Contribution to the International Communist Seminar
‘Economic Crises and Possibility of a Major World Crisis’
Brussels, 2-4 May 2002

www.icsbrussels.org , ics[at]icsbrussels.org

Bangladesh

Socialist Party of Bangladesh - SPB

Allegations against socialism and the reality in the background of Russian crisis
Free market economy — most inhuman and barbarous

The myth that the "free" market economy is the only one that works has already been exploded by the economic melt down in Mexico in 1995, Southeast Asian Crisis in 1997, Brazilian crisis in 1998, Russian crisis in 1998 and Argentine crisis in 2001. There is no need to say much on the market economy introduced in Russia. The people of Russia and the East European countries have experienced in their own life what a disaster has befallen in all spheres of their life — economic, social, political and cultural — after the restoration of capitalism there.

While the new Russian bourgeoisie and the western multinationals have tightened their grip over the natural wealth of one-sixth of the globe's surface, people are facing hunger, poverty, destitution.

The social security net that was protecting the people a decade and a civilization ago has now completely vanished. Crime, bestialization and prostitution which were unknown in this country during the socialist regime have appeared in a worst form after the counter-revolution. The voice of dissension is silenced even by shelling Parliament by these advocates of ‘democracy’ ! Russia was saved from total economic collapse in 1998 by a massive infusion of loans from the IMF with stringent conditionalities.

Massive changes in the ownership of the means of production have been accelerated, and after Putin has become President, the process has got added momentum.

Russia, a superpower till the other day now looks up to Washington for investment capital, its gross national product today being barely equal to that of the Netherlands. In its 1999 World Development Indicators publication the World Bank predicted "uncertain prospects" for the former Soviet Union, Sub-Saharan Africa, Egypt, Kenya, Ghana and the Philippines. In Russia the number of people living in poverty (on less than US $ 4 per day) has increased from 2 million to 66 million in the past decade.

The Economist reported that the situation eastward of the Belgian curtain - the new Brussels imposed line that skirts the former Soviet Union - is especially dire. The millennium seems to have marked the return of the 19th century displaying tell-tale listlessness of malnutrition, hunger and poverty. Life expectancy has been shortened with five years or more since the communist times. Illiteracy has tripled in the poorest villages. Villagers eat less food and of lower quality. Consumption of meat has halved since 1990. The incidence of tuberculosis and hepatitis has doubled since then.

Half of all Moldovans, according to a World Bank study, now earn less than US $ 220 a year, down from US $ 2000 in 1992. World War II veterans who fought gallantly and defeated Nazi Germany to save mankind and civilization found the money value of their pension reduced US $10 per month. Almost all of rural Moldova, Belarus and Ukraine has seen a collapse in the living standard since 1991. Schools in the villages have to be closed for want of heat and electricity. Children used to be fed two or three meals a day by the schools but now they get nothing.

The salaries of teachers particularly in Moldova and Ukraine go unpaid. Medical clinics are in even worst condition. Even thermometers and bandages are short supply. The death rate in villages has increased alarmingly over the past ten years. No one can expect any medicine without paying for them. Some analysts say that within 5 years there will no more be rural clinics. Many women are migrating to EU countries as construction workers, hotel maids or prostitutes.

The present situation is the natural corollary of capitalism, which is in its moribund stage. In capitalism freedom means the right to the unimpeded pursuit of profits and the transnational rule of capital turns democracy into a farce. Today even the US, the chieftain of the imperialist world is in the vortex of a serious crisis. Tens of thousands of employees in the US are shown the door as the recession grips over this country.

IT enterprises, the motor car industries — not long ago the star performers - are threatened with collapse. Enron, one of the top ten US multinationals, patronised with billions of dollars George W. Bush who, in turn, went to the extent of covering up the fudging of its accounts, and is now filed for bankruptcy in the US court as thousands of its employees lose their jobs and the savings of their life time. The social fibre in the US is torn apart under the impact of the economic crisis and crime and anarchy are at their peaks. The introduction of automation in industries forces millions out of work. Violent crime becomes rampant. The living standard in the US has stagnated for a long period and the threat of a free-fall is now causing serious concern to the people.

The US economy is mainly propped up by massive military spending. George W. Bush merely continues a policy that was initiated long before him. Nearly 26 million US citizens depend directly or indirectly on the Pentagon for their jobs. The US defence spending has risen from US$ 14 Bn in 1950 to US$ 328 Bn this fiscal. Today, the US economy needs war to sustain itself. So George W Bush has declared that the war against terrorism which was actually created and nurtured by the US itself would be a long drawn one. So after the war against Afghanistan Bush has declared that his next target would be directed against the ‘Axis of Evil’, i.e., against Iraq-Iran and North Korea. Bush's sabrerattling poses serious danger to world peace.

