The Alleged Collapse of Marxism and Socialism

The analysis of the world situation which follows is taken from `Interview with the Revolutionary Communist Party of Turkey (TDKP)' (Istanbul, 1993).

"There has been a despicable campaign going on for some time, centred on the claims that Marxism and socialism have collapsed; that capitalism is superior to socialism. This campaign, which has been launched by the world bourgeoisie and global reactionary forces with the full support of old and new revisionism, constitutes the most direct and undeterred attack on Marxism and socialism in the current period....

What phenomena and processes are cited as the basis for the failure and collapse of socialism, as well as for the supremacy of capitalism?

The phenomena and processes experienced in the Soviet Union as the country of the first successful proletarian revolution and in Eastern European countries where, after World War II, regimes of people's democracy were established and the construction of socialism was initiated". (p.1-2).

Spurious Socialism and Spurious Marxism-Leninism

"Countries such as Cuba, China, Angola and even Algeria... proclaim themselves to be socialist in spite of the fact that the proletariat in those countries had never become organised as the hegemonic class and captured power and that socialism construction had never taken off." (p. 2)

"The countries that until recently have proclaimed themselves as socialist... have undergone an all-round crisis in the 1980s.... Another fact which cannot be denied is the loss of support for most of those allegedly Communist or Marxist-Leninist parties.... These parties find themselves engulfed in a huge ideological and organisational crisis, some abolishing themselves and some trying to maintain their existence by changing their names and transforming themselves into typical social-democratic parties which openly reject Marxist-Leninist ideology that at one time they pretended to defend." (p. 3) 

"Countries such as Cuba and China... presented themselves as socialist, but never entered the path of socialist development." (p. 4)

"Let us concentrate on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.... Bourgeois-revisionist propaganda is based on the assumption that the class base and socialist features of those countries, as well as parties, remained intact and along the same lines until the 1980s...

This analysis and its assumptions do not reflect the substance of the process and phenomena involved". (p. 4)

The Process of Disintegration of Socialism

"The process leading to the destruction of socialism and the transformation of the communist parties in the former socialist countries (apart from Albania) into bourgeois-reformist parties... started right after World War II.... It may sound puzzling to argue that the above-mentioned process began just at a time when great victories were won.... This, however, is not a confusing and complicated argument. It is inspired by the Marxist thesis that has been vindicated by the history of all revolutions. The advance of revolutions is associated with an increasing possibility of counter-revolution"....

The process following, World War II was... a process where the advancement of the revolution was associated with the development of counter-revolution". (p. 6)

Albania

"Albania was the only country where the process of socialist construction was uninterrupted until the 1980s, despite tremendous difficulties and sacrifices....

This is one of the facts that must be established if we ever want to analyse correctly the phenomena and processes involved and derive truly scientific conclusions". (p. 5)

"During and after the 1950s,... true communists, under the leadership of the Party of Labour of Albania (PLA), led by Enver Hoxha, have continuously argued that socialist construction was interrupted in all countries except Albania.... Our Party too has defended this line since its establishment". (p. 8-9)

"The collapse of socialism in Albania (the only socialist country in the world since the 1960s) towards the end of the 1980s, was the last link in the defeat inflicted in the second half of the 1950s and constitutes the latest victory of the bourgeoisie and imperialism". (p. 9)

"Albania, as a small socialist country, skillfully exploited the opportunities provided by the conflict between the two imperialist blocs from the 1960s to the mid-1980s. It managed to maintain socialist construction in spite of its small size.

The agreement that was concluded in the mid-1980s between the Gorbachevite revisionist bourgeoisie and the western capitalist bourgeoisie was a straightforward conclusion against the proletariat, the peoples and socialism....

The new global conditions left Albania face to face with a unified imperialist blockade, siege, isolation and aggression....

But the PLA did not understand the global changes that had been going on for a long period of time... and the PLA leadership did not display the skills needed for a revolutionary outcome from these grave conditions.... On the contrary, they panicked. They tended to assume an opportunistic position which succumbed to imperialist pressure and threat, and to reactionary internal uprisings. Obviously, this orientation meant taking the road leading to the destruction of socialism.... Socialism and the dictatorship of the proletariat were liquidated". (p. 18-20)

The Role of US Imperialist Dominance

"One of the most significant results of World War II was the emergence of US imperialism as a superior power and the establishment of its hegemony.... Under these conditions, conflicts among imperialist powers did not disappear. Imperialist forces, however, became able to act under a single command with a common strategy and tactics....

Global imperialist and reactionary forces, having suffered heavy blows right after World War II, unified all their forces under the leadership of US imperialism... and developed a perspective of life-and-death struggle against the socialist camp and the revolutionary and socialist struggle".

