hat is the historical significance of 1989, the year in which com munism collapsed in eastern Europe, sud denly and presumably irrevocably, anticipating the collapse of the existing regime in the USSR and the break-up of its multinational struc ture? Instant diagnosis is a dangerous game, almost as dangerous as instant prophecy. The only people who dive into it without hesitation are those who ex pect their diagnoses and prophecies to be instantly forgotten (like journalists Goodbye To and commentators) or not to be remem bered after the next election or two (like politicians). Still, there are times when events concentrated into a short space of time, whatever we make of them, are plainly historic and immediately seen to be such. The year of the French Revol All That ution and 1917 were such times and 1989 was equally clearly another. So what do The events of 1989 marked the end of we make of it? It is much easier to see 1989 as a an era, of the epoch ushered in by 1917. conclusion than as a beginning. It was the end of the era in which world history Eric Hobsbawm looks at the meaning was about the October Revolution. For over 70 years all Western governments of 1989 and ruling classes were haunted by the spectre of social revolution and com munism, eventually transmuted into fear of the military power of the USSR and its potential international repercus sions. Western governments are still coming to terms with the collapse of an international policy entirely designed to meet a Soviet threat, both political and military. Without the belief in such a threat Nato has no sense at all. That there was never any reality in this Western image of a Soviet Union poised
18 MARXISM TODAY OCTOBER 1990 to overrun or nuke the 'free world' at a 'Those of us invading the West, were neither within expanding much except in small Latin moment's notice only proves how deep his power nor on his agenda. American countries and, nominally, the fear of communism was. For over 70 who believed After 1956, when the international African states of little international sig years international politics has been that the communist movement visibly began to nificance, the world was still divided waged by one side as a crusade, a cold October disintegrate, various groups outside the into the 'two camps', and any country or war of religion, with a brief intermis Revolution Moscow orbit claimed the original movement which broke with capitalism sion for confronting the more real marxist-leninist or at least the world- and imperialism tended to gravitate or dangers of the Berlin-Tokyo axis. was the gate revolutionary inheritance. On a world to be notionally absorbed into the social On the other side it had long been clear to the future scale, neither the 57 varieties of trots- ist sphere. Ex-colonies which did not that it was no such thing. It is true that of world kyists, maoists, revolutionary marxists, claim in some sense to be 'socialist' or Lenin and the Bolsheviks saw October history have neo-anarchists and others, nor the states which did not look in some way to the as the first phase of the world revol nominally committed to their support, Eastern model of economic develop ution which would overthrow all capi been shown amounted to anything. Even within par ment were rare birds indeed in the gen talism. The early generations of com to be wrong' ticular countries their impact, except eration or two after 1945. In short, world munists (including the present writer) for brief moments, was usually mar politics could still be seen, even on the still joined what we thought of as a ginal. The most systematic attempt to left, as the working out of the conse disciplined army to fight and win the spread revolution along these lines, the quences of the October Revolution. world revolution. Nikita Khrushchev, Cuban revolutionary export drive of the ll this is now over. Com the only peasant ever to rule Russia (or 1960s, did not even begin to look like munism in eastern Eu for that matter any important state), getting anywhere. Unlike the first rope has dissolved or is still sincerely believed that commun world revolutionary wave of 1917-19 dissolving. So is the USSR ism would bury capitalism, though not and the second wave which followed Aas we have known it. Whatever China by revolution. And the dramatic exten world war two, the third wave, coincid will be like when the last of the Last sion of both anti-imperialist and com ing with the world crisis of the 1970s, March generation is dead, it will have munist revolution after world war two even lacked a unified ideological tradi little to do with Lenin and less with seemed at first sight to confirm the tion or pole of attraction. The most Marx. Outside the former regions of prospect. important social upheaval of this period 'real socialism' there are probably not Nevertheless, it is clear that from the by far, the Iranian revolution, looked to more than three communist parties with early 1920s onwards the USSR's policy Muhammad and not to Marx. The com genuine mass support (Italy, South was no longer designed to achieve munists, though central to the ending of Africa and the regionally concentrated world revolution, although Moscow the last hold-overs of the European CP-Marxist of India), and one of them would certainly have welcomed it. In fascist era, were soon side-lined in post- wants to rejoin international social demo the era of Stalin, who actively discou Salazar Portugal and post-Franco Spain cracy as fast as it can. We are seeing not raged bids for power by any communist by what claimed to be social democrats. the crisis of a type of movement, regime party and distrusted communist parties But if there was no significant move and economy, but its end. Those of us who made