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| Sunday, 22 August 2004 |
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Features |  |
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P. Kandiah memorial lecture : Experience of socialist construction by Sitaram Yechury, Politburo Member, Communist Party of India (Marxist) (Continued from last week) However, the success of the struggle for socialism, while depending mainly on the strength of the popular mass movements, will also have to learn lessons from the past experiences and adapt to the changing situations. It is necessary, therefore, to strengthen this struggle to make a brief analysis of the experiences of 70 years of socialism in the USSR and to evaluate the current experiences of socialist China. Socialism in the 20th century The creation of the Soviet Union marked the first advance in human history of the establishment of a society free from class exploitation. The rapid strides made by socialism, the transformation of a once backward economy into a mighty economic and military bulwark confronting imperialism had confirmed the superiority of the socialist system. The building of socialism in the Soviet Union is an epic saga of human endeavour. This remains a source of inspiration to all peoples of the world who are in the midst of struggle for social emancipation. The decisive role played by the USSR in the defeat of fascism and the consequent emergence of the East European socialist countries had a profound impact on world developments. The victory over fascism provided the decisive impetus to the process of decolonialisation that saw the liberation of countries from colonial exploitation. The historical triumph for the Chinese revolution, the heroic Vietnamese people's struggle, the Korean people's struggle and the triumph of the Cuban revolution made a tremendous influence on world developments. The achievements of the socialist countries - the eradication of poverty and illiteracy, the elimination of unemployment, the vast network of social security in the fields of education, health, housing, etc. - provided a powerful impetus to the working people all over the world in their struggles. World capitalism met this challenge to its order, partly by adopting welfare measures and granting rights that it never conceded to the working people before. The entire conception of a welfare state and the social security network created in the post-Second World War capitalist countries was a result of the struggles of the working people in these countries inspired by the achievements of socialism. The democratic rights that are today considered as inalienable from human civilisation are also the product of the people's struggle for social transformation and not the charity of bourgeois class rule. These revolutionary transformations brought about qualitative leaps in human civilisation and left an indelible imprint on modern civilisation. This was reflected in all fields of culture, aesthetics and science. While Eisenstein revolutionised cinematography, the Sputnik expanded the frontiers of modern science to outer space. The panicky American response to Yuri Gagarin's flight into space in 1959 came in the form of President Kennedy's assurance to the US Senate that within a decade they would put man on the moon. The US succeeded in doing this only in 1969, working overtime for a full decade. In the meanwhile, the USSR carried out many a mission, including sending the dog Lyka into space. Reverses to socialism Yet, despite such tremendous advances, that too under the most exacting of circumstances and hostile environment, why is it that the mighty USSR could not consolidate and sustain the socialist order? There were, generally speaking, two areas where wrong understanding and consequent errors were committed. The first pertains to the nature of assessments of contemporary world realities and about the very concept of socialism. The second concerns the practical problems confronted during the period of socialist construction. Incorrect estimations Despite the unprecedented and path-breaking advances made by socialism in the 20th century, it must be borne in mind that all socialist revolutions barring the few (not all) in East Europe took place in relatively backward capitalistically developed countries. While this vindicated the Leninist understanding of breaking the imperialist chain at its weakest link, it nevertheless permitted world capitalism to retain its hold over the developed productive forces and, hence, also the potential for its future development. The socialist countries removed one third of the world market from capitalism. This, however, did not directly affect either the levels of advances already made by world capitalism in developing the productive forces, or in capitalism's capacity to further develop the productive forces on the basis of scientific and technological advances. This permitted world capitalism to overcome the setbacks caused by socialist revolutions to develop the productive forces and further expand the capitalist market. Given the existing correlation of class forces internationally, imperialism achieved the expansion of the capitalist market through neo-colonialism. On the other hand, given the pace and qualitatively higher advances made by socialism in a relatively short span (recall that the Soviet Union came to match the might of the fascist military machine in less than a decade - what took capitalism 300 years was accomplished by socialism in 30!) led to a belief that such advances were irreversible. The Leninist warning that the vanquished bourgeoisie will hit back with a force a hundred times stronger was not fully taken into account. The inevitability of capitalism's collapse is not an automatic process. Capitalism has to be overthrown. An erroneous estimation of its strength only blunts the need to constantly sharpen and strengthen the revolutionary ideological struggle of the working class and its decisive intervention under the leadership of a party wedded to Marxism-Leninism - the subjective factor without which no revolutionary transformation is possible. Thus, the over-estimation of the strength of socialism and the under-estimation of the strength of capitalism did not permit an objective analysis and consequently the proper assessment of the emerging world situation. Further, socialism was perceived as a linear progression. Once socialism was achieved, it was erroneously thought that the future course was a straight line without any obstacles till the attainment of a classless, Communist society. Experience has also confirmed that socialism is the period of transition or, as Marx said, the first stage of the Communism - the period between a class-divided exploitative capitalist order and the classless Communist order. This period of transition, therefore, by definition implies, not the elimination of class conflicts but its intensification, with world capitalism trying to regain its lost territory. This period, therefore, was bound to be a protracted and complex one with many a twist and turn and many a zigzag. This was particularly so in these countries which were capitalistically backward at the time of the revolution. (Some theoretical aspects of the protracted nature of this transition period are discussed later when we take up the reforms in China.) The success or failure of the forces of world socialism in this struggle, at any point of time, is determined both by the success achieved in socialist construction and the international and internal correlation of class forces and their correct estimation. Incorrect estimations leading to an under-estimation of the enemy both without and within the socialist countries and the over-estimation of socialism had created a situation where the problems confronting the socialist countries were ignored as well as the advances and consolidation of world capitalism. Lenin had always reminded us that the living essence of dialectics is the concrete analysis of concrete conditions. If the analysis falters or the true appreciation of the actual situation is faulty, then erroneous understandings and distortions surface. It is such distortions and, importantly, deviations from the revolutionary content of Marxism-Leninism in later years of the USSR, particularly after the 20th Congress of the CPSU along with the unresolved problems in the process of socialist construction, that led to these reverses. Major shortcomings in socialist construction In the process of socialist construction, there were essentially four areas where major shortcomings occurred. Before discussing these, it needs to be underlined, once again, that socialism was embarking on an unchartered path of human advance. There were no blueprints or any specific formulae. This reality also contributed in a large measure towards these shortcomings. Class character of the state The first of these areas is regarding the class character of the state under socialism. The dictatorship of the overwhelming majority over a minority of former exploiting classes, i.e., the dictatorship of the proletariat as opposed to the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, which is that of a minority over the overwhelming majority, is the character of the state under socialism. However, the forms of this class rule need to keep developing as socialism advances through various phases. The form necessary, say in a period of capitalist encirclement, or civil war, need not be the form, say in a period of post-second World War socialist consolidation in the Soviet Union. The theoretical elaboration of the different phases of the dictatorship of the proletariat and different forms of the socialist state, is made for the first time in the political report of the 18th Congress of the CPSU in 1939. (To be continued) |
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