Anti-imperialism, and the transition from early to late socialist revolutions

Anti-imperialism, and the transition from early to late socialist revolutions

By Dimitris Patelis. Collective for Revolutionary Unification / Greece

In: 5th issue of ‘Platform’ [October 2023], pp. 53-67.

Introduction

The Third World War (WWIII) is escalating. The Ukrainian front will not be the last. An outbreak of the major front in East Asia (on the Korean peninsula and Taiwan) is imminent, with several other potential ones in the boiling points of the global confrontation (Africa, Transcaucasia, Transnistria, the Middle East, etc.). The US-led imperialist camp is escalating the conflict, with blunt military interventions, coups, aggressive diplomacy of blackmail, etc., dragging its subordinates into deadly adventurism, opening more fronts than it can handle in its rapid decline and decay.

New forms of international cooperation, alternative to the imperialist ‘world order’, are declaring their presence (e.g., the expanding BRICS), while older ones are being reactivated with new, increasingly anti-imperialist character (e.g., legacies of the Non-Aligned Movement, such as the ‘Group of 77+China’, which today consists of 134 UN states).

WWIII constitutes an organic element of the modern stage of imperialism, the main characteristic of which is not only the international organic interconnection of productive processes and relations of production, but also the manifestation of the deeper contradictions of capitalism on a planetary scale. Thus, the basic contradiction – between capital and labour – manifests itself increasingly clearly in its interconnected aspects: between capitalist countries and countries of early socialism, and between imperialist countries-parasites and dependent, semi-independent, etc. countries subjected to overexploitation of the neo-colonial type.

The fact that the escalation of WWIII is bringing the above contradictions to the surface in a more acute form, revealing a historically unprecedented potential for imminent victorious revolutionary movements, constitutes historical law.

We are not concerned here with an academic approach in the spirit of abstract theorising, nor with the reduction of theory to vulgar superficial (dogmatic and revisionist) propaganda schemes to serve the opportunistic degeneration of the leaderships of bankrupt parties. Both above degenerative phenomena undermine the revolutionary movement.

Our approach focuses on revolutionary theory and methodology as a tool for investigating reality, a weapon for the foundation and militant empowerment of the victorious revolutionary movement, in order to achieve the goals of the rapidly developing World Anti-Imperialist Platform (WAP). The main interrelated goals of the WAP are: 1. The coordination and organization of the anti-imperialist struggle; 2. The ideological struggle against the undermining action of opportunism and revisionism; 3. The reconsolidation of consistently revolutionary and internationalist communist forces, without the leading role of which the victorious anti-imperialist struggle of the peoples is unattainable.

It is a fact that ‘Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement. This idea cannot be insisted upon too strongly at a time when the fashionable preaching of opportunism goes hand in hand with an infatuation for the narrowest forms of practical activity.’ (Lenin’s Collected Works, Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1961, Moscow, Volume 5, pp. 347-530.). Particularly in view of the needs of the coming wave of new victorious revolutions that the escalation of WWIII is bringing ever closer, the aims of the WAP can only be advanced upon the foundation of the theoretical and practical elevation of all components of the revolutionary subject, based on the creative development of the acquis of the revolutionary theory of Marxism-Leninism, in accordance with the needs of the present time and conjuncture.

The prospect of reviving the communist movement at the international and national level presupposes the creative development of new revolutionary theory at a level capable of supporting a revolutionary political programme (strategy and tactics) and connecting this theory with the new revolutionary movement. No tactical movement, no unifying action, no front can have any prospect without a theoretical diagnosis of the laws of society, without prediction of their outcome, without a scientifically substantiated strategy. If not, we will have a resurgence of the well-known degenerative phenomena at their worst: practicism and political pragmatism leading to organisational structures that instead of being able to predict future outcomes and prepare accordingly, are only capable of reacting to events as they unravel, which only causes further damage and disappointment.

In Lenin’s view, ‘It is precisely because Marxism is not a lifeless dogma, not a completed, ready-made, immutable doctrine, but a living guide to action, that it was bound to reflect the astonishingly abrupt change in the conditions of social life. That change was reflected in profound disintegration and disunity, in every manner of vacillation, in short, in a very serious internal crisis of Marxism. Resolute resistance to this disintegration, a resolute and persistent struggle to up hold the fundamentals of Marxism, was again placed on the order of the day. […] The repetition of ‘slogans’ learnt by rote but not understood and not thought out led to the widespread prevalence of empty phrase-mongering. The practical expression of this were such absolutely un-Marxist, petty-bourgeois trends.… Nothing is more important than to rally all Marxists…for defence of the theoretical basis of Marxism and its fundamental propositions, that are being distorted from diametrically opposite sides….’ (Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, [1974], Moscow, Volume 17, pages 39-44.)

In this text I will refer to some essential aspects of the historically specific organic interconnection between the two fundamental components of the revolutionary movement of our time: socialist revolutions and the anti-imperialist movement. This paradigm is based upon the foundation of the science, theory and methodology of the ‘Logic of History’ founded by the brilliant Soviet revolutionary philosopher Victor Alexeyevich Vaziulin.

A few introductory remarks on terminology and concepts

In order to prevent certain expected misunderstandings, I owe some initial clarifications. The philosophical category ‘early socialist revolutions’ has here nothing whatsoever to do with the opportunism-revisionism of G. Plekhanov, K. Kautsky, the Mensheviks and the Second International. All the apostates of the revolutionary communist movement rejected the Great October Socialist Revolution, Lenin and the Bolsheviks, striving to present them as ‘adventurists’ and irrelevant to the ‘orthodoxy’ of Marxism, of which they had proclaimed themselves the guardians. According to these apostates, the ‘orthodox’ Marxists should have been waiting patiently for the ‘maturation of conditions’ for socialism, the gradual evolution of capitalism and bourgeois democracy. According to their sermons, capitalism in its ‘natural evolution’ would bring progress, eliminating any pre-capitalist vestiges.

