On alienated ideology

Phil Sharpe discusses the relationship between the world communist movement and Stalinist ideology

This article is essentially a reply to Phil Watson's analysis of the ideological relationship between the Stalinist bureaucracy and the so-called world communist movement (November 26 1998).

To begin, it is necessary to comment on the methodology of Watson's analysis. His approach, when evaluating the comments of CPGB supporters of the 1940s and 1950s, is to uncritically adapt to their ideological confusion about Stalin and the Soviet Union and thereby accommodate to Stalinism. This means Watson cannot explain the relationship between the idealism and self-acknowledged ignorance of the CPGB supporters. Despite their doubts and even bewilderment about Stalin and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, they all have the view that the Soviet Union represents historical truth, and also corresponds to philosophical truth, in that there is a strict conformity between the objectivity of reality as expressed by the Soviet Union and its mediation by thought.

In order to apologise for this idealism Watson inverts the ideological relation between the CPGB supporters and the CPSU leadership. In Watson's opinion the political difficulties within the CPGB, as outlined by Doris Lessing and others, project the aspirations for answers onto the CPSU and Stalin. But this is to gloss over Stalin's role in the creation of the omnipotent leader, who personifies the alienated aspirations of the 'world communist movement'.

It was Stalin who primarily developed the ideology of the Soviet Union as the centre of world revolution, and thereby represents the monopoly of truth about how to achieve socialism. Indeed, because Stalin considered the Soviet Union as the fortress of world socialism, the Comintern was rendered superfluous, and was dissolved during World War II. Supporters of the CPGB accepted such opportunist actions because they did not consider the international proletariat as the basis and content of world revolution, and instead looked to Stalin as saviour.

The content of this alienated ideology was the counterrevolutionary standpoint of elitist bureaucratic socialism, which meant the revolutionary class power of the proletariat was projected onto Stalin, but Stalin took an active role in ensuring that this ideology was supported and defended within the international proletariat. So the directional aspect of this ideology was a constant interaction between Stalin and the Stalinist parties, and this process did lead to occasional crisis, as Watson indicates (although he makes no mention of the biggest crisis within the CPGB, the 1956 Hungarian revolution). However, Watson's pro-Stalinism means he cannot get to the underlying reason of a specific crisis.

He mentions Edward Upward's literary and symbolic representation of crisis in the form of the person who cannot write a poem, but what Upward and Watson cannot explain is the main reason for the problems involved in writing the poem. The crucial problem is that the potential content of the poem might conflict with Stalin's narrow aesthetic tastes, and this leads Upward to ideologically accept that his poet will not do anything challenging that would offend the 'great leader'. But at the same time he did not want his poet to write a mundane and conformist poem, so the end result is crisis and stalemate.

Watson also indicates that CPGB supporters sometimes think that "things are not always right in the Soviet Union". But he does not explain how profound this unease is. Pollitt and other CPGB leaders refuse to analyse beneath surface appearances, because ultimately Stalin, the omnipotent leader, will provide the necessary answers. Thus in general the relationship between the international followers of Stalinism and Stalin is that of trust and obedience, which contrasts with the coercion and terror of the Soviet Union that is used to obtain an enforced discipline and conformity with the requirements of the system.

Watson argues that the perspective of subordination to Moscow represents an instrumental Trotskyist approach concerning the relationship between the Soviet Union and international communism. At best this standpoint can indicate the effect and not the cause of the relationship between the CPSU and the 'world communist movement'. In contrast to Watson's caricature of a Trotskyist standpoint, it can be argued that Trotsky maintained that it was the ideology and practice of socialism in one country which explains the subordination of national communist parties to the CPSU. If the CPSU maintains that the Soviet Union is building socialism, and is the model for emulation by the world proletariat, then the particular (USSR) is conceived as the universal essence, development and future of socialism.

Thus to disagree with Stalin and the leadership of the CPSU is not only an expression of disloyalty, but is also the actions of a counterrevolutionary enemy of the Soviet Union and the cause of socialism. The isolation brought about by this type of 'disloyalty' explains why adherents of the various communist parties preferred ideological conformity.

The practical effects of this theory also help to explain the potential for nationalist fragmentation, in that support for the national road to socialism becomes the logical expression of a conception of world revolution centred around the theory of socialism in one country.

