What is Communism ?

1934 Paul Mattick
International Council Correspondence N°1.

In communism, the process of production is no longer a process of capital expansion, but only a labor process in which society draws from nature the means of consumption which it needs. No longer are values produced but only articles for use. As an economic criterion, the necessity of which is undeniable, since both production and the productive apparatus must be made to conform to the social need, the only thing which can still serve is the labor time employed in the production of goods. It is no longer the ‘value’ but the calculation in terms of use articles and the immediate labor time required for their production which is the necessary form of expression of a regulated communist economy.

And so, from the standpoint of Marxism, the Russian experiments in planned economy are not to be rated as socialistic. The Russian practice is not directed according to communist principles, but follows the laws of capitalist accumulation. We have here, even though in modified form, a surplus-value production under the ideological camouflage of “socialist construction”. The wage relation is identical with that of capitalist production, forming also in Russia the basis for the existence of a growing bureaucracy with mounting privileges; a bureaucracy which, by the side of the private capitalist elements which are still present, is strictly to be appraised as a new class appropriating to itself surplus labor and surplus value. From the Russian experience no positive conclusions can be drawn which have a relation to communist production and distribution. It still offers only examples of the way in which communism can not be developed.
The decisive problems of a communist economy do not come up until after the market, wage labor, money, etc., have been completely dispensed with. The very fact of the existence of the wage relation signifies that the means of production are not controlled by the producers, but stand over against them in the form of capital; and this circumstance further compels a reproduction process in the form of capital accumulation. This latter is, by the Marxist theory, beside and because of its validity as a law of crises and collapse, at the same time the accumulation of misery, and hence also the Russian workers are actually growing poorer at the same rate as capital accumulates. The productivity of the Russian workers increases faster than their wages; of the increasing social product they receive a relatively ever smaller share. To Marx this relative pauperization of the working population in the course of accumulation is only a phase of the absolute pauperization; it is only another expression of the increasing exploitation of the workers, and to denominate this as the “growth of socialism” is after all hardly possible.

The gist of the Bolshevist “theory of socialization” may be sketched as follows : With the revolutionary overthrow, i.e. the expropriation of capital, the power over the means of production and hence the control over production and the distribution of the products passes into the hands of the state apparatus. This latter then organizes the various branches of production in accordance with a plan and puts them, as a state monopoly, at the service of society. With the aid of statistics, the central authority computes and determines the magnitude and kind of production, as also the apportionment of the products and producers.

To be sure, the means of production have here passed from the hands of the private entrepreneurs into those of the State; as regards the producers, however, nothing has changed. No more than under capitalism do they themselves exercise the command over the products of their labor, for they still lack the control over the means of production. Just as before, their only means of livelihood is the sale of their labor power. The only difference is that they are no longer required to deal with the individual capitalist, but with the total capitalist, the State, as the purchaser of labor power. In the mind of the Bolshevist theoretician, as in that of the Social Democrat, monopoly capitalism has already made production “ripe for socializing”; the only thing left to do is to give a “socialistic” form to distribution. The decisive aspect of the matter here is the organizational-technical side of the production process; the side developed by monopoly capitalism or to be copied from it, instead of the truly basic factor of communist economy : the economic relation between product and producer.

The conception that the mere centralization of the means of production in the hands of the State is to be regarded as socialization precluded the practical employment of an accounting unit in keeping with a communist mode of economy. Centralized power over social production and distribution admitted of no form of accounting by which an uninterrupted economic process was possible as a substitute for money economy, The Russian attempts at a natural economy during the period of “war communism” completely miscarried. Money accounting had to be re-established.

Under capitalism, the means of production (mp) and labor (l) appear as constant (e) and variable (v) capital. The values c/v can be applied capitalistically only so long as they produce surplus value (s). The capitalistic formula of production is c/v/s. It is only because mp/l appear as c/v, that it is possible to attain s. If c/v drops out, so also does s, and vice versa. What remains is the concrete, material form of c/v, that is mp/l, the means of production and labor. The communist formula of production is – mp/l.

The development of mp and l proceeds in any society; it is nothing other than the “material interaction between man and nature”. The formula c/v/s, however, is historically bound up with capitalist society. If under capitalism it was only the interest in s which determined the development of c/v, since here the need for the expansion of capital prevails over the social needs, under communism on the other hand, it is only the social needs which determine the development of mp/l. The formula c/v/s presupposes exchange between the owners of c/v and the owners of l. If c/v is lacking, so also is this exchange. It is not until mp has ceased to confront the workers in the form of capital, when it remains merely as the tool of society and is nothing else, that it is possible to speak of a communist economy. Labor time as the unit of reckoning would play a double role in the communist economy :

“Its apportionment in accordance with a definite social plan maintains the proper proportion between the different kinds of work to be done and the various wants of the community. On the other hand, it also serves as a measure of the portion of the common labor borne by each individual, and of his share in the part of the total product destined for individual consumption. The social relations of the individual producers, with regard both to their labour and to its products, are in this case perfectly simple and intelligible and that with regard not only to production but also to distribution”.
(Capital, Vol. I Page 90-91).

Taking the social average working hour as the computing unit of communist society, it must be capable of embracing all categories of production and distribution. The working hour unit must be applicable, that is, to the quantitative consumption, the quantitative reproduction and the quantitative expansion of the productive forces. Each enterprise must determine the number of working hours it consumes, so that they can be replaced in the same magnitude. Computation by working hours is not difficult, as all the presuppositions for it have already been formed by capitalist cost accounting. In particular, the capitalist process of rationalization has developed computing methods which are capable of getting at the cost price both as a whole and also down into the last detail. And while these computing methods are today related to the common denominator of money, their conversion into the working hour is attended by no difficulties.

The production formula of any enterprise, as also that of society as a whole, is very simple. We have already stated it as follows : mp/l = product. With the aid of the means of production, human labor produces a quantity of goods. We distinguish between two different kinds of means of production : fixed and circulating. So we broaden our formula in accordance with this distinction.

mp + r + l
machines, etc. raw material, etc. labor power
10,000 working hours 70,000 working hours 70,000 working hours

Assuming that these figures are applicable to a shoe factory : mp/r/l = product – 10,000 + 70,000 + 70,000 = 50,000 pairs of shoes in 150,000 working hours, or an average of three working hours is consumed in each pair. In this production formula we have at the same time the reproduction formula for simple reproduction. We know how many labor hours were withdrawn from this factory for the production of 50,000 pairs of shoes. The same number of labor hours must accordingly be restored to it. And what holds for the single enterprise holds also for the whole of society, which of course is only the sum total of all enterprises. The total social product is the product of mp/r/l of all enterprises. To distinguish the production formula of the single enterprises from that of society as a whole, we select capital letters for the latter. The formula for the social product (SP) then reads : MP/R/L = SP. Assuming MP (the sum of all the fixed means of production) to amount to 100 million labor hours, the corresponding Sum R to amount to 600 million, and the labor time consumed to be equal to 600 million we have the following for the total product : MP/R/L = SP – 100/600/600 = 1300. Of the total production of 1300 million labor hours, in conditions of simple reproduction, (i.e. – when no expansion of production occurs), we assume that 600 million labor hours are turned over to the consumers in the form of means of consumption.

The application of the social average labor hour as the computing unit presupposes the existence of workers’ councils (soviets). Each enterprise comes forward as an independent unit and is at the same time, as we shall show later, connected with all the other enterprises. As a result of the division of labor, each factory has certain end products. With the aid of the production formula mp/r/l each enterprise can compute the labor time contained in its end products. In the shoe factory taken as an example, the end product – (one pair of shoes) – contains an average of three working hours. This average can be found for each product in each enterprise. The end product of an enterprise, insofar as it is not destined for individual consumption, goes to another enterprise either in the form of mp or r, and this one in turn computes its end products in labor hours. The same thing holds for all places of production, without regard to the magnitude or kind of their products.

When the individual enterprises have determined the average labor time contained in their products, it still remains to find the social average. All enterprises of the same nature, i.e. – turning out the same kind of products, must get in touch with each other. From the individual enterprises of a determinate industry, in a given territory, will be derived the total average of all the given averages (average of averages) for these enterprises. To take a rough example : if 100 shoe factories strike an average of three hours, 100 others an average of two, then the general average for a pair of shoes is 2-1/2 hours. The varying averages result from the varying productivity of the individual enterprises. Though this is a condition inherited from capitalism, and the differences in productivity will slowly disappear, the deficit of one enterprise must in the meanwhile be made up through the surplus of the other. From the standpoint of soviet, however, there is only the social average productivity. The determination of the social labor time calls for the cartellisation of the individual enterprises. The opposition between the factory-average and the social-average labor time comes to an end in the production cartel.

The social average labor time decreases with the development of the productivity of labor. If the product thus “cheapened” is one for individual consumption, it goes into consumption with this reduced average. If it is an end product used by other enterprises as means of production, then the consumption of mp/r for these enterprises falls, the production “costs” decline and hence the average labor time for the products of these enterprises is reduced. The matter of compensating for the variations caused in this way is a purely technical problem which presents no special difficulties.

If the working hour serves as a measure of production, it must likewise be applicable to distribution. A very clear statement of this unit is given by Marx : (Critique of the Gotha Programme, page 29) -
“What the producer has given to society is his individual amount of labor. For example : the social working-day consists of the sum of the individuals’ hours of work. The individual working-time of the individual producer is that part of the social working-day contributed by him, his part thereof. He receives from society a voucher that he has contributed such and such quantity of work (after deductions from his work for the common fund) and draws through this voucher on the social storehouse as much of the means of consumption as the same quantity of work costs. The same amount of work which he has given to society in one form, he receives back in another”.

The specialization of labor makes necessary the use of some sort of certificates for drawing from the fund of social articles of consumption. Each producer receives a number of these certificates corresponding to the number of hours of labor he has performed. These certificates may be called labor money, though they are not money at all in the capitalistic sense. “The producers”, writes Marx, may eventually receive paper checks, by means of which they withdraw from the social supply of means of consumption a share corresponding to their labor-time. These checks are not money. They do not circulate.” (Capital, Vol. 2 – page 412).

