'Unmarxist'?

The comrade from the CWO rejects the whole concept of the ‘historic course’ as ‘unmarxist’.

But what do we mean by the ‘historic course’, other than analysing the balance of class forces in any given period in order to assess the opportunities for revolution and identify the necessary tactics for the proletariat?

It was Marx’s own conclusion that the 1848 revolutions had been defeated that led him, despite the accusations of betrayal from some of his supporters, to dissolve the Communist League and use the ensuing period of capitalist expansion to concentrate on understanding the deeper workings of capital, precisely in order to recognise when revolutionary possibilities would once again present themselves. And it was this same concern for the analysis of the balance of class forces that led him to actively participate in the formation of the new ‘party’, the IWMA, and enthusiastically greet the new upsurge of class struggle.

Of course our analysis of the balance of class forces can be wrong; as Link points out, surviving revolutionaries, including the comrades of the PCInt in Italy, expected to see a revolutionary upsurge at the end of WW2. With hindsight we can see they failed to fully understand the depth of the counter-revolution imposed on the proletariat. But this only underlines the importance for Marxists of correctly analysing the situation in any given period.

The CWO comrade denies that the upsurge of class struggle after May ’68 represented the end of the counter-revolution (this was of course the view of the PCInt at the time). And yet he also claims that the 1970s represented “a response to the reappearance of the capitalist crisis - the end of the post-war boom”. So did the counter-revolution end or not? And if it didn’t, what exactly is the meaning of ‘counter-revolution’ being used here?

Did the period after May ’68 – compared, say, to the period 1933-1945, represent a significant shift in the balance of class forces or not? To put it simply, was there more potential for the proletariat to develop its struggles in a revolutionary direction in 1968, or in 1933, or 1945?

Despite rejecting the whole notion of the ‘historic course’ the comrade then sets out … an analysis of the current balance of class forces, based on the assumption that “We are moving into a period in which further economic chaos will ensue and devaluation through destruction in war becomes more likely”. Despite its “relatively quiet response so far to the crisis”, he affirms, the proletariat remains undefeated; in fact its response is apparently inevitable: “the dialectic of history is moving on and at a certain point more and more will take up the struggle”, and he points to a development of interest in the ideas of revolutionary minorities as signs of a ‘shift’ in proletarian consciousness.

So despite the comrade’s rather non-committal conclusion that “we face an unpredictable and contradictory situation which could yet have more surprising twists and turns....”, he is, whether he likes it or not, taking a position, based on what he sees as the available evidence, of the balance of class forces and the possibilities for proletarian revolution, ie. the ‘historic course’…

The fundamental question today is: 50 years after May ’68 and the struggles of the 70s, and faced with the survival of a system which now threatens the extinction of humanity, what is the perspective for communism? The role and tasks of revolutionaries should flow from our answer to this question.

I think the issue comes down to the attempt to impose neat, absolute labels on a dialectical reality marked by contradictory forces. The historic course. Unfolding reality, does exist but only is it set and unalterable in the past. Even then it is subject to different interpretation; though the facts cannot be changed, only misrepresented. As for the future, it has to be created, we have the task of changing the world. The solution for communists is to apply their efforts to winning over the working class to their perspectives and to create the means to do so. All this in the face of a capitalist class with diametrically opposing interests. The class struggle never absolutely favours one contending side or the other. Even at its lowest ebb, the forces of the working class remain to some extent. Take the UK miners strike of 84-85. Yes, a defeat. But a defeat which taught lessons, a defeat which ultimately in some measure, will contribute to the eventual victory should the historic course prove to result in proletarian success.

I think there is a danger of seeing these differences through a telescope or a microscope. In the grand scheme of things, are they game changing? I would still think that all who have as their aim the sole power of the workers councils belong in a unitary organisation despite the divisions between them. This may be anathema to some, but if we are to go beyond the current miniscule organisations to something which has a decisive impact on the world, I think it to be the case. Take any two aspiring revolutionaries and there will be differences. That too is part of the dialectical perspective.

“I will here attempt to sketch the substance of the problem in a very concise form. The Aristotelian logic of the simple syllogism starts from the proposition that 'A' is equal to 'A'. This postulate is accepted as an axiom for a multitude of practical human actions and elementary generalisations. But in reality 'A' is not equal to 'A'. This is easy to prove if we observe these two letters under a lens - they are quite different from each other. But, one can object, the question is not of the size or the form of the letters, since they are only symbols for equal quantities, for instance, a pound of sugar. The objection is beside the point; in reality a pound of sugar is never equal to a pound of sugar - a more delicate scale always discloses a difference. Again one can object: but a pound of sugar is equal to itself. Neither is this true - all bodies change uninterruptedly in size, weight, colour, etc. They are never equal to themselves.'” Trotsky

An answer?

