282

p What we introduce here are theses, because we think it is the T T best way to clarify our ideas about some issues related to the topic of this international seminar. These ideas are introduced for the purpose of having a better comprehension of the problems of our world today and its contradictions.

We shall do that briefly, trying to answer two main questions that have become critical because of the latest international changes. Those are: What is the future of socialism? Does capitalism fulfill the needs of the future development of humanity?

The Theory of Building Socialism

p First of all we have to stress that Marxism-Leninism, like any other science, is a science that has no end, rather—as emphasised by its founders—it becomes rich and develops with die enrichment of life by new contents. This emphasis, however, should not mean all that achieved by Marxism earlier are negative i.e. it should not conclude to cutoff from the past.

p It should be indicated also that, philosophically speaking, limits are, to some extent, formal between theory and practice. Theory is that “common” in the former practice proved necessary by life. Practice on the other hand is a specially tested form of the theory. So, where does the problem lie?

p Basically, Marxism-Leninism as a theory was forged by its earlier founders, who could successfully solve great questions theoretically and practically; first, they forged the theory of capitalism as a phenomenon, reaching the inevitability of its collapse; secondly, they forged the theory of the socialist revolution.

283

p In doing so, they depended on analyzing a raw material of hundreds of old experieness of capitalist development itself, including many past revolutions that were forms of spontaneous protest against this exploitative system.

p All of these allowed them to come up with great theoretical generalizations after examining reality itself and its development. But the task of building socialism on the basis of which the advance of the socialist movement which stumbled had to be overcome was a task that had to be undertaken by the Marxists who came after Marx, Engels, Lenin and who should have handled the question of forging theory of building socialism. This task has not been accomplished for many reasons, probably among the most important of them are:

p The lack or scarcity of the practical raw material on which the theory of building socialism has to be forged. It seems that if the theory of capitalism required hundreds of years of the development of its own subject, so many years of development of socialism as an experience are necessary also for forging, the laws of building socialism as a complete theory. This question will be answered by life itself; this is the actual state of being; each new experience has to go through the test as to whether they are right or wrong in order to form its theoretical reservoirs at the end for its future development.

p Should we blame those who undertook the task of penetrating the skies (the words Marx used when describing the heroes of ParisCommune)? The attitude from the past experience does not only have a practical meaning, their lessons, rather also has a moral one. It is an attitude towards those who paved the way for others, towards those who were first on this road.

p When Lenin discussed with some other people about the attitude the European socialists, namely Sismondi, Lenin answered something like: The attitude towards historical personalities should not be forged on the basis of what they did not introduce comparing with the personal requirements, rather it is forged on the basis of what they really presented in comparison with their ancestors.

p The past experience of building socialism in history has offered security a lot, but this is out of question here, but most importantly, this experience has offered that raw material on which basis the 284 new socialist regimes will stand. These regimes definitely will be superior than the former ones.

p Then where does the problem lie? Does it lie in the theory or in the practice.

Experience proved that the defect is not in the theory rather in the people who could not use it well upon application, or could not develop it to meet necessities of life i.e. they could not ascend to its level. This happened out of objective uncontrolled factors, or out of subjective factors in the people themselves.

The Theory Retreat of Socialism and the New
International Situation

p Where does the real root of the retreat of international socialism, which we witnessed today, lie?

p There is a sharp theoretical conflict over this topic. This is quite understandable, as the accurate specification of the point at which the deviation started would impose the way and the necessary means needed to solve the problem.

p Despite the various sorts of opinions about this topic, the presented ones could be classified in two main groups: The first group which includes those opinions that could be called today “traditional”, which trace the problem back to October Revolution itself or following the 1920s, reaching 1930s of this century. These opinions are propagated by different information media in the East or in the West and are adopted by the majority of researchers and research centres.

p While the second group of opinion, that shoulders its way ahead despite the coverage of international media and despite the fierce campaign launched against it, says that the root of the problem began with the actual, slow, and gradual retreat from socialism, especially in the Soviet Union since mid 1950s.

p It becomes clear today that the campaign during Perestroika have concentrated their fire at the 1930s for mainly shifting attention from what was prepared for, and from what was really going on during Perestroika itself, and also for hiding the real starting point of the retreat.

p The CPSU XX conference widely opened the doors for the growth and prevalence of right-wing opportunism in the general 285 tactical line of International Communist Movement.

p Now-a-days, it has become clear that the results of that conference and its following steps rejected class-struggle in the Soviet Union. Naturally, all of this is taking place only on paper, and then this question was generalised over the whole world with different forms and under various names, the issue that hindered the potential development of the World Revolutionary process. Later, this same hindrance laid its burden and difficulties over the Soviet Union and its progress.

p Right-wing opportunism after the XX conference hasadvanced on an International level through various axies, which resulted in delaying the development of the World Revolutionary process. The important theses could be summed up as follows:

p 1. Splitting the lines of World Communist Movement, and escalating the Sino-Soviet difference, often artificially.

