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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