In contrast to these apostates, Lenin and the Bolsheviks took up their revolutionary tasks in a revolutionary way, based on the creative development of Marxism, the political economy of the monopoly stage of capitalism, of imperialism, the need for a conscious vanguard of the revolutionary party within the ‘weak link’ of imperialism, the interconnection of the perspective of the socialist revolution with the anti-imperialist struggle, with the right of the peoples to self-determination, etc. However, for these apostates, all the above was merely ‘evidence of adventurism’ that did not adhere to their own ‘orthodoxy’ to the letter. That is why, for example, Plekhanov and his ilk, both in 1905 and 1917, exclaimed: ‘we should not have taken up arms’! From that time on, all the apostates of the movement have had anti-Sovietism, i.e., anti-communism, in common. They renounce not only the October Revolution, but also every anti-imperialist and socialist revolution, every practical undertaking of the working class and peoples in history to take their fate into their own hands. They therefore regard ALL revolutions as a mistake, as a dissonance to their dogmas, as something ‘premature’, carried out before its time, before the automatic and spontaneous ‘maturation of conditions’ and therefore, as ‘a priori failed and doomed’!

The approach proposed here has nothing whatsoever to do with this opportunistic and revisionist rubbish. As we will show further on, early and late revolutions are legitimate and necessary stages in the unified global revolutionary process. The revolutionaries in tsarist Russia and its colonies, in Korea, China, Vietnam, Cuba, etc., the working class with its allies, had to seize power under severe conditions of destitution, during revolutionary situations. It was a profound social necessity to carry out victorious revolutions and launch socialist construction, despite extremely adverse conditions and precisely because of these conditions. Any claim to the contrary constitutes a renunciation of revolutionary theory and practice.

After all, every great historical transition, as the classics of Marxism-Leninism have shown, necessarily passes through early, unstable, etc. stages and phases until it is established and developed.

Each transition, e.g., from a certain formation to another, more progressive one, is characterized by successive victories and defeats until the final prevalence of the more progressive one. With the prevalence of, say, slave-owning relations and the manifestation of the contradictions of slave-owning society, the decadent slave-owning states were successively swept away by the invasions of more coherent communities of ‘barbarians’, associations of tribes in the stage of ‘war democracy’, until ultimately all of these societies transitioned into feudalism.

But in the transition from feudalism to capitalism, did bourgeois revolutions prevail immediately, once and for all? On the contrary: they suffered repeated defeats, there were many counterrevolutions and restorations of versions of feudal relations and absolute monarchy until capitalism was finally established. In this process, two periods can be clearly distinguished: the period of the early and the period of the late bourgeois revolutions. The distinction between early and late bourgeois revolutions, and their respective features (e.g., the religious character of the early bourgeois revolutions), has been established in historiography and in the works of Marx and Engels. The transition from one form of private property to the highest one (from feudalism to capitalism) in European countries required relentless struggles, successive revolts, wars, revolutions and counterrevolutions, until the capitalist (legal, political, etc.) superstructure was established in societies where capitalist relations began to take root centuries ago, within the bowels of feudalism. The transition to capitalism took more than 5 centuries to complete in the most advanced countries of Europe.

The historical process of the revolutions and counterrevolutions of the 20th century has shown that the transition of society not to a different exploitative formation, but to socialism-communism, to a radically different type of development (a prospect of unprecedented difficulty and complexity) cannot constitute an exception to this historical law.

On the necessity of differentiating between early and late socialist revolutions

1. A. Vaziulin, in discussions with his students, introduced the term ‘early socialism’ with the paradigm he developed in the late 1980s and early 1990s, specifying the positions of the Logic of History on the contradictory path to communism, as opposed to the dominant linear conceptions of history.

The underestimation of the global historical significance of the early socialist revolutions can only be overcome by emphasising their specific historical position and the role they occupy within the dynamics of the transitional period that gives rise to them, in its progression from phase to phase, within the dialectic of the global, regional and local, during the transition of humanity to communism, by revealing on this foundation the dialectical relationship between universal, particular and individual in their law governed manifestation, escalation and de-escalation, in the clash of revolutionary and counter-revolutionary tendencies. Therefore, it is necessary to further refine the scientific historical periodisation, through the distinction of two stages of the revolutionary process and the building of socialism on a global scale, as a necessary condition for the theoretical re-foundation of the communist perspective.

This perception is not a novel idea that comes to be added to the plethora of the left’s sloppy verbalizations and doctrines, in order to claim ‘vital space’ in terms of petty partisan confrontation. It demonstrates theoretically and methodologically the ways and means of a positive resolution – first in the field of revolutionary theory and methodology – of that framework of problems that are of existential importance for the revolutionary movement, the problems-challenges mentioned above.

The term ‘early socialism’ is now quite prevalent. However, in most cases, this term has been adopted without reference to the source and out of the theoretical and methodological context from which it emerged. The major problem lies in the fact that this term, even if used in good faith, is difficult to understand at the conceptual-categorical level[1]. The term ‘late socialism’ is rather completely ignored.[2] The adoption of this theoretical and methodological approach by an increasing number of (mainly young) thinkers from various traditions and components of the left is now a fact[3]. However, there is also a difficulty in grasping these concepts, which is not only due to the perceptions of those who (on hearing the term alone) recall associations from the field of early horticulture…, but also to the stereotypical reinforcement of pseudo-interpretative figures.

