Another Step Ahead Deserved Praise The United Independent-Socialist porty ticket in New York deserves proise for mok­ Barring legal tricks which either the ever, has endorsed virtually all the ing a clean break with the Communist porty Republican or Democratic machines Democratic candidates, including Hogan ond rejecting the latter's proposal that all might attempt in a last-ditch effort to for senator. Hogan is such an abject condidates except Corliss Lamont for U.S. maintain their monopoly of the voting creature of the De Sapio machine that booths, the United . Independent-So­ even the millionaire Harriman sought Senate withdraw as the price of CP support. Such support would in any cIISe be a ruin­ cialist ticket was assured of its place to block his nomination. ous incubus. The Worker, the porty's weekly on the New York ballot as we went to The capacity of the Social Democratic press. orgon, hos sunk into the most deadly slovish­ and Communist party leaders to unite ness to Muscovite line, os wos evident ogoin The success in getting sufficient sig­ against a socialist ticket and in favor (Aug. 17) in its criticism of John T. Mc­ natures on the nominating petitions was of "lesser evil" candidates of one of the Monus, the U.I.S. candidate for Governor, a signal achievement, for besides the two capitalist machines should prove in­ because the National Guardi~nof which he unreasonable technical requirements, the structive to members of both organiza­ is editor criticized the execution of Nagy arduous work was hampered by ambush tions. and because - worst of sins - he is "coop­ shots from the side lines. The United Independent-Socialist erating with Trotzkyites." - I. F. Stone's Communist party leaders, who had ticket decided not to get into a dispute Weekly, Aug. 25. been invited to participate in the united over semantics with the Social Demo­ effort, levelled their fire at the ticket crats. "Independent-Socialist" is now when it was calculated to do the most the ballot designation. zation that demands due consideration harm. To persuade rank-and-file Com­ As for the Communist party ultima­ of State Department views is to be munists to go against their own wishes tum, the candidates, headed by Lamont, weighed against the adjectives they use and refrain from helping the socialist rejected it. McManus came to the de­ to describe the United Independent­ ticket, the Worker accused the nominees, fense of the Socialist Workers party, Socialist ticket. John T. McManus, Annette T. Rubin­ praising its work in the campaign, its The Weekly People, voice of Socialist stein, Corliss Lamont, Captain Hugh N. capacity to present forceful arguments Labor party representatives, who were Mulzac, and Scott K. Gray of being for its viewpoint in discussions over also invited in on the ground floor, has dominated by "anti-Soviet" elements; platform while listening attentively to likewise engaged in curious speculation namely, the Socialist Workers party. All other views. In his experience, he said, about the candidates: it is "plausible" the candidates except Lamont were told he had seen no evidence of anything to imagine, we are told, that "it is to withdraw. or suffer the consequences. "anti-Soviet" about the SWP. (See the highly unlikely that they would now Advertisements submitted to the Worker Militant, Sept. 1, and National Guardian, recoil from a tender of Republican aid" urging help in securing signatures were Aug. 25 and Sept. 8.) particularly in getting signatures on ; refused. Two more attacks should be noted as petitions. . At the same time leaders of the So­ curiosities. Labor Action, the bi-weekly The fact is that many people who cialist Party-Social Democratic Federa­ voice of the Shachtmanites, has devoted have voted Republican or Democratic in tion attacked the ticket as "pro-Soviet." some columns to tortuous "analysis" of the past normally sign nominating peti­ They too had been invited to join in the meaning of the CP attack on what tions due to their conviction that every the democratic process of working out a it calls a "Stalinoid" ticket. This specu­ voter should have a chance to cast his minimum platform on which all so­ lation has amused at least those who ballot for a minority party if he wants cialists could unite in an election cam­ know that this group could have partic­ to. We doubt that election workers of paign; but they refused. They threat­ ipated in the united effort from the be­ the Socialist Labor party are instructed ened to file suit over the use of the ginning. Instead of seeking to help to refuse to accept such signatures on name "United Socialist" as a ballot des­ shape the platform and decide on can­ their petitions. ignation. didates, however, these "analysts" chose It is too bad that all these well-mean­ Both the CP and Social Democratic to forage in the Social Democratic bone ing socialists could not break through chieftains view the Liberal party as the yard which they hope will one day pro­ their sectarian habits for the sake of a best available meatts for registering a vide them with juicy pickings. Their united election campaign this year protest vote. The Liberal party, how- elation over acceptance into an organi- against the twin machines of Big Busi­ ness. We hope that they will reconsider by election day and pull the Independ­ ent-Socialist lever on the voting ma­ chines. Pep. Piffle and Fizzle As for the radicals in the rest of the country, we know that many of them Printers'lnk,' which is trying ·to persuade Salesmen all wore 'Keep the economy regard the work in New York as a hope­ advertisers that the depression i~over, was strong' buttons, and streamers that appeal ful and significant advance toward a critical in its Aug. I issue of the auto in- to patriotism blazoned in, the streets. vigorous, nation-wide socialist campaign dustry's recent sales campaign: . "This sort of hoopla reached its ultimate in 1960. "What should be done when people don't when William Power, Chevrolet's national ad Other developments include discus­ buy? The favorite answer during the reces­ manager, rode into the Madison Squar~ sions in Seattle to probe electoral pos­ sion was 'more old-fashioned hard sell .. .' Garden rally in New York astride an ele­ sibilities and formation of a committee That wos typified by the You Auto Buy Now phont, wearing a pith helmet, firing blank in California. In Michigan Socialist campaigns held in 264 cities in the post five cartridges, and shouting, 'Pep without pur­ Workers candidates are stressing the months. If the~ewos such a thing as the pose is piffle!' " importance of preparing now for 1960. nard sell, that was it. Printers' Ink noted sordonically thot auto Meanwhile the Rev. Joseph P. King's "Most citie's 'had' a porade; -:- new cars, Democratic efforts to sales dropped during' the campaign from victory over keep old cars, stage- coaches, fire engines, all him off the ballot as Congressional can­ graced with pretty girls or circus clpwns. The 1957s level of 4.993.607 to 3,762,806 in the didate from Chicago's Second District streets of stoid Evonston, 0 Chicago suburb, same five-month period, a loss of 1,230,80 I has suggested to socialists elsewhere the rocked to the music of 0 wheezing calliope. models. obvious conclusion: "If it can be done in a place as tough as Chicago .

114 INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW INTERNATIONAL Fall 1958 SOCIALIST Volume 19 No.4 REVIEW

Editorial Which Road to Peace?

HE Eisenhower administration appears, reluctantly, Soviet Union; all of Greece and half of Yugoslavia to T to have made up whatever collective mind it has Great Britain. This was the secret, "practical" side of that a concession must be made to the world-wide the famous "Four Freedoms" that Roosevelt and Chur­ demand that it follow the Soviet initiative and suspend chill had proclaimed as the Allied aims in World War II. nuclear poisoning of the earth's atmosphere. The public Attention should be paid to the anti-democratic char­ has been informed, consequently, that negotiations on acter of these conferences. Roosevelt, Churchill and America's giving up nuclear tests for "one year" will Stalin arrog-ated to themselves regulation of the fate of be undertaken - after ten more tests. Nothing was said, the peoples of the world. They assumed powers that no of course, about dismantling the stockpile now sufficient kings, emperors or dictators had wielded before them. to exterminate all life a dozen times over or of giving None of the three considered himself subject to con'trol up the manufacture of additional stockpiles for use as by parliamentary law, still less to control by the people good measure. he pushed around on the international chessboard. Nevertheless, this grudging gesture, coupled with Lest it be assumed that calling attenion to such equally grudging U.S. acquiescence in the United Na­ unpleasant facts indicates a bias on our part against tions resolution calling for the "early" withdrawal of international diplomatic relations, negotiations, govern­ American and British troops from Lebanon and Jordan, mental conferences and agreements in general, let us aroused fresh hopes that a "summit conference" is now specify right here that s.uch is not the case. We are for possible in which some kind of settlement assuring 8. conference to remove the obstacles to trade. like the peace might be reached between the USSR and the USA. ban on shipment of so-called "strategic" goods to the Among liberals and pacifists especially the continued Soviet Union, the People's Republic of China and the appeal of the Soviet government for such a meeting of countries of Eastern Europe. We are for an agreement the heads of states is approved as a welcome display to do away with customs duties and tariff walls. We of good will; now if Eisenhower could just be dragged have 10l)g advocated, for instance, a United States of from the golf course to the bargaining table where Europe and a United States of South America where Khrushchev is waiting! intra-continental trade could flow freely. We have What a "summit conference" can accomplish is de­ likewise persistently advocated American recognition of termined by the aims and policies of the participants. the People's Republic of China, just as socialists in the These, as a great body of grim experience should teach twenties and early thirties advocated recognition of the us, are not necessarily the same as the declarations the Soviet U nion. We are for cultural exchange and friendly participants make for public consumption. We are not relations among all nations. confined to guesswork in determining what aims and What we oppose are policies, whether conducted policies the imperialist representatives of the United through ordinary secret diplomatic channels or through States and the bureaucratic representatives of the secret get-togethers at "summit conferences," that block Soviet Union might pursue at a top level meeting. Such the road' to enduring peace. meetings have already been held. Most of the secret These policies are not openly acknowledged by the part of the confabs - the part that counted - has be­ statesmen. In fact, in accordance with the rules of their come public property. We now know that when Roose­ venerable trade, they generally deny them. However, velt, Churchill and Stalin got together at Yalta and the policies can be determined from the evidence - just Teheran, what they did was to divide the world into as we can determine from the evidence that the tracks spheres of influence, deciding which ruler was to get we saw in the woods were left by a bulldozer. which section of the world's population and resources. In contrast to Eisenhower, who refuses to take time For example', the Kurile Islands were to go to the off from his putting practice on the White House lawns,

FALL 1958 11& the sick Roosevelt and the aged Churchill went all the at Yalta and Teheran prevented the continent of Europe way to the Black Sea to talk things over with Stalin. from going socialist in 1945-47. That was what the Roosevelt had already asked and obtained from the policies agreed on at those two summit conferences and Generalissimo dissolution of the Communist Interna­ later at Potsdam cost the struggle for enduring peace. tional. He wanted more of the same. His need of Stalin's In the United States, Stalin's policy was known as services and' his expectation that Stalin could deliver "Browderism," although both Foster and Dennis ap­ were evide~tIygreat enough to make the arduous trip proved and practiced it. It meant seeking class peace worth the inconvenience. with J. Pierpont Morgan. Strikes of the United Mine Agreement was reached on a united front in handling Workers were denounced, other strikes were broken. the inevitable postwar revolutionary upsurge. Stalin The no-strike pledge was extended in unions under came through with his part of the bargain in geperous Communist party influence to the postwar period, the style. In Greece, upon defeat of the Nazi occupation, the jailing of advocates of socialism was commended, and Communist party was brought into effective power by independent electoral activity was forsworn. The per­ overwhelming popular consent. The party thereupon hicious effects of Stalin's deal at Yalta and Teheran are

f~cilitatedthe landing of British troops and the restora­ felt to this day in the American radical movement. tion of power to the HouSe of Glucksberg. In Italy after In addition time bombs were planted in the new status the downfall of Mussolini the Communist party emerged quo that was agreed upon at Yalta, Teheran and Pots­ as the largest and most influential organization. A series dam. One of them was Korea. The artificial division of of great strike waves put it in power in towns and this country into two halves, neither of which could cities throughout the country. But the policy was to exist independently of the other, assured the later out­ refuse to take power. Anything but socialism for Italy! break of civil war. Another time bomb still ticking Similarly in France following the collapse of Petain away is Germany. The occasional flare-ups in Berlin the armed resistance movement pushed the Communist qre warnings that the partition of this country at the party repeatedly toward government power. Policy was end of the war created an explosive issue in the heart to turn down the oPPQrtunity and keep France capitalist. of Europe. World War III may yet focus around Ger­ The deal that Roosevelt and Churchill made with Stalin many as did World War I and World War II. ORTUNATELY for the struggle for peace, Stalin did INTERNATIONAL Published quarterly by the International F not succeed in making delivery everywhere. In Socialist Review Publishing Association, 116 India, the Communist party became so discredited by its SOCIALISTUniversity Pl., New York 3, N. Y. Second opposition to the independence movement it was class postage paid at New York, N. Y: that REVIEW cut to ribbons. Over its blind resistance to disturbing Contents the status quo, the Indian masses pushed through the from British rule. is today toasted by ANOTHER STEP AHEAD ...... 114 break If India the Kremlin as "neutral" and "uncommitted," no thanks is EDITORIAL: Which Road to Peace? ...... 115 due the shade of Stalin. In Yugoslavia, the Communist THE SPLIT IN THE AFL-CIO ...... by Arne Swabeck 119 party proved independent enough to break from Stalin's THE SOVIET BID FOR WORLD TRADE domination. The -social revolution that brought Tito to - by Tom Kemp 124 power succeeded in tearing this key Balkan country DAUMIER-POLITICAL ARTIST by George Lavan 133 from Britain's imperialist grip. In China, Stalin's orders SOVIET MUSIC - TWO VIEWS w'ere disregarded. Instead of continuing their alliance Sometimes They Elude the Ukases by Trent Hutter 138 with Chiang Kai-shek, the Mao leadership finally bowed The Big Stick Is Decisive ...... by M. Bernz 139 to the surging might of the greatest revolution since THE PROGRESS OF WORLD SOCIALISM 1917 and took power. This revolution, upsetting the by William F. Warde 140 sta tus quo in Asia and the western Pacific, struck the THE DEEP ROOTS OF INFLATION single biggest blow for peace in the postwar period. by Albert Phillips 147 The Yalta-Teheran-Potsdam deal lasted barely until BOOKS: 1947. This was testimony in its way to the futile Corliss Lamollt on Humanism by Joseph Hansen 153 Biography of a Young Soviet Official utopianism of trying to maintain the status quo. In that by Robert Chester 155 year, the Kremlin recognized that the Truman-Churchill Howe's History of the CP ...... by Tom Kerry 156 policy of "cold war" was not temporary diplomatic Early Soviet Labor Policy ...... by Milton Alvin 157 pressure but signified the beginning of an imperialist Inside Report on Hungary .... by Theodore Edwards 158 to change things accordance seemed One Path? ...... by Lois Saunders 159 effort in with what to be a more favorable balance of forces for reaction Cover by Joe Kent and counter-revolution. European capitalism by now Vol. 19 - No. 4 - Whole No. 145 had been stabilized, the postwar revolutionary upsurge was receding, and the United States had a monopoly Joseph Hansen...... Editor of the atomic bom~.When Stalin understood that the Beatrice Allen ...... Business Manager Duncan Ferguson .... Managing Editor Marshall Plan was not meant to include aid for the war­ ravaged Soviet Union and the areas taken by the Red SUBSCRIPTION RATES: U.S.A. and Latin America, $1.25 a year (four issues; single copies, 35 cents; bundles, 25 cents a copy for five copies Army as it rolled toward Berlin, he responded by him­ or more. Foreign and Canada, $1.50 a year (four issues); single copies, 35 cents; bundles, 26 cents a copy for five copies or more. self upsetting the status quo. In bureaucratic fashion

J 16 INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW the capitalist structure in Eastern Europe was knocked down with Khrushchev it is not due to petulance. Right over; and the various Communist parties began talking now it's more profitable to play golf, because Khrush­ in militant terms - without too much success, for their chev can't deliver in the area of interest. The Arab prestige by this time had dropped abysmally. Even in people are not following the Communist party; they the United States, the Communist party shifted from are following leaders more responsive to their wishes support of the Democratic machine to support of the and - to the shame of the Communist party - more Wallace movement. This was too little and too late, for militant in the struggle against imperialism. These lead­ already America's greatest witch-hunt was gathering ers are petty-bourgeois' nationalists like Nasser. The momentum and the Communist party had spent the war State Department experts need only ask themselves years preparing for its own easy victimization. the question, "What could Khrushchev do about the "All this is ancient history!" a critic may respond. overturn in Iraq?" to come up with the answer to the "Who is interested in rehashing the dreary crimes of demand that Eisenhower should split a bottle of Vodka Stalin today? Reforms have been undertaken in the with Khrushchev. If a deal is required, they need no Soviet Union; the cult of Stalin is dead; a new, dynamic brokers. They can sit down with the Arab nationalist ieadership is in power. Besides, since Truman and leaders in Cairo or Washington, or at the UN address Churchill started the cold war, a new factor has ap­ in New York. If De Gaulle, on the other hand, evinces peared in international relations - the H-Bomb. This interest in a summit conference, it is because he cal­ totally changes the character of war so that it no longer culates that Khrushchev could prove useful, as did serves as a way of continuing politics by other means. Stalin in immobilizing the French working class while Atomic war means suicide. Therefore it becomes in­ he consolidates his Bonapartist dictatorship. The Com­ conceivable. Consequently it is in the interest of both munist party still occupies a prominent position in imperialism and the new social order to reach a peaceful French politics. way of competing. This is the realistic basis for reaching But what about the Kremlin? Doesn't the new dy­ a modus vivendi at a summit conference. That it is namic leadership recognize these realities? If so, why possible to ease tensions by top level meetings has does it persist in calling for a summit conference? already been demonstrated. The Geneva Conference in In our opinion, the Khrushchev government is very 1955 is proof enough." much in need of greater stability in international rela­ The example of Geneva is well taken. In a heroic tions. This is not altogether to its discredit. The Soviet struggle for their freedom and independence the people economy by its very structure requires peace and not of Indo-China had won a costly victory over their war to function smoothly. In representing this need, French colonial masters. What occurred at Geneva? Khrushchev plays a progressive role. Instead of recognizing the will of the Indo-Chinese peo­ We also believe that the Soviet bureaucracy is under ple, the diplomats partitioned Indo-China like Korea, great domestic pressure to avoid the disastrous policy saving one half for French imperialism. After this con­ which Stalin followed and which helped pave the way cession was in the bag, Eisenhower put his golf clubs for the German imperialist invasion. The Soviet people aside and flew to Geneva to uphold his part Of the are aware of the strains and stresses in relations with bargain. This was to temporarily ease world tensions the satellite countries. They are disturbed by the by passing the time of day with Khrushchev and bickerings, the jealousies and the bureaucratic policies Bulganin. that drive nations to tevolt. They are resentful ov~r And what happened after Geneva? The new harmony the slow progress of socialism. How long must they did not last long. Britain, France and Israel staged a hold out before an advanced country of the West goes raid on the Suez Canal. The "reformed" Soviet bureau­ socialist? Isn't the bureaucracy responsible, at least in cracy crushed the Hungarian workers revolution. part, for the continued war danger, for the failure of Khrushchev broke off relations once again with Tito. the Communist parties of the West to achieve success? Eisenhower and Macmillan landed troops in Lebanon and Jordan. Such events have led more than a few The need to divert an enormous sector of Soviet in­ peace-loving people to revise their concept that atomic dustrial capacity and manpower to' an arms race with war is "inconceivable." world imperialism lays a--grievous burden on the Soviet Our point is not to seek recognition for priority in masses. They want mbre food,rn-ore ciothi~g,better housing, improved quality in all -consum~rgoods. How discovering the crimes of Stalin and Khrushchev ....:.....or can they get these, help China arid· Eastern Europe to of Roosevelt, Truman and Churchill. In our view the deeds of these rulers are manifestations of contradic­ industrialize, and at the same time compete with the tory .economic and social forces that have a continuity American war industries? - of their own .. The movement of these forces must be If the threat of war could be allayed, the bureaucracy understood, we think, if we are to find genuinely must think, -domestic tensions, which are pointing to a realistic grounds on which to base the struggle for political revolution, could at once be eased. What a peace. happy solution if the imperialist powers could be per­ suadea to give up their war preparations! E suspect that the gentlemen who plot the course Diplomatic needs also playa part in Khrushchev's W of American foreign policy are aware of these insistence on a summit meeting. The colonial masses, deep forces and take· them into consideration in their by and large, turn to the Soviet Union for inspiration. calculations. If Eisenhower is uninterested in sitting Their yearning for a world of tranquility is exploited

FALL 1958 117 and given a facile, "common sense" expression by the working class. By stubbornly and intelligently fighting demand for a summit conference. for these interests the working class can lead humanity It is not without interest, however, that Khrushchev's into the new order of socialism where war is auto­ most intensive campaign for a summit conference, at matically excluded by the basic requirement of the the height of the Middle Ea.st crisis in July and August, system - cooperative labor. did not meet with universal approval among the anti­ A realistic peace program must therefore rely on imperialists. After Khrushchev had won agreement development of the class struggle. This algebraic term to a summit conference under auspices of the United signifies the arousal of political consciousness among Nations Security Council, it will be recalled, Mao sum­ workers, an understanding of what their class interests moned him to a different summit conference in Peking. are and what successful pursuit of these interests sig­ After leaving that hasty meeting, Khrushchev backed nifies for the future 'of mankind. The task of socialists out of his UN rendezvous, explaining rather belatedly is to devote all their energies to this educational work. that he could scarcely be expected to sit down at the To ,concentrate on this is neither utopian nor sec­ same tabl~witha political "corpse" like Chiang Kai­ tarian. Mighty forces, operating in the socialist direc­ shek. It may be assumed that Mao expected no good tion, facilitate the work. from another conference like the ones at Yalta, Teheran, In the first place, imperialism itself, no matter how Potsdam and Geneva and offered Khrushchev his it seeks to maintain the status quo, continually upsets opinion. it. Imperialism drags the most backward peoples into The same lack of enthusiasm for a confab between the main stream of industrial progress. The first wheel Khrushchev and Eisenhower was observable among the seen by some tribes in Equatorial Africa was the land­ Arab nationalist leaders. What did they have to gain ing gear of a modern bomber.' The Bedouin parks his from these two statesmen getting together over a map camel before an automated oil refinery and the South of the Middle East? They pushed their own aims in Pacific islander in his dugout shields his eyes from the UN General Assembly which were to get greater the glare of an H-Bomb. To these primitives the im­ freedom for themselves; and, deploying the power of perialist missionaries hold up the American stan~ardof the Arab revolution which had toppled King Faisal in living with its abundance, its medical facilities, its edu­ Iraq, they won a concession - agreement on "early" cational level and its machine-age conveniences. withdrawal, of American' and British troops from The Soviet Union too, despite the efforts of the Lebanon and Jordan. The Arab leaders thus removed bureaucracy t9 maintain the status quo, continually one of the most powerful reasons Khrushchev had inspires the masses of the world to break out of their given for holding an immediate summit conference. miserable ancient routine. The sputniks, which Khrush­ chev utilizes to demonstrate Soviet prowess, tell the HE basic reality we must start from in working out people of the ~ostbackward areas as they speed over­ a peace program, in opinion, is contradic­ T our the head in their orbits that modern miracles are not be­ tory world economic structure. So long as capitalism yond their own capacities - all they need is a planned endures, it is inevitably impelled in the direction' of economy and they can do it themselves. economic rivalries which s90ner or later change into war. Capitalist foreign policy is built on this founda­ Let us add to this the very real threat of atomic tion, no matter how it is packaged for mass consump­ annihilation in a third world war, a threat that serves tion. A realistic peace program must therefore take as to shake people up, to sweep away mental cobwebs its first point the extension of planned economy until and to arouse them to action. it becomes world-wide. There is no other road to Finally we should not forget to note that in the most enduring peace. powerful of capitalist countries tranquility is denied It follows from this that planned economies must be the working people. Economic insecurity is a never­ defended' where they have already been established, ending worry, whether in its acute form of depression no matter what the defects in them that call for rectifi­ or in its chronic form of technological unemployment cation. It also follows that no substitutes can be ac­ and early disposal on the scrap heap of humans too old cepted in place of extending planned economy into new to keep up with the belt line. Special insecurities af­ areas. There are no substitutes. No world "courts," no fect the minority groups in jobs, education, housing and special "peace" organizations, no "collective security" recreation. The unions are the target of legislative that can overcome t.he difference between the anarchy labor-baiters. The possibility of another war haunts of capitalism and the scientific order of planned econ­ the thinking of millions of Americans. omy. These gnawing problems clash with the buoyant "':'he means for establishing planned economies where American spirit that is not accustomed to remain cowed capitalism now exists is known. Prayers and petitions long before reactionary forces - as two successful to the ruling class are unavailing. The rulers follow American revolutions te$tify. policies that advance their own economic and social Such considerations should give American socialists interests. While individual capitalists may achieve a every reason for confidence that their program for broader outlook, the class as a whole never rises above peace, based on the policy of advancing the class strug­ its own limitations. Historically the establishment of gle, can succeed - and in time to prevent an atomic planned economy corresponds with the interests of the catastrophe.