p 2. Theoretically, over-estimating the role played by some Third World fores on the account of minimizing the role of the Marxist and progressive ones. That took many forms: development of Communists Parties. Non-capitalist path of development...

p 3. Portraying peaceful co-existence as an absolute and a fixed state, and not understanding it as a specific state of balance in the conflict between opposites that would end by the triumph of socialism; i.e. this state was looked at divorsing it from its frame of class outlook.

p 4. Economically regarding the socialist construction, Marx’s thesis on non-commodity production was ignored: the door was widely opened for the commodity monitory relations, theoretically and practically.

p 5. All that has happened reinforces Stalin’s thesis about the intensification of class-struggle during the process of building socialism. After the XX conference, the starting point of the rightwing opportunism was to attack this thesis and reject it; but what is imposed by life and facts can not be eliminated by any one. This theoretical prediction needs analysis of its lapses once again on the grounds of the world realities we live in today.

p 6. Away from researching the causes behind the collapse that has happened, there is a new reality that has to be studied, and its contradictions have to be understood. This reality hasicreated a 286 new international situation.

p What characterizes this new international situation?

p A. With the collapse of socialism, the world has not become more safe; quite the opposite is true.

p B. A number of contradictions emerged and were intensified; but this does not change the fact that the main contradiction in our age is still that between capitalism and socialism.

p i) The first contradiction that has intensified is that among the imperialist centres themselves.

p ii) The second one which is being intensified is within the imperialist centres themselves, due to the continuing contradiction between labour and capital,

p iii) The third contradiction which is being intensified is that between the imperialist centres and the Third World, or what is called the contradiction between North and South; i.e. between the capitalist North and the poor South.

p The Earth Summit was an evidence that the contradiction between imperialism with the American one at the top of it, and the Third World is insolvable and can’t be solved but through the disappearance of capitalism itself. This summit proved that Earth as a whole objectively wants socialism and seeks for it in one form of another.

New World Order, recently wanted by US .A. after the collapse in the Socialist Camp, is t’ssentially old, and as a new compound form of both old and new colonialism, and is an important stage in the development of the modern imperialist system.

Thesis about Capitalism, Socialism and the Future

p Socialism as we know is not an independent socio-economical formation. It is mainly a transitional period between two essential formations that are characterised by the nature of their material type of production. So, within this period, a struggle continues between theold thatdid not completely disappear and the new one. This is why we can deduce that it is the main contradiction within Socialism.

p The history of humanity knows two main forms of material type of production, the natural and the commodity types of production. Each of them is related to a certain level of the 287 development of the productive forces. Marx’s dialectic deductions on this concern were that it it is completely different from the first two ones.

p As the complete negation of the capitalism is the negation of its commodity type of production, it becomes clear that the main contradiction within Socialism in the transitional period is between these two types.

p It becomes clear also that the ability of Socialism to resolve such a contradiction in a correct way can only decide the future of such a struggle; it is correct that it shall continue forward, if not, it shall fail and we shall return to the beginning.

p This contradiction is not resolved by the obligatory negation of either type on the account of the other, rather by knowing the size that should be occupied by each one of them in the given moment, and by knowing how this balance between these two sizes should be changed from time to time.

p Such balance is imposed by objective necessities: The degree of the development of the productive forces.

p 4. Here we face the question of the relation of the basic laws of commodity production with what is called Market Economy. In other terms, how do these laws function in the Market Economy?

p Uptill now, humanity knew 4 types of market economy, in which pricing depends on the "law of Value" and the "law of Supply and Demand.”

p The first type is within the free-competition period in Capitalism, where these laws were functioning spontaneously and the process of organising proportion in economy is done through the commodity and financial flows, controlled by the laws of propensity of capital towards the Maximum profit.

p The second one is that of monopoly capitalism where, for the first time in human history, there is a conscious control of Supply and Demand in order to keep an official imbalance to ensure a price higher than the value, i.e. "monopoly profit" or "ultraprpfit.”

p The third type is something which took place during certain period in the Socialist regimes where Supply and Demand are controlled, and thus prices are controlled in accordance’with the Law of Value for the benefit of the whole society.

p The fourth type is something like the second one and a deviant 288 of the third where the administration, that moved out of social control, makes an artificial imbalance between Supply and Demand in order to create bottlenecks that leads in turn for a new form of ultraprofit provided by Shadow Economy.

p Through this form, profit is gained not by the owners of the means of production, rather by those who administer them in the name of society. This form also carries inside the danger of going backward again to the first or second form after the first process of accumulation made by those influentials are accrued and where the need of reinvesting what has been accumulated rises.

p 5. According to the above mentioned, it becomes clear why Socialism passes periods of escalated class-struggle. This conflict increases sometimes despite the absence of a clear and overt social bearers of Capitalism. Essentially, the essence of this escalation lies in the necessity of changing the proportion between commodity and non-commodity type of production upon each turning period.

p 6. Hence, class struggle is a historical category related to the period of transition from capitalism to Communism; and the political victory of Socialism during certain periods does not mean the end of class struggle, nor it means the absolute economical and local victory, unless Socialism moves forward towards the non- commodity type of production.

