L.MOSKVIN
__TITLE__ THE WORKING CLASS AND ITS ALLIES __TEXTFILE_BORN__ 2007-02-28T10:16:41-0800 __TRANSMARKUP__ "Y. Sverdlov"
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[1]Translated from the Russian by Nicholas Bobrov
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[2] Contents page Introduction...................... 5 Chapter I. Proletariat Class Alliances During Its Preparation for Decisive Battles in the Imperialist Epoch....... 15 1. The Origins of Proletariat Class Alliances..... 15 2. The Experience of the Paris Commune As the Proletariat's First Attempt to Form Class Alliances..... 20 3. Some Lessons of the Commune.......... 27 Chapter II. Proletariat Class Alliances at the Beginning of This Century........................ 34 1. Alliances of the Working Class in Bourgeois-- Democratic Revolutions in Russia............ 34 2. The Leninist Policy of Class Alliances During Preparations for and the Realisation of the October Revolution 43 3. The Revolutionary Upswing in Europe in 1917--1923 53 Chapter III. Proletariat Class Alliances Before the Second World War........................... 65 1. Problems of the Anti-Fascist Front in Germany and the Communist International.......'. . . . 65 2. The Experience of the Popular Fron in Franco ... 71 3. The Popular Front in Spain........... 76 4. The Communist International's Strategy and Tactics Before the War................. 82 Chapter IV. Working-Class Alliances After the War .... 89 1. Popular and National Fronts in the Countries of Central and Southeastern Europe............. 89 2. The Communist Movement and the Policy of Democratic Alliances Against Monopoly Rule........ 102 3. Some Aspects of the Chilean Revolution..... 122 Chapter V. The Working Class---the Leading Force in the AntiMonopoly Struggle................... 130 1. The Working Class Under the Conditions of State-- Monopoly Capitalism................ 130 2. The Socio-Econpmic Position of the Working Class in Developed Capitalist Countries.......... 141 3. The Growth of the Proletariat's Class Awareness. The Working Class in the Vanguard of the Anti-Monopoly Struggle..................... 155 __PRINTERS_P_3_COMMENT__ 1* 3 Chapter VI. The Peasantry and Its Place in the Anti-Monopoly Struggle........................175 1. Aggravation of Social Contradictions in the Countryside Under the Conditions of State-Monopoly Capitalism 175 2. The Working Peasantry As an Ally of the Working Class 186 Chapter VII. The Traditional Urban Middle Sections in the Class Struggle...................... 205 1. The Urban Petty Bourgeoisie: Changes in Its SocioEconomic Position................ 205 2. The Urban Petty Bourgeoisie's Political Stand ... 216 Chapter VIII. The New Middle Sections and Their Role in the Anti-Monopoly Struggle................ 227 1. Intellectuals and Office Workers: Their Place in the Social Structure and Their Socio-Economic Position Under State-Monopoly Capitalism......... 227 2. New Middle Sections in the Anti-Monopoly Struggle 239 Conclusion...................... 256 [4] __ALPHA_LVL1__ IntroductionThe present stage of the working-class and mass democratic movement in the developed capitalist countries is characterised by deep-going and diverse processes. The proletariat's class battles have reached a high level of intensity, its movement is demonstrating better organisation and greater fighting efficiency, and new social sections of the working people which earlier stood aloof from class battles have been drawn into the anti-monopoly struggle. All these facts show that the struggle against the entire system of state-monopoly capitalism has substantially escalated in the 1970s. This is due to many factors, both internal and external. The general crisis of capitalism is deepening and all its contradictions are worsening, especially the contradiction between labour and capital, notwithstanding all the attempts made by the ruling circles to overcome the instability of capitalism by state-monopoly control measures.
The change in the balance of forces both in the world arena and within the national framework of individual states in favour of the forces of peace, democracy and socialism has engendered new, more favourable conditions for an anti-monopoly and anti-imperialist struggle in the developed capitalist countries. The present class clashes are intense and dynamic because social tension is continuing to grow and the antagonism between monopoly rule and the majority of people is worsening.
The working class plays a very important role in this struggle. An increasing number of social forces is waging a struggle against imperialism for deep-going political and socio-economic transformations. In the Report of the CPSU Central Committee to the 25th CPSU Congress, the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, Leonid Brezhnev, emphasised: "New generations and social strata, new parties and organisations are joining the revolutionary process. 5 We are witnessing precisely what Lenin wrote about in his time: 'As man's history-making activity grows broader and deeper, the size of that mass of the population which is the conscious maker of history is bound to increase'."^^1^^
Today, when opponents of socialism ranging from extreme right-wing bourgeois ideologists and politicians to various Marxist deviationists, i.e., right-wing and ``left'' opportunists and revisionists, are seeking to distort the concepts of scientific communism with regard to both the role of the working class in social development and its class alliances, it is especially important to analyse the given problems as set forth by Marx, Engels and Lenin. The Marxist-Leninist approach to new phenomena of reality provides a reliable methodological basis for understanding the objective and subjective conditions needed for establishing an alliance between the working class and other sections of the working people.
When Marx and Engels' Communist Manifesto appeared in 1848, the working-class movement was only beginning to develop independently and the conclusions drawn by the Manifesto's authors were a mere prediction. But after the victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution and the revolutions in many other countries, it became quite clear that the main socio-economic and political transformations in the world were indeed occurring in the direction predicted by them.
The works by the founders of scientific communism comprehensively reveal the dialectical interconnection between the objective and subjective factors in the class struggle. Lenin said: "We must understand which classes are the motive force of the revolution. Their various aspirations must be soberly assessed. The capitalist cannot travel the same road as the worker. Petty proprietors can neither fully trust the capitalists nor all immediately agree on a close fraternal alliance with the workers. Only when we understand the difference between these classes shall we be able to find the correct road for the revolution."~^^2^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ Documents and Resolutions. XXVth Congress of the CPSU, Moscow, 1976, p. 33; V. I. Lenin, "The Heritage We Renounce'', Collected Works, Vol. 2, p. 524.
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, "Introduction to the Resolutions of the Seventh (April) All-Russia Conference of the RSDLP(B)'', Collected Works Vol. 24, p. 315.
6Marxism-Leninism has both demonstrated and thoroughly substantiated the historical and social basis behind the motive forces of bourgeois-democratic and socialist revolutions. It showed that the composition of these forces is determined by the nature of a given historical epoch, the social and class structure of a particular country or group of similar countries, and by the objective, historically changing position of certain classes and sections in the system of production relations in a given country.
The founders of Marxism gave a scientific socio-economic definition of the proletariat, determined its objective position among other social classes and sections, analysed its relations with these sections, and substantiated its world historic mission. They demonstrated that the main question is not what a worker or even the proletariat as a whole visualises at a given moment, but "what the proletariat is, and what, in accordance with this being, it will historically be compelled to do. Its aim and historical action is visibly and irrevocably foreshadowed in its own life situation as well as in the whole organisation of bourgeois society today."^^1^^
At the same time, they showed that the working class will fulfil its historic mission, i.e., it will triumph and establish the socialist system with the support of other working sections of the population. From the mid-19th century, the objective conditions of existence forced the urban and rural petty bourgeoisie to establish an alliance with the working class, while small farmers and the urban petty bourgeoisie became increasingly dependent on the proletariat in realising their political aspirations. The concepts of proletariat class alliances, first stated by Marx and Engels and confirmed in the revolutionary movement in the latter half of the 19th century, were evolved by Lenin with respect to the new historical situation.
The following idea, which is the basis of the principle of proletariat class alliances, impregnates all of Lenin's works: "The experience of all revolutions and all movements of the oppressed classes, the experience of the world socialist movement teaches us that only the proletariat is in a _-_-_
~^^1^^ Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, "The Holy Family or Critique of Critical Criticism''. In: Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, Collected Works, Vol. 4, p. 37.
7 position to unite and lead the scattered and backward sections of the working and exploited population."^^1^^ This is one of the most important tasks of the working class, which is the most progressive and the only consistent revolutionary class of modern society.The founders of scientific communism advanced and substantiated the thesis that the objective and subjective conditions for a revolution arise in an irregular fashion. They indicated the objective need for a long transitional period during which the working class, while leading and uniting all the working sections, creates conditions for eliminating class differences and building a classless society.
As early as the 19th century, the expropriation of small and middle proprietors by the big bourgeoisie objectively caused a substantial part of them to gradually take the proletariat's stand. In this respect, some lessons were learned from the Paris Commune, when many representatives of the petty and middle urban bourgeoisie, intellectuals and office workers sided, for the first time in history, with the workers' revolution.
Proceeding from this experience, Lenin evolved his teaching on proletariat class alliances with respect to the new historical situation, i.e., under the conditions of imperialism. The Leninist policy on class alliances pursued by the Bolsheviks in the bourgeois-democratic revolutions of 1905 and February 1917 had enriched scientific communism with invaluable new theoretical and practical findings.
During direct preparations for the Great October Socialist Revolution and in October 1917, the strategy and tactics employed to win over the broad masses, i.e., to draw them to the workers' side, were crowned by a victory of world historic importance. The triumph of the October Revolution, the main event of this century, radically changed the course of mankind's entire development.
The Great October Socialist Revolution clearly corroborated the working class's universal liberation mission. The heroic struggle waged by the workers and peasants of Russia, a struggle ardently and effectively supported by working people throughout the world, showed "to all countries _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, "First Congress of the Communist International'', Collected Works, Vol. 28, p. 466.
8 something---and something highly significant---of their near and inevitable future'',^^1^^ as Lenin put it.Down through the centuries, power in different countries and societies was exercised by different classes and social groups in their own interests. But only the working class, being the most progressive social class, exercises its power in the interests of all working people. Events have shown that although the conditions for and forms of the transition from capitalism to socialism are diverse, socialist transformations can only be carried out if the working class and its allies gain state power, i.e., power which is capable of defending their gains and giving free rein to the people's great creative resourcefulness by relying on the working masses' broad support. Hence the enormous importance of Lenin's teaching on the socialist state, which was first set up by the Soviet people under the guidance of the working class and its vanguard: the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
The policy of the proletariat's class alliances had been vindicated also during the revolutionary upswing in other European countries in 1917--23, although, for various objective and subjective reasons, the socialist revolutions failed there.
In the subsequent period between the two world wars, the policy of proletariat class alliances evolved further, both in the Communist International's activity and in several fraternal parties' work. An important landmark in this respect was the formation of Popular Fronts in France and Spain. The Communist International's new strategy and tactics, in which the experience gained was generalised and which were theoretically expressed in the decisions adopted at the Seventh Congress of the Communist International, produced favourable results; they promoted the cohesion of broad sections of society around the working class, and consolidated the unity of the anti-imperialist, democratic forces in the struggle against fascism and war.
After the Second World War, the popular and national fronts in several countries of Central and Southeastern Europe made creative use of the Marxist-Leninist teaching on proletariat class alliances. The world communist _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, "'Left-Wing' Communism---an Infantile Disorder'', Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 22.
9 movement continues to develop this doctrine with respect to the present stage of the struggle against imperialism.The course of social development clearly shows that imperialism is increasingly running counter to the vital interests of millions of people engaged in either manual or mental labour. The deep-going changes in the social and class structure of developed capitalist countries, which are occurring under the scientific and technological revolution, increase the possibility of creating a coalition of all progressive social forces, a coalition opposed to monopoly rule, and of establishing a political alliance of left-wing parties and organisations on this basis.
The intensity of class contradictions in the capitalist states, the crisis in all areas of society, and the discontent of-the masses and their resolve to achieve changes reached the stage when a situation opening the way for radical socioeconomic and political transformations could originate in any link in the imperialist chain. Under these circumstances, it is all the more important to make creative use of MarxismLeninism in assessing the new socio-economic and political factors, in employing them in the interests of the struggle waged by the working class and the non-proletarian sections of the working people, and in analysing the dialectical interconnection between the general laws of the class struggle waged on a world-wide scale and its specifically historical forms and methods in individual countries.
Although the Communist and Workers' parties in various capitalist countries take different approaches and use different slogans and programmes of struggle, they are all faced with the problems of drawing the masses into radical socioeconomic and political transformations through definite intermediate, transitional stages of democracy. When material conditions for a transition to a higher social formation have, on the whole, been created, the subjective factor, i.e., the extent of the awareness, organisation and resolve shown by the working class and its vanguard as well as by broad sections of the working people in their vigorous actions, becomes all the more important.
The Communist and Workers' parties play an exceptionally important role in this respect. The Communist parties of many capitalist countries are now an influential political force because of their active, unflagging struggle to win over the masses and realise their just aspirations.
10As the capitalist system becomes increasingly unstable, and as its socio-economic and political crisis worsens and all the anti-monopoly forces become more active, the Communist parties consistently endeavour to unite all democratic forces in a political alliance which is capable of resolutely curtailing monopoly rule and carrying out radical political and economic transformations that ensure the most favourable conditions for the struggle for socialism. Major battles fought by the working class in the 1970s have heralded further class battles, which can lead to radical social transformations and the establishment of the power of the working class in alliance with other sections of the working people.
Especially important in this respect are, firstly, the tasks of consolidating the unity of the working class as the main, determining force of the revolutionary, anti-monopoly struggle and, secondly, the questions of proletarian internationalism and the working people's solidarity. The facts of modern development and the lessons of history show that the political stand of the working class's allies also largely depends on the unity of this class.
Concerted action by the working people is now a fact in many countries. It is realised in various forms and at different levels, i.e., from the working people's joint participation in demonstrations, strikes and other mass actions to inter-party political alliances. In many countries, the Communist and Workers' parties have set forth specific programmes for establishing lasting and stable anti-monopoly coalitions. The establishment of an alliance between all anti-monopoly forces, headed by the working class, is one of the most important tasks facing the communist and working-class movement in the developed capitalist countries.
The modern class structure of bourgeois society is undergoing important changes. This is especially due to the further concentration of production and centralisation of capital, greater domination by the monopolies, growing state interference in the economy, and the increasing influence of international corporations.
In developed capitalist countries, important changes continue to occur in the alignment of social forces. These are expressed especially in the general numerical growth of wage labour. The working class, particularly its core, i.e., the industrial proletariat, is the largest and the most organised 11 and advanced contingent of wage labour. Contrary to the predictions of bourgeois ideologists, reformists and revisionists, the present scientific and technological revolution is resulting in the expansion and consolidation of the working class's ranks rather than in their diminution.
The social basis of monopoly rule is narrowing down as a large part of the middle urban and rural sections side with the working class. Social groups which the big bourgeoisie recently regarded, with good reason, as its allies are now participating more frequently and more actively in the anti-monopoly struggle on the side of the proletariat. Under state-monopoly capitalism, the class differentiation of the peasantry intensifies as social contradictions worsen in the countryside. The working sections of the peasantry are an important ally of the working class. Changes in the urban petty bourgeoisie's socio-economic position engender changes in its political stand. The new middle sections, i.e., intellectuals and office workers, are becoming more and more active in the anti-monopoly struggle.
In its Final Document entitled "For Peace, Security, Cooperation and Social Progress in Europe'', the Conference of the Communist and Workers' Parties of Europe, held in Berlin in late June 1976, appealed to the working class, the peasantry, the middle sections, scientists, cultural workers, women, young people, all progressive, democratic and peace-loving forces and parties, as well as democratic public organisations, to exert greater effort to ensure a peaceful future and the flourishing of all nations and peoples of Europe. The Communist and Workers' parties represented at the Conference spoke in favour of a "constructive dialogue with all other democratic forces, each of these forces fully retaining its identity and independence, so as to arrive at fruitful cooperation in the struggle for peace, security and social progress".^^1^^
The Final Document, which was unanimously adopted at the Conference, said that the Communist parties did not regard all those who either disagreed with their policy or criticised their activity as anti-Communists. Anti-- communism continues to be used by the imperialist and reactionary forces not only against the Communists, but also against _-_-_
~^^1^^ For Peace, Security, Cooperation and Social Progress in Europe. Berlin, June 29--30, 1976, Moscow, 1976, p. 59.
12 other democratic-minded persons and democratic freedoms. These elements are mounting campaigns directed against Communist parties, socialist countries (beginning with the Soviet Union) and the forces fighting for socialism and progress---campaigns intended to discredit the Communists' policy and ideals in the people's eyes and prevent both the working-class movement from uniting and the democratic and popular forces from cooperating. It is part of the popular forces' aspirations for progress and democratic development to isolate and vanquish anti-communism. The Communist and Workers' parties are acting so as to ensure that their policy and the ideals of justice and progress, of which they are the bearers, will increasingly become a force which promotes the broadest unity of the working people and the masses.The question of proletariat class alliances is especially important today, when radical social changes are urgently needed in developed capitalist countries. To quote Leonid Brezhnev, "Experience shows that in such a situation special importance attaches to the problem of relations between the working class and its allies. This is a question both of jointly taking various concrete political actions and of planning long-term co-operation on a mutually acceptable basis."^^1^^
There is another circumstance which was taken into account when this book was being conceived and which is directly reflected on its pages. Reference to the history of the working-class movement is not merely of theoretical and factual interest. It is essential if the right lessons are to be drawn and correct tactics worked out for present-day conditions. However, this is not only a matter of revealing the objective and subjective causes behind the evolution of the political stand taken by a certain class or social section in the past and at present. It is very important to scientifically analyse the changes in the socio-economic position, ideology, social psychology and political stand of working people who, at the present stage of the struggle, have still not become aware that they have common interests with the revolutionary working class, whose allies they will later become.
_-_-_~^^1^^ L. I. Brezhnev, The CPSV in the Straggle for Unity of All Revolutionary and Peace Forces, Moscow, 1975, p. 69.
13Therefore, the problems of the relations between the working class and its allies and those between its class allies themselves are pressing ones. Hence, a deep-going study of these problems must be made by employing Marxist-Leninist methods and investigating the latest tendencies of social development and the strategy and tactics used by the Communist and Workers' parties.
It is all the more important to analyse and generalise these problems, because the experience gained by individual Communist parties is characterised not only by national features, but also by common features which are of great interest to the entire international working-class and communist movement. The author of this book does not claim to have made an exhaustive study of this important and difficult subject. He considers merely some of its aspects.
[14] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter I __ALPHA_LVL1__ PROLETARIAT CLASS ALLIANCES DURINGThe proletariat endured many difficulties between the advent of capitalist society in the 14th-15th centuries and the onset of Marx's period in the development of the workingclass movement. It turned from a passive, exploited mass into a conscious, politically independent social force and an intrepid fighter for the social emancipation and national liberation of the broad sections of the working people. The development of the working class in different countries had its own specific features, but it was also characterised by certain common traits.
At the turn of the 19th century, the proletariat was only beginning to stand out from the general mass of the pettybourgeois ``people'' as an embryo of a new class. It was not yet capable of taking political action independently. The proletariat was largely fragmented, even in its own environment (factory workers were in the minority in those countries which underwent the industrial revolution at the end of the 18th century and the early half of the 19th century) and, at the same time, it was closely associated with various urban and rural plebeians. It was these social groups (various urban plebeians, on the one hand, and farm labourers and peasants who had moved to the towns, on the other) whose participation in the early proletarian movement lent the workers' actions a rebellious tinge. But as the working class developed and the number of industrial workers in it increased, spontaneous action and insurgency intertwined more and more with the beginnings of organisational efficiency.
The development of capitalism was accompanied at every stage by a numerical growth in the proletariat. By the early 1870s, Britain, France and the United States---the three major countries which had already passed through the main stages of the industrial revolution---had about 12--13 million industrial workers. The proletariat had undergone great 15 qualitative changes as well. During the initial period of working-class history, the proletariat passed through three main stages of development: the pre-proletariat, the stage of manufactory workers and the factory proletariat stage. When studying the history of the international workingclass movement, account must be taken of the inseparable link between the social, political and ideological emancipation of the working class as it begins to stand out from the general democratic mass and its transformation into a leading social force. When an organised working-class movement began to originate, the main task was to emancipate the working class. As this task was tackled, the problem of working-class allies in the struggle against capitalism became very important. By the mid-19th century, the history of class struggle reached the stage when a revolution could triumph only if the working class was capable of leading the broad non-proletarian sections of the population in its struggle. The workers of France, for instance, played an important role in the victorious revolution of July 1830 and in the overthrow of the Bourbon dynasty. The uprisings in Lyons in 1831 and 1834, which roused the working people in Paris and other French towns, played an important part in the further development of their class awareness. In June 1848, the working class acted as a determining force in the struggle against the old society.
The revolutions of 1848 in France and the German states, which were the principal theatres of revolutionary action, showed that, for the first time in history, the main revolutionary zeal of society stemmed from the working class there. Not only was it a politically active force, but it acted as the most massive and resolute force.
After studying the socio-economic position of France at the beginning of the 1870s and the development of capitalism as a whole, the founders of Marxism-Leninism showed that even at that time big capital was subjugating and oppressing not only the new social class, i.e., the proletariat, but also the broadest sections of all the other working people. This was characteristic of the deep-going processes which took place in France during the Second Empire.
Marx wrote: "Under its sway, coincident with the change brought upon the market of the world by California, Australia, and the wonderful development of the United States, an unsurpassed period of industrial activity set in, an orgy of 16 stock-jobbery, finance swindling, joint-stock company adventures---leading all to rapid centralisation of capital by the expropriation of the middle class and widening the gulf between the capitalist class and the working class."^^1^^
The power of Marx's scientific vision was shown by the fact that, even when capitalism was at the pre-monopoly stage of development, he predicted that big capital would begin to expropriate the petty and middle bourgeoisie. Socio-economic development was very rapid in this respect, and the changes in the petty bourgeoisie's real position engendered changes in its psychology and its political stand.
Marx wrote that in France in 1848 "no one had fought more fanatically in the June days for the salvation of property and the restoration of credit than the Parisian petty bourgeois---keepers of cafes and restaurants ... small traders, shopkeepers, handicraftsmen, etc. The shopkeeper had pulled himself together and marched against the barricades...."^^2^^ Although, in June 1848, the petty bourgeoisie in France took up arms and fiercely opposed the progressive forces, at the beginning of the 1870s, for the first time in history, a substantial part of the urban petty bourgeoisie supported the working class in its irreconcilable struggle against big capital. This extremely important aspect of world historical development showed that the conciousness of the broad sections of the urban petty bourgeoisie had changed as a result of the big bourgeoisie's policy, which radically conflicted with the interests of most of the nation.
On the eve of the 1870s French capitalism was still poorly developed and France was mainly a petty-bourgeois country. The urban petty bourgeoisie was very large numerically. Moreover, the small crafts industry lasted for a particularly long time in Paris. Two-thirds of the industry in Paris consisted of enterprises which either employed only a single worker or managed without any wage labour. That part of the bourgeoisie was, thus, working petty bourgeoisie. It was the big financial and industrial bourgeoisie which became the social support of the empire. It actually handled state affairs together with the old aristocracy and landowners. In the mid-1860s, all the principal French industrial, _-_-_
~^^1^^ K. Marx and F. Engels, On the Paris Commune, Moscow, 1976, p. 205.
~^^2^^ K. Marx, "The Class Struggles in France''. In: Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, Collected Works, Vol. 10, p. 74.
17 bank and transport societies were in the hands of 183 persons, who owned shares and bonds worth 20,000 million francs. Most of the Second Empire's domestic and foreign policy moves were made in the big bourgeoisie's interests. In the latter half of the 19th century, the urban petty bourgeoisie's social position became more and more unstable. In 1870, i.e., on the eve of the Commune, the Bank of France had 800 million francs' worth of promissory notes belonging to Parisian shopkeepers and other small proprietors. These notes could be submitted for payment at any moment, thus threatening the petty bourgeoisie with complete bankruptcy. The Second Empire also saw the setting up of Paris's first large department stores, including Le Bon Marche, Les Grands Magasins du Louvre, Le Printemps and La Samaritaine, which undermined the small shopkeepers' position.In the 1860s, more than one-half of the gainfully employed population of France was engaged in agriculture. The Second Empire's policy was aimed at supporting the bankers, who, according to Marx, sucked from the peasant plot "its blood and brains".^^1^^ The ruined peasants, who were forced to flee to the towns in search of a livelihood, swelled the industrial proletariat's ranks.
In March 1871, on the insistence of financial circles which called on the government to immediately carry out economic measures advantageous to them, a bill was introduced in the National Assembly to cancel the moratorium on the expired promissory notes, whereby 800 million francs were to be returned to the Bank of France. The bill was passed on the initiative of the Minister of the Interior, Armand Dufaure. Between the 13th and the 17th of March alone, 150,000 promissory notes were submitted for payment in Paris. As a result, many small enterprises became bankrupt and closed down. About 100,000 small proprietors and traders were faced with complete bankruptcy.
Describing that bill's consequences, a contemporary French historian, Maurice Choury, wrote: "At one sweep, the National Assembly threw all the petty bourgeoisie into the proletariat's embrace. The Parisian shopkeeper who had _-_-_
~^^1^^ K. Marx, "The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte''. In: Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works in three volumes, Vol. 1, Moscow, 1977, p. 482.
18 voted yes during the plebiscite of November~3 would vote for the Commune on March 26."^^1^^ This was certainly the measure which stirred up and revolutionised the small Parisian proprietors most of all. It stepped up the process which brought them and the workers and the poorest handicraftsmen politically closer together.But it would be wrong to assume that this act by the National Assembly's reactionary members was a political miscalculation. The fact is that when the big financiers' and industrialists' direct interests are at stake, the bourgeoisie seeks to shift the burden onto the shoulders of the working sections of the population, including the petty bourgeoisie. The Empire ruined this part of the middle class by misappropriating public wealth, supporting large stock-exchange speculation and promoting the artificially accelerated centralisation of capital.
The dialectics of historical development is such that in the late 1860s the Parisian petty bourgeoisie began to support the working-class movement which it had opposed in June 1848.
Commenting on this, Prosper-Olivier Lissagaray, an historian of the Paris Commune, wrote that after trying many remedies, the urban and rural proletariat was ultimately filled with one natural desire, i.e., to take its fate into its own hands, while the petty bourgeoisie, being thrown back into the proletarian ranks by big capitalists, finally became aware, after long vacillations, that it had common interests with the proletariat.
As a result, at the beginning of the 1870s, the objective and subjective conditions were such that a substantial part of the petty bourgeoisie sided with the working class in the struggle against big capital's dictatorship. Marx wrote: "For the first time in history, the petty and moyenne middle class has openly rallied round the workmen's revolution, and proclaimed it as the only means of its own salvation and that of France."^^2^^
Socio-economic and political development in the epoch of pre-monopoly capitalism and imperialism clearly shows that the broad sections of the petty bourgeoisie, which constitute _-_-_
~^^1^^ Maurice Choury, La Commune au cceur de Paris, Paris, 1907, p. 164.
~^^2^^ K. Marx and F. Engels, On the Paris Commune, pp. 161--62.
__PRINTERS_P_19_COMMENT__ 2* 19 a substantial part of the population of capitalist countries, play an important role in society. It is very important for the proletariat to draw them to its side. The Paris Commune was the first attempt to establish such proletariat class alliances.As a result of the revolution of March 18, 1871, power passed over to the working class and the petty bourgeoisie, which sided with it. In this respect, it is very important and interesting to make a thorough analysis of the experience gained by the Paris Commune, in as much as it was virtually a bloc of proletarian revolutionaries and petty-bourgeois democrats.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 2. The Experience of the Paris CommuneThe experience of the Paris Commune, which was the first proletarian revolution in history, embraces a large number of aspects. It was above all the first workers' revolution, in which the proletariat was the main motive force. After assuming power, the workers' government of France counteracted the bourgeois government in Versailles, which acted in collusion with a foreign power and struck an anti-national deal with foreign occupation forces to suppress people's power and the people's revolution. Moreover, the numerous non-proletarian sections of the working people supported the first proletarian revolution.
The Commune gave broad democratic freedoms to the people. The official government organ, Le Journal Officiel, carried a programme article entitled "The Revolution of March 18'', which said: "The proletariat, faced with a permanent threat to its rights, the absolute negation of all its legitimate aspirations, the devastation of its homeland and the loss of all its hope, has realised that its imperative duty and absolute right is to take its destiny into its own hands and ensure itself victory by assuming power."^^1^^ This article thus proclaimed and substantiated the French proletariat's historic task.
A municipal council, i.e., the Paris Commune, was elected as a result of universal suffrage. It was made up of workers _-_-_
~^^1^^ Le Journal Officiel, March 22, 1871, p. 17.
20 and their representatives. In all, the Commune comprised 25 workers, about the same number of handicraftsmen and small office workers, and just as many "free lances" ( including 12 journalists).The Central Committee of the National Guard had approximately the same composition. Of its 36 members, who signed an agreement with the mayors of the Paris arrondissements, about 20 belonged to the working class. The insurgent proletariat managed to draw numerous sections of the working people to its side, as is clearly evident from the elections on March 26, 1871. But this time, unlike in 1848, the big bourgeoisie did not succeed in knocking together a bloc of all the propertied elements against the proletariat.
Seeing both the sufferings which had befallen France as a result of the war and her socio-economic crisis, the petty bourgeoisie felt that "...only the working class can emancipate them from priest rule, convert science from an instrument of class rule into a popular force, convert the men of science themselves from panderers to class prejudice, placehunting state parasites, and allies of capital into free agents of thought! Science can only play its genuine part in the Republic of Labour."^^1^^
Measures Taken by the Workers' Government to Improve the Working People's Position. The petty bourgeoisie, which participated in the revolution of March 18, 1871 on the proletariat's side and voted for the Commune at the elections on March 26, was given a place in the workers' government of France. Petty bourgeoisie, as well as officials, book-- keepers, doctors, teachers, lawyers and publicists were elected, together with workers, to the Council of the Commune. Like the Commune's initial decrees, i.e., to abolish back rent and stop the sale of pawned items, the other measures taken by the workers' government to defer payments were also intended to improve the position of the broadest sections of the working people: workers, handicraftsmen, shopkeepers and small entrepreneurs. Even in its first proclamation, the Commune declared that its most important concern was to restore trade and rehabilitate industry. A resolution on the deadline for paying commercial promissory notes was adopted at the second, evening, session of the Commune Council on April 12. It said in part that since the bill concerning _-_-_
~^^1^^ K. Marx and F. Engels, On the Paris Commune, p. 162.
21 the deadlines for payments affected many persons' interests, the Paris Commune decreed that all suits for overdue payments be stopped until the decree on the deadlines for payments was published in Le Journal Officiel.This decision was of great importance to the petty bourgeoisie because it saved it from being sued for debts. The Paris Commune's decree deferred payments for all debts ( promissory notes, invoices, loan acknowledgements, etc.) for three years without interest. Its direct aim was to consolidate the petty and middle bourgeoisie's economic position and its link with the workers' government. Without this decree, three-quarters of the traders and handicraftsmen would have been ruined. Like other measures taken by the Paris Commune, this decree clearly shows that the position of other sections of working people also improves when the working class assumes power.
The Commune's policy in education, literature and art was, from the very beginning, aimed at more fully meeting the broad masses' cultural requirements. The measures taken in this field became the first attempt in history to organise and guide the development of art under the conditions of a proletarian revolution.
The Commune transformed schools and education on really democratic lines, advancing the principle of free and compulsory education. New schools, including vocational ones, began to be set up in accordance with the decree on the separation of the church from the state. The commission on education began to select new teachers to replace the former ones, who were mainly monks, nuns and abbots. Moreover, the teachers' minimum pay was substantially raised. Newspapers and leaflets, issued by the Commune, carried new literary works, especially political lyric (songs). The workers' government regarded the theatre as an extremely important means of educating the people and carried out reforms in this field too: private enterprise was eliminated and ticket prices were greatly reduced. Some of the Commune's manifestos dealt with the fine arts. An artists' federation was set up, and Gustave Courbet, Honore Daumier, Jules Dalou, Andre Gill and other prominent painters became members of it.
The Paris Commune was especially considerate towards national artistic values. There is firsthand evidence that, in May 1871, the British offered 50 million francs for some 22 paintings from the Louvre, but the Commune declined the offer, notwithstanding its financial difficulties. Museums were set up and an exhibition was held for Parisians. Moreover, the Garden of the Tuileries was opened to the general public. Great importance was attached to the establishment of libraries and reading halls. The outstanding geographer Jean-Jacques-Elisee Reclus, author of World Geography, was made head of the National Library.
For all the rumours spread by the Versailles Government that the Commune allegedly intended to destroy science and art, scientists in the Academy of Sciences engaged in absolutely everything according to the well-known Communard Louise Michel; courses were opened everywhere to satisfy the young people's thirst for knowledge in the fields of art, science, literature and invention.
The Paris Commune and the Peasantry. The Commune took great pains to establish ties with the peasantry. Several documents were adoped in which the revolutionary capital appealed to the departments to follow its example.
The Paris Communards issued a special appeal to the rural working people. It was printed in 100,000 copies and signed "Parisian Workers''. Since besieged Paris was cut off from the rest of the country, the printed appeal was thrown from balloons over villages. It declared that the peasants had the same interests as the workers, that Paris wanted to change the laws which gave the rich people power over the working people, and that assistance should be given to it in winning a victory, because revolutions would continue to occur until they were victorious. The appeal emphasised: land to the peasant, implements of labour to the worker, and work for all.
Although the Commune outlined measures for improving the small peasants' and farm labourers' living and working conditions and raised the question of necessarily establishing an alliance between the working people in the town and countryside, it underestimated the importance of the peasants' role in the revolution.
In its press, the Commune set forth, albeit in a very general form, the concept of an alliance between the working class and the working peasantry, especially the rural proletariat. But the peasantry, being in the grip of counter-revolutionary propaganda, did not understand the Commune's real aims and consequently did not support it. Moreover, the Commune failed to offer anything concrete and carry out measures 23 which were intended specially for the peasants and which could have drawn them to the revolution's side. The Commune's peasant policy was ineffective because its leaders were divided in their opinions and the Communards lacked ideological and theoretical training in this respect. They did not succeed in working out a complete agrarian revolutionary programme, in helping the broad peasant masses to understand it and in rousing them to a decisive struggle against the counter-revolutionary forces.
The Intelligentsia During the Commune. In the 1870s, the social differentiation of the new middle sections, i.e., intellectuals and office workers, became more and more pronounced together with the stratification of the old traditional middle sections. As one of the international working-class movement's highest achievements, the Paris Commune was, at the same time, a significant landmark in the history of the intelligentsia. During these heroic days, the most progressive intellectuals sided with the working class. Among the Communards were many writers, journalists, doctors, artists, scientists and teachers. The Paris Commune played a big role in drawing progressive intellectuals into the international working-class movement.
A differential approach must be taken in assessing the intelligentsia and its socio-political role. Lenin said: "Like any other class in modern society, the proletariat is not only advancing intellectuals from its own midst, but also accepts into its ranks supporters from the midst of all and sundry educated people."^^1^^ The events in France in 1870--71 confirm those words and corroborate this scientific approach to the intelligentsia.
The proletarian intelligentsia, represented by such figures as Eugene Pottier and Gustave Gaillard (a cobbler's son), took a very active part in the revolution and, even after its suppression, remained sure that the working class and all the working people would inevitably triumph. The best part of France's democratic intelligentsia sided with the revolutionary proletariat. This progressive section of the French intelligentsia was counteracted by the bourgeois intelligentsia---mainly in the person of reactionary officials, writers who did not understand the Commune's real aims, _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``Revolutionary Adventurism'', Collected Works. Vol. 6, p. 198.
24 and treacherous journalists, who maliciously distorted the truth about the workers' revolution and tried to disgrace it before world public.The petty-bourgeois intelligentsia, a stratum which is characterised, like the entire petty-bourgeois class, by equivocation, vacillation and by transitions from enthusiasm to despondency, apathy and despair, took an intermediate stand in the revolution of March 18, 1871. One part of it followed the big bourgeoisie, while the other sided with the working-class movement. But even in this its stand was not consistent.
Eugene Pottier was born into a poor family and remained a poor proletarian all his life. During the great Paris Commune, he was elected as one of its members and participated in all its undertakings. When it was being stifled in blood, he fought on the last barricades together with Gustave Lefranc.ais, an active participant in the revolutionary struggle, to whom he later dedicated his Internationale. In 1888, Pierre Degeyter, a worker and composer, composed music for the text of the Internationale, which became a workers' hymn sung throughout the world.
Pottier remained in hiding throughout June 1871, and it was then, only a few weeks after the massacre, that he wrote Internationale, a magnificent demonstration of faith in the working class's future! In his article commemorating the 25th anniversary of Pottier's death, Lenin wrote: "The Commune was crushed---but Pottier's Internationale spread its ideas throughout the world, and it is now more alive than ever before.'' ^^1^^
The best representatives of the democratic intelligentsia included the publicists Auguste-Jean-Marie Vermorel, Gustave Flourens and Edouard Vaillant, who disclosed and publicly criticised the vices of the old political regime.
Auguste-Jean-Marie Vermorel, a well-known pamphlet writer and a publicist, was the founder of the newspaper Courrier franfais. Because of his defence of the people's rights in the last years of the Second Empire, he was almost a permanent ``guest'' of the Sainte-Pelagie prison. Arthur Arnould, an historian of the Paris Commune, wrote that when the troops of the Versailles Government entered Paris, this writer and journalist, who bore not even the slightest _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``Eugene Pottier'', Collected Works, Vol. 36, p. 224.
25 resemblance to a soldier and who had dedicated his life to science and mental activity, suddenly changed: he fought in battles, drove wagons, delivered orders and went wherever the danger was greatest, risking his life twenty times an hour. Finally, however, he was shot dead.Gustave Flourens, a son of a prominent scientist and an academician, also laid down his live for the Commune. Frederic-Etienne Cournet, editor of the newspaper Le Reveil, was convicted ten times by the reactionary authorities. Jean-Jacques-Elisee Reclus, a well-known geographer, likewise defended the Commune's cause with arms. LouisCharles Delescluse was a fine example of an intellectual who had sided with the working class, although he did not quite understand its aim. A journalist and a writer, he belonged to many secret republican societies, for which he was severely persecuted. He died on the barricades on May 25.
Louise Michel was one of the most prominent figures of the heroic uprising in 1871. She was born into a poor peasant family and worked as a teacher in Montmartre, a workers' district in Paris. She was very active in revolutionary work. During the Commune, she spent almost all her time in the combat area, working as a nurse and fighting with the rankand-file. Louise Michel displayed unflagging courage at her trial by the Versailles Government, at which she was sentenced to imprisonment in a fortress. Later, in May 1872, she was sent to penal servitude in New Caledonia.
The highly popular actor Lavaud was, according to Gustave Lefrancais, one of the most loyal and selfless members of the revolutionary-socialist army whom he ever met. Lavaud commanded a batallion which countered the offensive by the Versailles Government's troops. Another former actor, Lisbonne (Maxime), was seriously wounded and tried by a Versailles Government court-martial, which sentenced him to death by firing squad. The sentence was later commuted to penal servitude.
Another outstanding figure was Gustave Courbet, an artist and realist, who founded the realist school in French painting. He devoted himself whole-heartedly to the workers' revolution. He was chairman of the artists' federation, a member of the Commune, a delegate to the municipal council, and a delegate in the field of popular education. When the Commune fell, he was imprisoned and tried by a Versailles Government court. All this clearly shows how 26 ruthlessly the bourgeoisie avenges itself on democratic intellectuals who side with the proletariat.
A substantial part of the bourgeois intelligentsia took an openly hostile stand towards the workers' government. Some intellectuals did not understand the Commune's emancipating aims and opposed it out of fear of its consequences. Disbelief in the ability of the working class to transform society and anti-Communist propaganda caused many outstanding figures of French culture to side with the reactionary forces.
Thus, the characteristic features of the different sections of the capitalist society's intelligentsia were already distinctly evident from the French intelligentsia's stand in the early 1870s. These features later became clearly manifested in bourgeois-democratic and socialist revolutions and are being revealed in one form or another in major class clashes today. The differentiation within the intelligentsia was especially pronounced during the Paris Commune. The proletarian intelligentsia actively supported the revolutionary forces, but a substantial part of their bourgeois counterparts openly sided with the counter-revolutionaries. The bulk of the petty-bourgeois intelligentsia took an intermediate, equivocal, vacillating stand in the revolution, although many of its representatives sided with the first workers' government of France.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 3. Some Lessons of the CommuneDescribing the Paris Commune's historic importance for the world at a session of the General Council of the First International on May 23, 1871, Marx said: "The principles of the Commune were eternal and could not be crushed; they would assert themselves again and again until the working classes were emancipated."^^1^^ The Paris Commune was historically important mainly because its government was the world's first government of the working class, a genuine people's government. During the Commune, the French working class showed that the time had come when the proletariat was quite capable of acting as leader of all the progressive forces of society.
_-_-_~^^1^^ The General Council of the First International 1870--1871, Moscow, 1967, p. 200.
27Falsifying the history of the Commune, bourgeois researchers represent it as a municipal revolution, thus writing off its nation-wide character. But take the following fact. When the title of the Commune's official newspaper Journal Officiel de la Republique Franqaise was changed at a certain moment to Journal de la Commune de Paris, the revolutionary government qualified this as an error because the official newspaper became something like a municipal bulletin. The impression may have been that Paris was abandoning its intention to spread the Commune's influence throughout the country. Jacques Duclos wrote that the error lasted only one day: the revolutionaries resorted to self-criticism and then renewed the title Journal Officiel de la Republique Franqaise. What the Commune intended to do was to form a large central administration which would have acted on behalf of a federation of communes and whose task would have been to coordinate the nation's general activity, i.e., the matter in question was real national unity on the basis of the most consistent democratic centralism: proletarian centralism.
The Commune's aspiration would have inevitably been strongly supported in the countryside if the capital could have freely communicated with the rural localities. Many facts attest to revolutionary actions in the province. Communes were proclaimed in several cities, including Lyons, Marseille, Le Creusot, Toulouse, Narbonne and SaintEtienne. According to Paul Martine, a member of the Commune, these cities would have gradually drawn the countryside into the struggle if they had managed to remain free. But neither the Paris Commune nor the communes in provincial towns and localities succeeded in establishing strong ties with the revolutionary peasant groups or gaining strong support from them in the struggle against the counter-- revolutionaries in Versailles.^^1^^ Moreover, the provinces were also incapable of assisting Paris. The suppression of workers' uprisings in the towns brought about the defeat of individual peasant actions.
By recommending that the Paris Commune should above all win provincial support and get assistance from the peasantry, Marx confronted the Communards with the question of the proletariat's allies in a socialist revolution. But when _-_-_
~^^1^^ See The Paris Commune of 1871, Vol. 2, pp. 103, 110, 153 (in Russian).
28 the Communards tried to implement these recommendations, they encountered sectarian, mainly Proudhonist, sentiments.During this epoch, the French working-class movement was still substantially under the influence of petty-bourgeois ideology. The propagation of class cooperation by Proudhon's adherents, the hostile attitude towards political centralisation, the Blanquists' conspiratorial tactics, and the disdainful attitude towards the political activities carried on by the proletariat and the broad sections of the working people ideologically disarmed the Communards in the face of the enemy, who was standing at the walls of revolutionary Paris.
The Neo-Jacobins also substantially influenced the working-class movement in France. Being dissociated from the broad masses of workers, they expressed mainly the interests of the urban petty bourgeoisie, some of the middle bourgeoisie, and the French intelligentsia. The Neo-Jacobins were in the grip of old conceptions. They believed that the "third estate'', consisting of capitalists, workers and peasants, still remained.
As the armed struggle against the Versailles Government intensified, some of those who had gone along with the proletariat gradually began to drop away. Conciliatory groups of petty and middle bourgeoisie began to step up their activities. In early April, they came out as a new "third party" whose role was allegedly to reconcile the Paris Commune with the Versailles Government.
This illusory aspiration of the petty bourgeoisie was expressed in the conciliatory groups' activity and in their political platform, which was set forth in the address sent on April 4 to the Versailles Assembly and the Paris Commune, calling for an immediate end to the civil war. The conciliators' movement failed and did great harm to the Commune because it ignored the Commune's social make-up and played into the hands of the Thiers Government.
Although this, first proletarian revolution took place more than a century ago, the events associated with the Commune have always aroused keen interest everywhere in the world. The working class's revolutionary struggle, which intensified after the French proletariat's heroic action, i. e., after the greatest proletarian movement in the 19th century, corroborated the enormous importance of the Commune's legacy.
29Dwelling on the objective reasons why this first workers' revolution was defeated in spite of the heroism of its participants, Lenin noted that "two conditions, at least, are necessary for a victorious social revolution---highly developed productive forces and a proletariat adequately prepared for it. But in 1871 both of these conditions were lacking. French capitalism was still poorly developed, and France was at that time mainly a petty-bourgeois country (artisans, peasants, shopkeepers, etc.). On the other hand, there was no workers' party; the working class had not gone through a long school of struggle and was unprepared, and for the most part did not even clearly visualise its tasks and the methods of fulfilling them."^^1^^
During the Paris Commune, the working class took the initiative of politically and socially transforming society. Most representatives of the middle sections of Paris acknowledged its right to this initiative. The fact that attempts are now being made again, both by some bourgeois scholars and by revisionists, to distort the real essence of the Commune's wide-ranging experience attests once more to its continual importance.
The Paris Commune showed that, among other things, it was necessary to set up a revolutionary party for the working class, establish the power of the working class in alliance with the non-proletarian sections of the working people in the town and countryside, and replace the old bourgeois state's military and bureaucratic machinery with a new, proletarian state. Moreover, it demonstrated that the revolution should be able to defend itself and respond with violence to the reactionaries' violence.
The Declaration issued by the Bureau of the World Federation of Trade Unions to commemorate the centenary of the Paris Commune stated that the social measures which it succeeded in earring out in such a short time showed the proletariat's concern for people and their living conditions, and its interest in giving them access to knowledge and culture. It also declared that the Paris Commune had proved that the interests of the working class were closely connected with the vital interests of all the people and that the working people who freed themselves from capitalist exploitation _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``In Memory of the Commune'', Collected Works, Vol. 17, p. 141.
30 were capable of freeing all of society from oppression, plunder and war.The Commune's history corroborated the fact that the alliance between the working class, on the one hand, and the peasantry, small urban proprietors, handicraftsmen and the working intelligentsia, on the other, is vital to the proletarian revolution's victory. In this respect, it is important for the working class to head all the foregoing social sections. Since the Commune was actually the outcome of a combination of diverse movements, its importance is especially felt today in the struggle to establish a coalition of all left-wing forces which oppose monopoly rule and imperialism.
The working class was the motive force behind the first proletarian state; it expressed the interests of all the working sections of the population. This is evident from the fact that the repressions which followed the Paris Commune's defeat were directed mainly against the working class. Only 5,873 out of the 34,772 persons imprisoned (i.e., 16 per cent) were small shopkeepers, office workers, "free lances" and traders, while all the rest were workers. The number of workers in Paris diminished by about 100,000 (who were killed, imprisoned, or forced to flee) immediately after the week of bloodshed.
Bourgeois historians make an interesting acknowledgement in this respect. After studying the composition of the Communards who were sentenced and exiled, J. Rougerie, a professor of history at the Sorbonne, drew the conclusion that most of them were wage workers and that the Commune was certainly a workers' uprising. He also observed that the participants in the uprising, especially those sentenced in 1871, included an unprecedented number of office workers who had sided with the workers. The petty-bourgeois elements were the first to drop away from the Commune as its defeat became imminent. Lenin wrote: "Only the workers remained loyal to the Commune to the end. The bourgeois republicans and the petty bourgeoisie soon broke away from it: the former were frightened off by the revolutionarysocialist, proletarian character of the movement; the latter broke away when they saw that it was doomed to inevitable defeat. Only the French proletarians supported their government fearlessly and untiringly, they alone fought and died for it---that is to say, for the cause of the emancipation 31 of the working class, for a better future for all toilers.''^^1^^
As for the political stand taken by the petty-bourgeois sections, their equivocal, contradictory nature and the vacillations between the big bourgeoisie and the working class were clearly expressed during the Commune arid after its defeat. A very indicative feature in this respect was the stand taken by the journalist Eugene Vermersch, one of the three founders and editors of the newspaper Pere Duchene. He fled to London after the week of bloodshed in May and was sentenced to death by the Versailles Government in his absence. In a letter to Maxime Vuillaume in September 1871, Vermersch wrote: "I probably ... will never be a soldier of a lost cause. I am ready to fight on the day of the insurrection rather than that of defeat, at the hour when the cry is ' forward' and not 'save yourself if you can'."^^2^^
The political stand taken by the urban middle sections during the Paris Commune showed that, under definite conditions, especially when the revolutionary struggle of the working class is on the upswing, a substantial part of them are capable of taking action on the workers' side against the big bourgeoisie. When the working-class movement slackens, however, they are overcome by apathy and political indifference, and the petty bourgeoisie easily switches over from extreme revolutionary enthusiasm to open support for the big bourgeoisie.
Thus, the petty bourgeoisie's strong influence on the proletariat during the initial stage of the Paris Commune, expressed, for instance, in its financial policy and its constant concern for legality, and then its inconsistent, equivocal and vacillating stand during the subsequent stage (its aspiration for reconciliation with the Versailles Government), and finally its despicable betrayal of the working class during the last stage, are certainly among the most important causes of the Commune's defeat.
The French big bourgeoisie, which had taken an openly hostile stand towards the Paris Commune from the very outset, went on to drown it in blood after defeating it. That was how the big bourgeoisie responded to the _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, "In Memory of the Commune'', Collected Works, Vol. 17, p. 140.
~^^2^^ Maxime Vuillaume, Mes cahiers rouges au temps de la Commune, Paris, 1953, pp. 226--27.
32 Communards' humane attitude towards them. The workers' " unprecedented" crime was in their infringing "upon the governmental privilege of the upper 10,000 and proclaiming their will to break the economical basis of that class despotism, which for its own sake wielded the organised state force of society! It is this that has thrown the respectable classes in Europe as in the United States into the paroxysm of convulsions and accounts for their shrieks of abomination about it being a blasphemy, their fierce appeals to assassination of the people, and the Billingsgate of abuse and calumny from their parliamentary tribunes and their journalistic servants' hall!"^^1^^ All the forces of the old, capitalist world came out against the Commune. Prussia was not at war with the Commune, since the Communards had agreed to the preliminary terms of peace and Prussia declared neutrality. Marx emphasised: "Prussia was, therefore, no belligerent. She acted the part of ... a hired bravo...."^^2^^ The Versailles Government collaborated with the German occupation forces directly against the revolutionary movement both in the French capital and in the provinces. The ruling circles of the United States also took a very hostile attitude towards the revolution of March 18.The class policy of, and class solidarity between, the German occupation forces and French and American big capital against the revolutionary movement were thus manifested even during the pre-monopoly period. The German occupation forces took a very active part in suppressing the Paris Commune and persecuting the Communards.
The historical experience of the Paris Commune has fully corroborated the Marxist-Leninist tenet on the directly opposite political stands taken by the two main antagonistic classes in the class struggle and on the intermediate, equivocal stand of the petty-bourgeois class and all the middle sections.
The lessons to be drawn from the Paris Commune's experience in forming an alliance between the working class, the peasantry and the broad non-proletarian sections of the working people have been duly absorbed by the international working-class and communist movement.
_-_-_~^^1^^ K. Marx and F. Engels, On the Paris Commune, p. 165.
~^^2^^ K. Marx, "The Civil War in France''. In: Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works in three volumes, Vol. 2, Moscow, 1977, pp. 239--40.
__PRINTERS_P_33_COMMENT__ 3---2560 33 __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter II __ALPHA_LVL1__ PROLETARIAT CLASS ALLIANCESLenin and the Bolshevik Party used the new experience gained in the struggle by the working class and by the international working-class and communist movement to creatively evolve and enrich the Marxist teaching on proletariat class alliances. The bourgeois-democratic revolution in Russia in 1905--07, the first people's revolution of the imperialist epoch, was the beginning of the glorious and historic road to the victorious establishment of socialism there.
As capitalism developed in Russia and began to reach its highest stage, i.e., imperialism, both objective and subjective conditions ripened for a bourgeois-democratic revolution there. Lenin made a Marxist analysis of Russia's class structure and the new phenomena in her economy and society at the beginning of this century. He revealed the extremely important socio-economic and political causes of the class struggle and the alignment of class and political forces on the eve of and during the first Russian revolution.
The long domination of autocracy with its brutal exploitation of the working class, the broad peasant masses and the non-Russian population of the bordering national areas engendered an unprecedented revolutionary potential in the country. The peasants were in an especially difficult position. Although Russia entered the monopoly stage of development at the beginning of this century, agrarian relations were still long fouled with the survivals of serfdom. Thirty thousand big landowners owned more than 75 million hectares of land, i.e., they had almost as much land as ten million peasants. No wonder the small peasants' struggle for land was more intense in Russia than in any other capitalist country. In this struggle, their most natural and reliable ally was the working class.
The mutiny on the battleship Potemkin in June 1905 was a vivid expression of dissatisfaction with the tsarist regime 34 in the armed forces. Along with other actions in the Army in the autumn of that year, it clearly attested to both revolutionary sentiments in the Army and the Navy and the possibility of the soldiers and sailors joining the working-class revolutionary struggle.
At the beginning of this century, social contradictions between labour and capital, between millions of peasants and feudal landowners, and between tsarism's national oppression and the oppressed peoples' struggle had reached their height in Russia. The centre of the international revolutionary movement gradually began to shift from Western Europe to Russia, which became the focus of the contradictions of world imperialism.
Under these conditions, the question of the nature of the bourgeois-democratic revolution in Russia and its motive forces became especially acute. Lenin worked out a strategic plan, which was adopted at the Third RSDLP Congress in London in April 1905. According to this plan, the working class was not only to fight for the bourgeois-democratic revolution's victory, but also to head the broad masses' struggle against tsarism. As the number of both conscious and unwitting allies of the revolution rapidly increased, the revolution set the Bolshevik Party tasks with which a workers' party had never been faced before anywhere.
The issues in question were the enormous tasks of organising an uprising, concentrating the proletariat's revolutionary forces, and uniting them with the forces of all the revolutionaries. As the most progressive and, indeed, the only consistently revolutionary class, the proletariat was to play the leading role in the democratic revolution in alliance with the peasantry, thereby neutralising the bourgeoisie. After the overthrow of tsarism, a provisional revolutionary government, which directly expressed the victorious classes' interests, i.e., a government of the proletariat and the peasantry, was to assume power.
The work Two Tactics of Social-Democracy in the Democratic Revolution, which Lenin wrote in the summer of 1905, was exceptionally important in further solving the questions of the main features and prospects of the bourgeois-- democratic revolution in Russia and of the role of the working class and its allies in it.
Lenin said that the impending revolution in Russia was to be a bourgeois one socially and economically. But this __PRINTERS_P_35_COMMENT__ 3* 35 did not mean that the liberal bourgeoisie was to be its leading force. Only the proletariat was capable of bringing it to complete victory, provided it led a large part of the nonproletarian sections of the working people, especially the peasantry.
In this work, Lenin substantiated the Party's strategic slogans on the peasant question and the tenet that the proletariat would act together with its allies in the impending bourgeois-democratic revolution in the country and in the subsequent socialist revolution. He wrote: "The proletariat must carry the democratic revolution to completion, allying to itself the mass of the peasantry in order to crush the autocracy's resistance by force and paralyse the bourgeoisie's instability. The proletariat must accomplish the socialist revolution, allying to itself the mass of the semi-proletarian elements of the population, so as to crush the bourgeoisie's resistance by force and paralyse the instability of the peasantry and the petty bourgeoisie.,"^^1^^
During the revolution, the workers' revolutionary activity resulted in the setting up of Soviets of Workers' Deputies. They were an unprecedented form of politically organising the working class and the toiling peasantry and defended the interests of all the democratic sections of the population and all the peoples of Russia.
Lenin and the Bolshevik Party which he set up had worked out the problem of the relations between the proletariat and its allies. This was especially important under the existing conditions because the outcome of the struggle between the two main antagonists, i.e., the working class and the big bourgeoisie, largely depended on the stand taken by the non-proletarian sections of the working people in a pettybourgeois country like tsarist Russia.
In this respect, the "left bloc" tactics used by the Bolsheviks during the first Russian revolution and afterwards are of some interest. Their starting point was the idea that revolutionary Social-Democracy and revolutionary democrats should wage a joint struggle against the autocracy. These tactics were intended to ``force'' the largest, democraticminded, mass of the petty bourgeoisie of the town and countryside to choose between the Cadets, i.e., the big _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, "Two Tactics of Social-Democracy in the Democratic Revolution'', Collected Works, Vol. 9, p. 100.
36 bourgeoisie's party, and the Bolsheviks, and to join the working class in following a line against the old regime and the vacillating liberal bourgeoisie. The main principle of the Bolsheviks' "left bloc" tactics was to "go separately, but fight together''. The Bolshevik Party remained independent and continued to wage an ideological struggle against the Mensheviks and the Socialist-Revolutionaries, who were petty-bourgeois parties, but at the same time it called on those fighting against tsarism to take concerted action.Lenin's analysis of the bourgeois-democratic revolution in Russia and its motive forces was fully corroborated by historical development. Although the revolution of 1905--07 was a bourgeois-democratic one in terms of objectives, it was headed by the working class, thus proving that the proletariat's strength in the class struggle was far greater than its proportion of the population would suggest. It was the first bourgeois-democratic revolution in history in which the proletariat acted as an independent political force, as the leader of the oppressed masses fighting for their social emancipation. The revolution of 1905--07 was a proletarian one because of the proletariat's leading role in it and the proletarian ways and means of struggle used (the political strike in October and then the armed uprising).
Lenin wrote: "The October strike and the December insurrection on the one hand, the local peasant risings and the mutinies of soldiers and sailors on the other, represented that very 'alliance of the forces' of the proletariat and the peasantry. It was unorganised, inchoate, often unconscious. The forces were inadequately organised, dispersed without a central leadership that was really capable of leading, and so forth. But it was undoubtedly an 'alliance of the forces' of the proletariat and the peasantry, the main forces which breached the ramparts of the old autocracy. Unless this fact is understood, it is impossible to understand the 'results' of the Russian revolution."^^1^^
One of the main reasons why the revolution of 1905--07 failed was that efforts to unite the actions by workers, peasants and soldiers into a single revolutionary tide were not quite successful. The alliance between the working class _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, "How the Socialist-Revolutionaries Sum Up the Revolution and How the Revolution Has Summed Them Up'', Collected Works, Vol. 15, pp. 333--34.
37 and the peasantry had only begun to take shape for the first time in history, and it was still at the embryonic stage. Many peasants were still not conscious enough, and this affected the behaviour of the Army, which consisted mainly of peasants. Although the spirit of freedom penetrated into the Army and a protest movement began among soldiers, the Army lemained, on the whole, a bastion of tsarism in the struggle against the revolution. Dwelling on the political stand taken by different classes in the revolution of 1905, Lenin wrote about "... a resolute struggle of the proletariat, which was irresolutely followed by the peasantry---The lack of strength and resolution in these classes led to their defeat (although a partial breach was made in the edifice of the autocracy)."^^1^^A large number of democratic-minded intellectuals took part in preparing and carrying out the revolution of 1905. This was especially true of those who worked at large enterprises, i.e., engineers, technicians, and railway and postal workers, as well as teachers and medical workers. Many of them directly participated in the strike movement and armed uprisings, supported the Bolsheviks' slogans, took part in the activity of the Soviets of Workers' Deputies, and set up fighting squads.
Under the Bolsheviks' influence, unions of office workers and technicians were set up at the Sormovo and Bryansk works and in St. Petersburg. The Moscow Corporation of Medium-Level Technicians, which was also under the Bolsheviks' influence, headed the technicians' action on October 12, 1905. Many technicians assisted the revolutionary movement by making new types of weapons and helping to arm the workers with them. Progressive scientists and cultural workers also sided with the revolution.
During the revolution of 1905 the squad which fought on the barricades in Arbat Street was headed by the well-known sculptor S. T. Konenkov. Another famous sculptor who participated was A. S. Golubkina, who, at the request of the Bolsheviks in Moscow, made a bust of Karl Marx, Russia's first artistic portrait of the founder of scientific communism. She carried out responsible and very risky tasks for the uprising's leaders and donated all her savings to the cause of the revolution.
_-_-_~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, "On the Two Lines in the Revolution'', Collected Works, Vol. 21, p. 417.
38Konenkov wrote: "During the historic days of the first Russian revolution, many Russian artists were, at heart, on the insurgents' side.... The courageous resolve of many leading artists of Russia rested on a strong ideological basis. This basis was the conviction that the existing tsarist regime was absolutely useless and even criminal."^^1^^ S. V. Ivanov, who painted the picture Execution by Shooting (about the events in 1905), carried wounded students to the university auditorium after a political demonstration under the fire of tsarist soldiers.
