The New Nomads || European Working Class History: Where Wallerstein Gets It Wrong

European Working Class History: Where Wallerstein Gets It WrongAuthor(s): TOM KEMPSource: Contemporary Marxism, No. 5, The New Nomads (Summer 1982), pp. 159-165Published by: Social Justice/Global OptionsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/29765716 .

Accessed: 27/06/2014 05:03

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Social Justice/Global Options is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access toContemporary Marxism.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 128.252.67.66 on Fri, 27 Jun 2014 05:03:35 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=socjusgloopt

http://www.jstor.org/stable/29765716?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


European Working Class History: Where Wallerstein Gets It Wrong TOM KEMP

Professor Wallerstein may be an eminent

historian, but when it comes to an understanding of the history of the European working class movement he goes disastrously wrong. His article in Contemporary Marxism Number 2, claiming to find the roots of the so-called "Eurocommu? nism" in European working class history, misleads both by what it says and, even more, by what it leaves out. On this period, at least, Wallerstein has not checked his evidence very carefully, leaving a

distorted impression of the workers' movement in

Europe. Methodologically he is far from applying a consistent Marxist analysis; his treatment of some historical events is superficial, and he takes on trust an interpretation of the motives of the Communist Parties which leaves open the question of whether their leaderships can be trusted today. The overall impression is one of naivete, not to speak of a lack of any real feel for the working class itself.

Wallerstein treats "Western Europe" as a

homogeneous bloc, overlooking not only the basic distinctions between Britain and the Conti?

nent, but also those between Northern and Southern (Mediterranean) Europe. These are more than geographical differences; they relate rather to the extent of capitalist development: Britain the pioneer, Northern Europe a close

follower, the rest of the Continent lagging behind and retaining capitalist traits into the twentieth

century. Moreover, Western Europe was the home of the great imperialist metropoles and their labor aristocracies. These historical factors still

operate today and explain, in part, the specific structures assumed by the labor movement in the countries concerned.

It is appropriate to begin with Britain because,

owing to its priority in industrialization, its

working class were "the first born sons of modern

industry" (Engels). Their organizations came on the scene before there had been any theoretical

development able to provide a scientific basis for

revolutionary action. The first workers' organiza? tions were trade clubs or local and single-factory or craft unions, mainly defensive in character. It is a more or less invariable law that wherever

capitalist relations of production are extended, such spontaneous forms of organization will arise unless suppressed by the law and the police (as in

nineteenth-century Britain or in countries like Korea and Brazil today). However militant these unions (and their successors, the national amalga

mated unions) were, they seldom if ever rose

above trade union consciousness which, in the last

analysis, is a form of bourgeois consciousness (sell labor power on the best possible terms within the

accepted capitalist relations of production). This was very obvious in the case of the British unions

during the Victorian age or the Gompers-type leaders in the USA. Trade union consciousness of this type has deep roots and is all the stronger

where, through collective bargaining, concessions have been won for a labor aristocracy succored by imperialism or even for a substantial section of the organized working class. Trade unions of this

type may be very militant in defense of their members' rights or in fighting for wages and

conditions, but they remain essentially opportun? istic with leaders, constituting a labor bureaucracy, ever ready to make compromises and concessions or to enter into agreements with the employers or

the state (e.g., in time of war or "national emer?

gency"). How many "left" trade union leaders in

Britain, great militants in their day, have ended

up with knighthoods, in the House of Lords, or with government stipends on official bodies. The same process has been at work in other countries,

though perhaps not so obviously. Wallerstein does not seem to be aware at all

of this aspect of the workers' movement: the

emergence of a labor aristocracy and its relation?

ship to imperialism, and the role of the labor

bureaucracy in enabling capitalism to survive. This question is crucial because it involves the

leadership of the class, reform or revolution, defeat or victory. Discussion of theories or focus on historical highlights tends, as in Wallerstein's

case, to overlook the real problems of the class

struggle and especially the question of leadership. The danger is that the working class will be blamed for not having made a revolution and a

leadership will be supported which, for its own

reasons, has no desire to raise the revolutionary consciousness of the class.

