a near-- monopoly supplier of many vital commodities. All the same, the unproductive nature of arms manufacture had an inhibiting effect on some branches of U.S. economic life. So, for the five years from 1940 to 1945 national reproduction of wealth (in fixed prices) virtually marked time, while the value of buildings and other facilities, especially in urban areas, fell by 4.2 per cent. Similarly, spending on the health service---a vital sector for servicing the reproduction of labour resources ---also fell. The proportion of health expenditure in the national product diminished by 8 per cent at the same time 45 as the cost of medical services climbed by 15 per cent. Furthermore, U.S. industrial growth, being geared to military requirements, was of a temporary nature; this inevitably engendered economic difficulties when it came to switching the economy on a peace-time footing.
Even before the war's end, the Soviet Government had begun to implement a plan for economic rehabilitation, whose most important feature distinguishing it from the process in Western Europe was that it was based on domestic resources, despite the extremely heavy war damage. Concurrently with its own rebuilding, the Soviet Union was rendering considerable economic -assistance to the other European states that were now building socialism.
Because financial and other material resources for capital construction were naturally limited in the immediate postwar years, basic resources went to the key economic sectors--- heavy industry and the railways---which had priority in equipment, raw materials, fuel components and labour. In the early post-war years, it was impossible to tackle some problems in agriculture, housing and the consumer goods industry. The pre-war consumption level was reached by the early 1950s.
The implementation of the plan for economic rehabilitation and further development ensured a mighty upsurge in Soviet material production, whereas in the U.S.A. the shrinking of the war-time markets caused the usual difficulties and growth rates at once dropped (see Table 9).
Table 9 Economic Growth Rates: U.S.S.R. and U.S.A. U.S.S.R. U.S.A. National income Average annual growth 1941--45 ...... __ 32 9.8 1946--50 14.6 insignificant Industrial production Average annual growth 1941--45 ...... ---1.7 9.9 1946--50 ...... 13.6 1.2 Source; The Economy of the U.S.S.R., 1959, Moscow. 1960, pp. 77, 141 (Russ. ed.). 46In the immediate post-war five-year plan period, the Soviet economy began to recover at a high rate of growth, whereas in the U.S.A. the buoyant economy of wartime gave way to the slow economic development of peace-time. Employment declined and the number of jobless rose from its war-time low of 670,000 to 1,040,000 in 1945, 2,270,000 in 1946 and 3,142,000 in 1950. By 1950, U.S. war-time production figures had still to be attained: the industrial index stood at 133 in 1943, 130 in 1944, and only 113 in 1950 (1947--49= 100).
Meanwhile, the Soviet Union had completed its economic rehabilitation and was moving ahead. Many thousands of large and medium-size industrial plants were restored and built anew from 1946 to 1950. The country had already surpassed its pre-war industrial output level in 1948, i.e., long before the West European countries did so, despite the latter's receipt of large U.S. subsidies. By 1950, Soviet industry was turning out considerably more than it had done before the war. In fact, but for the war, the Soviet Union would have been much closer to U.S. production levels in the main industrial products by 1955 (see Table 10).
Table 10 Industrial production: U.S.S.R. and U.S.A. Unit Soviet output U.S. 1955 output 1940 1955 Probable 1955 output but for the war Coal * mln. tons 166 31 18 6 48 391 71 45 22 170 5GO 125 75 40 250 421 330 106 51 629 Oil Steel ...... '' Cement '' '' Electricity ** 1,000 mln. kwh* Physical.
** Total generated.
Calculated from: The Economy of the U.S.S.R., 1956, Moscow, 1957, pp. GO-63 (Russ. ed.); The Economy of the U.S.S.R.. 1959, Moscow, 1960, pp. 156--58 (Russ. ed.); The Economy of the Capitalist Countries After the Second World War, Moscow, 1959, pp. 928--31 (Russ. ed.); estimation of probable industrial output from The Soviet Socialist Economy, 1911--1957, Moscow, 1957, p. 212 (Russ. ed.). 47The U.S S.R. maintained its rapid economic progress and by 1958 national income was 3.8 times the 1940 figure, and 2.3 times the 1950 figure. Between 1951 and 1958, national income grew at an average of 13.5 per cent a year. In 1958, gross industrial output was 4.3 times the 1940 figure, and 2.5 times the 1950 figure. The industrial gap between the U.S.S.R. and the U.S.A. had considerably narrowed, largely due to the much faster growth in the major Soviet industrial sectors (see Tables 11 and 12).
Table 11 Industrial Production: U.S.S.R. and U.S.A. Unit Actual output in 1958 Soviet output as percentage of U.S. output U.S.S.R. U.S.A. 1950 1958 Coal * ....... mln. tons 425 382 44 111 Oil . . » » 113 331 14 34 Steel „ „ 55 77 31 71 Cement ...... „ 33 52 26 60 Sulphuric acid . . . „ 4.8 15 18 32 Electricity ** . . . 1,000 mln. kwh 219 724 22 32 Cotton fabrics . . . 1,000 mln. sq m 4.7 8.8 33 54 * In terms of hard coal. ** Mains feed. Sources; The Soviet Achievement of iO Years in Figures, Moscow, 1957i pp. fil-62 (Russ. ed.); The Economy of tlie U.S.S.R., 19S8, Moscow, 1959, p. 120 (Russ. ed.); The Economy nl the U.S.S.R., 19S9, Moscow, 1960, pp. 156--59 (Russ. ed.); The Economy of the Capitalist Countries Alter the Second World War, pp. 928-2'J.Soviet industry was growing much faster despite a much less favourable sectoral structure. U.S. industry had largescale iron and steel facilities that were not being used to the full. The Soviet Union had rapidly to build up its iron and steel industry, which is highly capital-intensive and has a lengthy gestation period. While the U.S.A. made scarcely any progress in its fuel industry, particularly in coal mining, the Soviet Union more than doubled output in this very capital-intensive industry between 1951 and 1958. The U.S.A. had no need to accelerate production in engineering, while the U.S.S.R. trebled production in that period. During these 48 Table 12 Industrial Output: U.S.S.R. and U.S.A. (1958 as a percentage of 1950) U.S.S.R. U.S.A. All industry .......... 249 125 Electricity . ... 258 186 Fuel 210 118 Ferrous and non-ferrous metals . . Chemicals ........... 230 320 88 163 Engineering and metal-working . . Textiles ............ 323 208 135 99 Food .............. 204 119 Source: The Economy of the U.S.S.R., 106i, p. 94. years, the U.S.A. concentrated on building up its chemical and power industries. The Soviet Union, besides promoting these highly effective industries, also poured men, money and materials into other sectors of the economy which took time to develop. Consequently, the higher industrial growth rate in the Soviet Union was attained on a less favourable material base and in the face of more substantial difficulties.
After the war, the world socialist system grew in area and strength and this undoubtedly helped the Soviet Union to overcome some of its economic difficulties. Division of labour between socialist nations, economic co-operation and the sharing of scientific and technical expertise all played their part. In 1958, trade with its socialist partners amounted to 74 per cent of total Soviet foreign trade. It supplied them with the equipment and raw materials they needed and imported diverse machinery and tools from the industrially advanced socialist countries. It was able to take advantage of their accumulated technical experience, so that, together, the socialist nations were able to solve their technical problems by pooling resources.
Nor was agriculture neglected. By 1949, having healed the severe wounds of war, Soviet farmers were almost back at their 1940 level. In the years that followed they received __PRINTERS_P_49_COMMENT__ 1---235 49 much modern machinery which, together with the largescale reclamation of virgin and waste lands, enabled them to raise their total output to a level approaching that in the U.S.A.
The Soviet Union was now catching up with the U.S.A. through its superior rate of growth, capital accumulation and labour productivity. And with the fulfilment of the Seven-Year Plan (1959--65), the social product and national income balance between the two countries tilted in favour of the Soviet Union in several key sectors. In 1957, the Soviet gross social product and national income were 50 per cent of the U.S. figures; in 1967, they had risen to 63 per cent. Per head, the Soviet social product and national income had risen from 42 per cent to 52 per cent of the U.S. levels. In 1967, Soviet industrial output was more than two-thirds of the American total.
In 1957 the Soviet Union had already caught up with and even outstripped the U.S.A. in several key industrial lines, as the table below indicates.
Table 13 Industrial Production: U.S.S.R. and U.S.A. J967 c utput Soviet out-- Unit U.S.S.R. U.S.A. put as percentage of U.S. output in 1967 Goal * .... Oil mln. tons 595 288 511 435 116 66 Steel . . . . ,. 102.2 118 90 Cement .... ,. >. 84.8 67 127 Sulphuric acid Mineral `` '' 9.7 27 36 fertilisers „ 40.1 62.4 64 Electricity** Cotton fabrics 1,000 mln.kwh 1,000 mln. 589 6.4 1,384 8.4 43 77 Leather footwear sq m mln. pairs 561 615 91 * Output. ** Gross output. Source: The U.S.S.R. in Figures. 1967, Moscow, 1908, pp. (Russ. ed.). 50In the economic competition with capitalism, the Soviet people have brought a new approach to a whole range of practical problems that have vital importance for all countries embarking on the path of accelerated economic development and progressive social transformation of society.
At every stage of development, fast economic growth was ensured by expanding the sources of national-economic accumulation. This was made possible because first, all exploiting classes had been swept away, and with them had gone the colossal non-productive expenditure on their upkeep and the appropriation and repatriation by foreign capitalists of the national wealth; second, employment in material production was growing rapidly; and third, productivity of social labour was growing fast through the introduction of up-to-date hardware.
The first and second factors were foremost in promoting capital accumulation during the initial stages of Soviet growth. But once the economy could rely on the sound material and technical basis of socialism, with its accompanying advanced industry, power and transport, it was labour productivity that became the key factor. Since the last war, rapidly increasing productivity has made it possible to augment capital accumulation while raising the standard of living.
For many years, the U.S.S.R. has kept well ahead of the U.S.A. in labour productivity growth rate (see Table 14). From 1940 to 1950, it increased 2.1 times faster than in the U.S.A., from 1950 to 1960, 3 times, and from 1955 to 1965, almost 2.2 times. The relative reduction in recent years in the gap between rates of productivity growth in the two countries is due to the fact that different factors bear on productivity at different economic growth periods. In particular, higher labour productivity during the period of socialist industrialisation stemmed from the large-scale changeover from antiquated forms of small-commodity production to large-scale socialist industrial production. Another reason is that industrialisation was accompanied by a radical change in the structure of the economy: employment in lowproductivity sectors---agriculture and the handicrafts--- declined in favour of employment in industry, transport, etc., where labour productivity was comparatively high.
The 1928--40 period was particularly noteworthy for the __PRINTERS_P_51_COMMENT__ 4* 51 changing employment structure, as a result of which the social product grew by 35 per cent; similarly it produced a near-35 per cent increase in overall production during the subsequent eighteen years (1940--58). Changes in the employment structure today exert a certain influence on the growth of productivity, although the most impressive shifts have already occurred and their future significance will gradually diminish. During the 1960s, labour productivity was mostly influenced by the changing occupational structure induced by mechanisation and automation, by the sharp decline in unskilled and auxiliary types of work, and by the introduction of new techniques and technology.
Table 14 Average Annual Growth in Labour Productivity: U.S.S.R. and U.S.A. * (per cent) U.S.S.R. U.S.A. 1941--50 6.2 3 1951--60 7.8 2.6 1956--65 5.6 2.6 * National income per worker in material production Sources/ TheU.S.S.R. in Figures, 1965, p. 36; The Economy of the U.S.S.R., 1958, Moscow, 1959 (Russ. ed.). and for subsequent years; Handbook of Basic Economic Statistics, July 1965, pp. 12, 16 and 17.The U.S.S.R. has had a considerable advantage over the U.S.A., its chief rival, in increasing its productive capacity. In the U.S.A. higher labour productivity has precipitated multifarious problems due to the restricted possibility of extending production and consumption; a relative surplus of productive capital has accumulated, thereby reducing the stimulus for capital accumulation. By contrast, there is practically no limit to increasing production and consumption in the U.S.S.R.; as a result capital accumulation has grown and has guaranteed additional sources for higher labour productivity and accelerated growth rates.
Thus, growth in capital investment in the Soviet economy has accelerated capital accumulation and implied faster 52 growth rates, while the limited growth of capital investment in the U.S. economy has kept the rate of economic development comparatively low. This inter-relationship is evident from the following table.
Table 15 Average Annual Rate of Growth of National Income and Capital Investment in the Soviet and U.S. Economies (per cent) U.S.S.R. U.S.A. Gross capital investment National income Gross capital investment National income 1941--50 7.4 7.0 5.5 5.5 1951--55 11.3 11.3 3.7 3.9 1956--60 1961--65 14.2 6.2 9.1 6.3 insignif. 6.0 2.3 4.6 Sources: The Economy of the U.S.S.R., 19BS, pp. 617--19; The U.S.S.R. in Figures, 1965, p. 36; L. I. Nesterov, Capital Investment of the U.S.S.R. and the U.S.A., Moscow, 1965, p. 181 (Russ. ed.); Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1966, p. 322.In the Soviet Union, the average rate of growth of capital investment in production and the national income growth rate for 1928--65 were considerably higher than those in the United States. This is convincing evidence of the dynamic process of capital accumulation in the U.S.S.R. for the purpose of boosting the country's productive forces. There is the closest relationship between the capital accumulation growth rate and increased national income. The superiority in capital investment growth rate has ensured the Soviet Union a relatively higher national income growth rate than that of the United States.
Since the last war, the investment pattern has changed markedly in the direction of a greater proportion of more active elements of fixed production assets. Thus, between 1940 and 1965 the share of expenditure on machinery and plant in the capital investment of state and co-operative organisations increased from 15 to 34 per cent.
On the whole, growth in fixed assets in the Soviet economy has been occurring about four times faster than in the United 53 States; growth in the fixed assets of Soviet industry is 10--15 times faster than the corresponding U.S. growth rate. In the long term, Soviet superiority in the rate of capital accumulation has a decisive effect on the potential economic opportunities for growth, while the U.S. social system restricts the opportunities for increasing the rate of capital accumulation. Furthermore, the level of capital accumulation also depends on the extent to which production is effective. The more effective it is, the less capital investment it requires, other conditions being equal, per unit of growth of national income. At the present juncture of the economic competition, increased effectiveness of production is becoming as important as quantitative growth.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 5. The Present StageThe current stage of the peaceful economic competition with capitalism contains a number of qualitatively new characteristics. The U.S.S.R. now has a viable material and technical basis that has completely transformed a once backward country into a leading industrial nation. In volume of industrial output, it now stands second only to the U.S.A.; in technical and economic level of production it is now in the front rank.
Industries like machine-building, chemicals, power, metallurgy, oil and gas, being in the van of technical progress, have played a leading part in economic development and in stimulating higher labour productivity throughout the Soviet economy. Machine-building factories are today turning out a wide variety of modern technological equipment up to world-class standards. Ferrous and non-ferrous metal industries have impressive achievements to their credit. The proportion of the most progressive types of fuel---gas and oil--- in the national fuel balance now comprises more than onehalf. That of producer goods in gross industrial production amounts to three-quarters. The U.S.S.R. occupies a leading world position in space research, nuclear physics, mathematics, electronics, radio engineering, missiles, aircraft construction and many other spheres of science and industry.
54In agriculture, too, the Soviet Union has made substantial progress. The level of Soviet farm output in 1966--67 was 85 per cent of the U.S. level, and 70 per cent per head. In place of the millions of small plots and farms, Soviet farming now has some 50,000 large socialist farms in the form of collective (kolkhoz) and state (sovkhoz) farms.
Modes of cultivation have radically altered: more than 1,821,000 tractors, over 580,000 harvester combines and over 4,100,000 other farming machines work land that used to be almost totally cultivated by heavy manual labour before the Revolution. In addition, in 1968 alone, agriculture received 36,300,000 metric tons of chemical fertilisers. Complete mechanisation has taken much of the hard toil out of farming. Ploughing before the revolution largely involved horse-drawn wooden ploughs---it is now completely mechanised; the harvesting of grain used to be done mainly by hand---now 100 per cent of the operations are mechanised; 98 per cent of winnowing, 84 per cent of haymaking, 88 per cent of potato planting and 70 per cent of potato lifting, etc., are now mechanised. These essential changes in the system of cultivation, the application of chemicals and machinery to farming have greatly improved agricultural production and the incomes, education and culture of Soviet farmers.
All these economic advances are most noticeable in Soviet living standards, as the table amply testifies (see Table 16).
In socialist society, popular consumption has been growing as national wealth increases, not merely on account of personal income, but, more importantly, on account of the social consumption funds, state provision of free medical services, pre-school and school education and other social benefits. Free health services and education that are universally accessible are among the greatest attainments of the Soviet system. So, too, is the unique guaranteed security of employment.
For all the Soviet success in the economic competition with the U.S.A., it would be wrong to suppose that the fight for world economic supremacy has become easier. This is explained, on the one hand, by the fact that the scale of Soviet production and accumulation, the fixed assets in industry and capital investment, have all greatly increased, and the economic links have become more extensive and 55 Growth of Soviet Living Standards Table 16 Per-unit increase of 1968 over pre-1917 Indexes Heal industrial incomes........ Heal farm incomes........... Workers and other employees..... School pupils (7-17 years) ...... Special secondary school pupils (15--18 years) ............... Students............... Graduates of higher and special secondary education.............. Newspaper circulation......... Children in day nurseries....... Hospital beds............. Doctors (excluding dentists)...... Average life expectancy........ 7.1* 11.0* 7.4 5.1 78.0 35.2 72.4 37.6 ,429 12 23.4 2.2 * Wages after lax, with addition of pensions, allowances, free education, medical service and other benefits from the state, and with account of elimination of unemployment and reduced working hours. ** Earnings in money and kind from public and subsidiary farming after tax, with addition of free education and medical service, pensions and other state benefits. Sources: The U.S.S.R. in Figures, 1966, Moscow, 1967, pp. 140--49, 153, 165--66, 178--79 (Russ. ed.); The Economy of the U.S.S.R., 1960, Moscow, 1961, p.808 (Russ. ed.); The Economy of the U.S.S.R., 1968, Moscow, 1969, pp. 80, 91, 572, 675, 723, 730, 738 (Russ. ed.). more complex, and on the other by a considerable increase in the pace of world scientific and technological progress since the end of the last war.
These new circumstances necessitated improvement of methods and forms of industrial management and an extensive economic reform whose main aim is to make social production much more efficient.
The successful fulfilment of the Directives of the 23rd Congress of the C.P.S.U. on the U.S.S.R.'s economic development plan for 1966--70 was an important stage in the Soviet people's effort to consolidate the positions of socialism in its economic competition with capitalism. The Directives said 56 that greater efficiency of production was the main factor behind economic growth and rising living standards.
In fulfilling the five-year plan, the Soviet people scored major successes. In 1970, national income was 41 per cent over the 1965 level, growing at an annual average rate of 7.1 per cent, as compared with 5.7 per cent in the 1961--1965 period. Industrial output increased by 50 per cent. The industries ensuring modern technical progress developed at a fast pace. In the five years, output in the chemical and petrochemical industries increased by 78 per cent, engineering and metal-working by 74 per cent, and electric power by 54 per cent. Almost 1,900 large industrial enterprises were commissioned. In the 1966--70 period, the annual average increase in gross farm output was 21 per cent higher than in the 1961--65 period. The targets set by the 23rd Congress of the CPSU in raising the population's material standards were overfulfilled. The average monthly wages of industrial and office workers went up from 96.5 rubles in 1965 to 122 rubles in 1970. Payments from social consumption funds were considerably increased. Pensions for war-disabled veterans were increased, the pension age for collective farmers was lowered, and social insurance improved. In the five years, a total of 518 million sq m of living space was built, and this helped to improve the living conditions of almost 55 million persons.
Consequently, in the Eighth Five-Year Plan period, the U.S.S.R. made a large stride forward in creating the material and technical basis of communism and in raising the people's living standards. The 24th Congress of the C.P.S.U. noted these successes and approved the Directives for the new and still grander plan for the U.S.S.R.'s economic development from 1971 to 1975.
In deciding on its economic policy, the C.P.S.U. starts from the fact that the supreme goal of production under socialism is to improve the people's living standards, and to provide for the fullest satisfaction of their material and cultural requirements. The Directives envisage a further increase in the working people's cash incomes, mainly through higher payments for their work. The social consumption funds are also to increase considerably. In the Ninth Five-Year Plan period, 22,000 million rubles is to go into raising the people's living standards as compared with 10,000 million in the Eighth Five-Year Plan period. The scale of housing 57 construction is to be further enlarged so as to improve the living conditions of roughly 60 million persons.
The level of economic development achieved makes it possible to provide for some priority growth in the consumer industries, while a high rate of growth is to be maintained in the heavy industry, above all the branches embodying technical progress.
The 24th Congress of the C.P.S.U. proposed a concentration of effort on the solution of the key problem: greater efficiency of social production, with the acceleration of scientific and technical progress and application of the latest scientific and technical achievements in the national economy as the primary task. This will help considerably to raise labour productivity, which is to account for 80 per cent of the growth in national income, 90 per cent of the growth in industrial output, and 100 per cent of the growth in rail freight turnover. It will also help to increase the share of those employed in the non-production sphere from 22.5 per cent in 1970 to 25 per cent in 1975.
Some Western economists say the Soviet economic reform is evidence of a convergence of the two systems which should result in capitalism and socialism becoming a ``unity'' free from the vices and endowed with the virtues of each system. They point to a ``redistribution and equalisation of incomes" and efforts to plan and regulate the economy in the advanced capitalist countries. A report by a U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee ``New Directions in the Soviet Economy" alleged that the application to the socialist economy of terms like profit, demand and interest on assets was incompatible with Marxist theory and had been borrowed from capitalist practice.^^1^^
These claims are groundless, first, because they ignore the crucial difference between capitalism and socialism: under socialism the basic means of production are owned by the working people in whose interests the national income is distributed, whereas under capitalism private property in the means of production blocks radical social change and abolition of exploitation. Second, because under socialism, besides the specific economic laws engendered by the new, _-_-_
~^^1^^ New Directions in the Soviet Economy, P. 11-A, Washington, 1966, p. 9.
58 more advanced relations of production, there are also the more general economic laws which operate in other modes of production. But these more general laws are modified in substance and form, and this is especially true of commoditymoney relations and the law of value categories.It is quite legitimate for the socialist economy to use commodity-money relations at certain stages of development, and this is dictated by the development of the socialist productive forces. This particularly applies to the present stage of socialism, with the vast accumulation of material and production resources that must be used in the most efficient way.
In evaluating the prospects in the economic competition, account should also be taken of capitalist economic growth, which is extremely erratic. In the U.S.A., for example, postwar crises occurred in 1948--49, 1953--54, 1957--58 and 1960--61. Over the ten years from 1950 to 1960, industrial growth averaged 3.5 per cent a year, and for 1956--61, 1.9 per cent. Since 1962, there has been an upsurge in industrial growth rates which went up to 9 per cent in 1966. Certainly, state-capitalism methods of stimulating investment have done something to increase growth; so, too, has the vast increase in military commitment. The state has carried through a whole series of measures---income and profit tax cuts, shorter write-off periods, etc.---that have stimulated investment in production. The capitalist state, by withdrawing and redistributing up to 40 per cent of internallygenerated surplus value, is capable of exerting some pressure on the economy. But government stimulation of private capital cannot be a permanent and decisive factor in eliminating the contradictions, rejuvenating the economy and effecting high growth rates. No fundamental change has taken place in the capitalist economy to warrant the announcement of an era of crisis-free and rapid progress.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 6. Economic and Cultural RevolutionAs never before, the progressive forces of the world, especially the peoples of former colonial and semi-colonial possessions of the imperialist powers, are confronted with the 59 vital issue of how best and most radically to accelerate their economic development, how to put world scientific and technological experience to good use for the benefit of social progress in their part of the world. This is a problem of paramount importance for most countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The Soviet Union's immense experience in economic, political, social and cultural development of Russia's former colonial territories therefore acquires invaluable significance for all economically underdeveloped countries.
One of the key historical consequences of the October Revolution has been the elimination of economic, political and cultural inequality in the development of the Central European part of the U.S.S.R. and of the once colonially exploited territories of tsarist Russia. This task was made formidable by the extremely low level of the productive forces in those areas. The remaining vestiges of feudalism and even earlier societal forms added to the burden of colonial exploitation. It was the task of the Russian proletariat, equipped as it was with an advanced revolutionary theory, to demonstrate in practical terms the advantages of the socialist system in transforming the previously backward areas into modern thriving economic entities. That this task was carried out in a relatively brief period is more proof of the advantages of socialism in its economic competition with capitalism.
In the course of economic development spurred by capitalist penetration into Russia's backward colonial territories there was a growth in the actual inequality between the centre and these territories. Prospects for closing the gap and attaining a higher development level for all these areas either did not exist or, at best, lay in the remote future. In 1913, the whole vast area of Turkestan (now Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Kirghizia) accounted for only 1.7 per cent of manufacturing and mining output as contrasted with European Russia's 67.2 per cent (excluding Poland).
As capitalism in Russia took its natural haphazard course, the colonial territories soon became agrarian and raw material appendages of the more prosperous industrial regions. They had no large industry, with very rare exceptions, such as the Baku and Grozny oilfields, Georgian manganese and 60 Siberian gold. What industry there was mostly belonged to foreign capital, local industry consisting only of small artisan works employing agricultural raw materials. In 1911, Turkestan had no more than 143 artisan enterprises, only 9 of which employed over 25 people. In these areas, the industrial proletariat made up less than one per cent of the population. In 1913, there were only 204 Tajik industrial workers, in 1916, 242 Turkmen, and so on.
The cultural level of most of the nationalities there was also extremely low. At the turn of the century, only 2.6 per cent of the indigenous population of Central Asia could read or write, that is, only about a tenth as many as in Russia's central areas. Before the revolution there was not a single higher school in these cultural backwoods.
Table 17 Literacy in the Russian Empire, 1897 Per cent Men Women Total Total population 29.3 13.1 21.1 including: European Russia ....... Caucasus 32.6 13.2 13.7 6.0 22.9 12.4 Siberia ......... 19.2 5.1 12.3 Central Asia 7.9 2.2 5.3 including: Russians 37.0 13.8 26.0 Turkic peoples ....... 4.4 0.7 2.6 Source: A. Rashin, The Population of Russia Over 100 Years, Moscow, 1956, pp. 307--08 (Russ. ed.).With the switch to socialism, these backward areas with their virtually illiterate populations found themselves presented with the objective conditions and real opportunities for becoming advanced national states. With the social reforms that accompanied the October Revolution sweeping through these backward territories, the political and economic requirements of their peoples were soon realised. And with the espousal of Soviet economic and political gains, these nationalities were able to develop their own culture, national in form and socialist in content. Today, the non-Russian 61 republics have an advanced industry, large-scale socialist farming and highly skilled white- and blue-collar workers and scientists. Their standard of living and culture bears no comparison with that of fifty years ago.
Rapid economic growth brought about radical changes in the sectoral structure of the national income by these republics, with industry figuring prominently. In Armenia and Azerbaijan, industry accounts for 50 per cent of their national income, which makes them industrial nations. Within each of the fifteen Soviet republics, the economy relies on local primary products, which are used with an eye to the economic interests of the country as a whole. In Azerbaijan, it is oil. In Kazakhstan, the very rich natural deposits have enabled the republic to create a thriving heavy industry. It now has a greater per head output of coal, iron ore, cement and sulphuric acid than the U.S.S.R. average. All the republics are fast developing their own power industry: Azerbaijan alone is today generating five times more power than the whole of pre-revolutionary Russia. In electric power per head of population, the republic now stands ahead of Japan, France and Italy.
It has been the overriding policy to take careful account of national conditions and to bring the economic level of Table Students per 10,000 Population, 1968--69 Soviet Socialist Republics Other countries U.S.S.R.........187 Azerbaijan.......188 Armenia........220 Georgia........190 Kazakhstan......146 Kirghizia.......150 Tajikistan.......145 Turkmenia.......131 Uzbekistan.......192 Italy.......65 * France......88 ** Britain......63 ** Iran.......14 * Pakistan.....26 ** Turkey......30 ** U.S.A.......226 * 1966--67. * 1965--66. Source: The Economy of the U.S.S.R., 1068, pp 174. (>8!> 62 the more backward areas up to that of the more advanced. Each Union republic has been able to diversify its industry and sustain each sector with modern methods and machinery. Georgia, for example, specialises in ferrous metallurgy, machine-tool building, automobiles, chemicals, manganese and non-ferrous metals. Armenia produces a range of precision tools, radio electronics, computers and tools. Azerbaijan makes equipment for extracting and refining oil and has a number of petrochemical plants. Uzbek industry is now advanced enough to produce electric vacuum, semi-conductor and electronic appliances and a variety of sophisticated machinery and machine-tools. Meanwhile, the favourable climate has enabled the non-Russian republics to continue as major producers of vegetables, fruit, tea, cotton, silk, wool, astrakhan and other farm produce.
The economic progress of the Soviet republics is unparalleled as will be seen from a comparison with the nonSoviet countries sharing a common border with them: Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey and Pakistan. In 1964 these four countries together generated per head 95.6 per cent less electricity than the Central Asian republics; they smelted 98 per cent less steel, mined 97 per cent less coal, produced 85 per cent less cement and almost 99 per cent less sulphuric acid.^^1^^
Yet the progress of the once backward peoples of Russia is not expressed in economic indexes alone; their cultures have blossomed. Once liberated from social and national tyranny, they took seven-league strides forward in culture, education, science and health. Every republic now has its own research institutes and academy of sciences. The work of their many physicists, mathematicians, astronomers and biologists has won world renown. In the number of doctors and university graduates per 10,000 population, the Soviet republics are not only well ahead of their neighbours--- Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey and Pakistan---but also of many advanced capitalist countries (see Tables 18 and 19).
Development in the Soviet republics demonstrates that the socialist economic system is more progressive and creates objective possibilities for economically underdeveloped areas _-_-_
~^^1^^ See The Economy of the U.S.S.R., 1964, pp. 74--79, 99--100; U.N. Statistical Yearbook, 1965, pp. 274, 292, 295, 351.
63 Table 19 Doctors per 10,000 Population, 1968 Soviet Socialist Republics Other countries U.S.S.R..........25.9 Azerbaijan........24.3 Armenia.........30.1 Georgia.........35.9 Kazakhstan.......20.1 Kirghizia........19.5 Tajikistan........15.4 Turkmenia........21.1 Uzbekistan .......18.1 India.......2.2**« Iran........3.5* Pakistan.....1.6** Turkey......4.0*** Britain......15.2** Italy.......17.5*** France ...... 16.0** U.S.A.......19.2*** * 1964. ** 1965. *** 1967. **** 1966. Source: The Economy of the U.S.S.R., 1968, pp. 176, 730. to become advanced states in a relatively short time and without going through a capitalist stage of development. __*_*_*__Soviet economic history warrants the following conclusions.
First, that socialism has proved itself superior in growth rate to any other socio-economic formation; consequently, it has opened up new historical vistas of development for increasing numbers of nations taking the socialist way.
Second, it has demonstrated how economically backward countries, once they have rejected capitalism, can, in a short historical period, shed their age-old backwardness and take a fitting place among the world's most advanced nations.
Third, that economic planning and development of social production to secure the highest welfare and harmonious development of all members of society are a law of the socialist economy.
Fourth, that the socialist system opens up a new and potent reserve of economic development by radically altering 64 the purpose of social production and linking the fortunes of individuals with those of society.
Fifth, that socialism ensures a balanced and historically effective development of production, and rising living and cultural standards, and, on that basis, democracy and genuine freedom for all working people. There is much historical evidence of the advantages of a social system based on social property in the means and instruments of production.
[65] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter Three __ALPHA_LVL1__ NEW ECONOMIC FEATURESThe world-wide triumph of socialism is a complex and multifaceted process spanning a long period of history. The whole process, sparked off by the October Revolution, has unfolded when the capitalist system is on the whole ripe for change. The 1917 Revolution did more than give birth to the world of socialism; it had a profound effect on all aspects of social life in capitalist society, started the general crisis of capitalism, and reinforced all those elements of capitalism that must inevitably bring about its demise.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 1. Development of the Productive ForcesAs monopolies came to dominate capitalist society, they greatly speeded up the concentration of production. It was the trusts, the concerns and the multifarious forms of amalgamation of big industrial, credit and commercial firms that made it possible to concentrate capital on a scale that was unthinkable not merely under the individual or family business, but even in the early years of the joint-stock companies. Lenin revealed the contradictory consequences for social development of this concentration of property in the hands of the monopolies: while it undeniably increased production, it also generated a tendency to social stagnation, expressed in militarisation, wars for a repartition of the world, establishment of a large coupon-clipping group, retardation of economic development in the colonies, etc. At the same time, he pointed out that this trend ``by no means precludes an extraordinarily rapid development of 66 capitalism in individual branches of industry, in individual countries, and in individual periods".^^1^^
The half a century of the general crisis of capitalism has produced a number of new features in the pace and character of concentration of capital and production. These are bound up with the growth in productive forces and are vital to an understanding of the economic development of contemporary capitalism. Over the past fifty years, technology has made a tremendous leap forward, going well beyond any other advance in the 100--120 years since the English industrial revolution. Although technology had been steadily improving up to the First World War, there had been no radical changes in the mode of production. Industry had begun using electric power but steam engines still prevailed and the age of electricity lay ahead. Society had not yet entered the age of the motor-car and the tractor, of basic chemicals, electric means of communication and diesel engines. In other words, the machinery and technical methods employed in the 19th century underlay the transition from the era of free competition to that of monopoly capitalism. Concentration of production was largely quantitative and extensive, with growth implying longer payrolls.
This augmented size gave the entrepreneurs untold advantages. However old-fashioned these turn-of-the-century monstrosities might look with their steam engines, cumbersome belt-drives, their extensive use of manual labour, they had an edge in labour productivity and production costs over the mass of small and medium, often cottage and semiartisan workshops. It was the growing share in output by the enterprises employing large bodies of men that Lenin used as a basis for his analysis of production concentration indicative of the switch from competition to monopoly.
The first twenty years of the general crisis of capitalism--- the 1920s and 1930s---signposted a new stage in the development of technology and concentration of production. Advances in electrical engineering, the internal combustion engine and industrial chemistry substantially altered not just the technology of industry and other economic spheres; they affected the organisation and structure of production as well. The electric motor emancipated the machine, made it _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 23, p. 106.
__PRINTERS_P_67_COMMENT__ 5* 67 independent of other machines, and this in turn motivated progress in engineering---the kernel of all modern industry. This period is conspicuous for the vast increase in the range of finished products. The already invented motor-car, tractor, diesel locomotive, the industrial canning of food, the typewriter and the calculating machine, the radio, the telephone and a thousand other novelties broke the economic barrier and entered the lives of millions only as specialisation further advanced.The conveyer belt became the last word in technology. Once it had gained a dominant position in industrial technology, the conveyer belt made the next step obvious: cooperation and amalgamation of many factories. For the time being, however, the single factory held its own in creating a substantial, if not the principal, part of the value of the finished product.
But a new era was dawning. Since the early 1950s, a scientific and technological revolution has swept the capitalist world; it has further intensified the ceaseless process of specialisation, gemmating ever new lines of production.
Cardinal changes in the power industry have occurred in the course of the latest technological revolution. Oil and gas have come to the fore while coal has declined. There has been further mechanisation and much higher labour productivity in the extraction of all types of mineral ores, and equally significant technical improvements in fuel combustion and its greater efficiency. In 1949, hard fuels accounted for 41 per cent of America's fuel consumption, liquid fuels and gas for 54 per cent. By 1962, the proportion of hard fuels had fallen to 24 per cent, but that of liquid fuels and gas had risen to 75 per cent. Similarly, between 1950 and 1965 the six Common Market countries reduced their consumption of hard fuels from 83 to 44 per cent and increased their gas and liquid fuels use from 10 to 49 per cent.^^1^^
Progressive shifts in both consumption and production of the objects of labour (primary products and other materials) have resulted in two parallel trends: economies on costs at each stage of production, and utilisation of more economical raw materials. The result (particularly with the aid of _-_-_
~^^1^^ 1950---L'Europe ct I'energie, Luxembourg, 1964, p. 11; 1965--- Handbuch der Montanunion, 1964, S. 2292.
68 chemicals and petrochemicals) has been the establishment of an industrial raw material base, involving greater use of synthetic and enriched materials, semi-finished products, and materials with preset properties. This reduced the dependence of manufacturing on the natural properties of primary products, and cut the cost of materials going into construction and hardware.^^1^^Radical changes in the production of labour implements and factory equipment, progress in electronics and instrument-making are key links in the chain of the engineering revolution. Their contribution to automation is supplemented by many other items, including greater use of electronic computers, forge, hoisting and transport equipment, relative decline in importance of old-type metal-cutting equipment and greater mobility in the adjustment of the whole production process.
Besides industrial, there has been a development of consumer durables. While the inter-war years saw the rapid spread of the radio, post-war history belongs to television and household appliances like the refrigerator, washing machine and a whole range of electric kitchenware. These appliances are mass consumer goods in all the industrialised countries, and along with the motor-car are no longer a North American preserve.
The sphere of circulation has not remained unaffected either. Highly mechanised commercial and calculating equipment has facilitated the diffusion of the latest trading methods (supermarkets, mail order houses, etc.). It has also improved market research into supply and demand, and has _-_-_
~^^1^^ Between 1948 and 1962 the share of primary products in U.S. material production fell from 34 to 23 per cent.
During the 1940s, the U.S.A. smelted 250 metric tons of steel for every million dollars of gross national product. By the 1960s as a consequence of lighter structures and greater use of aluminium and plastics in engineering, the figure had fallen to 200 tons; by the end of the century it is likely to fall by another third (Resources for the Future, 1963, Annual Report, Washington, December 1963, p. 85). In the fifteen years since the end of the 1940s, within the ferrous metal industry of the advanced industrial countries, the outlay of raw and other prime materials per ton of pig iron dropped by 20 per cent, and the consumption of fuel by 30 per cent.
In the capitalist world as a whole, output of man-made raw materials has outstripped the growth in output of natural raw materials by tens and hundreds of times.
69 greatly boosted labour productivity in financial accounting and storage.Finally, farming, too, lias greatly benefited. From improved mechanisation, electrification and chemicalisation, increasing attention is being switched to the most intensive forms of stock-breeding and vegetable growing, etc. Since the latter 1930s, net growth in labour productivity in farming in the U.S.A. and other industrial countries has proceeded faster than in industry; this has been unique in the history of capitalism.
These trends have been accompanied by a spurt in the capital intensiveness of farming, further coalescence of farm capital with industrial, banking and commercial capital, promotion of business farming entailing intensive monopolisation within agriculture and the simultaneous reduction in the labour force.
Considerable changes in concentration of production and centralisation of capital have occurred concurrently with the technical and economic modifications. Of the two closely intertwined processes, centralisation of capital has gradually come to the fore.
Running parallel to the rapid specialisation is diversification of production, establishment of inter-branch groups of firms and companies under single administrative or financial control.
All this has had an effect on the status of the small and medium business. Specialisation and the constant application of new and improved machinery have engendered higher labour productivity, enhanced the competitiveness of these firms and enabled them to survive. On the other hand, the same processes of specialisation have turned the small firms into scattered workshops of the industrial and commercial oligarchies, i.e., they are now utterly dependent on the giant concerns.
Many apologists for the bourgeois system persist in describing this increasingly social nature of production and interdependence of firms, companies and sectors as a process of abolishing, or at least of weakening, the private property basis of the economy. A superficial interpretation of the changes occurring at the monopoly stage of capitalism ( particularly in the period of its general crisis) is that they reduce the concentration of property. In the imperialist era, 70 commodity fetishism has precipitated a fetishism of securities. In the proliferation of stocks and shares held by hundreds of thousands of shareholders, it is more difficult to get to the root of the causes of increased exploitation than when firms patently belonged to a single family or a few families of financial magnates.
But the real process is discernible. During the general crisis of capitalism, economic progress is accompanied by greater private appropriation, i.e., greater wealth for the monopoly bourgeoisie on the basis of greater exploitation of the working people. Statistics on distribution of national income in the capitalist industrial nations prove conclusively that the rate of surplus value has been rising while the proportion allotted to the workers has been falling. On the evidence collected by the Soviet Labour Research Institute, the rate of surplus value in the U.S.A. rose from 253 in 1919 to 341 in 1949, and to 397 in 1957. In the Federal Republic of Germany, the proportion of white- and blue-collar wages in the newly-created value within industry declined from 50 per cent in 1936 to 41 per cent in 1950, and to 40 per cent in 1960, with a corresponding increase in profits for all sections of the bourgeoisie. Between 1938 and 1952, the workers' share of the national income in France fell from 54 per cent to 45 per cent. In Italy, the rate of surplus value rose from 216 in 1950 to 246 in 1960.
Perhaps the increased rate and mass of surplus value are being paralleled by a more equitable distribution among the exploiting classes? An examination of the changes in the private fortunes of the biggest finance capitalists refutes this suggestion. The relevant statistics for the U.S.A. show that from the 1920s up to the early 1960s, the personal fortunes of 22 multimillionaire families greatly increased (some of them by as much as 15 or 20 times). During the same period, another score of families emerged with assets of over $100 million. Other capitalist countries tell the same tale. Even in Japan, West Germany and Italy, where defeat in the Second World War meant serious economic setbacks for the leading monopolies, the 20 immediate post-war years saw the finance magnates recoup their losses and build up new fortunes.
The private character of appropriation has a direct effect on the capitalist process of reproduction. Under monopoly 71 capitalism, this means that reproduction goes forward in a clash between competition and monopoly. Even before capitalism entered its monopoly stage, Karl Marx had revealed the peculiarity of this process. In the late 1840s, when monopolies were still rare, Marx noted in his book The Poverty of Philosophy: ``In practical life we find not only competition, monopoly and the antagonism between them, but also the synthesis of the two, which is not a formula, but a movement. Monopoly produces competition, competition produces monopoly. Monopolists are made from competition; competitors become monopolists.... The synthesis is of such a character that monopoly can only maintain itself by continually entering into the struggle of competition."^^1^^
Somewhat later, in April and May 1917, Lenin, who carefully followed the evolution of monopoly capitalism, wrote: ``Imperialism is moribund capitalism, capitalism which is dying but not dead. The essential feature of imperialism, by and large, is not monopolies pure and simple, but monopolies in conjunction with exchange, markets, competition, crises.... In fact it is this combination of antagonistic principles, viz., competition and monopoly, that is the essence of imperialism, it is this that is making for the final crash, i.e., the socialist revolution."^^2^^
This clash of contradictory ``principles'' brought about an acute aggravation of capitalist contradictions even at the initial stage of its general crisis---covering the period from the October Revolution to the Second World War. Soviet economists in the 1920s and 1930s proved that, highly uneven in the various countries and sectors, the economic crises of the period of incipient monopoly capitalism (late 19th century) and of imperialism (up to the Second World War) had on the whole become more destructive than the crises of the previous 50 years.
The 1929--33 crisis has a special place in capitalist history. Economic and technological progress had brought in its wake not merely great all-round growth in production, but essential changes in its structure as well. Until the First World War, all advanced countries had had a faster growth in _-_-_
~^^1^^ K. Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy, Moscow, 196G, p. 132.
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 24, pp. 464, 465.
72 producer than in consumer goods. With the lower assets-- toproduct ratio after the First World War there arose a trend to a higher growth rate in the production of consumer goods, and its approximation towards the growth rate of the production of producer goods. This process was particularly intensive in the U.S.A., where in 1919 the rate of growth of the consumer goods industry began to outstrip the rate of growth of the producer goods industry. This meant that an increasing amount of consumer goods was being produced with the same amount of producer goods. But this trend, which is progressive in itself, came into conflict with the social conditions of monopoly capitalism. The more rapid increase in the output of consumer goods required a corresponding expansion in the market for these goods.But consumer demand depends on purchasing power, i.e., the size of real wages and level of employment. Wages, in turn, are to some extent dependent on workers' successes in the class struggle and on the relation of supply of and demand for labour. The October Revolution was a great contribution to the class struggle of the labouring classes in the industrial countries. Its impact speeded the separation of the revolutionary from the reformist forces and facilitated the emergence and consolidation of the Marxist-Leninist Parties, which in some countries soon won over a great number of working people and became political forces to be reckoned with. Their influence grew within the trade unions and other mass organisations, giving them greater strength in fighting for better working conditions, shorter working hours, and so on. But even where, for various historical reasons, the Communist Parties lacked mass support, the October Revolution and Soviet progress made a tremendous impact on labour movements and helped them to make headway.
During the inter-war years, however, this failed to make any great impression on wages. Technical progress then went hand in hand with chronic labour unemployment and chronic underemployment of capital. In other words, the rate of capital accumulation was altogether inadequate to compensate for the slight increase in consumption capacity and, as usual, even in the boom periods there was latent overproduction which ultimately came to the surface.
In 1930, the capitalist world's industrial output fell by 73 14.6 per cent, the following year by 13.9 per cent, and in 1932 by another 15.1 per cent. For the U.S.A. and virtually every other industrial nation this was the greatest drop in production in the whole history of capitalist crises. In the course of the crisis, U.S. coal production was set back 28 years, pig iron 36 years, steel 31 years, and cotton consumption by 11 years. Between 1928 and 1932, employment in U.S. manufacturing dipped virtually by 40 per cent; the overall unemployment in the industrial nations reached 30--40 per cent and more of the pre-crisis employment figure.
However startling these figures are, they cannot reflect the true dimensions of the 1929--33 crisis. One significant fact is that it broke out just when the Soviet Union was successfully fulfilling its First Five-Year Plan and was making steady headway in industrialising the country along socialist lines. Already by the start of the 1930s unemployment in the U.S.S.R. had been abolished and the planned economy had secured high and stable rates of growth.
An economic crisis of such duration and scope, occurring as it did against a background of successful socialist construction in the U.S.S.R. and the upsurge and sweep of the working-class movement sparked off by the October Revolution, threatened the very existence of the capitalist system. Never before had economic problems in peace-time taken on such a politically acute form for bourgeois society.^^1^^ The slump had stemmed from the natural development of monopoly capitalism, but measures to extricate industry from it quickly were largely dictated by the circumstances of competition, and the struggle between the capitalist and socialist camps. State interference in the capitalist economy--- the active pervasive influence of the state on the reproductive process---had now become an economic and political necessity and, for the first time, the state began widespread intrusion into economic affairs, far beyond its previous role of militarising the economy.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Lord Keynes, the most eminent of economists among the ideologists of the monopoly bourgeoisie, voiced the capitalists' alarm when he wrote: ``It is certain that the world will not much longer tolerate the unemployment which, apart from brief intervals of excitement, is associated---and, in my opinion, inevitably associated---with present-day capitalistic individualism.'' (J. M. Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, London, 1936, p. 381.)
74The second stage of the general crisis of capitalism spans the years of the Second World War and post-war reconstruction. After the war, the ongoing scientific and technological revolution reaffirmed the political need for state intervention in the economy; this was now linked with an economic need that was even more pressing than it had been in the 1930s.
After the war, fresh traits again appeared in the process of capital accumulation. For all the great distinctions between the various countries and periods, there was on the whole a trend towards a situation where the monopoly firms were ploughing back more of their own capital, increasing their depreciation and undistributed profit accounts. This marked a further centralisation of capital and showed the increasing urge of the monopolies to rid themselves of dependence on credit on the basis of their own larger financial resources.
At the same time, another process was at work: an increasing amount of social reproduction was falling beyond the immediate reach of the private monopolies.
Even in the heyday of laissez faire, private capital had as a rule kept away from some economic sectors catering to the needs of reproduction. Engels wrote: ``In any case, with trusts or without, the official representative of capitalist society---the state---will ultimately have to undertake the direction of production. This necessity for conversion into state property is felt first in the great institutions for intercourse and communication---the post office, the telegraphs and the railways.. ..'' Engels added in a footnote by way of explanation: ``I say 'have to'. For only when the means of production and distribution have actually outgrown the form of management by joint-stock companies, and when, therefore, the taking them over by the state has become economically inevitable, only then---even if it is the state of today that effects this---is there an economic advance, the attainment of another step preliminary to the taking over of all productive forces by society itself."^^1^^
This formulates the economic necessity of state property.
From the very start, overland communications required _-_-_
~^^1^^ K. Marx and F. Engels, Selected Works, in 2 vols., Vol. II, Moscow, 1962, pp. 147--48.
75 such large investment that in most cases private capital could not oblige. For a number of reasons (including the long-term capital turnover and the strong dependence on outlook), there was no guarantee here of obtaining an average profit. Finally and most importantly, transport and communications are sectors of production in which its social (state and international) character first became most prominent. Since the transfer of any single sector to private capital might undermine the whole system, it was in the interest of capitalist reproduction to employ state property. The sacred principle of private property now came under fire. It had to be bolstered by state property.In the imperialist epoch, as the productive forces increased and production became even more concentrated, so enhancing its social character, the monopolies either were unable to participate in other sectors of reproduction, or their participation was limited. And the need for state participation was becoming urgent. When Engels was writing, he included the railways, posts and telegraphs in the means of communication; today the whole world network of communications---the infrastructure---has expanded to take in modern road and rail transport, the ports requiring vast investment, and gas and water pipelines. Then came hydroelectric and nuclear power schemes that are as capital-- intensive as the means of communication, without any immediate prospect of profit.
Substantial changes have occurred in the extractive industry. On the one hand, the richest and most accessible natural resources are gradually being exhausted; on the other, the new industrial raw material base has rendered less competitive and less profitable the big industries of coal, iron ore and some non-ferrous metals. Added to that, the new and less favourable areas for the extractive industry require vast sums of capital to develop and equip. This explains the mounting state involvement in the extractive industry.
After the Second World War, science began to take a big hand in the economy. It is important to realise, however, that science (fundamental theoretical research, in particular) is neither profitable for, nor in the direct interest of, capitalist enterprise---despite it being the most potent factor of progress and the strongest productive force. Scientific 76 research is usually associated with such a high portion of risk that it is unattractive to the capitalist with his eye on average profit.
U.S. scientific research, for example, had relied primarily on private funds set up and operated on a non-profit basis. But in the modern age, these funds can no longer satisfy the urgent need of the monopolies to expand scientific research, particularly from the standpoint of their economic and politico-military interests.
In the United States, research outlays went up from $3,000 million in 1950 to $26,000 million in 1968, an increase of 8.7-fold. The growth was almost as rapid in the other monopoly-capitalist countries, with the cost of research amounting to 2-4 per cent of the national income. In the major capitalist countries, up to two-thirds of the outlays going on research come from the government.
The social character of production takes on a new quality with the growing concentration of production and formation of monopolies. As the major economic sectors come under the control of a few powerful companies, the bankruptcy of just one big company is bound to set off a chain reaction throughout the economy. The mutual dependence of the various economic sectors implies the need and inevitability for joint effort, implemented by the state, to obviate any possibility of one monopoly dragging the whole economy with it. The state has, therefore, become much more responsible to monopoly capital for the condition of the entire credit system; and this has meant a substantial increase in the share and functions of state credit institutions.
The conditions of reproduction of labour power have also altered greatly due to the growth in the productive forces, the conversion of socialism into the decisive force of our day, and the fresh upsurge of the working-class movement. One result of labour's enhanced value is that it has created a social and economic need for improved education, health and insurance. It is the state that must bear an increasing part of these costs.
These are the principal features highlighting the development of capitalist productive forces during the general crisis of capitalism, and the nature of the contradictions forcing monopoly capitalism to intensify state intervention in the economy.