When the revolution was defeated, the gendarmes meted out brutal treatment to the workers and peasants, as well as the democratic-minded intellectuals. At the same time, just as during the Paris Commune, a substantial part of the bourgeois intelligentsia adopted an openly hostile stand towards the revolutionary movement, while petty-bourgeois intellectuals clearly took an equivocal, vacillating stand. Many of these intellectuals sided with the reactionaries immediately when the revolution was defeated.
Although the first Russian revolution was defeated, it was a prelude to the triumph of socialist revolution. Lenin said: "Without such a 'dress rehearsal' as we had in 1905, the revolutions of 1917---both the bourgeois February revolution and the proletarian, October revolution---would have been impossible."^^2^^ It was the first revolution in history in which a Marxist party of the working class acted as an independent political force with its own programme, strategy and tactics, which enabled it to draw millions of workers and peasants into the revolutionary struggle. The revolution of 1905--07 was also of international importance. It dealt a strong blow at autocracy, whose interests closely intertwined with those of West European imperialism. Moreover, it laid the basis for a new stage of the working-class movement and influenced the national liberation struggle's development.
After the suppression of the December (1905) armed uprising, which was the culminating point of the revolution, the revolutionary wave gradually ebbed. Both Lenin's tenets on the role of the subjective factor and the experience gained by the Bolshevik Party during the decline of revolutionary _-_-_
~^^1^^ S. T. Konenkov, My Age, Moscow, 1971, pp. 142--44 (in Russian).
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, "The Third International and Its Place in History'', Collected Works, Vol. 29, p. 310.
39 activity are exceptionally important. In June 1907, he wrote: "Marxism differs from all other socialist theories in the remarkable way it combines complete scientific sobriety in the analysis of the objective state of affairs and the objective course of evolution with the most emphatic recognition of the importance of the revolutionary energy, revolutionary creative genius, and revolutionary initiative of the masses--- and also, of course, of individuals, groups, organisations, and parties that are able to discover and achieve contact with one or another class."^^1^^ When the reactionaries held sway, the Bolshevik Party continued to consistently strengthen the proletariat's class alliances.The Bolsheviks' consistent defence of the working people's interests and the Bolsheviks' struggle for democracy won more and more working people over to the working class's side. At the by-election to the Duma in 1909 by the second urban curia, i.e., the petty bourgeoisie, intellectuals, clerks, workers and landlords, a candidate of the RSDLP received more votes than at the election in 1907.
During the decade after the revolution of 1905--07 social differentiation deepened in the country and the class struggle intensified. Even in the years just before the war there were wide-scale disturbances among the peasantry. Mobilisation engendered a mass protest movement in the countryside that involved a substantial part of the population. The proletariat's actions in Petrograd and other industrial centres increasingly influenced the liberation movement in the country's non-Russian areas. The imperialist war created a revolutionary situation and aggravated the contradictions in the Army. The soldiers' indignation grew into an armed struggle against the monarchy.
The triumph of the bourgeois-democratic revolution in Russia in February 1917 was due to many objective and subjective factors, an extremely important one being the Bolsheviks' unflagging work in politically educating the masses. The genuinely international stand taken by the Russian proletariat, who did not succumb to chauvinistic frenzy and thus set an example to other sections of the working people, was of great importance.
The composition of the working class markedly changed during the war. In Petrograd, almost one-fifth of the veteran _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, "Against Boycott'', Collected Works, Vol. 13, p. 36.
40 workers were mobilised. In other cities, this proportion was even larger, and the mobilised workers were replaced by villagers. But the Bolshevik Party succeeded in establishing ties with other sections of the working people by changing the forms of its work among the masses and acting through progressive activist-workers. The former peasants became workers and their political awareness grew. The Bolsheviks' influence greatly increased in the Army, too.Proceeding from Lenin's tenet that unless the revolution "affects the troops, there can be no question of serious struggle'',^^1^^ the Party began to carry on extensive activity in the Army, three-quarters of which consisted of peasants. As a result of the wide-scale mobilisation, the number of workers, many of them Bolsheviks, increased in the Army, and this also helped to revolutionise the troops. The Party committees of Petrograd, Moscow, Kharkov, Riga and many other cities printed leaflets for soldiers and sailors. Moreover, the underground organisations in the Army and the Navy distributed illegal literature and carried on propaganda and agitation. This was done not only at the front-lines, but also among units in the rear. The question of fighting against revolutionary propaganda in the Army was specially discussed at a conference held at the Supreme Commander's Headquarters on December 17--18, 1916.
The bourgeois-democratic revolution in Russia in February 1917 began with a strike at the Putilov Works, which was supported by workers from other enterprises. At the Bolsheviks' call, the workers began to turn a political strike into an uprising, which rapidly spread throughout Petrograd. More than 60,000 soldiers from the garrison sided with the insurgents. That was how the alliance between workers and peasants wearing soldiers' greatcoats came into being.
The RSDLP manifesto "To the Citizens of Russia" put forward three Bolshevik demands: the establishment of a democratic republic, the introduction of an eight-hour working day and the expropriation of land. It was emphasised in the manifesto that factory workers and the insurgent troops must immediately elect their representatives to the provisional revolutionary government. Militant unity between workers and soldiers resulted in the establishment of a single _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, "Lessons of the Moscow Uprising'', Collected Works, Vol. 11, p. 174.
41 revolutionary organisation: the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies.After sweeping through Petrograd and Moscow, revolutionary events spread throughout the country. Soviets---organs of power of the victorious workers and peasants, were set up everywhere. Their rapid numerical increase testified to the growing class awareness of the proletariat, who led the soldiers and peasants. The Soviets were the best form of organising the masses not only in the towns, but also in the countryside. The Bolshevik Party supported the establishment of Soviets of Peasants' Deputies in volosts and uyezds.^^1^^ In some localities, the Soviets of Workers' Deputies also had peasants as deputies. At the same time the Bolsheviks tried to bring about the establishment of an independent organisation of the poorest peasants.
However, the Provisional Government was set up along with the Soviets and became a body through which the bourgeoisie and the landowners exercised their power. This led to the establishment, in early March, of a dual power, i.e., a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie in the form of the Provisional Government and a revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry in the form of the Soviets. The representatives of the petty-bourgeois parties, i.e., the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks, voluntarily yielded power to the bourgeoisie and pledged support for the Provisional Government.
State power passed to the bourgeoisie as a result of several objective conditions. When, according to Lenin, "a gigantic petty-bourgeois wave ... overwhelmed the classconscious proletariat, not only by force of numbers but also ideologically...'',^^2^^ the petty-bourgeois parties gradually gained ascendency in the Soviets and handed state power over to the Provisional Government. This occurred because the proletariat and the peasantry were inadequately organised and lacking in class consciousness, and because tsarism had suppressed working-class organisations.
As another revolution was in the offing, the Bolshevik Party began to exert great effort in uniting different revolutionary tendencies into a common struggle against _-_-_
~^^1^^ Volosts and uyezds are territorial subdivisions.---Ed.
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, "The Tasks of the Proletariat in Our Revolution'', Collected Works, Vol. 24, p. 62.
42 capitalism and for socialism. It was then that the Marxist-- Leninist policy of class alliances proved its efficiency to the utmost. Thanks to this policy, the country's broad democratic forces soon united around the working class. __ALPHA_LVL2__ 2. The Leninist Policy of Class Alliances DuringThe Party policy of making the bourgeois-democratic revolution evolve into a socialist one necessitated that the Party should, above all, win over the masses, make them more conscious politically, work in public organisations, and convince the working people that Marxist-Leninist ideas were correct.
Lenin's April Theses dealt with all the questions of the transition from a bourgeois-democratic revolution to a socialist one. The Theses were unanimously approved at the Seventh All-Russia Conference of the RSDLP(B), held in late April 1917. It was emphasised in the decisions adopted at the Conference that the outcome of the socialist revolution directly depended on whether the urban proletariat would be capable of leading the rural proletariat, and on whether it was capable of winning over the rural semi-proletarians to its side and leading the working people of the oppressed nationalities. The slogan "All Power to the Soviets!" set forth in the April Theses implied, under the given circumstances, that the aim was to make the revolutionary process develop peacefully and induced the working people to move away from petty-bourgeois parties.
Lenin's analysis of the socio-economic position, interests, social psychology and political stand of different classes and social groups, of the alignment of class forces, and of the main political parties of Russia and the dynamics of their relations with the people became a genuine scientific basis for the Bolsheviks' strategy and tactics in the struggle to make the bourgeois-democratic revolution evolve into a socialist one.
The social and political forces regrouped themselves as the revolutionary upsurge gained momentum in Russia. Lenin said: "Those who forget that with the progress of revolution and the growth of its tasks a change takes place in the composition of the classes and elements of the people capable of 43 taking part in the struggle for the achievement of these aims fall into grievous error."^^1^^ Thus, the transition from the general democratic stage of the revolution to a socialist one objectively gives rise to the problem of delimiting class forces, i.e., of regrouping them to a certain extent.
Proceeding from the Marxist-Lenin;st concept of proletariat class alliances, the Bolshevik Party took account of the concrete alignment of class and political forces in Russia at the time and sought to unite different opposition tendencies in a common struggle for socialism. Unlike the big hourgeo;sie's party,i.e., the Cadets, who sought to set up a broad, single, counter-revolutionary front which was to include the peasantry and the middle urban sections together with the big bourgeoisie, and unlike the Mensheviks, who imagined that the country could be saved only if agreement was reached between revolutionary democracy and the bourgeoisie, the Bolsheviks began to carry on extensive work to unite all the genuinely revolutionary forces opposing capitalism around the working class.
An important landmark of the revolution was the widescale demonstration in Petrograd on June 18, 1917. Most of the participants in it upheld the slogan "All Power to the Soviets!''
While giving every support to revolutionary sentiments among the people, the Party was against an immediate armed uprising aimed at overthrowing the Provisional Government because, although the workers and soldiers of Petrograd had enough strength to overthrow it and seize power, they were not capable of retaining power, since most people in the country still followed petty-bourgeois parlies. The political crisis in July 1917, as a result of which dual power ceased to exist and the dictatorship of the counter-- revolutionary bourgeoisie was established, had opened a new chapter in the Bolshevik Party's struggle to draw the broad nonproletarian sections of the population to the working class's side as allies.
It became impossible for the revolution to develop peacefully after the bourgeoisie seized power and the petty-- bourgeois parties openly joined the counter-revolutionaries' camp, turning the Soviets into an appendage of the bourgeois _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, "Philistinism in Revolutionary Circles'', Collected Works, Vol. 11, p. 254.
44 Provisional Government. Therefore, the Bolsheviks temporarily withdrew the slogan "All Power to the Soviets!''. Russia passed through a whole epoch when the majority of people trusted the Socialist-Revolutionary and the Menshevik petty-bourgeois parties. Working masses then paid dearly for their credulity. According to all indications, the country was approaching a new stage of development, when most working people would entrust their future to the revolutionary proletariat's care.The Party began to work out new tactics which suited the new situation. Before the events in July 1917, the Party strove to solve the question of power peacefully, but after them, it followed a policy of armed uprising. The tactics were changed on Lenin's initiative. He warned that the uprising would be successful only if the bulk of the working people supported the revolutionary proletariat's struggle. Before launching the decisive battle, it was necessary to unite the forces of the working class and its allies.
New tactics according with the new situation were worked out at the Sixth RSDLP(B) Congress in late July and early August 1917, setting the Party and the broad masses the task of preparing for an armed uprising. These Party tactics proved their worth during General Kornilov's conspiracy. The Bolsheviks waged a struggle against him and, at the same time, exposed the Provisional Government's policy and the treacherous activity carried on by the Menshevik and the Socialist-Revolutionary parties. Most people became convinced from their own experience that the Bolshevik Party's ideas and slogans were correct, and the slogan "All Power to the Soviets!" was revived.
The Russian revolution reached a sharp and unique turning-point when the Bolsheviks offered a voluntary compromise to the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks. In other words, they offered a return to the demand made before July, 1917, that power must be vested in the Soviets.
Lenin emphasised that only for the sake of the revolution's peaceful development could and should the advocates of revolutionary methods accept a compromise whereby the Bolsheviks, while not claiming participation in the government, would refrain from immediately demanding that power should pass to the proletariat and the poorest peasants and stop using revolutionary methods of struggle to realise this demand. As for the representatives of the petty-bourgeois 45 parties, i.e., the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks, they were to break off their relations with the big bourgeoisie's party, i.e., the Cadets, and take part in setting up a government which was accountable to the Soviets, while all power at the local level was to pass to the Soviets.
The reason why Lenin proposed this compromise was that a certain part of the population still followed the petty-bourgeois parties. Moreover, when General Kornilov's revolt was routed, the Menshevik and the Socialist-- Revolutionary central committees adopted a decision not to send their representatives to the Provisional Government if the Cadets were to be in it. Taking account of this fact and the Bolsheviks' five-day (August 26--31) experience of an alliance with the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks, as a result of which General Kornilov was quickly defeated, Lenin proposed this compromise so as to ensure the revolution's peaceful development and promote the further consolidation of the proletariat's positions. But the Mensheviks and the Socialist-Revolutionaries did not terminate their coalition with the bourgeoisie and were thus directly responsible for the failure of the agreement with the Bolsheviks.
The broad masses' gravitation towards the left and the growing swing of large sections of the urban and rural petty bourgeoisie towards alliance with the proletariat meant that Lenin's Party was really succeeding in its political and organisational work. Strikes and peasant disturbances grew in scale.
The Party, with fresh vigour, tackled the task of Bolshevising the Soviets. More than 250 local Soviets were in favour of handing over all power to the Bolsheviks. During preparations for the revolution, the Party strove to turn the proletariat's socialist movement, the general democratic movement for peace, the peasants' actions aimed at taking over the landowners' lands, and the struggle waged by the oppressed peoples of the country's outlying national areas into a general revolutionary tide.
In Petrograd and Moscow, the Mensheviks and the Socialist-Revolutionaries were expelled from the Soviets' leadership as a result of the masses' further gravitation towards the left, the petty bourgeoisie's increased gravitation towards the proletariat and the growing crisis inside the petty-bourgeois parties. The same thing happened to representatives of the right-wing elements of these parties in 46 several other towns as well, even in towns where they had recently appeared to hold strong positions. The political struggle against them was facilitated by the fact that the Bolsheviks succeeded in influencing these petty-bourgeois parties' left-wing forces. For instance, the Socialist-- Revolutionaries voted together with the Bolsheviks on almost all the main questions at the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies in Gomel in late September.
The elections to the district councils of Moscow on September 24, 1917 clearly showed how the Bolshevik Party fought to win over the masses. The Moscow Bolsheviks ran in these elections without establishing any blocs. They had their own list of candidates. This was necessitated by the political situation which had arisen. Out of the 387,262 voters in the elections, 199, 337, or over 51 per cent, voted for the Bolsheviks. In other words, the number of voters in Moscow supporting Lenin's Party had increased almost five times since June. The Socialist-Revolutionaries and, especially, the Mensheviks lost a substantial number of votes, but the Cadets consolidated their positions. Class and social forces were thus increasingly polarising. A power struggle began between the party of the revolutionary proletariat and the poorest peasants and that of the counter-- revolutionary bourgeoisie.
Lenin wrote: "This vote in the elections to the district councils in Moscow is in general one of the most striking symptoms of the profound change which has taken place in the mood of the whole nation. It is generally known that Moscow is more petty-bourgeois than Petrograd. It is a fact frequently corroborated and indisputable that the Moscow proletariat has an incomparably greater number of connections with the countryside, that it has greater sympathy for the peasant and is closer to the sentiments of the peasant.
``In Moscow the vote cast for the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks nevertheless dropped from 70 per cent in June to 18 per cent. There can be no doubt that the petty bourgeoisie and the people have turned away from the coalition."^^1^^
These facts show that during direct preparations for the Great October Socialist Revolution, the Bolshevik Party _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``The Crisis Has Matured'', Collected Works, Vol. 26. p. 80.
47 succeeded in creatively using the experience which had been gained in drawing the middle sections of society to the workii g-class side---experience which dated back to the Paris Commune and was augmented during the bourgeois-- democratic revolutions of 1905--07 and February 1917. The people turned away from the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks, and the working people entrusted their future to the Bolshevik Party. Moreover, the Bolshevik tactics of isolating petty-bourgeois parties from the masses produced excellent results. Consequently, the bourgeoisie's link with the petty bourgeoisie, especially the peasantry, substantially weakened. Favourable conditions were thus created for the revolution's successful development.On the national and agrarian questions, which were vital to the petty bourgeoisie in Russia, the proletariat was not isolated but followed by the majority of people. The Party's correct attitude towards the middle urban and rural sections made it possible to neutralise the social groups which vacillated because of their class nature and which could not become effective allies of the proletariat.
The Bolshevik Party continued to carry on enormous work in the Army, in order to wrest it away from the bourgeoisie's influence; without this, as Lenin often emphasised, "we could not have been victorious".^^1^^ Since the imperialist policy pursued by the ruling circles in Russia radically contradicted the interests of the soldiers and sailors, who constituted 98 per cent of the Army and the Navy, Party members in the armed forces strove unflaggingly to expose the war's criminal nature. The Party's struggle to win over the Army was, at the time, one of the most important contributions towards consolidating the alliance between the workers and the working peasantry.
The Army and the Navy were revolutionised with particular rapidity after the suppression of the Kornilov revolt. As a result, the troops, most of whom had been influenced by the petty-bourgeois parties with their ideology of " revolutionary defensism" after the overthrow of tsarism, gradually began to side with the party of the socialist revolution owing to the Bolsheviks' influence and their own political experience.
_-_-_~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, "The Constituent Assembly Elections and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat'', Collected Works, Vol. 30, p. 261.
48The results of the elections to the Constituent Assembly clearly confirmed that the Bolsheviks' influence in the Army had markedly increased. In Petrograd, for instance, 77 per cent of the soldiers were for the Bolsheviks. Moreover, if account is taken of the votes cast by many rank-and-file participants in the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries' movement (11.3 per cent), who actually joined the uprising in alliance with the Bolsheviks, it can be said that 88 per cent of the garrison's soldiers favoured the uprising. By the October Revolution, more than half the Army was on the Bolsheviks' side, thus enabling Lenin to put the Army's revolutionary forces in second place among the three conditions required for the victory of Bolshevism.
The Great October Socialist Revolution, whereby power passed to the working class and the poorest peasantry, was indeed a people's revolution and more people took part in it than in any other revolution. The Bolsheviks' aspirations of drawing the broad non-proletarian sections of working people to the working-class side were clearly expressed in their attitude towards the petty-bourgeois parties immediately after the triumph of the October Revolution. This was evident from the fact that the All-Russia Central Executive Committee, elected at the Second All-Russia Congress of Soviets, comprised 62 Bolsheviks, 29 Left Socialist-- Revolutionaries and several representatives of other parties, while at the beginning of December 1917, the Left Socialist-- Revolutionaries had, by agreement with the Bolsheviks, seven representatives in the Soviet Government.
The relations between the Bolsheviks and the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries were the first historical case of Communists cooperating with a non-proletarian party after a victorious revolution. This cooperation helped to consolidate the gains of the revolution. The Bolsheviks were not to blame for the split in the coalition. It was the Left SocialistRevolutionaries who split it by withdrawing from the Soviet Government in March 1918 and then openly siding with the counter-revolutionary forces.
The Soviet Government's first decrees, i.e., the Decree on Peace and the Decree on Land, which were unanimously adopted on the basis of Lenin's reports at the Second Congress of Soviets, were aimed at immediately and radically improving the position of both the working class and its allies, especially the working peasantry. For instance, the Decree __PRINTERS_P_49_COMMENT__ 4---2560 49 on Land included a peasants' mandate, which was drawn up on the basis of 242 local peasants' mandates. Although the mandate called for equal land tenure, the Bolshevik Party found it impossible to bypass the masses' decision. The Declaration of Rights of the Peoples of Russia, proclaimed by the Soviet Government on November 2, 1917, legally established the complete equality of all nationalities in Russia.
The October Revolution was victorious mainly because i( was headed by the working class under the Bolshevik Party's guidance. In the course of three Russian revolutions, the working class had gained great experience in waging a revolutionary struggle. The establishment of an alliance between the proletariat and poor peasants was also very important. During the Paris Commune, the urban petty bourgeoisie united around the working class for the first time in history, while during preparations for and the realisation of the October Revolution, millions of peasants became an active revolutionary force and openly sided with the proletariat for the first time in history.
The alliance between the working class and the peasantry was very important both during and after the October Revolution. The Soviet Government, which was established as a result of the revolution, ensured the broad masses of working people a degree of freedom and democracy unprecedented in their scope in any capitalist country.
After the victorious October Revolution, the problem of the petty-bourgeois sections of working people confronted the Party in all its urgency. The Party's programme for socialist transformations envisaged a conscientious attitude towards labour in conditions in which all the country's wealth was at the people's disposal. Under these conditions, the proletariat's influence on petty-bourgeois elements became one of the most important factors in successfully building socialist society. Lenin wrote: "We must know how to win over the least proletarian and most petty-bourgeois sections of the working people who are turning towards us, to include them in the general organisation and to subject them to general proletarian discipline."^^1^^
The historic Decree on Land and Lenin's cooperative plan aimed at drawing millions of peasants into socialist _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``The Valuable Admissions of Pitirim Sorokin'', Collected Works, Vol. 28, p. 192.
50 construction greatly promoted the unification of the working class and the toiling peasantry. Both these measures were adopted at the Second All-Russia Congress of Soviets on October 26 (November 8---New Style), 1917. The draft Party Programme emphasised that the main thing was to permanently ensure the predominant influence of the proletariat over all the other sections of the working people.As for the agrarian question, the draft demanded that reliance be placed on the proletarians and semi-proletarians in the countryside, with a view to organising them into an independent force, bringing them closer to the urban proletariat, wresting them away from the rural bourgeoisie and alienating them from small-owner interests. A special resolution "On the Attitude to the Middle Peasants'', adopted at the Eighth RCP(B) Congress, emphasised that the Party and Soviet Government policy for the village should envisage long-term cooperation with that category of the population. It was mentioned at the Congress that"... neither the decisions of the Party nor the decrees of Soviet power have ever deviated from the line of agreement with the middle peasants".^^1^^
At the same time, the petty bourgeoisie's motley social composition, the vacillations of individual groups within it, and the openly hostile attitude taken towards the revolution by the most well-to-do petty bourgeoisie and certain categories of intellectuals and office workers engendered a differentiated approach to them. Lenin emphasised that the proletariat must separate, demarcate the working peasant from the peasant owner, the working peasant from the peasant huckster, and the peasant who labours from the peasant who profiteers. At the same time, he set the task of rendering the peasantry assistance so as to enable it to improve and radically transform all farming techniques on an enormous scale.^^2^^
Already the draft decree on the nationalisation of banks and on measures to be taken in this respect declared that the interests of the small owners of bonds, like those of any shares, i.e., owners belonging to the working classes of the population, were fully safeguarded. Several measures were carried _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``Eighth Congress of the R.C.P.(B.)'', Collected Works, Vol. 29, p. 220.
~^^2^^ See V. I. Lenin, ``Economics and Politics in the Era of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat'', Collected Works, Vol. 30, p. 113.
__PRINTERS_P_51_COMMENT__ 4* 51 out to protect the interests of handicraftsmen, artisans, and other representatives of the poorest, working section of the urban petty bourgeoisie. As a result of the Party's work, the mass social psychology of substantial sections of the petty bourgeoisie underwent a genuine change in a very short time and hundreds of thousands of small proprietors actively participated in socialist construction.Soon after the revolution, Lenin wrote: "We cannot dispense with the advice, the instruction of educated people, of intellectuals and specialists. Every sensible worker and peasant understands this perfectly well and the intellectuals in our midst cannot complain of a lack of attention and comradely respect on the part of the workers and peasants."^^1^^ Party documents stressed the need to use scientists, technicians and democratic-minded intellectuals on a broad and comprehensive scale, to create conditions under which they could work together with the mass of rank-and-file workers guided by the Communists, and to make them aware of the noble task of using science in the working people's interests.
As soon as the socialist revolution broke out, many progressive Russian intellectuals and people in the most diverse walks of life, including the military, sided with the working class, actively and selflessly helping it in the struggle against the White Guards and interventionists, and in socialist construction. On the other hand, a substantial part of the bourgeois intelligentsia, reactionary officials and pettybourgeois upper crust supported the counter-revolution and sabotaged the Soviet Government's measures. Accordingly, the revolutionary proletariat adopted an uncompromising attitude towards this section of the intelligentsia.
According to Lenin, the working class's most important task was to "... lead the whole mass of the working and exploited people as well as all the petty-bourgeois groups, onto the road of a new economic development towards the creation of a new social bond, a new labour discipline, a new organisation of labour, which will combine the last word in science and capitalist technology with the mass association of classconscious workers creating large-scale socialist industry".^^2^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``How to Organise Competition'', Collected Works, Vol. 26, p. 412.
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, ``A Great Beginning'', Collected Works, Vol. 29, p. 423.
52The experience gained in pursuing the Leninist policy of proletariat class alliances during preparations for and the realisation of the Great October Socialist Revolution is exceptionally important. Its significance is multi-faceted. The proletariat of multi-national Russia fulfilled the honourable role of pioneering the establishment of a new society. Expressing the vital interests of the overwhelming majority of the country's population, the working class, in alliance with the working peasantry, ensured the triumph of the revolution and established Soviet power. The broadest masses of working people and all progressive scientists and cultural workers followed the working class.
Under the specific conditions engendered by the three Russian revolutions, Lenin's further elaboration and implementation of the Marxist teaching on proletariat class alliances was of both local and nationally specific significance and of great international importance, since the correct alignment of class forces at different stages of struggle has always been a burning question for the world revolutionary movement. The Communist parties' tactics with regard to the middle sections of the population were defined as early as the Communist International's first documents, and took account of the successes of the socialist revolution in Russia. This experience was very important for the subsequent work carried on by the Communist and Workers' parties among the non-proletarian sections of working people.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 3. The Revolutionary UpswingThe Great October Socialist Revolution was a sharp turning-point in world history and strongly influenced the future of mankind. A mass revolutionary movement in which the working class played the determining role swept through Europe. It was supported by the poorest peasantry in France and several other countries. Mass strike and anti-war movements were launched on a broad scale in France, Britain, Italy, Holland, Denmark and some other countries. Strikes by the proletariat reached very wide proportions in the United States.
There were revolutions in certain European countries. A revolutionary workers' government was set up in Finland in January 1918 and exercised power for three months. 53 In October of the same year, the Austro-Hungarian monarchy fell and republics were proclaimed in Austria and Hungary. In June 1919, the popular masses in Slovakia proclaimed a Soviet republic. A socialist revolution broke out in Hungary in March 1919. An independent Polish state was set up in Eastern Europe. A bourgeois-democratic revolution broke out in Germany in November 1918 and, as it developed, a Soviet republic was set up in Bavaria and workers' governments were established in Saxony and Thuringia.
International proletarian solidarity with the socialist revolution in Russia was especially strong during that period. In his speech at the Ninth RCP(B) Congress on March 29, 1920, Lenin said: "We have an international alliance, an alliance which has nowhere been registered, which has never been given formal embodiment, which from the point of view of 'constitutional law' means nothing, but which, in the disintegrating capitalist world, actually means everything. Every month that we gained positions, or merely held out against an incredibly powerful enemy, proved to the whole world that we were right and brought us millions of new supporters."^^1^^ The international movement being mounted everywhere in defence of the Soviet Republic, merged with the struggle waged by the working people's revolutionary forces for their own rights and interests.
At the same time, the Soviet Republic rendered every possible assistance to the international revolutionary and national liberation movement. The experience gained by the Russian working class, which had gone through three revolutions, was of the greatest importance in this respect. The formation of Communist parties, i.e., parties of a new type, in several countries and the advent of the Communist International were a single, interconnected process stemming from the revolutionary upswing which occurred after October 1917.
Under these conditions, the Marxist-Leninist principles on proletariat class alliances played an extremely important role. The Paris Commune, which was the first experience of such an alliance, the Russian bourgeois-democratic revolutions of 1905 and 1917, when it achieved a new and higher level, and, especially, the Great October Socialist _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``Ninth Congress of the R.C.P.(B.)'', Collected Works, Vol. 30, p. 449.
54 Revolution showed that it was objectively necessary for the working class to secure as much support as possible from the non-proletarian sections of working people. This demand was invariably met in all the main documents adopted at the four Communist International's congresses in which Lenin participated.In emphasising the importance of the need for the Communist International's parties to invariably pursue a policy of alliance between the working class and the non-- proletarian sections of working people, Lenin noted the petty bourgeoisie's equivocal character, which was often indicated already by Marx and Engels. In his work ``Left-Wing'' Communism---an Infantile Disorder, Lenin wrote: "Marxist theory has established---and the experience of all European revolutions and revolutionary movements had fully confirmed--- that the petty proprietor, the small master (a social type existing on a very extensive and even mass scale in many European countries), who, under capitalism, always suffers oppression and very frequently a most acute and rapid deterioration in his conditions of life, and even ruin, easily goes to revolutionary extremes, but is incapable of perseverance, organisation, discipline and steadfastness."^^1^^
In his Theses addressed to the Second Congress of the Communist International, Lenin described the petty bourgeoisie as a class and emphasised the need to "neutralise, or render harmless, the inevitable vacillation between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat... to be seen in the class of petty proprietors in agriculture, industry and commerce---a class which is still fairly numerous in nearly all advanced countries, although comprising only a minority of the population--- as well as in the stratum of intellectuals, salary earners, etc., which corresponds to this class".^^2^^ The revolutionary events of 1918--23 corroborated the theoretical and political importance of that analysis made by Lenin.
A proletarian revolution was carried out in Hungary on March 21, 1919. The first Soviet republic in Hungary lasted 133 days, including a peaceful respite of only 25 days. Its peaceful rule was interrupted as early as April by the Entente _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``~`Left-Wing' Communism--an Infantile Disorder'', Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 32.
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, ``Theses on the Fundamental Tasks of the Second Congress of the Communist International'', Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 180.
55 troops' armed intervention. Although the Hungarian Republic lasted only a short time, it carried out radical democratic transformations in the interests of the masses, who took an active part in the elections on April 7.Fundamentally important measures were carried out to safeguard the proletariat's power. These included the promulgation of decrees on the nationalisation of banks, industrial enterprises and transportation and on the monopolisation of foreign trade. The workers' wages were raised by an average of 25 per cent, and the working day fixed at eight hours. A land reform bill adopted on April 3 provided for the expropriation of all estates larger than 57 hectares. Hundreds of agitators went out to the countryside to tell the people about the revolution's importance and help establish Soviets of Peasants' Deputies. The Hungarian Commune thus made efforts to establish ties with the peasantry.
The working class was the motive force of the socialist revolution in Hungary. The peasantry and the urban petty bourgeoisie both followed the working class. Lenin sent his Greetings to the Hungarian Workers during the trying days when the foreign counter-revolutionaries' combined forces went into action against the Hungarian Soviet Republic. He wrote: "Be firm. Should vacillation manifest itself among the socialists who yesterday gave their support to you, to the dictatorship of the proletariat, or among the petty bourgeoisie, suppress it ruthlessly... . You are waging the only legitimate, just and truly revolutionary war, a war of the oppressed against the oppressors, a war of the working people against the exploiters, a war for the victory of socialism. All honest members of the working class all over the world are on your side."^^1^^
The experience of the Hungarian revolution corroborated above all the importance of the theoretical Marxist-Leninist principles concerning the need for working-class unity on a revolutionary basis and the significance of proletariat class alliances.
The Communists constituted about 40 per cent of the members of the Hungarian Soviet Republic's Government. Together with the Left Social-Democrats, they formed a majority in it. Important governmental posts were given to the Centrists, who enjoyed the right-wing Social-Democrats' _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``Greetings to the Hungarian Workers'', Collected Works, Vol. 29, p. 391.
56 support. The right-wing Social-Democrats pursued an opportunistic policy. They recognised revolutionary principles only on paper, and in practice did everything possible to hinder their implementation, carrying on negotiations with the interventionists and giving free rein to the counter-- revolutionary forces.The Hungarian Soviet Republic's experience showed the enormous importance of the policy of proletariat class alliances. Although definite steps had been taken towards drawing the poorest peasants to the working class's side, they were obviously not enough. Moreover, strong support was not won from the urban petty bourgeoisie, and that part of it which was hostile to the proletariat was not neutralised. The policy pursued by the Hungarian Soviet Republic's Government towards the petty bourgeoisie as a class in general was thus not sufficiently clear-cut and differentiated. This was particularly so in the case of the peasantry. One-half of the country's population was engaged in agriculture. However, fifty per cent of all farms were in the hands of some 8,000 landlords, who comprised only 1 per cent of all landowners. Under these conditions, it was extremely important to meet the land-starved peasants' interests. But the government bypassed the democratic stage and immediately began to set up state lands and large production cooperatives.
The Hungarian historians Hajdu and Siklos noted that the landless peasants and farm labourers sympathised with Soviet power, which had substantially improved their living conditions. But they were dissatisfied with the solution of the agrarian question, as they expected all the landowners' lands to be divided without redemption. Most of the disillusioned poor peasants became passive, while the more well-to-do middle sections often fell under rich peasants' influence. In tackling the agrarian question the Hungarian Soviet Republic's leaders were still shackled by the Social-Democratic legacy. They feared that the poor peasant who received a strip of land would immediately become ``bourgeois'', i.e., an enemy of the revolution. They regarded the agrarian question more as a food and economic problem, and did not see that its solution would help to establish an alliance between workers and peasants.
Hence, the political basis of the dictatorship of the proletariat as an alliance between workers and peasants was 57 undermined. The counter-revolutionary forces took advantage of the mistakes in the Hungarian Communists' agrarian policy to weaken the new power in the village and, in some cases, even urge the peasants to take action against Soviet power. Just as the stand taken by the broad sections of the French peasantry affected the Paris Commune's fate, the Hungarian working class found itself, 50 years later, unable to rely on support from the village during foreign intervention and counter-revolutionary violence. This fact also contributed to the heroic Hungarian Commune's fall. Although the proletarian revolution was defeated in Hungary, it was of great historical importance. It furthered the development of the revolutionary movement in Europe, enriched the proletariat's experience of struggling for power and distracted a certain part of the reactionary forces attacking Soviet Russia by diverting their attack on itself. It thus helped to consolidate socialist positions and weaken imperialism.
The workers' governments in Saxony and Thuringia were also suppressed by the numerically superior forces of the big bourgeoisie and the Junkers. However, the experience and lessons of the first Soviet republics in the West were very meaningful. They showed that the working class cannot consolidate its victories without the Communist party, which is experienced, disciplined and closely linked with the masses, and without its correct policy towards the peasantry and the urban petty bourgeoisie. The revolutionary upswing of 1917--23 saw the formation of parties of a new type, i.e., parties expressing the interests of the most progressive class, the proletariat. The Communist International, established in 1919, played a big role in this respect.
The First Congress of the Communist International defined the platform and the basic principles of the international communist and working-class movement. In its decisions, it emphasised that the main force counteracting the big bourgeoisie was the proletariat, whose task was to "free the poorer petty-bourgeois masses in the countryside from the influence of the large peasants and the bourgeoisie, and to organize and train them for co-operation in building the communist system".^^1^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ The Communist International 1919--1943. Documents, Vol. 1 (1919--1922), London-New York-Toronto, 1956, p. 21.
58Even the platform set forth at the First Congress of the Communist International said that "small properties will not be expropriated, and that proprietors who do not exploit any wage labour will not be subject to any coercive measures''.~^^1^^ All the decisions adopted at the Congress are impregnated with the Leninist concept that working-class power is the only effective means for carrying out socio-economic transformations in the interests of all the working people.
The decisions adopted at the First Congress of the Communist International emphasised that small proprietors must be drawn into socialist construction "by example, by the practical demonstration of the advantages following from the new regime".^^2^^ The draft resolution of the First Congress of the Communist International, which was proposed by Lenin and specified the main tasks of the Communist parties in capitalist countries, accentuated the need for revolutionary representation of the working people's interests "among the soldiers in the Army and sailors in the Navy and also among farm labourers and poor peasants".^^3^^
Lenin finished his work ``Left-Wing'' Communism--- an Infantile Disorder by the opening of the Second Congress of the Communist International (July-August 1920). In this book, he thoroughly elucidated the principles of guiding the proletariat's class struggle in the imperialist epoch, defined the principles of the Communist parties' strategy and tactics, and showed the danger which stemmed from any manifestations of subjectivism and unwillingness to take account of the objective laws of revolutionary development. He also emphasised the need for the proletariat and its party to guide "the masses, not only the proletarian but also the wow-proletarian masses of working and exploited people ... to carry on agitation in a manner most simple and comprehensible, most clear and vivid, both to the urban, factory masses and to the rural masses".^^4^^
The establishment and consolidation of proletarian parties in all countries was the central issue at the Second Congress of the Communist International. Long discussions _-_-_
~^^1^^ Ibid., p. 22.
~^^2^^ Ibid.
~^^3^^ V. I. Lenin, ``First Congress of the Communist International'', Collected Works, Vol. 28, p. 475.
~^^4^^ V. I. Lenin, ``~`Left-Wing' Communism---an Infantile Disorder'', Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 108.
59 were held on agrarian problems, particularly on the significance of the working peasants as the proletariat's ally. In his Preliminary Draft Theses on the Agrarian Question, Lenin showed the vital need for a close alliance between the proletariat and the peasantry. He wrote: "The proletariat is a really revolutionary class and acts in a really socialist manner only when it comes out and acts as the vanguard of all the working and exploited people, as their leader in the struggle for the overthrow of the exploiters; this, however, cannot be achieved unless the class struggle is carried into the countryside, unless the rural working masses are united about the Communist Party of the urban proletariat and unless they are trained by the proletariat."^^1^^Lenin analysed the position of different social groupings within the peasantry and showed what peasant groups could become the working class's allies in the revolutionary struggle. These groups were farm labourers, peasants owning small strips of land and small landowners. As for the middle peasantry, the proletariat had to neutralise it and wrest it from the bourgeoisie, and then establish a strong alliance with it.
If the proletariat's revolutionary struggle is to be waged successfully, the working peasants' position must be greatly improved immediately after the workers' victory. As for the peasants' transition to collective ownership of land, it should be carried through very carefully and gradually. In his polemics with those who believed that the small farmers of Western Europe were conservative, Lenin showed that, notwithstanding their prejudices, they were capable of resolutely supporting the proletariat.^^2^^
The adoption of the theses on the agrarian question by the Second Congress of the Communist International was a very important step towards both implementing the Communists' policy with respect to the working peasants and consolidating the proletariat's class alliances. The resolution adopted at the enlarged plenary session of the Executive Committee of the Communist International (held from March 21 to April 6, 1925) declared: "The Leninist views on the peasantry's role not only in Russia, but also in the whole world have been expounded in Comrade Lenin's resolution _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``Preliminary Draft Theses on the Agrarian Question'', Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 153.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 156.
60 adopted at the Second World Congress of the Communist International. This document internationalises the Leninist views on the peasantry's role. It is one of the most remarkable, unsurpassed documents of Leninism."^^1^^The fifth of the well-known 21 conditions of admission to the Communist International read "5. A systematic propaganda is necessary in the agricultural districts. The working class cannot achieve victory unless it gains the sympathy and support of the agricultural workers and unless other sections of the population are equally utilised. Communist work in the agricultural districts is of paramount importance at the present moment.... To neglect this work or to leave it to untrustworthy semi-reformists is tantamount to renouncing the proletarian revolution."^^2^^
During the interval between the Communist International Second and Third congresses, great changes occurred in the international situation in general and in the revolutionary movement in particular. In several countries, the working class suffered defeats. For instance, its actions were suppressed in Central Germany. In most of the developed capitalist states, the monopolies took advantage of the policy pursued by the right-wing leaders of Social-Democracy and mounted an offensive against the proletariat. But Communist parties then sprang up in France, Italy and other countries. The struggle to win over both the proletarian and non-- proletarian masses exploited by big capital became an especially important aspect of the Communist parties' activity.
In his remarks on the draft theses on tactics which were to be submitted for discussion at the Third Congress of the Communist International, Lenin dealt in particular with the tasks of consolidating the proletariat's class alliances. He recommended that more light should be shed on the need for the Communists' work "among the mass of the unorganised proletariat and of the proletariat organised in the yellow trade unions (including the II and 111/2 Internationals) and the non-proletarian sections of the working people".^^3^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ Enlarged Plenary Session of the Executive Committee of the Communist International. Protocols of Sessions, Moscow, 1925, pp. 514-- 15 (in Russian).
~^^2^^ Statutes and Conditions of Affiliation of the Communist International, as Adopted at the Second Congress, Moscow, August 1920, London, 1920, p. 9.
~^^3^^ V. I. Lenin, "The Third Congress of the Communist International'', Collected Works, Vol. 42, p. 318.
61These tasks were brought up again at the Third Congress of the Communist International (June-July 1921), at which the need for an alliance between the working class and the peasantry was emphasised once more. The task of establishing this alliance was among the most difficult tasks facing all capitalist countries. Congress decisions aimed at drawing the working people's public organisations into the working-class struggle were also of great importance.
By carrying out the tactics of a united proletarian front as outlined at the Third Congress of the Communist International, it became possible to win over to the Communists' side not only the bulk of the working class, but also the majority of the working population of the capitalist countries. Working-class unity, the revolutionary struggle's determining force, has always been the main condition for the success of that struggle. Political events in Europe in the 1920s and the early 1930s proved how far-sighted these Leninist concepts were.
The decisions adopted at the Third Congress of the Communist International, which advanced the slogan "To the Masses'', presented new opportunities for winning over to the working class's side allies from the non-proletarian sections of the population. Among the highly important tactical questions proposed for discussion at the Third Congress of the Communist International were not only the problem of organising the most active part of the proletariat for the impending struggle for communism, but also the question of the proletariat's attitude towards the proletarianised petty-bourgeois groups.
The theses of that Congress drew attention to the fact that in Western Europe the living conditions of part of the peasantry, a substantial proportion of the urban petty bourgeoisie, and the broad sections of the so-called middle estate, office workers, etc., were becoming more and more unbearable, and that these masses were in a ferment owing to high prices, housing shortages and complete uncertainty about the future. They also stated that the Communist parties should pay constant attention to these sections of the population, keep a close watch on the ferment in the petty-- bourgeois sections and make proper use of them even though this ferment was not free of bourgeois illusions.^^1^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ See Theses and Resolutions Adopted at the Third World Congress of the Communist International, Moscow, 1921, p. 30.
62The united workers' front was thus also regarded as a core around which the broad non-proletarian sections of the working people could be united. In explaining to the Congress delegates why it was necessary to draw the broad masses to the Communists' side, Lenin said that the notion of ``masses'' changed as the class struggle developed. During the revolution, the notion of ``masses'' applied to the majority of workers, and not to a simple majority, but to the majority of all the exploited.^^1^^
During the interval between the Third and Fourth congresses of the Communist International, events in several countries showed that the big bourgeoisie was seeking to continue influencing the middle sections and to use them as a counter-revolutionary reserve. This was revealed, for instance, during the advent of fascism in Italy. Italian fascism succeeded in drawing a substantial part of the petty bourgeoisie to its side by employing demagogy and chauvinistic and nationalistic slogans.
The Fourth Congress of the Communist International (November-December 1922) called on all parties to use every means to win over the masses of working people engaged in agriculture. Considering that "in the struggle against the government of the big landowners and the capitalists, the poor peasants and small holders are the natural allies of the agricultural and industrial proletariat'', the Congress called on Communist parties to head "every struggle of the agricultural masses against the ruling classes".^^2^^
In this respect, a programme of specific demands for which the proletariat should fight together with the peasantry was drawn up. These demands included: the reduction or complete abolition of taxes, rent cuts, and a guaranteed minimum incomes for the poor peasantry.
The directives of the Fourth'Congress of the Communist International with respect to the working class's allies were evolved in the decisions of the plenary session of the Executive Committee of the Communist International, held in June 1923. The decisions emphasised that a flexible policy should be applied in the struggle against fascism if it was to be isolated and the broadest sections of the population _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``Third Congress of the Communist International'', Collected Works, Vol. 32, p. 477.
~^^2^^ Resolutions and Theses of the Fourth Congress of the Communist International, London, 1922, pp. 79, 80.
63 were to be united against it, winning over the middle sections, the peasants, the intellectuals and all the forces hostile, both economically and socially, to big capital.The activity which the Communist International carried on when Lonin directly participated in its work laid the basis for the subsequent strategy and tactics of the international communist and working-class movement. Lenin's last works were permeated with the idea that "socialism contains within itself gigantic forces and that mankind had now entered into a new stage of development of extraordinarily brilliant prospects".^^1^^ The Communist parties of all countries had new responsible tasks to carry out.
_-_-_~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``Better Fewer, But Better'', Collected Works, Vol. 33, p. 498.
[64] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter III __ALPHA_LVL1__ PROLETARIAT CLASS ALLIANCES BEFOREFascism came into being as a socio-economic and political phenomenon in the early 1920s. It was a reaction to the revolutionary upswing in capitalist countries after the victorious Great October Socialist Revolution. Although the fascist movement arose in several European countries, the development of fascism in Germany posed the greatest threat to mankind.
In the period 1924--28, capitalism became partially and insecurely stabilised in several bourgeois countries, including Germany. The German monopolies tried to shift the entire burden of postwar economic difficulties onto the shoulders of the poor sections of the population.
In parliament, the right-wing leaders of the Social-- Democratic Party of Germany turned down a proposal to cooperate with the representatives of the Communist Party of Germany and thus virtually supported the big bourgeoisie's policy. The programme of the Social-Democratic Party of Germany, adopted at its Congress in Heidelberg in 1925, made no mention of the class struggle and represented the transition to socialism as an evolutionary process based on "organised capitalism''. While the right-wing leadership of the Social-Democratic Party of Germany sought to spread and consolidate reformist illusions among the working class, big monopolists gradually intensified their encroachment on the proletariat's rights and vital interests.
Even during the Weimar Republic, the ruined petty-- bourgeois masses and a section of the unemployed who had good reason to be disenchanted with the government's economic and political policies followed the nazi party. The German urban petty and middle bourgeoisie and a substantial part of the peasantry took this political stand owing to the specific features of Germany's development at the turn of this __PRINTERS_P_65_COMMENT__ 5---2560 65 century. Even long before the origin of fascism and its assumption of power, the big bourgeoisie and the German petty bourgeoisie cherished the idea of putting both adjacent European and other countries under German control.
At the end of 1922, Wilhelm Cuno, who was general director of a large steamship society HAPAG, became head of government. He pursued a policy advantageous to big capital, and the right-wing Social-Democrats together with the bourgeois parties supported the government. The SocialDemocratic Party of Germany thus actually abandoned the broad sections of the urban petty bourgeoisie and the intelligentsia. In 1923, its right-wing leadership again turned down the proposal to set up a united front. This proposal was made by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Germany in its appeal to the German people, the leadership of the Social-Democratic Party and the trade unions.
In the West, fascism is often represented as a revolt of the "middle sections'', as the rise and assumption of power by an intermediate third force between the working class and the capitalist class. Moreover, all evil is attributed to the personal dictatorships of Hitler, Mussolini and Franco. A clear-cut demarcation line must be drawn between fascism's mass social basis, especially during its rise to power, and the class forces whose interests fascist dictatorship protected. Fascism was a regime of the monopoly bourgeoisie's reactionary forces. But it also succeeded in drawing a substantial part of the middle sections to its side by social demagogy.
The events in Germany resulted from a historically begotten coincidence of circumstances which endowed urban and rural petty bourgeoisie with clear-cut reactionary features. This assertion radically differs from the theories of the pettybourgeois essence of fascism advocated by S. Lipset and other bourgeois authors.
The resolution adopted at the Fifth World Congress of the Communist International declared that "propaganda among the semi-proletarian and petty-bourgeois middle classes was constantly encouraged among the different sections" by the Executive Committee "in order that the ground be cut away from fascism''. With this end in view, the slogan "workers' government" was extended to "workers' and peasants' government" in 1923. In other words, the objective was to establish an alliance between the working class and 66 the working peasantry not only at the grass roots, but also at a governmental level. The theses on tactical questions adopted at the Congress declared: "Communist Parlies, which fail to carry on revolutionary work among the peasantry, cannot be considered as Communist mass Parties intent on the conquest of power. Of course, our Parties must remain Marxist Workers' Parties, and not workers' and peasants' parties."^^1^^
In 1925--26, the Communist parties of capitalist countries made substantial headway in evolving a united proletarian front policy. The Communist International recommended that, in order to achieve unity of action by the working class against the fascist threat, they should make specific proposals to the leadership of other workers' and anti-fascist parties. In Germany at that time, the effectiveness of the united front tactics was manifested during the campaign to expropriate the sovereign princes' property, when many peasants, handicraftsmen and intellectuals also united around Communist workers, Social-Democrats and trade union members. Analysing the lessons of the German events, the Executive Committee of the Communist International strongly emphasised the need for the Communist Party of Germany to neutralise the urban and rural middle sections of society and, if possible, to bring them under its leadership. In the spring of 1925, the Fifth Plenary Session of the Executive Committee of the Communist International criticised a sectarian attitude towards the peasantry and noted that, in some countries of Western Europe, substantial sections of small office employees could to a certain extent become the allies of the fighting proletariat.
However, sectarian mistakes were sometimes made in tackling the problems of the working-class movement's unity, particularly, the question of what policy and tactics to adopt towards the Social-Democrats, thus hindering the establishment of a united front and hampering liaison with the workers. This was manifested, for instance, at the Sixth Congress of the Communist International.
The Sixth Congress of the Communist International ( JulySeptember 1928) confirmed these tactics, which meant an intensification of the struggle against not only bourgeois _-_-_
~^^1^^ The Communist International, No. 7, December 1924-January 1925, pp. 8, 22.
__PRINTERS_P_09_COMMENT__ 5* 67 parties, but also Social-Democracy, although some delegates expressed their disagreement with those who actually identified its stance with that of fascism. Unjustifiably strong criticism was made of left-wing Social-Democracy in the Programme of the Communist International adopted at the Congress. Some Communists later opposed cooperation with the petty bourgeoisie in the struggle against monopoly rule and fascism and denied the need to cooperate with Social-Democrats, indiscriminately regarding them all as supporters of the bourgeoisie. Moreover, no differentiation was made between right-wing reformist leaders, whose main aim was not anti-fascism but anti-communism, and honest Social-Democratic workers who hated fascism just as much as the Communists did. Subsequently, this policy was condemned at the Seventh Congress of the Communist International.During the world economic crisis, the communist movement was the only political force which consistently attacked the reactionaries. The llth Plenary Session of the Executive Committee of the Communist International ( MarchApril 1931) considered the tasks of the Communist International's sections in the light of the deepening economic crisis and the maturing conditions for a revolutionary crisis in some countries; moreover, it was emphasised that the "capitalist offensive is not only directed against the working class, but also against other broad strata of toilers in town and country where vital interests impel them to establish a united front with the proletariat against predatory monopolist capital".^^1^^ It logically followed that the nonproletarian masses should be drawn to the working-class's side in its struggle against political reaction and fascism.
The West European Bureau of the Communist International's Executive Committee set up in April 1927 and located in Berlin, played an important role in the anti-fascist struggle. Many prominent leaders of the communist movement took part in the Bureau's activity. Georgi Dimitrov began to work in it at the end of March 1929 and soon became its head. The Bureau devoted particular attention to the struggle to win over the masses, and it consistently opposed the _-_-_
~^^1^^ Xlth Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist International. Theses, Resolutions and Decisions, London, 1931, p. 4.
68 identification of rank-and-file Social-Democrats with rightwing reformist leaders.The anti-war Congress held in Amsterdam in late August 1932 was a major international event. More than 2,000 people from 27 countries took part in it. In the report of the Executive Committee of the Communist International, Georgi Dimitrov, who led the Communist faction at the Congress, emphasised the importance of both mobilising as many workers as possible in reformist trade unions against the hostile stand taken by the Social-Democratic leaders and drawing the workers into the anti-war front. The Communist International's leadership set the Communist parties the task of working seriously with the non-proletarian sections of working people so as to draw them, especially the peasants and intellectuals, into the anti-war movement.
The Amsterdam Congress, in which such writers as Henri Barbusse, Romain Holland, Maxim Gorky, Theodore Dreiser and Heinrich Mann took an active part, played an important role in drawing many Western intellectuals into the anti-fascist and anti-war struggle.
The questions of organising the broad popular masses against both the threat of war and fascism and the offensive mounted by the forces of big capital were discussed in detail at the 12th Plenary Session of the Communist International's Executive Committee (August-September 1932). By then, the "anti-fascist action" movement was developing in Germany under Ernst Thalmann's guidance at the call of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Germany. In some regions of the country, farm labourers and poor peasants began to take part in the anti-fascist struggle. The decisions adopted at the plenary session of the Communist International's Executive Committee meant a certain extension of the united front policy and were aimed at greatly improving work among the masses, although some outdated guidelines still remained in force.
The circumstances under which German big capital handed over power to the overt fascist dictatorship of Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers' Party are analysed in the Communist International's documents and the resolutions of the German Communist Party relating to that period. The Resolution of the Presidium of the Communist International's Executive Committee adopted on April 1, 1933, stated: "At a time of the most intense economic 69 crisis, which increased the burden of the external Versailles national oppression, and when, due to the Social-Democrats, the working class was split and consequently not strong enough to carry the urban petty-bourgeoisie and the peasant masses with it---there was bound to arise, and actually there did arise, a tempestuous outburst of German nationalism and chauvinism which considerably strengthened the political situation of the bourgeoisie and brought to the surface the most demagogic nationalist party, the party of the 'National Socialists'."^^1^^
Under these conditions, the Communist Party of Germany often called on the Social-Democratic Party to set up a united anti-fascist front. Commenting on the "strike-breaking tactics of Social-Democracy" in setting up such a front, the Presidium of the Communist International's Executive Committee said: "The development of the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie and Fascism, and a general strike, would have caused the hesitating toiling masses of peasants and the urban petty bourgeoisie to follow the proletariat."^^2^^ The conclusions of the Communist International's plenary session, which indicated that fascism appealed to the petty bourgeoisie, the peasantry which was eking out a living, handicraftsmen, office workers and others, enabled the Communist parties to draw their anti-fascist policy more correctly.
In discussing the reasons why a substantial part of the petty bourgeoisie supported fascism, it should be borne in mind that, owing to the policy of the right-wing SocialDemocrats, the bulk of petty-bourgeois sections, which were being ruined by big capital, had no prospects of a brighter future and therefore recalled the past, when German imperialism penetrated into China, Africa and the Balkans. Moreover, the fascists pandered in every way to nationalistic and revenge-seeking passions by capitalising on the nature of the postwar Versailles system. At the same time the proletariat, being split as a result of the right-wing Social-- Democrats' treacherous policy, could not set up a united antifascist front in the country when chauvinism reigned supreme.
In the summer of 1934, the Communist Party of Germany, _-_-_
~^^1^^ The Communist International, No. 8, May 1, 1933, pp. 213--44.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 244.
70 which faced many difficulties as an underground organisation, again drew attention to the need for a policy of establishing a united anti-fascist front of all forces. However, sectarian elements in the leadership of the Communist Party of Germany accused Wilhelm Pieck and Walter Ulbricht of gravitating towards the right and attacked the first agreements between the Communists' and the Social-- Democrats' underground organisations.When Hitler assumed power, a large number of Communist activists were arrested, imprisoned and killed. The Communist Party of Germany continued its anti-fascist struggle under the difficult conditions of the underground.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 2. The ExperienceIn France, the economic crisis broke out later than in other capitalist countries. It was especially prolonged and affected all the key industries. The hardest hit was the French working class. The crisis accelerated the process whereby the urban petty bourgeoisie was expropriated and ruined by big monopolies. This crisis also coincided with the agrarian crisis of the 1930s and again greatly aggravated social contradictions in the village.
A comparison of the situation in France and Germany in the early 1930s shows that, although the petty bourgeoisie and all the middle sections of society were in a somewhat similar socio-economic position, they took different political stands in many cases. This was largely due to the objective conditions of both countries' development. Commenting on the differences in socio-economic conditions between France and Germany, Georgi Dimitrov said: "It is true that there were no such deep-seated democratic traditions in Germany as there are in France, which went through several revolutions in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It is true that France is a country which won the war and imposed the Versailles treaty on other countries, that the national sentiments of the French people have not been hurt as they have been in Germany, where this factor played such a great part. It is true that in France the basic masses of the peasantry are pro-republic and anti-fascist, especially in the south, in contrast to Germany, where even before fascism 71 came to power a considerable section of the peasantry was under the influence of reactionary parties.''~^^1^^
The world economic crisis dealt a hard blow to the broad masses of the French middle sections. In the period of 1930-- 32 about 100,000 small traders were ruined. In December 1934 alone, 998 enterprises went bankrupt and 1,440 were officially closed down.
Formerly, the petty bourgeoisie had always gravitated towards the big bourgeoisie, obeying it and following it? example. However, in the crisis of the early 1930s the petty bourgeoisie could no longer follow the big bourgeoisie. As Maurice Thorez wrote, "The ruined rentier, the merchant strangled by big capital, the invester ruined by financial deals, the unemployed engineer, the lawyer without a job, the secondary school graduate without employment, the architect without a house to build, the doctor without clients, the student without a future, the intellectuals produced in surplus by bourgeois universities and discarded by the capitalists like grain cast into the sea---how can they all act in solidarity with the big bourgeoisie, which dooms them to deprivation and despair?"^^2^^ In France, the petty bourgeoisie and the middle sections as a whole did not become a mass basis for fascism, thus corroborating the Communist parties' tenet that fascism is begotten by big capital and that it conflicts with the middle sections' vital interests and objectively promotes the formation of a broad popular anti-- monopoly front.
An extremely important role in realising those objective conditions was played by a subjective factor stemming from the particular reality. In France, unlike Germany, the real enemy of the working class, the big bourgeoisie, was no longer hidden from them by the survivals of feudalism. In spite of certain errors, the communist and working-class movement managed to influence the political stand taken by the petty bourgeoisie and all the middle sections more strongly in France than in Germany. When the broad masses of working people were hard hit by the economic crisis, the working class of France and its militant vanguard, i.e., the French Communist Party, succeeded in overcoming sectarian _-_-_
~^^1^^ Georgi Dimitrov, Selected Works in three volumes, Vol. 2, Sofia, 1972, p. 90.
~^^2^^ Maurice Thorez, Oeuvres choisies en trois volumes. Vol. 1, Paris, 1967, p. 211.
72 mistakes in many respects. Moreover, the importance of drawing the middle sections to the working class's side was seen in time and correct steps were taken to this end.When fascist groups, which enjoyed the financial oligarchy's support, began to step up their activities in the early 1930s, the French Communist Party united large forces of the working class and, at the same time, favourably influenced the middle sections' political stand. In 1932 the French Communist Party intensified its efforts to consolidate the unity of the anti-fascist forces. At the Seventh FCP Congress in March 1932, it was emphasised that a united, broad, mass front should be established in the struggle against the imperialist war and the fascist onset.
The facts show that, besides being the only organised and political force in the country which opportunely and resolutely called on the masses to rebuff fascism, the French Communist Party also succeeded in mobilising the working class to this end and drawing allies to its side. The Popular Front was victorious because the subjective factor was correctly understood and exploited together with the objective conditions of France's socio-economic development. At the 21st Extraordinary FCP Congress in 1974, the General Secretary of the French Communist Party, Georges Marchais, said that the slogan of setting up the Popular Front was a landmark in the Party's history, which is marked by its unflagging struggle for the working people's unity and for an alliance between workers and democratic and national forces.^^1^^ On February 6, 1934, armed bands of hirelings tried to carry out a fascist putsch in Paris, but it was frustrated by the masses. In March 1934, the Central Committee of the French Communist Party adopted a resolution "On the Communists' Tasks in the Struggle for Concerted Anti-Fascist Action''. In implementing this resolution, the French Communist Party worked with special vigour in mobilising the broad masses for the anti-fascist struggle.
In late June 1934, the French Communist Party held a national conference in Ivry with an agenda that was summed up by the words: "We shall defeat fascism by unity of action''. In his speech, Maurice Thorez said: "We want to ensure unity with socialist workers against fascism at any price. We want to ensure the trade unions' unity at any price.... We _-_-_
~^^1^^ Cahiers du communlsme, No. 11, 1974, p. 40.