For the historically and dialectically educated mind, it is clear that any complex historical process needs to go through early, weak and vulnerable versions and phases, until it consolidates and matures in its later forms[4]. The global revolutionary process and socialist construction, the most complex project of social transformation, cannot be a historical exception to this law governed dialectic.

Besides, the distinction between early and late phases, stages, forms and so on, has become established in the periodization not only of revolutions that mark a global-historical transition of society, but also of longer-term phenomena on a larger scale in history and in the social sciences (e.g., early and late Bronze Age, early and late Renaissance, early and late capitalism, industrial revolution, early and late Enlightenment, early and late scientific revolution, early and late information revolution, early and late Calvinism, early and late Protestantism, etc.).

And yet, there are people on the left who reject this paradigm at the mere mention of associated terminology. Some even hasten to classify it as ‘apologetic of those notorious regimes’ [of actually existing socialism], which were not overthrown by counterrevolutions and capitalist restorations (since ‘they were not revolutionary’) but because they were ‘unnatural’ and ‘vicious’, they collapsed, suffered ‘natural implosion’ because ‘that’s what they deserved’! In this spirit, many eulogists of former existing socialist countries, after the counter-revolution in the USSR, etc., were quick to describe it as ‘non-existent by definition’! For the bourgeois and opportunist-revisionists, these ‘regimes’, in the spirit of the vile ideologies of ‘totalitarianism’ (which strive to equate communism with fascism/nazism) ‘are notorious because they fell, and they fell because they were notorious! In this palindrome sentence, where subject and predicate noun are interchanged casually in a vicious circle, the ‘logic’ of their theoretical magnificence is ultimately condensed…

This raises the question: since when in science (and in Marxism as a science) is it apologetic to expect the discernment of the historically specific character of a highly complex historical process in its primary, early, and late forms?

Behind this dismissive attitude lies a latent semi-religious perception and psychological disposition, an outgrowth of the petty bourgeois ‘methodology’ of proudhonic origins: the one that sees in capitalism ‘good’ and ‘bad’ aspects. Therefore, for them ‘socialism’ is nothing but a rejection of the ‘bad’ and acceptance of the ‘good’ aspects of capitalism. It is therefore reduced to the childish position ‘in favour of all good and against all bad’, according to which the reference system of abstract ‘anti-capitalism’ is ultimately an idealised version of capitalism, free of the evils that cause insecurity to the petit bourgeoisie, i.e., a capitalism with a positive sign! The proponents of this conception imagine socialism as an absolutely perfect, heavenly state, the main characteristic of which is the total absence of stages and contradictions, and therefore the total absence of movement (hence the practical impossibility of distinguishing socialism from communism). According to this conception, socialism-communism as it is understood, will either emerge immediately, pure, and untainted, without real contradictions the day after the revolution, or it will be ‘notorious’ and rejected from the very beginning! The apex of revolutionary dialectics!

However, the actual revolutionary process in history is infinitely more complex than the linearity of any metaphysical fantasy and therefore requires specific historical investigation and theoretical reflection. The first stage of this process consists of waves of ‘early socialist revolutions’ in countries with an insufficiently socialised level of development of production, in countries with an average or near-average level of development. The early socialist revolutions arise according to law-governed historical process in the ‘weak links’ of the system, where their objective conditions, including the revolutionary situation, appear.

‘Early socialism’ arises from the victorious early socialist revolutions. There are two fundamental characteristics of early socialism: a) it emerges and develops on a material and technical basis which is not at all corresponding to socialism, in conditions of insufficiently socialised character of labour (victorious early revolutions in countries with a low level of development of productive forces, uneven development of the means of production, uneven development and low level of integration between socialist countries, strong presence of manual executive labour, etc. and so on) and b) arises in the context of superiority of the capitalist world in the balance of power (victorious early socialist revolutions breaking out first in one and later in a few countries, capitalist encirclement by more powerful enemies, aggression and subversion by the imperialists, and so on).

With the emergence and development of the socialist countries, the world dynamic is characterised by an unprecedented bipolarity. The contradiction of labour and capital takes the form of a conflict between two camps: capitalism and early socialism.

It is precisely this new form-manifestation of the fundamental contradiction that is linked to the upgrade of the global-historical role of the anti-imperialist, anti-colonialist, anti-neo-colonialist, national liberation struggle of the peoples.

On the subject of early revolutions

The above processes do not constitute ‘processes without a subject’ (according to revisionists like those of the bankrupt second international, Louis Althusser and their successors) nor do they transcend politics. Given a largely ahistorical and undifferentiated perception of the working class, versions of which (from economistic to metaphysical-Messianic) prevail on the left, it is appropriate to address briefly the predominantly objectively and historically formed character of the subject of the early and late socialist revolutions.

The subject of the early socialist revolutions is the traditional proletariat, the industrial working class, which is predominantly involved in repetitive, manual, executive, strenuous, one-sided and often unhealthy labour processes, which are presented as a means towards the (primarily quantitative) satisfaction of fixed needs. Human activity here becomes an appendage to the current technical and social conditions, subjected to their rigidity and reduced to non-creative functions. The character of the labour of this working class is linked to the transition from the formal to the actual subordination of labour to capital, resulting from the mechanisation of production, the result of which is turning the division of labour into a technical necessity dictated by the material conditions of production. With the historical necessity of transformation of this traditional working class from a class ‘in itself’ (an objectively defined category, without awareness and consciousness of its position and role in society) to a class ‘for itself’ (composed of people with a class consciousness of the position and role of their class in society and of their historical mission in the struggle against capitalism and towards socialism), is largely linked to the development of the theoretical acquis of classical Marxism, the ideological reception and use of this acquis and the corresponding political-organizational forms (e.g. the Leninist ‘new type’ party at the beginning of the 20th century).