The Development of Revisionism

"It was under these conditions that new opportunist tendencies began to show up in the ranks of the revolutionary working class movement and the Communist Parties, trends which later developed into modern revisionism.... They emerged as an international phenomenon". (p. 7)

The Role of the 20th Congress of the CPSU

"The 20th Congress of the CPSU in 1956 constitutes a turning point... for the whole of the international communist movement.... The process of the hegemony of modern revisionism, the clear division within the ranks of the international communist and labour movement and the restoration of capitalism in the socialist countries (with the exception of Albania) began in the second half of the 1950s and was completed in the 1960s....

During and after the 1950s, the modern revisionists, resorting to the pretext of new phenomena and developments, deviated from socialism and Marxism-Leninism".

The Form of the Process of Capitalist Restoration

"The liquidation of socialism was not the result of an open clash between the socialist and capitalist camps or a straightforward move by the overthrown classes.... The restoration of capitalism did not begin by the recapture of power by the old classes.... The economic basis of socialism had already been established and the exploiting classes eradicated  even though some residues survived  towards the end of the 1930s. Given this fact,... the reversal process had to rely on the overthrown, but not completely eradicated remnants of the exploiting classes. The fact that state ownership of the basic means of production, deformed planning procedures and socialist forms in the superstructure were maintained was an inevitable result of this type of reversal process....

This situation was one of the factors which determined the course of capitalist restoration in other socialist countries too. In fact, the modern revisionists who put the Soviet Union on the road to restoration were against the unfolding of the restoration process in other socialist countries under straightforward capitalist forms. They even entered into armed intervention, as was the case in Hungary and Czechoslovakia. They became the most powerful supporters and advocates of capitalist restoration under `socialist' forms". (p. 11-13)

"The restoration process in socialist countries (apart from Albania) led simultaneously and inevitably to the emergence of the Soviet Union as an imperialist superpower and the formation of a new imperialist bloc headed by it. The differences between this new superpower on the one hand and the imperialist bloc headed by US imperialism on the other were related not to substance but to form". (p. 13)

"It is a common assumption that central planning, state ownership of the fundamental means of production, etc., in what was the Soviet Union remained unchanged from the 1950s. It is also assumed that the transition to... a capitalist economy (described as a market economy) took place in the 1980s with the Gorbachev period. In fact, the rise to hegemony of the Khrushchevite modern revisionists in the USSR and other socialist countries was also the beginning of radical reforms in areas like central planning.... These reforms were later continued as the Liberman `reforms'.

Whilst, on the one hand, the sphere of central planning was reduced and the powers of managers with respect to exchange of products increased under catch-phrases like `autonomy' and `initiative', on the other hand production for the satisfaction of social needs and for the balanced of the economy was replaced by production for the market.

These few examples provide enough evidence that socialist forms were not replaced by openly capitalistic ones in an abrupt way....

Developments since the late 1980s in the USSR and other Eastern European countries are the final stages in the process of transition to classical capitalist formations.... That is why the developments in the USSR and the Eastern European countries in the 1980s came as no surprise to the truly Marxist-Leninist parties and forces". (p. 4-15)

The Collapse of Revisionism, not Socialism

"Russia..., its proletariat and its peoples realised an unprecedented development which was rapid and balanced and not based on the expLoitation of other countries. The gap between Russia and advanced capitalist countries was bridged at a rapid rate. It became an advanced industria] country with no unemployment, hunger or crises. Its people participated actively in political life, and their living and cultural standards improved.

After the second half of the 1950s, when socialist construction was interrupted and capitalist restoration began, the Soviet Union and the Eastern European countries entered a new period which was completely different in terms of its political, economic, cultural and social aspects. First the rate of growth of social production as a whole declined. The balanced and stable development of all economic sectors, and especially industry and agriculture, was replaced by an unbalanced and unstable process of development. This was followed by the typical features of capitalist economic development - stagnation, crisis, unemployment and militarisation of the economy. The results of deviating from Marxist-Leninist principles, from the road laid down by the Great October Revolution, from socialist construction, became obvious - crises, collapse, conflicts between nationalities, unemployment, impoverishment of the working people, ideological and moral decay, and the concentration of wealth in the hands of a small minority....

It was not socialism, not Marxism-Leninism, that failed and collapsed in the Soviet Union and the Eastern European countries.... The collapse and failure were those of a capitalism that corresponded to specific historical conditions". (p. 16-17)

The Prospects for Socialist Revolution

"The objective basis and causes of the October Revolution, and the other revolutions which followed, have not disappeared or become weaker. On the contrary, they have expanded and become strengthened. The material basis for socialism is now more mature than in 1917.... The centralisation of capital and the concentration of social production in the hands of the monopolies and an increasingly narrowing oligarchy at both national and international levels are much more pronounced when compared with the situation in the 1910s or 1950s.

On the other hand, global reactionary forces and imperialism are on the verge of exhausting all the advantages derived from liquidating socialism as a system.... Instead of enjoying a relative and temporary period of stability, the imperialist-capitalist system is going through an increasingly deepening crisis....