77 __ALPHA_LVL2__ 2. Stages and Principal DirectionsThe growing acuteness of the contradictions in the process of reproduction is evidence that capitalism, as a social system, has outlived itself, that the universal triumph of socialism is dictated by the need for further progress of the productive forces. To prolong its life-span, capitalism has to resort to a variety of measures, the most important of which is state-monopoly economic regulation. State-monopoly capitalism is the imperialist response to the objective circumstances precipitated by the growth of the productive forces and dictating the need for transition to socialism.
It would be wrong, however, to imagine that state-- monopoly capitalism takes shape solely on the basis of the growing social character of production. In fact, state-monopoly economic regulation also occurs primarily as a result of the sharpening of all of imperialism's contradictions: social and political, domestic and international. State-monopoly capitalism develops in close connection with such basic factors of capitalism's general crisis as imperialist wars and militarism, the division of the world into two systems, the growth and consolidation of the socialist system and its success in the competition with capitalism, exacerbation of the interimperialist struggle, disintegration of the colonial system, and upsurge in the working-class movement.
The extremely contradictory nature of state regulation of the capitalist economy, its instability and limited effectiveness, its militaristic tenor---all these and numerous other traits of state-monopoly capitalism stem from the fact that the historical need for an economy run from a single centre emerges in circumstances where the capitalist system itself, through the domination of private property in the means of production, stands opposed to a centrally-planned economy.
But monopoly capitalism, in its attempts to resolve the acute domestic socio-economic contradictions, can resort to no other means but state control of the economy, that is, the very measures which flout the basic principles of capitalism and which actually contradict these principles. This is evident in the whole complex course of present-day 78 capitalism, in all the ups and downs of state-monopoly capitalism.
Lenin analysed the swift progress of state-monopoly capitalism during the First World War, emphasising the iorced nature---the war-time need---of this rapidly increasing intrusion of the state in economic affairs. He wrote: ``. . . monopoly capitalism is developing into state-monopoly capitalism. In a number of countries regulation of production and distribution by society is being introduced by force of circumstances." (Italics ours.---Authors.)^^1^^
During the years of temporary stability that immediately followed the war, state economic regulation descended from the heights it had attained in wartime. Throughout the capitalist world central planning was relegated to the background largely giving way to the monopolies' traditional methods of running the economy. Government arms contracts lost their significance; so, too, did centralised (with decisive government participation) allocation of raw materials, fuel, capital, credit, labour, food and consumer goods.
Neither Europe nor Japan, however, went back to the Gold Standard, one of the oldest principles of capitalist economics, under which freely circulating paper money is redeemable on demand in gold.^^2^^ The Gold Standard was replaced by the Gold Bullion Standard (Britain, France, Japan) and the Gold Exchange Standard (Germany), where gold retains its function as the measure of value of commodities and as a world money currency, but no longer acts as a medium of domestic exchange.
This largely undermined the free-play mechanism of money circulation (through gold flowing out of the reserves and back again), which meant that the state was playing a much greater role than before the war in the sphere of credit, money circulation and foreign trade.
An end to temporary stability and the onset of the 1929-- 33 economic crisis against the background of Soviet progress in socialist construction led to a further heightening of statemonopoly regulation. The imperialist countries switched to an aggressive protectionism in foreign trade marked by rigid tariff and currency controls and the establishment of _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 24, p. 309.
~^^2^^ The U.S.A. maintained its Gold Standard during the war.
79 currency areas for sterling, the dollar, the franc and the yen. The role of government agencies greatly increased in controlling money in circulation and the capital loan market. Under the buffeting of the slump, the post-war vestiges of the Gold Standard eventually succumbed and it has never again appeared in any form.Changes in the home policy of some imperialist states were mainly associated with a further aggravation of the unevenness in inter-imperialist contradictions. Japan's attack on Manchuria in 1931 and the nazi take-over in Germany in 1933 marked a new stage in imperialist aggression, which eventually led to the Second World War. State regulation in these two countries and in Italy, which were shortly to band together in the Anti-Comintern Pact, was largely an instrument for militarising the economy.
In these countries, preparation for war brought in its wake higher taxation, the inflationary issue of paper money and a simultaneous increase in government contracts and in the number and role of mixed, state-private, and state enterprises and companies.
Within the United States, state regulation was carried on as a drive to wipe out the consequences of the Great Depression, the bourgeois euphemism for the 1929--33 crisis. Here the monopolies chiefly employed public works schemes for the jobless, and government programmes for maintaining farm prices and for providing guarantees to monopoly credit institutions. While these projects did meet with some success in hoisting the capitalist economy out of the crisis, in the 1930s capitalism did not achieve the usual post-crisis boom.
During the First World War, Lenin wrote: ``When capitalists work for defence, i.e., for the state, it is obviously no longer `pure' capitalism but a special form of national economy. Pure capitalism means commodity production. And commodity production means work for an unknown and free market. But the capitalist `working' for defence does not `work' for the market at all---he works on government orders, very often with money loaned by the state."^^1^^
These economic traits appeared with extra vigour during the Second World War. It was not just the war itself, with _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 25, pp. 68--69.
80 its untold misery and suffering, that demonstrated the bankruptcy of the private capitalist form of economy; it was also its methods of mobilising military and economic resources. At a time of a war for the repartition of the world, when the very existence of capitalism was at stake, it deserted its principles and introduced centralised economic regulation.^^1^^In contrast to the First World War, when state regulation involved only the European nations, this time it was a feature of every industrial nation in the war, including the U.S.A., Canada and Japan. Governments controlled all investment, allocation of raw materials, equipment, food and labour, in addition to monopolising all economic contacts with other states. Up to 40 and 50 per cent and sometimes the bulk of the national product was channeled through government agencies and realised through the treasuries or under state control, instead of the free market.
After the war, one would have expected a trend towards economic ``liberalisation'' in the sense of the economy being liberated from state control. And this did, in fact, happen. The bulk of war-time state regulation measures was _-_-_
~^^1^^ The attitude of the monopolies to government control in Britain is shown in a rather curious light in Contemporary Capitalism by John Strachey, prominent Labour politician and author. He says: ``In the first place no one with first-hand experience of the matter can doubt that it is true that it is in one way easier for the government of a capitalist society to spend upon armaments than for peaceful purposes. I well remember the remarkable transformation of opinion which took place in official and financial circles, in the Press and in Parliament, when, in 1950, the British Labour Government of which I was a member was faced with the necessity, as we considered it, ... to undertake a rearmament programme. Up till that moment we had been under the most intense pressure to curtail government expenditure, in particular, and economic activity generally. Our officials, the City of London, the financial writers in the Press, the spokesmen of the opposition in Parliament, all united to point out that employment was already full, if not `over-full'; that there were no unused resources. .. . Then the question of rearmament came into the picture. Immediately the whole character of the advice tendered to us, both officially and unofficially, was transformed. ... It is impossible to resist the impression that arms making was the one kind of government expenditure which was considered in orthodox circles to be really respectable. It was the one sort of government economic activity which had nothing left wing about it. And the whole character of the economic advice which the government received was governed by that fact.'' (John Strachey, Contemporary Capitalism, London, 1956, p. 241.)
__PRINTERS_P_81_COMMENT__ 6---235 81 abolished. However, the transition from a war-time to a peacetime economy occurred in circumstances quite different to those after the First World War.Despite the rout of the interventionists and whiteguards, the international imperialists had still cherished hopes during the early 1920s for a restoration of capitalism in the U.S.S.R.; they were hoping that the remnants of the exploiting classes would return to power. After the Second World War, these hopes were dashed by the formation and consolidation of the world socialist system.
The major role played by the Soviet Union in defeating the Axis powers, the establishment of the world socialist system and the fresh upsurge in the working-class and national liberation movements---these are all factors that caused a radical shift in the world balance of power, intensified the general crisis of capitalism and made socialism the decisive force of our day. Economically, socialism has literally forced capitalism into competition, especially in economic growth rates.
Back in the 1930s it was still fashionable to refer ironically to the Soviet ``growth rate mania''. Today, however, there is not one country of monopoly capitalism whose government does not pursue a policy of stimulating the economic growth rate.
Thus, the last fifty years have shown the extremely complex character of the laws of state-monopoly capitalism; without a knowledge of these laws, it is impossible to understand the nature of the system.
Though state-monopoly capitalism was engendered by the social character of production, it is by no means directly dependent on the further intensification of this process, on greater monopoly concentration of production and centralisation of capital. Economic factors have an influence on the growth of state-monopoly capitalism not only, and even not so much directly, but essentially through the prism of political and social contradictions.
The objective demand of overall state economic regulation, dictated by the growing productive forces, is linked with an inevitable variety of forms of state control over monopoly enterprise. Hence the dissension within the ruling class over the various forms of control, with its two basic trends: a) preservation and extension of state regulation, 82 and b) fold up of controls and ``liberalisation'' of the economy. Both trends exist within monopoly capitalism and are reflected in the ceaseless domestic fighting over issues of state economic policy, a common feature of present-day bourgeois politics.
It is objective necessity that prevails. Despite the zigzags of history, economic progress during capitalism's general crisis is accompanied by growing state regulation. The conflict of the two trends, however, tends to give this growth a very complex and contradictory character, and in particular has an effect on the forms of government control.
In the constant fluctuation and tremendous diversity of forms and methods of state economic control in the various countries, two basic forms are apparent: state property and state participation in redistributing the national income. These two forms are supplementary and, in some respects, even contradictory. Therefore, an analysis of the part of each and of both is especially important for understanding the nature and prospects of the entire process of statemonopoly regulation. (a) State Property
Because state property frequently occurs in mixed, stateprivate enterprises, it is hard to examine the role of state enterprises in the'economy and make cross-national comparisons: the indexes used tend not to be identical for all countries.
In most monopoly capitalist countries, the post-war years saw a decline in the state's share of the national wealth.
The military concerns and government-owned land (which accounts for more than one-quarter of the total amount of state property) apart, government ownership in U.S. civilian production does not appear to be very high. The exceptions are the power industry (13 per cent of total capacity) and transport and communications (although here, too, in contrast to Western Europe, private corporations predominate).
In post-war Japan, the liquidation of government military property simply meant that it was transferred to private monopolies. Today, straightforward government property is to be found in only a few factories and sectors. In 1960, the state owned 18.5 per cent of the national wealth.^^1^^ Further, _-_-_
~^^1^^ Hompo Kcizai Tokei, Tokyo, 1963, p. 330.
__PRINTERS_P_83_COMMENT__ 6* 83 the factories it owned brought the state no more than 0.6 per cent of the national income, with the figure having a tendency to diminish (2.3 per cent in f949). This is primarily due to the fact that the government owns mainly non-income bearing assets (though requiring considerable capital outlays) like parks, armaments, administrative buildings, and forests and land of no industrial or agricultural importance. Moreover, the state-owned factories and utilities are frequently marginal or sub-marginal.Thus, in Japan, where thirty odd years ago state property occupied a prominent position in the militarised large-scale, particularly heavy, industry, the government is now left only with transport, communications, administrative buildings and waste land and forest.
In West Germany, state property dominates the railways, airlines, road transport and communications; it is also well represented in the capital of industrial enterprises. The proportion of state enterprises in West German production may be gauged from the following figures: 71 per cent in aluminium, 38.7 per cent in iron ore, 34 per cent in shipbuilding, 24.4 per cent in coal, 16.3 per cent in electricity, 14.3 per cent in coke, 8.8 per cent in lignite and 6.1 per cent in oil. The state proportion of West German share capital is approximately 18 per cent (DM3,600 million: 19,700 million). Over half the state-held shares are in power, approximately one-seventh in coal, and one-fifteenth in iron and steel.^^1^^
In Britain, there was a noticeable decline in the 1950s in the state share of the national wealth. In 1950, private capital owned 51.7 per cent of the national wealth (land, real estate, stocks of finished and primary products, means of transport, and securities), with the government and non-profit agencies owning 48.3 per cent. By 1960, the ratio had shifted in favour of private capital: 59.5 and 40.5 per cent, respectively. In the ten years between 1952 and 1962, government enterprises accounted for about one-fifth of the finished social product.^^2^^ As in other developed capitalist countries, state property is primarily concentrated in transport, communications, the extractive and power industries, municipal _-_-_
~^^1^^ State Property in Western Europe, Moscow, 1961, p. 237 (Russ. ed.).
^^2^^ The Economist, October 26, 1963, p. 409.
84 services and land holdings. The British Government owns just over one-twentieth of total production in the manufacturing and building industries.^^1^^France presents the following picture. In 1957, the state (national and local municipal bodies) owned 32--36 per cent of the national wealth. According to the estimates of Charles Bettelheim, state-owned factories in industry and transport (including mixed factories in which the state owned over half the capital) employed about 1 million persons or some 14 per cent of the total industrial and commercial labour force.^^2^^ The state accounts for a sizable part (from one-fifth to one-quarter) of total industrial production, including 97 per cent in coal and 85 per cent in electricity. In contrast to West Germany and Britain, the French state also holds a leading position in manufacturing, accounting for twothirds of the aircraft output, about one-third of shipbuilding, about the same in automobiles and tractors, and a large proportion in armaments.
Italy, like France, is among the countries with a high level of state property. At the beginning of the 1950s, about onethird of all Italian workers employed in heavy engineering and transport were state employees. Some ten years later, in 1962--63, the proportion of state employees was 57 per cent in manufacturing and 40 per cent in trade and the services. The share of state-owned companies in total capital investment (agriculture apart) stood at 13 per cent. In 1961, Italy's biggest state-monopoly organisation, IRI, accounted for 77 per cent of iron ore production, 82.3 per cent cast iron, 51.2 per cent steel, 55.2 per cent rolled metal, 25 per cent electricity and 24.5 per cent machine-building.^^3^^
The Austrian state occupies a rather special place in the share of the national wealth held by the state. At the end of the last war, the Austrian workers forced the government to nationalise all property belonging to Germans and collaborators. As a result, the state sector in 1964 employed some 20.4 per cent of the total labour force. The share of _-_-_
~^^1^^ Sec Problems of Contemporary Capitalism and llic Working Class, Prague, 1963, p. 548.
~^^2^^ The World Economy and International Relations No. 5, 1958, p. 78 (Russ, cd.).
~^^3^^ Ministero delle partccipazioni statali, Rclazionc progrnmmatica, Roma, 1963, p. 90.
85 the state (including nationalised banks), the provinces and the communes in industrial output was 30 per cent. Further, between three-quarters and four-fifths of all joint-stock capital, which means the biggest and most influential companies in Austria, belongs to the state and is under its control. The state also holds 66--75 per cent of the banking resources, virtually 100 per cent of the power facilities and nearly 90 per cent of the railways. Of the ten biggest industrial concerns eight are state-owned.^^1^^All these figures indicate that state property does not dominate the economic scene in any country of statemonopoly capitalism, notwithstanding the great unevenness of development between the various countries and economic sectors. On closer scrutiny of its structure, it is quite obvious that, with few exceptions, private capital everywhere holds the commanding heights in production---engineering and agriculture, commercial credit and farmland, and farm and timber resources. These are the linchpins of the reproduction process responsible for producing the final product and monopoly super-profits.
Even where state property is fairly extensive, it is largely confined to the service branches of the economy: transport, communications, electricity, gas, water, and other utilities, and---in some countries---the extractive industry as well.
All these sectors are not profitable enough to attract private capital, chiefly because, first, there is no immediate prospect of a quick return on capital and, second, in the prevailing social climate, price increases in these sectors are most difficult to push through. There is always a public outcry against any price increases in the transport services, communications and the public utility services. The monopolies do not want to be the targets of these protests. With profits at a minimum or even losses covered from the budget, the capitalist state assures the monopolies of a supply of power and the products of the extractive industry at minimum prices.
The restricted role of state property within the system of state-monopoly capitalism is due to its very nature. Clearly, a greater share of state property can be profitable for the _-_-_
~^^1^^ State Property in Western Europe, p. 387.
86 monopolies up to a point. No matter how great the pressure of economic and political circumstances militating in favour of greater state intrusion in the economy, the finance oligarchy and bourgeois government invariably exert all efforts primarily to prevent any threat to the monopoly positions of private capital in the national wealth.Indeed, the monopolies and their governments as a rule strive to denationalise, wherever state property has become extensive for various historical reasons, such as the post-war nationalisation of German monopoly property in Austria, and the nationalisation of a number of French industries when the Communists were in the government. (b) The State in the Distribution of the National Income
The experience of the past few decades shows that it is the redistribution of the national income and not the growing volume of state property that is the principal instrument of state-monopoly manipulation of the economy.
Distribution of the national income is a very complex two-phase process: the initial allocation among workers, capitalists and landowners in the form of wages, profit and rent; and the redistribution of the national income already allocated in wages and profit.
State-monopoly control mainly takes a hand in the second phase---in the redistribution of the national income--- through the state finance and fiscal system. To obtain a clearer idea of the exact economic role of the state, it might be better to view it as the corporate capitalist body, and this actually corresponds to its social nature. The individual capitalist divides the profit he receives into two parts, one of which he puts by for accumulation, and the other turns to personal consumption. The capitalist state does exactly the same. One part of the share of surplus value assigned to the state is spent on state consumption, the other goes to accumulation.
State consumption includes outlays non-returnable in financial terms and economically not directly connected with production. First, there are the outlays on the upkeep of the state apparatus, including salaries to all civil servants, armed services personnel, etc., and the maintenance of government administrative buildings, barracks, armaments, etc. Consumption outlays also include state expenditure on social security, education and the health service.
87Non-investment outlays, i.e., consumption expenditure, are everywhere over one-half, and usually about two-thirds, of total state expenditure; furthermore these have been soaring under the pressure of militarisation and wars.
Besides, the state, a corporate capitalist, also takes part in the accumulation of capital, like any individual capitalist. At the second and third stages of capitalism's general crisis, state participation in accumulating capital greatly increased. This type of participation sometimes serves as a means of militarisation, sometimes as a factor stimulating economic growth on the basis of scientific and technical progress; but normally both factors are intertwined.
The state budget and taxes, as the main source of state revenue (especially of stepped-up capital accumulation), are everywhere the chief means by which the state redistributes the national income. The budget is closely connected with state operation of the credit system.
A characteristic feature of capitalism's general crisis, particularly of its second and third stages, is that the central banks of issue have finally come under complete state control and, further, have become the pivot of the state system of active pressure on the loan capital market through a combination of fiscal and non-fiscal, administrative measures.
In this context, the share of credit resources at the government's disposal is frequently not of prime significance. In the U.S.A., average annual figures for the 1946--60 period show that the federal government's monetary resources did not increase in the slightest, while the net increase in resources belonging to the various states and local authorities amounted to just under 5 per cent of the total monetary capital accumulated in the country. It is true that, because of the growth of the national debt during the war and the post-war years, the amount of credit resources at the disposal of the state has increased: the proportion of state savings bonds in the savings of the population grew from 4.7 per cent in 1940 to 14.6 per cent in 1960. But this does not give a full picture of the part played by the state on the loan capital market.
Of greater importance in U.S. state-monopoly control is the rapidly growing role of the Federal Reserve System, headed by the Federal Reserve Board, who are appointed by the U.S. President and confirmed by the Senate. The 88 purpose, structure and operation of the Federal Reserve System are a vivid illustration of the coalescence of the banking monopolies and the state power, an example of how finance capital uses the state power to attain the fullest utilisation of credit resources for its own ends.
Despite great differences in form, exactly the same thing is happening with the central banks of issue and their relations with the private banks in all the countries of monopoly capitalism.
The share of state credit institutions in the total volume of credit resources in the various countries of Western Europe and Japan fluctuates greatly, between 15 per cent in West Germany to 65--67 per cent in Austria (amount of bank credits). But, principally, the position is everywhere the same: the central banks of issue together with other state credit institutions pursue a certain credit policy, relying not only on their financial resources, but also on non-financial, administrative measures, on their authority, and ability to apply effective sanctions against those who refuse to toe the line laid down by the supreme state credit-financial agencies where the government acts in unison with the monopolies.
Today, finance associations and monopoly federations play an ever bigger part in state-monopoly regulation. In the U.S.A. there is the National Association of Manufacturers, in Japan the National Federation of Industrial Unions, in West Germany the Federation of German Industries, in Britain the Confederation of British Industry, in France the National Council of French Industrialists, and in Italy ``Confindustria''. These and others like them are often justly called the unofficial government of their country. Their activity is principally concerned with elaborating government policy on the basis of the common interests of the bourgeoisie, first and foremost of its monopolistic cabal. They do not simply dictate to governments and parliaments the political course they want; to some extent they also engage in ``feed back" by acting as vehicles of government policy. The recommendations made by the ruling bodies of these federations play an important part in implementing all kinds of measures of state-monopoly control.
Another feature of contemporary capitalism is the mounting importance of special government agencies with ministerial powers, like the French General Planning 89 Commission, the British Ministry of Economic Planning, the Italian inter-ministerial Committee for Economic Development, the Japanese Economic Planning Executive, and the President's Council of Economic Advisers in the U.S.A. One of their most important functions is to frame economic programmes and forecast economic trends.
Economic programmes of the 1960s embrace various sectors of the economy irrespective of the degree of state participation, but their real importance is to provide financial resources for state control with maximum effect. Their powers of direction are of secondary importance: the monopolists pay heed to state economic plans only to the extent these yield a profit or contain the threat of state sanctions (the loss of lucrative government contracts, loans, subsidies, etc.), that is, chiefly within the bounds determined by state financial resources.
The real economic basis on which state-monopoly control rests is no more than between 2-3 and 10--15 per cent of the social product from state-owned factories, 25--40 per cent of state participation in the distribution of the national income, and up to one-third participation in total investment. All other means, lying outside state property and finance, may be substantial but are not crucial.
No analysis of state-monopoly control would be complete without examining the concrete manifestation of state economic policy in the post-war period, and here militarism has been playing a much bigger part than it did between the wars.
In late sixties and early seventies, U.S. military expenditure accounted for some 10 per cent of gross product, British and French about 6 per cent, and West German more than 4 per cent. Militarism implies far more than the squandering of an immense mass of value from the process of reproduction. It lays it's imprint on the whole process of state economic control, making it extremely bureaucratic and facilitating control of the economy by the most reactionary groups of the ruling classes, the military-industrial monopolies and the military clique. In the U.S.A., direct military expenditure accounts for more than one-half of all government outlays and over one-half of the government non-investment spending. This means that in the environment of the cold war and international tension, produced by the aggressive U.S. policy, state participation in the economy 90 bears many features of war-time state-monopoly capitalism. The vast military spending and its tendency to increase are accompanied in other countries by severe restrictions on the government's social spending and on government investment in the non-military sectors of the economy.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 3. State-Monopoly Capitalism and ChangesThe most crucial yet difficult task in state-monopoly control has been to overcome the cyclical nature of capitalist development and to ensure that capitalist production maintains a stable rate of economic growth in peacetime. Capitalism had never before set itself this objective nor, indeed, was it able to do so. As has been shown, this objective only became feasible as the productive forces developed and in the circumstances produced by the general crisis of capitalism and the advances of socialism in competition with and struggle against capitalism.
One must first establish whether it is possible under commodity production based on capitalist private property to reach a degree of economic control where economic progress could become even and stable and entail full employment and full capacity operation of the production facilities. The very facts of post-war activity provide an answer to this question: no capitalist country has attained anything approaching this level of stability.
The first post-war cyclical crisis of overproduction occurred in the U.S.A. between 1948 and 1949. The recession began in October 1948 and continued for ten months, during which time the monthly production index dropped by 10 per cent, and the annual index (1949 over 1948) dipped by 5.4 per cent. The subsequent period of revival sparked off by the Korean war was comparatively short-lived, being halted in mid-1953 by a fresh crisis in production which, in duration and scope, was similar to that of 1948--49. The next and worst post-war crisis to hit the U.S.A. came in 1957--58. From the autumn of 1957 to the summer of 1958, the industrial index fell by 14 per cent, and the 1958 annual index was 7 per cent lower than the year before. Within two 91 years, in January 1960, the U.S.A. was beset by another protracted recession lasting over a year and cutting industrial production by 7 per cent. The expansion that commenced in the second quarter of 1961 continued uninterrupted until 1967 at a relatively high (about 7 per cent) average annual rate of industrial growth. In 1967, however, the situation took a sharp turn for the worse: despite the stimulating effect of the war in Vietnam, production laboured under a recession for six months and for the year as a whole it remained at the previous year's level. Another economic crisis, accompanied by a prolonged decline in production, broke out in the U.S.A. in 1970--71.
The C.P.S.U. Central Committee's Report to the 24th Congress, given by L. I. Brezhnev, said: ``Even the most developed capitalist states are not free from grave economic upheavals. The U.S.A., for instance, has been floundering in one of its economic crises for almost two years now. The last few years have also been marked by a grave crisis in the capitalist monetary and financial system. The simultaneous growth of inflation and unemployment has become a permanent feature. There are now almost eight million unemployed in the developed capitalist countries.''
Economic activity developed differently in Western Europe and Japan. As the U.S.A. was suffering its initial postwar crisis, post-war rehabilitation was still in full swing in Western Europe and Japan. Later on, however, first in 1951--52 and then in 1957--58, a number of West-European countries suffered either a slump in production or a sharp cutback in rate of overall growth. The upward phase of the cycle that followed the 1958 world crisis occurred variously in the capitalist economies. Britain had long periods when her economy was virtually marking time (1960--62, 1964--65 and 1967); West Germany showed steady growth, but her growth rate sharply dipped in 1962 and 1965--66, and in 1967 she was beset by an economic crisis; the French economy stagnated for some two years in 1964--65; in Italy, between November 1963 and May 1965, industrial stagnation set in, followed by a slump and then more industrial stagnation. Although Japan enjoyed the highest industrial growth rate in the capitalist world---between 1956 and 1965, some 15 per cent a year---stagnation or crisis recessions did occur for several months in 1958, 1961 and 1964--65.
92These facts are convincing evidence that at its present, third stage of general crisis, capitalism has not managed to attain stability or steady growth; the dynamics of its economic growth are subject to powerful devastating fluctuations, which since the war have had a new feature: on the one hand, they have become more frequent and on the other, they are not as regular or periodic as they used to be; they are much shallower and are not as long. By contrast, U.S. industrial production in the 1920--21 crisis plummeted by 23 per cent, and in the 1929--33 crisis by as much as 46.2 per cent. During the latter, British industrial production fell by some 15 per cent, German over 40 per cent and French 30 per cent. The contraction lasted from 18 to 30 months, and production took another 12 to 18 months to regain its former level. During the previous crises in the imperialist era production recessions had never been so deep and protracted as the 1929--33 crash, yet they were 2 or 3 times deeper and longer than recent post-war recessions and stagnation.^^1^^
To evaluate correctly the significance of such radical changes in the dynamics of capitalist reproduction, one must recall the essential causes of its cyclic nature. There is a basic contradiction within capitalism between the social nature of production and the private nature of appropriation. This leads, among other things, to anarchy of production, a contradiction between the production and the consumption potential of a society founded on exploitation. These contradictions are constantly at work under capitalism. Why, then, does commodity overproduction occur periodically rather than constantly?
The answer lies in the part played by fixed capital as an instrument of exploitation under advanced capitalism. It is the accumulation of capital, and renewal and expansion of the implements of labour, that are most directly affected by the principal contradiction of capitalism. Hopes of greater profit through expansion of enterprises (particularly with the latest inventions and technologies) amid a situation of production anarchy produce a fever, an agiotage, inflation _-_-_
~^^1^^ Y. Varga, Contemporary Capitalism and Economic Crises, Moscow, 1963, pp. 15, 133, 187 (Russ. ed.).
93 of credit, a scramble in which each capitalist individually and all capitalists together endeavour to put the maximum of resources into the business. Such a concentration, emanating from the very essence of capitalism, eventually leads first to latent, then to blatant overproduction, which means a crisis. Cutbacks in production, bankruptcy and liquidation, price drops and rising unemployment are all factors that follow from overproduction; they are also the means for resolving the contradictions that had accumulated in the earlier phases. Or, as Marx put it, they are the starting point for new capital investment, a booster for the revival and consequent upsurge in production.Crises became periodical in the 19th century. Marx wrote: ``As the heavenly bodies, once thrown into a certain definite motion, always repeat this, so is it with social production as soon as it is once thrown into this movement of alternate expansion and contraction. Effects, in their turn, become causes, and the varying accidents of the whole process, which always reproduces its own conditions, take on the form of periodicity."^^1^^ The duration of the cycles (the intervals between crises) depended mainly on the period of renewal of fixed capital. Marx explained: ``Up to now, this was normally a cycle of ten or eleven years, but there is no reason why we should take this to be a constant figure. On the contrary, the laws of capitalism we have set out suggest that this is a variable figure, and that it is bound to diminish little by little."^^2^^
Marx's forecast was borne out. Between 1825 and 1857, the length of the cycle was exactly 11 years, in the following 43 years up to the end of the century it was 8.5 years, and in the first 30 years of the present century it was 7 years.
In the years since the end of the Second World War---a period of the scientific and technological revolution---the period of renewal and replacement of labour implements has been considerably shortened. The rapidly increasing flow of new discoveries and inventions is speeding up the obsolescence of old equipment and altering the ratio of investment in hardware and investment in industrial buildings in favour _-_-_
~^^1^^ K. Marx, Capital, Vol. I, Moscow, 1965, p. 633.
~^^2^^ K. Marx, Capital, Vol. I, Moscow, 1935, pp. 504--05 (Russ. ed.).
94 of the former.^^1^^ These changes are being accompanied by a reduction in the time taken to get new facilities running and by greater effectiveness of capital investment and return on capital.The factors listed above in themselves help to intensify overproduction and reduce the intervals between crises. It would be quite wrong, however, to see the present situation and prospects for reproduction as being similar to the old direct dependence between the periods of mass renewal of equipment and the periodic nature of crises. Some countertendencies have also arisen as a number of factors operating in a reverse direction and closely linked with the already mentioned changes in the productive forces, with the development of state-monopoly regulation of the economy, and with the change in the relationship of class forces within the imperialist world. Their effect on the reproduction cycle largely consists of the following.
The scientific and technological revolution has been causing basic and protracted structural changes, including the formation or great expansion of several new branches of production, such as petrochemistry, electronics and plastics. These processes have been spurred on by the disintegration of the colonial system, and intensified specialisation and cooperation of production on a domestic and international scale. Structural shifts in the economy have occurred simultaneously with changes in the centralisation of production and capital and improvements in monopoly organisation. Alongside the increased size and importance of the biggest monopoly companies in the economy, their dependence on foreign credit has weakened, the system of inter- and intrafirm planning has greatly improved, and they now have more sophisticated methods of estimating current and future demand, of maintaining prices, profits, dividends and investment at a given level, irrespective of market trends.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Within the U.S.A. this is apparent in the relative increase in the cost of hardware; its share in capital investment in manufacturing increased from 41 per cent in 1929 to 64 per cent in 1947 and to 73 per cent in 1962. At the same time, there has been a growth in the proportion of depreciation in the total volume of industrial capital investment, which itself is evidence of accelerating obsolescence and replacement of machinery. These trends are also evident in other capitalist countries.
95The increased rate oi depreciation and shorter life of hardware is now counteracted by the fact that the renewal of fixed capital takes place at different times and is no longer concentrated within short periods.
State-monopoly regulation tends to work even more strongly in the same direction. In spite of their increase in absolute size and importance, no private monopolies can meet modern requirements in promoting science and experimental technology, in education and social insurance, construction of a modern infrastructure, and in stability and mobility of credit resources. The data on the distribution of the social product show a tendency for the state to intervene increasingly in the distribution of the national income, which in itself, and particularly in conjunction with administrative means of influencing the economy, brings a certain stability to the economic outlook. The state now has enough means to maintain its economic activity even when the general economic outlook takes a turn for the worse, thereby preventing things from getting worse.
It is especially worth noting the part played by statemonopoly capitalism today in inter-state economic relations. The effect of an economic crisis in one country on other countries is not now so great as it once used to be. This is largely due to the formation over many years (since the 1929--33 crisis) of systems of many-sided state control in foreign trade, in the import and export of capital and in monetary relations. This helps to desynchronise the crises in various countries and so to damp down the lluctuations in economic outlook.
All the same, despite the substantial and beneficial modifications, capitalism has not been able to overcome the cyclical nature of reproduction. Crises or sharp cyclical fluctuations in the process of reproduction remain. Lenin once wrote that monopolies brought about the planning, while the capitalist magnates calculated in advance the volume of production on a national and even on an international scale systematically regulating it.^^1^^ Since this was written the instruments and means with which the monopolies have been able to bring about some planning to production, have greatly improved. But with all the latest improved means at their _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 25, p. 443.
96 disposal, they cannot overcome the chaos and anarchy of capitalist production or the lluctuations in market conditions, and make reproduction throughout the economy balanced, stable and optimal. This can be clearly seen in the persistent crises and cyclical lluctuations in production and in many other phenomena, most importantly in the growth of prices and inflation.Price rises and the increasing cost of living are a characteristic feature of the imperialist era. One of the aims in discontinuing the free convertibility of banknotes was to increase government control of money in circulation, thereby halting the growth of prices and stabilising them. But capitalism has failed to achieve this, and post-war experience is particularly indicative of this. It would seem that prices should fall or at least keep constant with the growth in production spurred on by technical progress and accompanied by cuts in per-unit labour costs. In fact, the opposite has occurred. Taking 1959 as a base of 100, 1969 prices look like this:
Table 20 Wholesale and Consumer Goods Prices in Some Capitalist Countries (1959 = 100) Wholesale (aggregate index) Consumer goods (aggregate index) US. A. . 112.7 120. 0 Britain ..... .... 122.5 141.3 West Germany ......... 105.2 129.0 France . ... 127.9 138.2 Italy 121 9 143.8 Japan 110.7 167.6 Sources: U.N. Monthly Bulletin of Statistics, July 1970, pp. 110--58, 176--80; U.N. Statistical Yearbook, 1968, pp. 535--39, 54240.The specific reasons for price rises vary from country to country: they often have a predominantly inflationary character, i.e., they are associated with large-scale government military spending, an overburdened budget, and the issue of paper money over and above the requirements of __PRINTERS_P_97_COMMENT__ 7---235 97 circulation (Britain and France); sometimes they are caused by market conditions, and sometimes the various causes are intertwined. But, whatever the actual circumstances, price rises everywhere demonstrate that the bourgeois state cannot fully contain the spontaneous forces of the capitalist market. Since the drive for maximum profit remains the principal incentive to capitalist production, the intrinsic contradiction between the social character of production and private appropriation causes appreciable shifts in market conditions, price rises and inflationary tendencies---even with a high degree of state-monopoly control.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 4. Uneven Economic Development andUneven economic and political development is one of the fundamental laws of monopoly capitalism.
In his study of the uneven development of imperialism in 1916, Lenin wrote: ``. . .The only conceivable basis under capitalism for the division of spheres of influence, interests, colonies, etc., is the calculation of the strength of those participating, their general economic, financial, military strength, etc. And the strength of these participants in the division does not change to an equal degree, for the even development of different undertakings, trusts, branches of industry, or countries is impossible under capitalism. Half a century ago Germany was a miserable, insignificant country, if her capitalist strength is compared with that of the Britain of that time; Japan compared with Russia in the same way. Is it `conceivable' that in ten or twenty years' time the relative strength of the imperialist powers will have remained unchanged? It is out of the question."^^1^^
Since capitalism is motivated by the principle of brute force, the rapid changes in the balance of forces create situations loaded with extremely acute conflicts and clashes.
Britain's loss of her monopoly position as ``workshop of the world" at the end of the last century and the world-wide scramble for colonies and markets opened up an era of imperialist rivalry for a territorial and economic redivision of _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 22, p. 295.
98 the world. This has led to two world wars and a series of fierce international conflicts pushing mankind to the brink of full-scale war.The law of uneven economic and political development has never operated in isolation from other social laws, from the sum total of international relationships as they have formed in the era when the contradiction and struggle between the socialist and capitalist systems constitute the basic content of the historical process. Shifts in the balance of levels in economic progress within the capitalist world are the economic basis for the contradictions and conflicts that weaken the imperialist camp.
The years immediately following upon the Second World War witnessed the rapid growth of the U.S. share in the world economy. But already by the early 1950s, with all nations back at their pre-war economic levels, the countries of Western Europe and Japan overtook the U.S.A. in economic growth rates over a definite period. As a result, the share of nations in world capitalist production altered as follows.
Table 21 Industrial League in the Capitalist World (per cent) 1938 1948 1955 1960 1965 1967 1969 U.S.A. 36.6 55.8 50.5 45.8 45.1 45.2 43.4 Western Europe . . 45.0 30.4 33.4 35.4 34.1 33.0 32.8 including: West Germany . . --- 4.2 8.5 9.6 9.4 8.7 9.4 Britain 15.6 11.9 10.2 9.3 8.2 7.5 7.1 France ...... 6.2 4.5 4.4 4.7 4.5 4.5 4.6 Italy 3.2 2.2 2.7 3.4 3.5 3.8 3.6 Common Market . . 24.2 13.0 18.0 20.0 19.6 18.4 19.8 Japan ....... 4.7 1.3 2.5 4.4 5.7 7.0 8.5 Source: The Economic Standing of Capitalist and Developing Countries. Review of 1969 and the Beginning of 1970 (Supplement to the journal World Economy and International Relations No. 7. 1970). (Russ. ed.)Together with the growth in the share of other countries, apart from the U.S.A., the standing of the respective monopolies has also improved.
__PRINTERS_P_99_COMMENT__ 7* 99 Emacs-File-stamp: "/home/ysverdlov/leninist.biz/en/1971/SCSP287/20070526/199.tx" __EMAIL__ webmaster@leninist.biz __OCR__ ABBYY 6 Professional (2007.05.25) __WHERE_PAGE_NUMBERS__ bottom __FOOTNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [0-9]+ __ENDNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [0-9]+It is true that the standing of the imperialist powers is by no means determined solely by their share in industrial production; numerous other factors---political, military, geographical and so on---have to be considered. At times the significance of these factors temporarily outweighs that of economic power. And the standing of individual nations cannot be judged solely by whether their share, or that of a group of them, in world industrial production has more or less markedly improved or deteriorated. Irrespective of their industrial standing, it is an important fact to record that in the two post-war decades the nations of Western Europe and Japan not only restored but even surpassed their pre-war levels of economic development. These changes have undermined the monopoly positions of the U.S.A. within the capitalist world which it had held in the immediate postwar years.
After a short period of U.S. hegemony, the operation of the law of uneven development since the last war produced, by the end of the 1950s, four centres of imperialism: the U.S.A., the European Economic Community (Common Market), Great Britain (at the head of the British Commonwealth and the European Free Trade Association---E.F.T.A.) and Japan.
Table 22 Major Economic Indexes for Hie U.S.A., E.E.C., E.F.T.A. and Japan U.S.A. K.K.C. E.F.T.A. Japan Share in world capitalist in-- dustrial production (per cent), 1969 43.4 19.8 10. 1 8.5 Population (mln), 1909 203.2 185.0 95.4 102.3 G.N.P. ($1,000 mlu), 19G8 801.0 320.3 172.7 147.0 G.N.P. per head (I), 19G8 4,380 2,040 1,920 1,400 Exports (11,000 mln), 1969 37.4 75.5 41.3 10.0 Imports (11,000 mln), 19C9 35.9 75.4 35.7 15.0 Gold and foreign currency re-- serves ($1,000 mln), Dec. 19G9 17.0 20.9 11.4 3.7 Sources: OECD Main Economic Indicators, Paris, February 1970, pp. l,')G-37; U.N. Monthly Bulletin of Statistics. New York, July 1970, pp. 1-4, 110--14; The Economic, Standing of Capitalist and Developing Countries. Review of 1969 and the Beginning ot 1070 (Supplement to the Journal World Economy and International Relations No. 7, 1970, pp. lit, 70). (Russ. ed.) 100Each of these four centres has been operating independently within the orbit of world imperialist rivalry and competition; each has its own interests and commands substantial economic and political forces against competitors.
A comparison of industrial production and other key economic indexes gives the following picture (see Table 22).
It is evident from these figures that the U.S.A. today still accounts for virtually one-half of world capitalist production. As the most formidable economic and military power of the capitalist world, the U.S.A. continues to act as world gendarme, being the chief instigator of aggression against the socialist countries and the organiser of subversive activity against the independence of the less developed countries. Nonetheless, the myth of a Pax Americana has been dispelled.
The continental countries of Western Europe have a rather special standing within the imperialist system. For a long time, these nations have had a high level of accumulation and a high degree of state-monopoly development, so that in the 1950s and early 1960s they far outstripped the U.S.A. in economic growth rates. This, together with the establishment of the European Economic Community, has enabled some of these countries (notably France), while remaining within imperialist blocs, gradually to shake off the U.S. diktat and pursue a more independent policy.
Britain, despite her comparatively low economic growth rate, has a highly sophisticated industry and relies on two high-powered blocs: the British Commonwealth---the successor to the British Empire---and E.F.T.A. This has enabled Britain to remain a prominent exporter of goods and capital and a leader in neocolonialism.
Japan holds a special place in the present arrangement of imperialist forces. In mid-1969, Japan forged ahead of West Germany to second place in terms of G.N.P. She has, first, the highest rate of capital accumulation and economic growth in the whole capitalist world; second, in population she is second only to the U.S.A.; and third, for historical reasons the structure of the Japanese economy and her strong competitive power make her the most formidable rival among the imperialist powers on the world market, particularly in the markets of the developing nations. All this qualifies her as one of the autonomous centres of present-day imperialism.
As seen from the figures in Table 22, although the 101 United States has vast superiority in G.N.P. per head of population and industrial production over all the other capitalist countries and the two strongest economic blocs, it does not match the blocs in volume of foreign trade. Moreover, its standing in reserves of gold and foreign currency no longer corresponds to its standing in world capitalist production.
To understand the reasons and consequences of these market discrepancies, consideration must be given to the place of foreign economic ties in the economy of modern imperialism and of each individual country.
An analysis of the value structure of sales indicates that the domestic market is of prime importance for every country, without exception. According to 1963 figures, the value of exports from West European countries made up some 15 per cent of the value of their G.N.P., and the domestic market accounted for the other 85 per cent.^^1^^ For Japan, the corresponding figures were 11--12 per cent and 88--89 per cent, respectively, and for the U.S.A. 5-6 per cent and 94--95 per cent.^^2^^ By far the main part of the social product is marketed at home. Therefore, the protectionist policy of present-day state-monopoly capitalism is primarily intended to sustain the dominance of the national monopolies on the home market.
These figures indicate the all-important role played by the domestic market, but do not truly reflect the actual part played by foreign economic ties. To understand their importance, we must supplement the value analysis of the sales structure with a study of the material structure of production and consumption of the social product in the monopoly capitalist countries. Such a study shows that foreign trade is a vital part of the economy of all, or virtually all, the imperialist countries. For most of the strongest monopolies everywhere foreign trade and capital exports are a significant, sometimes decisive, element of their business, and the greatest source of monopoly super-profit---irrespective of the role of _-_-_
~^^1^^ OCDE. L'Observateur, Decembre 1964, pp. 22--25.
~^^2^^ The foreign trade statistics of the industrialised capitalist countries also show that two-thirds of all foreign trade is with other advanced nations, and only one-third with less developed capitalist countries. The latter markets take a mere 5 per cent of the social product of Western Europe, some 4-5 per cent of that of Japan, and no more than 1-2 per cent of that of the U.S.A.
102 the country's foreign economic ties. These ties have become a major sphere of competition and an area of persistent state intervention in support of the national monopolies.The period of capitalism's general crisis, especially its second and third stages, is notable for the growing acuteness of struggles among the imperialists for market outlets for their goods and capital. With the onset of the 1929--33 crash, the last vestiges of free trade vanished and there commenced a long period of trade and currency war. That was when the capitalist world was split up into the dollar, the sterling, the franc and the yen areas. After the last war and on the basis of its consequences, the dollar and, to a lesser extent, the pound, temporarily (until the early 1960s) dominated monetary relations claiming to play the part of the world currency---gold.
Right up to the beginning of the 1930s, except for the war periods, tariffs were the chief instrument of protectionism. In the years that followed a whole spectrum of state-monopoly protectionist measures came into being which, in the trade wars of the imperialists, attained at least as much importance as protectionist tariffs. Among these new measures were:
(i) direct quantitative restrictions through quotas set for some imports;
(ii) indirect quantitative restrictions through concentration of all foreign exchange resources in the hands and under the control of the state;
(iii) monetary measures such as devaluation, which, with stable prices at home, serves to boost commodity exports, or overvaluation, to boost imports and capital exports;
(iv) subsidies and other financial incentives (taxation and credit) to industries working for export;
(v) a similar policy intended to expand home production of goods so as to reduce their imports (for instance, subsidies and other incentives to agriculture);
(vi) state social policy (encouragement or restriction of labour migration to influence the level of wages and, consequently, the costs of production) ;
(vii) direct or indirect state support for efforts by the monopolies to cut real wages as a means of improving their competitiveness on foreign markets, etc.;
(viii) formation of cartels and government cartel policy (cartels and monopoly agreements to fix prices at a high or 103 low level can effectively undermine the implementation of any measures under government tariff or monetary and payments agreements, while the direction and power of state cartel policy have become salient factors affecting the character of international economic relations);
(ix) ``economic diplomacy"---the special state apparatus employed to conquer foreign markets (commercial attaches, exhibitions, trade and monetary agreements), etc.
After the Second World War, all these elements became even more important than in the inter-war years. Government measures to bolster external economic positions were tied in with all the other measures of state-monopoly control and became an integral part of the whole system. All this further upset the balance of power among the imperialist countries and made development even more uneven.
In spite of the military-political blocs that embraced most imperialist powers in the first ten years after the war, the capitalist world as a whole was more ``disintegrated'' than in any previous period (with the obvious exception of world war periods). Each power commanded a powerful system of state-monopoly protectionism which it wielded in the trade war on home and foreign markets against alien monopolies.
There was also the opposite trend towards greater international division of labour, particularly among the industrial powers, which is based on the process of individual economies outgrowing their national boundaries, internationalisation of economic life, and the growing role of trade and the world market of goods and capital as a result of greater national specialisation and international co-operation in production. The heightened significance of this trend since the war is all too evident if we compare the growth in capitalist production and in world trade.
Taking 1929 as base year (100), we find that by 1938 the production of all commodities in the capitalist world constituted 110, and international trade 89. These figures reflect, on the one hand, the consequences of the world economic crises in 1929--33 and 1937--38 and the resultant disintegration, and, on the other, the growing complexity of the international situation and the formation of hostile military coalitions, which led to even further economic isolation for various parts of the bourgeois world.
International trade was slow to pick up in the first 7 or 104 8 years after the Second World War and lagged behind growth in production, largely due to the domination of U.S. imperialism. But then the situation altered as the trend towards international division of labour gathered momentum. Yet this trend has been very uneven. The most rapid increase of exports over production has occurred in manufacturing and in the manufactured products trade. On the other hand, the fastest rate of increase of exports (and imports as well) has taken place in countries with the highest rate of industrial growth, particularly the continental countries of Western Europe and Japan (see Table 23).
These figures also show the connection between the growth in world trade and the scientific and technological revolution, which has had a tremendous impact on Western Europe and Japan during the 1950s and 1960s, has induced greater specialisation in the manufacture of machinery and other
Table 23 Average Annual Growth of Industrial Production and Export in the Capitalist World (per cent) 1313--50 1950--68 Industrial Export . production ....... 2.1 1.2 5.5 0.9 Source: World Economy and International Relations, September 1970, p. 64 (Uuss. ed.). __PARAGRAPH_CONT__ finished products and has slightly lessened reliance on the import of raw materials and foodstuffs.The growing international division of labour and the internationalisation of economic life, against a background of highly uneven economic development, have served as a basis for new international forms of state-monopoly protectionism. After the war, national protectionist systems were supplemented by far-reaching inter-state agencies in foreign trade and monetary relations. Their organisational principles, structure and activity reflected the correlation of forces prevailing within the imperialist camp immediately after the war, i.e., at a time when the U.S.A. ruled the roast. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was signed in 1947 by 23 nations---by 1963 it had 53 signatories, including 105 the U.S.A., Canada, Japan and all the West European nations except Spain, Portugal and Ireland. GATT proclaimed the principle of most-favoured-nation treatment in trade and the need to abolish preferences, to reduce tariffs, abolish import restrictions, and so on. But the agreement allows signatories to depart from the most-favoured-nation principle, to set up customs unions and introduce import restrictions when their balance of trade worsens; it accords recognition to preferences already operating for a number of countries.
In practice, GATT is a supremely amorphous body and bargaining place for nations on the terms of the state regulation of trade. Its sphere of operation extends only to customs tariffs and quota restrictions, but does not affect the other aspects of state-monopoly protectionism listed above. Yet, even in this sphere, GATT has served the interests of the economically strongest signatories, the U.S.A. above all.
Prior to 1964 the U.S.A. had succeeded in securing tariff reductions for more than two-thirds of the U.S. exports to GATT member-states, while not making any substantial reductions itself. On the evidence of the State Department, a slight reduction in tariffs was made only for one-eleventh of U.S. imports and was largely confined to strategic raw materials.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) are two other international state-monopoly agencies of special importance. They came into being to cope with the increasing complexity of international monetary relations. Over a long period, from the mid-1930s to the end of the 1950s, the following situation developed. First, the level of international liquidity (i.e., the ratio of gold and currency reserves as a percentage of annual commodity imports of the whole capitalist world) diminished from 113 in 1938 to 85 in 1950 and down to 51 in 1960. Furthermore, the share of gold reserves fell and that of currency reserves sharply rose (from 3.9 per cent in 1938 to 38 per cent in I960).^^1^^ Second, the U.S. dollar took precedence among the foreign currency reserves. Until the early 1950s, the consolidation of the U.S. economic and political positions in the capitalist world was accompanied by increasing concentration of gold in U.S. vaults. In that _-_-_
~^^1^^ The World Economy and International Relations No. 7, 1966, p. 32.
106 period the dollar became the most important medium of international payments, a ``reserve currency" equivalent to gold. At a time when the currencies of the continental West European countries and Japan were depreciating and in the absence of free convertibility, the shortage of liquidity was expressed as a ``dollar shortage'', and this U.S. ruling circles did not hesitate to exploit to reinforce their own monopoly over the world commodity and capital markets. This was precisely the purpose of such international monetary institutions as the IMF and IBRD.The International Monetary Fund was established in 1944 to provide short-term financial aid for member-countries in balance of payments difficulties and help them stabilise their currency. It was also to eliminate discriminatory monetary practices and promote co-operation between members in the monetary sphere. Actually, the U.S.A. was assured of a dominant position in the Fund from the start. Because of its large quota contributions to the Fund the U.S.A. commands 27 per cent of the votes; when to these are added the votes of member-states financially dependent on the U.S.A., it can always command an absolute majority. The U.S.A. exploits the Fund for maintaining the artificially low price of gold at $35 an ounce, and this gives the U.S. monopolies an advantage in exporting capital.
However, as the U.S. positions in world capitalist production and world trade deteriorated, no international credit institutions were able to counteract the decline in U.S. monetary positions. U.S. balance of payments difficulties, caused by fiercer competition from Western Europe and Japan, and vast military expenditure abroad, brought about a gradual outflow of gold reserves from the U.S.A. to Western Europe, notably West Germany and France. This, in turn, led to a gradual restoration of gold as a world currency and to the convertibility of most national currencies in Western Europe.
Clearly, none of this implies that the restoration of gold has gone as far as the free convertibility of these currencies into gold. Moreover, by the late 1960s the operation of the law of uneven economic development had improved the currency standing of the West European continent and had brought about a fresh aggravation of monetary contradictions, producing new hotbeds of the ``currency war''.
