Just a couple of weeks ago, we saw the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall. This was part of a wave of revolutions across the continent of Europe, with strikes, demonstrations and social movements turning against State Capitalist regimes, and subsequently overthrowing them. This culminated in one of the most critical images of the 20th century, the tearing down of the Berlin Wall.
There are many lessons to be learnt from this event. One of the first has been the decline in all groups on the revolutionary left of politics in England except for the Socialist Workers Party. All other groups stressed, to varying degrees, how damaging the waves of revolutions were for the left, and how they would damage the working class. This was born out of their analysis, largely of the Soviet Union being either a Workers State, or a Degenerated Workers state. In both instances, this mistaken analysis led them to believe that the regimes in the Eastern Bloc were structurally more progressive and advantageous for Workers than the capitalist West. Given this analysis, it makes sense, that they would therefore defend the regimes ahead of the mass of workers who fought to overthrow them.
In the SWP, our analysis of Russia as a State Capitalist country, extorting a surplus value from the workers in the USSR, allowed us to celebrate the wave of Revolutions based on the understanding of socialism as “The self emancipation of the working class” as Marx defined it…..
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This is the first in a series of longer articles that will be posted to this blog by the resistance. If you would like to contribute, get in touch!
The Ashford Resistance 
December 1, 2009 at 3:20 pm
“There are many lessons to be learnt from this event. One of the first has been the decline in all groups on the revolutionary left of politics in England except for the Socialist Workers Party. All other groups stressed, to varying degrees, how damaging the waves of revolutions were for the left, and how they would damage the working class. This was born out of their analysis, largely of the Soviet Union being either a Workers State, or a Degenerated Workers state. In both instances, this mistaken analysis…”
There are a lot of massive discussions on blogs like Socialist Unity over the state capitalist question and I am not sure it is all that productive sometimes, but I think what you have written above is really coming from the wrong direction.
Yes the revolutionary left declined in the 90s, (including the SWP) but so did the entire workers movement. No organisation really tied to the labour movement could have avoided that fate. The SWP did fair better than most probably because it recruits mainly from student work where the decline of the labour movement was less keenly felt.
The workers movement has suffered so much precisely because the collapse of Stalinism WAS a big setback. These were not capitalist countries, they did not work on market economics. What they did represent that there was other ways to run society. This is not a defence in any way of the Stalinist leaders, but a recognition of the fact that things are much more complicated than you make out. Though not a fan of the term ‘degenerated workers state’ (its a pain in the arse to be honest) the conclusions that came from that analysis have stood the test of time, the state capitalism theory simply hasn’t.
On a different note, as I am in the South East as well, who makes up your group beyond the SWP? Are you planning for the elections yet? I am part of coalition look at standing in Sussex and would be interested to hear what is going on Kent-way.
December 1, 2009 at 8:24 pm
One of the first has been the decline in all groups on the revolutionary left of politics in England except for the Socialist Workers Party.
Hmmm…. this is disputable.
That aside, like the site keep up the good work!
December 4, 2009 at 5:13 pm
The above piece was not meant as an in depth study of the theory of state capitalism, it was meant to briefly learn the lessons of the protest movement that brought the eastern Bloc to it’s knees 20 years ago, and try and use it as an inspiration for activists up and down the country.
I’m sure you could appreciate, that it was meant as a polemic, not an academic piece of research. I agree, in many ways, debates around state capitalism can be detractive from what’s important, but I think understanding theory is of imperative importance. The demoralization of 90% of the left has undoubtedly made it a harder climate to build in, for all groups on the left. However, this shouldn’t be linked, to the idea that it was a change of system that occurred within the old Eastern Bloc.
The SWP continued to grow, albeit tentatively not because we’re all “middle class students” as I’ve heard many times, but because theoretically we could relate to the protest movement of the working class across Eastern Europe. I don’t wish to go into the theory of a ‘degenerated workers state’ or more laughably ‘deformed workers states’ over State capitalism, but I’m unsure how you can claim they have stood the test of time better?
