19th May, 1949
Some four weeks ago Comrade J. R. Campbell delivered a lecture to “Comrades interested in economics” on the subject of a mixed economy. His lecture and his summing up reveal beyond the shadow of a doubt that the views he expressed in his celebrated review of Comrade Maurice Dobb’s “Studies in the Development of Capitalism,” Modern Quarterly, Autumn 1947, have not changed.
In that review Comrade Campbell agreed with Dobb that it was possible to have “in a matured capitalist economy a democratic State, pursuing an expansionist policy in the interest of higher standards of mass consumption and using its powers to combat monopolist restriction and to shape production and investment in the general interest.” I took the floor at the lecture and my remarks included the above quote, saying: “Translating this into ordinary political language Comrade Dobb was saying that the Labour Party was capable of resisting and defeating the demands of finance capital. In so adopting and advocating this right deviationist line Comrade Dobb was attacking the Marxist theory of the State which says that the State is a weapon of class domination, which points out that the State is not neutral, above classes, to be swayed this way or that by prevailing tendencies, but at all times is a defender of the class in power.”
I put this question to Comrade Campbell: “Do you still agree with your earlier view, that it is possible to plan production for the general interest–whatever that may mean–inside a system where the State is dominated by finance capital?” Comrade Campbell, although he spent well over ten minutes attacking me, failed to answer this question.
I also stated at the meeting that it was strange indeed that our Party had not seen fit to open up a discussion on the Varga controversy, though seemingly the Party’s translators found no difficulty in translating Varga, whose articles appeared with great regularity in World News and Views, but the articles of Soviet comrades attacking Varga never appeared!
I am not attacking Campbell for mistakes in judgment, fundamental issues are involved. In his reply to the discussion Comrade Campbell came out flatly with the assertion that National Planning under capitalism was possible, “at least in war time.” He elaborated still further the famous “sector theory” of Maurice Dobb, a “theory” which puts forward the view that on the one side stand the working class, on the other the capitalist, in between, susceptible to pressure from either side, the State! This is a gross vulgarisation of the Marxist conception of the State, it reveals the hopeless shallowness and muddle-headedness of comrades who at this advanced date can advance as Marxism such unadulterated rubbish! Put shortly, it is revisionism. And it is not “new.” It is nothing more or less than the economic adaptation of Bukharen’s celebrated “theory of Equilibrium,” smashed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, under Stalin, twenty years ago!
Comrade Campbell stated that it was easy for comrades–meaning myself–to dot the i’s and cross the t’s after the event, meaning Varga’s bankruptcy, but it so happens that I have repeatedly attempted to draw the attention of the Party to Varga’s revisionism as well as the attempts of such comrades as J. R. Campbell and Maurice Dobb. For example, my criticism of Paul M. Sweezy’s treatment of Marxism, fulsomely received by Dobb and Campbell.
I ask that this letter be submitted to the E.C. of our Party. I ask that you acknowledge receipt of this letter. I append a copy of five questions I placed before the Party in December, 1947. I ask once again for these questions to be answered.
With fraternal greetings.
A. H. EVANS.
Is the Party in agreement with the statement of the Soviet economist, E. Varga, when he states: “The old state apparatus has not been smashed, as in the Soviet Union, but reorganised by means of a continuous inclusion in it of supporters of the new regime,” “Democracy of a New Type,” Labour Monthly for August, 1947. My emphasis.
No. Varga’s statement overlooks the fact that in all the countries of the People’s Democracy the old, bourgeois state apparatus, in the first place the armed forces and the police, had been smashed either by the Nazi invader (e.g. Poland) or as a result of the National Liberation Movement overthrowing its own pro-Nazi, fascist state (e.g. Bulgaria) with the aid of the Red Army. There could therefore be no question of reorganising “the old state apparatus... by means of a continuous inclusion in it of supporters of the new regime.” The basis on which the new state power developed was the Liberation Movement; an alliance of class forces taking the form of a National Front, having the common aim of defeating the Nazis. Within this front, however, the relation of class forces differed as between one country and another; and therefore the transition to the dictatorship of the proletariat–e.g. the hegemony of the proletariat, in alliance with the working peasantry and intellectuals, under the leadership of its Party, the Communist Party–has proceeded at different tempos in the different countries.