Wallerstein should read Engels' articles on

the British labor movement as well as Lenin's What Is To Be Done? The latter is the classic locus for the distinction between trade union consciousness and spontaneity on the one hand, and revolutionary consciousness on the other

(which Lenin only took over from Karl Kautsky). However, trade unionism is not to be denigrated; it is the elemental form of workers' organization everywhere: the question is that trade unionism



160 Contemporary Marxism: Kemp

("a fair day's wage for a fair day's work") cannot solve the problems of the working class, which can only take place through the abolition of the

wage system (the sale of labor power). Trade unions can only be turned into fighting organiza? tions if there is a political leadership, a party able to raise the consciousness of their members to a

different level, breaking with bourgeois ideology. This could only be done through the elaboration of a scientific theory in accord with the role of the working class within the capitalist mode of

production and indicating its historic role, i.e., to

overthrow it and carry mankind forward to a

higher stage (transition period, socialism, commu?

nism). Such a theory could not be elaborated by the workers themselves (or only partially and

instinctively); socialist ideas were developed by intellectuals who themselves came from the

property-owning classes and had to be brought into the working class from outside in the first

place. The continued development of theory depended upon the movement itself, specifically the party (or parties) which the working class formed as the representation of its class interests.

A really revolutionary party might be a later arrival (as in Britain, though preceded by Marxist

sects) or might itself become a battleground for discordant views, or degenerate into an agency of the ruling class inside the workers' movement. This situation was to become still more complex with the degeneration of the parties of the Third International and the rise of "Stalinism" (another term unknown to Wallerstein).

The essential problems of the development of the working class movement did not center on "whether or not to organize at all," as Wallerstein claims. Workers in advanced capitalist industry more or less universally accepted the need for

organization; the question, therefore, was always what kind of organization (unions and/or parties) and what kind of program and aim. Most of the currents to which Wallerstein refers ?utopianism, conspiracy and "terrorism"?were largely debated

among petty bourgeois theorists and the old-style, artisan-type workers whose livelihoods were being threatened by machine industry and by the

competition of the low-paid and unskilled. Wallerstein might have given some attention to the developments in Britain, notably Chartism and the reasons for its failure, and the lack of an

independent working class party, even on reformist

lines, until the twentieth century.

The significance of the Commune lies less in

whose ideas inspired it than in what it had to do

during the short period in which it had the power. It was from this experience that Marx was able to clarify crucial theoretical points about the nature of state power and what the working class would have to do to set up its own form of rule ("smashing" the old state, setting up "the

dictatorship of the proletariat," etc.). In general, Wallerstein overrates the impor?

tance of the anarchists or anarchist tendencies.

Significantly, these currents had little or no

following in the more advanced industrial centers and among the factory working class. Anarchism, in its different forms, remained mainly petty bourgeois in its social basis; it appealed to some

sections of the peasantry but mostly to skilled,

artisan-type workers in small workshop industry; the exceptions were few.

The founding of the Second International

was, of course, a victory for organization in the sense of recognizing the need for independent

working class parties in every country. The divisions within the movement were then more about tactics than about strategy (as Wallerstein

holds). Ostensibly, all member parties and all currents within those parties wanted the same

strategic goal: i.e., a socialist society. The divisions came about how to achieve it, a division which

goes back to the Chartist movement in Britain, if not before.