The rates of growth in world production and trade are continuously declining. The most powerful economy, that of the USA, is going through the most severe crisis in its history since World War II. As the second power, the Japanese economy is suffering from declining growth rates and indications of stagnation are increasing. It is no longer a secret that the third largest power, the German economy, is stagnating and the stagnation is set to continue. This is acknowledged even by the representatives of German imperialism. The situation in the economies of Russia and the Eastern European countries has deteriorated further with the process of transition to market economies. The crisis in these countries is deepening.... Now the former Yugoslav and Soviet republics are caught in civil and national wars. They are countries where people kill each other and thereby they are transformed into arenas where the new division of the world is being effected. Stability in the Middle East proved an elusive quest in spite of all the agreements reached and declarations made. Asia, Africa and Latin America are regions where civil wars are permanent.

The decline in the growth rates of the major imperialist-capitalist economies is accompanied by a rise in unemployment and inflation, a deterioration of the living and working conditions of the working class, a fall in real wages, and an increase in reactionary policies and militarism. These developments are observed not only in underdeveloped countries, but also in advanced capitalist countries which have been models of welfare-statism.... Strikes in those countries are becoming widespread, while xenophobic and neo-Nazi movements are on the increase.

It is clear that the world capitalist economy will not be able to achieve the growth rates of previous decades and that it is moving towards a general crisis engulfing all countries.

The inevitable result of the tendency of the world capitalist economy to enter a new stage in its general crisis is the intensification of inter-imperialist conflicts as well as conflicts between the imperialists and the oppressed peoples and between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat". (p. 25-28)

For the Present Socialism no longer exists

Although they proclaim themselves `socialist' and try to present the contradictions between themselves and great imperialist powers as contradictions `between socialism and capitalism', countries like Cuba, North Korea and China are not socialist. Socialism as a social system no longer exists in today's world. With the process sustained recently, socialism has collapsed in Albania too - the only socialist country since the 1960s". (p. 21)

A New `Broad' International

"It is not possible for the truly communist parties... and the old revisionist, bourgeois or petty-bourgeois `socialist' parties to come together to form a unified socialist movement at either the national or international level. That is because the ideological differences between the truly communist parties and the revisionist and petty bourgeois socialist currents are not artificial differences arising out of `historical sectarianism' or 'mistakes'. On the contrary, they are related to the substantive differences between proletarian socialism and bourgeois or petty-bourgeois `socialism'.... These contradictions and ideological differences cannot be accommodated within the political party of the proletariat.... These contradictions and differences are not declining or weakening; on the contrary, they are increasing and becoming more pronounced. Therefore, the period in front of us is going to be one of intense and comprehensive ideological struggle between these trends - not one of rapprochement and unification.

We know that, over the last year, there has been an international `revival' concerning these relations.... This `revival' went hand in hand with the emergence of a bipolar concentration at the international level. One of these groupings involves 'communist' or `popular' parties from Europe, Asia and Latin America and some old or new parties from the old `Eastern Bloc'; it is based on the thesis of defending `socialism' in China, North Korea and Cuba. They recently held a meeting and published a declaration. The second of these groupings is reflected in a meeting announced by parties that supported the old Soviet Union, but which disintegrated as a result of the Gorbachev period and reshaped themselves along Khrushchevite-Brezhnevite lines.

These two international socialist groupings... are in an ideological and political mess and lack any principle.... These international groupings have no future whatever....

It is impossible to argue for ideological rapprochement and unity between proletarian socialism and bourgeois and petty-bourgeois `socialism' without opening the door to opportunism and bourgeois liberalism and committing betrayal". (p. 61-66)

A New Communist International?

"There is general agreement that the proletariat is an international class, that its theoretical and practical movement is an international one, that proletarian revolution is international in character and that socialism is an international system.... The First and Second Internationals... were formed under and shaped by the conditions of their periods. The First International became outmoded and dysfunctional. Therefore, it was replaced by the Second International. The Second International... betrayed the proletariat. The Third International (Comintern) was born in the period following the First Imperialist War and the 1917 Proletarian October Revolution.... The transformation of the Communist Parties in the Soviet Union and Europe - with the exception of the Party of Labour of Albania - into bourgeois parties led to the disintegration of the international Communist movement. Most of the proletarian parties degenerated into tools of the bourgeoisie....

The Party of Labour of Albania, and other Marxist-Leninist Parties established in the 1960s and 1970s, did not surrender to revisionism and social-imperialism.... They kept proletarian internationalism alive and represented it.

For the last forty years, the international communist movement has had no international organisation implying... a centralised leadership of the international proletarian movement.... Sister parties are independent in their decisions and in running their own organisations....

Our Party considers this format of proletarian internationalism as compatible with current conditions, provided that it is developed, perfected and stabilised. Our Party does not, however, preclude the possibility that the world proletariat may need a democratically centralised international organisation (in the sense of a world party of the proletariat) when and as the current conditions change as a result of the proletarian movement being transformed into a socialist movement in one or several countries.... This international entity... will emerge when revolutionary communism has been integrated with the broad masses of the proletariat in one or several major countries and the authority of this international entity is consequently justified in the eyes of other sections of the world proletariat and oppressed people. (p. 71-74)