Unlike the Bolshevik Revolution, which, in place of the smashed bourgeois state, established dictatorship of the proletariat (in the form of Soviet power), at one stroke by an armed uprising, the dictatorship of the proletariat has been established in the People’s Democracies by a “peaceful development of the revolution,” similar to that which Lenin envisages as being possible, in certain clearly defined conditions, at the beginning of October (September) 1917. (See “The Aims of the Revolution,” S.W. VI, pp 240-9).
In the countries of People’s Democracy these conditions were essentially fulfilled in the course of the successful liberation struggle, mainly as a result of the resistance of the Red Army. The fact that the old state apparatus had been smashed, and that the presence of the Red Army prevented armed counterrevolutionary intervention from abroad, thus secured, what proved to be impossible1 in Russia in 1917, ”a peaceful development of the revolution, the peaceful election of deputies by the people, the peaceful struggle of parties within the Soviets, the testing of the programmes of the various parties in practice, and the peaceful transition of power from party to party.” (Ibid: p. 249).
How, in what way, does the above statement of E. Varga fit in with the following pronouncement of Stalin: “The revolution can vanquish the bourgeoisie, can overthrow its power, without the dictatorship of the proletariat. But the revolution will be unable to crush the resistance of the bourgeoisie, to maintain its victory and push forward to the final victory of Socialism unless, at a certain stage in its development, it creates a special organ in the form of the dictatorship of the proletariat as its principal mainstay.” (Problems of Leninism, p. 28).
Varga’s statement does not “fit in” with the view expressed by Stalin. In the countries of People’s Democracy the power of the bourgeoisie was overthrown without the dictatorship of the proletariat. But the mistake implicit in Varga’s statement, and explicit in certain early statements by e.g. Dimitrov and Gomulka (as fully admitted since by both the latter) was the assumption that, because of the new international relation of class forces resulting from the temporary capitalist-socialist alliance against fascism, the revolutionary forces that had sufficed to “vanquish the bourgeoisieand overthrow its power”–i.e. the Liberation Movement organised in the National Front–would be able “to crush the resistance of the bourgeoisie, to maintain its victory and push forward to the final victory of Socialism” without creating a “special organ” in the form of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The practical results of this mistake are clearly seen in the practice of Tito and the C.P.Y., where the CP., instead of ensuring the “peaceful struggle of parties within the Soviets (read: National Front), the testing of the programmes of the various parties in practice, the peaceful transition of power from party to party”–i.e. eventually to the Party of the proletariat–completely merged the Party, “hid its face,” in the National Front; thus allowing the hegemony of the National Front to pass to the petty bourgeoisie and Kulak elements within it.
Is the Party in agreement with the teachings of Comrades Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin that the bourgeois state is, above all else, a repressive machine, and that it will be necessary for the working class to smash it to seize power?
Yes, the Party is in agreement that the bourgeois state is above all a repressive machine. But the Party does not disregard the equally important teachings of Marxism as expressed in, e.g. the following passage from Lenin:
“Finally, an extremely important cause producing differences among the participants in the Labour movement lies in the changes of tactics of the ruling classes in general, and of the bourgeoisie in particular. If the tactics of the bourgeoisie were always uniform, or at least homogenous, the working-class would rapidly learn to reply to them by tactics also uniform or homogenous. But as a matter of fact, in every country the bourgeoisie inevitably works out two systems of rule, two methods of fighting for its interests and of retaining its rule, and these methods at time succeed each other and at times are interwoven with each other in various combinations. They are, firstly, the method of force, the method which rejects all concessions to the labour movement, the method of supporting all the old and obsolete institutions, the method of irreconcileably rejecting reforms. Such is the nature of the conservative policy of the agrarian classes and more and more one of the varieties of bourgeois policy in general. The second method is the method of ”liberalism,” which takes steps towards the development of political rights, towards reforms, concessions and so forth.” (Lenin S.W. XI, p. 741).
