Essay for IAS students on the Collapse of Socialism

Socialism has suffered a defeat of immense of proportion during the last decade. The recent events in the erstwhile Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and China have had a shattering effect on the socialists and on the whole idea of socialism.

For over seventy years, the Russian revolution and the Soviet state and society provided inspiration to millions all over the world struggling against all kind of oppression. Everywhere those committed to socialism are on the defensive. The effort to build an alternative to capitalism on a world scale seems to have failed. In fact, there has been a retreat from the very notion of changing society in a fundamental manner.

The world over and in India too – two major question are being asked; what rent wrong and what is now the future of socialism? Those hostile to socialism have announced the end of socialism, declaring that it was always a fantasy, and unrealizable project, or even a sick social ideology, and that there never was any real alternative to capitalism. Socialism, they say, was never practicable or desirable it has failed because of its inherent contradictions and, consequently, it has no longer any future – it is dead forever.

Hen there are those defenders of socialism fro whom not really much has changed; some errors were made and in the light of experience they will be rectified and the party line adjusted accordingly, and the socialist movement will go on marching forward as before.

But the historical answer to the two questions is very different and much more complex.

Since mid-nineteenth century, socialism ha represented four different though interconnected streams. First, socialism has been the eternal dream of humanity down to our own national liberation struggle; the desire to live in a just, rational, humane society in which no human will live on the labour of others, in which the few belonging to the property owning classes would boot dominate society but the vast mass of working people will be empowered and will control their own destinies and will make their own history.

In the nineteenth century, this dream specifically stood for the realization of the three objectives of the French revolution-Liberty, Equality, Fraternity- and for the extension of civil liberties and democracy to the bottom millions and to all areas of life.

The dream envisioned a society in which violence in its multifarious forms, open or hidden, will not be the social norm and will be increasingly unacceptable, and people will live harmoniously and in peace even when divided by states, nationalities, languages, religions and cultures.

Society will be free of racism, communalism, national hatreds and sexism; greed will not be the highest organizing principle of social and economic structure; altruism, cooperation and fellowship, and not selfishness, competitiveness and conflict, will guide the social order; and money and success will not be the major criteria of the fulfillment of life. In modern times, millions came to believe that this dream can be realized however gradually and with whatever imperfections, only in a socialist society.

Second, as Marxism, socialism has taken the form of a set of ideas, a way of looking at society, a method of analyzing social development, an ideology guiding social practice. Third, socialism has taken the form of a movement of millions for social transformation. Fourth, it has meant a social, economic and political system which ahs tried to actualize the objectives of the socialist movement and the socialist dream.

It is this fourth aspect of socialism, as represented above all by the concrete specific Soviet state, which is now not only in a deep crisis but has clearly failed. But before we take up this theme, let us take a hurried look at what the Russian Revolution represented before we are overtaken by new myths which are rapidly replacing the old myths, such as the birth of the ‘new socialist man’, that the old rulers of the Soviet Union propagated for decades and which have now been exploded.

The Revolution of 1917 marked a turning point in world history in several aspects. Above all common men and women became, for the first time, active agents of history. The Russian Revolution was the first revolution made by the mass of common people for all their social liberation from all kinds of class domination and class oppression.

Moreover, the revolution had been made by them against one of the most powerful state machines of the times. This was to inspire the common people the world over.

The revolution was followed by a massive effort to introduce a new form of productive organization in which there would be no private ownership of the means of production. Furthermore, the principle of equality was sought to be actualized.

Hitherto, all revolutions and efforts art social transformation had led to one system of exploitation and class domination being replaced by another though different, system of exploitation. The new socialist system made peasants the masters of their land and the workers of their factories. The new social system was also based on the ending of discrimination based on sex: men and women were to become equal.

In an era of imperialism the new soviet state proclaimed the end of Tsarist imperialism, freed all the erstwhile colonies and established relationship of equality among the tile different nationalities comprising the erstwhile Russian empire. This led to a positive attitude towards the revolution being adopted by the leaders of the colonial people and from Sun Yet-Sen and Kendal Ataturk to Lokamanya Tilak and C.R. Das.

However, in the last ten years, the Soviet state and its socialist system, heirs of the Revolution of 1917, have totally disintegrated. What ever other weaknesses of the Soviet state that might be revealed by deeper historical analysis, one thing is clear; its biggest weakness has been the absence of democracy and civil liberties. The Soviet state was brought into being as the embodiment of popular sovereignty.