Severe crisis in the US economy, pivot of world capitalist market gets its reflection in other important imperialist power bloc economy — the EU and Japan besides in other developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Japanese bankruptcies jumped to 19.3 percent in January, 2002 from a year ago to a post-Second World War high for the month and set to go higher with the spectre of crisis hanging over the financial system. Japan's banking system faces huge strain after more than 10 years of economic stagnation and near record bankruptcies.

The picture is equally grim for the recession hit European Union with its lengthening dole queues and monotonously regular retrenchment announcements.

And this is the true face of market economy today. The market economy of today i.e., in the period of decadent capitalism must not be confused with the capitalist economy in the hey day of the bourgeois democratic revolution when, according to Adam Smith, invisible hand of demand and supply regulated investment and consumption. Today the market economy is most inhuman, barbarous and dangerous to the people and artificially propped up by huge military spending. The market economy of today ensures the profit of the multinationals and turns democracy into a farce.

Dismantling of Socialist System due to long practice of revisionism, not due to inefficiency of socialism

Pointing to the collapse of the socialist system in the Soviet Union and in East European countries the imperialist controlled media have been dishing out in an orchestrated way that the socialist economy has proved to be a synonym of inefficiency and asserting that the paradigm of socialist road which they call ‘commandist administrative’ method has completely failed. No doubt, that this concerted villification campaign against socialism has created some confusion not only in the mind of the common people but even in the minds of some rank-and-file members of communist and leftist parties and honest left-oriented people. But what is the reality? We, the communist revolutionaries are fighters for truth — the concrete truth based on verifiable facts.

At the outset I like to point out that the debacle in the socialist system in the erstwhile Soviet Union and in the East European socialist countries is not due to failure of socialism but due to growth of revisionism which is actually bourgeois ideology cloaked in Marxist phraseology, and its attack on the socialist system from within coupled with imperialist machination from outside. The dismantling of socialism in these countries is the end-product of a long process of degeneration of and deviation from socialist ideology. So long as Stalin was at the helm, the socialist economy of the Soviet Union steadily advanced and experienced no stagnation, even while the imperialist world was plunged into great depression. But after the demise of Stalin the Khrushchevite revisionist clique usurped the power of the party and the state, launched attack on Marxism-Leninism by uncrowning Stalin and deviated completely from socialist ideology. As an end result, the counterrevolution took place and capitalism was restored.

Those who are leveling charges of inefficiency and bureaucratism against socialist system are either ignorant of the saga and victories of socialism or deliberately trying to hide truth to vilify noble ideology of Marxism-Leninism. If we turn a few pages of history what do we find? After the great November Revolution the enormously stupendous task of industrial and agrarian revolution was initiated by the CPSU under the leadership of Lenin and then Stalin in a country steeped in medievalism, acute poverty, ignorance, nationality hatred and superstition. Never before was an industrial construction on such a gigantic scale with such a high pitch of enthusiasm seen in the entire history of mankind.

The political, social and economic upheaval of that period had hardly any historical precedent. The western world took centuries to accomplish industrialization, but the Soviet Union did it within the span of a few years. And this was possible not by so-called commandist administrative method but by releasing the initiative and enthusiasm of the masses enjoying maximum democratic rights. Socialism ensured the process of emancipation of the individual, efflorescence of individual and collective creation and releasing of the talents and gifts latent in the masses. By adhering to the ideology of Marxism-Leninism and upholding proletarian internationalism, the CPSU led by Stalin united the Soviet people comprising various nationalities and led them to defeat Nazi Germany to save mankind and civilization. Again after the Second World War the Soviet people rebuilt the war ravaged economy just within 7 years and went ahead to catch up with the most advanced capitalist country, the USA, industrially and in all branches of science and technology including space science. This was possible because of the strong socialist economic base. All these prove, let alone inefficiency, the efficiency and superiority of the socialist system.

Stalin — defender of Marxism-Leninism

After the demise of Lenin, Stalin emerged as the leader of the CPSU and the international communist movement. It was under the leadership of Stalin that the Soviet Union was built up as the citadel of world socialism. Again, in building up socialism, Stalin conducted fierce ideological struggle to defend the inner kernel of Marxism-Leninism, and gave crushing defeat to left and right deviationist trends of Trotskyites, Bukharinites and Zinovites. By generalizing the historical experience of the period of general crisis of world capitalism leading to disintegration of world capitalist market, Stalin enriched Marxism-Leninism. The interpretation of Marxism-Leninism by Stalin is the correct understanding of this philosophy in the post-Lenin period.

Intensification of Class struggle in Socialist Society and caution by Lenin and Stalin

Lenin stressed time and again the necessity of conducting protracted class struggle as the resistance of the overthrown bourgeoisie increases manifold after the seizure of power by the proletariats. Class struggle does not diminish, but gets intensified in socialist society — the transitional phase between capitalist and communist society. So the establishment of a socialist economic base alone cannot automatically lead to the abolition of classes, because, as Lenin pointed out, ‘‘The force of habit of millions and tens of millions is a most terrible force. ... It is a thousand times easier to vanquish the centralized big bourgeoisie than to ‘‘vanquish’’ the millions and millions of small owners; yet they, by their ordinary, every day, imperceptible, illusive, demoralizing activity, achieve the very results that the bourgeoisie needs and which tend to restore the bourgeoisie.’’