revolution against his advice, ment to overthrow capitalism world who believed that the October Revolution Soviet policy was cautious and essen wide, revolutionaries still hoped that its was the gate to the future of world tially defensive, even after the stunning contradictions and those of its inter history have been shown to be wrong. victories won by the Red Army in world national system made it vulnerable - What was wrong about Lincoln Stef- war two. Khrushchev, unlike Stalin, perhaps one day fatally vulnerable - fens' 'I have seen the future and it took risks and lost his job for it. What and that marxists, or at any rate social works', was not that it failed to work. It ever Brezhnev wanted to do, spreading ists, would provide the alternative to it. worked in a rackety way, and it has communism all over the world, let alone If communist power did not look like great and in some cases astonishing
19 MARXISM TODAY OCTOBER 1990 achievements to its credit. But it turned ('plan' became a buzz-word across the players; the Yalta agreement which in out not to be the future. And when its Western political spectrum), or that practice demarcated each superpower's time came, at least in eastern Europe, even socialists could have sincerely be zone in Europe, from which neither everyone including its rulers knew this, lieved that their economies would out tried to break out; and, eventually, the and it collapsed like a house of cards. produce the Western system. In the unquestionable prosperity and stability days of the Great Slump it did not seem of the developed capitalist countries How did it happen that the fear, or the absurd at all. which eliminated the possibility, let hope, or the mere fact of October 1917 On the contrary, what was entirely alone the likelihood, of social revolution dominated world history for so long, unexpected, not least by governments in this region. Outside Europe major and so profoundly, that not even the and businessmen anxious about post wars (without nuclear weapons) were coldest of cold-war ideologists expected war ruin and possible depressions, was not, of course, eliminated. the sudden, virtually unresisted disin the extraordinary surge of global eco ost important of all, capi tegration of 1989? It is impossible to nomic growth after the second world talism learned the domes understand this, ie, the entire history of war. This turned the third quarter of the tic lessons of its age of our century, unless we remember that present century into the all-time golden crisis, both in economics the old world of global capitalism and age of capitalist development: the 'Thir and in politics. It gave up the sort of bourgeois society in its liberal version ty Glorious Years' in the French phrase. free-market liberalism which Rea- collapsed in 1914, and for the next 40 So unexpected was it, that the existence ganite America and Thatcherite Bri years capitalism stumbled from one of this super-boom was only slowly rec tain, alone among developed Western catastrophe to the next. Even intelligent ognised, even by those who benefited countries, have tried to restore in the conservatives would not take bets on its 'For the time from it - 'You never had it so good' did 1980s. (Both, not coincidentally, are survival. being there not become a British political slogan capitalist economies on the slide.) The A simple list of the earthquakes that until 1959 - and was fully recognised original stimulus for this change was shook the world during this period is is no part of only in retrospect, after the boom had almost certainly political. Keynes him enough to make the point: two world the world come to an end in the early 1970s. self made no bones about the fact that wars, followed by two bouts of global that credibly Initially it did not look like a specifically his aim was to save liberal capitalism. revolution, leading to the wholesale col represents an capitalist triumph, since both 'camps' - After 1945 the enormous expansion of lapse of old political regimes and the at least in Europe and Asia - were busy the socialist 'camp' and the potential installation of communist power, first alternative recovering from the ravages of war, threat it presented concentrated the over one-sixth of the world's surface system to and the rate of growth of the socialist minds of Western governments won and later over one-third of the world's capitalism' economies during this period was gen derfully, not least on the importance of population; plus the dissolution of the erally considered to be as fast, if not social security. The intention of this vast colonial empires built up before faster, than the rest. deliberate break with free-market capi and during the imperialist era. A world However, from some time in the 1960s talism was not only to eliminate mass economic crisis brought even the stron it became patent that capitalism had unemployment (which was then re gest capitalist economies to their knees, surmounted its era of catastrophe, al garded as automatically likely to radi while the USSR seemed to be immune to though it was not yet so evident that the calise its victims) but also to stimulate it. The institutions of liberal democracy socialist economies were running into demand. From the mid-1950s it became virtually disappeared from all but a serious trouble. Nevertheless, in ma clear that both these aims were being fringe of Europe between 1922 and 1942 terial and technological terms the achieved. Expansion and prosperity as fascism and its satellite authoritarian socialist camp was clearly no longer in made welfare capitalism affordable. It movements and regimes rose. But for the the race. reached its peak in the 1960s, or even in sacrifices of the USSR and its peoples, the 1970s, before