Wallerstein misunderstands the challenge of Bernstein's revisionism (much influenced by the Fabian gradualist current dominant in Britain when Bernstein was an exile there). It is worth more than a passing reference because much of the so-called "Eurocommunism" has greater affinity with Bernstein's position than with that of his opponents. In any case it is strange to find Professor Wallerstein singling out Lenin as Bern? stein's principal antagonist in the debate which followed the putting forward of the latter's reformist position. When the controversy began, Lenin was an obscure figure for the International as a whole; his direct writings on revisionism, though important, are minor. The defense of

Marxist orthodoxy was in the hands mainly of the "center" of the German Social Democratic

Party, then by far the most influential party in the International, for whom Karl Kautsky was the

principal spokesman. At this time, Lenin deferred to Kautsky as a leading Marxist theoretician in



Where Wallerstein Gets It Wrong 161

any case. Perhaps because in practice the main

body of the SDP leadership were closer to Bern? stein than they cared to admit, a much more effective reply to Bernstein was made by the "left" of the party. It is Rosa Luxemburg's Reform or Revolution which survives from the

controversy as an important contribution to Marxist theory, not anything which either Kautsky or Lenin wrote. No doubt the experience of the SDP alerted Lenin to the dangers facing the

small, struggling and illegal groups which made up the Social-Democratic (i.e., Marxist) movement in Russia. However, it is likely that the split between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks would have taken

place if Bernstein had never thrown down his

challenge to the revolutionary path. In any case, Wallerstein is misleading on this point as upon others. The differences between the Mensheviks and Bolsheviks turned on two closely related issues: the nature of the impending revolution in

Russia and therefore what sort of party would be

necessary for the working class. The former saw the revolution as essentially a bourgeois revolution, leading to the extension of capitalist property relations in Russia, together with parliamentary institutions. The party would thus have to work for a considerable period within the framework of

bourgeois democracy; it could be a broad, open party imposing few demands on members apart from general agreement with its program. Lenin saw the coming revolution as offering an opportu? nity for the working class to take power, overturn?

ing the landlords and capitalists as well as Czardom

(though he still saw it as having to make conces? sions to the nonsocialist peasantry to do this ?"the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the

peasantry": a contradictory concept which it

proved impossible to carry into practice). For

Lenin, therefore, confronting conditions of

illegality and a constant struggle against the

Okhrana, the party had to be tightly disciplined and centrally led by "professional revolutionaries"

(though this was not necessarily held up as a model for all parties in all conditions, e.g., the German SDP).

Again, if one wants to trace out historical lines of descent, there is little difficulty in recog? nizing in the theses of the present-day "Eurocom munists" a close affinity with the Mensheviks, via

Popular Frontism, the "parliamentary road," and "national" roads to socialism. When Professor

Wall er stein takes on the tough nut of "national

ism," his summary of the position before 1914 is

again distorted. The problem was not socialists versus nationalists but what the position of the

party should be towards nationalist (i.e., bourgeois) currents, notably in relation to the Hapsburg Empire, the Balkans and divided Poland, and what appeal the party should make to people suffering national as well as economic repression or exploitation. On this there were major differ? ences: for present-day purposes the most relevant literature is the polemic between Rosa Luxemburg and Lenin. A glance at this will show how super? ficial Wallerstein's treatment is (by the way, one

J.V. Stalin also wrote a quite influential pamphlet on the subject at Lenin's behest). Explanation of

why the Second International collapsed on the outbreak of the First World War and fell about into its separate national parts, each actively assisting the war effort of its respective govern? ment (yes, it went as far as that, for the war could not have been pursued without their cooperation in organizing labor in the factories), strains

Wallerstein's methodology to breaking point. The fact is that he has no Marxist, materialist explana? tion for any of the changes and developments he describes. He cannot trace them to their class roots; he has no concept that people were driven to do and say things by objective forces which

were stronger than themselves. He takes individuals and movements at their face value, according to what they say about themselves or as their actions

appear on the surface.

After all, there is quite a lot of literature about the German Social Democratic Party before 1914 and some about other parties which can

help. What this shows is that these parties had become part of the institutional structure of the

society in which they operated; from parties dedicated to revolution, or at least fundamental social change, they had become, in practice, loyal opposition parties and, in wartime, government

parties. They had built up their own bureaucratic

organizations with a heavy investment in bourgeois societies: from parliamentary seats and newspapers to sports and burial clubs. It was impressive in

appearance (some of it still survives in Europe today), but far from constituting an alternative

society, it became an integral part of the existing one. Ideas and actions shifted accordingly. There were jobs and salaries and families at stake; revolution was all right for Sunday speech-making but of little use in working out Monday's parlia




mentary tactics or deciding how to negotiate a

wage increase which could bring a strike to an end before the workers were destitute. To that extent, Wallerstein is right: organizations were at stake ?

