Originally delivered to a conference of socialist scholars in 1999.
Amidst the collapse of the socialist states and Communist Parties, and the emergence of the United States as arbiter of the destiny of the world, bourgeois pundits have proclaimed the “death of ideology” and even the “death of history.” The victory of the so-called Free World, that is, the victory of world imperialism, has supposedly provided the final refutation of Marxism-Leninism. And it is true that in the vast majority of the world no longer is the capitalist ideology seriously challenged.
It has not taken long, however, for the initial euphoria and triumphalism of the Cold War victory to give way to dread, for economic crisis has erupted in the very models of capitalist success and is spreading across the world, now lapping the shores of Europe and the United States, the last bastions of capitalist stability–resistance to neoliberalism grows. All the vaunted, “freedoms” which were set forth as aims of the “pro-democracy” movements are increasingly recognized as fraudulent, as simply mechanisms facilitating the enhancement of corporate power. The people of the formerly socialist countries especially are learning that the freedoms that were trumpeted in the days of the Cold War are nothing but the freedom to be jobless, to be homeless, to starve, the freedom to lay open their country to foreign vultures.
We are told that Marxism is dead. Well, we demand. specificity. Beyond the breezy dismissal, we want to know what specific propositions of Marxism have been proven invalid? Yes, the Berlin Wall has fallen, but what parts of the Marxist foundation have crumbled?
Let us begin with Marx’s economic theory. What in that theory has been refuted in the light of recent events? Das Kapital analyzed and explained the capitalist anarchy of production with its periodic crises of overproduction, divulged the laws which resulted in the growing concentration and centralization of capital, the growing impoverishment of the working class, relative, and in many cases even absolute. Has not all this been confirmed in the last 150 years or so? Do not worker continue to be exploited? Does not their position continue to deteriorate in the face of the ever-increasing might of the corporate conglomerates? Have the laws and tendencies described therein been invalidated in any fundamental way, even as the earlier stage of capitalism has developed into monopoly capitalism? Precisely in this recent period of the supposed triumph of capitalism are we not witnessing the worst worldwide economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s?
And whatever rubbish is written by prestigious academics trying to deny the labor origin of surplus value, the labor origin of profits, does not the activity of hard-headed businessmen demonstrate their practical agreement with Marx’s discovery by effecting constant worker speed-up in the production process, stretchout of hours, disinvestment in production here and relocation to the Third World with its cheap labor power?
It was not so long ago that we were told that Marx’s searing criticism of capitalism, though perhaps valid in its day, had become obsolete, that the welfare state had smoothed over capitalism’s sharp edges, that the contradictions within the capitalist system, including the waging of class conflict, were now being mediated by the state, by “political pluralism,” by a steady expansion of “democracy,” and that there were now, for example, powerful mechanisms preventing a devastating depression such as had occurred in the 1930s and which had threatened capitalism’s very existence.
Yet today we see in the triumph of neoliberalism a return to the principles and practices of the period of the living Marx, to the days of Victorian England, the horrors of which were so starkly described by Charles Dickens. Today, capitalist domination stands naked, unapologetic, arrogant, for it no longer fears the power of the socialist model or the attraction of socialist ideas.
Marx studied the laws of capitalist development and explained how the contradictions implicit in that development would inevitably lead to capitalism’s demise, not automatically, not in an economically deterministic manner, but through the agency of the working class, created and increasingly organized by the evolution of capitalism itself. This theory of the leading role of the working class in overthrowing capitalism was called into question by the “New Left,” which put forward its own candidates for revolutionary vanguard: the intellectuals, students or the lumpen-proletariat.
- History has discredited these theories which were based on ephemeral considerations. Today, the working class stands at the head of major upheavals taking place in Ecuador, in Puerto Rico, in France and Germany, are beginning to take the lead in China and Russia, and even in the United States, where a labor movement thought to be moribund is showing signs of vitality once again. And U.S. college students this time are mobilizing around working-class issues.
As is well known, Marx and Engels never attempted to lay out a blueprint for socialism, except to indicate that it would be a planned economy governed by the working class. Bourgeois ideologists claim that it was precisely the planned economy that caused socialism’s economic failure, the growing economic stagnation of the 1970s and ‘BOs which, in turn, led to the profound alienation of the masses and the demise of the socialist states.