107The decline of Britain in world commerce and the chronic deficit of her balance of payments have eaten into her currency reserves and in November 1967 caused the British Government to devalue the pound---a reduction in its gold content by 14.3 per cent. This step was taken by the Labour Government to enhance the competitiveness of British goods on foreign markets, by reducing the real income of the British workingman. But instead of the anticipated stability, devaluation caused increased speculation in gold and an acute currency crisis. In France, with social contradictions and the class struggle rising to a new level after the events of May 1968, the French monopolies resorted to economic sabotage by transferring French capital abroad, mainly to West Germany. In a period of six months, from May to November 1968, French gold and currency reserves fell from $7,000 million to $4,300 million, while those of West Germany showed a corresponding increase. This was an even greater jolt to the already unstable position and brought France to the verge of devaluation, although only a short time before France had boasted about her strong gold position. With the aid of several urgent measures, devaluation was staved off for a time, but had to be put through---by 12.5 per cent---in August 1969.
Ever since 1952, when the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) was formed, integration has come to occupy an important place in imperialist economic and political affairs as a process of formation and operation of international state-monopoly associations. The new Community was based on national specialisation and international division of labour and the growing internationalisation of economic affairs. Yet the connection between these processes and integration is as complex as that between development of the social character of production and state-monopoly capitalism within national boundaries. The international division of labour has enabled the national forms of statemonopoly capitalism to grow into international forms not only and not so much directly as in close interaction with every aspect of international relations at the present stage of capitalism's general crisis.
West European integration is an attempt by monopoly capital to ``reconcile'' the private capitalist form of economy with the productive forces which have outgrown their 108 national boundaries. Imperialism is endeavouring to retain the productive forces, which are powerfully dictating the transition to socialism, within state-monopoly bounds.
Integration springs from the clash in the capitalist world between centripetal and centrifugal tendencies: on the one hand, there is the progressive tendency to economic internationalisation, and on the other, the tendency to economic isolationism and autarky, to the monopolisation of markets by individual countries or groups of nations. Furthermore, the specific forms of integration, its structure and development are indissolubly linked with the historical conditions of development of each individual country, with its geographical situation, the degree and forms of progress of statemonopoly capitalism, the political situation in each country and its standing in contemporary international relations.
There is good reason for the drive for integration in the western half of the European continent. First, politically, it is an attempt to resurrect the old idea of a ``United States of Europe" and counterpose some form of ``Europeanism'' to the growing ideological impact of socialism. Second, the disintegration of the colonial system has had a strong effect on the position of the countries of Western Europe. One of the aims of integration was, therefore, to create some inter-state setup to enable the former metropolitan centres to retain their iniluence over the liberated territories. Accordingly, the European Economic Community is prepared to admit ``associated'' members alongside full-fledged members. Within this associated category are Turkey, Greece and several African states, including Mali, Mauritania, Senegal, Upper Volta, Niger, Ivory Coast, Dahomey, the Congo (Brazzaville), Congo (Kinshasa), Central African Republic, Gabon, Burundi, Chad and Madagascar. A special fund for overseas territories, made up of contributions from EEC members, is in existence to ``help'' the African states. Third, the post-war relations between Western Europe and the U.S.A. have had a special part to play. As the countries of Western Europe overcame the legacy of the war and made economic headway, their contradictions with U.S. imperialism have sharpened.
With the advantage of their immense home market, the U.S. monopolies have been able to set up firms and monopolies of such optimum size that, all other conditions being equal, their very high specialisation yields relatively low 109 costs of production and, consequently, high competitiveness.
Because of their smaller population and lower standard of living, the domestic market of each European country is incomparably smaller than that of the U.S.A. So the attainment of a high level of effectiveness and competitiveness for many burgeoning industries in Western Europe is only feasible with guaranteed markets abroad. The absence of these guarantees has been one of the main causes of the great difference in size of companies and enterprises on either side of the Atlantic.
In metallurgical plants, the optimum limit of steel smelting is estimated at 7-8 million tons annually (with the low optimum parameter at 1 million tons). Several U.S. corporations are up to these specifications. In Western Europe, only TissenPhoenix Rheinrohr of West Germany has this capacity. France and other West European countries do not yet have such powerful plants. In the manufacture of refrigerators, the optimum corporation in the U.S.A. has a capacity of 500,000 a year, while the best West European firm can only manage 110,000 a year. In the production of synthetic fibres, the normal capacity of U.S. corporations is 20,000-- 30,000 tons annually, whereas Holland's total fibre output is only 33,000 tons a year, and that of Belgium 8,000 tons (1964). In engineering, the average firm's output in Western Europe is one-fourth or one-fifth of the U.S. level.^^1^^
The West German economist Diether Stolze writes on this score that ``the Americans have long enjoyed the economic advantage of mass production. In Europe, on the other hand, the manufacture of major industrial goods is to this day distributed among an extremely large number of firms which produce considerably less efficiently (and therefore more expensively) than the well-organised large enterprise. In this respect the European market is to effect a change.... The emergent big market in Europe will force these countries to establish a modern economic structure and thus make it possible to match America. ...
``It is hardly possible to predict today to what extent this 'compulsion to productivity', which will heighten competition within a large market, will expand the capabilities and welfare of Europe...."^^2^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ Moody s Industrial Manual, 1963, 1964 and 1965.
~^^2^^ Diether Stolze, Die dritte Weltmacht, Munich-Zurich, 1962, S. 6.
110West European capitalism finds itself in a vicious circle: mass production and optimum firm size on a given technical level are essential if firms are to establish themselves in foreign markets; yet they can only achieve this capacity if they become established in foreign markets. This is the situation in which West European monopolies have found themselves and from which they are now desperately trying to break out. They are employing a variety of tactics, including the integration of markets.
In international relations, West European imperialism has had to contend with a situation where the more powerful U.S. imperialism has vigorously wielded its economic and military superiority to further its aims within the aggressive military-political blocs, particularly against the interests of its West European competitor-allies. In these circumstances, the West European monopoly bourgeoisie (or at least a section of it) has looked to integration as a means of escaping U.S. ``tutelage''.
Naturally enough, the ruling circles of the various West European nations were not united in the struggle to achieve the above-mentioned aims. Between 1955 and 1957, at the very beginning of talks on integration, two sharply divergent concepts were disputed. One was the British concept of free trade area, i.e., a pure customs union, agreement on a gradual lifting of duties on mutual trade between member-states and co-ordination of their foreign trade policies in relation to third countries. The other was Bonn's concept of a European economic community, an organisation which would commence with the gradual establishment of a common market and culminate with the integration of the economies of membercountries with the prospect of some form of political federation (political integration).
The break-down of negotiations on a free trade area embracing all West European countries (including Britain) at once indicated the contradiction between the objective basis of integration and the specific possibilities and paths of its development. The objective basis of integration, that is, the world-wide character of the capitalist market, unquestionably required an end to all forms of discrimination in economic relations between countries. But given the acute inter-imperialist contradictions, integration at once ran on the lines of ``collective autarky'', the formation of exclusive and 111 opposed economic blocs as new forms of struggle for the division and redivision of markets.
Two years after the formation of the European Economic Community (the Six), in 1959, EFTA was set up under the aegis of Great Britain; the original Seven consisted of Britain, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Switzerland, Austria and Portugal.
On both sides of the Channel and even more so inside the U.S.A., the authorities were well aware that the split in Europe not only ran counter to their economic interests--- extensive economic ties between the countries of the Seven and the Six---but also to overall imperialist interests in forming a united front against the world socialist system. All attempts at healing the split and getting Britain into the EEC, and gradually merging the two blocs, have come up against insuperable difficulties.
Besides the economic contradictions (over a common EEC agriculture policy, Britain's maintenance of her imperial preferences with the Commonwealth countries, and so on), a big stumbling block to Britain's entry into the Common Market at the beginning of the 1960s was the foreign policy problems dividing France and Britain.
In this context, the changing attitudes of U.S. imperialism to European integration are of great interest. Immediately after the last war, U.S. diplomacy vigorously supported plans for West European integration, seeing these plans only as being anti-socialist, and being confident that it could subordinate European integration to its own strategic and military designs. Blinded by illusions of its own grandeur, U.S. imperialism failed to see what Lenin had foreseen as far back as the First World War: that the trend towards a ``United States of Europe" had an anti-American as well as an antisocialist edge to it.
The U.S. monopolies had used the formation of the Common Market to step up their exports of capital to Western Europe. Long-term direct U.S. investments in Western Europe alone increased from $1,700 million in 1950 to $19,400 million in 1968, or from 14 to 29.8 per cent of all U.S. foreign investments; furthermore, about a half ($9,000 million) of all U.S. investments in Europe goes to the Common Market countries.^^1^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ Survey of Current Business, September 1969, pp. 24, 28.
112The influx of American capital into Western Europe has been a mixed blessing: on the one side, it has enabled the U.S. monopolies to dig in on the European continent, but, on the other, the European monopolies have employed U.S. capital to build up their own strength, and to speed up reconstruction and cut production costs.
The U.S.A. responded with persistent attempts to engage the Common Market in wider associations, like the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, through which the U.S.A. has tried to wring tariff concessions from the Common Market.
The first ten years of European integration demonstrated that contradictions between the two concepts (free trade area and economic union) reflect not simply the different interests and positions of the various states, but also the internal contradictory character of the very principles of integration as a form of international economic bloc.
The Treaty of Rome was framed on the assumption of farreaching liberalisation of economic relations between EEC member-states. The term ``economic union" did not imply the establishment of common agencies administering the economies of several countries. It envisaged the removal of all forms of national discrimination in regard to partner states and the establishment thereby of favourable conditions for the national monopolies to operate within the scope of the whole Community and for their expansion beyond its boundaries. The sponsors of the EEC treaty had to face the fact that now that there is an immense variety of effective means of state protectionism induced by wars and crises over the last 60 years the lifting of tariffs by itself is not enough unless it is accompanied by repudiation of the other types of discrimination in foreign economic policy reviewed above.
They also realised that no country would accept a common policy in any one sphere so long as its partners possessed substantial advantages in other spheres. Therefore, the principle of gradual unification of state economic policy at a later stage, alongside that of a gradual lifting of tariffs, was written into the treaty. Twelve years (up to January 1, 1970) were proposed for completion of the establishment of the economic community.
In spite of the bold terminology of the Treaty of Rome, the aim of the EEC is not to weaken state intervention in __PRINTERS_P_113_COMMENT__ 8---235 113 economic affairs, but to attempt to transform it by combining national and supernational methods of economic control. The EEC's monopoly bourgeoisie has set up in Brussels bureaucratic inter-state machinery far removed from the principal centres and theatres of the class struggle. Though it was formed by the governments of the Six, it is primarily dependent on West Germany and France. The Treaty of Rome envisaged the gradual delegation to this body by member-states of part of their sovereign rights in some economic sectors, notably foreign trade, agriculture, energetics, taxation and transport.
In fact, realisation of the Treaty came up against such contradictions and obstacles that by the mid-1960s it was obviously impossible to implement the programme of measures within the time allotted---by 1970.
Where the EEC was able to mark up considerable success was in the reduction and gradual elimination of customs tariffs and the establishment of a common external tariff, which discriminated against third countries. As a result of this process, the goods and capital markets of the EEC monopolies have expanded and these monopolies have improved their positions in the struggle against outsiders. This success has to some extent been due to the boost given by integration to mergers and take-overs and creation of cartels on both a national and international level within the Six. The 200-odd inter-state monopolies occupy a position of paramount importance within the system of state-monopoly capitalism of the EEC.
As time passes, however, the other consequences of integration are being brought out. The dialectics of this whole process is such that the more powerful the monopoly capital of member-states becomes, the more frequently it resorts to the aid of its national state apparatus not merely against the monopolies of countries outside the Community, but also against its own partners.
The contradictions existing between the national and the integrational interests of monopoly capital of the Six crop up in various economic spheres. As a typical example, let us examine the situation in the fuel and power industry. Here the European Coal and Steel Community, formed in 1952 and now an integral part of West European integration, has for a number of years tried to work out an agreed programme for member-countries to promote the various types of fuel 114 and power resources. Up to the present time, however, it has failed to do so.
The reasons lie in the contradiction of interests of the various countries and various monopoly groups. West Germany, France and Belgium---countries with a thriving coal industry and coal export resources---are endeavouring to construct an all-European programme by setting up monopoly positions for their coal industry in the fuel and power markets of Italy and the Netherlands, which are importers of coal and oil. The latter two nations, however, are not well disposed to this course of action since they are more interested in keeping their hands free to purchase coal and oil in any part of the world that suits them. Another formidable obstacle in the way of fuel and power integration is the big international oil companies: Esso, Shell, Mobile Oil and British Petroleum, which rightly see a potential threat to their own West European positions in the EEC integration and plans for common European oil pipelines, with accent on Saharan oil. No success has yet been achieved, however, in adopting such a programme.
Similar contradictions and conflicts exist in other fields: in elaborating a common agricultural policy and a common taxation and monetary policy. Since national monopoly interests frequently conflict with the programme for economic integration, the EEC becomes from time to time the scene of renewed debates on plans for political integration. Yet, even in the heyday of the Common Market---1960--62---the negotiations soon showed that there was no foundation for agreement on forming any type of common political bodies whose decisions would be binding on all member-states.
It is quite evident, therefore, that since the war the same features, laws and contradictions which have always existed in the monopoly capitalism of individual countries have now arisen in a specific form in international economic relations. On the one hand, the increasing trend towards the internationalisation of economic affairs militates in the direction of various inter-state foreign trade, credit and monetary associations and, finally, of quite new economic associations (integration). These have made some headway in weakening the systems of state-monopoly protectionism established in the 1930s and 1940s, and have encouraged the expansion of international economic ties. On the other hand, __PRINTERS_P_115_COMMENT__ 8* 115 this type of association, operating at a time when economic development has become even more acutely uneven, itself becomes an arena of clashes between the interests of national imperialisms and a weapon of struggle between individual imperialist states and blocs.
__*_*_*__An analysis of capitalism during the period of its general crisis confirms that monopoly capitalism, ``. . . so to speak, drags the capitalists, against their will and consciousness, into some sort of a new social order, a transitional one from complete free competition to complete socialisation".^^1^^ The union of contradictory notions---competition and monopolies---which Lenin once described as a factor preparing the socialist revolution, occurs in ever increasingly complex and contradictory forms. The basic contradiction is that the objective need for state economic control constantly surpasses the possibilities of state-monopoly capitalism.
State-monopoly capitalism first appeared as a weapon of monopoly capital, which it wielded in its struggle to establish the best conditions for exploitation and reproduction. It is now building up the material prerequisites for socialism, while increasingly displaying its archaism and the uselessness of capitalist private property in the means of production.
Meanwhile, state-monopoly capitalism is extending the front of the class struggle. As the state vigorously intervenes in the process of reproduction, workers' defence of their class interests is unthinkable without recourse to political action.
There is much history to show that state-monopoly capitalism has been developing under political forms of domination by the bourgeois classes, ranging from Roosevelt's New Deal to Hitler's nazism, from the domination of monarchist militarism in Japan to the Centre-Left Government in Italy.
The working class is not in any way indifferent to the various political forms in which state-monopoly capitalism develops.
Since government participation in the economy has become a necessary element in the reproduction process, the success _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 22, p. 205.
116 of the working class and their revolutionary parties in forming a broad anti-monopoly front, combining parliamentary and non-parliamentary forms of struggle, winning influential positions in state administrative bodies and so democratising them, all facilitate measures with which state control can be used in the interests of the working people for gaining real reforms, breaking the monopoly of finance capital and opening the way to socialism.The socialist system is exerting an increasing influence on history. Its imprint is clear on the internal processes developing within the world of capitalism, processes which are objectively accelerating the inevitable downfall of the social system based on social inequality. And it is bringing nearer the world-wide triumph of socialism.
[117] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter Four __ALPHA_LVL1__ THE WORKING CLASSThe evolution of capitalism is marked by mounting domination of the monopoly bourgeoisie and constant change in the methods of exploiting and repressing the workers and in the conditions of their struggle. The course of world development has radically altered the situation in which the monopoly bourgeoisie perform their exploiting functions. Workers in the capitalist countries are no longer a passive object of class oppression; they are more organised, acting as a vital social force whose struggle and revolutionary gains make an impact on the socio-economic and political environment of the capitalist world. The monopoly bourgeoisie no longer have simply to deal with opposition from workers within bourgeois society, as they did at the time of Marx and Engels or even at the turn of the century. Today the ideals and achievements of socialism are exerting an increasing influence on the condition and struggle of the working class under capitalism.
The growth of irreconcilable class antagonisms is affecting the whole of society and posing a growing threat to the very existence of capitalism. The monopoly bourgeoisie desperately employ all manner of devices to step up exploitation to the maximum, yet, at the same time, they endeavour to weaken the class struggle by making economic concessions, giving hand-outs and practising social demagogy. A study of the modern forms of class oppression is, therefore, absolutely essential to promote the revolutionary movement, and to enable revolutionaries to choose the correct aims and methods of struggle for establishing a truly democratic social system.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 1. The Working ClassThe last half-century has demonstrated the world-wide importance of the role of the working class in the history of society. It was the working class that led the way in building US 118 socialism and communism in the countries that had attained their revolutionary liberation from capitalist oppression. It is the working class that stands at the head of all working people opposing the forces of class exploitation, militarism and political reaction. It renders daily fraternal assistance to the peoples fighting for their national independence. The workers are the mainspring of history, fighting for the regeneration and prosperity of all mankind. They are the most consistent opponents of the capitalist system of exploitation of men by men.
The system of capitalist exploitation of hundreds of millions of workingmen ``...rests on the fact that the material conditions of production are in the hands of nonworkers in the form of property in capital and land, while the masses are only owners of the personal condition of production, of labour power".^^1^^ The dominant position of the bourgeoisie in social production ensures its class privileges and is the basis for perpetuating the entire system of class oppression and social inequality. As monopoly capitalism evolves and grows into state-monopoly capitalism, the polarisation of bourgeois society becomes ever more obvious.
Centralisation and concentration of production and capital are now all-embracing. In the early 1960s, for example, the 50 major U.S. corporations held almost a quarter of the manufacturing industry. In the same period, 10 West German companies accounted for the total extraction of iron ore in the country, 10 for 94 per cent of the smelting of iron and steel, 9 for 92 per cent of the shipbuilding, and 5 for 89 per cent of the motor industry turnover. An ever smaller number of finance oligarchs have been gaining undivided control over production, circulation and distribution. In the U.S.A. some 25 finance groups own a third of all the assets of industrial, commercial and banking concerns. In Britain, West Germany, France and Japan a few groups (from 5 to 10) control the whole economic life of the country.
On this basis, finance capital endeavours to keep control of socio-economic development in accord with its own class interests. Since these interests are anti-social while the objective contradictory course of capitalist reproduction in turn inevitably engenders and extends processes inimical to _-_-_
~^^1^^ K. Marx and F. Engels, Selected Works, Vol. II, p. 25.
119 popular interest (overproduction crises, structural crises, inflation, unemployment, etc.), an increasingly complex hub of antagonistic contradictions between labour and capital takes shape around capitalist property relations. Concentration and centralisation of production and capital, inextricably tied to increased oppression and monopoly omnipotence, breed mass social protest: people will not reconcile themselves to their status of proletarians deprived of economic rights, which turns them into an object of arbitrary monopoly power and a pawn in the play of forces in the capitalist economy.This concentration process affects not only the vital interests of the mass of workers; it threatens the very existence of the many millions of small urban and rural producers (small farmers, craftsmen, etc.), for the area of monopolistic exploitation extends far beyond the bounds of enterprises belonging to the finance oligarchy. And the expropriation of the means of production increasingly embraces the nonproletarian sections and classes of bourgeois society.
As the dictate of the monopolies intensifies, social protest rises not only from among the workers, but also from various intermediate groups of the population whose lot depends on the whim of large-scale capital.
However, the working class is the most consistent fighter for overthrowing the capitalist system of exploitation and stands at the head of the exploited masses, whom capitalist development itself draws into the anti-monopoly movement. This revolutionary class is the most numerically strong class in bourgeois society.
On the eve of the October Revolution in Russia, there were just over 30 million industrial workers in the advanced capitalist countries, and 50 years later, there were 90 million. Since the mid-1960s they have been reinforced by some 150 million industrial workers in the less developed countries, and this is one of the most important aspects of contemporary capitalist development for it contains an essential prerequisite for the revolutionary transformation of society. As Lenin pointed out, ``the more proletarians there are, the greater is their strength as a revolutionary class, and the nearer and more possible does socialism become'',^^1^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 2, p. 20.
120Workers of the industrially advanced capitalist countries of Western Europe and North America---the citadel of world imperialism---have vast potential for the revolutionary transformation of society. This area of the capitalist world contains the overwhelming bulk of capitalist industrial production and all the major finance establishments of monopoly capital; this is where the foreign policy of world imperialism is worked out and materially sustained, a policy aimed at hampering the world revolutionary process, underminingworld socialism and keeping the peoples of the developing nations of Asia, Africa and Latin America in colonial and neocolonial bondage.
The balance of the principal class forces in the developed capitalist countries---the proletariat and broad popular masses, on the one hand, and the imperialist bourgeoisie, on the other---largely determines the prospects for progress throughout the world. The objective processes of social development in this sector of the capitalist world are indissolubly connected with the constant broadening of the basis of the anti-monopoly struggle. This occurs as a consequence of the impoverishment by monopoly capital of small town and country proprietors, subjection to capitalist exploitation of previously non-working sections of the population, clerical workers, engineers and technicians.
The course of capitalism leads not merely to an increase in the size of the proletariat; it causes profound changes in its internal structure. As capitalist production expands and diversifies, and science and technology develop ever faster bringing changes in the social division of labour, the composition of the working class becomes increasingly complex.
Bourgeois and reformist spokesmen insist that capitalist society is undergoing a radical change: the working class is disappearing and a ``new middle class" is swiftly gaining ground. In fact, the very reverse is true. The development of large-scale machine industry leads to the rapid growth of the industrial proletariat.
More and more industrial workers are employed in the heavy industry. In the U.S.A., Britain, France and other developed capitalist states, the vast bulk of industrial workers has shifted over the last 50 years to producer goods industries. Increase in the proportion of workers employed in engineering, chemicals and electrical engineering is characteristic of 121 capitalism today. Between 1950 and 1963, employment in U.S. manufacturing increased by 9 per cent, in the chemical industry by 34 per cent, in electrical engineering and electronics by 54 per cent, and in engineering by 23 per cent. Between 1950 and 1959, the number of West Germany's chemical and electrical engineering workers increased almost four times faster than the overall growth in the industrial labour force.
The rapidly growing industrial working class is concentrated in the big technically well-equipped plants. This makes it easier to improve its organisational and ideological level. More and more workers are moving into the key points of the anti-monopoly battle---the industrial giants---and are drawn into production requiring higher skills and, consequently, better general and technical training. Despite attempts by the monopoly bourgeoisie to bar the working people from further education, the technological demands of modern industry countermand this and require a wider outlook from the modern workingman, creating favourable conditions for him to increase his class consciousness and political activity.
The mid-century scientific and technological revolution in the industrially advanced capitalist countries has also enlarged the traditional bounds of the industrial working class through a rapid increase in the number of engineers, technicians and office personnel. Fifty years ago the proportion of engineers and technicians in the industrial labour force was 12 per cent in the U.S.A., 8.6 per cent in Britain, and 7.6 per cent in Germany, but by 1960 it had risen to 28 per cent in the U.S.A., 22 per cent in Britain and 23 per cent in West Germany. Most of these men and women---- technicians, laboratory assistants, engineers, office workers, etc.--- either merge with the industrial proletariat or come close to it through their role in social production, their material position and working conditions. Despite attempts by the monopoly bourgeoisie to separate office workers and engineers from the main body of factory workers (by concluding separate collective agreements, establishing special categories of social security, etc.), objective living and working conditions lead increasingly to a unification of the interests of the office and industrial workers and to the formation of a united front of class struggle.
122New contingents of workers emerge, alongside the growth in the industrial labour force, due to the growing importance of non-productive sectors, without which modern capitalist reproduction could not continue. Expansion of the commercial, credit and financial network, consumer servicing, medical and educational services, etc., has led to a growth in the number of employed in the distribution and service industries. Between 1920 and 1960, the proportion of the population engaged in the non-productive spheres grew in the U.S.A. from 31 to 50 per cent, in France from 23 to 45 per cent, and in Japan from 22 to 33 per cent. These were mainly wage workers, commercial and office workers, teachers, health workers, and so on.
The growing domination of monopoly capital in the service and distribution sectors leads to the establishment there of forms and methods of exploitation common to capitalist industrial production. Working conditions and wage levels in these sectors have been moving closer to those of the main body of the working class, the industrial proletariat.
Certain democratic developments since the last war allied to scientific and technical progress have led in most countries to a rapid growth in the student body. Many of them are acutely aware of the social vices of capitalist society, and suffer from the material privation and uncertain prospects of their own position. Although the social make-up of the student body is highly checkered, many students grasp the essential elements of the proletarian outlook and take an increasingly active and consistent part in the workers' struggle.
The appearance of fresh contingents of workers and the greater approximation of living and working conditions among all employees are leading to an extension and consolidation of the base of the class struggle in bourgeois society. The addition to the labour ranks of employees from nonmaterial production enables the working class to enhance its role in bourgeois society and make its resistance to the policies of monopoly capital more effective.
Today, as never before, the workers of the capitalist world have immense opportunities for achieving their class interests, which also meet those of the vast bulk of the population.
123 __ALPHA_LVL2__ 2. Exploitation as a Law of CapitalismThe capitalist system rests on ever more intense exploitation of the working people. Capitalist development leads to the evolution of its principal class trend: accumulation of wealth and growth of economic and political power, on the one side, and chronic insecurity, social oppression and lack of political rights, on the other.
The inglorious social record of capitalism throughout the period of its general crisis includes mass unemployment, systematically recurring economic crises which periodically result in an absolute worsening in the condition of the working class, chronic shortage of means for securing a living wage, and increasing taxation burdens. Having occupied the commanding heights in the bourgeois state, the finance oligarchy single-mindedly seek to burden the working people with all the material costs incidental to the growing competitive struggle among the imperialists and the escalating arms race.
The ruthless plunder in the past ten years of colonies and dependencies by the British, American, French, Belgian and Dutch bourgeoisie has relegated hundreds of millions of working people in that part of the world to a povertystricken, semi-starvation level.
Workers in the capitalist countries are having to keep up a stubborn and desperate struggle to beat off the assault of the monopoly bourgeoisie on the material rights and interests of all exploited people.
As world imperialism loses its former power and world socialism strides ahead, the struggle of the workers in capitalist countries exerts an unprecedented influence on the monopolies and has forced them essentially to modify their system of class exploitation and occasionally blunt their attacks on the workers' material interests.
Capitalist exploitation today involves a wide range of antagonistic relations between labour and capital socially, politically and economically. Only a comprehensive examination of all these factors in their totality can provide a genuine picture of the scope and degree of intensified exploitation. The very complex mechanism of class oppression allows the bourgeoisie to pursue flexible tactics. While slackening its onslaught on the rights and interests of the workers in one 124 sector, the ruling class steps up its pressure in another, thereby assuring itself of the necessary conditions for reproducing the entire system of capitalist exploitation and social inequality.
Bourgeois and reformist distortions of the workers' condition under capitalism have always been based on a primitive sophistry, extracting isolated aspects of this condition and turning a blind eye to the interaction and interdependence of all economic, social and political factors that shape the social condition of the working class.
Dogmatic interpretations of present-day labour-capital relations are also at odds with the spirit of creative Marxism. Distorters of Marxism assert that every stage of capitalism meant a steady and comprehensive deterioration in the workers' condition as expressed in a persistent decline in real wages, reduction in workers' consumption of goods and services, curtailment in social security, and so on.
These hackneyed schemes of the dogmatists embrace only the traditional modes and forms of capitalist pressure on workers' rights and do not take into consideration all the new trends and methods of intensified exploitation.
The Communist and Workers' Parties expose the false ideas of the bourgeois-reformist and Leftist opportunist ideologists and study the laws of historical development of the exploitation system and the specifics of the modern tactics of class oppression.
As capitalism's general crisis worsens, the monopolies seek fresh and refined devices for securing a higher rate of exploitation. One is to step up the exploitation of wage labour directly in situ, at factory level. The scientific and technical revolution of the latter half of the 20th century has worked as a decisive and objective prerequisite of this. Natural historical development has gone in such a way that at imperialism's most fateful moment, at the zenith of capitalism's general crisis, the monopolies suddenly found themselves in possession of a powerful means of modifying the system of exploitation. Rapidly growing productivity and intensive use of labour have today become the major factor determining the workers' socio-economic condition.
The monopolies use technical progress for intensifying the exploitation of hired labour. In Western Europe, North America, Australia and Japan, large and mass batch 125 production has prevailed with the use of flow-line methods with high-speed specialised semi-automated and fully-automated machinery. Only the big capitalist monopolies have been able to afford these expensive innovations; technical progress has left the vast mass of small and medium firms out in the cold. All this has intensified competitive rivalry to the limit and increased exploitation of labour for the purpose of boosting capitalist profits.
In these circumstances, the labour of the workingman is completely subordinated to the enforced maximum tempo to extract a much higher productivity and intensity of labour. Consequently, workers have to expend more physical and nervous energy.
Monopoly capital has, in fact, attained substantially greater productivity. From 1953 to 1963, the hourly output per worker in manufacturing increased by 52 per cent in the U.S.A., 35 per cent in Canada, 82 per cent in France, 85 per cent in Japan, 30 per cent in Britain, 68 per cent in West Germany, and 82 per cent in Italy (1953--62).^^1^^
Increased output, of course, reflects higher labour productivity boosted both by new machinery and by more intensive use of labour. Nonetheless, the constantly increasing strain on labour, which is peculiar to modern capitalist production, results in increasing ``wear and tear''. Anti-labour measures taken by the monopolies in forcing up labour productivity and the sweatshop are exceptionally varied in form and are, as a rule, carefully camouflaged. The notorious capitalist efficiency has an important part to play in this; it is based on the widespread introduction of the latest methods of production organisation, mainly borrowed from the U.S.A.
In the capitalist countries, time-and-motion studies have been most widely adopted to guarantee the capitalist a high operational rate any decline in which is automatically deducted from wages. This system virtually ignores workers' fatigue during the working day. The modern classification of labour costs relegates the time needed by the workingman for a rest break and for personal needs as non-productive or wasted time. In French firms, even worker instruction is _-_-_
~^^1^^ Konjunktur und Krise, Heft 1, 1965, Statistische Beilage, Teil 2; Industrie und Handwerk (Statistisches Bundcsamt, Wiesbaden], Stuttgart, Oktober 1965, Reihe 2, S. 28.
126 classified as time lost to production. Another popular method is to tie wages to maximum output and labour intensity. Many countries have recently begun to practise the method of spotchecks so as to increase time effectively spent in the packed working day to the maximum.Labour is also intensified in sectors with new automated equipment and highly-skilled personnel---operators, programmers, checkers, machine-tool setters---because physical pressure gives way to high mental strain.
An inevitable consequence of this tremendous labour intensification is a rise in industrial accidents, occupational disease and premature loss of working ability. In some circumstances this has reached the proportions of a mass disaster.
Workingmen over 40 years old frequently become incapacitated or cannot keep up with the frantic pace. A U.S. survey shows that the percentage of redundant men over 45 exceeded the percentage taken on for work, and among the jobless this age group accounted for more than two-fifths of the total. Another survey, conducted by the Paris Public Opinion Institute, found a direct connection between the growth in premature loss of working ability and the growing intensity of labour. More than a third of the white- and bluecollar workers interviewed said the ``excessively high work rate" was the cause of premature retirement, another third said it was the ``exceptional nervous strain'', and 19 per cent spoke of ``exhausting physical effort''.
Notwithstanding the improved safety measures and fewer manual jobs, increasing intensity of labour has brought, in the economically advanced capitalist states, an increase in industrial injuries. According to U.S. researchers, there is an average of one injury every 11 seconds. West Germany possesses the unenviable distinction of heading the table in industrial injuries with 8,000 industrial accidents a day, 16 of them fatal.
Under the present system of capitalist exploitation the interconnection and interdependence between the workers' burden of labour and the existence of an industrial reserve army come out in a particularly bold relief. Rationalisation and automation invariably lead to mass redundancies of white- and blue-collar workers, while the availability of free hands enable the employers to force those with jobs to put in 127 more physical and nervous energy under pain of being fired. Capitalist development has convincingly demonstrated that mass unemployment is a permanent feature of capitalist production. During the world economic crisis in the 1930s, unemployment took on disastrous proportions. In the U.S.A. official data put the total number of jobless at 13,200,000, in Germany at 5,500,000, and in Britain at 3,000,000. Unemployment does not completely fade away even during economic booms, as the official figures below indicate.
Table 24 Unemployment in the Major Capitalist Countries (1,000) 1929 1948 1958 1963 1964 1965 1966 1 1967 1968 1969 USA 1 550 2 205 4 681 4,070 3 786 3,366 2,875 2,975 2,817 2,831 1 262 338 5U1 612 413 360 391 599 601 597 10 78 93 97 97 141 147 193 254 223 West Germany . . Italy 301 1 742 683 1,759 176 504* 157 549 139 721 154 769 445 689 314 694 173 661 Japan ........ 369 240 560 400 370 390 440 500 590 570 *New system, old system estimated 1,200,000 jobless. Source: Monthly Bulletin of Statistics, September 1960, pp. 13--16; May 19C8, pp. 13--15; May 1970, pp. 17--20.These figures only partially reflect the real state of affairs, since official statistics do not include the vast numbers of partially unemployed. In the U.S.A., for instance, official figures do not include people who have worked only one hour a week; the British figures omit unemployed married women; other countries regard as unemployed only insured trade unionists and omit jobless school-leavers and bankrupt small retailers and craftsmen. If these are considered, the official U.S. unemployment figures of 4,200,000 for 1963 must be increased by the 2,600,000 part-time industrial workers and the several million farm-hands.
Evidence of the incomplete statistics provided by bourgeois government agencies is the change in the system of calculating unemployment in Italy. The old system put unemployed in the country for 1962 at 1,311,000, yet the figures calculated under the new system give only 611,000. A similar tendency to play down the jobless figures is evident in other countries. Nevertheless, even according to official data, the number of unemployed since the last war has in certain years exceeded the 1929 level in absolute terms.
128Unemployment has been an especially heavy burden on the working people in the economically underdeveloped countries, which are plagued by immense agrarian overpopulation. Economists have put the agrarian overpopulation in India at 60--65 million, Indonesia at 10--15 million, and Pakistan at 25--30 per cent of the agricultural population.
Structural shifts in industry allied to the introduction of new technology and automation cause a rise in structural, technological and other types of unemployment.
Within the capitalist economic system, even in countries with some labour shortage over a number of years (West Germany, France and Sweden), unemployment has not entirely disappeared. In West Germany, for example, employers have hired cheap labour from Italy, Spain, Greece and Turkey in the mid-60s despite the mass redundancies in a number of domestic industries, like coal, textiles and metallurgy.
For a long time monopoly capital and bourgeois governments ignored problems of unemployment and vocational training and retraining. They are now obliged to take a different attitude by events in the socialist countries, where unemployment has been eliminated and a thorough system of vocational training and retraining devised. Structural and technological unemployment are unknown in the Soviet Union, despite rapid scientific and technological progress and the changing industrial structure.
Under pressure of public opinion and primarily of workers' demands, the governments of some capitalist states have been taking steps to alleviate the worst effects of unemployment. In the U.S.A., where automation has been breeding mass unemployment, the administration began to introduce in 1962 a programme of trade retraining. The British Government, too, passed a law on employment allocating funds for training labour in economically depressed areas. The limited nature of these palliatives is palpably obvious. By the beginning of 1965, no more than 100,000 people had been covered by the U.S. plans for job retraining while total jobless figures stood at 3,500,000. In Britain the employment act has provided jobs for no more than 10 per cent of all unemployed.
Real wages are a most important indicator of the workers' condition. The dynamics of wages, the cost of living, __PRINTERS_P_129_COMMENT__ 9---235 129 social benefits and tax deductions directly determine the workers' standard of living. The monopoly bourgeoisie have been doing all they can to depress or freeze real wages.
Economic crises, the arms race, competitive strife and other concomitants of capitalism systematically press down real wages, thereby periodically bringing about an absolute deterioration in the workers' condition. During the 1929--33 crisis, the drop in real wages in the U.S.A., the leading capitalist country, amounted to more than 25 per cent as compared with the pre-crisis period. Sharp drops in real wages also occurred during the Second World War in France, Italy, Japan and several other countries.
The financial oligarchy has kept up its two-pronged attack on real wages: it has restrained wage increases for white- and blue-collar workers and has steadily pushed up prices; the latter largely swallow up any wage rises the workers may gain.
The depreciation of workers' incomes through inflation is common to a number of capitalist countries. Between 1958 and 1965, the cost of living index rose 18 per cent in West Germany, 21 per cent in Britain, 29 per cent in Italy, 9 per cent in the U.S.A., 11 per cent in Canada, 42 per cent in Japan and 20 per cent in Australia.^^1^^ Meanwhile, in recent years the cost of living in West Germany, Italy and the Netherlands has increased far more rapidly than in the 1957-- 60 period. Prices have spiralled in the U.S.A., Britain, Canada and elsewhere.
Nevertheless, in a number of advanced countries the last years have seen real wages rises for both industrial workers and office employees in spite of the efforts of the monopolies to devalue labour power by means of inflation or stabilisation of cash incomes.
Between 1953 and 1963, official statistics indicate that the level of real wages rose by 18.5 per cent in the U.S.A., 29.7 per cent in Britain, 61.6 per cent in West Germany, 23.8 per cent in Italy, 48.8 per cent in Japan and 13.2 per cent in France. True, these calculations do not reproduce very accurately the dynamics of workers' reaJ wages. The nominal wage index for several countries includes income changes for _-_-_
~^^1^^ Monthly Bulletin of Statistics, August 1966, pp. 160, 168.
130 other wage workers and industrial workers, with bourgeois statistics often classing as industrial workers foremen and heads of offices and design offices, to say nothing of highlypaid board members, members of supervisory councils and managers, who belong to the big bourgeoisie.The official figures on workers' money wages mean gross wages, from which substantial tax and social payments are deducted. The deliberately overstated figure of money incomes is compared with the understated cost of living index, thus exaggerating any actual growth in real wages.
In West Germany and Japan, higher real wages must be seen in the light of the exceedingly low wages level immediately after the last war when most workers subsisted on the brink of poverty and chronic starvation.
The fact of higher real wages is not altogether unexpected for any Marxist-Leninist student of modern capitalism. It would be a mistake to generalise about the power of finance capital to lower or restrain real wages, whose dynamics are by no means determined by the whim of the capitalist or the bounds of his greed. Certainly, the imperialist bourgeoisie has been doing all it can to depress real wages, but it has to contend with certain objective and subjective forces.
One of the most important factors benefiting wages in some countries has been the persistent working-class effort to secure higher wages, as the positions of world imperialism have weakened, and the strength and prestige of world socialism have grown. This was bound to have a decisive influence on the workers' economic struggle and on wages.
Today, more than at any time in the past, the words of Lenin ring true. He said that Marx ``spoke of the growth of poverty, degradation, etc., indicating at the same time the counteracting tendency and the real social forces that alone could give rise to this tendency".^^1^^
Value underlies the price of labour power. The law of value of this specific commodity is realised in the class struggle. In the capitalist countries, the working class has used the favourable conditions and has managed to sell its labour power at a price much closer to its growing value.
_-_-_~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 4, p. 201.
131Modern living and working conditions in the advanced capitalist countries cause a rapid growth in the requirements of the workers, whose satisfaction is necessary for reproducing the workers' labour power. This process is accelerated by the greatly increasing intensification of labour, which demands substantial material means for restoring the worker's physical and nerve energy. The process is further stepped up by the growing demands of modern production on the technical and general educational training of the labour force, and consequently, by the rise in the costs of training and, finally, by the increasing urbanisation resulting in larger outlays on communal services, cultural and transport facilities, and so on.
Over the past 70 years radical changes have occurred in the workers' social and everyday way of life in the advanced capitalist countries. Some aspects of the workingman's material and cultural life---clothing, housing, household amenities and services, cultural and educational opportunities ---have on the whole improved. Some of the most highly-paid workers are now able to acquire luxury consumer goods that but yesterday were accessible only to the rich.
Some Western sociologists view the desire of workers to acquire these goods either as heralding an era of universal affluence, or as a status-seeking urge on the part of workers.
In fact, there are objective causes behind these changes. Thus, workers in Western Europe, the U.S.A., Canada and Australia obtain cars, mainly on hire purchase, largely because they are obliged to work some distance away from their homes. Capitalist development causes a substantial change in the traditional structure of industrial production, and many workers have to transfer from one factory to another, from a stagnating sector (e.g., coal) to a buoyant one (e.g., chemicals). And this causes workers to seek work at factories even farther away from their homes. Emergence of new industries and factories which are forced into the countryside by the high price of urban land means that more and more workers are being scattered over a wide area of housing estates and dormitory communities on the periphery or away from the main industrial urban centres.
When one considers, too, the high cost of railway and bus travel and the unreliability of public transport on the 132 majority of estates, it is hardly surprising that cars have become a necessity.
Since many workers are more or less tied to their place of residence by the difficulties of acquiring a reasonably-priced flat or by their own house, they may be obliged to take work at a nearby factory where working conditions and wages are often worse than at factories in remote areas. The problem is solved by owning a car. Labour mobility is, therefore, extremely important in obtaining a better price for labour power. A West German sociologist says: ``The mobility of the workingman, who is already largely motorised, to a differing degree, it is true, depending on his trade and income, means that he is not compelled as before to find employment in the immediate vicinity of his flat and to keep his job there whatever happens."^^1^^
In all the advanced capitalist countries more and more women have to work. Between 1910 and 1959, the proportion of women in the U.S. labour force grew from 24 to 36 per cent. In Britain, the number of working women grew by 10 per cent between 1960 and 1962, to over 8 million today. Half of them are married. One-third of the West German labour force is female. ``Many of them,'' the weekly Stern has noted, ``bear a double burden, doing trade and housework at the cost of immense strain on their health."^^2^^ In this situation, it is absolutely essential for working families to have at their disposal household appliances like refrigerators, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, and so on.^^3^^
The workingman increasingly needs not only the means to sustain himself and his family (food, home, clothing), but also ``the satisfaction of certain wants springing from the social conditions in which people are placed and reared up''.^^4^^ These words of Marx are today especially relevant in determining the socio-historical element of the value of labour power. The demands made by modern industry imply the _-_-_
~^^1^^ Y. Schiefer, Europaischcr Arbeitsmarkt, Baden-Baden, 1961, S. 157.
~^^2^^ Stern No, 49, 1965, S. 84.
~^^3^^ Some bourgeois sociologists believe that household appliances halve the time spent on household chores, and reduce the time spent on cooking and washing up by as much as a quarter or a third.
~^^4^^ K. Marx and F. Engels, Selected Works, in 2 vols., Vol. I, Moscow, p. 442.
133 worker's great expenditure on his technical and general education.The mounting complexity of social and political living conditions also leads to a growth in the worker's needs. Clearly, the value of labour power should include more than the value of the means going into the reproduction of the working class as an element of the productive force of capitalist society. There is also the value of the means the working class needs to reproduce itself as a socio-political force. One vital aspect of this is the need to satisfy the cultural requirements of the working class and enlarge its political and cultural outlook. Today that is impossible without the ability to acquire books, periodicals, radio and television sets and so on. All this increases the number of components that make up the socio-historical element of labour power value, thereby producing the need to raise the working people's traditional standard of living.
Meanwhile, the present wage level of many workers remains quite inadequate for satisfying their basic needs. The average index of real wages obscures the extreme insecurity of existence of the many millions of people who receive the bare minimum wage. In the mid-1960s there were in France, for example, some 2 million families earning a third of the living wage, and in Britain 2,500,000 people were living on national assistance. In the U.S.A., former President Johnson admitted, 35 million Americans were living in chronic poverty.
The working people's growing debt through hire purchase payments with the concomitant high interest rates imposed by banks, building societies, insurance companies, etc., is fresh confirmation of the inadequacy of many incomes to cover vital needs. A survey among West German householders owning refrigerators found that only 20 per cent had been bought outright.
The dynamics of the value of labour power, while objectively affecting the level of and changes in wages, have in turn been largely influenced by these changes which are a direct or indirect result of the class struggle.
Marx made this clear when he wrote: ``...the number and extent of his so-called necessary wants, as also the modes of satisfying them, are themselves the product of historical development, and depend therefore to a great extent on the 134 degree of civilisation of a country, more particularly on the conditions under which, and consequently on the habits and degree of comfort in which, the class of free labourers has been formed."^^1^^
These needs and vital demands have been changing and expanding over a period of time, once again being realised in class struggle which is the real mainspring behind the upward movement of the socio-historical element of labour power value. Only after they have been won in fierce struggle with the capitalists^ do the new demands of the workers become an integral part of their normal standard of living, thereby raising the value of labour power. The socio-historical element of the value of labour power would never have increased unless the price of labour power (level of real wages) had not for some time exceeded the earlier level of this element of value of labour power.
With world imperialism losing ground and world socialism gaining in strength, this episodic feature of capitalism will evidently become more frequent since the mounting international revolutionary movement is all the time creating favourable conditions for successful struggle for real wage increases, thereby helping to develop the trend towards a higher value of labour power.
It would be just as wrong, however, to overstate as to understate the importance of this trend. First, the more favourable social conditions for the workers' struggle do not exclude the possibility of the specific situation in a single country or even most countries taking a turn for the worse, either as a result of a decline in the economic outlook, or on the heels of political changes. Political events in France in the ten years from 1958 to 1968, the 1964--65 slump in Italy, and the 1967 recession in West Germany, are merely three examples of deterioration in the condition of the workers' economic struggle. Second, and this is most important, this trend has a limit imposed by the social system. With all the changes in the distribution of the national income between profit and wages, with all the fluctuations in the price of labour power around its value, even at the most favourable moments for the workers, profit remains at a level which _-_-_
~^^1^^ K. Marx, Capital, Vol. I, p. 171.
135 assures reproduction of the whole system of capitalist exploitation and social inequality.It stands to reason that in fighting for higher real wages the working class essentially improves the conditions for selling its labour power. But in its analysis of the wage issue Marxism-Leninism has never turned a blind eye to the dynamics of relative wages, i.e., changes in the ratio of wages to capitalist profit. As Marx pointed out, ``If capital is growing rapidly, wages may rise; the profit of capital rises incomparably more rapidly."^^1^^
The increasing rate of exploitation, expressed in the ratio of capitalist profit to wages, is an important index of the relative deterioration of the condition of the working class. The gap between growing labour productivity and real wages, evident in all capitalist countries, has resulted from an intensification of capitalist exploitation. The relative price for labour has been falling, i.e., the share of paid labour has been falling in comparison with surplus labour. Despite the forced wage concessions to workers, this cheapening of labour leads to a higher rate of surplus value and a greater mass of surplus value. The statistics show that the profits of the monopoly bourgeoisie have been growing much faster than workers' wages. During the past 30 years, the profits of U.S. corporations have increased 4.6 times, while the wage bill has increased by less than 4 times. In Britain, profits have risen 5.6-fold, and wages 4.6-fold. Between 1952 and I960, the profits of Japanese capitalists increased 350 per cent and wages only 120 per cent. A similar picture obtains for other capitalist countries.^^2^^
We find, therefore, that a further relative deterioration in the position of the workers, a constant concomitant of contemporary capitalism, occurs even while real wages are actually rising.
Modern reformist apologists for capitalism make out that the bourgeois state's fiscal measures and closely related social legislation are important instruments of social progress. They also maintain that progressive taxation to an increasing extent _-_-_
~^^1^^ K. Marx and F. Engels, Selected Works, Vol. I, p. 98.
~^^2^^ One should bear in mind that the wage bill tends to increase mainly because of the growing labour force. Bourgeois statistics play down (he actual amount of profits by taking as basic data the declared profits of the monopolies which, naturally, do all they can to understate them.
136 tends to adjust the distribution of the national income in favour of the working people, while budgetary payments for social needs produce general ``affluence'' and result in an ``incomes revolution''.Actually, the finance oligarchy draws off a large part of workers' incomes through the budgetary and fiscal system and redistributes it in the interests of the ruling class. This causes a further rise in the rate of exploitation, since the surplus value appropriated by the capitalists in the initial distribution of the newly-created product is supplemented by the government by a large part of variable capital taken from the working people in the form of direct taxes, deductions from wages for social purposes and various indirect levies. The inflated military budgets in the U.S.A., West Germany, Britain and elsewhere, in addition to more and more resources for maintaining the bureaucratic state machine, steadily increase the tax burden.
In the vast majority of capitalist countries, the government annually extracts through the tax system from 40 to 50 per cent of the national income. It is characteristic of capitalist fiscal policy that the working people have to bear an increasing burden (chiefly through indirect taxes) and that direct progressive taxation of profits and capitalist property is being reduced in every possible way.
The higher indirect taxes impose a heavy burden on the working people. Since the last war, indirect taxation in West Germany, France, Italy and other countries has increased 3-4-fold. Although expansion of indirect taxation is a favourite method of tax exploitation, it is nevertheless restricted by the size of wages. Tax exploitation has, therefore, been increasing through direct taxation and legallyenforced deductions from wages for social purposes. By the beginning of the 1960s these deductions in Britain had increased 4-fold in comparison with the pre-war period, and 2.5-fold in Austria. The proportion of compulsory direct deductions from gross wages (taxes and social deductions) amount to 17 per cent in the U.S.A., 16 per cent in West Germany, and 12 per cent in Britain. While accumulating large amounts in the treasury, the monopoly bourgeoisie tries to reduce the ``sacrifices'' periodically cutting back the social items of the budget and shifting a large part of social expenditure onto the working people themselves.
137Events of recent years expose the demagogic claims about government benevolence and fiscal policy as a reliable stabiliser of social progress. Certainly, the present state of these problems is incomparable with what it was at the turn of the century. The undeniable social attainments of the socialist countries have given an impetus to the working people's struggle in the capitalist world and have forced the authorities to extend social legislation.
Before the October 1917 Revolution, social insurance existed only in a handful of European countries; today, 38 capitalist states have old-age insurance, 74 have accident insurance, and 20 have unemployment insurance. After the last war, Britain and Sweden introduced a partially-free health service, France, West Germany and several other countries established or increased family allowances, and the U.S.A., Italy, France and Austria improved their pension schemes. In order to alleviate acute manifestations of class antagonisms, the bourgeois state compels employers to make contributions to social insurance funds. True, the burden of such payments is not very great. These contributions are charged as necessary costs of production and may be passed on to wholesale and, consequently, also to retail prices. With prices rapidly rising, the employers pass on to the consumer the costs incurred in compulsory social contributions.
The monopolies, however, cannot compensate themselves for all the compulsory payments to the working people by increasing prices on mass consumption goods. Some of these goods will be needed by the bourgeoisie themselves. Moreover, fierce competition does not permit the monopolies to cover all of their social payments in the consumer goods price without jeopardising their own interests.
The legally-enforced payments by employers into the unemployment fund, accident insurance, holiday funds, etc., are important gains for the workers. The scope of these gains, however, should not be overestimated. They only alleviate certain aspects of social discrimination against the workers. Capitalism has still to solve such vitally important problems as education opportunity, adequate medical service and housing, timely and adequate pensions and so on.