118 INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW The Split in the AFL-CIO

What happened to "Operation Dixie" and the organization of white-collar workers? While labor' officia·ls vie for favor in business circles. new union-busting laws spel·1 fresh danger

by Arne Swabeck

CARCELY three years ago the AFL the Bakery Workers union and the gic position in relation to a large S and the CIO joined forces in a Laundry Workers union. The unscru­ number of unions is no less pro­ united organization. Ostensibly, this pulous crooks and panderers at the nounced. This derives from the fact action was inspired by the compelling head of these organizations had been that the latter, in their efforts to hold need for common defense against the hauled before the McClellan Com­ the union line, whether it be in strug­ trend of punitive and oppressive la­ mittee as a part of its effort to dis­ gle for wages and working conditions bor legislation which had become so credit the labor movement. Even or to expand organization, are most painfully apparent with the passage though Meany and Reuther, sounding directly dependent upon the support of the Taft-Hartley Act. But now, off for the bureaucratic hierarchy, of the men who drive the trucks. The while punitive and oppressive legis­ could not avoid recognizing the anti­ teamsters have won renown every­ lative measures have been building labor bias of the committee, their where for their aggressive and mil­ up to a formidable threat and even reflex action was instantaneous. itant union action. They come Closer before the merger has been fully con­ Above all they were concerned than the members of most other summated .on the local levels, the with the question of bourgeois re­ unions to living up to the indispen­ body so recently united has again spectability. Facing up to the com­ sable working-class principle: Never split wide open. mittee's challenge was farthest from cross a picket line. This split has none of the progres­ their thoughts. Instead they resorted That the Teamsters union intends sive features that characterized the quickly to the only measure they to take further advantage of its turn of events during the great strug­ seem to know - punitive action strategic position is clearly indicated. gles of the thirties.' The division that against the unions already victimized Hoffa, who succeeded Beck as pres­ took place then was motivated fun­ by the pandering parasites. ident, did not escape too successfully damentally by the irresistible urge Subsequently, the expelled Team­ the heavy corruption charges levelled. for organization displayed by mil­ sters union entered a series of mutual against him. Perhaps he now feels lions of workers in the giant mills aid pacts with a number of AFL-CIO that he holds office on probation, so and factories across the nation. The affiliates. Among them, the Retail to speak, and is eager to strike out major segment of ossified craft-union Clerks union is deeply indebted to along new paths. At any rate, bold leaders was utterly incapable of fac­ the Teamsters for aid in obtaining a and audacious plans for a huge trans­ ing up to this task; the craft-union union contract with Montgomery portation union combine have come form of organization was hopelessly Ward & Company. And in coopera­ out of Hoffa's sumptuous headquar­ inadequate; so the CIO arose outside tion with other unions the Teamsters ters at the Teamsters Palace in Wash­ of the parent body. are now tackling the organization of ington, D. C: workers in the far-flung Sears Roe­ This time, however, the split has The' plans envisage the welding of been engineered exclusively at the buck commercial chain. all land, sea and air transportation bureaucratic top levels. It has been The expulsion did not impair the unions into a grand alliance, which compounded by corruption, rack­ patently powerful strategic position eteering, and criminally irresponsible occupied by the Teamsters union. could, if successful, embrace some disregard of the pressing need for This is the union that moves things to fifty unions, both inside and outside labor unity to head off the mounting tne mills and plants, to the construc­ the AFL~CIO,with a present com­ attacks by Big Business and its gov­ tion sites and to the commercial es­ bined membership of about 3,500,000 ernmental agencies. tablishments, reaching into every workers. If successful, it could also Less than a year ago the 1,500,000- hamlet of the nation. This invests the open up prospects of ending the de­ member Teamsters union was ex­ Teamsters union with exceptionally bilitating disunity, conflicts and ri­ pelled from the AFL-CIO. Shortly potent economic bargaining powers valry which have racked the unions thereafter followed the expulsion of vis-a-vis the employers. Its strate- engaged in transportation. This fact

FAll 1958 119 alone suffices to mark its distinctly Immediately upon his return from ruption against the Hotel and Res­ progressive nature. a month-long visit to Europe, Meany taurant Workers, the Meatcutters and Signing a document on July 3, declared war on the spreading net­ the Carpenters unions. No thought embodying the ideas of the alliance work of 'pacts between Federation was given to the idea of appealing to and proj ecting a coriference of all Lnits and truck drivers. Like John the rank and file members to clean unions concerned, were Hoffa for the Foster Dulles, Meany has a penchant out the crooks and racketeers. Such Teamsters, Joseph Curran and Wil­ for the "art of brinkmanship." But action is anathema to this bureau­ liam Bradley for the National Mari­ it must be said in justice to Dulles, cratic hierarchy. time Union and the East Coast Long­ that while he retreats, under com­ In every respect Meany personifies shoremen's union, respectively. It pulsion, to meditate on agonizing the bureaucratic upper crust, who was further reported that the pres­ reappraisals, Meany, on the contrary, adapt themselves in thought and ac­ ident of the Seafarers International rushes ahead. tion to the philosophy of the capital­ Union had agreed to become one of Meany lost no time letting it be ist profit system and succumb in the initiators of the conference on known that he would press for the practice to all its implications. transportation unity. expulsion of affiliated unions joining Meany never passes up an oppor­ It will be recalled that Curran, who "any alliance to build up the strength tunity to affirm his faith in the is a vice-president of the AFL-CIO, and prestige of exiled organizations." capitalist system, including its pres­ was. one of the hatchet wielders in Commending Meany for his stand, ent imperialist cold-war policy. Of­ the ostracizing of the Teamsters less Labor Secretary Mitchell raised the ficials of the Hoffa type differ from than a year ago. He now breathes threat that unions may be put under this bureaucratic hallmark only in defiance at any threat of interference anti-trust regulations if the proposed their greater and more reckless pro­ from his former partners in the alliance of transportation unions suc­ clivities for pandering and pilfering. hatchet job. The East Coast Long­ ceeds. Chairman McClellan hurriedly In December 1956 Meany appeared shoremen's union had been previous­ summoned Hoffa and other Team­ as guest speaker at the convention ly expelled; but its membership de­ sters union officials for another round of the National Association of Manu­ feated in three successive elections of Senate Committee "investiga­ facturers. Evidently .he had accepted repeated attempts by Meany and tions." Counsel to the Committee, the invitation as an opportunity to company to set up a rival organiza­ Robert F. Kennedy, declared the demonstrate how reliable and how tion. projected alliance to be "far, far indispensable he and his fellow Anticipating the opening of the more dangerous to the U.S. and its bureaucrats are as "petty but active St. Lawrence seaway, preliminary economy than all the Mafia and stockholders" in the capitalist enter­ steps have already been taken for an secret criminal organizations com­ prise, its plans and programs at home all-out drive to organize an estimated bined." Overtly or covertly, meas­ and abroad. Here is how Meany 200,000 Canadian dock and transpor­ ures of collaboration to prevent the stated his qualifications for partner­ tation workers. Decision to go ahead unity of transportation workers have ship: with the campaign "almost imme­ thus taken on wide ramifications. "I never went on strike in my life, diately" was reached at a recent Implicit in these combined efforts is never ran a strike in my life, never meeting in Montreal of union rep­ the threat of a deeper and more ordered anyone else to run a strike resentatives from both sides of the debilitating split in the AFL-CIO, in my life, never had anything to do border, and sponsored by the initia­ further undermining its present pre­ with a picket line ... tors of the conference on transporta­ carious position. "In the final analysis, there is not tion unity. The meeting received as­ Meany's attitude is not at all sur­ a great deal of difference between surance of Canadian Labor Congress prising. His craven surrender in' face the things that I stand for and the support. of the obviously anti-labor objec­ things the NAM leaders stand for. tives of the senatorial "investiga­ I stand for the profit system. I be­ "I Never Went on Strike tions" is in perfect harmony with his lieve it is a wonderful incentive. I in My Life!" arrogant and arbitrary schemes for a believe in the free enterprise system Not so here in the United States. completely housebroken union struc­ completely." The grandiose plans and projections ture. In this scheme labor militancy Most assuredly, the profit system from the Teamsters headquarters is to be shunned. Conversely, that is a wonderful incentive for those provoked a violent reaction. The type of structure leaves no room for who were assembled .in the NAM mouthpieces of Big Business and its trade-union democracy; much less convention. It is the source of their Washington political representatives does it enable the labor movement' fabulous power and wealth. But it opened a barrage of denunciation: to accept what should be its natural is also the source of wars and crises, "It's a monopoly; it's outside the role - that of leading champion of of exploitation, of unemployment, of pale of the legitimate trade-union democracy in the nation. inequality and insecurity. Under the movement; its power could paralyze Proceeding on this path, the AFL­ profit system, the only maxim con­ the nation," they screamed in a rising CIO Executive Council, at its mid­ sidered worthy of note, by those crescendo of 'vituperation and abuse. summer meeting, ordered all unions who reap its bountiful harvest, is And George Meany joined the chorus in the federation to cancel their pacts to sell as dearly as possible and to in hi~own way and with his own with the Teamsters. At the same buy as cheaply as possible - includ­ bluster and threats. meeting Meany filed charges of cor- ing the buying of labor power. Liv-

120 INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW ing up to this maxim, the manufac­ ment can have - a confidence that turing monopolists, the same as cap­ Sign of the Times it is going to get bigger. Organized italists everywhere, resist wage in­ Small children have a horrifying capacity labor has probably passed its peak creases, improvements of working for keeping up with the news ... I hear strength ... Since 1946 the working conditions and recognition of work­ that American boys now point toy ray-guns population has expanded but union at each other and shout: "Bang, Bang -­ ers rights with all the means and you're sterile!" And a friend over here re­ membership has remained station­ forces at their command. It is this cently found her young nephews and nieces ary." that forms the basic content of the playing "Sex-maniacs and typists."-CRITIC While some unions like the Team­ class struggle. in the London New Statesman. sters claim to have increased their There is no evidence that the hard­ membership, trade-union growth on boiled employers of the N AM ac­ ed into his present prominence by the whole, judging by available ev­ cepted Meany's assurances as suf­ the dynamic rise and growth of the idence, has not kept abreast with the ficient qualifications for partnership United Automobile Workers union, growing labor force. Most generally in the capitalist enterprise. They will which itself had its origin in one the officialdom lays the blame for permit Meany to pick the crumbs of the most stormy periods of the this situation upon the union-busting from their banquet table while de­ class struggle in the United States. Taft-Hartley Act and similar re­ manding that he translate his faith Yet he is now at great pains to pressive labor legislation. However, in the partnership into concrete terms repudiate that authentic history. The as we shall see later, while there can of squelching any notions of militant N ew York Times of March 28, 1958 be no denying the sinister effect of action by the workers. But, in the quotes Reuther' as saying: "We such legislation, this is not at all a final analysis, they are the conscious don't believe in the class struggle. complete explanation; much less can class enemies who give no quarter. The labor movement in America has it serve as a justification for failure. And, just now, when the trade-union never believed in the class strug­ Indeed, the first decade of the movement is beset by the ravages of gle." But the class struggle catches Taft-Hartley Act has proved costly unemployment, these monopolists ap­ up constantly with both Meany and to trade-union organization. This is pear determined to strike the blows Reuther. further aggravated by enactment of that they hope will reduce its great Too often they mistake themselves the misnamed "right to work" laws potential powers. The rank-and-file for the labor movement, attributing - which virtually outlaw the union workers therefore owe it to them­ to it their own views and beliefs. shop - in not less than eighteen selves to take another hard look at Meany's turn to do so was last year states, several of them located in the Meany's qualifications for labor lead­ when his message to the Big Busi­ North, including the extensively in­ ership. ness-sponsored Industrial Develop­ dustrialized state of Indiana. ment Conference declared: "Amer­ "We Don't Believe in Among examples of the impact of ican labor believes that private en­ the Class Struggle" such legislative measures on labor terprise has been and can be a great organization, the case of the hosiery Reuther's nimble shopkeeper type force for economic and social pro­ of opportunism supplements Meany's workers is perhaps the most extreme. gress." That was said just before the Over 100,000 workers are employed rock-ribbed conservatism in the private enterprise system brought its AFL.;.CIO leadership, imparting to it in this industry, and it is one of present "recession," leaving millions those industries which are heavily an appearance of well-rounded flex­ of unemployed workers to subsist on ibility. Reuther recognizes as a guid­ affected by plant migration to the relief. South. "Today union influence in ing policy only whatever seems to Thus by their own repeated de­ him to be dictated by expediency. the industry is at an ebb," says a clarations of views and beliefs these special report issued by the Indus­ He fancies himself a "social en­ preachers of class peace provide a trial Department, AFL-CIO. Between gineer" and he has often displayed measure of judgment of the present­ an ability to advance slogans, de­ September 1947 and September 1957 day American labor leadership. Their the union membership dropped by mands or lofty social ideals. In most actions as well as their failures, furn­ cases, however, these have remained 76.5% and whole local branches were ish even more conclusive evidence. completely wiped out. stillborn or been whittled down to The labor leadership, so closely tied such an extent as to be bereft of in words and deeds to the capitalist Another indication of decline in serious content. system, has become' a distressingly the ratio of union growth is pre­ In the realities of capitalist life, true reflection of the decay and sented by collective bargaining elec­ this is what happened to Reuther's degeneracy of this system. The move­ tions conducted by the National La­ more recent proposals. The much­ vement it leads suffers from the bor Relations Board. In 1937 unions advertised "guaranteed annual wage" corrosive effects of these influences. won nearly 95% of all elections, and was reduced to meager supplemental about 87% of those voting favored unemployment compensation, hon­ Why Have the Unions the unions as bargaining agents. Of ored by some states, rejected by Stopped Growing? the elections conducted in 1955 the others. The high-sounding profit­ The stinging observation made by unions won 68%, whereas in 1957 the sharing plan was conveniently for­ Fortune magazine (April 1953) rings figure had dropped to 61 %. Among gotten. tragically true today: "U.S. labor has those participating in the elections Admittedly, Reuther was catapult- lost the greatest dynamic any move- in 1953 about 79% voted for the

FALL 1958 121 unions; but in 1957 only 63%. In other words, the percentage of col­ lective bargaining elections won by You Gotta Buy More the unions shows a constant decline, and the same holds true for the per­ In his best-seller, "The Hidden Per­ of impulse items and cite cases they've seen of husbands who are sent to the store for a of favoring suaders," Vance Packard declares: "As a centage workers the nation we are already so rich that consumers loaf of bread and depart with both their unions as bargaining agents. are under no pressure of immediate neces­ arms loaded with their favorite snack items. It is of course not to be expected city to buy a very large share - perhaps Shrewd operators have put the superior im. that the trade-union movement as much as 40% - of what is produced, and pulsiveness of little children to work in pro­ the pressure will get progressively less in moting sales. The Indiana supermarket op­ should be able to keep on growing the years ahead. But if consumers exercise erator 1 mentioned has a dozen little wire numerically and in terms of quality their option no.t to buy a large share of carts that small children can push about the and power at all times and at the what is produced, a great depression is not store while their mothers are shopping with same ratio. Nor can it be expected far behind." big carts. People think these tiny carts are under any and all circumstances to However, utilizing American advertising very cute: and the operator thinks they are know-how, marketers are rallying in heroic very profitable. The small children go zip­ gain improvements for the workers fashion to save the economy. Here are some ping up and down the aisles imitating their that will ease their conditions of ex­ instances, mentioned by Packard, of the in­ mothers in impulse buying, only more so. ploitation. Unions are instruments of genious thinking that has gone into solving They reach out, hynotically I assume, and struggle but their own internal dy­ the pressing problem: grab boxes of cookies, candies, dog food, "An Indiana supermarket operator na­ and everything else that delights or interests namic remains at times dormant, only tionally recognized for his advanced psy­ them. Complications arise, of course, when to explode and display a new spirit, chological techniques told me he once sold mother and child come out of their trances vitality and strength at certain econ­ a half ton of cheese in a few hours, just by and together reach the check-out counter. omic and political junctures when getting an enormous half-ton wheel of The store operator related thus what hap­ workers needs become particularly cheese and inviting customers to nibble sliv­ pe(ls: 'There is usually a wrangle when the ers and cut off their own chunks for pur­ mother sees all the things the child has in pressing. This is what happened dur­ chase. They could have their chunk free if his basket and she tries to make him take ing the thirties when the workers they could guess its weight within an ounce. the stuff back. The child will take back items made a giant leap forward from the The mere massiveness of the cheese, he be­ he doesn't particularly care about such as most backward to the most modern lieves, was a powerful influence in making coffee but will usu(lily bawl and kick before the sales ... surrendering cookies, candy, ice cream, or trade-union movement and did so on "Supermarket operators are pretty well soft drinks, so they usually stay for the a grand scale. This complete trans­ agreed that men are easy marks for all sorts family.' " formation foreshadowed its immense potentialities for the future. By the same token this movement can fail Plans for organization campaigns the past: "All the factors of their to take advantage of its possibilities; have been announced with a fanfare status position, which have enabled it can fail to respond to its duties as of publicity that has become so char­ white-collar workers to set them­ an instrument of struggle; or it can acteristic of the firm believers in selves apart from wage-workers, are retreat in the face of attacks at the the free-enterprise system. First· it now subject to definite decline. In­ cost of serious impairment of its own was "Operation Dixie" - a cam­ creased rationalization is lowering moral fibre and the undermining of paign to organize the South. Next the skill levels and making their its special economic and political po­ came plans for a campaign to or­ work more and more factory-like." sition. ganize the white-collar workers. Both (White Collar, p. 297) Precisely In this lies the real ex­ died a- borning. Not even a whisper But unorganized white-collar planation for the pitiably weak and can now be heard about such ven­ workers have no power of collective disoriented position of the trade­ tures. bargaining. This deficiency has not union mov~mentnow. The evil con­ Meanwhile the South remains a been without effect on their economic sequences of repressive labor legisla­ haven for the open shop and run­ status, especially during recent de­ tion tel! only a part of the story. away plans. Enactment of "right to cades. The income level of the great mass of office workers and sales peo­ Far more distressing i~the dismal work" laws has proceeded virtually failure of the AFL-CIO leaders to unchallenged. And the more intense ple has tended to decline relative to pursue an active policy of organiza­ exploitation of workers under open­ that of organized industrial work­ tional expansion. shop conditions in the South, re­ ers. All these factors should indicate There can' now be no doubt that inforced by these vicious laws, pre­ that conditions in this field cry out these leaders are as insensitive to the sents a constantly greater threat to for organization. pre~singneeds of organizing the the labor movement everywhere. Myth of the Well-Paid Worker unorganized as was the pious Bap­ Among white-collar workers about Against their failure of organIza­ tist deacon from Coshocton, Ohio, 84% are still not in the unions, leav­ tional expansion, it may seem from who preceded Meany in the presi­ ing a potential reservoir for organi­ superficiai observation that the dency of the AFL. Moreover, if the zation of thirteen to fourteen million unions have at least managed to up­ builders of Rome had shown no more workers. Any economically peculiar hold the wage level pretty well. But vigor and alacrity in their task than position that white-collar people may this is more appearance than reality. do these labor officials today, the think they occupy, says C. Wright Wages have not kept pace with the stre2ts would be stiil unpaved. Mills, is now practically a thing of rising cost of living; and wages al-

122 INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW ways tend to lag behind output and drivers. Its effects were felt im­ up to its responsibilities concerning profits. The U.S. Bureau of Labor mediately, idling workers far beyond the present recession. It is the gov­ Statistics calculates that as of April these states and beyond the trucking ernment that wields the club of the 1958 a city worker with a wife and industry. These are danger signals for Taft-Hartley Act. This executive of two children (the average American labor. the whole capitalist class is also the family) needed a minimum income promoter of imperialist ventures so of $90 a week for a "modest but The Legislative Assault repugnant to the common people adequate" standard of living. But the everywhere; ventures that are too average weekly wage in manufactur­ What Trotsky pointed out in his often fraught with dangers of atom­ ing, after taxes, reported by the penetrating study, Trade Unions in ic annihilation. the Epoch 'of Imperialist Decay, is Department of Labor for June 1958 What we witness now is the now very much apropos. "Monopoly cul­ was $75.55. The average factory mination of a decade of retreat and capitalism does not rest on competi­ worker's family thus falls nearly $15 surrender by the present labor lead­ tion and free private initiative but short every week of a "modest but ership. Since of on centralized command. The capital­ the enactment the adequate" standard of living. Taft-Hartley Act a whole series of ist cliques at the head of mighty Some startling comparisons be­ blows have rained down on the trusts, syndicates, banking consor­ tween wages and profits have been unions. And, from their erstwhile tiums, etc., view economic life from' presented by Leon Keyserling. He demand for repeal, the AFL-CIO the very same heights as does state says that during the period 1953-57 chiefs have come down to the level power; and they require at every total dividend payments increased of lobbyists pleading for further step the collaboration of the latter. 80% faster than total wages and sal­ union controls. Their constant re­ In their turn the trade unions in the aries, and personal interest income treat and surrender served to em­ most important branches of industry about 110% faster. Comparing the bolden the centralized capitalist ad­ find themselves deprived of the pos­ versary while simultaneously disor­ first three quarters of 1957 with the sibility of profiting by the competi­ like period of 1956, Keyserling finds ienting the workers. The adversary tion between the different enterpris­ that profits of the large automobile has made full use of the opportunity es. They have to confront a central­ and steel corporations increased three to unite his forces more firmly, while ized adversary, intimately bound up the labor chieftains have been times faster than wage rates in these with the state power." pre­ industries. occupied with the deepening and This is evidenced on every hand. widening of the split in the so Questions such as these become "Right to work" laws already enacted re­ cently merged AFL-CIO. particularly pertinent in view of the in eighteen states are now up for growing employer resistance to wage referendum vote next November in However the trade-union move­ increases, a resistance that is moti­ six additional states, including Cal­ ment did not arise to promote the vated entirely by the urge to main­ ifornia and Ohio. Needless to men­ "wonderful incentive" of the profit tain swollen profits, in callous dis­ tion, these initiatives are actively system but to fight it; to fight against regard of the continually rising cost supported everywhere by the N a­ its injustices, its inequality and its of living. Moreover, the hands of the tional Association of Manufacturers, abuses. The trade-union movement employers are immensely strength­ with which Meany expressed identity is a .living organism, subject to ened and the unions are correspond­ of views and objectives; they are change under the influence of chang­ ingly weakened by the mounting supported by Chambers of Com­ ing conditions, under the influence anti-labor legislation, by Labor merce, banks and utility companies. of pressure from the class struggle. Board rulings increasingly hostile to The relatively moderate Kennedy­ The trade-union movement pos­ labor and last, but not least, by the Ives bill of regulatory union control sesses its own internal dynamic public scandalization of the unions seems sure to be shelved for this which, though long dormant, will before the McClellan Committee. session of Congress. The reason is, most assuredly be again manifest in It is therefore not surprising that however, that Big Business made its new vitality and militancy. Its pres­ resistance to wage increases, and re­ opposition clear and demanded a ent equilibrium, held together by a sistance to union organization, finds more definitely anti-labor bill, with heavily bureaucratized superstruc­ the corporation~and the employers teeth in it. ture, lacks a stable foundation. This organizations more united than has Meany and company, acting on be­ equilibrium may well be upset by been the case in the past: Witness half of the AFL-CIO hierarchy, sup­ the open and brazen utilization of the solid front presented by the Big ported the passage of this bill. With repressive state powers by the cen­ Three in the automobile industry their craving for bourgeois respect­ tralized capitalist adversary. against the UAW. Who can deny that ability, they are ready to submit to For the trade-union movement, one their ruthless abrogation of all for­ further govern.ment regulation of the choice may then hold out the great­ mer contract provisions has struck a unions. That .is, regulation by the est hope for restoring its position as formidable blow at the union? At government which they themselves a serious and mighty social force - the moment the trucking concerns in have at times been compelled to ac­ entry onto the road of independent the eleven Western States are at­ cuse of favoritism to Big Business. political action in the interest of all tempting, by united action, to enforce This is the same government that those who toil. a total lockout of all union truck they charged with failure to live August 1958

FALL 1958 121 The Soviet Bid for World Trade

Conflicting hopes and fears have been aroused in other countries by the increased exports from the 'Soviet bloc. What is the real perspective?

by Tom Kemp

ECENT spectacular evidence of ciencies and contradictions in the in one country," apart from its politi­ R the technological prowess of the available evidence it is advisable to cal aspect, meant a degree of self­ USSR has made the capitalist world summarize these new trends and exclusion from the world market increasingly conscious of the eco­ estimate their significance for the which could only increase the burden nomic challenge from that quarter. future. of heavy investment required by in­ Serious attention has been paid to dustrialization under pressure. Not Khrushchev's reiterated boasts of the 'fhe Background that the USSR could be completely ability of the Soviet Union to catch As a preliminary, the past relation­ self-sufficient - certain raw mate­ up with and outstrip the advanced ship of the USSR with the capitalist rials, machine tools and manufactured capitalist countries economically. But world market needs to be sketched goods could only be obtained in the while that is a matter for the next in.l Lack of exportable surpluses, the course of trade. Indeed, when the few decades, the increasing activities hostility of the outside world and to normal channels were interrupted by of the USSR, and the other countries no small degree deliberate policy the outbreak of war in the West in in its bloc, in the sphere of interna­ had, by the 1930's, reduced the for­ 1939 it was indispensable to rush tional trade and, more recentiy, as a eign trade of the USSR considerably through trade deals with countries source of aid for former colonial and below that of Czarist Russia. During which were still accessible. "backward" countries, in direct com­ the Five Year plans, es!,>ecially the Then, after 1941, the economic petition with the USA and the ad­ first, the direct impact was felt of contact, with the capitalist world vanced countrie3, has raised the pros­ conditions in the world market. An greatly increased, primarily because pect of a' new and even sharper indispensable minimum of imports of the need for strategic commodities immediate challenge. had to be obtained from the capital- ' and armaments. This took the form It is true that not only Soviet ist countries, especially of machinery of a large import surplus covered by propagandists, but also those Ameri­ to be paid for with agricultural the Lease Lend agreements with the cans concerned with impressing Con­ products. The collapse of prices dur­ USA, Britain and Canada. No doubt gress and public opinion with the ing the depression, and, consequently, in the short-lived false dawn of the need to step up' military spending the deterioration of Russia's "net Teheran and Yalta conferences closer and foreign aid, have an interest in barter" terms of trade, had a marked­ economic ties with the Western coun­ 2 exaggerating the volum~ of this ly unfavorable effect on the plan. tries were expected. Russian aid. Even' when allowance The policy of building "socialism However, the extension of the has been made for this, there can be 1. For more extensive backgraund see M. Soviet sphere in Eastern Europe, the no doubt that the Soviet bloc coun­ Dobb, Soviet Economic Devlopment; A. Baykov, Soviet Foreign Trade; H. Schwartz, Russia's Marshall Plan and the "cold war," tries are now pressing into the Soviet Economy. Postwar developme~tsare well covered in the publications of the United Na­ culminating in the Korean affair, re­ capitalist world market to an extent tiO'l1s. especially the annual World Economic sulted in the East-West exchanges Survey, the Economic Survey 01 Europe and the which was impossible only' a few quarterly Economic Bulletin lor Europe. For de­ being greatly reduced. The USA years ago; moreover there are con­ velopments up to 1950 see Soviet Development Bulletin (University of Birmingham) No.5, sought to deprive the USSR, and siderable potentialities for this to go March 1951, and other bulletins in the series. The statistical "thaw" in the USSR has made later China, of strategic materials much further in coming years. A new, available funer information about external trade -hitherto covered by a thick security blanket and imposed this policy on her clients and it must be admitted, incalculable The Economic Committee for Europe had fre­ in the Marshall Plan itself in 1948. quent cause to complain of this; c.I., their Sur­ factor is being injected into the vey 01 Europe, 1956. While welcoming the new The Labour governmept in Britain V\Tell data in the Survey 01 Europe, 1957, they point political, as as economic, world out that statistics are still inadequate as regards imposed its own ban in 1949. In the relationship of forces. Despite defi- geographical and ccnnmodity patterns and for making a full appraisal of the significance of course of the next few years these foreign trade in the economies of the USSR and East Europe. restrictions were made more detailed Tom Kemp, a contributor to the British so­ 2. See, for example, Dobb, op. cit., p. 238 and and were reenforced by the passage cialist publications Labour Review and The note 2 "Such foreign credits as the country was able to obtain in those years were used up in of the Battle Act in the USA in 1951. Newsletter, teaches economics at Hull Univer­ offsetting the unfavaurable movement in the net sity. terms of trade." In addition an embargo was imposed

124 INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW upon trade wi th China through a point of, say, the economists of the ment of the world situation. By the resolution of the United Nations. Economic Committee for Europe at mid-1950's, if not earlier, among the From the Soviet side a theoretical Geneva, the price that was being paid allies of the USA there was growing consecration of the reduction in trade by both sides for the artificial divi­ dissatisfaction with the trade restric­ was given by Stalin in his last work, sion of the old continent was harmful tions. Economic Problems of Socialism, in and unnecessary:-' It was not difficult East- West trade, as such, offered which he spoke of "two parallel no panacea for an evil which was world markets." He claimed that this rooted historically in the dire prob­ outcome represented an aspect of "the lems of an outworn social system on general crisis of the world capitalist the one hand and the contradictions system"; with the "socialist camp," of bureaucratically degenerated, or as a result of its fast rate of industrial deformed, regimes on a progressive development, moving to a position base on the other. Although the pros­ where its members will "not only be perity of the capitalist world in this in no need of imports from capitalist period made the problem less serious, countries, but will themselves feel the latent trade war breaking into the necessity of finding an outside the open became increasingly burden­ market for their surplus products."a some to both sides - the demands of Not long before in the same year, the world market were reasserting 1952, an International Economic Con­ themselves. ference was held in Moscow as a Not only, as Stalin had foreseen, to point out that the abnormal reduc­ climax to a great campaign to break did the Eastern bloc have export tion in the volume of exchanges did through the trade embargo and in­ surpluses, but it also needed goods nobody any good, and that comple­ crease the volume of exchanges with from the rest of the world in in­ mentary economies were being kept the capitalist countries. In terms of creasing volume to carry through its apart at great cost. In practice, how­ its effects on trade, this piece of industrial plans and meet the de­ ever, no iron curtain divides politics junketing was a failure, though it no mands of consumers for a greater and economics. There were, of course, doubt scored some propaganda points. choice and variety of goods. At the poli ticians and businessmen in the On the basis of Stalin's pronounce­ same time, the world political situa­ West who would have liked to see a ments the persistent demands for tion offered possibilities of strength­ greater volume of East-West trade, East- West trade voiced by the Com­ ening relationships with the "un­ which could have eased the balance munist parties in the capitalist coun­ committed countries," such as India, of payments difficulties of the West­ tries appe·ar contradictory - unless Burma and Indonesia, through the ern countries and provided a way out it was to provide a market for those offer of industrial, technical and of economic, political and military "surplus products" of which Stalin military aid. On the side of the dependence on the USA. However, in spoke. It was more likely that Stalin capitalist states, the passing up of the main, and no doubt correctly, the was rationalizing a situation which lucrative trading possibilities became West European bourgeoisie estimated increasingly irksome, especially as was far from being to the adv~ntage that its survival was linked with the of the USSR and that the trade em­ the danger of imminent war receded USA, as the dominant segment of the bargoes were having adverse effects and problems of overproduction and capi talist world system. The costs and not only on the Eastern European increased trade competition loomed risks of the "cold war"-with Ameri­ countries - cut off from their tradi­ ahead for certain industries. can support-were preferred to the tional markets - but on the USSR problematic advantages of "peaceful "Peaceful Coexistence" itself." coexistence"; that is, maintenance of In the view of the Soviet leaders, Looked at from the technical stand- the status quo in face of gathering "peaceful coexistence" presupposes 3. J. Stalin, Economic Problems of Socialism. revolutionary processes which West­ increased trade between the "two Stalin also Indicated that this would mean "that the sphere of exploitation of the world's re­ ern imper~alismfelt must be rolled world markets. ,j Thus Mikoyan, at sources by the major capitalist countries (U.S.A., Britain, France) will not expand, but 'contract; back if capitalism were to avoid ex­ the Twentieth Congress of the Com­ that their opportunities for sale in the world market will deteriorate, and that their Industries tinction. Of course, the nature of the munist Par~yof the Soviet Union, will be operating more and more below capac­ ity." Thus it was inferred that Stalin's theory problem changed with the develop- brought out the doctrine of compara­ "regarding the relative stability of markets in tive costs to underline the point.G the period of the general crisis of capitalism" 5. In the section devoted to East-West eco­ and Lenin's "that in spite of the decay of nomic relations in the Economic Survey of No doubt such arguments express a capitalism, 'on the whale, capitalism is growing Europe Since the War (1952), the Economic Com­ far more rapidly than before,''' were bQth now mission for Europe deplored the keeping apart sincere desire for a modus vivendi valid. See pp. 34-7. of "twa areas with highly complementary pro­ duction structures." It went on to say that' "the through the normalization of trading 4. There have been many discussions about this economic effects of this split are profound, as from the Communist party standpoint in the witnessed by western Europe's difficulties in relations with the capitalist states. past decade or so. For an early example, see financing food imports from overseas, and in A. Rothstein, "Economic Relationships Between the strains involved in eastern industrialisati< ..n 6. "Lasting peaceful co-existence Is Incon­ the Two Worlds"" in The Modern Quarterly, No. under conditions of low imports ot commodities ceivable without trade, which provides a good 4, 1951. His conclusion was that it was time to (not to speak of capital) from outside the area. basis for it even after the formation of two normalize trade relations and that this should The economic loss arising from this political world markets." (Mikoyan's emphasis.) Trade be "the particular duty of all those engaged in split does not lend itself to measurement." would be "mutually beneficial" being "deter­ trade, industry and economic stUdies - what­ (p. 215) In purely "economic" terms the ECE mined by the very necessity of the social divi­ ever their political standpoint - who are con­ was right - but to sever the economic from the sion of labour, by the generally known fact that cerned for the welfare of ·their respective coun­ "political" and regard the latter as opposing an not all goods can be produced to the same tries." This in the leading "Marxist" theoretical artificial barrier to the first was to misunder­ advantage in all countries." Soviet News Book­ journal in Britain. stand the whole nature of the problem. let, No.8, p. 11.