But the question is: How does one account for the extraordinary economic progress of the Soviet Union within an incredibly brief period of time and in spite of the enormous wartime damage? How does one account for the swift passage of the Soviet Union from being one of the most backward countries of Europe to becoming a modern industrial state? Similarly, how does one account for China’s extraordinary progress in the initial period after its revolution, as well as the impressive progress made in other socialist states, all under a planned economy where the profit motive had been removed? That these countries suffered reverses and mounting problems in later years is undeniable. But since the planned economy was a constant, we will have to look for an explanation of their problems elsewhere.
Has the fall of the Berlin Wall refuted the philosophical basis of Marxism, dialectical and historical materialism? Has the progress of natural science discredited materialism, or has it not, on the contrary, confirmed it? Has not the progress of brain research, for example, brought us ever closer to an understanding of the nature of thought and emotions, undermining idealist notions and pointing to their material foundations? Has not the progress of science with its growing interdisciplinary approach, the breaking down of the rigid boundaries, which are typical of mechanistic thinking, confirmed dialectics with its understanding of the interconnectedness of things. Have not scientific discoveries on the level of particle physics, on the one hand, and astrophysics on the other, demonstrated the infinitude of being? Does not the fact that every answer reached by science leads to many more questions point not to the “impenetrable mystery” of the universe or the helplessness of the scientific method in “getting to the bottom” of things, but rather to the infinitely rich composition and motion of matter, of nature, which only dialectical thinking accommodates, and which in turn further enriches dialectics?
Has anything happened in recent social history which has negated Marx’s fundamental discovery of historical materialism? Are not the contradictions between the scientific and technological level of our society, on the one hand, and its capitalist organization, on the other, becoming ever more acute? Is not the social character of production coming into ever greater conflict with the private character of appropriation? In spite of the fall of the socialist states, do we not see capitalist crisis intensifying the world over? Has not this crisis now reached the qualitatively new point of threatening the very life of the planet itself, as the phenomena intensify of global warming, poisoning of the air and waters, ever more frequent and ever more violent “natural” disasters, which are not natural at all but largely the product of corporate abuse of the environment?
Historical materialism teaches that on the economic base of society arises a superstructure which is compatible with and reinforces that base, that the legal, cultural, political and other social institutions reflect the dominant ruling class ideology and interests. As we look around us today, do we not see how the, corporations have tightened their grip on all our institutions, driving out even the mildest dissident voices from the media and from Academia, tightening their grip on the cultural Establishment, how the judicial institutions are today driven by the most reactionary and racist program, how the political process is more corrupted than ever, how the medical profession has become totally subservient to insurance companies, how psychiatry is being ruled by the pharmaceutical industry, how public education is increasingly commercialized?
One of the central components of Marxism is its teachings on the State. Marx and Engels referred to the State as the executive committee of the ruling class. Has anything happened in recent times to invalidate that assessment? What is the New World Order, proclaimed upon the fall of socialism, but a declaration of the rule of Big Capital, a program laid out and enforced by the IMF and NATO? Meanwhile, the great majority of smaller states, led by their own bourgeoisie, act as junior partners or compradors in carrying out that program, against their own working people and the popular masses.
And here in the “democratic” United States, behind the play of party politics, do we not see the firm hand of the “Permanent Government,” made up of the great financial, industrial and commercial interests? The US two-party system is indeed a system whereby the Democrats’ role is to be the “lesser of the two evils,” that is, to carry out the program of Big Business, but with slightly less pain to the masses than that of the Republicans, to be more flexible in responding to popular pressures in order to maintain popular illusions in the system, to provide a safety valve against the possibility of popular discontent threatening the system’s continued existence. In Europe and elsewhere, that same role is played most often by parties styling themselves Socialist, Social-Democrat, Democratic-Socialist, etc., parties which at one time pretended to be guided by Marxism but who for the most part have dropped even that pretense. These “democratic” socialists supported colonial oppression to the end, supported their own bourgeoisie in the imperialist slaughter of World War I, were enthusiastic champions of the Cold War, and today are partners in imposing the neoliberal program of the IMF.