p 7. The roots of the problem of Socialism as a transitional period between two types of material production lie in solving the following three contradictions:

p A. The proportion between commodity and the non- commodity type of production in accordance with the development of the productive forces.

p B. The balance between centralism and de-centralism in controlling the economy through the different periods of development*.

p C. The permanent change of the level of democracy as an objective factor based on the degree of the development of the productive forces and the degree of culture. This same change is that which will prevent the executives from growing out of society’s control.

p 8. The main contradiction within Capitalism wasand still exists between labour and capital; but it takes different forms according 289 to the periods of Capitalist development.

p 9. Capitalism under the strong pressure of the Socialist example, was obliged in granting the working class important concessions in order to soften the sharpness of the social tension and to save its countries from deadly shocks. Offering these concessions, however, did not minimize the absolute share of newly produced labour quantities of Capitalism, as it leans upon new reservoirs:

p A. The Third World  

p B. Nature  

p 10. The non-equivalent different forms of exchange between Capitalism and Third World, provided Capitalism with huge resources for maintaining a specific level of development. This exchange, however, if continued will create the potentiality of stopping social reproduction process in the Third World and the increase of poverty, illness, hunger, etc. are clear indicators.

p 11. The traditional capitalistic exploitation essentially means superanuting present labour oriented modem Capitalistic exploitation, with its tendency towards exhausting natural resources and polluting them, essentially means adding a new form of appropriation i.e. stealing future quantities of labour.

p 12. The exploitation of others future quantities of labour is related to an objective factor out of Capitalism’s control that is the technical pattern which it depends on.

p The pattern, upon which rising Capitalism prevailed depends on exhausting unrenewable natural resources on one hand, and on the other hand as a definite result, it depends on nature pollution.

Capitalism, with its technological pattern, has entered an antagonistic contradiction with nature, which will lead either to the disappearance of nature. Arising from here, is that the struggle against Capitalism is to become an overall human task, as capitalism as a technological socio-economic system is exhausting its final reservoirs.

p ,

p 13. The interest of humanity, which necessitates reconsidering the prevailing technological pattern means preventing capitalism from appropriating others future quantities of labour. Thus rrtodern Capitalism loses one of the main resources for ga’ining surplus value; consequently, Capitalism moves on the way of its subjective, internal negation.

290

p 14. The Capitalist sodo-economic pattern, based on certain technological pattern, has led to a sharp contradiction with the prevailing biological pattern on our planet This has led to disharmony, disproportion, and noncorrespondence among the three constituent dimensions of any human civilization—sodo-economic , technological and biological dimensions.

p The aspects of this contradiction appear by prevalence of the different forms of man’s alienation, that takes shape through man’s alienation from nature, society, technology and finally from man himself.

p The indicators of this alienation appear in the great increase of psychological and social illness in the modem civilization and in the appearance of new forms of organic diseases. These indicators will not reduce or disappear, unless the conflict among these three dimensions disappear.

p The present techno-sdentific revolution puts forth the question of its relation with capitalism. This revolution foretells the move into new period of a huge social division of labour. The period is characterised by increasing quantity of mental labour in the new quantities of labour. If the industrial revolution is characterised by decreasing muscular labour, transferring it to the mechanical machine. The modern scientific revolution is characterised by decreasing a lot of mental labour and turning it to new machines.

p The increasing amount of the creative mental labour in the new quantities of labour imposes a new reality.

p If the measurement of the value of labour force, formerly characterised by the muscular labour in the first place, was taking on the basis of estimating the value of the necessary materials needed to reproduce this labour force at present with the growth of the amount of mental labour, it is incorrect to estimate it through the quantity of the materials needed to reproduce mental labour.

p This is because this kind of labor has other feature and demands differently from the first muscular one. For this, Capitalism has entered a new contradiction with the new kind of labour. If Capitalism is going to estimate its real value, which is providing all the spiritual and material needs required for its reproduction, then its is forced to give up gradually its possession in other quantities of labour, if it did not do that, Capitalism will turn to be a barrier fadng the future development of the productive forces.

291

p This form of contradiction is the modem one and is likely to develop between private ownership of the means of production and the social character of labour.

p The reason behind the collapse of the known Socialist patterns is due to the weakness in providing the theoretical basis of the new experience gone through by humanity. They did not indicate the way by which the contradictions of Socialism are going to be solved, which we mentioned in number (7). Practical experience proves that the possibility to go backward appeared when the fourth pattern of market economy was applied, and when the relation of size between commodity and non-commodity type of production was not solved properly. The issue that strengthened the commodity production deviated the character of social reproduction. This gradually carried inside its political, intellectual and moral infrastructure, which, under certain balance of forces led to resolving this contradiction by going backward.

p The historical research entails the spedfication as to where does the turning point lie, and when did it happen?

One of our international struggles is the fight against, as if with its roots, and development of a movement where Capitalism appears in its ugliest elitist form. As Marx indicated, the bearer of Zionism is a capitalist factor even before the existence of capitalism as a social system. For this when this system sees light, that bearer occupies the foremost position.