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Thursday, December 1, 2011

Petty bourgeois leftism

Neo-Marxism, "New Thinking" and Social Democracy

Anti-Communist Currents in a Left Disguise

By Dave Silver

"The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class Struggle"

Communist manifesto

The specter of Marxism-Leninism haunts segments of the Left. Leftist critiques of Marxism and or existing socialism is at least 60 years old beginning with the Frankfurt School of Sociology in the 1920's and 30's. Theodore Adorno, Max Horkheimer and Erich Fromm attempted to synthesize Marxism and Freudianism. From the very beginning the School was associated with anti-Bolshevism and anti-Sovietism. Herbert Marcuse, the guru of the "new left" as well as other neo-Marxist perspectives, spread the thoughts of the School in the U.S. Berthold Brecht, the great German playwright and communist, described the School's advocates as "intellectual pimps for the bourgeoisie." Since the 30's there have been a variety of other groups within this political genre: The Italian Phenomenological School of Marxism, the Praxis group in Yugoslavia, the Marxists-Humanists of Poland, and euro-communism of Western Europe in the 1970's

So called euro-communism was the most organized expression of this revisionist trend, particularly the Italian, French and Spanish Communist Parties. The Italian Party's "historic compromise" supported give-backs, higher prices and speed-ups. The Spanish Party under Carillo made the C.P.S.U. the main target of its criticism while conciliating with U.S. imperialism. The French Party supported the anti-immigrant and racist demands of the working class, calling for the expulsion of Algerian workers. These policies echoed the Browderist theory of special circumstances or "exceptionalism" that called for class collaboration and the liquidation of the CPUSA in 1943.

The anti-war and justice movements of the 1970s were likewise afflicted with the then anti-Soviet virus which has since been replaced by anti-Stalinism. How did this opportunism manifest itself? E.P Thompson the British peace activist, Rudolph Bahro, ex-communist and the "Greens" in the Federal Republic of Germany blamed the cold war equally on East and West. After all there were two superpowers. Leftist academics and peace activists shed crocodile tears for Soviet "dissidents." With the help of Soviet emigres, a group called "Independent Voices East and West" equally condemned Brezhnev's Afghanistan policy with Reagan's policy of supporting mercenary killers called contras. The Brecht Forum and the scholar Raymond Williams and others repeat the theme of many Marxisms and in his "Toward Many Socialisms" Williams accounted for the cold war because of the "equally expansive imperial systems." Of course neo-Marxists conveniently forget historical context and almost never ask the question who benefits.

All of these movements have at least one fundamental premise in common: a belief that "orthodox" or "traditional" Marxism is outmoded and no longer the best guide for anti-imperialist struggles and the eventual achievement of socialism. In addition since the political cataclysm in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, what I prefer to call a counterrevolution (containing external and internal factors), various code words are liberally used in the anti-Marxist struggle by "new thinkers." I refer to such formations as the Democratic Socialists of America and the Committees of Correspondence. Among these code words are pluralism, democratization, centralization and on the cutting edge, Stalinism. This new thinking virus has infected Parties, National Liberation Movements and organizations worldwide with catastrophic results.

While a critical discussion of losef Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili (a.k.a. Stalin) is well beyond the scope of this presentation, I would like to offer a few thoughts that may lead some of you to do a little balancing up or try to make a serious analysis of Stalin, not only as a historical figure but as a Marxist. My late friend and comrade and author of several books on the poet Shelley, Professor Kenneth Neil Cameron, whose seminal work Stalin, Man of Contradiction (NC Press Toronto 1987) would urge you to think about this: if Stalin was the monster responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people, the author contends that there would have been such moral decay and anarchy that it would have been impossible to defeat German fascism. Ken makes two other assertions about Stalin that deserve serious thought. One is that he "more than any other single individual, built the first socialist society and built it on the wreck left by imperialist intervention and civil war." He also maintains that more than any single individual he "was responsible for ending" Nazi imperialism; in doing so he not only preserved socialism but helped to extend its foundations in Eastern Europe." The book's Appendix contains a portrait of Stalin by the person closest to him in military matters, Marshall Zhukov, who attests in glowing terms to Stalin's leadership in the Great Patriotic War. There are in addition verbatim statements taken from Joseph E. Davies, U.S. Ambassador to the USSR, written to Secretary of State Cordell Hull. Davies attended the 1937-8 trials of the 'Trotskyite Center" and the Bukharin, Kamenev and Zinoviev group in 1936. Yes indeed, says Davies, there was a real conspiracy with German and Japanese imperialism in which evidence was presented documenting traitorous negotiations with those governments by the defendants.