The workers cannot, however, receive the full output of their labor. The labor time is not the direct measure for the part of the social product destined for individual consumption. As Marx goes on to explain :

“Let us take the words “proceeds of labour” in the sense of the product of labour, thus the co-operative proceeds of labour is the total social product.
But from this must be deducted : firstly, reimbursement for the replacement of the means of production used up; secondly, an addition portion for the extension of production; thirdly, reserve or insurance funds to provide against misadventures, disturbances through natural events, and so on.”

There is left the other portion of the total product which is meant to serve definitely as means of consumption. But before this can go for individual consumption there has to be taken from it yet : firstly, the general costs of administration not appertaining to production; secondly, what is destined for the satisfaction of communal needs, such as schools, health services, etc.; thirdly, funds for those unable to work, etc., in short, what comes under the heading of so-called official poor relief today. (Critique of the Gotha Programme – page 27.)

Those institutions which produce no tangible goods (cultural and social establishments) and yet participate in the social consumption may be reckoned as enterprises. Their services go over into society without delay; production and distribution here are one. In the case of these enterprises, the final goal of communism, the “taking according to need”, is already actualized; their distribution is governed by no economic measure. We call these public enterprises, or enterprises for general social labor (GSL). Communist accounting is complicated by the existence of these GSL enterprises just as it was by the varying productivity of the single enterprises. Everything which the public enterprises consume must be drawn from the stores of the productive enterprises.

Going back to our production formula for society as a whole : (MP/R)/L = mass of products, or (100/600)/6OO million working hours. MP and R have to be reproduced; there remain of the total mass of products, 600 million working hours. The GSL enterprises take from these 600 million their means of production and raw materials. It is accordingly necessary to know the total consumption of these public enterprises. If we designate the means of production for the public enterprises as MPs, the raw materials as Rs and tine labor power as Ls, we get the following total budget for GSL : (MPs/Rs)/Ls = services of the GSL, or (for example – 8 million/50 million = 108 million labor hours.) From the 600 million labor hours to be consumed, 58 million must be deducted for MPs and Rs of the GSL enterprises. There remain 542 million labor hours for the individual consumption of all workers. In the productive enterprises the workers were employed 600 million hours, and in the GSL enterprises 50 million. Of the total output of labor power there is available for individual consumption, accordingly, only 542/650 or 83%. We call this proportion the “factor of individual consumption” (FIC). The formula for FIC is :
L-(MPs/Rs) over L / Ls. Or employing the figures assumed in our example : 600 million – 58 million = 542 million 0.83
600 million – 750 million = 650 million
If a worker has worked 40 hours, he receives a labor-money certificate in the amount of 0.83 x 40 = 33.2 which he exchanges for such articles as he pleases. This computation is possible because all enterprises keep an account of their consumption in mp, r and l. The general social bookkeeping, which records all products, has at its disposal all data necessary for determining the payment factor, namely L, MPs, Rs and Ls, which result from simple summation in the current account.

In the GSL enterprises the “taking according to needs” was, as we have seen, already realized. With the growth of communism, this type of enterprise receives an ever increasing extension, means of consumption, dwelling, passenger transport, etc. The more society grows in this direction and the more enterprises are transformed into the GSL type, the less will individual labor be the measure for individual consumption. This tendency serves to illustrate the general development of communist society.

With the development of communism, the accounting for FIC changes. Various enterprises, such as an electric plant, work in part for individual consumption and in part for purely productive purposes. To refer to our example : if the consumers are now supplied with electricity free of charge, the electric plant belongs to a new type of enterprise. For accounting purposes, these mixed enterprises must be included either under those of the productive or of the GSL type. This electric plant must receive back from the FIC the deliveries of current, expressed in working hours, going into the individual consumption. The addition of these parts of all mixed enterprises gives the deficit to be made up by the FIC. If we call this part the general deficit (D), we have a new distribution formula : FIC = L-(MPs/Rs)-D over L/Ls.

A number of variations are possible here, depending on whether we assign the mixed enterprises to the public or to the productive ones or divide them between the two. But these variations do not affect the clarity of the general view.

When the relation between producer and product is established, the question of the horizontal and vertical grouping of the enterprises becomes a technically soluble one, which from the economic point of view presents no difficulties. Distribution also, like production itself, is a social question. The “expenses” of distribution are included in the general budget for GSL : that is to say, the organs of distribution are enterprises of the GSL type, which likewise conduct their accounting according to the formula mp/r/l.

The conditions of simple reproduction, with which we have been working so far, are after all only a methodological assumption employed for the sake of simplicity and have no basis in actual fact. Human progress demands the expansion of the productive forces; the process of reproduction must be accomplished on a broader scale. Under capitalism, this process which goes on in terms of accumulation of capital, is the individual function of the various capitalistic enterprises. In communism, however, it is a social function. Of the social product a part is here employed for the further expansion of the productive apparatus. If this expanded reproduction is to be a conscious action, however, it is necessary to know the social labor time required for simple reproduction. The formula for simple reproduction is : MP/R/L. If the material apparatus of production is to be expanded by 10%, a mass of products of this amount must be withdrawn from individual consumption. When this “accumulation” has been accomplished, production proceeds according to the formula : 1.1 (MP/R)/L. We have already shown that the social product is completely taken up by society when the individual consumption proceeds according to the formula

FIC = L-(MPs/Rs)
L/Ls

This individual consumption must now be further diminished by 0.1 (MP/R). In the case of a 10% expansion of production, we then get the formula :

FIC = L-0.1 (MP/R)-(MPs/Rs)
L/Ls

This general formula does not take the place of the concrete solution of the problem in actual reality, but within the scope of this work we must be content with it and merely refer further to Marx : “If we assumed that society were not capitalistic, but communistic, then the money-capital would be entirely eliminated, and with it the disguise which it carries into the transactions. The question is then simply reduced to the problem that society must calculate beforehand how much labor, means of production, and means of subsistence it can utilize without injury for such lines of activity as, for instance, the building of railroads, which do not furnish any means of production or subsistence, or any useful thing, for a long time, a year or more, while they require labor, and means of production and subsistence out of the annual social production.” (Capital, Vol. 2 – Page 361).

Let us consider this example. If the construction of a railway proves necessary, the work involved belongs to the GSL part of the social Production. If it consumes, for example, three years of labor in a certain number of working hours, this sum is deducted yearly by charging it to the GSL account, from the factor of individual consumption (FIC)

In the relations between the individual enterprises, labor-time money is superfluous. When an enterprise delivers its end products, it has linked mp/r/l working hours to the great chain of partial social labors. These must be restored to the various enterprises in the same magnitude in the form of other end products. The labor money is valid only for individual consumption. As more and more enterprises are brought into GSL production, distribution by means of labor money grows less and less, and rushes on to its own abolition. Fixing the factor of individual consumption is the task of social-bookkeeping. On the credit side of the social bookkeeping stands L; on the debit side MPs, Rs, and Ls. “Bookkeeping as a control and abstract summary of the economic process,” says Marx, “becomes the more necessary to the extent that the process functions on a social scale and loses its purely individual character. It is, therefore, more necessary in capitalist production than in scattered handicraft and agricultural production, and still more necessary in co-operative than in capitalist production.” This bookkeeping under communism is merely bookkeeping and nothing else. It is the central point of the economic process, but has no power over the producers or the individual enterprises. The social bookkeeping is itself only an enterprise of the GSL type. Its functions are : the registration of the stream of products, the fixing of the FIC, the outlay of labor-time money, the control over production and distribution. The control of the labor process is a purely technical one, which is handled by each enterprise for itself. The control exercised by the social bookkeeping extends only to accounting for all receipts and deliveries of the individual enterprises and watching over their productivity.

The control of production in the society of free and equal producers does not come about through persons and authorities, but is con-ducted through the public registration of the objective course of the productive process; that is, production is controlled through reproduction.

The different industrial organizations turn their production budgets over to the enterprise which conducts the social bookkeeping. From all the production budgets results the social inventory. Products in one form flow to the enterprises; new ones in another form are given out by them. Each conveyance of goods is recorded in the general social bookkeeping by an endorsement, so that the debit and credit of any particular enterprise at any time can be seen at a glance. Everything which an enterprise consumes in the way of means of production, raw material or labor money, appear on the debit side of the enterprise; what it has turned over to society in the form of products appears as a credit. These two items must cover each other continuously, revealing in this way whether and to what extent the productive process is flowing smoothly. Shortage and excess on the part of the enterprise becomes visible and can be corrected. If an enterprise is unable to maintain its productivity, if that productivity declines, then the other enterprises, even though they work beyond the s.a. production time, cannot cover the shortage of the first one. The comparatively unproductive enterprise is unable to reproduce itself, the malfunction becomes visible and can be remedied by society. The control of the GSL enterprises runs parallel in part with that of the productive ones. It results from the material production, through the registration of the articles turned over to them and the receipt of labor money. The product of the GSL enterprises, however, goes into society “gratuitously”, so that for these enterprises the credit factor is lacking in their bookkeeping. The control of their productivity will probably only be possible with the aid of comparative investigations.

While under capitalism the category s.a. labor time is dependent on “value”, in communism it is only a matter of the labor embodied in goods turned out. And while social productivity under capitalism has to be regulated by the market, which involves a gigantic waste of the social forces of production, in communism the lowering of the s.a. production time is a conscious, socially-regulated act. It leads to a general drop in the times of production. If, for example, an enterprise has reckoned its means of production at 100,000 labor hours, and if we assume that these instruments have a ten-year span of life, then 10,000 working hours are to be added on yearly to the products of this enterprise. If the s.a. reproduction time of the means of production employed in this enterprise declines, then in its process of reproduction it can fashion better or more machines and thus increase its productivity, which in practice means expanding the productive apparatus without the expenditure of extra labor. The production time for this enterprise has changed. Since the s.a. reproduction time is observed, the only change is in the productivity factor of this enterprise. The s.a. production time of the cartel with which the enterprise is connected always remains the same as the reproduction time, since the means of production, too, flow in a continuous stream through all the enterprises. The lowest social reproduction times blend again and again in the process of production with the s.a. reproduction time.