FALL 1958 125 At the same time they express the offered by these markets. In 1957 ties which it is impossible or un­ fact that the USSR is not, and cannot Britain decided to seek trade with economic for them to produce in their be, isolated from the capitalist world China, despite the embargo, though own territory, need markets to realize market. still within the limits of the restric­ their goods at a profit. At the same Since 1955, when summit talks tions on strategic exports. Under con­ time, because of the anarchic nature took place in Geneva, trade between ditions of a spreading trade crisis in of capitalist production relations, to Eastern and Western European coun­ the West there may well be a struggle continue to realize goods at a profit tries has been increasing. In 1956 it for a place in these markets. s While in the internal market may depend rose by 20% and a further rise oc­ upon not merely maintaining but curred last year. But on both sides increasing the export market. For restrictions remain which are bound You Can Say That Again capitalist countries, "export or die" becomes an economic imperative in up with the political division of the "Nobody in his right mind wants war. But world. In any event, the further in­ it is questionable how mony people in their time of slump. While, as regards the dustrialization of the USSR, and more right minds direct the world's destiny." - USA, its disproportionate develop­ particularly Eastern Europe, may C. L. Sulzberger in the July 21 N. Y. Times. ment in relation to the rest of the have reduced the possibility of ex­ capitalist world market has produced port from the area of "traditional unrealizable surpluses - in goods or the these openings cannot avert a trade exports," mainly food and productive capacity - and to sustain raw mate­ decline they can alleviate the position rials. Their demands upon world the level of profits and activity a the for those countries which are pre­ market will likewise have been un­ permanent unpaid export surplus is pared to go along with the Soviet necessary. Of course, the surpluses dergoing change. The simple com­ Union and her allies in other respects. plementarity of the two "halves" of are disposed of in such a way as to A situation might, therefore, arise in serve the interests of American Europe is no longer as plain. By this which the USSR would be able to time more manufactured exports capitalism. drive hard bargains because of the could figure in of East In the case of the USSR and similar the trade the anxiety of the capitalist countries to European countries; on the face of it planned economies, foreign trade is find a market for their goods. On the bound up with the plan itself. How­ they may penetrate more easily into other hand, the arrival on the world the less developed countrles outside ever, it does present some special market of goods of which the USSR problems. For example, since agri­ the Soviet bloc rather than into has an oversupply herself might Western Europe. cultural production varies with the aggravate the decline in prices of harvests there may be years in which The goods which Western Europe such products and worsen trading has been sending East in greater surpluses are available for export or problems in the capitalist world. A when imports are required in order quantities in recent years are "raw recent example of this is the sale of materials for capital goods indus­ to meet a shortage in the harvest. aluminum, which has obliged Cana­ For the rest, the endeavor will be tries" and "engineering products"­ dian producers to lower their prices.9 index of demands of indus­ made to regulate the volume of im·· an the However, the role which foreign trializing countries. example, port-export flows in accordance with For the trade plays in the capitalist economies Soviet Union and Poland 'have, in the requirements of the plan. Of and those which are centrally plann~d recent years, placed important orders course, plans may not be achieved, is different in certain important re­ for complete plants and or they may be overfulfilled; but, industrial spects. The capitalist countries, as power station equipment. 7 On the once the plan is operating, changes well as having to provide themselves in exports and/or imports will require other hand, it is well known that through foreign trade with commodi- such countries also export complete reallocation of resources within the plan. This may limit the willingness plants or "aggregates," mostly to 8. This was in Mikoyan's mind when, in re­ ferring to the Western embargo on trade to of such countries to participate in others in the bloc, bu't in some cases China, he said that this "could enable some of them [i.e., the Western countries] to avoid cur­ multilateral trade in the world mar­ outside it. Thus specialization and tailing production during the period of in­ crisis." On ket. Generally, they will have a pref­ the advantages of the international evitable the other hand. Communist party demands fen: East-West trade are often erence for bilateral agreements which division of labor are asserting them­ couched in terms which suggest that it can provide a specific against unemployment. While determine in advance the amount and selves once again, if at a higher level. to a limited extent this may be true, the market in the Eastern bloc could only provide an outlet kind of goods to be exchanged - and The end of the phase 'of apparently for certain countries, or parts of industry in such countries. The basic problem of capitalist for a capitalist economy it may be boundless prosperity in the capital­ crisis still remains. difficult for such an undertaking to ist countries reenforces the demand 9. Aluminum sales were reported in The Man­ be fulfilled.1o for"a reappraisal of the possibilities chester Guardian, March 31, 1958, 'with the com­ ment: "The range and size C1f Russia's exports some inflexibility foreign of primary materials is rapidly growing." It was If in 7. See Economic Bulletin for Europe, Vol. 9, suggested that in certain lines - raw materials, trade arises from a plan, the plan No.2, p. 47. "Press reports indicate SUbstantial heavy industry - output had grown ahead of eastern European orders for western European ability of user industries to absorb it. The does not dominate foreign trade to machinery during the current year [1957). changes in the composition of armaments was Poland, for example, has ordered mining equip­ instanced as another factor. The article con­ the extent it does internal economic ment and electrical equipment in several west­ cluded:. "We must expect growing Russian ex­ ern European countries ... The Soviet Union ports of raw materials and capital goods, if developments. As one authority puts is reported to have ordered several complete necessary, financed by loans, credits, and aid." industrial plants from the United Kingdom; in­ Should this influx of raw materials reach suf­ it: "If the State is master of all the cluding one for the manufacture of rubber ficient dimensions it could have a serious effect economic levers of command inside tires." Total exports of machinery from West to on markets already suffering for some time East totalled $150 million in 1956, but this repre­ from oversupply and falling prices; and the sented only ~.40/0C1f total machinery exports. "underdeveloped countries" would be the first 10. This paint is made in virtually all studies Ibid., p. 46.,. - and worst affected in all probability. of Russian foreign trade.

126 INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW the USSR, the bodies concerned with consciously directed and employed made of multilateral payments; for external trade have, on the contrary, with deliberation by the USSR and, example, earnings in sterling from to take account of price and produc­ to some extent by the East European the sale of goods to the United King­ tion movements, fluctuations in sup­ countries, as a political weapon. dom may be used for the purchase of ply and demand, which occur inde­ Again its effectiveness will depend raw materials from the Sterling Area. pendent of their will. Also, given the upon circumstances. The ability to Since the absolute volume of the ex­ profound repercussions which, in turn trade on and off, to switch changes with the Western countries certain circumstances, the non-ful­ imports from one country to another is still so low, it seems likely that fillment of the plan for foreign trade and provide aid in the service of they would have to increase many will have on the execution of the foreign policy has been demonstrated times over before means of payment production plan, one reaches here many times over· the past decade or became a real problem. Political one of the weakest points of all two. Thus the political significance factors at present play the main role. planning carried out on the scale of of the purchase of part of the Egyp­ This seems to have been the case, for a single country, large as it may tian cotton crop or even of the instance, with the large "shopping be."ll Icelandic trawler catch. Credits were list" publicized at the time of the Under planning, then, there are withdrawn from Yugoslavia at the Bulganin-Khrushchev visit to Brit­ definite limitations to the scope for time of the break with the Comin­ ain. Only a fraction has been bought, altering the volume of imports or form; new credits were extended even though much of it was not exports in the short run - assuming after the reconciliation in 1955, and covered by the embargo on strategic that they first have to be paid for withheld as part of the virulent goodS. 13 out of current (planned) production anti-Tito campaign in the summer of For the other East European coun­ by the sale of goods at world market 1958. The entry of the USSR into the tries the political obstacles are even prices; while exports can only be in­ world economy on a growing scale more apparent. Their desire to sell in creased at the expense of (planned) as buyer, seller and creditor opens up the West - their main prewar mar­ investment or consumption unless ways of altering the political balance ket - is no doubt still important and output has exceeded that planned. in her favor. they would be only too happy to Failure to import on the ~,:aleplanned Even with the growth in trade follow Poland in obtaining credits or to sell what had been planned at between East and West which has from the same sources, although they favorable prices will affect the plan taken place in recent years it remains may not like to say so openly,. since adversely. On the other hand, the below the prewar level. It is still imports could ease internal economic necessary readjustments can be made very small in relation to the total strains. It is difficult to see any pos­ under the· control of the planning trade of, Western Europe. Thus im­ sibility of closer economic inter­ bodies. There is not the same drive ports from East Europe and the USSR penetration on the basis of "peaceful· to dispose of export surpluses at all were 8.4% of the total in 1937; in coexistence." Indeed, the develop­ costs, such as is found in the capital­ 1956 they were only 3%. Exports at ment of the European Common Mar­ ist economies. It is, of course, funda­ 6.8 0;( in 1937 were down to 3.51( in ket, so far as it succeeds, will prob­ mental that there should be a state 1956. The only countries whose trade ably constitute an obstacle to re­ monopoly of foreign trade. with the Eastern European countries establishing trade links between East What this very terse summary of exceeded 15~ of the total were Ice­ and West.14 a complex problem shows is (1) that land, Finland, Yugoslavia and Turkey the world market and the interna­ - geography, rather than politics, Recent Appeals tional division of labor impress played a major role here. 1:! Notable efforts have been made lately by the USSR to develop a themselves on a planned economy in As far as the Soviet Union is con­ larger volume of East-West one country; (2) that in the short cerned it seems probable that means ex­ changes. American newspapermen, run the foreign trade of such an of payment are no problem when economy cannot be varied entirely to goods are urgently required - gold, economists and finally the President order. It is true that increased im­ foreign exchange, arms, or whatever himself have been appealed to with of interest. Thus ports can be paid for from reserves it may be, are made available. Use is arguments mutual of gold and foreign exchange, or even the Soviet economist, Aboltin, in a 12. Economic Bulletin for Europe, Vol. 9, No.2, from credits, while, exports could be Table 3, p. 37. Other points to note: "The share 13. According to The Financial Times, March supplied on credit or made as grants, of western Europe in total eastern European 25, 1958, "only a trickle" of these orders have trade increased from only a little over 15';1, in been received, although a billion pounds sterl­ but, apart from overfulfillment of 1952 to almost 19(/, in 1956." (p. 36.) In the ing was spoken of at the time of the Bulganin­ world context, the World Economic Survey, 1H56, Khrushchev visit. the plan in that line, only at the reported: "Although in 1956 the value of trade of the centrally planned economies with the rest 14. This is put as follows in the Economic Sur­ expense of domestic consumption of the world reached an all time high of more vey of Europe, ]956: "One effect of the Free than 5 billion dollars, it still accounted for less Trade Area rules will be to make it more dif­ and/or investment. than 3% of world trade ... The trade of main­ ficult for west European countries to enter into This implies definite, land China with countries outside the centrally trade agreements with the countries of eastern that there are planned group rose by more than one-third, and Europe and the Soviet Union which involve any and it may be, in the short run, quite that of the Soviet Union by nearly 300/.. Th~ discrimination in favour of imports from these trade of other eastern European countries with countries as compared with imports from other narrow limits to the increase possible the rest of the world rose by only 15(1c." The members of the area." As Soviet trade is carried increase in the share of Western trading regions on through bilateral agreements, the F'TA would in East- West trade. Within these with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, in cut at the root of East-West trade bargains. No the Economic Survey of Europe, 1956, was stated doubt this will not at all disturb the initiators limits, however, trade and aid can be as "probably to be explained largely as a result of the BCM and FTA. It may lead, however, as of special diffiCUlties in trade between east the Economic Commission suggests to an inten­ 11. C. Bettelheim, I,')l;conomle Sovhitlque, p. European countries and the Soviet Union." sified trade drive by the eastern European coun­ 322. (p. 17.) tries in other areas.

FALL 1958 127 special communication to the Ameri­ and disproportions in Soviet economy, For one thing the USSR is closely can Economic Association, indicated for all the rapid expansion of recent tied up with the other countries in that the "socialist" countries "offered years - and in part because of it­ the bloc, and through them with the a stable market not subject to cyclical are manifest. There is, therefore, an world market. And more directly, as changes." Attuned to the current imperative necessity to alleviate the has been seen, not only the political recessjon, he made the point which is strains, as far as possible, and to but also the purely economic costs of a frequent standby of Soviet propa­ increase the flow of goods on to the autarchy are far too high for Khrush­ ganda; that is, that "In case of an market without prejudicing the ful­ chev to be able to meet.' His efforts economic crisis the guaranteed stable fillment of the plans. to secure a larger place in the capital­ market provided by the countries of Here foreign trade can play an ist world market give the lie, too, to the socialist system can substantially important. role. Especially when there Stalin's pretensions regarding the improve,the lot of the working class is a desire to "catch up" in fields parallel world market. and the peasantry and also alleviate where the Soviet Union is especially the difficulties of industrialists hit by backward. If finished goods can be The "Second" World Market the crisis."15 Khrushchev made a obtained in such fields, considerable similar point in his letter to Eisen­ investment can be avoided and The economic relations of the hower of June 2, 1958. The substan­ valuable time bought. This is espe­ USSR with the "peoples democracies" tial purchases from the USA which cially true in relation to plastics and have shown many contradictions he contemplated "would enable chemicals - in which serious lags over the past decade. Most of these American industries to work at a behind developments in the advanced countries were economically back­ higher percentage of their capacity capitalist countries exist. Although ward; the first task, after the recon­ and would raise the level of em­ Khrushchev says: "The Soviet Union struction phase in the early postwar ployment."16 has every opportunity, and all the years, was industrialization. At the It can hardly be assumed, however, necessary resources, for successfully same time, the economic 'links of that Khrushchev and his academic fulfilling the programme,"17 he goes these countries had formerly been cohorts are only thinking of the wel­ on straight away to admit, in effect, predominantly with the Western fare of the working class, or of that this is only so in the long run. European area. Under the new con­ industrialists, in the capitalist coun­ Meanwhile he' proposes a long list of ditions, however, the leading trading tries. Khrushchev is capable of machinery which the USSR would role was played by the USSR both speaking for hours about the future, like to buy in the USA at once, as an exporter and an importer .. In with its competition between social­ offering in exchange, it may be said, addition, some of these countries ism and capitalism, without referring the raw materials which typically were obliged to pay reparations to at all to the role of the working class figure in the export lists of a less the USSR.19 in the advanced countries. Nor should develo'ped country. What was most remarkable was the the contradiction in the idea of the The attractive prospect held out to limited nature of the progress Soviet Union offering itself to capital­ capitalism of alleviating crisis by achieved. in coordinating the econ­ ism as a life line in a period· of crisis trade with the Soviet Union disguises omies of these countries, although have escaped his academicians. In­ Khrushchev's purpose of diminishing they were aU, after 1948, organized deed, the goods which are obtained the strains of the present phase in on a planned basis under the control by trade still have to be realized in Soviet economic development. This of Communist parties. The Council the internal market. How can that recognition is not, of course, an ar­ of Economic Mutual Aid (CEMA), be accomplished when such com­ gument against East-West trade. But set up in 1949 as a counter to the modities are glutting the market it does stand in contrast to some of Marshall Plan (which some of the owing to' depression? the official boasts or claims that the East European countries might have Everyone knows that Khrushchev Soviet Union has broken away from sought to join but for Soviet opposi':' acts quite empirically, and speaks as the capitalist world market, built tion), did little more than facilitate he acts - by definition, as it were, "socialism in one country," and so on. agreements for trade and industrial he cannot be a "revisionist." In the The Economic Committ ee for and technical assistance between letter to Eisenhower the motives of Europe falls into such a mistake when pairs of countries.2o There were in­ the East-West trade campaign, from it says: "The costs of autarchy are numerable bilateral bargains amount­ the Soviet side, seem quite trans­ by now probably insignificant for ing to barter deals - nothing as parently revealed. If the grandiose the Soviet Union ... " and draws a flexible as the multilateral clearings 15-20 year plans upon which Khrush­ contrast between its situation and 19. See, for example, the study by a critic, chev is staking his reputation are to that of the smaller countries of East­ N. Spulber, in The Economics of Communist be realized,. tremendous addition·al ern Europe. IS The statement is valid Eastern Europe, which is usefUl for data. investment will be needed - he loses only in the most abstract way; i.e., 20. V. Kaigl, "Fraternal Collaboration and the International Division of Labour within the no occasion, for example, to stress in the light of the mass and variety World Socialist Camp," originally appearing in Voprossy Ekonomlkl, French translation in Pro­ "the paramount task of developing of Soviet natural resources. In terms blemes tconomiques, No. 532, March 11, 1958. is He describes the errors and limitations of this heavy industry." However, the lags of the real world it meaningless. cooperation which, according to him, was lead­ ing, until 1953, to "autarchy and economic isola­ " 15. Aboltin, in the American Economic Be­ ·17. Ibid. tion." He points out that successful industrial­ view, May 1958, p. 388. ization requires "the largest possible develop­ 18. Economic Survey of Europe, 1957, Chapt.' ment of the international division of labour 16. Soviet News (London), No. 3852. VI, p. 30. within the socialist camp," etc.

128 INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW possible between the Western coun­ tries in the European Payments Union (EPU).21 Congressmen at Work

At the same time, wi thin these The need for legisletion to lower restric­ a ton, another attempt to bar imports of countries, all of which were small, tions on trede with other cepitelist countries cobra snakes and eggs, and still another to and all except East Germany and hes been urged by Eisenhower es "vitel" to regulate imports of piranha fish for tropical "free world" strength. Thet the messege did aquariums. Czechoslovakia backward, the at­ not fell on unintelligent minds is illustrated However, on the other side of the ledger, tempt was made, in a short space of by the record of Congress et its lest session. the con-gressmen killed a bill to give exemp­ time, to establish a rounded industrial Exemption on duties wes grented muzzle­ tion to bagpipes, kilts and other items "par­ structure with emphasis on heavy loeding pistols and revolvers, since these ticularly and specifically pertaining to Scot­ are "artistic entiques" end would heve "no tish Highland attire and use." industry on the lines of the Five edverse on American employment." effect Similarly to be weighed against their Also duties on herpsichords end clevi­ Year plans of the Soviet Union. This achievements was rejection of a measure chords were lowered from forty to the served to underline their dependence that would have ended import duties on eighteen per cent levied on pienos. The old "common horse, mule or ox shoes, of wrought upon the USSR - especially for in­ rate, naturally, must be paid on instruments iron or steel." dustrial raw materials such as iron imparted from Communist-controlled coun­ ore - which also became a main out­ tries. Finally, before adjourning, they refused to permit free import of Cheddar cheese for for exports. was, The legislators likewise did their duty by let their There beating back an attempt to restrict imports "the international Cheddar cheese scoring however, little specialization between of wood charcoal by charging a teriff of $4 contest at Fond du lac, Wis." the countries in the industrialization plans, apart from that which was obviously imposed by physical fac­ plaints in the East European countries advantage of Czechosloy_qkia to ex­ tors. in the last two years.22 tend its market more broadly in other The upshot of the unimaginative It has now become customary to parts of the world, in the under­ following of the Soviet model was a castigate the mistakes of the, earlier developed countries, for example, to sequence of strains and stresses, period and to accept the proposition which it could export machine tools particularly marked from 1953 on­ that considerably greater advantage and other products needed for de­ wards and culminating in the Polish must be taken of the international veloping industry. October and the Hungarian Revolu­ division of labor. Of course, the ad­ The economic strains experienced tion in 1956. These methods had been vanced countries, Czechoslovakia and by the countries in the Eastern Euro­ costly in popular good will as well as East Germany, in this area were pean bloc has led to greater interest particularly disadvantaged by the in resources. It was particularly ob­ being taken in participation in the shrinkage of foreign markets as well vious that there had been inadequate international division of labor. In as by the inadequate degree of divi­ coordination of planning and trade, order to determine the goods which sion of labor within the bloc itself. despite CEMA. it will be advantageous to trade with Thus V. Kaigl, Director of the Eco­ the rest of the world, however, more At its sixth session in December nomic Institute of the Academy of careful assessment 'will have to be 1955, CEMA took steps to bring in a Science of Czechoslovakia, has made of relative costs of production. greater degree of division of labor as stressed the elementary truth that in According to a recent number of far as engineering products and fuels order to take advantage of the the Economic Bulletin for Europe it were concerned. Provision was also economies of large-scale production is anticipated that endeavors to take made for greater coordination in the and automation the heavy fixed costs fuller advantage of the international separate national plans. However, it must be spread over a large volume division of labor will result "in some 23 was not until the Warsaw meeting of of output. reversion to commodities traditional­ CEMA, in July 1957, that proposals For a country with a small home ly exported to Western Europe were put forward for long-term market and a high degree of spe­ which had been neglected in the past, cialization in manufacturing, like coordination of the national plans and increased efforts may be made Czechoslovakia, that means fuller for ten or fifteen years. Permanent to push the production of those com­ participation in exte,:nal trade, "the commissions were set up to consider modities among the new export items need to intensify specialization and the problems of particular industries which appear to be competitive on the co-ordination of production be­ and to secure a greater degree of western markets at prices more or tween all the countries of the social­ cooperation in research and develop­ less reflecting domestic production ist camp." It is true the Kaigl speaks ment. A multilateral clearing was costS."24 The same journal notes that only of the "socialist: camp," but no Hungary, East Germany and Poland also to be worked out for facilitating doubt· it would be greatly to the trade within the area. These belated have "granted enterprises the right 22. Kaigl, op. cit. The July meeting was' re­ to conclude deals directly with for­ projects, which are still in the for­ ported somewhat nonchalantly in the Communist mative stage, are a token of the party press considering the criticism it reflected eign firms in some industries." An of pr:evious practice. previous lack of such coordination, instance of such a deal is that be­ 23Yi:aigl, "Characteristics of the BuUding of tween Poland and India in 1956, of which there have been many com- Socialism in Czechoslovakia," in Etudes Econo­ mlques (published by the Economic Section of the Central Committee of the French Communist 24. Economic Bulletin for Europe, op. cit., 21. The Statist, January 25, 1955. party). p. 47-S.

FALL 1958 129 concerning state enterprises on both ment in Chinese industrialization had China could have participated more sides in which Polish steel and to come from domestic resources. But freely in the world market her eco­ cement were exchanged for Indian outside assistance was imperative nomic development would have been iron ore.2ii and, with the hostility of the capital­ smoother. Up to now, however, the East ist world, it could only come from Whether in its European or Asian European countries have been highly the USSR and Eastern Europe - segments the so-called "parallel dependent on the USSR. To a con­ themselves by no means endowed world market" has been inherently siderable extent Soviet trade took the with a surplus of capital in this incapable of compensating for lack form of an export of raw materials period. of fuller participation in the world which later, in part, returned to the Although a great deal of equip­ market. Indeed, the fullest possibili­ Soviet Union in finished form. But a ment for industries and collective ties of international division of labor good deal of the industrialization of farms was received from these coun­ within this market have not been the area was carried through with the tries, this aid was offset to some seized as they could have been. In help of machinery and even fully extent by that which China had to large part because of the nature of equipped plants from the Soviet grant to North Korea and Viet Nam. the economies which compose it, the Union. Continuing industrialization, The Chinese economy was under volume of their exchanges is very especially because of the dispropor­ considerable pressure to export, and much smaller than those in the rest tions involved in the method by still is, in order to expand trade with of the world. The raising of income which it was undertaken, has in­ its trading partners in Eastern Europe levels within it both depends upon. creased dependence on the USSR. or anywhere else so far as trade and will make necessary, increasing Meanwhile the flow.of finished goods restrictions allow. The economic specialization and exchange - thus back to her market now constitutes problems of China have not been does the world market impose itself. an important addition to supplies for unlike those of the East European consumers increasingly insistent upon countries in recent years. The Soviet Soviet Prestige the availability of more and better Union has taken the place of the rest In the last decade or so the at­ quality goods. of the world as a trading partner - tractive power of Soviet central plan­ No doubt these countries have been accounting for about 80j'r of Chinese ning has been particularly marked in assets to the Soviet Union, at least trade in 1954. Several loans have been those countries which, having recent­ until the last two years or so - she obtained from the USSR, to be paid ly acquired political independence, has been able to get the better of off in agricultural and mineral pro­ have been seeking to carry forward trading bargains. Since no balance of ducts and handicraft goods. policies of economic development. payments figures are published and Still capital is short and some raw Even where this influence has not such items as military aid are un­ materials have to be bought abroad. taken the form of the emergence of known it would be an impossible task This imposes a strain on agriculture, an influential Communist party, it to draw up a balance sheet. Even which is the main sector from which has, nonetheless, been evident in the hostile critics now admit that the exports can be derived. While agri­ prestige of the USSR and the interest current net balance is flowing the cultural production increases too taken in its economic achievements. other way.:w Hungary has become a slowly, domestic consumption tends Inde~d,the experience of the USSR heavy liability. Considerable aid and to rise; as a consequence, "planned is directly relevant to countries faced concessions have had to be made to targets for export often have to be by the need to embark upon heavy Gomulka's Poland and, in a lesser lowered because of increased domes­ investment programs in order to degree, to East Germany and Al­ tic demand.":!s There is no doubt that raise future income levels. The re­ bania.:!7 the trade embargo imposed by the markable economic development in United States has, as was intended, Soviet Central Asia, for example, China Needs Aid increased the strain of industrializa­ cannot fail to impress when com­ tion.:!H Or putting it another way, if pared with the continued stagnation The vn:tory of the Chinese Com­ or sluggish growth of similar areas. ao munists and the need to carry for­ 28. See the Economic Survey of Asia and the Far East, 1956, for a short study of recent trends Further, the existence of a non­ ward the economic development of a in Chinese foreign trade. The share of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in Chinese trade capitalist group of powers provides backward Asiatic country of 600,- rose from 23.4(,:? in 1950 to about 80% in 1954. The USSR has supplied numerous industrial the ruling groups in the newly eman- 000,000 peop~esimultaneously raised plants and equipment for state farms on long­ term loans. Detailed figures of Chinese trade are new and immense. problems. The not available. their prospects of expanding their trade with China was the continuance of the strategic em­ major part of the capital for i.nvest- The Economic Bulletin for Asia and the Far bargo, and it was instructive to note in this East, reported that the volume of Chinese trade connection that a very wide range of the pro­ was expected to fall in 1957 owing to a cut in ducts in which the Mission was most interested 25. Economic Survey of Asia and the Far East food exports. were embargoed goods." There seems little doubt for 1956, p. 32. that it is only in deference to the U.S. State 29. By 1957 the embargo on trade with China Department that these restrictions are main­ 26. For example, see the very biased article was becoming increasingly irksome to Western tained. Without restrictions it is doubtful wheth­ by V. Winston in the U.S. Information Service's countries. Thus Britain placed her trade with er China could afford to buy "strategic" com­ Problems of Communism, Jan.-Feb., 1958. Ac­ China on the same basis as that with the rest modities in sufficient quantities to have any real cording to Winston the Soviet economy will, for of the Soviet orbit. (The embargo remains on strategiC significance. the future, have to bear "the added burden of "strategic exports.") A Commercial and Techni­ supporting a weakened satellite system" which cal Mission from China visited Britain in the 30. See, for example, the article in The Eco­ will constitute "a significant irritant and strain." winter of 195'7. (See Board of Trade Journal, nomic Bulletin for Europe, Vol. 9, No. I, on March 7, 1958.) It was reported to be willing to Soviet Central Asia, which gives a balanced 27. For aid to Hungary see t.conomie et Poli­ purchase some £700,000 of textile machinery. But picture of what has been accomplished, what tique, July 1957, p. 84-92; for Poland, Economic the Board of Trade Journal also noted: "Most ['emains to be done and the deficiencies which Bulletin for Europe, Vol. 9, No.1. firms reported that a serious impediment to have persisted.