Within the U.S.A., schools lack 130,000 or more classrooms, and one million children of school age do not go to school at all. In Southern Italy, 40 per cent of the 138 population is illiterate. Although the number of students is generally on the increase, the proportion from working-class families has not altered from what it was a decade ago, a mere 5-6 per cent. The main reason for this is the high cost of education and the paucity of government subsidies for higher education (in West Germany the figure is one-sixth the figure for the German Democratic Republic). The pensionable age in most countries is high (65 on the average for men, 60 for women), and the size of pensions is small (18--25 per cent of average wages). Many millions of elderly people receive no government aid whatever (in the U.S.A. they make up over 30 per cent of those over 65); this condemns many people to a miserable existence in their old age.
There is no doubt that the outward signs of social deprivation among workers so graphically described by Dickens and Zola have disappeared for most of the working class in the industrialised capitalist countries, but this provides no foundation for bourgeois economists and sociologists to maintain that the capitalist West has advanced to an age of class equality. Events in recent years demonstrate that class inequality and oppression of the workers are being reproduced on a new level and in new forms. About that there is no doubt at all.
The growth of monopoly capitalism into state-monopoly capitalism has given special significance to the political status of the working class. Expansion of capitalist reproduction has always accelerated the reproduction of all social relations since it is not only the economic power of the monopoly bourgeoisie, but also its political supremacy that is reproduced on the basis of centralisation and concentration of capital. The strengthening of the political dictatorship of the monopolies over society in turn inevitably engenders a further reinforcement of their economic supremacy and provides them with supplementary means for economic exploitation of the working class and oppression of the labouring people. Statemonopoly capitalism has brought all the levers of socioeconomic exploitation and political repression into a single mechanism of class oppression of the proletariat.
The development of state-monopoly capitalism invariably involves the further entrenchment of the class dictatorship of the imperialist bourgeoisie and the extensive introduction of reactionary methods in internal politics. The part played 139 by the bourgeois state in the economic and social oppression of the working people has reached unprecedented proportions, and the interference of imperialist governments in relations between labour and capital is becoming increasingly direct, as witnessed by recent anti-labour legislation in the U.S.A., France and West Germany, compulsory government arbitration, etc. Bourgeois parliaments are being emasculated, and the corridors of power are being effectively insulated from public influence, especially from working-class influence. Legislative initiative passes to the executive power. Political power is fast becoming unrestricted and independent of the will of the electorate. In some parliaments there is not a single representative of the working class. Other countries have voting systems that bar from parliament Communists, who represent the workers' interests. The restrictions and bans on Communist Parties in some countries make it much harder for the workers to organise in defence of their socio-economic interests.
The direct links between monopoly capital and executive power are increasingly clear-cut and influential. The workers are becoming socially more powerless and estranged from economic power, which is being concentrated in the hands of an increasingly small circle of financial magnates. This makes the task of the bourgeoisie much easier in encroaching on the interests of the working people.
Today, when the monopolies merger with the state apparatus has spread beyond the national boundaries, as the Common Market imperialist integration in Western Europe indicates, it is obvious that political issues are of prime importance to the workers. Imperialist integration shows that the financial oligarchy is attempting to establish supranational associations, while barring the working people's access to legislative and executive power in these international organisations. There is not a single representative of the working class on the administrative councils of the Common Market (Council of Ministers and the Commission), and this in effect puts decisions on all economic and social issues beyond any conceivable control by the working people.
The workers have to combine their purely economic interests with far-going socio-political reforms. How is it possible, for example, to solve the problem of unemployment without radically restricting the arbitrary methods used by 140 employers in modernising and automating production ? How is it possible to increase state spending on social needs without substantially reducing the subsidies going to the monopolies and the arms race, i.e., without the working people having some say in domestic and foreign policy? The socio-economic position of the workers very much depends on their political and economic rights at all levels, from the factory to government.
The social development of capitalism offers convincing enough evidence that the exploitation of the workers by modern monopoly capital is an extremely complex system. The finance oligarchy tries to pursue a flexible policy, somewhat toning down its assault on workers' wages, while simultaneously stepping up exploitation of labour directly in production and attacking the socio-political rights of the working class.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 3. Bourgeois Social PoliciesIn expounding his general law of capitalist accumulation, Marx pointed out that production and reproduction of capital yield a growth in capitalist wealth, domination and despotism; they are also inextricably connected with a simultaneous extension of the sphere of exploitation and an increase in the size and organisation of the working class. The quantitative growth of the working class was accompanied by a growing indignation, a social protest and a revolutionary movement of the oppressed.
After the October Revolution in Russia and particularly as the general crisis of capitalism grew in intensity, this revolutionary movement gathered momentum.
Today, more than ever before, the powerful influence of the revolutionary forces on the policy of the bourgeoisie is apparent. For this very reason the bourgeoisie is forced to apply new forms and methods of class domination. Changes in the bourgeoisie's tactics present new complex problems to the working people and their vanguard---the Communist and Workers' Parties. It is all the more necessary to make a close study of the modern bourgeois tactics of struggle against the revolutionary working-class movement, since the monopoly bourgeoisie has met with some success in a number of 141 countries in restraining the workers' class struggle and maintaining, and even temporarily bolstering, the fundamental props of its class supremacy. What Lenin had to say about bourgeois tactics is still relevant today. He wrote, ``Our tactical and strategic methods (if we take them on an international scale) still lag behind the excellent strategy of the bourgeoisie, which has learnt from the example of Russia and will not let itself be 'taken by surprise'."^^1^^
The bourgeoisie has never used routine tactics in its class policy. Lenin delineated two systems of bourgeois administration, two methods used by the capitalists to defend their interests: a) the conservative policy of military-police repression of the working-class movement, and blunt refusal to yield an inch to the working people, and b) the liberalisation policy of social reform, material concessions and some extension of popular political rights.
In home policy, these two methods often interchange and intertwine in various combinations, depending on the shifts in internal and external political and economic conditions.
At the initial stage of capitalism's general crisis, the antilabour domestic policy was one chiefly of intensifying the conservative methods (imperialism hoped that violence and fascist methods would upset the revolutionary working-class movement which flared up strongly after the October Revolution). At the second, and especially at the present stage, the traditional conservative tactics have been supplemented by new and more complex ones.
I. In the socio-economic sphere these tactics are the following: a) an urge to avoid any open drive on the rights and interests of the exploited masses in relation to wages, social benefits, working hours, holidays, etc.; b) use of flagrant social demagogy distorting the true character of the material concessions and masking the antagonistic relations between labour and capital by various pseudo-systems of economic incentives towards ``universal affluence'', ``dispersal of capitalist property'', and socio-psychological systems of ``social partnership'', ``human relations" and so on and so forth; and c) a sharp increase in direct exploitation of wage labour at factory level as a fundamental method of extracting relative surplus value from the workers.
_-_-_~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 32, p. 522.
142II. In the socio-political sphere the tactics are: a) persistent attempts to narrow or emasculate bourgeois-democratic liberties; b) extension of state-monopoly measures in antilabour policies (interference in bargaining between unions and employers, curtailing the right to strike, etc.).
The evolution of imperialism's class tactics has certainly not been straight. But since it is determined by the laws of world social development, the new tactics of the bourgeoisie do more than reflect the peculiarities of the moment; they also express the historical trend which has been growing in pace with the world revolutionary process.
Social and economic development is an important arena of competition between the two world systems; it is the main medium that engenders and intensifies the irreconcilable class antagonism and class struggle within bourgeois society. Hence, the present sharp break with the traditional tactics of class politics on the part of monopoly capital.
In the second half of the twentieth century, no far-sighted capitalist leader has laboured under any delusion about the difficulties encountered in building socialism and communism being anything but transient. They have increasingly appreciated the results and immediate prospects of peaceful economic competition; and they have desperately tried to discover effective means to offset the revolutionising impact of the socialist example.
In the mainstream of bourgeois general policy, its social policy is fast becoming all important; it is by means of this policy that imperialism hopes to attain internal political stability of bourgeois society and eventually to give capitalism itself a new lease of life. As capitalism's general crisis worsens, the bourgeoisie and the social reformists widely use tactical social manoeuvres as a means of winning over, through material concessions, hand-outs and social demagogy, a large and sometimes (for a short time) majority section of the workers, so as politically to neutralise them and weaken their leading role in the general world revolutionary movement.
The new tactics of bourgeois struggle against the working class are a result of the attempts to weaken the class struggle so as to stave off the proletarian revolution.
Marxism-Leninism sees bourgeois social policy as a form of class struggle by the monopoly capitalists against the world 143 revolutionary movement; it is a means for preserving and strengthening the political and economic foundations of the capitalist system; it is a form for adjusting capitalist exploitation to cope with the new situation.
Present-day social policy of the bourgeoisie expresses an urge to seek more effective methods of weakening the class struggle at a time when the masking of class oppression and enforced concessions to the workers are becoming just as necessary for the existence of capitalism as the exploitation of hired labour by capital.
This social policy therefore fulfils a dual function: 1) a political function aimed at weakening the class struggle in every possible way by making economic concessions and hand-outs to the workers, by social demagogy and by carefully masking the relations of class exploitation; and 2) an economic function, designed to increase to the maximum the exploitation of wage labour by seeking and using new forms and methods.
These two components of bourgeois social policy variously underlie the actions of any section of the imperialist bourgeoisie, of any bourgeois government in the industrially advanced countries, from the clerical conservatives (the Adenauer and Erhard governments in West Germany) to the liberal reformists (the Labour Government in Britain and the Centre-Left Government in Italy).
The trend in bourgeois social policy today is to use primarily state-monopoly methods. This does not, of course, mean that paternalistic private monopoly methods in pursuing social policy have lost all significance. But the shift in method is due to the growth of monopoly capitalism into statemonopoly capitalism and the unprecedented role of the bourgeois state in economic and social affairs. Through its policies on prices and taxes, budget allocations and social legislation and also through implementation of its social policy at factory level in the state sector of the economy, the bourgeois state has been stepping up exploitation, together with the necessary tactical measures for the ``economic satisfaction" of the workers and loud social demagogy.
In the latter half of this century the leaders of the imperialist powers have proclaimed as the prime aim of their domestic policy the establishment of the ``Grand society" (President Johnson), the universal ``affluent society" and the 144 ``complete society" (Chancellor Erhard); these declared aims represent the persistent intention of capitalist ruling circles to work out a range of measures for the social ``pacification'' of the working people. With the aid of the bourgeois state and, in the last ten years, through inter-state organisations like the Common Market, the financial oligarchy has been able to produce a more far-sighted social policy than had ever been possible for individual monopolies and employers motivated by sheer economic and competitive ideas and viewing social policy through the prism of their own business.
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The self-interest of capital, in the narrow utilitarian sense of the word, frequently results in a clash with the tactical aims of the class-based social policy of the bourgeois state. That is why one regularly hears strident criticism from bourgeois strategists of businessmen whose activity is governed, as Engels so succinctly put it, by the sole aim of filling ``its purse \`a tout prix".^^1^^
The social policy, embodied in the bourgeois-reformist doctrine of the ``affluent society'', is conspicuous for the principal sectors of its activity: = 1) distribution and redistribution of the national income---``the incomes revolution''; = 2) property relations---the ``diffusion'' of property in the means of production; = 3) the socio-psychological relations between wage labour and capital---the ``humanisation of labour'', ``social partnership'', etc.
Bourgeois social policy is most active in distributing and redistributing national income, including items like wages and prices, various social payments by the monopolies and the state to the workers, and the government's fiscal policy. Most bourgeois-reformist sociologists regard this sphere as decisive. Many believe social policy is designed to overcome the flaws of national income distribution.
There is good reason why the imperialist bourgeoisie emphasise this aspect of social policy as the main one. They are fully obliged to consider that distribution includes the most obvious elements of the workers' class condition. The dynamics of wages, the cost of living, social payments, and tax deductions directly influence the workers' standard of living and their opportunities for reproducing their labour _-_-_
~^^1^^ K. Marx and F. Engels, On Britain, Moscow, 1962, p. 200.
__PRINTERS_P_145_COMMENT__ 10---235 145 power. The bourgeoisie has learnt that stepped-up exploitation through wage cuts arouses the greatest protest among the population and leads to desperate and long struggle. The wages policy of the monopolies and the state allows maximum flexibility in following a zigzag course in economic and political activity. The willingness to cede ground during wage negotiations, particularly at politically tense moments, is due to the monopolies' desire to avoid mass strikes. As soon as economic circumstances compel them, and as soon as the political situation to any degree allows, their wage policy invariably loses its elasticity and reverts to or is supplemented by traditional coercive methods.Behind the common facade of average wage movements lies a differentiated and extremely flexible system of remuneration of wage labour, which is utilised by bourgeois social policy. The wages of a skilled worker at a large plant are nearly 30--40 per cent higher than those of a similarly qualified worker at a small factory. Even more striking are the wage differentials of diagonally compared skill levels. The wages of an unskilled labourer at a big monopolistic plant are higher than those of a trained worker at a mediumsized factory and higher still than the wages of a skilled worker at the smallest factory.
The wage structure in various branches of the economy is heavily exploited by bourgeois social policy. A great unevenness in wage levels of equally skilled workers prevails in various branches of industrial production in the developed capitalist countries. Employees of the chemical, atomic, electronics and printing industries stand at the top of the wage pyramid. At the bottom are workers in the light industry---textiles, food, garments, leatherwear, etc. Wage differentials between these two groups are often as great as 25--30 per cent in the U.S.A., Britain and France.
The existing structure of workers' overall earnings plays an exceptionally important part in bourgeois social machinations. The proportion of supplementary earnings is steadily on the increase, consisting of all manner of direct and indirect payments to the workers in the following forms: 1) lump sum cash payments (Christmas boxes, wedding, birth and confirmation gifts, payment of the family's funeral expenses, presentations on workers' wedding and long-service anniversaries, etc.); 2) regular monetary payments (industrial 146 pensions, supplementary holiday payments, allowances for house purchase payments, etc.); 3) contributions to the works' social fund (cost of nursery schools, creches, rest homes, clinics, sports facilities, factory canteens, social clubs, etc.).
During the 1950s the system of ``worker participation in profits" was expanded in West Germany, France, Britain and the U.S.A. The proportion of these concessions and sops in the total wages bill amounted, 1959 polls showed, to 26 per cent in France, 30 per cent in Italy and 32 per cent in West Germany.^^1^^ It is indicative that at the big monopolistic plants and in the leading industrial sectors (chemicals, engineering, electrical engineering) the proportion was substantially greater than at the small enterprises and in the old sectors (textiles, food, etc.).
A large part of these payments were made on a voluntary, paternalistic basis, i.e., they were not written into collective agreements or statutory acts. This was a strong curb on the influence exerted by the working-class movement on the dynamics of nominal wages.
The dimensions of ``voluntary'' social payments are directly dependent on the size of the enterprise. Industrial pensions, bonuses and other types of benefits at monopolistic plants are much higher than at medium or small factories, most of which rarely have any such payments at all. This situation is widely exploited by bourgeois propaganda for popularising the social advantages of large-scale monopoly capital.
These voluntary payments are not made by the bourgeoisie indiscriminately, the main point being to single out the most ``industrially disciplined" and ``politically reliable" blue- and white-collar workers.
The size of these ``voluntary'' payments (industrial pensions, etc.) depends on the worker's length of service and his ``interest in his work''. At the Krupp concerns, an average wage of DM400 for every year worked secures DMl 40 pfennigs put aside for a monthly pension, a wage of DM600 brings DM240 pfennigs put aside, and DM1,000, DM4.^^2^^ This graduated industrial pension scale clearly shows the social intent of this form of paternalistic activity---it primarily rewards the skilled and highly skilled workers who stay at _-_-_
~^^1^^ L'Usinc Nouvcllc, March 1, 1962, pp. 7-9.
~^^2^^ Krupp Mittcilungcn No. 1, 1958.
__PRINTERS_P_148_COMMENT__ 10* 147 the same factory for many years. If a worker leaves the firm or is sacked he loses all his accumulated benefits.Any close study of the tactics of making wage and social payment concessions to the working class shows that the traditional policy of singling out the economically privileged upper crust of workers is increasingly being replaced by concessions to a relatively large section of workers concentrated at large factories in economic sectors that are of a nationaleconomic and strategic importance.
The growing complexity of forms of exploitation and the social manipulations of the monopoly bourgeoisie cause some changes in working conditions. What the capitalist used to regard as an extravagant waste in the lifetime of Marx and Engels, and even only a quarter of a century ago, has now become a matter of vital necessity at a time when the world revolutionary movement is progressing so triumphantly. In our day capitalism desperately tries to master the art of social mimicry designed to cover up the exploiting nature of bourgeois society. The demagogic ``humanising labour" slogan serves the bourgeoisie not simply as a means of raising labour productivity at the cost of a greatly increased physical and nerve work load; it is also a means of mitigating the effects of the complete alienation of the proletariat in capitalist production, a means of embellishing the deprived state of the workers. At the large monopolistic factories all the ploys of technological aesthetics are set in motion---from pleasing designs of workshop machinery to music-while-you-work and colourful decoration of workshops, as if to nurture a spirit of enterprise and satisfaction while the workers toil.
It should be stressed that the vast range of social policies mainly involves the large enterprises in the industrially advanced capitalist countries. The mass of small and medium enterprises continue to preserve antiquated methods of capitalist exploitation typified by poor working conditions and violations of elementary safety and health standards.
Working conditions in the less developed countries of the capitalist world are even worse. Most of the factories, mines and building sites of the capitalist states of Latin America, Africa and Asia extensively exploit child and female labour and use blatantly barbaric methods of capitalist production; they fully qualify for Marx's description of capitalist enterprise: ``the absence of all provisions to render 148 the production process human, agreeable, or at least bearable."^^1^^
Property relations are becoming an ever more active sphere of bourgeois social policy. The further monopoly capitalism develops into state-monopoly capitalism, the more economic control is concentrated in the hands of a numerically small group of financiers. The growing economic domination of the monopoly bourgeoisie, based on private capitalist principles of ownership of the means of production, reveals its reactionary nature in an especially marked and extensive way and is a scandalous social anachronism as production is increasingly socialised and science and technology rapidly develop, giving rise to more and more complex social problems.
As a consequence, the bourgeoisie is forced to elaborate more refined ways of disguising the exploiting essence of its system. It resorts to demagogy about ``democratising capital" and ``dispersal of property" as a result of worker `` participation" in the joint ownership of enterprises. The bourgeoisie endeavours to spread the illusion among the workers that property is owned jointly by the workers and employers. West Germany even has an act encouraging workers' ownership. In 1967, the French Government issued an ordinance on a material interest for workers in the economic prosperity of the firm. There are experiments with spreading shares among workers and giving them an opportunity to acquire investment certificates. Other acts give tax incentives to workers' private savings. All these multifarious forms of material enrichment are, naturally, designed to camouflage the antagonistic character of property relations.
Marxist social writers sometimes say that the workers have seen through the designs of the monopolies and have spurned this type of blandishment. Unfortunately, this has not been quite so. One cannot eschew the fact that in the U.S.A. and West Germany, among other countries, there are many millions of small shareholders, a large part of whom are workers. In the past decade their number has increased severalfold in the U.S.A. and West Germany. The American Telephone and Telegraph Company and the Vereinigte Elektrizitats und Bergwerks-AG each have more than two million shareholders, says Business Week (1.2.1964). The _-_-_
~^^1^^ K. Marx, Capital, Vol. III, Moscow, I960, p. 86.
149 illusion of ``popular'' capitalism has undoubtedly taken in a section of the working class.Progressive forces in the West explain to the workers the real purpose of this form of ``popular'' capitalism. But there is an urgent need to put forward new slogans and demands to turn this bourgeois fraud into a means of undermining the domination of monopoly capital. This might be facilitated, for instance, by a carefully elaborated list of workers' demands for a radical overhaul of shareholding rights; the co-option, with full rights, of workers' representatives on supervisory councils and management bodies; transformation of the general shareholders' meeting, where small shareholders at present simply do not count, into a body controlling the economic activity of the firm; limiting each shareholder to only one vote; giving the worker priority option on shares, and so on.
It is not a question of rehabilitating the petty-bourgeois ideas of Proudhon concerning the proletariat buying out the capitalist enterprises. These are practical steps in the antimonopoly struggle to bring the workers closer to the levers of economic power and to create vital prerequisites for a revolutionary transformation of production relations as the working-class movement gains in strength.
The tactics advocated by the Communist Parties on worker participation in management is one example of the creative approach to the use of piecemeal measures in social policy as it affects property. Clearly, the monopoly bourgeoisie and its reformist agents regard this system as a means of class collaboration, reinforcing in the workers ideas of a labourcapital partnership. Meanwhile, the co-option of representatives of workers' organisations on supervisory councils and management bodies can acquire quite a different significance if the workers on these bodies resolutely defend the vital interests of the workers rather than act in a conciliatory way. It is noteworthy that many Communist Parties, particularly those in Italy, France, Belgium and West Germany, regard worker participation in running industry as a major means of curtailing the monopolies' power.
The class nature of the motive forces of social policy is complex and contradictory. The tactics of material concessions to the workers have been clearly forced on the bourgeoisie by the workers and their world allies, and lead to a reform 150 which Lenin once described as a ``by-product of the revolutionary class struggle''.^^1^^
But it is just as clear that the changes in social tactics caused by the progress of the world revolutionary process themselves exert an influence on the course of the class struggle. From this point of view, the social policy of the bourgeoisie is a preventive tactical manoeuvre aimed at politically neutralising the workers and weakening their revolutionary potential. But neither the tactics nor the enforced concessions can halt the process of revolutionising the masses of people.
In the course of the class struggle workers of the capitalist countries strive to exploit the favourable opportunities that have arisen as a result of the consolidation of the forces of world socialism. It is just as important today to bear in mind Lenin's advice: ``It would be absolutely wrong to believe that immediate struggle for socialist revolution implies that we can, or should, abandon the fight for reforms."^^2^^
Communist and Workers' Parties, and trade unions carrrying on the class struggle, have the chance to wrest from the bourgeoisie the initiative in socio-economic policy. They can counterpose the bourgeois tactics, designed to strengthen the domination of capital, with their own militant tactics of struggle to turn these reforms into structural reforms undermining the domination of the imperialist bourgeoisie and fortifying the positions of the workers in their fight for socialism.
It is only possible to fill these socio-economic reforms with revolutionary content if the workers play an active and politically conscious part in fighting for the implementation of their demands and bringing the results of bourgeois tactical concessions under firm control, securing them and constantly extending their programme of demands. In this situation, it is essential to combine the socio-economic and political struggle, the struggle for extensive and all-embracing democratisation of the political system.
Outwardly identical socio-economic reforms may express different political trends. At a time of rapid upsurge in the class struggle that forces the bourgeoisie onto the defensive, _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 23, p. 268.
~^^2^^ Ibid., pp. 158--59.
151 socio-economic reforms are an integral part of the struggle for socialist revolution (as was shown by the social gains of the working class in a number of countries between 1945 and 1947). These reforms have quite a different political content when there is a temporary lull in the class struggle. Then, the willingness of the bourgeois to make concessions in wage negotiations and extend social legislation may well improve certain aspects of the workers' material conditions, but---and this is the main thing---they are a means of distracting the workers from urgent tasks of political struggle and help in spreading dangerous bourgeois-reformist illusions about the possibility of radical changes occurring in the workers' condition within the framework of the existing economic order.It is all the more important in these circumstances to define the character and impact of bourgeois policy on the workers' class consciousness and on their class struggle.
Against the general background of growing world socialism and declining world capitalism, those areas of the world where the imperialist bourgeoisie manage to influence the ideology and policy of some sections of the working-class movement stand out. These are economic and political centres of world imperialism---the industrially advanced capitalist countries. There the very course of capitalist development has created all the necessary material and technological conditions for transforming society into socialism. But it is just there that the working-class movement faces great difficulties.
Communist and Workers' Parties do not regard the prospects for developing the class struggle as being bound up with the absolute impoverishment of the working class, but they always bear in mind that bourgeois material concessions to the workers in boom periods breed petty-bourgeois, reformist illusions among the least class-conscious working people.
The monopoly bourgeoisie wields all manner of social policies to exert an influence on the class struggle and to hamper and weaken the revolutionary movement of the working people in some countries. All the same, socio-economic policy has enabled the imperialists only partially to achieve their class ajms. It has prevented the working-class movement in the West from taking the step towards the abolition of the capitalist system, yet it has been powerless to check the class struggle in the centres of world imperialism.
The utter historical hopelessness of bourgeois social policy 152 is becoming increasingly obvious. The relatively high wages and rise in social allowances in a number of capitalist countries do not in themselves any longer guarantee that the working class will remain passive. The range of workers' class demands is becoming wider and the interconnection between the workers' day-to-day socio-economic interests and the economic and political rights usurped by capital has been growing ever more complex. Moreover, the opportunities for social manoeuvring over wages and social legislation are not limitless either. During economic recessions and fierce competitive struggles, there is much less room for manoeuvre and this inevitably exacerbates class conflicts.
The working-class movement in the capitalist countries is conducting big class battles against the monopolies and has made enough headway for a fresh assault on the system of exploitation. By improving the tactical fundamentals of their policies, the Communist and Workers' Parties are endeavouring to clear from the path of the class struggle all obstacles that prevent the workers from advancing to socialism and to find more effective means of counteracting bourgeois social policy.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 4. The Working People's EconomicThe October Revolution has had and continues to have a pervasive influence on the development of the working-class movement in the capitalist countries. Initially, the most powerful factor was the socialist revolution that had put an end to exploitation and had come out for peace, bread, and happiness for the enslaved people, stopped national oppression and begun the construction of a socialist state. The powerful example of the October Revolution and the urge to follow it have spurred the working people of many countries in fighting capital. All the major manifestations of the upswing of the labour movement between 1918 and 1923 reveal the impact of the October Revolution.
The revolutionary offensive of the international workers' movement considerably weakened the world bourgeoisie on their home front and was a great help to the Soviet working people in repulsing internal and external counter-revolution. By affording this assistance, the working-class movement was, 153 in fact, defending the cause of socialism throughout the world. Once the revolutionary wave had subsided, international capital tried to mount an economic and political blockade of the world's first workers' and peasants' state so as to isolate it from their own workers. But the truth about Soviet Russia and socialist construction penetrated the iron curtain of anti-Soviet and anti-communist propaganda, and got through to the working people of the world. By their success in every field, the Soviet working people created more favourable conditions for the revolutionary working-class movement in the capitalist countries.
Since the October Revolution, the labour-capital conflict has become internationally a contest between the two socioeconomic systems, socialism and capitalism, with the Soviet Union becoming a powerful bulwark of the world workingclass and national liberation movements.
As the socialist economy has grown in strength, improved its methods of management and more effectively employed its reserves, it has helped to demonstrate the advantages of socialism, bolster the defences of the socialist countries and raise living standards. In the long run, these developments are a factor revolutionising the working people in the capitalist countries.
The importance of the Directives of the 24th Congress of the C.P.S.U. on economic development from 1971 to 1975 can hardly be exaggerated, for they reflect the desire to ensure a further and considerable rise in the Soviet people's living standards through a fresh upsurge in the productive forces. With that end in view, there is to be a tireless effort to improve methods of economic management and enhance the efficiency of socialist production, and to make the fullest use of scientific and technical achievements. Deputy General Secretary of the French Communist Party, Georges Marchais, told the Congress: ``Your successes along this way are of tremendous international importance. .. . They inspire the working class and masses of people in the capitalist countries to fight the domination of the monopolies, and facilitate this struggle."^^1^^
The October Revolution has also enhanced the socialist concept and stimulated the workers' struggle because they _-_-_
~^^1^^ Pravda, April 1, 1971.
154 can now see in practice the advantages of socialism with their own eyes.Despite the hard conditions, the socialist countries have done wonders in gaining better material and cultural standards for their people. They have abolished every form of exploitation, provided their people with the best free medical service and free education system in the world, and have ensured the right to work and rest.
Among their major achievements is the establishment of a form of democracy superior to that of bourgeois society. State power has been transferred to the working people, headed by the working class. This is genuine popular power. The world has never known such a degree of direct massive participation in government.
Other nations that have taken the socialist road have been able to draw extensively on the half-century of Soviet experience in building a workers' state. This experience is also invaluable for workers under capitalism. As the late Palmiro Togliatti said at the Ninth Congress of the Italian Communist Party, ``We must never forget that our Soviet comrades also suffered, triumphed and fought for us, for the liberation of our working class, for the freedom of the Italian nation. The experience they have accumulated in their struggle is equally our own: it is the most valuable asset of the whole world working-class and communist movement."^^1^^
The October Revolution has drawn fresh contingents of working people into the world revolutionary movement, particularly in the colonial and dependent countries. The disintegration of the colonial system, the upsurge in antiimperialist struggle, and the striving of many young sovereign states to attain economic and political independence have shaken the capitalist world to its very foundations. The area of imperialist exploitation and room for bourgeois manoeuvre have been diminishing. The imperialists are no longer able to use their colonial possessions as springboards for an offensive against the democratic forces in the metropolitan areas---as Spanish and French reactionaries once did. Today, the working class, rallying the rest of the working people, is wielding state power to build a new society over _-_-_
~^^1^^ Ninth Congress of the Italian Communist Party, Moscow, 1960, p. 12 (Russ. eel.).
155 a large part of the earth; this has immensely increased its impact on the life of mankind as a whole. The formation of the world socialist system is the principal achievement of the revolutionary working-class movement.Within the capitalist countries, the authority of the working-class movement has greatly increased. Its strength and organisation have forced bourgeois governments, when they frame their policies, to take note of the stand taken by workers' mass organisations. It is able increasingly to intervene in a wide range of issues, going well beyond purely economic interests. Today, no issue of home or foreign policy, or of economic and social development, is ignored by the working class and its organisations.
The working-class movement is exerting an influence on the economic policies of governments and the monopolies. In recent years, it has frequently counterposed the bourgeois economic programme with its own positive programme of action in tune with the working people's interests and designed to break the economic grip of the monopolies.
In its political struggle, the vanguard of the working-class movement stands out as the main factor in enhancing the working people's role in bourgeois society, transforming bourgeois-democratic institutions into an effective instrument for redistributing power in favour of the working people, and curbing the political power of the monopolies.
In its ideological struggle, the working-class movement, primarily the Communist Parties, does what it can to blunt the effect of bourgeois ideas intended to justify the capitalist exploitation policy, and strives to promote class consciousness among the working people and ultimately to produce politically conscious fighters for socialism.
The growing strength of the working-class movement is based above all on a great increase in numbers and influence of mass workers' organisations, especially trade unions. At the time of the October Revolution, trade unions had only about 15 million members. Today, they have some 200 million members, about 40 per cent of the world's working class. In the advanced capitalist countries alone, there are 70 million trade unionists, i.e., approximately 35 per cent of all wage workers. The best organised are those in industry, mines and railways. Unskilled workers, women, white-collar workers, engineers and technicians are unionised to a lesser 156 extent. In the U.S.A., for example, only 13.5 per cent of women workers and 10 per cent of white-collar workers, engineers and technicians hold union cards, and in Britain a quarter of the women workers and under one-third of the white-collar workers are trade unionists.
Some countries have a comparatively low level of trade union membership: only 23 per cent in the U.S.A.; 24 per cent in Canada and 26 per cent in France. The figures are higher elsewhere: West Germany and Japan have 36 per cent, the Netherlands, Britain, Italy, Finland and Switzerland have between 40 and 46 per cent, and the Scandinavian countries, Belgium, Austria and Australia over 50 per cent.
In many capitalist countries, the trade union leadership is openly reformist, sometimes even captive to blatantly bourgeois ideology and purveying a variety of professional prejudices. Most national trade union bodies are members of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, which is under strong Right-wing Social-Democratic influence. But the French General Confederation of Labour (C.G.T.) and the General Italian Confederation of Labour (C.G.I.L.) have consistently fought to defend workers' interests. Both are affiliated to the World Federation of Trade Unions (W.F.T.U.), the only international trade union centre bringing together trade unions from countries with different social systems. Both the C.G.T. and the C.G.I.L. are fully committed to the class struggle against the bourgeoisie and enjoy the greatest prestige in their own countries. Other organised blue- and white-collar workers are members of the International Confederation of Christian Trade Unions (C.I.S.C.); many countries also have their own autonomous unions that refrain from joining either national or international bodies.
The political organisations of the working-class movement have also gained much strength. The October Revolution helped to revolutionise broad masses of workers and showed a mode of workers' struggle that differed from that followed by the leaders of the Second International. It led to the emergence of Communist Parties in many countries and of the world communist movement. Since then, the Communists have always been in the van of the fight for peace, democracy and socialism, and for the interests of the vast majority of working people.
In the inter-war years, when extreme reaction began its 157 counter-offensive, the Communist Parties organised the working class and its allies in defence of democracy, against fascism and war. In Austria, Italy, Spain, Germany, France and Britain, the Communists were invariably in the forefront of the fight against monopoly capital. Their efforts were not everywhere crowned with success: fascism took over in Italy, Germany, and Spain, and thousands upon thousands of Communists were sent to concentration camps. But elsewhere, fascism had to retreat in face of the workers' united front.
During the last war, a mighty Resistance movement sprang up, primarily to combat fascism, but also to fight for a more democratic society, and the Communist Parties once again took the lead in this movement. It was their example in France and Italy, among other countries, that brought them mass support. Following the victory of the anti-fascist forces led by the socialist state, and with the democratic struggle on the upgrade and socialist ideas gaining in popularity, several Communist Parties participated in governments and made a substantial contribution to promoting democracy and improving socio-economic conditions for the working people. Soon, however, capitalism launched a counter-offensive and by the end of the 1940s and beginning of the 1950s, the working-class movement was in retreat in face of rampant reaction, a vicious anti-communist campaign and the cold war. This temporary setback was overcome towards the late 1950s, and the mass working-class and democratic movement recovered, with the Communist Parties gaining new members and improving the strategy and tactics of revolutionary struggle.
As the 1960 Moscow Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties stated, the world communist movement had become the most influential political force of the age and a major factor in social progress. Evidence of this was the advent to power of Workers' and Communist Parties in a number of countries, the growing popularity of Marxist-Leninist ideas and the numerical growth of the Communist Parties. From the establishment of the Communist International the number of Communist Parties had grown from 10 to 88, with about 50 million members.
In recent years, Communist Parties have gained ground in many areas of the world, so that they now operate wherever there is a fully-formed working class. In some 158 countries, Communist Parties have become truly massive and a major political force, as the Communist Parties of Italy, France and Finland. The Communist Parties of these and some other capitalist countries enjoy considerable inlluence among both industrial and non-industrial workers, and in the trade union movement. They are frequently successful at parliamentary and municipal elections. In the 1963 general election in Italy, the Communist Party won 25.3 per cent of the poll, securing 166 seats in the House of Deputies and 85 in the Senate. In the 1968 elections, it won 26.9 per cent and another 15 parliamentary seats. In the 1967 general election the French Communist Party gained over a million more votes than in the 1962 election, thereby consolidating the Party's position as the chief Left-wing force in the country, with 73 Communist seats in the National Assembly---an increase of 32. However, the extraordinary elections to the National Assembly in June 1968 showed a shift to the Right, and the number of Communist seats fell to 33. The election results are patently at odds with the social and economic gains won by the working-class and democratic movement in May and June that year, the main reason being the campaign of mounting terror, blackmail and slander against the Leftwing forces, notably the Communist Party. The alleged danger of civil war had its effect on the vacillating, pusillanimous, chiefly petty-bourgeois, section of the French population. Nevertheless, the 1968 parliamentary election showed that the French Communist Party continues to be the major Left-wing opposition force.
In 1966, the Finnish working-class movement scored an important success at the polls. The four-party alliance, including all the working-class parties, took office. Several Communists were incorporated in the new government headed by Social-Democrats.
It is, of course, impossible to gauge the authority of the Communist Parties simply by the poll, for it is much wider and permeates every aspect of social and political life. Even where the Communist Parties have been banned and forced to work underground, many of them play an important part in the mass socialist movement.
The October Revolution may be seen as a watershed between the two major trends in the working-class movement--- the revolutionary trend, epitomised in the Communist 159 Parties, and the reformist trend, usually identified with the Social-Democratic (Socialist) Parties. Social-Democrats continue to command considerable intluence on the bulk of the workers in many countries (Britain, Australia, Austria and the Scandinavian countries among others). Since the last war, their parties have increased their numbers and now have some 16 million members, as compared to the 3.4 million in 1914. In some capitalist countries they are a major political force with a strong following among the electorate. In the post-war period, more than 20 Social-Democratic Parties have been in office or in government coalitions.
More recently, the Communists have made impressive gains in both local and national elections, thereby enhancing the influence of the working class in all departments of capitalist society, including the fight for peace, democracy and social progress.
In most capitalist states, the workers' struggle to improve their living standards continues to be an important stimulus for extending the mass working-class movement. In the time that has elapsed since the October Revolution, the strike as a weapon of economic struggle has lost none of its significance. Despite the fluctuations in the uneven development of the working-class movement itself, strike action remains at a high level and is proof of the acute contradictions between labour and capital.
Table 25 Growth of the Strike Movement in the Advanced Capitalist Countries Annual average (1,000)* 1924--1938 1946--1950 1951--1955 1956--1960 1961--1967 Number of participants ..... 2,319.6 11,545.1 9,080.8 7,696.3 10,474 Number of lost man-days . . 49,911 93,895 65,499 56,418 51,789 * The official statistics on which these calculations are based usually give dat only on strikes which are purely economic (and not all of these either), which means far from all the labour-capital conflicts. Calculated from ILO, Year Booh of Labour Statistics, Geneva, 1936--68.The growing massiveness of strikes has been characteristic of the class struggle in recent years. The main reasons are: increase in the number of workers, increasingly diverse 160 participation in the strike movement, improved tactics, and increasing importance of big strikes that hit whole branches and sometimes even several branches of the economy. Industrial workers are still the most militant strikers. Highlypaid workers, including those in the growth industries, are today being constantly drawn into the economic fight against the bourgeoisie. The strike movement of recent years has once again demonstrated that the improvement of social and economic conditions, won in class struggle, may serve as a springboard for a fresh drive by the working people, and this is illustrated by the big strikes of metal-workers in Italy, engineering workers in Britain, and steel-workers in the U.S.A. and so on.
Meanwhile, the body of strikers has noticeably changed. The exacerbation of the contradictions between the monopolies and most of the population, and the proletarianisation of innumerable sections of the white-collar workers, have involved new categories of workers in the strike movement. Strikes have been spreading to those employed in education and public health, to civil servants and bank employees, and engineers and technicians in industrial enterprises.
Clashes between labour and capital in key sectors of the economy are often stubborn and protracted. The 1959 strike of 500,000 American steel-workers lasted just short of four months. More recently, various strikes have exceeded a month in Britain, Belgium, Italy, Japan, France and elsewhere. Lengthy strikes are normally preceded by short-term action to mobilise the participants and give notice. On the whole, however, strikes are becoming shorter. Between 1924 and 1938, strikes lasted on average 21.5 days; between 1946 and 1952, 8 days; 1953--58, 5.75 days; and 1959--64, 5.77 days.
This has two causes. First, with a relatively buoyant economy, it often pays an employer to make concessions rather than let the strike go on; second, the unions have perfected their strike tactics. They have learned .to make use of favourable economic situations. The occasional shortterm stoppage and ban on overtime are both effective weapons that threaten fulfilment of urgent profitable orders. Other methods are the industrial ``go-slow'', the fifteen-minute work-cut in commencing or terminating work, and the scrupulously observed work to rule.
Being fully aware of the interconnectedness of modern __PRINTERS_P_161_COMMENT__ 11---235 161 technology at individual enterprises and related branches of the economy, trade unions try to affect production by lightning strikes in separate branches of the economy and by alternate or staggered stoppages, where shops or whole enterprises shut down in turn. Such tactics draw large numbers of workers into the strike movement and prevent substantial material losses by their members. Recent strikes have often been accompanied by meetings, demonstrations and marches in support of the workers' cause. Some countries have experienced strikes embracing several sectors of the economy. In some cases the strike battle takes on more active forms. Thus, the May 1968 strike in France led to workers' control of factories, mass meetings and demonstrations. It spread from a small group of factories to whole branches of the economy, from the state to the private sector, from industry to transport, to the offices, the schools and the banks. This kind of action turns into a crucial event in social and political life, intensifying the massiveness of the workingclass movement, winning over other sections of the population and enhancing the effectiveness of their action.
One of the major demands of the working class is still for higher wages, implying a rise in absolute wages, inclusion of each wages component in collective agreements so as to strengthen trade union control over wage fluctuations, and end discrimination in the wages of women and juveniles.
The intensification of labour engenders an urgent need for struggle to reduce the working day and extend paid holidays. The problem of employment has been growing more acute in view of the new scientific innovations in industry, and of mechanisation and automation. This problem is most acute in the U.S.A., where many strikes are caused by fear of automation bringing mass unemployment. American workers demand special clauses in their labour contracts to shield them from arbitrary dismissal as a consequence of the redundancies caused by automation.
West European workers have been fighting to prevent the monopolies from carrying through any form of rationalisation or structural changes in the economy at the expense of the workers. They are not fighting technical progress, but to ensure that it is not accompanied by any worsening in their own condition. The closing down of submarginal enterprises and the fold-up of whole industries present social as well as 162 economic problems to the workers who become redundant.
The natural response from the working class has been to fight against the closure of such factories, one of the most dramatic struggles having been fought in the coal industry. The Belgian Government's decision to shut down nine mines in Borinage provoked a powerful miners' strike in February 1959. A similar walk-out occurred in the French town of Decazeville in 1961--62. In 1964, a massive explosion of protest was caused by the West German Government's intention to close a number of big mines. The miners are not alone in being menaced by mass sackings. British workers launched a massive protest campaign against attempts to implement the so-called Beeching Plan to ``rationalise'' the railways and so cause mass redundancies among railwaymen. The Italian Government's decision to shut down part of its Livorno dockyard was met with strikes; and the same thing happened when the French Government began to abandon its dockyard at St. Nazaire in Brittany.
In their efforts to prevent modernisation at the workers' expense, the trade unions and workers' political organisations have put forward their own programme of dealing with the situation. They have demanded a shorter working week, longer paid holidays, adequate redundancy pay and provision of new jobs for unemployed workers. They have pressed for new branches of industry in threatened areas, and for largescale retraining schemes paid for by the state or the employers. In many cases, the employers and the state have been forced to come to meet these demands.
The different condition of the working class and the level of the working-class movement in the various capitalist countries explain the variety of workers' demands. The time is mostly past when workers in the developed countries had to fight for elementary needs, such as a crust of bread or a roof over their heads. Today, even many traditional demands have been elevated to a new level. The workingman is increasingly seeking a decent standard of living, security in the future, the application of scientific progress for his own benefit, and defence of his rights as an individual.
In virtually every capitalist country, the working class has managed to win the right to conclude collective agreements, whose negotiation has become an arena of sharp class conflicts, largely on issues affecting the workers' labour and __PRINTERS_P_163_COMMENT__ 11* 163 living standards. Economically the bourgeoisie is stronger than the working class, but the workers' power lies in their organisation and ability to bring pressure on the employers. And only when these pressures have been exhausted do they resort to the most effective weapon in their economic armoury---the strike. Being well aware of the growing effectiveness of the strike today, employers frequently endeavour to stave off a head-on clash. Given a relatively buoyant economy and high level of employment, the capitalists have more often been obliged to make concessions to the workers. In these circumstances, the prestige of the trade unions, their strength, militancy and influence even among the unorganised workers, have grown so much that the mere threat of a strike is sometimes enough to force the employers' hand.
The economic struggle is of great importance in increasing class consciousness and organisation, being a principal channel for involving the mass of working people in the class conflict with the bourgeoisie. At a time when the working class is politically so active, with the Marxist-Leninist Parties organising and directing the workers' economic battles, the struggle can be an important means of enhancing the ideological and political awareness of the workers.
During the 1960s, the fierce class struggle in many capitalist countries found expression both in an increase in strikes and in an assault by monopoly capital on the workers' positions in every sector. Everywhere there were attacks on trade union rights and attempts to curtail their activities by legislation, to tame them and bring them under state control, to hamper workers' organisation in unions and to limit the right of collective bargaining.
The bourgeoisie has had the help of the state in taking direct measures against strikes: arbitration of labour conflicts (including compulsory arbitration), direct state intervention in major labour disputes, anti-strike legislation, and so on. One has only to recall the many examples in which the recent class struggle abounds: the decrees on enforced labour deployment in France and Belgium, adoption of anti-strike legislation in several West European countries, the frequent threats to impose compulsory arbitration in the U.S.A. and Canada, which have brought to bear on the results of many class clashes, the direct ban on 164 strikes (by court order), and the strengthening of the antistrike activity by arbitration bodies in Australia and Belgium.
Some governments have even used the army, the police and the courts to put down strikers, and have officially banned the Communist Party because it is a most active and consistent champion of the workers' cause. Typical in this respect was the action of the Belgian Government against the 1960--61 strike. It first threw in all the police it could muster and, when that failed, called out army units against the striking workers, employees, shop-keepers and students. The Political Bureau of the Belgian Communist Party summed up the situation in these words: ``Having failed to win the support of the country for the Loi unique by democratic means, the Eyskens Government has resorted to arbitrary methods. On the pretext of maintaining public order it is confiscating newspapers, conducting police raids, arresting strikers, persecuting active trade unionists, and, to justify itself, spreading false information."^^1^^
Western Europe has recently been plagued by the TaftHartley type of statutory postponement or ban of strikes. The public order acts adopted by the Belgian authorities empowered the government to prosecute, under criminal law, pickets and participants in meetings and demonstrations, and even to apply preventive detention to militants and strike leaders. The French Government adopted a law regulating the right to strike for employees at state enterprises, enjoining workers to satisfy a number of preliminary conditions before calling a strike, notably a five-day warning period and statement of intended duration of the strike. Even in Britain, where strike rights have been more sacred than elsewhere, a compulsory ``cooling-off period" was made law in 1966, whereby notice is to be given of an official strike and time allowed for the government to postpone the strike for a period of up to seven months. The whole purpose of this is to reduce the effectiveness of the strike movement. Finally, governments often intervene directly in the biggest labour conflicts.
In its drive against the working-class movement, _-_-_
~^^1^^ World Marxist Review, London, Vol. 4, No. 3, March 1961, pp. 43--44.
165 state-monopoly capitalism combines blatantly coercive measures and bourgeois liberalism, together with bourgeois reformism, social demagogy and innumerable devices for putting economic and ideological pressure on the working class. The mass media have all been finely honed for dressing the minds of the common people; they are used to meddle in trade union polls, peddle anti-communist propaganda and deliberately try to influence the outcome of local and general elections. In the defence and promotion of its economic and social liberties, the working class is up against a wily opponent that can combine the power of individual employers and monopolies with that of the bourgeois state.In some capitalist countries, the state sector covers some 20--25 per cent of industrial production and the entire sectors of education and public health, which makes the state a major national employer.
With the state, in addition to individual employers, increasingly determining the workers' material condition, the latter's economic struggle often takes on a political complexion and extends beyond the framework of the factory, urging the need for thorough-going socio-economic reforms at national level. The workers' class struggle again and again develops into a campaign for wider democracy (irrespective of the subjective attitudes of the participants) in the country's economic and political affairs, for giving the working people more say in shaping policy, and for changing the general direction of socio-economic policies in their favour. Naturally enough, this tendency is not equally pronounced everywhere.
The workers in many countries have been taking a more active part in the fight against the socio-economic policies of bourgeois governments conflicting with workers' interests. Strikes that begin with economic demands are often inevitably filled with political content.
In countries ruled by police dictatorships, where bourgeoisdemocratic liberties are flagrantly suppressed, the workers' economic and political struggle is closely intertwined. In 1962, the wave of strikes that started in the Asturias region soon swept the whole of Spain. From being a campaign for better economic conditions, it became a movement for establishing class trade unions and the right to strike. This was a protest against the entire social policy of the Franco regime. 166 The Falangist Secretariat, which props up the fascist regime, was forced to admit that the many strikes in recent years had undermined the regime's authority and sparked off a crisis within the Spanish trade unions. One important aspect of these events was the formation of unitary workers' commissions at many factories, marking a new stage in the fight for the establishment of genuine class unions as a counterweight to the so-called vertical trade unions (the compulsory branch unions of capitalists and workers that are a component part of the Franco regime).
Political and economic demands were also combined during the unprecedentedly extensive and explosive three-week strike by 10 million French workers in 1968. This initially spontaneous explosion began with backing for teachers and students campaigning for radical reforms in higher education and democratisation of the whole education system. It was not long, however, before the strike became the biggest workers' demonstration for better working and living conditions since the time of the Popular Front. It was the workers' response to the anti-social policy of the government and the capitalist monopolies, particularly the 1967 government review of social insurance. The strike movement became so powerful and organised that it forced the authorities and the employers into negotiations and substantial concessions over wages, working hours and union rights at factories. What was particularly interesting about the May demonstrations was that they combined economic demands with political and social slogans. Ultimately, the strike became a popular campaign for democratic reform of the country's politics. On the initiative of the Communist Party, the French people began to debate the replacement of personal power by a popular government of the democratic alliance.
The bourgeois class has long tried to confine the trade union movement to narrow economic issues, to petty activity within the framework of the existing social order and to keep it away from any contact with socialism. But this is becoming a lost cause as the unions step up their political activity and the workers' mass organisations have an increasing impact on the policies of the ruling class.
Alongside their concern for economic and social improvements for themselves, the workers are taking an increasing interest in national-economic policies, in economic 167 programming, investment and employment, prices and incomes. In recent years, one key aspect of state-monopoly control has been an incomes policy whose main purpose is to set a ceiling on wages. This is another attempt to overcome the intractable problems besetting the capitalist economy at the workers' expense. One purpose of the incomes policy is to stop the unions making further inroads into bourgeois positions. The policy itself ignores the rising cost of living and is designed to increase the rate of exploitation of the working class. By setting barriers in the way of the workers' economic struggle and free collective bargaining, the incomes policy ultimately serves the purpose of tying down the working-class movement and turning the unions into social partners of the bourgeoisie.
Most unions vigorously refuse to be bound by an incomes policy. As a result, the fight to obtain wage rises above the official level sometimes brings on an open clash between the workers and the state. During the 1966 merchant seamen's strike in Britain, the seamen put forward wage and working hours' demands that clashed with the Labour Government's incomes policy. The authorities brought every pressure to bear on the seamen to get them to renounce their demands. The strike ended in a compromise, with the employers and government making substantial concessions to the men. The trade union and working-class movements have been persistently attacking the incomes policy and other economic measures conflicting with their own interests and demanding effective democratic and anti-monopoly control of the economy, and the use of material and labour resources to improve standards for the working people.
The Achilles heel of the trade union movement continues to be its lack of cohesion, which is variously manifested in different countries. In the U.S.A., Britain, Sweden and Australia, among other countries, where most unions are integrated in a single national congress, there are many autonomous organisations and innumerable midget unions. The situation is different where there are several union congresses frequently taking differing ideological and political stances. The growth of the class struggle intensifies the urge for cohesion and concerted action by all unions and working people's organisations, as will be seen from the enlargement of union bodies, amalgamation of autonomous unions and the 168 national union centre and joint action by various union centres. In Italy, for example, most workers' campaigns over the last few years have had the backing of the major union bodies--- the General Italian Confederation of Labour (C.G.I.L.), the Italian Labour Union (U.I.L.) and the Italian Confederation of Christian Workers' Unions (I.C.C.W.U.). On the initiative of the first of these, the big three met in the spring of 1966 to discuss the principal issues facing the working-class movement and the prospects for labour unity. The French unions have also taken major steps towards permanent high-level collaboration. An agreement on unity was signed in early 1966 between the C.G.T. and the French Democratic Workers' Federation (C.F.D.T.) (formerly the French Christian Workers' Federation [C.F.T.C.]). The two biggest union bodies had thus worked out the text of a concerted programme, so that major workers' action now has united trade union backing. Unity is being similarly cemented between the various composite union bodies in Belgium, Finland and the Netherlands.