but what kind of organizations? Certainly no

longer Marxist or revolutionary ones. That was not plain on the surface; even Lenin was deceived and thought the issue of Vorw?rts with news that the SDP had voted for war credits had been

forged by the German government. In reality the issue was not one of organization

at all, it was one about theory. The SDP had ceased to fight for or develop Marxist theory; they were simply building their membership and

counting their votes, waiting for the day when

they would have 51% and elect themselves to

power: what an illusion in a country like Wilhel mine Germany which was not even a parliamentary democracy but a monarchical autocracy concealed behind a parliamentary fig leaf! They degenerated so far that it was no exaggeration to speak of the once great party as "a stinking corpse." This

degeneration fully justified a break with the old

leadership and the decision later made by the Third International never to let leaders of that kind into the Communist Parties ?in the famous 21 Conditions ?a rule it broke on more than one occasion: e.g., Marcel Cachin in France. It was

not, then, as Wallerstein asserts that "the organiza? tion's survival became first priority"; it was the bureaucratic degeneration which had already taken place which determined the priorities. In

short, Bernstein had won (though, in the war, he took up a pacifist position): the party was to

accept bourgeois property relations and the state and work within them. After 1918, under Noske and Scheidemann, this was carried still further; the party cooperated with the military in repres? sing workers and condoned the murder of Luxem?

burg, Liebknecht and thousands of others.

The history of the workers' movement, when

faithfully recorded, is far from being a success

story. It has to be gone over not for inspiration but to learn the lessons of so many bitter decep? tions and defeats. For this it is necessary to be

absolutely veracious, as far as that is possible, and to spare no movement and no personality. No

movement can be built upon lies and evasions unless it is itself to become a living lie: the

examples are too many to mention. But let us return to Wallerstein's narrative at

the point where he discusses the Russian Revolu

tion. Here again there is a fundamental error, one, it is true, of which some erudite anti-Marxists are

fond: Lenin as a disciple of Blanqui (if Lenin had wanted to be a Blanquist there were movements in Russia he could have joined). To say that "the

October Revolution could be said to be the only serious example of the successful application of

Blanquist ideas" is a historical travesty, worthy of a G.D.H. Cole perhaps (Wallerstein's source?), but hardly deserving of a place ?except to be refuted ?in a journal claiming to be Marxist. It is

perhaps unfair to Cole, because he does make clear that Blanqui saw direct action by a small, dedicated band of armed men as the way to spark off a revolution, to galvanize the masses into action (it goes back to Babeuf during the French

Revolution). Lenin never believed that and never

acted on such a principle. The whole history of

1917 lies in the painstaking work of the Bolsheviks to win over the workers and soldiers (and even

the peasants) through agitation in the factories and the regiments, by speeches and discussions inside the Soviets and outside, and by continuous

agitation and propaganda through the press. Significantly, at one point, the party had to restrain the workers from premature action and teach them to wait until conditions for mass

insurrection were ripe: all a far cry from Blanquism. Equally important, of course, is an analysis of

developments in the first workers' state after

1917, when the Bolshevik regime found itself

unexpectedly and uncomfortably isolated in a hostile capitalist world owing to the failure

(also unexpected) of the revolution to spread to the more advanced countries of Western

Europe. The last point is the crucial one because, owing to the isolation of the Soviet Union, powerful social and class pressures now bore down upon the new regime. Wallerstein says absolutely nothing about the tense struggle which took place within the party and the leader?

ship culminating in the rise to power of J.V. Stalin as the representative (though not yet unquestioned) of a bureaucratic ruling stratum whose main aim was its own survival and consoli? dation.