a new world crisis Western liberal capitalism would pro Somehow the heritage of the age of catas provoked a fiscal backlash. bably have succumbed to this threat trophe was surmounted, or at least Economically, therefore, the turn to a and the contemporary Western world buried. Fascism and its associated Keynesian mixed economy paid off dra (outside an isolated USA) would now forms of authoritarianism were des matically. Politically it rested on the consist of a set of variations on authori troyed and liquidated in Europe, and deliberate partnership between capital tarian and fascist regimes rather than a variants of liberal democracy once and organised labour under the benevo set of variations on liberal ones. Without again became the normal political re lent auspices of government, which is the Red Army the chances of defeating gimes in the metropolitan countries. (In now known and usually slagged off as the Axis powers were invisible. Perhaps what now came to be called the Third 'corporatism'. For the age of catastro history, in its irony, will decide that the World this was notably not the case.) phe had revealed three things. most lasting achievement of the October The colonial empires of the imperialist First, that the organised labour move Revolution was to make the 'developed era, notoriously the Achilles heel of world' once again safe for 'bourgeois ment was a major and indispensable their metropoles, were politically de- presence in liberal societies. Indeed democracy'. But that is of course to colonised. Both processes, decisively assume that it will remain safe.... sometimes, as in central Europe after initiated in 1945-48, were essentially the 1918 defeat, it emerged briefly as or 40 years capitalism lived completed in the 1970s. the only state-sustaining force to sur through an era of catastrophe, War, which had twice swept through vive the collapse of empires. vulnerability and constant the developed world, and especially Eu Second, it was not Bolshevik. (Comin instability, with a future that rope, was eliminated from this region, tern exclusivism actually forced most Fseemed entirely uncertain. Moreover, partly by being transferred to the Third socialist sympathisers with the October during this era it faced, for the first World. There the years from 1945 to 1990 Revolution back into the reformist time, a system claiming to provide an have probably seen rather more blood camp, and kept communists in a min alternative future: socialism. In the shed and destruction than any other ority in the countries of the old Second most traumatic years of this era, the period of comparable length in modern International until the period of anti early 1930s, when the very mechanism history. Peace in the developed world fascist resistance.) of the capitalist economy, as hitherto was probably not maintained simply by Third, that the only alternative to buy known, apparently ceased to function the fear of nuclear war, and by mutual ing working-class loyalty with (expens and Hitler's triumph in Germany dealt a deterrence, ie, in practice by the deter ive) economic concessions was to put body-blow to liberal institutions, the rent effect of the Soviet nuclear arms democracy at risk. For this reason, even USSR appeared to make its most drama on the USA after the end of the short the fanatical economic neo-liberalism tic advances. In retrospect it seems lived and extremely dangerous period of Thatcher's type has so far not amazing that liberal and conservative of US nuclear monopoly1. actually been able to dismantle the wel politicians (not to mention those of the It was also due to three factors: a world fare state, or to cut down its expense. Left) went to Moscow to learn lessons politics simplified into a game for two The political consequences of leaving
20 MARXISM TODAY OCTOBER 1990 populations naked to fend for them Third, with the slowing down of its rate rich have, for the time being, stopped selves in the blizzards of genuine neo- of growth and its increasing relative being scared. All that made Western liberal capitalism are too unpredictable backwardness, the USSR became eco democracy worth living for its people - to risk - except by graduates of busi nomically too weak to sustain its role as social security, the welfare state, a high ness schools advising Third World and a superpower, ie, its control over ea and rising income for its wage-earners, formerly socialist countries from local stern Europe. In short, Soviet-type and its natural consequence, diminution Hilton hotels. (Even the International socialism became increasingly uncom in social inequality and inequality of Monetary Fund has discovered that petitive and paid the price. What is life-chances - was the result of fear. there are limits to the sacrifices that worse, it has so far proved incapable of Fear of the poor, and the largest can be imposed on remoter peoples.) adapting and reforming. In this it and best-organised block of citizens However, social Keynesianism, New differs from Chinese socialism, whose in industrialised states - the workers; Deal policies and 'corporatism' visibly economic reforms succeeded spectacu fear of an alternative that really bore the birthmarks of the era of capi larly - at least in the rural sector - but existed and could really spread, talist troubles. The world capitalism at the cost of seriously worsening social notably in the form of Soviet com that emerged from the 'Thirty Glorious conditions; and which has so far fended munism. Fear of the system's own Years' and (in the developed world) off political unrest in the cities because instability. sailed through the economic gales of the the countryside is still predominant. his concentrated the minds of 1970s and 1980s with surprisingly little Nor do these weaknesses apply to Western capitalists in the difficulty, was no longer in trouble. It had social-democratic mixed economies. 