It is now necessary to analyse the specific stages of this process of opportunist degeneration.

Firstly, the Comintern and CPSU were characterised by bureaucratic centrism between 1924 and 1928. The increasing restrictions placed upon party democracy within the Comintern and CPSU enables the increasingly nationalist leadership of the CPSU to accommodate to the British TUC 'lefts' and the Chinese national bourgeoisie led by the Kuomintang. Thousands of workers die in Shanghai as a result of this opportunism, but the lack of self-criticism by Stalin and Bukharin shows the extent of the degeneration of the political leadership of the CPSU.

Secondly, between 1929 and 1934 was the period of the formation of the Soviet ruling class and the end to the degenerated workers' state. This process consisted of an economic, political and ideological counterrevo-lution. Bukharin's 1928 Comintern programme of world revolution through socialism in one country and building the proletariat-peasant alliance is replaced by an explicit bureaucratic conception of world revolution with the Soviet Union as its military centre, and socialism in one country is now defended as a caricatured and bureaucratised form of war communism.

The international communist movement accepts the need to prepare for imminent revolution as the culmination of third period catas-trophist economic perspectives. However, Stalin, the Comintern and German communist leadership (KPD) refused to develop defensive tactics as the basis to prepare for insurrection, and this meant the rank and file of social democracy were not won to united front activity against fascism. This situation showed not only that the social democratic and KPD leadership feared proletarian revolution more than fascist counterrevolution, but that this fear of the KPD represented the ideological hegemony of the Soviet ruling class and the extent to which they would go in accepting the 'dictates' of Moscow.

Thirdly, the period of 1934-53 is the 'true' expression of the ideology and practice of a now consolidated Soviet ruling class. The Stalinist ruling class reject their previous adventurist conception of bureaucratic revolution, although Stalin (at the 17th Congress in 1934) still warns the imperialist powers that if the Soviet Union is attacked by counterrevolutionary forces it would be prepared to export bureaucratic revolution through military expansion. Stalin does not expect this scenario will be realised and is more interested in promoting class collaboration with the 'democratic' imperialist powers.

This policy is expressed with the development of popular frontism, with the perspective of the defeat of fascism through opposing the prospect of proletarian revolution and thereby upholding bourgeois democracy. Events in Spain, and then France, show that not only the leadership but also the rank and file of the communist parties are now actively inclined to carry out the increasingly reactionary perspectives of the Soviet ruling class. The Communist Party of Spain is the objective mass basis of active opposition to the development of proletarian revolution in the urban centres of Spain. Whilst the Spanish communists are subjectively and intentionally dedicated opponents of fascism, the objective class content of their actions is similar to fascism, in that they are the most dedicated and ruthless adherents to the interests of bourgeois counterrevolution.

The 1939-1941 Nazi-Soviet pact was not a break with popular frontism, but was instead its modified continuation. Stalinism wanted diplomatic agreements with imperialism, primarily with the bourgeois democratic powers, but then when this was not possible an agreement with German imperialism was made. Stalin sought military security against the threat of imperialist invasion in order to build 'socialism in one country', whilst rejecting proletarian revolution on a world scale. The Soviet Union was for national isolationism up to 1941, but the German attack altered this situation. The Soviet Union was forced into defensive expansionism and had to advance into eastern Europe in order to decisively defeat German imperialism. This situation opened up the prospect of the bureaucratic overthrow of capitalism as an expression of Soviet military domination and the vulnerability of the local capitalist classes. But this situation did not represent some sort of break with socialism in one country. For primarily the perspective of socialism in one country was against the development of real international proletarian revolution, and this meant the bureaucratic expansion of Stalinism was a confirmation of this approach rather than its partial negation.

What was the overall stance of the 'official communist movement' in this period? In the 1930s popular frontist loyalty directed towards the Soviet Union was combined with loyalty directed towards the nation state, as in France and Spain. This shows that the very political and ideological hegemony of the Soviet Union contains the potential for nationalist fragmentation, even if this possibility was not yet apparent. The main manifestation of the ideological hegemony of the CPSU was increasing conscious opposition by the national Communist Party against the potential for proletarian revolution. The Communist Party tried to suppress the militancy of proletarian activity in the name of projecting the realisation of socialism into the distant future.