For a time the Communist (Third) Interna? tional genuinely sought, though not without

mistakes, to build new revolutionary Marxist

parties in Europe and, unlike the Second, in the colonial and semi-colonial countries such as India and China where, as Lenin pointed out, the




majority of mankind lived. After the promulgation of the revisionist program of "socialism in one

country" by Stalin and the transformation of the Communist Parties into agencies of the ruling bureaucracy, they ceased to be revolutionary parties. This process, marked by the defeat and

physical liquidation of the Left Opposition, then of the Bukharinites, can be said to have been

completed in the years following the defeat of the German working class in 1933. From then on, the Soviet Union and its satellite parties were ready to make any deal with the bourgeoisie which

would ensure the survival of the bureaucratic

regime. Congress reports (of the CPSU) show that, at first, Stalin was quite conciliatory towards the Nazi regime; only with its growing hostility did he seek a pact with France (leading the PCF to drape themselves in the tricolor and vote for the war budget) and angle for one with imperialist Britain. Failing to reach such an agreement he

concluded, instead, the pact with Germany in

August 1939 (toasting "the German people and its Fuehrer"): a crucial turning point for the

Communist Parties, and others, which Wallerstein does not even mention. Instead he quotes from the supple-spined Palmiro Togliatti, who went

through it all and survived, writing during the so-called "third period" when Stalin had decided that revolution was on the agenda, that all social?

ists, social democrats, anarchists, etc., were some kind of fascists ("social-fascists," "anarcho

fascists," and so on). It was this "last gasp of

insurrectionary rhetoric," as Wallerstein calls it, which headed the powerful German movement into a massive and entirely avoidable defeat in 1933. Why doesn't he say something about that? That defeat was absolutely crucial for the next

stage in history; it brought onto the scene a form of rule based upon the smashing of all working class organization, revolutionary or not; it weak? ened the working class internationally by wiping out its strongest detachment, and prepared the

way for subsequent defeats (Spain, France, etc.) and then for the Second World War. What Waller stein's views about all that are we do not know, because from his lofty heights he apparently did not notice what was going on.

What went on precisely was that the Commu? nist Parties, after the Seventh Congress of the now Stalinist-controlled Communist International, sought alliances with the bourgeoisie under the rubric of the "Popular Front" and were responsi

ble for further defeats. Incidentally, Wallerstein does not seem to be clear about what a Popular Front is: namely an alliance between working class parties (Communist and Social Democratic) with at least one bourgeois grouping, thus making it necessary to adopt a common program (cf. France) compatible with the maintenance of

capitalist property relations and concessions to the bourgeoisie as a whole. Thus, such an alliance in Germany pre-1933 is not what was required (in any case, it is difficult to think of a German

bourgeois party likely to join one). What was

required in Germany, and in other countries, was a United Front of workers' parties only, on a

program which would strengthen the working class, enable the revolutionary party (which by then the Communist Parties were not) to expose the reformist leaders and win away their followers and thus prepare the class for a struggle for

power. Thus a Popular Front ?essentially what the "Eurocommunists" want today ?is a quite different thing from the United Front.

After the Second World War it should be obvious by now from the documentation available and from the accounts of participants and many former Communist Party leaders that Stalin

deliberately sought cooperation with the U.S. and Britain at the expense of working class revolution in Europe (and Asia as well, for that matter), an

agreement to divide the world on the basis of the then existing division of territory. This policy was

quite consistent with his prewar policy of maneu?

vering between and with capitalist powers instead of looking to the working class to take power.

It can be said that at any time since 1933, whenever the working class struggle has taken an

insurrectionary turn in Europe, the Stalinists have come on the scene to head it off (1936-37; 1944-47; 1968). In fact, despite the preservation of some revolutionary verbiage, the actual pro? grams, policies and actions of the European Communist Parties have been along traditionally reformist lines. They have never been happier than when they have had ministers in coalition

governments, preferably with bourgeois participa? tion. On the other hand, when the working class has been on the move, they have been distinctly embarrassed (France, 1968), thinking more of electoral prospects or the effect on actual or

potential coalition partners than about how to

guide the movement towards a struggle for power. Contrary to Wallerstein, the insurrection has been




put off sine die. It would be an oversimplification, however, to see this either as a big change or as

taking place as a result of Soviet pressure. While

bearing in mind that the historical association of the Communist Parties with Stalinism and with the Soviet Union is what distinguishes them from the reformist Social-Democratic and Labour

