Recent discussion amongst Communists about the developments in Nepal has sparked some interest for me in rethinking what it means to be Revolutionary and the often pejoratively used term “State-Capitalism.” I think right now I am in a state where it seems to me that terms must be thought out, the very terms of Marxism are losing material basis and are cornered to this and this sect's definition of such a term. Terms that were grounded in the real are losing significance as we use them in such a wide array that they lose the proper meaning or they miscommunicate what we try to get across. The term State-Capitalism is precisely one of these problems, for it does not communicate what specifically Maoists mean when they refer to the revisionists in the USSR and China. It is indeed problematic.
When we speak of revisionists and revisionism, we usually refer to counter-revolutionary trends within the Marxist movement or counter-revolutionary politicians in charge of a nominally socialist state. There is however problem with the usage “State-Capitalism, ” and the terms and concepts around it as well. While the revolutionary ideology around these terms are mostly correct, they fail at providing the scientific analysis of the historical development that we need. Merely labeling USSR 'State-Capitalist' will not do in the end. Why is this? Because the concept of State-Capitalism is itself problematic, what do we mean when we use this term? If we look for example during in the USSR under Lenin, NEP was labeled State-Capitalism by the CPSU (B) because it operated similarly to a capitalist economic model; however had oversight by the the revolutionary state in the USSR. While NEP did not last, some aspects of foreign investment and collective farm kept capitalist methods. This is true in Mao's China, except for the period of GLF. In the early part of the P.R.C., the Country was essentially a mixed economy. The state owned Industries; however agriculture was still largely small farming, capitalist entrepreneurs were allowed to invest, and there was a great investment from foreign nations, Soviet Union providing the most, into the Chinese economy. After the period of the Great Leap Forward, the state began using capitalist methods even through the Cultural Revolution. What further complicates this issue is the usage of the term to describe different economies in the same manner. NEP USSR for some Maoists doesn't qualify for state-capitalism, but a nation like DPRK through its history does. What qualifies a nation for being State-Capitalist, in general Maoist usage, doesn't really matter the economic model, it is rather the “revolutionary” nature of the state.
Therefore we will arise into problems in describing what we mean politically and ideologically by using economic terms such as “State-Capitalism.” Marxism must be particular in its analysis of society, and rather not generalize in such ways that it vulgarizes the science of history itself. Marxism has always suffered from this, as Marx generalized in history to provide an example for further analysis, many of his followers and even our movement took his example in such a dogmatic way that it defined our understanding in development of history into nothing more than stages. It became a formula, Slave-Society to Feudalism to Capitalism to Socialism and finally Communism. This formula led to complacent type attitudes and mechanism, and more importantly it was the roots of positivism itself. Buhkarin's sociological vulgarization of Marx's Historical Materialism and soulless examination of Dialects has shaped Communist thought till today. We shouldn't merely lay blame on the feet of Buhkarin, the primer theoretician in the USSR after Lenin's death, for Stalin, Trotsky, and other fragments of the International Communist Movement took upon themselves the same “science.” Lukacs tried to creatively understand Marx, but found himself in Hegelianism. Gramsci laid some of the ground work for a break; however his life too short and his thought in a muddle. It took until the death of Stalin for there to be a vigorous challenge to Soviet bound Marx. Sartre contributed greatly to the question of contingency, and this fellow traveler, challenged us to find a correct answer to human-being in revolution. Althusser lay question, in spirit of Gramsci, to the simplistic understanding of the Marxist “Base and Economy” and question the vulgarization of contradiction. Mao as well, developed the understanding of dialectical materialist contradiction further then before, and put power back in the hands of the consciousness rather than the cold indeterminable “laws” of the economic and sociological dogma of the Soviet Union.