However, it is not ridiculous to suggest that the Nazi-Soviet pact and overthrow of bourgeois democracy in France, and elsewhere, created an ideological crisis for the various communist parties. The ideological and political struggle against fascism had not been a success and instead fascism seemed to be resurgent and ready to attack the Soviet Union. Formally the communist parties upheld their loyalty to the Soviet Union, but ideological disorientation was becoming generalised, in that the Soviet Union no longer seemed to represent the historical certainty of the movement towards socialism.

The victory of the Soviet Red Army over fascism resolved these ideological doubts and restored the view that the omnipotent wisdom of the CPSU would be the basis to tell the given national communist party when socialism would occur: that is, in the long term. In the short term the various communist parties once again became enthusiastic proponents of popular frontism.

The advent of the Cold War in the late 1940s did not alter the general popular frontist orientation of the communist parties. They still wanted to construct anti-monopoly alliances and reform the system, but the communist parties were prepared to support some strikes and to develop protests about the Cold War. The communist parties were acting as pressure groups on behalf of the Soviet Union, but they were also becoming marginalised and were no longer accepted by the bourgeoisie as a loyal opposition. Thus practical politics posed the need to break from Moscow.

Fourthly, the period 1953-1991. In the years after the death of Stalin the Soviet bureaucracy acted to maintain the status quo of the Cold War system, but the CPSU was not necessarily against extending bureaucratic revolution, as with the incorporation of Cuba into the Soviet bloc. Thus limited expansionism increased the Soviet Union's bargaining power with American imperialism. The ideology of the Soviet Union was that it still represented the centre of world socialism, and history was moving in the direction of the triumph of world communism. However, the so-called period of stagnation represented the accumulation of the contradictions within the Soviet Union. Imperialist encirclement was intensified because of the arms build-up during the Reagan years, and the Soviet economy became increasingly less coordinated and was unable to achieve the same technological progress as the major capitalist powers. This situation led to an immense ideological crisis within the Soviet bureaucracy and consequently enabled Yeltsin to take power.

The 'official communist movement' in September 1991 was now in a new situation because the material basis for their alienated ideology was over. Between 1953 and 1991 they had still strongly supported the Soviet Union as the centre of peace, prosperity and socialism. Peaceful coexistence was the means to achieve a smooth, evolutionary, and inevitable process of socialist transition. But in 1991 the perspective of socialism, via the extension of the Soviet Union as the centre of world revolution, was over. The possibility to liberate the various communist parties from their alienation was created by the demise of the Soviet Union, but this potential was rejected. Instead an aspect of Stalinist ideology was consolidated: this was popular frontism. In order to try and ensure their survival in a world without the Soviet Union the various communist parties generally acted to become even more subordinate to their respective national bourgeoisie.

Far from this situation representing a rejection of Stalinist ideology it was on the contrary the logical extension of Stalinism, a completed version of the national road to 'socialism', via total support for the national bourgeoisie. This still represented a form of alienated ideology, but one in which the omnipotent god of Stalin and the CPSU has been replaced by the god of the market. If socialism was once based upon the permission of Stalin, it now has a 'future' in terms of the 'goodwill' of the market. Stalinism and the 'official communist movement' no longer consists of bureaucratised workers' parties with a petty bourgeois socialist perspective, but have become thoroughly social democratic and bourgeois. This has not qualitatively changed their character: they remain counterrevolutionary instruments against proletarian revolution on the basis of an alienated ideology and consciousness.

What has remained constant, even if it has acquired new and changing forms, is the acceptance by Stalinism that it is not possible to overthrow capitalism through collective, participatory and democratic methods of class struggle. Thus socialism from above is the perspective of Stalinism, which has now been replaced by the pragmatic acceptance of the dictates of the market. Hobsbawn and others are not rejecting Stalinism - their modest social democracy is contemporary Stalinism. The old god has failed, so they now worship new gods.

In contrast, revolutionary Marxists do not believe in god, but we do know that material reality still expresses the class struggle between the bourgeoisie and proletariat, and Marx's rallying call to unite the international proletariat for world revolution is still as true as it ever was.