By way of summary, it may be said :
“The basis of the s.a, reproduction time is the s.a. working hour. This category is already valid even in capitalism. Even now the individual differences find no expression in the commodity, for the product is converted on the market into money; that is, transformed into the general commodity, by which all individual differences are abolished. In communism, it is the s.a. reproduction time which embraces within itself all individual differences of slow and experienced workers, of capable and less capable, of manual and intellectual labor. The s.a. reproduction time is accordingly something which as such, as something special, does not exist. Like the laws of nature, which merely bring out what is general in the particular phenomena, without existing as actual laws, the s.a. working hour, which in the concrete sense has no existence, embodies what is general from among the enormous diversity in the material interaction of society”.

Some Theory - Part Two

In a socialist society, there will be no money and no exchange and no barter.

Goods will be voluntarily produced, and services voluntarily supplied to meet people's needs. People will freely take the things they need.Socialism will be concerned solely with the production , distribution and consumption of useful goods and services in response to definite needs . It will integrate social needs with the material means of meeting those needs . Common ownership means that society as a whole owns the means and instruments for distributing wealth. It also implies the democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth, for if everyone owns, then everyone must have equal right to control the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth.

By the replacement of exchange economy by common ownership basically what would happen is that wealth would cease to take the form of exchange value, so that all the expressions of this social relationship peculiar to an exchange economy, such as money and prices, would automatically disappear. In other words, goods would cease to have an economic value and would become simply physical objects which human beings could use to satisfy some want or other.
The disappearance of economic value would mean the end of economic calculation in the sense of calculation in units of value whether measured by money or directly in some unit of labour-time. It would mean that there was no longer any common unit of calculation for making decisions regarding the production of goods.

Socialism is a money-less society in which use values would be produced from other use values, there would need no have a universal unit of account but could calculate exclusively in kind .The only calculations that would be necessary in socialism would be calculations in kind. On the one side would be recorded the resources (materials, energy, equipment, labour) used up in production and on the other side the amount of the good produced, together with any by-products. Calculation in kind entails the counting or measurement of physical quantities of different kinds of factors of production. There is no general unit of accounting involved in this process such as money or labour hours or energy units. In fact, every conceivable kind of economic system has to rely on calculation in kind, including capitalism. Without it, the physical organisation of production (e.g. maintaining inventories) would be literally impossible. But where capitalism relies on monetary accounting as well as calculation in kind, socialism relies solely on the latter. That is one reason why socialism holds a decisive productive advantage over capitalism by eliminating the need to tie up vast quantities of resources and labour implicated in a system of monetary/pricing accounting.

Socialism is a decentralised or polycentric society that is self regulating , self adjusting and self correcting , from below and not from the top . It is not a command economy but a responsive one .
Planning in socialism is essentially a question of industrial organisation, of organising productive units into a productive system functioning smoothly to supply the useful things which people had indicated they needed, both for their individual and for their collective consumption. What socialism would establish would be a rationalised network of planned links between users and suppliers; between final users and their immediate suppliers, between these latter and their suppliers, and so on down the line to those who extract the raw materials from nature. The responsibility of these industries would be to ensure the supply of a particular kind of product either, in the case of consumer goods, to distribution centres or, in the case of goods used to produce other goods, to productive units or other industries. Planning is indeed central to the idea of socialism, but socialism is the planned (consciously coordinated and not to be confused with the central planning concept ) production of useful things to satisfy human needs precisely instead of the production, planned or otherwise, of wealth as exchange value, commodities and capital. In socialism wealth would have simply a specific use value (which would be different under different conditions and for different individuals and groups of individuals) but it would not have any exchange, or economic, value.

Needs would arise in local communities expressed as required quantities such as kilos , tonnes , cubic litres, or whatever , of various materials and quantities of goods . These would then be communicated according to necessity .Each particular part of production would be responding to the material requirements communicated to it through the connected ideas of social production . It would be self -regulating , because each element of production would be self-adjusting to the communication of these material requirements . Each part of production would know its position . If requirements are low in relation to a build-up of stock , then this would an automatic indication to a production unit that its production should be reduced . The supply of some needs will take place within the local community and in these cases production would not extent beyond this , as for example with local food production for local consumption .Other needs could be communicated as required things to the regional organisation of production. Local food production would require glass, but not every local community could have its own glass works . The requirements for glass could be communicated to a regional glass works . The glass works has its own suppliers of materials and the amounts they require for the production of glass are known in definite quantities. The required quantities of these materials could be passed by the glass works to the regional suppliers of the materials for glass manufacture . This would be a sequence of communication of local needs to the regional organisation of production, and thus contained within a region .

Local food production would also require tractors , for instance , and here the communication of required quantities of things could extend further to the world organisation of production . Regional manufacture could produce and assemble the component parts of tractors for distribution to local communities . The regional production unit producing tractors would communicate to their own suppliers , and eventually this would extend to world production units extracting and processing the necessary materials .

Production and distribution in socialism would thus be a question of organising a coordinated and more or less self-regulating system of linkages between users and suppliers, enabling resources and materials to flow smoothly from one productive unit to another, and ultimately to the final user, in response to information flowing in the opposite direction originating from final users. The productive system would thus be set in motion from the consumer end, as individuals and communities took steps to satisfy their self-defined needs. Socialist production is self-regulating production for use.
Stocks of goods held at distribution points would be monitored, their rate of depletion providing vital information about the future demand for such goods, information which will be conveyed to the units producing these goods. The units would in turn draw upon the relevant factors of production and the depletion of these would activate yet other production units further back along the production chain. There would thus be a marked degree of automaticity in the way the system operated. The maintenance of surplus stocks would provide a buffer against unforeseen fluctuations in demand .The regional production units would in turn communicate its own manufacturing needs to their own suppliers , and this would extend to world production units extracting and processing the necessary raw materials .

We are seeking ultimatelt to establish a "steady-state economy" or "zero-growth" society which corresponds to what Marx called "simple reproduction" - a situation where human needs were in balance with the resources needed to satisfy them. Such a society would already have decided, according to its own criteria and through its own decision-making processes, on the most appropriate way to allocate resources to meet the needs of its members. This having been done, it would only need to go on repeating this continuously from production period to production period. Production would not be ever-increasing but would be stabilized at the level required to satisfy needs. All that would be produced would be products for consumption and the products needed to replace and repair the raw materials and instruments of production used up in producing these consumer goods. The point about such a situation is that there will no longer be any imperative need to develop productivity, i.e. to cut costs in the sense of using less resources; nor will there be the blind pressure to do so that is exerted under capitalism through the market.

It will also create a ecologically benign relationship with nature. In socialism we would not be bound to use the most labour efficient methods of production. We would be free to select our methods in accordance with a wide range of socially desirable criteria, in particular the vital need to protect the environment.What it means is that we should construct permanent, durable means of production which you don’t constantly innovate. We would use these to produce durable equipment and machinery and durable consumer goods designed to last for a long time, designed for minimum maintenance and made from materials which if necessary can be re-cycled. In this way we would get a minimum loss of materials; once they’ve been extracted and processed they can be used over and over again. It also means that once you’ve achieved satisfactory levels of consumer goods, you don’t insist on producing more and more. Total social production could even be reduced. This will be the opposite of to-dayus Capitalist system's cheap, shoddy, “throw-away” goods and built-in obsolescence, which results in a massive loss and destruction of resources.

Simply put , in socialism there would be no barter economy or monetary system. It would be a economy based on need. Therefore, a consumer would have a need, and there would be a communication system set in place that relays that need to the producer. The producer create the product, and then send the product back to the consumer, and the need would be satisfied.

Some Theory - PartOne

We in the SPGB are seeking a "steady-state economy" which corresponds to what Marx called "simple reproduction" - a situation where human needs were in balance with the resources needed to satisfy them.

Such a society would already have decided, according to its own criteria and through its own decision-making processes, on the most appropriate way to allocate resources to meet the needs of its members. This having been done, it would only need to go on repeating this continuously from production period to production period. Production would not be ever-increasing but would be stabilized at the level required to satisfy needs. All that would be produced would be products for consumption and the products needed to replace and repair the raw materials and instruments of production used up in producing these consumer goods. The point about such a situation is that there will no longer be any imperative need to develop productivity, i.e. to cut costs in the sense of using less resources; nor will there be the blind pressure to do so that is exerted under capitalism through the market. Of course, technical research would continue and this would no doubt result in costs being able to be saved, but there would be no external pressure to do so or even any need to apply all new productivity enhancing techniques

Since the needs of consumers are always needs for a specific product at a specific time in a specific locality, we will assume that socialist society would leave the initial assessment of likely needs to a delegate body under the control of the local community (although, other arrangements are possible if that were what the members of socialist society wanted).

In a stable society such as socialism, needs would change relatively slowly. Hence it is reasonable to surmise that an efficient system of stock control, recording what individuals actually chose to take under conditions of free access from local distribution centres over a given period, would enable the local distribution committee to estimate what the need for food, drink, clothes and household goods would be over a similar future period. Some needs would be able to be met locally: local transport, restaurants, builders, repairs and some food are examples as well as services such as street-lighting, libraries and refuse collection. The local distribution committee would then communicate needs that could not be met locally to the bodies charged with coordinating supplies to local communities.
The individual would have free access to the goods on the shelves of the local distribution centres; the local distribution centres free access to the goods they required to be always adequately stocked with what people needed; their suppliers free access to the goods they required from the factories which supplied them; industries and factories free access to the materials, equipment and energy they needed to produce their products; and so on. Production and distribution in socialism would thus be a question of organising a coordinated and more or less self-regulating system of linkages between users and suppliers, enabling resources and materials to flow smoothly from one productive unit to another, and ultimately to the final user, in response to information flowing in the opposite direction originating from final users. The productive system would thus be set in motion from the consumer end, as individuals and communities took steps to satisfy their self-defined needs. Socialist production is self-regulating production for use.