1930s. Fear of the socialist entered a new technological phase. It had The Scandinavian countries and Aus camp, so dramatically ex restructured the world into a substan 'Europe has tria have remained in the vanguard Ttended after 1945 and represented by tially transnational economy with a new returned to a of economic and technical develop one of two superpowers, kept them con international division of production. ment and prosperity while keeping un centrated after the war. Whatever Sta The two main pillars of the social- state of employment down and maintaining lin did to the Russians, he was good for Keynesian era, economic management instability, their ambitious welfare system in the common people of the West. It is no by nation-states and a mass industrial as between good order. accident that the Keynes-Roosevelt way working class, especially one organised the wars. of saving capitalism concentrated on by traditional labour movements, did not Who has won? Who has lost? And what are welfare and social security, on giving so much crumble as slim down. Neither And the new the prospects? The winner is not capi the poor more money to spend, and on was any longer capable of carrying such instability, as talism as such, but the old 'developed that central tenet of postwar Western heavy loads as before. Both Keynes- world' of the OECD countries2, which policies - and one specifically targeted ian policies and the (mainly social- the Middle Eastern crisis form a diminishing minority of the at the workers - 'full employment'. As democratic) parties most firmly iden world's population - say 15% today as it happens this bias against extreme tified with them were clearly in difficul proves, is against 33% in 1900. (The so-called inequality served capitalist develop ties, even though the essential foundation not only Newly Industrialising Countries, or ment well. The showpiece countries of of any flourishing capitalism remained NICs, in spite of striking advances, still postwar economic growth, Japan, South as before: a mixed public-private 'social European, but global' average only between a quarter and a Korea and Taiwan, have enjoyed un market economy' (ie, profits plus a wel third of the OECD's average per capita usually egalitarian income distribu fare state and social rights), an inter GDP.) The bulk of the world's popu tions until recently, partly assured by weaving of private enterprise, public lation, whose governments have pur postwar land reforms by occupying pow enterprise and a good deal of public sued economic development since 1917 ers determined to counteract revolution. control. To this extent the past 15 years if not before, without communist re Today this fear, already reduced by have seen the fading away of another gimes, hardly encourage shouts of the diminution of the industrial working part of the heritage of the era from 1914 triumph from the Adam Smith In class, the decline of its movements and to the early 1950s. stitute. the recovery of self-confidence by a owever, a major symptom Unlike the former 'socialist camp', the flourishing capitalism, has disappeared. and product of that era re non-socialist world contains regions For the time being there is no part of the mained: the third of the that have actually reverted to local sub world that credibly represents an alter world under 'really exist sistence economy and famine. Moreover, native system to capitalism, even ing socialism'. It did not 'fail' in any within 'developed' capitalism it is cer though it should be clear that Western absolute sense, in spite of the growing tainly not the Thatcherite free-market capitalism represents no solutions to sense that these economies required Utopia that has won. Even its intellec the problems of most of the former fundamental reforms, and the failure of tual appeal has been limited to ultras in Second World, which is likely to be the various attempts to reform them. the West and to despairing intellectuals largely assimilated to the condition of Probably people in the USSR and in in the East who hope that the South Pole the Third World. Why should the rich, most of eastern Europe were better off is warmer that the North Pole because it especially in countries such as ours, in the 1970s than ever before. But three is its polar opposite. where they now glory in injustice and inequality, bother about anyone except things were increasingly clear. Nevertheless, it is undeniable that First, socialism was incapable of mov themselves? What political penalties do capitalism, as reformed and restruc they need to fear if they allow welfare ing fully into, let alone generating, the tured during its crisis decades, has once new hi-tech economy, and was there to erode and the protection of those who again proved that it remains the most need it to atrophy? This is the chief fore destined to fall ever further be dynamic force in world development. It hind. To have constructed the economy effect of the disappearance of even a will certainly continue to develop, as very bad socialist region from the globe. of Andrew Carnegie was no good unless Marx predicted that it would, by generat one could also advance further into the It is too early to discuss long-term ing internal contradictions leading to prospects for the future. What a Hunga economy of IBM - or even of Henry periodic eras of crisis and restructur Ford, for socialism signally failed to rian historian has called 'the short 20th ing. These may once again bring it close century' (1914-1990) has ended, but all achieve the mass production of con to breakdown, as happened earlier this sumer goods. we