These were all real breaks, that still many Communists still don't fully understand and is still controversial. Maoism was a movement in spirit of this break, but remained contained in the terms of the historical determination of 19th century Marxism-Trotskyism, and Stalinism itself. So while the real criticism of the Soviet Union was on the matter of the conscious shift of the party and state from a revolutionary party (albeit truly Stalinist) to an outright conscious anti-revolutionary power bloc, Maoists didn't break from the economic and sociological terms of those who they broke from (Stalinists and Trotskyists). We examined the Soviet Union not as a NEW type of system that had its own roots in the revolutionary upsurge in 1917, that was born from and developed in a way natural from Lenin and Stalin's Soviet Union. In fact, we didn't fully comprehend Mao's ideological break because of us being wrapped by the terms themselves. Mao spoke of the revisionists naturally developing from the system because of the power they controlled within the party; however he used terms in the way of the old. This was a “bourgeois class” that developed from the contradictions of Socialism. While it is utterly true that this class developed from the internal contradictions of the party, the state, and society, it would be a cover-up to claim it came from the economic model of society itself, that “capitalism” was the problem again. What Mao tried to convey was not that it was merely the small expropriators who were the contradiction in Soviet society, but it was the ideological baggage of Capitalism and the ideological weakness of the Stalin and the Soviet Union itself that led its specific development. Most if not all of the Communist parties around the world shared this same weakness of the Soviets. The Communist parties because of these weaknesses could not develop the type of society possible, but developed into states which maintained themselves merely for the sake of power. Even the self described up-holders of Stalin and defenders against Soviet aggression such as Enver Hoxha and Nicolae Ceausescu, states finally collapsed into full fledged members of the capitalist world. No matter how they opposed the revisionist plague in the ICM, none successfully lived, even Maoist China.
What is to be learned? There has to be a lot of rethinking and re-engagement with MLM in a creative way that can re-invigorate the spirit of revolution across the world. That spirit is awake, but we must shape it into an all changing force, and give it a theory that isn't scarred to re-examine itself unlike our comrades of the past. They gave a “science” that merely fostered its own infantile understanding. What MLM is today, is not merely a “science,” but also a conscious understanding of a constant need for revolutionary change and continued development of our consciousness. Re-examining our ideology in a critical but principled way. When it comes to the history of the USSR, the Eastern Bloc, and their move toward revisionism, Maoists should not reject this because of the economics in some superficial way. Such as speaking endlessly about Soviet industries using profit indicators from the Kosygin reforms, reforms that were limitedly accepted. We must overall analyze Soviet history from its political stagnation as a revolutionary state, and how did a self-serving Kafkaesque bureaucracy end up the outcome of Proletarian Revolution. Even Mao Zedong's life and death struggle during the Cultural Revolution could not stop the stagnation of politics in PRC.
State-Capitalism, “Bourgeois Right,” and so forth are all real; however a general application of such terms without fully understanding their origins and context of use seems misguided. State-Capitalism has been a component of Socialist development, and ALL Socialist nations have used State-Capitalist techniques in their economic development. State-Capitalism is then a natural part of the development of Socialism itself. We should in fact delineated between State-Capitalism and what has been called “Market Socialism,” the economic model of Deng Xiaoping till Hu Jintao in China, Vietnam, and Laos. There is a great particular difference in the economic models of the revisionist Eastern Bloc and revisionist China and Vietnam. Lets look at the Juche state, DPRK, it is unlike China in its economic model and is not “Capitalist” and “Bourgeois” in the same way as China. China and Vietnam have a 'really existing' (to borrow a term) Bourgeois and Capitalist economy, it is an active participant in this new stage of capitalism. Without its participation, this new stage itself would be jeopardized. The DPRK, on the other hand, is not a capitalist “market socialist” nation, but rather has developed into a bureaucratic self-serving state. Trying to understand the DPRK's revisionism merely on the basis of state-capitalism, is shallow.