73 want the middle classes to follow the workers, wresting them away from the influence of fascist demagogy."^^1^^ The conference declared that the entire force of the proletariat's actions should be directed against fascism and that the steps taken by all sections of working people should contribute to it. This national conference's work and decisions gave a new impetus to the struggle for a united front.The Popular Front was a union of all the forces of the working people who were exploited by capitalists and threatened with fascism. The Communist Party roused these forces to obstruct fascism. At the Eighth FCP Congress Maurice Thorez said: "For the Communists, the Popular Front is not an ad hoc tactic and much less is it an electoral calculation. It is a constituent of their fundamental policy, it is an application of Marx's and Lenin's principles on the need for an alliance right to the end between the working class and the middle sections, not only to vanquish fascism, but also to end capitalist exploitation."^^2^^
As early as the beginning of the 1930s, small traders occasionally closed their shops as a token of solidarity with the proletariat and even joined its demonstrations. In the summer of 1935, the actions taken by P. Laval's government, which decreed a tax increase, outraged the working class as well as the petty and middle bourgeoisie. The petty bourgeoisie rendered great assistance to the proletariat during the strike in June 1936. For instance, the bakers of the Paris district provided such large factories as Renault (33,000 workers), Farman (1,200 workers) and others with bread. Many enterprises received hot food from cafe-owners at a discount. The Committee of the French Communist Party of Paris's 20th arrondissement collected 40,000 francs for the strikers, mostly in the form of contributions by small shopkeepers.
In the 12 years between 1922 and 1934, the French Communists appealed 26 times to the Socialist Party for concerted action, but were turned down every time. When it became evident that the French Communist Party was exercising ever stronger influence on the middle sections, the French Section of the Workers' International reached an understanding with the Communists. On July 27, 1934, an agreement was signed on concerted action to be taken by the French _-_-_
~^^1^^ Maurice Thorez, op. cit., p. 123.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 270.
74 Communist Party and the French Section of the Workers' International. After long, tense talks, the Popular Front's programme, which was elaborated with the extremely important participation of the French Communist Party, was approved by all the Front's main members on January 6, 1936, and published in the press on January 11 of the same year.The Popular Front Programme was progressive because it reflected the interests of the broad sections of the French population: the working class, the toiling peasantry, the grass roots of the urban petty bourgeoisie, and the working intellectuals. It envisaged a democratic reform of the tax system, with the main tax burden falling on the shoulders of big capital, and other measures. The programme also demanded fair prices for farm produce and a solution to the question of small traders' debts. Several provisions of the programme were intended to defend France's independence from possible aggression by German fascism.
The position of workers, handicraftsmen and all the middle sections markedly improved as a result of the measures taken on the French Communists' initiative. In accordance with the Popular Front Programme, the state rendered assistance to the working class and the middle sections of the population. For instance, it granted credits, established a moratorium on debts, and abolished the 10 per cent tax on the small rentiers' coupons. All these measures greatly impressed the broad masses of working people. The parliamentary elections in April-May 1936 confirmed the popular masses' resolve to check the fascist forces. At the elections the French Communist Party received about 1.5 million votes (i.e., 18 per cent) and, accordingly, 72 seats instead of the ten which it had formerly occupied in the National Assembly. The Popular Front received 56.6 per cent of the votes.
But events showed that Blum's government, formed after the elections, did not intend to carry out further social transformations in the country. In March 1937, Blum's cabinet declared a ``pause'' in the implementation of the Popular Front Programme, allegedly in order to stabilise prices and currency, and in June of that year Blum resigned as Prime Minister and announced his cabinet's resignation, although the government received a vote of confidence from the Communist deputies in the National Assembly. The events in France showed both the strength and the weakness of the 75 united workers' and popular front. It was strong because fascism was checked by mobilising the majority of people; indeed, fascism came to power in France only when the nazi troops entered the country. It was weak because the mass movement and its political awareness at the time were still not on a sufficiently high level to overcome the reformist leadership's vacillation and treachery.
Under the pressure of the popular masses the French government signed a treaty of mutual assistance with the Soviet Union as early as May 1935. An important step was thus made towards precluding war with the fascist regimes of Germany and Italy. But although the French government signed the treaty, it actually pursued an anti-Soviet policy. The struggle for peace, in support of the peace-loving foreign policy pursued by the Soviet Union, which actively worked for the establishment of an effective collective security system in Europe, helped the French Communist Party to work successfully among the middle sections of the population and to raise its prestige. Adhering to the principles of proletarian internationalism, the Central Committee of the French Communist Party headed by Maurice Thorez mobilised all progressive forces to rebuff the increasingly aggressive policy of Hitler and German imperialism.
The Popular Front was a specifically historical expression of the Marxist-Leninist demand for a close proletarian alliance with the peasantry and other sections of working people. "For the first time,'' said VHumanite, "a victorious alliance between the working class and the middle sections was established in a developed capitalist country in the struggle against ... the monopoly capital."^^1^^
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 3. The Popular Front in SpainThe problems of the Popular Front in Spain before the war are of great importance from the standpoint of both history and modern development. A multi-party government was set up there, and the Socialist and other democratic parties, together with the Communist Party, participated in it. It carried out deep-going economic, political and social transformations.
_-_-_~^^1^^ VHumanitt, June 4, 1966.
76The Spanish bourgeois-democratic revolution of 1931--36 occurred when there were still very many feudal survivals in the country. The greater part of the land was held by the landowner aristocracy, which, right since the end of the 19th century, had pursued a policy of compromise with big monopoly capital. The peasantry, which figured prominently in the class structure of society, was extremely poor. The industrial proletariat was hard hit by the drop in real wages and by unemployment. The urban petty bourgeoisie likewise experienced great difficulties. The military dictatorship encroached also on the democratic rights of intellectuals and students.
Although the establishment of the Republic in April 1931 was a great gain for the Spanish people, the main tasks facing the bourgeois-democratic revolution were not tackled. True, in two years of agrarian reform, 74,138 hectares of land were distributed among 7,272 peasant families. But even so, five years after the Republic was proclaimed, 94 per cent of land, or 17,000 hectares, in the Castellar de la Frontera district (Cadiz), belonged to a single owner, and 92 per cent, or 5,000 hectares, of the Otivar district (Granada), was occupied by a single estate.
The Popular Front originated when the reactionaries mounted their offensive and the fascist threat grew. The masses increasingly favoured the idea of establishing a coalition between the forces of the left. It was initiated by the Communist Party of Spain. At the elections in Malaga in November 1933, the anti-fascist bloc's candidate (a Communist) defeated the reactionaries' candidate as a result of a pact between the Communists, the Socialists and the Republicans. This was the Popular Front's first victory in Spain.
During 1934 and 1935, there were mass actions by the working people throughout Spain. In June 1934 peasants and farm labourers staged a strike which gripped almost the entire country and was unprecedented in scale. In October of that year, there was a popular uprising in Asturias and armed clashes broke out in Madrid, Biscay, Leon, Valencia and Catalonia. In Asturias, where the Socialists, Communists and Anarcho-Syndicalists established militant unity, the workers offered resistance to government troops for two weeks.
The lessons learned from the uprising and the experience gained by the French Communists, who courageously __NOTE__ Error in original: missing page number. [77] rebuffed fascism, had shown how important it was to draw not only the working class and the peasantry, but also other sections of working people, particularly the urban petty bourgeoisie, into the struggle. In his speech at a mass rally in Madrid on J une 1, 1935, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Spain, J ose Diaz, called for the establishment of a Popular Front in Spain and set forth a minimum programme for it: an agrarian reform, a democratic solution of the national question, a general improvement in the working people's position, the restoration of democratic freedoms, and an amnesty for political prisoners.
The Seventh Congress of the Communist International, which was held in the summer of 1935 and in which a Spanish delegation headed by Jose Diaz and Dolores Ibarruri took part, was of great importance in the struggle to implement that programme. Speaking at the Congress, Jose Diaz emphasised that the glorious feat in Asturias gave them sufficient confidence that the armed proletariat, guided by the Communist Party, could topple bourgeois power and fascism. The Communist Party of Spain stepped up its activity among the masses in the struggle for a united workers' front and for workers' unity as the basis of a Popular Front. The stepping up of the Spanish proletariat's activities was an example to all republican forces.
In its talks with the Socialist Party and other democratic parties, the Communist Party of Spain proposed that the feudal lords' lands should be confiscated without any compensation and immediately be handed over gratis to poor peasants and farm labourers. The Communist Party of Spain also called for assistance to be rendered to small proprietors in the town and countryside. After lengthy negotiations, a Popular Front Pact was signed by the Republican Left, the Republican Union, the Socialist Party, the General Working People's Union, the Communist Party of Spain, the Syndicalist Party, the representative of the Socialist Youth, and the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification.
The signing of that pact was a major event. It resulted in the victory of the left-wing forces' coalition at the elections to the Cortes on February 16, 1936, and this despite the reactionaries' schemes. The Popular Front, which won a decisive victory, received 269 seats, while the left-wing parties in it won an extra 148 seats (in comparison with the 1933 elections.). The Communist deputies in the Cortes 78 represented the man in the street, factory workers, miners and farmers. Even then the Communist Party of Spain was the Popular Front's most influential force, with its membership increasing from 30,000 to over 100,000 in less than six months. In 1933 the Communists had won only 400,000 votes, but in 1936 Jose Diaz alone won over 220,000 votes in Madrid.
The Popular Front's victory in Spain was of extremely great international importance, especially since the Popular Front in France triumphed at parliamentary elections three months later. These victories by the working-class movement in Spain and France also clearly attested to the correctness of the policy pursued by the Communist parties---a militant vanguard of the proletariat and of all the anti-fascist forces. These examples showed the people that an alliance of all the democratic and workers' forces must be established if victory was to be won over fascism. The establishment of governments based on the Popular Front in France and Spain substantially changed the situation in Europe and the world as a whole. Since both of these West European countries supported the Soviet Union's collective security policy, it seemed that a broad and powerful peace front could really be established.
After winning this important political victory, the democratic forces in Spain directed their struggle mainly against fascism.
After the Popular Front's victory, Jose Diaz wrote in an article, published in Mundo Obrero on May 14, 1936, that the struggle in Spain was not between the dictatorship of the proletariat and bourgeois democracy, but between democracy and fascism, which was the enemy of not only the workers and peasants, but also of all working people, all republicans, democrats and free thinkers.
During the Spanish people's revolutionary war of 1936-- 39, the activity carried on by the Popular Front and its motive force, i.e., the Communist Party of Spain, was directed mainly at defending the Republic. Moreover, the Popular Front Government, in which the Communists received two seats in September 1936, carried out a series of extremely important democratic changes. For the first time, the Communist Party of Spain participated in a coalition government together with the Socialist Party and various bourgeois parties.
79Particularly indicative are the following data, which characterise the agrarian reform after the decree on the expropriation of the land of the republic's enemies was issued on October 7, 1936: peasants and farm labourers received 5,423,200 hectares of land, which were divided between 376,787 peasant families, as well as landowners' livestock and farm implements. For the first time in Spain's history, resolute measures were taken to eliminate feudal survivals. By the spring of 1938, the land expropriated in favour of the working peasantry constituted more than 20 per cent of all cultivated land in the country, especially in the republican area. Thus, the alliance between the working class and the working peasantiy was consolidated during the agrarian revolution. The Popular Front's local committees, being unitary in most cases, played an important role in this respect.
The banking and insurance system underwent great changes as a result of the administrative and economic measures taken by the Popular Front Government. This improved the position of the industrial proletariat, the urban petty bourgeoisie and office workers. For instance, the private banks' administrative councils were replaced by managing committees, in which workers' organisations had a large representation. The Communist Party of Spain favoured the nationalisation of large-scale industry and of all types of transportation.
It is important to note that the Communist Party of Spain made a strong call for a policy towards the traditional and new urban middle sections that would make it possible to maintain an alliance with them during the subsequent stage of the revolution, i.e., after the working class assumed power. The General Secretary of the Communist Party of Spain, Jose Diaz, said: "The small merchants must understand that the proletariat is not their enemy, that the proletarian parties are not against them, that the Anarchists, Socialists and Communists are not persecuting them, and that we all consider them our allies and will defend them and help them in everything necessary."^^1^^
The Ministry of Popular Education, which was headed by the Communists when the Popular Front was in government, _-_-_
~^^1^^ Jose Diaz, Tres aiios de lucha, Paris-Mexico-New York, 1939, pp. 349--50.
80 played a big role in the cultural revolution. Extremely important measures were taken to wipe out illiteracy, provide free education in workers' institutes, and so forth. Continuing the glorious tradition begun by the Paris Commune, the Communists in the Popular Front took measures to protect culture and safeguard cultural values under wartime conditions. The progressive intellectuals in Spain supported the Republic and waged a courageous struggle against fascism. For instance, prominent cultural workers, i.e., Spanish scientists, writers and artists, made an appeal in which they said that never before had they felt how strongly they were attached to their homeland.The Spanish Republic, which was actively supported by the Soviet Union and the democratic anti-fascist forces of other countries, fell after an heroic struggle. Its defeat was mainly due to external factors: overt armed intervention by Italy and Germany on the insurgents' side and the socalled policy of ``non-intervention'' pursued by the imperialists of Britain, France and the United States, a policy which prevented the Spanish Republic from freely obtaining arms and thus changed the balance of forces in the interventionists' and insurgents' favour.
In their work Spain 1936--1976. The Struggle for Freedom and Democracy (Frankfurt am Main, 1976), Willi Hohn, who fought in the international brigades against fascism in Spain, and Karl-Heinz Schieder, editor of the foreign policy section of the West German magazine Die Tat, wrote that the National Assembly of France passed a bill allowing the government to ban the exit of volunteers going to Spain to help the Republic, while the Non-intervention Committee in London sabotaged all measures which were in the Spanish Republic's favour. The authors emphasised that the Soviet Union was the only state which supported fighting Spain in a battle against great odds, while support from the world community was especially vividly expressed in the formation of international brigades.
As in France, the Popular Front in Spain was being undermined from within by the vacillations of the Social-- Democrats' right-wing leaders, who took an anti-Communist stand. For instance, those who were well acquainted with Indalecio Prieto, a minister and one of the Socialists' leaders, objectively attest to his defeatist and anti-Communist sentiments. The Anarcho-Syndicalists and the bourgeois-republican __PRINTERS_P_81_COMMENT__ 6---2560 81 parties' leaderships also played an unseemly role. As soon as the fascist revolt and the Italian and German armed intervention hegan to be countered on a nation-wide scale, the Communists became the core of the Republican army. For instance, the Communists constituted 50 per cent of the fifth regiment; 50 per cent of them were peasants, 40 per cent, workers, and 10 per cent, office workers. The experience of the Popular Front in Spain is very instructive. Its lessons greatly influenced the struggle by Communist parties for the unity of left-wing forces.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 4. The Communist International's StrategyAs the fascist threat grew and the likelihood of a Second World War increased, the international communist and working-class movement advanced towards the Seventh Congress of the Communist International, which became a historic landmark in the struggle to unite all the working people and democratic and peace-loving forces against monopoly capital and reaction. The Communist International and its sections had to tackle the extremely important tasks of exposing the real social nature of fascism as the dictatorship of the most reactionary part of the imperialist bourgeoisie, revealing its threat to popular freedom and independence, and waging a struggle against the possible outbreak of a Second World War. Under these conditions, it became extremely necessary for the Communists to draw the middle sections of the population to the side of the working class, which was the determining force in the anti-fascist struggle. On March 5, 1933, the Executive Committee of the Communist International appealed to workers in all countries, setting forth a clear-cut militant programme for an anti-fascist struggle by both workers' parties, i.e., the Communists and the Social-Democrats, as a platform of concerted action. This meant a definite change in attitude towards SocialDemocracy and a broader interpretation of the tactics of a united workers' front; it set the Communist parties the task of solving the urgent problems of the anti-fascist struggle. However, all the Social-Democratic parties used different pretexts to turn down the Communists' proposal to establish a united anti-fascist front. Most of their leaders pursued a policy of class cooperation with the bourgeoisie. Moreover, 82 their ideological and political activities were based on the principles of anti-communism and anti-Sovietism, and therefore they declined, under various pretexts, all the Communists' proposals to take concerted action. This naturally affected the Communist International's stand towards Social-Democracy.
On the Communists' initiative, the European AntiFascist Workers' Congress was held in the Pleyel Hall in Paris in June 1933. At the Congress, a broad anti-fascist and anti-war programme was set forth as a basis for uniting the most diverse democratic forces. The decisions adopted at the Congress contained an early formulation of anti-fascist unity: the establishment of a very broad united anti-fascist front of all workers, office workers, middle sections, small farmers and intellectuals in the struggle against fascism and the imperialist war.
The campaign mounted in many countries in defence of Georgi Dimitrov and other Communists during the Leipzig Trial gave great impetus to the anti-fascist forces' unity. In his statements at the trial, Georgi Dimitrov again drew attention to both the need for establishing a united front with the Socialist workers and the importance of using forms of struggle which would help unify all anti-fascist forces as much as possible. In his concluding speech at the trial on December 16, 1933, he cited an extract from the resolution adopted at the 12th Plenary Session of the Executive Committee of the Communist International, "Mass work, mass activity, mass opposition and the united front---no adventurism---these are the alpha and omega of communist tactics."^^1^^ He later developed these ideas when he worked out the Communist International's strategy and tactics further.
The ground for successfully tackling the forthcoming tasks was prepared largely due to the struggle waged against ``left'' and right revisionism it the 1930s and to the ideological and political rout of Trotskyism, whose adherents tried to knock together an international anti-Leninist bloc. The stand taken by Trotsky and his supporters towards the Popular Front policy ran counter to the new orientation of the Communist International and the Communist parties. The Trotskyites' activities were based on slander and hostility towards the international working-class movement and the broad masses _-_-_
~^^1^^ Georgi Dimitrov, op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 371.
83 of working people. In Spain the Workers' Party of Marxist, Unification, a Trotskyite organisation, took up arras against the Popular Front's Republican Government. In France and other countries, the Trolskyites pursued similar subversive activities.The Communist International's strategy and tactics were worked out during the anti-fascist and anti-war struggle and were embodied in the decisions adopted at the Seventh Congress of the Communist International and in the activity carried on by Communist parties, which sought to unite all the working and democratic sections of the population around the working class. The Congress was held in the Hall of Columns of the House of Trade Unions in Moscow on July 25, 1935. The central issue was Georgi Dimitrov's report, in which the main problems of the Popular Front policy were considered together with other momentous questions. The report was especially important mainly because Lenin's tenets on the interconnection between the struggle for democracy and the struggle for socialism were evolved in it with respect to the new historical situation. Dimitrov set forth the proposition that the proletariat's united front and the anti-fascist Popular Front were interdependent and emphasised that the concept of the Popular Front being evolved at the Congress was the result of a deep-going generalisation of the international working-class movement's experience and the political and theoretical activities carried on by the Communist International and the Communist parties, especially those of France, Spain and some other countries.
The report contained a profound analysis which exposed fascism's ways and means of influencing the masses and its practice after the assumption of power. Moreover, it showed what fascism really brings to the people and revealed the socio-economic and political reasons behind its propagation in individual countries. Dimitrov demonstrated that the victory of fascism in Germany, for instance, was not inevitable and could have been precluded by the working class, and that Social-Democracy was responsible for splitting the proletariat. He said: "Fascism also attained power for the reason that the proletariat found itself isolated from its natural allies."^^1^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ Georgi Dimitrov, op. cit., Vol. 2. p. 19.
84Dimitrov emphasised that the success of the anti-fascist struggle largely depended on the working-class's militant activity and on the existence of a strong revolutionary party. He showed that it was important for the working class to pursue a correct policy towards the peasants and the urban petty bourgeoisie, which, he said, should be taken as they were, and not as what we would like them to be. Only in struggle would they rid themselves of doubts and vacillations, and only through a patient attitude towards their inevitable vacillations and with the proletariat's political assistance would they rise to a higher stage of revolutionary awareness and activity. Dimitrov stressed: "A powerful united front of the proletariat would exert tremendous influence on all other strata of the working people, on the peasantry, on the urban petty bourgeoisie, on the intelligentsia. A united front would inspire the wavering groups with faith in the strength of the working class.''~^^1^^
The Marxist-Leninist teaching on proletariat class alliances in mobilising the working people for the anti-fascist struggle was developed at the Seventh Congress of the Communist International. This is very important. One especially momentous task was the establishment of a broad popular anti-fascist front on the basis of the proletariat's united front. The Communist International's new strategy and tactics were based on the experience of the mass working-class and general democratic movements. The Communist International and the Communist parties acted as a real vanguard of all democratic and progressive forces by proposing and substantiating a Popular Front programme, which neither the Social-Democrats nor the Radicals proved able to propose to the proletariat and the intermediate sections of the population in the capitalist countries.
The decisions adopted at the Seventh Congress of the Communist International are important because these documents exemplify the dialectical interconnection between MarxistLeninist theory and practice, on the one hand, and take into account the specific conditions of contemporary historical development, on the other. The Communist International not only made a scientific analysis of fascism, but also mapped out a brood realistic programme for working-class action _-_-_
~^^1^^ Ibid., p. 27.
85 with a view to preventing the big bourgeoisie (to be more exact, its most reactionary elements) from setting the working people of town and countryside against the revolutionary proletariat. This programme took account of the rich experience and some of the mistakes of the proletariat's former class alliances.The questions of activating the struggle against the threat of another world war were discussed at great length at the Congress. The decisions adopted at the Congress stressed: "The central slogan of the Communist Parties must be: struggle for peace."^^1^^ In his Report on the Preparations for Imperialist War and the Tasks of the Communist International, Palmiro Togliatti clearly stated that while fighting for peace, the Communists wanted, as a result of this fight, to unite the masses of workers, toiling peasants and the petty bourgeoisie around the revolutionary vanguard.
The decisions of the Seventh Congress of the Communist International were aimed at uniting the broadest sections of the working people around the working class. The resolution on Dimitrov's report, adopted at the Congress on August 20, 1935, read (paragraph 7):
``In striving to unite, under the leadership of the proletariat, the struggle of the toiling peasants, the urban petty bourgeoisie and the toiling masses of the oppressed nationalities, the Communists must seek to bring about the establishment of a wide anti-fascist people's front on the basis of the proletarian united front, supporting all those specific demands of these sections of the toilers which are in line with the fundamental interests of the proletariat. It is particularly important to mobilize the toiling peasants against the fascist policy of robbing the basic masses of the peasantry: against the plundering price policy of monopoly capital and the bourgeois governments, against the unbearable burden of taxes, rents and debts, against forced sales of peasant property, and in favour of government aid for the ruined peasantry. While working everywhere among the urban petty bourgeoisie and the intelligentsia as well as among the office workers, the Communists must rouse these sections against _-_-_
~^^1^^ Seventh World Congress of the Communist International. Resolutions and Decisions, Moscow-Leningrad, 1935, p. 40.
86 increasing taxation and the high cost of living, against their spoliation by monopoly capital, by the trusts, against the thraldom of interest payments, and against dismissals and reductions in salary of government and municipal employees. While defending the interests and rights of the progressive intellectuals, it is necessary to give them every support in their movement against cultural reaction, and to facilitate their going over to the side of the working class in the struggle against fascism."^^1^^The strategy and tactics worked out at the Seventh Congress of the Communist International thus boiled down to the following: activation of all progressive, democratic forces against the threat of a world war; direction of the main blow at fascism; struggle to set up a united workers' front and a broad popular front as an extremely important prerequisite for the rout of fascism, defence of peace and democracy, and advance towards socialism; setting of the tasks of establishing a united anti-imperialist front as a means of bringing all national liberation forces together.
Hence, the Communist International's strategy and tactics, being engendered by historically shaped circumstances, corroborated the importance of the working class's guiding role and the correctness of Marxist-Leninist teaching on the proletariat's class alliances, which are an effective force capable of strongly counteracting the reactionary policy pursued by big monopoly capital and its agents. In discussing the importance of the Communist International's experience, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the USA, Gus Hall, emphasised that the origin and activity of the Communist International, which was a most effective tribunal of proletarian internationalism, raised the struggle against world imperialism to a new level.^^2^^
The idea of uniting the anti-imperialist, democratic forces, of a united working-class front, which was substantiated at the Seventh Congress of the Communist International, constituted the basis of the practical programmes of the Popular Anti-Fascist Front, which played an important role in the _-_-_
~^^1^^ Seventh World Congress of the Communist International. Resolutions and Decisions, pp. 22--23.
~^^2^^ Gus Hall, Imperialism Today. An Evaluation of Major Issues and Events of Our Time, New York, 1972, pp. 319, 322.
87 struggle waged by the peoples of some countries against reaction and fascism before the war. The idea of concerted action by the working class and all democratic forces was realised in the establishment of the anti-fascist Resistance Movement during the Second World War. After the rout of fascism, this organisational unification of working-class forces was an extremely important prerequisite for the victory of people's democratic and socialist revolutions in the countries of Central and Southeastern Europe. [88] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter IV __ALPHA_LVL1__ WORKING-CLASS ALLIANCESAfter the Second World War, the balance of world forces radically changed in favour of socialism. The Soviet socialist state, which played a decisive role in defeating the fascist aggressors, emerged from the war even stronger, both politically and morally, and its international prestige increased immeasurably. This was extremely significant for the consolidation of democratic and progressive forces on all continents.
The rout of nazi Germany and militaristic Japan created favourable conditions for an anti-fascist, national liberation struggle in some countries of Europe and Asia. The victory of socialist revolution there and the transformation of socialism into a world system were the most important events in world history since the Great October Socialist Revolution. The capitalist system suffered a serious setback; its sphere of influence substantially decreased and the system as a whole became weaker than it was before the war.
As Leonid Brezhnev has emphasised: "The victory over fascism showed that there is no force in the world capable of repelling the mighty torrent of revolutionary transformations begun by the Great October Socialist Revolution. The routing of nazi Germany---the bulwark of imperialism---largely predetermined the postwar development of the world. This victory became the point of departure for a powerful new revolutionary upswing which resulted in the collapse of capitalism in a number of countries in East and West alike. This victory marked the beginning of profound changes in world politics, economics and ideology, in the consciousness of millions of people.
``The postwar period was marked by the emergence of the world socialist system, the rise of international workingclass and communist movement, the upswing of national 89 liberation revolutions, and by the peoples' active struggle for peace, against the threat of a world thermonuclear war."^^1^^
The victory of socialist revolution and the establishment of the world socialist system clearly corroborated Lenin's theory of the socialist revolution. Moreover, they were the most important manifestation of the second stage in the general crisis of capitalism. Before the Second World War, the socialist system embraced 17 per cent of the world's territory and about 9 per cent of its population. After the war, its share of territory increased to 26 per cent, while its population now amounts to about 35 per cent of the world total.
Owing to the Resistance Movement against the nazi aggressors and the vigorous activities of the Communists and other anti-fascist forces, the popular masses quickly defeated the bourgeoisie in the countries of Central and Southeastern Europe, and democratic national governments assumed power. The secession of many European and Asian countries from the capitalist system and the victory of socialist revolution in some of them were the natural outcome of the liberation, revolutionary, anti-imperialist struggle waged by the peoples of these countries under the new world balance of forces after the Second World War. Other important prerequisites for the triumph of socialist revolutions in several European and Asian states were the existence of the Soviet socialist state, the Soviet Union's victory over nazi Germany and militaristic Japan, and its policy of consistently defending the young progressive states against external interference by the imperialists, i.e., its policy of rendering them all possible assistance and support.
The most consistent and resolute fighters against fascism were the working class and its vanguard, the Communist parties, which did their utmost to draw the broadest sections of working people into the struggle for national liberation and social emancipation. In most of those countries, part of the petty bourgeoisie established a close alliance with the working class while the national liberation and antifascist struggle was still being waged. In some cases, the bulk of the petty bourgeoisie ultimately took a democratic stand after the rout of fascism.
_-_-_~^^1^^ L. I. Brezhnev, Following Lenin s Course. Speeches and Articles. Vol. i, Moscow, 1970, p. 144 (in Russian).
90As the anti-fascist, national liberation struggle developed and grew into popular democratic and then socialist revolutions in some countries of Central and Southeastern Europe, the general features of the revolutionary movement clearly intertwined with the specific conditions of every country. The General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, Erich Honecker, stressed: "We are borrowing the Soviet Union's great theoretical and practical experience and applying it in conformity with our specific conditions. We are thus ensuring complete harmony between the supremacy of the general principles of socialist construction and regard for every country's specific conditions."^^1^^
The Central and Southeast European countries in which socialist revolution triumphed revealed many new aspects of the theory and practice of building socialism. Specific historical and socio-economic analysis has shown that, although these countries differed in the historical conditions of their development, they all had an objective basis for a united popular front of struggle---not only for national independence and the overthrow of the fascist regime, but also for the establishment of popular democratic power. Even during the Second World War, real conditions were created for an anti-fascist democratic alliance consisting of workers, toiling peasants, urban petty bourgeoisie, a substantial part of the patriotic middle bourgeoisie, and progressive intellectuals.
In the postwar governments of almost all Europe, the majority was held by parties in the working-class movement, i.e., Communists and Social-Democrats. A new political form of transition from capitalism to socialism, i.e., people's democracies, emerged when relations between these parties were increasingly imbued with the spirit of cooperation and most Social-Democrats saw the need to establish united working-class parties in the countries of Eastern and Southeastern Europe. In these countries, the working-class movement became a single whole in spite of the resistance offered by right-wing Social-Democratic leaders, who opposed both _-_-_
^^1^^ VIII. Parteitag dcr Sozialistischen Einheitspartei Deutschlands. Berlin, 15, bis 19, Juni 1971. Bericht des Zcntralkomitees an den VIII. Parteitag der Sozialistischen Einheitspartei Deutschlands, Berlin 1971, S. 14.
91 cooperation and concerted action with the Communist parties in transforming society on democratic and socialist lines. The theory and practice of the international workingclass and communist movement were greatly enriched during the revolutions and socialist construction in the countries of Eastern and Southeastern Europe.In countries where popular democratic revolutions were accomplished, power was established under the working class's guidance and rested on the workers' and peasants' alliance and the broad unification of the nation's anti-- fascist forces. The countries of people's democracies took the socialist road mainly owing to the unity and revolutionary policy of the working class. Democratic national unification thus became possible both in constructive work and in the isolation of the reactionary forces which sabotaged revolutionary transformations. The popular fronts in the countries of people's democracies played an important role in carrying out popular democratic revolutions and in the countries' transition to socialist construction.
As the firm basis of the popular front and its guiding force, the Communist and Workers' parties maintained this social alliance even after the task of national liberation had been completed. They used it to wage a struggle for democratic transformations and then a struggle for socialism. An important feature of some popular democratic revolutions, and one associated with the popular front, was the existence of several political parties at different stages of the revolution. During the revolution, these parties adopted the platform of building socialism.
The popular fronts won great popularity already at the initial stage of their development. They united the broadest sections of working people and the most diverse strata of the population, and constituted democratic blocs of all the patriotic forces seeking to carry out radical social transformations. In Czechoslovakia, for instance, the people's coalition was called the National Front of Czechs and Slovaks, in Bulgaria, the Fatherland Front, in the GDR, the National Front, and so forth. The popular and national fronts' programme documents, which expressed theintercsts of numerous working sections of the population, were of definite constitutional importance because they predetermined the direction of the future government's activity.
Uniting, as they did, the working class, the peasantry, 92 the urban petty bourgeoisie, the intelligentsia and part of the democratic bourgeoisie, the popular and national fronts differed from country to country. However, during the struggle against the reactionary forces, the working class took concerted action, its guiding role was consolidated, and the prestige of the Communist and Workers' parties increased. As a result of these common factors the national liberation struggles grew into national and democratic revolutions.
The popular and national fronts played an important role in the struggle to establish popular democratic power, which is, in those countries, a very significant form of the working people's class alliance. They were of great importance also during the subsequent period of development, when their activity assumed extremely diverse forms and was channelled in different directions.
In Bulgaria, the victorious uprising on September 9,1944, meant victory for the Fatherland Front, which was set up under the guidance of the Bulgarian Workers' Party. A specific feature of proletarian power in Bulgaria was the alliance between several different parties, and the existence of the Fatherland Front ensured cooperation between all the democratic forces for common revolutionary ends. The Party's prestige grew further owing to the policy pursued by the Communists, who won the broadest sections of the population over to their side.
The Fatherland Front's committees (they numbered 7,292 immediately after the uprising) became the actual governmental bodies. In its struggle against the bourgeoisie, the working class relied on its class allies, especially the working peasants.
An extremely important stage of the revolution in Bulgaria was the preparations for elections to the Grand National Assembly, during which an intensive struggle broke out over the constitution. In this struggle, the Fatherland Front played a very important role. Georgi Dimitrov, who had returned to Bulgaria, exposed the anti-popular nature of the opposition in his speeches. The opposition ``boycotted'' the elections because it feared that it would utterly fail in them. When they were held on November 18, 1945, 88.18 per cent of the electors voted for the Fatherland Front. This was a major political defeat for the enemies of socialism, and it predetermined the country's further development along socialist lines. The alliance between the Communist Party of 93 Bulgaria and the Bulgarian Agrarian People's Union is the basis of the Fatherland Front's activity even today.
In Romania, the armed uprising on August 23, 1944, was the beginning of a popular revolution, which was anti-fascist, anti-feudal and anti-imperialist. By virtue of its class nature, motive forces and aims, this stage marked the completion of the bourgeois-democratic revolution. As early as September 26, the Communist Party of Romania published the People's Democratic Front's draft platform in its central organ: the newspaper Scinteia. This draft proposed by the Communist Party set forth the urgent tasks of the country's democratic development and made it possible to draw the broadest popular masses into the revolutionary struggle. Because of the activation of the popular masses, General Radescu's attempt to carry out a counter-revolution failed and power was transferred to the People's Democratic Front government headed by Petru Groza.
The People's Democratic Front and its activity played a very important role in the growth of the Romanian popular democratic revolution into a socialist one. The main aims of the People's Democratic Front's platform and its governmental programme were already achieved by the beginning of the preparations for parliamentary elections ( November 19, 1946). The Bloc of Democratic Parties was set up in May 1946 on the basis of a new platform, which included some anti-capitalist measures. The Bloc was very successful at the elections in spite of the reactionaries' ruthless schemes.
The change in the balance of forces in favour of the proletariat and its allies was consolidated by the elections on November 19, 1946, and expressed in the government's composition. The Ministry of the National Economy was taken away from the bourgeoisie, thus creating favourable conditions for the struggle against the capitalists' sabotage of the country's economic rehabilitation'and for the implementation of measures^which curtailed the exploiters' economic domination. These and other measures made it easier for the popular revolution to develop further. In February 1948, the united Romanian Workers' Party was set up as a result of a merger of two workers' parties: the Romanian Communist Party and the Social-Democratic Party.
The Romanian Communist Party's Programme for building a comprehensively developed socialist society and 94 Romania's advance to communism, adopted at the llth RCP Congress in November 1974, declared: "The political, ideological and organisational unity of the working class achieved through the union of the Communist Party and the SocialDemocratic Parly and the establishment, in February 1948, of the Romanian Workers' Party with about one million members on the basis of the Marxist-Leninist concept gave rise to a political and organisational force needed for guiding the complex process of the country's socialist transformation and the building of a new social system. The establishment of a united revolutionary party of the working class put an end once and for all to the split in our working-class movement and was a great victory for Romania's revolutionary forces. It was objectively needed for the revolution's successful development and for the proletariat's fulfilment of its historic mission as society's leading class. Proceeding from this, the Party mobilised and united all the people's revolutionary, democratic forces into a single whole, and this was a determining factor in the successful staging of the major political battles which led to the establishment of the socialist system in Romania."^^1^^
In Hungary, the general democratic revolution grew into a socialist one under difficult conditions. The Hungarian Independent People's Front, which was set up on December 2, 1944, through the union of several political parties and trade unions, was a broad class alliance of the working class, the peasants, the urban petty bourgeoisie, democratic-- minded intellectuals and the anti-fascist section of the bourgeoisie. When reactionaries penetrated into the Front somewhat later, the Communists, like the Bolsheviks in Russia, established a left bloc in March 1946, thus consolidating the unity of the working class and its alliance with the peasantry. In 1946, the Communist Party set forth an extremely important task of peacefully developing the popular democratic revolution into a socialist revolution. The Hungarian working class not only succeeded in neutralising the intermediate sections, but also drew a substantial part of them to its side. As a result, the working class, relying on the broad _-_-_
~^^1^^ Romania's Communist Party Programme for Building a Comprehensively Developed Socialist Society and Romania's Advance to Communism, Bucharest, 1975, pp. 54--55.
95 popular democratic alliance, established the socialist system in the country in the form of democratic power of the people. At the end of 1947 and the beginning of 1948, reactionaries were expelled from the Hungarian Independent People's Front. The class struggle became exceptionally tense owing to the internal reactionaries' underground activities and the strong support which they received from the Western imperialist circles. This became especially manifest during the counter-revolutionary putsch in the autumn of 1956.The rout of the counter-revolutionaries made it possible to finish the task of laying the basis of socialism in Hungary. The proletariat's class alliance with the working peasants and progressive intellectuals played an important part in this respect. The new leadership of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party, headed by Janos Kadar, succeeded in carrying out the extremely difficult tasks which faced the country, exposing the counter-revolutionaries' false slogans and consolidating all democratic and socialist forces both in town and countryside. The Hungarian people won a historic victory when they laid the basis of socialism. The working class was the guiding force in the country's development. The cooperative-organised peasantry became the second main class of Hungarian society.
The Patriotic People's Front became the broadest mass movement in the country during the new historical period of socialist construction. Guided by the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party, the Front is uniting all classes and all sections of the population in the interests of socialist construction. Political and public organisations and movements, and national minorities are represented in the Front's committees. The Front has several hundred thousand active members.
In his Report at the llth Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party Congress on March 17, 1975, the First Secretary of the HSWP Central Committee, Janos Kadar, emphasised that the Patriotic People's Front movement was developing "in accordance with the Party's policy of alliance, under its guidance and with the active cooperation of public organisations, increasing the ties between Party members and nonParty working people and promoting the people's active participation in our all-embracing political and social development.... Our task is to enable the Party and its organisations both throughout the country and at the local level, 96 in every town and village, to rely on the Patriotic People's Front movement to a greater extent."^^1^^
From May 1945 to February 1948 political life in Czechoslovakia was dominated by a struggle between the working class, the toiling peasantry and the progressive intelligentsia, on the one hand, and the big bourgeoisie, on the other.
At that time, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, headed by Klement Gottwald, was waging a consistent struggle for unity in the National Front, taking great pains to ensure concerted action with other left-wing parties within the Front's framework. The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia announced a campaign to win over the majority of the nation to the Communist Party's side. In preparing their counter-revolution, the reactionaries capitalised on the right Social-Democrats' victory at the congress in Brno in November 1947. But the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, which held strong positions in parliament, where it had 40 per cent of the seats, strove to ensure the peaceful development of the revolution, seeking to combine parliamentary and, if need be, non-parliamentary forms of struggle.
The representatives of the bourgeoisie in government sabotaged its work, actually making it impossible for the parliament to work, and caused a government crisis on February 20, 1948. At the same time, the reactionaries were preparing for an armed uprising and seizure of power. But, thanks to the working people's unity, the revolutionary forces won through. Klement Gottwald stressed that the people's unity, the unity of the workers, peasants, handicraftsmen and intellectuals, gave the people enough strength to frustrate the reactionaries' machinations and schemes at the embryo stage, that is, within the space of a few days.^^2^^ As a result, political power in Czechoslovakia passed to the working class and its class allies.
Twenty years later, the internal and external counterrevolutionaries tried to avenge themselves for that political defeat. The General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, Gustav Husak, said: "In the summer of 1968, the danger of counter-revolution in Czechoslovakia became so great that it began to threaten the existence of the socialist order. The counter-revolution _-_-_
~^^1^^ Pravda, March 18, 1975.
~^^2^^ See Kommunist, 1974, No. 3, p. 121 (in Russian).
__PRINTERS_P_97_COMMENT__ 7---2560 97 in Czechoslovakia could be prevented only by the fraternal international assistance rendered by the Soviet Union and our other allies to the working class and working people of Czechoslovakia."^^1^^The working class is the mouthpiece of the people's interests. Formerly, the bourgeoisie passed itself off as the representative of all people and was able to realise its class interests by acting on their behalf. But now the situation is quite different. This role is played by the working class, the class which really expresses the interests and aspirations of the broadest masses of working people.
In the German Democratic Republic, the National Front had especially responsible tasks to carry out owing to specific historical, internal and international factors. In an address commemorating the 25th anniversary of the GDR's establishment, the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, Erich Honecker, declared: "It was the workers' and peasants' state which revived the best traditions and humanitarian ideals of German history, absorbing them and bringing them to new blossoming under the conditions of socialism."^^2^^
True to the letter and spirit of the principles proclaimed at the Potsdam Conference, the Soviet Union consistently pursued a policy of German denazification, demilitarisation and democratisation, and this decisively helped the National Front in its activities. The Soviet Army did not simply destroy the German fascist machinery of power. It rendered all necessary military assistance to the democratic and socialist forces in the East of Germany against all encroachments by imperialism and attempts to export counter-revolution.
As early as June 10, 1945, the Soviet military administration allowed democratic parties to carry on their activities. On July 10, 1945, the Communist Party of Germany, the Social-Democratic Party of Germany, the Christian Democratic Union and the Liberal-Democratic Party of Germany reached an understanding on cooperation within the framework of an anti-fascist democratic bloc. On April 21, 1946, the Socialist Unity Party of Germany was formed as a result of a merger of the Communist Party of Germany and the Social-Democratic Party of Germany, and it became the core _-_-_
~^^1^^ G. Husak, Selected A nicies and Speeches, Moscow, 1973, pp. 302-- 303 (in Russian).
~^^2^^ Neues Deutschland, October 7, 1974.
98 and leading force among all the democratic, anti-fascist working sections of the population. The German People's Congress, an all-German institution similar to a popular front was set up on the initiative of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany. On January 7, 1950, the Secretariat of the People's Congress was transformed into the Secretariat of the National Front of Democratic Germany. The National Front was a union of all democratic parties and organisations and all national democratic forces in the GDR.In August 1950, the National Front of Democratic Germany held a congress, in which 2,500 delegates participated. An election programme was adopted at the congress, and the National Front used it to win a great victory at the elections on October 15, 1950 . In the 1950s and the 1960s, the National Front of Democratic Germany carried on a variety of activities on a wide scale. Some of its congresses were marked by increasing participation of the most diverse sections of the GDR working population in socialist transformations. The National Front's local committees played an important role in this respect. At the beginning of the 1960s, more than 300,000 people took part in them.
The importance of the National Front of Democratic Germany was emphasised at the Eighth Congress of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany in 1971, where a broad programme of struggle for the achievement of a developed socialist society in the GDR was outlined. The General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, Erich Honecker, noted that in the GDR, the "classes and sections of our society are continually drawing closer together on the basis of working-class ideology".^^1^^ The working class plays the leading role in society and the state. The alliance between the workers, peasants and intellectuals has acquired a new significance, and this is especially important for the GDR, because substantial sections of the middle and petty bourgeioisie remained for a long time under nazi influence. Today, every fourth citizen of the GDR who has the right to vote holds an elective post in the working-class party, the trade unions, the Socialist Youth League, the parties of the democratic bloc, the National Front's committees and other public organisations, voluntarily participating, in different ways, in the socialist society's administration.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Neues Deutschland, October 7, 1974.
__PRINTERS_P_99_COMMENT__ 7* 99 Emacs-File-stamp: "/home/ysverdlov/leninist.biz/en/1980/WCA283/20070228/199.tx" __EMAIL__ webmaster@leninist.biz __OCR__ ABBYY 6 Professional (2007.02.28) __WHERE_PAGE_NUMBERS__ bottom __FOOTNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [0-9]+ __ENDNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [0-9]+In Poland, where many feudal survivals in agriculture still/emained under capitalism, the revolution, which immediately hccarne a socialist one, also had to solve certain democratic problems, especially those involving land reform. At the Seventh Congress of the Polish United Workers' Party, the First Secretary of the PUWP Central Committee, Edward Gierek, emphasised that the source of the Polish people's victory was the "activities of the Polish Workers' Party, the Polish Communists and the democratic forces which acted together with them, especially the left wing of the Socialist and Peasants' parties, and the ideological unity with the Soviet Communists and the Polish-Soviet fraternity in arms".^^1^^ The merger of the two working-class parties into the Polish United Workers' Party was of great importance in the realignment of forces and the transition to socialist construction in 1948.
During the people's liberation struggle in Yugoslavia, new bodies of power were set up on a nation-wide scale as well as at the local level. The working class and its vanguard, i.e., the Party, were the leading force in these bodies. At the Second Session of the Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia, held on November 29, 1943, the birth of new Yugoslavia was formulated as the birth of a state of the working class and the broad sections of working people. It was then that the National Liberation Front was set up. In 1945, its name was changed to the National Front of Yugoslavia, and in February 1953 it became the Socialist Alliance of the Working People of Yugoslavia.
As Leonid Brezhnev declared in Belgrade in November 1976, "The ways employed to solve the specific tasks of socialist and communist construction in the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia may differ in a number of aspects. But in such vital matters as the leading role of the Communist Party (as the vanguard of the working class and all working people), the development of socialist democracy, and the question of raising the efficiency of social production to satisfy the material and spiritual demands of the working people, we both base our policies on the principles of Marxism-Leninism."^^2^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ Pravda, December 9, 1975.
~^^2^^ Visit of L. I. Brezhnev to the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia, Moscow, 1976, p. 19 (in Russian).
100The working class of the Central and Southeast European countries, being guided by the Communist and Workers' parties and relying on the cooperation of the working peasants and other progressive non-proletarian sections of the working people, waged an intensive class struggle, as a result of which it overcame the reactionaries' resistance, established the power of the people and carried out radical revolutionary socio-economic and political transformations. The Marxist-Leninist parties' policy is the concentrated expression of the role which the working class plays.
One of the most important indicators of the growing importance of the working class in socialist countries is its active participation in the activities of public organisations and in the state machinery. For instance, 101 out of the 400 deputies in the National Assembly of the People's Republic of Bulgaria are workers. The same is true for 219 out of the 500 deputies in the Volkskammer of the German Democratic Republic, 90 out of the 460 deputies in the Seym of the Polish People's Republic, and 137 out of the 465 deputies in the National Assembly of the Hungarian People's Republic.
In the countries of Central and Southeastern Europe, the working class's alliance with cooperative farmers and other sections of working people is being consolidated still further. This is clearly evident from the activities of popular and national fronts. Although the specific tasks which they must carry out at different stages of the revolutionary process differ greatly from one another, their activities serve popular, national ends. Experience has shown that cooperation between democratic parties and public organisations in popular fronts is an important factor in^building a new society and holds out prospects of conscious participation by increasingly broad sections of working people in the administration of the state and in the formation of its policy. In most of these countries the united popular front has become an extremely important means of consistently realising general democratic and, later, socialist programmes for socio-- economic and political transformations.
[101] __ALPHA_LVL2__ 2. The Communist Movement and the PolicyAfter the Second World War, the socio-economic and political situation in the world underwent deep-going and diverse changes. These changes engendered changes in the balance of forces in favour of socialism, thus giving rise to new, more favourable conditions for activating all the social and political forces which opposed monopoly rule.
As a result of the Second World War, the shock forces of imperialism, i.e., German fascism and Japanese militarism, were routed. The rise of the world socialist system played an extremely important part in the successful development of the world revolutionary process. The growth of this system's economic potential and military capability is increasingly influencing the entire course of world development. The collapse of the colonial system has substantially undermined the imperialist positions. Moreover, the socio-political forces in the citadels of imperialism have regrouped themselves to a great extent. Consequently, the positions of the Communist parties and other parties and organisations of the working class have been substantially consolidated.
In developed capitalist countries, all the old contradictions sharply worsened and new ones originated as the scientific and technological revolution developed and the socialisation of the economy accelerated. At the International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, held in Moscow in 1969, it was stated: "This applies, in particular, to the contradiction between the unlimited possibilities opened up by the scientific and technological revolution and the roadblocks raised by capitalism to their utilisation for the benefit of society as a whole. Capitalism squanders national wealth, allocating for war purposes a great proportion of scientific discoveries and immense material resources. This is the contradiction between the social character of present-day production and the state-monopoly nature of its regulation. This is not only the growth of the contradiction between capital and labour, but also the deepening of the antagonism between the interests of the overwhelming majority of the nation and those of the financial oligarchy."^^1^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, Moscow, 1969, Prague, 1969, p. 19.
102As social contradictions became much more acute in the developed capitalist countries, real prerequisites were created for uniting all the progressive democratic forces into a political alliance on an anti-monopoly basis---an alliance which could decisively curtail monopoly rule, substantially change the balance of forces in favour of democracy and progress, and carry out radical political and socio-economic transformations which would ensure favourable conditions for a struggle for socialism.
After the Second World War, anti-monopoly potential gradually accumulated within the capitalist system. As the struggle against the entire system of state-monopoly capitalism intensified and unitary tendencies became consolidated, real conditions for the establishment of a very broad anti-monopoly front were created among left-wing forces in several developed capitalist countries. The international meetings of Communist and Workers' parties in 1957, 1960 and 1969 played an important role in the struggle to activate all the forces opposing monopoly rule.
It was proposed at the international Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties in Moscow in 1969 that concerted action by the Communists, the vanguard of the working class, should be the starting point, and that a broad platform for uniting all the anti-imperialist forces could and should be worked out. Moreover, the Communists, while attaching decisive importance to working-class unity, spoke out in favour of cooperation with the Socialists and Social-- Democrats with a view to establishing a progressive democratic system today and building a socialist society in the future. The Main Document, which was one of the highest achievements of modern Marxist-Leninist theoretical thought and summed up the extremely rich experience of the fraternal parties, reveals in depth the objective and subjective prerequisites for concerted action by the working class and its allies.
The matter in question is the elaboration of an anti-- monopoly alternative which could lead to the establishment of a state resting on a democratic alliance, a "left bloc" government, and anti-monopoly democracy, which the Communist parties regard as an intermediate or transitional stage on the road to socialism. At the Tenth Congress of the Communist Party of Greece, held in May 1978, the First Secretary of the CPG Central Committee, Harilaos Florakis, spoke 103 about the general policy pursued hy the Communist Party of Greece, emphasising that the "Greek people will come to socialism in the course of a single revolutionary process, which will involve two closely interconnected stages of revolutionary transformation: first, the anti-imperialist., anti-monopoly stage and, second, the socialist stage".^^1^^ It was pointed out at the international Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties in 1969 that every party fully and independently works out its own policy, determines its own directions, forms and methods of struggle, and selects a particular road towards socialism in its country and ways and means of building it. At the Berlin Conference of the Communist and Workers' Parties of Europe in 1976, it was noted that friendly, voluntary cooperation and solidarity on the basis of the great concepts of Marx, Engels and Lenin are of great importance in solving the momentous problems facing the Communist movement. Leonid Brezhnev declared at the Conference: "As for proletarian internationalism, that is, the solidarity of the working class and the Communists in all countries in their struggle for common goals, their solidarity with the struggle for national liberation and social progress, the voluntary cooperation of fraternal Parties, with the equality and respective independence strictly observed, we think that this kind of comradely solidarity which Communists have held aloft for more than a century has lost none of its great significance to this day. It has been and remains a formidable and tested weapon of the Communist Parties and of the working-class movement in general."^^2^^ The struggle to establish new state power engenders the conditions necessary to make most of the working class and the broad non-proletarian sections of working people aware of the need to replace the capitalist system by a socialist one.
The idea of the broadest cooperation---of setting up a kind of front of forces standing for peace and social progressbecame a major point of discussion at the Berlin Conference of the Communist and Workers' Parties of Europe in 1976, and endowed it with particularly great political significance. "The course of history confirms,'' the Chairman of the Communist Party of Finland, A. Saarinen, stressed at this conference, _-_-_
~^^1^^ Pravda, May 16, 1978.
~^^2^^ For Peace, Security, Cooperation and Social Progress in Europe. Berlin, June 29--30, 1976, p. 22--23.
104 ``that Communist parties, which base their activities on the scientific theory of social development devised by Marx, Engels and Lenin, and creatively apply this scientific theory in the specific conditions of each country and in the current specific situation, can act as a factor capable of uniting the broad popular masses and left-wing and other democratic forces in the struggle for peace and security of nations, the struggle for the expansion of democracy and for socialism."^^1^^The programmes of struggle against monopoly power which have been worked out and put forward by the Communist and Workers' parties of the developed capitalist countries envisage that all social forces oppressed and exploited by state-monopoly capitalism should be united around the working class into a single front, alliance or other union, depending on the conditions prevailing in each particular country. Moreover, at the political level, the Communist parties are striving to achieve this objective through joint action by the Communists, Socialists and other left-wing parties and organisations. Progress towards democratic changes in Italy, mentioned by the General Secretary of the Italian Communist Party, E. Berlinguer, at the 13th ICP Congress, "can be achieved by closer cooperation between all the historically shaped components of the Italian people's movement: the Communists, Socialists and Catholics".^^2^^
The Chairman of the Italian Communist Party, Luigi Longo, has stressed that no matter how important the unity of the Communists and Socialists is, it is still not enough for the task of carrying out radical transformations in Italy. Therefore, it is the Party's constant concern to achieve the broadest popular and democratic unity, which can be established "on the basis of closer relations, cooperation and understanding among all left-wing, democratic, secular and Catholic forces".^^3^^
The communist movement has often drawn attention to the importance of using electoral campaigns as a form of anti-monopoly struggle. The French Communist Party's leaders have emphasised that the forces of the left will _-_-_
~^^1^^ For Peace, Security, Cooperation and Social Progress in Europe. Berlin, June 29--30, 1976, Moscow, 1976, pp. 17--18 (in Russian).
~^^2^^ L. Unita, July 27, 1972.
~^^3^^ Luigi Longo, Selected Articles and Speeches (1946--1975], Moscow, 1975, p. 528 (in Russian).
105 assume power as a result of elections and universal suffrage, and their task will be to democratise the country's economic, social and political life to the utmost. At the same time, Georges Marchais noted that it was "not enough to vote from time to time in order to change things,'' and that "it is necessary also to fight".^^1^^Guided by the Marxist-Leninist teaching on the correlation between the struggle for democracy and socialism, the Communist and Workers' parties are opposing both those who seek to set the struggle for democracy against the struggle for socialism and the leftist extremists, who do not believe that it is necessary to defend genuine democracy, thereby ignoring the well-known tenet that this is an extremely important constituent of the struggle for socialism. The problem of setting up democratic, anti-monopoly alliances is now being raised in many capitalist countries with regard for the specific conditions obtaining there and the new aspects of the working-class and mass democratic movement.
For instance, according to the former programme of the Communist Party of Canada (1962), the struggle to unite left forces was mainly based on the prospect of establishing a united workers' and farmers' party, which would head the struggle for revolutionary and democratic transformations. The new Party Programme, "The Road to Socialism in Canada'', adopted at the 2lst Congress of the Communist Party of Canada (November 1971) and based on the changes which occurred in the alignment of class forces in the country, envisages other ways and means of uniting progressive forces. The Communist Party relinquished the idea of establishing a broad workers' and farmers' party and set forth the thesis that other allies, besides farmers, should be won over to the working class's side. These allies comprised part of the urban middle sections and the urban and rural petty bourgeoisie, without whom it is now impossible to establish a broad coalition against ``domestic'' monopoly capital and US imperialism.
The struggle to establish broad anti-monopoly alliances with a view to working out a common democratic programme and stepping up the actions of all the political and social forces opposed to monopoly rule is not just an incidental _-_-_
~^^1^^ L'Humanite, May 6, 1976.
106 issue, but a fundamental principle behind the strategy and tactics of the Communist and Workers' parties. The Chairman of the Communist Party of Austria, Franz Muhri, has stressed: "For us united action by the working class is no tactical manoeuvre, but a historical necessity. The process of achieving united working class action, we are sure, will win the majority of the Social-Democrat workers and some of their leaders for a truly Socialist policy and deprive the bourgeoisie of influence among the middle strata, with the latter becoming allies of the working class."^^1^^The Communists, who favour cooperation with the Socialists and Social-Democrats in the interests of socialism, are doing everything in their power to bring about such cooperation. In the Report of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Denmark to the 25th Party Congress, the Party Chairman, Knud Jespersen, said on September 23,1976: "The process of overcoming the split in the workers' movement is a very long one, but we can and must limit the consequences of this split now. However, this cannot be achieved by adapting our policy to that pursued by Social-Democracy or by declaring war on Social-Democrats, as they did on us."^^2^^ The Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties held in 1969 concluded that it was necessary, as an important condition for headway in overcoming the split, "for the Socialist parties and other political organisations favouring socialism resolutely to break with the policy of class collaboration with the bourgeoisie and to pursue a policy of effective struggle for peace, democracy and socialism".^^3^^
It was noted at the Conference of the Communist and Workers' Parties of Europe in 1976 that the obstacles which stand in the way of cooperation and weaken the working people's struggle against monopoly capital and reactionary and conservative forces must be overcome in keeping with the vital interests of the working class and all working people. Speaking at the Conference, Leonid Brezhnev declared: "It is especially important that while joining with broad democratic trends, including Social Democrats and Christians, in the struggle against the reactionary forces of imperialism, the _-_-_
~^^1^^ World Marxist Review, No. 4, 1970, p. 3.
~^^2^^ Pravda, September 24, 1970.
~^^3^^ International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, Moscow, 1969, p. 25.
107 Communists should remain revolutionaries and convinced supporters of the replacement of the capitalist by the socialist system."^^1^^In order to understand the place and role of Social-- Democracy in the socio-political life of the developed capitalist countries of the West one must consult the data of the Socialist International's guidebook, which states that the Socialist and Social-Democratic parties belonging to this organisation have a total of 14.4 million members and receive 75.6 million votes (the data are for July 1, 1972). As for Social-Democracy proper, it has about 5.5 million members and wins about 67 million votes at elections in developed capitalist countries. The figures for Western Europe, where the main forces of the Social-Democratic movement are concentrated, are 4.2 million and 46 million respectively. In this region, 12 Socialist and Social-Democratic parties win over 20 per cent of the votes at elections. Moreover, eight of them receive over 30 per cent of the votes, and six of them, including two parties in such major capitalist countries as the FRG and Great Britain, gain over 40 per cent. In many countries of Western Europe, Social-Democrats head the government or participate in governmental coalitions; in several countries, they play an important role as the opposition.
The Social-Democrats' influence is determined also by their traditional ties with the trade unions. For instance, the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), in which the Social-Democrats hold the key positions, has about 50 million members, about 30 million of whom are in Western Europe. Thus, all in all, the Socialist and Social-Democratic parties are an important political factor, one which strongly affects the balance of forces in the modern world, and they have great opportunities for influencing their countries' domestic and foreign policies.
As the modern world undergoes profound socio-economic and political changes, bourgeois circles are resorting to social manoeuvres and press their competitors hard in the struggle for power; moreover, the policy and ideology of Social-Democracy are increasingly showing signs of a crisis and the rank-and-file party members are beginning to _-_-_
~^^1^^ For Peace, Security, Cooperation and Social Progress in Europe, Berlin, June 29--30, 1976, p. 21.
108 see a "crisis of prospects" for the Social-Democratic movement, which continues to cling to its old stance. Under these conditions, many of this movement's leaders are becoming more and more convinced that the situation which has arisen can be overcome by taking action together with the Communist parties. This circumstance has inevitably influenced the Socialist International's stand.The results of the conference of Socialist parties' leaders of France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Belgium, Luxemburg and Greece, held in Paris on January 24--25, 1976, show that some Socialist parties intend to follow a new strategy. One of the leaders of the French Socialist Party, Claude Estier, emphasised that the speeches made at the conference had expressed the aspiration for a change in strategy, that is, for a policy of being "independent of the United States and avoiding the 'Atlantic' imprint" both in the speakers' own countries and in Western Europe as a whole. According to him, the speakers had come up with the same assessment of the crisis of capitalism, and believed that the way out lay only in socialist solutions and that the change in society, which they intended to promote, presupposed the unity of the workers' and people's forces. Some participants in the conference openly declared that the advance to socialism was incompatible with anti-communism. But anti-- communism is still an inherent feature of right Social-Democracy. At the 13th Congress of the Socialist International in November 1976, different tendencies clashed and Social-- Democracy demonstrated its equivocal nature.
