Australian Left Review No. 63 M arch 1978 $ 1*

feminism & socialism china after mao * Recommended and maximum price only. Registered in Australia for transmission through the stale the post as a periodical (Category B) UNIVERSITY OF WOLLONGONG LIBRARY Australian Left Review No. 63 IN THIS ISSUE ....

American Barbara Ehrenreich writes about the relationships between modern feminism and socialism. Peter Nolan, economic historian and student of Chinese affairs, analyses the Com m ent ...... 1 course of events in post-Mao China. Some currently debated issues of the state Contemporary Feminism and and socialist strategy in advanced capitalist Socialist M ovem ents ...... 8 countries are discussed by Eric Aarons, joint national secretary of the CPA. Barbara Ehrenreich An Australian leftist living in France discusses the current political situation there The State and Australian and the prospects for a victory of the left in Socialism ...... 17 the March elections. Eric Aarons Our regular features Comment and Economic Notes examine some of the political and economic features of the post­ E con om ic N otes ...... 25 election situation. Kathe Boehringer's review of the Allen- China A fter Mao ...... 29 Keaton film Annie Hall and M a vis Peter Nolan Robertson's review of Alexandra Kollontai's Love of Worker Bees complete the issue. France Goes to the Polls ...... 41

OUR NEW FORMAT .... R ev iew s ...... 47

With this issue, ALR becomes larger and adopts a new cover style. In addition, we are reverting to a two-monthly publication schedule - staffing, copy and technical Editorial Collective: Brian Aarons, Kathe realities forcing us to abandon, regretfully, Boehringer, Gloria Garton, Patricia Healy, Terry our aim of appearing ten times a year. Our O’Shaughnessy, Mavis Robertson, Eric Aarons. aims of service to readers remain the same except that with more space we expect to SU BSCRIPTION S: $6.00 per year (six issues). provide more analytical articles on current Surface or airmail postage to be added to overseas theoretical issues as well as items of topical subs. political interest. With the larger size, card cover and Students, apprentices, pensioners: $4.00 per year. inevitable inflation, our price becomes one Single copies: $1 ea. dollar, still, we believe, cheap by comparison with other small journals. Subscribers will Australian Left Review, Box A247, receive six copies for six dollars, postage Sydney South P.O., Sydney. 2000. free. Existing subscriptions will be continued pro rata, i.e. one copy per two already paid for at the old rate. As always, we welcome contributions, discussion pieces, comments Printed and published by Red Pen Publications Pty.Ltd., and suggestions from our readers. 4 Dixon St., Sydney. COMMENT

The December 10 election result poses Australian Democrats rather than for Labor. several problems which must be squarely On the other hand, Labor still has a very faced by the left. Some of them are: solid base of support - not very much less, in * To anlayse the reasons for Fraser’s fact, than other big social-democratic parties victory in advanced capitalist societies and still * To develop a much deeper bigger than many such parties. understanding of Australian society, in particular the ideology and aspirations of the workers, so as to both understand It is important to look at votes rather than the vote for Fraser and assist the left to seats. The L/N CP vote dropped from 52.6 per develop the concrete long-term strategy cent in 1975 to 48 per cent, yet even without for an ‘Australian road to socialism’. the distribution of Democrat preferences, the coalition has a majority similar to that o f’75. * To devise policies, strategy and tactics to (Labor with a 52 per cent vote in ’72 had a meet the inevitable increase in anti­ majority of 11 seats.) Labor with 40 per cent worker, authoritarian and repressive of the vote got 30 per cent of the seats; the initiatives NCP with 9,6 per cent has 15 per cent of the The election merely confirmed in its own seats; the Democrats with 9.3 per cent got no way a long-observed fact about the working seats in the Reps. As almost always, the class, in Australia and all capitalist single member constituency electoral societies: not all the working class, or even a method, almost unique to English-speaking majority of it, will always act in its own best countries (most other democracies have some short-term or long-term interests. The version of proportional representation) tells working class condition under capitalism against Labor. can lead it to believe and follow the political But, accepting the fact that a substantial representatives o f the class which exploits it; section of workers voted Liberal, there are to be taken in by the system and its myths both immediate and underlying causes. The and to reject the real solutions to its immediate ones include: problems. This often has been, and is, true of some of the most oppressed and exploited * Fear of change and the unknown; workers. All the more, then, can it be true of a * fear of a return to what is seen as working class which, on average, enjoys upheaval and mismanagement under living standards and conditions better than the Whitlam government; virtually any other subordinate class in history, with the possible exception of the * a belief that Labor was/is a poor contemporary north American working economic manager; class. * doubt that Labor could do anything to overcome the crisis and improve things; The meaning of the result itself should be neither ignored nor exaggerated. On the * a tjfelief that the L-NCP coalition are the one hand, it is clear that large numW a nf “natural rulers” and can get the best out workers voted either for Fraser o ttihjavtftSITY o ft le system. WOLLONGONG LIBRARY 2 AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW No. 63

The underlying causes involve fflore long­ socialist consciousness is already high. But term processes and factors at work in it is observable that in most advanced Australian society. These have to do with capitalist countries, working class support both the objective circumstances of life here for reformist and even conservative parties for many working people and with the has not swung dramatically away and traditions and culture of the working class, towards the left. Indeed, in some places, it derived from Britain and developing in has swung right, although usually this is Australian conditions. The main tradition of where the ‘left’ alternative has been a the British working class has always been reformist party incapable of providing reformist and so it has been in Australia. In credible solutions to the crisis. A small Britain this tradition was sustained by the section of workers has even been attracted to crumbs which the ruling class could afford racist and reactionary groups like the from its well-stocked imperialist table. In National Front in Britain. Australia, during many militant struggles, workers have been able to win very good All this merely reinforces the historical conditions relative to those of workers in lesson that a period of capitalist crisis does other countries. (We are speaking here of an not necessarily throw up the social forces average - many unskilled, migrant and which have the vision, organisation and women workers work and live in poverty-line active spirit necessary for a basic social conditions.) None of this has been due to the transformation in the direction of socialism. benevolence or cleverness of Australian To take just the most obvious example: the capitalists - rather to what the system could Great Depression, one of the most traumatic concede to working class militancy. events in the history of capitalism, did not lead to one socialist revolution. In Germany, In some senses, reformism has succeeded it not only led to fascism but to the wiping out for many workers over the long boom period. of the German Communist Party as a mass This is especially so in terms of the aims force (speaking, of course, of West Germany). many workers set themselves during this This cannot be blamed only on the mistakes period: to substantially improve their living of leaders and parties, although these conditions and achieve personal security abounded. after the insecurity of the Depression and These experiences, and today’s realities, war years. It is not to ignore the poverty and raise very sharply the question of ruling hardship of many to note the fact that the class hegemony - the hold of the system’s real living standards of most workers rose ideas, values and culture over the mass of the substantially during the boom period. Many people. This hold is a feature of all class workers associate these improvements with societies and is what, together with the use of Liberal-Country Party government. In 1977, force and coercion, has made oppressed as in 1975, one component of the vote for classes and groups throughout history Fraser was a mistaken yearning for the accept, for long periods, their oppression as boom period of the ’fifties, associated with inevitable or even right. Menzies and the Liberals. Modem capitalist society is characterised In Australia as in few other capitalist by great sophistication of capitalist ideas, by countries, it was possible for some workers to vastly improved methods of inculcating and find individual solutions and personal reinforcing them (via the mass media and advancement. This section provides the base the education system) and by objective of ‘working class conservatism' although circumstances (the long boom) which give Liberal-voting workers can also be found added weight to them. Australian capitalism among unskilled and poorer workers. has h ad both favorable objective It was reasonable to expect that the onset circumstances and the absence of a of a long period of economic decline and revolutionary and socialist tradition in the stagnation would lead to a new working class to assist this process of radicalisation of the working class and a ideological hegemony. renewed interest in socialist solutions. To a certain extent this has happened, especially A concrete example illustrates the point in countries with a strong Communist Party and drives home the fact that glaring and/or left-leaning Socialist Party, where examples of ills of the system do not in COMMENT 3 themselves necessarily move workers to attitudes. They do need to be balanced by the outrage or protest. When the scandal about answers of the section who showed more Utah’s repatriation of huge profits to class consciousness and advanced views. America was headline news, it was related to Equally, the contradictory nature of the me by a friend how workers on his job said: attitudes should be recognised. For instance, ‘Good luck to them. If they can get away with while 53 per cent thought most workers were it they deserve the rewards’. The only not capable of making important factory explanation for such attitudes, when even decisions, 73 per cent agreed that ‘I would the media felt constrained to criticise Utah, work better if decisions on things like how is that capitalist views and ethics are very my work is organised were made by both the deeply ingrained in some sections of workers. workers and the bosses’. 80 per cent thought They accept the myths of private enterprise most workers will accept more responsibility and ‘get what you can when you can’. Also, if they are more involved in factory some workers express such views because decisions, and 61 per cent would like a chance they are reasonably satisfied with their own to make more decisions about how things are lot or have inflated ideas of their prospects. run in the factory. A more exact indication of working class The many indications of conservatism views was given in a survey of AMWU among large sections of workers should not members in 1976. Conducted by students in blind us to the positive features of the Sydney University’s Government Australian working class. On some counts, Department, the survey sought workers’ Australian workers have shown a radicalism attitudes to a number of issues concerned not seen elsewhere. It was militant struggles with their workplace and the union. The which gained Australian workers their high AMWU membership is one of the most living standards; sections like the wharfies advanced sections of workers. Yet the survey and seamen have an impressive record of showed that, depending on the issue, internationalism; the Green Bans were a anything from one-quarter to one-half of the unique phenomenon, way in advance of membership was conservative in their views. similar workers’ actions elsewhere; it is not For instance, 29 per cent thought unions put often that other working classes have taken too many restrictions on employers; 63 per actions similar to the 1969 Penal Clauses cent disagreed that unions should have strike during the jailing of Clarrie O’Shea; more power; 41 per cent thought unions the mass movement against uranium strike too often; 23.5 per cent thought the mining is amazingly strong when it is government should have more control over realised that Australia does not have nuclear unions, 21 per cent disagreed that everyone power itself so that to be opposed to mining in the factory should be in the union; 63 per requires more than a direct personal threat. cent agreed they were satisfied with working In general, there is a better ‘integration’ of conditions on their job; 53 per cent agreed the workers’ movement with the new social they were paid what their work was worth; 41 movements than in other countries. per cent thought that ‘if we start letting the Then, too, it must be considered that workers make more decisions then the conservative and reformist ideas may be company will go broke’; 53 per cent thought changed very suddenly by circumstances: that most workers are not capable of making such a process has occurred in most important factory decisions; 69 per cent revolutions. Which is not to say that policies agreed that ‘workers would fight too much and political methods can be based solely on between themselves if allowed to make their the possibility such a thing will happen own decisions about who to hire and fire’; some time in the future, since this might be asked whether it should be the company or next year or next centu ry. But it is to say that the union which sets up a system which lets the hold of ideas is not fixed and permanent workers help make factory decisions, 13 per but relies very much on social circumstances cent said the union, 38 percent the company, and is open to contestation by the proponents and 42 per cent both. of different ideas. The fact that working class As with any survey of opinion these results conservatism and reformism are often may be open to challenge and to different inconsistent and contradictory shows too the interpretations but, in general, they are possibilities of change in the right probably a fair reflection of workers’ circumstances. 4 AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW No. 63

None of the problems of conservatism among other things, think long and hard mean that the left should become pessimistic about how, and in what conditions, the and abandon the struggle for socialism in prevailing working class commitment to Australia as hopeless. But a socialist reformist and conservative ideas might be strategy must, in the first place, be based on changed. Such thinking cannot be done in an objective analysis of society and social ivory towers or armchairs but only in the development. Analysis of social structures, course of practical struggles from which and the underlying dynamics and conclusions and lessons are drawn which contradictions of a given society are enrich theory and provide a factual basis for essential. But, so too, is the accurate strategies and policies. Too much the appraisal of the balance of political forces, of marxist practitioners in the armchairs and mass opinion, degree of class consciousness ivory towers want to make the facts fit the and organisation and the aims and theory, preferring to ignore those facts and aspirations of workers and others who must realities which might upset the picture. provide the mass base for socialism.

Labor Debate The Political Level It is often easy for marxists to forget about As after any major defeat for the ALP, this last aspect and concentrate on laying there is now a major debate on the party’s bare the objective ‘skeleton’ of capitalist future course, policies and strategy. The society: its structures, contradictions and election for the party parliamentary tendencies of development. But the political leadership showed a turn to the right and to level of society has its own relative autonomy ‘moderation’. And so far it has been the right from, as well as connection with, the levels of of the party which has been most vocal in structures and inner dynamics. Experience advocating solutions to the party’s problems. and history show conclusively that even when the objective realities of capitalism Broadly speaking, the line is that Labor manifest themselves most obviously, as in must show itself to be a better ‘economic inflation, unemployment, poverty and manager’ than the L-NCP coalition and oppression, those who suffer most do not introduce only such reforms as are made necessarily see the real causes, nor support possible by ‘economic realities’. As Mr. socialist solutions, nor even organise Hayden put it at the press conference after themselves to fight for their own conditions his election as leader: the Labor Party wants and rights. change to the extent this is ‘responsible’. At the same conference he said he believes there It is this gap between reality and is “ a very strong case for reward for initiative consciousness which Marx was referring to and risk in a mixed economy” . He qualified when he distinguished between a ‘class in this by saying there is also a need to make itself and a ‘class for itself. Speaking of the sure that people are not disadvantaged and French peasantry he pointed that insofar as perpetuated in thatdisadvantage. Writing in they shared a common social situation and the Financial Review under the heading objective relation to other classes they ‘Hayden does a Fraser’, Brian Toohey formed a class. But insofar as they did or did commented on the similarity of this to not perceive a common situation and Fraser’s stated ‘concern for the common interests and develop organisation disadvantaged within an economy based to collectively fight for their interests, they upon reward for initiative’. did or did not form a class. So, for Marx, class consciousness is not only important, it enters But what risks and initiatives are taken by the very definition of class, which has a the really big profit-making corporations in contradictory tension, both in fact and in Australia which could not have been taken concept, between objective and subjective by public sector enterprises? The story of the factors. Holden is well known - how the Chifley government underwrote all the risks of the Since it is at the political level of society US car giant GM which then showed its that a party and movement operate, it gratitude by taking over all Australian follows that socialists in Australia must, interests when the company was well COMMENT 5 established and making huge profits. Even than the Liberals. In particular, the crisis of more glaring is the way that vast natural Australian manufacturing industry has as resources are now being handed over to one major cause the diversion of investment multinational corporations who are or will be capital into the much more profitable raking in fabulous profits by ripping out the resources area. Because the mining sector is resources in a way which maximises their more capital intensive than manufacturing profits but minimises the benefits to (by a factor of at least 10) this diversion of ordinary Australians, not to mention the capital creates more unemployment, with environmental destruction and hazards little prospect o f improvement so long as from woodchipping, uranium mining, and so such investment priorities remain. on. If this analysis is even only partly correct, It is said in favor of such policies that only there is no way that a private profit system big multinationals have the money and based on ‘reward for initiative’ will ever build know-how to develop our resources. Yet a a healthy manufacturing industry and public enterprise backed by the full resources restore full employment. Naturally, if reward of government and tapping the know-how of for initiative is the guiding philosophy, then Australian workers and technicians could capital and human efforts will be directed to match these. In any case, know-how can be gaining the greatest reward for the least bought and hired and capital borrowed if initiative, i.e. by ripping out natural needed. It was revealed recently that Utah’s resources as fast as possible, in the process huge profits from the Bowen Basin coal running down all but the most profitable deposits derive from an initial investment of manufacturing industry. $25 million. This is a piddling sum for a The only way private enterprise will government and would by now have been rebuild manufacturing is with the aid of returned many times over, providing capital government hand-outs and incentives, such for development of other natural resources. as the existing scheme whereby businesses As advocated by the CPA’s A New Course are paid $63 per week to give young for Australia, the income from a planned unemployed a job. Naturally, business does and publicly-owned natural resources not reject such ‘creeping socialism’ which development could in turn fund an serves its interests. But the labor movement expansion of public sector manufacturing ought to ask itself whether such government industry under democratic worker and hand-outs should be given with no strings community control to avoid the bureaucratic attached. Should they not be used as a lever inefficiencies of traditional nationalised to gain democratic public say in the industries. enterprises so assisted? Or could the money Mr. Hayden’s view of the relation between be better spent establishing new the Labor Party and its mass base is that any manufacturing industries, such as a solar organisation which seeks to serve the heater industry, publicly owned and Australian public must ‘evolve along with democratically controlled? that community’. There is no doubt that a What might be called the conscious and mass party must listen to the masses. But ideological right of the Labor Party has got equally it can only fulfill its responsibilities in quick for its chop. In articles in The to them if it presents the facts and an Australian and The Sydney Morning analysis of what is happening. To its credit, Herald, two leading members from the NSW the Labor Party did this on the issue of Viet Labor Party, Bob Carr and Joe Thompson, Nam, despite the waverings of many of its have pushed the so-called ‘moderate’ line. leaders including Whitlam, and was in the This is that the Labor Party nationally must end vindicated in its stand. As admitted by adopt the policies o f the Wran, Dunstan and defeated prime minister McMahon, Lowe state governments and learn from the revulsion against the Vet Nam war played a example of the German Social-Democrats. part in Labor’s 1972 victory. According to Joe Thompson, NSW secretary The key fact ignored by the Hayden and Federal president of the Vehicle argument is that the economic problems are Builders’ Union: the products of the very system he proposes “The State Labor administrators have to manage better and more ‘responsibly’ bent over backwards to co-operate with 6 AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW No. 03

business and they’ve appealed to the country precisely this that Labor was neither willing voter. But they’ve also been successful with, nor prepared to do so it bogged down in a their programs of reform.... But there has not contradictory mire of indecision and been a rush to do everything in three years or division. to go further than the middle ground of Labor did not have to ‘introduce socialism* politics would allow." (The Australian, but rather begin to put enough key economic 7.2.78.) levers in its own hands both to be in a But a good example of just how far position to tackle the problems and to ‘bending over backwards’ will get you (no, prevent the sort of economic undermining it’s not up your own .... ) was the deal engaged in by private enterprise. Further, if announced by Wran for Ford to build a new Labor is going to give up significant reform car plant near Campbelltown. He billed it as programs and compete with the Liberals in a good example of co-operation between his economic management in capitalist terms, government and business and of how the why should its own base vote for it at all? government was attracting business. A few weeks later Ford announced it was not going Another assumption of the Labor right’s ahead with the plans. So the essential argument is that the middle ground can only powerlessness of government in the face of be won by watering down Labor’s policies self-interested private enterprise was again and proceeding more cautiously. Yet there demonstrated. Mr. Thompson’s own are many issues where the middle ground members suffered from the failure to expand supports policies more radical than those of Ford’s operations. Labor’s right. Uranium is a good example. Carr warns that the Australian Democrats will pick up the middle ground permanently It is ironic that the Labor right should now unless Labor is careful. Yet one of the bases be suggesting that Mr. Whitlam went too far, of Democrat support among the previously too fast. When he succeeded Mr. Calwell in Liberal middle ground was its anti-uranium 1967 as leader, the same wing o f the party mining stance - precisely the policy which saw him as the person who could modernise the Labor right opp osed for the ALP! the party, take away its rough and radical image and win the middle ground. To a large Of course, it is not expected that any of this degree, Whitlam did many of these things will convince Labor’s right which long ago but in retrospect, it can be seen that he was gave up any socialist perspective, if it ever more committed to reforms in areas like had one, and who believe that talk of education, social welfare, urban renewal, socialism, even of steps like nationalisation, and health care than many of his colleagues. is ‘fundamentalist’ and old hat. Time will tell In any case, these reforms were hardly whether their solutions achieve anything, radical. Now it is Mr. Hayden who will play even the much longed-for stable electoral Whitlam to Whitlam’s Calwell! majority. It is to be hoped, though, that the Labor left will develop a much more coherent ideology and policy than hitherto so as to What is ignored by these commentators is more effectively combat the attempts to take that it was not the reforms themselves which the party even further to the right. Many people voted against in 1975 and 1977 but the inability of Labor to solve the economic Labor members and supporters do not want a rightward shift but they need a coherent crisis. This inability was a liability on its policy and line to support. own but it also assisted the media campaign which portrayed social reforms and The left outside the Labor Party, including economic recovery as incompatible. Within the Communist Party, cannot rely on the the logic of the system there was a certain development of a more coherent IAbor truth in this. But had Labor been prepared to left which, in any case, is more likely the begin to tackle the basic causes of the crisis stronger the extra-ALP left and its mass instead of succumbing to the logic of the influence become. Nor can the left ignore system, it could have retained support for developments inside the Labor Party since itself and its reform program. This would the latter still has the overwhelming support have required tackling the power over of the working class which even through economic decision making of large local and many disappointments looks to Labor for multinational firms. Of course, it was solutions to its problems. COMMENT 7

