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Marxism and the state: an exchange
The
State: A Marxist Programme and Transitional Demands
Lynn Walsh
THE SOCIALIST TRANSFORMATION OF SOCIETY
Surely, asks Michael, our aim is "the establishment of working
class power
a revolution to create a workers' state". The bourgeois state
must be "broken up, smashed, and replaced by a new workers' state," with the
formation of workers' militias, local soviets and factory committees. In the
midst of a revolution, of course, like Russia in 1917 or Spain in 1936, such
basic aims might provide some guidance for the drawing up of a revolutionary
action programme. A situation of dual power, with a struggle for power between
the capitalists and the working class, and the threat of bourgeois reaction,
would undoubtedly pose the question of a struggle for power. Even in a
revolutionary situation, however, a Marxist programme has to go beyond
generalities of smashing the state and establishing workers' power. In 1917
Lenin and Trotsky put forward concrete demands as the situation developed, to
expose and undermine the role of the Provisional Government and to strengthen
the position of the workers' and peasants' soviets. In relation to Spain in
1936, Trotsky advocated concrete demands that would expose the role of the
Popular Front government and prepare the working class for a struggle to take
power into its own hands.
But that was clearly not the position in Britain (or in other
advanced capitalist countries) in the 1980s (the period mainly referred to by
Michael). Parliamentary forms of rule were the norm in the post-war period, and
the consciousness of the working class, including its politically advanced
layers, was that, while gains could be made through industrial struggle,
political change would be achieved through the election of governments based on
the traditional labour or social-democratic parties (or in some countries the
reformist communist parties). Our task was to expose the bourgeois limits of
these reformist parties, to show the impossibility of achieving socialism
through gradual, step-by-step changes in the economy and the state. The
political influence of the mass reformist parties over big sections of the
working class was an objective fact, and would only be undermined by a
combination of events through workers' experience of reformist
governments and the subjective factor the intervention of Marxist
ideas and policies.
Through our publications, meetings, interventions, etc, we
conducted a political struggle against reformism and Stalinism. However, theory
and propaganda reaches only a relatively small, politicised layer, except in
exceptional periods of intensified class struggle. Reaching broader layers
requires a programme, and the key task during the period to which Michael
mainly refers was to popularise the idea of a socialist programme. The key
planks are the nationalisation of the commanding heights of the economy, a plan
of production, and workers' control and management of industry. Moreover, we
always stressed that such measures would have to be extended on an
international basis.
By themselves, of course, such measures would not add up to a
socialist society. But they pointed to the social foundations on which the
working class could proceed to build a socialist society. Our programme
presented the case for "the socialist transformation of society" a
popularised form of 'socialist revolution'. We use this formulation to avoid
the crude association between 'revolution' and 'violence' always falsely made
by apologists of capitalism. A successful socialist transformation can be
carried through only on the basis of the support of the overwhelming majority
of the working class, with the support of other layers, through the most
radical forms of democracy. On that basis, provided a socialist government
takes decisive measures on the basis of mobilising the working class, it would
be possible to carry though a peaceful change of society. Any threat of
violence would come, not from a popular socialist government, but from forces
seeking to restore their monopoly of wealth, power and privilege by mobilising
a reaction against the democratic majority.
Until the end of the 1980s, we worked within the Labour Party,
because of its dominant position as the vehicle for working-class politics.
With the process of bourgeoisification of the Labour Party in the late 1980s,
and the emptying out of its working-class rank and file, we turned away from
Labour and have since campaigned independently as Militant Labour and
subsequently as the Socialist Party. In the earlier period, however, the
majority of workers, including left workers, looked to Labour governments for
improvements and socialist change. That was the existing consciousness. For
this to be undermined, workers had to go through the experience of successive
Labour governments. During the 1970s and 1980s, we therefore posed the question
to the Labour leaders: If you really want to defend workers' interest, if you
claim to be advancing towards socialism, carry through a programme that will
take economic control out of the hands of big business. Nationalise the
"commanding heights" of the economy and introduce workers' control and
management. The idea of an Enabling Act was put forward to cut through the
reformist argument that it would be too complicated, and take too long, to get
extensive nationalisation measures through parliament. It was precisely the
idea of short-circuiting the parliamentary 'checks and balances' designed to
impede any radical change.
Contrary to Michael's claim, we never based ourselves on the
idea that a socialist programme (in the popularised form we outlined) could be
carried through using existing parliamentary procedures. Regarding
nationalisation: "Such a step, backed up by the power of the labour movement
outside parliament, would allow the introduction of a socialist and democratic
plan of production to be worked out and implemented by committees of trade
unions, the shop stewards, housewives and small businessmen. With the new
technology that is on hand
it would be possible both to cut the working
day and enormously simplify the tasks of the working class in the supervision
and control of the state." (The Role of the State, Peter Taaffe in The
State: A Warning to the Labour Movement, p32) Even a superficial review of our
material on this question would show that we warned that big business would
inevitably attempt to sabotage socialist measures and we always raised the need
for a mobilisation of the working class to provide mass support for any
anti-capitalist measures carried out by a Labour government. We raised the need
for a transformation of state institutions from top to bottom, taking them out
of the hands of servants of the ruling class and placing them under the control
of elected representatives of the working class. Our programme put demands on
the Labour leaders, who were seen by most politicised workers as their
representatives in government, but our approach was not based on an
electoralist strategy.