Socialism will be a self regulating , decentralised inter-linked system to provide for a self sustaining steady state society. And we can set out a possible way of achieving an eventual zero growth steady state society operating in a stable and ecologically benign way. This could be achieved in three main phases.
First, there would have to be emergency action to relieve the worst problems of food shortages, health care and housing which affect billions of people throughout the world. Secondly, longer term action to construct means of production and infrastructures such as transport systems for the supply of permanent housing and durable consumption goods. These could be designed in line with conservation principles, which means they would be made to last for a long time, using materials that where possible could be re-cycled and would require minimum maintenance.
Thirdly, with these objectives achieved there could be an eventual fall in production, and society could move into a stable mode. This would achieve a rhythm of daily production in line with daily needs with no significant growth. On this basis, the world community could reconcile two great needs, the need to live in material well being whilst looking after the planet

For socialism to be established, there are two fundamental preconditions that must be met.
Firstly, the productive potential of society must have been developed to the point where, generally speaking, we can produce enough for all. This is not now a problem as we have long since reached this point.
Secondly, the establishment of socialism presupposes the existence of a mass socialist movement and a profound change in social outlook.

Humans behave differently depending upon the conditions that they live in. Human behaviour reflects society. In a society such as capitalism, people's needs are not met and reasonable people feel insecure. People tend to acquire and hoard goods because possession provides some security. People have a tendency to distrust others because the world is organized in such a dog-eat-dog manner. If people didn't work society would obviously fall apart. To establish socialism the vast majority must consciously decide that they want socialism and that they are prepared to work in socialist society. If people want too much? In a socialist society "too much" can only mean "more than is sustainably produced."
If people decide that they (individually and as a society) need to over-consume then socialism cannot possibly work. Under capitalism, there is a very large industry devoted to creating needs. Capitalism requires consumption, whether it improves our lives or not, and drives us to consume up to, and past, our ability to pay for that consumption. In a system of capitalist competition, there is a built-in tendency to stimulate demand to a maximum extent. Firms, for example, need to persuade customers to buy their products or they go out of business. They would not otherwise spend the vast amounts they do spend on advertising. There is also in capitalist society a tendency for individuals to seek to validate their sense of worth through the accumulation of possessions. As Marx contended, the prevailing ideas of society are those of its ruling class then we can understand why, when the wealth of that class so preoccupies the minds of its members, such a notion of status should be so deep-rooted. It is this which helps to underpin the myth of infinite demand. It does not matter how modest one's real needs may be or how easily they may be met; capitalism's "consumer culture" leads one to want more than one may materially need since what the individual desires is to enhance his or her status within this hierarchal culture of consumerism and this is dependent upon acquiring more than others have got. But since others desire the same thing, the economic inequality inherent in a system of competitive capitalism must inevitably generate a pervasive sense of relative deprivation. What this amounts to is a kind of institutionalised envy and that will be unsustainable as more peoples are drawn into alienated capitalism .

In socialism, status based upon the material wealth at one's command, would be a meaningless concept. The notion of status based upon the conspicuous consumption of wealth would be devoid of meaning because individuals would stand in equal relation to the means of production and have free access to the resultant goods and services . Why take more than you need when you can freely take what you need? In socialism the only way in which individuals can command the esteem of others is through their contribution to society, and the stronger the movement for socialism grows the more will it subvert the prevailing capitalist ethos, in general, and its anachronistic notion of status, in particular.

All wealth would be produced on a strictly voluntary basis. Work in socialist society could only be voluntary since there would be no group or organ in a position to force people to work against their will. Free access to goods and services denies to any group or individuals the political leverage with which to dominate others (a feature intrinsic to all private-property or class based systems through control and rationing of the means of life ) . This will work to ensure that a socialist society is run on the basis of democratic consensus. Goods and services would be provided directly for self determined needs and not for sale on a market; they would be made freely available for individuals to take without requiring these individuals to offer something in direct exchange. The sense of mutual obligations and the realisation of universal interdependency arising from this would profoundly colour people’s perceptions and influence their behaviour in such a society. We may thus characterise such a society as being built around a moral economy and a system of generalised reciprocity.

Michael Albert's Failings

Similar to Anarcho's reservations , Parecon appears to me to be about building a massive (and socially unproductive) administration for policing all the wage levels, labour outputs , prices etc. In contrast , the practical aspects of a (world- and not national as has been already pointed out ) socialist revolution is not about creating ever greater bureaucratic structures, but quite the opposite.

It must be terribly deflating for a person to have devoted so much time and energy in creating an elaborate , complex , complicated construct to offer an alternative to capitalism and then to have others declare that it was totally unnecessary and that the answers and solutions already existed and stood on firmer foundations . This is the case with Michael Albert when he helped design the Parecon model . He rejected free access socialism , or as others describe it , anarcho-communism on the grounds that it was an unachievable utopia . Without quite knowing what he was rejecting .

And Michael Albert's reasoning reveals exactly why i am not a Pareconista - his reasoning is deeply and profoundly conservative . In fact , most of his objections to a society without buying and selling , without money and without wages and without prices derives at their root from the theories of Von Mise and the Economic Calculation Argument .

In his responses to the case for free access socialism , he confuses the abolition of the Law of Value to the abolition of valuations ie "... it will always be very desirable to make judgements about what we want to do with our time, resources, energies, etc..." even though the article clearly stated "...In any economy there needs to be some way of prioritising production goals..." and offered various details on the means to achieve this using the tools and methods of to-day's society that are able to be adapted and transformed and carried over to socialism to determine and satisfy needs and wants in a rational way in socialist society - all conveniently ignored by MA .

What was being stated in the article which MA seemed to overlook was , to now use the words , of Paresh Chattopadhyay.

"The problem of rationally allocating productive resources in an economy is common to all human societies at least as long as these resources remain relatively limited compared to needs. However, there is no need to assume that this allocation could be effected rationally (if at all) only through the exchange of resources taking the value (price) form."

And although Paresh says it of other economic writers the following equally applies to MA and Pareconists

"The authors of the model [ read MA and Parecon ] under consideration in common with their opponents confuse the rational allocation of resources as such with the rational allocation of resources uniquely through the price system ... The point is that the allocation through the value form of the products of human labor is only "a particular social manner of counting labor employed in the production of an object" precisely in a society in which "the process of production dominates individuals, individuals do not dominate the process of production" (Marx). Only the "routine of daily life" makes us accept as "trivial and self-evident" that a social relation of production takes the form of an object" (Marx ).

http://libcom.org/library/capitalism-socialism-defence-paresh-chattopadhyay

Michael Albert still confused by the difference between allocation choices (valuations) and the abolition of value goes on to say

"What is bad about capitalism and for that matter, neoclassical economics, is not that they think economies involve choices among possibilities based on valuations. Maybe I am sheltered somehow, but I know of no serious marxist economist, or any other kind of economist - indeed radicals of any stripe at all, who wouldn't be pretty much horrified at the idea that such claims could be taken seriously."

Well , does he consider Engels a serious economist when he says value becomes redundant ?

"Hence, on the assumptions we made above, society will not assign values to products. It will not express the simple fact that the hundred square yards of cloth have required for their production, say, a thousand hours of labour in the oblique and meaningless way, stating that they have the value of a thousand hours of labour. It is true that even then it will still be necessary for society to know how much labour each article of consumption requires for its production. It will have to arrange its plan of production in accordance with its means of production, which include, in particular, its labour-powers. The useful effects of the various articles of consumption, compared with one another and with the quantities of labour required for their production, will in the end determine the plan. People will be able to manage everything very simply, without the intervention of much-vaunted "value". - footnote- As long ago as 1844 I stated that the above-mentioned balancing of useful effects and expenditure of labour on making decisions concerning production was all that would be left, in a communist society, of the politico-economic concept of value. (Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher, p. 95) The scientific justification for this statement, however, as can be seen, was made possible only by Marx's Capital."

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/anti-duhring/ch26.htm

But of course when offered this quotation MA simply dismisses it

"My guess would be there are a hundred interpretations of the above...and honestly, I could not care less...I don't believe in scripture...so to speak."

Which begs the question why MA appealed to the authority of serious Marxist economists in the first place .

As i have said , i find Parecon to be conservative in essence .

The reason that Parecon has to go to such lengths to construct such a complicated and complex (and wasteful system ) of elaborate checks and balances is ultimately that its proponents are unwilling or unable to accept that if given the right economic framework (or arguably no economic framework, as we maintain ) , then , in fact , humans can consciously co-operate, work and consume together.
In the final analysis, Parecon lack confidence that either there are sufficient resources on the planet to provide for all , or that human beings can work voluntarily, and co-operate to organise production & distribution of wealth without chaos, and consume wealth responsibly without some form of rationing .

Pareconists remain fixated to the lazy person, greedy individual critique of human behaviour .

In denying free access socialism , Michael Albert simply preaches conventional bourgeois wisdom about peoples' selfish human .

"...I think you believe, instead, that there is a capacity for humanity to generate as much nice and fulfilling goods and services as anyone could possibly desire to have, plus as much leisure as anyone could want, and so on. Well, is that really your view? If so, okay, we can agree to disagree. And, honestly, I can't imagine discussing it - further - because for me it is so utterly ridiculous, honestly.... Suppose everyone would like - if the cost was zero - their own large mansion, on the ocean, with wonderful fantastic food every day, with magnificent recording and listening equipment, with a nice big boat, with their own private tennis courts, or basketball, or golf, or whatever....a great home movie system, a wonderful violin, magnificent clothes, and so on and so forth, and, also, while they like creative work a lot, they would like a whole lot of time to enjoy their bountiful home and holdings - so they want to work only twenty hours a week and of course not do anything other than what interests them. What you seem to be saying is that you think that is possible... or, even if all that were possible, no one would want it. Both are false..."