The tendency towards concerted action by the major trade union centres in Italy, France and several other countries has of late done much to help to activate the working-class and mass democratic movement. Progressive forces in Italy have raised the question of uniting the three principal trade union centres: the General Union of Italian Workers, the Italian Confederation of the Working People's Trade Unions and the Italian Union of Labour. In France, the General Confederation of Labour signed agreements with the French Democratic Confederation of Labour (December 1970, September 1971 and October 1972) on concerted action in the struggle for the working people's just rights. Several trade union centres have merged into a single organisation in Finland, and important unitary processes are developing in the trade union movement in Spain.
109Today, when capitalist integration and especially multinational monopolies are playing an ever greater role in the growing exploitation of the working people, concerted action by trade unions on a nation-wide as well as an international scale is an extremely important prerequisite for the establishment of a united front for the working people's successful struggle for their rights. The stand taken by the two international reformist trade union associations, i. e., the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions and the World Confederation of Labour, on several questions somewhat changed owing to the policy of pro-working-class trade unions. This initiated contacts with the World Federation of Trade Unions at the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s.
The political stand and awareness of millions of Catholics are changing as the oppression of state-monopoly capitalism intensifies. This has been expressed in Christian syndicalism and the establishment of many Catholic organisations. Moreover, this creates favourable conditions for concerted action by the revolutionary working class and the broad masses of religious believers. Dialogue between Communists and Catholics is now an everyday occurrence in such countries as France, Italy, Belgium and Spain. In this respect, the Communist parties proceed from the assumption that, in order to establish a system of progressive, or real, democracy and build socialism later, not all citizens have to take the materialist stand and that there should simply be cooperation between all democratic forces in the struggle against monopoly rule, i. e., it is not believers and non-believers, but exploited and exploiters who stand opposed to one another.
In realising the Marxist-Leninist strategy of proletariat class alliances, the Communist and Workers' parties take account of the fact that the tactical interpretation of this common strategy at every stage of revolutionary development depends above all on the specific alignment and correlation of social and political forces in a country.
In France, for instance, where the class struggle has always been clear-cut during the 19th and 20th centuries, the leftwing forces' alliance twice resulted in substantial social gains for the people (in the 1930s and immediately after the Second World War). In the period of 1944--47, the Communists, who were in the Fourth Republic government, brought about the establishment of a unified social security system and the 110 adoption of a provision on government employees and miners; moreover, they took great pains to achieve the nationalisation of the mining, gas and electrical industries, some banks and insurance societies, and the Renault factories. Defending the political interests and social rights of all wage workers, they strove to ensure that the demands of the peasants and the urban middle sections were satisfied.
Since the 1950s, the French Communist Party has attached great importance to the unity of the French left forces. An analysis of this struggle at its different stages was made at the National Conference of the French Communist Party in July 1972, where the Communists' and the Socialists' common governmental programme was unanimously approved. The resolution adopted at the plenary session of the Central Committee of the French Communist Party on September 29, 1972, stated: "The popular alliance is an alliance between all non-monopoly social sections, especially the working class, employees, technicians, engineers; the great mass of the peasantry; educationalists, artists and writers, other intellectuals; traders, handicraftsmen, and small entrepreneurs. The popular alliance is also the vast majority of women and young people. The popular alliance is a union of all patriots who are alarmed at the fact that national independence is being sacrificed."^^1^^
The struggle waged by the French Communist Party for the establishment of an alliance between left-wing forces has passed through several important stages. In 1958, the Party proposed that an action programme acceptable to all the left parties should be worked out. However, concerted action then was still limited because the Socialist and Radical parties were bound with the bourgeois parties by a common governmental policy. But the situation changed after 1965. The Federation of the Democratic and Socialist Left was set up shortly before the presidential elections, and, with the Communist Party's support, its Chairman, Francois Mitterand, won 11 million votes, or 45 per cent of the poll.
The powerful popular movement in May and June 1968 increased the scale of the struggle for an alliance between all popular and democratic forces. The movement was the outcome of the people's growing dissatisfaction with the _-_-_
~^^1^^ L'Humanite, September 3, 1972.
111 policy of monopoly rule in the country. At that time, the Socialist and other parties of the Left declined the French Communist Party's proposal to establish an alliance on the basis of a common programme and refused to take part in the common struggle for revolutionary and democratic transformations in the country. The non-Communist parties of the Left took the same stand during the presidential elections in 1969.Moreover, the main characteristic feature of the situation in the country after May and June 1968 was that an increasing number of social sections joined the class struggle and greater objective opportunities were opened up for their unification around the working class in order to radically change the country's policy and regime. As a result, a common governmental programme was adopted and favourable conditions were created on this basis for the formation of a popular alliance. A special appeal to the people of France was adopted at the 20th FCP Congress (1972), which was held under the banner of the Communists' struggle for the success of the common governmental programme. In the appeal, the delegates to the Congress called on all democrats and patriots to unite around the popular alliance.
The common governmental programme is still not a socialist one in its class nature, but represents rather a "form of transition to socialism".^^1^^ Its main aim is the realisation of wide-scale social measures with a view to substantially raising the working people's living standards. It envisages above all greater purchasing power for those engaged in both manual and mental work, a tax cut, better pensions, an improvement in public health service, the solution of housing and transportation problems, and steps towards state democratisation.
The elections to the National Assembly in March 1973 and the subsequent events proved that the importance of the common governmental programme greatly transcended the framework of ordinary agreements during election campaigns. At the presidential elections on May 19,1974, Fran£ois Mitterand, a candidate jointly nominated by the left forces, won 12,971,604 votes, or over 49 per cent of the total poll. Supported by the Communists and Socialists, the Left Radical _-_-_
~^^1^^ Programme commun de gouvernement du parti communiste fran&ctail;ais et du parti socialiste (27 juin 1972), Paris, 1972, p. 39.
112 Movement, and the largest trade union amalgamations in the country, he gained a majority in 44 departments. Never before in the history of the Fifth Republic has the gap between the number of votes won by two candidates been so small as at these presidential elections.In one year alone, the left-wing forces' programme won about three million new electors (in comparison with the parliamentary elections in March 1973). The statement issued by the Political Bureau of the Communist Party emphasised that never before had the alliance of the workers', democratic and national forces achieved results of such magnitude and political importance. The elections showed the growing aspirations of millions of French working people for deepgoing social changes in the country.
These questions were the main topic of discussion at the 21st Extraordinary FCP Congress in 1974. The resolution adopted at the Congress stated: "The solution of serious problems facing the country presupposes a great national upswing and united efforts on the part of our people. Only the policy of profound reform set forth in the Left's common programme can serve as a basis for such unification, which can only be realised by a broad popular movement on a national scale. That is why the French Communist Party appeals for an alliance of the people of France in order to bring about democratic change.... The alliance of the Left is asserting itself as the main factor in French political life. It constitutes the axis for the unification of a considerable majority of the country's population, a unification which is now a concrete possibility."^^1^^ The tendency among the electors to support left forces was also clearly manifested at the cantonal elections, which were held in two rounds on March 7 and 14, 1976. In accordance with the decisions adopted at the 22nd FCP Congress, the Party embarked on vigorous activities towards establishing an alliance of the people of France on the basis of a common programme.
At the elections to the French National Assembly in March 1978, the Left won 49.29 per cent of the votes in the second round. Indeed, the parties of the ruling coalition won only 311,860 votes more of the 26,206,000 votes cast. The Communists' parliamentary group increased by 14 to _-_-_
~^^1^^ Cahiers du communisme, No. 11, 1974, pp. 117--18.
__PRINTERS_P_113_COMMENT__ 8---2560 113 86~deputies. The Socialist Party's representation in the National Assembly also grew to 103 seats. According to the progressive forces in the country, the Right only managed to stay in power because of the Left's disunity caused by differences of opinion on the content of a common governmental programme, the reformist illusions cherished by the least conscious sections of the population and their fear of extremely great changes, and interference by the ruling circles of the United States and the neighbouring West European countries.The Italian Communist Party's Programme, which was adopted at its Eighth Congress in 1956, maps out ways of making the transition to socialism in Italy. It maintains that, as socialism is established, parties other than the Communist Party which express the interests of different democratic sections---allies of the working class---can also take part in running the country. The congress emphasised that the working class should be the leading political force, and denned the middle sections and all anti-monopoly and democratic forces in general as part of the motive forces of the socialist revolution in Italy. This alliance will not be confined to purely economic demands, but will assert itself and develop politically as well. According to the Italian Communists, such an alliance is a broad objective basis for cooperation not only with the small and middle farmers, but also with the urban middle sections. In 1944, soon after Italy's liberation, Palmiro Togliatti said that the Italian Communist Party should always maintain contact with all sections of society, and stressed the importance of expanding the working class's alliances with the peasantry, the urban middle sections and other groups of the population. The Eighth ICP Congress's line of both campaigning for working-class unity, which is regarded as an extremely important condition for a successful struggle for socialism, and establishing a broad front of social forces headed by the working class was confirmed and developed at the Party's 9th, 10th, llth, 12th, 13th, and 14th congresses.
The resolution adopted at the Plenary Session of the Central Committe eand the Central Control Commission of the Italian Communist Party in March 1971 affirmed that the Party's main task was to promote the development of a united movement in town and countryside.
The Political Resolution of the 14th ICP Congress (1975) 114 accentuated the importance of the policy of broad alliances, with the working classes playing a guiding role, and joint efforts by all the major forces representing the working people and the popular masses in a situation of political, social and ideological diversity.
The Italian Communist Party has recently been very successful at parliamentary, provincial and municipal elections owing to its consistent policy of unity. At the municipal and provincial elections in June 1975, the Italian Communist Party's candidates won 33.4 per cent of the votes (5.1 per cent more than at the elections in 1972 and 5. 5 per cent more than at the provincial elections in 1970). The Party became the leading force in Italy's major cities: Rome, Milan, Turin, Naples, Genoa, Florence and Bologna. Besides the three ``red'' provinces, i.e., Emilia-Romagna, Tuscany and Umbria, the left majority won in Liguria as well. In Lazio, near Rome, the representatives of the left forces wielded in the Italian capital executive power. M. Ferrari, a Communist and a member of the Central Committee, was elected Chairman of the new junta (executive body of power).
The extraordinary parliamentary elections in Italy on June 20--21, 1976, were an extremely important indicator of both the continuing shift towards the left in the country and the people's awareness of the need for deep-going democratic transformations. The Italian Communist Party won 34.4 per cent of the votes at the elections to the Chamber of Deputies and 33.8 per cent of the votes at the elections to the Senate, thus increasing its parliamentary representation by 48 deputies and 22 senators. Communist candidates won many votes not only in major industrial centres, but also in the southern provinces, which the reactionaries had regarded as their bulwark. An important result of the Communist Party's great success at the elections was the agreement between six political parties (the Christian Democratic Party, the Italian Communist Party, and the Socialist, Social-Democratic, Republican and Liberal parties) on the appointment of Pietro Ingrao, a Communist, as Chairman of the Italian Parliament's Chamber of Deputies. This was the first time in the last 30 years that it had had a Communist chairman. Moreover, for the first time in the Italian Republic's history, the Italian Communist Party representatives became chairmen of seven parliamentary commissions.
__PRINTERS_P_115_COMMENT__ 8* 115Expressing the anxiety of Western bourgeois circles over the results of the parliamentary elections in Italy, the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph wrote: "What will happen to the Western alliance if one or more of the member countries of NATO get Communist or Communist-dominated governments? Up to quite recently, this was a fairly academic question, but it is not now.... They (Italian Communists---Auth.) would be very near to real power and it would probably be only a matter of time before they achieved it."^^1^^
In a telegram to the Central Committee of the Italian Communist Party, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union said: "By winning one-third of the votes cast in Italy, your Party showed once again its prestige and influence as a powerful force without which problems facing the country cannot now be solved.
``The Italian Communist Party's triumph is a triumph for all the country's progressive and democratic forces fighting against reaction and fascism and standing for both the revival of Italy and profound socio-economic transformations in Italian society. It is a triumph for all the leftwing and democratic forces of our continent."^^2^^
In order to solve the pressing economic, social and moral problems facing the country, the Italian Communist Party proposed the establishment of a government of democratic unity and national solidarity, composed of all the democratic and popular parties, including the Communist Party. "Italy can only cope with the crisis if the entire workingclass movement of the country takes part in its political administration. This is the essence of the Communist Party's main line."^^3^^
The statement of principle adopted at the Congress of the German Communist Party in Essen in 1969 stated that the Party stood for the democratic transformation of the state and society^^4^^ and expected to achieve this by unity of the working class and all progressive forces. The Theses adopted at the Congress of the German Communist Party in Diisseldorf in November 1971 stressed that the ``unity around the _-_-_
~^^1^^ The Daily Telegraph, April 13, 1976.
~^^2^^ Pravda, June 23, 1976.
~^^3^^ L'Units, June 16, 1976.
~^^4^^ Protokoll des Essener Parteitages der Deutschen Kommunistischen Partei, 12. und 13. April 1969, S. 225--26.
116 working class of all the social sections which are oppressed and exploited by monopoly capital, i. e., intellectuals, peasants and the middle sections, is the main prerequisite for a successful struggle for democratic progress".^^1^^Thus, the German Communist Party's programme documents also contain a provision on anti-monopoly democracy. Like other Marxist-Leninist parties, the German Communist Party attaches paramount importance to the strengthening of concerted action by the working class and other democratic forces. Moreover, the German Communist Party believes that its most important strategic task is to change the balance of forces in the FRG in favour of the working class and all the sections of the population which are oppressed by monopoly capital. Together with all the anti-monopoly forces, the West German Communists want to transform the FRG into a state of peace and democracy and pave the way for socialism. At the present stage, it is necessary to take measures which would enable the people to offer broader and stronger resistance to the rule of monopoly capital and the political forces supporting it, and to make this process continuous.
The German Communist Party is now taking great pains to spread its influence among the people and increase its membership. Its activity at enterprises and in trade unions is an extremely important part of its work among the masses. Today, almost all large enterprises and concerns have active communist groups which issue their own newspapers. Another important sphere of the German Communist Party's activity among the masses is its systematic work among town dwellers and villagers.
The German Communist Party is consistently pursuing a policy of concerted action by the working class and all working people and cooperation with Social-Democrats in the anti-monopoly struggle. But there are great difficulties in cooperation between the Communists and SocialDemocrats in the FRG because of the stand taken by the Social-Democratic Party of Germany on this matter. The situation is complicated even further by a reactionary law used against the Communists. It prohibits them from working in state establishments and the educational system.
_-_-_~^^1^^ DKP konlra Grofikapital. Fur Frieden, demokratlschen Fortschritt und Sozialismus, Thesen dcs Diisseldorfer Parteitages der Deutschen Kommunistischen Partei, Diisseldorf, 1971, S.50.
117The German Communist Party emphasises that the working people will achieve their aims only if they take concerted action together with the Communists and SocialDemocrats. According to Herbert Mies, Chairman of the German Communist Party, the Communists of the FRG believe that the "sharpening class contradictions, more militant social conflicts, the development and the rise of progressive trends in public organisations and parties, offer fresh opportunities for working-class united action and the formation of democratic alliances".^^1^^
The Programme of the German Communist Party, adopted by the Party at its Congress in Mannheim in October 1978, sets before its members immediate and future tasks, the most pressing of which politically is a more resolute advance to democratic and social progress. In his report at the Congress, Herbert Mies said that this implied the need to defend democratic and social gains together with the working class and other progressive forces and to ensure the continuation of detente. Greater rights should be won by the working people in the course of the class struggle, the monopolies should be ousted from power, and the balance of political forces should be radically changed, thus precluding a political shift to the right. But all this is conditional on an intensive joint struggle by democratic forces. The programme declares that the advance to democratic and social progress will weaken monopoly capital, strengthen the working-class's concerted action and bring a broad alliance of democratic forces into existence. This wil] create real prerequisites for deep-going anti-- imperialist transformations and will ultimately pave the way for socialism in the course of the class struggle. In order to advance towards the democratisation of social relations and then towards socialism, the working class must take joint action together with all the anti-monopoly forces. Moreover, the programme emphasises that the German Communist Party attaches decisive importance to concerted action by the Communists and Social-Democrats, i.e., the two main political forces in the working-class movement in the FRG.
The Programme of the Communist Party of Great Britain, "The British Road to Socialism'', states that a "new _-_-_
~^^1^^ World Marxist Review, No. 1, 1974, p. 11.
118 system is needed, for the present one is increasingly failing''. The programme emphasises that the country's development towards socialism depends on mass action by people headed by socialist and democratic organisations in which the Communist Party plays a vital role. It especially stresses the importance of political alliances in the struggle for the socialist road of development.While drawing attention to the importance of direct, non-parliamentary actions by the people, the Communist Party of Great Britain attaches great importance also to such forms of proletariat class struggle as electoral and parliamentary campaigns. In its programme, it considers the conditions needed to create a really democratic parliamentary majority and establish a government which would undertake to implement a socialist programme.^^1^^
At the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of Great Britain, it was stressed that the struggle for the unity of the working class and all left-wing forces should be intensified. This is especially important when the working-class movement is on the upswing. Decisions were adopted at the Congress with a view to eliminating the shortcomings in the work carried on to increase Party membership and intensify its activity in public organisations. At the same time, the solution of the problem of a united British working class, as the key to the unity of all left-wing forces, largely depends on the situation in the Labour Party and the British Trades Union Congress.
R. Palm Dutt emphasised that, at the beginning of the 1970s, the class confrontation in Britain became especially intense and the traditional structure of social relations was undermined. "Cooperation between all activist workers, both Communists and non-Communists, now plays an important role at enterprises as well as in the trade union machinery. In the General Council of the British Trades Union Congress (TUG), the rightists continue to have the majority although left-wing tendencies are intensifying among the working masses everywhere. These changes have led to a situation where the trade unions are beginning to use the strength of the casting vote of more than ten million organised workers in order to compel politicians to reckon with _-_-_
~^^1^^ See World Marxist Review, No. 10, 1970, p. 47.
119 the people's demands in both the trade union movement and the Labour Party.''~^^1^^At the Congress of the Communist Party of Great Britain in November 1975, the prospects of Britain's further political and social development were considered and measures were mapped out for uniting different social forces around the working class into a broad anti-monopoly alliance so as to ensure the country's political shift to the left.
The General Secretary of the Communist Party of Great Britain, Gordon McLennan, said: "For Great Britain's future, the consolidation of the left forces' unity and power is an extremely important question. It must be carried out through a programme whereby the crisis can be overcome within the framework of progressive domestic and foreign policies.... In our opinion, the Left will not become powerful enough to implement this programme until the Communist Party is stronger and its influence among left-wing forces increases."^^2^^
In March 1976, the Executive of the Communist Party of Great Britain set up a commission to prepare a new draft of "The British Road to Socialism''. The statement issued by the Executive, which discussed the draft of the new document, said that it was drawn up in accordance with the concept of "the winning and exercise of power by the working class and its allies to build a socialist society".^^3^^
An active struggle for the establishment of democratic alliances against monopoly rule is also being waged in other West European states: Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Holland, Luxemburg, Greece, Finland and the Scandinavian countries. At the 18th Congress of the Communist Party of Finland (May 1975), it was declared that the Party's general line was to establish a democratic front of struggle against monopolies and political reaction in support of greater democratic rights for the working people, the consolidation of peace and the creation of prerequisites for socialism. The "Programme of Cooperation Between Democratic Forces'', adopted at the Congress, became the basis of the Party's struggle to move the country's internal political development to the left and unite broad sections _-_-_
~^^1^^ Prauda, May 2, 1972.
~^^2^^ France nouvelle. May 31, 1976, pp. 20, 21.
~^^3^^ Morning Star, November 16, 1976.
120 of the working people and the democratic circles for a battle against big capital.When the military and fascist dictatorship fell in Greece in 1974, the Greek Communist Party took great pains to unite the left-wing and democratic forces as well as the people and patriots in the Army. It attached particular importance to the establishment and growth of the network of Party organisations, which should become the main, motive force of a broad popular democratic movement. The establishment of the new democracy directed against monopoly oligarchy and imperialism will be an important step in realising the first, i.e., the democratic and antimonopoly, stage of the revolutionary process.
At its Tenth Congress in May 1978, the Communist Party of Greece defined its strategic aim as the establishment of people's democracy in the country, thus making it possible to solve such fundamental problems as the winning of genuine national independence, the establishment of democracy and the wresting of power from the monopolies, and to pave the way to socialism.
To this end, an appropriate balance of forces must be established, i.e., the majority of the working people must be won over to anti-imperialist, anti-monopoly democracy of the people. It must be not merely a majority, but a majority which is not only willing to win and defend its victory, but capable of doing so. This can be achieved only by consistently waging a struggle against the reactionaries.
In the Western hemisphere, the Communist Party of the USA has recently been very successful in the mass antimonopoly movement. In its New Programme, the Party called for the union of young people, women, farmers, small entrepreneurs and intellectuals, all of whom feel big capital's oppression, around the working class, which is the "cardinal force of social progress'', and for the establishment, on that basis, of a broad coalition of forces opposing the financial oligarchy.^^1^^ But the formation of such a coalition is greatly hampered by anti-communism, the AFL-CIO leaders' policy of class collaboration, and racism.
It was emphasised at the 21st Convention of the Communist Party of the USA (June 1975) that the struggle against _-_-_
~^^1^^ New Program of the Communist Party, USA, New York, 1970, p. 43.
121 monopoly rule in the country had reached such a scale that a people's alternative must be worked out to counter the policy pursued by monopoly capital's two parties. The Party's National Chairman, Henry Winston, said that the Party was working out a way to help unify all the progressive sections of society---millions of unemployed, rank-and-file members of labour unions and farmers---against monopoly capital. In describing democratic movements in the United States, account must be taken of the vigorous activities by the American Blacks. Their socio-economic position and the fact that 85--90 per cent of them are workers make them an active force in the struggle against big capital. The Communist Party of the USA believes that it is very important to consolidate and expand the movement of fighters for peace.While taking account of specific development features and the particular situations, the programme documents of several Communist and Workers' parties of developed capitalist countries emphasise that the struggle waged by the working class and the broad non-proletarian sections of working people should lead to the establishment of a popular anti-monopoly government. Both parliamentary and non-parliamentary methods as well as the most diverse forms of proletarian class struggle are to be used to this end---both separately and together.
Today, internal factors and also favourable changes in the world are helping to consolidate democratic unity and bring the progressive forces together on an anti-- monopoly basis. The deep-going transformation of the system of international relations on the basis of the principles of peaceful coexistence, which is being realised at the initiative of the Soviet Union and other socialist countries, reflects the direct demands of both the international working-class and communist movements. This transformation is inseparably linked with the struggle waged by the working class and the broad masses of working people for national liberation and social emancipation.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 3. Some Aspects of the Chilean RevolutionThe lessons of the revolution in Chile and the experience of the Popular Unity Government are of exceptional importance with regard to the problems of proletariat class alliances. 122 Although these problems were tackled under the specific conditions of Latin America, they are of great interest for the peoples of other regions as well. The problems of mutual relations with the middle sections of the population, particularly with the urban and rural petty bourgeoisie, and the questions of the Army's stand are of great importance also in analysing the revolutionary process in developed capitalist countries.
The Popular Unity Government in Chile was in power from 1970 to September 1973. The popular masses and the revolutionary forces of Chile used the experience gained by the Popular Front, which was set up in the country in the late 1930s and won the presidential elections in 1938. In spite of the Popular Front's broad programme at that time, very little was done in economic and social terms.
Although Salvador Allende's government was fiercely opposed by internal reactionary forces, supported by the largest US monopolies and the CIA, it succeeded in carrying out extremely important social transformations: the nationalisation of the large-scale copper-mining industry, the establishment of a public sector by nationalisation, the transformation of banks into state establishments, agrarian reform, the redistribution of incomes in the working people's favour, and so forth. This period was characterised by the broadest participation of the popular masses in determining the country's future.
When it comes to discussing the causes of the Chilean revolutionary forces' temporary defeat, the matter in question is the totality of objective and subjective factors. Economic, political, legislative and juridical power was largely vested in the reactionary forces. The presence of two opposite tendencies in the Popular Unity bloc and government also adversely affected revolutionary development. All this corroborated the Marxist-Leninist tenet that, even long after the revolution, the exploiting classes still retain a number of real advantages.
As a result of some errors made by the revolutionary forces, the reactionary circles succeeded in taking the initiative in the struggle for the masses. An important factor here was the revolutionaries' underestimation of the class nature of political institutions and their failure to consider the possibility that, under the imperialist circles' pressure, these institutions would become eroded as soon 123 as the middle sections joined the opposition's camp. This applies also to the armed forces. Moreover, the internal and external reactionary circles caused an acute economic crisis, which they succeeded in using to suppress the revolution and establish a fascist military dictatorship. Since the rural population constitutes over 20 per cent of the country's gainfully employed population and the middle farmer is a typical representative of the middle sections in the Chilean village, the bulwark of the working class in the village was objectively made up of two main groups: wage workers (who made up about 40 per cent of the rural population) and poor peasants owning plots of up to five hectares (there are about 100,000 such farms in Chile). There were roughly 30,000 farmers whose plots averaged 5-20 hectares (somewhat more than 10 per cent of all farms). They are also the proletariat's allies when the right approach is adopted towards them.
The political stand of the middle sections of any country's population largely depends on their socio-economic position. This problem was especially acute in a country such as Chile, where the urban middle sections are very large (according to researchers, they are larger than in the West European countries). Chile has over 20,000 enterprises employing 1-4 workers, 70,000 cottage industries, and so forth. Moreover, there are about 800,000 handicraftsmen and artisans in the service sphere and approximately 150,000 small and middle traders. These data show that during the revolution and the Allende government period in office, small-scale production (with respect to the number of persons working in it) played an important role in the country's economy. In Chile, the new middle sections came mainly from the urban petty bourgeoisie. All this made the problem of the working class's allies especially important and pressing.
Petty-bourgeois tendencies played an adverse role. They undermined the policy of the Popular Unity Government in Chile and took no account of the need for a differential approach to the urban and rural bourgeoisie. The leftists even provoked clashes with the small and middle entrepreneurs and took over enterprises and properties that were not very important economically.
The Chilean revolution was defeated because, among other things, not enough importance was attached to the 124 role of the intermediate sections of the population, a substantial part of which become allies of the working class. As has happened before in history, such actions created definite prerequisites for the spread of fascist tendencies among part of the petty bourgeoisie and other representatives of the middle sections and the growth of opposition among them.
The Popular Unity Government took a number of measures with regard to the middle sections, but some of them had an adverse effect on their socio-economic position. In the 1930s, for instance, the Popular Front Government in France responded to the French Communist Party's insistence and carried out several measures aimed at facilitating credit and improving other conditions for the middle sections. In Chile, however, such measures were not taken on a sufficiently wide scale, and sectarians virtually made them ineffective. The worsening situation in the countryside naturally affected the living conditions in the towns. The Radicals' leftist programme and similar directives concerning the guidance of young people scared away many representatives of the middle sections as well as some religious believers.
The events in Chile corroborated the importance of the Army's role in the revolutionary process. History and present-day developments refute the bourgeois thesis that the Army can be a ``supra-class'' institution. Marx emphasised that "the whole history of the forms of civil society is very strikingly epitomised in the history of the army".^^1^^ The Chilean example clearly bears this out. The stand taken by the Army in Chile was especially important from the outset because the military virtually represented the broad middle sections, which constituted a substantial part of the country's population, and had many ties with them. President Allende took account of this. He persevered in attempts to include armed forces' representatives in the Popular Unity Government.
The democratic-minded military were of the view (this concept has become known as the "Schneider-Prats Doctrine'') that the armed forces should take a very active part in protecting the country's natural resources from the foreign monopolies' expansion. This viewpoint was expressed in _-_-_
~^^1^^ Marx, Engels, Selected Correspondence, Moscow, 1975, p. 91.
125 President Allende's well-known statement that the Army should defend not only the country's geographic borders, but also its economic borders. However, the struggle against the reactionaries' influence in the Army was not vigorous enough. The rightists widely used the slogan of the Army's "indifference to politics" to indoctrinate it in a counterrevolutionary spirit. At the same time, the leftists pinned high hopes on the armed forces' professionalism and their loyalty to the Constitution, assuming that at least a part of them would remain on the side of the legitimate government.The Popular Unity Government's refusal to discuss the problems of the country's development with the military (as a result of the leftists' actions) put the anti-imperialist circles in the armed forces in a difficult position and led in fact to them being isolated in the Army. Under these conditions, the military's growing isolation from the country's progressive forces stimulated reactionary propaganda and consolidated the counter-revolutionaries' positions in the Army. A substantial part of the petty and middle bourgeoisie, with which, as mentioned earlier, many officers had close ties, virtually ended up outside the bloc of the social forces formed by the Popular Unity parties. Thus, the middle sections' discontent arising from some of the foregoing factors was not only reflected in the armed forces, but also sustained by them. Consequently, part of the petty and middle bourgeoisie sided with the reactionaries, and many officers and men took a very reactionary stand.
An analysis of the lessons to be learned from the events in Chile thus shows that the revolution was defeated owing to the objective balance of forces as well as to the somewhat incorrect use of subjective factors. The progressive forces were defeated largely because of the working class's isolation from its allies. This conclusion accords with the facts of the actual situation which brought about the revolution's defeat. The leadership of the Communist Party of Chile described the defeat as a military one as well as a political one.
The Popular Unity Government did not succeed in winning over the majority of the working population, especially the broad middle sections and the rural and urban petty bourgeoisie, the main part of which, like the working class, was oppressed by the monopolies. The errors made in 126 relations with the Army and the armed forces as a whole were aggravated by unfavourable actions, largely of a leftistadventurist nature, towards the urban and rural middle sections. Such ultra left slogans as the call for management of enterprises "only by workers" helped to set workers against engineers and technicians, while the slogan urging soldiers' insubordination to officers was used by the reactionaries as a pretext for a putsch. Consequently, a substantial part of the middle sections, which actually constituted the "bulk of the nation" and without whose alliance the revolution could not develop further, became estranged from it. Moreover, an analysis of the events shows that internal and external reactionary forces united for counter-- revolutionary purposes, as was the case in Spain in 1936--39. A report by a special US Senate committee on the CIA's activity mentioned facts showing that when Salvador Allende won the elections, the US intelligence service did everything in its power to prevent him from assuming office. The report stated that as early as September 15,1970, the White House informed the CIA that the assumption of power by Salvador Allende's government would be unacceptable to the United States. The CIA received instructions to take a direct part in organising a military coup in Chile. The assassination of the commander-in-chief of the Chilean armed forces, General Schneider, and other subversive activities against the Popular Unity Government were associated with the CIA.
Even way back at the end of 1970, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Chile, Luis Corvalan, pointed out the need to isolate internal reaction and preclude foreign interference. He wrote: "The priority task now is to strengthen unity of the people, which could and should become an invincible force in advancing the Chilean revolution and the interests of various classes and sections of the population, isolating reaction, thwarting its subversive plans, preventing foreign interference, rebuffing imperialist pressure and building up wide support for the new government."^^1^^
The errors made during the revolution are now being taken into account by the Communist Party of Chile, which is waging a heroic struggle under the conditions of a military-fascist regime. Americo Zorrilla, a member of the _-_-_
~^^1^^ World Marxist Review, No. 12, 1970, p. 3.
127 Political Commission and the Secretariat of the Chilean Communist Party's Central Committee, said in his speech at the 25th CPSU Congress that since the coup, the junta had been isolated in the world arena and did not even enjoy any support from the masses in the country. Besides the Popular Unity parties, the junta is more or less opposed by the Christian Democrats, the Catholic and other churches, the middle sections and the middle bourgeoisie, which once supported the counter-revolutionary coup. Many of the military do not want to act as the people's executioners, a role which the fascists have imposed on them. The popular masses see an urgent need for anti-fascist unity.In their appeal to the Chilean people, distributed throughout the country, the Communists assessed the present situation and mapped out the prospects for a struggle. The appeal stressed that the immediate objective was antifascist unity. The platform set forth by the Communist Party expresses, in particular, the demand to re-establish the public sector by expropriating only monopoly capital. This demand coincides with several measures carried out by the Communist and Workers' parties of developed capitalist countries in favour of the middle sections and, together with other slogans of struggle, opens the way for the establishment of a new democratic and independent state in Chile.
The leaders of the Communist, Socialist, Radical and other left-wing Chilean parties in the Popular Unity bloc held a conference in Belgrade at the end of September 1976. The participants adopted a joint declaration calling for the unification of all the progressive forces of Chile in a struggle against the junta. The Executive Secretary of the Popular Unity parties abroad, Clodomiro Almeyda, said at a press conference that the struggle to consolidate the unity of the Chilean people had entered a new stage. Despite repression and terror, the working class has retained its trade unions and the struggle by Chilean young people is intensifying. Moreover, Catholic priests are opposing the junta. Pinochet's regime is becoming increasingly isolated, not only at home, but also abroad.
Various forces are uniting in the struggle against the military-fascist regime in Chile. However, as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Chile, Luis Corvalan, emphasised, "the road to unity has never been easy. 128 There are always various obstacles along the way.... In the light of what happened in Chile, it is now necessary to bring to power a popular government capable of frustrating all plots and coup attempts by imperialism, internal reaction and fascism. At the present time there is no question of establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat in the country, but at a certain moment in the country's history, it will inevitably arise and make democratic transformations more realistic.... Critical analysis of our experience is still far from complete. This analysis also blends with the struggle."^^1^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ Pravda, January 5, 1977.
__PRINTERS_P_129_COMMENT__ 9---2560 [129] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter V __ALPHA_LVL1__ THE WORKING CLASS-THE LEADING FORCEModern-day conditions have completely corroborated the world historic significance of the Marxist-Leninist conclusions on the working class's historic mission, its leading role and class alliances, and the need to combine different forms of revolutionary struggle.
The working class's historic role stems from its socioeconomic and political position in capitalist society, while its importance and status are mainly determined by its economic domination of the nerve centre of the entire capitalist economic system. It is directly connected with industrial production, which is the most developed form of production in modern society. The working class is the main motive force of social progress. Moreover, it is the main force behind technological progress under conditions of the scientific and technological revolutions.
Although all the classes of bourgeois society are interested in the development of productive forces, the working class is interested most of all, because it couples their development with the struggle against the capitalist system. The working class regards the replacement of this system by a more progressive, socialist system as a way of overcoming the conflict between the social nature of production and capitalist production relations.
Like other classes and social sections of the population, the modern working class is undergoing certain changes under the conditions of state-monopoly capitalism and the scientific and technological revolution. The bourgeoisie is also undergoing great changes. But the leal question is whether the development of a certain class is progressive or regressive. Lenin said: "Class is a concept which is evolved in struggle and development.... The class grows under capitalist conditions.... Karl Marx fought vigorously against the old Utopian socialism and advocated the scientific view, 130 which shows that the class struggle fosters the growth of the class, and the class must be helped to mature."^^1^^
According to Marxism-Leninism, a class's relation to the means of production and its place in the system of social production and distribution are the most important indicators of its nature. This is the basis of the Soviet and other Marxist researchers' definition of the modern working class. When this, the only scientific, approach is taken, it becomes quite clear that, in spite of the allegations made by bourgeois and social-reformist ideologists and revisionists, the working class in the capitalist countries still retains its most important distinguishing feature in that it remains the main productive, the main revolutionary force and the main adversary of the bourgeoisie.
The theories of bourgeois and social-reformist ideologists and right and ``left'' revisionists are now widely propagated in the West. They are intended to refute the MarxistLeninist teaching on the historic mission of the working class. For instance, Georges Gurvitch, a French bourgeois sociologist, criticises the advocates of Marxism, who, in his opinion, exaggerate the working class's role.
Bourgeois ideologists maintain that the economy is no longer based on manual labour which was formerly the denning characteristic of the proletariat, but on intellectual work, which is needed for producing sophisticated equipment and managing production. Therefore the intelligentsia is now replacing the proletariat. As for the revolutionary situation, it is allegedly engendered today by the struggle between intellectuals and non-intellectuals, rather than that between the rich and the poor, i.e., between the capitalists and the workers.
Bourgeois and revisionist theorists have deliberately introduced great confusion into the interpretation of modern capitalist society's social structure. The apologists of capitalism distort the essence of the scientific and technological revolution, alleging that the revolution itself engenders a fundamentally new type of social structure in capitalist society and automatically eliminates class antagonisms, consequently while private property no longer exists and, society is not divided into antagonistic classes. In this _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``Speech Delivered at the Third All-Russia Trade Union Congress, April 7, 1920'', Collected Works, Vol. 30, p. 512.
__PRINTERS_P_131_COMMENT__ 9* 131 respect, they resort to downright falsification by replacing the term ``class'' with the term ``stratum'', meaning a social section which they arbitrarily determine and interpret.One of the keynotes of the bourgeois, reformist and revisionist theorists who argue about the scientific and technological revolution's social consequences is that there are less and less rich and poor in industrialised countries, and that they are being replaced by a shapeless "middle class'', which is quite satisfied with its consumer existence. In this case, the social criteria of the class division are simply replaced by technological ones. According to these theorists, the "nature of work" is the main indicator of the social division of society. Consequently, a substantial part of the working class that is not engaged in large-scale mechanised industry, and the rapidly growing mass categories of workers connected most closely with the processes characteristic of the scientific and technological revolution are added to the existing urban and rural middle sections. This conglomerate of social groups is said to be a special ``new'' class. A similar viewpoint is ardently defended by some trade union bosses who are on the capitalists' payroll, such as George Meany, the leader of the AFL-CIO, the US labour union federation. He has long been declaring in his speeches that the American workers are part of this prospering "middle class".
This concept of the "middle class'', which is widely employed in bourgeois and reformist literature, does not measure up to scientific criteria because it takes no account of the most important indicators of a class, i.e., its relation to the means of production (it is alleged that, contrary to Marx's assertion, the importance of property as a factor of social differentiation is steadily diminishing) and its place in the system of production and distribution. Bourgeois theorists ignore these clear-cut class criteria, replacing them with arguments about differences in the level of incomes and education, in professions, and so forth. They allege that people differ from one another by their status and not by class features, and that political differences in the structure of modern industrial societies are unimportant for analysis.
The so-called subjective method of studying society's structure is widely used, for instance, in the USA, Britain, the FRG and several other capitalist states. Representatives of certain groups of the population are asked to 132 say what, in their opinion, is the class to which they belong. However, it is impossible to base a correct understanding of society's structure on such questions, just as it is impossible, in Marx's words, "to base an opinion of an individual on what he thinks of himself.^^1^^
Particularly important in this respect is Marxist-- Leninist analysis of the changes in society's structure and the working class's socio-economic position, social psychology and political stand---changes which continue to take place under state-monopoly capitalism as the scientific and technological revolution develops. The same can be said for criticism of bourgeois, petty-bourgeois and revisionist concepts in this regard.
According to Marxism-Leninism, under capitalism, the working class or the proletariat is a class of wage workers who do not have their own means of production and who earn a living only by selling their labour and being directly exploited by the capitalists in the course of capitalist production.~^^2^^ One exceptionally important question today is that of establishing the working class's social boundaries, and it is coupled with the question of defining the working class as a social category.
The problem of the contemporary working-class's boundaries is very important, especially for understanding the prospects of the international working-class and communist movement and the world revolutionary process as a whole. As mentioned earlier, Marxism-Leninism never equated the proletariat's strength and revolutionary enthusiasm with its numerical strength. It is wrong in principle to contrast qualitative and quantitative criteria; it amounts to a metaphysical approach. However, the founders of Marxism-- Leninism often emphasised that the proletariat's constant growth is its characteristic feature as a continually developing class.^^3^^
When the Week of Marxist Thought was being held in France in 1963, Maurice Thorez attached great importance to that question and prepared a special report ``The Notion _-_-_
~^^1^^ K. Marx, ``Preface to a Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy''. In: Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works in three volumes, Vol. 1, p. 504.
~^^2^^ See V. I. Lenin, ``Frederick Engels'', Collected Works, Vol. 2, p. 20.
~^^3^^ Ibid.
133 of Class and the Historic Role of the Working Class''. He emphasised that, according to Marxism, the industrial proletariat, being the main producer of wealth, is the core of the working class and said that factory technicians, whose numerical strength continually grows during the scientific and technological revolution, are among the groups which belong to the working class.Recalling these statements made by Maurice Thorez, Etienne Fajon, a member of the Political Bureau of the French Communist Party and Secretary of the FCP Central Committee, wrote: "It is wrong to identify all wage workers with the working class. The working class is the class of wage workers, which, using the material means of production, directly creates surplus value and capital. It comprises all working people who own no instruments of production whatever, but are engaged in the sphere of material production (which in large-scale modern production implies manual operations but also, in increasing degree, intellectual activity). In other words, the working class comprises, in addition to the industrial or rural proletariat, which makes up its essential nucleus, a body of working people whose labour produces surplus value, because they either participate in servicing industrial labour (production technicians) or contribute to the completion of the production process (transport and communications workers). In this structure the working class continues to grow and represents the decisive force in all social change. Alongside it are other strata of wage workers which have grown considerably in number over the last 30 years and are now including more and more representatives of the intelligentsia."^^1^^
In this respect, Etienne Fajon strongly criticised the concept proposed by Roger Garaudy, who regards the working class as an aggregate of the working people engaged either in manual or intellectual work, including virtually all wage workers engaged in intellectual work. Although the intermediate sections of the working people are being increasingly exploited, it cannot be maintained that their living conditions and the extent of their class awareness are the same as those of the working class.
_-_-_~^^1^^ World Marxist Review, No. G, 1970, p. 12.
134Marxists-Leninists believe that it is wrong to overextend the boundaries of the modern working class by artificially including a substantial part of the non-proletarian sections and identifying "wage workers" with the "working class''. This is quite unacceptable. The definition of the working class should represent a demarcation line separating the working class from the intelligentsia and some groups of office employees who are not directly members of it.
However, the boundaries of the working class should not be unjustifiably narrowed down when the class's most important tendencies and development prospects are being analysed. The viewpoint that only manual workers belong to the working class is wrong. Growth in the concentration of production and the centralisation of capital naturally leads to greater proletarianisation of ever broader sections of the working people and the transformation of the gainfully employed population into wage labour. Moreover, workers' labour is being steadily intellectualised under the impact of the scientific and technological revolution.
Under the influence of this revolution, the working-class structure becomes more complex as mass production develops, i.e., increasingly broader professional groups, groups engaged in particular economic sectors, etc. are included in the working-class composition. They differ from one another in their level of education and skill, earnings, the extent of their organisational efficiency, which depends on several factors, and so forth.
However, the working class today still consists of three main forces, industrial workers, farm workers and office and shop employees. Each force is characterised by its own profession, skill, development, and changes in both its numerical strength and composition. The industrial proletariat, being the core of the working class, remains its most powerful, numerous and influential force. The New Programme of the Communist Party of the USA says: "But is it not true, some ask, that the new technology is eliminating the great mass] of blue-collar manual workers and replacing them with a 'new class' of technicians, engineers and scientists? Of course, the^proportion of white-collar workers has greatly increased, as has the proportion of technical and professional workers. There has also been a substantial rise in service employment. Nevertheless, bluecollar workers are still nearly three-fifths of the total work 135 force. And the number of production workers, the heart of the working class, is rising, not declining. Thus, not only does the working class grow in numbers but its blue-collar and industrial core endures."^^1^^
The modern working class includes unskilled, semiskilled and skilled workers, while technicians and rankand-file engineers constitute a transitional section. The industrial proletariat, which is, as we have seen, the core and leading force of the working class, consists of workers engaged in the manufacturing, mining and building industries, transportation, public utilities, communications and storage. Owing to changes in the sectoral structure, manpower is moving from traditional and disunited industries (textiles, footwear, knitwear and, recently, coal mining) to the most modern industries, in which production is highly concentrated and monopolised (machine-building, chemicals, electric-engineering and others).
The conclusions that the working class is growing (owing, among other things, to the new skills engendered by modern production, i. e., technicians, operators, fitters, programmers and other middle technicians, which are the most rapidly increasing working-class groups) and that its boundaries are expanding while the industrial proletariat remains its core are borne out by reality.
Manpower and material resources are being redistributed between various economic sectors on a wide scale under the influence of scientific and technological progress. This is causing substantial changes in the nature of employment in general and in the sectoral and professional structure of the working class in particular. It is extremely important to study these changes in order to understand the intensity of the class struggle in developed capitalist countries and assess the tendencies and prospects of the revolutionary movement's further development.
The steadily growing class polarisation and the transformation of wage workers into the overwhelming, absolute majority of the population are very important factors in the socio-economic and socio-political processes which are occurring in developed capitalist countries and influencing virtually all social aspects. An increasing number of young people, women and foreign workers are being drawn into _-_-_
~^^1^^ New Program of the Communist Party, USA, p. 43.
136 production as wage workers, and this also promotes the aforementioned polarisation and transformation.According to summary data, the proportion of wage workers in the gainfully employed population of industrialised countries increased from 53.3 per cent to 79.5 per cent over the period 1900--69. In agriculture, this proportion diminished from 26.3 per cent to 21.7 per cent, in industry, construction, transportation and communications, it increased from 78.4 per cent to 90.5 per cent, and in trade and services, it went up from 71.5 per cent to 84.9 per cent. Between 1950 and 1975, the number of wage workers in industrialised capitalist countries increased from 158 million to 250 million, and the proportion of them in the gainfully employed population grew from 68 per cent to 82 per cent. These data corroborate the Marxist-Leninist tenets that the population becomes increasingly proletarianised under capitalism.
In the USA, the number of wage workers increased from 29 million to 58 million in the period 1900--50 while between 1947 and 1970, their number increased by 25.7 million, or 55.6 per cent. In France, wage workers constituted about 75 per cent of the gainfully employed population on the threshold of the 1970s and over 80 per cent by 1975. In 1968, there were 15,255,000 French wage workers, in 1973, 16,550,000, and by 1975, more than 17 million.
In Italy, wage workers constituted 66.5 per cent (12,828,000 persons) of the gainfully employed population in 1970, 67.4 percent (12,981,000 persons) in 1971, 68.3 per cent (12,988,000 persons) in 1972, and over 70 per cent (about 14 million people) in 1976. In the FRG, wage workers constituted 68.6 per cent of the gainfully employed population in 1950, 82.4 per cent in 1970, and 84.1 per cent in 1975.
It is now becoming increasingly evident that the scientific and technological revolution does not reduce the number of workers engaged in production, i.e., it does not diminish the army of wage workers. On the contrary, the proportion of them in the gainfully employed population is growing. This is due to the rise of new industries, the overall growth of production and the expansion of the service sphere. An important factor here is the proportion of the industrial proletariat and the working class as a whole among all wage workers. Until quite recently, even some Marxist studies tended to give only general information on the number of 137 wage workers, and information on the number of workers and office employees was very generalised. Today, the fraternal parties analyse statistics on a more specific and differential basis.
One very important outcome of the scientific and technological revolution's impact on the developed capitalist countries' socio-economic structure has been a numerical increase in the working class (largely owing to the accelerated proletarianisation of more and more sections of wage workers as well as small and even middle proprietors) and its growth as a proportion of wage workers and all those gainfully employed. Calculations made by a statistics group in the Institute of the International Working-Class Movement under the USSR Academy of Sciences show that the total number of workers in those countries was more than 209 million in 1975, as opposed to 132 million in 1950. During that period, the worker proportion of the gainfully employed population increased from 56.9 per cent to 69 per cent.
In France, the working class constituted 40 per cent of the gainfully employed population in 1954, 43 per cent in 1962 and 45 per cent (ten million workers) in 1975. According to the French Communist Party, the working class constituted nine million of the country's 15 million wage workers at the beginning of the 1970s. From 1968 to 1974, the numerical strength of the French working class increased by one million workers, while its proportion of the gainfully employed~population grew by 2 per cent. In the FRG, the numerical strength of the working class was 15.8 million, or 67 per cent of all wage workers, in 1950 and 19.8 million, or 76 per cent, in 1970. In Italy, the numerical strength of the working class grew by 1.3 million in the period 1951-- 71, and its proportion in the social structure went up by 8.1 per cent. In the USA, the average annual growth rate of manpower was 0.13 per cent between 1920 and 1950 and 0.65 per cent between 1950 and 1970, i.e. a five-fold increase.
The tenets of scientific socialism on the working-class natural qualitative and quantitative growth have been historically verified. In the mid-19th century, the numerical strength of the proletariat was not more than ten million. By the beginning of this century, the figure was about 30 million, and by the 1960s, it was more than 500 million, including 160 million in the socialist countries, 105 million 138 in the West European countries, about 110 million in North America, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, over 50 million in the Latin American countries, and roughly 120 million in the Afro-Asian states. Calculations made by the Institute of the International Working-Class Movement under the USSR Academy of Sciences show that in the 1970s the numerical strength of the working class in the world topped 600 million.
As the scientific and technological revolution continues the working class's composition becomes more complex. This class becomes more skilled, and new forces originate within it; these forces are associated with advanced technology, and their living standards are often higher than before. The structural changes in manpower composition are characterised by a number of important features: the redistribution of material and labour resources between industries producing material wealth as well as between them and the non-production sectors in the latter's favour. This is accompanied by a diminution in the sphere in which manual labour is employed and a steady growth in the sphere of intellectual work. In 1975, over 50 per cent of US wage workers were engaged in intellectual work (in 1960, the figure was 40 per cent). In Japan, Canada and Sweden the proportions were 45--46 per cent (in 1960, 38, 40 and 35 per cent, respectively), and in Britain and France they were about 40 per cent (in 1960, 34 and 31 per cent, respectively).
The industrial proletariat continues to be the most numerous and influential force in the working class's composition. The main changes in its sectoral and professional structure are occurring because it is leaving the old, traditional sectors and going into new, dynamic ones, which are rapidly developing in the epoch of the scientific and technological revolution and where production is highly concentrated and monopolised.
General education and vocational training are needed in order to learn new types of skill demanded by the scientific arid technological progress. As technology rapidly advances, old skills soon disappear or change and new ones appear. According to researchers, many skills will become even further subject to obsolescence in the near future and many workers will have to change their field of specialisation several times over in the course of their career. 139 American experts have estimated that the average life span of a particular skill is now only ten years; thus, more than 8,000 old skills and professions went out of existence and 6,400 new ones originated in the period 1949--65 alone.
As the scientific and technological revolution develops, the numerical strength of certain contingents in the working class changes because some of them transfer from the production to the non-production sphere. For instance, the number of wage workers in the USA increased by 25.7 million, or 55.6 per cent, between 1947 and 1970, and more than four-fifths of this increase took place in the non-- production sphere of the economy. The number of jobs in this sphere more than doubled over the same period, amounting to more than four times the respective increase in industry. The absolute and relative number of wage workers increased throughout the entire non-production sphere, but the biggest growth was in government institutions (by 130 per cent).
However, as the raw-material and energy crises sharply intensified in recent years, the number of workers substantially increased in such traditional economic sectors as mining, transportation, agriculture and several others where their proportion had previously been diminishing.
Official statistics show that in those manufacturing industries where employment increased in both absolute and relative terms it was mainly due to jobs given to such largely intellectual workers as engineers, designers, researchers, technicians, office and shop employees, draughtsmen, programmers, perforators, laboratory workers, and specialists in fixing and servicing electronic and automatic equipment.
Estimates and statistics indicate that the working class is not ``disappearing'' or being ``eroded'', as bourgeois and revisionist ideologists try to prove. On the contrary, its numerical strength is increasing because of the growing number of manual and intellectual workers under the conditions of the scientific and technological revolution. Technical innovations are, as a rule, not implemented in places where it is cheaper to use manual labour than machinery and other equipment. Therefore, crude manual labour as well as highly skilled labour of a new type can be seen at the most technically advanced capitalist enterprises. This situation may continue for a long time. Skilled labour, including intellectual work, is growing especially rapidly, 140 mainly in the new, quickly developing economic sectors, and general educational and professional levels are rising.
At the same time, the working class is playing a greater role in society's socio-economic development, and it is becoming more efficient organisationally and stronger politically. In his speech at the 15th Congress of Trade Unions of the USSR, Leonid Brezhnev summarised the real processes behind the working-class development under the conditions of the scientific and technological revolution in the following words: "The ranks of the international working class---the most advanced revolutionary class of our time, and its role as the main productive and socio-- political force in the world will continue to grow. Despite fashionable anti-Marxist theories which hold that the scientific and technological revolution is limiting the scope of activities of the working class and will eventually lead to its liquidation, facts speak to the contrary: scientific and technical progress everywhere leads to the growth of the working class, for among other things it creates new occupations."^^1^^
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 2. The Socio-Economic Position of the WorkingBourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideologists and politicians are taking great pains to prove that the teaching of the founders of scientific communism on the working class's socioeconomic position under capitalism is now supposedly outdated. For instance, they allege that the theory of capitalist production elaborated by Marx in Capital no longer reveals its dynamics at the present, "new stage" of development of society, which bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideologists variously term ``post-capitalist'' (Ralf Dahrendorf), ``post-bourgeois'' (George Lichtheim), ``technotronic'', the "new industrial state" (John Kenneth Galbraith), " multidimensional" (Kerr), ``post-industrial'' (Daniel Bell), and so forth. They maintain that, with the scientific and technological revolution and progressive labour legislation, the worker whom Marx and Lenin saw and envisaged in the future has __BUG__ How come footnote cannot be formatted onto two lines using carriage returns? _-_-_
~^^1^^ L. I. Brezhnev, Our Course: Peace and Socialism, Moscow, 1975, p. 242.
141 nothing in common with the wage worker of today. They often put forward the following so-called arguments to prove that the working class's position has allegedly undergone radical change;~under the conditions of the scientiiic and technological revolution, the working class's well-being has improved and incomes have been greatly redistributed in the working people's favour;~
there is now no longer a big difference between the workers and the propertied classes in housing and way of life, and therefore the entire working class in developed capitalist countries has become a "labour aristocracy'';~
workers now have opportunities for advancing socially;~
consequently, the working class's consciousness has substantially changed. During Marx's and Engels' lifetime, it was the grave-digger of capitalism, but now, when headway is being made economically and technologically, the capitalist state itself solves the problems facing the working class, which has lost its revolutionary potency as a result of its integration into the capitalist system.
In his book American Society in the Postindustrial Age, Professor Benjamin Kleinberg of the University of Maryland maintains that such a society is dominated by two tendencies: toward the "muting and elimination of those conflicts which reflected the struggle between employing and working classes" and "toward the development and elaboration of a 'welfare state' in which a basic minimum of social and economic prerequisites is guaranteed to the various groups in the society".^^1^^ A West German sociologist, Urs Jeaggi, head of the faculty of sociology at Bochum University, tries to prove in his monograph Capital and Labour in the FUG that the present-day labour-capital contradictions should be regarded as contradictions which can be controlled and stabilised. He alleges that the modern bourgeois state actually pursues an egalitarian social policy by controlling the production process and precluding a standstill. Urs Jeaggi thus concludes that Marx's thesis on intensification of labour-capital contradictions under capitalism is untenable today.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Benjamin Kleinberg, American Society in the Postindustrial Age, Columbus, 1973, p. 205.
142What is the working class's real position now in the capitalist countries? An analysis of the new phenomena which determine the working class's socio-economic position under the conditions of the scientiiic and technological revolution shows that the position of some working-class sections has changed since the last century. Certain working-class forces in developed capitalist countries have succeeded in achieving both some improvement in their socio-economic position and some progress in labour legislation thanks to the influence of existing socialism's achievements and the long unremitting struggle which they waged for their rights.
But as state-monopoly capitalism develops, its inherent antagonistic labour-capital contradictions do not allow the working class to satisfy its material and cultural requirements, which have grown in keeping with the development of the productive forces. Moreover, the working class faces increasing socio-economic difficulties as the crisis of capitalism grows deeper. It acts more and more as the scientific and technological revolution's main productive and principal motive force, but this increasingly runs counter to its position as an exploited and subordinate class in capitalist society. The chairman of the governmental commission on the West German economic and social development, Professor Karl Martin Bolte of Munich University, admitted that West German society still had many people who felt oppression and social inequality.
Statistics confirm that the socio-economic difficulties which the working class is facing both under modern capitalism as a whole and in individual capitalist countries are growing, albeit in a diverse and uneven fashion. A worker remains a worker in capitalist society even if he has a TV set, a refrigerator or a car. As in the past, he does not own a part of the means of production or even enjoy a guaranteed right to work. Lenin's tenet on the proletariat's place in the incomes distribution system is clearly corroborated by the facts that the workers do not have enough opportunities for satisfying their rightful and growing material and cultural requirements and that the gap between the working class's socio-economic position and the continually growing wealth of the ruling class, i. e., the big bourgeoisie, is widening. To illustrate this, let us take the example of the working people's share in the national income of Britain, a country, where the working-class movement has great traditions. On 143 the threshold of the 1970s, 44 per cent of Britain's national wealth belonged to 2 per cent of the non-working population, while at the end of the 1970s, 1 per cent of its population owned one-quarter of all private property, 5 per cent owned one-half of it, and 80 per cent, i. e., the grass roots of the social pyramid, possessed less than the 1 per cent on the top of the pyramid.
In France, the 22nd FGP Congress noted, 25 financial and industrial groups have achieved a position of complete domination. Moreover, 25 monopolies are run by a total of less than 250 people. This caste is actually holding the state in its hands. They have a turnover of 280,000 million francs, or almost as much as the country's entire national income.
In his book, Playing with Power in Sweden, AkeOrtmark, a Swedish economist who heads the home affairs department of Swedish television, discusses the great concentration of capital in the big employers' hands. He writes: "Two hundred and fifty of the powerful---242 men and 8 women---- belong to the privileged class. It is above all for this class that the road lies open to universities, expensive restaurants, theatres, villas and tennis courts. The best doctors and the most capable lawyers are trained for this class. Writers produce books, artists and composers write music for it.... They are the ones who have the pleasantest and most interesting work, the highest salaries, the greatest prestige, power and prominence in society."^^1^^
In the United States, about 5 per cent of the population control 90 per cent of the country's national wealth and own 60 per cent of the stocks and shares and virtually all securities. Moreover, they possess one-third of the money in circulation and one-quarter of all property. According to P. Hart, an American researcher, the income of the allpowerful 1 per cent of the country's population is eight times more than that of 50 per cent of Americans.
The apologists of the "industrial society" theory maintain that the workers are keenly interested in the capitalist society's progress, especially as consumers, who can thereby purchase a car, a refrigerator, a TV set and other things. Indeed, thanks to the epoch of the scientific and technological revolution and the workers' unceasing struggle for their _-_-_
~^^1^^ World Marxist Review, No. 4, 1968, p. 22.
144 rights, they and their families receive, in absolute terms, somewhat more than their fathers' and grandfathers' meagre earnings. But owning a car does not mean that its owner will no longer seek greater freedom, going beyond the opportunity to make country outings on Sundays. The matter in question is that of greater power and greater freedom for the working class, i. e., greater freedom in and outside enterprises. On the other hand, as Enzo Rava, an Italian journalist, writes, it is a fact that "in Italy today it is easier (because of the economic policy imposed by the monopolies) to buy a car than to get a bed in hospital or a place in a nursery school ... to say nothing of the fact that in the ' advanced (more or less) industrial society' we live in, people have to travel ten and even forty kilometres to work, which in the absence of public transport makes the car as much of a necessity (paid for, incidentally, out of the workers' pocket) as the bicycle was fifty years ago. In the days between 1900 and 1917 there were probably 'theoreticians' of the Right and 'Left' who claimed that 'the workers are not going to make the revolution any more because they now have bicycles'; but think how many revolutions there have been in the world since then, and what revolutions!"^^1^^Under modern state-monopoly capitalism, the living standards of individual categories of working people are relatively higher than those at the turn of our century, but this does not mean that the capitalist system ceases to be unjust and inhuman. Marx's conclusion that "even the most favourable situation for the working class ... however much it may improve the material existence of the worker, does not remove the antagonism between his interests and the interests of the bourgeoisie, the interests of the capitalist,"^^2^^ is just as important today as it was a century ago.
In describing the socio-economic position of the working class in developed capitalist countries today, account should be taken of two tendencies which continually operate in capitalist society. On the one hand, there is the ruling monopoly circles' aspiration to worsen the position of the broad sections of working people so as to make even more profit. On the other, there is a countervailing tendency _-_-_
~^^1^^ New Times, No. 18, 1969, p. 18.
~^^2^^ K. Marx and F. Engels, "Wage Labour and Capital''. In: Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, Collected Works, Vol. 9, pp. 220--21.
__PRINTERS_P_145_COMMENT__ 10---2560 145 which began to operate after the rise and development of the working class movement and its mass organisations. The latter tendency is due to the working class's struggle for its rights, and its effectiveness is directly proporlional to the scale of the class struggle.In order to determine the working class's position today and correctly understand Marx's theory of its absolute and relative impoverishment, it is as well to recall what Engels said in his work A Critique of the Draft Social-- Democratic Programme of 1891, where he took account of capitalism's subsequent development and wrote that, in certain conditions, it was more relevant to speak of the working people's ill-provided existence.