As a result of the action of this subject and their allies, the early victorious socialist revolutions appear, ‘early socialism’ emerges, the fundamental features and the laws of which were primarily revealed by the historical experience of the USSR.

The importance of the October Revolution for the emergence of the fundamental contradiction of socialism

As I mentioned above, some people interpret the character of the October Revolution and of all early socialist revolutions as ‘early’ in the current sense: As something untimely, that arose early, before its time, that supposedly took place out of time and place, as a ‘coup of Lenin and the Bolsheviks that forced the circumstances’… Some even react at the level of conditioned reflexes to the very use of the terms ‘early socialist revolution’ and ‘early socialism’ as only pertaining to the position of the Mensheviks[5].

Too often, the importance of a scientific discernment of the level of maturity of the social character of production is not understood. It is also not understood that the level of their maturity is assessed in the dialectical scientific approach on two levels of terms, with two different criteria of assessment:

1. of the necessary and sufficient conditions for the outbreak of the revolutionary situation, for the victory of the socialist revolution and the initial negation of capitalism, to the extent that socialism will develop on a foundation inherited from capitalism and the pre-capitalist remnants; and
2. of the necessary and sufficient conditions for the positive promotion of the socialist revolutionary transformations, for the development of socialism towards communism, for the launch of the fundamentally novel type of social development on a foundation corresponding to that of a mature unified humanity.

However, the early socialist revolutions are not made-to-order or at the behest of deontological exhortations. They arise according to dialectical law, where their objective conditions, and above all, the revolutionary situation, appear. The Bolsheviks as revolutionaries had no other option, as long as the revolutionary situation had broken out. The glory of the first victorious revolution historically vindicated them, as it did all the communists who led the great early socialist revolutions of the 20th century. Any failure by them to take power would be disastrous for the people and the country, with dire international consequences (in case of immediate crushing of the revolution by the international forces of imperialist invasion and the local reactionary bourgeois and landowner militias, etc.).

Thus, the inherited low level of development of the productive forces (with the strong presence of the pre-capitalist origins of manual-executive labour), by default gives the relations of production imposed by the socialist revolution primarily the character of formal socialisation (through nationalisation). Due to the fact that the victorious early socialist revolutions break out first in one and later in a handful of countries, which are under capitalist encirclement by superior enemies, they are subjected to foreign interventions, and wars.

Bringing to light of the historical specificity of the objective and subjective conditions of the October Revolution and of all early socialist revolutions in a systematic way, requires specific research.

Revolutionary thinking has to emphasise the historical dynamics of the interaction between the extensive and intensive development of capitalism and early socialism, in relation to the escalation and de-escalation of the polarisation of the two global socio-economic systems in the light of the correlation between global revolution and counter-revolution. It may be that the war-related planned mobilization and the hasty acceleration of events exacerbated the fundamental contradiction of socialist construction, imposing forms of formal socialisation instead of actual socialisation, extensive development instead of intensive, and so on, manifested in post-war bureaucratization. However, historical necessity was inexorable. Could the USSR have survived and won without the unprecedented pace of industrialisation it achieved, without the unimaginable feat of transferring all industrial production east of the Urals? Could the USSR have survived and won under conditions of total war, without the mass self-denial of its peoples, who believed in the victory of socialism and threw themselves into a life-and-death struggle with the technologically and economically superior (in the early years of the war) war machine of the reich?

The post-war reconstruction from the ruins of a literally flattened country and its transformation into the world’s second industrial and military superpower, with the simultaneous advent of the Cold War, is a monumental achievement. In this context came the formation – largely in terms of geostrategic correlations and the presence of the Red Army, especially in the early socialist countries of Eastern Europe – of the socialist camp and the rise of the struggle of the peoples against colonial and neo-colonial dependency. With the anti-fascist victory, the early global socialist system emerges, and some anti-colonial and national liberation movements supported and guided in various ways by it. The limit of extensive development of global capitalism diminishes substantially. The pure and unquestioned global domination of the pole of the capitalist powers over the dependent world is dynamically intercepted by the alternative historical perspective, which is no longer an abstract possibility, but is being pursued as active reality. There are now three worlds: the ‘First’, the ‘Second’ and the ‘Third’. The course of the countries of the latter is at stake, a matter of major historical significance.

The breadth and depth of the socio-economic and political independence achieved by these countries emerged as a function of the class character of the socio-political and ideological fronts that led these anti-colonial anti-imperialist movements, of the balance of power at the national, regional and international level and of the effectiveness of internationalist assistance from the camp of the early socialist countries. Hence the range of diverse socio-economic changes and reforms historically observed in them in the decades after WWII.

Complex systems of interactions arise within each of them and between them. This is not a mechanical, quantitative, extensive-geographical contraction of the otherwise unchanging capitalist system. It is a change that brings with it qualitative and substantial changes to both poles of this new expression of the capital-labour antithesis, to both interacting and antagonistic camps, and to the contested space in between. It is a change in the field of extensive development that inevitably leads to intensive restructuring of the mechanism of exploitation on a national and international scale (‘Cold War’, transition from colonialism to neo-colonial forms of economic exploitation, state-monopoly regulation, ‘welfare state’, and so on).

