Are the Soviet Union and China
State Capitalist or "Transitional" Societies?
A Reply to Enokihara's Criticism of the Marxist Workers League

Written by Yoshihiro Hayashi, the chairman of SWP
Translated by Roy West

First published in the MWL(SWP) organ paper "Spark"(581) May/13/1983.

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Contents

Introduction

In the eighteenth issue of the journal Communism, the Communist League (the so-called RG League or "Enokihara" Group) criticized the "historical view" of the Marxist Workers League's (MWL-now called the Socialist Workers Party) theory of state capitalism. We are going to throw this very criticism back at the "Enokihara" group. The truth is that their theory of the Soviet Union is the Trotskyist dogma that the Soviet Union and China are in a "transition to socialism"-the empty concept that they are neither capitalist nor socialist. Basing themselves on this empty concept they believe that they can criticize the views of other groups. We are going to elucidate their appalling lack of an historical perspective, that is their lack of the historical conception of history.
1. The History of the Russian Revolutionary Movement According to an Ignoramus


First of all, they accuse the MWL (SWP) of having the same view as the Mensheviks. However, this only reveals that they are completely ignorant of the history of Russian economic development and revolutionary movement.

"Their position [MWL (SWP) theory of the Soviet Union] is adopted from the explanation of the Mensheviks that after the 1917 Revolution, Russia as an economically backward capitalist state did not have the material conditions for socialism, and even if the proletariat grasped state power only state capitalism could be realized, not socialism."

If Enokihara and others are going to talk about the history of the revolutionary movement in Russia they should first get their facts straight. There are at least two factual errors here.

First of all, from the latter half of the nineteenth century to the twentieth century there were several conflicting views of the character and outlook for the Russian Revolution. The Social Revolutionary Party (and Trotsky), not the Social Democratic Party, argued that the coming revolution would directly be a socialist revolution. Both the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks, as political parties based on Marxism, recognized the coming revolution as a democratic revolution to sweep away Czarism and the feudal system. For example, in Lenin's Two Tactics this point becomes immediately clear.

Two Tactics was written on the eve of the 1905 Revolution, after the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks had already split, and the main objective was to criticize the Mensheviks. However, in this book Lenin clearly insists that the coming revolution is a bourgeois democratic revolution, and that "only the most ignorant people" think Russia can jump over capitalism!

Lenin wrote these sorts of sentences for the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, which mistook a peasant revolution for a socialist revolution, and Trotsky, who belonged to the Mensheviks, but also associated with political radicals and spread the fantasy (permanent revolution) that socialism was immediately possible in Russia, to bear in mind. Enokihara only reveals his own ignorance when he says that only the Mensheviks advocated bourgeois revolution.

Does Enokihara's group prefer to discuss the history of 1917 instead of 1905?

However, even in 1917, Lenin discussed socialism with the utmost care. Just prior to the October Revolution, he insisted that power should be taken not to directly realize socialism, but because there was no other way to fight against the economic collapse at the time apart from implementing a series of "socialistic" methods.

Or, does Enokihara regard "wartime communism" as the realization of socialism? Yet it is a historical fact that this was a temporary measure to struggle against civil war and economic collapse, and that wartime communism had to be transformed into NEP (state capitalism). Moreover, NEP itself is an expression of the fact that the material conditions to build socialism were lacking-namely insufficient productive power.

Enokihara's second error is the statement that the "Mensheviks intended to realize state capitalism". But Enokihara himself must know that the Mensheviks never had this position, not in 1905 nor in 1917.

What the Mensheviks hoped for was a "western European-style" liberal bourgeois society, and the rule of capital under democracy. Thus, they were ruined in 1917, and indeed this was inevitable because the historical conditions for the development of "Western European-style" capitalism did not exist.

2. The "Historical View" is Indeed the Question!


"The position of the MWL (SWP) is that after the Revolution it was first necessary for the Soviet Union to create the material base for socialism which made the formation of state capitalism inevitable. Since this could only be realized through the exploitation of the workers and peasantry, the revolutionary people's state could not avoid evolving to end up as a despotic and barbarous Stalinist state."

At any rate, this correctly sums up the view of the MWL (SWP), but what do they mean by "end up".

"The reasoning of the MWL (SWP) leads to the conclusion that during the NEP period, the material foundation for socialism was lacking, agricultural collectivization couldn't lead to socialism, and the nationalization itself did not signify socialism. It is clear that in the end their argument is based on choosing between either capitalism or socialism. However, the MWL (SWP) doesn't consider the possibility that the Soviet Union can be formed as an un-socialist society (!?), that is they don't leave room for the category of a deformed transitional society. This is the biggest blind spot in the historical view of the MWL (SWP)."