People’s self-rule was not to remain a mere constitutional formality but to become a living reality. Civil liberties –freedom of the Press, speech and association – were not to be controlled by money, manipulation and bureaucracy but to become a part of the life of people. Democracy was not to remain constrained by capitalism but to come into its own as full, socialist democracy. Democracy as developed in the capitalist countries was not to be negated but transcended.

But, in real life, especially under Stalin and after, a political structure was built which was authoritarian and from which democracy in all its forms was missing. Gradually, in the name of the dictatorship of the proletariat, a system was established, in which power was wielded by a handful of persons, and the people were denied all basic civil liberties, even the right of life. This led to heinous crimes by Stalin during the 1930s and 1940s when millions were physically liquidated or died in concentration camps and most of the leaders of the Revolution were imprisoned executed.

The Soviet people would probably have rebelled against these conditions in the 1940s but for Hitler’s attack in 1941, which led to an upsurge of popular, patriotic feelings. These feelings continued after 1945 as a result of the outbreak of the Cold War and the threat of an attack through weapons.

But, by the early, 1980s, the Soviet people were no longer willing to tolerate Stalinist restrictions on their basic freedoms. Socialism without democracy had little meaning for their lives, especially when accompanied by economic stagnation. They no longer believed the monstrous lies about the world and their own society which had become the mainstay of Stalinists regime. And actual, ‘existing socialism’ began to stink so far as they were concerned.

A new group of leaders responded to the feelings and experiences for the Soviet people. But their, especially Gorbachev’s efforts to break the authoritarian mould produced a deep political and economic crisis leading to the break up of the Soviet Union and the establishment of ‘market-friendly’ regimes in its successor states.

Undoubtedly, the biggest defect of the Communist regimes and the Communist movement has been vis-à-vis democracy. They have let capitalism appropriate democracy, when throughout history; the capitalist and other propertied classes have opposed extension of democracy to the common people and have tried to narrow down its scope and functioning.

In fact, there could be socialism without democracy. In terms of the goals of the French Revolution – Liberty, Equality, Fraternity-which socialism inherited as its basic content without liberty, that is democracy and civil liberties, there could be no social liberation. Inequality and chauvinism were bound to reappear in new guises, for the struggle, for equality and fraternity (of the human race) is perpetual and this struggle fro equality and fraternity (of the human race) is perpetual and this struggle can only be fought on the basis of democracy. People’s free particulation in all social, economic and genuine devolution and decentralization of political power were basic to the entire socialist project.

Stalinism also represented the failure to fully develop productive forces incongruence with the available technology which was one of the reasons for the existence of socialism. In the end, the Soviet system disintegrated because it could either withstand the strong winds of democracy or compete with the advanced capitalist countries within the structure of a developed world economy.

True, Stalinism was not the inevitable product of the Russian revolution or of Marxism; however, a critical evaluation not only of the Soviet experience but also of the Russian revolution and the Bolshevik paradigm and even of Marxism are still necessary. After, all the Soviet Union and other socialist states which have failed were created in the name of Marx and Lenin.

Discredit to socialism has been brought about by parties and movements which were based on Bolshevism and claimed to be its heirs. There has to be no hesitation in investigating the relationship of Marxism and the Russian revolution to their Stalinist deformation.

This brings us to socialism as theory. Marxism is an effort to understand society in a scientific and historical manner. Using the insights of the past and contemporary philosophy, politics, economy and history, Marx and Angles analyzed capitalism, developed its critique, pointed to its historically specific character, developed the rationale of an alternative social system and in general worked out elements of a theory of social change. They also grasped that capitalism was a single world system though divided into exploiting core states and exploited peripheral states and peoples. It had therefore to be transformed on a world-scale by the united efforts of the world-people.

Marx and Angles also emphasized that full development of productive, forces on the basis of modern science and technology was a precondition for, the very beginnings of the establishment of a socialist society which will do away with class domination and class exploitation. Socialism will do a better job of the development of productive forces that capitalism by planning and social guidance and control of production and distribution.

But Marx and Angles also saw clearly that they were only laying the foundations of a science of society. Lie any other science, Marxism too had to be constantly developed and in the process transformed. This was how the successors of Marx and Angles – Lenin, Kautsky, Plekhanov, Bernstein, Trotsky, Bahrain, Gramsci, moa Zedong – understood Marxism. They not only’ applied’ Marxism to the specific conditions of their societies, they also in the process, developed Marxism to the specific conditions of their societies, they, also, in the process. Of social change in democratic societies, Trotsky’s on Fascism and culture, and Mao Zedong’s on the role of the peasantry and other social classes in the anti-imperialist revolution and on contradictions.