The matter in question was the draft programme which was sent by the board of the Social-Democratic Party of Germany to Engels and which, incidentally, stated: the distribution of the product of labour between the exploiters and the exploited is becoming increasingly unequal, the workers are growing more numerous and poorer, the army of redundant is assuming an ever more massive scale, class antagonism is intensifying, and the class struggle is becoming fiercer and fiercer; this struggle, which splits modern society into two hostile military camps, is the common feature of all industrialised countries.
Engels commented: "This is incorrect when put in such a categorical way. The organisation of the workers and their constantly growing resistance will possibly check the increase of misery to a certain extent. However, what certainly does increase is the insecurity of existence. I should insert this."^^1^^ This and other remarks of Engels' were taken into account when that draft was published in the newspaper Vorwarts and the words "misery of the proletariat" were replaced by "the insecurity of its (the proletariat's---Auth.) existence."^^2^^
Describing the life of textile workers in a district in the north of France, Pierre Belleville, a French researcher, showed in his work A New Working Class (Paris, 1963) that workers' families which moved from the slums to new houses and bought modern household articles had to economise _-_-_
~^^1^^ F. Engels, "A Critique of the Draft Social-Democratic Programme of 1891''. In: Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works in three volumes, Vol. 3, Moscow, 1977, p. 431.
~^^2^^ Ibid.
146 on food. Even in spite of a general tendency of changes in real wages that has been operating for several years now, the strain on the family budget is still a characteristic feature of daily life for workers' families.In developed capitalist countries, the recent growth in labour productivity has not been accompanied by an increase in real wages. Ofiicial statistics exaggerate the growth of real wages, underestimate the steady rise in the cost of living, disregard the influence of partial and full unemployment, and take little or no account at all of taxes. The National Chairman of the Communist Party of the USA, Henry Winston, emphasised that the real wages of a worker in the United States diminished, on average, by 11 per cent from November 1972 to March 1975, notwithstanding a concurrent growth in labour productivity. An analysis of factual data shows that, regardless of the absolute level of earnings, the price of labour in all industries decreases relative to output, especially when labour productivity is higher.
Statistics show that workers' and office employees' gross earnings grew in absolute terms from the late 1940s to the mid-1960s, but their share in the national income clearly tended to diminish from 1956. The fact that the position of the working people engaged in material production is worsening can ba seen from the growth of the rate of surplus value, which, according to Soviet economists' estimates, has increased by a factor of 1.1-1.15 in most of the industrialised countries in 15 years. This growth is accompanied by a relative decrease in the "price of labour" (gross output per unit of earnings). In 1968, for instance, this ``price'' in industry decreased by 18--22 per cent in France, Britain and the USA and by 45 per cent in Japan as compared with the level in 1960 (the calculations were made in dollars and fixed prices).
Under the conditions of a severe economic crisis, the reserve army of wage labour remains for the big monopolies an extremely important means of bringing pressure to bear on the working class. In 1970, the developed capitalist countries (the USA, Canada, the FRG, France, Italy, Great Britain and Japan) had 7,940,000 unemployed, including 4,086,000 in the USA and 975,000 in Italy. According to the International Labour Organisation, by mid1975, almost 15 million people were out of work in the __PRINTERS_P_146_COMMENT__ 10* 147 USA, Canada, Japan, Australia and Western Europe and another 5-6 million people worked part of the week. In mid-1976, the number of unemployed reached 18 million in the industrialised countries of the West alone. The number of job reductions and the unemployment growth rate were the highest for the last 40 years.
In his speech in Michigan University in September 1976, President Ford admitted that 7.9 per cent of the able-bodied population, or almost eight million people, were unemployed in the United States. According to labour unions, unemployment in the United States actually reached 9 per cent, because many young people who finished school and failed to find jobs were not listed in official statistics. It was noted atj the 22nd, FCP Congress that France had 1,400,000 completely unemployed at the beginning of 1976. Moreover, another 600,000 worked part of the week. On the whole, unemployment in France affected about two million working people, or 7-8 million people if their families are taken into account.
In Britain, the number of unemployed was over 1.5 million, the highest since the war. In August 1976, 1,501,976 persons, or 6.4 per cent of the country's able-bodied population, were listed as unemployed. The real figure is actually higher because, as in the USA, official data do not include graduates from educational establishments applying for their first job. National statistical bodies give the following data on unemployment in individual countries at the beginning of 1976: 80,000 in Norway, 100,000 in Finland, 108,000 in Ireland, 200,000 in Denmark, 400,000 in Belgium, 700,000 in Spain, 734,000 in Canada, 1,114,000 in the FRG, 1,251,000 in Italy, and 1,300,000 in Japan. That year, the EEC countries had 600,000 more "unwanted people" than in the previous year. A decade ago, such countries as Australia, Sweden, Austria and New Zealand boasted that they had succeeded in precluding unemployment. In the mid1970s, however, they also had a large reserve labour force.
In his book The Development of Manpower, Berlrand BelIon, a researcher at Paris University, noted that since the exploitation system itself needed working people in reserve, the unemployed were used to increase labour productivity and limit the workers' struggle for their rights.
Specialists from the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) have estimated that the army 148 of unemployed will grow even more this coming decade because a greater number of young people and women will want to get jobs and the number of able-bodied citizens in the 24 OECD countries will increase by about 70 million by 1985. The General Secretary of the Communist Party of the USA, Gus Hall, said: "The problem of job security has emerged as the most crucial economic issue for the working class as a whole.'' ^^1^^
The working class in the developed capitalist countries faces mounting socio-economic hardships, especially from the steady rise in prices, which becomes acute under the conditions of continuous inflation and tax increases. Other problems are longer working hours and encroachment on democratic freedoms. In two years alone (from mid-1974), consumer prices in developed capitalist countries jumped by an average of 25.4 per cent, including 21.4 per cent in the USA, 37.5 per cent in Japan, 13.4 per cent in the FRG, 26.5 per cent in France, 42.8 per cent in Britain, and 38.9 per cent in Italy. The prices of basic necessities rose the most. According to Solomon Fabricant, a professor of economics at New York University, inflation hits the working people the hardest. Industrial companies can cope with the problems engendered by inflation better than the workers. According to the anti-poverty agency, in the USA, there were 40 million Americans below the poverty line at the end of 1975.
It was noted at the 22nd FCP Congress that in France at least 16 million working people (both working and out of work) and their families did not have the barest means of subsistence.
In an attempt to provide conditions for economic growth, the capitalist state, besides using the traditional indirect methods of controlling the economy, began to pursue the "prices and incomes policy" in order to increase the rate of capital accumulation and make capital investments more effective. This policy is having an adverse effect on the real wages of the working class and many other sections of working people. In Britain, miners' labour productivity has increased by 60 per cent in the last decade, but they have slipped from first to 16th place (among other industrial workers) in terms of their pay packets.
_-_-_~^^1^^ World Marxist Review, No. 1, 1972, p. 42.
149The deep-sealed social discontent of industrial workers and the entire working class stems from their monotonous and highly intensive work as well as their working conditions. Workers are actually heing exploited more and more because new methods of capitalist rationalisation are being evolved and new forms of remuneration for labour are being used. A person's health is rapaciously squandered not only in backward industries, but even in progressive ones like electronics.
Capitalist rationalisation causes not only enormous physical strain, but also great nervous stress. According to Paul Sivadon, a prominent French scientist, at least 40 per cent of the workers engaged on hard work suffer from nervous stress. A survey of the patients in a mental institution in Chicago showed that skilled workers suffer five times more often from mental disorders than specialists and managers, and semi-skilled workers, six times more.
In the 1960s, the working week in the US manufacturing industry was 3-3.5 hours longer than it should have been under the law. For 6.7 million workers, it was 60 hours and more, while for three million workers, it was 70 hours and more. In the period 1950--70, the actual working week was 45--46.0 hours in Britain, 42--44.7 hours in the FRG, 44.5-46.1 hours in France, and 43.4-45.2 hours in Japan. Exploitation is now growing mainly as a result of intensified labour and longer working hours.
The number of cases of industrial injuries and occupational diseases is steadily increasing because of inadequate measures for ensuring safe and healthy working conditions. For instance, there are almost no safety regulations at 85 per cent of all enterprises and construction sites in Italy. According to official data, the number of industrial accidents, consequently, increased by 15 per cent in the period 1965--68. Cases of injuries and diseases officially recorded at enterprises rose from 1,264,724, in 1969 to 1,398,655 in 1970. The number of Italian invalids surviving from two world wars is less than half a million, while the number of invalids of labour has reached almost a million in the last few decades.
The owners of large enterprises entrust special research bureaus with 1he task of looking for ways of accelerating work rates and increasing profits. Account is taken of every minute spent by a worker at a factory.
150According to Maurice Parodi, a French economist, the working class's socio-economic position in developed capitalist countries is characterised by three extremely important features, i.e., economic poverty, poverty of knowledge and poverty of power, the last two being the direct outcome of the unequal opportunities under capitalism.
The requirements of workers and the working people in general now go far beyond the basic needs for housing, clothing, food, and so forth. However, articles of daily use are very expensive, and the worker usually pays for them in instalments rather than all at once. Consequently, in the United States debts arising from all types of credit, including the purchase of houses in instalments, doubled (from 157,000 million to 324,000 million dollars) between 1958 and 1967. Under state-moiopoly capitalism, the working class's growing requirements are satisfied within definite limits, which are determined by the minimum level needed for reproducing manpower. Under capitalism, requirements which cannot be satisfied because of the existing social relations are crystallised in the working class.
The social segregation, to which the workers are subjected in developed capitalist countries, is also practised in the cultural field. In 1970, 58 per cent of the French people did not read a single book, and 87 per cent of them never went to a theatre. Moreover, 74 per cent of the workers and 82 per cent of the peasants were found not to read any books at all. Only one worker in a hundred went to the theatre and four in a hundred went to museums. A poll conducted to see why French people were not so keen on going to the cinema showed that for 58 per cent of those canvassed it was too expensive and for 28 per cent their working hours were too long. Only one out of four workers' children finishes secondary school in France and four out of a hundred graduate from institutions of higher learning.
As the working class develops under the conditions of state-monopoly capitalism and the scientific and technological revolution, and as the middle sections become increasingly proletarianised and the number of wage workers grows, the problem of alienation of the personality becomes significant. The individual feels impoverished and empty-- hearted after the labour process because the creative, productive forces confront him as alien capitalist forces dominating him. According to Marx, wage labour is labour which is 151 alienated from itself and which "stands confronted by the wealth it has created as alien wealth, by its own productive power as the productive power of its product, by its enrichment as its own impoverishment and by its social power as the power of society".^^1^^
An analysis of the new phenomena of modern capitalism shows that all aspects of capitalist society are being increasingly influenced by the bourgeois state, which owns a substantial part of the means of production and has a ramified and powerful machinery for suppressing the people and spreading capitalist ideology. The interests of labour and capital are irreconcilable in this society, which is strikingly classdivided and which embodies the monopoly bourgeoisie's rule and protects its profits. Therefore, it is the working class which feels most of all the pressure of state-monopoly capitalism and the consequences of the alienation of its activity.
The exploiting nature of monopoly rule is expressed in its anti-humane influence on a worker's personality. Everyday experience convinces a worker that no matter what his wages are, he is forced to work harder for the same or even lesser pay. This is a wide-ranging and deep-going process in all the developed capitalist countries. Henry Ford said half a century ago that a worker prefers a job where he does not have to think. Today in Detroit, where the founder of the conveyor-belt system first realised his idea, social conflicts are more frequently rooted not so much in the demand for higher pay, as in dissatisfaction with work. Specialists in the sweating system feel that an appearance of "industrial democracy" should be created and the worker should be allowed both to think how a production process could be improved and to make proposals. It seems that the new direction of social protest has greatly alarmed the employers. The so-called "human relations" policy is based on attempts to divert the energy of workers from joint actions of protest towards production cooperation'with the bourgeoisie.
The results of the investigations carried out by a group of British sociologists (J. H. Goldthrope and others), who wrote the book The Affluent Worker in the Class Structure, are particularly indicative in this respect. Their objects of research were the workers of Luton, a town in southeast _-_-_
~^^1^^ K. Marx, ``Theories of Surplus-Value'', Capital, Vol. IV, Part III, Moscow, 1975, p. 259.
152 England which is far away from the old industrial centres and where pay and employment are higher than in other regions. The administrative staff there make wide use of a system of psychological and organisational measures known as "human relations in industry''. The researchers draw the following conclusion:``Increases in earnings, improvements in working conditions, more enlightened and liberal employment policies, and so on, do not in themselves basically alter the class situation of the industrial worker in present-day society.... Trends of change in modern industry are not in fact ones which operate uniformly in the direction of reducing class differences and divisions.'' The worker "remains a man who gains his livelihood through placing his labour at the disposal of an employer in return for wages" and the relative improvement of the living standards "do not lead on, in an automatic way, to the integration of manual workers and their families into middle-class society''.~^^1^^ The monopolies are seeking to make the working class and other working people shoulder crisis difficulties. It should also be taken into account that consumption in developed capitalist countries is increasingly becoming an all-embracing system for continuous exploitation of the working people, thereby actually aggravating their production exploitation.
At the present stage of imperialist development capitalist integration is increasingly becoming a very important means of exploiting the working class and other working sections of tho population. This integration is causing greater antagonism between the vital interests of the overwhelming majority of the nation, on the one hand, and monopoly capital, including international monopoly capital, on the other. It is intensifying the class struggle and strengthening international solidarity between the working people of various countries.
At the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s, inter-state migration of manpower served the big monopolies as an important means of making profit and exploiting the workers. Taking advantage of the migrant working people's extremely difficult position, the monopolies strive, as Lenin emphasised,^^2^^ to set some sectors of workers against others _-_-_
~^^1^^ New Times, No. 4, 1971, p. 54.
~^^2^^ See V. I. Lenin, ``Capitalism and Workers' Immigration'', Collected Works, Vol. 19, p. 454.
153 and capitalise on national strife, which they foment. Formerly, emigrants mainly went overseas, hut at the present stage of imperialist development, Western Europe has become the centre of attraction for jobless workers. More than one million people moved annually from one West European country to another in the 1960s in search of temporary earnings. The desire for super-profits played an important role in establishing the Common Market and stepping up capitalist integration. Today, it is the main factor behind the big monopolies' migration policy, which is fraught with grave social consequences in several countries.Migrant workers usually leave their homeland at the age when their labour productivity is at its highest; nine-tenths of them are under 45. It is no trouble for the ``importing'' state to provide them with work in the most difficult jobs; besides, there is no need to pay them a pension later, because they will leave the country in 5-fi years. The discrimination against them is such that, according to the Frankfurter Zeitung, foreign workers live in ghettoes. The Belgian newspaper Le Soir reported that a network of traders, who specialise in the illicit transportation of foreign workers, is operating along the entire coast of Western Europe. Only foreigners sweep the streets in London and Paris. Moreover, the wage rates of 87 per cent of foreign workers are in the third and fourth categories, i. e., they are paid at the lowest rates. There are more than ten million foreign workers in the economically developed countries of Western Europe. These migrants are in an extremely difficult position. The West European monopolies have worked out a sophisticated system of exploiting them. Since foreign workers are afraid of being dismissed and subsequently deported, thev agree to do overtime and, in general, to take the hardest jobs. Migrants are also rotated, i. e., thev are forcibly sent back to their homeland. There are, on the average, twice as many accidents at enterprises among foreigners as among native workers.
By importing foreign workers on a massive scale, the ruling circles of developed capitalist countries seek, on the one hand, to exploit available cheap manpower and, on the other, to pet workers of different nationalities against one another and breed racial and nationalistic prejudices so a^ to keep wages low and weaken working -class unity in the struggle against monopoly rule.
154Thus, reality completely corroborates Lenin's conclusion that "... improvement in technology, signifying increased labour productivity and greater social wealth, becomes in bourgeois society the cause of greater social inequality, of widening gulfs between the rich and poor, of greater insecurity, unemployment, and various hardships of the mass of the working people".^^1^^ Events refute the bourgeois and reformist ideologists' allegations that the working class is being " bourgeoisified" under the conditions of state-monopoly capitalism. The deterioration in the working class's position has not stopped; only the forms of its manifestation have changed.
Analysis of the working class's socio-economic and political position in developed capitalist countries in the 1970s clearly shows that the interests of the two antagonistic classes irreconcilably conflict. State-monopoly capitalism is characterised by the indigence of the working class and the further enrichment of the exploiting classes. These features inevitably cause changes in the working class's social psychology and political position, and aggravate the class struggle.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 3. The Growth of the Proletariat's ClassThe conclusion which Engels formulated in the preface to his book The Condition of the Working Class in England (1844--1845) is of great importance to the Marxist-Leninist methods of studying the nature of class battles in developed capitalist countries. He said: "The condition of the working class is the real basis and point of departure of all social movements of the present because it is the highest and most unconcealed pinnacle of the social misery existing in our day."~^^2^^
Ever since classes originated, human society has never been able to do without the producer class. Although the name of this class and its social position changed as socioeconomic formations succeeded one another, i.e., after the _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``Materials Relating to tlio Revision of the Party Programme'', Collected Work'!, Vol. 2'i, p. 467.
~^^2^^ Frederick Engels, ``The Condition of the Working Class in England''. In: Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, Collected Works, Vol. 4, p. 302.
155 slave came the serf and then the free worker (free from feudal bondage and also free from possessing anything in the world besides his own labour), it continued to play the leading role in material production. Engels wrote: "One thing, however, is clear, that, whatever changes take place in the higher, non-productive strata of society, society cannot exist without a class of producers. Consequently, this class is essential under any conditions....''~^^1^^The working class is society's main productive force today as it was in the past. It now produces more than three-quarters of the world social output. The working class also plays an important role in modern society because it is the only class which is capable of representing the entire nation's interests. Unlike all the other classes that tried to assume power, the struggle which the working class is waging for its emancipation is not a struggle for its class or social privileges, but a struggle for equal rights and elimination of all class domination.
Maurice Decaillot, a prominent French economist, wrote: "If the working class assumes power, it is not to ... redivide the pie, and certainly not to derive a ready source of benefits from the economy by changing its owners, but to modify economic relations, which determine not only its means of livelihood, but, especially, the reproduction of relations predetermining its everyday place in society.''~^^2^^
Events show that the industrial proletariat remains the decisive, leading force of a broad anti-monopoly alliance, although the forms of the class struggle in developed capitalist countries are very diverse. Not only is the working class's proportion in the gainfully employed population increasing in all capitalist countries, especially the developed ones, but its organisational efficiency, unity and awareness are also steadily growing. The working class, particularly its core, i.e., the industrial proletariat of capitalist countries, is still the main producer of material wealth and surplus value as well as the principal object of exploitation by big monopolies.
In denning the contemporary working class and its boundaries and ascertaining its real socio-economic position _-_-_
~^^1^^ Friedrich Engels, ``Notwendige und iiberfliissige Gesellschaftsklassen''. Marx/Enprels, Werke, Bd. 19, Berlin, 1962, S. 287.
~^^2^^ Maurice Decaillot, Le Mode de production socialiste. Essai theorique, Paris, 1973, p. 143.
156 under state-monopoly capitalism and the scientific and technological revolution, account should be taken of the worker's new demands, as well as his old ones, and his other motives for waging a struggle for his rights and interests.The working-class movement is now characterised, among other things, by the fact that the anti-monopoly struggle is not always directly associated with falling living standards. Glass battles are intensifying directly because of the further aggravation of contradictions in the system of statemonopoly capitalism and the growth of the socio-political instability of capitalism; moreover, they are intensifying because of the working class's greater fighting efficiency, its better understanding of its historic role, and its aspiration to strengthen its socio-political and socio-economic positions.
The formation of the proletariat's class awareness is now an extremely complicated process, which is by no means connected only with the influence the masses are subjected to from opposing ideologies, i.e., the socialist and bourgeois, revolutionary and reformist ideologies. The workers themselves take an active part in this process, always comparing the ideas spread with their own experience. The personality of a modern worker, especially a young worker, is moulded by the impact of modernised methods of exploitation, which strongly influence him psychologically. Changes in the working conditions and the nature of work, unemployment, and competition with foreign workers, which is generally created artificially by the monopolies, interweave with the monopolists' growing ideological influence on the working class. This influence is sustained by the allurements of the capitalist way of life.
Monopoly capital has complete control of production and workers' living conditions. Capitalism's inherent system of economic and social coercion leads to greater exploitation and the alienation of the product of a worker's labour. Under capitalism, the contradictions of the scientific and technological revolution often impede the formation of class, proletarian awareness among individual sections of workers.
Moreover, the influence which capitalism's socio-- economic and political crisis exerts on the working class's awareness and political stand is a very complicated process. Steadily growing unemployment, lower real wages and 157 uncertainty about the future occasionally act as a restraint on the political stand taken by individual sections of workers and non-proletarian strata of the working people in the class struggle. The ruling circles of capitalist countries take advantage of this and bring stronger economic and political pressure to bear on the working class and its mass organisations.
Hence the ebbs in the working-class movement which have been observed in certain countries. This was the case, for instance, in France at the end of the 1950s, when the right Socialists' policy helped big capital to realise its aspiration of increasing its influence on the state and the national economy. The employers used various means to psychologically demoralise and split the working people. Thus, in France unskilled workers doing the same job are divided into 11 categories corresponding to 11 different types of work.
The new generation of the working class was formed during the rapid economic and social changes in the 1950--70s. The working people of this generation have their own ideas about ``normal'' standards of living. Events in the latter half of the 1960s and the early 1970s show that, in spite of the contradictory conditions under which its consciousness developed, this generation also naturally concluded that the capitalist system was hostile to the very conditions of its existence and the personality's development. The working class's socio-economic position has definitely changed, but the criteria by which the proletariat assesses present-day capitalist reality have changed to a far greater extent and are continuing to change further.
As the average level of skill and education rises, the workers face a strong need to spend more money on improving their training and raising their general educational level. Tuition in US institutions of higher learning averaged 4,400 dollars a year in the mid-1970s and as much as 8,000 dollars at the end of the 1970s. In France, the representatives of different social sections have the following probability of receiving a higher education: workers, 4.4 per cent; office employees, 16.2 per cent; medium-level engineers and technicians, and administrators, 35.4 per cent; top-level engineers and technicians, 58.7 per cent, and big employers in industry, 71.5 per cent.
After the Second World War, the middle sections in 158 individual countries, Britain lor instance, also began to enjoy somewhat greater educational opportunities. However, urban (industrial) and rural workers, especially migrant workers' children, still stand a poor chance of getting even an elementary education, not to mention higher education. At the same time, the workers' intellectual requirements are increasing; this is one of the extremely important tendencies of modern development which have been engendered by the scientific and technological revolution.
Moreover, low-paid working people often do not avail themselves of medical aid. According to data provided by the American Association of Hospitals, the daily hospital fee in the USA was 105.3 dollars at the beginning of the 1970s, and is now even higher. The daily fee at the New York Memorial Hospital, which specialises in cancer, is 212 dollars. The United States holds llth place among the developed countries in average life expectancy for women and 19th place for men.
Changes in the modern working class's psychology are expressed in a change in the specific motives of its struggle. This is due, in turn, to a different attitude towards the system of requirements, which cannot be satisfied under statemonopoly^capitalism. In some countries, for instance, clearcut tendencies which are unfavourable to the broad sections of workers have originated in the field of vocational training. Large groups of elderly workers and young people who did not undergo vocational training are in a difficult position owing to the monopolies' policy, which has grossly utilitarian aims.
The bourgeoisie's social manoeuvring mostly affects highly skilled workers and technicians at major enterprises. At some of them, the employers set up special brigades which see to it that work proceeds properly. However, this is nothing but a new way of ``integrating'' the working class into the system of state-monopoly capitalism.
Socio-psychological means of mass revolutionary action today depend on many factors. An extremely important one is the pursuance of correct policy by Communist parties. The working class as a whole does not immediately discern its class interests and the historic aims corresponding to them. Therefore, the subjective factor is of the greatest importance, and much depends on the working-class party, which, unlike the rest of the workers, is already familiar 159 with the conditions, course and general tasks of the workingclass movement.
As a result of purposeful activities by the Communists, who take account of the changes in the psychology of different sections of the working class, the masses come to realise that the struggle for the aims which they have become aware of and which express their vital class interests and the requirements of general social and national development, the struggle for general democratic objectives calls increasingly for socialist transformations (or transformations which are a transition to them).
Events show that the present scientific and technological revolution is not and cannot be a socially neutral process, i.e., a process which is purely scientific or technological. Under the conditions of this revolution, the working class is society's main productive force. The revolution itself stemmed from the high level of socialisation of production, which caused the general crisis of capitalism and created new objective prerequisites for a transition to socialism. This has brought about natural changes in the working class's psychology, which give rise to its demands and, consequently, the motives of its struggle against state-monopoly capitalism. Many of these demands, even basically economic ones, are becoming essentially more and more political; they involve extremely important questions of state policy and are aimed at giving the proletariat a greater role to play socially.
In his speech at the 24th GPSU Congress, Gus Hall said that new criteria were arising in the minds of millions of people, and it was in accordance with these criteria that they compared the two world systems. These assessments were not confined to superficial comparisons. They did not merely take into account indicators of industrial growth or commodity prices. The whole qualitative side of life was being weighed up. The level of material well-being played an important role there, but the scales of measurement had become even broader. They included the entire spectrum of human values and their comparative significance, determined by the internal laws of every system. They included the conceptions of morality, culture and philosophy inherent in these systems. Many of these new components which influence the qualitative side of life cannot be measured by any numerical indicators.
The point is that when the material and cultural 160 requiments of the working class and other sections of working people grow rapidly, it is necessary to provide and guarantee greater employment, to build houses, improve transport facilities, democratise and expand the system of popular education and vocational training, as well as the social security system and the public health service. The criteria of this service must be revised to embrace everything from health protection at enterprises to measures for the protection of the environment as a whole and the promotion of sport, culture, and so forth. Experience shows that all this can be achieved only by radical socio-economic and political transformations.
The working-class strike movement became very intensive in developed capitalist countries at the end of the 1960s and in the 1970s. Although the working-class movement varies from country to country, it also has several common features which characterise the present stage of class battles.
The working class is resorting increasingly to strikes. According to data provided by the International Labour Organisation, between 1919 and 1939 there were about 165,000 strikes in developed capitalist countries, involving over 74 million workers. In the period from the end of the war until 1959, however, the number of strikers rose to 150 million, and in the next ten years, strikes involved as many as 360 million persons engaged in manual and intellectual work. Between 1971 and 1975, the number of participants in socio-economic actions reached 315 million, as against 273 million in the preceding five years. In 1976, a total of 60 million people went on strike, as opposed to about eight million in 1956. Earlier, the strike movement saw ebbs and flows, but from the end of the 1960s, the working people's actions in the capitalist countries grew into a continuous powerful movement involving the broadest sections of working people.
Whereas previously intensive class battles were confined to individual developed capitalist countries, now regions and individual countries in the capitalist world which the bourgeois ideologists once publicised as havens of "social peace" have disappeared. According to the newspaper Arbetartidningen-Ny Dag, the number of strikes in Sweden in 1975 was the highest for 30 years: there were 280 strikes involving more than 35,000 workers. France nouvelle, the __PRINTERS_P_161_COMMENT__ 11---2560 161 French Communist Party weekly, commented that the capitalist system had been shaken by strikes in the past, too---in 1920--26, 1933--37, 1945--50. The strike movement was concentrated in a few countries, mainly France and Italy. However, from 1907--68 the strike has been more than merely the most acute form of the labour-capital confrontation---it has become a symptom of capitalism's permanent social crisis.
Owing to the growing social contradictions in developed capitalist countries, the working class's actions in defence of its just rights inevitably undermine the entire system of state-monopoly capitalism. This is specifically expressed in the fact that the struggle for economic demands is, in essence, becoming a clear-cut political struggle.
Besides its traditional demands for higher pay and better working conditions, the working class is demanding such things as the nationalisation of enterprises, worker participation in management and in checking on the fulfilment of decisions adopted by the management, guaranteed employment, the democratisation of the entire educational, social security and public health systems, an end to police repression, the removal of discrimination with respect to sex, age and nationality, the release of detained activists, the abolition of anti-democratic laws, and so forth.
The strike movement in the last few years has increasingly involved not only workers of large enterprises, but also those at small and medium-sized enterprises. Whereas the latter have been passive until recently, they are now almost as class conscious as the workers of large enterprises.
The proletariat's socio-economic and political demands are becoming increasingly interwoven with the urgent tasks of waging a struggle for peace, security of nations and an end to the exhausting arms race, for democracy and social progress.
When the working-class movement began, the proletariat strove to defend the bourgeoisie's interests as well as its own, since it was still incapable of making its own class demands. But now the working class became aware of its leading social role in class battles. The class struggle waged by the working-class core, i.e., the industrial proletariat, is now especially important. Recent strikes clearly show that it has become more class conscious and that its class battle experience has been enriched by new factors reflecting the changes 162 which the scientific and technological revolution has made to the position and consciousness of the working class, including its industrial core.
The broad non-proletarian sections of working people are also becoming convinced that the working class is the real leader in the anti-monopoly struggle. They are realising that it is the main and strongest opponent to monopoly rule, that the financial oligarchy has to reckon with it more than it does with any other class or stratum of capitalist society. The non-proletarian sections see more and more clearly that the working class's demands express the interests of the entire nation, and therefore this class is increasingly becoming the centre of attraction for all anti-monopoly forces. Consequently, the social basis of the political forces which oppose the financial oligarchy is expanding and favourable conditions are being created for the setting up of an anti-monopoly front around the working class.
The powerful wave of strikes is characterised by militant and concerted action on the part of the working people and the growing predominance of unitary tendencies. The trade unions are becoming more and more active in the class struggle---despite the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideologists' claims that they have become less active in the "new industrial society'', that they are being eroded and, consequently, that their social basis is inevitably shrinking. In Italy, for instance, nearly all the recent strikes in defence of the working people's socio-economic interests were staged jointly by the General Union of Italian Workers which has almost four million members, and other large confederations: the Italian Confederation of the Working People's Trade Unions and the Italian Union of Labour. The same role was played by the General Confederation of Labour and the French Democratic Confederation of Labour in France. In their opposition to monopoly rule Communist workers are being vigorously backed by working people who are Socialists, Christian-Democrats, Catholics or not members of parties at all.
The strike struggle is wide-ranging and militant. Strikes are increasingly involving whole industries or whole national professional groups of working people (railwaymen, metal workers, government employees, postal workers and others). In 1974, for instance, large-scale strikes by workers engaged in particular economic sectors accounted for __PRINTERS_P_163_COMMENT__ 11* 163 almost 78 per cent of all time lost through strikes in the United States.
The present stage of the anti-monopoly movement is characterised by a great variety of ways and means of waging a struggle. Mass rallies, meetings, street demonstrations and, occasionally, occupation of enterprises, stoppage, picketing are some of the ways used to bring pressure to bear on the employers. In France, Italy and some other countries, the tactics of the strike movement now seems to be intent on using go-slows and "selected targets" strikes, in which the stoppage is confined to the particular unit, section, time or production cycle that can do the greatest harm to an employer's interests, thus limiting his opportunities for repressive action against all the workers.
Workers have recently resorted to such wide-spread forms of struggle as striking without warning management, " staggered" strikes (brief stoppages by individual shops in turns, thus disorganising an enterprise's operation), and "strikes in reverse'', when work continues at enterprises even though they are shut down. The Italian working people have made use of so-called "articular struggle" (i.e., divided into parts or differentiated), whereby action taken at individual enterprises is coordinated within the framework of a given group or industry. Moreover, the forms of struggle quickly change: strikes at enterprises alternate with strikes in particular economic sectors, and actions in individual regions and towns alternate with nation-wide measures. So-called ``wildcat'' strikes, staged spontaneously without trade union sanction, are becoming more and more common in some countries.
Concerted action by the working people of the Common Market countries against the international monopolies' reactionary policy is now an important factor in the class struggle which is being waged on an ever wider scale throughout the world. West European workers, for instance, have demonstrated their greater preparedness to offset the international monopolies by forming an international workingpeople front. At their conferences in Brussels and Geneva, the metal workers' and food industry workers' trade unions discussed specific measures for coordinating their activities against the anti-labour acts of the international concerns. Owing to their coordinated activities on an international scale, the trade unions of an international chemical company 164 succeeded in forcing the management to abandon plans for closing down three enterprises---one in Breda (the Netherlands), another in Wuppertal (FRG) and the third in Ghent (Belgium) and dismissing over 6,000 workers.
Class battles are now being intensively waged in all the developed capitalist countries. In France, the 24-hour general strike on June 7, 1972, in which four million people participated at the call of the General Confederation of Labour, became the largest strike since the Red May of 1968. The airport controllers' strike in February and March 1973 stopped almost all flights in the country. The dismissal of 7,000 so-called "specialised workers" (poorly skilled low-paid working people employed at the production line) for "technical reasons" at France's large Renault automobile works on Marh 29, 1973, caused an acute social conflict lasting many weeks. Strikes were simultaneously staged at the Peugeot automobile factory and several other works in the country. Describing the intensity of the class battles in the country, Andre Berthelot, Secretary of the General Confederation of Labour, declared that the "whole labour world is seething''.~^^1^^ In the summer of 1973, sharp conflicts going far beyond the local framework broke out at the large aluminium works in Nogaro in the southwest of France and at the enterprises of LIP, a well-known clock and watch firm, in Besancon.
One vivid demonstration of the workers' solidarity was the rally held on the trade union organisations' initiative in Paris on August 17, 1973, in support of the workers of the LIP factory, which had been occupied a few days earlier by policemen. The courageous struggle waged by the workers of that factory against its shut-down was considered at a meeting held in Paris by the country's leading trade union organisations and left-wing parties. The meeting was attended by the leaders of the trade union centres of the General Confederation of Labour, the French Democratic Confederation of Labour and Ilie National Federation of Education and Culture as well as by representatives of the French Communist Party, the Socialist Party, the Left Radicals' movement and the United Socialist Party. Their resolution expressed firm support for the workers' actions. These _-_-_
~^^1^^ Pravda, April 22, 1973.
165 manifestations of the left forces' solidarity with the working people of one enterprise show that the French working-class movement is highly united and very strong. French workers held powerful strikes recently, too.On October 7 and 23, 1976, national days of action were held in France. They were organised jointly by the General Confederation of Labour, the French Democratic Confederation of Labour and the National Federation of Education and Culture. Moreover, on February 15--25, 1977, a week of action in defence of employment was held in the country on the initiative of these trade union amalgamations. The working people staged a large scale strike in Lorraine on May 13, 1977, when all the trade-union amalgamations participated together for the first time in many years. May 24 and December 1, 1977, saw the largest national strikes since the crisis of May and June 1968---against the government's "stringent economy" plan (which adversely affected the working people's socio-economic position). In all, more than 17 million people took part in them.
Large-scale actions by the working class in Italy are characterised by their salient political orientation: the workers link their direct economic demands with the demand for important reforms on a country-wide scale. The workers' main demands are the consolidation of the public sector of industry, measures to solve the problem of the South, the elimination of mass unemployment, the democratisation of the educational system, cheaper medical aid, changes in the housing policy, and the solution of many other pressing social problems. Thus, a struggle is in fact being waged for the reform of Italian society's existing structures.
Strikes were recently staged by the workers of the chemical, metallurgical, metal-processing, mining, automobile, timber, textile, footwear and other industries and by municipal transport drivers, merchant seamen, railwaymen and builders. On two occasions, i.e., in January and February 1973, the working people in Italy were forced to resort to nation-wide strikes in order to defend their vital rights. During the strikes, tens of millions of working people stopped work in industry, agriculture and transport, at stateowned and private enterprises, and in the trade and public service spheres. For many years now Italy has been one of the most strike-ridden countries in Western Europe.
The working people's unity and solidarity are forged in 166 the class struggle. At a rally in Milan, Bruno Trento, one of the leaders of the metal workers' trade union, said that the rally was a reply by a mature proletariat, which was fighting for its own earnings while remaining sensitive to the call of the heroic Vietnamese people---a proletariat which defended its own labour interests but was ready to go to Reggio Calabria to defend the right to work of those who have no work. Moreover, when 1.5 million metal workers staged their strike in Milan and other cities at the beginning of February 1973, office employees, students, traders, handicraftsmen and workers of other enterprises voluntarily contributed money to their fund.
From October 1974 to January 1975 alone, four powerful general strikes were staged on the initiative of the federation of the leading trade union amalgamations, i.e., the General Union of Italian Workers, the Italian Confederation of the Working People's Trade Unions and the Italian Union of Labour, which have a total membership of seven million working people. Their protest was directed against the monopolies' plans to shift the burden of Italy's crisis situation onto the workers' shoulders. About 13 million workers and office employees right throughout industry and agriculture went out on strike in December 1975, and 18 million people staged a general strike in March 1976.
Strikes have recently become unprecedentedly wide-spread in Britain. More strikes were staged there in 1968 and 1969 than in the entire previous period since the war. In 1970, there were 3,888 strikes involving 1,784,000 people, and about 11 million workdays were lost, i.e., 70 per cent more than in 1969. In 1971, a wave of anti-government class strikes, rallies and demonstrations swept through the country. Class battles of a scale unprecedented in recent decades were waged in 1972, when the class struggle reached its culminating point, but in 1973 it became even more intensive and effective. A general strike involving more than five million people was staged in Britain for the first time since 1926.
The struggle by the Scottish shipyard workers on the Clyde was especially important. Clydebank has four shipyards with 8,500 workers. The shipbuilders' struggle began when, in June 1971, the government supported the experts' recommendation to reduce 6,000 jobs and close down at least two shipyards (owned by Upper Clyde Shipbuilders). 167 As a result of the struggle, the government was forced to relent.
The strike at the Fine Tube factory in Plymouth became the longest in British history. It lasted almost three years. The dispute was over the recognition of a trade union at the factory, which belonged to the Superior Tube Company, a US corporation in Pennsylvania. The factory did not have a single trade union member for a long time because the American employers gave jobs only to those who were not associated with the trade union movement. Consequently, wages at the factory were 2-3 times lower than at other similar enterprises. Machine-builders in Coventry, builders in Birmingham, miners in South Wales, dockers in Liverpool, printers in London, shipbuilders in Glasgow and many others took part in the nation-wide picket in support of the strikers in March 1973. As many as 3.8 million workdays were lost because of strikes in Britain only in six months of 1975 alone. In the USA, the working-class movement is becoming more and more massive and organised. Time magazine commented on the change in the American workers' social psychology and political stand: The blue collars, who once appeared to accept stoically the role of adherents of the "silent majority'', are today makingtheir voice heard, a thing almost unknown since the turbulent 1930s. And the voice is loud and determined.
The new trends in the working-class movement in the USA are especially distinct in the country's major industrial centres, where the American workers' strongest, most organised and most active forces are concentrated. There are over 20 million union members in the USA, 2.6 million of whom are in New York State, 1.6 million in Pennsylvania, 2.1 million in California, and about two million in the three Northwestern states of Ohio, Michigan and Illinois. The stands which major labour unions in certain economic sectors are taking on the fundamental socio-economic and political questions differ more and more frequently from the views held by such AFL-CIO bosses as George Meany.
Recent public opinion polls in the USA showed that the workers constituted the highest percentage of Americans opposed to war. A typical new tendency in the strike movement was illustrated by the strike staged by 150,000 workers of General Electric. Beginning in October 1969, it involved 168 150 factories in 33 states and lasted almost a hundred days. At the end of that year, the workers of many automobile assembly plants belonging to General Motors simultaneously stopped work in several cities without the labour union leaders' consent. They demanded that the production lines should move slower. In May 1969, 44,000 miners declared a two-week strike on the initiative of rank-and-file union members, without the labour union leaders' consent. During the strike, work was completely stopped at all mines in West Virginia. The miners demanded that the state authorities should pass an act whereby miners with lung disorders would be properly compensated. The miners of the neighbouring coal-mining states, i.e., Ohio and Pennsylvania, staged a solidarity strike.
In the USA, the number and scale of strikes are steadily growing, rank-and-file union members are becoming more active, the struggle for international trade union solidarity is intensifying, and radical tendencies, especially among young workers, are becoming more wide-spread. Over one thousand strikes were staged in the country in the first quarter of 1978 alone. Indeed, the strike movement since the war clearly shows that the development of the scientific and technological revolution does not reduce the effectiveness and scale of strikes. On the contrary, scientific and technological progress is accompanied by a steadily intensifying class struggle.
At the end of April 1975, over 70,000 Americans from New York, Newark, Buffalo, Detroit, Chicago, Pittsburg, Philadelphia, Boston and many other cities went to Washington to protest against mass unemployment. The US press noted that it was the most wide-scale action by the working people in defence of their rights in Washington since March 1932, when American First World War veterans, driven to despair, advanced on the capital during the Great Depression. No fewer than 4,418 strikes were registered in the USA in the first nine months of 1975 alone, and over 100,000 people were on strike daily in the spring of 1976. A nine-month continental campaign for disarmament and social justice ended in October 1976.
According to the Department of Labour's Bureau of Labour Statistics, 5,600 strikes, involving 2.3 million strikers, were staged in the USA in 1977. As many as 47 per cent of them occurred in the manufacturing industry. The largest 169 was the strike staged by 43,600 working people of the glass industry. In the aircraft and aerospace industries, 41,600 workers went on strike at the Boeing Airplane Company and the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation. As many as 17 per cent of all strikes were staged in the mining industry. The largest of them was the nation-wide strike by 60,000 coal miners. The strike by 15,000 iron-ore miners lasted from August 1 to December 16, 1977.
A characteristic feature of the development of the class struggle in the USA is large-scale strikes at the enterprises of the country's major corporations in the automobile, electrical, rubber, coal, textile, clothing and other industries. The miners' national strike which ended on March 25, 1978, lasted 110 days. It was one of the largest and longest actions by the proletariat in the history of the American working-class movement. Behind the conflict in the coal-mining industry was the movement "for a just collective agreement in 1977''. One of the main demands in the struggle to renew the collective agreement was the demand to give the local unions the right to strike. This demand, which made the workers' adversaries especially furious, stemmed from the struggle to guarantee safe working conditions demanded by the miners. In mid-December 1977, the newspaper Daily World wrote that "safety is a major demand" in the strike.
The working-class movement in the USA began to defend the labour unions. Over 250 labour unions established a coalition in order to help the strikers. The United Automobile Workers gave two million dollars to the miners, and steel smelters collected one million dollars for miners of pensionable age. However, the terms of the new collective agreement are of a compromise nature. They ensure higher pay and larger pensions, but do not satisfy the demand to equalise the pensions of miners who retired before and after 1976: miners who retired before that year are to receive 40 per cent of the sum paid to those who retired later. Moreover, the miners' main demand, i.e., the right to stage local strikes, was not properly reflected in the agreement. The simultaneous use of such methods of struggle as work to rule, picketing, and alternating work stoppages at different shops at an enterprise made strikes in certain economic sectors very effective.
According to the US Department of Labour, in 1977, 500--600 strikes were staged in the USA every month, and 170 in the first quarter of 1978, there were more than one thousand strikes, involving hundreds of thousands of Americans; this figure is the highest for 28 years.
In his speech at the 21st Convention of the Communist Party of the USA, the Party's General Secretary, Gus Hall, said: "Most of the initiatives, most of the participants in the mass actions around the economic questions have come from the shops and from the trade union movement. The main source of the stimulation for struggle has come from the organised rank and file movements. But there is a broad, deep ferment in the rank and file base of the working class that keeps surfacing and influencing events.''~^^1^^
One qualitatively new feature of the US working-class movement in recent years is the great success of progressive forces headed by the Communists in setting up a united front. An interesting fact in this respect is that union members have become more active and many progressives have been elected to supervisory posts: from shop stewards to members of the national union bodies. For instance, Edward Sadlowski, who defended the workers and favoured an alliance of the left forces, was elected leader of a major regional branch of 31 steelworkers' labour unions. He replaced its former leader, who, for a quarter of a century, had pursued a policy of class collaboration to the benefit of the union bureaucrats. The progressive forces were successful also in their struggle to elect Arnold Miller to the presidency of the United Mine Workers of America. Other influential union amalgamations (the International Longshoremen's Association, the United Electrical, Badio and Machine Workers of America, etc.) are disagreeing more and more frequently with the bankrupt policy pursued by the AFL-CIO leaders. The National Chairman of the Communist Party of the USA, Henry Winston, emphasised: "Notwithstanding all the ruling clique's efforts to force the working-class movement into the channel of opportunism, the proletariat's class struggle is assuming a wider scale. At the same time, the working class is the central force in the democratic anti-monopoly movement."~^^2^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ Gus Hall, The Crisis of U.S. Capitalism, and the Fight-Back. Report to the 21st Convention of the Communist Party, USA, Now York, 1975, p. 53.
~^^2^^ See H. Winston, ``The Communist Party of the USA in the Struggle for the Working-People's Interests'', Partiinaya Zhizn, No. 12, 1976, p. 73.
171The questions of the working class's ultimate and immediate tasks and of the correlation and nature of the workingclass parties' minimum and maximum programmes are very important at the present stage of world revolutionary development. The unquestionable growth of the workingclass movement in all the developed capitalist countries and the absence of long pauses in strike battles show that the working class is becoming increasingly aware of its world historic mission and is organising and uniting its forces in the struggle against the entire system of state-monopoly capitalism. The workers engaged in industry, transportation and communications are clearly in the vanguard of the antimonopoly struggle. They play a greater part in the strike movement than wage workers engaged in such sectors of the economy as trade, finance, and public services.
Besides the strong attraction and examples of socialism in different spheres, the peace-loving policy pursued by socialist countries is exerting ever greater influence on the working class of capitalist countries. The message of greetings sent to Leonid Brezhnev by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the USA and signed by its National Chairman, Henry Winston, and its General Secretary, Gus Hall, said: "Your visit here reflects a historic shift in USSoviet relations. It reflects a shift in the world class relations. You represent the class on whose shoulders history has placed the responsibility of leading civilisation to a new and higher plateau of universal peace, profound social progress and fraternity of peoples.''~^^1^^
The working class also plays the leading role in the peace movement, which is the broadest movement today in terms of numerical strength and composition. As the producer of all material wealth, the working class is the main force and mass basis of the peace champions' movement both in Europe and America. Based on national peace committees and mass movements by people of good will and their organisations in more than a hundred countries, this movement opposes any threat to peace and presses for coexistence between states with different social systems, universal and complete disarmament, and solidarity with the peoples of the colonial countries fighting for liberation and independence.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Daily World, June 19, 1973.
172The working class played an extremely important role in the World Congress of Peace Forces held in Moscow at the end of October 1973. The Congress became an important factor in the activities of public movements throughout the world. Describing how public forces can really influence both the maintenance of peace and the consolidation of nations' security today, the Secretary General of the World Peace Council, Romesh Chandra, said: "While it is true that, in the setting of state-monopoly capitalism, the monopolies increasingly shape foreign policy, it is also true that there is a countervailing tendency, namely, that leading circles in imperialist countries are more and more compelled to reckon with international realities, with the peoples' will for peace, of which our movement is the concentrated expression.''~^^1^^
The World Federation of Trade Unions, the national union centres which are associated with it, and all democratic trade union organisations and amalgamations are making a big contribution to the struggle for peace.
The atmosphere in which British peace champions set off on their traditional march in the spring of 1973 indicates the gathering momentum of the working-class movement for peace. Miners wearing white helmets, shipbuilders from the Upper Clyde shipyards and representatives of other industries, office employees and students marched through the streets of Glasgow, Scotland's major industrial centre. The marchers also included leaders of the Communist Party of Great Britain, two MPs, namely, Hugh Gater Jenkins and Neil George Carmichael, Lord George Mac Leod, and other prominent British figures.
Experience since the war clearly shows that the proletariat and other working sections of the population of capitalist countries can better develop their class struggle for democratic rights and vital interests under the conditions of peaceful coexistence. The high-principled class policy pursued by the socialist countries has forced the ruling circles of the major imperialist states to recognise the realities of the present epoch. Under the conditions of world peace and peaceful coexistence, the working class is waging a broad struggle against monopoly rule and for the national _-_-_
~^^1^^ World Marxist Review, No. 5, 1973, p. 41.
173 liberation and social emancipation of oppressed and dependent peoples.The working-class movement is massive and continues to grow in scale, llius showing that it plays the leading and organising role in the anti-monopoly struggle. Large working-class masses arc now participating in the movement. In spite of the attempts made by revisionists of different stripes to belittle the role of the working class in the revolutionary process, it acts in developed capitalist countries as the main adversary of imperialism and the most consistent fighter for peace, democracy and social progress.
At the same time, the working class is directly linking its struggle for partial demands at the democratic, anti-- monopoly stage with strategic tasks, thus actually confirming Lenin's conclusion that, by its active struggle, it is capable of transforming "half-hearted and hypocritical 'reforms' under the existing system into strong-points for an advancing working-class movement"~^^1^^ on the road to the triumph of socialism. On this road, the working class is also the centre of attraction for all anti-monopoly forces, and its opportunities for influencing other sections of the population are constantly widening.
_-_-_~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``Conference of the Extended Editorial Board of Proletary'', Collected Works, Vol. 15, p. 440.
[174] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter VI __ALPHA_LVL1__ THE PEASANTRY AND ITS PLACEThe scale, depth and success of the working-class revolutionary movement largely depend on the extent of participation by the broad non-proletarian sections of working people, especially the peasants. At the present time the peasant question is clearly an extremely important aspect of the broad problem of working-class allies.
The term ``peasantry'' has different meanings depending on the socio-economic formations with which it is associated. In particular, it is a collective noun denoting all those engaged in agriculture. In feudal society it was a more or less homogeneous class, but as capitalist relations originated within feudal society and capitalism developed, it " depeasantises'',~^^1^^ as Lenin put it, i.e., in conditions when a peasant's labour includes other forms besides wage labour, the peasantry divides into the rural proletariat and the rural bourgeoisie (big, middle, petty and very small bourgeoisie).^^2^^ As Lenin pointed out, capitalist society has three classes, i.e., the proletariat, the bourgeoisie and the petty bourgeoisie,~^^3^^ which consists of "the small proprietors, primarily the peasants".^^4^^
The peasantry only remains a more or less homogeneous social and class group in countries where capitalism has still not reached a sufficiently high level of development in agriculture. In Marxist-Leninist literature today, the concept of "working peasantry" embraces not only the " agricultural proletariat" but also numerous small farm producers _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``The Development of Capitalism in Russia'', Collected Works, Vol. 3, p. 173.
~^^2^^ See V. I. Lenin, ``The Agrarian Question and the 'Critics of Marx''', Collected Works, Vol. 5, pp. 115--16.
~^^3^^ See V. I. Lenin, ``Can the Bolsheviks Retain State Power?'', Collected Works, Vol. 26, p. 97.
~^^4^^ Ibid., p. 124.
175 who simultaneously own land and work it in developed capitalist countries, i.e., the small rural bourgeoisie.Agriculture substantially changed as capitalism developed from the pre-monopoly stage to the imperialist stage. Bourgeois ideologists and revisionists have long sought to prove that Marx's theory of the concentration of production does not apply to agricultural processes. Even at the beginning of this century the revisionist and reformist theorist, Eduard Bernstein, a leader of an extreme opportunist wing in the German Social-Democratic movement and the Second International, tried to prove that this theory of Marx's was ``bankrupt'' by taking the example of the capitalist countries' agricultural development. He wrote: "As for agriculture, when it comes to the size of farms, we are now witnessing a movement---everywhere in Europe and partially in America---which seems to run counter to everything which the socialist theory has propagated until now.''~^^1^^
Referring to the examples of Germany, Holland, Belgium, France and Britain, Bernstein maintained that the number of large farms was diminishing and the number of small and medium-sized farms was growing there.^^2^^ He wrote that this was true throughout the whole of Western Europe and also in the eastern states of the USA. In Russia, petty-- bourgeois theorists maintained that the differentiation, i.e., class stratification, of the peasantry was not occurring in agriculture, and that, conversely, the ``working'' peasants' medium-sized farms were growing and being consolidated in the place of large and small farms, i.e., the tendency in the countryside was allegedly towards equalisation.
Today, bourgeois theorists and revisionists are in essence repeating Bernstein's theses. They continue to defend the theory of the ``stability'' and ``immutability'' of the small peasant farm and its later variant, the "family farm'', alleging that the Marxist-Leninist teaching on the concentration of production and capital is not universal, i.e., it does not apply to agricultural processes in capitalist countries, and that the "family farm" is the immutable basis of capitalism even today. Moreover, they are increasingly using the concept of "family farm" without the word ``small'' and _-_-_
~^^1^^ Eduard Bernstein, Die Voraussetzungen des Sozialismus und die Aufgaben der Sozialdemokratie, Stuttgart, 1899, S. 61.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 64.
176 describing agricultural processes as a simple transformation of that farm.According to available data, however, the intensified penetration of monopoly capital into all agricultural fields and the extension of the laws of the capitalist market to agriculture inevitably lead to the concentration, monopolisation and centralisation of production and capital in agriculture. In particular, the structure of agriculture has changed. The share of agriculture in the economy has diminished in comparison with that of industry. In capitalist countries a century ago, the majority of the gainfully employed population worked in agriculture, which accounted for at least one-half of every country's national income. But on the threshold of the 1970s, rural dwellers constituted only 5-18 per cent of the population in most of the developed capitalist countries, while agriculture accounted for a mere 3-10 per cent of the national income.
In capitalist countries, industry underwent radical changes as early as the 19th century, while farm equipment did not change greatly until the mid-20th century. Consequently, there was a wide gap between the latest scientific and technological achievements in industry and their implementation in agriculture. But the situation changed in the mid-1950s. During recent decades, agricultural development in capitalist countries has been characterised by definite structural, technological and socio-economic changes, which have aggravated social contradictions to the utmost.
With the gradual replacement of the traditional means of production, agriculture entered the stage of mechanised production and began to develop on an industrial basis. On the eve of the 1970s, for instance, France had one million tractors, as against 35,000 in 1938. In 1957, the power of the tractors sold in the country averaged 23 hp, while in 1968 it was as much as 34 hp. According to Louis Perceval, a specialist in agriculture, French agriculture consequently reached the level of technical mechanisation and entered the period of overall mechanisation.
Agriculture has undergone far greater changes since 1936 than it did in the preceding 100 or so years. Between the mid-1940s and the mid-1960s, the number of tractors in use increased almost eight-fold in Italy, six-fold in the FRG, and almost nine-fold in Denmark. In the USA, the __PRINTERS_P_177_COMMENT__ 12---2560 177 power of wheel tractors produced in 1907 averaged 66 hp, as against 29 hp in 1950.
Using their advantages in the competitive struggle and relying on stale assistance, large capitalist farms began to employ up-to-date equipment, implement modern agronomy, and electrify the production process and introduce chemicals into it. Changes in the material and technical basis of production are turning agriculture in developed capitalist countries into a component of a single economic system known as the agro-industrial complex or ``agribusiness'', which covers all fields of farm production.
This has resulted in the rise of a few economically powerful, mechanised farms and large specialised enterprises. In 1939, for instance, the USA had 29,000 farms producing a marketable output worth 40,000 dollars or more (in 1959 prices), but they accounted for only 8 per cent of the country's marketable farm output. A quarter of a century later, however, the number of such farms had risen to 142,000 and their share of the marketable output was as much as 43 per cent. Another example is the FRG, where a small group of big capitalists not only hold sway in the country's principal economic sectors, i.e., the chemical, manufacturing, ironand-ore, machine-building and electrical industries as well as in banking and insurance, but also dominate agriculture.
Agriculture in developed capitalist countries is now a sphere of a ruthless struggle between the West European and US monopolies. As US capital expanded on a wide scale into Western Europe, by taking advantage of the profit-sharing system and setting up branches of their own, American monopolists penetrated into some countries' food industry. National Dairy Product, General Foods Corporation, Nabisco and some other major US food monopolies took over the key positions in this branch of West European industry. They thus gained the opportunity to control the prices of farm produce and began to act also as wholesale purchasers.
Agriculture is being re-equipped everywhere in capitalist countries, but this process is irregular and extremely painful for most peasants. It is large capitalist enterprises which mainly profit from the implementation of technical innovations. Moreover, the capitalist state allocates money to them for agricultural purposes. The scientific and technological revolution in industrialised countries has radically changed the broad peasant masses' socio-economic position. 178 By worsening their hardships, it has objectively promoted their proletarianisation and, consequently, their growing convergence with the working class.
By pretending to "improve the outdated agrarian structure" and promote capitalist rationalisation, the ruling circles in capitalist countries are using agrarian legislation and several other so-called state control measures to step up the elimination of small and medium-sized farms as unprofitable and unviable, and to consolidate large farms.
As we have already seen, the capitalist countries' rural population has sharply decreased. Thus, in France, for instance, it constituted 45 per cent of the gainfully employed population at the beginning of this century. By 1954, this proportion was down to 27 per cent, and by the beginning of the 1970s, it was 13 per cent. It is continuing to diminish. According to official data, the country's active rural population declines every year by 150,000 people, 50 per cent of whom are under 40 years of age. Specialists have estimated that the number of farm workers will fall to 8 per cent of the gainfully employed population by 1980 and to 3 per cent by the end of this century.
By 1971, Italy had 3,614,000 farms, or 680,000 less than a decade ago. In the 1960s, her rural population diminished, on the average, by 300,000 persons a year, or by 5.5 per cent, while at the beginning of the 1970s, the figure rose to 8.4 per cent. Between 1951 and 1975, Italy's rural population decreased from 8.5 million to 2.9 million.
The FRG Minister of Agriculture, Josef Ertl, admitted that more than 500,000 West German peasant farms went out of existence in the country between the beginning of the 1950s and 1970. In 1970 alone, there were 98,333 officially registered cases. In the period 1949--75, 902,784 peasant farms went bankrupt, as a result of which 3.3 million people were forced to abandon the sphere of agricultural production. According to official statistics, the rural population constituted 22 per cent of the gainfully employed population in 1900, 14.9 per cent in 1939, 12 per cent in 1955, and 10.87 per cent in 1965. In Sweden, those engaged in agriculture and fishing constituted about 8 per cent of the gainfully employed population at the end of the 1960s. In 1980, this figure is expected to be 3-4 per cent. From 1973 to 1978, the number of Swedish peasant farms diminished by 19,000. In Denmark, about 50 per cent of all peasants will soon be __PRINTERS_P_181_COMMENT__ 12* 179 forced out of agriculture production. In Britain, only 3 per cent of the gainfully employed population was engaged in agriculture at the beginning of the 1970s, as against 22 per cent in the mid-19th century.
Similar processes are occurring in agriculture in the USA and Canada. The New Programme of the Communist Party of the USA emphasised that the traditional exploitation by processors, suppliers, bankers, and railroads, had been aggravated "by giant corporations moving into agriculture with millions in capital to set up 'factories in the field' and engage in 'agribusiness'".^^1^^ In the USA, 11 million people migrated from the countryside to towns between 1940 and 1960, to be followed by another 2.5 million people in the 1960s. According to official statistics, less than 5 per cent of the country's gainfully employed population was engaged in agriculture at the beginning of the 1970s. Between 1970 and 1980, the rural population is expected to decline from 3,728,000 to 3,159,000, i.e., by 569,000. Moreover, the former US Secretary of Agriculture, Earl Lauer Butz, estimated that the number of farms would diminish from 2,800,000 to 1,750,000 during that period.
When small and medium-sized farms are ruined and put out of business, it does not mean that they are immediately or necessarily expropriated by force, although this process is usually a rapid one. Lenin said: "Displacement also implies the ruin of the small farmers and a worsening of conditions on their farms, a process that may go on for years and decades. This deterioration assumes a variety of forms, such as the small farmer's overwork or malnutrition, his heavy debts, worse feed and poorer care of livestock in general, poorer husbandry---cultivation, fertilisation and the like---as well as technical stagnation on the farm, etc.''~^^2^^ This is the process which is now occurring, accompanied by a concentration process. It is involving not only small, but also medium-sized farms, on a growing scale.
In order to increase the accumulation sources for financing the expansion and modernisation of industrial and agricultural production, the monopolies of developed capitalist countries have intensified exploitation of the working class, _-_-_
~^^1^^ New Program of the Communist Party, USA, New York, 1970, p. 17.
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, "New Data on the Laws Governing the Development of Capitalism in Agriculture'', Collected Works, Vol. 22, p. 70.