130 INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW cipated countries with valuable pos­ Egypt were a thorn in the side of the it may, in the interest of external sibilities of maneuver and of leaning imperialists; nor can the more recent security, be worthwhile, or necessary, upon the Soviet Union in order to aid to Indonesia, relatively small as to supply these goods on long credit counter the influence of imperial­ it is, be brushed off so easily.a3 Since terms to underdeveloped cotfntries. ism.s1 Until the last few years, how­ the credits so far granted are for a On the other hand, taking Khrush­ ever, although the USSR might period of years, the whole sum has chev's protestations of "peaceful proffer counsel and facilitate cultural not yet actually been received in coexistence" at their face value, the exchanges and the like i~could hold goods; but it will be - and there will Western countries may propose, as out little in the way of material be more to follow. The significant The Economist suggests, Soviet par­ assistance to compare with the flow thing is that a beginning has been ticipation in a United Nations pro­ of U.S. dollars. But this pattern is made. gram of aid to the underdeveloped changing. To a certain extent, and in However, when all has been said countries. growing measure, the countries of and done, both aid and trade are, so Trade, as distinct from aid, be­ Asia today, perhaps those of Africa far, on a relatively small scale. Fu­ tween the USSR and Eastern Europe tomorrow, can turn to the USSR for ture aid depends upon the ability of and the other continents, also remains technical and financial assistance, the Soviet economy; and also upon of comparative insignificance. Thus thereby reducing their dependence on the health of the East European a United Nations report states, the capitalist countries and contribut­ countries and China, which will un­ "Even after the increases in recent ing to the rounding out of their doubtedly have prior call on avail­ years, trade with overseas areas is new-won status. able resources. still of relatively small importance As already pointed out, there is a What are the prospects here? in the foreign trade of East European double possibility of propaganda Clearly, continued rapid growth on countries. In 1956 it probably ac­ exaggeration in the extent of the aid the scale necessary to fulfill Khrush­ counted for some 6-8% of their total so far given. On the other hand some chev's promises will require con­ foreign trade and some 30% of their capitalist critics have been busy de­ siderable new capital investment in trade with the Western trading re­ flating these exaggerations to some­ the USSR. Some sectors of the gion." Similarly, "For the overseas thing like their true dimensions. economy, in particular, will require trade-partners the relative impor­ Of the total of $1,900,000,000, for either expansion or a greater effort tance of the trade is even smaller and total Soviet aid to "uncommitted" at re-equipment. Certain geographi­ rarely amounts to more than 3 %"34 countries since 1955 publicized by the cal areas, including Central Asia, lag Trade with Latin America is small State Department, 'one-quarter went behind in income levels and still need - since that area is under the dom­ to Yugoslavia, one-quarter in arms much new investment if they are to inance of the USA - so is that with to Egypt, Syria and Afghanistan, and, be br'o~ghtup to the level of the Africa. Even in Asia .and the Far according to The Economist, of the more advanced regions. Agriculture, East, where the prestige of the USSR remainder, "only a fraction has ac­ transport and power, for example, is highest, trade is still small com­ tually reached the recipients."82 all need huge new investments of pared with that of the capitalist There are, of course, sour grapes in capital if per capita income is to be countries. Thus India's trade with the this writing down of a new threat to brought up to West European levels. USSR ?nd Eastern Europe is roughly world capitalism which actually can­ Likewise, in Eastern Europe, further only one-tenth that with the United not but give grave concern both in Soviet aid may be needed in order Kingdom. The same is true of In­ the USA and in Britain Indeed the to bolster the economy. As for China, donesia, where trade with the USSR increasing attention it receives in the there will, for many years to come, in the first six months of 1957 press is an index of mounting anxi­ be an inexhaustible demand for amounted to only £8,000,000 for im­ ety. After all, the arms shipments to capital. ports and exports combined. 31. Hence ,a note' of anxiety in newspaper Great demands are therefore like-= The Soviet impact on world trade, items. Thus in The Times, March 28, 1958, while recording that the USSR had made one hundred ly to be made on Soviet productive while growing, so far remains small. agreements with underdeveloped countries in capacity in the coming period, so 1957, the correspondent wrote, "It seems certain There is no special pressure to sell, that the Soviet Government intends to win its great that a tremendous outflow of competition with the free world in the fields of though there is clearly an advantage trade and aid in the uncommitted countries." aid to "uncommitted" areas is un­ in exchanging surpluses for goods While insisting that so far aid from the Western countries far exceeds that from the Soviet Union likely. On the other hand, there will which can contribute positively to it was added ominously tQat "the pace is likely to get hotter." undoubtedly be "surpluses," both of internal economic development. But 32. "Escape from the Aid Maze," The Econ­ raw materials and of capital goods, Soviet transactions - selling, buying omist, March I, 1958. There is some truth in the as capacity expands, which it will be point made that "the Communist powers can or making credits - can be pursued reap a rich propaganda harvest even from their in the interests of the Soviet Union one political more hollow gestures." This was demonstrated with eye on the implica­ at the Cairo Conference. The Economist does to exchange on the world market or tions. The politically independent not, of course, understand why this is so. It arises essentially from the anti-imperialism of to deploy in9-id in accordance with underdeveloped countries, seeking to the former colonial or semi-colonial countries whose people hail with relief the prospect of international political needs. Indeed, extricate themselves from economic what they view as disinterested assistance through which they can move towards econami.c 33. Recent Soviet sales to the Indonesian gov­ subservience or wishing to find a emancipation. It is true that their hopes are ernment include shipsjrnd aircraft, the latter exaggerated and there may also be truth in for use against the rebels. The State Department support in opposition to the im- what this journal of the City writes - "that the meanwhile affirms that it will- not sell arms to novelty of Soviet aid is wearing off, and that the Indonesian government and appears to be 34. Economic Survey of Europe, 1956. About the recipients are learning to scrutinise it more supporting, at least morally, the reactionary three-quarters of the foreign trade engaged in carefully." military rebellion. was between members of the "socialist camp."

FALL 1958 131 perialist powers, turn increasingly to to the extent of 44% in the first 8 the world from imperialist exploita­ the USSR for economic aid. Political months of this year [1957]." In tion. It provides a point of leverage expediency, as well as the claims of Czechoslovakia "equally familiar. which other peoples use to win or economic advantage, will in fact complaints persist - of failure to extend their freedom of action. largely determine the kind of bar­ deliver machines and equipment of On the other hand, the weakening gains into which the USSR will enter. required type and quality, both to position of capitalism, which shows And in the existing political division domestic users and to export, and of through despite the prosperous re­ of the world there is not the choice shortfalls in planned supplies of cent phase of its development, leads of abstaining. From this standpoint, rolled steel and other foundry prod­ individual countries to look to their too, the USSR finds itself inextrica­ ucts."!{iJ own possibilities of extending their bly involved in the world arena. In In the period of the first Five Year market by trade with the Eastern part~cularit cannot stand by and plans in the USSR, what impressed bloc. This tendency has been more watch the "underdeveloped" coun­ world opinion was not only the tem­ pronounced precisely since the boom tries swinging into the balance po of growth which was achieved but has shown signs of flattening out and against the Soviet Union, behind the the coincidence of it with falling has even given place to the probabil­ USA under the rule of American production, chronic depression and ity of recession on a world scale. stooges. stagnation in the capitalist world. In Under these conditions it becomes assessing the full economic impact of more difficult for a com:n::m policy Conclusions the USSR in the coming period, of trade embargoes and restrictions This survey suggests that the eco­ therefore, it is not only its relations to be imposed at the command of the nomic impact of the "Eastern bloc" with other countries and the world USA. on the capitalist world market, while market which will be significant. To At the same time, the economic growing, is still modest. There appear a greater extent this will reside in development of the Ea<:;tern European to be distinct limitations to spec­ the possibility of economic difficul­ countries, the USSR and China pro­ tacular growth in the immediate ties, stagnation or even decline in ceeds amid disproportions, distortions future, though no doubt the trends the capitalist world side by side with and sudden turns. Their productive of recent years towards a greater continued expansion in the centrally forces expand, but not smoothly and volume of exchanges will be con­ planned economies. Then, for exam­ in a straight line. There are weak tinued. ple, the question of the influence links, unsolved problems, and the The further growth of those econ­ which this will have, not only on the overhead of the bureaucratic political omies will impose the need for underdeveloped countries, but also on regime. A prime need is that of in­ greater specialization - both within the working class of the advanced crea<:;ed coordination and specializa­ the so-called "socialist camp" and countries becomes of paramount im­ tion to smooth the process of indus­ between its component countries and portance. trialization and to satisfy the demand':; others in the capitalist orbit. As The terms of the problems of East­ of consumers for more goods, greater pointed out, the Czechs, with their West economic relationships are sim­ variety and quaJity. The pressure advanced industry and confined ter­ plified and vulgarized in the current towards fuJIer participation in the ritory, are especially sensitive to this propaganda of the Soviet leadership world market follows - but not on factor. But to a greater or lesser and its faithful echoes throughout the lines indicated by the "peaceful degree these needs are felt from the world. In fact, far from being coexistence" nostrum of maintenance China to Rumania. straightforward, these relationships of the status qU9. The basic i~suein Increasing contact with the world are shot through with all the contra­ the long run is: Will capitalism be market will impose the need for dictions which arise from the con­ able to continue to dominate the greater flexibility and will reveal frontation of the two systems resting world market? This is already so weaknesses - exposing bureaucratic on incompatible bases. apparent that even comparatively mismanagement to the scrutiny of On the one hand both "camps" are slight encroachments by the USSR comparison. Indeed this has long been part of a world market - which as­ cause alarm and speculation, espe­ the case, especially with East Ger­ serts itself upon all countries despite cially where the "underdeveloped" many and Czechoslovakia. Thus the political barriers. Indeed, these two countries are concerned. United Nations Economic Bulletin for "camps" compete and conflict in and The working out of the issues dis­ Europe pointed out that in both these through this market-for example to cussed here will be inextricably in­ countries in 1957 "the relatively high win the allegiance of "uncommitted" volved with all those political and rates of growth of over-all output countries-just as they carryon eco­ economic forces determining the fate which have so far been maintained nomic dealIngs which are mutually of mankind in coming years. No tidy conceal continuing failures to pro­ advantageous. But beyond this the set of slogans can provide an answer; duce the assortment and quality of development of the non-capitalist but in elaborating p~licyfor the goods required and to reduce produc­ segment weakens permanently and working-class movement careful note tion costs according to plan. The progressi vely the economic and poli­ must obviously be taken of all the fami'liar reports of failure to meet tical hold of the capitalist world trends and possibilities, of which export contracts continue in Eastern system. It withdraws whole areas of some indication has been given, in Germany, where the annual plan for order to utilize them to the best 35. Economic Bulletin lor Europe, Vol. 9, No. export deliveties was fulfilled only 3, p. 15. advantage.

132 INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW Daumier-Political Artist

Imprisoned for his radical views. his caricotures delighted mi,llions a century ago. Today he is held to be the originator of modern political cartooning

by George Lavan

HIS year marks the one-hundred­ rarely if ever did they regard them of France by all its enemies. The T and-fiftieth anniversary of the through their art-examining spec­ militarily brilliant, but politically birth of the great French artist tacles. To them, art consisted of hopeless, campaign of the Emperor Honore Daumier. Throughout the painting and sculpture. Newspaper had not prevented the taking of Paris. world museums and cultural publica­ lithographs simply were not within In quick succession came Napoleon's tions have observed the occasion with the official purview. first abdication, exile to Elba, restora­ special exhibits and articles. In Paris, tion of the Bourbons, to be followed the Bibliotheque Nationale assembled * * * in less than a year by the Hundred the most comprehensive Daumier ex­ Honore Victorin Daumier was born Days, Waterloo and the second re­ hibit in history. in Marseilles February 27, 1808. His turn of the Bourbons. Yet Daumier was not considered a father, Jean Baptiste, was an artisan Even when calm years finally legitimate artist by the tastemakers - a glazier, who had his own shop. came, the elder Daumier continued to of his period, and his name could not Honore's mother was a poorly ed­ meet rebuffs from theatrical pro­ even be found in the art histories for ucated village woman. Jean Baptiste ducers and publishers. In the whole decades after his death. In 1878, the was not an ordinary glazier. He was period he succeeded in getting but year before his death, a group of the self-educated, a thinker and poet. A one volume of poetry published, blind old man's friends and admirers product of the Enlightenment and probably at his own expense. Mean­ organized an exhibit of his works as Revolution, he was a passionate ad­ while his family suffered great mate- a tribute and to relieve his desperate mirer of Jean Jacques Rousseau and - rial hardship. After nine years the poverty. Though the chief sponsor Condillac; and for his verse he took disheartened worker-poet gave up was Victor Hugo, the exhibit was a as models the classic French tragedies the unequal battle and took up his dismal failure. Daumier's fate was to of Racine and the Latin poetry of glazier's tools again, though still re­ live and die appreciated as an artist Vergil, which he knew in translation. maining in Paris. only by a small group of literary men Even under Napoleon the revolu­ Honore had started to draw on his and artists. tionary ideal of equality still in­ own at an early age and became in­ Nevertheless, Daumier had a tre­ fluenced provincial intellectual cir­ creasingly infatuated with it. One mendous audience almost from the cles. The Academy of Marseilles en­ can readily appreciate the father's beginning of his career - the readers couraged the literary endeavors of the alarm as he saw his son heading in­ of the newspapers for which he workman-poet, which appeared in to - what must have seemed from his worked. His popularity was incon­ the local press, and finally honored own bitter experience - a blind alley testable, and he was appreciated­ him with membership. The older for people of their station in life. but as a political and social cari­ Daumier now made a literary career Drawing met parental discourage­ caturist. his sole aim. He wrote a five-act ment and Honore was apprenticed to This mass audience, overwhelming­ tragedy in Alexandrine meter about a law-court usher with the perspec­ ly petty-bourgeois and proletarian, Philip II of Spain. It was generously tive of rising to a modest but depend­ did not expect to find "art" outside applauded at its reading before the able position. its well-defined precincts. Nor did it Academy of Marseilles. Intoxicated Though outwardly this law-court presume to 'make its own judgments with this success, Jean Baptiste sold errand boy appeared no different on such arcane matters. It either had his modest shop and with his family from the others, he guarded within none -or accepted ready-made the set out for Paris, the literary capital. himself a great sensitivity and per­ pronouncements of the high priests It was hardly a favorable time in ception. He despised the work and of the art world. Paris for even the most talented of the atmosphere. Here it was that he While some of the high priests may newcomers. This was 1814, the year stored up those mental images and have, in their unofficial capacities, of the Napoleonic Gotterdammerung. devastating knowledge of the chi­ also enjoyed Daumier's cartoons, It had opened with the joint invasion canery, hypocrisy and pettiness of

FAll 1958 131 judges, lawyers and other traffickers was exiled by the Bourbons. But he and upper bourgeoisie. What contact in "justice" which to this day is a continued to rule French art through the lower orders of feudal society had most powerful commentary on bour- his deputies - Baron Gros and Ingres with the woodcut was mostly in its geois law. --'- till his death in 1825 and then for early period when they had been His distaste for the apprenticeship almost the remainder of the nine­ used to increase the salability of was so great that "his father secured teenth century through his ghostly religious indulgences to illiterates. him a position as a bookstore assis- domination of the Academy. Other methods of print making tanto Though it was an improvement,'" Artistically, as well as politically were later followed. Whereas a wood­ young Honore was still unhappy. He pr9gressive in its early period, neo­ cut is an actual wooden bas-relief of devoted every spare moment and classicism had declined to the mean­ the picture to be printed, the opposite scrap of paper to drawing. So stub- ingless sterility and self-imitation of form of intaglio, or carving the pic-" born was he that to settle the dispute the rococo it had displaced. Dutifully ture down into metal, was invented. his father finally called in a profes- furnishing the public with paintings Varieties of metal engraving came to sional artist to render a verdict. of "ennobling" subjects and idealized include dry point, etching with the Upon the judgment that the young- classical figures, the academicians aid of acid, etc. But all of these ster had a real talent, the father gave served the French bourgeoisie as an methods of making prints were high­ in. Using connections from his liter- esthetic police force, keeping can­ ly specialized, laborious, slow and ary days, he secured his son's ad- vases with subversive tendencies expensive. mittance to the studio of an aca- from the annual exhibits of the Salon, A few years .before Daumier's demician named Lenoir, this being from buyers, from popular accep­ birth, a Bavarian, Alois Senefelder, the way for one to study painting tance. invented a method which would at that time. In Lenoir's studio, as in that of any revolutionize the making of prints. Not much is known about Lenoir academician in the 1820's, Daumier Senefelder found that the flat surface but it is not difficult to guess the must have been put to the tedious of a certain type of stone would re­ reasons for Daumier's unhappiness in exercises of drawing over and over tain a film of water poured or wiped the studio and his final revolt from again classical ears, ankles, etc. After onto it. If a grease mark or design it. There then existed a dictatorial a seemingly endless period of such had p,reviously been put on the stone, rule in the art world ,unequalled by work he might be finally allowed to no water would remain on that part. anything in art history until the ~'\a life class where the model would Then, if a roller covered with greasy regimentation of art in the Soviet not be drawn but serve as a frame ink were run across the stone's sur­ Union under Stalin. for the assembling of the disjointed face, it would leave ink only where The French Revolution had adopt­ bits of classical anatomy he had the grease marks were. If a piece of ed neo-classicism as its art form. learned. paper were now pressed against the Themes from the Roman Republic of Against the tedium of the studio inked stone it would receive an exact antiquity and classic simplicity of Daumier found antidotes. The Revo­ imprint from the inked mark. By style had been the revolutionary an­ lution had created the public museum keeping the stone wet and re-inking swer to the decadent coquetry and and in the Louvre (a former palace) it each time, an indefinite number of eroticism of the rococo art of the he could study the revelations of the impressions or prints could be made. ancien regime. The great master and Renaissance, Rembrandt, Rubens. This plano graphic or lithographic pioneer of neo-classicism was Among some fellow students, he method was extremely cheap. The Jacques Louis David whose early found sympathy with his rebellious­ only tools required were a grease ness. One taught him the new meth­ works, Oath oj the H oratii and Brutus pencil or crayon, inks or paints with Receiving the News oj the Death oj od of making printed pictures - grease bases. The stone could be His Sons, were linked to the popular lithography. Soon he had executed a planed down and used again and agitation of the revolutionists. With few drawings in this new medium again for years. Moreover, anyone the triumph of the Revolution, David and sold them. He stopped going to who could draw. or paint could use became its official painter. He was the studio and struck out on his own. the method - unlike wood cutting elected to the National Assembly, and metal engraving which, because reorganized the Academy and became * * * of the time, effort and training re­ the art arbiter. Though imprisoned Printed illustrations had been pro­ quired, artists were more and more during Thermidor for his connections duced in Europe since the late Mid­ abandoning to craftsmen who ex­ with Robespierre, he made the re­ dle Ages. These were woodcuts which ecute9. by rote. quired political transition. The ar­ mark in the pictorial propagation of Senefelder's invention spread but tistic transition was not as demand­ knowledge the same giant advance slowly in the period of the wars. At . ing; instead of depicting revolution­ that Gutenberg's invention of mov­ first it was used for' printing textiles ary virtue through the themes and able type had in the propagation of and sheet music. But a combination heroes of Republican Rome he de­ literal knowledge. But both books of circumstances had arisen in France picted Napoleonic glory through the and prints were expensive. Indeed that would soon spread it like wild­ themes and trappings of Imperial woodcuts were used primarily for fire. The public education established Rome. Having rallied to Napoleon book illustration and thus their audi­ by the French Revolution had pro­ after the Return from Elba, David ence was restricted to the aristocracy duced a mass reading public; the

134 INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW application of steam to the printing press made cheap mass-circulation newspapers possible; finally the French Revolution of 1830, and the fi ve years of reI a ti ve freedom of the press which followed, allowed the blossoming of such newspapers. Just as these papers would democ­ ratize literature by their serializa­ tions of the novels of Balzac, Dumas and Eugene Sue, so would they democratize art in its print form through the use of lithographs for illustrations and caricatures. One must examine the French press from 1830 to 1850 to appreciate how lavishly the publishers slaked the public's thirst for pictorial represen­ tation with lithographs. Papers with more than fifty per cent of their space devoted to lithographs are not uncommon. * * * Daumier makes his debut in 1830 as a caricaturist for the republican press, which speaks in the name of those elements of the petty bour­ geoisie and working class who had made the July Revolution only to find upon their descent from the barri­ cades that, instead of a republic, there was being fobbed off on the country a "republican" king - Louis Philippe of the Orleans line, the "Citizen King," a creature of the financial bourgeoisie. For five years, during which France was rocked by attempted republican coups, assassin­ the radical republicans to launch an the summer of 1832 till February of ation attempts, and strikes (the red offensi ve against the regime. Before 1833. flag first appears in 1832), this re­ the July uprising Daumier had come Six months in the company of publican press wages a vitriolic cam­ to know Charles Philipon, a repub­ other revolutionary prisoners un­ paign of words and caricatures lican with a flair for promotion, who questionably added to his political against the regime. Then it is muz­ founded the journal Caricature and education and to the store of faces, zled. During this period young assembled for its staff a dozen young characters, bodies in his phenomenal Daumier rapidly forms his style and lithographers including Daumier. memory - he never made sketches emerges as the "Michaelangelo of Undistinguished at first, Daumier's or notes. Caricature." cartoons showed remarkable develop­ The government's campaign It is also the period that will shape ment in a period of months. By 1832 against the press intensified. By 1834 Daumier's political and social out­ he had begun that serie3 of heads the office of Caricature had been look. Though of the working class which set him apart from all con­ seized 27 times; fines multiplied, and a fighter against the bourgeoisie temporary caricaturists and marks threatening bankruptcy; Philipon was for the rest of his life, he will remain the beginning of the modern political sentenced to six months. After the basically a "Revolutionist of 1830," caricature. Daumier is thus the father riots of 1834 the regime killed the even when that movement's ideals, of the modern political cartoon and opposition papers. For example, La aims and its panacea of universal all the greater for having had no Tribune underwent 111 prosecutions suffrage have become outmoded by and 20 convictions totalling 49 years predecessor. He was soon arrested for the full development of Marxist so­ of imprisonment as well as 150,000 cialism. caricaturing the King as Gargantua francs in fines. The freedom of the press resulting consuming the wealth of the nation But before the end came, Philipon from the July Revolution permitted and put in Ste. Pelagie prison from proved fertile in devises to outwit the

FALL 1958 135 prosecutor. Forbidden to caricature the director of this company - Ro­ Louis Philippe's pear-shaped head Forgotten 5.000.000 bert Macaire on the throne." any "longer, the monarch was not Robert Macaire, however, is not clearly identified, being drawn from Inflotion score hos now replaced olmost one of Daumier's best caricature the side or rear. When that could no all business tolk of recession. The Adminis­ creations. The series' enormous pop­ trotion, big business orgonizotions, ond cor­ longer pass, not a human figure but porote' leoders ore once ogoin worning thot ularity was largely due to its topical­ a pear was used as a symbol of the lobor must "hold the line" or toke the blome ity - in a period when financial and hated ruler. To avoid certain fines, for rising prices. There is little or no talk governmentai scandals broke almost Caricature did not publish risky car­ obout the problem of continued high unem­ weekly. Also the lengthy inscriptions toons, but set up a separate Monthly ployment despite the rise in the jobless rote written by Philipon below the car­ Lithographic Society which published from 6.8 per cent in mid-June to 7.3 per toons, filled with puns and witty them with the announced aim of cent in mid-July. Mid-summer unemployment allusions, have lost their appeal stood ot 5.3 million with indicotions thot this using proceeds to pay fines. rote would climb to 5}5 million by winter- today. For this series Daumier produced . 0 figure considerobly higher thon lost April Incidentally, the lengthy inscrip­ four of the greatest lithographs ever ... hen the slump wos ot its worst. - IUD FoC+ tions appearing beneath Daumier's drawn. They were ,Le Ventre Legisla­ . Sheet (AFL-CIO), August. cartoons were rarely, if ever written tif (the Legislative Belly), a view of by him. Those he wrote are terse. the interior of the National Assembly He believed the picture should tell Philipon with another iron in the with magnificently pitiless carica­ the story, not the inscription. Since fire. This was a new paper, Charivari, tures of all the ministers and leading he often turned his lithographs in whose caricatures would be social deputies at their benches; Enfonce with a mere word or two to indicate rather than political satire. Daumier Lafayette, a view of. Lafayette's . the idea, or later merely turned in soon adjusted to this new field and funeral with Louis Philippe as an drawings of types or scenes that had again became its greatest artist. undertaker's assistant apparently attraCted his attention, the writers of weeping but on closer inspection seen At the suggestion of Philip on, Charivari had to invent humorous to be. grinning behind his handker­ always an idea man, Daumier created inscriptions. Since they were usually chief; Ne Vous Y Frottez Pas (Don't a character- Robert Macaire, taken paid by the line, their tendency to Monkey With It), a young printer in from a popular play of the time. lengthiness is understandable. his work clothes, reminiscent of Robert Maeaire was an adventurous All of Paris, all the human variety Michaelangelo's David, standing in SWindler, shabby one day, affluent in modern urban society with its defense of freedom of the press the n~xt,completely cynical and classes and their subsections, with against the King and his ministers; opportunist but compelling a sort of their manners, customs, idiosyncra­ Rue Transnonain, Le 15 Avril 1834 - admiration by his breath-taking ef­ sies, became subject matter fOl' this is not a cartoon in the sense that frontery. Macaire appeared in car­ Daumier's social satire. His range it contains no distortion but is a toons as stockbroker, lawyer, doctor, was so great that his work has often naturalistic representation of a room railroad promoter, suitor, salesman, been compared to the Come die Hu­ in which are seen the corpses of a phony inventor, etc., etc., always maine of Balzac, who in turn upon murdered family and the dishevelled fleecing the gullible petty bourgeois. first seeing Daumier's work remarked beds from which they had been The series had a phenomenal suc­ that "there is something of Michael­ pulled. This is Daumier's comment cess. Re-issues of the series were angelo in that fellow." on an atrocity by. the royalist troops common. Macaire became a household The critic Leon Rosenthal said of word. the previous night. Claiming that Daumier': "N 0 one has known as he they were being sniped at from the The Macaire series was, of course, did the soul of the petty bourgeois. building, they had entered it and a social critique of capitalism and He has defined it with perspicacity slaughtered all the inhabitants. In specifically of France under Louis and without acrimony, conscious of the all-pervading gloom of the room, Philippe which was par excellence its virtues as of its mediocrity ... " the foreshortened body of a half­ the regime of bankers and stock­ In quantity Daumier's drawings nude father who, with horror the exchange manipUlators. Secondarily constitute an encyclopedia of types. observer comes to see, is lying on the it was a taunting, as inveterate But more impressive than the quan­ body of an infant. Thi~is one of the dupes, of the middle class, whose tity is the quality - the viewer rec­ most powerful political drawings support of the regime, even though ognizes at once that these are real ever made and on an artistic level it did not even allow them the ballot, people, universal yet particular, is comparable to Rembrandt's Ana­ had permitted its consolidation. burlesqued yet more truly portrayed tomy Lesson. In The Civil War in France Marx because of that. Bad Daumier died at the age of writes: "The July monarchy was. In his Curiosites Esthetiques, th~ twenty-six, these lithographs alone nothing other than a joint stock com­ poet Baudelaire wrote: "Daumier's would have entitled him to a perma­ pany for the exploitation of French distinguishing note as an artist is his nent place in the history of modern national wealth, the dividends of certainty. His drawing is fluent and art. which were divided among ministers, easy; it is a continuous improvisation. The final end of freedom of the Chambers, the 240,000 voters and He has a wonderful, almost super­ press in 1835 found the resourceful their adherents. Louis Philippe waf human memory, from which he