The Party, therefore, seeks to avoid the mistake of “constantly leaping from one futile extreme to another” characteristics, as Lenin notes in the same articles of the two main opportunist tendencies of anarchism and reformism: “which seize upon one aspect of the labour movement, which elevate one-sidedness to a theory, and which declare such tendencies or features of this movement as constitute a specific peculiarity of a given period, of given conditions of working-class activity, to be mutually exclusive.”
To avoid this mistake it is important to give full weight to the views of Engels in 1845, which were further elaborated by Lenin in “Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder.”
“With this successful utilisation of universal suffrage, an entirely new mode of proletarian struggle came into force, and this quickly developed further. It was found that the state institutions, in which the rule of the bourgeoisie is organised, offer still further opportunities for the working class to fight these very state institutions. They took part in elections to individual Diets, to municipal councils and to industrial courts; they contested with the bourgeoisie for every post in the occupation of which a sufficient part of the proletariat had a say. And so it happened that the bourgeoisie and the government came to be much more afraid of the legal than of the illegal action of the Workers’ Party, of the results of the elections than of those of rebellions.” (Karl Marx S. W. II., p. 183) With regard to the second part of this question, it is clear from the answer to the two previous questions that the Party regards the smashing of the bourgeois State apparatus as a necessary pre-condition for achieving working class power. But, as the experience of the countries of People’s Democracy has shown, this is not always, or only, the result of action by the working class immediately concerned.
Is the Party of the opinion that it is possible within a capitalist economy to establish a “controlled sector” of industry, over which the capitalists have little and then no power?
A capitalist economy is one in which the capitalist class maintains its ownership of the means of production, and thereby its ability to exploit the workers, through the system of State power. To establish within such a system a “controlled sector” of industry, over which the capitalists have little and then no power, is clearly impossible (except in the mind of a Labour Party theoretician), since the capitalist class cannot at the same time control State power and “have little, or no power.”
It is, however, possible “within a capitalist economy” for the State to establish control of a sector of industry; and, to the extent that the workers can influence the State, they can exert, within the limits of the capitalist mode of production, a greater measure of control. But the extent to which, within these limits, the workers can influence the capitalist State depends upon their organised strength, as well as on their policy.
Comrades, I would like to deal with your answer to four of the five questions I originally put to you in December 1947, without receiving acknowledgement, and which I re-sent to you in May of this year, receiving your reply on June 15th, along with a note from Comrade Pollitt stating that Comrade Campbell would himself deal with that part of my letter dealing with his “sector-theory.” and his belief that capitalism is capable of National Planning.
On Question One: you say, “the basis on which the new State power developed was the Liberation Movement; and alliance of class forces taking the form of a National Front, having the common aim of defeating the Nazis... Within this front, however, the relation of class forces differed as between one country and another; and therefore the transition to the dictatorship of the proletariat... has proceeded at different tempos in the different countries.”
According to this presentation the dictatorship of the proletariat is a process of stages, of gradualism, of “tempos,” fast or slow according to given local circumstances, according to the relation of class forces within a specific country. According to this presentation the Liberation Movement was nothing more or less than a national movement for the purpose of destroying Nazism. What are the facts?