Hopefully Link will rejoin the discussion soon. In the meantime, I asked a question:

“So why, if we have been in a counter-revolution since 1921 (?), has the bourgeoisie so far been unable to mobilise the proletariat to fight this war [to devalorise capital], in the way it was able to do in the thirties?”

The answer of the CWO comrade, if I can summarise, is that it is due to the role of the state in managing the crisis.

I don’t think we disagree on the role of state capitalism in enabling the phenomenon of the ‘post-war boom’ and in managing the ensuing economic crisis.

In fact the comrade makes a very important point. As he says, “Capitalism has already shown an enormous capacity for hanging on”. I think it’s fair to say none of us believed it could hang on for quite so long and one hard lesson for revolutionaries over the last 40 years or so has been not to underestimate capitalism’s ability to survive.

But this still doesn’t quite answer my question.

The fact is, state capitalism was the response of the bourgeoisie to the crisis of the ‘30s par excellence: Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, the New Deal, the De Man plan, etc. And the solution of state capitalism to this crisis was … to mobilise the working class for a world war.

So why, if the crisis is so much deeper today, and the need to devalorise capital even greater, doesn’t state capitalism adopt the same solution?

I can only assume from the comrade’s response that he believes “the reason the bourgeoisie so far been unable to mobilise the proletariat to fight this war” has nothing fundamentally to do with the balance of forces between the classes.

But then why also argue that the counter-revolution after 1917-21 did not end? What is a "counter-revolution" if not a description of the balance of class forces?

It seems to me if you stick with your position that the counter-revolution did not end you have to explain why there appear to be such crucial differences in the response of state capitalism to the crisis between the ‘thirties and the ‘seventies.

Or you need to abandon this position (which I don't think you've always defended - there's no mention of it in the first two international conferences for example) and explain these differences purely in terms of the policies adopted by capital to manage the crisis.

To summarise very briefly, the bourgeoisie was able to mobilise the proletariat for war in the 1930s because it had already been decisively defeated. Despite massive combativity (eg Spain 1936) it was no longer possible for the proletariat to block the road towards war.

But with the end of the post-war boom and the return of the crisis the balance of class forces shifted. There was a new generation of proletarians who had not experienced defeat and the upsurge of workers’ struggles in the late 60s and early 70s showed that this generation was not prepared to be mobilised to fight a new world war.

In fact, with hindsight, we can see that this upsurge was the best shot the proletariat has had at overthrowing capitalism since 1917. The fact that it failed proves not that we are still in the counter-revolution but that the balance of class forces has changed.

Capitalism has not been able to mobilise the proletariat for war, as it needs to, but neither has the proletariat been able to pose its own historic alternative. In the absence of either ‘solution’ capitalism becomes a slow-motion train wreck, inexorably destroying the conditions for communism and possibly even for life on the planet. If the proletariat is not able to finally intervene, the outcome will indeed be the ‘common ruin of the contending classes’ referred to by Marx and the comrade.

Of course we can disagree on our analyses of the relationship of class forces, but to ignore the whole question of the relationship between the classes at a given point in history is surely not a credible position for Marxists? Or do you see this purely as proof of ‘idealism’?

After all, Marx managed to write the whole of the Eighteenth Brumaire without once referring to the tendency for the rate of profit to fall...;-)

It may not have occurred to you but I regarded your manner of posing the question as undialectical. We have pointed out many times to the ICC that it is actually the passivity of the class over the last 4 decades which gives the capitalist class the space to avoid war. Unlike the ICC the bourgeoisie can learn from history and they know the consequences of a wider gloabl war rather than the accumulation of proxy wars we see today. IF the bourgeoisie in each country could see a way to devalue the capital of the "other" rival power without any great social consequences for themselves they would do it. BUT given the consequences of previous wars they know it is a desperate step. If the working class was hammering at the door the luxury of making that decision would be taken out of their hands (as with GB and Russia in 1914 - the great unrest in both countries was critical to their decision to go to war - see the memoirs of Lloyd George). As it is the fact that the devalorisation of capital has taken place only piecemeal (like the write off of so much of the existing investment in constant capital in the 1980s in order to reinvest in the Far East etc with new technology and low labour costs) despite all the manipulations the fundamentals remain the same. The over-accumulation of capital has not been addressed and the bursting of the speculative bubble (which appears to us as the last gasp of all the manipulations) means that they have little room left today. Another bubble bursting when the state has already loaded itself with the debt from the last bubble is hardly likely to have the same results. And that then would pose some difficult questions for both this system and humanity.

