Chapter Six From the Repression of the ‘Prague Spring’ to Perestroika (1968–85)

The repression of the ‘Prague Spring’ caused widespread shock in left-wing circles. The American Marxist Paul Sweezy suspected that Moscow- oriented Communism had dealt a death-blow to its own in uence in the West: ‘[T]he Czech crisis marks the beginning of the end of Moscow’s political and ideological in uence in the advanced capitalist countries.’1 The massive upsurge of the student movement, which had already started earlier and reached its high point in Paris in May 1968, signi ed the radicalisation of broad strata of (future) intellectuals. While they often considered themselves socialists or communists, they mainly took an independent position towards ‘actually existing socialism’ in the Soviet Union and its buffer states. Within a few years, a Marxist debate broke out among them about the nature of the USSR which was unprecedented in its scope. Just as in the beginning of the 1960s, the participants initially reached back to older theories, but very quickly new variants were added. While the existing theories of ‘state capitalism’, ‘degenerated workers’ state’ and ‘bureaucratic collectivism’ were restated

1 Sweezy 1968, p. 15. 180 • Chapter Six once again, the number of original contributions to the theory of a ‘new mode of production’ increased dramatically.

6.i. Theories of state capitalism

Cliff’s current

Cliff’s theory, which had shown little in the way of new developments during the period 1956–68, generally stayed at the level of repetition. The discussion among Cliff’s followers concentrated on one point: the social position of Soviet workers. In 1948, Cliff had stated that the worker in the Soviet Union differed from a worker in competitive capitalist relations, because the former, in contrast to the latter, could not choose his employer; he had only one employer, namely the state: ‘a “change of masters” is impossible, and the “periodic sale of himself” becomes a formal thing only.’2 But, in the 1970s, Cliff’s supporters Peter Binns and Duncan Hallas, without much ado, revised this idea. Their position was that the Soviet workers were, in reality, ‘ordinary’ wage-workers, since it appeared that many different enterprises existed to which they could sell their labour-power. The Soviet worker was, therefore, in the same situation as an employee of the National Coal Board, or British Rail: ‘In short, the dominant mode of production includes, as an essential feature, wage-labour; a wages system in the strict Marxian de nition of that term [. . .]. But wage-labour implies capital just as slavery implies slave holding.’3 In a later contribution by Peter Binns, co-authored with Mike Haynes this time, this idea was however abandoned again. Now it was argued that labour- power in the USSR could not be a commodity, since an authentic labour market was lacking and ‘wage-labour in Marx’s sense of the word’ therefore could not exist. This did not represent a serious theoretical problem however, since other kinds of labour relations were known to be compatible with capitalism, such as the early plantation slavery in the American South.4

2 Cliff 1948a, p. 95; reprint 2003, p. 88. 3 Binns and Hallas 1976, pp. 23–4. This article was a reply to Purdy 1976, an apologetic publication which attacked Cliff’s analysis and, in so doing, used arguments formulated by Ernest Mandel. About Purdy, see also Law 1976–7. 4 Binns and Haynes 1980.