PERSPECTIVES FOR THE LEFT what are the barriers, in workers’ minds, What, then, should be the perspectives and social situation and experiences, to their strategy of the extra-ALP left in the post­ shifting from reformism to socialism, or a election situation? In the first place, while program which would be a transition in the seeking to grapple with the political realities direction of socialism? behind the election result, we should not lose In the second place, the strategy and sight of the fact that the contradictions of policies can only be developed in a long capitalism, both old and new, remain. process of dialogue and discussion with the Among others, they manifest themselves in working people. This means putting things these ways: in their language, being concrete and putting forward, in addition to long-term goals, * Inability to permanently solve economic transitional programs which are seen to be problems and develop a stable economy realistic and capable of being fought for. To based on social needs and free from do this means being prepared to learn from unemployment and inflation. practical experiences which should not only * Inability, despite a huge absolute growth be guided by theory but also change and of production, to achieve any significant modify theory. A theory with such a relation redistribution of wealth to level up the to practice is truly a theory o f politics (or a continuing glaring social inequalities. politicised theory) as opposed to an academicised, rarefied and doctrinised * Inability to take full and rational theory. advantage of the ‘great leap forward’ of the productive forces in the postwar The main task of the left, therefore, is to get boom - in particular, failure to utilise out into the community and the workforce so anything like the full liberatory as to maintain and extend the difficult daily potential of science and technology work of convincing people, assisting them in which are made the servants of profit. thei_r struggles and in setting up or improving organisations which can counter * Disregard for and inability to solve the the powers they are up against. worsening environmental crisis which, If this is done two dangers in the present if anything, is more ignored these days period will be avoided: with the economic troubles used as an * Succumbing to pessimism and excuse not to take the necessary actions. hopelessness, leading to a loss of will and activity * Inability to basically tackle the oppression of women and the whole * ‘Standing on our digs’ in the belief that crisis of human relationships, problems we are still right and don’t need to which are also swept under the mat of change anything as a result of the the economic crisis. election but continue as before until the workers are forced to see the truth by the These and other contradictions and objective circumstances. This could only problems are not abolished by Fraser’s lead to objective sterility and isolation victory; rather they are likely to be sharpened by it. They can, and will, lead to The aim of the left should be, in practice, renewed upsurges of mass activity and policy and publicity, to lower the obstacles to struggle, though naturally no timetable can Australian workers opting for real solutions. be put on this. These objective facts provide Immediate and transitional programs can do the basis for the left’s work. But, in turn, this this by assisting people to take the first steps, work will only bring out the maximum both in thought and action, down the path to political manifestation of the objective socialism. The Communist Party’s proposal contradictions to the extent that it develops a A New Course for Australia is a public strategy and method of work based on a deep discussion document of this type. ALR understanding of existing political realities rea ders who have not yet s een it are invited to and the possibilities contained within them. write to their nearest CPA office for a copy In the first place, that means finding out and to submit their comments, criticisms and where working people are at, what they feel suggestions to the CPA. and want, what they will support and what they won’t. In particular, can we identify B.A., 15.2.78. CONTEMPORARY FEMINISM and SOCIALIST MOVEMENTS Barbara E hrenreich

This paper is concerned with the potential social production. Through the combination insights which contemporary feminist of democratic rights and integration into movements have to offer socialist production, it was thought that no obstacles movements in two areas: (1) socialist theory to women’s full participation in political life about women’s liberation which I take to be a would remain, and sexual equality would be key concern of socialists world-wide; and (2) achieved. Now, there is no question about socialist theory and practice more generally, the central importance o f these measures to apart from the question of women as a social women’s liberation: Feminist movements group. Finally, I would like to speculate on themselves have focused heavily on the legal the practical possibilities of a synthesis of rights of women and on access to jobs and socialist and feminist politics. Though the education. The feminist movement in the issues I will raise have broad applicability to United States is currently investing major the industrialised countries, my thinking is energy in a campaign for a constitutional naturally based most heavily on experience amendment which would eliminate legal limited to the United States. discrimination between women and men as workers and citizens. Feminism and the socialist approach to women’s liberation But a major insight of contemporary The traditional socialist program for feminism, if I may state it first in purely women’s liberation, passed down basically negative fashion, is that a program of unchanged from the nineteenth century, is democratic rights plus integration into social two-fold: First, women were to be granted full production is not sufficient to establish full democratic rights, including the right to equality between the sexes. It is this insight divorce and possession of property; and, which most strikingly distinguishes second, women were to be integrated into contemporary feminism from historically CONTEMPORARY FEMINISM & SOCIALIST MOVEMENTS 9 prior waves of feminist activity and which to confer prestige. There is some evidence distinguishes the feminist political that when women have entered a perspective from the traditional socialist characteristically male occupation, such as program for women’s liberation. medicine, the social prestige of that occupation tends to decline. There are several reasons for the late twentieth century feminist perception of the 2. Sexual objectification. This again is inadequacy of the traditional socialist highly variable, with no socialist society program. The first reason is that, in 1970, as approaching the decadent extremes opposed to 1870 or even 1920, the program of characteristic of capitalism. One example of democratic rights plus integration into social sexual objectification which has tended to production had, in fact, largely been persist is the differential adornment of the achieved for long enough to make some kind sexes: The cultural requirement that women of evaluation possible. The magnitude of this use clothes and cosmetics to create an achievement cannot be underestimated: appearance of youthfulness, fragility and/or Socialism has universally brought civil sexual availability is something so universal equality for women, mass entry of women that it almost seems “natural”. Yet in a into social production (hence the possibility feminist analysis, the emphasis on an of individual economic independence from objectified type of “beauty” for women is a the family), supportive social services such clear cultural hallmark of male domination, as child care - not to mention the obvious and a disturbing thing to note in socialist improvements in material security which society. have accrued to both sexes. It is thus with 3. Low representation of women in considerable envy that feminists within positions of political leadership. This is capitalist societies have regarded their socialist sisters: Socialist women are not undoubtedly the most striking and serious shortcoming, at least as seen from a “second class citizens” in the eyes of the law; distance. The levels of socialist leadership they are encouraged in their education or vocational training; they are free to which achieve international visibility are contribute to social production knowing that almost without exception occupied by men. their children are well cared for. Where is there a female head of a socialist state, or a woman serving as first secretary of At the same time, however, the situation of the party? How many women can be counted women in socialist societies can hardly be on the politburos and legislative bodies of the described as one of full sexual equality. TTiere existing socialist countries? What does the are shortcomings in the progress of socialist near-absence of female leadership at the women which, persisting as they do after national level suggest about women’s many years (and in some cases, more than participation in political life at provincial one generation), cannot easily be explained and local levels? as mere vestiges of capitalist or pre-capitalist These areas of shortcomings in the society. To generalise, without reference to achievement of sexual equality by no means particular countries, there are three major outweigh the tremendous advances women kinds of evidence of the persistence of sex have made in socialist society. Nor is there inequality into socialist society: any real basis for believing that sexual 1. Occupational segregation by sex. Of inequality is a fixed, structural feature of course, this exists in varying degrees in socialist society, as it has become in various countries - nowhere approaching the capitalist society. It may well be that a static extreme occupational segregation critique omits significant progress which characteristic of capitalist society. But the would be evident in a historical survey of basic pattern of the sexual division of labor women’s status within socialist societies. has tended to persist, with women occupying (Or, to take a pessimistic point of view, it may rleatively low-paid positions and/or be that sexual inequality will tend to increase performing stereotyped functions such as in the European socialist countries with the nursing, child care and personal services of spread of consumerism and consequent various sorts, while men occupy, on the influence of Western capitalist culture.) But average, better-paid positions which are the point is that the traditional socialist more likely to involve decision-making and answer to the “woman question” — 10 AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW No. 63 democratic rights and integration into struggles around workplace issues — production — has not proved to be a discrimination in pay and promotions, lack sufficient condition for sexual equality: A of child care, health and safety issues, etc. necessary condition, no doubt, but not a But in a situation where nearly half the adult sufficient one. For a feminist movement women are already employed, most in emerging in the 1970s, this observation was relatively unsatisfactory jobs, a political inescapable. program offering “integration into social production ” would be irrelevant, if not ironic. Another reason for feminist dissatisfaction with the traditional socialist It is these two factors — disillusionment program rests not on the shortcomings of with the political economic “advances” of socialism, but rather on the “successes” of women within capitalism, combined with a capitalism. It is striking, almost incredible, certain disappointment about the progress of that the birthplace of contemporary women within socialism — which led feminism was not a society such as Spain, contemporary feminism to reject the still dominated by rigid patriarchal forms of traditional program of democratic rights family life and religion, but the United plus integration into production as an States, a society in which women were widely adequate basis for women’s liberation. Thus considered to have already been “liberated” . contemporary feminism, the feminism of the Well before the advent of the current feminist 1970s, began with the realisation that the movement, women in the United States solutions to sexual inequality lay not only in enjoyed a level of democratic rights and the realm of political economy, but in an area workforce participation well beyond that of which had so far received little attention women in the most “advanced” European from political movements — the realm of capitalist countries, not to mention the “private life”. poorer capitalist countries, former colonies, etc. Divorce was legal and easily attainable; female suffrage had been achieved fifty The politics of private life years earlier. Moreover, women were entering the workforce in unprecedented The existence of a sphere of “ private life” , as distinct from the realm of political numbers, particularly in response to the rising corporate demand for female clerical economy, is a characteristic feature of labor. In 1950, 33.9 per cent of American industrial capitalist society, and perhaps women were employed; in 1960,37.8 per cent; industrial society in general. In a pre­ in 1970, 43.4 per cent; and the proportion industrial “natural” economy, the family today is 48 per cent. In 1970, the United was not only a biological unit but a States surpassed Sweden, France, Canada, productive unit. Work, play, birth, child care, the United Kingdom, Italy, Switzerland and food consumption, etc., were all activities the Netherlands in terms of the proportion of occurring in the same physical space and the labor force which is female. (Though of involving the same group of household course the labor force participation of US members. With the advent of large-scale women still lags behind that of women in socialised production, the household was most industrialised socialist countries.) stripped of most of its productive activities and left with the personal biological So, at the time of the emergence of a functions of eating, sexuality, child care, feminist movement in the United States, the rest,’ etc. Patriarchal restrictions, combined socialist program of “integration into social with women’s traditional centrality in child production” had been achieved to a raising, dictated that the home, rather than significant extent within capitalism, the socialised workplace, was woman’s although hardly on feminist terms. The great “proper” sphere of activity. Private life majority of women who entered the ■became the major focus of women’s work workforce in the ’sixties and ’seventies (usually even for women in the paid entered relatively low-paid clerical and workforce); it was, furthermore, the major service jobs, and this is reflected in the fact locus of “sex role reproduction”: the place that the median income for full-time working where small children learn the forms of women in the United States is only 57 per behavior deemed appropriate for their sex. cent of the median income for men. Inevitably, then, feminist analysis would Thousands of women have been drawn into have to investigate the realm of private life, CONTEMPORARY FEMINISM & SOCIALIST MOVEMENTS 11 and a feminist program would have to situation of women and how to change it. address the issues arising from it. Thus the feminist movement highlighted a series of issues which had been largely With some significant exceptions, the neglected by marxists, either because they terrain of private life has been largely seemed to be too trivial, divisive, or perhaps omitted from the mainstream of marxist simply embarrassing to discuss. These theory. Lenin, for example, saw the home as include: a sort of backwater, left behind by industrial progress but still capable of breeding — the biological subjugation of women conservatism even within modem socialist within the family and within personal society (hence, in part, his insistence on relationships generally: subjection to women’s full integration into social unwanted pregnancies, to physical production). The most serious attempts in the abuse and coercive styles of male West to analyse the relations of private life sexuality (of which rape is only the have come from Freudian-oriented marxists extreme). and marxists associated with the “critical — relations of domination and theory” school. If I may summarise their submission between women and men. concerns rather sketchily, they have tended These relations are nurtured within the to focus on: (1) The “ancient” aspects of patriarchal family, but extend into family relations — the system of patriarchal public interactions between women and authority which survives from a pre­ men, for example, in the workplace and industrial mode of production. Reich and even within political organisations. The others saw the patriarchal authoritarianism expressions of male domination may be of the family as the psychological basis for overt, as in the common assumption that authoritarian relations within the entire in a mixed gathering women will do the society, as between classes. (2) The most more “menial” work of serving food and “modern” aspect of private life — its drinks. Or they may be subtle, taking the penetration by advertising, consumer goods, form of disparaging remarks and external “ expert” authorities, etc., to the patronising attitudes, or the use of point where the distinction between modes of discourse which tend to exclude “private” and “political economic” realms of women’s participation. social existence begins to be a dubious one. Marcuse, for example, relates the corporate — the social devaluation of domestic penetration of private life to the diminished labor. With the development of political autonomy of the working class in socialised production, women’s work in advanced industrial countries. Thus, theneo- the home was by no means abolished. In marxist analyses of the real of private life fact there is evidence that over the last created by industrial capitalism emphasise hundred years rising standards of the importance of the private realm from a cleanliness and rising expectations political economic point of view: It is the about the mother’s role in early locus of the reproduction of the personality childhood socialisation have actually types (and, of course, actual human beings) increased the housewife’s hours of labor. required by class society, and it is one of the Yet the only recognition of women’s latest frontiers for the expansion of the domestic labor afforded in most capitalist market. capitalist countries is of a purely sentimental nature. There is no However, as the American historian Eli economic security for mothers who are Zaretsky has argued, it was not until the deserted by their husbands; there are no rebirth of a feminist mo vement in the last ten pensions for women who have spent years that issues related to private life were their lives as housekeepers and mothers. projected out of the realm of theory and into the arena of political struggle. Feminist — the corporate penetration of private analysis tended to differ from that of the life, which has depended primarily on (male) neo-marxists in that it focused on the manipulation of women as private life not merely as an influence on, or consumers (often through advertising appendage of, the political economy, but as a whi«h presents insulting and realm of human experience having intrinsic stereotyped images of women) and leads importance if we are to comprehend the to dubious improvements in the quality 12 AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW No. 63

of women’s lives. (To give a few this work? What solutions are most examples: Certain feminine hygiene consistent with the needs of children, and, if products introduced in the United States possible, with long-standing cultural with considerable advertising have traditions? turned out to be hazardous to the user’s health; recent studies show that the Underlying these questions about introduction of “labor-saving” devices domestic labor is an even more fundamental over the last 50 years has not led to a issue: the question of the family and its role as a basic social unit. Within the United decrease in women’s domestic work; prepared baby foods contain States there has been considerable debate over whether left and feminist groups should unhealthful quantities of salt and sugar, etc.) concentrate on criticising the traditional family or defending it. The analysis which To say that these issues related to private reveals the family as the key site in the life have been opened up by the feminist reproduction of hierarchical relationships movement is by no means to say that they (between women and men, and between have been resolved, or can easily be resolved, people in general) has led some to conclude even within the realm of theory and that the abolition of the family as we know it analysis.In fact, these issues raise serious is essential to women’s liberation. In this questions of relevance for both socialist and view, an important task for radical feminist movements. movements is the creation of alternative living arrangements which will meet people’s needs for companionship, sexuality, Take the issue of women’s domestic labor: etc, in the absence of traditional There can be no question about the social authoritarian relationships. Others argue value of domestic labor, despite the fact that that the family, for all its faults, is the only it is unwaged and performed in the refuge for the human values of affection, privatised setting of the home. In certain nurturance, etc., within capitalist society, capitalist countries (Italy, the United States, and represents the only security most women England) some feminists have argued that know. Rather than building alternatives, the women’s movement should focus on a which are unlikely to survive within demand for economic recognition of capitalist society anyway, the movement domestic work, or “wages for housework”. should focus on improving women’s position Such a demand would recognise the strategic within the existing family structure. (From position of women as workers and their either point of view, the persistence of the productive role in society. On the other hand, conventional family structure within it has been argued that state subsidisation of socialist societies, and the failure of these women’s domestic labor would (1) reinforce societies to encourage the development of the prevailing notion that this is a uniquely alternative living arrangements, has been female form of labor, and (2) add nothing to puzzling to American feminists.) the material well-being of the working class, since the wages for housework would However, if there is debate over the specific undoubtedly be drawn from the general wage resolution of these issues — both as issues of the class (e.g. by higher taxation). Within which must be confronted within capitalism, socialist society, there remain questions as issues facing socialist societies, and, about the social valuation of domestic labor ultimately, as questions facing future and the best strategies for dealing with it. communist societies — there does exist a Too often, women’s “integration into social feminist consensus on certain principles production” has only meant that most which can be summarised as follows: women have two jobs — one in social production and one in the home. Should this That in addition to reforms in the political situation be recognised with reduced hours economic realm giving women full for working women and perhaps formal democratic rights and the opportunity for payment for their domestic work? Or should participation in social production, women’s the situation itself be changed, for example, liberation depends upon - by pressure to increase male participation in 1. The establishment of women’s domestic work or by further socialisation of reproductive freedom and physical integrity CONTEMPORARY FEMINISM & SOCIALIST MOVEMENTS 13