This was followed by the Cold War, a plethora of localized conflicts (both overt and covert); to deal with which the economy becomes largely militarized, geopolitical tactics are also practiced for the urgent seizure and defense of the maximum ‘living space’ for socialism, and so on. The resources that the USSR allocated for the armaments that ensured the ‘balance of terror’ are unimaginable.

The fronts of declared and undeclared wars in which the USSR was involved were also numerous, as were its contributions (ideological, political, military, technological, financial, etc.) to anti-imperialist and revolutionary movements of many countries.

Unfortunately, the uneven development of the productive forces also leads to a low level of integration between the countries of early socialism, to tensions, even with elements of nationalism and geopolitics of the past, sometimes even to armed conflicts between them (see e.g., the Yugoslavia-USSR split, the isolationism of Albania, the 1969 Sino-Soviet conflict on the Damansky Island of the Ussuri River, the Sino-Vietnamese war of 1979 and 1988, and so on).

Systematically investigating the development of the relationship between the productive forces and the relations of production of early socialism in the USSR requires separate mention.

The successes of Soviet science in the late 1950s, following the spectacular Soviet breakthrough in space, forced the U.S. to revise its policy toward science, so that, to the extent possible, investment in science would be increased, regardless of the immediate expected profit (President’s Science Advisory Committee, 1960, p.225)

Extensive and intensive development. A fundamental contradiction of socialism

Το the extent that the social character of production is not yet fully developed, not yet mature, we can observe a discrepancy with public ownership and consequently (to the extent that this discrepancy exists) public ownership is still formal (legal, etc.), exercised through the socialist state. The transition from formal to substantial-actual socialisation is a process which (despite widespread views to the contrary) cannot be relegated to ‘democratic’, ‘participatory’ etc. processes of the superstructure (despite the enormous and relatively distinct importance of the latter). It is primarily a question of the technological and organisational character of the productive-labour processes and the corresponding properties of their subject (including the political-conscious ones).

This question is organically linked to the transition of socialist construction from extensive to intensive development.

Every complex development process unfolds in history according to the emergence, formation, development and dialectical sublation of specific conditions and limits, which are essentially determined by the correlation between extensive and intensive development of production.

Given the industrial conditions of production, extensive development is based on the expansion and repetition of identical technologies of production, division, organisation and character of labour. Intensive development requires an intensification of knowledge and technology, a qualitative and essential change in the technologies of production, and hence in the division, organisation and character of labour. These are fundamental concepts, without an understanding of which it is impossible to understand the historical process itself. Marx, in his study of expanded reproduction, is the first to introduce this conceptual dipole by referring to capitalist reproduction: ‘…Thus reproduction takes place in larger or smaller periods of time, and this is, from the standpoint of society, reproduction on an enlarged scale — extensive if the means of production is extended; intensive if the means of production is made more effective.’ (Marx, Capital Volume II

Chapter 8: Fixed Capital and Circulating Capital, II. Components, Replacements, Repairs and Accumulation of Fixed Capital). A systematic generalisation and concretisation of the dialectical interrelation of this dipole of concepts when examining the structure and history of the development of society (at the level of philosophy of history, social theory, and methodology) is developed in the Logic of History (Vaziulin 2013). The correlation of extensive and intensive development during socialist construction requires specific research.

A critical turning point in the history of the USSR is marked by the manifestation and depletion of the type of structure and development of the USSR that prevailed in the post-war period, along with the inability to make a large-scale transition from extensive to intensive development (especially in the late 1950s-1960s, early 1960s-1970s).

When the need for a transition from the extensive to the intensive type of development came to the foreground in the USSR (late 1950s-1960s, early 1960s-1970s), the new subject that would have been able to promote this transition by driving the basic contradiction of socialism to a higher level was statistically, socially and politically negligible (fragments of it had made their presence felt in the branches of science, aerospace engineering and the war industry).

Since then, the loss of revolutionary momentum becomes more and more evident, along with the inability to point out the necessary and sufficient conditions for the positive identification, concretisation, discernment and achievement of the strategic purpose in new conditions. Evidence of the latter is the inability to constitute the driving social forces and subject for the next steps of development of society towards communism. In this phase, the Soviet system – from its internal contradictions – gives rise to the need for self-criticism, the need for a radical reflection and re-foundation of the historical form of Marxism (classical and epigonic). Unprecedented contradictions, problems and impasses were coming to the foreground, for which the theory and methodology of the time were not sufficient. The hastening of imposing socialist relations was followed by ‘corrective’ moves of introducing value indicators into the planning and broadening of the field of commodity and monetary relations. Based on the latter, along with the inability of the planned economy to meet the increasing consumption needs, the ‘shadow’ economy, the underground economy, appears and develops. The ‘business circles’ of the latter, in conjunction with the most corrupt part of the bureaucracy, form the socio-political basis of the bourgeois counter-revolution (the ‘perestroika’ and so on).

We observe therefore that, based on the criteria mentioned above, the degree of maturation of the social character of production which is necessary and sufficient to break the weak link, for the overthrow, for the negation of capitalism, is not sufficient for the positive construction of socialism, for the formation and development of communism. In the second case, the criteria for assessing the degree of maturity of the social character of production (and of the other aspects of the societal whole) are no longer the criteria of capitalism, but the criteria of communism as a process. There is therefore a developing process of correspondence-discrepancy of the social character of production with the socialist relations of production.

Thus, the basic contradiction of early socialism (but also of all socialism, of socialist construction in general, as the process of the formation of communism) is the contradiction between social ownership (initially formal socialisation, nationalisation) of the means of production and insufficient development, ‘immaturity’ of the social character of production, or in other words, the contradiction between formal and actual socialization[6].  Based on the experience of the USSR, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the People’s Republic of China, and the other countries that emerged from the early socialist revolutions of the 20th century, this contradiction, in conjunction with which the other contradictions of socialism (between manual and intellectual labour, executive and administrative functions, city and countryside, and so on) is of universal validity, it is law-governed.