(1) The Dictatorship of the Proletariat is the seizure of power by the working class, its essential movement “revolutionary violence,” as Lenin put it, against the bourgeoisie; it denotes a sharp break with the past and has nothing in common with gradual emergence. According to your presentation the Dictatorship of the Proletariat is dependent under all circumstances on the relation of class forces within a specific country. It fails to note, to draw the necessary conclusion from the fact that the Red Army–the instrument of the international working class–not only rooted the Hitler bandits but found itself occupying territories of other States, hence the possibility arose even where the working class was weak and not strongly organised–as in Hungary–of seizing control of the State, even while allowing the enemy certain “rights,” formal privileges which blinded the bourgeoisie itself, as in Czecho-Slovakia, to the reality of the situation, to the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Your presentation fails to bring out the facts, waters the dictatorship of the proletariat down to a movement of quantities, to a matter of speed, not to the movement itself, its quality.
(2) The fact that during the struggle for National Liberation various diverse and hostile elements joined forces does not mean they possessed a “common aim” even when narrowed down to the defeat of the Nazis. Powerful groupings within the Anglo-American bloc attempted from the first to limit the nature of the conflict. Only when it was evident that the Soviet forces were fully adequate to the task of destroying the fascist camp by their own effort was a belated attempt made to bring the war to an end. It is plain to see that the Liberation Movement, viewed historically, lacked a “common purpose”; each class strove to protect its own interest, and National interest, as much as possible.
In general, your presentation hides, covers up, the fact that the working class from the very first had an objective; to seize power wherever possible, and to safeguard its rule through establishing the Dictatorship of the Working Class–a power it shares with no grouping or class, neither peasant nor intellectual!
You go to Lenin to try to prove the impossible, that the dictatorship of the working class can be established piecemeal, little by little. You tread on dangerous ground, but let us see what part of Lenin’s teachings interest you. You suggest reading Lenin’s chapter, “The aim of the Revolution,” S.W. VI, pp. 240-9. I find that Lenin is dealing with tactical subjects, questions relating to the struggle for power preceding the 1917 revolution, and find him stating: “One does not know whether the Soviets can go further than the leaders of the Socialist Revolutionaries and Menshevics and thus ensure a peaceful development of the revolution, or whether they will continue to stand still and thus render a proletariat revolt inevitable.” My emphasis.
It is curious, comrades, that you failed to discover that passage preceding the one you do quote and requote as a swan song: “a peaceful development of the revolution, the peaceful election of deputies by the people, the peaceful struggle of Parties within the Soviet, the testing of the programme of the various Parties in practice, and the peaceful transition of power from Party to Party.” Was it not a historical fact that the possibility Lenin mentioned failed to materialise with the result that a “proletarian revolt” became necessary, “inevitable,” and was safeguarded by the setting up of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat? Do you deny this?
I repeat, comrades, it is curious to find you stressing a possibility, ignoring–suppressing, to be exact–the historical fact that this possibility failed to materialise. It reminds one, this curious attitude of yours, of how the tricksters in the camp of Social Democracy try to make use of Marx’s statement that the possibility existed in Britain for a peaceful transference of power due to the capitalists lacking heavily armed forces, etc. Can that be said today? But that is precisely what you want your readers to infer!
On Question Two: you say “The practical results of this mistake (not to create a special organ in the form of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, A.E.) are clearly seen in the practice of Tito and C.P.Y., where the CP., instead’of insuring the “peaceful struggle of Parties within the Soviets (read National Front), the testing of the programme of the various Parties in practice, the peaceful transition of power from Party to Party,” i.e. eventually to the Party of the proletariat–completely merged the Party, “hid its face,” in the National Front; thus allowing the hegemony of the national front to pass to the petty bourgeoisie and Kulak-elements within it.” My emphasis.
What do we find in the Eastern democracies? The remnants of the bourgeoisie fighting tooth and nail for a return of the old. the old which is still stronger than the new. Stronger because of the weight of history, the psychology of the old deeply embedded within the minds of the people. The struggle of the new to overcome the old is impossible without a Communist Party which has mastered Marxism, which realises that the struggle is pitiless. As Lenin put it: “Sanguinary and bloodless, violent and peaceful, military and economic, educational and administrative–against the forces and tradition of the old society.” Yet you comrades visualise this struggle to the death as a “peaceful transition of power eventually to the proletariat.”