On a somewhat personal role. As a veteran of the Battle of the Bulge I am fully aware that I owe my survival in combat against SS troops at least in part to the relentless pressure on and the engagement by the Red Army of over 70% of all German forces on the eastern front. I find it reprehensible in the extreme for people including ex-communists, social democrats and assorted liberals buying into fascist propaganda. I cite the PBS broadcast of June 1990 (after the victorious counterrevolution) titled Stalin, A Time For Judgment by Jonathan Lewis and Philip Whitehead (N.Y. Pantheon Books) which opens with Stalin's portrait superimposed on drawings, of human skulls and then opens to a mass grave. The hard facts are that in Vinnitsa in 1943 in Nazi occupied Ukraine, the graves were almost entirely Nazi victims. A German soldier in fact wrote to both American and Soviet interrogators in 1945 that these were graves of Nazi victims.

Let's move on to recent past and the present. The Committees of Correspondence (C of C) very name mechanically equates the historical context of the American War for Independence and present day struggles against imperialism, racism, oppression, exploitation and war. The C. of C. represents one of the latest versions of revisionism and opportunism. For years it went along with that "vanguard" Party of left-wing reformers known as the Communist Party U.S.A. whose policies Lenin aptly called kvostism or tailing: in this case the Democratic Party. Many of these ex CPUSA-ers had no problem with remaining in a Party that refused to support the Equal Rights Amendment until some two years after a broad coalition struggle for its passage had begun. The Party also looked through rose colored glasses at the labor movement and chose to ignore the fact that racism was indeed systemic throughout the working class. The CPUSA shamefully supported the international leaders of the AFL-CIO that undermined the historic P-9 Hormel meatpackers struggle. Their implicit support for the Democratic Party effectively opposed organizing of a national independent, anti-capitalist and anti-racist political movement with significant participation and leadership of people of color. Three years after the counterrevolution triumphed, the CPUSA finally removed its Moscow correspondent for suggesting that Gorbachev was the second coming of Christ.

It was only when the already moribund CPUSA was forced to recognize that what was at stake was the restoration of capitalism did they finally denounce both Yeltsin and Gorbachev. The latter denunciation was too much for many who found a new political home in the C. of C.

This should not surprise anyone that looks carefully at their "Declaration of Principles," which is as revealing for what it omits as well as what it states. For instance it suggests that if we make public and private institutions more democratic and have a "mass popular movement" then the capitalists will put people first and profits second. This is a Marxist understanding? Further they say that under the umbrella of "pluralism" the C of C will embrace a "non-Marxist socialism (sic) in order to cultivate a common ground for struggle." In fact since "orthodox" Marxism no longer applies to complex societies they will have an ongoing discussion "of how to define socialism." We come full circle to reductio ad absurdum for if there are many Marxisms and many socialisms then in reality there are none. It is interesting to note here the depths of the opportunism which easily slides into anti-communism in a left-liberal disguise. With the ideological assistance of the "new thinking" and its replacement of the class struggle with "universal human values," they join those other revisionist currents that never recognized a really existing socialism. Key to this new ideological underpinning is the "convergence theory" first expounded by the renegade and former foreign minister of the Soviet Union Andrei Kozyrev (1966) in his lead article in the organ of the Soviet Foreign Ministry, International Affairs. This theory states that capitalism is becoming more like socialism and vice-versa. These revisionists and opportunists are still searching for some hybrid third way, neither capitalist nor socialist.

Neo-Marxists no longer accept the main global contradiction as that between imperialism and socialism (however decimated) but rather in various national conflicts and therefore not international in scope. While some neo-Marxists admit to the existence of an imperialist camp, few of their spokespersons recognize a world revolutionary process involving the socialist forces including Cuba, North Korea and Vietnam, as well as national liberation and working class movements.

Arthur Hirsh's The French New Left - From Sartre to Gorz (South End Press 1981) vividly illustrates historical, economic and political distortions that lead to anti-communism in a Left disguise. For instance Hirsh accuses the Italian C.P. leader Togliatti of saying Marxism views the USSR as THE MODEL to be followed, thus totally distorting the concept of polycentrism. On the contrary Togliatti and the World Marxist Review of the late 1970s and early 1980s, which represented most of the Communist and Workers Parties, have always maintained that the socialist path in each country will differ according to such factors as its level of development, culture and the relationship of class forces at any given time. In the book's introduction we find this statement: "Within the communist movement itself a crisis in Marxist theory emerged after the 1956 events, Khrushchev's revelation of Stalin's crimes, the Soviet Invasion of Hungary and the obvious lack of de-Stalinization were too much for French intellectuals to accept." This kind of statement is a total distortion of the truth since it leaves out the historical context, is mechanical and lacks a class analysis. First there was no mention of the more than peripheral effect that McCarthyism produced in Europe and the deep alienation many in the French "New Left" were already experiencing. Many of these intellectuals were seeking a rationale for abandoning any form of struggle. They apparently found the right moment since for them Khrushchev not only detailed the gross violations of socialist norms, but declared the failure of Soviet society and socialism itself.