"...if something is of no cost, and I want it, sure, I will take it, to enjoy it, why not..."

"...Tell everyone that they can have a free house, a really nice car, or two, whatever equipment the like for sports or hobbies, whatever TVs they would enjoy and other tools of daily life, whatever food they want nightly, etc. etc. because it is all free, no problem for them to take what they want. And see what happens....no one will be able to conduct themselves responsibly..."

"... since they can have product, from the available social product, regardless. So sloth is rewarded. Likewise greed..."

Nor is he alone in this pessimistic view of human behaviour . Another prominent pro-Parecon advocate has previously said

"Under the moneyless scheme, those with the least social consciousness or least sense of social responsibility will win out because they will be more aggressive in taking "free" items from the distribution centers. Since there is no requirement of work the "free riders" who do no work will burden the system to the point of collapse...Why, then, burden ourselves with the risky system of moneyless "free access," with its huge dangers of being dragged down by parasitical free riders?" .

I have heard it argued that Parecon may be the transional stage towards "from each according to ability , to each according to need " and if "anonymous" is correct concerning the employement of computers then Parecon can fight it out with the Labour-Time Vouchers which also has been criticised for being impossible to deduce due to the complexity of calculating labour hours as the half-way house . For Free Access Socialists and Anarcho-Communists we will continue to struggle to create a structured society where people have accepted socially mutual obligations and the realization of universal interdependency and we understand that decisions arising from this would profoundly affect people’s choices, perceptions, conceptualizations, attitudes, and greatly influence their behavior, economically or otherwise.

Most of the this can be found at the following link [http://mailstrom.blogspot.com/2008/06/pareconfusion.html ]

Marx , Lenin and Martov

Still concentrating on the previous blog about Martov , here is is the final lecture from Stephen Coleman which discusses the Blanquist Bolshevik Lenin and the Marxist Menshevik Martov .

It can be got by going to Darren's blog and following the link .

The SPGB - Our Eight Original Contributions to Marxian Theory

The Socialist Party is like no other political party. It is made up of people who have joined together because we want to get rid of the profit system and establish socialism.Our aim is to persuade others to become socialists and act for themselves, organising democratically and without leaders. We are solely concerned with building a movement of socialists for socialism. We are not a reformist party with a programme of policies to patch up capitalism. The Socialist Party is an organisation of equals. There is no leader and there are no followers. So, if you are going to join we want you to besure that you agree fully with what we stand for and that we are satisfied that you understand the case for socialism.

The Socialist Party has also made its own contributions to socialist theory, in the light of further developments, going beyond some of the theories of socialist pioneers like Marx and Engels. We set out below a number of these contributions:

1. Solving the Reform or Revolution dilemma, by declaring that a socialist party should not advocate reforms of capitalism, and by recognising that political democracy can be used for revolutionary ends.

2. Realisation of the world-wide (rather than international) character of Socialism. Socialism can only be a united world community without frontiers, and not the federation of countries suggested by the word "inter-national."

3. Recognition that there is no need for a "transition period" between capitalism and Socialism. The enormous increases in social productivity since the days of Marx and Engels have made superfluous a period, such as they envisaged, in which the productive forces would be developed under a State control, and in which consumption would have to be rationed. Socialism can be established as soon as a majority of workers want it, with free access.

4. Rejection of any further progressive role for nationalism after capitalism became the dominant world system towards the end of the 19th century. Industrialisation under national State capitalism is neither necessary nor economically progressive.

5. For the same reason, rejection of the idea of "progressive wars". Socialists oppose all wars, refusing to take sides.

6. Recognition that capitalism will not collapse of its own accord, but will continue from crisis to crisis until the working class consciously organise to abolish it. ( see here )

7. Exposures of leadership as a capitalist political principle, a feature of the revolutions that brought them to power, and utterly alien to the socialist revolution. The socialist revolution necessarily involves the active and conscious participation of the great majority of workers, thus excluding the role of leadership.

8. Advocating and practising that a socialist party should be organised as an open democratic party, with no leaders and no secret meetings, thus foreshadowing the society it seeks to establish.

Anglo-Marxism - The SPGB

The SPGB

The Socialist Party of Great Britain, more popularly known as the SPGB even though, despite Militant, it now prefers Socialist Party is it by far the longest surviving political party in Britain calling itself socialist.

Anglo-Marxism

If the SPGB has survived for this length of time it must have been because it filled some need, or at least some niche, in working-class politics in Britain. But what need? The SPGB has been described as being in the tradition of what Eric Hobsbawn once called "Anglo-Marxism". This would be a Marxism that arose in English-speaking countries, with their well-established conditions of political democracy, and which not only envisaged the working class making some use of existing political institutions to win control of political power but which also emphasised that the main task of a socialist political organisation was in preparation for this "education", or "making Socialists" as one prominent Anglo-Marxist William Morris used to put it. Besides the SPGB, it would cover the Social Democratic Federation, the Socialist League, the De Leonist Socialist Labor Party of America, the Socialist Party of America and the Socialist Party of Canada.

The SPGB was one of the products of what Chushichi Tsuzuki, in an article that appeared in the International Review of Social History in 1956, called the "impossibilist revolt" in the SDF (the other product was the Socialist Labour Party of Great Britain, founded in Scotland the year before at a meeting chaired by James Connolly and which regarded itself as the exact equivalent in Britain of the SLP of America).

The "impossibilists", as they were dubbed by the leadership of the SDF, were dissatisfied with two things in particular. The domination of the SDF by a clique around H.M. Hyndman who had founded the organisation twenty years previously, and which reflected its lack of internal democracy; and its opportunist concentration on trying to obtain certain reforms of capitalism as supposed "stepping stones" to socialism. Significantly, these were the same two issues over which William Morris and others had broken away from the SDF at the end of 1884 to form the Socialist League.

The SPGB’s inaugural meeting was attended by some 140 people, mainly members and expelled members of the SDF’s London branches. While the SLP could boast of having its inaugural meeting chaired by James Connolly and attended by Tom Bell and Arthur McManus, two future leaders of the early British Communist Party, and by one future Labour MP (Neil Mclean), present at the SPGB’s were two future Labour MPs (Valentine McEntee, who ended up in the House of Lords, and George Hicks, who as the leader of the building workers’ union, had been TUC chairman in 1927), another early Communist Party leader, journalist and writer (T.A. Jackson), as well as a Irish Republican activist (Con Lehane, also known Con O’Lehane and Con O’Lyhane) and a syndicalist pamphleteer who worked with Tom Mann (E.J.B. Allen, whose pamphlets still feature on anarchist websites and anthologies). Whatever else this may or may not indicate and whatever the SPGB thought of their subsequent political trajectory (which wasn’t much of course), this at least shows that the meeting that took place a hundred years ago to found the SPGB was not one that had no relevance to general political developments in England - and Ireland, since both McEntee and Lehane (the SPGB’s first General Secretary and a fluent Irish speaker) had previously been members of the Irish Socialist Republican Party which James Connolly took the lead in forming in 1896 as the equivalent in Ireland of the SDF in Britain.

Although the term "Anglo-Marxist" is not entirely inappropriate, the SPGB was also influenced by Continental Marxism, by (of course) the German Social Democratic Party and its main theorist, Karl Kautsky (three of the SPGB’s first four pamphlets were translations of parts of Kautsky Erfurt Programme, the fourth was by William Morris). But also, perhaps not so obviously, by the French "Guesdists", as the Marxists in France were known after Jules Guesde who had been instrumental in setting up the Parti Ouvrier Français in 1880 (and whose declaration of principles was drafted in Marx’s study). A number of articles translated from Guesdists appeared in the pre-WWI issues of the SPGB’s journal, which is still going, the Socialist Standard.

Except on reforms and on patriotism, the SPGB and the Guesdists’ Parti Socialiste de France (as the POF had become in 1902 before merging in 1905 into a united Social Democratic party in France, and after which the SPGB was probably named in preference to "Social Democratic Party", the other possible name discussed at the inaugural meeting) shared a number of key positions, in particular on the imperative need for the working class to gain control of political power before trying to dispossess the capitalist class (the "political expropriation of the bourgeoisie must precede its economic expropriation", as the Guesdists used to put it). This led both the Guesdists and the SPGB to be quite opposed to anarchist and syndicalist "direct action", and talk of "taking and holding" the means of production by industrial action alone, as counter-productive not to say suicidal. This distinguished both groups from most of the other anti-revisionists, in the "intransigent Marxist" tendency within international Social Democracy with which the early SPGB identified itself, such as Rosa Luxemburg and Anton Pannekoek who did try to incorporate the "mass strike" into socialist tactics. Despite this, "Red Rosa" received a favourable mention in the Socialist Standard in 1907 which translated and published part of her speech at one of her trials.

"Peaceably if we may"

A distinguishing feature of the SPGB, as compared to the various Leninist parties and groups that have existed in Britain since 1918, has been its typically Anglo-Marxist insistence on the existence, as a precondition for socialism, of a working class imbued with socialist understanding ("You can’t have socialism without socialists") and that, once a sufficient majority of workers have acquired such understanding, they can, and should, use existing elective political institutions to win control of political power with the sole purpose of abolishing capitalism and ushering in socialism.

This position has been caricatured by the SPGB’s Leninist opponents as meaning that the SPGB has been committed to a mere pacific, constitutional, parliamentary road to socialism, and has led to it being dubbed the "Small Party of Good Boys". Actually, the position of the founder-members of the SPGB was the same as Marx’s as outlined by Engels in his preface to the English edition of Capital in 1886, i.e. that, although in Britain the working class might well be able to win control of political power "entirely by peaceful and legal means", it would most probably have to use this to suppress a "pro-slavery rebellion" since the capitalist class could be expected to resist their expropriation.