can say about the 21st is that it will century. However, the current such pe have to face at least three problems, Second, in the society of global com riod of crisis and restructuring has which are getting worse: the growing munications, media, travel and transna brought disaster to parts of the Third width of the gap between the rich world tional economy, it was no longer poss World, and to the Second World, but not and the poor (and probably within the ible to insulate socialist populations to the First. rich world, between its rich and its from information about the non- Who or what has lost, apart from the poor); the rise of racism and xenopho socialist world, ie, from knowing just regimes of 'really existing socialism', bia; and the ecological crisis of the how much worse off they were in ma which plainly have no future? The main globe which will affect us all. The ways terial terms and in freedom of choice. effect of 1989 is that capitalism and the
21 MARXISM TODAY OCTOBER 1990 in which they can be dealt with are gangsters no longer hesitate to take over political systems into which ex- unclear, but privatisation and the free small neighbouring territories is not communist states have rushed: liberal market are not among them. safer from war than before. Nor is one democracy. So did the new states in Among the short-term problems, three in which a superpower rushes blithely 1918. Twenty years later only Czecho stand out. First, Europe has returned to into the Middle Eastern explosives store slovakia was still democratic. The pros a state of instability, as between the ready to fire, knowing that those whose pects for liberal democracy in the re wars. Hitler's triumph briefly produced missiles could reach New York will no gion must be poor, or at least uncertain. a 'German order'. Yalta and super longer do the same. Is it an accident that, And the alternative, given the unlikeli power duopoly produced 45 years of within barely half a year of the collapse hood of a return to socialism, will most European stability, which are now at an of the Warsaw Pact, we find ourselves likely be military or right-wing or both. end. Since Russia and the USA have facing a major war crisis? So, let us wish eastern Europe and the ceased to be able, jointly, to impose he second development rein 'One day world luck as it ends an old era and is their order as before, the only alterna forces this world instability. soon we about to enter the 21st century. We shall tive hegemonic force on our continent, For central and eastern Eu may look need luck. And let us commiserate with as between the wars, is Germany. That rope are relapsing into some back with Mr Francis Fukuyama, who claimed is what everyone is afraid of, not Tthing like the post-first world war zone that 1989 meant 'the end of history', and because 'Germans are Germans' - of nationalist rivalries and conflicts. In melancholy that henceforth all would be plain there will certainly be no return to fact all the burning problems of this on the days liberal, free-market sailing. Few pro Hitler - but because German national kind date back to the inter-war years. when nuclear phesies look like being more short-lived ism has dangerous unfinished business: They posed no major headaches before than that one. the recovery of the large territories lost 19143. What makes the situation more triggers were in 1945 to Poland and the USSR. explosive is that today the last of the under the pre-1914 multinational empires is in dis And the new instability, as the Middle control of 1 The most dangerous period since the war was Eastern crisis proves, is not only Euro integration. For it was the October Revol the two undoubtedly 1946-1953, during which Attlee specially pean, but global. No longer held back by ution which saved the tsar's domains travelled to Washington to dissuade Truman from superpowers' using nuclear bombs in Korea. Probably the only time the fear that a sudden move by one from the fate of the Hapsburg and Otto when the USSR appears to have seriously believed superpower or its associated states into man empires and gave them another 70- that war might be imminent was 1947-50. odd years of life as the USSR. 2 If we leave out Turkey, Greece, Spain and Por the other's zone of influence would pro tugal, which were included only on political grounds, voke a direct confrontation between East The dangers of war in this situation are the OECD consists of Austria, Belgium, Canada, and West, adventurism is once again on serious. Already the demagogues of Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Swe the agenda. What kept the world order in Great Russian nationalism are talking den, Switzerland, the UK, the US and West Germany. being since 1945, including most of the 60 lightly about a possible 'civil war in Australia is partly associated. sovereign mini-states with populations of which our situation would be a nuclear 3 Among the problems which did not exist or were of 4 very minor political significance before 1914: Croats less than 2m (the Gulf is full of such one' . One day soon we may look back versus Serbs; Serbs versus Albanians; Slovaks ver with melancholy on the days when nu sus Czechs; the Transylvanian imbroglio; the three political artifacts), was largely the fear Baltic nationalisms; Byelorussia; Moldavia; Azerbai of global war. But if the nuclear world clear triggers were under the control of jani nationalism; not to mention the former German holocaust is no longer an immediate the two superpowers. territories east of the Oder-Neisse line. 4 Edward Mortimer, 'Bolshevism At The Mercy Of danger, a world in which medium-sized Lastly, there is the instability of the The Republics', Financial Times, July 31,1990.
23 MARXISM TODAY OCTOBER 1990