as inalienable rights. This means the right to but in the sphere of deeply rooted attitudes, contraceptive measures and abortion expectations and patterns of behavior. The regardless of national population policy, and same can be said for relations between the right to protection from sexual coercion classes or strata: The significant (within or without marriage). interactions here do not only occur between actual members of classes, on a daily basis, 2. A social commitment to the eradication and in such a way as to reinforce the of male domination in all its manifestations prevailing patterns of class domination. — authoritarian relations within the family, When such interactions carry over into the sexual objectification of women, stereotyped images of women in media and progressive political organisations, the results can be crippling. culture, and so on. 3. A reappraisal of women’s domestic The first example of this sort of labor, aimed at (a) increased social valuation phenomenon in the US left occurred over the of women’s necessary and productive work issue of male-female relations within the within the home, which should be radical movement of the ’sixties. Despite recognised, for example, with economic verbal commitment to egalitarianism and security for housewives, (b) increased “ participatory democracy” there existed sharing of domestic labor between the sexes, enormous barriers to women’s full and (c) the socialisation of functions which participation in the movement. Meeting can be more effectively and satisfactorily independently of men, women were able to performed outside the home. identify some of the barriers to their participation, ranging from such obvious 4. Democratic control over the commodity things as a lack of women in visible ensemble produced for domestic and private leadership positions to more subtle issues of consumption, with regard to quality, male “style", a tendency to long-winded intrinsic use value and ideological content. polemics, a competitive manner of discourse, Implications for socialist movements etc. The resulting efforts to eliminate male dominant tendencies within the movement Insofar as women’s liberation, as an issue were far from uniformly successful (in fact which transcends class, is one of the many women simply left the “mixed” fundamental projects of socialism, then it movement to work independently as goes without saying that the conclusions of women). But these efforts did lead to a contemporary feminism should be of widespread consciousness of the problem of intrinsic interest to all socialists. But I would “sexism” (as it came to be called, in analogy like to turn now to some implications of to racism), and to a great unleashing of contemporary feminist thought quite apart women’s political energies and leadership from the “ woman question” . First, by capabilities. analogy, feminism offers important insights into relations of domination and submission Today the US left faces a somewhat which exist between other social groups, analagous problem in relation to class. such as classes and ethnic groups. Second, Coming as it does out of a largely student by its insistence on a politics which embraces base, the left is disproportionately middle both the “private" and the political-economic class in composition, by which I mean it sphere, feminism points the way to a more contains a disproportionate representation comprehensive socialist politics for the of people in professional and managerial- industrial capitalist countries. type occupations, as opposed to those in blue- collar and lower-level white collar To take first the insights which feminism occupations. Since the early ’seventies, the may offer by analogy. As I have stressed, left has been preoccupied with the problem of contemporary feminism insists that sex expanding beyond its present class base into inequality exists not only at the level of a broader working class constituency. There political-economic structures, but at the level are many obstacles to this effort, which of personal interactions, within the family, belong more properly to a discussion of US within social life, and within political and working-class history. But from our limited working relationships. Thus the problem of experience so far, it is becoming clear that inequality, or male domination, must be some of the obstacles lie at the level of day-to- attacked not only in the sphere of public life, day individual interactions, such as those 14 AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW No. 63 uncovered by feminists in the case of male- sixties demanded that political ideals be female relationships in the movement. These matched with high standards of include: stereotyped expectations of roles interpersonal conduct and mutual respect. (e.g, that people from middle class Without a continuing commitment to the backgrounds will do the theoretical and feminist principle that “ the personal (the analytical work), subtle attitudes of elitism ways we behave and treat others on an and condescension on the part of middle individual basis) is political" there is little class people, the persistent use of terms and hope of building a socialist movement which modes of discourse which are familiar to will span the divergent and often educated people but uncomfortable to less antagonistic social groupings which educated people, etc. The results of failing to comprise the broad class of working people address these problems can be passivity within a country such as the United States. among working class members, resentment, The other major contribution that and sometimes even disillusionment with contemporary feminism has to offer to left politics. socialist movements lies simply in its To generalise a little: The task of building a affirmation of the realm of private life as a socialist movement within a hetereogeneous significant arena for political attention, society such as the United States requires analysis and struggle. Socialist politics has building co-operative efforts and common conventionally focused on class relations as organisational forms spanning women and they are expressed in the "public” realm of men, middle and working class people, and socialised production and state functions, people of diverse et hnic backgrounds. In this with secondary attention to culture and other project, the feminist insight that inter-group elements of the “superstructure”. The antagomisms and systems of domination are political consciousness of the working class expressed not only in political-economic was assumed to be shaped overwhelmingly structures, but at the level of individual in the experience of production and through interactions, is a lesson which political interactions with a repressive state movements can ignore only at their own risk. apparatus. The nature of private life was The emerging feminist movement of the late assumed to be determined by the workers’ CONTEMPORARY FEMINISM & SOCIALIST MOVEMENTS 15 needs for biological self-reproduction and aspirations tend to shift to private life as a less importantly by customs and attitudes possible arena for the expression of the remaining from pre-capitalist social creativity and autonomy which is so formations. With these assumptions, the thoroughly repressed at the workplace. This nature of private life could be safely ignored shift, this psychological privatisation in favor of concentration on the visible and originating at the point of production, only dramatic class struggles over political and reinforces the dominant drift of' late economic issues. capitalist culture towards the social atomisation characteristic of a consumption- But two developments in advanced centred economy. capitalist society suggest that these assumptions are no longer completely The left in the United States, where these adequate, and that a politics based on them trends are most advanced, has yet to will fail to address monopoly capitalism as a formulate a political approach which fully total system. First is the capitalist comprehends these trends and the resulting penetration (in response to the continuing social and cultural conditions. But it is clear problem of economic stagnation) of private that a truly relevant politics can no longer life as a market. This process, beginning in confine itself to the sphere of the political the United States in the 1920s and going into economy as it haB been understood, but must full swing in the post-war period, affects, extend its analysis and activities into the directly or indirectly, all strata of society. It sphere of “private life”. Is it in fact so has required an enormous ideological thoroughly colonised by corporate priorities campaign (carried out by individual and commoditised relationships, or is it a corporations in the form of advertising) to potential breeding ground for resistance? “sell” a way of life based on individual What autonomous forms of popular culture consumption, and it requires ever more are emerging and what is their relationship refined efforts (marketing techniques, etc.) to to commoditised mass culture? What forms predict and regulate consumption. To the of political activity can break through the extent that this corporate penetration of social atomisation of working class life? To private life has been successful, the very dismiss such questions - to abandon the distinction between “private” and “public” terrain of “private life” as irrelevant or (or political economic) realms of existence apolitical is, in fact, to cede it to the ceases to be a meaningful one. The internal capitalists. If feminism in the industrialised expansion of the capitalist market within the capitalist countries has done nothing else, it industrialised countries, leaves fewer and should at least have alerted left movements fewer “backwaters” of social existence, and to the necessity of a socialist politics capable capitalism presents itself at last as a unitary of addressing the totality of human system, embracing what were formerly the experience within the culture of late most intimate personal aspects of life. capitalism.

A second and related development which The prospects for a socialist-feminist challenges the traditional socialist synthesis assumptions about the proper sphere for political endeavor is the process which the In the coming years we may expect the American scholar Harry Braverman has emergence and continued growth of feminist called the “degradation of labor”: the movements within the industrialised removal of productive skills from the capitalist countries, for several reasons: (1) working class and their concentration in a Over the long run, industrialisation and the stratum of technical and managerial spread of market relations inevitably workers. This process, necessitated within undermine traditional patriarchal capitalism by the class struggle in the early relationships, which (in the West, at any 20th century and often emulated within rate) had their material basis in an agrarian socialism as an “efficiency” measure, has economy. The gradual erosion of patriarchal the effect of reducing work to a mindless, authority within the family increases repetitive series o f routines. Rather than women^s possibilities of organising being a source of collective strength, social independently; (2) Recent advances in the production becomes an experience of technology of contraception are offering dehumanisation. Thus working class women a degree of biological self­ 16 AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW No. 63

determination undreamed of by previous more ‘moderate’ political position. In the face generations. Even where this technology is of the rightwing attack, N OW has been eager not easily available because of restrictive to dissociate itself from socialist state policies or high prices, women are organisations and from more sweeping becoming aware of the material possibility of demands for social justice. On the controlling their own reproductivity. This encouraging side, however, feminism awareness was an important factor in the continues to expand — as a state of mind if growth of the US women’s movement; (3) The not an organised movement — among increasing cultural integration of the world, working class women, creating a militancy with the growth of the mass electronic media, which spills over and interacts with etc., makes it impossible to contain feminist militancy on class issues. Particularly ideas within the boundaries of a few striking at this time is the growth of a black countries. Interest in feminism — or, at the feminist movement, highly conscious of the very least, a new consciousness of women as “double jeopardy” of black women within women — is spreading on a world scale. racist society. Any rebirth of mass radicalism in the United States will be The feminist movements which emerge heavily shaped by, and perhaps in part will continue to challenge the traditional generated by, the contemporary feminist socialist formula for women’s liberation and movement. to insist on a new kind of politics embracing both the “ public” and the “ private” , the Within the other industrialised capitalist economic and the cultural. The question is: countries, a more historically “normal” will the contemporary and emerging situation prevails at the present time. feminist movements find common ground Socialist movements are strongly and deeply with existing socialist movements — or will rooted in the working class. It is feminism they become a dissident stream detached which is relatively weak — a newcomer on from the struggle for socialism? I have the political scene. Here the possibility of a argued that a socialist-feminist synthesis synthesis of socialist and feminist politics would greatly enrich socialist politics (and, depends most heavily on the reaction of the of course, feminist politics). What are the existing left to the demands and issues raised prospects for such a synthesis? I will end by the emerging feminist movements. The with some brief speculative comments on crucial question is not whether existing left this question. organisations will welcome feminist The United States presents, at least at this movements as they would any other time, an exceptional situation and one that ■progressive force, but how they will respond is historically unprecedented. Namely, a to those concerns of feminism which go situation in which the feminist movement, beyond traditional socialist views on women’s liberation. The response may be to despite its organisational disarray and dismiss these concerns as trivial, divisive, or internal disunity, is far larger and more even “ ultra-leftist” . Or the response may be broadly based than anything that could be called a socialist “movement”. Left to seek to incorporate feminist insights into the historical body of socialist thought and organisations may denounce feminism as practice. As I have tried to argue here, what “petty bourgeois” or they may court it as an is at stake in these alternatives is much more essential extension of the “new left”, but than the left’s relation to a particular their impact is relatively minor. The constituency (women), but its ability to direction which American feminism chooses formulate a meaningful program for — whether socialist or accommodating to women’s liberation within socialism, and its capitalism — depends largely on ability to comprehend the emerging contours developments within the feminist movement of late capitalist culture. itself and its reaction to the political opposition it faces. On the discouraging side, the growth of an anti-feminist “movement” , opposed to abortion and equal rights for Speech given at the International Forum '77 - women and unabashedly linked to the far Socialism in the World ■ held at Cavtat, right, has pushed major feminist Yugoslavia, September 26-30, 1977. organisations like the National Reprinted from Socialist Thought and Organisation for Women (NOW) towards a P ractice, a Yugoslav monthly. 10 Oct., 1977. The State and Australian Socialism Eric Aarons

Many discussions on theoretical questions needed to bring revolutionary change and are as tedious as the TV repeats over the make the destination of the state a real, holiday season. Let us hope we can make the practical question. discussions on the state now proceeding but, properly posed, there is a relation, something more than a re-run of classical because the future and the present are situations and past controversies. connected. One of the fundamental problems The issue has arisen again in connection of political strategy in fact is to grasp the with “eurocommunism”, the dropping of connections, so that the immediate struggles “the dictatorship of the proletariat” by the lead in the desired direction, not some other. French Communist Party, the possibility of a We have not widely used the term, but "'the left government resulting from the democratic road to socialism” describes impending French elections and the political fairly well the line the CPA has been crisis in Italy. following over the last decade or so. My aim in this article is to discuss the meaning of Many articles and pamphlets have this in relation to the current controversies. appeared* and at least two books: The following points seem to me especially Eurocommunism and the State by the important. Communist Party of Spain’s secretary, Santiago Carrillo, and On the 1. A view of the nature of the problem of Dictatorship of the Proletariat by revolution in a modern capitalist society, Etienne Balibar, a member of the compared with that in (say) tsarist Russia. Communist Party of France. Unfortunately, Of course, the nature of the problem cannot only the latter is available in Australia at the be completely divorced from the concrete time of writing. setting. The Russian revolution took place In Australia the controversy is linked with during a devastating world war, and no the search for a way forward in the current doubt if Western Europe (or Australia) were - uncongenial political climate, publication of perish the thought - similarly involved today, the Communist Party of Australia’s proposal policies and strategies would have to be very A New Course for Australia and different. discussion on the CPA’s general program to Leaving this aside, however, the despotic be adopted at its 26th Congress next year. tsarist state was appropriate to feudalism, as To avoid a sterile debate on the state we was the prevailing ideology. Yet Russia was have to locate it in our context. Socialism well along the capitalist path even in being so far from an immediate prospect agriculture which, while very backward, was here, the debate could appear a little increasingly concerned with the production ridiculous. And it would be if it diverted of commodities - goods for exchange as attention from the actual task which is the distinct from those produced for direct building of the social and political forces consumption. 18 AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW No. 63

The feudal ideology had decomposed. It The changes are that the state is much was no longer hegemonic and was ineffective more involved than previously in education, in holding the masses of people* within the social welfare, housing, transport, system. The repressive power of the state was communications and various forms of therefore the prime obstacle to revolution intervention in the economy. and could be toppled by quick assault. (A new ideology appropriate to a socialist system And despite ideologically and was held by only a comparative few - economically motivated efforts to cut back advanced workers and some intellectuals - and hand some of it over to private enterprise and this fact greatly influenced the course of where a profit can be made from it, state later developments. But that is beyond our intervention remains massive. The very functioning of modern capitalist society, scope here.) which it is the state’s business to maintain, The Italian marxist Antonio Gramsci requires it. The pre-occupation of various tackled the different problem in more arms of government with the “restructuring” industrially developed countries: of Australian capitalism to fit in with the ‘‘In Russia the State was everything, ciuil requirements of a world economy dominated society was primordial and gelatinous; in the by a few multinational empires only West, there was a proper relation between emphasises this. State and civil society, and when the State Consequences flowing from these trembled a sturdy structure of civil society developments include: was at once revealed, The State was only an outer ditch, behind which there stood a • The state has large numbers of employees. Most of these, while having such powerful system of fortresses and earthworks .... ” (Prison Notebooks). privileges as a certain security in employment, have roughly the same It followed that revolutionaries needed to standard of living as people “outside”, and direct their energies in the first place to the feel similar economic pressures. They are “fortresses and earthworks”. Not as a parts of bureaucratic structures run from the substitute or an excuse for not tackling the top down, with themselves on the bottom. To state but as essential preparation for it - varying degrees they have to be closely in preparation without which talk of touch with ordinary people and their overturning or “smashing” the state became concerns. mere rhetoric covering practical impotence. Thus, many functionaries of the state can It should also be remembered that Gramsci take up similar economic struggles to the wrote in the aftermath of the first world war, people they “rule”. They can become and at a time when industrial development, “infected” by similar concerns such as ideas state involvement in civil society and the of women’s liberation, opposition to uranium power and sophistication of the mass media development, anti-authoritarianism, etc. were far less than they are today. In this light • The claimed “impartiality” of the state, we would have to say that the tasks posed by Gramsci have increased. which is a vital ideological prop for the institution and the society it helps maintain, has to be given at least some lip-service. This But there are offsetting factors, now creates some avenues for ideas and actions highlighted by the continuing economic which don’t prop up the existing order. The crisis of the capitalist world and the great Fraser government is going to great lengths range of contradictions manifested in the to close up these avenues, but in doing so many social movements and the intensity meets resistance and builds up pressures and breadth of class struggles. which will find vent later. There have also been changes in the Looking more concretely at it, we could state. The greater involvement of the state in take the education system. This is an arm of civil society is not a change in class nature. the state which has the function of providing Even we in Australia who have not the “mix” of tractable industrial cannon- experienced directly wars and revolutions in fodder, intellectuals, etc. required by the our country know this from November 11, system. The study courses, the ideology 1975, for example. conveyed and the form of organisation in THE STATE & AUSTRALIAN SOCIALISM 19

schools is vital if this state function is to be Sometimes (for example, 1968 in France) discharged to the satisfaction of the an eruption in one sector is likely to spark capitalist system. others, creating an upheaval that seems to come from nowhere, but spreads like wildfire Having done a little teaching, I have because the smouldering contradictions are experienced the anguish of having to fit in set alight. with and minister to these requirements. Nevertheless, the school system affords Of course, this depends also and especially some avenues for progressive activity by on the struggle in the non-state sector, in teachers and pupils motivated by anti­ particular, industry. authoritarian feelings, opposition to sexism The struggle for workers’ intervention and and racism, ideas of the development of the control goes on at all sorts of levels. It is part person, etc. of a constant struggle, of which the fight over wages (over division of the value added Some employees of the Australian in production between wages and profits) is Broadcasting Commission have taken its one part. Or rather can be part if not professed impartiality at face value and narrowly conducted. presented ideas which have thrown the Success is not likely to come out of the blue establishment into a rage. Axes have fallen in finished form (such as “nationalisation since Fraser got in, but the possibilities of under workers’ control”). It has to be resistance have also been displayed. prepared for by more partial actions in which Australia Post employees, workers in the a working class political force is forged in telecommunications, transport and general actual struggle. administration fields have acted against the The particular forms such struggles take at a policies of the departments and commissions given time depend on circumstances and the which head them. degree of consciousness already attained, Even some prison warders declared that though the general nature of the demands they would not “process” people arrested in advanced derive from analysis of economic anti-uranium demonstrations. This does not and social tendencies and the particular stop warders from beating up prisoners, or sector or industry involved. opposing most demands for prison reform, That is why A New Course for but it is still notable. All state employees A ustralia puts stress on — experience to one degree or another their • Concrete programs which go beyond the contradictory position which people immediate and seek to deal with involved have to concretely study. But the economic and social trends seen from a point is that is con trad ictory. The state is class perspective. not a monolith. • Grassroots involvement of the people There are even examples in history of concerned in working out and acting to armies - the ultimate core of the state * being achieve such concrete things, and their influenced by the prevailing social sentiment organisation in the process. and political situation to refuse to fire on strikers. Magri, a critic from the left o f the • A general framework of proposals on the Italian Communist Party, affirms that a economy and social life which section of police and judiciary in that country establishes links between the separate is aligned with the workers’ movement. activities. One small example is the way workers at These examples bring out the fact that Ajax Nettlefolds (which makes nuts, bolts, while the function of the state considered in screws, etc.) intervened through a committee the abstract remains always the same, the of shop stewards in an Industries actual state is prey to all sorts of Commission inquiry into the industry. contradictions. This creates the possibility for the state to be “neutralised” or rendered They saved a number of jobs, and while incapable of actually discharging this or supporting the employers’ claim for a that function under certain conditions. And temporary increase in tariffs, took a quite this becomes the more possible the more independent class position which they stated preparation has gone on previously. in the following way: 20 AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW No. 63