They criticize the MWL (SWP) for starting from a dogmatic or a priori "standpoint" instead of reality, and then drawing the conclusion the Soviet Union is capitalist, only because it is "not socialist".

But who is really starting from dogma instead of reality? Who has been the slave to the Trotskyist dogma of a "transitional period"?

Aren't they the ones who explain the Soviet Union as a "transitional society" because there is "space for the possibility of the category of a transitional society".

However, "possible space" and actually existence are certainly not the same thing. They refer to us as "not considering" the "possibility of space for the category of transitional society. They don't realize, however, that far from not considering the vulgar explanation of the Trotskyist "transitional period", our position was formed by thoroughly considering and critically overcoming this position. Here again they are only exposing their own ignorance!

If they would only seriously examine our essays and position for a moment, they would have to recognize that we faithfully followed the actual process of the "progression" of the Soviet system, and that the concept of State Capitalism was defined out of this. Actually ten years ago our position was in a certain sense still a hypothesis-at that time in China and Eastern Europe, the "socialist countries" of the world, the "angry waves" of a bourgeoisification (economic liberalization) that we now see, had yet to appear. The intrinsic bourgeois relations of production were not so plain to see back then. We introduced our concept that the Soviet Union and China are "state capitalist" during the Chinese Cultural Revolution (that is, the opposite appearance of present-day bourgeois China.). It is a shame that they cannot imagine the power of insight and the correct "view of history" that were necessary to do this!

The historical fact that in these past ten years the China of the Cultural Revolution has "taken the capitalist road" and "evolved" to transform itself into a bourgeois China, proves the correctness of our concept. Our "hypothesis" has been splendidly confirmed by reality. Enokihara's "transitional period", however, remains nothing but a Trotskyist dogma no matter how one looks at it, and he is unable to provide any rational or materialistic explanation to account for the appearance of a bourgeois China! This is precisely what it means to "lack a historical view".

Their claim that the MWL (SWP) presupposes something that needs to be proven, is a criticism that actually applies to themselves. They simply presuppose that the Soviet Union and China are "transitional" societies, without giving the slightest proof as to why or how they are transitional.

At best, they just say that in a "transitional period" the formation of commodity production is also possible (a troublesome point for them is what to do about "profit"?), but can't or won't demonstrate that in fact this is in a pure form.

They also don't carry out any essential reflection concerning the period that Marx and Lenin called the "transition" from capitalism to socialism. The foolishness and contradiction of trying to conceptually define a "transitional period" in which commodity=capitalist production has continued for decades (in Russia this has already stretched to two thirds of a century) should be apparent immediately. If they don't notice this then there is really no cure for their stupidity.

Their position that even without the material conditions for socialism, it is possible to build socialism with the correct policies of "proletariat power", ultimately returns to historical idealism, utopian socialism, or Trotsky-like political radicalism (romanticism), They are satisfied to waste their time with this sort of random subjectivist explanations.

3. The Concept of a "Transitional Period"

In a manner befitting speculative theorists, these Idealists offer the "standpoint of logic".

"It is nothing but sophistry use as one's basis the characteristic (price controls) that the overall development of the nature of capitalism is suppressed. This is because, in a transitional society the overall development of both the socialist and the capitalist nature is suppressed, and both capitalist and un-capitalist elements exist. Therefore, to define this as capitalism in which the overall development of the capitalist nature is suppressed is not possible even from a logical standpoint."

He defines as "transitional", a system in which the nature of both socialism and capitalism is suppressed. However, merely posing the question of whether it is all right to define a "transitional period" as a system in which the nature of socialism is suppressed is sufficient to expose the nonsense of these vacuous definition. He doesn't define the "transitional period" as a "transitional period", but instead only defines it as an intermediate, or hybrid system which is not capitalist or socialist, and in which the norms of both systems co-exist.

However, these "transitional states", which are said to only need a "political revolution", have continued to exist in their "transitional period" for decades and confront the bourgeois states of the U.S. and Japan as national states which have nothing in common with Lenin's essential characterization of "transitional states" as "half" states. It is the RG League, not the MWL (SWP), who are spouting rubbish that is not justified from a logical standpoint!