Historical experience has shown that early socialism (and all socialism) will either resolve, promote this basic contradiction (and its derivatives) by moving towards communism, or it will regress during its resolution, backtrack, which will result in the undermining of the gains of the revolution, the gradual strengthening of counter-revolutionary and restorationist tendencies, with their eventual predominance being very likely.

At the stage of immaturity, that is, the process of formation, maturation of the social character of production of humanity, both socialist and capitalist relations of production can exist. This stage constitutes the objective logistical basis of the possibility and necessity of early socialist revolutions, of various intermediate tendencies and versions of the coexistence of the two social systems, but also of the tendencies that usher in restorative counter-revolutionary undertakings, which accompany early socialist revolutions in a law-governed fashion.

A modern scientific periodisation and the identification of the new stage of capitalism is unfeasible without including in it its position and role, its whole interaction with the rise and fall of the USSR and of early 20th century socialism as a whole, and with the emergence of the preconditions of late socialism. The historical conditions created by the emergence and whatever formation these societies, as components of the world revolutionary movement, were able to have, in conditions of relentless competition with the dominant global capitalist system, were able to receive and leave an indelible mark of this competition, which essentially undermined and threatened the very existence of capitalism. Without this type of interaction with the developmental process and destruction of early twentieth century socialism (in the USSR and in the European countries of early socialism), it is impossible to understand the texture and character of many phenomena, such as, for example, the Western European imperialist integration, first of the European Economic Community (EEC) and later of the EU.

Besides, it is impossible to understand what ‘social policy’ and ‘welfare state’, the guarantee of labour rights, state interventionism and regulation (in both its forms: Keynesian and overtly militarised fascist-style) mean outside of this interaction. This is particularly evident in the all-out assault on the above social and economic gains of labour (after the defeat of early socialism by the forces of counter-revolution), which in conditions of crisis takes on the characteristics of a predatory revanchist social war.

Nowadays, imperialism, despite the galloping fascism in the countries within its territory, has no need to establish outright fascist regimes in imperialist frontline countries (as in interwar Germany). There, through buyouts, corruption, fraud, manipulation and undermining of the workers’ movement through its opportunist agents, but mainly through privatisation and consumerism (which it achieves by exploiting the resources from the siphoning off of monopoly super-profits from around the world), the bourgeois regime is not in danger.

The present versions of the revival and instrumentalisation of fascism-nazism as a striking force of the aggressor imperialist axis under the US for the conduct of proxy wars (with typical cases of the Nazi regime in Ukraine, the occupation regime in South Korea, etc.) prove the extreme anti-communism of this axis and the need to crush it.

The objective contradictions of early socialism (linked to its fundamental contradiction) manifested themselves in acute and chronic form. An indispensable condition for the survival of early socialism through the practical resolution of these contradictions, in order to promote the transformations towards communism, was and is the foundation of the prospects of society on a serious and systematic development of theory capable of investigating them.

It became obvious, that the complexity of these problems occupied Stalin’s thoughts when, before his death, as a legacy to future generations, he stressed the vital importance of theory for the salvation and development of socialism. In early March 1953, Stalin telephoned the newly elected member of the Presidium of the Central Committee, D. I. Chesnokov, and told him: ‘… You must in the near future deal with the matters of further development of theory. It is possible that we may mess something up in the economy, but in one way or another we will correct the situation. If we have confusion regarding theory, we will kill the whole affair. Without theory, we are dead, death!’ These were Stalin’s last words in his life (quoted from: Жданов Ю. 2012).

The development of theory as a condition for the survival of socialism, is connected with the law of the expanding role of the subjective factor in the development of society, which is radically upgraded in the preparation of the revolution and in the development of socialist construction on the path towards communism.

However, the then leadership of the USSR was not in a position to produce the necessary theoretical research or even to realise its necessity. The defeat was mainly due to the fact that at the crucial turning point in the history of early socialism in the USSR, there were neither subjective nor objective capabilities for the resolution of these contradictions.

On the late socialist revolutions and their subject

The completion of the first stage of the world revolutionary process leads to the transition to the era of the mature and ‘late socialist revolutions’, with which capitalism will be definitively and irrevocably eliminated from the arena of history. Only the development of the international revolutionary movement and socialism on a scale and in a way that will eliminate the capabilities for parasitism of the imperialist developed capitalist countries (hence the capabilities for the takeover & manipulation of all components of their working class, traditional and new), will lead to the revolutionisation of the subject of the late socialist revolutions and the outbreak of socialist revolutions in the developed capitalist countries, will shift the center of gravity of the struggle to the heart of capitalism.

Correspondingly, two are the key features that mark the beginning of the stage and era of late socialism:

1. the beginning of the development of socialism on a material-technical basis, which is now in all respects corresponding to socialism in the direction towards communism (on the basis of large-scale global automation of production within a single matrix of scientific planning, in a gradual transition to the biologisation of production, with capabilities of a large-scale exit of unified humanity into space); and
2. the forces of socialism are now beginning to prevail over the forces of the world of defeated capital on a global-historical scale.

The subject of the forthcoming late socialist revolutions is another type of worker, formed and developed in labour processes, characterized by renewal, development, creativity, the cultivation of creative abilities, global-universal appeal, and the need for labour (not labour as a means and product of coercion, through hunger or repression). It is the subject of the activities associated with automation, which cease to constitute work in the traditional sense of the term. A foretaste of the developed form of these activities is provided by the most creative moments of scientific and artistic research, what Marx called ‘universal labour’.