But mergers among labour organisations do not, however, automatically imply greater strength. Not all unification is for the good, and not every split is for the bad. The demand for cohesion at all cost may sometimes do the working-class movement nothing but harm. When, in 1967, the Amalgamated Union of Automobile and Aircraft Workers in the U.S.A. broke away from the A.F.L.-C.I.O., it did so in protest against the reactionary home and foreign policy of most parent union leaders. The crisis came as a natural result of major shifts of opinion in American labour and a more realistic outlook among a number of union leaders.
Changes have also been taking place at international level. On the tide of success scored by the popular democratic and labour movement in 1945, a united international union body was established----the World Federation of Trade Unions (W.F.T.U.). But unity was shortlived. The W.F.T.U. split in 1949, at the height of the cold war, when the reactionary and anti-communist hysteria was being whipped up in the capitalist world. Except for the French and Italian, all national union congresses of the big bourgeois states walked out and set up their own agency---the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (I.C.F.T.U.). Today, the growing internationalisation of capital, epitomised in the 169 Common Market, and the concerted attack by the monopolies on workers' rights and living standards insistently demand concerted action by international trade union bodies. This the W.F.T.U. is endeavouring to attain. As Louis Saillant, W.F.T.U. General Secretary, declared at the 1966 session of the Federation's Executive Committee: ``The W.F.T.U. call to work for joint action is addressed to all workers, whatever their political, philosophical and religious convictions. . . . We want to start a dialogue in every possible place, especially with people who hold different views to ours. A dialogue on issues of unity is necessary even with those who are opposed to unity, for this will help to carry on a thorough-going discussion of these issues among working people everywhere."^^1^^ In 1962 and 1963, on W.F.T.U. initiative, conferences were held in Leipzig with both major international union agencies participating. Their aim was to thrash out ways of combining forces against the monopolies. One important move in the direction of international trade union solidarity was the 1965 agreement of the French C.G.T. and the General Italian Confederation of Labour. The two biggest national union bodies set up a standing co-ordinating and initiating committee, as a centre for co-ordinating the trade union struggle in Western Europe. A joint Anglo-French aircraft union conference was held in December 1964 to take stock of the British Government's intention to scrap plans for the Concorde supersonic airliner and the consequent threat of mass sackings. The conference demonstrated the capacity for joint action by unions affiliated to different international bodies.
Despite the I.C.F.T.U. ban, reinforced in 1964, on contacts with ``communist'' trade unions (including the Italian--- C.G.I.L.---which includes Socialists and Communists), there is growing pressure within the reformist unions for unity, as will be seen, in particular, from the meetings between the leaders of various unions (railwaymen, utility workers, etc.) in France, Italy and Belgium and members of various international union agencies. Unions in Britain, Sweden, Austria, Belgium and Switzerland, in fact, have contacts with unions in the socialist states. The two largest West European union bodies---the British Trades Union Congress (T.U.C.) and _-_-_
~^^1^^ Trade Union Press No. 12, June 1966, p. 9.
170 the West German Association of Trades Unions (D.G.B.)--- sent delegations to the U.S.S.R. in 1966. The Belgian General Workers' Federation has favoured a common programme of action for Common Market trade unions regardless of their international union affiliation.It is indicative that massive action invariably receives moral and material backing from workers all round the world, as in the world campaign for solidarity with the striking Italian metal-workers in 1962--63, the French miners in 1963, the British seamen in 1966 and the French working people in 1968. Workers employed by the same firm in different countries sometimes act in unison. Thus, the employees of the French Michelin came out in support of the Italian Michelin workers on strike in Turin. A conference for united action of workers employed by the Solvay Company in Italy, France, Belgium and Austria was held in 1962.
In recent years, the trade union movement in the capitalist countries has, on the whole, gained in strength and gathered momentum, so that its impact on domestic events has substantially increased. Through its mass organisations and especially the unions, the working class now has a real chance to improve living and working conditions and step up the fight to transform society.
Some national union programmes directly speak of the need for the unions to take part in the struggle to abolish private enterprise and the wage labour system. Such clauses feature in the programmes of the Belgian General Federation of Labour, the General Italian Confederation of Labour and the French C.G.T. Recent class battles have made it palpably obvious that the unions cannot be enclosed in the narrow confines of the economic struggle. The need to expand union functions is one of the most urgent demands of the moment. The importance of trade unions in modern capitalist society has grown so much that the authorities often endeavour to subordinate them and integrate them into the capitalist system.
In some countries trade union officials are now represented on amalgamated agencies, alongside civil servants and employers, largely concerned with economic and labour issues, and economic programming. Naturally enough, the authorities see that the most militant working-class 171 organisations are excluded. An example is the consultative agencies of the European Economic Community---the Economic and Social Committee, the European Social Fund, and the consultative agencies for redeploying labour and for vocational guidance, the E.E.C. ruling fathers admitting only union bodies that are members of I.C.F.T.U. (or I.C.C.T.U.). Despite the limited functions of such agencies, the revolutionary working-class movement could make a significant impact on their work. The French C.G.T. and Italian C.G.I.L. have, for example, been working to get their representatives on these agencies, and the French and Italian Communist Parties, in the European Parliamentary Assembly. The 1966 meeting of the two parties in San Remo made it clear that the Communists intended to carry the campaign for workers' rights and national interests into these European institutions so as to prevent capitalist integration from hampering democratic reforms. Relying on support from the mass workers' movement, the working-class organisations can use these agencies as a platform for class struggle and for co-ordinating action on a supranational level.
The working-class movement has increasingly tried to use some of the favourable circumstances arising from the contradictory evolution of state-monopoly capitalism to switch government socio-economic policy into an antimonopoly direction. Workers have been securing representation on economic policy-making bodies both within individual factories and in whole sectors of the national economy. They have been moving into decision-making areas that had previously been the exclusive preserve of the employers and have been demanding a say in management, with a considerable extension of the rights of their unions, shop-steward committees and factory councils.
These bodies, elected by workers sometimes belonging to different unions, have the job of curbing the power of the capitalists in management. The monopoly bourgeoisie has been putting up fierce resistance to the idea of worker participation and striving to nullify workers' gains by distorting the very essence of labour democracy and replacing it by their own brand of ``social partnership''. But the workers are not so easily deceived. In 1959, U.S. steel-workers went on strike in protest against attempts to delete contract clauses which prevented employers from taking arbitrary action, 172 without the trade unions, against the workers, tampering with wages and sacking men. There is widespread demand for greater labour union rights on the shop lloor, and more comprehensive coverage by collective agreements of every aspect of labour relations. Similarly, the strike of Italian metalworkers in 1962--63, repeated in 1966 and the biggest of its kind since the war, was over a clause that would ensure trade unions a say in setting wage and work rates, the rules for hiring and firing workers, and various types of bonuses and supplementary payments. ``Undermining the principle of private enterprise,'' was how the Italian employers described these demands. After a bitter and protracted test of strength, the employers finally gave way on most of the strikers' economic demands and recognised the union's right to represent labour interests directly at factory level. Although these gains were being sabotaged, the strike did mark a new stage in the fight against capitalist exploitation.
The campaign for worker representation in management can become a key element in the class struggle, paving the way for socialist management of industry. In the revolutionary situation just before the October 1917 Revolution, Lenin regarded workers' control of production and distribution as a first step along the path to socialism. Today, with the influence of the trade unions and the whole workingclass movement so much stronger in the economic and social life of bourgeois society, workers' control of capitalist enterprises is possible even without a direct revolutionary situation.
In a number of West European states today, the campaign to extend the workers' say in economic policy is not confined to the factory. The demand for a contractual guarantee of labour relations is becoming increasingly popular as the battle mounts for radical anti-monopoly changes in the economy and throughout national affairs and for a greater worker influence on the economic policies of the monopolies and the ruling class as a whole. This type of demand can be a connecting link between the labour movement and the broad anti-monopoly democratic movement.
The call for democratic nationalisation is an integral part of the struggle to democratise economic life in bourgeois society. Immediately after the Second World War, 173 several industries were nationalised in a number of capitalist countries, largely as a result of persistent labour pressure. In Britain, the dispossessed owners were awarded huge compensation, and monopoly capitalists were given key posts in the running of these industries. In effect, working conditions did not alter and wages came under even greater pressure from the capitalist class. In France, nationalisation occurred with substantial worker participation---this was at a time when the Communists were in the government and the biggest party in the Assembly, and the trade union movement was united. Democratic statutes were adopted for the nationalised industries, and their workers were given statutory assurance of substantial social and economic improvements (in comparison with workers in private industry).
Yet nationalisation did not justify all the hopes of the workers. Monopoly capital was largely able to snatch the fruits of nationalisation for itself. Nor did it shake the foundations of capitalist property, for the monopolies, in alliance with the state, did much, often successfully, to nullify the gains of the workers in the nationalised industries won in fierce battles and to restrict their rights, especially the right to strike. As a result, some workers see nationalisation under capitalism as a device largely curtailing their ability to secure economic gains; naturally enough, this does not promote the fight for democratic nationalisation.
Nevertheless, the nationalisation campaign is becoming an increasingly positive factor. The labour movement by no means regards the state sector purely as an arm of the capitalist monopolies. World socialism being such an effective force in the economic competition between the two systems and the labour movement able to wield such pressure in capitalist affairs, nationalisation could be a weapon for curbing the economic power of the monopoly capitalists. No wonder they have been working hard to bury the very idea of nationalisation. Today the slogan of democratic nationalisation is gaining more and more support within the working-class and democratic movement.
Democratic nationalisation implies at least two elements. First, nationalisation of the key monopolised branches of the economy (oil, gas, chemicals, nuclear energy, metallurgy, banking, insurance companies and transport). Second, 174 nationalisation can only become an effective weapon in defeating the monopolies if the workers take part in running the state sector. The participation of working-class organisations in the policy-making bodies of nationalised industries and factories can make the nationalised sector operate for the good of the workers. Within the nationalised industries the labour struggle for higher living standards increasingly becomes a fight to change government economic policy on these industries, which in itself does much to expand the labour movement and make it more effective. Democratic nationalisation can become an important element of the anti-monopoly movement and a springboard for further action. Moreover, the campaign for workers' control of individual factories, sectors and the entire capitalist economy is fast becoming one of the main levers for increasing labour influence in capitalist society.
The economic democracy campaign is bound up with the workers' political struggle and efforts to establish and extend political democracy and to enhance labour's authority over every aspect of ruling-class policy. The evolution of capitalism implies, inter alia, constant improvement of the apparatus of bourgeois political rule. Not only the working people but also the monopoly capitalists have learned from the experience of nazism. State-monopoly capitalism has essentially preserved the basic attributes of bourgeois democracy (though this has not prevented it from using naked violence against the labour movement). Today, as the labour movement gains in strength, class awareness grows and socialism becomes an ever greater magnetic force, the workers' political struggle and attainment of even traditional bourgeois democratic liberties sometimes present a potential threat to the political supremacy of monopoly capital.
On the whole, the development of state-monopoly capitalism has shown a constant urge on the part of the authorities to slice the working people's democratic rights, vitiate the democratic content of political and social representative institutions, reducing the authority of parliament and local government and depriving them of their powers. The most flagrant expression of this trend is the May 1967 events in Greece. The mounting success of the democratic movement, which promised to culminate in a victory at the forthcoming parliamentary elections, was temporarily 175 cut short by a reactionary coup d'etat. The resultant military dictatorship paralysed normal life and destroyed many political and social organisations. In 1968, the West German Bundestag passed a reactionary bill to amend the constitution, empowering the Government to proclaim an emergency at any time and exercise virtually unlimited dictatorial powers with all the coercive anti-labour measures under martial law. This marked a fresh step towards a totalitarian, militaristic state, curtailment of political and social liberties and suppression of progressive parties, trade unions and mass bodies. In response there came a tide of political demonstrations and strikes that swept the principal cities.
In many countries, this type of flagrant reactionary encroachment on democratic liberties has evoked a storm of popular protest. This happened in Italy in the summer of 1960, when the Tambroni Christian-Democratic Government gained a parliamentary majority solely with the open backing of the neo-fascists. This was a signal for the profascist elements in the country: with the tacit agreement of the Prime Minister, the leading fascist party, the Italian Social Movement, decided to hold its congress in Genoa, the centre of the war-time Resistance movement, a clear challenge to the country's democratic forces, which did not go unheeded. The country was hit by a general strike. On June 30, participants in a mass anti-fascist demonstration clashed with the neo-fascists and the police who took their side. The protest movement gained support from all sections of Italian society and resulted in a temporary restoration of unity among the democratic forces. In the face of such strongpopular indignation, the reactionary forces had to retreat and Tambroni had to step down. This did much to encourage a shift to the Left among Italian workers and enabled the democratic forces to make impressive gains at the subsequent elections.
The French working class has more than once foiled attempts by the fascist ultras to gain power. The general political strikes of 1961--62 and 1968, on each occasion involving more than 10 million people, vividly demonstrated the popular mood, initially for peace in Algeria, and recently for greater democracy in French politics.
The Belgian general strike of 1960--61 was plainly 176 political in opposing the policies of the Eyskens Government, notorious mainly for its economic development bill, dubbed the ``poverty bill" by its opponents. Many strikers came out with a number of democratic demands. The strike united both unions and various political organisations and grew into a truly popular movement. The continuing labour strife, accompanied by clashes with the police and official repressions, finally brought down the government.
Japan, too, has her share of popular protest, largely directed against the Japanese-American ``security'' treaty and for a dismantling of U.S. bases. One such massive protest in 1960 impeded the U.S. President's visit to Japan and brought down the Kishi Government.
Working people in countries ruled by fascist or reactionary military dictatorships have a particularly tough fight for political liberties. In Spain, the anti-Franco campaign is spreading. In Latin America and many African and Asian countries, the working class is on the move against reactionary dictatorships, in defence of national sovereignty and for democratic measures to transform the social structure.
Efforts to safeguard and strengthen peace, to reduce international tension, and repulse the forces of revenge and militarism, must be seen in the context of the general democratic action taking place throughout the world. Today, the working class, the intellectuals and other sections of the population stand behind this movement, so that the peace campaign has become a genuinely popular affair.
The peace movement has been assuming the most diverse forms, from mass meetings and token action to peace marches and collections of signatures calling for peace. Significantly, progressive peace-loving forces are very active in the U.S.A., the chief potential perpetrator of aggression. In recent years, the peace campaign has outgrown national boundaries; peace fighters from other countries frequently take part in marches and demonstrations in Britain, the Scandinavian countries, Italy, France, West Germany, Belgium and Holland.
The U.S. aggression in Vietnam has evoked a tremendous explosion of protest in all countries. That workers of the capitalist world have united in protest is potent demonstration of the international character of the labour movement. Workers and their organisations in many capitalist countries have constantly voiced their support for the heroic __PRINTERS_P_177_COMMENT__ 12---235 177 Vietnamese people. At its Congress in 1966, the General Council of Trade Unions of Japan (S.O.H.Y.O.) protested against the aggressors' use of military bases on Japanese soil and the entry of U.S. nuclear warships into Japanese ports. It demanded that the Vietnamese people should be left to settle their own affairs on the basis of self-determination. In July and October of 1966, millions of Japanese workers and students took part in general strikes in protest against U.S. aggression in Vietnam.
Similar large movements in support of the Vietnamese people's courageous resistance to the U.S. aggression have taken shape in Australia, Britain, Italy, France, Norway, West Germany, Belgium, Finland and Sweden, among others. The voice of protest against the intervention has also come from the U.S.A. itself. In 1965, at the Sixth Trade Union Congress, there was severe criticism of the Johnson Administration's aggressive policies and of the official A.F.L.-C.I.O. leadership, headed by George Meany, which backed government policy. Emil Mazey, Secretary-Treasurer of the United Auto Workers, said he was one of those `` concerned Americans who is worried about our foreign policy, where we are going in Vietnam".^^1^^ Two years later, in 1967, a national labour conference in defence of peace was held in Chicago. Representatives of 60 unions recorded their disagreement with the A.F.L.-C.I.O. leadership's stand on U.S. foreign policy. In their political resolution, they stressed their opposition to the Vietnamese war and called for action to stop it. The peace campaign and protests against U.S. aggression in Vietnam are at the same time a struggle against internal reaction. The bellicose foreign policy of the American administration has a fatal effect on the country's internal politics.
The launching of the cold war and Dulles's brinkmanship in the late 1940s and early 1950s were paralleled at home by increasing reaction, which made it easier to split the labour movement. That is why the movement for peace and an international detente is at once a movement for democracy and progress. It embodies a cause that unites the mass of people, urging on them the conclusion that _-_-_
~^^1^^ The Worker, January 2, 1960, p. 5.
178 monopoly capital, the main obstacle to lasting peace and democracy is also the chief enemy of the workers and all exploited sections of society.The Communist Parties of socialist and capitalist countries are prominent in the popular struggle against imperialism and for an international detente. They view the preservation of peace as the vital issue of our day. When the European Communist and Workers' Parties held a conference in 1967 at Karlovy Vary, they declared that ``the Communists are deeply convinced that by safeguarding peace and security on their continent against the forces of aggression and war, they are acting for democracy, social progress and national liberation, for the peoples of the whole world".^^1^^
Working-class action in leading the democratic and political struggle helps to reinforce the workers' position in society, enhances the prestige of workers' organisations, helps to forge mass anti-monopoly coalitions and cements the close bond between the overall democratic movement and the fight in defence of the vital interests of all peoples.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 5. Unity of Democratic ForcesThe unfolding of the socialist revolution is today quite different from what it was half a century ago, but a number of general features characteristic for any time and place continue to be fully valid today.
In his analysis of the international significance of Bolshevik experience, Lenin pointed to the immense variety of forms and methods of Bolshevik struggle, but warned the world communist movement not to copy them blindly or pursue the tactics of the Bolshevik Party down to the last detail, for these had been dictated by a specific historical situation. He wrote: ``Certain fundamental features of our revolution have a significance that is not local, or peculiarly national, or Russian alone, but international. ... It would, of course, be grossly erroneous to exaggerate this truth and to extend it beyond certain fundamental features of our revolution.'' Marxism-Leninism teaches the Communists to apply _-_-_
~^^1^^ Documents of the Conference of European Communist and Workers' Parties at Karlovy Vary, Moscow, 1967, p. 16 (Russ. ed.).
__PRINTERS_P_179_COMMENT__ 12* 179 ``the general and basic principles of communism to the specific relations between classes and parties, to the specific features in the objective development towards communism, which are different in each country and which we must be able to discover, study and predict".^^1^^The struggle for socialist revolution today is taking place in a complex and contradictory situation. Certainly, not all the processes at work in capitalist society make for the success of the struggle. Certainly, not all workers see socialism as a real and worthwhile alternative to capitalism. Certainly, not everywhere do immediate socialist changes in society take top priority in the class struggle.
Although the material conditions for socialism have long matured within the advanced capitalist countries, there are innumerable objective and subjective factors that keep the masses from revolution; they stem from the peculiar development of the labour movement and especially from the nature of the bourgeoisie, the most experienced and powerful in the world. Many aspects of the socio-economic policies of statemonopoly capitalism encourage some workers to be `` integrated" and to come to terms with capitalism rather than fight it. Meanwhile, the campaign for radical reform and socio-political change has been growing under pressure of the contradictory evolution of state-monopoly capitalism, the scientific and technical revolution and its consequences for the working class and the gains scored by the workers.
Undoubtedly, major socialist changes in the advanced capitalist states can be implemented much more easily and quickly than they were in Russia. But it is more difficult to start a socialist revolution in these countries. There revolution has its ups and downs and is faced with extremely difficult circumstances. All its subjective conditions mature as capitalism progresses in a ``normal'' way, without any staggering socio-economic disasters that would rock the foundations of bourgeois class domination.
Marxism says it is necessary to ``uphold revolutionary interests in a way appropriate to the changing situation".^^2^^ The world communist movement today is doing just that: _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 31, pp. 21, 89.
~^^2^^ Marx/Engels, Werke, Bd. 31, Dietz Verlag, Berlin, 1965, S. 438.
180 its overall strategy is based on a creative scientific analysis of the changes that have taken place in the world over the last twenty years.The intense theoretical work of the Communist Parties in the capitalist countries, their creative evaluation of the changing balance of class forces and the specific experience of the class struggle have brought certain modifications to the strategy and tactics of socialist revolution. By clearing the way for an elaboration of the issues facing the communist movement, the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1956 ensured the essential conditions for a creative development of Marxist thinking. The international meetings of Communist and Workers' Parties held in 1957 and 1960, and communist national congresses made a constructive analysis of the principal advances in Marxist theory and working-class practice since the war and, on that basis, outlined the strategy and tactics of socialist revolution for today. The present general policy of the world communist movement is thus based on the experience of the post-war struggle for socialism.
A substantially new, more auspicious situation for promoting socialist revolution is growing as a result of the profound world changes sparked off by the October Revolution, the subsequent advances in the U.S.S.R. and other socialist countries, and the new world balance of power between socialism and capitalism. Revolution, however, is a consequence primarily of internal development, of exacerbation of socio-economic and political contradictions within capitalism. The present strategy and tactics of the Communist Parties take into consideration the new correlation of class forces in the capitalist countries, the democratic traditions of the working people, the changes in their social awareness, their discontent with the capitalist system, the growing inclination to socialism, the contradictory objective evolution of state-monopoly capitalism, and the scientific and technical revolution.
The C.P.S.U. Central Committee's Report to the Party's 24th Congress said: ``The international working-class movement continues to play, as it has played in the past, the role of time-test and militant vanguard of the revolutionary forces. The events of the past five-year period in the capitalist world have fully borne out the importance of the working 181 class as the chief and strongest opponent of the rule of the monopolies, and as a centre rallying all the anti-monopoly forces.''
The experience of the October and other socialist revolutions has demonstrated the vitally important need to establish firm alliances between the working class and other sections of the population equally interested in the overthrow of capitalist power. In the contemporary world, there is much greater possibility for substantially widening the social basis for such alliances. Current capitalist development is creating the objective conditions for extending working-class influence on the semi-proletarian and petty-bourgeois strata of the population.
The growing domination of monopoly capital beyond the boundaries of large-scale factory production---in agriculture, commerce, handicrafts and small business---greatly reduces the economic role of small business, progressively squeezes out small and medium farmers, craftsmen and retailers on an unprecedented scale, and depresses their living standards. The fact that this process is being encouraged by the state lends it a particular social acuteness. On the other hand, state-monopoly capitalism and the accompanying scientific and technological revolution greatly increase the size of ``the new middle strata"---white-collar workers, engineers, technicians, doctors, teachers, and various groups of intellectuals---and bring them down to the socio-economic level of the working class. The interests of the financial oligarchy increasingly clash with those of the workers, and with those of craftsmen, farmers, retailers and shopkeepers, members of the liberal professions and white-collar workers. As this process develops, it objectively induces the non-proletarian and semi-proletarian sections of the population to join forces with the working class in fighting monopoly capital. Fresh and relatively more favourable opportunities are opened up for forming extensive popular anti-monopoly coalitions.
All these semi-proletarian and petty-bourgeois groups are the workers' potential allies in the class struggle, but their role and importance vary at different times. In the past, when most countries had a predominantly rural population, the attitude of the peasant in the proletarian revolution had an important bearing on its outcome. A ``second edition" 182 of the peasant war in these circumstances had to supplement the proletarian revolution. During the October Revolution, the workers acted in alliance with the poor peasants and with the support of the middle peasants.
Today, the peasant question has somewhat altered in many industrially advanced countries. As a result of its mass impoverishment, the rural population is often in the minority. Precisely for this reason, the relative importance of peasant farmers as allies of the industrial workers has declined while that of other intermediate sections of the population has risen. As a result, the working-class alliance with the intermediate sections is often no longer mainly with the peasant farmers, but the size and economic role of agricultural producers are still such that the attitude of farmers and peasants retains its importance in deciding the eventual outcome of the capitalist-worker class struggle.
Changes in the socio-economic status of many sections of the population and the growing gap between them and the monopolies, however, do not mean that expressions of their discontent will automatically coincide. The new favourable opportunities for forming broad popular alliances still have to be realised by the world revolutionary movement. The Communist Parties are doing a great deal to work within farmer, youth and student organisations, cultural and sport clubs, various social clubs and the co-operative movement. They have been using every opportunity---housing issues, health service problems, rising prices or taxes, unemployment, or undemocratic voting systems---to explain the underlying causes to the workers and to stimulate action against the monopolies. Equally important, they have warned workers of the dangers of relapsing into sectarianism, and advocate the use of flexible tactics among the mass of working people that are as comprehensive as they are effective. Their work in local government is of particular value to the working class. In France today more than 1,000 mayors, and 19,500 municipal and 280 general councillors are Communists. In Italy, as many as 25,700 Communists hold positions on legislative and other government bodies, 805 rural districts have Communist mayors and eight provincial councils Communist chairmen.
In conducting their work among the various groups, the 183 Communists are well aware of the different interests and conditions of each, and adapt their policies accordingly. They appreciate that every class, and sometimes even every age group, has its own way of expressing social discontent. The petty bourgeoisie tends to vacillate in the class struggle, and the big capitalists tend to play on its social conservatism and political apathy in fighting the revolutionary workingclass movement. In many cases, the petty bourgeoisie has been a mass basis for extreme forms of capitalist monopoly dictatorship. The non-proletarian sections of the population are especially prone to prejudices and fanciful ideas about the working class and the bourgeoisie, and these are fanned by bourgeois propaganda.
Intermediate groups of the population are often liable to display radical and even revolutionary tendencies. So, with increasing monopoly exploitation and the upsurge in socialism and the labour movement, some of these groups may be won. over to the side of the workers. Recent events have produced many instances of joint action between urban and rural working people. Mass worker demonstrations invariably accompanied farmer unrest in France, Italy and Belgium during the early sixties. And many large-scale worker demonstrations have repeatedly been backed by intermediate groups.
It has been proved possible to achieve concerted action by the most diverse groups in opposition to monopoly capital, even by groups under clerical influence. In some parts of Western Europe (Spain, Italy, France, Belgium and West Germany), South America and Australia, the influence of the church is still strong. But certain changes have recently occurred in the political views of Roman Catholic workers. Ever larger numbers are being drawn into the class struggle. Catholic trade unions in Italy, France, Belgium and elsewhere are taking an active part in strikes and frequently join forces with other unions. Under the impact of changes at home and abroad and the developing class struggle, the influence of the Left-wing groups has increased even within the clerical camp, and they often urge collaboration with democratic forces and working-class parties, including the Communists.
The Communist Parties do not believe that religious views are necessarily an obstacle to joint mass action in 184 an anti-monopoly alliance. It is social status and the attitude to monopoly capital, not religious ideas, that primarily cause the dichotomy in contemporary society. A British clergyman, Thomas Corbishley, has said that one of the chief conditions for a dialogue of any type is the existence of a common idiom. Undoubtedly, it is ordinarily much easier for the small Catholic farmer to find a common idiom with an atheist workingman than with a fellow believer from the financial oligarchy.
Concerted action by workers and intermediate groups is a necessary part of the strategy of the Communist Parties today. Socialism holds promise of emancipation from capitalist tyranny to all groups of working people, not only the proletariat. Intermediate groups can take a more active part in building socialism now that there is a world socialist system, advanced large-scale industry and a huge working class. Small firms, for example, can play a major role in tackling economic issues, especially in the provision of consumer goods and services. The Communist Parties while favouring, in principle, large-scale production and cooperation in industry, trade, agriculture and the services, resolutely oppose the use of any kind of coercion in promoting co-operation. They consider it possible for small private business in town and country to exist for a comparatively long time once socialism wins out. The British Communist Party says in its policy document, The British Road to Socialism, that ``the owners of smaller enterprises, small shopkeepers and traders, as well as co-operative concerns, should go on as before; they will be freed from restrictions imposed on them by the monopolists and they will benefit from the rising turnover resulting from the new conditions''.
The new situation throws a new light on the question of a multi-party system during the transition from capitalism to socialism. An alliance of industrial workers, working farmers, intellectuals, small urban producers and retailers rests on the collaboration of organisations and parties that express the interests of these social groups. The Communist Parties also take account of the traditions of countries with long parliamentary traditions and several parties in the working-class and democratic movement. With this in view, they think it probable and necessary that the multi-party system should continue both during the socialist revolution 185 and in the construction of socialism. A resolution adopted at the 18th Congress of the French Communist Party declares that ``the Communist Party rejects the view that only one party should necessarily exist during the socialist revolution and is in favour of a multi-party system. . .. All parties collaborating in building socialism will have full and equal right to participate in government, the place and authority of each depending on its contribution to the common cause and the trust it commands among the people."^^1^^
This attitude to the multi-party system is no opportunist ploy, but results from a realistic analysis of the line-up of class forces, particularly the checkered social make-up of the new alliance of the labour classes. Characteristically, during the October Revolution the Bolsheviks did not preclude the possibility of a bloc with other political forces. In fact, an alliance did exist for a short time with the ``Left'' Socialist-Revolutionaries, but the latter's change of policy coupled with the specific events of the class struggle led to the establishment of a one-party system.
The working class has the decisive part to play in establishing an anti-monopoly coalition, fighting for the victory of the socialist revolution and building the new society. But it cannot fulfil this task without unity within its own ranks. Past experience has long since demonstrated the old labour maxim that ``united we stand, divided we fall''. Nonetheless, the political split in the working class is still to be overcome, and in all capitalist countries some workers are still duped by bourgeois ideology and support bourgeois parties. In the U.S.A., for example, there is no mass Communist or SocialDemocratic movement; most workers, headed by the A.F.L.-- C.I.O. leadership, back one of the two bourgeois parties (recently it has been the Democratic Party). The U.S. working class still retains much of its earlier chauvinism, racial prejudice and political apathy. In these circumstances, the U.S. Communist Party regards as top priority the promotion of independent political thinking by the workers and the attainment of a higher level of class awareness, so as to release them from the influence of bourgeois ideas. Its Draft Programme says: ``The next phase of development _-_-_
~^^1^^ L'Humanit\'e, January 12, 1967.
186 is creation by the workers of political instruments for the conscious, effective expression and representation of their interests as a class. This necessitates a higher degree of class awareness, of social comprehension. This is the great historic challenge before the American working class, presented by its own evolution..."^^1^^ Elsewhere the impact of bourgeois parties on the labour movement is not so great, but nowhere has the problem of bourgeois influence been altogether overcome.Working-class disunity has a deleterious effect on its class struggle. The fundamental ideological differences between the Communist and the Social-Democratic Parties are certainly not insuperable and should not prevent united action within the labour movement. Their joint efforts are increasingly necessary if the workers' struggle is to be successful. The Communist Parties have frequently stressed the need for unity between the Communists and the Social-Democrats. The 1960 Moscow Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties declared: ``Both in the struggle for the improvement of the living conditions of working people, the extension and preservation of their democratic rights, the achievement and defence of national independence, for peace among nations, and also in the struggle to win power and build socialism, the Communist Parties advocate co-operation with the Socialist Parties."^^2^^
Naturally enough, Communist-Social-Democrat unity has to be seen in concrete terms in each country, and depends on the state of the class and democratic struggle, on the part the parties have to play within the labour movement and in national politics, on the theoretical and political attitudes of Social-Democratic leaders towards capitalism, on the one hand, and the world socialist system, on the other, and, finally, on the extent to which the Social-Democratic leaders have been infected with anti-communist ideas. The Communist Parties take due consideration not only of the official policy of the Social-Democratic Parties, but these parties' social make-up and opinion among the rank and file.
Waldeck Rochet, General Secretary of the French Communist Party, made the point at the Party's 18th Congress, _-_-_
~^^1^^ World Marxist Review, Vol. 9, No. 5, May 1966, p. 18.
~^^2^^ The Struggle for Peace, Democracy and Socialism, pp. 72--73.
187 when he said that ``Socialists and Communists want socialism, and differ only on the ways and means of passing from capitalism to the new society. The source of disagreement lies above all in the fact that Communists, because they are Marxists, are revolutionaries, whereas Socialists generally have a reformist ideology. . .. Communists and Socialists have gone their different ways ever since the Great October Revolution, but the central issue today is to find out whether the profound changes that have occurred in favour of socialism over the past 50 years can lead to a rapprochement between Communists and Socialists.~"^^1^^ The Communist Parties believe they can.The policy of alliance with the Social-Democratic Parties is primarily motivated by the desire among workers for joint action irrespective of political attachment. It was this desire that led to the signing of pacts between the French Communist Party and the Federation of Democratic and Socialist Left Forces in December 1966 and February 1968. These pacts spell out the fundamentals of joint action and the common aims of the two organisations in the fight against personal power and for the establishment of genuine democracy: democratic constitutional reform, guarantees of individual and collective freedoms, and freedoms for local self-government bodies, lifting of restrictions on the right to strike, extension of the rights of factory committees, etc. The conclusion of pacts such as these opens up fresh prospects for the unity of workers and democrats in France in the struggle to transform society.
The situation has also been improving in other capitalist countries for strengthening working-class political cohesion and for joint action by Communist and Social-Democratic Parties. A number of factors have recently combined to cut the ground from under the propagators of anti-communism--- a creed that had hitherto permeated the ranks of the SocialDemocrats. These are the socio-economic and political attainments of the socialist states, condemnation of the personality cult, restoration of Leninist rules in Party and public life, perfection of socialist democracy and, finally, the noticeable detente in some parts of the world. As a result, some Social-Democratic Parties have been renouncing _-_-_
~^^1^^ L'Humanit\'e, January 5, 1967.
188 the extreme anti-Soviet and anti-communist views they had held for many years.Attempts to indoctrinate workers with theories of `` democratic socialism" have increasingly failed to gain support. Many workers refuse to believe that capitalism will automatically evolve into socialism or that the bourgeois state stands above class. The growing economic and political domination of the monopolies, their assault on the workers' living standards and democratic liberties, and the sharpening of the class struggle have evoked a desire to take stock of accepted values and probe into Social-Democratic cliches. The Communist Parties have overcome elements of sectarianism and this has also led to a rapprochement between Social-Democrats and Communists. The Communists have been advocating various forms of co-operation with the Social-Democrats---from agreements on total or partial issues with the official stamp of approval by top party leaders to contacts between local party offices and the rank and file, from elaboration of joint anti-monopoly programmes of action to united action within mass democratic and professional organisations. The Communist Parties have sought unity with Social-Democratic Parties at all levels, from top to bottom.
The Finnish parties have gone a long way towards unity. In early 1966, the 14th Congress of the Finnish Communist Party declared that the principal way of tackling the country's economic and political problems was to extend and reinforce co-operation of all working people, and that the immediate aim was to reach agreement with the SocialDemocrats on a joint policy affecting all aspects of national affairs. The long-standing Finnish Communist policy of forging an alliance with the Social-Democrats bore its first fruits with the victory of the bloc of workers' and Centre parties at the national polls in 1966. The formation of this government, which included Communists, signposted a change in Social-Democratic policy, a reversal of its earlier policy of nonalliance with the Finnish Communist Party, and a shift of opinion on home and foreign policy. Communist Vice-President Erkki Salomaa said that the Communists were sure a government resting on a parliamentary majority of workers' parties was a better government than one dominated and led by the bourgeoisie; he added that despite their 189 modest representation in the government, the Communists believed they could do more to safeguard the workers' interests inside the government than outside it.
Communist-Social-Democrat collaboration as the basis of unity within the democratic and working-class movement is a key condition of political and economic progress. In the interests of all workingmen, the Communist Party has been concentrating its efforts on attaining close co-operation and unity of the various groups of workers, their trade unions and political organisations on the principle of equality and mutual trust. Experience in promoting co-operation between the Communists and the Social-Democrats in France, Finland and elsewhere is of great international importance for the unity of all the democratic forces in the fight for social progress.
While the Communists advocate unity with the SocialDemocrats, they also insist that the working-class parties remain independent in organisation and ideology. They believe that while all workers' parties can and should participate in the struggle for socialism, the workers would not benefit from mere mechanical mergers. Efforts to bring political unity to the working-class movement cannot stifle criticism of the ideological views and opportunist actions of social reformists and their policy of class collaboration with the bourgeoisie. For a long time, Social-Democratic leaders have been directing much of their effort against the communist movement, and these long years of open and secret hostility have left their severe and almost indelible mark in the form of personal antipathy, resentment and value judgements between leaders and ordinary members of Communist and SocialDemocratic Parties. Despite the objective factors that make for working-class political unity, the actual fulfilment of this aim requires persistent efforts and tremendous patience. The Communists' co-operation policy certainly does not always evoke a sympathetic response among Social-- Democrats.
One plain demonstration of how difficult political unity is to attain occurred in Italy in 1966, when the Socialist and Social-Democratic Parties merged in a patently anti-- communist alliance. The leaders of the new United Socialist Party (U.S.P.) have proclaimed their intention of destroying the traditional Italian unity of Communists and Socialists 190 at all levels---party, trade union, municipal and parliament, democratic, youth and farmers' movement---and of renouncing the principles of socialism and socialist struggle, in favour of an accommodation with capitalism.
This policy turned out to be unacceptable for some socialist leaders, party workers and ordinary members, with the result that many refused to join the new party and others did join but continued to work with the Communists. The 1968 parliamentary elections gave ample evidence of what the Italian electorate thought of the U.S.P. leadership. The anti-communist policy, the deliberate division of the labour movement, the sacrificing of workers' interests for the sake of an unprincipled participation in bourgeois government have considerably reduced the U.S.P. ranks. Clearly, more and more workers believe that working-class parties should take part in government not to pursue capitalist policies, but to implement a programme of social progress in accord with popular aspirations.
There is, on the whole, a tendency in several countries for the Social-Democrats and the Communists to join hands in promoting democracy and socialism. This tendency is bound to grow as workers' political awareness increases, as they resolutely reject anti-Soviet and anti-communist propaganda, and as the Communist Parties become massive, surmounting what remains of sectarianism within their ranks and in their attitudes towards the working people.
The socialist revolution is not a one-act play. It is a long, intricate process consisting of a multitude of battles, attacks, retreats, partial gains, regroupings, and so on. Engels made this point in 1883, when he criticised the German SocialDemocratic leaders in these words: ``The big mistake the Germans make is to think that the revolution is something that can be made overnight. As a matter of fact it is a process of development of the masses that takes several years even under conditions that favour its acceleration."^^1^^
This development is primarily the shaping of the subjective factors of revolution, the creation of its political forces, and the establishment of firm class alliances between the industrial workers and other working people. The Communist _-_-_
~^^1^^ K. Marx and F. Engels, Selected Correspondence, Moscow, 1965, p. 364.
191 Parties are, therefore, faced with hundreds of complex practical and theoretical problems: how to lead the people up to revolution, how to channel the constant and spontaneous labour discontent into a single anti-monopoly and socialist tide, in what directions should the revolution develop, what are the specific forms it should take, what is the attitude to take to the bourgeois state? All these questions, in fact, boil down to the one problem of applying the general principles of revolutionary theory to a specific situation.The Bolshevik Party developed the basic Marxist propositions on socialist revolution and successfully adapted them to the situation in tsarist Russia. Similarly today, every Communist Party is seeking its own answer to these problems based on the specific situation at home and in the world at large, and on the general tenets of Marxist-Leninist theory and the attainments of the world communist movement. Moreover, each Party makes its own contribution to the solution of these problems, so presenting a great variety of ways and forms of fighting for socialist revolution and construction.
The Communist Parties in the capitalist countries are constantly aware of two dangers that threaten to divert them from a Marxist interpretation of socialist revolution. Both dangers were pointed out at the 1957 and 1960 Moscow meetings of Communist and Workers' Parties. The first is to exaggerate the importance of national peculiarities, so bowing to petty-bourgeois nationalism and neglecting the general principles of socialist revolution. The second is to ignore specific national conditions, the actual disposition of class forces and the state of the class struggle. This can only result in a reiteration of meaningless cliches and put the Communist Party out of touch with popular opinion and aspirations. The Communists are well aware of the need to avoid both these pitfalls in outlining the basic problems involved in achieving socialist revolution.
The fight for socialism in most capitalist countries rests on strong democratic traditions, which the lesson of fascism has taught the workers to cherish. Socialist revolution can have popular appeal only when it offers a development of existing democracy, turning nominal democratic liberties into something that is at once effective and meaningful for the workers.
192Marxism-Leninism has always attached primary importance to the fight for democracy and for the utmost extension of democratic liberties, both for the benefit of the workers' class enlightenment and for the establishment of conditions more favourable to socialist revolution. The battle for broader democracy is crucial in preparing the masses for the actual socialist stage of revolution.
Significantly, when, after the last war, Communist Parties entered governments in some West European countries on a wave ol popular and working-class support, they were mainly concerned with improving workers' conditions and extending democracy. Many were then already advocating peaceful revolution, properly appreciating the importance of democracy in the struggle for socialism. It was at that time that Italy adopted a democratic constitution, part of France's industry was democratically nationalised and progressive statutes were adopted for employees in the state sector. The Communist Parties regard the battle for democracy as a component part of the battle for socialism.
The revolutionary working-class movement seeks to make maximum use of bourgeois democracy despite its limited class nature. Today, the campaign for democracy is on the offensive: the working class and the Communist Parties have not confined themselves to safeguarding their secured democratic liberties from the encroachments of monopoly capital; they have been making an all-out effort to have them extended, to make them more effective and to invest them with fresh meaning. As the late Palmiro Togliatti said at a Plenum of the Italian Communist Party's Central Committee in 1956, ``We must take heed of what Lenin said about the illusory character of bourgeois democracy. Today we are in a position partly, and even substantially, to put an end to that illusory character, to lay a truly democratic terrain for the successful struggle for socialism, as the Marxist classics had foreseen."^^1^^
The key issue of any revolution is that of state power. The struggle for democracy is, therefore, a struggle to extend the workers' influence to all economic and political affairs _-_-_
~^^1^^ P. Togliatti, Problemi del movimento operaio internazionalc, 1956-- 1961, Roma, 1962, p. 159.
193 in capitalist society; in the final count, it is a struggle to establish the workers' power.Radical democratic changes and reforms are basic planks of the present platforms of the Communist Parties. The substance of these reforms is determined by each Communist Party in the light of national conditions and the tasks confronting the working-class movement at any given time. The Italian Communists, for example, advocate a programme of structural reform centred on fulfilment of the basic provisions of the 1947 Constitution, nationalisation of the major monopolies and establishment of democratic control over them, strengthening of regional autonomy, a special economic programme for Southern Italy, democratic programming and agrarian reform. The French Communist list of demands for democratic reform includes the following: extensive democratic change, implementation of radical economic and social reform, a substantial increase in the powers of Parliament and its conversion into an effective democratic body with legislative powers and effective control of government activity. The Swedish Communist Party advocates the socialist transformation of society, but gives immediate priority to restrictions on monopoly price-fixing power, expansion of industrial democracy, lower taxes and a rational geographical deployment of industrial enterprises.
Even if these programmes were carried out, it would not signify that socialism had arrived, but the fight for the socialist revolution would be a lot easier if the monopolies were shackled and the workers enjoyed better conditions and broad economic and political democracy.
The new approach to democratic reform is an indication of how far the working-class and communist movement has come. At one time, reforms in capitalist society were almost exclusively the preserve of the bourgeoisie and the SocialDemocrats (except for the short periods when Communists entered governments). In several countries today, the initiative has passed to the Communists, who are backed by the mass working-class and democratic movement. Furthermore, the initiative cannot be wrested from them, even when the authorities borrow the most popular reform slogans from the Communists and take the credit for putting them into effect. When the Communists put forward broad positive programmes for democratic social change and when they 194 mount massive campaigns to have them implemented, they are helping to turn the communist movement into a major constructive national force. Enrico Berlinguer, member of the Political Bureau of the Italian Communist Party, underlined this point when he said that, ``The Communist Party is one which, even in opposition, never sheds its characteristics of ruling party, and never confines itself to mere protest and propaganda, but constantly undertakes constructive action to ensure a positive solution of all outstanding issues and to exert effective pressure, in the cause of the nation's progress, on all policy-making agencies responsible for economic and political decisions, from the lowest to the highest rungs of the state."^^1^^
The communist attitude to reforms differs in principle from that of the Social-Democrats, both in the nature of the recommended reforms and in the methods of attaining them. The reformists usually try to abolish capitalism's most glaring evils by inconsequential piecemeal reforms, in place of revolution. Without renouncing such reforms, the Communist Parties endeavour to obtain mass support for thorough-going comprehensive reforms that would work a basic transformation in the socio-economic and political structure of capitalist society. As the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Canada, William Kashtan, said: ``The revolutionary party, the Communists, see in reform not only achievements in themselves, but seek to make each deep-going reform a step towards the final aim---socialism. The Communists . .. put forward a programme calling for a complex of far-reaching reforms which would shake capitalism and lead the working class forward step by step in its struggle against capitalism."^^2^^
The clear-cut anti-monopoly content of this type of radical reform programme makes it a rallying point for the widest sections of the population, since its realisation would substantially curb monopoly power and improve living standards. The movement for radical democratic change is today one of the most effective methods of mobilising the working people against monopoly capital. Since the _-_-_
~^^1^^ Foreign Bulletin of the Italian Communist Party, December 1963, pp. 113--14.
~^^2^^ World Marxist Review, Vol. 9, No. 12, December 1966, p. 12.
__PRINTERS_P_196_COMMENT__ 13* 195 ultimate aim of the movement is for the working people to win economic and political power, its triumph would be an important step towards socialism.The communist movement today poses the question of whether it is necessary and possible for the working people to gain power within the framework of the bourgeois state, whether it is necessary and possible for them gradually to take control of the key positions in the state apparatus and then fundamentally to reshape it. Socialist revolution implies the revolutionary destruction of institutions ensuring the supremacy of the exploiting elements (especially the whole bourgeois apparatus of class oppression), and the removal of their hirelings from power. At the same time, given a great extension of state control over the economy, health and education and given the successes attained in some countries in winning political democracy, the working class and its allies could, the Communist Parties of the capitalist countries believe, make use of some elements of the bourgeois state machine and bring them under control. There are now many positive elements functioning in state administration and the representative democratic institutions of bourgeois society that could be used by the workers to consolidate their power.
The present more favourable climate for organising popular anti-monopoly struggle facilitates the use of many peaceful and painless ways of destroying the bourgeois state machine of class tyranny and bringing about socialist revolution. Marxism-Leninism and the communist movement have never held the view that socialist revolution must always be associated with armed uprising and civil war. The October Revolution took the form it did because of the action of the Russian and international bourgeoisie. In several countries today, however, peaceful revolution is quite possible. As the 1960 Moscow Meeting noted, ``In a number of capitalist countries today, the working class led by the Communist Party, its vanguard, can unite most of the population, win state power without civil war and ensure the transfer of the major means of production into the hands of the people, through a working-class and democratic front and other possible forms of agreement and political co-operation between different parties and social organisations."^^1^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ The Struggle lor Peace, Democracy and Socialism, p. 77.
196The peaceful development of the socialist revolution may be assured by creating such a preponderance of revolutionary forces that this would make it virtually impossible for the defeated ruling class to put up armed resistance to the revolution. Not that all resistance from the exploiters could be ruled out. As the Draft Programme of the U.S. Communist Party underlined, ``...it would be naive to assume that monopoly would be restrained by Constitutional scruples from resorting to violence to thwart the most democratic mandate for a socialist transformation. The best, though not the certain, guarantee for averting violence in such circumstances is the creation of a majority so overwhelming, so united, so firm of purpose as to restrain monopoly from the resort to force."^^1^^ The anti-monopoly coalition is designed to ensure a preponderance of class forces to isolate the financial oligarchy and prevent it from turning its resistance into a bloody civil war. This would create the conditions necessary for peaceful socialist revolution.
The new correlation of forces in the world today is especially favourable for peaceful revolution. Waldeck Rochet made this point when he said at the 18th Congress of the French Communist Party, ``As a result of the victory of the October Socialist Revolution and of socialism in many countries, the world capitalist system has been greatly weakened. Today there are new conditions allowing countries like France to take other, easier paths than the one the Russian Communists took in 1917. All the efforts of the French Communist Party are directed to the creation of a situation that would be favourable for peaceful transition to socialism so as to realise the socialist ideal."^^2^^ The growth in the economic and military might of the socialist community makes it more difficult to export counter-revolution, and so imperialism has to pursue a more flexible policy in dealing with the revolutionary movement and frequently stops short of attempts at open armed intervention. The history of the October and other socialist revolutions shows that, once it has started a civil war, the bourgeoisie usually banks on support from external counter-revolutionary forces. To reduce _-_-_
~^^1^^ World Marxist Review, Vol. 9, No. 5, May 196(3. p. 20.
~^^2^^ L'Humanite, January 5, 1967.
197 the possibility of armed intervention, then, lessens the chances of internal reaction putting up armed resistance.The Communist Parties seek to promote socialist revolution in the most peaceful and painless way, but they also allow for the possibility of non-peaceful transition to the new society. Furthermore, armed struggle in the form of an uprising or civil war is, evidently, more likely where countries are ruled by terroristic dictatorships of extreme reactionaries stamping out all legal opposition, and where even elementary bourgeois-democratic liberties are being abolished. A statement put out by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Portugal describes conditions in such a country.
``An examination of the conditions of fascist rule in Portugal has led it [the Party] to conclude that the road to the establishment of a democratic system in our country will not be a peaceful road but the road of popular insurrection . . . [with the] use [of] armed force to overthrow the fascist dictatorship. . . ."^^1^^
The Parties only resort to armed struggle after a serious analysis of the correlation of class forces and in a situation where all peaceful means of struggle have been exhausted. Marxism-Leninism and the history of the revolutionary movement stress that insurrection is an art and must be treated as such. The Communists can learn from the valuable experience of the civil war in Russia and elsewhere. Peaceful and non-peaceful revolution leads to the establishment of a workers' dictatorship in one form or another, and both ways imply operation of all the fundamental regularities inherent in socialist revolution.
What exact means of struggle are chosen will depend on the specific situation. As Lenin stressed, ``the revolutionary class must be able to master all forms or aspects of social activity without exception .. . the revolutionary class must be prepared for the most rapid and brusque replacement of one form by another."^^2^^ Past experience of the world revolutionary movement warns that to concentrate on a single form of class struggle to the exclusion of all others could only make the Communist Parties inflexible in their tactics _-_-_
~^^1^^ World Marxist Review, Vol. 7, No. 7, July 1964, p. 8.
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 96.
198 and action and would cut them off from the mass of the people, ultimately hampering the workers' struggle for socialism.The prospects of the workers' revolutionary struggle in the capitalist states largely depend on social and economic developments within the socialist countries and the state of the world communist movement. Now that industrial and other workers have come to power in a number of countries, their Marxist-Leninist Parties have special responsibility for the cause of world socialism. Every success or failure in building the new society, every sign of strength or weakness in the unity of the socialist countries and the world communist movement has an immense impact on the way revolution develops in the capitalist countries and on the campaign for peace and democracy throughout the world.
In recent years, one serious obstacle in the way of world socialist revolution has been the attempts of the Mao Tsetung faction within the leadership of the Communist Party of China to revise the basic propositions embodied in the official statements of the 1957 and 1960 meetings of Communist and Workers' Parties and to foist their gravely erroneous and discredited policy on other Communist Parties. In fact, the Mao faction has laid down, in contrast to the general policy of the world communist movement, its own ``special'' policy that distorts Marxism-Leninism and substitutes for it Maoism, i.e., the ideas and practices of pettybourgeois nationalism. This is apparent in its departure from a class analysis of contemporary affairs, in its efforts to set off different streams of the world revolutionary tide against one another, to isolate the national liberation movement from the socialist countries and the working-class movement in the capitalist countries, and in its rejection of internationalism in favour of chauvinism.