They criticize the SWP for defining a "transitional society as a society devoted (?) to advancing towards socialism". In other words, they are saying that there is such a thing as a transitional society that "doesn't advance towards" socialism. Their newly invented argument is a completely lifeless thing. To begin with they need to think a little bit more about the concept of a "transitional period". A transitional society "which isn't advancing towards socialism"! They definitely need to begin by studying the "standpoint of logic".

"The MWL don't realize that a transitional society unable to reach socialism through the extension of spontaneous development would require a new revolution by the proletariat to overthrow the bureaucratic caste in order to advance towards socialism."

Far from "not realizing" such a concept, we have been well acquainted with Trotsky's (and the Trotskyists') concept as far back as 1960.

Until very recently, the JCP has not only affirmed that commodities, money and profit exist in "socialist" society, they actually argued that without sufficient "use" of these things the development of "socialism" impossible. Today the New Left and Trotskyist factions bring out essentially the same logic, and only differ from the Stalinists in that they use the term "transitional period" in place of "socialism".

However, whether one uses the term "socialism" or "transitional period", essentially there is no difference. In either case, this is a stage where capitalism has been overthrown and the rule of capital is abolished (or being abolished).
If one were to draw a decisive borderline, it is clear that it would be between capitalism and the transitional period/socialism, not between capitalism/transitional period and socialism! It has to be recognized that a transitional period is not capitalist society, but to the end a transitional period to socialism, i.e. the first step towards socialism, and in a sense-as far as classes are being abolished-socialism. Moreover, it cannot be seriously argued the workers would gain power and be victorious, but not advance towards socialism. What sort of "transitional" period are the members of the RG talking about? They can only offer the negative definition that this is "neither capitalism nor socialism", and thus they can only offer an empty concept.

4. Marx's Theory of a "Transitional Period"

Marx did not say very much about a "transitional period", but he did lay out the essential concept (the representative explanation can be found in his "Critique of the Gotha Program". According to Marx, this is the "period of revolutionary transition" from capitalism to socialism.

We would like to ask the RG League (or the New Left in general) if there is anything about the "Socialist states" in Soviet Union, Poland, China, or North Korea that corresponds with this concept. Far from being "half-states", these are the exact opposite.

The RG league, following Trotsky, believe that there is a need for "political revolution" in the Soviet Union and other "socialist states". If this is the case, however, this means that they are saying that these states are completely different from a transitional state "working" to abolish the rule of all classes.

Do they really earnestly believe that the Soviet Union and China are proletarian states? Furthermore, have they given any serious thought to the essential point that the state in the "transitional period" is working for the elimination of class (i.e. fighting for socialism)?

Both Lenin and Mao admitted that even after the revolution, the Soviet Union and China, objectively speaking, were not proletarian states. Lenin advised Trotsky, who was brandishing the abstraction of a "proletarian state", that in Russia there is not a proletarian state, but a "workers' and peasants' state", i.e. a "people's state". Mao believed, without any doubt, that the Chinese Revolution had given birth to a "people's democratic state" (that is, before he lost himself in the fantasy that socialism had been built in China through the victory of the "people's communes".

Putting aside Mao, it is clear from Marx's expression of a "period of revolutionary transformation", that he did not believe this "transitional period" would last for fifty or even one hundred years.

Trotsky and the New Left don't understand that if a proletarian government is a proletarian government in the true meaning of the term, according to its internal logic it necessarily has to be advancing towards the abolition of all classes, that is advancing directly towards socialism. Indeed, this is the very reason for the appearance of a revolutionary transitional state.

Reality has demonstrated that the Soviet Union and China were not able to directly shift to socialism and appeared as state capitalist systems because the Russian and Chinese revolutions were not able to reach the level of a true proletarian revolution (because of the low productive power, the absence of the material conditions, the incomplete development of the working class, etc.), and because they were unable to overcome the limits of a radical "people's" revolution (despite the fact that the proletariat "marked" this revolution as their own). We believe that the starting point should be reality, not some concept or fantasy. It should already be clear from the French Revolution (or the Meiji Restoration in Japan) that the question of who leads the revolution (who stands at the forefront) and the socio-historical content of the revolution are not directly identical. In these revolutions (roughly speaking) a bourgeois society sprang out of a revolution led by poor peasants and the petty bourgeoisie.
5. Whose Prediction Was Wrong?

Finally, let's look at the argument that the expectation of the MWL (SWP) for "liberalization" is wrong. This is the conclusion (!) to their criticism of the MWL (SWP) so I ask the reader to pay close attention to this.