136 INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW works as from a model. His powers cartoons Daumier did in this brief of observation are such that in his Don't Wantta Buy Now period (the Commune lasted only two months). But it would seem that work we never find a single head Only one of every four American families that is out of character with the felt the recession's impact through unem­ he regarded the struggle in terms of figure beneath it. The artist mani­ ployment or shortened work weeks, accord­ 1830 and 1848 - the' fight for a re­ fests here a marvellous cunning in ing to a survey by the University of Michi­ public and universal suffrage rather portraiture: while caricaturing and gan's Survey Research Center. than as the first proletarian govern­ exaggerating the features of his origi­ But 85 per cent of the working-closs peo­ ment. nals, he yet adheres so faithfully to ple in a survey by J. W. Spellman, Inc., It may well be that Daumier's Boston advertising, marketing and public nature that these productions might relations firm, indicated that they would views on the Commune were after­ serve as models to all portraitists." wait until later to make their major pur­ wards concealed by himself and his The Revolution of 1848 again chases. Caution born of insecurity and a friends, for the repression was merci­ brought a few brief years of press general feeling that things may get worse less. His friend, the father of realism freedom and political caricature. To appear to motivate the buying habits of in French art,Gustave Courbet, was be signalized' among Daumier's work these hourly-rated workers, the survey found. imprisoned, forced into exile, and his - Printers' Ink, Aug. 15. of this period is the creation of Rata­ property confiscated for his role in poil, the Bonapartist agent. Ratapoil the Commune. Jules Dalou, Jean is the personification of the agent­ to placate the liberals. Daumier was Charles Cazin, and other artists suf­ provocateur, the bully boy, a section even offered the Legion of Honor­ fered banishment. Undoubtedly. the leader of the Society of December 10, he refused. The press censorship was suspicion that 'a man with Daumier's President Louis Bonaparte's private eased and political caricature within political past must have been a friend army of adventurers and lumpen­ limits again became possible. Daumier of the Communards contributed to proletariat - a seventy-year antici­ devoted himself largely to cartoons the failure of the one-man show of pation of Benito Mussolini's first against the arms race and the danger oils and water colors which his jasci. It was the Society of December of war, into which Louis Napoleon friends and admirers organized in 10 that Bonaparte shipped ahead would plunge France in 1870 in an 1878 as a tribute and in the hope of when he toured France so they could effort to strengthen the regime with some sales. impersonate the masses at each rail­ an upsurge of patriotism. That the president of the exhibit road station, shout, "Vive l'Empe­ All his life Daumier had lived in was ·Victor Hugo could only reinforce reur!" and beat up any opponents. a working-class section of Paris. His the suspicion. For though not a Daumier shows Ratapoil as a sinister, earnings approximated those of a Communard, Hugo had made an im­ seedy, middle-aged but wiry adven­ passioned plea to Belgium for the skilled worker. He had married at turer, with an imperial beard and right of asylum of escaped Commu­ the age of 38 and he supported his mustache, carrying a half-concealed nards. The deadly effect on art ex­ club up his sleeve. This figure in­ parents. When unemployment struck hibits of the witch-hunt was demon­ carnated all of Daumier's hate and in 1860, the family was in desperate strated by the third Impressionist ex­ contempt for Napoleon the Little, by straits. To live cheaper they moved hibition the year before. The second whom, to his credit, he had never to Valmondois, a village outside Par­ exhibition had registered a modest been taken in as had such men of the is. Daumier now first began to have advance in acceptance and sales. The left as Proudhon and Victor Hugo. serious trouble with his eyes. In 1864 1877 exhibit was unjustly labelled as Bonaparte's coup d'etat in 1851 Charivari rehired him but his earn­ "Communard" art by reactionary ended the Second Republic and free­ ings were not enough to keep him circles and witch-hunters. The sub­ dom of the press. Daumier is again out of debt. Threatened with eviction sequent storm of abuse made the restricted to social satire. A marked from his home, Daumier was saved exhibit a financial disaster. change in his style takes place during by Camille Corot, an old friend, who, Daumier died February 10, 1879 at the 1850's. The deep, velvety blacks after thirty years wi thou t selling a the age of 71. According to Sarah and delicate shadings of gray are single picture, suddenly came into Newmeyer in Enjoying Modern Art, replaced by short, nervous curved vogue in England. The flow of Eng­ there was no money t6 bury him and lines - a sort of pictorial shorthand lish pounds permi tted Corot to set the state put up twelve francs for a or impressionism. The change is at­ himself up as a one-man mutual aid pauper's funeral. "The mayor of tributed principally to the introduc­ fund for impoverished fellow artists. Valmondois virtuously refused to tion of fast new presses which were Corot bought the house and presented requisition even the tiny minimum not capable of the fine presswork it to Daumier on his birthday. sum ordinarily supplied to dignify required for his earlier type of litho­ It is not fully clear what Daumier's the body of a respectable pauper. graph. Moreover, stones on which he attitude was to the Parish Commune. Hadn't Daumier been a jailbird . . . had always composed directly were That he was against the Assembly an agitator through the power of his now being replaced by granulated of Bordeaux, which later moved to art, a political caricaturist often on zinc plates and special drawing­ Versailles, and its head, Thiers, who the wrong side? Some newspapers, transfer paper. had been a target· for savage cari­ commending the mayor, criticized In the late sixties, the regime, cature ever since the days of Louis even the expenditure of twelve francs sensing its impending downfall, tried Philippe, is apparent from those few for the grave."

FALL 1958 137 f~';'- Soviet Music l.' ~~r'--'- :jlr' --Two Views

Sometimes They Elude the Ukases

by Trent Hutter

CCORDING to M. Bernz, the music sometimes seemed to give in to the about Prokofiev's alleged drift toward created under the Kremlin's rule bureaucracy's ukases - and then ex­ "music for the feeble-minded." hardlyA attains greatness and tends to plored new ways to elude them. Instead He calls Shostakovich's Tenth Sym­ be "old-fashioned" because of the reac­ of throwing' any light on this process, phony "tame and compliant," but it tionary, totalitarian cultural policy of M. Bernz wants to convince us that, for happens to express a profoundly mel­ the Soviet bureaucracy. But what about example, everything the late Serge ancholic and searching mood, far from Dimitri Shostakovich, Russia's most fa­ Prokofiev wrote after his return to the forced, superficial optimism dear mous contemporary composer? For Russia was bad. to the bureaucracy. Nothing about it is Shostakovich's achievements are a fav­ Prokofiev's Lieutenant Kije and Alex­ "tame and compliant"; and it surely orite argument of those who claim there ander Nevsky were "only movie scores," does not correspond to a feeling of un­ is nothing wrong with music in the he says. But these movie scores are questioning contentment. Nor is it, in USSR. masterpieces! And why is a movie score my opinion, a work of actual despair, M. Bernz deals with this argument necessarily inferior to an operatic or resignation, hopelessness. It is a power­ by attempting to prove that Shostako­ ballet score? Lieutenant Kije is, in story ful and compelling symphony which I vich is not a truly great composer. and music, a brilliant satire on the highly value as one of the finest in However, the relationship between to­ bureaucratic mind, although it was writ­ modern music and which was received talitarian rulers and the artists they ten under Stalin! And the Alexander with genuine enthusiasm when, in New wish to subjugate in their anti-individ­ N evsky cantata is as fine a piece of York, under the direction of Mitropou­ ualist drive is much more complex choral music as any in our century. los, it was performed for the first time than M. Bernz imagines. It is true that The G Minor Violin Concerto M. outside the USSR. without the heavy. Stalinist fetters So­ Bernz disposes of as one of "these con­ M. Bernz does not seem to notice the viet music would undoubtedly have servative pieces." Yet the G Minor Con­ contradictions in his statements. Thus, flowered even more than it has done. ·certo was admired by the late Dr. Serge on page 58, he says of Khachatourian: Yet it is remarkable that despite the Koussevitzky who recorded it with "He specialized in what is profession­ totalitarian strait jacket, despite hu­ Heifetz; and Dimitri Mitropoulos re­ ally ...- and properly - known as hoot­ miliations and condemnations by party corded it with Francescatti! Koussevitz­ chy-kootchy music ... " (Never have I bosses, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, even ky was and Mitropoulos is an outstand­ heard any professional musician use Khachatourian and Kabalevsky did ing authority on modern music. For this term.) On page 59, however, he compose quite a few scores which the instance, Mitropoulos has contributed informs us that Khachatourian is one world's most unprejudiced and most much to a better understanding of of "the real artists, the ones with know­ esteemed critics and conductors consider Schonberg and Alban Berg in this how." How can Khachatourian special­ to be among the masterworks of the country. Heifetz and Francescatti are ize in "hootchy-kootchy music" and twentieth century. not only top violinists; they are author­ still be a "real artist"? And why is it ities on music for their instrument. so wrong and reactionary for a com­ M. Bernz ought to have examined And appreciating Prokofiev's G Minor poser to be rooted in the folk music of how Prokofiev, Shostakovich and others Concerto as I do, I thus find myself his native land, as Khachatourian is in excellent company rooted in Armenia, in the Caucasus? In "The Politics of Soviet Music," which ap­ "Peter and the Wolf was for chil­ And, I may add, as Kodaly is rooted in peared in our spring issue, M. BernI discussed dren," says M. Bernz contemptuously. Hungary, as Villa-Lobos is rooted in the relation between the Stalinist bureaucra­ But he fails to mention that the de­ Brazil? cy and Soviet musical production. In this is­ lightful musical story has become a The realm of music is wide; and our sue, Trent Hutter takes exception to some' of modern classic and that in music, as in time has various aspects. Therefore, the author's critical remarks about various So­ literature, the best that has been writ­ various kinds of modern music, that viet composers; while BernI responds by indi­ ten for children appeals equally to is, music providing our time with a cating the musical standards on which he grown-ups. And M. Bernz reveals re­ voice of its own, are possible; not just based his judgments. Both Hutter and ·BernI moteness from the musical education one method, one technique, one direc­ agree with the position of the International Socialist Review that Soviet artists should be and needs of the young, the assimila­ tion. And if Stravinsky, Schonberg, free to express" themselves in accordance with tion of musical values and its impor­ Hindemith so very different from their own conscience. tance, when he makes his bad joke each other all represent valid mu-

138 INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW sical idioms of the twentieth century, expects them to write. But an authentic But it is also a story of ever-recur­ why not the leading Soviet composers, genius like Shostakovich frequently ring resistance to tli.e bureaucracy's. too? Let us be wary of opposing to rises above the fetid zone of typical constant intervention in artistic matters, the conservative intolerance of the So­ Stalinist "culture." (Just as in Nazi a story of tension - sometimes silent, viet bureaucracy a "modernistic" in­ Germany a few artists of genius re­ someCmes erupting in public declara­ tolerance of our 07J:1! mained independent in their work.) tions - between a Communist artist of We cannot always directly translate Naturally, his scores today express a genius and the bureaucratic caste that politics and social conditions into cul­ mood different from that of the pioneer­ tural phenomena. Political and social ing, revolutionary twenties or from wants to use his fame for its propagan­ conditions are undoubtedly reflected in that of the stormy days of struggle da and also wants him to obey. While the arts, but not mechanically. The against the Nazi invaders. And natural­ he tries to avoid a head-on clash and Soviet Union's mediocre composers - ly the story of Shostakovich reflects the may even have a misguided sense of and the mediocrities are everywhere the pressure of the totalitarian bureaucra­ majority among composers - are indeed cy (as does, for example, Prokoviev's loyalty toward the bureaucracy, he def-· "tame and compliant," writing for their last and rather insignificant Seventh initely is not a "representative of the· bread and butter what the bureaucracy Symphony). caste."

The Big Stick Is Decisive

by M. Bernz

HERE are several ways of creating wants to be "profound," or "melanchol­ ly, we could not bear many repetitions: T music: one can drop a quarter in ic," or "searching," we can antiCipate of it; we would have to consign it to a. a juke box and perform five popular how he will "become" so. In the old summer band concert, an accompani­ songs in whatever succession one's days of the silent movie, the theater ment to street noises, to conversation, tastes and creativity dictate; or one .can organists proceeded quite similarly: they or to a dinner table - music meant to. select out several phrases from these had books of pieces, themes, motifs, and be heard but not listened to. songs, reassemble them, and imagine by properly thumbing these books, and Shostakovich's music, like most So­ that a new and more popular song has by pressing the appropriate organ viet music, because its composition did been created; or, given some thousands knobs and keys, they produced roman­ not entail searching and difficult deci­ of quarters in dollar or ruble notes, tic, spooky, and even "melancholic" sions, but ever proceeded from the one can commission a competent com­ music. The theater customers, dewy­ lightly grasped to whatever was closest poser to assemble a symphony which, eyed over the misadventures of Great at hand, has no real interest for the· in style and in quality, is indistinguish­ Garbo, were convinced, for at least cultivated music lover, no durable in-· able from one by Shostakovich. It is fifteen minutes after leaving the terest for the moderately sensitive one, this latter fact, verifiable by anyone theater, that they had been hearing and a lasting interest for only the, with the requisite dollar or ruble notes, the greatest music in the world. So, too, wholly unsophisticated one. For some which makes me question the "great­ a performance of Shostakovich's Fifth otherwise well-developed persons, a ness" of Shostakovich and his music. Symphony, flanked by an anti-Hitlerite Cole Porter song, in the interminable We are not here concerned with what rally in one place, and a speech for succession of arrangements with which. these might have been if there had been the republican government of pre-Fran­ it is marketed, is sufficient;. for others,. no bureaucracy with rubles in one hand, co Sp~inin another, seemed like the more ambitious and more gullible, a. a big stick in the other, and some most inspired musical message of its hoax of a symphony, correspondingly millions of workers and peasants time. treated, is also evidently sufficient. breathing hard in its direction. All this But years have passed, and times In conclusion, I must concetle the fol­ and all these went into the creation of have changed, and the war and the lowing: It is possible that the Soviet. Shostakovich's music. But he, standing warriots have both grown cold - and composers have inaugurated a musical where its blurred mass should have so has the enthusiasm for the Fifth current which may become the main. been brought into unique and individual Symphony and its immediate successors, stream of the future. This will be most focus, either missed or preferred to so admired and fought over by the true of that music which, according to miss what was real and hard for what conductors of the war years. So too the most developed bourgeois tastes and was pretense and what was easy. His with Shostakovich himself: for he criteria, is the most vulgar, the corni­ function, then, was more of the crafts­ "played it cool" by periodically re-issu­ est, the most widely popular; and this man than of the artist; he copied and ing this Fifth Symphony, in· revised if will be so because and not in spite of exhibited and put a glistening edge unabridged editions; and if the Sixth the bureaucracy, which has generally upon what was visible,. but he did not and Seventh, thanks to the Soviet-Allied tended to defend the tastes of the mas­ probe, and reveal, and transmute what friendship, were adjudged of the same ses against the predilections of the was there. lofty inspirations, the 'recent Tenth and composers themselves. This ·sort of In music, while the deeper processes Eleventh have as surely marked its re­ thing has happened before, historically; of the artist occur beyond the conscious duction to dust and ashes. but it was the progressive hand of the reach of even the artist himself, and The musical stream, as it pours from bourgeois market place - around 160(} have to, it is entirely otherwise with the consciousness of a great composer, and again 1750, which wrested' a few the craftsman. The craftsman-composer always seems to bear, in the rearing simple essentials from what was then. always knows, consciously, what he is and in the succession of its e:'ements, a current and supreme, and set these upon doing; and; through the same open certain inevitability. If this were wholly courses which culminated in Bach in window, so can we. If Shostakovich so, mechanically rather than organical- one case, in Beethoven in the other.

FAll 1958 139' Progress of World Socialism

After the big achievements of the 1917 Revolution. socia·lism was set baGk for twenty years by Stalinism. A new upsurge. begun during World War II. now points toward final victory

by William F. Warde

"Proletarians 01 both hemispheres! The First pre-capitalist, the capitalist, and the :International rave you a prorram and a ban­ modern history. It initiated a new ner. The Second International raised the wld­ stage in the progress of the socialist post-capitalist. These are embodied "est masses to their leet. The Third Interna­ tional rave the example 01 revolutionary ac­ workers movement. For the first time in three different though intermeshed tion. The Fourth International will brlnr final vlctory!"-LEON TROTSKY. ("Manifesto lor a section of the working class de­ and interacting sectors of society - -the Fourth International," March 1934). finitively defeated the forces and re­ the backward and colonial countries, II. sources of capitalist reaction; in­ the imperialist metropolises, and the stalled itself in power; proceeded workers states. The scientific socialist movement to defend its government and reor­ Last October marked the fortieth announced its entry into the world ganize society in the interests of the anniversary of the Bolshevik victory. with the publication of a program. toiling masses. The Russian workers The consequences of this event have 'The Communist Manifesto gave it so demonstrated that workers power molded the history of our time, just solid a theoretical foundation that the was not a dream but could become as the unfolding of the French Rev­ events of the next century neither a reality; that socialism was not a olution dominated the end of the shattered nor invalidated its conclu­ utopia but a genuine and realizable eighteenth and the beginning of the sions but confirmed them in all es­ goal. What an immense, almost im­ nineteenth centuries. The internal sentials. It is the only one of all the measurable step! development of the Russian revolu­ political documents issued by the po­ The success of the revolutionary tion, and its impact upon the rest of litical parties of the various classes socialists (Lenin's Bolsheviks were the world over the past four decades, at that period which has withstood not called Communists until after breaks up into three distinct periods. the test of time and remains today a their victory) settled many serious The first lasted for six years from 'living, guiding force. theoretical issues. Who makes history 1917 to 1923. This was the ascending The enduring influence of The - brilliant individuals or insurgent curve of the revolution, its most Communist Manifesto is the most masses? How is society remade - by heroic and creative period. convincing testimony to the impor­ the piling up of reforms or by rev­ The second stretched out over tance of theory and program in creat­ olutionary action? What kind of party twenty agonizing years from 1923 to ing a sound workers' movement. But and leadership are required for such 1943. These two decades witnessed Marxist theory is a guide to class ac­ gigantic tasks - a loose movement the descent of the Russian revolution tion. And the scientific theory con­ with an opportunistic leadership or from its high point to the consolida­ tained in that program exhibited its a disciplined party with Marxist for­ tion of the Stalinist police state in power in practice by the fact that it titude and vision? All these questions the Soviet Union and the reinforce­ inspIred second and directed the had b~enthe subject of intense theo­ ment of capitalist reaction elsewhere stage of the .international socialist retical debate. They were answered in the world. revolution. This period was ushered in the events and outcome of the Weare still in the midst of the in, not by a programmatic pro­ Russian Revolution by the more de­ third period which started during the nouncement, but by a world-shaking cisive proof of practice. And nothing Second World War and has yet to action: the victory -of the Bolshevik that has happened since has nullified unfold all its consequences. This party at the head of workers and these lessons in their essentials. present period is characterized by peasants in the Russian Revolution • The October Revolution did more the crumbling of colonialism and the of 1917. than lift wor ld socialism on to a weakening of world capitalism owing This has been the most momentous higher level from which it has never to .the immensely powerful and sus­ and far-reaching mass action in been toppled. It inaugurated an en­ tained upsurge of the international tirely new era in the development revolution. On top of its blows This is the second of two articles on the of mankind - the post-capitalist era. against imperialism, this new rise in progress of world socialism since 1848. The Since 1917 modern history has been the tide of revolution has served to -first article, which appeared in our summer issue, brought the survey up to 1917. divided into three great stages: the undermine the foundations of Stalin-

140 INTERNATIONAL 'SOCIALIST REVIEW ism and revive the activity of the cles that confronted the Russian rev­ -This objective situation produced masses in the Soviet zone. olutionists. These could not be easily a fundamental crisis of program~ Let us review the salient features cleared from their path. First was the policy and perspective within the of each of these three successive inherited, age-old economic and cul­ Russian Communist party. The ensu­ stages in the ebb and flow of the tural barbarism of Russia with its ing parting of the ways was so far­ world revolution from 1917 to 1957. small working class, decimated by reaching that it proved fatally de-· the imperialist and civil wars, its sea cisive for the entire subsequent evo­ * * * of peasantry, its weak industry and lution of the international labor_ The achievements of Bolshevism at archaic agriculture rendered still movement and reverberates up to its zenith sllfpassed those of any more chaotic by the unremitting up­ the present time throughout its most. other party in ,history. Lenin's party heavals of the time. advanced sectors. piloted the Russian workers to the Second was the failure of the so­ The opposing positions were put. heights of power in Russia, laid down cialist revolution to extend itself, forward most forcefully and fully by the foundations of the first working­ despite some favorable opportunities the Stalinist faction on one side and class republic, cleared away most of and spasmodic attempts, into the the Trotskyist Left Opposition on the the dead wood of feudalism and more advanced countries of Western other. The gist of their dispute can capitalism, created the Red Army and Europe. be summed up as follows: Should the successfully defended the new regime Third was the consequent isolation expansion of the world revolution be against its formidable internal and of the young Soviet republic in an considered as concluded for the entire external enemies. The Bolsheviks did imperialist environment. next historical period; should rescue from that quarter be written off and more than break the shackles that Fourth was the weariness of the everything be concentrated upon bound the Soviet peoples to the past; masses. safeguarding and developing what they also showed advanced workers These adverse conditions forced a had already been achieved in the everywhere how to cast off the res­ retreat on the economic front (known Soviet Union? This was the position trictions of reformism. as the New Economic Policy) after epitomized in the theory of building example teachings gave the military victory of the Russian Their and socialism in one country wltlich was revolution in 1921. new hope and new life to the entire first put forward by Stalin late in working class pointed a new and out This retreat then became the 1924, in violation of all the previous road for world socialism. Through the starting point for an unexpected and traditions and program of Bolshe­ formation of the Third International involuntary recession of revolution­ vism. the Leninists reorganized its most ary energy and optimism. After the This outlook was predicated upon a virile forces, reinspired the older loss of hope in the German revolu­ total lack of confidence in the pros­ generation, and educated the youth tion in 1923 and Lenin's death in pects of important victories for the in the real meaning of Marxism in 1924, the conservative and bureau­ socialist revolution elsewhere. For, if theory and in practice. The Third cratic tendencies which had been the extension of the revolution was International challenged and dis­ ga thering momen tum in the Soviet a genuine possibility, then why was placed the Second International as government and the Communist it necessary to erect the idea of so­ the authentic representative of the party were unleashed. That produced cialism in one country into an unas­ showdown struggle against capital­ a sharp and irreconcilable realign­ sailable dogma and defend it with ism. The Leninists did everything - ment of forces within the ruling cir­ such ferocity that its critics were ex­ and a bit more - that could be cles. The faction headed by Stalin pelled from the party, jailed, exiled demanded of them to fulfill the most clearly and consistently spoke and exterminated? principal tasks of revoluti~narylead­ for the mounting resistance to further The conservatism of the Stalinist ership. These consist in fortifying the revolutionary change. faction was expressed negatively in positions of the working class to the This first period was dominated by their turning away from the pros­ utmost in their own country while the expectation that the problems of pects of victory on the world arena helping to promote the movement Russian backwardness would find the and positively in the declaration that against the old order in other parts material means for their solution everything essential for the construc­ of the world. The most backward through th~ spreading of workers tion of a harll}.onious socialist society country produced the most far­ power from the East to the West. was present or potential within the sighted leadership. The Bolshevik leaders believed that boundaries of the Soviet Union. Whatever mistakes the Bolshevik the merger of German industry with These were two inseparable sides of pioneers made - and being neither Russian man power and resources the same position. If this was so, then Popes nor· Stalins, they admitted would provide an unbeatable team there was no need to run the risks their fallibility - sink into insignif­ for travelling fast toward the objec­ and exert the efforts involved in icance ,beside their colossal unforget­ tives of socialism. However, this gate­ promoting the socialist revolution table achievements. way to the West was barred by the elsewhere. Henceforth, in their eyes, More decisive in the long run than postwar treachery of the Social Dem­ the workers movement in other coun­ any incidental and inescapable errors ocratic leaders and the immaturity of tries had to play not an independent - or even their correct policies - any revolutionary replacement for but an auxiliary role. Its primary were the enormous objective obsta- them. duty would be to serve as border

FAll 1958 I~I guards, of the Soviet Union where unintended by its authors. It will The principal political factor re­ socialist construction was going for­ cripple the world revolution and sponsible for these disasters was the ward and subordinate their strug­ eventually, if the revolution does not false policies of the Stalinized Third gles for power to the shifting re­ break through in time elsewhere, will International with an occasional as­ quirements of the Soviet bureauc­ lead to the degeneration and the sist from the Second International. racy. downfall of the revolutionary con­ The Kremlin converted Lenin's Inter­ The Leninist opposition pointed out quests themselves. national from the leadership of the the fallacies in this position. It is of The Russian revolution and its re­ international struggle for socialism course imperative, they said, in view sults are not self-sufficient or all­ into an agency for promoting the in­ of the retarded development of the sufficient - it is no more than a link terests of the bureaucratic ruling international revolution and the in the international revolution. The caste at the expense of the inter­ pressing needs of the Soviet people, Soviet Union is dependent on that ests of the world workers move­ to go ahead and strengthen the econ­ revolution; that revolution cannot be ment - until Stalin junked it at omy and defenses of the Soviet Un­ made subservient to the demands and Roosevelt's request in 1943. ion as much as possible. For this dictates of the Soviet bureaucrats. Meanwhile, within the Soviet purpose they proposed a pro grain of The Stalinist faction triumphed, as Union extremely contradictory de­ rapid industrialization under a social­ is known. Not because their argu­ velopments took place. The workers ist plan. There was no basic dispute ments were superior from the Marx­ democracy of Lenin's time became between them on this point, although ist standpoint, but because of the converted into an ultra-bureau­ there were differences over questions greater weight of the anti-proletarian cratized despotism whose ugly fea­ of timing and method. social forces mobilized behind them tures Stalin's successor Khrushchev But that does not close the ques­ in the country and in the world. They has belatedly unveiled. All major tion, the opposition stated. You claim rose to power upon the ebbing of the institutions from the Communist that a socialist structure standing on international revolution while the party, the Soviets and the trade a higher economic and cultural level Leninjsts were pushed out of power. unions to the army, the secret po­ than capitalism can be built in our lice and the educational system be­ country alone. But capitalism was * * * came agencies serving the exclusive The second phase of the interna- interests of the ruling bureaucracy built from its beginning upon a tional revolution, which began in who centralized all power in its hands world-wide market. How then, can a ,~924,coincided with the victory of through the one-man dictatorship of higher type of economy, guaranteeing the Stalinist reaction within the So­ a higher living standard and more Stalin~ viet Union. From that time on the While this terrorist totalitarian ap­ freedom, be raised upon far smaller interaction of these two forces - paratus was being installed in the material foundations? the Stalinist bureaucracy and the political superstructure, the basic The fact is, they continued, that movement of the advanced workers economy was spurting forward. Suc­ even to solve our own national prob­ - has determined the course and cessive five-year plans elevated Rus­ lems, not to speak of creating so­ outcome of world socialism. sia from a predominantly agricultur­ cialism, the workers have to take The next twenty years was a dis­ al country into an industrial power power elsewhere so that the Soviet heartening period"'f uninterrupted of the first rank. It is customary for Union can have free access to the defeats for the world working class apologists of the Kremlin to point to resources of the most ad vanced in its crucial encounters with the these economic achievements to jus­ countries. That is one reason why ruling classes on the political arena, tify Stalin's dictatorship and white­ continued adherence to Lenin's pro­ despite the instability of world cap­ wash its crimes. After all, they ask gram of revolutionary international­ italism. Let us recall the main land­ -without consulting the Soviet peo­ ism is not a mere dogma but an marks. After the default of the Ger­ ple who paid it - wasn't it worth imperative necessity for the further man revolution in the Ruhr crisis the price? advance of the Russian revolution. of 1923 and the triumph of Fascism Their error consists in identifying Even more. Such a correct and en­ in Italy came the defeat of the Sec­ two different social processes based ergetic policy is necessary to protect ond Chinese Revolution in 1925-27 upon powers which were in reality and preserve the conquest already and the fiasco of the British General opposed to one another and moving made. For, unless the pressures and Strike in 1926. The decade of the in opposite directions. The Stalinist the menace of imperialism are re­ 1930's was dominated by Hitler's autocracy did not represent the in­ moved by the revolutionary action of coming to power in 1933 and the terests of the Russian workers or the the working class in the Western spread of fascism throughout E~rope,continuation of their revolution. It world, the Soviet Union will be in the debacle of the Popular Front in directly represented the privileged constant danger of attack and have France from 1936 to 1938, the betrayal top layer of the Soviet population, to divert its resources to unproduc­ of the Spanish Civil War from 1936 the specialists in government, de­ tive military purposes. Even more. If to 1939, the support to Roosevelt fense, industry and science who re­ the attempt is made to create a so­ from 1936 to 1940, climaxed by sisted the further development of the cialist paradise in a backwardcoun­ Stalin's pact with Hitler which gave revolution. This could be seen in the try encircled by capitalism, this un­ the green light for the Second World police regime they directed against realistic course will ha ve resul ts War. the masses.