Parties, they have over the decades of their existence taken on a different role from that which could be ascribed to them before 1939, before 1956 or before 1968 (thinking here of

Czechoslovakia), or before 1970 (Poland). Here

again, Wallerstein's idealist, non-Marxist methodol?

ogy prevents him from understanding what has been going on and thus grasping the social and class roots of "Eurocommunism" today.

Dependent as they were in the 1930's and for some time after the Second World War upon the Soviet bureaucracy, the major European Commu? nist Parties subsequently developed their own

social base not only in the working class but in

bourgeois society as a whole. They had their

parliamentary seats, their control of local councils, their jobs in the trade union officialdom, newspa? pers, publishing houses and a host of other

enterprises. Their official positions enabled them to exercise patronage to the benefit of party

members; a party card became a passport to jobs in municipal government. A whole clientele was built up in sections of the working class and the

petty bourgeois intelligentsia. Party policy had to defer to national conditions, and the former rule of defending every twist and turn of the Soviet

bureaucracy conflicted with the need to win votes. A clear change is discernible between 1956, the year of the invasion of Hungary, when the Soviet action was virtually approved of in advance and without discussion, and 1968, when a number of parties officially distanced themselves from the Soviet action or expressed verbal disapproval.

"Eurocommunism" was the political expres? sion of this growing autonomy from Moscow on the part of the national party bureaucracies. Parties with a strong national base, like the

Italian, were able to move in that direction even in 1956; others were slow in making the adjust?

ment or have still not done so. But even if the leaders of the "Eurocommunist" tendency wish "to take their distance from the USSR," there are strict limits to the process. These leaders are still tied by an umbilical cord to the ideology of

Stalinism, particularly the program and "theory"

of "socialism in one country." If there can be a Rus?

sian form of "socialism," so equally there can be a

French, Italian or British form. "Eurocommunism" does not repudiate this ideological foundation of

Stalinism; rather it adopts it as its banner. Not?

withstanding Wallerstein's remark about Georges Marchais, the French leader is in direct line from Maurice Thorez who, with the full approval of

Stalin, proclaimed the French road to socialism,

notably in the famous interview with the London

Times in 1946. The "Eurocommunists" want to

have it both ways: when it suits them they want to have the support of the Soviet bureaucracy, and they deliberately avoid a historical critique of

developments in the Soviet Union under Stalin and since his death. At the same time, they want to pursue an independent and, if necessary, a

critical attitude towards Soviet policies when to

support them might lose votes. In a not dissimilar

fashion, the ruling parties in Eastern Europe want

Soviet backing when it is crucial for their survival and greater autonomy to consolidate their own

national base in the face of growing working class

opposition to their arbitrary rule. Dubcek was an

Eastern bloc "Eurocommunist"; but the Dubceks are only a wing of the bureaucracy, moving to the

right in the same way as their counterparts in the Western capitalist countries.

Where Wallerstein goes wrong is in his failure to make a Marxist analysis of the nature of the

European Communist Parties and of the role of the Soviet bureaucracy both in the past and at the present time. Hence he can write of the KPD, "one of the strongest communist movements in the world," as being "laid low by Hitler." In fact,

responsibility for the defeat of the German

working class in 1933 lay heavily on the tactics

imposed by Stalin on the leadership of the KPD. Its failure to revive on a comparable scale after 1945 can be attributed in no small measure to

West Germany's proximity to the Stalinist regimes of Eastern Europe. Of that period it can be said that Stalin first prevented the Communist Parties of France, Italy, Belgium and Greece from

leading a revolution in order not to breach big power unity and the new division of Europe worked out at Potsdam and Yalta, and then made the face of "actually existing socialism" so

repulsive that many who would have followed a

revolutionary path lapsed back into apathy, reformism or conservatism. Stalinism bears an

incalculable responsibility for the restoration of




stricken European capitalism, opening the way for the European Recovery Program ( the Marshall

Plan) and the long "boom" of the fifties and sixties.