In other words, the socialist revolution - as a complete change in the basis of society - would be legal and constitutional but not necessarily entirely peaceful. In fact, the early members of the SPGB didn’t think that in practice it would be peaceful but that the working class would have to use the state to overcome capitalist resistance. After all, 1904 was only 33 years after the bloody suppression of the Paris Commune, the anniversary of whose proclamation the SPGB used to celebrate every 18 March until WWI. Today, SPGB members are more inclined to discount the possibility of a violent capitalist opposition to their legal expropriation, but it is not a pacifist organisation, the old Chartist slogan "peaceably if we may, forcibly if we must" still being its official policy.

This rejection of insurrection and civil war as a means of winning political power will probably have been a factor in the SPGB’s continual existence. The working class in Britain, though it has never advanced much if at all beyond a trade unionist and reformist consciousness, has at least understood the importance of the vote and has never seen the idea of a violent insurrection to seize power other than as, to be frank, completely bonkers. Thus, there has been a place for a revolutionary socialist party that agreed with this position and based its policy on it, a place the SPGB has filled.

Ironically, in contrast to the SPGB (which only contests elections on the "maximum programme" of socialism and nothing else, i.e. without any programme of vote-catching reforms to capitalism), when Trotskyist organisations contest elections as they have increasingly from the 1970s on, it has been the SPGB that has had to accuse them of "electoral opportunism" for entering in full into the electoral game of putting themselves forward as a group offering to implement reforms of capitalism (some manifestly impossible) for workers if only workers would elect their candidates.

Against reformism, but not reforms

This refusal to advocate reforms has been the other distinguishing feature of the SPGB, though one that has been less understood by other working-class militants and by the working class generally. Actually, the SPGB is not opposed to reforms as such - how could a party composed of workers and committed to the working-class interest be opposed to any measure that improved, however marginally and temporarily, conditions for workers - but to reformism in the sense of a policy of actively seeking reforms.

The SPGB’s policy is not to advocate any reform, but to advocate only socialism. As a corollary of this, it has also always refused to work with any other political party or group but, on the contrary, has expressed "hostility" (as Clause 8 of its declaration of principles puts it) to all other political parties. This has earned it a reputation for "sectarianism" but, in its terms, this position is only logical: the only basis for co-operating with some other party would be in a campaign for some reform but campaigning for reforms as such is precisely a policy that the SPGB rejects. The SPGB in fact argues, as did William Morris in his Socialist League days, that if it’s reforms you want the best way to get them is to go for revolution as, faced with a strong movement demanding socialism, the capitalist class will offer all sorts of reforms in a (futile) bid to buy off this movement.

It is also the official SPGB policy that a minority of Socialists MPs might vote, under certain circumstances, for reform measures proposed by other parties. This policy was adopted in 1911 at a time when many, including SPGB members, thought that socialism was a not too distant likelihood and that the situation of what a minority of Socialist MPs should do was therefore a live issue, not the academic one that the SPGB members had later to reluctantly admit that it was. Today, this position only has symbolic significance in showing that the SPGB is not opposed to reforms as such, a policy that has been challenged from time to time from within the SPGB by those who were and which led to small breakaways in 1911 and again in 1991.

Trade union action on sound lines

Nor is the SPGB opposed to trade unionism, as is sometimes imagined in Trotskyist circles. Many of the early members of the SPGB were active members of craft unions in the London area, such as the Operative Bricklayers Society. Indeed, the SPGB’s rulebook was clearly based on that of a small craft union and its practice of allowing any member to attend meetings of its executive committee was also that of a pre-WWI bus workers’ union (a practice which survives in the SPGB to this day, and in fact applies to any member of the public).

When the SPGB was founded one big issue concerning militant workers was whether or not to replace the "trade" unions by "industrial" unions and how (internal reform or forming a separate union?). The IWW ("Industrial Workers of the World") was to be founded a year later in Chicago committed to anti-trade-union industrial unionism, and the other impossibilist breakaway from the SDF - the SLP - was soon to embrace the "socialist industrial unionism" of its elder brother in America. SPGB members were not immune to such ideas and a motion was proposed at its first annual conference to set up a "socialist union", in opposition to the existing trade unions, as soon as SPGB membership had attained 5000. This motion was not carried (but even if it had been would still not be operative since SPGB membership has never exceed 1200) and, in the end, the SPGB adopted the policy, which still applies, of its members’ participating in the existing unions and supporting any action of theirs on sound lines (opposition to employers as the class enemy, solidarity with other workers, officials subject to democratic control, non-affiliation to the Labour Party, etc.).

Thus, the SPGB avoided the mistake of the American SLP - and of the CPGB during the "Third Period" after 1929 - of "dual unionism", i.e. of trying to form "revolutionary" unions to rival the existing "reformist" unions, though some SPGB members were involved, on an individual basis, in breakaway unions from TGWU on the buses and in the docks in the 1930s and 1940s (other SPGB members remained in the TGWU).

As a result of these early controversies and of practical common sense, the SPGB officially stands for workers organising both economically (to keep production going during the period of social reorganisation) and politically for socialism and so is not a "pure and simple" parliamentarist party, even by its own standards.

Marxism not Leninism

The SPGB has always regarded itself as being in the Marxist tradition, fully subscribing to the labour theory of value and the materialist conception of history. Right up to the 1950s it used to organise education classes in these subjects - very much in the tradition of Stuart McIntyre’s "proletarian science". Besides the words of Marx and Engels, the SPGB encouraged its members to read others by Kautsky, Plekhanov, Dietzgen and Lafargue and even, later, works by Bolsheviks such Stekloff’s History of the First International, Lozovsky’s Marx and the Trade Unions and Bogdanov’s A Short Course of Economic Science.

This does not mean, as has sometimes been claimed, that the SPGB’s Marxism can be dismissed as that of the Second International, if only because the SPGB, after attending the 1904 Amsterdam Congress as an affiliated organisation, did not renew its affiliation and by 1910 had completely written off the Second International as of any use to the cause of socialism. So August 1914 came as no surprise to it, as it did to Lenin.

On the other hand, the SPGB never became Leninist. In fact it has always regarded Leninism - as the doctrine embodied in particular in Lenin’s What Is to Be Done? and State and Revolution - as a deviation from and a distortion of Marxism. Despite this, at the time, the SPGB expressed a certain admiration for Lenin for the Bolsheviks’ policy of trying to stop the war on the Eastern Front and for his having understood, as against the "Leftwing Communists", that, in the circumstances of an isolated and backward Russia, socialism was out of the question and that therefore Russia could not avoid having to pass through capitalism, even if in the form of a State capitalism (see Lenin’s speech in 1918 and again in 1921 when the NEP, which explicitly recognised this, was adopted ; see the article from the July 1920 Socialist Standard ). It has to be said, however, that today most SPGB members take a less indulgent attitude towards Lenin, seeing him as an architect of the state capitalist regime in Russia that survived until 1991 ("Lenin led to Stalin").

It was the SPGB - and not Tony Cliff, as the old IS Group and the SWP claimed - that pioneered in Britain the description of the former USSR as state capitalist. This was more on empirical than theoretical grounds: the SPGB simply continued to describe Russia’s economy as state capitalist as Lenin had done, even after Lenin’s successors, Trotsky as much as Stalin, came to describe it as some sort of "Workers State". The evidence produced for this was the continued existence of the wages system, commodity production, and state bondholders. The latter illustrated what was perhaps a weakness in the SPGB’s original position, of pointing to evidence of the existence of features of private capitalism to argue that Russia was state capitalism.
Credit for developing the theory that a privileged, exploiting class could exist without legal private property rights vested in its individual members, i.e. that it could own and exploit collectively as a class, and that this was actually the case in the USSR, can indeed go to Trotskyist and Trotskyoid dissidents such as Bruno Rizzi, Max Schachtman, James Burnham and Raya Dunayevskaya. Like Cliff, the SPGB was happy to take this on board, though rejecting the view embraced by Cliff that Russia only became capitalist in 1928. In the SPGB’s view, the Russian economy had never ceased to be capitalist, with any change that might have taken place in 1928 being political rather than economic (which of course, ironically is also the orthodix Trotskyist position).

Socialism Today

Obviously conditions - and the perspectives of SPGB members - are rather different today from what they were a hundred years ago. Then, the early members (mainly young men in their thirties) clearly expected to see the cause of socialism make rapid progress and emphasised the determinist elements in Marxism that enabled them to see socialism as inevitable. Today, SPGB members (even those in their thirties) are much less sanguine about the inevitably of socialism, regarding it more as a desirable possibility. This of course makes it depend more on human will and humans (workers) making a conscious choice to establish it.

Some might see this as making socialism a "moral" issue rather than an inevitable working-class reaction to capitalist conditions (and from time to time some SPGB members have explicitly argued this), but it is not easy for members of an organisation that has found itself having to campaign for a hundred years for socialism without it happening - implying, as this does, that its early members (as well as Marx) were wrong or at least wildly over-optimistic - to sustain a belief in the inevitability of socialism

A hundred years ago, socialism, however vaguely understood, was seen by millions of workers all over the world as "the hope of humanity". Today, thanks in large measure to what happened in Russia, millions of workers perceive socialism as something that has been tried and failed. So, today, the SPGB has a much harder time "making Socialists". Nevertheless, Socialism - as the common ownership and democratic control of productive resources, with production solely for use not profit, and distribution on the principle of "from each their ability, to each their needs" - still retains for millions some of its original connection with equality and democracy and still remains, despite current popular opinion, the Hope of Humanity.

To mark its centenary, the SPGB published a book, entitled Socialism or Your Money Back (a more or less clever pun on the SPGB’s position that socialism necessarily involves the disappearance of money), a collection of 70 articles from the Socialist Standard over the period 1904-2004 on key events and trends in the 20th century.

Adam Buick - New Interventions, Volume 12, No 1, Spring 2005

The Socialist Party of Great Britain Centenary, London, June 2004.