You seem unable to grasp the fact that just as ’the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie varies from forms of concealed to open dictatorship, so likewise does the working class exercise its power to correspond to the particularity of the given historical moment. Both dictatorships come into being through necessity, the one to keep down the working class after all other methods have failed; the other, that of the working class, to crush the resistance of the bourgeoisie after the latter has lost control of the State.
Dimitrov states: “The transition to Socialism cannot take place without the dictatorship of the proletariat for the suppression of capitalist elements and for the organisation of Socialist economy. “World News & Views,” Jan. 8th. 1949.
In Czecho-Slovakia this struggle led to the working class openly parading its armed power when the Czech bourgeoisie, abetted and encouraged by world reaction thought that the formal rights they possessed could now be translated into terms of State power. But the Czech bourgeoisie are not the only people who worship formality, unfortunately our own Party failed to understand that the dictatorship of the proletariat was a fact in Czechoslovakia long before the armed workers showed their teeth in Prague. In Poland this struggle to consummate the revolution forced on the Party a severe struggle against the right-deviation–the main danger at this time to the revolutionary movement. Similarly with the other countries of the Eastern Democracies, a furious and merciless fight is being waged inside and outside the Parties against the forces of reaction. But in Yugoslavia we witness no such struggle, verbal war and spying against the People’s Democracies, a hatred of the Communist Information Bureau, which is looked upon by Communists everywhere for leadership and guidance.
But from your remarks one would be led to believe that a “peaceful” parliamentary struggle was going on within the Eastern Democracies, instead of the sanguinary conflict the Communist Information Bureau tells us of.
On Question Three: This question simply asks the Party whether it regards the State as, above all else, a repressive machine, and whether it will be necessary to smash it. Although formally stating your agreement to this principle embodied in the questions your elaboration and the remarkable quotes you choose to use from Marx and Lenin prove beyond the shadow of doubt that you hold reservations on this question. Once again you choose quotes dealing with tactical problems. You are attempting to “win over” Lenin to your side, to help you prove that Lenin was against “one-sidedness,” i.e. against those universals such as you would like to impute to me. But I have never said that every bourgeois State must be overthrown by armed forces generated from within itself! You jump too soon. The point to be noted is riot the fact that the Eastern Democracies were freed by the aid of the Red Army, which prevented reaction and counter revolution from intervening from abroad, but that the working class in all these countries save Jugoslavia proved themselves capable of smashing the enemy, no matter from what quarter or under what form the attack arose. This job could be done by no other than the working class concerned, by its ability to “save” the revolution by setting up the dictatorship of the proletariat. You will agree that this job did not represent a “peaceful transition of power from Party to Party.”?
Lenin’s views on the nature of the State are not unknown, neither are those of Marx, yet the quotes you use are of the type social democracy desperately parade to “prove” how Marxist they are! –e.g. Marx’s statement that Socialism might come to Britain peacefully. Your quote from Lenin, S.W. XI, p. 741, points out that the tactics of the bourgeoisie are never uniform, ranging from outright force to liberalism. What this has to do with the question I raised is hard to see. And here is your quote from Marx: “With this successful utilisation of universal suffrage, an entirely new mode of proletarian struggle came into force. It was found that the State institutions... offer still further opportunities... And it so happened that the bourgeoisie and the Government came to be very much more afraid of the legal than the illegal action of the Workers’ Party, of the results of elections than those of rebellion.” But what has this statement of fact to do with my question? Marx pointed out that the workers learn swiftly how to use legality, just as they learn to use illegality. Marx also pointed out, which you seem to have overlooked, that it is precisely because the workers do use legality that the bourgeoisie is forced to dispense with it. Surely that is what Germany did in bringing Hitler to power? Or would you disagree?