Marxism further teaches that the ruling class will not voluntarily hand over its wealth and power to the people simply because they step behind a curtain and pull a lever. On the one hand, we have the thousand mechanisms by which elections distort and thwart the popular will. And on the other, we have examples of large numbers of countries where popular electoral victories were annulled by one or another form of coup or foreign intervention.
The most controversial Marxist principle concerning the State is the dictatorship of the proletariat. Bourgeois ideologists try to equate the dictatorship of the proletariat with pure repression, with the destruction of freedom and human rights, describe it as the antithesis of democracy. Over the last several decades even Communist Parties struck it from their programs. Marxism teaches, however, that even in the freest of “democratic” republics, under capitalism all freedoms are sharply curtailed, that free speech, for example, is not free but extraordinarily expensive, as is political activity generally. It is not surprising that the vast majority of the people in our own “land of liberty” feel utterly alienated and helpless in the face of the powerful forces that rule their lives. Marxism points out that “democracy” under capitalism remains capitalist dictatorship.
Unfortunately, many people on the Left forget the class nature of the state, think of freedom in the abstract. But those who are truly committed to the people’s welfare and not to abstractions do not forget that the State is an organ of class rule and remains so even after the working people take power, that the working class not only may but has an obligation to suppress the exploiters, the bloodsuckers, the perpetrators of misery and genocide. Marxists believe not only that the workers have a duty to gain power but to retain power. Understanding that capitalism is the modern form of slavery, wage slavery, then as long as it is within its power to prevent it, the working class must not allow that slavery to be reestablished.
The dictatorship of the proletariat, properly understood, is not the curtailment but the enormous expansion of democracy which not only on paper but in real life gives people the means to chart their course and to build their future.
One last area I would like to touch on here — and there is so much that cannot be discussed given the time constraints — is the national question. Marxism has been accused of underestimating or neglecting the national question by identifying class struggle as the motive force of history. To begin with, the national question is a part of the class question. National oppression is driven by the ruling classes of the oppressor nation, even when it succeeds in winning mass support for its oppression. And the course of national liberation struggles is determined by the class that leads that struggle, as well as the balance of class forces worldwide.
It was Marx who saw in the oppression of the Irish the major stumbling block to the liberation of the English workers. It was Marx who said “Labor in the white skin cannot be free where in the Black it is branded.” It was Marx who exposed the hypocrisy of the English “civilizing mission” against the peoples of India and China, who worked to educate the European workers in the spirit of proletarian internationalism. And it was Lenin who carried his work forward, championing the rights of nations to self-determination, including the colonies which, as he stressed, meant the right to independence. But Marxism also taught that nationalism could be perverted to serve the people’s class enemies, that the supreme value was the interests of the working people worldwide, the interests of socialism.
We have seen the tragic results of the collapse of socialism in the rise of national enmity, fratricidal strife, ethnic cleansing (about which the Western ruling classes evince such selective indignation). Much of this strife is taking place in the formerly socialist countries where the great unifying force of socialism and the ideology of the fraternity of the working people have in the process of “democratization” given way to virulent racism, national chauvinism and religious bigotry.
It is argued that the socialist states merely repressed nationalist forces, which then surfaced when repression was relaxed. But the truth is that in most cases the peoples were educated in a spirit of mutual friendship, a spirit of respect for cultural diversity, where practical steps were taken to narrow inequalities between peoples which were a product of historic injustices.
One final word: The big bourgeoisie have promoted their own version of internationalism in the form of the European Union and free trade. Here is the capitalist road to unifying peoples and doing away with national animosities. European Union, however, represents a Big Business cartel aimed at their rivals in the US and Japan, at smaller European businessmen, and especially at the European working classes. As for free trade, the contradictions between Japan Europe and the United States intensify. As the list of commercial grievances grows longer, a trade war looms as increasingly probable which, in turn, augurs political and possibly future military conflict.
History shows that whatever the scope of their momentary defeats and notwithstanding their episodic bouts of disorientation, demoralization and fatigue, the working people always pick themselves up, lick their wounds, and re-engage their oppressors. And when they do, they turn or return to their theoretical guides and champions. The resurgence of Marxism is as certain as social liberation. And when those who are confidently interring Marx’s ideas once and for all begin to grow uneasy again, as inevitably they will, and rush to check the grave, they will find the casket quite empty.