Over the weekend of 12/13 June 2004 the Socialist Party of Great Britain marked a hundred years of political activity. A political and social event on the Saturday evening – a hundred years to the day since it was formed – in Regents College in Regents Park, London, was attended by some 150 members and sympathizers. On the Sunday those who had come from outside London for the event visited parts of the City of London and Clerkenwell associated with the SPGB, such as the site of the old Printers’ Hall, Bartlett’s Passage, off Fetter Lane, where the founding meeting had taken place. Most of the party’s successive head offices were situated in that area before the party moved in 1951 to its present offices in South London. Also visited were places of general working-class historical interest such as Farringdon Hall where the Labour Representation Committee was formed and the house where Keir Hardie lived next door to the one-time head office of the now defunct ILP.

From a historical-studies point of view, being a still extant political party has not been an advantage. Most labour historians have their own – leftwing – political views which are opposed to those held by the SPGB. If the SPGB had gone out of existence, this would not present a problem, but the fact that it has continued as an active political organization and has never been bashful about expressing its opposition to the political views held by most labour historians – whether they be Labour Party, Communist Party, or Trotskyist – has made an objective approach difficult.

This may explain why the first objective study of the origins of the SPGB – the first even to get the date of its formation correct (for years labour historians just repeated G. D. H. Cole’s error of putting this as 1905 [1], whereas the real date could easily have been verified)– was written by somebody not involved in working-class politics in Britain: Chushichi Tsuzuki from Japan, whose ‘The Impossibilist Revolt in Britain’ appeared in the International Review of Social History in 1956. The other historical studies have in fact been written by SPGB members and so could be open to the charge of being biased in an opposite direction [2].

The SPGB, however, provides an interesting subject for purely historical study. For instance, among the 140 or so participants at the inaugural meeting of 12 June 1904 were one who subsequently became a Labour MP and member of the House of Lords (Valentine McEntee), another a future President of the Trades Union Congress, Labour MP and junior minister (George Hicks), another an Irish Republican activist (Con Lehane). Also present were T. A. Jackson, who went on to be a leading Communist Party journalist and writer, E. J. B. Allen, who became a syndicalist pamphleteer and whose pamphlets are still quoted in anarchist anthologies and websites, and, last and perhaps least, Jack Kent, who, as a member of the Social Democratic Federation’s executive committee, was the most prominent SDF member to go over to the SPGB and who ended up as a Tory county councillor and mayor of Acton in London. In other words, here were gathered people whose subsequent trajectory could serve to illustrate the various trends of working-class political thinking in the fifty or so years that followed.

Also present of course were those who were to stay in the SPGB and contribute to the elaboration of its distinct political position, such as Jack Fitzgerald, Alex Anderson, F. C. Watts, A. E. Jacomb and Hans Neumann. These were all able thinkers and writers – and interesting persons in their own right – but the SPGB, as a matter of political principle, actively opposed leaders and leadership in favour of collective, democratic decision-making, and would in fact have fiercely protested had Fitzgerald been described as its leader (even if this was the perception of its political rivals at the time).

Although the SPGB put a distinctive view of the same problems discussed at the same time by ‘names’ such as Kautsky, Luxemburg, Lenin, Trotsky, James Connolly and John MacLean, whose views are still studied, the fact that its views cannot be identified as the work of a single individual has probably also contributed to the SPGB’s being neglected. Nevertheless, there has been some movement on this since the 1980s, with discussions of the SPGB’s position on the welfare state, ecology, and state capitalism in Russia, even if these have been by non labour historians [3].

McEntee and Lehane (a fluent Irish-speaker who was the SPGB’s first General Secretary and who later called himself O’Lehane and O’Lyhane) were both former members of the Irish Socialist Republican Party, which Connolly had been instrumental in setting up as the equivalent in Ireland of the SDF. So too would other SPGB founder members have been, yet nobody has done any research on this connection. Nor has any research been done on placing the formation of the SPGB in 1904 in a wider international context.

Hans Neumann, who was a German working in London in a travel agency, kept in touch with what was going on in the German Social Democratic Party and translated the first three parts of Kautsky’s Erfurt Programme which the SPGB published as pamphlets in 1906 and 1908. Watts, a wood carver, was a fluent French-speaker and kept in touch with trends in the French labour movement, particularly the ‘Guesdists’ some of whose positions the SPGB shared (a number of translations from the Guesdist paper Le Socialisme appeared in the SPGB organ, Socialist Standard, before the first World War). The SPGB was, and saw itself as, part of the more general anti-revisionist, intransigently Marxist trend within the international Social Democratic movement. The cross-fertilization of ideas with English-speaking ‘intransigent Marxists’ on the other side of the Atlantic – Daniel De Leon and the Socialist Labor Party in the US and the British Columbia-based Socialist Party of Canada – is fairly obvious, but no comparative study has been done between the views of the SPGB and those of similar groups on the Continent, perhaps because, unlike them, the SPGB did not go over to the Communist Party after 1917 and so does not have a place as they do (and as does the Socialist Labour Party, the other product of the ‘impossibilist revolt’ within the SDF) in the pre-history of some Communist Party.

As a political organization that has survived with a basically similar policy for a number of generations, the SPGB has also been the object of study by sociologists. One of these, perhaps following the lead of the Communist Party historians A. L. Morton and Eric Hobsbawm (the former described the SPGB as ‘a tiny sect, mainly concerned with echoing propaganda hostile to the Soviet Union’ [4] and the latter called it a ‘conventicle’ [5]), likened it to a religious sect. The other study, based on recorded interviews with members and ex-members carried out in the 1960s (which still exist and might interest oral historians), looked as if it might be more innovative but was never completed [6].

Having been in continual existence for a hundred years has its upside, however. The SPGB library has a collection of books, journals and pamphlets, inherited on the death of members, which reflect the reading of Marxist-oriented working-class activists – Stuart Macintyre’s ‘proletarian science’. They range over the whole period, from issues of Justice, the SLP's The Socialist and the International Socialist Review, and books by Herbert Spencer, Edward Aveling and Belfort Bax from the pre-WWI period, through Labour, ILP, Communist Party and Plebs League publications of the 1920s and 1930s and copies of now largely-forgotten ‘left-of-Communist’ journals such as the American International Review, Guy Aldred’s The Word, and Left, to post-war Trotskyist material. There is also material on the socialist movement in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. These are in the process of being properly catalogued and can be consulted on the spot (52 Clapham High Street, London SW4) by fixing an appointment with the party’s archives department. As a matter of political principle the SPGB holds no secret meetings, all its meetings including those of its executive committee being open to the public. This means that all its internal records (except for the current membership list) are open to public consultation...

Adam Buick - History Workshop Journal No 50 of Spring 2005

1 G. D. H. Cole, Working Class Politics 1832-1914, 1941, p. 177.

2 Robert Barltrop, The Monument, 1976; Stephen Coleman, ‘Impossibilism’, in Non-Market Socialism in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, ed. M. Rubel and J. Crump, 1987; David A. Perrin, The Socialist Party of Great Britain: Economics, Politics and Britain’s Oldest Socialist Party, 2000.

3 John Clarke, Allan Cochrane and Carol Smart, Ideologies of Welfare: From Dreams to Disillusion, 1987, pp. 110-4; David Pepper, Eco-socialism: From Deep Ecology to Social Justice, 1997; Neil Fernandez, Capitalism and Class Struggle in the USSR: a Marxist Theory, 1997, pp. 45-8.

4 A. L. Morton and G. Tate, The British Labour Movement 1770-1920, 1956, p. 218. The year the SPGB was formed is erroneously given as 1905.

5 Eric Hobsbawm, Labouring Men, 1965, p. 231. Hobsbawm erroneously put the date of the SPGB’s formation as 1906.

6 R. Kenneth Jones, ‘The Organization and Structure of a Secular Value-oriented Sect: the Socialist Party of Great Britain’ in Ideological Groups: Similarities of Structure and Organization, 1984; P. J. Rollings, ‘The Maintenance of an Idea-system: the Case of the Socialist Party of Great Britain’, Paper read to a seminar at the Politics Department of the University of Reading, February 1968.

Bordiga

In a previous post the ideas of Amadeo Bordiga is briefly touched upon . A chapter entitled Bordigism by Adam Buick, in the book "Non-Market Socialism in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries" , edited by Maximilien Rubel and John Crump has been posted on the web by Antagonism and can be read here .

And from the Socialist Standard another article discussing Bordiga makes interesting reading .

Marx versus Lenin - What Kind of Revolution ?

Marx v Lenin.What kind of revolution?

Reformist political parties, such as the Labour Party, have failed abysmally to remove inequality or solve social problems such as slum housing, pollution, unemployment, war, etc, etc. This fact along with the increasing class conflict on the industrial field is bringing an increasing number of people round to the view that there is a need for a fundamental revolutionary change in present day society. But what is this revolutionary change to involve?

The Socialist Party of Great Britain has a basically Marxist view on the nature of revolution. This is not because we look on Marx as some sort of god but because we consider his analysis to be generally correct.

SOCIALIST REVOLUTION AND HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT
The central feature of the Marxist concept of socialist revolution is that it is seen in the context of the whole historical development of mankind. We contend that the basis of all societies is the means of producing wealth and the relations into which people enter in order to produce this wealth. Society is revolutionised by means of class struggles when the means of production come into conflict with the relations of production. Socialism is not just a ‘good idea’ which could be put into practice at any time in history. Marx attacked the views of revolutionaries such as Bakunin and the 19th century Russian insurrectionists who thought that socialist revolution was most likely in industrially backward countries.

Marxists insist that socialism is only possible after a capitalist society has been established and developed modern industry and technology. This, of course, has long since taken place and now an abundance for all is possible; but the capitalist relations of production hold back the productive forces and prevent potential abundance becoming a reality. Private property and production for profit have to be abolished for man to progress.