But since we are dealing with specifics–and you seem to be fond of quotes, if somewhat selective–here is what Marx said about the State, quoted approvingly by Lenin in his State and Revolution, p. 29: “One thing especially was proved by the Commune, viz. that the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made State machinery and wield it for its own purpose.” But this type of clarity is not what you are looking for. Let us quote still further. This is what Lenin has to say: “The petty-bourgeois democrats, those alleged socialists who substitute dreams of class harmony for the class struggle... not in the form of the overthrow of the exploiting class, but in the form of peaceful submission of the minority to the majority which has become conscious of its aims. This petty-bourgeois Utopia, which is inseparably bound up with the idea of the State being above classes ...” My emphasis, p. 21.
I stress these points because, without a shadow of doubt, some comrades on the E.C. are of the firm opinion that we can gain control of the State to the extent that the working class organises itself. They refuse to see that within the bounds of capitalism the organisation of the working class can only go so far. When retreat and compromise become no longer possible without giving up positions which cannot be recovered the bourgeoisie uses armed power to protect itself.
On Question Four: The aim of this question was to bring out clearly the Party’s attitude to the nature of nationalisation within a capitalist economy; to find out whether the E.C. agreed with Comrade Campbell that it is possible to have “a controlled sector of industry” which the capitalists, as a class, no longer dominate. You answer in the affirmative, you agree with Comrade Campbell. You say: “It is, however, possible ’within a capitalist economy’ for the state to establish control of a sector of industry; and to the extent that the workers influence the State, they can exert, within the limits of the capitalist mode of production, a greater or less measure of control.” Or, to put it another way. use their “partial control” of State power–it is not complete yet–to bring about a re-division of surplus value in their, the workers’, favour. You may believe in fairyland, I don’t.
Here again it is necessary to remind you that we are not dealing with tactics, we are dealing with the question of classes and State power. You cannot have it both ways, either the trusts, combines, monopoly capital, control the State–or the workers. Else you are posturing what you deny, i.e. that the State is “above” classes. For we are not talking in terms of tactics, of struggle with its countless formulastic changes, ranging from a strike movement which may force temporary concessions, force this or that section of the employers to give way on this or that point–or of parliamentary struggle with its complex of usefulness, we are talking of the basic relationship of the two polar classes in society.
It is clear, more than clear, that a number of comrades within the C.C.–comrades whose words carry great weight–believe with Comrade Campbell that the State is above classes, susceptible to pressure; that power moves from class to class as a result of tactical pressure.
A few words in conclusion. I am of the opinion that your answers to my four questions–the fifth was not answered–prove that at least some comrades within the Central Committee, the writer of your answers and those who approved them, do not regard the State as an instrument of class rule having dictatorial power. I am of the opinion that these same comrades believe that socialism will come to Britain through a process of gradualism, through “a peaceful transferance of power from Party to Party.” I am of the opinion that these self-same comrades agree with Comrade Campbell that capitalism is capable of National Planning for the benefit of all.
Lenin taught us to judge a revolutionary party by the correctness of its political leadership, by its close relationship to the people, by its innate discipline. Not all the speeches in defence of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Democracies can make up for fundamental errors of judgment, such, for example, as the belief that by minimising the class struggle here in Britain during the war–through your refusal to use the power at your disposal, the shop-steward movement to force concessions by direct action if necessary–you were aiding the international movement. Without a sound theory based on Marxism it is inevitable that we commit mistake after mistake–such, for example, as our attitude some years ago to the export drive of British capitalism, under the direct political management of Herbert Morrison and the Labour Party. Is it not evident that we aided British capitalism to stabilise itself, thereby weakening the struggle against capitalism on the international front?
I cannot help but once again emphasise the writer’s use of quotes to my questions, which had nothing to do with the subject under discussion, which resembled the action of “a swindler when he ignores the perfectly well known arguments of Marx and Engels on the Commune and palms off a quotation which has nothing to do with the case,” Lenin, State and Revolution, p. 88.
A. H. EVANS.