142 INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW But it was no less true of the the prostration of the world socialist role of this government in economic Common Sewer revolution. The series of defeats in­ life. The forced collectivization of the flicted upon the labor movement peasants was so brutally and reck­ Is Americll's fresh Ilir about to go the wily from without and from within during lessly carried out that Soviet agri­ of its forests, virgin land, clear streams, the 1930's permitted imperialism to minerals and fossil fuels? culture to this very day has not re­ The National Institute of Municipal Law unleash its Second World War with covered from the damage, as Khrush­ officers thinks so. On March 17, according impunity at its close. chev has had to testify. And the to United Press, it warned that the nation This second period brought"J...o the headlong pace of the industrializa­ was "fllst dissipating" one of its major nat­ fore the adverse effects of the un­ ural resources - fresh Ilir. even development of the revolution tion, accompanied by the waste and Jack M. Merelman, Institute lawyer, told mismanagement of the all-power-. a House Commerce subcommittee that "the in this first phase of the transitional ful bureaucratic administrators, has very air we breathe is being used as a com­ period from capitalism to socialism. greatly hampered the rounded de­ mon sewer where fumes, gases and all man­ This unevenness was not uniformly velopment of the economy. It suffers ner of pollutants are dumped. unfavorable. The backwardness of Merelman blamed automobile exhaust for Russian capitalism was one of the from calamitous disproportions be­ air pollution. He supported a bill to outlaw tween heavy and light industry which the use of cars emitting more unburned major conditions for the mighty for­ in turn have brought about such a hydrocarbons than the Public Hellith Service ward leap made by the proletarian spread between industrial and agri­ deemed safe. revolution in the previous period. cultural prices as to depress the in­ Other authorities have pointed to the But at the next stage of Russian de­ smoke and fumes from private industry as velopment this same material back­ centives for peasant production. the mai" source of the poisonous smog that wardness dragged the revolution On the other hand, neither na­ makes breathing difficult in many of Amer tionalized property nor the possibil­ ica's cities. ' down like a leaden weight. Why' did Then there /Ire the nuclear tests this come about? ities of planned production were ... The politicaZ conditions for the tak­ created by the bureaucratic usurpers; ing of power by the workers in a 0 mocracy. This conflict has now be­ these were the m s t enduring country can mature much sooner come so apparent that even Stalin's achievements of the masses and their than the economic conditions for their successors are obliged to take verbal Bolshevik leadership carried over advance to socialism. The workers notice of it. from the preceding period. The in­ were able to take power in Russia There was another paradoxical rll1strialization under forced march re­ because it was the weakest link in sult of the first stage in the expan­ was an assertion of the vitality in­ the chain of capitalism. But for that sion of the Soviet economy. The herent in the original revolution. The ma­ very reason it was least suited as a terial basis of bureaucratic rule is autocratic rule of the bureaucracy material basis for socialism. The first was, on the other hand, an expres­ the scarcity of consumers goods. The contingent of the proletarian revolu­ sion of the revulsion against the pro­ big bosses in Moscow decide who tion broke through the ring of cap­ gets and how much. the gram and the further needs of that what In italist rulership, not at its strongest sphere of the distribution of goods revolution which threatened its very but at its weakest point, not at its life and sapped its energy. To lump the advancing economy provided extremity, not in the most qualified these two together, as the Stalinists enough to give privileges to the but in the least developed country do, is like a doctor who would favored few but not enough to assure of Europe. even the basic necessities - food, identify a cancerous growth with the This same contradiction .between clothing, shelter - to . the masses. living body upon which it feeds be­ advanced political conditions and a This inequality produced deep-going cause both coexist in the same or­ backward economy has not been differentiations in the living stand­ ganism. overcome or lessened with the victory ards of the various sections of the Stalin and Khrushchev can no of the Chinese revolution. On the population. The resulting conflicts more be credited with the economic contrary, it has been duplicated, ex­ and discontent over the division of advances of the Soviet Union than tended, generalized and intensified. the national income forced the bu­ Green and Murray can be credited Consequently, today we find that the reaucrats to tighten the screws of with whatever growth American material and cultural elements for their dictatorship to the limit so that trade unionism experienced under the construction and elevation of the no dissent· could be voiced, no op­ their auspices. The conflict between higher social system are split up and position organized. the bureaucracy and the socialized dispersed into opposing sectors of the economy could be masked for a time * * * world. Those economies which can so long as the Soviet Union was pri­ This twenty-year period witnessed provide the solidest supports for so­ marily assimilating the technical the simultaneous triumphs of fascism cialism are still held in the hands of achievements of the more advanced in Western Europe and Stalinism in capitalism while those countries countries. But the higher its economy the Soviet Union. The spread of the where capitalist relations have been climbed, the sharper grew the fric­ most vicious capitalist reaction over abolished have as yet inadequate ma­ tion between its bureaucratic mal­ Europe and the strengthening of the terial bases for a swift ad vance to administration and the needs of the bureaucratic reaction within Russia so.cialism. economy, and the more urgent be­ were symmetrical and interlinked These objective disparities which came the demands for workers de- phenomena. Both were products of have flowed from the irregular de-

FALL 1958 143 velopment of the international rev­ The end of the war saw a rush of lems of their further development. olution since 1917 have created developments which testified to the The most important point to be noted enormous difficulties in the way of fragility of capitalist rule and the is the stimulus the colonial struggles world socialism. They are at the bot­ recovery of the labor movement from have given to world socialism. By up­ tom of the tremendous deviations its paralysis. Heading the list were setting the economic and political from the principled course of the the Labor Party's electoral victory in stability of the imperialist regimes, class struggle and the monstrous anti­ England, the emergence of the Com­ and then by their own independent democratic deformities which have munist parties as the dominaht pro­ national development, the still­ grown up in the inner life and polit­ letarian political influence in France mounting revolution in the colonies ical structures of the anti-capitalist and Italy, the postwar strike wave has been dealing blows to capitalism countries. The only avenue of escape in the United States; the lightning­ from which it can never recover. from this terrible predicament, as like resurgence of the labor move­ The setbacks inflicted upon the Un­ Lenin pointed out, was through the ment in Japan. The Soviet armies ited States in the Far East by China, extension of the revolution into the took over Eastern Europe and several to England in Suez, and to France in West. years later capitalist relations were North Africa testify to that. When this road was sealed off from abolished there. Despite the policies The third major feature of this 1923 on, the Russian r~volutionwas of the Communist parties which period has been the polarization of pressed back upon itself by the tight­ enabled capitalist rule to be reestab­ state power in the world between the ening pressures of world reaction. lished in France, Italy and Greece, United States and the Soviet Union Although its spring was never this world-wide assertion of labor which have placed themselves at the broken, it became so bent and twisted power demonstrated that the balance head of the contending class camps. that many could no longer recognize of forces had shifted in favor of the 'The United States is supreme in the the remaining conquest of the rev­ working class. capitalist coalition; the Soviet Union olution beneath the grotesque dis­ But the major new factor in chang­ occupies a parallel place in the anti­ figurement of the Stalinist regime. ing the world relationship of social capitalist bloc. Because of their antag­ * * * forces since the close of the Second onistic economic foundations and class connections, the still unfinished It flows logically from this analysis World War has been the colonial rev­ cold war between them must be re­ that, once the power of capitalism olution. This movement, which em­ garded as an expression through the was reduced and its pressure upon braces three-fourths of the earth's system of states of the conflict be­ the Soviet Union relaxed, the spring population, has spread from one tween the forces of the old order and of the revolution would start uncoil­ country to another and from one the new. ing there again. This is precisely continent to the next with ever-in­ what has been happening with the creasing strength. Breaking out first However, the most dramatic result reversal of the world situation that in Asia, it has extended into the Mid­ of this shift in the world situation has come about during and after the dle East, Africa and Latin America. and the position of the Soviet Union Second World War. During its rise a growing number has been the radical transformation The stage of the world revolution of colonial peoples have won their of the fundamental conditions which we are now living through was not political independence such as India, fostered the power of Stalinism. As ushered in by a single dramatic Indonesia, Lybia and, most recently, we have explained, there were three event, like the victory of the Bolshe­ Ghana and Malaya. basic factors behind the rise of Soviet viks in 1917. It has been the product The high-water mark of the co­ bureaucratism. One was the back­ of a continuing series of intercon­ lonial revolution has been in China, wardness of Russian society, even nected developments which have North Korea and North Vietnam after the elimination of capitalist converged to push the course of where it has conquered in the ad­ ownership. Second was the isolation events in a different direction from vanced form of a proletarian power, of the Russian revolution and the the two preceding decades. The new however distorted by its Stalinist Soviet Union because of the failure stage began during the Second World leadership. The unfolding of the co­ of the socialist revolution to reach War with a military victory - the lonial revolution has been as ir­ into the West. The third was the defeat of the Nazi arr;ny at, Stalin­ regular to date as the development poverty in the means of subsistence, grad which marked the turning point of the socialist world revolution it­ the scarcity in consumers goods. in the Soviet-German war. This was self. Some peoples, like those in The first two of these terrible con­ followed by the fall of Mussolini in French Equatorial Africa, are only straints upon the Soviet Union have July 1943 which not only exposed now entering the struggle; others like been considerably broken down in the rottenness of that regime but Indonesia, Ghana and Morocco have the postwar period. The expansion of signed the death warrant of Euro­ achieved national independence with­ Soviet power into Eastern Europe pean fascism which had been riding out winning economic freedom from coupled with the triumphs of the so high. At the same time the par­ imperialism; still others like China Chinese and Yugoslav revolutions tisan struggles of the Yugoslav work­ have torn loose from the clutch of lifted the political blockade. What a ers and peasants signalized there­ world imperialism and become part difference from its situation when newal of the revolutionary mass of the anti-capitalist sector. Hitler turned upon his temporary movement in Central Europe. Here we cannot deal with the prob- partner in 1941! At that moment the

144 INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW Soviet Union, thanks to Stalin's un­ With Stalin gone, the dammed­ of free and democratic control by principled maneuvers, stood alone in up demands for an end to bureau­ the workers over their government the world; it was without an ally cratic domination began to break and their economy, the growth of among other nations. Today, it is through the iron mesh from one, end internal and external relations of surrounded by anti-capitalist govern­ of the Soviet zone to the other. In­ equality, the fraternal association as ments from the Baltic to the Pacific sistent demands for equality, work­ equals of all sQcialist peoples. The and meets with growing support ers democracy and national indepen­ Stalinized regimes are a gross car­ from the colonial lands. denceare sparking the anti-bureau­ icature of this concept of socialism The unprecedented pace of indus­ cratic forces. This mighty movement - and that is why they are marked trial growth has conve~tedthe Soviet is only in its first stages. The out­ for extinction. Union into the second economic and breaks in East Berlin in 1953 and in The forward march of the socialist military power and created a qual­ Poland and Hungary in 1956 are movement is still held back by a ball ified, literate and dynamic working premonitory manifestations of this and chain around its feet. The chain class, fifty million strong. death agony of the Stalinist ruler­ is the dire poverty in the means of One would think that all this ship. It will come to a climax only consumption that plagues the Soviet would have made the Soviet bu­ when it moves from the outlying countries and the colonial areas. reaucracy impregnable. Actually, regions into the main centers of the Their economic underdevelopment these developments have been shak­ Soviet Union and the workers there retards their progress, generates ing the ruling group to its founda­ set up their own agencies of power sharp conflicts within their popula­ tions. The Stalinist autocrats know and start throwing out the detested tions, leads to bureaucratic abomina­ better than anyone else that the in­ potentates of the ,Kremlin. tions and stifles democratic forms of dependent extension of the proleta­ This brings us up to the prese:1: government. rian revolution to other countries not hour .. Where do we stand now and The leaden ball is the lagging of only imperils the monopoly of power what's ahead? We have seen that the socialist revolution in the most they have wielded but undermines over the past hundred years the so­ highly industrialized nations of Eu­ the reasons for their continued ex­ cialist movement has immense rope and North America. These are istence. That is why Stalin himself achievements to its credit. Yet it re­ the two sides of the central historical opposed the initiation of the Yugo­ mains far from its goals, even in contradiction of our time - and they slav and Chinese revolutions and then those countries where the workers are closely connected. The areas in 1948 came into headlong opposi­ have taken power. A socialism which contain the majority of man­ tion to the further development of worthy of its name as projected by kind cannot solve their fundamental the Yugoslav revolution. We have the founders of Marxism means a problems and throw off their age­ since learned tha t friction between substantial and sustained rise in the old backwardness without assistance the Kremlin and Peking was ex­ living standards of the people up to from the industrialized West. There, tremely intense shortly before his levels beyond those attained by cap­ however, the latest productive forces, death. italism. It means the establishment nuclear energy and automation, still await the advent of great new po­ litical forces that can take full ad­ vantage of them for all mankind. These can come only from the in­ surgent working class. The major tasks for the next stage of the world revolution are set by these problems. * * * The purpose of these articles has Socialism has been a dream for a long time. Is it utopian in America been to summarize tlie past, not to today? The facts say it's on the way. predict the future. It is not easy to James P. Cannon tells about America's road to socialism in a conver­ foretell what will bring about still sational way that will absorb your attention. In these lectures he discusses another fundamental change in the world situation. The stimulus can "America under Eisenhower," "Prospects of Capitalism and Socialism in come from diverse developments: an America" and "America under Workers' Rule." economic slow-down and political Send 35 cents for this 79-page pamphlet which ends with an inspiring shake-up with revolutionary reper­ word-picture of "What Socialist America Will Look Like." cussions in the capitalist world; the restoration of workers democracy following the deposing of the bu­ Pioneer Publishers reaucracy in the Soviet Union; the 116 University Place New York 3, N. Y. big blow-up of a Third World War. No one can say what the order and

FALL 1958 145 interlacing of such decisive events to be - in theory and practice is the paper board .of a group manifesto will be. work of scientific socialism and the against the distorting of Soviet his­ One thing is sure. Whatever the art of revolutionary politics. tory, including the role of Trotsky. peddlers of sedatives for nervous ex­ This brings us to one final point: This was removed and put back radicals may say, there will be sharp the question of leadership. The com­ again, and finally the expulsion of reversals of events in the future as ing stage of the international social­ five students connected with it was there have been in the past. And ist revolution for which the basic announced. A protest against this, the longer their arrival is postponed, conditions are now being prepared which even the university Komsomol the more explosive will be the events will call for a leadership with a leader signed, was successful." when they mature, because of the broad view of the historical process accumulation of tensions in the and its requirements, which has ab­ * * * Since 1848 the socialist movement meantime. sorbed the achievements of the past has had four different international In judging such gigantic move­ and learned its lessons, which can organizations. Some people may see ments as the change over from one find its way to the mass movement in this a reason for despair. It should social system to another, short-range as it is in the present without sac­ rather be seen as evidence of the ir­ views or a nationally limited outlook rificing the needs of the future. are worthless. In this world-wide repressible vitality of world socialism. During .the darkest hours of the struggle of social forces which has When an organizational form no Stalinist era, Trotsky pointed out been going forward for a century longer fulfills the functions which that the world working class was tendencies dominant at one phase are brought it into being, it is cast off most of all handicapped by the bank­ overturned by contrary tendencies at by a living movement which then ruptcy of its official leadership. He the next big swing of events. This creates a new one in accord with the and his earliest associates set a bou t can be seen in the fact that the cen­ conditions and demands of its higher to re-create that shattered leadership ter of the socialist movement has stage of evolution. through the. development of the pro­ shifted eastward from England, to For example, since" the Civil War gram and the assembling of the first Germany, to Russia, and presently the American workers in their strug­ forces of the Fourth International. to China. Its tour of the world has gles against the employers have had Trotskyism represents the continua­ not yet been completed. And, we may at least four national trade-union tion of the work of Marx and Engels, be sure, that whatever the relays, organizations: the National Labor Lenin and Luxemburg in the epoch this country of ours is on the sched­ Union, the Knights of Labor, the of the decay of imperialism and the ule too. AFL and the CIO. It will very likely degeneration of Stalinism. That is It is necessary to make a realistic, pass through others before the or­ how its place in historical se­ proper ly' proportioned appraisal of the ganized workers settle their final ac­ quence will be judged. the world situation as it is at each counts with the bosses. How could it stage. But a Marxist who understands Its foremost achievement was to be any different in the more difficult that history is irreversibly on the teach the vanguard of the working fight on the world arena against the move away from capitalism toward class what Stalinism really is, how it power of entrenched capitalism? socialism must above all take note arose and why, how to fight and Some people are dismayed because of what is coming to be. Many wor­ replace it without yielding an inch the Russian workers, it appears, will shippers of the given fact can see to imperialism or succumbing in have to pass through a second rev­ no further than what is immediately ideology or practice to reformism. olution, this time of a political na­ dominant; they overlook or under­ Trotskyism has yet to become a mass ture, to secure freedom and democ­ force a power, is a est i mat e the counter~tendencies or state yet it racy: They forget that even the which are undoing the status quo growing influence and not a declin­ American capitalists had to engage in and setting the stage for the next ing one on the world arena and in two revolutions before they won act in the drama of socialist develop­ this country. That is because the very their present supremacy. ment. conditions which are undermining the What does an unprejudiced review A South American rev.olutionist power of imperialism and eroding of the experiences and outcomes of once saiQ: "To follow the current is Stalinism are lending strength to the the first one hundred years 'of the very easy; a dead and. rott,en fish ideas and outlook of living Marxism workers drive toward socialism tell with a bloated belly can do it. But and genuine internationalism which us? It entirely confirms what Marx­ in order to be able to go against the our movement upholds. ist theory concluded and predicted current, it is necessary to have abil­ Signs of the changing times within back at its beginning: "Above all ity, to exert energy and efforts, and the Soviet Union itself were reported else, the bourgeoisie produces its even to risk death by drowning." We by Cedric Belfrage, correspondent of own gravediggers. Its downfall and may add that,- to keep from drown­ the NationaL Guardian, from Moscow the victory of the proletariat are ing, it is likewise imperative to have on September 2, 1957. The change in equally inevitable." This is the main the life line of a scientific method for the highly educated younger genera­ line to hold on to firmly throughout analyzing the course of events. That tion, he wrote, "may be judged by all the inescapable twists and turns is provided by Marxism. To combine two recent events: a successful strike of the historical journey mankind the two sides of the historical pro­ against poor food in the commissary, is making from the twilight of cap­ cess - what is and what is coming and the appearance on a wall-news- italism to the dawn of socialism.

146 INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW The Deep Roots of Inflation

Can capitalism escape long-run inflation through a new industria,1 revolution or other means? The answer appears to be decidedly in the negative

by Albert Phillips

N THE first part of the discussion tablished by the Industrial Revolu­ phasis on mass production for a mass I we have seen that nineteenth­ tion, tended to exhaust itself by the market, with smaller profits per unit. century capitalism, which was dom­ close of the nineteenth century. We An extremely important part of this inated by the Industrial Revolution, noted that the increasing sharpness movement was ;the process of "ra­ was able to simultaneously lower of the class struggle tended to make tionalization" of production through prices, expand accumulation of capital both real and money wages inflex­ the Taylor and Bedaux systems. In and production, lower hours of work, ible, with a definite upward bias, as the final analysis, this ear lier de­ raise both money and real wages,· and well as forcing a considerable short­ velopment was actually closer to a thus cumulatively expand the market ening of the working day. true industrial revolution than the despite periodic crises. Contrary to The jaws of the vise being tight­ development centered today around bourgeois economists, inflation as a ened on capitalism are formed on automation in the capitalist world~ long-range movement began about the one side by the falling rate of from the point of measurement of a. the turn of the century, and not in profit, and on the other by the in­ leap in labor productivity in rela­ 1939, or 1954. We have seen that in­ creasing pressure mounted by the tion to the increase in the organic flation began prior to significant war working class. The immediate result composition of capital. To this we preparations, before state debt or, for is deepening inflation. The ultimate shall return below. But in any case,. that matter, debt in either producer solution for the bourgeoisie lies we are aware that this "Second In­ or consumer goods assumed the im­ either in the complete crushing of the dustrial Revolution" ran its course portance it has today. This indicates working class, or in a new industrial very quickly, leaving relatively lit­ that the inflationary process is rooted revolution which could provide a new tle impact on the society around it. in capitalist production itself. It is breathing space for the bourgeoisie. and succumbing swiftly to the gen­ the tendency to the falling rate of But, as we shall see, every move­ eral trends firmly established in cap­ profit, along with the class struggle ment towards the rate of capital ac­ italism: That is to say, the simulta­ which is at the root of inflation, while cumula.tion necessary for a new in­ neous ability to reduce hours of work war preparations, fictitious capital, dustrial revolution only adds in geo­ and prices, and increase profits and and debt in general are derivative, metric fashion to the inflationary wages at the same time - the char­ although increasingly contributory, fires now fiercely aglow. acteristic achievements of expanding effects. It should first be noted that a Sec­ capitalism - was evident not for a From a theoretical point of view, ond Industrial Revolution has been century but for less than a decade; a 34 we saw that the tendency of the rate hailed before in the capitalist world. decade which ended in the most. of profit to fall is dependent· not The previous "New Industrial Rev­ drastic and lengthy depression in the simply on the rise in the organic olution" took its main point of de­ world history of capitalism. parture from the then relatively new composition of capital, but on the Is there any evidence that "au­ automobile industry, wit~ its em- ratio established between the rise in tomation" will have any greater, or the organic composition to the pro­ 34. Note, for example, "The Second Indus­ trial Revolution and Its Significance" in the as great an impact, coming as it does portionate increase in labor produc­ May 1930 Annals. of the American Academy 01 when the declining rate of profit tivity; and then by the ratio of this Political and Social Science. According to the editor of the series, "The contributors are presses harder on the possibility of increase in labor productivity to the authoritles in their respective field - econ­ omists, engineers, businessmen, educators, au­ revolutionary changes in over-all resulting increase in relative surplus thors, statisticians, lawyers. They represent a c r 0 s s section of American constructive technique; when the working class is value. We saw that the qualitative thought - capitalists, socialists, labor leaders, liberals, conservatives." See also Walter Meakin better organized; when the state, in leap in labor productivity in propor­ in The New Industrial Revolution (Brentano's, the total interest of the capitalist tion to the investment in capital, es- New York, 1928) in which we read that "the sug­ gestion that nothing less than a new industrial class, must make ever great~rde­ revolution is involved· in the process of 'ra­ tionalization' may be so sweeping a statement mands upon production and upon the This is the second part of a discussion ar­ as to need justification. This will be found in the following pages " (p. 7) Meakin de­ profits available for capital accumu­ ticle on long-range inflation. The first part voted most of his ...analysis to the develop­ appeared in 'our $ummer issue. ments in Germany. lation? Or does the evidence point in

FALL 1958 147 the direction feared by Sir Dennis Professor Harold B. Wess, for ex­ betokens inflation, and not a new Robertson, referred to above [po 95 ample, of the Business School of the, industrial revolution. We note pa­ of the summer Intl!

148 INTERNATIONAL 'SOCIALIST REVIEW capital investment of $665,000 for a A. B. Homer, president of the The accumulation of capital is the productive capacity of 405 units per Bethlehem Steel Company, estimated central reason for being of the cap­ hour. For a less than 10 per cent that the cost of achieving a 50('!' in­ italist system. It is therefore difficult decrease in the cost of production, crease in capacity would range in to conce~veof a bourgeois regime your electrc:1ics c:1)italbt m~st in­ the period up to IJ71 from $100 to that freezes public and private in­ crease his capital investment by over $500 a ton. Fo~ Bethlehem, he es­ vestment at the existing rate. And 700 per cent!"-l:! timated net profit to be about $7 per yet the force of the contradiction is The capital coefficient, a term ton of ingot capacity - not "too so great, the danger of runaway in­ meaning the amount of investment in good" a result on an investment of flation so pressing, that the Tory plant and equipment necessary to $100 a ton and "3 times as bad" if Government in England took pre­ add one unit to annual production, is the investment is $300 a tonY) For cisely this step in September 1957. coming under increasingly careful the steel industry as a whole in the while at the same time raising the scrutiny by statisticians, as for exam­ recent past, its "total costs ... per discount rate, the cost of borrowing, ple by the National Bureau of Econ­ hour worked have advanced since to a fantastic height.51 The underly­ omic Research and the specially 1940 at the rate of 8.2 per cent a ing similarity of the crisis in Britain formed Leontieff group at Harvard. year, compounded." In 1955, it took and the United States is emphasized We can understand why. We have 40)( more profits than in 1950 to pay by the fact that on September 23, indicated above that the tendency for the same returns on investments in 1957, barely two days after the Brit­ the capital coefficient to increase had the steel industry, while its long-term ish action, Eisenhower in an address 4 already begun to show itself in the debt has tripled since 1946. (1 to the Boards of Governors of the nineteenth century, although in a far In the public utilities sector of the World Bank and International Mo­ less acute form. We can in any case economy alone, it has been estimated netary Fund "called on the financial recognize here the Keynesian mar­ that the cost of construction of elec­ leaders to consider carefully whether ginal efficiency of capital and its tric plant, which is only part of the their programs of expansion and in­ tendency towards zero, or on a broad­ costs, would rise by 1970 from less vestment are too large."5:! What a ened version, the Marxist declining than $4 billion a year to $11 billion confirmation of the major thesis of rate of profit. One recent study shows yearly.47 Marx's theoretical structure - that that with 1941 as 100, total output In the area of current cost, it is the ultimate barrier to capitalist pro­ per unit of produce,rs durable goods estimated that a minimum of $25 bil­ duction is capital itself! 4 dropped by 1952 to an index of 70. :1 lion a year is needed simply to main­ Let us look at the same process The following illustrations from the tain existing plant and equipment;4H thx;ough another way of measure­ steel industry will be perhaps even that it would take $125 billion simply ment. Lewis Corey, one of the few more helpful: Charles M. White, to put the nation's industrial equip­ American Marxists to have done president of the Republic Steel Cor­ ment as a whole in "first class condi­ serious work on the American econ­ poration, said recently that the cur­ tion," an amount equal to one-quart­ omy, says: "That the rate of profit rent expansion program of his com­ er of the 1956 valuation of all in­ tends to fall is an observable and pany would cost around $85 'a ton. He dustrial plant and equipment, and acknowledged fact. An indirect proof added, "The next substantial increase not much below the 1952-56 total of is the constantly larger capi'tal in­ in capacity beyond our present pro­ $152 billion spent on new plant and vestment necessary to produce a unit gram will have to be built at a higher equipment;411 that approximately 20% of product. In American manufac­ cost - not the $85 per ton we have of the machine' tools in the U.S. are tures, fixed capital rose 1,758y( from been able to get away with up to now at least twenty years old, about 43 % 1849 to 1889, output 'only 1,170% ."5a but a figure somewhere in the vicin­ are ten years old, and very few of But that was in another century and ity of $200 per ton. And the other these have automatic controls like before the death agony of capital­ steel companies are in about the same the latest models. 50 This may give us ism. What is happening today in this fix. And when we are through with some inkling of the staggering cost of relationship mak~s the figures that that kind of expansion, the next step a "new industrial revolution," a 'Corey cites pale into insignificance. will be an entirely new plant at $325 phrase so' casually tossed about. It The t9tal outpllt of all geods and per ton, which will include not only indicates, too, why every movement services' in 1953 dollars went from the cost of plants and auxiliary facil­ towards such a total transformation $187.9 billion in 1939 to $367.2 bil­ ities but of essential raw material threatens at the same time a runaway lion in 1953, a rise somewhat under reserves as well. That can mean only inflation. 100%. But in order to achieve this one thing, as far as I can see: a 45. New York Times, November 28. 1956. increase, business expenditure for thorough review of our entire pricing new plant and equipment rose from 46. New York Times, July 24, 1956. policy."44 $5.5 billion in 1939 to $27.8 billion 47. New York Times, November 28, 1956. 42. Lynn Marcus, "Automation - The New in 1953, an increase of close to 500%. Industrial Revolution" in Fourth International, Spring 1954. 48. Del S. Harder, Executive V,ice President Even if we were to allow for some of the Ford Motor Co., in a speech published 43. Edward F. Denison, of the Department in the Ford Rouge News, November 23, 1956. of Commerce's Office of Business Economics, 51. New York Times, September 21, 1957. in Problems of Capital Formation (National 49. Estimate by Dexter M. Keezer, head of 52. Detroit News, September 23, 1957. Bureau of. Economic Research; Studies In In­ the Economics Department of the McGraw-Hill come and Wealth, IX, Princeton University Publishing Co., Detroit News, February 9, 1956. Press, 1957), p. 255. 53. Lewis Corey, The Decline of American Capitalism (Covici-Friede, New York, 1934) .. 44. New York Times, May 23, 1956. 50. Business Week, October I, 1955. pp. 122-23.