180 mounted an offensive against the broad peasant masses and begun to appropriate an ever greater part of the surplus value produced in agriculture. The authorities have raised the prices of industrial commodities, farm machinery, building materials, mineral fertilisers, industrially produced fodder, and food products, such as sugar, bread and butter, which the peasants buy in stores. However, they are not taking measures to raise purchase prices for the products sold by peasants; on the contrary, these prices are even falling.Consequently, the conditions are being created for more intensive exploitation of the peasants by banking capital. In an effort to make both ends meet, the peasant is forced to go to a bank and get a loan by mortgaging his property. If the peasant turns out to be insolvent when he is asked to honour his promissory notes, all his mortgaged property, including land, farm equipment, livestock and various buildings, is auctioned off to pay his debts. Thus, banks, food and trade companies, and big wholesale agents who process and sell finished products make fat profits by selling industrial commodities at high monopoly prices, while they purchase farm produce at ever lower prices and grant loans.
While formally remaining an independent owner, the farmer is actually becoming a wage worker. A special inquiry made by the department of rural capital construction in France showed that the drop in the rural working people's living standards had brought the country's agriculture in the mid-20th century down to the level which existed in the late 19th century; the net income of every farm worker had decreased by 25 per cent against the 1914 level and by 10 per cent against the 1882 level. It was noted at the 22nd FCP Congress that a peasant's purchasing power had diminished by 18.2 per cent in the period 1960--75 alone. Moreover, it has been estimated that 50 per cent of the money allocated by the state for cultivating grain crops goes not to the farmers, but to various intermediaries: owners of mills, transport facilities, granaries, and so forth.
In the USA, as in other capitalist countries, the prices of farm machinery and other equipment and of fuel and fertilisers have continued to rise recently, while the ratio between the American farmers' incomes and the necessary outlays, i.e., their net income, has steadily diminished. Referring to the continued drop of purchase prices for meat, William House, President of the US National Association of 181 Cattle Breeders, said that the farmers were treated worse than the racial minority groups. Such a situation has not existed since the 1930s.
According to US data, a farmer received an average of 47 cents from each dollar's worth of produce sold to the consumer in the 1950, and only 39 cents two decades later. This is because the real owner of the produce is not the farmer, but the fodder supplier, the intermediary or the banker who grants loans at huge rates of interest. Consequently, the annual income of 54 per cent of American farmers is, below 1,888 dollars, while the "poverty line" in the USA is 3,000 dollars a year. At the same time, the 16 per cent big farmers receive 72 per cent of all income from agriculture. In France, the peasants receive only about one-third of the several tens of billions of francs which the consumers pay for foodstuffs, while the rest goes to the intermediaries. In Spain, purchase and sale prices are at a one-to-five proportion.
Mario Melloni, editor-in-chief of the Italian weekly magazine Vie Nuove, said: "The peasants are gripped in the vice of the Christian-Democrat-controlled Federation of Agrarian Consortiums (Federconsorzi), which fixes the prices of produce and of farm machinery, fertilizers and other farming requisites. In addition, there are now the big canning and frozen-food monopolies, which tell the peasant what he is to grow, fix its price (which he has to accept or let his produce rot), and transform him into a sort of' homeworker' under their complete control.''~^^1^^ The so-called Green Plan, i.e., a bill passed in Parliament in 1961 to allocate money to agriculture for reclamation, mechanisation, better marketing of farm produce and improvements in livestock breeding, did not help the small and middle peasants. Although the plan envisaged allocations worth 900,000 million lire in the period 1966--70, these funds were used mainly for developing large farms.
An intensive competitive struggle is being waged as peasants seek to modernise their farms. This lands them further and further in debt. In the FRG, for instance, their outlays on machinery have doubled in the last decade. As a result, West Germany's 1.2 million poasanl farms have debts _-_-_
~^^1^^ Mario Melloni, ``Social Contrasts of Present-Day Italy'', New Times, No. 18, 1968, p. 11.
182 totailing 27,000 million marks---almost as much as the peasants annually earn from selling their produce. Owing to shackling agreements, many peasants actually lose their independence and become wage workers, i.e., they turn into the rural proletariat. No wonder Rehwinkel, the Chairman of the German Peasant Union (FRG), said that the West German peasant was a "modern serf".Farmers' debts in Denmark on the threshold of the 1970s (incurred mainly from mortgaging land) amounted to 22,700 million krones, or 51 per cent of the value of all land, buildings, animals, machinery and equipment belonging to farmers. Moreover, these debts are growing by 2,000 million krones annually. Farmers pay 1,600 million krones a year in interest alone. In other words, one-third of the value of all farm produce was spent on covering the interest on loans and partially paying back debts.
An opinion poll conducted by the Copenhagen Institute of Social Studies (canvassing 1,458 farmers) shows that the "social prestige" of the farmers in general has continued to fall. The peasant's working day is much longer now than it was a decade ago. In 1968, only 15 per cent of all farmers took a holiday, and for 13 per cent of them it amounted to only a week or a few days.
The living conditions of the rural population are far worse than those of the urban population. For instance, 60 per cent of the houses in the rural communes of France were built before 1871. According to surveys conducted by the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies, 41.4 per cent of the rural houses in France do not have running water.
In capitalist countries peasants are not usually covered by any system of social insurance against accidents. In the USA alone, the accident rate on farms at the end of the 1960s was double that of 1950, owing to inadequate safety measures. As many as 200,000 accidents and occupational diseases were officially registered on West German farms in 1974; 1,019 accidents were fatal. Moreover, the peasants are paying higher taxes and larger social security dues. In France, for instance, a rural dweller's social security contributions increased from 129.3 francs in 1962 to 283.2 francs in 1967. The duos paid as insurance against illness increased, on the average, by 237 per cent in the period January 1, 1961, to December 31, 1966, alone.
183The peasants' health is being undermined by hard, exhausting work. P. Sjute, a rural doctor who treated 552 peasant families in the environs of Ringkobing, a town in Denmark, wrote in a medical journal that he had observed serious mental disorders in 162 families. According to him, they were caused by social conditions. Uncertainty about the future, lack of rest and a sense of hopelessness result in cardiac neuroses and constant headaches.
Children born into peasants' families enjoy far less educational opportunities than those born into the families of other social strata. For instance, the number of handicraftsmen's and traders' children studying at French universities is three times the number of peasants' children. Moreover, the larger a peasant's holding, the greater his children's opportunities of receiving general education or vocational training and the higher their level.
Contrary to bourgeois scholars' and politicians' assertions, participation in the Common Market has placed the West European countries' small and medium-sized peasant farms in greater difficulties. The partners' contradictory interests are especially pronounced in agriculture. Events have shown that it is extremely difficult to pursue a common policy in countries which greatly differ in agricultural development: capitalist production is highly developed in the Netherlands and the FRG, while medium-sized peasant farms are more common in France, and semi-feudal relations still remain in the countryside in Italy. It is still profitable for the big farmers of France or the Netherlands to participate in this competitive struggle (in France, for instance, the cost of farm produce is lower and the average size of such farms is the largest), but such competition is exhausting for the small and middle peasants of France and Holland, who are compelled to shoulder its entire burden.
Agriculture is in an especially disadvantageous position in Italy and the FRG, where, for specific reasons, the cost of the produce is, on the average, higher than in other countries belonging to the agrarian Common Market known as Green Europe. The magazine Rinascita wrote that the structural defects of Italian agriculture, the peasants' massive flight from the land, and the increase in the amount of foodstuffs individually consumed by the population have quickly turned Italy into an importer of farm produce and deprived her of the prospect of advantageously using the 184 Common Market s export financing fund. The FRG leads all other Common Market countries industrially, but its small and middle peasants are facing great difficulties, as, indeed, is its entire agriculture. Moreover, the admission of Britain, Denmark and Ireland into the EEC has aggravated the situation. According to official statistics, peasants' production outlays have recently increased by 66 per cent in Ireland, 61 per cent in Britain, 42 per cent in France, and 41 per cent in Denmark.
Thus, the Common Market is also one of the factors aggravating social contradictions in European capitalist countries. Green Europe's agriculture, which is largely disunited, small-scale, and, in some cases, underproductive, cannot successfully compete with the agriculture of the USA and Canada, even if concentration is accelerated. The ruling circles in West European countries are seeking a solution in capitalist ``rationalisation'' within the framework of the Mansholt Plan. According to this plan, five million of the ten million people engaged in agriculture in the Common Market countries will be forced out of this sphere in the period 1970--80.
According to the Mansholt Plan, by 1980 only 7 per cent of the Common Market countries' gainfully employed population will be engaged in agriculture, as against 20 per cent in 1960 and 14 per cent in 1972.
The position of the peasants who are being forced out of agriculture is worsening, because they can no longer find jobs as unskilled workers in towns, as they used to be able to do. At a time when technology is advancing, these peasants are of no interest to mechanised and automated enterprises since, according to The New York Times, their qualifications go no further than knowing how to repair a tractor or drive a team of harnessed oxen. There is nothing else for them to do except join the army of the unemployed in towns, find work, at best, in an unskilled job, or emigrate.
Thus, the industrialisation of agriculture under capitalism is a very contradictory process. On the one hand, the concentration of production is an objective law of society's economic development, being above all the outcome of the development of the means of production. As the agroindustrial complex rapidly develops and technical innovations are implemented in agriculture on a wide scale, 185 agricultural output substantially grows, narrowing down the gap by which it lags behind industrial output.
On the other hand, under state-monopoly capitalism, big capitalist enterprises gain especially from the transformation of the material and technical basis of agricultural production and from the employment of new technology because they have the money to buy new equipment and fertilisers and enough land to use them effectively.
The worsening social contradictions in the countryside completely corroborate Marx's conclusion that "what separates the peasant from the proletariat is, therefore, no longer his real interest, but his delusive prejudice''.~^^1^^ Consequently, objective and subjective prerequisites are being created for greater peasant participation in the antimonopoly struggle. In spite of their vacillations, the working peasants are gradually beginning to see that their vital interests and prospects are fundamentally interconnected with the aims and tasks of the struggle waged by the most progressive social class: the working class.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 2. The Working Peasantry as an AllyThe peasantry's role and place in social development in the epoch of feudal and capitalist formations cannot be properly described without considering the evolution of the socio-economic position, social psychology and political stand of millions of peasants. In the past, and even recently, the peasantry has often been the tool of conservative forces. This was due to the living conditions and social status of the overwhelming majority of peasants and to their highly developed sense of ownership and attachment to their plot of land.
Engels wrote: "The isolation of the peasant in a remote village with a rather small population which changes only with the generations, the hard, monotonous work, which ties him more than any serfdom to the soil and which remains always the same from father to son, the stability and monotony of all his conditions of life, the restricted circumstances in which the family becomes the most important, most decisive social relationship for him---all this reduces _-_-_
~^^1^^ K. Marx and F. Engels, On the Paris Commune, p. 160.
186 the peasant's horizon to the narrowest bounds which are possible in modern society. The great movements of history pass him by, from time to time sweep him along with them, but he has no inkling of the nature of the motive force of these movements, of their origin and their goal.''~^^1^^No wonder reactionary demands were often made by the peasant movements which accompanied the burghers' actions in towns in the Middle Ages and in the 17th and 18th centuries. During the French bourgeois revolution, the peasants only took a revolutionary stance until their immediate demands, i.e., the right to own a plot of land and the abolition of feudal relations, were met. Engels wrote: "Once this was achieved, they turned with all the fury of blind avarice against the movement of the big towns which they failed to understand and especially against the movement in Paris."~^^2^^
In the 19th century, the peasantry acted only occasionally as allies of the revolutionary proletariat. In countries where the bourgeois-democratic revolution had already taken place, the peasantry realised its anti-feudal ambitions, while its class stratification did not reach the stage where an overwhelming or substantial part of it became allies of the proletariat. This was the case, for instance, in France. In other countries where the objectives of the bourgeois-democratic revolution were not achieved in the countryside, the peasantry, which acted together with other revolutionary forces during the rise of popular movements, occasionally helped the proletariat in its struggle in some places. This was the case in the German states and the Austrian Empire during the revolution of 1848--49. When the Habsburgs ruled the country, progressive national movements were mostly peasant in their social composition. In some cases, however, the peasantry served as the tool of the reactionary forces because of its economic, social and political backwardness. These forces sought to use it to suppress all revolutionary movements.
When the Bourbons returned to France and the aristocracy tried to get back the estates it had lost during the revolution, the peasants resolutely supported the revolution of July 1830, as a result of which they kept their lands. _-_-_
~^^1^^ Frederick Engels, "From Paris to Berne''. In: Karl Marx, Frederick Eugels, Collected Works, Vol. 7, pp. 519--20.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 520.
187 But as soon as they had achieved their aim, they lost all further interest in the country's future. Therefore, individual socialist initiatives were reduced to naught by the French peasants' reactionary voting during the revolution of 1848. The peasants could not understand the real nature of the revolution of February 1848 in France, a revolution in which the proletariat made independent demands for the first time, and the fiercest measures were taken against revolutionary Paris. This was largely promoted by bourgeois propaganda, according to which Parisian workers "wanted to share all property and all the land''. Engels wrote: "I have spoken to hundreds of peasants in the most diverse regions of France, and all were in the grip of this fanatical hatred of Paris and especially the workers of Paris.... The peasants, the countryside must save France; the countryside produces everything, the towns live off our corn, dress in our flax and our wool, we must restore the proper order of things; we peasants must take charge of affairs ourselves---this was the eternal refrain that sounded, more or less clearly, more or less deliberately, through all the peasant confused talk."^^1^^The peasantry was the bourgeoisie's ally during the bourgeois revolutions which were led^ by the liberal bourgeoisie in the West. Subsequently, the big bourgeoisie often used the broad peasant masses in its interests, regarding them as a factor of stability and social conservatism, unlike the industrial proletariat, which was inherently revolutionary. William Gutteridge, a military expert, said: "British imperialism always chose the peasants for the colonial armies.... The reason was that the peasants were found to be more docile, 'loyal' and 'reliable'."~^^2^^
In Britain, which, unlike France, did not have many small peasant owners, the government often tried to create small peasant property when unemployment grew sharply and the strike movement snowballed, as it assumed that the peasants were the best bulwark against socialism. FrancoisH. de Virieu, a well-known French specialist in agriculture, also indicates this. He wrote that in those days the "French ruling class took an interest in the peasants only as creators of foodstuffs, or as sources of men for waging war, money for _-_-_
~^^1^^ Frederick Engels, "From Paris to Berne''. In: Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, Collected Works, Vol. 7, p. 522.
~^^2^^ See Marxism Today, March 1969, p. 72.
188 developing commerce and industry and votes for winning political power".^^1^^However, other, socially engendered, factors became increasingly important as capitalism developed and the peasantry became stratified, i.e., when the numerically small upper crust possessing a lot of land began employ wage labour, while most small peasants became impoverished. The peasants gradually began to regard the oppression and exploitation of big capital as antagonistic class relations between big capitalists and small farmers. The realities of life increasingly convinced them that they could enjoy their rights only in alliance with the working class.
There are many examples in history of spontaneous, disunited actions by peasants being defeated. This was the case during the Peasants' War in Germany in 1525 and the Jacquerie in France. The uprisings led by Wat Tyler in Britain and by Bolotnikov, Razin and Pugachev in Russia and other mass actions by peasants also failed. Although the peasants were embittered by dreadful oppression, it was often difficult to stimulate them to revolt, because their disunity created great obstacles to common understanding.
Engels noted that "... the peasants and plebeians in most parts of Germany failed to unite for joint action and stood in each other's way''. This resulted in the "... fragmentation of the class struggle and the resulting total defeat of the revolutionary and partial defeat of the burgher movements''. The peasants of every province "...acted only for themselves, as a rule refusing aid to the insurgent peasants of the neighbouring regions, and were consequently annihilated in separate battles one after another by armies which in most cases were hardly one-tenth the total number of the insurgent masses''.^^2^^
The experience of the peasantry down the centuries shows that they only became successful in their emancipation struggle when the working class entered the world arena as a decisive force of world development and began to head the struggle. The three revolutions in Russia and the development of other socialist countries clearly showed the importance of alliances between the working class and the toiling peasantry. A vivid example of this is the German _-_-_
~^^1^^ Francois-H. de Virieu, La fin dune agriculture, Paris, 1967, p. 23.
~^^2^^ Frederick Engels, "The Peasant War in Germany''. In: Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, Collected Works, Vol. 10, p. 481.
189 Democratic Republic: the first workers' and peasants' state on German soil. Assisted by the working class and acting in alliance with it, the German peasantry achieved what it could not achieve during the Peasants' War of the Kith century, the bourgeois-democratic revolution in 1848--49, and the period following the revolution of November 1918. Consequently, the social foundations of the Junkers were completely eradicated.The First Secretary of the Bulgarian Communist Party Central Committee and the Chairman of the State Council of the People's Republic of Bulgaria, Todor Zhivkov, has emphasised that the socialist social order creates the necessary objective and subjective conditions for realising the concentration of production according to plan, and for doing so to the extent and in the forms which best suit a country's present and future development. In this respect, it is possible to achieve wide-scale concentration not by ruining farm workers, as is the case under capitalism, but only through their most active participation and with the greatest benefit for them and the whole of society. This is one of the great advantages of socialism over the capitalist system.
At the same time, the experience of the Great October Socialist Revolution and the world revolutionary movement fully corroborated the prediction by the founders of scientific communism that only through the support of working people in the countryside, "... the proletarian revolution will obtain that chorus without which its solo song becomes a swan song in all peasant countries'',^^1^^ and that the working class could only fulfil its world historic mission when it had a strong alliance with the broad non-proletarian sections of working people, especially the toiling peasantry.
In the 19th century, to say nothing of earlier periods, the peasants participated only partially in the revolutionary movement, and their participation was confined first and foremost to the national liberation movement. But in the present epoch, the toiling peasantry is becoming more and more directly involved in the social emancipation struggle, because the broad peasant masses are being proletarianised more intensively. Moreover, its actions are becoming wellorganised and assuming massive scale.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Karl Marx, ``The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte''. In: Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works in three volumes, Vol. 1, p. 484.
190This has been especially borne out in recent years. In the spring of 1970, for instance, tens of thousands of peasants came to Rome from all parts of Italy and held a demonstration in which they called on the authorities to take measures to stabilise prices of farm produce and improve their working conditions. Peasants and workers held joint rallies in Emilia and Tuscany. Metal workers of private enterprises held a powerful demonstration of unity in Terni. They supported the just demands made by farm labourers and sharecroppers who were out on strike. Moreover, a campaign was launched at many industrial enterprises in the central regions of Italy to collect money for farmers who were striking in a bid to get their contracts of employment revised. In recent years, peasants have staged big strikes in all the main agricultural districts of Italy. Three major trade union amalgamations, i.e., the 1CTU, CITU and UITU initiated many actions to bring about radical reform in agriculture---for instance, in the southern provinces of Italy, Apulia, Lucania and Calabria.
In the summer of 1970, a large group of American farmers came to Washington on tractors and lorries and held a demonstration against low purchase prices for farm produce and the deteriorating living conditions of farmers in general. In Oregon, Idaho and Washington, farmers ploughed up and destroyed the crop on several thousands acres of potato fields, in protest against lower purchase prices. Intense class battles were recently waged between grape pickers and plantation owners in California as well.
In 1972, peasants held a massive and stormy demonstration in Brussels. About 100,000 peasants from the six countries of the European Economic Community came to the Belgian capital, the seat of the Common Market's headquarters. Hundreds of delegates of farmers' organisations gathered at the Palace of Congresses in the capital to present their petition to the chairman of the session of the EEC Council of Ministers. Many policemen and gendarmes were called out to disperse the demonstrators, who offered fierce resistance. The French newspaper VHumanite called it a powerful international demonstration, one which was symptomatic in many respects of the peasantry's present state.
Earlier, peasants held rallies and demonstrations in all the West European countries. Bourgeois newspapers even began to write that another Jacquerie was in the offing. 191 The West German magazine Stern said that a "green hurricane" had swept through the West European countries. In the south of France, peasant actions brought about the stoppage of trains. As many as 60,000 peasants held a big twoday demonstration in France at the end of August 1973. They were opposed to a plan to expand military training grounds by taking away their fields and pastures in Laissac (Aveyron department) and demanded that working conditions should be improved and prices for farm produce raised.
A powerful wave of peasant actions swept through the Gironde department of France in 1975. Twenty kilometres north of Bordeaux, peasants set up barriers at a motorway crossing. At the beginning of 1976, over 100,000 peasants held mass demonstrations in the northern, central and western regions of France against the policy pursued by the authorities within the framework of the Common Market. The Parisian newspapers carried such front-page headlines as "Peasants in a Fury" and "Numerous Demonstrations Throughout France".
Thousands of peasants in the northeastern departments of France held a demonstration in May 1978. During their rally the peasant organisations' leaders demanded that the government should immediately take measures to protect French agriculture from the disastrous consequences of the Common Market's agrarian policy. At the same time peasants held demonstrations throughout Brittany. Speaking on behalf of the communist group in the French National Assembly, A. Lajoinie demanded that the government should take a tough line in the EEC bodies to protect the interests of the peasants in France.
The participants in the American farmers' nation-wide protest march formed a mechanised column of 2,000 tractors and, at the beginning of February 1979, entered Washington, where they ``besieged'' the White House and the buildings of the Congress and the Department of Agriculture. More than 80,000 farmers took part in the second nationwide march on Washington. They demanded that the government should take effective measures to improve the position of 2.3 million farms which were on the verge of ruin.
In the FRG, peasants blocked roads and railways at the Danish border with tractors, threshers and lorries, and marched through the streets of Stuttgart demanding a rise in purchase prices. Fifty thousand farmers held a protest 192 demonstration in Bonn. At rallies in Darmstadt and Stuttgart, peasant unions called on workers to formulate a common programme of struggle against the monopolies' domination. In Andalusia and several other districts of Spain, small and middle peasants recently carried out mass actions which amounted in many cases to strikes, i.e., a purely proletarian weapon. Peasants in Sastago (Aragon), Lerida (Catalonia) and Castrelo de Mino (Galicia) protested against being driven off the land. In Austria, the centre of Klagenfurt ( Carinthia province) was blocked by more than 300 tractors in July 1976 as a protest against the government's policy, which was bringing the small peasantry to ruin.
In the USA, 188,000 farmers took action on a nation-wide scale at the end of 1977 and the beginning of 1978. Mass demonstrations and rallies were held in many US cities. The participan s protested against the government's agricultural policy and the major agro-industrial monopolies' tyranny, both of which impoverished and ruined farms. The farmers' struggle takes the most diverse forms, from picketing the agro-industrial corporations' enterprises and stores to mass actions, such as rallies and demonstrations.
At the same time, American farmers held a big demonstration in Lubbock (Texas), they slowly drove a column of 1,100 tractors, 48 kilometres long, through the city streets, demanding a change in the system of purchase prices, which were advantageous only to big agrarian corporations. Farmers took similar action in Omaha (Nebraska), St. Johns (Michigan) and Nashville (Tennessee). Thousands of American farmers came to Washington on tractors, pickups, buses and lorries to draw the US public's attention to the American farmers' plight.
Since the working peasantry is an important factor in material production (at the end of the 1960s, the rural population of developed capitalist countries totalled over 42 million people, and in Spain it constituted 28.1 per cent of the gainfully employed population), it is becoming an increasingly powerful political force. The New York Times admitted in connection with the action taken by angry peasants that although the peasants were becoming numerically smaller, they were a strong political force in many Common Market countries. The Italian newspaper Mondo Nuovo said that there was an underlying political motive behind all peasant actions.
__PRINTERS_P_193_COMMENT__ 13---2560 193Today, the working peasants' actions in defence of their economic rights are becoming more massive and vigorous, and it is a problem to coordinate them with the class battles waged by the workers in France, Italy, the USA, Belgium and other developed capitalist countries. This is all the more difficult because the peasants are not united in large enterprises, but scattered among small independent farms. Their enemy is not so obvious to them as the capitalist is to the workers. The peasants are partially owners, and therefore they are interested in developing and consolidating their own small properties, rather than waging a common struggle against the capitalist class.
The peasant movement is not so conscious and organised as the working class. Recent experience has revealed not only the growth of the peasant movement, but also its weaknesses. Thus, during tumultuous events in France in May and June 1968, the peasants were quite late in responding to the action taken by the working class and the urban non-proletarian sections of working people, i.e., they responded only when the main wave of the strike movement had ebbed.
In their work among the non-proletarian sections of the population, the Communist and Workers' parties must take account of the fact that the changes in these sections' socioeconomic and political position do not necessarily have a direct bearing on their social psychology. The petty bourgeoisie, which holds an intermediate position between the big bourgeoisie and the working class, combines in itself features of both the main antagonist classes. Hence its peculiarities, its equivocation, contradictory nature and vacillations between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.
Under capitalism, the peasantry cannot be regarded as a homogeneous class. Moreover, the penetration of monopoly capital into farm production has resulted in even greater differentiation within it. Therefore, it is very important to know which peasant sections the proletariat can rely on as allies in the anti-monopoly, anti-imperialist struggle.
Farm labourers are the industrial workers' most consistent allies. They, along with the small peasants, whether they be owners, tenants or sharecroppers, constitute the social basis of the progressive forces in the countryside. In denning small peasants, two main criteria should be taken into account: the absence of wage labour and the impossibility of 194 expanding reproduction by their commodity output. A small peasant is the owner or tenant of a plot of land no bigger than he and his family can work and no smaller than they need to make a living on.
In developed capitalist countries today, farm workers and small technicians engaged in the processing, storage, transportation and sale of produce, and semi-proletarians and small farmers, who are exploited to the utmost by big capital, are the natural allies of the working class not only at the anti-monopoly stage of the struggle, but also at the subsequent, socialist stage. The document adopted at the plenary session of the French Communist Party's Central Committee in October 1955 said: "We rely above all on farm workers, because they are proletarians.... We also rely on small farmers, sharecroppers and small proprietors who do not exploit wage labour, because they can be resolute allies of the proletariat already today or in the future, as their fundamental interests coincide with the present and future interests of the working class.''~^^1^^
During the imperialist period of capitalism, the concentration of property in agriculture is just as inevitable as it is in industry, and therefore the small and middle peasants hold similar socio-economic positions. Lenin said: "In the economic sense, one should understand by 'middle peasants' those small farmers who, (1) either as owners or tenants, hold plots of land that are also small but, under capitalism, are sufficient not only to provide, as a general rule, a meagre subsistence for the family and the bare minimum needed to maintain the farm, but also produce a certain surplus which may in good years at least, be converted into capital; (2) quite frequently ... resort to the employment of hired labour."~^^2^^
In the latter half of this century, it has become more and more obvious that the socio-economic bases of the small and middle peasants are becoming increasingly similar, as indeed is the case with the urban petty and middle bourgeoisie. At the turn of this century, differentiation led to the stratification of all peasant farms into large capitalist farms and rural workers' and semi-proletarians' farms, but from _-_-_
~^^1^^ Maurice Thorez, Waldeck Rochet, Pour Valliance des ouvriers et de» travailleurs de la terre, Paris, 1955, pp. 30--31.
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, "Preliminary Draft Theses on the Agrarian Question'', Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 156.
__PRINTERS_P_196_COMMENT__ 13* 195 the 1950s the socio-economic position of big peasant farms and even the lower group of big capitalist farms worsened in developed capitalist countries owing to the growth of agricultural monopolies. A substantial proportion of big peasant farms turned into medium-sized farms, while many of the latter turned into small peasant or semi-proletarian farms. Moreover, most small farmers became semi-- proletarians or wage workers. In the FUG, for instance, only onethird of the peasant farms remaining in the early 1970s were their owners' sole source of incomes; 43 per cent of them were semi-proletarian farms, and 22 per cent of them were subsidiary farms.The question of the middle peasants' position continues to figure prominently in the class struggle, because even now they play a very important role in the agriculture of developed capitalist countries. In the FRG, for instance, their farms constitute about one-half of the usable agricultural area and about one-quarter of the number of all farms.
The middle peasants tend to take an extremely vacillating political stand. However, being brutally exploited, they are an important potential ally of the working class in the struggle against monopoly rule. Their support can directly or indirectly facilitate the working class's anti-monopoly struggle.
Big land magnates, monopolists, usurious bankers and rich peasants are irreconcilable class enemies. They exploit farm workers as well as small and middle peasants. The General Secretary of the Portuguese Communist Party, Alvaro Cunhal, wrote that although big "landowners contend with industrialists and bankers for their share of the pie, all of them ... exploit and oppress the working classes and the broadest sections of the population. Big landowners cannot be expected to take a stand favourable to the democratic revolution. There can be no illusions about this. The land magnates' ... sole aspiration is for a government policy favourable to them, the big landowners and agricultural capitalists. They want to overcome their own difficulties at the expense of the proletariat and the peasantry.... The democratic revolution is not their revolution, because it is directed against them.''~^^1^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ Alvaro Cunhal, Road to Victory, Moscow, 1907, pp. 43--44 (in Russian).
196In his work Together with the Peasants for Non-Capitalist Agriculture, Louis Perceval, a French specialist in agriculture, tried to determine the numerical strength and political stand of various groups of the population engaged in agriculture in France. According to him, farm workers (850,000) are part of the working class; the semi-proletariat and the small and middle peasantry (1,660,000) are the natural allies of the working class at all stages; the rich peasantry (140,000, whose farms, formerly of a capitalist type, now no longer employ wage labour) are neutral under certain conditions; the small capitalist producers (70,000) are either neutral in the anti-monopoly struggle or vacillating allies of the monopolies; the big capitalist producers (30,000) and big landowners are the monopolies' allies; the employees of professional agricultural organisations are in the process of drawing closer to the working class; the engineers and technicians engaged in agricultural branches of industry are natural working-class allies in the anti-- monopoly struggle; the small capitalists in the food industry and industry processing agricultural raw materials are potentially neutral in the anti-monopoly struggle, and, lastly, the big capitalists in these sectors are either monopolists themselves or allies of the monopolies.
The Communist parties are defending the interests of the small peasants and, to a lesser extent, the middle peasants' interests. But this does not mean that they are seeking to preserve outdated forms of production or are hostile to technological progress in agriculture, as bourgeois propaganda alleges. Fernand Clayaud, a member of the Central Committee of the French Communist Party, wrote that to those who accuse the Communists of "trying to save the 'unviable', 'unprofitable' farms and present our policy in a distorted light, we say that we are defending the exploited, not their exploited farms. The difference is a very essential one.''~^^1^^
The struggle against big capitalists in agriculture does not imply an attempt to revive the former structure of agricultural production and keep the number of those engaged in it unchanged. In an interview to the US magazine Business Week, Giorgio NapoHtano, a member of the Political Bureau and Secretariat of the Italian Communist Party, said: "We want to be realistic and not go against a historical trend. _-_-_
~^^1^^ World Marxist Review, No. 10, 1971, p. 32.
197 We don't deny that there is a historical trend to reduce employment in agriculture. First, we want to keep in agriculture those people who are on farms now. We would like to raise the amount of time some of them work, those who work only 80 to 100 days a year, by building new irrigation systems, applying more intensive production and thus producing a higher income for each farm. Second, we would offer workers who return to Italy from other European countries special government help so they can create a small agricultural enterprise. Third, we would take advantage of the current tendency to return to the farm because it is hard to find a job in the big industrial cities.''~^^1^^Communists believe that scientific and technological progress should necessarily be accompanied by radical changes in production relations so that the people can enjoy its fruits. The Communist parties oppose capitalist methods and measures aimed at worsening the working people's living standards and believe that the most expedient form of social production in agriculture is the production cooperative societies organised on democratic lines. "In order to increase labour productivity, profit and remuneration for labour on the land,'' says Waldeck Rochet, "measures will be taken to facilitate the establishment of agricultural production cooperatives, which will allow small and middle peasants to unite to work their land together under more advantageous conditions. Moreover, the state will give greater support to all other forms of cooperatives: consumer cooperatives, cooperatives which process and sell farm produce, etc."~^^2^^ The Communist parties regard the development of the cooperative movement as a way of both uniting and educating the masses.
The programme for a democratic government of popular unity, proposed to the French people, outlines the French Communist Party's new agricultural policy.
It was noted at the 20th Congress of the French Communist Party that rural workers spontaneously side with the working class on many issues and that the Communists should take this into account in their work. The Communist and Workers' parties are explaining to the peasants that their demands only will be met if they act in alliance with _-_-_
~^^1^^ Business Week, May 3, 1976, p. 121.
~^^2^^ Waldeck Rochet, Ceux de la terre, Paris, 1963, p. 239.
198 the working class and other non-monopoly sections of working people. The Theses adopted at the Congress of the German Communist Party in Dusseldorf in November 1971 stated: "By its very nature the peasants' struggle for higher incomes, better working and living conditions, and for their property is also an anti-monopoly struggle. Awareness of this will grow in proportion to the extent to which the organised working class supports the peasants' struggle against big capital.''~^^1^^ This can be achieved politically through concerted action by the Communists, Socialists and other left forces.Right-wing reformists and ``left''-wing extremists are aligning themselves with bourgeois propaganda, which tries to prevent the working class and the toiling peasantry from taking concerted action. At the same time, they are playing on specific features of the small and middle peasants' psychology and their difficulties and are trying to conceal the urban and rural working people's common class interests. They allege, for instance, that the peasants' and urban working people's interests are directly opposite, because the former are interested in selling their produce at higher prices and purchasing industrial commodities at lower prices, while the latter are calling for lower prices on foodstuffs. Moreover, they often demagogically refer to the need to ensure high profitability of agriculture.
But the facts show that the monopoly policy of making agriculture more profitable, as a result of which millions of small and middle peasants are forced out of that economic sector, does not by any means automatically raise the urban working people's living standards. In 1951, for instance, a West German farmer received 46.3 pfennigs for a kilogramme of wheat while a kilogramme of bread made from it cost 51 pfennigs in a store. However, in 1970, a farmer received only 36.8 pfennigs for a kilogramme of wheat or 20 per cent less, while a town dweller was forced to pay 1.51 deutsche marks, or 200 per cent more, for a kilogramme of bread.
In the summer of 1971, more than 1.5 million centners of pears, peaches and water-melons were deliberately destroyed in Ferrara province in Italy. Was this done because _-_-_
~^^1^^ DKP kontra Grofikapital. Fur Frieden, demokratischen Fortschritt und Sozialismus. Thesen des Diisseldorfer Parteitags der Deuttchen Kommunistischen Partei, Dusseldorf, 1971, S. 51.
199 Emacs-File-stamp: "/home/ysverdlov/leninist.biz/en/1980/WCA283/20070228/283.tx" __EMAIL__ webmaster@leninist.biz __OCR__ ABBYY 6 Professional (2007.02.28) __WHERE_PAGE_NUMBERS__ bottom __FOOTNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [0-9]+ __ENDNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [0-9]+ agriculture was not profitable enough? What higher profit are the horticulturists in Catalonia thinking about when they pour black oil on peaches which they have grown and burn them? Haw about the Flemish farmers, who ``lament'' over heaps of potatoes which they did not sell? It was noted at the 22nd FCP Congress in February 1976 that hundreds of thousands of tons of fruits were deliberately being destroyed in France, while many families could not buy them because of high retail prices. The peasants do not have the opportunity to sell their produce, while intermediaries and large firms monopolising the markets sell ``unprofitable'' fruits at prices ten times higher than they bought them for, and justify the inhuman measures as being in the Common Market's interests.Thus, the policy which the capitalist state and the monopolies pursue in agriculture does not by any means benefit the peasants and the urban working people. However, such a policy is advantageous to the companies which process and sell produce. According to official statistics, the prices of all consumer goods in the USA have risen by more than 30 per cent since 1967. Meanwhile, in the first quarter of 1973, the corporations' profits were equivalent to 114,300 million dollars a year, as against 81,300 million dollars in 1971. Relying on Communist Party organisations in the countryside (where the French Communist Party, for instance, has over 5,200 local party organisations), the Communist and Workers' parties carry on unflagging political activity, by which they try to counter the monopoly bourgeoisie's influence on small and middle peasants. One important way in which the Communist parties can consolidate their influence among the peasants is by waging a struggle against hostile ideology. To this end, they are undertaking a large number of varied activities in trade unions and cooperative and other organisations.
In France, for instance, the French Communist Party is actively at work in the Federation of Agricultural Workers, which is associated with the General Confederation of Labour. Together with other members, Communist farm labourers are waging a vigorous struggle within its framework. Communist peasants who work their family plots, including sharecroppers and tenants, are taking an active part in many trade union and cooperative organisations, particularly in the democratic organisation of working peasants known as 200 MODEF, the Movement in defence of family farms, i.e., farms which do not employ wage labour.
Communist peasants in that organisation carry on a large number of varied activities: they publish newspapers, hold big meetings and rallies in protest against the disastrous consequences of government policy and expose the agricultural trade union leaders' servile policy. MODEF is speaking out against the adverse effects which the Common Market's agricultural policy is having on small and middle peasants. In 1966, this organisation established contacts with similar organisations in Belgium and Italy. They are making common demands directed against capitalist rationalisation, which operates to the detriment of most farmers.
The Communists are explaining to the broad peasant masses what transformations in agriculture really mean under state-monopoly capitalism and what class they are benefitting. Guided by agrarian programmes, the Communist and Workers' parties are showing the peasants what their difficulties are really caused by and defending the working peasantry's interests through their organisations, deputies, and party and trade union workers.
In Italy the national agrarian conferences held by the Central Committee of the Italian Communist Party have greatly helped numerous peasants to understand their real requirements and intensify the struggle for their just demands. The first conference was held in Florence in September 1967, and the second one, in Bari in March 1970. The ICP and its local organisations carried out about 2,000 different measures during preparations for the second agrarian conference, which was attended by 2,200 delegates. The Communists in the countryside, who account for about one-third of ICP members, thoroughly studied the socio-economic and political conditions under which the rural inhabitants work and live. Then, during Party meetings in the ICP's rural sections, and other gatherings and discussions of the agrarian question, they did a great deal towards uniting all progressive anti-monopoly forces in agriculture and coordinating their activities more closely with those of the working class.
Besides national agrarian conferences, communal and regional agrarian conferences play an important role in the struggle for democratic agrarian reform. The latter conferences are held most successfully in communes which are 201 guided by the left forces. While calling for progressive agrarian reform in the country, the ICP believes it is necessary above all to democratise all agricultural enterprises by special legislation, ensure permanent employment for rural workers and introduce an insurance and social security system which is in their interests. Responding to the 12th ICP Congress's appeal for more vigorous activity by the Communists in the peasants' democratic organisations, trade unions and cooperative societies, the Party began large-scale work in the countryside through its members in the national and local organisations of the Farmers' Alliance, rural trade unions, various clubs, and cultural associations.
In these activities the ICP is confronted by a strong, organised opponent, i.e., it is opposed by various peasant organisations which are subordinate to the ruling Christian Democratic Party and range from mutual assistance funds to agrarian consortia. The largest of these organisations are the Bonomi Confederation, the National Federation of SmallHolders and the Federation of Agrarian Consortia, which have branches throughout the country and act, in essence, as state bodies, defending the interests of state-monopoly capitalism.
The democratic peasant movement in Italy is based on a broad network of public organisations which cooperate with one another. The most important of them are the Farm Labourers' Federation and the Sharecroppers' Federation, which arc in the Italian Confederation of Trade Unions, the National Peasant Union, which is an independent organisation, and the Association of Agricultural Cooperatives, which is in the National Cooperative and Mutual League. The ICP carries on active work in these organisations together with other left-wing political parties and strives for the formation of a common peasant movement which will unite all peasants and rural workers, regardless of their political and religious views and convictions.
Among the extremely important demands made in the West German Communists' agrarian programme are those for progressive agrarian reform, the expropriation of big landowners' land, and its transfer to those who directly work it. The issues in question are the democratisation of the Law on the Elimination of the Open-Field System, the provision of all possible state assistance to the working peasantry, the curtailment of the trade monopolies' 202 opportunities for enriching themselves by "price scissors'', the reduction of the working peasantry's taxes, the granting of assistance in the establishment of powerful democratic peasant cooperatives, and the democratisation of public activity in the countryside.
In the mid-1960s, peasants' commissions began to be set up in Spanish villages along the lines of urban workers' commissions. These peasants' commissions called for democratic agrarian reform. The activity of the workers' and peasants' commissions is characterised by mutual support. The workers' commissions share with the peasants' commissions the experience which they have gained in their struggle and do everything possible to develop the peasant movement to the utmost.
Within the framework of the programmes for the democratic development of the national economy the Communist and Workers' parties are trying to gain special assistance for small and middle peasants through tax cuts, purchase benefits, loans, subsidies, improved social security for peasant families, maximum use of agricultural production opportunities in the broad peasant masses' interests, and expansion of markets by increases in the people's purchasing power. The Statement made by the Conference of Communist Parties of European Capitalist Countries on Problems of Agriculture (Paris, May 1975) said: "It is necessary to improve the lot of the worst hit sections of the population---agricultural workers, tenants, small and medium farmers.''~^^1^^ At the same time, the Communist parties are drawing attention to the fact that reforms alone are not enough to eliminate the crisis in agriculture. Radical anti-monopoly transformations are needed.
The experience of the revolutionary movement at the present stage shows that the working peasants continue to hold an important place among the working-class allies in its world historic struggle for the complete triumph of socialist, communist relations. This was re-emphasised at the international Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, held in Moscow in June 1969. Leonid Brezhnev declared in his speech: "The working peasants remain the chief allies of the working class, despite the fact that their number has _-_-_
~^^1^^ Information Bulletin, Prague, No. 11, 1975, p. 7.
203 declined considerably in the advanced capitalist countries.''~^^1^^The consolidation of the alliance between the working class and the toiling peasantry is an extremely important prerequisite for victory in the struggle against the entire system of state-monopoly capitalism. This fundamental principle of Marxism-Leninism is the basis of the strategy and tactics employed by the Communist and Workers' parties at the present stage. In the present epoch, the tasks of waging a struggle for democracy are very similar to those of waging a struggle for socialism, and therefore radical democratic reforms, including agrarian reforms, create the conditions for progress towards socialism. In this respect, the working peasantry, an extremely important ally of the working class, is part and parcel of the anti-monopoly coalition which is presently in the process of formation.
_-_-_~^^1^^ International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties. Moscow, 1969, p. 150.
[204] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter VII __ALPHA_LVL1__ THE TRADITIONAL URBAN MIDDLE SECTIONSThe problems of the urban petty bourgeoisie, the changes in its socio-economic position and the ensuing changes in its political stand are very important in the anti-monopoly struggle today. The Communist and Workers' parties devote great attention to the urban petty bourgeoisie, its place in capitalist society's economic structure, and the specifics of its social psychology and political stand.
As Marx indicated, the question of property has always been a vital question for one class or another, depending on the extent of industrial development. The industrial revolution not only gave rise to the proletariat, but also initiated the progressive ruin of the former middle estate.^^1^^ By scientifically analysing capitalist relations, the founders of Marxism proved that the creation of the bourgeois class's wealth depended on the continuous ruin of individual members of this class and the constant growth of the proletariat. Marx and Engels described the petty and middle bourgeoisie as a transitional class.
At the same time, they foresaw that the living conditions of the middle sections, especially the petty bourgeoisie, would inevitably worsen under capitalism. They showed in some of their works that the concentration of production and the centralisation of capital inevitably ruined small producers in both industry and agriculture. The Marxist propositions on the petty bourgeoisie were subsequently developed and amplified by Lenin, who proceeded from the new experience which the working class had gained in its struggle.
In his classic work Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, Lenin showed how the banks made a small number of major enterprises overwhelmingly preponderant. Consequently^ millions of small, middle and even some big _-_-_
~^^1^^ See Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, Collected Works, Vol. 6, pp. 322, 341, 342.
205 capitalists are actually completely enslaved by a few hundred financial millionaires. Lenin wrote: "The old struggle between small and big capital is being resumed at a new and immeasurably higher stage ol development.''~^^1^^Under the conditions ol slate-monopoly capitalism and scientific and technological revolution tho very foundations of existence for the broad masses of the petty bourgeoisie are impaired. As early as the beginning of this century, Lenin said: "Every advance in science and technology inevitably and relentlessly undermines the foundations of smallscale production in capitalist society; and it is the task of socialist political economy to investigate this process in all its forms, often complicated and intricate...."~^^2^^ The scientific and technological revolution's social consequences fully corroborate this scientific prediction.
The exceptionally deep-going and diverse changes which have occurred in the industrialised countries' social structure since the Second World War, especially since the mid1950s, are characterised by the growing differentiation and polarisation of social forces. These processes are increasingly involving not only the two main opposing classes, i.e., the proletariat and the monopoly bourgeoisie, but the petty bourgeoisie and the numerous different intermediate sections of the population which are associated with it.
Western, particularly US, statistics do not treat the bourgeoisie as a separate class; on the contrary, everything is done to make its definition more difficult. For instance, they give the number of existing enterprises and break them up according to the number of workers employed in them, thus concealing their owners. It is therefore somewhat difficult to ascertain the urban petty bourgeoisie's real numerical strength. According to some Soviet researchers, an annual trade turnover of 50,000 dollars can be taken as a nominal boundary between petty-bourgeois and capitalist enterprises in the USA.
Legislation in individual developed capitalist states and, especially, the statistics which show the groups to which enterprises belong are at great variance. Jean Robert's work Craftsmen and the Crafts Sector in Contemporary France _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, "Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism'', Collected Works, Vol. 22, p. 224.
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, "Marxism and Revisionism'', Collected Works, Vol. 15, p. 35.
206 provides interesting information in this respect. Under French law, an enterprise at the cottage industry level cannot employ more than five wage workers. In the FRG, any number of workers can be employed at such an enterprise under the law, but the owner must personally participate in its operations.In some countries there is no legislative definition of a craft at all and no limitation on the number of employees at enterprises in the cottage industry. In the iNetherlands the number of wage workers employed at an enterprise varies in accordance with its specialisation: ten persons in furniture-making, 25 or more in metal-working, and so forth.
Jean Robert draws attention to such factors as credit and taxation (which ultimately determine the future of enterprises in the cottage industry). He believes that in France handicraftsmen constitute two main groups: those engaged in production and those engaged in service sector. A large number of French handicraftsmen are employed at enterprises associated with both building and the food industry (bakers, confectioners, butchers and sausage-makers). Data provided by Jean Robert show that craftsmen who are forced to compete directly with big industrialists face the greatest difficulties. He says that in France this is true of the textile, sewing, leather-processing and furniture-making enterprises as well as some electrical and mechanical engineering industries. Jean Robert admits that competition in these industries usually ends in victory for the monopolies and the ousting of numerous enterprises in the cottage industry.
Such a situation inevitably affects the interests of a substantial part of the gainfully employed population. After all, some 1.4 million of France's 1.8 million industrial and trade enterprises either employ no wage labour at all or hire five workers at the most. At over 800,000 French enterprises, i.e., 47.5 per cent of the country's total, craftsmen and traders do not employ wage workers and have only their family members do the work.
As technical innovations are introduced into production, it becomes increasingly difficult for small artisans, handicraftsmen, and traders to withstand the concentration of production and the centralisation of capital. Jean Chatin, a French economist, notes that the policy of interference 207 which state-monopoly capitalism is pursuing in the monopolists' interests is being intensified in three main directions: higher taxes, whose burden is being shouldered by the whole working population and the non-monopolist sections; the granting of credits mainly to major companies (particularly exporting companies), and a reduction in people's consumption, which ultimately worsens the position of small and middle enterprises, whose main market is connected with domestic consumption.
All this is ruining the non-monopoly sector; on the one hand, it is accelerating the elimination of competitively weak, small enterprises and, on the other, it is providing the financial oligarchy with additional means for further integrating small and middle enterprises, whose activity promotes monopoly accumulation. Small, middle and even big owners actually stand no chance in competition with large monopoly enterprises, which have sophisticated computers and manufacture their products at a lower cost, or with big chain department stores and supermarkets, whose trade outlays are lower.
Discussing the concentration in the US war industry, William Douglas, a prominent American legal expert, noted that, by the beginning of the 1970s, the top ten companies received "30 per cent of federal research money. The eight top defense companies virtually monopolize the manufacture of twenty-two out of the twenty-seven most important military products. Their control of the Pentagon market is 98 per cent or more for such items as helicopters and fighter aircraft, missile guidance systems, fire control systems, and surveillance satellites; they control 91 per cent of the combat vehicles market, 81 per cent of surface radar sales, 93 per cent of data processing systems, etc.... The top twentyfour companies hold nearly 50 per cent of the prime contracts.''~^^1^^
About 35 years ago the French economic and political scene was dominated by some 200 families. Today there are a mere dozen industrial and financial groups dominating the country's economy and enforcing their hegemony. In 1959, there were 930 mergers between industrial enterprises, while in 1968, as many as 2,240 such cases were officially recorded. _-_-_
~^^1^^ William 0. Douglas, International Dissent: Six Steps Toward World Peace, New York, 1971, pp. 14--15.
208 According to the weekly /' Usine Nouvelle, one-quarter of all French handicraftsmen and one-sixth of all small entrepreneurs employing 1-10 workers went out of business between 1954 and 1962.At the beginning of this century, Italy had many enterprises similar to craftsmen's workshops. In 1911, only 3,312 out of 244,000 Italian enterprises employed from between 100 and 1,000 workers, i.e., only 7 per cent of all enterprises were large ones. More than 90 per cent of all enterprises were small or very small ones on the cottage industry level engaging up to ten workers. In 1970, however, official statistics show that Italy had 4,159,000 "independent producers" (21.2 per cent of the gainfully employed population), about one million of whom were engaged in industry, 1.5 million in service sector and a similar number in agriculture. Moreover, the country had 1,573,000 so-called " auxiliary workers" (7.7 per cent of the gainfully employed population), who were mainly family members working on farms, in the cottage industry and in trade establishments.
The structure of small-scale commodity production is changing under the impact of the scientific and technological revolution. Moreover, many traditional crafts are disappearing. But this is hidden by the preservation of small-scale business in trade and the rapidly growing service sphere. Structural changes in both crafts and small-scale production entail grave social consequences. Only a minority of the small entrepreneurs who are forced to close down manage to maintain their social status by starting another business in a more promising field.
The intensifying expansion of US capital in Western Europe in the postwar years is promoting monopoly concentration there and making the petty and even middle bourgeoisie more dependent on major concerns. According to Maurice Krouzet, a French bourgeois historian, the control of US capital in Western Europe's economy amounts to 15 per cent in field of consumer goods, 24 per cent in automobile production, 20 per cent in the machine-building and electronics industries, 50 per cent in the production of semiconductors, and 80 per cent in computer manufacture.
US competition strongly affects not only the position of the working class, but that of the middle sections in town and countryside. Several years ago, for instance, Sarma, the oldest amalgamation of self-service stores in 209 Belgium with about 7,000 employees, was financially taken over by the US trade monopoly Penny. The new owners began to introduce their own methods of work and decided to dismiss and reduce the working hours of 20 per cent of the personnel. In other words, according to the newspaper Le Drapeau Rouge, they began to overcome financial difficulties in a typically American way.
The Italian automobile concerns are still capable of competing with US companies, but such Italian industries as clothing, footwear and textiles (where tens of thousands of small and medium-sized firms are engaged in production) cannot withstand US competition.
Today, the concentration of production and the centralisation of capital have developed even further. Economic monopolisation in industrialised countries is now characterised by several new aspects. In his speech at the International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, held in Moscow in 1969, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the USA, Gus Hall, noted that "in the capitalist process the big fish have always swallowed the smaller fish" and drew attention to some of the new aspects of the present wave of corporation mergers in the USA. Mergers have become an unrestrained landslide. The largest corporations emerge dominant from this process, while the appearance of such monopoly amalgamations as conglomerates imparts a new quality to the capitalist anarchy of production and marketing.^^1^^
In France the centralisation of capital is manifested in new forms such as quasi-mergers and associations. At the present time some 25 major monopoly groups virtually control the country's entire economic and political life. All of them have numerous branches and many of them control different industries. Tens of thousands of small and mediumsized enterprises are completely dependent on them. More than one million working people are employed at the enterprises of these monopoly groups and their branches, which scarcely constitute one per cent of all industrial enterprises in the country.
At the same time, the criteria of large-scale production and, consequently, the categories of the bourgeoisie have _-_-_
~^^1^^ See International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, Moscow, 1969, p. 432.
210 changed. When monopoly capitalism began to develop, enterprises with 100 and more employees were statistically related to large-scale production. In 1903 large factories employing over 100 workers constituted 17 per cent of all factories in European Russia. According to statistics for 1907, enterprises with more than 50 wage workers were regarded as large ones in Germany.Today, however, concentration is so intense that the term "large enterprise" is only applied to those which have thousands and tens of thousands of employees and whose output is worth hundreds of millions rather than millions or hundreds of thousands of dollars. At the same time, enterprises which were recently regarded as major ones have been gradually reduced to the status of large and then medium-sized enterprises. As state-monopoly capitalism develops, medium-sized enterprises turn more and more quickly into small ones.
The objective process of unprecedented concentration of production and centralisation of capital has another extremely important consequence under state-monopoly capitalism. It disastrously affects the position of the petty and even middle bourgeoisie. The decline of the petty bourgeoisie, which Lenin noted as early as the beginning of this century, is growing in scale. In his book The Sane Society, Erich Fromm gives data which show that about four-fifth of the world's gainfully employed population were entrepreneurs as early as the beginning of the 19th century. By about 1870, the figure had dwindled to one-third, and at the beginning of the 1950s, only one-fifth of the world's gainfully employed belonged to that old middle class.
Bourgeois ideologists and politicians allege that smallscale production and trade are sufficiently viable and capable of withstanding the monopolies' pressure. But events show that this is not so. At the present level of mechanisation and automation, small and medium-sized enterprises stand the least chance of survival when production and capital are concentrated on an enormous scale and when even the large enterprises' future depends on the outcome of the extremely brutal competitive struggle between the monopoly giants.
In France, the number of small trade establishments diminished by 60,000 in the period 1954--62 alone. In the 1960s, they totalled 556,000, i.e., 3,000-4,000 small shops __PRINTERS_P_210_COMMENT__ 14* 211 closed down every year. According to the Fifth Economic Development Plan (1966--1970), 50,000 small traders and merchants were to be forced out of trade. Between 1954 and 1968, 90,000 owners closed down their enterprises in the spheres of trade and service in France. This particularly applied to small enterprises at which wage workers were not employed. From 1954 to 1966, 127,500 small cottage industry enterprises employing less than five workmen ceased to exist, while the number of enterprises with 6-9 employees increased by 73,000.
Large trade and financial firms are trying to gain control of retail trade and the public service sphere. Formerly, small trade establishments accounted for 80--90 per cent of retail trade, but by the beginning of the 1970s, the figure had dropped to 60 per cent, while giant and super-giant supermarkets accounted for the rest. In 1962 France had no supermarkets, in fact, but by 1969, she had 75. According to the French magazine La France nouvelle, more than two-thirds of the country's trade firms (600,000 out of 950,000) and more than one-half of her cottage industry enterprises fell victims to the large capitalist groups' offensive, which affected 1.5 million of the gainfully employed.
In 1977, the number of bankruptcies among French enterprises increased by 11.7 per cent over the previous year. According to the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies, 13,842 French enterprises went out of business in 1977. The situation was especially grave in light industry, which still has many small and medium-sized enterprises. Many enterprises in the light and textile industries, both in the Pyrenees and in the north of France, are likely to be closed. No fewer than 11,623 small and medium-sized enterprises went out of business in the first nine months of 1978---14.2 per cent more than in the previous year.
In 1970, 1,411 West German firms with a total capital of 5,000 million deutsche marks were either taken over or merged with other firms (as against 393 firms with a total capital of 1,000 million deutsche marks in 1969). To quote the newspaper Unsere Zeit, the "classic method" of gaining ascendancy is by destroying competitors, and large enterprises usually get rid of small ones in their way by ruining them. This is evident from the growing power of large trade concerns and the disappearance of many small and mediumsized stores. According to the West German newspaper 212 Die Tat, the number of small and medium-sized food stores in the FRG diminished by 50,000 from 1962 to 1970. In recent years some twenty-five out of every thousand retail trade enterprises have annually been closing down.
In the early 1970s, when crisis phenomena in the capitalist world's development became wide-ranging, the accelerating socialisation of the economy resulted in social antagonisms becoming even more far-reaching and intensive. Besides, the aggravation of old contradictions and the rise of new ones are directly affecting the middle sections of the population. The first half of 1975 alone saw the closure in France of over 8,000 small and medium-sized enterprises, i.e., 24 per cent more than during the same period of the previous year. Furthermore, over 2,300 trade establishments went out of business.
In the FRG, 7,722 firms went bankrupt in 1974 alone. They were mainly in the building industry, the municipal service sphere find manufacturing industry. In 1975, the figure rose to 9,195, and in the first four months of 1976, to 3,216, i.e., 5 per cent more than during the same period of the previous year. In the period January-July 1977, more than 5,600 bankruptcies were officially recorded in the FRG---almost 6 per cent higher than during the same period of the previous year. In the major industrial centre of North Rhine-Westphalia 1,384 firms were ruined in the early half of 1978 as a result of an intensive competitive struggle (11 per cent more than during the same period of the previous year). Britain set many ``records'' in 1974: in addition to record inflation rates and price rises, a foreign trade deficit, and crisis phenomena in many key economic sectors, the number of bankruptcies was the highest in the country's history (1,151 companies). In 1975 there were even more bankruptcies than in the previous year. As a result, 2 per cent of British companies now control more than one-half of national industrial production.
According to the leadership of the Italian Communist Party's Federation of Rome, lower employment, continual price rises and growing taxes are not the only reasons for the steady fall in the Italian people's living standards. Another extremely important factor is the crisis being faced by small and medium-sized enterprises. Tina Anselmi, Italy's Labour Minister, said that the number of unemployed in the country was mainly growing because small and medium-sized 213 enterprises were being ruined. In 1976, 4,810 such enterprises went out of business and in the first quarter of 1977 they were joined by another 604. When Austria became associated with the Common Market, difficulties arose; from the introduction of EEC taxation in the country, in Lower Austria alone big business ``sharks'' swallowed up more than 900 food shops, small book shops, and so forth in the period of four years. In Belgium, 579 small enterprises were ruined in the first quarter of 1975---almost 20 per cent more than during the same period of 1974. In Denmark, 735 enterprises closed down in the first half of 1976. In Holland, about 3,400 firms and enterprises of various kinds went out of business in 1975. In the USA 9,000 bankruptcies were officially recorded in the first eight months of 1975, seven per cent more than during the same period of 1974. Another wave of bankruptcies swept through Canada. According to the Canadian Press, the reports presented by the business and finance department of the country's statistical service and by finance specialists confirmt hat there were more bankruptcies in Canada in 1977 than in any year since the war.
Concentration of production does not mean that more and more working people are being steadily concentrated at particular enterprises. On the other hand, however, the numerical growth of enterprises, even nominally independent ones which do not directly belong to monopoly amalgamations, does not mean that production is being deconcentrated. Lenin foresaw this circumstance when he pointed out that the monopolies not only ruined small and mediumsized enterprises, but also created new middle sections, which held a;i intermediate position between the working class and the bourgeoisie and (this is an extremely important part of Lenin's argument) were thrown back into the proletariat's ranks in exactly the same way.^^1^^
Under these conditions, the future of not only small, but even medium-sized and large enterprises is determined independently of them in the course of an extremely brutal competitive struggle between the monopoly giants. If some small enterprises survive at the present level of mechanisation and automation and others are brought into being again by the capitalists, this is usually because they act _-_-_
~^^1^^ See V. I. Lenin, "Marxism and Revisionism'', Collected Works, Vol. 15, p. 39.
214 as auxiliary shops to the large concerns or because they are specialised enterprises which depend on these concerns.Specialisation is one of the principles on which US industry is based. Hence the paradoxical fact that the USA, a classic example of large-scale production, has many small enterprises. To evade taxes, large firms often set up small enterprises and seek to list them as independent bodies, thereby making extra profit.
Most small enterprises give the impression that they are independent when, in fact, they are completely subordinated to the monopoly firms for which they make specialised parts. The General Electric, for instance, has 45,000 small ``suppliers''. In Italy, the Fiat concern is also connected with small supplier factories in thousands of ways. Their future completely depends on monopoly amalgamations, which not only dictate the terms of placing orders and selling products, but specify the prices, range of items, and delivery deadlines.