Wallerstein makes revolution a question of

subjective choices, not of objective conditions as did Marx or Lenin. Like other American intellec?

tuals, he really blames the working class for the sins of its leaders and for not having settled accounts with its exploiters and compares the

European working class unfavorably with its

supposed counterparts elsewhere (as he puts it: "there is far less popular support for armed

struggle of the proletariat in Western Europe than in Asia. ..."). The working class is then no

longer the only really revolutionary class in

capitalist society and Marxism must therefore be in crisis!

Before 1789, neither the bourgeoisie nor the

peasantry in France wanted armed struggle or

thought it possible to overthrow the ancien

regime. Nor do proletarian revolutions occur because workers want them; as a matter of head

counting, very few people either in Europe or in Asia want armed struggle. There is a difference, of course, between the preconditions for a

successful proletarian revolution and a bourgeois revolution: in the former case, the presence of a

revolutionary party able to lead the working class to the taking of power is indispensable. Without the existence of such a leadership, call it a "van?

guard" or whatever, revolutionary situations have time and again resulted in failure and often in bloody defeats. There are occasions when the

working class is ready for offensive action (e.g., 1944-1947 in Europe) or has to fight defensively (Chile, perhaps Britain, France and Italy in the near future); to become a class for itself, to establish its hegemony, it has to have a leadership which is both part of the class and distinct from it. The treachery of the so-called "Eurocommu nists" ("Euro-Stalinists" would be a more accurate

description) lies in the fact that far from preparing the working class for such a situation, they disarm

it, pander to its reformist and parliamentary illusions and open the way for defeats. It is easy to blame the working class, but there have been numerous occasions when it has been ready to

fight or has gone down fighting. It is significant that "Eurocommunism"

comes on the scene when world capitalism is

plunging into its worst crisis, yet the remedies it

offers are those of reformism and Menshevism (to make a historical analogy): a gradual achievement of socialism through the peaceful, parliamentary road specific to the conditions of each country. The policies the Communist Parties support as

members of the Mitterrand government or which

they call for in Italy or Britain ("the Alternative Economic Strategy") are no more than Keynesian type remedies to be applied without making serious inroads into capitalist power. They even

call on the working class to make sacrifices in the national interest (Italy), and support nationalist economic policies ("buy French") and import controls (Britain).

Wallerstein fails to take account of the rapidly developing economic and social crisis of European capitalism as well as the linked crisis of bureau? cratic rule in Eastern Europe in his assessment of

"Eurocommunism." These objective conditions

help to explain both why the Stalinist leaderships made this adjustment when they did, and why it has failed. Instead, their pretensions and maneu? vers have been exposed more clearly, while most Communist Parties in Europe have been plagued by dissensions and splits involving not only intellectuals but many worker-members. Articles like that of Wallerstein, based on faulty history and an inadequate historical analysis of the Stalinist phenomenon in particular, taking the "Eurocommunists" as a genuine revolutionary tendency and granting them credibility, stand in the way of an essential task for the working class

movement in Europe and elsewhere: the exposure of the role of the Communist Parties. In no way can they be reformed and refurbished to lead the

working class to power; in fact, they constitute an

obstacle which has to be swept away. Allies in this are being found in the working class of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, whose task, in a sense, is easier. As a Hungarian worker put it after 1956: "We only have to deal with the

bureaucracy; you have to deal with the Stalinists as well as the bourgeoisie." To be sure, it is no

easy task for the working class in either part of

Europe, since it means the building of new

revolutionary parties able to learn the lessons of

history and provide a Marxist perspective for the enormous human forces represented by an undefeated working class now being forced into

struggle to defend its rights and conditions.



Documents

The New Nomads || European Working Class History: Where Wallerstein Gets It Wrong