FALL 1958 149' under-utilization of man power and still don't understand it."57 He con­ prices, the main objects of attack in capacity in this period, the relation­ cluded by estimating that productiv­ the current debate. ship would show little change. The ity for the past year had gone up We have up to now discussed the CIO estimate is that with full em­ about 1 %. In commenting on a re­ characteristics of twentieth-century ployment, total output would have cent study, Burton Crane of the New capitalism and automation with re­ risen to somewhat more than double, York Times says, "It is interesting gard to the first of our decisive rather than a little less than double. 54 to note that since the end of 1953 ratios; that established between the Part of this picture is the course the rates of gain in both wages and degree of change in the organic of labor productivity, output per man productivity have fallen below the composition of capital to the conse­ hour, in relation to the pace of in­ long-term trend line. In fact, actual quent degree of change in the pro­ vestment in capital goods. Half of productivity over the past nine quar­ ductivity of labor. The second, as we the total 1954 valuation of capital ters has gone down a trifle ... Some­ know, deals with relative surplus goods, some $500 billion, had been body had better do something about value. purchased since the start of 1946. increasing productivity."58 But what There can be little doubt that both In the period from 1952 to 1956 a other path is there for the bour­ real and, money wages have shown a total of $152 billion was spent' on geoisie except to invest more and long-range rise in the twentieth new plant and equipment. This gives more in piant and equipment, until century as well as the nineteenth. us at least a rough idea of the tre­ they are stopped either by a crash, or With 1926 as 100, for example, aver­ mendously concentrated increase in by their own government which is age hourly earnings rose from 30.6 capital accumulation in the past dec­ being forced to recognize the self­ in 1900 to 102.3, in 1934, with drops ade. What has been the correspond­ contradictory character of their mad in 1921-22 and during the depres­ ing growth in the productivity of la­ race against the declining rate of sion years. In terms of real wages, profit? bor in the whole economy? with 1926 as 100, the index rises The bourgeoisie' is in a terrible from 64.5 in 1900 to 131.4 in 1934.59 As against a long-term average an­ dilemma. It is aware that the solu­ It is of course true that the rise in nual increase in productivity of tion of the neo-classical Austrian wages lagged behind increases in %, roughly 2% the years from 1947 school, a depression which would productivity and in the national in­ to 1956 show an annual increase of drive out the more inefficient produc­ come, so that a relative comparison from 3.0 to 3.6%55 How significant ers, tend to devaluate existing cap­ would show a somewhat different is such an increase when compared i tal, and break through the wage picture. with the demands of an industrial level by creating unemployment, Nevertheless, the complaint of the revolution; or when measured against would threaten a revolutionary up­ bourgeoisie against wage levels has the proportionate increase in the or­ heaval, and at best would provide for them a certain degree of'legit­ ganic composition of capital; or even in' directly economic terms only a imacy, especially in the most recent when it is looked at in relation to temporary solution, if, that. On the period. Ordinarily in the past, periods recent periods in the past? Ewan other hand, it is recognized that the of rising prices have left wages furth­ -Clague, Commissioner of Labor Stat­ same upheaval will take place if er behind than appears to be true istics, says, "To the question, is there inflation is unchecked. The middle today because of the higher extent any indication that there has been a road, taken by England and proposed of organization and resistance of the -significant gain in productivity in by Eisenhower here, is no alternative working class. According to the CIO, the post-war period, owing perhaps at all. The proposal to freeze the with January 1953 as 100, average to automation? The answer is sub­ economy at existing levels, to hold straight-time earnings went up to stantially no ... as far as our fig­ everything motionless as is some­ 120 by May 1957, about keeping 'ures are concerned, there is nothing times done as a joke in the movies, pace . with price increases.6o more spectacular occurring in man­ is impossible. Not only is it ,con­ The important thing here, how­ ufacturing productivity now, after trary to the inner essence of capital­ ever, is that a revolutionary work­ World War II, than there was after ism which is to expand or to die, ing-class leadership would challenge 'World War I. In fact productivity but it is also contrary to the logic the inability of capitalism to accom­ rose faster from 1919 to 1925 than of the class struggle. The needs and plish in the present what it was ca­ it did from 1947 to 1953."56 desires of the working class cannot pable of doing in the nineteenth cen­ But by November 1956 a high gov­ be frozen by either request or com­ tury; i.e., lower prices, lower hours, ·ernment official is quoted as saying mand from the bourgeoisie or from increase wages, and expand produc­ that "Something worries me more their lieutenants within the working tion. It would challenge the bour­ than prices. In the past year - if our class. geoisie to either put up or get out statistics are right - there has been It would not be amiss at this point of the way and let the proletariat 'very little increase in productivity. to take a quick glance at the ques­ reorganize society to accomplish What the cause is I wish I knew. I tion of wages and administered precisely what capitalism is no longer capable of doing. The transitional 54. Economic Outlook (CIO) , April 1954. 57. Joseph A. Loftus, dispatch from Wash­ ington, New York Times, November 23, 1956. steps would include a 30-hour week 55. Labor's Economic Review (AFL-CIO) , 58. In a review of Wares, Prices and Pro­ 59. Moulton, Income and Economic Prorress, .June-July 1957. ductivity - A Wall Chart - prepared by Ed­ op. cit., p. 185. dy-Rucker, Nickels, Co., New York Times, May 56. New York Times, September 5, 1956. 28, 1956. 60. Labor's Economic Review, op. cit.

150 INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW at 40-hours pay, increased basic improper, nor a transient phenom­ Of the three major debt-develop­ wages and lower prices. But this sub­ enon. Basically they are not actually ing areas, production, consumption j ect is not within the scope of our "administered" at all. They are noth­ and state debt, in the nineteenth present discussion. ing less than the reflection of the century only the first had begun its The rise in wages notwithstanding, need for capital to accumulate in the real growth. Even in the field of the fact remains that those econ­ teeth of the falling rate of profit at production, as we have earlier noted omists, including so-called "liberal an advanced stage of its operation. [po ,97 of the summer International Democrats" of the Seymour Harris­ The magnificently self-styled "dem­ Socialist Re?,iew], it was still possible John Galbraith type who would place ocratic" alternative proposed by Wal­ for Carnegie towards the end of the responsibility for the present infla­ ter Reuther, to the effect that the century to personally finance a tre­ tion in equal proportion on labor and corporations ought to go into the mendous expansion in the production capital, cannot substantiate their stock market rather than depend on of steel. By the turn of the century position. Over the past four years, high prices and internal accumula­ such developments became increas­ according to government figures, tion, is a fantasy. If his advice were ingly rare. The' growth of personal labor's share in the national income followed to the letter, the probability fortunes, great as they were, could rose 3.7 % ; small unincorpora ted is that prices would go still higher not keep pace with the growing level business dropped 4.5(1r; farmers went because of the rise in discount and of capital accumulation. Stocks, down 36.5%; while corporate profits interest rates. bonds, and bank loans became the Increased by 16.4'lr and interest in­ As a matter of fact, a recent re­ primary means of filling the gap. come rose 40%.Gl Thus the total in­ portH" indicates that business con­ And' if by 1916, that is, after 116 crease in the share of national in­ cerns raised more funds through the years of capitalist development, the come was 56.4% to profits and inter­ sale of new stock in the first half total net corporate debt stood at $40.2 est combined while labor's, again, of 1957 than in any first half year billions, by 1952 it had risen to $167.4 was only 3.7%. Indicated here is an since World War II, and that the billions, while by 1956 it stood at interesting relationship between prof­ higher long-term capital require­ $208.2 billions. Wi That is, in the latest its and interest which we will com­ ments were financed in increasing four-year period alone, corporate ment on below, but for now it should degree from security issues. This has indebtedness rose slightly more than be clear that the responsibility for taken place despite the fantastically it did in the whole earlier 116-year inflation does not rest in the con­ high "administered prices." period. sumption section of the economy. In There is evidence, indeed, to in­ In the years from 1921 to 1929, this connection we further note the dicate a decline in profits in the post­ corporations expanded long-term in­ report of the Bureau of Labor Stat­ Korean period. The typical profit debtedness by 111 % while national istics: "The index for unit labor ratio for manufacturing corporations income rose only 29%.67 In 1952, costs was lower than the price index in the pre-Korean and Korean war corporate debt was about 43.5% of for every year p~iorto 1956, although periods was 11 'it, while the typical assets, which represented an increase the difference was very slight and ratio in the period since, before taxes, of 5% since 1945.m~Figures quoted probably insignifIcant in 1953 and has been 9%.(\;') above indicate that external financ­ 1954."H:! The combined pressure of the de­ ing is increasing relative to internal On the other hand, those who be­ clining rate of profit and the resist­ financing, and although this relation­ lieve that artificially high admin­ ance of the working class first man­ ship has not always held true, Reuth­ istered prices and profits are the ifested itself in rising prices at the er's advice to the corporations seems cause of the inflation are not much opening of the twentieth century. By somewhat superfluous. closer to the truth. In reality prices the middle of this century the pres­ In the area of consumer debt, we cannot be set and maintained for any sure has become so intense that the know that buying on credit did not considerable period of time by any capitalist state, as we have seen, has develop until well beyond the turn group, no matter how determined or begun to intervene to slow the ac­ of the century. But by the beginning seemingly powerful. The economic cumulation of capital itself. But there of 1957 total consumer debt was over laws of motion of capitalism remain is yet another phenomenon charac­ the $40 billion mark!1!I It has risen more powerful than the will of the teristic of this century as contrasted 400% since 1939, "considerably fast­ capitalist class. And the competitive with the last, which, while develop­ er," said the U.S. Chamber of Com­ struggle for an increase in labor ing out of the basic pincers move­ merce with a noticeable degree of productivity finds its way through ment we have been describing, takes understatement, "than consumer in­ the medium of the world market on a life of its own, and returns to come."iO Capitalism is beset not only even through the state monopoly of add fresh contradictions, illusions, with contradictions in production, foreign trade in Russia. As Galbraith and further fuel to the inflationary 66. Survey of Current Business, September of Yale correctly maintained,63 ad­ holocaust. That phenomenon is the 1953, pp. 14, 17; May 1957, p. 21. ministered prices are neither morally 67. Evans Clark, Internal Debt of the U.S. growth of debt. (Twentieth Century Fund; Macmillan Co., New 61. As quO'ted by Senator Kerr (Dem., Okla.) York, 1933),pp. 16, 17. while questioning Secretary of the Treasury 64. Survey of Current Business, Department Humphrey, Detroit Free Press, June 26, 1957. of Commerce publication, September 1957, p. 7. 6B. Daniel H. Brill, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, in Problems of 62. As quoted in LalJor's Economic Review, 65. Figures for manufacturing corporations Capital Formation, op., cit., p. 17B. op. cit. frO'll1 Federal Trade Commission and Securities 63. Editorial in New York Times, July 17, and Exchange Commission by Edwin L. Dale 69. New York Times, January 2, 1957. 1957. Jr., New York Times, May 11, 1957. 70. New York Times, February 15, 1957.

FALL 1958 151 but also with contradictions in the billion,73 today the debt is at the $275 demanding the right to increase their relations between production and billion level. The present discussion ability to do so. But what are these consumption. This would seem clear is wheth~ror not to raise the stat­ reserves in the first place? In the im­ enough evidence, if more were utory limit to $300 billion, and this mediate past banks have been sell­ needed, that wages are not too high, under a regime of "sound money" ing government securities in order but on the contrary not high enough men. to bolster reserves for loans and in­ to pay for goods already produced But the national debt, which is vestments. In the feverish world. of and sold. But in order to avoid any nothing more than a paper reminder capitalist finance, paper capital grows misunderstanding with readers who of values already consumed or des­ in geometric fashion, while real pro­ may believe that the road to the troyed, does not just stand off by duction faces the reality of the de­ solution of the difficulties of cap­ itself. It leads through a thousand clining rate of profit. italism lies in raising wages and thus veins into the heart of the capitalist The sicker the system, the more increasing the market, let us repeat credit and finance structure. We debt appears as wealth, the greater that the difficulty lies in the falling have earlier noted that over the past is the production of fictitious capital. rate of profit and labor productivity; four years the increase in the nation­ By 1957 the U.S. Chamber of Com­ in production and not in distribution. al income accruing to interest pay­ merce estimated total public and And without solving the contradic­ ments rose 40%, as against 16.5% for private debt at close to a trillion tion in production, the increase in profits. Let us give just one example dollars.75 While net public and pri­ wages can only intensify the capital­ of the forces making for such a vate debt rose from $82.1 billions in ist crisis. division. 1916 to $552.7 billions in 1952,76 gross The negative character of debt is With tw'o big issues of notes com­ national product rose from $46.2 bil­ nowhere more clearly seen than in ing due, government this year lion in 1909 to $143.8 billion in the 77 the sector of state indebtedness. Over ( 1957) offered nearly $13 billion in 1950. That is, in a roughly compar­ the long haul it ,has become an in­ new 12-month plus notes bearing able period, while production of goods and services rose about 3.25 creasingly large percentage of our 2 %.% interest in exchange for the two national income. In 1'799 it ran about maturing issues which bore only times, net debt rose more than 6.5. 10% of national income; in 1919 it 2% % interest. The difference in in­ We have seen that all movements was 41 %; by 1945 it was 142%; and terest was estimated at $100 million. in the direction of increasing labor by February 1946 it was 160%.71 productivity qualitatively only add to Nothing new has been 'c~eated,but These figures do not mean that it movement. in th~course of this one little trans­ the inflationary But what constantly and unilaterally went up. action that much new "capital" has about a socialist society? There are There have been many fluctuations. been manufactured out of thin air. those who ask if a nationalized econ­ But the main line remains clear. And Seven billion dollars a year is paid omy would not face the problem of while it is" obvious that war spend­ out in interest on the total national an increasing rate of capital invest­ .ing has been a major cause of the debt, a tidy sum which the govern­ ment for a decreasing rate of in­ qualitative rise in state debt, it is ment might well meet by issuing new crease in labor productivity. We are not the only cause. The increasing notes as in the instance above. aware that in the Soviet Union, at acuteness of capitalist contradictions any rate, this is indeed an acute prob­ The national debt is held in great has drawn the state into ever widen­ lem.78 This important question de­ part by corporations and banks, who ing sections of the economy. We serves, and it is to be hoped, will by the magic of capitalist bookkeep­ note that in the summer of 1940, soon receive analysis. But it is clear ing list it as assets on their books. when the World War II program had that capitalism can offer only in­ In July 1953, for example, according barely begun, the state debt "was creasing contradictions; poverty in to the Federal Reserve Bulletin, cor­ nearly twice as large as it had been the midst of potential plenty; infla­ porations, insurance companies, and in the year '1919, which marked the tion combined with depression; "lit­ banks held in the neighborhood of peak of the debt incurred in con­ tle" wars in the midst of so-called $125 billion of government securities, nection with World War 1. War ,has "peace"; and increasing contamina­ with banks holding the lion's share. undoubtedly reenforced the trend tion from nuclear fallout as the H­ Directly or indirectly th'ese secur­ towards expansion of the public debt, Bombs are tested for use in another ities become the basis for new loans but it cannot account for the trend world war. and investments. At the beginning itself. "72 of 1957 the American Bankers As­ 75. New York Times, February 15, 1957. In absolute terms the federal debt sociation called for a change in reg­ 76. Survey of Current Business, September takes on equally fearful proportions. ulations which would allow them to 1953, p. 14. in 1940 it was above $40 billions, If make $10 in loans based on $1 in 77. John W. Kendrick, National Productivity and the then Secretary of the Treas­ and Its Lone Ranee Projection (National Bu­ reserves instead of the pres~ntsix to reau af Economic Research; Long Range Eco­ ury Morgenthau was reluctant to 74 nomic Projection; XVI, Studies In Income and one ratio. Even if the reserves rep­ Wealth, Princeton University Press, 1954), pp. raise the statutory limit above $50 resented actual wealth, the banks 82-83. 71. Natlol\&l are still creating paper wealth and 78. See, for example, Maurice Dobb, Soviet Our Debt (Committee on Public Economic Development Since 1917 (Internation­ Debt Policy; Harcourt, Brace & Co. Inc., 1941), al Publishers, New York, 1948), p. 239; Ma­ pp. 12-13. 73. Editorial in the New York Herald Tri­ lenkov in the Current Digest of the Soviet 72. Anatol Murad, Private Credit and Public bune, January 31, 1940. Press, November 8, 1952, p. 51; also Malenkov Debt {Public Affairs Press, Washington, D.C., as quoted in the New York Times, August 10, 1954), p. 54. 74. New York Times, January 25, 1957. 1953. '

152 INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW BOOKS

Corliss Lamont on Humanism

by Joseph Hansen

THE PHILOSOPHYOF HUMANISM, by Cor­ pleasantly easy to read. Anyone who::: ~ scientific laws of cause and effect. But liss Lamont. Philosophical Library, intellectual development began undc:;: Materialism has stressed matter as such New York. First published 1949; re­ the influence of America's prevailing more than Nature and tended until vised edition 1957. 243 pp. Cloth pietism will recognize the usefulness of recently to over-simplify and over­ bound $2.50; paper back $1.45. this compilation and fresh statement of mechanize, reducing in theory the whole facts and arguments in helping others complex behavior of living creatures Dr. Lamont's acceptance of nomina­ to find their way to the free-thinking and human beings to the operation of tion as candidate for Senator from New world of science. the same laws that apply to inanimate York on the United Independent-Social­ Humanism exists in many varieties, existence . . . Another point about Ma­ ist slate has stirred fresh interest in this including even a type that sees value terialism is that it has usually gone well-known civil libertarian. A philos­ in religion. The use of "Humanism" hand in hand with an outspoken anti­ opher willing to join directly in polit­ to describe such a self-contradictory religious position and has been less ical struggles is not common. A philos­ outlook is "most questionable," in La­ prone to compromise with religious osopher in public opposition to both the mont's opinion. He specifies his own terminology. It has also often been as­ Republican and Democratic machines is variety as "naturalistic." "I bring in sociated, particularly in modern times, rarer still. And an American who feels the adjective naturalistic to show that with radical political movements. Na­ so strongly about the danger of war Humanism, in its most accurate phil­ turalism's less militant attitude in gen­ that he is willing to campaign for high osophical sense, implies a world-view eral is perhaps the chief reason why office on a socialist ticket breaks with in which Nature is everything, in which it is sometimes called .a 'polite' Ma­ virtually everything that is. commonly there is no supernatural and in which terialism." (pp. 31-32) accepted about the ways of philosophers. man is an integral part of Nature and It is not quite accurate, in my opinion, The revised edition of The Philosophy not separated from it by any sharp to state that the particular disagreement of Humanism should, therefore, gain cleavage or discontinuity." (p. 18) Marxist materialists have with Dr. La­ attention as the best available statement Lamont places "the followers of Karl mont's philosophical position centers on of this liberal thinker's fundamental Marx" in the category of naturalist­ the question of democracy. I take it views. ic Humanists. "While the Marxist ma­ that such a conclusion derives from the As Dr. Lamont emphasizes, Human­ terialists disagree sharply on certain author's criticisms of dictatorial prac­ ism is not new. It was a significant cur­ philosophic issues with me and with tices in the Soviet Union and the Peo­ rent in Greek philosophy; and its mod­ other Humanists, particularly in their ple's Democracies which have not been ern development began with the Ren­ ambiguous attitude towards democratic welcomed by the defenders of bureau­ aissance some six hundred years ago. principles, they are unquestionably hu­ cratic rule. Its central tenet is that mankind's con­ manistic in their major tenets of reject­ In projecting "A Humanist Civiliza­ cern should be mankind. ing the supernatural and all religious tion" as a goal for the future, this Humanism arose in opposition to the authority, of setting up the welfa:re of protagonist of civil liberties in the rule of the supernatural. Whatever con­ mankind in this life as the supreme goal, United States appears to continue the cessions to the other world Humanists and of relying on science and its tech­ debate with his critic in polite form; have made, out of inconsistency or to niques." (p. 21) he urges "complete democracy as both avoid martyrdom, Humanism as a spe­ A distinction exists, in Lamont's an end and a means."* Thus Lamont's cial philosophical current takes mankind opinion, between Naturalism and Ma­ affirmation of democracy implies rejec­ as its first premise. Gods and devils and terialism. Both view the ultimate reality tion of Stalinist authoritarianism. But their heavens and hells are therefore as matter in motion, out of Which this is in the tradition which views recognized only as products of the hu­ evolved the universe, the solar system, socialism as the logical extension and man mind. living things and finally human beings; • The dialectical answer that "complete" de­ In this tradition, Dr. Lamont pre­ but Naturalism does not lay so much mocracy signifies the appearance of something sents the case of science against religion. stress on this philosophical foundation. new, transcending "democracy," is not germane here; while it is false to argue that democracy Since the author is not interested in "Like Naturalism, Materialism relies had to be sacrificed in the USSR for the sake persuading other philosophers but in first and foremost on scientific method, of speedy industrialization - the speed under workers democracy would have been greater. enlightening readers unfamiliar with believes in the ultimate atomic structure What Is germane and inescapable to any defend­ the technical and often obscurantist of things and finds in Nature an order er of Civil liberties is the withering away of derpocracy in countries where the state is sup­ language of philosophy, the book is and a process that can be expressed in posed to do the withering away.

FALL 1958 153 development of democracy. One must sustenance; they begin to feel human III. How can peace be achieved? The say that in adherence to the principle only when the whistle blows and they solution to the old problem of the re­ of democracy, the Humanist, despite his are free to turn to their animal activ­ lationship between ends and means has apparent acceptance of politics and the ities. become truly crucial. state as absolutes, is closer to Marxism A more important difference in the Trotsky observed that through fasc­ than his Stalinist critics. Marxist and Humanist concepts of man­ ism history had exacted a stern penalty The basic difference between Hu­ kind is that according to the former, from the working class for failure to manism and Marxism lies, I think, in definite classes carry forward at a def­ learn dialectics. Even that penalty, it the concept of mankind. In the Hu­ inite time the interests of humanity as seems, was not severe enough. Through manist view, human nature is regarded a whole. At another definite time the nuclear contamination of the earth's as an ultimate; it is the foundation on same classes cease this progressive atmosphere, the penalty now has be­ which this philosophy builds its struc­ work, become an obstacle to progress, come damage to the genes we pass on ture. But human nature is never seen and therefore become anti-human. Hu­ to the future. Nuclear scientists warn in isolation; it manifests itself through manism largely disregards the class that life itself can be extinguished in society. The Humanist cannot escape struggle. It sees as the real struggle in another war. It would seem time we this. However, because of his basic society the opposition between good and paid serious attention to the means of premise, he ascribes the evils in society evil impulses in the all-too-human hu­ achieving peace. to evils in human nature; he likewise man; it sees rationality on the side of Here, regrettably, Humanism regis­ ascribes progress in society to human the good and believes that humans ters failure. "In the twentieth century," nature - to its good side, the tendency have freedom of choice, despite class writes Dr. Lamont, "the idea of a fed­ toward rationality. For example La­ differences, once they understand what eration of free states became embodied mont says, "While it is true that un­ is rational. in the League of Nations, which col­ controlled human desires are the prime In the Humanist view the individual lapsed with the outbreak of World War cause of evil in the world, it is equally is rare, no matter what class he be­ II, and in the United Nations, which true that human desires directed by longs to or represents, who fails to was created at the conclusion of World reason toward socially useful goals are seek the common good or whose mind War II. Both these organizations were a prime foundation of the good." (p. is closed to rational appeal. In the founded upon the principle of collective 191) The concept of mankind is reduced Marxist view the individual is rare in security, namely that the peace-loving to opposing abstractions of quite vague a reactionary ruling class, particularly countries of the earth should band nature, the rational and the irrational. in the capitalist epoch, who responds to together against any aggressor or po­ Marxism reverses the relationship rational appeal and comes over whole­ tential aggressor and speedily put an which the Humanist sees between hu­ heartedly to the cause of the oppressed end, by means of collective action and man nature and society. In the Marx­ class that represents the future of hu­ mutual assistance, to war or the threat ist view, society is prior. People are manity. of war. For Humanism the principle of born in a society, a society of definite This difference is illustrated in rather collective security is a vital one in structure, and this society, taking hu­ striking fashion in The Philosophy of international affairs." (p. 234) mans in their plastic infancy, is decisive Humanism. For example, to bring home The League of Nations "collapsed in shaping their nature. But society has his point about the need for economic with the outbreak of World War II"; a logic of its own. It is capable of democracy, Lamont cites the "extensive in other words, as an instrument of changing its molds and even of causing program" outlined by Roosevelt in his peace it worked only in the absence of revolutions in the nature of already­ message to Congress January 11, 1944, war. But the collapse was predicted by shaped individuals. Since the primitive about an economic "Bill of Rights." the Marxists. And how were they able era it has stimulated the rise, decline I .submit that the President's message to make this successful prediction? Be­ and succession of opposing classes. was demagogy. The shrewd political cause they observed that the League These stages in the progress of society leader of American imperialism, in­ of Nations was set up by the imperial­ have been determined in the final anal­ cubating the egg that Truman hatched ist powers in opposition to the social­ ysis by the evolution of the means of the following year over Hiroshima, ist pTogram for peace. The League of producing food, clothing and shelter. aimed at diverting attention from the Nations therefore served as a means The "good" or "evil" effect of forces, war-profiteering of the monopolies and of diverting attention from the only circumstances, and struggles is related allaying war-weariness among the possible means of achieving enduring to their ultimate effect on labor pro­ armed forces and civilian workers. So peace. It created illusions that actually ductivity. The pivot is the social struc­ he took to the headlines, choosing the facilitated the imperialist preparations ture which is "good" if it corresponds Congressional representatives of Big for World War II. to the development of the technological Business as an audience of about the What about the United Nations? Its base, "evil" if it has become antiquated right receptivity for a lecture on the origin was similar with two exceptions: and a brake on technology. desirability of economic democracy. The ( 1) the Soviet government, under Sta­ This way of deriving our abstrac­ Humanist inclines to accept such ra­ lin, participated in its formation; (2) tions is more complex than the Hu­ tional-appearing politics at face value the United States, mightiest of imperial­ manist way but it has the advantage, it because it corresponds with his basic ist powers, sponsored it, stayed in it, seems to me, of yielding a richer con­ thesis about the good in human nature; and dominated it. The UN is really a cept of mankind, one that more closely a Marxist looks for its true meaning in refurbished League of Nations. The reflects the complex reality. Moreover, the structure of society; i.e., in the class UN's course has not been appreciably we have not departed from the common struggle. different from that of the old League. concern which Humanist and Marxist The practical outcome of the central The UN flag flew at the head of the share, the welfare of mankind. theoretical difference between Human­ troops that Truman ordered into the There is, however, an immediate dif­ ism and Marxism is even more reveal­ Korean civil war. Where authorization ference in what the Humanist and ing in the field of current political is­ for other adventures of this kind has Marxist regard as human. The p' eas­ sues. The greatest danger humanity has been lacking because of Soviet veto ure we feel in eating, drinking and faced in its entire history is atomic war. power, the United Nations collapses and procreating does not distinguish us Agreement is universal on the need to the imperialists by-pass it as in the much from other animals; our use of avert the danger and to establish endur­ Suez crisis. The latest example was the tools and machines does. Yet under ing peace. Yet the ominous testing of use of American troops in Lebanon. capitalism today few workers feel like atomic weapons proceeds as if no course In the test of practice - which Dr. humans handling tool~and machines to were open for mankind but a "ren­ Lamont agrees is the final test - the provide themselves and society with dezvous with destiny" in World War UN, like the old League, has served