Why do you think we have ignored the question of the relationship between the classes (we have just ignored daft ways of posing it)? We have constantly commented on this, constantly analysed the changing class composition over the decades and we are still fighting to redress the balance which we have seen as one of retreat for 40 years. What have the ICC done in that time. Accused us of having no faith in the working class. Accused us of not having a method and a perspective ("rudderless" was the favourite jibe) for the class struggle. And all the time they were telling us that the "historic course" was towards revolution (or later modified to "greater class confrontations"). And where is the ICC today? A demoralised and defeated remnant of a once larger organisation built on the illusion that revolution was just around the corner. Today it consoles itself with talk of chaos and decomposition (which is true but is a result of the deepening capitalist crisis and not some paralysis in the class war as the ICC maintain). When the ICC maintains that today they are just a "fraction" (and then openly lies by saying it has always only been a fraction!) what they are sayinn is that there is nothing to be done but write silly polemics to other organisations (but then that has been ICC methodology since 1975). The desperation and feebleness of your polemic is only underlined by your reference to the Eighteenth Brumaire (which was long before Marx's more profound analysis of capitalism).

Let’s get one thing clear.

I’m not a member of the ICC, I don’t speak for them and I’m not answerable for everything they ever said.

If I’ve ignored your rants against the ICC on this thread (which must bewilder any casual reader) it is because I think they are a sectarian waste of time and a diversion from the real issues.

As I said above, in case you missed it:

“In the light of the extremely difficult situation faced by the proletariat today … the real question is whether existing revolutionary organisations can provide convincing answers to the difficult questions posed by capital’s unexpected survival, in order to develop the programmatic basis for the future class party that we all believe will be necessary. This applies as much to the ICC as the CWO.”

Really?

“I know you are not a member of the ICC but like so many non-members of the ICC you are less than honest about what you are saying.”

Ok, well, first of all let’s reflect on just how insulting that is, not only to me but also to all those other non-members of the ICC out there! Or was that meant to be tongue in cheek? Humour is such a tricky thing on the internet...

Moving on...

Having read Link's latest post I want to backtrack on what seem to be the main areas of agreement and disagreement so far:

We seem to agree that the 1970s saw the end of the post-war boom and a working class response to the reappearance of the capitalist crisis.

For the ICC, this signified that the “course of history” was towards revolution. Later it was forced to recognise this was wrong and changed it to “a course towards class confrontations”.

For the CWO this did not signify the end of the counter-revolution, which only really ends when the proletariat has formed its class party. As an analysis of the balance of class forces I find this almost meaningless, but anyway...

On the question raised by Link about why capitalism has not gone to war as the ‘solution’ to its historic crisis...

For the ICC (and for me) this is mainly due to the inability of the bourgeoisie, by the 1980s, to mobilise the working class to fight a world war, as it had in the ‘thirties. And the main reason for this is that, despite the failure of the working class to develop its struggles towards revolution, it still effectively blocked the bourgeoisie’s attempts to impose its own solution. (I know the CWO disagrees with this. A lot…)

For the CWO, the comrade first described the main reason as the ability of the bourgeoisie to manage the crisis. I can agree with this. Partly based on the lessons it has learned from history, the bourgeoisie has been able to effectively phase in the crisis and, just as importantly, to derail, divert and mystify any dangerous working class response. This is also broadly the view of the ICC (from its 21st Congress reports).

Challenged on the role of the relationship between the classes the CWO comrade then set out the position, highlighted by Link, that:

“It is actually the passivity of the class over the last 4 decades which gives the capitalist class the space to avoid war.”

This brings us back to the question of the balance of class forces – which does now reappear as a key factor in the situation, even if in a negative sense that the working class is currently ‘passive’ so the bourgeoisie doesn’t need to move towards war…

In support of this position Cleish points to 1914 as evidence that if it was faced with massive class struggle the bourgeoisie would be forced to try to go to war, and I think there is truth in that historical example; the outbreak of WW1 cut short the whole internationaL wave of mass struggles described by Rosa Luxemburg in the Mass Strike.

On the other hand, I could then point to 1939 as evidence that in the absence of massive resistance from the working class the bourgeoisie was free to impose its own solution. We could also argue that in 1914 the change in historic period from ascendance to decadence wasn’t yet clear to either class. Decadence obviously has its own history and in that sense this current period is historically completely unprecedented.