By making small and middle capitalists dependent on itself, the financial oligarchy is trying to turn them into effective bulwark in the struggle against progressive forces. In order to understand the small producers' real position, one should bear in mind that, under state-monopoly capitalism, only the biggest owners usually enjoy all the benefits of tax cuts, investments abroad, and so forth, because neither the small nor the middle capitalists have enterprises outside, say, the USA and all the benefits arising from these undertakings are enjoyed by the Rockefellers, Duponts, Morgans and Mellons.
While allowing the monopolies to use various pretexts to evade taxes on profits running into thousands of millions, the state is very exacting towards the profits of small producers. It employs many tax inspectors to this end. Large companies are often exempted from paying taxes under the pretence of covering losses which they have suffered in the past. However, the state does not allow the small owner to get away with anything. Only bankruptcy or loss of property ``saves'' him from the fiscal agencies. But if he intentionally or accidentally conceals some of his incomes, he is mercilessly punished under the law by fines or imprisonment.
Since the beginning of the 1970s, all these factors have been increasingly influencing the urban petty bourgeoisie's socio-economic position. The French economist Paul Fabra 215 maintains that not since the war has the capitalist world been in such a chaotic state financially and economically. The number of bankruptcies of small and medium-sized firms, particularly those engaged in construction, is growing not only in France, but even more so in West Germany, Japan and other countries.
Thus, by the mid-1970s the situation which had arisen in the developed capitalist countries had objectively made it possible to wage new class battles and expand the anti-- monopoly struggle, in which the progressive sections of the urban petty bourgeoisie also play a role. However, the political stand taken by this category of the population is not a uniform one and depends on many factors.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 2. The Urban Petty Bourgeoisie'sIn developed capitalist countries, the socio-economic position of the broad sections of the urban petty bourgeoisie is changing under the conditions of the scientific and technological revolution. These changes are strongly influencing their social psychology and political stand. However, the effect of this influence is not uniform. As in the past, the squeeze on the petty bourgeoisie engenders, in some cases, protests which differ greatly in their orientation and, in others, apathy and political indifference.
The objective conditions of existence, which arose in the course of historical development, forced the petty bourgeoisie to wage a struggle for social transformations. This was an objective process, and it steadily intensified as the petty bourgeoisie became differentiated and proletarianised. Naturally, this does not mean that the petty bourgeoisie always played a positive role in revolutions. On the contrary, in revolutions in the early half of the 19th century and in revolutionary events in the first three decades of this century, it was often conservative and in many cases even overtly reactionary. After thoroughly studying the petty bourgeoisie's historical development, Marx and Engels clearly revealed the causes of this class's social weakness and social equivocality.
According to Marx, lower middle class "is dazed by the magnificence of the upper middle class and has sympathy 216 for the sufferings of the people. He is at once both bourgeois and man of the people.''~^^1^^ This equivocality, noted by Marx and Engels as early as the mid-19th century, remains a feature of the class today. It explains the petty bourgeoisie's inherent wavering stand, indecision, and great political vacillations.
In his work Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Germany, Engels gave the following description of the typical political stand taken by this class: "Humble and crouchingly submissive under a powerful feudal or monarchical government, it turns to the side of liberalism when the middle class is in the ascendent; it becomes seized with violent democratic fits as soon as the middle class has secured its own supremacy, but falls back into the abject despondency of fear as soon as the class below itself, the proletarians, attempt an independent movement."~^^2^^
In his own works, Lenin vividly described the petty bourgeoisie's economic position and political stand. He said that "it is the petty bourgeois as well as the proletarians who work and are exploited under capitalism".^^3^^ Noting that, under these conditions, the proletariat should look for allies in the lower echelons of bourgeois democracy, Lenin emphasised the duplicity and "the instability of the petty bourgeoisie, their incapacity for systematic persevering, staunch and concerted mass struggle".^^4^^
Holding an intermediate position between the big bourgeoisie and the working class, the petty bourgeoisie combines in itself some features of the principal antagonistic classes. Lenin wrote that the petty bourgeoisie is easily overcome by extreme revolutionary initiative, but is incapable of exhibiting self-control, organisational efficiency and discipline; one of its inherent features is a contradictory, _-_-_
~^^1^^ "Marx to Pavel Vasilyevich Annenkov in Paris''. In: Marx, Engels, Selected Correspondence, Moscow, 1965, p. 39.
~^^2^^ Frederick Engels, "Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Germany''. In: Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, Collected Works, Vol. 11, p. 10.
~^^3^^ V. I. Lenin, "From Narodism to Marxism'', Collected Works, Vol. 8, p. 85.
~^^4^^ V. I. Lenin, "How the Socialist-Revolutionaries Sum Up the Revolution and How the Revolution Has Summed Them Up'', Collected Works, Vol. 15, p. 343.
217 vacillating attitude towards socialism, i.e., "'ardent love' and base treachery".^^1^^The struggle to win over the petty bourgeoisie and the middle sections, which began as early as the first decades of the 19th century, is especially intensive today. In this respect, the Marxist-Leninist teaching on proletariat class alliances and the importance of drawing the petty bourgeoisie to the working-class side in the struggle against monopoly rule is extremely significant.
It has already been noted that important historical changes in the urban petty bourgeoisie's social psychology and, accordingly, in its political stand were first manifested on a massive scale during the Paris Commune in 1871. Subsequent important stages in this development were the revolutionary events in Russia, in 1905--1907, the revolution there in February 1917, and the Great October Socialist Revolution. In the 1930s, i.e., during the period of the Popular Fronts in France and Spain, a substantial part of the urban petty bourgeoisie actively supported the working class in its struggle for social transformations and against the threat of fascism and war.
In other developed capitalist countries, particularly Germany and Italy, a large part of the urban petty bourgeoisie took a counter-revolutionary stand and, in the early 1930s, became a strong bulwark of fascism and militarism. In analysing the problems of the middle sections in Germany, account should be taken of the factors which influenced and shaped the German burghers' psychology in the course of a long period, which began with the transition of German imperialism from a continental policy to a world policy.
Academician F. A. Rotshtein vividly described the German petty bourgeoisie in his work From the History of the Prusso-German Empire. He wrote: "There were handicraftsmen, small peasant owners, small officials, travelling salesmen, insurance agents, office employees and many other small people from different economic fields who found shelter in the cracks and pores of big-bourgeois society. Being on the verge of proletarianisation but still stubbornly clinging to their very insecure independence, they all wavered politically between workers' and bourgeois parties, between _-_-_
~^^1^^ See V. I. Lenin, ``Reformism in the Russian Social-Democratic Movement'', Collected Worki, Vol. 17, p. 230; "'Left-Wing' Communism---an Infantile Disorder'', Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 37.
218 democracy and cringing loyalty, between revolutionary phrases and reactionary deeds. During the war, it (the petty bourgeoisie---Auth.) was utterly ruined, starved to exhaustion and afflicted by great losses. The revolution drove it to the attic and the cellar; trembling with fear and expecting 'Reds', armed to the teeth, to break in at any moment, it almost lost its reason when all the various bands of Epps, Liittwitzes, Escheriches and other counter-revolutionary heroes came to its aid; it jumped down from its attics, ran out of its cellars and, arming itself with whatever it could, began to ransack and plunder the workers' districts. But 'victory' over the revolution did not give it the most important thing: extrication from hopeless ruin and deliverance from the danger of being thrown into the dark abyss of proletarianisation and from 'interest slavery', i.e., from pawnshops and private usurers.''~^^1^^These socio-economic and psychological features, vividly described by the author, explain why the German petty bourgeoisie began to support fascism from the early 1920s. This period is reproduced in such novels as Wolf Among Wolves by Hans Fallada and in other works that show the environment in which the German fascist movement originated and its leaders first made attempts to assume power by putsches. Fallada vividly describes the German petty bourgeoisie's life at that time in his novel What Next, Little Man"? (1932), written just before Hitler assumed power. In the figure of Pinneberg, Fallada showed a petty bourgeois burdened with prejudices and brought up in a petty-bourgeois environment. Pinneberg and his like provided fascism with their hirelings: blinded by its demagogy, they hoped to save their sinking ship by means of fascism.
The urban petty bourgeoisie turned out to be susceptible to fascist demagogic propaganda when stronger pressure was applied to it, and it began to carry on political activity more vigorously. An analysis of the nazis' programme shows that Hitler and his henchmen attached great importance to winning the petty bourgeoisie over to their side. In particular, they promised to expropriate banks and eliminate big trade. These paragraphs of the nazi programme were specially intended for these sections of the urban population _-_-_
~^^1^^ F. A. Rotshtein, From the History of the Prusso-German Empire, Moscow-Leningrad, 1948, pp. 197--99 (in Russian).
219 and produced the desired effect. The proletariat which was split and insufficiently strong owing to the influence of Social-Democracy, was unable to get the urban petty bourgeoisie and the peasantry to follow its lead.The example of Germany between the two world wars shows that, although the urban petty bourgeoisie's social psychology is shaped by several factors, its class nature is ultimately the determining one. Although the socio-economic and political situation in the 1920s and the early 1930s differed from the present-day situation in industrialised countries, there is certainly a connection between past and present-day neo-fascist tendencies, which are rooted in the petty bourgeoisie's social nature. For instance, at the elections to the West German Landtags in 1966--67, the neo-nazi National Democratic Party of Germany (NDP), won its greatest number of votes in those regions which were regarded as the nazis' bastions in the 1930s. In Nuremberg and Bayreuth, one in every seven votes was cast in its favour. This is not only because there is unquestionable continuity between the nazi party and the NDP, a fact which the leadership of the latter even advertises, but also because the neonazis are seeking to recruit their supporters from the same environment, especially from the urban and rural petty bourgeoisie.
The Soviet publicist Ernst Genri wrote: "The counter^ revolutionary shopkeeper of the latter half of the 20th century is far more ugly and dangerous than his predecessors: he is backed by fascists with nuclear capabilities. Today, his house is not necessarily hung with plagues bearing tenderly sentimental inscriptions embroidered on velvet, in most cases, there are no longer portraits of Bismarck and Hitler on his walls, and he attends singing sessions less frequently and sees American films more often. But the real nature of the backward German burghers of this type has scarcely changed. They have not forgotten what Hitler and Himmler promised them, i.e., to make them the new landowners and masters of lebensraum in the East.... These dreams have been passed on to children. At the same time, this petty bourgeoisie trembles at the thought of a serious economic depression in the FRG. The NDP programme, particularly its economic section, is steadfastly aimed at promoting petty-bourgeois membership of its ranks. It is very significant in this respect that close contact has already been 220 established between the neo-nazis and the rich peasant leadership of the influential West German Peasant Union.''~^^1^^
In his work The New Industrial State, John Kenneth Galbraith drew attention to a very significant fact. "In 1964,'' he writes, "the independent entrepreneurs, large and small, were mostly for Senator Goldwater. His domestic program---shrinkage of the Federal government, less reliance on progressive taxes, aversion to social security---was consistent with their interest."~^^2^^ The movement of the ``ultras'' involved the upper crust of the middle sections, which united under the slogan "Independent Americans for Goldwater''. Although the broad petty-bourgeois masses in the USA are becoming increasingly aware that the financial oligarchy's policy runs counter to their interests and, in some cases, are openly protesting against this, the experience of the class struggle shows that this occasionally spontaneous protest has still not been adequately expressed in an organised anti-monopoly struggle.
As has already been mentioned, the right-wing SocialDemocratic leaders pursued a policy of overt complicity with the big monopoly bourgeoisie in Germany in the 1920s and thus repelled the petty bourgeoisie. Today, however, the right-wing Socialists generally act more subtly and often rely on the urban petty bourgeoisie. Both rightist and ``left'' opportunists, who seek to undermine the revolutionary movement's unity, bank mainly on the petty bourgeoisie. The ideologists of imperialism are also appealing to the petty bourgeoisie.
The ultra-rightist, anti-Communist ideology, which stands in need of a broad social basis, is intended for the consciousness of the petty bourgeois, who is the owner of certain material values, such as an automobile or a house bought in instalments, or runs a small business of his own. Since he acquired these values in an intense struggle for existence, he naturally cherishes them and is afraid of losing them. This fear is objective, caused by general insecurity in the capitalist countries. The ultra-rightists seek to direct this fear against communism.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Ernst Genri, NDP: A New Nazi Party, Moscow, 1968, pp. 19--20 (in Russian).
~^^2^^ John Kenneth Galbraith, The New Industrial State, Boston, 1967, p. 305.
221Historical experience shows that when petty-bourgeois sections align themselves with bourgeois policy, they act as a destructive force hostile to social progress. This is borne out by many events and facts in the 1970s, when petty-- bourgeois reactionaries stepped up their activities in several developed capitalist countries. According to press reports, the extremist movements were iinanced mainly by the former fascist regimes of Spain, Greece and Portugal as well as by some international monopoly circles. The followers of Mussolini, the French ``ultras'' from the former OAS and the representatives of the NDP held meetings, which were attended also by representatives of US extremist organisations subsidised by large corporations. During those years, the Italian Social Movement, a neo-fascist party, received a greater number of votes at the parliamentary elections because of the petty bourgeoisie, which was alarmed at the scale of the democratic movement in the country and was beguiled by neo-fascist demagogy.
As in the past, neo-fascist propaganda is subtly using the masses' hardships resulting from the crisis of the capitalist system. In some developed capitalist countries, government crises create a psychological situation which helps to spread "strong power" ideas among the intermediate sections of the population. In the FRG, for instance, the NDP drew many entrepreneurs, traders, handicraftsmen and peasants to its side, and various groups of the middle sections were clearly and broadly represented in the party. When the rightists were defeated at the elections to the Bundestag in 1969 and the NDP lost its prestige, some of the middle sections began to gravitate towards Strauss's CSU, under the influence of reactionary propaganda. It is also significant that the CDU won many votes from the NDP's adherents at the Landtag elections in Lower Saxony in June 1974. Just as before, an unflagging struggle for the petty bourgeoisie is being waged between the progressive and reactionary forces.
In all developed capitalist countries the masses, including the working petty bourgeoisie, are protesting more and more against the monopolies' reactionary policy. Changes in their socio-economic position are causing changes in the views and political stand of large sections of the urban petty bourgeoisie, whicli are being drawn into the anti-monopoly and antimilitarist struggle.
222In Belgium, for instance, small merchants and handicraftsmen recently held meetings and demonstrations in several cities in protest against new indirect taxation, as a result of which the cost of living had substantially increased. In October 1972, 700,000 traders and handicraftsmen, i.e., workers at virtually all enterprises in the service sphere, staged a general two-day strike. In France, small traders and handicraftsmen recently staged several major strikes, each of which involved up to one million people. The strikers blocked many roads in the country with automobiles, and there were clashes between the demonstrators and the police. In the press, these clashes were called "road battles''. In Italy, small owners fighting for better living conditions and democratic rights are also participating in mass strikes. In May 1973, about 50,000 handicraftsmen came to Rome from all parts of the country and, for the first time in the country's history, held a big demonstration. In Britain, a wide-scale general strike was staged for the first time since 1926 on May Day in 1973. More than five million people took part in it. For the first time, handicraftsmen and farm labourers initiated a May Day march in the highlands of Scotland. At the end of 1974, more than 5,000 small and middle entrepreneurs in Holland took part in a protest demonstration in front of Parliament in the Hague, demanding an end to their intolerable plight.
Thus, history shows that while the urban petty bourgeoisie occupies an intermediate position between the two main antipode classes, in some cases, it sides with the big bourgeoisie and, in others, it supports the working class in its anti-monopoly struggle. Moreover, it should be taken into account that a certain part of the petty bourgeoisie remains passive. Its political stand depends on the specific historical situation, i.e., on the correlation of forces on an international scale and within the national framework, traditions, and so forth.
In his book The Middle Sections in the Federal Republic, the West German scholar Erich Hanke wrote: "Since the petty and middle bourgeoisie is objectively interested in the democratic renovation of society, the working class, which pursues a policy of alliances, does not set itself merely tactical aims. The aim of the working class and its Marxist parties is a strong, lasting alliance, because this alliance is objectively possible owing to the worsening contradiction between 223 the monopolies and part of the bourgeoisie, on the one hand, and the growing coincidence of interests on the main issues between the petty and middle bourgeoisie and the working class, on the other.''~^^1^^
Erich Hanke emphasises that the objective conditions of West German society at the stage of the struggle for its democratic renovation are such that the petty and middle bourgeoisie, just like the working class, is interested in peace, progressive democratic transformations, and the elimination of the threat to its existence created by the monopolies. At the same time, the working class supports the small and middle entrepreneurs' most important social demands, which are directed against state-monopoly policy. Therefore, according to Erich Ilanke, the petty bourgeoisie can, in spite of its vacillations, become both an ally of the working class in the struggle for democratic renovation and a partner during the subsequent transformation of society.
The Communist and Workers' parties are making the urban middle sections aware of their common interests with the working class in the struggle against monopoly rule and are seeking to reach an understanding on the basis of a common progressive programme which is in keeping with the interests of the broad sections of working people. Their task is to wrest the politically backward middle sections from under the monopoly bourgeoisie's reactionary influence and show them that their just demands will only be met by establishing a strong alliance with the working class and waging a struggle together with it. This has also been reflected in the Communist parties' programme documents.
For instance, the manifesto of the French Communist Party's Central Committee "For Advanced Democracy, for a Socialist France'', and the Left's common government programme emphasise that victory by the left forces will lead to an improvement in the middle sections' socio-- economic position, an improvement which they are incapable of achieving themselves, as they depend on the monopolies. Refuting the allegations that the realisation of a common government programme would be detrimental to the property of small industrialists, peasants and traders, Georges Marchais stressed: "We are not pronouncing a death sentence _-_-_
~^^1^^ Erich Hanke, Mittelstand in der Bundesrepublik, Frankfurt am Main, 1973, S. 127.
224 on it with a slay of execution. These types of property will also remain in the society for which we are fighting."^^1^^In Italy, the Communists are devoting a great deal of attention to the traditional urban middle sections. They are actively working in such public democratic organisations as the National Association of Industrial and Labour Cooperatives, the Association of Consumer Cooperatives, the Italian Confederation of Traders, the National Association of Retail Traders and Street Vendors, the Italian Autonomous Confederation of Petrol Station Workers, the Italian Federation of Commercial Travellers and Representatives, and the Italian General Confederation of Artisans. The Italian Communist Party is working out programmes of socio-economic demands which reflect the specific interests of different categories of the traditional urban middle sections (the granting of credits on favourable terms to small enterprises and to cooperative production and trade enterprises, reduced electricity charges, a tax cut, and state medical aid.)
In his report at the Extraordinary Seventh Congress of the Portuguese Communist Party, its General Secretary, Alvaro Cunhal, noted that one of the Party's tasks was to improve the position of small owners.
Local Communist party organisations are also making proposals which are in keeping with the socio-economic interests of the urban middle sections, especially the petty, and occasionally the middle, non-monopoly bourgeoisie. For instance, the local organisation of the German Communist Party in the Saar has worked out and made public a development plan in which measures were proposed for defending the middle sections from the monopolies' pressure by planning economic development on democratic lines. The steps envisaged include an effective tax cut, long-term credits, greater regard for the middle sections' interests in placing public orders, greater federal outlays for the development of crafts, tax incentives for the establishment of cooperative societies by the middle sections, and the subsidising of rationalisation measures.
The Communist Party of the USA calls for measures aimed at eliminating the monopolies' enormous economic advantages, providing financial and technical assistance to small _-_-_
~^^1^^ L'Humanite, September 6, 1973.
__PRINTERS_P_225_COMMENT__ 15---2560 225 entrepreneurs, and developing cooperative associations on democratic lines.Lenin's tenets that, for victory, the prole-lariat .should take account of "Ihc disunity between the bourgeoisie and its petty-bourgeois allies or Hie instability of I heir alliance"~^^1^^ and concentrate all these "drops and streamlets of popular resentment into a single gigantic torrent" against capitalism~^^2^^ are very important in determining the strategy and tactics of the workers' and mass democratic movement in developed capitalist countries at the present stage.
Using their experience, the Communist and Workers' parties are waging a vigorous struggle to win the broad petty-bourgeois masses over to the working class. This struggle is already producing definite results.
_-_-_^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, "The Constituent Assembly Elections and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat'', Collected Works, Vol. 30, p. 274.
^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, "What Is to Be Done?'', Collected Works, Vol. 5, p. 420.'
[226] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter VIII __ALPHA_LVL1__ THE NEW MIDDLE SECTIONS AND THEIR ROLEIntellectuals and office workers are also playing an ever greater role as the anti-monopoly struggle develops today and the broadest sections of the population are being drawn into it. At the turn of the century, Lenin emphasised: "In all spheres of people's labour, capitalism increases the number of office and professional workers with particular rapidity and makes a growing demand for intellectuals.''~^^1^^
Referring the importance which lie attached to this concept, Lenin wrote: "I use the words intellectual and intelligentsia to translate the German Literal and Literatentum, which include not only writers but in general all educated people, the members of the liberal professions, the brain workers, as the English call them, as distinct from manual workers."~^^2^^ Lenin drew attention to the petty bourgeoisie's steadily worsening socio-economic position and wrote that, together with this, "a 'new middle social-estate', as the Germans say, is emerging and developing, a new stratum of the petty bourgeoisie, the intelligentsia, who are also finding life in capitalist society harder and harder and for the most part regard this society from the viewpoint of the small producer."~^^3^^ This concept also applies to office workers, i.e., a category of wage workers engaged mainly in labour which does not require physical effort (regardless of the level of their intellectual work), and receiving remuneration in the form of a salary. Intellectuals and office workers are categories which intertwine, but do not coincide.
_-_-_~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, "Review. Karl Kautsky, Bernstein und das sozialdemokratische Programm. Eine Antikritik'', Collected Works, Vol. 4, p. 202.
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, "One Step Forward, Two Steps Back'', Collected Works, Vol. 7, p. 324.
~^^3^^ V. I. Lenin, "Les Beaux Esprits se Rencontrent'', Collected Works, Vol. 6, p. 434.
__PRINTERS_P_227_COMMENT__ 15* 227Noting thai the "composh ion of the 'intelligentsia' is assuming just as clear an outline as thai of society engaged in I ho produclion of material values...'', Lenin emphasised that, under capitalism, the intelligentsia consisted of three main social sections: Hie rich bourgeois elite, the masses of the petty-bourgeois intelligentsia and a thin stratum of the proletarian intelligentsia.^^1^^
In his works written during his period of imprisonment from 1929 to 1935, Antonio Gramsci, a prominent leader of the Italian and international communist movement, divided the intelligentsia into the "traditional intelligentsia" (i.e., the intelligentsia which existed at different stages of historical development and during the most difficult and radical changes, both political and social, e.g. the clergy and medics) and the "organic intelligentsia proper'', i.e., the intelligentsia produced by a given social stratum.^^2^^
Throughout the course of history the intelligentsia has been divided into those engaged in the humanities and those engaged in science and technology. The latter is becoming more and more important and is divided into technical intelligentsia, who are directly connected with production, and scientists, since both categories often have quite different working conditions and enjoy different opportunities for associating with their fellow workers.
The intelligentsia engaged in the humanities consists of such professional groups as writers (the publishing trade), artists (including those working in applied art), journalists, musicians, actors (theatre, cinema, radio and television), scientists working in the humanities, instructors at institutions of higher learning, lawyers and teachers.
The clergy and the military are special categories. The clergy is becoming increasingly differentiated. The armed forces' political stand has also undergone a definite change. The military elite, which is something of a caste and is recruited, as a rule, from the privileged class, serves the imperialist monopolies' interests in most cases.
At the same time, the masses of servicemen, including some officers, are being drawn more and more often into the struggle against imperialism, the struggle for democratic _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, "What the 'Friends of the People' Are and How They Fight the Social-Democrats'', Collected Works, Vol. 1, p. 294.
~^^2^^ See A. Gramsci, Selected Works in three volumes, Moscow, 1959, Vol. 3, pp. 458--59 (in Russian).
228 transformations. Medics hold an intermediate position between the intelligentsia engaged in the humanities and the intelligentsia engaged in science and technology. Supervisors (those engaged in management, including the state machinery, and officials) constitute another large group.As Lenin indicated, the intelligentsia "is not an independent economic class and therefore is not an independent political force".^^1^^ Like all the middle sections as a whole, "the intelligentsia, as a special stratum of modern capitalist society"~^^2^^, holds an intermediate position between the working class and the bourgeoisie. The intelligentsia's social function grew as capitalist relations originated within feudal society. This is evident from major historical events, especially the French bourgeois revolution at the end of the 18th centnry, when the intelligentsia played a generally recognised preparatory role in the person of Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot and many other famous enlighteners. Revolutionary-minded intellectuals, from both the nobility and various other sections of the population, also carried on important activities in Russia's history.
The intelligentsia and its political stand must be assessed in a strictly differentiated way. Referring to the intelligentsia's role under capitalism, Lenin emphasised that its members "...occupy a special position among the other classes attaching themselves partly to the bourgeoisie by their connections, their outlooks, etc., and partly to the wageworkers as capitalism increasingly deprives the intellectual of his independent position, converts him into a hired worker and threatens to lower his living standard".^^3^^
Office workers also constitute an extremely heterogeneous class. Their upper crust either belongs to the capitalist class or borders on it. Some of those engaged in non-physical labour belong to the middle, intermediate sections of capitalist society. Many categories of office workers employed in industry, trade, hanks, state-owned establishments, and _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, "Concerning an Article Published in the Organ of the Bund'', Collected Works, Vol. H, p. 380.
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, "Ono Step Forward, Two Stops Mack'', Collected Works, Vol. 7, p. 209.
~^^3^^ V. I. Lenin, "Review. Karl Kant sky, Bernstein und das sozialdemokratische Programm. Eine Antikritik'', Collected Works, Vol. 4, p. 202.
229 so forth, are drawing closer to the working class by virtue of their objective position.Therefore, it is exceptionally important to study and analyse the processes which reflect the changes in the intelligentsia's and office workers' composition and economic position, the specifics of their work, their social and professional status, social psychology and political stand, because all this is directly connected with the drawing of the broad sections of working intellectuals and office workers into the anti-monopoly struggle.
As the scientific and technological revolution develops, the numerical strength of the intelligentsia and office workers steadily grows. Statistics vividly testify to this. For instance, the number of scientists in the world today amounts to 80--90 per cent of all scientists who ever lived. Moreover, at the current rates of scientific development this figure doubles every 10--15 years. By the late 1960s, the numerical strength of the intelligentsia in developed capitalist countries came to about 10 per cent of the active population.
The 1968 census showed that France had two million engineers, technicians and supervisors, i.e., about 10 per cent of the country's active population. In the mid-1970s, the proportion of specialists among all wage workers was 22.8 per cent in Sweden, 14.6 per cent in Canada, 14.2 per cent in the USA, and 14.1 per cent in France. In France the number of engineers increased by 37.9 per cent, technicians by 55.2 per cent, and top executives by 19.3 per cent, in the period 1962--68 alone. In the FRG, the proportion of office workers and officials in the composition of the gainfully employed population increased from 20.6 per cent in 1950 to 29.9 per cent in 1961 and 36.2 per cent in 1970. The Industrial Institute in Koln has estimated that the proportion of office workers among wage workers in industry will amount to 37 per cent in 1980, 45 per cent in 1985, and 54 per cent in 1990.
As large enterprises with centralised management appeared, trade and credit and insurance systems developed, the service sector grew, and the state penetrated into all economic and social spheres, the number of office workers and officials increased. The example of the USA clearly shows the numerical growth of intellectuals engaged in science and technology, a growth engendered by the requirements of capitalist production. In 70 years, the size of the category 230 termed "specialists, technicians and related employees" ii.creased almost nine-fold, i.e., from 1.2 million in 1900 to 10.3 million in 1969. This growth has been far more rapid than the average growth of employment. The number of engineers increased by 60 per cent in the 1950s and reached 861,000 by 1960. In 1966 178,000 scientists were employed at major private companies, and 72,400 scientists and 76,800 engineers were working in the federal service. Besides specialists employed in production sections, large firms concentrate scientists and designers in special research centres, bureaus and departments.
The development of productive forces and the growing integration of science and production are not only rapidly increasing the number of intellectuals, but also substantially changing their social position. In the course of the scientific and technological revolution, intellectuals and office workers in industrialised countries are becoming increasingly differentiated and polarised. On the one hand, a substantial part of them is being proletarianised and the army of "workers engaged in mental labour" is steadily growing. On the other, a new type of intellectual, i.e., the intellectual businessman, the intellectual owner, the entrepreneur, is playing an increasingly significant role. The 1960 census showed that the USA had 7,232,000 intellectuals, 87.9 per cent of them wage workers, and 11.8 per cent of them belonging to the second category. They include intellectuals standing at the top of the hierarchy and working in the state machinery, major monopolies and banks.
Capitalism is incapable of eliminating the contrast and substantial differences between intellectual and manual work. In modern capitalist society this division is still the most general principle used in classifying the intelligentsia as a special social group. The events of recent decades show that the consequences of the scientific and technological revolution under state-monopoly capitalism adversely affect the socio-economic position of not only the working class and the traditional middle sections, i.e., the urban and rural petty bourgeoisie, but also a substantial part of the new middle sections: intellectuals and office workers.
Many groups of intellectuals, especially technicians, have drawn substantially closer to the working class in terms of their socio-economic position in contemporary capitalist society, their working conditions, and their place in the 231 system of production relations. Besides the proletariat, monopoly capital exploits a large section of intellectuals and office workers, especially those engaged in industry. Many intellectual professions have become mass occupations owing to the scientific and technological revolution and the conversion of science into a direct productive force. Office workers, draughtsmen, laboratory workers, technicians, and even rank-and-file technicians and designers are increasingly feeling the burden of capitalist rationalisation methods in production.
Under capitalism, the wide-scale employment of scientists and engineers is now both an important factor in increasing the rate of surplus value and an additional source of enrichment for the exploiters. The typical intellectual of the 19th century, i.e., a representative of a profession in the humanities, is a far cry from the technicians, office workers and officials of today, whose role is becoming more and more significant in the course of the development of capitalist production and the bourgeois state with its ramified network. As the scientific and technological revolution develops in the present epoch, the socio-economic interests of many sections of the intelligentsia intertwine more and more closely with the interests of the working class, while the intelligentsia's creative aspirations conflict with the financial oligarchy's interests.
There is one other noteworthy fact which characterises the present-day position of intellectuals in developed capitalist countries. In many of these countries, the demand for specialists in individual fields is growing but more and more intellectuals are becoming jobless. The USA is no exception.
In US schools, the situation is the gravest in recent decades. In the state of Michigan, for instance, 6,000 teachers were dismissed in 1975, and in New York, about 8,000 teachers were threatened with dismissal. Commenting on the US Labour Department's predictions that the college graduates' position will worsen, the bourgeois press noted that in the 1950s and 1960s, a diploma from an institution of higher learning guaranteed work, but in the late 1970s and the 1980s it can guarantee only professional disenchantment.
In France, only one out of every eight students who are training to be teachers can expect to get a job in their 232 field of specialisation. In his book The Development of Manpower, Bertrand Bellon, a researcher at Paris University, wrote that there were no longer any privileged fields in which employment was guaranteed. "Unemployment is now embracing literally everyone: skilled and unskilled workers, journalists and technicians working for publishers, and government employees."^^1^^
In Italy hundreds of thousands of graduates of institutions of higher learning are unemployed. In 1974 only seven out of every 100 such graduates found jobs in their field of specialisation, while in 1975, more than 31,000 of them remained jobless. In Rome 13,000 applications were filed for 340 school-teacher vacancies.
In Britain, about 30,000 out of 42,800 graduates of teachers' training colleges, i.e., three-quarters of them, may be jobless immediately after graduation. Many of those who graduated from British institutions of higher learning, i. e., specialists in machine-building, chemistry, biology and technology, have failed find any work in their field of specialisation. According to the West German Federal Government's Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, in Nuremberg some 30,400 graduates of institutions of higher learning remained without work in 1975. Erich Frister, president of the trade union of educational and scientific workers, said that 3,000 teachers were dismissed in Bavaria in 1978 because of smaller allocations to schools. And this was occurring at a time when schools in Bavaria needed 13,400 extra teachers in order to function normally. According to Walter Rasch, senator of education, in 1978 the number of unemployed teachers in West Berlin came to 8,000, i.e. two-thirds of all the city's unemployed people with a higher education. In Belgium, 4,264 university graduates had no work as of June 30, 1976. They included 964 philosophers, 1,810 specialists in social sciences, 653 mathematicians, physicists, chemists and biologists, 305 doctors, 303 civil engineers and 110 agronomists. According to the national department for employment, Belgium had as many as 7,500 university graduates out of work in 1978. Unemployment among engineers, scientists, technicians and other specialists in developed capitalist countries is steadily growing. In 1971, unemployment among scientists and specialists in these _-_-_
~^^1^^ Bertrand Bellon, Le volant de main-d'ceuvre, Paris, 1975, p. 11.
233 countries averaged 2.9 per cent, and in 1975 it reached 4.2 per cent.A substantial proportion of "white-collar workers" in these countries are facing growing socio-economic difficulties. In some branches, engineers, technicians and supervisors constitute more than 25 per cent of the employed: in the chemical industry, the figure is 26 per cent; in power engineering, 30 per cent; in the electronics industry, 50 per cent; in the oil-refining industry, 60 per cent, and in the nuclear industry, more than 75 per cent. Since their wages constitute a large proportion of the total, the employers are seeking, in their bids for higher profits, to lower engineers' and technicians' salaries and thus steadily reducing the standard of their living and working conditions.
The French magazine I'Express wrote: "The wave of concentration which has hit the country in recent years has more strongly accentuated the engineer's dependent position. After choosing a 'good' enterprise and struggling up the promotion ladder, he suddenly learns, often from his newspaper, that he has been 'placed in different hands'. He has been sold to others, and he feels that he has to start again from scratch. He is lucky if he can keep his former place. This is trade in personnel.''~^^1^^ In government institutions, only small groups of big officials enjoy a very privileged position. The overwhelming majority of government employees receive far less pay than employees in private industries. In Italy, for instance, the state does not accord government employees the rights which are enjoyed by other working people, because the Statute of Working People (a state law) does not apply to them.
Intellectual work is not creative work at a capitalist enterprise, because production time there is strictly controlled. The very meaning of the term "free professions" has changed. Their representatives no longer hold a privileged position, but merely swell the ranks of wage labour. In the sphere of intellectual work the dominant relations of hire and exploitation are felt most painfully of all. At the beginning of the 1970s, France had about three million intellectuals who were employed as wage workers, and about one-half of them (technicians, engineers, researchers, and so forth) were directly or indirectly connected with _-_-_
~^^1^^ L'Express, January 3-9, 1972, p. 53,
234 modern large-scale production. According to the French census, by 1962 30 per cent of lawyers, about 50 per cent of personnel in the public health and social security systems, and 66 per cent of artistes and decorators were already wage workers. At the end of the 1960s, 22 out of every 100 doctors were completely dependent on a salary, while 32 out of every 100 doctors were partially dependent. Thus, less than half of French doctors have their own practice.Engineers and technicians also fall victims to the manoeuvres of owners, who try to create the impression that they are actually participating in the formulation of their enterprises' technical policy. However, like other categories of working people, these workers do not play any real part in determining main policy directions. Moreover, alienation (i.e., the process whereby the activity of both working class and intelligentsia and the fruits of their labour are objectively transformed into a force which is independent of them and hostile to them) has substantially intensified with the development of capitalism, especially in its highest and final stage. The social prestige of scientists and technicians has greatly fallen. In many cases they perform functions which are only a kind of mass industrial labour. An opinion poll on the prestige of various professions in the USA has shown that scientists have risen to third place in terms of prestige, while engineers have dropped to 20th place.
Only recently, the position of teachers was considered to be very good (high pay, longer leave and shorter working hours), but now the public attitude towards this socio-- professional group has substantially changed for the worse.
Consequently, the antagonism between monopoly rule and the overwhelming majority of intellectuals is steadily growing. At the same time, many intellectuals are drawing closer to the working class because of their common socio-- economic interests and their aspirations of changing existing conditions.
However, an analysis of the intelligentsia's socio-- economic position shows that this social section continues to retain its characteristic features. Although various groups of working people tend to draw together, particularly as a result of tlio scientific and technological revolution, this docs not moan that engineers, technicians and different sections of office workers merge with workers. Lenin's tenet that the ordinary living conditions and earnings of 235 intellectuals have much in common with petty-bourgeois existence has lost none of its importance today.^^1^^
Lenin wrote: "No one will venture to deny that the intelligentsia, as a special stratum of modern capitalist society, is characterised, by and large, precisely by individualism and incapacity for discipline and organisation (cf.. for example, Kautsky's well-known articles on the intelligentsia). This, incidentally, is a feature which unfavourably distinguishes this social stratum from the proletariat; it is one of the reasons for the flabbiness and instability of the intellectual, which the proletariat so often feels; and this trait of the intelligentsia is intimately bound up with its customary mode of life, its mode of earning a livelihood, which in a great many respects approximates to the petty-bourgeois mode of existence (working in isolation or in very small groups, etc.)~^^2^^
This tenet of Lenin's is still important today when it comes to assessing the socio-economic position, psychology and political stand of a substantial part of the intelligentsia in industrialised countries. Although technological research is now carried on by groups, individual work and the dissociation from the group which it involves continue to play an important role in that field, to say nothing of the humanities and art. Statistics show that there is still a wide gap between the earnings of the numerically large groups of intellectuals and the wages of the working class.
In the USA, for instance, the average earnings of hired specialists in 1966 were 300 per cent higher than those of unskilled workers in the manufacturing industry, 50 per cent higher than those of semi-skilled workers, and 25 per cent higher than those of skilled workers. The average earnings of engineers and technicians were 66 per cent higher than skilled workers' wages, while the income of top-grade engineers was almost 200 per cent higher. The earnings of hired specialists are substantially higher than the wages of highly skilled workers, and therefore the managerial elite's way of life is similar, in many respects, to that of the middle or, in some cases, the big bourgeoisie.
_-_-_~^^1^^ See V. I. Lenin. "Les I3caux Esprits so Rcncontrcut'', Collected Works, Vol. 6, p. 434.
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, "One Step Forward, Two Steps Back'', Collected Works, Vol. 7, p. 269.
236Statistics show that this also holds true in the FRG, Britain, France, Italy and other industrialised countries. In 1950 overall expenditure on personnel in the Italian manufacturing industry amounted to 1,088,227 million lire; moreover 18 per cent of this sum was paid to office workers and supervisors although, numerically, they scarcely constituted 7 per cent of the employed. In the 1960s, the gap between remuneration for engineers and technicians and workers' wages did not narrow. In 1966, for instance, the annual income of Italian office workers was about 3.5 million lire, for those in the first category (engineers and technicians), 2.3 million lire for those in the second category, and 1.5 million lire for those in the third category. Skilled workers received almost as much as office workers of the third category, who are the lowest-paid representatives of the given group of intellectuals. Even if a worker reaches the top rung at his enterprise, he will still not receive as much as office workers of the first category, which includes engineers and most technicians. Moreover, the monopolies seek to provide added incentives for engineers and technicians by offering bonuses, holding out prospects for social advancement, and so forth.
Although the socio-economic position of large groups of intellectuals is drawing closer to that of the working class as a result of proletarianisation, an intellectual's living conditions and earnings still differ from those of a worker, and his work retains its individual character. It is not physical strength or working skill, but higher education, which determines an intellectual's special role and feeds his fancy about his social function.
Today, there are objective reasons for broad sections of the intelligentsia, particularly scientists and technicians, to support the working-class anti-monopoly struggle. However, account should be taken of the fact that this social stratum's nature has not changed in principle. Intellectuals are exploited more and more intensively under state-monopoly capitalism, but this does not mean that they have already been integrated into the working class as regards their living conditions and, in particular, their class awareness. This trend, however, will inevitably develop further. Analysis of the present living conditions of the numerically large categories of scientists and technicians in developed capitalist countries bears this out.
237The intelligentsia as A social stratum in capitalist countries is today being subjected to two opposite tendencies. One tendency commercialises certain categories and groups of the intelligentsia and turns them into bureaucrats, i.e., it draws them closer to the big bourgeoisie and that part of the middle bourgeoisie which retains its positions. Another tendency is towards proletarianisation. It draws large sections of the petty-bourgeois intelligentsia closer to the working class. Both tendencies are manifested simultaneously, as they are dialectically interconnected. According to Pierre Louis Marger, Secretary of the General Confederation of Engineers, Supervisory Staff and Technicians (GCT, France), engineers and technicians share some of the technical and supervisory responsibilities in accordance with the position they hold, ranging from the supervisor who is responsible for carrying out the employers' policy to the engineer or the technician, who is part of the production process. The GCT considers that a substantial proportion of engineers, technicians and supervisory staff are exploited as wage earners. As this exploitation intensifies, their interests increasingly coincide with those of the working class.
Changes in the socio-economic position of the broad sections of the working intelligentsia naturally engender changes in their awareness, psychology and political stand. As Leonid Brezhnev declared at the International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties held in Moscow in 1969, "Many aspects of work with the intelligentsia, especially with that section of it which together with the working class is engaged in industry and is being subjected to growing exploitation, should be seen in their new context. The professions requiring mental work are becoming more widespread. The engineering and technical intelligentsia in the capitalist countries is now being drawn not only from the bourgeoisie but also from the middle sections and in part from among the working people as well. To a considerable extent all this is changing the intelligentsia's attitude to the capitalist system and bringing its interests closer to those of the working class.''~^^1^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, Moscow, 1969, p. 150--51.
238 __ALPHA_LVL2__ 2. New Middle SectionsThe recent intense cla.^s battles in capitalist countries show that there is a real basis today for a genuine alliance between intellectuals and manual workers. The Declaration made by the Political Bureau of the French Communist Party on May 18, 1976, emphasised that the employers and the government are seeking to deprive technicians, engineers and supervisory staff of any freedom to express views and of freedom of organisation. They are employing wide-scale propaganda activities, combining flattery with accusations, to prevent the working class from taking concerted action with the broad masses of working people. But less opportunities are afforded to technicians, engineers and supervisors to realise their aspirations, and therefore these categories of working people are joining the struggle for their demands.^^1^^
At the same time, changes in the awareness and psychology of intellectuals and office workers do not always directly depend on changes in their socio-economic position. The latter influence their psychology in different ways. At the same time changes in their social psychology are intricately and dialectically connected with changes in their political stand. When analysing the social consequences of the scientific and technological revolution under state-monopoly capitalism, it is important both to ascertain how the present stage of differentiation and proletarianisation of the broad masses of working intellectuals differs qualitatively from the preceding historical periods and to determine the main tendencies of the processes which are taking place.
A substantial part of the intelligentsia took a vacillating political stand in the bourgeois-democratic revolution of 1905--1907 and the revolution in February 1917. The Paris Commune and, to an immeasurably greater extent, the Great October Socialist Revolution promoted its political delimitation and served as important turning points in its historical development.
It is exceptionally important to have a clear-cut criterion which characterises the social psychology and political stand of different sections of intellectuals and office _-_-_
~^^1^^ See I'Humanite, May 19, 1976.
239 workers. The measure of llieir actual participation in the struggle is one such criterion.In his work The Western Intelligentsia (1922--1923), A. V. Lunacharsky noted that one extremely important sign lay in the way the proletariat, which had grown and become much stronger, was beginning to attract the intelligentsia more strongly than the latter was being attracted by capital's opportunities for buying it off. In his article "Where Is the French Intelligentsia Headed?'', Lunacharsky emphasised ten years later that the intellectuals were rebelling against capital as the intelligentsia disintegrated and fell away from the big bourgeoisie. He wrote: "But their road is not easy and simple. Heine hated the bourgeoisie with all his heart and said that he was with the proletariat body and soul. But who knows what the worker will do with the museums and libraries? Perhaps, the proletariat's assumption of power will usher in a new era of grievous barbarism.... We know the fears of losing culture quite well. Together with humanistic illusions, they are one of the dangers for intellectuals who sympathise with revolution but have a poor knowledge of it."~^^1^^
Subsequent events confirmed that socialism and the working class were the real guardians and heirs of cultural values. Lunacharsky wrote: "The Communist Party's vigorous and selfless work clearly proved to the best part of the intelligentsia that the revolution was vested with good will, and rank upon rank of them sided wholeheartedly with the new platform."~^^2^^ Progressive intellectuals subsequently made a great contribution to the struggle against fascism, the struggle for peace and social progress.
For instance, when the Berlin (Prussian) Academy of Sciences, acting under the nazis' influence, demanded that Albert Einstein should speak out in fascist Germany's " defence'', the world-famous scientist refused outright. He wrote in his reply that such a statement would amount to indirect support for moral degradation and the destruction of cultural values. In May 1953, William Frauenglass, a _-_-_
~^^1^^ A. V. Lunacharsky, Collected Works, Vol. 6, pp. 270--71 (in Russian).
~^^2^^ See A. V. Lunacharsky, "New Europe and the USSR'', in Novy Mir, No. 11, 1971, p. 219 (in Russian).
240 Brooklyn teacher, who refused, in spite of threats, to reveal his political views to the Un-American Committee, wrote for advice to Albert Einstein, who lashed out at the "loyalty test" in the USA. Einstein wrote to him (the famous scientist later published his reply in the press) that reactionary politicians had aroused the public suspicion of all intellectual activity by dangling before their eyes a danger from without, suppressed freedom of teaching and dismissed those who did not prove submissive, thereby condemning them to starvation. According to Einstein, every intellectual summoned to appear before one of the committees should refuse to testify and be prepared for imprisonment and poverty. If enough people took this grave step, they would be successful. If not, the country's intelligentsia deserved nothing better than slavery.It is noteworthy that Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr, both of whom were strictly theoretical scientists, came forward with slogans calling for a political struggle. They took different stands in their field, i.e., theoretical physics, but held the same political views: they were convinced that a struggle had to be waged for peace and humanism.
Anatole France's example is very important for understanding the world outlook and psychology of the intelligentsia in the West. Researchers correctly note that the "Dreyfus case" turned Anatole France into a political fighter and revealed the social importance of literature to him. On the other hand, he understood events well and therefore did not stop at ``Dreyfusism'', which was gradually becoming a variety of French radicalism with all its limitations. He began to comprehend the people's aspirations and subsequently championed socialism. The question of where mankind is headed, a question of great concern to intellectuals in the 20th century, became central to Anatole France's world outlook and creative work.
Anatole France signed the declaration of the many French intellectuals who, in 1919, came out against imperialist interference in Soviet Russia's affairs. Lenin emphasised that the declaration was a victory for Soviet power over imperialist France inside the country itself. But Anatole France went further than simply condemning the imperialists' intervention. Two weeks after the French Communist Party was established he expressed his solidarity with the Third International. That was a positive programme.
__PRINTERS_P_241_COMMENT__ 16---2560 241Although at that time deep-going changes were occurring in the intelligentsia's consciousness their political expression look different forms. In Romain Holland's "Declaration of Independence of the Spirit'', published in I'Humanite, the intelligentsia, which was disenchanted wilh capitalism, "brought its spiritual autonomy" to the forefront. In 1922, a dispute broke out between Romain Rolland and Henri Barbusse, who represented the ``Glarte'' movement. The former reproached the latter and his like with the claim that, in siding with the working class and revolution, they had ``left'' individual consciousness "in the background''. This thesis expressed the typical features of the intellectuals' psychology.
Barbusse, for his part, called on Rolland and those who shared his view to abandon their fancies about the " independence of the spirit" and unreservedly take the workingclass stand, thereby showing that only by taking such a stand was real participation in the struggle against imperialist barbarism possible. Barbusse emphasised that socalled "spiritual autonomy" was actually advantageous to the big bourgeoisie, since it doomed the democratic intelligentsia to passivity and inaction.
No less interesting are the life and activity of Ralph Fox, a talented British writer and critic, who wrote the book The Novel and the People. He was born into a factory director's family in 1900. When he was 20 and a student of Oxford University, he went to Soviet Russia to see the new world for himself. In 1925, he joined the Communist Party of Great Britain, and from 1930 to 1932 he worked in the Soviet Union on the legacy of scientific communism at the Institute of Marx, Engels and Lenin. Afterwards, he went to Spain. In January 1937, Ralph Fox died near Cordoba while serving as a commissar of the Anglo-Irish battalion of the international brigade. His creative work and life are a vivid example of an intellectual who was born into a bourgeois family but took a revolutionary and socialist stand.
Romain Holland's reflections on the intelligentsia's future were expressed in a series of novels entitled L'Ame enchantee, in which his creative work assumed an entirely new nature. Researchers correctly note that L'Annonciatrice was the first and the greatest anti-fascist novel in European literature. The novel's main subject is the fate of the 242 modern intelligentsia and the changes which occur in its consciousness as capitalism collapses and the world popular liberation movement gains momentum.
During the years when he was working on L'Annonciatrice, Holland made a thorough study of Lenin's works and wrote the article "Lenin, Art and Action''. By carefully studying life and analysing the real processes of contemporary European and world development, the writer succeeded in creating a truthful portrait of an intellectual who found his place in the anti-fascist movement. The result was Marc Riviere who dies for the righteous cause of democracy, peace and social progress after being stabbed by a Blackshirt. In the 1930s, Romain Rolland, together with A. M. Gorky and Henri Barbusse, became an active participant in the antifascist movement, a fighter against fascist barbarism, a champion of culture, and a zealous friend and defender of the Soviet Union. In the article "Europe, expand or die!'', Rolland directly confronted the intellectuals of Europe with the need to make a choice between the forces of progress and reaction, between the forces of peace and war. The writer played an outstanding role in organising the Amsterdam Congress in 1932 and the Paris Congress in Defence of Culture in 1935.
During those years, Romain Rolland naturally drew closer to the French Communist Party. In his address to the National Conference of the FCP in January 1937, he wrote that, by the logic of historical progress and as a result of its own wisdom, this party had become the real representative of not only the French people and their international mission, but of a correct, French national policy.
Romain Holland's deliberations, as expressed in a letter sent in reply to a French student, are very characteristic of the democratic intelligentsia's psychology even today. It is significant, however, that Rolland succeeded in overcoming his liberal vacillations and prejudices even before he saw national catastrophe befall France, which was betrayed by her then reactionary rulers. Shortly before his death Romain Rolland welcomed Maurice Thorez's return to France.
When Romain Rolland was in Moscow, he was greatly impressed by his lengthy contacts with Gorky. These two names are inseparable in the history of culture and the struggle for peace and democracy. Gorky devoted a great __PRINTERS_P_243_COMMENT__ 16* 243 deal of attention to the problems of the intelligentsia over a long historical period, particularly during the years immediately preceding the Second World War.
In his article "Reply to an Intellectual" (May 1931), Gorky replied to a letter which he received from a West European intellectual. Gorky wrote: "You intellectualists cherish culture, which is unquestionably important to the whole of mankind. Is this not so? But you see for yourself how capitalism daily and continuously destroys this culture, which you cherish, in Europe and blatantly creates an army of enemies to European culture by its inhuman, cynical policy in the colonies.''
Gorky emphasised that, consequently, "'humanism', which has cost the intelligentsia of Europe so much and in which it took pride, is utterly destroyed. Never before has the intelligentsia so clearly revealed its helplessness and so shamelessly showed its indifference to life as in the 20th century, which is full of tragedies created by the cynicism of dominant classes. In politics the feelings and thoughts of the intelligentsia are authoritatively commanded by adventurists; these adventurists are the obedient executors of the will of capitalist groups, which, while trading in everything that money can buy, always trade ultimately in the people's energy.''~^^1^^
This wrathful description of the corrupt and, to some extent, the ``liberal'' intelligentsia is based on the great proletarian writer's rich experience and good knowledge of Western capitalist society.
Gorky's press statements are most constructive. While sharply and justly criticising certain groups among the intelligentsia, he invariably accentuates its tasks. In his article "Which Side Are You On, 'Masters of Culture'? A Reply to American Correspondents" (March 1932), he lashed out at the liberal intelligentsia's attempts to play the role of a "third force" and declared that such attempts would fail and that they were Utopian in a reactionary way. From the viewpoint of a writer, artist and publicist, he explained the need to define the intelligentsia's political, class stand.
_-_-_~^^1^^ M. Gorky, Collected Works in thirty volumes, Vol. 26, Moscow, 1953, pp. 21--23 (in Russian).
244``You intellectuals, 'masters of culture''', he wrote, "should know that the working class, which has assumed political power, holds out enormous opportunities of cultural creative work for you.... And it is also time for you to answer the simple question: what side are you on, 'masters of culture'? Are you with the unskilled work force of culture, are you for the establishment of new forms of life, or are you against this force and for the preservation of the caste of irresponsible predators, a caste which has decayed from the top and continues to act only by inertia?"~^^1^^
This statement of Gorky's has gone down in history as one of the most important documents of the struggle waged by the working class and the forces of socialism for the transformation of society and the preservation and development of world culture. He put this question to all intellectuals and coupled the reply to it with the intellectual's right to hold the highest title: master of culture.
Prominent representatives of world culture, international as well as national, have drawn the conclusion that only socialism or at least recognition of the need to fight against capitalism can promote mankind's development in new directions. Among them is the great American writer Theodore Dreiser. Since the days of Mark Twain, whose sarcasm was not immediately understood in the USA, no other writer has shaken all the pillars of "American exclusiveness" as strongly as Dreiser. It would be no exaggeration to say that he depicted contemporary capitalist society in the USA with the same detail and accuracy as Honore de Balzac represented France in the early half of the 19th century.
Theodore Dreiser went to the Soviet Union soon after he completed his major work An American Tragedy. The result of this trip was the book Dreiser Looks at Russia. He returned to America a true friend of the Soviet Union and an enthusiast for socialist construction. Subsequently, Dreiser wrote a book full of facts, called Tragic America, in which he lashed out at the monopolies' oligarchy. Among the 22 chapters of this vivid journalistic work, the chapter _-_-_
~^^1^^ M. Gorky, Collected Works in thirty volumes, Vol. 26, Moscow, 1953, pp. 268--69 (in Russian).
245 on the working-class's position is especially important. Previously, even major actions by workers in the USA had not been reflected in Dreiser's works. Later, however, he described the American working people's most important class battles with great sympathy and faith in the ultimate triumph of tho working-class cause.Like Gorky in the pre-war years Theodore Dreiser vigorously defended peace and culture together with Remain Rolland, Henri Barbusse, Heinrich Mann and others; he participated in international congresses and used his great talent and experience to unite the anti-fascist forces in the USA and throughout the entire world. Therefore, his action in joining the Communist Party of the USA in 1945 was quite a natural step.
The tragedy of Hiroshima made a strong impact on the consciousness of all nations. Many outstanding scientists, beginning with Einstein and Bohr, admitted that the use of a great discovery like atomic energy against mankind had compromised science in the capitalist world; it had forced many of them to think about the consequences of the discoveries and to try to establish a link with public life and to influence the government. Describing his emotions on the preparation of atomic weapons in the USA and other military projects, Norbert Wiener, a cybernetics pioneer, anxiously wrote that scientists would now have to face an equivocal attitude. Events have shown that these anxieties are shared by many scientists and technicians in developed capitalist countries.
The great anxiety over the possible use of nuclear energy to mankind's detriment, over man's unrestrained influence on nature, which is intensifying with every passing day, and over the future of the environment, shows the enormous extent of scientists' responsibility at the present stage of scientific development. Although the political views of such prominent scientists as Albert Einstein and Paul Langevin did not coincide, they both drew the same conclusions about the urgent need to avert another world war and about the rolo which intellectuals, especially scientists, should play in tho modern world.
The collodion of signatures for the Stockholm Appeal, tho stops undertaken towards ending aggression in Indochina, eliminating the Middle East crisis and'imposing'a nuclear test ban, the staging of tho World Peace Congress, and other 246 such actions of the peace movement united hundreds of millions of people on all continents, regardless of their nationality, religion and political conviction. Particularly significant is the example of the American movie actress Jane Fonda, who courageously sacrificed her career to join the ranks of the champions of peace. Besides condemning the criminal war in Vietnam, she regularly gave anti-war performances to American soldiers and contributed the money collected to the anti-war movement.
Many American intellectuals felt both a responsibility for what was happening and the need for vigorous action, and responded to Jane Fonda's call. The actor Donald Sutherland, the Black writer Dick Gregory, the singer Barbara Dane, the producer Nina Serrano, the actors George C. Scott, Marlon Brando, James Watson, Joseph Macdonald and Robin Menken, and many others sided with Jane Fonda. Thus, the intelligentsia in the USA played an important role in developing new forms in the anti-war movement.
The present stage of social protest by the working class and the broad non-proletarian sections of working people is characterised by the fact that not only the anti-war movement, but the movement against monopoly capitalism as a whole, are acquiring an increasingly wide social basis. The working intelligentsia, which takes concerted action with the working class in many cases, is playing a more and more active role in the struggle against monopoly rule. Engineers, technicians, government employees, school-teachers, instructors at many institutions of higher learning, researchers, and many other intellectuals who resort to the forms and methods of the working-class struggle have recently participated on a wide scale in the strike struggle. In France engineers and technicians took an active part in some factories' strike committees in May and June 1968. Moreover, researchers at the Regie-Renault research centre staged a strike.
In the USA, for instance, teachers staged about 180 strikes in 1969--1970, although strikes are outlawed in 47 out of 50 states. In 1973, tho teachers' two-month strike in Philadelphia ended in victory. Tho same year, 3,000 London loachers went on strike. In Italy, government establishments, schools, universities, and post, telegraph and newspaper offices closed down along with industrial enterprises during the wido-scale general strike in April 1971. The 247 strikers demanded immediate social reforms and democratic transformations in economic development, an improvement in the public health and educational systems, and urgent measures to overcome the crisis. Moreover, a nation-wide day of struggle was held by the workers of research establishments on July 19, 1973.
In 1972, teachers throughout Spain staged their most wide-scale strike ever, and doctors also took major strike action. In France government employees held a national day of demands and bank employees went on strike. At the beginning of 1973 250,000 British government employees staged a strike for the first time in the country's history, and the British Museum closed for a few hours in the daytime for the first time since its establishment two centuries ago in protest against the wage ``freeze''. Unemployed teachers held demonstrations in Manchester and other cities.
Employees in the mass media, i.e., the central newspapers, radio and television, often stage strikes in Italy, France, Britain, Denmark and other capitalist countries. They demand not only higher pay, but also the right to participate in the administrative staff's decision-making. Clive Jenkins, General Secretary of Britain's Association of Scientific, Technical and Managerial Staffs, said that their trade union had established contacts with the trade unions of "white-collar workers" in France and Italy. The next step will be the setting up of a coordination centre.
In Italy 300,000 government employees staged a general strike in 1975. Moreover, the Italian writers' trade union began to carry on vigorous activity. One session of this trade union's congress (Perugia, November 1975) was held together with the workers of a metallurgical factory in Terni. At the beginning of 1976, Italian government employees again staged a general strike. Their just demands were supported by those engaged in various industries as well as in rail and road transportation, trade, agriculture, and the services sphere.
In his speech to prominent cultural workers in May 1976, E. Berlinguer, the General Secretary of the Italian Communist Party, said that certain forces were trying to create various difficulties in the way of the Party's activities. He noted that the Communists were being more fiercely opposed because changes in the country were now quite possible. The Italian Communists, however, do not feel that they'are 248 isolated or beset. This is evident from the fact that a substantial part of the intelligentsia, independents and Catholics are drawing closer to the Italian Communist Party's policy and are supporting its election candidates. On the eve of the parliamentary elections of June 20--21, 1976, for instance, a large group of Italian artistic celebrities openly called on the electors to vote for the ICP. Among them were Claudio Abbado, who is the chief conductor of La Scala, and such well-known writers, musicians, artists and theatrical and screen personalities as B. Bertolucci, C. Gazzelloni, G. Pontecorvo, L. Bonkini and C. Zavvattini.
In France the strike held on the eve of 1976 was supported not only by railwaymen, metal workers and other contingents of the working class, but also by employees of many government establishments, teachers, students, engineers and technicians. At the call of the scientific researchers' trade unions belonging to the General Confederation of Labour and the French Democratic Confederation of Labour, a national day of action by research staff was held at the end of January 1976 in support of the demands for guarantees of employment and purchasing power. Scientists, engineers, technicians and supervisors of research establishments held a demonstration in front of the National Scientific Research Centre in Paris in protest against another wave of wide-scale dismissals of research staff. In April 1976, two groups of demonstrators, i.e., workers of factories belonging to the Rhone Poulenc chemical monopoly and artists and musicians of Parisian theatres, met at the Place de la Republique in Paris. The leading column consisted of the personnel of the Paris Opera, who were protesting against dismissals and pressing for greater state allocations for developing theatrical and musical art. In the summer of 1976 journalists staged a wide-scale strike in Paris against arbitrary dismissals and for higher pay and better working conditions. Printshop workers, trade union amalgamations and progressive sections of the public zealously supported them. At the end of 1977 and in 1978, thousands of metal workers, railwaymen and electricians as well as employees of banks and many other institutions held demonstrations in Paris and other cities against the monopolies' policy.