WHO MAKES THE REVOLUTION?
The only force capable of carrying out this task are the working class – all those who, owning no substantial amount of property, have to sell their mental and physical energies to an employer in order to live. Developments within capitalism lead to an increasing working class revolutionary consciousness. The class structure becomes more and more simplified and polarised into the two great opposing classes of capitalists and workers; peasants are driven off the land and into the towns to become wage labourers, small businessmen go bankrupt and are hurled into the ranks of the working class, the ‘professional classes’ are turned into white collar workers and increasingly realise this. Working conditions become more oppressive as work is intensified and, with increasing mechanisation and division of labour, made monotonous and devoid of any creative interest. Capital becomes concentrated in the hands of a small minority of the population, and even though workers’ absolute standards of living may rise, relative to the capitalists' wealth their social position declines.

In addition to these factors, workers’ class consciousness is also increased by their experiences and struggles in capitalism. First, trade unions are formed to defend and improve living standards, and then workers increasingly realise that this is not enough, and that a complete change in society is needed to solve the problems they face. Accordingly a workers political party is formed with the aim of capturing political power to establish socialism. Marx always stressed, as do we in the SPGB, that the working class have to free themselves by their own self-conscious action – they cannot be freed from above by some ‘revolutionary elite.’ Thus the workers’ political party must be democratically organised and controlled by the membership as a whole – as is the SPGB. Marx put his principles into practice in his revolutionary activity in the Communist League and the First International, insisting on their open democratic organisation.

PEACEFUL OR VIOLENT DEVOLUTION?
In his early days as a revolutionary Marx thought that the only road to socialism was a violent armed insurrection. However later, when workers won the right to vote, he advocated that where it was possible the working class revolutionary party should contest elections and try and win political power by that means. If this was done there was a possibility that the revolution could be largely peaceful. Like Marx, the SPGB believes that where that means is available the revolutionary party should contest elections and, when resources allow, we do so – on a revolutionary platform of course, not on a reformist programme like the Labour Party.

Having captured political power the working class must use the state machine to dispossess the capitalists and establish a system based on the common ownership of wealth. However the bureaucratic capitalist state is not at all a suitable instrument for this task – first, therefore, the working class have to make the state organisation thoroughly democratic, with all officials being directly elected and re-callable, and being in no way privileged as compared to other workers.

THE AIM OF REVOLUTION
Socialism will be a world-wide classless society based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means for producing and distributing wealth. Thus once it has been established there will be no need for the state – the armed forces, police, judiciary, etc. – since it exists only to protect the private property of the rich minority. The government over people will be replaced by a democratic ‘administration of things’.

Socialist production will be consciously planned, aiming purely at meeting peoples’ needs. Thus there will be no buying and selling, exchange, prices, money, wages, or profits. In the first phase of communism Marx thought there would have to be some restrictions on the consumption of consumer goods – perhaps by labour-time vouchers – before industry could be developed to the extent where it would be possible to distribute goods and provide services free. With the tremendous growth in man’s productive ability since Marx’s time we consider this first phase of communism could be gone through very quickly, and free access operated soon after the establishment of socialism.

For Marxists a central feature of socialism is that work would no longer be monotonous drudgery, in which the producers control neither the labour process nor the products of their work. Instead with the ending of capitalism's extreme division of labour and the automation of unpleasant jobs, work would be a creative activity in which people would find a means of self-expression. Thus Marx advocated, as does the SPGB, a world revolution aiming at the establishment of a system based on common ownership and production for use, to be consciously carried out by the working class as a whole, democratically organised in a revolutionary socialist party.

BUT WASN'T LENIN A MARXIST?
Many people, both opponents of socialism and those who consider themselves to be socialists, think so. Modern Russia, China, Cuba, E. Germany, etc were all founded and are at present ruled by, parties calling themselves ‘Marxist-Leninist’. Many political groups operating in the West proclaim themselves to be both Marxist and Leninist – in Britain for example, the ‘Communist Party’, ‘International Socialists’, and the ‘Workers Revolutionary Party’. The SPGB contends that Lenin's views on revolution were fundamentally different from Marx’s, and that when Leninist revolutionary theory is put into practice the result is not socialism but state capitalism – as now exists in Russia, China, and all the other states that claim to be communist. An examination of Lenin’s theory of revolution will prove our point.

THE REVOLUTIONARY ELITE
Very early in his political activity Lenin formulated two theories that were always to remain central to his views. Firstly, he argued that the working class by its own efforts was incapable of wanting and understanding socialism. Secondly, following on from this, Lenin held that socialist consciousness would have to be brought to the working class from outside, from a tightly organised revolutionary organisation under a strong centralised leadership. This party was to be composed of full time professional revolutionaries, drawn mainly from the bourgeois intelligentsia.

Lenin’s view that workers by their own efforts could only reach a ‘trade union consciousness’, and that socialist consciousness could only come from outside the capitalist-worker class struggle, is in complete contradiction to Marxism. Marx, as we’ve seen, always stressed that the working class had to free itself, and that socialist understanding developed in the working class as a result of workers’ experiences and struggles in capitalism. Similarly, Lenin’s idea of an exclusive, hierarchically organised revolutionary party, in which the leadership would have great power, goes completely against Marx’s belief in open democratic organisation.

The SPGB believes that the means used, and the end aimed at, are inextricably linked. If elitist authoritarian means are used then an elitist authoritarian society will be the result. If an egalitarian democratic society is aimed at, it can only be achieved by a self-conscious majority, democratically organised without any leadership which could, become a future ruling class.

BOURGEOIS REVOLUTION FOR RUSSIA
It is not too well known that in all his revolutionary activity up to April 1917 Lenin was advocating, not a socialist revolution for Russia, but a bourgeois revolution which would establish a capitalist republic. Correctly applying Marx’s materialist conception of history to the Russian situation, Lenin rejected the possibility of an immediate transition to socialism because of the lack of economic development and. the insufficient degree of socialist consciousness among the workers. Since he considered that the Russian capitalists were too weak to smash Tsarism and establish capitalism themselves, Lenin advocated that the Bolsheviks should take power, establish a bourgeois republic with political democracy, and then become a revolutionary opposition within that republic, building up support for socialism.

DISTORTIONS OF MARXISM
However in April 1917 Lenin declared himself to be in favour of the viewpoint which he had previously scornfully rejected – adopting Trotsky's ‘permanent revolution’ theory he urged that the Bolsheviks prepare to seize power with the aim of immediately taking socialist measures. Again, Lenin was rejecting the Marxist position. As he had himself argued earlier, the degree of economic development and socialist consciousness needed for socialist revolution did not exist. In advocating socialist revolution for backward Russia Lenin was adopting the policy of the 19th century insurrectionists whom Marx and Engels had strongly criticised.

At the same time as he took up the permanent revolution theory Lenin introduced a distinction between Socialism and Communism. He stated that the coming revolution would establish not communism, but socialist society, a system which would persist into the foreseeable future, and in which there would still be the state, the wages system, and. production for sale . This was of course a further distortion of Marx who had always used the terms socialism and communism interchangeably. It does though perhaps show that Lenin really still recognised the validity of the Marxist argument that backward countries could not be the starting point for socialist revolution. For, while he advocated the immediate establishment of socialism, Lenin had now re-defined socialism so as to make it mean in effect a form of state capitalism – which was all that could be established in Russia at that time.

It was obvious that the Bolsheviks could only seize power by an armed insurrection and Lenin attempted to give this policy Marxist theoretical justification by claiming that Marx considered it impossible for the proletariat to come to power without smashing the state machine. In fact as we’ve seen Marx recognised that in some circumstances the proletariat would be able to peacefully capture the state machine and then smash/dismantle its oppressive and undemocratic features.

THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT = THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE BOLSHEVIKS
Marx sometimes referred to the political transition period between capitalism and communism, in which the democratically organised working class used political power to dispossess the capitalists, as the dictatorship of the proletariat. Lenin in addition to differing from Marx on the length of time that he envisaged the state existing after the revolution, developed a completely different concept of the nature of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Instead of the extremely democratic set-up Marx advocated, he re-defined the dictatorship of the proletariat to the dictatorship of the Bolshevik Party which actually meant the dictatorship of the Bolshevik Party leadership. Not long after their seizure of power the Bolsheviks started to oppress all opposition, left-wing as well as right-wing, and verbal and written opposition as well as anti-Bolshevik actions.

The SPGB in contrast, while recognising that violence would have to be used against a minority who first used violence against the socialist majority, is in favour of the freest and fullest possible expression of ideas both before and after socialist revolution. We totally oppose all censorship. Thus Lenin’s views on the revolution are basically contradictory to Marx’s theory of revolution in many respects – even though Lenin claimed to be a Marxist. How is this to be explained?

THE HISTORICAL ROLE OF LENINISM
Lenin’s theory of revolution was developed in an industrially backward s basically feudal society that was ripe not for a socialist, but for a bourgeois revolution. Lenin up to 1917 had advocated that the Bolshevik Party should take power to carry through this capitalist revolution.

In 1917 the Bolsheviks did take power, and though they did so proclaiming that they were establishing socialism, they were prisoners of Russia’s backwardness and could do no more than develop capitalism, as Lenin had earlier advocated. However the Bolsheviks did not relinquish power to a traditional capitalist government. Justifying their rule on the grounds that it was the dictatorship of the proletariat the Bolsheviks have retained power ever since, and over the years their leaders have become a new ruling class, collectively controlling and thus in effect owning the means of production, and performing the same role as the private capitalists in the West. Thus historically Leninism has been an ideology used in the building up of state capitalism in backward areas of the world. Its insistence on the need for hierarchical organisation and a revolutionary elite, and its denial of the possibility of the working class itself developing mass revolutionary consciousness, stamp it as belonging to the era of bourgeois revolutions.

Lenin’s concept of revolution has no relevance for socialist revolution in modern industrially advanced capitalism – and if a Leninist party seized power the only result could be the establishment of some type of state capitalism.

REVOLUTIONARY CHANGE TODAY
It is vital that when abolishing present day exploitation we do not substitute a new form of exploitation. The only sure guarantee against this is a revolution made and . controlled by the self conscious majority of the working class.

As Marx put it "The emancipation of the working class must be the act of the workers themselves."

Another article from the archives produced by comrades in the Aberdeen SPGB Group and was written in 1974 .