The Communist Parties in the capitalist countries roundly condemn these attempts by the incumbent C.P.C. leadership to impose on them its own adventurist brand of socialist revolution. Quite ignoring the specific situation within the capitalist states and the international situation as a whole, the Mao group insists that revolution can be given a push from outside, and that a world war would not be such a bad thing after all. Such views are deeply contrary to Marxist-Leninist tenets concerning ways and means of revolutionary struggle. 199 Emacs-File-stamp: "/home/ysverdlov/leninist.biz/en/1971/SCSP287/20070526/287.tx" __EMAIL__ webmaster@leninist.biz __OCR__ ABBYY 6 Professional (2007.05.25) __WHERE_PAGE_NUMBERS__ bottom __FOOTNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [0-9]+ __ENDNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [0-9]+ They indicate lack of confidence in the workers' revolutionary potential and in the ability of the Communist Parties to inspire the popular struggle for socialism.
In their desperate attempts to impose their fallacious schemes on the other Communist Parties, the Mao faction has launched a divisive campaign against Parties taking a Marxist-Leninist stand. In some countries, renegades have formed their own splinter groups consisting of people who have either left or been expelled from Communist Parties and, although they are small, they command substantial material and propaganda means. They have been actively campaigning against the communist movement and spreading petty-bourgeois, nationalistic and racist ideas among the workers. This divisive activity has done great harm to the unity of the anti-imperialist and democratic forces throughout the world. The policy of Mao and his faction has nothing in common with Marxism-Leninism and is harmful to socialism, and the international labour and national liberation movements, and even threatens the socialist gains of the Chinese people themselves. The Communist and Workers' Parties are perfectly aware of the real designs behind such policies and have vigorously condemned the dangerous Maoist policy.
Despite the troubles caused in the world communist movement by the Chinese leaders' divisive action, communist unity has been making headway. The Communist Parties are the revolutionary vanguard of the industrial and other workers in every country and their policy is to safeguard the national interest. Each Marxist-Leninist Party independently draws up and pursues policies and tactics of revolutionary struggle that best accord with the national conditions and historical traditions of its own country. Further, the communist movement does not consist of an aggregate of sections cut off from one another. On the contrary, it has always been conspicuous for its internationalism which reflects the identity of national and international interests and aims of the working people. Suffice it to recall a few major manifestations of communist internationalism: the ``Hands off Russia" and ``Defend the Chinese Revolution" movements, aid to republican Spain and the united communist struggle against fascism. Unity of the communist movement has a sound objective foundation: the common 200 ideology of Marxism-Leninism and identical aims in the struggle.
Throughout its long history, the world communist movement has had various forms of unity corresponding to stages in its development. When the Communist Parties were first taking shape, the Communist International was paramount in setting them on their feet, helping them to keep alien elements out of their ideology, and laying down the correct strategy and tactics for the communist movement as a whole. The Comintern did much to foster communist solidarity and nurture steadfast revolutionaries. After the last war, there arose a new way of reinforcing unity between the various Communist Parties: conferences of Communist and Workers' Parties. These meetings enabled the Communists to exchange views on every conceivable issue, to take stock of specific experience in the class struggle, collectively to elaborate Marxist-Leninist theory, and to outline a concerted political line.
Now that all the forces working for socialism have become active, communist unity is crucial to the progress of the revolutionary movement. The fight to strengthen unity must not be regarded only as the Communist Parties responding to the divisive actions of the Mao group. Stronger unity implies an exchange of views, discussion, clarification and elaboration of the general policy of the world communist movement. In recent years, there have been a number of bilateral, multilateral and regional meetings between communist representatives, conferences on matters of theory; there has been a better exchange of information, thereby promoting understanding between the various Communist Parties. These conferences have enabled all the Communist Parties to proceed from their own national experience and contribute to overall theory, making their experience available to other Marxist-Leninist Parties.
The world communist movement has come a long way in its relatively short history. Its parties have accumulated extensive experience in fighting for socialism. The socialist revolution has triumphed in many countries and the U.S.S.R. is building communist society. Communism has become the most influential and dynamic movement of modern history.
[201] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter Five __ALPHA_LVL1__ SOCIALISM AND NATIONALBy emancipating the many peoples of the Russian Empire, the October Revolution exerted a strong influence on the destinies of the peoples in all imperialist colonial empires. This can be seen from the writings of many outstanding leaders of oppressed nations. In his Three People's Principles, the Chinese revolutionary Sun Yat-sen called the October Revolution ``the great hope for humanity'', while Jawaharlal Nehru wrote that ``...the Soviet revolution had advanced human society by a great leap and had lit a bright flame which could not be smothered ... it had laid the foundations for that 'new civilisation' toward which the world would advance".^^1^^
He was echoed by his countryman Rabindranath Tagore, who said: ``When I see elsewhere some two hundred nationalities---which only a few years ago were at vastly different stages of development---marching ahead in peaceful progress and amity, and when I look about my own country and see a very highly evolved and intellectual people drifting into the disorder of barbarism, I cannot help contrasting the two systems of governments, one based on co-operation, the other on exploitation, which have made such contrary conditions possible."^^2^^
If the formation of a workers' state on one-sixth of the world's land surface and socialist construction in Russia heralded the ultimate collapse of the world capitalist system, the transformation of Russia's colonies into socialist republics and the formation of the Mongolian People's Republic heralded the impending collapse of imperialist colonial system.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Jawaharlal Nehru, The Discovery of India, New York, 1945, p. 17.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 376.
202 __NUMERIC_LVL2__ 1. The Role of the National LiberationAfter the split of the world into two opposite systems, the colonial structure appeared to be just as solid as ever: imperialism continued to hold to economic and political ransom most of Asia and the whole of Africa and Latin America. At that time the colonial population continued to grow both through natural population increase and the addition of new semi-colonies, such as Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania--- where socialist revolution was crushed---and Thailand. The imperialists further strove to turn semi-colonies like China and Ethiopia into full-fledged colonies. During the First World War, Lenin said that China, Turkey and Persia were, in fact, ``ninety per cent" colonies. On the eve of the Second World War, virtually 1,500 million people languished in colonial bondage and exploitation. Yet, even then, the system was showing signs of impending collapse.
Liberating social revolutions are bound to occur if mankind is to progress. Like the revolutionary class struggle, they are but a natural outcome of the sharpening contradictions between the productive forces and the relations of production.
In the colonies, the productive forces were in violent contradiction with the relations of production. The law that the relations of production should accord with the productive forces also operated in the oppressed countries and worked mainly to erode what remained of the dominant feudal relations of production inhibiting the productive forces, particularly in agriculture, which provided almost 80 per cent of the colonial population with their means of subsistence. It also meant that, during capitalism's general crisis, imperialist domination was being steadily undermined, first, because imperialism has mainly tended to perpetuate and restore feudal and semi-feudal exploitation methods, and second, because monopoly capitalism is moribund and is a fetter on the overall development of the productive forces.
Economic and social growth in the colonies was extremely abnormal, so that in industry and agriculture, i.e., the decisive spheres of human activity, growth was often so slow that it had almost ground to a halt. Only in a few exceptional cases did economic growth occur comparatively rapidly at some stages. Even in the industries of the colonies, 203 production relations were conspicuous for their strong survivals of pre-capitalist days; the big industrial enterprises employing thousands of workers were notorious for their abysmal labour conditions: a 10- to 14-hour day, high rate of exploitation and quasi-serf labour. During the last war, these conditions grew even worse. In the Japanese-occupied areas of China and other Asian countries, forced labour became quite common, with such low pay that many labourers starved to death. Even after the war, some British-held African colonies continued a legalised quasi-serf labour system under the guise of a labour service. Plantation workers everywhere, particularly Latin America, were, in effect, indentured to their masters. Throughout agriculture, even in such large and relatively more advanced colonies and semicolonies as India, Brazil, China and Indonesia, severe examples of feudalism and serfdom survived.
In these circumstances, the productive forces had reached a state where they were in irreconcilable conflict with the relations of production, especially with the vestiges of feudalism. In many colonies and dependencies, conditions were ripe for social revolution. Production relations have a tendency to keep up with the productive forces that have surged ahead, so a change in the material and economic base creates a pressing need for a change in the social and ideological superstructure. This is the whole essence of the social and political struggle that stimulates the national liberation movement.
Imperialism was to some extent compelled, in its own interests, to develop the productive forces in the colonies, destroying some of the pre-capitalist production relations and encouraging the growth of capitalism. Foreign capital penetrating into the colonies naturally stimulated capitalist growth. Construction of railways, mines, factories and mills processing agricultural primary products and minerals inevitably led to the emergence and growth of a working class.
Nevertheless, there was always a great difference between the groups of colonies and individual countries: their levels of economic, social and political development were far from uniform. Even at the outset of capitalism's general crisis, the very economically backward countries, like some African colonies, existed alongside colonies and semi-colonies with 204 a relatively advanced industry and a working class constituting a sizable part of the population, as in India, China, Mexico, Argentina, Korea and Cuba. Here, even some heavy and light industry existed alongside the extractive and building industries and transport. In China and India, for example, the textile industry was fairly advanced, and some heavy industrial enterprises existed, as they did, too, in Korea and some parts of Latin America. In Java and the Philippines, a sugar industry had grown up.
Foreign capital did not own all the enterprises in the colonies. National industrial capital came into being and progressively felt its interests to be at odds with those of foreign capital.
The First and the Second World wars proved somewhat of a boon to industry and national capitalism in a number of colonies and semi-colonies. Moreover, even after the First World War, the industry of some colonies and semi-- colonies, though still relatively weak, took part in the fight for foreign markets. This was a time when, as Lenin said, capitalism stopped being progressive and became reactionary. Its reactionary nature in the colonies and semi-colonies was primarily expressed in the way it adapted to its own needs the remaining feudal forms of exploitation and retained and created barriers in the way of the productive forces. The capitalism that developed in the colonies and semi-colonies qualifies equally for Lenin's evaluation that it is ``the semi-feudal capitalism of the landowners with its host of residual privileges, which is the most reactionary and causes the masses the greatest suffering".^^1^^
Because of their uneven economic and political development, a number of colonies and semi-colonies became prominent in the anti-imperialist, national liberation struggle. This precipitated a break-through in the world front of colonialism, initially at its weakest links. The objective course of economic development and the upsurge of national liberation revolutions ultimately led to the collapse of imperialism's colonial system. Much of the credit for this goes to the U.S.S.R., inasmuch as its very example reinforced and accelerated the whole process.
The socialist development of the former Russian colonies _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. I.cnin, Collected Works, Vol. 19, p. 377.
205 became a model for all colonial peoples because it illumined the way to a new and better life. The national liberation and socialist revolutions in Russia eliminated class and national oppression, rapidly brought welfare to all working people, gave a dynamic and comprehensive boost to the economy and culture, emancipated women and produced a society without exploitation. During the Soviet years, the nationalities of the Soviet Asian republics have made tremendous strides forward. Their journey from the nadir of socio-economic backwardness to the zenith of communist construction has truly been one of the greatest wonders of the century.Between 1913 and 1967 industrial production increased 101-fold in Kazakhstan, 117-fold in Kirghizia and 114-fold in Armenia. Some republics, now industrial-agrarian areas, have recently enjoyed faster industrial growth than the U.S.S.R. as a whole. In the three Republics mentioned above, for example, total industrial output during the 1959--65 Seven-Year Plan doubled or more than doubled, whereas for the U.S.S.R. it increased by 84 per cent. The figures for culture and education are equally impressive. In 1914, the area under present-day Tajikistan had just 400 schoolchildren; in 1967, the Republic had 660,000 schoolchildren. In pre-- revolutionary Uzbekistan, there were no colleges or universities; in 1969--70 as many as 232,000 students attended the Republic's higher educational institutions. In Kirghizia, which also had no colleges of any description, there were 153 students per 10,000 population in 1969--70, not counting those studying outside the Republic. This is double the figure for France and West Germany and four times more than for Turkey.
Living conditions have greatly altered, too, in Mongolia, at one time one of Central Asia's most backward countries, despite the international and internal factors which slowed her development in the early decades, such as deep-rooted religious prejudices, feudal-theocratic vestiges and the old nomadic life, attempts at intervention and subversion by the imperialists and Chinese militarists.
Soviet influence on the international situation, particularly the world-wide national liberation movement, has been immense and many-sided ever since the U.S.S.R. came into existence. Heralding by its very appearance the impending 206 demise of imperialism, the new social system made a great impact on social development in the colonies and semi-- colonies. The national liberation struggle not only became infinitely more organised and stubborn, but also gained valuable new experience.
The great revolutionary ideas of Marxism-Leninism reached the mass of workingmen, peasants and intellectuals in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The friendship and fraternity embodied in the Soviet multinational state have inspired and showed the way to all the oppressed peoples. Everywhere progressive organisations and publications proclaimed that a new era had begun and that the October Revolution had greatly helped to spread the proletarian world outlook with all its world-wide implications. Progressives everywhere took heart from the October Revolution and became confident in their own strength.
The past half-century is not simply a history of bitter strife between capitalism and the bourgeoning forces of socialism; it is also a story of the desperate efforts of monopoly capital to hang on to its colonies; it is a history of the few temporary and tactical victories and the many big strategic defeats of imperialism in this struggle.
Some tactical successes of imperialism against the national liberation movement marked the end of the first and the start of the second stage of capitalism's general crisis. At that time, Britain, France and the U.S.A. were reinforcing their military and political hold in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The Japanese imperialists were endeavouring, with fire and sword, to turn the largest semi-colony of the world---China ---into a colony, and by the end of 1942 had secured control of all the key regions. They even attempted to encroach upon the freedom of the Mongolian People's Republic, whose independence was safeguarded in 1939 with the help of the Soviet armed forces. The German monopolies, which had reared nazism, were now planning to extend their colonial empire across Europe. But during the Second World War the firm bond of interdependence between socialism and national liberation once again convincingly showed its strength. The experience of the two world wars demonstrated that the national liberation struggle can be successful only if socialism hits out at imperialism. As an integral part of world revolution, the movement for national 207 independence can meet with notable and enduring success only if the victorious forces adhere to revolutionary proletarian ideas.
The victory of the U.S.S.R. against the fascist coalition in the last war radically altered the destiny of millions of people oppressed by colonialism. It caused further setbacks to capitalism and generated a fresh tide of socialist revolutions which swept away the rotten capitalist order in Eastern Europe.
Revolutionary forces in the colonies quickly assessed their opportunities for launching a national liberation struggle as the immediate post-war balance of power between imperialism and socialism altered. The peoples rose up against the colonialists, throwing off foreign domination and creating new states on the ruins of the former colonies and semicolonies. The national liberation revolutions pressed home their advantage and put an end to colonial regimes in one country after another. The collapse of colonialism became a characteristic feature of the second stage of capitalism's general crisis.
The national liberation forces met with desperate resistance from the imperialist powers eager to hold on to their colonial possessions. The U.S.A., Great Britain, France and other colonial powers fought hard to retain colonialism all over Asia, Africa and Latin America, particularly China, Korea, Indonesia and Indochina.
The Soviet Union, which had played the decisive part in defeating German nazism and Japanese militarism, continued its determined political struggle after the war against every manifestation of imperialist aggression and colonialism. This smoothed the way for the national liberation movement.
The colonialists, in American, British, French or any other garb, had undoubtedly still great economic, political and military potential, but the power of socialism deprived them of a free hand in the colonies, in grouping their forces to suppress liberation struggles and in acting as they had done in ``the good old days''. Everywhere imperialism had to contend with the Soviet policy of freedom, equality and independence of all peoples. The impressive and diverse assistance given by the Soviet Union, and then by other socialist states and all class-conscious workers in the world, 208 helped the colonial peoples to tip the scales in their favour and win resounding victories.
Immense changes occurred within the colonial system as a result of socialist and national liberation revolutions. In the latter half of the 1960s, the imperialist political system of national and colonial oppression and exploitation entered the final stage of disintegration.
The train of events since the first successful workers' revolution in 1917 has borne out Lenin's forecast that revolution was inevitably a lengthy process through which the workers' fight for a new social system must pass in close association with the anti-imperialist movement:
``The social revolution can come only in the form of an epoch in which are combined civil war by the proletariat against the bourgeoisie in the advanced countries and a whole series of democratic and revolutionary movements, including the national liberation movements, in the undeveloped, backward and oppressed nations.
``Why? Because capitalism develops unevenly, and objective reality gives us highly developed capitalist nations side by side with a number of economically underdeveloped or totally undeveloped nations."^^1^^
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 2. The ConsequencesBy now, about 1,700 million people have escaped from colonial and semi-colonial political dependence. Among the new states, Cuba and several Asian countries have, in varying extent, implemented socialist change; others---Burma, the United Arab Republic, Algeria, Syria, Guinea, the Congo (Brazzaville), Tanzania, Libya and Southern Yemen--- have declared their firm intention to take the socialist path and implement major social change. However, most emergent states still retain a capitalist social system, and some even have vestiges of feudalism, backwardness and economic dependence on imperialism, though many strive to pursue an independent national policy.
The colonial powers are no longer able to extort colonial _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 23, p. CO.
__PRINTERS_P_209_COMMENT__ 14---235 209 tribute by extra-economic means from the newly independent states and are no longer capable of dictating foreign policy to many non-aligned countries. They cannot use the liberated peoples as cannon fodder in their imperialist wars; nor can they normally employ their territories as strategic springboards for imperialist aggression; nor yet can they freely dictate policy on the various national markets, make free with their natural resources, stifle indigenous educational advancement or hamper the revival of national culture.The colonial collapse was particularly cataclysmic between 1944 and 1949 and in the early 1960s. Defeat in the war put an end to Hitler's plans for a Third Reich in Europe, the Italian colonial empire in Africa and the Japanese colonial empire in Asia. The same thing was shortly to happen to the Dutch, British and French colonies in Asia.
In the same period, freedom fighters began to shake colonial regimes in Africa, but they were mostly repulsed. Only after 1957, when socialism had clearly tilted the world balance of power, did the liberation movement in Africa rise again, sweep across the continent and wash away the chains of political dependence in virtually every African country. The African liberation movement gained immensely from the increased economic and military potential of the Soviet Union and the whole socialist community, its international campaign for the freedom and sovereignty of all peoples, the mounting ideological influence of socialism and the rebuff dealt to imperialism, with decisive Soviet assistance, over Suez. In 1960 alone, as many as 17 African states and Cyprus declared their independence; in the following two years, another 10 countries on different continents became independent, to be joined in the subsequent four years by a further 11 nations. Altogether as many as 39 new states, with a total population of 200 million people (1967), came into being between 1958 and 1966.
At the second stage of colonial disintegration, one country in Latin America, Cuba, became the first in the Western hemisphere to break out of the imperialist system and confidently take the road to socialism. This precipitated other changes in Latin America: several countries have stepped up their fight to put paid to their de facto semi-colonial status and have achieved some success. The embittered struggle continues between the liberation fighters and the U.S. 210 colonialists, who have redoubled their efforts to hit back by staging reactionary coups in Brazil, Argentina, Guatemala, Ecuador, the Dominican Republic and elsewhere. The U.S. monopolies are desperately trying to retain and strengthen their colonial domination of Latin America.
By 1970, a number of Afro-Asian and Latin American states, with about 10 per cent of the world's population, remained in varying degree of political dependence on the colonial powers. But, of these, less than a third of the total population lived in de facto colonial conditions, and only 1 per cent (about 33 million) were in territories juridically classed as colonies. These are the Portuguese colonies and the remaining small colonial possessions and protectorates of Great Britain, the U.S.A., Australia and a few other states. In addition, some 15 million non-whites in the racialist Republic of South Africa were in even worse conditions. Further, the U.S.-occupied South Korea, South Vietnam, Taiwan and the Ryukyu Islands are, in fact, colonially dependent on U.S. imperialism.
A number of states in Asia, Africa and Latin America are also variously politically dependent on the imperialist powers, verging sometimes on semi-colonial status, by virtue of being bound by imperialist pacts to military blocs or bilateral agreements to provide military bases, extraterritorial or other rights that violate their sovereignty and put them in a dependent position.
Although the U.S. colonialists have been trying hard to reinforce the pacts they sponsor and even to establish new ones (ASPAC and attempts to set up an Islamic Pact), the fighters for freedom, national independence and progress are working from within to blunt these instruments of aggression and neocolonialism. Some countries have already broken free from U.S.-sponsored blocs; others, though still nominally members, increasingly act on their own and flout the dictates of American imperialism.
The people of the colonies, semi-colonies and dependent countries are stepping up their freedom campaign. And although some have met with defeat, as in Guatemala, Brazil and South Korea, the overall trend is towards success for the anti-imperialist, national liberation movement, universally supported by the forces of socialism.
__PRINTERS_P_211_COMMENT__ 14* 211 __ALPHA_LVL2__ 3. Capitalism and the Developing CountriesLenin constantly reiterated his view that ``economic ` annexation' is fully `achievable' without political annexation and is widely practised".^^1^^ This is precisely what is happening at the present stage of the national liberation revolution. Most of the young states of Asia, Africa and Latin America remain subordinate within the capitalist economic orbit, even after winning political sovereignty. They remain heavily dependent on world capitalist markets, which means the imperialist powers, because the latter are the principal importers of their products and the major exporters of goods which the developing countries need. But their economic dependence is apparent in other ways as well. Capitalist investment in most of the developing countries, after they cease to be colonies, goes on and has been increasing from year to year. Furthermore, most of the developing countries are industrially underdeveloped, so that in 1961 U.S. industrial output per head (including the extractive industry) was 30 times that of the developing countries' average, 76 times greater than in South and South-East Asia, 90 times greater than in India, and almost 120 times greater than in Pakistan.
The developing countries' industrial lag gives imperialism the opportunity to intensify its economic exploitation, while providing the basis of mounting strife between the developing countries and the imperialists. The tendencies towards economic independence and towards greater dependence on the imperialists progressively conflict: this causes the developing countries to renew their anti-imperialist struggle to make themselves economically independent as well.
Most developing countries are still very much bound to the industrially advanced capitalist states which take as much as three-quarters of their exports. Even exports between the developing countries themselves frequently go to firms belonging to the big capitalist powers.
Capital exports have an equally important part to play. In the eight years between 1956 and 1963, the annual influx of private investment into the developing countries ( including reinvestment) amounted to $2,000-2,500 million, in 1964 _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 23, p. 44.
212 to $3,200 million, and in 1965 to $3,900 million. The oil industry was the favourite target of investment. U.S. private investment in the developing countries' oil industry amounted to $1,300 million in 1945,'and to $9,000 million by 1962.^^1^^ In 1965, aggregate private overseas investment in the developing countries was reckoned at more than $45,000 million, with more than $20,000 million in Latin America, some $14,000 million in Asia, and over $11,000 million in Africa.The U.S.A. became the biggest overseas investor after the last war. In the twenty years between 1946 and 1965, U.S. private and government investment in the developing countries grew 7-fold, from $6,000 million to $43,000 million, with special emphasis on Asia and Africa, where the increase was 16-fold---from $1,500 million to $25,000 million.
U.S. government loans showed the biggest increase: they are, in fact, closely associated with political, military and strategic aims and designed to smooth the way for private capital. This goes mainly to countries (altogether some 10 or 15) where there is least danger of nationalisation of foreign assets and where there is either freedom to take profits out of the country or where profits are extremely high and ensure rapid recoupment of capital. Between 1950 and 1965, direct U.S. private investment in the developing countries increased virtually 2.5 times, from $5,500 million to $13,000 million. This investment yielded fantastic profits. The average cost of a barrel of oil extracted by the U.S. oil monopolies between 1951 and I960 amounted to $1.73 in the U.S.A., $0.43 in Venezuela, and only $0.16 in the Middle East.^^2^^
Latin America is an extremely rich hunting ground for the U.S. monopolies. The total U.S. investment there is some $10,000 million. Senator Homer E. Capehart said in a speech in the U.S. Senate in 1957 that U.S. investment in Latin America was extremely lucrative, yielding in one year almost as much profit as the U.S.A. had extended to Latin America by way of loans and subsidies over the previous twelve years.^^3^^ Between 1950 and 1961, Latin America had to repay _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. Volsky, Latin America, Oil and Independence, Moscow, 1964, p. 36 (Russ. ed.).
~^^2^^ Capital Investments by the World Petroleum Industry, Chase Manhattan Bank, New York, November 1901, p. 8.
~^^3^^ Quoted in The National Liberation Movement in Latin America 'Today, Moscow, 1961, p. 6 (Russ. ed.).
213 foreigners over $12,000 million in the form of profits and interest payments on loans.^^1^^ About one-third of Latin America's manufacturing is under foreign control.Profits from U.S. investment in Africa also often cover initial investment in a matter of two or three years.^^2^^ In the mid-1950s the American financial expert Milton Friedman estimated that the U.S.A. had been extracting some $3,500 million a year in profits and dividends from the developing countries. By now it is close to $6,000 million.
What capital remains, after the foreign monopolies have exacted their toll, is normally ploughed back into existing enterprises or new ones in the developing countries. In fact, more than one-half the growth in overseas investment comes from reinvested profits, and only a minor part is imported. Typically, even in recent years only about one-fifth of all overseas private investment has gone into manufacturing. The bulk of investment is directed to the extraction and production of minerals and agricultural raw materials, and semi-finished products.
In 1955, the developing countries' debt amounted to some $9,000 million, but 14 years later it had shot up to $50,000 million, calling for about $5,000 million worth in repayments every year. At the same time, U.N. experts estimate that their gross national product was growing at a much slower rate, so that from being 7 per cent of the G.N.P. in 1955, their debt had increased to 15 per cent in the following ten years.^^3^^ This increase, in fact, implies intensified exploitation of the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America, since their repayments of total interest on loans have risen.
Between 1962 and 1964, the imperialist monopolies managed to depress the prices of goods exported by the developing countries by 12--15 per cent below the 1950--52 prices, while the prices of goods exported by the advanced capitalist states increased by 4-5 per cent. The price index of raw materials and food exported by the advanced capitalist states increased from 100 in 1958 to 108 in 1965, while the price index for raw materials and food exported by the developing countries fell to 94. The price gap has been growing.
_-_-_~^^1^^ The Economic Development of Latin America, United Nations publication. 1963, No. 4, p. 71.
~^^2^^ U.S. News and World Report. June 1965.
~^^3^^ Newsweek, July 12, 1965, p. 38.
214This has greatly aggravated the position of the developing countries, since their export earnings are normally in excess of 20 per cent of the G.N.P., and for some countries, like the Congo (Kinshasa) and Liberia, as much as 50 per cent and over.
Because of the price reductions on agricultural products and minerals, the major exports of the developing countries, the substitution for natural raw materials of synthetic and other materials, and new production techniques, the developing countries' share in export to the capitalist world has recently sharply decreased, even while their volume has grown. Their share in total world exports dropped from 32 per cent in 1948 to 24 per cent in 1960 and to 18.5 per cent in 1967,^^1^^ of which the African share was 4 per cent, the Latin American some 6 per cent and the Asian 9 per cent.
Some developing countries have tried to combat the extraction of an increasing part of their national income by decreeing restrictions on the export of profits, stipulating larger deductions in royalties and output to the state, increasing taxes on foreign firms and other measures. Although this has had some effect, foreign capital has, on the whole, continued to extract an annual income of some $15,000 million from the developing countries within its orbit. This includes super-profits, which the capitalist powers get from the higher prices on commodities imported by the developing countries and the lower prices on developing countries' exports of raw materials, food, semi-finished and finished products, profits on direct and portfolio investments, earnings from marine and air transport and other means of communication providing services for the developing countries, earnings from high insurance premiums, banking operations, exorbitant salaries for consulting and expertise, etc.
Further, the capitalist market employs yet another means of extracting capital from the developing countries, and this also makes a sizable contribution to the above-mentioned sum of $15,000 million. This is large remittances abroad by comprador and feudal elements, and also by the top crust of the national bourgeoisie, who prefer to keep their fortunes in American, Swiss, British or French banks. This funnel is frequently overlooked by economists, yet the amounts involved _-_-_
~^^1^^ New York Times, April 14, 1967.
215 are on the increase and, in future, remittances abroad are likely to be even greater. On the evidence of the U.S. press, the amount of money transfers from Brazil to U.S. banks had topped the $6,000 million mark by the early 1960s. The vast royalties paid bv the oil monopolies to some rulers of developing countries for oil concessions are often deposited in banks in the monopoly's country. The ruler of Kuwait, for example, annually receives over $ 400 million in royalties from the British oil companies; he has become one of the world's richest men, but his fortune is kept chiefly in British and other capitalist banks. By early 1958, he had bought up $750 million worth of British Government bonds, not counting other gilt-edged securities. After the assassination of the king in the Iraqi coup d'etat of 1958, his eightfigure fortune became the property of Swiss banks, since no one but the king knew the bank account numbers and could claim the money. The dictator of such a tiny country as the Dominican Republic was able to remit abroad, chiefly to Europe, some $150 million of the national wealth he had filched.^^1^^ Capitalist countries also hold most of the wealth accumulated by the U.S.-soonsored South Vietnamese and South Korean puppets, and various Indian and Pakistani tycoons.An even larger slice of the national income is being spent by some rulers on such non-productive items as personal luxuries, trips abroad and gay life in the playgrounds of the Western world. Landowners, feudal lords, usurers and speculators are reckoned to be currently squandering about onethird of the total earnings from African, Asian and Latin American agriculture.
Given the capitalist world economy and its inherent and pullulating economic and political contradictions, the newly independent states are obliged to spend considerable resources on military needs. The total amount of military expenditure in Asia, Africa and Latin America was estimated in 1970 as $12.000 million, or about one-half the annual net investment in these countries.
Clearly, then, every year a very large portion of the meagre resources owned by the developing countries is still being withdrawn from their production.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Newsweek, August 10, 1964.
216Figures on G.N.P. distribution give a clear picture of the consequences of the present situation in the relationships between the majority of the developing countries and the imperialist powers. The developing countries' population is over two-thirds of that of the capitalist world, but their gross product is less than one-seventh while their industrial output is one-ninth of capitalist industrial output. In 1965, the developing countries held only 6.5 per cent of the gold reserve of the capitalist world. Wage differentials between them and the industrially advanced capitalist countries amount to as much as 1,000-1,500 per cent, while the economic gap keeps widening from year to year---national income per head has recently been increasing on the average by $60 in the advanced capitalist states and by under $2 in the developing countries.
In attempting to justify this, many bourgeois economists, sociologists and politicians, even some people in the developing countries, try to show that the newly independent states find themselves caught up in a vicious circle of poverty from which there is no way out. Two American economists, Nurkse and Staley, for example, maintain that poverty in developing countries is due to short accumulation, and that is the cause of the lag of the productive forces, which causes poverty, while poverty, in turn, results in insufficient capital accumulation, and so on.^^1^^ Some bourgeois sociologists also contend that the high birth rate in the developing countries is a contributing factor, which demands too big a share of the national income for consumption, leaving too little for accumulation.^^2^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ E. Staley, The Future of Underdeveloped Countries, New York, 1954, p. 260.
~^^2^^ Between 1950 and 1960, the annual production growth per head amounted to 2.7 per cent in the developed countries and 2.2 per cent in the developing countries. The per head gross social product growth in the developing countries has substantially diminished. In the 1950--55 period, it was 2.8 per cent, in 1955--60, 2.1 per cent, in 1960--64, 1.7 per cent (U.N. World Economic Survey, 1965, p. 9). In 1967, it was 1.5 per cent.
The Indian politician and social investigator, K. M. Panikkar, is pessimistic about the current trend. He says: ``The world is on the doorstep of a great translormation which will make the gap between the scientifically advanced and the scientifically backward nations deeper and wider, making the latter more than ever dependent for all essential things on the more powerful nations" (K.~M. Panikkar, The Afro-Asian States and Their Problems, London, 1959, p. 80).
217An American expert on African affairs, Albert J. Meyers, wrote: ``To a traveller who has just crossed and recrossed Black Africa from east to west and north to south, it is clear that it will be a long time before any of these nations can stand on its own feet.'' His pessimistic conclusion about the future is that ``even with massive help, the new African countries won't be transformed into thriving industrial nations. Tropical Africa's future, for as far ahead as anyone can see, is to be mainly that of an agricultural area and a producer of raw materials. ... It is unlikely that a fully civilised society will be achieved in any large portion of tropical Africa in this century."^^1^^
To right the situation, some Western sociologists advocate not only a population standstill in Asia, Africa and Latin America, but a reduction by a quarter or a third, or even by as much as a half. Without promising any escape from the vicious circle of poverty, or even a shortening of the gap in economic levels between the U.S.A., Britain, West Germany, on the one hand, and India, Brazil, Nigeria and other developing countries, on the other, Western specialists have been bombarding the poor nations with advice on how to make slow and steady progress. The essence of this advice is to secure a more favourable climate for foreign business, i.e., to ensure conditions in which the monopolies could get a greater return on their capital, while exploiting the human and natural resources of the developing countries. This is said to be the only way to secure economic progress.
Some bourgeois sociologists and economists, including a number working for the United Nations and its agencies, often recommend that the developing countries should foster a ``balanced diversified economy'', promote industry, make wider use of natural resources, transform rural life by partial agrarian reforms, and try to modernise agriculture and make it more intensive. Many monopoly capitalists would certainly subscribe to this advice, since none of these measures get at the root of colonial economic exploitation. They remain assured that if the developing countries stay bound hand and foot economically and remain committed to the world capitalist market, and if the old social order puts a brake on the productive forces, the situation will basically _-_-_
~^^1^^ U.S. News and World Report, July 5, 1965, pp. 56, 59.
218 be the same. Indeed, it cannot alter appreciably because the cause of the low level of accumulation, slow rate of growth, poverty, backwardness and economic tutelage lies in the prevailing social structure, and the appropriation and export of a substantial part of the national income by foreign capitalists.The imperialists pin their hopes on the absence of local specialists who could contribute to swifter economic and cultural progress. According to U.N. figures on world social problems, more than 700 million people are totally illiterate, not counting the several hundred million children who have not even had a glimpse of primary school; 75 per cent of the world's children today have no secondary education, and they mostly live in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
The education and science programmes drawn up by capitalist experts for the developing countries are based on an extremely slow evolution, essentially on the perpetuation of backwardness. The programme adopted at the 1961 Addis Ababa conference, with UNESCO participation, estimated that African universities would budget for research $40 million in 1970 and $65 million in 1980.^^1^^ Admittedly, the programme said, it would be ideal but totally unrealistic, for the universities to be budgeting as much as $200--320 million. How ridiculously little this is will be seen from current research spending in the industrially advanced capitalist states. With a population smaller than that of Africa, the U.S.A., for example, spent over $20,000 million on research in 1965.
A UNESCO report published at the end of 1963 recommended that because of the lack of resources no more universities be established in Africa until 1980, and that no expansion take place in the existing 32 universities. Only 31,000 students of all the countries of Central Africa ( excluding the Arab countries and South Africa) were receiving a higher education in 1962, including the 42 per cent who were studying abroad. The report proposed a ninefold increase in the student body by 1980, with 10 per cent studying abroad.^^2^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ Impact, Vol. XIV, No. 3, 1964.
~^^2^^ Ibid.
219Seen in the light of the anticipated African population growth by 1980, this programme is patently inadequate and cannot secure a rapid growth of science and technology on the continent. Indeed, the figure of 270,000 students by 1980 is one-fifteenth of the number of Soviet students in 1966, yet the two populations are roughly equal. According to UNESCO data, the whole of Africa has no more than 10,000 scientists. Current plans envisage an increase to 65,000 by 1980. The extent of this deficiency may be gauged by the fact that in 1967 the U.S.S.R. had over 770,000 scientists,^^1^^ which js 11 times more than the 1980 target for Africa.
UNESCO says that the Soviet Union has been allocating 4 per cent of its G.N.P. to research, the U.S.A. 2.8 per cent, France 1.5 per cent, India 0.2 per cent and Africa even less.^^2^^ Current programmes envisage an increase in the Indian share by 1971 to 0.4 per cent, and a slight increase in the African figure. But this sort of growth in research expenditure is wholly inadequate considering the relatively small G.N.P. in the developing countries.
Some bourgeois politicians and specialists insist that there again the less developed countries find themselves caught up in a vicious circle. Panikkar writes: ``In order to take advantage of the progress of science anywhere, a country must have a corps of scientists who are capable of exploiting and assimilating the results of the latest research. Most of the `new' countries in Asia and Africa are in no position to do this. The transformation of their educational system for this purpose is itself a difficult process. Also . . . scientific work cannot progress in vacuum, that is without a background of modern industry, which in its turn is dependent on a high level of technology."^^3^^
It is fair to surmise that the vicious-circle proponents turn a blind eye to the growing gap between the rich and the poor nations, and are motivated solely by the idea that the fundamental economic and social order within the world capitalist system should remain intact, even in the less developed countries. They will not even consider the proposition _-_-_
~^^1^^ U.S.S.R. in Figures for 1968.
~^^2^^ Impact, Vol. XIV, No. 3, 1964.
~^^3^^ K. M. Panikkar, op. cit., p. 80.
220 that the circumstances of economic dependence on the world capitalist market and the existing social order in the less developed countries should be essentially changed. __ALPHA_LVL2__ 4. Socialism and the Developing CountriesThe capitalist mode of production is organically incapable of quickly eradicating the vestiges of feudalism and establishing the prerequisites for a substantially higher living standard in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The persistence of capitalism in these countries provides the imperialist states with opportunities to undermine their sovereignty, and continue and reinforce economic exploitation. Capitalism is replete with massive sacrifice and suffering, inevitably evoking new class conflicts, class struggle, and the consequent social instability, and the threat of constant imperialist intervention. Capitalism poisons the minds of men with chauvinism and racism, corrupting and alienating the peoples, sowing the seeds of hatred between them, and engendering the arms race, national strife and devastating wars.
Socialism is the only solution for nations who really wish swiftly and resolutely to overcome economic and any other backwardness. The socialist system quickly and irreversibly eliminated the backward state of the former Russian Empire, especially Central Asia. The flourishing Soviet socialist republics and the other socialist countries are eloquent testimony to the great progressive role of socialism. A number of African and Asian countries have already started or are just starting on radical socio-economic change; some have achieved noticeable economic, scientific and technological successes. A planned economy is a great asset in obtaining dynamic economic, scientific and technological growth, but it can only be applied effectively and to the full under socialism. Virtually everyone now admits the advantages of a planned economy.
Planning can make an impressive contribution to economic progress in countries that, under the influence of the socialist countries, are adopting the principles of planning, and where a state sector has been created. However, so long as they have not removed all possibility of capitalist or feudal interference, planning by itself cannot surmount the 221 major obstacles in the way of rapid development of the productive forces---economic colonial exploitation and the consequent pattern of national income structure. In these circumstances, the vast resources extracted from the national economy as surplus value or surplus product, partially expatriated or concentrated in the hands of an elite and largely lost to the country, are used unproductively or, at best, with little effect.
Under socialist planning, priority is always given to items of maximum social significance. Moreover, resources are, as a rule, utilised most effectively in the best interests of the whole of the economy and for better living standards. The concerted action of all society, the purposeful involvement of every individual and the entire socialist state, mean that all efforts may be directed to tackling the most pressing tasks and quickly achieving targets of overriding importance for accelerating economic progress and the welfare of the whole nation.
The planned socialist economy precludes economic cyclic crises. The U.S.S.R. has never experienced such crises, while these keep recurring in the capitalist countries. These crises have always weighed heavily on the backward periphery of the capitalist world, since the imperialist powers have always diverted their biggest depression troubles to their colonies. In years when the principal capitalist nations were experiencing an economic depression, the developing countries dependent on the world capitalist market were invariably hit by large and sometimes catastrophic drops of prices on their raw materials and other commodities, gluts of domestic goods, rising unemployment, reduced national income and depressed living standards. The same calamities threaten the developing countries in the future, so long as they remain dependent on the world capitalist economy.
As the experience of even the youngest socialist nation, Cuba, testifies, socialism is able, fully and finally, to end exploitation by the imperialist monopolies, the export of a large part of their national income as profits and interest on capital, the plunder of the population, and the export of riches filched by local parasites.
The socialist mode of production and the truly democratic socialist society provide the requisites for swift progress in the economy, science and technology. Furthermore, socialist 222 relations of production, which rule out all possibility of exploitation and which involve everyone in work for the common good, provide extensive scope for the rapid development of the productive forces. Under socialism, all resources and productive forces are used with much greater effect than in any capitalist country. Socialism ensures the implementation of radical agrarian reforms, satisfaction of peasant and farmer interests, the overcoming of age-old backwardness, industrialisation, the safeguarding of the rights and interests of all working people, including the intellectuals, and solution of the national problem. In a short period of time, socialism can transform a backward impoverished country into a genuinely independent, progressive, flourishing and industrially developed nation.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 5. Prospects for the Liberation MovementAt the present time, there are sound objective and subjective conditions for many countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America taking the socialist road. The national liberation struggle of peoples still exposed to colonial economic exploitation is bound to develop progressively into a struggle for a new socialist system.
For all the welter of conditions and economic and social levels, the developing countries have many points in common and all are in varying degree subject to the influence of the same important factors.
The law governing the correspondence of relations of production and the productive forces equally applies to all social development in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Similarly, these areas are affected by the law of uneven economic and political development, which makes it possible for them to develop in a non-capitalist way and for socialism to triumph in some, even though neighbouring countries may retain a bourgeois or even pre-bourgeois society.
The social strife within the developing countries occurs in conditions in which the socialist world is exerting a progressive and steadily increasing influence on historical development. The impact of the ideology and experience of world socialism is particularly great in those African and Asian countries which are the battleground of transition to socialism.
223A working class has formed in virtually all developing countries, with the exception of a few small African states. Success in the battle for socialism may be assured where the working class, mature in organisation and political awareness, can work in concord with the peasantry and gain its backing; or where, when the working class is very weak, socialist ideas gain the support of great numbers of intellectuals and exert an influence on the urban petty bourgeoisie who, in these historical conditions, play a paramount part in many areas.
In most developing countries the working class is still small and callow. But, if one compares the proportion of industrial workers in the total population of Russia on the eve of the October Revolution with that of industrial workers in many developing countries on the three continents today, the differences do not appear to be so great.
In many developing countries, especially in Latin America, an industrial proletariat has formed and, as was the case in Russia, is grouped around giant plants at which the labour force runs into many thousands. Today, more than one-third of all workers in the capitalist world engaged in the manufacturing, power and extractive industries are in the developing countries. In India alone, the largest developing country, the industrial working class is 20 million-strong. The rural proletariat also constitutes a sizable force in many countries. So, too, do the semi-proletarian masses of artisan poor and the lower sections of commercial and other employees. In the Russia of 1913, the peasantry and artisans together comprised 67 per cent of the population; this corresponds to the situation in many developing countries today.
In 1913, tsarist Russia's industry accounted for 42 per cent of total agricultural and industrial output. Similarly, industrial output makes up a substantial proportion of the total output in a number of young states. Undeniably, there are also countries with a lagging industry. In Ceylon, for example, in 1963 industry accounted for only 11 per cent of combined agro-industrial output, in Kenya 19 per cent, Pakistan 17 per cent, the Sudan and Tanzania 8 per cent, and Uganda 13 per cent.^^1^^ These figures illustrate the great disparity of economic levels.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Yearbook of National Accounts Statistics, 1965.
224It would be wrong to assume that the transition to socialism and success in building socialism depend exclusively on the ratio of industrial workers to the population. These depend primarily not on the degree of capitalisation or industrialisation; Marxist-Leninist theory and experience indicate that socialist revolution and socialist change occur chiefly where imperialism is at its weakest, where both objective and subjective factors are such as to force a breach in the imperialist defences.
This is likely to happen today in developing countries where socialist ideas are strong among the working people, including working intellectuals, some of whom are capable not merely of perceiving and understanding scientific communism, but of helping to implement revolutionary socialist measures. Imperialism is at its weakest also where a country has a militant working class, however small.
The outgrowth of socialist revolution from national liberation revolution, implementation of genuinely socialist change and successful advance to socialism along a non-capitalist way, all imply a number of essential internal conditions: class consciousness and political experience among industrial workers, their firm alliance with the peasant farmers, the working intellectuals and all progressives, their firm resolve to fight and win, and their revolutionary enthusiasm.
In many emergent countries these internal conditions are either absent or are only just maturing, so restraining revolutionary struggle and preventing the liberation movement from taking its struggle a stage further. Where the workers are strong, politically and organisationally, and act in alliance with progressive sections of the population, they can weaken the hold of imperialism and pave the way for its complete defeat. In these circumstances, even a small wellorganised industrial proletariat which is able to establish an alliance with the peasants, comprising often between twothirds and three-quarters of the population, with the urban and rural intellectuals and a major part of the petty bourgeoisie, can lead the way in the revolutionary struggle and take the people to victory.
Revolutionary Marxist Parties have an exceptional part to play as the organised vanguard of the working class. In some parts of Asia, Africa and Latin America there exist wellorganised, militant, revolutionary Marxist-Leninist Parties __PRINTERS_P_226_COMMENT__ 15---235 225 that spearhead the workers' class battles. However, elsewhere, in the 1950s and 1960s such parties were either non-existent or still too feeble to make any effective political and ideological headway. These young parties were yet to exert a political and organisational influence on the masses. Yet, in some countries, where the Parties are forced to operate illegally, their membership is small, but their ideological influence is not at all commensurate with nominal membership. The impact of revolutionary socialist ideas that lead mankind along the road of progress, and reject all that is obsolete, decaying, the vestiges of decrepit feudalism or capitalism, is especially strong because it rests on the experience of the U.S.S.R. and the entire socialist community.
The great power of Marxism-Leninism, and the solid achievements of the Soviet Union and the other socialist states have induced progressive leaders and political organisations of intellectuals and the petty bourgeoisie in some politicallyindependent states and inspired them to include socialism as the basic plank in their platforms. Often, they go beyond lip service to socialism, which is being variously put into effect. Far-reaching socio-economic reforms have already been implemented in Burma, the United Arab Republic, Algeria, Syria, Guinea, the Congo (Brazzaville) and, more recently, Tanzania. These radical changes bear witness that the authorities there really intend to take the socialist road ot development. Their experience largely indicates that even where the productive forces are weak or are at an extremely low level, and where production relations are backward, the political superstructure in the form of state power and political party leadership can exert a substantial influence on the economic basis of society, bringing it in line with the requirements of economic and social progress.
These countries have been variously carrying through consistent general democratic reforms, and, in some instances, taking steps towards socialism: eradicating the survivals of feudalism in agriculture, breaking up the estates and plantations of the big and middle landowners; creating inducements for co-operation of peasant farms, including production co-operation; establishing and extending a state economic sector; forming mass political parties with platforms including many points of genuine national democracy; and enhancing the role of the masses in tackling political issues 226 and participating in politics. Most of them have nationalised key sectors of the economy, sometimes virtually all foreign firms; in some, the state has taken control of big enterprises belonging to private national capital not only in the spheres of industry, but also trade, finance and transport; it has largely expropriated the big national bourgeoisie, and the compradore bourgeoisie, and curbed private capital accumulation.
These young states are, in effect, pursuing an anti-- imperialist policy in foreign relations by adhering to a policy of positive neutrality. They seek to foster friendly economic and political relations with the socialist community, which has been giving them active and substantial assistance in their struggle for economic sovereignty and progress.
A case in point is the United Arab Republic. In 1967, the state controlled over 50 per cent of the national wealth (by contrast with 7 per cent in 1952), while the state sector's share in gross production was 55 per cent; the state paid out about 65 per cent of the annual wage bill. In recent years, some 90 per cent of all capital investment has been going to the state sector, whereas in 1952 it attracted only 25 per cent of investment. With Soviet aid, the U.A.R. is constructing the giant Aswan Dam and hydro-electric station on the River Nile, the first phase of which is already in commission.
In Burma, the state controls all banks and communications and all generation of electricity, more than 90 per cent of trade, 80 per cent of building, 60 per cent of the manufacturing and extractive industries, and 40 per cent of transport. The Central Committee of the Burmese Socialist Programme Party, with its declared intention to democratise the government bodies, has adopted a decision to set up Popular Workers' and Popular Peasants' Councils.
At the beginning of 1967, the Tanzanian Government nationalised all banks and then carried out a number of other far-reaching economic and social measures.
Where radical socio-economic reforms are being promulgated, it is quite common for the big and middle national bourgeoisie (where a national bourgeoisie has had time to form) to have their members in government agencies during the initial period of reform. Their influence, coupled with that of the foreign imperialist bourgeoisie and the world capitalist economy, is still variously felt today, even where 227 the national bourgeoisie has been virtually barred from the major administrative bodies. The bulk of the big and middle national bourgeoisie and landowners, with vigorous support from imperialism, have been stubbornly and fiercely resisting any essential changes leading to socialism.
Imperialism, spearheaded by the United States, has a special hatred not merely for the socialist states, but for all those African, Asian and Latin American countries that strive towards socialism and endeavour to pursue an independent economic and foreign policy. The imperialists keep weaving their web of intrigue, provocation and subversion against these states. In Ghana, imperialist agents succeeded, in early 1966, in staging a counter-revolutionary coup and abrogating the social reforms that had been put into effect. This temporary success of the imperialist forces was facilitated by the inability of the Nkrumah Government to create a really broad and effective base among the people. The reactionaries were also helped by the preservation of many colonial ties (army instructors from imperialist powers, particularly the officer corps, which had received its military training mostly at Sandhurst). They utilised these contacts to undermine and eventually overthrow the government. They were further aided by the lack of ideological clarity and consistency both in the government's policies and in its actions. These and other weaknesses and blunders on the part of the Ghanaian Government were exploited by agents of imperialism as they prepared and carried through their reactionary coup d'etat.
The reactionaries seized power in Indonesia after capitalising on the grave mistakes of the Indonesian national liberation forces. As a result, a reign of terror gripped this vast Asian country for a number of years and resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands of Communists, revolutionary workers and intellectuals, especially teachers, students and progressive peasants. Much still remains obscure in the tangle of events that led up to the scourge of the revolutionary forces in Indonesia. But one conclusion is well warranted: although imperialism and reaction have managed to inflict a very serious defeat on the Indonesian revolution, their triumph can only be temporary, for it rests on a flimsy foundation. The more blatant the concessions the colonialist agents make to the imperialists, by restoring many of their rights 228 and privileges, the more they expose themselves in I he eyes of the people. Nor arc the reactionaries capable of solving the difficult economic problems facing Indonesia. They are not strong enough to deal successfully with the Indonesian peasant issue. They are in no state to swim for long against the tide. History has already pronounced sentence on the forces of reaction, opponents of progress in Indonesia, even though just now they may be wallowing in the blood of revolutionaries and freedom fighters.
When one looks at the situation and prospects for social change in the former colonies and dependent countries, one is immediately aware at every turn of the terrible legacy of colonialism: not only economic but also educational backwardness of the masses, rampant prejudice and deep-rooted superstition, particularly in the countryside. Not infrequently, if villagers have at all heard of socialism, they have but the haziest notions about it and what it might bring them. In such circumstances, socialist reform inevitably runs into formidable difficulties induced by indigenous conditions, as is evident in the experience of the Asian countries that have taken the socialist path. These difficulties are, of course, not insuperable; the Soviet people proved that by sweeping all obstacles from their path as they built socialism, despite the imperialist encirclement, armed intervention, the blockade and devastating wars.
Let us note the great importance of the peasant attitude if a country is to advance along a non-capitalist road and if the national liberation revolution is to grow into a socialist one. The peasants must be roused from their passivity and narrow self-interest and brought into the organised ranks of the revolutionary army, consciously marching beneath the banner of fundamental social reform. If this can be achieved, more than half the battle for social revolution will have been won. Prevailing conditions are certain conducive to the successful accomplishment of this task in many emergent states.