In the FRG, resistance is growing to the reactionary Radikalenerla/3 (law on radical elements), which is directed 249 against progressive forces, including democratic-minded intellectuals working in schools, institutions of higher learning and government institutions, and against those employed in the press, radio and television. According to Ingrid Kurz, a board member of the Democratic Scientists' Union of the FR G, the views of these groups of the intelligentsia have changed and, as a result of recent transformations, they now aspire to organise themselves into trade unions. It is these groups in the FRG that seek to establish an alliance with the working class. In this respect, the law on radical elements is an attempt to split the emerging alliance between the working class and the progressive intelligentsia and to depict the democratic forces as "enemies of the Constitution''. Demonstrations were held in Kiel and other cities in protest against the "witch hunts" in the FRG.
In January 1977 the demand to abolish Berufsverbot was made at a rally at Bonn University. Besides hundreds of students, this rally was attended by professors, teachers, and prominent public representatives of the FRG, France and other states. Between 1972 and 1978, more than 4,000 teachers, lawyers, educators, doctors, trade union activists, and leaders of youth and student leagues fell victims to the Berufsverbot in the FRG. Hundreds of participants in widescale demonstrations in Frankfurt am Main signed the appeal of the Hessen committee of civil initiative entitled "Away with the Berufsverbot", which called for the continuation of the struggle against political discrimination.
In Spain 2,500 government employees and supervisors called for the release of all political prisoners. In Biscaya province 72 per cent of all teachers staged a strike in demand for higher pay in February 1976. Consequently, schools were closed for several days. In Portugal government employees went on a nation-wide strike for their rights in March 1978. In the USA, too, the level of the teachers'strike movement is now at a record high. American teachers are protesting against growing inflation, arbitrary dismissals and deteriorating working conditions. The teachers of Easlchcsler (New York State) waged a six-week slniggle for their vital demands al I he beginning of 107(5, and ultimately won. Government employees, school-teachers and university lecturers have even staged recent strikes in Sweden, which 250 many bourgeois ideologists had called a country of "social tranquility".
The class battles in industrialised countries indicate that a genuine alliance can really be established between manual workers and intellectuals. Guy Besse, a member of the Political Bureau of the French Communist Party's Central Committee said that formerly, when an intellectual became a revolutionary, he felt as if he had crossed over an abyss. He broke with his social environment in order to take his place in the political struggle on the revolutionary proletariat's side. It was something like emigration. Not so today. In France thousands of intellectuals admit that their own specific interests and aspirations are forcing them to establish an alliance with the proletariat and to act in strong solidarity with it for radical transformations of social relations. In many countries this is prompting various contingents of the intelligentsia and office workers to join the anti-monopoly struggle and become active participants in it.
Thus, the basis for uniting all the anti-monopoly forces is steadily expanding. In capitalist countries a substantial part of the traditional and new sections is objectively interested in the democratic renovation of society and in radical socio-economic transformations, the road to which is being paved by the working class and its struggle. Today, besides old factors, which continue to influence the intelligentsia's development in capitalist countries, the influence of new factors is being increasingly felt. These new factors are engendered not only by the internal antagonisms of the capitalist system. They mainly arise from the growing power of world socialism, the growing influence of its peaceloving policy and the strengthening positions of the international workers' and communist movement and of all the forces of peace, democracy and social progress.
At the same time, it should be borne in mind that substantial sections of the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois intelligentsia as well as office workers continue to perform very reactionary functions and act as tho tools of the monopolies' influence. By manipulnl ing their consciousness, a certain part of the bourgeoisie is playing an active par! in brainwashing the masses so as to falsify revolutionary ideas and spread the bourgeois world outlook among the working people. Thus, monopoly capital encourages the ideologies of 251 revisioiiism and reformism. Experience fully corroborates Lenin's words that "the specific function of such an intelligentsia ... is to disguise reaction and imperialism with all kinds of democratic phrases, assurances, sophism, and subterfuges"~^^1^^ and that the capitalists are able to "make use of the services of educated intellectuals".~^^2^^ Being incapable of understanding the objective laws of world historical development, other members of the intelligentsia tend, as Gorky put it, to elevate their subjective world perception to the status of a world law. Hence the growth of individualism, pessimism, despair and hopelessness in some sections of the intelligentsia.
Today, the world outlook of the petty-bourgeois intelligentsia and the petty bourgeoisie has the same social and epistemological roots. The petty bourgeoisie always cherished the thought that, by taking advantage of the contradictions between the working class and the bourgeoisie, it would some day stand above all classes as the guiding force of society. Likewise, some intellectuals consider themselves to be mankind's sole "creative force'', summoned to define the directions of its development.
Some intellectuals in the West question why the scientific and theoretical credo of the socialist revolution should be that of the working-class party. According to them, the sphere of consciousness is the intelligentsia's field of activity, and they should formulate the socialist programme. Indeed, intellectuals do create and develop socialist consciousness, but they only generalise the experience gained by the proletariat in its class struggle.
In this respect, account should be taken of the events in Czechoslovakia in 1968. A profound Marxist-Leninist analysis made at the 14th Congress of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia showed that the events of that time did not occur by accident. In his report at the Congress, Gustav Husak, the General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee, said: "Owing to many shortcomings in the Party's work in the past, part of the intelligentsia increasingly felt that it was superior and privileged. The petty-bourgeois revolt in 1968 _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``How Servility to Reaction Is Blended With Playing at Democracy'', Collected Works, Vol. 21, p. 266.
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, ``A Little Picture in Illustration of Big Problems'', Collected Works, Vol. 28, p. 389.
252 was in defence of the thesis of an intellectual 'elite', which should lead society. We reject these bourgeois and pettybourgeois ideas about the position of social classes and sections, because our own experience convinces us that they load to great catastrophes.''~^^1^^Petty-bourgeois ideologists admit that the aggravation of the economic, social and political crisis of capitalism expands the social basis of the forces which are oppressed by the monopolies, and that the ``blue-collar'' and " whitecollar" workers' common interests are increasingly manifested under these conditions. However, these ideologists deny that the working class, especially that part of it engaged in the production of material wealth, plays the leading role in the anti-monopoly struggle. They allege that intellectuals are increasingly to be found in the vanguard of class battles.
Henry Winston, the National Chairman of the Communist Party of the USA, wrote in a work which criticises the "new theories on the working class" that, according to such a concept, the miners, for instance, do not declare a strike of their own accord, but are compelled to do so by the representatives of other social groups. He said: "It would be news to these miners (and to all the~ millions of workers directly involved in production) to learn that the main force and struggle against the bosses conies from the minority of scientists and engineers... . If the strikes take place, the miners will of course welcome the support of every engineer and technician... . But the miners, as well as auto, steel and all other workers involved directly in production, well know that the primary strength and leadership of every struggle comes from those at the center of production and transport. Moreover, they know that not all those 'at the periphery' will side with them, many of the engineers, technicians, etc., will enforce the interests of the bosses. Those 'at the periphery' who do have common interests with the direct production workers can defend these interests only in conjunction with the primary struggles and leading role of the production workers."~^^2^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ Pravda, May 26, 1971.
~^^2^^ Henry Winston, Strategy for a People's Alternative. A Critique of New Theories on the Working Class. Liberation Movements and Social Strata, New York, 1975, pp. 12--13.
253There are still great difiiculties today in spite of changes in the awareness and political stand of a substantial part of the intelligentsia under the condilions of the scientific and technological revolution and notwithstanding the objective influence of the processes which occur deep down within state-monopoly capitalism as broad sections of the intelligentsia side with the working class and socialism.
ihere is a number of objective and subjective factors which restrain intellectuals from drawing closer to the working class. They include differences in social position, traditions (in particular, a disdainful attitude towards manual labour that has been cultivated for decades), faith in technocratic conceptions, the belief that the only way out of the existing situation is by allowing ``neutral'' specialists in the service of the state (which is also declared ``neutral'') to perfect production, and weak trade unions.
Ihe extent to which the intelligentsia participates in the anti-monopoly struggle and sides with the working class largely depends on the specific conditions involved, the intensity of contradictions in the given country, the correlation of class and political forces, the level of the struggle waged by the working class and its allies, and other factors.
The questions of drawing the representatives of the new urban middle sections, i.e., scientific and technical intelligentsia, intellectuals engaged in the humanities, and office workers, to the side of the working class are an exceptionally important part of the Communist parties' activities. Lenin wrote: "The refusal of the intellectuals to be treated as ordinary hired men, as sellers of labour-power (rather than as citizens fulfilling definite public functions), has led from time to time to conflicts between the bigwigs of the Zemstvo Boards and the doctors who would resign in a body, or to conflicts with the technicians, etc.''~^^1^^
Today, the contradictions between a substantial part of the intelligentsia and state-monopoly capitalism are even more intense. They involve masses of people. Consequently, there is an objective basis for the working intelligentsia to side with the working class in the struggle against _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``Review of Home Affairs'', Collected Works, Vol. 5, p. 285.
254 monopoly rule. Owing to the crisis of bourgeois ideology and the attractive force of socialism'.s ideas and successes, a substantial part of the intelligentsia is beginning to lake the working-class stand and is embarking on the road of the anti-imperialist struggle. Therefore, the alliance between intellectuals and manual workers is increasingly becoming a real force in the struggle for peace, democracy and social progress. [255] __ALPHA_LVL1__ ConclusionRecent experience of class battles in developed capitalist countries clearly shows that the Marxist-Leninst teaching on proletariat class alliances most adequately expresses the most important tendencies of the revolutionary process and provides the answer to one of the main questions of the strategy and tactics of the world communist movement.
A survey of the complicated processes in the working-class movement in developed capitalist countries in the mid19408 shows the relationship between the internal factors, developing within capitalist society (including specifically historical forms and methods of class struggle in individual countries, distinctive and specific features of their historical development, and traditions), and the external, international factors, which directly influence the most important tendencies and prospects of revolutionary development. Therefore, analysis of the dialectical interconnection between the general and the particular in the anti-monopoly class struggle is today becoming increasingly important.
In the world arena, irreversible changes are shifting the balance of forces in favour of socialism. Likewise, in the citadels of imperialism, with tho development of the class struggle, social and political forces are re-aligning themselves in favour of the working class and the broad non-- proletarian sections of working people, who stand against monopoly rule. The sharp intensification of class battles in capitalist countries in the mid-1970s shows that social contradictions are objectively worsening within state-- monopoly capitalism. Consequently, the social and political basis of the anti-monopoly movement is steadily expanding.
Politicians in the West are comparing the intensity and consequences of the growing crisis of capitalism, which has 256 affected virtually all economic and social spheres, with the crisis of the early 1930s. The economies of Western countries, including the USA, have undergone the severest test since the Great Depression of the 1930s. But it would be wrong to analyse only economic processes, because socio-political factors are playing an ever greater role in the present crisis. The economic crisis is coupled with crisis phenomena in the political system of imperialism and the growing instability of the system itself. The ideological and political crisis of capitalist society is affecting government institutions of power and bourgeois political parties.
For all its complicated and contradictory consequences under state-monopoly capitalism the scientific and technological revolution holds out more favourable opportunities for the ruling circles to manoeuvre socially and helps to preserve reformist illusions. However, at the same time, it is an important revolutionising factor in social development. This is expressed in the creation of new material and technical prerequisites for the replacement of capitalism with socialism, on the one hand, and important changes in capitalist society's social structure, on the other. A study of the social structure of developed capitalist countries at the present stage shows that the conditions of the scientific and technological revolution are giving rise to a number of changes: the army of wage workers and their proportion of the gainfully employed population are steadily growing; the numerical strength of the working class and its proportion of both wage workers and the gainfully employed population are increasing; the numerical strength of the rural petty bourgeoisie is steadily diminishing while that of the traditional urban middle sections is remaining almost unchanged, since, besides ruining small owners, capitalism reproduces the pelty bourgeoisie; the numerical strength of the new urban middle sections, i.e., intellectuals and office workers, is steadily growing as the scientific and technological revolutioa develops; and wage workers are, on the whole, being more and more intensively proletarianised and coming to form the overwhelming majority of the population.
One principle that acquires extremely great methodical importance in these conditions is Lenin's tenet that all classes should be regarded in dynamic rather than static terms, i.e., not as subsisting in an immobile state, but as subject to a motion whose laws stem from the economic __PRINTERS_P_257_COMMENT__ 17---2560 257 conditions of every class's existence; this motion should be analysed from the standpoint of the future as well as the past.^^1^^
In developed capitalist countries, class and political forces have greatly re-aligned themselves in recent years. This has created far more diverse and favourable prerequisites for rallying the numerous non-proletarian masses of working people around the working class and establishing a broad anti-monopoly front on this basis. These countries now have objective prerequisites for a transition to socialism. Therefore, it is important for the subjective factor to mature, i.e., the working class and a substantial part of the nonproletarian sections of working people must take vigorous action, and the Communist and Workers' parties must carry on their activities in guiding the masses' anti-monopoly struggle.
During this century, the struggle for concerted action against the exploiting classes and for the unity of all antiimperialist forces has assumed different forms depending on specifically different historical situations in various countries. At first, the slogan of struggle for a united workers' front was given priority. Subsequently, the fascist threat made it extremely necessary to set up anti-fascist popular fronts in many capitalist countries on the basis of workers' united fronts. Today, a call is being made for an anti-- monopoly front---a broad coalition of all social and political forces which oppose monopoly rule, an alliance of the left forces, and so forth. In some countries, an alliance of the left forces already exists, while in others, real prerequisites have been created for its establishment.
The international working class---including one of its most important contingents, the working class of developed capitalist countries---is again manifesting itself today as the force which most resolutely opposes the entire system of state-monopoly capitalism. It has become more active and far more efficient in both organisation and fighting, and its platform of demands widened. The strike struggle tended to ebb during the recent crisis situation, particularly when production slumped. Its level today, however, is record high in almost all capitalist countries, owing to a sharp reduction in the number of jobs and the formation of a large reserve army of unemployed.
_-_-_~^^1^^ See V. I. Lenin, "Karl Marx'', Collected Works, Vol. 21, p. 75.
258According to the World Federation of Trade Unions, 50 million people staged strikes in capitalist countries in 1978. Class battles in these countries intensified in 1979. In the USA, the level of the struggle in the 1970s was the highest for 20 years. The general strike staged by ten million working people in France in May and June 1968 was the most wide-scale action taken by the proletariat and other working sections of the capitalist world's population since the war. In Italy, the strike movement has reached an unprecedented pitch and scale, involving virtually the broadest sections of working people. In Britain, the working class has staged its most wide-scale and powerful strikes in 40 years. Considerably more strikes are now being organised on a national scale and in particular economic sectors. They are often accompanied by mass demonstrations, rallies, protest marches and other political actions.
The experience of the Great October Socialist Revolution and the revolutions in other countries corroborated Lenin's tenet that the proletariat's strength in any capitalist country is far greater than its proportion of the population.^^1^^ Today, the working class in industrialised states constitutes the majority of the gainfully employed population. Not only does it control the nerve centre of the capitalist economic system to a greater extent than formerly, but it is now more efficient in both organisation and fighting. Thus, it is the leading and determining force in the struggle to radical transformation of society, and unites other contingents of working people around itself. An analysis of class battles in capitalist countries clearly confirms the conclusion drawn by the founders of scientific communism, that the working class continues to guide all working people in the struggle against all forms of oppression and exploitation.
The historical experience of the world communist and workers' movement shows that the proletariat scores successes in the struggle for its immediate and ultimate aims by drawing the broad popular masses to its side and winning the trust and support of most working people. The problem of the working-class's allies is one of the most pressing problems of the present day, since the possible ways of making the transition to socialism have become more diverse in _-_-_
~^^1^^ See V. I. Lenin, "The Constituent Assembly Elections and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat'', Collected Works, Vol. 30, pp. 273--74.
__PRINTERS_P_259_COMMENT__ 17* 259 capitalist countries owing to certain internal and external factors. If the working class is to guide the anti-monopoly, antiimperialist struggle further, the broad and varied middle sections and other forces must be drawn to its side.Experience in Chile and Portugal, for instance, shows the importance of the political stand taken by numerous middle sections of the population and the coordination of their actions with the proletariat's class battles. One of the reasons for the temporary failure of the revolution in Chile is that, at the last stage, the alliance between the working class and the numerous middle sections, a substantial part of which sided with the working class at the initial stage of the revolution, could not be consolidated and expanded. Consequently, the social basis of the revolution narrowed, the working class was isolated from its natural allies in the struggle against the financial oligarchy, and the Popular Unity front was undermined. Ultra-leftists did great harm to the genuinely revolutionary forces in Chile by unlawful expropriations in town and countryside, as a result of which small owners suffered losses.
Many social groups which were regarded until recently as reliable supporters of the monopoly bourgeoisie are now playing a more progressive role and this despite their disunity, heterogeneity and particular susceptibility to bourgeois ideology. As the scientific and technological revolution develops under state-monopoly capitalism, all the deep-- going and diverse changes in the middle sections' socio-- economic position, psychology and political stand are resulting in greater social activity on their part. The Programme of the Communist Party of the USA states: "It is the working class which directly challenges capitalist exploitation. It is, therefore, the cardinal force of social progress. But all the forces of socal progress are increasingly compelled to question capitalism's right to exploit human energies and natural riches for private profit. And as they do so they tend to gravitate increasingly around the working class.''~^^1^^
The deep-going contradictions between a narrow caste of representatives of the financial oligarchy and the overwhelming majority of the nation are worsening under state-- monopoly capitalism. The middle sections of the population _-_-_
~^^1^^ New Program of the Communist Party, USA, New York, 1970, p. 43.
260 do not constitute a single whole (the peasantry is continuing to stratify and a substantial part of the intelligentsia has lost its elitist position and become a mere component of society) and they stand at different intermediate levels between the two main antipode classes. However, the differences in their socio-economic position express the contradictions between monopoly rule and the broad non-monopoly sections.As a result, the objective basis for uniting all the social and political forces which oppose the financial oligarchy is steadily expanding. As far as domestic policy is concerned, the traditional and new middle sections in capitalist countries are objectively interested in the democratic renovation of society and radical socio-economic transformations, the road to which is being paved by the working class and its struggle. Anti-monopoly unity is also being consolidated by changes in the international situation. These changes are the outcome of the consistently peace-loving policy pursued by the Soviet Union and other socialist countries and the actions of all progressive forces. This is in keeping with the expectations of the broadest masses. The Final Document of the Conference for Peace, Security, Cooperation and Social Progress in Europe (1976) stated that detente had created opportunities for achieving tangible results which were in keeping with the class interests of the working people, the national interests of every nation and the interests of mankind's progress.
In the last 17 years or so, a few hundred major general strikes have been staged by the working class in conjunction with working peasants, traditional urban middle sections, intellectuals (especially scientific and technical intelligentsia) and office workers in developed capitalist countries. It is significant that the non-proletarian sections are now increasingly using proletarian forms of struggle: strikes, protest demonstrations and picketing. One new phenomenon which has assumed a wide scale in some states, e. g., Portugal, is unity between the proletariat of industrial centres and farm workers and peasants, who took over the big estate owners' expropriated lands and set up production cooperative societies and collective farms on Ihem.
The 1,12-day .strike by the workers of Milan's Lcyland Innocenti works against British Leyland, a powerful multinational concern which had presented the trade union committee with an ultimatum to immediately fire 1,500 woikers, 261 ended in victory in April 1976, thus showing the growing strength of both proletarian unity and the non-proletarian sections' wide-scale solidarity movement. The Milan workers' rights were defended by peasants in Sicily, machine builders in Turin, dock workers in Genoa and office workers in Rome. Workers in Milan, Florence and Bologna and peasants in the neighbouring villages sent vegetables, fruit, bread, meat, macaroni and other foodstuffs to the workers and their families, as they were deprived of their pay during the strike.
At the end of April 1976, workers of industrial enterprises, vine growers, small traders, handicraftsmen, teachers and students held a joint demonstration in the French town of Montpellier. They demanded that the authorities should guarantee employment and the sale of farm produce, take measures to keep young people in villages, curb unemployment in towns, stem price rises and maintain the population's purchasing power, and grant allocations for economic development. In the USA, workers, office employees, miners, teachers, steel workers, engineers, and municipal employees are taking concerted action more and more often. For instance, more than a thousand engineers and researchers of the Ford enterprises supported the strike staged by the workers in Dearborn. Moreover, a series of strikes staged by 80,000 people at 16 General Motors factories and the support given by 1,500 engineers and technicians helped 680,000 automobile workers to win their victory in 1976.
In the course of their joint struggle, the working class and the non-proletarian sections of working people not only make demands which are within the framework of their traditional struggle for vital interests, but also extend them to an even greater degree to the state's economic and social policies, i.e., they act more and more resolutely in favour of radical transformations in the broad masses' interests. About five million workers and office employees held widescale demonstrations in 200 major cities in France during the general strike held on December 1, 1977, at the call of the three largest trade union centres: the General Confederation of Labour, the French Democratic Confederation of Labour and the National Confederation of Education and Culture.
It was noted at the 21st National Convention of the Communist Party of the USA, that, in the United States, this created favourable prerequisites for setting up an 262 anti-monopoly coalition and a new mass anti-monopoly party that would challenge the two-party system and be able to take independent political initiatives outside its framework, which serves the interests of monopoly capital alone.
The time for decisive action against monopoly rule is largely conditional on the extent of the broad non-- proletarian masses' consciousness and readiness to support the working-class vigorous actions. In this respect, it is extremely important to take into account and analyse the political stand and social psychology of the middle sections and all the social and political forces opposing the capitalists' rule. The traditional and new urban middle sections now play a substantially greater role in developed capitalist countries than they have ever done before. Although the ranks of the working peasantry are dwindling, it remains an important ally of the working class.
When analysing the motive forces and the participants in a revolution, special account should be taken of another phenomenon, one which is new to industrialised countries. This is the participation of the Army, which has usually been regarded as a socially repressive body controlled by the ruling class. In Marxist-Leninist doctrine a great deal of attention has always been devoted to political work in the Army. Lenin noted the difficulty of carrying on anti-- militarist propaganda among soldiers, as distinct from "draft-age, young men living with their families and friends and closely bound up with them by common interest''.~^^1^^ Therefore, it is extremely important to know for sure which side the Army will be on when the bourgeoisie confronts the organised working class.
Since the war an increasing number of servicemen in Western capitalist countries have been drawn into the struggle for democratic transformations and against militarism. This is true not only of conscripts, but also of regular officers, some of whom are no longer from the elite class, but mainly from the urban and rural petty bourgeoisie.
The aggravation of capitalist society's economic, ideological and political crisis, the expansion of the campaign for peace and profound socio-economic and political transformations, and the struggle against fascism, neocolonialism _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, "Anti-Militarist Propaganda and Young Socialist Workers' Leagues'', Collected Works, Vol. 41, p. 204.
263 and the aggressive policy of the most militant imperialist circles, have a direct bearing also on the army, which substantially reflects the social structure. The struggle between different social forces for a certain socio-political orientation inevitably affects the army.A vivid example of the army's participation in the revolutionary and democratic struggle is the Armed Forces Movement in Portugal, which greatly helped to overthrow the fascist regime. The Portuguese Communist Party's appeal to the voters before the elections to the Constituent Assembly on April 25, 1975, staled that the alliance between the Portuguese people and this movement had become the "motive force and political axis of the Portuguese revolution''. No wonder the internal counter-revolutionaries and international imperialism took much greater pains to cause a split between the political parties, the people, and the Armed Forces Movement immediately after the elections.
In Spain, a Democratic Military Alliance was set up in 1974---soon after the patriotic-minded officers of the Portuguese Army actively participated in overthrowing the fascist regime. The Alliance supported the democratisation of politics in the country, the legalisation of political parties, including the Communist Party, and the release of all political prisoners. In March 1976, a leader of the Alliance said in an interview in Madrid with a correspondent for the French newspaper Le Monde that they numbered about 500 but their ranks were growing with every passing day. Moreover, he said that the generals and many colonels were on their side, and that this was a new phenomenon. We have, he continued, friendly ties with and activists in the police force, civil guards and even the Army intelligence service. We reserve the right to publish later a long list of officers who were punished during the last 35 years for nothing more than being hostile to the fascist dictatorship.
At the beginning of 1975, 120 officers from Cartagena signed a petition demanding the democratisation of the military machinery, while 2,000 servicemen signed the appeal for an amnesty for political prisoners.
In France many junior and middle-ranking officers vote for the left bloc's candidates. At the beginning of 1975, the Political Bureau of the French Communist Party issued the statement "For a Democratic Solution of the Army's Problems'', which demanded that servicemen, both officers and 264 men, should enjoy full civil rights guaranteeing them freedom of speech, information and association and the democratic status of a soldier, and taking account of the officers' legitimate demands.
In Italy, where NATO and the USA have bases in more than 30 provinces, the armed forces are being intensively indoctrinated with the idea of permanent mobilisation for fighting the internal enemy. The Italian Communist Party is taking active measures in two main directions to prevent the army from being used for reactionary purposes. Communists are seeking to increase the influence of the representative bodies (including parliament and local bodies) on the Italian armed forces. They are actively waging a struggle for reform of the armed forces and are working directly in army units to achieve, for instance, an end to NATO's interference in the Italian armed forces' affairs and to eliminate class restrictions in the Army as well as discrimination on political grounds.
However, as Alvaro Cunhal, the General Secretary of the Portuguese Communist Party, emphasised, account should be taken of the fact that the armed forces do not consist of the representatives of only one class. They include different social groups, and this engenders contradictions and differences among servicemen. Therefore, if the alliance between the working class, on the one hand, and the peasantry, urban petty bourgeoisie and certain circles of the middle bourgeoisie, on the other, weakens, this will affect the behaviour of different people in the armed forces, and then dissension and splits will inevitably occur. Likewise, differences and conflicts among the left forces will certainly influence the army, aggravate the contradictions in it and adversely affect the alliance between the democratic-minded part of the armed forces and the popular movement.
Thus, the relationship between the proletarian vanguard, the broad non-proletarian sections of working people and the armed forces is part and parcel of the questions of proletariat class alliances. However, it should be borne in mind that a substantial part of the servicemen in developed capitalist countries, especially the high command, hold conservative and often overtly reactionary views. Under these conditions, the left forces are taking great pains to win the progressiveminded sections of army groupings over to its side. In other words, efforts are being made to deprive the bourgeoisie of 265 both the army support, on which it has so far relied, and the opportunity to use repressive machinery against the revolutionary forces.
It was emphasised in the Final Document of the Conference for Peace, Security, Cooperation and Social Progress in Europe (Berlin, June 29--30, 1976) that increasingly broad Catholic forces, representatives of other Christian communities and other religious believers are playing an important role in the struggle for the working people's rights and for peace and democracy. The Communist and Workers' parties know that a dialogue should be held with these forces and concerted action taken. Women and young people, who are engaged in professional work and social activity to an ever greater extent, are more actively joining the anti-monopoly struggle.
Ever more numerous social groups and sections, both civil and military, are joining the struggle against monopoly rule and steadily becoming more efficient organisationally and more closely united as old social contradictions worsen and new ones emerge under state-monopoly capitalism. The experience of the class struggle shows that the left-wing opportunists are wrong in demanding both an immediate transition to socialism regardless of the maturity of the objective and subjective conditions and assumption of power by the working class in place of attempts to establish a broad anti-monopoly front. Knud Jespersen, the Chairman of the Communist Party of Denmark, wrote: "We Marxists-- Leninists know that every upsurge in the general democratic struggle strengthens the social and political positions of the working class and all working people and weakens their class enemies.''~^^1^^
Contrary to the leftist extremists' allegations, the establishment of a broad anti-monopoly front does not imply the waning of the class struggle and the proletariat's departure from its class stand. When an anti-monopoly front is being established, it should be particularly borne in mind that the proletariat does not act as the vanguard in the revolutionary struggle merely for the sake of its own interests. It also serves the interests of the broad non-proletarian sections of working people, and its action is aimed at accelerating the establishment of socialism.
_-_-_~^^1^^ World Marxist Review, No. 6, 1975, p. 6.
266The French Communist Party, while supporting the broad unification of all the non-monopoly sections, has stressed that the result would not be an alliance without principles. At the extraordinary 21st FCP Congress, it was emphasised: "The alliance which we (the FCP---Auth.) support is an alliance aimed at substantially increasing the working people's fighting capacity and expanding, mobilising and consolidating the struggle of the workers and democratic and national forces against the power of big capitaT. We want this alliance in order to crush the monopolies' power, establish advanced democracy and then march forward to socialism.... Any other conception of the alliance cannot serve the working class and the people, but will lead only to the working class following in the wake of the bourgeoisie or some part of it.''~^^1^^
The intensity of class battles in developed capitalist countries is one of the most vivid manifestations of the general crisis of capitalism. Unlike the preceding periods, when the masses' political activity surged and ebbed, the present stage of the general crisis of capitalism is characterised by a constantly high level of struggle on the part of the masses. All democratic forces are steadily turning radical, and an increasing number of people are supporting the idea of nationalisation. Moreover, anti-monopoly, anti-militarist and anti-imperialist sentiments have grown substantially, and the masses have become more vigilant. Consequently, favourable conditions are being created for a political union of all progressive trends around the working class, a union which is capable of acting as the determining force in the struggle for progressive socio-economic and political transformations.
Election campaigns and elections to national and municipal bodies are exceptionally important in the struggle to win the middle sections over to the working-class's side. Elections to central legislative bodies, i.e., parliaments, on which the formation of governments directly depends, are especially significant. The founders of scientific communism often emphasised that in defining Ihe proletariat's revolutionary strategy and tactics, an analysis should be made of the relations between classes, which are manifested to a certain extent in the course of the election struggle. In 1895, _-_-_
~^^1^^ Georges Marchai?, "Rapport du comite central au XXIe congres extraordinaire'', Cahiers du communisms, No. 11, 1974, p. 41.
267 Engels wrote that elections made it possible to receive " precise information about our own forces as well as all the opposing parties''.~^^1^^ Moreover, the election campaign helps to achieve objectives like enlightening the masses and using the bourgeois parliament as a forum and a tool in the struggle for the working-class's revolutionary aims.In their programme documents, the Communist and Workers' parties of developed capitalist countries are drawing attention to the fact that the tasks facing the working class and the broad non-proletarian sections of working people are becoming more important at the present, anti-monopoly, stage of the struggle. Even though the electoral systems are undemocratic, elections do express to a certain extent the changes in the political stand and social psychology of different sections of the population, changes which are caused by the development of antagonistic contradictions in contemporary capitalist society. During election campaigns and elections, Communist parties have an opportunity to take account of the sentiments, interests, and peculiarities of different classes and social groups.
In the 1970s, a series of elections to parliaments and local government bodies have been held in developed capitalist countries. During election campaigns and sat elections, the working class and its vanguard, i.e., Communist parties, have again demonstrated their role in the struggle for the interests of the working people and the entire nation. A growing swing to the left, the masses' awareness of the need for deep-going democratic transformations, and the new balance of forces have created a fundamentally new situation in which a government can really be formed from the representatives of left-wing political parties.
Indeed, the imperialist circles are very afraid of a "chain reaction'', whereby successful democratic transformations in some countries may directly influence other states.
Developments in capitalist countries have again showed that the policy of forming broad anti-monopoly coalitions, which is pursued by the international communist and working-class movement, holds out good prospects. Events indicate that, although the bourgeois parliamentary _-_-_
~^^1^^ Marx/Engels, "Einlcitung zu Karl Marx. Klapsonkampfc in Frankrcich 1818 bis 1850'', Werke, ISd, 22, St 519.
268 system is unquestionably in a crisis, it is increasingly important for Communist and Workers' parties to participate both in electoral campaigns and in the parliamentary struggle, for the latter provides additional opportunities and a^forum for defending the people's interests.In the present epoch there are greater opportunities for advancing towards the socialist transformation of society owing to the power and peace-loving policy of world socialism and to the changes in the balance of forces within capitalist countries. At the same time, the experience of elections shows that they succeed only when Communist parties defend the fundamental Marxist-Leninist line on proletariat class alliances and rely on the broad workingclass and democratic movement.
The most important tendencies of the working-class movement in developed capitalist countries are being increasingly influenced by certain external factors. These include: the attractive force of new socio-economic relations; the achievements of existing socialism in various economic and social fields, e.g. the absence of crises, inflation and unemployment, the working people's certainty in the future, and the unity of the people in carrying out both the state's aims and their internationalist obligations; the successes of socialism in socio-economic competition with capitalism; the growing power of the countries of the socialist community, which serves the causes of peace and international solidarity with working people fighting for their national liberation and social emancipation, and curtails imperialism's opportunities for exporting counterrevolution and openly interfering in other countries' internal affairs with a view to suppressing the revolutionary movement; the socialist countries' truly peace-loving foreign policy, which is aimed at averting another war and developing equitable, mutually beneficial cooperation for the sake of social progress.
Lubomir Strougal, the Chairman of the Czechoslovak government has emphasised: "In the initial stage the appeal of existing socialism was through its humanistic ideas. Now it is through its concrete achievements, for socialism has a powerful material and technical basis.''~^^1^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ World Marxist Review, No. 9, 1974, p. 4.
269During the Ninth Five-Year Plan period Soviet industrial output, capital investments, and state allocations for new measures to improve the people's well-being have been far greater in absolute figures than during any other preceding five-year plan period. In a decade, the Soviet Union has doubled its economic potential, which took half a century to build up. The social programme implemented since the establishment of the Soviet government is unprecedented in scale. The outlays required for the new social measures undertaken during the Ninth Five-Year Plan period were just as great as those required for the two preceding five-year plan periods. The socialist community as a whole has become the most dynamic economic force in the world. In the period 1970--75 the industry of the countries in it grew four times faster than that of the developed capitalist states.
The Soviet Union and other socialist countries have solved many problems which cannot be solved in capitalist countries. Millions of people in capitalist countries are becoming increasingly convinced that socialism creates conditions for genuine democracy in the interests of the overwhelming majority of the population, for the broad masses' active participation in society's administration, for the all-embracing development of every individual's abilities, for equality and friendship among nations.
The new Constitution of the USSR offered the world further evidence of socialism's dynamic character and great creative potential. The successes of socialism are helping the forces of peace, democracy and socialism to gain ascendancy over the forces of imperialism. Bert Ramelson, a member of the Political Committee of the Executive Committee of the Communist Party of Great Britain, emphasised that socialism's achievements, i.e., its example, greatly help and support the British workingclass's struggle for its vital interests and rights. The successes of the Soviet Union and other socialist countries repudiate the fabrication being intensively spread by the British government and the bourgeoisie that the present crisis, whose main features are mass unemployment, raging inflation, and a decrease in the national product and capital investments, is a world-wide phenomenon rather than the natural outcome of the development of capitalism and the government policy.
270Detente favourably influences the development of the working-class movement in capitalist countries. No wonder, then, that those taking the most reactionary, racial and anti-democratic stand on domestic policy issues try in every possible way to prevent detente from making headway. At the 21st Convention of the Communist Party of the USA, Gus Hall said: "The struggle for detente is the most effective struggle for the self-interests of the working class and of national liberation within the world arena. It is a struggle to create the best, the most advantageous conditions for the class struggle and the overall movement for social progress.''~^^1^^
The socialist states' peace-loving, class and internationalist policy is substantially changing the general situation in the world, weakening the stand taken by the forces opposed to the revolutionary process, curtailing the freedom to manoeuvre enjoyed by the monopolies and their compliant governments and aggravating the crisis in the policy and ideology of anti-communism, i.e., it is changing the socio-political conditions under which this process is developing.
Fidel Castro Ruz, the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba, has emphasised that the Soviet Union's well-considered policy, highly responsible attitude towards the revolutionary movement, and unwavering adherence to a principled political line throughout its entire existence inspire real revolutionaries and progressives of the world with boundless faith^^2^^.
The policy of peaceful coexistence creates favourable conditions for the working class and the broad non-- proletarian sections of working people to wage a successful struggle for radical socio-economic and political transformations. To quote the words of Leonid Brezhnev, " Conscious of its internationalist duty, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union will continue to pursue a line in international affairs which helps further to invigorate the _-_-_
~^^1^^ Gus Hall, The Grists of US Capitalism and the Fight-Back. Report to the 21st Convention of the Communist Party, USA, New York, 1975, p. 32.
~^^2^^ See Pravda, February 26, 1976.
271 worldwide anti-imperialist struggle, and to strengthen the lighting unity of all its participants.''~^^1^^Thus, the situation which has arisen as a result of the successes achieved in building socialism and the changes in the international balance of forces in its favour creates unprecedentedly favourable opportunities for developing the anti-monopoly struggle. The realisation of these opportunities depends on the correlation of class forces in every country and on certain other factors, and therefore the dialectical interconnection of internal and external factors is the determinant in this struggle.
In capitalist countries, the working-class and mass democratic movement is led by Communist and Workers' parties, which resolutely defend the interests of the working class and the broad masses of working people. These parties stand for unity of all democratic forces and show their own peoples the road to social progress and the establishment of an antimonopoly, democratic system which leads to socialism. Recently, their prestige and influence have substantially increased and their positions have greatly strengthened. Communist parties have become the most active, consistent and resolute of the forces opposed to monopoly rule. In the first half of the 1970s alone their membership has increased by almost one million in the capitalist world as a whole, and by almost 400,000 in Western Europe. The membership of Communist parties in developed capitalist countries has grown from 000,000 on the eve of the Second World War to three million at the end of 1975.
Communist and Workers' parties have worked out and put forward the most realistic and constructive programmes for overcoming the crisis under the conditions of monopoly rule. These programmes, which are in the interests of the broad masses of working people, further the development of the revolutionary process; they have a clear anti-monopoly orientation and are aimed at promoting a struggle for democracy and socialism. In this respect, Communists are offering the peoples of their countries both immediate aims and longterm objectives which are coupled with the solution of the cardinal problems of future development. They call for greater vigilance by the working class and the broad masses _-_-_
~^^1^^ The 24th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Moscow, 1971, p. 38.
272 of working people, a more vigorous struggle against the reactionaries' tyranny, and unity on the part of all the democratic forces, progressive organisations and movements.As the working class becomes the total centre of attraction for all anti-monopoly forces, Communist parties in developed capitalist countries are increasingly transformed into national political forces. At the present stage of the struggle for fundamental democratic transformations, Communist parties can influence the working-class movement's development through mass democratic organisations, professional associations, cooperative societies, peasant leagues, and progressive officers' organisations, which are more or less aware of the tasks facing the nation. Communist parties enjoy high prestige in the democratic movement and are making a great effort to enhance and consolidate its influence.
The objective tendency towards consolidating and expanding the spheres of cooperation between working-class parties is continuing to grow in many countries. The participants in the Conference for Peace, Security, Cooperation and Social Progress in Europe (Berlin, June 29--30, 1976) declared in this respect that "the basic interests of the working class and of all working people require the overcoming of the obstacles which stand in the way of co-operation and which complicate the struggle of the mass of working people against monopoly capital and against the reactionary and conservative forces.''~^^1^^
Although several Social-Democratic parties have shifted somewhat to the left, their leaders have taken a contradictory stand, thus adversely affecting the struggle for unity of the left forces. This contradictory stand was manifested, for instance, during the conference of the leaders of Socialist and Social-Democratic parties of West European countries in Helsingor (Denmark) at the beginning of 1976. Two main clear-cut tendencies developed at the conference with regard to relations between Socialist and Communist Parties in Western Europe: one tendency was against cooperation with the Communist parties and the other was for it.
Many instances of concerted action by Communists and Socialists in several countries show that, despite their differences, their efforts can really be pooled to curtail monopoly rule, consolidate the peoples' security, curb the arms race, _-_-_
~^^1^^ World Marxist Review, No. 8, 1976, p. 4.
__PRINTERS_P_273_COMMENT__ 18---2560 273 rebuff fascism, and so forth. In November 1976, the Chairman of the Social-Democratic Party of Germany, Willy Brandt, who was elected Chairman of the Socialist International at its 13th Congress, declared that ideological differences between Communists and Social Democrats should not hinder international detente.In April 1978 the Socialist International held a three-day disarmament conference in Helsinki. It was convened on the initiative of the Social Democratic Party of Finland and attended by delegations of Social Democratic and Socialist Parties in 20 countries.
In his speech CPSU representative B. N. Ponomarev, who is an alternate member of the Political Bureau of the CPSU Central Committee, Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee and Chairman of the Commission for Foreign Affairs of the Soviet of Nationalities of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, emphasised that, in accepting the invitation to the Socialist International's conference, the CPSU proceeded from its principled and invariable stand, that the establishment of lasting peace and the preclusion of another world war are the main task of the present day. "Our party,'' said B. N. Ponomarev, "advocated and advocates cooperation with the Social-Democrats, above all, in questions of peace and detente... . The main forces operating in the workingclass movement have the special responsibility of collectively achieving tangible turn in the struggle for military detente, for an end to the interminable build up of armaments.''~^^1^^ On behalf of the CPSU Central Committee and Leonid Brezhnev, the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee and Chairman of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet, an invitation to visit Moscow was extended at the Conference to the Socialist International's widely representative delegation and its chairman, Willy Brandt.
Pravda correspondents asked Olof Palme, the Chairman of the Social Democratic Labour Party of Sweden and Deputy Chairman of the Socialist International, how the Party assessed the CPSU's proposals on cooperation with Social Democrats. He replied: "We approve the exceptionally interesting proposals for interaction between Communists and Socialists. They will be thoroughly studied by the Socialist _-_-_
~^^1^^ B. N. Ponomarev, "For Cooperation in the Struggle Against the Arms Race and for Disarmament'', Socialism: Theory and Practice, Moscow, 1978, p. 3.
274 International's leadership. I am sure that the idea of mutual relations will .be supported.''~^^1^^ The conference in Helsinki showed that concerted action by Communists and SocialDemocrats is especially important for ending the arms race and furthering detente as a whole.The working class and other left forces have recently been exerting substantially greater influence owing to stronger unitary tendencies in trade unions, both nationally and internationally. In Portugal, for instance, a new Charter of the Intersindical was adopted at the Portuguese trade unions'congress at the end of July 1975 in spite of the reactionary forces' resistance. The principle of a single trade union centre was written into the Charter.
The Communist Party of Portugal has often stated that if competing trade unions were allowed to exist, anarchy would triumph in the field of class warfare, the democratic process would be slowed down, and favourable conditions for counter-revolutionary manoeuvres and plots would be created. Intersindical, which is a single trade union centre, has about 230 trade unions with more than two million members.
It was emphasised at the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of Belgium (April 1976) that the strikes staged by the workers of the oil-refining and chemical industries in Antwerp, by metal and glass workers in Charleroi and by many other working-class contingents had corroborated the Party's thesis that the working people's strength depends on the degree of unity within the country's main trade union amalgamations, i.e., the General Labour Federation of Belgium and the Confederation of Christian Trade Unions.
The Ninth World Congress of Trade Unions, held in Prague on April 16--22, 1978, was attended by 990 delegates and observers from 303 trade unions with a membership of 230 million working people in 126 countries. Moreover, an unprecedented number of delegations from trade unions unaffiliated to the World Federation of Trade Unions took part in the Congress. They consituted almost two-thirds of delegates. There were twice as many delegations present as there were at the Eighth World Congress of Trade Unions (1973) and the number of countries represented was one and a half times greater.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Pravda, April 27, 1978.
275The Ninth World Congress of Trade Unions was held under the slogan: "For unity and solidarity of the working people and trade unions in the struggle for the working people's interests at the present stage and for a future in which wellheing, freedom, and national and economic progress will flourish under conditions of peace and independence.'' The Document on Orientation and Action, the Charter of Trade Union Rights and about 30 resolutions, all of which were adopted at the Congress, constituted a realistic platform for the struggle against reactionary forces, multinational corporations, the arms race, unemployment, hunger, exploitation, poverty and oppression. The overwhelming majority of delegates resolutely spoke out in defence of proletarian internationalism and the international trade union movement's class orientation. They highly assessed the efforts made by the World Federation of Trade Unions in solving the key socio-economic and political questions of today and supported its policy, which is aimed at defending the working people's interests and consolidating concerted action by trade unions of different orientations on a class basis.
The favourable changes which have recently taken place in the international trade union movement are largely the outcome of the activity carried on by the proletarian vanguard: Communist and Workers' parties. It is in the vital interests of the working class and all working people to overcome obstacles on the road to cooperation between Communist and other Workers' parties and trade unions of different orientations.
The Ninth World Congress of Trade Unions "deserves credit for laying down guidelines for the immediate future, summing up the results of the work done, giving a new impetus to the development of proletarian solidarity and the international working-class and trade union movement, and mapping out ways for consolidating concerted action by trade unions of different orientations on a class basis. The Congress showed that the working people and their most widely representative organisations, i.e., trade unions, are playing a steadily growing world historic role in the struggle for peace, democracy, freedom and social progress.
Anti-monopoly sentiment is growing in the working people's struggle for peace, detente and an end to the arms race. In recent years, the working sections of the population of various countries have written some glorious pages in the 276 annals of the struggle for peace. Working people everywhere were at one in vigorously opposing US plans for developing neutron weapons, plans which are equally dangerous to workers of industrial and transport enterprises, farmers tilling their own land, urban handicraftsmen, intellectuals, office employees, and students who are striving for recognition and seeking their place in life. The mass protest movement against the neutron bomb is just as wide-scale and intensive as the collection of signatures for the historic Stockholm Appeal and other culminating episodes in the struggle for peace.
The working class of industrialised countries in Western Europe plays the leading role in this struggle. The "sacred stones of Europe'', as the wonderful edifices which we have inherited are called, were created by workers, handicraftsmen and skilled masters. No civilisation can emerge and develop without workers and creators of material wealth.
It is not surprising that the working class should be playing the leading role in the struggle for peace. The workers are especially interested in peace, since it is the producers of material wealth who suffer the most from destructive wars. Further detente will create favourable conditions for raising the living and cultural standards of the working class and the non-proletarian sections of working people. The working people's real wages and social welfare benefits can be increased by spending less on unproductive military projects.
An end to the arms race will make it possible to develop many industries, promote economic growth, and cope more effectively with the consequences of the monetary, energy and ecological crises. The development of civil industries and the expansion of economic cooperation will create more jobs. A wide-scale struggle is now being waged by the working class and its allies against the US policy on neutron weapons. The call to "put an end to the arms race and oppose the production of the neutron bomb" can be seen in the streets of Koln, Diisseldorf, Dortmund, Stuttgart and other West German cities. The working class in the FRG supported the call by the West German Committee for Peace, Cooperation and Disarmament to hold demonstrations and protest rallies against plans for producing neutron weapons and placing them in the FRG. These demonstrations and rallies were held in Bonn, Munich, Wiesbaden, Essen and other 277 West German cities on May 20, 1978. More than three million West German citizens protested against the production of neutron weapons and their deployment in the FRG.
In Britain the working class is vigorously opposing plans for producing neutron weapons and deploying them in the country. A campaign to collect signatures for the appeal to ban the neutron bomb was mounted in February 1978. Expressing the view of hundreds of thousands of industrial workers in Britain, the executive committees of nine national British trade unions initiated an Assembly for Disarmament, which was held in the same month. British workers signed the appeals, which were displayed throughout the country, i.e., in trade unions, religious and women's organisations, etc. These appeals affirmed that people of good will, being convinced that the neutron bomb is an inhuman and immoral weapon and that its production and proliferation increase the threat of war, call on the British government to publicly renounce all plans for acquiring the neutron bomb and protest against any steps taken by the USA to deploy it.
The industrial proletariat is very active in the peace movement in Belgium, where a wide-scale disarmament campaign began in January 1978. Since then, large meetings and rallies for peace and a ban on the development and production of new types of mass destruction weapons, especially the neutron bomb, have been held in all parts of the country, including enterprises and transport junctions. Belgian Communists supported this campaign and took a very active part in it. Louis Van Geyt, the Chairman of the Communist Party of Belgium, said that the country should not yield to the pressure of the US military-industrial complex and the forces of the European NATO countries which are closely associated with it. A substantial number of Socialist workers took the same stand. The wide-scale disarmament campaign was supported by almost 30 organisations and movements of different political and religious orientations. Thus, the working class plays an extremely important role not only in social production, but also in the world historic struggle for peace and social progress.
Other working sections of the urban population, i.e., handicraftsmen, small traders, personnel in the service sector, office employees, students and young people, are acting together with the working class in the struggle to ban the 278 development and production of new types of mass destruction weapons. This happened, for instance, in neighbouring Holland, where a nation-wide movement was mounted against the deployment of neutron weapons. By the beginning of March 1978, the petition to ban the "neutron death" had been signed by more than a million Dutch workers, office employees and other working people. Mass rallies and demonstrations were held throughout the country. The participants in them strongly denounced the Pentagon's plans for mass production of the neutron bomb. At these demonstrations, workers of different industries as well as dock and transport workers acted together with the non-proletarian sections of working people.
The Socialist workers' unanimity influenced the stand taken by the (Social Democratic) Labour Party, which is the largest party in the Netherlands. US plans for producing and deploying neutron weapons in Western Europe were strongly denounced at the Party's congress in February 1978. The delegates empowered the Party's leadership to bring the congress's viewpoint to the notice of the Social Democratic parties of other NATO countries and to urge them to take a similar stand. The Socialist and Social Democratic parties of Spain, Switzerland, Sweden and Finland also spoke out against the neutron bomb. This shows that various contingents of the working class of Western Europe are uniting more and more closely in the struggle for peace.
Thousands of Dutchmen came to Amsterdam from all parts of the country and marched through its streets on March 19, 1978, i.e., the last day of the International Forum Against Neutron Bomb. The Dutch proletariat played an important part in the wide-scale demonstration and rally which supported the Forum's appeal "To the Peoples and Governments of All Countries''. The document emphasised that the broad protest movement in many countries indicated that the people were determined to protect the world from a nuclear war, which may become more likely if the neutron bomb is adopted. The Dutch newspaper De Waarheid said thai the international forum and the wide-scale demonstration against the neutron bomb clearly showed that the people were capable of preventing this weapon from being deployed.
More and more working peasants of West European countries are joining the struggle. In the 1970s they have often 279 acted together with the working class. The peasantry of some countries, including the FRG, is suffering great hardships from NATO's militarist policy. According to official statistics, over 100,000 hectares are used for military purposes in Lower Saxony, where more than 30 major military exercises and manoeuvres involving hundreds of thousands of NATO officers and men were held in 1977.
The peasantry in the FRG and other NATO states will suffer greater hardships and face real danger as a result of the plans for deploying the neutron bomb. Peasants in several agricultural regions of West European countries have held wide-scale protest demonstrations against these plans. In January 1978, more than 45,000 inhabitants of Bremen and its environs signed declarations protesting against the establishment of another NATO base in that area; over 4,000 NATO officers and men are to be stationed at the proposed base, which will contain a lot of military equipment.
The progressive, democratic intelligentsia of the West is very active in the struggle against neutron weapons. Its finest representatives, who are concerned about the future of millions of working people, the creators of all modern civilisation's material and cultural wealth, are strongly protesting against the production of inhuman mass destruction weapons and their deployment in other countries. The 27th Pugwash Conference, which was held in Munich in the autumn of 1977 and attended by about 250 scientists-, is highly indicative in this respect. The Conference devoted prime attention to the neutron bomb and its delivery vehicles, i.e., cruise missiles.
In his speech at the Conference, Professor Bernard Feld of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who is the editor of a bulletin put out by atomic physicists, made a scientific analysis of the neutron bomb's danger as a mass destruction weapon increasing the threat of nuclear war. Professor Dorothy Hodgkin of Oxford University stressed that the neutron bomb should be banned just as chemical warfare was banned by the 1925 Geneva Protocol. Many scientists fully supported these statements. The declaration published by the Council of the Pugwash movement called for an end to the development of new means of destruction. The document declared that the neutron bomb, which is to be deployed in Central Europe, is fraught with more horrific consequences than all other existing types of nuclear weapons.
280Many West German scientists have strongly denounced US plans for developing neutron weapons. Professor Walter Fabian, a prominent West German scientist and a social worker, said that the neutron bomb served only aggressive policy aims. Professor Fritz Strassmann, a well-known physicist, emphasised that the production of neutron weapons would mean stepping up the deadly arms race. Professor E. Wulf of the Hanover University of Medicine described neutron weapons as a typical product of imperialist society, which valued things more than people. These statements are imbued with concern for mankind's future, concern which presupposes vigorous joint action by scientists in defence of peace and social progress.
More than 40 influential scientists from 18 capitalist and socialist countries participated in a symposium held by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute in Vienna at the end of January 1978. Many progressive scientistsi of the West gave a high assessment of Soviet peace initial ves, especially the proposal for mutual renunciation of the neutron bomb put forward by Leonid Brezhnev. It won particular support from Ludwig Knorr, a prominent scientist from the FRG. The symposium launched the "Vienna Appeal" against the new weapon.
This standpoint is also taken by the World Federation of Scientific Workers (WFSW), which incorporates about 400,000 scientists from 31 countries. Speaking on their behalf, Professor Eric Burhop, a well-known British scientist and President of the WFSW,-condemned the neutron bomb as a horrible means of annihilating people. The WFSW Bureau adopted a special resolution on disarmament which openly denounced the arguments of those who try to represent neutron weapons as ``defensive''. This view is supported, by thousands of intellectuals: writers, artists, musiciansthose engaged in other fields of art, the mass media, medi cine.^and so forth.
Mass actions are no longer confined to West European countries. They are taking place, for instance, in the USA and Canada. Millions of American working people are beginning to understand that the plans for producing neutron weapons are a threat to their own security and to the real economic prospects associated with the policy of detente. Numerous'pickets and demonstrations at the White House and antiwar demonstrations in many states show that the working 281 people in the USA are also keenly interested in the realisation of that policy.
Broad sections of the American public are pooling their efforts in the struggle against the mounting arms race. A new broad coalition of public, trade union, religious and women's organisations has been established in the USA. Its aim is to achieve a reduction in military expenditure and to ensure that the money thus saved is used to solve the country's urgent domestic problems.
The appeal by the Ninth World Congress of Trade Unions emphasised that plans for producing the neutron bomb had aroused a protest movement throughout the entire world, thus forcing warmongers to postpone making a decision on producing it. It stressed that campaigners should be inspired by this first victory and look for new forms of action to achieve a complete ban on the neutron bomb. The Congress called on all trade unions to actively participate both in preparations for the World Conference of Trade Unions and in the Conference itself, which is to be devoted to the socioeconomic aspects of disarmament. This broad and diverse process, into which millions of working people are objectively being'drawn, is gaining momentum and will'play a major role in further political and military detente.
These and many other new motives behind the growth of anti-monopoly sentiments make it really possible to unite all progressive forces in the struggle against monopoly rule. The great successes of the Communist and Workers' parties of developed capitalist countries in uniting the broad democratic, anti-monopoly forces around the working class are, in essence, an expression of both the further delimitation of socio-political forces---a characteristic feature of the present stage of the international working-class movement---and the fraternal parties' skilful use of the subjective factor in the interests of peace, democracy and socialism.
The working class is more and more strongly influencing the political situation in capitalist countries through its political parties, especially the Communist parties, and its trade unions. Recent events bear this out. Rut the Communist parties' and working-class trade unions' willingness to cooperate with other working-class parties and reformist trade unions does not mean that Communists will tolerate ideological conceptions or specific steps which either disrupt the working-class movement's unity or channel it in 282 the wrong direction. In this respect, the founders of scientific communism said that, where the policy of alliances is concerned, agreements should be reached to ensure action against the common enemy, but that "haggling about principles"~^^1^^ is inadmissible, and "it is absolutely necessary to join forces for common action!... This does not obviate a definite party stand, but, on the contrary, demands it".^^2^^ These tenets have lost none of their importance today.
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union is greatly helping to consolidate the international working-class movement's unity and, in particular, to strengthen favourable contacts between Communist and Social Democratic Parties. At the 25th CPSU Congress, Leonid Brezhnev said: "We can be and are united with social-democrats, conscious of their responsibility for peace, and all the more with socialdemocratic workers, by a common concern for the security of the peoples, a wish to contain the arms race, and to repulse fascism, racialism and colonialism. It is precisely on this plane that we displayed and will continue to display initiative and goodwill."~^^3^^
The programme for anti-imperialist action, proposed at the International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties (Moscow, 1969), has in many respects been fulfilled, thereby testifying to the successes of the international communist movement in the 1970s. The Report of the CPSU Central Committee to the 25th CPSU Congress emphasised: "Along with the Communist parties of other countries, we can now say that the road and the main objectives of the struggle had been defined colrectly, and that joint work for the good of the peoples has evoked a broad response among the masses, and is yielding useful results."~^^4^^
The present class battle in the citadels of imperialism shows that the anti-monopoly, anti-imperialist front's social basis is steadily expanding. Gus Hall, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the USA, has said that individual problems may arise and temporary slumps may occur, but _-_-_
~^^1^^ See "Marx to Wilhelm Bracke in Brunswick, London, May, 5, 1875'', Marx, Engels, Selected Correspondence, Moscow, 1975, p.'278.
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, "The Question of Party Affiliation Among Democratic-Minded Students'', Collected Works, Vol. 36, p. 210.
~^^3^^ Documents and Resolutions. XXVth Congress of the CPSU, D 39.
^^4^^ Ibid., p. 30.
283 certainly the main factors which will really determine our epoch are the continued victorious progressive development of the world revolutionary process, its growing power, and the unity between its motive forces.The broad non-proletarian sections of working people are becoming increasingly convinced that they will win few victories in the struggle to improve their position unless they act together with the working class, which is the antimonopoly coalition's determining force and expresses all the nation's interests. Although the non-proletarian sections of working people are not homogeneous, the prevailing tendencies under state-monopoly capitalism are towards convergence between the interests of most of these sections and the interests of the working class, and growing awareness on their part of the need to take concerted action with this class. Thus, alongside the existing objective, material prerequisites for a transition from capitalism to socialism, an anti-imperialist front of social and political forces is growing in the depths of capitalism itself.
[284] __ALPHA_LVL0__ The End. [END]REQUEST TO READERS
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Please send all your comments to 17, Zubovsky Boulevard, Moscow, USSR.
[285]SHVYRKOV Yu. Centralised Planning of the Economy
The book provides a critical analysis of economic programming in the capitalist and developing countries. It describes methods of socialist planning and analyses the forms in which state plans and programmes are implemented. The advantages of the socialist principles of planning are demonstrated. Examples are given of Soviet experience that can be used in foreign countries.
[286] HYNDINA M., CHERNIKOV G.,
KHUDOKORMOV G. Fundamentals of Political Economy
This book popularises the fundamentals of Marxist-Leninist political economy. It defines the subject and method of political economy and characterises the precapitalist and capitalist modes of production. The authors analyse the new processes and phenomena characteristic of capitalism in the 1970s. There is a description of socialism---the first phase of the communist mode of production---from the point of view of political economy. Though the book has only 272 pages it covers all sections of political economy. It also contains a critique of bourgeois political economy and present-day anti-communism and antisovietism.
[287] __DUST_JACKET__Lev Borisovich Moskvin (bn. 1926), the author of the book "The Working Class and its Allies'', is a sector head at the USSR Academy of Sciences' Institute of the International Labour Movement. He. is a graduate of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, a Candidate of Science (History), and specialises in the field of the workers' and trade union movement. He is the author of a number of works on these questions: "The International Trade Union Movement in the Struggle for the Workers' Interests'', "The Working Class---the Leading Force in the Struggle for Social Progress'', "The Problem of the Workers' Movement in France'', "Social Aspects of European Security'', " Working People against the Neutron Bomb''. L. B. Moskvin has also taken part in the joint authorship of a number of scholarly Soviet publications, including the second and third volumes of the sevenvolume "International Workers' Movement. History and Theory" (Moscow, 1976, 1978).
In this book Soviet historian and expert on international affairs L. B. Moskvin analyses the establishment of alliances between the working class and other strata of the population since the beginning of the organised workers' movement.
The author investigates the socioeconomic position and political standpoint of the working class, of the peasantry, the traditional urban middle sections, the intelligentsia and whitecollar workers in developed capitalist countries; he also describes the objective and subjective preconditions for the alliance between the working class and other social strata of working people in the struggle for peace, democracy and social progress.
The book gives particularly close attention to a description of the more important tendencies of the modern stage in the development of the international workers' movement, covering the period from the mid-60's to the present.
L. B. MQskvin's book is supported by a mass of factual and documentary material.
L.MOSKVIN
PROGRESS
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