"At the time of the introduction of economic reforms in the Soviet Union, the Chinese Communist Party criticized this as being the resurrection of capitalism. The MWL (SWP) grasped this as the bourgeois evolution of a Stalinist system which was capitalist from the start, but in which the overall development of this nature was suppressed. They expected the 'liberalization' to release the state suppression of the nature of capital so that bourgeois relations of capital and wage labor would appear openly. However, the situation did not progress as the MWL had foreseen. The fact that the predicted process of the 'unfolding of internal contradictions" which was posited did not agree with reality demonstrates that the MWL's theory that the Soviet Union equals state capitalism is out of touch with reality."

The China of the Cultural Revolution has evolved into a bourgeois China-in China the people's communes have dissolved, "profit" is increasingly becoming the dominant economic relation, and "free" wage workers have even appeared through the "reforms" carried out. In eastern Europe capitalist relations have been officially recognized (even under the military government in Poland), and the Soviet Union is in a situation in which "liberalization" must advance. In fact, the only country which is maintaining a Stalinist system is North Korea. In light of this reality, how can Enokihara possibly say that the "outlook of the MWL (SWP) couldn't keep pace with events".

It was exactly at the time that the RG League and other radicals were uncritically praising China during the cultural revolution, that we clearly said that China would transform, and "evolve" into a bourgeois China. This shows the correctness of our concept, and that our theory "corresponds to reality". If the RG League believes that our outlook was incorrect because the Soviet Union and China did not develop into a "free" or "western" capitalism, this only shows that they do not understand our view.

We did not evaluate state capitalism as being this sort of form. Indeed, it is precisely because these systems can not simply "revert" to such a "free" capitalism that they are state capitalist and their own particular contradictions must unfold.
6. Conclusion

Their "methodology" is simplistic and unreflective. Without any analysis or "proof", they define the Soviet Union and China as being in a "transitional period" from capitalism to socialism. This dogma is their premise, and all of subsequent ideas are evaluated or criticized on the basis of whether they agree with this dogma.

However, "seen from the standpoint of logic", they are completely mistaken to say that a new revolution is necessary in a society that is believed to be in a "transitional period" , or a shift towards socialism. A society in a "transitional period" toward socialism that needs another revolution is pure nonsense, and only exists ideally in the minds of these radicals.

The Japanese Communist Party fears that the "transitional period" may last tens or hundreds of years, but declare that the Soviet Union and China are socialist states (following Stalin and Mao) because of state property and cooperative property.

However, since the JCP cannot explain the real contradictions and reactionary quality of the Soviet and Chinese states, they deceptively escape through the theory of the "generative period" of socialism. They are unable to explain what a "generative period" is exactly, and can offer nothing but sophistry to account for why a socialist state would give birth to the brutal despotism of Stalin, imperialism, and the production of profit.

Whereas the JCP closes its eyes to the development of bourgeois relations in the Soviet Union and China and glorifies them as "socialism", the radicals see the bourgeois relations but call them "phenomenon of the transitional period" and thus fill up the gaps in the theory of the JCP. In the wide meaning, a transitional period is also a socialist society which is no longer capitalism. If this were not so, what would be the essentially significance of a proletarian revolution? Ultimately, the understanding of the JCP and the radicals approximate one another and are in agreement. Neither of them recognize that the Soviet Union and China have appeared as bourgeois countries. By calling these bourgeois nations "socialist states" or "transitional states", they either take a vague attitude towards their reactionary qualities and imperialism, or they forgive or glorify them, and thus (consciously or unconsciously) assist the world's bourgeoisie, and betray the working class.

We, on the other hand, expose the reactionary bourgeois essence of the socio-economic structure of China and the Soviet Union, and clearly say that their overthrow and socialist revolution is necessary and inevitable, and that this is the historical duty and task of the working class of the world!
Socialist Workers Party of Japan

Established in 1984, renaming the forerunning organization, the Marxist Workers League. It derives from the Communist League formed in 1958 by expelled ex-Japan Communist Party members. As the pioneering far left organization in Japan, the CL led the Anti-AMPO Struggle or the struggle against the Japan-US Security Treaty in 1960, with its rank-and-file student organization, Zengakuren. The standpoint of the SWP is the rejection of any kind of opportunism, i.e. reformism, Stalinism, Trotskyism, petty-bourgeois radicalism which is especially dominant among the Japanese "New Left", etc., and the creation of a new perspective of the socialist revolution in Japan as a highly developed advanced capitalist country.