This subject is produced and reproduced today by the global capitalist system unevenly, as a class ‘in itself’, in objective terms, which reproduce the phenomena associated with the ‘working-class aristocracy’. The subject of this labour is not directly subject to the rigidity of known and prevalent material conditions. It becomes the operator and creator of a universal range of developmental and developing material and ideal means and modes of human intervention on the environment, which at the same time constitute means and modes of relations, interaction, and communication between people. It is precisely these characteristics that can distinguish that subject which, developing qualitatively and quantitatively, transformed into a class ‘for itself’, will lead the late socialist revolutions, rallying all the forces and types of wage-labour.

Moreover, during socialist construction, as the main subject and result of the gradual sublation of the antithesis between manual and intellectual labour, and as the carrier of the whole, with oversight of the deeper needs and perspectives of humanity, it will gradually remove the contradictions that give rise to and reproduce bureaucratic phenomena and will consciously complete the fundamental contradiction of socialism. An event which will at the same time constitute the abolition of the antithesis of productive forces and relations of production. This will also mean the abolition of the very contradiction between humanity’s productive intervention on nature (productive forces) and relations of production, where productive forces will be transformed into relations of production and the opposite, where labour-production itself will be transformed into something else: a field for the universal cultivation of the creative capacities of every personality and collective.

People cannot place themselves at the helm of the objective conditions of their existence without being able to intentionally create and alter them. This is the fundamental aspect of the beginning of the domination of living labour over dead labour.

A law governed and indispensable condition of humanity’s march towards communism is the conscious involvement of the subject in the advancement of revolutionary transformations, to a degree directly proportional to the breadth and depth of these transformations. Hence the vital importance of the fundamental development of revolutionary theory and methodology, through the dialectical development of the acquis of classical Marxism-Leninism, in order for this subject to be consolidated as a ‘class for itself’.

However, this subject must first of all exist as a bearer of the corresponding qualities in terms of cognition and consciousness, which are primarily due to the character of their leading labour activity in society and to the broader cultural education-cultivation associated with it.

A few conclusions

The bourgeoisie and the opportunists proclaim that socialism and anti-imperialism are meaningless, that they no longer exist, that they are irretrievably lost. They base their propaganda mainly on the defeat of early socialism in the USSR and Eastern Europe. However, reality itself and scientific research completely and utterly disprove them, giving weapons and hope to the struggling peoples.

The scientific distinction between the early and late revolutions allows us to prove that the revolutionary process is neither local nor linear. On the contrary, it is extremely complex, contradictory, and global. The defeat of one or more early socialist revolutions does not constitute proof of the non-existence or eternal impossibility of socialism on the planet.

There is a widespread perception according to which any victories or defeats of socialist revolutions are attributed collectively and exclusively to the subjective factor, to the will of certain party leaders, to their betrayal, to the existence or absence of a ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ line, to the ‘violation of certain rules and values’, to opportunism and revisionism that emerged -unknown how- at some point in time, etc. Unfortunately, many communists adopt and propagate the above stereotypes not only as explanatory principles, but also as basic criteria of ‘communist consistency’! Without underestimating the above phenomena and tendencies, based on Marxist science, the complete attribution of an issue of utmost importance for humanity and for the movement, that of the victory and defeat of socialism, to the subjective factor, to the will of some people, has nothing whatsoever to do with Marxism-Leninism.

On the contrary, it paves the way for the abandonment of dialectical science, for the drift into the metaphysics of subjective idealism and the mysticism of the bourgeoisie. A typical case of the interpretation of the causes of the counter-revolution in the USSR, etc. on a subjective idealistic basis, are the writings of the organs of the leadership of the present KKE. Thus, as the sole self-appointed guardians of ‘orthodoxy’, they present as the cause of the defeat some decisions taken following the ‘wrong line’, the existence of commodity and monetary relations, etc.  For them, even WWII is now collectively described as ‘imperialist’ from beginning to end… They deny the existence of socialist countries on the planet in the present day. They label the PRC as imperialist. Moreover, they label the DPRK as do the imperialists (North Korea) and present it not only as not socialist, but also as a puppet of (Russian, Chinese, etc.) imperialism, while ‘interpreting’ the very regime of US occupation of South Korea and the possibility of war on the Korean peninsula, simply as ‘intense geopolitical antagonism on the Korean peninsula and in Asia-Pacific’ in the context of the ‘inter-imperialist conflict’… (see e.g., Rizospastis, 14, 16-17.9.2023).

The very existence today and the impressive development of the countries that emerged from the early socialist revolutions of the 20th century (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, People’s Republic of China, Socialist Republic of Vietnam, Republic of Cuba, and Lao People’s Democratic Republic) and is an extremely important condition for the survival of humanity and for the consolidation under their leadership of the anti-imperialist pole in the ongoing WWIII. The same applies to the de facto allies in the front that emerged from anti-imperialist uprisings and revolutions.

The unprecedented development and the unique in scale and depth achievements of the distinctive early socialism of the PRC play a crucial role. Xi Jinping is the first and only leader of an early socialist country who has explicitly stated the transition from extensive to intensive development as the strategic goal of scientifically planned development.

Without the theoretical and methodological intensification of investigating the law governed character of the emergence of early and late socialist revolutions proposed here – without the clarification of the contradictions, on the resolution of which alone, the viability, development or death of socialism depends – it is impossible to explain the events that happened and the ones that are about to take place in history. It is impossible to understand in depth the position and role of early socialism and anti-imperialism; it is impossible to reconstruct a victorious revolutionary movement with any perspective.