"We, as workers in the Ajax NeTtlefolds talked about other things besides violence, company, wish to state clearly that we are despite the fact that violence was very much not seeking continued protection to make the to the fore in the conditions of the time. company more profitable, as we believe their The state consists, he pointed out, of a current profit level is more than adequate. separate, a special body of people whose We would be opposed to the Australian function it is to rule. The aim of marxists in people carrying the burden of an unnecessary, inefficient and wasteful respect to the state is not to make it all powerful, but to “ do away” with it. That industry, simply to provide higher profits. means to not have a special body of people "We believe that the propositions we are whose job it is to manage and rule. putting forward are designed to create a more efficient and worthwhile industry, the How can this be done? By having everyone partake of the function. We call benefits o f which must flow to the workers in this self-management, and see it as a great the form of shorter hours, better work extension of democracy. environment and greater control over work organisation. A “democratic road to socialism" might therefore be briefly characterised as the "In particular, we believe that a greater say in the overall workings and investment process in which more and more people in more and more spheres of social life act over of the company by the workers will assist in making it a more worthwhile and efficient things that affect them. company, producing for the social good. This There are, of course, obstacles, including will be greatly assisted by access to far more the conditions and habits of an exploiting information, all of which is perfectly society. reasonable when one considers the public "Owing to the conditions of capitalist support required to keep the company going. exploitation the modern wage-slaves are also "We fully understand that given the so crushed by want and poverty that ‘they system we live in, it is difficult for any real cannot be bothered with democracy’, 'they rationalisation to develop, because of the sole cannot be bothered with politics’; in the concern of manufacturers to achieve the ordinary peaceful course of events the highest profit regardless of inefficiency and majority of the population is debarred from the good, o f workers. participating in social and political l i f e (S & R, Ch. 5, Part 2.) " This is made even more difficult by the almost total absence of a national plan for Poverty, illiteracy and social the manufacturing industry. Therefore, we discrimination are still a big obstacle to strongly support the concept of national Aborigines, migrants, the unemployed and planning that is based on the criteria of those on very low incomes participating in socially useful and necessary production, democracy, but they are not insuperable. benefits for workers that include adequate However, they are not now the obstacles to wages, working conditions and shorter most people doing so, and it would be useful hours, and that the industry is either to discuss what the obstacles actually are. economically viable or shown to be an But the point is that none of them are essential part of Australian manufacturing. insuperable, that there are today more We believe that the propositions we put possibilities of pushing out the boundaries of forward for the fastener industry, if accepted, democracy. would head in the direction that is indicated. ” “To develop democracy to its logical conclusion, to find the form s for this Different and bigger examples of workers’ development, to test them by practice, and so intervention can be found from the forth - all this is one o f the constituent tasks Australian green bans to the 1977 Fiat of the struggle for the social revolution. struggle in Italy, but the point is intervention Taken separately, no sort of democracy will from a class point of view, at a level suited to bring socialism. But in actual life democracy the circumstances. will never be 'taken separately’; it will be In The State and Revolution which he ‘taken together’ with other things, it will published in the second half of 1917, Lenin exert its influence on economics, will THE STATE & AUSTRALIAN SOCIALISM 21

stimulate its reformation; and in its turn it just by “choosing” . To imagine that the kind will be influenced by economic development of struggle the “democratic road” involves is and so on. Such are the dialectics of living impossible in Australia, while the kind of history.” (S & R, Ch. 4, Part 4.) struggle involved in an insurrection is As a dialectical process this is unlikely to possible, is to indulge in fantasy. proceed smoothly. Basic transformations do In Spain and Italy, which are far more not occur without crises and upheavals, and “political” societies than our own, with long we will return to this shortly. revolutionary histories, even critics from the But the “quantitative” process of left of the communist parties (Magri, extending democracy and mass involvement Giacomo) acknowledge that anyone is the crux of any “ democratic road to advocating to the workers that they take up socialism” , the condition for any qualitative arms and launch a civil war would be transformation taking place. laughed out of court, if not subjected to more material criticism. But, even here, sweeping generalisations should be avoided. Various aspects of social This leads to questions about likelihoods change may be spread over lengthy periods and possibilities. These questions should be of time. For example, “political power” discussed free of rhetoric and dogma, but changed suddenly in Cuba, but the other they are legitimate and important to discuss. arms of the state were only “smashed” at a Drawing lessons from the coup in Chile, later date. (I think in fact that in many cases Enrico Berlinguer, secretary of the Italian it would be more accurate to say that they Communist Party, pointed to the need for were “reformed”, and that the process still broad alliances, of avoiding a split “down the continues. The word “smashed” can easily middle” of society, and advanced the aim of give rise to flights of political fancy, far winning “the vast majority” for a policy of removed from the real tasks.) "democratic renewal” . As to the type of “upheaval” envisaged, The “historic compromise” which “the democratic road to socialism” involves envisaged the winning of at least a section of a commitment to try to avoid civil war. Christian Democrats was related to this The CPA’s Program Principles, which will perspective. (The C-D’s are the conservative guide the development of its general ruling party, but the party played a positive program, state on this point: role in the struggle against fascism and has the allegiance of about one-third of industrial “The fundamental sources of social workers.) violence are capitalist exploitation, the ideas based on it, and authoritarianism enshrined The limited support the PCI gave the C-D in the state. Nevertheless, the CPA aims for government, and the struggle for first, a socialist transformation of society without communist voice, then a communist civil war, striving to utilise all the presence in the government derived from this contradictions within society, the state and aim. the ruling classes nationally and internationally to this end, and seeking the Even though he disagrees with the PCI support of other socialist and liberation over the “historic compromise” and other forces throughout the world. issues, Lucio Magri, one of the founders of the II Manifesto group,affirms the necessity “ This requires consistent defence of of using to the full the “ democratic terrain” people’s interests and rights, opposition to which — authoritarianism, including in our own “ .... means using all the opportunities that practice, opposition to ‘legal violence’, and promotion of the positive ideals of socialism bourgeois democracy offers, for example, the and communism which envisage and require opportunities for union struggles, the a great expansion of democratic rights.” openings created by the articulation of state power, local government agencies, the co­ This direction is the CPA’s choice, as the operatives. One must use all these only viable way to proceed in our society. But opportunities rather than think of building for others who make a different choice we only a. vanguard which then uses a moment point out that an alternative is not created of crisis to conquer power in a violent way. 22 AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW No. 63

The problem of violence remains, bul only as 39 per cent of the votes, but lost because defensive violence in reaction to attempts by there was a single opposing candidate, Frei. the bourgeoisie during the course of the cris is When I arrived in Chile there was still a to overturn democratic forms - this is already lively debate going on as to whether the same happening and will increase.” (Socialist policy should be continued. It was, and at the R evolu tion , No. 36.) election in 1970 Allende, with 36.3 per There is no sure-fire way of being cent of the vote became President because the sufficiently prepared for every turn of events opposition was split and he got the highest or for such an eventuality, but it is important vote of any candidate. not to ignore these aspects, even though no But during the 1965 discussion, partly other approach than the one outlined here acting as “devil’s advocate” I posed seems viable for countries like our own. I am questions about the dangers, using among sure that the PCI (for instance) is quite well other examples the bloody overthrow in aware of the theory of the state, the problems April 1964 of the much milder President and the dangers. Goulart of Brazil. But I would like to make two points. I was assured that this possibility was Firstly, it appears at the time of writing always in mind, that preparations were that the CP and other parties of the left could being made for such an eventuality, and that form a left government, something the PCI while they had no illusions about it in the had wished to avoid. This would pose the final analysis, the tradition of non­ problem of a society divided roughly down interference in civil affairs by the Chilean the middle politically, and of the communists army (very different from the armed forces of as the major partner taking the other Latin American countries) was of responsibility for administering Italian significance. society which remains capitalist. But CPC secretary Luis Corvalan had this Because of the development of the world to say at a Central Committee meeting in capitalist economy and the power of the August 1977, not long after his release in a multinational corporations, actions by the prisoner exchange between Chile and the latter can be consciously undertaken to Soviet Union! “destabilise” any society. Such actions “ .... toleration of the excesses of the counter­ would no doubt be countered by further revolutionaries constitutes a capital error. political mobilisation, further controls over or confiscations of property and capital, co­ “The line of Popular Unity and President operation with movements in France, Spain, Allende of relying upon the democratic Portugal and other measures. But the living sectors of the Armed Forces sought a standards of the people could fall, creating growing identification of the military with severe hardships and political difficulties. the people, but it was not pursued to the core. The issue at each step is decided by the (there were considerable difficulties in strength and skill of the forces in struggle, it changing top personnel in the armed forces is not decided one way or the other in but) “in spite o f this, we could and should advance. have promoted at least some changes and eliminated some of the most reactionary This leads to my second point: that while it elements, seeking the support of the sectors may be entirely correct to reject the road of most inclined towards the new regime. This insurrection in which a vanguard seeks to was especially possible in the first months, seize power in a crisis, and consider only as well as just after the municipal elections in counter-violence, the latter has to be taken 1971, and following the tanzaco” (the seriously. And sometimes it is not, because abortive coup of June 29, 1973). all gaze is directed one way. The behavior of the Government and I visited Chile in 1965 to represent the CPA Popular Unity in this field if os undoubtedly at the 13th Congress of the Communist Party influenced by erroneous conceptions deeply of Chile. This was one year after the 1964 rooted in the Chilean mentality which, in one elections in which A lle n d e stood for way or another, to a greater or lesser extent, President as the Left candidate. He received affected all parties. Obviously, we are THE STATE & AUSTRALIAN SOCIALISM 23

referring to the belief that the armed forces of This has little to do with our own situation Chile were distinguished by their at present, but maybe an analogy can be subordination to the Civil Power and by their drawn. abstention from politics and sense of p rofess iona lism. In correctly (as I believe) focussing at present on the arduous nature of the tasks we “ .... despite all the errors or insufficiencies of face, and recognising the conservatism of our work with the armed forces, there were large sections of Australian society, among the latter .... important contingents including considerable numbers of workers, on whom we could have counted whatever we should not lose sight of the possibility - the circumstances .... We ascertained this in indeed, in the long run, inevitability - of our contacts with military personnel at all crises, upsurges and upheavals of various levels. However, the deterioration in the kinds. correlation of forces also had repercussions on the armed institutions and the aforesaid It is wrong to count on upheavals coming contingents were reduced and felt confused, at a time we cannot know, possibly quite far frustrated and helpless. This u>as the basic away, as a substitute for the hard, patient thing. Added to it was the fact that neither work we must put in today. But it is also the Government nor Popular Unity had wrong to lose perspective and get into the elaborated an operational plan - worthy of habit of thinking that things will always go the name - with loyal military personnel to on in the same way and at the same pace. crush a coup d ’etat were it unleashed. Thus The contradictions in modem capitalism came the llth of September. The coup caught in general are many and chronic. Australia us unprepared with regard to military is no exception and has also its own defence. ” particular weaknesses as well as strengths. One or another of these contradictions can Corvalan then goes on to outline some easily become acute and erupt, transforming actual preparations of the CPC. They had the situation in which we work. If our gaze is organised about 3,000 members with one too fixedly one way, this would find us degree or another of training and a quantity wanting. of armaments, but the amount was It has been put to me that the reason the inadequate and the military conceptions Latrobe valley strike did not result in the involved were far too primitive. public backlash many of us expected was The enemy, he further says, knew that that, with the mass movement at a low ebb there were some preparations, so instead of and reaction riding pretty high, a deep chord the “traditional” rather unorganised coup of sympathy was struck for a body of solid which might have been repelled and defeated people, running their own thing. If this is so, like the one in June, they launched, with CIA then in altered circumstances, a rapid assistance, a full-scale military blitzkrieg resurgence of the ideas and movements now which allowed no time for political and being pushed down by the Fraser military mobilisation of other forces. government could occur. The fact that such frank self-criticism is made gives credibility (of course, not proof) to The “ Dictatorship of another conclusion advanced by Corvalan. the Proletariat” He affirms that the slogan of the Popular Unity “No to Civil War” was correct. It had Discussion of “the democratic road to the objective of uniting as many forces as socialism” leads naturally to consideration possible and also expressed the conviction - of “the dictatorship of the proletariat” . which the CPC leadership still holds - that the correlation of political forces would have This phrase is so overlaid with past been changed for the worse by any other controversies, emotions, obscurities, slogan, because the masses were not different interpretations and popular prepared to follow another road. The antipathy, that little will come from consciousness of a party can influence that denouncing it as outmoded or passionately of the masses, but it cannot necessarily asserting that one must stick to it or forever determine it. be condemned as an opportunist. Balibar, 24 AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW No. 63

in his book, does not avoid the latter These differences arise from many causes, approach, but he does the positive service of and may become the subject of intense pointing out that the issue iB concerned with struggles, affecting the stability or even the the whole transition period from very existence of the new society. capitalism to communism. As differences arise, the question is “ who Rather than be taken up with phrases and will dictate to whom?” slogans, therefore, it is better to pose this question: what are the essential Socialist history shows that some will characteristics of such a transition period? claim that theirs is the “ proletarian line” and that the others are “ capitalist roaders", even I would say there are three: if they are socially proletarians. Such accusations usually include the claim that 1. There must be a fundamental change in the economy away from domination by non-proletarians or former exploiters support those denounced. But it is not the corporations; and in the state, in unknown for the positions to be reversed a bit which capitalist rule is embodied politically. later. So who should “ dictate” to whom? Will those who, at the time, actually 2. There must be a new state to help effect constitute or control the state power decide and preserve the economic and political changes which this entails. who possesses the truth, decide which line is right (presumably their own) and use their 3. This state must be in principle different hold on state power to ‘ ‘dictate” to the others? from any previous one. Different in that it will not be, or aim to preserve, a Of course, the more self-management separate, distinct group of people whose exists, the more the state will have “ withered special function is to manage and rule. away” , leaving it to democratic processes to decide. Therefore, the further the processes It will be of this new type because, and to described as essential to the democratic road the extent that, everyone performs some part to socialism have proceeded, the more the of the work o f “ruling” , which means to the problem will be mitigated. But it is idealistic extent that self-management develops. The to imagine that it will be finally “solved”. new state will thus progressively do away And in any case, even with developed self­ with itself, or “wither away” . management, there will be differences, and probably quite strong ones at that, between The connection between this and the different enterprises and sectors on various democratic road to socialism will be evident. social questions. It is an essential preparation for the future society and in that sense represents a Therefore, socialists’ commitment to necessary preparation of the new within the democratic processes is, and will continue to shell of the old. Not in the sense that the new be, a real issue. will be born without some sort of upheaval, The CPA’s commitment is to a plurality of but that an upheaval of the kind required will parties (that is, of their right to exist), that not take place without that preparation. the state should not have an official ideology So far, so good, some might say. But that is or a monopoly over the media, and the dictatorship of the proletariat. But this is recognition of the right of people to vote out a much too pat, I believe, and leaves too many government as well as to vote one in unanswered questions. It ignores lessons (whatever the system of electing from historical experience which marxists representatives). To state this does not, of must pay heed to, rather than proceeding course, provide for all contingencies, but it from categories and concepts as though they expresses our firm commitment. We have to were eternal truths. m ean it, and people - including and especially “the “proletariat” - have to be After the initial wave which brings a new convinced that we do. society and state into being, one of the chief problems is that differences arise within the That is why I think “socialist democracy” working class (however defined) and which links up with the democratic road to between the working class and other sections socialism is a more accurate, not to say o f the people. intelligible, way of stating our position. ECONOMIC NOTES

It’s three years since the current recession had international causes. But the excuse hit Australia. No post-war economic sounded lame, even to the Party’s own downturn has been so severe or lasted so supporters. long. If anything, last December’s election result shows that many voters still blame Labor for Perhaps for this reason, but also because the recession. The Fraser government, for its no-one likes to be too pessimistic, economic part, is banking on the same psychology debate in Australia at the moment mainly working in reverse when the recovery comes. consists of pious wishes rather than So long as the government hangs on and hardheaded analysis. Politicians, sounds confident they’ll get the credit for the businessmen and economists are hard at eventual recovery and govern till the end of work trying to talk the economy into a the century with the continuing support of a recovery but so far with little success. One thankful electorate. reason, of course, is that Australia is plugged into the still depressed world economy. At least that’s the strategy. It could come unstuck, of course, if there is no recovery Economic debate in Australia has internationally. This is why any survey of traditionally ignored this simple fact. It has Australia’s economic prospects and the been thought that keeping the economy political future we can expect must start with humming is the main job of the government the international economy. of the day; conversely, if anything goes An Inside Story drastically wrong, it must be the government’s fault. The latest and most authoritative survey The Labor Opposition ran just such a line of the world capitalist economy from within, every time the economy faltered between as it were, can be found in the Organisation 1949 and 1972. In fact, they were so for Economic Co-operation and successful in convincing people of this that Development’s Economic Outlook 22, when they eventually won office and had to published in December last year. handle Australia’s most serious economic “The pick-up in activity in late 1976 and downturn since the 1930s the voters knew early 1977 was short-lived”, the OECD exactly who to blame. points out in a survey of developments since While it was in office, Labor pleaded that the recession. “Total OECD growth both aspects of the recession - first soaring weakened markedly in the second quarter of prices and then growing unemployment - 1977 and has since remained sluggish. 26 AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW No. 63

Industrial production has broadly stagnated source of risk is the possibility that the since April. In the United States there has pattern of international payments which been some slowing down, and in Japan seems implicit in the demand and output industrial output is flat.” prospects would not, in fact, prove supportable.” The immediate consequence: worsening unemployment. “Total unemployment in the This is a very careful way of saying that area”, the Organisation reports, “is now the world monetary system faces a new crisis about 16.3 million, some half a million higher that is at least as serious as the one that set than the trough of the 1975 recession. off the last bout of inflation. “ In Europe, unlike the united States, Again, the culprit is the American dollar. unemployment has in fact been rising Since much of the world’s trade is done in constantly, from 4.7 million at the beginning US dollars and since many countries hold of 1975 to over 7 million today. In many their foreign reserves in American currency, countries the weakness of the labor market everyone has a stake in the health of the has led to an actual fall in employment and a dollar. And right now, it is looking pretty rise in the under-utilisation of employees.” sick. This year will make things worse, the The irony is that the United States was the OECD predicts, with unemployment at the only capitalist country to significantly end of 1978 reaching 17 million. expand production last year, but it was just The good news is that the inflationary such an expansion that set off the dollar surge that hit the capitalist world in the early crisis. 1970s is now receding, though inflation is When the US economy picked up and still running at twice to three times its pre­ unemployment fell slightly from 7.8 per cent recession rate. to 7.0 per cent, Americans began buying Consumer prices in the OECD area rose at again. Imports soared, swollen by a $45 an annual rate of 6 per cent in the four billion oil bill. However, other countries, with months to October - markedly better, as the thousands of their own workers still Organisation points out, than the 11 percent unemployed, refused to buy American registered earlier in 1977. exports. Unfortunately, food prices — partly for The US last year spent $30 billion more on seasonal reasons — have been the most imports than it earnt by exporting. The $30 important factor contributing to the better billion, of course, ended up overseas, swelling performance of most countries which means the already massive pool of US dollars held further cuts in inflation are not assured. by foreigners to an awesome $300 billion. Naturally, the dollar’s value began to slide, The problem, the OECD believes, goes falling,for example, 12 per cent against the back to weakening output. Inflation through Deutschmark over the year. 1978 should average 7 per cent, compared with 8 per cent over the whole of 1977 and 8 per cent also in 1976. An improvement, ‘A fully-fledged depression’ perhaps, but hardly a dramatic one. Non-Americans holding dollars began to These present forecasts, the OECD warns, get nervous. “The fall ofthe dollar”, warned “assume no marked deterioration in editor Theo Sommer of the leading West business or consumer confidence, and this German daily Die Zeit, “if unchecked, might be optimistic for most countries in would plunge Europe into a fully-fledged view of the current weakness in both depression. The political dislocations in domestic demand and foreign trade”. countries like France would be grave. ‘A particular source of risk’ “Such a failure would quickly turn a monetary crisis into a crisis of confidence that will shake the foundations of the “Demand trends are weak almost Western system.” everywhere, In the absence of new policy action, therefore, there could be an important While this may sound exaggerated it downside risk in the forecast. A particular certainly highlights a real problem other ECONOMIC NOTES 27

■ countries haven’t learnt to deal with. After seems that even the most powerful economy all, the last time the world was flooded with in the world cannot begin to recover without US dollars was during the Viet Nam war. setting off new inflationary pressures that America wanted to finance its unpopular must, by the nature of things, flow through to military adventures without raising taxes. other, dependent economies. Instead, it printed dollars and pumped them into the world monetary system, setting off Another source of instability an unprecedented inflation. All currencies were affected, including Australia’s. While US domestic developments are one Everyone paid for America’s war. source of instability for the international monetary system, another, perhaps more Now a similar thing is happening. As US intractable, problem involves the under­ dollars flood the world and drop in value, it developed countries. becomes easier for the US to sell its exports According to the OECD those developing overseas - and harder for other countries to countries which import oil saw their overseas sell in the US. Thus, the US is actually better debt rise from $90 billion at the end of 1973 to off, which is why President Carter has held $170 billion at the end of 1976. At the same off so long before intervening to support the time, the interest they had to pay on these dollar. loans went from $13 billion each year to over It was only very strong international $25 billion. US Senator Javits predicts these pressure that forced Washington to start debts will reach $380 billion in five years and buying up dollars with its own foreign $540 billion in ten years. currency reserves and so stem the slide in the “This will break the back of any system, dollar’s value. including this system” , Senator Javits said, referring to the institutions that regulate At the same time, the US Federal Reserve Board raised the interest rate it charges international finance. member banks by half a per cent to While the under-developed countries are encourage all US rates upwards and so more and more heavily in debt to other attract more capital from abroad. countries and to international agencies, the really dramatic growth has been in their These moves were lauded in Western debts to international banks. Europe but clearly will check American domestic economic growth. For example, the As the OECD puts it: “ The international “prime” bank rate on business loans is now 8 banking community has so far shown a per cent compared with 6 Vi per cent at the remarkable willingness and ability to act as beginning of last year, and Wall Street financial intermediary between the predicts it will go to 9% or even 9 per cent by surpluses of the petroleum exporting the end of 1978, according to Time, January countries and the borrowing needs of the 30. developing (and some developed) countries.” “The rise makes it more expensive for These oil surpluses — currently running at consumers and businesses to buy or build about $40 billion a year — are the amounts with borrowed cash”, Time explains. “It the oil producing countries receive for their could put an end to the housing boom by oil over and above what they are able to causing savers to pull their money out of spend on imports. Due to their small savings banks — the prime source of populations and backward social systems, mortgage loans — and instead buy Treasury these countries only import a limited bills or bonds to get the higher interest rates quantity of goods. The rest of the money they that they offer.” make out of oil is merely deposited in US and US domestic inflation is now picking up European private banks. again, averaging 7.25 per cent over the last This money is then re-lent. Because of the four months of last year. While this may world recession, the banks’ main customers, sound good by Australian standards, it, in the big corporations, have not needed funds fact, represents a serious reverse: inflation in for expansion. The banks, therefore, have the US is now higher than it was two years been falling over themselves to lend their ago and is predicted to go higher still. It surpluses to other borrowers and in 28 AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW No. 63 particular to non-oil producing under­ “ This doomsday scenario may be extreme developed countries who desperately need in its pessimism, but it is being taken funds to pay for imports — especially oil, for seriously enough by responsible officials which they, too, have to pay higher prices. that a concerted international effort is now under way to prevent that first domino from Thus, while commercial and industrial falling.” loans of the eight largest New York banks increased only 1,8 per cent to $33.8 billion Part of this “international effort” consists during the year to June 1977, foreign lending of forcing under-developed countries jumped 26.1 per cent to $71.2 billion in the borrowing from private banks to fulfill the same period. sorts of stringent conditions the International Monetary Fund lays down In 1960, private “hard” loans - in other before it will give official loans. words, loans at market rates of interest to private banks - made up only 16.7 per cent of The IMF has been able to force recipient the debt of developing countries. Now the countries to cut back social services, hold proportion is 36.2 per cent. Interest payable down living standards and impose other to private banks has gone up even faster, austerity measures as conditions for official now constituting 42,8 per cent of these loans. As the OECD points out, one reason countries’ massive debt service charges. under-developed countries prefer private For many of them, interest payments take loans even before they have exhausted their over a quarter of all export earnings and for credit facilities with the IMF is that the some much more: Brazil, for example, will banks up till now haven’t imposed such have to spend 44 per cent of all its export conditions. earnings this year, just to pay interest on its debts. But this has to change, the OECD argues: The private multinational banks, of “Debt relief should be accompanied by an course, are in it for the money. While the effective stabilisation program on the part of proportion of their total funds that they lend the debtor country, preferably in the context to under-developed countries varies between of an IMF standby undertaking.” In other Chase Manhattan’s 12 per cent and words, the IMF will bail out the private banks if the banks in turn impose the same Citicorp’s 22 per cent, the proportion of their profits which they derive from this source is austerity measures as conditions for future much greater. Foreign earnings of the loans. thirteen US commercial banks have The banks, however, are caught in a trap. increased from 34 per cent of total earnings If they reverse their liberal, profit-hungry in 1973 to nearly 50 per cent in 1975. Later criteria for future loans they might trigger off figures are no doubt higher. a series of defaults. Once this has happened But how long can it go on? where will it end? Better, perhaps, to keep lending. ' A study by American Express says that This instability in the international one out o f every two dollars borrowed by the monetary system has persisted through the under-developed countries in 1980 will have recession and could well upset any recovery to be spent just paying interest on old loans. in world production or trade. The US A US Senate study on “ International Debt, experience suggests any upturn will be at the the Banks and US Foreign Policy” predicts cost of future inflation. If this inflation is that these countries “ will find it more in their immediately transmitted through the interest to simply default or repudiate their system, future prospects for places like external debts rather than to have to Australia are not nearly as bright as our own continue borrowing just to repay old loans”. recent inflation history suggests. “ And if this happens” , the study goes on, We may, in fact, be taken for another “a domino effect could take place in which inflation ride before we recover from the other debtor countries follow suit, the banks present one. panic and start calling in their international loans, the stock market falls precipitously and the international capital market collapses. T. O’S., 8.2.78. economy in the foreseeable future? It is to that task that this article is addressed. Let me begin by refreshing readers’ memories of some of the major events of the past year and a half. 1976, that ‘most extraordinary year in the history of our CHINA Party’ (Hua Kuo-feng) began disastrously with the death in January of Premier Chou En-lai; it was on his experienced shoulders that many people both inside and outside China thought rested the chances of a peaceful transition to the ‘post-Mao epoch’. Hua Kuo-feng, a relative newcomer to the senior ranks of the Chinese Communist AFTER Party (CCP), who had only gained his place in the Politburo in 1973, was appointed Acting Premier, apparently on Mao’s recommendation. In April came the violent riots in Tien An Men Square in Peking, closely followed by the dismissal of Teng MAO Hsiao-ping from all his official positions including Vice-Chairman of the Central Committee of the CCP, Vice-Premier, and Chief of the General Staff of the People’s Liberation Army. Teng, the man who had said that it didn’t matter whether a cat was black or white as long as it could catch mice, was again attacked as he had been during the Cultural Revolution for allegedly trying to ‘restore capitalism’ in China. The immediate beneficiary of Teng’s dismissal was Hua Kuo-feng, who was appointed Premier and first Vice-Chairman of the CCP (a newly-created position). A short period of relative calm was ended in early July by the death of veteran leader Chu Teh, and shattered at the end of the month by the terrible earthquake in Tangshan. On PETER September 9 Mao died. Few outside observers had not predicted that a power struggle of some kind would occur after his death. It was clear that the dismissal of Teng was but the tip of the NOLAN iceberg, and that a widespread struggle had been taking place throughout the country during the period leading up to Mao’s death. However, virtually no one was prepared for the swiftness or the drama with which the The months preceding and following the issue was ‘resolved’ by the arrest on October death of Mao Tse-tung in September of last of the ‘radical’ group in the Politburo: year witnessed a series of political events Chiang Ching, Chang Chun-chiao, Yao Wen- that, even by China’s standards, were quite yuan and Wang Hung-wen, collectively exceptional. Is it possible at this relatively dubbed the ‘Gang of Four’. early stage to come to some preliminary The purge of the ‘radical’ elements at the understanding of their significance in top of the Party made it immediately obvious respect to the course of China’s political that China’s political economy had sharply 30 AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW No. 63 changed course, and a succession of speeches ‘serious problem of impurity in ideology, and articles published since then have organisation and style of work among Party simply confirmed that impression: instead of members as a result of the rather extensive policy being the outcome of a ‘struggle confusion created by the “Gang of Four” who between two lines’ held together in a in recent years vitiated the Party’s dynamic tension by Chairman Mao, his organisational principle and set their own death has permitted one ‘line’ to overwhelm standards for Party membership .... There the other. The formal conclusion of this are definitely quite a few such Party process has occurred in recent months. The members’. (2) 3rd plenary session of the 10th Central How does the top leadership propose to Committee met in July of this year and deal with this situation? In the short run the officially confirmed the appointment of Hua immediate task has been to reconstitute Kuo-feng as Chairman of the Central leading bodies of the Party at all levels and Committee of the CCP and Chairman of the remove the Gang’s supporters. Under these Military Commission of the Central new leading bodies the Party will naturally Committee of the CCP. It also announced the have altered its policy over the kind of people full restoration of Teng Hsiao-ping to all his it recruits. In addition, there has been posts. Further, it decided to take the drastic instituted a much stricter system of control step o f expelling the Gang of Four from the over new recruits, all of them now being CCP ‘once and for all’. A national Party obliged to go through a one-year minimum Congress was rapidly organised and met on probationary period. (3) An extensive August 12-18: it was the 11th Congress in the ‘rectification’ is under way inside the party Party’s history but only the 4th since ‘to expose and criticise the Gang’. Those who liberation. The congress ‘fully approved’ the can be educated and won over will be treated measures taken to smash the Gang, and leniently with the objective of ‘isolating to ‘unanimously adopted’ a resolution to the maximum the “Gang of Four” and the support the new Party line as summarised in handful of their sworn supporters’: on these Hua’s political report to the congress. It the Party will ‘concentrate its blows’. A elected a new Central Committee and powerful attempt is being made to tighten up Politburo, and it concluded with the inner-Party control in the wake of the optimistic hope that it would usher in a struggles of the recent past, the most obvious period of ‘stability and unity and great order manifestation of which is the new across the land’, ‘commissions for inspecting discipline’. The evidence so far available indicates that the POLITICS leadership has been successful in preventing an open split within the Party despite the Is it likely that such a period of stability hard struggles that have gone on over the and unity will occur? A central question here past year. This seems to suggest that the concerns the strength of support for the ‘hard core’ supporters of the gang do Gang inside the CCP and the strategy they constitute a minority, albeit a most are likely to adopt. A factor of major significant one, who can be isolated from the importance in assessing the strength of majority. Furthermore, those who still inner-Party support for the Gang is the rapid support the Gang’s position may be increase in the size of the CCP since the unwilling to push their disagreement to the Cultural Revolution. It has roughly doubled point where they severely disrupt economic its total membership since the early 1960s to and social life for a considerable period. In its present size of 35 million. Nearly one-half addition, the Gang’s supporters no longer of these members have joined since the have control of the mass media, and under Cultural Revolution, and over 7 million since such circumstances it is far harder for them the 10th Party Congress in 1973. (1) to orchestrate any campaign of action, if There is little doubt that a significant they did desire to mount one. proportion of these new members have been selected because of their sympathy with the What of the long-run? Hua has aims of the Gang. Yeh Chien-ying, Party acknowledged the importance of the task of Vice-Chairman and Defence Minister, in his combating the ideological impact of the speech introducing the new Party Gang: ‘not only must we settle accounts with Constitution, admitted that there is a the gang in the sphere of political and CHINA AFTER MAO 31 organisational line, we must also conduct transformation in poor countries has been criticism on the theoretical plane of the role to be played by the communist party. philosophy, political economy, and scientific There does not appear to be a great deal of socialism, so as to eradicate their pernicious difference between the Gang and the current influence from every sphere’. (4) Chinese leaders regarding the necessity for The long-run impact of the Gang is the Party to maintain a strong leadership difficult to assess. Their great strength lay in role at all levels of organised social life. The the commanding positions they occupied in main areas of dispute between the Gang and the mass media which enabled their ideas to their opponents have centred around the have a wide circulation. What is important to kind of people who should be admitted to the know is the degree to which their ideas have Party and the policies that the party should influenced, and in the future may influence, pursue rather than the necessity to have a serious radical forces within China. The strong ‘vanguard’ party. predominant view held by observers in the West at the moment seems to be that the Is there any evidence that the Gang and Gang do indeed deserve the epithets being their opponents were in substantial heaped upon them by Chinese leaders. Are disagreement about the relationship of the they indeed to be dismissed as opportunistic masses to the state apparatus? It is worth ‘anarchists’ whose ‘metaphysical idealism’ recalling here that for a short period of time is currently being exposed in its true light to during the Cultural Revolution, radical the Chinese people, or do their views forms of popular participation in state represent a deeper and more thorough-going administration, which did involve a real critique of the transitional period in post­ diminution of Party control, and which used revolutionary poor countries? the paris Commune as their model, were widely discussed, and were briefly A great deal of literature, mostly in implemented in some parts of China in 1967. Chinese, has been produced by the Gang and (5) However, instead o f rule by direct it is most important that a serious analysis of representatives of the mass of workers, their work is undertaken. Before that is done compromise institutions - ‘revolutionary any judgments must necessarily be committees’ - were quickly introduced. On tentative. However, some points can be these, popular representatives shared power made. Firstly, we should not take the with Party and Army members, and were undoubted personal unpleasantness, soon condemned as ‘bourgeois reformism’ by ambition and hypocrisy of Chiang Ching, the ultra-Left in China. (6) Since then the Mao’s wife, as characteristic of the whole ‘revolutionary committees’ at levels above movement. The briefest comparison of the the production unit have been removed even writings of Chiang Ching with those of further from the Paris Commune ideal of Chang Chua-chiao, for example, indicates directly elected representatives subject to the much greater sophistication of the latter. mass supervision and recall. (7) The issue of Moreover, we should remember that the popular participation in state Gang’s supporters really were very administration has certainly not been numerous, and again, the briefest absent from the writings of the Gang and acquaintance with their main theoretical their supporters, but in translated sources it journal Study and Criticism indicates that has not appeared as a prominent theme. If among their number were many substantial divergences of view between the sophisticated and intelligent writers who Gang and their opponents on these were making a serious analysis of the issues have existed they have not been easily emerging problems of China’s political observable from outside China. economy: beneath the frothy surface of political debate lies some hard thinking, and What of the policies likely to be pursued in perhaps the long-run impact of the Gang other areas? Their general character is may be greater than some imagine. clearly indicated in Hua’s report to the 11th Party Congress in which he announced that PARTY, STATE AND SOCIETY the smashing of the Gang marked ‘the triumphant conclusion of our first great A central question of concern in critical Proletarian Cultural Revolution’. Instead of thinking about post-revolutionary disruptive activities of the Cultural 32 AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW No. 63

Revolution type, Hua emphasised that the not only transform the forms of ownership period ahead will be one of stability and but also transform all unequal relations as order in which the main stress will be placed regards people’s position and mutual on transforming China into ‘a great, relations in the course of production as well powerful and modem socialist country in the as all unequal relations with respect to last quarter of the 20th century’. In 1966 at distribution .... in addition there are the the beginning o f the Cultural Revolution, relations in the political, ideological and Mao said: ‘Great disorder across the land cultural fields’. (9) They have been ridiculed leads to great order. And so once again every by the conservatives for holding this view: seven or eight years’. Today's Chinese they (the Gang) ‘even alleged that socialist leaders approvingly quote the first sentence revolution and class struggle were the and conveniently omit the second. ultimate goal of communists .... ’ but ‘to communists, socialist revolution and class What does all this mean in more concrete struggle are means and not objectives’. (10) terms?. Probably the central issue in poor Current articles from China in fact come post-revolutionary states is the relationship close to suggesting that the objective of between economic growth and class socialism is economic growth: ‘the triumph inequality. The over-riding concern of Mao’s of socialism over capitalism .... means in the thought, particularly since the First Five last analysis, abolishing the capitalist Year Plan period, (8) has been with the system of exploitation and all other method by which these objectives could be exploiting systems so as to create labor pursued simultaneously without one being productivity much higher than that under unduly sacrificed in the long term to the capitalism and turn out far more social other - neither pure ‘economism’ nor pure products than those under capitalism to class struggle. To people familiar with satisfy the needs of society’. (11) Russian debates in the 1920s, Mao’s ideas are not so original as some have claimed, but Mao, of course, has attempted to pursue his CLASS INEQUALITY objectives from a position of real power and with a mass of supporters. To either side of We can conjecture then that China in the Mao in the Party there were groups whose coming years will be characterised by the estimates of the relative importance of these emergence of greater social inequality than goals differed from his. It is quite clear that it has been permitted since the Cultural is the conservative group that has Revolution. This is not, of course, at all triumphed, that is to say, the group which incompatible with the reduction of controls attaches more weight to modernisation than over ‘freedom’ in culture, education, and to class struggle, more weight to developing scientific research. Rather than investigate the productive forces than to attacking the changes that have occurred and are inequality in production relations and in the likely to occur in every sphere of class superstructure. This can be seen from Hua relations, I shall simply select two of the Kuo-feng’s report to the 11th Party Congress most important areas and analyse some of which attacks the Gang for ‘dishing up an the alterations that have occurred there: absurd theory about “the new changes in firstly, urban enterprises, and secondly, the class relations in the socialist period” ’. He countryside. says that ‘it is necessary to carry on the revolution in the realm of the relations of One can encapsulate the difference production and to consolidate and develop between the thinking of the two groups - the socialist public ownership and other aspects Gang and the present Chinese leaders - of the socialist relations of production, so regarding these issues in respect to their that they will correspond better with the approach to the important question of expanding productive forces’. (My italics). ‘bourgeois rights’. Following Marx’s famous Hua claims that ‘the productive forces are discussion in his Critique of the Gotha the most revolutionary factor’. Programme, all parties in the Chinese leadership have accepted that, given the The contrast with the Gang and their general state of social consciousness and the supporters is clear. For them ‘The historical conditions of material scarcity, it is task of the dictatorship of the proletariat is necessary in the transitional period between the “abolition of all classes” ‘it must capitalism and full communism to permit the CHINA AFTER MAO 33 operation o f‘bourgeois right’ - notably ‘equal downplayed is clear: ‘We must thoroughly pay for equal work’, but also such rights as criticise the “gang of four’s” .... attempt to equality of educational opportunity. cover up and replace the principal Following Marx, the Gang and their contradiction - between the proletariat and supporters have stressed that society, even in the bourgeoisie and between socialism and the transitional phase, is structured in such a capitalism - with the so-called contradiction way as to permit different strata to benefit between higher and lower ranks, between the unequally from this ‘equal’ right: in Marx’s new and veteran cadres and between one famous example the right to equal pay for section of the people and another’. (14) equal work turns into a right of inequality, Concrete struggles over stratification are because people have an unequal capacity to being replaced by metaphysical ones. The work - some are stronger and more skilled status and authority of managerial and than others • and because people have technical staff are being restored in a firm unequal needs for income - especially due to manner after eleven years during which, in differences in family sizes. The difference varying degrees, that status and authority between the Gang and their opponents lies in has been questioned. the strong attempts that the Gang wanted to Are there likely to be any major changes in make to restrict the effects on inequality of modes of remuneration and in degrees of the operation of bourgeois right, (12) as income inequality within urban enterprises? opposed to their opponents, the current The Gang and their supporters have never leaders, who regarded the operation of such denied the need for pay incentives at the rights as essential to economic progress, and present stage of China’s development, but attempts to restrict their impact as they have consistently pushed for a ‘idealistic’ and ‘metaphysical’. reduction of the degree of inequality below I shall now look in more detail at the that which was permitted during the First changes in policy since Mao in respect to Five Year Plan (1953-57) and which re­ urban enterprises. emerged in the early 1960s, as well as arguing for the removal of the most As far as control within enterprises is incentive-oriented forms of remuneration concerned, the emphasis in Chinese such as individual bonuses and piece rates. publications since last October has been on Their views have had a substantial impact. the need to maintain ‘strict labor discipline’ Carl Riskin in his report to the US Congress and to enforce tightly ‘rational rules and Joint Economic Committee summarised the regulations’. Instead of emphasising situation in the 1970s in the following way: collective responsibility, it is likely that there ’In sum it would seem that the scope o f the will be a return to a system of personal operation of material incentive devices as responsibility for production tasks, and that differential bonuses, piece rate mechanisms, ultimate responsibility within each and material awards to emulation enterprise will rest with a single individual. campaigners, have been ruled out since the This seems to be the thrust of Vice-Premier Cultural Revolution. Significant wage and Yu Chiu-li’s recent statement: ‘Enterprises salary differences continue to exist. But they should strengthen centralised Party are gradually being narrowed, and their leadership and institute the system of incentive effect on worker performance division of labor and responsibility under the seems quite constrained even at present’. (15) leadership of the Party committee. Responsibility for the daily work in The signs all indicate that the trends from production, construction, and management now on will be back towards greater in an enterprise rests with the chairman of inequalities, though specific details have not the revolutionary committee. We should yet been spelled out. Hua Kuo-feng in his oppose the phenomenon of no one accepting report to the 11th Party Congress accused the the responsibility and struggle against Gang of ‘absurdly taking higher rank and anarchism’. (13) This appears to signal the higher wages as the economic criteria .... for return to a system of stricter work norms defining a “capitalist-roader” and of decided from above and less participation by ‘deliberately confounding the differences in workers in decisions affecting the distribution between the leading cadres of organisation of the work process. That classs the party, the government and the army on struggle within enterprises will be the one hand, and the broad masses on the 34 AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW No. 63 other, with class exploitation’. If into a land o f utopian rural communes, or as ‘differences in distribution’ are considered to a ‘degenerate Stalinist’ concerned only to have nothing to do with class, by the present extract as much surplus value as possible leaders of China, then it is unlikely that the from the peasantry. widening of those differences would cause In a realistic assessment of the nature of them difficulties on ideological grounds. peasant consciousness and of the importance of agricultural production in the I shall now turn to the question of likely Chinese economy, the CCPhas had to permit trends in the countryside. the peasants to retain private plots of land, A major concern of the Gang and their and private ownership of most of China’s supporters was with the problem posed by pigs and much of its poultry; in the relations the peasantry in the transitional period. One between town and countryside, commodity cannot sufficiently emphasise how exchange still exists, albeit under state important an issue this is in China - a control, and in the countryside rural free country that is certain to be numerically markets are still quite widespread, though dominated by the peasantry for a long time their share of total retail sales is small. In the to come. It is worth noting in passing just countryside, as in the towns, it is accepted how inadequate has been the perspective of that the major criterion of income the ultra-leftist groups in the West on this distribution is 'work' (depending on issue, content to pillory Mao for his concern strength, skill and time worked), not ‘need’. with the peasant question and quite Moreover, instead of state ownership confusingly dismissing him as either a combined with a wage system, most 'peasant populist’ concerned to turn China agricultural means of production are owned, CHINA AFTER MAO 35

and most agricultural income generated and Kuo-feng’s important speech on agriculture distributed, at the level o f the production in October 1975. (16) The main emphasis in team, which is the smallest subdivision his speech was on ways in which to speed up within the people’s commune, comprising an the mechanisation of Chinese agriculture ‘so average of only 30-40 households. Left as to ensure that the great task of unhindered, and especially with increasing mechanising agriculture will be supplies of modem agricultural inputs accomplished in the main by 1980’. The becoming available, the potentialities for Gang apparently ‘slandered the report as a material differentiation to develop within “revision of Marxism-Leninism” and as this system are great, while the effects on “advocating the theory of productive forces ”J peasant consciousness would also be (i.e. placing the pursuit of economic growth regressive, in the sense of focusing attention above class struggle). The objections of the on production within the household and the Gang do appear valid. Not only is its main small collective unit, and how to gain the emphasis on modernisation rather than on maximum economic advantages for those problems of inequality, but his discussion of units. production relations assumes that agriculture will move along in a socialist The problems these posed for the direction as a natural consequence of transition from capitalism to communism modernisation. Mechanisation of were ones that greatly exercised the Gang agriculture, says Hua, will lead to an and their supporters, as they did Mao expansion of income generation at levels himself. As in the urban sector, the Gang above the production team, thereby were concerned with ways of trying to permitting ‘a step-by-step transition to the restrict the emergence of inequalities system of ownership that takes the resulting from the operation of ‘bourgeois production brigade or even the commune as right’, though they had to acknowledge that the basic accounting unit’. The Gang argued such ‘rights’ were essential to economic that Hua was over-optimistic about the likely growth at the present stage. Combatting speed of expansion of mechanisation in these tendencies requires action on two agriculture, and that if the Party simply sits fronts: firstly, education in ‘socialist values’ around and waits for production relations to such as trying to gradually reduce the area be revolutionised by mechanisation, it will sown to private plots, to divert private leave the way open for the emergence of production from sale on the free market to greater differentiation and permit the sale to the state, to persuade collectives to congealing of ‘petty production raise the proportion of income distributed consciousness’. Thus, Chang Chun-chiao according to ‘need’ relative to ‘work’, and so had earlier in 1975 pointed out that even in on; secondly, action on the material front, by, the most advanced communes on the for example, trying to divert a portion of outskirts of Shanghai, the production teams supplies of modem inputs to poor areas and still owned over one-half of the total fixed by arranging for the transfer of skilled state assets in the communes. ‘Therefore, even if technicians to those areas. All of this, of we take economic conditions in the course, really does require leadership from a communes alone, it will require a fairly long strong communist party. The present group time to effect the transition from the team as in power in China has tried to cloud the issue the basic accounting unit to the brigade and by accusing the Gang in many cases of then to the commune, Moreover, even when supporting policies the exact opposite of the commune becomes the basic accounting those they in fact did advocate. However, unit, the ownership will still be collective’. through that fog of verbiage it is possible to (17) perceive that the present group in power are The argument is in outward appearance an indeed less concerned than the Gang about exceedingly complex one, though beneath restricting the emergence of inequality in the countryside and more concerned with the surface some clear differences of principle can be observed. As for the future, it material advances. seems most unlikely that the present leaders A good example of the contrasting will permit agriculture to regress to the approaches of the Gang and the current degree tfiat was tolerated in the early 1960s, leaders is the argument that raged at the top when the collective economy disintegrated in level of the Party throughout 1976 over Hua many places and differentiation proceeded 36 AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW No. 63

apace. Rather, it seems likely thaT they will means as lacking in a pragmatic concern for persist in modernising through the present economic growth as is currently being structure, but show less concern than the suggested. Further, ‘growth’ and ‘equality’ Gang about reducing the resulting are by no means as irreconcilable as is inequalities and attempting to educate the sometimes argues. peasant consciousness out of the patterns produced by these structures. The argument Since the height of the Cultural Revolution that modernisation will inevitably produce in 1966-68, when the extremes of radicalism socialist consciousness is patently false, and did produce an adverse short-run impact on the Gang’s arguments about the need to China’s economic growth, China’s growth combat emerging differentiation are record has in fact been most successful. In currently being given little concrete agriculture, faced with enormous difficulties, attention. such as a static arable area and yields that were already high, output has been growing at just under 2 per cent per annum. (19) ECONOMIC GROWTH Industrial production since 1970 has been growing at just over 8 per cent per annum. ‘We must race against time, quicken our (20) Most importantly, these figures have to pace, greatly speed up the tempo of our be set against a rate of population growth industrial development, boost the national that is probably already below 2 per cent and economy and build our socialist state of the that has begun to fall significantly in the proletarian dictatorship into a more 1970s, (21) due to China’s successful powerful country ....; we will surely realise production and popularisation of the grand goal put forward by Chairman contraceptives, and to a successfulcampaign Mao of surpassing the United States to persuade young people to delay the age at economically in several decades’. (18) which they marry. China may well succeed The Chinese media has been full of clarion in pushing up the per capita growth rate of calls of this kind in recent months, leaving national product, and over the long-run the the masses in no doubts as to the main absence of ‘Cultural Revolutions’ should priorities of the leadership. Is it likely that enable a steadier rate to be maintained, but it China will advance as they hope, and will seems unlikely that China’s good there be any fundamental alterations of performance since the Cultural Revolution in economic policy in order to facilitate this? terms of aggregate growth rates will be dramatically improved upon. Many observers in the West feel that the purge of the Gang, due to the resulting I shall now turn to look at some of the changes in international economic policy, major areas of interest as far as growth is and because of the reduced emphasis concerned. domestically on class struggle, will result in a significant increase in China’s growth At the centre of the growth process stands rate. In the short-run this will certainly be investment ■ the necessary (though not true. 1976 was the worst year that the sufficient) condition par excellence. There Chinese economy has experienced since the seems to be little likelihood that the new Cultural Revolution, and this was in no leadership will be able to raise the rate of small measure due to widespread factional investment, since it already stands at a high fighting and to resulting uncertainties. The level. (22) In fact, it seems more likely that victory of the conservative group at the top the opposite will occur, since there are strong will much reduce such disturbances and hints that there will be a significant rise in accordingly improve the economic real living standards. This would be performance. More important, however, are especially important as far as the urban the medium and long-term prospects. It is workers are concerned, since their real wages important to note here that the Gang was far have increased very little since the late from being in overall control of policy 1950s. Moreover, it is easier to increase living formulation: they have been balanced by standards in the towns than the countryside more conservative figures, most notably due to the much smaller number of workers Chou En-lai and recently Teng Hsiao-ping, involved. To do this, however, would reverse since they rose to power during the Cultural the trend of the past decade or so, of Revolution. Moreover, their policies are by no narrowing urban-rural real income CHINA AFTER MAO 37 differentials. Certain important consequently plays a central role in contradictions for the new regime are thus economic growth. Two of the vital areas here emerging. Already there are clear signs that are those of indigenous scientific and its appeal is principally an ‘economistic’ one technical advance, and the role of foreign of being able to provide higher living trade. standards, which is most important in a Some areas of Chinese research, such as country as poor as China still is. If the nuclear weaponry, have gone through the increase in real income is a significant one period since the Cultural Revolution applying to all sectors, then a big dent will be untouched. However, the attempts of the made in funds available for investment, and Gang to restrict the impact of the operation it would require a large compensating of ‘bourgeois right’ in the education and increase in output resulting from the positive research fields seem to have had a effect on motivation if the leeway was to be detrimental effect on the rate of scientific made up. On the other hand, increasing advance in a wide range of areas. The Gang urban incomes more than those in the has attempted to integrate scientific and countryside could threaten the regime’s technical personnel into ordinary production stability through incurring peasant work so as to prevent the emergence of an opposition. isolated laboratory - and university-bound In respect to investment allocations, three group. Such integration has had positive major features have been outstanding since pay-offs for production in transferring the Cultural Revolution and it is important to theoretical knowledge into practical use and inquire if these will change. Firstly, there is in guiding research into useful channels, but the continued emphasis of heavy industry it seems to have been difficult to steer a over light industry: producer goods output is middle course without antagonising estimated to have grown at 15 per cent per scientific workers: ‘They (the Gang) alBo annum between 1967 and 1974, relative to 8 equated intellectuals with the bourgeoisie, per cent for industrial consumer goods. (23) saying that “intellectuals with technical Given the above surmises about increases in knowledge are the most dangerous”. This comsumption levels, it is likely that some re­ seriously dampened the enthusiasm of orientation of the respective growth rates of scientists and technicians’. (26) Moreover, the two sectors will follow. A second issue the Gang are said to have reduced the here is that of scale. One of the distinctive resources devoted to scientific research they features of Maoist economics has been that ‘arbitrarily dissolved a number of scientific of ‘walking on two legs’ - enlarging the small research institutes, slashed important and the large-scale industrial sectors scientific research items and barred many simultaneously. However, while the small- scientists from doing research work’. (27) scale sector is extremely important in the The Chinese admit that their‘work in production of certain items (notably science and technology falls far short of the agricultural inputs) it is still dwarfed by the needs of industrial and agricultural large-scale sector in its contribution to total production and national defence’, (28) and industrial output. (24) There is no indication the net effect of the policies adopted in this that the new leaders intend to alter the field since the Cultural Revolution has balance evolved in the 1970s. A third probably been to reduce the rate of technical important area concerning allocation of progress substantially below the maximum investment is that of the stress given within obtainable. There is little doubt that more the heavy industrial Bector to different resources will be devoted to these areas, that branches. Since the early 1960s the Chinese the prestige and probably also the relative have strongly emphasised the growth of income of scientific workers will increase, those branches producing for agriculture: that less of their time will be spent at chemical fertiliser production, for example, physical labor, and that technological rose at 17 per cent per annum between 1967 progress will be assisted by a generally more and 1974. (25) Again, there is no indication efficiency-oriented educational system. that this balance will be altered. Much-of the attention o f the media in the A most important issue is that of technical West over the year preceding Mao’s death progress, which greatly influences the focused on the struggle over international effectiveness of new investment and eocnomic relations, and in particular over 38 AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW No. 63 the degree to which China should permit strengthening of inner-Party control; a herself to become internationally continuance of a relatively small degree of ‘dependent’. ‘Dependence’ can be viewed influence by the mass of the population over from a variety of angles. There seems no the State apparatus above the level of the doubt that the Gang were strongly opposed immediate production unit; a move towards to financial ‘dependence’ in the shape of greater inequality in income and control substantial debt obligations, such as began within productive enterprises; greater to accumulate in the mid-1970s to finance freedom in the production of, and greater China’s extensive program of complete plant inequality in access to, cultural products; imports. It is likely that the new regime will some immediate increase in real living be more prepared to extend China’s standards, probably more in the town than indebtedness to obtain the imports they in the countryside; some increae in, and want. (29) Another aspect o f ‘dependence’ is greater long-run stability of, the rate of per the technological one. It is quite clear that capita economic growth; a more extensive the current leaders are keener to import purchase of foreign technology, and an foreign technology than the Gang were, and increase in international indebtedness. not simply because they are prepared to The character .of China’s social relations pursue a less conservative policy on seems likely to return to something closer to international payments. It does seem as the First Five Year Plan period, though it is though the Gang made an incorrect judgment about this issue, by tending to view unlikely that t here will be a ‘retreat’ of the technological independence as the ability to kind that characterised the early 1960s, when China was in such dire economic make most technological innovations domestically as opposed to viewing it as the straits. Where does that leave us in our estimate of China? I think it is most ability to independently select, adapt, and disseminate new technology in use important to keep a sense of perspective elsewhere. In this context, it is worth bearing about what is happening. in mind that ‘in the 1950s, a period when Despite the fact that China’s political American technological leadership was at its economy will be of a more ‘economistic’ kind, peak, more than half the new knowledge that it will still be radically different in its affected economic growth in the United fundamentals from the developing capitalist States was of foreign origin. If this was the regimes of Asia: there is no sign that case in the leading country, then the economic planning will be any less likelihood for genuine technological self­ comprehensive - the signs are that, if reliance and independence .... in follower anything, the degree of central control will be countries such as China must seem remote tighter. That planning mechanism should indeed’. (30) The Gang did not deny entirely permit China to attain a reasonably rapid the need for foreign technology, but they may rate of growth and to insulate herself more have underestimated its importance, and than the capitalist regimes from fluctuations overestimated the degree to which on world markets. There is no evidence that technological independence is possible. A the Chinese will abandon their commitment paradox of their position is that to the degree to full employment - a commitment that in that their policies adversely affected the pace China has been made a reality by the of China’s scientific advance, they hindered operation of a predominantly state and her ability to develop a basis for collective ownership system in relation to the independently selecting, adapting and means of production, in stark contrast to the disseminating foreign technology, and abysmal failure of capitalism in this producing domestically useful economic direction elsewhere in Asia. There is no sign products based on that technology. that China will cease to guarantee a basic minimum living standard to all its people, as CONCLUSION opposed to the appalling poverty that still exists for the lowest strata in the capitalist At the most general level then, it seems As ian countries. Despite the likely widening likely that the ‘new’ regime in China will of income inequalities, it is probable that the be characterised by the following features: differentials in China will still be smaller continued tight Party control of organised than throughout capitalist Asia. In short, the social life, probably with some Chinese path to industrialisation will CHINA AFTER MAO 39

continue to be superior to the capitalist path have occurred since Liberation simply as the in its fundamental respects. response of a cynical leadership to problems of allegedly lagging economic growth rates. There are, then, strict parameters within (32) To view post-Liberation history in this which most of the leading party members in light is, I think, to force it through the China since Liberation have operated: a mangle of vulgar materialism. It leads to a commitment to tight Party control and serious distortion of the significance of strong inner-Party discipline, conservatism Mao’s thinking, and is misleading in respect, about the need for a ‘professional’ state for example, to the nature of the Sino-Soviet apparatus, commitment to a planned split, and to the nature of the struggle within economy guaranteeing full employment and China between the Gang and their basic minimum living standards to all its opponents. The importance of the Gang, in people, and so on. However, I think that the fact, lies precisely in the clarity with which struggles of the past two years show quite they high-lighted the dangers of the clearly that behind the froth of political ‘economistic’ perspective by which all debate and personality struggle, there have Chinese leaders are alleged by many been important areas of disagreement - Western ultra-leftists to be unavoidably indeed, two opposing ‘lines’ on the political dominated. Even if one were to draw the most economy of development. (31) There is a pessimistic conclusions about the strong school of thought among Western possibilities for building socialism in a poor leftists that is not only reluctant to country, from events of the past year, it acknowledge the positive advantages for would be a quite myopic view that failed to reasonably humane industrialisation of the perceive the disputes in terms of many Chinese approach, but which also is inclined fundamental areas of policy around which to interpret the great swings in policy that this struggle has centred.