The experience of Chile in 1970-73, to take the best known
example, was repeatedly used to show the need for a root-and-branch
transformation of the state. In the case of Chile, a revolutionary situation
was opened up by the election of the popular front government under Allende
(which included the Socialist Party, the Communist Party and the bourgeois
Radical Party). It had a radical programme, which included some nationalisation
measures (of the copper industry, for instance), but fell far short of a
programme of socialist transformation. Political developments of this type,
with the election of left parties to government on the basis of mass
radicalisation of the workers, are a typical scenario for the development of
revolutionary crisis in capitalist countries with a parliamentary form of rule.
In such a situation, Marxists have to advance a programme that relates
concretely to the role of a 'socialist' (popular front) government and to the
necessary tasks posed before the working class. In Chile between 1970-73, bald
calls on the lines of 'down with the Allende government', 'smash the state' and
'for a workers' government' would have been be completely inadequate.
We advocated that Marxists in Chile should call on the Allende
government to take decisive control of the economy through nationalisation of
the copper mines and basic industries, while supporting the poor peasants in
carrying through a radical land reform. We also called for decisive measures
against the developing counter-revolution, led by the tops of the military, the
big landlords and capitalists. We warned that it was a fatal mistake on the
part of Allende to try to buy off the military reaction by promoting the
military tops to more powerful positions and increasing the pay of the officer
class. While calling on Allende to take bold socialist measures, we advocated
the organisation of the workers from below, with the strengthening of factory
committees and the 'cordones', effectively local soviet-type organisations. We
also advocated the democratisation of the armed forces, with the purging of
reactionary officers and control of the armed forces being placed in the hands
of committees of soldiers, sailors and airmen. When it was clear that the
reactionary forces were preparing for a counter-revolutionary coup, we called
for the arming of the working class to defend itself against a bloody
reaction.
There was no question, moreover, of our treating these
developments as if they were a purely Chilean development. "The lessons of
Chile, written in the blood of more than 50,000 martyred workers, is a warning
to the labour movement here." (The State
, p28)
The same article (and there were many other articles
elsewhere) rejected the theory of the leaders of the Communist Parties of
France, Italy and Spain (the so-called 'Euro-communist' trend) used to justify
the approach of the Socialist and Communist Party leaders in Chile under the
Allende government. "However, it would be fatal to pretend, as the Communist
Party leaders and the reformist left of the Labour Party do, that 'the
democratisation of the state' will be sufficient in itself to guarantee the
British working class and a Labour government against the fate which befell
their Chilean brothers and sisters. Piecemeal measures will neither satisfy the
working class nor the middle class, but will inflame the opposition of the
capitalists and, moreover, give them the time and opportunity to strike
a decisive blow against the labour movement. This would above all be the case
when attempts are made to 'democratise' their state. The capitalists would take
this as a signal particularly if the army is touched to prepare
to crush the labour movement." (The State
, pp31-32)
Again: "The lesson of Chile, where in 1973 the Popular Unity
government of Salvador Allende was overthrown and the workers' movement crushed
by Pinochet's bloody counter-revolution, must be taken as a serious warning to
the British as well as to the world labour movement. Chile underlies the fatal
consequences of taking half measures which provoke a reaction from the ruling
class while failing to give the working class decisive control of the economy
and the state. In particular, the lessons of the Allende government's
fundamentally mistaken policies towards the state's armed bodies of men must be
absorbed by the British labour movement." (Introduction The State
,
pp9-10)
The example of Chile was repeatedly used in our material to
demonstrate the impossibility of a reformist 'parliamentary road to socialism'
in Britain or elsewhere. However, the situation in Chile in 1970-73 was not the
same as in Britain in the early 1980s. In Chile it was necessary to call for
the arming of the workers to defend themselves and past democratic and social
gains from the threatening counter-revolution.
Is Michael seriously suggesting that we should have been
calling for workers' militias and the arming of the proletariat in Britain in
the 1980s or today, for that matter? Such demands do not correspond to
the situation today in Britain or most other countries, and they do not
correspond to the current consciousness of even the advanced layers of workers.
Marxists have to study the history of such demands and the
vital role they play in the appropriate conditions where there is a
revolutionary or pre-revolutionary situation in which the working class is
threatened by a bloody reaction. But to raise today the slogans of 'smashing
the state' and 'arming the workers' would not win workers to socialism or
prepare them to carry through a change in society. On the contrary, such
methods, if adopted by organisations with any real influence among workers,
would alienate workers and play into the hands of our class enemies.
Our main task today is to win support for the idea of a
socialist society, for a socialist transformation carried through under the
leadership of the working class. There is no question of our abandoning our
long-term aims. But in order to build mass support for socialism we have to
present our programme in a popular form that will get a response from workers.
While advocating a socialist transformation of society, we have to struggle for
partial and transitional demands, for the basic interests and needs of working
people.
Continued ...
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