During the escalation of the WWIII, an increasingly clear global front of anti-imperialist forces emerges, with the countries of early socialism and the consistent forces of the workers’ and communist movement playing a leading and rallying role. With this war, we see the emergence to the historical stage, of unprecedented tendencies towards restrictions in the range of predatory parasitism of the imperialist countries at the expense of the colonies and their conquests, the semi-colonies, the dependent, semi-independent, and formally independent countries.

The creation of alternative international frameworks of more equal forms of cooperation that bypass and nullify the mechanisms of neo-colonial exploitation (e.g., the displacement of the US dollar and the euro from their position and role as global exchange and reserve currencies) clearly confirms the position and role of anti-imperialism as an organic component of the global revolutionary movement.

It is precisely the limitation and ultimately the prevention of the parasitic possibilities of the financial oligarchy, of the imperialist countries, at the expense of the working class and the rest of the peoples of the planet, that accelerates the defeat of the imperialist pole in the Third World War and in the historical arena as a whole.

Moreover, all early socialist revolutions are historically linked to anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggles, to national liberation movements, to struggles for democratisation and popular sovereignty. Apparently, this law governed tendency will be further escalated in the forthcoming revolutionary wave.

The above proves the upgraded contribution of the strong unity of the anti-imperialist and socialist-communist forces in the struggle for the defeat of US-led imperialism, and thus, in the law governed process leading to the maturation of the conditions for the completion of the early and the transition to the late socialist revolutions.

The rejection of socialism and anti-imperialism – as defining components of the movement of the time – is commonplace for the opportunists and revisionists of the time. Leading this destructive role for the movement is that tendency of the most dangerous opportunism of today (led by the current leadership of the KKE), ideologically invested with the revisionist irrational dogma of the ‘imperialist pyramid’. A tendency which, as the confrontation escalates, overtly develops its disruptive and divisive role in Greece and in the international labour and communist movement. This is why an open and militant front of all revolutionary anti-imperialist and communist forces is needed against any subversive ideological constructions and practices, to expose their counter-revolutionary character and the services that opportunists provide to imperialism.

For these reasons, we must consolidate, strengthen, and further develop the action of the WAP, with the militant rallying of all anti-imperialist forces in a united front of victory, with the early socialist countries and the communists having a leading role, at national, regional and world level. This role cannot be imposed, but only seized every day, to the extent that these forces emerge as the vanguard, through their effective, exemplary, and selfless conscious action in the frontal struggle.

Bibliography

President’s Science Advisory Committee (1960). Scientific Progress, the Universities, and the Federal Government. Washington, DC.

Rubenstein, A. H., & Haverstrob, C. J., (Eds.) (1966). Some Theories of Organization (Revised edition). Homewood, Illinois: Richard D. Irwin, Inc.

Βαζιούλιν, Β. Α. (2013). Η λογική της ιστορίας. Ζητήματα θεωρίας και Αθήνα μεθοδολογίας. Αθήνα: ΚΨΜ.

ΔΙΑΚΗΡΥΞΗ ΤΗΣ ΚΕ ΤΟΥ ΚΚΕ Για τα 100χρονα της Μεγάλης Οχτωβριανής Σοσιαλιστικής Επανάστασης.

Λένιν, Β. Ι. Άπαντα. Τόμοι 6, 20. Αθήνα: Σύγχρονη Εποχή.

Μαρξ, Κ. (χ.χ.). Η αθλιότητα της φιλοσοφίας (4η έκδ). Αθήνα: Αναγνωστίδης.

Жданов Юрий (2012). Без теории нам смерть! Смерть!! Смерть!!!
https://stalinism.ru/stalin-i-gosudarstvo.html

[1] See e.g., DECLARATION OF THE CC OF THE KKE On the 100th Anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution.

[2] On the contrary, the term ‘late capitalism’ seems to be more popular within the literature. This fact testifies to the extent to which even among Marxists a dogmatic and ahistorical metaphysical conception of socialism prevails, as if revolutionary transformations are not bound by the dialectic of historical law.

[3] The absorption of new ideas and theories is governed by certain laws. The initial reception, as a rule, is negative: the new idea is mocked, perceived as nonsense, as absurdity, as unworthy of attention. Later on, various reactions appear (the new idea is characterised as exaggerated, or as a mere invention of certain terminology, it is regarded by some as barren or even useless, it is adopted by some as terminology with a different meaning, and so on), until finally more and more people emerge who claim to have always seen things this way (see also Rubenstein and Haverstrob 1966).

[4] A typical example from another field of knowledge (medicine), is that of the incidence of miscarriages, particularly during the early phases of fetal development. Τhe occurrence, however, of spontaneous loss of non-viable embryos in the first months of pregnancy does not constitute proof of the general inability to produce a viable embryo (even of the same mother).

[5] Once again, I must point out that the theory and methodology of the Logic of History is diametrically opposed to that of the Mensheviks, Plekhanov, and their contemporary opportunist descendants. This is substantiated in the works of V.A. Vaziulin.

[6] This contradiction can in principle be perceived by analogy with a historical contradiction in the development of capitalism. Under capitalism, initially (up to pre-industrial craftsmanship, the manufacture) the work of the worker craftsman (with hand tools) was formally subordinated to capital, through the supervisory, organizational, administrative, and so on, function of the capitalist. Only with the mechanisation of production, where the division of labour becomes a technical necessity dictated by the conditions of production, does the actual subordination of labour to capital occur.