Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!crsp!gargoyle!carnes From: carnes@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP (Richard Carnes) Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: What is socialism? Message-ID: <309@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP> Date: Thu, 17-Jan-85 19:47:40 EST Article-I.D.: gargoyle.309 Posted: Thu Jan 17 19:47:40 1985 Date-Received: Fri, 18-Jan-85 03:17:19 EST Organization: U. Chicago - Computer Science Lines: 172 > Let me advance another idea -- government control of everything (the > socialist plan) implies immense power for those in control of the > government. This and many other comments about socialism from various people indicate that massive confusion prevails out there in netland about the meaning of "socialism." I'll try again to explain. Taking no chances this time, I'll borrow the brain of Paul Sweezy, perhaps the most distinguished American Marxist economist, and, ignoring bourgeois copyright laws, reprint his article on socialism in *A Dictionary of Marxist Thought*, ed. Tom Bottomore. This is, of course, a Marxist perspective on socialism; not all socialists consider themselves Marxists. For those who wish to learn more about contemporary democratic socialist thought, I can highly recommend *Beyond the Welfare State*, ed. Irving Howe. (Democratic socialists may or may not consider themselves Marxists, in my experience.) Anyone who wishes to refer to socialism in net.politics and ignores the article below (and the *Communist Manifesto*) does so at his peril. You have been warned. _________________ The modern socialist movement dates from the publication in 1848 of *The Communist Manifesto* by Marx and Engels. Its historical roots go back at least two hundred years earlier to the period of the English Civil War (1642-52) which produced a radical movement (the Diggers) with a brilliant spokesman in Gerrard Winstanley whose ideas corresponded in important respects to the principal tenets of socialism as we know them today. Other outstanding forerunners were Babeuf and his Conspiracy of the Equals during the French Revolution, the great English and French Utopians (Owen, Fourier, St. Simon) of the early nineteenth century, and the English Chartists of the 1830s and 1840s who first incorporated socialist ideas of democracy, equality, and collectivism into a large-scale working-class movement. Unlike most of their predecessors, Marx and Engels saw socialism not as an ideal for which an attractive blueprint could be drawn up, but as the product of the laws of development of capitalism which the classical economists had been the first to discover and try to analyze. The form or forms which socialism might take would therefore only be revealed by an historical process which was still unfolding. Given this perspective, Marx and Engels quite logically refrained from any attempt to provide a detailed description, or even a definition, of socialism. To them it was first and foremost a negation of capitalism which would develop its own positive identity (communism) through a long revolutionary process in which the proletariat would remake society and in so doing remake itself. Marx's most important text on the subject is *The Critique of the Gotha Programme* (1875) which was directed against the programme adopted by the congress at which the two branches of the German workers' movement (Lassalleans and Eisenachers) united to form the Socialist Workers Party, later renamed the Social Democratic Party of Germany. In his *Critique* Marx distinguishes between two phases of communist society. The "first phase" is the form of society which will immediately succeed capitalism. This phase will bear the marks of its origin: the workers as the new ruling class will need their own state (the "dictatorship of the proletariat") to protect them against their enemies; people's mental and spiritual horizons will be colored by bourgeois ideas and values; income, though no longer derived from the ownership of property, will have to be calculated according to work done rather than according to need. Nevertheless, society's productive forces will develop rapidly under this new order, and in the course of time the limits imposed by the capitalist past will be transcended. Society will then enter what Marx called "the higher stage of communist society", under which the state will wither away, a totally different attitude to work will prevail, and society will be able to inscribe on its banner the motto "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need." *The Critique of the Gotha Programme* was not published until 1891, eight years after Marx's death, and its key place in the body of Marxist doctrine was not established until Lenin made it a central focus of his enormously influential *The State and Revolution* (1917), in which he stated that: "what is usually called socialism was termed by Marx the `first' or lower phase of communist society", and this usage was thereafter recognized or adopted by practically all who regard themselves as Marxists. This explains why individuals or parties can without any inconsistency call themselves either socialist or communist, depending on whether they wish to emphasize the immediate or the ultimate goal of their revolutionary endeavors. It also explains why there is no anomaly in a party which calls itself communist governing a country it considers to be socialist. In keeping with this theory the Soviet Union, as the society which emerged from the Russian Revolution, was officially designated socialist (the Union of Soviet *Socialist* Republics). In addition, all but one or two of the countries which, since 1917, have undergone revolutions involving profound structural change have adopted or accepted the socialist label. Including the Soviet Union these countries now comprise about 30% of the world's land area and about 35% of its population. In one sense, therefore, these countries can be treated as "really existing socialism" (R. Bahro, *The Alternative in Eastern Europe*) and studied in the same way as any other historical formation like capitalism or feudalism. For Marxists, however, this is not and could not be the end of the matter. For in their theory socialism is essentially a transitional stage on the road to communism. In analyzing "really existing socialist societies", therefore, it is necessary for Marxists to pose a very specific question: are these societies showing signs of moving in the direction of communism, which for present purposes may be thought of as characterized by the elimination of classes and of certain very fundamental socioeconomic differences among groups of individuals (manual and mental workers, city and country dwellers, industrial and agricultural producers, men and women, people of different races). If they do show signs of moving in the direction of communism, they can be judged to be socialist in the sense of the Marxist theory. Otherwise they cannot be considered socialist in the Marxist meaning of the term. So far answers to this question have tended to fall into four categories: (1) Those that see "really existing socialist" societies as conforming to the Marxist theory. This is the answer of the ruling parties in the Soviet Union and its close allies. According to official Soviet doctrine, the USSR is no longer characterized by antagonistic class or social conflicts. The population consists of two harmonious classes (workers and peasants) and one stratum (the intelligentsia), and is presided over by a "state of all the people." In place of class struggle as the driving force of history, the new socialist mode of production (labelled "advanced socialism" in the Brezhnev era) is driven forward by the "scientific and technological revolution" towards the ultimate goal of communism. (2) The second category of answers holds that Soviet-type societies remain socialist in their basic structure but that progress towards communism has been interrupted by the rise of a bureaucracy which, owing to the underdeveloped state of the forces of production at the time of the revolution has been able to install itself in power and divert to its own uses a grossly disproportionate share of the social product. This bureaucracy, however, is not a ruling class, and as the forces of production develop, its position will be weakened and it will eventually be overthrown by a second, purely political, revolution. After that, progress towards communism will be resumed. There are a number of versions of this theory, all stemming originally from the writings of Trotsky [see *The Revolution Betrayed*]. (3) The third category of answers holds that capitalism has been restored in the USSR and the other countries of "really existing socialism" which acknowledge Moscow's leadership. The most prominent advocate of this view was the Communist Party of China (CPC) in the later years of the chairmanship of Mao Tse-tung. Mao believed that classes and class struggle must necessarily continue after the revolution, and that if the proletariat should fail to maintain its control over the ruling party and to pursue a consistent revolutionary line, the result would be the restoration of capitalism. The Maoists held that this had occurred in the USSR when Khrushchev came to power after Stalin's death. Others -- most notably [Charles] Bettelheim [in *Class Struggles in the USSR*] -- argued that the capitalist restoration occurred in the 1920s and 1930s. After Mao's death the leadership of the CPC abandoned this position and reverted to one which appears to be increasingly close to the official Soviet doctrine summarized above under (1). (4) The fourth category of answers is basically similar to the third but with one significant difference: it denies that capitalism has been restored in Soviet-type societies, arguing instead that these are class-exploitative societies of a new type. In the USSR itself the new ruling class formed itself in the course of intense struggles during the 1920s and 1930s. After the second world war the Soviet Union imposed similar structures on the countries liberated by the Red Army. Defining characteristics of this social formation are state ownership of the essential means of production, centralized economic planning, and the monopolization of political power through a communist party controlling a highly developed security apparatus. To those who hold this view, Soviet-type societies are obviously not in transition to communism and hence cannot be classified as socialist in the sense of the classical Marxist theory. What emerges from the foregoing is that "really existing socialism" is an extraordinarily complicated and controversial subject over which the views and theories of the worldwide Marxist movement are divided into various, often sharply conflicting, groups and subgroups. No resolution of these differences now seems to be in sight, though it remains possible that the course of history will alter the terms of the debate and perhaps lead eventually to something closer to a consensus than exists or seems possible under present circumstances. [Paul Sweezy] ___________________ Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes