Alan Woods with Hugo Chávez ALAN WOODS was born in Swansea, South Wales, in 1944 into a working-class family with strong Communist traditions. At the age of 16 he joined the Young Socialists and became a Marxist. He studied Russian in Sussex University and later in Sofia (Bulgaria) and the Moscow State University (MGU). He has a wide expe- rience of the international labour movement and has been involved in the Marxist movement in Spain, where he participated in the struggle against the Franco dicta- torship, Latin America and Pakistan. He speaks several languages, including Spanish, French, German and Russian. Alan Woods is the author of many works covering a wide spectrum of issues (poli- tics, economics, history, philosophy, art, music, and science). He is also the politi- cal editor of the popular website In Defence of Marxism (www.marxist.com) and secretary of the International Marxist Tendency. Among the books he has written we can highlight Lenin and Trotsky: What they Really Stood For and Reason in Revolt, Marxist Philosophy and Modern Science, both in conjunction with the late Ted Grant, Bolshevism: the Road to Revolution, Marxism and the United States, The History of Philosophy (online), Ireland: Republicanism and Revolution, The Venezuelan Revolution - A Marxist perspective, and What is Marxism? (jointly with Rob Sewell and Mick Brooks). His books have been translated into several languages, including Spanish, Italian, German, Greek, Turkish, Urdu, Danish, Portuguese, Russian and Bahasa Indonesian. REFORMISM or REVOLUTION Marxism and socialism of the 21st century To the workers and peasants of Venezuela, the real protagonists of the Bolivarian Revolution and of this book. REFORMISM or REVOLUTION Marxism and socialism of the 21st century (Reply to Heinz Dieterich) By Alan Woods Wellred Publications London Reformism or Revolution Marxism and Socialism of the 21st century (Reply to Heinz Dieterich) By Alan Woods First published by Wellred 2008 Copyright © Alan Woods UK distribution: Wellred Books, PO Box 50525 London E14 6WG, England Tel: +44 (0) 207 515 7675 [email protected] USA distribution: Wellred, PO Box 4244, St. Paul, MN 55104 [email protected] Wellred on-line bookshop sales: wellred.marxist.com Typeset by Wellred Printed by intypelibra, London, England British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN - 13 978 1 900 007 33 7 ISBN - 10 1 900 007 33 9 Layout by Espe Espigares Contents Acknowledgements.................................................................9 Author’s Preface...................................................................11 1. Methodology.....................................................................15 2. Philosophy and science....................................................37 3. Dieterich and historical materialism................................77 4. History and economics...................................................107 5. Socialism utopian and scientific....................................137 6. An outline of Marxist economics...................................152 7. The economics of Socialism of the 21st Century..........187 8. Socialism or Stalinism? ..................................................223 9. The future of the Cuban Revolution .............................269 10. Nationalism or internationalism?................................ 313 11. The state and revolution...............................................331 12. The Venezuelan Revolution........................................ 367 Bibliography..................................................................411 Acknowledgements ver the past months I have received a lot of encouragement from many peo- ple who were keen to see this book in print. This was a great help to me, Osince I have more than once regretted having taken the task on in the first place. I hope that the final result will justify the work that so many people have put into it. I wish to express my thanks to all those who, by their painstaking work, have made the appearance of this book possible. In the first place, my thanks to Mick Brooks for his invaluable help with the section on economics and expert proof-reading, and to Harry Whittacker, Jordi Martorell and Fred Weston, for their proof-reading and valuable suggestions. I must also thank Harry Nielsen, Luke Wilson and Alex Grant for their helpful observations on the chapter on science. In addition, I would like to thank Espe Espigares for her professional layout. Since we decided to publish the book simultaneously in English and Spanish, I would also like to thank Juana Cobo and Pablo Roldán for the excellent Spanish translation. In addition, a special mention is due to Miguel Fernández, whose con- siderable literary skills were of great help to me in perfecting and polishing the final text both in Spanish and English. Above all, my heartfelt thanks to my comrade and companion Ana Muñoz for her invaluable help and encouragement, and for her immense patience in the final proofreading, which was enough to try the patience of a saint! Author's preface he publication of the present work requires some explanation. Many friends have asked me why I was taking so much time replying to a man whose Tbooks are read by a limited public, mainly in the Latin American universities, and are mostly only available in Spanish. I replied that I had been persuaded by the persistent requests of my friends in Cuba and Venezuela, who, after some years, were fed up of the theoretical pretensions of Heinz Dieterich and wanted me to answer him. For some years Heinz Dieterich has been waging a noisy campaign, claiming that he has “invented” the idea of Socialism in the 21st Century. This has had some effect on certain circles of the Left in Venezuela and some other countries. As we know, there is an important debate taking place in Venezuela on the nature of social- ism, inspired by Hugo Chávez’s declarations in favour of socialism. This is enormously important, not only for Venezuela but for the whole interna- tional workers’ movement. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, there is a ferment of discussion on the Left on a world scale. The ignominious failure of Stalinism and the unprecedented ideological counteroffensive of the bourgeoisie against socialism have led some to conclude that the “old” ideas of Marxism (scientific socialism) are no longer valid, and that it is necessary to invent something entirely new and orig- inal. This is just what Dieterich claims to have done. During the referendum campaign on constitutional reform in December 2007 the name of Heinz Dieterich suddenly began to acquire greater prominence. He opposed the reform and publicly defended General Baduel, the former Defence Minister who went over to the opposition and campaigned for a “no” vote in the ref- erendum. Later, Dieterich said he supported a “yes” vote “as a lesser evil”. How does it come about that a man who has cultivated the image of a loyal sup- porter of Chávez and the Bolivarian Revolution should behave in such a way? It came as a shock to many on the Left who had accepted uncritically the audacious claims of Professor Dieterich. But, having carefully read his articles and books for many months, it was not at all surprising to me. 12 Reformism or Revolution The fact that in a decisive moment Heinz Dieterich took a position that was clearly against the further advance of the Revolution towards socialism is no acci- dent. It is the logical and inescapable conclusion from all his theories and from his peculiar version of “21st Century Socialism” – a kind of “socialism” that is not socialism at all, as we shall see. From Anti-Dühring to Anti-Dieterich In preparing my reply I decided to re-read Engels’ famous book Anti-Dühring, in which he answers the arguments of a man who, more than a century ago, claimed to have developed a new and original theory of socialism that would render the ideas of Marx (and everybody else) obsolete. I found that the similarity between Dühring and Dieterich to be astonishingly similar, not only in their ideas but even in their way of expressing them. The first words of its preface are: “The following work is by no means the fruit of any ‘inner urge’. On the contrary.” Like Engels, I had no wish to write the pres- ent book. I agreed reluctantly because I regarded it as an unwelcome distraction from other important work. I thought, rather naively as it turns out, that I could deal with this very quickly. But I was wrong. The more I penetrated into this thick jun- gle of convoluted prose and even more convoluted ideas, the more it became clear to me that a short reply was impossible. The more I wrote the more I kept thinking of the words of Engels in the Preface to Anti-Dühring: “Nevertheless it was a year before I could make up my mind to neglect other work and get my teeth into this sour apple. It was the kind of apple that, once bitten into, had to be completely devoured; and it was not only very sour, but also very large. The new socialist theory was presented as the ultimate practical fruit of a new philosophical system. It was therefore necessary to examine it in the context of this system, and in doing so to examine the system itself; it was necessary to follow Herr Dühring into that vast territory in which he dealt with all things under the sun and with some others as well.” 1 The writings of Heinz Dieterich are an even bigger and sourer apple than the one old Engels had to bite on. Like Herr Dühring, Heinz Dieterich writes on many sub- jects and, since he constantly mixes everything up, I was obliged to follow him through all these twists and turns. He seems to be incapable of writing about polit- ical economy without dragging in the history of philosophy, or the perspectives for the Bolivian Revolution without speculating on the nature of the universe. The present book is therefore intended to do two things: to answer the ideas of Heinz Dieterich and also to explain as clearly as possible the classical ideas of Marxism, which in every respect contradict them.