.54 INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW monopoly capital not too badly. To sug­ As a "realistic Humanist," Lamont the Jacobin dictatorship to find histori­ gest that the road to peace lies through recognizes that it is necessary to "look cal precedents. They did this to "find. such a means is to participate in creat­ beyond fine-sounding peace pronounce­ justification for the purges, in order to ing or maintaining a most dangerous ments and formal peace organizations to maintain our ideals and beliefs in the illusion. those fundamental economic forces and Soviet Union as the first Socialist In accordance with its dialectical relationships that make for war ... country." concept of mankind, Marxism sees the Without contending that economics con­ Throughout the swift changes that road to peace through extension and stitutes the whole story behind war, we engulfed the emigre groups, the young development of the working-class strug­ can state that unless and until the dif­ Leonl1ard managed, at every turn, to gle against capitalism and the colonial ferent peoples of the world solve their find a favored spot for himself. He won. struggle against imperialism. The most basic economic problems, centering entrance into the Moscow Teachers In­ powerful blow for peace since the around poverty, unemployment, infla­ stitute when he was about to be trans­ October 1917 Revolution was the Chi­ tion, depression, business monopoly and ferred to a regular Russian public­ nese Revolution that ended the dictator­ the proper control of natural resource~.school. After the Hitler invasion, when ship of Chiang Kai-shek and "lost" there will be no lasting international China to Western imperialism. This peace." (p. 234) official anti-German Russian chauvin­ ism reached its height, and the German blow was delivered by one quarter of The causes of war are located in the human race, a force so great that antagonistic economic relations, and the emigres were deported to Kazakhstan" it upset all the time tables of World removal . of these causes can come Siberia, Leonhard wangled his way into War III projected by the imperialist through global economic planning that the Karaganda Educational Institute. statemen. overcomes the antagonisms. But global From there, through the intercession of Right now the Arab struggle for planning, which Lamont recognizes is Walter Ulbricht, Stalinist· Comintern freedom and independence acts as a needed, will never appear through such official, he obtained appointment to the powerful deterrent to a major war, for capitalist-dominated agencies as the top secret Comintern school. how can Anglo-American imperialism United Nations. More likely, as has been This is one of the few personal ac­ hope to win an attack on the Soviet indicated by its efforts to intervene in counts available of the training of a bloc with revolutionary fires licking the the East European countries, the UN Soviet "apparatchik" under Stalin. In Middle East oil lines? will seek to disrupt planning where it an austere seminary-like regime of in­ The real forces generating peace today has already been won. This question tense indoctrination, the students were are movements such as these. They add obviously bears closer examination than drilled in Marxism, economics, national their weight to the progressive conse­ one finds in The Philosophy of Hu­ and party history. Detailed analyses quences of the Bolshevik Revolution manism. were made of the ideology of fascism and the spread of planned economy fol­ One of the stimulating chapters of and Catholicism. However no studies of lowing the victory of the Soviet Union the book is entitled, "This Life is All socialist viewpoints opposed to Stalin­ over German imperialism in World and Enough." In concurring with that ism were allowed; instead, stereotyped War II. sentiment, I am tempted to add, in view arguments from official sources were When a socialist victory in 9ny of the of the grave warnings of the nuclear memorized. industrially advanced countries is added scientists, that "This Life Can Be Kept; But ideological training was not all. to these, the threat of an economic But Only through Socialism." Working Every student had to submit to the holocaust will clearly reach the vanish­ for the revival of the American social­ ordeal of "criticism and self-criticism.''' ing point. Surely it is the duty of ist movement through the national ex­ Leonhard tells about his bewilderment peace-loving figures, who understand tension of united socialist efforts, such and dismay on being hailed before a how enormous the stakes are, to urge as the one Corliss Lamont is cam­ commission after a minor incident, and this means and no other to achieve paigning for, seeInS to me a rational finding chance remarks, simple observa­ peace! means to that end. tions and light-hearted comments he had made, blown up into deadly charges. His words had been carefully docu­ mented by one of his classmates. He was not allowed to defend himself. The Biography of a Young Soviet Offi'cial requirement was admission of guilt and repentance. Failure in this meant ex­ pulsion and near starvation. The effect by Robert Chester of this "self-criticism" was to develop a group of fearful, obedient, close­ mouthed individuals, trusting no one. With the dissolution of the Comintern CHILD OF THE,REVOLUTION, by Wolfgang She was charged with "counter­ and its school, Leonhard was assigned Leonhard. Henry Regnery Co., Chi­ revolutionary Trotskyite activity," a to sorting out Comintern archives that cago. 1958. 447 pp. $6.50. charge that actually signified only that had been hurriedly evacuated from she was acquainted with some of the Moscow during the war. While working This is the personal account of the son principal victims of the purges or that on the American archives he came of the first Soviet ambassador to Ger­ she belonged to the older generation of across a copy of The Militant containing many, a young man reared in the tradi­ Communists. For this;she was sentenced an article by Trotsky. "I could not have tion of the Soviet bureaucracy from the to twelve years in Siberia. been more startled if I had found a age of thirteen. . Even the elite Karl Liebknecht school, packet of dynamite," he writes,. Leonhard and his mother, refugees which the young Wolfgang attended, Thereafter he arranged his work so from Hitlerite Germany, arrived in was closed down in 1938 after a good that he could snatch time to read this Moscow early in 1935, a few months percentage of its teaching staff, and its forbidden material. Why the interest? after the Kirov assassination. Stalin students too, had been arrested. "The bourgeois newspapers . . . con­ utilized this mysterious murder to touch How did the young students rational­ tained nothing that could really interest off the infamous Moscow Trials and ize the charges in the purges which us. The Trotskyites, on the other hand,. mass purges. Leonhard's mother, a they knew from their own experiences wrote in our own language, using our prominent member of the German Cbm­ were false? They devised variants of own terminology and dealing with munist party, was picked up with the official arguments. They avidly things about which I had already doubts thousands of other emigre Communists. studied the French Revolution and the ·of my own, so that my &Kcitement and

FALL 1~58 155 interest in this case can be easily un­ "collywobbles" in agomzmg fashion, pro- Titoist orientation. With the collapse derstood." will nevertheless "stubbornly, and ap­ of this organization he emigrated to After this assignment Leonhard was parently with complete conviction de­ England and is now at Oxford. transferred to Moscow to work in the fend the official party line. His western Leonhard claims to be a Marxist. National Committee for Free Germany, interlocutor then leaves him with the Judgment on the accuracy of this claim the organization that propagandized the firm conviction of having been talking can be made more precisely when the German army and civilians. He was in to a 150% Stalinist." second volume of his account, on which the first plane-load of functionaries, The Tito-Stalin break had a profound he is now working, appears. In this he under the leade.;.'ship of Ulbricht, that effect on all those holding dissident promises a theoretical appraisal of the went into Germany to set up agencies views. The 27-year-old Leonhard was Soviet Union and Stalinism. In the pres­ for "self-government." "Our political among those who felt that Tito was right ent volume he makes no attempt at task was not to consist of establishing against Stalin. After a period of under­ analysis but simply recounts his ex­ socialism in Germany or encouraging a cover propaganda work in favor of periences. This volume therefore stands ~ocialistdevelopment." Tito's viewpoint he escaped via Czecho­ in its own right as an inside view of the "Democratic" anti-fascists were made slovakia to Yugoslavia. After two years Soviet bureaucracy under Stalin and as heads of local administrations, while the there he was sent to West Germany to source material for a better under­ deputy head, or police chief, was in­ set up the Independent Workers Party, standing of the unrest in East Europe variably a Communist functionary. The a centrist group that tried to amal­ and its repercussions in Soviet ruling purpose was to assure, as Ulbricht gamate diverse tendencies around a circles. stated, that it would "look democratic, but we must have everything under our control." On Ulbricht's orders the Anti­ Fascist Committees of the workers, who had fought in the underground or who had returned from the concentration Howels History of the CP camps, were dissolved. Initiative from below, criticism of the Russian occupa­ tion or of the official line were either by Tom Kerry ignored, soft-pedalled or suppressed. To workers who had carried on the struggle against Nazism and who had THE AMERICAN COMMUNIST PARTY: A hostile to the philosophy of Communism. expected something more after its de­ Critical History (1919-1957), by Irv­ The philosophy of the American labor feat, this treatment did not sit well. ing Howe and Lewis Coser. Beacon movement, insofar as it is possible to Their sullen opposition found expression Press, Boston. 1958. 593 pp. $6.75. speak of its philosophy, is one of hu­ within the bureaucracy in differences manism. This explains why it is that between the leaders who had fled to the In the past year, three books of un- the American labor movement has not Soviet Union and those who had carried even value have appeared dealing with considered itself as representative of on the underground struggle in Ger­ one or another aspect of the history of narrow class or sectional interests, but many. The latter group was more re­ the American Communist party. The rather of the broad mass of the popula­ sponsive to the ranks than the "Russian two in addition to the book under re­ tion." view were The Communist Party vs. the functionaries. " "This explains why"! This explains In December 1945 Anton Ackerman CIO by Max M. Kampelman and The Roots of American Communism by The­ nothing of why the American CIO published an article maintaining that trade-union leaders could at one stage different countries might take different odore Draper. All have made contribu­ tions in the field of research by as­ welcome members of the CP,at another roads to socialism. The speed with which stage tolerate them, and at still another his views were picked up (it was even sembling material to establish the record of the origin, development, degenera­ split the CIO in order to eject them included in the party program) worried from its ranks. * the Soviet authorities. Under their pres­ tion and disintegration of the American sure the view was gradually proscribed CPo That is their positive side - of un­ Draper's book, comprising a study in and Ackerman was removed from all doubted value to future historians and depth of the. formative years of the posts of responsibility. to those seeking in the record an answer American CP, is a model of historical Doubts expressed by functionaries to the "what" and "how" of this his­ research. However, when he attempts over official program or policies were torical development. On the negative to generalize from the record in his con­ dubbed "collywobbles." In addition to side is a fundamental weakness: the cluding chapter he arrives at the er­ the heresy about separate roads to so­ failure to answer adequately the deci­ roneous conclusion that the cause of the cialism, "collywobbles" included: equal­ sive question of "why?" decline and fall of the American CP ity of Communist parties instead of On the basis of empirical evidence can be traced to the original sin of subordination to the Russian party; the uncovered in his investigation of CP having sought and accepted the advice "withering away of the state" in con­ trade-union policy Max Kampelman ar­ and guidance of the Communist Inter­ trast to its growth; direction of national­ rives, in passing, at the correct conclu­ national in its early formative period. ized industry by elected workers com­ sion that the frenetic twists and turns This, according to Draper's thesis, later mittees instead of by bureaucratic de­ of the "party line" were a result of the led irrevocably to the abject subservi­ cree; the possibility of errors among the function of the American CP as an ence of the American CP to the Stalin­ top leaders; the right of freely express­ agency of the Soviet foreign office, com­ ized Com intern - a variation of Boris ing dissident opinions in the party; and pletely subservient to the bureaucracy Souvarine's fallacious theory that Rus­ the need to reduce the immense in the Kremlin. However, when he at­ sian Bolshevism carried the seed which privileges of the party officials. tempts to generalize from the record, later sprouted into the monstrous growth Leonhard emphasizes that these dif­ Kampelman reverts to the professorial of Stalinism.t ferences were "an expression of opposi­ jargon of the bourgeois "political scien­ The Howe-Coser volume is the most tion ideas within the system itself: an tist." ambitious of the three, purporting to expression of the contradictions be­ Why did the CP fail in what he terms • See my review of The Communist Party vs. teachings its "power struggle" with the conserva­ the CIO in the fall 1957 International Socialist tween the of Marx and Lenin Review. on the one hand, and the Stalinist tive trade-union leaders? Because, says theory and practice on the other hand." Kampelman, "The traditions of the t See review of The Roots of American Com­ munism by James P. Cannon in the summer A party member, wrestling with his American labor movement are quite 1957 International Socialist Review.

156 INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW be a "critical history" of the American supported bureaucratic collectivism then twentieth-century drift toward the total CP from 1919 through 1957. The reader and judging from this book continues state," etc., etc. has a right to expect of the authors of to do so. Burnham later broke with It is true that the authors do not a "critical history" that they seriously the socialist movement and presented "venture into an extended discussion" grapple with the theoretical problems his anti-Marxist theory in a book, The of bureaucratic collectivism. Instead involved in an analys:s of Sta-inism. Managerial Society. He finally landed they repeatedly assert that which is Judged from this standpoint the book in the camp of the McCarthyite intel­ incumbent upon them to discuss. The is shallow, superficial and pretentious. lectuals where he remains to this day. book is interlarded with such arbitrary More important, the authors are de­ So discredited has the theory of assertions, seemingly made on the as­ cidedly lacking in the precious quality bureaucratic collectivism become that sumpt'ion that they have never been that so distinguishes the Draper volume the authors do not so much as mention challenged. But the authors know bet­ -honesty. it by name. It has now been metamor­ ter. They are well acquainted with the The authors do not once formulate searching polemic written by Leon Trot­ phosed into the theory of the "new sky against the theory of bureaucratic specifically their theoretical premise. On class"; and one of those to whom the the contrary, in their concluding chap­ ("new class") collectivism, published in book is dedicated, Milovan Djilas, is the volume In Defense of Marxism. ter entitled. "Toward a Theory of author of a volume by that name. Stalinism," disavow (Pioneer Publishers, 1942.) They know they any intention Stalinism, the authors assert, "was a of doing so. "In this final chapter," but choose to ignore it. You see, now they assert, "we propose to examine counterrevolution that established a is not the time. Stalinism as a political movement in new kind of ruling class, one that Consider the supercilious pretentious­ the West. We shall not venture upon neither owned nor could own property ness of the authors, who write an entire an extended discussion of the new form but instead controlled the state in whose chapter, "Toward a Theory of Stalin­ of society it has brought to Russia, and legal custody property resided." Again: ism," without once referring to the shall offer only a few comments on its "The new society that crept into exist­ monumental pioneering work on the special role in Asia. This limitation ence in Russia during the late twenties subject written by Leon Trotsky in The renders a complete analysis impossible, and early thirties was neither capitalist Revolution Betrayed. No, neither the but it may well be that the time for nor socialist, but an enemy of both." youth seeking socialist answers to the such an analysis has not yet come." And again: What Trotsky and others great problems of the day, nor the This is intended to disarm the unwary failed to understand was that Stalinism thousands of ex-CP members and pe­ reader. "was a movement which, in opposition riphery searching for the answers to the "why" of American CP degenera­ Consider! propose to to both capitalism and socialism, em­ The authors tion, will find them in this book. "examine Stalinism as a political move­ bodied a particular expression of the ment in the West" by severing the um­ bi'ical cord which binds it to the Kremlin in Russia, which they define, in passing, as "a new form of society." Early Soviet Labor Policy But discussion of this new form they will not even "venture upon," because, you see, "the time for such an analysis by Milton Alvin has not yet come." This, of course. does not deter the authors from engaging in a "hidden" polemic, which runs like a thread throughout the enth:-e book, LABOURPOLICY IN THE USSR 1917-1928, New Economic Policy (NEP), takes us against the analysis of Stalinism elab­ by Margaret Dewar. Royal Institute through the post-Civil War days, the orated by Leon Trotsky. of International Affairs, London, Eng­ retreat to dependence upon a market land. 1956. 286 pp. $6. economy, the bureaucratization of the The authors do have a theory, even regime, the crisis created by the pro­ if it is not stated explicitly: bureau­ A great deal of valuable information longation of the NEP and the prepar~­ cratic collectivism. And they do have a has been gathered together by Margaret tions for the first Five Year Plan. method appropriate to that theory: Dewar to form the first detailed study Some of the difficulties that con­ eclecticism. They borrow their basic of government labor policy in the early fronted the young workers state in its premise from the bureaucratic collec­ years of the Soviet Union. In addition first years can be understood from its tivists. They borrow a little from Trot­ to tracing the evolution of Soviet labor official labor policy as described by sky. A little from Souvarine. And more policy, the author has included the text Mrs. Dewar. Although the new regime, than a little from the bourgeois school of the Labor Program of the Russian headed by Lenin and Trotsky, decreed of "social psychology." Social Democratic Workers party, th.e eight-hour day within twenty-four Stated briefly, the theory of bureau­ adopted in 1903, and the decrees, ordi­ 'hours after taking power, workers con­ cratic collectivism holds that besides the nances and ,instructions concerning labor trol oj.:'. productiop about t"Yo weeks socialist alternative to capitalism, there from the time of the October 1917 Rev­ later, health insurance, unemployment is another alternative, unanticipated by olution to 1928. compensation. and many other benefits the Marxists - a completely'new kind Students of Soviet problems will find along these lines, the eruption of civil of society with a ruling class that owns the book a valuable supplement to the war compelled them to retreat from property indirectly through control political history of the first years. But some of these positions. of the state. Its original proponents this political history, available in many With most of the country in the hands equated the "collectivism" of Hitler in of the writings of Leon Trotsky, must of the counter-revolutionaries and their Germany with that of Stalin in the be known to gain a full appreciation imperialist sponsors, the new regime Soviet Union as variations of the "drift of Soviet labor policy. faced its great hour of peril; the dis­ toward the total state." In this country, The period covered in the book falls organized economy hardly sufficed to in opposition to the Trotskyist position into two parts. The first, in the early keep the Red Army in the field. Pro­ of defense of the Soviet Union against days of the Soviet state, is featured by ductivity of labor fell, in many cases imperialist attack, the main "the­ the Civil War and the enormous diffi­ to a mere ten per cent of .the pre-World oretician" of bureaucratic collectivism, culties that faced the new regime as War I figure. James Burnham, together with Max it sought for the first time in history The rigorous system of War Ccm­ Shachtman;: led a split from the Socialist to reorganize society along socialist munism, with its militarization of labor, Workers party in 1940, Irving Howe lines. The second period, that of the gave hope that with the conclusion of

FALL 1958 15T hostilities the disciplined military forces of revolutions in China and Western and his police-state methods of rule could be transferred en bloc to the field Europe as well. brought on the uprising. Rakosi over­ of production. But the poverty of the When the crisis could no longer be emphasized develop­ country, the disorganization of trans­ ignored, Stalin unloaded Bukharin and heavy industry -port, the growing contradiction between his "tortoise" theory, turned sharply to ment, lowered living standards, the urban centers and the mass of petty the left by borrowing from the program forced the peasants to collectivize _producers on the land compelled a fur­ of the Left Opposition, inaugurated the even though this meant reduced ther retreat. first Five Year Plan and organized the farm production - and united the liquidation of the kulaks. The fulfill­ Re-establishment of a market econ­ whole' population in 'opposition to his omy, even though tbe main industrial ment of these measures by the panic­ -enterprises remained in the hands of stricken bureaucracy falls outside the rule. Every party opposition that rose the state, enabled the peasantry, espe­ scope of Mrs. Dewar's study. up against his ruinous policies was The author takes note of the great ~ciallyits better-off section (kulaks), to dehounced, expelled, framed uP. as enrich it&elf as well as to gain an in­ industrial progress made since 1928 but comes to the conclusion that "per capita "Fascists" and "counter-revolution­ -creased influence both in the Commu­ aries" or, worse still, "Titoists." All nist party and in social life in general. production and consumption in the USSR remain well below that of the political and intellectual freedom was In its conflict with the Trotskyist Left advanced capitalist countries." This was suppressed. Opposition, the ruling Stalin-Bukharin admitted by Khrushchev in his report faction leaned heavily upon these new to the famous Twentieth Congress of Nagy and his opposition grouping :powerful sections of the population the Soviet Communist party. first came to prominence in 1953. The (Nepmen) while it elaborated the "the­ Mrs. Dewar points out that "the So­ Stalinist myth of the "indestructible -ory" of building "socialism in one coun­ viet worker lacks all means of press­ uni ty of the party with the working try" and achievement of socialism at a ing his claims," which is quite true class" had just been demolished by "tortoise pace." The Trotskyists, on the insofar as it concerns recognition of -other hand,_ proposed a five-year plan democratic rights in the Soviet bloc. yvorkers' insurrections in East Berlin, to build the country's economy. This But events, beginning with the -East Pilsen, Brno, Halle and J ena, and by was rejected as "super-industrializa­ German workers uprising in 1953, the. demonstrations staged by the work­ tion" while the country drifted dan­ strikes of prisoners ih Soviet concentra­ ers of the "Matyas Rakosi" establish­ gerously close to falling into the hands tion camps, the Poznan uprising, and of outright restorationists of capitalism, the Hungarian revolution, indicate that ments in Budapest. These popular who were encouraged not only by their the workers are strongly inclined to upsurges occurred during a period of -newly found power but by the defeats correct matters in this respect. wavering in top Sdviet circles after Stalin's death. Malenkov came to the top in the Soviet Union and Rakosi was forced to resign. Nagy became Inside Re-port on Hungary premier in July 1953. Nagy inaugurated a liberalized regime that lasted until April 1955. by Theodore Edwards Then, with the support of Khrush­ chev, who regarded Nagy as a pro­ tege of Malenkov, Rakosi took over :BEHIND THE RAPE OF HUNGARY, garian Communist party prior to and again. Under Nagy, the powers of the police were reduced, internment by Fran~oisFejto. Foreword by during the uprising. Jean-Paul Sartre. David McKay If the reader did not know it be­ camps were abolished, legality was Company, Inc., New York. 1957. fore, he will learn from this book restored, religious freedom reap­ 335 pp. $5.50. that the Stalinist regime in Hungary peared, the labor code was over­ against which the uprising was di­ hauled, oppressive industrialization What makes this perhaps the most rected was patterned in all essentials plans were modified, higher living 'interesting work yet to appear on after the totalitarian edifice in the standards were proj ected. Finally, tHe 1956 Hungarian revolution is the Soviet Union. It was a regime of the peasants were allowed to with­ 'fact that it presents an accurate bureaucratic command, reinforced by draw from the collectives into which measure of both the positive achieve­ the policeman's club, the torture they had been forced. All this ex­ -ments and the shortcomings of the chamber and the hangman's noose. plains the populari ty of Nagy and anti-Stalinist wing within the Hun­ At its head stood "The Stalin of the unanimity with which he was ac­ garian Communist party. 'rhe recent Hungary," Matyas Rakosi, who dealt claimed head of the government -execution of Imre Nagy, leading fig­ with all opposition by the methods established on October 23, 1956. But ure in the events, serves to heighten that Stalin used in the Soviet Union with Rakosi's return to the top place the interest. - frame-up trials and executions or of power, the old regime returned in The author, who is in exile in secret murder in the cellar of a po­ all its oppressiveness. France where he became chief news lice building. The author makes this The anti-Rakosi forces within the ·commentator for Agence France­ remarkable assertion: "Under the Communist party sought to counter Presse. belonged to the Budapest in­ Stalinist regime of Rakosi more the return to the old order by work­ tellectual circles that inspired .the Communists were executed in Hun­ ing within recognized party channels. uprising. He appears to be well ac­ gary than under the White terror of It is here that Fejto unravels the quainted with the thinking of the Admiral Horthy." (p. 21) tangled skein of cross-currents inside various groupings inside the Hun- The economic policies of Rakosi the party and reveals the fatal weak-

158 INTERNATIONAL SOCiAliST REVIEW nesses of the opposition. First of all Nagyists stood paralyzed, divided, that ... seventeen days before the there was Nagy, who had been ex­ unorganized; and talked while the outbreak of the insurrection, the ap­ pelled from the party. Says the Rakosi faction drove ahead with po­ pointment of Imre Nagy as premier author: "There is no doubt about this licies of disaster. would have enabled Hungary to solve -Nagy is anything but a revolution­ October 6, 1956 saw the lightning her crisis as Gomulka solved it in ist, a leader of men, a tribune of the flash that heralded the approaching Poland." (pp. 115-16). people. His background, his tempera­ revolutionary storm. An estimated . Does Gomulka's success in avoiding ment, his erudition fit him for the 300,000 people took to the streets of an open clash prove that peaceful role of the servant of the state, not Budapest in an orderly demonstration reform of the Communist parties is a wrecker or a founder. He would against the regime of Rakosi. The possible? Subsequent events in Po­ be perfect as an enlightened desP9t. occasion was the funeral of Ladislas land would seem to indicate that But he was totally unprepared to Rajk, held in prison for years, con­ Gomulka, in spite of all the differ­ lead an insurrection." (p. 149). demned in a frame-up trial, then ex­ ences between the Polish and Hun­ Again: " ... Nagy patiently awaited ecuted. Rajk's widow and the op­ garian situations, imitates Kadar in his readmission to the party, his ap­ position wanted· to make the funeral breaking pledges and taking back pointment to the premiership ... turn-out a demonstration of the peo­ concessions. he ... demonstrated an amazing lack ple's discontent - and, perhaps A revolution, contrary to Fejto's of realism. Unlike Gomulka, who equally important, the ability of the assertion, is not "merely the penalty knew that he would be helpless un­ opposition to control it. Notes the a government must pay for its failure less he controlled a powerful party author: "Foreign observers voiced to carry out indispensable reforms." machine, Nagy behaved like a func­ their surprise that the ceremony had It represents the intervention of the tionary waiting for his appointment taken place with such complete lack masses into the affairs of state, inter­ to be entitled to start a revolution." of disturbance; according to them, vention by the working people who (p. 148). Mrs. Rajk had had to utter only a are tired of being cajoled, manipu­ The author quotes from an anony­ single word to cause the collapse of lated, coerced, disciplined, exploited. mous document circulated among the Stalinist party machine . . . The A Gomulka in Hung'ary might have Hungarian intellectuals after the fact . . . that there was not a single delayed the explosion. He could not crushing of the insurrection in J an­ jarring note in the ceremony proves have prevented it. uary 1957. This document raised as the principal criticism of the op­ position grouping its failure "to or­ One Path? ganize itself as an independent force. by Lois Saunders While the party continually stig­ matized alleged anti-party factions, opposition confined itself to de­ DECISION IN AFRICA, by W. Alphaeus "the implementation of entirely new the Hunton. International Publishers, Western aims that are in harmony with bates. It debated the question wheth­ New York. 1957. 238 pp. $4. African aims." He adds that "para­ er or not it should form an indepen­ mount among these must be the imme­ dent group. It did nothing to establish "Why should not the United States diate liquidation of white settler and and the Soviet Union work together in contact with the people, nothing to colonial domination and the promotion helping to build Egypt's Aswan Dam?" of co-operation among an nations will­ gain a foothold among the work­ asks the author. ing and able to assist in the develop­ ers ... " Why not, indeed! To answer this ment of Africa for the' Africans." (The question fully would require an exposi­ emphasis is the author's.) In Poland it was different. Gomul­ tion of the compulsions of imperialism, ka succeeded in rallying the lower These conclusions, it should be noted, its antipathy to socialist change and the are inconsistent with the factual ma­ and middle functionaries of the party basic conflict between the capitalist and terial that comprises the major portion and state apparatus by assuring them the Soviet economic systems. of the book. that the anti-Stalinist purge would Hunton's pollyanna concept that co­ operation between the United States The author, who for seventeen years extend only to the bigwigs. The op­ and the Soviet Union is "one path to was a teacher at Howard University and position ignored the official ban on a unified world of peace and progress" who from 19.43 to 1955 was executive intra-party factions and organized to presupposes that the rulers of the Unit­ secretary of the Council on African Af­ fairs, presents a valuable record of the take over the party machine. Defeat­ ed States, who are pouring a big part of the country's income into war prep­ perfidy and greed of the exploiting com­ ing the diehard Stalinists and allow­ arations, are concerned about such ob­ panies and countries and the channels ing a partial mobilization of the jectives as world peace or the welfare through which they exert their control. masses, Gomulka and his partisans of the people of Africa. Also of interest are the countermeasures developed by the African people, in­ contained ~nd channelized the mass It is hard to avoid a feeling of im­ patience with an author who, in a cluding the formation of unions and the discontent imd staved off threatened lengthy statistical survey, documents use of strikes and boycotts, in an en­ Russian intervention. But in Hun­ the predatory role of European, al'.d deavor to free themselves of the white man's rule. Likewise informative is the gary the al1ti-Stalinist Communists more recently, American imperialism thought that ','the party cannot be in plundering the riches of the African expose of the self -seeking rulers of the black republic of Liberia and the ac­ wrong," that it was somehow en­ continent, and then concludes by pro­ posing that these same powers should commodationist tendencies of those who dowed "with the ability to recognize stop being predatory. now control the newly independent its defects and to correct them." The What is required, says Hunton, is country of Ghana.

FALL 1958 159