So at the very least it is difficult to generalise from historical specificities.

The comrade also argues that “the bourgeoisie can learn from history and they know the consequences of a wider global war.”

I think we’d all agree the bourgeoisie can learn from history but this raises a whole new question about the ‘rationality’ of the bourgeoisie. In a period in which we see more and more evidence of the irrationality of the bourgeoisie – above all in the worsening ecological crisis that capitalism is precipitating, apparently without any serious effort or even ability to prevent its worst effects - I think it is debatable to say the least to talk about bourgeois rationality as a factor, especially in the current period - but that's another discussion.

I can only agree we have to “help to build a class alternative to what capitalism has in store for us”.

But we also have to try to overcome sectarianism and clarify differences as part of this.

You now claim that the counter-revolution did not end with the upsurge of struggles in ’68 and will only end “when a new revolutionary wave comes along”.

Afaics this was not your view at the time: “Since the end of the 1960s capitalism’s post war period of expansion has been drawing to a close and the objective conditions for revolution began to develop.” (CWO text for the First International Conference in 1977)

The CWO and the ICC, both products of this upsurge, were absolutely right to stress the change in period with the end of the post-war boom and the upsurge in struggles, and the PCInt was surely wrong not to recognise this (or rather, it saw the crisis, but not the significance of the upsurge of struggles, only a student revolt!).

But the ICC was also wrong to conclude that this upsurge meant there was now a ‘course towards revolution’.

True, the Italian Left Fraction in the 30s had concluded that the victory of fascism in Germany meant the course of history was towards war; this is one of the most important acquisitions of the Italian Left which, despite its confusions, enabled it to oppose the opportunism of the Trotskyists and avoid betrayal in Spain.

So we can’t simply dismiss the whole concept of a ‘historic course’ as ‘un-Marxist’.

But the ICC wrongly concluded that after ’68 this situation had simply been ‘reversed’. It was forced to correct this error but continued to talk about a ‘course towards class confrontations’.

Personally I now think this was confused. It was a compromise that failed to fully recognise that there were two opposing tendencies at work. So you are right to emphasise that the “continual binaries of the class war” are socialism or barbarism, war or revolution.

The point is firstly that, despite the existence of a definite tendency towards war, the balance of class forces was more favourable to the proletariat than at any time since 1917 and there were real reasons to believe that the conditions for revolution would continue to mature.

Secondly, the more the proletariat pushed forward its own struggles, the more the ability of the bourgeoisie to impose its own ‘solution’ was pushed back, ie. the class struggle itself was an active factor in shifting the balance of class forces and determining the outcome.

In the end we know the post-68 upsurge did not lead to revolution. The proletariat has suffered a political but not a definitive defeat.

But neither has the bourgeoisie been able to impose the war it so desperately needs in your schema to ‘revalorise capital’ (although of course we cannot be complacent). Instead we are at an impasse.

Unless the proletariat is finally able to impose its own solution – “the revolutionary transformation of society” - we face the alternative you have already referred to: the “common ruin of the contending classes”.

So the situation today may superficially appear to prove your contention that the counter-revolution never ended. But in reality it entirely misses the major shift in the balance of forces between the classes which occurred in the 1980s. In this sense it simply proves the adage about a stopped clock…

It also surely underlines the unrealistic expectation that a new revolutionary wave, complete “hopefully” with an international party can somehow appear out of a ‘counter-revolution’. Isn’t it far more likely we will see massive, confused movements, social eruptions etc, in response to the convulsions of the crisis, long before we (“hopefully”) reach this point? Luxemburg talks somewhere about 'the long agony of the proletariat'...

M

PS not sure what's happened to Link?

I hope the discussion is a fruitful one tomorrow. I cannot attend unfortunately but you can certainly use my post as an attempt to contribute on what I think are some of the key issues. I'll wait to come back on the points made by Link and Stevein.

I am not sure they are different, I would say a revolutionary party is a revolutionary organisation. However, a revolutionarty party/organisation which is up to the tasks of revolutionary period, the elimination of class society, is not the same as the organisation which exists in the depths of class society.

In my mind a revolutionary party ( a Revolutionary International to introduce yet another term) has to be a compromise. It has to have the size and hence reach which a tight theoretically more homogenous revolutionary unitary organisation does not necessarily have.