Bourgeois Right might give us clue to the question; however merely putting it class terms limits us. For the concept of Bourgeois Right gives us some understanding of the ideological and conscious element of revisionism while still limiting itself to the Base-Superstructure paradigm. It is not merely just a 'bourgeois' right, for such a right existed in any social system; however it is defined certainly by the division of labor and the ideological baggage of the past. Bourgeois Right is defined in some sense by status and power that comes from the labor you do or power you hold in the state or party. People in academics and sciences, while technically not 'Bourgeois,' can be swayed quite easily by the consciousness that defines 'Bourgeois' thought. It is not merely because they are convinced by swindling counter-revolutionaries, but because of their status in society, the labor they preform, they will spontaneously develop bourgeois consciousness in even a socialist society. This is true with party politicians and cadre who sit on their laurels or hold power over the masses' heads. Even amongst the Masses of oppressed themselves under Socialism there is a certain spontaneous conscious developing from the need for power and status in society, or sometimes out of pure self-interest, shall also develop 'Bourgeois' consciousness.
If this is so, that even workers and oppressed are not immune to Bourgeois consciousness and ideology, why define it as 'bourgeois' at all. Well while this is true, there is merely no set standard class anything...no class thinks in only one specific way or one thinks in another. Prolekult, Lysenko, Great Purges, and the divisions of Red Guard are evident of this. There are no class truths, class morality, class culture defined objectively out of the economic conditions that provide them. But why this IS still BOURGEOIS CONSCIOUSNESS, is because the bourgeois system is the primer place for the indulgence of the self and the search for status and power. The Bourgeois themselves, multi-billionaires some, continue their exploitation of the world not because they were born to do so, but because they grab more from it. The question of power itself is never properly addressed by Marxists, nor the question of individual motivations, beyond merely pure economic and sociological factors.
Bob Avakian, while awkwardly leading a possible rupture of the “old ways,” remains tacitly apart of it himself. In this article about the
state and its
second part that appeared not so long ago in Revolution paper, Avakian denies in the usual instrumentalist fashion the agency of the state. Rather Avakian begins to postulate a Humanist type version of what a state should be without really looking into what a state is beyond the dogmatic conception of state as merely an appendage of the economy. What is funny, is that Avakian himself contradicts this by stating that the Proletariat state has agency! And the history of the communist movement has proven that, so how is it that the nature of the state itself has no agency besides the proletariat one? For this with get no explanation beyond Avakian's usual, because it has a different character. Yes the Proletarian state does have a different character, but that character is not defined by agency, the Bourgeois states have exercised agency. Would Avakian like to explain how Nazism and the Holocaust were products of the productive forces? How would Avakian explain the Soviet state degenerating into Capitalism if it was not for state agency itself. Avakian goes as far to claim that the 'Christian Fascists' are a product of a section of the ruling class itself. What simplifications and grotesque conspiracy theories, there is no organized group of the ruling class that is looking to toss out evolution for the sake of their own capitalist profit. Such a group of Evangelicals exist not because of the need for more expropriation, but perhaps they actually believe it! It is usual of people of Avakain not to actually engage in the reality that these groups of people might actually be Christian fundamentalists because of their own consciousness, rather there are underlying reasons why. Yes in quite the abstraction one can say Christian fundamentalism is a product of the bourgeois system, capitalism, its ideology is bourgeois; however these are again simplifications that lose the significance of these groups, that they are involved in the game to shape history and society. They are no mere lackeys of Capitalist, but capable people willing to make sacrifices for their own political ambitions. The state does have agency, if the state uses such agency in exercising it for more expropriation and becomes a pure actor of the Bourgeoisie, this happened not because certain economic factors determined it such, but in the class struggle (a real act of agency itself) this is what occurred. The state acts as the instrument of class rule not because it does so out of definition, it does so because the class has determined it as such. Avakian tries to find limits in the state, he tries to find something that limits dictatorship, such as laws; however one can only find how he is missing that the dictatorship is not bound to anything except its own consciousness in a determined material world.
The Bronx Bolsheviks