Did the "invasion" of Hungary really represent a "crisis in Marxist theory" or was it a rejection of a class analysis and the adoption of a mechanical rather than an historical materialist view of history that was responsible for a "crisis" and contradictions in Hirsh's own ideology. Central here was his unwillingness to accept that the central global contradiction is between imperialism and socialism. What happened in Hungary? A counterrevolution was disguised as a "rebellion" and led by clerical-fascist Cardinal Mindszenty. Thus the Cardinal became a "freedom fighter" like Reagan's mercenary killers, the Contras. Solidarity including material support and the use of force is not prohibited by Marxist principles. On the contrary it represents a high degree of internationalist solidarity. Another fact conveniently omitted was the request by Budapest for help including the Red Army.

Hirsh exhibits a more subtle form of revisionism when he attempts to create two different Marxes. He and the new Marxists identify with the young Marx of the 1844 Economic Manuscripts where Marx discusses amongst other things the process of alienation and the recognition of the subjective side of life. Adam Schaff, the brilliant Polish Marxist comments on this in his Marxism and The Individual (McGraw Hill 1970): "The claim for two Marxes - the humanist and the dogmatic materialist - has been argued over the years in various forums and with various motives... there was doubtless, at least in some cases, a deliberate desire to replace the scientific motivation of Marxism with an ethical, humanist one - shifting the emphasis of description and laws into that of values and commands. This fitted in much better with the background of idealist philosophy." Since Left anti-communism seeks to refute Marxism-Leninism in whole or in part the corollary to that position must include the discrediting of those seeking to strengthen and build existing socialism. While there are no ready made formulas for determining where fraternal criticism ends and anti-communist theories and practices begin, the crucial questions must always point to answers which benefit the overwhelming masses of people as well promote anti-imperialism and in so doing strengthen the forces for socialism. Within such a framework fraternal and even sharp criticism is not only legitimate but necessary in order to resolve contradictions and move forward toward more effective practice. When the Polish United Workers Party, for instance, decided the country needed a quick fix with an infusion of money from the International Monetary Fund under conditions that could only threaten its socialist structure, they did just the opposite

As Schaff's eloquent closing paragraph states: "As a psychological reaction to narrow dogmatic Marxism of the pre-World War 2 era, a belief has developed in some intellectual circles - it is an international phenomenon - that progress in the socialist movement can only be achieved by denying its basic principles, by rejecting it. But the truth is that genuine progress, true innovation in the socialist movement can only be achieved within the framework of Marxist thought. Anyone who fails to grasp this truth is heading for intellectual disaster of his own; he is also harming a cause to which he is subjectively committed."

If Schaff's analysis is correct, and I think it is, then neo-Marxism becomes a force that divides and weakens the anti-imperialist struggle even if the intent is to strengthen it. The neo-Marxist perspective is no small matter for forces of liberation and justice, for their thinking represents not friendly but rather antagonistic contradictions, for one cannot be anti-imperialist or anti-racist and be essentially anti-communist. We can see where this new thinking leads to in practice. Two examples: many of the revisionists consider themselves friends of the Cuban Revolution or at least in past years when it conformed to radical chic. Today we find some members of the Center for Cuban Studies wanting to end the blockade not because it is morally correct to do so and Cuba has a right to self determination including the building and strengthening of socialism. NO. They have an ulterior motive of bringing a little perestroika and glasnost to the island for a "smooth post Castro transition," really meaning a post-Socialist Cuba. I venture a guess that 90% of those participating in the Socialist Scholars Conference in 1997 have called for the support of the "pro-democracy" demonstrations in Belgrade. The hard questions to provide a class analysis and context is never posed. Why are workers largely absent from these demos? Why has the CIA-run Radio Free Europe and Voice of America offered the "independent" radio station their frequencies? Why has Washington openly offered financial and I daresay logistic and COINTELPRO type of assistance to any of the Media and trade unions that are opposed to the Milosevic regime? The opportunist new thinkers could not or would not confront the historical fact that it was inter-imperialist rivalry and the need for a client state in the Balkans that was responsible for the fratricide in Bosnia after what was left of socialist Yugoslavia. Any rationalist politician like Milosevic who wanted to keep some remnant of the socialist infrastructure had to be destroyed.

The revisionists and opportunists of today have lost confidence in the ability of the working class, although the composition of the class has changed somewhat since the time of Marx. For it is still this exploited and oppressed class, and particularly people of color and the very poor, which is the only class that can create and build a viable socialist system. As Ken Cameron notes in his Marxism - A Living Science (International Pub. 1993\ along with the working classes in developed countries "...the ever explosive third world, burdened by interlocking imperialist and internal capitalist-feudal exploitation, can rapidly develop a revolutionary 'critical mass.'" Finally he concludes that "it is time to set our sights on the future, to perceive through the mist of capitalist obfuscation that the world revolutionary thrust that Marx and Engels projected and Lenin witnessed is still operating, inexorably, like the giant forces of nature - with which It is increasingly blended." Indeed it is.

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