NOTES (ii) John Starr, The Paris Commune Through C h in e s e Eyes, C hina Quarterly, No. 49, January-March 1972. 1. Yeh Chien-ying, Report on the R evision o f 6. As early as January 1968 the Sheng-Wu-Iien the Constitution, Peking Review (PR), No. declared: 36, 2.9.77, p. 36. ‘the revolution of dismissing officials is only 2. ibid. bourgeois reformism which, in a zig-zag 3. Constitution of the Communist Party of manner, changes the new bureaucratic China, PR No. 36, 2.9.77, article 4. bourgeois rule prior to the Cultural Revolution 4. Hua Kuo-feng, Political Report to the 1 1th into another type of bourgeois rule by National Congress of the Communist bourgeois bureaucrats and a few Party o f China, PR No. 35, 26.8.77, p. 14. representatives from several attendant mass 5. ‘For a short time, the cities were in a state of organisations. The Revolutionary Committee “armed mass dictatorship”. The power in is a product of bourgeois reformism.’ ibid. pp. 192-3. most of the industries, commerce, 7. See The Constitution of the People’s communications, and urban administration, Republic o f China, Peking, 1975. Here it is was taken away from Chang Po-shen,into the made quite clear that the revolutionary hands of the revolutionary people. Never committees had simply become before had the revolutionary people appeared administrative bodies elected by the local on the stage of history in the role of masters of people’s congress and subject to recall by that world history as they did in August (of 1967)’, congress. Moreover, both the power of recall Whither China? Sheng Wu-lien in The and the election results were subject to Revolution is Dead, Long Live the approval by the organ of state at the next Revolution. Compiled and edited by The higher level, (see article 22). 70’s. Hong Kong, 1976, p. 188. 8. It is particularly interesting to note inthis Other useful sources on these experiences are context the way in which the heritage of Mao’s the following: writings is being dealt with by the current (i) Victor Nee, R evolution and Chinese leaders. The only volume of Mao’s Bureaucracy: Shanghai in the post-revolutionary writings that has so far Cultural Revolution in Victor Nee and been published for mass distribution within James Peck (eds), China’s China"is that from the period 1949 to 1957, a Uninterrupted Revolution, New York, period when China’s main concern was 1973; and understandably with rapid economic 40 AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW No. 63

development. How long the Chyiese people average for less-developed countries. (Source: will have to wait for further volumes is Dwight H Perkins, Grow th and Changing anyone’s guess. Furthermore, the task of Structure of China’s Twentieth Century ‘inoculating’ the Chinese against Mao’s Econom y in Dwight H Perkins (ed.) China’s thought has already begun. A joint editorial Modern Economy in Historical (10.0.77) of People’s Daily, Red Flag, and the Perspective, Stanford 1975, p. 134. People’s Liberation Army Magazine, has 23. Field, op.cit., p. 150. urged caution in using Mao’s works: ‘We must 24. One estimate puts the share of small-scale not mechanically apply quotations from industry in total industrial output of factories Chairman Mao’s works in disregard of the in China as less than 6 per cent in 1972. concrete time, place and circumstances, but we (Source: Thomas G Rawski, Chinese must grasp the essence of his works as a Econom ic Planning, Current Scene, Vol. 14, whole’. (PR, 13.9.77, Nos. 37-38.) No. 4, April 1876, p. 5.) 9. Marx, Engels and Lenin on the 25. Field, op.cit., p. 165. Dictatorship o f the Proletariat (1) and (2) 26. Chung Ko, Scientific Research Speeds Up, PR, Nos. 40-41, 3.10.75 and 10.10.75. PR No. 30, 22.7.77, p. 7. 10. Hsiang Chen, An Attempt to Restore 27. ibid. Capitalism Under the Signboard of 28. Chien Hsueh-sen We must catch up with Opposing Restoration, PR No. 34, 19.8.77. and surpass world’s advanced levels 11. ibid. within this century, PR No. 30.22.7.77, p. 9. 12. For an extensive treatment of this issue see 29. Such indebtedness can of course be viewed as Marx, Engels and Lenin on the an addition to domestic savings, thereby Dictatorship of the Proletariat: helping the regime to sustain high investment Questions and A nsw ers (1) - (12), PR Nos. rates simultaneously with an increase in real 40-51, 1975. consumption levels. 13. Yu Chiu-li, M obilise the W hole Party and 30. Shannon R Brown, Foreign Technology the Nation’s Working Class and Strive to and Economic Growth, Problems of Build Taching-Type enterprises Communism, July-August 1977, Vol. 26, p. 30. throughout the country. PR No. 22, 27.5.77. 31. For an extended and lucid treatment of this 14. People’s Daily (Editorial) 19.4.77: Grasp the theme see Jack Gray, The Tw o Roads: Key Line in Running the Country Well Alternative Strategies of Social Change and Prom ote a N ew Leap Forw ard in the and Economic Growth in China, in National Econom y, translated in PR No. 18, Schram, S R.(ed.) Authority, Participation 29.4.77. . and Cultural Change in China, 15. Carl Riskin, Workers’ Incentives in Cambridge, 1973. Chinese Industry in Joint Economic 32. See most notably the various articles of Nigel Committee US Congress, China: A re­ Harris in the theoretical journal of the British Assessment of the Economy, International Socialist Group - Washington DC, 1975, p. 222. International Socialism. Thus, Harris writes: “ Did the Great Leap illustrate a 16. Hua Kuo-feng Let the Whole P arty separate Maoist line, in contrast to the First Mobilise for a Vast Effort to Develop Five Year Plan, a model .... that had Agriculture and Build Tachai-type periodically surfaced since the 1920s? It is a counties throughout the Country, myth, without serious evidence to support it.. .. (15.10.75) Peking, 1975. Both (Mao and Liu Shao-chi) were dedicated to 17. Chang Chun-chiao On Exercising A ll­ the same end: the most rapid possible Round Dictatorship over the industrialisation of China”, (from W hy don’t Bourgeoisie, Peking, 1975, p. 12. they eat cake? forthcoming article in 18. Li Hsien-nien Opening Speech on the Problem s o f Communism, London). See Conference on Learning from Tachingin also New Left Review , whose approach is Industry, PR No, 18, 29.4.77. more complex, (for example: Fred Halliday 19. Dwight H Perkins, C on strain ts Marxist Analysis and Post­ Influencing China’s Agricultural Revolutionary China, Review article No. Performance in Joint Economic Committee, 100, Nov. 1976-Jan. 1977) but which is so US Congress. 1975, op.cit. p. 352. contemptuous of the significance of the 20. Robert Michael Field, Civilian Industrial Cultural Revolution that it does not even deign Production in the People’s Republic of to mention it in the introduction to their 100th China 194 9 -1 9 7 4 . ibid., p. 150. issue, when listing the events since the 21. Perkins, 1975, op.cit,, p. 352. magazine’s founding that have been of 22. One estimate puts China's rate of Gross importance in “transforming^the environment Domestic Capital Formation (i.e. as a of Marxist intellectual work - apparently the percentage of Gross Domestic Product) in 1970 Cuban revolution and Watergate have done at between 23 and 32 per cent, depending on so while the extraordinary struggles in China the prices used, which is well above the since liberation have not! •* 1- . . . " ^ . ■ . - • • ;-

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77ii's article was written by an Australian leftist POLLS. u>ho has been living in Paris for several years. I had been eroded by the pressure of hign rents and “development” projects, just failed to have a communist by 2,700 votes. Then there The present political situation in France was May 24, the day of the national strike. could hardly be described as simple. A few The demonstration in Paris was over 16 months ago, however, it looked fairly cut and kilometres long - the atmosphere was festive; dried - at least up to a certain point. The the smell of victory was in the air for the first Union of the Left looked certain to win the time since May ’68. elections in March 1978. The left had just won the local elections throughout France Victor^in the elections seemed certain and with two-thirds ofthe municipalities electing so the discussion centred on the possible communist or socialist mayors. Paris itself, scenarios after the elections. One scenario despite the fact that its working class base was that the implementation of the Common 42 AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW No. 63

Program would “ get the country out o f the The heart of the debate quickly centred on crisis” and then provide the bridge towards the following major issues: the construction of “socialism in the colors of * The nationalisations — France” . This was the official position of the Communist Party and included the The socialists and particularly the left acceptance of the possibility that the right radicals opted for a conservative reading could possibly return to power in future o f t h e Common Program. elections. Nationalisations would be kept to a A second, more utopian, scenario was that minimum with only the mother holding the victory of the left in the elections would company nationalised and not the affiliates. The companies would be run mark a “point of no return” where the Common Program would be just a starting by delegates appointed by the left point and that a socialist-communist government. government would have to rely increasingly The communists counterposed upon a popular mass movement to combat additional nationalisations of the attacks and economic sabotage of companies such as Citroen, and steel, national and international capitalist due to the crisis now present in these interests. The Common Program would be industries. The nationalisations should inadequate to satisfy the demands and rising be total and not “just the brass plate on hopes of the masses of people who voted for it the door”, but all affiliated companies. and France would quickly fall into a The control of the companies would be a revolutionary situation. form of workers’ control. Then there was the “eurocommunist” * The minimum wage perspective. A rupture with capitalism in France would coincide with similar The basic wage in the 1972 common movements in Italy and, hopefully, Spain, program was to be set at 1,000 francs Portugal and even possibly Belgium, leading ($200) a month - a ridiculous figure in to the establishment of a southern European 1977 with over 100 per cent inflation bloc, differing radically in its democratic since then. The CPF proposed 2,400 form from all previous communist societies. francs while the socialists proposed 2,200 francs “ negotiable with the unions after the elections". Such a bloc would be economically, socially and politically viable, would alter all * The wage scale existing alliances in the third world and The Communist Party proposed a would set a model for workers in other maximum ratio of salaries allowable in capitalist countries where the political the country to be 5 to 1. The socialists struggle was less developed. and left radicals were against such a One way or the other, the future, although scheme, but would probably accept a uncertain, was full of hope. One certainly ratio of 10 to 1. had the feeling of at least being on the * National defence winning side. Major differences on defence policy, Shortly after the May national strike the particularly as regards NATO. The situation started to look a little more situation was a little complicated also by complicated. The Common Program of the a major about-face of the CP in going for three left parties (the Communist Party, the a nuclear arms policy {a shock which is Socialist Party and the Left Radicals) which still reverberating in the ranks of the had been signed in 1972, a period of relative party). prosperity, had to be renegotiated to bring it up to date. In addition, the Communist Party The Communist Party attacked the was demanding that many of the vague socialists, the previous “champions of proposals should be made more concrete “for workers’ control” for their watered-down a good actualisation of the program, “participation” scheme. The socialists concretely defined, so that workers know retorted that the “workers’ control” of the exactly what they are fighting for and won’t communists was only “union control” under be deceived after the elections”. the bureaucracy of the CGT union. FRANCE GOES TO THE POLLS 43

The negotiations dragged on with certain worked as it had never done before. In the concessions being made on both sides. The French two-round voting system, a question of the nationalisations, however, candidate wins if he/Bhe gets over 50 per cent became more and more hotly debated with in the first round. If no one gets an absolute the two sides taking up intransigent majority the vote is decided by a “first past positions. the post” system in a second round which Then Fabre, the leader o f the Left Radicals follows one week later. The electoral alliance in a typical radical party ploy, slammed the of the Union of the Left is an agreement by door of the negotiations, saying that the which the left candidate who gets the most nationalisations of the communists were votes in the first round stands alone against completely unacceptable. the right in the second round. Negotiations recommenced shortly after The problem in the past has been that with the three parties very close to a although the well disciplined communist compromise. The socialists proposed voters would vote for a socialist in the second nationalising 270 of the affiliates against the round it was much more difficult to get 700-odd of the communists. The other socialists to vote communist. The important questions were considered to be either point of the municipal elections is that the resolved or “negotiable”. The negotiations socialists did vote communist in the second broke up at that point with neither side round. As l’ Humanite, the CPF daily put it: willing to concede another inch. “The elections marked the end of anti­ communism in France”, In the months that have followed the situation has gone from bad to worse. To the The second point was the incredibly high Communist Party, the Socialist Party has vote for the environmentalists and the made a “ turn to the right" and wants to extreme left in the first round. In many of the “manage the capitalist crisis” andinstitutea large cities they each received about 10 per plan of austerity after the style of the social cent of the vote. Practically all these votes democratic parties in Britain and Germany. then went to the Union of the Left in the second round. The environmental movement To the socialists, the Communist Party has was previously very weak in France. It’s returned to its old stalinist politics, doesn’t startling electoral success marked its birth want to take power and can’t tolerate the as a new and important political force in notion of a strong socialist party. French politics - a point which didn’t escape A feeling of despair, gloom and the French bourgeoisie. A few months later hopelessness swept in to replace the heady the ecologists organised the huge anti- heights of the municipal elections and the nuclear demonstration at Malville where great May national strike. they had their first death as a result of a police offensive grenade - a deliberate attempt by the government to brand the environment movement as “terrorist”, II hoping to tarnish its wide electoral appeal. After the municipal elections of March ’77, The extreme left vote was a much more with 70 per cent of the large cities in France complex phenomenon, indicating a certain electing socialist or communist mayors, one dissatisfaction of traditional working class of the left dailies ran a headline F rance is voters with the ambiguities of the Union of Pink!” Capitalist France had voted the Left (17 per cent of one working class massively for the Union of the Left with quarter in Orleans voted for the extreme left many cities that before had never even had a candidate) rather than a rapport with the socialist mayor electing communists. In philosophy of the extreme left coalition made many towns and cities, people were dancing up of three of the largest extreme left parties. in the streets. It was even reported in one Paradoxically, after receiving its greatest town that the village priest joined in with the electoral support ever, the extreme left then crowd to sing the Internationale! went into a state of crisis with the daily A study of the voting figures showed two Rouge almost going bankrupt for want of very important and interesting phenomena. support and having to launch itself into a The first was that the Union of the Left had long process of self-criticism. Many people 44 AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW No. 63 were leaving the extreme left parties and, in To many people, both inside and outside general, questioning the elitist attitudes of the party, the major disagreement seemed to the movement and its leadership, its be the nationalisation of 270 company continual interventions “from outside” , the affiliates as proposed by the Socialist Party idea of the “professional Leninist-type against the 700 of the Communist Party. It revolutionary” and the blind militancy seemed that the difference was hardly going demanded of its members. In addition, the to affect things one way or the other and was extreme left was finding it increasingly hardly worth threatening the prospects of difficult to distinguish themselves from the the left in general and the aspirations of the Communist Party. millions of people who supported it. Semi-crisis in the extreme left was followed Another point brought up in the debate by a real crisis in the Union of the Left. The that was now raging in full force in the press, starting point can be traced to the TV debate the cafes and party cellules, was the political between Mitterand, the Socialist Party turn of the Communist Party. At the 22nd leader and Prime Minister Barre. Just before Congress two years ago, the party the debate, the Communist Party had abandoned the notion - or at least the released its version of the Common Program wording - of “the dictatorship o f the complete with costs and figures, which went proletariat” and in so doing also effectively rather further than the socialist version. In accepted that the Communist Party was not front of one of the largest TV audiences in the only legitimate party of the left. The French history, Mitterand flatly stated that present position of the CP is an apparent the program and figures were unacceptable about-face with the party now claiming to be to the Socialist Party. People watched the only party of the left with the Socialist dumbfounded as he then engaged in a Party being hopelessly reformist and social friendly dialogue with his apparent democrat. Such a rapid and fundamental colleague and supposed arch enemy, change has caused considerable Raymond Barre. apprehension among traditional supporters of the party. From that day onwards the debate over the concrete development of the Common Another point of concern to Communist Program continued, the Socialist Party and Party supporters is the leadership’s attack Mitterand strategically being forced into, or on the Socialist Party as a homogeneous unit willingly taking, a conservative position. when, in fact, it is a coalition of many The debate was carried out at the top level of conflicting tendencies including, for the party hierarchies with absolutely no example, the CERES. The CERES is a sort of participation of rank and file members. It “socialist left” in the SP and represents 25 was a mass media event with the passive per cent of the membership. On many issues audience, the French people, watching it is to the left of the CP and, due to its hopelessly as the “stars”, Mitterand, considerable intellectual prowess, has Marchais and Fabre, tore up the last played an important role in the theoretical remaining shreds of the Union of the Left. evolution of the Communist Party on such matters as workers’ control, etc. By ignoring It was now the turn of the traditional left to the diversity of the Socialist Party, the CP engage in a process of criticism and leadership may be unwittingly recrimination. strengthening the hand of Mitterand at the To the Communist Party, the socialists expense of the more left forces in the party. had taken a “turn to the right” but it was The debate and the political evolution having considerable difficulty convincing its continues and is not as destructive as it members of this. The debate over the might first appear. “actualisation of the common program" in 1977 was not that much different from the heated debates that preceded the signing of the program five years earlier. Every Ill communist knows that the socialists can’t be trusted but that is nothing new - they knew Paris has always been regarded as one of that when they signed the Common Program the most beautiful cities in the world with its in 1972. wide avenues, its famous cafes and that FRANCE GOES TO THE POLLS 45 bewildering array of whites and greys many social and economic gains to the reflected from its majestic buildings. Its French working class. In the wake of the image in places like Australia is of “ gay traumatic events of ’68 the concept of the Paree”, accompanied by Paris fashions, Union of the Left w;as conceived by the CP, visions of the Eiffel tower, Notre Dame, and gained acceptance by the newly-formed the Follies Bergere. Socialist Party, with the Common Program But behind this facade is another Paris - a being signed in 1972. The third party in the Paris which is dying. It is being choked to union, the Left Radicals, joined a few months later. The two big unions, the CGT and the death by a tight 40 kilometre circular CFDT, tacitly approved the program. “freeway” which spreads out in a wide band of misery for the people who live anywhere At that time the economic outlook was near it. Cutting through parks and entirely different from that of today. The previously tranquil residential areas, it is prospect was still one of continuing already saturated with a continuously expansion despite some of the looming snarling, rumbling, multi-lane traffic jam. economic problems. The task of the Union of The automobile has invaded Paris to such a the Left was to break the stranglehold of the degree that the benefits of owning a car are at multinationals and monopolies on the best dubious. The environmental impact has economy, bring about a major improvement been disastrous. The noise and pollution are in social and economic conditions for the less often unbearable. favored and start the construction of socialism based on a new form of democracy - The automobile is only part of the the worker-controlled socialism of the destruction of Paris; a destruction that is Socialist Party and the CFDT or the more proceeding at such a rate that one can see it paternalist idea of the Communist Party and taking place every day. I live near the Place des Fetes, an old, previously working class the CGT at that time - that of democratic area, where rents were cheap and life, management. although hard, was relatively gay with over 50 inexpensive bistros in a small radius. The theoretical doctrine of the Communist Now it is all gone. The developers have Party which justified their political position was based upon an economic analysis of moved in, razing it to the ground. The elderly “ State Monopoly Capitalism” . According to who have spent all their lives in the quarter, have been forced out into the suburbs this “SMC” theory, the chronic problem of together with those workers who couldn’t periodic crises of overproduction in a afford the new rents. The Place des Fetes is capitalist regime had been solved by monopoly capitalist interests using the state now dominated by massive high rise apartment and office buildings. apparatus to overcome the inherent contradictions of the system. The crisis of Life for a French worker is becoming overproduction of the capitalist system, increasingly difficult in Paris, as elsewhere according to Marx, leads to an economic in France, with cramped living conditions, depression where capital is destroyed or increasingly longer distances to travel to devalorised. After this process has reached a work, spiralling prices and the ever-present certain level, the conditions become threat of unemployment. For the hundreds of favorable for the beginning of a new wave of thousands of foreign workers, the situation is expansion, going on to a boom and of course even more intolerable. another crisis. According to the SMC theory It would be simplistic to say that the of the Communist Party, the capitalist state, present wide discontent is just due to dictated to by monopoly interests, had economic causes. It goes deeper than that. developed means of continually devalorising capital by, for example, the Many contributing factors have led to the state becoming a consumer (building up the development of a deep-rooted social public sector, armaments, etc.), offering movement towards the left. cheap credit facilities to the monopolies, and The uprising of May ’68 marked its so on. In each case the surplus capital arising beginning, even though it terminated in an from overproduction for the available electoral return for the right - albeit with market, can be continuously “destroyed” or 46 AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW No. 63