The theory of a degenerated Workers state rests heavily along a number of points Trotsky made that don’t stand up. Firstly, was that a workers state could be measured by an eradication of private property. This is a massive shift from his earlier analysis (and that of all the Bolsheviks) that a workers state was measured by workers control of the means of production. If we to allow the revamped view of what a workers state is from Trotsky, then quite simply, the revolution should be viewed as 1929, not 1917. Secondly, it’s based on the idea, that the Stalinist bureaucracy was close to collapse, after the war. Thirdly, that capitalism was on the brink of collapse after WW2. Quite simply, both predictions were completely wrong, capitalism went into it’s biggest period of growth in it’s history, and Stalin’s position became massively stronger, after the War.
The idea, that soldiers from a foreign country, marching tanks in to declare a ‘revolution’ is in anyway anything to do with a ‘workers’ state, whether degenerated or deformed, is utterly ridiculous, but more importantly, against the traditions of both Lenin and Marx, and the ‘self emancipation of the working class’. The idea often put forward to defend a Degenerated Workers state, is this idea of a trade union. Not to many the obvious flaw, that a union isn’t monolithic or homogenous, and you can’t generalize, is that if we view it as a union, the realities of the day don’t stack up. If an employer attacked even the most bureaucratic and detached union, the workers would come rushing to their aid. In the case of the Eastern bloc (with the exception of Romania, where it wasn’t workers, but members of the police force) there was no major opposition to the fall of the Regimes.
The idea, that Trotsky outlined in the late 30’s, is a step in the right direction, but didn’t fully understand the class forces involved in Russia, and certainly didn’t ever take into account the imperialist invasion of country’s such as Poland, Germany etc etc. Had he seen this, I imagine he would have reversed such a position. To view these states, as somehow in advance of capitalist states in the west, in nonsensical, as they have either no support in the original ‘revolution’ (so none of the ‘self emancipation’ Marx spoke of) but also did nothing to defend their supposed ‘part workers state’ paradise. Likewise, how could a Russian worker, who produced 80% what his british counterpart did, but got paid 20% the wage, be considered to be living in a more advanced country/society to his needs?
The reality is, the wealthy in the Eastern bloc, have largely remained the wealthy today. There remains inequality. There remains very little control over the decision making for the overwhelming majority of people. When we see the atrocities, in China, Zimbabwe etc etc, we can see clearly the theory of State Capitalism fits very well. That you have a bureaucratic elite, who own the means of production.
I appreciate things are more complex than I made out, in the above article. But as I’ve said, the point isn’t to write an academic piece, but a piece that wasn’t over complicated, and keep it specifically to the revolutions that overthrow the ruling elites in those society’s in 1989.
We have some wide forces around us at present, but none of them are party tied. We have an ex member of Militant who supports us, but lots of young students, and Muslims are working with us. Ashford unfortunately is an area with little political tradition, and so, in terms of organized groups, but we’d happily work with any group on the left.
December 7, 2009 at 1:37 am
Thanks for the reply.
I completely understand what you wrote was not supposed to be a theoretical piece, and your reply really sums up why ‘degenerated workers states’ can be so unhelpful as a term. I don’t want to get into the depth about actual nature of the states (your points about how bad they were are true but don’t change the nature of the economy).
Lets instead look at the outcomes. The reality about the effects in the west just does not seem to match up to what you say.
To put it as briefly as I can,
The Stalinist systems were not capitalist, they did represent a different way of running an economy -planning, albeit a wasteful and bureaucratic one.
This is why the downfall has been a blow for the left, the idea that there was no alternative to the market got a lot stronger, socialist ideas, of all strains found it much harder going. If this was purely a shift from one capitalist regime to another why would this happen? Theoretically recognising these states were not capitalist allowed some sense to be made of this, and for the difficult period follow to be understood.
I think your analysis also does not stand up when we use the SWP itself as an example. The SWP clearly has gone back in terms of membership since the 80s. If it continued to grow during the 90s when did you fall to the current number? During the height anti-war movement in the early 00s? – clearly not you must have been growing again then. Yes the organisation has lost members around the Respect stuff and all that, but enough to make the difference between the SWP of the 80s and now? I don’t buy it.
Anywho, it sounds like Kent has huge government and council cuts on the horizon so all the best with your campaign.