Events have increasingly shown that in the developing countries, even those with a small working class, progressively greater sections of the population and a mounting number of progressive leaders are coming to the conclusion that socialism alone can guarantee a rapid upsurge in the economy and culture, real national sovereignty and freedom. Tanzania's President Julius Nyerere made this perfectly clear in 229 a statement on August 31, 1966, when he said that socialism, with its principle of collective ownership of the means of production, is the only system that meets Tanzania's economic aims. Socialism, he added, is the only alternative for the developing countries in their fight for economic independence.^^1^^
In many developing countries power has been in the hands of the big or middle national bourgeoisie during the national liberation struggle; they have variously shared it with the feudal landowners, and sometimes even with the compradore sections of the bourgeoisie. The petty bourgeoisie, and now and then the working class, tend to exert a certain impact on policies in such states. Depending on the degree of participation in government by the landowners and compradore bourgeoisie or, on the other hand, on the extent of the influence and organisation of the proletariat and of antiimperialist sections of the petty bourgeoisie and intellectuals, the policies of such states are likely to be more or less antiimperialist. To a greater or lesser extent, there is scope here for a bourgeois democratic order and these states fight, with varying resolution, for their liberation from economic colonial exploitation and dependence.
True, the policies pursued by these states are likely to be unstable; the position of the governments themselves is sometimes highly unstable. In trying to cope with assaults from the Left and the Right, these governments are forced to manoeuvre, adapting themselves to the circumstances. Some national-bourgeois governments and parties, well aware of the immense popularity of socialist slogans and endeavouring to enhance their prestige among the people, go so far as to proclaim socialism as their ultimate goal. In practice, however, these bourgeois or landowning bourgeois parties (and their state apparatus) bend all efforts to put obstacles in the path of socialist development. Meanwhile, even if with a marked lack of enthusiasm and consistency, they attempt to secure national political independence and take some steps towards economic sovereignty, trying to weaken imperialist colonial exploitation at home.
One of the major instruments of struggle for these goals is the state sector of the economy, which in these conditions is _-_-_
~^^1^^ Pravda, September 2, 1966.
230 capitalist, despite avowals to the contrary by ruling parties, which often maintain that the state sector is an articulation of socialism. The state-capitalist sector is treated with hostility by the bulk of the big national bourgeoisie, largely because it presents a threat to big business, which tries to use it for its own ends and exploit it to boost its profits.The state sector in the national economies is an issue in the class struggle since it is vigorously supported by the working class and all patriots. The patriotic forces are aware that the state sector enhances the country's position in the campaign for national independence, creates a basis for planned economic growth and a more rational utilisation of resources and, consequently, for accelerating economic progress and improving living standards.
Where corrupt compradore elements have or gain control, the state sector may be used for reactionary ends and may even become an instrument of imperialist penetration of the economy and a means of intensifying colonial exploitation. That is the state of affairs in some Latin American states and Thailand, South Korea, South Vietnam, Taiwan and elsewhere.
The national liberation struggle against the imperialists is closely linked with the class struggle against the reactionary exploiters. In this struggle, the national bourgeoisie normally takes an anti-imperialist and anti-reactionary stand only for as long as the imperialists continue to hold commanding political heights, as long as it cannot scale these heights so as to control capitalist development and exploit the working people. Once it has done so, the national bourgeoisie will make deals with the imperialists and the class of landowners and semi-feudalists. Meanwhile, it will work, in its own interests, for greater economic independence and oppose the policy of the imperialist powers when it is designed to restore military and political supremacy in the lost colonies and semicolonies. The national bourgeoisie strives to diminish economic colonial exploitation chiefly to increase its own share of the surplus product.
When the working class was still weak and the revolutionary Marxist-Leninist Workers' Parties either did not exist or were very small, the anti-imperialist and class struggle brought to power in some countries spokesmen of the working intellectuals and petty bourgeoisie who were often greatly 231 influenced by progressive socialist ideas or were falling under their influence.
In the more than half a century since the world's first socialist revolution, the national liberation revolutionary movement has won many victories and advanced to a new stage, acquiring largely new content and fresh forms. At the present time, it is possible to delineate the following major trends in the national liberation struggle connected with the world socialist revolutionary process:
1. The fight of the peoples in independent states where power is in the hands of revolutionaries---workers, peasants and working intellectuals. Their intention is to turn the national liberation revolution into a socialist one and to take the socialist road. In such countries---the United Arab Republic, Algeria, Syria, Guinea, the Congo (Brazzaville), Tanzania and Burma---the proponents of socialist ideas have to contend both with imperialism, and its whole armoury, and with the anarchic petty-bourgeois property-owners, peasant parochialism and attempts by reactionaries to prevent the bourgeois-democratic revolution from becoming a socialist one.
2. The battle of the peoples in independent sovereign states to contain the military and political expansion of the imperialist powers, especially the U.S. aggression. The imperialists attack young independent states mainly through their own agents, corrupt military cliques, compradore elements, anti-national politicians and big businessmen. On occasion imperialism resorts to direct armed intervention, as in Vietnam, the Congo (Kinshasa) during the reign of the puppet Tshombe, the Dominican Republic, Cyprus and the Middle East, where the Israeli aggression was mounted against progressive governments in the Arab world. In some instances, with the aid of reactionary military coups, the imperialists have achieved temporary success, as in Guatemala, Brazil, Bolivia, Ghana and Indonesia. The anti-imperialist struggle in these countries is frequently intertwined with the battle of progressives for radical social reform.
3. The struggle of sovereign African, Asian and Latin American countries for liberation from colonial economic bondage and for economic independence and progress. This campaign is at its most extensive against the dictates of the imperialist monopolies over prices, against plunder of the 232 national wealth through the export of high profits from invested capital; it is a struggle to bolster the state sector, to extend mutually advantageous economic relations with the socialist countries, to stop foreign capitalists from taking over their national resources.
4. The campaigns of the peoples still languishing in colonial, semi-colonial and other political dependence for their national liberation and the establishment of independent, genuinely sovereign states. These are wars being waged in Angola, Mozambique, ``Portuguese'' Guinea and South Vietnam. In other forms, the same ends are being sought today in Rhodesia, South Korea, Taiwan, Puerto Rico and the remaining few colonies and protectorates. The peoples of the South African Republic, Bolivia, the Dominican Republic and other countries are also fighting for genuine national liberation.
It is often impossible to make a clear-cut division between the various trends in the anti-imperialist struggle. In one and the same country, several trends of the revolutionary liberation movement are sometimes interlinked and manifest themselves simultaneously.
African, Asian and Latin American states take the socialist road in diverse ways, because their peoples and countries are at different stages of social development. Every people has its own specific historical background, every country has its own international position.
Lenin castigated those who insisted upon the presence of ``objective economic prerequisites for socialism" before a country could take the socialist path. He maintained that a people which found itself in a desperate position, but which was faced with a revolutionary situation, could throw itself into the fight to secure the conditions for a more civilised life.
Undoubtedly, the profound and wide-reaching crises in social development also produce a popular revolutionary creativity that is unprecedented in normal conditions. In many developing countries, the requisite conditions must first be created before they can get on with the job of building socialism. In several countries, revolutionary working people, led by their governments, have already started to create these conditions, so that they can then proceed to implement the more profound socialist reforms.
233During and after the last war, due to the prevailing historical circumstances, the dictatorship of the proletariat in several new socialist countries took the form of people's democracy. Together with the Soviet Union, most of these countries formed the community of socialist states and are today successfully building socialism.
But the influence of petty-bourgeois ideas has temporarily prevailed among the leaders of the Chinese People's Republic. The Mao group began a policy of encouraging national parochialism, rampant chauvinism, petty-- bourgeois recklessness, and the personality cult, betrayal of proletarian internationalism and unity of the world communist movement, and replacement of the working class as social vanguard by a movement of pogrom-makers---the hungweiping and the tsaofan.
The Soviet victory in the life-and-death struggle against the anti-communist racist bloc of German, Italian and Japanese imperialists paved the way not only for the successful development in China of the national liberation revolution, but also for its development into a socialist revolution. Yet, in that vast, predominantly peasant country, the internationalist proletarian ideology of Marxism-Leninism in the revolutionary movement coexisted with a strong strain of adventurist, chauvinistic and individualistic ideology of the petty bourgeoisie. This latter ideology had its roots and replenished its forces in the nationalistic and racist traditions of the Chinese ruling classes, ever endeavouring to exert their ideological influence on the revolutionary forces, and in the adventurism, individualism and hero-worship much loved by the petty bourgeoisie.
In 1966--67, Mao Tse-tung and his supporters, backed chiefly by a part of the army command, launched, behind a smokescreen of ``cultural revolution'', an attack on the Communist Party of China, the trade unions, communist youth organisations and various other revolutionary organisations of the working people. To achieve their ends, they engaged schoolchildren and unemployed juveniles whom they herded into ``red guard" organisations. Many Party and workers' organisations were destroyed and demoralised. Having seized power in Peking, the group abandoned the principles of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism, and came out against the unity of socialist and national 234 liberation revolutionary forces. By their actions, the Maoists have isolated themselves from the entire socialist and national liberation movement.
It must be admitted that the betrayal of the cause of socialism by some of the leaders of such a vast country as China was a serious blow to the revolutionary movement throughout the world, including the anti-imperialist national liberation movement in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Imperialism took heart from these developments and intensified its counter-attacks, particularly in South-East Asia and the Middle East.
The past and present of the ``cultural revolution" has had a sinister parallel in Indonesia with the decimation of the Indonesian Communist Party. In China, the hungweiping and the tsaofan, used by the army officers backing Mao Tsetung to smash the Party leadership and all workers' organisations, have much in common with the student and youth bands that were formed and employed by Indonesian army commanders and bourgeoisie prior to the Chinese ``cultural revolution" to smash the Communist Party and other antiimperialist forces. Mao and his associates have, consequently, mastered and rehearsed the methods employed by Indonesian reactionaries to exterminate the Indonesian Communist Party.
The Pentagon's semi-official mouthpiece, U.S. News and World Report wrote on February 20, 1967 that the U.S. officials took Mao's side in his efforts to exterminate the moderate elements in the country. They believed that should he succeed the Soviet Union would have experienced continuous difficulties, and it added smugly that the blood bath in Red China could take on the scale of Indonesia where hundreds of thousands had been massacred.
In its leader of January 17, 1967, The New York Times drew more or less the same conclusions. It stated with satisfaction that it was becoming more evident since August 1966 that Mao was attempting to exterminate the leading state and Party functionaries who had run China during its first 15 years, as well as the Communist Party, the Y.C.L. and trade unions. The following day, the same newspaper reported on the mutual accord reached in the autumn of 1966 on the Vietnam issue as a result of talks between the Chinese and the American ambassadors in Warsaw.
It all points to the temporary ascendency in China, after a 235 lengthy struggle, of petty-bourgeois, anti-Leninist ideas over Marxist-Leninist proletarian ideas; this the Americans are using to further their own aggressive policies. Yet there can be no doubt that the Chinese people, led by the Chinese workers, with their fine militant and internationalist traditions, will not succumb to the policies and practices of a group of leaders who have broken with Marxism-Leninism and have dragged China down into the swamp of chauvinism. This group is incapable of coping with the domestic and foreign issues confronting the Chinese nation. It cannot last long in swimming against the tide of world revolution. History has passed its stern verdict on the reactionaries and the motley crew of deviationists who attempted to resist historical and human progress along the path of scientific socialism. It is quite ridiculous to imagine that scientific communism can be supplanted by the chanting and reiteration of the trite and obscurantist thoughts of Chairman Mao.
Irrespective of the zigzags and ups and downs that occur in various countries and at various turns of history, on the whole the revolutionary struggle of the African, Asian and Latin American peoples will move inexorably forward. The various streams of the national liberation revolution will merge with the streams of class action by the exploited against the bourgeoisie and the landowners. In this struggle, the anti-imperialist and agrarian-peasant revolution, on the one hand, and the proletarian socialist revolution, on the other, will storm the battlements of the old world until they crumble in one country after another.
U.S. monopoly capital is the chief enemy of the African, Asian and Latin American peoples, both those who are still fighting for their economic independence and national sovereignty, and those who are already on the way to socialism. The U.S. bourgeois oligarchy is desperately trying to prevent more nations from opting for socialism, while seeking to maintain colonial economic exploitation, depriving nations of political independence, turning them into semi-colonies, inveigling them into unequal military and political alliances designed to put a halt to the revolutionary national liberation movement.
The Soviet Union, however, with its vast material, moral and military strength, is an insuperable obstacle in the way of the U.S. imperialism. But for the strength of the U.S.S.R., 236 but for the might ol the socialist community, the imperialists would not have hesitated about employing armed force on a wide scale and again subjecting the liberated peoples to cruel colonial bondage.
U.S. imperialism regards the enmeshment of the developing countries in the capitalist world economy, the preservation of the capitalist mode of production and, wherever possible, even the survivals of feudalism, as a preliminary stage to the formation of a sprawling colonial system under the aegis of U.S. monopoly capital. The U.S. imperialists have, by their own actions, nailed their own propaganda myth that the capitalist world has been reformed and that the U.S.A. champions the cause of national sovereignty and democracy against colonialism. The actions of the U.S. monopoly bourgeoisie are vivid evidence of its colonialist designs. Since the end of the last war, it has several times resorted to armed force to further its aims. It has entrenched its colonial domination of South Korea and to this day maintains that domination with the aid of a 50,000-strong occupation army. In Latin America, U.S. monopoly capital is being abetted by puppet cliques, militarists and corrupt politicians who help to perpetuate the U.S. supremacy in most states. And as if to demonstrate to the whole world, especially Latin America, that U.S. imperialism has a lawful right to regard Latin America as its own preserve, the U.S. House of Representatives in 1965 passed a resolution declaring the'U.S. right to armed intervention in Latin America's internal affairs.
The U.S. imperialists have been maintaining their domination and launching new acts oi armed aggression by recourse to the perverse methods of setting Asians against Asians, Africans against Africans, and Latin Americans against their own countrymen.
No matter how U.S. imperialism has tried to mask its colonial aggression in South-East Asia by pietistic assertions that it is trying to contain communism and avowals of readiness to start peace negotiations, the U.S. aggression is there for the whole world to see in all its repulsive nakedness. The invasion of Vietnam and Cambodia and the subsequent policy of genocide and atrocities perpetrated by the U.S. military during the colonial war in Vietnam, have stirred up a fresh wave of hatred against the U.S. colonialists all over the world, especially Asia, Africa and Latin America.
237Present-day colonialism has also employed other methods in a desperate attempt to preserve and bolster its domination, to prevent or at least to curb national liberation revolutions and to stop them from becoming socialist revolutions. Thousands of experts, teachers, ``Peace Corps" envoys, ``missions for progress" and propagandists of every kind are being despatched to Asia, Africa and Latin America. The major capitalist states, with the U.S.A. to the fore, have opened the doors of their educational institutions to young people--- chiefly with privileged backgrounds---from the developing countries. Their aim is to indoctrinate them with bourgeois ideology and to use them as tools of imperialism in their own countries.
The U.S.A. annually admits 20,000 students to its military academies alone.^^1^^ On returning home, many of these graduates of U.S. militarism join military juntas, which ruthlessly repress their own people and barter away their national resources wholesale to the U.S. monopolies.
U.S. imperialism is equally interested in overseas students of the natural sciences and the humanities. Spokesmen for the American National Students Association have admitted that the Central Intelligence Agency has been providing grants for students from Angola, Mozambique, the countries of South-West Africa, Rhodesia and elsewhere whose young people are studying both in the U.S.A. and Western Europe. Even the U.S. press has had to admit that the C.I.A. has been trying to turn foreign students into spies operating against their own countries.^^2^^
Moreover, C.I.A.-controlled government agencies in the U.S.A. have, with White House approbation, used corrupt American labour union officials to undermine the labour movement elsewhere, particularly Latin America. The C.I.A. was behind the strikes against the progressive administration of Dr. Cheddi Jagan in Guyana. After a series of subversions and at the cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars in ``welfare funds" and graft to union officials, with occasional resort to cloak-and-dagger tactics, the C.I.A. _-_-_
~^^1^^ Education rind Training in the Developing Countries, New York, 1966, p. 164.
~^^2^^ New York Times, March 30, 1967.
238 succeeded in replacing Guyana's progressive government with its own agents.^^1^^U.S. imperialism has been manipulating its paid agents within student organisations and trade unions, newspapermen's associations and academic bodies, and any other channel at its disposal, in order to shore up resistance to the national liberation movement and restore colonial dependence in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The colonialists have been trying to strengthen their positions also by means of military, economic and technical ``assistance''.
Yet, at the same time, the U.S. monopolies have been staging an extensive ``man hunt" in the developing countries for every type of specialist---engineers, doctors, sociologists, geologists and architects---enticing them to the U.S.A. with the prospect of higher salaries than they receive at home. As a result, the developing countries, already suffering from a dearth of specialists, are being deprived annually of thousands of qualified men. According to official U.S. estimates, the brain drain in fiscal 1965--66 involved some 30,000 specialists who went to the U.S.A., including 9,000 from Asia, South America and Africa.^^2^^ This brain drain from the developing countries has been growing.
In this situation, Soviet assistance to Asia, Africa and Latin America becomes even more vital. Besides affording moral support to the national liberation revolutions in their fight against imperialism, the Soviet Union has been collaborating with the young states to establish a sound national economy, to break their dependence on capitalist markets and to promote equal and mutually advantageous economic ties with the world socialist market. It has been further helping them to put through radical socio-economic changes, to take the socialist path, and to defend themselves against imperialist aggression.
The Soviet working people have extended the hand of friendship to the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America because they consider it their internationalist duty to give them all possible assistance. The Soviet Union has concluded agreements on economic and technical collaboration with as many as 35 developing countries. The total amount _-_-_
~^^1^^ Ibid., February 23 and April 3, 1967.
~^^2^^ Ibid., May 2, 1967.
239 of Soviet credits granted to the developing countries has now topped 5,000 million rubles, of which 3,000 million rubles has gone to Asia.The volume of trade between the Soviet Union and the developing countries is evidence of the rapidly growing deliveries of Soviet machinery, equipment and other commodities that are badly needed by the developing countries, and of the Soviet purchase of goods on mutually advantageous terms. Between 1955 and 1965, Soviet trade with the developing countries increased more than 6-fold,^^1^^ while their share in total Soviet foreign trade with non-socialist countries improved from 25 to 38 per cent. The proportion of plant and equipment in Soviet exports to the developing countries in 1964 amounted to 48 per cent; this included 77 per cent of exports to India, 69 per cent to the United Arab Republic, 67 per cent to Guinea and 66 per cent to Afghanistan.
With Soviet assistance, some 32 developing countries have already commissioned more than 260 enterprises and installations, while another 400 are now under construction, including 120 higher and specialised educational institutions and medical establishments. In the Arab states, in particular, 140 industrial and other installations had been commissioned by the end of 1968, and another 140 are being built. Among the projects constructed or under construction with Soviet financial and technical aid are such giants as the Bhilai Iron and Steel Works in India, the Euphrates hydropower complex in Syria, and the Aswan Dam and hydroelectric power station on the Nile. Today tens of thousands of Soviet specialists are rendering technical and other assistance abroad.
But figures will not gauge the moral and political support given by the Soviet Union to the national liberation struggle of the oppressed peoples, and the ideological impact of the U.S.S.R. on social development in the liberated areas. The successful construction of socialism and the progress made in building a communist society have evoked the admiration of progressives everywhere. Lenin's maxim that the Soviet Union exerts its greatest influence on the international revolution by its economic policy is gaining more evidence every year.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Soviet Foreign 'Trade 1959--63, Moscow, 1965, p. 10 (Russ. ed.); Soviet Foreign Trade 1965, Moscow, I960, p. 10 (Russ. ed.).
240At a time when the major contradiction in the world is that between dying reactionary imperialism and the growing world of socialism, the growth of national liberation revolutions into socialist revolutions is an objective necessity. For that reason, despite imperialism's frantic resistance, the switch to socialism of more and more countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America is inevitable.
For all progressive humanity, the Soviet Union---the pioneer of communist construction---represents the New World; the peoples lighting for emancipation from all and every form of colonialism and exploitation strive towards that New World. The U.S.S.R. is the revolutionary vanguard of the whole world.
Undoubtedly, the final decades of this century are sure to witness fresh triumphs of socialism throughout the world, especially Asia, Africa and Latin America. The activities of socialist forces will continue to determine the main line of historical development in the countries of these three continents, as in the rest of the world.
The community of socialist states, the workers of the world and all truly democratic forces, are deeply interested in the early triumph of socialism in the developing countries. The more countries there are contributing to the promotion of a world economy, culture, science and technology, the faster human progress will be. At the same time, Africans, Asians and Latin Americans can more quickly overcome their backwardness and attain a high economic and cultural level, and a flourishing and happy life, if they adopt the socialist mode of production and the socialist social order. When this happens, human progress will be even more spectacular than we can imagine.
The Report given at the 24th Congress by General Secretary of the C.P.S.U. Central Committee L. I. Brezhnev emphasised: ``The main thing is that the struggle for national liberation in many countries has in practical terms begun to grow into a struggle against exploitative relations, both feudal and capitalist."
[241] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter Six __ALPHA_LVL1__ THE SOVIET UNION IN WORLD AFFAIRS __ALPHA_LVL2__ [introduction.]With the triumph of the socialist revolution in Russia, the major class contradiction of the 20th century---that between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie---was extended to international relations. The revolution marked an essential change in the system of international relations of the imperialist epoch. From the outset, Lenin had stressed that ``foreign policy and international relations have been the main questions facing us".^^1^^
The Soviet Union's role in world affairs has been constantly growing, as is apparent from the changing balance of strength between the two systems in favour of socialism, from the shifts in international relations, from the establishment and promotion of fraternal co-operation within the socialist community, from the establishment of an alliance between world socialism and the young African and Asian states fighting imperialism, and from the struggle of all peaceloving forces for a relaxation of international tension, and peaceful coexistence between states with differing social systems.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 1. Crisis of Imperialist Foreign PolicyThe establishment of the Soviet state signalled the inception of a basically new socio-economic system to which the laws of capitalist international relations no longer applied. The laws of capitalist politics ceased to be universal, as they had been before October 1917, and became limited. The geographical, economic and political spheres of imperialist domination were substantially reduced, and international relations were no longer completely determined by the _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 28, p. 151.
242 regularities of imperialism; socialism and its laws came to exert an increasing influence on world affairs.The consequences of the October Revolution, furthermore, were not confined to the escape from the imperialist system of a vast country straddling two continents. Simultaneously, imperialist policy found itself gradually being restricted both within the capitalist world and in relations between capitalist powers and their colonies and dependencies. In a comparatively brief period, the young socialist republic not only established its right to existence, but year by year enhanced its international status, thereby causing a further change in the objective world situation.
The origination of a social system founded on socialist principles and diametrically opposed, by its very nature, to capitalism meant a radical shift in the pivot of international contradictions: from the inter-imperialist sphere it moved to that of relations between the two systems. Since the October Revolution, the socialist-capitalist confrontation has been the major contradiction in the world. Correspondingly, imperialist policy became obsessed with its relations with socialism, in the light of the completely new situation which posed quite different problems.
For the capitalists, the familiar categories of war and peace acquired a somewhat new meaning and form in relation to the socialist system. Until then, imperialism had known wars between imperialists, wars against small and weak states, and colonial wars. But war against a socialist state proved to be something quite new in class essence and meaning. Until then, imperialism had known only a precarious peace between states with similar social systems imposed by force or a piratical peace imposed on small states or colonies. Now, there arose the problem of maintaining peaceful relations with a socialist state. This was a new and unknown type of peaceful relationship requiring a complete review of traditional policy.
Socialism influenced imperialist policy not merely by posing the major problem of contemporary world policy--- relations between the two social systems. It also forced the capitalists to adapt their inter-imperialist relations to take cognisance of the existence and influence of socialist foreign policy. The issue of war and peace between the imperialist powers could no longer be resolved without consideration of __PRINTERS_P_243_COMMENT__ 16* 243 the existence of a socialist state. There emerged a new sphere of inter-imperialist conflict over the issue of what attitude to take towards socialism. The unity of imperialist policy, in its campaign against socialism, has frequently broken down as a result of these mounting conflicts. And the idea of a capitalist crusade against socialism has more than once come to grief.
Soon after the October Revolution, a dual attitude towards the socialist system was discernible: either it had to be destroyed by force, or some form of modus vivendi had to be worked out. The struggle of these two tendencies split the capitalist countries and polarised the political forces within each country and even within their ruling circles. The policy of each separate capitalist power in relation to socialism formed out of the clash of these tendencies.
Socialism further influenced world capitalist policy by forcing the imperialist powers to take account of the existence of the socialist state and its foreign policy, when they framed their common strategy in relation to the world revolutionary process, whether it be the class struggle within capitalist society or the national liberation struggle.
The new integral principles and practices of socialist foreign policy were bound to make their mark on international relations, and this significance became immense as the Soviet Union's influence on world affairs grew. The establishment of the socialist community meant a further shrinking of the sphere of imperialist policy, as socialist foreign policy began to exert an increasing influence on the direction of world development and the form and content of world affairs in general. Whatever sphere or issue it affected, the impact of socialist foreign policy on world events and international relations became progressively more profound and all-embracing, as socialism gained ground and the general crisis of capitalism worsened.
Objective processes of change in the international balance of class forces lie behind the shifts transforming world affairs. The arrangement and balance of class forces, both material and moral, have determined not only the international situation at any given historical moment, but the trends in world affairs and the ways and prospects for resolving the major international issues, and in this the balance of strength between the two systems---socialism and 244 capitalism---has a decisive part to play. The struggle between them, the shifting balance of strength between the two systems, constitutes the key issue of international relations.
Undeniably, economic development and its associated military power are of paramount importance in determining the balance of power between the two systems. Nonetheless, the problem cannot be reduced to a straight comparison of material factors, to say nothing of a collation of military potentials in the narrow meaning of the term. MarxismLeninism takes full consideration of the part played by moral and political factors.
The Soviet Union has immense economic and military power, but this by no means lessens the weight of moral and political factors in the aggregate balance of world forces. Such factors as Marxist-Leninist ideas, socialist humanism, fresh triumphs of socialist democracy, and the ideas of peace and friendship between peoples that permeate Soviet foreign policy have all been exerting an increasing influence on the minds and hearts of millions of people all over the world and enabling all progressives to consolidate their position.
The world balance of power is by no means stable or given once and for all. It undergoes constant change and is a complex dialectical process, expressive of the interaction of numerous objective and subjective, permanent and transitional, at times contradictory and antagonistic, factors. Certainly, vacillations will occur, but, on the evidence of the last half century, the major direction and historical course of development is change in favour of socialism to the detriment of capitalism.
This change does not come about by itself, but is a natural consequence of the policy pursued by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which is designed to boost the material, moral and political power of the Soviet Union, to enhance its defensive capacity, and to increase its influence. This state of affairs was made possible by the Soviet people's historic exploit.
The tremendous labour effort involved in putting the Soviet economy on its feet after the Civil War, the creation of the material and technological basis of socialism and then the triumph of the new social system, paved the way for a further change in the balance of strength and the 245 ultimate defeat of the fascist aggressors in the last war, in which the forward detachment of imperialist reaction, nazism, attempted to destroy the socialist state.
Capitalism was further rocked by socialist revolutions elsewhere in Europe and Asia. The formation and strengthening of the socialist community and the upsurge of the working-class and national liberation movement exacerbated the general crisis of capitalism and weakened its hold on world affairs.
The vast increase in Soviet strength and successful economic progress in the other socialist countries were the major factors that tilted the balance of power in socialism's favour. The fundamental changes taking place in the world at large show beyond all doubt that the major line of history is being determined by the world socialist community and the forces opposing imperialism and working for the reconstruction of society on socialist lines.
These cardinal world changes have left their mark on all the processes in present-day capitalism. Imperialism, which the October Revolution had deprived of its monopoly of world affairs, has now ceased to be the dominant world force it once was. Socialism has been exerting an ever greater influence on the development of international relations.
What chiefly distinguishes the world of the mid-1960s from that of 1917 is the vast growth of socialism---morally and materially. In the U.S.S.R. socialism has triumphed once and for all, and the country has now moved on to the next phase, the construction of communism. Not only has socialism triumphed in other European and Asian countries, it has also made inroads on the American continent. Imperialism has been unable to stem the tide of the national liberation movement which is backed by the socialist countries. The world revolutionary process has become an irrepressible force.
Grayson Kirk, President of Columbia University, declared: ``The fact remains that the Soviet Union has survived through great internal and external trials---for nearly half a century. Today ... its internal effectiveness, stability and popularity are greater than at any time in its history."^^1^^ In his book, Winning Without War, the American sociologist, _-_-_
~^^1^^ Foreign Affairs, October 1964, p. 5.
246 Prof. Amitai Etzioni, says that ``...the Soviet Union is a highly developed industrial state with an economic growth rivalling, if not excelling, that of the United States; it is fully equipped with nuclear weapons and is a global power comparable to the United States".^^1^^The revolutionary realignment of world forces is leading to a radical change in the nature and structure of international relations. In the new circumstances, the crisis of imperialist foreign policy has become unprecedented; it was precipitated chiefly by the erosion of the world imperialist system and the appearance of an antithetic social system--- socialism. The crisis occurred, moreover, as a result of the abolition of the integrated inter-imperialist network of international relations. Since the main goal of imperialist foreign policy is the urge to world domination, the birth of a socialist state became an insurmountable obstacle to the attainment of this goal. A completely new situation arose when socialism and its new type of foreign policy came onto the scene, because relations between the two systems immediately became the main pivot and the key issue in world affairs.
The failure of imperialist politics and strategy has never been more apparent than it is today. There has been, first, a crisis of aim in imperialist politics and strategy that broke out in 1917, when it had the intention to stifle socialism and world revolution at birth. Imperialism has been unable to do this. Given the current world balance of strength between the two systems, the socialist countries and the working people in capitalist states can compel imperialism to keep the peace and, in many cases, to pursue a policy of peaceful coexistence with the socialist world. This is not simply a natural consequence of the unfolding of world revolution over the past 50 years, but is also the result of a deliberate and purposeful foreign-policy action by socialism to ensure the best---strategically and tactically---peaceful conditions for mankind's further and more rapid advance along the road of social progress.
Second, there is a crisis in the methods---economic, ideological, political and military-strategic---used by imperialist leaders to achieve their ends. Economically, it proved _-_-_
~^^1^^ A. Etzioni, Winning Without War, New York, 1965, p. X.
247 impossible to repress socialism, either at birth, after the October Revolution, or after the last war, which had inflicted untold damage on the economy of the Soviet Union and the new socialist states of South-East Europe. In the succeeding years, economic blockade as a means of combating socialism also proved a failure. In the economic competition with socialism, capitalism has been gradually giving ground.Capitalism is also on the retreat in the war of ideas. Throughout the world, the ideas of socialism are gaining popularity among ever wider sections of the population. One of the major results of the victorious advance of progressive ideas is the crisis of anti-communism. Born long before the October Revolution, this reactionary ideology became the cornerstone of imperialist foreign policy after the Revolution.
In the more than 50 years since the October Revolution, the ideology and policy of anti-communism have suffered repeated defeats, but it was at the turn of the 1960s that this became quite clear to realistically minded men in the capitalist world. The eminent American Senator, J. William Fulbright, wrote: ``It is neither possible nor desirable under the conditions of our time to impose by direct action the ideas and values of Western democracy on the Communist world or even on the turbulent emerging societies of Asia, Africa and Latin America."^^1^^ Many bourgeois politicians and scholars in the United States are coming to realise that a foreign policy of anti-communism can only bring disaster upon their own country. S. Lens, for example, says that American ``strategy is out of tune with reality.... If America's catastrophe is not yet fully apparent, it is merely because the world revolution ... is only in its incipiency".^^2^^
In world affairs, imperialism no longer holds key positions for control of all areas and events. International relations have come a long way from the era of imperialist omnipotence. The imperialist powers, recognising their inability to respond to the socialist challenge in social and economic _-_-_
~^^1^^ J. William Fulbright, Prospects for the West, Cambridge, Mass., 1963, p. VIII.
~^^2^^ S. Lens, The Futile Crusade. Anti-Communism as American Credo, Chicago, 1964, p. 79.
248 affairs, tried to find a purely military way of resolving the conflict between the two systems.Imperialist politicians hope that nuclear blackmail will upset communist construction in the U.S.S.R., block the progress of world socialism, enfeeble world revolution and suppress the national liberation movement. The irresponsible masterminds of imperialist strategy are potentially capable of unleashing a thermonuclear war even though it would inevitably not only bring untold disaster to their own countries but also put paid to the whole future of capitalism as a system. These military and political factors lend a particular explosiveness and danger to present-day international relations.
But military strategy has not helped imperialism either. Although it is still extremely dangerous, it cannot attain its major goal: destruction of socialism and suppression of the national liberation movement.
The dialectics of history are such that objective world social development now seems to block any disastrous course. Within the short space of time that deadly weapons in the hands of the imperialists became a real threat to humanity, socialism redressed the balance of power between the two social systems. World socialism, having advanced to the forefront in economic, political and cultural development, received at that momentous hour of history the most up-to-date modern weapons from the Soviet people, which they put at the service of peace. The socialist nuclear-missile armoury is in this day and age an effective deterrent to those who would otherwise unleash world war, and it is sufficient guarantee of their defeat if the most reckless imperialists start a war.
The growing crisis of imperialist foreign policy is also replete with mounting inter-imperialist contradictions that have shaken the economic and political alliances sponsored by the U.S.A. since the war. Today, the capitalist world stands at the threshold of a new phase of inter-imperialist contradictions that promises even fiercer competition and struggle both between the blocs and within them. Imperialist political disintegration has been seriously affecting every attempt at capitalist economic integration. The global network of imperialist military blocs set up at the turn of the 1950s, particularly NATO, its nucleus, has shown signs of 249 deep-going fissures. France's withdrawal from NATO's military organisation caused the organisation a serious internal shock which calls for its complete overhaul. The U.S. columnist Walter Lippmann wrote: ``Our relations with Europe have changed so radically . . . that the European policies which were worked out in the postwar period are out of date. The policies have become so irrelevant in the actual situation that our influence on developments has become negligible."^^1^^
The crisis of imperialist foreign policy is also evident in the various spheres of international relations, particularly in the attitude towards the world revolutionary process, the socialist countries first and foremost.
Indeed, imperialist ideologists and politicians have desperately tried to learn from the sad lessons of the past half century and have by no means been innocent bystanders of contemporary world events. They have tried hard to extricate their foreign policy from its state of crisis. Former U.S. President, Lyndon B. Johnson, as much as admitted this when he said that the world was changing and that U.S. policy should reflect present-day realities and not those of yesterday. But in practice, U.S. policy is as far as ever from these realistic considerations, as the U.S. aggression in Vietnam even more amply demonstrates.
Feeling that a world thermonuclear war would be suicidal, but reluctant to relinquish the main planks of its policy, the imperialist bourgeoisie has tried to implement its global aims through local wars, which it believes to be less dangerous for itself. This is a policy that finds favour, for example, with the former Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Strategic Air Command, General Thomas Power, who considers it necessary above all to secure the indisputable military supremacy of U.S. imperialism and, with the help of restored ``positions of strength'', to pursue a ``tough policy" on a global scale, without shunning local wars if they seem to pay off in terms of aims.^^2^^
This irresponsible and anti-historical policy is also embodied in the theory and practice of escalation of the Vietnam war and in the urge of the West German militarist circles to _-_-_
~^^1^^ Newsweek, August 1, 1966.
~^^2^^ T. S. Power, Design for Survival, New York, 1965.
250 implement a rcvanchist programme of revising the results of the last war and swallowing up the German Democratic Republic, to gain access to nuclear weapons, to hamper a detente and build up the threat of war in Europe. However impracticable and utterly hopeless such a course may be, this does not lessen its objective dangers, because in some circumstances it could very well cause a nuclear catastrophe.Indisputably, the most important area of imperialist foreign policy is its attitude to the Soviet Union, which also focuses the imperialist attitude to the world revolutionary process, because the U.S.S.R. is the backbone of the socialist community, and the socialist community is in the forefront of the battle for world revolution.
Two fundamental trends contend with each other in the imperialist attitude towards the U.S.S.R. and the other socialist states: acceptance of peaceful coexistence in one form or another, and preparation for an aggressive war. Unable to make up their mind decisively between these two trends, the imperialists have been switching from the one to the other, depending on the circumstances.
The present alignment of forces, including the military potential of the two systems, deprives imperialism of the capacity to implement its major class aim---that of destroying socialism and suppressing the revolutionary movement by means of a world thermonuclear war. This fact actually encourages the trend forcing the capitalist powers towards peaceful coexistence between states with different social systems. The U.S. diplomat and writer, George F. Kennan, favours this policy when he says that ``the West has no choice but to accept the quest for peaceful coexistence as the basis for policy toward the countries of the Communist world".^^1^^
There is no doubt that peaceful coexistence, rejection of military means in resolving socialist-capitalist world conflicts, and peaceful economic competition are the most sensible answer. Every time a capitalist power, big or small, departs from the bankrupt aggressive policy and pursues an independent and realistic foreign policy of co-operation with the socialist nations, it invariably achieves tangible economic _-_-_
~^^1^^ G. F. Kennan, On Dealing with the Communist World, New York, 1964, p. 21.
251 and political results which are beneficial to it and to other nations, and enhances its own authority and role in world affairs.France, Italy, Austria, Japan and Finland especially have gradually extended their economic and political contacts with the socialist countries in recent years, thereby demonstrating that some bourgeois politicians are becoming more realistic in their thinking and more or less correctly evaluating the balance of power in the world, though by no means suddenly enamoured of benevolent pacifism or philanthropy, or even reconciliation with the new social order. Being obliged by history itself to make a public confession of the need for peaceful coexistence, some imperialist ideologists and politicians are nonetheless motivated by a perverse understanding of relations with the socialist nations. They wish to entrench the status quo so as to prevent any further shifts in the balance of strength in favour of the revolutionary process.
The whole point of the various status quo formulas advocated by imperialist politicians is that the West can come to terms with the idea of peaceful coexistence on one important condition: the socialist community must give a `` guarantee" that there will be no revolution in any area within the present boundaries of the capitalist world. This is, of course, utterly unrealistic. In the latter half of the 20th century, when social and national liberation revolutions have matured and are rapidly making headway all over the world, it is patently ridiculous even to talk of a status quo, to say nothing of ``guarantees'' from the Soviet Union or other socialist countries.
It is the inalienable right of all nations freely to restructure their own social and political life in accordance with their own wishes and the most progressive ideas of the age--- socialism and communism. The Soviet Union respects and protects this right, convinced that the principle of peaceful coexistence is not applicable to relations between oppressed and oppressors, between colonialists and the victims of colonial tyranny. Peaceful coexistence implies complete noninterference in the internal affairs of every nation, which must develop in accordance with the objective course of history.
Some imperialist spokesmen continue to seek a way out 252 of their foreign-policy crisis basically by pursuing the old discredited policies of the past 50 years. The policies of the most rabid imperialists are designed to turn the clock back 50 years and have a ``replay'' of the historic battle that commenced in 1917 and brought about the swing to socialism. They still cling to the Dulles-inspired ideas of ``rolling back communism" and ``regaining lost ground'', endeavouring to destroy world socialism, if not in a direct frontal attack, then by any other means, like driving a wedge into the ranks of the socialist countries.
Since the early 1960s, a fresh approach towards the socialist community has emerged among the imperialists. They have tried to diversify and make more flexible their whole arsenal of weapons; they have begun to differentiate their strategy and tactics in relation to the various socialist nations: escalation in Vietnam goes hand-in-hand with ``bridge-building'' in Eastern Europe.
This latter policy is designed ``peacefully'' to draw the European socialist states into the capitalist ``free world'', and is to a great extent a matter of necessity for the West, many of their politicians being convinced of the ineffectiveness of the policy of threat and blockade in relation to Eastern Europe.
The socialist countries' growing might and their enhanced status in world affairs have compelled many realistically minded capitalist politicians to recognise the need for peaceful coexistence between states with different social systems. To a certain extent, this is manifested in the `` bridge-building" policy.
Furthermore, this policy is a new version of imperialist strategy in relation to the European socialist countries, with the intention of dividing them and detaching them from the Soviet Union. The Western powers base their hopes particularly on a resurgence of nationalism in some socialist countries and the consequent weakening of socialist unity. Columbia University President Grayson Kirk says: ``We should be prepared to take advantage of all opportunities arising from the growing trends toward nationalism to encourage individual Eastern European states in the Communist orbit toward greater independence of action vis-- avis Moscow."^^1^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ Foreign Affairs, October 1964, p. 12.
253The socialist countries are firmly opposed to the imperialist aim of ``bridge-building'' to split the socialist community. A Hungarian leader, Gyula Kallai, has summed up the socialist view, when he said: ``We naturally also want to promote contacts with capitalist states, but this cannot alter one iota our determination to continue our close collaboration and concerted action with the Soviet Union and other socialist states, because they are the linn foundation of our independent foreign policy. . .. We will never bargain over our socialist system and our gains."^^1^^ The same idea was expressed by Todor Zhivkov, the Bulgarian head of government, who said that the socialist states were in favour of establishing economic contacts with the capitalist countries ``on the principle of mutual benefit and equality, but without any form of political diktat".^^2^^
Ideological influence on the socialist states is becoming one of the most prominent weapons in the imperialist armoury. Ever on the look-out for difficulties and deficiencies in any socialist country, the imperialists see it as their mission to ``soften up" socialism, politically and ideologically. They seek to undermine the solidarity and co-operation of the socialist states, sow the seeds of mistrust among them and fan nationalist fervour.
In its estimate of the growing ideological struggle between imperialism and socialism, a Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee of the C.P.S.U. in April 1968 warned that because of imperialism's difficulties and the failure of its policy, the imperialists were embarking on political adventures and making desperate efforts to get results from their subversive political and ideological campaign against the socialist countries and the whole democratic movement.
In this situation, it was especially important for all Communist and Workers' Parties and all revolutionary forces to stand firm on the ideas of Marxism-Leninism, the principles of socialist internationalism, and to be flexible and realistic, though implacable towards imperialist aggressors.
Imperialist policy is just as contradictory and doublefaced towards young sovereign states. On the one hand, imperialism continues to perpetrate political and military _-_-_
~^^1^^ Tdrsadalmi Szcmle No. 7, 1964, p. 21.
~^^2^^ Rabotnichcsko Dyclo, September 18, 1965.
254 crimes against the peoples of these countries in an attempt to put down the national liberation movement. This is particularly evident in the U.S. aggression against the people of Vietnam. On the other hand, imperialist politicians strive to keep the newly liberated countries within the capitalist orbit, subordinating many Asian and African states to their own designs by using more flexible and ``liberal'' political, economic and ideological devices, by rendering them all types of ``aid'' and ``patronage''. This contradictory nature of imperialist policy is another sign of the worsening crisis of imperialist foreign policy.Basically, imperialism is pursuing a policy of ``historical revenge" with the purpose of altering the world balance in its favour. But this is a historically objective fact that cannot be altered, even though imperialism may gain some success here and there. In the broad historical plane, the alignment of world forces in socialism's favour is irreversible.
The active foreign policy of the socialist states, and their constructive proposals on all major international issues are factors that exert a growing influence on people from all walks of life in the various countries, so much so that capitalist leaders are no longer able to reject out of hand, as they once did, the serious and enterprising proposals of the socialist countries for safeguarding peace and international security. Even the most reactionary imperialist politicians must recognise that today the socialist states arc taking an active part in international affairs.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 2. Relations Within the Socialist CommunityThroughout the ages, relations between countries were determined by the policy of the ruling exploiting classes, which sought to turn nations against each other and to use one nation to suppress another. It was only after the first socialist state came 011 the scene that the foundation was laid for basically different foreign relations.
The prerequisites for these relations matured under the capitalist mode of production. When the previously isolated national economies became linked in a single world capitalist economy, they engendered the material conditions for the future world socialist economy. As the emancipation 255 struggle against capitalist tyranny developed, proletarian international solidarity was born and grew strong, providing the spiritual conditions for the future world socialist economy.
Lenin had foreseen that more and more countries were bound to fall away from the capitalist system. He based his view on a strictly scientilic analysis of capitalism and imperialism, its highest stage. The various links ol the capitalist chain broke at different periods due to the law of uneven development of capitalism and the uneven maturing of socialist revolution in the various countries.
Almost three decades after the October Revolution, socialism still developed in only two countries, the Soviet Union and the Mongolian People's Republic. By the end of the last war, the political power of the imperialists had waned in many parts of Europe and Asia. The working-class and democratic movement began to come to the fore in political affairs. Even during the war, the Resistance, which had contributed so much to defeating the nazis, was interspersing its anti-fascist slogans with demands for social reform. In a number ot European and Asian states, Communist Parties spearheaded the popular movement and were elaborating programmes for post-war reconstruction and struggle for socialism; by the end of the war, organs of popular power were already operating in some liberated countries. The anti-fascist and revolutionary movement became particularly extensive in Central and South-East Europe when the Soviet Army began its liberating mission.
In November 1943, the National Liberation Committee of Yugoslavia was established and became the supreme executive body in people's Yugoslavia. In July 1944, a revolutionary democratic government was formed in the liberated part of Poland. A month later, on August 23, a popular uprising in Rumania overthrew the fascist dictatorship. Almost simultaneously, uprisings broke out in Slovakia and Communist-led local bodies of popular power were established. On September 9 of the same year, a popular uprising in Bulgaria was successful. In October 1944, a provisional government was formed in the liberated part of Hungary and declared war on nazi Germany. And in November of the same year, the Provisional Democratic Government of Albania came into being.
256Upon the defeat of nazi Germany, the U.S.S.R. kept faith with its allies by delivering the crucial blow at Japan. The victory over Japan and liberation by the Soviet lorccs of North-East China helped the Chinese people to gain their freedom and independence and released North Korea from colonial bondage. The upsurge of the national liberation movement in Asia after the defeat of the Japanese militarists led to the establishment of an independent Vietnam in August 1945.
By the end of the war, powerful democratic forces, opposed to domestic and foreign reaction, had emerged in the former enemy-occupied territories. The defeat of nazi Germany and Japanese militarism, and the decisive Soviet war effort, smoothed the way for the peoples of several European and Asian countries in overthrowing the rule of the capitalists and landowners.
The comprehensive political and economic assistance rendered by the Soviet Union to the countries liberated from fascism, added to the Soviet people's experience in building socialism, had immense significance in promoting the revolutionary movement. Moreover, the Soviet Union's revolutionising influence was not confined to the territories liberated by the Soviet forces. It spread to many other countries. However, naked or secret imperialist intervention prevented the advance of the revolution in some.
In the early post-war years, the socialist forces in Eastern Europe gained in strength from their battles with domestic and foreign reaction. After February 1948, when the Czechoslovakian bourgeoisie was removed from power, it was quite clear that any attempts to restore capitalism in the People's Democracies were doomed to failure. In October 1949, the forces of the anti-fascist national front established the German Democratic Republic. There followed the formation of the People's Republic of China, the Korean People's Democratic Republic and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. In the early 1960s, the Republic of Cuba became the first socialist state on the American continent.
All the countries that had taken the socialist road initially had to fight hard to repulse imperialist attempts to put down the popular revolutions and restore capitalism. The ruling quarters of the U.S.A. and Britain not only supported counter-revolutionary forces in the countries freed from fascism, __PRINTERS_P_257_COMMENT__ 17---235 257 but even tried to put pressure on their democratic governments by threatening them with armed intervention.
In the arduous years of the cold war, launched by the imperialist powers, the Soviet Union made a great effort to safeguard the People's Democracies from the export of counter-revolution. The Soviet stand was clear: it would support the revolutionary gains of all peoples fighting for socialism and unwaveringly defend these peoples by all the means at its disposal. In its campaign against the encroachments of the imperialists, the Soviet Government took an unequivocal stand in favour of stable peace and international security, while at the same time giving considerable political backing to the People's Democracies. Further, it rendered them essential economic and military aid, did all that was necessary to boost their defence capacity, including supplies of Soviet arms and help in the training of personnel. At the request of some of these governments, it also sent economic and technical experts to give advice.
The world socialist community was gaining in stature at a time of fierce international conflicts, when imperialism was trying to stem the tide of sociidist revolution in Europe and Asia. Political solidarity was essential if the new socialist countries were to safeguard their gains, which is why a military-political alliance of the socialist states took shape to protect them against aggression.
One important consequence of the new socialist community was the successful resolution of territorial and national questions that had for many years bedevilled interstate relations. Political co-operation was enshrined in treaties of friendship, co-operation and mutual assistance. Even in wartime, such treaties were signed between the U.S.S.R. and Czechoslovakia (December 12, 1943), Yugoslavia (April 11, 1945) and Poland (April 21, 1945). The U.S.S.R. signed similar treaties with Rumania (February 4, 1948), Hungary (February 18, 1948) and Bulgaria (March 18, 1948). Between 1947 and 1949, treaties of friendship, co-operation and mutual assistance were concluded by these European People's Democracies with each other.
It takes a comparatively long time involving a complex process to establish a new type of international relations, which have come up against a number of problems precisely because they are the first relations of their type in the world 258 and because they suffer from the legacy of the old capitalist order. In the past, aggravating conflicts had alienated what were to become the new socialist states, due to a variety of economic, political or territorial claims on one another. Mistrust and sometimes naked enmity which had beset relations between capitalist states were certainly not to be dispelled overnight. As Lenin had warned, an alliance of diverse nations ``cannot be effected at one stroke; we have to work towards it with the greatest patience and circumspection, so as not to spoil matters and not to arouse distrust, and so that the distrust inherited from centuries of landowner and capitalist oppression, centuries of private property and the enmity caused by its divisions and redivisions may have a chance to wear off".^^1^^
The Soviet Government statement of October 30, 1956, ``On the Principles of the Promotion and Further Strengthening of Friendship and Co-operation Between the Soviet Union and Other Socialist States'', and exchanges of opinion on pressing issues between socialist states, confirmed the principles of complete equality, respect for territorial integrity, state independence and sovereignty, and non-- interference in the domestic issues of other states.
Socialist internationalism is the rock on which international relations within the socialist community stand. The harmonisation of each country's interests with those of the socialist community as a whole is a natural prerequisite of successful struggle against imperialism and resolution of common international problems.
Political co-operation between the socialist states is constantly being improved and its forms are becoming more diverse. In the early years of the socialist community, bilateral ties mainly predominated, but these were later supplemented by multilateral agreements. The most important form of military and political collective co-operation is the Warsaw Pact of Friendship, Co-operation and Mutual Assistance, signed in 1955 by the U.S.S.R., Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary, the German Democratic Republic, Poland, Rumania and Czechoslovakia. The majority of socialist countries closely collaborate in resolving the cardinal issues of international relations.
_-_-_~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 30, p. 293.
259Soviet economic and military strength, Soviet foreign policy and the military and political collaboration of all the socialist states have become major factors in restraining imperialist aggression. It was Soviet resistance that staved off the imperialist assault being prepared against the European People's Democracies in the early post-war years. During periods of intense international conllict, when the imperialists succeeded in mounting aggression against socialism, the Soviet Union dealt firmly with the aggressor and safeguarded the independence of the country under attack. This happened, for example, during the attack on the Korean People's Democratic Republic. All-round Soviet aid to the Korean people and the firm line of Soviet foreign policy did much to bring the Korean war to an end and the signing oi an armistice in July 1953. This was a great attainment for the peace-loving policy of the Soviet and other socialist governments. The imperialist designs for winning the war in Korea were foiled and they were forced to renounce their immediate plans in that part of the world.