“devalorised”. In so doing, the state Common Program. The necessity to change continuously guarantees profits to the and adopt a more democratic image has monopolies and hence overcomes the come into conflict with the centralised periodic crises and depressions of capitalism. structure of the party. The evolution has taken place, however, at the cellular level The political conclusion of this analysis is where discussion is the most open it has ever that the objective enemy is the monopolies been. The party is hence more democratic and that one must organise the great mass of the French people against two or three per than it has ever been, but the contradiction is that it is at the same time more centralised cent of the population (the big bourgeoisie and dictatorial than ever to counteract the and the monopolies). The object was that the left was to take over the state apparatus and first tendency. The new party line is now turn it from being a reflection of monopoly obtained by watching Marchais on capitalist interests to being a reflection of the television. What then follows is a free and open discussion on the wisdom of the party interests of the working class and its allies. adopting the new line! From 1972 to 1977, the economic situation The theoretical and conceptual crisis in the had changed drastically. It is here that some left writers place the fundamental cause for French Communist Party becomes more clear when one notes that it refused to the break-up of the Union o f the Left, the participate in the December Colloquium on changed economic scenario posing severe Eurocommunism in Lugano, while Italian problems for the Communist Party at three and Spanish parties sent top members from levels. their central committees. To participate in At the practical level, the Communist such a debate, the French CP would have run Party feared the unknown consequences of the risk of contradicting many of their being involved in a minority position in a present official explanations in France. Socialist-Communist government during a If the economic crisis has plunged the left period of economic crisis. into disarray, it has also had its effect on This fear becomes clearer at the theoretical framing the basic social reality against level due to the Communist Party’s lack of which all of the political and electoral any deep understanding of the overall world aspects must be seen in proper perspective. capitalist crisis. Its state monopoly capitalist Despite the break-up o f the Union o f the theory served more as a justification of the previous political strategy than a theory Left, the government has not progressed one which fitted with reality. pointIA recent poll has shown that the “intention to vote” for the left would give PC - The third level is that of the conception of 21 per cent, PSU - two per cent, PS and Left socialism. The Communist Party lacks a Radicals - 27 per cent, environmentalists - clear viable model of what it means by three per cent.... a total of 53 per cent against socialism. The old model of the Soviet Union, 47 per cent for the right. This is almost after the 1968 events in France and, more exactly the same as in June ’77 just before the importantly, in Czechoslovakia, is no longer crisis in the left broke out! The relative credible for the industrialised societies and rapport between the PC and the PS, if practically nobody really doubts the anything, shows a slight gain for the PC. existence of the Gulag reality. These events What then is taking place in France is the and their influence, particularly on the new evolution of a deep, broadly based movement wave of young communist militants, have towards the left that goes beyond even the necessitated an evolution in the conceptions political parties. If the break-up of the Union of the party. This evolution, although of the Left has brought dismay and positive and necessary, has not been one disillusion to France, it certainly has not towards greater clarity but has unleashed changed the underlying social reality. certain contradictions and confusions in the ranks of the party. The model of socialism Despite all the contradictions and varies from the old Soviet model with the confusion, it is the French Communist Party rider that it must be more democratic, to that has the monopoly on the slogan o f the rather vague notions of what will happen hour .... “the French people want change .... after the implementation of the defunct they want a real change”. FILM REVIEW 47

FILM REVIEW haven’t we all “found” someone at some time, felt wonderful, revived, alive - and then felt the fabric Annie Hall, with Woody Allen and Diane fray, tear, and finally, bewilderingly, fall apart in Keaton (Hoyts Entertainment Centre, our hands. How could we fail to respond, then, to the film’s loving treatment of our own joys and Sydney; Village Cinema , Toorak, resentment? How well we recognise ourselves in Melbourne). Annie Hall’s use of child-like fantasies, ratifying our own attempts to make the world behave as you Woody Allen builds into Annie H all two would like it to, if only for a moment: Alvie, counter-analytical devices designed to render his standing in a movie queue, annoyed beyond “sensitive”, “honest” , “moving” film critic proof. endurance by the aforementioned academic’s First, he presents a film critic/academic as a pseudo-isms about Marshall McLuhan, fetches the posturing, petty, jargon-laden, insensitive bore - great man from behind a convenient billboard and that’s one in the eye for all those second-raters who blissfully hears McLuhan tell the prattler that he try to wring Meaning, Message, Massage, or Deep hasn’t a clue what he, McLuhan is on about. Kulchural Significance from this little opus. Your Friendly Neighborhood Critic, reeling from the Given all this, Annie H all seems a paragon of onslaught, then must confront the second barrier sensitivity and insight, giving us both an accurate to understanding this film: the explicit picture of our own crazy, contradictory, and self- introductory statement by Allen (who portrays defeating emotions and a means of coming to Alvie) that the film is in the nature of a search for terms with them, through a cautious, resilient the causes of the break-up of a relationship. The zaniness. For Allen, this zaniness is grounded in story is thus made particular, concerning Alvie (a the knowledge that the world is both doomed and twice-married, twice-divorced New York Jewish absurd: We see the young Alvie refusing to do his comedian, sufficiently well-known to perform at homework; his science textbook has revealed that Democratic Party political rallies) and Annie (an the universe is constantly expanding, thus insecure WASP from an uptight, mid-West family, constantly in danger of exploding, thus “what’s trying to break into the New York nightclub scene the point of doing homework?” It is also grounded as a singer), and the implication is that the in the recognition of an existential necessity that trajectory of their relationship - how two people keeps human beings active in this absurd and “made it” together and then, somehow, sadly, lost antipathetic world. it - bears no social significance. Allen, through Alvie, is pretty murky about the It is clear that this is poppycock - even the self- nature of the need which keeps us drearily indulgent Allen cannot believe that people around plugging along despite a plethora of setbacks (in the world will pay money for the sheer pleasure of the film, the protagonist is an emotional two-time watching Woody and Diane Keaton disport loser). But two jokes provide an insight: themselves, absent some larger context than that 1st Man: What a misfortune. It’s Terrible. It’s of biography. crazy. My brother thinks he’s a chicken. But still, given the public exposure of the 2nd Man: How awful! Why don’t you take him characters’ intimate fears, vulnerabilities, to a doctor? irrationalities and foibles - examination, you may argue, only undertaken by Bergman and long 1st Man (anguished): How can I? We need the overdue in American cinema - how illegitimate it eggs! seems to apply the critic’s cold tools to all that ■ revealed emotional flesh. Of course, one might 1st Woman (in a restaurant): My God, the food carp; at the film’s male egocentrism; at the context, in this place is terrible! remorselessly crazy urban America (New York and Los Angeles), where neuroses, psychoses and 2nd Woman: Absolutely revolting! And not a generalised autism seem to flower in desperate only that, but the portions are so small! profusion; at the ending, despite the humor, so sad There you have it, folks; driven by necessity (the .... yep, Boy Eventually Loses Girl. ubiquitous “eggs”), we mustsurvive, somehow, the Against these quibbles is an array of what are impossible struggle. Yet even while we writhe, widely regarded as Good Things: the honesty with pointlessly, in the toils, we feel how little time we which Alvie's and Annie’s sexual and emotional have, how imminent is death.... and we resolve not hang-ups are displayed; the bitter-sweet humor of to go gently into that good night, no matter what a Alvie’s capacity to encounter/handle/transcend relief it would be logically to have an end to our emotional pain; the celebration of that sense of painful and hopeless contortions. absurdity we all need to help us survive; and Now all of this is so much hooey, the product finally, the presentation of reality as relative. both o r Allen’s carefully unpretentious Far and away the Best Thing, of course, is how pretentiousness and of a broad-spectrum true to life the picture of their relationship is ■ for positivism which sees social reality as static, 48 AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW No. 63 struggles as individual, ontological givens, and the limited, fleeting and fortuitous “happiness” the present as all-engulfing. More importantly, it they offer us, and move on when the happiness is reflects the concerns of what Christopher Lasch dissipated. The film’s emotionality, then, is has called the Narcissist Society! defined within concepts of self and the present. Firstly, the film celebrates emotionalism, and in Within Annie Hall’s terms, the this sense is generally part of contemporary future/posterity doesn’t exist; it is remarkable that cinema’s interest in mass producing the none of Alvie’s self-analyses ever involve the extraordinary - no emotion/psychic state is too question of children. It is clear that he sees us bizarre to be explored on the silver screen. The trapped in a continuous present, on a treadmill, particular emotionalism portrayed here is that and it is only the here and now that matters. deriving from an awareness of self - self seen notin Yet such abandonment of “impossible” any historical or relational sense, but as the locus relationships is incapable of bringing relief or of “feelings”, the most important being the sense respite. Locked in a continuous present which of personal well-being derived from a recognition lacks any political, public dimension, one and articulation of one’s individual needs and responds by seeking emotional intimacy. But demands. A nnie H all lauds the characters’ intimacy makes one vulnerable, dependent. To “knowledge” of themselves, a knowledge counteract this, Annie and Alvie - like many of us- inherently flawed because it deals with h ow they contract their “intimacy” in specified terms, are what they are rather than w hy they are what indicating a degree of manipulation, insensitivity they are. Thus, for them, it is important to gain and closure which almost negates any possibility access to their personal idiosyncrasies in demands for the intimacy which we initially sought. and needs; once these are fully and frankly out in the open, with and without the assistance of The stratagems adopted in the narcissistic therapists - one can then see how the sets of society maintain and advance the very processes demands in any relationship (for sexual-ego- and institutions which give rise to the anxiety in intellectual-political satisfaction) mesh. If they do, the first place. fine; if they don’t, well, too bad, on to the next Annie Hall is very much a '70s film, framed in relationship in the (probably vain) hope that we’ll the context of widespread political despair and be luckier next time. disillusionment. It throws us back into ourselves, In Annie H all there is virtually no notion of it “explains” away our indulgences, cruelties and people mediating their demands. The “honest” obsessions, excusing them on grounds of The thing for Annie and Alvie to do once they’ve Human Condition - a kind of permanent cultural discovered their incompatibilities, is regretfully insanity. Yet it is easy to believe this film, in its draw a line under their relationship. In our honestly portrayed emotions, in the accuracy of recognition of their pain, their bewilderment, their the behaviors and attitudes displayed. But it is reluctance to part, we run a serious risk of wrong, wrong, wrong. overlooking the significance of their “defeat” of Our experiences are historically specified. Of the abandonment of a relationship that doesn’t course we need other people, but the w ay we need quite “make it”. Such disposability illustrates a other people will vary. We are not locked into a major capitulation to instrumental rationality of treadmill, where impossible demands are late capitalism, where people - like commodities - constantly made upon inadequate people. The are viewed as collections of characteristics, and logic of capital argues for static concepts, for a personal relationships as merely the mutual loyalty to personal survival based on satisfaction reinforcement of emotional demand curves. of individual needs, individually constructed, Secondly, human needs - the “eggs” in the joke - rather than loyalty to a process which affirms the are reified. Today’s needs - potent sexual social construction of needs and the possibilities responsiveness, instant emotional gratification, both of a rational posterity and an end to etc. - are seen as trans-historical and it becomes domination. impossible to ask w hether today’s needs were Don’t be fooled by Annie H all’s stiff-upper-lip, yesterday’s needs, why private, emotional take it with a smile, realism. It is a counsel of security might achieve paramountcy under, say, despair, of capitulation. The social reality it corporate capitalism as opposed to entrepreneurial presents - of inexorable fragmentation and capitalism, etc. atomisation - is only accurate to the extent that we do not struggle against those institutions and There is a sleight of hand at work in Annie understandings which fragment and atomise. In Hall. Despite its scenes of love and pain, it really the case of Annie H all, for instance, we must reinforces our everyday notions of the strive for definitions of emotion, commitment, transitoriness and atomisation of human understanding, love, and tolerance which relationships. The best we can do, it seems to say, transcend the film’s commonsense notions of is to grin and bear it - other people are pretty these terms as operationalised under capitalism. impossible, but because we need them (in a hazy, ill-defined way) for our existence, we must pursue - Kathe Boehringer. BOOK REVIEW She wrote consciously in a form to suit the audience she wanted to reach - the working women Love of Worker Bees, by Alexandra of revolutionary Russia. If some find her style Kollontai, translated by Cathy Porter. unsophisticated - with a “Women’s Weekly” flavor Afterword by Sheila Rowbotham. Virago - although the content is entirely different - her aim Press. Reviewed by Mavis Robertson. deserves praise and emulation. It is possible, too, to read these stories as Those who already admire Alexandra Kollontai historical documents which give one will have their admiration reinforced if they read interpretation of the NEP period, of the Love o f W orker Bees, a collection of three stories inspirations and the corruptions of that time. And one is really a novel - translated by Cathy Porter. this reviewer hopes that those men (and women) Others, too, will profit from this fascinating work. who still predict that much of what concerns In Vasilisa Malygina a close personal women will be solved inevitably by relationship grows, falters, dies. Its fate is played revolution/socialism will read them, and out against a background of revolution in Russia, especially ponder the meaning of the development later giving way to the adjustment of the NEP (or, more properly, the regression) of Vladimir, the period. Vasilisa keeps her revolutionary idealism husband in Vasilisa Malygina. while her husband, Vladimir, more and more assumes the values of a NEP manager. The Alexandra Kollontai’s works have received background is indicative of the author’s considerable attention in recent years. Socialist- judgments of the period - she was closely identified feminists have helped revive interest in the with what was then known as the Workers’ writings of this communist-feminist who was the Opposition • but her purpose is to show that the only woman in the leadership of the Bolshevik undoubted joys which derive from sexual passion Party in October 1917. are not sufficient to maintain personal happiness It is known that she experienced a political and if love and work are in conflict, or if the social personal life which was seldom smooth and priorities of one’s partner differ marKealy from untroubled. She ended a not unhappy marriage for one’s own. a political life, including imprisonment and exile. The story does not avoid the hurts and the She worked with and wrote about working women. jealousy that result from a break-down in a close In time, she became the first Bolshevik Minister of relationship. Indeed, a vital aspect in this and in Social Welfare and later the world’s first woman the other two stories is the changing attitudes of ambassador. She polemicised on morality and the women to each other. working class and on the role of the family. She At first, Vasilisa hates her husband’s new love, was a key figure in the development of the Soviet Nina, but, in time, this is replaced by a Union’s first marriage law. Her involvement in the compassionate understanding so that finally she Workers' Opposition laid the basis for later clashes can say “We’re not enemies, you and I. We never with Stalin. intended to cause each other so much pain”. These very stories, so popular in 1923, were Similarly, in Three Generations mothers and ridiculed a few years la ter. A nd she was vulnerable daughters with vastly differing moral codes in other directions, having had several well misunderstand each other and hurt each other yet publicised love affairs and some not so well support each other absolutely when needed. And known. in Sisters a common bond is established between Kollontai has been criticised for her self­ a rejected wife and her husband's mistress. censorship in what passes for her autobiography (A n Autobiography of a Sexually If the ending to Vasilisa Malygina is Emancipated Woman). It is suggested that this ideologically optimistic, it nevertheless leaves was her compromise with Stalin. The evidence is Vasilisa with tough days ahead. not conclusive. What may not be known is that she In the other two stories the problems remain prepared her definitive autobiography in the late largely unresolved. All thus reflect views 1940s in which she believed all her previous expressed elsewhere by Kollontai. She recognised writings and actions would be seen in perspective. that women can only partially solve their Unfortunately for her, and us, the manuscript has problems in work, politics, personal relationships never been published. while striving to end the sexual division of labor. Even so, and even with self-censorship, She sees this as a very long project, not easily Kollontai wrote in her published autobiography of resolved and, meantime, women will continue to the “eternal defensive war against the face unsatisfactory choices based bn the encroachment of men on our individuality, a moralities, values, prejudices and false struggle revolving around the problem: work or expectations which derive from both class and marriage and love”. sexual divisions. Perhaps the most important point about these These stories amplify that theme against a stories is that their author, a totally involved background of great change in society, family and revolutionary leader, saw the need to help create a work. If there are no tidy solutions to the problems literature which promoted new values for women. they raise there are valuable insights.