As a consequence, the conditions for membership of a revolutionary Party (i.e. the organisation suitable for the actual revolutionary crossing of the bridge to the classless society) have to be the minimum required for the task. I would not for example say, one has to recognise Marxism as a (proletarian) science to be a member of such a revolutionary party, as a random example merely to illustrate the point. This may well be an interesting point of debate but it is not a red line.

This would likely mean that a revolutionary party is a battlefield within which various factions jockey for influence, but held together by the perspective that without the necessary level of tolerance and unity, the multiple elements involved would lack the power to carry out the required global tasks. So there is a dialectical tension there, a struggle between the component parts but the unity of common purpose.

I anticipate this will be contested, and I only have a limited concept of what is to come.

M

I don't really think you "get" either our method or our argument. I suppose given your previous membersship of the ICC and your identification with their method this is not surprising. Over the years we have accused the ICC of misleading people about what we say and we always thought this was deliberate but in fact the problem lay in the way we saw the world did not fit into ICC schemas and in trying to make our views fit them they simply distorted them. You do the same here when you say that my argument about the fact that the class struggle is weak is a factor holding back war. This turns what I argued on its head. What I argued was that those who saw war being held back by the class struggle would find it difficult to make a case for the working class holding back war today BUT we don't really think this is the way to apporach the issue on way. As our numerous document make clear the imperative towards a more generalised war exists based on imperialist competition. We are equally concerned that this could tip over into a general conflagration due to miscalculations based on pushing imperialist interests too far (see our article "A decade after .."). Lenin frequently quoted Goethe's Faust to the effect that "theory is grey my my friend but green is the everlasting tree of life". A good quote but not one that fits the idea of the "historic course" since in that the grey areas of theory are ignored to put all the eggs in the black or white basket of "we are on course for war" or "we are on course for revolution". In fact we have long argued (since the IBRP was formed in 1984 at least) that no matter what the circumstances our tasks remain the same - to fight for communist consciousness and organisation inthe wider working class. And today we have no illusions. As the summary of the CWO London meeting said you will get shorter odds on war than you will on revolution given the absolutely inadequate response of the global working class to the attacks made upon it. In the face of this you can throw up your hands in despair, extol the value of "fraction" work and not even try to reach the wider working class (and I am not sure what the ICC actually are saying on this so opaque have been their arguments). We prefer to act according to our theory. Humanity is faced with an enormous disaster from which only the world working class can save it and we have to do all we can to point out what the various (and too rare) episodes of struggle tell us about the real goal of the struggle. The ones who are up for that are the ones we want to have a dialogue with.

Link,

Firstly I think you’re right to identify areas where there is basic agreement between the CWO and the ICC. This all too easily gets lost.

And I agree with much of what you say about the need to understand the balance of class forces.

On the ‘historic course’, if you remember the ICC changed its position to ‘course towards class confrontations’, although this doesn’t get rid of the problem which for me is the idea that the proletariat ‘bars the road to war' - I think this is a schema that underestimates the inherent tendency of the system towards war, especially today.

Which is not to say the class struggle is not an active and even decisive factor in the situation, in specific historical conditions. The objective conditions for revolution were definitely opened up by the post-’68 upsurge (the CWO said much the same thing at the time) and up until the 1980s the direction of the class struggle was still towards decisive class confrontations.

But as you say, we then come to the last 40 years. I don’t think it’s ‘heretical’ to question whether the working class has suffered a defeat since WW2, if I have understood your point correctly. There has clearly been a defeat, not a physical one like in 30s, but a serious political defeat. Exactly how serious is not yet clear. We will only know if and when the proletariat shows signs of a response. But the danger of war is certainly greater today given the proliferation of local wars, military tensions, etc., partly because the bourgeoisie itself is losing its ability to control events due to the depth of the crisis.

Cleishbotham wrote:

“just for the sake of historical accuracy the CWO only agreed with the notion that we were on the upward curve towards revolution from 1975 to 1976 ... It was at this point (…) that we realised that the working class was up for what our Liverpool comrades called "money militancy" but a long way from a socialist understanding.”

Yes and you said as much at the time (2nd Int Conference). But with hindsight are you saying you still defend this view? Isn’t it a bit ‘Anglo-centric’ for a start? Without going into a whole list of struggles, surely we saw further developments including the Iranian oil workers’ strikes 1978, Brazilian steelworkers’ strike 1979, etc...?

And what about the mass strike in Poland, which at the time you described as “The biggest class battles of the last ten years” (CWO/BC leaflet)? This was surely the high point of the post-68 upsurge and can hardly be dismissed as “money militancy”?