The future of Marxism as a tool for analyzing a class dominated society is still quite bright. There may be partial eclipse for some time. But class domination, poverty, in the midst of plenty, gross inequality and privilege, economic and cultural deprivation, unequal economic and political relations between nations, male domination, racial and caste discrimination are the solution of event he problems it deals with. For example, Marxism, in its 150-years old history has failed to understand or deal adequately with nationalism or democracy. Its theories of the state, the correlation between classes and politics, the role of the middle classes, the gender problem, the roots and the role for ethics (morality), and even religion are highly tentative and patchy.

Nearly all Marxists, and not only Stalin, have suffered from the notion that Marxism ahs a monopoly over truth and have tender to neglect non-Marxist social thought and thinkers and failed to recognize the incomplete character of their own thought.

In our own country, there has been a rather near-complete neglect of Indian contribution to socialist and liberationist thought by the Narcissists. Thy have failed to, or rather refused to, learn from Gandhi and Nehru, not to speak of Dadabhaii Nauroji, Raja Rammohan Roy, Justice Ranade, Myopia Phyla or Vivekananda- or a Tulsi, Nanak, Kabir, Tukaram, Raman jam or Chaitanya.

Socialism has been, above all, a massive, all-sided world-wide movement for the transformation of society on a world-scale.Unfortunately, the movement was powerfully affected by the Stalinist distortions. Consequently, repelled to the closed character of the Stalinist interpretation of Marxism, many individuals, parties and movements tended to abandon Marxism itself.

Others remained loyal to Marxism but increasingly accepted its Stalinist version and this were no longer able to interpret the world in a scientific, Marxist manner. This explains why, the world over, the Communist Parties have made mistake after mistake failing to come to grips with the reality. Only those who refused to accept the Stalinist strait-jacket, such as the Chinese, the Vietnamese, Antonio Gramsci and Palmyra Tailgate in Italy, and Fidel Castro and the Guevara in Cuba, were able to lead effective movements. But even their break with Stalinism was partial and did not extend to a total critique and abandonment. And so they too have had to face problems and partial defeats or derailments.

Of course, Marxism itself has to be restructured and constantly developed, and a careful examination made of where it still holds and where it does not, what in it has to be continued and what not. Marxists will also have to give up the notion that they possess a monopoly over socialist thought and movement and accept the concept of the plurality of doctrines in socialist movement as also in social analysis.

Socialist movements of the future will draw inspiration as also guidance from many sources. But, in any case; all theories or ideologies of social change will have to build on the great strength of Marxism, for its key proportion still stand;

(1) That we live in a class divided society in which some control the means of production, the levers and instruments of power, and the means of mass communication while others are deprived of them; that the interests of the two categories of persons- the exploiters and the exploited-diverge and clash; and that, consequently, the struggle between social classes is a fundamental aspect of social reality. Above all it is this emphasis on class analysis and class struggle that is the great strength of Marxism.

(2) That the existing social condition is not permanent, is not the ‘end’ of history, but is not only alterable but will be altered one day.

(3) That the social reality is a whole and can be grasped and acted upon only when so understood.

(4) That a historical approach has to be at the root of all social analysis.

Socialism as a movement will also remain relevant so long as class struggle continues and so long as capitalism is unable to resolve its problems in the realms of economy, culture, democracy and human relation. Since people will not accept their flawed social existence and will continue to fight for popular control over al forms of power in society, there will always be a socialist movement.

Moreover, for us, in the third World, the world capitalist system is still divided between the advanced capitalist core and the underdeveloped peripheries. Moreover, the process of peripheralization continues. The first world exists as also the third World, only the Second World has disintegrated.

The future socialist movement would also be a far richer movement, for it will draw lessons from its past. It will also be richer, for, rid of Stalinist dogma and authoritarianism and their legacy in different fields and basing itself on, and drawing support from the overwhelming majority, it will integrate with democracy and make it more real.

Above all, it will draw to itself all the liberationist strands, for we should not forget that in our country, riot only the Communists and the Socialists accepted socialism and called themselves socialists, but so did Jawaharlal Nehru, Subhash Chandra Bose and Gandhiji. The future socialist movement in an India will acknowledge Marx but also Gandhiji and Nehru.

Socialism as a vision is, of course, immortal. As a vision it will continue to inspire millions to struggle for its actualization. The definition of socialism, its essential ingredients, will undergo change as society and economy undergo changes. We may not know today what socialism would look like when the dream becomes a reality, butut certainly will not like capitalism, nor will it mean stratification of economy, culture and polity.