Stalin too, was very much conscious of this danger. In the Report to the Seventeenth Congress of the CPSU he said, "It goes without saying that a classless society cannot come of itself, spontaneously, as it were. It has to be achieved and built by the efforts by the working people, by strengthening the organs of the dictatorship of the proletariat, by intensifying the class struggle, by abolishing classes, by eliminating the remnants of the capitalist class and in battles within enemies both internal and external."

Again, at the fag end of his life, Stalin noted some serious lapses like lowering of the level of political consciousness in the party ranks, deficiency in inner party democracy and neglect of ideological war leading to bureaucraticism, corruption and negligence in work. So the Report of the Nineteenth Congress of the CPSU prepared under the guidance of Stalin called for waging a determined struggle against the vestiges of bourgeois ideology and private property mentality still prevalent in society. But unfortunately Stalin did not live long after the Nineteenth Congress and so he could not initiate the necessary political and ideological struggle to combat these evils.

Some serious shortcomings in the communist movement

It is indeed a historical fact that socialism achieved a glorious victory, as Stalin led the mightiest of human emancipatory movements with the active participation of the people of the land. But at the same time, we note some serious shortcomings in the communist movement. These are a mechanical way of thinking as against a dialectical one, a sense of blind allegiance in the name of discipline and an inadequate development and enrichment of Marxism-Leninism.

We know that Marxism is a guide to action to change the world along the historically determined course of social development. We also know at the same time that Marxism is not a dogma. Marxism is a living science and this science is to be developed in all directions as pointed out by Lenin, in the face of newer and newer problems of life and society and in keeping up with the latest development in natural sciences. This is the cardinal task even after the revolution. The establishment of a socialist economic base does not, ipso facto, give birth to a socialist superstructure. In the socialist society, class struggle changes its form and continues in a subtler way and in an intensified form in the superstructure, i.e. in the realm of ideology and thought. Herein lies the necessity of conducting a fierce ideological-cultural struggle under the dictatorship of the proletariat in the socialist society. If this task is not undertaken, the ideological-cultural standard of the communist party members will fall, paving the way for the growth of bourgeois liberalism, which ultimately brings about the restoration of capitalism as we witness in the erstwhile Soviet Union and in the East European countries.

Historical materialism teaches us the scientific course of social development. From primitive clan communist society to serfdom and feudalism, from feudalism to capitalism, from capitalism to socialism and from socialism to communism — such is the scientific course of social development. But this course of social development cannot take place automatically. By knowing the law underlying these developments, man consciously acts on the society to bring about the radical change.

The great November Revolution is not the wishful thinking of Lenin. Lenin concretized, elaborated and developed Marxism to become adequate and suitable for the then international situation and applied it correctly in the great November Revolution. The victory of the Russian revolution was due to the correct leadership of Lenin. Then again, it was the correct leadership of Stalin that brought about great victories in socialist development which fired the imagination of the masses of the entire world, and the revolutionary movements in the metropolitan countries, and the national liberation struggles in the colonies and semi-colonies got a tremendous boost. It is because of the correct leadership of Stalin that the international communist movement achieved one victory after another. After the Second World War socialism was established in China, North Korea, Cuba and Vietnam and a large number of countries became independent from the colonial rule. We were practically at the threshold of the world revolution. But subsequently, with the sad demise of Stalin, the events took a reverse turn in the absence of correct leadership.

With a totally non-Marxist world outlook, the Khrushchevite revisionist leadership completely derailed the international communist movement. This leadership smuggled the non-Marxist idea of the ‘party of the whole people’ and the ‘state of the whole people’, thereby denying the existence of the class struggle and the necessity of the dictatorship of the proletariat. This revisionist leadership abandoned the socialist economic law as pursued by Stalin and introduced capitalist methods for augmenting production with material incentive. This revisionist leadership succumbed to nuclear blackmailing of the imperialists and reduced the revolutionary policy of Peaceful Co-existence as formulated by Lenin and further elaborated by Stalin to pacifism, thereby intensifying the aggressiveness of imperialists. All these non-Marxian policies subsequently led to the counterrevolution and restoration of capitalism in the erstwhile Soviet Union and the East European countries.

I like to assert that this setback, though extremely painful to us, is temporary. We are witness to the fact that, when the communist movement is led by the correct leadership, it becomes invincible despite the possibility of some temporary setbacks, and when this leadership is usurped by the revisionists, the communist movement is derailed and forces of reaction gain. We are certain that the anti-thesis of restored capitalism will again re-assert itself and that with correct leadership socialism will again attain victory.

Socialist Party of Bangladesh ¾ SPB

Central committee

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Ph: 0088-02-8619391, Fax: 0088-02-9554772, E-mail: spb@bol-online.com