In 1953, when the West German revanchists, backed by the U.S.A., attempted a counter-revolutionary putsch in Berlin, the U.S.S.R. gave a resolute rebuff to the subversive imperialist action. Three years later, in 1956, international reaction was again at work, this time inspiring a counterrevolutionary uprising in Hungary. Once again, the Soviet Union came to the aid of the Hungarian people, helped the Hungarian Revolutionary Workers' and Peasants' Government to put down the counter-revolution and overcome the consequences of the revolt.
The Soviet Union rendered generous assistance to the Chinese People's Republic in its fight against U.S. aggressive policy. During the military crisis over Taiwan, which broke out in the summer of 1958, the Soviet Union played a decisive part in preventing aggression against China.
Just as consistent was the Soviet protection of revolutionary Cuba from U.S. aggression. The Soviet Union helped the Cuban people to overcome the U.S. economic blockade and safeguard their independence.
In the mid-1960s, Soviet foreign policy was increasingly involved in support for the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in its fight against the U.S. aggression. The Soviet people declared that any escalation of the ignominous war against 260 the Vietnamese people would be faced with increased aid to Vietnam from the Soviet Union and other socialist states.
The Political Consultative Committee of the Warsaw Pact, which met in Bucharest at the beginning of July 1966, issued a statement in connection with the U.S. aggression in Vietnam, saying that ``by their fight against U.S. imperialism, the Vietnamese people are defending not only their own national rights, but are making a valuable contribution to the fight of the whole socialist community and of all nations for peace, independence, democracy and socialism''. It went on to say that member-states ``are rendering and will continue to render the Democratic Republic of Vietnam ever increasing moral and political support and comprehensive assistance, including economic, means of defence and the materials, equipment and specialists necessary for victory against the U.S. aggression, with due account of the needs arising from the new phase of the Vietnam war".^^1^^
Socialist co-operation is becoming ever more effective, as was evident in the summer of 1968, when hostile forces exploited the complex domestic political situation in Czechoslovakia and tried to take the country out of the socialist community. In order to provide a powerful shield against the threat to socialism in Czechoslovakia, the governments of Bulgaria, Hungary, the G.D.R., Poland and the U.S.S.R. took the necessary steps, including armed assistance to the Czechoslovak people, so as to safeguard the socialist gains from the encroachments of internal and external enemies. These steps were only taken after a profound and comprehensive study of the situation that had developed; they were based on the principles formulated at the Meeting of Six Communist Parties at Bratislava in early August 1968 and concretised during the Soviet-Czechoslovakian negotiations in Moscow in October of the same year and written into a special agreement. They were also supported within Czechoslovakia. A resolution adopted by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia at a Plenary Meeting in November 1968, ``The Party's Main Aims for the Immediate Future'', had this to say: ``The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia fully supports the principles expressed in the Moscow agreement of August 26, _-_-_
~^^1^^ Pravda, July 8, 1966.
261 1968 and in the communique on the talks between the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia on October 3 and 4, and also the principles of the Statement by Six Communist Parties issued on August 4, 1968 at Bratislava, and emphasises the responsibility of all Communists, particularly at state level, to implement the principles embodied in these documents.''The action by the socialist countries expressed their concern for the socialist gains in Czechoslovakia and for the entire socialist community. This action once again demonstrated the solid unity of the international and the national tasks of socialist states. As the C.P.S.U. Party Programme says, ``The experience of the peoples of the world socialist community has confirmed that their fraternal unity and cooperation conform to the supreme national interests of each country. The strengthening of the unity of the world socialist system on the basis of proletarian internationalism is an imperative condition for the further progress of all its member-countries."^^1^^
The common foreign policy of the socialist states by no means implies interference in their domestic affairs and does not infringe upon the independence of individual states in pursuing their home and foreign policies. But the independence of a socialist state does not imply any lack of responsibility for the fate of the whole socialist community. The governing party of each socialist state is responsible for its policy not only to its own people, but to the world communist movement as a whole. As Secretary of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party, Z. Komocin, has said, ``If the independence of individual Parties is contrasted to the jointly elaborated and adopted general policy and to the principle of proletarian internationalism, it constitutes a breach with internationalism and a concession to bourgeois nationalism."^^2^^
Economic co-operation is another aspect of the new type of inter-socialist relations. Throughout the difficult rehabilitation period, the socialist states of Europe and Asia received considerable economic assistance from the Soviet _-_-_
~^^1^^ The Rood to Communism, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1961, p. 468.
~^^2^^e 7ars(i(l(ilmi Szetnle No. 4, 19GS, p. 18.
262 Union. After the war, the Soviet Union itself had serious economic difficulties. Nevertheless, that did not prevent it from exporting food, fuel, raw materials and equipment to the People's Democracies and extending credits to them. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Poland, for example, received investment credits for industrialisation totalling 2.2 billion rubles. On the estimates of Polish economists, Soviet credits for 1945--49 were equivalent in value to the plant and equipment received by eleven West European states under the Marshall Plan.The establishment of firm trade ties with the Soviet Union was of especial importance for the People's Democracies because, at that time, the Western powers were pursuing a policy of economic boycott against these countries. The U.S.A. had annulled its trade treaties with Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Rumania, Poland and Hungary. Britain, France and other capitalist states were cutting their trade with the socialist camp to a minimum. But the U.S.S.R. stepped into the breach and concluded trade agreements with Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Rumania and Albania, enabling them to purchase Soviet equipment for factories, mills and power stations. Long-term trade pacts facilitated their socialist planning and enabled each country to develop the major branches of its economy.
Bourgeois propaganda has spread the lie that Soviet trade relations with other socialist countries are unequal and that they tie in their economies with Soviet economic plans. The swift economic progress of the socialist states, however, is eloquent response to such allegations. Janos Kadar, First Secretary of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party, blasted these allegations in a speech at the 15th session of the United Nations General Assembly when he said: ``How do they dare slander Soviet-Hungarian relations when the swift progress of my nation in the last fifteen years has been largely attributable to the all-round, selfless, genuinely socialist economic and cultural aid from the Soviet Union?"^^1^^
As the economies of the socialist states have grown, it has become possible to use more sophisticated forms of economic co-operation, to give them a wider multilateral _-_-_
~^^1^^ J. Kadar, Selected Articles and Speeches (May 1960-April 1964], Moscow, 1964, p. 26 (Russ. ed.).
263 base. The establishment'in 1949 of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (C.M.E.A.) laid the basis for such collaboration.C.M.E.A. is the first international economic organisation of socialist states and radically differs from the closed economic groupings of capitalist states. Its members neither surround themselves with tariff barriers, nor discriminate in trade with third parties. C.M.E.A. aims to extend economic contacts with all countries.
In its early years, C.M.E.A. was largely concerned with increasing bilateral trade on a short-term or long-term basis. Subsequently, since the mid-1950s, by which time the socialist economy was strong and the level of planning efficient, its purpose changed and it has since been concerned with coordinating planning within the community.
In the first half of the 1960s, the socialist states worked out a programme for extending and intensifying economic relations within the socialist community, with the result that ``The Fundamental Principles of International Socialist Division of Labour" were ratified in June 1962, at the Moscow Meeting, attended by First Secretaries of Central Committees of Communist and Workers' Parties and Heads of Government of C.M.E.A. countries. Drawn up at C.M.E.A.'s 15th Session, this document summed up experience in economic co-operation and charted the course for further division of labour within the socialist community.
No mean difficulties have cropped up in creating the complicated mechanism and selecting correct methods of economic co-operation. The way to lasting co-operation has turned out to be more difficult than expected. This is understandable, considering the complexity of co-ordinating economic interests of countries at different levels of economic development, with different structures, unequal raw material resources, etc.
Member-states initially underestimated the importance of economic accounting for international socialist specialisation and combination of production; some aspects of production combination were not always sufficiently reinforced by economic incentives; many advantages and opportunities were missed in capitalising on scientific and technical cooperation.
But these natural problems of growth are being overcome. 264 Co-operation between the socialist countries, both within and outside the C.M.E.A. framework, is being constantly improved. This is assured by regular governmental consultation. A meeting of the leaders of Communist and Workers' Parties and Heads of Government of the C.M.E.A. countries in Bucharest on July 7, 1966, declared that C.M.E.A. had done considerable work in co-ordinating nationaleconomic plans, specialisation and combination of production, and extension of economic contacts between the socialist countries. The meeting was unanimous in its intention to continue to extend mutual co-operation in accordance with the principles of complete equality, respect for sovereignty and national interests, mutual benefit and comradely mutual assistance, thereby further strengthening proletarian internationalism, and the unity and solidarity of the socialist states. These same aims were reflected in the declaration issued by the Bratislava Conference in August 1968.
In the latter part of the 1960s, the international socialist division of labour was advancing to more intensive forms of co-operation which facilitated more efficient production and greater public welfare.
Experience in political and economic collaboration has confirmed the growing role of the world socialist community in international affairs. The concerted political actions of the socialist states have been exerting an ever increasing influence on international relations, foiling the aggressive designs of imperialism and enhancing the cause of peace.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 3. Soviet Foreign PolicyFrom its very inception, the Soviet Union has adhered to the principles of wholehearted support to and fraternal solidarity with all colonies and semi-colonies. Shortly after the October Revolution, Lenin said that the ``revolutionary movement of the peoples of the East can now develop effectively, can reach a successful issue, only in direct association with the revolutionary struggle of our Soviet Republic against international imperialism".^^1^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 30, p. 151.
265Solidarity with oppressed peoples and backing for their fight for freedom and independence have always been one of the mainstays of Soviet foreign policy, as was quite evident in the initial policy statements of the Soviet Government: the Decree on Peace, Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia, and Appeal to All Moslem Workers of Russia and the East, in which the Soviet Government categorically repudiated all the treaties signed by the overthrown tsarist administration on the partition of Turkey and Persia. The Declaration of Rights of the Working and Exploited Peoples marked a complete break of the socialist state with the barbarous policy of bourgeois `` civilisation" by which the well-being of the exploiters in a few select nations was based on the enslavement of hundreds of millions of working people in the colonies and small countries. In December 1919, the Seventh All-Russia Congress of Soviets adopted a special decree on oppressed nations, pledging its support for all classes, peoples and races fighting against imperialist violence and exploitation, and expressing full readiness of Russian workers and peasants to give them both moral and material support.
In line with these new foreign policy principles, the Soviet Union bent all efforts to establish friendly relations with neighbouring countries in whose oppression the tsarist autocracy had participated together with other imperialists. On February 26, 1921, Moscow was the venue for the signing of a Soviet-Iranian Treaty which put the seal on the final abolition of unequal relations between Russia and Persia. The Soviet Government was first in recognising Afghanistan as an independent sovereign state and, on February 28, 1921, a treaty was concluded between Soviet Russia and Afghanistan which set the tone for good-neighbour relations between the two states for many years to come. As its preamble declares, it was designed to cement friendly relations between Russia and Afghanistan and to safeguard Afghanistan's real independence. On March 16, 1921, the Soviet Government *igned a treaty with the Turkish Government which provided for amicable relations based on the mutual interests of both countries.
Further, the Soviet Government held out the hand of friendship and assistance to the Mongolian people, who, with fraternal support from Soviet Russia, had asserted 266 their independence and begun to build socialism. On May 31, 1924, a pact was signed in Peking covering the general principles for ironing out outstanding issues between China and the Soviet Union. This pact annulled the unfair conventions, treaties and pacts concluded by the tsarist government with the Chinese administration, and all of tsarist Russia's agreements with third countries infringing upon China's interests and sovereign rights. The Soviet Government renounced all concessions and privileges that the tsarist government had previously extorted from the Chinese Government. It reaffirmed renunciation of its claim to the Russian share of the indemnities extracted by foreign states from China after the suppression of the 1900 anti-imperialist Boxer Rebellion. The equitable treaties between the Soviet Union and Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Mongolia and China were a great contribution to their fight to escape the enslaving treaties and pacts with imperialist powers.
The young Soviet state did not confine itself to moral, political and diplomatic backing for neighbouring peoples. Despite the limited opportunities and difficulties arising from the Civil War and imperialist intervention, Soviet Russia extended material and even military aid to help their fight against foreign oppressors and plunderers and to help preserve and reinforce their national independence. Between 1920 and 1921, the Soviet Government gave Turkey over 33,000 rifles, more than 300 machine-guns, 54 guns, some 58 million cartridges and 130,000 shells. In 1921, the Soviet Government gave Turkey gratuitous aid in the form of 10 million gold rubles and supplied equipment and other materials for a Turkish munitions factory. In 1932, the Soviet Union gave Turkey an interest-free credit of 8 million gold dollars. With this money and the assistance of Soviet specialists, Turkey built her two biggest plants: the textile mills at Kayseri and Nazilli, which were fully equipped with Soviet machinery.
The Soviet Government, further, extended financial and technical assistance to Afghanistan, which had upheld its independence against the British colonialists. Substantial assistance was also rendered to the Chinese people who, during the years of the Japanese invasion, received Soviet loans, military equipment and modern weapons, including modern aircraft. Soviet military advisers, pilots and other 267 military experts helped China to build and strengthen her army and themselves directly participated in her just struggle against the Japanese invaders.
In its consistent fight to uphold the rights and interests of all oppressed peoples, the Soviet Union condemned the mandate system established by the League of Nations after the First World War as another variant of colonialism. The Soviet Government refused to recognise the British mandates over Iraq, Palestine and Transjordan, the French mandate over Syria and the Lebanon, and all other imperialist claims to mandated territories.
The victory in the last war over the most reactionary forces of imperialism was a key condition of progress for the national liberation movement. The Soviet people's contribution to the victory was decisive. The great tide of the national liberation revolution finally swept away the colonial system and there has emerged a new force in international affairs. The newly independent states began to take an active part in world affairs. Objectively, this is basically a progressive, revolutionary and anti-imperialist force that is an ally of the socialist states in the struggle against the aggressive policies of imperialism. In these circumstances, the theory and practice of Soviet foreign policy in relation to newly independent states have acquired an even greater significance for the development of international relations.
Many political parties spearheading the campaign of the patriotic forces for the national revival of liberated countries seek to utilise the rich experience of .the C.P.S.U., which was able to lead the Soviet Union to the forefront of world economic, scientific and cultural progress in a very short historical period.
The 23rd Congress of the C.P.S.U. vividly demonstrated the firm alliance between the forces of socialism and all forces fighting colonialism and neo-colonialism. Of the 86 delegations from Communist and Workers', National-Democratic and Left-wing Socialist Parties present at the Congress, more than 50 were from Asia, Africa and Latin America, including nine National-Democratic Parties from young sovereign African states. The Congress reiterated Lenin's policy of wholehearted support for the national liberation movement in the fight for a final end to colonial and neo-colonial oppression.
268The Soviet Union was one of the first countries to recognise the new African and Asian sovereign states and their progressive regimes. The Soviet Union maintains diplomatic relations with over 80 non-socialist countries, of whom about 60 are in Asia, Africa and Latin America. In his reply to Emir Amanulla Khan on establishing diplomatic relations between Soviet Russia and Afghanistan, Lenin wrote: ``The establishment of permanent diplomatic relations between the two great peoples will open up extensive possibilities for mutual assistance against any encroachments by foreign predators on the freedom and wealth of others."^^1^^ These words still express the very essence of Soviet relations with all young sovereign states.
With the birth of the Soviet state, for the first time in history there arose genuinely equitable relations between states big and small, strong and weak. All peoples fighting to preserve and assert their independence highly value the principle of complete equality to which the Soviet Union scrupulously adheres in its economic, political and cultural relations with other nations. President Sekou Toure of Guinea says: ``We appreciate that the Soviet Union has a population dozens of times greater than that of our country and that our small country has incomparably fewer resources than the mighty Soviet Union. It is, therefore, all the more gratifying that equality is the permanent mark of relations between our two countries, a big and a small one."^^2^^
The Soviet Union initiated action in extending the rights of new sovereign states to take part in United Nations activities. It insisted that they should have the opportunity to express their opinion on all issues aifecting present-day international relations. The adoption at the 18th General Assembly of amendments to Articles 23, 27 and 61 of the U.N. Charter was an important step towards modernising the structure of the chief U.N. agencies, in line with the new world situation as a result of the success of the national liberation struggle and the disintegration of the imperialist colonial system. These amendments increased the number of Security Council members from 11 to 15, and of the Economic and Social Council members from 18 to 27. The Soviet _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 50, p. 3<S6 (Russ. cd.).
~^^2^^ Pravda, September 9, 1960.
269 Union insisted on these amendments to the U.N. Charter because it was convinced that they would present fresh opportunities for enhancing the effectiveness of foreign policies of young African and Asian states.The U.S.S.R. has always given firm support to the peoples of the Middle East in their battle for attaining and strengthening national independence. It resolutely backed the demands of Syria and the Lebanon for the withdrawal of British and French troops, and the demand by the Egyptian Government for the evacuation of British troops from Egypt and the Sudan. The Soviet stand in asserting Libyan people's right to self-determination and an independent existence did much to get the U.N. General Assembly to adopt its resolution proclaiming the independence of Libya. The Soviet Government, further, helped in the national liberation struggle of the peoples of Morocco and Tunisia, and aided the Algerian people in their heroic war of liberation and independence. Algeria received not only moral and political support from the Soviet Union, but also substantial material aid by way of arms, medical supplies and food.
The Soviet Government gave its most resolute support for the Egyptian nationalisation of the Suez Canal. Due to the efforts of the Soviet Union, other socialist states and a number of unaligned nations, the imperialist attempts to restore foreign monopoly control of the Suez Canal were foiled.
The Soviet Union safeguarded the legitimate rights and interests of young African and Asian states in the latter half of the 1950s, when the imperialists undertook several armed ventures for the purpose of perpetuating or restoring colonial regimes. When, in 1956, Britain, France and Israel attacked Egypt, the Soviet Union and the other socialist states helped the Egyptian people to defend their freedom and independence. The imperialist efforts to crush the Egyptian people by economic blockade were defeated, and the Soviet Government gave a stern warning of its intention to use armed force to protect Egypt unless the aggressors called off their attack.
The Egyptian people's resistance and the Soviet Union's stern warning compelled the aggressors to halt their intervention and leave Egyptian territory. President Nasser told a Soviet Government delegation, headed by Soviet Prime 270 Minister A. N. Kosygin, that ``the United Arab Republic, especially the inhabitants of Port Said, will never forget the stand taken by the Soviet Union in 1956 and the backinggiven us at that time. That backing gave us assurance of victory and made it possible for all progressive forces to oppose imperialism".^^1^^
The significance of the failure of imperialist aggression against Egypt went well beyond the boundaries of the Middle East. It was a historic event which demonstrated the scope of the national liberation struggle, the mounting role of the Soviet Union and other socialist states in international affairs, and the importance of the alliance between socialism and the national liberation movement.
After their defeat in Egypt, the colonialists attempted to have their revenge in other parts of the Middle East. In the autumn of 1957, NATO naval forces and the U.S. Sixth Fleet were concentrated off the shores of Syria. Once again, the aggressive plans were nipped in the bud, due in large measure to the decisive stand taken by the Soviet Union, which declared itself ready ``to have its Armed Forces take part in repulsing aggression and punishing the violators of peace".^^2^^ The people of Syria well appreciated the Soviet support; on behalf of the President of the Syrian Republic, the Syrian Government and people, a Syrian Government delegation to the Soviet Union expressed ``gratitude to the Government and people of the Soviet Union for the friendly support and resolute stand taken by the Soviet Government and people at a time when Syria was menaced by aggression and foreign intrigues against the independence and territorial integrity of the Syrian Republic".^^3^^
In 1958, the Soviet Union came out against the U.S.-- British intervention in the Lebanon and Jordan for the purpose of suppressing the national liberation revolution in Iraq. The Soviet attitude played a vital part in foiling the imperialist plans to export counter-revolution to Iraq and helped the people of the Lebanon and Jordan to retain their independence.
_-_-_^^1^^ Pravda, May 16, 1966.
~^^2^^ The U.S.S.R. mid the Arab Nations. 19J7-1960, Moscow, 1961, p. 394 (Russ. cd.).
~^^3^^ Ibid., pp. 453--54.
271When a new crisis flared up in the Middle East in the summer of 1967 due to the attack by the Israeli extremists, egged on by the imperialists, on the U.A.R., Syria and Jordan, the Soviet Union and other socialist states came out in defence of the Arab nations, demanding an immediate end to the aggression. On Soviet initiative, an extraordinary session of the U.N. General Assembly was summoned to examine the question of the Israeli aggression. Due to the persistence of the Soviet Union and the other socialist countries, the Security Council adopted, in November 1967, a resolution on resolving the Middle East crisis, stipulating the withdrawal of Israeli troops from all territory occupied by them after June 5, 1967. This strengthened the Arab position.
It is clear that the chief aim of the imperialist-inspired attack on the Arab countries in 1967 was to bring down the progressive regimes in the U.A.R. and Syria. But this has not been achieved. Subsequent events indicate that the imperialist attempts to curb the progress of the national liberation revolutions in the Middle East have also ended in failure.
The U.S.S.R. also helped Cyprus to stave off the threat of armed intervention which hung over the island in 1964, and supported the Indian struggle to liberate the Indian territories of Goa, Daman and Diu from the Portuguese colonialists.
In their war against the French colonialists, the Vietnamese people received both moral and material backing from the Soviet Union and it was in no small measure due to Soviet efforts that the 1954 Geneva Agreements terminated the war in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, with the recognition of the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of these countries. In the years to follow, the Soviet people have resolutely opposed the U.S. imperialist aggression in Vietnam. Thanks to help from the Soviet Union and other socialist countries, the Vietnamese people have scored great successes in repulsing the imperialist aggression. On March 31, 1968, former President Johnson said that he had issued orders to restrict the bombing of the Republic of Vietnam and announced the U.S. readiness to begin negotiations for an end to the Vietnam war. Later he ordered, with effect from November 1, 1968, a halt to the bombing and shelling 272 of D.R.V. territory from land and sea; he announced that the U.S.A. was prepared to take part in talks to be attended not only by D.R.V. representatives and Saigon government officials, but by representatives of the National Lib.eration Front of South Vietnam as well. All this is ample testimony to the important shifts in favour of the Vietnamese patriotic forces and a fresh indication that the U.S. military machine cannot win the Vietnam war and that the whole U.S. policy in Indochina is deadlocked.
Ever since the signing of the 1954 Geneva Agreements on Indochina, the Soviet Government has done everything in its power to prevent foreign intervention in Laos. It is largely due to the Soviet efforts that a new international agreement on Laos (the 1962 Geneva Agreement) was concluded, providing for the restoration of peace and national unity to the country. The Soviet Union and the other socialist states have more than once acted in defence of the independence and sovereignty of Cambodia and have condemned the provocation of the imperialists and their hirelings against the Cambodian people.
The peoples of Africa, striving to consolidate their national independence and wipe out colonialism on the continent, also enjoy the support of the Soviet Union and the other socieilist states. The U.S.S.R. was quick to come out in support of the Congolese people and gave them moral, political and material support in their just struggle against the colonialists. As that outstanding champion of the African national liberation movement, Patrice Lumumba, once said, ``The Soviet Union was the only great power to pledge support for the people of the Congo right from the outset of their struggle."^^1^^ The Soviet Government spoke out in defence of the African peoples under Portuguese colonialism, proclaiming the duty of all states and peoples to compel Portugal to put an end to its brutal colonial war in Angola, Mozambique and ``Portuguese'' Guinea and to abide by the U.N, Declaration on the Granting of Independence to All Colonial Countries and Peoples. The U.S.S.R. has always pursued a consistent and principled policy on the popular African struggle against the racial action of the colonialists. It has _-_-_
~^^1^^ Patrice Lumumba. The Truth About the Monstrous Crimes of the Colonialists, Moscow, 1901, p. 54 (Russ. cd.).
__PRINTERS_P_273_COMMENT__ 18---235 273 no diplomatic, consular nor commercial relations with the racist government of the Republic of South Africa. The Soviet Government has refused to recognise the racist regime that has usurped power in Southern Rhodesia, and has declared its complete solidarity with the people of Zimbabwe.The peoples of Latin America find the Soviet Union and the other socialist countries reliable allies in their fight against imperialism. The Soviet Government and people quickly came to the defence of the Dominican people fighting for their freedom and independence against U.S. imperialist aggression.
In 1960, the Soviet delegation to the United Nations introduced a proposal at the 15th General Assembly session for a declaration proclaiming the immediate granting of complete independence to all colonies, trust and other non-self-- governing territories. The essence of the Soviet proposal was embodied in the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to All Golonial Countries and Peoples, subsequently adopted by the U.N. General Assembly. It declared, in part, that the General Assembly ``solemnly proclaims the need to put an immediate and unqualified end to colonialism in all its forms and manifestations".^^1^^ In f965, the Soviet delegation brought to the attention of the 20th General Assembly session a Draft Declaration on Non-intervention in the Internal Affairs of States and on Safeguarding Their Independence and Sovereignty. This resolution met with the support of the overwhelming majority of African, Asian and Latin American states, with the result that more than 50 of them joined the Soviet Union in sponsoring the motion. Eventually, the Declaration gained the support of 109 U.N. members.
The Soviet Union's profound concern for securing peaceful conditions for economic and cultural progress in Asia and Africa and the desire of Soviet foreign policy to assist in the peaceful solution of outstanding issues between them were apparent at the time of the Indo-Pakistani conflict in the autumn of 1965. Thanks to the Soviet Government's initiative and good offices a meeting was arranged in Tashkent between President Ayub Khan of Pakistan and Prime Minister Lai Bahadur Shastri of India. At their request, the Soviet Prime Minister Alexei Kosygin also took part in the _-_-_
~^^1^^ Pravdu, Dccc-mbcr 16, I960.
274 negotiations. The Tashkent talks led to the establishment of peaceful relations between India and Pakistan. The Soviet Union had once again demonstrated to the world that it is a sincere and selfless friend of the newly independent states.Today, it is more than ever important lor the Afro-Asian countries to be able to develop mutually beneficial and equitable economic relations with the socialist countries.
It is typical of the economic, financial and technical assistance given by the socialist states to the newly independent states that it should primarily bolster the progressive economic structure, create and promote the most vital sectors of the economy and halt the dependence of these countries on foreign capital. Co-operation with the socialist countries is not hedged in terms that would infringe on the independence and dignity of the developing countries. When the U.S.S.R. offers economic and technical aid to the developing countries, it does not seek any special advantages or privileges for itself.
The establishment and development of economic ties between the developing countries and the whole socialist community were concomitant with colonial disintegration. Trade relations between them received a special boost. Once they had gained the opportunity independently to establish international economic contacts, the emergent nations broadened their trade ties with the socialist world. Between 1963 and 1967 Soviet trade with them grew by more than 35 per cent, while the total increase in Soviet foreign trade in the same period was 25.6 per cent. The proportion of these states in aggregate Soviet foreign trade has been increasing from year to year and they are finding that the Soviet Union is quite prepared to accept their traditional exports in exchange for Soviet equipment and in repayment of credits.
The greater the economic viability of the socialist community, the larger the scale of its technical and economic aid. There are thousands of Soviet experts in various branches of the economy, technology, science and culture in African and Asian states.
Economic and technical collaboration between the Soviet Union and the United Arab Republic has reached especially great proportions. With Soviet assistance, the U.A.R. is building over fOO enterprises, including those in the petroleum, iron and steel, extractive, chemical, engineering, __PRINTERS_P_275_COMMENT__ 18* 275 textile, food and shipbuilding industries. Do/ens of factories built with Soviet assistance are already in commission, including the biggest antibiotic plant in the Middle East, a concentration plant, a machine-building and a coking plant and an oil refinery.
India, too, is building scores of industrial plants with Soviet help. Already in commission are such industrial giants as Bhilai Steel Works, the power station at Neivelli, an oil refinery at Bakaun, and an engineering works. In 1965, agreement was reached on the construction of a new heavy engineering works at Bokaro with an initial capacity of 1.5-2 million tons of steel and the prospect of raising this capacity to 4 million tons.
A bakery, a motor repair works, the Jalalabad irrigation canal and power station, and the highway across the Hindu Kush mountain range have all been constructed with Soviet aid in Afghanistan; the port of Hodeida in the Yemen, a sugar refinery and tobacco factory in Nepal, and a cannery and saw mill in Guinea. Among other projects under construction or already in commission are a hydroelectric plant in Cambodia, irrigation canals in Burma, dams in Algeria, a deep-sea port and fish cannery in Somalia, an oil refinery in Ethiopia and a number of factories in Mali. Soviet engineers are helping Syria to build a hydroelectric plant on the Euphrates. In addition to the aid in industry, agriculture, transport and communications, the Soviet Union is also helping to build hospitals, schools and colleges, research institutes and cultural establishments.
The Soviet people have been helping the newly independent states to train their own qualified manpower. Tens of thousands of skilled workers and other specialists have been trained in the construction of enterprises with Soviet assistance. In some countries of Asia and Africa, the Soviet Union has helped to establish various schools, including higher schools, among them polytechnical institutes in India, Burma, Afghanistan and Guinea, a technological institute in Cambodia, a college in Tanzania, and a medical school in Mali. Dozens of educational centres were established in the U.A.R., Ethiopia and other countries for training specialists. Tens of thousands of specialists were trained for the developing countries at schools and enterprises in the Soviet Union.
276When the newly independent states work in close collaboration with the Soviet Union and other socialist countries, they are able to resist the economic arm-twisting and blackmail from the imperialist powers. The very existence of the world socialist community has deprived imperialism of the possibility of falling back on economic blockade, a favourite weapon against the developing countries.
The assistance of the U.S.S.R. and other socialist states has encouraged the development of progressive tendencies in the economic and social life of the developing countries. It has helped them to carry through nationalisation, stimulated the birth and promotion of the state economic sector and facilitated industrialisation.
By its decisive contribution to the preservation of peace, the socialist community has helped to reinforce the independence of all the young states. So long as they can enjoy conditions of peace, the developing countries can eradicate the harsh legacy of colonialism, found and promote a national economy and gain economic independence. That is why most developing countries back the peace-loving foreign policy of the Soviet Union.
The interests of the socialist states and the newly independent countries are identical on many major issues of contemporary international relations. Co-operation and firm alliance with the Soviet Union are, therefore, a prerequisite of success in the fight to ward off imperialism and its neocolonialist policy, in the struggle for peace, national sovereignty and social progress.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 4. The U.S.S.R.'s StruggleThe relation between the U.S.S.R. and the capitalist world is one of the most pressing problems today. Socialist foreign policy had to undergo fundamental elaboration on matters of principle in order to cope with the radically new international situation that resulted from the October Revolution. The major immediate aim was to preserve and strengthen the Soviet Republic, bolster its economy and undertake practical steps to build socialism. Soviet foreign policy was therefore dovetailed to the fulfilment of these aims: it had 277 to secure conditions of peaceful coexistence with the capitalist states so as to provide the best international climate for the building of socialism in one country.
That the new Soviet Republic intended to pursue a revolutionary new policy showed in its complete break with the policy of tsarism and the Russian bourgeoisie, its relentless exposure of the imperialist war and its predatory designs, and in the very first document issued by the Soviet government, the Decree on Peace, which demanded a democratic and just peace without annexations or indemnities. This Decree expressed the very heart and major principles of socialist foreign policy; it also showed the way to resolving international issues, the chief of which at that time was to bring the world war to an end. It embodied the key features of socialist diplomacy: clear and precise definitions precluding any possibility of distortion or falsification, readiness to give other proposals careful consideration, repudiation of secret diplomacy, and direct appeal to other peoples as well as to their governments.
Summing up the results of Soviet foreign policy, Lenin said in 1921 that ``our attention and all our endeavours were aimed at switching from our relations of war with the capitalist countries to relations of peace and trade".^^1^^ It was certainly not due to a lack of consistency in Soviet foreign policy that the first few years were taken up with armed struggle or that Lenin's advocacy of peaceful coexistence between the socialist and capitalist states fell on deaf ears. Soviet armed resistance resulted from imperialist aggression. It is in the very nature of socialism that a socialist state should pursue a peace-loving policy. The Soviet campaign for peace and peaceful coexistence was, therefore, from the outset an expression of a strategic line based on a sober analysis of objective factors and trends in the world.
Having failed to destroy the socialist regime by armed force, capitalism had to concede that the two property systems had an equal right to existence. This and the inevitability of agreements between states of opposite systems had an objective basis: the universal economic relations that had obliged the capitalist countries to come to terms with the _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 32, p. ISO.
278 Soviet Union. It was also in the interests of the young Soviet Republic to promote economic relations with the capitalist world.The sympathy and support of workers throughout the capitalist world played a vital part in the success of the peaceful foreign policy of the socialist state while it was in the capitalist encirclement. The policy of safeguarding and peaceful coexistence was-also helped by the dissension that prevailed between individual imperialist states and between various trends within the bourgeois camp---between those who favoured ``the big stick" in resolving the issue, and those who favoured peace. Soviet foreign policy had to take all these contradictions into consideration so as to isolate the more reactionary, aggressive, invasion-minded elements among the capitalist authorities.
A world situation in which capitalist countries work as partners of the socialist state inevitably implies negotiations, compromises and mutual concessions, without which no agreement or peaceful resolution of any outstanding issue is feasible. In defining concessions and compromises for the sake of peace, Lenin succinctly delineated the boundaries which would be wide enough to give socialist foreign policy sufficient room for manoeuvre, but would preclude any surrender over principles.
While pursuing a consistent policy of peaceful coexistence with the capitalist states, the Soviet Union never felt that it was automatically guaranteed. It was always aware of the danger of peace being broken and of a real threat of an armed clash between socialism and capitalism. This threat emanated not from the incompatibility of the two systems, but from the aggressive anti-Soviet intentions of the imperialists. The Soviet Republic, therefore, had to keep constant watch and be militarily prepared, improving its defences and building up an army that could withstand any imperialist attack.
The Soviet Union's long experience in foreign policy has confirmed the power and vitality of the Leninist principle of peaceful coexistence, which bore fruit even at a time when the balance of power clearly favoured the imperialists, when the maintenance of peaceful relations hung on the provisional, sectional and transient interests of some sections of the bourgeoisie or some capitalist states, and when 279 socialism was in no position to determine the course of international relations or prevent the outbreak of war.
In its formative years, the Soviet Union was much weaker than the advanced capitalist powers and the imperialists enjoyed military supremacy; but the subsequent successful building of socialism cut the ground from under the imperialists. The Second World War demonstrated the strength of the socialist regime, when the U.S.S.R. was strong enough to defeat nazi Germany, the striking force of world imperialism. The war also brought fresh proof of the opportunities to be gained from co-operation between the capitalist and socialist states, as the anti-Hitler coalition convincingly demonstrated.
The ideas of peaceful coexistence, founded on the experience of the U.S.S.R.'s relations with capitalist states, acquired even greater significance after the war, when socialism was no longer confined to a single country, as socialist revolutions triumphed in Europe and Asia and the socialist community came into existence.
In the new international climate that developed from the radical shifts in the world alignment and balance of class forces, the correctness and viability of the socialist foreign policy of peaceful coexistence were utterly vindicated.
The consistent adherence of the Soviet Union and other socialist states to the principle of peaceful coexistence makes quite untenable the imperialist cold war policy, limited local wars and preparation for a new world war against the socialist community.
As a result of the profound changes that took place in world development in the late 1950s and early 1960s, together with the old factors making peaceful coexistence possible, it has become the one sure way of avoiding a thermonuclear holocaust.
The Soviet Union is convinced that peaceful coexistence cannot be based merely on the desire, will and concern of one side, the socialist camp. It would be idle to expect the imperialist states, of their own free will, to renounce their anti-socialist policies and attempts to export counterrevolution.
Peaceful coexistence must rest on definite objective conditions. When Marxists-Leninists speak of objective factors and the twofold nature of the peaceful coexistence process, 280 they base their convictions on the vastly increased potential of the socialist community and its allies for securing lasting peace and compelling the imperialists to accept the principle of peaceful coexistence.
The immense material resources that socialism now commands to repulse aggression have a big impression on the imperialists. Earlier, a single socialist state pursued the policy of peaceful coexistence and whether or not it was accepted depended on the wishes of the imperialists, on the contest and confusion of the various pressure groups among the bourgeoisie. Times have changed. Even officials in the capitalist world nowadays well appreciate that the peaceful coexistence policy is the only sensible policy for capitalist governments, too.
In the event of the imperialists' unleashing a new world war, they would only bring down catastrophe upon themselves: mass destruction of capitalist property and massive fatalities among their populations, including the rulingclasses themselves. Without a doubt, it could only end in the elimination of capitalism as a system. Any realistic consideration of the consequences of thermonuclear war cannot but lead to the conclusion that it is in the interests of all sections of society to avert world war at all cost.
The economic basis for peaceful coexistence is also being extended. The growing capitalist interest in business links with the socialist states is due both to the growing economic potential of socialism and its consequent trade opportunities, and to the dwindling area of capitalist exploitation and the growing difficulty of finding markets.
The policy of peaceful coexistence is designed to avert world thermonuclear war, resolve international issues round the conference table, and respect every nation's right to choose its own social system. It promotes mutual understanding and co-operation between all states. At the same time, the climate of peaceful coexistence is a great help to the liberation struggle and all peoples endeavouring to implement revolutionary change. It also hampers imperialist interference in the affairs of other nations and makes it more difficult for them to export counter-revolution.
From the outset, the Soviet state has conducted a campaign for disarmament. Though torn by internal strife, the imperialist powers were united in their refusal to disarm. 281 Nonetheless, the Soviet Union has persisted with its disarmament proposals and has gained the sympathy and support of progressives within the capitalist world.
Bourgeois falsifiers say the Soviet disarmament policy is mere propaganda, and try to prove that the Soviet Government has put forward its proposals being fully aware of their impracticability and is merely seeking to make political capital out of them. Yet, a sound study of the socioeconomic reasons for any increase in belligerence on the part of any imperialist power and in the threat of war has never implied a fatalistic acceptance of the uselessness of fighting to avert war. In the troubled international climate of the inter-war years, when the forces of imperialism surrounded the Soviet Union and enjoyed military and technical superiority, the Soviet Government fought for its disarmament policy with all the means at its disposal.
The Soviet disarmament proposals, repeatedly made in the inter-war period, were designed to secure specific agreements which could help to reduce the huge stockpiles of armaments, cut back munitions production, and lessen international tension and the ever-present menace of war. In presenting these proposals for discussion at the various international conferences, the Soviet Government was never guided by Utopian hopes of the imperialists becoming lovers of peace, but relied for their implementation on the growing economic and political strength of the U.S.S.R., the anti-war campaign in the capitalist states, and the dissension within the imperialist ranks. Mobilising foreign opinion against the imperialist arms race and war preparations was another salient feature of the peace campaign and fight against the belligerent policy of the big capitalist states.
The Soviet disarmament campaign is a vivid illustration of socialist foreign policy in action, a new type of policy which expresses the interests of the widest sections of the population in all countries. The young Soviet state, having beaten off the imperialist intervention and broken the iron ring of economic, political and diplomatic blockade, led the struggle to resolve outstanding international issues in the interests of peace and to establish the best conditions for promoting world progress.
At their first big international conference, in Genoa, the Soviet delegates proposed a general arms reduction and 282 expressed readiness to support any proposals designed to lighten the burden of militarism and prevent the use of means of destruction against the civilian population. But the Soviet peace programme evoked no response from the capitalist delegates at Genoa.
Soviet participation in the Preparatory Commission for the 1927 Disarmament Conference and in the 1932 International Disarmament Conference revealed to the whole world the purposeful and consistent Soviet effort for disarmament. Soviet foreign policy manifested not only its lofty principles in its approach to vital issues, but also its great flexibility in tackling specific issues. The imperialist delegates at the inter-war conferences, whose prime aim was to cover up their frantic stockpiling of arms with a flood of pacifist declamations, often found themselves in deep water when confronted with the terse and consistent Soviet policy.
It cannot be said that the Soviet campaign was futile, even if the disarmament talks of that period were fruitless through the fault of the imperialist powers. The important thing is that it helped to expose the aggressors and their abettors. The Western policy of unleashing war was countered by the vigorous efforts of the Soviet Union to prevent war.
The Soviet Union did all in its power to strengthen peace. It signed non-aggression pacts with virtually all its neighbours and many other countries as well; it concluded conventions on the precise definition of aggression; it conducted negotiations on an ``Eastern Pact" and, in 1935, signed the Franco-Soviet and Czechoslovakian-Soviet Mutual Assistance Pacts. These and many other acts prior to the Second World War testified to the Soviet Union's vigorous policy in international affairs and its eagerness to do all it could to guarantee European security and avert war. It was the Soviet Union's robust and consistent policy on issues of peace, disarmament and collective security, and its firm stand in exposing the aggressors and their allies, that enhanced its international standing and attracted public sympathy everywhere.
Since the Second World War, the Soviet initiative in reinforcing peace and resolving the disarmament issue has once again witnessed to the aim of Soviet foreign policy to 283 use the favourable opportunities developing as a result of the changing international balance of power.
The Soviet proposals for general and complete disarmament were an important milestone in the Soviet drive for disarmament. This peace initiative found broad response among the world public. At the United Nations, the Soviet proposals sparked off renewed efforts to achieve disarmament, with the result that a General Assembly resolution reaffirmed that the problem of general and complete disarmament was the most exigent issue of the time. It called on the governments to do all in their power to achieve a rapid and positive settlement of the problem. The Soviet initiative had, therefore, brought about the first real steps in the direction of halting the arms race and removing the threat of war.
Furthermore, the Soviet Union fought hard to ban nuclear weapons, threatening mankind with an unprecedented calamity, and to call an immediate halt to nuclear tests, which had already had deleterious effects on human health and menaced the health and lives of future generations. In all its proposals on these issues, the Soviet Government invariably drew attention to the need and real possibility of international agreement in the interests of all nations. The U.S.S.R. proposed that the powers should agree to halt nuclear tests without prior agreement on other aspects of the disarmament issue.
Because the Soviet Government realised the improbability of immediate conclusion of a test ban treaty, due to the intransigence of the Western powers, it made fresh proposals in 1963 that paved the way for a partial test ban treaty. The ten-day negotiations in Moscow between Soviet, British and American representatives culminated on July 25, 1963, in the initialling of the treaty banning nuclear tests in three environments. Besides the signatures of the three big nuclear powers, the Moscow Treaty, signed on August 5, 1963, contains the signatures of more than a hundred states. This is a great achievement for the policy of peace.
In the troubled international situation of recent years, exacerbated by the aggressive action of the U.S.A., the Soviet Union has not slackened its efforts to safeguard peace and security. Soviet diplomacy continues to campaign for disarmament and for the settlement of outstanding issues, 284 that would take much of the steam out of international tension and curb the arms race. To attain these aims it would above all be necessary to dismantle all military bases, withdraw all foreign troops from other territories, and conclude an agreement on the total prohibition of nuclear weapons.
In 1965, the Soviet Government put before the U.N. General Assembly a draft treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. The resolution subsequently adopted rellected the intense concern of all peoples in a vital solution of the problem. The Assembly called on all governments to take every action to have an international treaty signed. The Soviet campaign eventually bore fruit when in 1968 the General Assembly approved, by an overwhelming majority, the Soviet draft treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.
It was mainly due to the peace-loving policy of the Soviet Union and other socialist states that the Korean war was ended in 1953, the Indochina war in 1954, and that the Caribbean crisis was resolved. The U.S.S.R. played an important part in ending the Indo-Pakistani conflict. Today, the Soviet Union is trying hard to halt the U.S. aggression in Vietnam, to eradicate the consequences of the Israeli aggression against the U.A.R., Syria and Jordan, radically to improve the international situation and to attain a peaceful solution of all outstanding international issues.
One of the central aims of Soviet foreign policy has always been to strengthen European security. The Soviet Union backed the proposal of the German Democratic Republic that both German states should forego the manufacture, acquisition and use of nuclear weapons and their deployment on their territories, and, further, take measures to cut back the number of troops and armaments in both German states. The Soviet Union has also upheld Poland's initiative to call a conference of European states to discuss an effective security system for Europe, the proposals to form a nuclear-free zone in Central Europe, to recognise the inviolability of the existing frontiers in Europe, and to respect the sovereignty of every state. The U.S.S.R. has approved and upheld the proposals of Bulgaria, Rumania and other socialist states to bolster European security, particularly in the Balkans.
The Warsaw Pact member-states are engaged in a concerted campaign to attain European security. Their prime 285 aim, in the interest of peace and security, is to prevent the U.S.-backed militaristic and revanchist rulers oi the Federal Republic of Germany from obtaining access to nuclear weapons and gaining any concessions to their territorial claims. The Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact countries consider one of the chief conditions for European security to be recognition of the inviolability of the existing frontiers, including those of the German Democratic Republic, Poland and Czechoslovakia. The Warsaw Pact members have more than once declared their determination to rebuff any aggression from imperialism and reaction.
In complete accord with the interests of all European peoples, the Soviet Union has been trying to make the continent a model of lasting peace, and comprehensive and fruitful co-operation between nations with equal rights.
The Soviet Union has also invested great faith in the United Nations and its ability to bring a relaxation of international tension. Soviet foreign policy seeks to make the U.N. an effective instrument of peace and security; it has, therefore, used the new balance of forces both in the world and within the United Nations to make this organisation a more effective and all-embracing body. It is the Soviet Government's aim to involve U.N. in the campaign rapidly to eliminate the international crises that arise out of the aggressive acts of the imperialists. In the immediate post-war years, this activity was largely confined to exposing the aggression from the U.N. rostrum and voting in the Security Council against Western proposals designed to exploit the U.N. name to further imperialist policy. Once the United Nations had accepted a group of socialist countries and a large number of newly independent states, it became increasingly possible to gain U.N. support in countermanding imperialist aggression. The Soviet record in the United Nations is a vital component of the Soviet peace struggle, which is supported by all those in the world who cherish peace.
In its campaign for peace and a negotiated settlement of outstanding issues, the Soviet Government attaches paramount importance to better relations with the chief capitalist powers, including the U.S.A. Since its first proposal for a non-aggression treaty between the U.S.S.R. and the U.S.A. in early 1956, the Soviet Union has frequently sponsored specific measures encouraging better Soviet-American 286 relations. Such measures as the establishment of a ``hot line" between Moscow and Washington, the conclusion of the 1963 Moscow Test Ban Treaty, an agreement banning the use of nuclear weapons in outer space and an agreement on its nonproliferation, the mutual pledges to limit the manufacture of fissionable materials, are all evidence of the headway made by Soviet policy in respect of the U.S.A., designed to improve Soviet-American relations in accordance with the principle of peaceful coexistence. While adhering to the principle of peaceful coexistence, the Soviet Union has strongly condemned the aim of some Americans to limit this principle to Soviet-American relations and simultaneously to perpetrate acts of aggression against other states, to export counter-revolution and exacerbate international tension. The Soviet Union has consistently worked for peaceful coexistence not only in relations between the great powers, but also between big and small states.
Mutually advantageous political, economic and cultural relations, based on the peaceful coexistence principle, have been developing between the Soviet Union and France since the mid-1960s. The return visits of heads of state in 1966 made a substantial contribution to better Franco-Soviet relations. Similarly, Franco-Soviet economic, scientific, and cultural co-operation has been progressing successfully.
Despite the refusal of the British Labour Government to renounce its support for U.S. aggression, Soviet-British relations have also made some headway. The Soviet Government has persistently sought to promote these relations on the basis of the principles of peaceful coexistence.
In recent years, mutually beneficial relations have been developing between the U.S.S.R. and Italy, Japan and other capitalist states. As a result, in spite of the pressure applied from belligerent circles in the U.S.A., their political relations have also shown signs of improvement.
Soviet foreign policy is particularly concerned with fostering good-neighbour relations with countries bordering on the Soviet Union. Soviet-Finnish relations are a shining model of the embodiment of the peaceful coexistence principle. Favourable conditions exist for promoting better relations with the other Scandinavian countries. Traditional amicable relations prevail between the Soviet Union and Afghanistan. As a result of the 1965 Soviet-Afghan talks, the 287 mutual non-aggression and neutrality treaty, concluded in 1931, was renewed for another ten years.
The Soviet Union's relations with its two southern neighbours, Iran and Turkey, have also improved. This is further confirmation of the Lenin-established principle in relations with these nations, and demonstrates that the national interests of Iran and Turkey require the fostering of peaceable good-neighbour relations with the Soviet Union. Consolidation of Soviet-Iranian and Soviet-Turkish relations can and must become the principal guarantee of security in that area and promote mutual economic and cultural development.
Soviet efforts to enhance international security and strengthen peace are imbued with the determination to uphold the principles of socialist foreign policy and a sense of profound responsibility. That Soviet foreign policy is founded on humane principles and represents the vital interests of all people is amply testified to in its results: the policy is effective, influential and successful.
Questions bearing on the further strengthening of friendship and cohesion of the countries within the world socialist system are at the centre of the foreign policy activity of the C.P.S.U. and the Soviet state. The 24th Congress of the C.P.S.U. noted the successes in co-ordinating foreignpolicy activity within the framework of the Warsaw Treaty, and stressed the special importance of the socialist countries' economic integration, which expresses the objective requirements of development in the socialist world.
The Soviet Union's stand on its relations with the Chinese People's Republic is determined by its concern for the interests of world socialism and for strengthening the unity of the anti-imperialist forces. Resolutely rejecting the Peking leaders' slanderous inventions, the C.P.S.U. stands for normalising relations between the two states and restoring the friendship between the Soviet and the Chinese peoples in accordance with their fundamental interests.
The 24th Congress of the C.P.S.U. highlighted the great importance of the Soviet policy of active defence of peace and strengthening international security.
The Congress put forward a broad and realistic programme of struggle for peace and international co-operation, and for the freedom and independence of nations.
[288] __ALPHA_LVL0__ The End. [END]
[inside front dust jacket:]
Among the many letters received by Progress Publishers from all over the world, one recurring request is for u& to produce a book on contemporary affairs: what's going on in the world, which way are events developing, what is the present balance of power in the world, the sense and direction behind capitalistsocialist economic competition, what has the future in store for mankind? This book is intended to fill that need. It describes the principal course of world events and the major trends in capitalist and socialist societies. Behind this analysis is a formidable array of facts and figures, a sound scientific foundation and authoritative evidence from scholars and academics the world over.
The book was compiled by the following slaff members of the Institute of World Economy and International Relations, Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R.: Prof. V. Aboltin, Dr. of Econ. (senior contributor), Prof. Y. Pevsner, Dr. of Econ., 0. Salkovsky, Dr. of Econ., M. Barabanov, V. Gantman, S. Zagladina, A. Lavrishchcv, I. Orlik, V. Razmerov, D. Tomashevsky, A. Shapiro, Candidates of Sc., and F. Burdzhalov, a research worker. They have written many works, which arc well known in the U.S.S.R. and abroad.
[289] [back of back dust jacket:]Soon to be published:
GLEZEBMAN G.
SOCIALIST SOCIETY: SCIENTIFIC PRINCIPLES OF DEVELOPMENT
This work by a prominent Soviet philosopher, Vice-Principal of the Academy of Social Sciences under the CC, CPSU, makes a scientific study of the progress of socialist society and its development into a communist one. Relying on historical materialism, the author deals with some important questions discussed in Marxist literature, such as criteria of the material nature of production relations under socialism, contradictions in socialist society and their overcoming in social development, the role played by the subjective factor and the untenability of a subjectivist approach to problems of communist construction, scientific principles of guiding the development of society, and others.
The author introduced certain changes and additions in the book for the benefit of the foreign reader.
[290] [inside back dust jacket:]REQUEST TO READERS~
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